I. From Yuan to Ming

 

Outside of activities related to religious practices Tibetans did not hold positions of importance in the Yuan administration or in the intellectual life of the time. During this period China in return also had little control over Tibet, a country that had little to offer to China: the tea was mediocre, and the amounts of gold and silver that Tibet exported were of minimal amounts.

 

Some comments about the peaceful nature of the Tibetan people: Khubilai Khan is said to have stated that Tibetans of the time “were fond of fighting”. Marco Polo claimed that “… Otherwise, the people are idolators and thoroughly wicked, for they do not think it sinful to steal and act badly. They are the greatest criminals and thieves on earth”.

[see Herbert Franke: “Tibetans in Yuan China”, from  Herbert Franke, China Under Mongol Rule, reprint of studies, pp. 276-328].

 

The end of the Yuan saw a rapid inflation, corruption of the Tibetan clergy who controlled the Chinese clergy and interfered in political affairs, and rebellions of the exploited Chinese population against Mongol and other foreign officials.

 

One of the rebellions attracted the poor monk Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398) who later became the head of a rebel army and successfully fought against the Mongols as well as other contenders for power.

The Ming Dynasty (Chinese; 1368-1644)

 

During the Ming the population more than doubled. When the dynasty was founded the registered population was 60 Mio. Until the Manchu conquest it increased to 125 Mio. While in former dynasties the population of the north suffered great losses during invasions and caused the migration from to the south that helped to develop agriculture and commerce in the Jiangnan area, a reverse movement began in the Ming.

 

The new migration was not started on a voluntary basis. The Ming government forced large numbers of families to resettle in the north and in the southwest of the country in order to cultivate the land, build irrigation sytems, and integrate it into the sphere of Chinese government.

 

The growth of the population was due to an increased production of food on formerly used arable land as well as land that was newly cultivated. The production of wheat was expanded in the north and new crops were brought to China: the most important were maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. Cotton cultivation reached its peak.

The Ming dynasty may be divided into four larger periods:

 

1. 1368- 1450: The age of economic reconstruction and installation of new institutions. Diplomatic and military expansion were pursued in Central Asia, Mongolia, South East Asia, and the Indian Ocean (reigns of the Hongwu and Yongle emperors, sea expeditions conducted by Admiral Zheng He).

I. Phase 1: Reconstruction, creation of new institutions, expansion

 

a.       reconstruction of the agrarian economy

irrigation channels, dykes, canals, reforestation, population transfers

 

b.      installation of an autocratic rule

 

The emperor headed institutions that were directly responsible:

► Six Ministries:  1. Ministry of Rites

                   2. Ministry of Justice

                   3. Ministry of Public Administration

                   4. Ministry of Revenue

                   5. Ministry of War

                   6. Ministry of Public Works

 

            ► Five Armies

            ► Brocade Uniform Guard

c.       installation of agrarian taxation system to supervise families with hereditary occupations:

- the Ministry of Revenue controlled the peasants in the rural areas

                  - the Ministry of War controlled the soldiers (in frontier and coastal regions)

                  - the Ministry of Public Works controlled the artisans (recruited especially in

                     the neighborhood of the capitals) and the labor obligation system

 

The lijia-system of units of tens and hundreds of households was installed for

 purposes of population registration and tax-collection (taxes in kind and in labor

services). The system was only successful in its initial stages.

 

The system deteriorated eventually. When the concentration of land in the hands

of large landowners became prominent small working landowners disappeared.

Most of them became tenants or left the countryside to take up other occupations.

Poor families became increasingly dependant on the country gentry.

 

The aversion against the scholar elite of the founding emperor Hongwu  caused a

minimalization of bureaucracy  in the beginning of the Ming. The entire Ming

empire was administered by ca. 16.000 officials who had a hard time to enforce

the laws and regulations decreed by the central administration.

 

d.      military and diplomatic expansion

 

In the 15^th century military expeditions to Mongolia, Manchuria, and Vietnam were led in order to keep the Mongols, the Vietnames, the Oirats in the Northwest and the tungusic Tatars in the Northeast under control.

The maritime expeditions by Admiral Zheng He served to explore the western countries and to secure the recognition of Ming power and prestige in Southeast Asia. Sinc the official documentation of th expedition was destroyed the only records that document some of the expeditions were the writings by the eunuch Ma Huan who accompanied Zheng He on the first, fourth and seventh of his travels. (Treatise on the Barbarian Kingdoms of the Western Oceans (1434), Marvels Discovered by Boat-Band for the Galaxy (1436), Marvels of the Oceans (1451)).

 

During  phase 1 the Confucian orthodoxy was reinforced. The curriculum for exam candidates consisted of a canon of the philosophers of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Five Classics mentioned by Confucius (Classic of Changes, Classic of Documents, Classic of Poetry, Classic of Rites, Spring and Autumn Annals) and the Four Books edited by the philosopher Zhu Xi in 1190 (Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects of Confucius, Mengzi). Although this canon remained the obligatory basis of scholarship, the orthodoxy became challenged by new thinkers after 1600.

