Controversy surrounds the boat because of its renovation in the late 19th century. The Marble Boat was originally built in 1755 by Emperor Qianlong when he undertook a massive reconstruction project of the Summer Palace, which had been an imperial garden since the mid-12th century.
Marble Boat Destroyed in 1860
Foreign armies destroyed not only the Marble Boat but the most of the Summer Palace in 1860 when they invaded China during the Second Opium War. It remained in that condition until 1888 when Empress Dowager Cixi decided it should be refurbished for her 60th birthday. Whatever Cixi wanted, Cixi got. The empress began life as a slave, then became the favorite concubine to the emperor. Following his death, beginning with her regency for their son Guangxu, Cixi ruled China with an iron hand. She was a tyrant, running a kingdom that was rife with political intrigue and assassinations.
The controversy arose over how Cixi chose to pay for the renovations to the Marble Boat. Emperor Guangxu didn’t have the money to pay for this, but the Chinese navy, in the midst of a fundraising campaign to improve the navy, did. So the Empress Dowager took the money from them. The move was unpopular at the time and became increasingly so a few years later when Japan defeated the Chinese navy in a war. Many Chinese believed if the money had gone as intended to beef up the navy, the war’s outcome would have been different. But, as M.A. Aldrich pointed out in The Search for a Vanishing Beijing, if Cixi hadn’t taken the funds, the money would have been used to build a boat that would have just been sunk in this war anyway.
Marble Boat Became “The Chinese Naval Academy”
In the meantime, the Chinese navy erected a sign calling the Marble Boat a “Chinese Naval Academy” and even conducted training exercises in the man-made Kunming Lake, where the Marble Boat rests.
The Marble Boat never was totally marble. Its base was made of huge stones and while the hill was marble, other parts were made of wood painted to look like marble. Cixi’s renovation added paddle wheels to the side, styled after the sternwheelers that used to ply the Mississippi River. Cixi added expensive ornate decorations to the boat, which she used the boat as a tea room.
Renovation Was Expensive
Cixi reportedly diverted 30 million taels of silver to pay for restoration of the Marble Boat and expansion of the Summer Palace, particularly around Longevity Hill which overlooks Kinming Lake. At that time in China, a tael was a unit of money that weighed about 1.3 ounces.
As it turned out, the Marble Boat was destroyed again less than 10 years after it was refurbished. Foreign armies again invaded China, destroying the Marble Boat and the Summer Palace in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.
Resources
China Central Television: The Summer Palace
China Internet Information Center: The Summer Palace
China Info Online: The Summer Palace
Cheryl Probst - Cheryl Probst is an award-winning photojournalist who specializes in writing about motorcycles, China and the Pacific Northwest.
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