Near the end of Scarlet Heart, the Fourteenth Prince performs a sword dance and then recites a poem — a Song-dynasty lyric about the reckless honour of a young man’s life, remembered from the far side of losing it.
A great many viewers have cried at that scene. Underneath it is a simple question.
How does a man with that much lose?
A hundred thousand troops. His father’s confidence. A faction behind him. Ceremonial honours no other prince in the dynasty ever received.
He still didn’t make it in time.
Here is why, in three parts.
→ On the poem itself, see “[The Poem the Fourteenth Prince Recited]”.
What he had
In 1718, with a Mongol army occupying Tibet, the Kangxi Emperor appointed his fourteenth son Generalissimo Who Pacifies the Distant Regions. He was thirty.
The terms were extraordinary. He was styled “Generalissimo Prince,” and permitted to carry the standard of the Plain Yellow Banner — the banner the emperor commanded personally. To march under it meant the campaign was, ceremonially, the emperor’s own.
The send-off matched. Princes in armour assembled before the great hall of state; those not marching, along with every official above the second grade, lined up outside the meridian gate. He knelt to receive the seal of command, went out through that gate, and departed the capital by the north.
No one else in the history of the dynasty was called Generalissimo Prince.
To every observer, this was a rehearsal for a succession.
What he did not have: rank
And here is the thing almost everyone misses.
The “Prince” in “Generalissimo Prince” was not a rank of nobility.
Qing peerage ran in twelve grades — prince of the first rank, prince of the second rank, beile, beise, and downward. “Generalissimo Prince” was a style and a command. It sat nowhere on that ladder.
So what was his actual rank?
Beise. Fourth from the top.
In 1709, when the heir apparent was restored, the emperor enfeoffed his adult sons together. The distribution is worth seeing:
| Rank | Sons who received it |
|---|---|
| Prince of the first rank | the third son, the fourth son (the future Yongzheng Emperor), the fifth son |
| Prince of the second rank | the seventh son, the tenth son |
| Beise | the ninth son, the twelfth son, the fourteenth son |
The elder brother: prince of the first rank. The younger brother: beise. Three grades apart.
And through all the campaigning in the northwest, through every victory, that rank never moved. Sent off with the ceremonial of an emperor on campaign, and left at fourth grade throughout.
Hold on to that asymmetry.
Reason one: distance
The Kangxi Emperor died on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month of 1722, at the summer palace outside the capital.
His fourteenth son was in camp in Qinghai. Roughly two thousand kilometres away.
News took days to reach him; the return took longer still. He arrived in the capital at the end of the month.
The enthronement was over.
He did not fail to arrive in time. There was never a version of events in which he could have.
Reason two: the gates
Then why not march back with the army? He had a hundred thousand men.
Because the city was shut.
After the emperor’s death, the nine gates of the capital were sealed for six days. No prince could enter the palace without a summons.
The man who sealed them was Longkodo, commander of the gendarmerie — the office holding the nine gates and the security of the inner city. He had held it since 1711.
And Longkodo was the younger brother of the woman who had raised the fourth prince. The Yongzheng Emperor’s foster mother was his sister; the new emperor addressed him in official documents as “my uncle.” (→ “[The Emperor Who Was Not Loved by His Mother]”)
Whatever document anyone held, it changed nothing if they could not get inside.
This is why the endless argument about whether the succession edict was forged matters less than it appears to. A document that cannot be delivered does nothing.
Reason three: the supply line
And the option of marching at all had already been closed.
In 1721, Nian Gengyao was appointed viceroy of Sichuan and Shaanxi — the post controlling grain and transport for the entire northwestern campaign. The supply line for the Fourteenth Prince’s army ran through his hands.
Nian Gengyao belonged to a Han banner under the fourth prince’s command. His sister was the fourth prince’s secondary consort. (→ “[Was Hua Fei Real?]“)
A hundred thousand men, and the brother’s man held the food.
Marching east was never available.
The faction was not really his either
One more thing, easily missed.
The Eighth Prince’s faction did not want the Fourteenth Prince. They wanted the Eighth Prince. When he was destroyed for good in 1714, they needed a replacement, and he was it. (→ “[Why the Eighth Prince Lost]”)
Worse, from their point of view: he was the fourth prince’s full brother. Same mother. A figurehead whose loyalties could not be relied upon if it ever came to a choice.
Afterwards: thirty-three years
What waited for him in the capital was confinement.
- 1723, fourth month — after his father’s coffin was moved to the imperial tombs, he was kept there and refused permission to return. A regional commander was assigned to watch him
- 1723, fifth month — on the death of their mother, the new emperor raised him to prince of the second rank. But gave him no princely style, and left the registry entry reading beise. The record notes that he showed no gratitude, only anger
- 1725 — the second-rank title revoked; back to beise
- 1726 — beise revoked; confined with his sons in a hall behind the palace
He spent the whole of his brother’s thirteen-year reign shut away.
His nephew released him in 1736. He was restored to a princedom in 1748 and died in 1755, aged sixty-seven. His posthumous name was Diligent.
Thirty-seven years after he rode out as Generalissimo Prince.
✦ Satoe’s Take
What follows is my reading, not established fact.
Read the Nine Princes’ Contest as a competition for support and the ending looks unjust. The Eighth Prince won an overwhelming majority when the court was polled. The Fourteenth had his father’s confidence, a faction, and military success. Both lost.
It was not a competition for support. It was a competition for chokepoints.
The fourth prince secured two: the gates of the capital, and his rival’s supply line. In public he called himself the idlest man alive and let it be known he had turned to Buddhism. Those two points were all he held.
And now the part that unsettles me.
Both of those appointments were made by the Kangxi Emperor himself.
Longkodo took the gendarmerie in 1711. Nian Gengyao took the northwestern viceroyalty in 1721 — one year before the succession. The gates of the capital to the fourth prince’s uncle; the lifeline of a distant army to the fourth prince’s man.
If the emperor intended the Fourteenth Prince to succeed him, this arrangement is very hard to explain. Why send that son two thousand kilometres away and hand his supply line to a rival’s client? Why grant him an emperor’s ceremonial and leave his rank at fourth grade?
So — had the old emperor planned the whole thing?
That I cannot say.
We know how it ended, which makes every earlier move look like preparation. Nian Gengyao’s promotion may simply have reflected his record in Sichuan; Longkodo’s appointment may reflect nothing more than his family’s standing. And if there was a plan, why was none of it written down? The system for naming an heir in secret was created by the Yongzheng Emperor, not his father. It did not exist yet.
So I would keep three statements apart.
What can be said — in his final decade the Kangxi Emperor placed both the security of the capital and the supply of the northwestern army in the hands of men closely tied to his fourth son.
What can be inferred — the claim that he had settled on the Fourteenth Prince sits awkwardly with that arrangement.
What cannot be known — whether he was actively choosing the fourth son, or died still undecided, or was merely putting able men where they were needed. The sources do not answer.
And that third statement, I think, is where the real tragedy of the Fourteenth Prince lives.
He did not lose. He was never able to find out whether he had lost. No one ever told him what his father had been thinking, and he had thirty-three years of confinement to not find out in.
That is what the poem is doing, in that scene.
What did I do? — and there is no one left who could answer.
◀ Related: [The Poem the Fourteenth Prince Recited] ｜
[Why the Eighth Prince Lost] ｜
[The Emperor Who Was Not Loved by His Mother]
◀ Series index: The Qing Dynasty — Complete Guide