Huangqian Hall

Huangqian Hall

Huangqian Hall is a cultural tourism attraction.

Huangqian Hall, also known as the Resting Palace of the Prayer for Good Harvests Altar, is located north of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and serves as the repository for the spirit tablet of the Heavenly God. Constructed in the 18th year of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty (1420), it was initially called the "Heavenly Treasury" and originally had six rooms covered with yellow glazed tiles.

In the 24th year of the Jiajing reign (1545), it was rebuilt with five rooms and renamed Huangqian Hall. During the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, the roof tiles were changed to blue. It now has five rooms and is situated on a platform enclosed by white marble railings.

Another important structure of the Prayer for Good Harvests Altar is Huangqian Hall, which is located within a rectangular courtyard enclosed by the Prayer for Good Harvests Wall, connected by glazed doors. This is a large hip-and-gable roof hall covered with blue glazed tiles, sitting atop a white marble railing platform. It is dedicated to enshrining the spirit tablets of the "Heavenly God" and the imperial ancestors of the emperors on a daily basis. The spirit tablets are housed in shrine-like niches resembling small houses. On the first and fifteenth days of each lunar month, the relevant ceremonial office regularly dispatches personnel to clean the area and offer incense. On the day before a ceremony, the emperor would come here to offer incense and perform rituals. Then, the Minister of Rites would offer incense and perform the kowtow ceremony. Afterward, an official from the Court of Imperial Sacrifices would lead the team to respectfully carry the spirit tablets into a ceremonial sedan (the "Dragon Pavilion") and then transport them on a palanquin to their designated spots inside the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests for worship.

To the east of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, outside the inner wall’s eastern gate, there is a 72-bay corridor, which is an auxiliary structure of the Prayer for Good Harvests Temple. It is a single-eave connected corridor—like a greenhouse—facing north with brick walls and south with large windows, commonly referred to as the "Seventy-two Connected Rooms." Near the middle-north part of the corridor are five bays known as the “Spirit Storehouse,” used to store ritual items. West of the Spirit Storehouse is the “Divine Kitchen,” where sacrificial food and pastries were prepared during heaven worship ceremonies.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, heaven worship ceremonies were held before sunrise. As a result, offerings had to be transported at night. Within the Seventy-two Connected Rooms, there were ancient-style wooden floor lamps about 1.5 meters tall, featuring hexagonal lotus-shaped wooden trays with red candles and covered by yellow paper lampshades, called "Piercing Lamps." The flickering candlelight created a dim and eerie atmosphere, giving a spooky impression. Taoists and ritual specialists, in an attempt to align with the belief that the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests had thirty-six celestial stars, claimed that these seventy-two rooms were the gathering places of the seventy-two earthly fiends.

The Temple of Heaven has two sets of walls, forming the Inner and Outer Altars, both of which are round in the north and square in the south. Originally, this design was meant to represent the concept of "the round heaven and the square earth." The outer altar walls originally had no gates on the southeast and north sides, with only two gates on the west side facing Yongdingmen Inner Street: the northern gate was the original one from the Ming Dynasty, called the "Prayer for Good Harvests Altar Gate"; the southern gate was added in the 17th year of the Qianlong reign (1752) and called the "Round Mound Altar Gate." Both gates are three-bay arched structures with green-glazed simple-tile hip-and-gable roofs. The current north and east gates of the outer altar were added after 1975. There is also an east-west partition wall in the center of the inner altar, considered the northern wall of the Round Mound Altar. This section of the partition wall bulges slightly northward along the central axis and wraps around the exterior wall of the Imperial Vault of Heaven before connecting with the inner altar walls on the east and west, separating the Prayer for Good Harvests and Round Mound Altars into two distinct areas.

Within the inner altar, the Round Mound is located to the south and the Prayer for Good Harvests to the north, both lying along the north-south central axis. They are connected by a 360-meter-long and 30-meter-wide Sacred Way (Danbi Bridge), forming a unified complex. Major structures within the Round Mound Altar include the Round Mound Platform (Heaven Worship Platform), the Imperial Vault of Heaven (Spirit Hall, Spirit Storehouse and Divine Kitchen, and the Slaughter Pavilion), among others. Key buildings in the Prayer for Good Harvests Altar include the Hall of Prayer Gate, the Grand Sacrifice Hall (Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests), the East and West Side Halls, Huangqian Hall, the Corridor (with the Seven-Star Stones), the Spirit Storehouse and Divine Kitchen, and the Slaughter Pavilion.

Address: Inside Temple of Heaven Park, No. 7 Dongli, Temple of Heaven, Dongcheng District, Beijing

Type: Historical Site

Recommended Visiting Time: About 10 minutes

Opening Hours:

Peak Season: 8:00–17:30 (last admission for combined ticket at 16:00); Off-Peak Season: 8:00–17:00 (last admission for combined ticket at 15:30)

Ticket Information:

No separate ticket required. Included in the Inner Altar ticket. In addition to purchasing the main Temple of Heaven entrance ticket, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Round Mound, and the Echo Wall require an additional combined ticket of 20 RMB. You may also purchase a full Temple of Heaven combined ticket: Peak Season (April 1 – October 31): 35 RMB (includes main ticket and Inner Altar tickets); Off-Peak Season (November 1 – March 31): 30 RMB (includes main ticket and Inner Altar tickets).

Temple of Heaven Park

Divine Music Administration

Danbi Bridge

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

Hall of Abstinence

Imperial Vault of Heaven

Echo Wall of the Temple of Heaven

Lingxing Gate of the Temple of Heaven

Ruins of the Round Mound

Fire Altar

Beacon Lantern

Heart of Heaven Stone

Seventy-Two Corridor

Gate of Sixty