The History of China - #259 - Qing 4: Dorgon's Domination, Death, & Downfall

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Prince Regent Dorgon of Great Qing is riding high, at the height of his majesty, power, and untouchability. Why, he's even starting to think of himself as more of the ruler than the 6-year-old emperor who is his charge. Those are mighty fine wings you've got there, Icarus... Time Period Covered: 1646-1651 CE Major Historical Actors: Qing: The Shunzhi Emperor (Fulin) [r. 1663-1661] Prince Dorgon, Regent of Great Qing [1612-1650] Ajige, Prince Ying of the First Rank [1605-1651] Dodo, Prince of Yu [1614-1649] Bolo, Prince Duanzhong [1613-1652] Hong Chengchou [1593-1665] Jirgalang, Prince Zheng of the First Rank [1599-1655] Haoge, Prince Su [1609-1648] Mandahai, Prince Xunjian of the First Rank [1622-1652] Gen. Tantai of the Plain Yellow Banner [1594-1651] Gen. Wu Sangui, "Prince of Western Pacification" [1612-1678] Southern Ming: Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang/Longwu Emperor [1602-1646] Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu, Regent of Great Ming [1618-1662] General Zheng Hongkui [d. 1654] Zheng Zhilong (Nicholas Iquan Gaspard), Marquis of Tong'an [1604-1661] Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) [1624-1662] Other Rebel Forces: Zhang Xianzhong, "Emperor of Xi" [r.1644-1647] Jin Shenghuan [d. 1649] Mi-la-yin [d. 1650] Major Works Cited: Dennerline, Jerry. "The Shun-chih Reign" in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 9, Part One: The Ch'ing Empire to 1800. Struve, Lynn A. "The Southern Ming, 1644-1662" in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7 The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, part I. Wakeman, Frederic. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 259, Dorgon's Domination, Death, and Downfall Whenever our imperial expeditions took place, it was always the Uncle Prince Dorgon who led us and devised the winning strategy. Whether laying siege to cities or fighting on the battlefields, he could not but conquer and capture. While the Uncle Prince is youthful, he is also conscientious, being righteous

and forthright. Loyal and virtuous, he embodies the state. He has helped realize the great enterprise. In addition, he helped us to ascend to the throne and aids us personally. He has considered calculations being of merit and excellence. He is as great as the Duke of Zhou. The Duke of Zhou once received the mandate handed down by King Wu, whom he helped establish as ruler, acting on his behalf to manage the governing of the realm, devoting all his loyalty and filial piety.

The uncle prince also led the grand army through Shanghai Pass to smash 200,000 bandit soldiers, and then proceeded to take Yanjing, pacifying the central Xia. He invited us to come to the capital and receive us as a great guest. Fu Lin, age 6, his coronation speech upon being named the Xunzhi Emperor, 1644. So last time, we studied the Qing conquest of the north and its push southward towards and eventually beyond the Yangtze River, and the Ming, now the southern Ming's, inevitable retreat even further southward. And so today, that is going to be the backdrop of getting into more of the court politics and the goings-on back in Beijing, even as the ongoing military campaigns continue on in the south.

With a campaign in the central Yangtze region, the Qing for the first time faced the possibility of having its banner forces bogged down in indefinite maneuvering for advantage against a well-entrenched enemy. Prince Dorgon responded daringly by mobilizing former Ming commanders from Liaodong. This phase of the conquest began when Lekadehun and Bolo reached the field. The Qing forces moved quickly to Wuchang in the central Yangtze Valley and secured that city for a newly appointed governor-general. But over the summer, Qing forces found themselves unable to dislodge the armies of the Hunan provincial commander, He Tangjiao.

Lekha Dahun was recalled as Dorgon began searching for other alternatives for staffing the campaign. By that fall, he had decided to place the most successful of the Ming defectors in command of the Qing forces in Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong. Kong Yuda became the first Han Chinese general-in-chief. He was joined by Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming. These three were the only Han Chinese commanders to have been honored as princes by Hong Taiji, and it was as Qing princes that they took command. With this move, Dorgon displayed his faith in their loyalty and their abilities, as he

acknowledged that Manchu princes and banner commanders alone were no longer sufficient to so great a task as conquering the south of China. Another area of particular headaches for the Qing conquerors was the peninsular province of Shandong, jutting out into the eastern sea, which had long been the seat of rebel and bandit power and resistance to centralized control. This was exacerbated, not only in Shandong, but actually across the empire, by the proliferation of firearms across East Asia in the early decades of the 17th century. In China, as the Ming authority had cracked, buckled, and finally crumbled, local militias and individual citizens alike had rushed to equip and arm themselves against the threats that constantly loomed in such an era of chaos.

Foreign-bought cannons as well as locally produced guns were widely available and used by the regular military and rebel forces alike. As such, it was an extremely high priority for the new Qing authority to control and, at least as much as was possible, curb such private firearm possession. On December 1st, 1646, then, the central government proclaimed a new edict. Quote, In order to shut off the bandits' sources of supply, it is forbidden for people to trade privately in horses, mules, armor, helmets, bows, arrows, knives, guns, cannons, and muskets.

