The historical sites of Yuanmingyuan are described in detail.

The bronze statue of the zodiac, the most complete historical relic in Yuanmingyuan, is just a drop in the ocean among the lost cultural relics in Yuanmingyuan.

General situation of cultural relics

Lang Shining (1688- 1766), an Italian, was born in Milan. In the fifty-fourth year of Emperor Kangxi in Qing Dynasty (17 15), he came to China as a Catholic Jesuit monk, and later entered the palace and became a court. Because Lang Shining brought western painting techniques, he showed the charm of European light and shadow painting to the emperor and other court painters, which was highly valued by Emperor Kangxi, Emperor Yong Zhengdi and Emperor Qianlong.

At a time when Sino-French relations were still at a low ebb, another incident occurred in Paris, which aroused China's strong dissatisfaction, especially the people's great anger. Despite China's opposition, Christie's auction company held a special auction of "Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Beijing's treasures" in Paris from February 23 to 25, including bronze statues of rat heads and rabbit heads in Yuanmingyuan.

However, while caring about the auction of animal heads, the origin of the statue of 12, which is made of refined red copper and has never rusted for a hundred years, has also aroused great interest. ...

The origin of animal heads in the zodiac

Exposing women's bodies is against the ethics and China's aesthetic standards, so Lang Shining used the zodiac instead.

"12 Zodiac animal head" is a human and animal head, made of refined copper, which will not rust for a hundred years. /kloc-In the middle of the 8th century, Emperor Qianlong built a luxurious West Garden in the narrow strip in the east of Yuanmingyuan. Italian court painter Lang Shining is a designer. He designed and recommended a French priest, Michel Neust, to be responsible for the construction of the human fountain: it is located in the center of the garden, and 12 Zodiac animals spray water in turn every two hours, commonly known as the "hydraulic clock".

So a number of small water works represented by the zodiac successfully entered the implementation stage.

Zong, an associate researcher at the Yuanmingyuan Management Office, opened a bronze photo album of the West Building of Yuanmingyuan and carefully took out the bronze plate of Haiyan Hall: "This bronze plate has two places in China, one is the Shenyang Forbidden City and the other is the Beijing Forbidden City." He said: "This is Haiyan Hall in those days, and there are six statues of the zodiac on each side around the fountain. Because in China's view at that time, exposing women's bodies was against the moral norms and China's aesthetics, so Lang Shining replaced the female nudity in the original design with the zodiac.

In fact, Emperor Qianlong was full of curiosity and enthusiasm for western architecture, although he did not have the spirit of his grandfather Kangxi the Great to explore natural science from the west. On the stone carvings around the Western Building, he had his own opinions on the application of Baroque art in China, so the design scheme of stone pillars and water method was changed again and again.

Therefore, it is 12 animals in the traditional calendar of China that created the image of water spray in the form of life for the first time in the royal garden. Their popularity is excellent, and they are household names in this big country full of oriental civilization temperament. This is how the "animal face personal hydraulic clock" was born. "This is a work that combines elements of China traditional culture with western fountain technology," Zong Tian Liang said. "These jobs should be done according to their orders, because the original plan can't be passed."

On the copperplate prints of Haiyan Hall exhibited by Zong, each animal of the Zodiac is well dressed, with a double-breasted button and an oblique-breasted button, sitting like a model, and the clothes cover the whole body from below the shoulders, but this does not hinder the vividness of the statue, because they also have body language: rabbits are shaking their fans, cows are holding dust, snakes are bowing, and monkeys are holding sticks, probably to prove that they are descendants of Sun.

China Zodiac animals are arranged in groups of six on the left and right sides in front of a huge shell, with the south bank on the left and the north bank on the right. 12 The zodiac signs are arranged from south to north: rats in the south, ugly cows in the north, silver tigers in the south, rabbits in the north, dragons in the south, snakes in the north, horses in the south, sheep in the north, monkeys in the south, chickens in the north, dogs in the south and pigs in the north.

In front of Haiyan Hall, there are two big water-spitting stone fish one meter long. The water in each fish mouth flows forward along the left and right waterways respectively, and finally meets the water in the head of the zodiac animal in the fan-shaped pool in front of Haiyan Hall. The heads of these animals are bronze. They are made of stone. They are connected with hollow spray pipes, which are responsible for every hour. A long water stream is sprayed into the statue in the pool from the mouth of the hour representative. At noon, the elephant mouth of 12 Zodiac spouts water column at the same time, which is a wonder in timing, gardening and sculpture.

Casting bronze animal heads requires a lot of trouble.

At that time, the process of casting bronzes was almost lost. After many twists and turns, Lang Shining found someone who can cast the head of the zodiac.

After Lang Shining designed the 12 bronze animal head, the first unexpected thing happened to him, that is, the process of casting bronzes was almost lost. After many twists and turns, he found someone who can cast the head of the 12 zodiac.

To the surprise of the Italian who spent half a century in China, 94 years after his death and burial in China 1860, those painstaking works were destroyed by war.

During his 50 years in China, he saw a huge empire whose population and industrial and agricultural output value accounted for one third of the world at that time, and also saw inexhaustible silver and countless treasures. He couldn't imagine that in less than a hundred years, a group of people from the same west could rob the garden he participated in building and take all the animal heads he designed, leaving only the big stones that could not be taken away and burning them.

Lang Shining's two French colleagues would not have thought that some of these animal heads were actually taken away by their French compatriots, and of course, some were plundered by their ally Britain.

