Does the Ming and Qing emperors come to the Temple of Heaven to offer sacrifices every year?

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperor came to the Temple of Heaven for "suburban worship" three times a year: in the first month of the lunar calendar, the emperor went to the Hall of Prayer for the Good Year to hold a ceremony to pray for God to bless the harvest of the grain; On April auspicious day, a Waqiu ceremony will be held to pray for rain in Cooper; On the solstice of winter, a memorial ceremony will be held in Waqiu to tell you that there are abundant crops and thank God.

There are four ancient altars in Beijing, namely the Temple of Heaven, Ditan, Ritan and Moon Altar. The functions of these four altars are different. Among them, the Temple of Heaven is the place where emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties sacrificed to heaven, and it is the most important one among the four great altars. But after liberation, there was a big earth mountain next to the Temple of Heaven. What was Datushan like at that time, and how was it cleared later? Next, let Bian Xiao reveal the secret for you.

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The great event of the country lies in respecting peace and honor. In ancient China, no matter which dynasty, sacrifice was an important event that even the emperor dared not treat lightly. The emperor claimed to be the "son of heaven", and even dared not neglect the sacrifice to the "Tai Shang Huang"-heaven. According to historical records, the earliest sacrificial activities can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty. For thousands of years, every dynasty, every generation has a strict ceremony of offering sacrifices to heaven.

The Temple of Heaven in Beijing was built in the 18th year of Yongle in Ming Dynasty. It is based on the Temple of Heaven in Nanjing, with rigorous architectural layout and peculiar structure. Because of the importance of offering sacrifices to heaven, the Temple of Heaven has become the largest ancient building, covering an area of about 2.73 million square meters, twice that of the Forbidden City. In terms of architectural structure, the Temple of Heaven follows the concept of circular place, taking the single bridge, a north-south tunnel, as the axis, which will represent the dome of the earth and the vault of the empire; String together with the Hall of Prayer for the New Year, which represents heaven, to form a complete axisymmetric whole. Among them, there are exquisite buildings such as echo wall, three-tone stone and dialogue stone skillfully built by using acoustic principles, which fully show the superb skills of ancient architecture in China.

With the passage of time and the erosion of wind and rain, the cultural relics, buildings and trees in the Temple of Heaven have been damaged to varying degrees. 1949 after the founding of the Republic of China, the relevant departments invested a lot of money to protect and repair the Temple of Heaven. However, in the late 1960s, due to the need of war preparedness, Beijing dug up a lot of abandoned soil. These abandoned soil eventually piled up in the open space near the Temple of Heaven. More and more waste soil is piled up, and gradually, a big earth mountain with an area of 6 hectares and a height of more than 30 meters is formed.

This is a masterpiece of human transformation of nature, isn't it great? Of course not. First of all, the entire Temple of Heaven scenic area is full of trees and shade, and this earth mountain formed by abandoned soil is bare and bare with loess, which is out of tune with the surrounding architectural style. Secondly, Datushan is located in the southwest of the Hall of Prayer for the New Year and on the west side of Danbi Bridge, which not only separates the axis of the Temple of Heaven as a whole, but also is the internal connection of the main building. But also completely destroyed the overall architectural concept of the Temple of Heaven's central symmetry. In a word, the emergence of Datushan is not only gilding the lily from architecture, art and aesthetics.

So what should we do? Move it. If you can move it, you can move it. 1990, the relevant departments of Beijing decided to remove the heaped-up mountains and restore the original historical features of the Temple of Heaven. However, once the relevant departments budget, this is definitely a big project, and the cost will reach more than 10 million yuan. At that time, this was definitely an "astronomical figure".

At this time, Beijing citizens showed a very high attitude of ownership. Inspired by the idea of "demolishing the earth mountain in the Temple of Heaven and restoring the charm of the ancient garden", various departments in Beijing, many people and even students use their leisure time to contribute their strength. The day when the mountain moving project started, it happened to be the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month. The teams didn't even have a rest during the Spring Festival. Every day, people keep coming to do volunteer work. Everyone also actively offered suggestions, taking the way of moving soil, sorting out and planting trees to achieve the effect of moving and restoring one piece. In this way, in just 90 days, more than 800,000 cubic meters of abandoned soil was removed, and the earth mountain was completely removed, restoring the historical appearance of the Temple of Heaven. After the completion of the project, after statistics, the cost is far lower than the original budget.

Today, the beautiful Temple of Heaven opens its broad mind and welcomes tourists from all corners of the country. The demolished Datushan reminds us all the time that protecting the only remaining ancient buildings means protecting our traditional culture and 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization.