The destruction of the Yuanmingyuan was not only deplored by the people of the country, but also by foreigners with a conscience who condemned the barbaric acts of the invaders. However, it is such a big event is related to a small person named Gong Orange. Many people even believe that Gong Orange is the mastermind of the burning of the Yuanmingyuan, is a traitor. So, Gong Orange in the end is not the mastermind? Gong Orange portrait. British troops burned the Yuanmingyuan. Two robbers broke into the Yuanmingyuan, a robbery, a put it to the torch Qing Xianfeng ten years on the fifth day of the ninth month, that is, October 18, 1860 A.D., the invasion of China in the British and French forces in the British army first division Michel Department of the Yuanmingyuan, creating a shocking event of the Yuanmingyuan fire. As a matter of fact, the Yuanmingyuan had already been looted 12 days before that, first by the French invasion army, followed by the British invasion army, which withdrew after three days of looting. Manchurian bandits then followed, broke into the Yuanmingyuan looting and had arson, making the world famous garden only broken walls, the culprit is the British and French forces, has long been proved by Chinese and foreign records. According to the British army at the time of an anonymous reporter accompanying the army on October 9, 1860 in the *** 》report:"(October 6) Why our troops did not continue to approach the Yuanmingyuan as planned is not known. The French and our cavalry, together with some artillery, advanced towards the Yuanmingyuan as planned. However, the French arrived there two hours behind our troops. By that time, the British troops that had already arrived there were waiting for the rest of the army. ...... The French attacked, and they found 300 eunuchs in charge of the Yuanmingyuan, and only 40 other men in charge of the gardens, and only 20 of them were armed. There was only weak resistance on the part of the Royal Gardens and two eunuchs were killed while two French officers were wounded. Then the French occupied the royal garden." "The spectacle which has taken place there during the last two days, however, is indeed beyond the power of any pen to describe properly. Indiscriminate looting was recognized. The VIP reception hall, the state guest rooms and private bedrooms, the reception rooms, the women's dressing rooms, and every room in the other courtyards were ransacked. Works of art of Qing or foreign manufacture were either taken away or smashed if they were too large to be removed. There were also decorative wall grills, screens, jade ornaments, porcelain, clocks, curtains, and furniture; nothing escaped the plunder." "Yesterday afternoon a group of Frenchmen went back to the rooms with sticks and searched them again, breaking every thing that remained-mirrors, screens, panels, etc. It is said that they did this to avenge the brutal treatment of their countrymen-that is, the released prisoners of war-who had been brutalized by the other side. The Allied gendarmerie guarded a treasure trove containing huge quantities of gold nuggets and silver ingots, which were to be divided between the British and the French." ""The total value of the property destroyed is estimated to amount to a large portion of the amount of compensation claimed by the Union Army."" "An order was issued by the British Commander-in-Chief requiring officers and men to turn in all articles looted and to sell them at public auction, the proceeds of which were to go to the troops, and this was done later. ...... Many fine antiques and memorabilia thus went to individuals at a purely symbolic price. The whole amount of the auction was 22,000 pounds sterling (equivalent to less than 100,000 taels of silver at the comparative prices of the time)." In response, in 1861, the French literary giant Victor Hugo, in a letter to First Lieutenant Barrett, who had taken part in the Anglo-French allied forces of the Second Opium War, sternly condemned the crimes committed by the Anglo-French allied forces in the Yuanmingyuan. He wrote in the letter, "One day, two robbers broke into the Yuanmingyuan, one did the looting and the other put it to the torch. It turned out that victory is to carry out a looting, the victors stole all the wealth of the Yuanmingyuan and then divided the spoils among themselves. All this was done in the name of Erjin." The ruins of the Great Waterworks in the Yuanmingyuan. Burning of the Yuanmingyuan, one for revenge, the other to cover up the theft Yes, the first offender who ordered the Yuanmingyuan, the world's most famous garden, to go up in flames was Erskine, Britain's special envoy to the Qing court. Why did Elgin order the Yuanmingyuan to be burned down after all the robberies? His excuse is that, in retaliation for the Xianfeng Emperor instructed Minister Zaiyuan, Shengbao, etc. kidnapped and abused the British and French hostages, but also in order to cover up the British and French allied forces ransacked the Yuanmingyuan robberies. Xianfeng Emperor instructed Minister Zaiyuan, Shengbao, etc. kidnapped and abused the British and French hostages in the end what is going on? Originally, Xianfeng ten years in late July, the British and French allied forces to Tongzhou. Xianfeng threatened to go on a personal expedition, but also agreed to the British and French ambassadors to Beijing to exchange contracts, the proposed requirements are the ambassadors to