MOUNTAIN SUMMER RESORT, CHENGDE
The outskirts of Chengde in the northern province of Hebei used to be a hunting ground for monarchs of the Qing. Thoroughbred steeds galloping in the autumn wind is typical of north China's country scene, but the contrary is true with the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort, whose scenery evokes the apricot flowers and vernal rains of the Jiangnan area. It is north China's answer for the Yangtze River Delta's scenic beauty. Visitors to this royal summer palace of yore would invariably wonder, "Who says the northland stands no comparison with the Jiangnan area?"
Siting is pivotal to the making of a garden. The site chosen for this purpose must be endowed with natural beauty in the first place, with man's creative effort playing a secondary role. The selection of scenery is a priority, but the tricky part of the job is how to pinpoint the focus of such scenery. A garden's views become perfect only if a good job is done in both aspects, and this is precisely where the success of the Mountain Summer Resort lies. This resort is hemmed in by mountains. The Wulie River flows northeast before taking a southward track at the resort's palace wall, and its water remains warm in winter thanks to the hot-spring water pouring into it. Hence the river's other name, Rehe, or Warm River, which is also a byname for the city of Chengde.
Emperor Kangxi (in reign 1661-1722) of the Qing started building a summer palace in Chengde in 1703, but it took him six years to have it initially completed. As the new estate was characterized by an unadorned elegance, with all its thirty-six sights brimming with natural delight, he named it "Chengde Mountain Summer Resort." Not wanting to let his grandfather down, Emperor Qianlong (in reign 1736-1796) began expanding the resort in 1751. Another thirty-six sights were added as a result, along with a cluster of Buddhist monasteries in the mountains. As a result, the precinct of this mountain resort swelled considerably.
With a circumference of twenty kilometers, the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort is, as its name suggests, mostly mountainous. Its flat land, accounting for one fifth of the total acreage, is strewn with lakes and ponds, with mountains and lakes setting off one another bewitchingly. The front gate of the imperial residential and court quarters that occupy the eastern part of the resort, opens onto a Phoebe nanmu hall whose natural elegance is conspicuous in the absence of lavish ornamentation. Sitting on a vintage point, this hall is an epitome in view borrowing—the sparkling lakes in close proximity and the mountain ranges in the distance can all be seen indoors when window curtains are lifted.
The landscape of the summer resort falls into two sections. In the southeast section, all the spring water converges in lakes and ponds; in the northwest section, mountain ranges run up and down like so many floating ribbons, where plenty of birds nest in dense woods, and grazing David's deer bell and rove unhurriedly. The waters are made to twist and turn with embankments, and their surfaces, dotted with isles, are partitioned with dykes in imitation of famous gardens of the Jiangnan area, looking so genuine they are northland's spit images of the Mist and Rain Loft of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, and the Lion's Grove of Suzhou in Jiangsu province.
Buildings in the mountains are designed for visitors to look afar or take a rest, which is why those in the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort are small and exquisite in design and brimming with changes. They are also interspersed with temples, so that the ear is delighted in the morning by bell tolls and at dusk by drum beats punctuating chants of Buddhist sutras. The Belvedere of Literary Way is right there, a library in which the Complete Library of Four Branches of Books1 is kept. The Eight Outer Temples, laid out north and east of the mountain resort, offer fabulous scenes and sights for view borrowing, so that the scenic attractions within and without the mountain resort are mingled into an integral whole.
Covering an area of 5.64 million square meters, the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort is the largest extant garden in this country. Its natural topography encompasses mountains, plains and lakes, and its garden-making scheme is adapted to the topography in many a becoming manner. Immensely variegated, too, is local horticulture. Pines are planted among other trees in the mountains, willows on the water's edges, and lotuses in the lakes. The Wind-Swept Pines in Myriad Gullies and the Aromatic Lotuses in a Bending Stream inside of it are two scenic attractions that are named after their respective horticultural themes. The Garden of Ten Thousand Trees turns out to be a forest of elm trees, whose canopy-like foliage obscures the sun while sending forth refreshing breeze to conjure up an otherworldly ambience.
