Page 62 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

had the most varied range of trees. The southernmost lake
just west of the Forbidden City was full of diverse trees that
had been planted or transplanted by the Mongols. The
transplanted trees were chosen for their rarity and beauty,
and some were already huge at the time of transplanting.
24
The Yongle emperor also established an orchard garden
immediately north of the Forbidden City with an artificially
created hill as its dominant feature. He further created a
25
small but important temple garden in the north of the
Forbidden City. The linked cypresses that still stand inside
the gate of the temple (Qin’an dian 欽安殿) date from the
15th century. 26
But these trees were but a fraction of the number of those
that were less lucky in their destinies. If you were a tree living
in any of the mountainous areas near Beijing – the hills to
the west of the city, Mount Yan 燕山 to the north, the
northern part of the Taihang 太行 Mountains or Mount
Wutai 五臺山 to the southwest, or in fact anywhere within
striking distance of the capital – your chances in the early
15th century of dying a natural death in the forest were not
good. Beijing was a big city that was rapidly filling up with
all sorts of buildings that needed wood for construction.
Moreover, the city was located in a region that got very cold
in the winter, and the principal fuel in the 15th century was
not coal but firewood and charcoal. Not only were the
lumber and charcoal industries rapaciously commercial, but
the government ensured its own charcoal supply in Beijing
by imposing annual quotas of supply that military garrisons
all over north China had to meet. The result, as one might
imagine, was the acceleration of a deforestation process that
had begun centuries earlier. At the beginning of the 15th
century there were still parts of the northern Taihang
Mountains that were dense ancient forest; by 1475 the same
areas were bare as a bone.
27
The new capital’s effects on the destinies of trees were
also felt much further afield. The construction entailed the
building and refurbishment of countless formal buildings –
in the Forbidden City, in temples and monasteries across the
city, at the ritual altars and other state ritual sites, at the
Ming imperial tombs, and in the splendid mansions of high
Plate 5.7 Anonymous, Horses and Grooms under Willow Trees, officials, generals, eunuchs and merchants. Nanmu, cypress
dated 1450. Hanging scroll, ink and colour on silk, height 170.6cm,
width 81.5cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Special Chinese and and fir logs in particular were needed for pillars to hold up
Japanese Fund, 17.1 the immensely heavy roofs of temple and palace halls (Pl.
5.8). So, in the early 15th century, the destiny of a nanmu,
And this imperial sponsorship, backed up by visits and gifts, cypress or fir tree that had grown to a great size in the
provided the emperor with another way of topping up his distant provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou or Hunan was very
reserve of spiritual and political legitimacy. likely to be cut down and turned into a pillar or beam in a
Beijing building. The logs were floated down the Yangtze
Destiny: trees River, past Nanjing to Yangzhou, where they were then
We have just seen that the planting of evergreens at ritual transported via the Grand Canal to Tianjin, then
sites and in temples led to happy destinies for a great many Tongzhou, and finally Beijing. 28
trees as living monuments. Other kinds of tree were also
fortunate. Along the sides of the lakes there were old willows, Scansion: elephants
which we often see in Ming court paintings depicting horses, Many other rare and special nonhumans – animal,
because the horses of the imperial stables were taken to the vegetable and mineral – were integrated into the Beijing
lakes to bathe (Pl. 5.7). In grand residential gardens there environment. Among these were elephants, many looked
were not only landmark trees but also a deliberate variety of after by Vietnamese mahouts who had accompanied them
tree types. We can clearly see this variety in 15th-century as war booty or tribute from Champa. The elephant stable
29
garden portraits such as Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (xunxiangsuo 馴象所) was located in the southwest of the city.
(c. 1437, see Pl. 11.1). The great palace gardens, of course, There was one training ground a little to the north, and

52 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450