In the Summer Palace, there is the famous "Emperor's Prison", where the Empress Dowager Cixi imprisoned Emperor Guangxu. Emperor Guangxu wanted to reform, but was betrayed by Yuan Shikai to the Empress Dowager Cixi. In anger, the Empress Dowager Cixi imprisoned Emperor Guangxu in Yulantang, and built walls around the Yulantang, completely surrounding it. It was closed so that Emperor Guangxu could not escape. Empress Dowager Cixi also moved two large stones from Jingyi Garden in Xiangshan and placed them at the entrance of Yulan Hall. The stones are one big and one small. From a distance, they look like a pair of mother and son, so they are named Mother and Son Stone, which means that the stubborn stone still has the affection of mother and son, but Guangxu was ungrateful and was worse than a stone. Placing the stone here is also a warning to Emperor Guangxu, warning him not to do anything outrageous again. Nowadays, most of the walls have been demolished, but the Xiafen Room in the East and West Wings and the Lotus Champs have remained intact, allowing future generations to witness that period of history.
Yulan Hall was built during the Qianlong period. It is a building with a three-part courtyard. It was originally the study room of Emperor Qianlong. It was burned down by the British and French forces in 1860. After Emperor Guangxu rebuilt it, it was turned into his palace.
The word "Yulan" comes from a poem by Lu Ji, a poet of the Jin Dynasty, "The orchids vibrate the leaves, and the jade springs surge with gentle waves", which means the lake water is clear and rippling.
Yulan Hall is five rooms wide. The East Nuan Pavilion is the breakfast room of Emperor Guangxu; the West Nuan Pavilion is the bedroom; the East Wing is the study; the West Wing is the bathroom and dressing room.
The east and west auxiliary halls of Yulan Hall are the Xiafen Room and the Lotus Champs Pavilion, both of which are cross-hall structures. The meaning of Xiafen Room is to face the rising sun and go to court. This is where the emperor waits for going to court every day. Its back door can lead directly to the Renshou Hall where he goes to court. After everything is ready in the Renshou Hall, Emperor Guangxu can walk directly through the hall to the Renshou Hall. . The Ou Xiang Pavilion in the west side hall has direct access to the lakeside pier. When you go to pay respects to the Empress Dowager Cixi, you can go from the Ou Xiang Pavilion through the "Shuimu Ziqin" to the Leshou Hall to pay respects.
The Yulan Hall is equipped with a throne, an imperial desk, a palm fan, and a screen. The screen is made of two layers of glass, and the glass is painted with landscape paintings, including Chinese landscape paintings and Western landscape paintings, using a style that combines Chinese and Western styles. The color of the picture is made of natural gemstones ground into powder, and the color is very bright.
There are also plaques in the hall that read "Restore the Scenery of the Hall" and "Feng Huang Cheng Yun". "Fu Dian" means a deep palace, and "Jing" refers to the scenery star. The appearance of Jing Xing symbolizes the emperor's wisdom. "Fu Dian Liu Jing" means that the sage king lives in the deep palace. "Fenghuang Chengyun" evolved from the idiom "Songhuang Chengyun". The word "pine" was changed to the word "wind", which is homophonic to "Phoenix becomes pregnant". It is hoped that the emperor and the empress will have children soon.
Passing through the corridor of Yulan Hall, we came to the backyard, where there are mountains and hills of Taihu stone. There is a two-story building near the water, called Xijia Building, which is named after "Drinking" by Tao Yuanming, a writer of the Jin Dynasty. The artistic conception in the poem "The mountain air is beautiful day and night, and the birds return to each other". The view upstairs is wide, with the peaks of the Western Mountains in the distance and the pavilions and pavilions of Wanshou Mountain nearby. It is a good place to watch the sunset.
After walking through Yulan Hall, you came to Yiyun Hall. "Yun" is a kind of herb, which can prevent book moths. "Yiyun" means suitable for collecting books, and it was a place used to store books during the Qianlong period. After the Summer Palace was rebuilt, the main hall served as the residence of Guangxu's empress Longyu, and the west side hall served as the residence of Guangxu's favorite concubine Zhenfei. Queen Longyu had a rough life. She was used as a political tool by Empress Dowager Cixi and married to Guangxu. After the marriage, she was not favored by Guangxu. The greatest sorrow of Queen Longyu was that the abdication edict of the last emperor Puyi was read out, and the rule of the Qing Dynasty ended. After the failure of the "1898 Reform", Empress Dowager Cixi ordered Queen Longyu and Concubine Zhen to move to the first and second houses of the Xisi Institute in the west of the garden and north of Shizhang Pavilion respectively.
The corridor walls on both sides of Yiyun Gate are inlaid with ink traces copied by Emperor Qianlong of famous ancient calligraphers, all of which are relics from the Yiyuan period of the Qing Dynasty. Originally these stone carvings were in Momiaoxuan of Xiequyuan, but were moved here during the Guangxu period.
Leshou Hall is the residence of Empress Dowager Cixi. The word "Le Shou" comes from the words "The wise are happy and the benevolent are longevity" in "The Analects of Confucius·Yong Ye". "Le Shou Tang" means that this is the hall where wise and benevolent people live.
There is a very huge Taihu stone in the courtyard of Le Shoutang, named "Qingzhixiu", but people usually call this stone the prodigal stone. Why is this? There is a little story about this big stone. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a man named Mi Wanzhong who was a famous calligrapher and painter, and also a famous stone enthusiast. He especially liked stones. By chance, he discovered this stone in Dashiwo, Fangshan, Beijing. He liked it so much that he planned to transport it home. He hired more than a hundred workers and used 40 horses and carts. It took him seven days to get out of the mountain and then left again. It took five days to arrive in Liangxiang, but before the stone arrived home, the property was squandered. In desperation, he had no choice but to abandon the stone on the roadside. Therefore, this stone has the title of "Prodigal Stone". Later, Emperor Qianlong went to visit the tomb of the Qingxi Mausoleum in Yi County, Hebei Province. When he passed by Liangxiang and saw this stone, he moved it to the courtyard of Leshou Hall as a screen wall and named it "Qingzhixiu". However, because the gate was too narrow, the stone Unable to get in, we had no choice but to tear down the wall. This is where the title “Prodigal Stone” comes from.
There are magnolias, crabapples and peonies planted in the courtyard of Le Shoutang, which means the wealth of Yutang.
In front of the hall are placed a pair of copper deer, copper crane and copper vase, which means "peace in Liuhe" based on the homophonic pronunciation of deer, crane and vase.
"Liuhe" refers to the six directions of southeast, northwest, up and down, and "Liuhe Taiping" refers to peace in the world.
There are two screens in the Leshou Hall, which are "Birds Facing Phoenix" and "Peacock Spreading Its Screen". They are exquisite Cantonese embroidery works, one of the four famous works in my country. Two screens display more than a hundred lifelike birds of various shapes.
The large blue and white porcelain plate on the table in the hall is of exquisite craftsmanship and is a representative work of blue and white porcelain in the Qing Dynasty. The Empress Dowager Cixi didn't like to use incense, so she used porcelain plates to hold fruits for the Empress Dowager Cixi to smell the aroma of the fruits.
There is also one of the best in the country in the Leshou Hall, which is the first place in the country to use electric lights. The colorful glass chandelier hanging on the top of the hall was imported from Germany in 1903.
There is also a fish table with a Venus rosewood frame and a glass top. The workmanship of this table is very fine, using ivory and wenge wood to carve out landscape figures, pavilions and pavilions. The Empress Dowager Cixi can drink tea, eat snacks and watch goldfish at the same time. This shows how luxurious the Empress Dowager Cixi's life is.
After visiting the temple, we came to Shuimu Ziqin. Shuimuzijing is a main hall with front and back halls, facing the lake in the south. When Empress Dowager Cixi came to the Summer Palace from the waterway, she landed here. On the pier outside Shuimu Ziqin Hall, there is a high-erected sea-exploring light pole, also called the "Shuiyue Light Pole", about nine meters high. The tall green light pole is covered with lime powder and gold, surrounded by auspicious clouds. When the Empress Dowager Cixi was stationed in the garden, a gas lamp was hung high above it as a signal. If the light was on, it proved that Cixi was not asleep yet and she had to be more careful.