Mirroring this arrangement is the Inner Court comprising the northern portion of the Forbidden City. The Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing gong), the Hall of Union (Jiaotai dian), and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (Kunning gong) straddle the central axis. On the east and west are residences called the Six Eastern Palaces and the Six Western Palaces. An Imperial Garden is laid out at the north end. Other major buildings in the Inner Court include the Hall for Abstinence (Zhai gong) and Hall of Sincere Solemnity (Chengsu dian) in the east, and the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin dian), the Belvedere of Raining Flowers (Yuhua ge), and the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility (Cining gong) in the west. The Inner Court is comprised of not only the residences of the emperor and his consorts but also venues for religious rituals and administrative activities.
In total, the buildings of the two courts account for an area of some 163,000 square meters. These were precisely designed in accordance with a code of architectural hierarchy, which designated specific features to reflect the paramount authority and status of the emperor. No ordinary mortal would have been allowed or would even have dared to come within close proximity to these buildings.
Founding of the Palace Museum
The Xinhai revolution in 1911 ended with the abdication of the last emperor Puyi. The provisional government allowed him to continue to live in the Inner Court of the Forbidden City. Meanwhile, all of the imperial treasures from palaces in Rehe (today's Chengde in Hebei province) and Mukden (today's Shenyang in Liaoning province) were moved to the Forbidden City for public display in the Outer Court in 1914. While confined to the Inner Court, Puyi continuously used such vestiges of influence as still remained to plot his own restoration. He also smuggled or pawned a huge number of art works under the pretext of granting them as rewards to his courtiers and minions or taking them out for repair.
In 1924, during a coup launched by the warlord Feng Yuxiang, Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City. The management of the palace fell to a committee that was set up to deal with the concerns of the deposed imperial family. The committee also counted and audited the imperial collections. After a year of intense preparations, on 10 October 1925, the committee arranged a grand ceremony in front of the Palace of Heavenly Purity to mark the inception of the Palace Museum. News of the opening flashed across the nation, and such was the scramble of visitors on the first day that traffic jams around Beijing brought the city almost to a standstill.
According to an inventory of twenty-eight volumes published in 1925, the treasure trove left by the Qing numbered more than 1,170,000 items including sacrificial vessels and ancient jade artifacts from the earliest dynasties; paintings and calligraphy dating to as early as the seventh century; porcelain from the Song and Yuan; a variety of enamel and lacquer ware; gold and silver ornaments; antiques made of bamboo, wood, horn and gourds; religious statues in gold and bronze; as well as thousands of imperial robes and ornaments; textiles; and furniture. In addition, there were countless books, literary works, and historical documents. All these were divided into separate collections that were placed under teams of staff to sort and collate. Exhibition halls were opened to display some of the treasures, while writers and editors worked away at publishing in book or journal form all the new areas of research and academic inquiry that the establishment of the museum had ushered in. The Palace Museum was soon a hive of activity.
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