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Chapter 4 Rise The history of the Yuanming Yuan began with Kangxi, the emperor of China from 1662 to 1722. He was the Son of Heaven and the ruler of the Celestial Empire, with Beijing as his imperial capital—the center of his imperial world. When he fully secured his immense power in the final decades of the seventeenth century, he had already refurbished many desolated gardens and parklands left behind by Khitan (Qidan), Jurchen (Ruzhen), and Ming princes at the foot of the Western Hills in the northwest suburbs of Beijing. His first principal garden was the Joyful Spring Garden (Changchun Yuan), which in his own words was built on the basis of the desolated Pure Flowery Garden (Qinghua Yuan) originally owned by Marquis Li Wei of the Ming (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 2:1268–1269). It was a very modest imperial garden, as the Koreans observed, in comparison to the Yuanming Yuan (Yanxinglu xuanji 1961, 201). In 1720, the Russian ambassador had the opportunity to see the garden at the invitation of Kangxi.The Russians called it “Tzan-shu-yang.” They found an elegant court, rows of forest trees, the Hall of Audience, and many handsome royal apartments (Bell 1788, 6–7; cf. Sugimura Yûzô 1961, 217–218; Maurice Adam 1936, 1–2; Yu Mingzhong 1985, 2:1268–1285; Yanxinglu xuanji 1961, 201, 320). In 1722, Kangxi passed away at the age of sixty-nine in this particular garden (Feng Erkang 1995, 58–59). In 1709, taking fengshui into consideration, Kangxi selected a site on which to build a brand new garden, soon to be named the Yuanming Yuan, approximately 500 to 600 meters north of his Joyful Spring Garden.1 When the first phase of the Yuanming Yuan was completed, Kangxi graciously awarded it to his fourth son, Prince Yinzhen (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 2:1321). The prince was the legitimate successor regardless of endless rumors to the contrary (Feng Erkang 1995, 64). He eventually succeeded his father to be the Yongzheng emperor, and he made the Yuanming Yuan his principal imperial garden, leaving the Joyful Spring Garden to the Imperial Mother and her royal consorts. Yongzheng ’s successors continued to use the Yuanming Yuan as the imperial garden, and it| 73  inevitably superseded Kangxi’s Joyful Spring Garden. But the Joyful Spring Garden as the home of dowager empresses remained for a long time to come a significant royal garden with impressive palatial gates, courts, halls, chambers, galleries, libraries, docks, and even a make-believe “shopping street” (maimaijie). The Qianlong emperor visited his mother here very often. In 1778 he built inside the garden the Mother’s Memorial Temple (Enmu Si) in her honor, parallel to the Enyou Temple that Yongzheng had built in honor of his father, Kangxi (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 2:1274–1279). Not until the Jiaqing emperor, who made the Variegated Spring Garden the home of the royal mothers, did the Joyful Spring Garden gradually fall into oblivion. From a Prince Garden to the Imperial Garden When Prince Yinzhen occupied the Yuanming Yuan soon after its completion in 1709, the garden was still modest in size. It was, however, not a renovation of a desolated Ming garden; rather, it was a new garden par excellence. According to the estimation of Zhou Weiquan, the Yuanming Yuan at its inception already covered the area between the Front Lake and the Rear Lake, about 91 acres. But Zhang Enying has disputed this estimate by citing some poems composed by Prince Yinzhen that suggest that the garden had already extended beyond the Rear Lake, covering an area no less than 180 acres (Zhou Weiquan 1981, 31; Zhang Enying 1986, 24). Whoever is right, the Yuanming Yuan upon its completion was less than one-third of its full size. In any event, in 1722, the Yuanming Yuan had become magnificent enough for Prince Yinzhen to invite his aged father, Kangxi, and his youthful son, the future Qianlong emperor, to the Peony Terrace to appreciate the flower blossoms (Yu Mingzhong 1985, 2:1335; cf. Yuanming yuan sishijing tuyong 1985, 13). After the prince became emperor in early 1724, construction to expand the Yuanming Yuan began.The o‰cial designation of the Yuanming Yuan as the prime imperial pleasance of the new emperor, however, was postponed due to the sudden death of the imperial mother. As a filial son, he had to observe a period of mourning. He thus suspended moving into the garden for pleasure living (YMYA 1991...

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