Shangjing Palace

Answer 1

The Liao Dynasty had formed the system of five capitals. Shangjing Linhuang Mansion (now the eastern town of Balin Left Banner in Inner Mongolia) was its capital. The palace city was located in the east of the central part of the imperial city. It was rectangular in plan, about 740 meters wide from east to west, about 770 meters long from north to south, and about 0.57 square kilometers in area. There were three gates in the palace city: east, south and west. There was no gate in the north. The south gate was the Chengtian Gate, the east gate was the Donghua Gate, and the west gate was the Xihua Gate. Inside the palace city, two groups of palaces and courtyards facing east and a building were found to be symmetrical along the axis. The central axis facing east had never changed. The largest palace site in Shangjing, Liao Dynasty, was built on a rammed earth platform with a side length of 51 meters and a height of about 2 meters. It covered an area of about 1100 square meters. There were rammed earth walls around the building. The inner side of the wall was covered with white ash and the outer side was painted red. It was destroyed during the Jin Dynasty and a small building was rebuilt. There was also a large palace building located in the northwest of the Liao Shangjing Palace. It was a rectangular courtyard surrounded by corridors. The gate opened in the middle of the east wall, and the main hall was located in the westernmost center of the courtyard. There were wings on both sides, and there were corridors on both sides of the wings.

After the Jin Dynasty conquered the Liao Kingdom, it continued the system of five capitals. In the early days, Huining Prefecture (now south of Acheng in Hei Long Jiang Province) was the capital. Jin Shang Jing was made up of the north and south cities and the imperial city. The imperial city was built in the west of the south city. The Imperial City was 645 meters long from north to south, 500 meters wide from east to west, with a circumference of nearly 2.5 kilometers and an area of 0.3 square kilometers. From south to north, there were five palace sites neatly arranged on the north-south axis of the Imperial City. There were also corridor sites on the east and west sides. The Imperial City was divided into three areas by corridor sites. The central area was the palace area, and the east and west sides were the auxiliary hall areas.