Spanning over 178 acres of land, the Forbidden City, or the Zijin Cheng is a major tourist attraction in Beijing. Also known as the Imperial Palace, the building dates back around 500 years, though it was recently reopened for public after repairs in 1949. Surrounded by 7.9 meter high city walls, the Forbidden City was protected by a six meter deep and 52 meter wide moat as well. That though, did not stop this monumental building from being sacked multiple times and be razed to the ground completely by the Manchus.
Although the original building had pillars in the important halls of the valuable Phoebe zhennan wood, the reconstruction by the Qing Dynasty replaced the pillars with pinewood ones and, unlike the original pillars, these are not whole logs used lavishly. The interesting aspect of the Palaces construction was the transportation of the stone used in the construction of the terraces. According to historians, the builders dug wells along the roads from the queries to the construction sites and poured water on the road to get the thin ice in the winters so they could slide the heavy stones to their destination.
The 9999.5 rooms the palace boasts, is just...