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Historical person
1638–1661
The Shunzhi Emperor was the first Qing emperor to rule from Beijing after the Manchu conquest of China. He inherited the throne as a child in 1643, with his uncle Dorgon acting as regent, and after Dorgon’s death he gradually asserted personal authority while the Qing state continued campaigns to suppress Ming loyalist resistance and consolidate control over the empire.
He inherited the throne as a child after Hong Taiji’s death, while Dorgon governed as regent and Qing armies conquered much of China. After assuming personal authority, Shunzhi sought to balance Manchu institutions with Chinese imperial government before dying of smallpox in 1661.
In Jin Yong’s The Deer & the Cauldron: Book 2, The volume develops the mystery surrounding the former Shunzhi Emperor and the contested memory of the fallen Ming. In Alice Poon’s The Green Phoenix: A Novel of Empress Xiaozhuang, the Woman Who Re-Made Asia, The novel follows her transformation from junior consort into the mother of the Shunzhi Emperor and the senior woman of a dynasty still fighting for survival.
Series
Set during the early reign of the Kangxi Emperor, The Deer and the Cauldron follows Wei Xiaobao—called Trinket in John Minford’s English translation—from a Yangzhou brothel into the Forbidden City. Illiterate, irreverent and almost entirely without conventional martial virtue, he survives through mimicry, bribery, luck and an instinct…
All books in this series
Standalone books
