Why Do Some Palace Plaques in the Forbidden City Have Manchu Inscriptions While Others Do Not?
Why Do Some Palace Plaques in the Forbidden City Have Manchu Inscriptions While Others Do Not?
MING YE
9/25/20264 min read
Why Do Some Palace Plaques in the Forbidden City Have Manchu Inscriptions While Others Do Not?
From Qing Bilingual Culture to the Political Changes of the Early Republic
By Ming Ye (MING YE)
Visitors walking through Beijing’s Forbidden City may notice an interesting detail.
Many palace gates and buildings display plaques inscribed in both Manchu and Chinese. Yet some of the most important buildings in the entire palace complex—including the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe Dian), Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghe Dian), and Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohe Dian)—have plaques bearing only Chinese characters.
Why is Manchu present on some plaques but absent from others?
The answer reflects not only the architectural history of the Forbidden City, but also the changing political and cultural position of the Manchu language from the Qing dynasty to the early twentieth century.
From the Ming Palace to the Qing Forbidden City
Construction of the Forbidden City began in 1406, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty, and the principal palace complex was completed in 1420.
The palace that survives today, however, is not simply the original Ming complex preserved unchanged for six centuries.
The Forbidden City suffered repeated fires and reconstruction during the Ming period. It was also damaged during the political and military upheavals surrounding the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644.
After the Qing entered Beijing, the Shunzhi Emperor took up residence in the Forbidden City. Over the following decades, the Qing court repaired and reconstructed large parts of the imperial palace.
This process was not merely architectural restoration. The Forbidden City was transformed into the political and ceremonial center of a new dynasty.
And with the Qing court came another imperial written language: Manchu.
Manchu and Chinese in the Qing Imperial Palace
The Manchus had developed their own writing system before the conquest of Beijing.
During the Qing dynasty, Manchu occupied an important position in imperial administration and court culture. It appeared in government documents, imperial edicts, official seals, monuments, inscriptions, palace plaques, and numerous other forms of writing.
As a result, Manchu-Chinese bilingual inscriptions became one of the distinctive visual features of Qing imperial architecture.
For a modern visitor, these inscriptions are more than translations of building names.
They are visible traces of the linguistic culture of the Qing court.
Look closely at surviving Qing palace plaques and inscriptions, and one can often see two writing systems occupying the same architectural space: Chinese characters and vertically written Manchu script.
The architecture itself therefore became a medium through which imperial language and identity were displayed.
Then Why Are the Three Great Halls Different?
This is where the story becomes especially interesting.
The three principal halls of the Outer Court are among the most symbolically important buildings in the Forbidden City:
Taihe Dian — Hall of Supreme Harmony
Zhonghe Dian — Hall of Central Harmony
Baohe Dian — Hall of Preserving Harmony
Today, their principal plaques display Chinese characters without corresponding Manchu inscriptions.
This differs noticeably from many buildings in the Inner Court, where bilingual Manchu-Chinese plaques remain visible.
The contrast is connected to political changes that occurred after the fall of the Qing dynasty.
Yuan Shikai and the Attempt to Restore the Monarchy
The Qing dynasty ended in 1912, but the political meaning of the Forbidden City did not disappear overnight.
Under the arrangements made after the abdication of the Qing emperor, the former emperor Puyi continued to reside in the Inner Court for a period after the establishment of the Republic of China.
A few years later, another dramatic political episode affected the palace.
In December 1915, Yuan Shikai announced his acceptance of the monarchy and prepared to establish a new imperial regime under the name Empire of China, with the reign title Hongxian.
The Forbidden City once again acquired potential significance as a setting for imperial ceremony.
Preparations associated with Yuan Shikai’s proposed monarchy included alterations to the former Qing imperial environment. In the Outer Court, which contained the great ceremonial halls associated with imperial government and state ritual, visible Manchu elements on palace plaques were removed or altered.
The Inner Court presented a different situation.
Because Puyi and the former Qing court continued to occupy part of the palace under the post-abdication arrangements, many of the bilingual inscriptions there remained.
This historical division helps explain a visual pattern that visitors can still observe today:
many buildings in the Inner Court retain Manchu-Chinese bilingual plaques, while major buildings of the Outer Court display Chinese-only plaques.
A Palace Plaque Can Be a Historical Document
It is easy to think of a palace plaque simply as the name of a building.
But in the Forbidden City, a plaque can preserve several layers of history.
The building itself may have originated in the Ming dynasty.
Its architectural form may reflect repeated reconstruction during the Ming and Qing periods.
Its Manchu inscription may belong to the linguistic and political culture of the Qing court.
And the absence of Manchu on another plaque may reflect political changes that occurred after the Qing dynasty had already disappeared.
In this sense, the presence—or absence—of a writing system can itself become historical evidence.
Manchu Was Once Part of the Visual Landscape of the Forbidden City
Today, most visitors to the Forbidden City naturally focus first on its architecture, paintings, glazed tiles, imperial thrones, and Chinese calligraphy.
But Manchu script was also an important part of the visual environment of the Qing imperial palace.
It appeared on plaques, gates, official inscriptions, seals, monuments, and other objects associated with court and government.
These surviving inscriptions allow us to see Manchu not simply as a language preserved in old books and archives, but as a writing system that once occupied a highly visible place in the imperial capital.
This is also why the remaining Manchu inscriptions in the Forbidden City are valuable today.
They preserve something that architecture alone cannot fully communicate: the multilingual character of the Qing imperial world.
The next time you visit the Forbidden City, look carefully at the plaques above its gates and halls.
Sometimes the Manchu script is there.
Sometimes it is absent.
And that difference is itself part of the history of the palace.
— Ming Ye (MING YE)