Yung-ching’s reign is chiefly remarkable for his persecution of the Roman Catholic missionaries, most of whom were sent out of the country. He showed neither the literary nor the military talents displayed by his father, Kanghe, and by his son and successor Keentung; but he was attentive to the business of the government, and to the people. In the fourth year of his reign, the treaty of peace, now existing between the Russian and Chinese empires, was ratified. By this instrument, the Russians, among other privileges, are permitted to have an academy and church, with an archimandrite, three inferior priests, and six scholars, at Pekin. The time fixed for their stay there is ten years. Yung-ching reigned thirteen years, and died in the year 1735, leaving the succession to his fourth son who took the Kwohaou or title of Keentung.
Keentung’s reign produced many literary works, or rather compilations; it is remarkable for some brilliant conquests in Eastern Tartary or Turkestan and Thibet. The Soungarians having revolted, he entirely annihilated them as a nation, and peopled their country with the inhabitants of more peaceful districts and with Chinese.
On the south of Soungaria he extended his boundary beyond Cashgar, and rendered several of the neighbouring tribes tributary. In the fifty-eighth year of his reign, 1793-94, the first British embassy to China under Lord Macartney, reached Peking. The war in Thibet being brought to a happy conclusion about the same period, is supposed to have had a bad effect on the interests of that embassy. Two years afterward, Keentung, after a reign of sixty years, placed one of his sons on the throne, with the Kwohaŏu of Keaking, and shortly after died. Keaking ascended the throne in the thirty-sixth year of his age. During his reign numerous insurrections occurred among the Chinese, and much discontent existed throughout the empire. In the year 1805-06, the tenth of Keaking’s reign, the Russian embassy under Count Golovkin, failed in obtaining an interview with the emperor, in consequence of refusing to submit to the Kotow, or ceremony of thrice kneeling and nine times bowing the head to the ground. In the year 1816, the twenty-first year of his reign, the British embassy, under Lord Amherst, was sent back from Peking, in a similar manner. During the latter years of his life, Keaking was extremely indolent and inattentive to government, being wholly devoted to the gratification of his vicious desires. He died in August, 1820, in the sixty-first year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his reign.
Taoukwang is the Kwohaŏu of the reigning emperor, who succeeded to his father Keaking in the thirty-ninth year of his age. The chief occurrences which have taken place during his reign, are the revolts in Turkestan or little Bukharia. In figure, Taoukwang is said to be tall, thin, and of a dark complexion. He is of a generous disposition, diligent, attentive to government and economical in his expenditures. He has also avoided through life, the vices to which his younger brothers are addicted.
CHAPTER XI.
DEATH—CEREMONIES OF IMPERIAL MOURNING—POPULATION OF THE CHINESE EMPIRE—KNOCK-HEAD CEREMONY—BEGGARS—CAT AND DOG MARKET—DR. B. AND THE CHINA-MAN—BARBERS—DRESS OF THE CHINESE—THE DRAGON GOD—SLAVERY.
The Chinese having a great horror of the word “death,” they substitute in its place various periphrases, such as “absent,” “rambling among the genii,” “he being sick, occasioned a vacancy,” i. e., dead. The empress having died during the month of June, 1833, an imperial mandate was published, stating that “her departure took place at four o’clock on the sixteenth of the month.” His majesty says he was married to Tung-kea twenty-six years previously; that she was the principal person in the middle harem, that she was ever full of tenderness, filial piety, and was most obedient—but being attacked by an inveterate dysentery, she had taken the “long departure,” and that it caused him much pain at the loss of his “domestic helper”—his “interior assistant.” His majesty set forth her great virtues, ever since she had been consort to heaven, (i. e. the emperor,) during the thirteen years that she had held the relative situation of earth to imperial heaven. An edict was published at her death, ordering, that no officer should have his head shaved during one hundred days, nor have any marriage in his family during twenty-seven days, nor play on any musical instrument during one year; and that the soldiers and people should not shave their heads for one month, nor engage in marriages during seven days, nor play on any musical instrument during one hundred days.
Other marks of mourning, are the use of blue ink in the public offices in the place of red, and the removal of the red fringe which usually ornaments the Chinese caps.
IMPERIAL MOURNING.