The Daoguang Emperor, known by his temple name Emperor Xuanzong of Qing, born Aisin-Gioro Mianning, was the seventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1820 to 1850.
14 Facts About Daoguang Emperor
2.
The Daoguang Emperor was born in the Forbidden City, Beijing, in 1782, and was given the name Mianning.
3.
In September 1820, at the age of 38, Mianning inherited the throne after the Jiaqing Daoguang Emperor died suddenly of unknown causes.
4.
Daoguang Emperor became the first Qing emperor who was the eldest legitimate son of his father.
5.
Now known as the Daoguang Emperor, he inherited a declining empire with Westerners encroaching upon the borders of China.
6.
The Daoguang Emperor had been ruling for six years when the exiled heir to the Khojas, Jahangir Khoja, attacked Xinjiang from Kokand in the Afaqi Khoja revolts.
7.
Opium had started to trickle into China during the reign of the Yongzheng Daoguang Emperor, but was limited to approximately 200 chests annually.
8.
The Daoguang Emperor issued many imperial edicts banning opium in the 1820s and 1830s, which were carried out by Lin Zexu, whom he appointed as an Imperial Commissioner to Canton.
9.
The Daoguang Emperor removed his authority and banished him to Yili.
10.
Protestants hoped that the Qing government would discriminate between Protestantism and Catholicism, since the law mentioned the latter by name, but after Protestant missionaries gave Christian books to Chinese people in 1835 and 1836, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives" in Guangzhou who had supplied them with books.
11.
The Daoguang Emperor granted the title of "Wujing Boshi" to the descendants of Ran Qiu.
12.
Daoguang Emperor was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Yizhu, who was later enthroned as the Xianfeng Emperor.
13.
The Daoguang Emperor failed to understand the intention or determination of the Europeans, or the basic economics of a war on drugs.
14.
The Daoguang Emperor ultimately had a poor understanding of the British and the industrial revolution that Britain and Western Europe had undergone, preferring to turn a blind eye to the rest of the world, though the distance from China to Europe most likely played a part.