The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China 9780520971769

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The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Sue Tsao Endowment Fund in Chinese Studies.

The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

Macabe Keliher

UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press Oakland, California © 2019 by Macabe Keliher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Keliher, Macabe, author. Title: The Board of Rites and the making of Qing China / Macabe Keliher. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: lccn 2019009763 (print) | lccn 2019012903 (ebook) | isbn 9780520300293 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520971769 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: China. Li bu (Ministry of Rites) | Rites and ceremonies— China. | China—History—Qing dynasty, 1644-1912. | China—Politics and government—1644-1912. | Manchuria (China)—History. Classification: lcc ds754 (ebook) | lcc ds754 .k45 2020 (print) | ddc 951/.03—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009763 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For Chinglan and Yulan ॹ࠷հՊ៴ۖॹՊ៴ Ϋಃ՗ The dye of the indigo is more vivid than the indigo itself ΫXunzi

contents

List of Illustrations Preface

ix xi

PART ONE. CONTEXT 1. Introduction: Li and the Qing State 2. The Manchu Ascendancy and Struggles for Power

3 24

PART TWO. FORMATION, 1631–1651 3. The New Year’s Day Ceremony

45

4. The Institution of the Emperor

65

5. The Administrative Order and Its Enactment

91

PART THREE. INSTITUTIONALIZATION, 1651–1690 6. Imperial Relatives in Service of the State

123

7. Completing the System: The Case of Imperial Dress

146

8. Codification: The Da Qing Huidian

170

Conclusion: Li, Qing China, and Early Modern Eurasia

193

Appendix One: Sons and Grandsons of Nurhaci and Šurhaci Mentioned in the Text Appendix Two: Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji Appendix Three: A Note on Sources Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

205 208 209 211 213 241 257

illustrations and tables

F IG U R E S

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Late Ming depiction of a Jurchen 26 Posthumous portrait of Hong Taiji 30 Page from the Manwen yuandang (Original Manchu records) Winter Solstice ceremony at the Alter of Heaven 70 Court ceremony map 79 Ruby cap ornament 101 Winter hat 102 Qing general Zhang Zhiyuan 149 Ming dynasty Jiajing emperor 152 Ming ceremonial cap and gown 153 Cutting Manchu robes from Ming cloth 158 Qing court dress 164 Qing emperor’s winter robe 167

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MAPS

1. Northeastern Eurasia circa mid-seventeenth century x 2. The Imperial Palace in Beijing 57 TA B L E S

1. Qing Dynasty Ancestral Line of Rulers and Their Legitimizing Names and Burials. 84 2. Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji 208 ix

Mongolia

Mukden/Shengjing (Shenyang)

Shanhaiguan Beijing

Yongping

Ri

ver

Sea of

lu

Jinzhou Songshan

Dalinghe

Ya Liaodong Peninsula

Gulf of Liaodong

Japan

Choson Korea

Yellow Sea

SCALE

250 km

500 km

0

155 mi

310 mi

map 1 . Northeastern Eurasia circa mid-seventeenth century. Map by Than Saffel.

preface

The present book is an inquiry into a key administrative organization of the Qing government (1636–1912), the Board of Rites (Libu). What did it do? How did it function? Who staffed it? What was its role in military conquest and administrative rule? And why did the Qing—or any other state for that matter—need such an organization? Although widely recognized as an important organ of the Qing bureaucracy that was involved in nearly all aspects of late imperial political and social life, no systematic attempt has previously been made to analyze the role and operations of the Board of Rites. Unlike other administrative institutions of the Qing government, such as the Grand Council or Imperial Household Department, both of which have dedicated monographs, the Board of Rites has not attracted its historians.1 The reason for this becomes apparent upon review of documents and contemporary accounts of the Board of Rites: The main duties of the organization and its officials were related to something contemporaries called “li” in Chinese and “dorolon” in Manchu, or what we today might refer to as ceremonies, rituals, and rites imposed upon a rigid, hierarchical organization of political and social actors. Moderns have long deemed these activities non-ancillary to the real workings of government.2 Likewise, although Board of Rites officials and regulations were ever present in Qing administrative affairs, on the surface, the nature of such activities seems to lie outside of the analytical categories of government with which we are most familiar, such as communications or finance.3 In recent years, historians have begun to recognize the contradiction between what contemporaries found important and what scholars have traditionally privileged, and have moved to address this shortcoming by investigating the practice and logic of rituals and ceremonies in the late imperial state. The work of such xi

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scholars as Chen Shuguo, James Hevia, Li Baochen, Evelyn Rawski, and Angela Zito, has not only illuminated a coherent system of intricate state rites and ceremonies but also demonstrated the importance of these activities in Qing governance.4 Their efforts have, in many ways, laid the groundwork for my own research. What they have not done, however, is explain the organizational nature of the Board of Rites and its role in the Qing political system, nor have they shown how the Qing system of li emerged to shape empire. Rather than attempt to piece together an understanding of the Board of Rites and the institutional nature of li/dorolon/ritual from the perspective of the high Qing (eighteenth century), or grandiosely charting its imperial development from the Han (202 BCE–220 CE) onward, it seemed to me that the best way to understand the Board of Rites was to examine its origins and initial activity in the Qing administrative apparatus. Examining its establishment and early operations, as well as how contemporary state-makers articulated a rationale for its existence, not only yields insight into its place and importance in the operations of the Qing state but also helps explain how the political system of the Qing arose. This approach led me back to the beginnings of the Manchu state and the making of the Qing, with a focus on the establishment of the Board of Rites in 1631 and its particular role in the early state-formation process. Diving into archival records and poring over other sources and accounts from the period, I began to chart what the Board of Rites did and how contemporary rulers, officials, and state-makers talked about it.5 It turns out the Board of Rites was involved in most aspects of the formation of the Qing state and its organization and operations—it was tasked with an eclectic array of activities from setting imperial protocol to navigating familial relations. Nonetheless, one clear theme emerged: The Board of Rites worked to establish modes of political domination and impose discipline. Far more than just overseeing ritual performance or undertaking an assortment of seemingly random ceremonial tasks, the Qing Board of Rites instilled discipline in the new political regime. Through the imposition of political hierarchies in the form of ranks and titles with attached behavioral practices and sumptuary rules, and the regulation of interpersonal relations through rituals, rites, and ceremonies, the Board of Rites helped define order—it engaged in the transition from uncertain struggles for power and political organization to the institutionalization of empire. It put politically and ethnically diverse actors into relation with each other and invested them with a sense of common purpose to conquer and rule. In short, the Board of Rites and the practices it instituted structured political relations and guided sovereigns, imperial relatives, officials, and other state-makers in their endeavors. The present book emanates from this discovery. Proceeding from extensive archival evidence relating to the Board of Rites and key Board officials, the chapters that follow illuminate the instrumental role of the Board and its officials in the

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making of the Qing state. The book is divided into three parts, serving to mirror the process of Qing state-making: context, formation, and institutionalization.6 The chapters move chronologically, interrogating early conflicts and quests for political mastery, and charting the settlements and institutions that emerged in the early Qing. Beginning in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, part 1 outlines the early organization of the Jurchens (later called Manchus) under a charismatic leader, and details the ensuing struggles to determine and control the direction of empire. Part 2 turns to the process of state-formation. With the establishment of the Board of Rites and the administrative apparatus in 1631, li became increasingly important in shaping the outcome of political struggles and guiding the actions and choices of political actors. Over the next two decades, the rules, regulations, and practices that facilitated the construction of political order and its operating culture developed, beginning with ceremonial proceedings that defined political relations in the emergent state. It was during this time (1631–1651) that the role, position, and power of the emperor was developed, and the nature of administrative activity and official practices were determined. The conquest of China proper and the seating of the Shunzhi emperor in 1651 initiated a process of institutionalizing the political arrangements formed over the past two decades. Part 3 analyzes these developments in the final stage of early Qing state-formation. Despite the establishment of the Qing empire some fifteen years prior, ongoing internal struggles among the Manchu elite led to the creative use of the new system of li for personal interests. Although this did not threaten the coherency of the political order, it did exacerbate infighting, prompting the imperial relatives and their allies to intensify their factional activities, whereby each worked to stage a convincing demonstration of his own role by drawing on the tools and institutions immediately available and legitimized by other organizational actors. This internal tension was compounded by issues arising from the expansion of territory under Qing control and the incorporation of large numbers of Chinese subjects. These developments raised questions about the nature of Qing sovereignty and how the sovereign would be represented—as a Manchu ruler or Chinese emperor. The Board of Rites worked to address such issues in the latter half of the seventeenth century through a refinement and development of the system of li. In response to the problem of the imperial relatives, Board officials spun off a bureau to oversee the relatives and instituted arrangements of direct control, effectively nullifying the threat of the relatives and placing them in service of the state. At the same time, recognizing a transition in the nature of the state due to territorial and demographic expansion, officials simultaneously sought to assert sovereignty and political domination over both Manchu and Chinese subjects by completing the system of li through the development of a style of imperial dress that amalgamated both Chinese and Manchu traditions. The book concludes in 1690 with the

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consolidation of China proper and the publication of the first Qing administrative code, the Da Qing huidian. Premised on the Qing interpretation of the practices and rules of li, this text embodied all the regulations for the organization and operation of the Qing political system that had formed over the past sixty years; its compilation represented the culmination of this early stage of the making of the Qing state and set the terms for much of what would come after.

This monograph is based on my PhD dissertation, “The Manchu Transformation of Li: Ritual, Politics and Law in the Making of Qing China, 1631–1690,” completed at Harvard University in 2015. Some divergence and significant developments between the former and present work are the positive results of a three-year process that benefited immensely from the input of many individuals and organizations in Cambridge and well beyond. It thus pleases me to be able to offer my gratitude to all those involved throughout the research and production of this work on the Qing Board of Rites. My mentors at Harvard were instrumental throughout the gestation, research, and writing of much of this work. My foremost thanks must go to my graduate school advisor, Mark C. Elliott, who helped shape the core ideas and set the research trajectory of this project, and to Michael Szonyi, who kept me focused on the significance of my story and constantly pushed to strengthen the arguments. I am equally grateful for the advice, input, and inspiration of Peter Bol, Michael Puett, and Daniel Smail. I can only hope that this final product has adequately incorporated their suggestions and addressed their concerns. Roberto Mangabeira Unger has inspired my thinking throughout, and his influence is all over the pages of my work. Our weekly and sometimes daily conversations over the years have been a source of insight on the fundamental questions of history and humanity, as well as in marrying scholarship with what really matters: to lead bigger lives, both individually and collectively. I also wish to thank Edward McCord for his continued support and sustained interest in my work and development. His guidance has charted my direction in the field from the very beginning of my graduate student days, and his input on this project has not only helped frame the argument but also brought the final product home with a thorough reading of the manuscript. Likewise, Hsinchao Wu has seen the project at every stage of research and writing, and her tireless input and insight into all matters of content, context, and form have made this book as much a product of her genius as it is of my effort. To say that it would look much different without her is an understatement. Many long conversations with Christopher Isett in Taipei coffee shops have also informed my thinking here, and I am ever so appreciative of his thorough comments on an early draft, which resulted in what has become chapter 2 here, among other things.

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Much of this project was researched and written in Taipei. My fondest memory is sitting in the document reading room of the National Palace Museum next to Professor Chuang Chi-fa and pestering him with questions about Manchu language and practices, which he generously tolerated and graciously answered. I was also fortunate to be able to study Manchu under him. Others in Taipei who shared their time, expertise, and insight include Chih-jou Jay Chen, Chen Hsi-yuan, Chi Ruu-hsuan, Lai Fushun, Wang Chen-main, Wu Jen-shu, and Yeh Kao-shu. The staff at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library also went out of their way to track down references and dig up rare books, for which I am most grateful. In Beijing, I was welcomed by some wonderful scholars and institutions. Yao Nianci has entertained me on numerous occasions over the years, and is a source of infinite knowledge and insight on seventeenth-century China. On more than one occasion, he led me through conceptual deadlocks and pushed me in new and unexplored directions. Liu Xiaomeng encouraged my inquiry and shared his knowledge and sources of the period, for which I am thankful. Liu Wenpeng was always a great resource, and I am grateful for his help in accessing materials at the Qing History Project. I would also like to thank Qiu Yuanyuan and Wang Tianchi. The history department at Peking University hosted a yearlong stay in Beijing; professors Guo Runtao and Li Xinfeng were particularly encouraging and supportive. The staff at the First Historical Archive were also of great help, especially Yang laoshi, as were the librarians in the rare book reading room at the National Library of China, Beijing, who helped me access original editions of the Manchulanguage Kangxi Huidian. I was most fortunate to have intellectual support and shared insight throughout the research and writing process. Ongoing discussions on China and the early modern world with Javier Cha, Subah Dayal, Lionel Jensen, John Lee, Ian Miller, Kaya Sahin, Jeffery Snyder-Reinke, and Matthew Vester have been most fruitful and extremely stimulating. A trip to Shenyang with Yinan Luo provided an opportunity to explore the old Manchu capital and the tombs of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, as well as continue our never-ending discussions of state-formation and social structures. I also wish to thank my graduate school cohort, including He Bian, Devon Dear, Devin Fitzgerald, John Kim, Max Oidtmann, Jake Ransohoff, Eric Schluessel, and Victor Siew; special thanks to Iiyama Tomoyasu for his help tracking down many Japanese references. In preparing the final manuscript, I am humbled that so many took the time to read through an entire draft and offer such detailed feedback. Thomas Bouye, Michael G. Chang, Ed McCord, and David Porter not only closely read the manuscript but also made the trip to Morgantown to discuss it with me in a workshop. I am most grateful to them all, not least for encouraging what has become the form of the final preface. Likewise, this would be a more defective book without invaluable comments

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from Norman Kutcher, Evelyn Rawski, David Robinson, and an anonymous reviewer. I also thank Matthew Sommer for comments on drafts of chapters 5 and 6, and Geoffry Koziol for comments on chapter 3—it is Geoff who suggested framing the ritual here as a means to “publicly humiliate” others. Numerous grants and institutions have made my work possible. A Fulbright Foundation grant gave me a full year in Taiwan, and the Fellowship for Doctoral Candidates at Academia Sinica extended it, while the Fredrick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship funded my work in China. Small grants from the American Historical Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the Fairbank and Asia Centers at Harvard allowed me to take periodic trips to archives in Taipei and Beijing. In Taipei, the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica and the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica sponsored my stay at various points, and the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library provided me office space during my tenure. A China Council Exchange Program scholarship from the Chinese government allowed me to live and work uninterrupted in Beijing and gave me an association with Peking University. The Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation supported my final year of dissertation writing, while a Jerome Hall Fellowship at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law gave me an uninterrupted postdoctoral year to continue work on the project, and an IU international research grant afforded a summer of follow-up archival work in Beijing. The History Department at West Virginia University provided me with a research budget and departmental travel grants for further archival trips, a Riggle Fellowship in the Humanities sponsored a summer in Taipei and Beijing, a WVU Humanities Center grant funded a summer of final revisions, and a WVU conference grant helped bring in scholars to workshop the manuscript. A Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS fellowship contributed to the final stages of research and revision, and the Clements Department of History at Southern Methodist University generously provided funding for the post-production process, despite my only very recent arrival in the department. Portions of chapters two and six appeared first in “The Problem of Imperial Relatives in Early Modern Empires and the Making of Qing China,” American Historical Review 122, no. 4 (October 2017): 1001–37. Parts of chapter eight were published previously in “Administrative Law and the Making of the First Da Qing Huidian,” Late Imperial China 37, no. 1 (June 2016): 55–107. A Chinese version of chapter five was published in under my Chinese name, Ke Li, as “Li zhe xingzhenfa ye: shiqi shiji zhengzhi fenceng yu Qingchao xingzheng zhixu de jiangou,” Fudan Law Review 3 (May 2016): 84–114.

part one

Context

1

Introduction Li and the Qing State Li is the ultimate principle. When all things are embodied by this principle, then there is order. —ritual manual for the qianlong emperor, huangchao lizhi, 1.1.

On the eleventh day of the fourth lunar month of 1636, in the cool spring dawn of Mukden, the Manchu capital, Hong Taiji adopted the title of emperor and announced the founding of the Qing empire. This double proclamation—that a new empire was born and its sovereign was to be known as emperor (Chinese, huangdi; Machu, hūwangdi)—was made amid a scripted ceremony to legitimize the act and lend authority to political actors. As the sky began to lighten in the pale morning hours, Hong Taiji led all his officials—Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese— out the palace gates to the suburban Altar of Heaven and Earth.1 Participants dismounted from their horses and took positions according to rank. Hong Taiji ascended the altar and stood in the center facing north, where he occupied a symbolic position at the center of the universe—a place only the emperor could take to represent the human link between Heaven and Earth. He placed three sticks of incense in the burner and bowed; he presented three bolts of silk, and made three offerings of wine.2 After each presentation, all in attendance performed a rite of obeisance of three genuflections and nine prostrations.3 Hong Taiji read a statement. It had been prepared for the ceremony, and its intended audience was no less than Heaven. “I humbly inherit the enterprise of my forbearers,” he began, and went on to express his constant devotion to and vexation of ruling over the past ten years. With the blessing of Heaven and the ancestors, Hong Taiji professed, he had been able to oversee accomplishments worthy of imperial formation: the subjugation of Chosŏn Korea, the pacification of the Mongols and bringing them under Manchu rule, expanding borders, and establishing territorial rule. Furthermore, all this was legitimized when he obtained the Yuan dynasty state seal from conquered Mongols. “Officials and people have promoted 3

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my accomplishments and asked that I take the title of emperor . . . but I have repeatedly declined doing so. They have insisted, and so I submit to their entreaties. . . . I take the position of emperor and establish the Qing state [jian guohao].”4 This proclamation was undoubtedly the climax, but the ceremony did not end there. Rites continued for the rest of the day and carried on for the duration of the following day. The founding announcement was repeated in Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese. More prostrations were made to Heaven and to the new emperor. Small precious gifts were given to Hong Taiji by his immediate relatives and Manchu leaders, and sacrifices were made at his father’s tomb. The next day, plaques were set in the ancestral temple, and posthumous titles were given to Hong Taiji’s ancestors going back seven generations to the founding ancestor, Möngke Temür. One black ox and one sheep were sacrificed before each ancestral placard. Hong Taiji again announced the founding of the Qing empire and his ascension to emperor, although this time not to Heaven but to his ancestors. The ceremony was well attended. At hand were Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese political and military officials of the fledgling state, as well as foreign dignitaries and local Manchu leaders. These men both observed and participated; they not only witnessed the founding event but also, through their very presence, helped define the meaning of politics and society. The ceremony constructed a political world where ethnically diverse and independently ambitious men bound themselves in an ever-tightening bond in service of a common goal. This goal was expressed most immediately for the political community though state-prescribed socialized forms of interaction done in repetitive ways—that is, ritual.5 In this case, on this day, it was the ceremonial proceedings to announce the founding of a multiethnic empire. S TAT E - M A K I N G T H E O RY A N D T H E Q I N G STAT E

The moment of the founding ceremony had been long in the making, and it would continue to reverberate for centuries throughout Eurasia. Before becoming the Qing, the Manchu—previously called Jurchens—were seminomadic and nonintensive agrarian peoples living in autonomous organizations and villages in northeastern Eurasia.6 In the late sixteenth century they began to organize under Hong Taiji’s father, Nurhaci, who placed them into socio-military units called banners. As military successes mounted and their numbers and territory grew, Nurhaci established a governing apparatus that relied on Manchu norms and laid the foundation for Hong Taiji’s Qing. A small bureaucracy was created and examinations administered; a tax-office state oversaw conquered territory and extracted agricultural surpluses. This furthered military conquest, enabling the expansion of territory, the subjugation of Mongol tribes, and the invasion of Korea, where the Chosŏn king was forced to recognize the Manchu rulers over the Ming dynasty.

