RUINS OF THE ANCIENT MING PALACE

Located west of the city on Zhonghshan Donglu. There is hardly anything left of this palace, built under the reign of Hong Wu. Its architecture, its plan, the beauty of the whole inspires those of the Forbidden City of Beijing. The imperial palace did not resist the successive assaults of the Mandchous, then the Taping, who stole it and incendièrent.

The five bridges to the Dragons (Long Qiao 龙桥) are all that remains of this palace. They still drive to one of the three doors still standing, Wu Men, the three main bodies of the building having been definitively razed. The location of the imposing pillars of the Fengtian Dian Hall, the remains of the stone lions let the visitor imagine the imposing scale of this palace! The government wanted to reinforce this sentiment by erecting red walls on the exact location of the walls of the three buildings and by reconstructing the Ming style in the north and south doors.