The History of China - #266 - Qing 11: Shunzhi's Personal Rule

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

With the untimely and mysterious death of Prince-Regent Dorgon, the thirteen-year-old Shunzhi Emperor takes personal command of the still unsteady Qing Empire. He's got a lot to do - and it will turn out, not terribly long to do it! From purging prince, to beheading grand secretaries, to winning conquests... to perhaps that hardest of them all: standing up to his own mother, it's Shunzhi in the driver's seat! Time Period Covered: 1651-1661 CE Major Historical Figures: House of Aisin Gioro: The Shunzhi Emperor (Fulin) [r. 1651-1661] Prince-Regent Dorgon [1612-1650] Jirgalang, Prince Zheng of the First Rank [1599-1655] Qing Imperial Court: Grand Secretariat Chen Mingxia [1601-1654] General Tantai of the Plain Yellow Banner [1594-1651] Grand Academician Feng Chuan [1596-1572] Grand Academician Ning Wanwo [1593-1665] General Ren Zhen Hong Chengchou, Pacifying General of Jiangnan [1593-1665] Wu Sangui, Prince of Western Pacification [1612-1678] Southern Ming/Rebels: Li Dingguo, Prince of Jin [1621-1662] Zheng Chenggong, Koxinga, Prince of Yanping [1624-1662] Works Cited: Dennerline, Jerry. "The Shun-chih Reign" in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 9: The Ch'ing Dynasty, part 1: To 1800. "Records of Emperor Shizuzhang, Vol. 74" in Records of the Qing Dynasty [Qing Shilu]. Wakeman, Frederic Evans. 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 Airwave Media Podcast. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to the History of China. Episode 266, Xunzhe's Personal Rule

When last we checked in with the Forbidden City of Beijing, and yes indeed it certainly has been a while, we had launched into the reign of the Great Qing's second formal monarch, the Shunzhe Emperor. Now, given that it has been a hot minute, by which I mean about four months, since we were looking hard at the goings-on of the Imperial Palace rather than the wilds of Taiwan, I think it is worth a moment to catch back up the speed. And to those of you now coming into this episode at some point in the future, please forgive this bit of expository last time on Recap. We pick back up on the New Year's Day of 1651, with the death of the Prince Regent Dorgon,

holder of the seal of Great Qing in the name of the Shunzhi Emperor, at the age of just 38. The official story is that he suffered what would be his fatal injuries in the course of a hunting accident in Karahotun, the region of modern Chengdehebei, just north of Beijing proper. And if that sounds like a vaguely threatening euphemism, you're not alone. Suspicions have, in fact, never left the site of Dorgon's mysterious death, again, at just 38, and rumors have swirled in the centuries since that it was, in fact,

a case of murder most foul, carried out while the Prince Regent was relatively under-defended away from the safety of the capital. The idea of Dorgon, a combat-hearted lifetime cavalryman with more than 25 years' experience on horseback, to have just been thrown from his horse to a fatal end is a rather hard pill to swallow. It's made even more so by the fact that he, in spite of the presence of multiple imperial physicians in attendance, didn't even manage to make it back to the capital before dying. It is true that the Emperor honored his late uncle-turned-adoptive-father regent with a lavish funeral, in the course of which he is noted to have bowed an unheard-of three times before Dorgon's coffin, and would go on to posthumously grant him the title of Emperor Yi, the Just,

and the temple name of Chengzong, or the Accomplished Ancestor. A truly unprecedented act, given that in the entire course of Chinese history to this point, posthumous enthronements had only ever been given to direct ancestors, whereas Dorgon was his uncle, the Anurhati, and half-brother of his father, Hong Taiji. Yet, things get even murkier post-mortem. Consider, for instance, that the Shunji Emperor was 13 at the time of Dorgon's death, the minimal suitable age for a monarch to dispense with a regent and assume at least nominally direct control over his government. More telling still, little more than a month after his death and funeral,

Dorgon, yes, his dead and moldering corpse, was brought up on multiple charges of what amounts to treason, namely possessing yellow robes, indicating an intention to claim the throne for himself, calling himself the emperor's father, and, most dubious of all, illegally taking the wife of his dead brother, Prince Hoga, for himself. That last one especially seems just like padding out the rap sheet, as it was an ancient tradition among the steppe peoples, from Manchu to Mongol, to take the wives of deceased relatives as their own as a means of ensuring that they were taken care of and not left to starve to death in the exceedingly harsh environs of northern Asia. Dorgan's body was ordered by imperial decree to be exhumed, flogged, and then incinerated,

conveniently destroying any possible evidence of murder against the late Prince Regent. And, almost needless to say, stripped of all his titles and purged from the imperial records. Oh yeah, and it was then also ordered that all of his heirs be executed as well, though apparently even his bitterest of political enemies understood that that wouldn't look good in the history books, as the execution order was intentionally omitted from the official history of Qing. The degree to which such a familial extermination was actually carried out remains unknown. The legliest suspect behind this alleged plot to kill Dorgon in body, name, and legacy was none other than his own cousin, Prince Jurgalong, son of Serhachi and brother of Hoga, who'd been the bitterest of enemies to Dorgon's rise to power

and had been thrust out of the Imperial limelight by his sole rise to regency, and indeed would stand to reclaim much of his own power and influence in the year immediately following Dorgon's death. Means, motive, opportunity. Qui bono? Jugalon bono very much. Unfortunately, that is about as far as we can take this courtly case of malicious judicial familial malfeasance. Because in a truly ironic twist of fate, more than a century later, the Qianlong Emperor,

both Xunzi's great-grandson and Dorgon's great-grandnephew, would order the formal rehabilitation of Prince Dorgon's name and legacy, throwing out his conviction, restoring his titles, and granting him the additional posthumous name Zhong, or the Loyal, in order to blatantly contradict the official history's narrative of his treasonous intent. Further, Qianlong would order that the histories be amended to include the specific language Hou Se Feiijé, meaning his heirs were exterminated, rather than what had been written before, that Dorgon had no heirs. So, where is the irony? So far, it all seems like a pretty happy ending for an incinerated dead guy, even if 128 years too late. Well, in the course of this restoration of Dorgon's good name,

Qinlong decided to do what Chinese emperors do best, destroy evidence. He ordered that all records of Dorgon's purge and familial extermination be burned, meaning that the evidence trail runs cold right here, right now. And now, we will pause for a moment to listen to the silent screams of all historians everywhere across time. Hmm. There it is. Well, no use crying over purged princes. Let's go ahead and get back to the issue at hand, that is, the Shunzha Emperor's personal reign, in all its glory and folly. At 13, Shunzha was, of course, only nominally the sole authority of his realm,

and still relied heavily on the many advisors, tutors, monks, eunuchs, and women that surrounded him at all times. As is certainly evidenced by the Dorgon Affair, one of Xunzhe's top court priorities right off the bat in 1651 was to enact a staunch anti-corruption campaign to stamp out those elements within the burgeoning Qing government that were up to no good. This would become, over the course of his reign, one of the emperor's core passions. The official campaign against government corruption would begin just two months after Xunzhe had assumed personal control over his own government on April 7th, 1651. Unsurprisingly, the initial efforts were targeted squarely at those officials

that Prince Dorgon had given a pass to in terms of their political peccadillos and indiscretions, or else had been seen as being overly sympathetic to Dorgon's own vices and predilections. The most prominent official to be targeted by this early anti-corruption effort was surely Feng Chuan, one of the then-serving Grand Academicians. Feng had achieved such a prominent role by dint of his being among the earliest of Ming officials to defect and join the Qing cause. During the primary conquest era, that had been enough to cement his position as something approaching untouchable in the eyes of the Prince Regent. But now that time had passed, and Feng's aura of invincibility had quickly faded with the rise of this new ruling party. Specifically, they took issue with the charges of Feng having accepted bribes to the tune of more than 30,000 tails of silver from the commander Jiang Xing, who had damningly later turned traitor and rebelled at Datong.

Dorgon had overlooked those charges and allowed Feng to remain in office for some seven years, but now he was swiftly kicked to the curb in shame. Yet Feng Chuan's case opened more than a campaign against corruption. It signaled a new round of factional fighting among the literati as well. As Feng's accusers in 1645 had pointed out, he'd also brought disgrace to the office of Grand Secretary once before, as far back as the 1620s. Then, he'd acquiesced to the demands of the infamous eunuch Wei Zhongxian,

who was credited with bringing the Ming Empire to the brink of destruction. In any event, the anti-corruption edict opened a Pandora's box of literati politics that continued to frustrate and infuriate the young emperor all the way until his death. It called for stricter surveillance and wider reporting and airing of accusations of unethical conduct. Charges of corruption were soon brought against Cheng Mingxia. Cheng's accusers charged him with appointing friends and relatives to office during his tenure as the head of the Ministry of Personnel. Even worse, he was said to have arranged a secret meeting at the Temple of the Fire God on the outskirts of Beijing to plan a series of appointments favoring his own faction. Yet, even more than the purging of a particular

