The History of China - #289 - Qing 24: Kangxi's Five Stelae of Victory

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

In the wake of the Kangxi Emperor's flawless victory + fatality of Galdan Khan, he erects his own definitive version of "The Way Things Happened" - five stone stelae monuments as an everlasting tribute to his greatness, and his side of the story literally written in stone. But even one so mighty as the Lord of Great Qing is not above the twist of fate's knife. For he has been receiving highly disturbing reports about his son and heir, Crown Prince Yinreng... Time Period Covered: 1697-1707 CE Major Historical Figures: Great Qing: The Kangxi Emperor (Aisin-Gioro Xuande) [r. 1654-1722] Crown Prince Yunreng [1674-1725] Prince Yinxu Minister Songgotu [1636-1703] Minister Maci [1652-1739] Jesuits/Catholic Church: Pope Clement XI [r. 1700-1721] Bishop Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon [1668-1710] Fr. Joachim Bouvet [1656-1730] Jean-Francois Gerbillon, Puritan Missionary Tómas Pereira, Puritan Missionary Kingdom of France: King Louis XIV, "The Sun King" [r. 1643-1715] Major Works Cited: Perdue, Denis. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Shelly, Percy Bysshe. "Ozymandias." Spence, Jonathan D. Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. And the head of Oliver Cromwell. The same head they kept on a pike for three years? Yep. All here on History Dispatches. New episodes every weekday. Find out more at HistoryDispatches.com or wherever you get your podcast app. Hello and welcome to the history of China. Episode 289, Kangxi's Five Stele of Victory. I met a traveler from an ancient land who said, Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the deserts. Near them on the sand half sunk a shattered visage lies,

Whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that it sculpture well those passions red which yet survive Stamp'd on these lifeless things, the hand that mock'd them, And the heart that fed. And on the pedestal, these words appear. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Nothing beside remains.

Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. Ozymandias by Percy Bish Shelley The Kangxi Emperor was absolute in his victory. His enemies literally ground into the powder that now dusted the streets of his own capital city. The entire Jungar people driven before him, now scattered to the arid plateau highlands or resettled as taxed subjects within his own domain. And their territories now added to the glory of his Imperial Majesty. Both the Mongol peoples as a whole, and the Tibetans alongside them, now more tightly lashed to vows of loyalty and subjugation to the Dragon Throne than had ever been dreamed before.

Their women, those that yet lived anyway, Galdon's own Queen Anu having been struck down by a Qing arrow in a charge at Zhao Mumoto that allowed her husband to escape at the cost of her own life. Those that were left wailed their lamentations for all to hear. Yes, this was truly what was best in life. And so, as was long-standing tradition heralding back to the Qin dynasty nearly two millennia prior, so around the episode 20 mark for us, an emperor at his apogee gets to raise a few stone stelae monuments to himself, as a treat. Quote, In the third century BCE, Qin Shi Huangdi climbed the sacred Mount Tai, erected a stone tablet and performed the Fengshan rituals to give thanks to heaven for designating the victorious emperor as a recipient of its grace.

The permanent public presence of a huge stone monument proclaimed to all the inevitable victory of the Son of Heaven. In the 2nd century BCE, Han Wudi likewise celebrated the completion of his military exploits by offering sacrifices at Mount Tai and engraving his reign title in stone. The large tablet became known in folk belief as the mouthpiece of heaven." Time and again the truly great emperors, and one empress, would mark out their place upon the ledger of eternity, directed to and in the sight of both man and divinity itself. Steele thus united the powers of heaven and earth, and their symbolism penetrated both

imperial and common understandings of legitimate authority. They proclaimed in the most permanent form, protected from the ravages of weather, the achievements of the empire. A single large stone block, by its massive presence, excluded the possibility of alternative presentations." There is likewise a finality in a monument. It, much like a tomb or gravestone, represents a thing in its entirety. Completed, finished, and account closed. A shift in social consciousness, an effort to create closure out of the inescapable flux of events. Kang Xi's own stele, of which he would ultimately raise five, would revive a long abandoned practice during the Ming of putting all such official communiques in a whole battery of languages.

Think of the Rosetta Stone, or heck, the instruction booklet of literally any device that you might buy, a bunch of different versions of the same exact set of instructions. In China, this was, and would be again, one of the markers of a conquest-versus-native dynasty. Kublai had his edicts promulgated in six languages – Mongol, Uyghur, Arabic, Persian, Tangut, and Chinese – as did the remainder of the Yuan in the 14th century. This is well-evidenced, for instance, in the yuntai, or heavenly cloud platform octagonal arch at the jiang pas gate of the Great Wall, the walls of which are ornately carved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Kublai's own creation which is Fogspass script, Old Uyghur script, Hanze, and Tangut. As Purdue puts it, quote, it still testifies to the

Yuan's impulse to address multiple audiences." end quote. The largely navel-gazing and xenophobic Ming had done away with all that as vestiges of barbarity from abroad. But now, under the auspices of the Manchu Qing, official multilingualism was so back. This time with four languages. Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan. Work began straight away after Kangxi's victory in 1697, all of which were to, what else,

proclaim his victory over the evil Galdan Khan. One would be raised at the battle site of Zhao-Modo, three others on the summits of three nearby mountains from which the emperor had personally surveyed the battle, and one placed in the Imperial Academy at the capital itself. Though all stick to the major themes of the day—that overwhelming military force and divine blessing secured glorious victory—they do differ notably in their specifics and their focuses. The stele atop Chahan-iluo Peak, for instance, states that "'Those whom heaven covers are all our children'", stressing the desire for unity among the various

peoples under Qing rule. The monument atop Tuono Peak, on the other hand, emphasizes the zhan lei ting wei, or the thunderous military might, of the six armies personally commanded by the emperor against Gdaan. Quote, With this awesome power, he exterminated the demons threatening the land and brought security to the distant wilderness. End quote.

Meanwhile, the tablet at the Imperial Academy, purpose designed for the official scholars and literati of the dusty capital libraries and palace chambers, speaks in effusive detail, and with extensive citations and allusions to classical texts of old, of course, a bookish thesis on quote, the unity of the civil and military way, and quote, as lauded by the great rulers of yesteryear. The true sage kings it stresses strive at all times to avoid the use of military force. Quote, All that heaven covers, all within and beyond the seas, was granted to one man, who from time past to now, day and night, concerns himself with nourishing all that live. Hoping for peace on the borders, he desists from using troops in order to give the people rest.

End quote. You see, it was only because the wily evil Galdaan forced the issue presented Kang Shi truly with no other peaceful, life-nourishing option that he was forced to combat the poison that the Junkar Lord had yet sowed across the marches beyond the defensive passes, threatening the peace, justice, and security of Kang Shi's new empire. And so, if he wasn't with him, then he was his enemy. To repress the bandits is the way to give rest to the people. To sweep away barbarians is the way to bring stability to the interior. It stresses the emperor's own shared suffering in the course

of his campaigns right there in the muck alongside his men as they marched and starved for thousands of miles. It insists that Kangxi quote, could not avoid using his troops to ensure the people's security, or in Chinese, 不得意, 用病, 医安命. Even though he wanted to use civil means, Wen De, to transform the world, his ministers and subjects urged him to launch the campaign to protect the realm." The Mongols are compared to noxious insects who damaged farmers' crops, and to animals that scattered and fled to their nests at the approach of the Great Army, whose 10,000 chariots, like the course of the dragon, dominated everything in its path.

And given all we know about the war, that is certainly a take to have. But again, that's the entire point, isn't it? This is the definitive Kangxi version of the way things went, for the ages, tailored to suit the particular wants and needs of particular audiences in different places. It didn't have to be consistent. It didn't have to corroborate with some other version of events. Insofar as anyone left alive was either aware or at least willing to let out of their mouth and hope to still keep it on their head, the Kangxi version of history was the only version and a story. Whatever that story might be today, or in this specific place.

Perdue writes, quote, In the publicly constructed myth, the way of the swordsmen and the way of the penmen were united effortlessly. The emperor was the pillar uniting the heavens above and the earth below, and he took to the task not for personal glory, but out of duty to larger forces." Once again, in the words of the Imperial Academy Stele itself, If the border bandits are not eliminated, our people will not be secure. Gods and humans all are aroused to do this, the necessary punishment from heaven. How can one man begrudge the labor of it? How can he not desire to give peace to the world?" And that was more or less that. The stele were erected, and history literally set in

stone. Chapter over. And with it, also, the 1600s. With that minor kerfluffle now done and filed away, the Kangxi Emperor and his court could shift focus to a very different sort of foreign question that was perplexing them all. Namely, those strange Jesuit missionaries led by those rather self-serving translator guys, Fathers Gerbian and Pereira. As you'll no doubt recall, the pair of priests had gained significant notoriety both back home and here in Qing by successfully aiding the Qing delegation in their treaty negotiations with the Russian emissaries at Nurtinsk.

Other Jesuits had likewise endeared themselves to the Emperor, sometimes at a very personal level. A group of five such French missionaries had been able to cure a severe bout of malarial fever suffered by the emperor with quinine in 1693. In all, the 1690s was a truly high watermark for the Jesuit mission overall in China. 1692 saw them issued the Edict of Toleration by the Qing court, allowing them to preach more widely across the empire and even begin building churches in certain designated cities. The following year, the emperor had urged Father Joachim Bouvier to return to France

and fetch some more Jesuits with scientific and technical skills to bring to China. Upon his return to Europe in 1697, Bouvier submitted a lengthy report on the Qing Emperor Kangxi to King Louis XIV, the Sun King, Arch-Autocrat of the Ancien Régime and grandfather of King Louis XVI. Yeah, that King Louis. In it, Bouvier praised Kangxi's quote, extraordinary martial and moral attainments, end quote, all while stressing that, should Great Qing be successfully converted to the Catholic faith during his reign, Louis would surely be showered in glory untold. But, he stressed, but, the only way Bouvier saw that happening was if France and Europe wowed the crap out of the Chinese emperor with their science and inventions.

He put it, quote, the experience of more than a century has made us realize that the sciences are the principal natural means that God has wished missionaries to use up to the present time to introduce and to plant the true faith in China. This emperor being absolute, one can say that his conversion would have such a powerful effect that in its wake would follow the conversion of the whole of this vast empire." Bouvier would return successful in his entreaties aboard the ship Amphitrite in 1698, bringing along about a half dozen new Jesuit scholars, and again in 1701 with eight more missionaries. All of this is to say that, at the dawn of the 18th century, all of the most high-minded and advanced scientific and engineering concepts that were percolating across the West were likewise being discussed, demonstrated, and adopted at the Qing Imperial Court in Beijing. This included a comprehensive comparison of calendrical, astronomical, and calculation systems and observations, which the Qing court astrologers were forced to conclude did offer some advantages over their own in-house methods.

Out in the provinces, the Qing generals and officer corps had been given sufficient experience in both dealing with and using foreign-designed firearms that they were becoming proficient in their employment and even manufacture of their own. The markets and factories in Beijing were abuzz with new contraptions from afar, such as mechanical clocks, at first copied from foreign designs, and then improved upon by local artisans. The Jesuits were themselves only too willing to write missive after missive back to Europe, gushing over the Kangxi Emperor's sagacity, skill, and openness to new learning. This was not, of course, done entirely selflessly. Though they would claim time and again that the ruler of China was on the very cusp of fully embracing Christianity and converting his empire along with himself, they were almost certainly vastly overselling the reality of the situation, even as they saw and understood

it. At around 43 or 44 at this point, Aisin Gyoro-Svenda was probably not planning his adult baptism. Even so, he was indeed curious, interested, and genuinely impressed by the more apparently miraculous mechanisms and wonders shown him by his European guests. Quote, he consistently appointed Jesuit astronomers to the calendrical department in Beijing. He read and commented on Meiwanding's work and summoned Mei's grandson to come and work at court. He publicly praised Western algebra and showed how it could be used to increase the accuracy

of local land surveys. He conducted experiments in connection with river conservancy, in which his sons and various senior officials were introduced to the basic science of surveying and the calculation of water volume and currents. And he learned to play some western music on the harpsichord. Ironically enough, it was at this very moment of its crowning glory within the throne room that the Jesuit mission in Chain China was being fatally undermined from none other than the Vatican itself back in Mother Europa. Upon receiving unconscionable reports that his missionaries were on their own initiative going beyond even the excesses of Matteo Ricci a century prior in accommodating Christian

rituals with local Chinese practices, Pope Clement IX ordered the formation of a special papal delegation to be led by the Bishop Maillard de Tornun to go to China and, you know, investigate stuff over there. The mission would arrive in Beijing in December 1705 and set up almost immediately blowing up the entire Catholic operation across the whole empire. The Kangxi Emperor, sensing that his foreign theocrats delegates were coming to try to, like, reign him in and tell him what he could and couldn't do, Kangxi decided, nah. He quote,

