Daoguang Emperor

The Daoguang Emperor (1782–1850), born Mianning and later named Minning (旻寧), reigned from 1820 to 1850. He was the sixth emperor of the Qing dynasty to rule China from Beijing. His era name, Daoguang, was used from 1821, and his temple name is Xuanzong.

His reign brought disaster from outside and unrest within. The First Opium War ended in the Treaty of Nanjing, the first of the unequal treaties forced on China by the Western powers, and for that reason many historians date the start of China's modern history to his reign.

Daoguang was hard-working and famously frugal. Neither his diligence nor his economies, however, could halt the dynasty's decline, and he did little to meet the new challenge from the West.

Life before Ascending the Throne

Mianning was born in the Forbidden City in 1782, the second son of Prince Yongyan, heir of the Qianlong Emperor. His elder brother died in infancy, and his mother, Lady Hitara, was Yongyan's principal wife, so as the eldest surviving son of the principal wife he was the natural heir. In 1799 his father, by then emperor, secretly named him as his successor.

He was a favourite of his grandfather Qianlong and often joined him on hunting trips. On one of them, at the age of nine, he shot a deer, to the old emperor's delight.

In 1796 Qianlong abdicated, and Mianning's father became the Jiaqing Emperor, making Lady Hitara his empress.

In 1813, when rebels of the Eight Trigrams sect broke into the Forbidden City, Mianning helped to drive them back, shooting attackers himself. He was rewarded with the title Prince Zhi.

When he came to the throne he changed his personal name from Mianning (綿寧) to Minning (旻寧). By the rules of name taboo, the character of an emperor's name could no longer be used by others, and the change spared the many princes of his generation, whose names also began with Mian, from having to alter theirs.

A Frugal yet Generous Emperor

Although he ruled a vast empire with great power concentrated in his hands, the Daoguang Emperor became famous for his thrift, which at times verged on meanness.

He avoided costly furnishings, cut palace spending, and is said to have worn patched clothes. His consorts were expected to dress plainly, use little make-up and learn needlework, so that the court need not pay others for it. His empress, Xiaoquancheng, supported him in this.

He urged his officials to live in the same way, believing that luxury wore away the energy and resolve of those who governed.

To his subjects in hardship he could be generous. He remitted taxes for the poor many times and sent large sums to relieve areas struck by natural disasters, though much of the money ended up in the pockets of corrupt officials.

Accession and the Khoja Rebellion in Xinjiang

The Jiaqing Emperor died suddenly in September 1820, and Mianning, then 38, succeeded him. He inherited an empire already in decline, with Western powers pressing at its borders.

In 1826 Jahangir Khoja, an exiled leader of the Afaqi Khojas, a Naqshbandi Sufi lineage that had once ruled the Tarim Basin, invaded Qing territory in southern Xinjiang. By the end of the year his forces had taken Kashgar, Yangi Hissar, Yarkand and Khotan.

A large Qing army recovered the cities in 1827. Jahangir was betrayed and captured, taken to Beijing and executed by slow slicing in 1828.

The First Opium War

Foreign trade was confined to Guangzhou (Canton) and closely controlled, and for many years China sold far more to Britain, above all tea, silk and porcelain, than it bought. British merchants redressed the balance by smuggling in opium grown in India. The trade was highly profitable, silver drained out of China, and addiction ruined lives and health.

In 1839 the emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou as imperial commissioner to stamp out the trade. Lin confiscated and destroyed more than a thousand tonnes of opium, expelled the British smugglers and halted trade with the British.

Britain answered with force, and the First Opium War (1839–1842) followed. As the war went badly, Lin was made a scapegoat, dismissed and exiled to Yili in the far northwest.

Along the coast the Qing were outmatched in ships, guns and organisation. In 1842 British forces cut the Grand Canal at Zhenjiang, the route that carried grain and taxes from the south to the capital, and the court sued for peace.

Meanwhile, in the Himalayas, a Sikh army invaded Tibet and was defeated in the Sino-Sikh War of 1841–1842.

The Treaty of Nanjing

The Treaty of Nanjing, signed in 1842, ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain, opened five ports to British trade and residence, and required China to pay a large indemnity. It was the first of the unequal treaties, and similar agreements with the United States and France followed within two years.

The defeat is usually put down to poor organisation and outdated weapons, together with ignorance of the enemy, unclear policy and weak command.