| Last Name： | 爱新觉罗 | |||||||||
| First Name： | 福临 | |||||||||
| Web/Pen/Nick Name： | 清世祖 | |||||||||
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A committee of Manchu princes chose the young Fulin to succeed his father Hong Taiji in September 1643 when he was only five. Two co-regents were also appointed: Nurhaci's fourteenth son Dorgon, and Nurhaci's nephew Jirgalang. From 1643 until Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650, political power lay mostly in the hands of Dorgon. After the young emperor started to rule personally in 1651, he tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. He died of smallpox, a lethal disease that was endemic in China, but against which the Manchus had no immunity. He was succeeded by his third son Xuanye, who had already survived smallpox, and who subsequently reigned for sixty years as the Kangxi Emperor.
Under the leadership of Dorgon and the Shunzhi Emperor, the Qing dynasty conquered most of the territory of the fallen Ming and its last claimants and established the basis of Qing rule over China despite highly unpopular policies like the "haircutting command" of 1645, which forced Qing subjects to shave their forehead and braid their remaining hair into a queue. Because the Shunzhi reign is not well documented, it constitutes a relatively little-known period of Qing history.
When Hong Taiji, the second Qing Emperor, died on 9 September 1643 without having named a successor, the fledgling Qing state faced a possibly serious crisis. Several contenders started to vie for the throne. With his uterine brothers Dodo and Ajige, Dorgon controlled the Plain and Bordered White Banners, whereas Hong Taiji's eldest son Hooge had the loyalty of his father's two Yellow Banners.
The decision about who would become the new Qing emperor fell to the Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers, which was the Manchus' main policymaking body until the emergence of the Grand Council in the 1720s. Many Manchu princes advocated that Dorgon, a proven military leader, should become the new emperor, but Dorgon refused and insisted that one of Hong Taiji's sons should succeed his father. To recognize Dorgon's authority while keeping the throne in Hong Taiji's descent line, the members of the council named Hong Taiji's ninth son Fulin as the new Emperor, but decided that Dorgon and Jirgalang (a nephew of Nurhaci who controlled the Bordered Blue Banner) would act as the five-year-old child's regents.
On 8 October 1643, Fulin was officially crowned Emperor of the Qing dynasty; it was decided that he would reign under the era name "Shunzhi."
Dorgon's regency (1643–1650)
Prince Regent Dorgon in imperial regalia. He reigned as a quasi emperor from 1643 to his death in 1650, a period during which the Qing conquered almost all of China.
A quasi emperorOn 17 February 1644, Jirgalang, who was a capable military leader but looked uninterested in managing state affairs, willingly yielded control of all official matters to Dorgon. After an alleged plot by Hooge to undermine the regency was exposed on 6 May of that year, Hooge was stripped of his title of Imperial Prince and his co-conspirators were executed. Dorgon soon replaced Hooge's supporters (mostly from the Yellow Banners) with his own, thus gaining closer control of two more Banners. By early June 1644, he was in firm control of the Qing government and its military.
The fall of the Ming and the Qing takeoverJust as Dorgon and his advisors were pondering how to attack the Ming, peasant rebellions were ravaging northern China and dangerously approaching the Ming capital Beijing. In February 1644, rebel leader Li Zicheng had founded the Shun Dynasty in Xi'an and proclaimed himself king. In March his armies had captured the important city of Taiyuan in Shanxi. Seeing the progress of the rebels, on 5 April the Ming Chongzhen Emperor requested the urgent help of any military commandant in the Empire. But it was too late: on 24 April Li Zicheng breached the walls of Beijing, and the Emperor hanged himself the next day on a hill behind the Forbidden City. He was the last Ming emperor to reign in Beijing.
Soon after the emperor had called for help, powerful Ming general Wu Sangui had left his stronghold of Ningyuan north of the Great Wall and started marching toward the capital. On 26 April, his armies had moved through the fortifications of Shanhai Pass (the eastern end of the Great Wall) and were marching toward Beijing when he heard that the city had fallen. He returned to Shanhai Pass. Li Zicheng sent two armies to attack the Pass but Wu's battle-hardened troops defeated them easily on 5 May and 10 May. Then on 18 May, Li Zicheng personally led 60,000 of his troops out of Beijing to attack Wu. At the same time, Wu Sangui wrote to Dorgon to request the Qing's help in ousting the bandits and restoring the Ming dynasty.
An old Chinese map of the complex of fortifications of Shanhai Pass. After Wu Sangui let Qing troops through the pass on 27 May 1644, Wu and the Qing defeated rebel troops led by Li Zicheng in the decisive Battle of Shanhai Pass.Meanwhile Wu Sangui's departure from the stronghold of Ningyuan had left all territory outside the Great Wall under Qing control. Dorgon's Chinese advisors, the two most illustrious of which were Hong Chengchou and Fan Wencheng (范文程), urged the Manchu prince to seize the opportunity of the fall of Beijing to claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing dynasty. When Dorgon received Wu's letter, he was already leading an expedition to attack northern China and therefore had no intention to restore the Ming. When Dorgon asked Wu to work for the Qing instead, Wu had little choice but to accept.
After Wu formally surrendered to the Qing in the morning of 27 May, his elite troops charged the rebel army repeatedly, but were unable to break the enemy lines. Dorgon waited until both sides were weakened before ordering his cavalry to gallop around Wu's right wing to charge Li's left flank. Li Zicheng's troops were quickly routed and fled back toward Beijing. After their defeat at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, the Shun troops looted Beijing for several days until Li Zicheng left the capital on 4 June, one day after he had defiantly proclaimed himself Emperor of the Great Shun.
The circular mound of the Altar of Heaven, where the Shunzhi emperor conducted sacrifices on 30 October 1644, ten days before being officially proclaimed Emperor of China. The ceremony marked the moment when the Qing dynasty seized the Mandate of Heaven.After six weeks of mistreatment at the hands of rebel troops, the Beijing population sent a party of elders and officials to greet their liberators on 5 June. They were startled when, instead of meeting Wu Sangui and the Ming heir apparent, they saw Dorgon, a horseriding Manchu with his shaved forehead, present himself as the Prince Regent. In the midst of this upheaval, Dorgon installed himself in the Wuying Palace (武英殿), "the only reasonably undamaged structure" after Li Zicheng had set fire to the palace complex on 3 June.
Just two days after entering the city, Dorgon issued special proclamations to officials around the capital, assuring them that if the local population accepted to shave their forehead and surrender, the officials would be allowed to stay at their post. He had to repeal this command three weeks later after several peasant rebellions erupted around Beijing, threatening Qing control over the capital region.
Dorgon greeted the Shunzhi Emperor at the gates of Beijing on 19 October 1644. On 30 October the young emperor performed sacrifices to Heaven and Earth at the Altar of Heaven. A formal ritual of enthronement for Fulin was held on 8 November, during which the merits of Dorgon as regent were compared to those of the Duke of Zhou. During the ceremony, Dorgon's official title was raised from "Prince Regent" to "Uncle Prince Regent" (Shufu shezheng wang 叔父攝政王), in which the Manchu term for "Uncle" (ecike) represented a rank higher than that of imperial prince. Three days later Dorgon's co-regent Jirgalang was demoted from "Prince Regent" to "Assistant Uncle Prince Regent" (Fu zheng shuwang 輔政叔王). In June 1645, Dorgon eventually decreed that all official documents should refer to him as "Imperial Uncle Prince Regent" (Huang shufu shezheng wang 皇叔父攝政王), which left him one step short of claiming the throne for himself.
The conquest of ChinaHistorian Dai Yingcong has called Dorgon "the mastermind of the Qing conquest." Under his reign, the Qing subdued the capital area, received the capitulation of Shandong local elites and officials, and conquered Shanxi and Shaanxi, then turned their eyes to Jiangnan as they were also pursuing the last remnants of regimes established by Li Zicheng (killed in 1645) and Zhang Xianzhong (Chengdu taken in early 1647). The Qing also eliminated remnants of the loyalist Southern Ming regime in Nanjing (1645), Fuzhou (1646), and Guangzhou (1647), and chased Zhu Youlang, the last monarch of the Southern Ming, into the far southwestern reaches of China.
Suppressing the banditsSee also: Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng
Very soon after entering Beijing in June 1644, Dorgon despatched Wu Sangui and his troops to pursue Li Zicheng, the rebel leader who had driven the last Ming emperor to suicide, but had been defeated by the Qing in late May at the Battle of Shanhai Pass. Wu managed to engage Li's rearguard many times, but Li still managed to cross Gu Pass (故關) into Shanxi; Wu then broke pursuit to return to Beijing. Li Zicheng then reestablished a power base in Xi'an (Shaanxi province), where he had declared the foundation of his Shun dynasty in February 1644. After repressing revolts against Qing rule in Hebei and Shandong in the Summer and Fall of 1644, in October of that year Dorgon sent several armies to extirpate Li Zicheng from his Shaanxi stronghold. Qing armies led by Ajige, Dodo, and Shi Tingzhu (石廷柱) won consecutive engagements against Shun forces in Shanxi and Shaanxi, forcing Li Zicheng to leave his Xi'an headquarters in February 1645. Li retreated through several provinces until he was killed in September 1645, either by his own hand or by a peasant group that had organized for self-defense in this time of rampant banditry.
In early 1646 Dorgon sent two expeditions to Sichuan to try to destroy Zhang Xianzhong's regime: the first expedition did not reach Sichuan because it was caught up against remnants; the second one, under the direction of Hooge (the son of Hung Taiji who had lost the succession struggle of 1643) reached Sichuan in October 1646. Hearing that a Qing army led by a major general was approaching, Zhang Xianzhong fled toward Shaanxi, splitting his troops into four divisions that were ordered to act independently if something were to happen to him. Before leaving, he ordered a massacre of the population of his capital Chengdu. Zhang Xianzhong was killed in a battle against Qing forces near Xichong in central Sichuan on 1 February 1647. Hooge then easily took Chengdu, but found it in a state of desolation he had not expected. Unable to find food in the countryside, his soldiers looted the area, killing resisters, and even resorted to cannibalism as food shortages grew acute.
Jiangnan
A late-Qing woodblock print representing the Yangzhou massacre of May 1645. Dorgon's brother Dodo ordered this massacre to scare other southern Chinese cities into submission, but by the late nineteenth century the massacre was used by anti-Qing revolutionaries to arouse anti-Manchu sentiment among the Han Chinese population.A few weeks after the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide in Beijing in April 1644, some descendants of the Ming imperial house started arriving in Nanjing, which had been the auxiliary capital of the Ming dynasty. Agreeing that the Ming needed an imperial figure to rally support in the south, the Nanjing Minister of War Shi Kefa and the Fengyang Governor-general Ma Shiying (馬士英) agreed to form a loyalist Ming government around the Prince of Fu, Zhu Yousong, a first cousin of the Chongzhen emperor who had been next in line for succession after the dead emperor's sons, whose fates were still unknown. The Prince was crowned as emperor on 19 June 1644 under the protection of Ma Shiying, who had arrived in Nanjing two days earlier with a large war fleet. It was decided that the next lunar year would be the first year of the Hongguang (弘光) reign. This Hongguang regime was ridden with factional bickering that facilitated the Manchu conquest of Jiangnan, which was launched from Xi'an in April 1645. Greatly aided by the surrender of Southern Ming commanders Li Chengdong (李成東) and Liu Liangzuo (劉良佐), the Qing army took the key city of Xuzhou north of the Huai River in early May 1645, leaving Shi Kefa in Yangzhou as the main defender of the Southern Ming's northern frontiers.
A man in San Francisco's Chinatown around 1900. The Chinese habit of wearing a queue came from Dorgon's July 1645 edict ordering all men to shave their forehead and tie their hair into a queue like the Manchus.Several contingents of Qing forces converged on Yangzhou on 13 May 1645. Shi Kefa's small force refused to surrender, but could not resist Dodo's artillery: on 20 May Qing cannon breached the city wall and Dodo ordered the "brutal slaughter" of Yangzhou's entire population, probably to instill fear in the population of other Jiangnan cities so that they would surrender to the Qing instead of fighting on. On 1 June Qing armies crossed the Yangzi River and easily took the garrison city of Zhenjiang, which protected access to Nanjing. The Qing arrived at the gates of Nanjing a week later, but the Hongguang emperor had already fled. The city surrendered without a fight on 16 June after its last defenders had made Dodo promise he would not hurt the city's inhabitants. Within less than a month, the Qing had captured the fleeing Ming emperor (he died in Beijing the following year) and seized Jiangnan's main cities, including Suzhou and Hangzhou; by then the frontier between the Qing and the Southern Ming had been pushed south to the Qiantang River.
On 21 July 1645, after the Jiangnan region had been superficially pacified, Dorgon issued "the most untimely promulgation of his career." He ordered all Chinese men to shave their forehead and to braid the rest of their hair into a queue just like the Manchus. The punishment for non-compliance was death. To the Manchus this policy might both be a symbolic act of submission and in practical terms an aid in telling friend from foe, however for the Han Chinese it went against their traditional Confucian values. The haircutting command united Chinese of all social backgrounds into resistance against Qing rule, and thus "broke the momentum of the Qing conquest." Hundreds of thousands of people were killed before all of China was brought into compliance.
The Southern MingMain article: Southern Ming Dynasty
The Longwu Emperor of the Southern Ming, whom Qing troops captured and killed in Fujian in October 1646.Meanwhile the Southern Ming had not been eliminated. When Hangzhou fell to the Qing on 6 July 1645, Prince of Tang Zhu Yujian, a ninth-generation descendant of Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang, retreated up the Qiantang River and proceeded to Fujian from a land route that went through northeastern Jiangxi and mountainous areas in northern Fujian. Crowned as the Longwu Emperor in the coastal city of Fuzhou on 18 August, he depended on the protection of Zheng Zhilong (known in many western sources as "Nicholas Iquan"), a seatrader with exceptional organizational skills who had surrendered to the Ming in 1628. The childless emperor adopted Zheng's eldest son, granted him the imperial surname, and gave him a new personal name: Chenggong. The name Koxinga by which this adopted son is known to Westerners is a distortion of his title "Lord of the Imperial Surname" (Guoxingye 國姓爺). Only in October 1645 did the Longwu emperor hear that another Ming pretender, the Prince of Lu Zhu Yihai, had named himself regent in Zhejiang, and thus represented another center of loyalist resistance. But the two regimes failed to cooperate, making their chances of success even lower than they already were. In February 1646, Qing armies seized land west of the Qiantang River from the Lu regime and defeated a ragtag force representing the Longwu emperor in northeastern Jiangxi. In May of that year Qing forces besieged Ganzhou, the last Ming bastion in Jiangxi. In July, a new Southern Campaign led by Manchu Prince Bolo sent the Zhejiang regime of Prince Lu into disarray and proceeded to attack the Longwu regime in Fujian. Zheng Zhilong, the Longwu emperor's main military defender, fled to the coast. On the pretext of relieving the siege of Ganzhou in southern Jiangxi, the Longwu court left their base in northeastern Fujian in late September 1646, but the Qing army caught up with them. Longwu and his empress were summarily executed in Tingzhou (western Fujian) on 6 October. After the fall of Fuzhou on 17 October, Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing and his son Koxinga fled to the island of Taiwan with his fleet.
