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The Palace Museum - Gate of Divine Prowess

Shenwu Gate

The north gate of the Forbidden City is called the Shenwu Gate, which is opposite to the south side of the Meridian Gate. The Shenwu Gate has a tower with a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof on the city wall and three arches at the bottom. In the Ming dynasty, there was a lively market outside the Shenwu Gate, and in the Qing dynasty, the gate was a passage for the girls waiting to be selected to enter the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City has four gates: the Meridian Gate 午门 in the south, the Shenwu Gate 神武门 in the north, the Donghua Gate 东华门 in the east and the Xihua Gate 西华门 in the west. The northernmost of them, the Shenwu Gate, also known as Gate of Divine Prowess, is the rear gate of the Forbidden City and is second only to the main gate of the Imperial City, the Meridian Gate.

Shenwu Gate, built in 1420, was formerly called Xuanwu Gate 玄武门 in Ming Dynasty.

There is a tower with a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof on the city wall, 31 meters high, five rooms wide, surrounded by white marble fences. There are Three Arches, the middle one is the tallest and is used as the emperor’s passage. Concubines, eunuchs, craftsmen, etc. can only use the side arches on both sides when entering or leaving the Forbidden City from the Shenwu Gate. Bells and drums are set up inside the Shenwu Gate Tower to tell the time at regular intervals every day.

During the Ming Dynasty, there was a market, known as the “Inner Market” by The Moat Around the Forbidden City. The market is held every 10 days, and is filled with goods from all over the country.

In the Qing Dynasty, a ceremony was held every three years to select the best girls to serve the emperor, and the Shenwu Gate was the passage for them to enter the palace. On this day, civilians and the girls to be selected gathered outside the Shenwu Gate, creating a lively scene.

On October 10, 1925, the anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, a plaque was hung outside the Shenwu Gate of the Forbidden City, which read Palace Museum. The Palace Museum was officially established that day, forbidden after hundreds of years, the imperial city opened to ordinary people.

Manywhere Trivia:
When the Palace Museum was first established in 1925, it consisted of only the second half of the Forbidden City, while the first half had been established as early as 1914 as an antiquities display facility, and the two were merged into one in 1948.

The tour of the Forbidden City has almost come to an end, but before it ends, let’s take one last look at this world-shaking centuries-old imperial city from the perspective of an ordinary person outside the city wall:

The Palace Museum - The Corner Tower And Moat

Architecture Marvel

The walls of the Forbidden City are surrounded by a 3.3 km long moat, with a corner tower at each corner. The corner towers are triple-eave-pavilion-style buildings, each with 28 wing corners and 72 roof ridges, and are the most complex architectures in the Forbidden City.