Walking through the Summer Palace and Qingyi, enjoying the sixth part of the royal garden: the Hall of Dispelling Clouds and the Buddha Fragrance Pavilion (Part 1)

The northern edge of Kunming is not a straight line, but protrudes southward in the middle, which is the section between Jilan Pavilion and Qiushui Pavilion on the promenade. The core of the middle section of the promenade is the building complex in front of Longevity Mountain, which is piled up from the edge of Kunming Lake to the top of Longevity Mountain. This location is the best Fengshui place in the garden. Although it is not surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing water on the other, it is backed by mountains and facing water. The Longevity Mountain formed on the basis of Weng Mountain is neither precipitous nor cloud-climbing, and ordinary people can climb to the top with leg strength. Therefore, Emperor Qianlong built the first batch of royal buildings in Qingyi Garden here, which is also the highest-level building complex in the garden.

The place where the building complex begins, which is the southernmost end, is a wooden archway. In the early morning, before the bustle of tourists, the archway is as follows.

This is a wooden archway with four pillars and seven floors, with a foot-high platform underneath and white stone pillars. On the top is the roof of the hall with yellow glazed tiles, bucket arches and raised beams. Between the pillars is a very gorgeous painted and gilded woodcut sparrow. This sparrow is called Longmen Queti, and it is a classic Qing style Longmen Queti. There is a gold-pasted frame, and inside is a painted woodcut lotus; there is a cloud pier under the sparrow, a catalpa frame under the cloud pier, and three clouds like wings on both sides. These are the three logos of Longmen Queti: Yundun, Catalpa Frame and Three Clouds. This archway is the highest-standard archway in the Summer Palace, and no other archway has such a full-scale bird. Even higher than it is the "Hanxu" archway outside the Summer Palace, which uses more gilt, and there are two and three clouds on each side. The pier and the catalpa frame have mechanical functions, supporting the beams, trusses, slabs and other components on the pillars. The three clouds are purely for decoration, they don't even have the function of adjusting the balance.

The decoration of the middle gatehouse, that is, the Ming room, is the most advanced among the seventh floors. On the horizontal beams, there are gold paintings of double dragons playing with pearls and seals, as well as official-style scroll paintings, and gold clouds, dragons, clouds and phoenixes are pasted on the collars. On the hollowed-out wooden forehead square is a double-sided plaque, and on this side is "Yunhui Yuyu". Since this archway is on the southernmost side, its front should be the side facing south. Look at the plaque on that side, it is "Xinggong Yaoshu".

Star Arch: Surrounded by stars. Yaoshu: The first star of the Big Dipper is the center of the sky. Xinggong Yaoshu means that this is the center of the world, and you all have to revolve around me. There is a poem in the Tang Dynasty that says: Thousands of miles of mountains and rivers and stars bow to the north, and a hundred years of personnel and affairs return to the east.

Yuyu is the fairy palace, and Yunhui Yuyu is the fairy palace above the colorful clouds. People in the Song Dynasty flattered the emperor and said, "The Emperor Wei blesses the sage, and the scenery is declared. The five clouds are bright, the three are moist, and the seven latitudes are light." Five clouds are clouds of five-color auspiciousness; three platforms are Shangshu, Yushi and Yezhe; Qiwei are seven "Weishu" besides "Jing". In the Song Dynasty, there was another person named Su Shi, who was very famous, but he said, "I want to go back by the wind, but I am afraid that Qionglou Yuyu will be too cold to be high." You see, an expert would think that it must be very cold to live in the Qionglou in Yunhui Yuyu. Therefore, the "Xinggong Yaoshu" and "Yunhui Yuyu" on this archway should be viewed in two parts, and the understanding of diaosi and the expert must be different.

Take a look at the side of the roof of the archway.

Although the "Yunhui Yuyu" plaque is the pillow plaque on the north side of the archway, and the "Xinggong Yaoshu" is the front plaque, we are still used to calling this archway "Yunhui Yuyu Archway". In front of the Yunhui Yuyu Archway is the Paiyundian Wharf. During the Qianlong Qingyi Garden period, if the emperor and queen mother came to the garden from Xizhimen by boat, they would land from here. Behind the archway is Paiyunmen Square. There are some decorations in the square in front of this gate, which are twelve Taihu Lake stones. The six seats on both sides of the square are divided into two rows, with three seats in each row. The front row is on both sides of Yunhui Yuyu Archway, and the back row is on both sides of Paiyun Gate.

Among these stones, the one next to the archway is a long stone on one side. This is not a Taihu Lake stone riddled with holes, but a stalagmite from a mountain, not a cave.

The twelve Taihu stones represent twelve zodiac signs including pika, rooster and snake, representing the people of the whole country. From the perspective of the emperor, it means that the people of the whole country stand in line here; now we say that everyone in the whole country has a Taihu Stone. Look at a Taihu stone standing on a white jade dew stand.

During the period of Qingyi Garden, there were three archways here. Now the Yunhui Yuyu Archway was originally a four-pillar and nine-floor archway, and there are two four-pillar seven-floor archways facing east and west. In addition, there is a flagpole on one side in front of the gate. For the archway with four pillars and nine floors, you can refer to the archway of "Huanhai Zunqin" at the south end of the road in front of Lama Temple.

After seeing the Yunhui Yuyu Archway and the square under the archway, you can look up at the Paiyun Gate on the north side of the square.

The Foxiang Pavilion on the mountain is like the ridge temple on the main ridge of Paiyun Gate.

The upper two corners of the picture are the sparrows of Yunhui Yuyu Archway.

Before Qianlong was born, this was an ancient temple at the foot of Mount Weng. It is unknown how old it was, but it is known as Yuanjing Temple. It is recorded in ancient books: there is a temple at the foot of the mountain saying: "Yuanjing". "皛" means three whites, read small, and bright.

In the fifteenth year of Qianlong (1750 A.D.), the Qingyi Garden project was started. Now a Han Buddhist temple is being built in this place inside Paiyunmen, called Dabaoen Yanshou Temple. This is Laogan built a temple for his mother's 60th birthday, and then hired monks to chant sutras every day to extend her life. The temple was not fully completed on the 60th birthday of the Empress Dowager, and the Buddha Fragrance Pavilion was still missing, which was the earliest glazed pagoda of Yanshou Temple. Lao Gan also personally pulled out a royal poem titled "Repaying Gratitude and Extending Life to the Temple of Rituals": "Gion Xin was not built, and longevity is extended to pray for kindness. Forbearance grass is green in three springs, and Zen branches are evergreen. Emptiness is color, and things take shape. Will Repainting Danjiao, celebrating the old age at ninety." You see, Lao Gan wanted to build this temple to prolong his mother's life by ninety years. The Empress Dowager of Chongqing finally passed away in the Yuanmingyuan in the forty-second year of Qianlong, at the age of eighty-six, a vain age. Although the queen mother did not enjoy her 90th birthday, she is already the oldest empress dowager in Chinese history. This highest-standard royal Buddhist temple in Qingyi Garden did not help the old man to extend his mother's life by more than ninety years. It is a pity that such a good temple.

Why didn't the Great Repaying Gratitude and Longevity Temple appear? This may be related to another Buddhist temple. After the completion of the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple, in the 35th year of Qianlong, Lao Gan built a Buddhist hall in the current Beihai Park, called Xiaoxitian, to congratulate his mother on her 80th birthday. It was a Buddhist altar, the largest square hall building in China, with the inscription "Elysium of Paradise" written by Lao Gan, and it enshrined the three saints of the West. The Western Buddha is Amitabha, and the Pure Land School is called the Buddha of Infinite Life, also known as the Buddha of Enlightenment, who guides the good to the west to enjoy the immeasurable life. Since Laogan built the West Heaven Road for his mother, of course the Buddha would pick up his mother after a few years of inspection. It is said that the old lady walked away very peacefully.

In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860 A.D.), the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing, killing people and setting fire to temples. Qingyi Garden was burned down, and Dabaoen Yanshou Temple was also burned down. When the Summer Palace was rebuilt during the Guangxu period, the current Paiyun Hall was built on the ruins of the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple. Not only the name was changed, but the function was also completely changed. The Empress Dowager Cixi planned to receive congratulations from all officials here for her 60th birthday, but the Beiyang Navy suffered a disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War before the birthday ceremony, and the Summer Palace birthday ceremony had no choice but to be cancelled. Later, Empress Dowager Cixi made the Hall of Dispelling Clouds the venue for her own birthday ceremony, which was finally successful.

