A SHORT REIGN AND THE BEGINNING OF A LONG ONE
Immediately after the death of Kanghi, his fourth son, who had long been
designated as his heir, was proclaimed emperor, under the style of Yung
Ching, which name means "the indissoluble concord or stable peace." The
late emperor had always favored this prince, and in his will he publicly
proclaimed that he bore much resemblance to himself, and that he was a man
of rare and precious character. His first acts indicated considerable
vigor and decision of mind. In the edict announcing the death of his
father and his own accession he said that on the advice of his ministers
he had entered upon the discharge of his imperial duties, without giving
up precious time to the indulgence of his natural grief, which would be
gratifying to his feelings, but injurious to the public interests. As Yung
Ching was of the mature age of forty-five, and as he had enjoyed the
confidence of his predecessor, he was fully qualified to carry on the
administration. He declared that his main purpose was to continue his
father's work, and that he would tread as closely as he could in Kanghi's
footsteps. While Yung Ching took these prompt steps to secure himself on
the throne, some of his brothers assumed an attitude of menacing hostility
toward him, and all his energy and vigilance were required to counteract
their designs. A very little time was needed, however, to show that Kanghi
had selected his worthiest son as his successor, and that China would have
no reason to fear under Yung Ching the loss of any of the benefits
conferred on the nation by Kanghi. His fine presence, and frank, open
manner, secured for him the sympathy and applause of the public, and in a
very short time he also gained their respect and admiration by his wisdom
and justice.
The most important and formidable of his brothers was the fourteenth son
of Kanghi, by the same mother, however, as that of Yung Ching. He and his
son Poki had been regarded with no inconsiderable favor by Kanghi, and at
one time it was thought that he would have chosen them as his successors;
but these expectations were disappointed. He was sent instead to hold the
chief command against the Eleuths on the western borders. Young Ching
determined to remove him from this post, in which he might have
opportunities of asserting his independence, and for a moment it seemed as
if he might disobey. But more prudent counsels prevailed, and he returned
to Pekin, where he was placed in honorable confinement, and retained there
during the whole of Yung Ching's reign. He and his son owed their release
thirteen years later to the greater clemency or self-confidence of Keen
Lung. Another brother, named Sessaka, also fell under suspicion, and he
was arrested and his estates confiscated. He was then so far forgiven that
a small military command was given him in the provinces. Others of more
importance were involved in his affairs. Lessihin, son of Prince
Sourniama, an elder brother of Kanghi, was denounced as a sympathizer and
supporter of Sessaka. The charge seems to have been based on slender
evidence, but it sufficed to cause the banishment of this personage and
all his family to Sining. It appears as if they were specially punished
for having become Christians, and there is no doubt that their conversion
imbittered the emperor's mind against the Christian missionaries and their
religion. It enabled him to say, or at least induced him to accept the
statement, that the Christians meddled and took a side in the internal
politics of the country. Yung Ching saw and seized his opportunity. His
measures of repression against the recalcitrant party in his own family
culminated in the summary exile of Sourniama and all his descendants down
to the fourth generation. Sourniama vainly endeavored to establish his
innocence, and he sent three of his sons, laden with chains, to the
palace, to protest his innocence and devotion. But they were refused
audience, and Sourniama and his family sank into oblivion and wretchedness
on the outskirts of the empire.
Having thus settled the difficulties within his own family, Yung Ching
next turned his attention to humbling the bold band of foreigners who had
established themselves in the capital and throughout the country, as much
by their own persistency and indifference to slight as by the acquiescence
of the Chinese government, and who, after they had reached some of the
highest official posts, continued to preach and propagate their gospel of
a supreme power and mercy beyond the control of kings, a gospel which was
simply destructive of the paternal and sacred claims on which a Chinese
emperor based his authority as superior to all earthly interference, and
as transmitted to him direct from Heaven, The official classes confirmed
the emperor's suspicions, and encouraged him to proceed to extreme
lengths. On all sides offenses were freely laid at the doors of the
missionaries. It was said of them that "their doctrine sows trouble among
the people, and makes them doubt the goodness of our laws." In the
province of Fuhkien their eighteen churches were closed, and the priests
were summarily ordered to return to Macao. At Pekin itself the Jesuits
lost all their influence. Those who had been well-disposed toward them
were either banished or cowed into silence. The emperor turned his back on
them and refused to see them, and they could only wait with their usual
fortitude until the period of imperial displeasure had passed over. When
they endeavored to enlist in their support the sympathy and influence of
the emperor's brother--the thirteenth prince--who in Kanghi's time had
been considered their friend, they met with a rebuff not unnatural or
unreasonable when the mishaps to his relations for their Christian
proclivities are borne in mind. This prince said, in words which have
often been repeated since by Chinese ministers and political writers,
"What would you say if our people were to go to Europe and wished to
change there the laws and customs established by your ancient sages? The
emperor, my brother, wishes to put an end to all this in an effectual
manner. I have seen the accusation of the Tsongtou of Fuhkien. It is
undoubtedly strong, and your disputes about our customs have greatly
injured you. What would you say if we were to transport ourselves to
Europe and to act there as you have done here? Would you stand it for a
moment? In the course of time I shall master this business, but I declare
to you that China will want for nothing when you cease to live in it, and
that your absence will not cause it any loss. Here nobody is retained by
force, and nobody also will be suffered to break the laws or to make light
of our customs."
