Prince Gong's Mansion was constructed in 1777 during the
Qing dynasty for
Heshen, a prominent court official in the reign of the
Qianlong Emperor renowned for being the most corrupt official in Chinese history. From a young age, Heshen earned the favor of the Qianlong Emperor and rose swiftly through the ranks in the imperial administration to become one of the top and wealthiest officials in the imperial court. In 1799, the
Jiaqing Emperor, successor to the Qianlong Emperor, accused Heshen of corruption and had him executed and his property confiscated. The mansion was given to
Prince Qing, the 17th and youngest son of the Qianlong Emperor. In 1851, the
Xianfeng Emperor gave the mansion to his sixth brother,
Prince Gong, whom the mansion is named after. In 1921, after the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Prince Gong's grandson, Puwei, offered the property as a mortgage to the
Order of Saint Benedict of the
Catholic Church. The Benedictines invested significant resources into restoring the dilapidated mansion for use as a university. It was then known as
Furen Catholic University until the priests were deported from China in 1951. During the
Cultural Revolution, the mansion was used by the Beijing Air Conditioning Factory until it experienced a revival in the 1980s. In 1982, it was declared a
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in Beijing. Since November 1996, the buildings and the gardens have become a tourist attraction. Renovation works on the mansion were completed on 24 August 2008 during the
2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. ==Structure of the compound==