Danei does not read like a tour of royal rooms. Meng follows people and procedures: where officials dismount, where audiences occur, which offices stand beside which halls, how meals cross guarded space, and where goods enter from the city.
1. Xuande Gate turns architecture into ceremony.
大內正門宣德樓列五門，門皆金釘朱漆，壁皆磚石間甃，鐫鏤龍鳳飛雲之狀，莫非雕甍畫棟，峻桷層榱，覆以琉璃瓦。曲尺朵樓，朱欄彩檻，下列兩闕亭相對，悉用朱紅杈子。入宣德樓正門，乃大慶殿，庭設兩樓，如寺院鍾樓，上有太史局保章正測驗刻漏，逐時刻執牙牌奏。每遇大禮，車駕齋宿，及正朔朝會於此殿。殿外左右橫門曰左右長慶門。
The main entrance to the Great Inner Palace was Xuande Tower, with five gateways. The doors were red lacquer set with gilded studs; walls alternated brick and stone and were carved with dragons, phoenixes and flying clouds. Painted roofs, layered rafters and glazed tiles made the gate complex a monumental façade. Passing through Xuande led to Daqing Hall. In its court stood two towers, where officials of the Astronomical Bureau observed the water clock and reported the hours. Major rites, ritual fasting before imperial appearances, and New Year or calendrical court assemblies were held here.
The first palace object Meng remembers is a gate designed to be seen. Color, glazed tile, carved clouds and paired towers turn controlled access into political theater.
Time is part of that theater. The water clock is observed and reported from within the court. The palace controls who enters, where they stand and when the next act of government begins.
2. Inside the palace, central government occupies the same ground as court ritual.
內城南壁有門三座，係大朝會趨朝路。宣德樓左曰左掖門，右曰右掖門。左掖門裏乃明堂，右掖門裏西去乃天章、寶文等閣。宮城至北廊約百餘丈。入門東去街北廊乃樞密院，次中書省，次都堂（宰相朝退治事於此），次門下省，次大慶殿。外廊橫門北去百餘步，又一橫門，每日宰執趨朝，此處下馬；餘侍從臺諫於第一橫門下馬，行至文德殿，入第二橫門。東廊大慶殿東偏門，西廊中書、門下後省，次修國史院，次南向小角門，正對文德殿（常朝殿也）。
The southern wall of the inner precinct had three gates used for major court assemblies. To either side of Xuande were the Left and Right Side Gates. Inside stood the Mingtang and the Tianzhang and Baowen pavilions. Along the palace streets and corridors Meng names the Bureau of Military Affairs, the Secretariat, the chief ministers' administrative hall, the Chancellery and the History Office. Rank was expressed through movement: chief ministers dismounted farther inside, while other attendants and remonstrance officials dismounted at an earlier gate before walking toward Wende Hall, the regular audience hall.
The palace and the central bureaucracy overlap physically. Meng does not place “government” in an abstract institution and “court” somewhere else; the agencies that decide military and civil policy sit along the same controlled corridors that lead to the throne.
Dismount points encode rank into distance. Authority is experienced through how far a body, horse and retinue are allowed to penetrate before protocol forces a change of movement.
Xuande Gate
Daqing Hall
Wende Hall
Zichen / Chuigong
Gongchen Gate
3. Deeper inside, access and supply become inseparable.
殿前東西大街，東出東華門，西出西華門。近裏又兩門相對，左右嘉肅門也。南去左右銀臺門。自東華門裏皇太子宮入嘉肅門，街南大慶殿後門、東西上閤門；街北宣祐門。南北大街西廊，面東曰凝暉殿，乃通會通門，入禁中矣。殿相對東廊門樓，乃殿中省六尚局御廚。殿上常列禁衞兩重，時刻提警，出入甚嚴。近裏皆近侍中貴。殿之外皆知省、御藥、幕次、快行、親從官、輦官、車子院、黃院子、內諸司兵士，祗候宣喚；及官禁買賣進貢，皆由此入。唯此浩穰諸司，人自賣飲食珍奇之物，市井之間未有也。
An east–west avenue ran before the halls to Donghua and Xihua gates. Other gates led toward the crown prince's residence and deeper palace precincts. Near Ninghui Hall stood the Six Palace Bureaus and the imperial kitchens. Two ranks of guards were kept on watch, and entry was tightly controlled. Attendants, medical personnel, couriers, palanquin and carriage staff, palace soldiers and those bringing purchases or tribute waited here for summons. Because so many offices and palace demands converged in the area, sellers offered foods and rare goods that Meng says could not be found in ordinary markets.
The guarded interior is also a logistics hub. Security does not eliminate commerce; it channels commerce into approved doors, waiting zones and service personnel.
That is why the palace edge produces its own market ecology. Rare food is profitable precisely because a dense concentration of elite consumers, offices and ceremonial demand sits behind the gate.
4. A meal enters as a procession; the city answers with a luxury market.
每遇早晚進膳，自殿中省對凝暉殿，禁衞成列，約欄不得過往。省門上有一人呼喝，謂之「撥食家」。次有紫衣、裹腳子向後曲折幞頭者，謂之「院子家」，托一合，用黃繡龍合衣籠罩，左手攜一紅羅繡手巾，進入於此，約十餘合。繼托金瓜合二十餘面進入，非時取喚，謂之「泛索」。宣祐門外，西去紫宸殿（正朔受朝於此）。次曰文德殿（常朝所御），次曰垂拱殿，次曰皇儀殿，次曰集英殿（御宴及試舉人於此）。後殿曰崇政殿、保和殿。內書閣曰睿思殿。後門曰拱宸門。東華門外，市井最盛，蓋禁中買賣在此，凡飲食、時新花果、魚蝦鱉蟹、鶉兔脯臘、金玉珍玩衣著，無非天下之奇。其品味若數十分，客要一二十味下酒，隨索目下便有之。其歲時果瓜蔬茹新上市，並茄瓠之類，新出每對可直三五十千，諸閤分爭以貴價取之。
Morning and evening meals entered under guard. Barriers stopped ordinary passage while designated attendants carried covered boxes, embroidered cloths and further containers into the palace; unscheduled requests were known as fansuo. Meng then lists audience, banquet and examination halls deeper within the compound. Outside Donghua Gate, he says, the market was at its most crowded because palace purchasing concentrated there. Fresh fruit, fish, shellfish, preserved meats, clothing, gold and jade rarities circulated in extraordinary variety. Newly arrived seasonal produce could command extremely high prices when palace divisions competed to obtain it first.
The food procession makes hierarchy visible in objects: clothing, boxes, textiles, barriers and assigned carriers. Consumption at the top of the state is itself ceremonial labor.
Outside the gate, that same demand becomes price pressure. Meng gives a rare street-level glimpse of how court consumption could reshape an urban market: novelty is scarce, palace buyers compete, and the first seasonal vegetables acquire absurd prices.
Modern urban archaeology in Kaifeng has identified deeply buried Northern Song remains beneath later Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing layers. A large rammed-earth architectural base found beneath Ming-period remains at the Zhou Wangfu site has been discussed by archaeologists as likely belonging to the Northern Song imperial palace. This anchors the palace zone materially while leaving the precise reconstruction of individual halls dependent on texts and further excavation. Urban archaeology study ↗ · Henan overview ↗