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There are wells inside the Forbidden City.
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In the records of the Ming and
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the Qing, the palace wells were written
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down one by one: some are noted
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as "sweet and fit to drink";
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others are written off as "ruined wells. "
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The city is not short of water
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either — just outside the wall runs a
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moat. Yet the water used every day
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by the imperial kitchens was carted in
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from outside the city.
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Why?
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Start with the wells.
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In the Ming, Liu Ruoyu wrote a
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book called Zhuo Zhong Zhi, a record
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of how the palace was run.
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It mentions several wells: one east of
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the Small Stone Bridge, "sweet and fit
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to drink"; one opened late in the
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Wanli reign, "extremely sweet. "
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Wells also had different jobs.
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Zhou Qian, a research curator at the
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Palace Museum, has described wells as the
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palace's "main source of domestic water, "
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serving both drinking and firefighting.
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On firefighting, though, Liu Ruoyu adds a
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line in the same book: the Inner
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Golden Water River was kept for fire,
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because "if we relied only on water
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drawn from the wells, how much could
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be saved? " Sweeping, watering and washing in
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the palace drew on those wells as
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well.
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One well stood apart from the others:
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the Great Kitchen Well in the Hall
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of Heart Cultivation. In the eighth year
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of Shunzhi — 1651 — a rule was laid
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down: every year, in the tenth month,
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the Well God was sacrificed to in
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front of the Great Kitchen Well.
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The Palace Museum's own website describes the
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water of this well as "clear,
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sweet and cold. " Was anyone looking after
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the wells? What can be verified is
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repair, not annual dredging.
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The octagonal well west of the right
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gate of the Jiade Hall was cleaned
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out once, in 1626. Afterwards the taste had
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not changed, and Zhuo Zhong Zhi simply
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writes: "a truly ruined well. "
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There was one yearly routine: on the
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fourth day of the third month the
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palace channels were cleared, the brass vats
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scoured and refilled with freshly drawn water.
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That every well was dredged every year
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for that we could not find a
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clear rule in the Ming records.
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So the palace wells were not all
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unusable. Some could be drunk from;
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some were finished. On this point the
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records do not agree with one another.
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Why go outside the city for water?
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Because the people of the time wrote
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down what the city's water was like.
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Xu Chong, in the Ming, in Nuan
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Shu You Bi: " The wells of the
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capital are mostly brackish and bitter,
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undrinkable. " Li Shizhen, in the Compendium of
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Materia Medica, gave the cause: where the
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city's wells stand close to ditches and
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sewage, the waste seeps in and the
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water turns alkaline. In the Qing,
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an anonymous writer in Yanjing Zaji:
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" The water of the capital is the
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least agreeable to the mouth. "
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Wang Yun, writing earlier, in the Yuan:
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" In densely settled places the water is
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mostly brackish; of wells that yield a
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fine spring, not one or two in
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a hundred. " These accounts describe the whole
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city of Beijing, not the wells inside
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the Forbidden City. The modern explanation for
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the brackish taste comes from groundwater chemistry
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that is present-day research, not a record
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of the time.
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The water line outside the wall was
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not a Qing invention.
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In the twenty-eighth year of Zhiyuan,
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in the Yuan, Guo Shoujing proposed diverting
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the Baifu Spring in Changping: the water
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was to swing west around the north
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of the capital, then turn south and
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enter the city at the West Water
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Gate. The Yuan History, in its chapter
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on canals, records this route.
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The Yuan also cut a Golden Water
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River, bringing water from Jade Spring Mountain
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into the capital and on to the
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palace. There was a rule at the
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time: no washing hands in the Golden
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Water River. An edict of 1322 notes
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that "in the time of the founding
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emperor, washing hands in the Golden Water
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River was forbidden" — by then, people had
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been watering horses in it.
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The Baifu line later broke.
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After the Ming built the imperial tombs
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at Changping, the court discussed dredging it
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again and concluded that "the water flows
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west against the current, past the ancestral
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tombs, and this is likely unsuitable, "
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so it was not repaired.
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In 1471 a party was sent to look
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once more, with the same conclusion.
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Once Baifu stopped, the water of Jade
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Spring Mountain became the capital's main source.
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The Qing court drew its drinking water from there
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too.
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How did Jade Spring Mountain's water come
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to be famous? In the sixteenth year
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of Qianlong — 1751 — the emperor wrote an
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essay: Record of the Finest Spring Under
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Heaven at Jade Spring Mountain.
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An edict of the same year carries
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the line, "having tasted the famous springs,
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I judge this one the finest under
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heaven. " What he judged was not the
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taste. It was the weight.
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The method is in the essay:
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"compared by means of a silver measure"
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the same measure filled with different waters,
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weighed, the lighter ranked first.
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Water from Jade Spring Mountain: one dou
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weighed one liang. Pearl Spring in Jinan:
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one liang and two li.
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The Golden Mountain Spring on the Yangzi:
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one liang and three li.
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Hui Spring and Tiger Run Spring:
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one liang and four li each.
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Waters from Qingliang Mountain, Baisha, Tiger Hill
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and the Green Cloud Temple in the
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Western Hills: one liang and one fen
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each. The essay adds one further line:
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snow water is three li lighter than
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Jade Spring's, but "cannot be had year-round. "
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This was the list Qianlong drew up
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himself. To judge water today, we use
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chemical analysis, not weight.
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How did the water get into the
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palace? By land. The carts loaded water
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at Jade Spring Mountain, came in through
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Xizhimen Gate, then entered the palace by
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the Gate of Divine Might.
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One record says that after Puyi abdicated,
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the carts bringing Jade Spring water still
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came through the Gate of Divine Might
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every evening. Xizhimen has a nickname:
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the Water Gate. The name does not
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come from a sluice for diversion
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it comes from the water carts all
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using that gate. In the old barbican,
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the archway carried a white marble carving
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of water ripples, called "the Xizhimen water
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pattern. " It is gone today.
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Diversion took a different route: the Inner
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Golden Water River entered the palace by
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the sluice west of the Gate of
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Divine Might and left by the sluice
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south of the East Glorious Gate.
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That comes from a public statement in 2016
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by Shan Jixiang, then director of the
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Palace Museum. One cart, one sluice.
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Two entirely different routes.
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Who ran it? In the Qing,
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the Imperial Household Department.
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The office in charge was the Neiguangling
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Office, also called the Zhangguanfang Office.
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In the twenty-second year of Kangxi a
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cart depot was set up under it,
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managed by four officials.
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How many people? Here there are two
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accounts. One says the Zhangguanfang Office had
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four thousand nine hundred and fifty subordinate
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attendants — but that is the whole office,
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not water carriers only.
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The other says water carrying fell to
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the Imperial Kitchen, with one hundred and
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three men on the duty.
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Both accounts are cited.
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For the number of men whose sole
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duty was carrying water, we found no
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primary record. How much water came in
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each day, or each year — likewise not
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found.
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There is one more thing we could
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not find. In the Qing there was
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a work called the Palace History.
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Two of its chapters record daily expenses,
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allowances and offerings in the palace.
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Milk, tea, vessels, ice chests — each listed
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item by item. Water is not there.
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Another work, the Collected Regulations of the
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Palace, sets out the daily allowances from
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empress dowager down to the lowest-ranked consorts.
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It has no entry for water either.
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On the Palace Museum's own website,
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the emperor's daily allowance is said to
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include "twelve jars of Jade Spring water. "
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That figure carries no archival citation.
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Another set of numbers circulating online
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fifty jars for the emperor, twenty-five for
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the empress dowager, twenty for the empress,
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two for a maid — we could not
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trace, and it does not match the
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twelve. How the water was divided up
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after it reached the palace, we found
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no primary record for either.
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Water had another form in the palace:
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ice. Ice was cut in more than
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one place. The archives and the Collected
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Statutes of the Great Qing record the
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waters used: the Tongzi River around the
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Forbidden City, the Jingshui or Imperial River,
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and the Lotus Pond at Longwangtang.
