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83-623: Jingshan's history dates to the Liao and Jin dynasties , almost a thousand years ago. The 45.7-meter (150 ft) high artificial hill was constructed in the Yongle era of the Ming dynasty entirely from the soil excavated in forming the moats of the Imperial Palace and nearby canals. All of this material was moved by manual labor and animal power. Jingshan consists of five individual peaks, and on

166-465: A Ji County ( 蓟县 ) still exists today. In Beijing, the City of Ji gradually became known as Youzhou. During the prosperous early Tang, Youzhou's ten counties tripled in size from 21,098 households and about 102,079 residents to 67,242 households and 371,312 residents in 742. In 742, Youzhou was renamed Fanyang Commandery ( 范陽郡 ), but reverted to Youzhou in 762. To guard against barbarian invasions,

249-518: A combined 4,600 households and about 170,000 residents. After the Sui dynasty reunited China in 589 AD, Youzhou was renamed Zhuojun or the Zhuo Commandery ( 涿郡 ), which was administered from Ji. In 609, Zhuo Commandery and neighboring Anle Commandery (modern Miyun) had a combined 91,658 households and an estimated population of 458,000. Emperor Yang of Sui built a network of canals from

332-821: A construction site at Wangfujing in the heart of downtown Beijing in Dongcheng District . The artifacts date to 24,000 to 25,000 years ago and are preserved in the Wangfujing Paleolithic Museum in the lower level of the New Oriental Plaza mall. Archaeologists have discovered over 40 neolithic settlements and burial sites throughout the municipality. The most notable include Zhuannian of Huairou District ; Donghulin of Mentougou District ; Shangzhai and Beiniantou of Pinggu District ; Zhenjiangying of Fangshan; and Xueshan of Changping District . These sites indicate that farming

415-590: A highly centralized state and divided the country into 48 commanderies ( jun ), two of which are located in present-day Beijing. The City of Ji became the seat of Guangyang Commandery (广阳郡/廣陽郡). To the north, in present-day Miyun County , was Yuyang Commandery . The Qin removed defensive barriers dividing the Warring States, including the southern wall of the Yan, which separated the Beijing Plain from

498-606: A large walled settlement and over 200 tombs of nobility have been unearthed. Among the most significant artifacts from the Liulihe Site is the three-legged bronze Jin Ding whose inscriptions recount the journey of Jin, who was sent by Ji Ke to deliver a batch of food and drink to his father, Ji Shi, in the Zhou capital. The father was thrilled and awarded Jin cowry shells to pay for the creation of an honorific ding to remember

581-594: A multi-ethnic army of Han , Tongluo , Xi, Khitan and Shiwei troops. After An's death, Shi Siming continued the rebellion from Youzhou. Shi Siming's tomb was discovered in Wangzuo Village in Fengtai District in 1966 and excavated in 1981. The An–Shi Rebellion lasted eight years and severely weakened the Tang dynasty. For the next 150 years, military governors ruled Youzhou autonomously . When

664-717: A pavilion, which is now the Drum Tower . The most striking physical feature of Dadu was the string of lakes in the heart of the city. These lakes were created from the Jinshui River inside the city. They are now known as the six seas ("hai") of central Beijing: Houhai, Qianhai, and Xihai (the Rear, Front, and Western Seas) which are collectively known as Shichahai ; Beihai (the North Sea); and Zhonghai and Nanhai which are collectively known as Zhongnanhai . Qionghua Island

747-446: A population of 418,000 and another 635,000 in the surrounding region. By 1327, the city had 952,000 residents with another 2.08 million in the surrounding region. The city's residential districts were laid out in a checkerboard pattern divided by avenues 25 m in width and narrow alleyways, called hutongs , 6–7 m wide. One of the best surviving examples of such a district is Dongsi Subdistrict , which has 14 parallel hutongs, called

830-663: Is buried and which is today the seat of the Chinese Daoist Association . When Kublai Khan , the grandson of Genghis Khan , visited Yanjing in 1261, much of the city lay in ruin, so he stayed in the Daning Palace on Qionghua Island. Unlike other Mongol leaders who wanted to retain the traditional tribal confederation based in Karakorum in Outer Mongolia , Kublai Khan was eager to become

