At The Same Time Kanghi Sent A Garrison To Tibet, And
Appointed Resident Ambans At Lhasa, Which Officials China Has Retained
There Ever Since.
The war with Tse Wang Rabdan was not ended by these
successes, for he resorted to the hereditary tactics of his family,
retiring when the Chinese appeared in force, and then advancing on their
retreat.
As Kanghi wrote, they are "like wolves who, at the sight of the
huntsmen, scatter to their dens, and at the withdrawal of danger assemble
again round the prey they have abandoned with regret. 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. Thus summarily was ended Peter's dream of tapping the wealth
of China.
Although Kanghi was not altogether free from domestic trouble, through the
ambition of his many sons to succeed him, his life must on the whole be
said to have passed along tranquilly enough apart from his cares of state.
The public acts and magnificent exploits of his reign prove him to have
been wise, courageous, and magnanimous, and his private life will bear the
most searching examination, and only render his virtue the more
conspicuous. He always showed a tender solicitude for the interests of his
people, which was proved, among other things, by his giving up his annual
tours through his dominions on account of the expense thrown on his
subjects by the inevitable size of his retinue. His active habits as a
hunter, a rider, and even as a pedestrian, were subjects of admiring
comment on the part of the Chinese people, and he was one of their few
rulers who made it a habit to walk through the streets of his capital. He
was also conspicuous as the patron of learning; notably in his support of
the foreign missionaries as geographers and cartographers. He was also the
consistent and energetic supporter of the celebrated Hanlin College, and,
as he was no ordinary _litterateur_ himself, this is not surprising.
His own works filled a hundred volumes, prominent among which were his
Sixteen Maxims on the Art of Government, and it is believed that he took a
large part in bringing out the Imperial Dictionary of the Hanlin College.
His writings were marked by a high code of morality as well as by the
lofty ideas of a broad-minded statesman. His enemies have imputed to him
an excessive vanity and avarice; but the whole tenor of his life disproves
the former statement, and, whatever foundation in fact the latter may have
had, he never carried it to any greater length than mere prudence and
consideration for the wants of his people demanded. We know that he
resorted to gentle pressure to attain his ends rather than to tyrannical
force. When he wished to levy a heavy contribution from a too rich subject
he had recourse to what may be styled a mild joke, sooner than to threats
and corporal punishment.
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