Palace Museum of Photography

Phoebe bournei is a very precious wood. Shi Jun, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote on the Nanmu of the Guangfu Temple in Tiba: "This wood has the flavor of yu zhang, which is unique in Ba Township at present. Shuang Ling refused to let the pine and cypress be called pillars. " As the royal palace of Ming and Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City used a lot of nanmu as the material for building houses and carving furniture doors and windows, and the cost was extravagant.

The Forbidden City is the only well-preserved royal palace in China. It is also known as the Forbidden City, and it is the essence of ancient palace architecture in China. Whenever people visit the Forbidden City, they are amazed at its majesty and grandeur. Those exquisite furniture and finely carved doors and windows embody the elegance and luxury of royal craftsmanship to the fullest.

▲ Forbidden City Photography

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The Forbidden City uses a lot of wood, all of which are produced in the southwest. Therefore, in order to transport these timber from southwest to Beijing, it took a lot of manpower and material resources. This is because when the Forbidden City was just built, the only designated wood was nanmu.

The use history of Phoebe bournei was first recorded in the Warring States Policy, and its use as a building material began in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Gold nanmu is the best building material, mainly because of its extraordinary characteristics. Compared with other woods, nanmu is more resistant to corrosion and moth, and has a special fragrance. Because it is not easy to deform, it has a long service life. In Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, he once said: "Qi is very fragrant, and it is a good material for Liang Dong." Moreover, nanmu with golden thread has another feature, that is, its texture is delicate and delicate, and there are thin golden threads in the wood grain, which is very charming in bright places.

▲ Jin Sinan Muwen Road

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However, before the Ming Dynasty, nanmu was not widely used. There are two main reasons. On the one hand, Phoebe bournei is rarely distributed, mainly in a few areas in southwest China. Ma Weidou once said that a Phoebe bournei tree in the Ming Dynasty only needed 1 2 silver. But it is precisely because of the long and dangerous journey, the cost of transportation and manpower and material resources that the price rose as high as gold after arriving in Beijing. On the other hand, because the growth cycle of Phoebe bournei is very long, it takes at least 200 years from seedling to mature. These two reasons also make the golden nanmu "rare things are precious", so the price is high.

In the Ming Dynasty, the royal family was particularly fond of nanmu, so it became the exclusive wood used in royal palaces and tombs in the Ming Dynasty. Since then, Phoebe bournei has been cut down on a large scale. As the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty, the Forbidden City naturally became the place where nanmu consumed the most. In the Ming Dynasty, there were three large-scale operations to cut down nanmu, the main purpose of which was to build or repair the Forbidden City.

▲ Nanmu Jinsi

The first large-scale felling of Phoebe bournei was in Yongle period. This time, it took 10 years to cut down nanmu, and all the wood obtained was used to build the Forbidden City. During the Jiajing period, in order to repair and rebuild the severely damaged three halls, Emperor Jiajing ordered to cut down the golden nanmu again on a large scale and transport it to the capital. Later, in order to repair the palace, Emperor Wanli built Dingling himself and ordered the third big felling of nanmu. Due to these three large-scale logging, in the Qing Dynasty, the mining cost and transportation cost of Phoebe bournei were higher. The rulers who still love nanmu have to buy it from the people or replace it with other wood.

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Behind the exquisite wood carvings and furniture in the Forbidden City, countless laborers and grassroots officials paid a huge price. It is an extremely difficult journey to transport nanmu to Beijing. It will take months or even more than a year just to find wood. When wood is found, a mountain factory will be built to cut it down. Workers in mountain factories may have to work for several years, and wild animals and miasma in the forest are always threatening their lives. Experts say that in addition to these dangers, after logging is completed, the wood will be transported to the river by manpower. This process is very difficult. In order to transport them, workers need to cross mountains and ridges, bridge in the mountains and drag them with ropes. In places where mountain roads are difficult to walk, once in distress, dozens of people will be injured or killed. It can be said that behind every piece of wood is the exchange of countless lives.

▲ Wooden workshops in the late Qing Dynasty

After the timber is transported to the riverside, it is transported to the Yangtze River by water and finally sent to Beijing through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. The whole process depends on manpower. It often takes four or five years to find Minnan and transport it to Beijing. The whole process not only consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, but also brings a heavy burden to the people along the way. During the Wanli period, the king of the Ministry of Industry said in his memorial to the emperor: In order to cut down and transport these golden nanmu, nearly a thousand people died in a county, and hundreds of thousands died in the whole province.

The royal demand for Phoebe bournei is a disaster for local people. During the Kangxi period, Emperor Kangxi realized the suffering brought by this behavior to the people, and because of the high cost of using a large number of golden nanmu, he decided to stop cutting golden nanmu and replace it with pine. After that, the use of nanmu in the Forbidden City gradually decreased.

▲ Portrait of Emperor Kangxi

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The reason why the ancient rulers built large-scale buildings was criticized by later generations is because behind those magnificent palaces are the people's painstaking efforts and tears. In order to meet the needs of the ruling class, the people at the bottom paid time, labor and even life. In these hard labors, the working people also showed unparalleled wisdom. It is worthy of respect and study by future generations.