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Kangxi strengthened the borders of the empire through agreements with the [[Macao|Portuguese]], a [[Treaty of Nerchinsk|treaty]] with the Russians, and military campaigns against the [[Zunghars]], and established in [[1668]] a "willow palisade" blocking off Han Chinese access to large portions of the [[Manchuria|Manchu homelands]]. He also improved official communication networks (including those for covert state information). Kangxi's reign also saw considerable agricultural and commercial expansion, but the Court failed to revise its tax codes appropriately to best capture state revenues from these developments.<ref>Spence, 4-5.</ref>
Kangxi strengthened the borders of the empire through agreements with the [[Macao|Portuguese]], a [[Treaty of Nerchinsk|treaty]] with the Russians, and military campaigns against the [[Zunghars]], and established in [[1668]] a "willow palisade" blocking off Han Chinese access to large portions of the [[Manchuria|Manchu homelands]]. He also improved official communication networks (including those for covert state information). Kangxi's reign also saw considerable agricultural and commercial expansion, but the Court failed to revise its tax codes appropriately to best capture state revenues from these developments.<ref>Spence, 4-5.</ref>
He had his first son, Yinreng, in [[1674]], and moved quickly to have the boy named heir apparent, in order to avoid the problems of domineering regents that he himself had to deal with early in his reign. By the 1690s, when Yinreng was in his 20s, the emperor even considered abdicating in his favor. By the last years of that decade, however, the emperor began to hear rumors at court as to his son's erratic and cruel behavior. He instituted a "palace memorial" system which would allow for more direct and confidential communication than the regular memorial system, such that he could exchange messages with officials without the intermediaries reading them, or entering them into the official record. Through this system of reporting, as well as other channels, the evidence against Yinreng mounted up, and in [[1708]], Kangxi had the boy stripped of his status as heir, and placed under house arrest; he relented the following year, but then ordered the boy's arrest once more in [[1712]] after hearing of assassination plots against him. For the next ten years or so, Kangxi refused to name another heir, and harshly punished officials who suggested he do so.<ref>Spence, 69-71.</ref>
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