to treat him as an enemy, throwing his son, who happened to be at Ili, into prison. He then dispatched an army into Tibet to crush Latsan Khan, and at the same time he sent a force against Sining in the hope of gaining possession of the person of the young Dalai Lama. The Eleuth army quitted the banks of the Ili in 1709, under the command of Zeren Donduk, and having crossed Eastern Turkestan appeared in due course before Lhasa. It met with little or no resistance. Latsan Khan was slain, and the Eleuth army collected an incalculable quantity of spoil, with which it returned to the banks of the Ili. The expedition against Sining failed, and the rapid advance of a Chinese army compelled the retreat of Zeren Donduk without having attained any permanent success. As the Eleuth army had evacuated Tibet there was no object in sending Chinese troops into that state, and Kanghi's generals were instructed to march westward from Hami to Turfan. But their movements were marked by carelessness or over-confidence, and the Eleuths surprised their camp and inflicted such loss upon Kanghi's commanders that they had even to evacuate Hami. But this was only a temporary reverse. A fresh Manchu army soon retrieved it, and Hami again became the bulwark of the Chinese frontier. At the same time Kanghi sent a garrison to Tibet, and appointed resident ambans at Lhasa, which officials China has retained there ever since. The war with Tse Wang Rabdan was not ended by these successes, for he resorted to the hereditary tactics of his family, retiring when the Chinese appeared in force, and then advancing on their retreat. As Kanghi wrote, they are "like wolves who, at the sight of the huntsmen, scatter to their dens, and at the withdrawal of danger assemble again round the prey they have abandoned with regret. Such was the policy of these desert robbers." The last year of Kanghi's reign was illustrated by a more than usually decisive victory over the forces of Tse Wang Rabdan, which a courtier declared to be "equivalent to the conquest of Tibet"; but on the whole the utmost success that can be claimed for Kanghi's policy

was that it repelled the chronic danger from the desert chiefs and their turbulent followers to a greater distance from the immediate frontier of the empire than had been the case for many centuries. He left the task of breaking the Eleuth power to his grandson, Keen Lung.

The close of Kanghi's reign witnessed a decline in the interest he took in the representatives of Europe, and this was not revived by the splendor of the embassy which Peter the Great sent to Pekin in 1719. The embassy consisted of the embassador himself, M. Ismaloff; his secretary, M. de Lange; the English traveler, Mr. Bell, and a considerable suite. Kanghi received in the most gracious manner the letter which Peter addressed to him in the following terms: "To the emperor of the vast countries of Asia, to the Sovereign Monarch of Bogdo, to the Supreme Majesty of Khitay, friendship and greeting. With the design I possess of holding and increasing the friendship and close relations long established between your Majesty and my predecessors and myself, I have thought it right to send to your court, in the capacity of embassador-extraordinary, Leon Ismaloff, captain in my guards. I beg you will receive him in a manner suitable to the character in which he comes, to have regard and to attach as much faith to what he may say on the subject of our mutual affairs as if I were speaking to you myself, and also to permit his residing at your Court of Pekin until I recall him. Allow me to sign myself your Majesty's good friend, Peter." Kanghi gave the Russian envoy a very honorable reception. A house was set apart for his accommodation, and when the difficulties raised by the mandarins on the question of the kotao ceremony at the audience threatened to bring the embassy to an abortive end, Kanghi himself intervened with a suggestion that solved the difficulty. He arranged that his principal minister should perform the kotao to the letter of the Russian emperor, while the Russian envoy rendered him the same obeisance. The audience then took place without further delay, and it was allowed on all hands that no foreign embassy had ever been received with

greater honor in China than this. Ismaloff returned to his master with the most roseate account of his reception and of the opening in China for Russian trade. A large and rich caravan was accordingly fitted out by Peter, to proceed to Pekin; but when it arrived it found a very different state of affairs from what Ismaloff had pictured. Kanghi lay on his death-bed, the anti-foreign ministers were supreme, declaring that “trade was a matter of little consequence, and regarded by them with contempt," and the Russians were ignominiously sent back to Siberia with the final declaration that such intercourse as was unavoidable must be restricted to the frontier. Thus summarily was ended Peter's dream of tapping the wealth of China.

