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The Last Will and Testament of the Qianlong Emperor, 1799

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The Last Will and Testament of the Qianlong Emperor, 1799 Chapter 2 The Last Will and Testament of the Qianlong Emperor, 1799 Aisin-Gioro hala-i Hungli, usually known as the Qianlong Emperor, ruled the Great Qing Empire for sixty years (r. 1735–1796) as the Son of Heaven, the Khan of Khans, the Chakravartin King, the Overlord of Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Tibet, the Pacifier of Taiwan, Yunnan, Annam, Burma, and Dzungaria, and the Incarnate Bodhisattva Manjusri. Such fanciful titles were part of an impe- rial cosmology in which Qianlong portrayed himself as a universal overlord ruling over Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, Uighur, and Han peoples in a multi-cul- tural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious empire. Looking back over his sixty year reign, the Qianlong Emperor could con- fidently boast of his military exploits. Book-ended by the suppression of two uprisings among the Miao people in southern China (1735–36, 1795–97), Qianlong included among his “Ten Great Campaigns” two wars against Tibetan hill people in the Sichuan border area of Jinchuan (1747–49, 1770–76), estab- lishing a protectorate over Tibet (1751), three expeditions against the Dzungar khanate and Ili city-states (1755–59), a series of often inconclusive wars along the periphery of the empire in Burma (1765–69), Taiwan (1786–88), Annam (1788), and two spectacular offensives against the Nepalese Gurkhas (1790–92). By the 1790s, Qianlong had not only maintained the integrity of the tradition- al Chinese provinces, but also expanded into Inner Asia to create an empire of some five and a half million square miles, the largest in Chinese history. Although Qianlong bragged about his military accomplishments—and many of them were significant—the latter years of his reign were marred by the inability of the Banner armies to suppress what later became known as the White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1804). The Qianlong Emperor often saw himself as a great Manchu warrior-king, but he also understood the sublime and aesthetic qualities of being a ruler. In addition to patronizing the arts, Qianlong expanded the Jesuit-designed wonderland of the Yuanmingyuan Palace and completed the construction of a splendid summer retreat at Rehe, near the imperial hunting grounds at Mulan, where he choreographed some forty hunts. As a scholar, Qianlong left behind three books of essays and five volumes of poetry, but his greatest schol- arly achievement was sponsoring the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, a © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361003_004 The Last Will and Testament of the Qianlong Emperor, 1799 23 monumental anthology of about 3,500 books with another 10,000 summaries comprising roughly 2.3 million pages. The twilight years of Qianlong’s long and glorious reign, as discussed in the next chapter, were dominated by the Grand Councilor Heshen, a lowly Manchu bodyguard who rose to hold the highest positions in the land. Under Heshen’s pernicious influence, the dynasty began to experience many of the crises associated with signs of decline—weak armies bested by inferior enemies, widespread local uprisings, systemic bureaucratic corruption, empty imperial coffers—all virtually ignored by the increasingly senile emperor who abdicated the throne in favor of his son, the Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796–1820), but kept power as the “Retired Emperor” until his passing in early 1799. The Qianlong Emperor’s will provides us with rare insights into the mind of one the greatest Qing emperors as he reflected back over one of the longest reigns in Chinese history. March, 17991 On the seventh day of the second moon of the fourth year of Jiaqing [March 12, 1799], is recorded the testamentary edict of His late Majesty, by the grace and appointment of Heaven, The Most High Emperor, in these words. We have remarked that all those sovereign princes on whom the decrees of Heaven have conferred a long and uninterrupted enjoyment of prosperity, have been distinguished by their exemplary conduct, and by an innate integ- rity of disposition, which bears a resemblance to the excellence of the Divine perfection. Virtues like these attending them through life, failed not to secure a lasting and abundant felicity. With this persuasion, it has been most constantly our endeavour to guard against every such want of application or want of en- ergy on our part, as might counteract the execution of the gracious designs of Heaven. We were at the same time fully sensible how arduous it is to poize with an unerring hand an overflowing fullness, how arduous, to preserve entire the harmony and integrity of a vast empire; nor were we unconscious that to 1 Translated in George T. Staunton, Ta Tsing Leu Lee; Being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes, of the Penal Code of China (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1810), 477–83..
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