page_title: Beihai Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Beihai Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: russianroadtochi00bateuoft (find matches) Title: The Russian road to China Year: 1910 (1910s) Authors: Bates, Lindon Wallace, 1883-1915 Subjects: Trans-Siberian railroad Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel China -- Description and travel Publisher: Boston Houghton Mifflin company Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto Digitizing Sponsor: MSN View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: nation griev-ing at the atrocities the others had seen fit to per-petrate. But periodic local and temporary disturbanceshad been going on from time immemorial. Did notthe Chinese realize, we reasoned, that their old cor-rupt government had been given another unde-served chance to try and march with the rest of therace; that this world is not the place for graft-ridden relics from the fifth century B.C.&#160;? The leastwe felt was that, thanks to the bearer of the Flow-ery Banner, the Chinese had been given a lastopportunity. A self-denying Occident had guaran-teed the nations existence and had presumablyearned its everlasting gratitude. ** Let China get upand do something — let it redeem itself. A very small circle of Chinese shared this Westernview, and realized at their true value the mightsif not the rights. There existed among the literatiat Peking and in the coast cities the rudiments ofa foreign liberal party. Recognizing that Westernmethods must come, they had been in favor of ac- Text Appearing After Image: I CHINA 369 cepting foreign improvements even at the cost ofrailway concessions and the violated dwellings ofwind and water spirits. When this party won overthe young Emperor, there began the period offoreign concessions. Reforms, too, covering everysubject, from queue-cutting to postage-stamps, wereinaugurated. The summer of 1898 saw the important edictwhich ordered the abolition of the Wen-chang essaysand the penmanship posts, with the Emperorspersonal comment that the examinations shouldtest a knowledge of ancient and modern history,and information in regard to the present state ofaffairs, with special reference to the governmentsand institutions of the countries of the five greatcontinents, and their arts and sciences. A Bureauof Mines was established, a patent-office, schools,a scheme of army reform. The climaxing decree was the one abolishingsinecures. For the Emperors unreconstructedentourage this last was too much. Foreign aggres-sion had embittered to the point of unreason ma Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Beihai Park, also known as the Winter Palace, is a public park and former imperial garden located in the northwestern part of the Imperial City, Beijing. First built in the 11th century, it is among the largest of all Chinese gardens and contains numerous historically important structures, palaces, and temples. Since 1925, the place has been open to the public as a park. It is also connected at its northern end to the Shichahai.
  The park has an area of more than 69 hectares, with a lake that covers more than half of the entire park. At the center of the park is an island called Jade Flower Island, whose highest point is 32 meters.
  Beihai literally means "Northern Sea". There are also corresponding Central and Southern "Seas". These latter two are joined inside a complex of buildings known after them as Zhongnanhai; it is the home of China's paramount leaders.
context_section_description: In 1179, Emperor Zhangzong of the Jin dynasty had a country resort built northeast of Zhongdu, the Jin capital, located in the southwestern part of modern Beijing. Taiye Lake was excavated along the Jinshui River and Daning Palace (大寧宮) was erected on Qionghua Island in the lake.
  During the reign of Kublai Khan in the Yuan dynasty, the Qionghua island was redesigned by various architects and officials such as Liu Bingzhong, Guo Shoujing and Amir al-Din. Taiye Lake was enclosed in the Imperial City of Yuan's new capital Dadu
  After the Ming dynasty moved its capital to Beijing, construction on the existing Imperial City began in 1406. At this time, the Taiye Lake were divided into three lakes by bridges, Northern Sea (Beihai, 北海), Central Sea (Zhonghai, 中海) and Southern Sea (Nanhai, 南海). The lakes were part of an extensive royal park called Xiyuan (Western Park, 西苑) in the west part of the Imperial City, Beijing.
caption: The bridge and tablets in park 1910
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