Philippe Forêt

If you're looking for a (tourist) book on the various buildings/temples of Chengde, this is not that book. Anyway, it's out-of-print and difficult to find, which is a shame as it is an excellent historical introduction to the role this Qing Dynasty site played in Chinese history. Hopefully, your library will have a copy and digital copies exist on-line through various e-libraries, which is where I located a copy.

A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1994, Chéngdé (撑德, which means ‘Virtue Bearer’) is the largest imperial garden in China, with a rich collection of classical Chinese landscapes and architectural styles from different regions of China. The idea was to use this “newly created landscape of Chengde [to integrate] visual symbols that made reference to significant places in the Qing empire that were located in China, Mongolia, and Tibet. . . The territory of metaphors created at Chengde contributed to the symbolic control that the expanding empire sought to exert on the cultural landscapes of South China and Central Asia" (p. 15).

In short, in the words of the author, Chengde was “a military outpost, a ceremonial center, a hill station for the imperial clan, an icon of Manchu identity, the summer capital of the Qing dynasty, a materialization of dynastic policy, a stage for contemplation, a protected site with paramount significance for universal culture, and a miniature of the cosmos….”

The “decision to build a Manchu capital on Mongol lands was envisioned [earlier] by the Shunzhi emperor” (p. 18), but it was the Emperor Kangxi who built it in 1703 at the precise meeting point of China, Manchuria and Mongolia [today a 3-4 hour drive north of Beijing]. He originally called it “Rehe shangying” (‘Upper Camp on the Rehe River’, naming his summer residence ‘Bishu shanzhuang’ or ‘Mountain Hamlet for the Escape from the Summer Heat’). It was eventually used by seven of ten Qing emperors, reaching its prime in the 1790’s during the reign of Emperor Qianlong.

Seven well-written chapters cover this geographic and intellectual landscape and there are several illustrations and photographs to accompany as well as an Index, list of Qing Emperors, list of the various temples, etc.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the two emperors who are most strongly identified with Chengde--Kangxi and Qianlong, as well as anyone interested in the historical Chinese view of itself as "the middle kingdom"…as well, of course, of anyone with a serious interest in China who is planning a trip to Chengde. Now an overly popular domestic tourist destination, with about half of its original structures lost in the past century to plundering warlords post-1911, Japanese and Russian occupiers, Cultural Revolution fanatics, and of course, just time itself.… (altro)