Yishan, Zhenguo Jiangjun (Manchu: I Šan; 13 June 1790 – 30 June 1878), courtesy name Jingxuan, was a Manchu nobleman and official of the Qing dynasty. He was of Manchu and Aisin-Gioro descent, his family was of the Bordered Red Banner of the Manchu Eight Banners, and he lived during the reigns of the Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi, and Guangxu emperors. He served as the Imperial Commissioner of the Qing Dynasty, the second-highest ranking position in the Qing government, only below that of emperor, during the later half of the First Opium War, and signed the Treaty of Kulja on behalf of the Qing Dynasty alongside Buyantai with the Russian Empire in 1851 and the Treaty of Aigun on behalf of the Qing in 1858, also with the russians.
Yishan was born in Beijing or Mukden (modern-day Shenyang), Qing Dynasty, on 13 June 1790. Being a distant relative of the Qing Dynasty Royal Family, he entered the Qing bureaucracy without taking the Imperial examination at the age of 20, in 1810. In 1821, after the Daoguang Emperor inherited the throne from the Jiaqing Emperor, Yishan was promoted to the emperor's bodyguard. He served in several more positions in the following decade. Yishan governed Ili from 1838 to 1840, and from 1845 to 1854.
He was chosen to be a military general in 1839 for the First Opium War, and was promoted to Imperial Commissioner and Viceroy of Liangguang in 1841. Mismanagement in Guangzhou and Humen led to his defence failures, and he was forced to sign a convention and surrender to the British. He was sentenced to death (later commuted to imprisonment) in late 1841, but was released in 1842. In 1843, he once again became the Daoguang Emperor's bodyguard. After finishing his Ili governance term in 1854, he governed Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin as Viceroy of the Three Eastern Provinces from 1855 to 1860, signing the Treaty of Aigun with the Russian Empire regarding the Qing's northeastern borders in 1858. He participated in the Second Opium War as a general from 1857 to 1860. Yishan died on 30 June 1878.
Ancestry Family Yishan was from the Aisin-Gioro Clan (愛新覺羅), the imperial family of the Qing Dynasty, and he was part of the Bordered Red Banner of the Eight Banners of the Qing. He was a direct descendant of Hong Taiji (Emperor Taizong, 皇太極), the second emperor of the Later Jin Dynasty and the founding emperor of the Qing. Yishan was connected to Hong through the latter's 15th son, Prince Yu, who was Yishan's great-great-great-grandfather. Yishan's great-great-grandfather, Dong'e (董額), was the second son of Prince Yu and inherited Yu's position of Beizi (貝子). Yishan's great-grandfather, Hongchun (弘春; 1703–1739), once held the title of a junwang (second-rank prince) as "Prince Tai of the Second Rank" (多羅泰郡王). Yishan's grandfather was named Fengxiang (奉祥), although his positions in the Qing bureaucracy were unknown. Yishan's father was named Qiwei (奇偉), and he was appointed the hereditary title of Jiangjun (將軍).
Yishan's uncle, Yunti, was the Kangxi Emperor's 14th son and the first in line in the Prince Xun peerage. A character in Yishan's Chinese name, Yi (奕), was a generational character and part of a court-mandated poetic sequence devised by the Qianlong Emperor to name generations of the Aisin-Gioro clan.
Aisin-Gioro Clan Place of Origin The Aisin-Gioro clan originated from the Jurchen tribes situated in Manchuria, a region in Northeastern China and Southeasternmost Russia. The clan's ancestral home is located near Yilan County, an area in modern-day Heilongjiang. In etymology, Aisin means 'gold', corresponding to Chinese 金 jīn. Gioro refers to the clan's ancestral home in Yilan County. The Aisin-Gioro House had no system of automatic succession such as primogeniture or a law of succession. Instead, an emperor would name an heir in a secret edict. The edict would be read before senior members of the clan following the emperor's death. An emperor could have numerous sons by women of various ranks.
Ancestral Legend The Aisin-Gioro's ancestor is Bukūri Yongšon, a legendary warrior of the 13th century. Hong stated that Yongšon was conceived from a virgin birth. According to the legend, three heavenly maidens, Enggulen, Jenggulen, and Fekulen, were bathing at a lake called Bulhūri Omo near the Changbai Mountains. A magpie dropped a piece of red fruit near Fekulen, who ate it. She then became pregnant with Bukūri Yongšon. However, this legend belongs to another Manchu clan, the Hurha (Hurka). The actual ancestor of the Jurchen tribe and Aisin-Gioro clan is Mengtemu, the chieftain of a Jurchen tribe during the rule of the Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty. Before Nurhaci, the first emperor of the Later Jin Dynasty, renamed the clan, the Aisin-Gioro clan was initially named Gioro hala. During the Ming Dynasty, many Jurchens, including Nurhaci's grandfather Giocangga and father Taksi, were officially considered vassals and granted titles by the Ming court, such as "Dragon Tiger General". They were allowed to trade horses, fur, and ginseng for essential Chinese goods like salt, textiles, and iron tools. Rivalries were also extremely common.
