POD: Li Zicheng doesn't alienate Wu Sangui, enabling him to consolidate the Shun Dynasty
Emperors of China
1644-1671: Li Zicheng/Yongchang (Great Shun) [1]
1671-1722: Tiansheng (Great Shun) [2]
1722-1725: Cijiong (Great Shun) [3]
1725-1742: Qingguang (Great Shun)[4]
[1] Li Zicheng was born a peasant in Shaanxi and would have likely stayed just another peasant if not for the famine that struck Li's native Shaanxi Province in the 1630s with Li Zicheng initially leading a band of bandits which grew into a large-scale peasant uprising. Such a peasant uprising would take advantage of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty to take Beijing by 1644 with Li Zicheng fending off the Manchu in the Battle of Shanhaiguan and proclaiming the Shun Dynasty that very same year. After consolidating his rule over Northern China, Li Zicheng would spend the 1640s and 1650s fighting offremnants of the Ming Dynasty and moving south to crush the "Southern Ming", which was done by 1660. As Emperor, he would prove to be a capable and intelligent emperor who laid the foundations for stable governance after the end of the Ming Dynasty before his death in 1671 and succession by his son, the Tiansheng Emperor.
[2] Born Crown Prince Li Shun, Tiansheng was raised in the rather "liberal" court of his father, Emperor Yongchang. Due to Li Zicheng's origin as a peasant, the stiffing environment of the previously Ming court did not appeal to him much, and while many of the main traditions were adopted, the Shun court was simplied, although it was no less grander. Education was also overhauled, and as such, Li Shun, a very smart boy for all accounts, was raised on Confucionanist thinking, a martial education which include teachings on the study of Kung Fu, alongside learning the use of various martial arts of both Northern and Southern origin, alongside geography, the history of China and other regions, especially the rising far-away Europe, politics and maths. His education was considered finished in 1669, when he reached the age of 21. Two years later, and after two years travelling through China and of service in the army as a general, Li Shun was inherited the Dragon throne, and took the name Tiansheng, which in the tongues of the West means "Heavenly Saint".
Tiansheng would prove to be a savvy, warlike Emperor, with a permanent scowl. As per the Emperor's own words, his joy would be found "In the prosperity of China, in my wives and my children." Speaking of wives, it was after his coronation that married Princess Ahua of the Southern Ming. Despite their origins, the two of them would (Like with his other two, future wives) developed a loving relationship, and it was Ahua's suffering caused by her lotus feet, and the Emperor's distaste for the practice once Imperial maids attempted to bind the foot of his first daughter with Ahua, that would see Tiansheng permanently ban the practice later in his reign.
There were a lot of loose ends in Shun China. The first, were the Manchus and Mongolians, who still ravaged the North of China at will, in the west were the Tibetans and the Dzungars, both responsible for various raids into China, and in the South was the Isle of Taiwan, where exiled Ming loyalists had established a Kingdom. The first enemy that Tiansheng dealt with were the Mongolians, who were the weakest and would upon up an attack on both the Manchus and Dzungarians. The submission of Mongolia (1674-1676) was done rather quickly, with the Shun Emperor obtaining the loyalty of many of the breakaway Khanates, finding himself a Mongolian wife of Tusheet origin, who had relations to the Northern Yuan. The breaking of the Mongolians tribes, as it is recorded in Chinese history, and the direct integration of Mongolia as a province of China marked the first expansion of Tiansheng's reign. Now with two wives, and more than seven children, Tiansheng felt secure enough on his throne to challenge the Manchus outside of China proper, and his invasion of Manchuria ended in a stalemate which saw Tiansheng retreat back into China as the Dzungars invaded Mongolia once more. Manchuria had proven to much of a nut to crack, as it had united and centralized under the Aisin Gioro dynasty.
The Dzungars, however, were not to be spared any pity, and Tiansheng's invasion of Dzungaria would see the Khanate ended and much of the local populace killed in a brutal war that lasted for more than eight years. In the aftermath, Dzungaria was annexed and the province of Xinjiang was formed, extending Chinese rule into the Asian steppes. Tiansheng's return to Beijing in 1702, after many years of campaign in the field, was marked by a court that saw their once energetic, warlike Emperor tired, who relished in the welcome of his wives and the presence of his children. While the many courties of Beijing saw this as an opportunity to increase the power of the court in the face of the Emperor, it would soon prove not to bed, as the birth of his eleventh child in total, the third by his Mongolian wife saw the Emperor rejuvenate and dive back into the world.
