Liyuan is located on the west side of Wu 'an Street in xinghua city. It was built in Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty (185 1- 1860), and was originally a private garden of Li Xiaobo, a wealthy businessman in Yangzhou in Qing Dynasty. It is a water town garden with unique design style, exquisite architectural skills and unique regional characteristics. Because of the long and narrow terrain, it is called "more than half an acre".
During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty (185 1- 1860), Li Xiaobo, a wealthy businessman in Yangzhou, set up a "Deben" ceremony on the east side of Xinghua Sipailou, and built a back garden on the narrow plot behind the house, which is now Li Garden.
Liyuan gatehouse (1934 rebuilt during the Chamber of Commerce) is located in the west and east. Opposite the hall is the patio with south and north flower halls. I have been to Jingmen, the pear garden in the west. From east to west, there are three chambers.
The buildings in the East Campus mainly include square pavilions, boat halls and square halls. Fangting is located in the southeast corner of the courtyard, connected to the ship hall with a single slope roof and connected to the corridor below.
In the north is the boat hall, which is the most distinctive classical building in the park. As a whole, it is boat-shaped, with the bow facing west, showing an "L" shape, with seven sheds resting on the top of the mountain. The bow is hung on it, with a plaque of "freedom and fashion", and there is a large double-sided carved floor cover in the middle of the cabin. There is a stack between the east end and the back cabin, on which is the amount of "Canglang Painting Boat" inscribed by Changzhou calligrapher Wang Xun. There are three rooms in the north and south of the rear cabin, and the second room in the south and the first room in the north are separated by circular mats. Above the flower cover hangs a small plaque inscribed by yang xian, a famous calligrapher in Qing Dynasty. There is a ramp in the center of the south side outside the ship hall, which looks like a springboard.
The boathouse is separated from the west by a high wall, which was originally the "0" (Dayu) built in the Ming Dynasty. In order to resolve the ominous shackles, Li Xiaobo hired famous landscape designers from all over the country to build this unique boathouse by collecting the essence of landscape architecture in Gusu and Weiyang. The bow is facing the prison, and the sound of the chain becomes the smooth sound of the anchor chain.
The square hall facing north, three rooms are wide and spacious. There is a plaque inscribed by Mr. Lai Shaoqi, "Song Yunshan Pavilion".
There is a rectangular patio in the north of the square hall, and there are wavy brick flower racks along the wall under the north wall. There are ancient and famous trees such as Chimonanthus praecox and Magnolia grandiflora planted on the stage, which are lush.
Westbound along Fangting North Corridor, you can enter the South Yard and the North Yard respectively. On the south side of the south courtyard and patio is the osmanthus building facing south. Three rooms wide, two floors up and down. Peng Guoliang wrote the inscription "Osmanthus fragrans House". There is a tall flower stand under the flower wall on the north side, and ancient and famous trees such as osmanthus, pomegranate and boxwood are planted. There is a stone carving embedded above the stair door of Guihua Building, which was written by Liu Yong (Shi An), a famous calligrapher in Qing Dynasty. The well-known festival of grass and trees has become a long-term success. "
In the northwest corner of the square courtyard, there is a small door leading to the North Garden. Above the east-facing lintel, there is a stone forehead inscribed by Ruan Yuan, a calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty. Through this door, you can enter the North Park. In the original garden, there was once a mountain with a pavilion. Under the east eaves of the pavilion, there is a wooden plaque named "Qi", which was written by the calligrapher Xu tui in the Qing Dynasty in this city. On the pavilion column, there is a couplet inscribed by Zheng Banqiao, which reads, "How to be virtuous in ten miles of famous flowers and how to cultivate one's morality in ten thousand buildings". The earthen hills and pavilions in the garden were demolished in the 1950s, but they no longer exist today.
Liyuan is the product of commercial economy in the late Qing Dynasty, and it is also a witness to the rise and fall of Xinghua's commercial economy in history. 1934, Li Meige, the son of Li Xiaobo, sold Li Yuan to Xinghua County Chamber of Commerce at a positive price of 5,800 yuan due to the decline of his family. After the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), Liyuan was the office of Xinghua County Federation of Industry and Commerce. 1989, the prison in the northwest corner of Liyuan was demolished and converted into a museum. 1993 after the expansion of the museum, it was integrated with the pear garden. The pear garden now managed by the museum is an important scenic spot of Xinghua cultural tourism.
Among them, Ship Hall was declared as a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit by Jiangsu Provincial People's Government on 1957 and 1982 respectively. In 2002, the People's Government of Jiangsu Province once again announced Liyuan as a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit.