The Old Summer Palace is located in Haidian District, the western suburbs of Beijing, closely adjacent to the Summer Palace. It was built in the 46th year of Kangxi (1709) and consists of three gardens: Old Summer Palace, Changchun Garden and Wanchun Garden. There are more than 100 garden scenery and a construction area of ??more than 160,000 square meters. It is a large-scale royal palace created and operated by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty for more than 150 years. In October 1860, the Old Summer Palace was looted and burned by the British and French forces. This incident became a page of humiliation in modern Chinese history.
Origin of the name
"Old Summer Palace" was named by Emperor Kangxi. The three-character plaque written by Emperor Kangxi hangs above the lintel of the Yuanmingyuan Palace. Emperor Yongzheng had an explanation for the name of this garden. He said that the meaning of the word "Yuan Ming" is: "Round and enchanting, a gentleman is in the middle of his time; bright and universally illuminating, a person's wisdom." It means, "round" It refers to the perfect personal moral character, which is beyond ordinary people; "Ming" refers to the political performance that is bright and perfect, perfect and wise. This can be said to be the ideal standard used by the ruling class in the feudal era to advertise wise kings and virtuous ministers.
In addition, "Yuanming" is the Buddhist title that Emperor Yongzheng has used since his prince period. Emperor Yongzheng believed in Buddhism and was known as "Yuanming layman" and had in-depth research on Buddhism. He is the author of 19 volumes of "Yu Selection Quotations" and "Yu Zhi Demon Selection and Differentiation Records". In the structure of Buddhist sects in the early Qing Dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng regarded himself as the master of Zen and exerted influence on Buddhism as the "Lord of the World". He worked hard to advocate the "unity of three religions" and "the unification of Zen purity". This was the first step in the history of the development of Buddhism. Very important person. When Emperor Kangxi gave the garden to Yinzhen (later Emperor Yongzheng), he named the garden "Yuanmingyuan", which was taken from Yongzheng's royal name "Yuanming".
Historical development
Old Summer Palace is one of the famous royal gardens in the Qing Dynasty. The Three Yuanming Gardens cover an area of ??more than 5,200 acres and have more than 150 scenes. The Old Summer Palace was originally a garden given by Emperor Kangxi to his fourth son, Yinzhen (later Emperor Yongzheng). In the forty-sixth year of Kangxi's reign (AD 1707), the garden had begun to take shape. In November of the same year, Emperor Kangxi visited the Old Summer Palace in person. After Emperor Yongzheng ascended the throne in 1723, he expanded the original gift garden and built the Zhengda Guangming Hall and Qinzheng Hall in the south of the garden, as well as various duty rooms for the Cabinet, Six Ministries, and Military Aircraft Department, so that the emperor could "avoid the noise and listen to politics." During the 60 years of Emperor Qianlong's reign, he spent tens of millions of dollars on constructing and renovating the Old Summer Palace every day, dredging water and removing rocks. In addition to partial additions and renovations to the Old Summer Palace, he also built the Changchun Garden in the immediate east and merged it into the Qichun Garden in the southeast. By the 35th year of Qianlong's reign, that is, 1770, the layout of the Three Yuanming Gardens had basically taken shape. During the Jiaqing Dynasty, Qichun Garden was mainly repaired and expanded, making it one of the main garden residence places. During the Daoguang Dynasty, the state affairs were declining and financial resources were insufficient. However, they would rather remove the furnishings of the "Three Mountains" of Wanshou, Xiangshan and Yuquan, and stop the summer vacation in Rehe and Mulan hunting, but still did not give up the reconstruction and decoration of the Three Yuanming Gardens.
Encountered a catastrophe
Historical background
By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the entire country's science and technology had lagged far behind the West, and class conflicts had become increasingly acute. In 1840 (Daoguang) Twenty years ago) Western colonialists provoked a war of aggression against China - the First Opium War; then the "Taiping Rebellion" broke out in China to resist the rule of the Qing Dynasty.
In October 1856, Britain and France jointly launched the Second Opium War. First, they provoked war twice in Guangzhou, but failed to achieve their expectations. In order to put direct pressure on the Qing government, they decided to send troops to the capital. The invading army approached Tianjin in May 1858, and the Qing government was forced to sign the "Tianjin Treaty" with Britain, France, Russia and the United States, which was humiliating and humiliating to the country.
In July 1860 (the tenth year of Xianfeng), the British and French invader fleets once again broke into the entrance of Dagu. Under the guise of exchanging British and French envoys for Beijing, they advanced with force and induced "peace". . The purpose was to send soldiers to the capital and force the Qing court to submit. The corrupt and incompetent Qing government was hesitant to decide on a strategy of war and defense. The invading army marched straight into Tongzhou. On September 21, the Qing army lost the decisive battle at Baliqiao in Tongzhou. The next morning, Emperor Xianfeng fled from the Old Summer Palace in a hurry to the Chengde Summer Resort, resulting in a crisis situation in which the capital was ownerless, all officials were dispersed, the soldiers were unmotivated, and the people were frightened. .
In October 1860, the tenth year of Xianfeng's reign, the Old Summer Palace was looted and burned by the British and French forces, which became a page of humiliation in modern Chinese history.
In 2010, the United Kingdom and France were selected as the two largest cultural relic robbers in the world by the China World Records Association. The burning of the Old Summer Palace by the United Kingdom and France was also selected as the world's largest cultural relic destruction crime by the China World Records Association. Britain and France have created two shameless world records.
Looting the Old Summer Palace
On October 6, 1860, the British and French allied forces passed through the northeastern suburbs of Beijing and attacked the Old Summer Palace. At that time, the remnants of Seng Gelinqin and Ruilin made some resistance in the north of the city. , and immediately fled. The French army went first and passed through Haidian that afternoon. On the evening of October 6, the invading army broke into the Grand Palace Gate of the Old Summer Palace. At this time, more than 20 Yuanmingyuan Jiyong eunuchs entered and exited the Xianliang Gate to engage with the enemy. They "were not afraid of danger and moved forward with all their strength." However, they were ultimately outnumbered. Ren Liang, the "eighth rank leader" of Yuanmingyuan Jiyong, and others Died in the line of duty. At 7 p.m., the French invading army captured the Old Summer Palace. Wen Feng, the minister in charge of the garden, threw himself into Fuhai and died.
On October 7, after the British and French invaders broke into the Old Summer Palace, they immediately "sent three British and French committee members to discuss the distribution of the treasures in the garden." The French commander Monttopin wrote to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs that day. "I order the French commissioners to take note of the items that are most valuable in terms of art and archaeology. I am going to dedicate items that are extremely rare in France to His Majesty the Emperor (Napoleon III) and hide them in a French museum." British Commander Grant They also immediately "sent officers to try their best to collect objects that should belong to the British." The day after the French and British invading troops entered the park, they could no longer resist the temptation of the items. Officers and soldiers rushed forward in groups to rob the park. gold and silver treasures and cultural and artistic treasures.
There are so many things to grab in Old Summer Palace. According to a British eyewitness, the entire French camp was filled with many extremely ornately decorated clocks and clocks, and silks and embroideries were everywhere around the soldiers' tents. A British second-class military officer named Hellis got the nickname "Chinese James" because he became rich by plundering the Old Summer Palace and enjoyed his life.
How many treasures the British and French invaders robbed of the Old Summer Palace can never be determined because all the furnishings and accounts in the garden were robbed. The following information may provide some insight. Historical data from the Qing Dynasty show that there were only 441 European clocks and watches of various sizes on display and in stock in the Old Summer Palace at that time, and only one large clock survived after the disaster. Afterwards, a total of 1,197 items were confiscated that were stolen by bandits and some of the lost objects that the invading army "abandoned their way", which is only one-thousandth of the items in the park at best. According to a newsletter in The Times at the time: "It is estimated that the total value of the looted and damaged property exceeds 6 million pounds." In fact, a large part of the objects stolen and destroyed by the British and French invading troops were priceless treasures. This heinous crime that destroys human culture is truly heinous!
