HSÜAN-YEH (Emperor K’ang-hsi)

(4 MAY 1654–20 DECEMBER 1722)¹

Hsüan-yeh (T’I-YÜAN CHU-JEN), the second emperor of the Ch’ing dynasty, occupied the throne from 1661 to 1722 under the reign title K’ang-hsi. He was only seven years old when his father, Fu-lin (1638–1661), died, and for the next six years political authority rested in the hands of four regents, all senior members of the Manchu conquest elite. In 1667, while still only thirteen years of age, K’ang-hsi wrested power from the regents with the aid of Songgotu (d. 1703?) and other members of the court. Thereafter, he ruled both in name and in fact. Several years later he displayed a similar boldness in challenging and destroying the independent power of the Three Feudatories in south and southwest China after a protracted war. The consolidation of Ch’ing rule was carried another step forward with the subjugation of Taiwan and the stabilization of the northwest frontier. K’ang-hsi personally took the field in one campaign into the northwest territories. With the successful conclusion of these enterprises, Manchu supremacy was essentially established and an era of relative peace and stability was ushered in.

K’ang-hsi was a diligent, conscientious, and frugal administrator; however, his sense of duty did not prevent his enjoying the pleasures of the hunt, or his making numerous grand tours of the south. By nature an intelligent and inquisitive man, he took a lively interest in the arts and sciences. His sponsorship of scholarly projects had important results: the involvement of dissident literati elements in imperial undertakings and the publication of such major works as the K’ang-hsi tzu-tien (the K’ang-hsi Dictionary), the Ming-shih (The Ming History), the Ch’üan T’ang shih (Complete T’ang Poems), and the phrase dictionary P’ei-wen yün-fu. He also took a personal interest in calligraphy and the literary arts. Extant specimens of his calligraphy do not possess any high distinction. Nor do his prose essays and poems attain the high standards of the masters of the time, although they are of considerable historical interest and are at times much superior to the poems of most rulers of the past. Nonetheless, as Professor Spence has noted in his masterful Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi, he wrote with a “simplicity and directness” that has its own charm. Three collections of his verse in twenty-eight chüan were compiled by the scholar-poets Kao Shih-ch’i (1645–1703) and Sung Lao (1634–1713). All three collections are included in his collected works, K’ang-hsi ti yü-chih wen-chi.

(William Schultz)

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1. Chao-ying, Fang, ECCP, 1:327- 331.