File:Prince Gong.JPG

English: John Thomson: PINCE KUNG, now about forty years of age, is the sixth son of the Emperor Tao Kwang, who reigned from A.D. 1820 to 1850. He is a younger brother of the late Emperor Hien-foong, and, consequently an uncle to the reigning Emperor Tung-che. Prior to 1860 he was little known beyond the precincts of the Court: but, when the Emperor fled from the summer palace, it was he who came forward to meet the Ministers of the Allied Powers, and negotiate the conditions of peace. He holds several high civil and military appointments, the most important that of member of the Supreme Council, a department of the Empire resembling most nearly the Cabinet with us. Quick of apprehension, open to advice, and comparatively liberal in his views, he is the acknowledged leader of that small division among Chinese politicians who are known as the party of progress.

Independently of his various offices, Prince Kung, as his title denotes, is a member of the highest order of Chinese nobility; an expression which, to prevent misconception, we must beg our readers' permission to explain. There have been from the most ancient times in China five degrees of honour, to which men whose services have been eminent may attain; the titles vesting, as we should say, in remainder to their heirs male. The latter, however, cannot succeed without revival of their patent, and even then, as a rule, the title they succeed to is one degree less honourable than that of their predecessor ; so that were the usage in vogue with us a dukedom would dwindle to a baronetcy in five generations.

The Manchu family, which rules the country, or to speak more correctly those of the stock who are within a certain degree of the Imperial line, have no less than eighteen orders of nobility, liable, however, like the old system spoken of above, to gradual extinction, except in a few particular instances where the patent ensures the title in perpetuity.

Prince Kung received such a patent in 1865.