For over five hundred years the Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties spent their days behind the 175 foot moat and thirty foot walls of the Forbidden City of Beijing. Built according to the strict and elaborate system of feng shui, the palace was designed to represent China and the body of the Emperor as one, a paradigm of the Middle Kingdom between heaven and earth. Life there was a mystery to outsiders, as it was meant to be. Even when the Chinese Revolution ended the dynastic rule of the Emperor Puyi in 1911, he and his family were free to remain in the Forbidden City, though this ended by order of the army in 1924.