According to the descriptions of the British and French officers, priests, and reporters who witnessed the looting scene: Officers and soldiers, British and French, poured into the Old Summer Palace from all directions in order to seize treasures, taking whatever they wanted. I was in a hurry to seize it, and there were all kinds of things. In order to snatch the treasure, they beat each other and even had armed fights. Because there were so many treasures in the garden, they didn't know what to take. Some moved the cloisonné porcelain vase, some were greedy for embroidered robes, some chose high-end fur coats, and some went for the wall clock inlaid with pearls and jade. Some carry large bags filled with all kinds of treasures. Some put gold bars and gold leaves into the wide pockets of their coats; some had brocades and satins wrapped around their bodies; some hats were filled with rubies, sapphires, pearls and crystal stones; some had emerald necklaces hanging around their necks. There was a mountain of high-end silk and satin in one wing, which was said to be enough for half of the residents of Beijing. All was transported away by soldiers on carts. A British officer robbed a golden Buddha statue from a temple with 500 statues, worth 1,200 pounds. A French officer robbed property worth 600,000 francs. The treasure plundered by the son of the French commander-in-chief Montauban was worth 300,000 francs and filled several carriages.
A second-class commander of the British army named Hellis stole two golden pagodas (both three-story, one 7 feet high and the other 6.4 feet high) and a large number of other treasures from the park in one go. A strong man carried him back to the military camp. . In addition to looting, the invaders also destroyed countless things. Several houses were filled with silk and satin clothing. Clothes had been pulled out of boxes and thrown on the floor. When people walked into the house, they could barely cover their knees. The engineers brought big axes, smashed all the furniture, and took off the gems on it. Some people amused themselves by breaking large mirrors, while others shot viciously at the menorah. Most of the French soldiers used wooden sticks in their hands to smash everything they could not take away. When the French troops temporarily evacuated the Old Summer Palace on October 9, this beautiful garden had been completely destroyed.
Burning the Old Summer Palace
Just when the Qing government bowed its knees to the invaders and agreed to accept all the "peace" conditions and set a date to sign the contract, Elgin and Grant, the leaders of the British invasion of China, in order to provide His invasion of China left a "shocked" impression on the Qing government, and ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace on the pretext of the Qing government arresting envoys and mistreating prisoners of war. Elgin wanted to send a message by burning the Old Summer Palace: it was the Chinese emperor and his lackeys, not the Chinese people, who were responsible for atrocities such as arresting ministers and mistreating prisoners. A few days before the retaliation, Elgin ordered the following announcement to be posted throughout Beijing, declaring the purpose of the British and French forces to burn the Old Summer Palace: "No one - no matter how high his status - commits fraud and atrocities, can escape responsibility and responsibility. Punishment; the Old Summer Palace will be burned down on the 18th (October 1860) as punishment for the Chinese emperor's betrayal; only the Qing imperial government should be responsible for this, and people who have nothing to do with the atrocities need not worry about being harmed." (Translated from English)
On October 18th and 19th, three to four thousand British troops set fires everywhere in the park. The fires did not go out for three days and nights, and the smoke enveloped the city of Beijing and lingered for a long time. This unique garden masterpiece was burned to the ground. Afterwards, according to investigations by Qing Dynasty officials, only twenty or thirty palaces, pavilions, temples, official gates, duty rooms and other buildings survived in the huge Three Gardens of Yuanming Dynasty. All were robbed. Since then, some buildings in Qingyi Garden on Wanshou Mountain, Jingyi Garden on Xiangshan Mountain and Jingming Garden on Yuquan Mountain have also been burned down.
According to relevant records, when the British invaders burned down the Anyou Palace on October 18, because they arrived suddenly, the eunuch in charge locked the door of the Anyou Palace. Therefore, there were eunuchs, maids, and The craftsmen and other 300 people were burned alive in Anyou Palace.
When the Old Summer Palace was in flames, Elgin proudly declared: "This move will shock China and Europe, and its effect is far beyond what people thousands of miles away can imagine." The perpetrators of the arson regarded this act as a great achievement, but decent people around the world were outraged by this barbaric crime. Hugo wrote in 1861: "One day, two robbers broke into the Old Summer Palace. One looted and the other set fire to it. It seems that after winning, they can start stealing... Two victors, one stuffed his pocket, this Visibly, the other one filled the suitcase. They returned to Europe holding hands and smiling.
"The two robbers who will be punished by history are called France and the other. English. "This passage represents the voice of millions of upright people.
