title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal Election Act provides that federal elections must be held on a Sunday or on a federal holiday no earlier than 46 and no later than 48 months after the first sitting of the preceding session, unless a snap election is called or a state of defence is declared. Under this rule, the 2021 federal election had to take place on a Sunday between 29 August and 24 October (inclusive), as the previous 19th Bundestag had held its first sitting on 24 October 2017. The President of Germany sets the exact date for the election. On 9 December 2020, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier ordered the election to be held on 26 September 2021.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: For the fourth time since 2009, the 2021 federal election was observed by OSCE, providing four experts from three OSCE states.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS) found that false claims of voter fraud had become commonplace on Telegram in Germany, with accusations against Dominion Voting Systems being common despite the company's technology not being used in German elections. CeMAS researcher Miro Dittrich said, "We have seen far-right actors try to claim election fraud since at least 2016, but it didn't take off. When Trump started telling the 'big lie,' it became a big issue in Germany, sometimes bigger than the pandemic, because far-right groups and the AfD are carefully monitoring the success Trump is having with this narrative."


title: 2021 German federal election

text: After the election of Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet as federal CDU chairman in January 2021, he became the presumptive CDU nominee for the Union's joint chancellor candidacy. Laschet was challenged by Minister-President of Bavaria Markus Söder of the CSU, who consistently polled well among voters and had been discussed as a potential candidate since mid-2020. As the contest intensified in March/April 2021, Söder was backed by the CSU as well as some state and local CDU associations, while Laschet received the support of most of the CDU. The two men failed to come to an agreement by the given deadline of 19 April, leading the federal CDU board to hold an impromptu meeting to break the deadlock. The board voted 31 to 9 in favour of Laschet. After the vote, Söder announced his support for Laschet as chancellor candidate.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: On 10 August 2020, the SPD nominated incumbent Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz as their lead candidate for the election. Scholz, who served as Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018, unsuccessfully sought the SPD leadership in the 2019 leadership election. Scholz was formally elected at a party conference on 8–9 May 2021, supported by 96% of delegates.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The AfD's lead candidates were chosen via a membership vote held from 17 to 24 May 2021. The ticket of party co-chairman Tino Chrupalla and Bundestag co-leader Alice Weidel were elected with 71% of votes; they were opposed by the ticket of former German Air Force lieutenant-general Joachim Wundrak and MdB Joana Cotar, who won 24%. 14,815 votes were cast, corresponding to a turnout of 48%.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: On 21 March 2021, the FDP association in North Rhine-Westphalia elected federal chairman Christian Lindner as top candidate for the party list in that state. He was re-elected as chairman on 14 May, winning 93% of votes with no opponent. The vote also served to confirm him as lead candidate for the federal election.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Left announced Janine Wissler and Dietmar Bartsch as their co-lead candidates on 2 May 2021. Wissler was elected federal party co-leader earlier in the year alongside Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, who chose not to seek the co-lead candidacy. Bartsch had co-chaired The Left's Bundestag group since 2015, and was previously co-lead candidate in the 2017 federal election. Wissler and Bartsch were formally selected by the party executive on 8–9 May, receiving 87% of the votes.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Due to their rise in national opinion polling since 2018, the Greens were expected to forgo the traditional dual lead-candidacy in favour of selecting a single chancellor candidate. Party co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck were considered the only plausible candidates. Baerbock was announced as chancellor candidate on 19 April. Both Baerbock and Habeck were co-lead candidates for the party's election campaign.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: A total of 47 parties and lists were approved to run in the 2021 federal election, including the seven which won seats in the 19th Bundestag. Of these, 40 ran party lists in at least one state, while 7 ran only direct candidates. In addition, 196 independent candidates ran in the various direct constituencies.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In the table below, green shading indicates that the party ran a list in the indicated state. The number in each box indicates how many direct candidates the party ran in the indicated state.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In July 2021, the respective state electoral committees rejected the lists of the AfD in Bremen and the Greens in Saarland. The AfD list was rejected for formal reasons, while the Green list in Saarland was declared invalid due to a controversial nomination process, in which one third of the state delegates were excluded from the nomination convention. Both state parties filed motions against the rulings. The federal electoral committee dismissed the motion of the Saarland Greens, while the AfD list in Bremen was permitted to run in the elections. The Green Party will thus not be eligible for the proportional vote in Saarland for the first time in the party's history.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The federal election was impacted by incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel's decision not to run again, and candidates to present themselves as the natural successor to Merkel.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The 2021 European floods put the climate issue back on the agenda in July. The SPD called for "everything to be done to stop global warming," while the CDU/CSU wanted to "speed up climate protection measures". By the end of July, 56 per cent of Germans believed that the floods made it "even more important than before" to combat climate change, and 73 per cent believed the government was not doing enough in this area; only the AfD's supporters were overwhelmingly of the opposite opinion. Following those events, six people under the age of 30 began a hunger strike in front of the Reichstag building at the end of August. They demanded a sincere dialogue with the leaders of the main political parties before the elections and the establishment of a citizens' convention to decide on ambitious measures for the climate.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: During the deadly German floods, while visiting Erftstadt on 18 July, the CDU/CSU lead candidate Armin Laschet was caught laughing on camera and making jokes while President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was speaking. Laschet was heavily criticized, despite his apology saying: "It was stupid and shouldn't have happened and I regret it." Both the CDU/CSU and Laschet's ratings suffered heavily in opinion polls and the SPD took the lead.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: During the campaign, Scholz rejected tax cuts for the rich as immoral, pledged to "increase taxes on the wealthy, spend on cleaner technology and expand social programs", and a minimum wage increase to 12 euros. In general, there was broad agreement among left-leaning parties on issues such as climate change, education, finance, health, and higher taxes for the rich, and The Left being more pro-European than similar left-wing parties like La France Insoumise, while issues of disagreement were foreign policy and security. Writing for "The Guardian", Philip Oltermann commented: "Paradoxically, some Social Democrats see such commonalities as an obstacle rather than a boon for an effective power-sharing deal: since all three parties already call for a wealth tax, for example, it's unclear what policy Die Linke could sell its supporters as a win even if were to get its hands on the coveted labour ministry." Both the SPD and the Greens did not speak much on the subject but did not rule it out in public, although in private they were more sceptics. One SPD delegate was quoted as saying: "To prepare the ground for a robust and functioning coalition, you need to make sure that no one walks out of talks looking like a loser. That's difficult enough with two, but it becomes even more difficult when you have three partners." Oltermann posited that The Left could see entering federal government as "a final chance to reverse the party's decline, even if it means moving some of its red lines of old."


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In its election manifesto, The Left called for abolishing NATO in favour of a "collective security system with Russia's involvement", to which Scholz said that this is an example of minimum criteria to govern which is not negotiable. The Left's lead candidates stated that those demands are a tribute to the party's historic anti-imperialist roots rather than reflecting ambitions to govern at the federal level and a discussion on the future of NATO is also being led by centrists such as France's Emmanuel Macron. The party struck the anti-NATO demand from its immediate policy measures and Janine Wissler responded that foreign policy was more than NATO. Gregor Gysi, a member of the left wing of the party, stated that such demands are more of a vision, are not to be implemented as soon as possible, and should not be seen as inflexible preconditions for a left-wing coalition.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: As significant issues remain, attempts among willing delegates from both parties have been made over the years on how such issues could be solved in a coalition; the solution of an internal vote preceding foreign policies votes, such as foreign deployments, on a case-by-case analysis was deemed to be unworkable by many in the SPD. The Greens see foreign policy differences with The Left as big as financial and debt disagreements with the FDP. The Left joining the federal government would have broken a taboo due to being a democratic successor of East Germany's ruling party, and for its pacifist and anti-militarist stance, and could be seen as following examples in Spain and Sweden. A traffic light coalition (SPD–FDP–Greens) was seen as the more likely scenario but a R2G coalition, which would be favoured by the left-wing leadership and rank-and-file party members, was not excluded if coalition talks with FDP fail due minimum wage increase or the wealth tax.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: For the first time since 2002, the four major television broadcasters ARD, ZDF, RTL, and ProSieben/Sat.1 did not hold a joint television debate. Separate debates were previously prevented by incumbent chancellor Merkel, who did not run for reelection. For the first time in history, three-way major debates were held, as the Greens were invited after overtaking the SPD in opinion polls.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Although the vote share of the South Schleswig Voters' Association (0.12%) was well below the 5% electoral threshold, due to its status of being representative of a recognised minority group (Danes and Frisians), an exception in federal law allowed the party to win one party-list seat.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In Berlin, vote casting and counting was not simple as the election was the same day as not only the Berlin Marathon, but the Berlin state election and a local referendum. The Federal Returning Officer felt compelled to request a report from the State Returning Officer Petra Michaelis.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In some polling stations ballot papers were missing or ran out and could not be delivered on the same day due to the Berlin marathon. Ballot papers (of which there were 115 different variants in Berlin) and postal voting documents were also swapped. Many votes were cast long after the official end of voting at 6 p.m, the last after 8 p.m. when the outcome was already being forecast. At least one polling station was closed due to missing documents.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In at least 16 Berlin polling stations, basic election data did not match (including impossible voter turnouts of over 100%).


