On the seventh day of the eighth lunar month in 1860, the British and French allies invaded all the way, defeating the armies of Zeng Greenqin and Shengbao successively, and directly approaching the capital of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing. In the end, the Xianfeng Emperor, the highest level of power in the Qing Empire, decided to flee Rehe in the name of Mulan Qiu hunt and take refuge in the summer resort.
Mountain resort view
An order from the Xianfeng Emperor opened the gate of the Chengde Summer Resort that had been sealed for many years, and the palace eunuchs urgently cleaned the palace to welcome the upcoming emperor and the nobles of the palaces, and no one cared about the human tragedy in the city of Beijing, and no one cared that the Yuanmingyuan that gave birth to the Xianfeng Emperor was reduced to ashes in a fire.
The ancestors of the Xianfeng Emperor, Kangxi and Qianlong, the two emperors spent a lot of effort to build the Chengde Summer Resort, carefully carved, at the same time the two emperors were also worried that their descendants would be lost in this comfortable life, so they left a large number of stone tablets in the Chengde Summer Resort, educating their descendants to be diligent and love the people, but all this was in vain, the Xianfeng Emperor fled here, the comfortable life made him forget all his troubles, and even a little glad that the ancestors left such a refuge, the Xianfeng Emperor took refuge for a year. Here several treaties of mourning and humiliation were approved, and in his spare time, a drama class was invited to listen to music, and even though the courtiers asked the Xianfeng Emperor to return to the court, they still refused to leave the refuge, perhaps because the British and French forces left him with a deep psychological shadow until his death on August 22, 1861.
Xianfeng Emperor
01 The Safe House of the Imperial Royals
Stepping into the Chengde Mountain Resort, the first thing that catches the eye is the plaque written by the Kangxi Emperor himself, the Summer Resort, it is said that because Kangxi felt that the word avoidance had the meaning of escape, it could not show the imperial wind bone, so the avoidance of the summer resort was more horizontal. The Kangxi Emperor's idea was good, but he could not escape the fate of the summer resort as the imperial safe house of the Qing Empire, and finally ended his historical mission in the end of the Xianfeng Emperor's refuge.
The Manchu Qing Dynasty originated between the White Mountains and Black Water, arose in the bitter cold land outside Guanwai, and eventually established a national government within the Great Wall, but it was necessary to build a royal palace in Chengde in the area between Guannei and Guanwai, and the establishment of the Chengde Summer Resort itself was a contradiction.
Mountain Resort Door Plaque
The Qing Dynasty was the second national unified regime established by non-Han Chinese, different from the Yuan Empire's division of the four-class approach, the Eight Banners nobles quickly accepted the Han culture after entering the customs, but under the pressure of the huge population size and strong culture of the Han People, the Manchu rulers always had a sense of insecurity in their hearts.
In the end, this sense of insecurity made the emperors of the Qing Dynasty continue to strengthen the centralization of power and revitalize the prison, but even so, it was not safe enough, after all, the Ming Emperor's Yin Jian was not far away.
The trajectory of the power struggle of the Ming Dynasty is roughly the process of the retreat of the emperor and the advancement of the subjects, during the founding period of the Ming Dynasty, under the two emperors Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, probably the peak of the power of the Ming Emperor, the military generals of the Ming Dynasty were all trembling and trembling, and several emperors of Taicheng Renxuan were still free to enter and leave the city of Beijing, and after the defeat of the Ming Yingzong Tumu Fort, the civilian official clique cooperated with all their might, and finally little by little, the Ming Emperor was imprisoned in the imperial city with the Forbidden City and xiyuan as the core, even if there were challengers such as the Zhengde Emperor in the middle, they were also under the counterattack of the civilian official clique. The merits of the great victory of Yingzhou were erased, the truth of falling into the water and dying was covered up, the Jiajing Emperor after Zhengde was born as a king of the domain, and he could still fight, and the subsequent generations of emperors such as Longqing, Wanli, and Tianqi had long been powerless to fight, the Longqing Emperor became the treasurer, Wanli took 28 years of non-dynasty, no temple, no suburbs, no criticism, passive strike as a protest, but unfortunately lost in the confrontation with the civilian official clique, the Apocalypse Emperor launched Wei Zhongxian to try to use the eunuch power against the civilian official clique, As a result, the partisan struggle since the Jiajing Dynasty broke out completely, the officials were too busy with party strife to have any intention of government, the mountains and rivers were in decline, and the Chongzhen Emperor could not save the Ming Dynasty and mountains that were full of smoke no matter how much he had the heart.