Korea had long since left the Chinese sphere of influence, mostly due to Manchuria's existence and the lack of a land connection between the two states, but Tiansheng was more interested in an alliance, and thus, he found himself with a third wife, princess Deokhye of Korea, a young lady full of life that Tiansheng immediately liked. While an invasion of Manchuria was to happen, the Manchus themselves had not been idle, and had ceded much land to the Empire of Russia, mainly centered around the Amur river, with the Russians founding Petrograd-on-Amur (Otl Nikolayesk-on-Amur) and with many Russians settler moving in at impressive rates, with the Russians later founding Vladivostok in the Southern most part of the concession. The Russians finally had good enough land to settle, and thus, a great friendship developed between the two states, especially when the Manchurians started allowing Orthodox priests to proletyse in their cities, with many Manchurians embracing both Russian technology and faith in contrabalance to the Chinese.
Thus, Shun China risked a war with a European Empire that had a land connection to it, instead of the naval empires of the Dutch or Portuguese. Tiansheng decided to leave Manchuria, to his great anger, and instead focused on forming his own European connections, establishing excellent relations with the Portuguese, who already leased the Port of Macau, allowing the Portuguese to expand the port and forming various favorable trade treaties with them. The Dutch, who had supported the Ming exilees ruling Taiwan, were rebuked, and as Portugal greatly prospered due to the increased access it had to the Chinese market, the King of Portugal John V sent an embassy to Beijoing, proposing a joint war against the Dutch and Taiwan. The Sino-Luso-Dutch war of 1710-12 saw the Portuguese and Chinese invade Taiwan together, with the whole island brought under Chinese rule, and in return, Tiansheng gladly sent a Chinese navy that assisted the Portuguese in the capture of the Lesser Sunda Islands as well as the Isle of Sulawesi, and the victorious parties forged great ties between the war, as the Portuguese, using the money of their Brasilian colony and their new Insulindian possessions, developed greatly, and in the end of Tiansheng's reign were founding many gun factories and foundries in Macau, providing the Chinese with a direct blueprint to assemble the technology to use their own weapons and a local source of buying modern equipment. Tiansheng developed such a high opinion of the Portuguese that he even allowed the Portuguese to recruit many Chinese convertees to Christianity to settle their Indonesian provinces, with thousands of Chinese christians sailing for the Isle of Sulawesi, Flores and Timor.
Emperor Tiansheng would live out the rest of his days in Beijing, surrounded by his wives and children. He allowed his generals to carry out the integration of Taiwan into the state, relishing his last years in the company of his family. Emperor Tiansheng would finally die of some kind of cancer in 1722, dying quietly in the night in the same bed he shared with his three wives. He was succeeded by his son, Cijiong.
{3] Cijiong was the son of Tiansheng and his wife, Ahua, born in 1675. He had a sharp mind, but his frequent illnesses left him weakened. At age twenty, he became deeply involved in the politics of his father's court and began to make plans for reforms. going as far to have them written down in case he were to die before he could seem them implemented.
Unfortunately, his fear would be a reality but for different reasons than everyone assumed. In 1724, the Qing dynasted launched an invasion, wanting to be returned from power. Perhaps they thought it would be an easy fight with the army and navy recovering from the Dutch War. Or maybe they assumed that Cijiong would be a weak ruler who could be bullied into surrendering.
They were wrong on both accounts.
In a decisive battle of Kaifeng in 1725, Cijiong recivied a fatal wound, but not before making one of his own to the enemy's general. He died in pain, but pleased that his death would not be in vain. He was succeeded by his younger brother who assumed the Era Name, Qingguang, which has been variously rendered ' Clear Light ', ' Clear Ray ' and even ' Distinct Light ' in western translations.
[4] The Qingguang Emperor was not in truth favoured to be Emperor, his father the Tiansheng Emperor neither neglected nor abused the child but between three wives and countless concubines with their own set of children the Emperor had little time to spend on the son of an Uyghur Concubine. But when the Emperor did spend time with his son it was to instruct him in swordsmanship and horseriding. Indeed the Qingguang Emperor in his adolescence was said to be the most skilled horseman in the Palace save for his father's Mongolian retinue. The Qingguang Emperor however idolised his brother Cijiong more than any other. Cijiong had a certain reputation as a prince of the people and was well-liked at court so it was no wonder that the Qingguang Emperor would grow to idolise his brother so. However, this was not what allowed the Emperor to ascend the throne.
