the Summer Palace

The summer palace, formerly known as Qingyi Garden, is a royal garden in the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the western suburb of Beijing, 15 kilometers away from the urban area, covering an area of about 290 hectares and adjacent to Yuanmingyuan. It is a large-scale landscape garden built on the basis of Kunming Lake and Wanshou mountain, based on the West Lake of Hangzhou, and drawing on the design techniques of Jiangnan gardens. It is also the most complete preserved Royal Palace Royal Garden. It is known as the "Royal Garden Museum" and is also a national key tourist attraction. Before Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty succeeded to the throne, four large royal gardens were built in the western suburbs of Beijing. In 1750, Emperor Qianlong used 4.48 million taels of silver to rebuild Qingyi Garden in order to honor his mother, empress Xiaosheng, and formed a 20 kilometer royal garden area from the present Qinghua garden to Xiangshan. In 1860, Qingyi Garden was burned by British and French forces. Guangxu 14 years (1888) reconstruction, renamed the summer palace, for summer recreation. In 1900, the summer palace was destroyed by the "Eight Power Allied forces" and all the treasures were plundered. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the summer palace was destroyed again in the period of warlord scuffle and Kuomintang rule. On March 4, 1961, the summer palace was announced as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. Together with Chengde summer resort, Humble Administrator's garden and Liuyuan, it was also named as China's four famous gardens. It was listed in the world heritage list in November 1998. On May 8, 2007, the summer palace was officially approved as a national 5A scenic spot by the National Tourism Administration. In 2009, the summer palace was selected as the largest existing royal garden in China by the China World Records Association.

Located in the western suburb of Beijing, the summer palace is the first classical garden in China, with a total area of 290 hectares, composed of Wanshou mountain and Kunming Lake. The park is divided into three areas: Renshou hall as the center of the political activity area; Yulan hall, Leshou hall as the main body of the emperor and empress living area; Wanshou mountain and Kunming Lake scenic area. The whole garden is set against the peaks of the Western Hills, and the buildings are integrated with the landscape of the mountains and lakes in the garden, which makes the scenery changeable. It was listed in the world heritage list on December 2, 1998.

the Summer Palace

The summer palace, formerly known as Qingyi Garden, is a royal garden in the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the western suburb of Beijing, 15 kilometers away from the urban area, covering an area of 290 hectares (2.9 square kilometers) and adjacent to Yuanmingyuan. It is a large-scale landscape garden built on the basis of Kunming Lake and Wanshou mountain, based on the West Lake of Hangzhou, and drawing on the design techniques of Jiangnan gardens. It is also the most complete preserved Royal Palace Royal Garden. It is known as the "Royal Garden Museum" and is also a national key tourist attraction.

Before Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty succeeded to the throne, four large royal gardens were built in the western suburbs of Beijing. In 1750, Emperor Qianlong used 4.48 million taels of silver to rebuild Qingyi Garden in order to honor his mother and the Empress Dowager. In 1860, Qingyi Garden was burned by British and French forces. Guangxu 14 years (1888) reconstruction, renamed the summer palace, for summer recreation. In 1900, the summer palace was destroyed by the "Eight Power Allied forces" and all the treasures were plundered. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the summer palace was destroyed again in the period of warlord scuffle and Kuomintang rule.

On March 4, 1961, the summer palace was announced as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. Together with Chengde summer resort, Humble Administrator's garden and Liuyuan, it was also named as China's four famous gardens. It was listed in the world heritage list in November 1998. On May 8, 2007, the summer palace was officially approved as a national 5A scenic spot by the National Tourism Administration. In 2009, the summer palace was selected as the largest existing royal garden in China by the China World Records Association

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Historical evolution

Wengshan in the northwest suburb of Beijing is the remnant of Yanshan. There are lakes under the mountain, which are called qilili lake, Dabo lake, wengshanpo lake and Xihu lake. In the first year of Zhenyuan (1153) of Jin Dynasty, Wan Yanliang, the owner of Jin Dynasty, set up the Jinshan palace here. After the capital of the Yuan Dynasty was established in Beijing, in order to meet the needs of water transportation, Guo Shoujing, a water conservancy scientist, opened up the upstream water source and introduced the spring water from Baifu village in Changping and the water along the way into the lake, which increased the water potential and became a reservoir to protect the water supply for the court and water transportation.

In the seventh year of Hongzhi (1494) of the Ming Dynasty, the lactating mother of emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty helped his wife Luo to build Yuanjing temple in front of Weng mountain, which was later abandoned. Since then, the number of gardens around wengshan has gradually increased. Emperor Wuzong of Ming dynasty built a palace on the lakeside, known as "good mountain garden", which is a royal garden. Both Wuzong and Shenzong of Ming Dynasty used to go boating here. In the reign of emperor Xizong of Ming Dynasty, Wei Zhongxian once took Haoshan garden as his own

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In the early years of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, the number of gardens in Haidian area in the western suburb of Beijing increased, and a large amount of garden water consumption increased day by day. At that time, besides the Wanquan River system, which had a small flow, most of the garden water came from the source of Yuquan mountain and flowing into the West Lake, which was also the source of Tonghui River since the Ming Dynasty. In 1750, in order to prepare for the 60th birthday of the Empress Dowager of Chongqing (empress xiaoshengxian), Emperor Qianlong ordered the excavation of the West Lake under the pretext of harnessing the water system in the west of Beijing, intercepting the water from the Xishan, Yuquan and Shouan mountains, and excavating the gaoshui lake and Yangshui Lake in the west of the West Lake, using the three lakes as reservoirs to ensure the water for the court gardens and provide irrigation water for the surrounding farmland. Emperor Qianlong changed the name of the West Lake to Kunming Lake with the allusion of Emperor Hanwu digging Kunming pool to train the water army. He piled up the earth excavated from the lake on wengshan mountain in Hubei Province and renamed wengshan mountain Wanshou mountain

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Qingyi Garden was built in 1764, which consumed more than 4.8 million liang of silver. Qingyi Garden, based on the idea of "three fairy mountains on the sea" in ancient Chinese mythology, builds three small islands in Kunming Lake and the two lakes on the west side: Nanhu Island, Tuancheng island and zaojiantang Island, to compare the three mountains on the sea: Penglai, abbot and Yingzhou. The master plan of Qingyi Garden is based on the West Lake in Hangzhou, and widely imitates Jiangnan gardens and scenic spots, such as Fenghuang pier imitates Taihu Lake, Jingming tower imitates Yueyang Tower, wangchan Pavilion imitates huanghe tower, Houxi Lake Business Street imitates Suzhou Water Street, xisuo business street imitates Yangzhou 24 bridge, etc. The main building in the park is the Dabaoen Yanshou temple, with a 700 meter long corridor. Its architecture and decorative painting are quite wonderful, with artistic value and many sightseeing buildings. There are few administrative and residential buildings in Qingyi Garden of Wanshou mountain in the summer palace. Emperor Qianlong visited Qingyi Garden on the same day and never lived in it.

In its heyday, the summer palace was large-scale, covering an area of 2.97 square kilometers (293 hectares). It was mainly composed of Wanshou mountain and Kunming Lake, of which the water surface accounted for three-quarters (about 220 hectares). The architecture in the park is centered on the Buddhist Pavilion. There are more than 100 scenic buildings, more than 20 courtyards and 3555 ancient buildings in the park, covering an area of more than 70000 square meters. There are more than 3000 pavilions, platforms, buildings, pavilions, corridors, pavilions and other different forms of buildings. Among them, FOXIANG Pavilion, corridor, stone boat, Suzhou street, shiqikong bridge, humorous garden and grand stage are representative buildings. There are more than 1600 ancient and famous trees.

After Daoguang year of the Qing Dynasty, due to the weakness of national strength, it was announced to withdraw the three mountain furnishings, and Qingyi Garden was gradually abandoned. In 1860, Qingyi Garden was burned down by the fire of British and French allied forces. From 1884 to 1895, Empress Dowager Cixi retired to recuperate and ordered the reconstruction of Qingyi Garden in the name of Emperor Guangxu. Due to the limited funds, they concentrated their financial resources to repair the Qianshan building complex, and built a wall around Kunming Lake, which was renamed the summer palace and became the palace of departure. In 1900, the buildings and cultural relics in the garden were destroyed by the Allied forces of the eight countries, and restored in 1902. Although the summer palace has generally restored the landscape of Qingyi Garden, many of its quality has declined. Many high-rise buildings are forced to reduce due to the relationship of funds, and the scale is also reduced. For example, Wenchang Pavilion has been reduced from three stories to two stories, Leshou hall has been changed from double eaves to single eaves, and there are also heightening buildings, such as the Grand Theater. Suzhou street was burned and never recovered. Due to Cixi's preference for Su style color paintings, the color paintings of many housing pavilions and corridors also changed from Hexi color paintings to Su style color paintings, which changed the original appearance of Qingyi Garden in detail.

On December 25th, 1911, Puyi abdicated. As Puyi's private property, the summer palace was still managed by the Qing government.

Due to the shortage of Royal funds year by year, the Qing Dynasty's financial resources were exhausted day by day. In order to subsidize the financial resources of the garden, the Qing Dynasty's interior government changed the summer palace to ticket selling on January 14, 1914. In April, the Ministry of foreign affairs, the Ministry of internal affairs, the Bu Jun's Yamen and the Qing Shi's internal affairs office agreed that "during the open tour, the intention of raising funds should be implied", and put forward the "Regulations of the summer palace and other places to sell coupons on a trial basis". It is stipulated that tickets will be sold to the public from May 6

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Architectural pattern

Covering an area of 293 hectares, the summer palace is mainly composed of Wanshou mountain and Kunming Lake. There are more than 3000 palaces and gardens in various forms, which can be roughly divided into three parts: administration, life and sightseeing.

The administrative district with Renshou hall as the center was the place where Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu sat in court to listen to government and meet with foreign guests. Behind Renshou hall are three large quadrangles: Leshou hall, Yulan hall and Yiyun hall, which are Cixi, Guangxu and Houfei respectively

Chinese PinYin : Yi He Yuan