Yuanmingyuan is a large-scale imperial garden in Qing Dynasty, which was built in 1707, that is, the forty-sixth year of Kangxi. 1860, the British and French allied forces looted Yuanmingyuan and burned it. Yuanmingyuan has been in existence for 153 years. During its existence, every emperor in the Qing Dynasty would expand the Yuanmingyuan or add some treasures to it. Therefore, by the time of destruction, the construction area of Yuanmingyuan has reached 200,000 square meters, and there are more than 50 scenic spots in the park, with at least 1.5 million treasures.

What damage did Yuanmingyuan mainly suffer? In fact, Yuanmingyuan was completely destroyed. A big fire burned for three days and nights, and the last thing left was ruins. In fact, after the British and French allied forces burned the Yuanmingyuan, Emperor Tongzhi also wanted to repair it, but because of the shortage of funds, the repair stopped in a few days.

How much damage did the British and French allied forces do to China when they looted and burned Yuanmingyuan? First of all, Yuanmingyuan was built in the Qing Dynasty and has been in operation for over 50 years. Its scale is not even lost to the Forbidden City. This is not only the painstaking efforts of several emperors, but also a museum of treasures all over China. But it was finally taken away by the British and French Coalition forces. It is said that many soldiers of the British and French allied forces at that time took these treasures from China and returned to China to become rich directly.

Many experts have also done special research on this. After the Yuanmingyuan was burned, the loss of houses alone was as high as 6 million taels of silver. Of course, this does not include the treasures in Yuanmingyuan. Because many treasures in Yuanmingyuan are priceless, they can't be measured by money at all. At present, these treasures are scattered all over the world, some of which are collected by western wealthy businessmen, and some may be in museums.

To sum up, it is impossible to get these things back, at least for now. It is understood that among these lost treasures, there are bronzes in the Western Zhou Dynasty, porcelain vases in various dynasties, and various celebrity calligraphy and painting. Especially during the Qianlong period, because Qianlong was particularly fond of celebrity calligraphy and painting, he hid a lot of calligraphy and painting in the Yuanmingyuan at that time.

Unexpectedly, these precious cultural relics finally fell into the hands of western powers. What is even more hateful is that the western powers directly smashed some cultural relics that could not be taken away, and finally set fire to the Yuanmingyuan.