The doornail of Donghua Gate in the Forbidden City is one row less than that of other palace gates. What's the significance?

In ancient buildings, door nails are only used on board doors and are generally made of copper. Door nails have several functions, one is decoration, the other is grade, and the other is reinforcement. Later, the doornails were made more and more neatly, and the number of nails became a sign of grade.

Don't underestimate the doornail on the palace gate. The doornail on the palace gate shows the royal power and majesty.

during the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a clear system for the number of nails on the door of the palace. According to the Qing dynasty system, the palace gate of the royal palace must be "Zhu Fei's golden nail, with nine in vertical and horizontal directions", because nine is the pole of yang number, the largest in yang number, and the pole of numbers, and 9981 doornails symbolize the highest position of the emperor. Therefore, there are nine doornails in the South (Wumen Gate), North (Shenwumen Gate) and West (Xihuamen Gate) of the Forbidden City, that is, nine rows and nine columns, and eighty-one doornails are * * *, but it is puzzling that they are also the palace gates of the Forbidden City. Why are the doornails in the East (Donghuamen Gate) of the Forbidden City eight rows and nine columns and seventy-two doornails * *? Why use even (female) doornails instead of odd (male) doornails here? All along, people have many interpretations of this.

1. Donghuamen is a "ghost gate", so the number of doornails is counted.

Originally, there were 81 doornails at Donghuamen. Only at the end of Ming Dynasty, after Li Zicheng captured Beijing, Zhu Youjian, Emperor Chongzhen of Ming Dynasty, fled from Donghuamen and hanged himself in jingshan park. Therefore, the Qing royal family considered the Donghuamen unlucky, and decided to enter and leave the Royal Lingcai through this door, and called the Donghuamen "Ghost Gate". Moreover, in order to win over the Han people from all walks of life, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty accused Donghuamen of failing to stop Zhu Youjian from running away, so they reduced the doornails on Donghuamen by one row, from eighty-one doornails in Yang to seventy-two in Yin, while the doornails in other palace doors were still eighty-one in Yang.

2. geomantic reasons.

The construction of the entire Forbidden City pays great attention to geomantic omen. According to Feng Shui, in order to bring good fortune, the designer of the Forbidden City changed the number of doornails of Donghuamen from vertical nine to horizontal nine and vertical eight, and the number of doornails changed from 81 to 72. This changed the fear of Menke's haunted house.

3, close to the uterus.

Donghuamen is close to the womb, and the daily routine is paid by the prince. The prince is Chu Jun, but his rank is much lower than that of the son of heaven. Because of etiquette, the number of doornails was reduced.

4. The door for courtiers to enter and leave.

There is another explanation that Donghuamen is the gate for courtiers and scholars to enter and leave the palace, which is lower than the emperor's supreme.