Yuanmingyuan was mainly built in the last years of Kangxi and Yongzheng. In the forty-eighth year of Kangxi, Emperor Kangxi gave his fourth son Yong Zhengdi a garden in the north of Changchun Garden in the northwest suburb of Beijing, and personally named the garden "Yuanmingyuan". During the Yongzheng period, Yong Zhengdi ordered the expansion of Yuanmingyuan. The project consists of three parts: imitating the symmetrical shape of the central axis of the Forbidden City, extending the central axis to the south, building a palace area and opening a grand palace gate.

The second part, expanding to the east, west, north and south, building pavilions, pavilions, buildings and pavilions. The third part is to build Fuhai and its surrounding buildings. At this point, the expanded Yuanmingyuan covers an area of about 3,000 mu. At this point, the pattern of Yuanmingyuan has basically taken shape. After Emperor Qianlong succeeded to the throne, he adjusted the garden landscape in Yuanmingyuan, added new buildings, and built Changchun Garden and Qichun Garden in the east and southeast of Yuanmingyuan. This is what we know as Yuanming Three Gardens.

2. How to occupy and destroy:

In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), in August, the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing. On October 6th, 65438/kloc-0, Yuanmingyuan was occupied. From the next day, the officers and men began to rob and destroy crazily. In order to force the Qing government to accept peace conditions as soon as possible, British Minister Elgin and British Commander Grant ordered Lieutenant General Mitchell to lead more than 3,500 invading troops to Yuanmingyuan on June+65,4381October +08, 5438, and set them on fire. The fire, which lasted for two days and nights, burned Yuanmingyuan into ruins.

During the Tongzhi period (1862 ~ 1874), the Tongzhi emperor prepared to restore the Yuanmingyuan for the Empress Dowager Cixi to live in. Later, due to financial difficulties, it was forced to stop work and rebuild other buildings. 1900, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and Yuanmingyuan was destroyed again. After the demise of the Qing Dynasty, some warlords, politicians and bureaucrats stole the building materials of Yuanmingyuan, and the site of Yuanmingyuan was further destroyed.