The program begins with Nuerhachi, the first emperor of the Manchu kingdom of Jin who unified several northeastern states during the late 16th century and established the warrior state that would expand the kingdom's borders into Mongolia, Korea and to the Great Wall. Nuerhachi's grandson was on the throne when Manchu armies, under the banner of the new dynastic name - Qing, slipped through a "conveniently" opened gate at the eastern end of the Great Wall in 1644 to topple the remnants of an enfeebled and corrupt Ming administration in Beijing. The Qing consolidated their power over all of China during the following decades. Although not ethnically Chinese, Manchu officials introduced sweeping reforms and restored peace at home and abroad, winning the "hearts and minds" of their former adversaries. The program's focus on tombs built for Qing emperors and their families highlights the degree to which this alien race accepted and adopted Chinese traditions and ideas. Pre-Qing tombs in Manchuria, built in accordance with distinctive Manchu cultural and religious mores, quickly gave way to distinctly Chinese tombs once the Manchus were secure on China's dragon throne. Mausoleum design, orientation, and religious symbols conformed carefully to Chinese tenets. Qing virility during the 17th and 18th centuries devolved through the 19th into the rigid protocol, corruption and weakness that limited China's options in the face of western imperialism. While emperors continued to be buried as Sons of Heaven, their time on earth was increasingly spent confined to the empire's palaces and pleasure gardens. When the Manchu government was overthrown in 1911, the last Qing emperor, Pu Yi, was just five years of age. In 1995, 28 years after his death, the ashes of China's last emperor were laid to rest in an unpresumptuous grave in the shadow of his ancestor's tombs.
The program begins with Nuerhachi, the first emperor of the Manchu kingdom of Jin who unified severa...
