Death and Legacy
Daoguang died on 25 February 1850, at the Old Summer Palace (圓明園), 8 km/5 miles northwest of the walls of Beijing. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son. Daoguang failed to understand the intention or determination of the Europeans, or the basic economics of a war on drugs. Although the Europeans were outnumbered, outgunned and were thousands of miles away from home, they could bring far superior firepower to bear at any point of contact along Chinese coast. The Manchu court was highly dependent on the continued flow of tax/levy payment from southern China via the Grand Canal, which was easily cut off by the British expeditionary force at Zhenjiang (Chenkiang/Chinkiang). He had a poor understanding of the British and the industrial revolution that Britain had undergone, preferring to turn a blind eye to the rest of the world. It was said that Daoguang did not even know where Britain was located in the world. His thirty-year reign introduced the initial onslaught by western imperialism and foreign invasions that would plague China, in one form or another, for the next one hundred years.
He was interred in the Muling (慕陵 – meaning "Tomb of longing", or "Tomb of admiration") mausoleum, which is part of the Western Qing Tombs (清西陵), 120 kilometers/75 miles southwest of Beijing.
Read more about this topic: Daoguang Emperor
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or legacy:
“To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)