"The General"
by mke1963,
2 more photos
Send Photo to a FriendTacked on to the southern end of Beihai Park is a curious little place, missed by many as they rush in to the park and across the bridge to the island. To the left of the entrance is the Round City, once an island, now solidly ashore, hugging the hard shoulder of the roadway outside. The cars, buses and trolley-buses and trucks rumble past one of Beijing's oldest sites, but inside the 5 metre high walls is a small compound apart from the rush of modern-day Beijing. In true Beijing style, the history of the place is rich and complicated. While building the Daning Palace, between 1163 and 1179, the Jin emperor Shi Zong enlarged and excavated the lake to create the Qiongdao Island (on which the White Dagoba sits). Actually, strctly speaking he just enlarged an existing island - Yaoxudao. It seems that the emperor hung up a picture of the Gengyue Garden, the imperial garden of the Song dynasty in Kaifeng, saying "This is what I want the place to look like!". The Guanghan Palace (Palace of the Moon) was a key building in the Daning Palace. When Kublai Khan captured the city of Zhingdu (as Beijing was then known, legend has it that Kublai Khan shot an arrow to the east of the hall and where it landed was chosen as the site for his new palace. Later Kublai Khan a big hall here - Yitiandian - The Hall for Celestial Ceremonies and put up the huge retaining wall. In those days, the Round City was an island. Kublai Khan's palace was across a bridge to the east and the palaces of the Crown Princes and the Empress Dowager across a drawbridge to the West. Tuancheng was linked to Qiongdao by a huge stone bridge. In 1417, Ming emperor Cheng Zu repaired the delapidated Yitiandian and renamed it Chengguangdian - The Hall for Inviting the Light. It was at that time that the lake immediately to the east was filled in again, so the Round City was no longer an island.

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