We will follow the request of Ingoldi, president of the board of revenue." Unsurprisingly, many of the locals were rather less than willing to turn in their weapons and armor and cease the now illicit trade of such. It would take many years before the edict was able to be truly and fully enforced. Nevertheless, the fastidious recordings of every weapon thus seized by authorities all across the empire underlines the seriousness with which the Qing officialdom took their mandate to disarm the indigenous Chinese and bring them more firmly under their imperial control. At first, the government focused its attention mainly on controlling firearms and horses by policing the communications systems. Transients and

travelers, for instance, were the major target, as they seemed to be the most potentially threatening. In April 1647, special laws were announced for Beijing itself and its surrounding districts. One, all arms makers in the city had to register with their local taxation offices, and anyone other than officials and soldiers who wanted to buy a weapon had to register their name and pay a special tax. Private arms dealers would be severely punished. Two, baoji units, which is to say local law enforcement officials, would be instituted on a ward-by-ward basis. Three, strangers were to be arrested if they were seen carrying weapons. 4. The practice of allowing lawless elements either to join Manchu households as slaves,

or the rearguards of imperial correction forces as camp followers, was strictly prohibited, with future infractions being severely punished. 5. Special Manchu guard units were assigned to checkpoints outside the outer gates of the city to examine everyone and everything entering the capital. 6. Sheds and guard posts were ordered built outside the walls to house the bannermen assigned to patrol the face of the walls at their base. These were to replace the long-disused and unmaintained local police Puxi stations of the Ming period. 7. Provincial officials were told that households engaged in horse breeding henceforth would have to have special permits and restrict the sale of livestock to quote-unquote reliable elements. And finally, eight, innkeepers and hostlers were warned that they would have to

ask any men riding horses to show that they possessed permits for the animals. If their suspicions were aroused, they would have to report the fact immediately to the local defense officials. Initially, in 1848, it was further stipulated that authorities across Great Qing should take efforts to confiscate all horses and weapons from the civilian population, paying for the horses, storing the useful weapons that they could, and then destroying the rest. Yet this quickly proved to be an unfeasible plan. If they were completely disarmed, complained the populace, then they would have no means of protecting themselves against the bandits that yet roamed the countryside at large, and who surely would not comply with orders to disarm. Forced to agree that this was actually

a reasonable complaint, Prince Dorgon within a year reversed the policy and instituted a set of reforms that amounted to the answer to bad guys with guns is good guys with guns. He wrote as much on May 6, 1649, in an edict that said, Recently, we have heard that the people have no weapons and cannot repel aggressors. Bandits, on the other hand, can profit, and the good people have to endure bitter and poisonous misfortunes. Now, we think that the weapons and armor which the people originally ought not to have had, and which were strictly forbidden in the past, such as muskets, fouling pieces, bows and arrows,

knives, spears, and horses, ought now to be retained in their possession and not forbidden. Return to their original owners those weapons which were initially turned over to the officials. End quote. The interesting thing about this whole weapons can't have them, now you can't have them bit is just how kind of chaotic and not really having well thought through things the Qing's policies early on really are. There's a lot of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks in terms of policy decisions. Not only in terms of weapons and armor and horses, but also even things like whether or not the indigenous Han population was expected to cut their hair in the Qing style, which last time we talked about, it was initially no, only army units had to, but then all of a sudden, oh yes, everybody has to.

It's this kind of ill-conceived, not really thought-out planning that really leads to a lot of dissatisfaction, even further dissatisfaction, among large elements of the populace and leads to further resistance. These sort of displays of needless incompetence that really, if they just stopped and thought about things a little bit longer, maybe they could have avoided. Anyways, the military campaign in the southeast coastal region, on the other hand, continued to unfold as rapidly as the campaign against the Nanjing regime had. Prince Bolo's commanders included Tulai and Li Chengdong, the butcher of Jiading. Capturing Shaoxing from Ming forces in the spring of 1646, they then moved on through southern Zhejiang and Fujian onto Fuzhou,

forcing the court of the Ming Prince of Tang, a.k.a. the self-styled Longwu Emperor, to flee into the mountains to the west, where he hoped to link up with He Chengjiao in Hunan. In early October, Tu Lai captured Fuzhou and obtained the surrender of the naval commander Zheng Zilong, who returned with Bolo to Beijing. Under Qing pressure, Zheng continued to plead with his son Zheng Changgong to surrender until the latter finally denounced his father as a traitor in 1653. Of no more use to them, Li Qing had Zilong executed for his failure to convince his son to come over to their side. Zheng Chenggong, you'll remember, is more famously known as Koxinga. While Tulai was in Fuzhou, Li Chengdong pursued the fleeing prince to Qingzhou,

where he captured him, bringing an end to this second southern imperial would-be regime. From the mountains of Fujian, Li Chengdong pressed on into southern Jiangxi and through the pass towards Canton, where the Prince of Tang's brother proclaimed himself successor in early December. By January 1647, Canton was in Qing hands. Jiangxi province was under the military thumb of Jin Shenghuan, a Ming general who had surrendered to Ajiga the previous year, and the campaign against Changsha by the reinforcements of Kongyuda. Bolo left Canton in the hands of Lieutenant Commander Tong Yangjia and Li Chengdong, and then returned to Beijing. The southeast was now pacified,

