The poorer inhabitants of Khanbaliq, many of them native Chinese, were forced by a decree in 1285 to live outside the southern walls of the new city, in what was left of the older city walls of the Jin dynasty city of Zhongdu. The seventy-five residential wards comprising this area became known as the southern city which was noted for its abundance of noodle stalls.

To work and shop, the inhabitants had to travel into Dadu itself, up past the Drum Tower in the center of the city, northwest to what was known as the Market of Poor Men. This busy shopping district housed the traders of livestock such as horses, mules, camels, sheep and cattle. Here one could find carts and straw, and fresh fruit and vegetables. The city gates opening into this market from the western wall were the Qian, Heping and Xuanwu gates.

It is crowded here, but there's always room for another vendor and there is sure to be something interesting happening in the alleyways.


Sources:
Lane, George. Daily Life in the Mongol Empire. Greenwood Press, 2006.
Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman. Chinese Imperial City Planning. University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman, editor. Chinese Architecture. Yale University and New World Press, 2002.

Image by Nathan Freitas, used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License