From the Jinshanling Ling Great Wall we continued north, passing through Chengde, the old Summer Resort of Emperor Kangxi and other Qing emperors. The Summer Resort and Associated Temple Complexes are now big tourist attractions, and young women even come up to your car at stop lights, knock on your window, and ask if you need a guide to show you the sights. We shooed them off for the moment and continued on north 125 miles to the Mulan Hunting Grounds.
Emperors Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing, and perhaps others came here on hunting trips 105 times. Oddly, Kangxi’s own son Yongzheng was probably the only early Qing emperor who never came here to hunt. The hunting parties were immense affairs, with up to 30,000 people in attendance; the court surrounding the emperor, government officials, guests, servants, cooks, huntsmen, horse wranglers, and so on. Several different types of hunting were practiced, including hunting down a single animal, usually deer, from a racing horse; rounding up large herds of animals and killing them en masse, and blowing whistles to lure the animals in and then dispatching them. If bears or panthers were encountered the emperor had to be notified immediately and no one but him could kill them.
The hunting grounds remain a forest preserve to this day. At the southern entrance to the preserve we had to pay fifty yuan just to drive seven miles north to the small village of Saihanba. Much of the preserve consists of heavily forested ridges quite unlike the scattered, spiky, often barren peaks just to the south.
Forested ridges of the Mulan Hunting Grounds
On one of the highest ridges is the site of the old Temple of Buddha Saihan. The temple itself is gone, but a pagoda, newly renovated and sure to be soon an official tourist site, remains. Next to it a new temple-like building is being constructed, but it is not clear if this is actually going to be a temple or just a gift shop attached to the pagoda. Oddly, the pagoda has an newly-installed elevator to take the slothful to the top. The pagoda is not yet officially open, however, and we were not able to ascend to the top either by the elevator or the steps.
Newly renovated pagoda at the Temple of Buddha Saihan
We arrived at the small village of Saihanba just at dark. Although this a fairly popular tourist destination in summer and fall for people trying to escape the heat of Beiing at this time of the year no visitors usually come here. Several hotels were still boarded up for the winter, and one was open but had no heat or hot water. Finally we tracked down a small hotel on the edge of town. The staff was quite happy to see us and quickly agreed to cook up a dinner and serve it to us in a private dining room, as we were the only guests. We asked one of the women hovering around if she knew anyone familiar with the local history who could guide us to places of historical interest. She furrowed her brow and said, “We really should have such a person, but we don’t.
The Mulan Hunting Grounds were established in 1681 by Emperor Kangxi. Chinese sources claim it was the largest private hunting preserve in the world, covering 4015 square miles. According to the same sources the word mulan is Mongolian and means “the blowing of a wood whistle to seduce and round up the deer and hunt them afterwards.” I have not yet checked this out with competent Mongolian linguists; Mönkhnyat, are you there? (Update: another source claims mulan is in fact a Manchu word, not a Mongolian word, and means "hunting whistle.”)
Emperors Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing, and perhaps others came here on hunting trips 105 times. Oddly, Kangxi’s own son Yongzheng was probably the only early Qing emperor who never came here to hunt. The hunting parties were immense affairs, with up to 30,000 people in attendance; the court surrounding the emperor, government officials, guests, servants, cooks, huntsmen, horse wranglers, and so on. Several different types of hunting were practiced, including hunting down a single animal, usually deer, from a racing horse; rounding up large herds of animals and killing them en masse, and blowing whistles to lure the animals in and then dispatching them. If bears or panthers were encountered the emperor had to be notified immediately and no one but him could kill them.
The hunting grounds remain a forest preserve to this day. At the southern entrance to the preserve we had to pay fifty yuan just to drive seven miles north to the small village of Saihanba. Much of the preserve consists of heavily forested ridges quite unlike the scattered, spiky, often barren peaks just to the south.
Forested ridges of the Mulan Hunting Grounds
Newly renovated pagoda at the Temple of Buddha Saihan
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