What is the layout and structure of Beijing?

The Analects of Confucius says, "Who can leave the house and who can't?" People live in peace, and the portal is the element that constitutes the house. Generally speaking, a single fan is a household and a double fan is a door. A "door" is made up of households. In the same way, the door is the gateway to the city and the hole to righteousness, and there is a difference between interest and library. These distinctive gates have condensed the traditional culture of China and become an important part of the architectural history of China.

"Twelfth" is considered as "a large number of days". According to the system of the Zhou Dynasty, the capital opened twelve gates, which coincided with the figure of twelve o'clock. Invisible, the city gate is covered with a mysterious coat.

Door is also a symbol of country and political power. For example, the door between Tiananmen Square and the front door of Beijing has been renamed many times after several dynasties, and now it no longer exists. During the Qing Dynasty, except Zhengyangmen, all the other eight gates were under the jurisdiction of the Eight Banners: Deshengmen Yellow Banner, Andingmen Yellow Banner, Dongzhimen White Banner, Chaoyangmen White Banner, Xizhimen Red Banner, Fuchengmen Red Banner, Chongwenmen Blue Banner and Xuanwumen Blue Banner. The Eight Banners are divided into eight branches, which is intended to make the Eight Banners contain each other and avoid the occurrence of separatist regimes in the buffer regions.

Beijing is a square city with three doors on all sides, and each door has three doorways. The main roads in the city are criss-crossed from east to west or north to south, and the city gates are connected by city walls, forming a city wall culture. The city wall is not only a defense against the outside world, but also a kind of self-protection. The wall separates the kings and residents inside from the outside world, which seems to be self-restraint. In fact, we can't ignore the role of the city gate. The opening of the city gate connects the outside world with the inside. This division and the spatial significance of China Unicom contain profound historical and cultural contents. Regardless of the size of the door, from the country to home, there is a sense of territory and belonging. People inside the door get their sense of belonging, while people outside the door get their sense of belonging.

The gate should be tall and majestic, with heavy buildings built on it, wide and unobstructed. For thousands of years, the city gate can not only resist foreign invasion, but also govern the people in the city. The creaking door witnessed the rise and fall of the dynasty and recorded the pessimistic clutch of the world.

"Mountains and rivers are thousands of miles away, and there are nine gates in the city". The "Nine Doors" take the maximum number of "Nine", which just echoes the "Ninth Five-Year Plan", but it is not a real reference here. The gates of different dynasties were different in size and number, and they were not completely unified.

The city of Beijing is composed of walls and doors, and the role of doors seems to be more important. A city without doors has become a dead city. After careful calculation, what people can say is actually the Beijing Gate in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. That is, from Zhengyangmen, there are nine gates, including Chongwenmen, Chaoyangmen, Dongzhimen, Andingmen, Deshengmen, Xizhimen, Fuchengmen and Xuanwu Gate. There are also seven gates, namely, the outer gate built in the 32nd year of Jiaqing, the Yongding gate in the middle of the southern end, the left and right security gates on the left and right sides, the refractive gate and Guang 'an gate on the east and west sides, and the eastern gate and Bianxi gate connecting the northeast and northwest with the inner city. Knowing the above doors, you will know the overall urban layout of Beijing.

Among the above-mentioned "Nine Gates" and "Seven Gates", there is no "Tiananmen Gate", but people with a little knowledge of history know that its position is more important. After modern times in China, "Tiananmen" became a symbol of "political power". Now, "Tiananmen" welcomes and sends groups of people with its broad mind, so that everyone who has just arrived in Beijing can visit Tiananmen and take a group photo. Tiananmen Square is located in the middle of the north-south central axis of Beijing, which is the main entrance of the "Imperial City" and its geographical position is extremely important. In the eyes of China people, Tiananmen Square is a symbol of dignity and national strength and plays a vital role. Therefore, Tiananmen Square is the "city gate" of Beijing. Even in the feudal era, it was unmatched by other gate valves. If every emperor wants to issue an imperial edict, you will see the imperial edict delivered to Tiananmen Gate with the support of the "cloud disk". As soon as the imperial edict officer announced it, all the officials in the Qing Dynasty listened to it. After the announcement of the imperial edict, golden phoenix, a woodcarver, took the imperial edict and put it down from the tower, which was written by the Ministry of Rites for the world to see.

