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The Site of King Zhongwang’s Residence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is located at Dongbei Street in Loumen District of Suzhou City. It has been built into the Suzhou City Museum.

On June 2, 1860, the main military leader in the late period of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Li Xiucheng was conferred the title of King Zhongwang in 1957. He, together with Chen Yucheng, led the Taiping Army and seized hold of the camp of the Qing Army at Jiangnan (area south of the Yangtze River) for the second time. Then they marched to the east, taking Changzhou City, Suzhou City, and Jiaxing City, etc. Afterwards, he built up Sufu Province (today’s Jiangsu Province) of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the area of Suzhou City and Changzhou City, with Suzhou as the center. Mean time, he constructed the residence of King Zhongwang at the site of the Humble Administrator’s Garden. Li Xiucheng held two meetings with the vassals of the Heavenly Kingdom in the main hall of his residence. And there they directed the Taiping Army to carry out armed revolutions.

The Site of King Zhongwang’s Residence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is a magnificent and glorious architectural construction. It is deep and serene with a pleasingly asymmetrical arrangement. Li Hong Zhang, the provincial governor Jiangsu who took the place as his government office, was deeply touched by its beauty and said, I haven’t never seen such a gorgeous place before.

King Zhongwang’s Residence is small and exquisite, in line with the architectural style in the southern area. It creates an elegant environment with small bridges over running water, colorful flowers and rough hill rocks. It consists of the office, the residence, and the garden. The main hall is tall and capacious, with a breezeway in the north leading to the back house. The plan of the main hall, the breezeway and the back house has the shape of H. In the buildings of the residence, there are still 400 colored paintings on the beams and lintels, and nine vivid frescos. On the doors and windows of the main hall, there are the art treasures such as the panes delicately carved with the patterns of dragons and phoenixes.

The garden at the back part of the residence, the Humble Administrator’s Garden, covering an area of 4.2 hectares, is one of the four famous classic gardens in China. There are Yulan Hall and Jianshan Tower, etc, inside the garden.

The living quarter is on the left and the right side of is the office, and is still well preserved.

(Source: chinaculture.org)