Qing Era Research Articles

Historical Geographical Information System (HGIS): social trajectories of two Chinese historical figures Su Shi and Zuo Zongtang in spatial context

Historical figures have important significance worldwide. This paper introduces the concept of historical Geographical Information System (HGIS) using the lives of two personalities from Chinese history as case studies: Su Shi, a literary figure of the Northern Song Dynasty, and Zuo Zongtang, a military strategist from the late Qing era. By studying the geographical points marking their life activities, their migratory patterns were explored, along with the dynamics of their social networks within time and space, examining the distinctive phases and characteristics of their individual journeys. Kernel density estimation, standard deviation ellipse, location-based distance analysis, and social network graphs were employed in this work. Our findings reveal that Su Shi’s migrations were largely dictated by official appointments, ultimately rooted in imperial successions and factional strife, with his intellectual pursuits significantly influenced by the humanistic milieu. Conversely, Zuo Zongtang’s migrations were predominantly shaped by war, reflecting the challenges of the late Qing era in relation to governance, sovereignty, and diplomacy. The military encampments selected by Zuo Zongtang tended to be situated near water sources, illustrating how his migratory trajectory was influenced by natural geographic conditions. The social circles of these figures are tied to their social and political stature. Through the socio-historic context, the characteristics of these historical figures’ behavioral trajectories relate to the unfolding process of societal and historical development. These insights offer a glimpse into the life journey behind historical figures, implicitly highlighting their perseverance and resilience in adversity, thereby describing innovative approaches to inheriting and disseminating the cultural legacy.

Administrative Hierarchy of the Gandan Monastery According to the “Regulations of 1840”

The article is devoted to the analysis of the system of administrative positions in the Gandan Monastery of Mongolia during the Qing era in the context of the distribution of material wealth based on the author’s translation of an archival document entitled “Regulations of the Gandan Monastery”, compiled in 1840. During the study, the author relied on source studies, historical and sociological methods, and also a method of historical and ethnographic reconstruction. The use of these methods made it possible to restore the administrative structure of the Gandan monastery, as well as to identify the specifics of the everyday life and economic structure of the Buddhist clergy of the mid-19th century. As a result of the source study and historical-ethnographic analysis of the text of the “Regulations” and the identification of the main contexts for the mention of Buddhist monastic positions in the “Regulations”, the author came to the following conclusions: most of the cases of mentioning positions are related to the range of administrative and economic responsibilities (control, accounting and distribution of material wealth monastery), while the greatest attention of the drafters of the “Regulations” was paid to organizational aspects of preparing and conducting calendar Buddhist prayers, as well as issues of subordination between lamas. According to the text of the “Regulations”, the material assets that came under the jurisdiction of the Gandan monastery consisted mainly of cattle, food products (meat, pressed tea), pieces of silk fabric (Mong. mangnuγ), as well as various types of ritual hadaks (Mong. sonom-hadak, sambai-khadak), etc. The economic structure of the Gandan monastery was based on regular offerings (Mong. bar’ts) from the rich patrons of the monastery, princes and their closest relatives, as well as on the material support of the aimags-communities located at the monastery. It was also revealed that food surpluses from the offerings were sold, which indicates significant food reserves and, accordingly, the presence of large funds among the monastery leadership. In general, we can say that monastic everyday life in the context of the administrative hierarchy of Buddhist positions and statuses has its own eastern characteristics, it can be considered as a separate type of organization of everyday life of the eastern steppe society, which gradually moved to a semi-nomadic and sedentary way of life.

A Multi-Method Analysis of a Color Painting on Ancient Architecture from Anyuan Temple in Chengde, China

Anyuan Temple, constructed in the 29th year of the Qing Dynasty (1764), serves as a repository of numerous Sanskrit inscriptions and Hexi color paintings from the Qing era. Among its collections, the green Tara Buddha statue, exquisitely carved from wood, is recognized as a national first-class cultural relic. This edifice is instrumental in advancing our comprehension of painting artistry in royal temples. The current research focused on the pigments and binders utilized in the color paintings within Anyuan Temple, located in Chengde. An investigative process entailed collecting four samples from the paintings adorning the temple’s beams. These samples underwent comprehensive analysis using a variety of techniques, such as Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy-Dispersive Spectrometry (EDS), Micro Raman Spectroscopy (m-RS), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The examination revealed that the paintings comprised pigments of lead white, cinnabar, malachite, and azurite, corresponding to the colors white, red, green, and blue, respectively. The enduring stability and aesthetic appeal of these pigments suggest their suitability for use in future conservation efforts. Additionally, Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) analysis identified animal glue as the binding agent in the wood component paintings. These insights are pivotal for the forthcoming restoration endeavors of Anyuan Temple, offering essential guidance in selecting the appropriate materials for restoration.

Revisiting the Civil Examinations in the Qing Dynasty: Popularization and Social Transitions

Recent literature has pointed out the increased stratification and narrowing of the social ladder embedded in the Qing-era civil examinations. This essay sees a clear-cut division between the diminishing opportunity for high-level degrees (above juren 舉人) and the rising exam fever in competing for the licentiate degree (shengyuan 生員) at the grassroots level. This study focuses on the popularization of civil exams in the Qing era from three perspectives: the inflation of the licentiate degree, the surging exam population across society, and the unintended by-product of expanded access to widespread education and literacy culture. Thus, this essay argues that the popularization of civil exams had far-reaching impacts on socioeconomic transitions in Qing China. In addition to the “gatekeeper” function of the civil examinations for selecting officials, the Qing exams triggered new occupations for licentiates and helped initiate self-employment orientations that contributed to accommodating the tremendous surplus population.

Reframing imperial China’s indigenous accounting history: further discoveries in archival materials from the three centuries before 1850

How far did the indigenous accounting of China's historically successful economy parallel Western double-entry bookkeeping (DEB)? We propose a scheme for classifying stages of bookkeeping that approach full DEB, review recently available nineteenth century Chinese accounting manuals and re-examine how far their recommendations reflect practice to be found in original account books contained in the archives of the Zigong brine wells for 1916-1917 (which have been argued to be essentially unchanged from the nineteenth century Qing era and perhaps earlier) and in the surviving accounts of the Fēngshèngtài salt traders of Henan province spanning 1854-1881. We introduce the accounting records we have now discovered from merchanting businesses in Anhui province, which span 300 years and survive from the 1590s onwards. These are all more sophisticated than the ‘merchant-banking' accounts in the vast archive of Tŏng Tài Shēng covering 1798-1850, and in the case of the Anhui merchants' accounts comprise ‘balance sheets' that include monetary values for physical as well as monetary assets, matching their owners' ‘capital'. We tentatively conclude, on the basis of the evidence now emerging, that despite its variety of forms indigenous Chinese style accounting practice may in some cases have captured the structural essentials of DEB’s content and functions and might be labelled ‘Chinese-style double-entry bookkeeping' ('CDEB'), over which Western bookkeeping had no conceptual advantages.

Pioneer Chinese Law Students in the United States from 1878 to 1911

ABSTRACT This article employs the method of prosopography to reach a deeper understanding of a group of 53 trailblazing Chinese students who were the first to enrol in American law schools between 1878 and 1911, during the waning years of the Qing era. Most of them contributed greatly to the subsequent development of China’s legal and diplomatic institutions, playing instrumental roles in legal education, diplomacy, government and the judiciary. Given these accomplishments, this group of students is worthy of detailed study and research, and this article examines their characteristics, background, subsequent contributions and other key pieces of information.

Shelley's Scattered Words in China

This essay reflects on Percy Bysshe Shelley's peculiar afterlife in twentieth-century China. It first traces Shelley's reception history by discussing his introduction during the late Qing era, the Republican popularisation of Shelley, and Communist China's curious endorsement of him. From this almost undisrupted trajectory of increasingly enthusiastic advocacy, sharply contrasting with Shelley's controversial English critical heritage, the essay argues that Chinese readers of Shelley radically appropriated him. It then attempts to tease out the complex forces at play in this process by proposing two major means of appropriation: reduction and transmission. Reduction was achieved by censoring unacceptable elements in Shelley's poetry, philosophy, and biography. Meanwhile, Shelley was almost exclusively transmitted through an authoritarian critical discourse. Linguistic transmission played a crucial role as well, and Chinese translation often toned down certain quintessential Shelleyan stylistic features. The essay concludes that the uneasy relationship between Shelley's poetics and politics might have encouraged Chinese appropriation which, ironically, was made by an authoritarian state ideology and institution – the very powers that Shelley had so fiercely opposed.

