A guide to traveling in Beijing with kids for 8 days and 7 nights, Day 6: Prince Gong’s Mansion + Nanluogu Lane + Dongjiaomin Lane

Day6: Prince Gong’s Mansion + Nanluogu Alley + Hutong + Dongjiaomin Alley

On the sixth day of our trip to Beijing, our actual itinerary was Prince Gong’s Mansion + Nanluogu Alley + Hutong + Dongjiaomin Alley.

• Prince Gong's Mansion

At first I was thinking about going to the Forbidden City, should I go to Prince Gong’s Mansion? After hearing the saying "A Prince Gong's Mansion is half the history of the Qing Dynasty", I decided to go and see it.

After going there, you will feel that this is very different from the Forbidden City, especially the garden of Prince Gong's Mansion, which is really worth a visit.

Prince Gong's Mansion is the only fully preserved royal palace of the Qing Dynasty in my country. It was built in the 41st year of Qianlong's reign (1776). This palace once had two famous and powerful owners, one was Emperor Qianlong's favorite scholar He Shen, and the other was Emperor Tongzhi's political advisor, Prince Gong Yixin.

Prince Gong's Mansion consists of two parts: the palace and the garden, covering a total area of ​​more than 60,000 square meters, of which the palace covers an area of ​​32,000 square meters and the garden covers an area of ​​28,000 square meters. Judging from the area, the mansion and the garden are basically half-open, which shows that the garden is indeed a very important part of this palace.

The mansion is a courtyard with three roads and five entrances. The roof of the middle road is decorated with green glazed tiles to express the architectural regulations of the Prince's Mansion, which is second only to the Royal Palace. And because it was once the residence of Heshen, many of the buildings and decorations were over-the-top and can be preserved to this day, which can be said to be exquisite. For future generations, the preservation of these exquisite architectural decorations is our blessing and a feast for our eyes; but for He Shen, it was a talisman to his death.

The garden is also named Cuijin Garden, which means the gathering of all fragrances and the essence of brocade. The overall layout is surrounded by mountains and water, with lush flowers and forests, and pavilions and pavilions that complement each other!

The "three unique treasures" of Prince Gong's Mansion are the most worth seeing. Three of the four extinct items are in the garden, and the remaining ones also correspond to the garden, which proves that the garden is worth visiting.

As shown below:

Our route is from the first palace gate - the second palace gate - Yin'an Hall - Jiale Hall on the middle road, all the way to the Houchao Tower Buddhist Tower, and then continue to walk forward to the garden. The best way to browse the garden is from West Road Baoyue Building, Shuifa Building, start walking back, passing through Xijinzhai - Baoguang Room - West Second Mansion Gate, directly through the courtyard to East Road East Second Mansion Gate - Duofuxuan - Ledaotang, and finally from Come out of the east gate. I think this route is pretty good. I didn’t miss anything and didn’t take too many unnecessary steps.

Yin'an Hall is the place where the royal palace holds major ceremonies and celebrations. Now there is an exhibition introducing the prince system of the Qing Dynasty.

Lejiatang is the place where the royal palace holds major shamanistic sacrifices. Now it is a calligraphy and painting exhibition.

Walking through Lejia Hall, you will see a long row of houses. This is the back tower, and the Buddhist tower is only located in between.

This is a shaman suit. It’s the first time I’ve seen the real thing. I’ve seen it in TV dramas before and thought it was imaginary. Now I know it’s really so colorful~

Pass through the back building and come to the garden, where you can see two of the three wonders.

The first is the back building, which is 189 meters long. There are 88 windows in the back wall and 111 rooms. It is commonly known as "ninety-nine and a half rooms", which means "full when full" in Taoism. Take a closer look at the flowers on the second floor. The shape of each window is different and very distinctive.

The second is the Western Gate, which is located on the central axis of the garden. The four characters "Jinghan Taigu" are engraved on the outside and the four characters "Xiuyi Hengchun" are engraved on the forehead, which means to enjoy the tranquility of Taigu and embrace the spring scenery of the garden. It embodies the profound, powerful and ancient artistic conception.

Entering through the Western Gate is the garden.

In the garden, if you pay a little attention, you will find that there are many blessings here. For example, in front of Anshan Hall, there is a small bat-shaped pond - Bat Pond. There are many bat-shaped decorations on the railings, which represent "blessings". It is said that there are 9999 blessings in Prince Gong's Mansion. If you add the blessings on the Fu character tablet, which is the treasure of the house, you will have ten thousand blessings.

The Peony Garden used to be the place where Princess Gege took photos of fragrant concubines to attract butterflies.

The third unique feature is this grand theater. The original name was Yishensuo, and there was a plaque with the name "Yishensuo" written by Emperor Kangxi. The building area is 685 square meters, which can accommodate more than 200 people to watch the theater at the same time. It is a three-volume mortise-and-tenon building structure. Due to the reasonable building structure, the building has good acoustics. The decoration is fresh and beautiful, and the purple flowers of twining wisteria are in full bloom, making people feel like they are watching a play under the wisteria trellis.

The theater was closed and we could only look in through the windows.

One treasure is the stele with the character "福". This stele with the character "福" is hidden in the Miyun Cave under the Dicui Rock. The character "福" on the stele was written by Emperor Kangxi to celebrate the upcoming 60th birthday of his grandmother, the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, with a jade seal printed on it. This stele is not only doubly precious because there are very few Kangxi inscriptions left in the world, but it is also amazing because of its ingenious glyphs. If you carefully figure out the words "福", you can read "many sons, many talents, many lives, many fields" , can be called the best "blessing" in the world!

There is a piece of glass covering the outside of the blessing monument. Although we can't touch it, we touched it. There were other tourists nearby who made wishes while touching it. It felt like it turned into a wishing blessing ~ so cute!

This was taken in the exhibition hall of the back building, so I can understand the word "Fu" more clearly.

Standing on Diduiyan and looking at Anshan Hall in front of you.

The Bat Hall at the rear.

You can spend more time wandering around the garden. There are many exhibitions in many halls. I saw in the Zhou Ruchang Memorial Hall in the garden that Mr. Zhou Ruchang proved that Prince Gong’s Mansion was probably the prototype of the Grand View Garden in Jia’s Mansion in Dream of Red Mansions.

After coming out of the garden, we walked around the West Road first and then the East Road.

This Xijinzhai was built by Heshen in imitation of the Leshou Hall of Ningshou Palace in the Forbidden City. It was decorated with nanmu to create an exquisite two-story immortal tower. This kind of excessive architectural decoration was also one of the capital crimes sentenced to Heshen by Emperor Jiaqing. This building also housed Lu Ji's "Pingfu Tie".

These two wisterias have a history of more than 200 years, so the courtyard where Duofuxuan is located is also called wisteria courtyard.

"Tongde Yanli" (pronounced as xi, the third tone) is Empress Dowager Cixi Written by the Empress Dowager.