The History of China - #288 - Special: Hail The The King, Baby

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

We end our trio of insider views into the Forbidden City by looking at the life - and strictures - of the Big Man himself: the emperor. Turn out it's not all banquets and parades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The truth is, no one does it alone. And why would you want to? We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 287, Hail to the King, Baby. No one in any dynasty of China ever lived a more rigidly controlled life than the Emperor of the Qing.

Due to strict observance of traditional conventions of the court, the freedom of the Emperor was far less than that of an ordinary man. As long as the Emperor stayed within the court, he was restricted in every way by tradition. Consequently, it was only natural that the Emperor wished to stay away from court as much as possible. When the Emperor lived in a detached palace, he could lead a comparatively free life, for he was exempted from the early morning audience, he could dine with his consorts, and every manner and custom was simplified.

Nevertheless, he was not as free as an ordinary person, for he still had to give daily audiences and promulgate instructions considering the documents submitted to him. The only amusements the emperor could enjoy in the court were to attend a stage show, to practice calligraphy, and to paint. No other amusements were permitted. From Su Qing, the Chinese name of Japanese-American Yokiko Tashima when she married a man whose family had close ties to Emperor Puyi, from her book Court Dishes of China, published 1965. For the emperor, life in the Forbidden City was not as opulent as one might imagine. While each dynasty claimed the emperor was Heaven's earthly representative,

destined to drive the immense country forward, the emperor remained a link in a giant bureaucratic chain, compelled to follow rigorous protocols dictated by tradition, and it was only the particularly headstrong or independently minded monarch who would really even consider breaking from those strictures and rules. He was obligated to attend meetings on matters of public interest from the early hours of each day to rule on appropriate punishments and even executions. He would also receive a steady stream of delegates to discuss policies and sign edicts.

To compound his daily pressures, the Emperor's routine was supervised by eunuchs and officials who did not always have his best interests at heart. Let's begin with an overview of our daily duties as the Emperor of Great Qing in the Forbidden City Palace. Each day we rise at 4am. This was not optional. This early wake-up call was called the qing jiā, meaning your appearance is begged in court. He would rise, dress, or rather be dressed, make his way over to the court audience

chamber and hear out the morning requests from his officials. Afterwards, he would return to his chamber to probably snatch a little bit more sleep before the rest of the day got started. Breakfast was at seven in spring and winter, and six in summer and autumn. He would pick name cards of the officials from a plate prepared by the eunuchs. After breakfast, he opened and read the memorials presented by ministers and other officials. Our next scheduled stop of the day is at noon. There was a second audience when the Emperor's

main duties were to read and write comments on local government memorials or reports. More than a hundred memorials came each day from all over the Empire. From one o'clock to three in the afternoon, lunchtime was followed by relaxation, when the Emperor might unwind by composing poems or enjoying a walk through his garden. From three o'clock to seven o'clock, there were more memorials. The papers were returned through the Directorate of Ceremonial Office to the County Administrative Division after the Emperor signed off on them in red ink, usually with little more than a mark indicating that, I have read it. At 8 p.m., there would be a light supper and snacks, and at this time the Emperor's duties were complete and he could retire to his private chambers. On to state affairs. Each emperor conducted the state religious rites deemed necessary to maintain the harmonious balance between heaven and earth.

Most of the administrative institutions of the Qing were inherited from the Ming, because no use reinventing the wheel. the Ming, because no use reinventing the wheel. The Qing emperors were autocrats who made their decisions prevail in matters of government and state affairs. Institutions such as the grand council, grand secretariat, and political conference only had advisory or assisting duties and were not allowed to make high-level decisions themselves. These formal court audiences would be held in the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the residence of the emperor, which was a tradition followed by Qing emperors taken from the Ming before them. When the Yongzheng emperor, who ruled from 1722 to 1735, so we're going to come up on him very soon, moved his home to the Hall of Mental Cultivation, which is basically right next door. He continued to hold court in the Palace of Heavenly Purity, nonetheless. It is about

dead center. Well, it's not dead center. It is to the north center of the Imperial Palace grounds, the Forbidden City overall. If you go in through the Tiananmen Gate, which is the primary entrance to it, you would have to go through a further one, two, three, four gates before you got to the Palace of Heavenly Purity or the Qianqing Gong. This centerpiece of the Forbidden City is truly awe-inspiring and foreboding. It is the classic Chinese imperial-style palace structure. It is the classic Chinese imperial style palace structure. It is daunting, it is formidable, it faces due south, it is on the north side of the palace grounds, it is the Confucian Daoist geomancer's wet dream and built to be so. Built in 1420 and rebuilt in 1798 to repair fire damage and again I've said

