It is a long historical process for Yuanmingyuan to become a "ruin". Yuanmingyuan, Changchun Garden and Qichun Garden (collectively referred to as Yuanmingyuan) were built in the "Kanggan Prosperous Age" of the Qing Dynasty for more than a century, with a total area of more than 350 hectares. Surrounded by mountains and waters, there are hundreds of landscape groups with different tastes, with pavilions and other garden buildings reaching 200,000 square meters, which are praised as the first garden in China by Chinese people and called "Thousand Gardens" by westerners. It has been a long century since 1860 (Xianfeng decade) was set on fire by the British and French allied forces and finally became a ruin. It can be roughly divided into four historical stages, in the words of Mr. Zhao Guanghua, called fire robbery, wood robbery, stone robbery and soil robbery. First, during the periods of 1860 and 10, after the British and French allied forces entered Beijing and plundered Yuanmingyuan, they set fire to all parts of the garden for two consecutive days, which was undoubtedly the key catastrophe of its destruction by foreign enemies, and was called "the disaster of Gengshen", that is, "fire robbery". At that time, although most of the buildings in the park were destroyed and the situation was tragic, the landscape of flowers and trees remained the same. There were three major landscape groups, namely Dagong, Pengdao Yaotai and Serene Jinkai, and pavilions were scattered in many places in the park. Second, after the death of Yuanmingyuan, the Qing emperor still did not give up the business. At the end of Tongzhi, under the command of Empress Dowager Cixi, a large-scale "selective reconstruction" was carried out, with more than 3,000 buildings to be built, but it was forced to stop work because of financial exhaustion. However, at that time, there were not less than 120 garden buildings basically formed after renovation and reconstruction, with nearly a thousand rooms and an area of over 1000 square meters. Later, until the middle and late Guangxu period, Empress Dowager Cixi did not completely give up her old dream of revisiting Yuanmingyuan. It was not until the 24th year of Guangxu (1898) that she launched the "1898 coup" that she had no time to take care of Yuanmingyuan. In the following two years, namely 1900, Eight-Nation Alliance went to Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi fled to xi 'an with Emperor Guangxu. The invading army burned and looted, and the order in the two capitals was in chaos. Bandits and local ruffians swarmed in, and the Eight Banners also took advantage of the fire to rob, turning soldiers into bandits, and flocked to Yuanmingyuan, tearing down the remaining buildings, tearing down trees and bricks, and cutting down ancient and famous trees. In addition to the lonely Qi Chun Garden and the huge Yuanming Three Gardens. It is because the Boxer Rebellion is difficult, mainly because of the "wooden robbery", which is actually the disaster of internal bandits in the war when foreign enemies invaded. Third, after the Revolution of 1911 (19 1 1), the last emperor, Puyi, abdicated, and Yuanmingyuan remained the private property of the royal family. The park is guarded by eunuchs, while the step army is in charge of the yamen, and the middle battalion officers and soldiers are responsible for the protection. Since then, the Yuanmingyuan site has experienced a "stone robbery" for decades. At first, warlords, bureaucrats and foreigners of Beiyang government took advantage. For example, Wang Huaiqing, Commander-in-Chief of the Garrison of Gyeonggi, relied on his power to tear down the wall of Yuanmingyuan and carry bricks and stones. It took three years to build a private garden-Grand Garden outside Fuyuan Gate. He not only publicly pulled goods, but also was personally supervised by the lieutenant of Zhongying. Nie Xianfan, the infantry commander, was originally responsible for protecting the scene, but asked the lieutenant of Zhongying to send someone to take Taihu Stone 352 away from Changchun Garden. Che Qingyun, commander of the Shi Jing gendarmerie, and Wang Lanting, secretary-general of the government, transported a large number of stones from the park to build private houses. Cao Kun, who was notorious for bribing the President, took dozens of cars from Wenyuan Pavilion to Xizhimen to load a train in order to repair his garden in Baoding, and was escorted and protected by Chinese and British guerrillas (official names). Under the protection of Wang Huaiqing, Liu Menggeng (known as "Jing"), then the local governor of Beijing, forcibly took Taihu Stone 623 and Yunpianshi 104 cars from Changchun Garden and Qichun Garden. The 13th Division and 16th Division of the Army and the artillery battalion of the border guards stationed in Xiyuan have also sent personnel to forcibly dismantle and transport the bricks and rocks of the Great Wall in Yuanmingyuan for many times, but they were discouraged by the management and were not allowed to abuse and beat them. Yenching university, an American missionary school, built a school building (now the former site of Peking University) without authorization and shipped out the giant watch of Anyou Palace. It didn't help to be dissuaded by the Commissioner of the Northern Suburb Police Station. In this stone-stealing incident, a large number of stone carvings, Taihu Stone and Yunpian Stone from Yuanmingyuan were also brought to some public places in the city, including the Summer Palace, Zhongshan Park, Jinwen Street Library and Xiangshan Kindergarten. In this way, in the past 20 years, except for the former site of the West Building, almost all the steles, stone workshops, stone carvings, stone carvings and decent rocks at the Yuanmingyuan site have been looted. 