The first time: the British and French allied forces. During the Second Opium War, the British and French allied forces burned the Yuanmingyuan. However, many places in the garden are still preserved, such as Pengdao Yaotai in Yuanmingyuan and Haiyue Kaijin in Changchun Garden, and the loss of Qichun Garden is relatively small. Therefore, after the allied forces left, Yuanmingyuan still belonged to the royal garden. At one time, Tongzhi started to restore some landscapes based on Qichun Garden (renamed Wanchun Garden).

Second time: Eight-Nation Alliance. This time, all the landscapes restored during the Tongzhi period were destroyed. Since then, the Qing royal family abandoned Yuanmingyuan and no longer regarded it as a royal garden.

When Yuanmingyuan was still burning, Prince Gong Yixin, who was ordered to stay in Beijing, promised all the conditions of the invaders. Soon after, the text of Tianjin Treaty was exchanged with Britain, France and Russia, and the Beijing Treaty was signed. In this way, the imperialist powers occupied China's Kowloon Peninsula and a large territory in the north, extorting huge military reparations of16 million taels of silver.

Extended data:

After the first destruction of Yuanmingyuan, it was still forbidden by the royal family. During the Tongzhi period, at the behest of Empress Dowager Cixi, he tried to rebuild it. At that time, it was planned to repair more than 20 ***3,000 temples, mainly concentrated in the Qianchao District, Houhu District, western and northern areas of Yuanmingyuan, as well as the Gongmen District of Wanchun Garden and the Qingxia Hall at the entrance of Fuchun Hall.

However, less than 10 months after the start of construction, the maintenance was forced to stop due to financial exhaustion. Since then, although Empress Dowager Cixi repaired the Summer Palace, she did not completely give up the restoration of the Yuanmingyuan. Until 22-24 years of Guangxu, she also repaired the Shuanghe Zhai and Jinong Xuan in Yuanmingyuan.

1900 (in the 26th year of Guangxu), Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi 'an with Emperor Guangxu as her arm. The order in both capital city was in chaos, and soldiers of the Eight Banners and bandits and local ruffians took advantage of the fish in troubled waters, tearing down and robbing nearly 100 buildings that remained in the park and were basically restored one after another, completely destroying the buildings and ancient and famous trees in Yuanmingyuan.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Burning Yuanmingyuan