Prince Gong's Mansion 恭王府

Welcome, everyone — and welcome to Prince Gong's Mansion in Beijing. There is a saying: "One mansion, half of Qing history." Today we walk together into the largest princely residence of the Qing dynasty. Our route will take us through the following stops: the Palace Gate, the Hall of Silver Peace, the Hall of Joyful Music, the Hall of Hidden Light, and the Hall of Xi Jin, followed by the Rear Mansion Building — after which we leave the residential compound and enter the garden: the Western-Style Gate, the Rock of Solitary Joy, Bat Pond, the Hall of Good Peace, the Floating Cup Pavilion, the Bamboo Courtyard, the Peony Garden, the Hall of Spirit's Delight, Bat Hall, Rise-to-Prominence Path, the Moon-Inviting Terrace, Dripping Emerald Rock, the Fortune Stele, the Square Pond Waterside Pavilion, Miao Xiang Pavilion, Dragon King Temple, and the Archery Lane — and finally, back to the eastern wing of the residential compound: the Hall of Delighting in the Way and the Hall of Many Blessings.

Let's start with a word about this estate's history. Prince Gong's Mansion has served as the home of three great figures: He Shen, the most favored official of the Qianlong Emperor; Prince Yong Lin of the Qing royal family; and Prince Gong Yi Xin. Following 28 years of restoration, it opened fully to the public in 2008 and is now a National First-Class Museum and a 5A-rated tourist site. The entire complex covers roughly 60,000 square meters, divided into a residential compound and a garden, with more than 30 architectural groupings. Throughout the estate, the character for "fortune" appears everywhere — which is why it has been called the "Land of Ten Thousand Blessings."

We are now standing at the main entrance of Prince Gong's Mansion — the Palace Gate. Look up and you will see the three characters of the mansion's name above the doorway, and in front of the gate a pair of imposing stone lions symbolizing the owner's rank and authority. The gate follows the traditional design of a Qing-dynasty princely residence. Please take a moment to look at the door nails — they are arranged in seven rows of nine, for a total of 63. The gates of the Forbidden City carry 81 nails; Prince Gong's Mansion has fewer. That difference, a matter of a few iron studs, speaks volumes about the strict hierarchy of the Qing court: no matter how grand a princely residence might be, its specifications could never surpass those of the imperial family. Also note the plaque above the lintel, the pair of couplets flanking the doorway, and the stone steps and spirit wall out front. Keeping this sense of ranked precedence in mind, let us step inside and make our way to the principal hall — the Hall of Silver Peace.

Passing through the Palace Gate, the magnificent hall in front of us is the Hall of Silver Peace — the principal hall of Prince Gong's Mansion, where the most important ceremonies and celebrations of the estate were held.

Look up at the roof. It is covered with green glazed tiles, and the ridge ornaments are likewise green. That color is significant — in the Qing dynasty, green glazed tiles were the mark of a prince of the first rank, a fitting expression of Prince Gong's exalted status; only the emperor used yellow. The hall also goes by the popular name "Silver Throne Hall," a deliberate echo of the "Golden Throne Hall" where the emperor held court in the Forbidden City. Sit with that name for a moment and you begin to sense just how great He Shen's power was — and how unchecked his ambitions had become. Inside, the hall preserves Qing-dynasty painted decorations, furnishings, and display pieces; a ceremonial platform and stone steps stand in front.

Behind the Hall of Silver Peace is the Hall of Joyful Music — the mansion's ritual worship hall. Inside hangs the hall's name plaque, said to have been inscribed and presented to He Shen by the Qianlong Emperor himself. This was the place for Manchu shamanic ceremonies honoring ancestors and deities, built in imitation of the Kunning Palace in the Forbidden City — the ceremonial heart of imperial shamanistic ritual in the Qing court. Ancestral tablets and spirit plaques are enshrined within, Qing-dynasty ritual vessels and furnishings remain in place, and the walls are decorated with painted murals. The Hall of Joyful Music is therefore not simply a family shrine; it is a living expression of the interweaving of Manchu and Han culture. Having seen the central wing's principal hall and family chapel, let us now cross over to the western wing of the residential compound.

