Kangxi Emperor

Xuanye (玄燁, 1654–1722) is known to history as the Kangxi Emperor, after the era name he used throughout his reign. His temple name is Shengzu. He was the second emperor of the Qing dynasty to rule China from Beijing, and he reigned from 1661 until his death in 1722: sixty-one years, the longest reign of any Chinese emperor.

His grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, reigned for sixty years and then held power for a further three as retired emperor, so Qianlong exercised authority for slightly longer. Kangxi's formal reign remains the record.

Kangxi came to the throne as a boy of seven. For the first years of his reign the government was run by four regents, with his grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, as a steadying influence at court.

His Place in Chinese History

Kangxi is counted among the most capable emperors China produced. He inherited a dynasty that had held Beijing for less than twenty years, with large parts of the south still under semi-independent Ming defectors and an economy damaged by decades of war. By the end of his reign the Qing state was secure, its frontiers had been pushed into Mongolia and Tibet, and agriculture and trade had recovered.

Chinese historians describe the period from Kangxi through the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns as the Kang Qian Shengshi, the "prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong", which lasted well over a century. It rested on the strong, centralised government that Kangxi built.

Accession and the Regency

Xuanye was the third son of the Shunzhi Emperor. His mother, later honoured as Empress Xiaokang, was a daughter of Tong Tulai, a general of the Tong clan. When Shunzhi died of smallpox in 1661, Xuanye was named his successor. The era name Kangxi, used from 1662, is usually translated as "peace and prosperity".

Government by the Four Regents

Because the emperor was a child, power passed to four senior Manchu officials: Sonin, Suksaha, Ebilun and Oboi. One of their first acts was to abolish the Thirteen Offices, a system of eunuch-run bureaux that Shunzhi had revived on the Ming model, and to replace it with the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu).

The new department was staffed largely by Manchu bondservants rather than eunuchs. It gave the Qing emperors a private administration under their own control, and it helped the dynasty avoid the eunuch influence that had repeatedly damaged Ming government.

Taking Power

In 1667, at the urging of Sonin and other ministers, the young emperor formally began to rule in person, although the regents still held real authority. Sonin died that year, and Oboi became the dominant figure at court. He had Suksaha put to death on trumped-up charges and brought Ebilun into line.

In 1669 Kangxi moved against Oboi, probably with the backing of his grandmother. According to a well-known account, Oboi was seized in an audience hall by young palace wrestlers the emperor had been training. Oboi died in prison, and from then on Kangxi governed in his own right.

Government and Military Campaigns

Kangxi was a skilled archer and horseman and a hard-working administrator. He read the memorials sent to him by officials himself and corrected them in his own hand, and he took pride in the attention he paid to the business of state.

The Revolt of the Three Feudatories

After the conquest of 1644, large territories in the south and southwest had been left to three Ming generals who had gone over to the Qing: Wu Sangui, Shang Kexi and Geng Jingzhong. By 1673 these feudatories were effectively independent states. Against the advice of many of his ministers, Kangxi accepted their offers to retire, and Wu Sangui responded by rebelling. Shang Zhixin and Geng Jingzhong joined him, as did the general Wang Fuchen in the northwest.

The war lasted eight years. Wu Sangui's forces overran much of southern and southwestern China before the tide turned. Kangxi relied heavily on the Han Chinese troops of the Green Standard Army, with the Manchu banners in a supporting role, and he offered pardons to rebels who surrendered. The last resistance ended in 1681.

Taiwan

Taiwan was held by the Zheng family, heirs of the Ming loyalist Koxinga. In 1683 the Qing admiral Shi Lang destroyed the Zheng fleet off the Penghu islands, and Koxinga's grandson Zheng Keshuang surrendered soon afterwards. Taiwan became part of the Qing empire.

Several Ming princes had taken refuge on the island. Most were sent back to the mainland, but Zhu Shugui, Prince of Ningjing, took his own life rather than submit, and his concubines died with him. His residence was converted into a temple to the sea goddess Mazu, a gesture intended to win over the island's population.

Russia

Russian settlers had been pushing into the Amur River region since the middle of the century. In the 1680s Kangxi sent forces against the Russian fort at Albazin, and after fighting and long negotiations the two empires signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689. It fixed the border and was China's first treaty with a European state.

Mongolia

The Chahar Mongols had submitted to the Qing in the 1630s, and their princes were closely tied to the imperial house by marriage. In 1675, while the Three Feudatories were in revolt, the Chahar prince Burni rose against the Qing. The rising was crushed within two months, the Chahar ruling line was destroyed, and the Chahar were placed under direct imperial control rather than the autonomy enjoyed by other Inner Mongol groups.

The Wars with the Dzungars

In 1688 Galdan, ruler of the Dzungar Khanate in the west, invaded the lands of the Khalkha Mongols. The Khalkha nobility and their spiritual leader, the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, fled across the Gobi and placed themselves under Qing protection. Qing forces fought Galdan at Ulan Butung in 1690, and in 1696 Kangxi personally led a campaign in which the western army under Fiyanggū defeated him at Jao Modo. Galdan died the following year.

Tibet

Kangxi also drew Tibet into the Qing orbit. The Tibetan regent Sangye Gyatso had concealed the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682 for many years and was on good terms with the Dzungars, which angered the emperor. Sangye Gyatso was later killed by the Khoshut Mongol ruler Lha-bzang Khan, whom Kangxi supported.

In 1717 the Dzungars invaded Tibet, took Lhasa and killed Lha-bzang Khan. A Qing army sent against them was destroyed near the Salween River in 1718. In 1720 a larger expedition drove the Dzungars out and brought Tibet under Qing protection.

The Jesuits at Court

Jesuit missionaries held a respected place at Kangxi's court. Their skill in astronomy put them in charge of the imperial observatory, and the Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest cast cannon for the Qing armies. At the Nerchinsk negotiations the Portuguese Thomas Pereira and the Frenchman Jean-François Gerbillon served as interpreters, using Latin as the common language.

The emperor valued their learning, their command of Chinese and their discretion. In 1692 he issued the Edict of Toleration, which recognised Catholic worship and protected churches. His attitude hardened in later years, when papal rulings condemned the Chinese rites that the Jesuits had accepted, and he restricted missionary activity towards the end of his reign.