Waters are concentrated in most Chinese gardens, but the lakes and pools in the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort are now clustered, now separated, with water flowing down a host of valleys and exiting through a water gate at the Literate Garden in the southeast corner before joining the Wulie River. The S-Shaped Sceptre Sandbar, the River Murmuring in Moonlight, the Zigzagging Trails on a Cloudy Causeway, the Midstream Gazebos, and other isles and sandbars join bridges and weirs to divide the resort's body of waters into the East Lake, the Lake of S-Shaped Sceptre Sandbar, the Upper Lake Zone and the Lower Lake Zone. These lakes, sparkling amidst pavilions and lofts and encircled by willow-lined low embankments, set the stage for a landscape at once deep and labyrinthine. Gurgling mountain brooks interact with placid lakes and ponds to yield such scenic attractions as the Warm Stream and Hot Waves, the Clouds' Looks and Water's Postures, the Splashing Spring Far and Near, the Manifold Verdure Reflected in Crystal Waves, the Mirror-like Water and Cloudy Hills, and the Fragrant Islet on a Gurgling Brook. In this resort, indeed, waters may assume a hundred postures, and views may change in a thousand and one ways.
Ubiquitous are pavilions, terraces, lofts and chambers, bridges, and waterside gazebos that are adapted to the natural topography of the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort. Accommodating to its tranquil ravines and exotic peaks are also Buddhist and Taoist temples and nunneries, including the Golden Mountain Temple and the Dharma Forest Temple in the East Lake Zone, but more of them are found in the mountainous zone, including such Taoist sanctuaries as the Palace in Honour of a Resourceful Female Immortal and the Belvedere in Honour of the Mother of Big Dipper, and Buddhist domains like the Source of Pearl Waterfall Temple, the Green Peak Temple, the Temple of Sandalwood Forest, the Temple of Herons in Clouds, and the Nunnery of Moon in Water among the Eight Inner Temples. The halls and lofts of these religious establishments are scattered in eye-pleasing disorder, with Buddhist stupas glinting among them. The peace and quiet of the mountain woods are shattered when sutra chants and bell tolls rise at dawn and dusk to turn the place into a divine dreamland. Natural scenery and religious architecture are thus subtly combined to bestow a personality unseen elsewhere on this mountain resort.
Encircled by mountains, the views of the resort are fascinating enough to feast the eye. Looking afar across the Wulie River, one sees the Pestle-Shaped Peak at Sunset. On a stretch that begins north of the Pestle-Shaped Peak and turns west at the Lion's Gully, religious sanctuaries and royal villas are arrayed in the following order: the Temple of Omnipresent Benevolence, the Temple of Omnipresent Goodwill, the Temple of Universal Happiness, the Temple of Frontier Pacification, the Temple of Universal Blessing, the Temple of Universal Peace, the Temple of Sumeru, Happiness and Longevity, the Temple of Potaraka Doctrine, the Temple of Manjushri's Statue, the Temple of Universal Pacification, the Arhats Hall, and the Lions' Garden. Patterned after the architectural styles of the Uygurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities and those of hinterland China, these temples are majestic and splendid enough to rival or match all the royal palaces on the premises. Anyone climbing up the boundary wall of the northern part of the summer resort can take in all these temples, aligned from east to north to form an integral spatial entity with the whole estate while each remaining as the centerpiece of an independent scenic zone.
It suffices to sum up the all-encapsulating beauty of the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort in a single line,
To move heaven and condense earth—it all depends on how highminded the garden builder is.
In other words, the Chengde Mountain Summer Resort is a congregation of landscape gardens in southern and northern Chinese styles and buildings of many ethnic architectural backgrounds, a congregation of elements that, instead of being lumped together higgledy-piggledy, set off and complement one another in every becoming way to strike a sentimental chord in the beholder's heart and generate sceneries everywhere in good taste. The Principal Palace and the River Murmuring in Moonlight are actually complexes of quadrangle dwellings not uncommon in north China, whereas the Wind-Swept Pines in Myriad Gullies and the Mist and Rain Loft are flexibly laid out in a Jiangnan landscape gardening style. Thus the grace of the south and the vigour of the north are presented before the eye, enabling one to savor the masterstrokes of this peerless mountain resort's creators.