"...angrily backtracked from his former policies and demanded that the Jesuits in China accept his own interpretations of the correct state toward rites and ceremonies." As the increasingly strained conversation went back and forth in a series of well-documented first-hand accounts, Kangxi's own personal intransigence mixed with his own mounting frustration at the incomprehensible demands of this remarkably pushy houseguest and his retinue of incompetence. In the end, and how can we really be surprised, Kangxi got his way once again, and Bishop Tornone got for his troubles the entire Jesuit mission in China painted into an impossible

corner. Ultimately, they were presented the binary choice of either accepting the Imperial Piao, the official pronouncement on rights within Great Qing, and facing excommunication by the wrathful Pope Clement as a result, or else rejecting Kangxi's assertion of supremacy, refusing to sign the Piao, and having their entire organization permanently expelled from China altogether. So yeah, nice job breaking it, Maillard. Quote, For the Emperor himself, the confrontation reinforced the view that foreigners from the West were interfering meddlers who must be subject to the direction of the Qing court

and not allowed to gain an independence that they would only abuse. End quote. As such, those Jesuits who remained within the Qing dominion post-1706 had been effectively neutered into mere courtiers of the throne, there as servants to be ordered about by the palace staff and serve at the pleasure of the Emperor's curiosity or specific requirement. The scope of the Great Catholic Mission in China rapidly shrank to a very narrow aperture. As the Kangxi Emperor and his successors' attitudes chilled toward foreign interests in China overall, so too would the same fate fall upon the conventional

tributary trade system that had been established in southerly Canton. Already set up to be as physically distant from the imperial capital as possible, was not similarly curtailed and locked down, but no longer even counted as formal state revenues, but as personal imperial funds to be overseen and used by the imperial household itself, quote, for the emperor's personal edification, amusement, and enrichment, end quote. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt. On the banks of the Nile, these people created one of the most enduring and significant cultures. Their tale comes to life in the

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Yet if the Kangxi Emperor Stele could attest his military and political achievements to the world and heaven above, that same unity of voice and message were not the case for his other form of legacy, his progeny and, of course, eventual heir. For the two decades, between 1688 and 1708, the uncontested heir apparent, around whom the future of a Manchu political power was simply understood to reside around, was Prince Yinreng. Following the untimely early death of his mother, Kangxi's dearly

beloved and greatly lamented first empress Xiao Chengzhen, Yinren was designated the heir apparent by his father in 1676, at just one and a half. This was starkly against traditional Manchu practice of treating all sons equally in childhood, a parenting moray that Kangxi quite evidently had very little regard for. The Imperial father continued to lavish attention and favors on his heir above and beyond his other children, personally teaching the boy to read, and all of which culminated in 1696, when the Crown Prince became the Prince Regent in his father's absence, while Kangxi twice galloped off to hunt down Galdon. Even before his victorious return to the capital in 1697, Kangxi's ongoing misives with his court officials had almost certainly been darkened by certain

allegations around the conduct of the Prince Regent over the course of his tenure. Yet perhaps it was in the spirit of his overall triumphant and almost all-forgiving mood that Kangxi opted to ignore such uneasy tidings as overblown rumor. In the years to follow, as Ingron continued to grow into the limelight of being the Crown Prince in reality as well as name, factions began to coalesce around him as well. One such clique backed Songgotu, who had made himself a national hero decades prior by breaking the young Kangxi Emperor away from his uncle Oboy's clutching grasp. The second faction in Yinrong's orbit formed around Ma Se, an able administrator in his

own right, and likewise in the imperial pantheon as the son of anti-Wusangui stalwart Mi Shan. Active first as the chief counselor, and then as the minister of war in the 1680s and 90s, Masa had been assigned by the emperor personally in 1696 to keep an eye on the prince regent, which kind of already tells us that Kangxi had some worries of his own about his heir. It would seem that in the course of his observation and investigation, Masa must have uncovered some pretty damning evidence of the prince's failings, because he thereafter became one of the leading antagonists against the future elevation of Prince Inren, and therefore also necessarily of Songgotu's faction.

