Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise [illustrated edition] 0824819802, 9780824819804, 9780585481920

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MAPPING CHENGDE The Qing Landscape Enterprise Philippe For êt

MAPPING CHENGDE

MAPPING The Qing

CHENGDE Landscape Enterprise Philippe Forêt

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2000 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 05 04 03 02 01 00

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Forêt, Philippe, 1957– Mapping Chengde : the Qing landscape enterprise / Philippe Forêt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–8248–1980–2 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0–8248–2293–5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Chengde (China)—History. 2. Civilization—China—Chengde. 3. China—History—Chi’ng dynasty, 1644–1912. I. Title. DS796.C49 F67 2000 951'.52—dc21

99–088190

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Book design by Kenneth Miyamoto Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

In memory of Paul Wheatley

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Author’s Notes

Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix

1 2 3 4 5

xiii

Introduction The Great Qing at Home Hamlet and Imperial Residence Garden and Mountain Rhetoric The Jehol Frontier Capitals and Models Representations of Chengde Chengde Studies

1 13 27 54 80 100 116 139

Place Name Concordance Qing Dynasty Emperors Waiba miao Temples The Kangxi Emperor’s Vistas Chronology of Chengde

153 154 155 156 157

Notes

163

Glossary

183

Bibliography

187

Index

203

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have visited every building on the hills and have explored the pinedecked valleys. Water, stones, mountain mists and flowers make a fairy land. Truly it is like a dwelling in the moon, far from the earth. The Qianlong Emperor, upon arriving at Chengde, 1756.1

It is my wish that Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise will contribute to preserving a fairy land that remained emotionally abandoned during most of its existence and, since its restoration some twenty years ago, has suffered from hasty conservation techniques, mass tourism, and to a less perilous degree academic misunderstanding. Working on Chengde over the past years, I have often thought of a conversation I had in a train from Beijing to Guangzhou ten years ago. My hard berth carriage companions, on learning how impressed I had been by the beauty of the temples of Chengde, laughed and told me that they too were back from the Qing summer capital. They then proudly showed me little gilded statues of the Buddha that they had stolen there and would be selling in Hong Kong. I hope that this book will add a sense of urgency to our growing awareness of cultural landscape as a nonrenewable resource and may somehow help to keep the remaining statues in their wall niches. I owe a debt to the many scholars who encouraged me during my field research and the writing of this book. My heartfelt thanks go to John Iverson (University of Missouri) for his permanent support and valuable comments on the notions of glory in the writing of history during the eighteenth century. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues in Chengde studies: Ruth Dunnell (Kenyon College), Mark Elliott (University of California, Santa Barbara), and James Millward (Georgetown University). I met Mark and Jim first in Beijing in 1990 and later in Ann Arbor during the National Endowment for the Humanities 1994 Summer Institute on “Reading the Manchu Summer Palace at Chengde.” The month I spent at the University of Michigan was very productive and I am happy to acknowledge the faculty and the participants of the Summer Institute: Anne Chayet, Ruth Dunnell, James Hevia, Donald Lopez, and Evelyn Rawski. Thanks to James Wescoat 1. Sven Hedin, Jehol: City of Emperors (New York: Dutton and Company, 1933), p. 189.

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Acknowledgments

(University of Colorado, Boulder) and James Duncan (Syracuse University), a workshop presentation that I gave on the gardens of Chengde became an article published in Ecumene: A Journal of Environment, Culture, and Meaning. My former professors at the University of Chicago, Michael Conzen, Norton Ginsburg, Marvin Mikesell, and Paul Wheatley, have offered their ideas and guidance throughout the years. Christopher Winters allowed me extensive use of the resources of the map collection of the University of Chicago Joseph Regenstein Library. In Washington, D.C., I benefited immensely from my meetings with Milo Beach and John Dixon Hunt, who had invited me to spend a summer as a research fellow at the Sackler Museum of the Smithsonian Institution and at Dumbarton Oaks. Susan Naquin (Princeton University) and Guy Alitto’s (University of Chicago) reviews of my dissertation helped me to pay attention to historians’ concerns. In Paris, Redouane Djamouri (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) never failed to share with me his prodigious erudition on China. Augustin Berque invited me to attend his seminars on landscape at the Centre de Recherches sur le Japon Contemporain, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; he introduced me to theoretical work on environmental perception in Japan. My discussions with Paul Claval (Institut de Géographie of de La Sorbonne) and Anne Chayet (Instituts d’Extrême-Orient) were sources of inspiration. I became a member at large of Paul Claval’s Laboratoire Espace et Cultures, whose journal Géographie et Cultures has set the pace in French landscape studies. Paul Claval and Florence Blanchon (Centre de Recherches sur l’Extrême Orient de La Sorbonne) published early versions of my developing arguments on the geomancy of Qing gardens and cities in Géographie et Cultures and Asies. Pierre-Étienne Will (Collège de France) allowed me to participate in the activities of the research group he chairs on the history of science and technology in East Asia. I must thank the librarians of the Château de Vincennes for allowing me access to their eighteenth-century card catalogs and to a number of maps of the Qing empire far beyond the limit normally set by service regulations. Mareile Flitsch (Freie Universität Berlin) very kindly invited me to join a stimulating week-long conference in Berlin-Glienicke, “Aspects of North China’s Peasant Culture,” during which I read a paper on mapping the cultural ecology of Qing Jehol based on the maps I had found in Vincennes. At Peking University, Hou Renzhi was kind enough to endorse my research project and to write the letters of introduction I needed to meet city officials in Chengde and Mulan. Zhao Zhongshu (Peking University) gave generously of his time during our field trips in northern Hebei and when collecting relevant library materials in Beijing in 1990 and 1991. I would like to thank the Manchu and Mongol officials who very warmly welcomed me in Weichang township, even if the purpose of my research in this remote part of Hebei had become obscure to everyone, me included, by the end of our banquet. I would like to thank Hugh Shapiro (University of Nevada, Reno) and Karin Wentz (World

Acknowledgments

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Bank) for their participation in several field trips to Chengde, as well as Zhao Hua and his cheerful staff at the Weichang Tourism Administration for driving me around Mulan in all weather and road conditions. I express my gratitude to Inamoto Yonosuke who kindly invited me to stay as a Foreign Researcher at the Institute of Social Science of Tokyo University. The draft of my doctoral dissertation was written in the congenial atmosphere of the institute during the 1991–1992 Japanese academic year. A few months after I left Tokyo, I submitted to the Committee on Geographical Studies of the University of Chicago a short dissertation with a long title, “Making an Imperial Landscape in Chengde, Jehol: The Manchu Landscape Enterprise.” I mailed the first draft of the manuscript to the University of Hawai‘i Press in April 1994 and, not surprisingly, was asked to revise it extensively. I revised the dissertation for publication during the year I spent as a research fellow of the Department of Geography of the University of California at Berkeley. During my revisions I benefited from the advice of Ronald Knapp (State University of New York, College at New Paltz), whom I had met in Berlin, and from the comments of two anonymous reviewers. As I was waiting for the readers’ final reports, I continued doing research on two topics related to Chengde, the Swedish copy of the Potala temple and the portraits of the Qianlong emperor as Mañjusrï. Gregory Schopen (University of Texas, Austin) invited me to participate in the symposium he organized on the ambiguity of Avalokiteshvara, during which I claimed that in depicting himself as Mañjusrï, the Qianlong emperor produced a space for ambiguity in order to effectively rule the constituencies of his empire. I am grateful to Håkan Wahlquist for granting me access to the fabulous resources of the Sven Hedin collections in Stockholm. Conversations I had with the obliging scholars of the Folkens museum etnografiska during the summers of 1996, 1997, and 1998 yielded new and provocative information on Qianlong’s Buddhism that I was able to include in my ultimate revision of the book manuscript. In 1998 Stan Fung (University of Adelaide) invited me to write an essay on Chinese gardens. I took this opportunity to develop new ideas on the intended response to Bishu shanzhuang and submitted “The Intended Perception of the Imperial Gardens of Chengde in 1780” to Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes. In my previous work on Chengde, I had neglected to consider the model visitor’s perspective that the Manchu emperors had in mind when they directed the construction and representation of the gardens of their hill station. To a degree, this paper on the representation intended by the Qianlong emperor and the disappearance of certain features (pivotal mountain temple, walls, people, frontier) was the development of several points I have made in the “Garden and Mountain Rhetoric” chapter of this book. For having shared their ideas with me, I would like to thank Stan Fung and an anonymous reviewer of the Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes.

xii

Acknowledgments

Financial and administrative support for this research project came from American, Asian, and European sources. I am glad to acknowledge the Canon Foundation in Europe, the Chinese Department of Education, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, the CiriacyWantrup Fellowship program of the University of California at Berkeley, the Committee for Scholarly Communication with China, Dumbarton Oaks, the French Department of Education, the French Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, the Smithsonian Institution, the Sven Hedin Foundation, and the University of Chicago. Without the assistance of these institutions and agencies, I could never have completed this study on Chengde. I want to extend my appreciation to the bannermen, peasants, lumbermen, and poachers of Jehol, without whom nothing would have occurred at the mountainous frontier of China and Central Asia, and to the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors of the Great Qing dynasty who selected for generations of scholars a suitable topic for publications on culture, nature, architecture, and dreams in their private residence. I hope that my work will not disappoint my friends and colleagues who shared their time, resources, and knowledge of the Qing empire with me. I would like to thank Hope De Simone and John Iverson for their help in editing successive drafts of the manuscript and for their rigorous and insightful contributions to this book. I might not have finished this book if Corinne Pernet (University of Oklahoma) had not helped me with the proofreading and indexing of it; I remain indebted to her for her moral and intellectual support. Santiago de Chile, May 26, 1999

AUTHOR’S NOTES

For clarity and consistency, several conventions have governed the use of city names, geographical terms, personal names, and the choice of a system of transcription in this book. I have followed a phonetic convention employed by the Chinese geographer Zhao Songqiao concerning geographical terms for mountains, seas, rivers, and lakes.1 I have extended this convention to include Chinese administrative nomenclature and Chinese settlement and building terminology. A name with only one Chinese character has its following Chinese term repeated in its English translation; however, the last character of polysyllabic names is translated but not repeated, according to convention. For instance, he [river] has been kept as part of the name in monosyllabic river names: the Rehe, Baihe, and Luanhe rivers; whereas he has been omitted in multisyllabic names: the Xiliao river. Notable exceptions to this rule are: Bishu shanzhuang (the name of the Qing hill station of Chengde); the three Great Wall gates of Gubeikou, Jinshanling, and Shanhaiguan; Waiba miao (the collective name of the Buddhist outer temples that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors sponsored in Chengde); Wanshuyuan (the name of the prairie district inside Bishu shanzhuang, where the Mongol camp was located); and Yuanmingyuan and Yiheyuan (the names of the two Qing summer residences in Haidian, a suburb of the winter capital of Beijing). Literally Bishu shanzhuang means “Mountain Hamlet for the Escape from the Summer Heat”; Waiba miao, “Eight Outer Temples”; Wanshuyuan, “Garden of Ten Thousand Trees”; Yuanmingyuan, “Garden of Perfect Brightness”; and Yiheyuan, “Garden of Ease and Harmony.” Nomenclature has often led to confusion in the study of Chinese geography; it has also offered perplexing problems of identification in materials on China and in Chinese materials on Central Asia. Not only have boundaries shifted and place names changed, 1. Zhao Songqiao, Geography of China: Environment, Resources, Population, and Development, pp. xvii–xix.

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Author’s Notes

usually with every new dynasty, but cities and territories have sometimes shared the same administrative denomination, with the same name conferred on two geographically distinct entities. Such has been the case with Chengde: Chengde xian was a county established near Mukden in 1664; its name was changed from Fengtian Chengde to Shenyang xian in 1913. Chengde xian was also the name of a county in a different province, established in 1913 to replace the Chengde fu prefecture formed in 1778 in what was then the province of Zhili. This later Chengde was the summer capital of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912). I use the name Chengde only to indicate the city of Chengde, which includes the summer residence of Bishu shanzhuang and the religious complex of the Waiba miao temples north of the city. In its limited sense, this Chengde excludes the rural area of Chengde xian [Chengde county] that is governed from present-day Chengde shi [Chengde city]. To avoid any confusion between the city of Chengde and the extramural territory (city shi, district diqu, prefecture fu) of Chengde, I have used the name Jehol exclusively to designate the area that came under Qing Chengde’s jurisdiction and later corresponded to the province of Jehol, Rehe sheng. My reason for choosing Chengde rather than Jehol when discussing the Qing summer capital is that the conventional use of Jehol by European scholars (Otto Franke, Sven Hedin, and Anne Chayet) does not agree with the Chinese conventional use of Chengde for the city name and Rehe for the province name. Chengde has also been known in Chinese and European historical records as Chengde fu, Chengtehfu, Gé-hol, Geho, Geho-eul, Gehol, Je ho, Je ho eul, Jee-ho, Je-hol, Jehol, Rehe shangying, Rehe xinggong, Tchen-teu-fou, Tch’eng-te shih, Tchhing te fou, Zehol, and Zhe-hol. Other transcriptions of the names Chengde and Jehol may exist. I thus follow the norm in Chinese materials established since Qianlong gave the new name of Chengde to his summer capital of Rehe. The Manchu name for Rehe is Zeho (with an inverted circumflex accent over the Z), and for Chengde, Cengde. I have decided to retain the use of the name Jehol, but to restrict it to the geographical region between the Great Wall and the Xiliao river. The alternative to resurrecting Jehol would have been the correct rendering of Rehe by Rehe. The exclusive use of Rehe for Jehol would have created difficulties, as in Chinese materials Rehe is a river, a city, a prefecture, and a province. Jehol was the English adaptation of rehe through its approximation [Geho-eul] in French. Historically part of Inner Mongolia, Qing Jehol extended from the Ming-built Great Wall in Hebei in the south, to the Qing-built Willow Palisade in Liaoning in the east, and to the Xiliao river in the north. During the eighteenth century, most of Jehol became administratively and ethnically part of the province of Zhili, now the province of Hebei. In this book, the Jehol boundary corresponds to the Zhili northern boundary indicated by the map of the province of Zhili in the Tongzhi Atlas of the Qing Empire and to the northern limits of Jehol province after its annexation to Man-

Author’s Notes

xv

choukuo in 1933. During the Republican period (1912–1949), the Balin Banners’ territory lying north of the Xiliao river was first added and then removed again from Jehol, which was then an administrative entity distinct from Hebei province. Fengning, Luanping, Chengde fu, Pingquan, Jianchang, Chaoyang, and Chifeng [Ulanhad] were the major urban centers of Jehol. In the mid-1950s the central government enlarged Beijing, Hebei, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia by annexing parts of the Jehol province. Reference sources for the maps of Jehol have therefore been Jehol as shown in the Tongzhi Atlas, the Chengde Gazetteer, and the map of Zhili in Zhongguo lishi dituji, Qing shiqi, with further information drawn from the Asian and European maps listed in the bibliography.2 I have employed the name Mulan instead of the name Weichang. Weichang indicates the city and county xian of Weichang; Mulan remains the name of the imperial hunting ground, now included in the county of Weichang. The pinyin transcription mulan could be misleading, as the Manchu pronunciation of that area name is “muran.” “Muran” is the call Manchu and Mongol hunters uttered to fool deer, and mulan is its pinyin transliteration. As for weichang, it means “hunting circle” in Chinese. Weichang is thus not a translation into Chinese of the meaning of “muran” in Manchu, whereas mulan is the transcription in Chinese of its sound in Manchu. I have retained the now familiar spelling Beijing and not its traditional romanization Peking. In 1644, after the fall of the Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty transferred its capital from Mukden [Shengjing] to Beijing. Beijing was also called Jingshi [Capital City]. As it was also the seat of the prefecture fu of Shuntian, Shuntian fu was Beijing’s other name during the Qing dynasty. The Manchu dynasty kept an auxiliary capital at Mukden, with jurisdiction over Manchuria. Like Beijing, Mukden has had several names: Shengjing, Fengtian, and now Shenyang. The fourth largest city in China, Shenyang is the capital city of Liaoning province. The use of the Manchu name of Mukden for Shenyang during the Qing period seems appropriate, as it was the name retained by geographers until 1945. The names Shengjing for Mukden and Jingshi for Beijing might have seemed more appropriate to some Qing scholars, but these choices would not have followed the usual norm for place names. Qing emperors had several titles and names in the Manchu, Chinese, Mongol, and 2. Tongzhi Atlas is the short title for Da Qing zhen sheng quantu, published in 1862. The Chengde Gazetteer was originally compiled for the Qianlong emperor by Qian Daxin and Ji Yun and titled Qinding Rehe zhi. In 1830, it was enlarged and reedited by prefect Hai Zhong and titled Rehe tongzhi. In 1888, the Chengde Gazetteer was further enlarged under the title [Qinding] Rehe [tong] zhi. See also Rehe zhi, a 1967 reprint, and Hai Zhong and Lin Congshang, eds., Chengde fu zhi, a 1968 reprint of the Chengde Gazetteer. Chengde Gazetteer is the English transliteration used for all of these editions in the text. Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, The Historical Atlas of China, Volume 8: Qing shiqi, The Qing Dynasty Period, map 7–8: “Zhili” (1820).

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Tibetan languages. They are best known by their Chinese reign names nianhao in the Qing calendar. I have thus used only reign names; therefore, the Qianlong emperor instead of emperor Gaozong and Kangxi instead of Shengzu. Appendix 2: Qing Dynasty Emperors provides the Manchu emperors’ complete titles in Chinese. (For a complete genealogical table of the family names and titles of the Aisin-Gioro imperial family, in both Manchu and Chinese languages, see Liu Xiaomin and Yang Jun, eds. Jianming Man-Han cidian [Concise Manchu-Chinese Dictionary], Appendix 16, pp. 462–469). Only the Kangxi, Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Xianfeng emperors used Chengde as their seasonal capital. Appendix 4 gives information on the landscape elements, distribution, complexity, frequency, and spatial division of the hill station vistas that the Kangxi emperor conceived. The information is based on the plates published in Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing [The Thirty-Six Vistas of Bishu shanzhuang]. In his monograph on Chengde, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, Otto Franke has provided an annotated translation of the names of these landscape vistas designed by the Kangxi emperor (see Appendix 3A, “Die 36 von K’ang-hsi benannten Gebäude, Anlagen etc. mit viersilbigen Namen,” pp. 91–94). For an approximate translation into English of the plate names, see Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed. Chengde fengguang, pp. 8–9. No study has yet been undertaken on the landscape vista names and poems in the Manchu edition of the Kangxi emperor’s poems on the summer residence (Qing Shengzu [Kangxi emperor], Han-i araha Alan-i tokso de halhün be jailaha gi bithe, or in Chinese Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi). The name Manchuria indicates exclusively a geographical area and not a political entity. Manchuria is not a word in Chinese or in Manchu. The geographical term Manchuria is used here out of convenience, even if it is loaded with the imperialist overtones of the 1930s: Manchuria; or Land of the Manchus, a healthy, fertile, billowy country with a fine, temperate climate, vast riches and a promising future, is rapidly being developed and modernized by the capable and progressive Japanese.3

This term refers to the area now covered by Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang and the northeastern part of Inner Mongolia. Today the Liaoning province includes southeastern Jehol, and the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia includes northern Jehol. During the Qing dynasty, Southern Manchuria was first called Shengjing and later Fengtian; the area became the Liaoning province in 1929. The Manchoukuo government (1932–1945) divided Manchuria into five, and later eighteen provinces, one of which was Jehol. Zhili 3. Philip Terry, Terry’s Guide to the Japanese Empire (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927), p. 756.

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and Fengtian indicate references to Qing dynasty materials on these two provinces. Hebei and Liaoning, the present names of the same two provinces, indicate general references to materials from the Republican (1912–1949) and Communist (1949–present) periods. A second common source of confusion in American and European scholarship about Asia has grown from the many competing systems for the transcription of Asian languages into the Latin alphabet. For Chinese materials and Central Asian materials translated into Chinese, I have adopted the pinyin romanization spelled in the Xiandai Hanyu cidian dictionary with its complement, the Xiandai Hanyu cidian bubian.4 It has, unfortunately, not been possible to show the four tonal diacritical marks of modern Chinese. I have transliterated into the pinyin system all titles, personal names, and place names (except Jehol and with the reservations detailed earlier) that are in the Chinese materials I have quoted. I have also indicated within square brackets the pinyin romanization in the quotations that may have become familiar in other and older transliteration systems, for example, Ch’eng-teh [Chengde], Kara-kotton [Kalahetun]). Chinese translation and the pinyin transliteration of Mongol geographical names have been generally used: for example, the city of Chifeng for Ulanhad, and the Xiliao [Xilamulun] river for the Xar Moron river. The pinyin transcription of Mongol names as spelled in original sources is also shown in brackets: Bärin [Balin] territory. Non-pinyin transcriptions of Mongol and Manchu names are not in italics. Tibetan titles and place names have usually been transcribed using the scholarly correct transcriptions except for the most familiar forms: Lhasa instead of lHa-sa and Panchen Lama instead of Pan-chen bLama. For Sanskrit names, I have followed the transcription system provided by William Soothill and Lewis Hodous in their Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms. As for transcriptions from Japanese, the vowel value is normally marked with an accent above long vowels. In Chinese and Japanese original works, the authors’ family names come first, followed by their given names. Unlike most Chinese scholars, Japanese scholars have tended to put their family names last in publications that have been translated into English. I have not been able to correct conflicting spellings found in materials written in Asian languages other than Chinese. I would like to apologize to scholars proficient in the languages of the Qing empire, Manchu, Mongol, and Tibetan, who may be annoyed by the vagaries and the absence of diacritics in my transcriptions. I have resisted using English renderings that would seem quaint and exotic. The emperors deliberately selected place names that had many references in literary and religious registers and are difficult to translate with precision. The Glossary may be consulted for meanings and transliterations of Chinese terms. The Mongol or Manchu provenance 4. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan yuyan yanjiusuo cidian, ed., Xiandai Hanyu cidian and Xiandai Hanyu cidian bubian.

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of non-Chinese terms is indicated in brackets. For more Chinese transcriptions of Manchu and Mongol geographical terms, please refer to Walter Fuchs, Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi Zeit, “19. Transcriptions-fragen” and “20. Einige Mandjurisch-Mongolische Geographische Bezeichnungen,” pp. 86–92; and Lucien Gibert, Dictionnaire historique et géographique de la Mandchourie, “Liste des termes les plus usités en géographie et de ceux qui entrent le plus fréquemment dans la composition des noms de lieux,” pp. x–xvi. For Tibetan names, personal names, place names, building, and temple names related to Chengde, consult Anne Chayet’s list (in pinyin transcription), Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, pp. 179–189. For a glossary of Chinese terms related to landscape architecture, see Ronald G. Knapp, China’s Vernacular Architecture: House Form and Culture, pp. 179–183. I have included in the book thirty figures that serve to represent actual and conceptual facets of the Qing landscape. Together, they contribute to providing the final interpretation of “Tianyu xian cheng” vista plate 18 of Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi (Figure 20). Several of the figures cannot pretend to be maps, either because they are diagrams or because the paintings do not have a constant scale. I have chosen all the selected figures from Qing materials: the plates of the Chengde Gazetteer, those of the Kangxi emperor’s Album of Imperial Poems [Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi], and the two 1780 landscape paintings kept at the Library of Congress, the Tai wan dili tu and the Rehe xinggong quantu maps. Without these paintings, maps, and plates I would not have been provided with the visual materials that I needed to develop a geographical analysis that sets forth a literal mapping of the Qing landscape enterprise. I visited and photographed Chengde several times, and I hope that the photographs I am adding to the book will help the reader to compare the hill station of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors to Bishu shanzhuang today, a few years before the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Chengde. These illustrations are adding information to the research previously conducted in China by Hou Renzhi for his historical atlas Beijing lishi dituji and by the architects of Qinghua and Tianjin Universities for their Chengde gu jianzhu.5 Other sources used in my deconstruction of the Qing gardens have included sheet M4 of Mgr. Alphonse Favier’s Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, and “Karte zu Dr. Otto Franke’s Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli.”6 For the analysis of the landscape of Jehol, I have relied on the Japanese survey campaign that Shigeyasu Tokunaga led in the 1930s.7 5. Tianjin daxue jianzhuxi and chengde shi wenwuyu, eds., Chengde gu jianzhu. 6. Favier’s map is part of his unpublished atlas, Carte du Pé-Tchi-Li, avec tableau d’assemblage et légende. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli. Detail-Studien in Chinesischer Landes- und Volkskunde. 7. Tada Fumio, Geography of Jehol. Report of the First Scientific Expedition to Manchukuo, under the Leadership of Shigeyasu Tokunaga, June–October 1933.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Wonderful in all its beauty Dreams the Jehol [Rehe] River strand. May great spirits ever bless thee, Boundary of our fosterland.1

Anecdotal questions have led me to fundamental issues concerning the social creation of landscape, the relationship between space and power, and the study of spatial metaphors within a specific civilization. After the fabulous resources of China became available to the Qing emperors, why did they choose to locate their seasonal capital in an impoverished frontier area? For centuries the rituals of court life had been staged in Beijing inside one of the most formidable complexes of ceremonial palaces in the world. Why did these emperors call their new summer residence a mountain hamlet and design it to look like a village of pavilions? At a time when their army standards were being flown from the shores of Lake Balkhash to the coasts of Vietnam, why were the Qing emperors attracted by the lukewarm spring of the diminutive Rehe river? Why did they feel the need to lead their troops into allied Mongolia, north of the Great Wall, almost every summer and fall? Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise questions our accepted view of the oriental world by analyzing the remarkable visions held by two city builders who were emperors. The aim of this book is to deepen our understanding of cultural landscape by discussing late imperial China and the historiography of the geographical literature related to the Qing empire. The general theme of Mapping Chengde, however, is universal and will be familiar to many readers: landscape as monument, or more precisely, the power of imagining landscape as a medium for public persuasion. This approach goes beyond our routine acceptance of place as a setting and landscape as a text. This work on the dreams fed by the spring of Chengde is therefore part of a broader current of reflection that has investigated such diverse topics as the planning of Stalinist Moscow, the sacred landscape of Inca architecture, and the naïveté of map readers. It touches on several theoretical issues amply developed by scholars in the humanities and social sciences as it presents the Qing cultural context in which the notions of hybridity, spectacle, and colonial studies 1

2

Mapping Chengde

acquire a specific meaning. The goal of this project has been to add to the new work done in landscape studies by providing a geographical narrative on a specific place whose significance is discussed in Eastern terms. Cultural landscape is the central concept of Mapping Chengde, and this concept is examined through architectural and cartographical representations of a site that was designed to form the pivot of the Qing empire. This discussion of imperial landscape is therefore also a discussion of map reading that reveals two monarchs’ perspectives on how landscape should be addressed. The main thesis of Mapping Chengde is simply that the geography of the Qing empire during the eighteenth century was intimately intertwined with Tibetan Buddhism, that this relationship was a fundamental part of the continued expansion of the Manchu state in Inner Asia, and that the degree of this intimacy becomes surprisingly apparent in an examination of the iconography of the summer residence. The purpose of this book, however, is not the abstract study of state formation but the actual imprinting of imperial

Figure 1. Main gate of Bishu shangzhuang. Philippe Forêt.

Introduction

3

authority on a natural environment. Qing conceptions about space and time, representation of landscape, and practice of sovereignty are crucial issues in this discussion of imperial imaginary. The significance and persistence of Buddhist beliefs can be appreciated with difficulty in the visual materials about the architecture of the Qing summer capital, since the maps, paintings, and engravings produced during eighty years of construction use ambiguity in shaping the perception of an environment of gardens and temples. This book argues that the landscaping of ambivalence was a technique employed by the emperors in order to construct a spectacle of domination and submission. This spectacle was organized around a pagoda built on the top of a circular island surrounded by lakes, and a linear connection established between that pagoda and a similar-looking peak east of the imperial residence. One crucial concern for the Qing emperors was the promotion of the Manchus as a nation, and as a result, the hills of Jehol became implicated in the exaltation of ethnic identity. For this reason changes brought to the site of Chengde are ana-

Figure 2. Northeastern gate of Bishu shanzhuang. Left of residential wall: the hill station. Right of wall: a tilled field. Philippe Forêt.

4

Mapping Chengde

lyzed within the regional context of a geographical environment. The remains of Qing monuments, stelaes, hunting lodges, temples, and roads testify to the creation, extension, and decline of the Chengde prefecture and, with it, the Qing dynasty. The aesthetic power of the scenery vistas of the imperial gardens, landscape paintings of the summer residence, maps of the local gazetteer, and portraits of the emperor hunting in Mulan or resting in Chengde did not rest exclusively in the enchantment captured by these displays of a perfected place. The political power of the thirty-six plates of the Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi lay in their august authors’ ominous diversion away from the true motives and goals of the Qing enterprise. These visual materials hide a story of the brutal conquest of Central Asia and a subtle plot to seduce the Tibetan church as they expose the imperial will to appropriate the cosmos itself. The creation of a landscape for supremacy is disguised in the illustrations of the Chengde album of which only episodes are made apparent to us. No Qing courtier would have challenged the factual depictions of landscape commissioned by the emperor himself, and no scholar today can know how the combination of these highly selective views were combined to work to the emperor’s satisfaction. When reviewing the iconography of Chengde maps, readers have to make sense out of statements of architectural uncertainty and religious confusion, which may be difficult, since neither Kangxi or Qianlong added notes of caution to the landscape they built for display. This book accepts the risky assumption that even the ignorance and inattention apparent in the portrayals of the summer residence were intentionally included, as the emperors were the authors and editors in control of materials produced on Chengde. The noteworthy inaccuracies of Chengde iconography are indeed very informative, as they depict the political, religious, and geomantic ideals that the summer capital was built to incarnate. Fieldwork during repeated visits to Beijing, Chengde, Weichang, Zunhua, Shenyang, and Xinbin has supplemented the critical examination of the poetic, architectural, iconographic, and cartographic sources on the environment of Chengde. Most of this explanatory work has been based on the visual materials edited by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors; on their own prefaces, vista names, and poems; and on the letters sent by Catholic missionaries employed at their courts. Architectural and religious aspects of the residence of Chengde have been included in this geographical work because these are central characteristics of the built landscape of the site. The primary sources supporting the book’s argument are for the most part subtle, as archival materials have included little on the Qing emperors’ private domains or on their subjective experiences with a metaphorical environment. Indeed, the embellishments of voluminous Chinese assertions have obscured the true character of Kangxi and Qianlong and have created historiographical emperors. These official texts on model emperorship usually portray neither the emperor as maker of his own legend nor the conception that the monarch had of himself. Focus-

Introduction

5

ing on the internal contradictions, distortions, and suggestions of visual representations commissioned by Kangxi and Qianlong has helped to reveal the spatial imprint of the Qing political order on the ceremonial center of Chengde and to give a personal poignancy to the heroic complexity of the imperial role. The architecture of this ritual order would not have been so evident in the carefully censored materials stored in Qing archival collections. The approach of Mapping Chengde is original, as the book makes use of Qing

Figure 3. Chengde Prefecture. Source: Rehe zhi, “Chengde fu tu” map.

6

Mapping Chengde

maps, miniatures, and paintings to provide information on the conflicts between self and nature, center and periphery, and between ethnic groups and the frontier environment. It discusses the roles played by geomancy, Buddhism, Confucianism, and government in directing urban development in Chengde and environmental preservation in Mulan. It also investigates the representation of space in iconography, as this representation is related to the Qing state values about the environment, revealing the ideological ways in which spatial notions are recorded. The survival of architectural heritage has emerged as a recent concern on the Asian continent only after the often gratuitous destruction of a large number of sites and structures. The new perception of a need to protect the rich legacy of Asian values is related to the disturbing disappearance of the physical environment of ancient Asia, which is succumbing to the deadly combination of climatic degradation, wartime devastation, public apathy, and rampant development.2 Traditional vernacular architecture has not been able to resist global changes in the economy and the rapid passage from poverty to wealth that modernization has implied in Japan and Taiwan, for instance. The temples that have come to symbolize the civilizations of Afghanistan, Tibet, and Cambodia have suffered tremendously during the second half of this century. Efforts to protect the architectural legacy of the colonial period have often been limited by the indifference or hostility of the government officials of newly independent countries, such as Korea and Singapore. Nationalism is very present in the calls for governmental action, as Indian scholars have argued that the Venice Charter is a European model inapproriate for Asia and that it has discouraged reconstruction and transformation of patrimony in an Asian context. The charter provides guidelines that as a model would not be appropriate to Asia. Rarely supported by local public opinion, conservationists and environmentalists have had little influence on the tour operators and developers interested in selling and packaging a prestigious cultural landscape. By adding prominent sites such as Ayutthaya (1991) and Chengde (1994) to the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, scholars and policy-makers have hoped that the international recognition of such locales would result in a higher degree of protection and access to joint expertise in conservation. The adoption of master plans similar to the zoning system of Borobodur is seen by officials as the technical solution for the management of protected cultural landscapes. The bureaucratic definition of core areas and historic property, however, cannot replace the collective understanding of the importance of cultural landscape in the enjoyment of daily life. Unfortunately, the only working agreement on the value of the architectural past that seems to exist is the one that has bound Asian looters and art dealers to the private collectors of North America and Europe. In proposing the entry of Chengde to the World Heritage Committee, the Chinese delegation insisted on the high artistic and architectural achievements that the Qing build-

Introduction

7

ings represented. Kangxi’s and Qianlong’s political message carried by the landscape of the hill station was restated in the delegation’s description of the site: Chengde was built “to appease and unite the minority peoples living in China’s border regions.” 3 China nominated Chengde as a cultural property, and it was agreed that the site fulfilled the criteria established by World Heritage Committee: Exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture, monumental arts or town-planning and landscape design; and be an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history.

The UNESCO Convention that established the World Heritage List in 1972 stated that its purpose was to safeguard cultural and natural properties considered to be of out-

Figure 4. The mountains of Chengde Prefecture. Philippe Forêt.

8

Mapping Chengde

standing universal value.4 As of December 1994, the World Heritage Committee had named fourteen sites in China. At the 1994 meeting in Phuket, Thailand, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO decided to add to its list four new sites in the People’s Republic of China: the Mountain Resort and its Outlying Temples of Chengde, the Potala Palace of Lhasa, the Temple of Confucius in Qufu, and the Daoist building complex of the Wudang mountains.5 These sites have obviously had tremendous religious significance for the major religions of China, and one might assume that religion was the criterion for selection; but the true underlying criterion was ultimately related to the Manchu political enterprise.6 The valorization of the Qing palace and temple ensemble is essential for adequate preservation of the site of Chengde. The imperial residence occupies 5.64 million square meters, or about one-third of the present Chengde urban area. Bishu shanzhuang is twice the size of the Beijing Summer Palace of Yiheyuan and is as large as the former residence of Yuanmingyuan in the Beijing suburb of Haidian. The Qing hill station offers

Figure 5. City of Chengde. Source: Rehe zhi, untitled map.

Introduction

9

to its many visitors the largest complex of imperial palaces and gardens in China. The Chinese State Council is planning to spend several million yuan every year during the tenyear maintenance project of the Qing hill station. Supervised by the State Administrative Bureau of Museums and Archeological Materials, the campaign of restoration and maintenance of imperial Chengde may indirectly lead to greater understanding of the ways in which Qing landscape enterprise acted as a force in adapting cultural, religious, and political tools of colonial domination. I toured the Bishu shanzhuang gardens for the first time on a dusty day of fall 1983 and walked for a better view of the temples on top of the wall that surrounds the summer residence. I was then too overwhelmed by the mere accumulation of freshly painted buildings to imagine that Chengde could be more than an overcrowded public park. When I returned to Chengde during winter break, the cold was intense, tourists were absent, the sky was steel blue, ice coated the trees of Bishu shanzhuang, and the magic spell of the summer residence was enhanced by rice alcohol that I was avidly drinking to keep myself warm. Perhaps because my East German camera stopped functioning and my pictures were ruined, I kept a memory of this magic place far more vivid and intact than I would otherwise have expected. During the short spring of Beijing, I went back to Chengde to take the pictures I thought I had missed and then realized how much there was to discover by retracing my steps, including the impossibility of seizing ever again on film that moment of suspended stillness I had enjoyed four months earlier. It then became apparent to me that to retrieve my impressions I would have to read the writings of perceptive travelers and erudite scholars on the Manchu hill station. I was disappointed by Chinese architecture historians’ inability to conceptualize from a landscape the cultural terms of the relationship that existed between building and site. The prejudices of European travelers about the gardens, castles, and temples of their own culture prevented them from seeing the site on its own terms. When, several years later, I returned to Chengde, after having invested myself with the sacred mission to save the summer residence from further misrepresentation, I naively believed that the examination of Qing materials on Chengde would help me to clarify the landscaped ideology of the Qing court. I was wrong, and the reading of Qianlong’s self-inflated poetry kept me confused until, looking by chance at an oblique view map of Bishu shanzhuang that had faced my desk for months, I suddenly realized that a straight alignment connected three landmarks of Chengde, running directly from Qingchui peak down to the temples of Pule and Jinshan. I followed that axis and it gradually led me to the several layers of a sacred landscape highly visible in Chengde. Fundamental in the progression of my reasoning was the pivotal location of a holy mountain, in essence the Sumeru of the Qing building enterprise, able to transcend all these layers, ritual and geomantic, Buddhist and aesthetic. Crucial for my analysis was the reemployment of concepts about place and climate and the blend-

10

Mapping Chengde

ing of the spiritual in the natural that had little to do with Versailles linear geometry. The ceremonial sites of executive power displayed strikingly different configurations of buildings and gardens, but at the same time I was struck by similarities between the Qing and European monarchies. One particular instance of technical collaboration between the Qianlong emperor and King Louis XV forced me to reconsider the representation of glory in landscape engravings and to conclude that the Qing dynasty was just as modern as the Bourbons when it came to manipulating landscape scenery and its viewers in a purely propagandistic fashion. The relationship of the absolutism of nation-states to landscape seems to follow the same pattern all over the modern world if we concede differences in cultural interpretations, under the forms of architecture, iconography, and scholarship. This generous statement is not meant as an affront to those who claim that the French classical garden is the only one to have succeeded in portraying the exquisite proportions

Figure 6. The Chengde oasis. Philippe Forêt.

Introduction

11

of power; it is especially relevant today, since Jehol peasants’ perception of themselves as bound to a nurturing land has been replaced by the perspective of forced submission of nature that was first articulated by Manchu emperors and now by the developers of “multi-nucleated metropolitan regions.” 7 Writing about continental drift and geopolitics, Mark Monmonier has demonstrated the theoretical power of maps in establishing scientific and political legitimacy. My interpretation of the Qing summer residence involves another occurrence of “cartocontroversy” in which the iconography of landscape enterprise fueled a debate located at the crossroad of historical, political, religious, and subjective geography. Mapping Chengde reconstructs the campaign launched by Kangxi and Qianlong for global domination and its manifestation in a modern reconstruction of the Buddhist supercontinent. What I mean here is that we find in Chengde the residence of a bodhisattva and that this bod-

Figure 7. Bishu shanzhuang. Source: Rehe zhi, “Bishu shanzhuang zong tu” map.

12

Mapping Chengde

hisattva is none other than the emperor himself. The meaning I have discovered in Chengde maps and other pictorial materials implicitly relates to an ancient landscape paradigm and to the notion of a Qing residence conceived for the exploration of metageographical space. This idea invites observation and refinement across disciplinary boundaries or “contacts.” 8 The material of the book has been organized according to a concentric logic, which as it unfolds retraces the steps of the Qing reasoning about landscape. The rationale for choosing this logic is that it parallels that which directed the configuration of the landscape archetype expressed in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens. This introductory chapter consists of several invitations to tour a divided city. In the following chapters, Chengde will be presented as a military outpost, a ceremonial center, a hill station for the imperial clan, an icon of Manchu identity, the summer capital of the Qing dynasty, a materialization of dynastic policy, a stage for contemplation, a protected site with paramount significance for universal culture, and a miniature of the cosmos, not to mention a topic for scholarly inquiry. Because Mapping Chengde is the first monograph in English on the Qing summer capital, its last chapter is devoted to a review of the literature in the field. Publications in other languages (Chinese, French, German, and Japanese) have provided a comprehensive background on historical Jehol and Chengde. Instead of duplicating the work of scholars such as Otto Franke and Anne Chayet, this book attempts to describe what the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors believed they saw from the mountain kiosks of their residence. Mapping Chengde stares at the familiar scenery vistas of imperial gardens to uncover a composition of landscape metaphors borrowed from disparate sources. After identifying the pivotal area of Chengde, the text analyzes the interaction of a series of rings constituting in a microcosmic way the geopolitical world of the Qing dynasty. Each chapter has its own cartographic scale for the study of the religious, regional, imperial, and global zones of Chengde. Not only Outer Mongolia but also France and England were included by the Qianlong emperor in the preordained geometry of imperial power, as French and British kings, envoys, and missionaries contributed materials to the celebration of Chengde. The chapters always refer to the centrality of Chengde, since from a unique location inside the garden walls, the emperor controlled resources, directed military campaigns, entertained dew-drinking immortals, and excited the fervor of tribute bearers. As a whole, these chapters review the suggestive cartography that belies the platitudes used by the Manchu monarchs to justify their policy as they were vigorously expanding Qing territory.

CHAPTER 2

The Great Qing at Home In Xanadu did Kubla Kan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred River, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.1

A New Imperial Capital The Manchu dynasty styled itself the “Great Qing,” Da Qing.2 The Qing empire (1636– 1912) was certainly “great” in terms of extension, population, and affluence. Curiously, state affairs of the largest empire in Asia were periodically handled in the modest palaces of Bishu shanzhuang, on the prairie of the summer residence, and during hunting parties in Mulan. Seven out of the ten Qing emperors regularly left the Forbidden City and the summer palace of Beijing for several months, passing through the Great Wall of China at the Gubeikou gate and enduring the rigors of travel to the oasis of Chengde and to the wilderness of Mulan beyond. Between 1703 and 1722 and between 1741 and 1795, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors spent three to four months almost every year in Jehol. They either traveled to the Mulan natural reserve or stayed at their Chengde residence of Bishu shanzhuang, usually from May to October.3 Charmed by its lakes, woods, spring, and prairie, travelers have often compared the summer residence of Chengde to a smiling oasis surrounded by the severe hills of Jehol. Located not far from the ruins of the Mongol Yuan summer capital of Shangdu (Coleridge’s Xanadu), the built landscape of Chengde has inspired court poets and painters. Coleridge, of course, had not visited the city of Shangdu, which was a field of ruins when he wrote his famous poem. He instead fell asleep while reading Marco Polo’s narrative and saw in his dream Khubilai’s summer residence. His 1797 description of the Yuan capital evoked Lord Macartney’s embassy reports on the Qing residences of Beijing and Chengde as well as the historical continuity between the Mongol, Manchu, and Chinese architectural enterprises. 13

14

Mapping Chengde

Applied to the founding, enlargement, and maintenance of the Qing summer capital of Chengde, the term enterprise makes precise reference to Frederic Wakeman’s analysis of “Great Enterprise,” a Confucian term that describes a dynasty’s effort to gain and hold the “Mandate of Heaven” by ruling the “Under Heaven.” Buddhism has given a meaning to “Great Enterprise” that differs from the Confucianist definition but is no less important: the Buddha’s Great Enterprise is to appear in order to change illusion into enlightenment for the sake of a great cause.4 In this respect, the construction of the austere gray palaces and the more flamboyant purple temples of Chengde would have been a Buddhist undertaking subordinate to the Confucianist “Great Enterprise” of the Qing dynasty in China and at the same time a Confucianist undertaking subordinate to the Buddhist “Great Enterprise” of the Qing dynasty in Central Asia. In submitting Mongolia, Tibet, and Turkestan to his rule administered from Chengde, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795) made clear his intention to pursue dynastic policy only in Central Asia and not to enlarge the frontier domains he had inherited from the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722) and the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723–1735).5 Qianlong stated that he punished the troublesome Mongol rebels of Turkestan because he considered himself a monarch with responsibilities toward his Manchu ancestors. He chose to remain vague on the true motives and ambitions of Qing policy in Central Asia, but the palaces, gardens, and temples he built in Chengde completed his understatement on the political and religious meanings of the Manchu “Great Enterprise.” Thanks to the successful integration of Mongols into the Manchu Banners’ military administration, the Qing dynasty combined Jehol and Manchuria into a regional power that eventually became continental when it came to dominate China and Central Asia.6 The Shunzhi (r. 1644–1661) and Kangxi emperors’ hunting expeditions into Jehol and their repeated sojourns in the Mongol city of Kalahetun should therefore be understood as elements of a general policy that emphasized the continuum of the North China frontier in order to firmly establish Manchu power south and west of it.7 When in 1644 the Qing dynasty established its empire on both sides of the Great Wall, it began to modify the landscape of the region of Jehol, which the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) had emptied of its local population. After the quelling of the Three Feudatories’ rebellion in southern China (1681), the Manchu state still felt the need to prove in a civilized way that it was a well-established polity in Inner Asia and Inner China. Inner Asia includes Inner and Outer Mongolia, Eastern and Western Turkestan, and Tibet. Inner China includes the provinces of China proper and excludes the modern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet, Hainan, and Taiwan. Before 1703, Chengde resembled the other imperial lodges that the Kangxi emperor had established in Jehol.8 Between 1703 and 1792 the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors transformed the temporary resting house of Chengde into the summer capital of the dynasty in order to concretize ethnic, spiritual, and territorial claims to legitimacy.

The Great Qing at Home

15

Before the founding of Chengde, the Manchu monarchs had located their capitals (Liaoyang, Mukden, Beijing) in cities rebuilt by the former Ming dynasty and conquered by the Qing Banners.9 To add to the legitimacy of its empire-building enterprise, the recently established Manchu dynasty adopted principles drawn from Chinese and Tibetan traditions and applied these principles to a space that had no previous cultural imprint. Constraints for the building of the Qing summer capital in a frontier area were many. Inspiration and codification of the created landscape of the Qing summer residence were drawn from the aesthetic rules governing southern China pleasure gardens, from Chinese attitudes toward nature, from the canons of Lamaist temple architecture, from the censorship of Confucianism, and, most important, from the need for daily policing of a multiethnic empire as large as a continent. The particularities of the location, the novel use of designs and traditions borrowed from other cultures, and concomitant changes in landscape understanding contributed to the creation of a new cultural landscape in Chengde and Jehol. Both the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors organized in Chengde a territory intended to display a system of symbolic landmarks that would contribute to justifying the newly established rule of the Qing dynasty in Tibet and Mongolia. The Manchu court proclaimed a reordering of the empire by suppressing in Jehol the previous impress of the Chinese-Mongol frontier cultural landscape and by launching a vast program to construct there a truly Qing ceremonial center.10 In Chengde a composite landscape expressed the ultimate goal of Qing geographical policy: absolute domination of the “Under Heaven.” The newly created landscape of Chengde integrated visual symbols that made reference to significant places in the Qing empire that were located in China, Mongolia, and Tibet. The spatial fiction established by this created landscape guided for one century the conflict between sedentary Inner China and nomadic Inner Asia. The territory of metaphors created at Chengde contributed to the symbolic control that the expanding empire sought to exert on the cultural landscapes of South China and Central Asia. The Manchu emperors abolished the objectivity of Chinese and Mongol environments by superimposing borrowed landscapes that together came to form the genuine Qing landscape. As a consequence of the creation of this landscape, several relationships were defined or revised: the relationship between Chengde and the cultural universe of East and Central Asia; that between Chengde, Jehol, and the northern Qing frontier; and that between Beijing, Chengde, and the hunting grounds of Mulan on the Emperor’s Road.

The Bearer of Manchu Virtues The Kangxi emperor originally called Chengde “Rehe shangying,” “Upper Camp on the Rehe River,” the hunting lodge that was located close to the major Luanhe river valley. A warm spring feeds a short tributary of the Wulie river that does not freeze in winter, hence

16

Mapping Chengde

its name Rehe, which means “Warm River.” A few hot springs are found forty-six kilometers upstream in the Wulie valley near a place aptly named Tangquan, “Hot Springs.” Rehe shangying, Kangxi’s naming of the summer residence, reflects a degree of personal ambiguity about the status of Chengde. A ying is normally a temporary camp of tents. However, the earliest contemporary paintings of this ying show the buildings and gardens of a mountain villa. This mountain villa appears as a hunting lodge similar to the one of Kalahetun, and would therefore be a xinggong and not a ying. By calling Chengde an upper ying, the emperor implied moreover that lower and middle ying camps existed further down the Wulie [Rehe] river, as if the hill station was a camp undistinguishable from other camps. The true political and architectural significances of Chengde are thus not indicated by the name granted by Kangxi to the hill station. Kangxi named Chengde “Rehe,” but the city of Rehe was renamed “Chengde” by Yongzheng in 1733 and renamed again “Rehe” by Qianlong in 1742. It is only after 1778 that the name Chengde became constantly used in Chinese records. The Qianlong emperor renamed his summer capital “Chengde” the year he ordered the construction of the Confucian temple of Wenmiao. We may presume that there is more than a coincidence between these two events, and that the name of Chengde, “Virtue Bearer,” was eventually retained for the imperial summer capital precisely because of its Confucian meaning. The first character of Chengde, cheng, literally means “to receive,” “continue,” and “support.” Confucius opened the Analects chapter on government by saying: “Who uses de [virtue] to govern is like the north polar star which keeps its place and toward which all the stars turn respectfully.” 11 Speaking about government officials, the Master stated later: “Who has no constancy in his de [virtue] will receive cheng [disgrace].”12 The Qianlong emperor agreed with Confucius’ definition of virtue as a quality engendered by Heaven to fulfill a superior role and expected Chengde to assist in propagating his superior body’s quality. The Manchu word erdemu, meaning “capability, virtue, power,” was routinely used to translate the Chinese character de, “virtue.” On receiving Lord Macartney’s embassy, Qianlong wrote that Manchu virtue extended from the Mongol camp of the hill station to the entire world as even distant European monarchs wished to be included in his lordship.13 The location chosen for the Qing empire’s summer capital was unlikely from a Chinese point of view. Jehol was even farther from the economic and cultural center of China than was Beijing. The region was located outside the protection of the Great Wall of China, near the eastern end of the border area of East and Central Asia, and in an uninhabited corner of mountainous southeast Mongolia. In fact, this location is marginal only in relation to Jiangnan, the cultural core of Inner China. The Jiangnan area was centered around the prosperous cities of Suzhou, Wuxi, Yangzhou, and Hangzhou.14 Chinese garden architecture was developed by the wealthy families of merchants and officials who

The Great Qing at Home

17

lived near the rich and populous Yangzi delta. Jiangnan models embodied the Chinese landscape-making tradition with famous pleasure gardens designed by officials and scholars. Landscape vantage points like the Ten Vistas of the Xihu lake, west of Hangzhou, and architecture like that of the Jichang, Wangshi, and Zhuozheng gardens in Suzhou have illustrated this tradition of construction of a naturalized environment. Such examples often served as poetic and iconographical models for the construction of Qing residences in Beijing and Chengde. From the Manchu point of view, on the other hand, the location of the summer capital in Jehol was strategic and made excellent sense. Jehol occupies the precise meeting point of the environments of China, Manchuria, and Mongolia. The tradition of hunting in Jehol that the Kangxi emperor began in the later decades of the seventeenth century was an important element of a general policy that downplayed the geographic importance of the North China frontier as a zone of division, as it led the way to the ritual reenactment of the establishment of Manchu power south and west of the region. The subsequent political submission of Jehol resulted in the formal integration of the frontier area into the central province of Zhili (present Hebei) and in the effective extension of the Chinese cultural landscape north of the Great Wall for the first time in twenty centuries. The location of a summer capital beyond the Great Wall violated the architectural and political precedents set by Chinese dynasties (Han, Tang, Song, Ming) but was in accordance with and in fact purposefully followed the state-building traditions of the non-Chinese dynasties (Liao, Jin, Yuan) that had ruled on both sides of the Great Wall. The Kangxi emperor directed the construction of two successive residences in Jehol: the Kalahetun and Chengde palaces, which later became the summer capital of the Qing dynasty. Climatic and financial considerations remained minor in comparison with political considerations regarding the extension of the Qing dynasty rule in Inner Asia. The reasons advanced for the location of a summer capital in Jehol were detailed by an Italian missionary invited to the Manchu court: To avoid the heat of summer, which is always excessive in Beijing, the Emperor Kang-hy [Kangxi] had been accustomed to make excursions, by land and water, to the south of China. But as the diversion caused an expense which was extremely burdensome to his subjects, he had built himself a country residence at Je-hol [Chengde], in Tartary, where he now usually resided from the beginning of May till the end of September, with an escort of about thirty thousand men, besides a great multitude of people who resorted thither for the love of gain or pleasure.15

Kangxi’s reasons for first spending his summers in the south and later in Chengde appear problematic to explain the court’s seasonal moves. Summer heat would have been as unpleasant in the hot and muggy lower Yangzi area, known as one of the ovens of China,

18

Mapping Chengde

as it was in Beijing. Moreover, the cost of building a summer capital in the cooler Jehol mountains would probably have been higher than the cost of traveling south along the Great Canal. Having a residence in Jehol implied the transfer of considerable resources within the empire from Inner China to the Han-Mongol frontier area: human resources from Zhili and monetary and architectural resources from Jiangnan. The large size of the Chengde site allowed the materialization of the ideal of an open garden containing other gardens.16 Behind enclosing walls screened by pine trees, such inner gardens offered secluded places of shaded retreat kept green and fresh by the Saihu lakes. Microclimatic conditions go far toward explaining the attraction of the Bishu shanzhuang’s lovely gardens during the heavy summer of the North China plain. From the mountain kiosks of the Bishu shanzhuang residence, Qing monarchs contemplated their empire by observing a microcosmos that acted as a synecdoche for the entirety of their domains. The decision to build a Manchu capital on Mongol lands was envisioned by the Shunzhi emperor, realized by the Kangxi emperor, and enlarged by the Qianlong emperor. In their enterprise, the Qing emperors unified China and Central Asia by overriding the previous impress of the Chinese-Mongol frontier cultural landscape in Jehol and by substituting at the summer capital of Chengde a composite landscape that expressed the goals of the Manchu polity: domination of the “Under Heaven.”17 Chengde was the urban fulfillment of the “Great Enterprise” that aimed at establishing the legitimacy of Manchu power in East and Central Asia. Consequently, the independence of places like Beijing, Wutai Mountain, Lhasa, and Zhenjiang was undermined, for their landscape architectures had lost their uniqueness. Key symbolic elements of ceremonial landscapes, pleasure landscapes, natural landscapes, urban landscapes, agricultural landscapes, and religious landscapes were appropriated and taken to the summer capital by Qing military expeditions or during the emperors’ personal tours of inspection. Thus, the summer capital formed a composite landscape that reproduced the map of the Manchu empire. The transformation of Jehol from geographical area into political region was, moreover, a direct consequence of the establishment of the Qing dynasty summer residence in Chengde. Before its promotion to a first-rank prefecture, Chengde was a third-, second- and again third-rank prefecture.18 The small and unwalled city quickly became a prefecture administering a number of subprefectures and counties. Covering all of Jehol during the Qing dynasty, the previous Chengde prefecture of Zhili also corresponds to the two areas of the present Chengde city and Chengde district that have constituted the northeastern part of Hebei province for the past forty years.19 The design of the imperial landscape of Chengde drew upon sophisticated conceptions of nature and culture recorded in maps, architecture, paintings, and literature. The gardens of Chengde were carefully designed to prevent simplistic analysis by making simultaneous use of several geographical scales and registers of meaning.20 The hill sta-

The Great Qing at Home

19

tion gardens expressed implicit political claims of suzerainty over China and Central Asia through aesthetic codes: the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors were anxious to recreate in Chengde famous scenes drawn from Jiangnan gardens that had been conceived by Song painters and designed by Ming literati. Other explicit concerns were metaphysical, since the Manchu emperors willingly adopted the cosmogony of their Chinese subjects: their legends, myths, geomantic principles, and attitudes toward nature, thus contributed to the shaping of Chengde gardens. The Manchu success in resolving for a short while the long conflict between the landscape models of Inner China and those of Inner Asia depended on abolishing the local specificity of both landscapes by blending them into the composite Qing landscape. Under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ supervision, the landscape of Chengde gained independence from its history as anchored in the Jehol area and from its location in a frontier area that had been disputed by China and Mongolia. The consequences of this rupture in the relationship that tied the site of Chengde to the region of Jehol were dramatic and are still felt today. Political submission of the Chengde natural landscape and its subsequent transformation into an all-encompassing ideological landscape granted a spatial expression to the Qing enterprise. The significance of Chengde increased considerably: what had been the humble camp of Rehe shangying became the summer capital of the Qing empire. The disjunction between imperial landscape and its environment led to the control and transformation of landscape resources in Chengde and Jehol. It also led to symbolic representations of urban and regional landscape kept captive by two Qing emperors using iconographical, cartographic, architectural, and poetical means to depict the Manchu enterprise. It finally directed the duplication of vantage points in a context of historical repetition, because the construction of the Qing dynasty summer capital was linked to previous landscape enterprises of non-Chinese dynasties. The analysis of the Qing landscape of Chengde cannot be limited to the examination of the natural and human geography of Jehol because the landscape of the hill station was not determined by its local conditions. Qing Chengde had a voluntarist landscape: the emperor decided how to display the landscape vistas he himself had selected, where to locate them and to what effect, and what their total number would be and why. In 1711 the Kangxi emperor completed the construction of thirty-six vantage points inside the summer residence. The future Qianlong emperor was born the same year and later wondered aloud about the meaning for the dynasty of these two events, architectural and familial: “What cause and effect lies in that coincidence is incomprehensible.” 21 Qianlong multiplied Kangxi’s number of vistas by two, from thirty-six to seventy-two. In selecting this number, Qianlong no doubt sought to strengthen the link evoked by Kangxi between Jehol and Jiangnan, since seventy-two is also the number of peaks encompassed by the sacred Huangshan mountain. This mountain, the most prominent in the southwest of

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Mapping Chengde

the Jiangnan region, has a tormented topography that was a constant source of artistic inspiration. The number seventy-two, common to Huangshan and Bishu shanzhuang, extended to the Qianlong emperor’s residence some of the mountain’s sacredness.

Manchu Identity With frequent statements on the early date of the sinicization of the Manchu court, which is supposed to have begun well before the capture of Beijing, Chinese historiographers and nationalistic historians have generated confusion concerning the multiethnic nature of the Qing empire. They have wanted to cast the Qing monarchs as sinicized rulers of post-Ming China in order to stress the perpetuation of a sinocentered political order between 1644 and 1912.22 It should be recalled that the Qing empire was a non-Chinese political entity. The last dynasty to rule China was a dynasty of foreigners that began as a chiefdom in the mountainous border area of Liaoning and Korea, east of the Ming Great Wall. Aisin Gioro Bukuliyongshun, the legendary ancestor of the Aisin Gioro imperial clan, was born near the highest peak of the Changbai mountains. After Kangxi learned its exact location in Jilin, he ordered the offering of sacrifices to the mountain twice a year and forbade entrance into the primeval forest. Under the able leadership of Nurhaci and Hung Taiji, a federation of Tungusic tribes grew to form a new nation. Calling itself Qing after 1636, it had an invincible military organization, the Eight Banners system, that regrouped companies to which each Manchu family permanently belonged.23 After its invasion of China proper in 1644 and the progressive establishment of its control of Mongolia, Tibet, Turkestan, and Taiwan, the Manchu dynasty ruled what became the wealthiest, largest, and most populous empire in eighteenth-century Asia. Its power was based on the combination of a military administration by Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese martial Banners and a civil administration by Manchu and Mongol nobles who had co-opted Chinese officials to supervise together the chiefly Chinese bureaucracy. The Qing emperors were clearly aware of the significance of their ethnic identity and alliance with Mongol nobility for the safety of the Manchu dynasty. They often married the daughters of prominent families from Manchuria and Mongolia to respect the maxim that Shunzhi had laid down: “In the south, establish no kings; in the north, interrupt no alliances.” 24 The dynasty maintained a constant policy of protecting the Manchu language of the imperial clan and preserving the prestige of Mongol culture and Tibetan religion. The greatest sinophile among Qing monarchs, Qianlong was nonetheless a prolific writer in Manchu who glorified the Qing foundation myth in his Ode to Mukden.25 He demanded that Chinese not be used for communication with Manchu garrisons and ordered the compilation of referential works for Manchu shamanic rituals and clan genealogies. Manchu, referred to as Qingwen in Chinese, was the fundamental language

The Great Qing at Home

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of the Qing court, and its significance increased during the eighteenth century when the documentary language became a cultural emblem, a marker of ethnicity, and an artifact of the universalism of the Qianlong emperor’s reign.26 Tributary communications, shamanic rituals, and diplomatic negotiations were conducted in Manchu: Ritual communications could take place in Manchu: the Harvard-Yenching materials contain a Manchu memorial from a Ryükyüan king [Liuqiu wang shangmu, 1756] who stood high among the vassals the Ch’ing dynasty had inherited from its predecessor. 27

Manchu, of course, was the primary language of the commanders of the Eight Banners and the officials in charge of colonial affairs. Although edicts, regulations, and memorials were routinely translated into Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol, only the Manchu language had the function of granting confidentiality to intelligence reports, palace memorials, and family letters. For this reason, Qing emperors personally edited the translation of Manchu documents into Chinese and sought to prevent the teaching of Manchu to Europeans. The Manchu emperors’ simultaneous responsibilities as emperors of the Chinese subjects, khans of the Manchu-Mongol populations, and bodhisattva for the Tibetan and Mongol Buddhist believers assumed an urban expression. The Qing dynasty elaborated and maintained a system of three “capital cities” also called “central” or “universal cities” [ging hecen or gemun hecen]: one in Manchuria (Mukden), one in China proper (Beijing), and one in Inner Mongolia (Chengde). During the second half of the Qianlong era, the Chengde capital was also meant to serve as an alternative religious capital for Tibet, as the Manchu emperor wanted to use the Waiba miao temples as venues for effective control of the Tibetan Buddhist clergy. Similar political concerns for centrality and universality marked the architecture of the three capitals, although the religious ostentation characteristic of Chengde was absent in the landscape of Beijing, and Beijing’s ceremonial monumentality was missing in the Chengde palace district. The difference between Beijing and Chengde can be cast in positive terms: the dynastic enterprise expressed itself in Beijing through ceremonial restraint and in Chengde through religious ostentation. Imperial duties as understood by the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing emperors included the seasonal migration of the court between Beijing and Chengde, huge hunting parties in Mulan, military expeditions in southern China and in Central Asia, pilgrimages to sacred mountains, and sumptuous tours of inspection along the Grand Canal. Two outstanding literary products glorified the northern origins of the dynasty in Manchu and Chinese: Kangxi’s album of poems on Chengde and Qianlong’s ode to Mukden. In Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang, or Han-i draha Alin-i tokso de halhün be jailaha gi bithe, the Kangxi emperor celebrated the scenes of his summer capital; in his glorification

22

Mapping Chengde

of the Qing oldest capital, Shengjing fu or Mukden i fujurun bithe, the Qianlong emperor placed Manchu “among the classic cultural institutions of the world.” 28 The institutionalization of Manchu literature, the sponsorship of Tibetan Buddhism, and the control of Chinese scholarly activities (by having scholars focus on the compilation of dynastic histories and extensive encyclopedias such as the “Four Treasuries,” or Siku quanshu, project) completed the intellectual monuments of the Qing “Great Enterprise.” Manchu and Chinese were the two official languages of the imperial administration that normally used Manchu to communicate with non-Chinese speakers. Three other languages were officially recognized: Mongol, Tibetan, and Uigûr. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors had the Tibetan Buddhist canon and its commentaries translated into Mongol for distribution in Mongolia. Multilingual stelae, which often have one face written in Manchu and Chinese and the other in Mongol and Tibetan, are scattered throughout Chengde and Mulan. A large majority of the population of the Manchu empire was Chinese, spoke only Chinese or Chinese-related dialects, and lived in Inner China, south of the Great Wall. The Manchu dynasty attempted to enforce a policy of linguistic, racial, and spatial segregation that aimed at preserving the martial character and ethnic cohesion of the Qing Banners while limiting Chinese colonization of Manchu and Mongol lands. To safeguard the stability of the North China frontier, the Qing had closed the dynasty’s territorial base north and east of the Great Wall to Chinese immigration.29 Chinese were normally not allowed to reside, marry, or buy land in Manchuria and Mongolia. This policy failed; perhaps nowhere was its failure so early and complete as in Jehol. The Han colonization of Jehol that started in 1703 marks the effective beginning of the present cycle of China’s colonization of Inner Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan, and Tibet. The study of the Manchu imperial landscape through the objective materialization of the environmental concepts held by Qing monarchs, however, remains delicate because this landscape had a political and symbolic character that has been much more critical than the ethnic features that shaped the cultural landscape of the empire. The Manchuness of Chengde was a manifestation of the Qing intention to remind Chinese and nonChinese subjects of the distinct regional heritage of the Manchu dynasty. This Manchuness also arose from the Qing dynasty’s will to impose strict control on territory, religion, and society in Central Asia. Chengde provided a landscaped environment for the ceremonial conduct of state affairs on both sides of the Great Wall. As a seasonal capital, Chengde combined Chinese and non-Chinese components in the architecture of its landscape, and these components were clearly identifiable as such to the nobles, officials, and priests summoned to the court. Visitors entering Bishu shanzhuang through the Lizheng gate or walking along the Wulie bank on their way to the Waiba miao temples would have observed a striking number of architectural references to suzerainty. Placed prominently in the imperial landscape of Chengde, these references took advantage of the

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mountainous circuit that surrounds the capital in order to transcend the natural landscape of Chengde and reflect the geography of the cultural landscapes of the Qing empire. Although it played on spectators’ subjectivity, Qing landscape nonetheless retained an objective existence, firmly anchored in time and space. The Manchuness of the imperial landscape created in Chengde and Jehol resided in the spectacle of a space entirely conceived for the exercise of power. This spectacle was no less apparent in the painting scrolls of the Mulan hunting expeditions than in the oblique views describing the ceremonies held in the gardens of the summer capital.30 The impress of Manchu authority on the Chengde landscape is visible in contemporary iconography, such as the Tai wan dili tu map and the Rehe xinggong quantu map. The Qing rulers’ global conception of space granted external cohesion to a landscape deprived of internal coherence. Their cohesive vision enabled the secondary landscape to reconcile the diverse components imported into the summer capital and its territory. The built environment of Chengde would have been perceived as the juxtaposition of closed physicocultural systems, or what eighteenthcentury philosophers called “climate,” which corresponds to the notion of fengtu. The Chinese notion of climate has a broader meaning than “local climate,” since it takes the sense of “local conditions of the physical and human environment.” The geographical provenance of the residence’s microclimates was evident enough that visitors to the court would have recognized Bishu shanzhuang as the reduced version of their own landscape inside the Qing empire. These microclimates, however, acquired a meaning they did not have in their previous environments: they became nothing other than the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ fixed images of their supremacy.

Chengde Spectacle The adept modeling of the primary landscape and interpretation of the secondary landscape transformed Chengde into the legitimate seasonal center of the Qing empire. The construction of Chengde expressed in a manifest way the Manchu ambition to dominate the cultural, physical, and metaphysical geographies of Eastern and Central Asia. The two prominent monarchs of the Qing dynasty, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, shaped in person the landscape created at Chengde. From this summer capital, Qing emperors developed an imperial landscape largely liberated from the natural constraints of Jehol. The interpretation of this built environment was modified through refined tools of landscape rhetoric. The presence of architectural replicas, literary metaphors, metaphysical references, historical allusions, and techniques of spatial manipulation modeled on the landscape of southern China in turn served to influence visitors’ perception of the landscape of Chengde and Jehol. The Manchu summer capital integrated visual symbols that legitimated the dynasty’s claims to the heritage of significant places located outside Qing

24

Mapping Chengde

Jehol. Site and area were adapted to express landscape values imported into the frontier area of Jehol. As a medium, the imperial landscape of Chengde formed a coherent channel of communication from the Manchu monarchs to Chinese and non-Chinese subjects. Its summer residences in Beijing and Chengde alone are sufficiently rich to establish that the Qing court led a life of spectacles and to imply that the notion of spectacle was essential to the Manchu enterprise. The court’s ceremonial feasts and the rituals of its daily life guaranteed harmony between Heaven and human society, between rulers and ruled. Between September 8 and 21, 1793, the Qianlong emperor gave six feasts in Chengde, ordered seven temple sacrifices, conferred various rewards twice, held three receptions, issued twenty-three imperial instructions, and composed a poem about Lord Macartney’s embassy.31 As an average example of court activities, this remarkable succession of events in the imperial landscape clearly fulfills the definition of “Society of the Spectacle” that theoreticians of the Situationist International movement developed in the 1960s: The spectacle is the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue. It is the self-portrait of power in the epoch of totalitarian management of the conditions of existence.32

Seen from this theoretical perspective, imperial landscape served conceptually as the changing background of a theater stage. Techniques for transforming landscape into spectacle that had already been developed by the Chinese gentry of the Jiangnan region were applied in the layout of vantage points at the hill station. Qing emperors chose to employ these techniques because they were well suited for the spectacular administration of their empire and not because of the Chineseness of most of these techniques. A theoretical question arises concerning the spectacle of architectural metaphors and the political message that the emperor wanted to express through his landscape. Does an internal continuity exist in the spatial progression of the Chengde landscape from the urban landscape in the south and the residential landscape at the center to the religious landscape in the north? Further, does Chengde represent a rupture from the internal coherence displayed by other imperial sites of Inner China? These sites enclosed in their palaces and gardens both ceremonial centers and places of leisure. Like Chinese emperors before them, Manchu monarchs designed themes in their gardens to affirm two of their important roles: holders of the “Celestial Mandate” and princes in the kingdom of belles lettres. The Qianlong emperor is credited with more than 42,000 poems, and he wrote verses, read, or painted every afternoon. Qianlong’s bold claim to excellence in poetry was engraved on the Gulige stela, along the main road of the Bishu shanzhuang mountain district: “In the middle of the Chengde mountains, we consider that we have

The Great Qing at Home

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surpassed the Tang and Song dynasty poets.”33 Chengde’s landscape display of these two imperial roles did not reflect the internal coherence that these roles have had in the Chinese tradition of landscape architecture. The Chengde landscape, conceptually a synthesis of landscapes and physically a segregation of landscapes, instead proved its Manchuness by reinterpreting previous dynasties’ landscape precedents and by integrating Chinese and non-Chinese factors of landscape creation. Jehol primary landscape, the settlements of Bannermen’s colonies, the opening of roads, the construction of Buddhist temples, and the formation of Chinese urban and rural environments all contributed to the elaboration of the Manchu imperial landscape. Unlike Chinese dynastic capital cities such as Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Chang’an, Chengde represented an idea that Manchu and Mongol officials supported without reservations: the idea that the emperor can express the universality of his rule through a landscape incorporating non-Chinese as well as Chinese modalities. Both the Kangxi and the Qianlong emperors gave names to the outer temples that reflected the dynasty’s overall concern for the universal reign of Manchu peace.34 In the Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors publicized the vistas of the summer residence. Each vista engraving received a title, an introduction, a poem, and scholarly annotations. The Manchu and Chinese versions of the album were given as gifts to the relatives and vassals of the Qing court. The album became more widely accessible when the poems and vistas were added to the chapters of the Chengde Gazetteer. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors thus ordered the multiplication of visual elements (stelae, pavilions, vistas, temples) that referred to landscape archetypes of China and Central Asia. In doing so, they summoned to the defense of their enterprise arguments that were nearly specious. The reference landscape for the Potala temple of Chengde, for example, was the Tibetan Potala in Lhasa, and not the Chinese Potala of Putuo island, off Ningpo near the Zhejiang coast. The Qianlong emperor used Chinese respect for historical precedents to justify the choice of a non-Chinese architectural model: the Lhasa model was older. His will was to incorporate symbols from the sites most celebrated by the several cultures of the Manchu empire, with the result that Chengde secondary landscape generated many historical and geographical references that were not strictly Chinese, either in their spatial materialization or in the way they were understood by contemporary spectators. Chinese geomancers objected in vain to the construction of the Sheli pagoda of the Yongyou temple, and the nine floor pagoda collapsed. The stubborn emperor ordered its reconstruction in 1764. According to a local legend, geomancers later approved the emperor’s choice of its location only after reassessing the topomantic situation of the still standing pagoda in the landscape of Chengde. This pagoda is one example among many of justifying dramatic changes in the initial landscape by rereading the altered site.

26

Mapping Chengde

The Chengde summer residence exemplified the Qing landscape ideal: a metaphorical stage for separate landscape vistas that would evoke models of imperial landscape. To endorse these models in a credible way, such a stage could only be built in a place lacking a landscape identifiable as proper to itself. The landscape proper to Chengde is defined as the sum of local Jehol idiosyncratic landscapes that did not convey the universal message of Qing supremacy. By the end of the seventeenth century, Jehol had lost its proper landscape. The area was severely depopulated, either because the construction of homes and roads had been declared forbidden on its grounds, which was particularly the case for hunting reserves, or because its population had been deported by the Ming dynasty or drafted by the Qing dynasty into its Banners. The Kangxi emperor was attracted to the site of Chengde precisely because of the absence he noticed there of a preexistent cultural landscape. The creation of an imperial landscape that Chinese and Mongols would consider as truly Qing was easier at Chengde than it had been at historic Kalahetun, the first site of the Manchu dynasty summer capital in Jehol. Kangxi’s explanation for moving the Qing summer residence from Kalahetun to Chengde could not have been based solely on considerations of distance and convenience, since Chengde was farther than Kalahetun from Beijing. The emperor’s desire to live in the wilderness of the Wulie river may instead have been due to his long quest in Jehol for a place devoid of an anterior landscape. He may have found such a place at the hunting lodge of Rehe shangying, where he decided to have a mountain hamlet built.35

CHAPTER 3

Hamlet and Imperial Residence After he returned, all he found to say about Chengde was that it was more or less a third rank city, that had nothing beautiful except for the emperor’s palace.1

The Emperor’s Road to Virtue Two points should be stressed when studying the Qing Emperor’s Road to Chengde: its novelty, since the previous road through Jehol had adopted a different course, and its relative impracticability as a steep route only usable in an age of ready manpower. It seems that Rehe dao was the only name that the Qing dynasty gave to the network of roads and post stations that extended into Jehol from Gubeikou to Mulan. Hans Hüttner, a member of the English diplomatic party, gave the name Emperor’s Road to the road from Yuanmingyuan to Bishu shanzhuang that Lord Macartney’s embassy took in September 1793 when the Qianlong emperor summoned it to Chengde: The Emperor’s Road from Beijing to Jehol is 418 li long, or 22 German miles, and is fully repaired twice a year. . . . That Emperor’s Road is as clean and as smooth as the floor in one of our drawing rooms.2

The emergence of urban and military centers in Jehol had always depended on a reliable communication network between capital city and frontier cities. The Liao dynasty (916–1125) was apparently the first to open a regular road with post cities from Nanjing to the metropolis of Zhongjing through the Gubeikou pass and the Luanhe river valley. The Jin (1115–1234) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties kept in service the same road into Jehol. It went through a few cities of the Shangdu circuit, such as Xing’an, which, due to the road, was prosperous to a certain degree at the time. In the late seventeenth century, the Qing dynasty opened a new road that went directly from Gubeikou to Luanping and there crossed the Wulie river, taking a shortcut and reaching Chengde sixteen kilometers further east. The otherwise remarkably precise Kangxi Atlas shows Mongol settlements but does not feature roads in Jehol. Chengde is featured in the atlas under the name Rehe cheng and is the only city included in Jehol.3 27

28

Mapping Chengde

In three decades, the Kangxi emperor built in Jehol a network of post cities and hunting lodges that connected Beijing, Chengde, and Mulan. Roads went deep into Mongolia and Manchuria until they reached Russian Siberia in the northwest and the Tartar Sea in the northeast. In 1724, when the Kangxi era ended, Chengde (then called Rehe) had become the administrative capital of Inner Mongolia. In 1795, when the Qianlong emperor abdicated, Chengde was the primary capital of Qing Central Asia as well as the secondary capital of Qing China. Only two days were needed to voyage between the two imperial capitals, and, in spite of the enormous distances involved, communication facilities linked them to the seats of Manchu government in Inner Asia: Mukden, Urga, Uliassutai, and Ili. The Yellow Church had built in Urga the important monastery of Da-Khüriye, where the Jebtstundamba Khutukhtu resided under the supervision of a Manchu amban resident who administered Outer Mongolia. In response to the Qianlong

Figure 8. The Emperor’s Road, Bishu shanzhuang Mountain District. Philippe Forêt.

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emperor’s questions on the surveyors’ travel speed, Father Benoît complimented the emperor for the efficiency of the road network in the frontier area. Such good order had been established on the roads leading to his newly conquered lands that traveling through the deserts of Central Asia had become as safe and comfortable as anywhere else in the empire.4 Chengde was then the center of a complex of three roads in Jehol: one running from Chengde to Beijing through Gubeikou, Liangjianfang, and Kalahetun; one from Chengde to Tangquan, with the return journey conducted by boat on the Wulie river; and one from Chengde to the two entrances (Sandaoying and Tangsanying) of Mulan, with stops at the lodges of Lanqiying and Boluohetun. Boats along the Yixun river carried travelers back to Chengde. After 1820, when the Qing Emperor’s Road to Chengde was no longer maintained, the nineteen hunting lodges could apparently not be preserved from decay. The purple building located in the basin at the eastern entrance to the Mulan

Figure 9. The Rehe spring, Bishu shanzhuang Lake District. Philippe Forêt.

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Mapping Chengde

hunting reserve, about ten kilometers north of Tangsanying, may be the only lodge extant today in Jehol. Only the outside walls of the Qing palace still stand. Neighboring villagers, ordered to build a meeting hall, perceived an urgent need to appropriate construction materials from the palace and destroyed its inside buildings in the early 1960s. The old pine trees surrounding the palace have not been cut down and the darkness of their foliage adds to the melancholy of the ruined palace. Modern transportation planners have neglected the Emperor’s Road to Chengde because it follows the steepest, if most direct, route and requires considerable maintenance. Part of it is now a dirt road with many fords and bridges that are difficult to negotiate. Travelers on this road in the 1930s found that transportation through the mountain passes of Jehol was unpleasant: the rocky defiles of the Emperor’s Road were narrow, and cautious driving was required in order not to break a spring or an axle.5 Thirty kilometers

Figure 10. Rehe quan, the spring of the Rehe river. Tadashi Sekino.

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farther west and parallel to the Emperor’s Road, workers have recently enlarged and resurfaced a road from Gubeikou to Chengde through Luanping. This road accommodates the increasingly heavy traffic of long-distance trucks and tourist-packed buses. The Jingtong train line that links Beijing to Chifeng now follows the course of the NanjingGubeikou-Zhongjing route of the Liao dynasty. The road stops at Luanping and at Longhua but not at Chengde or Weichang. Trains from Beijing via the Xinglong valley can reach Chengde but not Mulan. In 1991 eight trains circulated daily between Beijing and Chengde, and the 256 kilometers (159 miles) of the journey on the express train took 4 hours and 28 minutes. A second railroad line, the Jingcheng line, enters the Chengde station (originally designed by the Japanese) after meandering shamelessly through the geomantic land of the former Zunhua prefecture.6 The train that inaugurated Chengde station did not come from Beijing and Hebei province but from Chaoyang and Liaoning province. The Qing seal was impressed on the landscape through the construction of the Emperor’s Road, a direct if expensive transportation link from Beijing to the center of the North China frontier. The spatial continuum from Beijing to Chengde and Mulan received such an emphasis from the building of the Emperor’s Road in Jehol that the frontier continuum was eclipsed. This internal solidarity, the Manchurian-Jehol continuum, existed before the building of the Qing seasonal capital. The solidarity of the periphery became apparent again after the dynasty abandoned the site and ceased sponsoring a costly enterprise that extended from Beijing into Jehol, returning Jehol to the frontier continuum of which it had been a part. Manchuria, unlike Inner China, has not historically perceived Jehol as a frontier area. Communication between Manchuria and Jehol has been more consistent than communication between Jehol and Inner China, in part because the Manchurian image of the Jehol environment has been culturally close to the Manchurian image of its own environment. The less peripheral nature of Jehol from the Manchurian perspective results from the geographical continuum between Jehol and the other areas of the North China frontier: similar relief, climate, and ethnic heterogeneity. The Kangxi emperor gave the name of Bishu shanzhuang to his summer residence in 1708, when the first stage of the construction of the Rehe palace was completed. Built in 1710, the gate of the Zhenggong palace received a dedicatory plaque the following year, indicating the name of the summer residence and featuring the emperor’s calligraphy. Shortly after the completion of the Kangxi emperor’s building program, Father Ripa described the residence in the following terms: Various habitations, more or less large according to their use, are erected here and there in different spots about the grounds, one for his Majesty; behind this, one for his concubines, who lodge three to four in each room; another for his mother, others for his queens and others for the eunuchs. There is also a Miao, or temple of idols,

32

Mapping Chengde which is constantly attended by a great number of Taou-she [Dao shi] or priests of the devil, who are all eunuchs dressed in yellow. It is to this Miao that the Emperor goes with his ladies to make sacrifices and adorations during his stay in Je-hol.7

Close supervision of the construction of the many villas, gardens, and temples required frequent visits by the emperor, and the result must have been sufficiently agreeable to encourage frequent occupation of the hill station. Kangxi stopped forty-eight times at the hill station during the last part (1708–1722) of his reign; suggestions that he was getting too old for hunting met with his opposition.8 The Yongzheng emperor, in contrast to his father, personally disliked hunting and never went to Chengde or Mulan. Instead of residing in the hill station, Yongzheng sojourned to the imperial villa of Tangshan where the Kangxi emperor rested when traveling to Mulan. Located only thirty kilometers away from Beijing and south of the Great

Figure 11. The lake fed by the Rehe spring, Lake District. Philippe Forêt.

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Wall, the two hills of Tangshan have abundant hot springs that used to fill the two large marble bath tanks of the resort.9 The vigorous campaigns the Yongzheng emperor waged in Qinghai proved that he was not without political ambitions focused on the MongolTibetan frontier area. Yongzheng may have had doubts concerning the efficiency of landscape statements for the imposition of Manchu policy in Central Asia, and he did not seek to exploit the symbolic potential of the landscape of Jehol. His son, the Qianlong emperor, was a much more frequent visitor to Jehol: he went to Chengde and Mulan once every two years between 1741 and 1751 and every year from 1751 to 1795, except when he was mourning the death of his mother. He was eighty-five years old when he participated in his last expedition to Mulan. The city of Chengde gained considerable religious and political significance when the second phase of his ambitious building program began. Qianlong transformed Kangxi’s mountain hamlet but maintained the illusion that the monarch was leading a secluded life in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens, protected by the surrounding mountains and away from the vanity of this “world of dust.” New temples (ten of the twelve Waiba miao temples and the city temple of Wenmiao) and the addition of palaces, pavilions, temples, pagodas, and vistas inside Qianlong’s country retreat promoted the political status of the summer residence.10 Because the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors located most of the vistas in the islands or next to the canals that formed the lake district or along the eastern border of the mountain district, most of them look from the lake district toward the mountainous center of the residence and therefore away from the religious landscape that surrounds Bishu shanzhuang. Qingchui peak is the only topographical feature foreign to the summer residence that appears in the vistas of the Album of Imperial Poems.11 The landscape miniatures of the album succeed so well in negating the outside world that the peak appears to be inside the residence and not beyond its walls. By borrowing this distant landmark, the plates give the impression that the residence has no boundary. The Emperor’s Road network in Jehol incorporated in an obvious manner the road network within Chengde. The Bishu shanzhuang section of the Emperor’s Road is of particular aesthetic interest because it combined the natural landscape experiences inside the hill district with the cultural landscape experiences in the islands of the lake district.12 The road thus constitutes an axis for rotation between several landscape entities inside and outside the hill station: the Lizheng gate opens onto urban Chengde and its Chinese urban landscape; the Xibei gate opens onto the outer temples and its mostly Tibetan religious landscape. Because it provides a vast array of landscape experiences, the most significant road in Chengde is the road lying inside Bishu shanzhuang and not inside the city itself. Wide, well paved, and more than three kilometers long, this internal road links two gates of the summer residence, the Lizheng and Xibei gates. The emperor’s decision to develop a paved road of such magnitude within his gardens must be seen as linked to the val-

34

Mapping Chengde

orization of the vistas visible from it. The Emperor’s Road of the hill station leaves the Zhenggong palace at the northern Xiuyun gate, which is in the palace district.13 The road then skirts the western banks of the Ruyi and Neihu lakes and passes Zhuyuan temple on the right and Wenjin library on the left. After following the boundary between the lake and hill districts, it finally enters the hill district at the Songyun valley entrance. Admission into the hill district is gained through the fortified Kuanguan gate. The remaining two kilometers to the Xibei gate consist of a slow, steady climb along a straight creek and under imposing pine trees.14 A few paths leave the road and lead to mountain villas and kiosks that remain hidden in the woods. The encircling Jehol mountains, visible from all the landscape districts of the hill station, form the common landscape background; they represent the “untouched” natural landscape of the North China frontier area, an outside landscape district whose barrenness valorizes the vegetation inside the summer residence districts.15

Figure 12. Southern entrance to the Saihu lake archipelago, Lake District. Philippe Forêt.

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35

The Summer Residence Space inside and outside the hill station is organized to underline the centrality of the summer capital. Mapping the re-creation of the Qing empire inside Bishu shanzhuang led me to a comparison of the palace district with the palace complex of the Beijing Forbidden City, the lake district with scholars’ gardens in Jiangnan, the prairie district with the woods of Mongolia, the hill district with the frontier, and the summer residence as a totality with the Qing empire as a whole. Three types of environments can be distinguished immediately in the summer residence: the commoners’ landscape of Chengde and Jehol,

Figure 13. The Bishu shanzhuang Lake District seen from the Mountain District: Prairie district (foreground); Jinshan temple (center); Jehol mountains (top). Philippe Forêt.

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Mapping Chengde

the elite landscape of Bishu shanzhuang and the lodges on the Emperor’s Road to Mulan, and the religious landscape of the Waiba miao temples. All four districts of Bishu shanzhuang (the palace, lake, prairie, and mountain districts) belong to the elite landscape. Through the Songyun valley road, the Xibei gate connects the elite landscape to the religious landscape of the outer temples. To the northwest of the hill station, the bodhisattva Mañjusrï’s temple faces Xibei gate; to the northeast stands first the Potala temple and then the Sumeru temple. South of the hill station, the Lizheng gate connects the Zhenggong palace to Chengde city. Metaphorically, the Lizheng gate also connects Chengde to Beijing in historical and architectural terms. Lizheng was the name of the main southern gate of the Mongol capital Dadu before becoming the name of the main southern gate of the Manchu summer capital. The location of the Lizheng gate of Beijing during the Mongol dynasty was approximately where Qianmen gate is now standing, at the southern end of Tian’an men Square. The architecture of the Lizheng gate has also been compared to that of Zhengyang men, the main southern gate of Beijing inner city. The erection of the Lizheng gate officially and publicly transformed Qianlong’s summer residence into a Qing /Yuan capital, as it reproduced the Lizheng gate at the entrance of the former imperial cities. Two features should be noted concerning the landscape design of the Qing emperors’ summer residences of Beijing and Chengde. The first is that Yuanmingyuan is absent of equivalents to the prairie and mountain districts of Bishu shanzhuang. The gardens of the Beijing summer residence do not enclose the natural hills, valleys and prairies of Bishu shanzhuang, although Yuanmingyuan abounds in man-made hills and Yuanmingyuan landscape vistas are able to “borrow” the Xiangshan mountain background ten kilometers away. The second feature is a general lack of interest shown by Chinese writers in the hilly and wooded areas of Bishu shanzhuang. This tradition continues in recent Chinese descriptive literature on Chengde. Chinese landscape architects have considered the prairie and mountain districts of the hill station to be attractive only as a background that enhances the beauty of the palace and lake districts: The charm of South China landscapes is combined with the ruggedness of the north. . . . The palaces and the lakes are the major attractions; the plains and the hills have lost most of their original charm.16

A comparison between Bishu shanzhuang and Yuanmingyuan reveals the distinctive contribution made by the topography of Chengde to the formation of the Manchu landscape. The Kangxi emperor began the construction of Yuanmingyuan, the “Garden of Perfect Splendor,” in 1709. In the main artificial lake of the garden, nine islands represented the nine political divisions of the Xia dynasty as described in the classical work Yugong.17 Following the aesthetic precedent set by Bishu shanzhuang, the landscaping of Yuan-

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mingyuan was based on the famous scholars’ gardens of Jiangnan. In 1772 Qianlong completed Kangxi’s summer residence in Beijing by adding two gardens: Changchunyuan, the “Garden of Eternal Spring,” and Yichunyuan, the “Garden of Blossoming Spring.” During the emperors’ sojourns in Yuanmingyuan, the administration of the empire was conducted from two main halls located south of the Jiuzhou islands. South of the residence, buildings in Haidian housed delegations of court agencies and the six ministries and officials summoned to the court. The inclusion within the walls of Bishu shanzhuang of mountains and prairies occupying not less than 80 percent of the summer residence grounds provided the space needed to serve not only as capital of an empire but also as place of transition for the existential experience of landscape. The mountains of the hill station conferred to Chengde the spatial means needed for conceptual transformation from political capital of an empire to place of transition between physical and metaphysical empires. In Chengde the

Figure 14. The Prairie District with its Mongol camp, with Qingchui peak beyond. Philippe Forêt.

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smoothness of the Jiangnan landscape of the lake district is married to the vigor of the northern frontier landscape of the mountain district. Celebrating these two landscapes in aesthetic or political terms, Chinese scholars have consistently misunderstood the geographical meaning added by the northern landscape. In other words, the elements at the hill station that scholars have most appreciated and effectively studied have been the landscape elements of Yuanmingyuan duplicated at Bishu shanzhuang and not the landscape elements of the frontier that predated Chengde. The existence of the mountain district, and not its cohabitation with the lake and palace districts (also present in Yuanmingyuan), is, however, the principle feature that made the hill station a remarkable place for landscape transition. A tremendous interest in the mountains of the summer residence marked the Manchu perspective. The Kangxi emperor valued them so much that every album plate of Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi depicts mountains, and these mountains are made to look higher than in reality.18 A lake appears in only 64 percent, a plain in 33 per-

Figure 15. Wanshuyuan prairie and Yongyou temple. Tadashi Sekino.

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cent, and an island in 14 percent of the vantage points that the album plates depict. This proportion reveals aesthetic priorities that the actual locations of the vistas did not support, since the places chosen for their scenery are, in their majority, in the lake district and outside the mountain district.19 The landscape paintings and engravings of Bishu shanzhuang have caused confusion between the Kangxi emperor’s taste for natural mountains and Chinese scholars’ taste for artificial mountains. It can be argued that the Manchu emperor desired this confusion. Due to the Qianlong emperor’s attentive and lavish patronage, the hill station of Chengde prefecture became several capitals in one: the administrative center of Jehol and Mongolia, an alternative religious capital for Tibetan Buddhism, and a new cultural core for garden art and for Chinese and Manchu belles lettres. The building program of these three capitals in one was not completed before 1792, three years before the Qianlong emperor abdicated. During the following Jiaqing era, new pavilions were put up, but after the emperor’s accidental death in the hill station in 1820, the Qing court stopped organizing expeditions to Jehol and allowed Chengde buildings to deteriorate. Also designed by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, the Yuanmingyuan gardens in the Beijing suburb of Haidian became the only summer residence of the Qing court after 1820. The oldest Qing villa of Yuanmingyuan was the Kangxi emperor’s Changchunyuan residence built on the ruined grounds of a mansion that had belonged to a relative of the Ming Wanli emperor (1572–1620).20 The Yuanmingyuan and Yiheyuan imperial residences of Haidian were connected to Beijing by boats that traveled on the Kunming lake and Changhe canal until they reached Baishi bridge, near the Xizhi gate of Beijing walls. A twelve-kilometer cruise to Haidian was certainly more comfortable than palanquin or horseback riding for more than eight hundred kilometers in the wild Jehol mountains. Strong political motives led earlier Qing emperors to journey to Jehol. When these motives weakened, the topography and climate of the hill station of Chengde were no longer attractive. Water was one of the most important physical features of the site of Chengde, as it was able to take many useful forms. Water was rainfall for the fields, a spring for the residence lake, a river for transportation and irrigation, mist for poetical inspiration, and yin for the local geomancy. Running from north to south, the Wulie river flows to the east of the summer residence and of the city before joining the Luanhe river some twelve kilometers south of Chengde. The Kangxi emperor built a dam to protect Chengde from floods, since after summer rains the Wulie river often deserved its name and became dangerously wide. Wulie river floods once destroyed parts of the Kangxi emperor’s palaces.21 The Rehe spring and Rehe river have presented no such danger to the city. The name “Rehe” has been used for both the spring that flows into the lakes of the hill station22 and the small river that flows from the residence lakes into the Wulie river, itself a tributary of the Luanhe river. Records have often confused the short Rehe river with the much

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mightier Wulie river, also called Rehe in eighteenth-century sources. Summer monsoon rains dramatically increase the volume of water carried by the Luanhe river and its tributaries, the Yixun, Wulie, Laoniu, Baihe, and Liuhe rivers near Chengde.23 Yearly rainfall is 570 millimeters and may have been greater during the eighteenth century, although no direct evidence indicates the magnitude of climatic change in Jehol. The Wulie valley is surrounded by hills that are related to two mountain ranges: the Yanshan mountains to the south and west and the Xin’an mountains to the north. Strange geological formations around Chengde attracted first monks and now tourists; Qingchui peak is the most remarkable of these.24 The basin of Chengde itself is encircled by hills rough enough to look like mountains, with altitudes varying from 400 to 600 meters.25 This mountainous circle offers natural protection that may explain why no fortified wall has ever surrounded the Qing summer capital, although the landscape components of Chengde (summer residence, villas, temples, city proper) are all individually walled:

Figure 16. Restored villa in the Mountain District. Philippe Forêt.

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Chengte, better known as Jehol and now the capital of Jehol Province, Manchoukuo, is a natural fortress surrounded on all sides by a range of mountains, steep, craggy and treeless. Hence no attempt has ever been made to build a wall—a rare instance among the towns originally laid out by the Chinese [sic].26

A second explanation for the absence of city walls may be related to the insignificance of Chengde itself, which the emperor may perhaps have perceived as a suburb dependent on the imperial residence, not unlike Haidian, the suburb south of Yuanmingyuan. The Chengde hills are lower than the hills bordering the Emperor’s Road from Gubeikou to Chengde and from Chengde to Mulan. With its narrow valley openings and a central basin jointly occupied by Bishu shanzhuang and Chengde, the site morphology of the Qing summer capital is reminiscent of the hunting circles of Mulan.27 The city lies at an average altitude of between 320 and 350 meters, the northwestern part of Chengde being higher than the southeastern part of the city. Located north of the city and pre-

Figure 17. Ruins of a villa garden in the Mountain District. Philippe Forêt.

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venting urban development in that direction, the hill station occupies an area of 560 hectares (1,384 acres), an area comparable to that of the residence of Yuanmingyuan. Bishu shanzhuang follows the same relief pattern as both Chengde and Beijing, with a lower area in the southeast and a higher area in the northwest. Bisected by two valleys (Songyun and Lishu), the mountain district dominates in a spectacular way the lake district of the summer residence. Low altitude and the protection afforded by hills serve to moderate the harshness of the Jehol continental climate in Chengde. Chengde’s yearly mean temperature is 8.8°C. The number of days with frost does not exceed 210 per year, which is a comparatively low figure for Mongolia. Winter winds are less powerful than in Mulan, and the temperature is not so cold: the January average temperature is minus 9.3°C in Chengde, compared with minus 13.2°C in Mulan. Summer in Chengde is slightly less humid and hot than in Beijing: July average is 24.4°C in Chengde, compared with 25.8°C in Beijing. The man-made Saihu lakes may have created a microclimate that was at least less humid, if not cooler, than that in the Yuanmingyuan residence near Beijing. Licent reports that mist filled the Wulie valley opposite the summer residence.28 It is possible that Kangxi designed the artificial lakes and hills of Bishu shanzhuang with the goal of funneling breezes through the mountains, over the lake, and toward his residence. Names given to landscape vistas do suggest that the emperor enjoyed a fresh breeze from the lakes.29 Chinese scholars conducting formal analyses of Chengde have traditionally divided the Bishu shanzhuang summer residence into four districts and isolated the landscape of the summer residence from surrounding Chengde and Jehol, whose landscape they usually ignore. The theoretical justification of such morphological division has never been detailed. In this chapter, the same division into four areas is respected because it provides a convenient framework for a simple description of the hill station, even if it remains thoroughly inadequate for analysis of the microcosmic and macrocosmic geographies of the Qing summer capital. Descriptions of the four districts are always given in the following sequential order: the palace district, the lake district, the prairie district, and finally the hill district. Scholars have typically noted the spatial analogy between the summer capital and empire, as each of the hill station districts refers to landscape entities in the empire. The imperial landscape of Bishu shanzhuang would seem to be the sum of four otherwise independent, self-sufficient, and self-coherent spatial entities organized in this succession. This consensual view appears to be insufficient for landscape analysis, as it does not establish a case for a comprehensive view of progression in landscape representation. This four-step division, however, suggests a linear progression that advances along the Emperor’s Road, which is the only axis of the summer residence that connects all the landscape districts. The progression moves from Lizheng gate in the southeast to Xibei gate in the northwest and from a low-lying, water-rich, flat and open environment to a more elevated, naturally wooded, mountainous, and secluded environment. It moves

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at the same time from a culturally rich environment of numerous buildings and vistas to an ecologically rich environment of many tree and plant species. Chinese researchers have not discussed this linear progression that leads into the wildest part of the hill station. In its conception, this axis is not entirely different from the circuit of landscape experiences designed by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, since a number of vistas are located along the Emperor’s Road of the hill station. Circuit and axis meet tangentially on the west coast of Ruyi Lake.

The Hill Station Districts The palaces are located in the southeast portion of the summer residence; a strong wall, gates, and a guarded esplanade separate them from the city. Five compounds of enclosed buildings face the city and constitute the palace district: the Zhenggong palace, Wanhe songfeng villa, Qinggong palace, Songhe residence, and Donggong palace. Fire later destroyed the last two palaces. The arrangement of buildings is relatively formal and symmetrical, with successive courtyards and halls leading from south to north and from public areas to the emperor’s private apartments. The Wanhe songfeng villa is the oldest palatial complex; its building architecture was modeled after the Xiequyuan villa of the Yuanmingyuan summer residence. Looking north from the ridge where it stands, the main hall of the Wanhe songfeng villa commands a general view of the lake district landscape.30 The simple layout of Zhenggong, the main palace of the summer residence, is made up of a succession of nine courtyards separated from one another by halls and gates. The emperor carried out his duties in the front halls but lived in the back hall, the ninth hall, as the ninth heaven is the highest of all the celestial levels. Entrance to the Zhenggong palace is effected from the south, through a series of three gates that lead to two important halls, the Danbo jingcheng and Yanbo zhishuang halls.31 The first of the three gates is the massive Lizheng gate, which the Qianlong emperor erected in 1754.32 Lizheng men, the “Gate of Splendor and Propriety,” is the only gate of the summer residence that had its name inscribed in all the languages of the Qing empire: Manchu, Mongol, Chinese, Uigûr, and Tibetan. The other gate signboards used Chinese, including that of the Zhenggong gate on which the Kangxi emperor wrote “Bishu shanzhuang,” not without miswriting the bi character.33 Built in 1710 by Kangxi, the front hall was used for formal occasions such as the reception of vassal dignitaries and the emperors’ birthdays. Important guests such as the Sixth Panchen Erdeni and the Mongol Torgüt khan were honored in the Shizi chamber. The palace district was a modest and much smaller architectural duplication of the Beijing Forbidden City. Designed for the conduct of official affairs, Zhenggong palace architecture expressed the rural plainness sought in a mountain hamlet of unpainted buildings surrounded by paved courtyards and a few stern pine trees.34 This plainness has

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been connected by Chinese scholars to the ideal of self-restraint advocated in Confucianism. It might better be related to the primary attraction of Chengde, which was the simple life that the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing emperors enjoyed there. They found in their mountain hamlet a renewal of the traditional Manchu virtues strongly advocated by the Kangxi emperor: simplicity, frugality, and martial living conditions. The Qianlong emperor’s description of the austere Mukden Ancestor Temple manifested a similar concern for plain virtues.35 The Manchurian temple gates matched the simplicity of the building architecture; the inner and outer walls were made of earth, and common lamps were used to light the rooms. The major aesthetic attraction of the hill station for the Qing emperors was the landscape of the lake district. It was the focus of Qing architectural activities in spite of its relatively small size. The lakes’ water area covers less than 10 percent of the summer residence’s 560 hectares, but its 55 hectares represent six times the size of the palace district. Cartographic distortion seen in Qing paintings of the hill station emphasized the major aesthetic contribution of the lake district and its privileged relationship with the palace district. By contracting the mountain district, the “Bishu shanzhuang zong tu” map (in Rehe zhi) distributed the hill station buildings throughout the summer residence in an equalizing manner that did not reflect the true size of the respective areas within the residence. Qing painters did not see a contradiction in diminishing the size of the mountain district and depicting artificial mountains higher than in reality. Most of the vantage points conceived by Kangxi and Qianlong emperors for the enjoyment of the summer residence landscape vistas took advantage of the landscape resources offered by the lake district. Bishu shanzhuang’s pavilions, kiosks, rockeries, and bridges were closely modeled after those of Jiangnan gardens, and the vantage points of the lake district were inspired by vistas typical of the lower Yangzi region between Nanjing and Hangzhou. Scale does not remain constant in these oblique views of the summer residence but is subjected to manipulation. The techniques of landscape architecture dramatized that which is aesthetically significant, the naturalized landscape of the lake district, while that which has little artistic value, the natural landscape of the mountain district, is minimized by the paintings.36 Sixty-four percent of the Kangxi landscape vistas employed one of the Saihu lakes as an element of plate representation; the Album of Imperial Poems puts a lake in the foreground of 45 percent of the plates; the depiction of a villa standing by a lake is found in 36 percent of the plates.37 Out of the seventy-two locations of landscape scenery depiction in the Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, only ten were located in the hill district; sixtytwo vantage points were concentrated in the lake district or its vicinity.38 Saihu, literally “Frontier Lakes,” was the collective name for all the hill station lakes. Qing iconography of the Saihu lakes in paintings has generally exaggerated the actual size of the lake dis-

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trict—twenty percent of the summer residence grounds—in order to amplify the Jiangnan heritage of the hill station by depicting the inner island gardens and buildings in a luxuriously detailed way. There are eight Saihu lakes: Banyue lake north of the Wanshuyuan prairie district; Neihu lake at the foot of Zhuyuan temple and north of Ruyi lake; Ruyi lake west of Ruyi island; Chenghu lake between Wanshuyuan prairie; Ruyi island and Jinshan mountain; Shanghu lake and Xiahu lake, both south of Ruyi island; Jinghu lake; and the southernmost Yinhu lake. The same symbolic reasoning that transforms the islands of Bishu shanzhuang into continents turns the eight lakes into the Eight Seas. Kangxi’s point in designing and naming Ruyi island was evidently to connect the geographical center of the lake district to a number of parallel symbolic registers. The name, function, and shape of the island have meanings in several registers. Ruyi island is the most important island of the Saihu archipelago on several accounts: it is centrally located, it is the largest, and its many courtyards housed major official and private activities. Ruyi zhou would mean “As You Please Island.” Its name comes from having been designed to look like the letter S, the form of a ruyi scepter, which originally was a short sword. Symbol of success, the ruyi scepter was often presented to officials to honor them, and indeed Qianlong offered such a scepter to Lord Macartney. The shape of the ruyi scepter has had a religious significance because it suggests a lotus petal, and Buddhas are often depicted sitting on a lotus. Capable of responding to every wish, the pearl of ruyi, or Cintämani, is the philosopher’s stone. A ruyi scepter is also supposed to be shaped like a medicinal fungus.39 In practical terms, the function of Ruyi island was to duplicate in a rural setting the formal setting needed for many of the rituals that were performed in the Zhenggong palaces. To receive their Mongol guests, the Manchu emperors utilized the large facilities of Yanxun shanguan house.40 Plays were performed in a nearby theater to entertain the court and its guests. Ruyi island’s southernmost building is the Wushu qingliang hall, a cool, bright, and spacious retreat from hot summer mornings. The layout of the lake district, therefore, formed lakes and islands in an archipelago marked by gardens and buildings that were copied from the wealthy cities of Jiangnan. The Kangxi emperor, furthermore, placed the highest point of the lake district next to the Rehe spring. A recess of Chenghu lake hides Rehe spring, three hundred meters north of the Jinshan mountain. The tallest structure in the lake district is Shangdi ge, or Jinshan ting, a pagoda erected on the Jinshan mountain, itself a small island east of Ruyi island. Emperors conducted ritual ceremonies to two supreme Daoist deities at the Jinshan pagoda. At the foot of the island, the Tianyu xiancheng hall spreads its corridor in a semicircle that leads to an embankment.41 Pagoda and hall were copied from the building architecture of the Jinshan temple founded in 1021 in Zhenjiang. Pictures from the 1930s reveal a severely damaged pagoda that had lost its walls and doors and a hall that had been taken down. East of the Jinshan mountain, a fish farm was built during the 1960s.

