United States or Kiribati ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It had been built in 1780 after the model of the palace of the Panshen Erdeni at Tashilumbo, in Tibet, when that functionary, the spiritual ruler of Tibet, as opposed to the Dalai Lama, who is the secular ruler, proceeded to Peking to be present on the seventieth anniversary of Ch`ien Lung's birthday.
Ch`ien Lung was an indefatigable administrator, a little too ready perhaps to plunge into costly military expeditions, and somewhat narrow in the policy he adopted towards the "outside barbarians" who came to trade at Canton and elsewhere, but otherwise a worthy rival of his grandfather's fame as a sovereign and patron of letters.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, they had tired of eunuch oppression and unjust taxation, and they naturally hailed the genuine attempt in 1662 to get rid of eunuchs altogether, coupled with the persistent attempts of K`ang Hsi, and later of Ch`ien Lung, to lighten the burdens of revenue which weighed down the energies of all.
Under the first Emperor, Shun Chih, there was barely time to find out what the new dynasty was going to do; then came the long and glorious reign of K`ang Hsi, followed, after the thirteen harmless years of Yung Chêng, by the equally long and equally glorious reign of Ch`ien Lung.
It was probably his equally persistent refusal to do so a ceremonial which had been excused by Ch`ien Lung in the case of Lord Macartney that caused the Ministers to change their tactics, and to declare, on Lord Amherst's arrival at the Summer Palace, tired and wayworn, that the Emperor wished to see him immediately.
In 1799, Ho-shên, a high Manchu official who had been raised by Ch`ien Lung from an obscure position to be a Minister of State and Grand Secretary, was suspected, probably without a shadow of evidence, of harbouring designs upon the throne. He was seized and tried, nominally for corruption and undue familiarity, and was condemned to death, being allowed as an act of grace to commit suicide.
Two years later, the aged Emperor, who had, like his grandfather, completed his cycle of sixty years on the throne, abdicated in favour of his son, dying in retirement some four years after. These two monarchs, K`ang Hsi and Ch`ien Lung, were among the ablest, not only of Manchu rulers, but of any whose lot it has been to shape the destinies of China.
In 1753 there was trouble in Ili. After the death of Galdan II., son of Arabtan, an attempt was made by one, Amursana, to usurp the principality. He was, however, driven out, and fled to Peking, where he was favourably received by Ch`ien Lung, and an army was sent to reinstate him.
His triumph was short-lived; another army was sent from Peking, this time against him, and he fled into Russian territory, dying there soon afterwards of smallpox. This campaign was lavishly illustrated by Chinese artists, who produced a series of realistic pictures of the battles and skirmishes fought by Ch`ien Lung's victorious troops.
But towards the end of his reign Ch`ien Lung had become a very old man; and the gradual decay of his powers of personal supervision opened a way for the old abuses to creep in, bringing in their train the usual accompaniment of popular discontent.
Word Of The Day