Shuangqing Villa

It is located in the Fragrant Hill Park where there used to be a Songwu Yunzhuang (Pine Castle and Cloud Manor) built in 1745 in the 10th year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign in the Qing Dynasty. As there were two clear sweet springs running in the courtyard, the emperor inscribed the two characters“Double Purity” there, which were carved into a cliff face. In 1860 and 1900, it was burnt down twice by the allied British and French forces and by the Eight-Power Allied Forces.

Shuangqing Villa

A well-known educationist Xiong Xiling of the Republi- can of China period built his private villa here in 1917, naming it Double Purity Villa. When the Central Com- mittee of the Chinese Communist Party moved from Xibaipo in Hebei Province to Beijing in March 1949, the Fragrant Hill was its temporary site of office, and Mao Zedong lived and worked in the Double Purity Villa.