Walking through the Summer Palace and Qingyi, enjoying one of the royal gardens: sleeping in the front and sleeping in the back (Part 1)

In front of you, there is a series of travel notes titled "Looking at the Red Walls and Gold Tiles, Appreciating the Ming and Qing Palaces", which is about the Forbidden City. In addition to the largest imperial palace in the world, Beijing also preserves the largest imperial garden in the world today. Since ancient times, in addition to the palace, the emperor's house has also had a very important garden, which is the case in all countries in the world.

The oldest royal garden in China should be the Qin Dynasty Huangyuan, which existed in the pre-Qin period before Qin Shihuang unified China. It is the famous Shanglin Garden, which has the unfinished Afang Palace. Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, returned Shanglin Garden in the Qin Dynasty as a private farm. When Liu Che, Liu Bang's great-grandson, became Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he transformed the imperial garden of the Qin Dynasty into his own palace, which was still called "Shanglin Garden". This happened in the third year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, which was 138 BC, more than 2,000 years ago. Shanglin Garden has mountains, water, and palace buildings, so it is called Gongyuan. Sima Xiangru, a writer of the Western Han Dynasty, praised this garden in "Shanglin Fu". Standing tall, tall and tall, Cui Wei, giant trees in deep forests, new rocks and towers, and nine sills. Ligong Annex, Mishan crossing valleys, four notes of high corridors, Chongzuo Pavilion, Huagu and Bichen, chariots and roads, and stepping stones Weekly flow, long-distance travel." During the Wang Mang Dynasty (AD 23) at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, this Shanglin Garden was destroyed by the red-browed army's attack on Chang'an, and now there are only relics left, in the outskirts of Xi'an.

The earliest royal garden in the West may be the Chateau de Chambord built by King François I of France. The castle was built in 1519 as a palace on the royal hunting ground. Italian Renaissance art master Da Vinci participated in the design of the castle. I visited that Chambord castle in the early spring of 2018, and wrote a series of travel notes "Visiting France during the Ching Ming Festival, Appreciating History and Culture". Even if its royal hunting ground existed before Chambord, there were no palace buildings in the early hunting ground, and it was not considered a royal garden. It is more than a thousand years later than Shanglinyuan. In the seventh century before Chambord, there were palaces built by Muslim Moors in North Africa on the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Pena Palace in Portugal and the Alhambra Palace in Spain. Although there are small gardens in them, they can only be called The Royal Garden cannot be called the Royal Garden either. I also visited these two ancient palaces in the early spring of 2017, and wrote a series of travel notes "Walking on the Iberian Peninsula, Watching the Lost Sea Empire".

The emperors of each dynasty in Chinese history had their own royal gardens. The Huaqing Palace in the Tang Dynasty and the Genyue Garden in the Song Dynasty were both considered royal gardens. Although Huaqing Palace has not been burned by war, it has been severely abandoned and lost its royal style since the emperors of the Tang Dynasty did not use Chang'an as their capital. Although there are several ancient buildings in the Huaqing Palace, they are basically from the Qing Dynasty, and there are no remains of the Tang Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Tokyo Genyue was destroyed by Wanyan Aguda's younger brother Jin Taizong Wanyan Sheng (Niansheng). It was the battle of Jingkang that he attacked Tokyo Bianliang, and there is no existing one. Hailing King Wanyanliang of the Jin Dynasty established Beijing as the central capital. Later, King Sejong Wanyanyong of the Jin Dynasty built Qionghua Island, a palace garden imitating Genyue Garden in Bianliang, which is the eight generations of ancestors of Beihai Park. That was in the third year of Dading of the Jin Dynasty (1163 A.D.). In the Ming Dynasty, many royal gardens were built in Beijing. In addition to the small-scale Beihai and Jingshan, there are also gardens and orchards outside the city, east, west, north, south, etc.

In the Qing Dynasty, the precious land with mountains and water in the west of Beijing was selected by the royal family to build gardens and palaces. The famous "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" gradually formed. The three mountains are Longevity Mountain, Yuquan Mountain and Xiangshan Mountain. The five gardens are Qingyi Garden (Summer Palace), Jingming Garden and Jingyi Garden on the three mountains, plus the nearby Yuanmingyuan and Changchun. garden. These five gardens were destroyed by the British and French allied forces in the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860 A.D.). Now, the Jingyi Garden in Xiangshan and the Jingming Garden in Yuquanshan are incomplete. The Old Summer Palace and Changchun Garden have been destroyed. Only the Summer Palace has been rebuilt during the Guangxu period. Afterwards, it was basically preserved completely. Therefore, the Summer Palace is the most complete and largest ancient Chinese royal garden.

In the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi began to build suburban gardens and palaces. Kangxi built the Changchun Garden, and Yongzheng built the Old Summer Palace. Chinese people know that the Summer Palace was built by Brother Hongli in the 15th year of Qianlong (1750 A.D.) to celebrate the 60th birthday of Empress Dowager Chongqing. The mother's surname is Niu Colu, and her maiden name was lost. In the early years, she was selected by Emperor Kangxi in a beauty pageant and appointed as Sibeile Yinzhen's side Fujin. After Yinzhen was promoted to Prince Heshuoyong, Niu Gulu's family was honored to give birth to Hongli, Yong's fourth son, in Prince Yong's Mansion (now Lama Temple).

Yinzhen succeeded to the throne as Emperor Yongzheng, and Niu Gulu's family was canonized as Concubine Xi; Yongzheng internally decided that after Hongli succeeded, Niu Gulu's family was promoted to Noble Concubine Xi, but no gold book was given. Concubine Xi was the second concubine in Yongzheng's heart, staying at the first level of concubine. Yongzheng's No. 1 concubine was Nian Guifei, and finally became the only imperial concubine in this dynasty. After Hongli took over the throne as Qianlong, he gave his mother the honorary title of Empress Dowager Chongqing and a gold book as a gift. This is the origin of the Empress Dowager Chongqing, the owner of the Summer Palace. Thirty years after the reform and opening up, domestic writers and artists reappointed her, and re-narrated her life experience, earning countless tears from the Chinese people, and also making popular words and angry collars. Coquettish for several years.

Longevity Hill was originally called Wengshan, and the water beneath it was called Wengshanpo. This place has always been a place of beautiful scenery. The aforementioned Jin Dynasty Hailing King Wan Yanliang once built the Jinshan Palace here. In the Yuan Dynasty, Guo Shoujing Ditch diverted Changping's water system into the Wengshanbo area, which became the water source of Yuan Dadu. In the Ming Dynasty, there were quite a lot of royal gardens in this area, and some high-ranking officials occupied land and built gardens. The eunuch Wei Zhongxian did this.

After there is a lot of water under Weng Mountain, it is called West Lake, which is the lake in the west of Beijing. When Qianlong built a garden here, he diverted the water flowing down from the surrounding mountains into the West Lake and turned it into the Jingxi Reservoir. He learned from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty that he dug deep into Lingmao to use it as Kunming Pool to practice his water army, so he dug deep into the West Lake and enlarged it. The enlarged West Lake was renamed Kunming Lake;

This newly built garden is not the scene of the Empress Dowager's 60th birthday ceremony, but a birthday gift from Qianlong to his mother. According to the etiquette system of the Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager of Chongqing lived in the Shoukang Palace, and the 60th birthday celebration ceremony was held in the Cining Palace in the auditorium next door. The scale of the Qingyi Garden project is huge, and the construction period is also protracted. It was not completed until the 29th year of Qianlong (AD 1764), and it was named Qingyi Garden. Qingyi Garden covers an area of ​​2.97 million square meters, including four palaces (720,000 square meters). The "Qing" here in Qingyi Garden is not the "Qing" in the Qing Dynasty. Qingyi means clear water with ripples. In the "Book of Songs", there is a saying that "the sandalwood is cut down in a rough way, and the river is dried up. The river is clear and rippling". Qianlong named this garden Qingyi, which shows that he had a lot of experience in reading ancient poems.

Since the 16th year of Qianlong, the emperor has made six tours to the south, traveling to the south of the Yangtze River and visiting Suzhou and Hangzhou. We now mostly think that he is traveling with his family, but in fact his main purpose is to investigate the economy and arrange money and food for the court. Jiangnan is a land of fish and rice, with rich products and convenient transportation through the Grand Canal. Many materials in the north depend on Jiangnan for supply. In addition, Qianlong also wanted to see whether the prefects and supervisors there were doing their best for the court; whether the Caobang and Saltbang lived and worked in peace and contentment. In addition to investigating the economy, Qianlong would of course go to see the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River that is not available in the north, so he carefully played with the West Lake in Hangzhou.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, two famous lyric masters, a man and a woman, emerged on the land of Qilu, both of whom were of the Grace School. These were Liu Yong and Li Qingzhao. Liu Yong traveled to Hangzhou 700 years before Qianlong, and wrote a poem "Watching the Sea Tide" with a wild sigh: "The southeast is prosperous, the three Wu cities are metropolises, and Qiantang has been prosperous since ancient times." Smoked willows and painted bridges, wind curtains and emerald curtains, there are hundreds of thousands of families. Clouds and trees surround the embankment and sand, raging waves roll in frost and snow, and the sky is boundless. Pearls are listed in the market, households are full of Luoqi, competing for luxury. The heavy lakes are stacked on top of Qingjia. There are Sanqiu osmanthus and ten-mile lotus. The Qiang pipe makes the sky clear, the water chestnut sings in the night, and the old man Lianwa is frolicking. Qianqi has Gao Ya. Listen to flute and drum while drunk, sing and appreciate haze. In the future, I will return to Fengchi to praise the good times.

After Qianlong swam across the West Lake, he felt that Liu Yong's words were true. At that time, his image technology was still limited to Danqing ink painting, so he ordered the royal painters to draw the Jiangnan shape on paper and bring it back to the capital, and keep it under the imperial couch. While governing, Lao Gan took out those scrolls from under the bed, and decided to copy these beauties into the Qingyi Garden under construction. There are Yanliu painted bridges and cloud trees around the embankment in the heavy lake stacked in the Wanshou Mountain of Kunming Lake. Many Sanqiu osmanthus and ten-mile lotus are planted in the lake. Therefore, except for the temple complex around the Longevity Hill in the Summer Palace, those garden buildings were almost designed and constructed in imitation of the West Lake in Hangzhou. Of course, there are also other garden styles in the south of the Yangtze River, which will be discussed later.

In the tenth year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1860 A.D.), the British and French allied forces who invaded China burned all the five royal gardens in the three mountains and five gardens, and stole all the cultural relics. The following year, Emperor Xianfeng collapsed in the Chengde Mountain Resort, and Emperor Tongzhi succeeded him. Cixi and Ci'an launched the Xinyou coup to usurp the power of the party and government, and the empress dowagers of the two palaces jumped out to listen to the government behind the curtain. Thirteen years later, in the twelfth lunar month of the thirteenth year of Tongzhi (January 1875), Emperor Tongzhi returned home with a dream of a crane in his youth in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. The empress dowagers of the two palaces brought the son of Prince Chun Yixuan (Nian Xuan) Zai Tian (Nian Tian) to succeed to the throne as Emperor Guangxu, and the empress dowagers of the two palaces became the head of the returning delegation and listened to the government behind the curtain. In the fifteenth year of Guangxu (AD 1889), the emperor married Jingfen Yehenara, and was canonized as queen. After Xiaoguang got married, Cixi had to return to the emperor according to the ancestral system. Guangxu mobilized money and grain migrant workers to rebuild the Qingyi Garden that was burned by the British and French allied forces. The motion was to let the Empress Dowager Cixi go there to recuperate, so the Qingyi Garden was renamed the Summer Palace.

The words Yi and He both come from the "Book of Changes". Yi means nourishing; Yihe means to maintain one's life, which is much more educated than we are now talking about "health preservation". Emperor Qianlong built the Ningshou Palace for himself to live in after retirement, and there is a Yihe Pavilion inside the Yangxing Gate, which also means to take care of his life. The ancestors and veterans used the Old Summer Palace as their frequent departure palace, and Xiaoguang also deliberately regarded the Summer Palace as his departure palace. In the 20th year of Guangxu (AD 1894), in order to prepare for the 60th birthday, the Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the second-generation Prince Jin Zaifeng (Nian Feng) to overhaul the Summer Palace as a place for birthday celebrations. altar. This year, the Qing Navy was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Empress Dowager was ashamed to celebrate her birthday, so she canceled the Summer Palace to celebrate her birthday, and instead held a low-key birthday ceremony in the Huangji Hall of Ningshou Palace in Da Nei.

In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (AD 1900), the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, and the Summer Palace was once again destroyed by ghosts. In the 28th year, Xiaoguang rebuilt it again, basically restoring the original appearance of Qingyi Garden, but there are still many missing and modified details.

After the collapse of Guangxu, Cixi brought Zaifeng's son Puyi from Prince Chun's Mansion, and forced him to be Emperor Xuantong on the dragon chair in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. This twisted melon is not sweet. In the third year of Xuantong (1911 AD), Pu Yi was abdicated. The Revolutionary Party treated Xundi Puyi fairly and allowed him to continue living in the harem. The Summer Palace is still considered his private property, and he is allowed to sell tickets to the public to collect money for meals. Later, Puyi misbehaved, and even gathered people to make trouble and act as a house thief for outside ghosts. He was eventually sentenced to prison and deprived of all property. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Summer Palace Management Office was established in Beijing, and it continued to be open to the public, and tickets were purchased to enter the park. Until the early stage of reform and opening up, the Summer Palace was the only park in Beijing that relied on ticket sales without losing money. Why not lose money? Because there is no major repair project expenditure. Later, whenever major repairs and reconstructions were held, special funds and food were applied to Beijing and the country. I wonder if the current ticket revenue can still maintain daily expenses?

Since the construction of the Summer Palace at the beginning of Qianlong, the main entrance of the Summer Palace has always been the East Palace Gate. The street in front of the gate is called Gongmenqian Street, and the main road from the gate of No. 101 Middle School to the East Palace Gate of the Summer Palace is called Summer Palace Road. A few years ago, the last mile from Xiyuan intersection to Donggongmen was renamed Tongqing Street after renovation. Tongqing Street was established for Empress Dowager Cixi's 60th birthday celebration. Now after renovation, some small houses have been built on both sides of the road, pretending to be the colored shed sutra altar built by Empress Dowager Cixi back then. During the May Day of the year when the renovation was completed, a group of merchants were attracted to sell groceries in those small houses, imitating the scene of Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday ceremony. Later, the business in these small houses did not make any money, and the merchants dispersed in a rush, and they have not returned to this day.

The mile of Tongqing Street is called "Royal Yihua Lane". There is a one-mile street in front of the Scottish Royal Palace in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, called the "Royal Mile". I walked that mile in 2008.

In the early morning, if you walk westward from Xiyuan along Tongqing Street, the Royal Yihuali Road, you will find that the "Hanxu" archway at the west end of the road has been coated with a layer of golden light. This archway is the first scene of the Summer Palace, it must be seen, but many garden visitors miss it, what a pity.

This is a wooden archway with four pillars and seven floors, with "Hanxu" written on the plaque in the middle. The tolerant is tolerant; the emptiness is the sky. Hanxu here means that the water of Kunming Lake reflects the sky. Meng Haoran in the Tang Dynasty had a poem "August Lake is level, and Hanxu is too clear". He was talking about Dongting Lake.

The plaque on the back of the archway reads "罨秀".

"Kangxi Dictionary" says "罨" is read to cover up, which means big net. The word "Xiu" is quite old, and it first appeared on the Chencang stone drum exhibited in the Ningshou Palace in the palace, which is the Tian Che Drum. There is a picture of this Tianchegu in my Forbidden City post, and there is also a picture of Tianchegu's Song Dynasty rubbings. Fengxiu is the most beautiful scenery in the world.

When Qianlong first built Qingyi Garden, the archway had four pillars and three floors. Xianfeng escaped the poisonous claws of the British and French allied forces in ten years. When the Summer Palace was rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Guangxu, it was transformed into four pillars and seven floors. The two plaques on the front and back on the central architrave were swapped during reconstruction, and this appearance has been retained in subsequent reconstructions. According to research, the text on this plaque was contributed by Qianlong and ordered Wang Youdun, Minister of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, to write it.

Under the archway stands a cultural protection stele, saying that the Summer Palace is the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units announced by the State Council in 1961. There used to be no such monument at this location, and cars can walk under the archway. In a dark night forty years ago, a truck crashed into a pillar of the archway, and the archway has been enclosed since then and traffic is prohibited.

After passing the Hanxu archway and bypassing an open space, you can reach the gate of the palace.

This is a palace gate with five rooms and three openings, facing east from west. Below is a two-foot-high white stone base. The gate hall is five rooms wide and two rooms deep. The door leaves of the solid couch are on the central pillar, and there are ninety-nine and eighty-one gilt door nails on each door. Look at the sill window in the middle, which is called the golden lock partition window with four wipes, three crosses and six bowls, which is a special shape for the royal family. The roof is a structure of brackets and beams, gray tiles with single eaves and a rolling shed resting on the top of the mountain. There are five ridge beasts at the front of the ridge, and there are no immortals riding chickens. The front and back of the gate hall used to be the sloping road, which is the bluestone washboard ramp. When it was rebuilt in the Republic of China, the two sides were changed to vertical belts, and the road in the middle was preserved, and Danbi stone was installed.

The shape of the gate hall below the gate is quite different from the roof above. The lower part is a typical royal gate, but the upper part is a folk style without yellow glazed tiles. Only the five ridged beasts on the upper part illustrate its royal status.

A pair of bronze lions in front of the door, male left and female right, are in the style of northern lions in the Qing Dynasty. Below is a white marble xumizuo, on top is a bronze base with brocade paving, and on top is the lion itself.

Look at the plaque hanging under the eaves of the gate hall.

First look at the signature of the inscription "Summer Palace", which is the upper and lower chapters on the left. One is "The Treasure of Guangxu's Imperial Brush", and the other is "Love Day and Spring". It shows that this plaque was inscribed by Emperor Guangxu. "Ai Ri Chun Chang" is a leisure chapter of Guang Xu, which is taken from a song "La Mei Xiang" written by the Song Dynasty. yellow".

Look at the three appreciation seals above again: "Empress Dowager Cixi's Royal View Treasure" in the middle, left hands on both sides "Peace, Benevolence and Heaven and Earth Consent", and right hands "Counting Plum Blossoms Heaven and Earth Heart". After Cixi was 40 years old, a new set of three large sandalwood cross dragon button imperial seals was made, which were specially used on large-character plaques. These three seals are on the "Rende Dalong" plaque in the Cining Palace. In the middle of this set of sandalwood imperial seals is the "treasure of the imperial brush", and the plaque on the "Summer Palace" is changed to the treasure of imperial reading.

The square in front of the gate is very large, with Qingshi Royal Road in the middle. The screen wall is indispensable in front of the Chinese-style gate, which is the end wall of the square in front of the gate. Look at the large screen wall in front of the East Palace Gate, the gray bricks are painted red, and the screen wall is plain.

There are four value houses on both sides of the square in front of the gate, which is also the standard configuration of the Chinese-style square, making the square have the effect of a courtyard. Among these value rooms, the two buildings on the north side have always been the ticket office and the Summer Palace post office, and the two buildings on the south side were originally a food store and are now a visitor center.

In front of the East Palace Gate of the Summer Palace, there is no Jinshui River in front of the Palace Gate and the Jinshui Bridge over the river. However, in order to create a good Fengshui in front of the palace gate, a small river was dug behind the screen wall, which can be regarded as having water in front of the gate. Because the creek bends, this creek is called the Crescent River. The river water comes from the lotus pond in the Garden of Harmony in the Summer Palace. The river flows from north to south behind the big screen wall, and there is a small stone bridge on the north and south sides of the screen wall. These two small stone bridges were built in the Qing Dynasty, and there are still white stone railings in the Guangxu period. Although these two bridges are outside the cultural protection area and are not considered cultural relics, they are still protected.

