Keen Lung Suffered From Physical Weakness, And A
Susceptibility To Bodily Ailments, That Detracted During The First Few
Years Of
His reign from his capacity to discharge all the duties of his
position, and more than their usual share of
Power consequently fell into
the hands of the great tribunals of the state. When Keen Lung resolutely
devoted himself to the task of supervising the acts of the official world
the evils became less perceptible, and gradually the provincial governors
found it to be their best and wisest course to obey and faithfully execute
the behests of their sovereign. For a brief space Keen Lung seemed likely
to prove more indifferent to the duties of his rank than either of his
predecessors; but after a few years' practice he hastened to devote
himself to his work with an energy which neither Kanghi nor Yung Ching had
surpassed.
Keen Lung seems to have passed his time between his palace at Pekin and
his hunting-box at Jehol, a small town beyond the Wall. The latter,
perhaps, was his favorite residence, because he enjoyed the quiet of the
country, and the purer and more invigorating air of the northern region
agreed with his constitution. Here he varied the monotony of rural
pursuits - for he never became as keen a hunter as Kanghi - with grand
ceremonies which he employed the foreigners in painting. It was at Jehol
that he planned most of his military campaigns, and those conquests which
carried his banners to the Pamir and the Himalaya. If the earlier period
of Keen Lung's reign was tranquil and undisturbed by war, the last forty
years made up for it by their sustained military excitement and
achievement. As soon as Keen Lung grasped the situation and found that the
administration of the country was working in perfect order, he resolved to
attain a complete settlement of the questions pending in Central Asia,
which his father had shirked. Up to this time Keen Lung had been generally
set down as a literary student, as a man more of thought than of action.
But his reading had taught him one thing, and that was that the danger to
China from the side of Central Asia was one that went back to remote ages,
that it had never been allayed, save for brief intervals, and then only by
establishing Chinese authority on either side of the Tian Shan. His
studies showed Keen Lung what ought to be done, and the aggressions of his
neighbors soon gave him the opportunity of carrying out the policy that he
felt to be the best.
CHAPTER XIII
KEEN LUNG'S WARS AND CONQUESTS
It was the arrival of a chief named Amursana at his court that first led
Keen Lung to seriously entertain the idea of advancing into Central Asia,
and having determined on the Central Asian campaign, Keen Lung's military
preparations were commensurate with the importance and magnitude of the
undertaking. He collected an army of 150,000 men, including the picked
Manchu Banners and the celebrated Solon contingent, each of whom was said
to be worth ten other soldiers.
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