What the Emperor Built

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Aurelia Campbell discusses one of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor.

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Aurelia Campbell discusses one of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 19, 2024

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The speaker discusses their research on Chinese architectural history, revealing a notable gap in scholarship regarding the period after 1400, particularly the Ming Dynasty. While traditional architecture from earlier periods is scarce, many existing buildings date from the Ming period onward. The speaker focuses on an emperor known as the Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di), whose reign featured significant architectural projects, including a brass building on a Daoist mountain and constructions at a Tibetan monastery.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of their fieldwork across China over a decade, visiting and documenting various sites. They note that the Yongle Emperor’s rise to power involved a civil war, where he killed his nephew, leading to a fresh dynasty. After this, he relocated the capital back to Beijing, reviving its significance, which had previously been the Mongol capital.

Additionally, the emperor’s background influenced his architectural vision, as having lived in Mongol palaces fostered an understanding of architecture as a political tool. The speaker argues that the emperor’s desire to honor a Daoist deity influenced the construction of elaborate temples and complexes.

As Yongle focused on creating a legacy through architecture, he oversaw extensive construction efforts, particularly as he wanted large, impressive structures signifying power. This video video led to the widespread harvesting of non-mu wood for construction, resulting in environmental consequences due to deforestation that affected future building efforts.

The speaker underscores the broader implications of these architectural choices on imperial legacy and societal structures, positing that architecture serves as a medium of political power and can leave lasting impacts on historical memory. They conclude by encouraging readers to appreciate the stories buildings tell and their roles in shaping society, as well as the nuanced ways architecture can influence our lives.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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So during that time, I was studying Chinese architectural

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history, and I noticed

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that most scholarship on Chinese architecture dealt

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with periods before the main dynasty.

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So that's like, prior to the year 14, around 1400.

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Um, but at the same time, I noticed that a lot

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of architecture that survive traditional architecture

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that survives in China dates from the Ming Dynasty onward

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because architecture from that

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before that time is just really scarce.

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Um, so I figure that there must be something interesting

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to say about architecture after 1400.

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So I began reading as much scholarship on it,

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that I could find.

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And it was during the, that time

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that I kept reading about buildings patronized

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by an emperor called, and,

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and the buildings that survived from his reign were not just

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well preserved, but they also seemed really interesting.

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So they had interesting histories, like there was a,

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a building made out of brass that he constructed on top

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of a Daoist mountain in the center of the country.

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And then there was an imperial style building at a

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Tibetan monastery.

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He built way out at the Sino Tibetan frontier.

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So I, I started thinking that there was a,

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an interesting story there

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and a good story to tell by

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examining all his projects together,

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which nobody had previously done.

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Uh, so that's what I decided

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to write about for my first book.

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The book involved because I was studying architecture

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and I wasn't, for instance, studying

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objects in museum collections or dealing only with texts.

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I had to spend quite a lot of time in China.

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So I went to China almost every summer for about 10 years,

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between about 2008

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and 2017 while I was writing this book.

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And I visited the sites about which I wrote,

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multiple times each, which was not easy

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because they're scattered across the whole country.

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And as we all know, China is very big.

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Um, so I spent a lot of time,

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visiting these far-flung, regions

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and taking photographs of the buildings, writing down

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as many observations as I could.

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And then, besides that pretty intensive field work,

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my main research for this project involved, reading

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a lot of texts, mostly, Chinese scholarships,

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primary and secondary scholarship.

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'cause there wasn't a lot in English

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published on this subject.

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The history of, this emperor is really interesting

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and actually any student of Chinese history

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has probably heard of him

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and has also heard about this emperor, in the context of

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how he came to be emperor.

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So he was actually, he was the son

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of the first emperor of the

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Ming Dynasty, who was known as Jiang,

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but he was not the eldest son.

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So when Jiang died, the throne was passed to his eldest son,

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but that son was already dead

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before the, he inherited the throne.

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So then it was passed to that eldest son's, son,

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which was, the future Yola emperor's nephew.

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So the Yola Emperor at that time, his name is Judee,

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he did not like the fact that his nephew was the emperor.

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So he, it started a civil war with his nephew where he,

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he killed his nephew,

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although they never found the body,

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which haunted jla throughout his whole reign.

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Um, but he killed his nephew,

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burned down the imperial palaces

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and started the kind of dynasty afresh in many ways.

