Yongzheng's Reforms

May 1, 1724

Beijing's new emperor, famously suspicious and fabulously industrious, began an anti-corruption drive that terrified provincial governors. He reformed the tax system, abolished the caste of mean people, and kept a private police network to watch his own ministers. The Qing bureaucratic state reached its most rigorous phase under him. His thirteen-year reign was the shortest of the great Qing emperors but arguably the most administratively effective.