Who knows the origin of Shanghai Yu Garden?

Pan Yunduan, the owner of Yuyuan Garden, was the son of Paine, the minister of Ming Dynasty. In the thirty-eighth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1559), Pan Yunduan came up with the idea of building a garden with the idea of being a scholar and failing in the list, and started construction on a large vegetable field in the west of Shichuntang in the northwest corner of Shanghai Chenghuang Temple (now Dongwutong Road and Ma Yuanlong in Anren Street). In the forty-first year of Jiajing, Yun Pan became an official and had no time to build a garden. His "Yu Yuan Ji" said: "I have been doing it for twenty years and I have achieved nothing."

In the fifth year of Wanli (1577), Pan Yunyun returned to his hometown after being dismissed from the post of Chief Secretary of Sichuan, and then devoted himself to the management and expansion of the garden. "Every year, it is all Harunosuke that cultivates and harvests", and hired Zhang Nanyang, a famous gardener, as the designer and overlapping mountains. From then on, the bigger the garden, the wider the pool. It was completed at the end of Wanli, with a total area of more than 70 mu. The whole park has pavilions, winding paths, strange peaks and rocks, ponds and streams, towering old trees, large scale and beautiful scenery.

The middle and late Ming Dynasty coincided with the heyday of Jiangnan literati gardening, and there were thousands of private gardens near Shanghai. Yu Garden, with its scenery, layout and scale comparable to Suzhou Humble Administrator's Garden and Taicang Maoshan Garden, is recognized as the "crown of famous gardens in Southeast China".

Pan Yunduan noticed in Yu Yuan Ji that "the plaque says Yu Yuan, which is a pleasure for old relatives". "Yu" means "Antai" and "Peace". It shows that the purpose of Pan Yunduan's garden is to let his parents spend their old age in the garden. However, due to the long delay, Paine died when the garden was just built, and the Yuyuan Garden actually became a place where Pan Yunyun lived in seclusion and enjoyed himself. Pan Yunduan often holds banquets in the garden, invites immortals to entertain, tells fortune, celebrates his birthday and worships his ancestors, writes songs, plays cricket, flies kites, and buys and sells antique calligraphy and painting. Monks and nuns, fortune tellers, three religions and nine streams, and diners frequently enter and leave the Yu Garden.

During Jiaqing and Daoguang years in Qing Dynasty, Shanghai's commerce developed rapidly, and some commercial guilds set up trading houses in Yuyuan Garden as places for sacrifice, discussion, banquets and sightseeing. In the seventh year of Tongzhi, Xiyuan was divided into various trade offices, each of which raised funds to repair it. Since then, teahouses and pubs in the garden have sprung up one after another, and vendors are in groups. In an open space in the southwest of the lotus pond, some Jianghu artists, such as physiognomy, selling pear paste and Latin films, set up stalls here, gradually becoming a fixed temple fair market, and later evolved into a shopping mall. In the first year of Guangxu (1875), there were beans, rice, sugar, cloth, etc. 2 1 In the Yuyuan Garden, the industry and commerce set up offices, and some offices also set up schools. The historical sites of the past are gradually disappearing. During the Republic of China, Yuyuan Garden was divided into north and south by an east-west path (now Yuyuan Road). The ancient buildings are dilapidated beyond recognition, and some of them have been transformed into private houses. Ninghui Pavilion, Qingfen Pavilion, Haolefang and Lubo Gallery became restaurants, dim sum shops and teahouses respectively. Xiangxuetang was burned down by the Japanese army in the Battle of Shanghai and Shanghai on August 13th. Except for the exquisite rockery in front of the hall, there is only a clearing left. Fortunately, some important parts of the garden, such as Dianchun Hall, Sansui Hall, rockery, pavilions, ancient and famous trees, are still preserved.

After liberation, Yu Garden was properly protected. 1956 with the approval of the municipal government, special funds were allocated, and the municipal cultural bureau directly organized a special team to hire architectural experts and craftsmen from Shanghai Civil Design Institute and Tongji University to comprehensively restore the Yuyuan Garden. Over the past five years, it has invested millions of yuan to restore and rebuild the destroyed ancient buildings such as Sansuitang, Yuhua Hall, Huijinglou and Jiushixuan, dredge the silted ponds, plant a large number of trees and flowers, and put the Yuyuan Garden.