There is a great quote from a solider who sacked the Summer Palace after the Chinese kidnapped and tortured a peace envoy this was during the 2nd opium war so not like the Western powers weren't being huge dicks but here is the quote:
We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money ... I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army
It almost certainly would have been destroyed in the cultural revolution, we know so because some of it did actually survive the French and British only to be destroyed in the cultural revolution.
historical records indicate that 16 of the garden scenes survived the destruction in 1860.[24] Wang identifies the Republican era and the Cultural Revolution as two significant periods that contributed further to the destruction of the Old Summer Palace.
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u/OpenShut 26d ago
There is a great quote from a solider who sacked the Summer Palace after the Chinese kidnapped and tortured a peace envoy this was during the 2nd opium war so not like the Western powers weren't being huge dicks but here is the quote: