William T. Rowe. Speaking of Profit: Bao Shichen and Reform in Nineteenth-Century China.

Abstract

How did the Qing (1644–1912) endure into the twentieth century? Over one hundred years before the dynasty’s collapse, political observers fretted that the polity was tumbling into irrevocable decline. Heshen, the palace guardsman favored by a doddering Qianlong emperor, usurped power and fostered years of administrative corruption until the emperor’s demise in 1799. Qianlong’s successor, the Jiaqing emperor, neglected to purge the bureaucracy of Heshen’s legions of cronies, and official morale suffered. The White Lotus Rebellion raged from 1796 to 1804, reflecting the corrosion of civil and military authority. Government revenues declined. An ecological crisis loomed. And yet, amid this seeming deterioration, the early decades of the nineteenth century witnessed dynastic revitalization and reform. Innovative policymakers who were deeply committed to the rejuvenation of Chinese statecraft, like the subject of this book, deserve most of the credit. Bao Shichen (1775–1855) has long been recognized as an influential reformer in the first half of the nineteenth century, but because he operated in the background as advisor to more prominent men, and some of his more significant writings were published long after his death, his life and role have been shrouded in some obscurity. With Speaking of Profit, William T. Rowe, a preeminent authority on Qing history, has written the first English-language biography of this highly original literatus. Through careful textual analysis and judicious deduction, Rowe teases out the policy influence Bao appears to have exerted on more prominent figures from behind the scenes. In so doing, he draws Bao out of the administrative shadows and sheds new light on official efforts to address China’s late imperial challenges, especially those in Bao’s home region of Jiangnan. Rowe is particularly effective in describing Bao’s influence on two of the major reform efforts of the Daoguang era (1820–1850): the substitution of maritime routes for the dilapidated Grand Canal in the transport of grain tribute to Beijing, and the dismantling of the hereditary monopoly that dominated the Liang-Huai salt administration.