Era name from 1862 until his death in 1875. The era name Tongzhi, an allusion to the
Book of Documents, was chosen to reflect the new political situation after his mother
Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) ousted Zaichun's eight regents in a coup in November 1861.|alt=Color painting of young man wearing a deep-blue robe and a black sleeveless jacket sitting at a table holding a brush. A book, a brush with a cup, an inkstone, and a bowl filled with water are also placed on the table, which is itself black with golden or yellowish flower and leaf patterns. The table is disposed in a courtyard. There is a large tree in the left foreground that runs from bottom to top. On the right we see part of a bookshelf with books on it. Part of a wide chair appears on the left. In the background is the entrance to a small building. An emperor's
era name or reign name was chosen at the beginning of his reign to reflect the political concerns of the court at the time. A new era name became effective on the first day of the
Chinese New Year after that emperor's accession, which fell between 21 January and 20 February (inclusively) of the Gregorian calendar. Even if an emperor died in the middle of the year, his era name was used for the rest of that year before the next era officially began. Like the emperors of the Ming dynasty, Qing monarchs used only one reign name and are usually known by that name, as when we speak of the "
Qianlong Emperor" (r. 1735–1795) or the "
Guangxu Emperor" (r. 1875–1908). Strictly speaking, referring to the Qianlong Emperor simply as "Qianlong" is wrong, because "Qianlong" was not that emperor's own name but that of his reign era. For convenience sake, however, many historians still choose to call him Qianlong (though not "Emperor Qianlong"). The only Qing emperors who are not commonly known by their reign name are the first two:
Nurhaci (r. 1616–1626), who is known by his personal name, and his son and successor
Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643), whose name was
a title meaning "prince Hong". Hong Taiji was the only Qing emperor to use two era names (see table). Reign names are usually left untranslated, but some scholars occasionally gloss them when they think these names have a special significance. Historian
Pamela Crossley explains that Hong Taiji's first era name Tiancong 天聰 (
abkai sure in Manchu) referred to a "capacity to transform" supported by Heaven, and that his second one Chongde 崇德 (
wesihun erdemungge) meant the achievement of this transformation. The practice of translating reign names is not new: Jesuits who resided at the Qing court in Beijing in the 18th century translated "
Yongzheng"—or its Manchu version "Hūwaliyasun tob"—as
Concordia Recta. An era name was used to record dates, usually in the format "Reign-name Xth year, Yth month, Zth day" (sometimes abridged as X/Y/Z by modern scholars). A Qing emperor's era name was also used on the coins that were cast during his reign. Unlike in the Ming dynasty, the characters used in Qing reign names were
taboo, that is, the
characters contained in it could no longer be used in writing throughout the empire.
Personal name As in previous dynasties, the emperor's personal name became taboo after his accession. The use of
xuan 玄 ("mysterious", "profound") in the Kangxi Emperor's personal name Xuanye (玄燁), for example, forced
printers of
Buddhist and
Daoist books to replace this very common character with
yuan 元 in all their books. Even the
Daodejing, a Daoist classic, and the
Thousand Character Classic, a widely used
primer, had to be reprinted with
yuan instead of
xuan. When the Yongzheng Emperor, whose generation was the first in which all imperial sons shared a generational character as in Chinese clans, acceded the throne, he made all his brothers change the first character of their name from "Yin" (胤) to "Yun" (允) to respect the taboo. Citing fraternal solidarity, his successor, the Qianlong Emperor, simply removed one stroke from his own name and let his brothers keep their own. Later emperors found other ways to diminish the inconvenience of naming taboos. The
Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796–1820), whose personal name was Yongyan (永琰), replaced the very common first character of his personal name (
yong 永, which means "forever") with an obscure one (顒) with the same pronunciation. The
Daoguang Emperor (r. 1820–1850) removed the character for "continuous" (綿) from his name and decreed that his descendants should henceforth all omit one stroke from their name. In accordance with Manchu practice, Qing emperors rarely used their clan name
Aisin Gioro.
Posthumous titles Temple name s in the
Imperial Ancestral Temple.|alt=Color photo taken frontally on a sunny day of a stately Chinese-style building with a double roof. The plaque on the building says "Taimiao" ("imperial ancestral temple") in Chinese and in Manchu. The temple is placed on an elevated platform and surrounded by three layers of white fences placed at different heights. Three different flights of stairs lead to the building. After their deaths, the emperors were given a
temple name and an
honorific name under which they would be worshiped at the
Imperial Ancestral Temple. On the
spirit tablets that were displayed there, the temple name was followed by the honorific name, as in "Shizu Zhang huangdi" for the Shunzhi Emperor and "Taizong Wen huangdi" for Hong Taiji. As dynastic founder, Nurhaci ("Taizu") became the focal ancestor in the main hall of the temple. The earlier paternal ancestors of the Qing imperial line were worshiped in a back hall. Historical records like the
Veritable Records (), which were compiled at the end of each reign, retrospectively referred to emperors by their temple names. Hong Taiji created the Qing ancestral cult in 1636 when he assumed the title of emperor. Taking the Chinese imperial cult as a model, he named his main paternal ancestors "kings" and built an Imperial Ancestral Temple in his capital Mukden to offer sacrifices to them. When the Qing took control of Beijing in 1644, Prince Regent
Dorgon had the Aisin Gioro ancestral tablets installed in what had been the Ming ancestral temple. In 1648 the Qing government bestowed the title of "emperor" to these ancestors and gave them the honorific posthumous names and temple names by which they were known for the rest of the dynasty. Nurhaci was identified retrospectively as Taizu ("grand progenitor"), the usual name given to a dynasty's first emperor. This is why Nurhaci is considered as the first Qing ruler even if he was never emperor in his lifetime. Taizong was the usual name for the second emperor of a dynasty, and so Hong Taiji was canonized as Qing Taizong. The last emperor of a dynasty usually did not receive a temple name because his descendants were no longer in power when he died, and thus could not perpetuate the ancestral cult.
Puyi, the last Qing monarch, reigned as the Xuantong Emperor from 1908 to 1912, but did not receive a temple name.
Honorific posthumous name After death emperors were given an
honorific posthumous title that reflected their ruling style. Nurhaci's posthumous name was originally the "Martial Emperor" (武皇帝
wǔ huángdì)—to reflect his military exploits—but in 1662 it was changed to "Highest Emperor" (高皇帝
gāo huángdì), that is, "the emperor from whom all others descend." Hong Taiji's posthumous name, the "Emperor of Letters" (M.:
šu hūwangdi; Ch.: 文皇帝
wén huángdì), was chosen to reflect the way in which he metamorphosed Qing institutions during his reign. ==List of emperors==