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In unintended ways, the remains of its tanks and dikes and the prosperity of its aquatic vegetation participate in the southern China landscape of the lake district today. The hill station park administration restored the Jinshan mountain superstructures in the early 1980s. As large as the lake district, the prairie district received little attention from Chinese cartographers and painters employed by the Qing court, presumably because the aspect of the wooded plain was not Chinese enough to retain their aesthetic attention. The Kangxi emperor evidently did not share his Chinese subjects’ lack of interest, since the “Garden of the Ten Thousand Trees” was designed as early as 1703. He ordered the planting of various trees to form a prairie district that spread north of Chenghu lake and the Jiangnan district. This aspect of the district made distinct reference to the wooded natural environment of Mongolia. The Qianlong emperor added to Wanshuyuan three extensions of the lake district that encircled the prairie district: the Wenjin library in the west of Shimadai, the Chunhao xuan villa in the east, and the Sheli pagoda in the northeast (now under restoration). In short, Chinese landmarks evoking the cultural landscape of Jiangnan surrounded the Mongol-looking prairie district, itself a large island. Completed in 1774, the library was modeled on the Tianyi pavilion of Ningbo, in Zhejiang. As one of the seven book depositories of the Qing empire and the recipient of the Siku quanshu encyclopedia, the library granted a scholarly significance to the Qing summer capital. The Sheli pagoda is the only structure that remains of the Buddhist temple of Yongyou, built by Qianlong on the two models of Bao’en temple in Nanjing and Liuhe pagoda in Hangzhou. The four stelaes of Yongyou si were translated by Otto Franke, and the text that explains in four languages the rationale of the temple foundation reveals some of Qianlong’s contradictions about his private life, his religious beliefs, and his public functions between 1751 and 1764 (the dates of the first and second erections of the pagoda of Yongyou si): When, as a boy, I was allowed to come here with my imperial ancestor [Kangxi], I wandered about, peaceful and happy; it was no time of rest and yet there was rest. . . . I have built in my summer residence next to the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees [Wanshuyuan], a sanctuary that shall bear the name “Eternal Protection” [Yongyou]. . . . It shall be a sign that Säkyamuni’s Gridhraküta and Vajräsana [two holy places near Bihar, India] rejoice in the protection of the Heavenly Dragon [Qing emperor]. . . . Coming generations shall see from this stele that in honorable war actions I have followed the examples of my forefathers and spread fear and veneration, and not that the constant propagation of Buddhist teachings has been my highest concern.42

The prairie district, too, had a political and ceremonial function. The Qing creation of a Mongol campsite was consistent with the two effects desired for the Wanshuyuan landscape: flexibility in time and space.43 Yurts and low fences were erected for parties,

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concerts, and receptions and were removed when these activities ended. The district was then restored to a “natural” landscape. A Qing map of the Wanshuyuan Mongol camp shows the emperor’s throne and a table at the center of a gigantic tent; on its eastern and western sides stand parallel ranks of Buddhist priests, Mongol nobles, and Qing officials. Two groups of musicians, imperial sons-in-law, lower ranking Qing officials, Mongol nobles, and the representatives of the Court of Colonial Affairs and Ministry of Rites are placed outside the tent.44 To the west of the Mongol camp, the Qing court organized horse trials and archery contests in the field of Shimadai, as described by Father Attiret. After having nominated this Jesuit missionary to the mandarinate, Qianlong ordered him to go to the Wanshuyuan garden to sketch the site and the places that were to be used as the background for the painting that represented the activities of the party held July 5, 1754.45 The missionary noted that most of the games consisted in wrestling fights, horse races, and military exercises, except for the theater play and fireworks.46 As indicated by Father Attiret’s painting, the prairie also accommodated precisely arranged banquets that the Manchu emperors offered to Jüngar and other Mongol tributaries.47 On September 14, 1793, the British ambassador and his retinue were admitted into this tent to present in a jewel-encrusted box George III’s letter to the Qianlong emperor. William Alexander, a painter attached to Lord Macartney’s embassy, depicted diplomatic activities in Wanshuyuan although he did not witness the reception of the tribute bearers in front of the imperial yurt.48 In the 1930s fewer than fifty trees, mostly pine trees deprived of their lower branches, were still standing in Wanshuyuan. A fairly sparse forest of elms and willows sheltering David’s deer is what remains today of the forest that originally covered the fifty-seven hectares of the Wanshuyuan prairie. The prairie district has been converted to new commercial uses that reveal the Chinese domestication of Mongol culture. A compound of thirty-one air-conditioned tents has been permanently erected by the tourist department of Chengde on the grounds of Wanshuyuan. Now a disco bar with attendants clad in “authentic” Mongol dress, the imperial tent has resumed the amusement function of the former Mongol camp: Sadly, this area is now disfigured by rows of ugly, utilitarian buildings and where tents were once set up by the emperors to enjoy open-air entertaining, there is now the most grotesque ‘yurtel’, or compound of yurts in which visitors can stay overnight. Pop music blasts out of speakers around the compound and a great central yurt is used as a dance hall! 49

The tacky addition of the Deng Xiaoping era to the district architecture is moderated by the Stalinist style of monumental hotels and low administrative buildings in Wanshuyuan. Park employees’ red-brick dormitories are aligned in rows near a deer nursery. Trees were

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cut down to make room for the construction of workers’ buildings and two hotels for visiting party and government officials of the Maoist era. Near Chenghu lake, south of a triumphant Soviet-styled hotel, melon and flower fields are farmed where vegetables for the imperial table once grew. The humble vegetable garden may have suffered little from the neglect and destruction of the hill station’s patrimony by successive political regimes in China. Court poetry and paintings did not precisely record either the function or the ecology of Bishu shanzhuang’s wooded hills. The largest of its four spatial components, the mountain district, occupies the western half of the summer residence; its hills become steeper in the north where they face the Shizi gully. Lord Macartney’s relation of the tour he was offered of the “western garden” unknowingly described the two kinds of aesthetic impressions, “momentary” and “total,” that the mountain district was expected to provoke: From the great irregularity of the ground and the various heights to which we ascended we had opportunities of catching many magnificent points of view by detached glances, but after wandering for several hours (and yet never wearied with wandering) we at last reached a covered pavilion open on all sides, and situated on a summit so elevated as perfectly to command the whole surrounding country to a vast extent. The radius of the horizon, I should suppose, to be at least twenty miles from the central spot where we stood, and certainly so rich, so various, so beautiful, so sublime a prospect my eyes had never beheld. I saw everything before me as on an illuminated map, palaces, pagodas, towns, villages, farm houses, plains and valleys watered by innumerable streams, hills waving with woods and meadows covered with cattle of the most beautiful marks and colours. All seemed to be nearly at my feet and that a step would convey me within reach of them.50

The “finest forest scenes in the world” that the British ambassador described in his journal did not survive the fall of the Qing dynasty. Aerial photographs taken by Tadashi Sekino in the 1930s show a landscape of devastation: with the exception of pine trees, all the trees had been cut down or looked as if they were dying. Short grass covered all the intensely eroded slopes. Nearly all the villas, rest lodges, and temples that once dotted the summer residence mountain have been destroyed. There were once forty-four sites, with pavilions, lookout kiosks, and inner gardens. Qing miniature illustrations and photographs of the 1930s have preserved their appearance, at that time in a sad state of disrepair. The Japanese army later razed some constructions, like the Zhuyuan temple destroyed in 1945. Maple, oak, and pear trees have been planted since the 1970s, almost exclusively in the central and northern parts of the summer residence’s mountain district; ancient pine trees are now registered for better protection. Although the southern part of the hill district has not yet been reforested, the hill station administration has succeeded in restor-

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ing part of the former beauty of the mountain landscape that had suffered from deforestation. Today so little has been preserved of the villas and temples that building foundations are almost impossible to find in the lush vegetation of the mountain district. A few hilltop villas and kiosks were restored during the 1980s, notably the Yiwang villa and both the kiosks of Chuifeng luo zhao and Si mian yun shan. From their commanding position, the kiosks offer splendid views of the lake district and the landscape outside Bishu shanzhuang: peasant farms and fields, Qingchui peak, and the panorama of Jehol mountains. Tourists’ explorations of the hill station’s four landscape districts usually end in the kiosks that top the easternmost ridge crest of the summer residence, above Wanshuyuan. From there the lower city of Chengde disappears as it merges with the barren hills of the frontier. The wooded imperial residence stands out as a small green island lost among gray hills that are backed by the high and austere mountains of Jehol. They stretch to the horizon, southward to the Yanshan mountain, northward to the Mongol plateau.51

The Display of the Outer Temples A remarkable religious complex erected under Qianlong’s direction stands east and north of the imperial resort, separated from it by the Wulie river and by the usually dry river bed of the smaller Shizi river. Several geographical configurations are suggested by the locations of Chengde temples. Four cultures and empires met under the round sky of the Buddhist capital, and it would be tempting to give each a quadrant of the basin: Chinese empire in the southeast of the summer residence, Tibetan empire in the southwest, Mongol empire in the northwest, and Manchu empire in the northeast. But the locations of these temples do not support this geographical division, whereas their styles celebrate for the Manchu patrons of Mongol believers the fusion of Chinese and Tibetan architectural traditions. To explore the logical connection between site and religious spectacle, I would like to introduce the idea of a mandala configuration in Chengde. As a magic figure, a mandala can form a circular altar on which Buddhas and bodhisattvas are placed. As a religious concept, a mandala organizes each of the ten worlds of being so as to fulfill the operation of the law. The construction of the Waiba miao temples enhanced the Buddhist status of Chengde as well as the emperor’s status as a Buddhist deity. As the object of the cult that Living Buddhas enjoy, the emperor could effectively control religious affairs in Mongolia and Tibet.52 In Chengde the Qianlong emperor proclaimed that he was a reincarnation of Mañjusrï. Qianlong ordered several paintings of himself as the reincarnation of the Sagacious Mañjusrï bodhisattva, the savior of all living forms and the personification of the Buddha’s intellect. The chief disciple of the Buddha, Mañjusrï is often represented holding a sword or a book and sitting on a lion, since he is the stern guardian of wisdom.53

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The Manchu emperors were called reincarnations of Mañjusrï in Mongol and Tibetan materials, such as the biography of the lCan-skya Janggiya Qutugtu, in which the Kangxi emperor is referred to as Mañjusrï, the sublime Kangxi.54 The building of the Mañjusrï temple north of Bishu shanzhuang was closely related to the Qing dynasty’s respect for the Wutai mountain. The first character of this other name, qing, is the same as the Qing dynasty name. Furthermore, Kangxi gave the name qingliang to the Wushu qingliang vista in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens.55 The Qing court believed that the name Manchu [manju] had originated in the bodhisattva’s name, Mañjusrï. No cartographic evidence pertaining to the temple terraces proves that the Qianlong emperor planned to reproduce in Chengde the strict geometry of a mandala. The highly visible temple terraces may explain the name Tai wan dili tu given to a Qing map of Chengde. The title of this map means “Map of the Geography of the Bay of Terraces.” Tai here are the terraces of the outer temples as well as the terraces of the fields cultivated on the eastern bank of the Wulie river. Calling the basin of Chengde “Bay of Terraces” reinforces the fusion of the religious and profane elements that participated in the landscape spectacle that the emperors enjoyed seeing around the hill station and in their paintings of Bishu shanzhuang. The map title also invites the observer to compare the Bay of Terraces with the Mountain of Five Terraces, in other words, to compare Chengde with Wutai shan.56 The hill station has its own terrace: Yuetai, the “Moon Terrace,” is located at the foot of Jinshan temple. From Ruyi island, the emperors could contemplate the moon rising behind the pagoda of Jinshan and the peak of Qingchui. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors made a total of eleven pilgrimages to the Wutai mountain temples, as they wanted to foster the Mañjusrï-emperor association. The Mañjusrï bodhisattva resided in Wutai shan, a mountain that all Chinese and Mongol Buddhists considered sacred. Wutai mountain is also known as the clear and cool mountain of Qingliang shan, which stands east of the central Kunlun mountain. According to Avatamsaka, the Qingliang mountain is the bodhisattva Mañjusrï’s residence and Wutai shan is another name for the same mountain. The five flat terraces of the mountain complex have a crescent-shaped configuration and have no vegetation as they rise above the tree line. The Qingliang name alludes to the mountain’s frigid climate; visitors have recorded midsummer snowfalls. Located on the mountain’s highest terrace, the northern terrace, Mañjusrï’s statue has attracted crowds of pilgrims since the fourth century c.e. Before its annexation by Buddhist believers, Wutai shan was a Daoist center. In 1761 Qianlong visited the Mañjusrï sanctuary erected where legend held that the bodhisattva had personally appeared. He ordered copies of the Mañjusrï’s statue of this Wutai shan sanctuary, and two temples were built to shelter the statue replicas, one west of Yuanmingyuan and the other one north of Bishu shanzhuang.57 Chengde served a broader role in the organization of the Qing religious empire. The

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Kangxi emperor had already built two temples in 1713, the Puren and Pushan temples, both of them in the Chinese style although constructed to serve Mongol religious needs. He had also built the Huizong temple in Dolön to celebrate Qing victories in Outer Mongolia. After the mid-eighteenth century, the Qianlong emperor decided to grant his summer capital the status of religious metropolis of Central Asia and reinforce his proximity to Mañjusrï. Ten major temples were erected between 1755 and 1780 on the eastern terrace of the Wulie valley and the northern slope of the Shizi valley. With the exception of the Mañjusrï, Luohan, and Guangyuan temples, all of them incorporated elements of Tibetan landscape architecture. Built in 1764, the Anyuan, or Ili, temple is said to have been modeled after the Jüngar Guerzha temple of Kulja, a city destroyed in 1756 when eastern Turkestan was conquered; it is difficult to evaluate the actual source of the temple’s architecture. The Pule temple was built in 1766, a few years before the Potala temple (1771), the Mañjusrï temple (1774), and the Sumeru temple (1780) were completed. The most important temple in terms of sheer volume is the Potala: it occupies twenty-two hectares, or ten times the average size of a Chengde temple. Its huge and purple Dahong terrace can be seen from the distant Pule temple. An extant painting within it records the Qianlong emperor’s meeting with the Torgüt khan Wobaxi at the Potala inner temple of Wanfa guiyi.58 In diplomatic terms the Sumeru temple may be the most significant of all Waiba miao temples, as the Panchen Lama resided there when he visited the Qianlong emperor in 1780.59 Several Waiba miao temples, such as the Pule temple, had no permanent religious communities and were under the responsibility of the Imperial Household Court. The largely Mongol clergy of eight other temples was managed by the Court of Colonial Affairs, which had permanent offices in Beijing for Lama administration. One linear feature in Chengde bears emphasis, as its perception is no longer as evident as it was when the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors conceived it. I derive the concept of “axis” from Raymond Christinger’s normative notions of temporal and spatial “gates” in mythical geography. Between the known and unknown realms stand features of the real world, such as sacred rivers and mountains, that religion constitutes as gates for the entrance into the sacred world. I call “axis of landscape transition” the road that leads to these gates and allows passage to mythical space through the architectural reproduction of a ritual environment. Both Chinese and Tibetans share the idea of division of the cosmos into separate spatial levels, or what I call here “landscape layers,” and hence speculate on the possibility of ascending the hierarchy of these levels. There are usually seven or nine layers between the depths of the Sino-Tibetan Earth and the heights of the SinoTibetan Heaven.60 A straight axis runs from Qingchui peak to Jinshan temple through the very center of the main hall of Pule temple. Qingchui peak is much more than a strange needle-shaped rock configuration. The peak invites comparison with the sacred Sumeru mountain, since

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it is shaped like a pillar and associated with a lake (more precisely, with the eight lakes of Bishu shanzhuang from which the temple on Jinshan island emerges). As a pillar at the center of Heaven and Earth, Qingchui /Sumeru touches the Polar star and forms the axis around which the world rotates. The problem of the location of the peak on the eastern margin of the basin and not at the center of Chengde was solved by the construction, in the middle of Bishu shanzhuang gardens, of a substitute to Qingchui, which is Jinshan, and with the creation of an axis between the natural and artificial peaks. Because of its position on this axis and the mandala architecture of its back section, Pule si is the most critical structure of the outer temples for analysis of the spectacle of Chengde as a site for landscape transition. The Pule temple mandala may have been intended to compensate for the Waiba miao temples’ cosmologically defective orientation, as these temples were not arranged on the four quadrants of the imperial residence square. To complete the foundation of the temples that would bring peace and happiness to his Mongol subjects, Qianlong selected in 1766 a terrace above the western bank of the Wulie river, between the Puren and Anyuan temples, to be the site of the Pule temple: There was still a high and large space when I looked south of Qingchui Peak from the temples [Puning si and Anyuan miao]. Western Mongols [Dameng] all embrace Tibetan Buddhism [Huangjiao]. Since they follow their Buddhist faith and their customs do not change, I have added this temple [Pule si] to complete my elder’s construction of temples [the Kangxi emperor’s building of Puren and Pushan temples].61

Built for Outer Mongolian tribes, the Pule temple is described as a Tibetan-style mandala built on three square platforms. The mandala is protected by a circular pavilion, the Xuguang hall, covered by a conical yellow tiled roof, which Chinese scholars have compared to the conical and double eaved hall of Tiantan altar in Beijing, restored by the Qianlong emperor. The Pule temple is dedicated to Samvara, the divinity of intellect.62 Placed on a second mandala, the statue of Samvara stands in sexual unison with Vajravarahi, symbolizing the union of wisdom and compassion. Samvara represents “compassion for all beings” and Vajravarahi “transcendent wisdom;” the union of the two tantric statues makes manifest the Buddha’s spiritual attainment. The two-body statue of Samvara also symbolizes the fusion of the yin-yang principles.63 Samvara’s three heads look toward the Qingchui peak, while Vajravarahi looks toward the Jinshan mountain and the hill station.64 Samvara’s tridimensional mandala conception obeyed the Tibetan and Chinese cosmogonies that have traditionally associated a rounded sky with a square earth. More than religious, the temple’s role was to symbolize transition and unification in the Chengde imperial landscape. A symbol of Outer Mongolia’s union with the Manchu empire can be seen in the golden dragon above Samvara’s mandala, since the dragon emblematically represents the emperor and the dragon’s position above the mandala sig-

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nifies the emperor’s suzerainty. Qianlong had received the Samvara’s initiation from his spiritual preceptor lCan-skya qutugtu Rol-pa’i rdo-rje. The same preceptor later assisted him in orienting the Pule temple and in reinforcing the spiritual power of the site of Chengde.65 At Chengde the proper religious orientation was forbidden by the topography of the basin and was probably never even envisioned by Qing emperors. Only the Mañjusrï temple is appropriately positioned north of Bishu shanzhuang. The absence of a general plan does not, however, imply the absence of Tibetan or Chinese topomantic principles applied to the selection of the site or to the construction layout of each temple.66 Anne Chayet has listed the demands of Tibetan site selection, which are largely compatible with Chinese criteria. To summarize her list, the site must include a mountain in the back, hills in the front, and rivers on both sides that meet in a centrally located valley. Determining the auspicious site must take into account the “Four Pillars of Earth” and the “Four Guardians,” who are symbolized by specific topographical features, and the natural imperfections of the site must be corrected.67 Sekino Tadashi also observed the ways in which the construction sites of the Sumeru and Potala temples were adapted to local topography. The most striking difference between Beijing and Chengde according to Sekino was the failure to respect rules of symmetry in the layout of the inner buildings of Chengde. This lack of symmetry indicates the limits of Chinese influence in the architecture of the outer temples.68 Qing policy succeeded in controlling the Tibetan Buddhist clergy and its Mongol believers partly by sponsoring temple construction in Chengde. Landscape metaphors were not as complete as they might have been, since the Waiba miao stars occupied only the northeast of Bishu shanzhuang’s religious canopy. Geomantic demands were not so absolute that they could not be violated in favor of the Qianlong emperor’s concerns about a spatial representation that would exalt the dependency of the Tibetan church. Kangxi era temples were oriented southward, with entrances parallel to the eastern Bishu shanzhuang wall; Qianlong era temples were all located on terraced promontories, with entrances facing the hill station wall. The temples have been compared to the stars that surround the moon. Such a disposition around the lunar Bishu shanzhuang would symbolize the support given by the frontier populations to the central government of the Qing empire. Given Mañjusrï’s personal significance for the Qing emperors, the comparison of the hill station to the moon acquires a particular religious sense if one remembers that moonlight, yueguang, is the Chinese transliteration for Candraprabha, one of the three “honored ones” at the Mañjusrï court. During two of his previous reincarnations, the Buddha himself was called “Moonlight king” and “Moonlight prince,” Yueguang wang and Yueguang taizi.69

CHAPTER 4

Garden and Mountain Rhetoric The sacred mountains contain fine soaring peaks and fields of wilderness with special markers where strange animals roar and dragons rise to heaven, and the spots where wind and rain are generated, rainbows stored and cranes beautifully dressed. These are the places where divine immortals keep moving in and out. . . . The steep cliffs fall one thousand leagues into the bottom and the lone peak soars to ten thousand leagues high. . . . Its rugged mass is forever solid, together with the Heaven and Earth. Its great energy is eternally potent, in the span from the ancient to the future.1

Walking on the Garden Circuit A systemic approach uncovers the meanings of Chengde landscape within its cultural context by focusing on the concept of place wholeness and by extending the notion of the Emperor’s Road to the definition of landscape transition axes. The enumerative approach hitherto employed by scholars to describe Chengde gardens has here been discarded because following the residence paths in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens cannot lead to a discussion of the meaning of place and the importance of cultural context. This approach does not respect the plate-by-plate tour of Chengde gardens proposed in the vistas of the Album of Imperial Poems. Nothing in the Kangxi emperor’s compilation suggested a spatial division of Chengde gardens into autonomous entities. Claiming such a division would invite misinterpretation of Chengde’s landscape. The texts, annotations, vista titles, and landscape miniatures of the Album of Imperial Poems introduced a succession of garden vistas in time, not a sequence of garden vistas in space. The garden scenes of the summer residence were composed to offer alternating views of landscape for an observer as he moved through time. The hill station garden vistas were indeed designed to be nothing more than instants of totality on a circuit of landscape transition. Leisure gardens and parks have always been a component in the planning of Chinese imperial cities. These green districts were preferably designed north of the gray city and adjacent to the purple and yellow palace area. Jingshan park in Beijing was erected just north of the Forbidden City. Built in the northwest of Beijing, the Yuanmingyuan residence developed its gardens behind the emperor’s main audience hall, which faced the southern entrance.2 The Qing dynasty maintained game reserves near its three capitals for hunting game or confining exotic animals; such was the role of the Xiangshan mountain 54

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west of Yuanmingyuan and the Wanshuyuan prairie inside Bishu shanzhuang. Like other capital cities in China, Chengde had imperial gardens inside the summer residence walls as well as outside the city. Architectural historians too often have limited their studies to verifying that imperial gardens completed the planning of imperial Chengde. Work on the religious complex of Waiba miao has focused on the architecture and history of the buildings themselves and not on their gardens. The garden component was one item in a long list that included other architectural components such as palace city, administrative city, palace halls and courtyards, altars, temples and other ritual buildings, market area, and royal necropolis.3 A component of that list, Chengde gardens nonetheless have several characteristics that conferred to Bishu shanzhuang particular significance for the Manchuness of the imperial landscape.

Figure 18. Vista plate 12 of the Bishu shanzhuang gardens, entitled “Chuifeng luo zhao,” “Sunset on Qingchui Peak.” Source: Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi.

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In most of their work on Chengde gardens, scholars have devoted themselves to the study of the hill station gardens alone. The court gardens of the summer residence have elicited the strongest interest because researchers have generally assumed that gardens located outside the summer residence had no importance for the Manchu landscape spectacle. Scholars have also assumed that they could analyze court gardens without referring to the local morphology, the architectural context, or the cultural notions of spatiality that directed their design. Research conducted on the lake district gardens of the summer residence has not included the landscape of the surrounding districts. Perhaps because of his Japanese cultural background, the historian of religion Sekino has been the only scholar to appreciate the quality of wholeness intrinsic to the inclusion of buildings and gardens inside the summer residence. A characteristic feature of traditional landscape architecture in China, this wholeness resulted from a desire for confusion between natural landscape and naturalized landscape, a confusion implicit, for instance, in Tadashi Sekino’s description of Bishu shanzhuang gardens.4 The neglected Chengde gardens are nevertheless significant, since a complete depiction of the created landscape of the Qing summer capital cannot be achieved without a description of the gardens outside the lake district. More important, these gardens were designed to serve as a metaphorical passage between landscape layers, from reduction of the imperial landscape to enlargement of the Buddhist landscape. These two accounts of landscape-making refer to two geographical orders, one objective, an exhaustive description of the outside world, the other subjective and a negation of the first order, a passage outside the illusions of the physical world. The numerous kinds of gardens in Chengde were redolent with many meanings for the Qing emperors and their guests. A depiction of each garden based on pictorial records confirms a crude classification based on their locations. Before dividing and regrouping the gardens of the summer capital, two remarks seem appropriate. Because a basic unity links all the various gardens, none of them can escape the Chinese concept of climate.5 Through the Chinese concept of climate, common membership to a single place unifies the elaborate gardens of Ruyi island and the terraced fields south of Puren temple. The Tai wan dili tu map underlines that unity. Both of these gardens belong to the same world of samsära, even if several physical delineations exist between Ruyi island in the west and Puren temple in the east: a lake, a mountain, artificial hills, a screen of trees, the residence wall, a second screen of trees, a dike, the Wulie river, and terraces. It should be added that the world of everyday experience in Chengde did not conflict with the metaphors expressed in its gardens.6 The Chengde gardens were all transcendent and immanent representations of the world, of course more so for the emperor, who contemplated the toiling peasants of Chengde from his mountain kiosks of Bishu shanzhuang, than for the peasants themselves.7 Examination of Qing iconographic materials shows that the Kangxi emperor divided

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the gardens of Chengde into geographical sectors that formed four quadrants around the pivot of Jinshan mountain. This division into a court center, an urban south, a rural southeast, a religious north and east, and a natural west was implemented from the very founding of the Qing summer capital. Spatial segregation between the garden types is quite elaborate. First, court landscape is separated from commoners’ landscape by a massive wall, as emphasized in the Tai wan dili tu map. Within the emperors’ own depictions of this court landscape, however, this wall is never visible: the thirty-six vistas of the Album of Imperial Poems depict court gardens without the wall that encircled the residence. Further, the court gardens are themselves replicas of commoners’ gardens, the result being that these gardens negate the reality of the outside world, with a complete blurring between what is inside and what is outside. The imperial gardens become the gardens of the empire itself.

Figure 19. Chuifeng luo zhao vista. Tadashi Sekino.

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Because inside gardens were replicas of the outside gardens, the internal duplication of elements found outside the hill station constituted a rhetorical method that implied the negation of the outside by an all-inclusive extension of the inside. In his gardens, the emperor was everywhere. The hill station gardens stood at the center of the Chengde complex. South of Bishu shanzhuang were the walled gardens of Chengde’s urban compounds. Monks strolled through religious gardens in the north and east of the residence; farmers tended their fields on a terrace in the southeast of the residence. Judging from their spatial positions in the Tai wan dili tu map, the Chengde gardens can be grouped into three functional categories: commoners’ gardens in the city itself and in its vicinity and peasants’ gardens behind the first ring of Chengde mountains; court gardens built

Figure 20. Vista plate 18 of the Bishu shanzhuang gardens, entitled “Tianyu xian cheng,” “Endless Joy in the Cosmos.” Source: Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi.

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inside the Bishu shanzhuang residence, with further subdivision into palace courtyard gardens, lake gardens, prairie gardens, and mountain villa gardens; and religious gardens, enclosed by temple outer walls. These categories can be subdivided into urban ornamental gardens and peasants’ fields, orchards, and vegetable gardens. The gardens of the imperial residence are functionally heterogeneous, unlike the homogeneous gardens of the other types. Closer examination of the hill station gardens indeed reveals that the summer residence possessed gardens of the two other categories—religious gardens and mundane gardens—inside its enclosure. But how religious or mundane were they? The imperial residence enclosed at least twelve temples, of which the most prominent were the Jinshan and Zhuyuan temples and the pagoda of Sheli. Curiously, the number of temples inside Bishu shanzhuang matches the number (twelve) of the temples outside the summer residence that belong to the outer religious complex. On the Tai wan dili tu map, both the pagoda of Sheli in the Yongyou temple and the artificial mountain of Jinshan temple stand out in the lake district. On the Rehe xinggong quantu map, however, the pagoda of Jinshan has been erased from the summit of Jinshan mountain.8 The incorporation into the geographical center of Chengde gardens of court gardens and gardens belonging to the mundane and religious quadrants added force to the Manchu claim of including in the summer residence the pivot of the world, a column through which microcosmos and macrocosmos communicated. Inside and outside the walls of the residence, maps describe temple gardens, orchards and vegetable gardens, scholars’ gardens, urban gardens, and finally the gardens of Jehol in the primary landscape of the frontier area. Court gardens are distinguished from mundane and religious gardens only in that, whatever their functions, they were located behind the walls of the summer residence and therefore belonged to the emperor’s private domain. Were the hill station walls so efficient, though, in cutting Chengde into two domains, a court and a commoners’ domain? The swift and public punishment of trangressors by Qianlong’s guards reinforced the height of the residence walls and ensured the inviolability of the imperial domain: One morning I passed by the Kuang-pi ssu-piao p’ai-lou [Guangbi sibiao arch] where thousands of people had gathered. The marketplace was crowded and heaven and earth resounded with boisterous laughter. Suddenly I saw a man beaten to death and lying in the street. I folded my fan, hastened my pace and wanted to pass by when one of our servants rushed up to me and shouted: “There is something strange to be seen!” I asked him from a distance: “What’s the matter?” He said: “Somebody stole peaches from the palace. He was beaten by the guards, he collapsed and fell to the ground.” I vented my disgust, ill-at-ease and without any further look I went away. 9

Hunting lodges projected the model of the summer residence gardens deep into Jehol and insisted on the continuum between space inside and outside Bishu shanzhuang, in other words, on the continuum between the landscape in the Manchu summer capital and

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the local landscape in these outposts of the Qing dynasty enterprise. Outside Chengde, modest equivalents to the mountain villas gardens of Bishu shanzhuang existed in the analogical gardens of the lodges on the Emperor’s Road. The Qing court gardens of the prefecture of Chengde were not all situated within Bishu shanzhuang: court gardens were designed inside the walls of the hunting lodges on the Emperor’s Road. These gardens contributed to a continuum of garden landscape architecture that supported the fiction that Chengde extended indefinitely into the empire: the emperor and his immediate entourage traveling from Chengde would repeatedly have seen the same garden that they had left. Qing gazetteer illustrations allow the assumption that the front segments of these Jehol gardens were conceived in a Confucian style, geometric and austere. Normally lodges had only Jehol scenery as back gardens; the only exception was the Kalahetun palace, whose gardens prefigured those at the hill station.10 Gazetteer plates often show complexes of symmetrical buildings containing three successive courtyards, partitioned

Figure 21. Vista plate 32 of the Bishu shanzhuang gardens, entitled “Jing shui yun cen,” “Mirrorlike Lake and Cloudlike Peak.” Source: Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi.

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with inner walls and galleries. In the front courtyard a few trees were planted on each side of the main entrance axis. Courtyard trees seem to belong to the same species that grew outside the palace, although bamboo, which perhaps is not native to Jehol, grew inside the courtyards. If they existed, rock gardens would have been located inside the third courtyard, unfortunately not depicted in the plates.11 By referring to the cultural landscape of Chengde, although at a less exalted level, lodge gardens repeated the landscape synthesis of Chengde at the site where they were built. Where is the place of the metaphysical domain that dominated Chengde and Bishu shanzhuang from the encircling hills of Jehol? In their common suggestion of landscape continuum, the gardens of the palace of Bishu shanzhuang and those of the Waiba miao temples both negated the objective existence of the Jehol landscape. Continuity in the case of religious gardens extended from samsära to nirvâna. Not all the religious buildings were included in the outer temple complex, as can be seen from the place names with tem-

Figure 22. Jing shui yun cen vista. Tadashi Sekino.

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ple endings located around the city and noted in Alphonse Favier’s Carte du Pé-Tchi-li. Furthermore, not all the Chengde or the hill station temples were Buddhist, and the imperial offices in charge of the Waiba miao temples did not administer all the Buddhist temples. Jinshan temple, for instance, was Daoist. At least one temple in the city was Confucian: Qianlong dedicated the Wenmiao temple to public education.12 This temple was built directly south of the summer residence Bifeng gate, in the growing administrative area of the city. Before its disappearance, Tadashi Sekino took pictures of its half-ruined gate and main hall.13 Situated in the interstices of the Chengde religious belt, between imperially sponsored temples, minor temples undoubtedly enjoyed the exclusive patronage of the Chengde population. Called “Laoye miao,” several of these temples may have been Daoist.14 They were later destroyed, but Qianlong-era maps have preserved their names and locations. Whether Confucian, Buddhist, or Daoist, these temples had gardens that probably did not display the mixture of Chinese and Tibetan landscape architecture so characteristic of the outer temples. These lesser temples, much more important for the local population than the spectacular Waiba miao temples, reestablish Chengde as a real city of modest importance. City gardens occupy limited space at the bottom of the Tai wan dili tu map and “Bishu shanzhuang yu Waiba miao quantu” map.15 If these gardens figure more prominently in the Rehe xinggong quantu map, it is because this map represents only public buildings: temples, court offices, and barracks. Trees and hills fill the space where there were in fact the low houses of the prefecture town. The city had no public park, but private gardens were half-hidden in the enclosed back courtyards of the most important houses. Treetops above their walls suggest that these gardens were apparently similar in architecture to contemporary Chinese gardens south of the Great Wall. Ideal landscape and urban garden archetypes were frequent topics of discussion and representation in Qing literature and art. In the prosperous southern cities along the Grand Canal, gardens formed the subject of an abundant iconography in which landscape vistas were both the cause and consequence of landscape paintings and poetry about landscape views. A passage from the famous novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, in which Xiqun’s project of painting the Daguan garden is debated, reveals the aesthetic principles of landscape creation: Now if you are going to paint this garden, unless you have ‘hills and valleys’ inside you, how can you expect to accomplish it? This garden is, you may say, like a painting: it has mountains, rocks and trees, towers, pavilions, and dwellings with specific degrees of distance and density, not too great, not too little, but precisely as it is.16

This discussion of Xiqun’s painting offers insight into the cultural context and aesthetic constraints that simultaneously produced pleasure gardens and their portrayals: maps,

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paintings, miniatures, and poems. Unlike the Daguan garden of the Dream of the Red Chamber, the Chengde urban gardens existed outside literary fiction, even if they were neglected by Qing court painters. The Manchu emperors’ gardens of the lake district of Bishu shanzhuang may be considered servile imitations of the private garden architecture cultivated by the Chinese gentry of Jiangnan. The wealthy salt merchants and bankers of Yangzhou, Changzhou, and Suzhou indulged themselves in prestigious ways by patronizing in their gardens art and book connoisseurs. They had developed their professional skills in hardscrabble Shanxi before moving to the cities of the Grand Canal. Like the imperial family, these nouveaux riches came from the northern frontier region. The opposition between the court gardens designed by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors and the urban gardens designed by officials and merchants in Chengde and along the Great Canal was therefore not absolute. The main differences were found not in design or ideals but in scale and means of representation. The owners of Chengde urban gardens did not com-

Figure 23. The restored Jinshan temple. Philippe Forêt.

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mit the imprudence of creating maps and landscape paintings showing such private gardens that might have competed in symbols with imperial gardens. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors used the rhetorical tools of reduction and transcendence in the creation and perception of the Chengde gardens. To bring out the supremacy of imperial power, their gardens had direct implications for the layered geography of the Qing dynasty summer capital. Textual and iconographic evidence on the layout of the cultural landscape has shown that Chengde gardens were largely conceived as a rendition of the pleasure gardens of southern China or the religious architecture of Tibet. The Bishu shanzhuang vistas modified the objective configuration of the basin to create a new subjective geography of the place by transforming the perception of natural topography of the site and adding superstructures such as the Jinshan mountain. To assist in the subjectification of the hill station, the Manchu emperors planned the construction of formal gardens of the palace complexes at the extreme south of the residence, private

Figure 24. Yuetai, the Moon Terrace of Jinshan temple. Philippe Forêt.

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gardens of the mountain villas that sit on the “gentle hill,” and a natural environment of prairie and forest north of the lakes. Most of the summer residence actually consists of a steep and large rounded hill covered mainly with evergreen trees, its summits topped by pavilions and its ravines concealing rest houses. Qing depictions have preserved, not without distortions, the appearance of the gardens built within the walls of the mountain villas. These gardens were similar to the now-extinct gardens of the road stations where the court stopped on its journey between Beijing and Mulan. The Qing emperors’ private gardens mixed together illustrations, poems, and villas and conveyed information that helps in the reconstruction of the gardens of the Chengde area and eventually the reconstruction of the landscape continuum that the Qing dynasty imposed on Jehol. The gardens of Chengde were pointedly designed to prevent objective analysis by playing simultaneously on several geographical scales and on several registers of meaning. Such gardens created what European observers perceived as aesthetic disorder: In China what they want almost everywhere is the reign of a beautiful disorder, an anti-symmetry. Everything follows this principle: it is a pastoral and natural countryside that they want to represent: a solitude and not a well-ordered palace according to all the rules of symmetry and proportions.17

The gardens of Chengde offered more diversity than has been recorded by visitors of the eighteenth century or scholars of the twentieth century. Outside the imperial residence, the Outer Temples have received the attention of architecture historians. Perhaps overwhelmed by the massive structures of the temples, they have omitted mentioning the religious gardens inside the complexes. The private urban gardens of Chengde have likewise never been studied, and Hou Renzhi’s study on the urbanism of Qing Chengde does not even record them. The agricultural gardens of the Chengde prefecture have not been the subject of research; relevant data, however, may be obtained from Japanese reports of the 1930s. Observers have been impressed by the seventy-two landscape vistas designed by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, mainly in the southeastern part of Bishu shanzhuang. Their variety has not only prevented researchers from examining other gardens in Chengde but has also prevented them from reconstituting a coherent image of the garden architecture of Bishu shanzhuang. Confusion between natural and naturalized landscape has been remarkably constant because it has stemmed from the persistency of the inability to sequentially differentiate primary from secondary landscapes. Most observers have confused the two ages of Chengde landscape and have mistaken the cultural landscape for the natural landscape. Father Ripa’s description of Chengde was the first to display confusion in describing the landscape sequence of the site: A hill rises gently from the plain, its sides studded with buildings destined for the emperor’s followers, and a copious spring of water, after winding round a variety of

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Mapping Chengde delightful slopes, forms a noble lake containing a remarkable variety of fish. To an admirable disposition of the ground, nature has here added the charms of a luxuriant vegetation. Throughout the vast extent of those regions of Tartary a tree is rarely seen. At Je-hol however, the plain, the slopes, and the hill are thickly covered with foliage; and the filberts, corianders, pears, and apples, though growing wild, have so delicious a flavour that they are served on the Emperor’s table.18

Ripa’s shortcoming is to credit nature for a lake and fruit trees that did not exist before 1703. His description, focused on the South China landscape of the hill station, shows how “a noble lake” can magnify the scale of garden vistas that occupy only a fraction of the residence grounds. The spectacle of the hill station gardens engendered a number of poems that served to complete the aestheticism of the summer residence. The Kangxi emperor selected thirty-six vistas and pavilions, to each of which he gave a four-character name. These names served as titles for the thirty-six poems he wrote in 1711. The peaceful vistas of his summer residence assisted Kangxi in understanding human nature and reinforced his Confucian love for the people.19 Accompanied by plates of the vantage points, the Kangxi emperor’s poems were published by the Qianlong emperor in separate Manchu and Chinese versions.20 When Qianlong toured his grandfather’s circuit of vantage points in 1741, he was so moved by the landscape scenery that he wrote a second series of poems using the same rhyme pattern. Fifteen years later, he selected in his turn thirty-six places inside Bishu shanzhuang as a background for his own series of poems. Out of deference to the Kangxi emperor, he gave his vistas names of only three syllables.21 Two painters at Kangxi’s court, Zhang Zongcang and Shen Yinghui, also celebrated the summer residence vistas in their oblique landscape paintings. The Qianlong emperor’s interest in gardens was directly linked to his pretension of acting as a scholar who was equally gifted in poetry, calligraphy, bibliophilia, and landscape architecture. His open pavilions were the locale of poetic discussion of nature, inspired by mist and springs, bamboo and pines, cliffs and vistas. The Qianlong emperor himself amply justified the use of scholars’ gardens for the purpose of re-creating in the imperial gardens of Beijing or Chengde the emotions aroused by the Jiangnan landscape. Rationale for the construction of the Yuanmingyuan court gardens was detailed by Qianlong in justifying his huge investment: serve the people, follow historical precedents, act with restraint. As a tender youth I [Qianlong] received the [Yuanmingyuan] palaces and gardens of the former emperors [Kangxi and Yongzheng]. I have been in constant fear lest I might bring shame upon myself and disgrace to my ancestors. Therefore, when I came to the throne and my officials proposed that I build other gardens, I refused. After three years of mourning I still lived in the old garden of my Imperial Father.

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Every emperor and ruler, when he has retired from audience and has finished his public duties, must have a garden where he may stroll and look about and relax his heart. If he has a suitable place to do this, it will refresh his mind and regulate his emotions, but if not, he will become engrossed in sensual pleasure and lose his will power.22

Beyond their disorderly appearance, the gardens of Chengde reveal an order imposed on the natural landscape by an all-encompassing conception of power. The patterns that spatially organized these gardens manifested three characteristics. First, the garden vistas and villa compounds refused to be reduced to one another to form a coherent landscape and were designed to deceive the observer, using techniques that played with distance and composition. Second, the ultimate rationale of these gardens resided in the architectural semiology of their political message and not in their morphological layouts or functional types. Qing illustrations, indeed, betrayed an underlying concern for the dislocation of the spatial unity of the place. Finally, the hill station gardens were modeled on architectural styles from throughout the Manchu empire. In short, the cultural geography of the imperial landscape of Chengde was instrumental in separating the gardens, as cultural expressions, from their physical settings and geographical locations. Similarly and at a different scale, the Manchu geography deported, isolated, and enclosed features from celebrated places in the empire. Scholars such as Anne Chayet have elaborated the thesis that Bishu shanzhuang served as a microcosmic representation of the geography of the Manchu empire. To do so, they have examined the modalities of interaction between a South China-type landscape in the south of the imperial residence and a Mongol-type landscape in the north, and between the religious landscape in the east and the natural frontier landscape of the west. In their research, however, they have failed to include the mundane and religious landscapes that surround Bishu shanzhuang in the larger context of the simultaneous environmental interaction between Jehol and Chengde. The garden features of the prefecture of Chengde were derived from the region of Jehol, while those of Bishu shanzhuang recalled the cities of Jiangnan, and those of the Waiba miao temples referred to a metaphysical order and to a distinct Tibetan landscape architecture. The garden complexes dotting the landscape of Chengde participated in defining the many facets of a relationship that combined at a single site landmarks of the Manchu empire such as Suzhou, Beijing, Mukden, and Lhasa. Court paintings and daily records of the monarchs’ activities have demonstrated that the gardens of Chengde provided one of the most desired settings for the conduct of administrative and religious affairs in an empire that counted not only Chinese literati, merchants, and peasants but also Turk herdsmen, Manchu and Mongol Bannermen, and Tibetan monks. The Manchu court gardens of Yuanmingyuan and Bishu shanzhuang stood outside

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Beijing, the conquered Chinese capital, and opposite Chengde, the growing Chinese urban center in Jehol. Analyzing the gardens of the Mughal emperors, James Wescoat noted that a conquering dynasty would find gardens built outside city walls a better focus of political fidelity and control than conquered cities. The order introduced in these gardens furthermore reduced the perceived complexity of the foreign cultural landscape.23 As part of the Manchu dynastic enterprise, garden construction in Bishu shanzhuang and in Yuanmingyuan was an architectural undertaking replete with political symbols. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors organized gardens following the same landscape policy they had implemented in the territorial organization of their conquests in China and Central Asia. The order they imposed at a much smaller scale mirrored that which they imposed at a larger scale in Jehol and in the Qing empire.

Ascending the Pivot of the World Like the Yuanmingyuan gardens, the hill station gardens were carefully laid out to serve as an arena for the affairs and ceremonies of the multicultural empire. What does spatial order in Bishu shanzhuang reveal about the Manchu perception of the complexity of cultural landscape in the Qing empire? The lake district of Bishu shanzhuang contains a total of eight lakes that isolate an archipelago of nine islands covered with man-made mountains. Only visible from Jinshan temple or from the mountain kiosks of the summer residence, this disposition nevertheless is reminiscent of two paradigms, Daoist and Buddhist. The significance of the figure nine for the nine islands of the hill station has to do with the numerological meaning of the character for “to reunite.” Nine is moreover the emperor’s ritual number, regardless of the actual sum of things imperial. Nine also assumes a qualitative value linked to the system of yin-yang polarity. The emperor has a yang function when he exercises his power and a yin function when he listens to his ministers’ advice. Finally, nine refers to cosmic change and regulation. In his explanation of the title Jiu bian [Nine Arguments], Wang Yi, a famous librarian at the Han court, wrote: The Nine Arguments are by the Great Officer of Ch’u, Sung Yü. Pien [Bian] is “to change.” It refers to elucidating the Tao and its Te [De, “virtue”] in order to persuade the king to change. Nine is the Yang number, the fundamental principle of the Tao. Thus: Heaven has the Nine Stars to regulate the North Star. Earth has the Nine Regions in order to establish the Ten Thousand States.24

The Buddhist landscape archetype is called Jiu shan ba hai. It corresponds to nine cakraväla, which are concentric mountain ranges that are separated by eight seas, together forming the universe. The central mountain of the nine continents is Sumeru, which is no less than:

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The central mountain of every world, wonderful height, wonderful brilliancy, etc.; at the top is Indra’s heaven, or heavens, below them are four devalokas; around eight circles of mountains and between them the eight seas, the whole forming nine mountains and eight seas.25

The concentric ranges around Sumeru are called Qi Jinshan, or the “Seven Jinshan Mountains.”26 The existence of a central mountain inside the summer residence would confirm that the symbolic composition of “Eight Seas in Nine Mountains” served as a model for the design of the Bishu shanzhuang lake district. More because it is the highest summit of the gardens than because of its location, Jinshan mountain is the best candidate for a metaphorical identification to Sumeru.27 It has already been noted that a central location for centrality was not necessarily a required condition in landscape architecture, since an architectural focus could be moved from a geometrical center to respond to cultural land-

Figure 25. Southern side of the Pule temple mandala. Tadashi Sekino.

Figure 26. The alignment of Pule temple and Qingchui peak. Philippe Forêt.

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scape needs. In the opening sentence of the Album of Imperial Poems, the Kangxi emperor emphasized the Sumeru-like function of Jinshan mountain: Jinshan Mountain [Manchu: Altahatu] produces a [geomantic] vein, [from which] warm currents divide a spring [Rehe spring]. The pool is rocky, the vegetation luxuriant, the [Wulie] river wide, and the prairie fertile. No disaster may hurt fields and cottages.28

Jinshan, the name that Kangxi deliberately selected for the pivot of his gardens, has strongly positive connotations in numerous registers. This choice makes clear that the emperor wanted to enrich the Jinshan pagoda of Bishu shanzhuang with a large number of historical, geographical, and legendary references. Jinshan, “Golden Mountain,” is a very usual name for temples.29 Located on the eastern side of the Chenghu lake, the island of Jinshan has since its completion in 1708 possessed a replica of the Jinshan temple in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province.30 The pagoda of Shangdi lou, Chengde’s replica of the Cishou pagoda of Zhenjiang’s Jinshan, is lower than its design model, having only three floors instead of seven. Its open wooden structure is also lighter. From their temple buildings, both Jinshan islands offered to the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors an all-embracing view of the surrounding, mostly aquatic, landscape. According to the White Snake legend, Fairy Baishe was imprisoned in a cave by an evil monk who without her consent had separated her from her husband. The rockeries of both Jinshan mountains concealed Monk Fahai caves in order to underline the filiation between Chengde and Zhenjiang temples. Both islands, in Chengde and in Zhenjiang, have hot springs in their immediate vicinities. The Kangxi emperor knew of other Jinshan occurrences. Jinshan is also the name of a mountain range north of the source of the eastern Liaohe river, near the city of Liaoyuan, northeast of Mukden. The Jinshan mountain of Manchuria is near the Soyolji mountain, the counterpart in Jilin of Mulan in Jehol. Both mountains were visited during the Kangxi emperor’s hunting expeditions in Manchuria. It is very possible that the emperor had toured both the Zhenjiang temple and the Manchurian mountain before ordering the construction of a new Jinshan that would be both a temple and a mountain in his summer residence. During the Ming dynasty, a Jinshan temple stood near the pass of Jinshan and the hill of Yuquan, northwest of Beijing.31 Jinshan refers to the name in Chinese of the Altai mountains, as jin is the translation of the Tujue word altai for “gold.” The toponym Jinshan alludes not only to geographical but also to historical continuity, since Jin by itself evokes the earliest name of the Manchu state, called Da Jin and Hou Jin between 1616 and 1636, and the name of the Jin dynasty that ruled Manchuria and North China before being crushed by Mongol troops in 1234. A Great Wall gate called Sima tai lies one hundred kilometers south of Chengde, east of the Gubeikou gate and

Figure 27. Qingchui peak seen from the Puning temple. Tadashi Sekino.

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near the mountain of Jinshan ling. Four Jinshan mountains—the stone-built island of the hill station, a natural island of the Yangzi river, a Great Wall gate, and a summit in Manchuria—assumed a particular significance for Kangxi. The Kangxi emperor’s Jinshan mountain proclaimed the universality of the ecumenical Qing empire in an elaborate way. Access to the Jinshan of Bishu shanzhuang was either by boat from Ruyi island to a large rounded embankment or from the continent along a narrow path that winds around rockeries. Might the first of these means of access symbolize the travels along the Grand Canal to Jiangnan—the Chinese core—and the second one, expeditions into the Changbai mountains—the Manchu hearth? On entering and leaving Bishu shanzhuang, Qing emperors ascended to the Shangdi lou, a circular pagoda on top of the Jinshan mountain, to offer sacrifices to Heaven. Two supreme Daoist deities were enshrined in the pagoda: the Dayu and Zhenwu emperors. Even the octagonal architecture of the Jinshan temple may be associated with the Sumeru sacred mountain, since constructions on the top of Sumeru are traditionally supposed to be round.32 The two structures at the summit of Jinshan are the hall of Tianyu xian cheng, “Hall of Universal Joy,” and the pagoda of Shangdi ge, “Supreme Emperor Pavilion,” which is also known as Jinshan ting, or the “Golden Mountain Pavilion.” In the Tianyu xian cheng vista, Kangxi had represented the superstructures built around and on the summit of the artificial Jinshan island. The plate shows how the island with its pagoda served as a spatial support for landscape transition. The comparative significance of the mountain and temple may be debatable, since details of contemporary maps of the summer residence disagree with each other: the mountain disappears under the accumulation of religious superstructures in the Tai wan dili tu map, whereas the mountain does not have a single building on it in the Rehe xinggong guan tu map. This would imply that Kangxi wanted to suggest in Jinshan a resemblance to the Jiu shan ba hai landscape archetype rather than a perfect identification with the Sumeru mountain, thus ensuring that the Jinshan metaphor as a cosmic pillar would never be more than a metaphor. It may also mean that he designed Jinshan to serve as a place for fusion of Chinese-inspired landscape vistas into the Qing landscape, replete with poems in Chinese and Manchu, a Daoist temple built on a Buddhist mountain, and a landmark of Jiangnan with a Manchurian peak. Although a Daoist temple crowned Jinshan mountain, the construction model for the pagoda was the Buddhist temple of Jinshan in Zhenjiang. The buildings of Bishu shanzhuang’s Jinshan temple were extensively damaged soon after the fall of the dynasty, which may indicate that former Qing subjects perceived the pagoda and hall as a metaphor carrying a religious and political message of which they disapproved.33 The alignment of the Jinshan mountain with Qingchui peak, east of the hill station, has already been noted. Jinshan was erected to form the highest mountain inside the gar-

Figure 28. The Potala temple of Chengde. Philippe Forêt.

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dens of the summer residence, just as Qingchui peak was the highest summit of the Chengde basin. Jinshan mountain and Qingchui peak formed the poles of an axis that the Kangxi emperor conceived as early as 1708. In his short discussion of the Jinshan pagoda, Otto Franke described it as one of the most beautiful vantage points of the hill station. From the pagoda, broad views reveal the layout of the residence garden district and the isolation of Jinshan by lakes.34 Several important features of Jinshan mountain need discussion on the basis of two plates that represent the Jinshan vistas conceived by Kangxi. These two vista plates are numbered 18 and 32 in the Album of Imperial Poems, illustrative of Kangxi’s two poems, “Tianyu xian cheng” and “Jing shui yun cen,” respectively. The connection between Jinshan and Qingchui is not made explicit in the illustrations of the Album of Imperial Poems; the island is not depicted when the peak appears in vista plate 12, “Chuifeng luo zhao,” and vista plate 21, “Qingfeng lü yu.” Otto Franke would have mentioned this

Figure 29. Ruins of the Mañjusrï temple. Philippe Forêt.

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axial feature in his study of the cultural landscape of Chengde if either vista plate 18 or vista plate 32 had included Qingchui peak. Six decades after the erection of Jinshan, the Qianlong emperor decided again to emphasize the crucial significance of the orientation toward the peak when he ordered the construction of the Pule temple mandala. In his dedicatory inscription to Pule temple, Qianlong stated that this temple was exactly aligned with Qingchui peak to form an axis.35 Between the peak and the temple, Qianlong’s axis merged with Kangxi’s axis, which continued westward to Jinshan mountain and Ruyi island. On the modern Bishu shanzhuang he Waiba miao quantu map, a linear alignment from east to west does connect the following points: the foot of Qingchui peak,

Figure 30. The Qianlong emperor’s seal. Philippe Forêt.

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the mandala of Pule temple, the Yuetai terrace of Jinshan pagoda, the Xiling chenxia, or “Early Dew of Western Mountain” pavilion, on Ruyi island. A second feature of note is the location of Ruyi island on the opposite side of Jinshan mountain, across Chenghu lake. Vista plate 18 shows how Ruyi island faces the halfmoon terrace of Jinshan mountain. The crescent of Yuetai terrace has a Buddhist meaning that predicts domination of China and Mongolia. The political meaning of the moon metaphor is revealed in one of the Buddha’s predictions: the Buddha told Yueguang’er that he would be reincarnated as a king when all China and Mongolia were converted to Buddhism. This optimistic prediction was the consequence of Yueguang’er’s pleading for the Buddha’s protection from his heretic father’s persecutions.36 Vista plate 32 figures a boat at the northern end of Yuetai terrace and suggests that a crossing took place from Ruyi to Jinshan, from the island in the west to the mountain in the east. The metaphor of the Jinshan-Ruyi couple derives partly from the political meaning, implied in the shape and name of the island, of Ruyi as the monarch’s scepter. A third feature concerns a different kind of passage, from the Bishu shanzhuang residence through Jinshan mountain toward a celestial universe and toward landmarks of Jiangnan. The Kangxi emperor explains this feature in two of his poems on the scenery viewed from the Jinshan mountain. The title given to vista plate 18 suggests the idea of passage, since “Tianyu xian cheng” may also be translated as “In the sky and cosmos [it passes] entirely unimpeded.” 37 Since the two names Tianyu xian cheng and Pule share the same meaning, “universal joy,” they both imply that Qianlong conceived the passage from Jinshan mountain through Pule temple to Qingchui peak as an axis for joy, which is of one of the three ways of accessing Buddhahood. The Kangxi emperor wrote an introduction to his poem on the Tianyu xian cheng vista that insisted on these two characteristics of distance from Jinshan mountain and passage through the mountain: In the middle of the lakes stands a peak; its summit has a terrace with three buildings on it; to the north is the god’s pavilion; its top is connected to the clouds; its bottom is adjacent to water. It looks as if the climb to Miaogao peak, the hazy clouds of Beigu, and the wind and moon of Haimen are all encompassed [from Jinshan] in one look.38

Kangxi rephrased the notions of distance and isolation in the first two lines that followed the introduction: With rosy clouds as its background, the storied pavilion [of Jinshan] should be a hermit home [bu ju].39 The human world is far away from this magnificent place.

Less enigmatic, vista plate 32’s title “Jing shui yun cen” may be translated as “Lake [as smooth as] a mirror, hill [as high as] the clouds.”40 Jing is mirror; jing may also refer

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to Buddha’s response to prayers. Shui means “water” and here has the meaning of hu, “lake.” I suspect that “Jing shui yun cen” may allude to Liu Songyuan’s Ling ling chun wang poem: “Yun duan Goulou cen,” or “Clouds break off at Goulou Peak [Hengshan mountain].” Jinghu lake lies south of the Jinshan mountain, exactly behind the Jinshan pagoda on vista plate 32, but it is probable that these mirrorlike waters are those of the Chenghu lake, the “Limpid Lake,” that surrounds Jinshan mountain. The hill of the plate title here designates the island of Jinshan mountain and not the other imposing man-made mountains depicted to the east, which are much higher in the illustration than they are in reality.41 The Chengde gardens were meant to create a wholeness in a place, where the subjective and the objective would be merged, where intention would be fused with realization, and where landscape would be reduced to garden. Jinshan mountain exemplified this wholeness because it was the meeting place of three axes of landscape transition. In the interpretation of these gardens, we see how axes, landforms, and location were in agreement with the orientation criteria of the topomantic landscape. The mapping of the three axes of landscape transition that passed unimpeded through Jinshan mountain reveals how precise symbolic features accommodated political and religious spatial organizations. A horizontal north-south axis connected the Jinshan of natural Manchuria to the Jinshan of naturalized Jiangnan. Located in the north, the Manchurian Jinshan occupied the honorific place where it received yang influences; the Chinese Jinshan occupied a subordinate southern place and was placed under yin influences. A horizontal west-east axis connected Ruyi island, symbol of the sovereign’s rule, to the Jinshan pagoda, to the Pule temple, and beyond the mandala of the temple to Qingchui peak, itself a possible symbol of the Kunlun or Sumeru mountain. Ruyi island is located in the yin western position, whereas Qingchui peak lies in the yang eastern position. A vertical axis through the round Jinshan pagoda allowed cosmic energy to circulate freely between the hill station lake gardens and celestial universe, between the yin of Earth and the yang of Heaven.42 A fourth axis running southeast to northwest, the oblique Emperor’s Road did not transit through the Jinshan pagoda but conceptually extended the axis of landscape transition from Bishu shanzhuang across Chengde and Jehol. In the hill station gardens, all opposition between court landscape and mundane landscape, between sacred landscape and profane landscape, between frontier landscape and Inner China landscape, and between cultural landscape and natural landscape were reconciled to form under imperial supervision the essential Qing landscape, the new cultural hearth of a new dynasty. Inside the summer residence, this reconciliation culminated at the site of the Jinshan mountain, which dominated the geography of Chengde gardens. The significance of Chengde gardens, therefore, does not reside in the juxtaposition in Jehol of landscape architectural models developed elsewhere in the cultural cores of the

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Qing empire but in the synthesis achieved in the Qing summer capital between cultural and natural environments as a spectacular aspect of the Manchu “Great Enterprise.” Chengde gardens are particularly attractive because of the harmony that results from the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ balanced treatment of natural landscape. In transforming a primary landscape into a secondary landscape, both imperial architects acknowledged the strong contribution of relief to the hill station but moderated its male vigor with the introduction of female lakes at the foot of the mountain district. To this geomantic treatment, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors added a series of architectural metaphors that constituted successive layers of landscape understanding. The objective stratum that formed the palace, garden, prairie, and mountain quarters of the imperial residence, the microcosmic stratum that was an enlarged multidimensional map of the Manchu empire, and a macrocosmic stratum with elements suggesting the representation of a Buddhist cosmos combine to form these geographical layers.