Introduction

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Simultaneously, Han Chinese political and military subjects were absorbed, and Qing armies went on to capture Beijing and then take all of China proper, eventually becoming one of the largest land-based empires in the early modern world. In many ways, the coronation ceremony confirmed the state-making enterprise and initiated what was to be nearly three centuries of Qing rule over China and parts of Inner Asia. The significance of the Qing empire in Chinese history cannot be overstated. Like their early modern counterparts, Qing state-makers consolidated foreign kingdoms, developed new forms of imperial rule, incorporated different ethnic groups, and embraced various cultural practices. In governing, much like their contemporaries in the Ottoman, Mughal, and Russian empires, Qing statesmen further centralized power and focused greater authority in the sovereign; they built up a robust administrative apparatus and staffed it with multiethnic personnel, enabling effective responses to new challenges; they created a sophisticated communications and reporting system and extended far-reaching control throughout their realm. In addition to shaping the early modern world, the Qing also bestowed a legacy upon modern and contemporary China. As the last imperial dynasty to rule China, the Qing court abdicated in the early twentieth century only after losing the support of the gentry and military, and even then negotiated favorable terms for the imperial family. Such longevity and influence meant that remnants of the imperial state and its accomplishments would continue to cast a shadow over its successors, right up to the present day.7 A central aim of the present study is to explain the workings of the political system that made all this possible. The book takes as its subject not the institutions and activities of the military or bureaucracy, as has been most conventional. Instead, the focus is on the symbolic practices that structured domination and legitimized authority. The chapters that follow show that the ritual and disciplinary practices developed in the mid-seventeenth century not only defined power and authority but also played a key role in the construction of the Qing state and the shaping of the political system.8 In contrast to nearly every other aspect of the state-building process, no detailed examination has previously been made of the system of Qing political domination in what is widely considered to be a formative moment in early modern China. Even where discipline and symbolic power are central to the organization of diverse political actors and their obedience, as well as to legitimization, the subject is almost exclusively explored from the perspective of the high Qing, rather than the early formative years.9 One reason for this neglect is that scholars have been focused on the processes of war making and bureaucracy. In most accounts of Qing state-formation, historians emphasize these aspects of the story, military conquest and administrative rationalization. Often weaving these two developments in a single narrative, scholars highlight the innovative social organization of the banners, which rendered a

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society mobilized for war and enabled the conquest of not just China but also parts of Inner Asia, greatly expanding the territorial control and ethnic composition of the empire. In most narratives, this historical development was accompanied by the implementation of administrative institutions and procedures required to govern a vast territory: a bureaucracy based on the model of the Ming’s six boards and field administration, a censorate to oversee officials and remonstrate, examinations to staff positions, and a judicial system with comprehensive legal codes. Together, the conventional story goes, these two developments—conquest and bureaucracy—produced the Qing state.10 The focus on military and state capacity is not surprising. The most influential theories on state-formation point to the emergence of early modern and modern states by way of military competition in the Western European theater. As rulers waged war, the theory goes, they needed to raise money, increase taxes, conscript men, register and keep track of populations, control unrest, and administer both new and old subjects. Concurrently, the development of more robust administrative and financial apparatuses furthered the capacity of the state to wage and win wars. In the words of Charles Tilly, “War made the state, and the state made war.”11 Although early modern China differed from the European states that Tilly and his interlocutors have discussed, historians of China have for good reason found the theory useful in analyzing the Qing, both to understand the rise of a powerful and expansive empire, and to place China in comparative perspective with the rest of the world.12 To this end, historians of China have succeeded in utilizing these general social theories to chart the rise and development of the Qing, just as historians of other non-European states have also done.13 This book is concerned with a third aspect of state-formation: discipline and domination. Recent work on other early modern states shows war and bureaucracy to be necessary but insufficient in state-building. Moreover, the discovery of new documentary sources and a reexamination of old ones point to other, simultaneous concerns and problems.14 The time is thus ripe to review our understanding of the making of Qing China. Doing so will not only help to explain the rise of the Qing empire but also shed light on more general trends occurring throughout early modern Eurasia. Something more than war and institutions are required to produce social and political order: namely, coercion. Taking up the cases of early modern Germany and the Netherlands, Philip Gorski argues, “What steam did for the modern economy . . . discipline did for the modern polity: by creating more obedient and industrious subjects with less coercion and violence, discipline dramatically increased, not only the regulatory power of the state, but its extractive and coercive capacities as well.”15 To complete a ruling apparatus of military and administrative institutions, other techniques were needed to compel and coerce individuals and groups to partake in certain types of political and social activities linked to the

Introduction

7

abstract concept of the polity defined by the amorphous idea of the state beyond the ruler. In addition, legitimacy had to be sought, constructed, and conferred, and done so in ways that not only justified existing social relationships but also helped create new ones. In short, people had to obey, and to do so not because of any threat of force, but because they wished to do so.16 This matter is not simply the abstract speculation of the modern-day historian; it goes to the heart of some of the most fundamental concerns of early modern actors. In the case of the Qing, contemporary sources show that simultaneous with the determination of military power and the establishment of an administrative apparatus, relational and organizational problems vexed state-makers—problems of rulership, for one. An emperor stood at the top of a hierarchy and could theoretically do things others could not, such as issue orders and sacrifice to Heaven. How, then, should he interact with his relatives and other civil and military officials? How might he greet others in passing, or speak about affairs of the state? As the final arbiter of political matters, he was to make and issue policy decisions; but how to promulgate them? How would political meetings take place? In short, how to be emperor? Similarly, there were questions about politics and the political order: How to invest a diverse group of actors, possessed of individual interests, with a sense of common purpose to conquer and rule? What means of political organization could keep internal personal and political tensions at bay and mitigate factional dispute, especially in the face of policy debates with the potential to disturb the social and political structures of the state? Even more critically, how to not only dampen the inevitable challenges and disruptions of political actors but at the same time harness their energy and ingenuity in the running of the state? And what to do with the imperial relatives, who could help the ruler but also undermine his position? Should they be exiled, politically castrated, or made to serve? As solutions to these problems were devised and agreements reached in the 1630s and 1640s in conjunction with waging war and institution-building, statemakers’ efforts gradually shifted to solidifying gains and making arrangements permanent. Guarantees were needed to secure the existing settlements of power and position, and to give the emergent system and those operating within it some degree of predictability. Actors not only demanded stability in their daily operations but also called for generational guarantees for the future of their families. The overriding concern was how to turn normative agreements into objective institutions that structured political and social relations and defined the state. For the historian to understand the answers that contemporaries arrived at, it is not enough to chart military accomplishments, outline bureaucratic efficiency, or analyze legal codes; in addition, disciplinary practices and the nature of domination must also be considered. Power begets authority, but not without discipline and legitimization, for naked force cannot produce domination.17 In the words of

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Max Weber, “Every genuine form of domination implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that is, an interest (based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience.”18 For such consideration, however, the Qing political system as a whole needs to come into focus, not just a single aspect divorced from the totality of its operations. This is to acknowledge that the forms of discipline and domination in the Qing were intertwined with the emergence of the relations of power; they were not the adopted vestiges of Han Chinese culture, nor were they practices imposed once the political regime was set up. Rather, domination was an integral part of the system itself. Accounting for this aspect of the Qing political system compels one to rethink the dynamics of the state-formation process. Identifying the emergence of new practices of discipline and the establishment of new institutions of domination shifts the emphasis from the Qing state as a phenomenon of late imperial China— where there is a fluid transition from the Ming, and innovation and empire commence in the eighteenth century—to the process of the construction of rulership, administrative practice, and politics.19 The tendency of the former position to regard the rise of the Qing and its conquest of China as historical fact overlooks the ingenuity applied in that rise and the innovations that fueled it.20 While it does offer an explanation of how a small band of seminomadic warriors built an early modern empire, it is a regrettably linear one that focuses on the ability to make war, and to borrow and wield Chinese organizations and practices; it misses the equally important reshaping of the political order and its culture. To take into account the nature of the internal struggles for power and direction, the molding of authority, the imposition of legitimacy, and the processes of institutionalization not only provides a key part of the explanation of the making of the Qing empire but also illuminates the nature of politics and the structure of domination in late imperial China. Recognizing the importance of discipline and culture in early modern stateformation also helps explain political and social developments in the early modern world. The number, frequency, and impact of formal ceremonial and behavioral activities in everything from political and social stratification to circumcision ceremonies grew throughout Eurasia from approximately 1400 to 1800.21 Rulers, ministers, officials, and other state-makers, from Tudor England to Tokugawa Japan, became increasingly concerned with aspects of rank and status, as well as with the upholding of norms assigned to those positions and titles; they held state ceremonies more frequently, and prescribed and self-regulated standards of social ceremony and activity with greater devotion. In Bourbon France, for example, status interaction took on an unprecedented immediacy and became of the utmost importance among officials and elite. This resulted not only in the creation of new administrative positions for ceremony and behavioral regulations in political courts but also in interpersonal tussles over dress, gestures, and epistolary style.22

Introduction

9

Similarly, in the Ottoman empire, a new ceremonial culture emerged in the sixteenth century, which worked to bind political and social actors through symbolic and performative acts.23 At the same time, in Russia, wedding proceedings and ceremonies were held at shorter intervals and in grander style as they emerged as political events to be relied on and manipulated by both rulers and officials in the construction and disciplining of political order.24 Even in the New World, the employment and practice of ritual and ceremony by Spanish administrators helped shape the structure of authority in colonial Mexico.25 Such events were not discrete, symbolic proceedings extraneous to other kinds of political activity; rather, they were central in the construction and maintenance of political orders. In the early modern world, political and social transformations necessitated new forms of rulership, the integration of different political and social groups, and the creation of administrative organizations and practices to conquer and rule vast territories.26 Institution-building performed only part of this work, however; the employment of ritual and disciplinary practices furthered statist projects and helped construct authority. Indeed, such endeavors of rulers and state-makers worked not only to direct militaries and build bureaucracies but also to develop systems of political discipline that would craft domination out of the immediate political and cultural contexts. In fact, as the following chapters amply demonstrate, in the case of the Qing empire, the latter facilitated the former.27 T H E A R G UM E N T S

This book makes three interrelated arguments to show how seemingly straightforward symbolic acts, like the ceremony outlined above, worked to both shape political order and inform the choices of organizational actors in the making of Qing China. The first argument is that there was an articulated system of social domination and political legitimization. It was called “li” in Chinese, and “doro” or “dorolon” in Manchu.28 It consisted of rituals, ceremonies, and rites, as well as behavioral practices, administrative norms, and sumptuary; it placed political and social actors into certain relationships, which structured the organization and operations of the Qing state. Li articulated the role and position of the emperor; it instructed officials in communication and interactions; it informed an administrative hierarchy and enforced the chain of command. In short, it was the foundation of the Qing political system. The second argument is that the rules of this system—that is, the particular practices entailed by li, were constructed simultaneously with the Qing state. Symbolic forms and imposed practices cannot be separated from the conflicts over naked power and control for political resources. It is not the case, as is often assumed, that political power was first fought over and won and only afterward, in

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the wake of the settlement, symbols and practices of legitimization were imposed on top of institutional arrangements. Nor was it the case that preexisting cultural and institutional systems were used to structure the emergence of new political leaders and guide their ambitions. Rather, culture and politics informed each other as they came into being over the course of the mid-seventeenth century before being articulated as an integrated and complete system in the administrative code, or Da Qing huidian. The intertwining of the reciprocal influence of politics and culture played out as Manchu relatives first clashed over different ideas of the state, and subsequently in struggles for power for political position in the institutional variation of the emergent political structure. Rituals, ceremonies, rites, clothing, and political norms came to inform these struggles, and at times even embody them; meanwhile, the settlements for power shaped the cultural forms so that li was no more distinct from the institutions and personnel that made up the Qing state than the state was from li. Both emerged simultaneously and constituted the Qing political system. The system, once formed, was then codified.29 The third argument is that the production of the administrative code in 1690 completed a phase in the institutionalization of authority. The rules and regulations that had formed over the past sixty years were put together as an integral set of normative practices that were socially and politically sanctioned and upheld with the force of punishment. In other words, it became law, and in this case particularly, administrative law, whereby the Huidian represented the culmination of the development of the administrative organization and its operating procedures.30 It is not the case that the Huidian was copied from previous dynasties, as conventionally understood, nor did Qing state-makers adopt the administrative apparatus of the fallen and then vanquished Ming. Rather, politics were constructed anew out of the political struggles and cultural contexts of the Manchus, and the Huidian reflected the emergent settlements over state structure and political power that actors had waged. Not until the state had stabilized and was rendered secure against both internal contestation and external threats, could such a text be produced, for it expressed not simply a normative command but the institutional and imaginative arrangements of society, where political action became socially sanctioned and legal articulation had binding force as a political ethic. This was the case precisely because contestants had already internalized the political and social order. Thereafter, routine politics and internal conflict could not easily challenge the structural arrangements of authority.31 These three interrelated arguments are derived from the documentary record of the period. An exhaustive survey of Chinese- and Manchu-language court records, memorials, edicts, regulations, and legal codes reveals an overwhelming concern with li as distinct from military and administrative matters. From roughly 1631 to 1690, monarchs, ministers, state-makers, and contenders concerned them-

Introduction

11

selves not just with questions of military maneuvers and state offices, but also with how to establish authority, construct legitimacy, and secure compliance. They invoked and spoke frequently about li and discussed the scope and limitations of politics. This is evident in early Manchu-language court records and memorials to Hong Taiji, which were put in narrative form in the Dorgon-era draft of the Shilu, or Veritable Records, of Hong Taiji’s reign.32 Further, much of the sixty-year period under consideration here was filled with rule-making efforts to guarantee the settlements of power and obviate abuses of the emergent system. It is thus not surprising to find the largest section of the Huidian devoted to the activities and practices of the Board of Rites. To the student of Chinese history what is most useful about these regulations is that they are both prescriptive for the organization and activities of the political actors, as well as descriptive of developments and precedents.33 Such sources help answer questions about political discipline and investiture that conventional state-making theory and analysis do not address. Within these documents, it becomes clear that in organizing politics and political relations, li furnished state-makers with a means to resolve key problems of authority and legitimacy. A word about what this study is not. This inquiry and the sources that drive it point to the workings of the Qing political system, not the disciplining of the individual body or psyche. At root, this study is concerned with understanding the practices of the Qing political system, how they arose, and why the system worked the way that it did. The subject here is the rules and regulations that comprise the Qing political order, not the individual actor subjected to the system and its rules.34 Even if evidence existed for a type of Foucauldian analysis of the individual within a disciplinarian regime, such an approach is beyond the purview of this study.35 Rather than individual response to disciplinary practices, the inquiry here is concentrated on the emergence and institutionalization of a stable and effective regime that guided all political and social actors for over two and a half centuries. Individuals are part of the story insofar as attention is paid to the choices they made in constructing the practices of the system, how some interacted with the system during its emergence, and the extent that others used and shaped it once in operation. W HAT I S L I A N D HOW D I D I T WO R K ?

Before entering the world of the early Manchus and the formation of the Qing state, the question of li and how it worked must first be addressed. Often translated as “ritual” or “rites,” li has long been understood as the organizational principle of moral and social action in China.36 As early as the Western Zhou (1045–772 BCE), ceremonial and ritual practices in annual sacrifice and daily comportment emerged both to segregate elite from commoner and to distinguish civilized from barbarian. In the age of the Hundred Schools (sixth to third centuries BCE),

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Confucius placed li at the center of his teachings, emphasizing proper practice and ritual observance as the cornerstone to navigating human relations and social cohesion. Around the third century BCE, Xunzi refined the concept, giving it an institutional form that subsequently served as the inspiration for the organization and operation of the imperial state from the Han onward.37 At the most basic level, li was a means of social and political organization and comportment. It organized social hierarchies through a system of ranks with clear delineations for promotion and demotion, as well as honorary labeling and titling. This organizational scheme was complemented by practices that included ceremonial rites, greetings, welcoming, banqueting, annual observations and celebrations, and political meetings and negotiations. More than just a collection of random events and activities that were referred to with a common term, however, these things all shared certain attributes: They brought people together, occurred regularly and in the same way at various intervals, remained fixed in format and often formalized, and involved hierarchy. In this way, li served to create a particular kind of social order and facilitate interpersonal interactions. An eighteenth-century compendium put it this way: “Through li, [the positions of] superiors and inferiors are fixed, intimate and distant separated; Heaven is served above and Earth below; ancestors are respected, and sovereigns and teachers are glorified. . . . In the end, li is what distinguishes humans from beasts.”38 Working from this basic definition cast by Chinese thinkers and officials, modern-day scholars have come to understand li in one of five different ways: as ritual, cosmology, social order, law, or administrative order.39 None of these interpretations are exclusive of the other, and scholars working within one interpretation make the case for understanding that particular aspect of li over others as the core of li, orienting their investigation and analysis accordingly. For example, those works that equate li to ritual will acknowledge aspects of li that appeal to cosmology and social order but cast these characteristics in terms of ritual activity, whereas those scholars that emphasize cosmology will interpret the ceremonies accordingly. Of these different categorizations of li, those that gloss it as ritual or rites are the most prevalent—most plausibly the result of an influential school of anthropology which conceives of ritual as social order.40 The construction of li as the basis of law in imperial China has also been frequently employed, especially by scholars in search of an understanding of China’s peculiar legal development.41 What has not received much attention is how political institutions, practices, and norms fit together as a complete system that informed politics and administrative activity. Often noted by scholars merely in passing, or stressed by means of rich quotations but lacking further substance, this aspect of li has yet to be explored and revealed in the detail it merits.42 The analytical emphasis of this book on li as politics emerges organically from primary source materials on seventeenth-century state-formation. Documents

Introduction

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show early Qing rulers and officials speaking frequently of li in political terms and in direct reference to administrative order and political relations. Rather than the philosophical logic of previous Chinese thinkers, who might cast li in terms of metaphysics or cosmology, Qing state-makers often sought to situate their political reality in a conception of li as an administrative ideal. What the emperor should wear, for example, or how he should interact with his ministers, was informed by given concepts and practices derived from li. At the same time, these same statemakers reshaped political relations and practices as a recast prescription of li. In struggles for power with his brothers, for example, Hong Taiji recrafted ceremonies to subjugate some actors and elevate others; and he called it li. In other words, in the act of political contestation and state-building, state-makers were both informed by li and wielded it as a tool to shape relations of politics and power. Here li was simultaneously a normative description of political relations, and a device for political struggle—it was both a concept and an instrument. In the course of the Manchu state-building process, the organization of politics and its operating principles were cast in terms of li. These terms were articulated and enforced by the Board of Rites and then codified as administrative law in the Huidian. This defined what could and could not be done in the political environment fixing rewards and punishments for complying or deviating from those rules, and constructing a community of political actors that accepted the norms. Here the imposed practices of li help determine the range of the organizational response. As taken up fully in chapter 6, the Qing imperial relatives, after being empowered by the ascendancy of their patron, Hong Taiji, quickly found themselves constrained by their positions in the political hierarchy and the norms, rules, and practices attached to those positions—that is, li. Similarly, administrative officials worked tirelessly for recognition and promotion, coveting their positions and the advantages attached to those positions. As discussed in chapter 5, they took great offense when others donned the wrong clothing, greeted one in a manner incongruent with his rank, or stood out of place in a ceremony. It was not uncommon for personal denunciations over these issues to become so emotionally charged that physical confrontation and fistfights broke out. The form, application, and practices of li aided in the creation of a system of domination—where domination is not the imposition of wills but rather the construction of institutional constraints and the guiding of opportunity. Such analysis goes beyond the legitimizing function of li, as enunciated by some historians, and greatly complicates the equation of li as the constitution of political and social power, a position maintained by other scholars.43 Rather, li must be seen as an expression of what Steven Lukes refers to as three-dimensional power, or the ability to secure consent to domination of willing subjects, where “those subject to it are led to acquire beliefs and form desires that result in their consenting or adapting to being dominated, in coercive and non-coercive settings.”44 To understand

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how this worked in Qing China, and why it worked the way that it did, it is imperative to look at the particularities of li in the Qing. RETHINKING LI IN THE QING

There is a misconception about li still pervasive in our historiography. This misconception renders li a Chinese cultural concept possessed of a timeless form. Beguiled by such a notion, scholars often analyze li as a singular idea or static practices that was employed by rulers and state-makers from the Han to the Qing. Such a position also bolsters the claim that the adoption of li helped Sinicize conquest dynasties. This assumption has led to analyses emphasizing the philosophical logic behind li and the roots of particular practices of li, often by drawing it back to origins and initial articulations in early China.45 While this scholarship retains value, as it affords us a richer understanding of Chinese states and the logic of the forms of symbolic power and ritual acts, it overlooks the reality of the indeterminacy of the practices of li and the constantly shifting cultural landscape in imperial China. What was extraordinary about the Qing was not that state-makers emphasized li as the basis of political order—for this was the case of nearly all imperial formations in premodern China—but rather how they transformed the various practices of li in the construction of a distinct political system that could conquer and rule a vast multiethnic empire at the heart of the early modern world. In this way, the specific practices of li must be separated analytically from the general concept. In the Qing, there were three key changes in the practices of li: the nature of sovereignty, the expansion of rule, and the composition of the political order.46 Historians have outlined many of these transformations, especially as characteristics of the Qing as a multiethnic empire that developed new institutions and innovated in governing practice. The focus of much of this literature has been on political or military institutions, however, without proper recognition of the significance of li. For example, the role and practices of the emperor, the extension of rule over new territory and peoples, the balance of increasingly complex and diverse sets of political actors—everything the Qing experienced in the early and middle years of the dynasty—are not simply disconnected aspects of disparate trends; they are, in fact, all linked to transformations in state practice and political culture. The first shift in li was an increase in the position and power of the sovereign. Changes in the conceptions and practices of li in the Qing helped strengthen the patrimonial state, where the ruler’s authority is personal and his household established for political administration.47 For example, a shift in the concept of social relations occurred in the Qing, where loyalty to the sovereign in the ruler-minister relationship was emphasized and then standardized at the expense of filial piety, or the father-son relationship. Whereas competing loyalties of an official to his sover-

Introduction

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eign and his parents framed ideas and conduct in previous dynasties, and the Ming even made a point of placing the father-son relation before the ruler-minister relation, the Qing emphasized the primacy of the ruler-minister relation over the father-son relation. This became manifest in mourning rites, or the proper li upon the death of one’s parents. In the Ming, the standard was for an official to take leave of office for three years while he mourned his dead parents; during this time, his behavior was subject to regulations like wearing certain clothes or prohibitions against remarriage. Ming Taizu outlawed the practice of duoqing, or mourning while in office, and demanded the upholding of proper filial relations. This shifted in the Qing, at first slowly, as the Kangxi emperor allowed then encouraged duoqing on a case-by-case basis in his communications with his officials, before it became instituted as regular practice by the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors in the eighteenth century. The effect was a transformation of the meaning of li, both in terms of the conception of proper relations and the customs of mourning.48 A new emphasis on such practices in the Qing put the administration in direct service of the emperor as a kind of heightened patrimonialism, whereby the Qing emphasized loyalty and service to the emperor at the expense of an ideal of a moral standard. The second change was the use of li to integrate different social groups. In an ethnically homogenous Han-Chinese dynasty like the Ming, li meant adherence to a particular interpretation of the classics along with ethnic exclusivity in the social hierarchies.49 The composition of the Qing state, however, included other ethnic groups with an expanded jurisdiction to embrace surrounding states. Evelyn Rawski argues that the Qing was successful in its enterprise because of its flexibility and capacity to accommodate other, non-Han cultures. She shows how Manchu institutions, including state ritual, were built around Inner Asian cultural practices and traditions.50 An apt symbolic expression of this phenomenon was in military rituals, which were reconfigured through Inner Asian traditions. Ritual inspection of the troops, for example, saw the emperor donning a ceremonial helmet with Sanskrit inscriptions, the use of a Mongol horn in addition to the usual conch shell, and a display of horse riding and archery skill.51 This all expressed what Mark Elliott calls “ethnic sovereignty,” defined as, “the special position of the Manchu emperor at the apex of a universal empire composed of multiple hierarchies of lordship based on differing types of authority.”52 In terms of foreign affairs, this meant transforming li from an exclusive practice of keeping foreign states at arm’s length to one of integrating them into the Qing empire. To this end, the Qing conducted intimate “guest rituals” (binli) that were hierarchical in nature and placed the Qing emperor in a position of supreme ruler vis-a-vis the lesser rulers of the periphery. Li here entailed receiving the rulers of foreign states, and proceeded from distinct Qing notions of rulership and the inclusion of surrounding territories in the purview of the Qing imperial system.

