A Paradise Lost—The Imperial Garden Yuanming Yuan

The Ancestral Shrine showing the Anyou Palace (top). Plan by Joseph C. Wang and Xinbai Yu.

Unlike most other structures in the garden, the construction materials of the Ancestral Shrine were mainly stone and marble. In the distance from the entrance, one could observe two pairs of “ornamental columns” (huabiao) in front of the Memorial Archways (paifang), which was crowned with light yellow glazed tiles and eaves. The columns, each standing twenty feet high and about a hundred feet apart, were surrounded by four marble pillars carved with dragons, clouds, and flames alongside a marble balustrade and a stone animal. Five parallel marble bridges crossed a moat with three screen-shaped memorial arch ways that led to the palatial gates. Each bridge was guarded by two stone Chinese unicorns, or kylin (qilin, a Chinese unicorn symbolizing auspiciousness), approximately 174 centimeters tall on 98-centimeter-high stone platforms. The gates led the way to the shrine’s tall, reddish outer wall, which was crowned with a yellow glazed tile roof. The inner wall was also red and covered by a yellow glazed tile roof. Inside the courtyard were the waiting rooms. The main gate stood on top of a splendid marble terrace ascended by marble stairs and balustrade, and a pair of bridges stretched across a moat. On both sides of a vast courtyard were guestrooms, two large incense burners, and a pair of pavilions with double roofs. The main shrine palace stood on a large marble terrace ascended by five stairways escorted by bronze animal figures. The central stairway, which was richly decorated with carved dragons, was reserved for the emperor’s use only. Qianlong designated it the Most Kindness and Eternal Blessing (Hongci Yonghu).

Inside the shrine, Qianlong placed the portraits and name tablets of Yongzheng and Kangxi to show his affection for his deceased forefathers. After Qianlong died, his own portrait and memorial tablet were placed here for remembrance and worshipping by his successor. The shrine, to which the Manchu royal family always attached great importance, would have been considered a truly exceptional structure in any type of garden.

To the east of the Ancestral Shrine was the Faculty Club (Huifang Shuyuan). It consisted of such structures as the Expressing Excellence Gallery (Shuzao Xuan) in the front, the Conceiving Distance Chapel (Hanyuan Zhai) in the rear, the Relaxation Room (Sui’an Shi) to the west, and the Lofty Clouds Chamber (Zhuoyun Lou) to the east. Further east from the Faculty Club was the Half-Moon Gallery (Meiyue Xuan). South of the gallery between an arbor and a chamber stood an open-air structure, about three column wide, facing the uniquely designed scene called Traces of Snow on a Broken Bridge (Duanqiao Canxue). The bridge was made of broken rocks in dozens of different shapes, some of which are still visible at the present-day ruin site.

Below the Faculty Club was a religious complex that emulated the famous Lamaist temple known as Yonghe Gong in Beijing. It had three sections: two rows of seven-column chambers connected by two hallways to the west; three rows of seven-column chambers in the middle; and the Good Omen Palace (Ruiying Gong) comprising three Buddhist-style courts to the east. Qianlong designated this Buddhist compound the Dazzling Eaves under Heaven (Ritian Linyu).

The main structure of Lianxi Lechu (Scholar’s Wonderland). Sketch by Joseph C. Wang and Xinbai Yu.

East of the religious complex was the largest scenic point, approximately twelve acres, with several magnificent pieces of architecture, including the nine-column principal structure surrounded by hills and brooks. One of the unique features of this scene was the great number of lotuses floating in shallow water. It is well known to Chinese literati that the great Song philosopher Zhou Dunyi (Zhou Lianxi) authored the celebrated essay “Passion for Lotus” (“AilianShuo”) to compare the lotus to gentlemen. Qianlong appreciated the essay and thus dubbed this scene the Scholar’s Wonderland (Lianxi Lechu) to indicate that he would be content to be surrounded by well-bred gentlemen.

Walking further to the east in a bookish journey, we observe the Sounds of Wood and Water (Shuimu Mingse) with a Western-style water wheel pumping water into a room. The sounds of water, sese, lingling, echoing the rustling woods, helped the emperor attain a lofty realm which combines kindness with wisdom.

