| Abstract |
The political power during the early Ch’ing consisted of the royal families, important colleagues with different clans, remaining the characteristic of clan politics based on kinsmanship; on the other hand, with the centralization of the Han’s power as well as the development of the tyrannic imperior, the rulers’s attempt to expand their power would undermine the original political tradition in other words, the interaction between and rises and falls of the royal and clan politics had an impact on the stability of the political conditions, and also, a crucial point to help observe the political changes during the early Ch’ing Dynasty. Among the Manchu kinsmen, the Hešeri prospered due to their language proficiency, as the family lived in the areas where multi-language groups were flocked. Moreover, they took the role to coordinate the relationships between the Manchu and Mongo in early period. For a long time, members of the Hešeri family usually undertook the duty as attendants by emperor as they regarded loyalty as the one and only option. That is why the first and second generation members, Hifu and Sonin, could survive from the intense politics storms. Especially Sonin, who had experienced the stages of the establishment of the imperial power, the protectorate, the emperors’ government, and the aristocratic assistance in governing, still stuck to the faith to support the emperor. His insistence on loyalty made him a member of nobility, then the royal affinity, and finally helped him shift the power and position of his family to the top. Under the trend in which the imperial authority was further established, the third generation of the family, Songgoto and his family members inevitably had conflicts with the imperial power, due to their arrogance and ambition, which at last direct them toward the path of collapse. |
