Loyalty King's Mansion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

🌟Highlight Features: The Loyalty King's Mansion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is the palace of Li Xiucheng, the Loyalty King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and is the most intact building remaining from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. ✅Historical Vicissitudes In June 1860, Loyalty King Li Xiucheng led the Taiping Army to capture Suzhou. From October 1860, he started to rebuild the Loyalty King's Mansion on the base of the Wu family's Zhuozheng Garden, incorporating the eastern Pan family's and the western Wang family's residences, expanding the area of the mansion, forming a complex of buildings including offices, courtyards, and gardens that stretched for about a kilometer. In December 1863, Suzhou was lost, and the restoration of the Loyalty King's Mansion was still incomplete, but it had already taken shape. The Taiping Army withdrew from Suzhou, and Li Hongzhang took over the Loyalty King's Mansion as the office for the Governor of Jiangsu. In 1872, it was converted into the Baqi Fengzhi Guild Hall. In 1938, it was occupied by the 'Jiangsu Provincial Reform Government' of the Japanese puppet regime. In 1946, it was borrowed by the National Institute of Social Education as a school building. In 1951, it was transferred to the Cultural Relics Management Committee of Southern Jiangsu. From 1951 to 1975, the official section of the Loyalty King's Mansion was repaired seven times, and in the 1980s, the main gate, ceremonial gate, side halls, main hall, rear hall, and back hall were comprehensively restored, basically returning to the original appearance of the Loyalty King's Mansion's official buildings. In 1960, it was converted into the Suzhou Museum. In 1961, it was announced by the State Council as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit. In 1982, a Kunqu opera performance was held by Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. In 1996, it was rated as 'The Best of China from 1949 to 1995' by the Market Economy Research Institute of the State Council Development Research Center for being the most perfect building among the existing palaces of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in China. On May 18, 2023, the Suzhou Loyalty King's Mansion was renovated and reopened. ❤Construction Regulations The main body of the Loyalty King's Mansion, namely the central route of the official buildings, was built according to the regulations of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although Li Hongzhang later demolished the east and west yamen gates, corner towers, and drum towers, and changed the main gate to the style of a Qing dynasty yamen, and altered the dragon and phoenix patterns, the rest remains in its original form. 👍Architectural Features Along the central axis from south to north, there are sequentially the screen wall, main gate, ceremonial gate, main hall, rear hall, and back hall, with a depth of about 140 meters. The main gate of the Loyalty King's Mansion is 12.5 meters wide and 10 meters deep, originally a single-eave Xieshan style, later changed to a hard mountain top. The eaves columns are fitted with lan'eaves and flat eaves, with three-part single-angled dougong brackets supporting the eaves purlins, setting up corner beams, placing dougong brackets, supporting the lower golden purlins, and bearing corner beams. The painted beams and eaves were all painted over, with traces of dragons and phoenixes faintly discernible, and the column bases are all made of bluestone in an overturned basin style. The walls between the ridge columns of the side rooms are built with partition walls, the central room has a broken masonry door, and drum stones are placed. To the left and right of the main gate are eight-character walls, with stone lions squatting in front. Both the drum stones and the stone lions are finely carved, with an impressive presence. The ceremonial gate is a hard mountain style, 13.5 meters wide and 8.5 meters deep, with the beams, eaves, and purlins decorated with paintings. Behind the gate is a stone-paved courtyard, with seven-room wide corridors on the east and west, facing each other across the courtyard. ✅Main Hall Introduction Both the main hall and the rear hall have hard mountain tops, each three bays wide, with a longitudinal depth of five bays of coiled eaves connecting the corridors, forming a whole, with a T-shaped plan, hence commonly known as the T-shaped hall. The main hall is about 11 meters high, 17 meters wide, and 14.5 meters deep. In front of it is a step porch, with flat eaves on the eaves, arranged with one bracket and three ascending dougong brackets, with a continuous machine supporting the eaves purlins. The porch column heads are set with T-shaped brackets protruding forward to support the eaves purlins, and the rear beams support the moon beams. Between the step columns, there are a total of fourteen long windows with begonia flower lattice hearts, the skirt board is carved with cloud dragons, and the sash board is decorated with cloud phoenix patterns. The interior beam frame structure resembles a hall with a raised pavilion style, with boat-shaped pavilions between the step columns and the golden columns, and large beams between the golden columns and the rear step columns, connecting the rear double-step eave corridors. Between the rear step columns of the central room, a screen door is set. The rear hall is 14.2 meters wide and 6.2 meters deep, with a step porch at the back. The beam frame is round, different from the flat work of the main hall. The beams, eaves, and purlins of both the main hall and the rear hall are decorated with paintings. ❤Sanctuary Introduction Between the rear hall and the back hall is a small courtyard, with east and west wings facing each other. The back hall has a hard mountain top, the same height as the main hall, three bays wide and 14.6 meters wide, and 10 meters deep. In front is a step porch, with flat eaves on the eaves, arranged with one bracket and three ascending dougong brackets. The porch columns have single-sided protruding T-shaped brackets. Between the step columns and the golden columns, boat-shaped pavilions are set up, and large beams are placed between the golden columns and the rear step columns. Between the rear step columns, eighteen screen doors are set, with a pad board between the door frame and the rear step frame, divided into nine squares by guide strips, all painted with murals, mainly featuring deer, cranes, tigers, leopards, lions, elephants, mandarin ducks, ribbon birds, white rabbits, flower cats, and other birds and animals, accompanied by trees, stones, and flowers, each with its own meaning. The distance between the rear eave columns and the rear step columns is only 1 meter, and the rear eave is as high as 7 meters, exceeding the front porch purlin by 2 meters, which is quite rare. This hall was originally used by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for worshiping the Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Brother, and for holding worship ceremonies, known as the 'Sanctuary' or 'Heavenly Hall'. 🌟Classical Opera Stage In the courtyard of the Loyalty King's Mansion, there is a wisteria planted by Wen Zhengming from the Ming Dynasty, with branches and vines coiling around, ancient and vigorous. Inside the theater hall to the east of the main hall of the Loyalty King's Mansion, there is also a large indoor opera stage, built after Li Xiucheng captured Suzhou in the tenth year of the Xianfeng era (1860). Originally, there were two or three opera stages in the Loyalty King's Mansion. After the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the place changed hands several times, with many changes, and now only one remains. The opera stage is square, a two-story building, 8.78 meters tall. The lower level of the stage is 0.98 meters above the ground, 8.7 meters deep, and 6.17 meters wide. The performance stage area is 42.6 square meters, 4.4 meters high, flat-topped, open on three sides, with entrance and exit doors on one side. The upper level is 3.4 meters high, with a low railing on the outside and movable window panels on the inside. There is an iron bar at the stage mouth that can be raised and lowered, used for martial arts performances 'going up the bar'. The opera stage was still in use in the 1980s. 📍Detailed Address: No. 204, Northeast Street, Gusu District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province 🚉Transportation Strategy: Take bus 923, tour bus 2, tour bus 1, or bus 102 to Suzhou Museum Station 🕙Business Hours: Open all year from 9 am to 5 pm 📝Ticket Reservation: Free visit, reservation required for Suzhou Museum general admission ticket