Cijiong had upon ascending the Dragon Throne exiled his main contender to the position, the Tiande Prince to Formosa with a sizable force intended to pacify the Ming Exiles, in truth this was little more than a suicide mission. The Tiande Prince had indeed died there but not before fathering a son with an Amis woman, the legendary Taiwanese poet-mercenary Li Chih-Yuan who would successfully found a native Taiwanese (Amis+Atayal) Confederation which balanced and opposed both the pro-Ming regime of the Chinese settlers and the Dutch colonial authorities.
However the second pretender, Prince Liyong had managed to use his contacts among the Eunuchs to delay his exile even up until Emperor Cijiongs' death. However at the time of Emperor Cijiong's death the Prince Liyong was caught conspiring with Manchu officials to betray his brother and executed. Thus the Qingguang Emperor as the only adult Pretender not exiled or dead found himself on the Dragon Throne. His first action as Emperor was to assume the leadership ofthe Great Shuns' armies in particular he directed them to vanquish what was left of the now leaderless Manchu Army. The Khan of the Later Jin, Aisin Gioro Yinzhen had been crippled in battle with the Emperor Cijiong and thus in no position to command the Manchu Armies. With the head of the house of Aisin Gioro maimed, Manchu dissidents began to coalesce and the Khan was forced to treat with the Qingguang Emperor who made them tributaries of Great Shun and greatly reduced their territory, limiting the Khanate to inner Manchuria and directing the Manchus to raid into Russian supply lines. Manchu Christian migration into Russian Manchuria peaked during this period eventually forming a distinct ethnic group as divisions between them and their Buddhist co-ethnics solidified.
With the North pacified for now, the Qingguang Emperor focused his attention on the Europeans. The Russians began to be harassed by Shun dynasty officials with the Qingguang Emperor all but declaring outright his intention to pacify the unruly barbarians. However, curiously, Tsar Peter II maintained a policy of appeasement with the Chinese which frustratingly gave little cause for war.
The Qingguang Emperor's policy with the Dutch and the Portuguese on the other hand proved to be a tad bit more fruitful. In juxtaposition to his father's Lusophone policies the Qingguang Emperor accepted Dutch envoys and even gave the Dutch access to port though he did not cede them a port, that privilege for now remained with the Portuguese. In this way he played the Dutch and the Portuguese against one another. If the Qingguang Emperor did inherit one thing from his father it was his curiosity and so the Great Qingguang Embassy would set out on the 17th of April, 1730 just a year after the pacification of the Manchus. The first destination of the Embassy was Portugal and then England followed by a stop in Amsterdam before heading to the New World and back before returning to the Canton region. Under the leadership of the Honghua Prince, it comprised thirty Shun Junks armed with the latest cannons and guided by a Dutch and Portuguese delegation. Its main tasks were establishing permanent and excellent relations with Europe's monarchs and rulers, which it succeeded in doing so however just as important were its secondary tasks and its momentous pit stops in Zanzibar, the Cape and in the court of the Mughal Empire and subsequently upon the suggestion of its Regent, Mumtiaz Mahal (1725-1738) who is suspected to have had a brief romance with the Honghua Prince, made a further stop in Istanbul and Rome on the Chinese Embassy's way back.
However among its secondary tasks were the transportation of Chinese Scholars to the New World in particular ethnographers and geographers though some naturalists were included in its passenger list. Further, the Emperor directed his uncle, the Honghua Prince to recruit ' men of great learning & scholarship ' to the Imperial court. In the Americas, Benjamin Franklin and in Britain, Joseph Cullen and in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere countless Muslim and Christian Scholars accompanied the embassy back to the Imperial Court some would bring their families and though not all chose to remain there was a sizable number that did and adopted the dress of the Shun court. This influx of Scholars and Philosophers into Chinese Scholarly circles was not welcomed by all in particular in the South. Though Emperors' were not expected to be strict Confucianists they were at least to respect those Confucian institutions and the admission of hundreds of foreign Scholars and Academics on the seeming whim of an Emperor was not at all welcome
The Confucian Scholarly class attempted to harass and even assassinate several of these ' West-Ocean Devils '. However despite their best efforts they remained, and the Emperor rejuvenated Chinese scholarship through ressurecting a Song dynasty institution, Confucian Academies, Beijing Academy was opened in 1734 by the Qingguang Emperor. However the Academy followed a distinctly imported Western organisational structure. Though including Confucian & State reading material into its curriculum also expanded its scope to include naturalist and enlightenment thinking. However the Imperial Examinations would of yet experience no change in its testing.
