“Kangxi had originally represented himself as a man in pain and a man with doubts [but in the] valedictory edict he emerges only as a shadow, his platitudes enshrined and his forcefulness and anger and honesty and pain all—alike—removed.”

from Emperor of China, Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi

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“K'ang-hsi had 56 children; one son only however born to an empress who became the center of attention and inevitably became the focus of tangled factional alignments that soured life at court and split the ranks”

from Emperor of China, Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi

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