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Operating in this mode, James Hevia writes, “Qing rulers were fundamentally concerned with claims about the proper way of constituting supreme lordship in a world made up of a multitude of lords and multiple centers of power.”53 During the ceremony, the emperor would bestow grace upon the lesser ruler, giving him things like clothing, jade scepters, his own calligraphy, calendars, or food. The lesser ruler would offer items in return, including his family genealogy, products of his country, and appreciation for the imperial grace. Furthermore, the dress, speech, and gestures of the visiting ruler adhered to an interpretation of Qing li that would manifest his loyalty to the Qing emperor. The result was that the peripheral country was encompassed.54 The third general change in li involved the composition and organization of the administrative apparatus. In contrast to previous Chinese states, like the Song and Ming, the Qing integrated their imperial relatives into the political order, assigning them ranks and positions and employing them in office. This effectively diluted the professional bureaucratic-scholar elite, infiltrating it with members of the imperial family.55 These imperial relatives were of higher rank than the professional bureaucrats, however, forcing a refashioning of the hierarchy, the ranks, and the codes of conduct, comportment, and dress associated with the positions.56 In addition to introducing a new social class into the administration, Qing state-makers employed different ethnic groups, further necessitating changes in those aspects of li pertaining to the organization of the administration, hierarchy, and legal codes. Consider the fact that there were three distinct administrations in the Qing: the civil, Eight Banners, and Imperial Household Department. All three of these levels of organization not only interacted but were deeply intertwined. In 1713, for example, the celebration of Emperor Kangxi’s sixtieth birthday was performed by the garrison general and lieutenant generals of the Eight Banner bureaucracy together with the governor-general and governor of the civil bureaucracy. Similarly, when a garrison general returned from imperial celebrations in Beijing that year, the lieutenant general and governor-general went together to greet him at a certain prescribed distance outside the gates of Xi’an.57 Here the defining of political positions of these different bureaucracies, as well as the codes of interaction in the Qing hierarchy, could not rely on the old practice of li but had to be rewritten. This exploration of major changes in the practices and institution of li in the Qing illustrates not only the indeterminate nature of li but also how it worked to shape the form of domination in Qing. The general issues of authority, legitimization, and discipline took a particular shape in the Qing to address the need to situate the sovereign both in a hierarchical sociopolitical organization and amid the powerful interests of his relatives. Furthermore, the Qing was a multiethnic empire with diverse ethnic groups and political actors integrated into the political system. Qing state-makers here made a concerted effort to maintain ethnic distinctions, cultures, and practices, and the Qing institution of li helped do this, not by impos-

Introduction

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ing a singular form of the Chinese past, as is often erroneously understood, but by redefining the political order and rewriting the formal practices of politics.58 T H E B OA R D O F R I T E S

The organization in charge of regulating and implementing li was the Board of Li.59 More commonly known in English as the Board of Rites (as it will be referred to throughout this book), this central bureaucratic organ was responsible for drawing up regulations and putting into practice the abstract notions and ideals of li. In ritual activity, this included assigning and overseeing all state rites and ceremonies— such events required precise preparations and special knowledge, after all. This began with the choosing of the correct date on which the ceremony or ritual would be held—New Year’s Day or the Winter Solstice were not arbitrary dates, for example, but involved exact calibration. Furthermore, days before the scheduled event, the halls had to be prepared, the throne installed, banners erected, ritual implements put in place, and sacrificial foods procured. On the day of any given event people had to be instructed on what to do—officials had to be told at which gate to congregate and wait, the emperor on when to make his entry, and the honored and ranked personnel at what point to come forth and perform their kowtows. Banquets had to be prepared, animals slaughtered for sacrifice, and wine poured. The task of organizing and supervising all this work fell to the Board of Rites. No less importantly, the Board recorded all activity, creating precedent and establishing knowledge that would shape future iterations. As one of the six ministerial-level administrative organizations, the Board of Rites was under the Grand Secretariat, and its senior officials could memorialize the emperor, which Qing board presidents did regularly. Initially, upon the establishment in 1631 of the Qing administration, the younger brothers and nephews of the new khan, Hong Taiji, were put at the head of the six boards.60 Hong Taiji confidant Sahaliyan was the first president of the Board of Rites. From the record, he appears to have had no special training or knowledge of li, ritual, or ceremony that would have made him particularly eligible for this position. In fact, none of the presidents or vice presidents assigned to the Board of Rites in the Qing possessed any unique skill set that distinguished them as especially fit for the post; rather, appointments were granted to capable officials or personnel based on rank and broad merit, not expertise. Some certainly had an understanding of li. Take for example one of the first vice presidents of the Board of Rites, Li Bolong. A Han Chinese appointed by Hong Taiji when the boards were set up in 1631, Li ostensibly had been a Ming subject and may have served in office, although we know nothing of his background.61 The first mention of Li Bolong in the documentary evidence from the Ming or Qing is his intervention in Manchu discussions on the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony,

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where he briefed the inner political council on the proper procedures and positioning for the ceremony.62 Similarly, the permanent personnel in the various divisions of the Board of Rites were hired with a specialized knowledge of their posts. The ritual specialists and ceremonial musicians of the Board of Rites, for example, were often drawn from the class of Daoist priests.63 There is also a reference from the early Kangxi period of a call sent out to the provinces to recruit diviners to staff the office of the astronomer.64 Apart from such random references, however, there is little material to help us understand the hiring practices of personnel into the boards. It does seem plausible, however, that in the same way that yamen clerks acquired an expertise, the people staffing the permanent posts in the Board of Rites came to learn their duties and acquire an intimate knowledge of the ritual.65 The Board of Rites and the five other administrative boards—collectively known as the six boards—took form in the sixth century, and by the Tang had assumed the general structure, name, and duties that the Qing would model. These were the boards of personnel, revenue, rites, war, punishments, and works (here listed in hierarchical order, as manifest in the position of the board presidents in line in ceremony).66 The duties of these six boards can be characterized very generally across dynasties in the following way: the Board of Personnel (Libu) was charged with making administrative appointments, evaluating the bureaucracy, and making recommendations of promotions and demotions; the Board of Revenue (Hubu) collected taxes and conducted population censuses and cadastral surveys; the Board of Rites regulated hierarchies, held annual ceremonies and rituals, hosted the civil examinations, managed foreign affairs, and looked after foreign guests; the Board of War (Bingbu) oversaw army personnel and supplies; the Board of Punishments (Xingbu) administered criminal cases and formed legal code; and the Board of Works (Gongbu) undertook palace construction and civil engineering projects, such as the Grand Canal.67 The Board of Rites evolved in form and function throughout successive dynasties. Its main duties in the Tang were to supervise state sacrifices and rituals, and for these duties it had a full staff of ritual officials. In the Song, due to the internal politics and the structure of the Song state, the president of the Board of Rites took on greater administrative responsibility, while the Yuan turned it into a ceremonial office, restricting it to the oversight of religious practices. Despite these changes in practice across these three dynasties, the chain of command remained the same: the six boards were under the control of the Department of State Affairs (shangshu sheng), which was under the Prime Minister (zaixiang). The boards here were two steps removed from the emperor and reported directly to the Department of State Affairs. This made them more like bureaucratic operations with little political capacity or policy-making capability.68 The Ming reformed the role and responsibilities of the Board of Rites. Foremost, the Board of Rites, along with the six boards as a whole, began reporting

Introduction

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directly to the emperor rather than through the Department of State Affairs and Prime Minister. This was a result of Ming Taizu overhauling the chain of command and abrogating the position of prime minister. The boards could now memorialize the emperor and had the power to make policy.69 This new administrative power also came with greater responsibility. Under the Ming, the Board of Rites began to take on a more intimate role in the dealings with the emperor and inner court affairs. Ming Taizu placed the Court of Imperial Sacrifices under the jurisdiction of the Board of Rites, charging it with the duty of holding worship and sacrifice for the imperial family in addition to public sacrifice and ceremony. Furthermore, all entertainment duties, including music and dance, were folded into the Board of Rites, as was oversight and regulation of local sacrifice and worship.70 Ming Taizu’s vision of social and political order drove these changes, and served as the common orientation for the activities of the Board of Rites. In establishing the Ming dynasty, Taizu faced three fundamental challenges: legitimizing his conquest and the new regime, attracting capable people into service of the state, and promoting imperial unity between the political structure of the state and the social order of the localities. Li functioned as one of the key mechanisms in meeting these challenges.71 The holding of state ceremonies and the construction of a discourse about Taizu and the Ming as inheritors of the Mandate of Heaven helped legitimize the new state; adherence to an annual ceremonial schedule and sacrificial practice also promoted the Ming as a Chinese state in contrast to the Mongol Yuan.72 The commitment to such ritual activities furthered the second goal of attracting scholar officials into service by showing them that the dynasty shared their interests in returning to the conduct and adherence to these state ceremonies and rituals. These people staffed the Board of Rites, among other boards, and were given the capacity to mold a political order through ritual practice.73 In addition to the political relations at the level of the state, ritual also informed social relations at the level of the locality. Through the regulation of local worship practices and lineage organization, the Board of Rites codified social relations and developed a standard of ritual practices throughout the Ming empire.74 The Qing reinvented the Board of Rites in accord with their immediate political circumstances. Foremost, the operations of the six boards under the Qing were initially more political. Established by Hong Taiji in 1631 as part of his effort to build a centralized administrative apparatus and monopolize political resources in the office of the sovereign, the Board of Rites, along with the other six boards, had a uniquely political function. The boards were employed in a process of undermining the banner lords and focusing administrative control in the person of the sovereign and his staff. This saw the employment of Hong Taiji supporters as the presidents of the boards, and, in comparison with their Ming counterparts, an increased capacity to wield political resources. Although their operations became more routinized over time, the boards continued to play a large part in the political

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operations of the dynasty, especially with Manchu presidents holding honorary ranks and titles. Moreover, the Qing Board of Rites had to deal with an entirely different political context than the Ming, or any other dynasty, and this was reflected in its operations. It had to handle the imperial relatives, which it did by categorizing, organizing, and regulating them through honors, ranks, and ritual prerogatives. Simultaneously, it had to employ rituals and ceremonies that projected the emperor and helped him monopolize political resources. There is no better indication of this than Hong Taiji himself articulating the duties of the Board of Rites as those of instilling and maintaining political order among the imperial relatives, military, and civil officials. The Board of Rites is to investigate the [imperial relatives] and officials for the following: causing trouble; negligence and idleness in their duties; engaging in drinking and sex, or partaking in games and pleasure; taking things from the common people or violating common women. In terms of li (doro), [the Board of Rites should go investigate] if they are being disrespectful of li (doro) and not wearing their ritual cap and gown. Even if they are at a ritual place or at the yamen as normal, [the Board of Rites should investigate] to ensure that they have the intention of working, or if they are making excuses of sickness to evade responsibility.75

The organizational orientation was reflected in ritual activity. Take for example the New Year’s Day ceremony, which is discussed in detail in chapter 3. The Ming designed their ceremony for that day on the premise of reinstating traditional Chinese ritual practices to meet the state-making challenges of legitimizing the dynasty over the Yuan Mongols and to attract scholar officials in service of the new state. The ceremony, therefore, was concerned with the proper staging and placing of actors, while the emperor had barely a role and not much of a presence throughout. Contrast this with the Qing ceremony, which emphasized the sovereign and the organization and movement of actors in reference and deference to him. This molded relations among the different ethnic groups, imperial relatives, and officials into a single political order with the emperor at the head. Here, Qing rulers, relatives, and officials actively changed, made up, and manipulated li in order to facilitate certain political effects. Even banqueting reflected this difference.76 Ming banquets organized political and military officials by rank at tables with various kinds and grades of foods placed in greater or lesser amounts according to the hierarchical order of the table. Here again the emperor had no role and but a minor place in the ritual.77 The Qing, by contrast, could not take for granted the structure of political power. With Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese officials and military personnel present, imperial relatives playing a disproportionate role in the new state, and foreign embassies often in attendance, discipline in rank and position had to be imposed and constantly reinforced—the banquet was no exception. Where the Ming banquet was con-

Introduction

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cerned with foods on tables, the Qing focused on the entering, exiting, and kowtowing of imperial relatives and officials. The Qing emperor was also ever present: arriving, ascending, consuming, and moving about.78 In this way, Qing ritual brought together political actors in structured interactions to create a particular order that incorporated groups of different backgrounds, cultures, and sociopolitical practices, and did so in the formation of a single inclusive organization of a stratified hierarchy with a sovereign at the focus. Where the Ming assumed the position of the sovereign, the Qing had to construct it.79 All this ensured that the work of li and the Board of Rites in the Qing were distinct, much as in the Ming. But whereas the Ming employed ritual and ceremony to create Chinese authority and legitimacy based on a notion of the past, the Qing used it as a platform to contest political control and position and to integrate political actors. The Qing use of what is often referred to as the “Ming model” was less one of copied institutions in form and function than of drawing upon similar tools for different needs in their state-making efforts. One concern of this book— the second argument—is to show why the li of the Qing took the form that it did.80 T H E Q I N G E M P I R E , O R W H Y I T M AT T E R S

The perspective on Qing state-formation presented in this book demands a reevaluation of fundamental questions about political culture and cultural change in late imperial China. The Qing was an early modern, multiethnic empire; it adhered to forms of politics and administrative organization referenced to Chinese practices and ideals. Given the latter phenomenon, until recently, scholars predominantly understood the Qing as a Chinese dynasty, whereby the Manchus, after launching an improbable military campaign, came to rely on Chinese literati to run their state. In this understanding, the Manchus became Sinicized.81 Although this view is still held and vociferously defended by some, many scholars today understand the Qing not as a discrete dynasty but rather as a vast territorial empire that was composed of many different ethnicities and had an imperial center that mobilized different ruling practices and techniques for different areas and peoples. In this view, the Manchus were not Chinese; rather, they were at the fulcrum of what is seen as a universal rulership, where Manchu sovereigns did not abandon their Manchu identity but rather enforced it through language, dress, textual projects, and military institutions and practices. For the Manchu rulers, therefore, the Han Chinese were just one part of the Qing empire—the core of it, perhaps, but not the definition of it—and Chinese political practices just one ruling technology among many.82 In both of these views, Chinese culture either inundates or is harnessed, but it always informs politics. The former position places the Qing in a long unbroken chain of China’s dynastic history, and is thus unable to account for the new type of

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empire that emerged in the early modern world. The latter position, on the other hand, compartmentalizes the overwhelming Chinese influence and works to either show the presence of other cultural forms, such as Manchu or Tibetan, or chart the implementation and influence of non-Chinese institutions, such as the Eight Banners. Historians have convincingly made the case for the latter, but they still grapple with the fact that Chinese personnel and practices structured the state and informed almost all of life in the Qing, from political communications to community funerals.83 This book addresses this problem by illuminating the appropriation and transformation of administrative practices and political culture. It recognizes the indeterminacy of politics and culture, thereby shifting the focus from both Chineseness writ-large and particular institutions to the developmental forms that emerged. This approach enables a charting of the implementation of li and its transformation to reveal not something necessarily Chinese (whatever that might mean), but rather the character of the Qing empire. This shows not that the Qing reproduced Chinese political culture and practice, nor that some aspects of the state and politics were employed selectively in different areas of the empire, but rather that Qing statemakers reimagined political culture and built anew political institutions to run a multiethnic empire. Although state-makers drew upon existing cultural and political forms, the Qing state was its own development (not a continuation or modeling of the Ming) constructed in the mid-seventeenth century in response to political and cultural demands. To put it another way, what emerged to structure politics was a new political culture that shifted emphasis to the position of the emperor, the role of the imperial relatives, and integration of different political and ethnic actors. This tinkering, as Kent Guy aptly terms it, resulted in much more than minor tweaks to the late imperial political system; it ended up restructuring political order and administrative practices in a manner that laid the basis for empire in the early modern world.84

The chapters that follow explain how all this came to be. They chart the decades spanning the approximate time from the establishment of the six boards in 1631 through the consolidation of territory and the publication of the first administrative code in 1690, showing that Qing state-makers did more than just wage war and build a bureaucracy, as traditional narratives emphasize. Equally important was the wave of rule-making and implementation of disciplinary measures to centralize and legitimize power, construct and institutionalize authority, determine and define the position of the sovereign, and organize diverse political actors by shaping their behaviors and responses. Here, not only were rules, regulations, and laws articulated and promulgated, but also people were made to accept and invest in them.85 All this occurred simultaneously amid ongoing struggles for power, first

Introduction

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over ideas about the state, and then, once that battle had been won, over political position and the control of political resources. In fact, the two processes cannot be separated from each other: the building of the state in both military and administrative form, and the construction of practices and institutions to secure the compliance of political actors. This book details the intertwined process.

2

The Manchu Ascendancy and Struggles for Power

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, disparate groups of seminomadic and nonintensive agrarian peoples living in northeastern Eurasia began to organize under a charismatic leader. As military successes mounted, they combined with settled-agrarian Chinese, began to call themselves Manchus, and went on to form one of the largest land-based empires in the early modern world, the Qing, which ruled China and parts of Inner Asia from 1636 to 1912. Despite this astounding trajectory, the Qing state was no foregone conclusion. Early state-makers and power seekers fought among themselves, not just for the right to dominate others but also over the structure of the organization and composition of social groups. Internal struggles for power were predicated on two different ideas about the future of society: either a Manchu khanate that ruled the peoples of the northeastern forests and steppe, or an expansive empire that conquered and then held and administered territory. The former posited a society mobilized for war through socio-military units and an economy built on pillage and plunder, trade, small-scale agriculture, and foraging. The latter, in sharp contrast, sought an agrarian tax-office state with civil and military bureaucracies, supported by agricultural surpluses extracted from a peasant population. In this latter paradigm, territory would be integrated rather than sacked, and populations would be incorporated rather than killed or enslaved. The second conception would eventually win out, but it required both political struggle and the construction of a new system of domination. As contests for naked power intensified, state-makers drew upon the immediate cultural and political practices and institutions at hand to aid their fight and legitimize their acts and commands. It was not the case that power in its raw form was first con24

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tested and won, and only once the dust had settled did the victor import forms of legitimization to justify his position and command. On the contrary, life-anddeath struggle necessitated ongoing justification, not just for the combatants but for all political actors, where much of the effort entailed constructing authority and laying the groundwork for institutionalization and eventually empire. This chapter charts the early Manchu struggles for power and outlines the stakes. B E G I N N I N G S : N U R HAC I

The peoples who would later come to be known as Manchu were formerly called Jurchens (see figure 1).1 Grouped in seminomadic and sedentary clans, they had long lived in northeastern Eurasia, and in the twelfth century founded the Jin state (1115–1234). Dwelling in villages and organized into clans and sub-clans, they relied upon hunting, fishing, husbandry, and migratory agriculture. They also gathered pearls and ginseng, which, along with furs, they traded at border markets. During the Ming, Jurchen chiefs acquired titles and trading patents that gave them access to Chinese markets and allowed them to pay tribute to Beijing. There they traded items such as horses, furs, wild foodstuffs, and pearls for grains, livestock, silk, textiles, and iron tools. In the sixteenth century, weakening tribal and clan cohesion led to internal political and social unrest, creating opportunities for military entrepreneurs. Under these conditions, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, the future founder of the Manchu state, got his start. Nurhaci was born in 1559. He initially made his living collecting ginseng to sell on the Chinese market. He lived with a Ming general in Fushun for a time and there learned Chinese and studied military history and strategy. When intra-tribal feuding among the Jurchens drew in Ming forces and led to the death of his father and grandfather at the hands of the Chinese, Nurhaci picked up arms and swore revenge. He set about sacking towns and gathering men and territory. He formed alliances with the Mongols, and by 1619 he had conquered or subdued most of the Jurchen tribes, creating a powerful military federation. In addition to military capabilities, Nurhaci further distinguished himself from other local khans by constructing a political community and making persuasive internal claims of legitimization as the arbitrator of that community. The obtaining of external validation in the form of honors and patents from the Ming and Mongols furthered these claims.2 Nurhaci’s capacity to unite and conquer was founded upon an ingenious organization of autonomous military units called banners. As he began to absorb other tribes and military strongmen in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Nurhaci took to dividing them into companies (niru) headed by a commander (ejen). Several companies were joined together to form a banner (gūsa), named for the flags they would fly. Conquered or surrendered tribes were usually kept

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figure 1 . Late Ming depiction of a Jurchen from the “Jurchen country” (Nüzhen guo). Sancai tuhui (1609), renwu 12.4b.

together as a company or folded into an existing company as a unit, and their tribal chief was given the designation of commander. This method preserved the existing social organization and allowed new men and their families to be easily absorbed and their capacities to fight utilized. This method afforded a great degree of flexibility, and facilitated the quick expansion of men and territory. Initially there were four banners, each flying a different color—yellow, white, red, and blue.

