The Sale of Surplus and Defective Goods (bianjia 變價) by the Imperial Household Department during the Qianlong Period (1736–1795)

The Imperial Household Department is one of the bureaucratic apparatus of the Qing dynasty. It is composed of the bondservants belonging to the Upper Three Banners and its fundamental function is to serve the imperial household. In the course of the Kangxi (1662-1722) period, the department set up an Imperial Workshop (zaobanchu, 造辦處) to make works of art and handicraft articles in accordance with the emperor's orders. During the Qianlong's reign (1736-1795), quite a few imperial bondservants were dispatched to provincial metropolis either on special missions or to take up certain bureaucratic positions. In both ways, they took opportunity to find objets d'arts, knowledge about them, as well as materials and artisans and artists to make them. Furthermore, the Imperial Workshop also commissioned these bondservants to carry out imperial order of making specific objects. Those who were sent to the provincial metropolis had always had working experience before in the Imperial Workshop for a long span of time, hence were well versed in handling imperial taste and hobby. Through the good office of them, the emperor's wishes were always duly met. Such kind of practices first came to light in Emperor Kangxi's reign, but it was not formalized and expanded in scale until after the late Yongzheng (1723-1735) and early Qianlong periods

The confiscated customs goods and the goods that were taken out for the benefit of the state are sold by the customs offices in accordance with the Customs Law and the Decree on customs clearance of goods. The manner of sale of customs goods by the customs offices has not changed for decades and is done exclusively through public sale, that is, at public bid-dings held in customs offices throughout the Republic of Serbia. Sale of customs goods through auction, i.e. public sales in the customs offices are confronted with certain problems including the following: the lack of training of customs officers to conduct bids, inexperience of customs officers in the way of bid management, the negotiation of the bidders regarding the bidding of goods in order to avoid buying at the first bids and wait for the purchase of goods through a direct contract, where the starting price is significantly lower; the existence of organized groups that by their participation in bids do not allow other participants to take part in public bidding. The problems identified in the public sale of customs goods have resulted in a lower payment of funds into the budget due to the purchase of goods and vehicles at significantly lower price. The sale of the confiscated goods and vehicles that would be organized via the Internet is one of the possibilities that can significantly reduce problems when selling customs goods and vehicles in the era of digitization, Internet development t and electronic data processing. Selling goods via the Internet can contribute to faster and more efficient sale of customs goods and vehicles, generating higher revenues from the sale of the confiscated goods, allowing more bidders to participate in bids, the persons participating in bids are known only to customs authorities, but not to other participants.. At the same time, the sale of goods via the Internet would contribute to the modernization of the customs service as a whole.

The introduction presents the Huizhou salt merchants, with emphasis on the unprecedented economic and political privileges they enjoyed in High Qing China. The author challenges the conventional analysis focused on merchant-literati status negotiations, arguing that this framework is based upon written texts produced by the literati themselves, and is hence not reflective of the merchants’ own concerns. By reviewing the extant literary descriptions of Huizhou salt merchants, the author proposes to explore their own voices and opinions by analyzing their interactions with material objects. This indicates the emergence of a novel and vital network between the Qianlong emperor, the imperial household department, court officials, and Huizhou salt merchants, constructed between the capital Beijing, the urban centers of Jiangnan, and the remote countryside of Huizhou. A focus on these salt merchants sheds new light on Manchu emperors’ political strategies and reveals merchants’ role in luxury consumption in High Qing China.

