Where are They Now?
The last remains of the Míng and Qīng emperors are widely scattered. And who was really the last emperor?
Emperors went through several names in their lifetimes and after their deaths, but to foreigners and to modern Chinese the one by which almost all Míng and Qīng emperors are usually known is the name of each one’s reign. This was different from his personal name (which it was forbidden to speak while he lived), his posthumous name, or his temple name, also awarded posthumously, which is the one by which most pre-Míng emperors are known. It is more correct to speak of the Yǒnglè emperor, meaning ‘the emperor of the Yǒnglè reign’, than of ‘the Emperor Yǒnglè’.
The Hóngwǔ emperor (‘vast military accomplishment’), the first of the Míng, who established himself after pushing back the Mongol Yuán dynasty to Inner Mongolia in 1368, renamed their conquered capital Běipíng (北平, ‘northern peace’ or ‘the north pacified’) and chose Nánjīng, well to the south, as his own capital.
The Yǒnglè emperor (‘eternal happiness’), third of the Míng and formerly prince of a northern region, believed that the Great Míng Empire could better be defended from the north, and after massive reconstruction which gave the centre of the capital its modern layout, gave it the name Běijīng (northern capital) for the first time, moving the court there in 1421.
The first Míng (明) emperor, Hóngwǔ (洪武), is buried near Nánjīng, the first Míng capital. The second, Jiànwén (建文), went up in flames along with his palace as the troops of his usurping uncle, become the third Míng emperor, Yǒnglè, entered the city. Yǒnglè founded and built Běijīng, chose the Míng Tombs site, and was the first to be buried there. Throughout his reign he was haunted by rumours that his nephew was still alive.
The remaining emperors who ruled from the Forbidden City were, all but one, buried in the Míng Tombs (十三陵, Shísān Líng, ‘Thirteen Tombs’):
Yǒnglè 永乐1403–24
Hóngxī 洪熙 1425
Xuāndé 宣德 1426–35
Zhèngtǒng 正统 1436–49, also Tiānshùn 天顺 1457–64
Buried in northwest Běijīng:
Jǐngtài 景泰 1450–57
The Zhèngtǒng and Tiānshùn emperors were the same person — and one who had an exaggerated idea of his own military prowess. In September 1449, at the age of 21, he was captured by the Mongols and held hostage.
To remove the Mongols’ leverage the Dowager Empress and the court put the imprisoned emperor’s half-brother on the throne as the Jǐngtài emperor.
The Zhèngtǒng emperor was released in 1451 and lived a secluded life within the Imperial City for seven years at the site of what became the Mahakala Temple or Pǔdù Sì before his supporters staged a coup and restored him.
Since an emperor ruled by the will of heaven, all those who had supported a rival had to be punished, and the luckless Jǐngtài, who died shortly afterwards, was treated as a usurper and buried in a secluded spot just east of what are now the Běijīng Botanical Gardens, known as the Míng Jǐngtài Líng (明景泰陵).
Chénghuà 成化 1465–87
Hóngzhì 弘治 1488–1505
Zhèngdé正德 1506–21
Jiājìng 嘉靖 1522–66
Lóngqìng 隆庆 1567–72
Wànlì 万历 1573–1620
Tàichāng 泰昌 1620
Tiānqǐ 天启 1621–27
Chóngzhēn 崇祯 1628–44
Emperors usually stayed in harness until they died, most commonly of natural causes, although the Yǒnglè emperor murdered the second Míng emperor (who was his nephew and the founding Hóngwǔ emperor’s grandson), and as peasant armies entered Běijīng the last of the Míng emperors committed suicide by hanging himself either from a pavilion or from the ‘Guilty Sophora’ in Jǐng Shān Park.
In 1542 the perverted Jiājìng emperor only narrowly escaped strangulation by palace women he had abused, although he went on to have the second longest reign of any Míng emperor.
The rebel Lǐ Zìchéng (李自成), who dethroned the Míng, had himself enthroned in the Forbidden City as first emperor of the Shùn (顺) dynasty on 3 June 1644, having announced its creation several months earlier in Xī’ān.
Yǒngchāng 永昌 1644
He was forced to flee the next day by the arrival of the allied forces of General Wú Sānguì (吴三桂) and Manchu armies led by the regent Dorgon. The general had enlisted Qīng aid to save the Míng which turned out to be something of a mistake, although with Běijīng overrun by rebels as he held the Qīng at bay at Shān Hǎi Guān, his options were few.
The short-lived Shùn dynasty ended with the death of Lǐ Zìchéng somewhere in Shǎnxī Province later that year. His reign name means ‘eternal fortune’.
The Qīng (清) had two emperors before they took over the Míng empire (and the Manchus had others before that as the Jīn or Later Jīn dynasty). Their ashes were buried in a tomb complex at Shěnyáng in their Manchurian homelands, in territory never ruled by a Hàn monarch but which has nevertheless been absorbed into modern China.
The Prince-Regent Dorgon was unique in being posthumously named an emperor after he died in a riding accident in 1650, although this title was stripped from him the following year.
The Qīng emperors who reigned from Běijīng were buried at the Eastern and Western Qīng Tombs. After the Shùnzhì emperor the Qīng ceased using cremation and adopted Chinese embalming and burial customs.
Shùnzhì 顺治 1644–61 E
Kāngxī 康熙 1662–1722 E
Yōngzhèng 雍正 1723–35 W
Qiánlóng 乾隆1736–95 E
Jiāqìng 嘉庆 1796–1820 W
Dàoguāng 道光 1821–50 W
Xiánfēng 咸丰 1851–61 E
Tóngzhì 同治 1862–74 E
Guāngxù 光绪 1874–1908 W
Xuāntǒng 宣统 1909–12 W
The Qiánlóng emperor retired so as not to show disrespect to his grandfather, the Kāngxī emperor, by reigning for a longer period than he had. The last of the Qīng, Aisin Gioro ‘Henry’ Pǔyí, abdicated (or rather his adoptive mother and regent, the Dowager Empress Lóngyù, 隆裕皇后, did so on his behalf), and is rarely known by his reign title since he died an ordinary citizen during the Cultural Revolution.
Yuán Shìkǎi (袁世凯), who in 1911 negotiated with the forces of revolution on behalf of the Qīng from a position of military strength, only to betray the dynasty in return for the post of first President of the new republic, went on to betray the revolutionaries by declaring his intention to mount the throne as the first emperor of the Great Chinese Empire:
Hóngxiàn 洪憲 1916
But the mere advance announcement that the Hóngxiàn reign would begin on 1 January caused such widespread protest and rebellion that the rite of accession planned for the Hall of Supreme Harmony never actually took place, and by 22 March Yuán was forced to decree the end of his imperial ambition, once again adopting the title of President. He died from kidney failure on 5 June the same year, and was buried with some magnificence in his ancestral home town in Hénán Province.
The Hóngxiàn emperor is usually overlooked, but even if not, the Xuāntǒng emperor, Aisin Gioro ‘Henry’ Pǔyí, is still entitled to be called ‘The Last Emperor’ since he was returned to the throne by a pro-monarchist warlord in July 1917, in a restoration that lasted all of 12 days.
His ashes were initially stored at the Bā Bǎo Shān mausoleum in the west of Běijīng with various ‘heroes of the revolution’, but are now to be found in a small plot at the Western Qīng Tombs.
Return to The Palace Museum or ‘Forbidden City’
See other Forbidden City stories:
Monumental Mismanagement
The Two Palace Museums
A Storm in a Coffee Cup
The End of the Emperors
The Last Occupant of the Forbidden City
Pride and a Fall
The Ends of the Eunuchs
Links to neighbouring sights around the Imperial City and Tiān’ān Mén Square. Or see Main Index to A Better Guide to Běijīng.
