The burning of the Yuanmingyuan refers to the burning of the Yuanmingyuan in a narrow sense, the broad concept of the burning range is not only just a Yuanmingyuan, but the western part of the royal three mountains and five gardens, etc., the scope and extent of its burning is much larger than the Yuanmingyuan.

The British and French forces captured Beijing in 1860 and occupied the Yuanmingyuan. The Chinese defenders were outnumbered, and the leader of the British forces, Elgin, with the support of British Prime Minister Palmerston, ordered the Yuanmingyuan to be burned.

3500 British and French troops rushed into the Yuanmingyuan, arson Yuanmingyuan, the fire was not extinguished for three days, Yuanmingyuan and the nearby Qingyi Garden, Jingmingyuan, Jingyi Garden, Changchunyuan and Haidian Town were burned to a ruin, so that the world-famous gardens into a piece of rubble. The fire burned for three days and three nights, becoming a rare atrocity in the history of world civilization.

Expanded:

Erskine ordered the burning of the Yuanmingyuan in retaliation for the arrest of ambassadors and the mistreatment of prisoners of war by the Qing government.

In September 1860, the British diplomat Bashari and the British diplomat Loki, Erskine's private secretary, were arrested by the Qing government. Erskine's private secretary, Lodge, traveled to Tongxian to negotiate with the Qing government under the white flag of truce and were arrested by Jaiguan and Singhalese. Together with a small group of British and French allied soldiers who had previously been ambushed and captured alive, they were taken to Beijing and imprisoned for over a month. During their imprisonment, the men were tortured and abused. Among them was Bowlby, a reporter for the London Times.

The detention and torture of the British and French diplomats was not only a violation of Western international law in Lord Elgin's view, but also a violation of China's ancient code of conduct, which states that "when two countries are at war, they do not cut off envoys".

British Commander Grant's letter to French Commander Montauban, even more explicitly frank: British and French troops, although in early October looted and partially destroyed the Yuanmingyuan, but once the Qing government reoccupied the Yuanmingyuan, "within a month, can be restored", the Qing Emperor could not play a major role in combating; and completely "the burning of this garden, for the murderous government, can make it punishable".

Bacharie's biographer, Stanley Lane Pohl, summarized the position of the faction that endorsed the burning of the Yuanmingyuan this way, "From an artistic point of view, it was a hook for destroying culture; from a mature political point of view, it was a politician's masterstroke."

Baidu Encyclopedia - The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan