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.
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