Suksaha

Suksaha was a Manchu statesman and military officer of the Nara clan who belonged to the Plain White Banner during the establishment of Qing rule in China. He served in campaigns connected with the Manchu conquest and rose to high office under the Shunzhi Emperor. When Shunzhi died in 1661, Suksaha was appointed one of four regents for the young Kangxi Emperor alongside Soni, Ebilun and Oboi. The arrangement was intended to keep government in the hands of senior ministers during the emperor’s minority.

Factional competition gradually allowed Oboi to dominate the regency. Suksaha emerged as his principal opponent, particularly after the ageing Soni ceased to act as an effective counterweight. In 1667 Suksaha requested retirement, but the move was turned into a prosecution: he and members of his family were accused of numerous grave offences and executed despite the young emperor’s reported reluctance to impose the harshest punishment. Kangxi later removed Oboi from power in 1669. Reliable reference works give Suksaha’s birth year as unknown, making the often repeated date 1607 insecure.

In Jin Yong’s The Deer & the Cauldron: Book 1, the struggle among Kangxi’s regents forms part of the dangerous political environment into which Wei Xiaobao is accidentally drawn. Suksaha’s historical conflict with Oboi therefore matters as court background and as evidence of how precarious the young emperor’s authority initially was. The novel turns those real factional tensions into adventure and conspiracy, and should not be used as evidence for private conversations within the regency.