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The SPD had their best result since 2005 at 25%; it was also the first time since 2002 that they emerged as the largest party in the Bundestag. For the first time since 2002, the SPD swept all single-member constituency seats in the states of Brandenburg and Saarland, where they defeated cabinet ministers Peter Altmaier and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. They also won all constituencies in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the first time, including Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I, the seat of outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel. It is also the first time they won any single-member constituency seats in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia since 2005.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The SPD had been written off by many political observers due to longtime internal quarrels and poor performances in prior elections, even those in early 2021. In the 2019 European Parliament election, they dropped to a historic low 15.8%, accelerating the decline of already deeply embattled and unpopular leader Andrea Nahles. When the unpopular and little-known SPD leaders Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken nominated moderate Olaf Scholz, whom they had unexpectedly defeated in the 2019 leadership election, as Chancellor candidate in August 2020, they were widely mocked. The SPD sat at a distant third place in the polls and stayed there until their sudden surge late in the campaign.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: However, even at their historic poll lows around 14%, Olaf Scholz had a significantly higher personal approval rating than both his party and the other Chancellor candidates Laschet and Baerbock. After the extreme personal unpopularity, resulting from gaffes and scandal, meant that first Baerbock and then Laschet floundered, the SPD surprisingly took the lead, for the first time since early 2017, in the final stretches of the election campaign. This surprising surge also meant that some "paper candidates", a lot of them young, were unexpectedly elected to the Bundestag, for example Jan Plobner, Jakob Blankenburg or Fabian Funke.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: That being said, the surge and eventual outcome of the election was mainly decided by older voters, who switched from the CDU/CSU to the SPD, which some attributed to Scholz being very similar in his calm and moderate leadership style to incumbent Angela Merkel.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The CDU/CSU had their worst result ever by far, eclipsing the previous worst of 31% in 1949. Many prominent politicians were defeated in their single-member constituency seats, including ministers Altmaier, Helge Braun, Kramp-Karrenbauer, and Julia Klöckner as well as Hans-Georg Maaßen and Philipp Amthor, though all of them except Maaßen were still elected to the Bundestag via their respective state party lists. There was speculation that chancellor candidate Armin Laschet would lose election to the Bundestag; he was placed first on the North Rhine-Westphalia party list, and if the CDU gained overhang seats, that list would not be used. Due to the CDU's bad performance in terms of single-member constituency seats, Laschet was elected to the Bundestag. The first time since 2005 that they did not win all single-member constituency seats in Bavaria, the CSU also had their worst result in history.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Reasons given for the catastrophic defeat were corruption scandals of several CDU/CSU politicians in spring 2021, some minor allegations even being brought against Laschet himself. In addition, Laschet was suffering from extreme personal unpopularity, even in his own state. Laschet did not have the incumbency advantage that helped moderately popular Merkel to win re-election three times, but still had to run on Merkel's legacy in voters minds. This meant that the otherwise popular CDU/CSU platform of increasing digitization, reducing bureaucracy and moderate climate action were not taken seriously as his party had not addressed them in sixteen years of government in the minds of many voters. In one infamous campaign moment, Laschet spoke of a "Wind of Change" in his closing statement in the first three way debate, which was widely ridiculed. The contentious decision to have him run as CDU/CSU candidate instead of the much more popular CSU leader Markus Söder by the CDU establishment also played into this. During the belligerent internal selection process in spring, polls showed Söder faring a lot better than Laschet in the election, often higher than the 2017 result, and Söder was the preferred candidate of the base and the public at large. Even fairly late into the election campaign, 70% of CDU/CSU supporters wanted to replace Laschet with Söder. Söder publicly supported and defended Laschet, even on election night, but was accused of backstabbing Laschet's candidacy in order to become chancellor candidate in 2025.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Laschet took responsibility for the result, but initially refused to resign in hopes of becoming Chancellor through a Jamaica coalition. The ensuing talks were plagued by leaks damaging Laschet and after Söder prematurely declared the talks to be over, both Greens and FDP decided to enter coalition talks with the SPD instead. After intense pressure from his party and the public, Laschet announced on 8 October 2021 that he would step down but would moderate the next CDU leadership election. That leadership contest was the first to be decided by party members, who overwhelmingly chose conservative outsider Friedrich Merz in December 2021, after he failed in the previous two leadership elections, to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018 and Laschet in January 2021. This was seen as a rebuttal to the party establishment, that backed Kramp-Karrenbauer and Laschet, both seen as being more moderate, aligned in both policy positions and leadership style to Angela Merkel.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Greens got their best result in history, nearly doubling from 2017. This is also the first federal election in which they won single-member constituency seats outside of Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East; however, expectations for them were a lot higher, with them polling at over 20% in the summer and peaking at around 25%, having briefly overtaken the CDU in April and May. Their slump in the polls was largely attributed to a number of gaffes from and the personal unpopularity of Annalena Baerbock, though polls show that a lot of Green voters migrated to the SPD in the final weeks of the campaign to ensure the CDU would not form government.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Though she won in the party-list, Baerbock lost in Potsdam – Potsdam-Mittelmark II – Teltow-Fläming II to SPD's Olaf Scholz by a large margin. In addition, though the Greens won 16 single-member constituency seats, all of them except Flensburg – Schleswig, the constituency of future Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, were urban constituencies.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Greens were also disqualified from running on the Saarland state list due to irregularities in the selection of list candidates. The Greens had, however, won only one seat in the Saarland in the previous two federal elections.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The FDP had their second best showing since German reunification, gaining a few seats to maintain its fourth-place position. This was enough to make it a kingmaker alongside the Greens in coalition talks.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Like the Greens, they did well with young voters; among first-time voters, they received the highest vote share of 23%.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The AfD lost seats and went from the third largest to the fifth largest party in the Bundestag; however, they performed strongly in former East Germany, where they won 16 single-member constituency seats in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. While the AfD lost vote share in Saxony, the stronger losses of the CDU still allowed them to place ahead of the CDU, becoming the most voted party in Saxony. They also won the most party list votes in Thuringia, though only by 0.6%.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Reasons given for their drop in support include far less media attention, largely due to the open Chancellor's race, and large swaths of Anti-lockdown and Anti-vaccination voters, which the AfD campaigned hard on, voting for dieBasis and Free Voters. Leader of the AfD in the Bundestag Alice Weidel was widely ridiculed for claiming on election night that they surpassed their 2017 result if one added the results for dieBasis and Free Voters.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: The Left had their worst showing since 2002, when it was the Party of Democratic Socialism, slumping from 69 seats in 2017 to just 39. While they fell just short of the election threshold they won at least three single-member constituency seats (two in their stronghold in the former East Berlin, down from four, and one in Saxony), entitling them to proportional representation in the Bundestag according to their second votes. Under a longstanding electoral law intended to benefit parties with regional appeal (as is the case with the Left in the old East Germany), any party that wins at least three constituency seats is entitled to its share of proportionally-elected seats, regardless of vote share.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Apart from this symbolic defeat, their preferred government, a left-wing red–red–green coalition, does not have a majority in the Bundestag, and the German financial market rallied as a result. Vice President of the Bundestag Petra Pau lost her single-member constituency of Berlin-Marzahn-Hellersdorf by a large margin. The seat had been held by The Left and its predecessor parties since the 1990 federal election.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Reasons given for the massive slump were public quarrels in the party. This included feuds surrounding the position on Afghanistan, the former leader Oskar Lafontaine, who advised voting against his party in the Saarland due to alleged fraud, and popular figure Sahra Wagenknecht, who some in the party wanted to expel for her book "Die Selbstgerechten" in which she harshly criticizes, among other things, "Wokeness" within her party. These public feuds intensified after the election, for example, the convicted former head of government of East Germany Hans Modrow, who chairs The Left's "council of elders", denounced the party.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: In terms of representation of ethnic minorities, one source suggested that the Bundestag would have 24 new MPs with "Balkan" ancestry. Its list included, however, largely people of Turkish ancestry who mostly have roots in Anatolia. The South Schleswig Voters' Association (SSW), a regionalist party only contesting Schleswig-Holstein representing the Danish and Frisian minorities in Southern Schleswig, won their first seat, becoming the first regionalist party to win seats since 1953. Recognized minority parties are exempt from the threshold of 5%, which is how the SSW won a seat with 0.1% of the vote nationwide. The SSW last contested in 1961 and last won a seat in 1949. They named a felt discrimination of Northern Germany as reason for them contesting the election. Stefan Seidler was seated as their Member of the German Bundestag. Seidler was offered to sit in the SPD parliamentary group as a guest by their leader Rolf Mützenich, but declined.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: Minor parties did exceptionally well in the 2021 election. The left-wing satire party Die PARTEI had their best result ever, as did the Animal Protection Party and the regionalist Free Voters, which doubled their result and received 7.5% in Bavaria, where they take part in the state government. A few new minor parties emerged in the 2021 election, the most notable being the Anti-lockdown and Anti-vaccination dieBasis party, which received between 1 and 1.9%. Team Todenhöfer, founded in 2020 by notorious former CDU Member of the German Bundestag Jürgen Todenhöfer, also first contested the 2021 election, running on Anti-militarism and receiving support from pro-Palestinian groups, but only garnered 0.5% of the vote. The 2021 election also accelerated the decline of the far-right National Democratic Party, which only got 0.1% of the vote. The NPD was at a time the most successful minor/fringe party, getting 1.6% in 2005 and entering various state parliaments in former East Germany.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: A three-party governing coalition, with the FDP and the Greens joining either the SPD or CDU/CSU, was discussed as a likely outcome. While the grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD could have been renewed, numerous representatives of both the CDU/CSU and the SPD ruled out this option before the federal election, during the campaign, and after. On election night, SPD leader Scholz reiterated his goal to form a government, citing the fact that his party emerged as the largest in parliament. He expressed his intention to become chancellor and his preference for a traffic light coalition with the FDP and the Greens. Leading figures in the CDU/CSU such as Michael Kretschmer stated that since the CDU/CSU was knocked down to second place, it should not form the government. The FDP and the Greens, having won 210 seats between them, announced that they would talk separately before deciding on whom to support as a senior coalition partner. The Greens and the FDP held discussions for two days after the election. On 7 October, the two parties met with the SPD for the first round of exploratory talks, with a second round on 11 October. On 15 October, the SPD agreed to more ambitious climate targets, as pledged by the Greens. On 17 October, the Greens voted to enter formal coalition talks with the SPD and FDP. The next day, the FDP voted to do the same. The 20th Bundestag was officially sworn in on 26 October.


title: 2021 German federal election

text: On 16 November, the general secretaries of the three traffic light coalition parties (SPD, FDP, Greens) announced that an agreement document was almost complete, with Scholz to become Chancellor, and that the details would be issued some time in the next week. On 23 November, an agreement for a traffic light coalition was finalised. The three parties announced a number of policies, including plans to phase out coal energy by 2030, eight years ahead of the previous target, as well as lower the federal voting age to 16 years, raise the minimum wage to €12 per hour, and lower barriers to acquiring German citizenship. Annalena Baerbock will become foreign minister, while Robert Habeck will head a new "super ministry" with responsibility for climate, energy, and economy. Christian Lindner will become finance minister. The SPD convention voted 98.8% in favour of approving the agreement on 4 December, followed by the FDP with 92.4% on 5 December. The results of the Greens membership ballot were announced on 6 December, with 86% voting to approve the coalition. Scholz was elected as Chancellor by the Bundestag on 8 December, with 395 votes of 707 cast, with 303 votes against.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Frederic Wilhelm C. J. Sjöström (born 8 January 1987), known professionally as Freddie Stroma, is an English actor and model, known for his work in roles including Cormac McLaggen in the "Harry Potter" film series; Adam Cromwell on the Lifetime series "Unreal"; Brit Vayner in "" (2016); H.G. Wells in the ABC series "Time After Time"; and Adrian Chase/Vigilante in the DC Extended Universe series "Peacemaker".


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Stroma was born 8 January 1987 in London, England, to father Stefan Sjöström, a Swedish-born computer industry executive, and German mother Crystal Kupper, and grew up in Ascot, England in Berkshire, about 25 miles west of London. He was educated at Sunningdale School and the boys-only boarding school Radley College in Oxfordshire, leaving in 2005. He has an older sister, Antonia Sjöström, and a younger brother, Philipp Sjöström.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: When he was 16, Stroma was accepted to the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He had roles on various British TV shows, including "Casualty" and BBC's detective show, "Mayo (aka The Gil Mayo Mysteries)." While studying neuroscience at University College London, Stroma continued to work as an actor and model. He took a year off from university to play the role of Cormac McLaggen in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". After filming was over, Stroma completed his degree at University College London. In 2009, he attained a 2:1 BSc (an upper-second-class degree) in Neuroscience.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: During his time at university, Stroma was cast in the role as Cormac McLaggen first in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", a role he reprised in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Parts 1 and 2."


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Stroma appeared in the direct-to-DVD romantic film "" as a British student, Luke Morgan. He played opposite Katie Gibbs (played by Lucy Hale) as her love interest.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: He had a minor role in "Pitch Perfect", a 2012 comedy about the world of collegiate a cappella choirs. He played a radio station manager at the local college radio station.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: In 2014, he was cast in the role of Jack in the psychological thriller "After the Dark," which was formerly known as "The Philosophers," with his former "Harry Potter" co-star Bonnie Wright. The film was shot on location in Jakarta.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: In June 2015, Stroma was one of the romantic interests, Adam Cromwell, in the Lifetime dramedy "Unreal." He plays British bachelor who is competing on a fictionalized "The Bachelor"-type reality show called "Everlasting." Stroma's character is manipulated as much as the women who are vying for his attention in the show that is a behind-the-scenes view of reality dating shows.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: "Unreal" was picked up for a second season but Stroma had said that he does not think his character will be back. However, during a Paley Center panel on "Unreal" he said that he is hopeful as the show will continue to feature "Everlasting." After the season 1 finale, Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, one of the co-creators of "Unreal", confirmed that Stroma would be back in season 2.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Stroma had a role in the Michael Bay film "" (2016), playing Yale University graduate student Brit Vayner, an undercover CIA officer in Libya.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: In 2020, he played a guest role on Netflix's period drama "Bridgerton", appearing as Prince Frederick of Prussia opposite Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Stroma said he modelled (and acted) to help pay for university. He modelled for Acne Underwear in their Underwear Collection Autumn/Winter 2008. He uses Stroma as a surname instead of Sjöström because there is an NHL player named Fredrik Sjöström. Stroma plays guitar and can sing but he is not classically trained in either.


title: Freddie Stroma

text: Stroma began dating his "Unreal" co-star Johanna Braddy in the summer of 2015. Stroma and Braddy got engaged in May 2016, and were married on 30 December 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 to 1796. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796. In 1796, he abdicated in favour of his son, the Jiaqing Emperor, out of filial piety towards his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled for 61 years, so that he not officially usurp him as the longest-reigning emperor. Despite his retirement, however, the Qianlong Emperor retained ultimate power as the Emperor Emeritus until his death in 1799, making him one of the longest-reigning monarchs in history, and dying at the age of 87, one of the longest-lived.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: As a capable and cultured ruler inheriting a thriving empire, during his long reign, the Qing Empire reached its most splendid and prosperous era, boasting a large population and economy. As a military leader, he led military campaigns expanding the dynastic territory to the largest extent by conquering and sometimes destroying Central Asian kingdoms. This turned around in his late years: the Qing empire began to decline with corruption and wastefulness in his court and a stagnating civil society.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Hongli was the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor and was born to Noble Consort Xi. Hongli was adored by both his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, and his father, the Yongzheng Emperor. Some historians argue that the main reason why the Kangxi Emperor appointed the Yongzheng Emperor as his successor was because Hongli was his favorite grandson. He felt that Hongli's mannerisms were very similar to his own. As a teenager, Hongli was capable in martial arts and possessed literary ability.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: After his father's enthronement in 1722, Hongli was made a "qinwang" (first-rank prince) under the title "Prince Bao of the First Rank" (). Like his many uncles, Hongli entered into a battle of succession with his elder half-brother Hongshi, who had the support of a large faction of officials in the imperial court as well as Yunsi, Prince Lian. For many years, the Yongzheng Emperor did not designate any of his sons as the crown prince, but many officials speculated that he favoured Hongli. Hongli went on inspection trips to the south, and was known to be an able negotiator and enforcer. He was also appointed as the chief regent on occasions when his father was away from the capital.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Hongli's accession to the throne was already foreseen before he was officially proclaimed emperor before the assembled imperial court upon the death of the Yongzheng Emperor. The young Hongli was the favorite grandson of the Kangxi Emperor and the favorite son of the Yongzheng Emperor; the Yongzheng Emperor had entrusted a number of important ritual tasks to Hongli while the latter was still a prince, and included him in important court discussions of military strategy. In the hope of preventing a succession struggle from occurring, the Yongzheng Emperor wrote the name of his chosen successor on a piece of paper and placed it in a sealed box secured behind the tablet over the throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing Palace). The name in the box was to be revealed to other members of the imperial family in the presence of all senior ministers only upon the death of the emperor. When the Yongzheng Emperor died suddenly in 1735, the will was taken out and read before the entire Qing imperial court, after which Hongli became the new emperor. Hongli adopted the era name "Qianlong", which means "Lasting Eminence".


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: A valet who accompanied a British diplomatic mission to the Qing court in 1793 described the emperor:


