Yu Garden(Yu Yuan)

This Garden of Leisurely Repose on the northeast side of the old Chinese Town was first established in 1559 by a mandarin named Pan. Laid out by a landscape artist, Zhang Nanyang, it has become one of the most renowned gardens in southern China. As the Pan family fortunes declined, the garden was neglected and overgrown until it was restored in l760 by the local gentry. It became the headquarters of the Dagger Society in l853, during the early part of the Taiping Rebellion, and was badly damaged. Part of the garden became the bazaar and local guildhalls, but over 20,000 square meters (24,000 square yards) remain of tall rockeries, halls, ponds and Pavilions linked by zigzag corridors. The Spring Hall, used by the Dagger Society, houses exhibits of coins and weapons from that period. The five-ton porous Exquisite Jade Rock is one of the attractions: legend claims that when it was discovered some 900 years ago, it joined Emperor Huizong's collection of weird and grotesque rocks before finding a resting place in Yu Garden.