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So one of the things he did was move the capital

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back up to Beijing.

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Um, so Beijing, as we know, is still the capital of China.

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It had been the capital under when the Mongols ruled China

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in the century before the Ming Dynasty.

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But ju un Jang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty moved

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to the capital south, to na Jing, the city of Na Jing.

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But so when, after the civil war and

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after yah established power as emperor,

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he moved the capital backup, to

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where the Mongols had ruled, which was

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where he had been in EFT as a prince prior

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to his US oration of power.

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So, one of the things I argue in my book is

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that these experiences growing up in Beijing,

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the former Mongol capital,

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and in fact Yung lab, while he was still a prince,

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actually lived in the former Mongol imperial palaces.

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I believe all of that shaped his understanding

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of the importance of architecture

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as a political political tool.

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And also gave him a kind of sense of grandeur

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that he was the prince in Fief in this,

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former imperial capital.

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So I think all of this, being stationed in the capital

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as a prince and living in the former Mongol palaces helped

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shaped his, understanding of the power of architecture

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as a political tool

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during when he eventually became emperor.

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I'll just say one other thing.

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And that's, during his e

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Yah claimed that a deity, a Daoist deity called

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genu, which can be translated to the true warrior,

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he claimed that this deity had aided him in his usurpation.

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So he vowed from that time onward to repay the deity by,

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building an elaborate architectural complex full

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of Daoist temples and, other religious architecture

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on the, in the mountains where John Wu,

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this deity was said to reside.

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So that also, that historical context of his user,

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his rise, his rise to pow, unusual rise to power

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also contributed to his future architectural projects in, in

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that way the architecture in Yang's reign,

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even though it's scattered across the country,

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because he was building all over the place,

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if we actually look at it side by side

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or compare the buildings, we can see

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that they are all built according

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to the same kinds of principles.

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Um, so this is manifest in a number of ways

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that I won't get into here

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'cause it's a little too technical,

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but there's no textual record that tells us why,

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why they were all built according to the same sets

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of principles or what kinds of,

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ideas governed their construction.

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So all we have is the buildings themselves.

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Um, but we do have the historical knowledge

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that two imperial capitals were built.

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The first one in Nanjing, as I explained,

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and the second one in Beijing, within a period

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of less than 50 years.

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So there was an intense amount of construction during

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that time, and master carpenters

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and other craftsmen would've been working like crazy

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to erect all these buildings in these magnificent capitals.

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So I believe this standardization was an outgrowth of,

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this really, intense period

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of construction in the first few decades

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of the Ming Dynasty.

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Um, and it was a way of helping them to facilitate,

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the construction and build buildings much faster

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and much more easily,

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but also build buildings that were clear

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that you could clearly tell the hierarchy

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or you could clearly tell the rank of the building, just

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by looking at it, which was an important, facet

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of Chinese architecture dating way back as far as we know

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that this issue of rank or hierarchy is important.

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Um, so I believe the standardization was an outgrowth

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of all this construction that was going on.

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Uh, during this period, non mu is a type of wood

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that comes from enormous trees in old growth forests in the

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southwest of China.

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So when Ywa became emperor, he wanted to, I just mentioned

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that he reestablished the capital in Beijing.

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He tore down all the former Mongol palaces

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and then built his capital, his palaces,

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right on top of those.

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So he wanted to build the best palaces possible.

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He actually sent officials

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to go examine forests throughout the empire

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to find the biggest trees that they could.

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So the most successful of these officials, had found

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enormous trees in the southwest in what's now Chuan

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and Yan provinces, which is quite far from Beijing,

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if you know the geography of China.

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Um, but Yolo wanted those big trees, so he had them felled

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by the hundreds of thousands.

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We don't have a, totally accurate figure of

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how many trees he ordered to be cut down,

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but it would've been a lot.

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And then he had them shipped to the capitals along rivers,

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along major waterways.

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This process took years.

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Just getting the trees to the capitol took years.

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And then, not to mention turning those trees into

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construction material and building his palaces out of them.

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So he wanted big trees

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because the columns in Chinese buildings are

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basically tree trunks.

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Um, so huge columns signified great power,

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and with huge, pieces of wood,

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you could build really big timber frame buildings.

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So Chinese traditional architecture employs a timber frame,

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and then brick and ceramic tiles are used for the roofs

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and for the walls and things.

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But the main structure is a timber frame structure.

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Um, so the major implications of this are that

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eventually there were no more big trees left

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to build imperial buildings.

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So I mentioned Yung probably cut hundreds of thousands

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of these trees down.

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Well, Chinese architecture,

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because it's made in wood burns down a lot.

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So his successors in the centuries

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after him had to rebuild a lot of imperial buildings.

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They too wanted to find, by that time,

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non mu had become a kind of standard

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for imperial construction material.

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So they also went to the southwest of the empire to try

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to get these timbers and ship them to the capitol.

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But the problem was that there were no more big trees.

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These took hundreds of years to grow.

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So there were no more big trees growing next to the rivers.

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So they had to either find smaller ones

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or they just couldn't get any trees.

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And, and thousands of people died in this process,

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and it was enormously expensive and it led to civil wars

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or civil unrest in the regions that the trees were,

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that came from.

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So there was a lot of environmental destruction,

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social unrest.

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Um, so this, the consequences of

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building the palaces out

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of this material were actually quite enormous.

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Um, so afterwards, Jonah's successors in the hundreds

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of years after him, still still wanted

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to build palaces out of non mu.

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So they just built smaller ones.

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So non mu was actually still harvested and still used,

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but they had no choice

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but to build smaller buildings out of, these trees.

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So lots of impacts. Environmental, social, architectural.

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This Emper was very concerned about his legacy,

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or this is something I argue in my book.

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He kind of, my sense is he already knew that

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during his own time, his reputation was tainted

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because it's not like everybody around him forgot somehow

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that he, he was not the legitimate heir to the throne,

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that he killed his nephew,

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that he burnt down the imperial palace,

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that he started a civil war

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and then declared himself emperor.

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I mean, there was enough recent historical memory that

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during his lifetime, nobody could really,

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he also fired a lot of officials, killed a lot

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of people close to his, his, nephew.

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So there were, you know, definitely a large number of people

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during his life that didn't despise him.

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Um, so I really think, based on what,

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based on the architecture he patronized

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and based on a number

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of other cultural projects in which he engaged, like sending

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jhu the Great Admiral on massive voyages to,

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India and Africa.

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Uh, and Yung also sponsored the creation

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of this huge encyclopedia, which until Wikipedia came along,

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was the world's largest encyclopedia.

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So he was engaged in these kind of huge cultural pursuits.

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And I really think

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after writing this book, I realized that that's

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'cause he realized what he left behind was very important.

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His legacy was gonna be more important than

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how he proved himself during his own time.

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Um, so he seems very concerned about

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what future generations would think of him.

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And I think all of these arch, great architectural projects,

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he sponsored were part of this legacy

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and part of how he wanted to be

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remembered, in the future.

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And indeed, people like me are still writing about them.

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So I think in many ways he was, successful.

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We all read a lot of books in our lives, hopefully,

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and we can't remember every detail,

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but I would like readers to at least have the takeaway

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that architecture is important,

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and that buildings have important stories to tell.

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We go through our lives in built spaces,

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usually not thinking about them much.

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And even buildings as great as the ones patronized by

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Yung la we're overlooked by scholars for many decades.

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Um, but once you start thinking about them,

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there's actually a lot of, or once you start thinking

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and delving into them, there's a lot of,

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I import they carry a lot of important meaning

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and a lot of important information.

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Um, so I suppose

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after reading my book, I would like people to think about

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the world around them in a different light maybe,

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or the built world around them, and start considering why

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and how buildings came into existence

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and possibly even the unspoken ways in which they may shape

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our lives and how they could be used as tools of power.

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They could be used for good, they could be used for bad.

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Um, but that architecture is never totally neutral. I.

