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A heavy rain falls on the square
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in front of the Hall of Supreme
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Harmony. The drops hit three tiers of
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white marble, and one thousand one hundred
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and forty-two carved stone dragon heads start
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spouting water at the same time.
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The rain stops. The water keeps moving
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southward, along the lie of the ground,
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through drains buried under the paving,
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into a river at the southeast corner
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of the city.How does a city
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like this make water leave, and keep
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wood from burning?
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For six hundred years this city has
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been doing two things: sending water out,
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and keeping fire out.
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The route the water takes is hidden
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in the roofs, in the ground,
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and in the stone channels underneath
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one layer after another.
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The defences against fire became vats in
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the courtyards, walls between halls, and men
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keeping watch in shifts.
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The two meet in one place.
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The bucket raised to put out a
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fire comes out of the river that
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carries the rain away.
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The palace roofs are covered in glazed
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tiles, laid in ridges.
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Rain lands on the tiles, runs down
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each ridge and drips from the eaves.
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That is the first layer.
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The second layer is the ground.
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Courtyards inside the palace are not level:
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the middle is higher than the sides,
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and the north is higher than the
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south.Ground near the Gate of Divine
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Might stands about forty-six metres above sea
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level; near the Meridian Gate, about forty-four.
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From north to south, the whole city
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tilts gently downward.So the water needs
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no lifting and no pumps.
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It goes south on its own.
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The square in front of the Hall of
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Supreme Harmony is the clearest case.
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The ceremonial ramp down its centre,
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two point two metres wide, is the
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highest line in the square; water runs
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off it east and west, into the
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open channels on either side.
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Those channels are open stone troughs.
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Where they meet a terrace or a
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building, the water passes underneath through a
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stone culvert. The records call that culvert
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the channel eye.Past the channel eye
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it becomes a covered drain — buried,
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and out of sight.
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The drains are graded: branch drains collect
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water from the courtyards, trunk drains gather
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the branches, and all of it ends
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in the Inner Golden Water River.
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From the roof to the river,
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the system needs no power.
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The three tiers of white marble beneath
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the first three halls carry one thousand
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one hundred and forty-two carved stone dragon
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heads. That number is the Palace Museum's
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own published figure.When the rain reaches
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a certain volume, water collects through openings
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at the base of the balustrades,
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feeds into the heads, and shoots from
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their mouths. People call it a thousand
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dragons spitting water.The heads are not
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ornaments. They are the part of this
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drainage system that stands closest to the
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visitor.
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Building the water route was only the
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beginning. How long it kept working depended
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on whether anyone went on clearing it.
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Both the Ming and the Qing required
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the palace channels to be dredged on
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schedule. Under the Qing it was mostly
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every March.Who was responsible?
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In the Ming, the Fuel Office,
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one of the twenty-four directorates.
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In the Qing, the Palace Works Office
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under the Imperial Household Department.
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The Fuel Office's own job was the
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firewood and charcoal burned in the palace.
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Dredging was not its business — it was
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an extra duty it carried.
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The later name was not there from
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the beginning either. Under the Shunzhi emperor
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the office was still called the Fuel
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Office; in 1677, the sixteenth year of Kangxi,
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it was renamed the Palace Works Office
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and became a department for construction.
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So for a long stretch, responsibility for
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a water system sat with an office
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that had been set up for firewood
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and charcoal.The last large clearing under
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the Qing began in April 1885, the eleventh
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year of Guangxu, and took two years.
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It lifted silt from about two thousand
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one hundred metres of the Inner Golden
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Water River and roughly eight thousand metres
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of channels and drains, and repaired the
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river walls and fifteen bridges.
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One thing we could not find:
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which regulation punished a failure to dredge,
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and what the penalty was.
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In the summaries that are publicly available,
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the text of that article is not
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there.We could not find it.
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All the water ends in one river:
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the Inner Golden Water River.
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Its source is outside the city,
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at Jade Spring Hill.
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It comes through Shichahai and Beihai,
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enters the palace by the northwest water
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gate, follows the western wall south,
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turns east in front of the Gate
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of Martial Valor, crosses the square before
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the Gate of Supreme Harmony, and leaves
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the palace at the southeast water gate.
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The total length is about two kilometres.
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Three jobs hang on that one river.
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First, it is the main drain:
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the whole city's water is handed to
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it.Second, it is the firefighting supply:
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when something burns inside the palace,
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the nearest water is often this river.
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Third, it is a transport route:
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some of the great timbers and stone
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for building the halls came in along
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it.The three jobs collide.
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To dredge the river, you cannot draw
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water from it at the same time;
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to float timber, the silt has to
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be cleared first.Which comes first,
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and how it is arranged, lands back
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on the desk of that same office.
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Fire has to be met with water.
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But running from the river to a
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fire takes time, so the water was
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moved into the courtyards first.
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The containers are large vats — bronze and
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iron. They carry several names: the peace
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vat, the auspicious vat, the gate sea.
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According to the Collected Statutes of the
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Great Qing, the palace once held three
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hundred and eight of them.
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Two hundred and thirty-one remain today,
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eighteen of them gilt bronze.
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The highest grade — the gilt bronze vats
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stood on either side of the Hall
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of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of
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Preserving Harmony, and outside the Gate of
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Heavenly Purity. In the inner palaces and
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along the long streets, smaller bronze or
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iron vats were set out.
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One vat stands about one point two
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metres high, about one point six metres
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across, and holds roughly three thousand litres.
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The water in the vats was managed
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by the Imperial Household Department.