literati faction within the court, it had been the elimination of Dorgon's powerful supporters within the upper echelons of the Qing administration, Duke Tantai, for instance, in 1651, that caused true problems for the Xunzhe Emperor. Tantai, as it turned out, had been serving until his execution as the chief transmitter and interpreter of communications between the throne and its court officials. And post-execution, it turned out that he was quite difficult to replace. Even two years later, as of 1653, no one had yet been named to replace him. From Jerry Dennerlein, quote, Early that year, the emperor had asked the three inner courts to explain how the Ming emperor had

handled communication with their officials. He was worried that the decisions he authorized were too many for him to remember, and that his officials might make mistakes without his knowing. His intention to lighten the punishment recommended to him in a recent personnel decision had not been carried out. What if someone were executed against his will? That would not reflect well on the regime, end quote. During the Ming, emperors had been reliant on their grand secretaries to draft replies to memorials and their submissions to the throne. For the Xunji Emperor, this was actually of particular importance, as he had not yet mastered classical Chinese.

And indeed, at least some of his Manchu advisors never would. As such, he decided to have his academicians copy his own commands and then resubmit them in both Chinese and Manchu for his approval, before transmitting them to the appropriate offices for their execution. So it was, with this new procedure enacted, that Cheng Ming-sha was dragged out of forced retirement and forcibly reappointed as Grand Academician yet again. Soon, the Emperor was visiting the three inner courts to which the Grand Academicians were assigned, and he discussed history, classics, and politics with them. On one occasion, he asked Cheng Min-sha who Chen thought was the greatest emperor in Chinese history. Chen chose the great consolidator of the 7th century, Tang Taizong.

The emperor announced that he preferred the Ming founder, the Hongwu Emperor, because his laws and institutions, autocratic to the core, were comprehensive and his moral power supreme. At the same time, the emperor was approving recommendations to tighten regulations concerning the punishment of officials, specifically to make the punishment fit the crime, and to implement the ancient Han system of official appointment by recommendation, which made the recommender responsible for the conduct of the appointee. The young emperor appeared ready to take charge of his officials, the better to shape his own destiny. Scandal, however, soon brought such lofty imperial ambitions back down to earth. It seems that there was an underground network

in Beijing that specialized in peddling influence. Influence peddling was a profession of sorts in the late Ming period. In the lower Yangtze region, whence Chengmingsha, Chen Zilin, and other officials came, men who knew how to bend the law and who cultivated friendships among the Yaman functionaries were likened to commodity brokers. They were ubiquitous, perhaps indispensable in practice, but reform-minded literati nevertheless hoped someday to expel them from the body politic, and they remained in disrepute. On a grander scale, political coalitions in the capital depended on intermediaries who could define the terms of the political contract, which, per force, had to remain unwritten. As the young emperor turned his ear to his Han Chinese literati officials, the last of his princely uncles, Jirgalon, raised the issue of influence peddling with

princes and grand ministers. Jirgalon confirmed rumors that a handful of brokers controlled a number of houses whose primary function was to provide space for informal political meetings. The brokers were, in effect, intermediaries in a vast influence market. Breaking up the network once it was discovered proved little problem, but the emperor now wanted to know why the continuous pleas to his officials for honest reporting of corrupt practices had failed to bring the influence market to light. Following the ceremonies that celebrated the 15th anniversary of the emperor's birth on February 27, 1653, he summoned Chengming Xia to explain to him what made for order and what

made for disorder. Cheng placed the selection of good men at the heart of the matter. The emperor asked how one could distinguish between the good and the bad. Chen offered some homilies about how, as long as the emperor continued to urge his officials to speak openly and critically, good men would be encouraged to come forward. The emperor then wondered aloud how it was that no one had dared expose the influence market. Chen replied that it was not the job of grand academicians to expose petty criminals, and that since their network was so influential, it would have invited personal disaster to be the first to speak out. The emperor should understand that it was also quite natural for officials to avoid personal disaster. Political vendetta, after all, had almost cost Chun his life a year

earlier. The time now appeared ripe, Chun went on, for civil officials to speak more boldly with the emperor's assurance that they were of a single family with the Manchus. The emperor then pressed for more details concerning the influence peddling, and agreed to drop the subject provided Chun and the others understood his real concern, that is, that they keep him informed. He also asked for opinions on the value of exorcism of ghosts in Buddhist prayers, as if to say that Chen's Confucian explanation of order and disorder was still somewhat in doubt. Finally, he sent him back to warn his colleagues, especially Chen Zilin and Ning Wanwo, who'd been implicated in the influence-peddling racket to be more straightforward with them in the future. They soon had their chance,

