Old Summer Palace

Yuanmingyuan is located in the western suburb of Beijing, adjacent to the summer palace. It is composed of Yuanming, Changchun and Qichun gardens. It is a large Royal Palace founded and operated by the Qing emperors in more than 150 years. Yuanmingyuan is not only famous for its gardens, but also a royal museum with rich collection. There are many rare cultural relics at home and abroad in the halls of Yuanmingyuan. Yuanwenyuan Pavilion is one of the four Royal libraries in China. It has precious books and cultural relics such as Sikuquanshu, Gujin book collection, Sikuquanshu Huiyao, etc. Unfortunately, at the end of the 19th century, this world-famous garden was plundered and burned by the British and French allied forces. After that, it went through countless destruction and plunder, and finally fell into ruins.

Old Summer Palace

Yuanmingyuan is a large Royal Garden in Qing Dynasty. It is located in the northwest suburb of Beijing. It is composed of Yuanmingyuan, Changchun Garden and Qichun garden, so it is also called yuanmingsan garden

It covers an area of 3.5 square kilometers, with a construction area of 160000 square meters and more than 150 scenes. It is known as "garden of ten thousand gardens".

The Qing emperor came here every midsummer to spend the summer, listen to politics, and deal with military and political affairs, so it is also called "Summer Palace".

Yuanmingyuan was founded in 1707 (the 46th year of Kangxi)

At first, it was a garden given by Emperor Kangxi to Yinzhen, the fourth son of the emperor. Kangxi inscribed it with a plaque "Yuanzhen garden" and "Yuanzhen" was the name of Yongzheng. After Yongzheng ascended the throne in 1722, he expanded the original grant garden, and built the Zhengda Guangming hall, the diligent administration hall, and many duty rooms for the cabinet, the six ministries, and the military aircraft department in the south of the garden, hoping to "avoid the noise and listen to the government" in summer. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, in addition to the partial addition and reconstruction of Yuanmingyuan, Changchun Garden was built close to the East and Wanchun Garden was merged into the southeast.

The pattern of Yuanmingyuan was basically formed. In the Jiaqing Dynasty, the Qichun Garden (Wanchun Garden) was mainly renovated and expanded, making it one of the main residential places. During the reign of Emperor Daoguang, the state affairs were declining day by day and the financial resources were insufficient. However, it was better to withdraw the furnishings of Wanshou, Xiangshan and Yuquan, stop the summer in Rehe and hunt Mulan, and still did not give up the reconstruction and decoration of Yuanming three gardens. On October 6, 1860, the British and French allied forces looted the Old Summer Palace, looted cultural relics and burned them. When Emperor Tongzhi wanted to repair them, they were forced to stop and rebuild other buildings because of financial difficulties. After the Allied forces of the eight countries, they were attacked by bandits and eventually turned into ruins.

Yuanmingyuan, founded and operated in the Qing Dynasty for more than 150 years, is famous for its grand regional scale, outstanding construction skills, exquisite architectural landscape, rich cultural collection and profound national cultural connotation. It is known as "the model of all garden art" and "the model of ideal and art" by French writer Victor Hugo.

Historical evolution

Site selection and gardening

In the middle of the 17th century, after the Manchu seized the power of the Central Plains, the Qing Dynasty was established. Because the rulers of the Qing Dynasty lived fishing, hunting and farming in the Northeast before they entered the pass, the climate was cool. After entering the pass, they did not adapt to the dry and hot climate of Beijing. Especially in the early years of Kangxi, after a fire broke out in the Forbidden City, they built high palace walls to prevent fire.

The combination of courtyards and courtyards in the Imperial Palace, coupled with the gentle flow of water in the streams and ditches, almost became stagnant water, which made the emperors tired of the palace life with high walls. Therefore, from the early years of Kangxi, they began to build gardens, which lasted for more than 200 years.

In the western suburb of Beijing, there are continuous Xishan Xiufeng: Yuquan mountain, Wanshou mountain, wanquanzhuang, Beihai and other landforms. Artesian springs are everywhere, forming lakes and marshes in low-lying areas. Yuquan mountain water flows into Kunming Lake from west to East, becoming the largest water surface in western suburbs. Large areas of paddy fields have been reclaimed here, forming a natural scenic spot. As early as the Liao Dynasty, the emperor built Yuquan mountain palace here. In the Ming Dynasty, the natural scenery here attracted more tourists, so some dignitaries occupied the countryside to build villas, and large areas of land were occupied. During the Wanli period, Li Wei, the emperor's relative Wu Qing, built a large-scale Tsinghua garden (the former site is outside the west wall of Peking University). Later, Mi Wanzhong guided the lake outside the east wall of Qinghua garden, and created the elegant and beautiful "spoon garden", which means "Haidian spoon". In the open countryside, there are pavilions, pavilions and pavilions, which complement each other with the scenery of lakes and mountains. It has become a famous garden gathering place in the suburbs of Beijing. In the Qing Dynasty, the emperor also took a fancy to the western suburbs, a wonderful garden. Large scale construction of gardens began.