personally hand over the letter of state and kneeling ceremony. Imagine Magalhaes when he had an audience with the Qianlong Emperor when still only willing to bend a knee, not to mention the British and French forces are now in a position of victory? British Counselor Bashari, French Counselor Bastard and other ambassadors of course refused to kneel, so the negotiations failed. On August 4, Zaiyuan published the Emperor's edict declaring the recurring symptoms of rebellious barbarians, and ordered Zeng Greenqin to send troops to intercept Bashari and the others. Eventually, 39 people, including the Times reporter who accompanied the mission, etc., were all imprisoned in the "Heavenly Prison". By the time the British and French forces invaded Beijing and all the hostages were released, only 19 survived. Bowlby, a reporter for The Times, was among the dead. In response, Erskine was anxious that he had to show the Queen, Parliament and the press that he had taken his revenge on the Qing ***. For it was from the Yuanmingyuan that Emperor Xianfeng ordered the kidnapping and abuse of the mission. Most of all, in order to cover up the robberies in the Yuanmingyuan, Erjin ordered the Yuanmingyuan to be set on fire. The little man Gong Orange is not the mastermind, but a man and a horse into the garden to fish a Gong Orange portrait. However, after the fact, the country pursued the so-called historical mystery of the burning of the Yuanmingyuan, are pointing the finger at a small man called Gong Orange, said Gong Orange is to guide the British troops looted and burned the Yuanmingyuan traitors. Who was Gong Orange? He was the eldest son of Gong Zizhen, a famous thinker in the late Qing Dynasty. Although he was the son of a famous family, Gong Orange was openly contemptuous of the "five Confucianism". Before he died, he had called himself "" half Lun ", meaning that the monarchs, fathers and sons, brothers and all the Lun are lost, but also favored a concubine, only the couple of a Lun of half. Therefore, in the opinion of many people, Gong Orange was a traitor to the famous religion of Confucius, who said that he was "without father and without ruler". For him to clear the name of the traitor, can only use the motives of the original good and so on. Said Gong Orange is a traitor, mainly quoted Gong Orange's hometown Zhang Taiyan said Gong Orange and Ba Xia Li (Harry Parkes) close relationship, "" mastermind ". According to the Shanghai People's Publishing House published "the complete works of Zhang Taiyan" Volume III: After the Chinese language to award Ba Xia Li, as the master of the conspiracy. Yuanmingyuan fire, orange single rider first soldiers, into the jade and heavy equipment to take out. And the rate of Qing begs the western division of the Sue, pine, broken Hong's downstream, orange and powerful Yan. The world all more strange gas. However, Zhang Taiyan did not figure out is that Ba Xia Li and Gong Orange never met. Because, Ba Xia Li was the British Consulate in Shanghai translation, but in Xianfeng six years when the British Consul in Guangzhou, until Xianfeng ten years June 2, that is, July 19, 1860 A.D. to the British Ambassador Counselor identity to Tianjin. Gong Orange had never been to Guangzhou and was posted to Shanghai in the early part of the Xianfeng decade and was employed by Thomas Wade, Counselor of the British Embassy, as a ""jirou"", or clerk, to assist Wade in his Chinese interpreter program. Basharie and Gong Orange had never met, so how could Gong Orange be the mastermind? Therefore, this statement is not accurate. In fact, Zhang Taiyan was skeptical of the rumors that defended Gong Orange at the end of the Qing Dynasty. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the public rumor that the British army burned down the Yuanmingyuan was due to Gong Orange's suggestion, the purpose is to defuse the anger of the foreigners, to protect the capital city life. This claim was first seen in Tan Xian's Biography of Gong Gongxiang, written in memory of his late friend Gong Orange, which mainly used the word "挟" to clear Gong Orange's reputation as a traitor. Then, "Nationalist Journal" editor-in-chief Deng Chen "Gong Dingan set of poems set this preface" to be explicitly said: "" Xiaogang tasted lead British troops to burn the Yuanmingyuan, the world more than this short; but Xiaogang said that the real strange plan, cover a garden and easy to hundreds of thousands of people's lives of the city, and its preservation for the benefit of the more also." However, Gong Orange likes to blow, Tan Xian, Deng Shi may have been on his "oral history" when. Therefore, although Zhang Taiyan had heard of this claim by Tan Xian, he did not take it up when he rewrote the Book of the Laws. To summarize, whether or not the Yuanmingyuan was set on fire was not something that a small person like Gong Orange could influence, and he was not the mastermind. According to Zhang Taiyan, Gong Orange should have learned through Wittmer that Erjin had sent British troops to set fire to the Yuanmingyuan, so he rode a horse alone to fish for artifacts, implying that not much was retrieved. References: 1, Zheng Xi original editor of the memories of the empire "***" late Qing Dynasty Observations (1854-1911) under 2, Zhu Weizheng "out of the Middle Ages II" 3, 4, "Zhang Taiyan complete works" Shanghai People's Publishing House published 5. "The book of訄" 6, "Gong Zizhen research materials collection"