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Plate 5.3 Map of Beijing, c. 1450,
with the major ritual sites marked

higher-altitude northwestern part of the Yongding River dedicated canals. But the old Jade Spring (Yuquan 玉泉)
flood zone, which provided the city with underground rivers canal still ran north–south through the west of the city.
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and springs that contributed to the lakes. But the lakes also The area’s natural water resources were not enough in
had the benefit of the runoff from the mountains to the north themselves to allow Beijing to function as the capital of the
and northwest through the Gaoliang 高粱 River; the runoff empire. The city could not have been constructed in the first
also separately reached the moat of the city through the place without man-made waterways to bring to Beijing the
Qingshui 清水 River. When the new city walls were created wood, stone and bricks necessary to construct the city. To
at the very beginning of the Ming dynasty, the northern wall the west, the early 15th-century Ming emperors followed the
was constructed on the south bank of an east–west canal that example of the Mongols and the Jurchen before them by
had run through the city. That canal then became the maintaining dykes in order to fix the Yongding River in its
northern moat. At its western end, the wall cut through the course where it came closest to Beijing; the Yongding River
northernmost section of the lake. Once Beijing was was a major transportation route for the building materials
established, the water from the Gaoliang River was diverted and fuel that the city needed. Equally important, the dykes
to the part of the lake within the city, which further shrunk protected Beijing from flooding – flooding that was the
the part outside the city wall. Further shrinkage was caused result of soil erosion caused by progressive deforestation of
by rice cultivation in that area, which the Yongle emperor the areas around the river over centuries. 14
encouraged in order to keep his southern officials happy. 11 To the east of the city, Yongle inherited from the Yuan
The city’s drinking water came partly from the lakes and dynasty a canal system that linked Beijing to Zhigu 直沽
partly from wells that tapped into underground springs of (renamed by him Tianjin), which was both the terminus of
the Yongding River flood zone. In order to guarantee that the Grand Canal and a maritime port. Because Beijing’s
drinking water remained a public good, the wells were altitude was so much higher than Tianjin’s, the canal was
almost all located in temples. In the 14th century the constructed like a stairway, with dozens of locks. The link to
Mongols had built a canal, partly using aqueducts, all the Tianjin was crucial because Beijing depended on tax grain
way from Jade Spring Mountain in the mountains to the from north-central China and south China, and on all sorts
north in order to ensure a private supply of drinking water of other products that came from the south. A century
for the palace (Pl. 5.4). Under the Ming, however, the earlier, in the early 14th century, tax grain had largely been
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palace came to depend instead on water from the lakes. The transported by sea, and the system had been so successful
lake water reached the Forbidden City through two that the northern section of the lake functioned as a port

Green Beijing: Ecologies of Movement in the New Capital c. 1450 | 49