The Old Summer Palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan () or Yuanmingyuan Park, originally called the Imperial Gardens (), and sometimes called the Winter Palace, was a complex of palaces and gardens in present-day Haidian District, Beijing, China. It is north-west of the walls of the former Imperial City section of Beijing. Widely perceived as the pinnacle work of Chinese imperial garden and palace design, the Old Summer Palace was known for its extensive collection of gardens, its building architecture and numerous art and historical treasures. Constructed throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Old Summer Palace was the main imperial residence of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty and his successors, and where they handled state affairs; the Forbidden City was used for formal ceremonies. The Garden was reputed as the "Garden of Gardens" () in its heyday was "arguably the greatest concentration of historic treasures in the world, dating and representing a full 5,000 years of an ancient civilization", according to Stuart McGee, chaplain to the British forces.
During the Second Opium War, French and British troops captured the palace on 6 October 1860, looting and destroying the imperial collections over the next few days.Ringmar 2013, p. 6. As news emerged that an Anglo-French delegation had been imprisoned by the Qing government, with 19 delegation members being sentenced to death,Hevia 2003, p. 47. the 8th Earl of Elgin, the British High Commissioner to China, retaliated by ordering the complete destruction of the palace on 18 October, which was then carried out by troops under his command. The palace was so large—covering more than —that it took 4,000 men and three days to destroy it. Many exquisite artworks – sculptures, porcelain, jade, silk robes, elaborate textiles, gold objects and more – were looted and, according to UNESCO, are now located in 47 museums around the world.
Overview
The Imperial Gardens at the Old Summer Palace were made up of three gardens: Garden of Perfect Brightness () Garden of Eternal Spring () Garden of Elegant Spring () Together, they covered an area of , almost five times the size of the Forbidden City grounds and eight times the size of Vatican City. Hundreds of structures, such as halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, and bridges, stood on the grounds.
In addition, hundreds of examples of Chinese artwork and antiquities were stored in the halls, along with unique copies of literary works and compilations. Several famous landscapes of southern China had been reproduced in the Imperial Gardens.
Location
The palace was built on a site abundant in fresh water, near the Jade Spring Hill. The region was renowned for its beautiful landscape. Country homes were built here beginning in the 13thcentury, during the rule of the Yuan dynasty, then in the 16th-century Li Wei of the Ming Dynasty built the Qinghua Yuan estate at the site.
Western mansions
The most visible architectural remains of the Old Summer Palace can be found in the Western mansions (Xiyang Lou) section of 18th-century European-style palaces, fountains and formal gardens. These structures, built partly of stone but mainly with a Chinese infrastructure of timber columns, coloured tiles and brick walls, were planned and designed by the Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione with Michel Benoist responsible for the fountains and waterwork. Qianlong Emperor became interested in the architectural project after seeing an engraving of a European fountain, and employed Castiglione and Benoist to carry out the work to satisfy his taste for exotic buildings and objects.
Western-style palaces, pavilion, aviaries, a maze, fountains, basins, and waterworks as well as perspective paintings organized as an outdoor theatre stage were constructed. A striking clock fountain was placed in front of the largest palace, the Haiyan Tang. The fountain had twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac that spouted water in turn every 2hours, with all spouting water in concert at noon. These European-style buildings however only occupied an area along the back of the Garden of Eternal Spring that was small compared to the overall area of the gardens. More than 95% of the Imperial Gardens were made up of Chinese-style buildings. There were also a few buildings in Tibetan and Mongol styles, reflecting the diversity of the Qing Empire.
History
Initial construction of the Old Summer Palace began in 1707 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. It was intended as a gift for the emperor's fourth son, Prince Yong (the future Yongzheng Emperor), who would greatly expand the Imperial Gardens in 1725. The Yongzheng Emperor also introduced the waterworks of the gardens, creating lakes, streams and ponds to complement the rolling hills and grounds, and named 28 scenic spots within the garden. The Yongzheng Emperor also constructed a number of "living tableaux" he and his family could observe and interact with. One such scene was called "Crops as Plentiful as Fields" which involved court eunuchs pretending to be rural farmers on an island. Another was called the "Courtyard of Universal Happiness" which was a mock village where the imperial family could interact with shopkeepers, again eunuchs in disguise.
During the Qianlong Emperor's reign, the second expansion was well underway and the number of scenic spots increased to 50 (the emperor personally directed the construction process). The splendors of the palace and the grounds were depicted in the Forty Scenes of the Yuanmingyuan, an album produced in 1744 by the Qianlong Emperor's court painters.Lillian M. Li, The 40 Scenes MIT Visualizing Culture The construction of the European-style palaces was initiated in 1747.