Exploring Ming Dynasty Architecture and Its Legacy

00:00:00 - So during that time, I was studying Chinese architectural history, and I noticed that most scholarship on Chinese architecture dealt with periods before the main dynasty. So that's like, prior to the year 14, around 1400. but at the same time, I noticed that a lot of architecture that survive traditional architecture that survives in China dates from the Ming Dynasty onward because architecture from that before that time is just really scarce. so I figure that there must be something interesting
00:00:35 - So I began reading as much scholarship on it, that I could find. And it was during the, that time that I kept reading about buildings patronized by an emperor called, and, and the buildings that survived from his reign were not just well preserved, but they also seemed really interesting. So they had interesting histories, like there was a, a building made out of brass that he constructed on top
00:01:09 - And then there was an imperial style building at a Tibetan monastery. He built way out at the Sino Tibetan frontier. So I, I started thinking that there was a, an interesting story there and a good story to tell by examining all his projects together, which nobody had previously done. so that's what I decided to write about for my first book. The book involved because I was studying architecture
00:01:38 - objects in museum collections or dealing only with texts. I had to spend quite a lot of time in China. So I went to China almost every summer for about 10 years, between about 2008 and 2017 while I was writing this book. And I visited the sites about which I wrote, multiple times each, which was not easy because they're scattered across the whole country. And as we all know, China is very big.
00:02:10 - visiting these far-flung, regions and taking photographs of the buildings, writing down as many observations as I could. And then, besides that pretty intensive field work, my main research for this project involved, reading a lot of texts, mostly, Chinese scholarships, primary and secondary scholarship. 'cause there wasn't a lot in English
00:02:39 - The history of, this emperor is really interesting and actually any student of Chinese history has probably heard of him and has also heard about this emperor, in the context of how he came to be emperor. So he was actually, he was the son of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who was known as Jiang, but he was not the eldest son. So when Jiang died, the throne was passed to his eldest son,

Rise of the Yola Emperor and His Legacy

00:03:11 - before the, he inherited the throne. So then it was passed to that eldest son's, son, which was, the future Yola emperor's nephew. So the Yola Emperor at that time, his name is Judee, he did not like the fact that his nephew was the emperor. So he, it started a civil war with his nephew where he, he killed his nephew, although they never found the body, which haunted jla throughout his whole reign.
00:03:43 - burned down the imperial palaces and started the kind of dynasty afresh in many ways. So one of the things he did was move the capital back up to Beijing. so Beijing, as we know, is still the capital of China. It had been the capital under when the Mongols ruled China in the century before the Ming Dynasty. But ju un Jang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty moved to the capital south, to na Jing, the city of Na Jing.
00:04:14 - after yah established power as emperor, he moved the capital backup, to where the Mongols had ruled, which was where he had been in EFT as a prince prior to his US oration of power. So, one of the things I argue in my book is that these experiences growing up in Beijing, the former Mongol capital, and in fact Yung lab, while he was still a prince, actually lived in the former Mongol imperial palaces.
00:04:45 - of the importance of architecture as a political political tool. And also gave him a kind of sense of grandeur that he was the prince in Fief in this, former imperial capital. So I think all of this, being stationed in the capital as a prince and living in the former Mongol palaces helped shaped his, understanding of the power of architecture as a political tool during when he eventually became emperor.
00:05:14 - And that's, during his e Yah claimed that a deity, a Daoist deity called genu, which can be translated to the true warrior, he claimed that this deity had aided him in his usurpation. So he vowed from that time onward to repay the deity by, building an elaborate architectural complex full of Daoist temples and, other religious architecture
00:05:49 - this deity was said to reside. So that also, that historical context of his user, his rise, his rise to pow, unusual rise to power also contributed to his future architectural projects in, in that way the architecture in Yang's reign, even though it's scattered across the country, because he was building all over the place, if we actually look at it side by side