While the Old Summer Palace was still burning, Prince Gong Yi?, who was ordered to stay in Beijing, fully promised all the conditions of the invaders. Soon they were separated from each other. Britain, France, and Russia exchanged the text of the "Tianjin Treaty" and signed the "Beijing Treaty"
The Decline Process
When the British and French coalition forces frantically looted the Old Summer Palace, Countless bandits participated in the robbery. They took away everything they could, and used carts or animals to pull anything they couldn't carry. If they couldn't take it away, they destroyed it at will! For the remaining essence, ordinary people picked up the fragments abandoned on the road, and even the eunuchs who guarded the garden took advantage of it.
The easily obtained valuable items were quickly collected, and some people placed their hopes on the tiny treasures scattered and buried in the dust. They picked up brooms and dustpans and blew sand and dust on the roads in the garden. The eunuchs and soldiers guarding the garden They are called "sifting soil thieves", and there is a proverb: "Sift the soil, sift the soil, and you will never suffer in your life."
In 1900, the Eight-Nation Allied Forces [these eight bandits were: Britain, France, Prussia (Germany), Tsarist Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today's Austria and Hungary)] invaded and occupied Beijing. The gardens in the suburbs were plundered again. This time, the Qing government had completely lost control of the Old Summer Palace. The looters were no longer satisfied with robbing the foreigners' wealth. They sawed off the scattered buildings, pillars and piles of the wooden bridges in the garden that had been destroyed by the fire. , pulled down with big ropes, and all the trees in the garden were cut down. At that time, timber piled up like mountains in Qinghe Town, and the trade was busy. There were many charcoal factories in the park, and all the branches and roots were burned into charcoal.
In the early years of the Republic of China, the warlords who changed like a revolving lantern all used the Old Summer Palace as an inexhaustible supply of building materials. The archives of the Puyi period left many helpless records: "The soldiers escorted more than 10 trucks a day. Taihu Stone in Layun Garden. "In fact, the situation of demolition and selling is much more serious than what is recorded in the archives. Xu Shichang demolished the timber belonging to the Mingchun Garden and Jingchun Garden of the Old Summer Palace, and Wang Huaiqing demolished the large walls of the Anyou Palace and the stones of the Western-style building in the garden. From then on, everything that could be used as building materials in the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, from the square bricks on the ground, roof tiles, wall bricks, stone strips, to the underground wooden nails, wooden piles, copper pipes, etc., were collected, and the process was carried out intermittently for more than 20 years. !
At this point, the buildings, trees, bricks and stones of the Old Summer Palace have all disappeared. In the last years of Xuantong, local bannermen had built houses on the site of the palace in the garden, facing the former royal garden with wheat rows. During the Japanese occupation after 1940, Beijing was short of food, so it rewarded land reclamation. From then on, farmers gradually entered the park to fill the mountains and lakes, and opened fields to grow rice. The Old Summer Palace, a scenic spot of lakes and mountains that took more than 150 years of hard work during the heyday of the early Qing Dynasty, has changed beyond recognition.
Relic protection and renovation
In 1949, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the People's Government attached great importance to the protection of the Old Summer Palace ruins and successively listed it as park land and key cultural relics. The protection unit expropriated the dry land in the park and carried out large-scale tree planting and greening. During the ten years of turmoil, although the site suffered some damage, it was preserved after all: the water system and mountain shape of the entire garden and the garden pattern of the Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens still exist, and nearly half of the land has become a green belt. Hundreds of thousands of trees have grown into a forest, and most of the building foundations can still be found. Dozens of rockeries and stacked stones can still be seen. The remains of stone carvings at the ruins of the Western-style Building are quite eye-catching.
After the official establishment of the Old Summer Palace Management Office in 1976, significant progress was made in site protection and landscaping. The Western-style Building area was partially cleaned up and tidied up, and the garden roads and garden cup facilities in the eastern half of the site were built from scratch. , has improved year by year, and the number of visitors to the garden has increased significantly. The Yuanmingyuan Garden History Exhibition Hall has been held since November 1979, and one-tenth of them were visited by primary and secondary school students. In 1983, the "Beijing Urban Construction Master Plan" approved by the State Council clearly planned the Old Summer Palace as a heritage park. In the same year, the Beijing Municipal Government allocated special funds to repair the 2,300-meter tiger-skin stone wall on the northeast and south sides of Changchun Garden. With the care and support of the Beijing Municipal and Haidian District Governments, the Old Summer Palace Society and other social sectors, in September 1984, the Old Summer Palace Management Office and the farmers in Haidian Township achieved unity, adopting the form of private assistance, relying on social forces, *** Together with the development and construction of heritage parks. This will take a decisive step forward in the protection and renovation of the site. The first phase of the project was to renovate Fuhai. Ground was broken on December 1, 1984, and it took seven months to store water and release ships. In 1985, Meng Dong continued to renovate the mountain-shaped water system of Qichun Garden, which was completed in early summer of the next year. Both phases of the project focused on digging lakes and filling mountains, building roads, bridges, culverts and garden service facilities, cleaning up ancient building foundations, and carrying out greening and beautification. In two years, 400,000 cubic meters of earthwork have been moved to basically restore the mountainous water system covering 10 hectares to its original appearance, including 55 hectares of water surface.
