Qianlong was a well-known Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty who both lived and ruled the longest of any ruler in China’s written history. The fourth son of Emperor Yongzheng, with the given name Hongli, Qianlong was born 25 September 1711, ascended the throne in 1735, and abdicated in favor of his fifteenth son Yan (Emperor Jiaqing) in 1796. Despite his formal retirement, however, he retained ultimate power until his death on 7 February 1799. Maintaining actual rule for sixty-four years, he greatly expanded the Chinese territory through military conquests and consolidated and accelerated the development of China as a unified multi-ethnic country. The emperor most prided himself on the Ten Great Campaigns: three campaigns to enlarge the area of Qing control in Central Asia—two against the Junggars and the other to ensure the pacification of Xinjiang; two wars to suppress the Jinchuan rebels in Sichuan, and one to suppress rebels in Taiwan; and four expeditions abroad against the Burmese, the Vietnamese, and the warlike Gurkhas in Nepal (with the last counting as two). During his reign, Western colonialists including Czarist Russia always eyed China covetously. For the sake of self-defense, he moved to minimize contact with the outside world by imposing a trade-restricting policy, closing all trading ports except Guangzhou. He turned down the demands raised by the British envoy Macartney for infringement on China’s sovereignty, dealt with Czarist Russia in strict accordance with the Treaty of Kyakhta, and cut off trade with Kyakhta time and again to curb unlawful activities. The Emperor attached great importance to cultural development, and vigorously promoted book compilation with government funding. In 1773, he assembled a number of the finest scholars to work on the project of Complete Library in Four Sections, the largest collection ever made of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature. It was also Qianlong, however, who started one wave of literary inquisition after another, leveling fabricated accusations against officials and scholars.
Qianlong made six tours to Jiangnan (the areas immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta), and committed to large-scale construction, draining his empire in terms of both manpower and revenue. During the late years of his reign, in particular, his excessive trust in corrupt officials like *Heshen led to widespread embezzlement by officials, while high concentration of land and rapid growth of the population intensified class tensions with each passing day. In the end, peasant revolts broke out in Sichuan, Hubei, and other parts of the country, and continued for nine years. This marked the end of the heyday and the start of the decline of the Qing dynasty.