Before the Revolution Tradition and Modernity in Two Short Stories by Bao Tianxiao, “Qie ming bo” 妾命薄 and “Yi lü ma” 一縷麻

Popular fiction was a particularly successful trend in fiction from the late Qing era through the Republican period. In this fiction, a nostalgic and sentimental preservation of the Ming-Qing cult of qing 情 is clearly visible: romance and freedom of love are the expressions of a modern consciousness which makes individuals out of subjects of the traditional moral code. In a circular move to find solutions to national salvation and social change, sentimental literature searched for a compromise between tradition and modernity. This paper seeks to demonstrate how the Aufhebung of the old contributed to accommodate a still unchartered modernity in two short stories by Bao Tianxiao. The intertextual analysis will show the development of a persistent ambivalence between progress and nostalgia.

EXCERPTS ON THE HISTORY OF THE PEKING OPERA MODERNISATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The founding of the People’s Republic of China in the 20th century, the advent of changes in Chinese society lead to the emergence of new artistic requirements for Chinese dramatic art, and especially for the Peking Opera. Style changes have been brewing in the theater since the late Qing era, but they were fi nally thought out and fi xed in it by the personal talent of its representatives, such as Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Zhou Xinfang, Qi Zhushang and others. Their work had a signifi cant impact on the style of the Peking Opera and contributed to new fl owering of Chinese theatrical art. The article discusses the ways of its renewal; the most radical one subsequently led to the emergence of the so-called “exemplary performances”.

漢宋調和的矛盾———丁晏《左傳杜解集正》的方法與意義

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 漢宋調和論是介於乾嘉漢學與晚清今文學兩大思潮的中介，支持者多以兼采漢宋學所長爲説。然而落實在經典詮釋中，仍往往執此御彼，各有所偏。丁晏雖標榜“以漢學通宋學”的學術方法，但其《左傳杜解集正》的詮釋方針，實質上卻是“以宋學正漢學”，形成“主觀考據”的學術模式。雖然背離了百年以來的漢學傳統，卻給晚清今文經學在方法論上的啓示。
 The theory of reconciling Han Learning and Song Learning debuted as a mediator of the Philologist School of the Qianlong-Jiaqing (1735-1820) era and the School of New Text of the late Qing (1840-1912) eras. Most of its proponents allegedly adopted the advantages of each school. However, notably in their exegeses of the Confucian classics, these scholars tended to be in favor of only one school. Although Ding Yan (1794-1875) declared “understanding Song Learning based on Han Learning,” in his Collective Commentaries on Du Yu’s Exegesis on the Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan Dujie jizheng), for example, he actually realized an academic mode of “subjectively textual” by “correcting the Han Learning based on Song Learning.” He went against the century-old tradition of Han Learning, but inspired the dimension of discourse on method for the later New Text Confucianism in Late Qing times.

Memories and Places in Twentieth-Century Suzhou Tanci

During China's Ming–Qing era, professional storytelling genres developed in economically and culturally advanced regions, alongside a mature book culture and major developments of theater genres. Since the eighteenth century, two Suzhoudialect-based storytelling genres emerged in the city of Suzhou and its neighboring area: tanci 彈詞 (plucking rhymes, chantefable) and pinghua 評話 (straight storytelling). Unlike pinghua's connection to time, that is, the history of different dynasties, the most popular tanci stories excel in presenting space: characters from many different tanci stories traverse a narrative universe that is based on spatial–temporal imagination of a constructed Jiangnan during the "Ming" Dynasty, often with Suzhou at its center. Therefore, tanci differs from many other performative genres and functions as a highly localized practice of collective memory: as an oral performative art, Suzhou tanci negotiates with both official history and plebian lore and legends; as a daily communal activity, it invites local audiences to practice imaginative reconstruction of Suzhou's past by embracing plots and characters in specific places that have specific spatial structures. Therefore, the charm of tanci lies not in the development of new stories but in resituating old local stories in the everchanging modern city to maintain a stable group identity for the locals.