Although Kanghi was not altogether free from domestic trouble, through the ambition of his many sons to succeed him, his life must on the whole be said to have passed along tranquilly enough apart from his cares of state. The public acts and magnificent exploits of his reign prove him to have been wise, courageous, and magnanimous, and his private life will bear the most searching examination, and only render his virtue the more conspicuous. He always showed a tender solicitude for the interests of his people, which was proved, among other things, by his giving up his annual tours through his dominions on account of the expense thrown on his subjects by the inevitable size of his retinue. His active habits as a hunter, a rider, and even as a pedestrian, were subjects of admiring comment on the part of the Chinese people, and he was one of their few rulers who made it a habit to walk through the streets of his capital. He was also conspicuous as the patron of learning; notably in his support of the foreign missionaries as geographers and cartographers. He was also the consistent and energetic supporter of the celebrated Hanlin College, and, as he was no ordinary litterateur himself, this is not surprising. His own works filled a hundred volumes, prominent among which were his Sixteen Maxims on the Art of Government, and it is believed that he took a large part in bringing out

the Imperial Dictionary of the Hanlin College. His writings were marked by a high code of morality as well as by the lofty ideas of a broad-minded statesman. His enemies have imputed to him an excessive vanity and avarice; but the whole tenor of his life disproves the former statement, and, whatever foundation in fact the latter may have had, he never carried it to any greater length than mere prudence and consideration for the wants of his people demanded. We know that he resorted to gentle pressure to attain his ends rather than to tyrannical force. When he wished to levy a heavy contribution from a too rich subject he had recourse to what may be styled a mild joke, sooner than to threats and corporal punishment. The following incident has been quoted in this connection: One day Kanghi made an official, who had grown very wealthy, lead him, riding on an ass, round his gardens. As recompense the emperor gave him a tael. Then he himself led the mandarin in similar fashion. At the end of the tour he asked how much greater he was than his minister? "The comparison is impossible," said the ready courtier. "Then I must make the estimate myself," replied Kanghi. "I am 20,000 times as great, therefore you will pay me 20,000 taels." His reign was singularly free from the executions so common under even the best of Chinese rulers; and, whenever possible, he always tempered justice with mercy.

Notwithstanding his enfeebled health and the many illnesses from which he had suffered in later life, he persisted in following his usual sporting amusements, and he passed the winter of 1722 at his hunting-box at Haidsu. He seems to have caught a chill, and after a brief illness he died on the 20th of December in that year.

The place of Kanghi among Chinese sovereigns is clearly defined. He ranks on almost equal terms with the two greatest of them all-Taitsong and his own grandson, Keen Lung-and it would be ungracious, if not impossible, to say in what respect he falls short of complete equality with either, so numerous and conspicuous were his talents and his

virtues. His long friendship and high consideration for the Christian missionaries have no doubt contributed to bring his name and the events of his reign more prominently before Europe than was the case with any other Chinese ruler. But, although this predilection for European practices may have had the effect of strengthening his claims to precede every other of his country's rulers, it can add but little to the impression produced on even the most cursory reader by the remarkable achievements in peace and war accomplished by this gifted emperor. Kanghi's genius dominates one of the most critical periods in Chinese history, of which the narrative should form neither an uninteresting nor an uninstructive theme. Celebrated as the consolidator and completer of the Manchu conquest, Kanghi's virtue and moderation have gained him permanent fame as a wise, just, and beneficent national sovereign in the hearts of the Chinese people.

CHAPTER XII

A SHORT REIGN AND THE BEGINNING OF A LONG ONE

IMMEDIATELY after the death of Kanghi, his fourth son, who had long been designated as his heir, was proclaimed emperor, under the style of Yung Ching, which name means "the indissoluble concord or stable peace." The late emperor had always favored this prince, and in his will he publicly proclaimed that he bore much resemblance to himself, and that he was a man of rare and precious character. His first acts indicated considerable vigor and decision of mind. In the edict announcing the death of his father and his own accession he said that on the advice of his ministers he had entered upon the discharge of his imperial duties, without giving up precious time to the indulgence of his natural grief, which would be gratifying to his feelings, but injurious to the public interests. As Yung Ching was of the mature age of forty-five, and as he had enjoyed the confi