총 12개의 수권(手卷)들로 구성되어 있는 <강희제남순도권康熙帝南巡圖卷>은 1689년에 이루어진 강희제(재위 1662-1722)의 제2차 남순(南巡)을 그림으로 기록한 작품이다. 총 길이 197.60미터에 달하는 <강희제남순도권康熙帝南巡圖卷>은 강희제의 71일 간의 여행을 산수 배경 속에서 묘사한 거질(巨帙)의 궁정기록화이다. <강희제남순도권>은 표면적으로는 강희제의 강남 지방 여행 및 순시 장면을 거대한 산수 배경 속에 묘사한 궁정기록화이다. 그러나 <강희제남순도권>은 황제의 여행 기록을 넘어 천하태평의 이상을 실현하고자 했던 강희제의 정치적 열망과 포부가 담겨져 있는 그림이다. <강희제남순도권> 제1권 제첨(題簽)에 따르면 강희제의 남순 목적은 황하 치수(治水) 상황 시찰, 백성들의 풍속 관찰, 지방관원들의 행정 점검이었다. 그러나 강희제의 남순은 이러한 표면적인 목적을 넘어 청제국의 정치적 안정과 경제적 번영을 바탕으로 태평성대의 시대를 열고자 했던 강희제의 미래에 대한 비전과 관련되어 있었다. <강희제남순도권>의 정치적 성격과 관련하여 가장 주목되는 기록은 1692년에 반포한 강희제의 유조(諭詔)로 삼번(三藩)의 난, 황하 치수(治水), 대운하(大運河)를 통한 원활한 물자 교류를 국가 운영의 3가지 중대사로 규정하고 있다. 즉 강희제는 삼번의 난이라는 대규모 내전을 통해 조직화된 군사력의 중요성을 인식하게 되었으며 황하의 범람이 초래하는 막대한 자연 재해의 심각성과 치수 사업을 통한 근본적인 홍수 예방의 필요성을 절감하였다. 아울러 강희제는 대운하의 효율적인 관리를 통해 국가 재정의 핵심이 되는 강남 지역으로부터 유입되는 세곡(稅穀)의 원활한 운송이 제국 경영의 초석이 된다는 것을 확신하게 되었다. 이러한 3대 과제는 <강희제남순도권>를 관통하는 핵심적인 주제로 기능하게 되었다. 제1권과 12권에 보이는 대규모 군단(軍團)를 이루고 있는 만주팔기의 모습, 제10권에 보이는 마상사술(馬上射術) 장면, 제11권에 보이는 남경의 연자기(燕子磯)를 떠나 진강(鎭江)으로 이동하는 대규모 군선(軍船)들의 모습은 삼번의 난을 통해 얻게 된 교훈인 군사력의 중요성에 대한 강희제의 성찰과 관련된다. 한편 제4권에서 강희제는 황하 치수를 통해 천재지변을 사전에 예방하고 백성들의 삶을 풍요롭게 만드는 자애롭고 인자한 유교적 천자로 자신을 표방하고 있다. 한편 이러한 황하 치수 작업은 대운하의 안정적 운용과 직결되어 있었는데 제7권은 대운하를 통해 소주에 도착한 강희제의 모습을 보여주고 있다. 소주는 강남의 경제적, 문화적 중심지로 대운하를 통한 강희제의 소주 방문 장면은 국가 경제의 핵심이 되는 소주 지역의 경제적 번성과 물자의 원활한 유통 모습을 통해 ‘성세자생(盛世滋生),’ 즉 태평한 시절을 맞아 경제적 번영을 구가하는 상황이 도래했음을 천명하고 있다. 그러나 <강희제남순도권>에 표현되어 있는 태평성대의 이미지와는 달리 이 그림이 제작되고 있던 당시 청조는 ‘숙황(熟荒)’이라고 하는 장기적인 경제 불황을 겪고 있었다. 숙황은 풍년이 들어 곡식은 넘치는데 구매력이 없어 곡물가격의 폭락으로 이어지는 기이한 경제 현상으로 1690년대까지 지속되었다. 이러한 숙황 현상을 타개하고 농업과 잠업(蠶業)의 육성을 통해 경제적 안정을 도모하고자 했던 강희제의 의지는 1696년에 초병정(焦秉貞, 1680-1720년경 활약)이 황명(皇命)을 받고 제작한 <어제경직도(御製耕織圖)>를 통해 살펴볼 수 있다. 예찬(倪瓚, 1306-1374)의 <계정산색도(溪亭山色圖)>(1365년, 대만고궁박물원 소장)에 보이는 강희제의 화압(花押)인 ‘태평(太平)’은 내전과 경제 불황을 극복하고 천하태평의 이상을 실천하려고 했던 그의 정치적 비전을 극명하게 보여주고 있다.In 1691, Wang Hui (1632-1717), a celebrated painter from Yushan, was summoned to the imperial court in Beijing to produce the Nanxun tu, a set of twelve scrolls commemorating the emperor Kangxi’s (r. 1662-1722) Southern Tour of 1689. The project had no true precedents: the twelve scrolls represented the longest and most comprehensive landscape panorama ever attempted in China. The main purpose of the paintings was to create a pictorial record of the emperor’s journey to the south and to enhance the image of his rulership. Wang Hui put his painting skills, his artistic ambitions, his knowledge about the history ofpainting, and his views of current politics into this large-scale court painting project. Wang Hui put his painting skills, his artistic ambitions, his knowledge about the history of painting, and his views of current politics into this large-scale court painting project, a pictorial narrative designed to enhance the image of Kangxi’s magnificent rule.
The Nanxun tuwas intended to celebrate the age of peace and prosperity after the pacification of the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories and the consolidation of the empire. The scrolls show images of political stability and economic affluence set against a background of monumental landscapes. The emperor and his entourage, escorted by imperial armies, are marching through various regions of the empire, starting from Beijing and going on to thriving cities in the south such as Suzhou and Nanjing. All the figures and landscapes depicted in the scrolls were carefully chosen to represent the age of the “grand peace (taiping)” that the emperor had brought to the land after tumultuous years of war. The political purpose for producing the comprehensive maps of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal and the Nanxun tu can be further detailed through Kangxi’s statement of 1692. This statement epitomized the political struggles and crises that the emperor had experienced since the demise of the Oboi regency in 1669. No other threat was more serious to the foundation of the Qing dynasty than the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories in the period from 1673-1681. The effective control of large-scale annual floods caused by the Yellow River had been an essential part of imperial rulership since ancient times. The river conservancy was once again a testimony to Kangxi’s rule of China. The securing of annual tribute grain from the south along the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal to the capital was the economic foundation for sustaining Manchu rule. Kangxi’s statement of the most important matters of state not only remarked on the long years of his struggle to establish imperial rule, but also revealed his political prospect for the consolidation of the empire. The statement was a proclamation of his supreme rule over the state affairs.
The layered meanings of the statement are of great significance in understanding the motivations and intentions of the Nanxun tu project. When Kangxi announced his statement about imperial rule, the Nanxun tuscrolls had just begun to be painted. The political narrative crafted in the Nanxun tu resonated with Kangxi’s vision of imperial rule manifested in the statement. In many respects, the Nanxun tu scrolls are visual embodiments of Kangxi’s statement. The political message of the “three matters of great importance”in state affairs is implied in each scroll of the Nanxun tu. Manchu military prowess and the concern for the Yellow River conservancy and the Grand Canal grain tribute system are recurring themes and motifs that run through the scrolls. In this regard, the Nanxun tu was the result of Wang Hui’s pictorial responses to the political concerns that Kangxi wanted each scroll to make manifest. The Nanxu tuthus was not merely a pictorial document of the emperor’s journey to the south. The scrolls were layered with Kangxi’s political visions that were closely related to the enhancement of his rulership.
Actively responding to Kangxi’s purpose for the Nanxun tu project, Wang Hui provided specific solutions to the creation of the scrolls. The military spectacle of the Manchu army accompanying Kangxi on his journey, dramatically represented in the Nanxun tu, refers to the power of the highly disciplined Manchu Banners in suppressing the Rebellions of the Three Feudatories. Kangxi’s personal involvement in inspecting the conditions of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal shows his continuous efforts to stabilize the large water network, the arteries of transport and commerce that support the economic prosperity of the empire. Wang Hui’s careful reading and pictorial embodiment of the emperor’s intentions played a significant role in the execution of the Nanxun tu.
In principle, the narrative of the Nanxun tuscrolls was intended to visualize the order and peace of the Kangxi reign. The narrative was, however, largely concerned with ideals and prospects for the future. When thescrolls were painted, the Kangxi reign was still suffering from a large-scale economic depression that had been caused by widespread poverty, chronic unemployment, and the scarcity of money. After the conquest of China, the Qing dynasty continued to face long-term economic stagnation because of what has been called the “seventeenth-century crisis,”a consequence of war, disruption of trade, frequent famine, epidemic disease, and climatic uncertainty. Combined with wars, banditry, epidemics, and the declineof population, the economic crisis protracted. The early Kangxi reign saw an improvement in grain harvests and achieved an encouraging level of agricultural development as opposed to the miserable condition of the late Ming when people died of starvationand disease. The prohibition of coastal and foreign trade issued in 1661, when the government ordered all coastal residents to move some seventeen miles inland, caused a severe contraction of the market economy. More serious was the persistence of the shuhuang (dearth in the midst of plenty), a peculiar economic phenomenon of the oversupply and extremely low price of grain. The shuhuang reached its peak during the 1670s and lasted throughout the 1680s and early 1690s. The grain prices were one-tenth of the lowest price of the early seventeenth century. It was caused in part by the crash in commerce and the scarcity of silver in circulation as well as by a succession of good harvests. The “Kangxi depression” allows us to reexamine the nature of the Nanxun tuwith a close analysis of the ways in which Wang Hui was aware of the emperor’s political intention for commissioning such scrolls: creating the imagery of good government. Wang Hui was clear about what pictorial narratives he must create in order to serve this purpose. In response to the emperor’s intention, Wang Hui made pictorial documents of an ideal empire that helped to legitimize the vision of Manchu rule at a time of economic crisis. The main pictorial elements, such as flourishing cities and towns and peaceful rural areas where merchants, farmers, and transporters were engaged actively with their daily lives, are carefully chosen to represent the ideal empire of peace and prosperity. In the scrolls, Kangxi appears as a benevolent Confucian sage-ruler bringing order and peace to the land.
Kangxi fashioned himself in these scrolls to be the emperor of the people. Kangxi’s vision of the “grand peace”was inseparable from the hard reality of social and economic conditions that he had faced in the early 1690s. The features of political optimism running through the Nanxuntu scrolls, as revealed in the images of order, peace, and prosperity, stood in sharp contrast to the realities of widespread poverty, chronic unemployment, depressed prices, mercantile stagnancy, and the scarcity of money, all of which contributed to the large-scale economic depression. Clearly aware of Kangxi’s political intentions, Wang Hui presented in the Nanxun tu a grand landscape panorama deeply resonating with the period’s vision of the empire in peace, abundance, and order. The Nanxun tu is not only a pictorial record of the emperor Kangxi’s journey to the south but also a complex visual narrative of the political ideal of the “grand peace (taiping),” intended to enhance images of his rulership. The narrative programs, pictorial constructs, and thematic implications of the Nanxun tucombined to contribute to the formation of the myth of Manchu China.