but the armies that occupied that region and the overland transportation routes were made up of Ming defectors, while Zheng Zhaolong's navy under his brother and his son continued to dominate the islands off the coast. And Bolo returned without one of Dorgon's most able commanders, Tulai, who had died fighting Ming holdouts on the treacherous route home. The third, largest, and for the Qing the most strategically important campaign of 1646 and 1647, was directed against Zhang Xianzong in Sichuan. Dorgon appointed Hao Ge, general-in-chief, in February, after the case against Tantai was settled. Together with him on this campaign would be two other princes of the blood,

Nurhaci's grandsons, the Beile, or prince of the third rank, Nikan, and the Beise, or prince of the Third Rank, Nikan, and the Beise, or Prince of the Fourth Rank, Mandahai. Dorgon's confidant, Holhui, who'd brought on Haoga's demotion in 1644, and who now replaced Tulai as commander-in-chief of the Plain Yellow Banner Army, was already in the field with the Shanxi governor Mengqiao Fang and the banner commanders Li Guohan and Bayan under his command. Zhang's forces remained in control of most of the province, with other rebels that had spun off from Li Zicheng's forces still plaguing the Qing to the south and north,

until the Qing armies finally penetrated the province in early winter. On January 2nd, 1647, the guards' lieutenant commander Su Bai met Zhang, who was pushing northward towards Xi'an and killed him during the attack. According to reports, the Qing armies annihilated more than 130 companies in the attack, sending two of Zhang's generals, Sun Guo Wang and Li Ding Guo, with their troops into Yunnan, where some years later they were to seek out the last Ming pretender, the so-called Yongli Emperor, and mount a new attack on the Qing from the southwest. The death of Zhang Xianzhong came less than a week before the Qing occupation of Canton,

and less than three months before Changsha fell to the forces of Kongyude. From then until the winter of 1648, it appeared as if the Qing had established itself everywhere but the extreme southwest. Haoga remained in the west as general-in-chief until January, presiding over campaigns against the fragmented rebel armies. Li Chengdong was occupied with a persistent literati resistance movement in the hinterlands of Canton until November, after which he was free to finally assist the Han Chinese princes in their faltering efforts to secure Guilin, the capital of Guangxi province and a key city on the route from Hunan to Guangdong.

When Haoga returned to Beijing in February, it appeared that it was about time for another strategic reshuffling and a final major campaign into the southwest. But this final southwestern push was not to occur for another decade. By the time Haoga reached Beijing, Jiangxi province was in revolt. By late spring, Guangdong had joined. News of Jin Shenghuang's revolt in Jiangxi reached the capital one week after Haoga's triumphal return from the west. Jin was a Liaodong man, who had risen to a commander's position in the army of the Ming general-in-chief, Zuo Liangyu. When Zuo's army surrendered to Ajiga at Jiujang in 1645, Jin remained in Jiangxi and succeeded in keeping the province under control during the campaigns against the southern Ming in the southeastern

coastal region and the provincial army of Hatengjiao in Hunan. Once the south was pacified, however, the Qing began to appoint civilian governors. Observing the princely rank and power of the Han Chinese generals in Hunan, who had not yet succeeded in defeating He Tengjiao, Jin thought he deserved better than a provincial brigade for his accomplishments. In February, he killed his civilian superiors and switched his allegiance to the southern Ming court in Guilin. Li Chengdong, the northern turncoat who found himself in a similar position in Canton, did the same in early May. The tide had suddenly shifted against the Qing conquest. Meanwhile, in Beijing, jubilation over the defeat of Zhang

Xianzhong soon turned to suspicion. On February 25th, 1648, Haoga was fated in the palace by the child emperor and the princes and grand ministers for his merit. On March 29th, he was imprisoned for having challenged Dorgon's authority in the field. Specifically, Haoga had failed to credit Subai, a Dorgon supporter and member of Dorgon's White Banner, in the crucial battle against Zhang. He had also tried to appoint his own men as commanders of the vanguard and guards brigadier. When initiating a military campaign, Dorgon granted the general-in-chief final authority in strategic planning, but personnel decisions were to be made by the princes and commanders in the field as a body. The principle of consensus that

had helped to balance power among the Manchu leaders since Nurhaci's time still had a role to play in the field. Dorgon himself had accepted this principle in the succession dispute of 1643, and again in his dispute with Tulai and Soni over Tantai's behavior in 1646. Haoga's crime, it appears at least, was his attempt to enhance his authority as general-in-chief by appointing his own favorites to key positions against the consensus of the commanders. But Dorgon himself was not a champion of collective rule for its own sake, and the case against Hauga did not actually begin with his behavior in the field. Having smelled a conspiracy in Soni and Tule's attack on Tantai, Dorgon and his supporters now suspected a broader scheme, rooted in the succession dispute five years earlier. This time, the charge of conspiracy was expanded to include Hao Ge, Zhuge Lang, and all the officers of the two yellow banners who

had insisted that succession should pass to the son of Hong Taiji. On March 27th, Tun Si, who was the nephew of Zhuge Lang, and now commander-in-chief of Zhuge Lang's Blue-Bordered Banner, told the deliberative council that his uncle had met with Sonny and Tulai in private in 1643 to discuss the possibility of supporting Haoga for the succession. Zhuge Lang was reported to have agreed with the others that Haoga should succeed, but to have warned them that he did not yet know what Dorgon thought. No harm in that, but Dorgon's supporters now argued that the group continued to support Haoga as a challenger to the Prince Regent. As evidence, they pointed to the Order of the Manchu Banners in the procession that had already brought the