Outside the gate of the East Palace are some ancillary buildings and courtyards of the Summer Palace, which are basically the palace rooms of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where all the male and female palace residents who work in the garden live, which is the dormitory of the Royal Property Company in the Qing Dynasty. One of the dormitories for cleaning women was later used as a dormitory for the staff of the Summer Palace Management Office. In recent years, it was sold to others to build an Aman Summer Palace hotel.

Opposite Aman Summer Palace and across the road from the Summer Palace is the only property in the surrounding area that does not belong to the Summer Palace. It was originally the Zide Garden bestowed by Emperor Yongzheng to Prince Guo Yunli.

Yunli was the seventeenth elder brother of Kangxi, who did not participate in the battle of Kangxi's sons to win the succession due to the age difference between his brothers, and had a good death in the early years of Qianlong. Zide Garden was burned down by the British and French allied forces in the tenth year of Xianfeng. When New China built a high-level party school on the ruins, it was later called the Central Party School. There are no ancient buildings there, but there is a pond, the water in the pond comes from the back lake of the Summer Palace, and beside the pond is an earth mountain piled up with the soil dug from the pond. There are many trees in the yard, and there are grasses on the Liliyuan that grow again in the spring breeze. When I lived there, people gathered in the airplane building to watch TV, watching Kempes lead Argentina to its first World Cup title.

After entering the East Palace Gate of the Summer Palace, in front is the Renshou Gate.

This is a ritual gate. This system has existed since ancient times. In the Han Dynasty, two wooden pillars were erected in front of the yamen called "Huan (Nianhuan)", and a wooden door was made between the two pillars. In the Song Dynasty, it was called Yimen, which means the gate of etiquette, usually the second gate inside the gate. The East Palace Gate passes through the front and back roads, and the emperor and empress dowagers can enter directly by the chariot. When you get off the chariot in front of the Renshou Gate, you just get off the car. Officials should stand still in front of this door, wipe off the sweat on their faces, put on the top of their heads, and fasten the discipline buttons under their necks, that is, to organize their voices and smiles.

This is a wooden Ruyi Gate, with double-layer painted horizontal beams on the top, and the hollowed-out wood carving between the horizontal beams is called the ring Huaban. On the horizontal beams is a gray-tiled single-eave Xieshan top supported by bucket arches. There is no threshold under the door leaf, and a simple white stone door pillow under the door frame. The stone drum under the doorpost is not a door pier, this is called a pillar stone.

There are hanging belts at the front and back of the gate. On both sides of the gate are palace walls. The blue bricks are plastered and painted red. The gray bricks have astringent wall ridges and gray tile wall caps. There is a brick screen wall on both sides of the door, take a look.

There are exquisite brick carvings on the wall core, the four corners are flying dragons, and the middle box is double dragons playing beads.

Look at the bilingual "Ren Shou Gate" plaque in Manchu and Chinese.

This is a Kowloon woodcut plaque written by Cixi. The plaques of royal buildings in the Qing Dynasty were in Manchurian-Chinese trilingual in the early years of Shunzhi. After the thirteenth year of Shunzhi (AD 1656), they were gradually changed to Manchu-Chinese bilingual. The Manchu characters have been removed from the plaques, and the Chinese characters have been moved to the middle. In this way, the plaque of Renshou Gate is still in the style of the Qing Dynasty. It should be the plaque when the Summer Palace was rebuilt in the 15th year of Guangxu. I don't know if it is the original. Most of the vertical plaques on the royal buildings in the Qing Dynasty were bilingual in Manchu and Chinese, while the horizontal plaques were in pure Chinese, so there was no Manchu script on the "Summer Palace" plaque in front of the palace gate.

There are palace walls on both sides of the east palace gate, and there are left and right side doors on the wall, which are now the entrances and exits for tourists, with left entering and right exiting. There are also palace walls on both sides of Renshou Gate, and there are also left and right side doors on the wall, which are simple wall doors.

Several rows of arborvitae were planted in the courtyard in front of Renshou Gate, which should have been planted in the 15th year of Guangxu's reign, and they are now soaring into the sky.

There are houses on the north and south sides of Renshou Gate, which are called Jiuqing Value House.

The main room of the Jiuqing Value House is three rooms wide and two rooms deep. It also has three side rooms on each side. The building of "Jiuqing Value House" was established in the Qing Dynasty and began in the Kangxi period. After Kangxi changed the imperial gate from Taihe Gate to Qianqing Gate, he set up the Jiuqing Value House on the east side of Qianqing Gate, where ministers waited in the early court. The Jiuqing guard rooms on both sides of the Renshou Gate of the Summer Palace are the same as those in the palace. If the emperor comes to the Summer Palace to escape the summer heat, the ministers will wait here for the morning court or to be summoned by the emperor. "Jiuqing" generally refers to the chief executives at the central level. It was first published in "Zhou Li", and there were six officials and three orphans as Jiuqing. At that time, there were really nine official positions. In the Qing Dynasty, there was often a saying of "six ministries and nine ministers". The six ministries were officials, households, rites, soldiers, punishment and the Ministry of Industry; the nine ministers often referred to the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Dali Temple, Taichang Temple, Guanglu Temple, and Honghe Temple, Taipu Temple, Tongzhengshi, Zongrenfu and Luan Yiwei chief executives, such as "Taichang Temple Qing". In the Qing Dynasty, Jiuqing's house was a name, and all officials, big and small, who came to see the emperor and empress dowager were waiting here.

These duty rooms are now used as commercial and doorman lounges, and the night shift doormen also eat instant noodles here as a supper.

Entering the Renshou Gate is the former hall of the Summer Palace. The main hall is Renshou Hall, come and see.

In front of Renshou Hall, there is an open platform with a rather large area. The platform is covered with blue bricks in the middle and surrounded by a circle of white stones. There is a white stone imperial road in the middle of the platform, and there are also bluestone slabs on both sides of the imperial road. This can be regarded as Danchi. When there are important ceremonies, the officials who cannot enter the hall will perform three kneelings and nine kowtows here. Like the main hall in the palace, there are also decorations on the platform of Renshou Hall. On each side of the platform are a pair of copper tripod furnaces, a copper vat, a copper dragon and a copper phoenix.

Look at dragon and phoenix.

We know that there are no dragons and phoenixes in the decorations on the platforms of all the main halls of the palace. In the thirteenth year of Tongzhi (AD 1874), Cixi held her 40th birthday in Changchun Palace in the palace. In front of the Changchun Palace, there is a copper tortoise and a copper crane that did not exist in the harem. In the tenth year of Guangxu, Empress Dowager Cixi celebrated her fiftieth birthday in Chuxiu Palace, Yikun Palace. In front of Yikun Palace are bronze phoenixes and cranes, and in front of Chuxiu Palace are bronze dragons and deer. This is the imperial palace. It is the first time that Bronze Dragon and Bronze Phoenix appear in the movie. In the 20th year of Guangxu, Cixi planned to hold her 60th birthday in the Summer Palace, and bronze dragons and phoenixes were placed in front of the Hall of Renshou. The phoenix is ​​a divine bird, no one has seen it before. The image of the phoenix is ​​the dream of the ancients, and the male is the phoenix and the female is the phoenix, which the ancients told us in the dream. However, when the phoenix and the dragon appear together, the dragon represents the king and the phoenix represents the queen.

