Qianlong Research Articles

From star field affiliation to sundial theory: spatial expression in Qing dynasty Taiwan gazetteers

Star field affiliation is an important part of ancient Chinese gazetteers. The gazetteers of Taiwan in the Qing Dynasty presented many ‘different opinions’ about the star field affiliation of Taiwan. These different opinions illustrate the difficulty of self-consistency in traditional Chinese star field affiliation theory and reflect the influence of the concept of grand unification on traditional Chinese geographical knowledge. During the Qianlong period, with the introduction of Western surveying and mapping knowledge, the sundial began to replace star field affiliation and became a new geographical positioning theory. Taiwan, whose geographical positioning also completed the transformation from the star field affiliation to sundial theory at the end of the Qing Dynasty, witnessed the replacement of traditional Chinese place knowledge with cosmopolitan knowledge. Looking back at the writings regarding the star field affiliation in Taiwan gazetteers in the Qing Dynasty, there was both debate and consensus.

Moral Education and Heaven–Human Relationship in Jesuit Translations of Chinese Poetry (17th–18th Centuries)

The 17th and 18th centuries were a period of extensive cultural interaction between China and the West, and also the beginning of Chinese poetry translation in the West. Jesuit missionaries were pioneers in introducing Chinese poetry to Europe. Influenced by the Confucian poetic thought of Siwuxie 思無邪 (no depraved thoughts) and Ricci’s accommodation strategy, the Jesuits translated poems from the Shangshu 尚書, the Shijing 詩經, and the Emperor Qianlong’s Imperial Odes on Shengjing 禦制盛京賦, as well as works by Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹, Du Fu 杜甫, Shao Yong 绍雍, and even the poems in the exhortations of the Ming and Qing dynasties into European languages. These poems predominantly dealt with themes of moral education, the image of virtuous monarchs, and the Chinese concept of the Heaven–human relationship. Through intentional omissions and rewriting, the Jesuits incorporated their religious and political views into the Chinese poetry. Their translated works not only enriched European knowledge of Chinese culture but also demonstrated the complexity of Chinese–Western cultural exchange.

Social changes and peasant livelihood during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty

In the early Qing Dynasty, Manchu rulers sought to prevent a large number of Han people from leaving customs and infringing on the interests of the Manchus, due to its influence on the customs and order of the Manchu people in the "the place of prosperity", Northeast China was sealed off and Han people in the region were prohibited from migrating to the northeast. However, the strict ban did not completely stop the Han immigration activities. A series of economic policies implemented during the period from Kangxi to Qianlong made Shandong's population increase substantially, and it was difficult for the limited land to support the rapidly growing population. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, a series of natural disastehasave occurred in Shandong, and poverty and famine forced a large number of Han people to enter the east to make a living. Based on the experience of Shao Ying, a poor man in Jimo, Shandong province, during the Qianlong period, this paper tries to explore this grand immigration history and the economic and social background at that time.

The Cultural Connotation of Literati Space During the Qianlong Period of China: Designing Contemporary Ceramic Products for Literati with Innovation

The Cultural Connotation of Literati Space During the Qianlong Period of China: Designing Contemporary Ceramic Products for Literati with Innovation

Historical Origins and Festive Activities of the Westward Migration Festival of the Sibe Tribe in China

The Sibe people, an ancient ethnic group in China, accomplished the historical feat of moving westward to Xinjiang to settle and garrison the border in the Qianlong period, making important contributions to the defense and construction of China’s western frontier. The Westward Migration Festival is the carrier of the historical memory of the westward migration of the Sibe people, which embodies the ethnic cultural characteristics of the Sibe people, inherits the spirit of westward migration, and has an important value and role in the construction of the sense of community of the Chinese ethnic in the western frontier region. This paper collects and organizes the research results related to the history and culture of the westward migration of the Sibe people, and summarizes the historical origin and ceremonial activities of the Westward Migration Festival to provide reference for further research work in the future.

Fenye by the Numbers: A Quantitative Analysis of Astrological Contents in Chinese Local Gazetteers

Abstract Fenye (分野, lit., “field allocation”), is a traditional Chinese astrological system that associated celestial phenomena with regions on earth since ancient times. During middle and late imperial China, many literati writings criticized this system as illogical. Yet in the local gazetteers that were compiled in late imperial China to document local data within each administrative region, compilers continued to use fenye as the canonical way to identify their regions within the vast empire. The Jesuit introduction of Western sciences to China, in particular the technology that could precisely locate any place or region with latitude and longitude, appeared to render fenye obsolete, which fueled even more literati criticism. Modern scholars consider the public criticism from the Qianlong emperor and the resulting removal of fenye from the 1781 Rehe Gazetteer the end of fenye in imperial orthodoxy. However, by quantitatively analyzing a collection of 4,410 titles of local gazetteers and their section headings, this paper reveals many examples of local literati who resisted removing fenye entirely from their local history, well into the late Republican period.