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Emperor is about five feet ten inches in height, and of a slender but elegant form; his complexion is comparatively fair, though his eyes are dark; his nose is rather aquiline, and the whole of his countenance presents a perfect regularity of feature, which, by no means, announce the great age he is said to have attained; his person is attracting, and his deportment accompanied by an affability, which, without lessening the dignity of the prince, evinces the amiable character of the man. His dress consisted of a loose robe of yellow silk, a cap of black velvet with a red ball on the top, and adorned with a peacock's feather, which is the peculiar distinction of mandarins of the first class. He wore silk boots embroidered with gold, and a sash of blue girded his waist.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor was a successful military leader. Immediately after ascending the throne, he sent armies to suppress the Miao rebellion. His later campaigns greatly expanded the territory controlled by the Qing Empire. This was made possible not only by Qing military might, but also by the disunity and declining strength of the Inner Asian peoples.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Under the Qianlong Emperor's reign, the Dzungar Khanate was incorporated into the Qing Empire's rule and renamed Xinjiang, while to the west, Ili was conquered and garrisoned. The incorporation of Xinjiang into the Qing Empire resulted from the final defeat and destruction of the Dzungars (or Zunghars), a coalition of Western Mongol tribes. The Qianlong Emperor then ordered the Dzungar genocide. According to the Qing dynasty scholar Wei Yuan, 40% of the 600,000 Dzungars were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to the Russian Empire or Kazakh tribes, and 30% were killed by the Qing army, in what Michael Edmund Clarke described as "the complete destruction of not only the Zunghar state but of the Zunghars as a people." Historian Peter Perdue has argued that the decimation of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of massacre launched by the Qianlong Emperor.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Dzungar genocide has been compared to the Qing extermination of the Jinchuan Tibetan people in 1776, which also occurred during the Qianlong Emperor's reign. When victorious troops returned to Beijing, a celebratory hymn was sung in their honour. A Manchu version of the hymn was recorded by the Jesuit Amoit and sent to Paris.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qing Empire hired Zhao Yi and Jiang Yongzhi at the Military Archives Office, in their capacity as members of the Hanlin Academy, to compile works on the Dzungar campaign, such as "Strategy for the pacification of the Dzungars" (Pingding Zhunge'er fanglue). Poems glorifying the Qing conquest and genocide of the Dzungar Mongols were written by Zhao, who wrote the "Yanpu zaji" in "brush-notes" style, where military expenditures of the Qianlong Emperor's reign were recorded. The Qianlong Emperor was praised as being the source of "eighteenth-century peace and prosperity" by Zhao Yi.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Khalkha Mongol rebels under Prince Chingünjav had plotted with the Dzungar leader Amursana and led a rebellion against the Qing Empire around the same time as the Dzungars. The Qing army crushed the rebellion and executed Chingünjav and his entire family.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Throughout this period there were continued Mongol interventions in Tibet and a reciprocal spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. After the Lhasa riot of 1750, the Qianlong Emperor sent armies into Tibet and firmly established the Dalai Lama as the ruler of Tibet, with a Qing resident and garrison to preserve Qing presence. Further afield, military campaigns against Nepalese and Gurkhas forced the emperor into stalemate where both parties had to submit.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: On 23 January 1751, Tibetan rebels who participated in the Lhasa riot of 1750 against the Qing were sliced to death by Qing Manchu general Bandi, similar to what happened to Tibetan rebels on 1 November 1728 during his father, the Yongzheng Emperor's reign. Six Tibetan rebel leaders plus Tibetan rebel leader Blo-bzan-bkra-sis were sliced to death. The rest of the Tibetan rebel leaders were strangled and beheaded and their heads were displayed to the Tibetan public on poles. The Qing seized the property of the rebels and exiled other Tibetan rebels. Manchu General Bandi sent a report to the Qing Qianlong emperor on 26 January 1751 on how he carried out the slicings and executions of the Tibetan rebels. The Tibetan rebels dBan-rgyas (Wang-chieh), Padma-sku-rje-c'os-a['el (Pa-t'e-ma-ku-erh-chi-ch'un-p'i-lo) and Tarqan Yasor (Ta-erh-han Ya-hsün) were sliced to death for injuring the Manchu ambans with arrows, bows and fowling pieces during the Lhasa riot when they assault the building the Manchu ambans (Labdon and Fucin) were in. Tibetan rebel Sacan Hasiha (Ch'e-ch'en-ha-shih-ha) was sliced to death for murder of multiple individuals. Tibetan rebels Ch'ui-mu-cha-t'e and Rab-brtan (A-la-pu-tan) were sliced to death for looting money and setting fire during the attack on the Ambans. Tibetan rebel Blo-bzan-bkra-sis, the mgron-gner was sliced to death for being the overall leader of the rebels who led the attack which looted money and killed the Manchu ambans. Two Tibetan rebels who had already died before the execution had their dead bodies beheaded, one died in jail, Lag-mgon-po (La-k'o-kun-pu) and the other killed himself since he was scared of the punishment, Pei-lung-sha-k'o-pa. Bandi sentenced to strangulation several rebel followers and bKra-sis-rab-brtan (Cha-shih-la-pu-tan) a messenger. He ordered the live beheadings of Man-chin Te-shih-nai and rDson-dpon dBan-rgyal (Ts'eng-pen Wang-cha-lo and P'yag-mdsod-pa Lha-skyabs (Shang-cho-t'e-pa La-cha-pu) for leading the attack on the building by being the first to go to on the staircase to the next floor and setting fire and carrying the straw to fuel the fire besides killing several men on orders from the rebel leader.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In 1762 the Qianlong Emperor came close to war with the Afghan Emir Ahmad Shah Durrani because of Qing China's expansions in Central Asia. While Qing and Durrani Empire troops were sent near the frontier in Central Asia, war did not break out. A year later, Durrani sent an envoy to Beijing gifting four splendid horses to Qianlong, which became the subject of a series of paintings, "Four Afghan Steeds". However, the Afghan envoy failed to make a good impression to Qianlong after refusing to perform the "kowtow". Qianlong later refused to intervene in the Durrani Empire's killing of the Sultan of Badakhshan, who was a vassal of Qing China.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor responded to the vassal Shan States's request for military aid against the attacking forces of Burma, but the Sino-Burmese War ended in complete failure. He initially believed that it would be an easy victory against a barbarian tribe, and sent only the Green Standard Army based in Yunnan, which borders Burma. The Qing invasion came as the majority of Burmese forces were deployed in their latest invasion of the Siamese Ayutthaya Kingdom. Nonetheless, battle-hardened Burmese troops defeated the first two invasions of 1765–66 and 1766–67 at the border. The regional conflict now escalated to a major war that involved military manoeuvres nationwide in both countries. The third invasion (1767–1768) led by the elite Manchu Bannermen nearly succeeded, penetrating deep into central Burma within a few days' march from the capital, Inwa. However, the Manchu Bannermen of northern China could not cope with "unfamiliar tropical terrains and lethal endemic diseases", and were driven back with heavy losses. After the close-call, King Hsinbyushin redeployed his armies from Siam to the Chinese front. The fourth and largest invasion got bogged down at the frontier. With the Qing forces completely encircled, a truce was reached between the field commanders of the two sides in December 1769. The Qing forces kept a heavy military lineup in the border areas of Yunnan for about one decade in an attempt to wage another war while imposing a ban on inter-border trade for two decades. When Burma and China resumed a diplomatic relationship in 1790, the Qing government unilaterally viewed the act as Burmese submission, and claimed victory. The Qianlong Emperor ordered Manchu general Eledeng'e (also spelled E'erdeng'e (額爾登額, or possibly 額爾景額)) to be sliced to death after his commander Mingrui was defeated at the Battle of Maymyo in the Sino-Burmese war in 1768 because Eledeng'i was not able to help flank Mingrui when he did not arrive at a rendezvous.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The circumstances in Vietnam were not successful either. In 1787, Lê Chiêu Thống, the last ruler of the Vietnamese Lê dynasty, fled from Vietnam and formally requested to be restored to his throne in Thăng Long (present-day Hanoi). The Qianlong Emperor agreed and sent a large army into Vietnam to remove the Tây Sơn (rebels who had captured all of Vietnam). The capital, Thăng Long, was conquered in 1788, but a few months later the Qing army was defeated, and the invasion turned into a debacle due to the surprise attack during Tết (Vietnamese New Year) by Nguyễn Huệ, the second and most capable of the three Tây Sơn brothers. The Qing Empire no longer supported Lê Chiêu Thống, and his family were imprisoned in Vietnam. The Qing would not intervene in Vietnam for another 90 years.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Despite setbacks in the south, overall the Qianlong Emperor's military expansion nearly doubled the area of the already vast Qing Empire, and unified many non-Han peoples—such as Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Evenks and Mongols. It was also a very expensive enterprise; the funds in the Imperial Treasury were almost all put into military expeditions. Though the wars were successful, they were not overwhelmingly so. The Qing army declined noticeably and had a difficult time facing some enemies: the campaign against the Jinchuan hill peoples took 2 to 3 years—at first the Qing army were mauled, though Yue Zhongqi (a descendant of Yue Fei) later took control of the situation. The battle with the Dzungars was closely fought, and caused heavy losses on both sides.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Ush rebellion in 1765 by Uyghur Muslims against the Manchus occurred after Uyghur women were gang raped by the servants and son of Manchu official Sucheng. It was said that "Ush Muslims had long wanted to sleep on [Sucheng and son's] hides and eat their flesh" because of the rape of Uyghur Muslim women for months by the Manchu official Sucheng and his son. The Manchu Qianlong Emperor ordered that the Uyghur rebel town be massacred, the Qing forces enslaved all the Uyghur children and women and slaughtered the Uyghur men. Manchu soldiers and Manchu officials regularly having sex with or raping Uyghur women caused massive hatred and anger against Manchu rule among Uyghur Muslims. The invasion by Jahangir Khoja was preceded by another Manchu official, Binjing, who raped a Muslim daughter of the Kokan aqsaqal from 1818 to 1820. The Qing sought to cover up the rape of Uyghur women by Manchus to prevent anger against their rule from spreading among the Uyghurs.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: At the end of the frontier wars, the Qing army had started to weaken significantly. In addition to a more lenient military system, warlords became satisfied with their lifestyles. Since most of the warring had already taken place, warlords no longer saw any reason to train their armies, resulting in a rapid military decline by the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. This was the main reason for the Qing military's failure to suppress the White Lotus Rebellion, which started towards the end of the Qianlong Emperor's reign and extended into the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor, like his predecessors, took his cultural role seriously. First, he worked to preserve the Manchu heritage, which he saw as the basis of the moral character of the Manchus and thus of the dynasty's power. He ordered the compilation of Manchu language genealogies, histories, and ritual handbooks and in 1747 secretly ordered the compilation of the Shamanic Code, published later in the "Siku Quanshu". He further solidified the dynasty's cultural and religious claims in Central Asia by ordering a replica of the Tibetan Potala Palace, the Putuo Zongcheng Temple, to be built on the grounds of the imperial summer palace in Chengde. In order to present himself to Tibetans and Mongols in Buddhist rather than in Confucian terms, he commissioned a "thangka", or sacred painting, depicting him as Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He was also a poet and essayist. His collected writings, which he published in a tenfold series between 1749 and 1800, contain more that 40,000 poems and 1,300 prose texts, which if he had composed them all would make him one of the most prolific writers of all time.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor was a major patron and important "preserver and restorer" of Confucian culture. He had an insatiable appetite for collecting, and acquired much of China's "great private collections" by any means necessary, and "reintegrated their treasures into the imperial collection." He formed a team of cultural advisers to help locate collections of merchant families who needed to sell or whose heirs had lost interest. He sometimes pressured or forced wealthy officials to surrender precious objects by offering to excuse shortcomings in their performance if they made a certain "gift". On several occasions he claimed that a painting could be secure from theft or fire only if it was taken into the Forbidden City.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Emperor's massive art collection became an intimate part of his life; he took landscape paintings with him on his travels to compare them with the actual landscapes, or to hang them in special rooms in palaces where he lodged, in order to inscribe them on every visit there. "He also regularly added poetic inscriptions to the paintings of the imperial collection, following the example of the emperors of the Song dynasty and the literati painters of the Ming dynasty. They were a mark of distinction for the work, and a visible sign of his rightful role as emperor. Most particular to the Qianlong Emperor is another type of inscription, revealing a unique practice of dealing with works of art that he seems to have developed for himself. On certain fixed occasions over a long period he contemplated a number of paintings or works of calligraphy which possessed special meaning for him, inscribing each regularly with mostly private notes on the circumstances of enjoying them, using them almost as a diary." In particular, the Qianlong Emperor housed within the Hall of Three Rarities (Sanxitang), a small chamber within the Hall of Mental Cultivation, three calligraphy works: "Timely Clearing After Snowfall" by Wang Xizhi, from the Jin dynasty, "Mid-Autumn" by his son Wang Xianzhi, and "Letter to Boyuan" by Wang Xun.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Most of the several thousand jade items in the imperial collection date from his reign. The Emperor was also particularly interested in collecting ancient bronzes, bronze mirrors and seals," in addition to pottery, [ceramics and applied arts such as enameling, metal work and lacquer work, which flourished during his reign; a substantial part of his collection is in the Percival David Foundation in London. The Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum also have collections of art from the Qianlong era.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: One of his grandest projects was to assemble a team of scholars to assemble, edit, and print the largest collection ever made of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature. Known as the "Four Treasuries Project" (or "Siku Quanshu"), it was published in 36,000 volumes, containing about 3,450 complete works and employing as many as 15,000 copyists. It preserved numerous books, but was also intended as a way to ferret out and suppress political opponents, requiring the "careful examination of private libraries to assemble a list of around eleven thousand works from the past, of which about a third were chosen for publication. The works not included were either summarised or—in a good many cases—scheduled for destruction."


