光緒三十四年(1908)，「農工商部農事試驗場」正式對外開放，或稱「萬生園」，是大清國第一座包含動物園、博物館、博覽園等複合功能的中央級農事試驗場。本文分析從十七世紀末盛清以來、綿延超過兩個世紀之久的大清皇家園囿動物展演儀式，如何被執政者逐漸「去脈絡化」，同時又「再脈絡化」進這座全新的農事試驗場裡。大清立國以來，許多熊虎等猛獸，擔任皇家春蒐秋獮儀式要角，在儀式過程中被降伏、犧牲、或將其毛皮楦置展示於祭壇前。十九世紀中期後，皇室放棄南苑春蒐儀式，園囿內圈養的動物們失去儀式舞臺。同時，伴隨全球動物貿易網絡興起，皇家動物園囿轉型成清國第一座公共動物園，祭壇前的猛獸毛皮楦置轉型成博物館標本展示，提供城市大眾日常休閒娛樂，也為慈禧締造重要的觀看媒介。這座萬生園，嫁接在大清既有的皇家豐產儀式上，重新詮釋「生養萬物」 並「滋養萬民」的古典政治修辭，在「儀式化自然」的基底上，逐步融入更多「現代化自然」之政治操作。既有的耤田禮與親蠶禮，轉化成企圖提高生產力的科學實驗；而春蒐儀式裡的猛獸們，得與其他百鳥百獸，共同成為被長期馴養窺看的對象。

In 1908, with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry (農工商部農事試驗場), or the “Wanshengyuan” (萬生園, Garden of Ten-thousand Lives), was officially opened to the public. As the first central-level experimental station, besides agricultural fields, the entire complex also included laboratories, botanical gardens, a natural history museum, and a zoological garden. All were the first such cultural facilities in the empire. This article analyzes how the captive wild animals in imperial menageries that Qing sovereigns had maintained for more than two centuries were gradually de-contextualized from imperial ceremonies and then re-contextualized into the new agricultural experimentation station. Since the early Qing, the Imperial Household Department (內務府) managed menageries around the Forbidden City, including the Imperial Bestiary (baishofang 百獸房), the Imperial Aviary (bainiaofang 百鳥房), elephant stables, tiger rings, and so forth. Many of beasts performed important ceremonial roles in imperial rituals related to hunting, killing, and exhibiting furs. However, after the mid-nineteenth century, the number of animals kept in imperial menageries rapidly declined. At the same time, the ceremonies of hunting and killing were no longer conducted in the Nanyuan (南苑) or Royal Southern Hunting Park in Beijing, and the Qing empire stepped into the age of the zoological garden with the help of the global trade in animals and the demands of modern urban public space. Imperial animals and their mounts became collections of the zoo and museum. The imperial stages that had provided animals with the roles of power, control, dominance, and domestication were gradually turned into scenes of daily entertainment and recreation. The Garden of Ten-thousand Lives became one of several key media to visualize Cixi’s preparatory movement for constitutional monarchy. Grafted onto Qing imperial harvest ritual ceremonies, the Garden of Ten-thousand Lives modernized the classical political rhetoric of “raising all things and nourishing all the people” into the context of zoo and museum by transforming and reconnecting animal participants. The royal ploughing ceremony and silkworm-feeding ceremony were converted into scientific experiments for improving agricultural productivity. No longer being sacrificed, those beasts in spring and autumn royal hunting ceremonies, together with other species, become domesticated zoo animals under the public gaze. By gradually integrating “ritualized nature” with more “modernized nature,” the birth of the Agricultural Experiment Station reflected the political change of the Qing imperial way to cooperate with nature

萬生園；農事試驗場；動物園；博物館；慈禧

Wanshengyuan; Agricultural Experiment Station; zoological garden; museum; Empress Dowager Cixi