Yuquan landscape flows into Kunming Lake from west to east, becoming the largest water surface in the western suburbs. Large areas of paddy fields have been cultivated here, forming a natural scenic spot. As early as Liao Dynasty, the feudal emperors chose this place to build Yuquan Mountain Palace. Since the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it has also become a summer resort for emperors. In the Ming Dynasty, the natural scenery here attracted more people, so some dignitaries occupied the countryside and built garden villas.
During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Hou Liwei, a relative of the imperial family and the country, built the first campus in Tsinghua, known as "the first park in Beijing".
Later, the Ming Dynasty painter Mi led a lake to make a garden outside the east wall of Tsinghua campus, and managed an elegant and beautiful "spoon garden", which means "Haidian spoon". In the open countryside, pavilions, lakes and mountains complement each other and become a famous garden gathering place in the suburbs of Beijing.
After the Qing dynasty entered the customs, it was very uncomfortable to the dry and hot climate in Beijing in midsummer. Although the Forbidden City was resplendent and magnificent, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty felt extremely dull and depressed.
Emperor Kangxi took a fancy to the western suburbs, an excellent place for gardening, and began to build gardens on a large scale in the early years of Kangxi.
1688, Emperor Kangxi ordered the construction of Changchun Garden with an area of 600,000 square meters on the former site of Tsinghua campus, where he spent most of the year listening to politics, and the life of the imperial garden in the Qing Dynasty began.
Around Changchun Garden, there are many private gardens left over from the Ming Dynasty. In the early Qing Dynasty, these former private gardens were handed over to members of the Qing royal family, princes and ministers after being returned to the Ministry of Interior of Chen Feng.
/kloc-in 0/709, Emperor Kangxi gave his fourth son Yin Zhen, later Yong Zhengdi, a garden about one mile north of Changchun Garden in the northern suburb of Beijing, and named it Yuanmingyuan himself.