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Preface
Whenever the "Old Summer Palace" is mentioned, two images will appear in front of our eyes:
One is a grand scene of gardens and jade buildings; The other is the tragic phenomenon of a monstrous flame that burned the garden of ten thousand gardens.
Many people thought that the fire burned the Old Summer Palace clean.
In fact, it has experienced the "four tribulations of fire, wood, stone and earth", and as a result, more than 150 years later, people have found more than 50,000 cultural relics.
What kind of place was the Old Summer Palace at its peak? What twists and turns has it experienced?
1. "Little Forbidden City" and "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens"
In the 46th year of Kangxi, the Old Summer Palace was first built, and at that time it was still the "gift garden" of the fourth prince Yinzhen, and the structure was very simple.
Yinzhen, who later became the "Yongzheng Emperor", wrote in the "Twelve Songs of Gardening" that there are vegetable gardens, fish ponds and vineyards in this garden.
It wasn't until Yongzheng ascended the throne and learned from the feng shui master that "this piece is also very good, high in the northwest and low in the southeast, which is quite similar to the national territory", that Yongzheng paid attention to it.
And determined to expand the Old Summer Palace into a royal garden, the core area of which is the "Kyushu" surrounded by nine small islands, which can be regarded as an echo of the "Chinese Kyushu".
There should be many people who have heard of the story of "Yu Casting Jiuding", and Yongzheng built the Old Summer Palace with the same thing.
Under his influence, emperors such as Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng expanded the garden, and finally made the Old Summer Palace the "Little Forbidden City".
Some people don't understand that no matter how magnificent the Old Summer Palace is, it is just a garden, how can it be comparable to the Forbidden City?
This has to start with Yongzheng, after he lived in the Old Summer Palace, the ministers thought he was going to have fun, so they didn't give him a play for a while.
As a result, Yongzheng sensed that something was wrong, and immediately ordered:
"This place is no different from the palace, everything that should be done will be done as usual, and if there is any delay, it will be punished!"
Qianlong and other emperors learned well, and gradually turned the Old Summer Palace into a place of governance.
Later generations flipped through the "Living Note" and found that the above five emperors stayed in the Old Summer Palace even more than the Forbidden City.
One of the most exaggerated is Daoguang, who lived there for about 300 days a year and finally died there.
As for the title of "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens", it was recognized by the East and the West at that time.
Many people believe that the Old Summer Palace was the pinnacle of garden art at that time, and European countries such as Britain and France even competed to imitate and build Chinese gardens, such as the Octagonal Pavilion in the French Park and the Kew Tower in London, England, which are the "legacies" of this period.
The Old Summer Palace can achieve such a status, of course, not only by "endless treasures", but also by virtue of the landscape layout, the top three landscapes are agricultural landscapes, cultural landscapes and religious buildings.
The agricultural landscape is easy to understand, after all, "heavy agriculture" is the foundation of the country, and the cultural landscape is not surprising, and it is well known that Qianlong attaches great importance to culture.
Only the religious buildings are somewhat unexpected, there are all kinds of religious buildings in them, in the words of Qianlong, "what is the division of the west and the east of the sky, and it decorates the famous garden"——
No matter where the gods and Buddhas are in the East and the West, they all want to decorate my garden, bless me!
What's more, there are "Three Sacred Mountains of the East China Sea" in the Old Summer Palace, that is, Penglai, Abbot and the like.
In the past, what Qin Shi Huang asked for but did not get, Yongzheng, Qianlong and others built it in their own gardens, which can also show their wanton freedom and imagination.
The Old Summer Palace is a masterpiece of oriental gardens, which not only influenced European architecture, but even contributed to the turn of European romanticism, becoming one of the origins of European romanticism, which is really touching.
It's just that who would have thought that the Old Summer Palace would suffer from the "Four Tribulations" at that time?
Second, the Old Summer Palace suffered four catastrophes
If you ask how the Old Summer Palace was destroyed, many people's first reaction is the fire set by the British and French forces after the looting, and the article "The Destruction of the Old Summer Palace" in the Chinese textbook has mentioned:
"The coalition army broke into the Old Summer Palace, took everything that could be taken away, and destroyed everything that could not be taken; In order to destroy the incriminating evidence, they also set a fire, which burned for three days, and the smoke clouds covered the entire city of Beijing......"
Actually, this description is not accurate enough.
The burning of the garden could not hide the evidence of the crime, the looting of the Old Summer Palace by the British and French troops was an act in broad daylight, and they themselves confessed, and the burning of the garden was much more serious than simple looting.
