Kangxi Emperor

Also known as Kangxi Di · Qingsheng Zu · Ai Xin Jue Luo · Xuan Ye

Xuanye, third son of the Shunzhi Emperor, came to the throne as a young boy in 1661 and from the next year reigned as the Kangxi Emperor, at first under four regents: Soni, Suksaha, Ebilun and Oboi. He arrested Oboi in 1669, and his decision in 1673 to abolish the southern feudatories provoked Wu Sangui's revolt, which took eight years to suppress. Shi Lang took Taiwan for him in 1683, and a prefecture was set up there the next year; in 1689 he concluded the Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russia, and he later led three campaigns in person against the Dzungar leader Galdan. In 1712 he froze the head tax at that year's count of adult males, promising no increase as the population grew, and he commissioned the Kangxi Dictionary. He died at the Changchun Garden in 1722, received the temple name Shengzu and the posthumous title Emperor Ren, and was buried at Jingling. The French Jesuit Joachim Bouvet wrote a portrait of him for Louis XIV.