Manchu Emperor Kangxi / Kanghi / Kang Hsi - 1661-1722
Shun Chih was succeeded by his second son who took the name of K'ang Hsi, a title signifying Unalterable Peace, and inaugurated, if not a period of peace, at any rate one of the longest and most splendid eras in the history of China. The reign completed a full Chinese cycle of sixty years and was for fifty-four years contemporary with that of Louis XIV. It was also for nearly half a century coincident with the reign of the great Mogul of India, Aurangzeb. For the first six years of this long period K'ang Hsi was under the control of four somewhat reactionary regents, but, on the death of one of them, the Emperor, who was now fourteen years old, determined to assume for himself the reins of government.
He began with characteristic vigor to purge the court of the unwholesome influence of the palace eunuchs. Four thousand were expelled and their employment strictly prohibited for the future, - a prohibition but slackly observed. The Emperor then ordered the laws of the Empire to be newly engraved on iron tablets of a thousand pounds' weight and prepared to rule as well as to reign. K'ang Hsi is described in the following terms: "Fairly tall and well proportioned, he loved all manly exercises and devoted three months annually to hunting. Large bright eyes lighted up his face, which was pitted with small pox. Contemporary observers vie in praising his wit, understanding, and liberality of mind. Indefatigable in government, he kept a careful watch on his Ministers, his love for the people leading him to prefer economy to taxation. He was personally frugal, yet on public works he would lavish large sums."
The final steps in the pacification of China belong to this reign, such as the suppression of the piratical raids of Coxinga, but at one time it seemed very much as though the whole work of conquest would have to be done over again through the defection of the great Chinese general, Wu San-kwei. "The Pacificator of the West " had for a long time been regarded almost as an independent feudatory chief, and may very well in this respect have incurred the suspicion of the Emperor. The struggle lasted for four years, during which time the Manchus were greatly assisted by the new artillery which had been manufactured under the instruction of the Jesuit missionaries. Death came to the heroic rebel in AD 1678 or 1679 just when he was at the end of his resources.
The guardians of the young king were from the first ill-disposed towards the Jesuit missionaries, and this for more than religious reasons. They regarded with extreme jealousy the disposition of the Emperor to trust (not without cause) the superior ability of the foreigners in the matter of calendar-making and astronomical science. In China, as in Japan, the work of the Jesuits had been followed up by other orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, and these had differed more than a little in matters of policy if not in matters of doctrine. K'ang Hsi was scandalized, not only by the quarrels which these controversies provoked among professors of the same faith, but perhaps even more by the fact that the Pope decided for one party, the Dominicans, while he had already decided for the Jesuits. Such an interference with his supremacy, ecclesiastical and civil, boded ill, he thought, for the Empire, and from this time onward his attitude was more or less hostile.
By AD 1684 even Formosa, a perennial source of trouble, had been won from the grandson of the great pirate. In the meantime trouble was brewing beyond the northern and western frontiers: For some time the advance of Russia eastward had exercised a disquieting influence upon the tribes of Central Asia. The new Russian colonists alienated many of the natives by their overbearing manner, and in AD 1658 experienced a severe defeat at the hands of the Chinese, who carried back a number of captives to Peking. In AD 1689 came the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which secured peace between the two nations for a period of one hundred and sixty years.
Notwithstanding the demands made upon him by long-continued rebellion and warfare, K'ang Hsi may be regarded as one of the most munificent patrons Chinese literature ever possessed. Through his efforts and encouragement some stupendous literary enterprises were brought to a successful consummation. Of these the works most deserving of mention are two large concordances printed in forty-four and thirty-six volumes respectively; an encyclopaedia in forty-four volumes; another, illustrated, in sixteen hundred and twenty-eight volumes of two hundred pages each; and, chief in fame if not in importance, the great Dictionary containing 44,439 characters arranged under the two hundred and fourteen radicals. This was the work of thirty literati who were kept busy for a number of years. For the printing of Government publications K'ang Hsi ordered the engraving of 250,000 copper types.
The Emperor during his reign made many earnest attempts at reform. Among these was the effort to suppress the practice of foot-binding among the women. The origin of the practice, which is unknown to the Manchu women and to the Hakkas of the south, is doubtful. Some ascribe it to the desire to remove reproach from a certain club-footed Empress. Some see its origin in feminine envy of the " lily " feet of a famous royal mistress; and others again in the masculine desire to prevent the ladies of the household from gadding about. It is possible also that the practice was meant to show immunity from (and therefore superiority to) the necessity of field labor, as in the case of the long fingernails of the men. In any case it has been the cause of untold sufferings and K'ang Hsi's effort was one in the direction of real humanity. Custom, however, was too strong for the royal command or the example of the Manchu women to overcome. More successful was K'ang Hsi in the prohibition of the immolation of women at the funerals of the great. Shun Chih, it will be remembered, had sacrificed thirty slave-women at the tomb of his favorite. Under similar circumstances, K'ang Hsi intervened to prevent the destruction of four, and his wishes were in this respect complied with.
In A. D. 1722 the aged sovereign celebrated an unique festival in the Palace of the Heavenly Purity. It was the sixtieth year of his reign, and therefore marked the completion of a cycle of rule. In honor of the occasion K'ang Hsi invited all men in the Empire over sixty years of age to be his guests at Peking. How many found itpossible to accept we know not, but the occasion cannot have lacked interest and picturesqueness. Soon after the conclusion of the festivities K'ang Hsi went beyond the Great Wall to hunt leopards. While on this expedition he took cold and died, after a brief illness, on Dec. 20, 1722. Thus ended what was without question a great reign. It amply justified the confidence with which Shun Chih had regarded him when as a child he marked him out for sovereignty.
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