Child Emperor to Beijing in 1644. With Duogang's plain white already in Beijing, Zhuge Lang's bordered blue had been followed first by the demoted Haoga's plain blue, and only then by the imperial prince Duoduo's bordered white. This meant that Haoga's wife had preceded the wives of Ajiga and Duoduo to Beijing. The privilege thus shown to Haoga's wife in the order of procession, which was authorized by Zhuge Lang, showed Sony's influence, and was certainly understood by Haoga to indicate Zhuge Lang's support. The real conspirators, however, were Sony, Tulai, Oboi, and the others who had vowed to stand fast against Dorgon. Tantai, who had since broken from the group, escaped blame altogether.

So this is as good a moment as any to discuss in a little bit more detail the banner system of the Manchus and Qing. Altogether, there are eight banners in four colors, which each have a banded or bordered version and an unbanded or unbordered version. So the four banners in order of color are yellow, white, red, and blue, each with a bordered and unbordered version. Each of those constitute an army, which is at least on paper as many as 18,000 men of 60 companies. However, as with any such military unit, what it sizes on paper and what it's actually able to deploy vary substantially from time and place. But that is at least what it is supposed to be. So these banners are divided into left and right.

But more importantly than that is the division between upper and lower banners. There are three upper banners. The upper banners are personally controlled by the Qing emperor himself. The first two of which, not very surprisingly, are the plain yellow banner army and the bordered yellow banner army, yellow being the classic imperial color. Those came under imperial domination under the reign of Hong Taiji, where he took control of both of them. Later on, our current emperor will take over the white plain banner after the death of his regent, Dorgon. I mean, a little bit of a spoiler there, but it's also in the title. Dorgon's going to die this episode. And so after that, the plain

yellow, the bordered yellow, and the plain white banner will all be the upper banner armies, whereas the other five banners will be controlled by the various chain princes, but not directly by the imperial line itself. The other thing of note is that the emperor's personal guards and guards of the Forbidden City were only ever selected from those upper three banners. So back to this banner-based controversy. As punishment for his complicity in this plot of putting the wrong wife in the wrong order of the wrong banner, Jugalong actually loses his position as secondary regent. Soni, the grand minister of the imperial bodyguard, was sent to guard the ancestral tombs as punishment. Oboy and others either find or lost property or both. In their place, Dorgon's brother Duoduo became the assistant regent,

and the plain blue banner came under Dorgon's direct control. And before this incredibly eventful week was over, Dorgon had also shuffled his commanders and made new assignments for a new campaign against Jin Shenghuan down in Jiangxi. Houhui was shifted from his command of the Manchu Plain Yellow Banner to the Bordered White Banner. Tan Tai became commander-in-chief of the Plain Yellow Banner and general-in-chief for the southern campaign, with Hou Hei his second-in-command. By the time they set out, however, Haoga had died in prison. So you got all that? Clear as mud, right? Yes, it is just a whole lot of

internal politicking and shifting around of people who've gotten into or fallen out of favor. But reading through it and listening to it, I'm sure as well, it sounds like you're listening to a game of Twister. All this to say, once the alleged conspiracy against Dorgon was silenced, he came out of it pretty much as a virtual dictator. Over the next two and a half years, Qing dominance was seriously challenged, but Dorgon's responses reasserted Qing control and repaired the political fabric. Huang's revolt in Jiangxi would not be an isolated event came about May of 1648, when the Governor General of the Northwest, Meng Chaofang, reported a rebellion of militant Muslims in Lanzhou and other frontier cities of the West. Muslim communities had suffered along with non-Muslim ones during the general breakdown of Ming imperial control, and Muslims had been among the rebels in the Northwest since as early as the 1620s. New Qing regulations controlling the tea and horse

trade on which the Muslims might have depended on to improve their economic situation were very much not to their benefit, and clearly they were not happy about that. There's also significant circumstantial evidence that a militant form of Sufism, which had reached Suzhou on the Chinese side of the Jiayu Pass by the 1640s may have influenced the rebels in their efforts to join forces with other militant groups. Meng Xiaofang managed to suppress the Muslims that June, but not before they'd attracted attention by setting up a Ming prince. Soon, they'd spawned Ming loyalist revolts in Tianjin and the bandit-prone Huai River Valley. Worse yet, the Ming rallying cry echoed a conspiracy between loyalist literati and the provincial brigade commander in Suzhou that had been exposed the previous year.

Meanwhile, Zheng Chenggong was taking advantage of the Canton revolt to consolidate local defense groups along the southeast coast in eastern Guangdong. Even the remnants of Li Zicheng's armies in northwestern Huguang, the very rebels that had toppled the Ming in 1644, you'll remember, were now professing supposed loyalty to the southern Ming Yongle emperor down in Guilin. To his credit, Dorgon was fairly quick to recognize the seriousness of the northwestern revolts at the outset and mobilized his forces strategically to prevent a major Ming coalition from coming together. The pivotal garrison town of Hanzhong, on the upper reaches of the Han River between Shanxi and Sichuan, had served as Qing headquarters for the recent successful campaign against Zhang Xianzhong. Dorgon dispatched additional banner forces there to block communications between the northwestern rebels and loyalists in the Hugong region, and sent General Wu San Gui and Li Guo Han to secure Sichuan.

Ajiga led banner forces to Tianjin and the Huai River Delta, and Zhuge Long's accuser, Tun Si, was made general-in-chief of a new western campaign to block coalitions with Guilin. Dorgon sent Zhuge Long himself as general-in-chief to another force to help Kongnuda in the Middle Yangtze. The banner forces were suddenly back in action, and at this point nearly fully deployed. And as luck would have it, it is at this precise critical juncture in late 1648 that a break in discipline among the Khalkha Mongols would threaten to destabilize the Qing at its very core. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of

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One of the Qing's legitimizing claims was its control over the Mongol tribes and its ability to prevent marauders from encroaching on Chinese settlements. Duoduo had been sent to curb rebelliousness among the Khalkhas after his return from the south in 1645, and since then all had been quiet along the Mongolian frontier. Now, however, and without authorization, the Khalkas were gathering on the border for a hunt. Fearing that they would enter in full force for whatever reason it might

be, Dorgon called a council, at which it was decided that Adiga, who had put down the Huai revolt, and Boluo should lead a special expeditionary force to Datong and prepare a defense. Soon, Dorgon himself was in the field, fighting not the Kalkas, but the garrisons meant to defend against them. Jiang Xiang, the Qing Brigade commander at Datong, apparently felt he had reason to fear the advancing banner troops. Sending his subordinates out to greet them, he then barred the city's gates and declared himself in revolt. The rapid spread of the revolt to 11 more cities in northern Shanxi suggested a plot and an explanation for the Khalkha movements, as they had likely

caught wind of the rebellion and hoped to take advantage of it. The addition of banner forces under Nikan and Tunsa, who had been withdrawn from the northwest, held the Khalkhas at bay as the Qing forces tested the garrisons that had joined in the revolt. It was at this inopportune moment, then, that the assistant regent, Duoduo, fell ill with smallpox in Beijing. Dorgon returned to take charge of the capital, where his brother died on April 29, 1649. Before taking the field again, Dorgon recalled his older brother, Ajiga, to take charge of the capital with the title of Supreme Commander of the Left. Nikan, Bolo, and Mandahai, the grandsons of Narhachi serving on the northern front,

were then promoted to imperial princes. Later, they would serve as a triumvirate for the management of routine administrative affairs. News that Tantai and Holhui had finally retaken Nanchang from Jinshenghuang, and that the Ming provincial commander He Tengjiao had been captured and executed in Hunan in early March, reached the capital while Dorgon was there, as did the news that Li Chengdong had met his end while retreating from southern Jiangxi. In early summer, Dorgon ordered his trusted Han Chinese generals, Kong Yuda, Geng Zhongmin, and Shangke Xi, south from Hunan and Jiangxi in a two-pronged assault against Guangdong. With that done, Dorgon was at last ready to rejoin the siege at Datong. By the time Dorgon set out on August 8th, 1649, such a grandiose gesture of imperial command in

the field was surely unnecessary. Victory in the south had relieved the pressure on Hanzhong, the northern garrison rebels were being suppressed, and Qing pressure at Datong was already great. Moreover, Dorgon's leave from the capital itself was troublesome. He had to convene the deliberative council to resist a bid by Ajiga to assume so soon after his brother's death was highly improper, if not suspect, and recommended that Ajiga be demoted from imperial prince. Dorgon then spared Ajiga that humiliation in return for his acceptance of the letter title of Supreme Commander of the Left. Yet Dorgon was determined to leave the capital. He appeared tired of bureaucratic politics and princely intrigues. He warned his officials that they were not to interfere in the regular processes of promotion

within the various bureaus of the government. No one, including princes, was to recommend favorites, no matter their merit. He established a system of communications so that he could make important decisions from the field, and instructed the heads of the six ministries and other offices that they should take responsibility upon themselves in his absence. He appointed a small committee consisting of the returned trusted commanders Tan Tai and Hou Hui, the grand academicians Gang Lin and Fan Wancheng, and one grand minister of the imperial guard to manage routine administrative affairs. For important state matters, they were to direct Ajiga to convene the deliberative Council of Princes and Grand Ministers, which would then decide whether or not the issue was indeed

