Unsolved mystery

As a unique central line of tremendous architectural and cultural interest, surveys show that this line deviates from the meridian a bit, which means that the 33 emperors in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties actually did not sit in the middle, as they assumed. Was it designed this way or just a problem of measurement? 

Accurate measurement shows that Beijing's central line deviates about 2 degrees from the meridian, and the Bell Tower on the northern end of the central line is about 300 meters away from where it should be, if it was meant to follow the meridian line that begins from Yongding Gate.
China had very accurate measuring methods early in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and it does not seem possible that this deviation could have been caused by technical problems.

Beijing was built on the Yuan Dynasty city of Dadu. Some experts surprisingly found that an extension of Beijing's central line points to ancient Kaiping in Inner Mongolia. . However, many still doubt this is the reason why the measurements appear off.

Author: Jeff

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