913-549: Is currently closed to the public. It is at the T-intersection between Jingshan Back Street and Di'anmen Inner Street and is accessible by Bus routes 5, 111, 124 and 609. History of Beijing#Liao, Song and Jin dynasties The city of Beijing has a long and rich history that dates back over 3,000 years. Prior to the unification of China by the First Emperor in 221 BC, Beijing had been for centuries

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996-842: Is now the island in Beihai Park on which the White Dagoba stands. Like today's Chinese leaders , the Yuan imperial family lived west of the lakes in the Xingsheng (兴圣宫) and Longfu (隆福宫) Palaces. A third palace east of the lakes, called the Danei (大内), at the site of the later Forbidden City , housed the imperial offices. The city's construction drew builders from all over the Mongols' Asian empire, including local Chinese as well as those from places such as Nepal and Central Asia. Liu Bingzhong

1079-424: Is one of the oldest temples in urban Beijing. The Tang dynasty reduced the size of a prefecture, as a unit of administration administrative division, from a province to a commandery and renamed Zhuojun back to Youzhou, which was one of over 300 Tang Prefectures. With the creation of a separate prefecture called Jizhou ( 薊州 ) in present-day Tianjin in 730, the name Ji was transplanted from Beijing to Tianjin, where

1162-654: The Dabaotai Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum . In 1999, another royal tomb was found in Laoshan in Shijingshan District but the prince formerly buried there has not been identified. During the early Eastern Han dynasty in 57 AD, the five counties of Guangyang Commandery had 44,550 households and an estimated 280,600 residents. By population density, Guangyang ranked in the top 20 among the 105 commanderies nationally. In

1245-650: The Gregorian Calendar , the Beijing Government uses 1045   BC as the official estimate of the date of this occasion. It is believed that the seat of Ji, called the City of Ji or Jicheng ( 薊城 ), was located in the southwestern part of present-day urban Beijing, just south of Guang'anmen in Xicheng and Fengtai Districts . Several historical accounts mention a "Hill of Ji" northwest of

1328-576: The Later Jin . Shi Jingtang then ceded sixteen prefectures across the northern frontier including Youzhou, Shunzhou (modern Shunyi), Tanzhou (modern Changping) and Ruzhou (modern Yanqing) to the Liao dynasty. Though Beijing was but a peripheral city to Chinese dynasties centered in Luoyang and Xi'an , it was an important entryway into China for tribal peoples to the north. The city's stature grew from

1411-661: The Northern Wei , another Xianbei regime, united northern China and restored Ji as the capital of Youzhou. While this designation continued through the remainder of the Northern Dynasties, the Eastern Wei , Northern Qi and Northern Zhou , the size of its jurisdiction shrank drastically, as the number of zhou in China was massively increased in this period, from 21 in the early 4th century to more than 200 in

1494-601: The Purple Bamboo Park to Jishuitan, which was a large reservoir inside Dadu. The expansion and extension of the Grand Canal from Dadu to Hangzhou enabled the city to import greater volumes of grain to sustain a larger population. The completion of the Tonghui Canal in 1293 allowed barges from Tongzhou to sail through the city right to the gates of the imperial palace at Shichahai . In 1270, Dadu had

1577-535: The Shang dynasty . According to Sima Qian , King Wu of Zhou , in the 11th year of his reign, deposed the last Shang king and conferred titles to nobles within his domain including the rulers of the city states Ji ( 薊 ) and Yan ( 燕 ). According to Confucius , King Wu of Zhou was so eager to establish his legitimacy that before dismounting his chariot, he named the descendants of the Yellow Emperor as

1660-547: The descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors . The Yellow Emperor is said to have founded the settlement of Youling ( 幽陵 ) in or near Zhuolu. The sage-king Yao founded a town called Youdu ( 幽都 ) in the Hebei-Beijing region about 4,000 years ago. You ( 幽 ) or Youzhou ( 幽州 ) later became one of the historical names for Beijing. Yuzishan, in Shandongzhuang Village of Pinggu County , in

1743-549: The 10th century with successive invasions of China proper by the Khitans, Jurchens, and Mongols, who respectively founded the Liao dynasty , Jin dynasty and Yuan dynasty . In 938, the Liao dynasty renamed Youzhou, Nanjing (南京) or the "Southern Capital" and made the city one of four secondary capitals to the primary seat of power at Shangjing (in modern-day Baarin Left Banner , Inner Mongolia ). The Liao retained

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1826-524: The 14 tiao of Dongsi. The name hutong is unique to the Yuan-era city; in older neighborhoods that date to the Liao and Jin eras, narrow lanes are called jie or streets. Each of the large avenues had underground sewers which carried rain and refuse to the south of the city. The main markets were located in Dongsi, Xisi and along the north shore of Jishuitan. Historical capitals of China This

1909-809: The Central Plain to Zhuojun to carry troops and food for the massive military campaigns against Goguryeo (Korea). Though the campaigns proved to be ruinous, they were continued by the Tang dynasty . In 645 AD, the Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty founded the Minzhong Temple (now Fayuan Temple ) in the southeast of Ji to remember the war dead from the Korean Campaigns . The Fayuan Temple, now within Xicheng District,

1992-620: The Central Plain, and built a national roadway network. Ji served as the junction for the roads connecting the Central Plain with Mongolia and Manchuria. The First Emperor visited Ji in 215 BC and, to protect the frontier from the Xiongnu , had the Great Wall built in Yuyang Commandery and fortified Juyong Pass . The Han dynasty , which followed the short-lived Qin in 206 BC, initially restored some local autonomy. Liu Bang ,

2075-508: The City of Ji to join the Xiongnu tribes of the steppes. Liu Bang's eighth son took control of Yan, which was subsequently ruled by lineal princes of the imperial family , from the City of Ji, then known as Yan Commandery (燕郡), and the Principality of Guangyang (广阳国/廣陽國). In the early Western Han, the four counties of Guangyang Principality had 20,740 households and an estimated population of 70,685. In 106 BC, under Emperor Wu ,

2158-626: The City of Ji until the 2nd century AD. Due to its historical association with the State of Yan, the city of Beijing is also known as Yanjing ( 燕京 ) or the "Yan Capital." The State of Yan continued to expand until it became one of the seven major powers during the Warring States period (473–221 BC). It stretched from the Yellow River to the Yalu . Like subsequent rulers of Beijing,

2241-585: The Liao era. They include Sanmiao Road, one of the oldest streets in Beijing and the Niujie Mosque , founded in 996, and the Tianning Temple , built from 1100 to 1119. Under Liao rule, the population inside the walled city grew from 22,000 in 938 to 150,000 in 1113 (and the population of the surrounding region grew from 100,000 to 583,000) as large numbers of Khitan, Xi, Shiwei and Balhae from

2324-731: The Liao's Upper, Central and Eastern Capitals. In the spring of 1122, the Liao court rallied around Prince Yelü Chun in Nanjing , and defeated two Song army advances. After Yelü Chun died of illness in the early summer, Guo Yaoshi, an ethnic Han commander in the Liao Army, defected to the Song and led the vanguard of the Song Army in a raid on Nanjing. The raiders entered the city, but the Liao Empress Xiao continued to resist from

2407-702: The Mongol encampment in the Hindu Kush , he taught the Genghis Khan about the Dao , telling the great khan medicine for immortality did not exist and urged him to preserve lives. The Mongol leader called Qiu an immortal sage , made him the head Daoist priest of the empire and exempted Daoism from taxation. Qiu returned to Yanjing in 1224 and expanded what would become the White Cloud Temple , where he

2490-585: The Mongols in 1214. The Mongols , a tribal nomadic people from the Mongolian Plateau and southern Siberia, had assisted the Jurchen in the war against the Khitans, but were not given the promised compensation. In 1211, the Mongols led by Genghis Khan took revenge against the Jin by invading northern China. By 1213, he had controlled most of Jin territory north of the Yellow River with the exception of

2573-761: The Song entered the Alliance on the Sea with the Jurchens , a semi-agricultural, forest-dwelling people living northeast of the Liao in modern-day Manchuria . The two nations agreed to jointly invade the Liao and split captured territories, with most of the Sixteen Prefectures going to the Song. Under the leadership of Wanyan Aguda , who founded the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) , the Jurchens captured in rapid succession

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2656-442: The Song. Emperor Huizong welcomed his defection, ignoring warnings from his diplomats that the Jurchens would regard the acceptance of defectors as a breach of the treaty. The Jurchens defeated Zhang Jue who took refuge with Guo Yaoshi at Yanshan. The Song court had Zhang Jue executed to satisfy Jin demands, much to the alarm of Guo Yaoshi and other former Liao officials serving the Song. The Jurchens, sensing Song weakness, used

2739-434: The Tang configuration of the city, which had eight gates in its outer wall, two in each cardinal direction, an inner walled city, which was converted into palace complex, and 26 residential neighborhoods. Thus, the City of Ji, ceded to the Liao as Youzhou, continued as Nanjing in what is today the southwest part of urban Beijing. Some of the oldest landmarks in southern Xicheng (formerly Xuanwu ) and Fengtai Districts date to

2822-605: The Tang dynasty was overthrown in 907 by the Later Liang dynasty , Youzhou remained independent and its military governor Liu Shouguang declared himself emperor of the short-lived Jie Yan dynasty in 911. This regime was ended in 913 by the ethnic Shatuo general Li Cunxu who went on to found the Later Tang dynasty in 923. The disintegration of the Tang dynasty into the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms paved

2905-873: The Upper and Lower Banquan Villages of Yanqing County on the northwestern edge of Beijing Municipality. The triumph of the Yellow Emperor over the Yan Emperor at Banquan united the two Emperors' tribes and gave rise to the Huaxia or Chinese nation, which then defeated Chiyou and the Nine Li tribes in the Battle of Zhuolu , possibly at Zhuolu , 75 km (47 mi) west of Yanqing in Hebei Province . This victory opened North China to settlement by

2988-481: The Wuhuan in 207 AD to pacify the north. During the Three Kingdoms period, the Kingdom of Wei founded by Cao Cao's son, Cao Pi , controlled ten of the Han dynasty's prefectures including Youzhou and its capital Ji. The Wei court instituted offices in Youzhou to manage relations with the Wuhuan and Xianbei. To help sustain the troops garrisoned in Youzhou, the governor in 250 AD built the Lilingyan , an irrigation system that greatly improved agricultural output in

3071-474: The Yan also faced the threat of invasions by the Shanrong steppe nomads , and built walled fortifications across its northern frontier. Remnants of the Yan walls in Changping County date to 283 BC. They predate Beijing's better known Ming Great Wall by more than 1,500 years. In 226 BC, the City of Ji fell to the invading State of Qin and the State of Yan was forced to move its capital to Liaodong . The Qin eventually ended Yan in 222 BC. The following year,

3154-415: The Yongding River southwest of the city, was built in 1189. Seventeen Jin emperors are buried in Fangshan District, including those whose tombs were originally built in Shangjing and moved to Zhongdu. The city's population grew from 82,000 in 1125 to 400,000 in 1207 (and from 340,000 in the surrounding region to 1.6 million). Zhongdu served as the Jin capital for more than 60 years, until the onslaught of

3237-411: The Zhang Jue incident as a pretext to invade . In 1125, Jin forces defeated Guo Yaoshi at the Battle of the Bai River, on the upper reaches of the Chaobai River in modern Miyun County. Guo Yaoshi then surrendered Yanshan and then guided the Jin's rapid advance on the Song capital, Kaifeng , where the Song emperors Huizong and Qinzong were captured in 1127 , ending the Northern Song dynasty. Yanshan

3320-408: The capital Zhongdu. In March 1214, he set up headquarters in Zhongdu's northern suburbs and with brother Hasar and three eldest sons, Jochi , Chagatai and Ögedei , began to besiege the city . Though the Jin court was weakened by a palace coup, the city was protected by three layers of moats and 900 towers. When disease broke out within the Mongol ranks, Genghis Khan sent Muslim envoy Ja'far into

3403-403: The capital of the ancient states of Ji and Yan . It was a provincial center in the earliest unified empires of China, Qin and Han . The northern border of ancient China ran close to the present city of Beijing, and northern nomadic tribes frequently broke in from across the border. Thus, the area that was to become Beijing emerged as an important strategic and a local political centre. During

