With the untimely and mysterious death of Prince-Regent Dorgon, the thirteen-year-old Shunzhi Emperor takes personal command of the still unsteady Qing Empire. He's got a lot to do - and it will turn out, not terribly long to do it! From purging prince, to beheading grand secretaries, to winning conquests... to perhaps that hardest of them all: standing up to his own mother, it's Shunzhi in the driver's seat!

Time Period Covered:

1651-1661 CE

Major Historical Figures:

House of Aisin Gioro:

The Shunzhi Emperor (Fulin) [r. 1651-1661]

Prince-Regent Dorgon [1612-1650]

Jirgalang, Prince Zheng of the First Rank [1599-1655]

Qing Imperial Court:

Grand Secretariat Chen Mingxia [1601-1654]

General Tantai of the Plain Yellow Banner [1594-1651]

Grand Academician Feng Chuan [1596-1572]

Grand Academician Ning Wanwo [1593-1665]

General Ren Zhen

Hong Chengchou, Pacifying General of Jiangnan [1593-1665]

Wu Sangui, Prince of Western Pacification [1612-1678]

Southern Ming/Rebels:

Li Dingguo, Prince of Jin [1621-1662]

Zheng Chenggong, Koxinga, Prince of Yanping [1624-1662]

Works Cited:

Dennerline, Jerry. "The Shun-chih Reign" in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 9: The Ch'ing Dynasty, part 1: To 1800.

"Records of Emperor Shizuzhang, Vol. 74" in Records of the Qing Dynasty [Qing Shilu].

Wakeman, Frederic Evans. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China.

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