If the painted beams and squares of the palace buildings are golden dragons and seals, it means that only the emperor can appear in this hall; only the halls with dragons, phoenixes and seals can have queens come. The copper dragon and phoenix placed in front of the Hall of Renshou indicate that Cixi will come to this hall. After all, the place where there are copper dragons and phoenixes in the palace is Cixi's Shoudian bedroom. Many tour guides are saying that the bronze phoenix in front of Renshou Hall is in the middle, and the bronze dragons on both sides are Empress Dowager Cixi suppressing Guangxu. This makes no sense at all! The dragon and phoenix represent the emperor and queen, not the emperor and empress. If the phoenix represents Cixi, then the dragon should represent Xianfeng. Moreover, if the dragon represents Xianfeng, then the phoenix should be Ci'an, and it's not Cixi's turn at all! When Ci'an was alive, Cixi only dared to put turtles and cranes in Changchun Palace; after Ci'an passed away, Cixi dared to put dragons and phoenixes in Chuxiu Palace of Yikun Palace, which broke the ancestor's rules. As for the position of the dragon and the phoenix, I am afraid that Cixi meant that this is "the phoenix that has become a dragon", and there is no such thing as the phoenix pressing the dragon.

There is a five-foot-high white stone base under the main hall of Renshou Hall. The main hall is seven rooms wide and four rooms deep, with eaves and corridors around it. There are four partition doors in the bright room and the second room respectively. There are six doors on both sides of the door leaf in each room; The door leaf is a gold-pasted Ruyi lattice core, and a gold-plated lead forged leaf. There are low walls of gray bricks in the middle and the end, with partitions and windows. The doors and windows are full of latticework. The doors and windows are all Royal Decorated to the highest specification. The upper part is a structure of bucket arches and beams, and the gray tile single-eave rolling shed rests on the top of the mountain. There are seven brick-carved ridge beasts at the front of the ridge, and there are no immortals riding chickens. On Liang Fang, there are gold-painted double dragons and seal paintings, which means that this is the palace of the emperor. In front of the Ming Room and the Second Room in front of the hall, there are three vertical belts and stomps, and there is no royal road to stomp the Danbi stone. I don't know if this is a renovation during the Republic of China. It is said that the Royal Road Danbi Stone should be set in front of the main hall of this scale.

Every morning, all the courtyards and halls in the Summer Palace open at the same time and close at the same time in the afternoon. The previous picture is before the door opens in the morning, look at the main hall after the door is opened.

When the Summer Palace first opened, the Hall of Renshou could be visited. After the reconstruction in the past few years, tourists were allowed to walk in front of the gate to watch the inside of the palace. After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, tourists were not allowed to walk in front of the gate to avoid tourists from gathering, and the same is true in the Forbidden City.

Let's turn our feet and look inward from the Mingjian gate.

In the hall, the floor is made of gold bricks, the pillars are painted red, and the space is closed to form a warm pavilion. In the Ming Dynasty, a red sandalwood floor was set up between the golden pillar and the central pillar, and the red sandalwood carved Kowloon emperor's throne was placed on the floor. Behind the throne stand four red sandalwood mirror-centered screens, which are filled with the word "Shou" in various scripts. The screen was first invented to stand behind the emperor. It was called "axe (reading clothes)". In the Han Dynasty, Sima Qian had "the emperor stands on the screen". There are two large goose feather fans on both sides behind the throne, which are called "palm fans". The palm fan has also been around since ancient times. According to research, it was invented by Emperor Shun. Shaking it can attract sages from all over the world, and the word "swagger" comes from this. It was called "Wuming Fan" at that time, and later evolved into one of the emperor's ceremonial guards. Lu Sidao, a Sui man, had a saying, "Shake the Wuming Fan from time to time, and talk about the Qixiang chariot". There must be some mascots in front of the throne, including cloisonné enamel tripod furnace, crane and luduan. All of the above are decorations and have no practical function. The ones that really work are actually placed in the second room, look at this.

The two gilt-bronze tripod furnaces in the second room are filled with pine branches, sandalwood and other things during important ceremonies, and then set on fire, and the lids on the top will emit smoke from the seven orifices. Once the smoke comes out, it is worse than the modern smog, and the average person has a limited time to endure it. Therefore, using this smoke can control the ceremony time not to be too long. When the emperor and Honglu Temple Minister in charge of etiquette feel that they can't bear it, they should end the ceremony quickly. Look at the chandelier above, it was hung up during the Guangxu period, and it was produced by the Qing Palace Manufacturing Office.

In addition to the miscellaneous things on the ground in the Hall of Renshou, there should also be content on the beams above. Now standing outside the hall, you can't see the ceiling in the hall, but only the plaques hanging on it.

Under the eaves outside the hall, the bilingual "Ren Shou Hall" plaque in Manchu and Chinese was inscribed by Guangxu. The word Renshou comes from the sentence "The wise are happy, the benevolent live long" in "The Analects of Confucius·Yong Ye", which means that intellectuals are happy and benevolent people live long. Guangxu's inscription of "Ren Shou" in this hall is of course to congratulate Cixi on her 60th birthday. He also brags about Cixi's benevolence. The most popular word among folks to celebrate a woman's birthday is "Bao Wu Xinghui". Wu is the Wu star in the twenty-eight constellations and the star of women.

The plaque of "Dayuan Baojing" on the Mingjian door outside the hall was inscribed by Cixi. The Great Perfect Mirror comes from the Five Wisdoms of Tantric Buddhism: Dharma Realm Body Nature Wisdom, Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, Equal Nature Wisdom, Wonderful Observation Wisdom and Achievement Wisdom. Among them, the wisdom of the great circle mirror means that the Buddha can see all the dharmas of the three times, and all virtues are perfect, just like the great circle mirror can reveal everything. In ancient times, it was said that the magical object of the mirror can make the goblin appear. Cixi wrote this plaque to say that she had completed her merits and virtues. Don't look at Cixi's use of Buddhist terms here, but she is not one of the empress dowagers of the Qing Dynasty who devoted herself to worshiping Buddha. She is not comparable to the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang or the Empress Dowager Chongqing. This is because she has been busy drawing the curtain to listen to politics. That is not just participating in politics, but governing and messing with politics.

