Qianlong Emperor was the fourth Qing emperor of China whose six-decade reign (1735-1796) was one of the longest in Chinese history. He conducted a series of military campaigns that eliminated the Turk and Mongol threats to northeastern China (1755-1760), enlarged his empire by creating the New Province (the present-day Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang), and reinforced Chinese authority in the south and east.
Background
Ethnicity:
Qianlong Emperor was born to the Manchu-led Qing dynasty.
Qianlong Emperor was born on September 25, 1711, at Prince Yong Mansion (now Yonghe Temple) in Beijing, China to Yongzheng Emperor and Empress Xiaoshengxian. His original birth name was original name Hongli.
On October 7, 1735, on the eve of the death of his father, Hongli was declared the heir apparent. In fact, in keeping with the wish of his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor (who reigned 1661–1722), Hongli had been secretly designated Yongzheng’s successor shortly after the latter had ascended the throne despite the fact that Hongli was the fourth-born son (he was, however, the eldest surviving son when he was actually named heir apparent). Kangxi had noticed the outstanding qualities of his grandson and had decided to do his best to prepare him for his future task.
A legend claims that Qianlong was the son of Chen Yuanlong of Haining. When Emperor Kangxi chose the heir to his throne, he not only considered his son's ability to govern the Empire, but also the ability and character of his grandson, in order to ensure the Manchus' everlasting reign over the country. Yongzheng's own son was a weakling, so he surreptitiously arranged for his daughter to be swapped for Chen Yuanlong's son, who became the favorite grandson of the Kangxi Emperor. Thus, Yongzheng succeeded to the throne, and his "son," Hongli, subsequently became Emperor Qianlong. Later, Qianlong went to the southern part of the country four times, and stayed in Chen's house in Haining, leaving behind his calligraphy; he also frequently issued imperial decrees making and maintaining Haining as a tax-free state.
Education
Qianlong Emperor was given a carefully planned education, including the teachings of the eminent scholar Fumin. He particularly loved the study of history, one of the foundations of Confucian learning. He was also interested in Western science, which had been brought to China by a series of Jesuit missionaries who hoped to win the soul of the Chinese emperor for Christianity. Including Jesuits among his teachers, Qianlong also had high regard for Western technology. The most important part of any emperor's education was the classical studies of Confucianism. Qianlong was an adept student and fully appreciated the importance of Confucian stereotypes in creating the public aspects of the imperial institution.
Career
After his father was enthroned Hongli was initiated into affairs of state and in 1723 was made a prince of the first degree. He ascended the throne on October 18, 1735, at the age of 24 (25 according to the Chinese system), and was to rule under the regnal title of Qianlong for more than 60 years.
Even before Yongzheng’s will was read to the assembled court, it was widely known that Hongli would be the new emperor. The young Hongli had been a favorite of his grandfather, Kangxi, and his father, and Yongzheng had entrusted a number of important ritual tasks to him while Hongli was still a prince, and included him in important court discussions of military strategy. Hoping to avoid repetition of the succession crisis that had tainted his own accession to the throne, he had the name of his successor placed in a sealed box secured behind the tablet over the throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The name in the box was to be revealed to other members of the imperial family in the presence of all senior ministers only upon the death of the Emperor. When Yongzheng died suddenly in 1735, the will was taken out and read aloud before the entire Qing Court; Hongli became the 4th Manchu Emperor of China. He took the Reign title of Qianlong, meaning strong/heavens (qian); prosperous (long), or put together, the Era of Strong Prosperity.
The Qianlong Emperor was a successful military leader, presiding over a consolidation of the expansive territory controlled by the Qing dynasty. This was made possible not only by Chinese military strength but also by the declining strength and the disunity of the Inner Asian peoples. Under Qianlong, Chinese Turkestan was incorporated into the Qing dynasty's rule and renamed Xinjiang, while to the West, Ili was conquered and garrisoned. The Qing also dominated Outer Mongolia after inflicting a final defeat on the Western Mongols. Throughout this period there were continued Mongol interventions in Tibet and a reciprocal spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.
Qianlong sent armies into Tibet and firmly established the Dalai Lama as ruler, with a Qing resident and garrison to preserve Chinese suzerainty. Further afield, military campaigns against the Burmese, Nepalese, and Gurkhas forced these peoples to submit and send tribute.
In 1787 the last Le king fled a peasant rebellion in Vietnam and formally requested Chinese aid to restore him to his throne in Thanglong (Hanoi). The Qianlong Emperor agreed and sent a large army into Vietnam to remove the Tay Son peasant rebels who had captured all of Vietnam. The capital, Thanglong, was conquered in 1788, but a few months later, the Chinese army was defeated in a surprise attack during Tet by Nguyen Hue, the second and most capable of the three Tay Son brothers. The Chinese government gave formal protection to the Le emperor and his family but did not intervene in Vietnam for another 90 years.
The Qianlong Emperor's military expansion captured millions of square miles and brought into the Chinese empire non-Han-Chinese peoples, such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Evenks, and Mongols, who were potentially hostile. It was also a very expensive undertaking; the funds in the Imperial Treasury were almost depleted due to the military expeditions. Though the wars were an overall success, they did not bring total victory. The size of the army declined noticeably, and Qing encountered serious difficulties with several enemies. The campaign to dominate the Jin Chuan area lasted three years; the Qing army suffered heavy casualties before Yue Zhongqi finally got the upper hand. A campaign against the Dzungars inflicted heavy losses on both sides.
In his later years, Qianlong became disillusioned with his power and began to rely heavily on Heshen, his highest-ranking and most favored minister. The day-to-day governance of the country was left in the hands of Heshen while Qianlong himself indulged in luxuries and his favorite pastime of hunting. It is widely remarked by historians that Heshen laid the foundations for the future collapse and corruption of the Qing dynasty. Eventually, it became impossible to reverse the harm that had been done on every level of government. When Heshen was killed, it was discovered that the amount of his personal wealth surpassed the country's depleted treasury.
Qianlong started his reign in 1735 with about 30,000,000 taels inherited from the period of Yongzheng's reign. Around 1775, Qianlong reached the peak of the Qing dynasty's prosperity with about 73,900,000 taels in the treasury, a record unmatched during the reigns of Kangxi or Yongzheng. However, mass corruption on all levels, along with heavy expenses of over 150,200,000 taels on military expeditions, the building of more palaces, six personal trips to Jiangnan, suppression of the White Lotus Rebellion, and luxurious spending, nearly depleted the once-prospering treasury. By the end of Qianlong's reign in 1796, the treasury was almost empty, leaving a serious problem for his successor, Jiaqing.
During the mid-eighteenth century, Qianlong began to face severe pressures from the West to increase foreign trade. China’s lack of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs reinforced the belief among Chinese that China was the "central kingdom" of the world. The proposed cultural exchange between the British Empire and the Qing Empire collapsed when Heshen encouraged Qianlong to maintain the belief that the Qing Empire was the center of the world and did not need to pay attention to the British proposal for trade and cultural exchange. The British trade ambassador at the time, George Macartney, was humiliated when he was finally granted an audience with the Qianlong Emperor and arrived to find only an Imperial Edict placed on the Dragon Throne. The edict informed him that the Qing Empire had no need for any goods and services that the British could provide and that the British should recognize that the Qing Empire was far greater than the British Empire. Qianlong's Edict on Trade with Great Britain referred to Macartney and his embassy as "barbarians," reflecting the Chinese idea that all countries were "peripheral" in comparison to China.
Insistent demands from Heshen and the Qing Court that the British Trade ambassadors should kneel and kowtow to the empty dragon throne worsened matters. The British rejected these demands and insisted they would kneel only on one knee and bow to the Dragon throne as they did to their own monarch. This caused an uproar. The British trade ambassadors were dismissed and told to leave China immediately. They were informed that the Qing Empire had no particular interest in trading with them and that strict orders had been given to all local governors not to allow the British to carry out any trade or business in China.
The next year, in 1795, Isaac Titsingh, an emissary from Dutch and Dutch East India Company did not refuse to kowtow; he and his colleagues were treated warmly by the Chinese because of what was construed as their seemly compliance with conventional court etiquette.
In October 1795, after a reign of 60 years, Qianlong officially announced that in the spring of the following year he would voluntarily abdicate his throne and pass the crown to his son. It was said that Qianlong had made a promise during the year of his ascension not to rule longer than his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor. Despite his retirement, however, he retained ultimate power until his death in 1799.
In anticipation of his abdication, Qianlong decided to move out of the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Forbidden City, the residence dedicated only for the reigning sovereign, and ordered the construction of his residence in another part of the Forbidden City; however, Qianlong never moved out the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
The long association of the Manchu rulership with the Bodhisattva Manjusri and his own interest in Tibetan Buddhism gave credence to the Qianlong Emperor's patronage of Tibetan Buddhist art and patronage of translations of the Buddhist canon. The accounts in court records and Tibetan language sources affirm his personal commitment. He quickly learned to read the Tibetan language and studied Buddhist texts assiduously. His beliefs are reflected in the Tibetan Buddhist imagery of his tomb, perhaps the most personal and private expression of an emperor's life.
Qianlong Emperor supported the Yellow Church (the Tibetan Buddhist Gelukpa sect) to "maintain peace among the Mongols" since the Mongols were followers of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama of the Yellow Church, and the Qianlong Emperor had this explanation placed in the Yonghe Temple in Beijing on a stele entitled "Lama Shuo" (on Lamas) in 1792, and he also said it was "merely in pursuance of Our policy of extending Our affection to the weak." which led him to patronize the Yellow Church. Mark Elliott concludes that these actions delivered political benefits but "meshed seamlessly with his personal faith."