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As the number of men grew, this was expanded to eight, with the four new additions receiving colors based on the original four but with colored borders, and referred to as bordered colors (e.g., bordered yellow). Nurhaci’s operation continued to expand, and he worked to centralize authority and set up institutions for rule. In 1613, he appointed five grand ministers (sunja amban) to advise in governing and to help formulate policy. He further set up a justice system consisting of ten judges who would try cases and refer their decisions to the ministers; these, in turn, would submit recommendations to Nurhaci. Nurhaci then held court every five days to review the findings. Around this time, he also restructured the banners to standardize the numbers and accommodate the influx of men. A company consisted of around three hundred men; five companies formed a regiment (jalan); five regiments formed a banner led by a commander (ejen), who was assisted by two vice commanders (meiren i ejen). A single banner lord would be in charge of the entire banner, running it as his own property with allegiances to the khan. In these early years, the banner lords were the sons and a nephew of Nurhaci. As his conquests multiplied and territory increased, Nurhaci moved to assert central control over the banners. Despite his leadership, and the widespread recognition of Nurhaci as khan, the banner lords still had a high degree of military and economic autonomy and ran the banners like their own fiefdoms. This allowed them to set their own agenda and move freely, with only minimal obligation or links to the khan. They did not need to take orders from the khan or defer to him on matters of strategy or internal discipline and organization. Apprehensive of this autonomy, and desiring a more cohesive organization, in the early 1620s Nurhaci installed his own officials in each of the banners. He appointed a censor, two judges, and four officials to each of them. His instructions to these appointments was, on pain of death, to “remind [the banner lords] of state laws.”3 Moreover, Nurhaci moved to take agricultural laborers off banner estates, effectively depriving the banners of the capacity to cultivate land and supply themselves. He further revised distribution practices so that all war spoils would be divided equally among banners rather than according to contribution or looting capacity. This ensured equality among the banners and allowed Nurhaci to maintain control over each as khan. It is doubtful that Nurhaci harbored any intention to conquer the Ming and set up a Chinese-style dynasty.4 Economic pressures and the Ming closing of border markets forced him into open hostilities with the Ming, however, and the issuing of seven grievances in 1618 seemed to indicate that he held some notion of attacking the Ming and extending territorial control in the northeast. This began with the conquest and occupation of Ming-controlled areas of the Liaodong peninsula. A contracting economy and the need to continue to supply his followers with food and booty forced southward incursion and eventual administration over settled

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agrarian Chinese. The occupation of arable land and agrarian producers brought with it new challenges, however, not only in governing, but also in the integration of the polity. Most immediately was the administration of more territory and people of settled agrarian culture and practice, who differed from nomadic and seminomadic tribes that upheld personal loyalties and a socio-military form of life. Where sedentary subjects had been at one time enslaved or killed, Nurhaci began a practice of leaving them on their land and extracting agrarian surpluses. When sacking Fushun in 1618, for example, Nurhaci issued promises to the Chinese population that they would not be harmed, but rather allowed to continue their ways of life unmolested. Not everyone agreed with his strategy, however. Most of the banner lords and generals did not share this vision of Nurhaci, as sources show them frequently opposing his forays into state-building. When shifting the center of operations closer to China and establishing a capital, for example, Nurhaci faced refractory banner lords and called on them to “Look at the larger picture of establishing the great enterprise.”5 Despite Nurhaci’s efforts, these men still ran their banners as semiautonomous lords, where their immediate interest was obtaining wealth and influence through warfare. Their positions were invested not in Nurhaci’s governing institutions, but rather in their ability to reward their men. They acted in ways consistent with traditional clan practices, where obligations might be paid to the khan, but independence was maintained by keeping the khan at arm’s length. When Nurhaci died it was inevitable that they would contest for position and power—a succession struggle was not unusual in Inner Asian politics, after all. What was unusual was the direction that the informal organization of semiautonomous socio-military units would take. HO N G TA I J I A N D T H E ST RU G G L E F O R P OW E R

Internal struggle was endemic to the Manchus. The nature of the problem was rooted in a shared political culture with the nomadic and seminomadic peoples of Inner Asia. This culture included a tradition of a supra-tribal leader, or khan, who wielded authority and commanded collective military forces. Struggles over the position of khan often led to tribal wars and internecine feuds. Once a victor emerged and a khan was established, the conflict transitioned to struggles among relatives for succession, a phenomenon that Joseph Fletcher termed “bloody tanistry.”6 Typically, the sons of the khan positioned themselves for battle against brothers, uncles, cousins, and anyone who could legitimately make a claim to the throne. Even before the khan died, a violent struggle among the imperial relatives might break out in an attempt to be first in line to claim the mantle of khan or even prematurely oust him.7 This began with Nurhaci, to be sure. In the process of his rise to ascendancy, he killed his brother Šurhaci and two of his sons, thereby eliminating the immediate

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relatives who might challenge his power.8 Nurhaci’s eldest son, Cuyen, was designated heir, which quickly led to the machinations of the other sons, namely, Hong Taiji, Daišan, Manggūltai, and their cousin Amin, who conspired to have Cuyen confined and executed in 1615. With Cuyen displaced, the path was now open for the four leading relatives to strive among themselves. Amin was immediately sidelined due to his status as the son of the disgraced brother. Daišan stood next in line as the eldest surviving son of Nurhaci, but an illicit affair with one of Nurhaci’s wives in 1620 diminished his chances. Nurhaci divorced that wife, who was the mother of Manggūltai, ensuring that Manggūltai could not legitimately win support in his bid. This left Hong Taiji as the logical successor (figure 2). But despite the circumstances, it was clear that no one was going to willingly step aside and watch an uncontested coronation. Foreseeing a violent struggle, Nurhaci set up a governing council in the early 1620s and made the four swear to rule together. Although they took such an oath, when Nurhaci died in 1626, Hong Taiji quickly assembled his supporters and, against the wishes of the other three challengers, declared himself khan. Nurhaci’s attempts to thwart all-out struggle among his sons had failed.9 The Senior Relatives As Nurhaci’s eighth son, Hong Taiji had the political and military support to hold the position, but his grasp was tenuous. His immediate problem lay in the initial challengers, namely, his two brothers and his cousin. They were known as the senior relatives.10 Unless they could be brought under control, Hong Taiji’s authority would constantly run up against limitations, and his ability to wield political resources constrained. Hu Gongming, a Chinese official employed in the Bordered Red Banner, warned Hong Taiji of the dangers of the relatives and the need to concentrate power into himself as the sovereign.11 “The emperor does not tolerate the relatives and the relatives do not tolerate the emperor,” he memorialized to Hong Taiji. “No matter the affair, you will always encounter opposition. Although you are khan in name, the reality is that you are no different than the leader of the Yellow Banners!” This last statement indicates that he had no more authority or control than any of the other banner leaders even if he held the title of khan. Such a situation, he warned, would lead to a contest over the future of the state and the control of territory. “It is like ten sheep and nine shepherds,” he said, “the troops are strong, can enter the pass, and take the central plains [i.e., China], but I see that within a few years there will be chaos and division. One cannot rule.”12 Thus warned, Hong Taiji took action. Over the next ten years, he methodically killed or neutralized his challengers. The first was his cousin Amin, the most hostile, though least threatening, challenger. In terms of seniority, Amin was the second-highest ranking relative, but as the son of Nurhaci’s deposed brother, Amin had neither the lineage nor the political support to legitimately challenge Hong

figure 2 . Posthumous portrait of Hong Taiji (1592–1643), who sidelined his kin to emerge as ruler in 1627. He declared the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1636. Palace Museum, Beijing. Wikimedia Commons.

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Taiji for position. He thus told Hong Taiji that he would accept his coronation as khan if he, Amin, could take his banner and go live on the “outer frontier”—a proposal that Hong Taiji immediately rejected on grounds that the emerging state would fall apart.13 The tension did not end there. In 1627, while on campaign to Korea, Amin pillaged towns against explicit orders to leave them untouched. A few years later, he again disobeyed orders and slaughtered Chinese villagers in Yongping. He further claimed imperial-like rights that Hong Taiji was attempting to monopolize, such as diplomatic communication with Mongol allies, creating marriage alliances with a Mongol clan, and holding ceremonial events befitting a khan. He also allegedly told others he dreamt of a yellow snake come to protect him from Hong Taiji. Armed with sufficient evidence to sway opinion in 1631, Hong Taiji leveled charges of sixteen crimes against him, including disrespect and insubordination, then had him tried and convicted. Amin was jailed and died in confinement in 1640. His Bordered Blue banner was given to his younger brother Jirgalang, an ardent Hong Taiji supporter.14 Hong Taiji’s elder brother, Manggūltai, fared only slightly better. The fifth son of Nurhaci, and commander of the Plain Blue banner, Manggūltai was probably Hong Taiji’s biggest threat, and certainly saw himself deserving of a comparable position. He fought alongside his father in early battles, and distinguished himself in successful attacks on Ming forces throughout the Liaodong peninsula. Even under Hong Taiji, he carried out successful raids south of the Great Wall. In 1631, however, Manchu forces suffered heavy casualties in the conquest of Dalinghe, a key Ming stronghold, and Hong Taiji accused Manggūltai of failing to offer assistance in the battle. On the receiving end of what he thought unjust reproach for the movement of troops, Manggūltai angrily retorted in protest, “It is as if you wished to have me killed!” In a rage, he drew his small sword against Hong Taiji, only to be restrained by his brother Degelei. Although the immediate tension dissipated, Hong Taiji demoted him and assessed a heavily punitive fine. Two years later he died in battle, and shortly thereafter was posthumously accused of harboring designs against Hong Taiji, which led to further demotion and the confiscation of his banner from his descendants.15 The last senior relative that Hong Taiji had to deal with was Daišan. Although he was eldest surviving son of Nurhaci, he was the least capable and of a weaker personality and charisma than his brothers. As noted above, he had an illicit affair with one of his father’s concubines, over which he lost favor not just with Nurhaci but among other political actors as well. Recognizing the weakness of his position, he appears to have sided completely with Hong Taiji from the beginning and continued to back him to the end. The documentary evidence shows Daišan consistently assuming a passive role in the face of conflict, and always opting for the line of least resistance in negotiation and argument. Still, he commanded both the Plain Red and Bordered Red Banners under Nurhaci, and gave his eldest son, Yoto,

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the Bordered Red when Hong Taiji came to power. He held the highest rank of beile, and occupied an important position on the joint council, which lent him considerable weight in swaying opinion. Such advantageous position kept him under the watchful eye of Hong Taiji, despite his support: When Daišan advocated turning back from a Beijing campaign in order to attack the Chahar Mongols, Hong Taiji lashed out and brought charges against him. Daišan was later pardoned by Hong Taiji in a further assertion of the latter’s authority over life and death. The Junior Relatives The sons of the senior relatives and the younger sons of Nurhaci helped Hong Taiji overcome his challengers. Often referred to as the junior relatives, these men appear throughout the documentary evidence toward the end of Nurhaci’s rule and early in Hong Taiji’s.16 They become more prominent in the materials from the 1630s, and then emerge in the documents as the next generation of leaders vying for power among themselves. While a complete list of exactly who they all were remains out of reach, various appearances in mentions of the joint council give an indication of this group.17 For example, at the ceremony solemnizing the ascension of Hong Taiji, in addition to the presence of the three senior relatives, Amin, Daišan, and Manggūltai, the following were also in attendance: Abatai, Degelei, Jirgalang, Ajige, Dorgon, Dodo, Dudu, Yoto, Šoto, Sahaliyen, and Hooge.18 Similarly, a number of these same personages received banners after the death of Nurhaci and were granted high ranks by Hong Taiji when the system of ranks and titles was set up right after the announcement of the founding of the Qing. Others, such as Dahai, Kūrcan, and Sonin were council members responsible for demoting Manggūltai and Daišan, and elevating Hong Taiji in the New Year’s Day ceremony. The junior relatives decided very early on to cast their lot with Hong Taiji. As early as the 1620s, they saw that other senior relatives had no capacity and thus very little hope of succeeding Nurhaci as khan or of taking a position of authority. Amin was the son of Nurhaci’s brother, Šurhaci, and thus not in line for succession. Both Daišan and Manggūltai had compromised themselves through offenses against other family members and had been publicly reprimanded by Nurhaci. This left only Hong Taiji as a legitimate successor, and the only one capable of granting positions and protecting interests. Even the brothers of Amin and Manggūltai supported Hong Taiji, and Daišan’s two sons Yoto and Šoto invested considerable effort in convincing their father to support the election of Hong Taiji as khan.19 These junior relatives saw their interest in having a strong central authority. They looked to the khan to protect them and to guarantee their positions in the face of the whims, abuses, and demands of the senior relatives and banner lords.20 They aspired to prove themselves and become power holders and leaders—ambitions that often brought them into conflict with the senior relatives who were invested in

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the control of their banners through the disciplining and rewarding of some, and the suppression of others. While the junior relatives were not averse to the arrangements of the autonomy of the banners that kept the khan at arm’s length, they needed to navigate the existing political relations, and saw that their best hope of doing so was to invest in a strong patron who could back their claims and careers, and who could guarantee them position and influence. Hong Taiji was this patron, and each side used the other to mold their respective ideas and exert influence in the emerging organization, even if the initial ambiguity of vision would later create internal contradiction. For the junior relatives, the khan could serve as the arbiter and legal directive of custom and inheritance in these situations of non-codified practices. Take the case of banner inheritance, for example. With the redistribution of banners after the death of Nurhaci, Degelei and Jirgalang (the younger full-brothers of Manggūltai and Amin, respectively) were not given banners, but they expected to be next in line to receive command. In order to ensure that this would transpire, they became two of Hong Taiji’s most ardent supporters early on with the understanding that he could ensure their position. This paid off. When Amin was removed from command and imprisoned, Jirgalang received his Bordered Blue Banner. Similarly, after Manggūltai’s death, Degelei was given his Plain Blue Banner. The sons of Daišan also supported Hong Taiji in view of the prospect of securing a benefactor for their interests, especially in taking control of the red banners when their father died, which they did. Two of the sons, Yoto and Sahaliyen, received appointment to high positions in Hong Taiji’s early state, becoming board presidents. The junior relatives also received protection from Hong Taiji against the interests of the more senior relatives and banner lords. When Amin attacked Yongping in 1630, for example, he wanted to burden Jirgalang with the onerous and thankless task of holding the city. Hong Taiji stepped in on behalf of Jirgalang and told Amin that there was no need to issue such a demand, as the city’s occupation was not critical.21 Where the junior relatives found a patron in Hong Taiji, Hong Taiji found worthwhile allies for his state-building efforts. As his struggle with the senior relatives intensified, Hong Taiji turned to the junior relatives for strategic support in politics and running the state. One of the first acts of Hong Taiji as khan was to expand the joint council from a small number of select relatives to one that would include both the banner commanders and his supporters. This elevated both the position and influence of the junior relatives, as they now had a voice in military operations and the running of state affairs, and it provided significant aid to Hong Taiji’s political aims, as everyone on the council had equal say in any given matter at hand, with seniority or rank not trumping a majority opinion on an issue. Hong Taiji could rely on the junior relatives to push an agenda at the expense of the senior relatives, curtailing independent power and squashing challenges.22 The accusations and imprisonment of Amin, the demotion of Manggūltai, and

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the punishments for Daišan speak to this point. In all three cases, the junior relatives made the difference in the council sessions that agreed to censor these senior relatives.23 Hong Taiji further utilized the junior relatives for key positions in the bureaucracy. The presidencies of the six boards, for example, were handed out to his supporters: Dorgon was made president of the Board of Personnel, Degelei Revenue, Sahaliyen Rites, Jirgalang Punishments, Yoto War, and Abatai Works.24 Similarly, they were instrumental in pushing a new regulation for the ability of banner subordinates to bring accusations against the banner lord and leave the banner. Although such regulation was not necessarily in the interest of all the junior relatives, especially those who already owned banners, a sufficient number of them were secured to help Hong Taiji pass and implement it. This reduced the power of the senior banner lords and, ironically, led to a devaluation of the joint council.25 In the end, this support accorded Hong Taiji greater control over the banners and furthered his ability to build a centralized state.26 In this way, Hong Taiji transformed the junior relatives from auxiliary support to key actors with administrative and policy influence.27 This at once helped Hong Taiji centralize control while also contriving incentive for the relatives’ participation and structuring their available options. I M P E R IA L V I SIO N S

Even as the Manchu relatives came to play a role in the emergent state, they struggled among each other. The struggle revolved around gaining a single position of power as well as determining a conception of the Manchu state. At root were questions about the future of the Manchus: What would the state look like? How would political resources be distributed? Who would be included and who excluded? The lack of detailed records of such debates obscures the intensity of the conflict, but enough peripheral evidence remains to provide a sense of the different positions, and to understand the terms of the settlement as far as who won and who lost. The victors, namely, Hong Taiji and his supporters, reached toward a conception of imperial order that was grounded in li, and at the same time drew on various practices of li to solidify political position and marginalize opposing actors. Not only did this mean the diminishment of the independence and power of others over administration and policy, but it also began to reorganize politics. If control could be redirected to Hong Taiji and invested in a hierarchical administrative apparatus, where command of human and financial resources were taken out of the hands of the banners, then not only would the influence of the relatives be curbed, but authority would be further centralized. Different conceptions of politics and social action lay at the root of the conflict. Amin’s killing of Chinese, for example, seems to have been carried out not in a

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direct act of insubordination but rather according to an understanding of the common use of raid and pillage long practiced by the Manchus. Similarly, Amin’s demands for Mongol wives and his entering into marriage alliances without approval indicate independent action as a military leader. These actions were undertaken in order to aggrandize himself and his men, which was not unreasonable under conceptions of traditional practice. He here behaved like his own khan, welcoming troops from military expeditions as if he were ruler.28 Amin’s acts show a leader wielding independent military force and seeking to enrich his men and expand his influence. This stood in opposition to Hong Taiji’s idea of an agrarianbureaucratic, tax-office state with a single sovereign ruling over subjects, where conquest involved the subduing of rival forces and the occupation, not destruction, of territory. For Hong Taiji as the self-styled leader of an aspiring state, villages that surrendered should be preserved and integrated, not burned and pillaged; the inhabitants should be made subjects not slaughtered and enslaved. This contrast in societal ideal among kin played out in their personal relations: the other senior relatives saw themselves as equals of Hong Taiji, not his subordinates, and they refused to take orders or treat him as a sovereign. Conflicts over Strategy At issue, then, was not just power but a vision of empire. Consider military efforts into the 1620s, which were premised on raid and pillage, not subjugating settled populations and annexing territory. The strategy of conquering and holding territory came later, as part of a gradual policy shift. Early on, the khan was understood as a keeper and distributor of slaves and goods, rather than a ruler of men. It was a position at the head of a confederation of tribes or clans, and was held with the corporate acquiescence and cooperation of the leaders of those tribes. Such a role meant the regular expression of power through conquest and the ability to deliver capital in the form of booty and slaves.29 The khan had to continue to wage war and expand areas under his control in order to be able to give his constituencies more goods and people. In the words of one modern-day historian, “He had no choice but to conquer, and to plan new conquests to feed the mouths he had acquired in his last.”30 Early strategy was to destroy cities and enemy bases and to grab booty and take captives. This loot was then removed from the raided territory and taken back to Manchu-controlled areas. A few examples from the Shilu will illustrate. In 1616, Nurhaci captured Fushun, but rather than occupy and govern the city, he left four thousand troops to destroy the place while he led the rest of his army eastward and divided up three hundred thousand captives among them as a reward—captives to be turned slaves.31 Four years later, Nurhaci sent out armies to destroy Ming bases and military camps in the region,32 and in 1625, he ordered three generals to lead six thousand troops to attack Shunkou, instructing, “Conquer it, obliterate the Ming troops and destroy the city, then return.”33 Initially, Hong Taiji followed a

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similar policy early in his reign. In 1628, banner forces attacked Jinzhou and Songshan, where they took out three major bridges, destroyed thirteen military stations, killed thirty guards, and brought back eight hundred prisoners and animals.34 Even as late as 1631, operations at Dalinghe were no different: Manchu forces destroyed the city, and surrendering Ming troops and generals were dispersed among the banners.35 Despite the employment of such tactics, Manchu operations under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji did sometimes entail the acquisition of territory, largely from the impetus of economic pressures. Beginning around 1615, Nurhaci and the banners faced economic difficulties that left them with food shortages and dwindling supplies. This situation was aggravated a few years later when the Ming closed the Liaodong border markets. Rather than continue to raid and pillage, the response was to push west and south into agrarian, Ming-controlled territory in search of more arable land, agricultural producers, and their products. The decision to do so was a shift in policy from raid and pillage toward one of occupation and exploitation. The conquest of Liaodong in 1621, for example, left the conquerors with over a million Chinese peasants under their control. Similarly, Hong Taiji’s siege of Jinzhou in 1627 ended with the surrender of two thousand Ming guards, whom he sent off to the pass at Shanhaiguan, telling them to find their own way back to the Ming. He then told stranded commoners and peasants to go to Jinzhou, but after they were rejected there, Hong Taiji was forced to send them back to Ming-controlled territory via Shanhaiguan.36 Then, in 1631, the capture of Dalinghe put the Manchus in control of a large population of commoners and peasants, as well as a number of Ming military leaders who willingly submitted.37 Internal tensions among the Manchus began to mount over whether to occupy territory or raid and enslave. Suffering economic pressure in 1615, the senior relatives lobbied for an attack on the Mongols, which Nurhaci deflected, stating, “We do not even have enough food to feed ourselves. If we conquer, how will we feed them?” Against others’ insistence, Nurhaci argued that more captives and animals were under Manchu protection than they had resources to accommodate: “During this time, let us first take care of our people, shore up our territory, make borders, till fields, and fill the granaries.”38 Here Nurhaci sought to expand influence and territorial control, while others remained wedded to customary practices: Where Nurhaci sought to pull back until his area was secure, proponents of the latter position saw economic hardship not as a time for withdrawal but as an opportunity for aggressive expansion, where the victors pillaged more and killed more rather than incorporated and enslaved. Conflicts over Social Composition In addition to questions of military strategy, a major issue of contention was the changing social composition of the Manchu polity as a result of military success.

