When one thinks of Li Garden one thinks of the Spring and Autumn period and a senior official named Li, of the State of Yue, after whom the garden is named.
The kings of Wu and Yue, two states on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River by Lake Tai whose capital cities were in present-day Suzhou and Shaoxing respectively, frequently fought each other.
Mr. Li performed immortal feats for the recovery of the State of Yue from the rule of the State of Wu. But this senior official knew that the king of Yue could not share the joys of victory with others. So bringing his wife along he left the state by water. It is said that his boat drifted down the lake and was moored here in the inner part of Lake Tai and he then lived in this part of the country for a period of time as a hermit.
People in later times renamed the inner lake as Li Lake to cherish the memory of this historical event.
By the late 20s, a local industrialist, Wang Yuchin by name, had a garden put up here. Then in the early 30s one of the local gentry under the name of Chen Meifang had another garden built just west of the other garden at the rear of his "Fishing Village". So, the present-day Li Garden is actually a merger of the previous two separate and private gardens. This garden is a beautiful lakeside garden with neatly laid-out rockeries, causeways, pavilions, a veranda, peach trees, flowers and lotus ponds.