In 1860, the 10th year of the Xianfeng reign, Anglo-French invaders burned and looted the Yuanmingyuan and the Qingyi Garden built during the Qianlong reign. In 1886, the 12th year of the Guangxu reign, the Qing court decided to rebuild the Qingyi Garden as the place where Empress Dowager Cixi could live an easy life after retirement. In 1888, the 14th year of the Guangxu reign, the garden was renamed the “Summer Palace”.

The reconstruction of the Summer Palace during the Guangxu reign was presided over by Lei Tingchang, the seventh generation inheritor of the Yangshi Lei family, which, beginning from the second generation inheritor Lei Shengcheng and the Qingyi Garden project, witnessed the construction, prosperity, decline, burning down and reconstruction of the Qingyi Garden (the Summer Palace), leaving a large number of drawings, including the precious Drawing of the Tanhua Pavilion Site after Surveying.