Yuxu Palace

The Yuxu Palace, officially known as the "Xuantian Yuxu Palace", was once bestowed the title of "Yuxu Xiangshi" by the Jade Emperor after the Immortal Martial God ascended to heaven. Therefore, after its completion, the Yuxu Palace was designated as the "Xuantian Yuxu Palace" by Emperor Yongle.

In those days, the Yuxu Palace was an inner city enclosed within a city, consisting of three cities: Waile City, Lile City and Zijin City. Each of the three cities is separated and enclosed by palace walls, forming a palace city with distinct hierarchy and grand scale. Its regulations and scale are similar to those of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The part we are seeing now surrounded by the palace walls is the Zijin City of the Yuxu Palace.

The Yuxu Palace was built in the 11th year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1413 AD. During the Jiajing period of the middle Ming Dynasty, the Yuxu Palace underwent a large-scale expansion, covering an area of 5.25 million square meters. It was equipped with the Dragon and Tiger Hall, the Qisheng Hall, the Yuanjun Hall, the Xiaoguan Hall, and a series of halls, shrines, altars, pavilions, etc. There were over 2,200 rooms, stretching as far as the eye could see. The ancients praised the Jade Void Palace as a sacred place where "the feathered guests of the three provinces and ten states were hidden and the common people of the nine provinces and all nations were saved." Even Wang Shizhen, a renowned literary figure of the Ming Dynasty, couldn't help but exclaim: "Yuxu is like A Fang of the Qin Dynasty."

In the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, that is, 1627, a devastating fire broke out in the Yuxu Palace, and the main buildings along its axis were all destroyed by the fire. A hundred years later, in the tenth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, the Yuxu Palace was hit by a fire again, and all its affiliated buildings were reduced to ashes. In the summer of 1935, a mountain flood broke out, and hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of sand and mud rushed straight into the Yuxu Palace, swallowing up a large number of houses. The Xuantian Yuxu Palace, known as the "Forbidden City" of the south, now only remains in ruins.