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a) b) c)
Plate 21.8a–c: a) ‘Filled-heart construction’ (jixinzao 計心造) bracket-set; b) ‘Stolen heart construction’ (touxinzao 偷心造) bracket-set;
c) ‘Single-arm construction’ (dangongzao 單栱造) bracket-set (after Guo Daiheng 2009, p. 664)

inside the building to support the lowest eave purlin (jinheng bay, there were to be two inter-columnar bracket-sets in the
金桁) and is often elaborately carved underneath (Pl. central bay and one each in the corner and flanking bays.
48
21.9a–b). These early Ming buildings reveal that the liujin This was the number of inter-columnar sets most frequently
46
brackets, which are typically associated with official-style used in the Yuan dynasty. By the early Ming, however, it
Qing architecture, were already in use by the early 15th seems that the more brackets that were used, the better.
century. 47 Ling’endian, for instance, uses eight sets in its central bay,
In sum, in the early Ming dynasty bracket-set while Zixiaodian and Longguodian each use six and four
construction was simplified and standardized in the sets, respectively. Perhaps unsurprisingly, at 10.30m,
following ways: (1) In buildings with double-roof eaves, the Ling’endian also has the widest central bay; Zixiaodian’s
brackets that supported the top eaves consistently central bay is the second widest, measuring 8.37m, and
employed two more tiers than those that supported the Longuodian’s is the narrowest, measuring 6.60m (Table 4).
bottom eaves. (2) The distribution of the number of tiers Thus the more inter-columnar brackets a building
used in a bracket corresponded to the function of a employed, the wider its bays were, and the higher its overall
building: state buildings possessed larger sets than those architectural rank was. We can therefore conclude that
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serving as Buddhist or Daoist temples. (3) The number of from the early Ming onwards a close relationship had
bracket-set tiers was not related to the number of bays developed between the width of the bays and the number of
across a building’s façade, but rather to the importance of inter-columnar bracket-sets used. 50
the building. (4) There was a noticeable simplification in By the Qing dynasty this relationship became more fully
the variety of bracket-set types beginning in the early codified. The Qing Gongcheng zuofa required each inter-
Ming. Finally, (5) liujin brackets, traditionally associated columnar bracket-set cluster to be spaced at a distance of
with Qing architecture, were widely used, even in imperial eleven doukou modules and the width of a bay to be
buildings lying far outside the capital, such as the Daoist determined by multiplies of eleven doukou. For example, in
51
temples on Mount Wudang. the Qing dynasty a bay containing six inter-columnar
bracket-sets possessed a total width of 77 doukou, and a bay
Spacing of inter-columnar sets with four sets measured 55 doukou in width. In fact, in the
52
As mentioned above, by the early Ming period, the size of Gongcheng zuofa, the module was not only used to calculate
the module and resulting bracket-set was no longer as the distance between the bracket-sets and the bay width, but
important in determining the rank of a building as it was in almost every other aspect of the building as well, including
the Song. Instead, the number of inter-columnar bracket- the cross-sections of the beams, pillars and purlins. This
53
sets became the new indicator of rank and status. The was not the case in the Yingzao fashi. In the Song, bracket-sets
Yingzao fashi stipulates that, regardless of the width of the were unevenly spaced. Moreover, although the module was

Plate 21.9a–b: a) Line drawing
of liujin dougong 溜金斗栱
(after Wang Xiaoqing 2006, p.
449); b) liujin dougong tails
inside Ling’endian
a) b)

194 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450