The Accession Of Prince Yihchoo - Who Took The Name Of Hienfung, Which
Means "Great Abundance," Or "Complete Prosperity" - To The Throne
Threatened For A Moment To Be Disturbed By The Ambition Of His Uncle, Hwuy
Wang, Who, It Will Be Remembered, Had Attempted To Seize The Throne From
His Brother Taoukwang.
This prince had lived in retirement during the last
years of his brother's reign, and the circumstances which emboldened him
to again put forward his pretensions will not be known until the state
history of the Manchu dynasty is published.
His attempt signally failed,
but Hienfung spared his life, while he punished the ministers, Keying and
Muchangah, for their supposed apathy, or secret sympathy with the aspirant
to the imperial office, by dismissing them from their posts. When Hienfung
became emperor he was less than twenty years of age, and one of his first
acts was to confer the title of Prince on his four younger brothers, and
to associate them in the administration with himself. This was a new
departure in the Manchu policy, as all the previous emperors had
systematically kept their brothers in the background. Hienfung's brothers
became known in the order of their ages as Princes Kung, Shun, Chun, and
Fu, and as Hienfung was the fourth son of Taoukwang, they were also
distinguished numerically as the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth
princes. Although Hienfung became emperor at a time of great national
distress, he was so far fortunate that an abundant harvest, in the year
1850, tended to mitigate it, and by having recourse to the common Chinese
practice of "voluntary contributions," a sufficiently large sum was raised
to remove the worst features of the prevailing scarcity and suffering.
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of 191255