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The early incorporation of other tribes and peoples under Nurhaci led to the formation of a socio-military system that would enable the permanent mobilization of society. As the number of incorporated groups grew, the organizational structure deepened through the expansion of ranks and units, but the constancy of the original banner system of immediate allegiance to tribal head and banner commander remained intact. As long as the incorporated shared a similar culture of violence and reward, then the system could, theoretically, continue to facilitate social expansion along these organizational lines. Such expansion would mean the greater mobilization of men and the control of territory, populations, and economic resources, including commercial markets. Most importantly, it meant the solidification of power over groups in the region. With the gradual shift in strategy from pillage to occupation, as new peoples were made subjects—not slaves—they also had to be integrated. Although Nurhaci had taken some steps to employ Chinese, a change of attitude and transition in policy on agrarian groups began in earnest under Hong Taiji. When he became khan in 1627, Hong Taiji made an effort to disassociate himself from previous policies and atrocities committed against Chinese; he stated that he would rule more humanely over subject populations.39 What exactly he would do, however, was not entirely clear, and it took some time to formulate a strategy. His actions and words indicate a shift in consciousness from accepting Chinese surrenders but not knowing what to do with them, as seen above, to encouraging populations to surrender peacefully to, finally, creating a system to deal with them, namely the Chinese banners, or the Eight Banners Hanjun.40 In his initial conquests of 1626, Hong Taiji equivocated on how to handle surrendered populations. A few years later, however, he was admonishing banner leaders not to kill those who surrendered: “Do not kill those who refuse to fight. Those who surrender, although they may have chickens and pigs, do not invade and harass them. In taking prisoners, do not separate them from their fathers, sons, and wives. Do not sexually harass the women. Do not take people’s clothes, destroy their homes, or steal their utensils and ironware.”41 When attacking Yongping in 1630, Hong Taiji similarly ordered banner generals leading the charge to allow people to surrender and to refrain from harassing them. He put Chinese official Fan Wencheng in charge and issued an order to supply grain to commoners not affiliated with the military and to let them live outside the city. He told Amin specifically not to harm the people or their fields. “Those who have surrendered,” Hong Taiji said, “are a model to see for those Chinese who have not surrendered. I fear losing this model.”42 This attitude stands in stark contrast to that of the other relatives, even those who were allies. As seen above, others rejected attempts to incorporate Chinese agrarian territory and subjects, still wishing to cling to traditional practices of enslavement or slaughter. At issue was the contrast of ideas for the emerging

38

Context

Manchu state, which led to conflict over strategy and policy. Banner leaders like Amin pushed to maintain autonomy and control over their men and finances and pursued a strategy of raid and pillage. Hong Taiji sought to monopolize political resources and enhance his command over the banners, but he also wanted to move away from the political economy of the steppe and forests and to develop a taxoffice state, where an emperor and bureaucracy would rule over agricultural producers and extract surpluses.43 Chinese Advisors Chinese advisors to Hong Taiji provided much of the imaginative framework for this shift in idea and the development of a Qing agrarian tax-office state.44 As conquest turned into occupation, Chinese literati and officials were brought into the confidence of the khan and their advice was sought. The expansion of territory and the need to build an administrative structure to govern both land and population led Hong Taiji to begin to recruit Chinese officials en masse for the job. Most of them were drawn from surrendered populations of 1627, 1629, and 1630 in the north, although a few did come over on their own accord, that is, without having been confronted with imminent attack. Civil examinations to appoint Chinese scholars were conducted first in 1629 and subsequently in 1634 and 1638. Successful candidates were given positions and made vice presidents in the six boards when they were established in 1631, and they continued to be appointed to key positions throughout the Qing bureaucracy. Very little is known about the background of these men from the early Hong Taiji period. The extent of information about them, especially those less significant, comes solely from the recording of their names and activity in documentary evidence in the context of their personal interactions with Hong Taiji. Apart from the more instrumental figures, such as Ning Wanwo or Fan Wencheng, most of the Chinese advisors and officials of this period remain rather obscure, limiting the historian’s access to their thought and activity. A memorial or two from such an official might be preserved, or court records might mention the suggestions of one or the presence of another, but they left no other writings and did not inspire biographies in the Qing compilations. It appears that most of these early Qing advisors and officials either emerged from the Ming military posts on the northeastern frontier or were captured in Manchu raids and conquest.45 It is doubtful that any had previously served in the Ming bureaucracy, for the Manchus had yet to reach Beijing or force the surrender of higher officials. It is possible, however, that some of these early advisors may have been employed in local offices in the Ming state in some capacity or were literati living or traveling in the northern areas that had been conquered by Manchu forces. Although their personal backgrounds remain murky, they are seen in the documentary record filling both minor functionary positions and key bureaucratic posts, and some constantly whispered in the ear of Hong Taiji.46

The Manchu Ascendancy

39

Hong Taiji defined the role of these Chinese officials as advising and assisting in government administration.47 He had left the imperial relatives at the center of policy and decision-making, and when the six boards were established in the seventh month of 1631, Hong Taiji appointed his supporters at the head of each board to serve as president. This meant that six imperial relatives were given administrative authority and political jurisdiction over an area of government—these were six Manchu relatives in key government posts who had no administrative experience or even basic understanding.48 To assist, Hong Taiji installed Chinese vice presidents with the thought that they could provide some knowledge of structure and guidance in the functioning of the administrative system. Hong Taiji said as much during the first three-year review of the boards’ performance, telling the Chinese vice presidents that their job was not to instruct the ruler in affairs of the state but rather to encourage the bureaucratic activity of the relatives, to keep them in line, and to report back to him on shortcomings. “You vice presidents,” Hong Taiji said, “if after speaking out once of the evil of the heads of the boards, then why do you remain silent when you are not heard? If you are not heard after two and three times speaking I want you to memorialize me!”49 Hong Taiji proceeded to express his frustration with the poor performance of three of the boards—Rites, Punishments, and Works—and the irresponsible conduct of the vice presidents. Although the relatives are in charge, he told them, the burden of administrative efficiency was theirs.50 These Chinese advisors often pressed advice and pursued policies that reflected the late Ming political system. Board of Rites vice president Li Bolong, for example, instigated a remaking of the New Year’s Day ceremony in 1631 along the lines of the late-Ming New Year’s Day ceremony.51 He pointed out the shortcomings of the Manchu ceremony and offered adjustments that better reflected the political and organizational practices of an agrarian-bureaucratic empire. Similarly, Wang Wenkui in the literary office in the early 1630s frequently memorialized on the need to stratify political and social order and advocated differentiation in clothing in order to clarify that stratification.52 In the mid-Shunzhi period, Imperial Censor Kuang Lanzhao and Board of Rites Vice Director of Sacrifice Guo Siwei worked to convince the emperor to adopt late Ming-style imperial robes over the distinct Manchu-style dress, arguing that long flowing gowns in yellow adorned with dragons were more befitting an emperor.53 Even more to the point, when tasked with organizational or administrative duties, officials turned first to Ming administrative texts, such as the Huidian, for direction in organizing and running the state.54 In short, in their advice on rule and structuring the state, these men advocated the adoption of the late-Ming interpretation of li. This advice was based less on philosophical reflection and commitment to a political program than on an instinctive and internalized worldview. It does not appear that any of these people held office in the Ming, but they did grow up

40

Context

exposed to its political system and studied texts of that era. They were not political thinkers developing and advancing new ideas, in the mold of Gu Yanwu or Huang Zongxi; rather, they were intellectual functionaries who merely read about and grasped the Ming political world, and worked to apply it to the inchoate Qing state. Take Wang Wenkui, for example, one individual about whom we have more information than most. He was among the literati who hailed from Zhejiang but probably did not obtain a degree under the Ming. Traveling north in the 1620s before finding himself in an area under siege by Hooge, he surrendered in 1628. He was put to work in the scribes’ office and attached to the Bordered White Banner; he went on to serve in numerous posts in the central government throughout the Hong Taiji and Shunzhi reigns.55 For Wang, like many others, the Ming state was the best model for the Qing state-building project, for it was familiar and immediately at hand. That Wang and other Chinese advisors espoused adoption of the Ming model, then, should not be so surprising.56 The advice and proposals of the Chinese advisors and officials was not always taken, and when it was, it was often adjusted according to the immediate cultural and political circumstances of the Qing. The li of the Ming that these people had in mind and promoted could be adjusted, modified, and rearticulated for the peculiarities of the Qing setting. Here the framework of the Ming model often served Hong Taiji, to be sure, but the ensuing struggles would continue to shape political and administrative structures and practices. C O N C LU S I O N

To note that Hong Taiji prevailed anticipates an ending to the struggle and smooths over a convoluted and contentious process. More than brute politicking and a show of naked force was involved. Indeed, war was not waged among the contenders; rather, power was taken by manufactured right and collusion, and symbols, practices, and people mobilized to construct legitimacy around the assumed position and its might. This chapter has shown that the emergent form of the Qing state was not inevitable—there was no necessary progression from tribe to state— and that its emergence was premised on ideas of a particular kind of political organization. Hong Taiji’s rise as Qing emperor involved both internal struggle and the development of a new type of political order. In retrospect, it seems obvious that none of the other relatives could have risen to the position of khan, nor could any of them have carried to fruition Nurhaci’s Great Enterprise. Amin, the nephew, had the wrong father, and the other brothers were tainted by scandal or had elicited the ire of the khan. These matters may have been minor in and of themselves, for enough charisma and military capability may override such factors, but the scale of sociability had begun to mature, and the contest was not about the assertion of force but the perception of other political actors.

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41

Indeed, disqualifying factors were not on account of any existing rule or clear demotion of powers but rather because others took these issues as important and through them refused to accept the other contenders as legitimate. Hong Taiji thus won the support of the junior relatives, who backed him not only in his struggles against his brothers and nephew but also in the formalization of arrangements.57 Just as the rise of Hong Taiji was contingent upon the support of other political actors, the form of the emergent state that he or any of the victors might impose was far from certain. In fact, not until the 1640s and 1650s did the political order begin to mature and assume more stable arrangements. What each of the actors wanted was greater control over political and material resources, and each sought to carve out a space to guarantee himself and his supporters as much. Nurhaci had left them with a loose hierarchy premised on banner command. The organizational complex had begun to take the form of a territorial state, with a fixed capital from which to rule over an area with administrative and judicial apparatuses. Although Nurhaci attempted to preclude the autonomy of the banners, they still operated under their own leaders, who determined appointments and rewards, and rather than taking orders from Nurhaci, they fulfilled obligations. Upon Nurhaci’s death, the contenders were not in agreement over the direction of politics and society: some wished to continue the collaboration for mutual aggrandizement at the expense of other tribes and settled agrarian states and peoples, while others threatened to break away and take their men to other areas. Hong Taiji worked to centralize command and extend the hierarchy, moving from a seminomadic operation of raid, pillage, and plunder, to a tax-office state with a single sovereign presiding over a professional civil and military bureaucracy that would collect taxes, keep order, and wage war at the behest of the sovereign. The articulation of a sovereign’s role and hierarchical organization of political society provided both a vision and an institution for Hong Taiji to employ. It allowed him to seize the power of the relatives and limit their independence and policymaking authority, while at the same time include them in the emerging structures of power. Furthermore, the primacy of the ruler in relation to other political actors in the hierarchical order helped develop the practices and institutions to master the administration. This would enable strong Qing emperors, yielding them greater command over officials, who might be otherwise impose their agenda upon the emperor, rendering the sovereign but a pawn in their machinations—as had happened occasionally during the Ming.58 In this way, Hong Taiji built something slightly different from Zhu Yuanzhang. Where the latter was concerned with attracting officials to his cause and employing them in the service of his young state, the Manchus were occupied with internal struggles for power to determine both position and social vision. This outcome was neither the product of a necessary path of social development nor the choice from among an infinite number of possibilities. To the contrary,

42

Context

there was a limited range of options defined through the immediate cultural and political circumstances.59 Where Amin was guided by steppe practices, and constrained by his inferior position, Hong Taiji sought to dominate subjects, and in order to do so turned to a new set of arrangements informed by Chinese advisors. There was a need to reconstruct the sovereign not as a khan but as an emperor; to integrate political actors and mobilize them as a political community; to not only mitigate the threat of the imperial relatives but also harness their efforts; and to solidify the emergent arrangements and formalize political relations in law. The resultant system of authority and domination amalgamated both Chinese and Manchu forms and practices, coupled with new, innovative responses to challenges of rule; it enabled a multiethnic political apparatus that could conquer and rule China and parts of Inner Asia.

part t wo

Formation, 1631–1651

in the 1630s and 1640s, the Qing political order and its governing relations were formed. During these decades, Hong Taiji and other state-makers worked to take control of political and symbolic resources by hierarchically organizing political actors and defining the lines of power. They relied on the Board of Rites to create ranks and positions, and to prescribe practices and behaviors to people based on their respective positions. At the nucleus of this emergent order was a sovereign— the emperor—whose power was made manifest not only by his ability to command political resources but also in his relational dealings with other actors, both politically and symbolically. By design, the sovereign was to hold a privileged position in ceremony and ritual, and to represent a dynastic line of rulers that culminated in his person and projected to his descendants, giving him both political command and historical legitimacy. Beneath the sovereign, in politically and socially subservient positions, were the imperial relatives and civil and military officials organized in a system of ranks. Rather than clearly defined tasks and delineated operations, however, they were set in direct relation to the sovereign, whereby their duties were articulated in regular ceremonial audience and their positions actively performed by behavioral prescriptions vis-à-vis others. The three chapters that form part 2 show how Qing state-makers appropriated the concept of li but changed the practices in the process of constructing a political order. No doubt the general idea of li as a system of political organization based on a rigid hierarchy, manifest in ritual and ceremony, and mediated through sumptuary and behavioral practices was carried over from antiquity. Rather than defining the Qing imperial order—or that of any other dynasty—however, the concept of li helped inspire the arrangements and practices that would become the Qing. 43

44

Formation, 1631–1651

Indeed, these practices were particular to the Qing on account of the settlements of the struggles over vision and power. The Manchu political organization and administrative apparatus was constructed out of rival groups and conflicting individuals tussling over both power and institutional assumption, necessitating arrangements that incorporated actors like the imperial relatives, and practices that built integral cohesion. This began with the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony, which arranged the ascendancy of Hong Taiji over his relatives, and continued by defining the emperor in relation to other political actors through ceremony and ritual while laying a foundation for his legitimacy through tombs and ancestral worship. Simultaneously, the Board of Rites endeavored to form the administrative order by integrating the relatives with the political and administrative staff and incorporating all through ritual and ceremonial practices. By the time Hong Taiji’s son, Fulin, came of age and took the throne as the Shunzhi emperor in 1651, the structure was set.

3

The New Year’s Day Ceremony

An unprecedented event occurred on New Year’s Day, 1632. On the morning of the first day of the first lunar month, in the middle of the ceremonial hall at Mukden, Hong Taiji presided over a formal New Year’s Day ceremony. He sat at the very center of activities, in the cardinal position facing south, symbolically assuming the role of sovereign and concentrating attention, meaning, and activity on his person. His two brothers, in contrast, sat on either side of him at a lower elevation, in a conspicuous display of inferior status. They had all just come from the Manchu shrine outside the capital gates, where they had offered sacrifice. Upon returning to the palace, they witnessed the lining up of their other relatives, civil and military officials, and foreign dignitaries to parade in a predetermined order before the khan, so as to express their felicitations, loyalty, and subservience. As Hong Taiji took the center seat, the procession began, first with the foreign leaders and Chinese officials, then with the Manchu military units in the following order: the Bordered and Plain Yellow Banners, the Plain Red, Plain White, Bordered Red, Bordered White, and last the Bordered and Plain Blue Banners. After the procession had ended, a banquet was held with one hundred tables set with grain alcohol and the roasted meat of wild game.1 The primary significance of the ceremony that year lay in the seating arrangements and ceremonial procession. The very fact that there was such an elaborate ceremony is telling. In years past, the Manchus held much smaller events that contemporaries often found devoid of much symbolic significance. Moreover, because the late khan, Nurhaci, had left specific instructions to his anointed successors—his three sons and nephew—to rule jointly and sit at equal levels and share the same position in ceremony, the co-rulers did not discriminate in seating 45

46

Formation, 1631–1651

in earlier editions of the New Year’s Day festival. Rather, all four men sat together presiding over events in clear indication of their equal status and command. Similarly, previous processions had been rather random and not arranged strictly according to military ranking; instead, participants took priority on account of wealth and personal influence. This is to emphasize that the strict organization and disciplined staging, not to mention the scale and formality of the event, were not features of the early versions of Manchu ceremony but were introduced prominently in 1632. The transformation of the ceremony in 1632 was part of the process of political struggle among the Manchu elite. Far from being simply a ritual event, the New Year’s Day ceremony was a contestation for the division of political resources in the construction of a central hierarchical organization with a sovereign at the top wielding full authority over men and materials, with the capacity to issue binding rules backed by force. As expressed in the language of ritual, the New Year’s Day ceremony reorganized political relations and made manifest a single sovereign. Placed symbolically at the center in order to represent the state in form and function, the sovereign sat in a location and at a height that focused attention upon his person, permitting no mistake in the identification of superiority and inferiority, and the positions of authority. This was a first articulation of the newly emerging Manchu political order, how it would be organized, and who would run it. A single sovereign took the center throne, sharing neither position nor place with any other actor; for each actor was now considered subject, and no subject could occupy the same position nor play the same role as the sovereign. The imperial relatives, the military, the officialdom, and foreign dignitaries came to submit to the sovereign in stratified intervals according to their rank and political position. These relationships were enacted in the ceremony, and in doing so gave form to how individuals and groups would relate in the everyday political realm, and how political resources would be distributed. It was a turn toward a new definition of politics and away from the ambiguous joint rule and diffuse power that had marked the sociopolitical order and ceremonies of the past. And it began with a debate about the structure of the New Year’s Day ceremony in 1631. N EW Y E A R’ S DAY C E R E M O N Y B E F O R E 1 6 32

Sources on New Year’s Day activity predating the detailed descriptions of the 1632 ceremony are scattered, thin, and inconclusive. (This is in contrast to the records after 1632, which never fail to convey a full account of the event.) Those which do exist, tell of an abridged ceremony where the khan or co-rulers led the relatives out of the city at dawn to the Manchu shamanistic shrine, where sacrifice was made.2 Upon conclusion, they returned to the capital to receive the audience of foreign states and tribes, and hold festivities.3

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Most of the early records are from Manchu sources, such as the Manwen yuandang, while Chinese-language sources rarely mention Manchu New Year’s Day ritual practices until the beginning of Hong Taiji’s reign, and then only in brief. What existing records do relate are muted and unexceptional events. In the year that Nurhaci became khan (1616), for example, a coronation ceremony took place, but not one to usher in the new year.4 The next year, documents only tell of Nurhaci traveling fifty miles from the capital to greet a Mongol leader coming to visit.5 For the next four years there are no records for the first day of the first month. The first record of a formal New Year’s Day ceremony is from 1622, the seventh year of Nurhaci’s reign.6 That year, it was noted simply that Nurhaci as khan led the relatives in prayer at the Manchu shrine. Upon returning to the palace, Nurhaci accepted congratulations from Manchu, Mongol, Chinese, Tibetan, and Korean groups, and then a banquet was held. The next record of a New Year’s ceremony is two years later (1624), when the khan offered sacrifice in the Manchu shrine and then accepted kowtows from other military leaders.7 A slightly different variation of this ceremony took place three years later (1627) during Hong Taiji’s first year as khan, when Hong Taiji led people in prayer at the Manchu shrine and stood with the other brothers in accepting kowtows.8 For the next four years, until 1632, there are no extant records of another New Year’s Day ceremony.9 In most years of the early Manchu state, no record exists for the first day of the new year. Such documentary dearth should not be taken to mean that no ceremony was held to celebrate the New Year, however, for enough circumstantial evidence exists to suggest that festivities were held annually. Records from 1627, for example, note that a customary Manchu rite on New Year’s Day was to put on performances and dances and to give a large banquet but that it was suspended that year on account of Nurhaci’s death: “Originally, the doro [way or rites] of the Manchus for New Year’s Day was to put on all kinds of performances and dances and to have a great banquet. This year, because of mourning for Taizu, there were no joyful performances and no banquet.”10 Further evidence of regular celebration of a New Year’s ceremony is found in a suggestion by a vice president of the Board of Rites in 1631. This official acknowledged an annual New Year’s Day rite, but he complained that it was not orderly and argued for a more formal organization and discipline of ritual.11 While records thereof may be sparse, in all likelihood a ceremony was held every year and that the ceremonial day consisted of offering sacrifice at the shamanistic shrine at dawn, receiving audience at the capital, and hosting festivities in the form of a banquet or dances. Take for example the description of the 1627 ceremony, the year after Nurhaci’s death, and also the first year presided over by Hong Taiji as khan. The record reads: At the fifth watch, all the beile [highest-ranked relatives] and civil and military officials assembled in the main palace, and the banners lined up in order. At dawn, the

48

Formation, 1631–1651 Wise Khan led the beile to the shamanistic shrine, where they performed the three genuflections and nine prostrations to Heaven. Thereupon they returned. When the khan came out of the palace, the relatives and high officials lined up by rank and prepared to each kneel three times and each prostrate nine times. When kowtowing, two people stood on either side of the khan, and one called out, “all kowtow and congratulate on the passing of the year.” After saying this, the other called out to kneel and prostrate.12

From this description, the basic structure of the ceremony is clear: venture to the shamanistic shrine at dawn; return to the palace, where all line up in a set order to partake in motions of subservience and respect; and conclude with festivities. The 1632 change to the ceremony would take all these elements into account but also add something more to elevate the position of the khan and situate other actors into a relational political order. The significance of the change was in fact foreshadowed in an edit to the 1627 document cited above. In between the lines of the original document, an editor has gone back and added notes to the text (see figure 3). To the right of the vertical script, between the two words doro (rites) and aniya (year) a small addition sign is inscribed to indicate exactly where the addition of text ought to be added. A quickly scribbled text is huddled close to take maximum advantage of a small space between the original lines of text, cramming three lines where there was only room for one. The brush is finer, the ink lighter, and the script of a different hand. It reads: “Originally, . . . for the kowtowing, the three beile—the senior beile, Amin beile, and Manggūltai beile—would be seated on the two sides of the khan. In every case they all sat together and did not sit beneath the khan.”13 This seating arrangement in the ceremony, where all brothers sat together at the same level, in expression of equality of rule and parity of political and symbolic resources, would be upended in 1632. T H E P O L I T IC S A N D P R AC T IC E O F T H E 1 6 32 N EW Y E A R’ S DAY C E R E M O N Y

On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth month of 1631, just days before the customary annual New Year’s Day ceremony, an intervention occurred. The vice president of the Board of Rites, Li Bolong, memorialized the khan, Hong Taiji; he complained that the organization of the procession was based on individual wealth and personal influence and had to be changed. “When conducting state rites,” he wrote, “officials are not lining up according to rank but rather by the quality of furs they possess. Those possessing furs of higher value line up first, and those with furs of lesser value after.” He suggested restructuring the order of the procession to grant primacy to the military ranking of the banners. If such proposals were not disruptive enough, Li went on to urge that imperial relatives

The New Year’s Day Ceremony

49

figure 3 . Page from the Manwen yuandang (Original Manchu records) showing the edits and additions to the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony record. Manwen yuandang, 6.3.