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Some 2,300 works were listed for total suppression and another 350 for partial suppression. The aim was to destroy the writings that were anti-Qing or rebellious, that insulted previous "barbarian" dynasties, or that dealt with frontier or defence problems. The full editing of the "Siku Quanshu" was completed in about ten years; during these ten years, 3,100 titles (or works), about 150,000 copies of books were either burnt or banned. Of those volumes that had been categorised into the "Siku Quanshu", many were subjected to deletion and modification. Books published during the Ming dynasty suffered the greatest damage.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The authority would judge any single character or any single sentence's neutrality; if the authority had decided these words, or sentence, were derogatory or cynical towards the rulers, then persecution would begin. In the Qianlong Emperor's time, there were 53 cases of Literary Inquisition, resulting in the victims executed by beheading or slow slicing ("lingchi"), or having their corpses mutilated (if they were already dead).


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In 1743, after his first visit to Mukden (present-day Shenyang, Liaoning), the Qianlong Emperor used Chinese to write his "Ode to Mukden", ("Shengjing fu/Mukden-i fujurun bithe"), a "fu" in classical style, as a poem of praise to Mukden, at that point a general term for what was later called Manchuria, describing its beauties and historical values. He describes the mountains and wildlife, using them to justify his belief that the dynasty would endure. A Manchu translation was then made. In 1748, he ordered a jubilee printing in both Chinese and Manchu, using some genuine pre-Qin forms and Manchu styles which had to be invented and which could not be read.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In his childhood, the Qianlong Emperor was tutored in Manchu, Chinese and Mongolian, arranged to be tutored in Tibetan, and spoke Chagatai (Turki or Modern Uyghur). However, he was even more concerned than his predecessors to preserve and promote the Manchu language among his followers, as he proclaimed that "the keystone for Manchus is language." He commissioned new Manchu dictionaries, and directed the preparation of the "Pentaglot Dictionary" which gave equivalents for Manchu terms in Mongolian, Tibetan and Turkic, and had the Buddhist canon translated into Manchu, which was considered the "national language". He directed the elimination of loanwords taken from Chinese and replaced them with calque translations which were put into new Manchu dictionaries. Manchu translations of Chinese works during his reign were direct translations contrasted with Manchu books translated during the Kangxi Emperor's reign which were transliterations in Manchu script of the Chinese characters.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor commissioned the "Qin ding Xiyu Tongwen Zhi" (欽定西域同文志; "Imperial Western Regions Thesaurus") which was a thesaurus of geographic names in Xinjiang, in Oirat Mongol, Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan, and Turki (Modern Uyghur).


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor showed a personal belief in Tibetan Buddhism, following the tradition of Manchu rulers associating with the Bodhisattva Manjushri. He continued their patronage of Tibetan Buddhist art and ordered translations of the Buddhist canon into Manchu. Court records and Tibetan language sources affirm his personal commitment. He learned to read Tibetan and studied Buddhist texts assiduously. His beliefs are reflected in the Tibetan Buddhist imagery of his tomb, perhaps the most personal and private expression of an emperor's life. He supported the Yellow Church (the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug sect) to "maintain peace among the Mongols" since the Mongols were followers of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama of the Yellow Church. He also said it was "merely in pursuance of Our policy of extending Our affection to the weak" which led him to patronize the Yellow Church.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In 1744 he turned the Palace of Harmony (Yonghe Palace) into a Tibetan Buddhist temple for Mongols. To explain the practical reasons for supporting the "Yellow Hats" Tibetan Buddhists and to deflect Han Chinese criticism, he had the "Lama Shuo" stele engraved in Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu and Chinese, which said: "By patronizing the Yellow Church, we maintain peace among the Mongols. This being an important task we cannot but protect this (religion). (In doing so) we do not show any bias, nor do we wish to adulate the Tibetan priests (as it was done during the Yuan dynasty)."


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Mark Elliott concludes that these actions delivered political benefits but "meshed seamlessly with his personal faith."


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Qing policy on Muslims and Islam was changed during the reign of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors. While the Kangxi Emperor proclaimed Muslims and Han to be equal, his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, endorsed Han officials harsh recommendations towards treatment of Muslims. The Kangxi Emperor said that Muslim and Han Chinese were equal when people argued for Muslims to be treated differently. The Yongzheng Emperor held the opinion that "Islam was foolish, but he felt it did not pose a threat" when a judge in Shandong petitioned him to destroy mosques and ban Islam. Yongzheng then fired an official for demanding Muslims be punished more harshly than non-Muslims.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: This policy changed in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. Chen Hongmou, a Qing official, said that Muslims needed to be brought to law and order by being punished more harshly and blaming Muslim leaders for criminal behavior of Muslims in a letter to the Board of Punishments called "Covenant to Instruct and Admonish Muslims" that he wrote in 1751. Although the Board of Punishment did nothing, the Shaanxi-Gansu Governor-General in 1762 then proceeded to implement his recommendation and had Muslim criminals punished severely more than Han Chinese ones. He also implemented the policy that the criminal deeds of Muslim congregants of Mosques ended up with their Imams being punished and held responsible for them. These anti-Muslim policies by the governor general received endorsement from the Qianlong Emperor.Great changes happening to Chinese Muslims, like the introduction of a Sufi order, the Naqshbandiyya to the Hui, causing the Qianlong emperor to adopt this harsh attitude against Muslims in contrast to his grandfather and father. This led to larger connections between the Hui and the broader Islamic world from the west, as the Naqshbandiyya order came east to the Hui when Hui scholars in Suzhou were converted to Naqshbandiyya by Muhammad Yusuf Khoja. Afaq Khoja, Muhammad Yusuf's son, also further spread Naqshbandi orders among Chinese Muslims like Tibetan Muslims, Salars, Hui and other Muslim ethnicities in Hezhou, Gansu (now Linxia) and Xining in Qinghai and Lanzhou. Ma Laichi was the leader of one of these orders and he personally studied in the Islamic world in Bukhara to learn Sufism, and Yemen and in Mecca where he was taught by Mawlana Makhdum. This brought him prestige among Chinese Muslims. In an argument over the breaking of fast during Ramadan Ma Laichi said that before praying in the mosque, fast should be broken, not vice versa and this led to him getting many Naqshbandi converts from Hui and Turkic Salars. It came to court in 1731 when the Muslims arguing over how to break Ramadan fast filed lawsuits. The Muslim plaintiffs were told by the Qing authorities at the court to resolve them themselves, as the legal authorities who had no idea about Ramadan fasting. The dispute was not solved and continued to go on and was compounded by even more disputes like how to perform dhikr in Sufism, in a jahri (vocal) as taught by Ma Mingxin, another Sufi who learned in the western Islamic lands like Bukhara, or khufi (silent) like what Ma Laichi did. The Zabid Naqshbandiyyas in Yemen taught Ma Mingxin for two decades. They taught vocal dhikr. Ma Mingxin was also affected by another series of events in the Middle Eastern Muslim world, revivalist movements among Muslims like the Saudis who allied with Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab. This renewal tajdid influenced Ma Mingxin in Yemen.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: While Ma Mingxin was in Yemen and away from China, all of Muslim Inner Asia was conquered by the "infidel" Qing dynasty giving even more relevance to his situation and views. Ma Laichi and Ma Mingxin again sued each other in court but this second time the Qing passed a verdict in favor of the quiet dhikr faction, the Silentist Khafiyya of Ma Laichi and gave it the status of orthodoxy while damning as heterodox the Aloudist Jahriyya of Ma Mingxin. Ma Mingxin ignored the order and kept proselytizing in Shaanxi, Ningxia and Xinjiang going to Guangchuan from Hezhou in 1769 after being kicked out and banned from Xunhua district. Turkic Salars in Xunhua followed his orders even after the Qing banned him from there and he continued to have further lawsuits and legal issues with the Khafiyya and Ma Laichi as the Qing backed the Khafiyya.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: A violent battle where a Qing official and Khafiyya followers were among one hundred slaughtered by a Jahriyya assault headed by Su Forty-three, a supporter of Ma Mingxin in 1781 led to Ma Mingxin declared a rebel and taken to jail in Lanzhou. The Qing executed Ma Mingxin after his release was demanded by the armed followers of Su Forty-three. A Jahriyya rebellion all over northwest China ensued after Ma Mingxin was executed. In response, the Manchus in Beijing sent Manchu Grand Secretary Agui with a battalion to slaughter Jahriyya chiefs and exile the adherents of the Sufi order to the border regions.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Tian Wu led another Jahriyya rebellion 3 years after that, which was crushed by the Qing, and the Ma Datian, the Jahriyya's 3rd leader was exiled to Manchuria in 1818 by the Qing and died.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: This continual build up of conflict between Muslims and the Qing court led to the 19th century full-scale wars with Muslim rebellions against the Qing in southern and northern China. The change in Manchu attitudes towards Muslims, from tolerating Muslims and regarding them as equal to Han Chinese, before the 1760s, to the violence between the Qing state and Muslims after the 1760s, was due to progressive Qing involvement in the conflict between the Sufi orders Jahriyya and Khafiyya making it no longer possible for the Qing to keep up with the early rhetoric of Muslim equality. The Manchu court under Qianlong began approving and implementing Chen Hongmou's anti-Muslim laws that targeted Muslims for practicing their religion and the violence by the Qing state, the communal violence between Jahriyya and Khafiyya coincided with the Jahriyya's major expansion.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Chen Hongmou's policies were implemented as laws in 1762 by the Qing government's Board of Punishments and the Qing Manchu Qianlong emperor leading to severe tensions with Muslims. State authorities were mandated to receive all reports of Muslim criminal behaviour by local officials and all criminal behaviour by Muslims had to be reported by Muslim leaders to Qing authorities under these laws. This led to an inundation of anti-Muslim reports filing in Qing offices as the Qing court received information that Muslims were inherently violent and Muslim bandits were committing crimes as report after report were filed by local officials and Muslim crimes inundated court records. The Qing became even more anti-Muslim after receiving these reports about criminal behavior and started passing even more anti-Muslim laws one of them being that if any weapon was found in a group of 3 or more Muslims all of those Muslims would by sentenced as criminals by the Qing.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: A new criminal category or act, brawling (dou'ou) was designated by the Qing Manchu court of the Manchu Qianlong emperor in the 1770s especially as an anti-Muslim measure to arrest Muslims leading to even non-Jahriyya Muslims to join with Jahriyya against the Qing and leading the Qing court to be even more anti-Muslim, apprehensive of anti-Qing rebellion by Muslims. This led to the execution of Ma Mingxin in 1781 and the rebellion and violence was compounded by lack of Qing intelligence. A Qing official who was tasked with ending the Jahriyya and Khafiyya communal violence mistakenly thought the people he were talking to were Khafiyya when they were in fact Jahriyya, and he told them that the Qing would massacre all Jahriyya adherents. This led to him being murdered by the Jahriyya mob, which led to the Qing sending Manchu Grand Secretary Agui on a full scale pacification crackdown campaign against the Jahriyya.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The military victory of the Qing against the Jahriyya led to even more Jahriyya anger. Officials went overboard in massacring Muslims deemed as state enemies to impress the Qing court, leading to further growth in Jahriyya membership, leading in turn to the 1784 rebellion by Tian Wu.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor asked his minister what was going on as he was puzzled as to how the Muslims from many regions gathered together for revolt. He asked if the investigation of Muslim behavior by Li Shiyao got leaked leading to rebels to incite violence by telling Muslims the government would exterminate them. He then pondered and said none of these could be why and kept asking why. To solve the issue of the 1784 revolt, northwestern China was put under military occupation by the Qing for 50 years until the Taiping rebellion of southern China forced the Qing to move them away from northwest China leading to the massive 1860s and 1870s Muslim revolts in the northwest caused by growing violence.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The sudden questions about halal in Islam that Mongol Buddhists had in the 18th century was caused by all these things, northwestern China right next to Mongolia getting militarized, the Qing government officially declaring Muslims to be anti-Qing and violent and revivalist Islam coming to China.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor was an aggressive builder. In the hills northwest of Beijing, he expanded the villa known as the Garden of Perfect Brightness (or Yuanmingyuan; now known as the Old Summer Palace) originally built by his father. He eventually added two new villas, the "Garden of Eternal Spring" and the "Elegant Spring Garden". In time, the Old Summer Palace would encompass , five times larger than the Forbidden City. To celebrate the 60th birthday of his mother, Empress Dowager Chongqing, the Qianlong Emperor ordered a lake at the Garden of Clear Ripples (or Qingyiyuan; now known as the Summer Palace) dredged, named it Kunming Lake, and renovated a villa on the eastern shore of the lake.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor also expanded the imperial summer palace in Rehe Province, beyond the Great Wall. Rehe eventually became effectively a third capital and it was at Rehe that the Qianlong Emperor held court with various Mongol nobles. The emperor also spent time at the Mulan hunting grounds north of Rehe, where he held the imperial hunt each year.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: For the Old Summer Palace, the Qianlong Emperor commissioned the Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione for the construction of the "Xiyang Lou", or Western-style mansion, to satisfy his taste for exotic buildings and objects. He also commissioned the French Jesuit Michel Benoist, to design a series of timed waterworks and fountains complete with underground machinery and pipes, for the amusement of the imperial family. The French Jesuit Jean Denis Attiret also became a painter for the emperor. Jean-Damascène Sallusti was also a court painter. He co-designed, with Castiglione and Ignatius Sichelbart, the "Battle Copper Prints".


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: During the Qianlong Emperor's reign, the Emin Minaret was built in Turpan to commemorate Emin Khoja, an Uyghur leader from Turpan who submitted to the Qing Empire as a vassal in order to obtain assistance from the Qing to fight the Dzunghars.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In 1725, the Yongzheng Emperor bestowed an hereditary marquis title on a descendant of Zhu Zhilian, a descendant of the imperial family of the Ming dynasty. Zhu was also paid by the Qing government to perform rituals at the Ming tombs and induct the Chinese Plain White Banner into the Eight Banners. Zhu was posthumously awarded the title "Marquis of Extended Grace" in 1750, and the title was passed on for 12 generations in his family until the end of the Qing dynasty. However, it has been argued that Zhu Zhilian, in fact, had no relation to the imperial family at all.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor instituted a policy of "Manchu-fying" the Eight Banner system, which was the basic military and social organisation of the dynasty. In the early Qing era, Nurhaci and Hong Taiji categorised Manchu and Han ethnic identity within the Eight Banners based on culture, lifestyle and language, instead of ancestry or genealogy. Han Bannermen were an important part of the Banner System. The Qianlong Emperor changed this definition to one of descent, and demobilised many Han Bannermen and urged Manchu Bannermen to protect their cultural heritage, language and martial skills. The emperor redefined the identity of Han Bannermen by saying that they were to be regarded as of having the same culture and being of the same ancestral extraction as Han civilians Conversely, he emphasised the martial side of Manchu culture and reinstituted the practice of the annual imperial hunt as begun by his grandfather, leading contingents from the Manchu and Mongol banners to the Mulan hunting grounds each autumn to test and improve their skills.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor's view of the Han Bannermen also differed from that of his grandfather in deciding that loyalty in itself was most important quality. He sponsored biographies which depicted Chinese Bannermen who defected from the Ming to the Qing as traitors and glorifying Ming loyalists. Some of the Qianlong Emperor's inclusions and omissions on the list of traitors were political in nature. Some of these actions were including Li Yongfang (out of his dislike for Li Yongfang's descendant, Li Shiyao) and excluding Ma Mingpei (out of concern for his son Ma Xiongzhen's image).


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The identification and interchangeability between "Manchu" and "Banner people" (Qiren) began in the 17th century. Banner people were differentiated from civilians (Chinese: "Minren", Manchu: "Irgen"; or Chinese: "Hanren", Manchu: "Nikan") and the term "Bannermen" was becoming identical with "Manchu" in the general perception. The Qianlong Emperor referred to all Bannermen as Manchu, and Qing laws did not say "Manchu", but "Bannermen".


