Emperor Kangxi of Qing (4 May 1654-20 December 1722), given name Xuanye, was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the second emperor, after his father, Shunzhi, to rule over China proper. Kangxi ascended the throne at age 7, and after being controlled for his childhood, he finally deposed the regents with the help of Grand Dowager Empress Xiaozhuang and regained control. He successfully put down the Revolt of the Three Feudatories and forced Mongolia to submit to Qing rule. Emperor Kangxi would pave the path for his son, Emperor Yongzheng, and later his grandson, Emperor Qianlong, to establish the most prosperous empire in the world.
Biography[]
Emperor Kangxi was just seven years old when he inherited the Chinese throne in 1661. Eight years later, he took control of the government and oversaw the large-scale operations that, at last, fully established Manchu control of China. Three Chinese generals, who had collaborated in the Manchu conquest, had been allowed to rule southern China as their personal fiefdoms. In 1672, they rose up against Kangxi in an episode known as the Revolt of the Three Feudatories.
Kangxi had already decided that they must be brought to heel, and although he did not lead his armies in person, he directed the strategy of campaigns that ground down the powerful forces of the three feudatories over eight years of fighting.
Their defeat released the resources that Kangxi needed to end the other outstanding Chinese resistance to his rule, maintained by the Zheng clan, descendants of Koxinga, on the island of Taiwan. Employing Shi Lang, an admiral who had once fought as Koxinga's ally, Kangxi assembled a fleet of 300 warships and defeated the Zheng forces at sea in 1683.
Kangxi realized his ambition to command armies in the field through China's subsequent expansionist campaigns in Central Asia. After confronting the Russians on the Amur River in the late 1680s, the Chinese went to war with the Dzunghars, nomadic tribesmen from Mongolia who had found an inspired leader in Gadan.
In 1696, Kangxi led three armies numbering 80,000 men across the Gobi Desert to defeat Galdan at Jao Modo, north of the Kerulen River. By the end of the Emperor Kangxi's long reign, his forces had penetrated as far as the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.