Spanning the years from the Manchu invasion of China to the 1724 prohibition of Christianity by the Yongzhen emperor, this book explains the rise and decline of the missionary enterprise by focusing on the relationship between the Qing ruling class and European Jesuits. Rejecting Gernet’s cultural incompatibility model, Swen focuses on the Manchu institution of booi (household).1 Consisting of masters, servants, and slaves, the Manchu household functioned as a state within a state after the conquest of China. The informal power structure and intimacy between master and bondservant/slave (booi aha) operated alongside and within the Chinese bureaucracy; even powerful ministers from booi status identified themselves first and foremost as nu cai (servant) to their masters, rather than as officials to their emperors. Elaborated during the early years of conquest to integrate war captives and surrendered Ming troops, the booi system was central to the creation of the Han military banners. The banner elites, conversant in both the languages and culture of the Manchu and Han Chinese worlds, became preeminent during the reigns of Shunzi, who took a consort from the Han banners, and Kangxi, his son, whose mother came from the eminent Tong, the most powerful clan of the Han banners.The Jesuits became booi aha when Gabriel Magalhães and Ludovico Buglio, reluctant members of Zhang Xianzong’s rebel army, became war captives of the Manchu, eventually passing into the household of the Tong and released in Beijing. The Jesuits were introduced to the imperial court through Kangxi’s maternal uncles, who were benefactors and sympathizers with Christianity. When they were placed under the Imperial Household Department, they entered the intimate power circle of the booi aha. They helped the fifteen-year-old emperor stage a successful palace coup against the powerful regent Oboi, earning his trust. Three generations of Jesuits would loyally serve Kangxi as military engineers, scientists, and diplomats; the emperor rewarded them with protection and patronage, making his reign a golden age for the Christian mission in China.This situation changed in 1722 when the fourth son of Kangxi ascended the throne in the midst of a succession struggle. A devout Buddhist and meditation master in his youth, Yongzhen refused to acknowledge the Jesuits as his booi aha, removing them from the Imperial Household Department and effectively denying them access to the center of power. Religious differences aside, the Jesuits had failed to cultivate ties to Yongzhen when he was still a prince, instead focusing their attention on two other rival princely pretenders who were purged and persecuted in the new regime. The Jesuit João Mourão, a confidant of the Ninth Prince and a bitter rival of Yongzhen, was sentenced to exile and death; other Jesuits incurred imperial wrath because of their close association with the Sounu family, prominent Manchu elites who had supported Yongzhen’s rivals.This story of historical contingency is constructed on the basis of an impressive knowledge of Chinese and Western sources, and a thorough command of scholarship in two fields—Qing history and the history of Christianity—that often fail to cross-fertilize. Most importantly, Swen has provided logical and satisfactory explanations of the key events affecting the Christian mission in the transition from the Ming to the Qing—the prominence and fall of Adam Schall (a German Jesuit astronomer) and the political background of the Calendar Case; Kangxi’s connections to the Jesuits; the politics of the Chinese Rites Controversy and the papal envoys; the issuance of the imperial certificate for missionaries; and, finally, the fall from grace under Yongzhen. Indeed, the story of the Jesuits at court is reminiscent of the rise and fall of the eminent Han banner Cao family, and the masterpiece written by Cao Xueqin, one of its descendants, The Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel with hundreds of characters—masters, servants, officials, and clerics—narrating the transience of earthly success.

This chapter examines the procedures and legal ramifications of criminal sales of Qing land (both manor land and bannerland) to commoners in Manchuria in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It uses legal records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in conjunction with Japanese ethnographies from the twentieth century. The chapter also makes significant use of the more abundant records that have survived from the joint court sessions of the Shengjing Board of Revenue ( Shengjing hubu ) and the Imperial Household Department in Shengjing ( Shengjing neiwufu ). Qing records of homicide trials and criminal investigations into illegal sales of banner and manorial land suggest that in Manchuria most if not all sales started as conditional exchanges. The conditional sale was a means to retain control over land in an economy where there were few options outside farming. Keywords: criminal sales; homicide trials; Imperial Household Department; Manchuria; Qing land; Shengjing Board of Revenue

This study re-examines the fiscal collapse of late-Qing China by analyzing how the imperial household’s financial practices destabilized the dynasty’s governance equilibrium. Focusing on the post-1853 period, it argues that the Taiping Rebellion’s devastation of salt tax networks and customary revenue streams triggered a systemic rupture in the Qing’s dual patrimonial-bureaucratic fiscal structure. Deprived of traditional income, the Imperial Household Department abandoned its century-old fiscal segregation from the Board of Revenue, initiating coercive fund transfers in 1857 that persisted until 1908. These transfers eroded bureaucratic control over public expenditures while enabling unchecked imperial extraction through semi-privatized channels. Contrary to previous scholarship emphasizing provincial-central tensions, this study highlights how the imperial household’s ultra-bureaucratic prerogatives subverted fiscal discipline, replacing quota-based budgeting with ad hoc requisitions. The resulting institutional dysfunction – marked by path-dependent rent-seeking and stifled fiscal innovation – exacerbated the regime’s inability to reconcile patrimonial demands with bureaucratic rationalization. By exposing the collapse of the Qing’s historic governance dialectic, this study reframes the dynasty’s fiscal disintegration as a crisis of autocratic institutional design rather than mere resource scarcity, offering new insights into late-imperial state failure.

This chapter examines the system of imperial oversight that Qianlong developed to watch over his eunuchs. Its four components: the Careful Punishments Office (Shenxing Si), system of eunuch hierarchy and responsibility, Inner Police Bureau (Fanyi Chu), and punishment mechanisms had in common that each was flawed and unable to discover or discourage the activities of his eunuchs. At a fundamental level, the Imperial Household Department was unable or unwilling to keep track of its eunuchs, with personnel files rarely consulted, and eunuchs themselves largely indistinguishable one from the other.

