The widespread destruction of the Old Summer Palace is well-known to have first occurred in 1860, when it was burned by the Anglo-French Allied Forces.
However, after the burning, many of the buildings were still relatively intact. In 1870, a German took 12 photographs of the Western Palaces area, which showed that "though severely damaged, it remained captivating." In 1895, when Kang Youwei visited the Old Summer Palace, he saw that "though covered with wild grass and broken stones, with desolation everywhere, the Fushan and Shouhai areas still had countless pavilions and halls, guarded by elderly eunuchs. One could only visit a corner of it in a whole day." It must be remembered that quite a few Chinese people participated in the looting. Moreover, the person who led the Anglo-French Allied Forces in looting the Old Summer Palace and suggested to Lord Elgin to burn it down was Gong Xiaogong, the grandson of Gong Zizhen. Later, he moved to Shanghai, where he squandered the wealth he had taken from the garden on prostitutes and eventually died of syphilis.
2. Earth Plunder: Later, after the foreigners withdrew, the eunuchs and soldiers managing the garden engaged in a 40-year-long, endless "guerrilla war" with thieves. After all valuable items were stolen, people turned their attention to the small treasures scattered or buried in the soil, giving rise to the saying "sifting earth, sifting earth, never suffering in life." However, apart from the theft of copper pipes from the Western Palaces, the buildings were largely undamaged, and the general appearance of the forest springs and rockeries remained. The precious flowers and trees in the garden were still there, as were the artificial hills and gardens, the mountain shapes and water systems, and even the garden walls. It still remained a royal forbidden garden.