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In the early Qing, ice was cut
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as far away as the Tongzhou channel;
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after 1754 Tongzhou was dropped and more ice
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was cut on the Imperial River each
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year. The ice was stored in icehouses
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outside the Longzong Gate.
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The Collected Statutes record: "within the Forbidden
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City, five icehouses, storing twenty-five thousand blocks"
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each block a foot and a half
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square. Four icehouses still stand in the
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palace today. Ice was not only for
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the palace. In the ninth year of
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Shunzhi a rule was set: every year
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from midsummer until the start of autumn,
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the princes, the ministers and the censors
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all received ice.
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Ice was collected on a ticket.
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The Board of Works issued ice tickets,
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and the holder came to collect.
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Not only people inside the palace either.
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Outside the ten city gates, and at
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the four memorial arches east and west,
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fourteen official summer-broth stations were set up
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for soldiers and civilians.
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The system was interrupted in the middle:
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suspended in 1674, restored in the Qianlong reign.
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So "the Qing issued ice throughout" is
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not accurate. It stopped once.
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That spring, the one Qianlong weighed at
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one liang — what of it today?
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The springs of Jade Spring Mountain stopped
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flowing completely in 1975. Beijing's plan for treating
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groundwater overdraft, covering 2023 to 2025, still lists "accelerating
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ecological restoration of the Jade Spring Mountain
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and Baifu Spring areas" as a task
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that is, as of that plan,
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it has not recovered.
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The water Beijing drinks has changed source.
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Guanting Reservoir began supplying water in 1954,
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and stopped supplying Beijing's domestic water in 1977
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as quality declined. Miyun Reservoir was completed
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in 1960; from 1982 it stopped supplying Hebei and
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Tianjin and went to Beijing alone.
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In December 2014, the middle route of the
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South-to-North Water Diversion began delivering water to
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the city. The " Finest Spring Under Heaven"
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stele still stands beside the spring at
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the southern foot of Jade Spring Mountain.
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Jade Spring Mountain is used today by
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a state institution and is not open
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to the public.
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What became of the stored ice?
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Of the four icehouses still standing in
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the palace, three have become restaurants and
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one a storeroom. The area is a
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visitor service zone now.
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When did the water carts stop?
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The Beijing water company was approved in 1908
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and began supplying in 1910; its stated range
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ran "inward as far as the Forbidden
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City. " Whether it ever actually supplied the
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palace has two accounts.
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One says it did.
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The other, from the recollection of an
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old employee of the works, says the
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pipe into the palace served firefighting only:
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it entered from the East Glorious Gate,
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ran about three hundred metres, and ended
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at the Wenchang Pavilion — and the palace
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still drank water delivered by cart.
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The exact year the carts stopped,
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we could not find.
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The latest marker is 5 November 1924, when Puyi
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left the palace. Jade Spring's water was
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still there then: a survey in 1928 still
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recorded eight springs. What stopped was the
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system, not the source.
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Back to the question at the start.
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There are wells in the palace.
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Some of their water could be drunk,
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some could not; the wells were sacrificed
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to, and repaired. That the city's water
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was unpleasant is written down by the
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people of the time.
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Qianlong used a silver measure to place
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Jade Spring's water first on a list
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he drew up himself.
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So every day water carts came into
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the city: from Jade Spring Mountain,
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in through Xizhimen, in through the Gate
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of Divine Might. Who managed it,
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how many men, how much came in
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each day — the offices can be traced;
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the figures mostly cannot.
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Once the water reached the palace,
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part of it became ice, stored outside
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the Longzong Gate and handed out on
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tickets in summer. This way of moving
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water ran from the Yuan, when Jade
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Spring was diverted into the capital,
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all the way to 1924.
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And the water of Jade Spring Mountain
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where did that come from?
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Shenzhou: China's Living Heritage.
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The transcript and bibliography are at sylogs.com.