We have arrived in the western wing. Our first stop is the Hall of Hidden Light — Prince Gong Yi Xin's private reception room.

The name carries a layered meaning. It comes from the Zhuangzi, chapter "On the Equality of Things," and means "to conceal one's brilliance so that it goes unseen" — in other words, to keep one's talents and intelligence carefully under wraps. The ceiling and beams are decorated with floral paintings set against clouds of good omen, giving the room a composed, serene atmosphere; in recent years, examination of the beams also revealed bundled-brocade-ground paintings and phoenix-themed murals. Emperor Xianfeng personally inscribed this hall's plaque for Prince Gong — an act that was in effect a warning to his capable younger brother: temper your ambitions and do not shine too brightly. A single name, a single plaque, and you glimpse the careful, watchful relationship between the emperor and his most able kinsman.

The principal building at the innermost end of the western wing is the Hall of Xi Jin — also known as the "Nanmu Palace." He Shen built it in imitation of the Hall of Joyful Longevity within the Forbidden City's Palace of Tranquil Longevity, and he used enormous quantities of the most precious golden silk nanmu timber — including four massive golden silk nanmu columns and a two-story interior gallery called the "Celestial Loft." This is precisely where He Shen overstepped. The Palace of Tranquil Longevity was an imperial precinct; for a court official to replicate it was a serious transgression. When Emperor Jiaqing moved to destroy He Shen, this building's extravagance was cited among the formal charges against him under the heading of "exceeding the regulations of his rank." Look carefully at the interior and the floor as you walk through — the space features exquisitely carved golden silk nanmu partitions, the floor is laid with patterned stone known as imperial bricks, and Qianlong-era brushwork and Xianfeng-era repair traces are still visible. The more you appreciate how precious the golden silk nanmu is, the more you begin to understand how bold He Shen really was. With the western wing behind us, let us go to the famous long building at the furthest reach of the compound.

We have now reached the deepest point of the residential compound. The long building stretching before us is the Rear Mansion Building — one of the "Three Wonders" of Prince Gong's Mansion.

Its most striking quality is its sheer length. This is the longest building of its type among all surviving princely residences in China: roughly 151 meters from east to west, 25 meters from north to south, with 116 rooms in total. It runs across the back of the compound, dividing the entire estate into an eastern wing and a western wing. Walk around to the back of the building and look at the rear wall — it carries 44 shaped windows, no two alike. These are what are called "assorted windows": some are round, some square, some shaped like pomegranates, some like unrolled scrolls — every pattern different. According to tradition, He Shen used the shape of each window as a kind of code for the treasures stored behind it: knowing the shape meant knowing what was there. This is why the Rear Mansion Building earned the nickname "Treasure Tower."

There is also a deliberate puzzle hidden in the numbers: the building has 116 rooms, yet it is traditionally called "ninety-nine and a half." Why not call it what it is? The reasoning comes from a classical Chinese philosophical conviction: that fullness invites loss — when something is completely full, it is on the verge of spilling over. By leaving that symbolic half-room uncounted, the owner secured a talisman against excess, a way of ensuring that good fortune would continue rather than peak and decline. One hundred and fifty meters of continuous building: a treasury of valuables, and at the same time a meditation on the wisdom of never claiming quite enough. With the residential compound behind us, we now enter the garden.

Leaving the residential compound behind, we enter the garden. The main entrance here is something quite unusual — the Western-Style Gate, the only Western-style structure in the entire complex.

Take a good look at this gate. It is carved from white marble in the form of a Rococo-style arched stone portal, modeled on the garden gate of the Great Fountain Ruins in the Old Summer Palace — a Western accent standing at the threshold of a Chinese garden, impossible to overlook. On the outer face of the lintel, the inscription reads "Still Containing Ancient Silence"; on the inner face, "Beauty Drawing from Eternal Spring." "Still" and "beauty" together capture the ideals the garden's owner wished to embody. This gate was built by Prince Gong Yi Xin, and its significance goes well beyond its appearance — Yi Xin was one of the principal advocates of Western learning in the late Qing dynasty. Building a Western-style gate here symbolized his hope of saving the dynasty by adopting Western culture and technology. The Western-Style Gate is one of the "Three Wonders" of Prince Gong's Mansion.

Just inside the Western-Style Gate, standing directly in our path, is a large rock — the Rock of Solitary Joy. It is a freestanding scholar's rock of northern Lake Tai stone, standing roughly 5 meters tall. You might wonder: why place a rock right in the middle of the entryway? This is a hallmark of Chinese garden design. The rock ornaments the space while simultaneously blocking the view, preventing anyone from taking in the full beauty of the garden at a single glance — it functions as both a spirit wall and a screen. The name alludes to the garden of the Song-dynasty official Su Ma Guang, who called his retreat the "Garden of Solitary Joy." On the surface, the name expresses a desire for quiet contentment; at a deeper level, it carries the cunning wisdom of someone who appears to step aside while actually remaining at the center of power — a quality He Shen cultivated carefully. Two more details are worth a closer look. From the front, the stone's outline resembles a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate, a symbol of soaring advancement through the ranks — a fitting image for He Shen's own rise. From the back, at a specific angle looking upward through the crevices of the stone, you can make out the faint traces of a hidden carved character for "fortune," echoing the garden's overarching theme of ten thousand blessings.

Rounding past the Rock of Solitary Joy, we come to a pool with a very distinctive outline — Bat Pond.

Look at its shape — does it remind you of a bat with its wings spread? That is exactly where the name comes from. The pool is lined with blue stone shaped into the form of a bat; and because the shape also resembles a gold ingot, it carries the alternative name "Ingot Pool." Why the bat motif? In Chinese, the word for "bat" shares the same sound as the word for "good fortune" — making the bat a symbol of luck and blessings. Elm trees are planted around the pool; every spring when the elm seeds — what people call "elm coins" for their coin-like appearance — drift down into the water, the surface fills with shapes that look like copper coins, creating a scene of "fortune coins in full abundance" with the meaning "wealth and blessings combined." Here is a piece of trivia worth knowing: in Qing-dynasty Beijing, channeling live water into a private estate required special imperial approval. Prince Gong's Mansion was one of the very few estates to receive this privilege. The pond is still stocked with koi today.

Walking deeper into the garden, the principal building at the center is the Hall of Good Peace — a five-bay hall with a continuous barrel-vault roof, its name inscribed by Emperor Xianfeng in his own hand. This was the main venue for banquets and social gatherings. Covered walkways on either side connect it to the east and west wings; the layout is orderly, the decoration refined, and the beams and columns are adorned with painted murals. The name carries its own meaning — "Good Peace" draws on the idea of "joyful thoughts, lasting peace, and ten thousand blessings through all four seasons." The building's circular spatial arrangement incorporates the twenty-four solar terms, reflecting the Qing aristocracy's aspiration toward harmony between the rhythms of nature and the pleasures of daily life.

We come now to the eastern section of the garden and this octagonal pyramid-roofed pavilion — the Floating Cup Pavilion, also known as the Qin Qiu Pavilion.

Look down at the floor of the pavilion. You will see a winding groove, roughly 10 centimeters wide, cut into the stone. Here is what makes it remarkable: viewed from east to west, the groove's curve reads as the character for "water" in seal script; viewed from north to south, it reads as the character for "longevity." This dual-reading earned the pavilion the alternative name "Water-Longevity Pavilion," with the meaning "as water flows constantly, so may life be long." The design draws on the refined custom described in Wang Xizhi's famous Preface to the Orchid Pavilion from the Eastern Jin dynasty: scholars gathered around a winding channel, floated a cup of wine along the current, and whoever the cup stopped in front of was obliged to compose a poem on the spot — an elegant literary gathering. In He Shen's hands, however, this cultured tradition took a very different turn. Records indicate that he transformed the pavilion into an instrument of extortion, using its "floating cup" entertainments as cover for collecting bribes — allegedly netting as much as 50,000 taels of silver from a single occasion.

Continuing along the eastern path, we reach the Bamboo Courtyard. This enclosed garden space is devoted to bamboo, planted throughout with many varieties in dense, cool stands. In Chinese culture, bamboo stands for resilience and uprightness — virtues associated with the ideal of the gentleman-scholar. The Bamboo Courtyard was once the private residence of Princess He Xiao and her husband Feng Shen Yin De. Notice the ornamental gate at the courtyard entrance — it marks the boundary between the inner and outer quarters and embodies the Qing-dynasty principle of strict separation between private and public space. The gate's name, "pendent-flower gate," comes from its design: the columns do not stand on the ground but hang from the eaves, their lower ends carved to resemble drooping flower buds. These hanging short columns are called "pendent lotus columns" and are a defining feature of formal Qing-dynasty architecture.

Beside the Bamboo Courtyard is the Peony Garden. Here many varieties of peony grow together in brilliant, competing colors. Peony is celebrated in Chinese culture as the "king of flowers," a symbol of wealth and glory, and when they bloom in late spring and early summer the garden fills with color and fragrance — one of the most striking sights in the whole estate. Flower beds are built into the garden, and the architecture and blossoms complement each other handsomely. The garden's name also resonates with the "fortune" culture of the Manchu tradition: peony paired with the character for "fortune" suggests "wealth and blessings in full measure."

The large theater in front of us is the Hall of Spirit's Delight — another of the "Three Wonders" of Prince Gong's Mansion.

Built during the Tongzhi reign, this was the private opera house of Prince Gong Yi Xin and his circle. How elaborate is it? The building covers 685 square meters, constructed in a triple-barrel-vault fully enclosed structure. The stage stands nearly one meter high and spans more than ten meters in width, dressed with an embroidered red curtain and furnished with a writing table and two grand chairs; above the stage hangs a large black plaque with four characters — "Delightful to the Heart and Joyful to the Eye" — gilded in seal script. What truly astonishes, though, is the acoustic design. Nine bronze urns are buried beneath the stage, arranged in a V-formation. This special configuration expands the space for resonance and reverberation, ensuring that no matter where in the theater an audience member sits, the performers' voices carry clearly and fully. It has been described as producing sound quality superior to a concert hall. In an age without any electronic amplification whatsoever, achieving this was a remarkable feat of engineering.

Beside the theater stands Bat Hall — also called Fortune Hall. The bat motif runs throughout: as we mentioned at the pond, the character for "bat" in Chinese shares its pronunciation with the character for "good fortune." The building's floor plan itself resembles a bat in flight, and bat imagery appears throughout the window and door decorations, embodying the Qing aesthetic conviction that "every image must carry meaning, and every meaning must bring good fortune." The bat as an auspicious symbol is woven into the entire estate — by count, more than ten thousand renderings of the fortune character are distributed across the mansion and its grounds. Together with the Kangxi Emperor's fortune stele that we will see shortly, they form the distinctive "culture of fortune" that makes Prince Gong's Mansion unique.

We are about to climb. But first, look down at the short path beneath your feet — this is Rise-to-Prominence Path.

Notice that it has only two steps. These two steps stand for the two hardships of He Shen's early life. According to popular tradition, He Shen lost his mother at three and his father at nine — that was his first setback; at eighteen, he sat the imperial civil service examinations and failed, earning him the mocking nickname "He Who Could Not Pass" — his second setback. Once past those two steps, the path levels out completely, representing the smooth and uninterrupted rise that followed. There is a customary way to walk this path: guides traditionally encourage visitors to step over both steps in a single stride, without looking back — the meaning being "leap past life's obstacles and walk a smooth road ahead." At the far end of the path stand carved sculptures bearing the characters for "double happiness" and "longevity."

Follow the path upward and you arrive at the highest point of the garden — the Moon-Inviting Terrace, the best vantage point for taking in the full panorama. The terrace sits above Dripping Emerald Rock. The paths up either side also begin with two steps at the bottom before giving way to sloped, step-free ramps the rest of the way. Step over those two bottom steps in a single stride as well — the same wish of "leaping past life's hardships" — then climb to the top, where the entire garden spreads out below you and, in the distance, the waters of Shichahai come into view. The name "Moon-Inviting Terrace" carries the sentiment of inviting the moon itself to join in the appreciation of the view, an expression of the Chinese literati tradition of seeking meaning and solace in the natural world.

The great artificial mountain beneath the Moon-Inviting Terrace is Dripping Emerald Rock. Built from Lake Tai stone transported from the south, it rises roughly 10 meters — the tallest rockwork in the garden. Its construction has been praised as "a rare masterpiece of Chinese garden design." Notice how the rock face curves inward at the center, forming a hollow encircled by the mountain itself. At the base of this hollow lies the Hidden Cloud Cave. The name comes from the rock's own water feature: a stone basin at the summit releases water that drips slowly down, keeping the surface perpetually moist, so that green moss and lichen grow across the stone — the effect of "dripping emerald" that gave the rock its name.

Inside the Hidden Cloud Cave is Prince Gong's Mansion's most prized possession — the Fortune Stele, the "One Treasure" in the mansion's "Three Wonders and One Treasure." The stele bears the character for "fortune" written by the Kangxi Emperor himself, known as "The Number One Fortune Under Heaven" or "China's First Fortune." What makes this character extraordinary? The right half of the character incorporates the brushwork of the character for "longevity" drawn from Wang Xizhi's Orchid Pavilion Preface — making this the only surviving calligraphic work in the entire Chinese tradition to combine "fortune" and "longevity" within a single written character. It is therefore said to hold "fortune enclosing longevity, both complete." The character can also be parsed into five nested blessings: many children, many talents, many fields, long life, and great fortune. The "field" element of the character is deliberately left open at the top, symbolizing "boundless fortune without limit." Here is the story behind it: in the twelfth year of the Kangxi reign — 1673 — to pray for his gravely ill grandmother, Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, the Kangxi Emperor fasted and bathed in ritual purity for three days before writing the character using a specially made imperial brush called "Bestowing Fortune upon All Living Beings." He then affixed his personal seal — "The Imperial Brush of Kangxi" — directly above the character, positioned to convey "fortune and great luck descending from on high." The stele vanished mysteriously during the Qianlong period and was rediscovered inside the Hidden Cloud Cave during the restoration of the mansion in 1962. Premier Zhou Enlai later designated it "China's First Fortune." Take your time here and let a little of that fortune rub off on you.

With the Fortune Stele behind us, we cross to the western side of the garden, where the largest water feature in the estate awaits — the Square Pond Waterside Pavilion.

The pond covers approximately 2.5 mu, and at its center stands a three-bay, open-sided waterside pavilion built when Prince Gong Yi Xin reconstructed the garden in 1866. With windows opening on all four sides, the pavilion offers an unobstructed view of the surrounding landscape and was the ideal setting for the owner and his guests to drink tea, admire the scenery, and compose poetry. The layout embodies a classical Chinese garden principle — "water flowing in from all four directions" — water gathering to the center as a symbol of "wealth streaming in from everywhere." In 2023, Prince Gong's Mansion launched a comprehensive garden restoration project; the Square Pond Waterside Pavilion component was designed to restore the historical scene of "mooring a boat" beside the pavilion, removing a boat-bridge that had been added in a later period so that the pavilion and the water surface could once again form a unified, harmonious composition. In spring and summer, lotus flowers bloom across the pond and the view is especially beautiful.

Beside the waterside pavilion, in the western section of the garden, stands a pavilion of a very unusual design — Miao Xiang Pavilion. It is a double-tiered flat-roofed wooden structure: round on top, square on the bottom. The upper tier is called "Miao Xiang Pavilion" and the lower tier "Prajna Hermitage." The round-over-square form is deliberate. In architectural language, it expresses the ancient Chinese cosmological idea of "round heaven, square earth": the upper circle represents the sky; the lower square, the ground. The columns are octagonal in section; the upper tier is supported by eight columns and in plan resembles a fully opened flowering crabapple blossom; the lower tier is a square cross-shaped plan that originally served as a Buddhist hall, its walls once bearing the Heart Sutra written in standard script by Prince Gong's own hand. The pavilion takes its name from the lilac trees planted around it — in spring when the lilacs bloom and their fragrance drifts through the air, the flowers and the pavilion form a perfect complement to each other. Also worth a look are the decorative hanging panels between the columns: they are rendered in an ice-crack lattice pattern, common in window screens but very rarely used as hanging infill panels — an uncommon detail that adds considerable artistic distinction.

Continuing toward the archery lane, we find a small temple — the Dragon King Temple, dedicated to the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. In Chinese traditional belief, the Dragon King governs rainfall; enshrining him is an act of prayer for timely rains and good harvests. The temple sits just west of the archery lane. In front of it stands an ancient well roughly 10 meters deep and 1.6 meters in diameter that has since run dry. The temple's presence reflects how seriously Qing-dynasty aristocrats took agricultural production — farming was the primary economic foundation of the Qing state, making prayers for favorable weather a matter of genuine importance.

Finally, let us talk about the Archery Lane — the long avenue connecting the residential compound and the garden. It runs between the Rear Mansion Building and the southern slope of the garden: a broad, straight road of blue brick nearly 200 meters in length. It was not only a passage connecting the two parts of the estate but also the practice ground where Qing dynasty Eight Bannermen trained in horsemanship and archery. The Western-Style Gate stands at the lane's midpoint, with the garden entrance to the north; Dragon King Temple and Mountain God Temple stand on either side of the lane; the road surface is carefully laid and equipped with a drainage system. The Mountain God Temple has a distinctly Manchu character — it enshrines the "Four Great Immortals": fox, snake, hedgehog, and weasel, expressing the Manchu people's nostalgic connection to their ancestral homeland beyond the passes in the northeast.

For the final stage of our visit, we return to the eastern wing of the residential compound to see two courtyards where Prince Gong Yi Xin lived his daily life.

We begin with the Hall of Delighting in the Way — the fourth courtyard of the eastern wing, Prince Gong Yi Xin's private living quarters. The name was inscribed by the Daoguang Emperor himself; when Yi Xin made it his residence, he took on the title "Master of the Hall of Delighting in the Way." In the twenty-third year of the Daoguang reign, Yi Xin was summoned back to the capital from his former home in Haidian on the western outskirts of Beijing. The emperor inscribed this plaque for him then — and just as with the Hall of Hidden Light, the message was a caution: keep a low profile; do not overreach. From Hidden Light to Delighting in the Way, the imperial family's attitude toward this capable prince was consistent: use him, but keep him in check. During the 2004 restoration of the eastern wing, a significant discovery was made on the main beam of the northern anteroom of this hall: painted murals came to light showing two golden phoenixes with outstretched wings cradling a fully opened peony blossom, surrounded by five-colored clouds, with matching motifs of peony, golden phoenix, and auspicious clouds filling the flanking panels — a scene of magnificent, luxurious splendor.

Our final stop is the Hall of Many Blessings — a classic princely-residence reception hall used primarily for everyday meetings with visitors, relatives, and subordinates reporting on official matters. The hall is five bays wide, with a roof of gray cylindrical tiles, and before its entrance grows an ancient wisteria vine more than 200 years old, earning it the alternative name "Wisteria Courtyard." When the wisteria blooms in summer, its trailing purple blossoms are taken as an auspicious sign of fortune and good luck. The hall takes its name from the plaque Emperor Xianfeng inscribed for it, meaning "the hall where many blessings dwell." At the center of the interior hangs a plaque reading "One Heart, Enduring Felicity," written by Empress Dowager Cixi — a directive to Prince Gong that only by remaining in full accord with her would he enjoy lasting fortune and long life. Along the walls near the ceiling hang many individual characters for "fortune" and "longevity" written in large-format script — all imperial gifts presented to Prince Gong as birthday tributes, visible tokens of immense imperial favor. Look up at the ceiling to find the "Hall of Jade and Wealth" painted motif: three flowers combined — magnolia, flowering crabapple, and peony.

And with that, our visit to Prince Gong's Mansion comes to a close. From He Shen's extravagance to Prince Gong's political maneuvering; from the solemnity of the Hall of Silver Peace to the auspicious power of the Fortune Stele — every corner of this estate holds a story. It is not merely a well-preserved Qing-dynasty aristocratic compound but a condensed chapter of Qing history, bearing witness to the dynasty's arc from the height of its power to its decline and fall. "One mansion, half of Qing history" — we hope this half of that history has left you with a lasting impression. Thank you for joining us today, and we wish you a wonderful journey ahead.