Speaking of the Forbidden City, everyone knows that the red walls and yellow tiles, pavilions and palaces are magnificent, with endless historical stories and countless cultural treasures. However, this is only the world’s understanding of the appearance of the Forbidden City. People may never realize that there are fine "gears" running constantly in the huge body of the "giant" of the Forbidden City. They work for the Forbidden City from generation to generation, and they are "Forbidden City people".
Every cultural relic on display in the Forbidden City has its own keeper, and every ancient building has its own fixed maintainer. Every day, they look at the audience from all corners of the country and praise the majestic palaces and peerless treasures of the Forbidden City, while they are silently guarding outside the spotlight.
They are a very ordinary group of people in the Forbidden City, and they are nicknamed "General Standing in the Temple" by colleagues in the Forbidden City. Their department is the Open Management Office of the Forbidden City, which was established in 1984. Its scope of work includes all open areas during the opening hours of the Forbidden City. Its main duties are to take care of cultural relics and maintain order. This is the largest department in the Forbidden City, with more than 700 people. I was lucky enough to approach this group of "Forbidden City people" and listen to their stories about their decades in the Forbidden City. It turns out that there is another side of the world in this red wall that is completely unknown to us.
01
General Zhan Dian
At 7 o’clock every morning, one and a half hours before the opening of the Forbidden City, Wang Zhaoren, director of the Open Management Office, came to work. He was the first person from all over the place because "I don’t feel at ease if I don’t come early".
Wang Zhaoren once worked as a guard in the army for more than 20 years. The 1.8-meter-tall Shandong man is tall and straight, agile and capable, and doesn’t look like a man who is nearly 50 years old at all. Later, I came into contact with more "Forbidden City people" and found a strange phenomenon. People here are particularly young and energetic. Does the Forbidden City really have a magical magnetic field?
Chenxi of the Forbidden City
Like many "Forbidden City people", Wang Zhaoren also has a deep "Forbidden City complex" in his heart. "When I first joined the army in 1986, the army leaders took us to visit the Forbidden City, and I was deeply fascinated by it. At that time, I thought how good it would be if I could work here, defend the Forbidden City and protect precious cultural relics. I didn’t expect this dream to finally come true more than 20 years later." He told me that every day in the Forbidden City, despite the pressure of work, I felt particularly "happy", not only because I entered the palace, but also because my colleagues who worked together were "diligent and lovely".
In the morning, the staff entered the Forbidden City from Shenwumen to work.
Wang Zhaoren comes so early every day to supervise and inspect all the preparations for "opening the door". Unlike ordinary people, the Forbidden City has its own terminology. Opening the door is called "opening the door" and closing the door is called "closing the door", so the stress here is great.
The Forbidden City left many old rules. According to Ning Xiao, a leader of the Open Management Office who has specialized research in his spare time, many old rules of "opening doors" and "closing doors" of the Forbidden City were handed down from the Qing Dynasty. "In fact, in the former Qing Dynasty, it was the ouchi guards who were wearing yellow jackets, waist-horizontal and flat waist knives, and flowers on their heads, such as those who were on duty before the Qing Palace, who were the highest-ranking’ imperial guards’, those who were on duty outside the Qing door were the second’ dry guards’, the second’ blue guards’. In the former Qing Dynasty, these guards tirelessly defended the safety of the palace. Today, we are guarding a valuable world cultural heritage. It is still a bit interesting to be called the’ General Standing in the Temple’. "
02
Weird footprints
In the Qing Dynasty, the doors of the Forbidden City were similar to today, opening early and closing late. At that time, the locks were called "money and grain". In the morning, the palace supervisor shouted loudly: "Guards, money and grain have been given!" At the end of the night, before lighting the lamp, he also shouted: "Money and food!" .
There are hundreds of gates in the Forbidden City.
Up to now, this old rule of opening the door and shouting is still preserved in some old employees. Ning Xiao still remembers that when he first came to work in the Forbidden City after graduating from college, when he opened the door, he took his master and told him to "shout", and he shouted: "Open the door! Come! " These rules are more familiar to the older people in the Forbidden City. However, there was no one in the Forbidden City in the morning. Who should I shout to? "In the past, superstition was said to let the gods avoid it, but it was actually to scare away small animals." Ning Xiao said.
The cat in the Forbidden City has also become online celebrity.
There are all kinds of small animals living in the Forbidden City, not to mention cats. As "palace pets", they have now become online celebrity, in addition to weasels, owls and so on. Shen Lixia, secretary of the Party branch and deputy director of the Open Management Office, who has worked in the Forbidden City for more than 30 years, told me that the first thing to observe after opening the door is whether there are any abnormal marks at the door. It is a great alarm to find a footprint on the windowsill or wall, which must be checked before it can be lifted, but most of the time the footprints they see are not human. "There are footprints of various animals. The most interesting one is the badger with human feet. Its footprints are like baby’s little feet, which is very cute, but we have only seen its footprints, but we have never seen its true face."
Spring scenery in the Forbidden City
Shen Lixia still remembers the "adventure" she experienced when she opened the door in the 1980s. At that time, she was responsible for guarding the Chengsu Hall on Neidong Road. "As soon as I opened the door, I heard something moving in the hall, and the sound was not small. At that time, the Forbidden City was not equipped with professional security equipment. Several of us walked into the main hall with brooms and mops, only to find that an owl was flying around inside and slammed into the showcase. " It is said that the owl can’t see during the day, so it will bump into each other. It took us a long time to catch the owl, take it out of the temple and let it go.
