Guangming Daily reporter Dong Cheng
The "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" (Xiangshan, Yuquan Mountain, Wanshou Mountain, Jingyi Garden, Jingmingyuan, Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan and Changchun Garden) are an important part of Beijing's famous historical and cultural cities, a typical area carrying the "four cultures" of the capital, and an important bearing place for the ancient capital culture and The Culture of Beijing.
In recent years, around the research and revitalization of the history and culture of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens, a group of old, middle-aged and young experts and scholars have deeply excavated the historical context of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens, launched a series of research results, outlined the past and present lives of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens more and more clearly, and continuously provided sufficient arguments and details for the positioning of the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" cultural golden business card.
Summer Palace Wanshou Mountain Kunming Lake Ma Wenxiao photo / Guangming photo
Evolution of ideas: Garden design reflects the ideals of governance
Tsinghua University professor Guo Daijian is an assistant and closed disciple of Mr. Liang Sicheng, a master of Chinese architectural history, who led the team to conduct decades of research around the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens", accumulating rich historical maps and research data, and the "Digital Yuanmingyuan" was listed by the Ministry of Science and Technology in the "Power of Science and Technology - 70 Years of Science and Technology Archives of the People's Republic of China".
Guo Daijie said that the history of Chinese gardens can be traced back to 2,000 years ago, when the main purpose of gardening was to use the natural environment to build the palace garden. At this stage, garden construction is mainly based on imperial leisure, and the concept of planning and design has not yet been formed. In the Han Dynasty, the royal idea of seeking wonderland was further reflected in the garden, symbolizing the wonderland with "one pond and three mountains".
Jing Yi Garden see Xin Zhai Zhu Qiang photo /Guangming picture
Later, in the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties, although the main purpose of gardening changed, but looking at these royal gardens, although the gardening skills were constantly improving, and the gardening planning was from scratch, the design theme was still mainly used for the emperor's own leisure and pleasure.
The Three Mountains and Five Gardens, at the beginning of their birth, have different planning concepts from the historical royal gardens.
At this time, the emperors of Kang, Yong, and Qian formed the habit of garden residence, and garden planning began to reflect the emperor's ideal of governing the country. It is not only manifested in the planning aspect, but also in the choice of landscape.
"Three Mountains and Five Gardens and the Restoration of Beijing City" (partial) drawn by the research team of Three Mountains and Five Gardens of Beijing Forestry University
By restoring the general plan of the Yuanmingyuan when it was built during the Yongzheng period, Guo Daijian's team found that the Yuanmingyuan was actually a microcosm of the Chinese territory - the entire garden was transformed into a terrain to reach a high in the northwest and low in the southeast, with hills and rivers, the northwest symbolizing the Kunlun Mountains, and the southeast symbolizing the sea. The east side of the Yuanmingyuan has a large water surface to symbolize the terrain where the Chinese territory is located; the core area of the garden symbolizes that the territory of China is Kyushu, so there is A Kyushu Qingyan located in the core area, reflecting the pursuit and yearning of the country's supreme ruler. The garden also embodies the ruling ideal of the feudal emperor - hoping that wanfang will be safe and the world will be peaceful, so the "ten thousand" character house was built.
There are also various forms of colleges in the Three Mountains and Five Gardens, and many bookhouses and bookhouses have appeared, such as Bitong Academy and Huifang College. Although some buildings are not named after the academy, they have a large collection of books and can also be used for reading.
The agricultural landscape in the Three Mountains and Five Gardens also occupies a considerable proportion, and the specific image has many different expressions, such as the indifferent and quiet landscape of the Yuanmingyuan, which is covered with the word "Tian" to show the idea of paying attention to Nongsang.
Photo by Zhu Qiang of the Jingxi Rice Paddy Field in Liangshan Park/Guangming Photo
Scale statistics: at least 31 gardens, about 18 Forbidden City size
People must be curious, "three mountains and five gardens" is not 3 mountains and 5 gardens? Not really.
Zhu Qiang, a doctoral student at Beijing Forestry University who studied under Academician Meng Zhaozhen, a master of landscape architecture in China, is a "post-90s" who grew up in Beijing, and with his strong interest in garden history and dedication to the profession, he spontaneously established the "Beijing Forestry University Three Mountains and Five Gardens Research Team" to carry out in-depth restoration research and cultural excavation work around the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens".
In the "Whole Map of the Restoration of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens and beijing city" verified and drawn by Zhu Qiang and others, the complete pattern of the "three mountains and five gardens" area in the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty and its relationship with the old city of Beijing can be seen at a glance. In fact, these "five gardens" are only representatives of them. The entire "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" area is like a landscape city without walls, which is larger than the size of the old city of Beijing at 62.5 square kilometers.
Photo by Zhu Qiang of the Kyushu Scenic Area of the Old Summer Palace/Guangming Picture
Originally, if strictly according to the ownership division, the Three Mountains and Five Gardens once contained three types of gardens - the first type was the Royal Garden of the Imperial Garden, a total of 12, and the Yuanmingyuan (including the affiliated gardens) was the first of its scale and artistic level; the second type was the garden given by the emperor to the clan relatives and ministers to live, a total of 11, such as the Tsinghua Garden and Langrun Garden that existed in Tsinghua University and Peking University; the third type, which was a private residential garden, due to the small number of them, was far more than 8, representative such as the Liwang Garden left in Haidian Town. In terms of scale and distribution, the Royal Garden is large and scattered, spanning 12 kilometers from east to west and 6 kilometers from north to south; the Garden of Gifts and Residences is small and concentrated, mainly in Haidian Town and around Changchun Garden and Yuanmingyuan.
According to the statistics of Zhu Qiang's team's recovery results, the total area of the Imperial Garden alone is close to 14 Forbidden Cities. It can be seen that with the construction of the garden complex in the western suburbs, the royal living space has been greatly expanded, for example, the Changchun Garden built by the Qianlong Emperor for retirement after abdication has 756,000 square meters, which is slightly larger than the Forbidden City (about 720,000 square meters). The total area of the above three types of considerable gardens is 18 times that of the Forbidden City. These are just one of the human settlement environment systems of the entire "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" mountain-forest-water-garden-field-village-temple-camp-road.
It is lamentable that after the catastrophe brought about by the British and French coalition forces in 1860 and the long years of war after that, the ancient buildings and gardens that can be seen today are only the "tip of the iceberg" of the historical grand situation, so it is not too much to call the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" a large heritage protection area.
Photo by Liu Yusong of ginkgo biloba leaves in the golden autumn season of Xiangshan Mountain/Guangming picture
Gardening techniques: "DianYuan" and "Mountain Garden" have their own characteristics and are ingenious
In the history of "Three Mountains and Five Gardens", there is also the meaning and origin of "Haidian".
Haidian, its original meaning is a vast water berth, "Danling" is once a large lake, its water source is mainly the spring group at the south end of the Wanquan River. The Qianlong Emperor once described in the article that "there are innumerable people who have milk caves on the flat ground", thus creating hundreds of scenic spots composed of artificial landscapes, houses, flowers, trees, animals, etc. in the "Dianyuan" group such as Changchun Garden and Yuanmingyuan, which fully reflects the skills and philosophies of the ancients to create a living environment according to local conditions.
Compared with the "Yodoen" group in the east, the three "mountain gardens" in the west apply different design methods. Xiangshan Mountain and Yuquan Mountain are natural mountain forests with abundant spring water. The ancients combed the springs scattered in the mountains and used this as the reason for the landscaping.
For example, the Yuquan Baotu of Jingmingyuan is one of the "Eight Views of Yanjing", the sound of the gorge snow on the mountain is to enjoy the spring on the top of the mountain; the Qiyun Building of Jingyi Garden is a landscape using shuangqing springs, and in Yunqinzhai you can listen to the sound of springs falling down, and a considerable number of attractions are also built to enjoy strange stones and autumn leaves. These two palaces are more of adorned with natural scenery.
Around the winter solstice, the "golden light piercing" landscape will appear before sunset on the Seventeen Hole Bridge on Nanhu Island in the Summer Palace. Photo by Ma Zhijiang/Guangming Image
The Wanshou Mountain and Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace (formerly known as "Qingyi Garden") are different, semi-natural and semi-artificial mountains and lakes, and Kunming Lake was mainly used for water storage and water army exercises. On this basis, a large number of religious themes and scenic spots imitating Jiangnan scenic spots are spread throughout the lake area and mountainous areas, including the "one causeway and six bridges" and "one pond and three mountains" in the lake area, as well as the attractions of Dabao'en Yanshou Temple (now Paiyun Hall and Buddha Xiangge Architectural Complex) on Wanshou Mountain, the middle of the painting, the ZhaoChun Garden, and the Huishan Garden (now the Harmonic Garden). Today, the Summer Palace is the best-preserved royal garden in the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens", and people can truly appreciate the superb construction skills and profound cultural connotations from the field.
It is not difficult to see that the traditional Chinese garden represented by the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" is a world-class garden masterpiece that integrates ecological beauty and artistic beauty, and artistic beauty covers architectural beauty, literary beauty, artistic beauty and other categories, which are undoubtedly valuable material and spiritual wealth that benefit people, and are worth constantly studying and exploring.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-01-01 07 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily