Jichang Garden

Situated at the foot of Huishan Mountain in the western suburbs of Wuxi, the Jichang Garden is a well-known landscape building of the Ming Dynasty. Although the owner of the garden changed many times, all the owners shared the same surname - "Qin", therefore the garden is also known as "the Qin Garden".

The Jichang Garden was originally a residence for monks. During Emperor Shunzhi's reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1661 AD), the new owner of the garden Qin Dezao invited the noted garden expert Zhang Lian for redesign and renovation. According to the landform of Huishan Mountain, rockery was creatively piled up, with "the World's Second Best Spring" (Huishan Mountain Spring) streaming through, forming exquisite landscape. The Jichang Garden has since become world-famous. Even Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong lavished praises on the garden and created poems and granted inscribed boards to show their appreciation. On his six tours to the south of the Yangtze River, Emperor Qianlong paid a visit to Jichang Garden every time he passed by Wuxi. The stone horizontal inscribed boards bearing Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong's calligraphy works are still kept intact in the garden.

The present Jichang Garden consists of two parts: the pool-dominated east and rockery-dominated west. The Jinhui Rippling Pool is at the center of the Jichang Garden, surrounded by all the beautiful scenic spots of the garden. Reflections of hills and pagodas can be clearly seen in the pool with glistening light of waves. It is a classic example of view-borrowing gardening design. The rockery in the west is completely piled up with yellowish brown stones, modeling after the terrain of the Huishan Mountain. Diverted spring water runs through the rockery like the mountain stream. The streaming sound is extremely beautiful, just like an eight-note tune. That's why the spring is called "Eight-note Stream" and "Three-tier Spring".

The Jichang Garden is a foothill villa-style garden that is considered as a paragon of classical gardens in the south of the Yangtze River, thanks to the simple and serene mountainous atmosphere created with ingenious gardening techniques of rockery and water layout and the superb design of view borrowing. In 1988, the State Council listed the Jichang Garden as a national historical site under key protection.