Golden Palace 太和宮金殿
it’s not actually gold, per say
250 tonnes of bronze
to mold the temple, statue and all
simply amazing
the detailed crafting
so are the marble and stone carvings
surrounding the “Golden” palace
at the garden
they built a miniature version
bearing resemblance to the one in
Royal Summer Place 頤和園, Beijing
well.. and this whole project was actually
initiated by a general who
held great power in YunNan
(FYI, YunNan is a province,
KunMing is the capital city,
and today it still is )
General Wu-San-Gui 吳三桂
his CV was kinda mixed between
the good and bad
(majority of the historical figures,
who isn’t so?)
because he was a general of
previous empire, Ming dynasty
and he actually opened the defense gate
for the Manchurian army to enter
simply because
the Ming Emperor
robbed him off his favourite girl
Chen Yuan Yuan 陳圓圓
ya.. sounds familar? huh?
Mrs. Mark Chao a.k.a. Gao Yuan Yuan?
it isn’t exactly a bad thing
well yes he is not loyal to the Ming boss
but yet the Ming was doing really bad
and after decades
when the Qing Dynasty grew stably
and General Wu was honoured with
the title of a Royal General
and got
some self-governing ruling power for
YunNan as a province
KunMing prospered and
the development of Phoenix Hill
with these really grand setup
on par with the Royal palaces
back in Beijing
attracted too much of attention
which was one of the factor which
ignited the tension between
him mini empire here in YunNan and
the central government back in Beijing
which ultimately
led to a civil war and
destruction of this
Wu-San-Gui Mini Empire
Camellia japonica 茶花
and I managed to meet some sakura
up-closed too
this place is real awesome
more details to look into
next post, please
I gonna be running late for work
till then
have a good Thursday,
Steph
no I have changed my mind
there isn’t that much to
blog a separate post
so.. here you go
by the way
at the top of the hill
you can actually take a cable car to
the Flower Expo Garden next door
which I didn’t
caught a bus back to the city
too tired from the hiking I guess
