Chinese Empire

A Day in the Life of a Chinese Emperor

The life of a Chinese emperor was one of the most highly regulated existences ever devised. From the moment he rose in the morning to the moment he retired at night, almost every moment was scheduled, ritualised, and surrounded by attendants. The Ming and Qing regulations for the imperial day run to many pages, and they specify not only the times of audiences, lectures, and meals, but the order of precedence, the colour of the robes, the kinds of music played, and even the number of eunuchs to be present in each chamber.

This article reconstructs a day in the life of an emperor, drawing on the regulations of the Tang, Ming, and Qing dynasties, following the emperor from his waking in the early hours to his retirement at night, with attention to the morning audience, the Confucian lecture, the inspection of the guards, the imperial meal, the afternoon study, and the night watch. The wider context of palace life is set out in imperial court life, and the comprehensive overview of the institution is in the section on Chinese emperors and imperial power.

The Imperial Wake

The emperor’s day began before dawn. Court regulations typically specified a wake-up time of 4 or 5 a.m. in summer, slightly later in winter. The emperor’s personal eunuchs prepared the imperial bedchamber. He was washed, combed, and dressed in a preliminary robe. A eunuch would bring a bowl of congee or tea, and the emperor would spend a few minutes in private meditation.

The morning toilet was an elaborate ritual. His face was washed with water from a designated well; his hair was combed and bound in a queue (in the Qing) or a topknot (in the Ming); his preliminary robe was changed several times before the formal court robe was donned. By the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns, the morning toilet occupied the first two hours of the day, and the emperor wore different robes on different days, with the colour and pattern following the cosmic calendar.

The Morning Audience

The first major event of the day was the morning audience, held in the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿) or, for less formal audiences, in one of the smaller halls. The Tang and Song emperors held the morning audience in person, but by the Ming and Qing the audience had become largely ceremonial. The Ming Yongle emperor instituted the palace memorial system, by which officials of appropriate rank submitted sealed reports directly to the emperor, and the audience became a brief ritual at which the emperor received the chief ministers and asked a few questions.

In the Qing, the morning audience was held in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (養心殿) in the inner court. The Grand Council (軍機處), the principal deliberative body of the late Qing, met in the morning, reviewed the most important memorials, and presented their recommendations. The Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors were famous for the volume of their work: the Yongzheng emperor reportedly worked sixteen to eighteen hours a day, reviewing memorials and drafting responses in his own hand. The bureaucratic apparatus is treated in Chinese government.

The Confucian Lecture

On most days, the emperor attended a Confucian lecture given by a senior scholar of the Imperial Academy. The lecture was held in one of the imperial libraries. The lecturer would read and explain a passage from the Confucian classics — typically the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, or the Analects — and the emperor would respond with his own observations.

The lecture was both moral education and political performance. The emperor was expected to demonstrate familiarity with the classics, ask probing questions, and display the intellectual seriousness that the Confucian tradition valued. The Kangxi emperor became a serious scholar; the Wanli emperor of the Ming used the lectures as an opportunity to doze. The ideological framework is treated in Chinese philosophy.

The Inspection of the Imperial Guards

After the morning audience and the lecture, the emperor performed an inspection of the imperial guards. The guards were the emperor’s personal bodyguard, drawn from the most trusted units of the imperial army. In the Tang, the guards were selected from the Shence Army and the Bannermen; in the Ming, from the Jinyiwei; in the Qing, from the Eight Banners. The inspection was partly ceremonial and partly practical: the emperor reviewed the guard units and checked the weapons.

The inspection was also an opportunity to demonstrate martial vigour. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors hunted at the summer retreat at Chengde (承德), and Qianlong personally led campaigns in Central Asia. The military context is set out in our section on the Chinese military.

The Imperial Meal

The imperial meal was a major event. The imperial kitchen maintained a staff of several hundred cooks, and the emperor’s food was prepared under strict protocols to prevent poisoning. The emperor was served dozens of dishes at each meal, drawn from the cuisines of every region of the empire. The Kangxi emperor established the precedent of serving relatively simple meals.

The emperor ate alone, or with the empress and senior consorts. The food was tasted by eunuchs before being served, and a small sample of each dish was set aside in case the emperor fell ill. After the meal, the imperial kitchen filed a report listing every dish served, every ingredient used, and every eunuch who had handled the food.

Afternoon Study and Inspection

The afternoon was devoted to study and inspection. The emperor reviewed memorials, drafted responses, and held private audiences. The Yongzheng emperor used the afternoon hours to deal with the most difficult cases, often working deep into the night. The Kangxi emperor used the afternoon for dictation, the drafting of poetry, and the study of Western science with the Jesuit missionaries at court.

On certain days, the emperor performed inspections of the imperial workshops, granaries, stables, or other parts of the palace complex. The Qianlong emperor was famous for personally inspecting the imperial kitchen and pharmacy.

Evening Reading and the Night Watch

The evening was reserved for reading, calligraphy, and time with the empress and senior consorts. The emperor would read the day’s memorials one more time, write a few lines of calligraphy, and study a text — the Shijing, the Shiji, or a recent memorial. The imperial library, the Wenyuan Pavilion (文淵閣) in the Forbidden City, contained tens of thousands of volumes.

The night watch was a critical moment. The emperor’s bedchamber was guarded by eunuchs, and the Palace Guard maintained a 24-hour watch on the palace walls. The bedchamber was curtained and secured, and the imperial physicians maintained a night watch in the adjacent room. The night watch was a constant reminder that the emperor was, even in his most private moments, the centre of the imperial system.

Variability and the Late Empire

The schedule described above is a composite drawn from regulations of the Tang, Ming, and Qing. In practice, no two emperors followed exactly the same routine. The early Tang emperors were warrior-rulers who spent much of their reign on campaign. The Song emperors were sedentary, and their schedule was dominated by study. The Ming Hongwu and Yongle emperors were workaholics.

By the late Qing, the imperial schedule had become so elaborate that it was almost impossible to follow rigorously. The Xianfeng emperor was forced to flee Beijing to the Summer Palace in 1860, and his schedule was disrupted for the rest of his reign. The Guangxu emperor followed a more regular schedule, but his reign was dominated by the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898 and the subsequent coup by Empress Dowager Cixi. The last emperor, Puyi, never followed a regular schedule at all; he was enthroned at two and spent most of his childhood playing in the Forbidden City. The full story of the institution is told in the section on Chinese emperors and imperial power.