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3486-419: The caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District , where the Homo erectus Peking Man (previously classified as the now-invalid species Sinanthropus pekinensis ) lived from 770,000 to 230,000 years ago. Paleolithic homo sapiens also lived in the caves from about 27,000 to 10,000 years ago. In 1996, over 2,000 Stone Age tools and bone fragments were discovered at

3569-446: The city militarily from the Khitans, managed to purchase Yanjing from the Jurchens. Song rule of the city, renamed Yanshan (燕山), was short-lived. As the convoy of relocated Nanjing residents passed Pingzhou (near Qinhuangdao ) on their way to the Northeast, they persuaded the governor Zhang Jue to restore them to their home city. Zhang Jue, a former Liao official who had surrendered to the Jin dynasty, then switched his allegiance to

3652-433: The city to negotiate, and the Jin court agreed to a peace treaty by ceding territory and accepting vassal status. Among Genghis Khan's demands was marriage to a Jurchen princess. The Qicheng Princess, daughter of Wanyan Yongji , was designated for the Mongol chieftain. She along with 100 guards, 500 boys and girl servants, 3,000 bolts of cloth, and 3,000 horses were sent to the Mongol camp. The Qicheng Princess became one of

3735-404: The city, which was renamed Yanjing. In the spring of 1123, Wanyan Aguda agreed, as per treaty terms, to hand Yanjing and four other prefectures to the Song in exchange for tribute. The handover occurred after the Jurchens had looted the city's wealth and forced all officials and craftsman to move to the Jin capital at Shangjing (near present-day Harbin ). Thus, the Song, having failed to take

3818-468: The city, which would correspond to the large mound at the White Cloud Abbey outside Xibianmen, about 4 km (2.5 mi) north of Guang'anmen. South and west of Guang'anmen, roof tiles used for palace construction and dense concentrations of wells lined with ceramic ring tiles have been discovered. The capital of Yan was located about 45 km (28 mi) to the south of Ji, in the village of Dongjialin in Liulihe Township of Fangshan District, where

3901-408: The country was organized into 13 prefectural-provinces, or zhou ( 州 ), and the City of Ji served as the provincial capital for Youzhou ( 幽州 ), the territories of which extended from what is now central Hebei Province to the Korean Peninsula . The tomb of Liu Jian, the Prince of Guangyang who ruled Youzhou from 73 to 45 BC was discovered in Fengtai District in 1974 and has been preserved in

3984-405: The emperor of a cosmopolitan empire. He spent the next four years waging and winning a civil war against rival Mongol chieftains and in 1264 ordered advisor Liu Bingzhong to build his new capital at Yanjing. In 1260, he had already begun construction of his capital at Xanadu , some 275 km (171 mi) due north of Beijing on the Luan River in present-day Inner Mongolia , but he preferred

4067-407: The event. The inscription thus confirms the appointment of King Zhou's kin to Yan and the location of Yan's capital. Both Yan and Ji were situated along an important north–south trade route along the eastern flank of the Taihang Mountains from the Central Plain to the northern steppes. Ji, located just north of the Yongding River , was a convenient rest stop for trade caravans. Here, the route to

4150-427: The first millennia of imperial rule , Beijing was a provincial city in northern China . Its stature grew in the 10th to the 13th centuries when the nomadic Khitan and forest-dwelling Jurchen peoples from beyond the Great Wall expanded southward and made the city a capital of their dynasties, the Liao and Jin . When Kublai Khan made Dadu the capital of the Mongol -led Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), all of China

4233-420: The first palace was finished the next year. The entire palace complex was completed in 1274 and the rest of the city by 1285. In 1279, when Mongol armies finished off the last of the Song dynasty in southern China, Beijing became for the first time, the capital of the whole of China . After the construction of Dadu, Xanadu, also known as Shangdu, became Kublai Khan's summer capital . Rather than continuing on