CHAPTER 5

The Jehol Frontier I rode by starlight, crossing west of the river on patrol. Nothing but desert lies before one’s eyes. This is another world: hundred of leagues of broken columns of rising smoke, mountains bare of foliage, lands that yield no grain. Along the roadway, they are none but barbarians who surround us back and front.1

Sinicizing the Northern Frontier The conceptualization of natural and social forces has strongly associated landscape and culture within the Chinese civilization. The landscapes of China exhibit common features that are related to the activities of the sedentary, agrarian, and dense communities that occupy the huge area that extends from Liaoning to Guangdong. The intense exploitation of natural resources; the enjoyment of popular literature and canonical texts, garden architecture, and landscape painting; the coexistence of Buddhist and Daoist religions, Confucian censorship, and geomantic beliefs are among the many elements that have distinguished populous China from neighboring civilizations. The drier areas of Central Asia, the frigid Qinghai desert, the Himalayan mountains, and the high plateau of Mongolia have isolated China, but not enough to prevent an active circulation of techniques, artifacts, ideas, plants, diseases, and peoples connected by the peninsulas of Eurasia from Malaysia to Europe. The geographical limits of Chinese civilization have rarely coincided with political boundaries, but rather with a cultural landscape that has dramatically transformed the original aspect of the environment and, more important, the physiognomy of its valleys, basins, and deltas. The transition from the natural landscape of these waterrich flatlands to a cultural landscape of channels, dikes, and ponds has obviously required a heavy and continuous investment in labor. Changes of such a magnitude would have been impossible without a large peasantry and an efficient administration, both sharing an appreciation of landscape resources and a desire to live in harmony with the universe.2 Intensified multicropping has compensated for a shortage of arable lands, but pressure to grow more food on limited land has resulted in degraded fields that are barely able to support an enormous population. The environment of China has been humanized in an intensive fashion. Little is left of the original exuberant animal and plant life: rhinoceroses, crocodiles, and tortoises 80

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vanished ages ago. Chinese sedentary societies first occupied precise parts of the subcontinent: the Wei valley, the plateau of Yunnan, and the coastal plains of Fujian. The wealth of the biota in these areas was considerable; untouched ecosystems of southern China ranked among the most diverse living assemblies of Asia.3 These regions now share features strongly linked to agriculture: intense exploitation of alluvial plains, rhythms of work based on the growing cycles of rice and millet, limited husbandry, dense villages of houses at least partly built of vegetable materials. Like other East Asian peoples, Chinese peasants have felt fear or indifference toward mountains, regardless of whether their native forests have been preserved, and mountains remained outside their ecumenes: “The mountain is a world apart, with its masters, its guards, its friends, its outsiders—and also its rites of passage.” 4 High summer temperatures, monsoon rainfall season, availability of a large supply of water, and a functional (but not aesthetic) rejection of topographic relief have fostered a traditional perception of landscape common to all of agricultural China. The latitudinal range covered by the wet rice fields of sedentary China is remarkable, as is the variety of local natural landscapes unified by these wet fields, from the Sungari river to the Xijiang river and from the landlocked basin of Sichuan to the Yellow Sea. A seemingly unbroken history of civilization and a slow-paced expansion of its ethnic landscape outside its core areas have characterized agricultural China. The progression of wet paddy agriculture northward was slow. Rice began to be cultivated in the Beijing plain only during the Kangxi era. Many common species have disappeared since that time, indicating dramatic ecological changes in northern and northeastern China: One example is David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianuus), which was widely distributed on the North China Plain and the lower Changjiang valley during the Pleistocene and early Holocene. As forests were cleared and swamps dried up, deer populations were gradually eliminated. In 1900, they disappeared entirely from China.5

The numbers of rice and carp species, however, have increased. Quite a large number of crop and cash plants have done very well, from sorghum to opium. The introduction of new or altered species needed for the maintenance of a dense and increasing human population has therefore complemented the continual processes of destruction and reconstruction of the natural landscape. The frontier area of the Chinese civilization has experienced similar transformation of its ecological system. The term frontier has historically referred to the outer edge of Chinese agricultural and military settlements in northern China and not to a political boundary. The expansion south or north of the area depended largely on the vagaries of Chinese court policy toward Central Asia and on conflictual pressures applied by Chinese peasants and Mongol nomads. The frontier landscape thus received several imprints reflecting the dynamic presence of two civilizations on the same landscape. The frontier

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regions are contiguous and are characterized by similar heterogeneous ethnic compositions. Manchuria was created by the combination of a Manchu-inhabited region, a Mongol-inhabited region, and a Chinese-inhabited region. In Jehol the proportion of Chinese inhabitants may have been smaller and that of Mongol residents larger, but territory was divided among the same three ethnic groups; the division may have been most pronounced in southwest Jehol. Finally, during the first part of the seventeenth century, Jehol and Manchuria displayed solidarity in their hostility toward Chinese power based in the North China plain. The establishment and extension into China of the frontier dynasties may have required some degree of sinicization of the conquering peoples. The frontier of China proper has been marked for centuries by the Great Wall; the landscape of Central Asia has traditionally begun beyond its gates. The most remarkable physical result of effective Chinese central authority on the frontier landscape in modern times was the erection of the Great Wall by the Ming dynasty. Lattimore remarked that nothing was more static in conception than the Great Wall.6 In reality, the Wall was intended to stabilize a mobile frontier area that caused frequent sorrow to Chinese emperors. The Great Wall also served as a traditional boundary for the division between farming and pastoral activities. North of the wall, nomadic peoples sparsely inhabited “another world” where lush grasslands grew. A sixth-century c.e. folk saying poetically described this landscape: “The sky is blue and white, the earth is flat and vast; the grasses bow before the sweeping winds, and innumerable sheep and cattle are seen.” 7 The fringe zone along the Great Wall that lies between Manchuria, China proper, and Inner Mongolia defines the northern China frontier area. About three hundred kilometers deep and twenty-four hundred kilometers long, it extends from the Great Wall of China into Mongolia and from the Willow Palisade into Manchuria. Inside this long belt, historical Jehol cannot be separated easily from neighboring frontier subareas because its very lack of homogeneity has made it similar to the other parts of the frontier in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. A large Mongol-inhabited area and a much smaller Chinese-inhabited area composed Jehol at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Jehol was ethnically integrated with Mongol Manchuria.8 Jehol’s geographical position has been so remarkable that at several times in history the region was able to claim to be simultaneously the center of the northern China frontier and the center of a more or less sinicized empire. At the junction point of Manchurian and the Inner Mongolian sectors of the frontier, Jehol has always been the area closest to the North China plain and to the strategic Shanhaiguan corridor that leads into the Manchurian plain. From its strategic location, Jehol commanded communication between the Manchurian and Mongolian “wings” of the frontier area and between Zhili and Fengtian, the two northernmost provinces of China. The significance of Jehol for the empires that straddled the Chinese-Mongol frontier explains the region’s intricate administrative history before the establishment of Qing rule. Archaeological excavations have confirmed historical records that non-Chinese eth-

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nic groups such as the Rong and Hu have inhabited the Jehol area since at least the Chinese Qin dynasty (221–202 b.c.e.). During the following twenty centuries, various Chinese (especially the Wei, Sui, Tang, and Ming dynasties) and non-Chinese (Xiongnu, Liao, Yuan, Jin, and Qing) empires occupied the region of Chengde. It was then administratively organized into prefectures or commanderies.9 Under the Liao dynasty, the territory of Jehol comprised several counties dependent on the Dading prefecture and on the Xinghuang prefecture in the Zhongjing circuit and dependent on the Linhuang prefecture in the Shangjing circuit. Liao emperors hunted in the Mulan area. Under the Jin dynasty, Jehol was divided between the Dating and the Xingzhong prefectures dependent on the Beijing circuit and the Huanzhou county dependent on the Xijing circuit. The Yuan dynasty attached the three circuits of Daning, Shangdu, and Quanning to Jehol. Khubilai khan founded a city in 1256 that was located north of the Luanhe river, some forty kilometers northwest of Dolön, in what is now Zhenglan Banner (Xulun Hoh, Inner Mongolia). The city received the name of Shangdu in 1264 to form with Dadu the two seasonal Yuan metropoles. In 1269 Shangdu became the Yuan dynasty’s summer capital, which Marco Polo called Chandu: There is at this place a very fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment. Round this palace a wall is built, enclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks and beautiful meadows. . . . Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood] he has another Palace built of canes. . . . The Lord abides at this Park of his, dwelling sometimes in the Marble Palace and sometimes in the Cane Palace for three months of the year, to wit, June, July, and August; preferring this residence because it is by no means hot; in fact it is a very cool place.10

Khubilai’s city became so famous that it gave its name, Shangdu, to the Luanhe river.11 Lama miao, the local Chinese name for Shangdu, is a free translation of the Mongol name Chao-naima-sumeh, or “One Hundred and Eight Temples.” The flourishing Yuan summer capital later became a deserted site overgrown with rank weeds and the imperial park a dreary and desolate mound. Under the Ming dynasty, the Jehol area was a dependency of the Beiping prefecture and was administered by garrisons that were brought south of the Yanshan mountains in 1403, leaving the country north of the Great Wall to Tuoyan Mongols, later to Chaha’er, Kalaqin, Wengniutuo, and other Mongol groups.12 The rising Qing dynasty scored a major diplomatic victory when southern Mongol khans recognized the supremacy of the Manchu khan and gave him the imperial title of Bogdo khan. The allegiance of the Jehol Mongol Leagues was very welcome to the Manchu emperors. To transform their raids

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into Ming China into permanent occupation, Qing emperors first needed to dominate the Zhuosuotu Mongols, whose country was located in the Jehol southern mountains.13 Kangxi had a series of lodges erected in the Yanshan mountains, of which two became the summer residences of the dynasty. Like the Shunzhi emperor, who was tired of the unbearably hot and humid climate of Beijing in summer, the Kangxi emperor resolved to have a city and palace in Jehol where he would “escape the heat of summer.”14 As early as 1677, the Kangxi emperor built a small pleasure palace at Kalahetun (Luanping county), where he spent the summer months. That ancient city was destroyed by the Ming dynasty when its army expelled Mongols from Jehol and then retired behind the protection of the restored Great Wall. Several edifices other than Kangxi’s palace were erected there, some by the emperor for his retinue and some by Chinese merchants. The emperor came to enjoy more and more the coolness and woods of the mountains of Jehol. The Wulie valley, which he passed very often in his hunting expeditions, appeared to him a particularly favorable place for a summer residence of a greater importance than Kalahetun.15 Although it was abandoned by the Kangxi Emperor after 1703, Kalahetun still had a considerable population when Father Ripa passed through it in 1711.16 By that time the first phase of construction of the hill station of Chengde was complete. Political and strategic thinking, with rich geographical content, has dominated Qing historians’ discussion of the contribution of the northern frontier and Jehol to the consolidation of the state: Research on the history and geography of China’s frontiers, exploring the true essence of their development and change, and summing up the lessons of this historical experience—this is not only a necessity for the development of this field, but at the same time bears great significance for protecting sovereignty over national territory; handling relations with neighboring countries and strenghtening the unity of domestic nationalities.17

Like the southern China frontier area (Xikang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Taiwan), the Qing northern frontier area was relatively unsettled before 1703. Both northern and southern frontier areas were ethnically heterogeneous and administratively unstable. A single critical characteristic, that of mobility, differentiates these two frontier domains of China. The northern zone was much more stagnant as a frontier line and much more dangerous as a frontier area; the southern area was marked by more dynamism in terms of commercialization and industrialization, geographical fragmentation, and ethnic composition. Chinese immigration and urbanization in the potentially wealthy southern border zone were of far lesser political, diplomatic, and military importance than in the northern frontier. The potential for rebellion in the south of China was not as threatening as the possibility of invasion from the north. In the history of China and Central Asia, com-

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peting dynasties that originally held only the northern border area destroyed dynasties that governed Inner China and the southern border area. From their own quite recent experience as a conquering dynasty, the Qing emperors knew to what extent their fate depended on the frontier area in general and on Jehol in particular. Imperial policy therefore had a direct influence on the landscape of the frontier, since the Qing dynasty used Jehol to convey its policy in Central Asia. Qing control of the northern China frontier area necessitated a new spatial division between Jehol ethnic groups, a new distinction between dynamic and static zones inside Jehol, the emergence of Jehol as a distinct region, and the building of a road network that connected the summer capital to its subordinate cities. The eventual result for Jehol was the double transition from natural to cultural landscape and from Chinese-Mongol landscape to Qing landscape. The latter transformation in turn involved the transition of Jehol from the status of frontier area to that of directly controlled core area.18 The rationale for dealing carefully with Jehol included the ecological usefulness of the region as a training ground for the military. The Qing central government maintained grazing land for its Banners’ horses immediately north and south of Jehol, and the hunting expeditions it organized through Jehol constituted training exercises in logistics. Owen Lattimore has forcefully summarized military considerations of the Qing enterprise in Jehol: The Shanhaikuan passage is easily cut by military action and easily outflanked by armies holding the Jehol hills and passes. It was for this reason that the Manchus confirmed the Chinese character of the small Chinese pale in Southern Jehol, set apart the [Mulan] Hunting Park in order to separate the Kharchin and Chahar Mongols from each other by a wilderness, and built a summer Capital at Ch’engte (Complete Virtue) or Jehol City [Chengde]. It was advisable to keep a close check on the Mongols of Jehol, and to interpose a Chinese population between them and the actual line of the Great Wall. Full Manchu control of communication between Manchuria and China was essential. The extension of Chinese settlements to the north was equally opposed by the Manchus, because if the Chinese were to push through the mountains and reach the open country in Northern Jehol, they would upset the Mongol balance of power and the control over China established by the original Manchu-Mongol alliance.19

Qing policy in Inner and Outer Mongolia created a de facto classification of the frontier area into dynamic regions and static regions. Both types were equally valuable for the dynasty, but for different reasons. The dynamic areas were well connected to Beijing and Chengde, and they supported a growing population of taxpayers. The static regions were restricted nature areas that supported wildlife and horse populations that the Manchu Banners would later employ in military and hunting campaigns. Thus, two dynamic regions of the North China frontier witnessed dramatic ethnic changes and concomitant

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modifications in their cultural landscapes. Imperial design for these areas was related to military concerns. In central Turkestan, Xibo Manchu were assigned to guard the faraway Ili valley after Qing troops had exterminated the Jüngar population. No less important was the revitalization of the northern China frontier area that revolved around Chengde. From Beijing through Gubeikou, the Emperor’s Road linked together the privileged zones of the Qing enterprise, Chengde, and Mulan. The summer residence of Chengde was located in the most dynamic region of landscape transition in the northern China frontier area.20 The Kangxi emperor emphasized that his landscape enterprise benefited the common people because it encouraged agriculture in the largely uninhabited area: I urge farming the southern acres [of Chengde], hoping that abundant harvests and profusion will fill square and round baskets.21

Static regions existed where imperial policy designated domains to be kept uninhabited, without roads or settlements.22 These regions included grazing lands, hunting reserves, and the imperial sepultures of Dongling and Xiling surrounded by geomantic land.23 Placed under military protection, the locations of these static regions straddling the Great Wall and Willow Palisade had crucial strategic value. The Daling pastures were positioned at the northern end of the Shanhaiguan corridor, south of the Willow Palisade. Also at the northern end of the Shanhaiguan corridor but north of the Willow Palisade, the Yangxi pastures separated Jehol from the two Kalaqin Banners of the Zhelimu League.24 During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the small garrisons of the two imperial necropoles of Dongling and Xiling along the Great Wall were effective enough to prevent colonization of the land left fallow by imperial orders. Qing cartographers left blank spaces corresponding to areas declared static by imperial order and omitted noting roads that were not open for travel. Blank spaces added to the protection of the geomantically forbidden area that extended north of the Dongling imperial sepultures.25 These imperial orders were not always strictly obeyed by the peasants who wanted to migrate north of Zunhua to exploit the resources of the Yanshan mountains. They founded settlements with telling names, such as Nanbeikan zi, “South and North Bumps Village.” The Prussian cartographers who mapped Zhili in 1907 were aware of the existence of a restricted zone but not of its taboo since they did depict it. They represented the clandestine road flanked with clandestine villages that directly linked the two counties of Miyun and Zunhua by crossing the geomantic zone of Dongling between the Great Wall gates of Qiangzi and Huangyu.26 Qing geomantic maps of the necropolis always portrayed the area north of Dongling in ways that stressed the alignment of the major mountain of Jehol with the imperial tomb hills and central alley and did not pay atten-

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tion to clandestine immigration in the forbidden area.27 The trees of the tomb compounds were cut down when the dynasty fell, and Manchu Bannermen were no longer in a position to protect the mausoleum from marauding peasants: The Tung Ling [Dongling necropolis] possessed up to about ten years ago [1920] a most beautiful pine forest which was hundreds of years old. Some of the trees had a circumference which could be barely spanned by two men.28

Just like the forbidden Dongling area, the hunting ground of Mulan was officially a static region but actually experienced clandestine reorganization and eventually became part of the dynamic front of Chinese colonization. Surrounded by a palisade, the Mulan reserve was guarded in 1753 by eight hundred Manchu and Mongol Bannermen distributed in eight camps. Mulan was not the only natural reserve of the Qing dynasty, as three other large hunting grounds were located in Manchuria: Shengjing, Jilin, and Heilongjiang.29 The Qianlong emperor stated in the Ode to Mukden that hunting and fighting were indeed the only forms of entertainment suitable for Manchus. For the emperor, the hunt was a representation of war.30 In his introduction to a poem on tea composed by Qianlong, Father Amiot wrote that the Qing monarch led the life of a Tartar horde leader during the Mulan hunting parties. Numbering more than ten thousand, all the hunters and the emperor himself stayed in Mongol tents. Qianlong’s adoption of this nomadic lifestyle for a few weeks prior to his return to Chengde and Beijing was meant to reassert the non-Chinese origins of Qing rule. The extension of Chinese provincial rule north of the Great Wall has a short but complex history. Owen Lattimore has observed that the term Jehol was coined only recently: it has figured for only three centuries in the records of a civilization that has had forty centuries of history. The Jehol region is almost as large as the territory governed in 1820 by the Chengde prefecture, which included the two Banners of Balin.31 Fluctuations of Jehol boundaries followed the political changes implemented by the Qing and Republican central government in controlling the Chinese-Mongol frontier area. The most debatable of all limits in the northern China frontier may well have been the northern border of Jehol, which also marked the northward progress of Chinese colonization. Kangxi’s successor, the Yongzheng emperor, established in 1723 the prefecture of Rehe, which was then replaced in 1733 by the county of Chengde. Unlike other prefectures, Chengde was administered by a military commander and not by a civil prefect, maybe because the city had a permanent garrison.32 The ancient administrative rank, reestablished in 1742, was replaced by the prefecture of Chengde, attached to the province of Zhili.33 Each prefecture had counties under its authority, but often important counties with prefectural rank were placed directly under provincial jurisdiction: Zunhua zhou, for example, where the

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Dongling sepultures of the Qing dynasty were located, was under Zhili’s administration.34 Home to imperial capitals in Beijing and Chengde, and a provincial capital in Baoding, the province of Zhili by 1905 contained nine prefectures and six autonomous counties. A lasting result of the Qing policy in the northern China frontier area may have been the growing importance of territory in the definition of ethnic identity. The replacement during the Qing dynasty of the static Great Wall by a mobile front of Chinese peasants progressing northward has resulted in the present cycle of sinicization of the Central Asian landscape and peoples: Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the Chinese began to penetrate into this district [of Inner Mongolia]. At that period, the whole landscape was still one of rude grandeur; the mountains were covered with fine forests, and the Mongol tents whitened the valleys, amid rich pasturages. For a very moderate sum the Chinese obtained permission to cultivate the desert, and as cultivation advanced, the Mongols were obliged to retreat, conducting their flocks and herds elsewhere. From that time forth, the aspect of the country became entirely changed. All the trees were grubbed up, the forests disappeared from the hills, the prairies were cleared by means of fire, and the new cultivators set busily to work in exhausting the fecundity of the soil.35

In order to control this progression, Manchu emperors relied on the assignment of definite and precise frontiers to each Mongol League and Wing and to each Chinese prefecture and county. The Willow Palisade that marked the eastern limit of Jehol was the Qing device for dividing China’s northeast into three domains: Chinese Fengtian south of the Palisade, Manchu Jilin reserve north of it, and west of it the Mongol lands of Jehol.36 A fourth domain consisted of imperial lands, such as necropoles and hunting grounds, to which access was restricted. Mongol Bannermen camps watched the gates of the Mulan hunting ground to prevent intrusion from any group; the Mulan hunting ground was kept outside the jurisdiction of the Chengde prefecture.37 The new administrative units created by the Qing dynasty superseded the previous Mongol concept of tribal following, which had no territorial meaning in the Chinese sense.38 The recent creation of more autonomous Manchu and Mongol prefectures in the Hebei and Liaoning provinces is certainly proof of the persistence of population diversity in Jehol; it also illustrates the resilience and adaptability of minority cultures located so close to the largest ethnic group in world population. The peaceful coexistence of three major ethnic groups was presumably not greatly affected by repeated enactments and repeals of regulations to enforce racial segregation. An administrative document reported: The Mongols, not contented with the nomadic life, get Chinese to cultivate for them. This has been going on for years, and they have lived at peace with each other for a

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long time. Moreover, the rentals which the Mongols get are a benefit for them economically.39

Since the eighteenth century, most Manchu villagers in Jehol have lived in the Chinese zone, which originally extended from Chengde to Chaoyang and connected the Great Wall and the Willow Palisade. Further north, Manchu and Mongol populations have shared the Mulan Weichang area. Although the Jehol population is now largely sinicized and standard Chinese is used extensively in the Hebei and Liaoning parts of Jehol, the Manchu and Mongol communities have kept a sense of their distinct ethnic identities.

Colonizing Jehol The boundary between Inner Mongolia and Jehol does not display the dramatic landscape changes that can be seen in south Jehol. Leaving no room for large plains, the mountainous Yanshan massif occupies the southwest of Jehol, where Chengde is located. Southeast Jehol, on the other hand, is an area of low hills with wide plains that accommodate the Daling river and its tributaries. In spite of their relatively low altitudes, the steep mountains of southern Jehol have not failed to impress travelers. Hills bring some diversity to the flat North China plain just before arriving at Gubeikou from Beijing. On the Jehol side of Gubeikou gate, the Emperor’s Road ran through valleys and defiles, so that the road appeared to Father Ripa as walled on both sides.40 Father Ripa was surprised at the vigorous appearance of the summits around Chengde; he noted that they looked like the waves of a boundless sea.41 Father Van Obbergen described the Jehol sea of summits with admiration.42 Different topographic and climatic conditions have produced three natural landforms in Jehol: the plateau, the hill slopes, and the river valleys. The mountains of present northern Hebei, those of western Liaoning, and the last hills that mark the southeastern edge of the Mongol plateau form the main features of the topography of Jehol. With its dissected mountains projecting their bare figures against a cloudless sky, the bioregion of Jehol often has a skeletal aspect, which is most apparent during the long winter months. The region includes, from south to north, the Yanshan mountain range, the western Liaoning hills, the narrow valleys of the Beihe and Luanhe rivers, and finally the broad valleys of the Xiliao river and its tributaries. The Luanhe, Daling, and Laoha river basins cover the three physical domains of Jehol: the southwestern, southeastern, and northern regions. Before reaching the western coast of the gulf of Bohai, the Luanhe, Beihe, and Xiliao rivers and their numerous tributaries cut deep gorges into the hard quartzite ranges that run in a general northeast to southwest direction. These passes have allowed cultural contact between the populations of Jehol and the three surrounding topographical regions. The northern region is a flat plateau without the deep

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valleys characteristic of the meridional topography. As a physical region, the northern Hebei mountains are markedly distinct from their three much flatter neighboring areas: the North China plain, the Manchurian basin, and the Mongol plateau. Human occupancy has affected the natural environment of Jehol in distinctive ways. The emergence of regional differentiation has resulted in three styles of housing architecture in Jehol, mapped in a monograph by the geographer Tada Fumio. The geology of the Jehol area is complex, with gneiss and granite in the southwest, basalt covered by thick loess in the north, and loess again in the southwest. The presence of loess has been important for the human geography of Jehol because Chinese immigrants from loess country (from Shanxi province especially) knew how to dig houses adapted to the rigorous winters of Jehol. The agricultural soils of the Jehol valleys are alluvial; they may have received loess deposits. The coastal corridor of Jehol, which historically has always been part of Liaoning, has sandy soils that become swampy around the mouths of rivers. Inland, Mongolian plateau soils are more alkaline. Erosion has occasionally been severe in Jehol due to the disappearance of forests over the past three centuries. Its difficult terrain, soils, and climate have not prevented the penetration of Jehol by a society based on intensive agricultural practices and water control. The climate of the two southern regions of Jehol is cold, sunny, and dry in winter, warm and humid in summer. The number of frostfree days is generally about 140 a year. During the hot summer, monsoon winds bring large amounts of precipitation mainly in the southern and eastern mountains of the region. The shortness of the growing season and the unpredictability of rainfall have prevented Jehol from becoming a highly productive agricultural area like central Hebei or central Liaoning. Dry farming and paddy field cultivation are, of course, eminently susceptible to drought. Nearly all the rains occur during the summer months, but their distribution and amount are highly variable from year to year. Rainfall, 600 millimeters in an average year, is high enough to support dry farming agriculture in southern Jehol. Annual rainfall in the north is less than 300 millimeters, enough to maintain the sparse vegetation of steppes and deserts. The physical environment of subhumid Jehol is especially vulnerable to long-term changes in rainfall. Compared to the nineteenth century, the mean annual rainfall of this century has been lower.43 Agriculture was introduced by Chinese farmers into Jehol when climatic conditions were better than they are now. The climate of northern Jehol is even more continental than that of southern Jehol, with high temperature variations of 70˚C between January and July. The continental features characteristic of Jehol may have been exacerbated in earlier historical times. A direct connection may have existed between long-term climate changes and the success of the Chinese peasantry in colonizing Jehol. Agriculture may have found a more favorable climate during the eighteenth century than during the colder seventeenth century.44 Weather

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conditions were probably more severe for agriculture in Jehol before Chengde was founded, since 1703 came near the end of the Maunder minimum period that lasted from 1645 to 1715, during which time temperatures fell to the lowest level since c.e. 1000. A succession of cold summers likely caused more difficulties for agriculture than did irregular summer rainfall.45 High summer temperatures are crucial for a successful growing season, and Jehol farmers could expect temperatures as high as 35˚C in June.46 Unsurprisingly, altitude and continentality have resulted in a wide diurnal temperature variation. Father Ripa complained that the morning cold was so intense in the Jehol mountains that he had to wear furs and that soon after sunrise the heat became unbearable.47 The composition of natural vegetation and the distribution of animal species obviously vary with altitude, exposure, and rainfall. Jehol is no exception to the dominant regional pattern in China: the southern and eastern parts of any region have always had more abundant vegetation than the drier northwestern parts. Forests and tall prairies once graced the hills and valleys of most of Jehol. The wild animals of southern Jehol (tigers, deer, bears), who were the reason for early imperial hunting parties and hence at the origin of the political good fortune of Chengde, disappeared when their habitats were transformed into eroded fields and treeless hills. Northern Jehol was home to horses and camels. Cattle and cattle products were sent from there to Beijing, across the Great Wall. Father De Preter wrote about the Jehol forests in a 1917 letter to Émile Licent. He mentioned the Dushan forest, larger than the forest situated north of the Dongling tombs, from which significant quantities of charcoal were exported to the Yongping prefecture, south of the Great Wall. He noted bears and red-legged cranes in the Dushan forest and foxes, deer, wild goats, and snakes north of Mulan. The Erzhou forest had hares and grouse in the same area of Jehol. Further north, in Balin, rare argalis had been spotted. Leopards were plentiful in the south and west of Jehol.48 The Jehol forests were a source of sensorial enjoyment for travelers riding through them because of their abundant animal life as well as their prosperous vegetation: There are forests of oak and poplar and beech, and wild pears and peaches, apples and apricots. Riding by, one can pick the little plums known as ulana, pale red like sharp cherries, and in Jehol there are cherries both white and red and the large sour cherries, perfect in color and taste; or one can eat the hazelnuts fresh fallen from the trees and mountain walnuts roasted over an open fire.49

Thick forests originally covered the mountains and hills of southern and eastern Jehol. Chinese settlers who needed wood for fuel and as building material depleted the rich fauna these forests harbored. Deforestation began in the eighteenth century and by the beginning of the twentieth century primitive forests had almost disappeared except on the summits of the most isolated mountains, such as the Wuling mountains, or on the

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steeper slopes that delineate the Mongolian plateau. Witnessing the transition from forested landscape to agricultural landscape in the Manchurian mountains, George Cressey commented: Prior to the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, these were splendid forest areas. Since that time, the timber has been ruthlessly destroyed. . . . This destructive process is still going on, and the writer has seen valley after valley where ten thousand spirals of smoke marked burning timber. This destruction is bad enough, but there is no lasting gain, for the rough hill sides are too steep for permanent cultivation. Many pockets of soil are only sufficient for raising half a dozen of kaoliang and will be washed away after a few years.50

With the progression of Chinese agriculture inland, new plant and tree species were introduced into the hills of Jehol. Introduced trees have been planted around villages as wind breakers. In the frontier area of Hebei and Inner Mongolia, state farms have supervised large and monotonous forests composed of few tree species, all planted at the beginning of the 1960s. Today Chengde is no longer famous for its virgin forests but for its orchards producing prized almonds, walnuts, hawthorns, and ferns. Banli chestnuts, which in Chinese have kept their Mongol name, hushiha, are the pride of Luanping county. One-third of chestnut production in China comes from the Chengde region.51 In ethnic terms, Jehol stretches from a mostly Chinese-inhabited zone to a mostly Mongol-inhabited zone, the two zones being roughly divided by the Qilaotu mountain range running northwest to southeast through the region. The formation of two ethnic zones in Jehol began before the founding of Chengde with the regular sojourns of the Kangxi emperor’s Manchu court and army beyond the Yanshan mountains; the traveling court was followed by a primarily Chinese retinue of courtiers, itself followed by Chinese immigrants. For two centuries, Chinese immigration from central Zhili pressed northward, bypassed uninhabited southeastern Jehol, and followed the Emperor’s Road to the Mulan hunting ground. Traveling south of the Qilaotu mountains in southwestern Jehol, Father Ripa did not observe a single Mongol habitation between Gubeikou and Chengde but only Chinese inns built to accommodate travelers on their way to the summer capital and back. Every fifteen miles he encountered walled lodges. Unlike xingying camps, which were temporary tent camps, xinggong lodges were permanent structures to house the emperor and his spouses and concubines when the Qing court was traveling from Beijing to Mulan. Mulan had no permanent station, only rigorously arranged tent camps that were similar in conception to less elaborate Qing military camps.52 The refusal to admit ethnic interpenetration that can be deducted from the provincial maps of imperial atlases was a remarkable feature of the Qing dynasty’s vision of Jehol. This vision was probably dictated by the central administration’s strong desire to keep

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ethnic groups apart and to limit Chinese colonization of Mongol lands to southern Jehol only. The sinicization of the Jehol landscape was initially provoked by the hunting expeditions led by the Qing emperors north of the Great Wall. Father Gerbillon reported as early as 1688 that Chinese emigrants had built hamlets and teahouses because of the profit they gained from the many travelers who circulated between Beijing and Mulan during the emperor’s hunting season.53 Chinese colonists entered Jehol as settlers, tenants, peasants, and merchants who eventually impoverished Mongol agricultural communities. The Qing administration repeatedly failed in its attempts to exchange lands in order to keep Mongol and Chinese communities separate, partly because Chinese settlers on Mongol lands constituted a new taxable population that was welcome by the government.54 Manifestations of internal contradictions in imperial policy and evidence of divergence between the perception and extension of the frontier area can be found by comparing cartographic surveys conducted during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi periods. The Qing cartography of Inner Mongolia reveals the deliberate ambiguity of Manchu ethnic policy. Very revealing is the fact that Qing maps of Chinese prefectures or counties of the provinces of Zhili and Shanxi overlap with Mongol territories shown in other maps of the Tongzhi Atlas as belonging to the Leagues or Banners of Inner Mongolia.55 Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century maps show cartographers’ difficulties in accepting this partition of Jehol between ethnic groups. At the beginning of the landscape transition, the Kangxi Atlas displayed the Great Wall as the northern limit of Zhili; north of the Great Wall, place names were no longer Chinese but Mongol, giving an impression of perfect Chinese and Mongol homogeneity. Early eighteenth-century cartographers did not give a northern border to Jehol, but the compilers of the Chengde Gazetteer later repaired this absence. Likewise, the Da Qing wannian yitong dili quantu map [General Map of the Eternally Unified Geography of the Great Qing] pushed Zhili boundaries northward past Chengde. The distinct cartographic symbols of a Chinese city hierarchy suggested that a Chinese population lived there, sheltered by a softly curved boundary quite different from the linear boundaries that marked Mongol lands. Internal contradictions become apparent in comparing two maps of the same atlas: the “Zhili quantu” [General Map of Zhili] map and the “Menggu quantu” [General Map of Mongolia] map of the Tongzhi Atlas.56 The exact meaning and size of the northern frontier area were not the same for all its inhabitants. For Chinese settlers, the zone began north of the Great Wall and west and north of the Willow Palisade; their claims to residence beyond these limits were progressively accepted by a reluctant central administration.57 For the Qing administrators, the frontier had two sections: an inner section, with a settled population in Shengjing and Jehol, and an outer section, peopled by tribute-bearers, actual and prospective. The outer zone, furthermore, was expanding, as more Mongol tribes sought to enjoy the Qing emperor’s protection. In both zones, the Court of Colonial Affairs delineated internal

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boundaries, settled claims, controlled population movements, appointed the local hierarchy, and regulated finances through levies, tributes, taxes, and allowances. The frontier Banner population was kept on military rolls, as was the Banner population of Inner China. Tax rolls and periodic censuses monitored the civil population. Mongols very probably did not consider that they were living in what their Chinese tenants or neighbors perceived as a frontier area. From the perspective of eighteenth-century Mongols, the frontier region consisted of the enclaves north of the Great Wall, around Chengde and Chaoyang, which were almost entirely inhabited by Chinese settlers. Located north and east of the Chinese area in Jehol, the diminishing Qalq’a Mongol area of the eighteenth century included all the territory of the Zhuosuotu League and the southern half of the Zhaowuda League. As the Qianlong emperor’s construction program of the summer capital was nearing completion, the city gained more importance with several promotions of its administrative rank.58 Chinese demographic growth appears to have been rapid during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and increased population size accounted for the administrative normalization of southern Jehol. The Chengde prefecture’s Chinese civil population was 477,404 in 1782; that figure increased to 883,879 in 1827. This demographic expansion was followed by an extension in size and number of the prefectures and counties beyond the Great Wall that administered the Chinese population. Immigrants from Zhili, Fengtian, Shanxi, and even Shandong did not escape census and taxation for very long. Zhili was reorganized in 1778 to encompass Jehol and hence include Chengde, which at 84,000 square kilometers was by far the largest prefecture in the province.59 By 1820 the Chinese administration of the Chengde prefecture extended north of the Liaohe river and overlapped Mongol territories in southwest and central Jehol.60 Between 1750 and 1876, progress of Chinese agriculture in Inner Mongolia was limited to the areas around Chengde, Chifeng, and Hohhot, but Chinese farmland along the southeastern border of the Inner Mongolian plateau increased rapidly after 1876.61 As is often the case in frontier areas, the Jehol ethnic zones were not entirely homogeneous, and during the eighteenth century they became less so, as evidenced by the presence of Manchu villages in the Chinese pale around Chengde and Chinese villages on Mongol lands near Chifeng. Permanent Mongol settlements in northern Jehol adapted features of Chinese architectural style.62 Chinese settlers came from several provinces, each with specific cultural traditions. The rural architecture of the Shanxi, Zhili, Fengtian, and Shandong provinces found room to expand into Jehol wherever agriculture was possible, but the newcomers’ communities often remained distinct from each other. Even a seasoned observer like Émile Licent did not notice the few details that have traditionally differentiated Manchu farms from the neighboring Chinese houses, such as outside chimney pipes and the placement of the reception room in the western part of the house.

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Hence, he relied on interviews with local people and not on direct observation of architectural styles. In his survey of the vicinity of Chengde, Father Licent reported that his innkeeper told him that almost half of the communities in the valleys of the Wulie basin were Manchu.63 The desire of each community of Jehol to remain separate has resulted in a mosaic of cultural landscapes that made the ethnic provenance of architectural styles particularly difficult to identify. During the nineteenth century, Chinese immigrants into Jehol established other roads that did not converge at Chengde. This demonstrates that the centrality of the hill station’s position was produced by administrative design only. A second transportation network developed independently of the Emperor’s Road: the commoners’ road avoided Chengde but allowed communication between the prefectures of Chifeng in central Jehol and Pingchuang, Jianchang, Chaoyang in southeast Jehol. The commoners’ road network began at gates other than Gubeikou, like Xifeng in Zunhua county (Zhili) and Qiuguan in Jinzhou prefecture (Shengjing), and went through the regionally important cities and minor settlements of Jehol. West of Chengde, a road from Gubeikou to Luanping, Fengning, and the ancient city of Dolön followed the upper course of the Luanhe river into Inner Mongolia.64 Eventually, with the opening of the Mulan hunting ground to Chinese settlers and the lifting of Qing antiimmigration policy, the Emperor’s Road and commoners’ road networks merged and effectively dislodged Chengde from its privileged position. The commercial history of the region further indicates that the cities of Luanping and Chaoyang were better located for trade than was Chengde. Only slowly did the Qing summer capital develop an independent economy based mainly on local mining of gold, silver, iron, and copper. Jehol products exported around 1900 to Beijing and intramural Zhili were few: Gubeikou produced some gold, Mulan the timber of fallen imperial forests, Dolön had horse hair, Chifeng more gold and some coal, Chaoyang wool, Shanhaiguan red ocher. In contrast to the silk and paper industries of prefectures south of the Great wall, such as Yongping, the total value of Jehol nonmanufactured products was small. On maps published in the People’s Republic of China, Jehol is not shown because the region today overlaps several administrative entities. Located in three provinces (Hebei, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia), these units, if combined with the seven-county district of Chengde and with the city of Chengde, would reconstitute the territory of former Jehol.65 North of Hebei, in Inner Mongolia, the city of Chifeng and a section of the Zhelimu League were also part of Jehol. Because of their ethnic homogeneity, two areas of Inner Mongolia cannot be considered part of Qing Jehol: the regions north of the Xiliao river and Tongliao city in the northeast. Further east, in Liaoning province, the region of Jehol was completed by the territories of Chaoyang city surrounded by the Mongol autonomous counties of Fuxin and Kalaqin Left Wing. Two other enclaves in Hebei belonged

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geographically to Qing Jehol: the Manchu autonomous county of Qinglong north of the Great Wall and the valleys of the Heihe and Baihe rivers east of the Great Wall. Finally, the valley of Yanghe, now within the municipality boundaries of Beijing, was formerly administered by the prefecture of Chengde, county of Luanping, and was, therefore, part of Qing Jehol.

Chengde since 1820 The role of China’s northern frontier was alternatively the defense and the propagation of the virtue of the emperor among the peoples of the steppe. The political necessity that compelled the Qing court prior to 1820 to reside north of the Great Wall every summer was seriously weakened when later rebellions and foreign wars occurred primarily in southern China. The importance of the northern frontier decreased after Chengde was abandoned by the Daoguang court. It was believed that the site became inauspicious when, in September 1820, lightning killed the Jiaqing emperor: Tao-Kouang [Daoguang], son and successor of Kia-King [ Jiaqing], being persuaded that a fatality impends over the exercise of the chase, since his accession to the throne has never set foot in Gé-ho-Eul [Chengde], which may be regarded as the Versailles of the Chinese potentates. The forest, however, and the animals which inhabit it, have been no gainers by the circumstance. Despite the penalty of perpetual exile decreed against all who shall be found, with arms in their hands, in the forest, it is always half-full of poachers and wood-cutters. Gamekeepers, indeed, are stationed at intervals through the forest; but they seem there merely for the purpose of enjoying a monopoly of the sale of game and wood. They let anyone steal either, provided they themselves get the larger share of the booty.66

Illegal immigrants, not all of them poachers, accelerated the sinicization process of Jehol during the nineteenth century. The mining and agricultural activities of the immigrant population radically transformed the wooded aspect of the Jehol landscape. The Qing emperors did not foresee the creation of a second axis of landscape transition by poor Chinese peasants who entered Jehol through the Willow Palisade gates overlooking the Daling he valley in Liaoning. Mulan was opened to settlers willing to buy lots in the former imperial forest, and the county of Weichang was formed in 1863 to administer the increasing Chinese population. Fields replaced forests even before an imperial edict finally opened the hunting reserve to agriculture at the end of the nineteenth century. Chengde had by then become a simple prefectural seat not so different from the cities of Pingchuang, Jianchang, Chaoyang, or Chifeng in its attempt to survive through the crude exploitation of Jehol natural resources.67 The city of Chengde retained a large military garrison that probably was a burden for the local economy. More than two centuries after the founding of Chengde, Shigeyasu Tokunaga’s scientific expedition isolated and mapped

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six architectural styles that were brought to Jehol and adapted by the Chinese and Mongol populations. As surveyed in the 1930s, the landscape architecture of Jehol displayed a lack of cultural unity that was largely a consequence of dichotomy within the human occupancy of the region, either imperially sponsored or spontaneous, since the eighteenth century.68 The sinicization of the Qing court followed a course analogous to that of the sinicization of the cultural landscape of Jehol, and this phenomenon of acculturation will illustrate how modification of spatial perception can be related to the failed Manchu quest for sustainable ethnic identity. Sinicization in these two regional contexts was, however, due to different causes. Sinicization in Jehol came about because of Chinese demographic pressure, sinicization in Beijing because of psychological changes at the Qing court. Installed by Kangxi, the principle of regular expeditions in Jehol was abandoned by the Daoguang emperor (1821–1850) and his successors, whose sensorial experience of landscape generally remained limited to the palaces of Beijing and gardens of Haidian. These later emperors hence had severely impoverished knowledge of the outside environment. The architectural metaphors of the imperial residences in Beijing may have seemed like the reality of landscape to the last Qing emperors. After the Xianfeng emperor’s suspicious death in 1861 at Bishu shanzhuang, Cixi Taihou (1835–1908) became the empire’s regent during the Guangxu era (1875–1908). She wielded considerable power. Cixi gave the name of Yiheyuan to the garden of Qingyiyuan that Qianlong had designed on the model of the site of Hangzhou. Cixi first restored this garden in 1894 on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. It was by then impossible for the Qing court to sojourn in the gardens of Yuanmingyuan, Changchunyuan, and Wanchunyuan, as these had been devastated by British and French troops in 1860. Cixi rehabilitated Qianlong’s construction project in Beijing: to landscape Wanshou mountain and to include Kunming lake in a huge hydraulic network that brought water to the city. Except on the northern slope of the Wanshou mountain, where the Zhihuihai temple stands, Tibetan landscape themes were absent from Cixi’s restoration of the Yiheyuan residence in 1894. The Cixi empress dowager exhausted half of the funds intended for the construction of an imperial navy in restoring the Yiheyuan residence and building a marble boat on the northern shore of Kunming lake. This firmly anchored boat served as a metaphor for victory of the Qing navy that did not otherwise exist outside the protected waters of Kunming lake. For many Chinese historians, the elaborately carved Qingyanfang boat has come to symbolize the empress dowager’s disastrous rule of the empire. Looking at her residence from the stained glass windows of the upper deck of the “Boat for Pure Banquets,” Cixi failed to see the distinction between landscape of metaphors and reality of landscape. Following a new rebellion that started in Wuchang, the last Manchu emperor abdicated in February 1912, putting a formal end to a two thousand-year-old political system. The Qing empire disintegrated into war-torn Republican China, Russified Outer Mongo-

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lia, Japanized Manchuria, restive Eastern Turkestan, and autonomous Tibet (until the 1950 Chinese military expedition). Nominally under the newly established Republic of China, the military administration of the frontier province of Jehol was largely corrupt and incompetent. Left by the central government without adequate salary for their troops, the generals who governed Chengde found that stealing from imperial property was a profitable compensation: He [General Tang Yulin] was of medium stature, powerfully built and had coarse features. His behavior lacked all culture. The temples of Jehol from the time of the great Manchu Emperors had probably been robbed of most of their treasures of ecclesiastical art by his predecessors, but a few things had not yet been stolen and sold to Japanese agents or curio dealers from Peking. During our stay [summer 1930] at Jehol we daily saw loaded lorries which at the command of T’ang Yü-lin, it was said, removed idols and other objects from the temples, to Mukden.69

Abusive officials, helpless monks, and needy peasants were unable or unwilling to protect the Qing summer residence from warlords’ depredations: One fine day a force of seventy soldiers arrived at the Hsin-kung [Sumeru temple], with order from higher up to quarter themselves in the galleries round the temple courtyard. They ruthlessly smashed up the woodwork to use it as fuel. The chief lama complained to the governor. An enquiry was held and the culprits were actually punished. Afterwards they hunted up the lama who had reported them and beat him so mercilessly that he was confined to his bed for four months.70

The impact of landscape policy on the natural environment may be measured through the phases of deforestation and reforestation. Thanks to centralized communist policy, this impact has recently taken the form of forest belts and screens of trees planted to provide timber and control erosion. During the 1960s, state tree farms took possession of the upper part of the Mulan, just below the edge of the Mongol prairie. Formerly Manchu and imperial, the landscape has thus become Chinese and profane. Having faced setbacks linked to environmental degradation, the sinicization of Jehol landscape is nonetheless progressing, either through unscrupulous lumbering or through planned reforestation. The same process has advanced by opposing movements that assist each other in eliminating the Mongol imprint that landscape previously had. Current policy has banned further conversion of grasslands into fields; it has also attempted to prevent overgrazing due to animal husbandry. Sadly, the majority of Jehol mountain slopes are now barren; the forests that once attracted Qing hunting expeditions have survived only on the most remote slopes.71 Today Chengde has become a busy tourist resort and Bishu shanzhuang a crowded public park. The recently restored summer residence has become a symbol of the burgeoning Chengde tourist industry. As a destination for visitors, Bishu shanzhuang over-

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shadows Chengde, as the city itself has not preserved any historical building that would have helped in retaining a distinctive cachet.72 Although the hill station was Qianlong’s trophy of self-glorification, the residence of the Manchu emperor now serves as an excuse to exalt Chinese patriotism: The Mountain Resort exhibits the splendid traditional culture of our great motherland and embodies the superb wisdom and talent of the laboring people. It is really a gem of the Chinese nation.73

It is curious to see how popular sentiment, which is echoed by such strong statements, from anti-Manchu has now become pro-Qing. Tourists also visit the five outer temples that have reopened. The Guang’an, Guangyuan, Luohan, Puyou, and Pushan temples have not survived warlords’ plundering followed by the Japanese and Soviet occupations. During the Cultural Revolution, artillery exercises so badly damaged the Mañjusrï temple that only Huichen hall has remained. The very active Puning temple now receives Buddhist worshippers. The Potala, Sumeru, Anyuan, and Pule temples’ parking lots have been enlarged for buses of tourists who have no religious claims. Today’s perception of Chengde is influenced more by concerns for economic development than by the aesthetic character of the place or the religious feelings it may arouse. Chengde proper covers an area of 18 square kilometers. The city administration supervises four units: three urban districts that form the city proper (651 square kilometers) and the county (3,820 square kilometers). Chengde’s total population is reported to number 830,000; more than 670,000 inhabitants reside in the city. It includes several ethnic groups, notably Han, Hui, Mongol, Manchu, and Korean communities. The expansion of cement and ceramic factories; the building of a titanium processing plant; population control; and possibly atmospheric pollution are the topics of greatest interest to urban planners and developers of modern Chengde. Air pollution planning in Chengde seeks to limit domestic consumption of coal by centralizing household heating. A small number of boilers and a radiator system have heated an expanding area of the city since 1990.74 In terms of quality of life, urban facilities, and economic achievements, Chengde lags behind the cities of Hebei province south of the Great Wall. Chengde’s rank was between 91 and 120 when its development was compared to that of the 187 cities surveyed by the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social sciences. This poor rating can be attributed to several statistical indexes, such as mediocrity of urban services, heavy pollution, congested traffic, low public education, and deficient city utilities.75 This ranking is disappointing because Chengde’s green areas are unusually extensive for a Chinese city: the summer residence and the outer temples account for one-third of the urban area. Chengde residents often have monthly entrance tickets to the hill station and enjoy doing morning exercises in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens.

CHAPTER 6

Capitals and Models This is my Chin-ling villa. It occupies only a hillock, hence the name “Mustard seed” to designate its smallness. When visitors who come and go notice that the place has hills and dales, they remark that it brings to mind the saying “Mount Sumeru is contained in a grain of mustard seed.” 1

Cosmos and Geomancy Many cosmogonical and mythological representations of the universe have existed since ancient times in China. Of the most important representations, one in particular has proposed an intimate and subjective duplication of the external and objective geography of China that is rich in geographical images and concepts. Higher mountains are located in the northwest of the Chinese subcontinent; major rivers flow to the southeast. This inclination of an originally horizontal universe has traditionally been attributed to a defective pillar of Heaven that resulted in the relative displacement to the northwest of the central axis of the world, the Kunlun mountain, and in the formation to the southeast of a bottomless valley where all the waters have gathered.2 This elementary paradigm of Chinese topographical features opposes high and low, northwest and southeast, and locates these oppositions inside a single spatial entity that refers to astronomical coordinates and to a cosmic pivot. These features constitute the landscape elements of a cosmogonical paradigm. On different scales and in different media, the representation of this paradigm has been employed in the construction of cities, temples, villas, and gardens and in the derivative representations of cartography, painting, and poetry. The standard opposition between image and form that characterizes classical European thought is replaced in traditional Asian thought by repeated metaphorical duplication of the universe. Models of the universe built within gardens serve to reconcile the opposition between image and form in the Chinese landscape because such models represent microcosmic interpretations of parallel universes.3 An example provided by Rolf Stein may be helpful in understanding the reconciliation between form and image and the ways in which ancient urban planners employed macrocosmic themes in the microcosmic layout of cities. Fan Li’s capital city illustrates the instrumental nature of cosmogony in landscape-making.4 In the fortified city he 100

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planned for the king of Yue, Fan Li modeled the partition of its inner walls on the configuration of the Purple Palace constellation. In the northwest, a tower was erected; in the southeast, a channel was burrowed. A mountain born in the sea and identified as the Kunlun Mountain moved to reclaim the city center, initially left empty to capture the rival kingdom of Wu. The Guaishan mountain had at its summit a structure, the Guaiyou terrace, for divination. Fan Li saw no distinction between the perception of a mythical mountain and its architectural representation as a tower and terrace. Guaishan, alias Guishan, alias Kunlun, was simultaneously a natural mountain island and a piece of architecture, a form and an image, more precisely an image whose presence and location turned it into a form. In his lecture to the king, Fan Li stressed the geomantic benefits of his urban enterprise, as the sacred mountain he built connected Heaven’s energy to Earth. Constructing the image of the Kunlun mountain there was sufficient to correct in a geomantic sense the geographical and military disadvantages of the Yue kingdom, located in the southeast of China: I [Fan Li] have constructed a town that touches the gate of Heaven and I have connected the ch’i [qi] with the earth. I have built a K’un-lun, a sacred mountain [yue] to work in favor [?] the seizing of power by Yüeh.5

On the top of this mountain, the king of Yue built a terrace of mana and a three-floor tower. On reading this passage, the Qing emperors would have found direct inspiration for their landscape enterprise. Designed some fifteen or twenty centuries later, the cities of Beijing and Chengde took advantage of topographical dispositions that were fully appreciated by an earlier culture familiar with both the equivalence of form and image, and the landscape perception, interpretation, and rendition prescribed by this cosmogony. China’s most seminal cosmogony is less geographically descriptive. It can be summarized as the combination and recombination of two all-inclusive principles (yin, female or negative, and yang, male or positive) that have generated all things in the universe. Unlike the European dualistic system that has opposed two absolute entities, good and evil, the yin-yang dualism of China was based on an equal, dynamic, and mutual harmony thought to exist beyond the physical world. This cosmogony has had far-reaching implications: instead of harnessing the forces of nature, the Chinese individual should ideally conduct himself as a sage who accepts the universe as he finds it and thus gains the true happiness of contentment in simplicity.6 Landscape has been conceived as a juxtaposition of places, each with a particular climate, located in a unifying universe that links man with the opposed and complementary forces of Earth and Heaven. Climate is the concept that effected a fusion of place, people, and customs, which are concepts that modern positivist geography has kept distinct. Chinese geomancers evaluated climate through an in situ analysis of the yin-yang interaction of its elements, such as the orientations and exposures

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of rivers and lakes, mountains and plains. Taken together, these natural elements were the visible manifestations of the geomantic force circulating through the cosmos, radiating its energy from the pivot of the world, the fabulous Sumeru or Kunlun mountain. Sumeru and Kunlun, the two mystical mountains of India and China, have often been compared with one another. These cosmic pillars defined an intermediary stage between earth and heaven. Climbing Sumeru or Kunlun was tantamount to becoming a god. Landscape configuration was appreciated according to an elaborate classification of analogical affinities. Because each site has its own topomantic value and its own climate, the geomancer needed to know how to deal locally with the manifestations of universal energy. We find here the empirical origin of the important Chinese geographical conception of the wholeness of each place. Application of this concept has resulted in a preference for analogical over analytical reasoning, partly because the isolation of units from the whole required for analysis has not been considered an appropriate means to improved understanding of the wholeness of the locale. The European visitors of the hill station who had read Charles Montesquieu accepted a definition of “climate” according to which physical climate determined human physiology, the nature of government, the moral features common to a given population, and national character. That French definition was very close to the Chinese understanding of fengtu climate. Far from being so independent from nature that he can believe in its objective reality and eventual subjection, the individual in China traditionally considers himself part of the cultural and physical climate of the place where he lives. Cressey noted in his fundamental book on Chinese geography: The Chinese landscape is a biophysical unity, knit together as intimately as a tree and the soil from which it grows. So deeply is man rooted in the earth that there is but one all-inclusive unity—not man and nature as separate phenomena but a single organic whole.7

David Hume’s readers, however, did not believe in geographical determinism but accepted an equally facile definition of the Chinese character, which was the simple opposite of the English character. According to Hume, China’s exceptionalism was due to its totalitarian government’s ability to communicate “a similarity of manners” to the Chinese political unity: The CHINESE have the greatest uniformity of character imaginable: though the air and climate in different parts of those vast dominions, admit of very considerable variations.8

Chinese skepticism about the supernatural world traditionally combined with intense concern for the world of nature to create an elaborate pantheon of spiritual forces and

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anthropomorphic deities worshipped by pragmatic believers. Located irremediably within its environment, Chinese civilization has developed a global philosophy that has insisted on the acceptance of natural reality to such a degree that suprareality was considered no more than the repetition of reality and was consequently intertwined with everyday life. This philosophy embraced a pattern of patterns that regulated relations between man within society and man within nature. Not necessarily explicated, it coordinated the whole of activities and attitudes that followed from the peculiar way in which all parts interact.9 Re-creation of natural perception through cultural codification has made implicit the laws that ruled nature. The implicit character of these laws results from the common belief that this codification is not derived from starting abstract concepts and that its principles are discernible in the cultural environment. Patterns of law governed the natural and human world in parallel macrocosmic and microcosmic ways. Familiarity with a place enabled the observer to understand the commands of the cosmic order by transposing them between the macrocosmic and microcosmic scales and between the microcosmic and macrocosmic orders. In other words, it was possible to reduce the cosmos to a place or, according to the Buddhist parable, to enclose the cosmos inside “a mustard seed.” Equally feasible and practiced in landscape architecture was the enlargement of a place to cosmic dimensions, as the significance of cosmic manifestations was linked to topographical configuration and not to physical scale. Study of auspicious locations and orientations gave birth to geomancy, a pseudoscience that has enjoyed great popularity among all social classes, especially in southern China.10 Geomantic concepts have been instrumental in the creation of the Chinese cultural landscape for a remarkably long time and over an increasingly broad geographic sphere. Abstract geomantic ideas have affected the perception of landscape reality by denying it an objective and independent reality. Geomancy is a topomantic divination based on the natural and cultural features of the site examined by the geomancer’s compass, such as dwellings, rivers, grave-mounds, temples, tree trunks, rock heaps, and hill shapes. Geomancy divines the hidden truth of the present situation, predicts future situations, and proposes changes to the topography of the site or the orientation of the building: Under the stream: Jade-belt water [Yudai shui]. Tuan [duan, judgment]: If there is in front of the gate a Jade-belt of water high office is certain. Certainly it permits an easy rise. Yüeh [yue, explanation]: Gives rise to men for many generations. Scholars’ reputations and glory show themselves. Wealth and honour brighten the house.11

The task of geomancy lies in the exploration of the channels of communication between Earth, Man, and Heaven, together called the Three Talents.12 To appreciate the quality of a particular site, geomancers study the physical components present in the landscape,

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since their nature, combinations, and orientation express the existence of good or bad currents of energy that transited through the site. The modifications proposed by geomancers seek to improve present configurations that are not judged auspicious for their inhabitants. The way in which Wind, Earth, Mountain, and Water are inserted into the geomantically constructed image of a place makes the manifestations of these concepts culturally visible in the landscape. The actual size of the elements of the physical landscape is of no importance to the observer because he knows that, unable to remove himself from his environment, his senses can deceive him as to scale. In fact, deceiving the senses is central to the full appreciation of garden architecture: To make a miniature mountain, pile up some dirt, then place stones on it and plant flowers and grass here and there. The fence in front of it should be of plum trees, and the wall behind it should be covered with vines, so that it will look just like a mountain even though there is no mountain there.13

What really matters is the presence and interactions of Mountain and Water, and of Wind and Earth, as deduced from the topographical configuration of the place and from the orientation of its landscape components. Geomancy is a belief system that seeks to harmonize landscape elements through the observation of local landforms by a practitioner and his interpretation of the forces that run through the site. It secures a healthy and comfortable environment, free from discord between man and nature and between the individual and society. Respect for the complicated, interrelated, empirical guidelines of geomancy ensures good fortune to the grave or the settlement as well as the favor of ancestors and spirits. Guidelines in site reading deal mostly with three domains: geographical particularities of the local environment; orientation of houses, which should be facing south and built with respect for the natural features of the surroundings; architectural features inside the buildings, such as the location of doors and windows, which should avoid alignment for better protection of the household. Hill shape, grade, location, and orientation as well as river location and direction of flow are natural features important to geomancers. Because hill forms are held to embody animal qualities, such as Green Dragon’s and White Tiger’s virtues, topography assumes an important role in the topomantic evaluation of a site. Places are rarely geomantically perfect and often require alterations to be deemed truly auspicious: the digging of a new water channel, the moving of a boulder, the making of an artificial hill, or the planting of trees and bamboo. These changes can create a desirable degree of harmonization between the yin-yang principles or succeed in freeing and controlling cosmic energy. Generally speaking, gentle, winding features are preferred to steep and straight features in the surrounding environment and in the building architecture. Ideal city layouts follow the same geomantic layout, already explicated

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by Fan Li to the King of Yue.14 The best geomantic layout for a village consists of rows of parallel buildings open to the south and located in the bend of a river. A stream comes down from the northwest, winds in front of the settlement, meanders through the fields south of the village, and leaves the site through the southeast. To the north, the back of such a settlement has a master hill behind a screen of trees and two hills in the east and west, the “Green Dragon” or Qinglong hill and the “White Tiger” or Baihu hill, respectively. The Green Dragon symbolizes male yang, wood, spring, and the east, whereas the White Tiger symbolizes female yin, metal, autumn, and the west. The Qinglong hill of the site is connected to an undulating chain of parent mountains that are themselves connected to the Kunlun mountain so that cosmic energy can flow from the pivot of the world. Although prominent, geomancy was only one of several theories seeking to apprehend the universe; its popular technical recipes applied to landscape were employed by defenders of more elaborate religious and political doctrines. Placed at the center of the universe, the emperor was the holder of a celestial mandate to serve as a father to his people and to keep the empire in harmony. His landscape undertakings, especially those related to capital city foundation or necropolis and temple construction, reflected his responsibilities as a medium between the agents of the universe. The conjunction of Confucian ethics and the needs of the state apparatus often nurtured an ambivalent official attitude toward geomantic reasoning but did not prevent the practice of geomancy. The works of scholars outside the court, such as their travel diaries, reflected the pervasive influence of Daoist and Buddhist values on the appreciation of landscape, values easily connected with geomancy. The aesthetic code of pursuing communion with nature exerted a profound influence on artistic and architectural creation because it excited competition in imitation of nature. Landscape painting and garden architecture provided support for the formation of an intimate metaphorical geography in which naturalized landscape replaced natural landscape.

The Geomancy of the Qing Capitals The geomantic and Buddhist concepts that provide a contextual understanding of the passage from nature to culture are of central importance to the Qing capitals. These concepts directed the physical and cultural constructions of Beijing, Mukden, and Chengde. The Manchu dynasty had three capitals to encompass Chinese and Central Asian lordships as well as Confucianism and Tibetan Buddhism. Like the Yuan emperors, the Qing emperors maintained simultaneous capital residences in Manchuria, China proper, and Inner Mongolia in order to regionalize their centralized political rule over domestic subjects and foreign vassals:

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In Manchuria, the site of Inden, or Yenden, more commonly known as Hetu Ala, or “Flattop Hill” and Xingjing in Chinese, belongs to Yonglingzhen in the Manchu autonomous district of Xinbin. Founded by Nurhaci, the Qing Taizu emperor, the first Manchu capital was a small and square city whose walls enclosed an inner city with four gates and an outer city with nine gates. The city had a garrison and was the seat of a yamen administration during the Qing dynasty. In 1625 the Manchu dynasty transferred its capital to Mukden, both cities located in Manchuria.16 In 1644 the dynasty again moved its capital, this time to Beijing. Mukden kept the name, privileges, and administrative organs of a capital comparable in rank to Beijing. After 1703 the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing emperors’ courts usually sojourned either in Beijing or in Chengde. During their reigns the three emperors also went to Manchuria to fulfill dynastic rites at the Qing sepultures of Mukden. In Mukden, Beijing, and Chengde, the Manchu emperors evaluated landscape resources and enriched them to provide these sites with the auspicious qualities appropriate to Qing capital cities. Mukden, the Qing (then the Hou Jin) dynasty’s capital, was, like Beijing and Chengde, a city of several cities with functional and ceremonial partitions. On the way to Beijing or Chengde, Korean embassies stopped in Mukden, where Hong Taiji had recognized the Korean king as a vassal of the Qing. Built in 1637 inside a square, walled inner city as a reconstitution of the Jin dynasty’s palace, the imperial palace of Mukden was located at the center of the two concentric cities making up the capital. A circular outer city surrounded the Manchu inner city of Mukden on all sides.17 Buddhist geomancers had determined the positions of Mukden’s four pagodas at the four cardinal points of the imperial palace. The space between the inner and outside walls of Mukden contained mostly Buddhist temples. The model of Beijing as rebuilt by the Ming dynasty two centuries earlier exerted a strong influence on the morphology of the walls and buildings of Mukden’s inner city and imperial city. The inner city gates looked very much like the gates of Beijing, and the central part of the palace consisted of three main halls along a north-south axis. More Manchu in the design was the older eastern part of the palace where the Dazheng hall stood.18 The Qianlong emperor’s visit to Mukden and to the nearby Manchu necropolis situated on Huishan mountain inspired him to compose a long poem in Manchu, translated by Father Amiot: You [Mukden], whose location north of the Simia River [Shenshui or Wanquan he] grants permanent healthiness to your environment; you, whose large rivers and high mountains delineate an avenue fit to cover the Universe; famous city of Mukden, you

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are as distinct from other places in the world as the Tiger and the Dragon are different from other animals. It is on you that the large empire of the Great Qing established the firm foundations from which it grew. The deep moats dug around your walls, and your walls themselves, so strong and so high, protect you from all danger and surprise. You are both the Heaven and the Earth; you represent the Male and Female principles. The most remarkable of all mountains, the neighboring Changbai shan Mountain, protects you on one side [in the northeast], while an arm of the big sea [Bohai Gulf] protects you on the other side [in the south]. Your situation which is among the strongest, your shape, and everything that constitutes you, allow us to hope that you will keep forever the preeminence you have acquired over all places.19

In his Ode to Mukden, the Qianlong emperor established a relation between the spatial disposition of natural elements, the yin-yang combination of these elements, the Dragonand-Tiger mountain landscape archetype, and finally the strength of the city walls. By conducting such a geomantic analysis of the landscape of Mukden, the emperor justified his personal belief that the supremacy of Mukden, based on its location, shape, and elemental composition, would continue to nurture the dynasty. The geomantic archetype described earlier can be applied to Beijing to justify an interpretation of its urban site, on the basis of only a few map comparisons.20 Rebuilt between 1403 and 1421 by the Yongle emperor (1360–1424) of the Ming dynasty, Beijing has had three walled cities since 1554: the “Purple Forbidden City” at the center, the “Inner City” around the Forbidden City, and the “Outer City,” which comprised former suburbs south of the two other cities.21 The three cities of Beijing were built according to a formal plan of parallel north-south avenues and east-west streets: The street network and all monumental architecture were aligned with the cardinal directions to conform with Chinese geomancy, and massive crenellated walls bounded most of the site. . . . Between the few monumental axis roads that traversed the city, residential neighborhoods of courtyard houses were threaded by hutong—narrow alleyways separating the high, blank walls of the courtyards.22

Beijing’s general symmetrical outline originated in the north-south axis that entirely bisected the center of the three cities, from the “Bell and Drum Towers” in the north of the Inner City to the southernmost Yongding gate of the Outer City. In the flat and open North China plain, a hill is missing north of the city as the geomantic archetype would require. The absence of mountains in the immediate vicinity of Beijing may have been addressed by the designation of temples around Beijing as “Summits.” To celebrate the cult of Bixia Yuanjun, a deity attached to the sacred Mount Taishan, six Bixia temples were built at the five cardinal points of Beijing and called Northern Summit, Eastern Summit, Southern and Little Southern Summits, Western Summit,

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and Central Summit. Central Summit was placed at the center of the former capital city of Yanjing, at the southwest corner of the walls of Qing Beijing. In this built landscape, Beijing residents created a reduced version of a cosmological system that associated human society and its rulers with the natural universe. The stability of both terms of the relationship was suggested by the arrangements of the five summits, one at the center, and (at least) one at each of the four other cardinal directions. The various temples were not originally created as a complex, since they were built around Beijing one at a time. Written sources do not confirm or invalidate the idea that they formed a system.23 Partly to remedy the topographical flatness of Beijing and partly to rewrite the Mongol history of the city, the Yongle emperor had a mountain erected immediately north of the Forbidden City. The Ming rationale for building the Wansui mountain on the emplacement of the destroyed Yuanchun hall of the Danei imperial palace of the Yuan dynasty was to have a mass heavy enough to prevent the Mongols from rising and invading China again.24 Since geomancy requires less crucial attention to geographical scale than to orientation, mountains far away from Beijing (ten to one hundred kilometers) but located in the appropriate direction could be called on to serve as the eastern Green Dragon hill and the western White Tiger hill. The Jundu mountains then serve as Beijing’s back hill; the Yanshan mountains east of Gubeikou pass are its White Tiger hill of the east, and the Xishan mountains are its Green Dragon hill of the west (Xishan means “Western Mountain” and is part of the Xiangshan chain). Perched on the crests of these mountain ranges, the Great Wall delineates a wider geomantic site that corresponds to Beijing municipality since the 1958 extension. Three rivers flow in an auspicious direction from the northwest to the southeast of this area. North of Beijing runs the Baihe river, south of Beijing the Yongding river, and from Beijing itself the largely artificial Grand Canal. Beijing has for centuries received its water supply from springs diverted near the Xiangshan mountain and directed to the city through the Yuanmingyuan residence and the lake series (the Xihai, Houhai, Qianhai, Beihai, Zhonghai, and Nanhai lakes) of the Inner City and the Forbidden City. For additional geomantic protection, four temples—the Heaven, Earth, Sun, and Moon altars—were built at the four cardinal points of the Forbidden City.25 The imperial city itself was considered a central cardinal point, as it formed the center of the universe as well as the center of the geomantic compass. The largest group of temple buildings in China, the Tiantan altar was reserved for the emperor’s yearly sacrifice to heaven; his prayers there ensured a good harvest. To complete the topomantic interpretation of Beijing landscape and to resume the analogy with the village geomantic layout, fields were mainly located south of the city, as was the Nanyuan natural preserve of the Ming dynasty. The only notable forest was Jingyi yuan, a natural preserve established by Qian-

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long on the steep slopes of the Xiangshan mountain. Its location northwest and outside of the city was clearly of geomantic importance. The Qing emperors conducted major landscape projects in the near northwest (Yuanmingyuan) and the far northeast (Bishu shanzhuang) of Beijing; they neglected the Ming dynasty’s Nanyuan park south of the capital’s gate of Yongding men. The Ming transformed Nanyuan from a natural hunting ground into a sizable park. Before his first journey to Jehol in 1677 Kangxi often visited Nanyuan as he was trying to train Bannermen there. The Qing dynasty added a few buildings to the park and erected two palaces; the layout of the Tuanhe residence looked very similar to that of the hill station of Chengde.26 In many aspects Nanyuan prefigured Bishu shanzhuang, and this suggestion becomes meaningful if we compare Beijing to Chengde. For its inhabitants, therefore, Beijing appeared to have benefited from a good geomantic site that granted continuous prosperity to the capital city. The urban history of Beijing starts with the founding of the city of Yan during the Chunqiu period (770–476 b.c.e.) on the site of the Western Zhou dynasty city of Ji. The palaces of Beijing were razed to the ground only twice in the city’s history: first by the Yuan, then by the Ming dynasty. The Jin dynasty had previously defeated the Liao dynasty, which had named Beijing, then Nanjing, its secondary capital. Under the name Zhongdu, Beijing was the capital of the Jin dynasty. The Mongol Yuan dynasty first destroyed Zhongdu, then constructed the metropolis of Dadu and the imperial city of Xiaoqiang around Wansui shan (now Qionghua island) in the immediate vicinity of the former Jin dynasty’s capital. Jingshi was also known as Shuntian fu, since the city was the seat of the prefecture of Shuntian. The morphology and orientation of 1750 Jingshi were strikingly similar to 1215 Zhongdu: both capitals consisted of three square and walled cities all built along a northsouth axis; the imperial cities had four lakes on their west side; a river flowed southeastward across Zhongdu and fed the lakes.27 The Chinese Ming dynasty first razed the Mongol imperial palace of Beijing, then rebuilt it and called the city Beiping, Beijing, or Jingshi. Shortly before the Manchu entry into Beijing, Li Zicheng and his anti-Ming rebel forces set the city on fire. After the disciplined Manchu Banners seized Beijing, the creation of a garrison quarter in the Inner City forced the removal of the Han Chinese population to the Outer City.28 Ethnic relocation resulted in the juxtaposition of a northern Manchu and Mongol city and a southern Han and Hui city. The northern city consisted of the walled imperial city and eight districts, each governed by a Banner. The southern city was divided in five urban districts, Xicheng, Beicheng, Zhongcheng, Nancheng, and Dongcheng, with additional barracks for two Banners. The Qing altered the administrative division and the ethnic composition of Beijing but did not change the urban mor-

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phology of the former Ming capital. The location of the government offices on both sides of the Forbidden City generally respected a pattern of symmetrical distribution. The Shunzhi and Kangxi emperors renamed the outer court halls, the hill of Wansui (now Jingshan), Da Ming men (now Da Qing men), and other gates when they rebuilt the palaces of the Forbidden City burnt in 1644. Damage inflicted on Beijing by non-Chinese conquerors has been mainly symbolic. French and English forces joined in the looting of the Yuanmingyuan summer palace, and the Germans confiscated the instruments of the Beijing astronomical observatory. These were sites of historical significance but of little practical importance to the city. Like their predecessors, modern invaders have added to the architectural patrimony of the capital by constructing, for example, the diplomatic legations’ quarter and Catholic cathedrals.29 These modifications have remained insignificant in comparison with the dramatic changes that Beijing urban planners and more recently Hong Kong developers have forced on the geomancy of the city since 1949, when Beijing became the capital of the People’s Republic of China: One of the most immediate directives of the newly founded government of the People’s Republic of China in the autumn of 1949 was the redesign of Beijing, the site of a capital for most of the last thousand years of Chinese imperial history. Specifically targeted for overhaul were the city’s age-old focus—the 250 acres known as the Forbidden City and the 4.5 kilometer approach northward to it from the south gate of the outer city—and former imperial spots scattered throughout the city. . . . Thus was conceived one of the most dramatic architectural transformations of this century: palace square to people’s square, a three dimensional manifestation of “letting the past serve the present.” 30

The enlargement of Tian’an men Square, the locations of the Monument to the People’s Heroes and Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum at the center of the new square, the destruction of the city walls, the new orientation of the city along the east-west axis of Chang’an avenue, and the erection of international hotels crowned with panoramic restaurants constitute some of these transformations. The Communist regime has emphasized the traditional symbolism of Tian’an men gate, erected in 1420 and restored in 1651, by including it as the central motif of the Chinese state national emblem. Ming and Qing edicts were customarily proclaimed from this gate, and it was from its rostrum that Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976) proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Urban changes in modern Beijing have come as manifestations of the will of the regime to eliminate the superstitious influence of the geomantic model on the mental geography of the city. Modernization has been effected with little concern for the architectural preservation of Beijing’s built landscape and with hostility for the geomantic concepts that

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informed the layout of historical Beijing. The authorities have considered geomancy as feudal superstition that hinders progress and have organized periodic campaigns against these beliefs. Urban planners of the Deng Xiaoping era have used Western analytical frameworks to prepare their master plans. Central place theory, conflicts between developers and bureaucrats, and citizens’ indifference to the destruction of prerevolutionary housing are among the factors that have determined the present urban boom. Ironically, modern Beijing’s lack of interest in preserving the traditional courtyard houses may itself be related to a cultural concept of place that has not wanted to objectify or reify nature. Nature not being an entity in its own right, little thought has been given to efficiently controlling the unprecedented levels of water, air, soil, and noise pollution that modernization has produced. Alarmed by worsening water shortages, Peking University geographers have questioned the viability of urban development in the capital.31

Chengde as a Cosmic Model Like Inden, the first Manchu capital, and Shangdu, the Mongol summer capital, Chengde was a city that had no history and therefore lacked the architectural imprint of a previous Chinese dynasty. What can be said about the geomantic qualities of the Qing summer capital of Chengde? The site of the Rehe shangying post station occupied the center of a wild green valley. Here mountains stood in the northern, eastern, and western sides of the imperial residence, rivers flowed to the southeast, a symmetrical palace complex was built, groves of trees were planted between buildings and hills, gentle slopes extended to the south of Bishu shanzhuang, peasants’ fields faced south on the terraces that flanked the Wulie river, and temples were located to repel cosmic energy coming from the inauspicious northeast direction.32 Chengde’s concentration of temples in the northeast quarter of the summer capital city is not unique in East Asia. To grant the shögunate palace greater protection from the inauspicious northeast, most Tokugawa-period Tokyo temples were located in the present districts of Bunkyö-ku and Daitö-ku, northeast of the palace. On Chinese geomancers’ compasses, northeast was termed Guimen, the “Ghosts’ Gate”; the three other gates were called the northwest Tianmen, or “Heaven Gate”; the southwest Dimen, or “Earth Gate”; and the southeast Renmen, or “Men’s Gate.” It can be argued that the introduction of yin elements through the filling of the Saihu lakes and planting of the Wanshuyuan trees was meant to correct the strong yang character of the Bishu shanzhuang mountains. The simultaneous introduction of these male and female features to the natural landscape of Chengde is not sufficient proof to authorize the conclusion that the Qing summer capital was built according to geomantic principles. What we see instead is a three-step process in which construction is followed by reinterpretation that paintings and maps later legitimize. By positioning lakes, forests, and artificial

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mountains in the Chengde landscape, Kangxi proposed a geomantic reading of the site of the hill station despite the fact that geomancy was not at the origin of its design. Later reordering in the representation of Chengde was needed because the site may not have been considered fortunate by all spectators. Geomancers would not have appreciated the parallel north-south courses of the Wulie and Rehe rivers: Parallel streams with no mountains between and flowing out of the site mean the sale of father’s land, the plundering of wealth, and disgrace.33

On the other hand, having the water of Rehe river flowing outside the summer residence from west to east would mean wealth, honor, and goodness for the south-facing emperor. Maps of the Chengde Gazetteer, therefore, redirect the flow of Rehe in the right direction. The city itself housed numerous governmental agencies, but Kangxi and Qianlong demonstrated minimal concern for the well-being of Chengde proper as evidenced by the late date (1778) of the construction of its Confucian school, the Wenmiao temple. The prefecture capital developed along the main streets and the Wulie river without the constraints of city walls, an urban planning scheme, or the benefits of Buddhist and geomantic environmental considerations.34 Several Qing maps clearly indicate that geomantic considerations came second and not first in the selection of the site and in the construction of the summer capital.35 The reordering of landscape elements is evident in contemporary cartographic representations of Chengde, such as the Carte du Pé-Tchi-li series published in 1888 by Monseigneur Alphonse Favier.36 A better, if inaccurate, representation of Rehe was accidentally selected by Alphonse Favier in his maps of Chengde and the Great Wall. Comparison with modern topographical maps of Chengde coupled with fieldwork investigation have led me to reconstruct four misrepresentations committed with precision by Qing cartographers.37 These four invented features contributed to the view of Chengde as a geomantically auspicious locale: 1. Favier’s version of Bishu shanzhuang residence is surrounded by mountains on three and a half sides; the actual residence has a White Tiger hill on its west but no hill on its east, only the Wulie river. 2. Favier’s Wenquan, the spring of Rehe river, flows from west to east, in front of and outside the summer residence; the actual Rehe river flows from north to south, from inside the residence lake district into the parallel Wulie river, outside the hill station. 3. Favier’s Potala temple is located behind hills in the northwest of the summer residence, and Puning temple is located behind the Wulie river in the northeast of the

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summer residence; the actual positions of both temples are just north of the Bishu shanzhuang residence, on the opposite side of the Shizi gully, and not separated from the Qing capital by mountains or hills. 4. Qingchui peak is omitted in Favier’s map; in fact, the highly visible peak on the east bank of the Wulie river is the most prominent natural landmark in the Chengde landscape. The peak’s contribution to the enhancement of the geomantic value of Chengde is minimal compared to its contribution to the Buddhist value of the site.

Not all Qing administrative maps of the prefecture of Chengde easily lend themselves to a geomantic reading of the site of the Manchu summer capital. Their depictions of Chengde primarily reflect concern for delineations of administrative units, river networks, and mountain ranges. The “Chengde fu tu” map represents lodges, tent camps, and the administrative offices in Chengde.38 It omits relevant information that would complete the depiction of the Chengde landscape: the city of Chengde itself, the outer temples, and the roads leading to Gubeikou and Mulan are all missing. The map shows Bishu shanzhuang residence as an isolated hamlet with mountains in front and back, precisely like the image its name suggests. The Wulie river entirely surrounds this mountain hamlet, which was built on an island to which no bridge connected. On a scale smaller than the “Chengde fu tu” map, the “Chengde fu quantu” map represents the hill station as a simple empty lake without indication of its imperial status.39 The seats of prefectures and counties are indicated with the same circles that designate camps, colonies, and various Mongol settlements. Lodges form two incomplete lines that cross Jehol, from Gubeikou to the Luanhe river and from Chengde to Mulan. Both maps omit identifying the summer residence as a palace. The silence and misinformation on imperial landscape provided by these two administrative maps are difficult to decipher. The value of an environment was traditionally considered to reside in its potential as a locale for human activity, the construction of metaphors, or landscape duplication. Temples were built to allow communication with Sumeru mountain or Heaven or to serve as points for the passage of axes of landscape transition. The same site offered valuable resources in geomantic as well as Buddhist terms, since both cosmogonies shaped the sensorial appreciation of landscape and the material reproduction of a metaphysical cosmos. In northern China and Central Asia this role was generally of greater importance during the non-Chinese dynastic periods, as these dynasties more readily embraced Buddhism. The significance of Qingchui peak can be discussed from a cosmic perspective, with the peak serving as a metaphor for the Sumeru mountain determining the location and construction of Jinshan in Bishu shanzhuang and Pule si, one of the Waiba miao temples. In

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his 1767 dedicatory inscription to the Pule temple, the Qianlong emperor quoted his religious preceptor lCan-skya qutugtu Rol-pa’i rdo-rje when he described the architectural model followed to satisfy human and spiritual needs. The model consisted of four architectural components: it had successive gates at the entrance; a major temple in the middle with a mandala built on it; inside a superimposition of terraces; the Buddha’s Three Supports Temple above and exactly aligned with Qingchui peak.40 We have already found in Chengde several metaphors for celestial bodies. We can compare the hill station to an astrobiological model if we allow for adaptations to the relief conditions of the Chengde basin that prevented projection from Jinshan mountain outward to all the compass points. In “The Suspended Pelt: Reflections on a Discarded Model of Spatial Structure,” Paul Wheatley identifies the three principles of spatial organization of an astrobiological model: 1. Terrestrial space was structured in the image of celestial space and the parallelism thus established had to be maintained by a rigorously scheduled sequence of rites and worship. . . . 2. Terrestrial space was initially generated by, and subsequently structured about, an existentially centered point of ontological transition between cosmic planes. Through this focus of creative force was conceived to pass an axis, common to both macrocosmos and microcosmos, which it was the responsibility of ritual experts to guard against dislocation. Part of that responsibility was discharged by the construction at this quintessentially sacred pivot of the universe of a structure charged with the awesome symbolism of, in the semiology of the culture concerned, an axis mundi. 3. Technological limitations prescribed that the orientation of the sacred enclave enclosing the axis mundi should be achieved in relation to the cardinal compass directions.41

Wheatley’s model establishes a connection between the hill station and the conceptions of space already analyzed. Chengde assimilated the Qing residence to a cosmic order and defined a sanctified space consecrated to the emperor/Mañjusrï within the continuity of the profane northern China frontier. It also integrated all the levels of human experience of landscape, from the global and the imperial to the pictorial and cartographic. Chengde, therefore, constitutes one of the few dramatic examples still extant of the spatial tradition that developed in ancient Asia around the concept of a pivotal mountain. The question to be addressed, then, is how to reconcile the religiosity of the cosmic hill station with the anti-religious stance of Confucianism. The features of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ landscape enterprise made the development of Chengde similar yet different from the founding of Luoyang by Duke Zhou in 770 b.c.e.:

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Having constructed this great city [Luoyang] and ruling from there, he [the king] shall be the counterpart to August Heaven. He shall scrupulously sacrifice to the upper and lower (spirits), and from there govern as the central pivot.42

In other words, the Qing emperors used the urban components of an ancient celestial paradigm in their new structuring of space. The new cartographic and engraving techniques they introduced allowed them to produce and reproduce manipulated imagery in order to explain their urban creation. Buddhist and Confucianist discourses served to harmonize cosmic and political orders. The cause for the employment of the astrobiological model by the Qing state lies in its larger explanatory power of universal rule, since the alternative models of Confucianism and geomancy would not have been inspiring enough to illuminate all the metaphors that participated in the spectacle of Qing supremacy. I do not wish to argue, however, that the Luoyang model was used by Kangxi and Qianlong in a consciously manipulative way.

CHAPTER 7

Representations of Chengde At the same place long days are boring. In my late years I love peace and ease. Mid-summer heavy heat leaves when a cool breeze comes. In the hot summer I greet coolness to enjoy nature. Long-lasting ambitions are with me day and night. Hesitant I ponder political remedies. Not worshipping Gushen [Daoist God of nature], I return to government. I recover my energy only in the hamlet of mountains and lakes.1

Empire and Hill Station A Manchu mountain resort in colonized Mongolia would curiously offer many facets familiar to scholars who have worked on the symbolic landscape of hill stations in European colonies. Just as Ootacamund was used by the Madras presidency in British India, the retreat of Bishu shanzhuang served as a seasonal administrative capital complete with office headquarters, temples, schools, and the theaters and prairie banquets associated with Chinese emperors and Mongol princes. Almost every summer the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors enjoyed migrating to the cool forests of hilly and unsettled Jehol, so different from the flat and crowded plain around hot Beijing. In creating comforting miniatures of England or Manchuria, both British and Qing colonial policies succeeded in going beyond transplanting colonial models of landscape. The hill stations were expressive of beliefs that set the colonial world apart from Europe and China as they naturalized the racial and religious separation of rulers and ruled. Nature was used to enforce this separation, and separation became a law of nature to all the participants in the seasonal migrations to hill stations.2 In a similar way, residence design and architectural models participated directly in a system of representation that sustained and legitimated Qing domination of China and Central Asia. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ Buddhist and Confucianist discourses were intertwined with Chinese traditional theories on climate and topomancy.3 Their policy of extending imperial virtue throughout Central Asia resulted in a series of geographical layers, distinct and unequal in scope, that provided spatial divisions apparent to all but the emperors themselves who solved at a conceptual level the physical conflicts between the landscape elements of Chengde and Jehol. In order to include the alien other within his sovereignty, the Qing emperor had to succeed in encompassing every other center of power, be it political, religious, or cosmic.4 The imag116

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ining of Manchu sovereignty followed the two inclusive principles of external homogeneity and internal heterogeneity that were applied to the architecture of the site of Chengde. As Chengde came to form the center of Qing landscape activities by including the environmental features of China and Central Asia, Kangxi scrutinized in his station the political goals that motivated the re-creation, some four centuries and two dynastic cycles later, of a summer residence not far from the site of Shangdu.5 His analysis of the environment of the original hunting lodge of Chengde embraced not only the set of meanings he wanted to grant to the Manchu summer capital but also landscape itself and how it could express the universal values of the dynasty. He broadly defined landscape as an area made up of a not always distinct association of desirable physical and cultural features— Chinese and Tibetan concepts related to place enriched his vague definition—and he applied this new concept to a hill station in order to address the issue of the conception and sustainability of an environment imported to a new area. His and Qianlong’s surveying of Chengde investigated, within this specific cultural context, the relationship between the Manchu court and the frontier of northern Zhili. Both emperors interpreted with flexibility Chinese concepts about center in order to glorify the notion of periphery. As they developed their summer residence, Kangxi and Qianlong provided compelling explanations to account for seasonal positional shifts: the frontier area of Jehol became the seasonal core of the Qing empire and then, in turn, became part of the periphery of Zhili. They combined the Buddhist cosmic model and Chinese geomancy when they stressed the parallels between Bishu shanzhuang and Yuanmingyuan by emphasizing the importance of natural and artificial relief.6 Mapping Qing Chengde reveals the permanence of significant political concerns imbedded in landscape: the management of the frontier areas, the relationship between Chinese and non-Chinese communities (notably Mongol, Tibetan, and Muslim), and the development of natural resources in Central Asia. In focusing on a hill station and its iconographic representations, Kangxi and Qianlong chose to conceptualize landscape rather than discourse because the relationship developed between environment and ideology appeared to them more spectacular than the frameworks of discourses on space and power. The Manchu emperors produced their own Orient by defining the political, military, religious, ritual, and metaphorical terms of Qing rule over Mongolia and Tibet. The baroque compound of Xiyang lou, the “Western Ocean Buildings,” that Qianlong erected in Yuanmingyuan was an exotic addition to the Manchu seraglio.7 In their dealings with French delegations, Russian missions, and British embassies, both Kangxi and Qianlong explicitly rejected the centrality of Western imperialism—Eastern imperialism was not less central to the cultures of Asia—and expanded the notion of cultural hybridity that is so visible in the built landscape of Chengde. This latter notion conferred a specific character to Qing imperialism, since it did not form a homogeneous ideology of racial supe-

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riority. By adapting themselves to their distinct roles as Tibetan reincarnations, Mongol khans, and Confucianist rulers, the Manchu emperors either ignored or fostered differences in order to maintain the coexistence of major languages, religions, and races during a period of sizable demographic and territorial expansion of the empire. Qing expansion was also largely an intellectual project in which the emperors demonstrated mastery of their Orient by organizing in Chengde the spectacle of Chinese scholars’ gardens and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. The landscape vistas in the hill station duplicated images suggested in the names and perspectives selected by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors. In the circuitous gardens of Bishu shanzhuang, the Qing emperors enjoyed the superimposition of vistas that are made distinct from one another only by a move in time and space. From their kiosks, these monarchs not only observed the spectacle of the Chengde-and-Jehol spatial unit plus the Bishu shanzhuang-and-Waiba miao landscape project unit but also enjoyed playing with the two units by superimposing them on one another and making them distinct from one another by only a small shift between successive viewpoints in the hill station and its representations. The Manchu enterprise, therefore, finds its rhetorical significance in the cumulation of the Bishu shanzhuang vistas and Qianlong’s edition of Kangxi’s album of vista engravings. In the rhetoric of Chinese gardens, motion through a circuit of vistas is linked to the vista’s ambivalent meaning in itself as well as to our appreciation of it. Our own or Kangxi’s schemes of perception are, of course, culturally limited by the value we attach to silence, confusion, plurinomy, polysemy, and transposition. What does this superimposition and motion of landscape vistas reveal about the Kangxi emperor’s motives in assembling the vantage points of his summer capital? The embracing of techniques of Chinese and Tibetan landscape-making by the non-Chinese and non-Tibetan emperor is the expression of his desire to transmit an architectural message of diversity and unity. At the time of the founding of the hill station, Kangxi was a master of Chinese garden architecture; Mongol princes summoned to the court encountered, without crossing the Great Wall into China, an elaborate Chinese garden. Sixty years later, Qianlong displayed, in his turn, his command of Tibetan architecture by organizing his Mongol vassals’ participation in rituals held inside the lavish outer temples. The Kangxi emperor hunted in empty Jehol for thirty years before selecting Rehe shangying as the site in Inner Mongolia best suited for a Chinese “mountain hamlet.” Qianlong increased the number of buildings, vistas, and temples in Chengde and allowed Jehol to become a Chinese-colonized region of Zhili. Empty Jehol was full. In its precolonial state, Jehol had been filled with the cultural landscape created by its Mongol population; it had the distinction of being a frontier area between China and Mongolia and the core of several empires; its history was recorded in the annals of past dynasties:

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Upon investigating the histories of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties, he [the Shunzhi emperor] had determined that they also had capital cities beyond the wall outside the borders of China.8

At the same time, full Jehol was empty: each newly established dynasty had censored its records; its population had been deported or massacred; maps of this frontier area were left blank; its former capital cities were fields of ruins: Not a village or a yurt in the Shangtu area shows signs of agricultural pursuits, in spite of the evident fertility of the soil, nor has any kind of vegetable or grain been grown there for generations.9

Full and empty Jehol consisted of spatial units, some dynamic, other stagnant, where the Qing emperors sought to make the Manchu presence felt in static or dynamic ways. The Qing emperors recognized in Chengde a special place where they remained present even when they were absent from Jehol. A permanent presence was necessary, although the Qing emperors were in Chengde and Mulan only between July and October and in some years never came at all. Place recognition in Chengde was crucial, since the Manchu monarchs believed that the fate of their dynasty relied on control of strategic Jehol, at the center of the North China frontier area. The act of landscape duplication carried its own value in the Manchu conceptualization of space. The emperors identified certain points or portions as remarkable in the Jehol landscape: Bishu shanzhuang and hunting lodges along the Emperor’s Road; Chengde, where the original landscape surrounded the borrowed landscape; Mulan, where isolated stelae enhanced the centrality of the original landscape. These sites were also the object of repeated visits, which implied in their purpose that there had been a Chengde before Chengde, a Mulan before Mulan, a Jehol before Jehol. Chengde, therefore, was a repetition and 1703 the date of its re-creation, not of its founding. For the Qing emperors, preChengde may have been as real as the actual Chengde, which itself was a monument contrived to support architectural, political, and religious fictions. The pre-Chengde summer capital existed at two levels. One was purely conceptual, as part of the Manchu landscape archetype whose manifestations marked significant places, especially in Fengtian and Zhili; the other was historical. Qing emperors were aware of the capital cities of past nonChinese dynasties through dynastic histories and archaeological remains in Jehol. Outside Beijing, most Qing examples of the creation of duplicated landscapes were located in Jehol: the necropolis, palisade, summer residence, and temples. In visiting Chengde on their way to Mulan, the Qing emperors knew well enough that they were traversing an empty area that they had filled with their works and ambitions. Fighting for an area that was unmistakably both empty and full, many contenders for the

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suzerainty of both East and Central Asia had previously visited Jehol. As successors to past non-Chinese dynasties, the Qing emperors positioned themselves and their summer capital at precisely the site that they believed they and their non-Chinese ancestors had visited five or seven centuries earlier. Reference to historical precedents was indeed important in the process of establishing legitimacy because interpretation of previous political events justified or condemned the emperor’s or his advisors’ decisions. The theory of precedents led to a conception of history as a construction of the past that efficiently served to organize the present.10 Qing organization of the present carried with it a confusion between space and time. Operating in the filled emptiness of Jehol, this confusion helped grant the Qing rule the legitimacy it needed in governing non-Chinese populations. Similarly, the duplication in Chengde of the semiological wealth encountered in Beijing, rebuilt by the Ming and garrisoned by the Qing, helped in granting any new dynasty that occupied Jehol the legitimacy to administer the Chinese population of China. The filled emptiness of Jehol contained the Emperor’s Road and sepultures, Chinese palaces and Tibetan temples, growing cities and deserted areas, all of which were surveyed, designed, and defined by the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors. The seasonal regularity of court sojourns in Jehol reinforced a feeling of returning to the same locale, where time repeated itself. This cyclical temporality reinforced the feeling of following a track already followed. Qing Jehol can therefore be defined as a path through time itself, which allowed for the passage to and from the Liao, Jin, and Yuan periods. The summer capital enclosed the many parts of the Qing time machine designed to explore history, which travels backward if we place ourselves on a linear time axis but in a circular motion if we place ourselves on a cyclical time axis. One way to stop one’s journey through time was to return repeatedly to the same place, in Bishu shanzhuang, Mulan, or Yuanmingyuan. Qing emperors may have considered that stops at such points were opportunities to stop in time and space, because a point can be juxtaposed with the points of former trajectories and coming back to the first point cannot be prevented. The Qianlong emperor especially may have been tempted to stop time during an elated period when a series of victorious military campaigns in Central Asia added glory to his empire. There was, nonetheless, a fear of dynastic decline as long as the Qing emperors dutifully followed precedents and visited the same points along the Emperor’s Road. The existence of several European baroque clocks now on display at the Bishu shanzhuang Museum confirms a Qing concern for circular time. In stopping it, Qianlong may have had in mind the establishment of an objective configuration of the landscape that existed before the construction of the Qing summer residence. He solved this dilemma between past and present by doubling the landscape vistas inside the hill station (from thirty-six to seventytwo) and by multiplying temples outside Bishu shanzhuang (from two to twelve). Hence,

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the dynasty applied in Chengde and Jehol mechanisms for manipulation of both space and time.

The Modernity of the Great Qing Perhaps the most important contribution of Qing Chengde to the present discussion on the definition of landscape as “medium of exchange,” “social convention,” or “signifier and signified,” is to provide strong support for two claims: that scholars can associate historical landscape with non-European imperialism and that landscape, as a modern, rational, and tradition-conscious medium served the expression of state power in China.11 In an unexpected way, eighteenth-century Chengde has contributed to the postmodernist approach to landscape studies in late twentieth-century Anglo-American geographical thought. Through his description of Kandy, James Duncan has introduced geographers to the employment of discourse metaphors in landscape interpretation. His literary analysis has proposed a journey from discourse on landscape to landscape as representation of a place.12 This approach combines two rhetorical devices: reading landscape as part of social history and interpreting landscape as a cultural allegory. This combination results in a conceptualization of landscape as a discursive field across which the focus of power may be mapped. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors freighted their study of Chengde with theoretical considerations related to representation of a place by situating it within their analysis of the dynastic Great Enterprise. They saw imperial landscape as a cultural process that combined their subjective identities and the objective ecology of the SinoMongol frontier area. Kangxi and Qianlong appropriated the framework of the nature of places for the peoples of Jehol and added theoretical distortions to their geopolitical representations of Sino-Tibetan mimesis in order to create a different categorical framework that would bridge center and frontier, Chinese and non-Chinese, reality and myth. Scholars in colonial studies have often assumed that only Europeans were modern in this way of creating an alienating landscape of power. Conceived as a political tool to further state formation, the garden architecture of Chengde was comparable to the contemporary mechanisms that European monarchs developed in their palace gardens. There is, however, no stronger connection beyond formal similarity. In 1704, Louis XIV fixed the rigid order of the visit of the royal gardens by writing the Manière de montrer les Jardins de Versailles, which detailed a mandatory circuit he himself designed to display the gardens, groves, and fountains of Versailles. The circuit in the gardens consisted of twenty-five successive stopping points defined to admire the French king’s landscape vistas. The similarities between Bishu shanzhuang and Versailles are numerous enough to merit analysis: the marking of a circuit in the gardens,

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numbering of landscape vistas (thirty-six by Kangxi and twenty-five by Louis XIV, if we exclude Trianon and La Ménagerie), definition of axes of landscape transition, use of the gardens to celebrate conquests and impress ambassadors, geometric expression of cosmic metaphors, personal investment by the aging monarchs in their gardens, geographical scale of the projects each located in a deserted area near but outside the capital, and finally the ample use of paintings and engravings to popularize both landscape enterprises and to complement Kangxi and Louis XIV’s own writings on their gardens. Kangxi’s Vista 3: “Follow the pleasant path to the north, then turn a little to the east, pass by the foot of small hills. Red lotuses filling a pond, green trees along a dike, a large villa facing the south, with long wings that meet: this is Wushu qingliang vista. Strong mountains appear in the morning, a cool breeze passes over water: it is truly cool and nice.” 13 Louis XIV’s Vista 25: “Go then to the Pyramid and stop there for a while, and then walk up to the castle on the marble steps that are between the Esguiseur and the shy Venus, from the highest step turn back to see the northern terrace, statues, vases, crowns, the Pyramid and the visible part in Neptune, and then leave the garden through the same gate by which you came in.” 14

The dryness of Louis XIV’s style reveals the king’s sober attitude toward the ostentatious architecture of his residence garden. Not once did he evoke the solar theme. Aestheticism was strangely absent as Louis XIV mentioned only a few of the three hundred statues of his gardens, and then only as spatial references. The long, eight-kilometer promenade of Versailles formed a temporal succession of viewpoints from which the geometry of axes was permanently apparent.15 In their dithyrambic accounts of Versailles and its spectacles, courtesans marveled at the scale and beauty of the gardens that reflected so well on the proud king’s glory: We lack expressions to laud so many wonders, and we believe that we cannot do better than to send the Amateur and Artist to these places to judge for themselves what the intelligence of Art can achieve when it reaches its highest degree of perfection.16

Located far from Versailles and from many French-inspired copies at other European courts, the site of Chengde sustains the claim that a metaphorical landscape was used by a non-European state to support in modern ways its cultural domination over conquered territories. During the eighteenth century, Qing artists depicted the landscape of Chengde and Central Asia with features similar to the conventions used by English and French artists when they represented the colonial environment of the Indies and Americas. In 1765, the Qianlong emperor expressed his intention to have the Jüngar campaign represented by French landscape engravers. Louis XV approved this request and ordered the

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additional printing of a series for himself. He thereby admitted that Qianlong in colonizing Central Asia was enacting a mission parallel to his own. The style of the sixteen engravings of Qianlong’s conquests jointly commissioned by both the Manchu emperor and the French king openly expresses that the two rulers shared values of war and glory.17 There is a sense that the two rulers recognized themselves as members of the same political order; this connection is strengthened by their shared appreciation of depictions of the landscape of war and submission. In these engravings the transition from a Mongol to a Qing landscape is both brutal and ritualized. Furthermore, it is typical of Qianlong’s understatement concerning the Qing “Great Enterprise” that he revealed little about his ambition in his decree related to the engravings.18 Nevertheless, landscape paintings of the French and Manchu empires used similar naturalistic formulas to legitimate a glorious vision of state modernity. Benedict Anderson has defended the thesis that China has relied on the language of its ideograms to imagine a “global community.” Anderson has implied that the notion of “nonarbitrary signs” was a familiar idea to Chinese landscape theory.19 His claim points to an interesting question that W. J. T. Mitchell has thus restated: Is landscape painting the “sacred silent language” of Western imperialism, the medium in which it “emancipates,” “naturalizes,” and “unifies” the world for its own purposes? 20

Chengde landscape paintings and maps would suggest that this question may also be asked of Qing imperialism. Kangxi and Qianlong used these types of landscape representation to emancipate the summer capital from its peripheral site, naturalize the site through the construction of Bishu shanzhuang gardens, and unify Buddhist Tibet and Mongolia with the construction of Waiba miao temples. The multilingual signs used by the Manchu emperor were often chosen to be ambiguous and not universal in order to be consonant with a precise semiological level while remaining open to several interpretations. Only the “hamlet of mountain and lakes” provided the geographical trope for subjective expansion of the terms of time and space in which the emperor was objectively situated. In brief, landscape was the redundant medium that Manchu imperialism employed to let the emperor imagine the existence of a global community that would be his to rule. The participation of gardens in imperial modernity and the very existence of a landscape enterprise launched and supported over a century by an Asian state has escaped the attention of even those postmodern scholars who have committed themselves to the analysis of culture as a totalizing system of symbols. Historians of China, such as James Hevia, criticized the reification of traditional cultures by sinologists in order to justify the modernization ushered in by Western imperialism. Hevia’s book, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy, attempts to situate rituals within

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discourses but not in places. His China, apparently like the China of Lord Macartney, is largely an intellectual construction of letters and instructions, presents and bestowals, receptions and ceremonies. George III’s ambassador extraordinary to Qianlong, Lord George Macartney (1737–1806), upon his return from Chengde left an account of his mission that has served as the primary source for Hevia’s book on the encounter of China and the West in Chengde. Hevia’s analysis is based partly on Chinese materials that reveal Qing concerns for ritual processes. British and Chinese discourses are located, channeled, listed, displaced, altered, assessed, and reappraised, but these convergent and divergent narratives on the embassy never acknowledge the spatial support received from the rhetorical landscape of the Qing summer residence. Chengde as a topic of research has found itself neither inside nor outside presently defined Chinese studies. My analysis of the hill station conforms to neither traditional notions about China being immobile, eternal, and unique nor more recent concerns about ethnicity and Eurocentrism in Asia. My work on the imperial landscape of Chengde, instead, addresses issues about intra-Asian imperialism, the “Orient” of the Orient, and the East-Central Asian perception of place and space. The irony in the critical approach defended by James Hevia is the eventual revalorization of the British attitude toward China, as criticism of George III’s England becomes the center of Hevia’s attention: Lord Macartney concluded that British diplomatic procedures and public sphere discourse had combined to produce a diplomatic triumph, one which while far from complete, had inaugurated a process that would eventually produce ever more spectacular results. . . . [Macartney’s] communication [of 1795] to the emperor and imperial officials at Canton was designed to continue the dialogue that the embassy believed it had established with the Qing court and to confirm the optimism that had been generated over the possibility of dealing reasonably with the Chinese. Like the embassy itself, it was organized around assumptions about “oriental” courts that had been confirmed by the embassy, and included new knowledge that had been accumulated as a result of the careful observations and record keeping of Lord Macartney.21

The quote does not seem to be a positive commentary on the British attitude but confirms that a pattern is established. The Other of the British Embassy becomes Hevia’s Other; the “men from afar” turn out to be Qing bureaucrats and not British diplomats; and as a consequence Bishu shanzhuang has for Hevia no importance other than providing a venue for Lord Macartney’s requests for negotiations. The academic demoting of the Manchu emperor, northern frontier culture, or geomantic thinking as the intractable Other is of little interest if the demarcation between the Other and Self does not allow us to be momentarily englobed in a community that is not ours originally. The many visitors of Chengde have participated in recognizing the uni-

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versality of the Manchu rule and have shared a language of referential terms about nature and culture that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors designed for them as their Others. Preoccupation in making sense of the spatial order of the hill station gardens has increased observers’ awareness of Qing landscape as an intelligible medium especially adapted to the delivery of multilingual messages to a variety of audiences. Landscape indeed gave the emperors the support needed to communicate between the divergent cultures of Confucianism, geomancy, and Tibetan Buddhism and to reconcile through their persons the oppositions between Han and non-Han history and the environments of East and Central Asia. In mapping this landscape, I have proposed an objective description of a subjective world that intentionally blended distances and distinctions. That this world ultimately referred to a Buddhist archetype has in no way led me to believe that the Qing emperors were naive or superstitious idolaters caught up in the illusions of a copied architecture and ancient rituals. Unlike Anne Chayet, I also do not believe that the use of their subjects’ conceptions of nature and religion to achieve dynastic goals proves that Kangxi and Qianlong were hypocritical politicians. Her comparison of the styles of the Outer Temples to the Tibetan prototypes has led Chayet to consider Chengde as a trap set by the Manchu imperial hunters to capture and subject the Tibetan church: The main point is that the emperor could tolerate Buddhism, even protect it, but he could not let it interfere with the government. He had to place his law between the source of the religious power, the Potala, and the devotees. When he built the Outer Temples of Jehol [Chengde] to please the Mongols he consequently chose Tibetan models: the Potala of Lhasa; the monastery of Bsam-yas; Bkra-sis lhun-po, the residence of the second leader of the Yellow Church; and the destroyed Kulja temple, former pride of the Dzungars where in 1717 valuable relics had been transported from the Potala.22

Her elaboration of a conspiracy theory in Chengde does not do justice to the personal convictions of the Qing emperor/Mañjusrï who acted as the protector of Buddhism and the model of virtue in addition to ruling as a monarch no less modern than the very Catholic Louis XIV.

Landscape Conceptualization Landscape is the writing of society on the earth; it becomes a geography only for those who conceptualize from its reading.23 Every society has its own ways of shaping its territory and organizing its relationship with space and nature according to its cultural values and the technical means it has developed for apprehending landscape. The conceptualization in geographical terms of the vantage points of Jinshan temple, in the gardens of

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Bishu shanzhuang, has revealed new facets of the geographical order applied by the emperors to the environment of the frontier area. The erection of a new cosmic pillar inside the summer residence turned the Kangxi emperor’s modest summer residence into the center of the universe. Under his direction, the dynastic enterprise unified China and Central Asia. He suppressed in Jehol the previous impress of the Chinese-Mongol frontier cultural landscape and substituted at the seasonal capital of Chengde a composite landscape. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors employed two processes to achieve this ultimate program of unification. The first process involved the vulgarization of the Qing empire landmarks, all duplicated in the Manchu summer capital. The second process merged motion in time and division in space. The metaphorical enjoyment of the Chengde gardens and administrative control of multiethnic Jehol required both motion of the emperor and division of his domain. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ authority in the frontier and beyond derived from the spatial partition and multiplication they imposed in Chengde and Jehol. The dynastic enterprise had an agenda of its own: to deport, delineate, and maintain north of the Great Wall an administrative center, a summer residence, a religious complex, rest stations, extensive hunting grounds, and geomantic no man’s lands. The built environment of Jehol exactly mirrored the components of imperial landscape that were under construction around Beijing during the eighteenth century. In Mulan, Bishu shanzhuang, Yuanmingyuan, Xiling, and Dongling, the emperors enforced the isolation of landscape units for all but themselves and the court. These places provided the elaborate stages needed for political and religious rituals. The Qing symbolic statements about rulership on both sides of the Great Wall also had a military dimension, as all these places were garrisoned and the pastures for the Qing cavalry were strategically located in the Shanhaiguan corridor. In producing an environment designed for alienation, the Manchu dynasty was acting in a surprisingly modern way. In Chengde, the Qing court was a society that enjoyed spectacle, defined as a relationship mediated by landscape images. The creation of the Manchu imperial landscape was an instrument of unification for the image producer, the ruler, and an instrument of alienation for the image consumer, the ruled.24 The construction of scenic vistas served as the backdrop for a Manchu campaign of homogenization, duplication, and differentiation throughout the empire. Landscape renditions such as the vignettes of Kangxi’s thirty-six landscape vistas in the hill station magnified subjective distance in Chengde. As an imperially sponsored compilation of plates and poems, the several and multilingual editions of the Album of Imperial Poems became a conveyance of landscape consumption by the Chinese bureaucrats and the Manchu and Mongol nobles. The Chengde Gazetteer also popularized the architectural novelty of having Chinese scholars’ gardens built in Mongolia under Manchu supervision for the restricted use of the Qing emperors. The Manchu monarchs’ aim may have been to satisfy their vassals

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and subjects by giving them the feeling that they participated as spectators in the “Great Enterprise.” This military and architectural undertaking repressed the Chinese and Mongol resistances symbolized by the Great Wall that partitioned the Qing empire. The Kangxi emperor may have felt a need to better reinforce the ineluctability of the transfer of the “Celestial Mandate” from the Great Ming to the Great Qing, since in 1644 only Chinese treason and an anti-Ming rebellion had opened the Shanhaiguan gate of the Great Wall and the gates of Beijing to the Eight Banners. The Qing emperors turned Ming fortifications into mere internal administrative boundaries as they proclaimed the Manchuness of the imperial landscape on both sides of the Great Wall. The Manchu emperors’ landscape consumption in Jehol essentially consisted of touring every summer a terrain that was becoming banal due to a century-long effort in landscape-making. They had selected sites in Jehol for lodges and hunting reserves and modeled them to assure the ubiquitous equivalence of the sites in geographical and historical dimensions. Traveling on the Emperor’s Road, Manchu society removed the realities of linear time and isotopic space from the voyage into Jehol, while organizing in Chengde a territory of metaphors abstracted from every territory.25 The imperial landscape materialized a highly conceptualized environment made possible by the sophisticated cultural tools of iconography, cartography, architecture, and literature. Chengde landscape was apprehended through equally sophisticated conceptions of nature and culture. In developing in Chengde the terms of the relationship that linked site and cosmogony, Kangxi and Qianlong displayed their mastery of geomantic and Buddhist concepts about nature, their familiarity with the distinct architectural traditions of the empire, and finally their image of the conceived environment as a reflection of themselves. The Kangxi emperor made the decision to locate his summer capital in Chengde because the site provided a unique opportunity to build a truly Qing capital city in an “empty” space that was strategically located within the empire. The summer residence and its immediate surroundings represented a reduction of the Manchu empire into a microcosmic representation, while the Bishu shanzhuang gardens represented a symbolic enlargement of the miniaturized empire to metaphysical dimensions. The creation of the Chengde landscape was clearly a political project, but the resulting environment was also replete with symbols that are more than merely political. Kangxi’s claim to divine status was materialized in his construction of the round Jinshan mountain with which he intended to represent the mythic Sumeru mountain. As such, Jinshan formed the symbolic pivot of the Bishu shanzhuang imperial residence and hence of the whole Manchu enterprise. His new way of writing and reading the landscape of the hill station gardens offered a perception of the ideological environment of Chengde that completed the more immediate political, religious and geomantic interpretations of his residence. Composing a cosmological rendition of the landscape of the Manchu summer capital and basing it on a comparison of

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the configurations of the imperial gardens with the Buddhist model of the universe was Kangxi’s remarkably elaborate device to grant immortality to the imperial residents of the hill station. This symbolic statement does not mean that as an individual Kangxi believed in immortality. In order to incorporate the aesthetic, cosmogonical, and metaphorical values into their exemplary expressions of elite landscape, the emperors probed the relationship between Chinese history and the ecology of frontier areas as they proposed a topographical voyage to Chengde and Jehol. By analyzing the modalities of landscape manipulation through a political vernacular, they contributed to a global definition of imperial landscape as spectacle, with the important reservation that Qing court activities were symbolic of an underlying cosmic order specific to a Buddhist culture. Looking at the vistas of the hill station, the emperors opened perspectives on the geography of Manchu spatial imagination and argued that the cosmological reading of a cultural environment based on a comparison of the configurations of a site with geomantic and Buddhist models of the universe went beyond the morphological and functional interpretations of a locale to enter the modern sphere of state formation. Relating the conceptualization of the sacred Sumeru mountain, Qingchui peak, and Jinshan temple to the landscaping of Chengde has explained the ways in which Kangxi and Qianlong created a thatched hermitage for themselves and an idyllic capital for their powerful empire. The Manchu definition of vistas thus enriched understanding of landscape as a series of framed images that are superimposed over the scenery of actuality. By insisting on the comparison between different media used for spatial representation, Kangxi and Qianlong followed the Emperor’s Road far beyond the barrier where Bannermen would have ordered court officials to dismount, to the point where the road turned into a faint path between the erected rocks of an immortal’s island. Walking on the steps along the Bishu shanzhuang circuit of vistas, their guests discovered how the Qing monarchs naturalized their environment and thus became the lords of the landscape they had subjected to themselves. Their moving from scenic picture to scenic picture illustrated a series of perspectives that Kangxi and Qianlong displayed to show the dynamism of landscape as an aesthetic medium for circulation through the empires of China and Central Asia. The miniatures of the Album of Imperial Poems allowed their readers to return to the encompassing constitution of the Qing spatial hierarchy. Manchu landscape aesthetics participated in an innovative way to the formation of the new Qing identity and to the ecological revolution of the North China frontier area. In accordance with imperial commands, Chengde played the central role in defining ethnic and religious identities by imposing the spectacle of a series of environmental representations. The poetic fictions of the Qing emperors’ discourses about Chengde landscape silenced the reality of the discourse associated with the employment of Jehol as a technique for colonial rule.

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The founding of the summer capital at Chengde entailed the Qing appropriation of spatial models. This urban creation invites discussion of the appropriateness of built landscape to its immediate geographical environment, or what could be called the determinism of landscape continuum. The emperors’ emphasis in landscape interpretation remained the cultural context that first engendered the Chengde landscape and then directed its iconographic reproduction. Qing cultural values about space provided Chengde and Jehol with the means to express a universal message through landscape forms and images. The Qing monarchs molded their imperial landscape in areas selected for obliteration of previous cultural imprints and for reception of the imprint of their policy regarding territory, ethnicity, religion, culture, and nature. The original aspect of these areas was dramatically altered by Qing architectural projects, which usually took long decades to complete. Whether heavily populated or uninhabited by Mongols, these areas were closed to Chinese commoners and always walled and guarded by Manchu and Mongol Bannermen. The imperial cities of Beijing, Mukden, and Chengde; the parks of Yuanmingyuan in Beijing and Bishu shanzhuang in Chengde; and the dynasty’s sepultures and ancestral temples in Mukden and northern Zhili are the most prominent elements of the imperial landscape. The emperors added to this list less glorious elements such as the Willow Palisade between Manchuria and Mongolia, the pastures for cavalry horses along the palisade, the hunting grounds of Mulan north of Zhili, guard houses, resting places such as the hunting lodges, and the Emperor’s Road, which connected all these elements from Beijing to Mulan and Mukden throughout the vernacular landscape.