Standardization in Ming Dynasty Architecture

00:06:19 - that they are all built according to the same kinds of principles. so this is manifest in a number of ways that I won't get into here 'cause it's a little too technical, but there's no textual record that tells us why, why they were all built according to the same sets of principles or what kinds of, ideas governed their construction. So all we have is the buildings themselves. but we do have the historical knowledge that two imperial capitals were built.
00:06:51 - and the second one in Beijing, within a period of less than 50 years. So there was an intense amount of construction during that time, and master carpenters and other craftsmen would've been working like crazy to erect all these buildings in these magnificent capitals. So I believe this standardization was an outgrowth of, this really, intense period of construction in the first few decades
00:07:22 - and it was a way of helping them to facilitate, the construction and build buildings much faster and much more easily, but also build buildings that were clear that you could clearly tell the hierarchy or you could clearly tell the rank of the building, just by looking at it, which was an important, facet of Chinese architecture dating way back as far as we know
00:07:55 - so I believe the standardization was an outgrowth of all this construction that was going on. during this period, non mu is a type of wood that comes from enormous trees in old growth forests in the southwest of China. So when Ywa became emperor, he wanted to, I just mentioned that he reestablished the capital in Beijing. He tore down all the former Mongol palaces
00:08:26 - right on top of those. So he wanted to build the best palaces possible. He actually sent officials to go examine forests throughout the empire to find the biggest trees that they could. So the most successful of these officials, had found enormous trees in the southwest in what's now Chuan and Yan provinces, which is quite far from Beijing, if you know the geography of China.
00:09:00 - by the hundreds of thousands. We don't have a, totally accurate figure of how many trees he ordered to be cut down, but it would've been a lot. And then he had them shipped to the capitals along rivers, along major waterways. This process took years. Just getting the trees to the capitol took years. And then, not to mention turning those trees into construction material and building his palaces out of them.

Environmental Impact of Imperial Architecture

00:09:29 - because the columns in Chinese buildings are basically tree trunks. so huge columns signified great power, and with huge, pieces of wood, you could build really big timber frame buildings. So Chinese traditional architecture employs a timber frame, and then brick and ceramic tiles are used for the roofs and for the walls and things. But the main structure is a timber frame structure.
00:10:03 - eventually there were no more big trees left to build imperial buildings. So I mentioned Yung probably cut hundreds of thousands of these trees down. Well, Chinese architecture, because it's made in wood burns down a lot. So his successors in the centuries after him had to rebuild a lot of imperial buildings. They too wanted to find, by that time, non mu had become a kind of standard for imperial construction material.
00:10:33 - to get these timbers and ship them to the capitol. But the problem was that there were no more big trees. These took hundreds of years to grow. So there were no more big trees growing next to the rivers. So they had to either find smaller ones or they just couldn't get any trees. And, and thousands of people died in this process, and it was enormously expensive and it led to civil wars or civil unrest in the regions that the trees were,
00:11:03 - So there was a lot of environmental destruction, social unrest. so this, the consequences of building the palaces out of this material were actually quite enormous. so afterwards, Jonah's successors in the hundreds of years after him, still still wanted to build palaces out of non mu. So they just built smaller ones. So non mu was actually still harvested and still used, but they had no choice
00:11:37 - So lots of impacts. Environmental, social, architectural. This Emper was very concerned about his legacy, or this is something I argue in my book. He kind of, my sense is he already knew that during his own time, his reputation was tainted because it's not like everybody around him forgot somehow that he, he was not the legitimate heir to the throne,
00:12:04 - that he burnt down the imperial palace, that he started a civil war and then declared himself emperor. I mean, there was enough recent historical memory that during his lifetime, nobody could really, he also fired a lot of officials, killed a lot of people close to his, his, nephew. So there were, you know, definitely a large number of people during his life that didn't despise him. so I really think, based on what,

Legacy, Architecture, and Cultural Impact

00:12:37 - and based on a number of other cultural projects in which he engaged, like sending jhu the Great Admiral on massive voyages to, India and Africa. and Yung also sponsored the creation of this huge encyclopedia, which until Wikipedia came along, was the world's largest encyclopedia. So he was engaged in these kind of huge cultural pursuits. And I really think after writing this book, I realized that that's
00:13:10 - His legacy was gonna be more important than how he proved himself during his own time. so he seems very concerned about what future generations would think of him. And I think all of these arch, great architectural projects, he sponsored were part of this legacy and part of how he wanted to be remembered, in the future. And indeed, people like me are still writing about them. So I think in many ways he was, successful.
00:13:42 - and we can't remember every detail, but I would like readers to at least have the takeaway that architecture is important, and that buildings have important stories to tell. We go through our lives in built spaces, usually not thinking about them much. And even buildings as great as the ones patronized by Yung la we're overlooked by scholars for many decades.
00:14:14 - there's actually a lot of, or once you start thinking and delving into them, there's a lot of, I import they carry a lot of important meaning and a lot of important information. so I suppose after reading my book, I would like people to think about the world around them in a different light maybe, or the built world around them, and start considering why and how buildings came into existence and possibly even the unspoken ways in which they may shape
00:14:50 - They could be used for good, they could be used for bad. but that architecture is never totally neutral. I.

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