One of the Qingguang Emperor's quirks was his private practise of Islam, a religion he inherited from his Uyghur mother, infact it was upon his request that his Father ordered his mother built a private prayer room, and a spiritual advisor from one of the Hui Madrasas. However this was rarely expressed in public, where the Emperor retained a strictly Buddhist-Confucianist practise except in 1736 when the Qingguang Emperor commisioned the Xi'an Grand Mosque in Xi'an, incorporating Ottoman style architecture while retaining Hui designs. Contributing some 70,000 pounds of silver to the construction of the Mosque it would house several Madrasahs as well as gardens and be the single largest Mosque in the Empire. The Qingguang Emperor did also marry the daughter of the Ottoman geographer and ethnographer, Ahmet Pasha or Ma Xia as he was known within the court with whom he had two sons.
In 1738 just a few years before the Emperors' death from a bout of Tuberculosis, the Emperor would make his most important mark on state administration the division of the Imperial and State Exams into several subject categories which would roughly resemble degrees in that they assigned a recipient of these certifications, mastery over a certain subject and specialisation in said subject matter. Confucian texts were a basic requirement of all of these Subjects or Streams 流 as they would come to be known. This would greatly develop scholarship within the Empire from rote memorisation of Ancient texts to specialisation within certain fields or subject matters. Also in this year he would launch the Lesser Qingguang Embassy which would embark on an voyage to Africa and Southeast Asia reinvigorating ties with the Sultanate of Zanzibar (which would resume a tributary relationship with the Empire) and the Dutch in Batavia.
By the time the Emperor Qingguang passed away in 1742, his request to be buried according to Muslim rites in addition to the Confucian rites that were traditional was the least surprising of his decisions. His son and heir, by his ____ would honour his eccentric Father's requests and ascend the throne on the 1st of February 1742 with the Era Name _____.
Emperors of China
1644-1671: Li Zicheng/Yongchang (Great Shun) [1]
1671-1722: Tiansheng (Great Shun) [2]
1722-1725: Cijiong (Great Shun) [3]
1725-1742: Qingguang (Great Shun)[4]
[1] Li Zicheng was born a peasant in Shaanxi and would have likely stayed just another peasant if not for the famine that struck Li's native Shaanxi Province in the 1630s with Li Zicheng initially leading a band of bandits which grew into a large-scale peasant uprising. Such a peasant uprising would take advantage of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty to take Beijing by 1644 with Li Zicheng fending off the Manchu in the Battle of Shanhaiguan and proclaiming the Shun Dynasty that very same year. After consolidating his rule over Northern China, Li Zicheng would spend the 1640s and 1650s fighting offremnants of the Ming Dynasty and moving south to crush the "Southern Ming", which was done by 1660. As Emperor, he would prove to be a capable and intelligent emperor who laid the foundations for stable governance after the end of the Ming Dynasty before his death in 1671 and succession by his son, the Tiansheng Emperor.
[2] Born Crown Prince Li Shun, Tiansheng was raised in the rather "liberal" court of his father, Emperor Yongchang. Due to Li Zicheng's origin as a peasant, the stiffing environment of the previously Ming court did not appeal to him much, and while many of the main traditions were adopted, the Shun court was simplied, although it was no less grander. Education was also overhauled, and as such, Li Shun, a very smart boy for all accounts, was raised on Confucionanist thinking, a martial education which include teachings on the study of Kung Fu, alongside learning the use of various martial arts of both Northern and Southern origin, alongside geography, the history of China and other regions, especially the rising far-away Europe, politics and maths. His education was considered finished in 1669, when he reached the age of 21. Two years later, and after two years travelling through China and of service in the army as a general, Li Shun was inherited the Dragon throne, and took the name Tiansheng, which in the tongues of the West means "Heavenly Saint".
Tiansheng would prove to be a savvy, warlike Emperor, with a permanent scowl. As per the Emperor's own words, his joy would be found "In the prosperity of China, in my wives and my children." Speaking of wives, it was after his coronation that married Princess Ahua of the Southern Ming. Despite their origins, the two of them would (Like with his other two, future wives) developed a loving relationship, and it was Ahua's suffering caused by her lotus feet, and the Emperor's distaste for the practice once Imperial maids attempted to bind the foot of his first daughter with Ahua, that would see Tiansheng permanently ban the practice later in his reign.
There were a lot of loose ends in Shun China. The first, were the Manchus and Mongolians, who still ravaged the North of China at will, in the west were the Tibetans and the Dzungars, both responsible for various raids into China, and in the South was the Isle of Taiwan, where exiled Ming loyalists had established a Kingdom. The first enemy that Tiansheng dealt with were the Mongolians, who were the weakest and would upon up an attack on both the Manchus and Dzungarians. The submission of Mongolia (1674-1676) was done rather quickly, with the Shun Emperor obtaining the loyalty of many of the breakaway Khanates, finding himself a Mongolian wife of Tusheet origin, who had relations to the Northern Yuan. The breaking of the Mongolians tribes, as it is recorded in Chinese history, and the direct integration of Mongolia as a province of China marked the first expansion of Tiansheng's reign. Now with two wives, and more than seven children, Tiansheng felt secure enough on his throne to challenge the Manchus outside of China proper, and his invasion of Manchuria ended in a stalemate which saw Tiansheng retreat back into China as the Dzungars invaded Mongolia once more. Manchuria had proven to much of a nut to crack, as it had united and centralized under the Aisin Gioro dynasty.
The Dzungars, however, were not to be spared any pity, and Tiansheng's invasion of Dzungaria would see the Khanate ended and much of the local populace killed in a brutal war that lasted for more than eight years. In the aftermath, Dzungaria was annexed and the province of Xinjiang was formed, extending Chinese rule into the Asian steppes. Tiansheng's return to Beijing in 1702, after many years of campaign in the field, was marked by a court that saw their once energetic, warlike Emperor tired, who relished in the welcome of his wives and the presence of his children. While the many courties of Beijing saw this as an opportunity to increase the power of the court in the face of the Emperor, it would soon prove not to bed, as the birth of his eleventh child in total, the third by his Mongolian wife saw the Emperor rejuvenate and dive back into the world.
Korea had long since left the Chinese sphere of influence, mostly due to Manchuria's existence and the lack of a land connection between the two states, but Tiansheng was more interested in an alliance, and thus, he found himself with a third wife, princess Deokhye of Korea, a young lady full of life that Tiansheng immediately liked. While an invasion of Manchuria was to happen, the Manchus themselves had not been idle, and had ceded much land to the Empire of Russia, mainly centered around the Amur river, with the Russians founding Petrograd-on-Amur (Otl Nikolayesk-on-Amur) and with many Russians settler moving in at impressive rates, with the Russians later founding Vladivostok in the Southern most part of the concession. The Russians finally had good enough land to settle, and thus, a great friendship developed between the two states, especially when the Manchurians started allowing Orthodox priests to proletyse in their cities, with many Manchurians embracing both Russian technology and faith in contrabalance to the Chinese.
Thus, Shun China risked a war with a European Empire that had a land connection to it, instead of the naval empires of the Dutch or Portuguese. Tiansheng decided to leave Manchuria, to his great anger, and instead focused on forming his own European connections, establishing excellent relations with the Portuguese, who already leased the Port of Macau, allowing the Portuguese to expand the port and forming various favorable trade treaties with them. The Dutch, who had supported the Ming exilees ruling Taiwan, were rebuked, and as Portugal greatly prospered due to the increased access it had to the Chinese market, the King of Portugal John V sent an embassy to Beijoing, proposing a joint war against the Dutch and Taiwan. The Sino-Luso-Dutch war of 1710-12 saw the Portuguese and Chinese invade Taiwan together, with the whole island brought under Chinese rule, and in return, Tiansheng gladly sent a Chinese navy that assisted the Portuguese in the capture of the Lesser Sunda Islands as well as the Isle of Sulawesi, and the victorious parties forged great ties between the war, as the Portuguese, using the money of their Brasilian colony and their new Insulindian possessions, developed greatly, and in the end of Tiansheng's reign were founding many gun factories and foundries in Macau, providing the Chinese with a direct blueprint to assemble the technology to use their own weapons and a local source of buying modern equipment. Tiansheng developed such a high opinion of the Portuguese that he even allowed the Portuguese to recruit many Chinese convertees to Christianity to settle their Indonesian provinces, with thousands of Chinese christians sailing for the Isle of Sulawesi, Flores and Timor.
Emperor Tiansheng would live out the rest of his days in Beijing, surrounded by his wives and children. He allowed his generals to carry out the integration of Taiwan into the state, relishing his last years in the company of his family. Emperor Tiansheng would finally die of some kind of cancer in 1722, dying quietly in the night in the same bed he shared with his three wives. He was succeeded by his son, Cijiong.
{3] Cijiong was the son of Tiansheng and his wife, Ahua, born in 1675. He had a sharp mind, but his frequent illnesses left him weakened. At age twenty, he became deeply involved in the politics of his father's court and began to make plans for reforms. going as far to have them written down in case he were to die before he could seem them implemented.
Unfortunately, his fear would be a reality but for different reasons than everyone assumed. In 1724, the Qing dynasted launched an invasion, wanting to be returned from power. Perhaps they thought it would be an easy fight with the army and navy recovering from the Dutch War. Or maybe they assumed that Cijiong would be a weak ruler who could be bullied into surrendering.
They were wrong on both accounts.
In a decisive battle of Kaifeng in 1725, Cijiong recivied a fatal wound, but not before making one of his own to the enemy's general. He died in pain, but pleased that his death would not be in vain. He was succeeded by his younger brother who assumed the Era Name, Qingguang, which has been variously rendered ' Clear Light ', ' Clear Ray ' and even ' Distinct Light ' in western translations.
[4] The Qingguang Emperor was not in truth favoured to be Emperor, his father the Tiansheng Emperor neither neglected nor abused the child but between three wives and countless concubines with their own set of children the Emperor had little time to spend on the son of an Uyghur Concubine. But when the Emperor did spend time with his son it was to instruct him in swordsmanship and horseriding. Indeed the Qingguang Emperor in his adolescence was said to be the most skilled horseman in the Palace save for his father's Mongolian retinue. The Qingguang Emperor however idolised his brother Cijiong more than any other. Cijiong had a certain reputation as a prince of the people and was well-liked at court so it was no wonder that the Qingguang Emperor would grow to idolise his brother so. However, this was not what allowed the Emperor to ascend the throne.
Cijiong had upon ascending the Dragon Throne exiled his main contender to the position, the Tiande Prince to Formosa with a sizable force intended to pacify the Ming Exiles, in truth this was little more than a suicide mission. The Tiande Prince had indeed died there but not before fathering a son with an Amis woman, the legendary Taiwanese poet-mercenary Li Chih-Yuan who would successfully found a native Taiwanese (Amis+Atayal) Confederation which balanced and opposed both the pro-Ming regime of the Chinese settlers and the Dutch colonial authorities.
However the second pretender, Prince Liyong had managed to use his contacts among the Eunuchs to delay his exile even up until Emperor Cijiongs' death. However at the time of Emperor Cijiong's death the Prince Liyong was caught conspiring with Manchu officials to betray his brother and executed. Thus the Qingguang Emperor as the only adult Pretender not exiled or dead found himself on the Dragon Throne. His first action as Emperor was to assume the leadership ofthe Great Shuns' armies in particular he directed them to vanquish what was left of the now leaderless Manchu Army. The Khan of the Later Jin, Aisin Gioro Yinzhen had been crippled in battle with the Emperor Cijiong and thus in no position to command the Manchu Armies. With the head of the house of Aisin Gioro maimed, Manchu dissidents began to coalesce and the Khan was forced to treat with the Qingguang Emperor who made them tributaries of Great Shun and greatly reduced their territory, limiting the Khanate to inner Manchuria and directing the Manchus to raid into Russian supply lines. Manchu Christian migration into Russian Manchuria peaked during this period eventually forming a distinct ethnic group as divisions between them and their Buddhist co-ethnics solidified.
With the North pacified for now, the Qingguang Emperor focused his attention on the Europeans. The Russians began to be harassed by Shun dynasty officials with the Qingguang Emperor all but declaring outright his intention to pacify the unruly barbarians. However, curiously, Tsar Peter II maintained a policy of appeasement with the Chinese which frustratingly gave little cause for war.
The Qingguang Emperor's policy with the Dutch and the Portuguese on the other hand proved to be a tad bit more fruitful. In juxtaposition to his father's Lusophone policies the Qingguang Emperor accepted Dutch envoys and even gave the Dutch access to port though he did not cede them a port, that privilege for now remained with the Portuguese. In this way he played the Dutch and the Portuguese against one another. If the Qingguang Emperor did inherit one thing from his father it was his curiosity and so the Great Qingguang Embassy would set out on the 17th of April, 1730 just a year after the pacification of the Manchus. The first destination of the Embassy was Portugal and then England followed by a stop in Amsterdam before heading to the New World and back before returning to the Canton region. Under the leadership of the Honghua Prince, it comprised thirty Shun Junks armed with the latest cannons and guided by a Dutch and Portuguese delegation. Its main tasks were establishing permanent and excellent relations with Europe's monarchs and rulers, which it succeeded in doing so however just as important were its secondary tasks and its momentous pit stops in Zanzibar, the Cape and in the court of the Mughal Empire and subsequently upon the suggestion of its Regent, Mumtiaz Mahal (1725-1738) who is suspected to have had a brief romance with the Honghua Prince, made a further stop in Istanbul and Rome on the Chinese Embassy's way back.
However among its secondary tasks were the transportation of Chinese Scholars to the New World in particular ethnographers and geographers though some naturalists were included in its passenger list. Further, the Emperor directed his uncle, the Honghua Prince to recruit ' men of great learning & scholarship ' to the Imperial court. In the Americas, Benjamin Franklin and in Britain, Joseph Cullen and in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere countless Muslim and Christian Scholars accompanied the embassy back to the Imperial Court some would bring their families and though not all chose to remain there was a sizable number that did and adopted the dress of the Shun court. This influx of Scholars and Philosophers into Chinese Scholarly circles was not welcomed by all in particular in the South. Though Emperors' were not expected to be strict Confucianists they were at least to respect those Confucian institutions and the admission of hundreds of foreign Scholars and Academics on the seeming whim of an Emperor was not at all welcome
The Confucian Scholarly class attempted to harass and even assassinate several of these ' West-Ocean Devils '. However despite their best efforts they remained, and the Emperor rejuvenated Chinese scholarship through ressurecting a Song dynasty institution, Confucian Academies, Beijing Academy was opened in 1734 by the Qingguang Emperor. However the Academy followed a distinctly imported Western organisational structure. Though including Confucian & State reading material into its curriculum also expanded its scope to include naturalist and enlightenment thinking. However the Imperial Examinations would of yet experience no change in its testing.
One of the Qingguang Emperor's quirks was his private practise of Islam, a religion he inherited from his Uyghur mother, infact it was upon his request that his Father ordered his mother built a private prayer room, and a spiritual advisor from one of the Hui Madrasas. However this was rarely expressed in public, where the Emperor retained a strictly Buddhist-Confucianist practise except in 1736 when the Qingguang Emperor commisioned the Xi'an Grand Mosque in Xi'an, incorporating Ottoman style architecture while retaining Hui designs. Contributing some 70,000 pounds of silver to the construction of the Mosque it would house several Madrasahs as well as gardens and be the single largest Mosque in the Empire. The Qingguang Emperor did also marry the daughter of the Ottoman geographer and ethnographer, Ahmet Pasha or Ma Xia as he was known within the court with whom he had two sons.
In 1738 just a few years before the Emperors' death from a bout of Tuberculosis, the Emperor would make his most important mark on state administration the division of the Imperial and State Exams into several subject categories which would roughly resemble degrees in that they assigned a recipient of these certifications, mastery over a certain subject and specialisation in said subject matter. Confucian texts were a basic requirement of all of these Subjects or Streams 流 as they would come to be known. This would greatly develop scholarship within the Empire from rote memorisation of Ancient texts to specialisation within certain fields or subject matters. Also in this year he would launch the Lesser Qingguang Embassy which would embark on an voyage to Africa and Southeast Asia reinvigorating ties with the Sultanate of Zanzibar (which would resume a tributary relationship with the Empire) and the Dutch in Batavia.
By the time the Emperor Qingguang passed away in 1742, his request to be buried according to Muslim rites in addition to the Confucian rites that were traditional was the least surprising of his decisions. His son and heir, by his ____ would honour his eccentric Father's requests and ascend the throne on the 1st of February 1742 with the Era Name _____.
