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Located 15km from
Beijing, the Summer Palace is the largest and best-preserved royal
garden in China.
The Summer Palace
has a history of over 800 years. Early in the Jin dynasty, an imperial
palace named Golden Hill Palace was built on the present site of the
Summer Palace. In 1750,with 4.48 million taels of silver, Emperor Qian
Long of the Qing dynasty built the Garden of Clear Ripples here and
renamed the hill Longevity Hill to celebrate his mother's birthday.
In 1860, the
Anglo-French Allied Forces invaded Beijing and set fire to the garden.
In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi, with funds embezzled from the Imperial
Navy, restored the grand garden. The construction had lasted for ten
year and after completion, she renamed it Yiheyuan - Garden of Peace and
Harmony. In 1900, the garden was plundered again by the eight powers.
This time, nearly all big temples and halls at the back of the Longevity
Hill were destroyed and only one survived. Only when the fugitive Cixi
returned to Beijing in 1903, did the full-scale restoration begin.
Mainly
consists of Longevity Hill (which can be divided into Front Hill and
Rear Hill) and Kunming Lake, this present Summer Palace covers a vast
area of 294 hectares, in which three quarters are water. The garden can
be divided into three parts, namely, administration, residence and
scenery browsing area. The administration area, taking Halls of
Benevolence and Longevity as its principal part, is the place where Cixi
dealt with state affairs and received officials. Residence area mainly
consists of Hall of Jade Billows, Garden of Virtue and Harmony, and Hall
of Joyful Longevity. The Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill then serve as
the scenery browsing area.
The Summer
Palace has two entrances, one is the East Palace Gate and the other is
North Palace Gate. Most visitors enter the garden from the East Palace
Gate.
All the man-made
hills, halls, pavilions and temples, including Kunming Lake and
Longevity Hill, blend together harmoniously in spite of their individual
styles. Ingeniously conceived and elaborately designed, this garden,
concentrating the features of the gardens in southern and northern
China, can be reputed as the soul of the Chinese gardens.
The Summer Palace of
today is more or less the same as the palace rebuilt in 1903. After the
last Qing Emperor Puyi was thrown out of the Summer Palace in 1924, this
garden was turned into a park. But at first, due to the admission charge
was very high, the normal people still had no chance to view the
magnificent royal garden. Today, most people can afford the ticket. This
old imperial garden now becomes an ideal place for Beijing locals to
retreat from the hot summer in Beijing.
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