Yuanmingyuan is located in the north of Guajiatun, about a mile away from changchunyuan, which is north of Peking University and west of Tsinghua University. The Yuanmingyuan in Kangxi period, which has the front lake, the back lake and so on, has the "Peony platform", "natural picture" and so on. At that time, Yuanmingyuan was still a vassal garden, the scale of which could not exceed the emperor's Changchun Garden, so there were not many scenery and fame. But later, with the host's accession to the throne and the arrival of the flourishing age of the Qing Dynasty, it has been expanded for many years and finally became the most magnificent royal garden in the history of China.

Lei Jinyu, the chief designer of Yuanmingyuan, was favored by Kangxi when he was building the Forbidden City. But in actual construction, most of them were the views of the emperor. Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong all personally guided him. And created a "hot sample" model method. But it was destroyed in Xianfeng years.

Construction period

Yuanmingyuan was mainly built in the late years of Kangxi and the Yongzheng Dynasty. In 1707, Emperor Kangxi gave a garden about one mile north of changchunyuan in the northwest suburb of Beijing to his fourth son Aixinjueluo Yinzhen.

Yuanmingyuan was named by Emperor Kangxi. The three character plaque of Emperor Kangxi's imperial script was hung above the door of Yuanming hall. There is an explanation for this "Yuanming" Emperor Yongzheng, saying that the meaning of the word "Yuanming" is: round and enthralled, a gentleman's time; bright and universal, a person's wisdom. "Round" refers to the perfection of personal morality and surpassing ordinary people; "bright" refers to the brilliant political achievements and perfect wisdom. This can be said to be the ideal standard for the ruling class in the feudal era to flaunt the emperor and the virtuous prime minister.

In 1724, the expansion project of Yuanmingyuan officially began. In the first month of this year, Emperor Yongzheng sent officials from the house of internal affairs to cut trees in the area of Rehe paddock. Since then, most of the timber used in the construction of FanTai nei, Xiyuan and Sanshan Wuyuan has come from paddock. In July of the third year of Yongzheng reign (1725), the house of internal affairs appointed another merchant, Yu Changsheng, to purchase the stone materials needed for Yuanmingyuan. Emperor Yongzheng had Zhu's comment: "there was a slight delay in Yu Changsheng's preparation of the stone, and he was about to discuss the crime." We can see the urgency of his garden.

The extension project of Yuanmingyuan in Yongzheng period generally consists of three parts: the first part extends the central axis to the south, and builds a palace area in the south of Ciyuan, which strictly imitates the axial symmetry form of the Forbidden City, including the newly built grand palace gate, the left and right outer court houses and the duty rooms of the government offices of the cabinet, which will become the main building complex of the emperor in Yuanmingyuan. In the second part, the original grant garden was extended to the north, East and west to construct Qushui island and add pavilions and pavilions, which constituted the main body of the "forty scenes" later inscribed by Emperor Qianlong (at least thirty-three of which were completed during the reign of Yongzheng). The third part is the construction of Fuhai and its surrounding buildings.

The expanded Yuanmingyuan covers an area of about 3000 mu. In each scenic spot, there are not only grand palaces, but also pavilions and winding bridges, rockeries, lakes and winding rivers. In Yongzheng period, the pattern of Yuanmingyuan was basically completed.

Heyday

After Emperor Qianlong succeeded to the throne, he adjusted the landscape of Yuanmingyuan, added architectural groups, and built Changchun Garden and Qichun garden in the East and southeast of Yuanmingyuan. These three gardens are under the management of the Yuanming garden management minister, known as the Yuanming three gardens.

In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were many additional and rebuilt places in the garden. The main landscape group of the garden is the famous "Yuanmingyuan 40 sceneries",

And zibishan house, Zaoyuan, ruofanzhi Pavilion, Wenyuan Pavilion, etc. At that time, there were about 600 main garden buildings with plaques, which was the crown of royal gardens at all times and in all over the world.

Spring Garden

In the early days of Qichun garden, it was the Royal Garden of Prince Yunxiang of Qingyi, named Jiaohui garden. In the middle of the reign of Emperor Qianlong, the garden was given to Fu Heng, a great scholar, and changed its name to Chunhe garden. In 1769, Chunhe garden was officially named "Qichun garden". The area at that time did not include the northwest. In the 4th and 16th years of Jiaqing period, the west of the garden was granted two more gardens. One was Xishuang village where Wang Yongzhen got married, and the other was Hanhui garden of Princess Zhuang Jing Heshuo. After large-scale repair, reconstruction and addition, the garden began to take on a scale of 1000 mu, becoming one of the main gardens of the Qing emperor's garden. So far, the Yuanming three gardens were in their heyday. At that time, there were nearly 30 famous landscape groups, such as Fuchun hall, qingxiazhai, Hanqiu hall, shengdongshi, Siyi library, chunzezhai, fenglinzhou, weizaotang, zhonghetang, Bixiang, zhulinyuan, xiyushanfang, Yanyu building, Hanhui building, Chengxin hall, Changhe hall, zhanqingxuan, zhaoliangxie, lingxu Pavilion, etc. There are more than 100 garden buildings with plaques. Qichunyuan palace gate, completed

Chinese PinYin : Yuan Ming Yuan