Two rows of tall arborvitae were planted on both sides of the corridor, some were from the Qianlong period, and most were from the Guangxu period. There are also some open-air seats along the south side of the corridor.
Luchenzuo is an open-air display of royal artifacts, so it is also called Luchentai or Luchendun. The official scientific name is "Tian'an Shizuo for open-air display", and Tian'an can be understood as "adding blessings and increasing longevity". Weather-resistant utensils are usually placed on the exposed table, such as hard goods such as bronzes and Taihu stones, which can withstand wind, frost, rain and snow. Take a look at the Taihu stones placed on the Luchen Seat in the courtyard of the Le Shoutang mentioned earlier.
The open seats on the south side of the corridor are filled with spaces, one may not be here originally; the other may be because the bronzes on it were lost or put into storage. There are countless exposed seats in the Summer Palace. It is said that there are a total of 112 original Qing Dynasty seats, of which 98 are numbered according to the character "Wan". These dew seats are left over from the Qingyi Garden, and most of them were newly added on the 70th birthday of Cixi in the 30th year of Guangxu. There are white marble and white marble, and the simplest one is white stone. The exposed seats are usually placed in front of the door or on both sides of the house, appearing in pairs, and occasionally placed alone. I have seen the Shouxing Stone in front of Renshou Hall and the Prodigal Stone in the courtyard of Leshou Hall appearing alone. There are five blank exposed seats on the platform in front of Hanxu Hall on the commanding height of Nanhu Island. There is also a blank exposed seat in front of the main room of Ji Qingxuan, which is also numbered without the word "Wan".
As mentioned earlier, there is a Chaoshou verandah from the Yulan Hall into the Emperor's Backyard. This Chaoshou verandah connects all the courtyards and houses in the back bedroom. This veranda connecting all things is finally connected to the promenade, all the way to Shizhang Pavilion, connecting the most important places in the Summer Palace. All the buildings connected by it are the existing buildings in the Qingyi Garden period.
The last episode mentioned that the corridor between Yuzao Pavilion and the promenade leads north to another building.
Take a closer look at its portico.
Step back a few steps and see it in full view.
This is a pavilion. If you look at it coldly, you will say that it is a two-story building with octagonal gray tiles and double eaves, or a three-story building. Red column doors and windows, octagonal spires, and gray brick terraces covered with bowl ridge brakes. If you look closely, there is a bucket arch under the waist eaves on the first floor. This is the first bucket arch and beam-lifting structure along the way in the courtyards of the back bedroom. There is a circle of eaves corridors outside the first floor, and there are flat seats and eaves corridors on the second floor. Look under the flat seat on the second floor, there is also a bucket arch, and there is a dark layer between the bucket arch on the first floor and the bucket arch under the flat seat on the second floor. There is also a dark layer between the second-story eaves and the third-story eaves, which is larger than the dark layer between the first and second floors. I mentioned the difference between a building and a pavilion before. The building is a heavy house; the pavilion is a multi-storey building with a flat seat on the second floor and a dark floor under the flat seat. The building in front of me should be a "Pavilion", with a total of four floors including light and dark. Its plaque is on the south side.
In the form of a paper plaque, "The mountains and lakes share the first floor", and the inscription is "Qianlong Yubi". I mentioned in the Forbidden City post that the "Fair and Bright" plaque of the Qianqing Palace was first inscribed by Emperor Shunzhi when he rebuilt the Qianqing Palace. After Kangxi came to power, he copied the original text of his father and reset it, and stamped his own "Kangxi Treasure" seal. In the second year of Jiaqing, Qianqing Palace caught fire. When it was rebuilt after the fire, Qianlong copied his grandfather's handwriting and reset it, adding "Treasure of the Supreme Emperor". There are two seals of Kangxi and Qianlong on the current "upright and bright" plaque. There is only "Qianlong Imperial Brush" on the above plaque "Mountains and lakes share the first floor", but there is no "Guangxu Imperial Brush", which shows that the original plaque of Qianlong was reset, not copied by Guangxu. It should be reset during the Guangxu period, and it has been refreshed in recent years.
When the snow falls in winter, enjoy the Jade Tower again. Covered in snow and silver, and wrapped in red makeup. The cedar accompanying the building is even more enchanting.
Ancient literati loved to sing about mountains and rivers, and Wang Zhihuan once said, "The sun is at the end of the mountain, and the Yellow River flows into the sea." Chanting mountains and rivers also often chanted the scenery of lakes and mountains, Liu Changqing has "the scenery of mountains and lakes are in the east, and there is the wind of woodcutters when the boat returns". This building in Qingyi Garden sits at the foot of Longevity Hill, facing Kunming Lake. Going up the building and leaning on the railing to look around, you can enjoy the scenery of mountains and lakes. Lao Gan couldn't help but write a poem: Weizhu is surrounded by water, and bamboo shoots emerge from the rock tower. Yilan often reflects the belt, and Dai Dai also wraps it. Knowing wisdom, benevolence and happiness, Wancheng is a friend of Uncle Zhong. Qi Shen suspects painting a boat, and Yue Zhi is a nest of books. It's enough for chanting and watching, and Xi troubles and troubles. The Xijing sets up observation, and cultivates virtue and sages.
Laogan's poem mentions that "Wei bamboo is surrounded by water, and bamboo shoots emerge from the rock tower". "Wei Bamboo": The bamboo of the Wei River, the ancients said "the scenery of the Wei River is full of bamboos". On the side of this building is Erqi Weizhu.
"The rock building comes out of the bamboo tower", that is to say, there is Shiyan behind Weizhu, and there are tall buildings on the rock.
The mountain scenery and lake light are on the first floor, and the eaves corridor on the first floor faces west, connecting a section of uphill veranda, which is called climbing corridor.
This climbing corridor is connected with the promenade on the first floor through the mountains and lakes. Go up the climbing corridor, you can reach the rock tower above the bamboo.
This is the Oriole Pavilion. The Tingli Pavilion sits on a high rock platform one foot high. The gate hall is five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with a verandah in front. On the top is a double coupon hook connected with a gray tile rolling shed hanging from the top of the mountain.
There are five south rooms on both sides of the gate hall, with eaves corridors at the front and back, passing through the side gables of the gate hall and connecting with the front eaves corridor of the gate hall. There are horoscope ladders in front of the gate hall and the south rooms on both sides for outsiders to climb. There are low brick walls in front of the high rock platform and the figure-of-eight ladder, look at the brick carvings on the wall.
The ten thousand characters with the word "longevity" do not reach the head pattern, this is called "longevity without bounds".
Look at the plaque hanging in front of the gate hall.
Under the eaves hangs a plaque "Jin Zhixiuhua", which says "Jinzhixiuhua, Shuyan (Nian Mao) Cuijing" in "Han Shu". Yan Shigu commented in the Sui and Tang Dynasties that "There are many decorations on the music, there are Liuyu Yubao, with gold as the branch, and the head is scattered, just like the beauty of vegetation." Jinzhixiuhua is a variety of ornaments on musical instruments, like blooming flowers, and gold branches are used to refer to musical instruments. Yan Shigu was a famous scholar in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and an expert in "Han Shu". History says that when he was young, he was recommended as a captain of Anyang County. Seeing that he was young, Shang Shu Yang Su wondered, "How can I govern Anyangju County?" Yan Shigu quoted his master saying, "How can you use a bull's knife to cut chickens".
Lao Gan wrote a small poem for the Tingli Pavilion back then: "Why do you have to fight wine with two oranges? There is also a bamboo forest in the Jingshe. A few chestnuts are left outside the window, and Zhong Ruo wins my heart first." Among them, "Dou" is pronounced the third sound, not the fourth sound, and one Dou is equal to ten liters. In ancient times, wine was very expensive. Li Bai's "Will Entering Wine" mentioned the market price of wine. banter". Lao Gan mentioned an allusion in the poem "Listening to the Oriole Pavilion". In Tang Dynasty Feng Zhi's "Miscellaneous Notes on Yunxian", it said: "Dai Yong (Nian Yong) brought a pair of oranges and a bucket of wine in the spring. Voice'". In the later Song Dynasty, there was a poem "Tomorrow will come again to meet the brilliant, double tangerine fighting wine to listen to orioles", and double tangerine fighting wine was selected into the idiom dictionary. Take two tangerines and hold a bucket of wine to enjoy the spring, and listen to N orioles singing green willows. It's listening to the oriole again, and it's Jin Zhixiu again, which shows that this rock building is a place for drinking and singing. This Oriole Pavilion was built by Qianlong during the Qingyi Garden period for the empress dowager to listen to operas to relieve boredom. It was rebuilt during the Guangxu period, and it was still for the Queen Mother to listen to small plays to amuse her boredom.
Go in and have a look.
The interior of the gate hall is still arranged according to Cixi's 60th birthday, with gold bricks on the ground, large pillars of lotus wrapped in gold, five blessings holding Shouping chess ceiling, and a huge "Shou" paper plaque written by Cixi in the middle. The "Beautiful Garden Full of Garden" screen in front is a new work in recent years.
Walk into the gate hall, stand under the eaves and corridors of the south room, and watch what is going on in the courtyard.
Behind the gate hall is the stage facing south and north, and opposite the stage is the theater viewing building facing south. The south rooms on the east and west sides of the gate hall are the theater building, which is the dressing room.
Turn around and look at the theater building.
This is a two-storey theater building with one side wide and one deep, and the bay is very large. Four pillars and four corners, double eaves with upturned corners, two floors, bucket arches, beams, gray tiles, rolling sheds, and five ridge beasts on the ridges. From the outside, it looks like this is a two-story theater building, but it is actually three floors, with a dark floor in the middle, so it should still be called "Ge". The stage itself is not a palace building, so it is all green pillars, even the Changyin Pavilion in the palace is also green pillars. The beams are painted in Su style, with flowers, birds, fish and insects, towers and pavilions.
On the front of the stage—that is, the north—hang two plaques. The upper piece is "Fengxiang Yunying". "Feng Xiang", auspicious birds flying, Tang Xuanzong has a poem "Jingyi dragon leaps, city phoenix flying". It is better to explain "Feng Xiang" with "Xiao Shao Jiucheng, Feng Huang Lai Yi" in "Shang Shu", playing "Jiu Shao", there is Feng Huang Lai Yi. Yunying: Xiangyun responds. The next piece is "Laiyun Yiri", which is the name of an ancient song, and the music played when the emperor appears, also belongs to the nature of Shaoyue. Both the upper and lower plaques are related to royal music and dance, but Shao music belongs to ceremonial music, and it is almost meaningless to put it in an entertainment place like the stage.
Get on the stage and see.
The red background is pasted with a gold screen, the four forked corners are twining lotuses, and the middle box is Wufu Pengshou. On the back screen hangs the old plaque of "Hou Li Pavilion", which should be a second-hand product from the Guangxu period. A very large dark layer can be seen upwards. Lying on the ground watching the roof of the second floor.
In the middle is a planar algae well with four gold-plated double dragons playing beads at the four corners, surrounded by painted group cranes and flat chess ceilings, group cranes represent longevity.
There are still some old objects left on both sides of the stage. Look at the original paintings of Anonymous in the Qing Dynasty hung horizontally on the door.
Look at the sky in the painting, is it the azure color of Ru porcelain? It is what the ancients said, "After the rain, the sky and the blue clouds break the place, and this color will make the future".
This bamboo is much worse than the Banqiao bamboo. The bamboos painted by the palace people are all well-behaved, not as exquisite as the folk masters.
Turn around and look out of the stage.
Directly opposite is the Theater Viewing Building, below which is a two-foot-high green brick platform, five rooms wide and three rooms deep, surrounded by eaves and corridors. Red pillars and red windows, Su-style painted square beams, woodcarvings pasted with gorse, no upper and lower lintels, this is the palace system. On the top is the top of the Xieshan Mountain with a beam-lifting structure and a gray tile shed. There are seven ridge beasts on the ridge. The standard is very high, the same as the Hall of Renshou. The original plaque of the Manchu-Chinese bilingual "Hou Li Pavilion" is hung under the eaves of the Ming Dynasty. This plaque is the original plaque inscribed by Cixi. It should have been hung under the eaves outside the gate hall in the Qing Dynasty. of. Although I call this official palace building the "Opera Viewing Building", it actually has only one floor.
Over the roof of the theater building, you can see the Chenghui Pavilion in the middle of the painting halfway up the mountain behind.
During the period of Qingyi Garden, the positions of the Tingli Pavilion theater building and the viewing theater building were just opposite to those of the present. The theater building was located in the current viewing theater building, facing south; Sit south and face north. This is because Qianlong was preparing to go on stage and sing to his mother-in-law to show his filial piety. When the emperor stepped on the stage, he could only shout to the south. In fact, Lao Gan himself also likes to sing a few words of "Yi Yi Ya Ya" when he is fine. Many of his private houses in the palace have prepared a small stage for practicing vocals in his spare time. It can be regarded as an entertainment activity in that era, after all, karaoke was not good enough back then. There is such a small stage in the Juanqin Studio at the end of Qianlong Garden, which is only used by Laogan for private use.