 

2. 1450-1520: A period of withdrawal and defense after the great expeditions. This period in the eyes of orthodox Confucians was a time in which commerce disrupted the cycle of agriculture and began to corrupt society. The polarization of the wealthy and the poor began.

II. Phase 2: Withdrawal and defense

            Constant attacks by pirates called for intensive defense of coastal ports.

            International trade was limited, at times terminated. Ships were destroyed, ship

building controlled.

 

Repeated attacks by the Mongols especially between 1438 and 1449 when

Emperor Zhengtong was taken prisoner (released 1451) led to a limitation of fairs

in border regions. Horse-fairs were reduced and at times cancelled.

Foreign embassies to China were limited. Japanese embassies were officially

scaled down to one in every ten years. Sulphur, copper, wood for dyes, and fans

were imported from Japan in exchange for books, paintings, silk, and copper

coins.

 

3. 1520-ca.1580: A 2^nd Chinese ‘renaissance’ among Chinese intellectuals during the rules of emperors Zhengtong and Zhengde could not avert the growing imbalance of agriculture and commerce. Agriculture, so the orthodox Confucians, was neglected, commerce dominated the economy. The purity of working the land gave way to the excesses related to the influence of capital. Consumption, not necessity, began to drive production.

III. Phase 3: Economic changes and urban revival 

            The compulsory services in the capitals and official workshops was transformed

            into payments in silver between 1485 and 1562.

            Land prices dropped. Industrial crops were developed: cotton, plants used for

vegetable oils, sugar cane, tobacco. In the textile industry work distribution begins

to resemble industrial workforces. Technical progress is made in woodblock

printing, irrigation and seed-sowing. New crops are introduced from the

Americas: sweet potatoes, maize, peanuts.

 

 

4. 1580-1644: a period of crises in commerce, politics, and revolts among urban workers

 

Society in the initial century of the Ming was characterized by a search for stability through reconstruction of the agrarian social system (which had been abandoned as early as the Song when a commercial revolution had propelled the economy) and at the same time created physical and social immobility while the population more than doubled.

 

IV. Phase 4: Financial and political crises

 

            Severe financial problems occur in the end of the Ming caused by:

-         overspending of the court with regard to allowances paid to members of the

      imperial family (to an extent that a suspension of marriage permits for the

      princes is issued between 1573 and 1628)

-         overspending of the court in building imperial tombs

-         the Ming court buys peace when the Japanese invade Korea

-         they enter a war in Korea (1593-1598) when the Liao prince Nurhaci who had supported the Qing against the Japanese turns against the Qing

-         rebellions and minority revolts in the southeast and southwest call for additional internal military engagement

 

► Agriculture:

restoration and reclamation of land

reforestation

transfer of immigrants to new territories, land distribution

 

► Physical immobility in general:

 

Travel was discouraged. The maximum radius of travel in which no route certificate was required was a distance of 58 km.

Transgression of this law was punished (at times by capital punishment) at the time of return.

► Officially approved physical mobility

was supervised by the Ministry of War which managed

the courier service,

the postal service, and

the transport service.

Courier stations were established every 35 to 45 km. They kept up to 450 horses and mules, and 50-60 sedan chairs (which had been introduced as a means of transportation during the Yuan Dynasty) and the necessary amount of carriers.

 

The Grand Canal was restored in the beginning of the Ming (1403-1420). This restoration was a pre-condition for the move of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and for the supply of the new capital with commodities.

47.004 full-time laborers were in charge of maintaining the Grand Canal in functioning condition. They had to clear the canal of silt, check the dykes, reinforce the dykes whenever necessary and keep the locks in working condition.

 

Means of transportation were

horse, mule

sedanchair

wheelbarrow (max. load: 120 kg)

4 wheel mule-cart (max. load: 3000 kg /375 km)

grain barge (average max. load 30.000 kg) made of pine (exchange: every 5 years) or made of the more durable fir wood (exchange: every 10 years)

 

Regional and national commercial networks were formed. Agriculture developed from a producing the means for subsistence to a production of surplus which could be traded. The production of commodities used the improvements in infrastructure provided by the newly consolidated state for its tax goods. Mobility necessarily increased.

► Social immobility:

 

Occupations were hereditary. (This regulation actually had first been introduced by the Mongols and belongs to those regulations that the first Ming emperor, Hongwu, did not discard instantly.)

The society consisted of

• A small educated elite whose members were more distrusted than trusted by emperor Hongwu, managed the administration of the empire.

• peasants who had to settle in villages,

• artisans who worked in state-service workshops,

• merchants who were only allowed to perform trade in necessities,

• and soldiers who were settled at the frontiers in large numbers.

Emperor Hongwu occasionally mentioned Buddhist monks and Daoist priests in addition to the first 4 classes. During this reign the reality of class differentiation looked slightly different (the peasants were regarded as most important, followed by artisans and soldiers. Least important were the merchants, and necessary but viewed with suspicion were the scholar-officials. In the long term development the transmitted class stratification remained dominant.