this before but it remains the case and it will forever remain the case, this sucker burns down constantly. The Forbidden City is the biggest fire trap ever constructed on planet Earth I am convinced. That thing has burned so many times and it is made almost entirely out of wood, which means that it goes up like a matchstick. But it really is pretty, and it's put together in such a nice way. Within the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the Emperor read, signed documents, interviewed ministers, received envoys from distant lands, held

banquets and other ceremonies occasionally as well. Within was of course the throne itself, a top which sat a plaque engraved with four Chinese characters written by the Yongzheng Emperor meaning justice and brightness. It sits up on a raised platform dais, surrounded by incense burners and red candles, mirrors as well. This is all to enhance the prestige and mystery of the imperial person and the throne itself. It's all very theatrical. The emperors, after Yongzheng, followed the practice of keeping the imperial successor a secret. The emperor wrote a secret edict naming his successor from his sons, and only two copies

were made. One was kept by the emperor himself, and the other placed in a sealed box and placed at the back of a horizontal board hanging over the throne. The one that I said has the words justice and brightness on it. Only upon the emperor's death would the regent ministers open the two copies of the secret edict to verify that they were the same and that therefore the orders were legitimate and hadn't been messed with, and then those orders for succession would be promulgated. Let us retire now from the Hall of Heavenly Purity, and instead head on over to the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

After the reign of Yongzheng, the emperors used this hall for routine administrative affairs. So it was a little bit less of a pomp and circumstance based deal, even though it's in the same compound, it's literally one door over, but it is considered separate enough that you can kind of do things a little bit more relaxed there, hence why the emperors tended to like it a little bit better. It was divided into a front and rear section, both of which were connected via a hallway. The rear section was a five-chambered area which held the emperor's living quarters, while the front was used for administrative affairs. So basically shop front, home back. The Emperor granted interviews to his officials in the central room where the court was situated. The western warm chamber was where he frequently read memorials and discussed political affairs with his ministers.

All the palaces in the inner court were designed following the strict rules of symmetry. Since we are on the topic of imperial court procedures and presentations and imperial audiences, let's get into some of the more hidden or occluded aspects of that very fraught and ceremonially landmine-ridden procedure of the imperial audience. If you know anything about China and emperors at all, you'll know that they love to be bowed to, and in China specifically, they've got a particular type of bow, which we know as the kowtow. It comes from the Chinese kōtō, which literally means

knock your head, knock your head on the ground, and that is exactly what it entails. To display absolute subservience to the ground and that is exactly what it entails. To display absolute subservience to the Emperor and the throne, one is expected to get down on their hands and knees and place their head all the way on the ground a minimum of three times from a standing position. This is a full kowtow. However, in the Imperial throne room, not all kowtows are equal. Under some of the stone tiles of the floor of the Imperial audience chamber, there were

inverted clay jars. But only under some of them. Under many of them, it was solid clay. But under certain segments of the floor there were hollow clay jars and if you knock your head on those specific areas you get a much more clear and resonant knock sound and that will make it so that your submission, your display of fidelity and loyalty sounds so much more sincere because it really sounds like you are bashing your head against the floor to show just what a lowly servant of the emperor that you are.

But you have to know where they are in the throne room, because only certain places have them. Ministers who were given the honor of an audience with the Emperor were to mention their ancestors while kowtowing. When striking their foreheads against the floor, the more resonant the sound was, the greater respect was being given for the Emperor. So the idea behind it is, you've got to kind of be trying to bash your brains out just to show how loyal you are.

But there's a trick behind it. It became common practice for eunuchs in the hall to charge for a little tip. You want your message to really get the emperor's ear? You want to do this the right way? You pay me a little extra? I'll tell you exactly how to do this and where to do it. So you line the eunuch's pockets, and he tells you, yeah, go kowtow over on that panel over there. You do it, you get a nice, clear, resonant knock, almost like a gong quality to your kowtow. And it really seems like you must love your grandpa,

and you must also love the emperor. Guests found it extremely difficult to produce a notable sound if they didn't bribe the eunuch. So it's just those little smoke and mirror magic tricks that we only know after the fact that really could be the difference between whether or not your request to the throne was actually heard and listened to and accepted, or whether it was just summarily rejected because you didn't knock your head hard enough. But let's get out of the audience chamber and briefly take a look at the living quarters,

specifically the bed chamber of the emperor in this sort of side palace for him. It was at the eastern end of the warm chamber. The bed itself was a wooden platform bed about three and a half meters long, hung with gauze curtain in the summer, and lined with silk satin curtain in the winter. That might not sound too terribly comfortable to a lot of us, including myself. The idea of your bed is essentially a wooden plank. Asians more broadly, that's even today almost a preferred sleeping method. If you are in China and you get a mattress that is made for somebody expecting to sleep on a Chinese style bed, it's going to be a lot more firm and a lot less giving than you are probably used to. It may be made out of solid straw in some cases, even today. And even if it's a spring coil mattress it is going to be springs that are tuned for I think train tracks rather than human

bodies. It can take some getting used to. But I am assured that it is very very good for the healthy. Regardless back to the chamber itself it was decorated with pennants with the interior curtain hung with ornamental perfume sachets to make sure that it always smelled nice and of course those were stock, with the interior curtain hung with ornamental perfume sachets to make sure that it always smelled nice, and of course those were stocked with the finest perfumes and odors that the Emperor enjoyed and found relaxing. It was kept warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The floor was covered with wool and carpets and an underfloor heating system fueled by an outside wood fire, with charcoal burners also used inside the

room. So really I've got to say it's not as sophisticated in this sense at least as some of the other designs, the other architectural solutions to the heating problem that I've seen in other East Asian architectural achievements. So such as you know Korea and Japan, you can see some really interesting and very compelling designs to the idea of the floor heating panels. In this case, they're doing it, they're doing it well, but it does seem just a little bit less spiffy than some of the stuff I've seen in Korea.

Still very impressive. I mean, heated floors are always a crowd pleaser, so I'm not complaining at all. Some of the objects that we would find in the Imperial private chambers would be such as a bathtub made of red lacquered wood, decorated with gold designs, a persimmon shaped spittoon for whatever I guess he was spitting, and of course the Imperial commode, the throne of thrones. Made of pewter or silver, usually kept in a closet next to the commode, the throne of thrones. Made of pewter or silver, usually kept in a closet next to the royal bed. It would of course have its own special purpose built servant to clean that puppy out whenever it was used because it was indeed, as were all toilets back in the day, a chamber pot, not a flush toilet. McDonald's new cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder with 100% Canadian beef is here. pot, not a flush toilet. these and if smoky strips of bacon make burgers better, you'll love our cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder. Get this beefy bold bacony melty mouthful

only at McDonald's for a limited time. With that appetizing detail let's get on to the meals. It is a common misconception that the Emperor routinely feasted on lavish and sumptuous meals. In fact, quite the opposite. His diet was balanced and surprisingly plain in nature. Both the Ming and Qing dynasties ate in accordance with the same principle that a diet must first and foremost promote health. And as a personal aside here, let me just say it is difficult. I am somebody who likes taste, and I think that food should be an experience and a pleasure to eat.

We should eat to live, of course, not live to eat, but that doesn't mean that it can't be a pleasant thing to do. But, uh, other philosophies sometimes avail themselves. Anyway, sometimes I do get out and get food that I actually want. I've also become a pretty good cook as a result. Back once again to Imperial China, the scale of infrastructure needed to provide food was of course intensive and immense. The Imperial kitchen was composed of three parts, the main kitchen, the tea kitchen of equal importance obviously, and the bakery. Each had a chef and as many as five cooks, a supervisor, and an accountant who procured and tracked supplies. Menus would always carry the cook's name,

so that the dishes could be easily reordered, and if anything went wrong, that culprits could be easily identified. Imperial recipes were essentially sophisticated versions of meals traditionally enjoyed by the common people, and I think that this is somewhat compelling and interesting in its own sense, not only because of the dietary and health aspects, but because of this even implied link back to the common man, which is actually important throughout almost all imperial traditions across Chinese history. Even the conquest dynasties like the Yuan and like the Qing ultimately trace themselves back not to lines of nobility or of designation by

God, bloodlines. They all traced themselves back to commoners jumping themselves up into positions of power and authority and of heavenly blessing and mandates of authority through their own virtuous and right actions, not through receiving the correct blood from the right lines. Now, don't get me wrong, that does become an important element, but the basis of the empire is not like that. Not like in Japan or even England or Russia or wherever else where there is that much more direct link to the divine. In this case, divinity has chosen the monarch, but that is conditional, and it remains conditional. As such, even these little nods back to the commonality of diet can be significant. Serving meals in palace customs. Qing emperors made it their custom to eat meals alone, except during special ceremonies,

without even the pleasure of family for company. As someone who also likes eating alone, I get it. Although the Qianlong emperor sometimes invited a consort to dinner, protocol dictated that all persons except a dowager empress had to stand in the emperor's presence. The empress and imperial concubines took their meals in their own palaces. The Emperor's diet mostly consisted of pork, mutton, and game, fowl, and vegetables. All the dishes were served with covers that were removed when the Emperor took his seat at the table. Menus were drawn up in advance and submitted to the Interior Court Minister before each meal for approval,

and every menu was archived thereafter. Silverware, such as it was, was not silver at all, but instead enamel bowls, plates, and dishes, as well as blue and white jade, sunflowers, tureens, and gold and silver thread embroidered napkins. A potential meal might include main courses that could include things like bird's nest soup, duck, chicken, deer tail, pork, buns, cakes, pastries, and pickled vegetables. Beef you'll notice was not on the menu and that is because there was a general prohibition on eating animals that were beasts of burden. This wasn't necessarily so much of a moral prohibition like it would be in say, Buddhism, although Buddhism does carry weight here as well, but more economic and practical.

Cow or oxen were not considered to be food animals so much as they were work animals, and just as one wouldn't eat the family tractor, you don't eat the family cow. Qing emperors had two formal meals a day, served on gold dishes with special porcelain manufactured from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province. During the Qing dynasty, emperors did not have a fixed place or time to take their meals. He would instead inform his guards when he wished the meal to be served, and would sit down to eat wherever he happened to be at that time of day.

The kitchen officials then ordered the eunuchs to set whichever table was in the emperor's vicinity the moment that they were informed of the meal time. The Imperial Kitchen itself was located west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. It had a director, a deputy, and assistant directors, a manager, an executive manager, and clerks to handle the Emperor's daily meals. It was essentially a giant restaurant for a small-sized city. It had to function as one, at all hours of the day, potentially. In total, more than 200 officials, cooks, and eunuchs were employed within.

The Emperor's meals were prepared separately from everybody else's meals, because of course they were. The director of the Eastern Depot cooked the meals during even months, with the director of ceremonial taking over during the odd months, which is interesting that they would balance that back and forth between those two departments in particular. Poison was an extremely common fear in one that was constantly tested against. Emperors could not afford to trust even their closest attendants or bodyguards, much less the officials and eunuchs in charge of delivering them the food that they were about to eat.

officials and eunuchs in charge of delivering them the food that they were about to eat. As such, when dishes were placed on the table, the emperor would take a small silver plate and insert it several times into each dish. It was believed that the silver plate would change color if the food had been laced with poison. If the emperor was in any doubt, he would command the eunuch waiting on him to taste the dishes before beginning the meal himself. And I could be wrong here, but as my memory serves, I don't think that there was an Emperor that we can definitively say was ever poisoned by his kitchen staff. Again, I'm willing to say that I may be forgetting

something, maybe even something incredibly obvious, but the idea of the secretly poisoning the Emperor at a meal thing, as much as that was guarded against, it seems to have actually happened quite rarely. The Imperial Kitchen adjusted the diet of the emperor according to each season. Lighter dishes were served in the summer, with heavier and more nutritious meals in the winter. It was believed that light food increased body fluids, while heavier food created more vital energy.

Let's take a look now at a particular menu for the Qianlong Emperor, as was served to him on June 8, 1789. This would be his breakfast that he took in the Ehong Hall, or the Hall of the Partial Rainbow, upon a lacquer table. The Qianlong Emperor, who you may know or may not yet know, is the grandson of the Kangxi Emperor, ruling over the empire for just one year less than his esteemed grandfather, making him one of the longest reigning monarchs in the world and the second longest reigning monarch in all of Chinese history, after only his grandfather, Kangxi.

His breakfast consisted of a hot pot of game with bird's nest, roast duck and roast meat, a hot pot of thick duck soup with Chinese yam, a course of wild herb salad, cold bean jelly, duck stewed with wine and cauliflower, stirred fried spinach with small dried shrimp, steamed lotus root with glutinous rice, bean curd stewed with mushrooms, sliced chicken and duck cooked with soy sauce, bamboo knotted rolls and steamed small buns, steamed buns stuffed with minced pumpkin and

mutton, braised chicken with cowpea, pickles served in an enamel sunflower box, four cold dishes on flange plates, a bowl of cooked round grain rice, and a bowl of glutinous rice with a bowl of boiled cow peas. A subsequent dinner on December 13th consisted of a hot pot of chicken with bird's nest and pine nut, a hot pot of chickens and Chinese cabbage, a hot pot of shredded lamb stomach and shredded mutton, steamed chicken with fresh mushrooms, pork fried in salt with fresh mushrooms, cold steamed chicken and mutton, cold steamed duck and deer's tail, pork and thick gravy, shaped cakes, spiral buns with fillings,

steamed dumplings with minced chicken, salted pork, pickles served in a silver sunflower box, four small cold dishes put on silver plates, chicken soup with cooked rice, thick wild duck with Chinese yam, and bird's nest soup with spinal cord. All ingredients were supplied by the palace food directorate and Imperial Kitchen. These agencies had a system for uninterrupted food procurement, much of which came in the form of tributes from distant regions. More than a hundred units were farmed to supply lamb, geese, chicken, and ducks, as well as running the wine office, which produced fermented soy

wine. They also operated the Imperial Mill and vegetable garden. Fresh plums, loquats, bamboo shoots, tea, cassias, cherries preserved in honey, and fragrant rice were the main products delivered by refrigerated barges along the Grand Canal, costing the treasury over 30,000 tails of silver per year, or about $375,000. The Qianlong Emperor usually took tea with milk, and thus herds of cattle were maintained with a hundred cows kept in reserve to provide milk for the emperor. Spring water from Yuchuan Shan was used for cooking and making tea. It was truly an imperial undertaking to feed the royal person. Truly food would come from all across the empire. From places like Shanxi and Gansu, sweet-scented osmanthus blossoms and homi melons were imported.

From Sichuan and Guizhou, fresh fruits and plums. From Henan, dried persimmons, lily, and preserved peaches. From Hubei, fresh fruits and plums. Guangxi, oranges, lichis, tangerines, and round cardamom. From Hunan, fresh fruit including plums. Fujian, tangerines, oranges, crystal sugar, arcia, and longan, from shandong peanuts, dates, dried persimmons, and lotus seeds, and from the northeast pears, hazelnuts, hawthorn berries, and even grapes. Not all food was strictly

dietary in use, some of it was also medicinal. Many records from the Qing Palace Archives still exists, which mention the use of wines, juices, extracts, preserved fruits, and sugar as health-giving items. These foods were believed to stimulate the stomach, kidneys, and appetite, reducing internal heat, reducing phlegm, nourishing the body, and of course, prolonging life. One such emperor who took the medicinal qualities of food very seriously was the Guangxu Emperor of Qing, who was one of the last Chinese emperors, reigning from 1895 to 1908.

The Guangxu Emperor would have an infirmary staff of 13 imperial physicians, 26 officials, 20 assistants, and 30 doctors. When the physician treated the Emperor, he first, of course, had to assess and make a diagnosis. The prescription would then be sealed with his signature, a memorial drafted and detailing the properties of the medicine and treatment. The date would be recorded and signatures of physician and eunuchs collected and signed, and then submitted to the Emperor for approval and registered for the record.

It would then be sent to the Imperial Dispensary for preparation, and when ready the medicine poured into two bowls. One bowl would be tasted by the physician and the infirmary's deputy director and inner palace eunuch to ensure that all was well. The other sent on to the emperor directly. If the medicine had an unpleasant smell, differed from their prescription, or came with any mistake on the seal, the imperial dispensary was to be punished. And with that we reached the conclusion of our trio of episodes delving into the Forbidden

City and its mysterious interior, and the lives lived within. Next time, Double Promise, we will be back with the next portion of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, now that we have a better sense of the life and times, denizens, and physical places that most of the high drama will be taking place in. See you then and as always, thanks for listening. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast.

Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.