Politics
The Qianlong Emperor and his predecessors, since the Shunzhi Emperor, had identified China and the Qing Empire as the same, and in treaties and diplomatic papers the Qing Empire called itself "China". The Qianlong Emperor rejected earlier ideas that only Han could be subjects of China and only Han land could be considered as part of China, so he redefined China as multiethnic, saying in 1755 that "there exists a view of China (zhongxia), according to which non-Han people cannot become China's subjects and their land cannot be integrated into the territory of China. This does not represent our dynasty's understanding of China, but is instead that of the earlier Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties."
The Qianlong Emperor rejected the views of Han officials who said Xinjiang was not part of China and that he should not conquer it, putting forth the view that China was multiethnic and did not just refer to Han. The Qianlong Emperor compared his achievements with that of the Han and Tang ventures into Central Asia.
Personality
The role of Qianlong in the arts and letters of his time was probably a considerable one. Since it was customary to credit to the emperor many of the works produced in his reign by a variety of artists, it is impossible to determine the extent of Qianlong’s personal works, but it is clear that he wrote both prose and poetry and practiced calligraphy and painting.
Of greater significance is Qianlong’s sponsorship of a compilation of Chinese Classics. In 1772 Qianlong ordered that a choice be made of the most important texts in the four traditional divisions of Chinese learning - classical works, historical works, philosophical works, and belles lettres. The Sikuquanshu (“Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature”) involved the scrutiny of entire libraries, both imperial and private, and was carried on for 10 years under the direction of the scholars Ji Yun and Lu Xixiong, the emperor himself intervening on several occasions in the choice of texts. Seven handwritten series of the 36,275 volumes of the Sikuquanshu were distributed, between 1782 and 1787, among the principal imperial palaces or were placed in libraries open only to scholars. The descriptive catalog of Sikuquanshu remains an essential bibliographic guide for the study of classical Chinese literature.
But this positive contribution to Chinese literature was combined with harsh censorship. In 1774 Qianlong ordered the expurgation or destruction of all seditious books—that is, all those containing anti-Manchu declarations or allusions. As the examinations of the works took place, an index was drawn up, and, between 1774 and 1788, provincial governors received renewed orders to have the public or private libraries in their provinces checked. It has been estimated that about 2,600 titles were ordered to be destroyed. Nevertheless, several hundred works were preserved because there happened to be a copy in a Japanese or Korean library or in the library of some influential Manchu. The Sikuquanshu itself was revised on several points after its completion, at the expense of the compilers, after the emperor had discovered in it some texts that he considered seditious.
The flowering of the arts that had occurred under the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors continued with Qianlong. Architecture, painting, porcelain, and particularly jade and ivory work flourished with a final brilliance, for later Chinese artisans produced only for export.
Like his grandfather, Qianlong protected artists. He granted a reprieve to the excellent calligrapher Zhang Zhao, who was in prison awaiting execution (1736), and entrusted him with important functions. He was particularly appreciative of the painting talents of certain European missionaries who lived at the court, such as Castiglione and Jean-Denis Attiret. He also admired the knowledge and skill of the Jesuit fathers who constructed various machines and mechanical devices, though he regarded the latter as no more than a source of intellectual satisfaction and a means of creating amusing objects. Qianlong devoted great attention to the beautification of the Yuanmingyuan near Beijing. He was to reside there more and more often, and he considered the ensemble formed by its numerous pavilions, lakes, and gardens as the imperial residence par excellence. He increased the estate and erected new buildings. At his request, several Jesuit missionaries built residences and gardens in a modified Italian style (Baroque and Rococo - roughly corresponding with the 17th- and 18th-century architecture - but with Chinese roofs) around fountains like those of Versailles in France. Qianlong was a prolific poet and a collector of ceramics, an art which flourished in his reign; a substantial part of his collection is in the Percival David Foundation in London.
Architecturally, Qianlong took a personal interest in the expansion of the Old Summer Palace and supervised the construction of the Xiyanglou or "Western Mansion." In the 1750s Qianlong commissioned Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione to design a series of timed waterworks and fountains complete with underground machinery and pipes for the amusement of the Imperial family.
Physical Characteristics:
Nearly six feet tall, Qianlong was of slender build with an upright bearing that he kept even in old age.
Connections
Qianlong Emperor had 25 wives, consorts, and concubines. His son Jiaqing Emperor from Empress Xiaoyichun succeeded him.
The Qianlong Emperor: Treasures from the Forbidden City
Forbidden no longer to outsiders, the Forbidden City is nevertheless still home to thousands of treasures seldom seen by the public. Many of these are on display for the first time in this book. The remarkable feature of these treasures is that they are all related to one man: the almighty Qianlong emperor who ruled over a vast multicultural China for the greater part of the eighteenth century.