Whispers from the hall of secrets

Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) formalized a New Year's tradition during his 64-year reign. On the eve of every Chinese New Year from 1736 to 1799, at the quietest moment of midnight, he performed a private ritual in the eastern chamber of the Yangxin Dian, or Hall of Mental Cultivation, in the Forbidden City.

Alone, away from the grand spectacles of court ceremony, the monarch lit a solitary candle, picked up his brush, and recorded his hopes for peace, prosperity and harmonious governance on a simple piece of yellow paper. First, he wrote a bold line of vermilion characters along the center, then added carefully measured black ink characters on either side. After completing each manuscript, Qianlong placed it into a box, never to be shown to others. Only then did he sip a cup of Tusu wine, a traditional medicinal wine believed to ward off misfortune.

More than two centuries later, many of those manuscripts still survive, delicate remnants of an emperor's private moments of contemplation. Several of them are now being exhibited for public viewing at the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing. Alongside them is another manuscript written by Qianlong's son and successor, Emperor Jiaqing, who ruled from 1796 to 1820.His detailed record of the ceremony provides modern historians with rare insight into this imperial ritual.