Monday, August 29, 2011

O RLY? YA RLY. NO WAI!!!

Ok, so we’re back in China today :D So you remember the last time we visited this ol’ place? The Mongols were all up in derrr and stuffz. All right. We got that down.
So the Chinese didn’t might like that. However, the past few Mongol rulers after Kublai Khan weren’t that fierce. So the Chinese decided to overthrow the Mongols, and a Beggar Buddhist Monk drove them out. He took the throne and renamed himself Hong-wu, which means war-like.


He ruled China like a dictator, he considered himself a god, killed anyone who didn’t agree, and was a pretty great guy. Uhmyeahno. He was not a great person. He replaced China’s government and renamed the Dynasty “Ming” which means Bright. It lasted about 300 years.
The “brightness” of the Ming dynasty was evident. He set up a little *cough*UNDERSTATEMENT*cough* test for those who wanted to be in government or were in government. It was a crazy exam and some went insane or committed suicide. :D
Uhmyeah.
There was also beautiful artwork in the history of China. This Dyansty was known for the Blue and White porcelain too. There were amazing gardens, but the most special thing about the Ming dynasty was the architecture.
Well there was a palace in Bejing. It was a ~forbidden palacceee~ and only the Emperor, His family, and a VERY select few of his nobles could live there. The third emperor of the Ming came up with the idea of building the “Forbidden City”. It was to keep an eye on the Mongols, and a sorta revenge/na-na-na-na-boo-boo thing. He put it RIGHT ON TOP of the place where Kublai Khan’s Kourt was.
In reality, the Forbidden City was a City within a city within a city. INCEPTION. The outer city is exactly what it sounds like. It is to protect the center. It is surrounded by a GIANT wall that is still there today. Behind the outer city is called the Imperial City. It had large offices, parks, temples, and all that jayazz. Nice place for ceremonies. The Emperor liked riding through on an elephant. Uhmkay. And then within the walls of the Imperial City was the Forbidden City *fanfareee*. It was the most elaborate and the most beautiful. It is surrounded completely by a moat and huge walls. It is the largest palace in the world, and it covers 720,000 acres. Which is a WHOLE lot.
100,000 artists were employed to decorate the palace. Cranes, Turtles, and Lions were all over the place, which represented long life. 5 clawed dragons were also there, which symbolized power because all other dragons only had four claws. TROLOLO.
Even before the palace was built, it was planned and laid out with a whole lotta OCD-ness. It was planned to watch North, south, east, and west. Every line of every structure was planned to be in balance, each gate and space represented an organ of the body, and the 5 elements of wood, fire, water, metal, and earth were woven into it’s making. The numbers 9 and 5 were ~myyyysticalll numberrrrsss~ and they were features a lot on the inside and outside the palace. There were 9,999 rooms, there were 5 bridges that spanned the golden river, and a whole lotta other super intricate and thought-out stuff.
The Chinese would refer to the palace as the “Purple Forbidden City” It wasn’t purple. It was red and yellow. lolwut.
Anyways, it was called purple because that was a symbolic color for heaven and royalty. Hmh.
AND NOW-A-DAYS IT’S OPEN TO TOURISTS ;D




And it’s a museum nao.
Even though it was nice and protected, they still had enemies to fight. Only 6 of the 14 emperors that lived in the palace lived past the age of 40.
Maybe it was lead poisoning. MAYBE it was because the 5th letter of the alphabet is e and the 9th is i, so you only need a d to spell die. I THINK THAT’S THE REASON. But whatever.
It was not only the Emperor and his city that was forbidden. It was the entire empire that had this mentality of isolation and uppity-ness. Of course, this might be due to the fact that some people over from Europe weren’t the best influence for them. The Portuguese were traders came over to China to settle. No crime in that, amirite? WELL THEN THEY STARTED TAKING OVER TOWNS AND KIDNAPPING CHILDREN.
lolwut.
So then they just quit trading with outsiders. They quit sending out explorers, and the “Silk road” was shut down, and China learned to be self-sufficient. So China relied on nobody but themselves. odood. They took nothing and they gave nothing. Though things have changed. Just a little. *cough*UNDERSTATEMENT*cough*
So....
yeaaah....
Hmh.
The end.

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