The scholar Gui Youguang (1507-1571) claimed that the exclusion of merchants from gentry life was unfair. In a biography that he composed for a relative of a merchant named Wang Hong (1491-1543) he asked: “Why should merchants be regarded as inferior to gentry?” and “How do we know that merchants can’t be gentry?” A dissolving border between merchants and gentry members cannot be denied.
In the mid-Ming the gentry did not only consist of the scholar-officials alone. Other educated members of families of degreeholders were part of the network into which merchants could advance through their means of wealth and through educating their offspring.

► A rural idyll was propagated:

Families had a house to live in, land to cultivate in the predictable rhythm of the annual cycle of agriculature, hills with trees for firewood, gardens to grow vegetables. Taxes were appropriate. Life was secure due to the absence of bandits and military attacks. Moral values were kept high through a functioning marriage and family system.

 

► Registration for purposes of tax collection:

 

Households were registered in official charts according to professions. Since occupations were inheritable, the registers were comparatively stable in the first decades of the dynasty. Registers were also created for land and landownership. But several factors turned the registers which were reviewed only every ten years: When natural disasters struck people ran away to escape famine caused by floods, draughts, and locusts.

In order to recruit household members for duty in the labor service system, units of 10 households were combined to one ‘tithing’ (jia), headed by a ‘tithing head’ whose position rotated annually;

units of ten tithings were combined to a ‘hundred’ (li), headed by a ‘hundred captain’; his position rotated on a decade basis.

‘Tithings’, ‘hundreds’, and their heads were supervised by six tax captains selected by the local administration.

 

Mobility would have and in fact later did distort the systematic registration of the population for tax purposes. In the beginning of the Ming, physical mobility was only supported and at times required for

► creating new settlements in the border regions in order to control military activities of the neighboring peoples or states     and 

► creating a new social fabric in the cities especially in the metropolitan areas when households of former opponents of contenders for power were sent into exile as settlers of territories that were to be newly cultivated. The population was functionally divided and distributed.

Women were often not registered at home because they eventually would marry into a new family yet remain registered with their natal family who had to pay taxes as is she was still living at home and working to contribute her share of the taxes.

 

Changes in profession which became prominent when surplus production provide additional income remained unnoticed in the official charts.

 

Changes in location equally distorted the registers. Merchants, who were registered in their hometown in the countryside but had moved into the city, paid taxes in their village. Citizens paid higher taxes. This situation was a great advantage for the merchants but created tensions because people who did not own land or had not previously lived in the countryside saw the profits taken by the merchants.

 

The reality looked different in: women and children in the countryside had to help working in the fields. At the same time by the mid-Ming, men were found in an occupation formerly supposedly limited to women. A multitude of woodblock illustrations in manuals shows male weavers at work. When surplus production increased consumption, a change of job could be a lucrative decision:

There was a growing need of artisans in textile production and the industries related to book production such as woodblock carving, the production of paper and ink, the porcelain industry, as well as in the production of metal works and in mining. Therefore many peasants became hired workers and artisans.

► Uniformity in official matters

Due to the loss/ transformation of state ritual and etiquette during the Yuan Dynasty uniformity was required in costume and in handling official matters.

Models for writing memorials were published. These models enabled not only educated officials but also less educated commoners to formulate their ideas and concerns in an officially accepted standardized fashion.

 

Memorials could be handed in by commoners who at least in one case transmitted to us impeached a magistrate.

Each memorial that was sent in had to be duplicated. The original was sent directly to the emperor who wrote a statement and sent memorial and statement to the Office of Supervising Secretaries. The office was created in the Ming and solely in charge of handling memorials. It received the duplicate and matched it with the original and the emperor’s statement. Every memorial was recorded in the official Court Record. A handwritten summary was published in the Beijing Gazette which also informed its readers about promotions, demotions, military and diplomatic affairs, as well as news from the provinces such as natural disasters etc.

 

►Price control

►Ming Religious Syncretism: Three Teachings United in One

 

Since the Song Dynasty religious and philosophical thinking in China showed  remarkably syncretistic tendencies: Elements of the three teachings Confucianism,

Daoism, and Buddhism were integrated into a system of metaphysical ideas and practical ethics that only in the Ming Dynasty became widely acknowledged.

The synthesis of the three teachings was the answer to the search for practical methods of spiritual cultivation.

 

►Confucianism

Neo-Confucian philosophers, the most important of whom was Zhu Xi (1130-1200), created a canon of classical literature that should serve as the shared basis of all learned members of society. Zhu Xi therefore edited the Four Books [The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, Mengzi] which had to be studied and learned by all examination candidates. This classical canon would dominate the contents of the official examinations until they were abolished in 1906.

Yet Confucian officials did not form a homogenous group in the Late Imperial period.