only to learn that straightforward talk could also pique the emperor's anger. In early May, Cheng Mingxia, Chen Zilin, and a third southern minister, Chen Zijun, led 28 Han Chinese officials of the highest rank in attaching a dissenting opinion to a decision made by a special judicial review commission that had been appointed by the emperor. The commission, which included all the highest Manchu and Han officials, had decided to support a recommendation by the Ministry of Justice that a heroic brigade commander of the Northwest be put to death. The commander had murdered his wife and concubine after learning of their infidelity, and then he had bribed officials in the Ministry of War and Justice to cover it up. The emperor had recently decided to

pardon him, although a number of Manchu officials were dismissed for accepting the bribes. The commander, however, resented being punished at all, even after his fee had been cut in half on account of his nobility, and had since been overheard threatening drastic action if the verdict were not reversed entirely. The emperor now seemed to need a unanimous recommendation for execution before he could bring himself to order this war hero dead. The Han officials objected to the death sentence because the commander would not admit his guilt in the bribery case. It would be, they said, divisive to execute a hero who still protested his innocence. The punishment should be made to fit the crime, they argued. The emperor demanded clarification.

Chen Mingxia explained that others might take the commander's side, dividing the officials and raising questions of loyalty, and that the commander's real crime in this case was his refusal to acknowledge the emperor's grace in the matter. He should, therefore, be asked to commit suicide, what was deemed to be an honorable way out for a warrior, even though the law code itself did not stipulate any such regulation. At this, the emperor grew impatient. If the commander failed to acknowledge his guilt, then how could the emperor ask him to commit suicide? The Han officials had already introduced a division. Why did they believe their arguments to be less divisive than the commander's?

And why did they recommend something that was not stipulated by the law? Their backs to the wall, Chen Mingxia and his colleagues admitted that they were wrong to recommend what the code did not stipulate. They had failed to prevent the division that they had so feared, but the crime was so heinous that it had led them to an error of judgment. On these grounds, they awaited the emperor's verdict. This response only served to make things worse, the emperor argued. Now, they were only trying to play innocent. They had intentionally formed a clique and urged the emperor to act unjustly. Why did they claim to be misled when they were the ones who were misleading him? Chen Minshah and Cheng Jilin had already been pardoned for political crimes in the past.

Why did they fail to reform themselves now? The emperor ordered the entire body of higher metropolitan officials to assemble in front of the Meridian Gate to deliberate the fate of these dissenters. The charge was no less than treason. This extraordinary body recommended death to Chen Minsha and dismissal and banishment for the others, leaving it for the emperor to pardon them all and plead once more for cooperation. This plea now seemed to contradict the emperor's earlier cry for critical debate.

Now, he said he longed for consensus. Why is it that all the dissenters were Han Chinese, he asked, while the Manchus were on the other side? The Han Chinese officials promised to try harder, but the chances for pragmatic political adjustment appear to have been slight. Before the year was over, Cheng Minsha's enemies brought him down with charges ranging from latent Ming loyalism to moral insensitivity. Chief among his accusers was the old grand academician from Liaodong, Ning Wanwo.

In what would prove to be his final trial, Cheng attempted to once again talk his way out of it, oh-so-loquaciously refuting each and every item of his impeachment as they were read out by Ning, without even so much as waiting to hear what the Xunzhe Emperor's overall opinion was on the charges leveled against him. Suffice it to say, this breach of decorum did not endear him to the sovereign, who was instead almost beside himself with fury at the audacity of Chen's line-stepping. Chen was pronounced effectively in contempt of court, and remanded to formal custody for the remainder of the trial. In the following days, feeling which way the political tempest was blowing, those likewise rounded up and charged

alongside Chen Mingxia with conspiracy practically lined up to denounce the secretary in exchange for their own pardons or clemency, which was almost uniformly granted in exchange for their cooperative testimony against Chen. Yet, in spite of all that, Chen alone seemed bound and determined to remain oblivious to the writing on the wall, and put up his own spirited defense against each and every charge leveled against him. Yes, he admitted he had argued for a return to Ming-style court robes and hairstyles, crimes of fashion, as it were, but he insisted that that was a sincere and loyal recommendation, not evidence of latent Ming loyalism, nor an attempt to somehow divide the court. For all that, though, at the end of each trial day, he was once again to spend the night in prison.

