On the afternoon of May 22nd, the International Faculty Clubat Peking University organized a visit to Prince Gong’s Mansion for foreign faculty in school.The weather was wonderful at the beginning of summer in Beijing. With the guidance of Chinese faculty and voluntary students, the foreign professors has enjoyed the amazing traditional architectures in Qing Dynasty and known more about Chinese history and culture.

Prince Gong’s Mansion, north to Houhai and east to Qianhai, is located in the northeast part of the inner city of Beijing, an ideal “treasure land” according to the fengshui theory. It is the existing largest andbest-preserved mansion in Qing Dynasty. And it hadsuccessively been the house of Heshen, Yonglin, and Prince Gong. It is mainly consisted of two parts: the mansion houses and the backyard garden, covering a total area of 60 thousand square meters. The architectures represent the typical style of mansion buildings in Qing Dynasty, and also represent the mature stage of Chinese traditional architectural and gardening skills. The mansion has witnessed the course of history in Qing Dynasty from its prosperity to decline, thus conveys profound historical and cultural connotations. Therefore, as the saying goes: “One mansion represents half the history of Qing Dynasty.”

After arriving at the Prince Gong’s Mansion, foreign professors first visited the most representative buildings at the mansion, Yin’an Hall and Xijin Building. Yin’an Hall is the main hall of the mansion. It was a place in which the owners held the important ceremonial activities. And it would only open at important holidays or events. Xijin Building is the main house at the west side of the mansion. And it is also the most exquisite house in the mansion. Heshen designed this building mainly according to the Palace of Peace and Longevity in the Forbidden Place, which was constructed by Qianlong as his dwellings after abdication. The decorations inside the rooms, including carvings and windows, are very beautiful and exquisite.

Foreign teachers then visited the so-called “three unique architectures and one treasure” in the Prince Gong’s Mansion: Houzhao Building, Western Gate, Grand Opera House, and the Fu Character Stone Tablet. Houzhao Building is located at the back of almost all the mansion houses, just next to the backyard garden. It was constructed at the longest length among all the mansions in Qing Dynasty: more than 150 meters. This second-floor building has 45 rooms each floor, and about ten rooms around the corner. So it is also called “ninety-nine and a half rooms”—the last two digit of 999, which is the number of the rooms in Forbidden Palace. There are 44 multiform windows carved on the brick at the back of the building. And there are no two windows in the same form. It is said that this building was the place where Heshen hid all his treasuries, including gold, silver, pearls, and silk. And different forms of the window indicated different kinds treasuries hidden at the middle of the wall.According to some historical records, when Emperor Jiaqing confiscated all of Heshen’s properties, officials found about 50 thousand tons of silver, which equaled to more than 10 years’ national treasury income back then. When voluntary students introduced this piece of history story to the foreign teachers, they were all vey surprised.

Then the foreign teachers continued to visit the backyard garden of the mansion. The backyard garden is the best preserved and the largest mansion garden in Beijing. The third owner Prince Gong has assembled hundreds of artisans and craftsmen to construct the garden based on the original one built by Heshen. It has combined the styles of both southern garden and northern architecture, and also introduced the western style. The western gate is the second unique point in the mansion. It mimicked the style of the Dafahai round gate in Yuanmingyuan. Since Yuanmingyuan has been burnt in 1860, now this gate is the best-preserved white marble arched gate. There are four characters carved at each side of the gate. One is called “静含太古”, which means there is tranquil beauty as has been preserved since the ancient time. One is called “秀邑恒春”, which means the beautiful scenery is always like in the spring. It has conveyed the main building concept when the owner was designing the garden.

The grand opera tower in the backyard garden is the third unique thing in the mansion. This opera tower is the only totally enclosed type opera tower in China. It was build during the Emperor of Tongzhi, and served as the place where Prince Gong and his relatives watch the opera. It covers an area of 685 square meters and can hold more than 200 people at the same time. The whole tower was constructed by wood. And the special construction structure makes the tower possess wonderful sound effect. The actors could sing and act without amplification system. There were Chinese wistarias (a kind of liana) painted all around the building. Since this kind of plant has flowers in strings, the flower also symbolizes “more children” and has auspicious implications for Chinese. Sitting in the tower and enjoying the Beijing Opera will be very enjoyable, and those flowers will make people feel always being in spring. This kind of design is one of the concepts that the owners used when constructing the garden. Back then, the opera tower in this size and scale (like a hall) was very rare in the northern part of China. Even the Empress Dowager Cixi only sat in yard when watching operas. Since this tower was only a private one, Prince Gong was afraid that if he has built a too luxurious tower and it violated the unwritten rules: only the emperor had the rights to build and live in the most deluxe buildings. So Prince Gong designed these flowers to show that the roof was only a wooden frame and he also sat in the yard to watch operas just like Cixi. Not only the whole construction was very rare back then, the quadrels used on the floor were very expensive so they were also called “golden bricks”. The manufacturing method of this kind of brick was exceptional and complex. Some halls in the Forbidden Place and the Thirteen Ming Tombs used this kind of brick.

The most important and rare treasure at the mansion is the Fu Character Stone Tablet. It is hidden inside the Miyun cave in the man-made hill Dicuiyan. It is said that there are 9999 bats hidden in the mansion, including the decorations and carvings. Since the “bat” pronounces the same as “fu”, which means good fortune in Chinese, Heshen mainly designed them for auspicious implications. And the treasure hidden in the cave is the last one, the 10000th one fu. It is an inscription by Emperor Kangxi, the grandfather of Qianlong. The 7.9 meters long tablet has a history of more than 400 years. Kangxi was skilled at calligraphy, but he seldom wrote anything except the official document. Kangxi respected and loved his grandmother most in his whole life. But when his grandmother Xiaozhuang Empress Dowager was about to become 60, she was struck by serious disease. So Kangxi wrote the Fu character to beg for health and good fortune for his grandmother. After he wrote the character, Xiaozhuang recovered quickly and lived a long life till 75 years old. This Fu character also conveys lots of other auspicious implications besides “fu”-“good fortune”. Kangxi has combined the character “shou”-“longevity”, “zi”-“son”, “cai”-“wealth”, and “tian”-“land” all in this one character. So many people also call it the origin of good fortune.

Finally, the two-hour visit came to an end, though the foreign faculties were all unwilling to leave the mansion. They said that this was a wonderful visit and it made them learn more about the traditional Chinese architecture and culture.