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Early each morning, servants drew water from
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the palace wells and filled the vats,
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load by load.In winter, the water
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freezes. So after the first light snow,
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eunuchs wrapped the vats in padded covers
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and put the lids on; and on
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the marble base under each vat a
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brazier of charcoal was set, burning day
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and night until the following spring,
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at the first stirring of insects.
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The Guangxu edition of the Collected Statutes
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wrote this into regulation: from the first
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day of the eleventh month to the
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thirtieth of the first month, servants burned
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charcoal under the vats, one man to
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three vats; from the first day of
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the second month to the thirtieth of
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the tenth, each vat was topped up
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twice a month.Keeping the water warm
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was one component of the system:
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the water had to be usable at
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any moment.
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The Forbidden City is a city of
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wood. Wood burns.The record is clear.
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In 1421, the nineteenth year of Yongle,
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lightning struck the three great halls and
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burned them; rebuilding finished in 1441.
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In 1557, the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing,
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lightning struck them again and the fire
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spread to the Meridian Gate; the work
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was done five years later.
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In 1597, the twenty-fifth year of Wanli,
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fire struck once more, and the rebuilding
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was finished in 1627.The most detailed account
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is from the third day of the
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twelfth month, 1679, the eighteenth year of
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Kangxi: a fire started in the western
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kitchen, spread past the Rear Right Gate
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and the Middle Right Gate, and ran
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along the connected side galleries to the
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Hall of Supreme Harmony.
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The hall burned to ash.
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Afterwards, six people connected with the fire
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were executed by strangulation.
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The rebuilding took a long time to
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prepare. From 1682, the twenty-first year of Kangxi,
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timber was collected in the provinces and
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bricks and tiles were stockpiled; the actual
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work began thirteen years later.
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Ground was broken on 25 February 1695, the thirty-fourth
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year of Kangxi; the work finished on
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18 July 1697, the thirty-sixth year, at a cost
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of more than two million taels of
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silver.All of the craftsmen were hired,
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organised by the officials supervising the work;
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the Ministry of Works and the Imperial
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Household Department watched the schedule together.
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When the rebuilding was done, one thing
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in the palace had changed: the side
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galleries flanking the Hall of Supreme Harmony
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were rebuilt as brick walls.
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Wood had burned, so brick and stone
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were used to hold fire back from
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the next hall.Eighty years later,
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in the Qianlong period, the Wenyuan Pavilion
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was built to hold the Complete Library
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of the Four Treasuries.
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It was placed deliberately on the north
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bank of the Inner Golden Water River:
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if fire came from the south,
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the first thing it met was the
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river.And the vats were only one
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item. In 1723, the first year of Yongzheng,
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a fire watch was set up,
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with a hundred men picked from the
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guards for night duty.
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In 1727, the fifth year of Yongzheng,
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eight water pumps were fixed as standard;
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by 1815, the twentieth year of Jiaqing,
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thirty-one western-style pumps stood at posts across
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the palace.Water, equipment, people, and the
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building's own firebreaks — all four in place
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at once is what makes it a
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system.
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More than ninety per cent of the
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rainwater still goes through the old channels;
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what modern hands have altered is under
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ten per cent.Every spring, summer and
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autumn, the Palace Museum clears silt,
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working area by area; the whole complex
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comes round in four to five years.
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The old schedule left by the Ming
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and the Qing is still followed:
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weed in spring, fill in summer,
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clear the leaves in autumn, cut the
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ice in winter.In summer, seventy-two vats
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in closed areas are filled, about two
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thousand litres each, as the first bucket
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of water when a fire starts.
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In winter, holes a metre square are
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cut in the ice on the Inner
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Golden Water River and the moat every
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twenty metres, and re-cut every three days.
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The palace has its own firefighting force
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as well. The special station of the
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Tiananmen area fire and rescue detachment divides
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the complex into one hundred and twenty-six
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courtyards — one plan for each — and can
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reach any corner in three minutes.
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Then is the saying "the Forbidden City
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has not flooded in six hundred years"
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correct?Shan Jixiang, a former director of
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the Palace Museum, explained it publicly in 2016:
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the ground is high in the north
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and low in the south, and with
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the network of open and covered channels,
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"however heavy the rain, there is no
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problem of standing water".
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On the other side, the monitoring department
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of the same museum has described another
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part of the record publicly: the historical
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documents do contain entries on standing water.
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In April 1885, the eleventh year of Guangxu,
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water stood "from one foot to several
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feet" in places between the East Glorious
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Gate and the West Glorious Gate.
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In 2023, the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility
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took on water during a heavy storm
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and recovered after the drains were cleared;
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what had blocked the covered drains was
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plastic bottles, plastic bags, towels and clothing.
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The museum's administrative office puts it this
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way: a more accurate version of "no
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standing water for six hundred years" is
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"even when water stands, it drains away
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quickly".Both accounts are here.
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Which one is closer to the facts
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is yours to judge.
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Water falls on the roofs, reaches the
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ground, passes from the open channels into
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the covered drains, then into the river
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and out of the city.
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What moves it is the slope,
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the graded channels, and people who kept
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clearing them.Wood burns, so the palace
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brought in vats, kept men on duty,
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stored equipment, and used brick walls to
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separate one hall from the next.
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Keep the water where it belongs,
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and fire does not take hold.
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And where does the water itself come
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from? Every drop inside the walls was
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carried in from outside them.
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That is another line.
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This is our reading, not the record
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itself. The full transcript is at sylogs.com.