The historical development of the Old Summer Palace
A famous royal garden in the Qing Dynasty. In the forty-eighth year of Kangxi (1709), Emperor Kangxi (i.e. Xuanye, the Holy Ancestor of the Qing Dynasty) gave his fourth son Yinzhen a garden one mile north of Changchun Garden in the northwest suburbs of Beijing, and personally inscribed the garden with "Old Summer Palace". In the third year of Yongzheng's reign (1725), Emperor Yongzheng (i.e. Zong Yinzhen of the Qing Dynasty) built an additional palace office in the south of Old Summer Palace, and the area was expanded from more than 600 acres to more than 3,000 acres. Since then, the Old Summer Palace has been not only a place for the Qing emperors to rest and visit, but also a place where they met with ministers, received foreign envoys, and handled daily government affairs. After Emperor Qianlong (namely Hongli, Emperor Gaozong of Qing Dynasty) came to the throne, he adjusted the garden landscape in Old Summer Palace, added architectural groups, and built Changchun Garden and Qichun Garden (renamed Wanchun Garden during Tongzhi) in the east and southeast neighbors of Old Summer Palace. . These three gardens are all managed by the ministers who manage the Old Summer Palace, and are called the Three Gardens of the Old Summer Palace.
The Three Yuanming Gardens cover an area of ??more than 5,200 acres and have more than 150 scenes. Among them, the most famous are the Zhengda Guangming Hall where the government was conducted, the Anyou Palace where ancestors were worshiped, the high mountain and long water tower where banquets were held, the Pengdao Yaotai that simulated the "Fairy Mountain Pavilion Picture", and the spring scenery of Wuling in the realm of "Peach Blossom Spring". Some famous gardens and scenic spots in the south of the Yangtze River, such as the Lion Forest in Suzhou and the Ten Scenes of the West Lake in Hangzhou, have also been imitated in the gardens. There is also a group of European-style buildings in Changchun Garden, commonly known as Western-style buildings. The Old Summer Palace is also a large royal museum that houses many treasures, books and artistic masterpieces.
In August of the 10th year of Xianfeng (1860), the British and French forces invaded Beijing. On October 6, the Old Summer Palace was occupied. From the next day onwards, officers and soldiers went on a rampage of looting and destruction. In order to force the Qing government to accept the peace terms as soon as possible, British Minister Elgin and British Commander-in-Chief Grant used the excuse that the Qing government had imprisoned British and French prisoners in the Old Summer Palace, and ordered Lieutenant General Michael to lead an invasion force of 3,000 troops on October 18. More than five hundred people went straight to the Old Summer Palace and set it on fire. The fire lasted for two days and two nights.
During the Tongzhi period (1862-1874), Emperor Tongzhi prepared to restore the Old Summer Palace for Empress Dowager Cixi to live. Later, due to financial difficulties, it was forced to stop and rebuild other buildings. In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing and the Old Summer Palace was destroyed again. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, some warlords, politicians, and bureaucrats stole building materials from the Old Summer Palace, causing further damage to the Old Summer Palace site.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country attached great importance to the protection of the Old Summer Palace ruins. In 1979, the Old Summer Palace site was listed as a key cultural relic protection unit in Beijing. After that, the renovation work of the Yuanmingyuan ruins gradually started. It is now turned into a heritage park.
The Old Summer Palace in history is composed of the Old Summer Palace, Changchun Garden, and Qichun Garden (Wanchun Garden). The three gardens are closely adjacent to each other and are commonly known as the Old Summer Palace. *** covers an area of ??more than 5,200 acres (about 350 hectares), which is nearly a thousand acres larger than the entire Summer Palace. It is a large-scale royal palace created and operated by the feudal emperors of the Qing Dynasty for more than 150 years. The emperors of the Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Xianfeng dynasties all lived in the Old Summer Palace for many years to enjoy themselves, hold court meetings and handle political affairs here. Together with the Forbidden City (Forbidden City), it was the national political center at that time and was specially designated by the Qing emperor. It's called "Royal Garden".
The Old Summer Palace is not only famous for its gardens, but also a royal museum with extremely rich collections, which can be called a cultural treasure house. Hugo once said: "Even if all the treasures of Notre Dame de Paris in our country (France) are added together, they cannot compare with this large and magnificent Oriental Museum." The garden is luxuriously furnished and has a large collection of art. Treasure. According to descriptions from Westerners who have witnessed the Yuanmingyuan, “the splendor and splendor of the garden are beyond description and description, and beyond the imagination of Europeans.” "All kinds of precious treasures are accumulated in this royal villa, among thousands of households." The finest carved red sandalwood furniture, exquisite ancient cracked porcelain and enamel bottles, brocades and carpets woven with gold and silver, Leather goods, gold-plated French clocks, the exquisite general map of the Old Summer Palace, gem-inlaid hunting pictures, lifelike plaques with landscapes and figures, as well as various other domestic artistic masterpieces and various bizarre European decorations are all on offer.
The Old Summer Palace contains an extremely rich collection of books and cultural relics, here are just a few examples. Wenyuan Pavilion is a library modeled after Fan's Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo. It is one of the four famous royal north pavilions and was built in the 40th year of Qianlong's reign.
The pavilion contains one copy of "Sikuquanshu" issued by Qianlong and Kangxi's "Collection of Ancient and Modern Books". "Sikuquanshu" is the largest comprehensive series of books in ancient my country, containing 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 courage of the Chinese nation. Because the "Quanshu" contains so many chapters, the most important ones were selected and compiled into the "Siku Quanshu Collection", totaling 12,000 volumes. There are two copies of "Huiyao". One is stored in the Forbidden City's Azao Hall, and the other is stored in the "Weifu Study Room" in the east wing of the Sutra Hall in Changchun Garden. In addition, there is another famous literary pavilion in Hanjing Hall - Chunhua Pavilion, which was specially built to collect copies of the famous Dharma calligraphy "Chunhua Pavilion Calligraphy". "Ge Tie" was originally copied in the third year of Chunhua (992) in Beining, and includes the calligraphy works of 99 people including Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Cang Jie, Xia Yu, and Confucius. Divided into ten volumes, it is the first large-scale collection of Tie in my country and is known as the ancestor of all Tie. During the Qianlong period, according to the Northern Song Dynasty's "Initial Expansion and Gift Edition" of "Ge Tie", after careful review and revision, the stone carving was carried out. It took three years, and by the spring of the 37th year of Qianlong's reign (1772), the 144 imprinted boards were inlaid in the 24 cloisters in front of the Chunhua Pavilion. This is the famous "Qianlong's engraving of Chunhua Pavilion Notes". Needless to say, when the Old Summer Palace was robbed and destroyed, the precious books and cultural relics collected in the garden such as "Sikuquanshu", "Quanshuhuyao", "Collection of Ancient and Modern Books", "Chunhua Pavilion Notes" and other precious books and cultural relics were not spared. This can reflect from one aspect the huge damage caused to human culture by the imperialist invaders burning the Old Summer Palace.
Of course, nothing is perfect. The Old Summer Palace is so large, and it was expanded and renovated by emperors of several dynasties. Coupled with the influence of the decadent consciousness of feudal emperors, no matter how you look at it, it still has shortcomings. However, overall, the Old Summer Palace is indeed an outstanding garden. It can be said that it is the culmination of thousands of years of excellent gardening art in my country and pushes my country's classical gardens to a new height. At that time, everyone who witnessed its grand occasion said that it was indeed good. Some Westerners started to take a new look at Chinese gardens from the Old Summer Palace. In short, the Old Summer Palace has won honors for our ancient civilization and was once the pride of our Chinese nation!
Catastrophe
In the tenth year of Xianfeng, that is, in October 1860, the Old Summer Palace was brutally looted and burned by the British and French forces, which became a page of humiliation in the modern history of our country.
Due to the isolation of the country, 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 (the 20th year of Daoguang's reign), Western colonialists provoked a war of aggression against China—— The first Opium War; then the "Taiping Rebellion" movement broke out in China against the rule of the Qing Dynasty.
In October 1856, Britain and France jointly launched the Second Opium War. Its purpose is to seize greater colonial interests. They first 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 the British and French ministers coming to Beijing in exchange for peace, they advanced with force and induced "peace". . And they repeatedly created extraneous problems, with the purpose of Chen Bing the capital and forcing the Qing court to submit. The corrupt and incompetent Qing government reluctantly begged for peace and was hesitant to decide on a war-defense strategy. 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 in a hurry from the Old Summer Palace to the Chengde Summer Resort. It is called "Northern Patrol", but in fact it puts the ancestors and the country at risk of escaping with their own lives. This resulted in a crisis situation in which the capital had no owner, all officials were dispersed, soldiers were unmotivated, and the people were frightened.
On October 6, the British and French allied forces passed through the northeastern suburbs of Beijing and headed towards the Old Summer Palace. At that time, the remnants of Seng Gelinqin and Ruilin made some resistance in the north of the city and then fled. The French army went ahead and passed through Haidian in the afternoon of the same day. In the evening, they broke into the Grand Palace Gate of the Old Summer Palace. At this time, there were more than twenty Jiyong eunuchs from the Yuanmingyuan engaging in battle with the enemy inside the Xianliang Gate. "Don't be afraid of danger and move forward with all your strength", but in the end they were outnumbered. Ren Liang, the "eighth grade leader" of Yuanmingyuan's technical and bravery, and others died in the line of duty. By 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. : "The French commissioners are ordered to take note of the items that are most valuable in art and archeology first. I will dedicate items that are extremely rare in France to His Majesty the Emperor (Napoleon III) and hide them in the French Museum." British Commander Grant immediately "sent officers to try their best to collect objects that should belong to the British." The day after the French and British invaders entered the park, they could no longer resist the temptation of the objects. Officers and soldiers rushed forward in groups. Robbery the gold and silver treasures and cultural and artistic treasures in the garden.
According to the description of the British and French officers, priests, and journalists who participated in the robbery and witnessed the 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 embroidery, some chose high-end fur coats, and some picked up 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, 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 looted a golden Buddha statue worth ￡1,200 from a temple with 500 statues. 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. This man became rich by plundering the Old Summer Palace and enjoyed his life, so he was nicknamed "Chinese James". 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.
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 leave a "shocky and severe" legacy for their invasion of China "Then he blatantly ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace on the pretext that his captured personnel had been mistreated. On October 18th and 19th, three to four thousand British troops set fires everywhere in the country, and the fires did not go out for three days and nights. This unique garden masterpiece and a rare art treasure at home and abroad 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, 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 walked into the Old Summer Palace. One robbed something and the other set fire to it. It was as if victory in the war meant they could engage in robbery... In the face of history, these two robbers , one is called France and the other is called England." 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, promised all the conditions of the invaders. Soon after, the texts of the "Tianjin Treaty" were exchanged with Britain, France, and Russia, and the "Beijing Treaty" was signed. In this way, the imperialist powers occupied China's Kowloon Peninsula and a large territory in the north, extorting huge military compensation of 16 million taels of silver.
Why did the British and French forces burn the Old Summer Palace? Or what reason or pretext did the British and French allied forces use to burn down the Old Summer Palace?
On the one hand, people think that the blood and fire nature of imperialism’s external expansion determines the barbaric behavior wherever they go. .
On the other hand, it is caused by "kowtow diplomacy". At that time, Britain and France requested negotiations with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, "embassy in Beijing, travel inland, and trade on the Yangtze River." In other words, they wanted to establish diplomatic relations with you and establish embassies and consulates in each other's country. Foreigners can travel to mainland China and do business with China.
At that time, Britain and France requested negotiations with China on the above three points. According to current understanding, various disputes between China and Britain are very normal in the relations between countries and should be resolved through bilateral consultation and negotiation. be solved.
However, the Chinese emperor believed that China had been the center of the world since ancient times. The emperor was the master of the world, and all countries were vassals of China. Everyone who saw the emperor must kowtow to show submission. The traditional diplomatic theme of the Qing Dynasty was to let the barbarians come to kowtow, and thus established a complete diplomatic model that Fairbank called the "tribute system." So, the trouble is that Yi Di refuses to kowtow, and they have to stay in Beijing permanently. The minister's stationing in Beijing would inevitably lead to an audience with the emperor, and failure to kneel and worship the emperor would go against the concept of "unification of the world." At that time, the British and French allied forces requested negotiations with the Qing Dynasty, and if they wanted to negotiate, they would have to meet the emperor; meeting the emperor, according to traditional foreign policy Envoys were required to kneel when meeting the emperor, that is, to kowtow or not to kowtow.
The culprit behind the burning of the Old Summer Palace was the British Earl of Elgin (James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin). Elgin ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace in retaliation for the Qing government's arrest of ministers and mistreatment of prisoners of war. In September 1860, British Minister Harry Parkes and Elgin's personal secretary Henry Loch went to Tongxian County to negotiate with the Qing government under the white flag of armistice. They were arrested by Zaiyuan and Senggelinqin. Together with a group of British and French soldiers who had been captured alive in an ambush, they were taken to Beijing and imprisoned for more than a month. The Manchu emperor and the government had always regarded Parkes as the supreme commander of the British and French forces. According to the traditional strategy of "capture the thief first, capture the king", they planned to trap Parkes before the Tongzhou negotiations, hoping that after Parkes was captured, The British and French forces were leaderless and would inevitably be in chaos. They would then seize the opportunity to launch a massive attack and ensure victory. During their imprisonment, these people were tortured and humiliated in various ways. Of the 39 prisoners, 20 died in custody, including London Times reporter Thomas Bowlby.
After Elgin learned about the atrocities committed by the Qing government, he decided to take revenge. Elgin planned to burn down the Forbidden City, but after several days of deliberation, he chose the Old Summer Palace as the target of his revenge. Elgin's decision to burn down the Old Summer Palace instead of the Forbidden City had a deeper meaning. Elgin believed that the Forbidden City was the seat of the Chinese government (at that time, Britain and France were negotiating the Treaty of Beijing with the Qing government); and the Old Summer Palace was a royal garden, privately owned by the Chinese emperor. 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) < /p>
The detention and torture of British and French diplomats not only violated Western international law in Lord Elgin's view, but also violated China's code of conduct since ancient times: "When two countries engage in war, they will not kill envoys."
The damage caused by the burning of the Old Summer Palace was not only the crime of the British and French forces, but also the historical reason caused by the pedantry and incompetence of the Manchu emperor and government.
After the destruction of the Old Summer Palace, it remained a forbidden royal garden. During the Tongzhi period, under the instruction of the Empress Dowager Cixi, an attempt was made to rebuild the temple. At that time, the planned construction scope included more than 20 sites and more than 3,000 temples, mainly concentrated in the front area, Houhu area, west and north areas of the Old Summer Palace, as well as the Wanchun Garden Palace Gate area, Qingxia Hall at the entrance of Fuchun Hall, etc. . However, less than 10 months after the construction started, it was forced to suspend repairs due to depletion of financial resources. After that, although Empress Dowager Cixi built the Summer Palace, she did not completely give up on restoring the Old Summer Palace. Until the 22nd to 24th year of Guangxu, she also repaired the Shuanghezhai, Ke Nongxuan and other scenic spots in the Old Summer Palace. In 1900 (the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu), the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi took Emperor Guangxu and fled to Xi'an. The order in the capital was in chaos. Eight Banners soldiers and bandits took advantage of the situation and looted the remaining nearly 100 temples in the park that had been basically restored. The buildings were all demolished and looted, resulting in the complete destruction of the buildings and ancient and valuable trees in the Old Summer Palace.
Since then, the relics of the Old Summer Palace have been robbed by bureaucrats, warlords, profiteers, and even systematically destroyed by government authorities. The dignitaries of the Beiyang government, including some who were responsible for the protection of the Yuanmingyuan ruins, relied on their power to transport large quantities of stone sculptures, Taihu stones, etc. from the garden to build their gardens and residences. For example, Wang Huaiqing, the commander-in-chief of the garrison in the capital, Cao Kun, the patrol envoy (later bribed to be elected as the president of the Republic of China), Nie Xianfan, the infantry commander, Che Qingyun, the commander of the gendarmerie in the capital, and Wang Lanheng, the secretary-general of the government, all had such bad deeds. Only Jing Zhaoyi (considered Liu Menggeng, later mayor of Peking City, forcibly removed 623 carts of Taihu stone from Changchun Garden and 104 carts of Yunping stone from Qichun Garden within 25 days in the autumn of 1922. At that time, the 13th and 16th Army Divisions, the 11th National Army Division, the 53rd Army of the Northeast Army, and the 29th Army of Song Zheyuan were garrisoned in the Xiyuan area. The walls of the Old Summer Palace were forcibly demolished, and the bricks and stones were sold privately or used to build the Xiyuan playground. A large number of stone pieces were also removed from the Summer Palace, Zhongshan Park, Yanjing University, Peking Library and other places. In the early 1930s, when the stone ballast highway from Haidian to Yuquan Mountain was being renovated from the Gaoliang Bridge, with the approval of the Peking City Special Government, all the tiger-skin stone walls to the south (4,800 meters) and east of the Old Summer Palace were demolished and smashed into stone ballast for use. paving. Prior to this, the Great Wall bricks, tiger skin stones, cloud flake stones, and even the remaining marble pillars of the Western-style buildings in the garden were publicly sold at wholesale prices for many times. In this way, the Old Summer Palace was reduced to ruins.
The Old Summer Palace, a famous garden of a generation, was destroyed by the British and French invaders, and also by the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government. Its destruction is not only a witness to the barbaric destruction of human culture by Western invaders, but also proof that ancient civilizations will be beaten if they fall behind.