The Forbidden City is a large complex. There are four gates and the main gate opens up to Tian'anmen Square. The gates are easily guarded, with high 26 foot walls surrounding them and a thin passageway to enter. There is very little work involved in defending the walls. Plus there is a moat so there is extra defense on top of the walls.
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There are two main courts in the Forbidden City. The outer court, which holds the gates to enter the inner court and main buildings such as halls, and the inner court, which holds the living areas, minor halls, gardens, kitchens, studies, etc. The inner court is everything informal in the Forbidden City, while the outer court held government meetings and other formal meetings.
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The Forbidden City began construction in the year 1406 and was finished around year 1420 and took about a million workers to complete. The goal for the Forbidden City was to be symmetrical, and much of it is. Some of the materials that make up the Forbidden City are whole logs of precious Phoebe Zhennan wood found int he jungles of southwestern China, large blocks of marble fort the pillars, stairs etc., and "golden bricks". They are specially baked paving stones that look like real gold that line the floors of the Forbidden City.
If you were to live in the Forbidden City, most likely you would live close to the Shufang Lodge. You would either be a high up political person, the emperor or his family, or a trusted servant. The emperor was the only person to have access to all of the buildings, even his family did not have access to many buildings. Once you lived in the city, often you were assigned to one building and did not see much more than that building. Life in the Forbidden City was very secretive and the emperor did not want anyone to know what he was doing or where he was.