Sima Ning Garden

Sima Ning Garden

Sima Ning Garden is a cultural relic protection unit of Langfang City.

The "Sima Ning Garden" of the Ming Dynasty’s Li Song: Located about a li east of Dongchen Village, to the south of the Li family cemetery, Sima Ning Garden is a stone statue garden belonging to Li Song, who served as the Left Vice Minister of War during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty. It stretches over 200 meters from north to south and more than 30 meters from east to west. In the past, from south to north, it featured, in sequence, a spirit way stele, a pair of guardian stone lions, a pair of ornamental columns, a memorial archway, a pair of stone statues of military generals, two pairs of stone tigers, two pairs of stone sheep, two pairs of stone horses, a pair of stone statues of civil officials, and a Lingxing Gate (inscribed with “Sima Ning Garden”). Behind it were four stone steles inscribed with posthumous honors bestowed upon Li Song’s parents, stepmother, and first wife. The highly accomplished Li Song passed away in his hometown while observing the mourning period for his stepmother. According to the tomb site and epitaph of Li Song discovered in 1967 on the west bank of the Ziya River at Renzhuangzi, it was revealed that Li Song was not buried in the ancestral Li family cemetery (the new burial site remains unknown). Additionally, judging from the unusually grand scale of the stone statues in Sima Ning Garden, it is inferred that this stone statue garden was shared by Li Song and his son (Li Song’s father was posthumously honored due to his son’s prominence). The stone statues and carvings in Sima Ning Garden are exquisitely crafted and relatively rare. They suffered severe damage during the Cultural Revolution but remain the only large-scale site of stone carvings within the county. In 2003, it was designated as a municipal-level key cultural relic protection unit by the Langfang Municipal People's Government.