title: A Palace in Peking
author: Margaret Zee
description: Margaret Zee writes of an era and a locale that she knew intimately from personal experience, and she writes with an ardor that no amount of scholarly research could generate. At the time of which Zee writes, the Forbidden City had recently been deserted by the last emperor of China and his court. The city's great palaces, parks, and temples were vacant and no longer "forbidden" to ordinary mortals, but accessible to all and sundry. In spite of the decay of its ancient splendor, Peking was still a city of Oriental magnificence, retaining more than a vestige of the exotic beauty that made it unique in the world.
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  # Chapter 1 ** – Empress Dowager Yanyan**
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Amongst the palaces Xiang Shaolong has seen, the scale of the Chu palace is
  second only to that of the Xianyang palace, but it is the most tightly
  guarded.  
  
  
    
  
  
  The palace city is surrounded by thirty foot high walls with an elaborate
  tower in each of the four corners. The walls are completely encircled by a
  fifty foot wide moat with clear waters that allow one to see the bottom. The
  most formidable are the wooden stakes that stick out of the middle of the
  moat, making it difficult for one to swim across. There are two city gates
  which can be raised or lowered for traffic.  
  
  
    
  
  
  Behind the high walls are layers upon layers of palace halls and rooms which
  are mostly either part of the outer Royal Court or the inner palace courtyard.
  The central enclosure is bounded by an inner wall with two bell drum-towers.
  An inner palace gate is set in the link-way between the outer Royal Court and
  the inner courtyard.  
  
  
    
  
  
  The ov