Yunsi (29 March 1680 – 5 October 1726), born as Yinsi, was a Manchu prince of the Qing dynasty. The eighth son of the Kangxi Emperor, Yunsi was favoured by many officials at the imperial court to be the successor but ultimately lost the power struggle to his fourth brother Yinzhen. Upon Yinzhen’s accession as the Yongzheng Emperor, Yunsi was granted the title of Prince Lian, and appointed imperial chancellor and head of the Lifan Yuan, but faced constant suppression and censure from the emperor. In 1726 he was stripped of his titles, expelled from the imperial clan, charged with a litany of offenses, and imprisoned, where he died in disgrace. He was posthumously restored to the imperial clan, without titles, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.
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Early life
Yunsi was born to the Kangxi Emperor and Consort Liang, a Manchu woman of the Plain Yellow Banner, and raised by the Consort Hui, mother of Yinzhi, the first son of the Kangxi Emperor. Consort Liang was seen by some historians as coming from a disadvantaged background, because she was a member of the "sin jeku" slave caste before she became the Kangxi Emperor's consort. While the low status of her mother's family affected Yinsi's prestige within the ranks of the princes, it also gave Yinsi the impetus to overcome the odds through hard work and cultivating moral character. Over time, Yinsi became one of the Kangxi Emperor's favourite sons. He was popular with officials at court, and his uncle Fuquan would often praise him in front of his father, the Kangxi Emperor. At the age of only 18, Yinsi was granted the rank of doroi beile, the third highest rank of nobility.
Succession struggle
The Kangxi Emperor had initially chosen Yinreng, his second son to survive into adulthood, as crown prince. However, towards the later years of the emperor's reign, Yinreng engaged in increasingly licentious activities and also established a strong political base revolving around his own authority, causing him to rapidly lose favour. In 1708, during a hunting trip to Rehe, the Kangxi Emperor grew suspicious that the crown prince was conspiring to oust him in a coup. Yinreng was stripped of his position as crown prince and then placed under house arrest. Four days later, in an apparent sign of trust, the Kangxi Emperor commissioned Yinsi to oversee the imperial household department to 'clean house' and remove some vestiges of Yinreng's influence. However, Yinsi used this unique vantage point as an opportunity to curry favour with those previously loyal to Yinreng. Yinsi, widely known to have a strong base of support among the officials of court due to his moral character and wide range of talents, emerged as a serious contender for crown prince. The breadth of his support was his downfall, as it aroused suspicion from the emperor that Yinsi was competing for influence not against other princes but against the emperor himself.
Yinsi's support network, which included many top-ranking officials, the Ninth Prince Yintang, Tenth Prince Yin'e, and the 14th Prince Yinti, became a formidable clique in imperial affairs, bound together by their desire to see Yinsi become the next emperor. Collectively, this group became known as the Baye Dang, or the Eighth Lord Party (八爺黨). The Baye Dang often saw itself at odds with the Crown Prince Party (太子黨), a similarly influential group bound by their interest of maintaining the position of the crown prince. Once Yinreng was removed as heir apparent, some supporters of Yinsi engaged in conspiracies to murder Yinreng.
Shortly after Yinreng was deposed as crown prince, Yinzhi, the eldest son of Kangxi, had run afoul of the emperor for casting sorcery spells against Yinreng. Yinzhi, seeing his own hopes of attaining the crown prince position evaporate, gave his backing to Yinsi, who had been raised in the household of his mother. At the behest of Yinzhi, a fortune teller by the name of Zhang Mingde was sent to Yinsi. Zhang foretold that Yinsi was predestined for greatness. Yinzhi, long pre-occupied with supernatural ways to influence temporal affairs, relayed Zhang's seemingly auspicious predictions about Yinsi's future to the emperor in an attempt bolster Yinsi's case for becoming crown prince. In response, the emperor, rather than rewarding Yinsi, sentenced Zhang to death by lingchi in order to discourage others from becoming involved in the struggle for succession. The Zhang Mingde episode was a huge blow to Yinsi politically and resulted in his own house arrest.
Yongzheng reign
After his fourth brother, Yinzhen, succeeded their father and became the Yongzheng Emperor in 1722, Yinsi changed his name to "Yunsi" to avoid the same character as the Yongzheng Emperor's personal name, considered taboo.
A few weeks after the death of the Kangxi Emperor, the Yongzheng Emperor enfeoffed Yunsi as "Prince Lian of the First Rank" (Chinese: 和碩廉親王; Manchu: hošoi hanja cin wang) and he sat on the emperor's top advisory board along with Yinxiang, Maci, and Longkodo. Yinsi was charged with heading the Lifan Yuan, which managed the affairs of suzerain regions like Tibet and Mongolia, alongside various foreign relations. Despite bestowing Yunsi with the high honors, the Yongzheng Emperor targeted those officials who were Yunsi's allies. The Yongzheng Emperor frequently criticised Yunsi for not performing his duties properly. In 1724, for example, the emperor ordered Yunsi to kneel in the inner reaches of the Forbidden City for an entire night, ostensibly for an infraction committed during his oversight of the Lifan Yuan. In early 1725, the emperor forcibly exiled Yunsi's wife to the interior, and forbid all communication between the two. In 1726, targeted by trumped-up charges and accusations, Yunsi was stripped of his princely title and banished from the imperial clan.
After his banishment, Yunsi was forced to rename himself "Akina" (Manchu: ᠠᡴᡳᠨᠠ; Chinese: 阿其那; pinyin: Āqínà). His only son, Hongwang, was also forced to rename himself "Pusaboo," before the 18-year-old was banished to Rehe for military servitude as a common soldier.
Yunsi died in captivity, four years after his brother's coronation.
Hongwang was rehabilitated by the Qianlong Emperor, who had succeeded the Yongzheng Emperor in 1735. In 1778, Yunsi was posthumously restored to the imperial clan and had his name changed back from "Akina" to "Yunsi". However Yunsi was neither rehabilitated nor had his title restored.
Meaning of "Akina"
"Āqínà" (阿其那) is a Chinese transliterating words of a Manchu term. Some scholars have speculated that the original Manchu term is "Acina" (ᠠᠴᡳᠨᠠ), which means "to carry (with your crime)". But according to Hetu Dangse (Chinese: 黑圖檔), a thematic archive of historical documents from the Qing Dynasty now preserved in the Archives of Liaoning Province, the original term is "Akina" (ᠠᡴᡳᠨᠠ). Though undoubtedly pejorative, the exact meaning of the word is under dispute. It was traditionally understood as "dog", an interpretation that has been widely doubted since the early 20th century. It is now usually interpreted as "frozen fish", "fish or meat on the chopping block", or alternatively, a beast of burden carrying its crimes and driven away like a dog.
Location of residence
According to the Jingshi Fangxiang Zhigao (京师坊巷志稿), the Prince Lian family compound was located near Taijichang Road southeast of the Forbidden City, due west of the family compound of Fuquan, the Prince Yu. Its interior structure was altered shortly after Yunsi's expulsion from the imperial clan in 1725, and converted to a storehouse during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. Nevertheless, some parts of the original structure may have survived to the present day. Its approximate location is near the present-day Wangfujing Station of the Beijing Subway, near the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China.
Family
Primary Consort
Primary consort, of the Gorolo clan (嫡福晉 郭絡羅氏; d. 1726)
Concubine
Mistress, of the Zhang clan (張氏)
Hongwang (弘旺; 27 January 1708 – 16 December 1762), first son
Mistress, of the Mao clan (毛氏)
Princess of the Third Rank (郡主; 24 June 1708 – 11 January 1776), first daughter
Married Sun Wufu (孫五福) in July/August 1724
In fiction and popular culture
Portrayed by Eric Wan in The Rise and Fall of Qing Dynasty (1988)
Portrayed by Mark Cheng in Legend of YungChing (1997)
Portrayed by Wang Huichun in Yongzheng Dynasty (1999), Li Wei the Magistrate (2001) and Li Wei the Magistrate II (2004)
Portrayed by Savio Tsang in The King of Yesterday and Tomorrow (2003)
Portrayed by Huang Leixin in Huang Taizi Mishi (2004)
Portrayed by Liu Dekai in The Book and the Sword (2008)
Portrayed by Feng Shaofeng in Palace (2011) and Palace II (2012)
Portrayed by Kevin Cheng in Scarlet Heart (2011)
Portrayed by Louis Cheung in Gilded Chopsticks (2014)
Portrayed by He Zhi Long in Dreaming Back to the Qing Dynasty (2019)