Almost 5 times bigger than the Forbidden City, this is the most magnificent Imperial Palace in Chinese history

The world’s largest and most luxurious palace is not the Royal Palace, not the Louvre Palace of the French Royal Family, nor Buckingham Palace of the British Royal Family, but the Dai Minh Palace located in Xi’an, China. Country.

Dai Minh Palace does not belong to the Ming Dynasty, but to the Tang Dynasty, is the largest palace among the three main palaces in the Tang Dynasty Tang Dynasty (including Dai Minh Palace, Tai Chi Palace, Hung Khanh Palace).

This palace, also known as Dong Noi, is a complex of royal palaces of the Tang dynasty located in the northeast of Truong An citadel. Dai Minh Palace became the political center of the country for 234 years. The 17 Emperors of the Tang Dynasty in the period from Cao Tong to Wu Zetian all handled the affairs of the royal court at this Royal Palace.

The name “Dai Minh Cung” appears in the book “Thi Kinh – Dai Nha”: “Like Nhat Chi Thang, the rule of writing Dai Minh” (rough translation: As the sun rises high, it is called Dai Minh).

So how majestic is Dai Minh Palace?

Dai Minh Palace was started to build in the 8th year of Trinh Quan (634 AD), during the reign of Emperor Duong Thai Tong. Initially this place was a part of the royal garden of the Sui Duong Dynasty, then Duong Thai Tong built Vinh An Palace for his father Ly Uyen.

After the succession of Emperor Gaozong, he considered Taijiji (current residence of the Emperor), too wet, to conduct a large-scale expansion of Dai Minh Palace in the 2nd year of Long Soc (the Emperor’s current residence). in 662), changed its name to Bong Lai palace and moved into this place. In 670, this palace was renamed again as Ham Nguyen palace before regaining its old name of Dai Minh palace in 705.

This palace is the largest palace architectural complex in the world, occupying more than 354 hectares, 4.5 times the area of ​​the Forbidden City, or the Palace today, 13 times the area of ​​the Louvre Palace.

The whole palace area can be divided into two parts: the pre-dynasty and the inner court. Pre-tide was used mainly for court meetings. The inner house mainly serves the needs of residence and enjoyment. The main door of Dai Minh Palace is Dan Phuong Gate connecting to the main road 176m wide.

The main axis of Dai Minh Palace distributed 3 large palaces: Ham Nguyen Palace, Tuyen Chinh Palace, Tu Than Palace, forming the Three Great Palaces.

Next to Thai Dich Tri lake, there is an architectural building called Lan Duc Palace, which is the place to hold the national banquet (party of great magnitude) of the Tang Dynasty.

Lan Duc Palace has an area of ​​​​more than 10,000 square meters, equivalent to 6 Thai Hoa palaces of the Forbidden City. According to historical records, Duong Dai Tong invited more than 3,500 advisers and generals to this place to hold a banquet, but still could not fill the vacancy.

The three main halls of Dai Minh Palace are connected to each other on the main axis, distributed according to the structure “before the street after the room”. This architectural design structure was also studied by the following dynasties such as Song, Nguyen, and Minh to build the Royal Palace. For example, the Forbidden City, 3 main halls (Thai Hoa Palace, Trung Hoa Palace, Bao Hoa Palace) are located on a central straight line.

Unfortunately, this splendid palace of Dai Minh was engulfed in flames 3 times at the end of the Tang Dynasty, only ashes remained. Specifically: By the time of Tang Hizong, Dai Minh Palace was constantly facing fire, in 896, Zhou Wen (who later forced the last good Tang king to cede the throne to him) ordered the palace to be burned in 896. The legend of the world’s largest palace just disappeared.

Currently, Xi’an (Shaanxi, China) still has relics of the Great Ming Palace. In 1961, the State Council of China included the Dai Minh Palace relic on the list of key protected cultural objects nationwide. In 2010, Dai Minh Cung Ruins National Park was established to display and protect relics. As of 2014, Dai Minh Palace is part of the World Heritage Site of the Silk Road recognized by UNESCO.