Chéngdé History

History

Although the Qing emperors were already firmly entrenched in the Chinese bureaucracy by the beginning of the 18th century, they nevertheless strove to maintain a separate Manchu identity. In addition to preserving their own language and dress, the court would embark on long hunting expeditions, heading north towards the Manchu homeland. In 1703 one expedition passed through the Chéngdé valley, where Emperor Kangxi became so enamoured with the surroundings that he decided to build a hunting lodge, which gradually grew into the summer resort.

Rèhé (Warm River; named after a hot spring here), as Chéngdé was then known, grew in importance and the court began to spend increasingly more time here – sometimes up to several months a year. To get a sense of the former imperial grandeur, imagine the procession as it set out from Běijīng: some 10, 000 people accompanied the emperor on the seven-day journey.

The resort reached its peak under Emperor Qianlong (r 1735–96), who commissioned many of the 12 outlying temples (only eight remain) in an attempt to simultaneously welcome and awe ethnic groups from Mongolia, Tibet and Xīnjiāng.

In 1793 British emissary Lord Macartney arrived and sought to open trade with China. The well-known story of Macartney refusing to kowtow before Qianlong probably wasn’t the definitive factor in his inevitable dismissal (though it certainly made quite an impression on the court) – in any case, China, it was explained, possessed all things and had no need for trade.

The palace was eventually abandoned after Emperor Jiaqing died there in 1820. He was purportedly struck by lightning – fact or fiction, it was nonetheless interpreted to be an especially ominous sign.