Emperor of China: Self Portrait of Kʻang HsiThe Emperor K'ang-hsi, who speaks through these pages, was one of the greatest rulers in all of China's three-thousand year history, a man easily as powerful and significant as his two contemporaries Peter the Great and Louis XIV. His long reign spanned more than sixty years, from 1661 to 1722, and when he died he left a flourishing and stable kingdom more vast than any other on earth. Yet the man himself has remained unknown: like all the emperors of China, K'ang-hsi lived out his days sealed behind screens of protocol - remote, exalted, his true nature an enigma . . . Emperor of China is the inspired outgrowth of Spence's close reading of the rich stores of documents that K'ang-hsi left behind him: letters, edicts, commands, pardons, poems. Drawing from this mass only those piercingly alive fragments that bear the unmistakable stamp of K'ang-hsi's character and personality, Spence weaves them together into a brooding narrative that reads almost like a novel. -- Book jacket. |
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Apostolic Legations arrow bandits Book of Changes bore camp campaign Ch'en Ch'ing chin-shih Chinese clan clique concubine Confucius consort court d'Orléans daughter death died aged discussed Documentary Chronicle drink Dynasty ECCP EMPEROR OF CHINA Empress eunuchs Fu Lo-shu Galdan Gerbillon Grand Secretaries guards officers Halde Hanlin Hanlin Academy Heaven Heir-Apparent hexagram History horses hsi-hsün jih-lu Hui-tien shih-li hunting imperial Jesuits K'ang K'ang-hsi K'ang-hsi yü Lo-ma K'ang-hsi's Reign K'ung Keng Kerulen River KHTYC killed KKWH Kuang-ti Manchu military Ming Mongol Month mountain named never nien-p'u Ninghsia Notes Nurhaci officials ordered Ošan palace memorial Peking person princes rebel river Rosso ruler scholars sent Seventeen Letters Shansi Sheng-tsu Shih Shih-ch'i Songgotu sons Spence survived T'ang things THKY told Tournon troops Ts'ao Yin valedictory edict Verbiest wanted Western Wu San-kuei Yellow Yellow River Yin-jeng Yin-ssu Yin-t'i Yüan