Stables were constructed of brick or high-quality timber, with intact walls, complete doors and windows, and internally divided into independent compartments (approximately 2.5 meters x 3 meters). They were equipped with wooden feeding troughs, watering facilities, and a manure disposal system. A typical example is the Imperial Stable ruins inside the Donghua Gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing, where the walls were up to 45 centimeters thick and the floor was paved with moisture-proof ceramic bricks.
Horse stalls, on the other hand, used a wooden pillar-supported roof structure, with three sides open or only fenced, creating a spacious and unpartitioned environment. The Ming Dynasty post station horse stall ruins discovered in Weixian County, Hebei Province, show that the spacing between the pillars was 4 meters, and the thatched roof was no more than 20 centimeters thick.
