Review
The mainland is a country with a history of more than 5,000 years, in the development of thousands of years the ancients with their wisdom to build one engineering miracle after another, like the Great Wall we know is in the Qin Dynasty large-scale construction, it is difficult to imagine how workers built this behemoth in that era without construction machinery.
However, today Xiaobian wants to talk to you not about the Great Wall, but another engineering miracle Yuanmingyuan. The scale of this garden is large, the construction is more luxurious than any garden in the world, and people vividly call this place the Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens.
Unfortunately, during the 2nd Opium War, the British and French invaders broke into the garden and came here with greedy eyes and brutality to sweep it away. In this way, a large number of antique calligraphy and painting treasures were plundered, and even if they could not take them away, they would be directly destroyed, and finally a fire was set to burn this garden that gathered the painstaking efforts of many craftsmen.
According to statistics, the robbery caused the loss of at least 1.5 million cultural relics, and where are the cultural relics that were robbed after so many years? How spectacular was the Yuanmingyuan before it was destroyed?
Kangxi's gardens
At that time, the Qing army took advantage of the chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty, bribed Wu Sangui and broke into Shanhaiguan to seize the world, and after stabilizing, the emperor naturally had to spend silver to build a garden in order to enjoy the summer summer. At that time, the Kangxi Emperor ordered people to build some beautiful gardens as a good place for themselves to escape the summer heat. In addition to the Yuanmingyuan garden and Changchun Garden, the gardens built are also built.
However, the Yuanmingyuan at that time was not as famous as it is now, because the Yuanmingyuan at that time had not yet been expanded, and it could not be compared with the later Yuanmingyuan in terms of architectural scale and internal layout.
After the garden was repaired, Kangxi thought of giving the garden to the new emperor after a hundred years, when Kangxi's 9 sons were busy seizing power, and in the end, only one person won the favor of Kangxi, he was the Yongzheng Emperor we know, so the Yuanmingyuan was naturally rewarded to Yongzheng.
Yongzheng loved it and came back to live for a while whenever he had time.
Expansion of later generations
After the death of Kangxi, Yongzheng became emperor, at this time the treasury of the Qing Dynasty was empty, and he wanted to expand the garden at that time, and the Yongzheng Emperor was busy with official affairs. Later, with a series of reforms, the treasury of the Qing Dynasty became full, and the original idea of expanding the garden was realized.
This is not repaired, an expansion is amazing, just the first expansion of its construction area reached 3,000 acres, people standing in the middle of a glance can not see the head, all kinds of pavilions you can find in the Yuanmingyuan, in which to walk a circle comparable to your travel throughout the Chinese garden.
As for why the Yuanmingyuan was expanded so large, and a variety of architectural styles were used in it. Some people speculate that it may be that the Yongzheng Emperor usually did not like to go far away, and wanted to enjoy many beautiful scenery near his home.
Treasures in the garden
After Yongzheng's death, the Yuanmingyuan was passed on to the new successors, who continued to build pavilions in the garden like Yongzheng. The number of pavilions is almost repaired, and it is natural to arrange it, just like after we buy a house, we will add furniture and electrical appliances to the house.
As a nobleman of the imperial palace, he certainly could not put that kind of vulgar thing in the garden, and for the sake of the dignity of the royal emperor, he would collect rare treasures and put them into the garden for decoration.
Like all kinds of gemstones, gold and silver are not rare in the garden, and some precious woods have also been made into tables and chairs in the garden.
Now we are pursuing the golden silk nan wood and small leaf rosewood in the original garden is just a common furniture wood. In addition, there are also many antique calligraphy and paintings in the garden, like the authentic works of Tang Bohu and Wu Daozi, you can find them inside, and their value is immeasurable.
Relentless plunder
The British and French sold opium to the mainland in bulk in order to plunder China's wealth, and a large amount of silver from the mainland also flowed out, which angered the rulers of the time, so they launched a huge smoke ban. Britain and France could not make any money and were ready to forcibly open the door to China by force, so they launched the Second Opium War in 1856. This time, with the weapons in their hands, they hit all the way to the Yuanmingyuan.
The magnificent scene in the Yuanmingyuan may have shook the eyes of the invaders, who did not know where to start for a while, and simply made up chaos.
What landscape calligraphy paintings are like waste paper in their eyes, randomly discarded aside, only some people who know a little will pay attention to take away some, and more are still scavenging for rare toys. For this kind of robbery, they naturally do not take these treasures lightly, like to put them into sacks, and the rest are smashed and destroyed.
Leaving aside the smashed vases and burned precious furniture, more than 1.5 million artifacts were looted alone.
Some people wonder where so many artifacts flow? Some of the artifacts have traveled to the British Empire Museum several times and then been displayed on a glass counter. Many other cultural relics were plundered by the French and sent to the Louvre for exhibition, and many precious cultural relics of the Louvre in France were plundered from the Old Summer Palace in that era.
Some of the remaining artifacts were stolen on the spot, so that the soldiers were brought back to their british and French hometowns, and some went to auctions, and in the eyes of some, there was no more affordable artifact than cash. Until now, some international large-scale auctions have also seen the cultural relics that were originally plundered, such as the head of the beast in the zodiac, which was plundered in the fountain.
Seeing this is heart-wrenching, and it is a pity for China that so many cultural relics have fallen into the hands of the enemy. In order to make the tragedy not happen again, we should strive to make the motherland stronger, and only a strong motherland can protect its people and its cultural relics.