From Primary and Secondary to Imperial Landscape Landscape transition in Jehol connected the historical geography of the frontier with the physical, religious, and ethnic geography of the region by rejecting the traditional Chinese exclusion of the barbarian world. In changing the geography of Jehol within the frontier environment, the Manchu monarchs investigated the historical significance of the area and altered the administrative, natural, cultural, and ethnic facets of Jehol as the region moved toward a more prominent status. The relationship between Jehol and Chengde that Kangxi initiated required of the emperor a preliminary presentation of the area where both the region and site are embedded. His global aim, therefore, was to provide a survey of the cultural background of the Qing northern China frontier by insisting on the importance of context in shaping Chengde. He studied the physical and human geography of Jehol in connection with the surrounding Chinese and Mongol areas. The geographical layers of Chengde and Bishu shanzhuang, which he examined in an axial perspective, stressed the geopolitical continuum between Beijing, Chengde, and Mulan. Emphasis was placed on three spatial units, Jehol, Chengde, and Bishu shanzhuang, and

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on their connection through the Emperor’s Road to regions spanning from the Gubeikou gate of the Great Wall to the summits of the imperial residence of Chengde and the gates to the Mulan reserve.26 The Emperor’s Road outside and inside the hill station allowed an exploration of the districts of Bishu shanzhuang. In designing the four landscape districts of the hill station, Kangxi extended the concept of the Emperor’s Road that placed Chengde at the center of Qing construction activities in Jehol. The coherence of each layer of landscape turned the site of Chengde into a powerful aesthetic instrument that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors employed to present a cultural enclave in the wilderness as the natural construction of the Manchu domination that anchored the pivot of all universes. Inside Bishu shanzhuang, the physical pivot was Jinshan, which completed the organizing function of the emperor’s body, conceived as the political pivot between the cosmos and the earth. To add to the efficiency of Chengde landscape, each layer of landscape perception was conceived so as to satisfy only one faction of the Qing court’s clientele. To increase the safety of his central position within the cosmos, the emperor was the only person able to mediate all the landscape layers that he himself had designed in this “solitude.” The seasonal return of the court to Chengde thus granted the periodic guarantee that there was a pastoral space where the Kangxi emperor could find himself, “recover his energy,” and “ponder political remedies.” The emperor studied division and unity in the Chengde gardens through the political rhetoric that constructed an architectural setting for metaphors. His analysis of the components of the landscape (religious landscape, court landscape, and commoners’ landscape) used spatial interaction inside the gardens of his summer residence in order to enter a metaphysical universe. The implications of his findings for the Qing enterprise in Jehol were presented in poetic and pictorial descriptions of the Chengde gardens. These gardens served as a contextual preamble to the most important site for landscape transition, the Jinshan mountain. Although Kangxi and Qianlong divided the gardens of Chengde into functional and spatial categories, the emphasis of the imperial landscape architecture was on the metaphorical wholeness of the built environment and the political unity that the gardens were conceived to express. The coherence of the geographies of the Chengde gardens was tested by Qianlong when he employed several Chinese and Tibetan architectural models. The transition from primary landscape to secondary landscape, as described here, corresponds to the evolving relationship between the site of Chengde and the area of Jehol. The transformation of Chengde into the Qing summer capital resulted in the elaborate and seemingly disjointed Manchu imperial landscape, of which only fragments have been previously studied by scholars. The imperial architecture of Chengde is made up of a puzzle of compounds and compounds within compounds, lakes and rockeries, forests and parks, pavilions and temples. This study has sought to resolve three difficulties in

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interpreting the site of Chengde: rendering the imagery of the Chengde puzzle pieces, retrieving lost pieces of the imperial landscape, and grouping all the pieces together to form a coherent picture while acknowledging the distinct danger of being manipulated by manipulative sources. Chengde indeed discourages the geometrical decipherment of its symbols, but its spatial semiology becomes clear where the architecture of the site proposes direct links (“axes of landscape transition”) between several generic typologies of landscape creation in China: the geomantic, the Buddhist, the political, and the scholarly allegories. From the cultural reading of the Bishu shanzhuang gardens, axes of landscape transition were evidenced; they extend from natural landscape to cultural landscape and from analogical landscape to metaphorical landscape. Reconstructing the symbolic environment of Chengde has uncovered the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ expressions of their places in nature as distinct agents of modification, their concepts about time and place, and their perceptions of the landscape they were shaping.27 To reconstitute the pre-Qing landscape of the North China frontier, it is essential to examine the resources in the Jehol primary landscape that induced the Manchu emperors to select the site of Chengde. To compare this landscape with the Qing landscape at the end of the transition, we need to examine how changes occurred in the locations of Chinese and Mongol communities, how immigrants transferred rural and urban landscapes from the provinces of Inner China to Jehol, and how Qing elite architecture was related to the commoners’ architecture of Jehol primary and secondary landscapes. The secondary landscape includes several landscape units: the Bishu shanzhuang summer residence, the Waiba miao temples, the city of Chengde, the Emperor’s Road, the Mulan hunting ground, and Chinese rural architecture beyond the Great Wall. The origins of most of these landscape units are rooted in the Qing emperors’ cultural appreciation of Jehol physical qualities. In contrasting primary landscape with secondary landscape, we can evaluate the diverse contributions made by Manchu monarchs, Mongol Bannermen, Chinese peasants, and unidentified poachers to the creation of the Qing landscape. Geographical information that has otherwise been neglected in the study of Qing landscape-making has been employed here to give a venue to the abundant materials on the summer residence that are now scattered in the libraries of several countries. They include sources in many languages and media: stelae, poems, monographs, reports, surveys, paintings, engravings, landscape vistas, maps and photographs, and certainly the present cultural environment of Chengde and Jehol. The present interpretation of Qing iconography and texts has been based on the Chinese tradition governing the creation of cultural landscape, the analysis of the Qing emperors’ landscape policy in Jehol, and the ethnic environment that has remained part of the cultural landscape of Chengde, even if the iconography of the court excluded it from the site. Scholarly study of the architectural metaphors of the summer residence is key to understanding the conception of Chengde

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as Qing landscape. Without proper identification of the design sources and examination of the political goals achieved by the building of Chengde, scholars are not able to understand the Manchuness that imbued the landscape of the Qing summer capital and its surroundings. “Manchuness,” a word that does not exist in English, would mean Manchu quality, identity, or specificity. The Manchu emperors chose the man character to foster a sense of destiny in their new nation partly because the character had been used to transliterate Mañjusrï, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, from Sanskrit and, therefore, had a rich association with Buddhism.28 The importance of the Manchu enterprise lies not so much in the resulting cultural landscapes of Chengde and Jehol but in the historical succession of a complete landscape cycle in the frontier. The production of each phase in the cycle of the Qing landscape was derived from the natural landscape and from cultural concepts about perception and interpretation of the original natural landscape. Along with the development of landscape through time, there occurs a landscape transition in space that goes through different geographical scales: from the frontier area to Jehol, from Jehol to Chengde, from Chengde to Bishu shanzhuang, from Bishu shanzhuang to Jinshan mountain, and beyond. The two transitions occurred simultaneously; they effected changes in landscape in different ways, not always officially documented; they have defined layers of landscape understanding through iconographic, poetic, and architectural renditions of the imperial landscape. The emergence of a region, the building of a network of travel palaces, the designing of pleasure gardens, the mapping of the frontier, and the painting of landscape vistas have provided evidence for landscape transition through the two dimensions of time and space. This definition of imperial landscape goes beyond the traditional discussion of the dialectics between physical landscape and cultural landscape and beyond the opposition between core and periphery. No originality in this respect is claimed here, as all of the newest work in landscape analysis attempts to do just this. The approach of this book has the merit of concentrating on the values of Asian aristocrats, which may not be the same as the values of today’s academics. It has sought to address the interaction between the idea of landscape archetype and the reality of frontier environment, between ritual space and place of leisure, and between political site and Buddhist cosmogony. An attempt is made to understand the terms of two relationships that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors developed: the relationship between the frontier city of Chengde and its own hinterland, Jehol, and that between the seasonal capital of Chengde and the Great Qing empire. Placed in their own cultural environments, these relationships are examined from successive geographical angles: the formation of cultural landscapes and the construction of imperial cities in East Asia, the geography of the North China frontier and Jehol, the geography of the architectural elements that existed together in Chengde, the symbolic and metaphorical geography that gave a unitary meaning to Chengde gardens and the

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Qing landscape in Jehol, and, finally, landscape transition and its political function in the creation of the Manchu landscape. To describe in its context the enterprise of the Qing emperors, landscape transition is presented as a leading idea for the study of the articulation of transformation and continuum in the environment of the North China frontier. In discussing the reconstruction of the Manchu landscape, retaining the leading idea of landscape transition has helped in examining together several topics that do not easily relate to one another if studied separately. These topics include: Qing concepts about time and space as embodied in the imperial landscape of Chengde and Jehol; modern and eighteenth-century materials about the landscape representation of Chengde and Jehol (contemporary maps, paintings, and illustrations but also travelers’ diaries and scientific survey reports); concepts about nature, landscape reading, and landscape mapping in China and in Chengde; constitution of the Jehol area as a region; the relationship of this region with the neighboring province of Zhili and with the Chinese-Mongol frontier area; Qing territorial and environmental policy in Jehol; the Qing road network; the position of Chengde, located between the cultural landscape of Beijing and the natural landscape of Mulan; the design of the gardens of Chengde and Bishu shanzhuang; and finally the erection of Jinshan mountain as a support for axes of landscape transition. The spatial order in the summer capital and Qing notions about center and periphery, transition and transcendence, and time and space are subsequently examined. The Manchu emperors employed two processes in Chengde to achieve symbolically their political program of unification of the empire. A first process reproduced a microcosmic representation of the Qing empire, while a second process merged distortion in time and division in space; the metaphorical enjoyment of the Chengde gardens and the administrative control of multiethnic Jehol required the fusion of both spatial and temporal dimensions. To survey the many layers of landscape understanding and representation that coexist in Chengde has required assessment of traditional Chinese ideas about man and nature. Examples of the influences of cosmogony, geomancy, and Buddhism on landscape architecture are drawn from the three capitals of the Manchu dynasty: Mukden, Beijing, and Chengde. The codification of a system of attitudes and beliefs regarding nature has resulted in the creation of a cultural landscape particular to China. In Mapping Chengde, the description of the key concepts that have served in the transformation, representation, and interpretation of landscape is crucial for the study, through geomantic and cosmological lenses, of the interaction of man and nature as expressed in Chinese culture. The ways in which society’s concepts have modeled the understanding of the environment of Qing capital cities are examined through the constructed landscapes of Mukden, Beijing, and Chengde, which provide examples of landscape transition as well as practice in landscape reading. Confusion between time and space and between landscape of memory and

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landscape of anticipation, however, occurs only in the sphere of a whole, if instantaneous, landscape. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors gave a place to that confusion; they located it in their Bishu shanzhuang gardens. The vistas in these gardens were contrived to mimic elements of external landscapes. Each of the seventy-two vistas celebrated by the two emperors constituted a moment of landscape totality. The reality of total landscape, even if experienced, remains imaginary, as it invariably refers to other landscapes, both physical and metaphysical. Chinese society has traditionally connected events and their locations without distinguishing between subject and object because people have attached themselves to an environment in which the subjective and objective realms have been only weakly differentiated.29 Landscape is easier to define in its components than in its wholeness. Places and their contents must be studied as wholes because the aesthetic description of places has infused the Chinese environment with cultural meanings, values, and intentions.30 This quality of wholeness remained a feature of the Qing geographical characterization of place, region, and landscape. Within such a cultural understanding of place, morphology as an account of the Chinese landscape must acknowledge the importance of spatial symbolic dimensions. The meanings attached to topographical forms have resulted from human society observing and analyzing its habitat.31 As is evidenced by the processes of transition in the creation of the Qing landscape, the overall significance of place in China has precluded the creation of standardized built landscapes outside their original environments. At the same time, however, it has encouraged a common evaluation of landscape forms that has defined continuity among places. There should be no more confusion between primary and secondary landscape than there should be between natural and cultural landscapes, or between cause, medium, and result. Requirements for the reconstruction of the Manchu imperial landscape are not easily satisfied because inner knowledge of Qing court culture remains limited. Access to contemporary evidence is hindered by the fact that only a limited number of specialists, mainly historians and archivists, have sufficient knowledge of Manchu to enable them to work with the voluminous materials written in what is now an almost extinct language. Familiarity with the terrain requires long sojourns in the border areas of Hebei, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia, but these areas, closed to foreigners before 1900, have largely remained off-limits since the late 1930s.

Controversial Chengde This work on Chengde has examined the design of the hill station and the outer temples to reveal the ways in which geography functions as representation of power. Chengde has served as a site study for an investigation of landscape as tied to the iconographical and literary productions that reinforce imperial discourse on ethnic difference and political

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unity. Mapping Chengde has elaborated on the transformations of the environmental continuum of the North China frontier by presenting landscape transition as a driving idea, by examining the changing geography of the frontier, and by analyzing the ways in which the Qing court had cosmos, centrality, marginality, and transcendence reflected in its summer capital. Failure to analyze the modalities of the transition from natural to cultural landscape has usually prevented analysis of the several interpretations, read through the lenses of geomancy or Buddhism, of the Manchu cultural landscape. The Qing emperors’ European guests and the modern scholars who invite themselves to Chengde have generally not acknowledged the existence of several layers in environmental understanding and site interpretation. They have looked at the key elements of landscape architecture in a ceremonial or locational sense only but not in the contextual sense that gave a coherent meaning to the spatiality of the place. Their rapture or disappointment has frequently arisen from their misinterpretation of the Chinese concept of “climate” and from the application of their own ideas about nature into the cultural landscape created in Chengde. Until the 1930s, most European travelers were thus not intellectually prepared to find in Chengde a locale for racial, political, and virtuous transgressions of “climate” nor a celebration of the ethnic and religious diversity of a modern empire. Whether or not they were willing to praise Chinese arts and philosophy, they were expecting to see in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens a confirmation of the Chinoiserie designs that had already entered the aristocratic manors of Europe. Misplaced aestheticism and cultural illiteracy prevented their acquisition of new empirical knowledge in Chengde. Lord Macartney’s account of “all the wonders of this charming place” exemplifies what a reductionist description of the Qing summer capital may yield: [In the lake district of Bishu shanzhuang] I have enjoyed such vicissitudes of rural delight, as I did not conceive could be felt out of England, being at different moments enchanted by scenes perfectly similar to those I had known there, to the magnificence of Stowe, the soft beauties of Woburn or the fairy-land of Painshill.32

The architectural structures of Chengde originally presented to the Qing court an existential experience that cannot today be understood if we forget the particular schemata that organized symbolic space at the Manchu summer residence. The layers of landscape understanding of the hill station were all autonomous but susceptible to ordering along a hierarchy of geographical scales: from province to prefecture, from residence to island, from temple to cosmos, from hunting trip to domination of both Mongolias. The mapping of these schemata makes manifest the spectacular display in Chengde of the unity of all existence under the universal rulership of the Manchu emperor. The causality that Anne Chayet observed in Chengde between architectural models and realizations

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may not be the one invoked by Kangxi and Qianlong: for them the hill station offered a supreme example of metaphorical thinking that played with many modes of expression. The landscape they conceived in Chengde was given character by directional differentiation in its layers. Hence the conceptual importance of axes of transition for movement inside a landscape layer and between several layers and for exploring the cosmic archetype that underpinned the architectural models and their representations. Following these axes, we effortlessly drift from state ideology to folk beliefs and eventually enter the realm of astrobiology, in which the Qing summer capital becomes a moon whose successive rhythms determined dynastic cycles and seasonal activities like hunting. The architectural patrimony of Chengde provides a unique terrain in which to study cultural and spatial interaction at the Qing court during the eighteenth century in general. Mapping Chengde has specifically examined the representation of the prefecture of Chengde by the cartographic offices of several imperialist states; the use of iconography in architecture to express a multiethnic state’s claims of supremacy; public policy in the creation and protection of ideological landscape; and the perception of landscape by distinct ethnic groups who share the same territory. With its palaces, villas, parks, and temples, the cultural landscape of Chengde served as an arena for conflict resolution between the central administration and Chinese, Manchu, Mongol, and Tibetan constituents. In order to investigate the metaphorical solutions adopted by the Qing emperors in this endeavor, this book has focused on the role of landscape in defining the spatial terms of the relationship between ethnic identity and state policy; analyzed the conceptions of self and place manifest in city maps and garden architecture; and examined how rhetorical and cartographic techniques for the reduction and enlargement of space have altered the perception of the regional environment of Jehol. The sources of this book have been restricted to primarily pictorial materials in order to better scrutinize Chengde as the production center of visual knowledge about the Manchu understanding of nature. The concerns evident here have remained rather similar to those elaborated by the present constructors of the colonial subject who are adding their academic discourses to emperors’ discourses. Postcolonial analysis is altogether relevant to this examination of landscape as a notion that provides place, identity, and dramatization to the imperial self. A decentered analysis of the Qing creation of the Other is articulated here by inverting Edward Said’s critique in Orientalism and the literary theories used analyze the geographies of colonialism.33 Scholarly work on the Qing categorization of the Other has just been completed by James Hevia, and more could be done about the Qing emperors’ perception of alien environments. Scholars should directly study the impress of central authority on landscape through the spatial acts that government officials have expressed in a specific site. To fully explain landscape metaphors at the Qing court, this book has reviewed the ability of Confu-

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cianist, Buddhist, and geomantic theories to read landscape and has refused to rely solely on the work recently done by landscape theoreticians in British and American universities. The eighteenth-century theoretical issues discussed here, however, are relevant to current academic interest, since they find parallels in scholars’ discussions of the question of place within a specific culture. The Qing summer capital of Chengde and its regional environment in Jehol should be of interest not only to the scholars investigating the interaction of China and Central Asia but to historians of art, architecture, and religion. The insights of Mapping Chengde on the complex relationship that connected nature to culture, symbols to site, power to landscape, and finally Inner Asia to Inner China may provide a geographical sense of place to the discussants engaged in cultural studies and colonial criticism. Through the founding and development of their summer capital, the Manchu emperors defined the relationship between Chengde and the Sino-Mongol-Tibetan cultural universe. In doing so, they revealed the geographical logic of their empire formation. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors found the harsh physical geography, low population densities, and the relative isolation of Jehol appropriate for an ambitious geopolitical exercise. The landscape they built during the eighteenth century proclaimed the centering of the Qing mental universe around the Jinshan mountain and celebrated the dynamics of Qing colonialism in Central Asia. The construction of the Qing summer residence of Bishu shanzhuang was also a catalyst for regional development activities in this part of the North China frontier. The geography of the hill station promoted uniformity in cultural impress, since in Chengde the emperors acted for the whole of the empire. The steps of landscape transition in Jehol can be summarized following a chronological sequence. Before 1703, Chengde was part of a bioregion particular to Jehol, here called primary landscape. The Jehol area was emptied of its ethnic and cultural landscape when the Manchu established their empire on both sides of the Great Wall. Between 1703 and 1795, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors built in Chengde a secondary landscape intended to provide a spatial formulation of the Manchu claim to universality. As a consequence of the transformation of primary landscape into secondary landscape, the monarchs defined and revised several relationships: that between Chengde and the Qing cultural universe; between Chengde and Jehol and China’s northern frontier; and between Beijing, Chengde, and Mulan on the Emperor’s Road.34 Because landscape and landscape depictions have conserved traces of the transition that began in Jehol three centuries ago, it is possible to study the geographies of the Manchu dynasty summer capital and eventually to present the Qing conceptualization of space by analyzing these environmental data in their cultural context. The present discussion of landscape transition is largely based on the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ landscape experiences in Chengde and Jehol, on their interpretations of the site of the summer capital before and during the con-

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struction program, on the two emperors’ thorough mastery of Chinese concepts about nature, on their familiarity with the architectural traditions of the Qing empire, and finally on the mental reconstructions that the resulting environment suggested to them and to visitors and scholars two hundred years later. In Mapping Chengde, the built environment of the Qing summer capital is compared with its renditions in written and pictorial sources in order to investigate the modalities for the transplantation of alien vistas to the Chengde site. This interpretation of the Qing enterprise is based on the changes that imperial architecture provoked in the cultural environment of the region and on the geomantic, Confucianist, and Buddhist landscape archetypes that inspired the emperors. At the most self-evident level, the Qing emperors read the landscape of Chengde as a map of the universe that had no predetermined geographical scale. At a more suggestive level, the garden vistas of Bishu shanzhuang also represented a metageography of an Asian cosmogony. The hill station gardens were the most significant elements of the site because they provided the locale for passage through landscape transition axes. They conveyed the conceptual coherence of Qing Chengde that reconciled text and subtext as well as landscape and image. To investigate landscape transition in Chengde, this book has followed a model of growth instead of adhering to a chronological order or an enumerative model. The area it examines expands from the Bishu shanzhuang residence to the cosmic mountain of Kunlun, from Chengde to Jehol, and from the Qing frontier to Central and East Asia. Mapping Chengde redefines key concepts concerning frontier, road, site, and elite and commoners’ beliefs about landscape, as the Qing emperors’ notions of time and space are connected to speculations on their subjective geography. The concepts expressed by the morphology and spatiality of the Chengde imperial gardens are discussed within a religious framework. The order apparent beyond the disordered beauty of the hill station gardens reveals the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ conceptions of identity, history, and culture. This intimate geography that they wanted Chengde to express is the most intellectually exciting one among the many geographies produced in Jehol.

CHAPTER 8

Chengde Studies From this Palace of the Emperor a Road, which is almost strait, leads you to a little Town in the Midst of the whole Enclosure. ‘Tis square; and each Side is near a Mile long. It has Four Gates, answering the Four principal Points of the Compass; with Towers, Walls, Parapets, and Battlements. It has its Streets, Squares, Temples, Exchanges, Markets, Shops, Tribunals, Palaces, and a Port for Vessels. In one Word, every thing that is at Pekin in Large, is there represented in Miniature.1

The current development of Chengde studies is directly derived from the literature and iconography produced during the Qing dynasty. By discussing the historicity and the literary genres of these materials, we can retrace scholars’ perceptions of Chengde as an oasis, a religious capital, a patrimony to be saved, or a two-day tour. Scholars of Chengde, particularly since the early 1980s, have added a new layer of landscape meaning to be analyzed. To some degree, these materials have influenced interpretation of the site by the Chinese architects, historians, and engineers who have recently restored the summer residence and the outer temples. Important studies, such as those done this century by Otto Franke, Fumio Tada, Owen Lattimore, and Hou Renzhi have been geographical in nature, but both modern and Qing scholars have overlooked the continuity between site and region and between landscape values and landscape transition. Like Qing materials, secondary sources on the landscape of Chengde have shown a remarkable diversity in genre, but the analytical quality of these materials has generally been inadequate because little attention has been granted to religion, ritual, and rulership in the environment of Chengde. In their descriptions of the summer capital, modern scholars have emphasized the four following points: the Chinese inspiration in the architecture of the hill station; the Manchu demonstration of having conquered and appropriated the Chinese literary culture based in Jiangnan; the wealth of Qing materials (and the emergence of Chengde studies as a new field of scholarship); and lastly the political goal achieved by the landscape building and landscape reproduction of Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao.2 Outside China, a few books have been significant in the development of Chengde studies: Otto Franke’s regional monograph Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes; Sekino Tadashi’s photographic survey Nekka as well as his conference paper Summer Palace and Lama Temples in Jehol; and Anne Chayet’s Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains. Apart from translations of Chinese guidebooks edited by the tourist administration of 139

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Chengde, English language information on Chengde comes primarily from research conducted in the 1930s: Emil Fischer’s travel notes and conference presentations; Sven Hedin’s historical novel Jehol: City of Emperors, with the addition of the chapters on Chengde he wrote in the margins of his account of the Sino-Swedish expedition; and Sekino Tadashi’s translation of Jehol: The Most Glorious and Monumental Relics in Manchoukuo. We should note that all the Chengde scholars until very recently, and certainly all the emperors, cosmogoners, geographers, geomancers, landscape painters, priests, and urban planners of the Qing empire, were male. Their materials on the cultural landscape of Jehol have not acknowledged women’s considerable work in the genesis of the frontier environment. Cultural prejudices, therefore, can be seen at work in the obliteration of women from Qing depictions of the environment. The women of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ gynecaes who accompanied the court into Jehol were rarely depicted in the paintings and plates of Chengde and Mulan. An exception to the women’s exclusion from the representations of the hunting expeditions can be seen in one of the “Mulan tu” scrolls: a stunningly beautiful female rider (the Qianlong emperor’s favorite daughter?) is portrayed giving an arrow to the emperor.3 The same emperor dedicated temples and palaces to his mother, but filial piety cannot be confused with feminism. Qianlong and every Confucianist moralist knew that the Master had complained about the difficulty in dealing with women: The Master said: Girls and servants are the most difficult people to behave to. If you are familiar then they lose their humility; if you are distant then they are discontent.4

Buddhist devotees, too, were warned against women in strong words: Fierce fire that would burn men may yet be approached, clear breezes without form may yet be grasped, cobras that harbor poison may yet be touched, but a woman’s heart is never to be relied upon.5

Eighteenth-Century Scholars Qing materials about Chengde comprise the greatest part of the eighteenth-century sources containing information on Kangxi and Qianlong’s landscape enterprise. That they were produced in the empire and under the direct control of the court is sufficient to admit them into the “Qing” category, independent of the original languages in which they were written: Manchu, Chinese, Mongol, and Tibetan but also Italian and French. Visual records of the Chengde environment can be found in the maps of Jehol and in the illustrations and paintings of the Bishu shanzhuang resort. Architecture, gardens, landscape miniatures, and pictorial maps provide factual evidence for the study of the creation of the Qing landscape. The eighteenth-century literature on Chengde belonged to a wide

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range of genres: poetry, official statements, travel accounts, reports, gazetteers. The most valuable sources include epigraphic texts related to Bishu shanzhuang, Waiba miao, and Mulan; the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ compilations of poetry and prose on their summer residences of Bishu shanzhuang and Yuanmingyuan; the imperially commissioned Chengde Gazetteer; atlases of Zhili and the Qing empire; idealized landscape depictions that were employed as design models; and finally the usually eulogistic letters, reports, paintings, and diaries by Europeans visiting Chengde at the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors’ invitation. A most important source of information lies in the statements made by the Qing emperors themselves that make explicit the crucial role that Jehol, Mulan, and Chengde played in the history of the empire.6 Kangxi explained how he selected the Mulan area as his favorite hunting place. Jehol, he said, was at the time covered with a thick forest where tigers, panthers, deer, and rabbits were found in large numbers. From about 1677, the emperor began to hunt game there every year, and he loved the scenery of Chengde so much that in 1703 he undertook the construction of the summer palace.7 He remarked about his landscape experience before he discovered Chengde: Many times I have gone on inspection tours of the [Grand Canal and Yangzi] river, and I deeply know the beauty of the south [ Jiangnan]; twice I went to Qinlong [Shaanxi] and I understand all the accounts of the western lands; I have crossed Longsha [Gobi desert] to the north and I have traveled to Changbai shan to the east. I can neither entirely describe the grandeur of the river or the simplicity of the people. I have chosen [for the summer residence] none [of these places]. Only in Rehe [Chengde] is the road close to Shenjing [Beijing]. It does not take more than two days to go back and forth. The place is an open and uncultivated wilderness. If I intend [to build here], how would it be possible to fail at anything [wanji ]? 8

Both the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors magnified the landscapes they created or preserved them by recording their impressions in letters, poems, and gazetteers and on stelae. Several multilingual stelae located in Beijing have recently been examined; these relate to sojourns in Jehol, to frontier policy, to the Yuanmingyuan residence, and to the Qing dynasty’s policy toward Tibetan Buddhism. Scholars in Beijing have recently edited many Qing texts found engraved on the dragon-topped stelae of Chengde and Mulan and have contributed annotations, explanations, and sometimes translations into modern Chinese.9 It seems that no comparative study of the Chinese and non-Chinese versions of these stelae has been conducted by Chinese scholars. Only a few European scholars, such as Ferdinand Lessing, have studied the Manchu, Mongol, and Tibetan versions of the same Qing texts and discovered slight discrepancies between the translations. A major Beijing temple, the monastery of Yonghe gong, possesses a stele erected in 1792, twelve years after the construction of Chengde’s Sumeru temple. The aged Qianlong emperor

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used this stele to defend a shift in his earlier policy toward Buddhism, which he based on his own study of sacred texts: If one wishes to judge the merits of a thing, one must be familiar with it and understand the underlying principles. If I had not studied Tibetan scriptures, I should not be able to speak thus. When I started to learn the scriptures I was criticized [“by some Chinese,” Manchu translation] for being biased towards the Yellow Church [Tibetan Buddhism]. Now suppose I had merely nourished the vain ambition of clinging to old patterns (as furnished by Chinese books) I could not have hoped to inspire awe and preserve peace among the Old and New Mongol tribes (maintaining order) for several dozens of years (among them), nor would I have been able to chastise the lamas fomenting trouble in Ulterior Tibet.10

In Chengde, several temple stelae at the Pule, Puning, and Potala temples have provided crucial information on Buddhism as a source of architectural inspiration in the shaping of the Qing landscape. The text of the Puning stele illustrates the importance of historical precedents and geographical borrowings from outside Jehol for the Qing emperors’ maintenance of the pax manjurica in Outer Mongolia.11 The Potala stele records the Qianlong emperor’s explanation of his political choice among competing Chinese and Tibetan design models.12 The interest Qianlong had in documenting the extension of Zhili administration beyond the Great Wall induced him, in 1756, to command the composition of the local history of the Chengde prefecture. Qian Daxin and Ji Yun completed the the first edition of the Chengde Gazetteer, entitled Qinding Rehe zhi, in 1781. Both compilers accompanied the emperor to Chengde and Mulan in order to gather the materials they needed for their work. The Qianlong emperor’s statements about the dynastic enterprise have been recorded in this gazetteer, which provides information on the northern part of the province of Zhili. Its contents included not only a number of administrative maps of the prefecture and bird’s-eye view illustrations of Chengde temples and Jehol hunting lodges but also the Kangxi emperor’s poems and vistas, presented however without the scholarly annotations of Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi. The Qinding Rehe zhi was enlarged and reedited by prefect Hai Zhong, who published it as the Rehe tongzhi in 1830.13 In 1887 the Chengde Gazetteer was again enlarged for a new edition in 120 chapters, published under the title [Qinding] Rehe [tong] zhi. Not all the participants in the Qing landscape enterprise documented their activities in Jehol. In spite of the emperor’s severe sentence of perpetual banishment against anyone with weapons discovered inside the forest, wild Mulan was always crowded with poachers and lumbermen who participated in their own ways to the shaping of the Qing environment.14 The first foreigner to report a visit to Chengde was Father Matteo Ripa, the author of Storia della Fondazione della Congregazione e del Collegio de Cinesi sotto il titolo

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della Sagra Famiglia di G. C. Matteo Ripa (1682–1745) was a secular priest who collaborated with the Jesuits of Beijing for the engraving of the cartographical survey of the Qing empire. On his return from Beijing, Father Ripa founded in Naples the Collegio de Cinesi, a seminary for the training of missionaries to China. Although the Neapolitan missionary’s 1711 sojourn in Chengde and Mulan is described in only a minute portion of his memoirs, it remains one of the most valuable sources of unauthorized information on the Qing summer capital during its occupation by the dynasty.15 His writings include notes on the private life of the court inside the Chengde gardens, which is a subject never addressed by other Qing materials. The Album of Imperial Poems illustrations, for example, depict empty cottages and summer houses, consistent with the traditional conception of the emperor’s life as beyond the province of public information. Hence, Father Ripa’s writings provide us with a unique, if distinctly non-Manchuphile view, compared to the French Jesuits’ positive reports, of Chengde court life: These cottages and summer-houses are for the service of the Emperor, who retires thither with his queens and concubines; for at Je-hol [Chengde] he rarely sees any one except his ladies and eunuchs, in an open chair; with them he sails in little boats, fishing in the canals and the lakes; with them he eats—always however, alone, upon a raised platform, whilst they take their food seated on the floor, each at her little table. Even when studying he is surrounded by his favorite queens, as I myself have often seen.16

Father Ripa contributed directly to the enrichment of Qing materials on Chengde by making copper engravings. These engravings predate the xylographic plates published to accompany the scenery poems of the Album of Imperial Poems: Perceiving that I had made some progress in the art of engraving, his Majesty [Kangxi] resolved to have prints of thirty-six different views taken from the residence of Je-hol [Chengde] built by himself. Accordingly I went there with the Chinese painters whom he had ordered to make the drawings, and thus had an opportunity to see the whole of the grounds, a distinguished favour which had never been yet conferred on any other European.17

Shen Yu made the paintings of the thirty-six views of the residence that Matteo Ripa later engraved. Qianlong added to Kangxi’s Album of Imperial Poems two chapters of his own poems when he had it reprinted in 1741.18 Vista plates and poems were of crucial importance in the implementation of the imperial landscape policy. To transform an area that had been China’s northern frontier into the Manchu core area, the Kangxi emperor’s retinue of painters and architects transferred to Chengde the charms of the Suzhou gardens and Hangzhou landscape by recording them in paintings that they showed to the emperor for approval.

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Equally significant for a complete knowledge of Chengde and Jehol during the eighteenth century are reports written in Beijing by the authors of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses. Predominantly French, these Jesuit missionaries intervened in the construction of the Qing landscape in four significant ways: directing the cartographic survey of the Qing empire as commissioned by Kangxi; painting court scenes and landscape vistas; constructing a European-style garden called Xiyang lou at the Yuanmingyuan residence; and describing the Qing empire in scholarly letters to correspondents in Paris. Their greatest achievement as far as the historical geography of Qing China is concerned may well have been the mapping of the Manchu empire, a task for which they were qualified because of their expertise as astronomers.19 Father Gerbillon surveyed Mongolia between 1688 and 1698, and in 1708 Father Parennin proposed to the emperor the mapping of the Great Wall. Satisfied with the quality of this survey, Kangxi then ordered the mapping of his empire, which began with Liaodong and northern Zhili. The data and techniques used for the one hundred maps that Father Jartoux submitted to the Kangxi emperor in 1718 were never surpassed by later Chinese cartographers, as evidenced by a comparison of the Kangxi Atlas and the Tongzhi Atlas or by an examination of Favier’s 1888 edition of the map of northern Zhili.20 The captions of the latter large-scale maps yield information concerning the territorial organization of the province: the imperial grounds were restricted areas left entirely unsettled, although travelers could use their roads at any time; Beijing was the capital city of the Qing empire but not of Zhili province; the civil governor of Zhili resided in Baoding prefecture, south of Beijing; the military governor of Zhili resided in Gubeikou. Chengde is located ninety kilometers away from Gubeikou, and, according to the maps, the road between the two cities was good.21 The cartographers of the Kangxi Atlas wanted to provide exact administrative information. In spite of the large number, six hundred, of astronomical observations data, the Jesuit missionaries were not required to base topography and hydrography on Jupiter satellite positions and triangulation techniques employed by the Observatory of Paris. At a time of rapid expansion of the Qing empire, the Jesuit geographical survey served a military and administrative purpose. The missionaries’ advanced training in Jesuit colleges before departing for China enabled them to secure official positions at the Qing court as astronomers, painters, physicians, mathematicians, or clock-makers. Permitted neither to return to Europe nor to proselytize in China, they had ample time for thorough study of the Chinese and Manchu languages. They became familiar with topics that the encyclopedic minds of the times found attractive, including artificial flowers, tree wax, ginseng, Qing administration, and Confucian literature. On several occasions, Jesuit fathers were ordered to accompany the court into Jehol; from there they reported on Qing ceremonial activities organized by the emperor. In 1771, Father Amiot witnessed the Qianlong emperor’s celebration of his mother’s eightieth birthday. To commemorate this happy event, the emperor had a large

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temple honoring Buddha’s attributes, the Potala temple of Chengde, built behind the Bishu mountain. Temple construction had just been completed when Wobaxi and other Mongol Torgüt princes arrived from Russia to submit to Qianlong’s protection, a new cause for imperial satisfaction.22 One member in the retinue of an embassy from a tributary country kept a diary of his visit to Chengde that later became famous for its literary qualities. Pak Jiwon [Pak Chi-won] wrote Rehe riji [Daily Diary on Chengde] when, in 1780, he accompanied his cousin, Pak Myongwon, on an official mission to Beijing and Chengde that conveyed the Korean king’s congratulations for the Manchu emperor’s birthday.

Twentieth-Century Scholars In the spring of 1890 a young German sinologist, Otto Franke, traveled through Jehol; he completed his observations on the region by carefully reading Chinese and foreign materials on Qing Chengde and by extensive fieldwork in eastern Mongolia during 1896. After several interruptions, Doctor Franke was able to conclude in Dresden the writing of a short monograph on the prefecture of Chengde, which he intended to serve as an example of “scientific critical methodology” applicable to the useful study of the Chinese empire.23 His book, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli. Detail-Studien in Chinesischer Landes- und Volkskunde, was published in Leipzig in 1902. I am under the impression that it went unnoticed by potential German readers maybe because they were absorbed by more significant events: the 1900 besieging of the Legations Quarter in Beijing, the war between Russia and Japan, Albert Grünwedel’s and Albert von Le Coq’s expeditions in Turkestan, and the fall of the Qing dynasty. Other regional studies of China experienced the same obscurity, irrespective of their scholarly qualities. Unlike dilettante travelers, Otto Franke based his geographical description of the prefecture of Chengde on Chinese sources he translated and criticized and especially on the sixteen volumes of the Chengde Gazetteer. The Beschreibung has a short section on the physical geography of Jehol and a much longer section on its political geography that includes a thorough review of the civil and military administration of the prefecture, population, and economic activities; the city of Chengde, the summer residence, and hunting lodges; and the hunting reserve. At the turn of the twentieth century, several French and Belgian missionaries attempted to renew the scholarly tradition of Jesuit missionaries at the Qing court. Father Ernest Van Obbergen visited Chengde in 1909. He wrote two articles focused on Chengde temples: “Deux illustres pagodes impériales de Jehol (Mongolie Orientale),” on the Potala and Sumeru temples, and “Jehol, son palais et ses temples.” 24 Ridden with clichés, his description of exotic Bishu shanzhuang pleased his Parisian readers:

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In 1917, Émile Licent went through Chengde during his exploration of southwestern Jehol. His survey of the river system of Jehol, conducted with severely limited means, was part of a decade-long project of mapping the rivers of Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong provinces. The project was itself part of a twenty-five year survey plan to gather materials on the geology, paleontology, zoology, and geography of northern China. The collection was intended for the Hoang ho-Pai ho Museum of Natural History of Tianjin, which Father Licent directed.26 Published to accompany his road sketches and photographs, Licent’s travel diaries were devoid of all romanticism; they were also devoid of any analysis or synthesis of the many data he recorded on the landscape of Jehol and Chengde. Nevertheless, his precise notations on the vegetation of Jehol are now of great historical interest, as he contrasts planted trees and trees that have been cut down: It [Haozhongguan] contains many poplar trees and upstream a grove of such trees protects the village from the torrent. The big and ruined pagoda that stands outside the village is surrounded with old and tall pine trees. But the mountains around the village remain bare.27

Unaware of the decaying wonders of imperial Chengde, Father Arthur Segers wrote an unpretentious relation of daily life in the Jehol city of Chaoyang in the 1920s and 1930s.28 In 1904 and 1905, The Geographical Journal published two short travel reports on Jehol. The authors of these reports lacked familiarity with the region through which they were passing, but their observations on Chengde population and landscape are of value, particularly as few other fieldwork materials have since been available on these topics.29 Epidemic diseases, bad roads, and bandits prevented the exploration of most of Jehol outside major urban centers like Chengde, Chaoyang, and Chifeng. The famous Swedish explorer Sven Hedin (1865–1952) was given an armed escort by the governor of Chengde when he visited the city in 1930. Sven Hedin was an admirer of authoritarian regimes, and his work granted him influential friends in Nazi Germany and Republican China. Published in English in 1940, Sven Hedin’s book Chiang Kai-shek, Marshal of China celebrated the Chinese dictator’s “splendid personality” and “his admirable ability to gather, educate and inspire his people.” Sven Hedin’s other popular book, Jehol: City of Emperors, is doubtless remembered less for its scholarly value than for its appeal at the time of publication. First published in 1932 in London, the book appeared in several editions and translations.30 Reviews of Jehol: City of Emperors by American media praised Sven Hedin’s work in uncritical ways:

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Sven Hedin’s recent visit to Jehol, pleasure city of Chinese emperors, results in a book of legends, history and contemporary observation. . . . His story is one of great personal courage, amazing nerve and ingenuity. The Detroit News Sven Hedin describes the palaces and temples of this deserted capital in a style of great charm, far above that of travel books in general. . . . Sven Hedin’s text and a series of admirable photographs by Dr. Gösta Montell go far to erect Jehol, in this volume, into a landmark. The Bookman 31

Jehol: City of Emperors is made up of three unequal parts, the first being the narration of a journey from Beijing to Jehol and of visits to Chengde monasteries; the second is a historical fiction set in imperial Chengde; and the third (and most valuable part for scholars) is a series of sixty-two photographs taken by Gösta Montell. Hedin’s chapter on the outer temples was not exempt of Van Obbergen’s romanticism: What I had heard and read of Jehol was far surpassed by the reality. The park with its sighing pine trees, its gate houses, pavilions, and stupas, the magnificent stone facades, and the noble temple [Potala inner temple] beneath its golden roof were all equally fascinating from whatever point of view one looked at them. From the terraces and platforms on the various hills the view over the valley was marvelous. When we stood on the highest point we saw the scattered buildings and structures in the park far below; and on the yonder side of the Lion Valley [Shizi gou] appeared the hills over whose ridges, like a gray, curving ribbon, ran the wall of the Summer Palace.32

His chapter complemented the two more exhaustive and precise articles, cited previously, written by the obscure Ernest Van Obbergen. Jehol: City of Emperors was first published in conjunction with the building of a replica of the Chengde Potala inner temple for the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.33 A booklet, The Chinese Lama Temple: Potala of Jehol, was printed for the exposition. Intended as an instructive guide to Lamaism for all visitors of the Golden Pavilion, it was almost entirely Gösta Montell’s work.34 As leader of the Sino-Swedish Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China, Sven Hedin included in his History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935 three chapters describing his travels with Gösta Montell to Jehol.35 While these chapters duplicate the narrative section of Jehol: City of Emperors to a certain extent, they remain valuable because they describe a journey in Jehol taken in 1930 by car and by boat. After that date, scholars traveling to Chengde have done so by train or car, never again taking either the Emperor’s Road or frail square-rigged boats down the Luanhe river. Contemporary sinologists, including Bertold Laufer at the Field Museum of Chicago, seem to have ignored the Century of Progress booklet but found good reason to express their reserve when reviewing Jehol: City of Emperors:

148

Mapping Chengde [Dr. Hedin’s] sentimental rhapsodies can only weary the intelligent reader. The same sentimentality of approach renders the historical sections of the book all but worthless.36

The orientalists of his time condemned Sven Hedin’s sentimentalism and not his desacralization of the Chengde Potala temple. A few Japanese books have been particularly significant in the development of Chengde studies. Tadashi Sekino (1868–1935) was a professor of East Asian architecture at Tokyo Imperial University and compiled several pictorial albums of Korean and Chinese temples. The pictures of the hill station and Waiba miao that he took during three weeks spent in Chengde were published in 1935 in two editions entitled Nekka [ Jehol]. Sekino’s album Nekka is remarkable for its monumental photographic survey of the decayed buildings of Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao. Sekino also published a conference paper Summer Palace and Lama Temple in Jehol, not less remarkable for its analysis of the landscape architecture of the summer residence and eight Outer Temples. He was the first scholar to contrast several landscape architecture traditions in their uses of landform: I shall not take time to describe these magnificent buildings [the Sumeru and Potala temples] in detail but I might mention two outstanding features. First of all the buildings are adapted freely to fit the ground, and in this respect they differ from the characteristic Chinese construction adhering to the strict rules of symmetry which we find in all forms of their buildings, old or new, sacred temples or private dwellings. In these two temples, however, one will find no such influence exerted. Secondly, the temples are located in such a position that at the front, facing south, there is a high rise leading up to the hills.37

From August to October 1933, a Japanese expedition sponsored by the Japanese Foreign Office and the South Manchuria Railway made a scientific investigation of Jehol. In style and extension, the Japanese expedition was less grandiose and more focused than the Sino-Swedish expedition. The expedition stayed for two weeks in Chengde; from there parties went to southern Jehol to explore Wuling shan, Malan yu, and Gubeikou. Shigeyasu Tokunaga was the leader of the geological and geographical section of the expedition; he conducted most of his investigations in the coal and gold-yielding districts located east of Chengde and in northern Jehol. The anthropologists of the expedition displayed an interest in cultural geography; they worked mostly in northern Jehol and made use of archaeological remains in tracing the history of Chinese and Siberian influences in the area. The expedition resulted in the first systematic survey of Jehol since the Jesuit mapping of the Great Wall area. Decades after the opening of the area to Chinese immigration, the cultural landscape of Jehol showed the Chinese frontier’s northward thrust

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as well as the division of the province into three distinct areas centered on Chengde, Chaoyang, and Chifeng, each with specific characteristic features of rural architecture and spatial settlement. Five volumes in Japanese were published in 1937 in Tokyo, of which Volume 3, compiled by Fumio Tada, was devoted to the study of the geography of Jehol at the end of the period of landscape transition started by the Kangxi emperor.38 Japanese scholarly interest in Jehol disappeared after the collapse of the Manchoukuo empire in 1945. Until twenty years ago, Chinese materials on Chengde and Jehol remained rare outside those commissioned by the Qing emperors, such as epigraphic texts, the Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, and the [Qinding] Rehe [tong] zhi. In Jehol: City of Emperors, Sven Hedin provided long extracts of a Chinese book he called A Handbook of Jehol, translated, he stated, “with the greatest accuracy” by T. K. Koo, a librarian at the National Library of Beijing. Without knowing the author’s full name or the Chinese title of A Handbook of Jehol, it has been impossible to discover Sven Hedin’s original source. Is it a modern Chinese paraphrase of the Chengde Gazetteer, as the excerpts of A Handbook of Jehol would suggest? Also in the 1930s, the Republic of China printed an administrative map of the newly created province of Jehol, the Rehe sheng tu map, with a depiction of Chengde and Bishu shanzhuang in a caption bearing the title “Chengde shi jie tu.” In the “Chengde shi jie tu” city map, Bishu shanzhuang forms a square, which at its center has a single lake fed from the northwest by a spring. The cartographer placed a Mongol camp outside the residence, in the northeast, and increased considerably the size of the Mañjusrï temple along the northern wall of the residence. The grossly incorrect representation of the summer residence layout may have been due to the Chengde military governor’s reluctance to authorize cartographers to survey the hill station, which was then his official domain. Probably for the same reason, Hedin’s map of Chengde left the zones of the summer residence empty, as if they were unchartable.39 An untitled Chinese map of Bishu shanzhuang adopted the opposite policy; it filled that blank with a precise but fanciful landscape depiction. Published in 1933 by American Weekly, it bore the lengthy title “Detail From an Ancient Chinese Map of Jehol, Showing The Island of Fulfilled Desires [Ruyi zhou], and Other Palaces and Gardens Where the Chinese Emperors Enjoyed Their Vacations.” 40 It is conceivable that a Chinese survey of the built landscape was conducted in Jehol in the mid-1950s as part of a general survey of the nationalities of the new People’s Republic of China. If so, the survey report on Jehol was never released, but a similar report on Jilin was printed in 1985, some thirty years later.41 Separate from these semiconfidential reports, a series of articles appeared, in 1956, in the Wenwu cankao ziliao journal dealing with the design of Bishu shanzhuang and the architecture of Waiba miao temples.42 Until the late 1970s, the Manchu landscape enterprise failed to arouse interest

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among Chinese scholars. In 1974, a lone article on the ideological use of Qing-built landscape appeared in Wenwu.43 It developed the ideas of Chengde as the glorious creation of the working people, of the hill station as the second political center of the early Qing, and of the outer temples as witnesses of the unified history of the Chinese nation. These ideas were again outlined in detail two years later in an authoritative pamphlet edited by the Chengde Hill Station Administration Office.44 No longer supported by Mao Zedong’s quotations, these three ideas have been developed since 1976 by Chinese scholars of the Qing dynasty. Professor Hou Renzhi, one of China’s most eminent geographers, wrote the first analysis of Qing Chengde urban history.45 His work signaled the beginning of a new age for Chengde studies; since then Chinese geographers and historians of the Qing period have produced a steady flow of articles on Beijing, Chengde, and Mulan. Architectural historians at the Department of Architecture of Tianjin University have published Chengde gu jianzhu, a sizable and richly documented monograph on Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao buildings.46 A collection of scholarly essays on the Qing summer capital was also published in 1986 by a research group working in connection with the restoration projects of the hill station and the outer temples.47 While the interest displayed by the research group on Bishu shanzhuang is encouraging, the articles of Bishu shanzhuang luncong exhibit a common misunderstanding of the metaphysical geography of the hill station. Landscape analysis in Chinese publications has often been modeled after a pattern of formal division in landscape districts that prevents the holistic examination of metaphorical space. In the 1980s, many thin guidebooks of practical orientation were issued to assist Chinese tourist groups in their time-constrained visits to the summer residence and Outer Temples. In 1985, the Chengde Office of Cultural Affairs produced pamphlets available for visitors of the Potala, Sumeru, Anyuan, Pule, and Puning temples, by then largely restored and reopened to the public. The Puning temple attracts Buddhist believers, as it again houses a community of priests and novices who perform religious ceremonies. The temple is also the seat of the local Buddhist association. The Kangxi emperor’s Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi album has been reprinted in a censored edition that has eliminated the poems and commentaries that modern Chinese readers would find almost impossible to read and conserved only the vistas of Bishu shanzhuang. The publication of this album indicates that the editor believes that today there is an audience that enjoys the aesthetic power displayed by the vista engravings of the hill station.48 In Taiwan, a few journal articles on Chengde have been written by architectural historians who have emphasized only one aspect of the built landscape, as in the case of Liu Yiwei’s article on design concepts of the hill station.49 On Jehol as a geographical entity, nothing was printed in Chinese between the 1940s

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and the late 1970s. Only a few articles in the Wenwu jikan journal and two little books have since been dedicated to Mulan landscape.50 When Chinese geographers have mentioned northern Hebei, they have referred either to its forests and tree farms near the Mongol plateau or to the reservoirs built in deep gorges that have supplied water to the industries of Beijing, Tianjin, and Tangshan. Geographical studies of northern Hebei have usually concentrated on the intensively populated plain of the province, south of the Yanshan mountains and along the Beijing-Shanhaiguan railway. Geographers working in the early 1990s for the National Economic Atlas of China have described the region as having a mid-level economy with relatively advanced agriculture, textile, chemical, and steel industries centered in the cities of Tangshan and Qinhuangdao. Despite deficient water resources, these geographers believe that northern Hebei has perfectly matched natural resources. The mineral resources of the Yanshan mountains would be suitable to support a diversified economy that would include the comprehensive development of arable farming, forestry, and fruit-growing in intermontane basins.51 With the opening of the Weichang county to international tourism, more brochures, coffee-table books, and academic monographs may be expected on Chengde, Mulan, Jehol, and northern Hebei. Today Jehol is attempting to attract tourists by promoting a frontier image of woods full with deer to shoot. Demographers, however, have been alarmed by the consequences of the isolation imposed by the Yanshan mountains on public health. In the district of Chengde, officials of the Department of Health have surveyed a number of villages peopled by several generations of imbeciles, and since 1990, army surgeons have removed goiters on a systematic basis. Iodized salt remains a rare and expensive nutrient in the mountain communities of Jehol.52 The scholars at the Center for Historical Geography at Peking University have done groundbreaking work on environmental change and sustainable development in Jehol. Using Chifeng and Mulan as case studies, they have analyzed the development and decline of cultural landscapes in Jehol since the Holocene.53 Their research on environmental change in Mulan has revealed how pressures of population, agriculture, and herding have led to environmental degradation. Following the introduction of cultivation in the 1750s, the forest cover of Mulan fell from above 60 percent to 7.6 percent in the 1950s. Peking University geographers are hoping that zoning may help in creating a forested ecosystem on slopes of more than 25 percent gradient. Until 1994, the only example of international joint research in Chengde studies was provided by Hou Chin-lang, a Taiwanese scholar, and Michèle Pirazzoli, a French scholar.54 Together they studied the “Mulan tu” scrolls, entitled Xingying, Xiaying, Yanyan, and Hewei, depicting the Qianlong emperor’s autumn hunting expeditions conducted in the natural reserve of Mulan. Their article analyzes Mulan history, Qianlong’s hunts and travels, the organization of camps and hunting circles, the political significance

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of the Mulan expeditions, and the provenance of the scrolls. The authors regret that conventional treatment of landscape in the Mulan scrolls does not adequately describe Mulan. The “Mulan tu” scrolls are equally disappointing because the landscape is used only as a conventional background for important moments of the hunting expedition.55 Both scholars complained that Qing texts on Mulan fail to depict the natural beauty of the mountains, springs, and forests of Jehol. A comparative study on the architectural origins of the Waiba miao temples, Anne Chayet’s Les temples de Jehol et leur modèles tibétains was based largely on the author’s visits to Lhasa temples and on her thorough exploitation of Tibetan sources such as the Third Panchen Lamas’ biography and the inscriptions collected in Chengde by Otto Franke and Bertold Laufer in 1914. After describing the twelve outer temples, Chayet analyzes the Qianlong emperor’s motives for the construction of the religious complex, which she believes were far more political than religious. She then details the many sources, Chinese and Tibetan, that served as design models for the building of the temples and concludes by examining the adaptation of the temple models to their topographical sites east and north of the summer residence. A major objection to her position would be related not to her remarkable use of Tibetan sources but to her curious (and not acknowledged) support of Confucianist and Marxist theses about the emperor’s proper attitude toward religion. According to Chayet, Qianlong’s concern for Tibetan Buddhism was limited to the political implications this religion had for the Manchu enterprise in Central Asia. There was almost no cooperation in Chengde studies between Chinese, Tibetan, European, and American scholars until July 1994, when the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute “Reading the Manchu Summer Palace at Chengde” took place in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Gathered in a forthcoming guide to eighteenth-century China and Central Asia, these scholars’ contributions may expand Chengde studies by articulating the construction of Manchu identity as well as establishing the conceptual links found between religion and rulership. This research and curriculum guide is the result of a collaborative project that originally received the support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures of the University of Michigan.56 In Mapping Chengde, I have also implicitly referred to historical works such as Carroll Brown Malone’s thesis on the Yuanmingyuan summer residence, exhibition catalogues on Mongolia, and several doctoral dissertations, notably those written by Mark Elliott, Ning Chia, and James Millward on ethnicity and imperial administration. These materials cover topics as diverse as imperial Beijing, Jiangnan garden architecture, Tibetan Buddhism, Mongol art, Chinese city planning, eighteenth-century cartography, colonial administration of Mongolia, and Manchu epigraphy.57

APPENDIX 1

Place Name Concordance

The following table compares the place names of several geographical entities considered in Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise and previous materials on Chengde and Jehol published in Chinese and European languages.

