![]() ![]() After his 1751 trip, Qianlong collected the finest performers from Yangzhou and Suzhou to perform at his mother’s 60th birthday celebration. ![]() The Qianlong emperor took to performances by opera troupes in Jiangnan, the prosperous Yangtze River Delta that was the heartland of Chinese culture. (They were also the model for Dèng Xiǎopíng’s 邓小平 1992 trip that helped usher in the era of reform and opening.) But they were also instances of cultural diplomacy that, it turned out, operated in both directions. As historian Joshua Goldstein puts it in his book Drama Kings, “the Qianlong emperor developed his addiction to drama in his first southern tour in 1751, during which he was treated by Jiangnan elites to cavalcades of artistic performances.” These southern tours - or nánxún 南巡 - were part-power projection, demonstrating the ability of the Manchu leaders to move freely in a region they had only controlled for a few decades, and part-espionage, giving the court insights into their new domain. The emperor’s fondness for what would come to be called Peking Opera had roots long before his 80th birthday, the one celebrants would observe in 1790. ![]()
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