Building Industry In Old Times Chapter 373

The Beijing city in the Ming Dynasty covered thousands of hectares, roughly equivalent to the area of   the second ring road in later generations.

But that’s just the inner city.

Starting from the reign of Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty, the capital was moved to Beijing and palaces were built on a large scale. It took three years in the initial stage to build the city of Beijing into a layout similar to that of Nanjing.

At the same time, it extends to the outer city.

During the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty, the outer city gradually had a large number of urn cities and arrow towers. This project took another four years and marked the gradual formation of the outline of Beijing.