by Chen Jack W
construction projects. Excepting the addition of city walls in 192 bc, Gao-
zu’s immediate successors largely refrained from large-scale city construc-
tion and further palatial additions.59 Han Wendi, in particular, was famed
for his frugality, as exemplified in the following anecdote:
It had been twenty-three years since Han Wendi arrived from Dai and acceded to
the throne.60 Of palatial residences, parks and enclosures, hounds and horses, and
vestments and carriages, there was nothing that he increased or enhanced. If a
course of action proved inappropriate, he would immediately reject it in order to
help the people. Once he desired to have an open-air terrace built.61 He sum-
moned the artisan to estimate the cost, which turned out to be only a hundred-
weight in gold. The emperor said, “A hundred-weight of gold is the income of ten
ordinary households. I have often been ashamed that I inherited the palace build-
ings of the former emperors—how could I have such a terrace constructed!”
漢文帝從代來，即位二十三年，宮室、苑囿、狗馬、服御無所增益，
有不便，輒弛以利民．嘗欲作露臺，召匠計之，直百金．上曰：“百
金，中民十家之產，吾奉先帝宮室，常恐羞之，何以臺為！”62
This account of Wendi seems intended to recall the sage-king Yu, who
exemplified frugality and devotion to duty. Yet Wendi, unlike Yu, lived in
the grand imperial palace built by Xiao He, not in a simple house. To play
the part of Yu, Wendi would have to demonstrate his rejection of his in-
herited imperial wealth, which he does by staging a rejection of the ex-
posed terrace. The negligible cost of the terrace not only underlines the
emperor’s frugality, but shows his empathy for the common people. That
is, while a hundred-weight in gold would be nothing to a ruler, to those
—————
“Mountains and rivers, a kingdom of one thousand li, / City walls and watchtowers, the ninefold gate. / If I had not seen the splendor of the imperial dwelling, / How could I have known the exaltation of the Son of Heaven?” 山河千里國，城闕九重門。不賭皇居
壯，安知天子尊. See Luo Linhai ji jianzhu, p. 6. Stephen Owen has suggested that Luo was probably hoping to impress the Vice Minister of the Bureau of Appointments and secure himself a position in government. See Owen, Poetry of the Early T’ang, p. 111.
59. Xiong, Sui-Tang Chang’an, pp. 10–11.
60. Prior to his installation as emperor, Wendi was the King of Dai 代王, a state located in modern-day northeastern Hebei.
61. A loutai 露臺 was a terrace with an open space on top, where one could enjoy the view.
62. Shi ji, 10.433; Han shu, 4.134.
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290
Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
who tilled the fields, such an amount would be of much greater impor-
tance—representing the income of ten households. Wendi caps his per-
formance by proclaiming his shame at how he has been able to enjoy the
palaces of the Han, with the unspoken hint that it would be closer to his
own nature to live a simpler and unostentatious life.
If Wendi represented one response to the legacy of Gaozu and the early
Han concern over palace-building, then Han Wudi would represent an-
other, quite different response. Under Wudi’s reign, palace-building would
return to a level not seen since the days of the Qin. Like the First Emperor,
Wudi was obsessed with the idea of physical immortality; unlike the First
Emperor, however, Wudi did not simply believe that wish could become
reality by virtue of personal destiny or inborn power. It would be more ac-
curate to say that the Han emperor was seduced by the power of his own
literary imagination and the poetic fantasies spun by his court writers.
Wudi’s palace-building spree culminated in the construction of the
massive Jianzhang Palace 建章宮, which was located outside of the city
walls to the west of Weiyang Palace, on the eastern border of the Imperial
Park.63 The ostensible reason for the construction of the new palace was
the destruction by fire of Boliang Terrace 柏梁臺, atop of which had
been erected statues of immortals holding pans for catching dew. The
fangshi who advised Wudi argued that he should rebuild buildings de-
stroyed by fire on an even grander scale to dispel evil influences, and so
Wudi consented to the construction of what would be the largest of the
Han Chang’an palaces:
Therefore, he established Jianzhang Palace, of a scale encompassing a thousand
gates and ten thousand doors. The size of the front hall surpassed that of Weiyang
Palace. On its eastern side stood Phoenix Watchtower, with a height of over twen-
ty zhang.64 On the western side was Tangzhong Pond, with a tiger enclosure measuring several tens of li in area.65 To its north was built a great artificial pool where
—————
63. On the Jianzhang Palace, see He Qinggu, ed. and annot., Sanfu huangtu jiaoshi, 2.122–36.
64. According to the Sanfu gushi 三輔故事 ( Tales of the Three Capital Districts), “Atop of the watchtower in Jianzhang Palace, there was a bronze phoenix” 建章宮闕上有銅鳳皇.
See Sanfu gushi, p. 13, in Sanfu juelu, Sanfu gushi, Sanfu jiushi.