Group portrait of ming emperors
As a result, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty built a royal garden in Chengde, about 220 kilometers away from the imperial palace, in the name of summer escape, as a safe house in the hearts of the Manchu Qing royal family, not far from the political center of Beijing, nor surrounded within the Great Wall, which can be attacked and retreated, an ideal refuge.
02 Witnesses of great national unity
Stepping into the Chengde Mountain Resort, in the northeast direction stands 12 temples with different architectural styles, of which 8 are directly managed by the Qing government, known as the Outer Eight Temples, the architectural styles of these temples are Tibetan temples, Han temples, and Han-Tibetan combined temples, which integrate the characteristics of various ethnic groups such as Han-Tibetan-Mongolian-Manchu, magnificent and quite royal.
According to the logic, as a royal safe house, Chengde Mountain Resort should be decorated magnificently and enjoy luxury. However, the contradiction is that the extravagant aristocratic life is perfectly combined with the political task of national unity, and the Chengde Summer Resort is not a simple royal garden from the beginning of its construction.
Outer Eight Temples Scenic Area
At the Chengde Mountain Resort, the kangxi and Qianlong emperors repeatedly received nobles from Tibet and completely brought Tibet into the management system of the central government.
In 1778 AD, after the Sixth Panchen Lama conveyed his wish to enter Beijing to congratulate the Qianlong Emperor on his 70th birthday, the Qianlong Emperor gladly agreed, the Sixth Panchen Lama entered Beijing is a grand event that has not been seen in a hundred years since the Fifth Dalai Lama entered Beijing to meet the Shunzhi Emperor, in order to make the Sixth Panchen Lama feel at home in the interior, the purpose of Chengde Summer Resort imitated the style of Tashilhunpo Temple, built the Temple of Sumire Fushou, built the Xiangshan Zhao Temple in Beijing, and at the same time summoned the heads of all the western Mongolian tribes, the heads of the various tribes of Hui Xinjiang, the leaders of the returning Turbats, and the southwest toasts. At that time, we will meet at Chengde Mountain Resort.
In June 1779, the leaders of the Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Hui tribes of the Chengde Summer Resort gathered together, and with the help of the influence of the Panchen Lama, the Qing Empire achieved the consolidation and promotion of the central government's status and prestige among the leaders of the ethnic minorities on the frontier, and achieved the miraculous effect of respecting one person and pleasing a thousand people.
Every autumn, the kangxi and Qianlong emperors had to pass through the Chengde Mountain Resort and hold the Mulan Autumn Festival, display the authority of the central government at the lowest cost, and use the most appropriate means to win the hearts and minds of the Mongolian, Tibetan, and other nationalities. Kangxi ordered that the Great Wall should not be built, but in the hearts of various ethnic groups such as Han, Mongolia, Tibet, manchuria and Hui, a great wall connected to each other was built, and the connection point of the Great Wall in the heart was the Chengde Summer Resort.
Temple of Sumire Fukushou
During the reign of the Qing Empire, Xinjiang became a province under the central government, and Tibet was truly brought under the jurisdiction of the central government, completely subjugating to the Mongolian steppe that had been entangled with the Central Plains Dynasty for thousands of years, and the distinctive temples in the Chengde Summer Resort were indispensable. The ruler of the Qing Empire built a safe house outside miyagi, but his deep eyes looked at the frontier of the empire, thinking of the big chessboard of national unity.