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Select groups of Han Chinese bannermen were mass transferred into Manchu Banners by the Qing, changing their ethnicity from Han Chinese to Manchu. Han Chinese bannermen of "Tai Nikan" (台尼堪) and "Fusi Nikan" (抚顺尼堪) backgrounds were moved into the Manchu banners in 1740 by order of the Qianlong Emperor. It was between 1618 and 1629 when the Han Chinese from Liaodong who later became the Fusi Nikan and Tai Nikan defected to the Jurchens (Manchus). These Han Chinese origin Manchu clans continued to use their original Han surnames and are marked as of Han origin on the Qing lists of Manchu clans.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Solons were ordered by the Qianlong Emperor to stop using rifles and instead practice traditional archery. The emperor issued an edict for silver taels to be issued for guns turned over to the government.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor and his predecessors, since the Shunzhi Emperor, had identified China and the Qing Empire as the same, and in treaties and diplomatic papers the Qing Empire called itself "China". The Qianlong Emperor rejected earlier ideas that only Han could be subjects of China and only Han land could be considered as part of China, so he redefined China as multiethnic, saying in 1755 that "there exists a view of China according to which non-Han people cannot become China's subjects and their land cannot be integrated into the territory of China. This does not represent our dynasty's understanding of China, but is instead that of the earlier Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties."


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor rejected the views of Han officials who said Xinjiang was not part of China and that he should not conquer it, putting forth the view that China was multiethnic and did not just refer to Han. The Qianlong Emperor compared his achievements with that of the Han and Tang ventures into Central Asia.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Han Chinese farmers were resettled from north China by the Qing government in the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation. Wasteland was reclaimed by Han squatters in addition to other Han people who rented land from Manchu landlords. Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on the Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing government decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Due to this, Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s. The Qianlong Emperor allowed Han peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740 to 1776. Han tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu Bannerlands in the area. Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking Jinzhou, Fengtian, Tieling, Changchun, Hulun, and Ningguta was settled by Han people during the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and Han people were the majority in urban areas of Manchuria by 1800. To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing government sold lands along the Songhua River which were previously exclusively for Manchus to Han Chinese at the beginning of the Daoguang Emperor's reign, and Han people filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s, according to Évariste Régis Huc.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In his later years, the Qianlong Emperor became spoiled with power and glory, disillusioned and complacent in his reign, and started placing his trust in corrupt officials such as Yu Minzhong and Heshen.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: As Heshen was the highest ranked minister and most favoured by the Qianlong Emperor at the time, the day-to-day governance of the country was left in his hands, while the emperor himself indulged in the arts, luxuries and literature. When Heshen was executed by the Jiaqing Emperor, the Qing government discovered that Heshen's personal fortune exceeded that of the Qing Empire's depleted treasury, amounting to 900 million silver taels, the total of 12 years of Treasury surplus of the Qing imperial court.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor began his reign with about 33.95 million silver taels in Treasury surplus. At the peak of his reign, around 1775, even with further tax cuts, the treasury surplus still reached 73.9 million silver taels, a record unmatched by his predecessors, the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors, both of whom had implemented remarkable tax cut policies.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: However, due to numerous factors such as long term embezzlement and corruption by officials, frequent expeditions to the south, huge palace constructions, many war and rebellion campaigns as well as his own extravagant lifestyle, all of these cost the treasury a total of 150.2 million silver taels. This, coupled with his senior age and the lack of political reforms, ushered the beginning of the gradual decline and eventual demise of the Qing Empire, casting a shadow over his glorious and brilliant political life.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Legal trade in the South China Sea was resumed in 1727, but the East India Company's discovery that the prices and duties at Ningbo were both much lower than those at Guangzhou prompted them to begin shifting their trade north from 1755 to 1757. The Qianlong Emperor's attempt to discourage this through higher fees failed; in the winter of 1757, he declared that—effective the next year—Guangzhou (then romanized as "Canton") was to be the only Chinese port permitted to foreign traders, beginning the Canton System, with its Cohong and Thirteen Factories.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: During the mid-18th century, European powers began to pressure for increases in the already burgeoning foreign trade and for outposts on the Chinese coast, demands which the aging Qianlong emperor resisted. In 1793 King George III sent a large-scale delegation to present their requests directly to the emperor in Beijing, headed by George Macartney, one of the country's most seasoned diplomats. The British sent a sample of trade goods that they intended to sell in China; this was misinterpreted as tribute that was adjudged to be of low quality.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Historians both in China and abroad long presented the failure of the mission to achieve its goals as a symbol of China's refusal to change and inability to modernize. They explain the refusal first on the fact that interaction with foreign kingdoms was limited to neighbouring tributary states. Furthermore, the worldviews on the two sides were incompatible, China holding entrenched beliefs that China was the "central kingdom". However, after the publication in the 1990s of a fuller range of archival documents concerning the visit, these claims have been challenged. One historian characterized the emperor and his court as "clearly clever and competent political operators", and concluded that they acted within the formal Qing claims to universal rule; they reacted prudently to reports of British expansion in India by placating the British with unspecified promises in order to avoid military conflicts and loss of trade.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Macartney was granted an audience with the Qianlong Emperor on two days, the second of which coincided with the emperor's 82nd birthday. There is continued debate about the nature of the audience and what level of ceremonials were performed. Macartney wrote that he resisted demands that the British trade ambassadors kneel and perform the kowtow and debate continues as to what exactly occurred, differing opinions recorded by Qing courtiers and British delegates.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Qianlong gave Macartney a letter for the British king stating the reasons that he would not grant Macartney's requests:


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: <poem>Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Ministers to memorialise me regarding your trade with China, but his proposal is not consistent with our dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto, all European nations, including your own country's barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade with our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has been the procedure for many years, although our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Your request for a small island near Chusan, where your merchants may reside and goods be warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade... Consider, moreover, that England is not the only barbarian land which wishes to establish... trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me to present them each and all with a site for trading purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Hitherto, the barbarian merchants of Europe have had a definite locality assigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade, and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyond the limits assigned to that locality... If these restrictions were withdrawn, friction would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your barbarian subjects...


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Regarding your nation's worship of the Lord of Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects. There has been no hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects...</poem>


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The letter was unknown to the public until 1914, when it was translated, then later used as a symbol of China's refusal to modernize.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance. But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: A Dutch embassy arrived at the Qianlong Emperor's court in 1795, which would turn out to be the last time any European appeared before the Qing imperial court within the context of traditional Chinese imperial foreign relations.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Representing Dutch and Dutch East India Company interests, Isaac Titsingh traveled to Beijing in 1794–95 for celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. The Titsingh delegation also included the Dutch-American Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, whose detailed description of this embassy to the Qing court was soon after published in the United States and Europe. Titsingh's French translator, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes, published his own account of the Titsingh mission in 1808. "Voyage a Pékin, Manille et l'Ile de France" provided an alternate perspective and a useful counterpoint to other reports that were then circulating. Titsingh himself died before he could publish his version of events.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In contrast to Macartney, Isaac Titsingh, the Dutch and VOC emissary in 1795 did not refuse to kowtow. In the year following Mccartney's rebuff, Titsingh and his colleagues were much feted by the Chinese because of what was construed as seemly compliance with conventional court etiquette.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: In October 1795, the Qianlong Emperor officially announced that in the spring of the following year he would voluntarily abdicate and pass the throne to his son. It was said that the Qianlong Emperor had made a promise during the year of his ascension not to rule longer than his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, who had reigned for 61 years. The Qianlong Emperor anticipated moving out of the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxindian) in the Forbidden City. The hall had been conventionally dedicated for the exclusive use of the reigning sovereign, and in 1771 the emperor ordered the beginning of construction on what was ostensibly intended as his retirement residence in another part of the Forbidden City: a lavish, two-acre walled retreat called the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (Ningshou Palace), which is today more commonly known as the "Qianlong Garden". The complex, completed in 1776, is currently undergoing a ten-year restoration led by the Palace Museum in Beijing and the World Monuments Fund (WMF). The first of the restored apartments, the Qianlong Emperor's Studio of Exhaustion From Diligent Service (Juanqinzhai) began an exhibition tour of the United States in 2010.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: The Qianlong Emperor relinquished the throne at the age of 85, after almost 61 years on the throne, to his son, the 36-year-old Jiaqing Emperor, in 1796. For the next three years, he held the title "Taishang Huang" (or Emperor Emeritus; 太上皇) even though he continued to hold on to power and the Jiaqing Emperor ruled only in name. He never moved into his retirement suites in the Qianlong Garden and died in 1799.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: A legend, popularised in fiction, says that the Qianlong Emperor was the son of Chen Shiguan (陳世倌), a Han Chinese official from Haining County, Zhejiang Province. In his choice of heir to the throne, the Kangxi Emperor required not only that the heir be able to govern the empire well, but heir's son be of no less calibre; thus, ensuring the Manchus' everlasting reign over China. Yinzhen's son, the Kangxi Emperor's fourth son, was weak; so, Yinzhen surreptitiously arranged for his daughter to be exchanged for Chen Shiguan's son, who became the favourite grandson of the Kangxi Emperor. Yinzhen succeeded his father, becoming the Yongzheng Emperor while his son, Hongli, succeeded him in turn as the Qianlong Emperor. During his reign, the Qianlong Emperor went on inspection tours to southern China and stayed in Chen Shiguan's house in Haining where he wrote calligraphy. He also frequently issued imperial edicts to waive off taxes from Haining County.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: However, there are major problems with this story. First, the Yongzheng Emperor's eldest surviving son, Hongshi, was only seven when Hongli was born, far too young to make the drastic choice of replacing a child of imperial birth with an outsider (and risking disgrace if not death). Second, the Yongzheng Emperor had three other princes who survived to adulthood and had the potential to ascend the throne. Indeed, since Hongshi was the son forced to commit suicide, it would have been far more logical for him to be the adopted son, if any of them were.


title: Qianlong Emperor

text: Stories about the Qianlong Emperor's six inspection tours to southern China in disguise as a commoner have been a popular topic for many generations. In total, he visited southern China six times – the same number of times as his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor.


title: KLM

text: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally "Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V." (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is part of the Air France–KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. Founded in 1919, KLM is the oldest operating airline in the world, and has 35,488 employees with a fleet of 110 (excluding subsidiaries) . KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to 145 destinations.


title: KLM

text: In 1919, a young aviator lieutenant named Albert Plesman sponsored the ELTA aviation exhibition in Amsterdam. Attendance at the exhibition was over half a million, and after it closed, several Dutch commercial interests intended to establish a Dutch airline, which Plesman was nominated to head. In September 1919, Queen Wilhelmina awarded the yet-to-be-founded KLM its "Royal" (""Koninklijke"") predicate. On 7 October 1919, eight Dutch businessmen, including Frits Fentener van Vlissingen, founded KLM as one of the first commercial airline companies. Plesman became its first administrator and director.


title: KLM

text: The first KLM flight took place on 17 May 1920. KLM's first pilot, Jerry Shaw, flew from Croydon Airport, London, to Amsterdam. The flight was flown using a leased Aircraft Transport and Travel De Haviland DH-16, registration G-EALU, which was carrying two British journalists and some newspapers. In 1920, KLM carried 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight. In April 1921, after a winter hiatus, KLM resumed its services using its pilots, and Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.


title: KLM

text: KLM's first intercontinental experimental flight took off on 1 October 1924. The final destination was Jakarta (then called 'Batavia'), Java, in the Dutch East Indies; the flight used a Fokker F.VII with registration H-NACC and was piloted by Van der Hoop. In 1927, Baltimore millionaire Van Lear Black, who had heard about the 1924 flight, chartered H-NADP to do the same flight, which departed June 15 and went successfully (16 days), and flew back to much rejoicing. This inspired KLM to make a second test flight, which left on October 1, returning successfully with much experience gained. In September 1929, regular scheduled services between Amsterdam and Batavia commenced. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, this was the world's longest-distance scheduled service by airplane. By 1926, it was offering flights to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremen, Copenhagen, and Malmö, using primarily Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft.


title: KLM

text: In 1930, KLM carried 15,143 passengers. The Douglas DC-2 was introduced on the Batavia service in 1934. The first experimental transatlantic KLM flight was between Amsterdam and Curaçao in December 1934 using the Fokker F.XVIII "Snip". The first of the airline's Douglas DC-3 aircraft were delivered in 1936; these replaced the DC-2s on the service via Batavia to Sydney. KLM was the first airline to serve Manchester's new Ringway airport, starting June 1938. KLM was the only civilian airline to receive the Douglas DC-5; the airline used two of them in the West Indies and sold two to the East Indies government, and is thus the only airline to have operated all Douglas 'DC' models other than the DC-1.


title: KLM

text: The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 restricted KLM's operations, with flights over France and Germany prohibited, and many of its aircraft painted in over-all orange to limit the potential for confusion with military aircraft. European routes were limited to services to Scandinavia, Belgium and the UK, with flights to Lisbon (bypassing both British and French airspace) starting in April 1940. When Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, several KLM aircraft—mostly DC-3s and a few DC-2s—were en route to or from the Far East, or were operating services in Europe. Five DC-3s and one DC-2 were taken to Britain. During the war, these aircraft and crew members flew scheduled passenger flights between Bristol and Lisbon under BOAC flight numbers and registration.


title: KLM

text: On 3 March 1942, Douglas DC-3 PH-ALP ""Pelikaan"", then registered as PK-AFV, was shot down over Western Australia by Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service Mitsubishi A6M Zeros during the Attack on Broome while carrying a package of diamonds. The DC-3 crash landed at Carnot Bay, 80 kilometers from Broome. "Pelikaan" was subsequently strafed by the Zeros that had shot it down, killing three passengers and the flight engineer. Diamonds worth an estimated Australian pound 150,000–300,000 were stolen from the wreckage of the aircraft, and nobody has been convicted of the crime.


title: KLM

text: Douglas DC-3 PH-ALI ""Ibis"", then registered as G-AGBB, was attacked by the Luftwaffe on 15 November 1942, 19 April 1943, and finally shot down on 1 June 1943 as BOAC Flight 777, killing all passengers and crew.


title: KLM

text: Some KLM aircraft and their crews ended up in the Australia-Dutch East Indies region, where they helped transport refugees from Japanese aggression in that area.


title: KLM

text: After the end of the Second World War in August 1945, KLM immediately started to rebuild its network. Since the Dutch East Indies were in a state of revolt, Plesman's priority was to re-establish KLM's route to Batavia. This service was reinstated by the end of 1945. Domestic and European flights resumed in September 1945, initially with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s and Douglas DC-4s. On 21 May 1946, KLM was the first continental European airline to start scheduled transatlantic flights between Amsterdam and New York City using Douglas DC-4 aircraft. By 1948, KLM had reconstructed its network and services to Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean resumed.


title: KLM

text: Long-range, pressurized Lockheed Constellations and Douglas DC-6s joined KLM's fleet in the late 1940s; the Convair 240 short-range pressurized twin-engine airliner began European flights for the company in late 1948.


title: KLM

text: During the immediate post-war period, the Dutch government expressed interest in gaining a majority stake in KLM, thus partially nationalizing it. Plesman wanted KLM to remain a private company under private control; he allowed the Dutch government to acquire a minority stake in the airline. In 1950, KLM carried 356,069 passengers. The expansion of the network continued in the 1950s with the addition of several destinations in western North America. KLM's fleet expanded with the addition of new versions of the Lockheed Constellation and Lockheed Electra, of which KLM was the first European airline to fly.


title: KLM

text: On 31 December 1953, the founder and president of KLM, Albert Plesman, died at the age of 64. He was succeeded as president by Fons Aler. After Plesman's death, the company and other airlines entered a difficult economic period. The conversion to jet aircraft placed a further financial burden on KLM. The Netherlands government increased its ownership of the company to two-thirds, thus partly nationalizing it. The board of directors remained under the control of private shareholders.


title: KLM

text: On 25 July 1957, the airline introduced its flight simulator for the Douglas DC-7C – the last KLM aircraft with piston engines – which opened the transpolar route from Amsterdam via Anchorage to Tokyo on 1 November 1958. Each crew flying the transpolar route over the Arctic was equipped with a winter survival kit, including a 7.62 mm selective-fire AR-10 carbine for use against polar bears, in the event the plane was forced down onto the polar ice.


title: KLM

text: The four-engine turboprop Vickers Viscount 800 was introduced on European routes in 1957. Beginning in September 1959, KLM introduced the four-engine turboprop Lockheed L-188 Electra onto some of its European and Middle Eastern routes. In March 1960, the airline introduced the first Douglas DC-8 jet into its fleet. In 1961, KLM reported its first year of losses. In 1961, the airline's president Fons Aler was succeeded by Ernst van der Beugel. This change of leadership, however, did not lead to a reversal of KLM's financial difficulties. Van der Beugel resigned as president in 1963 due to health reasons. Horatius Albarda was appointed to succeed Ernst van der Beugel as president of KLM in 1963. Alberda initiated a reorganization of the company, which led to the reduction of staff and air services. In 1965, Alberda died in an air crash and was succeeded as president by Dr. Gerrit van der Wal. Van der Wal forged an agreement with the Dutch government that KLM would be once again run as a private company. By 1966, the stake of the Dutch government in KLM was reduced to a minority stake of 49.5%. In 1966, KLM introduced the Douglas DC-9 on European and Middle East routes.


title: KLM

text: The new terminal buildings at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol opened in April 1967, and in 1968 the stretched Douglas DC-8-63 ("Super DC-8") entered service. With 244 seats, the Super DC-8 was the largest airliner in scheduled passenger service at the time. KLM was the first airline to put the higher-gross-weight Boeing 747-200B, powered by Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines, into service in February 1971; this began the airline's use of widebody jets. In March 1971, KLM opened its current headquarters in Amstelveen. In 1972, it purchased the first of several McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft—McDonnell Douglas's response to Boeing's 747.


title: KLM

text: In 1973, Sergio Orlandini was appointed to succeed Gerrit van der Wal as president of KLM. At the time, KLM, as well as other airlines, had to deal with overcapacity. Orlandini proposed to convert KLM 747s to "combis" that could carry a combination of passengers and freight in a mixed configuration on the main deck of the aircraft. In November 1975, the first of these seven Boeing 747-200B Combi aircraft were added to the KLM fleet. The airline previously operated DC-8 passenger and freight combi aircraft as well and currently operates Boeing 747-400 combi aircraft.


title: KLM

text: The 1973 oil crisis, which caused difficult economic conditions, led KLM to seek government assistance in arranging debt refinancing. The airline issued additional shares of stock to the government in return for its money. In the late 1970s, the government's stake had again increased to a majority of 78%, effectively re-nationalizing it. The company management remained under the control of private stakeholders.


title: KLM

text: In 1980, KLM carried 9,715,069 passengers. In 1983, it reached an agreement with Boeing to upgrade ten of its Boeing 747-200 aircraft (Three 747-200Bs and seven 747-200Ms) with the stretched-upper-deck modification. The work started in 1984 at the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington, and finished in 1986. The converted aircraft were called Boeing 747-200SUD or 747-300, which the airline operated in addition to three newly built Boeing 747-300s manufactured from the ground up. In 1983, KLM took delivery of the first of ten Airbus A310 passenger jets. Sergio Orlandini retired in 1987 and was succeeded as president of KLM by Jan de Soet. In 1986, the Dutch government's shareholding in KLM was reduced to 54.8 percent. It was expected that this share would be further reduced during the decade. The Boeing 747-400 was introduced into KLM's fleet in June 1989.