03
Golden brick buster
Every morning before 8 o’clock, the team leaders of the Open Management Office will get the canvas bags with keys from the key room and lead their team members to the areas under the jurisdiction of each team. With the creaking sound of the ancient doors, more than 220 doors in the open area of the Forbidden City will be opened for the second time, and the Forbidden City will wake up from a deep sleep.
The key bag of the Forbidden City
Zhang Shaohua, the chief of the exhibition and maintenance department who once worked in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, described the scene every morning like this: "Pushing open the heavy doors of the Hall, the first ray of sunshine in the morning spilled in, sprinkled on the golden bricks, sprinkled on the carved beams and painted buildings, and hit the dragon chairs and plaques. The scene was as beautiful as a movie screen, and time seemed to stand still, and people seemed to have traveled back to the past, with an indescribable grandeur." Next, the day’s work begins, and their first task is to wipe the gold bricks.
Vicious ancient brick
Brick is a big brick with a square of two feet. This kind of brick made by special technology has been a special product of the Forbidden City since its initial construction. The golden bricks in the Hall of Supreme Harmony that we see now were laid during the reign of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, and they are still as bright as new. A total of 4,718 bricks were laid in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City. Brick making is an ancient traditional handicraft skill, which takes up to two years. There are three versions of the origin of the name of the brick. One is that the brick was made in Suzhou and sent to Beijing, so it is called "Beijing Brick" and later evolved into "Brick". Another way of saying this is that after the bricks are made, the texture is extremely hard, and when they are struck, they will make a metallic sound. There is also a saying that in the Ming Dynasty, a gold brick was worth one or two ounces of gold, so it was called a gold brick.
Brilliant golden bricks
How to protect such priceless gold bricks? The unique tool is "oil mop". Zhou Tao, who is in charge of the maintenance of the BRICS, told me, "We use the oil mop soaked with kerosene to maintain the BRICS every day, which can not only make it shiny and bright, but also prolong its service life. We must not use water mop. Kerosene is also very elegant, using aviation kerosene, with high cleanliness, no harmful substances such as mechanical impurities and moisture, and little corrosion to BRICS. "
Early morning in the Forbidden City
In Zhou Tao’s impression, the BRICS in the three halls also suffered a "disaster". Most people would never think what their nemesis was, but it turned out to be pigeon dung. "I remember that at the beginning of 2016, when I first arrived at Santai (the old man in the Forbidden City called the first three halls), the most troublesome thing was the pigeon droppings in the first three halls, which not only hindered the view, but also corroded the BRICS.
Corner of the Forbidden City
The staff of the Open Management Office tried many ways to add a protective net above the temple door to reduce the height of the door. Later, they dug out pigeon eggs and placed pigeon cages to catch them. I didn’t expect small pigeons to be so easy to deal with. They flew fast, had a good memory, and had strong nesting and reproductive abilities, and finally had little effect. "In the end, we can only use the most primitive method. We use a long pole to tie a red rope and blow the pigeons out without giving them a chance to breathe, so that they can feel that it is dangerous here and dare not regard it as’ home’ again. In this way, the first three halls are finally clean. "
04
Secret weapon
To say that the most professional and meticulous cleaning of cultural relics is the exhibition room maintenance section of the Open Management Office of the Forbidden City, which was established in 2015. In 2016, the documentary fire of "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City", the staff of this department also gave themselves a very loud name: "I am cleaning cultural relics in the Forbidden City".
Precious Song porcelain
When it comes to wiping cultural relics, it is also very learned. If you can’t go up, you must go through the professional training of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Cultural Protection of the Forbidden City. You can only do it after passing the examination and obtaining a certificate. Different cultural relics have different professional tools and operating procedures. "We are all in contact with national treasures, and we should take care of cultural relics as we care for our own eyes." The worker Jin Song said to me.
I clean cultural relics in the Forbidden City.
What is the secret weapon of cultural relics maintenance? Another thing that everyone would never expect-walnuts. "During the maintenance inspection of the West Sixth Palace and the Temple, we found that due to the long-term light and sun exposure, some of the rosewood benches and chairs in the Temple were dry and cracked, and the color was dull. After consulting a large number of books and materials, we decided to use the most primitive and harmless method for maintenance. First, we smashed the walnuts, took out all the walnuts inside, wrapped them in cloth and repeatedly crushed them, so that walnut oil could be eaten in the cloth, and then wiped the rosewood benches." The boys in the showroom maintenance department are very proud of these unique tricks, and they also summed up a main point of work, which is called "always wipe away, don’t make dust."
The guys who wipe cultural relics are all handsome.
At work, they also encountered many interesting things. "For example, during the maintenance of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, we found small bones, feathers and coins hidden behind the dragon chair. We thought, who hid this?" Did the emperor hide it when he was a child? "Later, I heard from the old masters that this was done by a weasel. It seems that the weasel is really smart."
(To be continued, if you want to see more interesting things in the Forbidden City, please come early tomorrow.)
Source: Beijing Evening News reporter: Zhang Peng text/map
Editor: tf000