A cannon cast in 1650 by the Southern Ming. (From the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence.)
Portrait of Shang Kexi by Johan Nieuhof (1655). Shang recaptured Guangzhou from Ming loyalist forces in 1650 and organized a massacre of the city's population. Known to the Dutch as the "Old Viceroy" of Guangdong, he was one of the Three Feudatories who rebelled against the Qing in 1673.The Longwu Emperor's younger brother Zhu Yuyue, who had fled Fuzhou by sea, soon founded another Ming regime in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, taking the reign title Shaowu (紹武) on 11 December 1646. Short of official costumes, they had to purchase robes from local theater troops. On 24 December, Prince of Gui Zhu Youlang established the Yongli (永曆) regime in the same vicinity. The two Ming regimes fought each other until 20 January 1647, when a small Qing force led by former Southern Ming commander Li Chengdong (李成東) captured Guangzhou, killing the Shaowu Emperor and sending the Yongli Emperor fleeing to Nanning in Guangxi. Li Chengdong suppressed more loyalist resistance in Guangdong in 1647, but mutinied against the Qing in May 1648 because he resented having been named only regional commander of the province he had conquered. The concurrent rebellion of another former Ming general in Jiangxi helped the Yongli regime to retake most of southern China, leaving the Qing in control of only a few enclaves in Guangdong and southern Jiangxi. This resurgence of loyalist hopes was short-lived. New Qing armies managed to reconquer the central provinces of Huguang (present-day Hubei and Hunan), Jiangxi, and Guangdong in 1649 and 1650. The Yongli emperor fled to Nanning and from there to Guizhou. Finally on 24 November 1650, Qing forces led by Shang Kexi––one of the "Three Feudatories" who would rebel against the Qing in 1673––captured Guangzhou after a ten-month siege and massacred the city's population, killing as many as 70,000 people.
The northwest
"Moghul embassy" (actually emissaries from a Mughal prince who ruled Turfan in Central Asia) as portrayed in 1656 by Dutch visitors to Shunzhi's Beijing.In 1646 sultan Abu al-Muhammad Haiji Khan, a Mughal prince who ruled Turfan, sent an embassy requesting the resumption of trade with China, which had been interrupted by the fall of the Ming dynasty. The mission was sent without solicitation, but the Qing accepted to receive it, allowing it to conduct tribute trade in Beijing and Lanzhou (Gansu). Later in 1646, forces assembled by a Muslim leader known in Chinese sources as Milayin (米喇印) revolted against Qing rule in Ganzhou (Gansu). He was soon joined by another Muslim named Ding Guodong (丁國棟). Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the fallen Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou. Morris Rossabi sees these rebels' willingness to collaborate with non-Muslim Chinese as a sign that they were "not motivated solely by religious considerations and did not plan to establish a purely Muslim state." To pacify the rebels, the Qing government quickly despatched Meng Qiaofang (孟喬芳), governor of Shaanxi, a former Ming official who had surrendered to the Qing in 1631. Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed in 1648, and by 1650 the Muslim rebels had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties. Tribute and trade with Hami and Turfan, which had aided the rebels, were resumed in 1656. In 1655, however, the Qing court had announced that tributary missions from Turfan would be accepted only once every five years.
Transition and personal rule (1651–1661)
Portrait of the Shunzhi Emperor in adulthood.Dorgon's sudden death triggered a period of fierce factional struggles and opened the way for deep political reforms. Because Dorgon's supporters were still influential at court, Dorgon was given an imperial funeral and posthumously elevated to imperial status as the "Righteous Emperor" (yi huangdi 義皇帝). On the same day of mid-January 1651, however, several officers of the White Banners led by former Dorgon supporter Ubai arrested Dorgon's brother Ajige for fear he would name himself as the new regent; Ubai and his officers named themselves as presidents of several Ministries and prepared to take charge of the Qing government. Meanwhile Jirgalang, who had been stripped of his title of regent in 1647, gathered support among Banner officers who had been disgruntled during Dorgon's rule. Oboi, who would become the main regent for the Kangxi Emperor in 1661, was among these officers, and Jirgalang appointed him to the Council of Deliberative Princes to reward him for his support. On 1 February, Jirgalang announced that the emperor, who was about to turn thirteen, would now assume personal power. After building up more support, Jirgalang moved to the attack. In late February or early March 1651 he accused Dorgon of usurping imperial prerogatives: Dorgon was found guilty and all his posthumous honors were removed. Jirgalang continued to purge former members of Dorgon's clique and to bestow high ranks and nobility titles upon a growing number of followers in the Three Imperial Banners (shang san qi 上三旗), so that by 1652 all of Dorgon's former supporters had been either killed or effectively removed from government.
The Shunzhi Emperor in his mature years.The Emperor stripped both Dorgon and Dorgon's brother Dodo of their titles and assumed full imperial authority.
To counteract the power of the Imperial Household Department and the Manchu nobility, in July 1653 Shunzhi established the Thirteen Offices (十三衙門), which were manned by Chinese eunuchs rather than Manchu bondservants. Eunuchs had been kept under tight control during Dorgon's regency, but the young emperor used them to counter the influence of other power centers like the Empress Dowager and former regent Jirgalang. By the late 1650s eunuch power became formidable again: they handled key financial and political matters, offered advice on official appointments, and even composed edicts. Because eunuchs isolated the emperor from the bureaucracy, Manchu and Chinese officials feared a return to the abuses of eunuch power that had plagued the late Ming. Despite the emperor's attempt to impose strictures on eunuch activities, Shunzhi's favorite eunuch Wu Liangfu (吳良輔), who had helped the young emperor defeat the Dorgon faction in the early 1650s, was caught in a corruption scandal in 1658. The fact that Wu only received a reprimand for his accepting bribes did not reassure the Manchu elite, which saw eunuch power as a degradation of Manchu power. The Thirteen Offices would be eliminated (and Wu Liangfu executed) by Oboi and the other regents of the Kangxi Emperor in March 1661 soon after Shunzhi's death.
A portrait of Johann Adam Schall von Bell, a Jesuit missionary the Shunzhi Emperor affectionately called mafa ("grand'pa" in Manchu).During his short reign, the Shunzhi emperor encouraged the Han Chinese to participate in government activities. He was a scholar and employed Han Chinese to teach his children. He was also an open minded emperor and relied on the advice of Johann Adam Schall von Bell 湯若望, a Jesuit missionary from Cologne in Germany, for guidance ranging from astronomy, technologies, to tips for governing an empire. In late 1644, Dorgon had put Schall in charge of preparing a new calendar because his eclipse predictions had proven more reliable than those of the official astronomer. After Dorgon's death Schall also developed a personal relationship with the young emperor, who called him "grand-father" (mafa in Manchu). At the height of his influence in 1656 and 1657, Schall reports that Shunzhi often visited his house and talked to him late into the night. He was excused from prostrating himself in the presence of the emperor, was granted land to build a church in Beijing, and was even given imperial permission to adopt a son (because the emperor worried that Schall did not have an heir), but the Jesuits' hope of converting the emperor to Christianity was crushed when Shunzhi became a devout follower of Chan Buddhism in 1657.
The Emperor married his mother's niece, but demoted the Empress several years later.
Because of power issues in the Qing's ancestors' way, Shunzhi ultimately took another step to consolidate the power of the emperor. According to the old way, the 8 Banners were passed with succession much like how Nurhaci decided to give his Yellow Banners to Dorgun, but could potentially be controlled by someone like Huang Taji who switched the Banners. To solve this problem, Shunzi ordered the Upper 3 Banners- Plain Yellow, Striped Yellow, and Plain White to be under the control of the emperor. This would be maintained until Yongzheng and Qianlong's reign when they took the last step and controlled all 8 Banners.
After he assumed personal rule in 1651, the Emperor tried to root out corruption in the realm, but with little success.
Death and succession
Electron micrograph of the smallpox virus. Because they had no immunity to this highly contagious and lethal disease, the Manchus were particularly fearful of it. The Shunzhi emperor died of smallpox, and Kangxi was chosen to succeed him because he had already survived the disease.In September 1661, Shunzhi's favourite concubine Donggo suddenly died as a result of grief over the loss of a child. Overwhelmed with grief himself, the emperor fell into dejection for months, until he contracted smallpox on 2 February 1661. On 4 February, officials Wang Xi (王熙) and Margi (the latter a Manchu) were called to the emperor's bedside to record his last will. On the same day, his seven-year-old third son Xuanye was chosen to be his successor, probably because he had already survived smallpox. The emperor died on 5 February 1661 in the Forbidden City at the age of twenty-two.
An official court portrait of Oboi, who in 5 February 1661, was named as the main regent to the newly enthroned Kangxi Emperor.The emperor's last will, which was made public on the evening of 5 February, appointed four regents for his young son: Oboi, Soni, Suksaha, and Ebilun, who had all helped Jirgalang to purge the court of Dorgon's supporters after Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650. It is difficult to determine whether Shunzhi had really named these four Manchu nobles as regents, because they and Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang clearly tempered with the emperor's testament before promulgating it. His will expressed the emperor's regret about his Chinese-style ruling (his reliance on eunuchs and his favoritism toward Chinese officials), his neglect of Manchu nobles and traditions, and his headstrong devotion to his concubine rather than to his mother. Though the emperor had often issued self-deprecating edicts during his reign, the policies his will rejected had been central to his government since he had assumed personal rule in the early 1650s. The will as it was formulated gave "the mantle of imperial authority" to the four regents, and served to support their pro-Manchu policies during the period known as the Oboi regency, which lasted from 1661 to 1669.
Because court statements did not clearly announce the cause of the emperor's death, rumors soon started to circulate that he had not died but in fact retired to a Buddhist monastery to live anonymously as a monk, either out of grief for the death of his beloved consort, or in a coup by the Manchu nobles his will had named as regents. These rumors were not so incredible, because the emperor had become a fervent follower of Chan Buddhism in the late 1650s, even letting monks move into the imperial palace. But much circumstantial evidence––including an account by one of these monks that the emperor's health greatly deteriorated in early February 1661 because of smallpox, and the fact that a concubine and an Imperial Bodyguard committed suicide to accompany the emperor in burial––suggests that Shunzhi's death was not staged.
Contrary to Manchu customs at the time, which usually dictated that a deceased person should be cremated, the Shunzhi Emperor was buried. He was interred in what later came to be known as the Eastern Qing Tombs, 125 kilometers/75 miles northeast of Beijing, one of two Qing imperial cemeteries. His tomb was part of the Xiaoling (孝陵) mausoleum complex, known in Manchu as the Hiyoošungga Munggan.
Family
AncestorsHis father was the previous Qing emperor Hong Taiji; his mother was Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang.
Father: Hong Taiji (1592–1643), emperor of the Qing dynasty (of whom Fulin was the 9th son).
Mother: Bumbutai (1613–1688), or concubine Zhuang; daughter of a Mongol prince of the Borjigit clan (the descendants of Genghis Khan's brother Hasar); known posthumously as Empress Xiaozhuangwen (Manchu: Hiyoošungga Ambalinggū Genggiyenšu Hūwanghu).
Paternal grandfather: Nurhaci (1559–1626), founder of the Qing dynasty.
Paternal grandmother: Monggo (1573–1603), of the Yehenara clan; posthumously known as Empress Xiaocigao.
