Qianlong Emperor

The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor and his favourite, Hongli took the throne in 1735 with ambitions that matched the empire's reach. He launched campaigns deep into Inner Asia, Burma, Nepal, Vietnam, suppressing rebellions in Jinchuan and Taiwan, but the signature conquest was Xinjiang - taken from the Dzungar Khanate in a campaign that became genocide. At home he styled himself a patron of high culture, sponsoring the Siku Quanshu, the largest compilation of Chinese history ever assembled, while simultaneously running literary inquisitions that suppressed over 3,100 works. In 1796 he abdicated so his grandfather would remain the longest-reigning Qing emperor at sixty-one years, but the gesture was formal: as Emperor Emeritus he held ultimate power until his death in 1799 at eighty-seven. His reign marked the dynasty's zenith in territory, wealth, and influence, and also the beginning of its long collapse - the military exhausted by constant war, the court riddled with corruption, civil society frozen in place.