The "Yinghai Fairy Mountain" Pavilion and West Island Courtyard on the East Island of Pengdao Yaotai in Fuhai Center, the New Palace Gate of Qichun Garden, and the European-style maze (Ten Thousand Flowers Array) in the Western Building have all been restored to their original locations. After two years of renovation and improvement, the heritage park began to take shape. On June 29, 1988, it was officially opened to the public for ticket sales. In the past six years, the number of visitors to the park has exceeded 10 million.
The renovation and construction of the Yuanmingyuan Heritage Park mainly carried out six aspects of work; first, continued to improve the greening and beautification, garden roads, bridges, culverts and service facilities of the Fuhai and Qichun Garden scenic spots. Second, the level of cleaning and sorting of garden ruins has been significantly improved. There are more than ten ruins in these two scenic spots, including Pengdao Yaotai, Hanxulangjian, Guanlan Hall, Biyoudongyao, Hanqiu Pavilion, Tianxin Shuihuan, and Fenglinzhou. The ballast soil has been removed, the stone foundations have been cleared, and the foundations have been sorted out. The platform foundation near the water defines the scope of the site, and the standing stones are engraved with scenes from the heyday for visitors to pay homage to. The third is to select and restore a few scenic spots, such as the Xianren Cheng Terrace, Bizi and Haoran Pavilions in Qichun Garden, and the Sifang Pavilion in Fuhai Biyoudongtian. Fourth, the natural stone revetments of rivers and lakes in the eastern half of Qichun Garden were fully repaired, totaling 4,960 meters. Fifth, the western half of the Xiyanglou site was comprehensively cleaned up, 16,000 cubic meters of earth was removed, and various buildings such as the Harmonious Interesting Building, the Water Storage Building, the Bird Petting House, the Fangguanying, the Wuzhu Pavilion, and the Haiyan Hall were outlined. The foundations of ancient buildings and fountains, as well as a large number of stone parts such as platform foundations, pillars and walls, have been restored. Sixth, starting from December 1992, the mountain-shaped water system of Changchun Garden was comprehensively renovated, and it was basically completed in April 1994. More than 200,000 cubic meters of earthwork was moved, 28 hectares of rivers and lakes were dredged, 9,500 meters of stone revetments were built, and 42 mountain shapes were tidied up, so that the mountain and water systems of the park were basically restored to their original appearance. They also sorted out the garden ruins and waterside platform foundations of Haiyue Kaijin, Siyongzhai, Liuxiangzhu, Dequan Pavilion, Jianyuan, Lion Grove and other places; excavated and restored 31 stones with plaques and poems inscribed by Emperor Qianlong; and planted various types of trees. There are more than 35,400 shrubs and 10 hectares of lotus roots are planted. At this point, the entire eastern half (200 hectares) of the Three Yuanming Gardens has been initially built into a heritage garden. Today's Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park has green mountains and blue waters, lush trees, fragrant flowers and plants, and attractive scenery. It is rich in heritage characteristics and has the function of a park. It is a good place for patriotism education and mass recreation.
After several years of transition through the joint construction of the park by the state and the farmers in the park, the conditions for the comprehensive development of the heritage park are gradually becoming mature. In accordance with the requirements of the capital construction master plan, in order to speed up the construction of the heritage park, the requisition procedures for the entire heritage park land were formally processed in two batches in 1990 and 1993, and the farmers in the park who originally relied on the land to make a living were converted into non-agricultural populations. And arrange their labor force to engage in garden construction. This has created new conditions for the comprehensive construction of heritage parks and the protection of cultural relics within the scope of the Three Yuanming Gardens. Fight for restoration.