The Qing Dynasty: My Imperial Father Is Hong Chengchou

It is said that Xiaozhuang of the Great Qing used their affair to persuade Hong Chengchou to surrender, and that Xuanye was their child, not the biological son of the Shunzhi Emperor. After ascending the throne, Xuanye was surrounded by suspicions. The posthumous title “Shengzu,” normally granted to a dynasty’s founder, bypassed the Shunzhi Emperor and went to Xuanye, prompting people to ask whose ancestor he really was. He was unusually diligent, and his governing style closely resembled that of Zhu Di and Li Shimin, as if he were using his extraordinary achievements to prove his legitimacy. Though Manchu, he vigorously promoted Han culture, having royal children ranked by generation using Chinese characters and given Han-style names. As a result, later generations of the imperial clan became well versed in Han learning but gradually lost their ability to speak Manchu. Even his era name, “Kangxi,” supposedly had a hidden connection to the name of Hong Chengchou’s father, “Hong Qixi.” Drawing on extensive historical sources, this book reveals a different version of the “historical truth”...