Yuanmingyuan is located on a plain in the north of Haidian Town in the northwest suburb of Beijing. It was originally the royal court of the Qing Dynasty.

It was built in the forty-eighth year of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty (1709) and basically completed in the ninth year of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (1744). Since then, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Xianfeng have been renovated and expanded for many times, lasting 150 years. People used to call it Yuanmingyuan, but it is actually the general name of Yuanming, Changchun and Qichun (later renamed "Wanchun"). It covers a wide area and its peripheral circumference is about 10 km. Yuanmingyuan is a waterscape garden, and the water surface accounts for more than half of the whole garden area. Landscape around mountains and rivers 145, and some landscapes are directly named after water. For example, Autumn Moon in Pinghu, Spring Dawn in Su Causeway, Moon in Santang and Wind Lotus in Quyuan are all from the Ten Scenes of West Lake in Hangzhou. There are also Spring Scenery of Wuling in imitation of Peach Blossom Garden, Xifeng Flower in imitation of Lushan Mountain, Stone Maze in imitation of Lion Forest, Ruyuan in imitation of Zhanyuan Garden and Zhao He Deng in imitation of Gushan Crane Pavilion. , bringing together the essence of countless world famous places and gardens. In its heyday, Yuanmingyuan was not only an unprecedented royal garden, but also the ruling center of the Qing emperor who gave orders and exercised power. From Kangxi to Xianfeng, six emperors lived here for three or four months every year, handling government affairs and conducting various political activities. At that time, there were offices of the central government departments such as the Cabinet, the Sixth Department and the Military Department on both sides of the gate of the Grand Palace. In the ruins of the northwest, several groups of large-scale palace ruins can still be found. There are Fairness Hall, Jiuzhou Qing Banquet, Anyou Palace dedicated to statues and sacrifices of emperors in Qing Dynasty, and Wen Yuan Pavilion in the library.

In architectural art, Yuanmingyuan has also formed a unique style of combining Chinese and western styles. At the northern end of Changchun Garden, a group of European-style gardens were initially built, including "Western architecture" designed by foreign experts such as Italian missionary and painter Lang Shining. Founded in Qingganlong 12 to 24 years (1747- 1759). Building materials are many finely carved stones, which are installed in major scenic spots in various forms. Garden pavement, hedge pruning, fence, stone carving, bronze statue, etc. They all have western characteristics, but the roofs are covered with glazed tiles unique to China, and the walls are inlaid with glazed tiles, while the traditional stone-piling and brick carving techniques in China are adopted. At that time, it was the only garden complex in the world with both eastern and western styles, so it was praised as "the garden of ten thousand gardens" by the west. The park also has a very rich collection of cultural relics, calligraphy and painting classics, which can be called a treasure house of oriental culture and art.

In the 26th year of Guangxu in Eight-Nation Alliance (1900), the allied forces organized by Britain, Germany, Russia, France, the United States, Japan, Italy and Austria invaded China. /kloc-At the end of 0/9, the Boxer Rebellion broke out in northern China. The Boxers put forward the slogan of "helping the Qing Dynasty to destroy the foreign countries" and entered Beijing one after another. 1900 on may 3 1 day, Britain, the United States, Japan, France, Russia, Italy and other countries sent more than 300 troops to Beijing in the name of protecting the embassy. /kloc-in June of 0/7, Eight-Nation Alliance captured Dagukou Fort in Tianjin. 19 In June, Cixi decided to declare war on all countries, and declared war on June 2 1 day. /kloc-in August of 0/4, Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Peking. /kloc-On the morning of August, 0/5, Cixi fled west with Emperor Guangxu. After the invading army entered the city, it set fire to the village, slaughtered about 1700 people in the boxer rebellion, looted in Beijing for three days, and then looted privately. On August 27th, the Qing government sent Yi Kuang and Li Hongzhang as plenipotentiaries to make peace with the eight countries, and on September 7th, 190 1, the Qing government concluded the "Xin Chou Treaty" with other governments.

There is a passage in the commentary of the movie "Burning Yuanmingyuan": A big fire once branded shame on every China person's face, but also branded deep hatred in every China person's heart. When the fire is burning in the air, a nation with billowing waves of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, a nation with hundreds of millions of powerful hands and hundreds of millions of tearful eyes can only hold an empty fist and watch this garden of thousands of gardens turn to ashes. ...

Since the British and French allied forces burned down in 1860, Yuanmingyuan has suffered several major damages. The first injury is "giving up". After the Yuanmingyuan was burned down, during the reign of Tongzhi and Guangxu, part of the Yuanmingyuan was rebuilt and part of it was abandoned, which made the traces of the fire still remain after about 40 years. Since then, Yuanmingyuan has suffered the damage of "lost stones". In the early Republic of China, some large units went to Yuanmingyuan to get stones. The huabiao and Shishi that appear in some places outside the park now belong to Yuanmingyuan. Since then, a considerable part of Yuanmingyuan has been occupied by farmland, enterprises and individuals. At that time, Yuanmingyuan was described as "facing each other like a field", and even farmers' pigsty was built on the edge of the site. By the 1970s, people had dug mountains and filled lakes in Yuanmingyuan, and used the mountain-shaped water system to grow rice. Yuanmingyuan has also experienced three painful stages.

Kong Fanzhi said that Yuanmingyuan was the pinnacle of China's royal gardens. It was burned by the British and French allied forces, demolished and sold cheaply by warlords and unscrupulous businessmen, and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Then in the late 1970s, the ruins of the Three Gardens in Yuanmingyuan were occupied by a large number of houses and units, with cultivated land and fish ponds everywhere. Since 1984, the renovation work of the Three Gardens of Yuanmingyuan has started. Although Qichun and Changchun Gardens were opened to the outside world one after another, the protection and repair of Yuanmingyuan site, the largest of the three gardens, has not changed fundamentally due to the limitation of funds and other conditions.

Kong Fanzhi, deputy director of Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau, said yesterday that the understanding of Yuanmingyuan site started late. 1960, Yuanmingyuan was designated as a district-level cultural relics protection unit, but no protection measures were taken at that time. It was not until 2000 that Yuanmingyuan was officially designated as a national key cultural relics protection unit, just 100 away from Eight-Nation Alliance's looting of Yuanmingyuan.

Kong Fanzhi said that at present, the management department has made a complete plan to better protect the site of Yuanmingyuan.