Denigrating Taoism in the West: A typology of Late Qing Chinese scholars’ discourse in Western languages

Abstract The purpose of this short article is to offer a typology of the speech acts deployed by Chinese scholars who wrote in Western languages in the late Qing era. By identifying passages dealing with Taoism in their writings, and classifying them into five types of arguments – 1) using the orthodox-heterodox dichotomy; 2) ignoring it; 3) presenting it as an already defeated rival to Confucianism; 4) describing it as a superstition; 5) claiming that it is a form of extremism – the present paper argues that the denigration of Taoism by these Chinese scholars writing in Western languages was profoundly affected by transcultural writing practices, and that in the end Taoism was often but a pawn in the intellectual and political projects of these intellectuals. It served as an awful counterpoint when one tried to project a positive light on Confucianism.

Mobility to Other Locations: A Study on the Spread of the Cult of Lord Yan from Jiangxi to Hubei in the Ming–Qing Era

In the Yuan Dynasty, Lord Yan 晏公 was worshipped by the people of Jiangxi 江西 as a water god, but there was no consensus on the identity of the god and the process of his deification. During the transitional period between the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the cult of Yan Gong was increasingly popular among different social groups in the Qingjiang 清江 region. Later, thanks to a combination of officials, merchants, and immigrants, its spatial scope was extended to Hubei 湖北 Province. During the Hongwu 洪武 (r. 1368–1398) period, the cult of Lord Yan in Hubei was so prevalent that multiple groups of people were enthusiastically involved in the construction of Lord Yan temples; thus, many temples shot up along lakes and the main tributaries of the Yangtze River, constituting a geographical distribution pattern with a concentration in the central and eastern parts and a scarcity in the west. The reason for this was the multidimensional interaction of migration activities, the cross-regional economic activities of merchants, and the promotion of folk beliefs by local officials since the Ming–Qing era, which encompasses the historical evolutionary features of actors competing for the cult of gods and control of regional social power.

Medical Treatment of Criminals in Premodern China Based on Qing Era Local Archives: Focusing on the Case of Ba County in the late 18th Century.

This study aimed to confirm what kind of medical treatment was given to criminals by the local governments in Qing China and the role of the government doctors in charge of the criminals' medical care. Using local administrative and historical materials, I explore the procedures and methods of medical treatment and explain the treatment processes for criminals. The findings demonstrate that, although different from modern ideals, in premodern China under the emperor's rule, there were provisions for ailing criminals to receive medical treatment. In the Qing era, the execution of actual punishments worked as a keynote of judicial policy, and the number of criminals managed by local government offices was larger than before. The government doctors took charge of the criminals' medical treatment, but it seems that their position in the Qing era was not popular due to low salaries and psychological resistance to treating guilty criminals. Moreover, the government doctors dispatched to treat criminals were required to play an additional role. They had to testify that there were no other causes of death other than disease, which demonstrates that the government doctor played a role in determining whether the death was a crime. However, their treatment practices for criminals demonstrate the use of traditional medicine from the Tang and Song era onwards. There are two reasons for this. First, unlike the private market, there was no economic incentives for doctors to use new medicines and prescriptions. Second, because of the fear of being reprimanded for the death of the criminal, using classical prescriptions was a way for doctors to defend the adequacy of their medical practice. From an institutional perspective, medical care for criminals through government doctors was guaranteed during the Qing era. However, government doctors were not selected for their medical competence, nor were they provided with adequate incentives to practice good medical care. Even some government doctors devoted themselves to medical care, the quality of care was not systematically guaranteed. This provides evidence of the poor medical environment surrounding criminals in premodern China.