The influence of Yung Ching on the development of the important foreign
question arrested the ambition and sanguine flight of the imagination of
the Roman Catholic missionaries, who, rendered overconfident by their
success under Kanghi, believed that they held the future of China in their
own hands, and that persistency alone was needed to secure the adhesion of
that country to the Christian Church. Yung Ching dispelled these
illusions, and so far as they were illusions, which nearly two subsequent
centuries have proved them to be, it was well that they should be so
dispelled. He asserted himself in very unequivocal terms as an emperor of
China, and as resolute in maintaining his sovereign position outside the
control of any religious potentate or creed. The progress of the Christian
religion of the Roman Catholic Church in China was quite incompatible with
the supposed celestial origin of the emperor, who was alleged to receive
his authority direct from Heaven. It is not surprising that Yung Ching, at
the earliest possible moment, decided to blight these hopes, and to assert
the natural and inherited prerogative of a Chinese emperor. There is no
room to doubt that the Catholic priests had drawn a too hasty and too
favorable deduction from the favor of Kanghi. They confounded their
practical utility with the intrinsic merit and persuasive force of
Christianity. An enlightened ruler had recognized the former, but a
skeptical people showed themselves singularly obdurate to the latter. The
persecution of the Christians, of which the letters from the missionaries
at Pekin at this time are so full, did not go beyond the placing of some
restraint on the preaching of their religion. No wholesale executions or
sweeping decrees passed against their persons attended its course or
marked its development. Yung Ching simply showed by his conduct that they
must count no longer on the favor of the emperor in the carrying out of
their designs. The difficulties inherent in the task they had undertaken
stood for the first time fully revealed, and having been denounced as a
source of possible danger to the stability of the empire, they became an
object of suspicion even to those who had sympathized with them
personally, if not with their creed.
The early years of the reign of Yung Ching were marked by extraordinary
public misfortunes. The flooding of the Hoangho entailed a famine, which
spread such desolation throughout the northern provinces that it is
affirmed, on credible authority, that 40,000 persons were fed at the state
expense in Pekin alone for a period of four months. The taxes in some of
the most important cities and wealthiest districts had to be greatly
reduced, and the resources of the exchequer were severely strained. But
the loss and suffering caused by the famine were speedily cast into the
shade by a terrible and sudden visitation which carried desolation and
destruction throughout the whole of the metropolitan province of Pechihli.
The northern districts of China have for many centuries been liable to the
frequent recurrence of earthquakes on a terribly vast and disastrous
scale, but none of them equaled in its terrific proportions that of the
year 1730. It came without warning, but the shocks continued for ten days.
Over 100,000 persons were overwhelmed in a moment at Pekin, the suburbs
were laid in ruins, the imperial palace was destroyed, the summer
residence at Yuen Ming Yuen, on which Yung Ching had lavished his taste
and his treasure, suffered in scarcely a less degree. The emperor and the
inhabitants fled from the city, and took shelter without the walls, where
they encamped. The loss was incalculable, and it has been stated that Yung
Ching expended seventy-five million dollars in repairing the damage and
allaying the public misfortune. Notwithstanding these national calamities
the population increased, and in some provinces threatened to outgrow the
production of rice. Various devices were resorted to to check the growth
of the population; but they were all of a simple and harmless character,
such as the issue of rewards to widows who did not marry again and to
bachelors who preserved their state.
The military events of Yung Ching's reign were confined to the side of
Central Asia, where Tse Wang Rabdan emulated with more than ordinary
success the example of his predecessors, and where he transmitted his
power and authority to his son, Galdan Chereng, on his death in 1727. He
established his sovereignty over the whole of Kashgaria, which he ruled
through a prince named Daniel, and he established relations with the
Russians, which at one time promised to attain a cordial character, but
which were suddenly converted into hostility by the Russian belief that
the Upper Urtish lay in a gold region which they resolved to conquer.
Instead of an ally they then found in Tse Wang Rabdan the successful
defender of that region. But the wars of Central Asia had no interest for
Yung Ching. He was one of the Chinese rulers who thought that he should
regard these matters as outside his concern, and the experience of
Kanghi's wars had divided Chinese statesmen into two clearly-defined
parties: those who held that China should conquer Central Asia up to the
Pamir, and those who thought that the Great Wall was the best practical
limit for the exercise of Chinese authority. Yung Ching belonged to the
latter school, and, instead of dispatching fresh armies into the Gobi
region to complete the triumph of his father, he withdrew those that were
there, and publicly proclaimed that the aggressive chiefs and turbulent
tribes of that region might fight out their own quarrels, and indulge
their own petty ambitions as best they felt disposed. The success of this
policy would have been incontestable if it had been reflected in the
conduct of the Central Asian princelets, who, however, seemed to see in
the moderation and inaction of the Chinese ruler only a fresh incentive to
aggression and turbulence. Yung Ching himself died too soon to appreciate
the shortcomings of his own policy.
In the midst of his labors as a beneficent ruler the life of Yung Ching
was cut short. On October 7, 1735, he gave audience to the high officials
of his court in accordance with his usual custom; but feeling indisposed
he was compelled to break off the interview in a sudden manner. His
indisposition at once assumed a grave form, and in a few hours he had
ceased to live. The loss of this emperor does not seem to have caused any
profound or widespread sentiment of grief among the masses, although the
more intelligent recognized in him one of those wise and prudent rulers
whose tenure of power makes their people's happiness.
Yung Ching died so suddenly that he had not nominated his heir. He left
three sons, and, after brief consideration, the eldest of these--to whom
was given the name of Keen Lung--was placed upon the throne. The choice
was justified by the result, although the chroniclers declare that it came
as a surprise to the recipient of the honor, as he had passed his life in
the pursuit of literary studies rather than in practical administrative
work. His skill and proficiency in the field of letters had already been
proved before his father's death; but of public affairs and the government
of a vast empire he knew little or nothing. He was a student of books
rather than of men, and he had to undergo a preliminary course of training
in the art of government before he felt himself capable of assuming the
reigns of power. Moreover, Keen Lung, although the eldest son, was not the
offspring of the empress, and the custom of succession in the imperial
family was too uncertain to allow any one in his position to feel absolute
confidence as to his claims securing the recognition they might seem to
warrant. His admission of his being unequal to the duties of his lofty
position, notwithstanding that he was twenty-five years of age, was
thoroughly characteristic of the man, and augured well for the future of
his reign. He appointed four regents, whose special task was to show him
how to rule; but in the edict delegating his authority to them he
expressly limited its application to the period of mourning, covering a
space of four years; and as a measure of precaution against any undue
ambition he made the office terminable at his discretion.
Keen Lung began his reign with acts of clemency, which seldom fail to add
a special luster to a sovereign's assumption of power. His father had
punished with rigor some of the first princes of the court simply because
they were his relations, and there is some ground for thinking that he had
put forward antipathy to the foreign heresy of the Christians as a cloak
to conceal his private animosities and personal apprehensions. Keen Lung
at once resolved to reverse the acts of his predecessor, and to offer such
reparation as he could to those who had suffered for no sufficient
offense. The sons of Kanghi and their children who had fallen under the
suspicion of Yung Ching were released from their confinement, and restored
to their rank and privileges. They showed their gratitude to their
benefactor by sustained loyalty and practical service that contributed to
the splendor of his long reign. The impression thus produced on the public
mind was also most favorable, and already the people were beginning to
declare that they had found a worthy successor to the great Kanghi.
