Chapter 7 China 251ploughed the first furrow of the year (a custom still performed by the emperor
of Japan and the king of Thailand). If things went well, it was proof that the
Mandate of Heaven continued with him. Thus, the Zhou established moral
grounds as the test of legitimacy, which became the orthodox view to the pres-
ent. The symbolic power of these Zhou royal rites remained central in imperial
political theater through all dynasties down to the Qing.
The Zhou dynasty survived almost eight centuries (1040–256 B.C.E.), the
longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history. During the first two and a half cen-Box 7.2 Cosmological Theater in the Forbidden City
Confucius said, “A virtuous ruler is like the Pole Star that remains fixed while all
other stars circle reverently around it.” When the Imperial Palace was begun in Beijing
in 1410 during the Ming dynasty it was laid out as the earthly plane of this cosmologi-
cal structure. As the Pole Star is fixed in the north of the heavens facing south, the For-
bidden City was located in the northern (yang) part of the city facing the south (yin)
side, theoretically linked to Heaven by a cosmological axis with the Pole Star at
Heaven’s end and the Son of Heaven at earth’s end. The emperor, representing earth,
wears earth’s color, yellow (the color of the soil in the Yellow River basin). In the Hall of
Supreme Harmony, the emperor always sat on the north facing south toward his min-
isters, nobles, and subjects at the Great Audience three times a year and the Regular
Audience three times a month.
The Son of Heaven was the only man on earth who could enact the mediating rites
for all human society (i.e., for Zhongguo, the Middle Kingdom). Just before sunrise on
the night of the winter solstice he sacrificed on the Altar of Heaven; at the summer sol-
stice he sacrificed at the Altar of Earth. At the spring equinox he sacrificed at the Altar
of the Sun and at the Altar of Agriculture; after cutting the first furrow in a ritual field
just outside the city, farmers throughout the empire could begin their planting. The
empress picked the first mulberry leaves of spring so that women throughout the
empire could begin silkworm cultivation. At the autumnal equinox he sacrificed at the
Altar of the Moon.
The city was laid out on the five points of the compass with the fifth point being the
center of the earthly cosmological plane where the Son of Heaven dwells. The city is a
series of cities within cities, each surrounded by a wall. The Forbidden “City” itself is
actually a jumble of palaces, gardens, pavilions, and gates, though inside lived sev-
eral thousands of the emperor’s children, empresses, consorts, and eunuchs. For
them, the Forbidden City was a pleasure palace—and a prison, for they rarely could
leave. It nests within the old city laid out like the old Zhou capital, with an Altar of Land
and Grain on the west side of the gate and the Imperial Ancestral Temple on the east.
This was the structure that was replicated in every Zhou vassal state for centuries.
All gates and altars on the north are devoted to earth, and on the south to Heaven.
The Altar to the Sun is in the east, where the sun rises, and the altar to the Moon is in
the west where the sun sets. The Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen, now Tianan-
men Square since the gate was removed) is matched in the north by the Gate of
Earthly Peace.