The "Shouxie Renfu" plaque between the golden pillars in the Ming Dynasty in the hall was also written by Cixi. "Xie" means conformity. In "Zuo Zhuan · Zhao Gong", there is "Shi Chao sees Cheng Zi, tells his dream, Meng Xie". Cixi means to say, "I am so benevolent and righteous, I deserve this life."

There is a pair of couplets hanging on the gold pillars on both sides of the back screen. This is the original text of Cixi's heavy book Qianlong. The first couplet is "Xinglang Zichen Minghuiteng Beidou", and the second couplet is "Nanrong on the side of the warm scene of the zodiac when the sun is approaching". Purple is the color of auspiciousness, and Chen is the palace. There was Zichen Palace in the imperial palace of Tang Dynasty. The first couplet is to say that the night sky of the emperor's house is full of stars, and the Big Dipper is shining. The zodiac is the path of the sun around the earth, and Nanrong is the southern eaves of the roof. The second couplet means that the emperor's house has a warm sun during the day, and the beautiful scenery in front of the palace is pleasant.

Since Renshou Hall is the main hall, there must be side halls on the left and right. Look at the left side hall in the upper hand.

Start with the right side hall.

The left and right side halls have the same shape, with a three-foot-high base below and a vertical belt in front. The main hall is five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with eaves and corridors in front. The above is a structure of brackets and beams, a gray tile single-eave roll shed resting on the top of the mountain, and there are five ridge beasts on the ridge, and there are no immortals riding chickens. Liang Fang is covered with colorful paintings, all of which are gilded with double dragons and seals.

These two side halls should have belonged to the side hall in the past, but now they are cultural and creative shops. Looking at the goods displayed by the window, they are quite high-end, and they are all top-grade Chinese silk.

In front of Renshou Hall, apart from the bronze vessel on the platform, there is also a bronze vessel in the yard, which is a bronze unicorn in the center under the platform.

Ordinarily, the unicorns should be placed in pairs, and there is a pair of gilded bronze unicorns in front of the Cining Gate of the Forbidden City. Why is there a single one in front of Renshou Hall? According to research, this unicorn is a product of the Qianlong period. There was no such auspicious beast here during the Qianlong period, and it should be snatched from the ruins of the Old Summer Palace when Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace. The Qilin in Renshou Hall sits on a white marble base, majestic and majestic. Kylin is one of the five auspicious animals in ancient China, the other four are dragon, phoenix, turtle and brave. In the "Book of Songs", there is a poem "The Toe of the Lin" once praised "The toe of the Qi, the son of Zhenzhen; call for the Lin Xi"!

During the Qianlong period, there was a wooden screen wall inside Renshou Gate, which was required for the layout of Chinese courtyards. There is a shadow wall in the east and west gates of the six palaces in the imperial palace. There are marble screens, but most of them are wooden screens or screen doors. There should also be a wooden screen wall inside the Renshou Gate, which was burned down by the British and French allied forces in the tenth year of Xianfeng. When the Summer Palace was rebuilt in the 15th year of Guangxu, an unbroken large stone was picked from the ruins of the Old Summer Palace. This large stone was placed in the position of the screen wall inside the Renshou Gate, acting as a screen wall, preventing the ministers from standing outside the Renshou Gate. The emperor's true face.

They said that the stone was engraved with Qianlong's poem "Autumn Wind" by Shuimu Mingse in the Forty Scenes of Yuanmingyuan. Where is the engraving of "One Ming" is really too secretive. This is a Taihu stone. Most of the Taihu stones in Yuanmingyuan come from Qionghua Island in Beihai Park, which was collected by Jin Shizong from Genyue Garden in Bianliang. In this way, this stone is part of Song Huizong's Huashi Gang. Because the shape of this stone aroused the limited reverie of a certain person in ancient times, saying that it looked like a birthday star, he called this stone "Shouxing Stone" and wrote it in the official manual of the Summer Palace.

There are also four King Kongs under this birthday stone, which is one of the four Taihu stones standing behind it.

Some people say that these five stones symbolize the five old peaks of Lushan Mountain, which means longevity. It was picked up by Guangxu from the ruins of the Old Summer Palace and placed here to celebrate Cixi's birthday.

The Summer Palace is a royal garden, not a palace. The three mountains and five gardens in the west of Beijing are the places where Qing emperors escaped the summer heat. Lao Gan built Qingyi Garden to escape the summer heat, and it didn't also serve as a departure palace. Lao Gan's departure palace was still in Yuanmingyuan. Therefore, foreigners call the Summer Palace "Summer Palace". Although Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace, it was meant to be used as a palace, but it was still mainly for leisure. Since it is not an imperial palace, of course, trees can be planted in the courtyard of Renshou Palace, which is the court hall. Just now I saw a lot of arborvitae planted in front of Renshou Gate, and inside Renshou Gate were planted some small pine trees around the five Taihu Lake stones. Big trees are planted on both sides. Two ginkgo trees are planted on the side of the left side hall.

On the side of the right side hall are two catalpa trees.

I said in the Forbidden City post that the ancients liked to plant pagoda tree willows in the palace, and Bai Juyi had a famous sentence, "Chengliu palace pagoda tree falls, and sorrow does not reach the hearts of the nobles". In addition to Chinese pagoda tree, there are also catalpa trees like the one above in the imperial garden of the palace, and ginkgo trees like the above are also planted in the Yanxi Palace. Ginkgo is very long-lived, in fact, catalpa is also very long-lived. The catalpa trees at the gate of the imperial garden in the palace were planted during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. It has been 450 years since then, and they still bloom in spring. Look at the spring flowers of the catalpa in front of the Hall of Renshou.

When the emperor travels in an imperial chariot, there are minions leading the way, urging the idlers to go away, and the idlers who walk slowly will be whipped by them. The act of opening a way for the emperor is called "crossing the way". If the emperor went to a certain place and wanted to stay and not go, the wandering behavior would stop. Therefore, later, when the emperor went out of the palace and lived outside, it was called "staying" in a certain place. When the emperor stayed in the Summer Palace, he didn't go in through the gate in front of the Hall of Renshou. Like going to the hall in the palace, he entered from the back bedroom through the back door of the main hall. Look at the back of Renshou Hall.

Open the door between the bright room and the secondary room, and close the solid wall between the slight room and the full room. Behind the hall is a pile of rockery.

Look at the small road in the middle of the stacked stone rockery behind the door, is it a three-way bluestone square brick? This is Royal Road. Where does this road come from? It comes from the residence of the emperor, which is Yulan Hall. The east and west side halls of Yulan hall are hall rooms, and the east side hall faces the imperial road in the rockery. Look outside the east side hall of Yulan Hall.