History and Involvement with the Ming Dynasty Under Nurhaci and Hong, the Aisin-Gioro clan of the Jianzhou tribe won hegemony among the rival Jurchen tribes of the northeast, then through warfare and alliances extended its control into Inner Mongolia. Nurhachi created large, permanent civil-military units called "banners" to replace the small hunting groups used in his early campaigns. A banner was composed of smaller companies; it included some 7,500 warriors and their households, including slaves, under the command of a chieftain. Each banner was identified by a coloured flag that was yellow, white, blue, or red, either plain or with a border design. Originally there were four, then eight, Manchu banners; new banners were created as the Manchu conquered new regions, and eventually there were Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese banners, eight for each ethnic group. The Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty was thus achieved with a multiethnic army led by Manchu nobles and Han Chinese generals. Han Chinese soldiers were organised into the Army of the Green Standard, which became a sort of imperial constabulary force posted throughout China and on the frontiers.
The change of the name from Jurchen to Manchu was made to hide the fact that the ancestors of the Manchus, the Jianzhou Jurchens, were ruled by the Chinese. By 1648, less than one-sixth of the bannermen were actually of Manchu ancestry. The Qing dynasty carefully hid the 2 original editions of the books of "Qing Taizu Wu Huangdi Shilu" and the "Manzhou Shilu Tu" (Taizu Shilu Tu) in the Qing palace, forbidden from public view because they showed that the Manchu Aisin Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty. In the Ming period, the Koreans of Joseon referred to the Jurchen inhabited lands north of the Korean peninsula, above the rivers Yalu and Tumen to be part of Ming China, as the "superior country" which they called Ming China. The Qing deliberately excluded references and information that showed the Jurchens (Manchus) as subservient to the Ming dynasty, from the History of Ming to hide their former subservient relationship to the Ming. The Veritable Records of the Ming were not used to source content on Jurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this. This historical revisionism helped remove the accusation of rebellion from the Qing ruling family refusing to mention in the Mingshi the fact that the Qing founders were Ming China's subjects. The Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty attempted to rewrite the historical record and claim that the Aisin Gioro were never subjects of past dynasties and empires trying to cast Nurhaci's acceptance of Ming titles like Dragon Tiger General (longhu jiangjun 龍虎將軍) by claiming he accepted to "please Heaven".
Intermarriage with the Mongols The Qing emperors arranged marriages between Aisin Gioro noblewomen and outsiders to create political marriage alliances. During the Manchu conquest of the Ming Dynasty, the Manchu rulers offered to marry their princesses to Han Chinese military officers who served the Ming Empire as a means of inducing these officers into surrendering or defecting to their side. Aisin Gioro princesses were also married to Mongol princes, for the purpose of forming alliances between the Manchus and Mongol tribes.
The Manchus successfully induced one Han Chinese general, Li Yongfang (李永芳), into defecting to their side by offering him a position in the Manchu banners. Li Yongfang also married the daughter of Abatai, a son of Nurhaci. Many more Han Chinese abandoned their posts in the Ming Dynasty and defected to the Manchu side. There were over 1,000 marriages between Han Chinese men and Manchu women in 1632. Due to a proposal by Yoto (岳托), a nephew of Hong. Hong believed that intermarriage between Han Chinese and Manchus could help to eliminate ethnic conflicts in areas already occupied by the Manchus, as well as help the Han Chinese forget their ancestral roots more easily.
Manchu noblewomen were also married to Han Chinese men who surrendered or defected to the Manchu side. Aisin Gioro women were married to the sons of the Han Chinese generals Sun Sike (孫思克), Geng Jimao, Shang Kexi and Wu Sangui. The e'fu (額駙) rank was given to husbands of Manchu princesses. Geng Zhongming, a Han bannerman, was awarded the title "Prince Jingnan", while his grandsons Geng Jingzhong, Geng Zhaozhong (耿昭忠) and Geng Juzhong (耿聚忠) married Hooge's daughter, Abatai's granddaughter, and Yolo's daughter respectively. Sun Sike's son, Sun Cheng'en (孫承恩), married the Kangxi Emperor's fourth daughter, Heshuo Princess Quejing (和硕悫靖公主).
Bordered Red Banner
Yishan's family was incorporated into the Bordered Red Banner, which was part of the "Lower Five Banners" of the Qing Dynasty, meaning they were not governed directly by the Emperor. The other four of the "Lower Five Banners" consisted of the Plain Red Banner, Bordered Blue Banner, Plain Blue Banner, and the Bordered White Banner, while the "Three Upper Banners" consisted of the Plain Yellow Banner, Bordered Yellow Banner, and Plain White Banner. The Bordered Red Banner was initially assigned for Daišan, Nurhaci's second son, but after Daišan's death, leadership was assigned to his sons Prince Yoto and Prince Soto.
Early life
Yishan was born on 13 June 1790, towards the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. Whether he was born in Shenyang (called Mukden) or Beijing (called Peking) is debated among scholars. Due to his position as a member of a prestigious banner and ethnic lineage, Yishan had already received a position in the Qing bureaucracy by the time he was born. He was given the position "Feng'en Jiangjun" (奉恩將軍, "General Who Receives Grace") which entitled him to a stipend. Being a Manchu bannerman, Yishan's education was Manchu-centric.
During his childhood years, Yishan studied Manchu to fluency and Mandarin Chinese to high proficiency. He also trained rigorously in archery, becoming highly proficient. He was tutored in Chinese Confucian classics, and learnt the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism. His education mainly prepared him for future provincial administration, writing memorials, and understanding state ideology. He also mastered horsemanship and usage of weaponry like spears, swords, and bows. He also participated in military training. After his initial education, Yishan attended the Jiangshan High School, the official school established in Beijing for the education of imperial clansmen.