Emperor K’ang-hsi ruled China from 1661 to 1722 and his reign is captured by
Jonathan D. Spence’s book Emperor of China. The different chapters of the book deal with certain aspects of the Emperors life. Aspects that the history books to normally deal with. The information in Spence’s book is based on Emperor K’ang-hsi’s correspondence, his own writings. This writing maybe biased towards himself, but no other piece of information could provide insight into his mind. The book is divided into six parts; In motion, Ruling, Thinking, Growing Old, Sons, Valedictory. The book follows Emperor K’ang-hsi’s life as Emperor in chronological order.
In the first part, “In Motion," the main emphasis was on Emperor K’ang-hsi travels though his kingdom. He wrote a letter to Ku Wen-hsing stating that he had traveled
1000’s of miles in each direction. He had traveled to the provinces of Shansi and Shensi in the west, to the provinces of Manchuria and Ula in the east, north across the Gobi to the
Kerulean River and south to the Yangtze River. On his travels, Emperor K’ang-hsi, liked to collect and compare different plats, animals, birds that he came across. He loved to hunt with bows and guns during his travels. Emperor K’ang-hsi hunting practices were not just meant for joy and exercise, it was also an exercise in military preparedness. He took thousands of his troops on many of his trips to train them in shooting, camp life, and formation riding.
The second part of the book emphasis on the historiographically part of the emperors rule. The authors' facts were based on the thousands of imperial documents that came from the emperor. The author was able to piece together the kind to government that existed. The central bureaucracy of emperor K’ang-hsi’s China was composed of a metropolitan division and a provincial division. The metropolitan division was supervised by four to six Grand Secretaries and were directed by the presidents and vice-presidents of the Six Boards. The provinces were divided into six province blocks, controlled by s governor-general. Each province was divided into prefectures and each prefecture was subdivided into counties controlled by a magistrate. Ruling to Emperor K’ang-hsi meant he had compete control for his economical and educa...
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...gaging in homosexual activities with his son.
In conclusion, the book achieves in its purpose, to give new insights into the
Emperors life. Spence’s book goes into greater detail about Emperor K’ang-hsi life then any history book could have. Spence is able to do this by emphasizing on K’ang-hsi’s writings, and not on other sources. The book was divided into six sections that described different aspects of the K’ang-hsi life and times. The most interesting chapter in my option was the chapter “Sons.” In this chapter Spence describes the Emperor’s protective nature towards his sons. He went to great lengths to protect his sons and their heir to the kingdom. Spence’s summary of the data he collected was a little too short. Spence did not go into great detail over many facts. In addition, Spence did not address issues outside China that effected it. By this time in history, China had foreign intervention and influence. Yet Spence did not address the issue of foreign policies that K’ang-hsi made during his reign. In the end Spence did achieve his goal of gaining new insights into
Emperor K’ang-hsi and wrote a good history of the Emperors life.
During the early Ming Dynasty, China was one of the most economically and technologically advanced countries in the world. As Ebrey pointed out, “Europe was not yet a force in Asia and China continued to look on the outer world in traditional terms.” China was regarded as the center of Asia at the beginning of 15th century and the idea of “Middle Kingdom” (Zhong guo) began to take off at that time. The early Ming Emperors were not interested in promoting commercial trade at all. Emperor Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, implemented the Hai jin policy which forbade maritime shipping and private foreign trade outside of the tributary system (Ebrey, p. 209). Emperor Yongle, the son of Emperor Hongwu, lifted this policy to a certain extent when he ordered his eunuch Zheng He’s voyages. However, he was only intereste...
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the Sierra Zapotec (in the north), and the Southern Zapotec (in the south and east, nearer the Isthmus of
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This article ties into the topic of eating responsibly because it is all about being healthy and eating healthy is a big part of eating responsibly. A couple rules for eating healthy, according to this article is, get as much of your nutrition as possible from a variety of completely unprocessed foods, which Pollan would agree with, eat as much home-cooked food as possible, and drink mostly water with some exceptions to other drinks every once in a
“Thomas Alva Edison is considered one of the greatest inventors of all time.” (Thomas Alva Edison Scientists, p.1, par. 3) He was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was the youngest of seven children. Edison wasn’t a great student. He would easily get distracted and was slow at learning. He only attended school for three months. Then, his mother taught him at home. His mother was very amazed at how fascinated he was by experiments and moving objects. In the baggage car of the train called “Grand Trunk Railroad”, he sold his own newspaper and conducted experiments. But, due to an accidental fire, he had to close down his laboratory. Around the age of 12, Thomas Edison lost almost all of his hearing. No one figured out why, but some thought it was “probably an aftereffect of scarlet fever” (Thomas Alva Edison Scientists, p.2, par.1) or from the conductor boxing his ears when there was a fire in the baggage car.