In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), after the British and French allied forces captured Beijing, they occupied Yuanmingyuan. China's defenders were outnumbered, and Wenfeng, the chief minister of Yuanmingyuan, committed suicide by throwing himself into Fuhai. Chang Ai, who lived in the garden, was scared to death. With the support of British Prime Minister Pa Max Don, British leader Elgin ordered the burning of Yuanmingyuan.
3,500 British and French troops rushed into Yuanmingyuan and set fire to it. The fire lasted for three days, and the Yuanmingyuan and its nearby Qingyi Garden, Jingming Garden, Jingyi Garden, Changchun Garden and Haidian Town were all burned into ruins. Nearly 300 eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting and craftsmen were buried in the fire of Anyou Palace. Turn this world-famous garden into ruins. The fire burned for three days and nights and became a rare atrocity in the history of world civilization.
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The looting and burning of Yuanmingyuan by British troops not only caused incalculable material and spiritual losses to China, but also set a precedent for barbaric revenge. /kloc-After the Boxer Rebellion in 0/900, some western powers suggested burning all the tombs of the ancestors of the Qing emperors, which cannot be said to have nothing to do with the British burning of Yuanmingyuan.
For Emperor Xianfeng, burning Yuanmingyuan is a personal shame. He was born and raised in Sri Lanka and has always regarded it as a sacred place like the Forbidden City. He heard the bad news that the Yuanmingyuan was burned down, vomited blood on the spot, relapsed his old illness, and died in Jehol in less than a year.
However, after being burned down, the disaster in Yuanmingyuan is far from over. More than a hundred years after the British and French allied forces burned the Yuanmingyuan, the disaster in Yuanmingyuan continued, and the soldiers were in chaos and theft was rampant. Some outsiders looted, and some China people destroyed; Yuanmingyuan experienced repeated looting until it was devastated.
Baidu encyclopedia-burning Yuanmingyuan
People's Network-Burning Yuanmingyuan