One of the distinctive features of the Old Summer Palace is that it was built in large quantities with imitations of many famous gardens and scenic spots from all over China, especially those in the south of the Yangtze River. Emperor Qianlong Hongli visited Jiangsu and Zhejiang six times in the south, Wutai in the west, Daiyue in the east, and Rehe, Shengjing (ie Shenyang), Panshan and other places many times. Everywhere he went, he would have the accompanying painters copy the famous mountains, rivers, and gardens that he liked, and then build replicas of them in the gardens after he returned to Beijing. According to incomplete statistics, there are no fewer than forty or fifty direct copies of the garden scenery of the Old Summer Palace. The ten scenic spots of West Lake in Hangzhou, including their names, are all replicated in the park without changing their names. As the saying goes: Who knows the beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, it will move the sky and shrink the earth in your arms. [17]
After Emperor Qianlong’s southern tour, four famous gardens in the south of the Yangtze River were imitated in the Old Summer Palace. One of them is Anlan Garden in the northwest of Fuhai. During the 27th year of Qianlong's southern tour, he used Chen's Yuyuan in Haining as his residence and named it "Anlan Garden". Emperor Qianlong liked the garden's beautiful structure very much. After returning to Beijing, he renovated and added buildings near the Siyi Bookstore in Yuanmingyuan, imitating its location. After the garden was completed, it was also named "Anlan Garden". The other three famous gardens imitated at that time were all in the Changchun Garden. One is the Xiaoyoutian Garden built in the east courtyard of Siyongzhai in the 23rd year of Qianlong's reign, modeled after Wang's Garden in West Lake, Hangzhou; the other is the Xiaoyoutian Garden built in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign, modeled on the Zhanyuan Garden in Jiangning (Nanjing). Garden; one is the Lion Grove, which was built in the 37th year of Qianlong's reign and modeled on the famous gardens in Suzhou. Ruyuan and Lion Forest both have more than 16 scenic spots. [17]
The beautiful west peak of the Old Summer Palace was the place where Emperors Yongzheng and Qianlong held a Qixi Banquet every seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Here you can enjoy the scenery of the Western Mountains. On the west bank of the river, there is a group of overlapping mountains with steep pines and steep mountains and rapid waterfalls in the mountain streams. Looking up at it, it looks like the majestic majesty of Mount Lu, so it is named "Xiao Kuang Lu". [17]
Sitting on a stone facing the stream, it is imitated from the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin, Kuaiji, Shaoxing. Built in the Yongzheng Dynasty, it is commonly known as Liubei Pavilion. Wang Xizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and other literati met in the Orchid Pavilion of Kuaiji on March 3rd of the ninth year of Yonghe (that is, Shangsi day), drank wine in a meandering stream, composed poems and repaired wedges (sacrificial activities), and it was passed down as a good story. [17]
The Orchid Pavilion in the Old Summer Palace is an open pavilion with three bays and double eaves. In the forty-fourth year of Qianlong's reign, 6 pieces of "Lanting Preface" calligraphy by famous calligraphers of all dynasties were collected. Together with the handwritings of the great scholar Yu Minzhong and Emperor Qianlong himself, they were combined into the "Lanting Eight Pillars Volume". Emperor Qianlong ordered the pavilion to be rebuilt into eight directions and replaced with stone pillars. Each pillar was engraved with one post. These are the famous eight pillars of the Orchid Pavilion of Yuanmingyuan. Kuoran Grand Duke, later also known as Shuanghezhai, was built after the Jichang Garden in Huishan, Wuxi. The northern half of this scene was built in the middle of the Qianlong period, imitating the rocks in the Yunlin Stone Chamber of Panshan Jingji Villa. Jiaqing poems praised "Shuanghezhai": its structure is modeled after Huishan, and its famous garden conveys a tranquil environment. The winding roads are steep, the sycamore pines are especially luxuriant, the small caves are rugged and the rocks are not stubborn. People know that the Harmony Garden in the Summer Palace was modeled after the Jichang Garden in Huishan. In fact, a replica of the Jichang Garden was also built in the Old Summer Palace at that time. It's just that the two imitations have different artistic conceptions. The spring scenery of Wuling imitates the artistic conception of Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Spring". It was built in the late Kangxi period and was called Taohuawu during the Yongzheng Dynasty. It was once the place where Hongli studied, and the study room was called "Leshan Hall". This scene is said to have thousands of mountain peaches. There used to be Taohuawu in Changmen, Suzhou, which was said to be the former residence of Tang Bohu. Although Taohuawu in the Yuanmingyuan broke through the shackles of official norms in many aspects, it recruited a wide range of ideas and took various forms. [17]