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Updated: May 7, 2025
As soon as peace was concluded, the first care of Taou-Kwang was to punish the champions who had clamoured for war, but proved cowards in the fight. Some had already died of grief, some had committed suicide, and others had fled.
But Taou-Kwang kept aloof alike from the frivolities and the intrigues of his father's court: he seemed to have no desire ungratified so long as he had his bow and arrows, his horse and matchlock; and even after he was unexpectedly nominated heir to the throne, in consequence of having personally defended his father from a band of assassins, his new expectations made no difference in his frugal and modest way of life.
To explain and repair these, there had always been Europeans, chiefly Portuguese, in attendance; and to some of these we have been indebted in times past for memoirs of the court of Peking; but Taou-Kwang dismissed the last of them. It is believed that an undefined dread of Western power had much to do with this distaste for the products of its ingenuity.
Taou-Kwang was about this age when his father ascended the throne, in consequence of the somewhat capricious appointment of Keelung, who abdicated, and soon after died. The new emperor surrounded himself with buffoons, playactors, and boon-companions. The debaucheries, jealousies, and cruelties of his reign, remind us of what we have half sceptically read of Nero and Caligula.
The announcement of a work by the late Dr Gutzlaff, entitled the Life of Taou-Kwang, late Emperor of China, with Memoirs of the Court of Peking, excited a good deal of expectation; but for our own part, now that the book is published, we must confess our disappointment on finding it not a well-constructed memoir, but a volume bearing the appearance of a collection of materials put together just as they came to hand, with a view to re-arrangement.
When Taou-Kwang found that the danger actually threatened his throne and his person, he hastily packed up his effects, and prepared to fly to some of the interior provinces; but being assured that peace might yet be obtained, he gave carte blanche for its conclusion.
The usual policy of Taou-Kwang in all such cases was to send an army, but at the same time to set the leaders at loggerheads by administering suitable bribes, and inducing them to betray each other. In this manner, a civil war can be brought to a speedy conclusion; and then the cruelty of the victorious government knows no bounds.
And now Taou-Kwang became a family man, abandoning the forms of state and the pomp of empire, and mingling in familiar intercourse with his relatives and attendants.
Taou-Kwang had no taste either for literature or the arts; and he jumbled together in one large magazine the beautiful pictures, clocks, and musical instruments accumulated by his ancestors.
In 1820 this weak emperor died, and was succeeded by Taou-kwang, who proved even less fit to rule than his father, devoting himself to the pursuit of pleasure and leaving the empire to take care of itself. Soon new rebels were in the field, whom the armies proved unable to put down, and the disorganization of the empire made rapid progress.
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