In the Ming the literati scene consisted of two groups of [former] officials:

1. the Conservatives

Deeply influenced by Zhu Xi and his contemporaries this group held the values of Confucian ideology and tradition in highest esteem. They cultivated a habit of support and disapproval for political decisions by the emperor. In case of abuse of power etc. by the eunuchs, by other officials, or even by the emperor himself, they send letters of protest and memoranda of correction to the court, sometimes at the risk of their lives. Many of them belonged to the learned circles associated with academies. The most important academy of the time was the Donglin Academy in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. It had become a center of disappointed officials who had withdrawn from their office of had been dismissed because they did not approve of certain official policies or the eunuchs’ malpractices in politics.

 

Mei Yingzuo for the first time set up the system of 214 radicals for the classification of 33179 Chinese characters which he organized in a dictionary.

Other manuals concentrated on agriculture, medicine (hygiene, acupuncture, dietetics, moxibustion), botany (pharmacopoeia), military science, geography, and geology.

 

In general intellectual life of the urban middle class showed a re-awakening of philosophy in the 16^th century. Individualism and anarchism were the favored counter positions to the conservative minds. A tendency towards a “disinterested wisdom” became evident. Disgusted with court politics many scholars did no longer pursue an administrative career. Reading and interpreting of texts became less important than conduct and form. Under the influence of Buddhism and Daoism exercises in quietism, the praise for absolute spontaneity in search of the perfect accord between mind and world were dominant topics discussed in philosophy. In addition popular literature, theater plays, the short story, and the novel thrived especially among followers of the second group of intellectuals:

 

 

2. the Liberals: The ‘liberals’ were headed by the philosopher Wang Yangming (= Wang Shouren; 1472-1528) who considered the reading and interpreting of texts as it was practiced in the traditional education system as less important than personal conduct in office and moral reform in society. His philosophy has therefore been labeled as ‘anti-intellectualist’. Li = the principle of order in society and within the universe had to be interiorized. Then there would be no separation between knowledge and action. Wang followed the philosopher Mengzi when stating that man possessed an innate moral knowledge because at birth man was of good nature before his mind is contaminated by egoistic ideas and desires.Wang Yangming and his disciple Wang Gen (1483-1541) participated in the ‘fashion’ of academic discussions.  More eccentric than Wang Yangming was Li Zhi (1527-1602) who attacked traditional morality. His individualistic thoughts show sympathy for Buddhism and vernacular literature and may be summarized as ‘intuitive philosophy’ that was based on meditation practice. (see “On the Mind of a Child”;  on e-reserve). Li Zhi was eccentric, especially in his defense of minorities, women, and the lower classes.

 

►Daoism

While religious Daoism was dominated by mystical teachings preoccupied with the search for immortality, philosophical Daoism centered around finding the Way and practicing Wuwei, ‘non-acting’, or acting in harmony with nature without willfully applying force to achieve a goal. Religious Daoism in the Ming was dominant in the Zhengyi Dao (Way of Right Unity)-sect. The sects’ practices were based on the teachings of the Han Daoist Zhang Daoling and used amulets and talisman writings. It had been melted together with the School of the Magic Jewel (Lingbao pai) whose priests were prominent for practicing exorcist rituals.

Philosophical Daoism concentrated on the writings of Laozi and Zhuangzi and the voluminous interpretations of their writings by later philosophers. The most important school of followers were the Quanzhen (Way of Realization of Truth) monks who lived in strict celibacy (Zhengyi priests could marry) and practiced meditation. The sect had been founded in the Song Dynasty by Wang Chunyang (1112-1170). They did not use talismans or alchemy but were influenced by Chan (=Zen) Buddhism

 

►Buddhism.

1. Chan Buddhism, in which self-realization through one’s own efforts was stressed, became increasingly influential in the Ming, not only as a school of Buddhism but in its pervasive acceptance into Daoism and Confucianism.

Chan Buddhism had first become prominent in the 8^th century. Instead of a long ascetic training emphasis was laid on a high level of concentration through meditation to attain the “extremity of being”, sudden illumination experienced in meditation. Chan was iconoclastic and not tied to dogmas, scriptures, rites, or philosophical systems.

Ming syncretism supported an amalgamation of Chan with

2. Pure Land (Jingtu) Buddhism (originated in the 7^th century), in which followers expressed their faith in the devotion and worship of the Amitabha Buddha (Buddha of Infinite Light). This syncretism had first been propagated by the eminent monk Yongming Yanshou (904-975). Pure Land Buddhism enjoyed popularity because of its simplicity in ritual.

Though introspection and withdrawal were characteristics of Buddhist clerical life during the sinicization dominant in the Ming becoming a Buddhist did no longer necessarily mean to have to renounce the family. [Ordination was officially controlled. Since the Tang to leave the household required the permission of the parents and grandparents (orphans needed only the permission of uncles and elder brothers) and an age of 15. Women had to be older than 13 and able to recite 70 pages of scripture by heart or read 500 pages of scripture].

Lay Buddhist associations flourished while, the monastic orders suffered from secularization and monastic reforms were conducted.