The following day, both his father and son were also brought up on formal charges. On April 27th, 1654, the Assembly of Princes convened to review the sentencing recommendation handed down by the Board of Civil Appointments. It was that Cheng Ming-sha was guilty of all eight charges leveled against him. They confirmed both the verdict and the recommended sentence, that Cheng be decapitated, his body mutilated, and then displayed at the capital market square, and that his family was to be enslaved and sent to Mukden and their possessions and property confiscated by the state. The Xunzhe emperor assented to the verdict and the sentence of death, but the rest didn't sit so well with him. He said, quote,

The crimes which Ming Chenia committed truly were great. It is therefore reasonable that he be punished with decapitation. But we remember that he has served us long and intimately. We could not bear to have his corpse displayed in the marketplace. Let his punishment be strangling, and let his household property be spared from being confiscated, and his wife and children from being separated and distributed as slaves. The rest of the sentences should be carried out according to the assembly's judgment. End quote.

Those were the punishments to be meted out against his father and son, which were to be flogged in public and fined. Palace officials were immediately dispatched to Chun's holding cell to escort him back to the palace proper, and even until this point, he evidently felt that he had a really good shot of getting off. He asked the palace guards whether they'd been instructed to bring him in chains, and their reply that they'd not been ordered to bind him caused him to further think that things were going to break his way. From Frederick Wakeman, quote, as he left the board of civil appointments, he called out to a friend that, quote, my appearance is quite composed, end quote. And on the way to the palace, he spoke

briefly with a clerk of another official, just as though he believed all was well. Smiling confidently, he was taken through the Xuanwu Gate. That was the last time anyone outside the palace saw Chengming Xia alive. It is said that once inside the walls, he was taken directly to the Lingguan Temple, just inside the Meridian Gate. There, he was told of the assembly's verdict and the emperor's grace, end quote. And it was here, now, that for quite possibly the first time in his life, words failed Chen Mingxia, for to his pronouncement, he found that he had nothing to say. It would, as it turned out, also be the last time, for, now continuing the quote, moments later, the executioner slipped a knotted bowstring around his neck,

and Cheng Mingxia died. He was 54 years old. End quote. Oh, yes, and before moving on, as for the fate of that hero general turned wife murderer, whose name, by the way, was Ren Zhen, he was ultimately found guilty, and had his property seized,

and was then exiled to Mukden. But in a further mark of imperial grace, his son was allowed to inherit his position. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the center of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland,

in North America, and in the Caribbean, the first steps of the East India Company, and the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the Fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. The Young Emperor's debut on the literati political scene coincided with his self-assertion in personal matters. The day before the brigade commander's murder and bribery case reached the palace, the emperor appointed a young friend by the name of Fiongu to the Council of Princes and Grand Ministers.

Three years later, he would select Fiongu's the Council of Princes and Grand Ministers. Three years later, he would select Fiongu's sister, Xiaoxian, to be his favored consort, rejecting his second wife, chosen for him by his mother. In 1653, he rejected his mother's first choice, who had been designated empress two years before. He also began to find young friends in official circles. The 25-year-old Wang Xi, a recent Jin Shi from Beijing whose father was a restoration society friend of Changmin Xia and himself a member of the Three Inner Courts, had by then distinguished himself as a master of the Manchu language. Father and son were advancing through the ranks of the academicians, and Wang Xi was to become a close confidant of the emperor.

Another young Manchu linguist emerged from the first Jinzhi exams for Manchus in 1652 and began to tutor the palace eunuchs. Eunuchs, in turn, were given imperial household functions in 1653 for the first time since the conquest. The character of this inner circle to the emperor was changing rapidly. The impact of these changes was remarkably clear. By the time the Xunzhi emperor died at the age of 22 in 1661, he had succeeded in freeing himself from the influence of his mother and the imperial household grand ministers of the old guard.

In the process, he established a new imperial household administration consisting of 13 yamen, employing both eunuchs and imperial bondservants of the combined upper three banners. The chief eunuch, Wu Liangfu, had emerged as an influential intermediary whose relationship with important officials like Chen Jilin entailed the exchange of favors. Eunuchs had been banned from household service by Dorgon, who even went so far as to prohibit the entry of new eunuchs into Beijing. Manchu noblemen now feared a resurgence of the eunuch scourge that had plagued the Ming.

The emperor also turned to Lamaist and Chan monks for friendship with increasing frequency as he approached maturity, and enjoyed the company of the Jesuit astronomer and proselytizer Adam Schall von Bell. As the old problems of corruption and factualism impressed him with their intransigence, foreign ideas and religious mentalities appeared more and more attractive. Officials charged with the emperor's education feared a turn away from the pressing problems of practical administration. In 1658, the emperor formally established the Hanlin Academy and Grand Secretariat on the Ming model, further enhancing the revival of old-style literati politics. As they had under the Ming, Grand Secretaries now headed up the unified body of academicians whose ranks included only the top performers of the Metropolitan and Palace

examinations. The successful Hanlin academicians, in turn, could expect to compete for the position of Grand Secretary themselves someday, serving in the meantime as examiners to the provinces and interpreters of the political scene for the emperor. And, of course, the Grand Secretaries were now drafting rescripts to memorials. Critics who blamed the Ming's problems on the intensely violent competition among factions attached to Grand Secretaries and on the literary patronage entailed in the system now feared that a resurgent literati, especially a predominantly southern literati, would ossify the government and prevent meaningful reform. The case of the

dynamic literati leader, Chen Ming-sha, was evidence enough of that. The illegitimate fears of the conquest's old guard came to a head in 1661 when the emperor died. Yet, while these political trends were making their impressions in Beijing, the emperor's initial charge to his officials to root out corruption and injustice had still other effects. Among them was the beginning of a vast fiscal reform effort. The Anti-Corruption Edict of 1651 had specifically attacked the Ministry of Revenue for ignoring inequalities in tax collection. In 1654, with Cangilina as head of ministry, work began on the compilation of an entirely new edition of the complete Book of Land Tax and Services. The intention was to provide a central record by which revenue officials and censors could check reports from the provinces.

Many of the wealthier southern districts were hopelessly in arrears, and the emperor could only grant remissions to his officials until new registration records were ready. In 1657, the Ministry of Personnel published a new set of regulations for magistrates, imposing fines and limiting advancement for those who fell short of their tax quotas. Under pressure from the Ministry and from hardliners in the Ministry of Revenue, the Qing governor and Suzhou decided to test the new records the following year against some of the most notorious tax evaders in the Yangtze Delta. In the case that set a precedent for a full-scale purge of southern literati the year after the

Emperor died, the governor sent a bannerman to Jiading, the county made famous by resistance and massacre back in 1645, to make a list of those taxpayers the record showed owed more than 100 tails in back taxes. He returned with a full 170 names. Before the alleged evaders could even learn of their jeopardy, a Han civil intendant in Suzhou rushed to Jading, called the landowners to a meeting, and then arrested them all without warning. The surprise move prevented a formal confrontation between the governor and the literati as the intendant's office mediated a settlement between them. The offenders and other Suzhou notables eventually were made to pay 108,000 taels to the governor's office in return for a full official pardon. The 1658 settlement in Jading dramatized the need for total fiscal reform. Yet such reform was not an

isolated issue. The Ming had granted tax privileges to literati in part to ensure their cooperation with the government in preventing land speculators, commodity brokers, rice and cotton merchants, or wealthy peasant farmers from exploiting the cultivators on whom the state depended for revenues and stability. Reform-minded literati recognized that speculators and big landlords with financial and commercial interests were using literati privileges to capture village surpluses. They even blamed literati abuses for the Ming's failure overall. Yet to abolish the privileges without providing some other incentive for the literati would cost the Qing its most important ally, that larger body of

Confucian-educated teachers and village leaders who provided the state with a pool of civil service candidates. In the case of Jiading, for example, there were still a thousand privileged literati who were not arrested as large evaders as of 1658. These men, their sons, and their students, were the ones Cheng Mingxia had argued would be encouraged by the emperor's plea for help in fighting corruption. In 1659, the new Complete Book of Land Tax and Services was formally published and a new statement of accounts listing all those in arrears was required of all magistrates. By then, the emperor had already re-established the Hanlin Academy, confirming his faith in his literati allies. He even ordered an extraordinary metropolitan examination that spring to celebrate final victory against the Ming in the southwest.

The top three candidates, all from extremely influential literati families in the Suzhou region, entered an academy that was increasingly dominated by sons and students of the old Restoration Society, and increasingly southern in character. The academy's chancellor was the aforementioned Wang Xi, himself a northerner, but the son of a Restoration Society member. The Hanlin Academy, therefore, was rapidly becoming the spearhead of a revival not only of southern literati influence, but of the old-style political networks as well. And it was doing so just as the confrontation between Qing officials and the benefactors of literati privileges was coming to a head. The emperor sanctioned this literati political revival in spite of clear evidence that