The last European appearance in the Old Summer Palace in the context of traditional Chinese imperial foreign relations was a diplomatic mission in 1795 representing the interests of the Dutch and Dutch East India Company.O'Neil, Patricia O. (1995). Missed Opportunities: Late 18th Century Chinese Relations with England and the Netherlands. [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington] The Titsingh delegation included Isaac Titsingh,Duyvendak, J. J. L. (1937). "The Last Dutch Embassy to the Chinese Court (1794–1795)". T'oung Pao 33:1–137. the Dutch-American Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest,van Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everardus. (1797). Voyage de l'ambassade de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales hollandaises vers l'empereur de la Chine, dans les années 1794 et 1795; see also 1798 English translation: An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India company, to the court of the emperor of China, in the years 1974 and 1795, Vol. I. and the Frenchman Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes.de Guignes, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph (1808). Voyage à Pékin, Manille et l'Île de France. Both published complementary accounts of the mission. Titsingh died before he could publish his version of the events.
Destruction
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force, having marched inland from the coast at Tianjin (Tientsin), arrived in Beijing (Peking).
In mid-September, two envoys, Henry Loch and Harry Parkes, went ahead of the main force under a flag of truce to negotiate with Prince Yi and representatives of the Qing Empire at Tongzhou (Tungchow) and to scout out campsites behind enemy lines. The delegation included Thomas William Bowlby, a journalist for The Times, along with a small escort of British and Indian soldiers. As the talks concluded on 18 September, the Allied forces attacked Qing troops in the area who they believed were redeploying for an ambush, and the Qing court learned that the British had detained the prefect of Tianjin. It was around this time that the Qing general Sengge Rinchen took the members of the delegation prisoner as they were traversing Qing lines to return to the expeditionary forces. The delegates and their escort were taken to the Ministry of Justice (or Board of Punishments) in Beijing, where they were confined and tortured. Parkes and Loch were returned after two weeks, with 14 other survivors. Nineteen British, French and Indian captives died as a result of the torture.Ringmar 2013, pp. 78–79.Wong 2001, p. 136.Hevia 2003, p. 45–47.
On the night of 5 October, French units diverted from the main attack force towards the Old Summer Palace. At the time, the palace was occupied by only some eunuchs and palace maids; the Xianfeng Emperor and his entourage had already fled to the Chengde Mountain Resort in Hebei. Although the French commander Charles Cousin-Montauban assured his British counterpart, James Hope Grant, that "nothing had been touched", extensive looting of the palace had already been carried out by Allied soldiers.M'Ghee, Robert. (1862). How we got to Pekin: A Narrative of the Campaign in China of 1860, pp. 202-216. There was no significant resistance to the looting, even though many Qing soldiers were in the vicinity.
On October 18, Lord Elgin, the British High Commissioner to China, retaliated against the torture of the delegation members by ordering the destruction of the Old Summer Palace, which Cousin-Montauban refused to participate in.E. W. R. Lumby, "Lord Elgin and the Burning of the Summer Palace." History Today (July 1960) 10#7 pp 479-48. Destroying the Old Summer Palace was also a warning to the Qing Empire not to use kidnapping as a political tactic against Britain. It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze, and the massive fire lasted for three days. No French soldier participated. Unbeknownst to the troops, some 300 remaining eunuchs and palace maids, who concealed themselves from the soldiers in locked rooms, perished when the palace complex was burnt. Only 13 buildings survived intact, most of them in the remote areas or by the lakeside. (The palace would be sacked once again and completely destroyed in 1900 when the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing.火燒圓明園 (Huoshao Yuanmingyuan Burning the Yuanmingyuan)China.com) Charles George Gordon, who was then a 27-year-old captain in the Royal Engineers and part of the 1860 Anglo-French expeditionary force, wrote about his experience:
British and French soldiers preferred porcelain while neglecting bronze vessels prized locally for cooking and burial in tombs. Many such treasures dated back to the Shang, Zhou and Han dynasties and were up to 3,600 years old. A specific exception was the looting of the Haiyantang Zodiac fountain with its twelve bronze animal heads."Chinese lawyers apply for injunction to stop sale of stolen relics" China Daily February 22, 2008; updated 2009 Some of the most notable treasures ended up at the Chinese Museum in the Palace of Fontainebleau, which Empress Eugénie specifically set up in 1867 to house these newly acquired collections.
Once the Old Summer Palace had been reduced a sign was raised by the Allied expeditionary force with an inscription in Chinese stating, "This is the reward for perfidy and cruelty". The burning of the palace was the last act of the war.Hernon, Ian. 1998. Britain's Forgotten Wars.