Several rural scenes appeared around the northern end of the original Yuanming Yuan. The Yongzheng Emperor first created a farm in the garden to remind himself of the daily basis of rural China, where millions of subjects lived. His Majesty could observe from a pavilion how farm work was performed. Later he added to this rice field a silkworm farm and a brocade and dye mill. Ever since the Wei-Jin Period, between the third and fourth centuries, the Chinese literati continuously tried to find their own distinct character in the expression of garden design in general and flower arrangement and rock formation in particular. While some wanted to show their unique ambition, others wanted to demonstrate their stainless, magnanimous, or aloof personalities. Character and taste have long since been considered the “soul” of a garden and of its owner. Clearly mindful of his responsibility to diligently attend to government affairs and the people’s welfare, Yongzheng purposefully created a farm scene inside his beloved imperial garden to show his concern about the people as well as to underline his benevolent rule. It seems quite clear that the emperor used this theme to make a political claim to be a conscientious ruler of the majority farming population as well as to rehearse the self-serving Confucian moral ideology.

Qianlong designated five rural scenes. The one at the southeast neighborhood of the Sounds of Wood and Water (Shuimu Mingse) was dominated by a house in the shape of a gigantic Chinese ideogram, tian, meaning “rice field,” which the emperor dubbed Simple Life in Quietude (Danbo Ningjing), with the Rising Sunshine Chamber (Shuguang Lou) at its side. There were four other rural scenes. The Bountiful Farms (Duojia Ruyun) was a large rice field with a few small houses. The Orchid Fragrance over the Water (Yingshui Lanxiang) consisted of rice fields, weaving mills, and fishing ponds. The Fish-Leaping and Bird-Flying (Yuyue Yuanfei) contained numerous village huts surrounded by a stream. And the Northernmost Mountain Village (Beiyuan Shancun), originally known as Teaching Farming Gallery (Kenong Xuan), contained rows of small yet elegant chambers and villas on both sides of a narrow river.

On the east side of the Northernmost Mountain Village arose the Sitting Rocks and the Winding Stream (Zuoshi Linliu), which included a replica of the celebrated Orchid Pavilion (Lan Ting) located at Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province. The Orchid Pavilion was the garden estate of the great East Jin calligrapher Wang Xizhi (321–379), who spent time there in the company of scholarly friends drinking wine, practicing calligraphy, and composing poems. When reciting poems outdoors, they sat on rocks and set their drinking cups in the nearby stream to see which cup would float downstream.Qianlong, a poet in his own right, delighted in recreating Wang’s pleasure. Other structures to enrich the scene included the Clear Sound Pavilion (Qingyin Ge) and the All-Happy Garden (Tongle Yuan), where Qianlong dined frequently. Directly adjacent to this pavilion and garden was the Curving Courtyard and Lotus Pond (Quyuan Fenghe), modeled after the famed lotus view from Hangzhou’s West Lake. A nine-hole bridge (jiukong qiao) bisected the large rectangular pond. The three-mile-long left bank was also a replica of the famous Su Dongpo Bank in the West Lake. These are the scenes that Qianlong brought back to the Yuanming Yuan from his southern tours.

The Majestic Sunset-Tinted Peaks of the West Hills (Xifeng Xiuse) was located at the northeast corner of the original Yuanming Yuan. It featured a sumptuous chamber designed especially for the Yongzheng Emperor to admire the sunset. The design was to bring the magnificent mountain view of sunsets into the broad and bright windows on the west side of the chamber, a good example of the “view borrowing” technique. In fact, as Yongzheng’s poem indicates, this design borrowed from the sunset view at the famed Mountain Lu (Lu Shan) in Jiangxi Province. East of this viewing chamber was a larger structure named the Hanyuan Zhai surrounded by magnolia trees, which fill the air with fragrance when they blossom. Northeast of the chapel was the delightful Admiring Fish at the Flourish Haven (Huagang Guanyu), built to observe countless gold fish in a stream. At the foot of a nearby hill was the Cave of the Three Fairies (Sanxian Dong), which was large enough to accommodate two hundred persons. Qianlong gladly included this in his Forty Views.

Let us now turn our gaze to the southeastern edge of the garden entrance to find a small garden designated as the secluded Deep Vault of Heaven (Dongtian Shenchu). It was the campus of the royal school and comprised rows of elegant classrooms and dormitories concealed in a bamboo grove, orchids, and pine trees. Both Yongzheng and Qianlong attended school here when they were princes.