At that time, in the 25th year of Qianlong (AD 1751), Lao Gan built two theaters to celebrate his mother's 60th birthday. He transformed Xian'an Palace in the palace into Shou'an Palace, and built a temporary three-story stage in the front hall; Ten years later, in the 35th year of Qianlong, the 70th birthday of the Empress Dowager Chongqing, the stage of the Shouan Palace was transformed into a permanent three-story theater building. In the thirty-seventh year of Qianlong, the construction of the Changyinge Grand Theater in the palace began, and it was completed in the forty-one year period. The Empress Dowager of Chongqing passed away suddenly due to cerebral infarction in the 42nd year of Qianlong. She should have heard a big drama at the opening ceremony of Changying Pavilion before that. After Qianlong left, Emperor Jiaqing restricted entertainment and destroyed the theater building of Shou'an Palace, leaving only the theater building of Changyin Pavilion.
Among the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, only Qianlong loved to sing and dared to go on stage. When Cixi celebrated her birthday, she only listened but didn't sing, so of course she had to sit north and face south. Therefore, when Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace, he changed the positions of the stage and the royal box of the Tingli Pavilion, and it became the layout we see now. When Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace, a large theater building was built in the courtyard of Qingyi Garden in the northwest of Renshou Hall. The scale is as large as the Changyin Pavilion in the palace, which will be discussed later.
As usual, there are supporting halls on the east and west sides of the theater building, so you can stand on the stage and have a look.
The side hall is three rooms wide and two rooms deep. There is a verandah in front, and a gray tile rolling shed with a beam-lifting structure and a hard mountain top. In fact, this courtyard can also be called five north rooms, three east rooms, and three west rooms. The north and south rooms and the east and west rooms of Tingli Pavilion have front eaves corridors, and there are corridors connecting them, forming a circle. Since these houses are connected to the long corridor, of course they can also lead to the houses where the empress and the empress dowager live. Even if it rains, the first wife of the Qing Dynasty can walk along these corridors to the Oriole Pavilion to listen to a small opera. There is no rain. Risk of wet clothes.
During the Qingyi Garden and the Summer Palace, the Empress Dowager listened to small operas here successively. Of course, the Empress Dowager will invite some royal relatives and family members to accompany her when she is listening to the opera, such as Gege, Fujin and the like. These female relatives are not always able to visit the garden. A stroll around the garden and listening to a few plays will take a day, or even a few days. When it's time for dinner, the empress dowager will pass on the meal in the Tingli Pavilion, and have a meal with all the female relatives while listening to the opera. This is a small banquet. If no female guests came to the garden, the empress dowager would eat in her own Le Shoutang. The banquet in the Tingli Hall can be accompanied by a play, and secondly, the small courtyard on the west side of the Tingli Pavilion is the guest house. If you want to stay in the garden for many days, the female guests invited by the empress dowager will stay there.
In ancient China, there were two meals a day, morning meal (Nianyong) and evening meal (Niansun). When the products were not abundant, there were two meals a day. After the Song Dynasty, the products in the Central Plains became more and more abundant, and gradually changed to three meals a day. In the Qing Dynasty, the royal family still maintained the living habits of the poor and Manchu people outside the customs, eating two meals a day. Breakfast is usually a quarter past five o'clock in the morning, which is very early. If it is early morning, it will be postponed. Dinner is usually Weishi, which is one o'clock in the noon, which is also quite early, but it may last for an hour. There are records of this breakfast and dinner time in the Qing Palace. The emperors of the Qing Dynasty would add a little later to You time, that is, six or seven o'clock in the afternoon. The emperor had to go to work, and if he didn't delay, he would make a typo in the booklet, writing "read" as "din".