The Masa faction put forward an alternative heir, the Emperor's eighth son, Yinshu. A critical inflection point was reached in 1703 that broke through the political deadlock at court. The political pressure campaign against Songgotu finally brought down the ailing 67-year-old, first from Imperial Grace and then to his death. There's scant surviving documentation of the stunning downfall of such an eminent figure in the Manchu leadership, but what we have is enough to sketch out a rough idea of the timeline.

Two reports in August and September of 1703 say that Songgotu was still alive in the Imperial dungeon, cheerfully called the Imperial Household Department, shackled hand and foot to another prisoner, and the suggestion that he may have been held in that state by that point for over a year, despite Songitu's repeated weeping and begging for clemency. From Spence, quote, The era apparent is not mentioned by name, but the investigators were clearly trying to track down anyone who might have been relaying messages to Songitu's prison chamber. They were also tracking down Songitu's supporters, interrogating them, and unraveling the complexities of Songitu's business empire scattered across several provinces."

The Emperor commented only that the investigation was confused and should be renewed with even more vigor at a later date. Songitu thereafter disappears entirely from the historical record, the specifics of his fate as lonely and dark but just as certain as the hole left by its omission. His sin was backing the wrong horse, and too strongly, too early. And though he was the first major player to pay the price for it, he would be far from the last. Songgotu's removal from the game board in 1703 marks, perhaps, a dividing point in the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. Prior to the old official's ignominious death, Kangxi

quote, trusted various groups of ministers in turn, and seems to have been at least tacitly receptive to factional interests, end quote." This is broadly in keeping with the traditional Manchu custom of arriving at major decisions via a process of discussion, debate, and consensus among the high lords. But the post-1703 landscape looked markedly different. Many of the Emperor's edicts betray real fear and anger. For many of the later years of his life, he seems to have been truly fearful that some combination of his son's backers would try to assassinate him." Truly, can it be any wonder that the years to follow this incident would see the

development and swift implementation of a so-called Confidential Palace Memorial System — which is to say, a 1-800-SNCH number, as a major source of intelligence gathering. Over the years, as significant shifts occurred among Manchu factions, the Kangxi Emperor worked to cultivate a group of trusted Chinese advisors. One early figure in this effort was the bold scholar Xiong Sili, who in 1667 bravely submitted a memorial to the regents urging them to allow the then young Kangxi emperor to assume direct control of the government.

This act might mark Xiong as the first of these advisors. In his later years, the emperor ensured that his bond servants secretly reported on Xiong's health and financial situation. However, Xiong maintained an independent scholarly position throughout his life, making it more fitting to consider Gao Shiqi as the Emperor's first true scholarly favorite. Gao, once a slave under Songgotu, became the initial figure in a line of Chinese confidants that included Zhang Ying, Xu Quanxue, and Wang Hongxu. These men assisted the Emperor with advanced classical studies and provided him with discrete

updates on political developments at court and in the provinces, supplementing official reports from institutions like the censorate. The Southern Study, or Nanxufang, located within the Forbidden City, emerged as a key center of political influence, with its staff always on hand for informal consultations with the emperor. Running parallel to the southern study, and sometimes serving as a pipeline for talent into it, was another influential group, the Small Circle of Manchus and Chinese, who worked in the Office of Imperial Diaries, or

Qi Zhuzhu. These individuals, often bilingual and in near-daily contact with the emperor, had access to sensitive information and were tasked with shaping the historical record of his reign. They maintained extensive networks within the Hanlin Academy and across the bureaucracy. During the height of the Three Feudatories Crisis when the Kangxi Emperor faced great uncertainty, he relied on these diarists, along with trusted guard officers, to gather critical intelligence. Their influence likely diminished as the emperor grew more confident in his command of the Chinese language, and increasingly turned to the Southern study for support. The regents at the start of the reign, who had taken staunchly Manchu stances, marked by harsh criticism of eunuchs and the execution of Wu Liangfu, reflected lingering fears about

the role eunuchs played in the Ming Dynasty's collapse. Even after the Kangxi emperor distanced himself from many of the region's reforms to the imperial household, certain eunuchs still wielded some influence across his reign. Beyond Zhang Xincheng's role in the young emperor's education and Gu Wenxing's efforts to relay news during the 1697 Galdan Campaign, both mentioned earlier, other eunuchs also played key roles. For instance, Li Yu and Liang Jiugong carried out vital tasks for the emperor, while Chen Zhu oversaw the intermemorial receiving office during

