Life in the halfway house of the tent emperors

Ceremony

In front of the empress' palace is a little square with a long pole. At the top of the pole is a tin bowl into which minced pork would be put during the ceremony. The guests at this feast were crows, heaven-sent guardians that guaranteed Nurhaci's well-being.

Legend has it that when he and his soldiers once faced being overwhelmed by enemy troops they played dead. From the moment they lay on the ground a horde of crows began circling overhead, making the attackers think they had accomplished their mission, and they departed.

However, it was in humankind's best friend that Manchus saw their most valued protector, believing a dog had saved Nurhaci in another precarious situation.

The general, at the end of a desperate escape, is said to have fainted in an expanse of reeds along a riverbank. His enemies, unable to find him, set fire to the reeds. Nurhaci passed out, and by the time he came to, the fire had gone out. The general was drenched in water, but beside him lay the body of a dog, equally drenched, having saved the general's life by repeatedly dipping itself in the river and returning to him.

At the back of the harem quarters in the Shenyang Palace is a long chimney that rises from the ground rather than a rooftop. It is tube-shaped, and in Chinese, one word for tube is tong, whose pronunciation is identical to that of a word that means unite.

In retrospect, the chimney, common in Manchu building, serves as a potent metaphor. Two decades after the construction of the Shenyang Palace, this horseback people swept across China, charging into Beijing.

For them the palace in Shenyang was the midpoint on the way to the capital, from where they would rule for 267 years. It also gave the Manchu rulers an early taste of what it was like to be an emperor with a palace, before they were swept away by the grandeur and beauty of the Forbidden City.

Related: The warrior emperor and the five phoenixes