Kangxi Emperor

Born Xuanye, the Kangxi Emperor came to the throne as a boy in 1661 and reigned for 61 years, the longest reign in Chinese history. The second Qing emperor to rule from Beijing, he put down a major rebellion in the south and set the young Manchu dynasty on a firm footing. He made six long inspection tours of the south, studied mathematics and astronomy with Jesuit scholars at his court and sponsored huge scholarly projects, including the Kangxi Dictionary of 1716, whose system of 214 radicals for sorting characters is still in use. In 1703 he began a summer retreat at Chengde, where the court could ride, hunt and receive Mongol nobles away from the heat of Beijing. His grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, admired him so much that he gave up the throne rather than reign longer than him.