Qianlong Emperor (25 September 1711-7 February 1799) was Emperor of the Qing dynasty from 18 October 1735 to 9 February 1796, succeeding the Yongzheng Emperor and preceding Jiaqing Emperor. His reign is considered to end the last Golden Age of China. He is also considered to be the last "Great Emperor". Hongli was Emperor Yongzheng's fourth son, and some say the only reason Hongli became crown prince was because he was favoured by both Emperor Kangxi and Yongzheng. Hongli, at a young age, was capable in martial arts and possessed literary ability. Qianlong's rule brought China to its zenith. Hongli established Qing rule in the Dzungar Khanate, which was renamed to Xinjiang.
Biography[]
Born Hongli, the Emperor Qianlong enjoyed the longest ever Chinese imperial reign, effectively holding power from 1735 to his death in 1799. During that time he doubled the territorial extent of China with wide-ranging campaigns of conquest, although his conservatism stopped his country from imitating the military innovations being introduced by the European powers of his day.
Qianlong's forces retained the "banner" structure invented by the Manchu in the early 17th century. They were large permanent armies whose upkeep imposed great expense on the chinese treasury, but were considered worthwile as a means of underlining imperial power. The most impressive of Qianlong's military achievements was the crushing of the Dzhungars, steppe warriors in remote Xinjiang in northwestern China. Direct control of the campaign was in the hands of General Zhaohui, who defeated the Dzunghars in battle at Altishar in 1757 and took the key cities of Kashgar and Yarkand two years later.
Not all Qianlong's campaigns were so successful, however. An invasion of Burma in the 1760s led to four years of costly campaigning from which the Chinese withdrew without gain. An intervention in Vietnam in the 1780s was also a failure in the face of determined resistance by Tay Son peasant rebels.
Late in his reign, Qianlong was still able to send troops into Tibet to fight the warlike Gurkhas and drive them back into Nepal, a notable feat of logistics, given the distances involved and the hostile Himalayan terrain. But his forces never came into conflict with an 18th-century European army, and so their absolute efficiency must remain uncertain.