Feature

In Mapping Chengde Modern Name

Qing Name

Province

Jehol

Jehol, Rehe sheng

Chengde fu

Prefecture

Jehol

Jehol, Chengde

Chengde fu, Rehe ting

City

Chengde

Chengde

Chengde fu, Rehe xinggong, Rehe shangying

Peak

Qingchui

Qingchui, Bangchui

Qingchui, Chuifeng

River

Rehe

Rehe

Rehe

Wulie

Wulie he

Wulie he, Rehe

Mulan

Mulan, Weichang

Rehe weichang

Reserve

153

APPENDIX 2

Qing Dynasty Emperors

Dynastic Title

Personal Name

Era Name

Reign

Taizu

Nurhaci

Tianming

1616–1626

Taizong

Hung Taiji

Tiancong

1627–1636

Taizong

Hung Taiji

Chongde

1636–1643

Shizu

Fulin

Shunzhi

1644–1661

Shengzu

Xuanye

Kangxi

1662–1722

Shizong

Yinzhen

Yongzheng

1723–1735

Gaozong

Hongli

Qianlong

1736–1795

Renzong

Yongyan

Jiaqing

1796–1820

Xuanzong

Minning

Daoguang

1821–1850

Wenzong

Yizhu

Xianfeng

1851–1861

Muzong

Zaichun

Tongzhi

1862–1875

Dezong

Zaitian

Guangxu

1875–1908

No title

Puyi

Xuantong

1908–1912

154

APPENDIX 3

Waiba miao Temples

The Outer Temples formerly numbered twelve. An asterisk indicates a temple that is now restored and usually open to visitors. Date of Completion

Formal Name

Popular Name

Architectural Model

1713

Puren*

Universal Benevolence Temple

Chinese

1713

Pushan

Universal Virtue Temple

Chinese

1755

Puning*

Great Buddha Temple

Sino-Tibetan: bSam-yas temple

1760

Puyou

Universal Blessing Temple

Chinese, Tibetan statuary

1764

Anyuan*

Ili Temple

Sino-Tibeto-Mongol: Guerzha temple

1767

Pule*

Round Pavilion Temple

Sino-Tibetan

1771

Putuo zongcheng*

Potala Temple

Tibetan: Lhasa Potala

1772

Guang’an

Vast Peace Temple

Tibetan

1774

Luohan

Arhat Temple

Chinese: Anguo temple

1776

Shuxiang

Mañjusrï Statue Temple

Chinese: Wutai shan temple

1780

Xumi fushou*

Panchen Lama’s Residence

Tibetan: Zashenlunbu

1780

Guangyuan

Vast Distant [Lands]

Chinese

155

APPENDIX 4

The Kangxi Emperor’s Vistas

Landscape elements in the Kangxi emperor’s Album of Imperial Poems on the thirty-six vantage points of the Bishu shanzhuang gardens: bridge or dam; island; lake; mountain or hill; plain or valley; villa or kiosk. Complexity of the Thirty-Six Plates of the Album

Frequency of the Landscape Elements According to Their Location

Two or Three Elements

6%

Plate Foreground

Four Elements

53%

Lake

45%

Five Elements

33%

Mountain or Hill

22%

Six Elements

8%

Plain or Valley

19%

Bridge or Dam

11%

Island

Frequency of the Landscape Elements in the Plates

3%

Plate Middle Ground Villa and Lake

36%

Villa or Kiosk

100%

Bridge, Villa; Bridge, Plain, and Villa

25%

Mountain or Hill

100%

Villa and Mountain

14%

Lake

64%

Other Composition

25%

Bridge or Dam

52%

Plate Background

Plain or Valley

33%

Mountain or Hill

83%

Island

14%

Villa or Kiosk

17%

156

APPENDIX 5

Chronology of Chengde

Year

Event

1616

Nurhaci proclaims the foundation of the Hou Jin, or “Later Jin,” dynasty.

1636

In Mukden [Shenyang], the Manchu dynasty changes its name from Later Jin to Great Qing. Southern Mongol princes submit to the new dynasty.

1638

To supervise the administration of Mongolia, the Court of Colonial Affairs [Lifan yuan] is formed under the direction of the Imperial Household Court [Neiwu fu].

1644

The Ming capital Beijing surrenders to Manchu Banners. Beijing becomes the main capital of the Great Qing dynasty. The Potala palace of Lhasa is founded.

1651

The Shunzhi emperor leads an inspection into northern Jehol. A palace is built in Kalahetun.

1653

The fifth Dalai Lama visits Beijing.

1664

The county of Chengde is established in the prefecture of Fengtian, Manchuria; its administrative seat is Mukden.

1677

The Kangxi emperor visits the Kalaqin and Mulan areas for the first time.

1681

The hunting reserve of Mulan is created on Mongol pasture lands given to the Kangxi emperor.

1682

The Kangxi emperor visits Mukden and Jilin.

1689

Severe drought in North China.

1691

At the convention of Dolön, the Kangxi emperor receives the submission of Qalq’a Mongol khans in return for protection from the Jüngars.

157

158

Appendix 5

1695

Northern Mongolia submits. The Lifan yuan court is entrusted with the conduct of the civil and military administration of Inner and Outer Mongolia. The Potala palace of Lhasa is completed.

1697

The Kangxi emperor leads an expedition into Mongolia that annihilates the Jüngar Mongol forces commanded by Galdan.

1701

The Kangxi emperor discovers the site of Chengde.

1702

Eight hunting lodges to house the emperor are built in Jehol.

1703– 1708

The construction of an imperial summer residence starts at Rehe shangying. Inside the hill station, the Jinshan mountain is built with materials excavated from the Saihu lakes. Chengde, then called Rehe, is founded.

1709

Jesuit mathematicians employed by the Kangxi emperor begin to map the Manchu empire, Tibet, and Korea. Fathers Régis, Jartoux, and Fridelli survey Mukden [Shengjing], the Usuri river [Usuli jiang], the Amur river delta [Heilong jiangkou], and the Jehol area [Rehe]. They eventually produce the Huang yu quan lan tu atlas, also called Kangxi Atlas, edited in Paris by D’Anville in 1735 under the title Atlas général de la Chine.

1710

The Kangxi emperor names thirty-six landscape vistas inside Bishu shanzhuang. He formally proclaims Tibet to be a Qing protectorate.

1711

The Kangxi emperor gives the name of Bishu shanzhuang to his summer residence of Rehe. He orders Father Ripa to engrave the landscape vistas of the hill station.

1713

The Puren and Pushan temples are built.

1719

Chinese-Mongol intermarriage is prohibited.

1721– 1722

Severe drought in North China.

1723

A county of Chengde is created in southeastern Mongolia. Its administrative center is Rehe [Chengde], which receives a garrison of 1,525 Manchu and Mongol Bannermen.

1724

Chengde becomes the administrative center of Inner Mongolia. The city houses the General Office of Jehol, Rehe zongguan.

1732

The Yongzheng emperor converts his former palace in Beijing into a Tibetan Buddhist temple, the Yonghe gong monastery.

1733

The province of Zhili is enlarged to include Jehol. The Zhili prefecture of Chengde is created by the Yongzheng emperor. The name Chengde is used officially for the first time and temporarily replaces Rehe.

Chronology of Chengde

159

1741

The Qianlong emperor enriches Bishu shanzhuang with new buildings and vistas.

1742

The prefecture of Chengde loses its prefectural rank and becomes again the county of Rehe.

1746

The first Chinese school in the city of Chengde opens.

1747

The Qianlong emperor visits Mukden and Jilin.

1750

The desertification of the Xiliao valley in Jehol expands as the number of settlements increases.

1751

The Manchu protectorate over Tibet is reorganized. The Qianlong emperor recognizes the Dalai Lama as the ruler of Tibet. The imperial residents [amban] directly supervise the Tibetan government.

1754

The Qianlong emperor names thirty-six landscape vistas inside the hill station. The Lizheng gate is built. Qing Banners occupy Jüngaria [Ili].

1755

The construction of ten of the Waiba miao temple begins.

1756– 1757

Outer Mongolia rebels against Qing rule.

1757

The Puning temple is built to commemorate the 1755 victory in Western Mongolia that destroyed the Jüngar empire. All of Outer Mongolia submits.

1758

Twelve thousand Jüngars are deported into Jehol. Qing Banners conquer the oases of eastern Turkestan.

1764

The 65-meter-high Sheli pagoda [Yongyou si, also called Liuhe ta] is completed.

1771

The Chengde Potala temple is completed after four years of work. Mongol vassals are required to attend the imperial birthday ceremonies that are held there.

1778

Chengde becomes a first-rank prefecture. The prefecture boundaries extend to the Great Wall in the south, the Tanghe river in the west, the Xilamulun and Xiliao rivers in the north, and the Songling mountain of Liaoning in the east. The huge size of the prefecture will diminish by the end of the Qing dynasty.

1779

The Confucian school of Wenmiao temple is completed to benefit the growing Chinese population of the prefecture.

1780

The Sumeru temple is built to honor the Panchen Erdeni’s visit to Chengde. After Chengde, the Panchen Lama visits Beijing and dies there.

1782

Jehol population reaches 460,000 inhabitants.

1784

The Wenjin pavilion, built in 1774, receives the 36,304 volumes of the Siku quanshu collection.

160

Appendix 5

1787

The 1719 law prohibiting Chinese-Mongol intermarriage is canceled.

1792

The building programs of the Qing summer capital are completed.

1793

The Qianlong emperor receives the British ambassador Lord Macartney in the Mongol tent of the Wanshuyuan garden. The ambassador and his retinue are invited to tour the garden and mountain districts of Bishu shanzhuang.

1801

The 1719 law on Chinese-Mongol intermarriage prohibition is reenacted. The last imperial hunting expedition is conducted in Mulan.

1803

Chinese settlers are permitted to cultivate Mongol and Manchu lands beyond the Great Wall and the Willow Palisade.

1808

Chinese emigration into Inner Mongolia is forbidden.

1820

The Jiaqing emperor dies at Chengde. The Daoguang emperor abandons the principle of periodic sojourns in Jehol.

1823

New regulations forbid Chinese emigration into Mongolia.

1827

Jehol population reaches 780,000 inhabitants.

1860

The Xianfeng emperor flees Yuanmingyuan and takes refuge in Bishu shanzhuang. He dies there the following year.

1877

Severe drought in North China.

1900

Severe drought in North China.

1901

Chinese colonization in Inner Mongolia is officially encouraged.

1902

The population of the Qing empire is estimated to be 426,228,750; the eighteen Inner China provinces, 407,518,750; Zhili province alone, 20,930,000; and of all Mongolia, 2,580,000.

1905

Japanese troops occupy Mukden.

1911– 1912

The Xuantong [Puyi] emperor abdicates in Beijing. The Republican era begins. Outer Mongolia becomes independent. Tibet revolts against Chinese rule.

1913

The county of Chengde replaces the abolished prefecture of Chengde. Weichang county is created.

1914

Jehol formally becomes a te qu, special district, which includes seventeen Mongol Banners of the Zhaowuda and Zhuosuotu Leagues and fifteen Chinese prefectures and counties.

1915

The Wenjin book collection is moved to the Beijing Library. Outer Mongolia is placed under Chinese suzerainty.

Chronology of Chengde

161

1924

Outer Mongolia proclaims its independence from China and becomes the People’s Republic of Mongolia. Urga is renamed Ulân-Bâtar.

1928

The special district of Jehol become a sheng, a province. Chengde is the province capital of Rehe sheng.

1930

Sven Hedin and Gösta Montell visit Bishu shanzhuang and the Waiba miao temples.

1933– 1935

A faithful reproduction of the Potala inner temple, the Wanfa guiyi dian, is brought from Chengde to the Century of Progress International Exhibition in Chicago.1 The temple is shipped to New York City and erected again for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The 1933 replica of the 1767 Wanfa guiyi temple is now being stored in the Ethnographic Museum of Stockholm.

1933

Coming from the province of Liaoning, Japanese troops enter Chengde and Chifeng. Under Japanese occupation, Jehol is incorporated to the Manchoukuo [Manzhouguo] empire. The population of Jehol is evaluated at 4,500,000 inhabitants; Chengde prefecture has 156,000 inhabitants and the city has 20,000.

1935

The Japanese army invades the Manchurian part of Inner Mongolia.

1948

The People’s Liberation Army enters Chengde.

1949

The People’s Republic of China is proclaimed in Beijing.

1950

The People’s Liberation Army invades Tibet.

1953

The Bishu shanzhuang museum is reorganized and located in the palace district.

1955

The province of Jehol ceases to exist as a distinct political entity. Its territory is divided between the city of Beijing, the provinces of Hebei (Chengde and Weichang), Liaoning (Chaoyang), and the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia (Chifeng).

1. Called the Lama Temple of Jehol, Bendix Lama Temple, or Golden Pavilion, the temple copy was built south of Soldier Field, then dismantled for storage. Vincent Bendix, an industrialist who was one of the exposition trustees, commissioned Sven Hedin’s copy of the Golden Pavilion of Jehol. Placed westward from the Hall of Science, “like a jewel in a magnificent tiara,” the temple copy was supposed to transport its Chicago visitors “swiftly through the centuries and halfway around the world” (Century of Progress, ed., Official Guidebook of the Fair, p. 66). The history of this dismantled temple copy is full of amusing anecdotes. After decades spent in Gary, Indiana, its pieces have been in a storage area near Stockholm for many years. The Sven Hedin Foundation and the National Museum of Ethnography of Stockholm have wanted to rebuild the temple in the park of the museum, next to a Japanese teahouse. Unfortunately, the embassy of the People’s Republic of China is the museum’s neighbor. Chinese diplomats expressed concerns about the Lama Temple of Jehol serving as a center for the activities of the Tibetan community that lives in exile in Sweden. These concerns were strong enough to discourage the corporate sponsors of this project.

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Appendix 5

1961

The hill station and four of the outer temples are listed as national treasures. They are placed under the state protection of the People’s Republic of China.

1976

The State Council approves a plan for the rehabilitation of the Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao buildings within ten years.

1979

Extensive maintenance and restoration work begins inside the Bishu shanzhuang residence and inside the Waiba miao temples compound.

1982

Chengde is put on the national list of “Twenty Four Historically and Culturally Famous Cities” and on the list of “Tourist Scenic Landscape Districts.” The building of the Wenjin library is restored. Five Waiba miao temples are placed under the legal protection of Hebei province.

1987

The population in the city of Chengde numbers 343,000. The county has 470,000 inhabitants. Inside the Qing summer residence, the restoration of the pagoda and hall on Jinshan mountain is completed.

1989

The Manchu-Mongol Autonomous District of Weichang is created in northern Hebei. It has a population of 493,000 residents, out of which 190,000 are Manchus.

1992

The Chengde Mulan International Hunting Ground is opened to hunters. Investment for the “Hunters’ village” and hunting area came from the Ministry of Forestry, the National Tourism Administration, and an unnamed Taiwanese company.

1994

The site of Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao is included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Properties. The largest imperial gardens and Buddhist temples surviving in China are considered to form a cultural property of outstanding universal value.

NOTES

Chapter One: Introduction 1. Puren temple memorial tablet for the Kangxi emperor’s sixtieth birthday celebration in 1713, as translated by Sven Hedin in Sven Hedin, Jehol: City of Emperors, p. 74. Otto Franke’s translation of the temple stela is probably more accurate: “Wundersam fürwahr in seiner Schönheit ist der Strand des Joho-Flusses [Wulie river], und von den Geistern gesegnet dieses Gebiet am Grenzwall.” See Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli title page. 2. Catherine Maudsley, “Conference Report: The Future of Asia’s Past: Preservation of the Architectural Heritage of Asia,” Orientations 26, no. 4 (April 1995), pp. 73–74. 3. ICOMOS Report of the December 1994 World Heritage Meeting in Phuket (December 12–17, 1994). 4. The World Heritage List was established at the seventeenth General Conference of UNESCO in November 1972. The World Heritage Committee provides assistance to the states that request expert missions, staff training, equipment supply, loans, and grants. Requests must be related to the preservation of sites included in the World Heritage List. The number of sites on the World Heritage List stood at 440 in December 1994. 5. “Mountain Resort” was the Chinese delegation’s translation of shanzhuang, which I call here Bishu shanzhuang, the “summer residence,” or “the hill station.” The “Outlying Temples” are the Waiba miao temples, which I also call outer temples. 6. San jiao are the “three teachings” of traditional China: Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoism. Islam, shamanism, and Tibetan Buddhism are not included in the san jiao, since these are religions of non-Chinese peoples. Tson-kha-pa founded in 1417 the reformed Yellow Church of Lamaism, or Huang jiao, which is the Buddhist religion professed by Tibetans, Mongols, and Manchus but not Chinese. The Dalai lama is the head of the Yellow Church and normally resides in the Potala monastery of Lhasa. For the study of religious practices and beliefs in China since the Han dynasty, see “Chinese Religions—The State of the Field,” Part 2 of “Living Religious Traditions: Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam and Popular Religion,” Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 2 (May 1995), pp. 314–395. 7. These ideas are comparable to the ones developed by Vincent Scully in his essay on architecture in sacred landscape, “Mankind and the Earth in America and Europe.” See Richard Townsend, ed., The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscape, pp. 71–82. 8. Mark Monmonier, Drawing the Line: Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy, pp. 148–149.

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Chapter Two: The Great Qing at Home 1. Xanadu was the Yuan capital city Shangdu, Marco Polo’s “Chandu,” where Khubilai Khan had his summer residence. Khubilai Khan (1215–1294) is known in Chinese records as Hubilie, the Shizu emperor of the Yuan dynasty. Lawrence Impey appropriately quoted Coleridge’s poem when he visited the ruins of the capital. Lawrence Impey, “Shangtu, the Summer Capital of Kublai Khan,” The Geographical Review 15 (1925), p. 584. See also Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo. The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition chapter 61, note 2, pp. 304–306. 2. A proper translation of the Da Qing dynasty name would be the “Great Pure” dynasty. Some scholars have assumed that the Manchu rulers chose for themselves a Chinese word that would express their political agenda, the replacement of the Great Ming dynasty by the Great Qing dynasty. The water radical of the qing character (meaning “pure”) would imply the extinction of the brightness of the ming character (meaning “bright”). 3. For a table of the departure and arrival dates of the Qing court from and to Beijing and Chengde, consult Hou Chin-lang and Michèle Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” T’oung Pao, p. 21. 4. Da shi or Hong ye: “Great Enterprise”; Tianming: “Mandate of Heaven”; Tianxia: “Under Heaven,” the Chinese empire. Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 21, note 53. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 85. 5. “En rangeant sous mes loix cette vaste étendue de pays, je n’eus point envie d’agrandir mes États, d’étendre au loin les limites de mon Empire. Je n’ai fait qu’obéir au Ciel qui vouloit châtier les coupables; j’ai suivi les intentions de mes ancêtres, qui, depuis trois générations, en avoient formé le projet, fondé sur des raisons semblables à celles qui m’ont fait agir.” Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], as translated by Jean Joseph Marie Amiot. Monument de la conquête des Éleuthes. See Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 2, p. 124. 6. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, pp. 235–236. 7. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 74. Kalahetun [“Black City” or “Noble City”] had been destroyed by the Ming dynasty when it expelled the Yuan dynasty from China. The Kangxi emperor rebuilt a palace in Kalahetun, the Kalahetun xinggong. 8. Xinggong: imperial hunting lodge, from xing, “to travel,” and gong, “palace.” 9. Zhang Boquan, Dongbei difangshi gao. Yang Baolong, Sushen yilou hekao. 10. “Da Qing wannian yitong dili quantu.” Walter Fuchs, ed., Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit, Monumenta Serica, Monograph Series, 4 plate 7, “Jehol.” 11. “Zi yue: Wei zheng yi de pi ru bei chen, ju qi suo er cong xing gong zhi.” Kongzi, Lunyu 2-1. See Simon Leys, The Analects of Confucius. 12. “Bu heng qi de, huo cheng zhi cha.” Kongzi, Lunyu 13–22. See Simon Leys, The Analects of Confucius, Chapter 13, paragraph 22. “Wonderful virtue,” miao de, is one of the six qualities that defines Mañjusrï in Buddhist scriptures. 13. James Hevia, “Sovereignty and Subject: Constituting Relations of Power in Qing Rituals.” In Angela Zito and Tani Barlow, ed., Body, Subject and Power in China, p. 187. 14. Beijing Summer Palace Administration Office and Department of Architecture, Qinghua University, Summer Palace, p. 116. 15. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs of Father Ripa, during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China, p. 67. 16. Wan yuan zhi yuan: a garden of ten thousand gardens. 17. “Under Heaven,” tianxia in Chinese, is a metaphor for “empire.”

Notes to Pages 18–27

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18. Fu: first-rank prefecture; zhou: second-rank prefecture; ting: third-rank prefecture. Lucien Gibert, Dictionnaire historique et géographique de la Mandchourie, pp. 876–877. 19. Compare the extension of Chengde fu in map 7–8: “Zhili” in Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Qing shiqi, 8, to the extension of Chengde shi and Chengde diqu in the map of Hebei province in Hebei sheng ditu. 20. Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, Jardins en France, 1760–1820, p. 24. 21. As translated (without proper reference) by Sven Hedin from an apology by Qianlong of his building operations in Chengde. Sven Hedin, Jehol: City of Emperors, p. 158. 22. Robert Lee, The Manchurian Frontier in Ch’ing History, p. 8. 23. Eight Banners: Ba qi in Chinese and jakün güsa in Mongol. 24. Évariste-Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China 1844 –1846, p. 95. 25. Pamela Kyle Crossley, “An Introduction to the Qing Foundation Myth,” Late Imperial China 6, no. 2 (1985), pp. 22–23. Qing Gaozong [Qianlong emperor] Han-i araha Mükden-i fujurun bithe [Ode to Mukden]. Ode to Mukden is a long poem that was printed in 1743. In 1770, it was translated from Manchu into French by Father Amiot. Shengjing fu is the Chinese title. 26. Pamela Crossley and Evelyn Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53, no. 1 (June 1993), pp. 63–102. 27. Crossley and Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History,” p. 78. 28. Crossley and Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History,” pp. 95–96. 29. Joseph Fletcher, “A Brief History of the Chinese Northwestern Frontier,” China’s Inner Asian Frontier, p. 21. 30. Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet, ed., Visiteurs de l’Empire Céleste (exhibition catalogue), pp. 114–115, 137. 31. “Calendar of Events While the British Embassy was in Rehe.” See James Hevia, Cherishing Men From Afar, pp. 249–251. 32. Guy Debord, La société du spectacle [Society of the Spectacle], pp. 17–18, paragraph 24. 33. (Shan zhong) zi wei sheng ta Tang Song zhe. Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], “Shan zhong” poem, 1781. In Yang Tianzai, ed. Bishu shanzhuang beiwen shiyi, p. 41. 34. The character pu means universal, and “Universal Head,” Pushou, is one of Mañjusrï’s names; this character enters in the names of the two oldest Waiba miao temples, the Puren si and the Pushan si. One of the transliterations for Visra, a second character pu means “universal” and was used for the Puning, Puyou, Pule, and Potala temples. The characters for “peaceful,” an or ning, and “extensive,” guang, were used to name the Anyuan, Guang’an, and Guangyuan temples. 35. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, pp. 61–62.

Chapter Three: Hamlet and Imperial Residence 1. “Tout ce qu’après son retour il a pu me dire du Gé-hol, c’est que c’est une ville à peu près du troisième ordre, qui n’a proprement de beau que le palais de l’empereur.” Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, “Lettre du Père Amiot au Père de la Tour. Pékin, le 17 d’octobre 1754,” in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Volume 4, p. 40. 2. The smooth, firm, and shaded road required maintenance and was rebuilt twice a year. Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part II: 1928–1933, p. 120. The section of the Emperor’s Road from Beijing to Chengde was surveyed by Lord Macartney’s embassy. See a reproduc-

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tion of the original “Sketch of the Route of the English Embassy from Dagu to Peking and from Peking to Jehol” in Alain Peyrefitte, The Immobile Empire, p. 178. 3. Lu: circuit. Beijing was called Nanjing, the “Southern Capital,” during the Liao dynasty; Zhongjing, the Liao “Central Capital,” is now a ruined city near Ningcheng. Xing’an, Luanping, and Kalahetun were the Chinese names of Luanhe at different historical times. Kalahetun is a transliteration from Karahoton or Harahotton in Mongol. Hou Renzhi, ed., Beijing lishi dituji, map 22: “Liao Taiping liu nian”; map 23: “Jin Da’an yuan nian”; maps 25–26: “Yuan Yanyou san nian”; and maps 39–40: “Qing Guangxu sanshisi nian.” Kangxi Atlas is the short title for Walter Fuchs, ed., Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit. Seine Entstehung-geschichte nebst Namen-indices für die Karten der Mandjurei, Mongolei, Ostturkestan und Tibet. Mit Wiedergabe der Jesuiten-Karten in Originalgrösse. 4. “Votre Majesté a mis un si bon ordre dans toute la route qui conduit à ses nouvelles conquêtes, qu’à présent on n’y reconnoît plus ces déserts affreux et inhabitables qu’il falloit autrefois traverser, et qu’on y voyage avec autant de sûreté et de commodité que dans le reste de l’empire.” “Lettre du Père Benoît [1773],” Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Volume 4, p. 214. 5. Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part II: 1928–1933, pp. 117–118. 6. Fengshui jindi or huo dao jindi: restricted area in which it is forbidden to build houses and open roads in order not to disturb the local topomantic quality. Because fengshui has taken so many meanings, geographers like Ronald Knapp have suggested to use better translations than “geomancy” such as “mystical ecology,” “topomancy,” or “topographical siting.” 7. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 72. The “temple of idols” attended by Daoist priests may be the temple of Jinshan, but Ripa may have confused monks and eunuchs. Huangmen, or “yellow door,” is the name given to court eunuchs. Since yellow is a prime color restricted to the imperial clan and its servants, it was unlawful for everyone, including priests, to wear this color. The yellow of the Buddhist dress was actually yellow-gray. Daoist priests wore a dark blue dress. 8. Liu Junwen, Beijing: China’s Ancient and Modern Capital, p. 47. 9. The villa buildings and temples had almost disappeared by 1924 when a new hotel building was erected on the site of the palaces “in surroundings that make the spot delightful.” Guide to China, Second Edition (Tokyo: Japanese Government Railways, 1924), p. 77. 10. The Buddhist temples of Chengde received the collective name of Waiba miao, “Eight Outer Temples,” either because they were built outside China proper, kouwai, or because they were outside Bishu shanzhuang. 11. Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, vista plate 12: “Chuifeng luo zhao,” and vista plate 21: “Qing feng lü yu.” Strictly speaking, there is no discrepancy in the contents of the plates of the summer residence that have been appended to each of the poems compiled by the Kangxi emperor, whether these illustrations figure in the Manchu version or in the Chinese version of the compilation. The Bishu shanzhuang miniatures of Rehe zhi represent the same vistas as in Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang but have been more crudely executed. See Qing Shengzu, Han-i araha alin-i tokso de halhün be jailaha gi bithe; Li Yimeng, ed. Bishu shanzhuang sanshi liu jing; and Rehe zhi, Chapter 26, xinggong 2. 12. Wenhua wenwuju and Zhongguo chengshi guihua sheji, eds., Zhongguo lishi wenhua ming cheng cidian, pp. 129–132. 13. Gongdian qu: palace district. 14. Song shu: pine tree, which symbolizes longevity. The addition of pine trees to the actual and engraved vistas of the hill station enhanced the pictorial effect that Kangxi desired to achieve. 15. Tianjin daxue jianzhu and Chengde shi wenwu ju, eds., Chengde gu jianzhu, figure 12. 16. Liu Junwen, Beijing, p. 48.

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17. Jiu zhou: the nine divisions of China under Yu the Great. A zhou is an inhabited place surrounded by water: shui zhong ke ju yue zhou, which explains why the nine islands of Yuanmingyuan symbolically represented the whole of China. Yu the Great is the legendary engineer who founded the Xia dynasty (2206–1766 b.c.e.) and ruled the first political state in China. Historical records have also celebrated Yu for removing forests and controlling floods. He opened the courses of the nine rivers to conduct them to the four seas. 18. I translate the title of Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi as “Album of Imperial Poems on Bishu shanzhuang.” 19. Jing: vista. 20. Hou Renzhi, ed., Beijing lishi dituji, maps 51–52: “Qing xijiao yuanlin, Xianfeng shi nian,” and maps 53–54: “Qing Yuanmingyuan, Changchunyuan, Qichunyuan, Xianfeng shi nian.” 21. Wulie he can be translated as “Violent River.” A Jesuit missionary recorded the seasonal violence of the river in the following terms: “Il y a quelques années qu’une partie du palais fut emportée, et que le dommage alla à des sommes immenses, par la quantité et la qualité des meubles qui furent perdus ou gâtés.” Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, “Lettre du Père Amiot au Père de la Tour. Pékin, le 17 d’octobre 1754,” in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Volume 4, p. 44. 22. Rehe quan: “Spring of the Warm River.” 23. Hebei sheng cihuiju, ed., Hebei sheng fen xian dituce, comments to figure 36: “Chengde shi, Chengde xian, Pingquan xian.” 24. Shilin Chunjiang, Chengde lan sheng, p. 58, figure 31: “Chengde ziran mingsheng shiyi tu.” 25. The Survey Service of the Japanese Empire measured the heights of these hills in the 1930s: 530 meters, 510 m, 492 m, 461 m, 593 m, 582 m, 482 m, 521 m, 592 m, 503 m, 582 m, and 590 m. Altitude quickly increases northwest of Chengde: a 1,090-meter-high summit is just eight kilometers away from Bishu shanzhuang. Dai Nihon tekoku likuchi sokuryobu, ed. Manchuria. See sheets of Jehol province, counties of Chengde and Luanping, and “Chengde” map. 26. Hiroshi Condo, “Jehol’s Cultural Heritage,” Eastern Asia 1 (1940), p. 30. 27. Weichang: small intramontane basin. Qing troops used to encircle, drive, and ambush game at the bottom of weichang. The Mulan [Muran] hunting ground included seventy-two such basins, of which at least sixty-five had Mongol names. 28. Émile Licent, Hoang ho-Pai ho, p. 539. 29. Such as Yanbo zhishuang [Mist Veiled Water Refreshment] and Wushu qingliang [Cool and Fresh Without being Hot]. 30. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figure 8: “Rehe xinggong tu,” painting by Lengmei (detail) [1711]; Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing, figure 6: “Wan he songfeng.” 31. Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing, plate 1: “Yanbo zhishuang.” 32. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figure 13: “Lizheng men tu,” painting by Qian Weicheng (detail). 33. Bi: to shun, to evade, to avoid, to hide; bi shu or bi re simply means to take a summer holiday. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figure 15. 34. Shanzhuang literally means “mountain hamlet.” 35. “Quel gage plus assuré, quelle preuve plus certaine pourrions-nous avoir de la vertueuse simplicité & de l’économie de nos Ancêtres ? Puissions-nous les imiter, nous & nos Descendants, jusqu’aux générations les plus reculées!” Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, trans., Éloge de la ville de Moukden, pp. 123–125. 36. Lengmei, “Rehe xinggong tu” painting in Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang,

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figure 8. See also the Tai wan dili tu map. In the Rehe xinggong quantu map, however, the lake district has been displaced by the expansionist palace district. 37. See Appendix 4: The Kangxi Emperor’s Vistas. 38. Tianjin daxue jianzhuxi and Chengde shi wenwuju, eds., Chengde gu jianzhu, figures 2 and 3. 39. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 211. Compare the shapes of Ruyi island and ruyi scepter in Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed. Chengde fengguang, figure 8 and figure 34. 40. Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing, plate 4: “Yanxun shanguan.” There was a ruyi in Beijing as well: inside the Forbidden City, Kangxi’s painters and architects worked in the studio of Ruyi guan. 41. Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing, plate 18: “Tianyu xian cheng,” and plate 32: “Jingshui yuncen.” 42. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, pp. 100–101. Partially translated from the German by Sven Hedin in Sven Hedin, Jehol: City of Emperors, pp. 156–157. 43. Menggu bao: Mongol tent. 44. Taiji: lowest order of Mongol nobility; neiban: court official; Lifan yuan: Court of Colonial Affairs; Libu: Ministry of Rites. 45. Jean-Denis Attiret, Giuseppe Castiglione, and Ignatius Sichelbart worked together to paint the Banquet offert à Jehol aux chefs des tribus mongoles de l’Ouest. 46. Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, “Lettre du Père Amiot au Père de la Tour. Pékin, le 17 d’octobre 1754,” in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Volume 4, p. 49. 47. “Wanshuyuan tingyan weici tu” map, Da Qing huidiantu 2 (Beijing, 1899), p. 1493. 48. The Approach of the Emperor of China to his Tent in Tartary to Receive the British Ambassador, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London. Reproduced in Susan Legouix, Image of China: William Alexander, p. 40 and plate VI. Many details of the painting are inaccurate, including the grouping of buildings on the west of the hills. 49. Charis Chan, Imperial China, p. 121. 50. Lord Macartney, An Embassy to China, pp. 132–133. 51. Émile Licent, Hoang ho-Pai ho, p. 539. 52. On the imperial use of Buddhist imagery, see David Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance of the Ch’ing Empire,” Harvard Journal of Asian Studies 38 (1978), pp. 5–34. 53. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, pp. 152–154. 54. In Mongol: “Mañjusrï degedü engke amugulang.” 55. Li Yimeng, Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing, plate 3: “Wushu qingliang.” Étienne Lamotte, “Mañjusrï,” T’oung Pao 48 (1960), pp. 54–61. 56. For a map of the Wutai mountain with its terraces and lamaist temples, see Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History, Illustration 2, pp. 56–57. 57. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 59. 58. Wobaxi: Ubashi Mongols. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figures 97, 139, and 140. 59. Sumeru is the central mountain of every Buddhist world. 60. Raymond Christinger, “Notions préliminaires d’une géographie mythique,” Le Globe 105 (1965), pp. 119–159, and Rolf Stein, The World in Miniature, pp. 196–201. When he visited Chengde in 1939, Emil Fischer did note that the Pule temple stood just halfway between Qingchui and Jinshan,

Notes to Pages 52–62

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and a straight line went from Qingchui to Jinshan, but he did not conclude anything from these observations. Emil Fischer, “Jehol,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71 (1940), p. 82. 61. Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], “Pule si beiwen” [1767], in Qi Jingzhi, ed., Waiba miao beiwen zhuyi, p. 43. Translation is mine. 62. In Chinese, Samvara’s name is transcribed as Sanbaluo, and the divinity is known as Huanxi or Shangle wangfo (bDe-mchog in Tibetan). He protects from falling into inferior transmigrations. Samvara is the sixth kind of cognition, which is defined as mentality. 63. Shuang shen: the fusion of two bodies in one. 64. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figures 97 and 106. 65. On the relationship between mandala, pagoda, garden, and scale, see the example given by Rolf Stein in The World in Miniature, p. 82. 66. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 66. 67. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 99. 68. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace and Lama Temples in Jehol, p. 14. 69. An Lili: “. . . xiang zhengzhe bianjiang ge shaoshu minzu xin xiang Qing zhongyang zhengfu.” Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, pp. 6, 10. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 156.

Chapter Four: Garden and Mountain Rhetoric 1. Emperor Taizong’s prayer to sacred Mount Heng, in 645 a.d. Quoted from Quan Tang wen by Kiyohiko Munakata in Sacred Mountains in Chinese Art, p. 2. 2. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, p. 174, figure 150: “Plan of the Forbidden City, Beijing,” and Carroll B. Malone, History of the Peking Summer Palaces under the Ch’ing Dynasty, p. 72. 3. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, pp. 12–18. 4. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace and Lama Temples in Jehol, p. 9. 5. Fengtu: climate; fengtu renqing: local manners and customs. 6. Shengsi: samsära. 7. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 103. 8. Anne Chayet’s figure 4 in Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains may be completed with information provided by Hou Renzhi in his map of Bishu shanzhuang, published in Beijing lishi dituji, map 49–50. 9. Pak Chi-won, Rehe Riji, Chapter 16, and Eugen Feifel, trans., “Pak Jiwon: Huan-hsi, Magic Entertainment in Jehol,” Oriens Extremus 19 (1972), p. 143. 10. Rehe zhi, Chapter 43, Kalahetun plate. 11. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, p. 66 bis and p. 68 bis, “Eine Kaiserliche Reisestation im Jehol-Gebiet,” 1 and 2. The illustrations used by Franke were first published in the Rehe zhi gazetteer. Rehe zhi, Chapter 1, pp. 1717, 1791, 1811, and 1825. 12. The full name of Wenmiao, “Temple of Literature,” was Xianshi Kongzi miao, “Temple of Master Confucius.” 13. Tadashi Sekino, Jehol: The Most Glorious and Monumental Relics in Manchoukuo. A series of “Amtsgebäude der Beamten und sonstige öffentliche Bauten” lined Chengde main street from the west-

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ern suburb to Lizheng gate. See Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes, p. 50 bis, and Hai and Lin, eds., Chengde fu zhi, Volume 2, p. 414. 14. The Tai wan dili tu map depicts three such temples on the eastern bank of the Wulie river. The calligrapher used in Laoye miao an abbreviated form for the second character, which I read ye; laoye means “Lord.” 15. Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang, figure 10: “Bishu shanzhuang yu Waiba miao quantu” map. 16. Hong lou meng: dream of the red chamber. See Andrew Plaks, Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber, p. 193. 17. Father Jean Denis Attiret’s letter to Monsieur d’Assaut dated November 1, 1743, in Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, ed., Jardins en France, 1760–1820, p. 24. 18. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 72. 19. Rehe zhi, Volume 2, p. 826. 20. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 72. 21. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 25. 22. Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], introduction to Yuzhi Yuanmingyuan tuyong, in Carroll B. Malone, History of the Peking Summer Palaces under the Ch’ing Dynasty, p. 64. 23. James Wescoat, Asian Art 2, no. 4, p. 76. 24. Geoffrey R. Waters, Three Elegies of Ch’u: An Introduction to the Traditional Interpretation of the Ch’u Tz’u, pp. 34–37. 25. Soothill and Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 394. 26. Seven Jinshan mountains plus one Sumeru mountain make only eight mountains; the ninth one is an iron wheel mountain that encompasses all the mountains of the archetype. Jinshan also designates the golden Buddha. 27. “Jinshan mountain” is redundant, as shan means mountain. In this section, I am contrasting the mountain of Jinshan to the temple of Jinshan, and for better clarity, I use “Jinshan mountain” and “Jinshan temple” when discussing the significance of “Jinshan.” 28. Rehe zhi, Volume 2, p. 825. Translation is mine. 29. The Zhongguo gujin diming da cidian dictionary lists twelve Jinshan place names. Zang Lihe ed., Zhongguo gujin diming da cidian, pp. 538–539. 30. William Alexander’s painting, The Golden Mountain, in Musée national des Art asiatiquesGuimet, ed., Visiteurs de l’empire céleste, p. 191. 31. The place name of Jinshan kou, “Pass of Jinshan,” has survived. Susan Naquin, personal communication. The Beijing mingsheng guji cidian dictionary describes a Jinshan temple built in 1416 in the district of Haidian, Beijing municipality. Beijing shi wenwu shiye guanliju ed., Beijing mingsheng guji cidian, pp. 290–291. 32. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 69. 33. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace, figure 6: “Chin-shan Ssü [ Jinshan si] in the Imperial Park in 1909,” and figure 7: “Chin-shan Ssü in 1933.” 34. “Es ist ein dreistöckiger kleiner Turm auf einer am Ostufer des Sees gelegenen Erhöhung, die durch einen schmalen Wasserarm vom Lande abgetrennt ist und einen weiten Blick über die Anlagen gewährt.” The German sinologist warned his readers of the difficulty he met in trying to understand Kangxi courtesans’ annotations to the hill station’s vista names: “Wie man sieht, müht sich der chine-

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sische Verfasser redlich ab, um für die phantastischen Namen eine Erklärung zu finden. Oft hat natürlich die letztere an den Haaren herbeigezogen werden müssen.” Otto Franke, Beschreibung des JeholGebietes, p. 93. 35. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 137, p. 135. 36. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 156. 37. Vista plate 18, “Tianyu xian cheng”: “In the sky [tian] and cosmos [yu] entirely [xian] it passes unimpeded [cheng].” Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, pp. 48–50. Otto Franke’s translation is “Unendliche Schönheit des Himmelraums.” But why add “Schönheit” to the plate title? His glose: “Den Himmelraum und die Purpurne Milchstraße übersieht man in einem Blick” may suggest the immensity of the cosmos and not its beauty. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes, p. 91 and p. 93. 38. Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, vista plate 18: “Tianyu xian cheng.” Translation is mine. The place names quoted in the introduction are all in Jiangnan. 39. Literally bu ju would mean “to divine about [the geomancy of ] a dwelling place.” 40. Gu Hanyu changyong zi zidian, p. 23. For details of Hengshan peaks and temples in 1660, see Liu Zhenwei, ed., Zhongguo gu ditu jingxuan, “Hengshan tuhui” map, p. 22. 41. A cen is a small, steep, and high mountain. Qing Gaozong and Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, pp. 79–80. 42. Qi: cosmic energy. Er qi: the two principles in nature that are positive (or male yang) and negative (or female yin).

Chapter Five: The Jehol Frontier 1. Zhang Zhongyuan, “Despatch from the Gansu Corridor, 1650.” In Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 784. 2. Tianhe: harmony with Heaven. 3. Vaclav Smil, The Bad Earth: Environmental Degradation in China, p. 127. 4. Augustin Berque, “Mountain and Ecumene,” Two Decades of l’Espace géographique, p. 200. 5. Zhao Songqiao, Geography of China, p. 162. 6. Marvin Mikesell, “Comparative Studies in Frontier Policy,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 50, no. 1 (March 1960), pp. 62, 67. 7. Zhao Songqiao, Geography of China, p. 264. 8. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, pp. 235–236. 9. Zhou: prefecture; jun: commandery. 10. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo. The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition, pp. 298–300. 11. Ernest Van Obbergen in Claudius Madrolle, Northern China, p. 272. 12. Chaha’er: Chagar or Chaqar Mongols; Kalaqin or Ke’erqin: Karacin or Kharchin Mongols. 13. Zhuosuotu: Josoto or Jasagtu Mongols. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, pp. 238–239. 14. Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, pp. 892–893. 15. “Das kühle, waldreiche Bergland wurde ihm lieber und lieber, und das Thal von Jehol, das er auf seinen Jagdzügen beständig passierte, erschien ihm als ein ganz besonders günstiger Platz für eine Sommerresidenz in grossem Stil.” Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes, p. 61.

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Notes to Pages 84–89

16. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 74. 17. James A. Millward, “New Perspectives on the Qing Frontier,” Remapping China, p. 119. 18. Zhi li: an area directly ruled by the provincial or central government. 19. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, pp. 238–239. 20. Alphonse Favier, Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, Tableau d’assemblage. 21. Kangxi, in his preface to Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi: “Quan geng nan mu, wang feng ren kuang ju zhi ying mao.” Hai and Lin, eds., Chengde fu zhi, Volume 2, p. 826. 22. “Cette partie de la préfecture de Tchen-teu-fou ou Jehol [Chengde] est couverte de montagnes arides inhabitées et sans aucun chemin.” Alphonse Favier, Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, figure A2. 23. Muchang or mudi: grazing land. For a map of each Banner’s pastures in the prefecture of Jingzhou, see Liu Zhenwei, Zhonggu gu ditu jingxuan, “Jingzhou ba qi mu ma tu” map, pp. 54–55. 24. Zhelimu: Jerim Mongols. Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Volume 8, Shengjing (Fengtian) map. 25. The restricted geomantic area, fengshui di, of Dongling corresponds to the huo dao jindi area of Alphonse Favier’s Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, figure A4. 26. “Gebiet des Bannwaldes der Ostl. Kaisergräber” [Dung ling feng schui di], in Karte von Tschili und Schantung, map F9: “Ds’un’hua dschóu” [Zunhua zhou]. 27. Liu Zhenwei, Zhonggu gu ditu jingxuan, “Lingqin tu” map, pp. 25–26; “Dongling fengshui quantu” map, p. 77; and “Dongling ditu” map, p. 78. 28. Emil Sigmund Fischer, “A Journey to the Tung Ling,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 61 (1930): 31. 29. Hou Ching-lang and Michèle Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” pp. 17, 19. 30. “C’est trop longtemps laisser nos flèches inutiles dans leurs carquois; allons, dit-il, allons combattre; c’est le seul repos qui convienne aux mandchous. Nos montagnes et nos forêts nous offrent une nouvelle espèce d’ennemis; que la chasse soit pour nous une image de la guerre.” Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, trans., Éloge de la ville de Moukden. In Hou and Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” p. 38. 31. Balin Bärin Mongols. Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Volume 8, “Zhili” map, pp. 5–6. 32. Dutong: military commander; zhifu: civil prefect. 33. Claudius Madrolle, Northern China, p. 86. 34. The fifteen tombs of Dongling in Zunhua include the Shunzhi, Kangxi, Qianlong, Xianfeng, and Tongzhi emperors’ sepultures and empress dowager Cixi’s sepulture. Qianlong’s and Cixi’s tombs were plundered in 1928 by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republican troops. 35. Évariste-Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China 1844–1846, p. 4. 36. Richard Edmonds, Northern Frontiers of Qing China and Tokugawa Japan, p. 58. 37. Rehe zhi, Chapter 45: “Weichang quantu” map, and Chapter 49: “Chengde fu quantu” map. 38. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, p. 77. 39. Da Qing Huidian [Great Qing Administrative Regulations], Lifan yuan, juan 742 and Houpu 14, juan 141. Quoted in Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, p. 86. 40. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 70. 41. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 70. 42. “C’est un océan de montagnes aux formes variées et parfois fantastiques qui s’étagent en gradins, se croisent ou s’entassent en tout sens, et finissent au loin, ici en une vague gigantesque, qui élève

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perpendiculairement sa masse grise à la cime comme dentelée d’écume, ailleurs en un moutonnement de sommets bleuâtres et vaporeux, qui va se confondant à l’horizon avec l’azur du ciel.” Ernest Van Obbergen, “Jehol, son palais et ses temples,” Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 1 (1931–1932), p. 324. 43. Zhao Songqiao, Geography of China, Figure 16.3: “Changes in annual rainfall, 1790–1975, in the eastern part of the Hulun Buir Sandy land,” p. 261. 44. Richard Edmonds, Northern Frontiers of Qing China and Tokugawa Japan, p. 31. 45. Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, note 13, p. 7. 46. Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part 2, p. 116. 47. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 70. 48. Émile Licent, Hoang ho-Pai ho, p. 1236. 49. Jonathan Spence, Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K’ang-hsi, p. 9. 50. George Cressey, China’s Geographic Foundations, p. 208. 51. Li in Chinese is our familiar Castanea vulgaris. According to Otto Franke, the Mongol name found in the Chengde Gazetteer means “walnut” and not “chestnut.” See Wenhua wenwuju and Zhongguo chengshi guihua sheji, ed., Zhongguo lishi wenhua ming cheng cidian, pp. 149–150. 52. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 70. The most important xinggong station was of course Bishu shanzhuang, extensively described in Rehe tongzhi, Chapter 25 to Chapter 42. Rehe zhi, Chapter 43 and Chapter 44 present descriptions and plates of the Kalahetun xinggong and twelve other xinggong palaces in Jehol. 53. “On rencontre sur le chemin des hameaux et des maisons, lesquelles pour la plûpart, servent de cabarets: les Chinois les ont bâties, à cause du profit qu’ils en retirent pendant que l’Empereur y est à la chasse dans ces montagnes: car durans ce temps là c’est un flux et un reflux perpétuel de monde qui va et vient, ou de Péking au camp de l’empereur, ou de son camp à Péking.” Quoted in Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes, p. 34. 54. Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria, p. 80. 55. Meng: Mongol League; qi: Mongol Banner; yi: Mongol Wing. 56. Huang Qianren, Da Qing wannian yitong dili quantu. The full name of the Tongzhi Atlas is Da Qing zhen sheng quantu. Its purpose was to include the official maps of all the administrative entities proclaimed by the imperial court: Huang chao xuan sheng fu ting zhou xian quantu. 57. Changcheng: Great Wall; Liutiaobian: Willow Palisade. 58. Hai and Lin, eds., Chengde fu zhi, pp. 412–413. 59. Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Volume 8, “Zhili” map, pp. 5–6. 60. Compare the “Zhili” map to the “Nei Menggu liu meng, Taoxi er qi, Chaha’er” map in Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Volume 8, pp. 5–6 and pp. 16–17, respectively. 61. “Les agriculteurs chinois montent patiemment à l’assaut de la steppe des hautes herbes et même du désert. Au nord de Kalgan [Zhangjiakou], leurs fermes et leurs villages dépassaient la Muraille de 15 kilomètres en 1872, de 45 en 1899, de 110 en 1923. Ils occupent depuis longtemps la région de Jeho [Chengde] et celle de Koukou-khoto [Guihua], et, depuis le début de notre siècle, ils ont franchi le rebord du plateau qui domine cette dernière ville. . . . [Their] gain total doit approcher présentement [1929] de 200.000 kilomètres carrés, en y comprenant des enclaves mongoles assez importantes qu’il est impossible de mesurer.” Fernand Grenard, Haute Asie. Géographie Universelle, Vol. 8, p. 276. See also Zhao Songqiao, Geography of China, p. 64, Figure 3.4: “The modern agricultural reclamation process in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.” The long history of the Inner Asian territories of China has been related by Owen Lattimore in Inner Asian Frontiers of China.

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Notes to Pages 94–103

62. Tada Fumio, Geography of Jehol, Volume 3, pp. 108 ter, 111 bis, 114 bis, 116, 116 ter, and 119 sexte. 63. Émile Licent, Hoang ho-Pai ho, p. 531. 64. The Mongol city of Dolön is usually transliterated in Chinese materials as Duolun, Duolunu’er, or Duolun nuo. The name means “Seven Lakes” in Mongol, Manchu, and Tibetan. For a visual description of the emporium of Dolön, see Évariste-Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China 1844–1846, pp. 30–33. 65. Hebei sheng cihuiju, ed., Hebei sheng fen xian dituce, maps 36, 37, 38, 39, and 40. The three autonomous counties [zizhi xian] are the following: the Manchu county of Fengning, the Manchu county of Kuancheng, and the Manchu-Mongol county of Weichang. 66. Évariste-Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844–1846, p. 19. 67. These cities, located in present Inner Mongolia and Liaoning, were part of Qing Jehol. Tan Qixiang, ed., Zhongguo lishi dituji, Qing shiqi, Volume 8, map 7–8: “Zhili” (1820). 68. Tada Fumio, Geography of Jehol, Volume 3, p. 108 bis. 69. Sven Hedin, Chiang Kai-shek, Marshal of China, p. 46. 70. Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part 2, p. 141. 71. Vaclav Smil, The Bad Earth, pp. 17, 19. 72. “Chengde gu jianzhu zhengxiu jiakuai jinxing,” Renmin Ribao ( July 1, 1991): 3. 73. Chengde Bishu shanzhuang Waiba miao quan jing tu, map legend. 74. Richard L. Edmonds, Patterns of China’s Lost Harmony, p. 187. 75. Beijing Surveying and Mapping Institute, Beijing dituji, Atlas of Beijing, maps of “Shehui fazhan shuiping, Social Development Level,” pp. 68–69.

Chapter Six: Capitals and Models 1. Li Yu, quoted by Mai-mai Sze, ed., The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (Princeton University Press, 1977), Introduction, p. 10. 2. On the mythical geography of Mount Kunlun/Sumeru, see Rolf A. Stein, “K’un-lun, the Chinese Cosmic Mountain” and “Sumeru, the Buddhist Cosmic Mountain,” in Phyllis Brooks, trans., The World in Miniature, pp. 223–272 3. Xiang: image; xing: form. 4. Sima Qian wrote Fan Li’s biography. Originally a trader, Fan Li was appointed minister by Koujian (496–465 b.c.e.), King of Yue. 5. Rolf Stein, in Phyllis Brooks, trans., The World in Miniature, p. 221; p. 294, note 128; and p. 339, note 95. 6. Derk Bodde, Essays on Chinese Civilization, p. 134. 7. George Babcock Cressey, China’s Geographic Foundations: A Survey of the Land and its People, p. 1. 8. James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, pp. 66–67. 9. Kurt Singer, Mirror, Sword and Jewel: The Geometry of Japanese Life, pp. 90–91. 10. Fengshui shi or fengshui xiansheng, “masters of geomancy,” are the names given to practitioners. 11. Stephan Feuchtwang, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy, p. 137, figure 9.

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12. San cai: the “three talents,” which are Heaven, Earth, and Man. 13. Shen Fu, Six Records of a Floating Life, p. 60. 14. For a discussion of the fundamental ideas of the geomantic organization of space, see Fan Wei, “Village Fengshui Principles,” in Ronald G. Knapp, ed., Chinese Landscapes: The Village as Place, pp. 35–45. For presentations of geomantic landscape by geographers, see Ronald G. Knapp, China’s Vernacular Architecture: House Form and Culture, pp. 19–27; Andrew L. March, “An Appreciation of Chinese Geomancy,” The Journal of Asian Studies 27, no. 2 (February 1968): 253–268; David J. Nemeth, “A Cross-cultural Interpretation of some Korean Geomancy Maps,” Cartographica, 30, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 85–97. 15. James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, p. 32. 16. Inden is the Manchu name for Xingjing; Mukden is the Manchu name for Shengjing, now Shenyang. 17. Neicheng: inner city; biancheng or waicheng: outer city. 18. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, figure 148, p. 171. 19. “Vous, dont la position au Nord des eaux du Simia, assure à l’air qui vous environne une constante salubrité; vous que de larges rivières & de hautes montagnes rendent un boulevard propre à couvrir l’Univers; illustre Ville de Moukden, vous êtes distinguée des autres Pays du monde comme le tigre & le dragon le sont des autres animaux. C’est chez vous que le grand Empire des Tay-tsing a jeté les fondements solides sur lesquels il s’est élevé. Les fossés profonds que l’on a creusés autour de vos murailles, vos murailles elles-mêmes qui sont si fortes & si élevées, vous mettent à l’abri de toute surprise & de tout danger. Vous êtes tout-à-la-fois comme le Ciel & la Terre; vous représentez les deux principes Yn & Yang. . . . La montagne de Thang-pê-chan qui vous avoisine, en se faisant remarquer par dessus toutes les autres, vous met à couvert d’un côté, tandis qu’un bras de la grande mer vous garantit de l’autre. Votre assiette qui est des plus fortes, votre forme, tout de qui vous constitue, nous donnent lieu d’espérer que jusqu’au tems des générations les plus reculées, vous conserverez la prééminence que vous vous êtes acquise sur tous les lieux de la terre.” Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, trans., Éloge de la ville de Moukden et de ses environs, pp. 112, 114. Translation from the French is mine. 20. Hou Renzhi, Beijing lishi dituji, map 39–40: “Qing Guangxu sanshisi nian”; map 41–42: “Qing Beijing cheng Qianlong shiwu nian”; map 43–44: “Qing Huangcheng Qianlong shiwu nian.” 21. Zijin cheng: “Purple Forbidden City.” 22. Piper Gaubatz, “Changing Beijing,” Geographical Review 85, no. 1 (January 1995): 80. 23. Susan Naquin, “The Peking Pilgrimage to Miao-feng Shan: Religious Organization and Sacred Site,” in Susan Naquin and Chün-fang Yü, eds., Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, figure 8.1: “Miaofeng Shan.” 24. The Qing dynasty renamed Wansui mountain and called it Jingshan mountain, “Prospect Hill,” or Meishan mountain, “Coal Hill.” Personal communication with Hou Renzhi at Peking University, November 1990. 25. Tiantan: Heaven Altar; Ditan: Earth Altar; Ritan: Sun Altar, and Yuetan: Moon Altar. 26. Beijing Surveying and Mapping Institute, Beijing dituji. Atlas of Beijing, p. 249. 27. For a comparison of the urban layouts and sites occupied by Liao dynasty Nanjing, Jin dynasty Zhongdu, Yuan dynasty Dadu, and Ming and Qing dynasties Jingshi, see Hou Renzhi, Beijing lishi dituji, pp. 23–24, 25–26 and 27–28. 28. Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 465.

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Notes to Pages 109–119

29. Claudius Madrolle, Northern China, pp. 13–14. 30. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, p. 1. 31. Vaclav Smil, China’s Environmental Crisis, p. 43. 32. Hai and Lin, eds., Chengde fu zhi, p. 414. Hou Renzhi, Beijing lishi dituji, pp. 49–50. 33. Stephan Feuchtwang, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy, pp. 132–133. 34. Hou Renzhi, Lishi dilixue de lilun yu shizhan, p. 394. 35. “Bishu shanzhuang zong tu,” in Rehe zhi, Chapter 25. 36. Alphonse Favier, Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, map M4. Internal evidence suggests that these maps of Hebei [Zhili] in Carte du Pé-Tchi-li were compiled around 1780 by French missionaries in Beijing and not by Monseigneur Favier one century later. Favier had no function at the Qing court and the deformation of the topography of Chengde are not due to him. 37. The best modern map of the Qing summer capital may be the Qing Bishu shanzhuang Qianlong mo nian map edited by Hou Renzhi in Beijing lishi dituji, map 49–50. Not as precise but still useful are the large tourist maps sold in Chengde such as the Chengde Bishu shanzhuang Waiba miao quan jing tu map. 38. Hai Zhong and Lin Congshang, eds., Chengde fu zhi, Chapter 49. 39. Hai Zhong and Lin Congshang, eds., Chengde fu zhi, Chapter 49. 40. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 135, note 137. 41. Paul Wheatley, “The Suspended Pelt: Reflections on a Discarded Model of Spatial Structure,” in Donald Deskins et al., eds., Geographic Humanism, Analysis and Social Action, pp. 52–53. 42. Quoted from the Shujing by Paul Wheatley in The Pivot of the Four Quarters, p. 430.

