Shanghai & Nanjing 6 - 15 Sep 2008 (Part 9) - Nanjing Presidential Palace 总统府
My first stop in Nanjing brought me to the Presidential Palace at 40Y admission fee. This place is significant as the place where Sun Yat Sen was first sworn in as the first provisional president of the Republic of China in 1911. Chiang Kai Shek (蒋介石) later took office here also as president in 1927 when Nanjing was the capital of the Republic of China under Kuomintang rule. Prior to that, the palace already existed as the Qing dynasty Office of the Governor-General for the Two Jiang Region (两江总督府) including Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi. The palace was conquered and expanded during the Taiping Revolution (太平天国起义) in 1853 where Hong Xiuquan (洪秀全) crowned himself as the emperor of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天国) based in Nanjing (then 天京) as the capital. With such rich history, the place is not to be missed.
