People say there is no scenery nearby. There should be two meanings here. First, it is said that the scenery that can often be seen around is difficult to have a new feeling. Second, when I was close, I always thought I could go sooner or later, but I never took the time to see it. The famous Old Summer Palace belongs to the latter situation for me. Of course, it's not that I haven't been there at all, but I haven't looked closely. Today, at the reunion of students, I can take a closer look. Because the meeting restaurant is at the east gate, everyone meets to take a walk and chat in the Old Summer Palace after dinner.
Entering through the east gate, the first thing you see must be the ruins of the wall, the remnant of the Great Water Law Site, which has become the current symbol of the Old Summer Palace. There has been a debate, whether this garden should be preserved as it is, or built and restored? I am in favour of retaining the status quo. The burning of the Old Summer Palace should be one of the most iconic events in modern history. The once beautiful garden is now so dilapidated that it cannot be described in dry language. Modern history education, patriotic education, no matter how carefully designed, can not compare to the wordless narration here. What's more, this history is connected to the First and Second Opium Wars forward, and backward to the cession of large areas of land in the northeast region. Those who advocate rebuilding in situ must have a desire to show the prosperous era, but if so, the mutilation in front of them, the living modern history, I am afraid can only be seen in pictures. Fortunately, that idea was not accepted by the relevant authorities.
Historians have made detailed statements and many comments on the Old Summer Palace incident, and I do not need to repeat them. The first thing that comes to my mind is that writers who have handed down works are often the conscience of society, and writers who can be widely recognized by human society, in particular. The French writer Hugo, a contemporary of the Anglo-French burning of the Old Summer Palace, once wrote sadly: You can only imagine that it is a fascinating building like a moon castle. One day, two robbers broke into the summer palace, one robbed and the other set it on fire, and they happily returned to Europe. The two robbers, one named France and the other English. In France, there is a Chinese pavilion at the Palais de Fontainebleau, where many artifacts looted from the Old Summer Palace are stored, which were dedicated by French generals to Napoleon III at the time.
What caught my attention even more was that I saw a passage from Marx, Hugo's contemporary, on the Internet. Marx saw the war as a duel. The idea that the representatives of the archaic world are based on morality, while the representatives of modern society are privileged to buy and sell cheaply—a strange couplet of lament that no poet would dare to imagine. The prestige of the Manchu dynasty was swept away as soon as it encountered the British guns. Obviously, Marx, as the mentor of the revolutionaries, stood from a higher point of view, aiming his criticism not only at the invaders who bought and sold by force, but also at the absurd Manchu dynasty. This gives us another perspective on this event. As Chinese, seeing such words will feel a deep tingling, but it will also prompt us to think more deeply about the past and future of our nation.
The construction of the Old Summer Palace began during the Kangxi Dynasty and was originally given to the fourth prince, later Yongzheng. After several generations of emperors built and spent countless people's fat and people's anointment, it came to its later appearance. After the fire, the court was renovated intermittently. Especially during the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi, it was already the end of the Qing Dynasty, the dynasty was declining, the people were not living, and the nation was in peril to what extent, but they still had the heart to do such a thing. There is a theory that Empress Dowager Cixi misappropriated the funds of the Beiyang Navy Division by repairing the Summer Palace and celebrating her 60th birthday, although it is difficult to verify, I am afraid that at least it was crowded out. So that everything that happened later confirmed another sentence of Marx at that time: the superstition that lasted forever in the Celestial Empire was bankrupt.
Today's Old Summer Palace ruins only have some stones that cannot be moved, which is not unrelated to the self-destruction of some Chinese people themselves. Wall tiles and other usable things were removed for other uses, and some were actually crushed to pave the road. This is also the story told to us by the Old Summer Palace in front of us. I heard that Dongyang, Zhejiang and Zhuhai, Guangdong, also built the New Yuanming Garden. Many buildings are restored on a one-to-one scale. I don't think there is any need to object to one place, and two places are very undeserved. When we repaired the garden, we will now ask: where does the money come from, and who will we show the garden? Today, when we repair the garden, we need to do such a question. Even if private entrepreneurs invest in it, there is no reason to rebuild two.