Asian 212 Lecture 20: Manchus and Qing
- Manchus (1644 – 1911)
- Qing Dynasty (Kangxi 1662 – 1723)
- Yongzheng (1723 – 1736)
- Qianlong (1736 – 1796)
- 1,679 Magistrates
- 50 million: population 1400 – 1500
- 400 million: population 1800
Announcements—the textbook stops at the end of the Ming and Qing. Therefore, I’ll be providing additional material. Also, classes will not be cancelled on Slope Day. Do not come to sections drunk. If my innocent TAs have to deal with someone drunk in my classroom, I will make sure you lose 10 points and get arrested for it. If they go to sections drunk on Friday, they’re going to get hammered bad for it. Out of 300 students, we usually get about one every year drunk.
The Qing was established by the Manchus in the far North East in 1644. They are linguistically, ethnically, and culturally related to the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty. They speak a language related to Turkish, but are distinct from the Mongols. At the end of the Ming, the Machus quickly move into North China and take the capital. They compose no more than 2% of the Chinese population, so they adopt Chinese ways and rule in the tradition of the previous dynasties. Because they promised to keep the old traditional Confucian values, they were accepted by the Chinese ruling elite. Often the positions were mirrored—1 Han Chinese and 1 Manchu holding the same office together.
The one difference that the Manchu kept were their own distinctive dress, hairstyle, and hunting and fighting techniques. They sealed off their Manchurian homeland and did not allow the Chinese to migrate there. They sent their young children back to Manchuria to learn the old ways. The only compromise they asked was everyone to get the Manchu haircut—a long pony tail down the back with a high-partly shaved head. Removing one’s queue (pony tail) is an act of sedition.
The second Qing emperor, the Kang Xi emperor ruled from 1662 to 1723—61 years. He is charismatic and intelligent. The third emperor, the YongZheng emperor rules for 30 years, but works hard on the details of government. He is a bit merciless. Followed by the Qianglong emperor, another 60 year reign, there’s a good 130 years of solid-minded leadership at the beginning of the dynasty.
To understand the problems that China will later face, you have to look below the court. At the county level, there’s a magistrate, the lowest paid official in the Qing government. There are only 1,679 magistrates. The numbers don’t change, but the population continues to explode. In 1400 to 1500 there is 1 magistrate for every 29,780 persons, but in 1800 there is only 1 magistrate per 238,237 persons, or 1 official to every 58,000 persons. This is a problem. In Russia, at about 1800, the ratio is 1 official per 769. In France, it’s about 1:200. How did it function, then? With the help of volunteers under the local magistrates. When you add up these unsalaried people, the ratio is more around 1:300, but it’s crucial to point out that these people are not on the government payroll. They are paid somehow, through graft and corruption, with money siphoned from various placed. It was understood that corruption was built into the system. At the same time, people are given the death penalty for corruption during crackdowns.
The Yongzheng emperor wanted to get to the bottom of this. Since the Kangxi emperor cultivated better relationships with the top governors, the Yongzheng emperor uses it to examine the fiscal system in China at the time. He figures out that the Qing has a growing crisis. More revenue should come in with more people, but there were so many elaborate tax-evasion networks that the richest people in China found ways to pass the tax burden onto the poorest members of society.
One solution he takes is to raise the county magistrate’s salaries dramatically, from 25 taels to between 600 and 100 taels of silver. Then, county projects became budgeted projects instead of unofficial projects. There was a head tax, land tax, and a third tax. Besides these taxes, all taxes were considered illegal and people encouraged not to pay it. This third tax goes to the provincial level and stops and is redistributed.
Why does the population grow so much? First, it’s a long period of peace and healthiness. Second, the Qing meets the limits of cultivable land in China. At some point, agricultural expansion is complete. However, there is the emergence of the World economy, and New World crops move into China: chiles, peanuts, corn, potatoes, tobacco, and others. Since these crops can be grown on poor land with high yield, population growth can be sustained.
Longstanding problems of bandits are only exacerbated by the diminishing ratios of officials to people. There are huge numbers of hard-to-deal with groups of men in the Qing. The natural ratio of men to women is 48:52, but the trend is reversed by social conditions in China, where the ratio is 53:47. With a small population, this doesn’t matter. With a large population, this leaves a huge number of men who cannot have wives and families. These men are trouble waiting to happen. Huge numbers of migrant boat pullers along the Grand Canal pull boats upstream. When there are no boats, or they go home, there are cities of young able-bodied men linking the capital to the south regions. This leads to increasing Qing violence.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 5:27 am and is tagged with yuan dynasty, confucian values, qing emperor, slope day, pony tail, distinctive dress, chinese population, kang xi, manchus, yongzheng, north china, fighting techniques, qianlong, mongols, sedition, dynasties, magistrates, additional material, hairstyle, far north. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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Fresh, related resources:
- bAsian 212 Lecture 20/b: bManchus and Qing/b
The bQing/b was established by the bManchus/b in the far North East in 1644. They are linguistically, ethnically, and culturally related to the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty. They speak a language related to Turkish, but are distinct from the b.../b