Qing History: The State of the Field in 1983

Abstract

Vol. 6, No. 2 Late Imperial ChinaDecember 1985 QING HISTORY: THE STATE OF THE FIELD IN 1983 Luo Ming $^ i$ and Li Hongbin |.^m Translator's Note: In deference to the scholar to whom this volume is dedicated, I wish to highlight two themes in this review of Qing studies in the People's Republic on which Joseph Fletcher's work has direct bearing . Imperial succession in the Manchu line has always excited strong debate among Chinese historians, and does so again among those reviewed here. In their biography of Abahai, Sun Wenliang and Li Zhiting reject the suggestion that he could have usurped power on Nurhaci 's death. In the many articles on Yongzheng, Xu Zengzhong pronounces him to be a usurper and Xue Ruilu offers evidence of his having murdered his brothers, whereas Yan Xueren argues that Yongzheng was Kangxi's chosen successor. Fletcher felt that the Chinese concern over usurpation by Manchu princes failed to recognize the difference between Manchu and Chinese traditions ofsuccession . The principle of Manchu succession, which Fletcher called bloody tanistry, required that brothers contest for supremacy to ensure that the strongest would become leader. The Manchu aristocracy recognized that, by fighting their way to rulership, Abahai and Yongzheng were demonstrating that they held the charisma or "luck" ofpower which gives to him who has it the right to rule. Fulin stays within blood lines, but it can pass laterally as well as from father to eldest son. In traditional Chinese statecraft, vertical succession between emperors transferred the mandate ofHeaven, whereas traditional Manchu statecraft trusted that fraternal conflict would produce a more vigorous ruler. The legitimacy of Chinese dominion over wide tracts ofInner Asia has been another large concern in Chinese historiography. Articles in this review picture that dominion as a progressive step along a developmental road: beneficial to national security, peace, and prosperity ; productive of improved relations among different nationalities; 67 68Luo Ming and Li Hongbin and essential for raising the cultural level of non-Han civilizations. Ma Ruheng asserts that the mid-seventeenth-century Zunghar leader Khotokhotsin was a loyal tributary vassal to the Qing state; Li Fengzhen links the Qing suppression of Lobdzan Dandzin in 1 723 to the development of productive forces in Tibet; Gu Xiaorong sees the installation of the Qing Imperial Resident in Lhasa in 1727 as helping to promote a common unity among different nationalities; and Zhang Yuxin argues that the Qing conquest ofXinjiang in the 1 750s accelerated socioeconomic development in that region. But adequate historical judgments on events in Inner Asia in the Qing cannot be made solely from the point of view of Han political, cultural, and economic systems, as Fletcher's work shows. Qing dominion was, after all, the product ofManchu rather than Han strategy and experience . To control the entire region was always an option in steppe society, which was constantly shifting between small, dispersed bands and despotic control under a single khan. The Qing succeeded through a unique combination of diplomacy and force that only the Manchus, with their knowledge of both steppe society and the bureaucratic state, could sustain. Identifying this outcome as either progressive or necessary threatens to submerge nomadic culture into Chinese history, even ifthat, ironically, is exactly what the Manchus succeeded in doing. 1983 was a productive year for historical research on the Qing in the period before the Opium War, a continuation of recent trends. Over ten specialized monographs and collections of primary sources were published , and some 160 essays concerning Qing history appeared in journals , essay collections, and other publications. Their range of issues and content is evidence that Qing historical research has broken free of the long-term stasis (of the Cultural Revolution period) and is maintaining steady improvement both in breadth and depth. The Sprouts of Capitalism The Question of the Sprouts of Capitalism in Agriculture in the MingQing Period ^ 3% tf *t *$ & 3* $ & * & % % UM by Li Wenzhi £ .$? $ê , Wei Jinyu 4i& and Jm8 Junjian ^i M, ?%_ (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe) is one of Qing History: The State ofthe Field in 198369 the more systematic works in recent years on the question of the sprouts of capitalism in agriculture. The four essays in this book...