There is nothing surprising to learn that in consequence of the pardon and
restitution of the men who had nominally suffered for their Christian
proclivities the foreign missionaries began to hope and to agitate for an
improvement in their lot and condition. They somewhat hastily assumed that
the evil days of persecution wore over, and that Keen Lung would accord
them the same honorable positions as they had enjoyed under his
grandfather, Kanghi. These expectations were destined to a rude
disappointment, as the party hostile to the Christians remained as strong
as ever at court, and the regents were not less prejudiced against them
than the ministers of Yung Ching had been. The emperor's own opinion does
not appear to have been very strong one way or the other, but it seems
probable that he was slightly prejudiced against the foreigners. He
certainly assented to an order prohibiting the practice of Christianity by
any of his subjects, and ordaining the punishment of those who should
obstinately adhere to it. At the same time the foreign missionaries were
ordered to confine their labors to the secular functions in which they
were useful, and to give up all attempts to propagate their creed. Still
some slight abatement in practice was procured of these rigid measures
through the mediation of the painter Castiglione, who, while taking a
portrait of the emperor, pleaded, and not ineffectually, the cause of his
countrymen. There was one distinct persecution on a large scale in the
province of Fuhkien, where several Spanish missionaries were tortured,
their chief native supporters strangled, and Keen Lung himself sent the
order to execute the missionaries in retaliation for the massacre of
Chinese subjects by the Spaniards in the Philippines. After he had been on
the throne fifteen years, Keen Lung began to unbend toward the foreigners,
and to avail himself of their services in the same manner as his
grandfather had done. The artists Castiglione and Attiret were constantly
employed in the palace, painting his portrait and other pictures. Keen
Lung is said to have been so pleased with that drawn by Attiret that he
wished to make him a mandarin. The French in particular strove to amuse
the great monarch, and to enable him to wile away his leisure with
ingeniously constructed automatons worked by clockwork machinery. He also
learned from them much about the politics and material condition of
Europe, and it is not surprising that he became imbued with the idea that
France was the greatest and most powerful state in that continent. Almost
insensibly Keen Lung entertained a more favorable opinion of the
foreigners, and extended to them his protection with other privileges that
had long been withheld. But this policy was attributable to practical
considerations and not to religious belief.
Very little detailed information is obtainable about the inner working of
the government and the annual course of events, owing to the practice of
not giving the official history of the dynasty publicity until after it
has ceased to reign; so all that can be said with any confidence of the
first fifteen years of Keen Lung's reign, is that they were marked by
great internal prosperity arising from the tranquillity of the realm and
the content of the people. Any misfortunes that befell the realm were of
personal importance to the sovereign rather than of national significance,
although some of the foreign priests affected to see in them the
retribution of Providence for the apathy and tyranny of the Chinese
rulers. In 1751 Keen Lung lost both his principal wife, the empress, and
his eldest son. His disagreements with his ministers also proved many and
serious, and the letters from Pekin note, with more than a gleam of
satisfaction, that those who were most prominent as Anti-Christians
suffered most heavily. Keen Lung suffered from physical weakness, and a
susceptibility to bodily ailments, that detracted during the first few
years of his reign from his capacity to discharge all the duties of his
position, and more than their usual share of power consequently fell into
the hands of the great tribunals of the state. When Keen Lung resolutely
devoted himself to the task of supervising the acts of the official world
the evils became less perceptible, and gradually the provincial governors
found it to be their best and wisest course to obey and faithfully execute
the behests of their sovereign. For a brief space Keen Lung seemed likely
to prove more indifferent to the duties of his rank than either of his
predecessors; but after a few years' practice he hastened to devote
himself to his work with an energy which neither Kanghi nor Yung Ching had
surpassed.
Keen Lung seems to have passed his time between his palace at Pekin and
his hunting-box at Jehol, a small town beyond the Wall. The latter,
perhaps, was his favorite residence, because he enjoyed the quiet of the
country, and the purer and more invigorating air of the northern region
agreed with his constitution. Here he varied the monotony of rural
pursuits--for he never became as keen a hunter as Kanghi--with grand
ceremonies which he employed the foreigners in painting. It was at Jehol
that he planned most of his military campaigns, and those conquests which
carried his banners to the Pamir and the Himalaya. If the earlier period
of Keen Lung's reign was tranquil and undisturbed by war, the last forty
years made up for it by their sustained military excitement and
achievement. As soon as Keen Lung grasped the situation and found that the
administration of the country was working in perfect order, he resolved to
attain a complete settlement of the questions pending in Central Asia,
which his father had shirked. Up to this time Keen Lung had been generally
set down as a literary student, as a man more of thought than of action.
But his reading had taught him one thing, and that was that the danger to
China from the side of Central Asia was one that went back to remote ages,
that it had never been allayed, save for brief intervals, and then only by
establishing Chinese authority on either side of the Tian Shan. His
studies showed Keen Lung what ought to be done, and the aggressions of his
neighbors soon gave him the opportunity of carrying out the policy that he
felt to be the best.