In October 1795, the 60th year of his reign, the Qianlong Emperor announced his intention to abdicate in favour of Prince Jia. He made this decision because he felt that it was disrespectful for him to rule longer than his grandfather, the
Kangxi Emperor, who was on the throne for 61 years. Prince Jia ascended the throne and adopted the
era name "Jiaqing" in February 1796, hence he is historically known as the Jiaqing Emperor. For the next three years, however, the Jiaqing Emperor was emperor in name and rite only because decisions were still made by his father, who became a
Taishang Huang (emperor emeritus) after his abdication. After the death of the Qianlong Emperor in the beginning of February 1799, the Jiaqing Emperor took control of the government and prosecuted
Heshen, a
favourite official of his father. Heshen was charged with corruption and abuse of power, stripped of his titles, had his property confiscated, and ordered to commit suicide. Heshen's daughter-in-law,
Princess Hexiao, a half-sister of the Jiaqing Emperor, was spared from punishment and given a few properties from Heshen's estates. The Jiaqing Emperor commuted the death sentence of the scholar
Hong Liangji who had criticised the policies of the Qianlong Emperor and Heshen, instead exiling him to a remote part of northern China and pardoning him altogether in 1800. Heshen was described as the 'primary evil' effecting the Empire, and after his removal the Emperor pursued a series of reforms of the court, civil service and treasury. He was a traditionalist in terms of his role as an ethnic Manchu leader, taking parts in imperial hunts, inspection tours, and upholding strict court protocol. As part of this traditionalist approach, the Jiaqing Emperor promoted ministers on the basis of their commitment to a 'purist' approach to Confucian rule. The impact of the Jiaqing Emperor's reforms are questionable, with the Emperor described by
Jonathan Spence as having 'relied on rhetoric more than specific policies to cleanse his empire', with Heshen's clique soon replaced by other bureaucratic factions. At the time, the Qing Empire faced internal disorder, most importantly the large-scale
White Lotus (1796–1804) and
Miao (1795–1806) rebellions, as well as an empty imperial treasury. The Jiaqing Emperor engaged in the pacification of the empire and the quelling of rebellions, although this came at a steep fiscal cost. He endeavored to bring China back to its 18th-century prosperity and power. In 1813, the Jiaqing Emperor also faced the threat of the
Eight Trigrams uprising, led by a millenarian Buddhist sect that launched a failed attack on the
Forbidden City, with the intention of assassinating the Emperor upon his return from a hunting trip. The Jiaqing Emperor was intrigued by the leader of the rising, Lin Qing, and summoned him to a private interrogation. Lin was later executed by slicing.
Foreign relations In 1816,
William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court, intending to establish more satisfactory commercial relations between China and Great Britain. The Amherst Embassy proved a failure as a result of Amherst's refusal to perform a kowtow to the Emperor, but would prove to have a significant impact on British views of China and the Qing dynasty. The Jiaqing Emperor refused the Vietnamese ruler
Gia Long's request to change his country's name to Nam Việt, but agreed that it could be changed to
Việt Nam instead. Gia Long's
Đại Nam thực lục contains the diplomatic correspondence over the naming.
Opposition to Christianity The
Great Qing Legal Code includes one statute titled "Prohibitions Concerning Sorcerers and Sorceresses" (禁止師巫邪術). In 1811, a clause was added to it with reference to Christianity. It was modified in 1815 and 1817, settled in its final form in 1839 under the
Daoguang Emperor, and repealed in 1870 under the
Tongzhi Emperor. It sentenced Europeans to death for spreading "the religion of the Lord of Heaven" among Han Chinese and Manchus. While "the Lord of Heaven" (天主,
Tiānzhǔ) was primarily used as a translation of the name of the Christian God by
Catholic missionaries and this could be taken to imply that the statute was primarily directed against Catholicism, it became clear in the 1830s that the Qing government considered the ban to apply to other forms of Christianity as well. Christians who would not repent their conversion were sent to
Muslim cities in
Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and
beys.
Chinese nobility The Jiaqing Emperor granted the title
Wujing Boshi () to the descendants of Tang essayist
Han Yu. == Personal life and interests ==