Wumen Gate is the front entrance of the Forbidden City, and it's the grandest of the 4 gates of the Forbidden City.
Wumen Gate
Wumen Gate is the front entrance of the Forbidden City, and it's the grandest of the 4 gates of the Forbidden City.
There are 5 gateways at the bottom of the Wumen Gate, 3 in front and 2 on side faces. Maybe nowadays, we can choose to enter or leave the Forbidden City through this gate or another, but if you were in Ming and Qing Dynasties, it would have been very different. Among the 3 gates in front, the right was for royal noble; the left was for ministers. The gate in the middle which is called "Yudao" (meaning "the way for emperors) was usually only for the emperors. "Yudao" is tens of kilometers long, and it's the midline of Beijing City. By the way, "Yudao" is through the emperors' throne in the Taihedian Hall, which means that the emperor is in the center. But in some special situations, some other people could also enter or leave the Forbidden City through the gate in the middle: in royal weddings, the empress' sedan could enter the palace through the middle gate. When "Dianshichuanlu" was held, Zhuangyuan, Bangyan, Tanhua -- who got the first three places in the examination, were allowed to leave the palace through the middle gate.
It's said that if a minister was sentenced to death, he would be decapitated outside Wumen Gate. But this is only in stories. Actually, there is no such thing. Wumen is such an imperatorial place that the emperors can't allow anyone to decollate prisoners there. Actually, in ancient China, most of the capital prisoners would not be killed soon. They were decollated in the fall. Every fall, "Xingbu" (a department which is superintending crucifixions) sent a list of the death-row inmates to the emperor, if the emperor deemed that the prisoner was sinful, he would put a cross on the prisoner's name, and then the prisoners would be executed.
Although there is no such thing as "decollating at the Wumen Gate", in Ming Dynasty, the emperors did punish ministers at the Wumen Gate. This punishment was called "Tingzhang" (being beaten by a big stick). There are 2 sorts of "Tingzhang": one is called "cannily beating", the minister would be badly hurt, he need at least half a year to recover; the other one was called "indeed beating", the minister won't have any chance to survive.
Pictures in this page:
- Wumen Gate
- Close shot of Wumen Gate
- Part of Wumen Gate
Click to view souce picture.