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The Palace of Earthly Tranquility

This palace was the residence for the empresses during the Ming Dynasty. However, in the Qing Dynasty, the Emperor and Empress only spent their wedding night in the Eastern Warm Chamber of this palace.

The Palace of Earthly TranquilityThe next day or 2 days after the wedding night, they would move to the Hall of Mental Cultivation. Ironically, only three emperors (Kangxi, Tongzhi and Guangxu) out of the thirteen emperors in the Qing Dynasty held their wedding ceremonies here.

But the wedding for the representatives of Heaven was really very extravagant. When Emperor Guangxu had his wedding, he spent 5.5 million teals of silver, which would have been enough to provide food for 3.6 million peasants for a whole year. The Manchurians believed in a religion that required the slaughter of four pigs a day as sacrifices, and the table and the big vats to the left were used for sacrifices to the Kitchen God. In the late Qing Dynasty, due to a shortage of funds, only one pig was killed each day as a sacrifice.

The Eastern Warm Chamber was the wedding Chamber, entirely painted in red except the floor, and decorated with "Double Xi" two Chinese characters, "Xi" , when put together, means "joy", a symbol of happiness and fertility.

Like the Hall of Union, this palace was also built in 1420 and restored in 1655.

The Last Emperor Puyi didn't like the wedding chamber and expressed his discontent in his famous autobiography "From Emperor to Citizen".

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