3. Vinaya Buddhism: Buddhism as followed by monks and nuns in the rules for ordination and monastic rules.

4. Tiantai (School of the Heavenly Terrace Mountain; in Zhejiang) founded in the 6^th century. The school stressed that all living creatures possess Buddha nature and that the totality of existence can be expressed by the interrelatedness of objects and phenomena: Cosmos can be found in a mustard seed. The second doctrine is also important in the Girland Scool (Huayan) of the 6^th century.

5. Esoteric Buddhism (Tantrism; zhenyan), also called Lamaism, is the Tibetan interpretation of Mahayana Buddhism which aims at illumination in order to compassionately assist others in obtaining illumination and Vajrayana teachings which rely on magic rituals in communicating with the deities.

II. From Ming to Qing

 

Since 1589 the Jurchen had been allies of the Chinese in their war against the Japanese invaders of Korea (1592-1598). Their leader, Nurhaci unified the peoples of eastern Manchuria (Liaoning province) who were trading with pearls, fur, ginseng, and mining products.

 

In 1601 Nurhaci created a military administration which was headed by aristocrats form the clans of the alliance. These military units were modeled after Chinese border garrisons that had been established during the Ming. They were called Inner and Outer Banners, the Inner Banners consisted predominantly of Manchus the Outer Banners were kept for auxiliary troops made up from Han Chinese, Mongols etc.

 

In 1609 the Manchus formed an alliance with the Eastern Mongols against their Western relatives. This alliance with the Eastern Mongols, the enemies of China, made the Manchus to enemies of the Chinese as well.

 

In 1616 Nurhaci who was the leader respected by both Manchus and Mongols now, proclaimed himself Khan and founded the Later Jin dynasty. The name was chosen in commemoration of the first Jurchen dynasty with the name Jin dynasty that had ruled in the northern territories of what had become the living space of the Manchus in the meantime and had conquered the northern territory of the Song.

 

A few years after the proclamation of the Later Jin the Manchus began attacking the northern territory of China and finally established a capital in Shenyang, called Mukden. Nurhaci died soon after the founding of the capital and was succeeded by Abahai (1627-1643). In order to create a functioning state Abahai imitated Chinese institutions with the assistance of Chinese civil and military advisers.

 

In 1635 he proclaimed the name Manchu to be used for his people (instead of Jurchen) and the dynastic name Later Jin was changed for Great Qing. With the military and strategic strength the Manchu had gained and with their political unity and administrative organization all prerequisites for a stabile rule had been established.

 

When the conquest of China began the Manchus were assisted by a group of Chinese generals, most of whom hailed from former border garrisons in Liaoning province. Fan Wencheng (1597-1666) and Wu Sangui (1612-1678) were the most important among them. These generals knew Chinese and Manchu and had been accepted into the Inner Banners. They gained a position that was similar to the status of the eunuchs in the Ming though they did not gain excessive power:

They were entrusted with the internal administration of the palace and with the control of the imperial workshops.

 

The conquest caused resistance which was quelled with strict laws:

In 1645, when the Abahai established the capital of the Great Qing in Beijing, all Chinese inhabitants of the northern part of the city were expelled and had to settle in the southern part, reserved for the non-Manchu population. All Chinese inhabitants of Beijing which were supposed to have smallpox were expelled from the capital. The Manchu administration simply banned all Chinese persons with skin diseases from the capital.

Chinese men were ordered to wear Manchu hairstyle: The forehead had to be shaved, the remaining hair was braded in a pigtail which was wound around the head. The same hairstyle, which was popular among peoples in the steppe, had been enforced on Chinese men by the Jurchen during the Jin dynasty.

 

In the same year enclaves for exclusively Manchu inhabitants were founded in the northern provinces. The Manchus enslaved prisoners of war and landless peasants who had to work the land for them. This harsh rule over the Chinese population was eventually given up because the Manchu realized that lean taxation and a better rule would guarantee the cooperation of the non-Manchu majority of the population much easier than force. Nevertheless, they still tried to enforce laws of segregation and in 1668 all Han Chinese were banned from Manchuria. This ethnic segregation had cultural and economic reasons: intermarriage was forbidden to keep up Manchurian heritage and minimize sinicization and at the same time the exploitation of the ginseng production remained in Manchu hands.

 

The conquest of the southern parts of China was more challenging than establishing a new rule in the north. Similar to developments in the Southern Song, the remnants of the Ming court had fled south and had proclaimed a new emperor in Nanjing who headed the Southern Ming dynasty. But resistance was broken by force. Yangzhou, which had been defended with an iron hand by the Ming-loyalist Shi Kefa was taken by the Qing and the emperor had been handed over to the Qing when Nanjing fell a few days after Yangzhou.

The rest of the imperial family and the court fled to Yunnan and again a new emperor was proclaimed. He and his entourage could not withstand the perpetual attacks by general Wu Sangui, who fought for the Qing. The emperor took refuge in Burma, was captured in 1661 and strangled in Kunming.

 

The resistance in the south lasted some 50 years and was assisted by figures like Zheng Chenggong (1624-1662), a Ming loyalist who survived  by successfully combining piracy and trade. He was closely associated with the Southern Ming court and even allowed to use the Imperial family name, Zhu. This privilege brought him the nickname Guoxingye, ‘Excellency with the royal family’s name’ which was transliterated by the Dutch and others Westerners as ‘Coxinga’. In order to subdue him and his fellow pirate-loyalists, the Qing government in 1662 evacuated the entire coastal regions from Shandong to Guangdong. All coastal villages and cities were destroyed, the inhabitants had to move to the hinterland.The resulting destruction of Chinese trade relations facilitated the intrusion of Western merchants from Portugal, Spain, and Holland in East Asia.

 

A stern Ming loyalist, Zheng Chenggong expelled the Dutch from Taiwan and rebelled against the Qing.

 

As mentioned before, the initial rul of the Qing had been facilitated by the service of Chinese officials who had served under the Ming as well. Some of them became military governors under the Qing and obtained a rank similar to imperial princes. They were entrusted with the administration of large parts of southern China, areas that eventually became rather autonomous and finally sought independence from the central administration in Beijing.

 

Three of these governors became increasingly powerful:

Wu Sangui who had destroyed the army of the rebel Li Zicheng and then had chased the Ming loyalists to Yunnan. He had kept his troops under arms and while financially supported by the Qing government, finally controlled the south-western provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Shanxi, and Gansu.

 

When the governor of Canton, Shang Kexi (1604?-1676) tried to obtain autonomy from the Qing, the freedom of the ‘prince-like’ military governors was curtailed. Wu Sangui and the military governor of Fujian, Geng Jingzhong (?-1682) rebelled openly and won over several other governors, including the son of Shang Kexi named Shang Zhixin, for their cause. But eventually they had to show their submission to the Qing. After Wu Sangui had died in 1676 the Qing army successfully recaptured the southern and southwestern provinces. As soon as this military challenge was ended in1681 with the conquest of Taiwan, the Qing dynasty was in command of the entire territory of China.

 

► Government Policies

 

Political Structures

 

The Manchu, Mongol, and parts of the Chinese population were integrated into civil-military units called banners which again were divided into smaller units of approximately 7500 households each. The eight basic banners were identified by a colored flag (yellow, white, blue, red) with a straight or bordered edge. After more groups of the population had been integrated, there were 24 banners. By 1648 only 16% of the bannermen were of ethnic Manchu origin.  

 

Banners were units in charge of registration, conscription, taxation, and mobilization. The army was led by Manchu aristocrats who were assisted by Chinese generals. The Mongols were fully politically integrated into the Manchu state when the seal of the Great Khan came into the possession of the Manchu rulers in 1635 after a victory of the Manchu over the Mongol army. Possessing the Great Seal aligned the Manchu ruler with Chinggis Khan, who had first united the Mongols in a strategy similar to Nurhaci’s unification of the Manchus.

 

The banner command initially was in the hands of the Manchu emperor, his sons and nephews who shared the rule. During a process of increased bureaucratization the privileges of the hereditary aristocracy were checked by the growing political power of the imperial clan members.

 

When the rebellion of the Three Feudatories was quelled, the Manchus successfully began to win the sympathies of the culturally dominating elite of the Lower Yangzi region by imperial patronage of scholarly printing and charitable projects and by visiting the area during Imperial Inspection Tours.

 

►New Institutions:

 

The Imperial Household Department was an institution newly created in 1661 that replaced the eunuchs in the management of the imperial household. (Eunuchs continued to work as servants in the harem only.) Now Chinese bondservants and officials

► managed the budget of the imperial clan

► provided for the emperor’s food, clothing, housing

► managed the imperial printing bureau

► managed the estates in North China that had been confiscated and distributed among

     the bannermen

► supervised the monopolies of the sale of ginseng, salt, and pearls, the coin-copper

     trade with Japan, the imperial textile and porcelain manufactories

► the customs offices

 

 

►The main institutions of the Qing government:

 

Emperor personally advised by bondservants

            ▼

Central administration

           

Six Ministries                                     Censorate                               new: Grand Council

Personnel                                                                                   6-10 high ranking officials

           

Local administration

  ▼

18 Provinces (consisted of 7-13 prefectures): ruled by governor-generals (first ruled by Han-Chinese, after 1667: 50% Manchu, 25% bannermen, 25% Han Chinese)

new: bureaus for interprovincial grain traffic and maintenance of waterways

Ming army of the Green Standard was retained as a police force and absorbed local militias (which had not been abolished)

                          ▼

Prefectures (consisted of 7-8 counties)

                          ▼

1281 counties + 221 departments (in the end of the 18^th century) managed by a magistrate who ruled over approx. 200.000 people

 

► Officials’ ranks and examination system

Officials were graded in 9 ranks with an additional division in a (higher ranking) and b (lower ranking) attributes

To obtain an official position exams on the

prefectural

provincial          and

national            levels had to be passed.

 

Winners of the national degree could also participate in the highest examination, the palace exam.

Two special examinations (1679, 1736) were held in addition to the standard exams in order to recruit important scholars for government service, but there were also additional exams on the lower levels from time to time which considerably increased the number of examinees (as well as the competition between them). Employment was given to many schlars who passed the exams and did not obtain  regular office by including them in the publication projects for imperial editions of the History of the Ming Dynastie, the edition of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (the result of the imperial book inquisition) etc.

 

Participants for the exams were selected according to a quota to insure that regions  were represented in a balanced ratio. Bannermen competed in separate exams which allowed for special privileges.          

 

► Social relations

Suppression of Ming loyalists

Ming loyalists in the Southeast (especially in and around Suzhou) initially did not pay taxes to the Qing administration as a sign of protest against the foreign domination. When the Machus tried to collect the taxes by force a rebellion was quickly quelled by executing 18 scholars related to the planning of the rebellion and punishing 11.000 other literati. 70 persons were sentenced to death because they were related to the publication of a history of the Ming in which the Manchu were called ‘barbarians’.

 

The Machu government faced the danger as well as the usefulness of the well-educated local elites. They could serve the local communities well, but at the same time they could also take over government functions which were part of the officials’ duties. In order to limit their influence, tax-exemption practices were changed: tax and corvee exemptions were no longer granted to the household but now only to the individual.

 

Minority communities were headed by chieftains of local tribes but just like in the Ming Chinese colonists had to settle in many of these regions in order to sinicize the local population by providing schools and temples and active promotion for Lamaist monasteries.

 

A ban of intermarriage between Han and Manchu proved to be impossible to enforce.  Nevertheless, Qianlong insisted on the use of the Manchu language and learning of the Manchu script by the Manchu population. To preserve Manchu history and tradition he ordered the Manchu history to be written, the history of the eight banners, the publication of Manchu genealogies and the recording of the shamanistic tradition of the Manchu.

At the same time public morality was stressed following the pattern of the Ming Dynasty.

Six Maxims and  Sixteen Injunctions where published by the emperors. They had to be publicly recited twice a month and demanded filial piety, respect towards elders, education of the children by the parents, and proper behavior from the common population. The demand for moral behavior was further strengthened by the many manual on morality that were published during the 17th and 18^th centuries.

 

►Economic rehabilitation 

Economically the Qing managed to consolidate the state by tax exemptions for areas that had suffered damage in the takeover fights. In 1713, corvée tax quotas were frozen permanently and corvée and land taxes were transformed into payments of silver.

 

Land cultivation was intensified by planting maize and potatoes on a large scale. Peanuts became increasingly important and tobacco competed with rice and sugarcane for good planting land, because tobacco became a profitable crop. Several crops such as rice, wheat and barley could be harvested twice a year.

 

Due to the peaceful period and the positive results in food supply the population tripled between 1650 and 1850.  In times of bad harvests, famine relief was paid to the victims who could then buy grain from reserve stocks in the so-called ‘ever-normal granaries’.

 

At times the government actively took measures to regulate and stabilize the economy. Between 1759 and 1762 the export of raw silk was forbidden because to many weavers had lost their jobs and foreign sales had increased local prices. Later the type and amount of silk that was bound for export was limited for the entire country.

 

►Foreign Relations 

The tributary system functioned as it had under the Ming:  envoys from Korea and Vietnam were received in Beijing up to three times per year. The Manchu emperors confirmed the status of the Korean and Annamese kings, a practice that had been performed for centuries in the same way. Tributary states of Central Asia where handled by a new agency, the Court of Colonial Affairs. During several military expeditions the Manchus tried to terminate the hostilities. They finally incorporated the oases into the territory of China and called it ‘New Dominions’ (Xinjiang).

 

The relations with Tibet where fruitful and stable. The Manchu emperors supported the Tibetan clergy and thus largely gained control over Tibet. Since the Manchu emperor was regarded as an incarnation of Manjusri and as Cakravartin, the “turner of the wheel” he fulfilled the double function of a secular ruler and a spiritual leader.

 

Different from future encounters with other Western nations, contacts with Russia were designed similar to those of Korea and Vietnam. The Qing used the Russians as a “buffer against the Mongols” (Naquin, Rawski, p. 30), signed trade treaties with the Russians and allowed for border markets where horses were traded in exchange for tea, rhubarb, and textiles. When the Qing needed Russian assistance their envoys had no imperial restriction for performing the kowtow before the Russian tsar (1731; 1732).

 

►Social Relations

 

Kinship 

The basic unit of production and consumption was, as it always had been, the family clan using a common budget and common property. The clan was presided over by a patriarch who made the essential decisions about family matters (marriage alliances between surnames, usually diversified careers of sons, punishments etc.). ‘Membership’ in a clan was indicated by the common family name; family organization strived for joint efforts to keep up shared rites of passage, gravesites, elaborately constructed ancestral halls in which the ancestral tablets were displayed, education for the children, and recording the clan genealogy. These shared institutions and activities especially in south and central China brought clan members of all social levels together.

 

Residence and Community 

Temples, lodges, and guilds served as means of identification for local communities as well as for communities from the same local background.

Earth-god temples and temples of specific local deities served as neighborhood centers for countryside and city communities.

The spiritual hierarchy mirrored the secular hierarchy: the god of the stove was the deity of the family, supervised by the earth-god, who again was controlled by the city-god, just like the magistrate was the administrative authority for all lower-ranking officials and clerks.

 

Since the Song welfare activities that formerly had been associated with religious groups (predominantly Buddhist) had been taken over by well-to-do households (orphanages, public cemeteries, hospitals, schools, granaries, fire-fighting brigades and police forces etc.) This philanthropy continued throughout imperial times until the Qing.

 

►Economic organization 

Lodges and guilds were occupational organizations organized by and for members (exam candidates, immigrants from a different province etc.) from the same native place in cities. They provided meeting space, lodging, financial aid, and storage facilities to merchants or travelers from their home region. Large lodges also had professional and religious facilities (a wharf, a temple). Guilds also organized workers, often in the fashion of secret societies.

 

►Patronage 

Networks outside of the local community organizations were scholarly communities which became increasingly strong political factions. Officials of the same examination year kept contact among themselves as well as with their teachers and examiners (in academies for instance).

Different groups supported each other which in the end of the dynasty led to the development of a competition between the state bureaucracy and the banners. Manchus, Chinese bannermen, Northern Chinese and the Lower Yangzi elite competed in bureaucracy and banner dominance.

 

III. Costume Portraits of the Qing Emperors Yongzheng and Qianlong

 

The Qing emperors Kangxi (r. 1661-1722), Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735), and Qianlong (r. 1735-1796) were important ruler personalities who not only (re-)shaped the political and social structure of the state during the last dynasty but also had a dominant influence on cultural affairs. All three acted as patrons of the arts and enlarged the imperial collection of cultural treasures.

 

Emperor Kangxi commissioned handscrolls to be painted which documented his inspection tours to the south.

The Yongzheng emperor is known to have copied Chinese styles of calligraphy, studied Chinese literature extensively, collected art works and compiled catalogues of literary collections.

His son, Qianlong, was even more obsessed with collecting and commissioning works of art than his grandfather and his father. He wrote 42.000 poems (classified by critics as of mediocre quality) and saw himself in line with the [Chinese] Confucian tradition of mastership in poetry and connoisseurship in evaluating pieces of art.

 

Of all three emperors portraits were painted. But while Kangxi was painted in the traditional formal style sitting in official attire with a stern face looking straight forward at the observer, Yongzheng and Qianlong are presented in a variety of informal or, in the case of Yongzheng, even foreign costumes.

We see Yongzheng as a Persian warrior, a Turkish prince, a Daoist magician, a fisherman, a Tibetan monk, a Mongol nobleman, and as a Chinese scholar observing nature or occupied with playing music or writing calligraphy in a natural setting.

 

These ‘masquerade paintings’ followed a trend popular at European courts: masked parties at the court of Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) as well at other European courts in the 17^th century when the aristocracy was fascinated with exotic costumes and habits. While paintings of European masquerade participants showed the persons without masks in their exotic costumes, the Manchu emperors’ masquerade paintings have to be seen in a political context. According to the art historian Wu Hung (University of Chicago) Yongzheng was “fascinated with exotic clothes and expressed his imperial desire to rule the world” in these paintings while Qianlong’s portraits served to conceal his political motivations and actions from his subjects. The portraits were based on masterpieces from the imperial collection and adapted to become the emperor’s portraits. Wu Hung explains this method to create a new tradition of portraits with “the emperor’s uncontrollable desire to dominate any existing tradition, whether it be Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist”. Qianlong collected with obsession, he inscribed paintings with his personal calligraphy, had his poems carved on ancient jade objects, and finally “embodied” paintings as bodhisattva Manjushri, the bodhisattva of endless wisdom and enlightenment. He thus represented worldly power as a mundane ruler and at the same time divine might as a deity of the spiritual realm.

 

The association of the name Manchuria with the Sanskrit name of the bodhisattva Manjushri has been created early in Manchu rule in documents exchanged between the emperor and the Tibetan clergy. Qianlong’s wish to be seen as the reincarnation of Manjushri may not have been an exclusively political tactic as some historians believe. The emperor had converted to Tibetan Buddhism in 1745 and is said to have studied the sutras daily. The official dress code of the Qing came to include a string of court beads reminding of Buddhist ‘rosaries’ worn as a necklace. Possibly the court beads were used to popularize Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhist emblems like bells and thunderbolts (vajra), symbols of compassion and wisdom, were ritual objects that were produced for the imperial art collection and can be seen today in the Palace Museum.

 

[For more information and color photographs of the different costume portraits of the emperors see the article by

WU Hung, “Emperor’s Masquerade – ‘Costume Portraits’ of Yongzheng and Qianlong”, Orientations July/August 1995, 25-41. (UO Art Library)]