sufficiently pressing to require an immediate response from Dorgon himself. If it was not, they should await his return. The wheels of government thus locked into place, Dorgon set off to join the fighting at Datong. On October 4th, 1649, Zhangshan was betrayed by a subordinate and the gates of Datong were subsequently opened. The banner troops then entered the city and the revolt was put down. Qing forces continued to divide and conquer rebel groups in the northwest. With the pressure now off in Shaanxi, banner troops returned to Hanzhong and Meng Xiaofeng was able to mount a sustained attack against the Muslim rebels in Gansu. There, rebels under a local leader by the name of Milayin had reclaimed control of the major frontier towns of Ganzhou and Suzhou as soon as Qing forces were withdrawn

from the region. The rebels had gone so far as to offer their throne to Turumte ibn Sayyid Baba, the Muslim ruler of Hami, a state just beyond the Jiayu Pass. By year's end, the revolt that had first signaled crisis in the north was finally crushed. Dorgon, meanwhile, apparently preferring the tastes of battle to the taste of Beijing politics, had set out for the Mongolian steppes in pursuit of the rebellious Kalkas. Once the tide had turned in the south, the Ming Yongli Emperor was forced to seek protection wherever he might be able to find it. As Qing forces moved into Guangdong in February of 1650, the Ming court left Zhaoqing and moved to Wuzhou in southwestern Hunan. Within the year, it would have to move farther to the southwest to Nanning, and a year later to Yunnan. Kong Yu Da's Guangdong campaign had been delayed by scandal in Geng Zhongming's command, leading to Geng's suicide and succession by his son,

Geng Zimao. Once the campaign got rolling in January, it succeeded in isolating Canton from the Ming court. After a year of fighting in the hinterlands, Shang Kexi finally captured Canton in November 24th, 1650, brutally massacring the city's inhabitants and setting up his own princely command post there. Two days later, Kong Yu De took Guilin, capturing the loyalist minister Chu Shixu, chief of the dominant Litterati faction. One month earlier, Qing forces had taken control of Zhou Shan, the island off the Zhejiang coast where the Ming Prince of Lu had held out until then, forcing the prince to move to Amoy to seek the Zheng's protection. The Qing force once again appeared equal to the challenge of conquest. By this point, none were left to stand against

Dorgon on anything approaching equal terms, except, of course, for the emperor himself, at least on paper. But the fact of the matter was, the Prince Regent was even beginning to behave like an emperor himself. In 1650, his wife died, and at the age of 38, he took in marriage the widow of his nephew, Haoga, who earlier had committed suicide on Dorgon's command. At the same time, the Prince Regent ordered the King of Korea to send princesses to be his concubines, just as though he were the son of heaven in truth. While giving Bolo, Nikan, and Mandahai more control over daily administration, Dorgan began to think of devoting more of his own time to leisure. On July 31st, 1650,

he informed the court that he was tired of the unbearably muggy and humid climate of Beijing during the summer months. Now, Beijing had been a capital of China for so long that it was not deemed to be politically feasible or even possible to justify moving the center of government elsewhere. But upon investigating the histories of the Liao, Jin, and even Yuan dynasties, he had determined that they also had capital cities beyond the wall outside the borders of China. Taking them as an example, he therefore resolved to build a city and palace somewhere in Rheha, where he could escape the heat of summer in the Yan Mountains. This summer capital was to be a modestly sized city because the Prince Regent did not wish to impose too heavy a burden upon his

subjects. Nevertheless, the various provinces of China were to be assessed two and a half million ounces of silver, or about 12% of all the taxes annually collected throughout the empire, and orders went out to assemble labor crews from all over North China to begin the construction work. That winter, Dorgon led a hunting expedition beyond the Great Wall, and on December 5th, near Harahotten, the imperial father, Prince Regent Dorgon, fell ill. Although he had no way of knowing it at the time, three days later, Shang Ke Xi captured the city of Canton from the Ming loyalists, achieving a major victory in the far southern reaches of the empire. Back up north, the Princeent's health ever worsened. On the last day of December 1650, the principal architect of the new great Manchu enterprise lay dead in Harahaten.

When news of his untimely demise reached Beijing, it stunned the court of Xunzhe. A few days later, on January 8th, Dorgan's hearse was accorded full imperial honors when it neared the capital and was solemnly drawn through the Dongzhe Gate, along the Yuha Bridge, past streets lined with officials, their wives dressed in white sackcloth standing in the gateways behind them. Many were in tears, and few could have guessed that within weeks, the name of the once mighty regent would be publicly abused and his followers thrown into prison in chains. But shortly after Dorgon was ceremonially entombed, it was curtly announced that the construction of the summer capital was to cease. The poet Wu Weiye wrote,