Style Exploration of Porcelain During Qianlong Dynasty: Tributed by Superintendents of the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln

During the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, successive superintendents of the Imperial kiln organized craftsmen to pay tribute to the Qianlong Emperor on important festivals of the year, such as the Dragon Boat Festival, birthday of the emperor and queen mother, and the New Year's Festival, etc. At different stages of the Qianlong period, the styles of tribute porcelain were not always the same. The formation of the style of official tribute porcelain was attributed to various factors like economics, politics, and culture. Superintendents of the Jingdezhen imperial kiln during the Qianlong Dynasty also made extraordinary efforts to cater to the preferences of the emperor. To explore the style changes of tribute porcelain during the Qianlong Dynasty, this paper illustrates the characteristics of tribute porcelain in three different phases and the factors of tribute porcelain’s innovation and development, indicating that the changes in various aspects cannot be separated from the development of society and emperor’s personal preference. For the study of Chinese ceramics’ history, it is of great significance to explore the style of tribute porcelain in the Qianlong period.

Ontological complexity of interpolity orders: the encounter between Chosŏn and Tibet in Qing

This article examines the ontological complexity of interpolity orders with a focus on peripheral polities in the Qing order. Existing multiculturalist studies of the Qing order emphasized diverse cultural representations of a single imperial reality, lacking an understanding of multiple realities experienced by peripheral participants. Our analysis reveals the ontological complexity—rather than cultural diversity—of the Qing order, in which multiple ontological agents experienced different lived worlds, from the encounter between Chosŏn Korean envoys and the Tibetan Panchen Lama at Emperor Qianlong’s birthday ceremony. By analyzing the Chosŏn envoy member Pak Chiwŏn’s travelog and Tibetan records, we argue that the Chosŏn envoys with Confucian ontology experienced the Panchen Lama as a subhuman, while the Lama experienced the envoys as ignorant lay beings. Observing this ontological dissonance, Pak Chiwŏn criticized the Qing court’s appropriation of peripheral ontologies and proposed experiencing other ontologies to foreground the presence of the pluriverse in the interpolity order. Beyond the Qing, an ontological approach will help reveal heterogeneous lived worlds of interpolity orders and reconceptualize interpolity order under the condition of ontological complexity.

“France de commande”

Abstract: “France de commande” is a circumscribed mode of exchange for exceptional objects that was started by the French court. This article examines three orders for 17 enameled objects that the Qianlong emperor placed their production with France between March 1775 and January 1776. By analysing and comparing several Chinese and French archival documents in a precise and contextual manner, the article seeks to understand how Qianlong identified France as the country that would supply his court, and sheds light on the dynamics of Brittany’s network of private traders, in particular the role of Pierre-Louis-Achille de Robien, in securing these high-risk transactions in a complicated historical context.

The Reasons and Influence of the Establishment of One Port Trade System in Guangzhou during Qing Dynasty

Guangzhou is located in the southern part of China, near the South China Sea, belongs to Guangdong Province. It serves as China's southern gateway to the world and was historically called "The Southern Treasure of the Emperor", playing a crucial role in China's maritime trade history. Throughout Chinese history, Guangzhou underwent several cycles of "closure" and "opening", policies that severely impacted trade. However, foreign merchants never ceased to request permission from the Chinese government to engage in trade. In 1757, Emperor Qianlong decreed Guangzhou as the only one official port for foreign trade. This edict led to the establishment of the one port trading system in Guangzhou, as the Qing government aimed to counter foreign influences and local uprisings while maintaining a self-sufficient small-scale agricultural economy. Western nations and their traders sought opportunities within this system, aspiring to expand trade to other regions of China, even the inland areas. The exclusive status of Guangzhou as China's only one trading port persisted until 1842, following the defeat of the Qing government in the Opium War against Britain, the Nanjing Treaty was signed. This treaty opened Guangzhou, Shanghai, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Xiamen as trading ports, bringing an end to the one port trading system. The reasons and impacts of the establishment of this system have not been comprehensively analyzed to date. Therefore, this paper based on historical archives, analyzes both the direct and underlying reasons behind Emperor Qianlong's decision and elucidates the system's diverse impacts on various aspects of Qing-era China.

Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Peljor (1704–1788): Life and work of the Orate Buddhist scholar

The article analyzes life and work of a famous Oirat Buddhist scholar Sumpa-kenpo Yeshe Peljor (1704–1788). He was born in 1704 in Amdo, south of Lake Kokonor, in a family of Oirat Mongols. At the age of 7, he was recognized as a reincarnation of the abbot of Gonglung Monastery. In 1723 he went to study in Central Tibet at the Gomang-datsan of the Drepung Monastery. While studying in the dastan, he urged monks of the Lhasa monasteries not to join the army during the civil war of 1727-1728 between the provinces of U and Tsang. In gratitude for the service, the ruler of Tibet, Polhane, appointed him the abbot (khenpo) of the Dreyu Kyitse monastery, after which he became known as Sumpa-kenpo. In 1731, at the age of 28, he returned in Amdo. In 1735, he went to Beijing, the capital of the Qing Empire, at the invitation of Emperor Qianlong. The collection of works of Sumpa-kenpo comprose eight volumes and 68 compositions. The most among then are the “Pagsam-Jonsang” (Wish-fullfilling tree) and the “History of Kokonor”. His work alsos include numerous texts on philosophy, the art of making statues and thangka, medicine, astrology, poetics, correspondence, etc. From 1771, Sumpa-kenpo began to visit Mongolia. Sumpa-kenpo Yeshe Peljor became a key figure in the cultural renaissance of Amdo in the 18th century and the spread of Buddhism in Inner Mongolia. In 1788, Sumpa-kenpo Yeshe-Peljor died at the age of 85, leaving behind a rich sholarly and spiritual legacy.

Influences Between Chinese Ming and Qing Dynasty Porcelain and European Rococo Style

The porcelain of the Ming and Qing dynasties had an extensive and profound mutual influence on the European Rococo art style. The content of this research paper includes the origin of the Rococo style and the influence of the Rococo style on Chinese porcelain from the introduction of the Kangxi Dynasty to the prosperous Qianlong period. The Rococo art style extensively utilizes decorative elements and techniques of Chinese porcelain, reflecting the importance of Chinese porcelain influences on the Rococo art style. This study fills the gap in research on the historical process and artistic techniques of the mutual influence between Chinese Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain and European Rococo style by building on more information about the connections of trade between China and Europe in ceramics and the collection of Chinese style ceramics and Rococo style ceramics by European and Ming and Qing Chinese royalties back in the 18th century. Elucidating the deep influence and development of different cultural exchanges provides a new perspective and value for studying the mutual inspiration of Chinese and Western art.

The Short Life of a Statutory Label: War Mobilization and Underclass Migration in Eighteenth-Century Sichuan

Abstract: During the Qianlong period, both Qing state documents and the local sources in Sichuan preserved increased records of "guolu," a label referring to a type of crime-prone, male, underclass migrants in Sichuan. Amid active policy discussions of the guolu problem, the Qing state first added a guolu substatute to the Qing Code in 1758 and later tried to eliminate guolu as a statutory category after a large incident in 1781. This article traces the trajectory of the statutory category of guolu and analyzes how the Qing state's strategy of managing underclass migrants in Sichuan transformed during the eighteenth century. In particular, this article contextualizes the legislative and policy turns within the socioeconomic impacts of the two Jinchuan Wars (1747<en>1749; 1771<en>1776), which significantly reshaped the scale of underclass mobility in Sichuan and scholar-officials' perceptions of underclass migrants. Influenced by the labor-intensive military supply and the socioeconomic impacts of warfare, the Qing state's policies on guolu criminality and underclass mobility transformed from the exclusion of targeted groups to the accommodation of nonagrarian means of livelihood and networks. The case of guolu suggests that the eighteenth-century Qing state was also developing policies of cooption and mobilization, in addition to statutory vilification, to tackle the quickly expanding scale of underclass mobility. Through this case, this article calls attention to the military perspective as a key to understanding the interactions among underclass criminality, judicial discourse, and bureaucratic process in Qing China.

Shanxi's Men on the Spot: The Rise of Long-Distance Trading Firms on the Northern Frontier

Abstract: Using archival records of the Gao Pu jade-smuggling case of the late Qianlong reign, this essay reconstructs the life story of Zhang Luan, the case's merchant protagonist. By foregrounding how Sanyihao, a Shanxi trading firm based in Guihuacheng (Hohhot), shaped Zhang's career, I aim to reveal unknown details about the Shanxi firms' operation and provide new perspectives on the evolution of the Chinese firm prior to the nineteenth century. I argue that the thriving long distance trade on the Qing Empire's northern frontier provided a crucial stimulus in spurring the development of the firm organization in China during the eighteenth century.

