China’s Greatest Emperors




































Subscribe to “iLook China”!

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

6 Responses to China’s Greatest Emperors

  1. Ben says:

    Given China’s long history, from many of the glorious ancient past to its troubled modern era, there are numerous emperors or leaders to consider. Several key considerations include internal prosperity, external power projection/influence and most of all, lasting historical influence. It appears more appropriate to group the leaders into brackets instead of any chronological order. At the top of the bracket is actually pretty straight forward, it would certainly include Taizong of Tang dynasty, Wudi of Han dynasty and Qin Shihuang of Qin dynasty. The bracket below would include Kublai Khan of Yuan, Kang Xi of Qing, Yongle of Ming and probably Wu Zetian of Tang. Those mentioned above are pretty much clear cut above the rest of many Chinese leaders.

    • What about the emperor who unified China the first time and created one written language and one measurement system—Qin Shi Huang Di? If China had never been unified it might have stayed like Europe causing more wars and unrest.

      • bigbenusa says:

        No doubt about the importance of Qin Shi Huang in China’s history. As noted in the previous post, he is up there along with
        Taizong of Tang dynasty and Wudi of Han dynasty. These three leaders have the most lasting influences in China’s long history.

        As you noted, Qin Shi Huang basically formed the Chinese empire as a unified state. The standardization of written script, measurements, currencies and the moves towards central administration was the most defining inflection point in China’s history.

        Wudi of Han dynasty expanded the empire’s territory in all directions that largely served as the basic geographical footprint to the modern times. Under his reign, the Han empire became one of the most powerful empires in the world. Its accomplishments were at least equal to the Roman empire at the time in what was effectively a non-connected bipolar world order across the Euroasia landmass, with the Romans dominating the West and the Hans dominating the East. Wudi’s lasting impact would be the implementation of Confucianism as the official ideology. Some historians of Chinese history would say – Qin Shi Huang was known to have unified territory, written languages and other measurable standards, but it was Wudi who unified ideology – which would have lasting impact on China and its neighbors in East Asia. In addition, the cultural identity of the so called ethnic Hans started to emerge during this period. Even during the earlier Qin period, people still largely identified themselves according to their ancestral pre-Qin states.

        If historians of Chinese history have to do a consensus poll, it would not be a stretch to say that Taizong of Tang dynasty would top the list as the greatest Chinese emperor. Tang era was widely seen as the golden age in China’s grand history. On top of economic prosperity, high culture, scientific advancement, military achievement and geopolitical influence, Tang was also the most cosmopolitan and relatively liberal dynasty. Many of the Sinosphere states like Japan and Korea were heavily influenced by Tang dynasty. The overall reign of Taizong (known as”貞觀之治 – Zhen Guan Zhi Zhi”) became the role model or “standard” for all later emperors and subsequent dynasties. Under Taizong, there was the further implementation of meritocracy in government officials which began during the previous Sui dynasty. Most of all, the Tang imperial family was of mixed ethic origin between Hans and Xianbei (Mongols related). Tang emperors like Taizong had multiple titles, he was the “Son of Heaven” within the Confucius order as well the “Heavenly Khan” for the nomadic groups in the north. As a result, one of the biggest lasting impact of the Tang dynasty was it set the foundation for the Middle Kingdom (subsequent dynasties all the way to modern China) to try to become a multi-ethnic universal empire/state. This played a role in legitimizing non-ethnic Hans dynasties as the “rightful” successors of the Middle Kingdom. The basis of the term “Chinese” largely originated from Qing dynasty’s emperor Qianlong and his concept of “five nationalities” which was meant to include various ethnic groups. This idea was later adopted by the RoC and then under the PRC. However, the very foundation of a multi-ethnic Middle Kingdom traced its roots to the Tang dynasty under Taizong.

      • Thanks for this concise summary loaded with detail. On that note, I’ve read a few debates on-line that explores the issue of the Han and the Roman Empire fighting to see who would dominate the world. First, I don’t think this would have been possible due to the logistics of supplying armies over those long distances between the two while managing all the conquered states in between. Second, no one has managed to hold on to that much territory for long. Alexander failed and eventually even the Mongols lost their hold on the vast empire they conquered.

        Other than that, I think if the impossible happened, eventually,the Han would have prevailed or the two would have ended up in a stalemate with a heavily armed border area where the two empires met. Eventually, trade between the two would have dampened the fires of conquest—sort of what is happening today. My wife mentioned yesterday that she can’t see a war between the U.S. and China today because of the rising consumer middle class in China that’s adopting Western middle class lifestyles if not cultural elements of the west, for instance, Christianity that has pretty much failed in Asia.

  2. Terry Chen says:

    In my opinion emperor kangxi inargubly trumps them all. When he took over the qing dynasty was on the brink of collapse with oboi trying to get more power and he had to deal with numerous rebellions. The way he managed to deal with the whole multitude of problems and then propel the qing dynasty into prosperity is simply amazing.

    Apart from that he was able to completely integrate the manchu’s into Chinese culture and did much to promote harmony between the different races in China.

    Emperor qianlong and yongzheng had a much easier job than him.

    • Terry,

      What you say makes sense. However, if Qianlong and Yongzheng were not capable, they could have wrecked overnight what Kangzi built.

      The problem with inherited leadership in the case of emperors/kings, is that sooner or later, an emperor will sit on the throne that is not capable of ruling.

      It is best when leadership arises through merit.

      In fact, due to Qianlong, the West’s domination over China in the 19th century starting with the Opium Wars may have began sooner during the 18th century.

      Then again, I wonder if the American Revolution in the later part of the 18th century may have slowed up the exploitation of China that took place in the 19th century.



WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s


%d bloggers like this: