Shichahai

This guide to Shichahai in Beijing opens on a November night in 1908, when a procession of eunuchs and guardsmen crossed these lakeshores to carry off a two-year-old boy who would become China's last emperor. You'll hear about his fight against them, his coronation weeks later in the Forbidden City, and the eight-hundred-year history of these lakes as the Grand Canal's northern terminus and a Qing-era ice-skating ground. Look toward the mansion's northern shore, still standing behind its high walls.