Forbidden City Completed in Beijing
1420
After fourteen years of labor by a million conscripts, the Yongle Emperor's new northern palace opened its vermilion gates. Nine thousand rooms, roofs of imperial yellow tile, courtyards calibrated to cosmological axis. The Ming court moved from Nanjing and China's center of gravity shifted permanently toward the steppe. Its north-south axis, aligned with the Pole Star, expressed the emperor's cosmological role as mediator between heaven and earth.
In context
Also in 1420 (4 other events on record)
- Brunelleschi Begins the Florence Cathedral Dome · Europe · Technology
- Treaty of Troyes · Europe · Politics
- Beijing Replaces Nanjing as Capital · East Asia · Politics
- Hussite Wars Begin · Europe · War
Before and after in East Asia
Before and after in Politics
Era
Late Middle Ages (1301–1500), one of 874 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources