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Emperor K’ang-hsi ruled China from 1661 to 1722 and his reign is captured by

Jonathan D. Spence’s book Emperor of China. The different chapters of the book deal

with certain aspects of the Emperors life. Aspects that the history books to normally deal

with. The information in Spence’s book is based on Emperor K’ang-hsi’s

correspondence, his own writings. This writing maybe biased towards himself, but no

other piece of information could provide insight into his mind. The book is divided into

six parts; In motion, Ruling, Thinking, Growing Old, Sons, Valedictory. The book

follows Emperor K’ang-hsi’s life as Emperor in chronological order.

In the first part, “In Motion," the main emphasis was on Emperor K’ang-hsi travels

though his kingdom. He wrote a letter to Ku Wen-hsing stating that he had traveled

1000’s of miles in each direction. He had traveled to the provinces of Shansi and Shensi in

the west, to the provinces of Manchuria and Ula in the east, north across the Gobi to the

Kerulean River and south to the Yangtze River. On his travels, Emperor K’ang-hsi, liked

to collect and compare different plats, animals, birds that he came across. He loved to

hunt with bows and guns during his travels. Emperor K’ang-hsi hunting practices were

not just meant for joy and exercise, it was also an exercise in military preparedness. He

took thousands of his troops on many of his trips to train them in shooting, camp life, and

formation riding.

The second part of the book emphasis on the historiographically part of the

emperors rule. The authors' facts were based on the thousands of imperial documents that

came from the emperor. The...