corruption was endemic. Scandal in the Beijing Provincial Examination of 1657 had threatened to undo the literati networks entirely. In that year, a group of assistant examiners was found to have accepted a number of large bribes through intermediaries. The successors of men Jurgelang had brought to the emperor's attention four years earlier. A number of grand ministers were implicated, including one grand academician whose nephew passed the examination. Investigation led to the execution of some of the principals and the dismissal of others. It also raised doubts about the large number of official relatives who had passed the provincial examination in Nanjing. Investigators found no evidence of bribery there, but forced the successful candidates to sit for

another round of examinations to see if they could produce essays of the same quality as those attributed to them. Some failed just from fright. To the conquest's old guard, that line between outright bribery and coded examinations on the one hand, and family connections and favored literary style on the other, must have seemed quite thin indeed. In fact, one of the men banished for paying a bribe in the Beijing scandal had been part of a clique attached to the Restoration Society movement of the 1630s. Organizers of literary societies in Suzhou in the 1650s included his colleagues, some of them relatives of loyalist martyrs.

As fate would have it, his brother proved to be the emperor's personal choice for principal graduate, first place in the palace examination the following year. The emperor is said to have asked Wang Shi if the two were related when he learned the name of the favorite essay's author. Knowing full well who they were, Wang consulted with the candidate and reported back that he admitted to being the offender's brother. The emperor chose him anyway, commending the candidate for his honesty. The revival continued apace. The emergence of Southern literati networks in the Hanlin Academy thus carried one message for the literati, while the Examination Scandal of 1657 carried another, quite contradictory one.

The anti-corruption campaign of 1653 had led Chen Mingxia to speak critically at the cost of his life. Imperial favor was also leading many of Chen's colleagues into positions of great influence, but endemic corruption threatened to implicate them in vast purges if the emperor or his advisors lost patience with them. Some of them began to organize literary societies in Suzhou as early as 1648, perhaps in response to Dorgon's initial appointment of Han Chinese heads to the six ministries in hopes of reviving the spirit of the 1630s. With the emperor's call for literati assistance in 1653, Wu Weiye, who was a renowned intellectual and poet, principal graduate in the palace examination of 1630, and prominent leader of the Restoration Society faction, presided over a meeting of three major

literary societies at Tiger Hill, site of the Great Meetings of the Late Ming. Although the new attempt at a coalition failed, the three literary societies set about publishing essays as they had before. Wu Weiyi also accepted the post of chancellor of the National University in Beijing. With the scandal of 1657, Wu Weiyi begged to retire in a gesture that symbolized the fears of the exposed literati organizers. The literary societies fell silent in anticipation of the reaction that finally came in 1661. For all the unresolved tensions, however, the spirit of the regime was still high after 10 years of direct imperial rule. The primary reason was continued military success from 1653 on.

At the time of Dorgon's death, Guilin was newly in the hands of the Qing general-in-chief Kong Yu De. There was little news from the southwestern frontier until the former rebels of Sun Kowang and Li Dingguo began to move their large armies into Hunan and Guangxi in support of the Ming in late winter 1652. By August, Li Dingguo had recaptured Guilin, and Kong Yuda had committed suicide in defeat. The young emperor responded to the crisis characteristically by turning to his trusted Han advisors. Scarcely a month after publicly upbraiding the 28 dissenters, in June 1653, he ordered the three inner courts to recommend the central government official that they thought was best qualified to win the confidence of the people while coordinating a new southwestern campaign.

The academicians chose Hong Chengxiu, the old rebel fighter whose advice had colored Dorgon's pacification policies and who had served as Grand Academician as well as Pacification Commissioner in Nanjing. As Governor-General of five provinces, Hong Chengchou carefully extended Qing control into the hinterlands of the major cities from his headquarters in Changsha. Rather than attack Guilin prematurely, he chose to let Sun and Li struggle for control in the poorer provincial border areas while he built up his resources and developed the logistical capability to supply a larger banner force. This policy succeeded. Geng Zimao retook Guilin in 1654 without drawing on the Qing force in Changsha. When Sun Kowang tried to raid in Qing-controlled territory north and west of Changsha the following year, he was driven back.

Qing supplies increased as the rebels grew leaner. The emperor gave Hong free reign. When a Manchu banner commander disrupted his strategy in 1656, the emperor replaced the commander. The Qing gathered strength for yet another year. Finally, in the fall of 1657, Li defeated Sun decisively, and Sun went to Changsha to surrender. By that time, Hong was ready to supply banner forces for the drive into Guizhou and further into Yunnan. The emperor appointed three generals-in-chief, but left Hong in overall command. Advancing with Hong from Changsha to Guiyang was Zhuge Long's nephew, Loto. Advancing to Guiyang from Guangxi was the imperial bodyguard Oboi's younger brother, Zhebte. Entering Guizhou from Sichuan and remaining in the north

was the old rebel fighter and conquest hero, Wu Sangui. The Qing armies waited for another whole year. In the summer of 1658, the emperor sent Duoduo's second son, Doni, to serve as general-in-chief of the Yunnan campaign. Not until the fall grain tax had been collected and supply line established did Hong allow the banner troops to recede. When the campaign got underway, it had one-half the total autumn grain for the province of Guizhou at its disposal. The well-fed, well-disciplined banner troops found Li Dingguo's huge army in disarray and were welcomed by a starving and

war-ravaged populace. Qing forces entered Yunnanfu on January 25, 1659, as the Ming Yongli Emperor fled to Burma with Li Dingguo fleeing after him. An effective combination of Chinese statecraft and Manchu discipline had finally been achieved, and the Great Southwest was the prize. Although the fighting was not over yet, the conquest was. Victory in Yunnan inspired the Emperor to call the Extraordinary Metropolitan Examination of 1659. Before the examination was held that fall, the regime was shaken by one more extraordinary military challenge, which it barely disposed of in time for the celebratory event. That is the independent naval commander Zhen Chenggong, that's right, Koxinga himself,

who had continued to control portions of the southeast coast, especially around Chuanzhou and southern Fujian since the failure of his father's plea for him to surrender back in 1653. Zheng unexpectedly sailed into the Yangtze estuary with a thousand troops in early August. Zheng's forces defeated the Qing defenders in battle after battle until they reached the gates of Nanjing itself. Banner forces returning from their victory in the southwest finally succeeded in turning Zheng back after two weeks of siege, but a startlingly large number of county yamans in the lower Yangtze region had submitted, albeit temporarily, to Zheng's authority in the interim.

The apparent passivity of the Qing's southern subjects at a time when the emperor was sharing his glory with their literati politicians could only serve to enhance doubts in the minds of the military men like Zhubtei. Whatever glory there was, after all, was due to them. In the year that followed, however, a spirit of confidence yet prevailed. Despite the memory of Zhuge Long's warnings of the previous decade, the regime did nothing to restrain its old Han Chinese war heroes in the south. When Hong Chengchou retired from his governor generalship, the emperor appointed Wu Sangui governor of Yunnan, combining civil and military offices. Soon, Wu would be named an imperial prince. Geng Zimao was transferred to Fujian, where he continued to hold his father's princely

title. Shang Kexi remained in charge of Guangdong, with his own princely office in Canton. These arrangements were to develop into the last great challenge to Qing rule, the rebellion of the Three Feudatories in the 1670s. But at least for the time being, the most pressing concerns were matters for the attention of civilian administrators, the rebuilding of the transportation and irrigation systems, the reconstruction of agriculture, and, as ever, fiscal reform. The Xunzhi Emperor himself did not oversee the shift from conquest to statecraft priorities. By 1659, he'd given himself almost completely over to forms of devotionalism. On the one side, he was devoted to Chan Buddhism, spending more and more of his time in the company of monks that had moved into the palace itself. He even talked of entering the

priesthood. On the other side, he was devoted to his favorite consort, Xiao Xian, to whom he had turned against the wishes of his mother, Xiao Zhuang. He was subject to fits of anger, and is said to have slashed his throne with a sword and threatened to travel to Nanjing when it was besieged by Zheng Chenggong. In September 1660, Xiao Xian died. The emperor entered into a deep depression from which he never recovered. He was stricken by smallpox on February 2nd, 1661, and died just three days later. During the last three days of the Xunzhe emperor's life, the conquest's old guard resumed control.

They must have been preparing for some time. The emperor is said to have written a will in consultation with his literatus confidant, Wang Shi. The will that became public after his death was another, dictated by the Empress Dowager Xiao Zhuang in consultation with the inner grand ministers of the imperial bodyguard. Sun Yi, the manager of imperial household affairs and a veteran of the successional struggles of 1643 and 1651, emerged along with Oboi, Ebelun, and Suksaha

as regents for the newly designated heir, Shanye. The new emperor would be the smallpox-immune third son of Fulin by a secondary consort. Not even seven years old, he was to endure a period of imperial household reaction to his father's style before recapturing the best of it to the greater glory of the Qingpturing the best of it to the

greater glory of the Qing. The foundation had been laid in the Shunzhi reign. And that is where we will pick up next time. As always, thanks for listening. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history look for the age of napoleon wherever you find your podcasts