<p>清初內務府設立的官商中，最著名的是范氏家族。此家族自明末范永斗已活躍於滿蒙地區，清初則繼續經營邊疆貿易，在雍乾朝替朝廷北運軍糧。康雍乾年間與準噶爾戰爭，消耗鉅額軍費，其中以運輸軍糧為大宗。康熙時官運米糧，每石達40至120兩，而范毓馪運糧每石則在30兩以下，節省甚多銀兩，於財政上有重要意義。過去日本與大陸學界已有些許范毓馪的研究，探討他運米、採辦人參、經營鹽業、買辦洋銅等事業。然，近年來隨著中國第一歷史檔案館大量開放滿漢文檔案，將可補充、展開過去的研究。本文將討論范家在明清之際的邊境貿易，范毓馪的生平與官商角色、運糧的路線、數量，以及米糧來源等面向。范毓馪受到雍正皇帝的信任，故乾隆朝仍由其子侄輓運軍糧。最後探討范毓馪的政商關係，包括他被傅爾丹、伊都立需索銀兩，以及兵部尚書通智控告盤剝商人，提議北路運糧改為官運等。</p> <p> </p><p>The extended Fan family clan stands out as the most famous official merchant-household established by the Imperial Household Department during the earliest stages of the Qing Dynasty. One member of the family, Fan Yongdou, had been active in the Manchu-Mongolian regions since the late Ming Dynasty, and his descendants continued to engage in border trade during the early Qing Dynasty, delivering military supplies to the north frontier for the imperial court during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns. The military expenses, most especially the transport of military supplies drained down the coffers during the wars with the Dzungar Khanate in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong periods. In the Kangxi era, the official price for transporting rice was 40 to 120 taels per picul, while Fan Yupin transported it for under 30 taels per picul, resulting in substantial savings in silver that had a significant financial impact. Past studies of Fan Yupin’s activities in Japan and mainland China have explored his business of transporting rice, purchasing ginseng, overseeing the salt industry, and compradoring foreign copper. However, in recent years, with the extensive opening of Manchu and Chinese archives at the First Historical Archives of China, it is now possible to supplement and expand on previous research. This article will discuss the border trade of the Fan family during the transition from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, Fan Yupin’s life and his role as an official merchant, the routes and quantities of rice he transported, and the sources of this rice. Fan Yupin gained the trust of Emperor Yongzheng, which allowed his sons and nephews to continue carrying military supplies in the Qianlong era. Finally, we will explore the political and commercial relationships of Fan Yupin, including Fu Erdan and Yiduli ‘s demand that he gave them silver, as well as the accusation by the Minister of War Tongzhi that he was exploiting other merchants, which lead Tongzhi to propose a switch to official transport for the military rice along the northern route.</p> <p> </p>

Qing court records show that Arecae Semen was extensively applied. The royal medical records of the Qing Dynasty document nine types of Arecae Semen, with the Palace Museum preserving seven kinds, totaling twelve cultural relics. Historical documents and physical artifacts corroborate each other, providing evidence for the study of the supply channels and court processing of Arecae Semen in the Qing court. According to relevant Qing court archival records, the sources of Arecae Semen used in the imperial court were diverse, including tributes from foreign countries such as Vietnam and Gurkha, annual tributes from local governments in Guangdong, gifts from close aides, and commodities purchased by the Imperial Household Department from civilian shops. The imperial physicians of the Qing court placed great emphasis on the specifications of Arecae Semen slices and were extremely meticulous about their processing. The variety of Arecae Semen slices used in the Qing palace exceeded those recorded in the botanical texts of the era. Compared with the commonly used processing methods for Arecae Semen in the Qing Dynasty, the imperial physicians adjusted the properties and efficacy of the herbs through different processing techniques, based on the patient's condition, constitution, and other factors, in order to meet the clinical treatment needs of the court. The slicing of Arecae Semen in the Qing court required strict control of thickness, with an average thickness of 0.44 mm, which is significantly thinner than the Arecae Semen slices found in today's markets. The texture was softer, making them easier to chew and absorb. Both the Qing court Arecae Semen slices and the Muxiang Binglang Pills focused on the use of authentic medicinal materials, ensuring the quality of the medicine and enhancing the efficacy of Arecae Semen through meticulous selection and preparation.

This article explores information management in the Qing government, and the challenges confronted by the Qing authorities, through the prism of imperial maps of Xinjiang. To ensure that newly gathered geographical knowledge of Xinjiang was usable for the emperor and senior officials, technocrats and artisans in the Imperial Household Department collaborated with the Jesuits and border officials to produce maps that materialized it. Because of their utility in military campaigns and everyday governance, these maps were carefully maintained by the Imperial Household Department, which discreetly distributed them to a small coterie of Manchu and Mongol statesmen. Nevertheless, information leakage from the lower echelons of the bureaucracy challenged the department's monopoly and popularized knowledge of Xinjiang among the Han literati.

Today computing techniques and sophisticated digital tools are changing architectural heritage, conservation and restoration. In this paper, we study the historical architecture of the Yuanming Yuan imperial Garden of Qing Dynasty through an interpretation of historical documents, the communicative value of symbols and construction and develop into photographs and 3D models to express its intangible formal value. Based on the interpretation of the drawings of YangshiFang in the Imperial Household Department (Neiwu Fu), with their account of the complex constructional elements and layout, this paper rebuilds Guanlan Hall in Wanchun Garden at the southern Yuanming Yuan with digital modeling and a VR Exhibition System. The digital modeling recreation of Guanlan Hall creates an immersive communication tool. It gives an experience of the interior trim-work & tectonics of construction, an understanding of the patterns of architectural interior space. We investigate the importance of cultural transmission, which underlines the role of drawing as methodological structure and the role of Handicraft regulation as an instructional experience of research and cultural promotion. By providing a streamlined digital deconstruction process with animation and VR, the 3D model develops a detailed understanding of the Qing Dynasty style architectural trim-work structures and construction processes, contributing to research on the interior design of the Yuanming Yuan and the cultural dissemination of Chinese ancient architecture.

AT a recent meeting of the China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society at Shanghai, Prof. Hitchcock, of the Smithsonian Institute, read a paper on the ancient tombs and burial mounds of Japan, in the course of which he said that, while the form and structure of the Japanese mounds were now known, thanks to the as yet unpublished researches of his companion in many journeys in Japan, Mr. W. Gowland, their early origin was yet to be traced. It was surmised that a few at least of the Japanese burial customs were derived from China. In the course of his own travels in the north of China he had failed to discover any indications of the existence of mounds like those in Japan; but he still expected to hear of them from some experienced traveller in the interior of that vast empire. Referring to the origin of the tombs, the lecturer said the first Emperor, who lived in the seventh century B.C., is supposed to be buried in Yamato, and the tombs of his successors are pointed out by the Imperial Household Department. The identity of the sepulchres may be questioned, but it is a fact that we can distinguish consecutive modifications of form apparently corresponding to successive periods of time.

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This chapter investigates the transition from the second era to the third—State Weakening under Warlordism. It discusses the state decline and failure in China's last dynasty—the Qing (1644–1911). The chapter begins with a brief introduction to the High Qing period, examining the origins of the Qing Dynasty and the Manchus, its military institutions, such as the Eight Banners and the Green Standards, and its fiscal institutions. It then pays attention to three centralizing institutions from this period: the Grand Council, the palace memorial, and the Imperial Household Department. The chapter analyzes the decline and fall of the Qing state. Using genealogy records as a proxy for local elite collective action, it unravels that county that experienced more battles during the rebellion experienced a highly significant increase in post-Taiping elite collective action. The chapter concludes by presenting an empirical analysis using an original dataset on elite collective action during and after the Taiping Rebellion and its relationship to the Qing's fall.

In the decade before World War II there was a plan to turn the site of Odawara castle into a prefectural park. This study clarifies the background and progress of the plan, focusing on the expectations and aims of the town of Odawara, and the consciousness and initiatives of Kanagawa Prefecture, toward the prefectural park idea. Odawara requested that the Imperial Household Department, which had jurisdiction over the site, sell it off. In addition to repeated requests that the site be sold, Odawara negotiated with Kanagawa Prefecture on turning a portion of it into a prefectural park. Odawara hoped that the prefecture would undertake the task of building the park. In 1938 the central portion was transferred to Kanagawa Prefecture, and Odawara expressed a strong wish that it be made a prefectural park. The prefecture was studying the possibility of building a prefectural park and selected the Odawara castle site as one of seven candidate locations. Beginning in fiscal 1938 on-site surveys were carried out using funding budgeted for a survey of possible prefectural park locations, and park plans were drawn up. The department responsible for parks hoped that funds would be budgeted for the building of prefectural parks, but the financial affairs department rejected the request. The prefecture dispersed partial funding to the candidate sites, but no prefectural parks were officially buil.