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第三节：视频地址：http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/81Awq4dpWcs/ A bureaucrat might cross the entire empire, but he could not cross this wall. Beyond it was the Inner Court(内廷). Other than the emperor himself, the only other people allowed here were his concubines and the castrated eunuchs. There were more eunuchs than anyone else in the Forbidden City. Up to 3,000 orbited around the Son of Heaven like satellites. They were his slaves, although he could not function without them. Every morning they dressed the emperor in one of a thousand gowns, each ordained for a different season and most of them imperial yellow. One emperor recalled: "Whenever I think of my childhood, my head fills with a yellow mist: my sedan chair(轿子) was yellow, my clothes were yellow, the bowls on which I ate, everything was yellow. This made me feel from my earliest years that I had a heavenly nature. The Emperor Kangxi ascended the throne in 1661. He was to reign for the next 61 years, the golden age of Chinese imperial rule. Kangxi's mandate, like the mandate for all the emperors came not from the people, but from the Heavens. Each year at sunrise at the winter solstice, that mandate was renewed. The emperor and his entourage left the Forbidden City to travel through the clean and empty streets of Beijing to make the sacrifice and take the vows at the Temple of Heaven(天坛). A Chinese philosopher had once written: "If the ruler is correct, then the creative energies will be harmonious and compliant. Winds and rain will be timely. Auspicious stars will appear, and then, the yellow dragon will descend.

第五节：视频地址：http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/egMYG_XYsLA/ The elevation of Verbiest was a dramatic break from the Chinese custom. The intellectual curiosity of Kangxi allowed a point of outside light into the Forbidden City and the emperor was an ardent pupil. One evening, the emperor made me sit down by him and he had me name all the constellations that had appeared. (He) himself had fast named all those he knew already, delighting to show the skill he had in this science. Astronomy was science but it was also self-protection. A new calendar was unveiled every fall at the Meridian Gate(午门). For years, the court astronomers had made bad miscalculations. Their inaccuracies led to famine because seed across China had been planted too early or harvested too late. Kangxi's prestige and authority were based on scientific method. Kangxi's calendars were reliable. They strengthened his dynasty. But help from the West would always have its contradictions in the Forbidden City. Perhaps the emperor had elevated outsiders like the Jesuit priest Verbiest because he was an outsider himself, a Manchu. In 1644, his family had come at the head of a marauding army from beyond the Great Wall of China. In a matter of days, the ancient and enfeebled Ming Dynasty had fallen to the men from the North. The Manchus were skilled horsemen. They were good with arrows, but they were not intellectuals. "Fools," said one Han Chinese official," without grace or character." Kangxi, the Manchu emperor of the new Qing Dynasty wanted to change all that. He immersed himself in ancient Chinese history. He developed the mind of a scholar, not a soldier. Not that he could afford to do without soldiers. There were many Chinese who would never accept their new masters and rebellion was a constant threat in the early years of Kangxi's reign. It took 19 years before the Forbidden City had been properly secured for the Manchu, and then the new order took root.

第六节：http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/iCDzMCMe0Gs/ Kangxi's first problem had been the power of the eunuchs. They developed the taste for politics during the Ming Dynasty. And nothing seemed to get done without bribing them. Kangxi turned them into servants again. All the emperor's eunuchs were volunteers; all had been given a last chance to change their minds when the knife came out. Kangxi said that they babbled like babies. But they did guarantee the chastity of his women. Emperor Kangxi had a low opinion of his eunuchs. They are quite different from ordinary people; they are equivalent to the meanest insects. I keep them working at menial jobs but ignore their frowns and smiles, and make sure that they stay poor. If too much grease are shown, they become uppity. Instead of politics, for Kangxi, they press(ed) silk, chase(d) rodents. They kept the flies off dried fruit. And they sang falsetto in the court operas. It was a far cry from what they might have once expected. I was castrated by my own choice. It seemed a little thing to give up one pleasure for so many. My parents were poor. Yet by suffering that small change I could be sure of an easy life in surroundings of beauty and magnificence. I could aspire to intimate companionship with lovely women unmarred by their fear or distrust of me. With good fortune and diligence, I might have grown more rich and powerful than some of the greatest officials in the empire. Are we happy? How could that be? We have no wives, no sons to bear us grandsons and sacrifice at our tombs. We dare not ask for happiness. menial: of or relating to work or a job regarded as servile uppity: self-important; arrogant falsetto: A high, light, artificial voice used to sing notes that are above the normal register 假声

第七节：http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/fEzmVXtZwX0/ Some eunuchs, however, must still have been drawn to court intrigue. Otherwise the following decree would have been unnecessary. "From now on, anyone who is guilty of interfering with government affairs, misappropriating power, accepting bribes shall promptly be put to death by slicing." No less captive within the Forbidden City were the imperial concubines. In a lifetime, some had only seen the emperor once. But when that emperor died, they were forced to live in rooms around the Garden of Forgotten Favorites for the rest of their days. There was no limit to the number of concubines an emperor might take. The emperor's responsibility to produce another Son of Heaven had justified the enormous harems kept by Kangxi's predecessors. But Kangxi, believing these to be excessive, reduced his concubines to fewer than one hundred. To bear the emperor's son was to eliminate the drudgery in their own lives, but not the tedium. The eunuchs who looked after them also stood to benefit if their concubine was chosen. The emperor made his choice after the evening meal. Kangxi always dined alone and he was always faced with a vast array of food, most of which went untouched. There was lotus root(莲藕), dragon-headed prawns(龙虾), fragrant rice(s)(香米) and dried fruits(干果), swallows' nests(燕窝) and braised bear paw(扒熊掌), and the palace dish of chicken in broth cooked with wood ear mushroom. Now it was time to choose his concubine for the night, and the time for the eunuchs to try to direct his hand. Each stick represented a concubine which the eunuchs carefully arranged to help him make the right choice: choose their concubine. If the emperor chose their mistress, they stood to benefit. misappropriate: dishonestly or unfairly take for one's own use harem: the wives, concubines, female relatives, and servants occupying such a place drudgery: tedious, menial, or unpleasant work braise: fry (food) lightly and then stew slowly in a closed container

第十章：http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/vV23qSiVYXk/ All men who live must die. And I exhaust my mind for the country's sake and fragment my spirits for the world. I have enjoyed the veneration of the country and the riches of this world. There is nothing I've not experienced. But now that I have reached old age, I cannot rest easy for a moment. Therefore I regard the whole country as a worn-out sandal and all the riches as mud and sand. If I can die without there being an outbreak of trouble, my desires will be fulfilled. The Emperor Kangxi died on the 20th of December, 1722. An empire had to be informed and the Mandate of Heaven(天命) was passed on. In his last days, Kangxi had acted by disinheriting his treacherous son. Out of the confusion emerged Yongzheng as his successor. Yongzheng stabilized the dynasty and 13 years later was duly succeeded by his heir who ascended the throne as Qianlong, Lasting Eminence. This time the succession was smooth. In the first year of his reign, my father wrote my name and placed it in a sealed casket in the Main Hall of the Palace. When he departed on his distant journey, I reverently opened the casket in the presence of his ministers and we found the mandate which appointed me to the throne. Qianlong was an emperor in the old Manchu tradition. By training and temperament, he was a hunter. It was during Qianlong's reign that the empire reached its zenith. The emperor still had the Mandate of Heaven, but now he possessed an aggressive army, too. Burma, Annam, Siam, Korea all came to acknowledge Qing's supremacy. Life in Qianlong's Forbidden City was much the same as Kangxi's time 100 years before. disinherit: dispossess of or bar from an inheritance

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