Overall Arrangement of the City
The six sloping fields gradually decline from south to north. So why didn't the designers place the imperial city at the highest place?
It is because according to the location of the constellations, the most respected Ziwei Gong is in the center of the north sky, surrounded by 15 stars. Therefore only by putting the imperial palace being placed in the middle of the north parallel to the constellation could the designers show the emperor 's status.
Also, Chang'an was geographically located on a north-south axis. From the palace in the north the emperor would face south when seated in his hall of audience, thereby symbolically occupying the position of the pole star as the pivot of the universe. All four cardinal directions were associated with specific animals, elements, and colors. All important cities, tombs, temples, residences, and so forth, faced south in line with fundamental concepts of geomancy which dictated that one's back should always be towards the north so as to ward off harmful and too powerful Yin influences. One therefore faced the south from which healthy Yang emanations could be received.
But this kind of careful design also had some regrettable flaws. Soon after the construction of the Tai Ji Palace (Da Xing Palace in the Sui Dynasty), the emperor quickly replaced it with the Da Ming Palace. It is because Tai Ji was located in a rather lower terrain, meaning that in hot summer people in the palace would feel terribly hot. So, from for the rest of the Qin Dynasty and all of the Tang Dynasty, every summer, rulers would move to a summer palace to avoid the heat.
For example, in summer, the emperor Tang Tai Zong (627-650 A.D.) went to the Jiu Cheng Palace in the Wei Bei plateau for his summer vacation, but every time he invited his father to go with him, his father always refused, saying that Emperor Sui Wendi died in the Jiu Cheng Palace.
Showing emperor Tang Tai Zong's belief in geomancy, he accepted his minister's advice to build a summer palace in the Chang'an city. The highland at the Longshou plateau was considered as the proper place to build the new palace -- the Da Ming Palace. When Tang Tai Zong died, his successor, emperor Tang Gao Zong, continued with the project.
According to historical records, there were two reasons compelling Tang Gao Zong and his wife Wu Zetian (625-705 A.D., China's only female emperor) to reconstruct the Da Ming Palace. One was because of the wet weather, and the other was that Wu often dreamed of Zong's first wife, who she had murdered, so she was scared to live in the old palace.
In fact, the real reason for the palace reconstruction was perhaps that Emperor Tang Gao Zong wanted to build a palace that could well reflect the imperial power in the Tang Dynasty.
After the establishment of Han Yuan Dian, the main hall in the Da Ming Palace, Tang Gao Zong began to hold court there, and for the next 200 years, Da Ming served as the court.
Since 1957, many archaeology workers have carried on a long-term archaeology exploration in the ruins of the Da Ming Palace, and have verified its scope and the layout. The area of the palace is 3.2 square kilometers, which is 4.5 times that of Beijing's Gu Gong (Forbidden City).
With the Scarlet Bird Street as the axis, the Chang'an city was divided into two parts. The east street belonged to Wan Nian County, and the west street belonged to Chang'an County. The entire city altogether had 108 Fang. But because of the topographic effect, the weather in the east street was much better than in the west. Therefore more residents built houses on the east street.
The Ling Gan Temple (the predecessor of the Tang Dynasty's famous Qing Long Temple) in the Sui Dynasty was on the peak of the Le You plateau, where one could get a bird's eye view of Chang'an City.
During those years, in order to repair the city, many tombs there were moved, and Yu Wenkai then constructed the Ling Gan Temple at the side of the Leyou plateau to offers sacrifices to these innocent spirits.
In the south of the Leyou plateau is the "九六" slopping field (96), which was a problem that once worried Emperor Sui Wendi when he planned to build the Daxing city. According to the alchemists' viewpoint, Daxing was in a place where the southeast was higher than the northwest, and while the geomantic omen should incline to the southeast, it should not do so at the site of the imperial palace.
Fortunately, between the Leyou and Shaoling plateaus there was a low-lying region, and because of long-term damming, it naturally formed a lake called the Qujiang pond. During the Qin (221-206 B.C.) and Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) dynasties it once was part of the imperial park, but it was dry in the last years of the Han Dynasty because of the frequent wars.
To eradicate the topographic pattern, Emperor Sui Wendi rebuilt the pond, and built the imperial botanical garden -- "Fu Rong Yuan" (cotton rose garden).
With many extensions over time, the Fu Rong garden has gradually become a scene of prosperity as well as a symbol of the vigorous Tang Dynasty.
During the golden age of the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an became a focus for new ideas. Meanwhile, the Silk Road made the Tang Dynasty become more prosperous. The Sino-overseas exchanges reached their peak during this period, with more than 300 nations and regions having friendly relations with the Tang Dynasty Kingdom.
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