Chapter Seven: Representations of Chengde 1. Qing Shengzu [Kangxi emperor], Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, poem on the Wushu qingliang vista. Translation is mine. 2. Judith Kenny, “Climate, Race and Imperial Authority: The Symbolic Landscape of the British Hill Station in India,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85, no. 4 (December 1995): 694–695. 3. I use geomancy to translate fengshui, which is the colloquial equivalent of kanyu and dili in classical Chinese. Fengshui is the literal combination of the characters for wind and water. In the dynamic relationship between Chinese society and its natural environment, Wind, feng; Earth, tu; Mountain, shan; and Water, shui have been elementary conceptual units that have combined to form the more complex concepts of climate, fengtu; geomancy, fengshui; and landscape, shanshui or fengjing. 4. James Hevia, “Sovereignty and Subject: Constituting Relations of Power in Qing Rituals,” in Angela Zito and Tani E. Barlow, eds., Body, Subject and Power in China, p. 186. 5. James Duncan, The City as Text, p. 3. 6. William Skinner, “Presidential Address: The Structure of Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 44, no. 3 (February 1985): 271–292. 7. The architectural historians of the Yuanmingyuan Scholarly Society and the French Mission of the Summer Palace have written extensively on the Qianlong emperor’s italianate palace in the Yuanmingyuan gardens. See Le Yuanmingyuan, jeux d’eau et palais européens du XVIIIe siècle à la cour de Chine. 8. Frederic Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, p. 892.

Notes to Pages 119–127

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9. Lawrence Impey, “Shangtu, the Summer Capital of Kublai Khan,” The Geographical Review 15 (1925): 587. 10. Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise, p. 577. 11. W. J. Thomas Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in W. J. Thomas Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power, pp. 5, 9, 12, and 30, note 11. 12. Denis Cosgrove, Social Formation and Symbolic Landscapes. James S. Duncan, “Site(s) of Representation: Place, Time and the Discourse on the Other,” in J. S. Duncan and D. Leys, eds., Place /Culture /Representation, pp. 39–56. 13. Kangxi in Qing Shengzu, Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi, poem on the Wushu qingliang vista. Translation is mine. 14. “25. On passera après à la Piramide, où l’on s’arrestera un moment, et après on remontera au chasteau par le degré de marbre qui est entre l’Esguiseur et la Vénus honteuse, on se tournera sur le haut du degré pour voir le parterre du Nort, les statües, les vases, les couronnes, la Piramide et ce qu’on peut voir de Neptune, et après on sortira du jardin par la mesme porte où l’on est entré.” Louis XIV, Manière de montrer les Jardins de Versailles, Simone Hoog, ed., p. 49. 15. Louis XIV, Manière de montrer les Jardins de Versailles, pp. 14–15. 16. J.-F. Blondel: “Nous nous trouvons trop courts d’expression pour applaudir à tant de merveilles, et nous croyons ne pouvoir mieux faire que de renvoyer l’Amateur et l’Artiste sur les lieux, pour juger par eux-mêmes de ce que peut l’intelligence de l’Art, lorsqu’il est poussé à son plus haut degré de perfection,” Quotation of J.-F. Blondel by Simone Hoog from Architecture Française (Paris, 1756), Volume 4, in Louis XIV, Manière de montrer les Jardins de Versailles, p. 15. 17. “L’exemplaire destiné pour Louis XV fut encadré avec des bordures d’ébène, ornés de filets d’or, en tout point semblable à celui qui avoit été encadré pour l’Empereur de Chine. . . . L’oeil s’arrête avec plaisir sur chacune de ces gravures, & l’imagination, frappée des faits divers qu’elles représentent, nous porte naturellement à croire qu’elles ont été destinées à transmettre à la postérité des actions mémorables. Cette idée de grandeur qu’elles nous laissent, fait naître en nous un sentiment d’intérêt, & nous inspire le désir d’en connoître l’histoire.” In Précis historique de la guerre, Dont les principaux événemens sont représentés dans les seize Estampes, gravées à Paris, pour l’Empereur de la Chine, sur les desseins que ce Prince en a fait faire à Pékin, & qu’il a envoyés en France, pp. 7, 8–9. See also Michèle Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens, Gravures des conquêtes de l’empereur K’ien-long au Musée Guimet. 18. Decree published July 13, 1765, by the Qianlong emperor, in Précis historique de la guerre, pp. 31–32. 19. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, p. 21. 20. W. J. Thomas Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” in W. J. T. Mitchel, ed., Landscape and Power, p. 13. 21. James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, pp. 218, 220. 22. Anne Chayet, “The Jehol Temples and their Tibetan Models,” in Barbara Nimri Aziz and Matthew Kapstein, eds., Soundings in Tibetan Civilization, p. 66. 23. Augustin Berque, “Paysages d’une autre civilité. Notes sur l’imaginaire géographique des Japonais,” Le temps de la réflexion 4 (Paris, 1983), p. 91. 24. Guy Debord, La société du spectacle, paragraphs 3, 5 (on pp. 9–10), 165, 167, and 168 (on pp. 133–134). 25. An isotopic space is a unit that is spatially distinct (size, orientation, location) but remains cul-

178

Notes to Pages 130–142

turally indistinct (think of most North American suburbs) from the other units of the same site. In the fengtu conception of place, space is inherently isotopic and expands by duplication of similar units. 26. Hou Renzhi, Beijing lishi dituji, map 49–50: “Bishu shanzhuang, Qianlong mo nian 1795.” 27. Carl Sauer, “The Morphology of Landscape,” in John Leighly, ed., Land and Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer, p. 333. 28. Man: whole; manzi: the complete word; Manshushili: Mañjusrï; manzhu: beautiful; mantu: the diamond throne. 29. Augustin Berque, “La transition paysagère ou sociétés à pays, à paysage, à shanshui, à paysagement,” L’Espace Géographique 1 (1989): pp. 18–20. 30. Nicholas Entrikin, The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity, p. 11. 31. Nicholas Entrikin, The Betweenness of Place, p. 19. 32. Lord Macartney, in J. L. Cranmer-Byng, ed., An Embassy to China being the Journal kept by Lord Macartney during his Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–1794, p. 126. The gardens of Woburn Abbey incorporated shrubs to form a picturesque landscape. Charles Hamilton planted at Painshill picturesque gardens of flowers and trees that were centered around a lake. 33. James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, pp. 2–7. 34. “Karte zu Dr. O. Franke’s Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli,” in Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, foldout on inside back cover.

Chapter Eight: Chengde Studies 1. Description of the Yuanmingyuan imperial residence. Jean Denis Attiret, “A Particular Account of the Emperor of China’s Gardens near Peking,” in John Dixon Hunt, ed., The English Landscape Garden, pp. 23–24. 2. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, p. 53. 3. The “Mulan tu” scrolls, now belonging to the Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet in Paris, depict the Qianlong emperor’s autumn hunting expeditions. 4. Kongzi [Confucius], Lunyu [The Analects], 17–25. Simon Leys has translated Confucius’ statement as follows: “The Master said: ‘Women and underlings are especially difficult to handle: be friendly and they become familiar; be distant and they resent it.’ ” See Simon Leys, The Analects of Confucius, Chapter 17, Paragraph 25. 5. William Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, p. 97. 6. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace and Lama Temples in Jehol, p. 2. 7. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace, p. 2. 8. Rehe zhi, Chapter 2, p. 825. The Kangxi emperor wrote this text, which the compiler later added to the Chengde Gazetteer. Translation is mine. Wanji (if the last character has a mu radical) means “the emperor’s many public duties.” I acknowledge Mark Elliott and Scott Lowe for their joint translations from the Manchu and Chinese versions of the Kangxi emperor’s preface to the poems on Bishu shanzhuang. The same preface has been translated into German by Otto Franke in Beschreibung des JeholGebietes, pp. 61–62. 9. Qi Jingzhi, Waiba miao beiwen zhuyi; Yang Tianzai, ed., Bishu shanzhuang beiwen shiyi; Zhang Zhanlan, Waiba miao bianlian zhushi. 10. Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], “Lama shuo” stele, Yonghe gong temple, 1792. Translated by Fer-

Notes to Pages 142–146

179

dinand Diedrich Lessing in Yung-ho-kung, “Emperor Ch’ien-lung’s second inscription on Lamaism,” p. 61. Yin Yuzheng, Yonghe gong, p. 87. 11. Qianlong [Qing Gaozong], “Puning si beiwen” stele. See Qi Jingzhi, Waiba miao beiwen zhuyi, pp. 8–9. Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 89, p. 132; note 217, pp. 143–144. 12. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 305, p. 150. 13. Anne Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 12, p. 121. 14. Father Régis-Évariste Huc, Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie. In Hou Chin-lang and Michèle Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” T’oung Pao 65, nos. 1–3 (1979): p. 18. 15. The three volumes in octavo of the history of the Chinese college in Naples were published in 1832, long after Father Ripa’s death. Fortunato Prandi deleted the part concerning the college history in the condensed translation of the memoirs he published in London under the title Memoirs of Father Ripa, during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China; with an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples. 16. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, pp. 72–73. 17. Matteo Ripa, Memoirs, p. 72. 18. Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, p. 330. 19. Walter Fuchs has retraced the genesis of his Kangxi Atlas on the basis of Chinese and French sources. Materials about the Jesuit missionaries’ participation in the mapping of the Qing empire are extensively quoted in Walter Fuchs, “Der Jesuiten-Atlas der Kanghsi-Zeit,” in Monumenta Serica, Monograph Series 4, pp. 60–75. Some eighteen years after he had engraved the copper plates of the atlas, Father Ripa gave to himself all the credit for the production of the Kangxi Atlas: “M. Ripa m’a fait voir une très grande carte de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise qu’il a faite lui même; tous les noms sont écrits en caractères Chinois ou Tartares. Il m’a assuré qu’il n’y avoit point d’autre exemplaire de cette carte en Europe que celui que je voiais, qu’il avoit fait cette carte par ordre (et sans doute aux dépends de L’Empereur de la Chine) et que ce prince l’avoit fait imprimer à ses dépends.” Du Mollard’s letter to Fourmont, June 12, 1739. Quoted by Cécile Leung-Hang-King in “The Language of the ‘Other’: Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745), Chinese, Hebrew and Arabic in Pre-Enlightenment France” (Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 1993), p. 447. 20. Alphonse Favier, Carte du Pé-Tchi-li. 21. Alphonse Favier, Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, map captions. 22. Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, Mémoires. In Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, note 140, p. 136. There is no indication in Amiot’s account of his trip to Chengde that his presence at Qianlong’s ceremony was to due to the emperor’s desire to encourage publicity abroad of the event. 23. Otto Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes in der Provinz Chihli, Introduction. 24. Ernest Van Obbergen, “Deux illustres pagodes impériales de Jehol (Mongolie Orientale),” Anthropos 6 (1911): 594–601; and “Jehol, son palais et ses temples,” Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 1 (1931–1932): 323–342. 25. Ernest Van Obbergen, Écho de Chine (1910). In Claudius Madrolle, Northern China: The Valley of the Blue River: Korea, p. 88. 26. Maurice Fabre, Pékin, ses palais, ses temples et ses environs: guide historique et descriptif, pp. 320–322. 27. Émile Licent, Hoang ho-Pai ho, pp. 531–532.

180

Notes to Pages 146–150

28. Arthur Segers, La Chine. Le peuple, sa vie quotidienne et ses cérémonies. 29. Claud Russell, “A Journey from Peking to Tsitsihar,” The Geographical Journal 23, no. 5 (1904): 613–623. John Edley, “A Trip into the Chihli Province, North China,” The Geographical Journal 25, no. 5 (1905): 513–525. To attract foreign tourists, three guidebooks with glossy pictures have been published in Chinese, English, and Japanese, with the agreement of Fu Qingyuan, the director of the Bishu shanzhuang park: Rehe xinggong; Hebei meishu chubanshe, ed., Chengde fengguang; and Chengde shi lüyou shangping gongsi, ed., Bishu shanzhuang. The quality of publications on Chengde for Chinese tourists can be relatively high when they are edited by scholars like Yang Tianzai. 30. The German publisher of Jehol: City of Emperors presented Hedin’s book in a very engaging way: “Jehol ist das Versailles der chinesischen Kaiser aus der Mandschu-Dynastie. Gleich diesem ist es Stein gewordene Gestalt fürstlicher Träume und Ausdruck königlichen Machtwillens. . . . SVEN HEDIN zaubert uns die Stadt vor Augen zur Zeit ihres höchsten Glanzes. Wir erleben das Jehol der großartigen Feste, der Siegesfeiern und pomphaften Empfänge, das Jehol allmächtiger Günstlinge und verschwenderischer Mätressen, das Jehol der geheimnisvollen Intrigen und verschwiegenen Liebesabenteuer.” Sven Hedin, Jehol: Die Kaiserstadt (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1935), book jacket. 31. Sven Hedin, A Conquest of Tibet (New York: Halcyon House, 1941), “Sven Hedin has also written” page. 32. See the chapters on Jehol in Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, p. 131. 33. The Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago exhibits in its cafeteria a large painting of the Century of Progress International Exposition on which the golden roof of the “Lama Temple” can be identified. 34. Gösta Montell, The Chinese Lama Temple: Potala of Jehol, p. 22. 35. Sven Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part 2, Chapter 12: “From Peking to Jehol by Car”; Chapter 13: “Jehol”; Chapter 14: “By Boat Down the Luan-ho.” 36. The Geographical Journal 82 ( January–June 1933), pp. 264–265. 37. Tadashi Sekino, Summer Palace and Lama Temples in Jehol, p. 14. 38. Tada Fumio, Geography of Jehol: Report of the First Scientific Expedition to Manchoukuo, under the Leadership of Shigeyasu Tokunaga, June–October 1933, Volume 3. 39. Sven Hedin, “Sketch Map of Jehol and its most Important Temples, by Georg Söderbom,” in Jehol: City of Emperors, p. xv. With minor changes, the same map was again published by Sven Hedin in History of the Expedition in Asia, 1927–1935, Part 2, p. 135. 40. The Division of Maps of the Library of Congress has preserved the mysterious map of that fairyland. The American Weekly published this map in a particular political context, that of the Japanese will to justify their occupation of Manchuria by claiming a responsibility in the protection of the architecture of the Manchu summer capital. 41. Zhang Yuhuan, Jilin minju. 42. Lu Sheng, “Chengde Bishu shanzhuang,” Wenwu cankao ziliao 9 (1956); “Chengde Waiba miao jianzhu,” Wenwu cankao ziliao 10, 11, and 12 (1956). 43. Wei Jin and Li Gong, “Wo guo tongyi duo minzu guojia gonggu yu fazhan de lishi jianzheng. Chengde Bishu shanzhuang he Waiba miao,” Wenwu 12 (1974), pp. 1–10. 44. Chengde Bishu shanzhuang guanlichu, ed., Bishu shanzhuang he Waiba miao. 45. Hou Renzhi, “Chengde shi chengshi fazhan de tedian he tade gaizao,” in Chengde Bishu shanzhuang yanjuihui ed., Bishu shanzhuang lucong; and Lishi dilixue de lilun yu shizhan, pp. 389–420. 46. Tianjin daxue jianzhuxi and Chengde shi wenwuju, eds., Chengde gu jianzhu.

Notes to Pages 150 –152

181

47. Chengde Bishu shanzhuang yanjiuhui, ed., Bishu shanzhuang luncong. 48. Li Yimeng, ed., Bishu shanzhuang sanshiliu jing. 49. Liu Yiwei, “Qing Rehe Bishu shanzhuang zhi sheji guannian,” Dongwu daxue Zhongguo yishu shi jikan 15 (1987). 50. Hebei sheng wenwu guanlichu, Chengde diqu wenhuaju, and Weichang xian wenguanhui, ed., “Qingdai Mulan Weichang wenwu diaocha,” Wenwu jikan 2 (1980): 86–99; Yuan Senpo, “Mulan Weichang,” Wenwu jikan 2 (1980): 100–107; Chengde diqu wenwu guanlisuo, ed., Mulan Weichang. 51. Institute of Geography, ed., The National Atlas of China, Book IV: Regional Comprehensive Economy, Notes to the Maps, pp. 139–141. 52. Caroline Puel, “420 millions de Chinois en manque d’iode,” Libération (December 18, 1996): 10. This deficiency had been noticed two hundred years before by the members of Lord Macartney’s embassy. 53. Hou Renzhi, “Zai lun lishi dili xue de lilun yu shijian,” Beijing daxue xuebao: Lishi dili xue zhuankan (1992): 1–5. Han Guanghui, “Ke chixu fazhan de lishi dili xue sikao,” Beijing Daxue xuebao, 3 (1994): 43–49. Cui Haiting, “Qingdai Mulan Weichang de xingfei yu ziran jingguan de bianhua,” Beijing daxue xuebao 3 (1994): 118–123. Zhang Baoxiu, “Qingdai kaipi Mulan Weichang de dili tiaojian,” Beijing daxue xuebao 3 (1994): 124–134. Deng Hui, “Qingdai Mulan Weichang de huanjing bianqian yanjiu,” Beijing daxue xuebao 3 (1994): 135–143. Zhao Zhongshu, “Cong diming jiaodu guankui Mulan Weichang de huanjing bianqian,” Beijing daxue xuebao 3 (1994): 144–157. 54. Hou Chin-lang and Michèle Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” pp. 14–50. 55. Hou Chin-lang and Michèle Pirazzoli, “Les chasses d’automne de l’empereur Qianlong à Mulan,” p. 17. The “Mulan tu” scrolls would have been painted in 1752 by several artists. 56. Mark Elliott, Philippe Forêt, Jim Millward, and Ruth Dunnell. A Realm in Miniature: The Manchu Summer Palace at Chengde and the High Qing Empire. 57. Patricia Berger and Terese Tse Bartholomew, Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan. Mark C. Elliott, “Resident Aliens: The Manchu Experience in China, 1644–1760” (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1993). Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China, and The Mongols of Manchuria. Carroll B. Malone, History of the Peking Summer Palaces under the Ch’ing Dynasty. Chia Ning, “The Li-fan yuan in the Early Ch’ing Dynasty” (Doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1991). James Millward, “Beyond the Pass: Commerce, Ethnicity and the Qing Empire in Xinjiang, 1759–1864” (Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1993). Musée national des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, ed., Visiteurs de l’Empire Céleste. Rhie and Robert Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet.

GLOSSARY

Anyuan miao

Ba qi Bangchui feng

Beijing

Bishu shanzhuang

cen Chaha’er Chaoyang cheng cheng

Chengde Chengde fu zhi

Chifeng

“Pacified Distant [Land] Temple”; one of the outer temples of Chengde. Eight Banners; Qing military administration. “Washerman’s Baton Peak”; also called Qingchui and Chuifeng, “Sledge Hammer Peak,” the most prominent physical feature of Chengde basin. Peking; previously Yanjing, Nanjing, Zhongjing, Dadu, Jingshi, Shuntian fu. “Mountain Hamlet for the Escape from the Summer Heat”; Qing summer residence in Chengde. High hill, mountain peak. Chahar or Caqar Mongols. City in eastern Jehol. City (normally walled). Receive, support, succeed, undertake, entrusted with, continue. Qing summer capital in Jehol. Chengde Gazetteer; also known under the full title Qinding Rehe zhi. City in northern Jehol.

Da shi

“Great Enterprise”; establishment of a new dynasty. Danbo “Hall of Frugality and Calm”; jingcheng dian hall of the Zhenggong Palace in Bishu shanzhuang. dao Circuit, administrative unit. de Virtue, moral excellence, moral power. dili Geography. diqu District, area. Donggong “Eastern Palace” (now in ruins) in Bishu shanzhuang. Dongling Eastern necropolis of the Qing dynasty located near Zunhua in Hebei. du Capital, metropolis. Duolun Dolön-nür, a city in Inner Mongolia. fa Law. feng Peak. fengshui Geomancy. fengshui jindi Land kept fallow out of geomantic considerations. Fengtian Liaoning province; also known as Shengjing. fengtu Climate; local social and natural conditions; environment specific to a place. Fo Buddha. fu Prefecture (first-rank).

183

Glossary

184 ge gong gou guan Guannei

Guanwai

Gubeikou hai, hu, shui Han he Hebei hetun Hu qu Huangcheng Huangjiao huo dao jindi

Jiangnan

Jilin Jinshan

jing

jing Ka’erka Kalahetun

kan di Kangxi Ke’erqin

kou

Pavilion. Palace. Ravine; gully. Pass; Great Wall gate; city gate. “Inside the pass”; Inner China, China proper, or China south of the Great Wall. “Outside the pass”; the frontier area north of the Great Wall; Mongolia. Name of a major Great Wall gate. Lake. Ethnic Chinese. River. Province of Hebei. Settlement; in Manchu, hoton. Lake district of Bishu shanzhuang. Imperial city. Tibetan Buddhism. Fallow land, kept as such on imperial order for geomantic concerns. Area along the Great Canal in Jiangsu, the lower Yangzi valley, and around Taihu Lake. Jilin province in Manchuria; in Manchu, Girin. “Golden Mountain”; temple and mountain name; also known as Sumeru mountain. Landscape vista; vantage point; the association of a vista and a poem in the Bishu shanzhuang gardens. Country capital. Kalka, Qalq’a, or Xalxa Mongols. First Qing summer residence in Jehol, now Luanping; in Mongol, Harahotton. To survey a geomantic site. Qing emperor era. Khorchin, Qorcin, Kalaqin, Karchin, Kharchin, Kharachin, or Qaracin Mongols. Mountain pass.

Kouwai, saiwai li Liaoning Lifan yuan Lizheng men ling Liutiaobian lou lu Luanhe Man men meng

Menggu, Meng menggu bao miao, si muchang Mulan Nei Menggu Pule si Puning si Puren si Putuo zongcheng miao qi

qi Qianlong Qing, Da Qing Qingchui feng Qingwen qu Rehe

Rehe quan ruyi

Area north of the Great Wall passes. See guanwai. Chinese mile; 1 Qing li = 558 meters. Liaoning province; Manchuria. Court of Colonial Affairs. Gate of the palace district of Bishu shanzhuang. Imperial tomb; mausoleum. Willow Palisade; wicker fence. Building; tower. Road; administrative circuit. River name in Jehol. Manchu; in Manchu, Manju. Gate. Mongol league; administrative grouping of Banners; in Mongol, Chuulgan or chighulghan. Mongol. Mongol tent; in Mongol, ger. Temple. Grazing lands; pastures. Name of Jehol hunting grounds. Inner Mongolia. “Universal Happiness Temple.” “Universal Peace Temple.” “Universal Benevolence Temple.” “Potaraka Doctrine Temple”; Potala temple. Qing Banner; territorial unit in Mongolia; in Mongol, khosighun or khoshun. “Cosmic current”; energy in its geomantic sense. Qing emperor era. Manchu dynasty of the Great Qing (1636–1912). See Bangchui feng. Manchu language. District. Jehol; first name of Chengde; by extension, Chengde city and territory. “Warm River Spring”; hot spring; river name. “At will”; an official emblem; a scepter.

Glossary Ruyi zhou

Saihu

shan Shanhaiguan Shangdi ge Shangdu shanzhuang sheng Shengjing

shi shi shu shui Shuixin xie

Shuxiang si ta tai tang Tian’an men

Tianhe Tianming Tianxia “Tianyu xian cheng” ting ting tu tuji

185 Ruyi island, the most important island of the lake district of Bishu shanzhuang. “Frontier Lakes”; collective name of the lakes of Bishu shanzhuang. Hill; mountain. Name of a major Great Wall gate. Pagoda of Jinshan temple. Yuan dynasty capital in Inner Mongolia. “Mountain Hamlet,” Hill Station, “Mountain Resort.” Province. Mukden, Shenyang, or Fengtian; Qing capital between 1625 and 1643; Qing auxiliary capital after 1644. Poem. City. Summer heat. Water; river; lake. “Pavilions in the Heart of Water”; three pavilions at the entrance of the lake district of Bishu shanzhuang. “Mañjusrï Temple.” Pagoda; stüpa. Terrace; Willow Palisade frontier post. Hall. “Gate of Heavenly Peace”; largest square in Beijing; originally a gate located south of the Wumen gate (“Meridian Gate”) of the imperial city. “Celestial Harmony.” “Celestial Mandate.” “Under Heaven”; the Chinese empire. Bishu shanzhuang vista plate 18 of Kangxi’s Album of Imperial Poems. Kiosk. Prefecture (second-rank). Map; illustration. Atlas.

tun Wai Menggu Waiba miao Wanshou Wanshuyuan

Weichang Wenmiao Wulie xian xiang xiaying xing xinggong xingying Xizang Xumi Xumi fushou zhi miao

yamen Yanyu lou

yang Yiheyuan

Yili yin yingzi yiqi Yongyou si yuan Yuanmingyuan

Yuetai

Village (frequent place name ending in northern China). Outer Mongolia. Chengde outer temples. Imperial birthday. “Garden of Ten Thousand Trees”; name of the prairie district of Bishu shanzhuang. Hunting circle; hunting reserve; basin surrounded by mountains. Confucian temple. River name in Jehol. County. Image. Camp. Form. Imperial hunting lodge for short residence. Temporary tent camp. Tibet. Sumeru mountain. “Temple of the Happiness and Longevity of Sumeru Mountain”; Sumeru temple of Chengde. Civil or military local court. “Hall of Mists and Rain”; most celebrated pavilion of the lake district, located just north of Ruyi island. Male principle in nature. “Garden of Ease and Harmony”; Qing summer residence of Haidian, near Beijing. Ili valley, in Xinjiang. Female principle in nature. Encampment; village in Jehol. Wing Banner; Mongol territorial subdivision. “Temple of Everlasting Blessings”; inside Bishu shanzhuang. Gardens; park. “Garden of Perfect Brightness”; Qing summer residence of Haidian, near Beijing. Moon Terrace, on Jinshan mountain.

Glossary

186 Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi Zhelimu Zhenggong zhi

Zhili

Album of Imperial Poems; illustrated album of Kangxi’s poems on the hill station of Chengde. Jerim Mongols. Main palace of Bishu shanzhuang. Annals; gazetteer; usually an encyclopedic compendium of a county. Province of Hebei during the Qing dynasty.

zhou zhuang

Zhunge’er Zunhua

Prefecture; island; continent. Hamlet; farm (a frequent place name ending in northern China and in Manchuria). Jüngar; Zungar, or Züünghar, Mongols. Eastern necropolis of the Qing dynasty. See Dongling.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This bibliography of materials (books, articles, and maps) on Chengde attempts to be comprehensive. Chinese titles have been romanized according to the pinyin system of transcription, but without diacritical marks. Bibliographical sources written in Manchu are given as found in library catalogs. For Tibetan materials on Chengde, refer to Anne Chayet’s exhaustive bibliography in Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, pp. 191–203. For a rather complete bibliography of references on Chinese garden history, consult Stanislaus Fung’s “Guide to Secondary Sources on Chinese Gardens” in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 18, no. 3 (July–September 1998): 269–286. The translation of titles in Asian languages into English has an indicative value only. The original titles of Asian works translated into English are indicated within square brackets.

Asian Language Sources Beijing shi wenwu shiye guanliju ed. Beijing mingsheng guji cidian [Dictionary of Old and Famous Places in Beijing]. Beijing: Hebei Yanshan chubanshe, 1989. Bishu shanzhuang he Waiba miao quantu [General Map of Bishu shanzhuang and Waiba miao]. Chengde: 1980. Bishu shanzhuang yanjiuhui, ed. Bishu shanzhuang luncong [Collected Essays on Bishu shanzhuang]. Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 1986. Buni’alin, with Bai Heling and Luo Xingming, eds. Chengde lidai fengjing shi xuan [Anthology of Past Dynasties’ Landscape Poems on Chengde]. Beijing: Wenhua yangshu chubanshe, 1987. Cao Xueqin and Gao E. Hong lou meng [The Dream in the Red Chamber]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1981. Chen Baosen, ed. Hebei sheng Chengde shi cheng xiang jianshe zhi [Monograph on County and City Construction in Chengde Municipality, Hebei Province]. Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 1993. Chen Cheng-siang. Zhongguo dili tuji [Geographical Atlas of China]. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1980. Chen Cheng-siang. Zhongguo wenhua dili [Cultural Geography of China]. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1983.

187

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INDEX

Album of Imperial Poems (Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi), 44, 54, 57, 75, 126, 128, 143 Alienation, 126 Alignments, 86 Jinshan Mountain and Qingchui Peak, 9, 76 Pule Temple and Qingchui Peak, 9, 73 Allegory. See Spectacle Ambiguity (ambivalence). See Spectacle Amiot (or Amyot), J. J. M. See Missionaries Anyuan. See Temples Architecture Chinese, 9, 16–17, 25, 62–63, 94 communist, 47–48, 110–11 and cultural heritage, 6–8, 47 history, 45, 55–56, 65, 148–50 imperial, 3, 5, 21, 43–44, 66, 73, 101, 107, 130 and preservation, 110 and restoration, 9, 46–49, 52, 97–98, 110, 139, 150 Sino-Tibetan, 22, 53, 64 Tibetan, 15, 51–52, 62, 67 Arhat (Luohan). See Temples Attiret, Jean Denis. See Missionaries Audience. See Spectacle Avalokitesvara (Guanyin). See Mañjusrï Axis. See Landscape axis Axis mundi. See Pivot Bangchui (Qingchui) Peak. See Mountains Banner (Qing military unit). See Manchu banner, Mongol banner Beijing. See Cities Bishu shanzhuang (imperial garden) district division, 36, 42, 59, 150 gates (see Gates)

hill station (Rehe shangying), 15, 26, 111 lake district, 33, 25–39, 42–46, 56, 59, 63, 68–69, 112, 135: islands, 33, 36–37, 45, 68, 71; Chenghu (lake), 45–46, 48, 71, 77–78; Ruyi (lake and island), 34, 45, 50, 56, 73, 76–78, 149; Saihu (lakes), 18, 42, 44–45, 111 mountain district, 25, 33, 36, 38–39, 42, 44, 48–49, 79, 145: forests, 48–49, 65; kiosks, 12, 18, 34, 44, 48–49, 56, 68, 118 name (place names), 16, 31, 36, 42–46, 50, 66, 71, 77, 113 palace district, 21, 34–35, 38, 42–44: Danbo jingcheng dian (hall), 43; Donggong (palace), 43; Zhenggong (palace), 31, 34, 36, 43, 45 prairie district (Wanshuyuan), 35, 42, 45–47: Wanshuyuan forest, 45–47, 49, 55, 111; Wenjin library, 34, 46 residence wall, 55, 56, 59 temples (see Temples) villas, 43– 44, 46, 49, 59, 67, 122 vistas (see Garden vistas) Bodhisattva, 11, 21, 36, 49–51, 53, 99, 114, 125, 132, 149 Buddhism. See Tibetan Buddhism Carte du Pé-Tchi-li. See Maps Cartocontroversy, 11, 134–35 Cartographic surveys, 29, 93, 95, 97, 99, 139, 143– 44, 146, 148– 49, 151 Cartography. See also Maps geomantic, 86, 112 Jesuit, 143– 44, 148 Changbai (Manchuria). See Mountains

203

204 Chaoyang (Jehol). See Cities Chayet, Anne, 12, 53, 67, 125, 135, 139, 152 Chengde (Rehe shangying), 15, 19, 23, 26, 31 city, 18, 33, 98–99, 149 oasis, 13, 139 studies, 139, 148–52 tourism, 31, 47, 49, 98–99, 139, 150–51 urbanization, 6, 42, 99 Chengde fu zhi. See Chengde Gazetteer Chengde Gazetteer (Rehe zhi), 25, 93, 112, 126, 141–42, 145, 149 Hai Zhong (editor), 142 Ji Yun (editor), 142 Qian Daxin (editor), 142 Chifeng. See Cities Chinese literature, 22, 48, 62, 66, 144 officials, 16–17, 20, 47–48, 63, 98, 151 peasants, 11, 56, 58–59, 81, 87–88, 96, 98, 131 population, 85, 93–94, 96, 109, 120, 151 scholars (literati), 17, 19, 39, 44, 103, 105 Chinoiserie. See Orientalism Circuit. See Garden, circuits Cities Beijing, 8, 13, 15, 21, 31, 36–37, 39, 41–42, 54, 97, 106–11, 129, 141 Chaoyang (Jehol), 31, 89, 94–96, 146, 149 Chengde (see Chengde) Chifeng (Jehol), 31, 94–96, 146, 149, 151 Dadu (Beijing), 36, 83, 109 Dolön (or Dolön nur, Inner Mongolia), 51, 83, 95 Haidian (Beijing), 9, 37, 39, 41, 97 Inden (Manchuria), 106, 111 Kalahetun (Jehol), 14, 17, 26, 29, 60, 84 Kulja (Xinjiang), 51, 125 Lhasa, 8, 18, 25, 67, 125, 152 Luanping (Jehol), 27, 31, 84, 92, 95–96 Mukden (Shenyang), 15, 21, 28, 44, 67, 71, 98, 105–7, 129, 133 Necropolis, 55, 86–87, 105–6, 110, 119 Shangdu (Xanadu), 13, 27, 83, 111, 117 Tokyo, 111 Versailles, 10, 96, 121–22 Zhenjiang, 18, 45, 71, 73 Climate (fengtu), 9, 23, 56, 101–2, 116, 135 Confucianism, 6, 8, 14–16, 33, 44, 60, 62, 66, 80, 105, 112, 114–18, 125, 137, 140, 144, 152 Cosmos, 4, 12, 51, 77, 79, 100–3, 113, 130, 135 cosmogony, 19, 100–1, 127, 132–33, 138 macrocosmos, 59, 114 microcosmos, 18, 59, 114

Index Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifan yuan), 47, 51, 93 Cressey, George, 92, 102 Cycles dynastic, 117, 136 garden circuit (see Garden, circuit) landscape cycle, 88, 132 through time and space, 120 Dadu (Beijing). See Cities Daoism, 8, 32, 45, 50, 62, 68, 73, 80, 105, 116 De (virtue). See Virtue Deng Xiaoping, 47, 111 Distances, 26, 28, 31, 62, 67, 77, 125–26 Dolön (or Dolön nur, Inner Mongolia). See Cities Donggong. See Bishu shanzhuang, palace district Dream of the Red Chamber, 62–63 Duncan, James, 121 Dynasties Hou Jin (Manchu), 71, 106 Jin (Jurchen), 17, 27, 71, 83, 106, 109, 119–20 Liao (Kitan), 17, 27, 31, 93, 109, 119–20 Ming, 14–15, 17, 19, 26, 39, 71, 82–84, 106–10, 120, 127 Tang, 17, 25, 83 Yuan (Mongol), 13, 17, 27, 36, 83, 105, 108–9, 119–20 East Asia, 81, 111, 132 Eastern Turkestan. See Xinjiang Ecology. See Environment Eight Banners (Qing army). See Manchu banners, Mongol banners Eighteenth century scholars, 140–45 Embassies, 13, 16, 24, 27, 47, 106, 117, 123–24, 145 Emperors (Qing) Cixi (dowager empress), 97 Daoguang, 96–97 Guangxu, 97 Huang Taiji (Tiancong and Chongde), 20, 106 Jiaqing, 21, 39, 44, 96, 106 Kangxi: as architect, 4, 19, 51, 66, 71, 75, 118; as editor, 4, 21, 144, 149–50; as founder of Chengde, 15, 19, 26, 31, 52, 92, 118; as hunter, 13–15, 17, 21, 28, 32, 84–85, 118, 125, 136, 141; as Mañjusrï, 50, 125; as poet, 66, 141, 142 Nurhaci, 20, 106 Qianlong: as architect, 4, 9, 19, 25, 33, 37, 43– 44, 50–51, 71, 76, 79, 97, 114–17, 123, 130, 134; and Buddhism, 11, 21,

Index 46, 49, 51–53, 114, 127, 142; and Confucianism, 16, 44, 62, 106, 112, 116, 140; as editor, 22, 34, 46, 66, 141–42; as hunter, 87, 151 (see also Kangxi as hunter); as Mañjusrï, 36, 49–51, 53, 99, 114, 125, 132; and modernity, 10, 14, 99, 117, 122–23; as monarch, 12, 18, 23–24, 36, 43, 45, 47, 51, 59, 66, 117, 125–26, 152; as pilgrim, 50; as poet, 20, 22, 24–25, 106–7, 143 Shunzhi, 14, 18, 20, 84, 110, 119 Tongzhi, 93, 144 Xianfeng, 97 Yongzheng, 14, 16, 32, 33, 66, 87 Emperor’s Road, 15, 27–34, 36, 41–43, 54, 60, 78, 86, 89, 92, 95, 114, 120, 127–31, 137, 147 England, 12, 42, 48, 116–17, 124, 135, 97 Engravings, 3, 10, 25, 39, 115, 118, 122–23, 131, 143, 150 Enterprise dynastic (“Great Enterprise”), 14, 18, 22, 29, 121, 123, 127 as landscaping project, 9, 11, 19, 86, 101, 114, 122–23, 140, 142, 149 Environment (ecology) agriculture, 81, 86, 91–94, 96, 151 climate, 39, 42, 50, 81, 84, 90–91, 101 deforestation, 41, 49, 90–91, 98 drought, 90 flood, 39 forests, 20, 47– 48, 65, 81, 87–88, 90–92, 95–96, 98, 108, 111, 116, 130, 141– 42, 151–52 fruit, 48, 66, 91, 92 pasture, 85–86, 98, 126, 129 plants, 43, 80–81, 92, 104 rainfall, 40, 81, 90, 91 trees, 46–50, 61–62, 86–88, 98, 104–5, 111, 146–47 wild life, 47, 81, 91, 141, 151 Ethnicity, 3, 6, 20–21, 82, 85, 88, 93, 97–99, 129, 136, 152. See also Sinicization Favier, Alphonse. See Missionaries Fengshui. See Geomancy Fengtu. See Climate Fischer, Emil, 140 France, 10, 12, 97, 102, 110, 117, 121–23, 140, 143–45 Franke, Otto, 12, 46, 75, 139, 145, 152 Frontier. See North China frontier Fumio, Tada, 90, 139, 149

205 Garden architecture, 16, 63, 65, 80, 104, 105, 118, 121, 152 circuits, 43, 54, 66, 118, 121, 128 Daguan, 62, 63 imperial (see Bishu shanzhuang, Nanyuan, Yiheyuan, Yuanmingyuan) Jiangnan (garden cities), 16–19, 44, 67, 143, 152 poems, 25, 33, 44, 54, 57, 62–66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 126, 128, 131, 142, 143, 150 religious (see Temples) scholars’, 35, 37, 59, 66, 118, 126 urban, 59, 62–65, 147 vistas (Bishu shanzhuang), 75, 77, 143: Chuifeng luo zhao, 49, 75; Jing shui yun cen, 75, 77; Qingfeng lü yu, 75; Si mian yun shan, 49; Tianyu xian cheng, 45, 73, 75, 77; Wushu qinliang, 45, 50, 122 Garrisons, 21, 59, 83, 86–87, 96, 106, 109, 120, 126, 129. See also Manchu banners and Mongol banners Gates in Beijing, 36, 107, 109, 110 in Bishu shanzhuang, 2, 3, 31, 33–34, 43, 62: Lizheng men, 22, 33, 36, 42, 43; Xibei men, 33–34, 36, 42 at Great Wall of China, 71, 73, 86: Gubeikou, 13, 27, 29, 31, 41, 71, 86, 89, 92, 95, 113, 130; Shanhaiguan, 127 Gazetteer. See Chengde Gazetteer Geomancy (fengshui), 53, 100, 103–12, 115–17, 125, 133, 135 cosmic energy (qi), 69, 78, 101, 104–5, 111 female principle, 52, 68, 78, 101–5, 107, 111 geomancers, 25, 101–6, 111–12, 140 landscape archetype (see Landscape archetype) male principle, 52, 68, 78, 101–5, 107, 111 Geometry, 10, 12, 50, 60, 69, 122, 131 George III, 47, 124 Glory, 10, 103, 120–23, 140, 150 Golden Pavilion (Century of Progress Exhibition, Chicago), 147 Great Enterprise. See Enterprise Great Wall of China, 17, 22, 82–89, 91–94, 96, 126–27, 148 Guang’an. See Temples Guangxu. See Emperors Guangyuan. See Temples Guard. See Garrisons Gubeikou. See Gates

206 Haidian. See Cities, Beijing Hebei (province, also Zhili), 17–19, 82, 86–95, 117–19, 129, 133, 141–44 Hedin, Sven, 140, 146– 49 Hevia, James, 123–24, 136 Hot springs, 16, 33, 71 Hou Renzhi, 65, 139, 150 Huang jiao. See Tibetan Buddhism Hung taiji (Tiancong and Chongde). See Emperors Hunting expeditions, 14, 23, 71, 84, 85, 93, 98, 140, 151–52 lodges (xinggong), 4, 14–15, 26–29, 59–60, 92, 117, 119, 129, 142, 145 reserves, 26, 30, 86, 96, 127, 145 Ili (Yili). See Temples, Anyuan Imperial court concubines, 31, 92, 143 empress, 97, 31, 33, 140, 144 eunuchs, 31, 32, 143 marriage, 20 queens, 31, 143 women, 140 Imperialism, 117, 121, 123–24, 136 Inden. See Cities India (Mughal), 46, 68, 102, 116 Japan, 6, 12, 31, 48, 56, 65, 98–99, 145, 148– 49 Jartoux, Father. See Missionaries Jehol administration, 14, 17–18, 87, 94, 96 environment, 15, 19, 23, 26, 42, 89–91, 126, 129–32 history, 27–31, 82–84, 87, 96–98, 120 maps, 62, 86, 93, 95, 141 natural resources, 81, 91, 95, 141 population, 22, 82, 86, 88–96, 118, 131 Jesuits. See Missionaries Jiangnan (South China), 16–20, 24, 35–39, 44– 46, 66–67, 77–78, 139, 141, 152 Jiangsu (province), 71 Jiaqing. See Emperors Jilin (province). See Manchuria Jin. See Dynasties Jing. See Garden vistas Jinshan. See also Bishu shanzhuang, lake district island, 52, 71, 77, 113 mountain (see Mountains) outside Bishu shanzhuang, 45, 71, 73, 78 temple (see Temples) Jiu. See Nine

Index Jiu shan ba hai. See Landscape archetype Jüngar (Ölöt). See Mongol Kalahetun. See Cities Kangxi. See Emperors Khan, 21, 43, 51, 83, 118 Khubilai khan (Yuan emperor) 13, 83 Korea, 6, 20, 99, 106, 145, 148 Kulja. See Cities Kunlun. See Mountains Kunming Lake (Beijing), 37, 97 Lamaism (lama jiao). See Tibetan Buddhism Lamas, 51, 98, 142 Landscape archetype, Buddhist, 68, 73 archetype, geomantic, 104, 105, 108, 112 axis, 9, 33, 42–43, 51, 61, 76–78, 106–10, 120 commoners’, 35, 57, 130 consumption, 126–27 continuum, 14, 31, 59, 60, 61, 65, 129, 133, 135 court landscape, 36, 57, 78, 128, 130 enterprise (see Enterprise) experience, 37, 97, 114, 137, 141 imperial, 2, 18–19, 22–26, 42, 52, 55–56, 67, 113, 121, 126–28, 130–34, 143 interpretation, 129, 133 layers, 9, 51, 56, 64, 79, 116, 129–36, 139 metaphorical, 122, 131 painting, 4, 39, 63–66, 80, 105, 123 perception, 81, 103, 111, 130, 136 primary, 23, 25, 59, 79, 130, 131, 137 religious, 18, 24, 33, 36, 67, 113 representation, 3, 42, 123, 133 rhetorical, 124 secondary, 23, 25, 65, 79, 130, 131, 134, 137 studies, 2, 121 transition, 38, 51–54, 73, 78, 86, 93, 96, 113, 122, 129–133, 135, 137–39, 149 units, 126, 131 vistas (see Garden vistas) Lattimore, Owen, 82, 85, 87, 139 Lettres curieuses et édifiantes, 144 Lhasa. See Cities Lhasa Potala. See Temples Liaohe (river, also Xiliao), 71, 94, 89, 95 Libraries, 34, 46 Licent, Émile. See Missionaries Liuhe (Bishu shanzhuang). See Temples, Yongyou Lizheng men. See Gates

Index Louis XIV, 121, 122, 125 Louis XV, 10, 122 Luanhe (river), 15, 27, 39, 40, 83, 89, 95, 113, 147 Luanping (Jehol). See Cities Luohan. See Temples Macartney, Lord, 13, 16, 24, 27, 45, 47–48, 123–24, 135 Manchoukuo Empire, 140, 149 Manchu, 50, 103 banners, 14, 15, 20–22, 25–26, 51, 67, 83, 85–88, 93–94, 109, 127–29, 131 capital cities, 18, 106, 111, 133 (see also Cities: Beijing, Chengde, and Mukden) identity, 12, 20–25, 55, 127, 132, 152 language, 20–21, 144 Manchuness, 16–20, 22–23, 25, 44, 55, 127 Manchuria (Dongbei), 31, 71, 73, 78, 82, 105–6 Jilin, 20, 71, 87–88, 140, 149 Liaoning (Fengtian), 14, 20, 31, 80, 82, 88–90, 94–96, 119, 134 Mandala. See Terraces Manière de montrer les Jardins de Versailles, 121 Mañjusrï, 36, 49–53, 99, 114, 125, 132, 149 Mao Zedong, 110, 150 Maps Bishu shanzhuang, 11 City of Chengde, 8 Carte du Pé-Tchi-li, 112 (see also Missionaries, Favier) Chengde fu tu (Chengde), 5, 113 Hedin, Sven, 149 Kangxi Atlas, 27, 93, 144 (see also Missionaries, Jesuits) Rehe xinggong quan tu (Chengde), 23, 59, 62, 73 Tai wan dili tu (Chengde), 23, 50, 56–59, 73 Tongzhi Atlas, 93, 144 Medium. See Spectacle Metageography, 138 Migration, 22, 84, 86, 92, 95, 148 Ming. See Dynasties Missionaries Amiot, J. J. M., 87, 106, 144 Attiret, Jean Denis, 47 Favier, Alphonse, 62, 112–13, 144 Jartoux, 144 Jesuits, 47, 144– 45, 148 Licent, Émile, 42, 91, 94–95, 146 Ripa, Matteo, 31, 65–66, 84, 89–92, 142– 43 Van Obbergen, Ernest, 89, 145, 147 Mitchell, W. J. Thomas, 123

207 Model, 17, 25–26, 43– 46, 51, 59, 67, 69, 71, 73, 78, 97, 100, 106, 110, 114–17, 125, 127, 129–30, 136, 141–42, 152 Modernity, 10–11, 121–26, 128, 135 Mongol alliance with the Manchu, 1, 20, 85 banners, 67, 87–88, 129, 131 Jüngar, 47, 51, 86, 122 League and Wing, 83, 86, 88, 93–95 Qalq’a, 94 Torgüt, 43, 51, 145 Mongolia Inner, 14, 21–22, 28, 82–83, 89, 92–95, 105, 118, 134 Outer, 12, 14, 28, 51–52, 85, 97, 142 Monks, 40, 67, 71, 98 Monmonier, Mark, 11 Montesquieu, Charles, 102 Moon, 50, 53, 77, 108, 136 Mountains Changbai, 20, 73, 107, 141 Guaishan, 101 Jehol, 18, 34, 39, 49, 84, 91 Jingshan (Beijing), 54, 110 Jinshan (Bishu shanzhuang), 45–46, 52, 57, 59, 64, 69, 71, 73, 75–78, 114, 127, 130–33, 137 Kunlun, 50, 78, 100, 101, 102, 105, 138 Qingchui (Bangchui) Peak, 9, 33, 40, 49–52, 73, 75–78, 100–102, 113–14, 128 Qingliang (Wutai), 50 Sumeru, 9, 51–52, 68–71, 73, 78, 100, 102, 113, 127–28 Wanshou (Beijing), 97 Wutai, 50 Xiangshan (Beijing), 36, 54, 108, 109 Yanshan (Hebei), 40, 49, 83, 84, 86, 89, 92, 108, 151 Mukden. See Cities Mulan hunting reserve, 88, 92, 95, 131 Weichang county, 151 Multilingualism, 22, 123, 125, 126, 141 Museums, 9, 120, 146– 47, 151 Nanyuan (imperial garden), 108–9 Nation, 3, 10, 20, 99, 132, 150 Nationalism, 6 Nature, 111, 116. See also Environment man and nature interaction, 131, 133, 135 natural resources (see Environment) primary landscape (see Landscape)

208

Index

Nine (jiu), 25, 36, 43, 51, 68–69, 88, 106 North China frontier, 14, 17, 22, 31, 85, 119, 128, 131–33, 135, 137 plain, 18, 81–82, 89–90, 107 Shanhaiguan corridor, 82, 86, 90, 126 Nurhaci. See Emperors

languages (see Multilingualism) name (Manju), 50 political legitimacy, 11, 14, 15, 18, 120 religion (see Confucianism, Daoism, Tibetan Buddhism) Qingchui Peak. See Mountains Qingliang (Wutai). See Mountains

Ode to Mukden, 20, 87, 107 Orientalism, 117–18, 124, 135–36 Chinoiserie, 135 other, 19, 124, 136, 145, 149

Region dynamic, 85–86, 119 spatial unit, 85, 118–19, 129 static, 85–86, 119 Rehe, 1, 16, 27–28, 31, 39–40, 45, 59, 62, 71, 73, 87, 111–12, 118, 141–42, 145, 149 river, 15, 19, 23, 26 spring, 39, 45, 71 Rehe shangying. See Cities Rehe zhi (Rehe tongzhi, Qinding Rehe zhi). See Chengde Gazetteer Representation. See Landscape and Spectacle Rhetoric. See Spectacle Ripa, Matteo. See Missionaries Rituals, 1, 5, 9, 17, 21, 24–25, 51, 55, 114, 117–18, 123–26, 132, 139 Rockeries, 44, 71, 73, 130 Rol-pa’i rdo-rje, 53, 114 Ruyi island, 45, 50, 56, 73, 76–78 scepter, 45, 77

Painters, 13, 19, 44, 46– 47, 63, 66, 122, 140, 143–44 Paintings landscape (see Landscape painting) miniatures, 6, 33, 48, 54, 63, 128, 140 oblique view, 9, 23, 44, 66 portraits, 4 Palaces. See Bishu shanzhuang, palace district Panchen Lama, 51, 152 Peking University, 111, 151 People’s Republic of China, 8, 95, 110, 149 Perception. See Spectacle Photographs by Montell, Gösta, 147 Sekino, Tadashi, 30, 38, 48, 53, 57, 61–62, 69, 72, 139– 40, 148 Pivot (axis mundi), 9, 57, 59, 68, 52–53, 71, 73, 100, 102, 105, 114–15, 126–27, 130 Polar Star, 16, 52 Polo, Marco, 13, 83 Potala (Putuo zongcheng). See Temples Prairie district. See Bishu shanzhuang, prairie district Pule. See Temples Puning. See Temples Puren. See Temples Pushan. See Temples Puyou. See Temples Qalq’a. See Mongol Qianlong. See Emperors Qing alliances (see Mongol) army (see Manchu banner, Mongol banner) capital cities (see Cities: Beijing, Chengde, and Mukden) emperor (see Emperors) empire, 2, 14–15, 22, 118, 126–27, 144 Great Enterprise (see Enterprise) Great Qing, 13, 93, 107, 121, 127, 132

Saihu (lakes). See Bishu shanzhuang, lake district Samvara, 52–53 Scale, 12, 18, 44, 63–68, 100, 103–4, 108, 113, 122, 135, 138, 144 Sekino, Tadashi, 48, 53, 56, 62, 139, 140, 148 Seventy-Two Views (Qianlong’s vistas), 19, 20, 44, 65, 120, 134 Shaanxi (province), 141 Shandong (province), 94, 146 Shangdu (Xanadu). See Cities Shanhaiguan. See Gate and North China Shanxi (province), 63, 90, 93, 94, 146 Shanzhuang (Mountain Hamlet). See Bishu shanzhuang Sheli (Bishu shanzhuang). See Temples, Yongyou Shenyang. See Cities, Mukden Shizi gou (Chengde), 147 Shunzhi. See Emperors Siku quanshu, 22, 46 Sinicization, 20, 80, 82, 88–89, 93, 96–98, 124. See also Ethnicity Southern tour, 21, 71, 141

209

Index Spectacle, 3, 5, 23–26, 136 allegory, 121, 131 ambiguity, 3, 93, 105, 118, 123 audience, 54, 67, 125, 150 medium, 1, 24, 105, 121, 123, 125, 128, 134 perception, 3, 6, 11, 24, 51, 64, 68, 93, 97, 99, 101, 118, 127, 132 representation, 2, 5, 6, 9–10, 19, 44, 53, 56, 62, 63, 67, 79, 87, 100–1, 112, 116–18, 121, 127–28, 133–34, 136, 140, 149 rhetoric, 23, 54, 58, 64, 118, 121, 124, 130 Statues, 50, 52, 122 Stein, Rolf, 100 Stele (stelae), 4, 22, 25, 46, 101, 119, 138, 141–42 Submission, 3, 11, 17, 19, 123 Sumeru. See Mountains or Temples Temples Jinshan (Bishu shanzhuang), 9, 45, 50–51, 59, 62, 68, 71, 75, 77, 78, 125, 128 Outer temples (Waiba miao), 21, 23, 33, 36, 49–55, 61–62, 65, 67, 76, 113, 118, 123, 125, 131, 139, 141, 148, 149, 150, 152 Potala (Lhasa), 8, 25, 125: Anyuan (also Ili, Yili), 51, 52, 99, 150; Arhat (Luohan), 51, 99; Guang’an, 99; Guangyuan, 51, 99; Mañjusrï (Shuxiang), 36, 50–51, 53, 99, 149; Potala (Chengde), 8, 25, 36, 51, 53, 99, 125, 142, 145, 147, 148, 150; Pule, 9, 51–53, 76–78, 99, 113–14, 150; Puning, 52, 99, 112, 142, 150; Puren, 51–52, 56; Pushan, 51–52, 99; Puyou, 99; Sumeru (Xumi fushou), 36, 51, 98, 141, 145 Wenmiao (Chengde), 16, 33, 62, 112 Yonghe gong (Beijing), 141 Yongyou (Bishu shanzhuang, Sheli or Liuhe pagoda), 25, 46, 59 Zhuyuan (Bishu shanzhuang), 34, 45, 48, 59 Terraces (tai), 50–58, 77, 101, 111, 114, 122, 147 mandala, 49–50, 76–78, 114 Moon (Yuetai) terrace, 50, 77 Thirty-Six Views (Kangxi’s Vistas), 4, 19, 44, 57, 66, 120, 122, 126, 143 Tibet, 6, 14–15, 20–22, 49, 51, 64, 98, 117, 123, 142 Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism), 28, 125, 142, 147 Torgüt. See Mongol Transportation, 30, 31, 95 Emperor’s Road (see Emperor’s Road)

railroads, 31, 147, 148 151 roads, 25, 27, 29–34, 36, 51, 65, 85–86, 89, 95, 128, 133, 141, 144 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 6–8 Virtue (de), 16, 27, 68, 85, 91 Emperor’s virtue, 26, 96, 116, 125 Manchu virtue, 15, 44 “Virtue Bearer” (Chengde), 15, 16, 85 Vistas. See Garden vistas Wakeman, Frederic, 14 Wanshou (Beijing). See Mountains Wanshuyuan. See Bishu shanzhuang, prairie district Weichang. See Mulan Wenmiao. See Temples Wescoat, James, 68 Wheatley, Paul, 114 Willow Palisade (Manchuria), 82, 86–89, 93, 96, 129 World Heritage List, 6–8 Wulie (river), 15, 23, 26–29, 39– 42, 49–52, 56, 71, 84, 95, 111–13 Wutai. See Mountains Xianfeng. See Emperors Xiangshan. See Mountains Xibei men. See Gates Xiliao (river). See Liaohe Xinggong. See Hunting lodge Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan), 14, 22, 98 Xuguang hall. See Temples, Pule Yanshan. See Mountains Yiheyuan (imperial garden), 8, 39, 97 Yonghe gong. See Temples Yongle (Ming emperor), 107–8 Yongzheng. See Emperors Yuan. See Dynasties Yuanmingyuan (imperial garden), 8, 27, 36–43, 50, 54–55, 66–68, 97, 108–10, 117, 129, 141, 144, 152 Yuzhi Bishu shanzhuang shi. See Album of Imperial Poems Zhenggong. See Bishu shanzhuang, palace district Zhenjiang. See Cities Zhili (province), 17, 18. See also Hebei and Jehol

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philippe Forêt received his master’s degree from the Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris and his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the International Academic Programs at the University of Oklahoma. He has published a number of articles on landscape architecture, geomancy, cartography, and public policy in East Asia. Mapping Chengde: The Qing Landscape Enterprise is his first book.