There is a plaque on the door that reads "Harmony and Qingmu", which comes from the sentence "Plants and trees prosper, and peace and tranquility" in Tao Yuanming's "Encouraging Farmers" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. A pair of couplets hang on the eaves pillars: "On the window bamboo shadow shakes the book case, the sound of the mountain spring enters the inkstone pond", this couplet comes from "Timing Brother and Nephew Book Hall" written by Du Xunhe in Tang Dynasty. The plaque talks about the scenery in the farmland, and the couplet talks about the audio and video in the study, which is similar to the couplets at the "Drinking Green" pavilion in the Garden of Harmony, both of which are written in the study.

Most of the plaques and couplets in the Summer Palace are original manuscripts of Qianlong and rewritten by Cixi Guangxu. The inscription on Chinese plaques and couplets is customary to use stele fonts for plaques, and regular script or running script for couplets. Guangxu has been reading and writing vigorously since he was a child, and it is not uncommon for him to write well. There are few women's handwriting in the palace, because there has been a saying since ancient times that "a woman who has no talent is a virtue". Cixi is different from ordinary women. When she was young, she read a lot of books, also tried to learn brush and ink, and even worked as the paper and inkstone assistant of Emperor Xianfeng. Cixi wrote many couplets on plaques, but it is said that the important parts are still ashamed to show others with pen and ink, and need to be written by someone else. Some of Cixi's handwriting in the Summer Palace were done by herself, and some, like the "Hanxu" archway, made their own questions and others contributed. No matter whose handwriting is written, Cixi must affix her own seal.

The Summer Palace is a leisure garden, not an imperial palace, so it doesn't have to be very majestic. The buildings in the front and rear of the Summer Palace are made of gray tiles instead of yellow glazed tiles, which makes them less majestic. However, the regulations that the royal family should have must be maintained. In addition to the gold-painted paintings on the door and window beams, you can also look at the plinths under the pillars of the Hall of Renshou.

This is called the pillar base, which evolved from the pillars in the Qin and Han Dynasties. After the Han and Tang Dynasties, there were many kinds of plinths, but this simple and clean plinth-shaped plinth still remained. Beginning in the Yuan Dynasty, 櫍-shaped column foundations were used in royal buildings. The imperial palace buildings in the Ming Dynasty basically had such plinth-shaped plinths, and you can see that all plinths are like this in the Forbidden City. There is only one exception in the Forbidden City, which is the eaves column of Jingfu Palace in Ningshou Palace. It is a raspberry lotus, which is the house built by Qianlong. The raspberry lotus plinth used by Qianlong is also a royal style, and it has a source. It is the raspberry lotus plinth under the six golden nanmu pillars in the Ming Dynasty of the Taimiao Xiangdian, produced by Ming Jiajing. When Qianlong built the Qingyi Garden, he adopted the imperial pillars of the Ming Dynasty, which looked solemn and solemn.

The oldest 櫍-shaped plinth I have seen is in Hualin Temple, Fuzhou. Its main hall has been relocated and preserved. It is said that in the Foguang Temple in Shanxi, you can also see the original Tang Dynasty plinths. The plinth-shaped column foundations of the Ming Dynasty have been improved on the ancient ones, and the curves on the slopes are more graceful, very similar to the curves of the capitals of the columns of Egyptian temples, with a circular involute.

All the Qing Dynasty buildings in the Summer Palace have this type of pillar foundation, even the small value house behind the Hall of Renshou. This is the grocery store.

This small room is next to the Hall of Renshou and not far from the Yulan Hall, the emperor's bedroom, and it has existed since ancient times. I guess this should be built by Qianlong as the Military Aircraft Department. Since the establishment of the Military Aircraft Department in the Qing Dynasty, the Minister of Military Aircraft has to follow the emperor. During the emperor's stay in the Summer Palace, the Military Aircraft Department is likely to work here. There is also a house in the Summer Palace reserved for the Military Aircraft Department, that is in Ji Qingxuan, I will talk about it later.

Look at the remains of a plinth on a ruin somewhere, and it's the same.

So you can say that all the buildings with 櫍-shaped column foundations are Qing Dynasty buildings, otherwise they were newly built after the Republic of China.

There is a well-known facility in the corner of the Hall of Renshou, where everyone goes to take pictures. It is the "Yannian Well" below.

Everyone wondered that the round hole at the mouth of the well was too small, how could water come out? In fact, it is just a replica of the manhole cover stone. The original manhole cover stone has two holes on the side, and an iron rod needs to be pierced inside. When fetching water, the two palace men held the iron bars and moved the manhole cover stone away, so that the wellhead below could be exposed. You can see that this well platform is hexagonal, with six railing posts on it. It shows that there used to be a hexagonal well pavilion above this well, which should be made of wood. The well pavilion should have six columns and a sill wall between the columns at the bottom, with a door on the south side, and a beam-lifting structure with gray tiles and hexagonal pointed roofs on the top, without brackets. You can see that there are no pillar foundations under the six railing posts, which means that this bluestone well platform is also a replica, not the original one from the Qing Dynasty. The "Yannian Well" behind the well is not written in Qing Dynasty, but written by citizens of the Republic of China.

It is said that Cixi lived by drinking the water from this well. In fact, this should be a legend, not to be taken seriously. The royal family of the Qing Palace only drank the spring water from Yuquan Mountain, and a special logistics company transported those direct drinking water from Yuquan Mountain to the palace every day. All the wells in the palace are only for washing, and the palace is also used for washing. This Yannian well should also be the source of washing water for the former halls of the Summer Palace. This is the only well pavilion in the Summer Palace, and the other halls should be washed with water from Kunming Lake. The drinking water in the garden should be transported from Yuquan Mountain by the royal logistics.

Unlike the empty palaces of the previous dynasty in the imperial palace, there are trees in front of the Hall of Renshou. Catalpa blooms in spring, and ginkgo leaves yellow in autumn. There are flower ponds on both sides of Renshou Hall, in which peonies are now planted. As soon as the wind is warm in spring, peonies will bloom.

There are not only human tourists, but also palace cats who enjoy the flowers. It is also romantic to be a cat under the flowers.

After winter snow.

During the Chinese New Year, a lot of little red lanterns will be brought out and hung on the pine trees in front of the hall.

From the East Palace Gate to the Hall of Renshou, the Summer Palace faces east from west. The same is true of another royal building in Beijing, which is the Jingyi Garden in Xiangshan. Its palace gate and Qinzheng Hall also face east from west. Chinese architecture pays attention to facing south from the north, especially the emperor's hall, and it is even more important to face the south from the north. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "a king who faces the south, and a minister who faces the north". Then why is the Hall of Renshou in the Summer Palace facing east? And this has been the case since the Qingyi Garden was built in Qianlong.

The religious beliefs of the ancient northern nomads were very primitive, and the climate in the north was cold, so they worshiped fire and the sun. The most typical of such worship is Zoroastrianism. The Manchus of the Qing Dynasty belonged to the Jurchens, the former Jin Wanyan was also the Jurchens, and the Khitan Liao Yelu also belonged to the northern nomads. They all came from the Donghu people. These northern nomads all respect fire and the sun, including the Xianbei people in the Northern Wei Dynasty before that. The Manchu fire worship plot is shaman worship, and shaman worship is not Zoroastrianism, but they all worship the sun.

A feature of sun worship is that the temple faces east, towards the direction of the rising sun. Huayan Temple in Datong was built in the Liao Dynasty, and it also faces east from west. Fire worship has also left a deep imprint in Western countries. The emperor's bedroom in many western palaces faces east, such as the Palace of Versailles in France. Ancient Egypt also worshiped the sun, and most Egyptian temples also faced east, such as the very famous Abu Simbel Temple. The Hall of Renshou in the Summer Palace and the Hall of Qinzheng in Xiangshan were both built by Qianlong. They were built from west to east, which shows that Qianlong still has the blood of the Jurchens in his bones. Another point is that the shaman sacrifices in the Kunning Palace in the Imperial Palace continued during the Qing Dynasty, which also shows that the Qing imperial family cared a lot about their traditional beliefs. In particular, Qianlong left special arrangements for offering sacrifices to shamans in the Ningshou Palace, which he rebuilt for retirement.

Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the Hall of Renshou in the Summer Palace faces east from west, nor does it conform to the terrain, but is intentional by Lao Gan.

The Renshou Hall was called the "Dian of Qinzheng" when Lao Gan was first built, which means that he can enter this hall frequently to serve in politics when he comes to escape the summer heat. He also built a Qinzheng Hall in Jingyi Garden in Xiangshan, which shows that he wants to move around frequently, and he will take Zhengzheng wherever he goes. In fact, the elder brother Qianlong had never been in charge of politics in Qingyi Garden Qinzheng Hall. The Hall of Supreme Harmony in the imperial palace is the hall of ceremonies, and the daily affairs are not handled there, but in the study. The Qinzheng Hall is equivalent to the Qianqing Palace, where the emperor can gather all his ministers for court meetings.

Cixi could not celebrate her birthday in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, nor in the Palace of Kunning, nor even in the Hall of Jiaotai. Strictly speaking, Cixi cannot appear in the first three palaces and the last three palaces at all. She is not high enough, and Cixi can only celebrate her birthday in the east and west six palaces. Guangxu's original intention of rebuilding the Summer Palace was to celebrate Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday. If he succeeded, he would accept birthday celebrations from all officials in the Hall of Renshou. The result was unsuccessful, it was the 60th birthday held in the Huangji Hall in Ningshou Gate, and the Huangji Hall was temporarily decorated for this purpose.

After the renovation of the Summer Palace was completed, Cixi usually lived in the Leshou Hall of the Ningshou Palace in the palace, and often came to the Summer Palace in summer to escape the summer heat. Ten years after Xianfeng, the Li Palace and royal gardens in the suburbs of Beijing were destroyed. Guangxu took the rebuilt Summer Palace as his departure palace, and he often came to the Summer Palace to spend the summer.

After Guangxu came to power, the Qing Dynasty went farther and farther on the downhill road, and its ruling power gradually weakened. The court reached a critical juncture where reforms must be made. In the 21st year of Guangxu (AD 1895), Kang Youwei led the forces outside the academy to instigate and initiate a public letter. Emperor Guangxu also felt that reforms and reforms would not be able to prevent the decline of the Qing Dynasty after the Kang Party went to the Hall of Renshou in the Summer Palace several times to lobby. Every time the Kang Party withdrew from the Hall of Renshou, Emperor Guangxu had to go to Cixi, who also lived in the Summer Palace, to discuss it. In fact, Cixi was in charge of the overall situation behind the scenes. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu, Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi unified their thinking and decided to implement reforms. In June, the Shangyu issued an edict "Ming Ding Guoshi", and then issued hundreds of edicts within a hundred days to abolish the old system and establish new laws. These new methods had the effect of bone extraction and bloodletting to rebuild the heart and lungs of the Qing Dynasty, which caused great shock.

In fact, this process is very similar to Shang Yang's reform. Shang Yang received the full support of Qin Xiaogong and the emperor's family two thousand years ago and succeeded. Guangxu's Reform Movement of 1898 did not receive Cixi's full support, and the result was completely different. The leaders of radical reforms in ancient China did not get good results. After the death of Qin Xiaogong, Shang Yang was torn apart by a car. Wang Anshi did not receive the full support of Song Shenzong, failed to catch the reform, and died of depression. Guangxu's radical reform was strongly resisted by the clan forces, and they even persuaded Cixi to enter the table, intending to abolish the emperor and establish a reserve. Cixi finally accepted the coercion of the clan forces, walked out of the Summer Palace to launch the Reform Movement of 1898, and sent Guangxu to Yingtai in Xiyuan.

In fact, Cixi also knew that reforms must be implemented, but due to the obstruction of clan forces, she could only change Guangxu's radical reforms into gradual ones. Under the auspices of Empress Dowager Cixi, the Qing court decided to implement a constitutional monarchy and formulated a ten-year constitutional road map. In less than ten years, Empress Dowager Cixi finished her life, and before her resignation, she forced Guangxu to cross the bridge of Naihe first. The Guangxu reform failed, but fortunately it did not end up with Shang Yang. The later Emperor Xuantong Puyi, the son of the emperor, finally made a decision for the Qing Dynasty. In fact, it was the imperial edict signed by Emperor Guangxu's wife. You see, history is so ruthless. Guangxu wanted to keep the Qing Dynasty, but his wife did something that ended the Qing Dynasty. The wife also resigned from Puyi in the second year and went to see Naifu in Chongling in the Western Mausoleum of Qing Dynasty.

Before the Reform Movement of 1898, the Hall of Renshou in the Summer Palace was the place where Emperor Guangxu communicated cordially with groups outside the courtyard. Later, when the Empress Dowager Cixi stayed in the Summer Palace, it became the place where she handled government affairs. She can't go to the three main halls and the last three palaces in the palace, and can only sit in the Huangji Hall of Ningshou Palace, which is not very powerful. The Hall of Renshou is the largest palace in the Summer Palace, Cixi will feel the scenery is boundless when sitting here, so she often comes to the Summer Palace. After Cixi’s 60th birthday, she has been living in the Leshou Hall in the Yangxing Gate behind the Huangji Hall. She moved to the Xiyuan Yiluan Hall in the 28th year of Guangxu (AD 1902). She remodeled it as a nursing home for herself. In the end, it is also there to go to the west, which is now Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai.

The Hall of Renshou and the Left and Right Side Halls can be regarded as the former dynasty in the Summer Palace. After watching the former dynasty, then look back at the emperor's inner palace in the Summer Palace, which is the latter bedroom where the former dynasty sleeps and the latter sleeps.

(to be continued)