Abstract:

As Chuanguo imperial seal, the “Zhi gao zhi bao” imperial seal played a crucial role in early seventeenth-century China. Hong Taiji and his ministers considered the seal to be the imperial seal from Qing dynasty, which meant that Hong Taiji had inherited the mandate of heaven from all previous Chinese dynasties. When the news of that the dynasty had obtained the seal spread everywhere, some people viewed the seal as a mark of religious authority, and the Qing ministers did not deny this statement. After the conquest, the Qing government debased the value of the seal. The Qianlong emperor declared that the Qing dynasty was legitimate because of their ancestor’s respectable morality, not because of the seal. Meanwhile, the Qianlong emperor ordered the seal destroyed. However, the emperor noticed that without the seal his statements would be ineffective, so after several years he ordered a counterfeit seal. When a Mongolian prince offered another “Zhi gao zhi bao,” the emperor intended to employ the seal to prove his superiority in Mongolia. We can observe the flexibility and the influence of Qing discourse of legitimacy in different classes, eras, and cultures.