I hear that the court stops building the upper capital. The hardship of the people, however, is hardly removed. Dorgon's death at the age of 38 signaled the end of an era. Of Nurhaci's 16 sons, only Babatai, who never figured prominently in the conquest, and Adjiga survived. Of the banner princes of Hong Taiji's reign, only Sirhachi's son Jirgalang survived. Overseeing the civil administration in Beijing was the triumvirate of Nurhachi's grandsons, Nikan, now age 46, Bolo, 36, and Mandahai, 27, all of whom had been appointed by Dorgon. But these men did not control banners of their own, nor did they have any influence over the grand ministers and banner commanders who'd survived the factional struggles of Dorgon's regime. Thus, it fell alone to Ajiga and Jergalong to convene the Council of Princes

and Grand Ministers, who would decide how next to proceed. The first move came from within the two white banners, where Dorgon's men held sway. On January 26, 1651, less than a month after Dorgon's death, Ajige was imprisoned for plotting a coup. Most prominent among his accusers was Subai's brother, Ubai, another of Dorgon's men, who had emerged from command positions in the Two White Banners to the post of Grand Minister of the Imperial Bodyguard. Speaking in the deliberative council for the commanders of the Two White Banners, he told of Ajige's attempts to lead them into a coup immediately after Dorgon's death. As the council met to hear Ajiga's case, Ubai and Tantai, who was still commander-in-chief of the plain yellow banner, transmitted the results of the council's

deliberations to the now 12-year-old emperor and returned with his edict. In effect, the committee established by Dorgon to rule in his absence had now prevented Ajiga from taking Dorgon's place, leaving Ubai, Tantai, Holhoi, and Ganglin to mediate imperial authority. It is apparent that after Ajiga's demise in 1651, this small clique of Dorgon's men was not sufficiently organized to propose an alternative to Ajiga. Dorgon's own heir, Dorbo, was too young to serve as regent, and Doro's other son, Doni, did not have the stature necessary to command the other princes. On the other hand, neither Jergalong nor the Triumvirs appeared ready to claim their regency either. The politics of the previous decade had left the princes without a host of loyal followers

and set Dorgon's clique against the remnants of Hong Taiji's inner court band. The council decided to leave well enough alone and allow the child emperor to himself exercise authority for the first time. The struggle for power among the princes and grand ministers then continued within the deliberative council, with Jergalon as the convener and Tantai as chief transmitter. A very unstable consensus prevailed. Before the emperor's 13th birthday in March, however, the tide had turned against Ubai and the leaders within the two white banners. Among the new grand ministers of the council was Sukhsaha,

a member of the plain white banner, who served as prime witness against Dorgon's clique. Ubai and his brother Subai lost their rank and office, and gradually the Dorgon regency fell into disrepute. Holhoi, still commander-in-chief of the Bordered White Banner, was executed for his complicity in Dorgon's self-aggrandizement during his regency. Tantai, clinging to his more favored position as commander-in-chief of the Plain Yellow Banner directly under the emperor's personal control, supported the opposition against Houhui and the others. The opposition now included Song Yi, his uncle and erstwhile grand academician He Fe, Oboi, Ebelun, and two other members of the Yellow Banners who had been

recalled from political exile to join the deliberative council in investigating Dorgon's high-handed methods. Dorgon's favored Grand Academician, Ganglin, was dismissed and then put to death. Kifa was reinstated and Sony was put in charge of imperial household affairs. With the regency abolished, the three inner courts and the imperial household administration were becoming the agents of imperial authority vis-a-vis the six ministries and the banners. The old opposition had won the day, and with their victory, the institutions that would define the next stage of imperial rule emerged. Once this realignment of princes and grand ministers became clear, the cases against Dorgon and Ajiga were extended to implicate others who might upset this new balance of power. With Jergalong in charge of the council, the triumvirs were relieved of the responsibilities

for overseeing the routine administration of the government. Bolo and Nikan were demoted temporarily for trying to excuse Ajiga. Dorbo status as Dorgon's heir was denied. Finally, in September 1651, Tantai suddenly found himself out of favor with the young emperor on whom he depended for his own salvation. Tantai's problems with the young emperor presaged the changing nature of inner court politics. As part of the accession to personal imperial rule, the emperor had been advised to proclaim a general amnesty, as was the Chinese custom. But the emperor was now taking a personal interest in the problems of corruption within the civil bureaucracy. When a Han Chinese censorial

official brought corruption charges against Cheng Mingxia, a southerner and grand academician recently appointed by Dorgon, Tantai pointed out to the emperor that the censor had been in a position to bring in these charges against Cheng before the amnesty was declared? Why had he failed to bring them in a timely fashion, and why had he brought them now, after the emperor had excused those previously charged? Tantai explained that the deliberative council found the censor's conduct questionable and advised the emperor to dismiss the charges. The emperor followed Tantai's advice, dismissing the censor and acquitting Chen Mingxia. But the emperor is said to have regretted this decision, as he was especially

eager to root out corruption and political collusion among his officials. Perhaps his new tutors encouraged this regret. The case raised doubts in the emperor's mind about the intentions of this battle-hardened official who'd served Dorgon so faithfully from beginning to end. Oboi, the rehabilitated Imperial bodyguard, sensed that the time was ripe to charge Tantai with arrogant abuse of power. Tantai's support of Dorgon was now being called part of a conspiracy against the throne itself. On October 1st, Tantai was executed for his part in this alleged conspiracy. The transition to imperial rule was thus completed. It was the apparent end of the conquest generation, one that had fought mightily and died young. Ajiga was forced to commit suicide in prison before the end of 1651.

By that time, the triumvirate of grandsons had also dissolved. All three were dead before another year had passed, as was the former general-in-chief, Lekerehun. Oboi and Soni joined Suksaha and the Hauga supporter, Ebalun, at the core of the new regime. They would emerge as regents for Fulin's successor in 1661. But for the time being at least, the reins of government passed into the hands of the young emperor himself. A few trusted Han Chinese and Manchu officials advised him, while the consolidation of the south was left to the older generation of Ming turncoats, Kong Yuda, Shang Kexi, Hong Chengchou, and of course, Wu Sangui. The first three years of direct rule by the Xunzhe emperor saw major changes in the political process of the early Qing dynasty.

The changes reflected the new balance of power that had emerged after Dorgon's death. Dorgon's crimes were described as breaches of the ritual order demanded of a legitimate ruling family. He had called himself Imperial Father and begun to rearrange the tablets in the Imperial Ancestral Shrine, placing his own mother beside the mother of Hong Taiji with the title of Empress. He further offended the court's sense of propriety by taking Haogo's widow to wife after his own wife's death in 1649. He had authorized alterations in the veritable record of Hong Taiji's reign to show that Nurhaci favored Dorgon's mother and may well have wanted Dorgon to be his successor. The principal crime of Ganlin and the other grand academicians was their complicity in this changing of the record. Holhoi and Tantai were guilty of encouraging Dorgon's improprieties while

benefiting themselves. The new imperial advisors were quick to oppose such capriciousness with strict ritual order in accordance with ancient Confucian codes. The historical record of the intrigues of 1651 is punctuated with detailed regulations concerning the proper order of procession, the proper manner of mounting and dismounting, the correct nature of the privileges and the prescribed apparel attached to each rank, and so on and so forth. In 1652, the Ministry of Rights recommended fixing the number of imperial audiences, formal gatherings to be distinguished from the deliberative council of princes and grand ministers, at three per month. An imperial clan court was established

to manage the ritual affairs and genealogical records of the imperial clan. This new institution replaced offices originally established by the eight banner princes in Nurhaci's time, further verifying the breakup of the banners and consolidation of imperial rule. The demise of the commanders and grand ministers of the plain white, bordered white, and blue banners, which Dorgon had controlled, finally allowed the emperor and his advisors to centralize military power. The Manchu banners were reorganized. The plain yellow, bordered yellow, and plain white banners were now assigned to the imperial household directly. Although the imperial household department was not formally established until Oboe's regency in 1661,

certain inner grand ministers had served as managers of the imperial household affairs since the beginning of the Shunzhe reign. At the same time, the imperial bodyguard, originally conceived as an elite force of Nurhaci and his sons and brothers, but later expanded to include members of allied clans, was transformed into a special force whose commanders were called inner grand ministers, and who were members of the three inner or upper imperial household banners. After Dorgon's death, the three banners were combined for administrative purposes. Although the precise relationship between the three banners and the still shadowy household administration remains somewhat unclear, control of the banners passed into the hands of the inner grand ministers, while routine administration fell to appointees who were imperial bond servants.

Direct imperial rule also brought changes in the relationship between the rulers and the civil administration. Shortly after Dorgon's death, imperial edicts began to present a new theme. The Qing regime could no longer rest on its reputation as righteous avenger of the Ming. The conquest was over, at least so went the thinking of the new emperor. But the evils of Ming maladministration had not yet been corrected. Dorgon had it tired of the campaign to prevent corruption and factional division within the Chinese bureaucracy. During the Datong campaign, he'd ordered his officials to avoid making personnel recommendations and left the problem of how to control the government to a select committee. Now, with Dorgon in disrepute, the censorate and the six ministries began to influence personnel

and policy decisions once again. In his last year, Dorgon had also completely reversed the image created by his abolition of Ming military surtaxes by appropriating two and a half million taels in tax revenues from the nine provinces in order to construct his abortive summer palace for himself and Rahal. The effects of his earlier attempts to halt the accumulation of land and peasants by bannermen in the north also appeared undone by his own personal appropriations. By allowing his estate to attach retainers and their lands on behalf of his adopted heir, he had, in effect, doubled the legal limit for himself. This news accompanied reports from the Ministry of Revenue that retainers of Banner Estates were

engrossing larger and larger amounts of revenue that should have gone to the state. Engrossment by Banner Estates threatened to renew the problems of fiscal insolvency and popular discontent that had brought disaster to the Ming in recent decades. With Dorgon and his party now as scapegoats, the Xunzhi Emperor and his advisors could turn to the six ministries to counter this tendency toward the erosion of centralized fiscal control and more completely bind China to the will of imperial Qing rule. And that is where we're going to leave off for today. Next time, we will be getting into the personal reign of the Xunzhe Emperor over the course of the 1650s.

Until then, have a great rest of your October. And as always, thanks for listening. Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid? To be continued... History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore tales of this ancient culture. The History of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt.