A REMARKABLE VOW
On his accession to the throne, Kien-Long made the remarkable vow "that should he be permitted ... to complete the sixtieth year of his reign, he would show his gratitude to Heaven by resigning the crown to his heir as an acknowledgment that he had been favoured to the full extent of his wishes." The year after Lord Macartney's visit the allotted period was reached, and the Emperor abdicated in favour of his youngest son, who took the name of Kea-King, and was duly accepted by the Celestials. Kien-Long retained the title of Supreme Emperor until his death at the age of eighty-eight, but he meddled no more in affairs of State, though he continued to aid those who were in distress, winning the name of the Father of his people. He was especially good to the poorer literati, and himself produced several books of high excellence.
Kea-King was, alas! a very different ruler from his father, who had chosen him out of all his children on account of his supposed talent. He had none of the dignity which had characterized the other monarchs of the Manchu dynasty, and chose his friends from amongst the lowest and most depraved of his subjects, taking them with him, it is said, even into the sacred precincts of the Temples when he went to offer sacrifices as the Son of Heaven. It was during the reign of this unworthy scion of a noble house that Lord Amherst was sent to Pekin on a mission similar to that of Lord Macartney. He was not, however, able to see the Emperor, and he and his companions were very rudely treated by the Tartar nobles. The English, on their return home, gave a very far from flattering account of the so-called Celestial court, where they said the whip was largely in use to keep even the great dignitaries in order. The Chinese were then, as they still are, ruled by the whip and the bamboo, for, says a writer who knew the country well, "The viceroy bamboos the mandarins, the mandarins bamboo their inferior officers, and these ... bamboo the common people; the husband bamboos the wife, the father the son, even when the latter is of mature age."
Before his death Kea-King, who lived to the age of sixty-one, in spite of his excesses, in his turn issued a will in the form of an edict, which contains several interesting passages throwing considerable light on the physical difficulties the authorities have to contend with in the Celestial Empire, as well as on the manners and customs of the people. In it the dying monarch mourns over the devastations caused by "China's sorrow," the Yellow River, and enumerates the measures he had taken to check its ravages. He pronounced, as was usual, an eulogy on his own conduct, and appointed his second son Taou-Kwang his successor.
'THE GLORY OF REASON'
The name of the new ruler signified the Glory of Reason, and he ascended the throne in 1820. He justified his father's choice by doing all in his power to atone for the mischief done by the weakness and vices of his predecessor, but the chiefs of the unruly Tartar tribes had so got the upper hand that they were beyond his control; one insurrection followed another, and when after making concession after concession, peace was at last restored to the distracted country, a far more formidable enemy had to be contended with from without. The long series of petty quarrels between the English and Celestials on questions of trade culminated in the war already more than once referred to, which lasted for many years, and resulted in the final breaking through of Chinese isolation, and the throwing open of five ports to European trade.
It was the beginning of the end; the first step towards that partition of China which is now being so rapidly effected. Heart-broken at the destruction of all his hopes, Taou-Kwang never held his head up again after the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The death of his adopted mother soon afterwards, it is said, hastened his end, and he died in 1851 after a reign of thirty years, during which he had known no peace or comfort.
FIG. 55.—ONE OF THE REGENTS DURING THE MINORITY OF TUNG-CHE.