When you go to Beijing now, it is not difficult to find that many main streets in the central area are named after "XX Gate Street". For example, Dongzhimenwai Street, Qianmen Street, Chongwenmen East Street, Chaoyangmen Inner Street and so on. The entities of these doors have basically disappeared, but they have remained in people's mouths and even in their hearts.

In Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing City developed on the former site of the Yuan Dynasty Capital. This means that the relationship between the gates of Beijing in Ming and Qing Dynasties and the gates of Yuan Dynasty is extraordinary. There were eleven schools in the Yuan Dynasty. * * *, due south, there are three doors, the middle of which is called "Li Zhengmen", the left is called "Wenming Gate" and the right is called "Shuncheng Gate". There are two doors in the north. The door near the east is called "Anzhen Gate" and the door near the west is called "Jiande Gate". There are three doors in the east, the middle one is called "Chongren Gate", the left one is called "Guangxi Gate" and the right one is called "Qihua Gate". There are also three doors in the west, the middle door is called "He Yimen", the south door is called "Pingze Gate" and the north door is called "Qing Gate". When Beijing was rebuilt, the "Guangxi Gate" and "Qing Gate" were abandoned, leaving only nine gates in Beijing. At the same time, the two city gates in the north were renamed "Andingmen" and "Deshengmen". The other seven doors use their old names.

In the first year of Ming Yingzong orthodoxy, a huge reinforcement project was carried out in Beijing. During the construction, many city gates were renamed. The Ritual Gate in the middle of the south was renamed as Zhengyang Gate, the Wenming Gate on the left was renamed as Chongwen Gate, and the Shuncheng Gate on the right was renamed as Xuanwu Gate. The northern ones are also called "Andingmen" and "Deshengmen". In the east, Chongren Gate was changed to Dongzhimen, and Qihuamen was changed to Chaoyangmen. In the west, Heyimen was renamed Xizhimen, and Pingzemen was renamed Fuchengmen.

By the Qing Dynasty, the city of Beijing was completely inherited and the name of the city gate was intact.

Having said that, everyone must want to know how the city gate space is formed. Let's take Zhengyangmen, the most important city gate in Beijing, as an example to illustrate. Zhengyangmen consists of a huge urn, an arrow tower in the south and a tower in the north, leaving an empty city inside. There are doors on all sides of the urn, and there are doors on the tower and arrow tower. After the Republic of China, the left and right doors were opened, and the north gate was opened under the tower. The city wall connects the two sides of the urn, and the moat is located in front of the Arrow Tower and connected with the outside world through a stone bridge. The road between the watchtower and the watchtower is a special passage for the emperor to enter and exit, and the urn doors on the east and west sides are for others to enter and exit. There are two small temples in Wengcheng, Kannonji and Guandi Temple. There is a flag in the temple, with a yellow tile and a gray wall, and the trees in the courtyard are uneven.

The organizational system of Zhengyangmen is higher than other doors. The gatehouse is 42m high, 30m wide, 16m deep and 27m high. The rest of the city gates are roughly the same in shape, all of which are twin towers with three eaves and two floors, and each floor has a veranda, which can be boarded by Ma Dao. The horse path here can be used to climb the top of the city wall, and it can also be used as a carriage to transport shells and explosives. Arrow Tower is a brick building, shaped like a castle, with two floors and four arrow windows. The east-west convenient door is a rectangular gatehouse with a square hole, and the top is composed of several heavy wooden boards draped on the beams of brick walls on both sides. There is also a flat-topped city gate hole, which can be opened and closed freely without a door bolt.