From the beginning of the book, the author tells the importance Qianlong’s filiality and how it was a key element of his upbringing, and the emperor he would become. There are many ways his filial influenced his rule as emperor. For example, Qianlong believed that “the great governance of the realm was stemmed from the great governance of the family” (?). This means that by the emperor showing his loyalty to his family and being faithful to their beliefs and original thoughts and policies of his grandfather and father, that he was, in fact, filial. Also, by staying loyal to his father and grandfather showed the Qing empire that he was true to both his grandfather and father, which to them was the highest honor. To Qianlong, the belief …show more content…
Like I mentioned before in paragraph one, his family was the model for the entire empire. So if Qianlong did not portray filiaity in the correct way, he was setting a bad example for the empire. By doing all of this was one of Qianlong’s most important virtue that he needed to show the empire. Even as a child he was brought up to show his filiaity towards his family at an early age, and this followed him throughout his life as emperor as well, and to his last years before his …show more content…
His constant battle to maintain the image of being loyal to his father and grandfather did in fact in my opinion show weakness on his part. Qianlong was more focused on showing his filiaity than ruling, which in his later years would make him weak, but he was still a good emperor. At the beginning of his rule, he was directly involved with cases involving embezzlement over 1000 taels. If Qianlong decided the accused was guilty, he would order an immediate decapitation, which shows how he emulated his father. In the later years of his rule, however, Qianlong decided to use the aid of Hesen, who was a member of the grand council. Qianlong thought he could do no wrong, but behind the curtains, Hesen was stealing from the Empire. Qianlong’s trust in Hesen emulated his grandfather and was a major factor in the decline of the empire.
In closing, I believe that Qianlong showed a good mixture of filiaity to his father and grandfather, and even to his mother. It also affected the way he ruled and the decisions he made later on in his rule, which directly impacted the empire for years to come. I think that Qianlong should have made his paths, rather than relying on the image his family portrayed throughout the