 By the time of the Kangxi Emperor and the Qianlong Emperor's tours of Nanjing in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ming palace was already in ruin, and the two emperors both stayed elsewhere in the city.When the Taiping Revolution leaders declared Nanjing to be the capital of their Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they chose not to restore the Ming Palace, but to build a new Palace of the Heavenly King.In this process, they sourced a large amount of construction material from the remains of the Ming Palace, until almost nothing remained of the buildings and walls.