There is an anime you need to watch. Like, now. Saiunkoku Monogatari, currently running, is set in a very slightly alternate-universe Ancient China, and it will give you court architecture, costumes, ranks, clan structure, ideas of how romance, courtship and marriage were conducted, details of the bureaucracy, and a very small bit of martial arts.

Also it's just plain a good series, if you like shoujo.

I can burn it for you. We have I think eighteen episodes, of a projected thirty-six.