The emperor

Here is the Chinese character Wáng (王), meaning King.
It shows the spheres of Heaven, Man and Earth (San Cai) connected by a single vertical line, as the emperor was considered the ‘Son of Heaven’, therefore worthy of being obeyed.

Obeying the emperor was synonymous to obeying Heaven, as it was understood that the emperor combined the virtues of the Three Unities in himself and possessed supernatural powers.

The character Wáng resembles the Trigram Heaven (Qian) connected by a vertical line.

It was understood, and in fact could be very well one of the most important basics of Chinese metaphysics, that ‘Heaven is Round, Earth is Square’.

The typical Chinese town, village or house would therefore be projected on a square or rectangular, or any combinations of round or domed and square or rectangular shapes and forms. A house could have a square floorplan, with a domed roof.

More often than not, a town would be designed around astronomical and mathematical observations, using the numbers 2 for polarity, the number 4 for the cardinal directions, 5 to point to the Five Transformations, the 8 directions, the Nine Stars, the Twelve zodiacal signs or Earthly Branches. 

As an example, a town would be having eight roads into the eight directions, being divided into eight areas, all this designed around a central locality holding the governmental buildings.

Heaven is round because the celestial heaven is roundly shaped. The Chinese would consider the skies domed.
Heaven can be divided into twelve zodiacal segments, pertaining to Time (Heaven).

The Heavens can be furthermore divided into 28 Lunar Mansions, which bode the Four Celestial Animals and which are positioned around the perimeter of the Luo Pan according to their directions.

The 28 Lunar Mansions are grouped into 4 separate divisions – each holding 7 Mansions - and centered to the cardinal directions.

The Luo Pan shows this idea, where its Earth base is square and the dial represents Heaven, the needle in the middle symbolizing Polaris, our current North Star.

Taken a step farther and pointing at the earth orbit around the sun, Earth is square because we can locate the points of the Equinoxes and Solstices and connect them to represent a square.

The idea is that the Bright Hall was built on a square or rectangle, representing earth.

The imperial palace, perfectly aligned to the cardinal directions and facing South would be intelligibly designed.

In Summer the emperor would move to a Palace in the South of China and reside in its Southern quarters. This Palace would be referred to as the ‘Summer Palace’.

In Winter the emperor would move to a Palace in the North of China and reside in its Northern quarters.

The emperor would live in the East during Spring and in the West during Autumn and reside in their respective quarters.

Green is the color of Spring. The emperor would wear green cloths in Spring, the Eastern quarters of the palace designed around green colors and objects.
Even official announcements would be declared from the windows matching seasonal direction.

Whatever direction the emperor would occupy or have his quarters in, he would always face to sit South when involved in official duties.

The Palace would be a perfect architectural and mathematical representation of astronomical and astrological realities, e.g. symbolizing the Big Dipper (Bei Dou), Polaris, the Twelve Earthly Branches (symbolized by number and directions of door and window openings), symbols of the numbers 4, 5, 8, 9 and so forth.

This way, the imperial Palace was a sophisticated diagram depicting a Solar and Lunar year, as each side of the Palaces would represent one season and the Celestial Animals, each consisting of 7 of the 28 Lunar Mansions.

Imperial carpenters would go out of their ways to select the finest woods, but not just built the Palace from it, but cut trees, mark the wood, so that any part of a tree that used to point Southward, was used also for the Southern part of the Palace.

As the emperor would revolve around the center of the Palace, he himself would be regarded the stable center of the country, his people revolving around him. As yellow and gold belong to the center, only the emperor was permitted to wear these colors.

If you look at the above floorplan, immediately bordering the center, you see four walls, each one of them into one of the cardinal directions and thus producing nine quarters including the center. This is to symbolize the Luo Shu.

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