Among the materials that can be found today, people will find that the heads of mice and rabbits that sprayed water in childhood and Mao era are now in Paris, France, while the heads of chickens, faucets, dogs, snakes and sheep are still missing.

Of the 12 animal heads, five are now in China. They are collected by Poly Museum, and their return is through overseas auctions and donations.

Among them, the pig head was donated to Poly Group by Stanley Ho, the gambling king of Macau, in 2003. Stanley Ho bought the pig's head for less than HK$ 7 million, which is similar to the price of the monkey head and the cow's head photographed by Poly Group in 2000. Poly Group also won the Tiger Head in 2000, but it took HK$ 654.38+059.3 million to get the Tiger Head, which was three times higher than the reserve price at that time. Horseshoe was purchased by Stanley Ho in 2007 for HK$ 6,965.438 million+and donated to the country.

Two stone fish returned to Haiyan Hall.

At least two thieves have cared about the stone fish wandering among the people. Fortunately, the fish is too heavy for the thief to move for a while.

2007 is the 300th anniversary of the establishment of Yuanmingyuan Garden, and also the 47th anniversary of the death of Yuanmingyuan/KLOC-0. On June 8th, the first batch of 12 cultural relics donated by the society, such as Tang Haiyan Carp, returned to their hometown with a hundred years of vicissitudes and their own travels, which also marked the full-scale start of the "Yuanmingyuan Cultural Relics Returning to Cultural Relics Protection Project".

The discovery of this big carp was completely accidental.

In fact, this pair of big carp "wandering" in front of Haiyan Hall did not go far. They lived in a quadrangle in Xidan Henger about 16 kilometers away from their hometown for many years. The owners of Xidan often water them when they are free, and never let children climb on them, so they have not been damaged for more than half a century that people can remember.

In 2003, the picture of the owner of the quadrangle watering the stone fish was seen by Liu Yang who happened to pass by the cultural relics section of Yuanmingyuan. He was visiting the scattered cultural relics in Yuanmingyuan, and he happened to see the pair of stone fish through the crack of the door, but he couldn't see it clearly. Two years later, Liu Yang suddenly found that the stone fish in an old photo was very similar to the stone fish he took a look at in Xidan. After taking photos and measuring the pair of stone fish, he finally confirmed that they were the pair of stone fish spitting in front of Haiyan Hall in the west building of Yuanmingyuan.

Although the pair of stone fish live in the ancient quadrangle in Xidan, according to Chen, a former police officer at the West Chang 'an Street police station, they were taken care of by at least two thieves. On one occasion, a thief got into this single-family house from another yard to steal. On another occasion, a cultural relic dealer gave two yuan to migrant workers while someone was decorating the yard and carried the stone fish away. Fortunately, the fish was too heavy to move for a while, and finally it was found by its owner.

Without electricity and generators, how can water be sprayed out?

From 65438 to 0746, human beings began to pay attention to the collection of electricity in nature. Mei Mason Brock, a Dutchman, invented a capacitive device called Leiden bottle in his hometown Leiden, hoping to store electric energy. The year after the invention of the Leyden bottle, that is, the 12th year of Qianlong (1747), there was no electricity in China. So how do fountains of various sizes in the West Building spray water? This seems to be a footnote for people to understand the word "water law" today. The Qing empire was so expensive that the emperor wondered: the magic of this water is so magical that it will definitely turn into magic when the time comes.

In today's Xiyanglou Scenic Area, between Dashuifa and Haiyan Hall, there is a rammed earth platform with a height of more than ten meters, which is a part of the water tower needed by all water methods. According to Zong, an associate researcher at the Yuanmingyuan Management Office, this is a solid earthen platform, which firmly supports the "tin sea" above, that is, the water tower. In the era when there was no electricity and motor, people used the pressure difference between the upper and lower parts to push the water pressure to dozens of large and small outlets far and near.

This is where the water source of Dashuifa Fountain comes from. Similarly, the water spit out from the mouth of the stone fish in front of Haiyan Hall, and the water spit out from the head of the beast at all times, is pressed out from this water tower.

The water in the water tower is also running water, which comes from various pools. Water is pumped into the water tower through the water lifting device of the gear machine, and the gear keeps running, and the running water will always flow down. And this huge mechanical device is shrouded in the tall western-style building behind Haiyan Hall. The exterior is carved with stone carvings, and the inside is a "heart" that keeps running.

But what makes people laugh and cry is that after the completion of various water methods, these pumping machinery and equipment only took three short years to change to manual pumping. It was Emperor Qianlong himself who gave this order to arouse the masses, and then it was abandoned. What is even more different from his ancestor Emperor Kangxi is that Qianlong thinks that appreciating these foreigners' machines is simply a plaything, but he never thinks that appreciating the fountains formed by artificially lifting water is a waste of people and money.

Lost bronze statue

During the Second Opium War, British and French allied forces invaded China, captured Beijing, plundered countless treasures of Yuanmingyuan, and snatched 12 bronze animal heads, which led to the loss of these national treasures overseas for more than 100 years.

The Chinese zodiac is an artistic treasure that shows the blending of Chinese and western cultures, and it has extremely high artistic value and appreciation value in the world. When the invading army robbed, it was still regarded as the most precious treasure. Those who get them are also people with special identities.

1860, the British and French allied forces set fire to Yuanmingyuan, and the bronze statue of the zodiac in Yuanmingyuan was lost overseas, which became a microcosm of the loss of cultural relics in China. In the hundred years after the Opium War, as many as one million pieces of China cultural relics were lost overseas due to war, looting and carving.