•On the night of 6 October, French units diverted from the main attack force towards the Old Summer Palace.
•On October 18, Lord Elgin, the British High Commissioner to China, retaliated against the torture and executions by ordering the destruction of the Old Summer Palace.
In 1873, the teenage Tongzhi Emperor attempted to rebuild the Old Summer Palace, on the pretext of turning it into a place of retirement for his two former regents, the empress dowagers Ci'an and Cixi. However, the imperial court lacked the financial resources to rebuild the palace, and at the urging of the court, the emperor finally agreed to stop the project in 1874. During the 1880s, an adjacent imperial gardens, the Gardens of Clear Ripples (the present-day Summer Palace) was restored for the use of Empress Dowager Cixi as a new summer resort, albeit on a smaller scale.
•In mid-September, two envoys, Henry Loch and Harry Parks went ahead of the main force under a flag of truce to negotiate with Prince Yi and representatives of the Qing Empire at Tongzhou (Tungchow).
Looting of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War.
The process of invading
•In 1860, during the Second Opium War, British and French expeditionary forces, having marched from the coast atTianjin (Tientsin), arrived in Beijing (Peking).
The Imperial Gardens at the Old Summer Palace were made up of three gardens: Garden of Perfect Brightness proper (simplified Chinese: 圆明 园; traditional Chinese: 圓明園; pinyin: Yuánmí ng Yuán) Garden of Eternal Spring (simplified Chinese: 长春园; traditional Chinese: 長春園; pinyin: Chángchūn Yuán) Elegant Spring Garden (simplified Chinese: 绮春园; traditional Chinese: 綺 春園; pinyin: Qǐchūn Yuán)
The Location of Old Summer Palace
It is located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) northwest of the walls of the Imperial City and was built in the 18th and early 19th century as the place where the emperors of the Qing dynasty resided and handled government affairs (the Forbidden City was used for formal ceremonies).
Period I
Initial construction of the Old Summer Palace began in 1707 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor . It was intended as a gift for the emperor's fourth son, Prince Yong (the future Yongzheng Emperor), who would greatly expand the Imperial Gardens in 1725. The Yongzheng Emperor also introduced the waterworks of the gardens, creating lakes, streams and ponds to complement the rolling hills and grounds, and named 28 scenic spots within the garden.
Period II
During the Qianlong Emperor’s reign, the second expansion was well underway and the number of scenic spots increased to 50 (the emperor personally directed the construction process). The splendors of the palace and the grounds were depicted in the Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan, an album produced in 1744 by the Qianlong Emperor's court painters.
The Old Summer Palace was known for its extensive collection of garden and building architectures and other works of art (a popular name in China was the "Garden of Gardens", simplified Chinese: 万园之 园;traditional Chinese: 萬園之園; pinyin: wàn yuán zhī yuán).
Period III
The last European appearance in the Old Summer Palace in the context of traditional Chinese imperial foreign relations, was a diplomatic mission in 1795 representing the interests of the Dutch and Dutch East India Company. The Titsingh delegation included Isaac Titsingh,the Dutch-American Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest,and the Frenchman Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes.Both published complementary accounts of the mission. Titsingh died before he could publish his version of the events