1928, the Beiyang government collapsed, and after the Beiping Special Municipal Government took over Yuanmingyuan, the site suffered more organized damage. At this time, the object of "stone robbery" becomes all bricks and stones. In order to build a ballast road from the high beam bridge to Yuquan Mountain via Haidian, the Beiping municipal government has successively ordered the demolition of the 4800-meter south wall of Yuanming Third Garden and all the tiger stone walls on the east side of Changchun Garden, and smashed them into rubble to make up for the lack of ballast. At the same time, the "Cleaning the Yuanmingyuan Property Office" was set up, and the government authorities agreed to sell the so-called "waste bricks and stones" in the park at different prices, and the outer shadow wall of the Grand Palace was sold by tender; The stone pillars around the Shimen of Xiyanglou were sold to merchants at a mountain price to set up a monument for the soldiers killed in Suiyuan. The official even expressly stipulates that the tiger skin stones in Yuanmingyuan can be sold; The marble and blue stripe stone of the former site of Xiyang Building can be sold by whoever carves it coarsely. In addition, residents in the park have been digging stones and bricks for a long time in order to build houses and fences; During the period of Japanese puppet government, the poor nearby stole bricks and stones from Yuanmingyuan because of hunger and cold, and the puppet government set up a brick collection office, which really encouraged the demon wind of digging. After such a long time, most of the ancient architectural sites in Yuanmingyuan have been dug up, and it is difficult to find complete bricks and tiles. This "stone robbing" process actually lasted until the early liberation and the Cultural Revolution, and it was not until the end of 2000 that all the residents in the park moved out that it was finally eradicated. Fourthly, another disaster suffered by Yuanmingyuan site is "soil robbery", which is the inevitable result of a large number of farmers farming and living in the park. At the end of Guangxu, Yuanming Sanyuan Site was leased to nearby farmers for cultivation, that is, 30 hectares of dry land and 36 mu of dry land. To 1933, the annual rent is 2683 yuan. Within the walls of Sanyuan Site, residents began to move in one after another from around 19 18 (in the seventh year of the Republic of China). At first, he was a relative of the eunuch who managed the garden, and later he moved more and more, eventually forming a 3 1 village and settlement. Before liberation, there were basically no trees here. 1956 Beijing garden department began to green the barren hills in the park. About 1960, the state also requisitioned more than 0/000 mu of dry land in the park, and carried out large-scale tree planting and greening, so more than 10,000 trees in 1000 became forests. However, the contradiction between agriculture and forestry in Yuanmingyuan site has been difficult to solve. Since the establishment of Yuanmingyuan Management Office in1976165438+10, it has been busy dealing with the occupation of sites and woodlands by agricultural production. According to our 1978 statistics, all or part of the cultivated land of seven production teams and fruit professional teams, such as Xiyuan Brigade in Haidian Township 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Shuimo, are in Yuanming Sanyuan Site, with a total area of 1860 mu (mainly paddy fields), which is just the grain harvesting area, and the actual cultivated land is not limited. The park has a permanent population of more than 2,000 people, and the village covers an area of more than 300 mu. In addition, there are 14 enterprises and institutions belonging to cities, districts, townships and brigades within the site, covering an area of more than 430 mu. With such a complicated occupation, the horror of the whole scene can be imagined. In particular, if farmers want to plant dry land in the garden, they are constantly destroying the garden site; Planting paddy fields will often dig mountains and fill lakes; Pigs and cows also have to pull the soil washer, so they dig mountains all day. There are no fewer than 250 original ecological earth mountains in Yuanming Three Gardens. According to my field investigation in 1980, almost every earthen mountain was damaged to varying degrees, with 80 completely razed and 20 basically leveled. In addition, the leveling failure phenomenon at the foot of the mountain is common. The leveled earth mountain area will not be less than 50% of the total mountain area, and the excavated earth will exceed 100. Due to the destruction of the original vegetation, long-term soil erosion also makes the remaining mountains generally short, narrow and deformed. Moreover, at that time, farmers were still digging mountains and playing washers everywhere, and there was nothing we could do. We simply designated a dirt mountain on the southwest coast of Fuhai for its disposal. This is the reality at that time. According to the above, it is not difficult to know that Yuanmingyuan was destroyed by the fire of the British and French allied forces until the site became a "ruin". Except for the most important "Geng Shen fire robbery" which was committed by western invaders, the rest of the "Geng Zi Mu robbery" and later "stone robbery" and "earth robbery" were basically committed by our own people. If the former is a great shame in the modern history of the Chinese nation, then the latter is more bitter and helpless. A few years ago, some experts accused the site renovation of "destroying the evidence of imperialism", which was a bit exaggerated. It is said that some leading comrades in the cultural relics department still have doubts about the renovation of the ruins park, and feel that the restoration of the mountain-shaped water system in Yuanmingyuan seems to be destroying this site. I think it's hard to justify it. Today, some experts and scholars strongly advocate keeping the site of Yuanmingyuan intact. It is said that "the ruins are also beautiful." It is hard to imagine that before the residents and units in 200 1 Yuanmingyuan moved out, the tragic scene of this site was full of holes and chaos. The author thinks that it is difficult to stand up against the reconstruction of the site and advocate the preservation of the site as it is. That being the case, why did the Beijing Municipal Government and Haidian District Government spend nearly 20 years, with hundreds of millions of yuan requisitioning all the cultivated land in the park and relocating 785 households and 13 units (only 10 1 middle school postponed the relocation)? Without these measures, it is impossible to maintain the original appearance of the site, and the result can only be that the Yuanmingyuan site will eventually be completely destroyed.