Taoukwang Declared Himself
To Be A Monogamist, And Proclaimed His One Wife Empress.
He also put a
stop to the annual visits to Jehol and to the costly hunting establishment
there, which entailed a great waste of public funds.
The money thus saved
was much wanted for various national requirements, and the sufferings
caused by flood and famine were alleviated out of these palace savings.
How great the national suffering had become was shown by the marked
increase of crime, especially all forms of theft and the coining of false
money, for which new and severe penalties were ordained without greatly
mitigating the evil. During all these troubles and trials Taoukwang
endeavored to play the part of a beneficent and merciful sovereign,
tempering the severity of the laws by acts of clemency, and personally
superintending every department of the administration. He seems thus to
have gained a reputation among his subjects which he never lost, and the
blame for any unpopular measures was always assigned to his ministers. But
although he endeavored to play the part of an autocrat, there is every
ground for saying that he failed to realize the character, and that he was
swayed more than most rulers by the advice of his ministers. The four
principal officials after Sung, whose death occurred at an early date
after Taoukwang's accession, were Hengan, Elepoo, Keying, and Keshen.
The first ten years of Taoukwang's reign have been termed prosperous,
because they have left so little to record, but this application of the
theory that "the country is happy which has no history," does not seem
borne out by such facts as have come to our knowledge.
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