65. For the identification of “Tangzhong” as a pond, see Sanfu huangtu jiaoshi, 4.266. For an overview of other possible interpretations, see Knechtges, trans., Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1, p. 132, l. 289. The tiger enclosure, located on the west side of the complex, echoes the identification of the astrological image of the White Tiger This content downloaded from 129.174.21.5 on Sat, 20 Jul 2019 13:01:52 UTC
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Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
291
Jian Terrace rose up, towering over twenty zhang. This was named “Taiye Pool,”
and within it there were Penglai, Fangzhang, Yingzhou, and Huliang, islands built
in imitation of the spirit-mountains of the sea and [statues of] things such as turtles and fish.66 To its south there was Jade Hall, Bi Gate and [statues of] things such as great birds. And so he erected Shenming Terrace and Jinghan Tower, [both] measuring fifty zhang and connected to one another by carriage drives.67
於是作建章宮，度為千門萬戶。前殿度高未央。其東則鳳闕，高二十
餘丈。其西則唐中，數十里虎圈。其北治大池，漸臺高二十餘丈，命
曰太液池，中有蓬萊、方丈、瀛洲、壺梁，象海中神山龜魚之屬。其
南有玉堂、璧門、大鳥之屬。乃立神明臺、井幹樓，度五十丈，輦道
相屬焉。68
As this passage suggests, the construction of Jianzhang Palace was
motivated by Wudi’s fascination with the spirit world—completely
transforming the more overtly political rationales underlying the Epang
and Weiyang Palaces. The art historian Wu Hung has examined in detail
the ideological significance of the palace, drawing on the epideictic rhap-
sodies of Sima Xiangru to support his argument that the palace was the
final piece in realizing the imaginary paradise of the Imperial Park. Wu
concludes with the insight that the Jade Hall “was counterpoised to the
old th
rone hall: standing side by side but separated by the city walls,
Weiyang Palace was the heart of the administrative city; Jade Palace [or
Hall], with its pure marble walls and golden phoenix, must have appeared
as a mirage in the sky.”69
To this, one might add that Jianzhang Palace was laid out as religious
topography. Positioned at each of the four cardinal directions were sym-
bolic landscapes and sites: to the south, the Jade Hall, the counterpart to
the imperial palace; to the east, the Phoenix Watchtower, crowned with
its shining bronze sculpture; to the west, the Tangzhong Pond and the ti-
ger enclosure; and to the north, the Taiye Pool, complete with replicas of
—————
( baihu 白虎) with the west. For a discussion of the four animal images, see Sun Xiaochun and Jacob Kistemaker, Chinese Sky during the Han, pp. 113–119.
66. Taiye Pool was meant to replicate the North Sea, with its floating immortal isles. For the statuary, see Paludan, The Chinese Spirit Road, p. 17.
67. On the meanings of these two towers, see Knechtges, trans., Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1, p. 132 ll. 270, 276.
68. Shi ji, 12.482, 28.1402.
69. Wu, Monumentality, p. 175.
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292
Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
immortal islands and water denizens. Yet the actual point of the entire
palatial complex was the construction of the Shenming Terrace, which
replaced the burned-down Boliang Terrace.70 At fifty zhang, the Shen-
ming Terrace rose far above the Phoenix Watchtower (not to mention
the old Weiyang Palace), dominating the palace layout. The soaring verti-
cality of the towers and gates brings into sharp focus Han Wudi’s motiva-
tions in building the palace: that he might actually inhabit the poetic fan-
tasies of transcendence, experiencing them without the mediation of
imagination.
Taizong and Palatial Ideology
The question of imperial palatial ideology raised under the Han dynasty
would return with the second unification during the Sui-Tang period. Sui
Wendi, in seeking to proclaim a new imperial beginning, decided to con-
struct a new capital, Daxingcheng, to the southeast of the Han Chang’an
site. The Tang founders renamed the Sui capital Chang’an in order to dis-
tance themselves from the short-lived Sui while claiming the patrimony of
the Han. At the same time, the troubling legacy of the first empires led
the Tang founders to revisit the problem of the palace and its symbolic
meanings. Taizong, in particular, was conscious of the problem of dynas-
tic collapse. The following anecdote dates to the period when Taizong, as
a prince and general of the Tang army, had succeeded in taking the second
Sui capital, Luoyang:
After the Eastern Capital was pacified, Taizong entered the city and examined
the palaces of the Sui dynasts. He sighed that the late ruler exhausted human ef-
forts in indulging himself with extravagance. [Xue] Shou submitted a statement,
saying, “I have heard that lofty mansions and ornate walls were what caused Xin
of Yin [the tyrant Zhou] to be destroyed, and that earthen stairs and thatched roofs were what allowed Yao of Tang to prosper. The Qin emperor increased the
adornments of Epang Palace, and the Han ruler did away with the wasteful ex-
penditure of the exposed terrace. It is for this reason that the Han fortune was
prolonged and the Qin calamity came quickly—from ancient times it has been
this way. The late ruler did not even bother to examine this, and with the might
of ten thousand chariots, the hand of a single man brought about toil, causing
earth to collapse and tiles to be broken and earning the sneers of later ages—so
—————
70. See Sanfu huangtu jiaoshi, 3.180–82, 5.285.
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Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
293
extreme was his extravagance and cruelty.” Taizong was delighted by his response.