Yangzhou Revisited: Spatial Imaginaries and Women's Literature during the Qing

Yangzhou was known for its “women” but not for women's literature. Underlying literary imaginations about the beautiful women of Yangzhou were salt wealth and a commerce of women serving the wealthy during the late imperial period. The notoriety of this commerce seemed to exclude the possibility that Yangzhou might also boast accomplished women writers, like the cultural heartland of the Jiangnan region. This study revisits these assumptions in light of the literary sources and prominent cases that testify to the vibrancy of women's literary activities in Yangzhou. The city was a transregional literary center and a favored destination of sojourning poets and merchants, particularly those from Huizhou, creating opportunities for women to attain literary fame. Central to this discussion is a poetic language about sites and spaces that became current in Yangzhou during the Qing era. For a woman poet to place herself at the sites of Yangzhou that were repeatedly celebrated by poets was to claim membership in the elite networks or trends of cultural emulation formed on the basis of the sites. Viewed in transregional contexts, sites and spaces comprised the spatial imaginaries in women's literature—defined broadly as the spatial ordering of the world, and Yangzhou's place in it, as imagined and written about by women.

Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market by Meng Zhang

Reviewed by: Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market by Meng Zhang Faizah Zakaria (bio) Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market By Meng Zhang. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021. Pp. 280. Meng Zhang's engaging and empirically rich study deconstructs the "market," an institution that has surprisingly garnered little deep attention in Asian environmental history. More than an examination of the circulation of goods—in this case, timber—Timber and Forestry reveals how the timber market in Qing China was built at the intersection of a complex supply chain connected by multiple players along the Yangzi river and a rising demand for timber that fueled the felling of millions of trees. Deftly interweaving economic and environmental histories, the book demonstrates that—far from being an alternative to the state in forest management—the timber market worked with and around the state to produce self-regulating mechanisms that promoted sustainability. This core insight provokes a rethinking about the environmental impact of capitalism and the possibility of staking sustainability to profit. The book first establishes that the Qing state ruled the market with a light hand in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, moreover, imposed a procurement system that "was in a market, not in replacement of it" (p. 47). This argument resonates with and extends recent conclusions reached by scholars that timber markets in China were sustainable up to the 1600s. But it also indirectly refutes contentions that this sustainability declined rapidly during the Qing period; instead, this chapter shows major continuities in the governing of the timber market during the Ming–Qing transition. What distinguished the Qing era, though, were the sheer volume of the timber trade and the pressing need to develop interregional transport and market routes that incorporated relatively undisturbed forests of southern China into a widening cross-regional timber network. The second chapter follows the infrastructure of this long-distance riverine trade, paying close attention to distinctive cultural features of the timber business such as the system of measurement and pricing. Pegging prices to a function of the circumference of the logs sold set in motion processes that enabled the cross-regional market legibility and enriched traveling merchants, with Hankou in the middle Yangzi area becoming the country's largest timber market by the nineteenth century. Zhang's work is at its most lively and innovative when tracking timber market players from below—cultivators, merchants, brokers, and trade associations—and their impact on the market. Here, historians of technology will find Zhang's depiction of Qing silviculture informative in demonstrating how fir planting could be made sustainable. Financing such efforts also involved innovation. Demystifying contracts that were used to create incentives for timber cultivators to rotate and replant to maintain supply, the third chapter [End Page 647] highlights that tradeable and divisible shares based on landownership and labor input were not only crucial in maintaining the level of long-term investment needed for this market but also in encouraging reforestation. Moreover, the market spurred participation across class and ethnic lines, incorporating players such as the Miao of the lower Qingshui region, who adopted Chinesestyle contracts and began profiting from—as well as replanting—pine and fir. The final chapters expand on the theme of market self-regulation through the perspectives of timber brokers and trade associations. The wide variety of sources ranging from legal digests, contract disputes, and local gazettes provide a persuasive basis of evidence for the argument that these players, when given full rein and direct stakes in the health of the forests, tended to move toward responsible management of woodland resources. The overall positive view of the market in this book might spark unease among market skeptics about the self-regulatory potential of such mechanisms as described in the book. Indeed, Zhang herself points out caveats to market success, including but not limited to the reduced biodiversity of reforested landscapes and the dual-faced nature of the market, which "could be devouring and enabling" unless there was "a careful deliberation over how to delineate and assign the bundle of rights … that constitute the abstract notion of 'property' to different entities" (p. 178). One could extrapolate then that such...

