Yuanmingyuan is not only famous for its gardens, but also a royal museum with a rich collection, which can be called a treasure house of culture. Hugo once said: "Even if all the treasures of Notre Dame de China are added together, it can't compare with this magnificent Oriental Museum." The garden is luxuriously furnished and has a large collection of art treasures. According to westerners who have witnessed the Yuanmingyuan, "the magnificent scene in the garden is beyond description and imagination of Europeans". "This royal villa contains all kinds of precious treasures, which are spread all over thousands of households." Exquisite carved mahogany furniture, exquisite ancient broken porcelain and enamel bottle lamps, tapestries, carpets, leather goods made of gold and silver, pure gold-plated French clocks, exquisite general plan of Yuanmingyuan, pictures inlaid with gems, vivid plaques of scenic figures, and other exquisite domestic art products and various exotic decorations in Europe.
Yuanmingyuan is rich in books and cultural relics. Now, just a few examples are given. Wenyuan Pavilion is a library building modeled after Fan Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo. It is one of the famous fourth royal pavilions in the north and was built in Qianlong for forty years. In the pavilion are the Sikuquanshu ordered by Qianlong and the Integration of Ancient and Modern Books compiled by Kangxi. Sikuquanshu is the largest comprehensive series in ancient China, with more than 3,400 kinds of books, nearly 80,000 volumes and more than 36,000 volumes. It embodies the ancient civilization of our country and shows the great spirit of the Chinese nation. Due to the voluminous articles in the book, the most important one at that time was selected and compiled into the Summary of Sikuquanshu, with a total volume of 12000. The manuscript of Yao Hui is divided into two parts, one is in the algae hall of the Forbidden City, and the other is in the "tasting room" of the East Wing of Changchun Garden. In addition, there is a famous Wenxuan in Hanjingtang-Chunhua Xuan, which was specially built to collect the manuscripts of the famous French post "Chunhua Pavilion Post". Ge Tieyuan copied the calligraphy works of 99 people, including Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Cang Xie, Yu Xia and Confucius, in the third year of Chunhua in Beining (992). The Post is divided into ten volumes, which is the first large-scale cluster post in China, and is known as the ancestor of ten thousand posts. During the Qianlong period, according to the Northern Song Dynasty's "Ge Tie Chu Tuo", this stone was carved with a hook after careful revision. It lasted for three years. In the spring of the thirty-seventh year of Qianlong (1772), about 24 cloisters in front of Chunhua Xuan were inlaid with 144 engravings. This is the famous "Gan Da Engraving Chunhua Pavilion Post". Needless to say, during the theft of Yuanmingyuan, precious books and cultural relics such as Sikuquanshu, Quanquanyao, Integration of Ancient and Modern Books, and Chunhua Pavilion Post were not spared. This can reflect from one side that the imperialist invaders burned Yuanmingyuan, which caused great damage to human culture.
Of course, nothing is perfect. As big as Yuanmingyuan, several emperors expanded and rebuilt one after another. Coupled with the influence of the decadent consciousness of feudal emperors, it is still insufficient from any angle. However, on the whole, Yuanmingyuan is indeed an excellent garden. It can be said that it combines the excellent gardening art of China for thousands of years and pushes the classical gardens in China to a new height. At that time, people who witnessed its grand occasion said it was really good. Some westerners' impressions of China gardens began in Yuanmingyuan. In a word, Yuanmingyuan won the honor for our ancient civilization and was once the pride of our Chinese nation!