During the period of the Republic of China, a wealthy businessman was approved to open a restaurant in Tingliguan. After the renovation of the Tingli Pavilion in New China, it still operates as a restaurant, supplying court dishes. Turn around and take a closer look at the plaque on the front door that reads "Bird Oriole Restaurant", the word "Birry Oriole Restaurant" was copied and pasted from Cixi's plaque. The word "Fan Zhuang" must have been dug from a plaque somewhere in Cixi, and this kind of stele characters can only be collected from the plaque. So the plaque was forged? I said why didn't the payment be signed. The southeast and northwest rooms have different names, and they are called different "meals". In fact, you can order the same dishes in each hall. On the day I came, because of the epidemic, the team was not received, and only sporadic tourists ate. Check out Nanfang Restaurant.
I alone can only ask the chef to show his cooking skills according to the standard configuration menu.
The board head on the waiter's head is decorated by a banner lady, called "Da La Chi". Her large wings were rare in the early Qing Dynasty, and it was not until the late Qing Dynasty that it was more common in concubines in the palace or court wives. However, very few court ladies dress up with such a large flag head, which is inconvenient during labor and affects work efficiency too much. She is just demonstrating the headgear of women in the Qing Palace to customers.
A few side dishes are served: Sibao Chicken, Longfeng Shrimp Balls, Straw Mushroom Choy Sum, Mulberry Egg Soup, four kinds of dim sum, enough rice, more than 100 yuan. Many people think that imperial meals are tasteless. In fact, the emperor eats delicacies from mountains and seas every day, and he has seen a lot of them, so most of the imperial meals are relatively bland. There are also heavy flavors, but not many. If the emperor always eats heavy flavors, he will have to eat them in three days. The main feature of imperial cuisine is delicacy, delicate techniques, and not known for being greasy.
There is also a palace restaurant in Beijing, which is Beihai Park Fangshan, and most of the dishes served are light. The plaque of "Fangshan" is inscribed by Mr. Lao She, which is very rare. Beijing cuisine among the four major cuisines in China, Beijing, Lu, Sichuan, and Guangdong, is actually not easy to define. The real Beijing cuisine should be called palace cuisine. The representative works are Beihai Fangshan and Tingli Pavilion in the Summer Palace. There is another Beijing cuisine that can be counted, which is the Tanjia cuisine on the seventh floor of the west building of the Beijing Hotel. It is official cuisine, not imperial cuisine. If it is said that the common people eat imperial meals in Beijing, it is better to eat imitation meals in Beihai. There are more tourists and more customers, and they have to wait for seats on holidays. Just because there are more diners, the chefs have more opportunities to perform, are full of energy, and can maintain a high standard. The Tingli Pavilion only cooks well for the chief, and the team and individual guests can only eat so-so dishes. The Tanjia cuisine in Beijing Hotel is also for the common people. Because the craftsmanship of court and government dishes is strictly guarded, strictly speaking, Beijing cuisine is only these three, which are very small.
When Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace, a small courtyard was built outside the east wall of the Tingli Hall.
One hall, one coupon, and the vertical flower door in the small courtyard open to the east, and there is a door plaque written by Qi Gong "Guishou Wuji".
This Guishou Wuji small courtyard is an annex to the Tingli Pavilion. The original plaque is missing, and this is a redone new plaque. "Guishou Wuji" comes from the hexagram Jiao's Yilin, "Blessing my blessings, Guishou Wuji". Back then, Cixi was listening to Oriole Pavilion singing about wine, and then came to this small courtyard to drink tea to sober up.
The vertical flower gate is connected with a circle of Chaoshou veranda.
There are three rooms in the north and south of the courtyard, and in the west of the courtyard facing the Chuihua Gate is an open door hall, leading to the Tingli Pavilion.
Since the Chaoshou verandah of Guishou Wuji Courtyard is connected to the verandah of Tingli Pavilion, it is also connected to the promenade. This small courtyard is also a building on the promenade, but it belongs to Guangxu Zengjian. Although the small courtyard is not big, it is exquisite.
In recent years, a teahouse has been opened in the small courtyard, and some snacks are also sold. After you eat a set lunch in the Tingli Pavilion, denounce the chef's craftsmanship, and complain about the emperor's taste, if you sit in this yard drinking a pot of free tea and eating two liang of cakes, you can silently say in your heart, "The Queen Mother's afternoon is nothing more than this, even if Queen Elizabeth's afternoon is nothing more than that." Of course, you also know that the afternoon escorts of the Queen Mother or Queen Elizabeth are court ladies, and you don't have one.
At this point, the corridor has come to an end. There is also a large building on the promenade, which is also the highest-level building in the Summer Palace, which will be discussed in the next episode.
(to be continued)