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4316-436: The foundation of Zhongdu, the new capital Dadu was shifted to the northeast and built around the old Daning Palace on Qionghua Island in the middle of the Taiye Lake . This move set in place Beijing's current north–south central axis. Dadu was nearly twice the size of Zhongdu. It stretched from present-day Chang'an Avenue in the south to the earthen Dadu city walls that still stand in northern and northeastern Beijing, between

4399-413: The founding emperor of the Han dynasty, recognized a number of regional kingdoms including Yan, ruled by Zang Tu , who had joined the revolt that overthrew the Qin, seized the City of Ji and sided with Liu Bang in the war with Xiang Yu for supremacy . But Zang rebelled and was executed, and Liu granted the kingdom to his childhood friend Lu Wan . Later, Liu became mistrustful of Lu, and the latter fled

4482-403: The four main wives of Genghis Khan, who lifted the siege and withdrew north of the Juyong Pass . Emperor Xuanzong , after considerable debate, decided to move the capital from Zhongdu to Kaifeng further to the south. In June 1214, as the Jin imperial procession departed the city, a detachment of Khitan guards rebelled at the Lugou Bridge and defected to the Mongols. Genghis Khan believed the Jin

4565-407: The imperial court created six frontier military commands in 711 AD, and Youzhou became the headquarters of the Youzhou Jiedushi , who was tasked to monitor the Khitan and Xi nomads just north of present-day Hebei Province. In 755, the Jiedushi An Lushan launched a rebellion from Youzhou, and declared himself the emperor of the Great Yan dynasty . He went on to conquer Luoyang and Xi'an with

4648-465: The late 6th century. In 446, the Northern Wei built a Great Wall from Juyong Pass west to Shanxi to protect its capital, Datong , from the Rouran . In 553–56, the Northern Qi extended this Great Wall eastward to the Bohai Sea to defend against the Göktürks , who raided Youzhou in 564 and 578. Centuries of warfare severely depopulated northern China. During the Eastern Wei (534–550), Youzhou, Anzhou (modern Miyun) and East Yanzhou (modern Changping) had

4731-436: The late Eastern Han, the Yellow Turban Rebellion erupted in Hebei in 184 AD and briefly seized Youzhou. The court relied on regional militaries to put down the rebellion and Youzhou was controlled successively by warlords Liu Yu , Gongsun Zan , Yuan Shao and Cao Cao . In 194 AD, Yuan Shao captured Ji from Gongsun Zan with the help of Wuhuan and Xianbei allies from the steppes. Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao in 200 AD and

4814-510: The location of Beijing. With the North China Plain opening to the south and the steppes just beyond the mountain passes to the north, Beijing was an ideal midway point for Kublai Khan's new seat of power. In 1271, he declared the creation of the Yuan dynasty and named his capital Dadu ( 大都 , Chinese for "Grand Capital", or Daidu to the Mongols ). It is also known by the Mongol name Khanbaliq ( 汗八里 ), spelled Cambuluc in Marco Polo 's account . Construction of Dadu began in 1267 and

4897-423: The name Feng Shui Hill . It is also well known to locals as Coal Hill , from an old rumor that the emperors kept a hidden stash in the park. The Chongzhen Emperor , the last ruler of the Ming dynasty, committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in Jingshan in 1644 after Beijing fell to Li Zicheng 's rebel forces. Jingshan Hill is separated from the Forbidden City by the palace moat. However, until 1928

4980-420: The new road. The street addresses of both the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park are on New Jingshan Street. Jingshan Park is now a popular place for people to gather and socialize. One can often find elderly folks dancing, singing opera and doing other cultural activities, such as kuaiban , at Jingshan Park. The park has four entrances, one in each of the cardinal directions, but only three are currently open to

5063-400: The north and Han from the south migrated to the city. The Song dynasty , after unifying the rest of China in 960, sought to recapture the lost northern territories. In 979, Emperor Taizong personally led a military expedition that reached and laid siege to Nanjing ( Youzhou ) but was defeated in the decisive Battle of Gaoliang River , just northwest of present-day Xizhimen . In 1120,

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5146-400: The northeast to the Beijing West railway station to the west, and south to beyond the southern 2nd Ring Road . The walled city had 13 gates, four in the north and three openings in each of the other sides. Remnants of Zhongdu city walls are preserved in Fengtai District. The Jin emphasized the centrality of the regime by placing the walled palace complex near the center of Zhongdu. The palace

5229-426: The northeastern fringe of Beijing Municipality, is one of several places in China claiming to host the Yellow Emperor's Tomb. Yuzishan's association with Yellow Emperor dates back at least 1,300 years when Tang poets Chen Zi'ang and Li Bai mentioned the tomb in their poems about Youzhou. The first event in Beijing's history with archaeological support dates to the 11th century BC when the Zhou dynasty absorbed

5312-409: The northern 3rd and 4th Ring Roads . The city had earthen walls 24 m thick and 11 city gates, two in the north and three each in the other cardinal directions. Later, the Ming dynasty lined portions of Dadu's eastern and western walls with brick and retained four of the gates. Thus, Dadu had the same width as the Beijing of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The geographic center of the Dadu was marked with

5395-441: The northwest through the mountain passes diverged from the road to the Northeast . Ji also had a steady water supply from the nearby Lotus Pool, which still exists south of the Beijing West railway station . The Liulihe settlement relied on the more seasonal flow of the Liuli River. Some time during the Western Zhou or early Eastern Zhou dynasty , Yan conquered Ji and moved its capital to Ji, which continued to be called Jicheng or

5478-416: The palace. The inclusion of the Jinshui and Gaoliang rivers gave Dadu a larger supply of water than the Lotus Pool which had nourished Ji, Youzhou, and Nanjing for the previous 2,000 years. To boost water supply even more, Yuan hydrologist Guo Shoujing built channels to draw additional spring water from Yuquan Mountain in the northwest through what is today the Kunming Lake of the Summer Palace through

5561-406: The park sat directly by the moat and was accessible on the south side only from the Forbidden City via the Gate of Divine Might . In 1928, a new road (New Jingshan Street) was built to the north of the palace moat. This fully separated Jingshan Hill from the Forbidden City. The Gate of Divine Might became the back door of the Palace Museum, and the front gate of Jingshan Park now stood to the north of

5644-454: The plains around Ji. Ji was demoted to a mere county seat in the Western Jin dynasty , which made neighboring Zhuo County , in present-day Hebei Province , the prefectural capital of Youzhou. In the early 4th century, the Western Jin dynasty was overthrown by steppe peoples who had settled in northern China and established a series of mostly short-lived kingdoms . During the so-called Sixteen Kingdoms period, Beijing, still known as Ji,

5727-413: The public. The south entrance is located across Jingshan Front Street from the Forbidden City and is accessible by Beijing Bus routes 101, 103, 109, 124, 202, 211, 609 and 685. The west entrance on Jingshan West Street and Doushan Street is a short walk from the east gate of Beihai Park and is accessible by Bus routes 5 and 609. Trolleybus routes 111 and 124 stop at the east entrance. The north entrance

5810-439: The ruler of Qin, having conquered all the other states , declared himself to be the First Emperor . During the first one thousand years of Chinese imperial history, Beijing was a provincial city on the northern periphery of China proper . Dynasties with capitals in the Central and Guanzhong Plains used the city to manage trade and military relations with nomadic peoples of the north and northeast. The Qin dynasty built

5893-432: The rulers of Ji. He then named his kinsman, Shi, the Duke of Shao , as the vassal of Yan. Shi was preoccupied with other matters and dispatched his eldest son to take the position. This son, Ke, is considered the founder of the state of Yan . Bronzeware inscriptions have confirmed these events described in Sima Qian's history. Although the dates in Sima Qian's history before 841 BC have not yet been definitely matched to

5976-431: The surrounding region). Among the captives taken from the city was a Khitan named Yelü Chucai , who persuaded Genghis Khan that while China could be conquered from the saddle, it could not be ruled from the saddle. Rather than converting northern China into pastures, it would be more beneficial for Mongols to tax the agrarian population. Genghis Khan heeded the advice and the Mongol pillaging eased. The Mongols continued to

6059-417: The top of each peak there lies an elaborate pavilion. These pavilions were used by officials for gathering and leisure purposes. These five peaks also draw the approximate historical axis of central Beijing. The dictates of feng shui long praised tombs and residences sited south of a nearby hill, serving to channel both harmful yin and cold northern winds. With Jingshan serving that purpose, it gained

6142-597: The walled palace complex. After three days of street fighting, Liao reinforcements reached the city ahead of the main Song Army, and managed to expel Guo Yaoshi's forces. In the winter of 1122, the Jin Army drove through the Juyong Pass and marched on Nanjing from the north. This time, Empress Xiao fled to the steppes and the remaining Liao officials capitulated. Wanyan Aguda allowed the surrendering officials to retain their positions and encouraged refugees to return to

6225-597: The war against the Jurchens until the capture of Kaifeng in 1234 ended the Jin dynasty. Yelü Chucai was buried on the east bank of Kunming Lake in what is now the Summer Palace . In 1219, Genghis Khan invited the Daoist sage Qiu Chuji for advice on "keeping the empire in good order." The 76-year old Qiu had previously declined invitations from the emperors of the Jin and Southern Song, but agreed to travel from Shandong to Yanjing and then to Central Asia, where, at

6308-592: The way for Khitan expansion into northern China, which prompted the rise of Beijing in Chinese history. The nomadic Khitan people were united under Yelü Abaoji , who founded the Liao dynasty in 916 and, from 917 to 928, tried seven times to take Youzhou. In 936, a rift in the Later Tang court allowed Yelü Abaoji to help another ethnic Shatuo general Shi Jingtang found the third of the Five Dynasties,

6391-402: Was appointed as the supervisor of the construction of the imperial city and a chief architect was Yeheidie'erding . The pavilions of the palaces took on various architectural styles from across the empire. The entire palace complex occupied the south central portion of Dadu. Following Chinese tradition, the temples for ancestral rites and harvest rites were built, respectively, to west and east of

6474-695: Was controlled successively by the Di -led Former Qin , the Jie -led Later Zhao , and the Xianbei -led Former Yan and Later Yan . In 352, Prince Murong Jun , moved the capital of the Former Yan Kingdom from Manchuria to Ji , making the city a sovereign capital for the first time in over 500 years. Five years later, the Former Yan's capital was moved further south to Ye in southern Hebei. In 397 AD,

6557-423: Was renamed Yanjing. In 1153 the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang moved his capital from Shangjing to Yanjing and the city was renamed Zhongdu (中都) or the "Central Capital". For the first time in its history, the city of Beijing became a political capital of a major dynasty. The Jin expanded the city to the west, east, and south, doubling its size. On today's map of urban Beijing, Zhongdu would extend from Xuanwumen in

6640-647: Was ruled from Beijing for the first time. From 1279 onward, with the exception of two interludes from 1368 to 1420 and 1928 to 1949, Beijing would remain as China's capital , serving as the seat of power for the Ming dynasty (1421–1644), the Manchu -led Qing dynasty (1644–1912), the early Republic of China (1912–1928) and now the People's Republic of China (1949–present). The earliest remains of hominid habitation in Beijing Municipality were found in

6723-495: Was situated south of present-day Guang'anmen and north of the Grand View Garden . In 1179, Emperor Zhangzong had a country retreat built northeast of Zhongdu. Taiye Lake was excavated along the Jinshui River and Daning Palace ( 大寧宮 / 大宁宫 ) was erected on Qionghua Island in the lake. The grounds of this palace is now Beihai Park . Paper money was first issued in Beijing during the Jin. The Lugou Bridge , over

6806-464: Was trying to rebuild military strength further south in breach of the terms of peace and decided to reinvade the Jin. By winter, Mongol troops were again besieging Zhongdu. In 1215, after a bitter siege in which many of the city's inhabitants starved, Zhongdu's 100,000 defenders and 108,000 households surrendered. The city was still looted and burned by the invaders. Zhongdu was renamed Yanjing and its population shrank to 91,000 in 1216 (with 285,000 in

6889-629: Was widespread in the area 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. Painted pottery and carved jade of the Shangzhai and Xueshan Cultures resemble those of the Hongshan Culture further to the north. [REDACTED] The earliest events of Beijing's history are shrouded in legend and myth . The epic Battle of Banquan , which according to Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian , occurred in the 26th century BC, may have taken place near

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