When the army returned, he conferred upon him the position of Secretary-
Adjutant to the Imperial Library.
東都平，太宗入觀隋氏宮室，嗟後主罄人力以逞奢侈。收進曰：“竊
聞峻宇雕牆，殷辛以滅；土階茅棟，唐堯以昌。秦帝增阿房之飾，漢
后罷露臺之費，故漢祚延而秦禍速，自古如此。後主曾不能察，以萬
乘之尊，困一夫之手，使土崩瓦解， 取譏後代，以奢虐所致也。”太
宗悅其對。及軍還，授天策府記室參軍。71
Here, Taizong and Xue Shou reperform the conversation between Han
Gaozu and Xiao He—a restaging that also serves as a critical response to
that earlier scene. Instead of arguing that dynasty-founding requires the
construction of impressive palaces, Xue Shou points to the disastrous ex-
amples of the tyrants Zhou and the First Emperor, who spent the re-
sources of the empire upon palace-building and doomed their dynasties.
By contrast, the sage-king Yao and the wise Han Wendi chose frugality
and were rewarded by Heaven for their virtue. Taizong’s delight and
promotion of his wise official reveals his imperial virtue (at that time he
was only the Prince of Qin—not even the heir apparent).
Such scenes of moral instruction seem to crop up frequently in anec-
dotes about Taizong, as if he had to learn the same ethical lesson again
and again. While the lesson of the Sui was clear enough, Taizong did not
foreswear the enjoyment and use of detached palaces—even those inher-
ited from the former dynasty. In the same chapter of the Jiu Tang shu,
another anecdote about palaces is related, this time with the historian Yao
Silian:
Taizong was about to visit Jiucheng Palace when Silian remonstrated, saying:
“Excursions to visit detached palaces were the deeds of the Qin emperor and Han
Wudi, and certainly not the behavior of Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang.” His words
were cutting and direct. Taizong made a proclamation, saying, “We have weath-
er-related ills, and when it is hot, We then suffer from fatigue. Indeed, it is not
because Our heart loves excursions.” Because of this, he rewarded Silian with fifty
bolts of silk.
太宗將幸九成宮，思廉諫曰：“離宮遊幸，秦皇、漢武之事，固非
堯、舜、禹、湯之所為也。”言甚切至。太宗諭曰：“朕有氣疾，熱
便頓劇，固非情好遊賞也。”因賜帛五十匹。
—————
71. Jiu Tang shu, 73.2588. The passage is also quoted in Taiping yulan, 173.846a.
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Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
The Jiucheng Palace 九成宮 was called the Renshou Palace 仁壽宮 under
the Sui. It had been Sui Wendi’s favored retreat, and it was the same place
to which Taizong had urged his father to retire and avoid the capital’s swel-
tering summers. In this
undated anecdote, however, it is Taizong who de-
sires escape from the heat, only to meet with Yao Silian’s rebuke. The em-
peror responds by justifying his use of the detached palace as a matter of
productivity: it is simply too hot in the palace-city for the emperor, imply-
ing that he cannot attend to his duties while suffering from the heat.
Here, one might hear a faint echo of Han Wudi, who, late in his reign,
increasingly spent time in his Sweet Springs Palace 甘泉宮, which was
located to the north of Chang’an. The historians do not record Wudi as
defending his time spent at Sweet Springs, though the Eastern Han poet
Zhang Heng wrote the following lines:
And far off
其遠
Then there are the Nine Peaks and Sweet Springs,
則九嵕甘泉，72
They freeze the dark and seal up the cold.
涸陰沍寒。
Even at the summer solstice they hold in the chill,
日北至而含凍，73
Thus it is here one can clear the summer heat.
此焉清暑。74
For Taizong, however, a defense is necessary. The detached palace, which
had represented sovereign leisure, is appropriated by the rhetoric of duty,
becoming a site of convenience for the vulnerable imperial body. To put it
another way, it is merely corporeal circumstance that brings Taizong to
the Jiucheng Palace; his mind remains devoted to the tasks of rulership.
Of the palaces built during Taizong’s reign, it was the Daming Palace
that would be commemorated in rhapsodic form by the emperor, bring-
ing together the histories of palaces, rhapsodies, and imperial poetry. The
Daming Palace was a detached palace, though it was located at an unusual
site: alongside the outside of the northeastern palace-city wall and not at a
—————
72. The Nine Peaks Mountain (Mt. Jiuzong 九嵕山) was located to the northwest of
Chang’an. It is now also famous for being the site of Taizong’s Zhaoling 昭陵 mausoleum.
On the Zhaoling, see Wang Shuanghuai, Huangzhong canyang, pp. 42–47; and Eckfeld, Imperial Tombs in Tang China, 618 – 907, pp. 16–19.
73. That is, when the sun reaches the northernmost point in the sky (for the northern he-misphere).
74. From Zhang Heng’s “Rhapsody on the Western Capital” 西京賦, in Wen xuan, 2.50; and Knechtges, trans., Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, pp. 184–85.