Empresses and consortsAlthough only nineteen Empresses and Consorts are recorded for Shunzhi in the Aisin Gioro genealogy made by the Imperial Clan Court, burial records show that he had at least thirty-two of them. Eleven bore him children. There were two Empresses in his reign, both relatives of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang from the Borjigit clan. After the 1644 conquest, Imperial Consorts and Empresses were usually known by their titles and by the name of their patrilineal clan.
First Empress: the Demoted Empress Suoerna, from the Borjigit clan; niece of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang. She was made Empress in 1651, but the monarch disliked her so much that he had her demoted in 1653.
Second Empress: Empress Xiaohuizhang (d. 1718) from the Borjigit clan. She was named Empress in 1654.
Concubine from the Tunggiya clan (1640–1663). Her family was of Jurchen origin but had lived among Chinese for generations. It had Chinese family name Tong (佟) but switched to the Manchu clan name Tunggiya. She was made Empress Dowager Cihe in 1661 when Kangxi became emperor. She is known posthumously as Empress Xiaokangzhang.
Imperial Noble Consort from the Donggo clan (1639–1660), posthumously raised to Empress Xiao Xian Duan Jing. She had a Han Chinese mother. The Emperor was deeply in love with her and was very grieved when she died soon after their first son (Shunzhi's fourth) had died in infancy. He died of smallpox shortly thereafter.
ChildrenEleven of Shunzhi's thirty-two spouses bore him a total of fourteen children, but only four sons (Fuquan, Xuanye, Changning, and Longxi) and one daughter (Princess Gongyi Chang) lived old enough to marry. Unlike later Qing emperors, the names of Shunzhi's sons did not include a generational character.
Sons1.Niuniu 牛鈕 (13 December 1651 – 9 March 1652). Born to Consort Ba 巴.
2.Fuquan 福全 (8 September 1653 – 26 January 1706). Born to Consort Ningyi 寧懿 from the Donggo clan. Became Prince Yu (裕親王) in 1667.
3.Xuanye 玄燁 (Manchu: Hiowan Yei) (4 May 1654 – 20 December 1722), later became the Kangxi Emperor. Born to Empress Xiaokangzhang.
4.4th son (5 November 1657 – 25 February 1658), who died before he was given a name. Born to Imperial Noble Consort Donggo. Posthumously granted the title of Prince Rong (榮親王).
5.Changning 常寧 (8 December 1657 – 20 July 1703). Born to Consort Chen 陳. Became Prince Gong (恭親王) in 1671.
6.Qishou 奇授 (3 January 1660 – unknown date, at the age of seven sui). Born to Consort Tang 唐.
7.Longxi 隆禧 (30 May 1660 – 20 August 1679). Born to Consort Niu 鈕. Became Prince Chun (純親王) in 1674; posthumouly called Prince Chun Jing (純靖親王). He fathered a son who died heirless.
8.Yonggan 永幹 (23 January 1661 – unknown date, at the age of eight sui). Born to Consort Muktu 穆克圖.
Daughters1st Daughter (1652–1653). Born to Consort Chen 陳.
2nd Daughter (1653–1685): second-rank Princess (M.: hošoi gungju) Gongyi Chang (Ch.: heshuo Gongyi Chang gongzhu 和碩恭懿長公主). Married in 1667. Born to Consort Yang 楊.
3rd Daughter (1653–1658). Born to Consort Ba 巴.
4th Daughter (1654–1661). Born to Consort Usu 烏蘇.
5th Daughter (1654–1660). Born to Consort Wang 王.
6th Daughter (1657–1661). Born to Consort Nala 那拉.
Adopted daughtersPrincess Heshun (1648–1691). Married to Shang Zilong in 1660.
Princess Roujia (1652–1673). Married to Guan Juzhong in 1663.
Princess Duanmin (1653–1729). Married to Bandi in 1670.
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