Zhongcui Palace

　　 Zhongcui Palace is one of the buildings in the eastern section of the inner court of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and is one of the Eastern Six Palaces. It is located to the west of Jingyang Palace and to the north of Chengqian Palace. Constructed in the 18th year of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty (1420)...

　　Zhongcui shares the same meaning as Zhongcui (both pronounced the same), which in ancient times referred to the gathering of essence or the finest elements. The Qing Dynasty retained the name from the Ming, and the palace was renovated in the 12th year of the Shunzhi reign. It underwent multiple repairs in the 11th year of the Daoguang reign (1831), the 13th year of the Tongzhi reign (1874), the 16th year of the Guangxu reign (1890), and the 23rd year of the Guangxu reign (1897). In the late Qing Dynasty, a screen wall gate and corridors were added inside the palace gate.

　　Zhongcui Palace is a two-courtyard complex. Its main gate faces south and is called Zhongcui Gate. The front courtyard’s main hall is Zhongcui Palace itself, which has five bays, a yellow glazed tile hip-and-gable roof, front corridors, five decorative ridge beasts, and single-eave single-ang upward brackets under the eaves with Suzhou-style paintings. The central bay has doors, while the side bays have lattice windows with ice-crack and step-brick patterns. Originally, the interior had an exposed roof structure but was later fitted with a ceiling. The floor is paved with square bricks, and in the central bay hangs an imperial plaque inscribed with “Suhen Wenhe” (Gentle and Temperate) by Emperor Qianlong. There are three-bay side halls on the east and west, each with front corridors, central bay doors, hard mountain roofs with yellow glazed tiles, and Suzhou-style painted eaves decorations.

　　The rear courtyard’s main hall also has five bays, with the central bay featuring doors, a hard mountain roof with yellow glazed tiles, and Suzhou-style painted eaves decorations, plus side chambers. There are three-bay side halls on the east and west, all with central bay doors and hard mountain roofs with yellow glazed tiles. In the southwest corner of the courtyard is a well pavilion. During the Ming Dynasty, Zhongcui Palace housed imperial concubines and was once used as the crown prince’s residence. In the Qing Dynasty, it was the living quarters for imperial consorts. When the Xianfeng Emperor Yizhu was a child, he lived here, and at that time, Empress Dowager Gongci (then known as Concubine Jing, later Empress Xiaojingcheng) — mother of Prince Gong Yixin — also resided in the palace to care for him. Empress Xiaozhenxian (later known as Empress Dowager Ci’an, the Eastern Empress Dowager) lived in Zhongcui Palace from the time she entered the palace until her death in the 7th year of the Guangxu reign (1881). After Emperor Guangxu’s marriage, Empress Longyu also resided here. The last emperor, Puyi, also lived in this palace after entering the Forbidden City.

　　Currently, the palace regularly displays jade artifacts from the Palace Museum collection. Originally named Xianyang Palace, records indicate that in the 14th year of the Jiajing reign (1535), Xianyang Palace was renamed Zhongcui Palace, and Xianyang Gate became Zhongcui Gate. In the 5th year of the Longqing reign (1571), it was again renamed: the front hall became Xianglong Palace, and the rear hall became Shengzhe Palace. In the early Qing Dynasty, the name reverted to Zhongcui Palace and has remained in use ever since. In the early Ming Dynasty, the palace housed imperial concubines; during the Longqing reign, it was used by the crown prince; and in the Qing Dynasty, it became the residential area for empress dowagers and consorts.

　　Zhongcui Palace is one of the compounds within the Eastern Six Palaces of the inner court. It is 47.38 meters long from north to south and 47.9 meters wide from east to west, nearly square in shape, and divided into front and rear courtyards — front hall and rear sleeping quarters. The front courtyard’s main hall is Zhongcui Palace, facing south, with a five-bay wide, front corridor, hip-and-gable roofed hall. There are three-bay side halls on the east and west, both with front corridors and single-eave hard mountain roofs. The main hall is connected to the side halls’ front corridors via corner corridors. The main gate, also called Zhongcui Gate, faces south and is a single-eave hip-and-gable glazed gate with brackets, flanked by glazed patterned screen walls. Inside the gate is a hanging gable and rolling shed roof reverse-facing screen gate with four movable panel doors. On either side of the gate, corridors along the southern wall connect to the screen gate and the side halls’ front corridors, forming a three-sided courtyard with surrounding corridors. The rear courtyard is also a three-sided layout with a central hall and two wings, though slightly lower in scale, with all roofs being of the lower-ranking hard mountain style. The center of the courtyard has a raised north-south walkway connecting the front and rear halls. The rear hall has lower side chambers and partition walls on the east and west, forming a small courtyard. A well pavilion is located on the west side of the rear courtyard walkway. This architectural complex of Zhongcui Palace is a typical imperial residence within the palace.

　　According to on-site investigations, the main hall of Zhongcui Palace has only undergone partial repairs from the early Ming Dynasty when it was built until the Qing Dynasty, and thus still retains the structural framework from the early Ming period.

　　The layout of the main hall’s plan shows that the width and depth gradually decrease from the central main bay to the side and end bays, highlighting the hierarchy between primary and secondary spaces. This distribution is more distinct than in the Song and Yuan periods and was continued in the Qing Dynasty. By the early Ming Dynasty, the column grid of official architecture had become strictly symmetrical, with the four-pillar bay system being the basic arrangement. Columns show clear inclinations and rises, maintaining practices from the Song Dynasty.

　　The interior beam framework of the main hall is simple, with a rigorous structure, solid joints, and high-quality materials (beams, purlins, brackets all made of golden-thread nanmu wood), and the components are exquisitely crafted. Joints between beams and between beams and columns commonly use crossed brackets to reduce shear forces on beam ends and purlins. Although the five-rafter beams themselves are not carved, their design features low, narrow ends and a high, wide arched middle, a treatment that takes into account the load-bearing function of the structure while avoiding clumsiness due to the size of the beams. For various architectural components — such as beam ends, column heads, bracket tips, rafter ends, and flying rafters — their edges are mostly shaped with curves, crafted with precision, making full use of the wood’s ease of shaping for artistic effect and thereby enhancing decorative impact.

　　Because the main hall was originally built with an exposed roof structure in the early Ming Dynasty, all components such as beams, purlins, rafters, brackets, and more were fully painted with colored designs. Later, as residents changed or usage required, the ceiling was modified several times. The ceiling was moved downward three times during the mid-Ming, early Qing, and mid-Qing periods, and with each move, the original ceiling paintings were preserved. As a result, Zhongcui Palace preserves early and mid-Ming green-toned spiral-patterned paintings, dragon-phoenix imperial-seal paintings, and exterior purlin-style colored art. It is rare for a single palace to retain decorative paintings of different historical styles, making it an invaluable resource for studying the history of Ming and Qing official-colored paintings.

The Palace Museum

The Hall of Supreme Harmony

The Gate of Divine Might

The Hall of Preserving Harmony

The Hall of Imperial Supremacy

The Hall of Literary Glory

The Palace of Heavenly Purity

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility

The Palace of Compassion and Tranquility

The Studio of the Three Rarities

The Hall of Mental Cultivation

The Palace of Longevity and Peace

The Imperial Garden

The Palace of Eternal Longevity

The Meridian Gate