Jǐng Shān Park 景山公园
景山前街
Part of A Better Guide to Beijing’s coverage of the Imperial City
Until last century this mound was directly accessible from the palace, but walls were pulled down and a road (Jǐng Shān Qián Jiē) driven through during the Republic, destroying several arches, gates, and other buildings that stood between the hill and what is now the Forbidden City’s north entrance.
Different stories have the hill either constructed on a base of coal or used as a storage place for it, and it is sometimes called Méi Shān, or Coal Hill, but only by foreigners. Built by the Míng Yǒnglè emperor (reigned 1403–24), it is mostly made from earth excavated to make the palace’s moat and protects the palace from baleful northern influences. The responsibility for the ‘coal’ error is sometimes placed on foreigners’ inability to recognize the difference between the sounds of méi meaning ‘coal’ (煤), and měi meaning ‘beautiful’ (美), an argument which seems to make no sense at all. Surely the word for ‘beauty’ is learned before the word for ‘coal’ in any language, and ‘coal’ is hardly the word that springs to mind when looking at the hill. It is topped by five pavilions that originally date from 1750, once holding Buddha statues, most looted during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and the last one smashed during the Cultural Revolution.
Various paths climb the green and shady hillside, and the central pavilion at the top gives views south over the yellow roofscape of the Forbidden City and to Běi Hǎi Park with its stupa to the west. Between the two lie the Zhōng Nán Hǎi (‘Middle and South Seas’), the imperial gardens where the Chinese leaders, although so much loved by the people, have always felt it necessary to lock themselves safely away. Originally of a piece with Běi Hǎi, and within the walls of the Imperial City, the lakes were the playground of Liáo, Jīn, Yuán, Míng and Qīng dynasty emperors. Now the southern two lakes and their pavilions are separated from the northern one by a road and surrounded by high walls, and are the closely guarded headquarters of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council of the People’s Republic of China.
The layout of Běijīng was oriented around this point of view, although it was available only to the imperial family. The other high places in the city were the tops of temples, pagodas, and the city walls, all forbidden to ordinary people, although in a placatory move after the Anglo-French invasion of 1860, foreigners were granted the privilege of walking on the walls.
The hall below on the north side once housed portraits of the emperors but became part of the Běijīng’s Children’s Palace in 1956. Its neighbour to the east is where the bodies of the emperors lay in state while final preparations were made for their burial. These were re-opened to the public in November 2018 after a three-year renovation. Further to the north and directly on the same axis or meridian line lie the Drum and Bell Towers, and beyond those, with questionable appropriateness, the main Olympic stadiums, although you can rarely see that far because of the smog.
On the east side of the hill’s base can be found the stump of a locust tree (a sophora, cassia, or acacia, depending on whose view you take, also known as a scholar tree). Tradition has it that the Chóngzhēn emperor, last of the Míng, having first murdered his wife and daughters, hanged himself here using his own belt on 25 April 1644 as rebel peasants took over Běijīng to found a new dynasty. (They were shortly evicted again by the Qīng armies arriving from Manchuria.) During the Qīng era the tree was treated like a criminal since it had been an accessory to the death of an emperor, and a large iron chain was placed around it. It was known as the zuì huái (罪槐) — ‘guilty sophora’.
The chain is said to have been removed in the looting after the Boxer Rebellion, but the tree survived until the Cultural Revolution, when it was hacked to pieces, only the stunted stump remaining. A new tree was planted in 1981, although how this is supposed to replace the historical authenticity of the original is not clear.
Other authorities place the site of the hanging in the central pavilion on top of the hill, the ironically named Huángshòu Tīng (皇寿亭), or Pavilion of Imperial Longevity.
The Qīng also fitted the Shénwǔ Mén at the rear of the palace with a wooden scaffold resembling a cangue, the heavy board placed around the necks of criminals, as a punishment for having been an accessory to the emperor’s death by allowing him to leave.
Note that it is no longer possible to enter the Forbidden City via the north entrance, and it’s a long walk to the south main entrance.
▶ Jǐng Shān Qián Jiē, directly opposite the north gate of the Forbidden City, t 6403 8098, www.bjjspark.com, Nov–Mar 6.30am–8pm; Apr, May, Sept, Oct 6am–9pm; Jul–Aug 6am-10pm. ¥2; ¥5 during flower shows. b to 故宫: 特1,
特2, 101电, 103电, 109电, 124电, 609, 685.
Běi Hǎi Park and In Search of the Ice Houses (walk) are a short walk west.
Next in Imperial City: Tài Miào
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