Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/342

Rh tions with European countries. Gerbillon (see under ) was of such assistance during the Sino-Russian negotiations at Nerchinsk. With the Emperor's permission, Gerbillon also collected geographical data in various parts of China and finally persuaded the Emperor to undertake a complete survey of the empire. This project lasted about nine years (December 10, 1707–January 1, 1717) and covered the eighteen provinces, together with Manchuria and Mongolia. It was conducted by Jean-Baptiste Régis 雷孝思, Pierre Jartoux (see under ), and several other missionaries, assisted by men like Ho Kuo-tung 何國棟, a brother of. In 1718 a general map of the empire was completed and later engraved on 44 copper plates by Matteo Ripa (see under ). It was reproduced, with revisions, in Paris (1730–34) and at The Hague (1737), and some thirty years later a new map with the newly conquered Sungaria and Chinese Turkestan was made (see under ).

Early in the K'ang-hsi reign-period Catholic missionaries in the provinces were often persecuted, but in 1692, through the help of Songgotu, they obtained a decree from Hsüan-yeh legalizing and protecting missionary work in the empire. In 1693, for their service at court—especially for having cured the Emperor of malaria, with quinine—the French missionaries were given a piece of land inside the Forbidden City, with permission (1703) to erect a church there which was completed ten years later and came to be known as Pei-t'ang 北堂. Nevertheless the controversy over whether ancestor worship and other traditional native practices should be allowed to Chinese converts became acute when the Papal Legate, Charles M. de Tournon 多羅 (d. 1710), came to Peking late in 1705 to forbid the practices which the Jesuits had previously regarded as not necessarily in conflict with the Christian religion. Tournon offended Hsüan-yeh by insisting on the papal point of view governing Chinese converts, and by issuing (February 7, 1707) the decree of Nanking which condemned the practices in question as superstitious. Hsüan-yeh had Tournon sent to Macao where he died in semi-confinement, and in 1717 a decree was issued to the effect that each missionary should obtain a patent before he be permitted to preach. A second Legate came to Peking late in 1720 but achieved nothing because Hsüan-yeh was determined that his subjects should not take orders from Rome.

Hsüan-yeh tried to foster the military traditions of the Manchus by going on hunting trips regularly. At first he often visited the old hunting grounds at Nan-yüan 南苑, south of the capital. In 1677 he made a journey to Jehol, and after 1683 went there once each year, chiefly during the summer months. Beginning in 1703 he built the summer palaces at Jehol, which came to be known as the Pi-shu shan chuang 避暑山莊. In 1712 he selected thirty-six views of these palaces; and about each view a poem and a painting were made, which were printed under the title Pi-shu shan-chuang san-shih-liu ching shih ping t'u (三十六景詩并圖). The poems, attributed to the Emperor, were probably written by the courtiers whose names appear in the book as annotators. The paintings were made by Shên Yü 沈喻, a bannerman who was then controller of an Imperial Storehouse and who was made a censor in 1728 and then a reader in the Grand Secretariat. They were engraved by Matteo Ripa, this being the first attempt to introduce the art of copper engraving to China. The whole work was reprinted in 1741 by Emperor Kao-tsung who added two chüan of his own poems.

Near Peking Hsüan-yeh restored a garden (c. 1687) which had once belonged to a nobleman of the Ming period, giving it the name Ch'ang-ch'un yüan 暢春園, and there he often spent several months in each year. It was in this garden that for several years he studied mathematics with the Jesuit missionaries to whom he granted a residence nearby. On the celebration of his sixtieth birthday (1713, see under ), the royal procession started from this garden to Peking. It was also there that the Russian embassy headed by Ìzmaĭlov (see under ) was several times entertained (1720–21).

To the west of the Ch'ang-ch'un yüan, Hsüan-yeh built a smaller garden for his second son, Yin-jêng, who from infancy had been designated heir-apparent. Of Hsüan-yeh's twenty sons and eight daughters who grew to maturity (others died young), only Yin-jêng was born of an Empress—the mothers of the rest being consorts of lower degree. Yin-jêng was brought up too indulgently and later displayed a violent temper, lawlessness, immoral conduct, and symptoms of mental instability. When these tendencies of the prince came to light his father at first put the blame on others (see under and  禔). When finally Yin-jêng was placed in confinement (1712) Hsüan-yeh refrained from 330