At first, the burning of the Old Summer Palace was done by the British alone, and the French did not participate in it and even discouraged it.
Of course, they were not out of "good intentions", but wanted to occupy the Old Summer Palace as a consulate in the future, I have to say that this is a bit whimsical, the Qing government explicitly rejected the request of the French.
Perhaps because of this, when the British set fire to the garden, the French only symbolically stopped.
The fire caused the loss of a large number of precious cultural relics in the Old Summer Palace, and many places became a scorched earth, but many parts of the Old Summer Palace were still preserved, such as the aforementioned "Three Sacred Mountains of the East China Sea".
Because these buildings were built in the water, the British did not have boats, so it was inconvenient to go to the island and set fires, which allowed the scenery such as Pengdao Yaotai to escape the catastrophe.
However, the "fire tribulation" is only the beginning, and there are three more tribulations to follow.
For example, the "wooden robbery" during the invasion of the Eight-Nation Coalition into Beijing directly led to the felling of a large number of ancient trees in the Old Summer Palace, and some people even burned them into charcoal on the spot and then sold them.
In the process, many of the remnants were looted, and even some buildings were demolished.
During the period of the Beiyang warlords, the Old Summer Palace ushered in a stone catastrophe.
At this time, the Old Summer Palace has become a ruin, and many people feel that instead of leaving those stones abandoned, it is better to pull them out to repair gardens and mausoleums.
Typical representatives are warlords Wang Huaiqing, Zhang Zuolin and others, and later many private buildings also used the stone here.
At this point, the only thing that remains in the Old Summer Palace is the mountain water system, but people did not realize its preciousness at that time.
After 1917, many peasants entered the Old Summer Palace to "fill in the lake and make land", or dig mountains to build houses, enclose land to raise livestock, and finally made the Old Summer Palace completely dilapidated.
In any case, it was the Anglo-French coalition that made a "bad head".
Some people excused the British and French forces, saying that the reason why they looted and burned the Old Summer Palace was to "avenge" the British and French negotiators and some prisoners of war who were imprisoned in the Old Summer Palace, which is pure nonsense.
Not to mention how the government treated negotiators and prisoners of war, it is impossible for the place of detention to be in the Old Summer Palace.
Will the British imprison the invaders at Buckingham Palace, and the French at Versailles?
The two prisons in the north and south of the Qing government, as well as the county prisons in various places, are not decorations!
The reason why the British and French forces plundered was purely out of greed.
As for the "arson", it was to further attack the Qing government and make the Qing government mentally submit to the outside world, about which the British commander-in-chief Grant admitted.
"We just felt that we had to severely punish the Qing Emperor, so we burned his glorious summer palace to the ground......
3. Archaeological Old Summer Palace, excavation of cultural relics
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the ruins of the Old Summer Palace were protected, and three large-scale archaeological sites have been organized since 1996.
Although only tens of thousands of square meters were excavated, accounting for only about 2% of the land area of the Old Summer Palace, more than 50,000 cultural relics were excavated!
These artifacts are mostly fragments, but they still have great value and can be displayed as exhibits after restoration.
In addition, it is also of great significance for us to study history, such as the pastel tiles excavated before and the stone carvings of the imperial inscription of the Jiaqing Emperor -
The pastel tiles are beautifully patterned, and the dry sand is used in them, which is very uniform regardless of heat and heat dissipation, so it is speculated that they should be used for heating.
Based on this, people then introduced this site should be the "warm pavilion" where the emperor rested.
As for the Jiaqing imperial inscription stone carving, it is stamped with two seals, one is "the treasure of the Jiaqing imperial pen", and the other is "the heart of the long-cherished poetry and ceremony", which is speculated to be left by the Jiaqing Emperor when he was playing in the garden.
In addition to archaeological excavations, attempts have been made to "restore the ruins".
It is more difficult to restore in reality, after all, the site has been severely damaged, and a large number of cultural relics have been lost;
Relatively speaking, the "digital restoration of relics" is simpler, so in 2009, the mainland launched the digital Old Summer Palace project.
Today, in the panoramic simulation venue of the Old Summer Palace, there is already a "17×13" sand table model.
Through this model, we can clearly see the original landscape of the Old Summer Palace, and the restoration accuracy of some buildings has even reached 95%, so it can be said that it is almost completely compatible with the "real Old Summer Palace".
Whenever it comes to this, people can't help but want to reprimand Pu Yi, Wang Huaiqing and others.