Below the Paiyun Gate is a two-and-a-half-foot green brick platform, which is slightly higher than the promenade, and there are three steps in front of the gate. The gate-style gate hall of the Wangfu is five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with eaves and corridors at the front and back. The door is open in the open room and the second room, and the sill wall sill window is closed in the middle, and the three-wipe double cross and four bowl partition windows are not very high. The door leaves are set on the rear eaves pillars, and each room has two solid couch wooden doors, with nine rows and nine columns and eighty-one gold-plated door nails. On the top is a structure of bucket arches and beams, with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves resting on the top of the mountain. On the ridge, there are immortals riding chickens in front of them, followed by five ridge beasts. On the main ridge is a Qing-style owl kiss. Pay attention to the fact that there is a large gold chain with gilt kisses on the owl kiss.

Look at the mountain flowers on the roof of Paiyun Gate and the gold ribbon decoration on it.

The two sides of the front eaves corridor of Paiyun Gate are connected to the promenade, so the Paiyun Hall is still a building on the promenade. The corridor is not close to the courtyard wall.

You pay attention to the palace wall, the plaster is painted red on the top, and the wall bricks can still be seen below. These are wall bricks from the reconstruction in the Guangxu period. They look very similar to the bricks of the Forbidden City, but are smaller in size. The city bricks of the imperial palace are called "Linqing tribute bricks", which existed in the early Ming Dynasty. I wonder if this section of wall bricks are Linqing tribute bricks?

Different from the Soviet-style paintings in the back bedroom and the long corridor, the beams and beams under the eaves of the Paiyun Gate are all painted with gold-pasted double dragons and seals.

You can see the smallpox in the gate hall. This is called the Longping chess ceiling with gold stickers, which is dedicated to the royal family. Look at the sparrows between the pillars and pillars of the front eaves of the Paiyun Gate.

Gold-pasted woodcut relief of twig lotus. Although this bird has a cloud pier, it does not have a catalpa frame and three clouds. It is just an ordinary bird. The sharp front end of this sparrow is called "Elephant Beak", which is a characteristic of royal architecture in the Qing Dynasty.

Since Paiyun Gate has such a high specification, there must be a lion in front of it. During the period of Qingyi Garden, there was a pair of stone lions here. During the reconstruction of Guangxu, a pair of bronze lions from the Qianlong period were found in the ruins of the Great Palace Gate in the Old Summer Palace. Go ahead and have a look.

This is the style of the northern copper lion, and it is a court lion, majestic and solemn, which is different from the folk lion. Tourists often hold their mobile phones and pay homage to the bronze lion.

Take a look at the couplet on the plaque of Paiyun Gate.

The plaque between the pillars of the corridor under the eaves of the Ming Dynasty is a bilingual "Paiyunmen" bucket plaque in Manchu and Chinese, originally installed in the Qing Dynasty. "Dispelling clouds" comes from a poem "Poetry on You Xian" by Guo Pu in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, "Immortals dispel clouds, but you can see Jinyintai". In the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, a Sanren and Guo Pu's fairy poem said, "The misty fairyland is full of clouds. The distant row is in Yuyu, and I occasionally go out to see Yintai." Among them, "Yuan Pai Yi Yu Yu" inspired Cixi, so she named this fairyland palace "Pai Yun". It means that the resplendent and magnificent halls in this courtyard are rows of auspicious clouds, and Cixi sitting on the clouds is a fairy. Don't tell me, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty really studied the history and culture of the Han nationality seriously. The poems they read were not limited to Tang poetry and Song Ci, but also the two Jin Dynasties before the Tang Dynasty. This Guo Pu believes in Taoism, so the word Paiyun must not be used in the Yanshou Temple during the Qianlong period. It was installed when it was rebuilt in 1886.

A horizontal plaque of "Vientiane Guangzhao" is hung between the eaves and pillars. In a poem by Xie Lingyun in the Eastern Jin Dynasty written a hundred years after Guo Pu, "the emperor's heart is beautiful and bright, and everything is bright and bright."

There are two couplets hung on the front porch and the front eaves pillars of the Paiyun Gate. There is a couplet on the front porch, "Welcome to the chariot, the red nebula is full of competition, and the grass is green, the wind and the wind are harmonious and sweet", which is very straightforward. Chariot: It is an ancient car. Here it is said that the emperor's car is called a royal chariot, a handmade Rolls-Royce; Bi: bright green. In order to welcome the emperor's arrival, the red flowers and green grass competed in splendor, and the weather was fine and the sun was shining brightly. Anyway, the emperor wanted to choose a good day to come.

On the pillars of the front eaves is "Fudan attracts the stars to make a perfect match, and adjusts the rhythm of Lv Yujie and Jinhe in time". Fudan: The sun and the moon are not eggs with double yolks. In "Shangshu Dazhuan", there is "the sun and the moon are brilliant; Dan Fudan Xi". Perfect combination: "Hanshu Lv Li Zhi 1" has "the sun and the moon are like a pair, and the five stars are like pearls", and the five stars are gold, wood, water, fire, and Saturn. Timely: in accordance with the time. Law: Therefore, Li is equal to the degree, that is, sounds of different pitches; Lulu: There are regular sounds, that is, music. Jade Festival Jinhe: Describes the sound as sonorous and rhythmic as the ringing of gold and jade. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang said that there are "four summers in the Jade Festival, and five bells in gold." This couplet means that as soon as the emperor comes, the sun and the moon will come out, leading the five planets to line up to pick him up, and there will be nice music spinning around clockwise. It seems that when the emperor comes, it must be when the sun is about to go down or just comes out, and the moon must not go out, and the five planets must be in a row. This time is difficult and unscientific. Music is easy to handle, just announce the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

From the old photos of the late Qing Dynasty, the couplets on the front eaves pillars were hung in the Paiyun Temple; in the old photos of the Republic of China, the couplets have already been hung here in the Paiyun Gate. There are many Cixi inscriptions in the Summer Palace, including plaques and couplets, especially in the courtyard of the Paiyun Hall. The most common inscription on the plaque is "The Treasure of the Empress Dowager Cixi's Royal Brush", and the most common couplets are the following two.

On the top is a round seal of "Hai Han Chun Yu" engraved in Yang, and on the bottom is a square seal of "Zhi Le Ren Shou" engraved in Yin. Haihan means the great sea encompasses thousands of streams, and spring education means the cultivation of all things in spring; knowing happiness and benevolence means that those who know are happy and those who are benevolent live long. These are two idle seals used by Cixi for calligraphy and painting, similar to Qianlong's "Qianlong Chenhan" and "Wei Jing Wei Yi" seals.

Every Qing emperor had such a pair of seals of "Chen Han" and "Wei X Wei X", such as "Jiaqing Chen Han" and "Wei Ji Wei Kang" of Emperor Jiaqing; clear". "Chen" is the king's house, representing the emperor, and "Han" is a brush, representing handwriting and articles. Chen Han is the "emperor's handwriting", so every emperor must have this seal, but Cixi cannot have it. Qianlong's "Wei Jing Wei Yi" is taken from "Shang Shu" "People's hearts are only dangerous, Dao Xin is weak, but Jing is only one, allowing to stick to the middle"; Jiaqing's "Wei Ji Wei Kang" is taken from "Shang Shu" "An Ru Zhi, Only a few Weikang, Qi Bizhi"; Xianfeng's "Weiqing" is taken from "Shangshu" "Weiyin is always at night, and straightness is only Qing". The emperors and empresses of the Qing Dynasty worked hard to study Han culture and armed their minds and writing with Confucian classics, so the Manchus have been part of the big family of the Chinese nation since the beginning. Sun Guofu came to his senses after chanting "Expel the Tartars", and stopped shouting this slogan, and declared the Chinese territory in the "Provisional Constitution" as "twenty-two provinces, inner and outer Mongolia, Tibet, and Qinghai".

The location of Paiyunmen is the gate of Dabaoen Yanshou Temple in the period of Qingyi Garden. Was the gate of the temple a mountain gate or a palace gate? In fact, it was the Heavenly King Hall and the gate, so it was the Gate Hall. The architectural form at that time was basically the same as it is now, except that it was a closed hall, and a large belly Maitreya Buddha was enshrined in the niches in the Ming Dynasty. Behind the altar is Wei Tuo, and between the two sides are the four heavenly kings. Standing under the back eaves of Paiyunmen, looking up at the Buddhist Incense Pavilion on the mountain.

Like the other courtyards on the promenade, there is also a circle of corridors, or Chaoshou verandas, in the Dabaoenyanshou Temple.

After entering the Paiyun Gate, in front of you is the release pool that is usually used in Buddhist temples. There is a stone bridge over the pool, and there are white marble Zen stick handrails around the pool and on both sides of the bridge.

On both sides of the release pool, there were originally two towers with a bell on the left and a drum on the right, and there was a stele pavilion on the north of the bell and drum towers. When Guangxu rebuilt, the Bell and Drum Tower and Stele Pavilion were changed into the east and west side halls of Yijinyuan. Look at the East Side Hall.

The east side hall is five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with eaves and corridors on three sides. On the top is a structure of bucket arches and beams, with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves on the top of the mountain. There are five ridge beasts on the ridge, and there are immortals riding chickens in front. The door is opened in the open room, the sill wall sill window in the second room and a little room, and the I-shaped lattice window. The corridor under the courtyard wall connects the side corridors of the east and west side halls, and then climbs up from the north side of the side hall to the upper platform. Look at the climbing corridor on the north side of the East Side Hall.

Under the eaves of the Ming Dynasty, there are many bilingual "Yuhua Palace" fighting plaques. Yuhua: The flower of beautiful jade. "Chu Songs" has "Stand Yuhua and Zhu Qixi, Xuanzhu of the bright moon". A plaque of "Zhuwei Lianhui" is hung on the door. Zhuwei is the five stars of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, and Zhuwei Lianhui is the gathering of stars. The phrase comes from Wei Guan's "Da Ben Tang" in the early Ming Dynasty, "Six Kings Bing Bing and the Stars and Empresses, Zhu Wei and Lian Hui Shang Yu Chi", the original intention is to praise the good ministers and brave generals standing in front of Yuan Zhang's brother's palace. There are couplets hanging on the pillars of the porch, "Jiumo springs up and tunes the jade law, Qianmenrui wraps around Qiongzhi". In the Tang Dynasty, Wen Tingyun wrote a poem saying, "Thousands of gates and nine paths of flowers are like snow, fly over the palace wall and know yourself." Jiumo refers to the nine avenues in Chang'an City in Tang Dynasty, Qianmen refers to the many palaces in Chang'an City in Tang Dynasty, and Qianmen Jiumo refers to the imperial city. Yulu refers to wind instruments, here it refers to advanced music. Qiongzhi is a mythical yushu.

When there are ceremonies, such as Cixi's birthday, she walks along the long corridor from the Leshou Hall, enters the Paiyun Gate, and rests in this east side hall. Cixi said that if Emperor Guangxu wanted to hold a birthday party in the Summer Palace, he could rest here. However, Guangxu did not hold the Longevity Ceremony in the Summer Palace. He could hold it in the Palace of Supreme Harmony, so he would not come to the suburbs to leave the palace.

The architectural form of the west side hall and the east side hall is the same.

The plaque under the eaves is the bilingual "Yunjin Temple" in Manchu and Chinese. Yunjin is a brocade with cloud patterns, which can also refer to morning glow or colorful clouds. In Li Bai's Lushan poem, "Lushan shows off the South Douban, the screen is nine folded with clouds and brocades, and the shadow falls on the bright lake and the blue sky is light". A plaque of "Xiangying Changji" is hung on the door, and the auspicious light illuminates the prosperous foundation. It is said that in the sacrificial annals of "Song Shu", "therefore, in order to auspiciously reflect the prosperity of the foundation, it is used to send seal elements", saying that Emperor Taizu Wen wanted to arrange his hair respectfully and write sacrificial inscriptions on plain silk in seal script for the prosperity of the foundation, and then went to the southern suburbs. sacrifice to heaven.

There are couplets hanging on the pillars of the porch, "Feng Qu ascends the preface of the song, and the Dragon Anthology dances in the auspicious wind". It comes from the poem "Shu He" by Chu Liang, the father of Chu Suiliang in the Tang Dynasty, "The phoenix song is on the tune of the song, and the dragon and the fish (nianyu) gather and dance to spread the auspicious wind", which describes the dance at the ceremony of praying for rain and offering sacrifices happy. I think Cixi changed the "雩" in the original poem to "wen" and erased the traces of praying for rain. The title here is very good. She took a fancy to the auspicious rhetoric of phoenix singing and dragon dancing in the poem.

During the ceremony, Cixi rested in the Yuhua Hall in the east, and officials above the second rank rested in the Yunjin Hall in the west. Why did Cixi go to the East Side Hall, while the ministers came to the West Side Hall? Because Chinese culture emphasizes that the left is the upper hand and the right is the lower hand. Looking from the emperor sitting north facing south, it means that the east is up and the west is down, that is to say, the east is the upper hand.

After entering the courtyard, the terrain rises one level along the mountain, almost one zhang. Facing the small stone bridge over the release pool, there is a climbing ladder with three steps hanging down.

The gate that climbs up the stairs must be called "Er Dao Gate", and in classical Chinese it is called "Second Palace Gate".

There used to be a granite sutra pagoda on both sides under the steps of the Second Palace Gate. During the Guangxu period, it was moved to the ruins of the Xumi Lingjing Temple in the four continents of the back mountain together with the stone lion in front of the Paiyun Gate, and it is still there now.

The second palace gate is also the gate of the palace, three rooms wide and two rooms deep, with eaves and corridors in front. On the top is the top of the mountain with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves. There are also gilt kisses on the kisses, and the gold-plated double dragons and seals are painted on the beams. Both the Ming room and the second room are open. The door leaf of the real couch is on the rear eaves column, and there are nine rows and nine columns of gilt door nails on the door leaf.

In front of the door, there is a white stone handrail that runs through from east to west. The gate hall goes through the mountains on both sides to connect with a semi-enclosed corridor, leading to a circle of corridors in the courtyard.

There are colored paintings hanging in the gables on both sides of the front eaves corridor.

This is Yu Ji dancing to serve the Overlord of Chu. There is also one on the opposite side.

This is a generation of arrogance shooting big eagles.

There are left and right side doors as usual on both sides of the Second Palace Gate, which open on the semi-enclosed corridor. Look at the door on the left, which is the door with the wall on the corridor.

Check out the verandah. The veranda is not a royal palace style, but a royal garden style like a promenade.

The current position of the second palace gate did not exist in the Qingyi Garden period, and of course there was no verandah. According to the layout of the temple, this is the platform of the Daxiong Hall behind the Hall of Heavenly Kings, which is open. The location of the second palace gate was originally an archway, the third floor of the four towering pillars. What is this archway like? You can refer to the archways at the east and west ends of the Xingqiao next to the stone boat. Such an archway on the third floor with four towering pillars is still used in front of the gate of the Confucian Temple, which belongs to the standard configuration of the Confucian Temple, and is called the Lingxing Gate. Lingxing is the spiritual star in the sky, Tiantianxing, which is equivalent to Tianmen. Therefore, the Lingxing gate is the gate of heaven, and it is set up in front of the Confucius Temple, which means that offering sacrifices to Confucius means offering sacrifices to heaven. The exception is the Lingxing Gate of the Confucius Temple in Beijing. Its Lingxing Gate is not in front of the Confucius Temple, but at both ends of Guozijian Street in front of the Confucius Temple.

There is a plaque on the door of the second palace that reads "Longevity without Boundaries". Everyone knows that this is Cixi's handwriting, and everyone knows that the words are from "The Book of Songs·Xiaoya". The couplets on the eaves and pillars in the Ming Dynasty are "Baozuo has no borders and thousands of years of continuous wealth, Tianyan is happy and the world celebrates Fanli". Zuo: the throne; Mian: continuous; Fulu: Fulu, "The Book of Songs Daya" has "Fuluer Kangyi"; In "Han Shu·Li Le Zhi", there is "Wei Tai Yuan Zun, the God of God and Fan Li." This couplet looks like a post on a birthday banquet.

During the period of Qingyi Garden, the space in front of the Daxiong Hall was relatively large. Now as soon as you enter the second palace gate, you have to go up the steps, which seems very cramped.

Standing at the gate of the second palace, you can see the Hall of Dispelling Clouds.

Below the Paiyun Hall is the five-foot-high white stone Xumizuo platform. In front of the hall is a large platform with a circle of white marble Zen stick railings. There are white marble handrails on the front and sides of the platform to step up and down. Go up and have a look.

In the past, the Daxiong Palace was similar to a square hall. On the platform in front of the hall, there was a stele pavilion with Emperor Qianlong's "Great Repayment and Yanshou Temple", which is also very compact. Now there is no stele pavilion on the platform, and it is much more spacious. There are two pairs of copper tripod furnaces, a pair of copper dragons and a pair of copper phoenixes on both sides.

Look sideways at the platform.

There is a one-foot-high platform under the Paiyun Hall, five rooms wide and three rooms deep, surrounded by eaves and corridors. The door is opened in the open room, and the sill wall sill window in the second room and a little room is still an I-shaped lattice window. On the top is a structure of bucket arches and beams, with yellow glazed tiles and double eaves on the top of the mountain. There are seven spine beasts on the ridge, and in front of it is a fairy riding a chicken. The big owl kiss on the main ridge has a gold-plated kiss cable and a large gold chain. Liang Fang is covered with gold double dragons and seals. Although this Cloud Dispelling Hall is not as large as the Renshou Hall of the previous dynasty, it is the highest-level hall in the garden.

The plaque under the eaves is the bilingual "Pai Yun Dian" bucket plaque in Manchu and Chinese, Cixi's handwriting, and the door plaque of "Dayuan Baojing" hung in the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, there are couplets hanging on the pillars of the corridors, "Songyue Mountain and big clouds hang down nine like offerings, and Yingzhou is sweet and rainy, and the five colors are auspicious." Nine examples: "The Book of Songs Xiaoya" has a saying, "Such as a mountain such as Gao, such as a hill such as a hill, such as a river that arrives in the direction, everything will increase... as constant as the moon, as rising as the sun. As long as the life of Nanshan, the Qian does not collapse. Like the luxuriance of pines and cypresses, everything will be inherited." Originally meant to praise the king, it was later cited as a birthday celebration. Yingzhou: Refers to the legendary Eastern Sea Fairy Mountain. This birthday couplet is written not so big, the clouds in Wuyue Mountain are all birthday celebrations, and even the gods in the East China Sea sent five-color sweet rain. In the Ming Dynasty, couplets hung on the eaves and pillars, "Stacking stones to create a mountain-like longevity, drawing springs and jade fluids to bring luster to spring", the birthday celebration couplets are very straightforward.

In the hall, the floor is made of gold bricks. In the Ming Dynasty, there is a red sandalwood floor. On the floor, a red sandalwood throne is placed, with red sandalwood square tables on both sides. On the back there are five red sandalwood frames painted with mother-of-pearl inlaid back screen and a pair of palm fans. There are also enamel cranes, Luduan, Xiangting and Gaiding on both sides. The east and west are divided into warm pavilions, and a wooden couch is set up in the north. There is an aisle between the east and the west. The ministers lined up to celebrate Cixi's birthday, kowtowed and shouted slogans, and then exited left and right.

In the Qingyi Garden period, the Daxiong Hall housed the gold-plated bronze statue of the Buddha of the third generation, and on both sides were the standing statues of Ananda and Kasyapa. Under the gables on both sides are bronze statues of eighteen Arhats. Behind the Wanfo Mountain is a painted clay statue of Avalokitesvara with eight arms and eleven faces. This kind of Avalokitesvara is also called Avalokitesvara of Rescuing Eight Difficulties. Now there is such an image of Avalokitesvara with eight arms and eleven faces in the main hall of Xihuang Temple in Beijing.

The Paiyun Hall is very special in that there are two small halls on the same Xumizuo platform on the east and west sides of it, which are similar to the ear rooms on both sides of the main house, but these cannot be called "ear halls", but "backing halls". Take a look at the east mountain hall.

The east mountain hall is three rooms wide and two rooms deep, and there is a circle of eaves corridors connected with the Cloud Dispelling Hall. Open the door in the open room, and sill the wall and sill the window in the second room. On the top is also the top of the mountain with bucket arches and beams, yellow glazed tiles and double eaves, and there are five ridge beasts on the ridge. The back gable of the backing hall and the back gable of the cloud-dispelling hall are basically aligned, because the depth is only two rooms, and the front face is indented by one room from the cloud-dispelling hall, so it is called the backing hall. The Kaoshan Hall and the Paiyun Hall are connected by a closed corridor at the back. The princes and ministers celebrating birthdays exit from the passageway between the Paiyun Hall and enter the East and West Kaoshan Halls through this corridor. Go down the left and right side doors. It sounds like the birthday celebration process is quite orderly, huh?

There is a plaque of "Feng Zaoteng Wen" on the east side of the mountain hall. Fengzao originally means flowering algae. In Song Dynasty, Xia Song went to the palace to have an imperial banquet. The meal was praised at the Chongzheng Palace as "Golden Feiyu Yuli Imperial Residence, Fengzaoluan Tracking Huile Stone". Chongzheng Palace is equivalent to the Taihe Palace of the Forbidden City. temple. The literati use "phoenix algae" as a metaphor for gorgeous words. This kind of words has no roots like algae and is very superficial. In the Song Dynasty, Du Fan also had a poem after eating the imperial banquet, "Lu Ping first contacted the emperor with great kindness, and Feng Zao gave the emperor a warm language." Listen, isn't it very nasty and superficial? There are couplets hanging on the pillars of the corridor in the Ming Dynasty, "The dew gradually moves to the high pavilion, and the sun shines on the imperial pine at the beginning of the sun." Leak: Leakage; the dense fog dissipates, revealing the beautiful house; Rihua: the scattering or diffraction phenomenon of sunlight through the fog; the pines and cypresses in front of the hall are full of colorful sunlight.

Since there is a backing hall on the east side of the Paiyun hall, there should also be one on the west side. Take a look at the west mountain hall.

There is a backing hall on one side of the platform of the Paiyun Temple. You should pay attention to the roofs of the three of them. They are all on the top of the mountain with double eaves. If you look at the spine of the three of them, there are gold-plated kisses on the kisses. The layout of the main hall with a backing hall is very rare. The folks only have the main house with side rooms. In the East and West Palaces of the Forbidden City, only the main room in the backyard has side rooms. The main room in the backyard of Yangxin Zhai is the emperor's sleeping hall, the east side room is the bedroom when the empress is sleeping, and the west side room is the bedroom when the concubines are sleeping. Among all the concubines in the Qing Dynasty, only Wei Jia, the imperial concubine, lived in the east wing of the Hall of Mental Cultivation and died there in the end. In the imperial palaces of the Ming Dynasty, the Qianqing Palace and the Kunning Palace had something like the Paiyun Palace, which was backed by mountain halls, and there were also closed corridors connected to the main hall. After the Manchu Qing took over the Ming Palace, during the Shunzhi period, the four backing halls of Qianqing Palace and Kunning Palace were converted into independent small courtyards, and even the corridors were demolished. In the Ming Dynasty, these backing halls in the harem were the private halls of the emperor and empress, and it was still the same in the Qing Dynasty.

Among the existing Chinese ancient buildings, the Cloud Dispelling Hall and the Backing Mountain Hall in the Summer Palace are the only buildings of this scale and specification. There are no gold-plated kisses on the main ridges of the roofs of the four mountain halls in the harem of the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty, and the specifications are not as high as the cloud-dispelling hall. Therefore, the Hall of Dispelling Clouds is the highest-standard building in the Summer Palace. It was built in the late Qing Dynasty and has a higher standard than the palace. Cixi cannot enter the first three palaces in the palace; because she is not the queen of the middle palace, she cannot celebrate her birthday in the last three palaces. She is extravagant here in the Summer Palace, intending to surpass all empress dowagers in history.

On the platform of Paiyun Hall, there are east-west supporting halls, and there are also east-west supporting halls under the platform. The handrail on the side of the platform of Paiyun Hall is facing the gate of the side hall.

The East Side Hall was the East Side Hall of the Daxiong Hall during the period of Qingyi Garden, called the Miaojue Hall, where a statue of a Bodhisattva, possibly Manjusri Bodhisattva, is enshrined. During the Summer Palace period, it was transformed into the current Fanghui Hall.

Below the East Side Hall is a two-foot-high white stone base, five rooms wide and two rooms deep, with eaves on three sides. Open the door in the bright room, and sill the wall and sill the window in the second room and a little room. On the top is the top of the mountain with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves, with brackets and beams, and five ridge beasts on the ridge. Liang Fang is covered with gold double dragons and seals.

The plaque under the eaves of the Ming Dynasty is the bilingual "Fanghui Hall" in Manchu and Chinese. Fanghui is the sun and moonlight with fragrance. In the poem "Playing with the Moon" by Ouyang Zhan in the Tang Dynasty, there is "Su Po is bright and lonely, and Fanghui is scattered everywhere". Fanghui extended to mean auspicious light. In the Ming Dynasty, a door plaque "Qi Rong Fu Fen" was hung on the eaves and pillars. Rong: lush vegetation, riches and honor. To apply: to spread. Qi Rongfufen is full of flowers and plants, fragrant everywhere.