Shangyu Tiaoli and the Study of Qing Central Government Legislative Agendas

Abstract: This article highlights a source from the Qing dynasty, published under various titles such as Shangyu tiaoli, Buyuan tiaozou, Gebuyuan tiaolice, and others, and describes its significance and usefulness for the study of Qing history. These publications are official compilations of regulations and legislations from the Qing government that were printed by various provincial governments since the early Qianlong reign to the end of the dynasty. They provide an alternative source for government documents that are sometimes missing from other official compilations such as the Veritable Records and the Shangyu dang. They also preserve elements of inter-agency communication that are routinely excised from these other official compilations, thus offering the historian a useful addition to the repository of sources that one could consult for various topics.

The Qing Dynasty's Cultural-Political Conciliatory Policies towards Mongolia

This essay aims to first provide a brief background on Qing’s history prior its entering to Beijing to explain its early ties with Ming and Mongolia. The essay will then explore the social-cultural, diplomatic, and religious facets of Qing's approach toward different central Asian ethnics---mainly between the Kangxi and Qianlong Period （1660-1800) emphasizing on Mongolia---and evaluate, on a contemporary perspective, their worth and uniqueness contributing to the dynasty's successful diplomatic relationships and stability. The conclusion, derived from mainly primary resources, confirms the core position and effectiveness of conciliatory policies toward Mongolia in Qing’s political strategy.

A Bibliophile in Shandong Province in the Republic of China Zhuang Enze and His Handwritten Copy of Shang Han Lun Xuan Zhu(Annotation of Treatise on Febrile Diseases)

Shang Han Lun Xuan Zhu(«»,Annotation of Treatise on Febrile Diseases) is a representative work of Zang Yingzhan, a famous physician in Zhucheng of Shandong who was as famous as Huang Yuanyu during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.The book was not published, but has been preserved only in manuscripts, of which 5 copies are now preserved.By comparing the five manuscripts seen, it is found that the Zhuang Enze version is unique in the existing version of this book, exquisite and generous, beautifully copied, with important documentary value. Zhuang Enze adopts the theories of various schools, supplements prescriptions, analyze medical theory with his unique insights.The reason may be related to his family's practice of medicine for generations, its philosophy of loving reading, copying books, and collecting books, and also related to its protection of local and state documents and the dissemination of lost culture.

Emperor Qianlong's Literary Aggrandizement in the Eighteenth Century

Generally disfavored from a modern aesthetic perspective, Emperor Qianlong's poetry was systematically aggrandized in the eighteenth century. Through commentaries on his own work, Qianlong managed to amplify his voice, especially as he adopted textual and evidential research to establish authority over the literary field. Copies of his poems were creatively produced and circulated through various official channels to reach the largest audience. During his reign, Qianlong's writings were elevated to a high position by himself and his officials. However, this elevation was not reflected in the compilation of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries because the emperor was more concerned about protecting his impartial image as a Han Chinese cultural arbiter.

On the Implication of Spirituality Theory in Yuan Mei’s Poems

As a representative poet and essayist in the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Mei who styled himself Zicai with Jianzhai as his courtesy name was a scholar at the beginning and had a good reputation in his official career. However, he resigned and lived in seclusion in the 14th year of the Qianlong period after witnessing some challenges. Advocating the “spirituality” (Spirituality theory is an idea of poetry inditement and comment in ancient Chinese poetics, which is advocated most strongly by Yuan Mei in Qing Dynasty. It is one of the four major schools of poetry theory in the early Qing Dynasty, together with verve theory, style theory, and texture theory) of poetry inditement, Yuan Mei paid attention to expressing the author’s true emotion and personality. “Spirituality” put forward by him attacked the popular retro-ism and formalism in poetry at that time, which was of progressive significance, although it had limitations due to its overemphasis on subjective emotion. This paper will analyze Yuan Mei’s spirituality theory from the image and emotion of Yuan Mei’s poetry inditement.

Jesuit Louis Antoine de Poirot’s Translation of the Bible: A Comparative Approach to Translation and Rhetoric

Abstract A critical study of the history of the use of language reveals that ideology, religion, and language have usually been intimately linked; this also applies to the topic of “mutual encounters and linguistic exchanges” between China and the West. At the same time, we can affirm that each Chinese encounter with the West represented an encounter with Christians and Christianity. Within this context, this article examines how Jesuit Louis Antoine de Poirot (He Qingtai 賀清泰, 1735–1814), who worked for Emperor Qianlong, composed Guxin shengjing 古新聖經 (Old and New Testament), a translation of the Bible in both vernacular Chinese and Manchu, in the second half of the eighteenth century. Specifically, it focuses on how de Poirot used rhetoric in shaping the language the Jesuits adopted for translating the Bible, as well as for addressing readers in Qing China. This article is part of the special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies, “Jesuits in Modern Far East,” guest edited by Steven Pieragastini.