03 The contradiction between prosperity and backwardness
At the end of July 1793, the British Magalney envoys arrived in China, for this visit, the British side made full preparations, carefully selected representatives of Europe or the world's advanced technology at that time, such as the celestial orbiter representing astronomy and mechanics, the globe that can see the capitals, oceans and routes of the world's major empires, as well as the Model of the Monarch battleship, which was the largest British warship equipped with 110 cannons at that time, and Western weapons such as howitzers, mortars, carbines, and repeating pistols.
The Magalni envoys arrived in China in the name of Zhu Shou, and were also arranged to enter the Chengde Summer Resort to wait for the Qianlong Emperor to summon them, but the British' wishes were soon disappointed, and the British' visit was simply considered by Qing officials to be a tribute to the heavenly kingdom by the local feudal states, and the items brought by the British were only evaluated by the strange tricks and did not attract attention.
Magalni envoys with the Qianlong Emperor
The nobles of the Qing Dynasty still proudly claimed to be the kingdom of heaven and heaven, but they did not know that the world had long since changed the heavens and the earth, the backwardness of the great navigation era, the absence of the industrial revolution, so that China at this time was far behind the Western world, the Magalni envoys walked on the land of China, what they saw and heard was shocking poverty, and the upper nobility of the country was still sleeping and enjoying themselves in the dreams of drunken gold fans.
Also a birthday celebration, also at the Chengde Summer Resort, the visit of the Sixth Panchen Lama is a symbol of the prosperity of an empire, and the visit of the Magalni Envoy is a sign of the backwardness and decay of the empire, and the Chengde Summer Resort is just a combination of undertaking this contradiction.
A view of the summer resort
The arrogance and complacency of the Qianlong Emperor were eventually paid for by his descendants, and in just 47 years, the reigning emperor was replaced by the grandson of the Qianlong Emperor, and the Daoguang Emperor was defeated by the British's strong ships and cannons, and was forced to sign various treaties that humiliated the country and humiliated the country, and what the Qianlong Emperor did not want to give, the British used force to obtain.
And the armed forces expected by the kangxi and Qianlong emperors have long been lost in the blood of their descendants, only because the Jiaqing Emperor died in the Chengde Summer Resort, the timid Daoguang Emperor did not dare to set foot in it in his life, wanted to go to Mulan Qiulu, heard that he had to go through the summer resort, frightened and directly canceled the activity, so the king, how strong is the empire?
04 Final Chapter
Kangxi wanted to build a safe house for the imperial family in the Chengde Summer Resort, and finally the Chengde Summer Resort also completed the mission, becoming the safest residence in the heart of the Xianfeng Emperor after the loss of Beijing City, and the Chengde Summer Resort that completed the mission eventually followed the decline of the Qing Dynasty and withdrew from the historical stage, witnessing the strength and decline of the Qing Empire, a synthesis of three major contradictions.
The three major contradictions of the Chengde Summer Resort, the first lies in the contradiction between the two political centers inside and outside the Guan, which is an inevitable choice under the lack of inner security of the Manchu Qing royal family, the second lies in the contradiction between the luxurious place of the royal family and the political task of national unity, and the third lies in the contradiction between the superficial prosperity of the Qing Empire and the internal backwardness of the Qing Dynasty, which are intertwined with the Chengde Summer Resort and run through the strength and decline of the Qing Empire.
The past is like smoke, the Qing Dynasty has died, the green mountains are still there, and the sunset is red several times. Those bloody storms have long been far away from the pure land of Chengde Mountain Resort, the scenery of Chengde Mountain Resort, which has lost its political color, is more beautiful and more charming, and in 1994, Chengde Summer Resort was included in the World Heritage List, becoming not only Chinese but also the world's cultural heritage!
The Great Qing died
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