In the Ming Dynasty, there is a couplet hanging on the pillars of the porch, "Xishan Dawn is facing the battle of heaven; Beique Qingyun holds Ziwei". The meaning is taken from the Tang Dynasty Cen Shen's "Heavenly Affairs of the Kings of the Ministry of the Ancestral Hall after Snowfall" "The moon falls on the western mountain and the battle against the sky, while the northern palace and the clear clouds hold the forbidden chamber". When Cen Shen was an official, he waited outside the Danfeng Gate of the Daming Palace with his colleagues to enter the palace in the early morning. The literati sang poems to each other to pass the time. Tianzhang: The ceremonial guard of the emperor, borrowed to refer to the emperor. Beique is the gate tower of Danfeng Gate, facing south from north. Ziwei and Forbidden Wei mean the imperial palace. In the second couplet of the Fanghui Palace couplet, the Forbidden Quarter was replaced by Ziwei, the meaning has not changed, and it still refers to the imperial palace. In the first couplet, Luoyue was replaced by Xiaori, which seemed to be the light source in the sky in the early morning. The falling moon is going down, so it can "reach the sky stick"; the dawn is going up, so he can only "go up to the sky stick" and will not come. Therefore, Cixi should also change the "Lin" in the Shanglian back then, such as "Ming".

Look at the corridor on the north side of the East Side Hall.

If you walk over, you will find that there are two corridors, one is the courtyard wall corridor at the back, from which you can climb up to a higher platform; Hall eaves corridor.

The west side hall and the east side hall have the same architectural structure. During the period of Qingyi Garden, it was the west side hall of the Daxiong Hall, called Zhenru Hall, and it may house the statue of Samantabhadra. During the Summer Palace period, it was transformed into the current Zixiao Palace.

Walk along the eaves and corridors of the backing hall to the backyard.

Along the back eaves and porch of Paiyun hall, there are four pairs of exposed seats in a row. According to their number, there are a total of fifty-two exposed seats in the courtyard of Paiyun Hall, all of which are numbered with the word "Wan", and they were purchased for Cixi's birthday ceremony. Bronze wares were placed on these open seats, but now they are all empty. Come take a closer look at one.

In the Paiyun Temple, there is an exposed seat with original bronzes left over from the Qing Dynasty. This is probably the only one in the Summer Palace now, and it is on the west side of the platform.

There is a copper frame on this exposed seat, because it is welded to the stone seat, so it cannot be removed. They just took away the brass hanging on the shelf, what kind of utensil is that? They said it was a bronze bell. The minister presented a bronze bell to Cixi's birthday, probably representing an ancient musical instrument, "the drum bell will general, Huai Shui Tang Tang, worry and hurt." It can also symbolize Shao music, "Play "Jiu Shao" for music, and play Tailao for food."

Look at the corridor in the backyard of the Hall of Dispelling Clouds.

It turns out that the corridors here are nested. The outer circle is the courtyard wall corridor, which climbs upwards from the north side of the east and west side halls of the Paiyun hall; Temple and backyard.

The backyard of Paiyun Temple is backed by a cliff, which is what I said earlier, "the stone wall behind the temple is hundreds of feet, and you can climb up with steps." During the period of Qingyi Garden, two large horoscope ladders were built here. From here, going up the right side, you need to climb 88 steps to reach the Dehui Hall on the upper floor. The downlink is also on the right hand, and it has been relegated eighty-eight times.

The corridors under the courtyard walls on both sides also climb up to the Dehui Hall, which is the so-called climbing corridor.

It is said that the queen mother in the past had to climb up to the Foxiang Pavilion to burn incense. It would be really hard for an old lady in her sixties to climb the ladder from the front. I reckon they must be walking along the climbing corridors on both sides. Although the climbing corridors go up to that high, the slope will be much smaller and it will be easier to walk. The queen mother in the past went to the climbing corridor, what should the people do now? The old ladies of the common people still have to walk up the ladder, and look at this white-haired lady, who looks like a retired professor from Tsinghua University and Peking University.

He raised his head and raised his eyebrows and looked up.

The Dehui Hall on the upper floor and the Foxiang Pavilion on the upper floor, the apricot curtain is in sight. Climb up a hundred steps and look down at the Liupowa of the Golden Palace.

The Dehui Hall here is the north end of the courtyard of the Paiyun Hall.

During the period of Qingyi Garden, it was the Duobao Hall, and a Zhantan Buddha statue was enshrined in the hall. Zhantan Buddha Statue is the first Buddha statue in the world, carved from Zhansandalwood, with water ripples on its body. This Buddha statue was introduced to the East from the West, to Bianliang in the Song Dynasty, to Beijing in the Yuan Dynasty, and to Hongren Temple near Beihai in the Qing Dynasty. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, Hongren Temple was destroyed, and the Zhantan Buddha statue was also gone. The Royal Manufacturing Office in the Qing Dynasty imitated several Zhantan Buddha statues, one of which is now exhibited in the Cining Palace of the Forbidden City. The one in the Duobao Hall is estimated to have been imitated back then. Zhantan Buddhist halls are generally not large, and only one Buddha statue is provided. At that time, there were only three halls of Duobao, but now Dehui hall has been expanded to five rooms in width, with a verandah in front. Open the door in the bright room, and sill the wall and sill the window in the second room and a little room. On the top is the top of the mountain with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves. The main ridge is kissed with gilt kisses, and the beams are painted with gold-pasted double dragons and seals.

The Dehui Hall is the last hall in the Paiyun Temple area. The corridor under the courtyard wall is here after climbing the mountain. This is the North Corridor. The middle road of Paiyun Hall starts from Paiyun Gate and ends at Dehui Hall. All the main halls and gate halls have gilded kisses on the main ridge. During the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple, these halls and doors were all yellow glazed tiles with green trimmings. Now they are all yellow glazed tiles, even the side halls. The architectural specifications of the Cloud Dispelling Hall are top-notch and noble, directly catching up with the first three halls in the imperial palace. It shows that Cixi is trying to make up for her treatment, and the state-level treatment that cannot be enjoyed in the palace must be made up here. Anyway, there is no Empress Dowager Ci'an standing in front of her at this moment.

Under the eaves of Dehui Hall, there are many Chinese bilingual plaques. Dehui: Dehui, the brilliance of benevolence. In Jia Yi's "Diao Qu Yuan Fu" in the Western Han Dynasty, there is a saying that "the phoenix soars up a thousand feet, and looks down at the brilliance of virtue". A horizontal plaque of "Fu Guang Rong Qing" was hung on the door of the Ming Dynasty, saying "Yi Zai Huiwen, Fu Guang Chongqing" in a poem of praise by Yin Dan in the Southern Dynasty. This poem praises Empress Zhang of Emperor Wu of Chen. After Emperor Wu's death, she appointed Emperor Wu's nephew as Emperor Wen of Chen. Emperor Chen Wen respected her as the Empress Dowager Zhang, and she finally became the Empress Dowager Zhang Tai. Fuguang is illumination; Rong is prosperity, and Qing is blessing. Fu Guang Rong Celebration means to give kindness and enjoy blessings for thousands of years. This is Cixi boasting that she is as kind to Guangxu as Mount Tai, and she should enjoy ten thousand years of blessings, enjoy her old age peacefully like the Empress Dowager Zhang, and have a good death.

In the Ming Dynasty, there are couplets hanging on the pillars of the corridors, "The garden starts from Yichun, and the sun is beautiful, and the palace opens, Renshou pours sweetness from Liquan". Yichun Garden: The Royal Garden of the Northern Song Dynasty, in the east of Bianliang City, not the Yichun Court, a training camp for court ladies in the Tang Dynasty. Wang Anshi of the Northern Song Dynasty has a poem "Yichun Garden": "The old platform marsh in Yichun, as soon as the sun goes down. Untie the moss and move to sit in the green shade. The trees are sparse and the birds are far away, and the water is still and the flowers are deep. There is no more repairs. The king spares money. ".曈昽 (Nian Bronze Dragon): The first rising sun, the rising sun. Asahi: It is still the rising sun. In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Xun praised the imperial capital with a saying, "At the dawn of the day, the golden tower rises, and the misty red clouds embrace Yujing". Yi Zhu (Nian Yi Zhu): Take it out of the pot and pour it into a bowl. Liquan (reading Liquan): Ganshui, not swill.

In the Ming Dynasty, couplets were hung on the eaves and pillars, "preparing for the protection of the sky is like spring flowers and autumn fruits, and Qi Jianzhang is steaming with clouds and clouds for thousands of households". Bei is equipped, not Liu Bei. Tianbao Jiuru is still the one on the couplets of Paiyun Hall, from "The Book of Songs Xiaoya Tianbao", in which "Tianbao Dinger" is used to compare nine "such as" mountains, rivers, sun, moon, Nanshan, pines and cypresses, and then say "Jun said : Buer, longevity is boundless". The first couplet is a beautiful sentence wishing the emperor a long life and boundless life. Kai: to open, to create. "Jianzhang tens of thousands of households", "Historical Records · Fengchan Shu" has "So the Jianzhang Palace was built, and there were thousands of households". Jianzhang Palace is outside Chang'an City, and later refers to the Imperial Palace in general. Xiawei Yunzheng: Colorful clouds rise and gather together. When Lou Yao, a Song native, said goodbye to his friends in Wang Xizhi's Lanting, he once chanted, "There is no strange painting of a dragon and a phoenix, but there are old mountains in the rosy clouds." This couplet means that the sky is full of colorful clouds inside and outside the capital.

There are also paintings on the gables on both sides of the veranda.

This is the comic strip of "A generation of Tianjiao shoots a big eagle" in Ergongmen, called "A generation of Tianjiao did not shoot a big eagle".

Look at this one again.

This is Bai Suzhen stealing fairy grass.

Walk into Dehui Hall to have a look.

In the hall, the floor is made of gold bricks, the hall is open in the open room, and the secondary room and the small room are separated by partitions. Above is the sea wall ceiling. The east room has been rebuilt, and there is an exhibition of owl kisses inside, which is the Zhengji owl kiss in Qing Dynasty that was replaced during the overhaul of Paiyun Hall.

The calligraphy and paintings on the gauze partition in the hall are the congratulatory gifts presented by the ministers when Cixi celebrated her birthday. Take a look at the autumn chrysanthemum on the horizontal axis on the windward board of the back door of Mingjian.

Chrysanthemums are a symbol of longevity, and climbing high to admire chrysanthemums on the Double Ninth Festival means prolonging life. The picture of autumn chrysanthemums is a common gift for celebrating birthdays. The inscription on this picture is "Chen Huang Jiming", the painter of the Ruyi Pavilion in the building office.

On both sides of the platform behind the Dehui Hall, there are ancient locust trees extending branches.

There is a square hall on the rock in the east.

The square hall sits on a one-foot-high platform, with three rooms wide, with red pillars and red doors and windows, and four doors in the open room with the word "工" and lattice flowers. There are white marble handrails around the platform base. On the top is a bucket arch with raised beams, double eaves, four corners and pointed roofs, and a covered bowl ridge brake on a gilt dew plate. With yellow glazed tiles and green trimmed slopes, there are five ridge beasts on the vertical ridge, and there are immortals riding chickens in front. There are gold-pasted Ssangyong and seals on Liang Fang, as well as official scroll paintings.

Under the eaves hang a "Fuhua" bucket plaque. Fu Hua: Blossom everywhere. There is a saying in Chinese poetry that "when you put on the flowers, you will see the truth, and when you are rich, you will be prosperous". Fuhua Hall was the east side hall of Foxiang Pavilion in the period of Qingyi Garden. It was burned down by the British and French allied forces in the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860 A.D.). During the Guangxu period, it was rebuilt as it was, and it is still the east side hall of the Foxiang Pavilion. It is said that there is a Buddhist niche for Bodhisattvas inside, but I have never entered it, so I don't know the reality. From the outside, this Fuhuadian had heavy oil many years ago, and the paint has peeled off in recent years.

Walking to the west on the platform behind Dehui Hall, you can see that there is also a square hall on the rocks to the west.

The building shape of this hall is exactly the same as that of the Fuhua Hall in the east, and the plaque of "Xiefang (Nian Xiefang)" is hung under the eaves. Xiefang is picking flowers, flowering in the east, and picking flowers in the west, one cause and one effect, and there is no need to repeat the words. This is the west side hall of Foxiang Pavilion, which was rebuilt as it was during the Guangxu period. It was heavily oiled many years ago, and it was well maintained without large areas of paint peeling off.

Go back to the back door of the hallway of Dehui Hall and look up. Is it an official hat? The corner of the building is also.

Take another breath, lift your feet and climb up. From here, going up the right side, you need to climb 115 steps to reach the upper platform. The downlink is also on the right hand, and it has been relegated 115 times.

After going up, you should stand in front of the glass wall in front and look down at the entire Paiyun Temple compound, from Yunhui Yuyu Archway to Dehui Hall, you can have a panoramic view.

Turning around is the gate of Foxiang Pavilion. The Foxiang Pavilion is a courtyard of its own, with three gate halls and a semi-enclosed chasing corridor inside.

Under the eaves of the courtyard of Foxiang Pavilion, there is a plaque of "Guiding and cultivating righteousness", saying that in the "Jiucheng Palace Liquan Ming" written by Wei Zheng in the Tang Dynasty, "a spring gushes out, and it is inherited by a stone sill to lead it into a canal. It is as clear as a mirror, and its taste is as sweet as wine...it can guide and cultivate righteousness, and can clarify the mind." Daoyang: keeping in good health; Positivity: Upholding the natural nature.

Look up at the Buddhist Incense Pavilion.

This is an octagonal three-story Buddhist building, which together with the East and West side halls constitute a complete set of buildings. There is a five-foot-high white marble xumizuo under the Foxiang Pavilion, with a circle of white marble handrails on it, and the handrails on all sides step out of the steps. Look at its Sumeru.

This Xumizuo is the same as the Xumizuo in Paiyun Temple, but it is better preserved. There are very few stone carvings left on the Xumizuo of the Paiyun Temple, and it is only here that you can see the original Xumizuo in the Paiyun Temple scenic spot. The top and bottom are decorated with lotus petals, and the middle waist is also decorated with stone carvings. There are no sections divided by Shu pillars on this waist, and there is no Vajra warrior support at the corners. This is the Xumizuo of a Qing-style Buddhist temple building. Look at the pattern on its waist. Although there are no Shuzhu, it is also segmented. In the center of each segment is a lotus, with ribbons on both sides, and a lotus on both sides. Unlike the plain white marble handrails in other places in the garden, there are stone carving patterns on this handrail. The Huapan, Jingping, and Wangzhu are all decorated with twining lotus patterns and cloud-patterned Wangzhu.

The octagonal three-story double eaves of the Foxiang Pavilion have a circle of eaves on the first floor, and flat seat eaves on the second and third floors. Dougong lifts the beam, under the pillars of the first floor is the lintel of the bench, and above it is the bridge and sparrow, affixed with gold double dragons and seals. Although the base has steps on all sides, the first floor only has doors open from the north to the south. Looking up, you can only see roughly one layer of structure. If you want to see the upper layers clearly, you need to go outside to the mountain.

It can be seen that there are bucket arches under the eaves of each floor, there are bucket arches under the flat seats of each floor, and there is a dark layer between the double eaves on the top. This Buddhist incense pavilion is actually six floors, three bright and three dark. The first floor opens from north to south, while the upper two floors open from all sides. This is the rule of the pagoda. There are stool lintels between the pillars on the first floor, and the upper two floors are handrails. Although there are no golden locks on the doors and windows, there is no shortage of gold decorations. Yellow glazed tiles and green trimmed eaves, five ridge beasts on the vertical ridges, and the Tasha is a gilt double-layer covered bowl on a yellow and green glazed octagonal Xumi seat.

On the front, under the eaves on the first floor, there is a plaque "Tianxiang outside the clouds". The couplets hanging on the pillars of the porch "appreciate the shape of the group and nourish all things, running through the green and lingering purple house". This couplet is also from the "Jiucheng Palace Liquan Inscription" written by Wei Zheng in the Tang Dynasty, saying that the clear spring can illuminate all things like a mirror and nourish all things to grow. Qingsuo is the emperor's palace, Zifang is the empress dowager's palace, and the winding belt is the surrounding.

The second-floor plaque "Weather Zhaohui" is taken from the "Dijing Chapter" written by King Luo Bin of the Tang Dynasty, "Fame is crowned all over the world, and cultural relics are like Zhaohui". Weather: scene; Zhao: light; Hui: turn. The weather is full of scenery, splendor, grotesque, dizzying, etc. Anyway, everything is beautiful when you stand there. This plaque is somewhat similar to the "Vientiane Guangzhao" plaque at Paiyun Gate.