Imitations of ancient jade products of the Qing era (1636-1912) in the collections of Russian museums

Jade products that imitate ancient Chinese art samples are a special kind of objects that, in their form and decor, are close to or likened to more ancient works of arts and crafts. The article explores the artistic form and characteristic features of imitations of ancient jade products of the Qing era, presented in the collections of Russian museums and the Palace Museum of China. The object of the study are objects of Chinese art of jade carving, which are in the collection of the Palace Museum (Beijing), the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), where the use of imitations of ancient objects was discovered. Artistic analysis of jade imitations allows us to conclude that the works of the Qing era were more complex and diverse in form, decor and carving techniques compared to Han products, while the craftsmen, although they managed to preserve the classical sophistication of objects, lost the severity and solemnity of Han jade. As well as the art history analysis of the works, one can see that the forms and decors of jade objects are the product of aesthetic consciousness. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the varieties and features of imitations of ancient jade during the Qing Dynasty are summarized, and the huohuan technique in jade processing is confirmed. This may be of interest to researchers in related scientific fields.

Administration of Perception: Observing and Transcribing Dead Bodies in the Forensic Methodology of Qing China (1644–1912)

This essay examines the ways in which dead bodies were transformed by traditional Chinese forensic methodology into objects of postmortem examination during the Qing dynasty. The Qing authorities implemented various devices to standardize not only the forensic examination as an administrative procedure but also the cognitive activities involved, such as corpse observation, wound interpretation, and transcription. The essay argues that these devices, such as the official forensic manual, formalized documents, and strict norms of documenting, were constituents of a specific pattern of perception that normalized the ways in which a corpse should be regarded and understood so as to bear forensic significance. Although this pattern of perception led to a rigid vision of crimes and the consequent corporeal damage, it enabled forensic reasoning to function like an operational procedure, which presented certain advantages with regard to the particular legal culture of the Qing era.

Chinese Settler-Colonialism and the Borderless National Imagination in Lü Sheng’s A Madman’s Dream

ABSTRACT Studies on Chinese nationalist discourse in the late Qing era rarely consider the role of settler-colonialism in the development of nationalism, instead assuming that anti-colonialism was the dominant ideological source. This article transcends the traditional binary discourse of the colonised and the coloniser by exploring how settler-colonialism helped to project a borderless China in late Qing utopian fiction. I argue that this body of literature, as exemplified by Lü Sheng’s A Madman’s Dream, is a useful lens for exploring how Chinese settler-colonialism developed a (trans)national imagination. China, as a non-Western settler-colonist, had a dual identity: its experience of being colonised by the West resulted in its acting as a settler-colonist, while its efforts to promote a ‘new China’ overseas were intended to create solidarity with others who had suffered from colonisation. This article thus contributes to the growing body of scholarship about Qing expansionism as an instance of colonialism by demonstrating the internal tensions within Chinese discourse on colonialism in that era. I illustrate that Chinese settler-colonialism displayed a unique blend of discourse about expansion in the past, the experience of suffering in the present, and imagining the future.

Migration and Land Exploitation from Yuan to Qing Dynasties: Insights from 252 Traditional Villages in Hunan, China

This paper investigates 252 traditional villages in Hunan, China, and uses ArcGIS and Geodetector to analyze village expansion and land exploitation from the Yuan dynasty to the Qing dynasty caused by factors such as migration during China’s middle and late imperial periods. This article demonstrates the development of land by the earlier settlers of ancient Chinese villages and shows the progression from easily exploited flatlands to more difficult-to-exploit mountainous areas. It also shows that early settlers relied more on natural factors when establishing their villages during the Yuan Dynasty but relied more on factors such as transportation due to the migration policies introduced during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This paper will help us to determine the migration dynamics of ethnic groups and the distribution of settlements in the region (Hunan region) during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing eras.