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The Qianlong Emperor

Given / Temple NameAisin Gioro Hongli

The emperor of the Ten Great Campaigns and the golden age’s peak — and the pivot from height to decline

Holders of the Mandate · Emperors & Kings

The Ten Great CampaignsThe Complete Library of the Four TreasuriesClosing the country

Who they are

Hongli reigned sixty years and served as retired emperor over three more, wielding power longer than his grandfather Kangxi. He styled himself the "Old Man of Ten Completions": pacifying the Dzungars, settling the Muslim regions, twice subduing the Jinchuan… the territory reached the Qing’s greatest extent of thirteen million square kilometers. He directed the compilation of the thirty-six-thousand-volume Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, while under cover of compiling it destroying and altering thousands of "offensive" works, bringing the literary inquisition to its peak; his six southern tours cost beyond reckoning, and he favored the great embezzler Heshen. In 1793 the British envoy Macartney came seeking trade, and he refused with "the Celestial Empire abounds in all products and lacks for nothing" — the summit of the golden age and the start of modern backwardness are, in him, the very same coordinate.

Key stories

The Macartney mission

In 1793 Britain sent Macartney at the head of a seven-hundred-strong mission, bearing a model steam engine, an orrery, repeating pistols, and warship models, seeking trade and a resident envoy. The Qing court fixed on the "kowtow ritual" and stored the exhibits as tribute in the Yuanmingyuan warehouses. Qianlong’s edict to the British king ran: "The Celestial Empire abounds in all products and lacks for nothing, and has never needed the goods of outer barbarians to trade for what it lacks." Macartney wrote another verdict in his diary: the Qing was "a dilapidated first-rate man-of-war." Forty-seven years later, the guns of the Opium War confirmed the latter verdict.

The Four Treasuries and the literary inquisition

Qianlong gathered the realm’s books to compile the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, taking in over three thousand four hundred titles — while wholly destroying or partly destroying over three thousand more, and altering beyond count: words such as "hu," "lu," and "yidi" (barbarian) were systematically expunged. Compiling books and destroying books were two faces of one project. During his reign there were over a hundred and thirty cases of literary inquisition, and a single line — "the clear wind cannot read, why does it riffle the pages?" — could bring a family’s extermination (the case’s authenticity is disputed, given as legend). The master catalogue of knowledge was compiled, and the living water of thought drained dry.