#266 - Qing 11: Shunzhi's Personal Rule

The History of China Podcast

With the untimely and mysterious death of Prince-Regent Dorgon, the thirteen-year-old Shunzhi Emperor takes personal command of the still unsteady Qing Empire. He's got a lot to do - and it will turn out, not terribly long to do it! From purging prince, to beheading grand secretaries, to winning conquests... to perhaps that hardest of them all: standing up to his own mother, it's Shunzhi in the driver's seat! Time Period Covered: 1651-1661 CE Major Historical Figures: House of Aisin Gioro: The Shunzhi Emperor (Fulin) [r. 1651-1661] Prince-Regent Dorgon [1612-1650] Jirgalang, Prince Zheng of the First Rank [1599-1655] Qing Imperial Court: Grand Secretariat Chen Mingxia [1601-1654] General Tantai of the Plain Yellow Banner [1594-1651] Grand Academician Feng Chuan [1596-1572] Grand Academician Ning Wanwo [1593-1665] General Ren Zhen Hong Chengchou, Pacifying General of Jiangnan [1593-1665] Wu Sangui, Prince of Western Pacification [1612-1678] Southern Ming/Rebels: Li Dingguo, Prince of Jin [1621-1662] Zheng Chenggong, Koxinga, Prince of Yanping [1624-1662] Works Cited: Dennerline, Jerry. "The Shun-chih Reign" in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 9: The Ch'ing Dynasty, part 1: To 1800. "Records of Emperor Shizuzhang, Vol. 74" in Records of the Qing Dynasty [Qing Shilu]. Wakeman, Frederic Evans. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China.