the latter half of the reign, facilitating the flow of confidential information to select officials and monitoring disputes between Manchus and Chinese. By the late 1690s, and possibly earlier, the secret memorial system had expanded to include officials from the Southern Study, who began using it as a hub to submit their own confidential reports. The significance of this shift became evident after 1707, when Wang Hongxu cautiously began to hint, out of fear of reprisal, at the erratic and immoral behavior of the heir apparent, Inrung. Earlier, troubling reports

had surfaced about Inrung's arrogance and that of his maternal uncle, Songgotu. In 1703, despite Songgotu's prominence and age, the Kangxi emperor had had him imprisoned, and eventually he died there. Additional accounts of Inrung's sexual misconduct during a 1703 Western tour to Xian further enraged the Emperor. However, it wasn't until four years later, 1707, when Wang Hongxu detailed several offenses, including the purchase of young boys from the Suzhou region orchestrated by a man named Fan Pu, that the Emperor finally took decisive action. Wang's memorials revealed his intense fear of

exposure, and the Emperor's repeated assurances of secrecy suggest that the quote-unquote number one man mentioned in one document was indeed the Crown Prince Yinrong, especially since later charges of sexual misconduct against him matched Wang's report. The Emperor's Vermilion ink endorsement on this memorial, written in cursive, may be his most secretive surviving comment ever. It reads, quote, No one yet knows about this fun poo matter. If anyone revealed it, it wasn't Guard Officer Ma Wu. So the number one man has no clue who provided the information." This rare glimpse into the Kangxi Emperor's intelligence operations, combined with other surviving palace memorials about administrative matters, underscores his truly hands-on approach

to governance, literally embodying the idea of personal rule. Throughout the rest of his reign, secret memorials, along with a trusted cadre of guard officers and eunuchs who oversaw key meetings, played a critical role in the bitter debates over Inrung's fate, which led to the imprisonment and death of many of his supporters and poisoned the court's atmosphere thereafter. These conflicts and the Emperor's methods for managing them weakened the Grand Secretariat's role as a central administrative hub, as well as the authority of the ministers and vice-ministers of the six ministries.

The Kangxi Emperor further disrupted standard bureaucratic practices by frequently appointing special commissioners, or qincaidacheng, to handle crises, selecting these individuals, often guard officers or junior officials based solely on his own judgment. While a few censors, like Guo Xin, gained prominence through traditional channels of critique and policy advice, influence generally gravitated toward those with extensive networks across the bureaucracy. Examples included the three Xiu brothers, Qian Shui, Bing Yi, and Yuan Wan, who held overlapping ministerial posts, shrewd politicians with imperial favor like Li Guangdi and Zhang Pengge, and families like those of Ming Zhu and Nang Xiaoling, who blended banners with

roles of civil positions and enjoyed the backing of either the emperor or one of his sons. Publicly, through rhetoric and appointments in both provincial and metropolitan offices, the Kangxi emperor maintained an image of balance between Manchus, Mongols, and Han Jun battermen on one side, and Han civilian officials selected via the examination system on the other. Beneath the facade, however, he was engaged in intense struggles with his family, the military, and the civil bureaucracy. The crises surrounding Yinrong's status as heir apparent, which implicated the emperor's eldest, fourth, eighth, ninth, and fourteenth sons, dominated the politics of his final

decade. Even intricate factional disputes, such as the 1712 clash in Jiangnan between Ga Li and Zhang Boxing, can partly be traced to Ga Li's ties to Prince Yinreng. The Emperor's comments in Manchu reveal his awareness that even his confidential bond-servant textile commissioners had direct dealings with the heir apparent, highlighting how factionalism permeated the very systems designed to suppress it. how factionalism permeated the very systems designed to suppress it. And with that, we will end off this week and pick up there with the final decade of the Kangxi era.

We'll deal with the fallout of the Crown Prince's downfall due to sexual and corruption charges, which you have to admit is truly saying something considering the family and politics that we're talking about here, truly saying something, considering the family and politics that we're talking about here, and what will be truly one of the ultimate foibles of the entire Kangxi reign, which was what would ultimately be his feudal search for a new heir before his death. All that and of course more next time. Until then, as always, thanks for listening. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you wanna learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered. Follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants

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