A highly ambitious military leader, he led a series of campaigns into Inner Asia, Burma, Nepal and Vietnam and suppressed rebellions in Jinchuan and Taiwan.

He sponsored the compilation of the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), the largest collection ever made of Chinese history, while also overseeing extensive literary inquisitions that led to the suppression of some 3,100 works.

Like his many uncles, Hongli entered into a battle of succession with his elder half-brother Hongshi, who had the support of a large faction of officials in the imperial court as well as Yunsi, Prince Lian.

In 1783, when the imperial chronicles were commissioned, the historians were ordered to emphasise the role of the emperor in quelling the rebellion and to mention that "Hongxi and others wanted to usurp the throne".

[16] Poems glorifying the Qing conquest and genocide of the Dzungar Mongols were written by Zhao,[17][18] who wrote the Yanpu zaji in "brush-notes" style, where military expenditures of the Qianlong Emperor's reign were recorded.

[25][26] The Qianlong Emperor responded to the vassal Shan States's request for military aid against the attacking forces of Burma,[27][28] but the Sino-Burmese War ended in complete failure.

The capital, Thăng Long, was conquered in 1788, but a few months later the Qing army was defeated, and the invasion turned into a debacle due to the surprise attack during Tết (Vietnamese New Year) by Nguyễn Huệ, the second and most capable of the three Tây Sơn brothers.

Despite setbacks in the south, overall the Qianlong Emperor's military expansion nearly doubled the area of the already vast Qing Empire, and unified many non-Han peoples—such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Evenks and Mongols.

Since most of the warring had already taken place, warlords no longer saw any reason to train their armies, resulting in a rapid military decline by the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign.

[38] In order to present himself in Buddhist terms for appeasing the Mongols and Tibetan subjects, he commissioned a thangka, or sacred painting, depicting him as Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom.

On certain fixed occasions over a long period he contemplated a number of paintings or works of calligraphy which possessed special meaning for him, inscribing each regularly with mostly private notes on the circumstances of enjoying them, using them almost as a diary.

It preserved numerous books, but was also intended as a way to ferret out and suppress political opponents, requiring the "careful examination of private libraries to assemble a list of around eleven thousand works from the past, of which about a third were chosen for publication.

[47] In the Qianlong Emperor's time, there were 53 cases of Literary Inquisition, resulting in the victims executed by beheading or slow slicing (lingchi), or having their corpses mutilated (if they were already dead).

Ma Laichi was the leader of one of these orders and he personally studied in the Islamic world in Bukhara to learn Sufism, and Yemen and in Mecca where he was taught by Mawlana Makhdum.

In response, the Manchus in Beijing sent Manchu Grand Secretary Agui with a battalion to slaughter Jahriyya chiefs and exile the adherents of the Sufi order to the border regions.

[58] More than 1000 Hui Muslim children and women from the Sufi Jahriya order in eastern Gansu were massacred by Qing Banner general Li Shiyao during a 1784 uprising by Hui Jahriyya Muslims Zhang Wenqing and Tian Wu, 3 years after an early 1781 rebellion by Salar Sufi Jahriyya members when the Qing executed Jahriya leader Ma Mingxin.

For the Old Summer Palace, the Qianlong Emperor commissioned the Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione for the construction of the Xiyang Lou, or Western-style mansion, to satisfy his taste for exotic buildings and objects.

He also commissioned the French Jesuit Michel Benoist, to design a series of timed waterworks and fountains complete with underground machinery and pipes, for the amusement of the imperial family.

In the early Qing era, Nurhaci and Hong Taiji categorised Manchu and Han ethnic identity within the Eight Banners based on culture, lifestyle and language, instead of ancestry or genealogy.

The emperor redefined the identity of Han Bannermen by saying that they were to be regarded as of having the same culture and being of the same ancestral extraction as Han civilians[67] Conversely, he emphasised the martial side of Manchu culture and reinstituted the practice of the annual imperial hunt as begun by his grandfather, leading contingents from the Manchu and Mongol banners to the Mulan hunting grounds each autumn to test and improve their skills.

[83] Han Chinese farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing government in the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation.

[90] A valet who accompanied a British diplomatic mission to the Qing court in 1793 described Qianlong in his later years: The Emperor is about five feet ten inches in height, and of a slender but elegant form; his complexion is comparatively fair, though his eyes are dark; his nose is rather aquiline, and the whole of his countenance presents a perfect regularity of feature, which, by no means, announce the great age he is said to have attained; his person is attracting, and his deportment accompanied by an affability, which, without lessening the dignity of the prince, evinces the amiable character of the man.

His dress consisted of a loose robe of yellow silk, a cap of black velvet with a red ball on the top, and adorned with a peacock's feather, which is the peculiar distinction of mandarins of the first class.

[91]In his later years, the Qianlong Emperor became spoiled with power and glory, disillusioned and complacent in his reign, and started placing his trust in corrupt officials such as Yu Minzhong and Heshen.

[citation needed] However, due to numerous factors such as long term embezzlement and corruption by officials, frequent expeditions to the south, huge palace constructions, many war and rebellion campaigns as well as his own extravagant lifestyle, all of these cost the treasury a total of 150.2 million silver taels.

[93] During the mid-18th century, European powers began to pressure for increases in the already burgeoning foreign trade and for outposts on the Chinese coast, demands which the aging Qianlong emperor resisted.

Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects.

Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects...[96] The letter was unknown to the public until 1914, when it was translated, then later used as a symbol of China's refusal to modernize.

[97] Macartney's conclusions in his memoirs were widely quoted: The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance.

[100] The Titsingh delegation also included the Dutch-American Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest,[101] whose detailed description of this embassy to the Qing court was soon after published in the United States and Europe.