Pu Yi is a typical "cub selling the field", after the abdication, in order to maintain his small court, he relied on the sale of the remains of the Old Summer Palace for a long time to survive.
"Every time I run out of money, I pull a cart of things out, and there are two empty cars parked at the door, because this car is full, in fact, three carts of things, and I maintain the superficial 'decent' ...... by selling these things."
Of course, warlords like Wang Huaiqing and Cao Kun who have soldiers in their hands don't give money to pull things from inside.
Pu Yi complained at first, but later realized that "the situation is stronger than people" and could only accept it stupidly.
According to the residents living in the surrounding area, after the founding of the Republic of China, vehicles traveled back and forth inside and outside the Old Summer Palace almost every day, all year round.
After more than 20 years in a row, it is no wonder that the former Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens is only a remnant of the wall in the end.
At that time, it was not that no one stood up to call for the protection of cultural relics, but the problem was that there were warlords inside, strong enemies outside, and then a series of wars, and there was really no way to talk about protection.
After a long time, even the people who live in the surrounding area have forgotten that there was once a "top of the garden" that was extremely splendid.
In the 70s of the 20th century, the mainland set up a special "Old Summer Palace Management Office", which led to a series of later protection, excavation and restoration.
Fourth, rebuild the garden and recover the cultural relics
Knowing the establishment of the Old Summer Palace Management Office, many people with lofty ideals were very happy and ran for it;
The members of the management office are also very attentive, even if the conditions are difficult and they need to go up the mountain to plant trees, they have always been conscientious.
According to the regulations, each staff member has to dig 18 tree pits a day, but in fact everyone can dig an average of 30, and at most 60.
It's not that everyone is "obsessed with planting trees", it's really not okay if you don't plant -
Improving the environment of the site is a second priority, and if the land is not "occupied" earlier, the land will be taken for farming.
After planting the land and cleaning up the muck, Hou Renzhi and others began to be busy with another task, that is, to recover as much as possible from the people what originally belonged to the Old Summer Palace.
For example, when "Yenching University" was first established, it took away old objects such as stone unicorns, Huabiao and stone bridges from the ruins of the Old Summer Palace.
It's not easy to dismantle the things that have been used, but it makes sense to ask for some things that are not used.
So Hou Renzhi found Wang Xihu, deputy general affairs director of Peking University, hoping to get back the stone screen and stone square pagoda that were idle in Peking University, and Wang Xihu readily agreed after learning about the whole thing.
Just looking for such a place one by one, Hou Renzhi and others recovered a lot of remnants of the Old Summer Palace, and various institutions were also very cooperative.
However, there are some cultural goods that are distributed to the people and even abroad, which is a bit difficult to do, one is not easy to find, and the other is that it is difficult to ask for it back.
Fortunately, more and more Chinese people have begun to devote themselves to this cause.
In this craze of "searching for cultural relics of the Old Summer Palace", many history lovers "swept the streets and alleys", took a camera to explore around, and finally found a lot of things, such as the soft-shelled turtle in Dalianggou Hutong.
As for those cultural relics that are scattered overseas, it is naturally best to discuss and get them back, but it is really not possible, and they can only go through the auction route.
For example, the rat and rabbit heads that were auctioned at Christie's in France in 2009.
From the beginning, the mainland was against the auction, but the French auction house did not care.
In the end, after Cai Mingchao's high price scared off all the auctioneers, he refused to pay on the grounds that "illegally lost cultural relics cannot be declared for entry", and finally realized the unsuccessful auction of the two animal heads.
Although they were not able to get the heads back, it would have been nice to let them go unauctioned, but one of Christie's shareholders bought them and gave them back to China for various reasons, and things came to a good end.
Of course, there are also countries that have taken the initiative to return cultural relics to China, such as Switzerland, which has agreed to return the seven stone pillars of the Old Summer Palace to their homeland.
On the one hand, Sweden has expressed goodwill to the mainland, and on the other hand, it is also the result of the long-term efforts of the mainland's cultural relics protection workers.
These cultural relics are not only treasures, but also jointly cast the "Chinese roots", no matter when it comes, we always have to get it back.
Resources
"Seven Stone Pillars of the Old Summer Palace" State Administration of Cultural Heritage
"Re-understanding of the Ancient Buildings of the Old Summer Palace", Guangming Daily
"The Old Summer Palace Has Suffered Four Disasters: How Many Cultural Relics Have Been Lost" People's Daily Online