The three-story plaque reads "Shiyang Fengjiao". The ancients summed up the "Book of Songs" as "the wind, the wind also teaches, the wind moves it, and the teaching transforms it", that is to say, poetry has the function of educating society, and later it refers to the education of customs. Style Yang is to carry forward. The literal understanding of this plaque is to promote the educational function of art, and the extended meaning is for everyone to figure out for themselves. Someone inscribed this plaque on the Buddha Tower, and extended it to promote the enlightenment function of Buddhism, which is an explanation, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Everyone knows that Laogan started to build the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple in the 15th year of Qianlong. At the same time, the longevity glazed pagoda and nine-level pagoda were built here. It is said to imitate the Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou. Although the Liuhe Pagoda has eight sides, it is a brick-core wooden pagoda. The difference in appearance from the glazed pagoda is not ordinary. The Liuhe Pagoda has 13 floors on the outside, and the Yanshou Pagoda in Qingyi Garden is planned to have nine floors. The appearance of the Liuhe Pagoda is very thick; judging from the various planning drawings and simulation drawings that can be seen now, the Yanshou Pagoda is all thin and tall. In any case, by the 20th year of Qianlong's reign, the Yanshou Pagoda had been built to five floors, which means more than half of the project. When Lao Gan came to check the progress of the image, he said: "The shadow of the pagoda is gradually rising above the ridge, and the forest light is denser and locks the rock." In the twenty-three years of Qianlong's reign, the Yanshou Pagoda was built to eight floors, and it was only one floor away from the top. On this day, it is not known whether it was an earthquake or a lightning strike, and the tower collapsed. Lao Gan felt that something was wrong, so he searched through ancient books and found that there was a record in the scriptures that "it is not suitable to build a tall tower in the northwest corner of the capital", so he ordered to stop the work.

The budget for the Yanshou Pagoda project was 465,000 taels of silver, and the value of the remaining intact wood, stone, bricks and tiles in the demolition project was 93,000 taels, and the actual demolished materials were 58,000 taels, excluding labor. Lao Gan decided to rebuild the eight-square Buddhist building "Foxiang Pavilion" at the base of Yanshou Pagoda, and it was completed in the 25th year of Qianlong. The adjusted cost is 93,000 taels and an additional 150,000 taels for the remaining materials, for a total of 243,000 taels. If the materials for demolition are included, it will be 300,000 taels, which is still less than the original budget for the Yanshou Pagoda. Therefore, Lao Gan felt that it was still a good deal, and when he checked and accepted it, he said: "The initial repair of the pagoda has not yet been completed, and the reconstruction of the Buddhist building has been completed. The poems and inscriptions are outstanding, and everyone can see them, and the compassion and longevity are as revered as the mountains." It means that the tower reform building is finally completed, everyone has seen it, and the old lady will live longer than the mountain.

In the tenth year of Xianfeng, the British and French allied forces burned down the Summer Palace, and the Foxiang Pavilion and the East and West Side Halls were all lost. When the Summer Palace was rebuilt during the Guangxu period, the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple below was changed into the Paiyun Hall, and the Foxiang Pavilion and the East and West Side Halls were rebuilt according to the original system. What we see now is the Foxiang Pavilion in Qingyi Garden rebuilt by Guangxu. The Foxiang Pavilion was rebuilt a few years ago. Before the renovation, you can still go in and climb the tower. After the renovation, you are not allowed to enter. I remember when I went in in the past, I saw that the Buddhist altars were still there, and the altars and back screens on all floors were there, but there were no Buddha statues. It is the best to watch the scenery of Kunming Lake from the verandah of the third floor of the Foxiang Pavilion. Now this activity is changed to the south gate of the Enclosing Corridor of Foxiang Pavilion, where I just inspected the panorama of the Hall of Dispelling Clouds, and there are still many tourists enjoying the panorama of Kunming Lake there.

Since tourists are not allowed to enter the Foxiang Pavilion, the garden conveniently sends people to open all the doors and windows on the first floor every day, and let tourists go to the verandah and look inward by the door and window. According to records, when repaying Enyanshou Temple, there was a wooden statue of Avalokitesvara on the altar on the first floor. Avalokitesvara of Thousand Hands is one of the six Avalokitesvara of Tantric Buddhism in the Han Dynasty, and the Avalokitesvara with eight arms and eleven faces on the Wanfo Mountain behind the altar of Paiyun Temple mentioned above is also one of the six Avalokitesvara of Tantric Buddhism. Since Guanyin Bodhisattva was enshrined in the Foxiang Pavilion in the Qingyi Garden period, Manjushri and Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas should be enshrined in the East and West Halls, which are the Three Great Masters Bodhisattvas.

After Guangxu rebuilt the Summer Palace, here is a clay sculpture of the Buddha, with Ananda and Kasyapa standing on both sides. The Pure Land Sect of Chinese Buddhism refers to the Western Amitabha Buddha as Jieying Buddha, who is the leader of the Western Paradise. Both Ananda and Kassapa were one of the ten great disciples of the Buddha, who assisted the Buddha and led the disciples to continue to spread the Dharma after the Buddha died.

In the 1960s, these statues were destroyed. In 1988, a gilt bronze statue of Avalokitesvara with Thousand Hands was found in Ya'er Hutong along the north coast of Houhai, now in the apse of Guanghua Temple. This Guanghua Temple was called Wanshou Amitabha Temple in the early Ming Dynasty, because the statue of Avalokitesvara in the back hall was called "Dabei Temple" among the people. The bronze statue was cast in the second year of Wanli (1574 A.D.) of Ming Shenzong Zhu Yijun. In 1989, this bronze statue of Avalokitesvara was invited to the Foxiang Pavilion in the Summer Palace and placed on the altar on the first floor. Watch it.

The floor of the building is made of gold bricks, and above it is the ceiling of Longping chess with gilt groups. There are eight colonnades outside the building, and eight eaves columns inside, and the doors and windows are installed between the eaves columns. Inside the eaves pillars is a circle of eight sky-reaching pillars, which are different from the first-floor pillars and eaves pillars mentioned above. These eight sky-reaching pillars lead directly to the top floor and are the core of the Foxiang Pavilion. The core load-bearing structure of the Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou is made of masonry, so it is called a brick-core wooden pagoda. In the center of Tongtianzhu is a white marble Xumizuo altar, which is quite large. The decorative stone carvings are tangled lotus, wishful thinking, lotus petals and lotus flowers, and there is no Vajra Warrior. The railing on the altar, the offering table in front and the five offerings are all newly added in recent years. The back screen is original and the painting is repainted. There are stairs on both sides behind the altar, and now they are not allowed to enter or go up. According to records, the second floor used to house Zhantan Buddha statues, and the third floor housed bronze statues of Sakyamuni Buddha.

During the winter solstice, going to the Forbidden City to see the upright and bright plaque of the Qianqing Palace being illuminated is a national activity in Beijing. The major event in the Summer Palace during the winter solstice is to go to Longwang Island to watch the golden light piercing the Seventeen-Arch Bridge. Two days before the winter solstice of this year, I climbed up to the Foxiang Pavilion before noon to see if the Avalokitesvara with Thousand Hands in the Foxiang Pavilion would have the light effect of the upright and bright plaque of the Qianqing Palace. It was a little late when I arrived, so take a look at this picture.

This is also the effect of sunlight reflecting on the Buddha statue after being reflected by the gold bricks on the ground. The light has passed the midpoint, and the time scale is 11:49:14. Look at the next shot.

The light has moved away from the midpoint and is descending from the highest point, the time scale is 11:52:27. I estimate that the punctual time scale with the most light on the front should be 11:48:50, which is earlier than twelve o'clock, indicating that the Foxiang Pavilion is not facing the south, but south east. If you want to enjoy the effect of the Avalokitesvara statue in the Foxiang Pavilion being illuminated by the sun, just like the upright and bright plaque of the Qianqing Palace, it is recommended to stand at the main entrance of the Foxiang Pavilion before 11:40 am within five days before and after the winter solstice Before, set up the camera and start shooting.

I chatted with the female officer on duty in the temple. She said that between nine and ten in the morning in spring and autumn, the sunlight coming in from the southeast window can directly shine on the bronze statue of Avalokitesvara, and the sidelight effect is also very beautiful. Following his instructions, I took the picture below.

This is October 19, 2021, and the time scale is 09:26:55. Very beautiful indeed.

Standing in the courtyard of Foxiang Pavilion, you can see the roof of the East and West Side Halls, which is the roof of the East Side Hall "Fuhua Hall".

There are a total of 300 steps to climb, so it is really a physical effort for tourists to climb up the Buddhist Incense Pavilion. After watching around, I found that the calf is facing forward. Usually they will find a place to sit and rest for a while.

This is under the eaves corridor on the north side of Foxiang Pavilion, and opposite is the north gate of the corridor. The shape of this north gate is exactly the same as that of the south gate. It is three rooms wide and one room deep. The door is open in the open room, the mirror panel door is installed on the front eaves column, and the sill wall sill window in the second room. On the top is a structure of bucket arches and beams, with yellow glazed tiles and green trimmed edges and single eaves on the top of the mountain, and there are three ridge beasts on the ridge. The gables on both sides of the gate hall are connected with the corridors with the wall gates, which is also called the corridor through the mountains. Look at the decoration on the ridge of the roof of the gate hall.

When the buildings in the Foxiangge courtyard were rebuilt during the Guangxu period, they all retained their original state in the Qingyi Garden period, with yellow glazed tiles and green trimmed roofs, even the east and west side halls and corridors. Pay attention to the roof of the north and south gates of the Foxiang Pavilion. There is no gilt kiss cord on the main ridge of the owl. Of course, it is made of green glaze, which is not suitable for the gilt kiss cord. However, this also shows from the side that the main ridge of the roof of the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple did not have gilded kisses. All the roofs of the Dabaoen Yanshou Temple are made of yellow glazed tiles and green trimmings, and the main ridge of the owl is also green glazed. Do.

This gate is the northern end of the courtyard of Foxiang Pavilion, but it is not the final point of the buildings in front of Wanshou Mountain. There is a glazed archway on top of the stacked stone rockery outside the north gate, and behind the glazed archway is the glazed hall on the top of Longevity Mountain. These two buildings were the original works of the Qianlong period. Because they were masonry buildings, they were not burned down by the British, French and Eight-Power Allied Forces, but they were still damaged. Going out from the north gate of Foxiang Pavilion requires rock climbing to reach the other shore. Although it is not difficult to climb to the blue sky, it is also an invincible road for Cixi. After worshiping Guanyin in Foxiang Pavilion, you can go out through a small door in the northeast corner of the corridor, where there is a stone path leading to the top of Longevity Mountain.

Standing on the north eaves corridor on the first floor of Foxiang Pavilion, looking towards the archway on the mountain.

The architectural form of this archway is the same as that of the glazed archway in front of Zhao Temple in Xiangshan. The pattern on the architrave between the two sides is called "Double Dragon Holding Longevity". There is a covered bowl pagoda ridge on the main ridges of the three buildings in the Mingjian and the second rooms of the glazed archway: below is a glazed base, then a colored glazed bowl, above is a dew plate, and then there is a nine-story phase wheel. , above the phase wheel is a canopy, and on the top is a yellow glazed orb. The structure of the three ridge brakes is the same, but the color of the covering bowl is different. There is another such glazed archway outside the gate of the Reclining Buddha Temple in the Botanical Garden. There are also several in Beihai Park.

The plaque facing south is "All Fragrance Realm", and the pillow plaque facing north is "Zhi (Nianqi) Forest". The word "Parfum" is taken from Buddhist scriptures: The pure land of Tathagata Accumulating Fragrance is the Land of Fragrance, and its buildings, pavilions, and gardens are all fragrant, and the fragrance flows through the immeasurable world in the ten directions. Zhishulin: Zhiyuan Jingshe, the place where the Buddha Sakyamuni lived after he became enlightened, and preached the Dharma for 25 years here.

After the archway of the Fragrance Realm, there is the top of the architectural axis of the front mountain of Longevity Mountain, which is also the top of the mountain. There is a glazed hall here.

This is a double-layered glazed hall, with imitation wooden bucket arch waist eaves, imitation wooden bucket arch yellow glazed tiles with a brocade single eaves resting on the top of the mountain, which is a pattern composed of brocade paving on the roof slope and glazed tiles of various colors. Below the outer wall of the main hall is a white marble imitation Xumizuo, which imitates the base of the Buddhist Incense Pavilion.

The outer wall is covered with small Buddhist niches, each of which has a small Buddha statue, and there are a total of 1,110 Buddhas of Infinite Life. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing in 1900, many of these Buddha statues were destroyed, and many Buddha heads were poached by those thieves. After 1982, the Summer Palace made many repairs to these Buddha statues. If the Buddha head still falls off occasionally after being repaired, then it will be repaired again. Some people call these more than a thousand small Buddha statues Chacha Buddha. Chacha Buddha is a batch of small Buddha statues made in reverse molds, mostly clay statues, which are easy to carry. The Tscha Buddha made by the royal family in the Qing Dynasty was in the Xianruo Pavilion in the Garden of Cining Palace in the Forbidden City. During the Qianlong period, twelve sets were made, each with 360 Buddhas. The existing set is complete, and the rest are incomplete. It was made with the same set of Buddhist models, all made of yellow clay. Strictly speaking, there are more than 1,000 statues of Amitayus in this glazed hall, which cannot be called Tscha Buddha.

The three ridge temples on the main ridge of the glazed hall are different from the traditional blue lion and white elephant, but the same as the glazed archway in front, but the size is larger, and the orbs on it are replaced by vases.

The plaque in front of the hall reads "Sea of ​​Wisdom", and the pillow plaque at the back reads "Auspicious Clouds". Sea of ​​Wisdom: There is a sentence in the "Infinite Life Sutra" that "the sea of ​​wisdom of the Tathagata has no bottom in the deep house", which means that the wisdom of the Tathagata Buddha is like the sea, and the Dharma is boundless. The auspicious cloud is one of the ten kinds of bright clouds in the "Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva's Vows Sutra". The great auspicious bright cloud is an auspicious cloud that can keep people away from disasters forever.

The glazed archway in the front and the glazed hall in the back constitute a group of buildings. The four plaques and pillow plaques are "the world of fragrances, the woods, the sea of ​​wisdom, and the auspicious clouds", which recite Sakyamuni's Buddhist kingdom and the essence of his lectures. She, the cloud of wisdom and mana. Because there are exactly four sentences, some people call it "Buddhist gatha (reading) language". These four inscriptions were not inscribed by Cixi, but the original works of Qianlong. Here is the original Qingyi Garden complex, which was completed before the 60th birthday of the Empress Dowager Chongqing in the 16th year of Qianlong, 270 years ago.

Go into the hall and have a look. This is a beamless hall with arched bricks and stones and no wood. There are glazed brick decorative patterns on the inner wall, which are very gorgeous. In recent years, before the repairs, the arches of the roof can still be seen, and now the roof is equipped with a six-character motto and flat chess ceiling. In the middle is a large Buddhist altar. I remember that there were no Buddha statues here in the past, but now there is a seated statue of Amitayus Buddha covered with gold on a clay body. This Buddha Hall is commonly known as "Wuliang Hall", but it should be called "Wuliang Hall" because it is the Buddha of Infinite Life.

Infinite Life Buddha is the Western Amitabha Buddha, also known as Infinite Buddha. Buddhist scriptures come from Sanskrit, Amitabha is a transliteration, and Infinite Buddha is a free translation. The immeasurable Buddha has two meanings, one is "immeasurable light", the light of the Buddha illuminates the ten directions, and the ten directions are the life, death, past and future of the heaven, earth, southeast, north, and west. Another meaning of the immeasurable Buddha is "immeasurable life". The life of the Buddha is infinite and eternal. The right hand of this Buddha statue holds the fearless seal, which means that the Buddha came to save all living beings from suffering and make them feel at ease without fear; the left hand holds the meditation seal, which means inner stability.

There is a Buddhist niche on the back gables on the left and right sides of the immeasurable Buddha, in which there are seated Bodhisattvas; under the left and right gables are standing Bodhisattvas. Since the main Buddha of this hall is Amitabha, his left hand is Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and his right hand is Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva. These are the three Western sages of Pure Land Buddhism. Under the east wall should be Manjusri Bodhisattva, and under the west wall should be Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. The statues of Bodhisattvas in this temple are all gilt copper, very high-end, and were originally made during the Qianlong period. However, most of the artifacts in his hand were damaged, so he couldn't see clearly. The Summer Palace officials put a sign in front of each Buddha statue, explaining which Buddha it is. The sign in front of the Bodhisattva statue on the left-handed Guanyin Bodhisattva of the Infinite Buddha Statue reads "Psalmancy Bodhisattva". I don't understand why this is Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.

Since you don't understand this Bodhisattva statue, don't look into the other statues. In any case, this is a restoration of the appearance of the main hall during the Qianlong period, which is very rare. During the epidemic period, the main hall was closed. I hope that after the epidemic situation improves, tourists can be allowed in, so that everyone can have the opportunity to see the Qing Dynasty Buddha statues in this dazzling hall on the top of Longevity Hill. The glazed archway, the glazed hall, and the Buddha statues in the hall are all original decorations when Qianlong built Qingyi Garden.

After seeing the buildings in front of Longevity Hill, follow the big ladder in front of Foxiang Pavilion and return the same way. After leaving Paiyun Gate, the sun has set in the west, and the Yunhuiyuyu archway is full of golden light, it is really Yunhuiyuyuyu, resplendent and magnificent!

Full of ambition, I headed back towards the setting sun.

(to be continued)