Abstract
The Shunzhi emperor was manipulated in death as well as in life. Practically before his corpse was cold, an imperial will was promulgated in his name, and although emperors’ last words were often ghostwritten by top ministers in those days, Shunzhi’s will was such a mea culpa that it is especially tempting to conjecture that it was fabricated by a group of people eager for a change of policy, and here, the finger of suspicion points to the regents themselves. It was not that there was anything controversial about the selection of Shunzhi’s six-year-old son, Xuanye, to be the succeeding Kangxi emperor, for Shunzhi had no adult children, and the boy was an obvious choice, having already survived the smallpox that claimed his father. Since a regency of some kind was inevitable, moreover, there was no reason at the time to disqualify Oboi, Suksaha, Ebilun, or Soni or even, in hindsight, to view the regents as having been latently hostile to Shunzhi. The events of February 1661 were no coup d’état.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Da Qing Shizong Zhang (Shunzhi) huangdi shilu, ch. 144, 2a-6a, reprinted in Da Qing Shizong Zhang (Shunzhi) huangdi shilu, vol. 3 (Taipei: Xin wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1978), 1695–97; Zhu Dongrun, Zhang Juzeng da zhuan (Taipei: Taiwan kaiming shudian, 1984), 62;
Lawrence D. Kessler, K’ang-hsi and the Consolidation of Ch’ing Rule, 1661–1684 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 25–26;
Harold Lyman Miller, “Factional Conflict and the Integration of Ch’ing Politics” (PhD diss., George Washington University, 1974), 12–14.
Harry Miller, State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 32–34.
Da Qing Shengzu Ren (Kangxi) huangdi shilu, ch. 1,16b-17b, reprinted in Da Qing Shengzu Ren (Kangxi) huangdi shilu (Taipei: Xin wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1978), vol. 1, 50–51; Frederic Wakeman Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China, vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 1067;
Jerry Dennerline, “Fiscal Reform and Local Control: The Gentry Bureaucratic Alliance Survives the Conquest,” in Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China, ed. Frederic Wakeman Jr. and Carolyn Grant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 112; Qing shi, chs. 251, 264, reprinted in Qing shi, vol. 5 (Taipei: Guofang yanjiuyuan, 1961), 3810,3896.
Chao-ying Fang, “Chin Jen-jui,” in Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, ed. Arthur Hummel (Taipei: Ch’eng wen, 1972), 165; Anonymous, “Xin chou ji wen,” lb-2b, reprinted in Congshu jicheng xubian, vol. 25 (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1994), 149; Anonymous, “Ku miao ji lue,” la-2a, in Tong shi, ed. Sun Yuxiu (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu-guan, 1912), folio 2.
National Palace Museum (Zhuan bao zhuan gao) item 7271, Taipei, Taiwan; Qing shi gao, ch. 495, reprinted in Qing shi gao xiao zhu, ed. Guo shi guan, vol. 14 (Taipei: Guo shi guan, 1990), 11249; Lynn A. Struve, “Some Frustrated Scholars of the K’ang-hsi Period,” in From Ming to Ch’ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China, ed. Jonathan D. Spence and John E. Wills Jr. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 347–48;
Robert B. Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback: Manchu Politics in the Oboi Regency, 1661–1669 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 104. 16.
Chen Dengyuan, Jin Shengtan zhuan (Hong Kong: Taiping shuju, 1963), 67; Anonymous, “Yan tang jian wen za ji,” 35b, in Tong shi, ed. Sun Yuxiu (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1912), folio 5.
Feng Qiyong and Ye Junyuan, comps., Wu Meicun nianpu (Beijing: Wenhuayishu chubanshe, 2007), 351, 355.
John W. Dardess, Ming China, 1368–1644: A Concise History of a Resilient Empire (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), 75; Miller, State versus Gentry, 20–21, 157–58; Dennerline, “Fiscal Reform and Local Control,” 96–103;
Martin Heijdra, “The Socio-Economic Development of Rural China During the Ming,” in The Cambridge History of China, ed. Denis Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote, vol. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 556–57.
Copyright information
© 2013 Harry Miller
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Miller, H. (2013). The Oboi Regency, 1661–1669. In: State versus Gentry in Early Qing Dynasty China, 1644–1699. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334060_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334060_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46255-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33406-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)