be demoted in status and the khan elevated to the undisputed position of sovereign, as least symbolically in the seating. He recommended that Hong Taiji sit in the center, facing south, while his supposed co-rulers flank him right and left. He singled out Manggūltai, the second-oldest brother: “Because Manggūltai committed an offense,” Li wrote, “he should have his beile rank revoked [and no longer be allowed to sit with the emperor and others for the ceremony].”14 The circumstances of this memorial arose with the establishment of the Board of Rites just five months earlier, giving position to Chinese officials familiar with ritual practices and the operations of an imperial bureaucracy. Now charged with overseeing the ceremony, and working to rationalize and formalize it, officials in the Board of Rites raised concerns over the political symbolism of actors, and memorialized the ruler on the order of the procession and the seating of the sovereign. Their aim was to standardize the ceremony— that is, to fix the ritual practices in forms that were organized not so much in rigid and repetitive acts but in conformity with certain principles. Although these principles could vary according to the rite, they generally framed a certain structural integrity of the social and political polity by putting individuals and groups into hierarchical and subservient relationships with each other. This meant two things: first, moving the ambiguous role of the ruler into a position

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Formation, 1631–1651

to become emperor at the head of an imperial polity; and second, structuring that imperial polity in a non-arbitrary way that emphasized state-issued rank and honor and gave the sovereign control over the distribution of political resources. In the case of the New Year’s Day ceremony, this was symbolically emphasized by the position of where the emperor—or more precisely, where others sat in relation to the emperor—and the means and order in which other political actors accessed the emperor. The main problem that the Board of Rites officials had with the New Year’s Day ceremony—and by extension, the organization of the Manchu polity—was the adherence to a decentralized system of authority. Vice president Li Bolong metaphorically made this point by criticizing how the order by which officials were given primacy in ceremonial presentation was premised on wealth. This order could also be determined by seniority, of which wealth was an extension, whereby senior relatives could parlay their proximity to the khan and military control into political influence, which was rewarded with gifts of furs from constituents.15 In either case, political actors were not organized according to standards of merit determined by a central authority. The existing priority of wealth or seniority meant weaker central control, and primacy to the imperial relatives. By codifying the ceremony in a way that gave primacy to a particular hierarchy, the ruler and his supporters aimed to turn the relatives into political constituents beholden to centralized control. Other groups would also be assimilated and brought under political control as they came to rely on the magnanimity of the ruler to grant them their status. The physical position of the emperor in the ceremony symbolically expressed this political authority. The case of Manggūltai brought up by Li Bolong speaks to this issue. As one of the four senior relatives appointed by Nurhaci to jointly lead the nascent Jin state, Manggūltai had military and political resources and was, in theory, on equal political footing with Hong Taiji. He had tried to exercise this earlier in the year by stalling in moving his troops to support the sack of Dalinghe. Later, he drew his weapon against Hong Taiji in anger over Hong Taiji’s criticism for such laxity. This unilateral action in both policy and personal affront threatened the central command that Hong Taiji and his staff were attempting to establish. Imagining a structure that would enable a central body to wield administrative power, rather than, say, negotiate checks and balances, joint rule and political violence was impractical. The Board of Rites gave expression to this issue and said that Manggūltai had to go. He could not sit at the focal point of a ceremony that venerated the political ruler and vested him with political capital. To do so threatened the cohesion and operations of government.16 Hong Taiji found this suggestion to be fully consistent with his state-making enterprise. As he endeavored to centralize policy-making power into an authority that he would embody, and to limit the political autonomy of the relatives

The New Year’s Day Ceremony

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and their control of the banners, Hong Taiji sought to seize upon the moment to use the ritual to publicly humiliate not just Manggūltai but his other relatives as well. He immediately responded to Li’s suggestion, commenting to all that he should demote Manggūltai. But he then hesitated, worrying that it might handicap his government. “If foreigners hear of this,” he said, “they will not know that the fault is his and think that I am a disrespectful younger brother. Since he is older than me, how about allowing him to [continue to] sit with me?” Hong Taiji’s motion to allow Manggūltai to remain in a prominent position in the ceremony was most likely a strategic maneuver to keep him close and not alienate him and his supporters—as such alienation could kindle civil war. Thus he asked senior Manchu councilors and relatives to discuss the matter. They arrived at a solution proffered by Daišan, the eldest brother, and co-ruler in name. Daišan said, We all agreed to support [Hong Taiji] as the khan, while at the same time sitting together with him as khan. But I fear that people will gossip and say that although we venerate him as khan, we also act like three Buddhas. How can such an arrangement [of equal seating] not lead to gossip? Since this is Manggūltai’s personal transgression, the deities will hear, condemn, and shorten his life. If we can measure our ability and act according to principle, then luck will follow and Heaven will bless us with long life. How is this not wonderful? From this day forth, the emperor will sit in the middle facing south. Myself and Manggūltai will sit below on the left and right. The foreign Mongol beile will sit beneath us. Since he is the khan, how can we alone not give him the respect?”17

All present endorsed this solution, and Hong Taiji agreed. The Board of Rites drafted an edict on the matter, which was issued on the same day—the twentyeighth day of the twelfth month. This edict promulgated the revised order of procession for the New Year’s Day ceremony, moving hierarchically through the nascent political order, and placed Hong Taiji at the center, elevated and presiding as sovereign.18 Practice of the ceremony in its revised form was to begin on the first day of the lunar New Year of 1632. And this is precisely what happened. Contemporaries were quick to take note of the changes. First, consider the commentary in the text of the 1632 ceremonial description, which most explicitly communicates the difference. The first part about the khan reads: “Up until now, for the past five years, the khan and his three relatives all one and the same sat together facing south to receive kowtows from the people. From this year it is corrected. The khan distinguishably sits alone facing south.”19 Here, editors contrasted what Hong Taiji had been doing for the past five years. They pointed out that he had been sitting on the throne alongside his brothers Daišan and Manggūltai and cousin Amin. The three relatives sat together at the same level, facing the same direction, and very likely on the same mat. For the duration of the ceremony they collectively presided over audiences come through to pay

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Formation, 1631–1651

their respects. In this way, the equality among the four senior relatives that Nurhaci had envisioned and insisted upon was upheld. In 1632, however, editors explicitly called attention to what they termed a “correction” in the ceremony. In the text, equality among them was contravened, as Hong Taiji was set apart and elevated to a position of superiority. He alone faced south, the cardinal direction for a Chinese emperor presiding over court. In the recording of the ceremony, the relatives sat on either side of the khan, each one on his own couch facing inward. This articulation is further emphasized in a miscellaneous document on the 1632 ceremony, which notes the seating arrangement as follows: “On the right side of the khan was the senior beile (i.e., Daišan), and on the left side was Manggūltai beile. The two beile were placed on couches to the side. They sat facing sideways.”20 Although the contrast with previous years is omitted in this passage, the emphasis on the position of the relatives is clear: Hong Taiji took precedence in the ceremonial role of sovereign, while his brothers were relegated to subservient places. After clarifying the seating arrangements, contemporary records go on to discuss the order by which the eight banners would present themselves in audience. Accordingly, up until 1632 they had presented themselves in procession based on seniority, a practice that would now give way to an order based on rank: “The eight banner commanders have each been leading their banner officials in kowtowing. When kowtowing, they have not been following the order of the central and wing battalions, but rather first kowtowing according to the age of the brother. From this year it is corrected. Kowtowing follows the banner ranking.”21 The passage here explicitly contrasts what was happening before with what took place in 1632. It indicates that the previous order of the banners in ceremony was based on the age of the banner commander. In practice, a rough variation of this was on display in the 1624 ceremony. Unlike other records prior to 1632, the description for the 1624 ceremony laid out the order of the banners coming to pay respects to Nurhaci: 1. Daišan, the oldest living son and senior beile 2. Enggeder, a son in law 3. Amin, the second son of Šurhaci—the younger brother of Nurhaci—and adopted by Nurhaci when Surhaci died 4. Manggūltai, the second oldest living son 5. Duici22 6. Ajige, the twelfth son 7. Dodo, the fifteenth son 8. Abatai, seventh son of Nurhaci but not holding a beile rank and not given a banner, and Dudu, oldest son of Nurhaci’s oldest son 9. Yoto and Šoto, sons of Daišan

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Listing just those who were banner commanders yields the following order: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Daišan (Red Banners) Amin (Bordered Blue) Manggūltai (Plain Blue) Dudu (Bordered White)

Assuming the absence of Hong Taiji, who is not mentioned in the text, the extracted order corresponds exactly to the seniority by age of the relatives in charge of the banners.23 In the 1632 ceremony, however, the order of presentation rested not on seniority, as it had in years past, but rather according to the positions of the eight banners in battue formation. This order placed the two yellow banners at the head of the attack, with red and white banners on the right and left shoulders respectively, and the blue banners at the point. Logistically, this meant that the yellow banners occupied the north, the reds west, the whites east, and blues south.24 In ceremony, this order was translated into the ritual staging. The 1632 text records the banners lining up in the following order: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Bordered Yellow Plain Yellow Plain Red Plain White Bordered Red Bordered White Bordered Blue Plain Blue

This order gave primacy to Hong Taiji’s Yellow Banners and the Red and White Banners of his supporters, while those of his dissenters, Manggūltai and Amin, who led the Plain and Bordered Blue Banners, respectively, came last in the procession. Hong Taiji here reconfigured the ritual to allocate more symbolic resources to some while stripping such resources from others. The premise of organizing the ceremony on banner battue formation thus lent itself to attacking his competitors in the internal struggles for political power and resources. From the seating arrangements to the banner procession, Hong Taiji drew on a refashioned version of the New Year’s Day ceremony to publicly humiliate others, thereby increasing his symbolic power and further working to define the political order. The ceremony and the politics here came into being simultaneously. As Hong Taiji and his brothers contended for political power, the ceremony was also reconstructed. Hong Taiji strove to build an imperial system of centralized control at the expense of other political actors. He maneuvered to shift the political structure from one of joint rule with decentralized authority over human and financial resources to

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Formation, 1631–1651

one of hierarchical state command of men and money, whereby a single sovereign at the apex would be the final arbiter of politics and policy. In the course of doing so, he sought to circumscribe the political and military authority of other leaders and to redistribute political resources to supporters. The shift in the political structure was attended by changing cultural symbols. Simultaneous with shifts in power was the new seating arrangement of the sovereign at the center of the ceremony and the demotion of the other joint leaders, both symbolically and politically. The ceremony symbolically placed Hong Taiji at the center of a structured polity, making manifest hierarchical relationships that elevated some and rendered others subservient. It structured the means by which people could interact, and in doing so, created political capital, dispersing it in qualified amounts so that even when that particular ceremony had ended—and even though the relationships were still tenuous and power still being negotiated—the ruler remained the ruler, the relatives one step below him, and the political order restructured on his authority. F O R M A L I Z I N G T H E N EW Y E A R’ S DAY C E R E M O N Y

The significance of the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony cannot be overstated. Not only did it provide a precedent for the New Year’s Day ceremony for the next two and a half centuries, but it also began to define a system of symbolic meanings that would come to be attached to an emerging sociopolitical order. The basic structure and activity of the ceremony—the seating of the sovereign in the middle, his role at the head of the ritual, the parading of imperial relatives, the organization of officials, and the positioning of foreign dignitaries—were codified in the Qing administrative code some sixty years later as the essential components of the New Year’s Day ceremony that would be implemented and practiced throughout the Qing. This endowed the emperor with ritual propriety and helped elevate him in position, status, and power. Furthermore, it also advanced the process of centralizing military control by according Hong Taiji and his staff the authority to organize ranks and grant places in ceremonial procession. The basic outline of the rite can be broken down into four main parts: the khan leading a visit to the Manchu shrine at dawn, the khan sitting, the procession of audiences offering kowtows to the khan, and a banquet. This structure began to take shape during Nurhaci’s reign and was used by Hong Taiji when he became khan, and was incorporated into the changes of the 1632 ceremony. It served as the foundation for all subsequent New Year’s Day ceremonies for the duration of the Qing. Although aspects of the ritual would vary over the years—with different imperial relatives or officials attending services at the shrine, the order of the processions, or even the involvement of the emperor—the basic structure did not. Take, for example, the first Qing administrative code, the Da Qing huidian, which contains the clearest articulation of the ceremony as it should be conducted.

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Tiancong 6 (1632). On New Year’s Day the emperor led all the beile to worship Heaven and the deities. Afterward, he ascended the throne in the palace. All the beile performed the rite of three genuflections and nine prostrations. The beile of the Deliberative Council entered the palace and sat on the left and right. Next, the foreign Mongol beile performed the rite. Next, the Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese officials each led their banner officials in performing the rite. Next, the Korean emissaries did the rite. Afterward, the emperor returned to the palace. All the officials retired. The next day was the banquet rite.25

Record of the ceremony here was referenced to 1632 and laid out in its simplest form with the most basic elements in place: the emperor leading the beile out to the shrine, taking the throne, officials and guests kowtowing, and a banquet being held. By the time the Huidian was issued in 1690, this iteration of the New Year’s Day ceremony had been practiced for over half a century. The tenets of the ritual and its development could be extracted from over fifty different occurrences, which had been meticulously recorded almost every year since 1632. Whereas record keeping of the ceremony before 1632 was almost ad hoc (or sporadic at best), the establishment of the Board of Rites in 1631 and its charge of planning and conducting the New Year’s Day ceremony meant not only that it would be standardized but also that records would be made and kept. These records show that each New Year’s Day ritual event for almost every year after 1632 contained the four structural components. These compiled precedents enable a reconstruction of the basic practice in its mature form in the Qing, which went something like this: At dawn the emperor would visit the shamanistic shrine, where he would offer sacrifice and kowtow to Heaven. The emperor and officials would then return to the palace and the imperial relatives from the mainline would perform the Manchu rite of three genuflections and nine prostrations in front of the ancestor placards. All ranking Manchu personnel from the imperial relatives to the imperial bodyguard would then accompany the emperor on a visit to the empress dowager in her quarters and perform rites in respect to her. They would finally return to the palace, where staging would begin. In preparation for the ritual, ritual instruments were erected and officials put into formation radiating outward according to rank. Tame elephants were placed to the south of the carriage, and horses set up to the right and left of the stairs facing each other. All ranked imperial relatives gathered at the Taihemen Gate in their court dress, while all titled Manchu officials who did not descend from the original banner owners gathered outside the Wumen Gate in their court dress. All other officials followed Board of Rites officials through the East Chang’anmen Gate to the Tiananmen Gate and lined up outside the Wumen Gate. They then

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Formation, 1631–1651

entered through the eastern passage of the Wumen Gate to proceed to the front of the Taihedian Hall. The minister of the Court of State Ceremonial led the imperial relatives to the crimson stairs at the Taihedian Hall to take their places, and then led the other officials from the east and west. They lined up in ranks in the wings. The Koreans, Mongols, and other foreign missions were then led through the western gate and placed in formation (see map 2). With all officials lined up and in formation, the court astronomer then announced the time of day from the Qianqingmen Gate, and the Court of State Ceremonial invited the emperor to emerge. The emperor appeared from his quarters in his ritual clothes and proceeded to the Zhonghedian Hall. As he did so, the Senior Assistant Chamberlain of the Imperial Bodyguard and other imperial guardsmen, along with officials from the Board of Rites, Court of Colonial Affairs, and Censorate performed the three genuflections and nine prostrations from their places in line. When the emperor entered the Taihedian Hall and ascended the throne, the music stopped. The court herald called for order and all the ranking imperial relatives and titled nobility led the other officials in bowing in place. There was a call to enter and kneel, and all knelt. There was a call to make announcements from the congratulatory text, and officials took the texts and presented them to the throne. Music played. There was a call to kneel and kowtow, and the ranking imperial relatives performed the three genuflections and nine prostrations. Next, the banner generals led their banner officials in lining up according to banner ranking. They bowed in place and performed their kowtows. They were followed by the Koreans, Mongols, and other foreign missions in kowtowing to the emperor. When the rites were performed, music played. As the rite ended, the music ceased and the supplicants returned to their place in formation. Upon the conclusion of the ceremony, a banquet was held.26 Despite the growing complexity of the ceremony, the basic four-part structure remained, and did so with a dual emphasis: the emperor and hierarchical stratification. Foremost, the ceremony unfailingly put the emperor front and center. From the initiation of the ceremony in 1632, the sovereign was the main actor and the point of reference through it all. Even when others were acting, he was the focus of attention, either on the throne or as the recipient of announcements and memorials. The other actors lined up before the emperor and prostrated before him: the imperial relatives, Manchu officials, and other groups were always in subservient positions. Not only were these groups placed in inferior positions, but they were also specifically mentioned in relation to the emperor and constantly demarcated as a status that performed acts in recognition of imperial authority. From the first act of being led by the emperor to worship, to the last act of sending him off, these groups were compelled to follow and bow. Here the ritual was very much about asserting the authority of the emperor over other political actors.

Qianqinggong Palace

Qianqingmen Gate Baohedian Hall Zhonghedian Hall

Taihemen Gate

Taihemen Gate

Wumen Gate

Ancestral Temple (Taimiao)

Grain Altar

Duanmen Gate SCALE

150 m

300 m

0

492 ft

984 ft

Tiananmen Gate West Chang’anmen Gate

East Chang’anmen Gate

map 2 . The Imperial Palace in Beijing and its ritual gates. Map by Than Saffel.

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Formation, 1631–1651

Moreover, the actors were always stratified into ranks and positions. This is not surprising in itself, for such is the nature of li, and it is seen throughout Chinese and Eurasian history in ceremonial practice. What is significant is that the stratification here was based on the imperial relatives and high Manchu officials, not the administrative bureaucracy. The specific titles, ranks, and positions are always premised on the beile, the other beyond-rank titles, or the elite Manchu institutions of the imperial bodyguards. When other political and administrative actors are mentioned in texts at all, it is generally as the “hundred officials” (baiguan). When adjustments to the ceremony were made, they were done so within the structure of the four-part framework to uphold primacy of the emperor and political organization. This is to say that while the ritual was not rigid, all changes continued to reaffirm the power and position of the sovereign. In 1633, for example, the emperor and the beile decided to cease the usual practice of taking off their hats when kowtowing in the shrine. That year, and thereafter, they would keep their hats on and perform the rite as usual.27 Another variation took place the next year, when Hong Taiji invited two recently defected Ming generals to join the beile procession in kowtowing,28 a practice that seems to have been a one-time honor, as subsequent years found the generals on the battlefield and unable to attend the New Year’s Day ceremony—something that was not seen as a violation of the rite.29 In 1638, officials were sent to the ancestral hall to burn incense,30 and the next year, officials knelt as the emperor’s cart and procession passed on its way to the shrine.31 Most drastically, in 1643, Hong Taiji, feeling ill, called off the celebratory nature of the ceremony, which involved the cessation of all music and festivities. He still sent officials, however, to offer sacrifice at the shrine, sit on the throne, have officials enter, and to order a banquet for attendees, even though he did not attend.32 A more general development of the ritual over the years can be seen in the increase in the number of people coming to court to pay respects. This prompted an elaboration of the ceremony. In 1634, for example, five local tribes came to court and received a position in the procession just ahead of the banners.33 The following year, the number of local tribes in the ritual procession increased to seven.34 This contributed to the ceremony becoming vastly more complex. From the small circle of beile and officials in the beginning, soon hundreds of stratified relatives, officials, and foreign dignitaries attended. All of these attendees had to gather somewhere and proceed through certain gates to arrive at the hall and then to wait their turn for procession. Revisions in the second half of the seventeenth century outlined where the attendees should be staged, as well as when and through which doors they should enter. Ritual music was also to be played throughout the ceremony; precise instructions were given on when it should play, when it should stop, and when it should resume.35 These variations in the ritual practice led to the need to reaffirm the details of the ceremony, not least in order to clarify which imperial relatives and officials

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would do what at which points of time. The opportunity came in 1636 with the announcement of the establishment of the Qing dynasty. At the time, Hong Taiji clarified the standard practice in grand ceremony. For the New Year’s Day ceremony, his edict affirmed the ritual protocol of worshiping at the shrine, sitting on the throne, and receiving the procession of kowtows; it emphasized the order in which attendees ought to present themselves and performance of the three genuflections and nine prostrations.36 Despite the growing size and complexity of the ceremony, the basic four-part structure remained recognizable: the visit to the shrine at dawn, the seating of the sovereign, the procession for kowtows, and the banquet.37 This structure was reconfirmed both in the 1636 edict on ritual protocol and annually in the detailed record keeping by the Board of Rites. Moreover, throughout the Qing, Board of Rites personnel began to make more and more of an appearance in records on the New Year’s Day ceremony in order to ensure the ceremony format, and also so that participants would conduct themselves strictly according to protocol. This practice would persevere until the fall of the Qing in 1912, sustaining the work of elevating the Qing sovereign and disciplining actors in both ritual protocol and political interaction. A M I N G F R A M EWO R K

The emergent symbolic order facilitated the organization of politics to the benefit of some over others, and did so by pointing toward an imperial system. The new practices and order contrasted with previous arrangements under Nurhaci and the joint-rule arrangement he tried to impose. In answer to the question where this new form came from, this section surveys the influence of the Ming New Year’s Day ceremony, and explores the Manchu practices in revised form. It finds an amalgamation of practices: a result of the attempt to use Ming frameworks to facilitate the centralization of authority, while at the same time navigating internal Manchu politics and foreign affairs. In short, the Manchus recast the ritual in an entirely novel fashion, based on their own immediate political and cultural context. The idea of the revised New Year’s Day ceremony came from Ming practice via Chinese officials. The document on the 1632 event shows that Board of Rites vice president Li Bolong brought the matter to Hong Taiji’s attention and gave concrete suggestions on the changes necessary for a proper New Year’s ceremony. Furthermore, given how quickly the edict was issued, Li Bolong and his Chinese associates were almost certainly involved in the drafting of the order. We know very little about Li Bolong or his counterparts. Li’s name and bureaucratic position both point to his being Han Chinese. He burst onto the scene in this memorial, and appeared again a week and a half later in a rather damning memorial accusing

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Chinese bannerman and Hong Taiji confidant Ning Wanwo of gambling and drinking.38 After this he disappears from the historical record. What is clear is that Li Bolong acted in the capacity of administrative advisor and political facilitator, which enabled him to put forth proposals to restructure the power of the relatives and limit their independence and policy-making authority. When Li Bolong memorialized the emperor and drafted the edict, he most likely drew on the Da Ming huidian, or Ming administrative statutes, to inform his understanding of how the New Year’s ceremony should work.39 For example, Li complained about the procession of political actors lacking an organizational sequence based on official hierarchy or rank. This idea of hierarchical order according to rank and position as granted by the state is reflected throughout the Ming Huidian. The Ming New Year’s Day ceremony was a highly formalized event with every actor accounted for by rank and sociopolitical position. Staging was key, and the movement of specific actors and specific times highly scripted—precisely the points emphasized by Li Bolong and his Chinese colleagues. In order to identify the Ming influence and Manchu divergences, the Ming New Year’s Day ceremony must be closely examined. In contrast to the Manchus visiting the shamanistic shrine, the Ming Huidian account of the Ming New Year’s Day ceremony opens with ceremonial preparations. On the last day of the outgoing year, officials set up the imperial throne in the Fengtian Palace. They placed the seals table to the east of the throne and the incense table to the south of the crimson stairs. The Court of State Ceremonial set up two placard tables outside the eastern door of the hall; to the left and right of the Crimson Stairs, Board of Rites officials set up eight tables for tribute gifts from foreign states. The court astronomer placed a drum in the Wen tower to keep time, and the music department arranged instruments facing north in the eastern and western halls of the Fengtian Palace. On New Year’s Day, officials from the imperial bodyguard stood holding the ritual instruments of parasols, banners, and weapons on the crimson stairs and to the east and west of the courtyard. They set up fans to the east and west of the hall and lined up carts facing north along the route. The standard-bearer guard set up a gold drum outside the Wumen Gate and lined up with banners outside the Fengtian Gate. Warhorses were brought in and lined up, along with trained elephants and rhinoceroses. Three distinct beats of the drum signaled three different stages of action. On the first beat, officials in their court dress and foreign embassies grouped themselves according to rank outside the Wumen Gate. On the second beat, they bowed and entered through the side gates to the right and left of the main gate, and stood in sequence in the courtyard facing north. When the drum beat a third time, it signaled inner court officials to kneel and report that all was prepared. Only at this point did the emperor appear in the ceremony: he entered in his cap and gown, and sat down. The music stopped.

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At this juncture, all officials in full ceremonial regalia and dress were lined up in formation by rank inside the palace. The emperor was seated at the head of the arrangement, and ceremonial officials announced that the formal rites were ready to commence. Rather than attendees parading before the emperor, as in the Qing ceremony, the Ming emperor was driven around the hall in a palanquin in front of all the officials, who were instructed to bow five times and then return to stand in their assigned places. Music played and the emperor made his way to the throne. Once seated, the emperor held audience. Ceremonial officials then called for the music to cease and for officials to first bow four times, to rise, and then stand in formation. Proceedings for the announcements of imperial regulations followed. This began with a proclamation carrier kneeling before the emperor and memorializing the regulations of the state. Having received confirmation, he rose and exited. The proclamation carrier then announced the regulations. When finished, all officials prostrated and the grand ceremony music played. The officials rose and stood at attention, and the music stopped. Dances then commenced. Upon conclusion, officials were ordered to clasp their hands; when promoted they called out, “wansui” (literally “long life,” but registering more as “long live the emperor”). Prompted again they called out “wansui.” On the third cue they called out “wan-wansui.” The music played, officials performed four bows, and the music stopped. This sequence completed the ceremonial activity. The Court of State Ceremonial chief minister knelt before the emperor and reported that the ritual was complete. Music resumed and the emperor made his exit. The music stopped again and all the officials exited in formation. Similar to the custom upon conclusion of the Qing ceremony, a banquet was usually held by the Ming.40 Two key areas of contrast between the Ming and Qing ceremonies emerge: the role of the emperor and the organization of the hierarchy. Foremost, in the Ming ceremony, the emperor does not appear until very late in the description. The first half of the ceremony is devoted to the details of preparation and the positioning and activity of the other actors. Not until all this is in place does the emperor make his appearance, and even then, it is only as a secondary actor—almost as a prop in an elaborate ceremony put on merely for the sake of propriety. This contrasts sharply with the Qing, where the entire ceremony is focused on the emperor. The description of the ceremony opens with the emperor leading others in sacrifice; throughout he is at the head of the ritual and the focus of all action. Rather than the shadowy presence of the Ming emperor, the Qing emperor is prominently the master of the ceremony, depicted as a charismatic leader at the head of a group that follows him in three different activities: sacrificing at the Manchu shrine, praying to the ancestors, and paying respects to the empress dowager. In these opening acts the emperor is cast as a patrimonial figure to whom others demonstrate their personal loyalty. Although later in the ceremony this role of charismatic leader is

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Formation, 1631–1651

switched for one of a sovereign over a formal bureaucratic hierarchy, the focus of attention remains the same. The second point of contrast between the official depictions of the Ming and Qing ceremonies is the nature and composition of the hierarchy. Put simply, the contrast was one of the professional bureaucracy in the Ming versus the imperial relatives in the Qing. Where the Ming ceremony emphasized the organization, operation, and formalization of the administrative officials, the Qing focused on the imperial relatives.41 The Qing imperial relatives were a constant threat to the sovereign. These were the men who had struggled for power and continued to enhance their positions over each other and even in relation to the sovereign. For this reason, the ceremony purposely placed them in subservient positions to the emperor. By contrast, the Ming had no such problem with this group of people, for very early on all the Ming imperial relatives were exiled from the heart of political, military, and ceremonial life. They were nowhere to be found in Ming rituals.42 These two contrasts reflect a fundamental difference: Where the Ming code emphasized the propriety and grandeur of the ceremony along with the organization of the administrative officials, the Qing focused on the authority of the emperor, especially in relation to the imperial relatives. These interests can be seen as informing the structure of the respective states and reflected in the different Huidian. Board of Personnel statutes, for example, show the Qing concerned foremost with the ranks of the imperial relatives and Manchu elite. Similarly, Board of War statutes take up the banner positions and the inheritance of titles. These differences emerged through the formation of the respective structures of the different sociopolitical orders of each state. The arrangements and practices were put down in code in the respective Huidian to reflect the interests and ideals of that particular order. The Ming were concerned with organizing officials and assigning duties according to an envisioned role based on the classic texts and in accordance with a certain conception of traditional Chinese society and order, whereas the Qing were focused on the relative power among the sovereign, imperial relatives, and the banners.43 Considering such contrasts it is evident that the Manchus did not adopt the Ming ceremony; rather, they let certain aspects of it inform their own traditions. For the early Manchus, the Ming served as a conceptual referent for ceremonial form and political function—a framework for the organization of a large agrarian bureaucracy. But rather than adopting the Ming practice tout court, Qing statemakers selected parts of the structure and amalgamated it with Manchu traditions to create a kind of hybrid. Indeed, the Manchus would not embrace the Ming practice simply because it might hold promise for the making of a state; rather, they would work with what was available and piece together a system that responded to the needs of the day.

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C O N C LU SIO N : T H E N EW Y E A R’ S DAY C E R E M O N Y A N D T H E Q I N G STAT E

This chapter has offered a glimpse of the political struggles in the formation of the Manchu state and the symbolic form within which they were given meaning. The revision of the New Year’s Day ceremony in 1632 to elevate a single individual to the position of sovereign and organize political actors in a stratified hierarchy took place against the backdrop of rearranging relations among a group of political actors involved in the shaping of an emergent order. These developments were part of a long process of the formation of the Manchu state and the internal struggles for power. Key political institutions would continue to evolve over the decades, as would the culturally symbolic forms within which they would be given meaning. A New Year’s Day ritual itself was not unprecedented. As outlined above, the Manchus had a long tradition of celebratory rites on the first day of the new year. What changed was the form of the ceremony. Whereas previously the Manchu khan did not take a privileged place or eminent position in the ceremony, in the 1632 ceremony and thereafter, the ruler would sit as an emperor—central and elevated above all. He would occupy an unambiguous position of superiority, projecting the symbolic control of political and material resources. Similarly, the primacy of political actors became sequential and a hierarchy established. In years past, the order of the procession in the ceremony was arbitrary and could be haphazardly determined by seniority or opulence of dress. The 1632 change pegged the order to political position, and granted those of higher rank and political standing greater priority and privilege. These changes in the rite occurred as the political landscape was also being altered. Foremost, Hong Taiji had outmaneuvered his brothers and cousin. The relatives had started as political equals in both position and decision-making powers, but they ended up symbolically as subordinates. The elevation of Hong Taiji to the center of the authority gave him control over policy and personnel. The lines of power now pointed toward him, and they did so not only because he stood as a charismatic leader who had won the following of others through his military strength and political entrepreneurship, but also by constructing a system of symbolic meanings that helped make sense of new social changes and showed actors their subordinate places in the emerging order. The form of li that emerged did so in concert with political developments. The New Year’s Day ceremony created a context to put individuals and groups into certain kinds of relationships and regulated certain kinds of interactions. One man would sit at the center and all would relate to him as a sovereign who had various political powers and control of resources. Others would stratify themselves as if they belonged to specific stations and embodied certain roles. Still others would

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subject themselves to mastery as if they were political inferiors craving the grace and favor of their superiors. Such relationships, once played out in ceremony, came to have real and symbolic meaning in the formation of political relations. It would enable the dominance of a group that privileged a stratified hierarchy of political offices employing administrators and co-opting the gentry in a tax-office state. The imperial relatives and Manchu nobility would be stripped of their autonomy, alienated from the land, and incorporated into the state. Ritual facilitated such political and institutional developments, as is evident from the 1634 ceremony. After Hong Taiji sat and Daišan took his place to his right, two generals, who had recently deserted the Ming and shifted their loyalty to the Manchus, were brought before the khan. Hong Taiji told them they would be accorded the honor of lining up alongside and kowtowing in concert with the high-ranking imperial relatives. The generals demurred, protesting that they were unworthy to receive such an honor. “How do we dare accept the rank of beile?” they asked. But the khan’s peremptory request had been made and they consented to lead the relatives in the kowtow.44 From the khan’s offer of rank and gift of primacy in the ceremony, it is clear that the rite and position in the rite carried a distinction that the actors took quite seriously. Whether or not the actors were sincere in their offers or protests misses the point, for what is unmistakably clear is that the ritual and the articulations about the ritual worked together with the naked struggle for power and the shaping of social and political relations. And yet, despite its importance, one political struggle and the restructuring of a ceremony was not the extent of Qing state-making. The emperor was not institutionalized simply because he sat in a certain seat on the first day of the first month of the new year. Banner leaders and personnel did not manifest complete allegiance to a figure of the sovereign simply because they were organized in the procession. Imperial relatives and officials did not just sacrifice their interests after being given a new ceremonial role. The ceremony was a key part of the process, to be sure, but the entire affair was long and drawn out, and it cycled through many emperors and ministers. As subsequent chapters will demonstrate, ongoing struggles and introduction of other practices continued to contribute to the making of the institutions, relations, and legitimization of the Qing state.

4

The Institution of the Emperor

Having consolidated support and symbolically demoted his competitors, Hong Taiji and his allies continued to push for greater control over political and symbolic resources by redefining the meaning of the sovereign. Working against the joint-rule framework set up by Nurhaci, and in an effort to limit the influence of imperial relatives and banner lords, Hong Taiji and his allies drew on Ming precedent of the emperor as a sovereign positioned at the head of a professional civil and military bureaucracy. Their aim was to refine the Manchu political order, and they moved both to represent the ruler as an emperor through symbolic positioning in ceremony as well as to legitimize his person by recourse to genealogy. Hong Taiji initiated the defining practices of representation and legitimization, which were then substantially developed under his successor, the Shunzhi emperor, who carried on the work of constructing the system of li in the Qing. This chapter is divided into two parts, each reflective of the categories of the li of the emperor and the process by which various parts of the system were put together to construct the institution of the emperor. The first part explores how the emperor was represented in the ritual activities of grand ceremony (dajie or dadian) and court ceremony (changchaoyi). The elaborate performances of the grand ceremonies clarified the role of the sovereign in relation to other political actors; in doing so, it further constructed a symbolic space for him to inhabit that separated him from the relatives and officials, which facilitated the command of politics. At the same time, the regular court ceremonies, where the emperor personally met with officials, routinized a particular kind of political interaction where power and command necessarily flowed from ruler and subject. The presentation of the emperor to his officials in this way helped naturalize the position 65

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of the ruler as an emperor and conferred the right of the power of the office by controlling access and dialogue. The second part of the chapter asks who got to be emperor and why. It shows a set of practices employed in the construction of the imperial genealogy, which included the building of tombs and sacrifice to imperial ancestors to legitimize the individual in the position of sovereign. These acts further worked to justify the state-building efforts of Nurhaci: The rites of tomb sacrifice and worship of the ancestors manufactured an imperial lineage that not only legitimized a select group of people to hold the position but also used the power of the throne to canonize particular ancestors to further justify dynasty. One of the findings of this chapter is that the emperorship was performed, and, just as significantly, that it was performed through li. This is not a radical claim: other scholars have made similar observations in light of the constant and undeniably important ceremonial and ritual activity of the Qing court.1 The more novel assertion here is about the construction of this performance in relation to the political order. The initial insight is thereby harnessed and put in service of understanding both the operations of the Qing political system and its formation. Indeed, li was employed not simply as a formalized activity of the ruler but also to construct certain kinds of political relations and interpersonal interactions commensurate with the early settlements of power. Whereas others have assumed the position of the emperor and the relations associated with and surrounding the office, this chapter exposes its contingency on the Qing state-formation process and in direct relation to other political actors. Rather than seeking to reconstruct and explain the ritual performance of the Qing emperor, which others have convincingly done, this chapter shows how and why that performance facilitated Qing politics and constructed a particular system of domination. R E P R E SE N TAT IO N

In exploration of the process of constructing the sovereign, it becomes clear that the emperorship had its effect only by dint of the position in relation to other positions within the political order. These relationships were adroitly articulated in grand ceremony and the reception of officials at court. Although other political and military activities reflected the emperor at work and expressed the power of his position, a key way in which the office was conceived was the emperor as a performer of rituals. As illustrated in the discussion about the New Year’s Day ceremony, the political order and the role of the sovereign within that order were fully expressed in the rite itself. Here, practiced in full, was the central, hierarchical organization with a single sovereign who acted in prescribed ways, and toward whom others must also act by certain prescription. Li became at once a prophecy of the sovereign and simultaneously its fulfillment.

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Li as Governance Qing actors themselves made a direct connection between governance and li. Participants in the debate over the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony, for example, either implicitly or explicitly associated proper ceremonial practice and authoritative rule: Board of Rites vice president Li Bolong’s initial call to standardize New Year’s Day practices and elevate the khan, for example, was done out of concern for shaping the political order; likewise, Daišan’s argument for following the suggestions referenced the direct relation of the symbolic order to the nature and perception of the Manchu government.2 A few years later, in 1634, Chinese Plain White Bannerman and Imperial Guardsman Liu Xuecheng memorialized Hong Taiji on the need to set up suburban altars and hold regular sacrifice. Doing so, he argued, would make Hong Taiji a true sovereign and establish benevolent rule over the land. “As the son of Heaven and Earth,” he argued, “the khan needs to set up altars of Heaven and earth like the Han dynasty.” He went on to list national and local events that would necessitate the ruler to express himself as a ruler by means of proper practice of a rite at a particular site. When sending off troops to conquer, for example, he should go to the various altars and pray; in times of drought and flood he should do likewise. Every year on the day of the Winter Solstice, he ought to go to the Altar of Heaven and sacrifice one ox. On the day of the Summer Solstice, he must go to the Grain Altar and sacrifice a pig and sheep. Such practices would make a complete system of li, Liu argued, which “will win the trust of Heaven and the heart of the people. This will enable [the ruler] to successfully govern the affairs of all under Heaven.”3 Toward the end of this memorial Liu switched the term of designation for Hong Taiji. In the opening lines he used the Chinese word for khan, han, but then abruptly, as he concluded, began to use the term for emperor, huang shang.4 After making his recommendations, Liu projected a definitive result for adopting these proposals: The khan would become an emperor. “If the emperor can do these two things with sincerity,” he wrote, “obeying the will of Heaven and following the hearts of the people, then the great enterprise will be complete and stretch without bounds.” Liu here implied a direct relation between li and governance—a relation that made the practices of li and the sites where they would occur necessary for the administration of the state.5 Hong Taiji’s immediate response to Liu’s memorial was one of uncertainty and hesitation. “As for building the suburban altars and establishing the ancestral hall, I still do not know the will of Heaven. How do I dare act with haste?” Hong Taiji replied, referring to the lack of a sure path to victory over the Ming, and the still indefinite territorial extent of Manchu rule.6 “With the assistance of Heaven, we can overcome and succeed in the Great Enterprise. At that time, we will have followed the will of Heaven and can respectfully discuss grand ceremony. It will not

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be too late.”7 From this statement, it appears that Hong Taiji preferred not to add this cultural form of altars and sacrifice into the arsenal of the Manchu state, at least not immediately. Hong Taiji’s response can be read in a number of different ways. It can be seen as one of humility and lack of presumption about conquering the Ming—although, given the ambitious nature of Hong Taiji, it is unlikely that he ruled out anything. It is also possible to read it as a misgiving about cultural practices, where the emperor-to-be still grappled with the adoption of foreign practices and how they ought to work or why. In this reading, the system of li is consciously being debated as it is coming into being, with each component weighed in relation to the emergent social system. This leads naturally to a third reading: an expression of a struggle over the form of the state and the representation of the sovereign. This memorial and its reply came in 1634, a year and a half before the announcement of the establishment of the Qing as a dynasty, when the Manchu state was still young, and Hong Taiji still leading battles and relying on his charisma to control policy and preside over politics. The political settlements had begun to take form, to be sure, but exactly what the political order would look like and the form of the state that would emerge were still unclear. But as the settlements over political power were hammered out, the forms and practices of li were also being determined. After Hong Taiji’s initial reluctance, however, he adopted the proposal, just two years later (1636). In the same motion of announcing the establishment of the Qing, Hong Taiji initiated the suburban altars and the associated sacrifices and ceremonies. Hong Taiji issued a formal proclamation laying out the structured practices of li for the Qing, setting the procedures and standardizing the rites for the New Year’s Day ceremony, the imperial birthday ceremony, and court audience. Although this edict did not dwell on the details of the ceremony, it did emphasize hierarchy. Particular attention was paid to the ranks and the activities of the different ranking actors throughout the ritual. It is particularly noteworthy that these ranks were specific to the imperial relatives and upper echelon of the banners. These groups stratified the political order and came to be organized through the practices of the grand ceremony.8 The rest of this section outlines the components of li as imperial representation. The Board of Rites helped envision and guide the activities of the sovereign by routinizing his position in a way that created a suitable representation of the state. The Board offered the sovereign a certain role to play and activities to perform that became manifest in a governing position enacted by li. This occurred through the forms proposed by Liu: grand ceremony and suburban sacrifice. But it was also made manifest in court ceremony by ensuring the necessary relations between sovereign and subject. In this way, not only did Hong Taiji come to know how to be an emperor of a bureaucratic state—and not just a khan commanding a loose

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socio-military organization of seminomadic peoples; but also, his charisma was made permanent and the positions of his staff and offspring were established within and at the head of a political system. Grand Ceremony Grand ceremony (dajie or dadian) was the term the Qing used to refer to the practice of three annual practices: the New Year’s Day ceremony, the Winter Solstice ritual, and the emperor’s birthday. They are deemed the “three grand ceremonies” (san dajie) in the Huidian, which reads, “after respectful deliberation of the previous system, Qing emperors revised the ceremonial rite.”9 These three ceremonies were not grouped together as such in the Ming; the Qing articulation of them as grand ceremony was part of the transformation of li to make up the system of li in the Qing. The New Year’s Day ritual in its Qing incarnation began in 1632, as discussed in chapter 3. The other two rituals were first practiced in 1636, the year of the announcement of the founding of the Qing dynasty and amid intensifying state-building efforts. The three ceremonies were all similar to each other by design. Explanatory passages in the Huidian for the Winter Solstice and emperor’s birthday ceremonies make this clear. On the Winter Solstice, the Huidian says, “Every year on the Winter Solstice set up the ritual fans, parasols, the great carriage, and the music instruments. All officials should come to court to offer congratulatory praise. Everything else is the same as the New Year’s Day ceremony [except] do not hold a banquet.”10 Similarly, for the emperor’s birthday, the entry briefly lists the ritual instruments and officials in attendance before noting, “It is the same as New Year’s Day, [including] the banquet.”11 As these passages put in so many words, the New Year’s Day ceremony, as the precursor and anchor for the Qing system of li, served as the model for the other two. In practice, the three ceremonies did differ from each other, where the emphasized commonality was not so much in form but in concept: they all did the work of representing the sovereign and the state. As illustrated in the New Year’s Day ceremony, the ritual put the emperor front and center, and brought all subjects into an immediate relation of subjugation to him. The ceremony helped define the sovereign as one who occupied a certain position and commanded political resources. At the same time, the ceremony symbolized in practice an entire political hierarchy with the emperor at the top and various ranks and groups assigned to certain positions. The grand ceremonies of the Qing thus developed in tandem with the evolution of a particular political order, and they symbolized the position of the emperor at its head. These practices differed from the Ming in form and function. The specific political and cultural contexts of the Manchus led to the need for a revision, manipulation, and invention of the practices of li to serve in the internal struggles for power

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figure 4 . Drawing of the 1872 Winter Solstice ceremony at the Alter of Heaven by Scottish artist and adventurer William Simpson, who purportedly snuck in to witness the ceremony. The depiction of the grounds and altar are fairly accurate; but the actual ceremony would have had more officials in attendance and they would have been lined up in ranks. In addition, the awning would have stood on the second tier for the emperor to stage an ascent to the central meridian. Illustrated London News, February 22, 1873.

and the division of political resources. This was manifest in the amalgamation of Manchu traditions and Ming forms to recast the New Year’s Day ceremony to help empower some over others. In the course of doing so, that entire ceremony took on a completely different form from any other dynasty or Jurchen khan, and it did so with a new system of symbolic meanings. This situation was further reflected in the ceremonies for the Winter Solstice (figure 4) and the emperor’s birthday. Winter Solstice Rite. The Qing held the ceremony for the Winter Solstice for the first time in the winter of 1636. The ritual formed part of the suite of ceremonies that were ushered in with the announcement of the founding of the Qing dynasty, forming the trio of the grand ceremonies. The opening of the ritual illustrates the formality of the acts, how they were orchestrated, and the intimate involvement of different actors performing different roles. The details of the beginning of the ceremony here further highlight the process by which the emperor’s relationships with the other political actors were

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regularized, and how his role as sovereign was becoming formalized. The ritual in 1636, as recorded in contemporary Manchu records, began as follows: On the day of the Winter Solstice, the khan led out [the imperial relatives], and all the civil and military officials. For three days they abstained. They killed a black ox, and when going to worship Heaven, the khan advanced through the Zhongdemen Gate at 5 a.m. After arriving at the Alter of Heaven, the Secretarial Court Grand Secretary and Board of Rites president took the khan to the east of the altar and situated him facing west. After the master of ceremonies said to line up, all lined up. After calling to enter, they entered. After calling to light the incense, the khan ascended the stairs to the east. After kneeling before the Altar of Heaven, the Secretarial Court Secretary offered the incense box and presented it respectively to the Grand Secretary, who received it and presented it kneeling to the khan. The khan received it and lit the incense. . . . Thereupon, the khan descended the stairs to the west and stood facing the central throne. The master of ceremonies said to kowtow, and [the khan] did the three genuflections and nine prostrations. Thereupon, the khan went to the eastern steps. The khan himself offered the ox and various things that were prepared for sacrifice. After he finished, he descended the western stairs, and in the same way stood facing the throne in the center. Afterward, the master of ceremonies said to kneel; the khan knelt. Prince Gūnggadai, who stood on the left side, presented a silk-covered box to the Grand Secretary, who received it and, kneeling, passed it to the khan. The khan received it and offered it upward with both hands facing the throne of Heaven. He gave it to the Board of Rites president, who accepted it kneeling. He gave it to the [other] Board of Rites president, who accepted it and offered it with both hands to the throne of Heaven. Thereupon, the Board of War president, who stood on the left side, brought a cup of wine to the Grand Secretary, who received it and offered it kneeling to the khan. The khan accepted it and offered it upward toward Heaven. He gave it to the Board of Rites president, who accepted it kneeling and gave it to the president of the Censorate, who received it and offered with both hands up to Heaven. The Court of Vast Learning president brought a cup of wine to the Grand Secretary, who presented it kneeling to the khan. The emperor presented it with two hands to Heaven and gave it to the Board of Rites president, who accepted it kneeling and gave it to the Board of Personnel president, who offered it with both hands to Heaven. The Inner Court of Historiography president, gave the cup of wine to the Grand Secretary, who accepted it and offered it kneeling to the khan. The khan offered it up to Heaven and gave it to the Board of Rites president, who took it kneeling and gave it to the Board of Punishments president, who accepted it and offered it up to Heaven.12

There are two categories of activity to highlight in the rite: representation and formalization. The first is the symbolic activity that represented the emperor as the sovereign throughout the ceremony. The emperor presided over imperial relatives

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and officials in worship, indicating that he stood at the head of the social and political structure and was given primacy of action and leadership in the ceremony. This is further emphasized in his advance through a certain gate at a certain time, both of which were given significance as an imperial practice and reserved for the emperor alone, while other officials had to enter through other gates.13 Furthermore, throughout the ceremony, the emperor was made the center of activity. He was instructed when and where to ascend or descend the altar. He was given objects with which to worship—incense, silk box, or wine—and act upon it— lighting the incense and offering up the box and wine. The other actors in the ritual had supporting roles, such as to receive the incense box, or to position the emperor or put him in a superior relation to other social and political actors. In this way, the emperor was both represented as the primary actor of the state and placed in a superior relationship to his staff. The second category of activity is related to the first, and this is the formalization of the position of ruler. By standardizing the acts of the sovereign, the position of sovereign took on a sense of permanency. The li here was part of the process of reaffirming the institution of the emperor by giving a highly scripted role to the sovereign. He was told what to do and received direction as an actor in the ceremony along with other officials who performed different roles according to rank and position. The emperor received ritual objects from others, presented them to Heaven, and then passed them on to others. The emperor was directed to ascend the stairs, to descend the stairs, to stand in a specific place. He was told to kowtow, and instructed to kneel. The sovereign was here given a specific role to perform, which was manifest symbolically in the ceremony as an emperor. Imperial Birthday Rite. Every year, on the day of the emperor’s birthday, a similar ceremony was held. In Chinese it was called wanshoujie, or the celebration of long life. Following the Ming practice of holding a ceremony on the emperor’s birthday, the Qing put the event on the ritual calendar and cast the proceedings with all the essential elements to represent the emperor in reflection of the New Year’s Day ceremony. The birthday ceremony was an expression of the life of the individual recast as the sovereign. It served both as an opportunity for the emperor to enact himself as emperor by performing certain practices reserved for the position of emperor, and for others to interact with him as the sovereign who held power and controlled politics. This meant everything from visiting and banqueting with the immediate imperial family to provincial officials setting up incense tables in their offices and kowtowing.14 The preparation discussions for the imperial birthday rite of 1654 are indicative of how the position of the emperor was understood and his role cast. That year, the ceremony was to fall on the thirtieth day of the first month. A week before, Board of Rites president Langkio wrote to inform the emperor of the date of the

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ceremony and what would take place. On the morning of the ceremony, Langkio communicated, Board of Rites officials would take the emperor to his mother’s residence, where he would offer a display of filial piety by performing the proper rites in front of her as the empress dowager. She would ascend a throne, before which the emperor would do the rite, thereby symbolically ordering the proper social relations of parents to sons. After the rite, the emperor would return to his palace and wait for the banquet preparations to be completed. When all was ready, Langkio wrote, he would take the emperor to the Zhonghedian Hall, where officials from the Board of Rites, the three inner offices, and the Censorate would first offer congratulatory rites. Board officials would then escort the emperor to the Taihedian Hall, where he would ascend the throne and sit while all the other officials would come through in their group rank and perform the proper rite in front of the emperor. After all had offered their respects, they would banquet. To this proposal, the emperor replied in the affirmative with a single character/word in the red rescript: “yes” (Chinese, shi; Manchu, inu).15 The ritual and its acts did not begin or end on the said day, however. Officials were required to wear formal court dress beginning on the twenty-seventh day, and could only change out of this costume on the third day of the second month, the day after the spring sacrifice. Such a regulation ensured not only that practitioners would be instilled with a sense of the pending ceremony and its lingering effects but also would know intimately their role in it, even in the confines of their own homes. Whereas under usual circumstances officials might change into regular dress when not at court, for the seven days of the ceremony, whether at home or in their work-office, officials would have to wear uniforms that identified their hierarchical rank and bureaucratic role. For seven days, they donned this uniform with the heavy consciousness of one who has learned his place in the world and undergone subjection to a system that perpetuated it. This was made all the more imperative by Langkio, who memorialized separately on the matter to inform the throne that those who failed to garb themselves in their ritual costume for the period would be punished accordingly. For at stake was not just individual transgression but the moral order of the empire.16 In this way, the emperor’s birthday was an opportunity not only for the construction and reaffirmation of political order and the representation of hierarchies but also for the investiture of political actors with a sense of common purpose. The donning of particular clothing for the length of the ceremony helped construct a space that lay outside of the ordinary, giving expression to the sacred—in this case, the affirmation of the emperor as political order. Conflict over the date of the ceremony provides a further illustration of the organization of politics here. On the twenty-third, Langkio again memorialized the throne with a problem. The ritual and the accompanying banquet were scheduled to take place on the thirtieth. That year, however, the spring sacrifice fell on

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the second day of the second month and called for fasting to begin on the thirtieth, which was the day of the emperor’s birthday and called for a feast. According to ritual precedent for the spring sacrifice, the emperor and his officials would have to forgo the birthday banquet, for it fell on the very day that they were expected to begin fasting in preparation for sacrificial rites at the Sun Altar three days later. A possible solution, Langkio proposed, would be to hold the ceremony on the twenty-ninth. He pointed out that this was not without precedent: on those years when the first month was a day short, the imperial birthday rite would be held on the twenty-ninth. Making such an adjustment this year, he said, would allow adherence to the ritual calendar without violating the lunar calendar, even though it was a long month with thirty days. This suggestion was accepted.17 Such an adjustment indicates that the day itself as a celebration of the emperor’s birth was not as important as the representation of the emperor in the hierarchy and the expression of the political relationships. The ceremony for the imperial birthday that year was performed much along the lines laid out in Langkio’s memorials. On the morning of the twenty-ninth,18 the emperor was prepared with the imperial ritual instruments, and all the imperial relatives and officials lined up in their court costumes outside the gates of the Forbidden City. Ritual music played and the relatives and officials entered the city through a succession of gates. When the Board of Rites had set up the ritual instruments for the empress dowager, the emperor came in and performed the stipulated rites. After, he exited and the Board went to work setting up for the banquet. The emperor was taken to the Zhonghedian Hall and then to the Taihedian Hall where the ceremonies were performed and the banquet hosted.19 This was all quite straightforward, and similar in form to what would occur in the rites of the other grand ceremonies. There was one act of the emperor’s birthday, however, that was not entailed in the other two grand ceremonies, and that was the pardoning of criminals. Opening the jails on the emperor’s birthday as an expression of benevolent mercy had long been a practice among Chinese rulers, and late imperial rulers incorporated it into their systems of li.20 The Ming did as much, and the Qing followed suit, routinizing the practice so that the operation became less one of the decision and action of individual benevolence, and more one of impersonal, standard ritual practice. Consider the occasion in 1640. In an edict transmitted to the Board of Rites, Hong Taiji laid out the motivation for pardoning, and then detailed ten crimes that would not be pardoned. The twenty-fifth day of the tenth month is my birthday. I think that all the imperial relatives and below, and the ten thousand people will rejoice because of my benevolence. I wish it to reach not only all the kings and good people but also all criminals. Except for [those who have committed] the ten kinds of crimes, every criminal will be pardoned. The ten crimes not to be pardoned:

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1. Crime of expressing a desire to attack the emperor. 2. Crime of burning down and destroying the ancestral temple, imperial graves, or government offices. 3. Crime of running away and revolting. 4. Crime of deception through the ghostly arts of using poison to kill people. 5. Crime of stealing those things used to sacrifice to Heaven or used by the khan. 6. Crime of beating one’s grandparents and parents. 7. Crime of selling one’s brothers. 8. Crime of implicating others in a crime, or the woman who accuses her husband. 9. Crime of adultery with a woman from within one’s own clan. 10. Crime of killing people and clearly robbing them of property. These ten crimes are not to be pardoned. It is not a crime under law if things recognized as taken or abandoned are given to the lord. Mutual repayment between two people will not be a crime. In addition to this, all crimes of assault and robbery are pardoned. People cannot again bring up accusations of crimes that have been pardoned. Also absolve crimes without confession that have been brought before the law and the sentences set, and exempt crimes that have been handled but the sentence not yet determined. The day after the amnesty and henceforth, all crimes of assault and robbery are still to be dealt with by law.21

This edict on the pardoning in conjunction with the emperor’s birthday ceremony is the earliest such document available on the matter. The language is standardized, and not much different in tone or content than that of precedents from previous Chinese rulers. But it does show the formation of the ritual system and the political acts emerging in tandem. Together these cultural and social systems came to form the Qing order and comprise the Qing system of li. Court Ceremony While Grand Ceremonies were reserved for monumental dates, court audience furnished regular occasion for ceremonial proceedings among the emperor and his officials. Much like the grand ceremonies, the court ceremony articulated the emperor at the head of an administrative staff and confirmed the nature and limit of political relationships. Through the elaborate procedure of gaining and granting access to the sovereign, the court ceremony placed the political actors in particular social relationships and guided interpersonal interaction—it granted access to the emperor as a venerated symbol to which state administrators gave deference in authority and decision, rather than mediated discussion or debate. Furthermore, it raised the emperor above politics by creating a distance between ruling sovereign and administrating subject. It gave the emperor greater control over political resources by making him the arbiter of policy. The point is not that it enhanced his personal power (although it may have done that as well), but rather that it

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constructed a space to remove the emperor from debate about the nature of political order by confining conflict over the form of the state and discussions about the nature of the social world and its making, and consigning it to the lower level of routine politics. Qing Origins of the Ceremony. To understand the significance of the court ceremony it is instructive to return to Hong Taiji and how the emperor was represented and performed. As Hong Taiji and his supporters established control and set up administrative apparatuses, they faced a question over the form of interaction between the sovereign and his administrators: What should the political relationship between the ruler and his administrative staff look like? How could the interaction be standardized so that the ruler could nullify any threat to his power? How could the positions be affirmed and set so that the political order would be preserved without interruption? How would the emperor receive advice, entertain suggestions, issue orders and do so while maintaining superiority of position and command of political power? Indeed, how to be ruler of subjects and interact with other political actors? In the early to mid-1630s, Chinese advisors raised these questions. On the issue of administrative personnel, an overriding concern was how to secure the loyalty of people for the running of the state. The six boards had just been established in 1631, but neither a set of operational regulations nor a system of oversight had been installed. This presented a problem of internal administrative coherence, which advisors viewed with more than a little anxiety. As Chinese advisor Hu Gongming put it in 1632, “While it is necessary to use good people, these people must be cultivated. Today the emperor says he is cultivating people, but he does not yet have the key to cultivating people.”22 The problem, as they saw it, was staffing the administration and regulating officials both institutionally and coercively. Trusted officials like Ning Wanwo wrote with suggestions of using the tradition of the civil examination to find good bureaucrats, which, in his eyes, was the only means to obtaining officials devoted to service and learning.23 Similarly, others suggested employing more Chinese officials,24 and articulated various standards for the promotion of good people.25 Even with good officials, however, there remained the question of oversight. “There is no one to oversee operations,” memorialized Ma Guangyuan in 1632. “It is like a cart without reins, or a ship without a rudder. There is nothing to control it. If things begin to go awry or there is difficulty, the emperor will not be able to know.”26 Ma wrote the next day proposing the establishment of the six offices of scrutiny (Liuke) to maintain censorial surveillance over the six boards.27 Further suggestions ranged from employing censors to reporting on bureaucratic activity.28 At the root of these proposals was a concern with establishing and regulating proper political relationships. In memorials on personnel, officials emphasized the

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need to abrogate those relationships that did not instill full political authority in the sovereign by circumventing or cutting out the imperial relatives, or anyone else who might manipulate political resources in a manner adverse to the vision of the state building project. The calls to cultivate new talent, to use the civil examinations, and promote good people all suggested imperial control of political resources and the concentration of power into a political hierarchy, at the top of which stood the emperor. Take, for example, Li Qifeng’s call for ordering the administration properly through the conduct and relationships of officials. “Each ruler has a system for his time. My khan can set up his own system, as long as it distinguishes superiors from inferiors and [acknowledges] ranks and classes.”29 When this political order was challenged and internal political relationships and personal favors began to overtake the administrative work and hierarchy, cliques could form and the operations of the state become compromised, as both Fan Wencheng and Ning Wanwo pointed out had begun to happen in the 1630s, just before the initial employment of the formal court ceremony.30 There is little evidence available to make a direct connection between personnel issues and the establishment of the formal court ceremony. No record exists of actors articulating the solution to governance and the relationship between ruler and official in the language of the court ceremony. There was a mounting urgency, however, on the part of Han Chinese officials in service of the khan for the need to regulate political relationships and set standards for promotion, reward, and interaction. In the last year of the Tiancong reign (1635), for example, advisors complained about the dispersal of political resources in adverse ways and issued proposals to formalize procedures. Bao Chengxian memorialized on the need to employ rites in order to establish proper political relationships and set forth guidelines for honors, rewards, and recognition of accomplishments. “Since ancient times up until today, there have been rules. If you reward accomplishments randomly, then honors and ranks will not be respected. The honors and ranks will be saturated, and the worthy will retreat and the petty rise. The khan is in the same position as Shizong and Yuanshi of the Jin Dynasty. You cannot discard the rules of a hundred generations and set an example of rewarding without accomplishment.”31 The influence of these debates is manifest in the edict announcing the inauguration of the court ceremony. The establishment of a thrice-monthly court audience to regulate the interaction between emperor and officials was initially directed at the imperial relatives and banner officials, as the Chinese advisors had called for in their memorials just months earlier. Issued on the fourteenth day of the fifth month of the first year of 1636, the edict stated that every month on the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth, imperial relatives and banner officials should gather before dawn at the Chongzhengdian Hall. After having lined up according to rank, the edict said, the khan would come out, sit on the throne, and hear their reports on various affairs.32

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The Ceremony. The court ceremony was one answer to the question of how to control political relationships. It facilitated the construction and maintenance of a certain political order, where the emperor stood at the head of a highly stratified bureaucracy and controlled both the enactment of and access to power. In the rite, each of the actors assumed a specific role reflective of his political station. Officials were organized into their corresponding ranks and placed in a position that put them in a specific relationship not only with the sovereign but also with their superiors and inferiors in the hierarchy. Their interpersonal relations were herein defined. Similarly, in the ritual, the emperor was elevated to a place that literally stood above political society and metaphorically surveyed all its actions. The regular ceremony was first practiced in 1636; later it was recorded as a prescriptive practice: On the said day, set up the ritual instruments and the great carriage. The princes of the blood of the first, second, third, and fourth degrees, and all the civil and military officials dress in their court costumes and line up in front of the palace on the right and left sides according to rank. The Inner Court official calls for the emperor to ascend the throne. The emperor exits his residence in his court costume. Music plays. When the emperor sits on the throne the music stops. The emperor allows all the relatives and officials to sit. Remaining in their ranks, all perform one kowtow and sit. Officials from each board and office come out of their ranks and report their affairs. When the reporting is finished the emperor returns. Music plays. Those of prince [wang] and below, and all civil and military officials retreat.33

The rite emphasized the ranks of the imperial relatives and administrative and military officials. Of utmost concern were the organization of actors and the details of court actions to set the terms of interactions. This short prescription for political actors and their positions was further enumerated in an amendment of the regulation in 1676. The entry in the Huidian on this date consists of long lists of official ranks and titles organized according to who could sit where in the ceremony (see figure 5). For example, the first order of officials in the ceremony consisted of those of the highest rank who held primacy of place and position. They are listed as follows: “Duke, marquis, etc., and all officials of the first grade sit at the front.” The entry goes on to list who sat in the second row, and on down the line. There were nine places of arrangement, which corresponded to the nine grades of official ranks.34 The regulation did not stop there, however. After listing all the corresponding personnel and officials and assigning them to their appropriate spot, the regulation then launched into another long classification of officials not included in the first list. For example, the Chinese board presidents and the vice presidents of the Censorate sat with the first group, while the board vice presidents, scholars, and vice censorate were in the second group.35 In this way, all political roles were accounted for and placed in their assigned positions, reaffirming the hierarchy of political relations.

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figure 5 . A map of the positions for the various ranks and attendants for court ceremony at the Taihedian Hall. Qinding da Qing huidiantu (1899), vol. 26.

In addition to the strict performances of the officials here, the emperor was also assigned a role and given lines to act out—he was represented as emperor. From the above passage the emperor is seen ascending the throne, wearing his court costume, and returning to his quarters. He presided over the proceedings in a very direct manner, where his place and action were already predetermined.36 In addition to this regular court audience ceremony, which was held three times a month with all the pomp and ceremony just outlined, the emperor held court every morning at dawn, when he received memorials and handled the administrative affairs of the state. These court sessions, or the “hearing of administrative affairs” (tingzheng), were only attended by officials from the six boards and administrative offices—not by the entire contingent of capital officials and imperial relatives. Furthermore, they were less formal affairs and might take place at a site chosen ad hoc by the emperor, rather than in one of the palaces. These daily informal meetings did not become regularized until the early Shunzhi period; and it was not until 1671, early in the Kangxi reign, that official court clothing was required.37 The difference between these two types of court meetings was a matter of degree and imperial protocol. Where the daily court audience was a less formal affair between the sovereign and his staff over affairs of the state, the thricemonthly ceremony was a means to affirm political relationships and regularize the

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means of official interaction. The ceremony served as the forum for relatives and officials to express their gratitude to the emperor for any gifts or promotions, as well as to report on administrative affairs. But even more, the highly scripted rituals of engagement and the proffering of officials elevated the emperor to a level that required veneration rather than confrontation; it affirmed the hierarchy of rank and access to resources through the subjugation of inferiors to superiors. Indeed, the entire operation of the meeting represented the emperor in a superior position and defined the position and power of all underneath.38 Apart from the regular court audience there were other occasions for formal court ceremonies that affirmed the political order. In 1636, for instance, imperial relatives crowded into the imperial palace to offer thanks to the khan. With more people pushing in than the hall could accommodate, Hong Taiji first called to have people enter in turns by rank rather than all crowding in.39 Not many months later, Board of Rites officials held a special imperial audience to present the completed official history for Nurhaci’s reign. In this instance, they divided themselves ethnically and took turns to present in the respective order of Manchu, Mongol, and then Chinese languages.40 Similarly, in the fall of 1638, there was a special audience for the presentation of the ritual calendar.41 What all of these cases confirm is the use of li in order to represent the emperor at the head of the bureaucratic state, and the fact that the regular practices reproduced a certain political order that preserved the hierarchy of relationships and allowed some individuals more control over political resources than others. Transgression. Officials were required to attend and perform the trimonthly court audience, regardless of whether they had business to report or not. When officials reported on affairs, they approached the throne to deliver their reports, and officials not conducting business that morning still gathered and partook in the ceremony. Attendance was mandatory, not because of the need for all officers to be present for the transaction of state affairs, but rather to engage in the enactment of the political order—to learn and reaffirm the stratified roles. To not attend was regarded as a serious offense deserving punishment. The case of Wu Mingxuan illustrates just such a transgression of truancy. On the fifth day of the fourth month of 1654, the Autumn Official of the Directorate of Astronomy, Wu Mingxuan failed to attend court ceremony. In an investigation of all attendees for the ceremony, the Court of State Ceremonial noted a discrepancy and informed Board of Rites president Hu Shi’an, who memorialized on the infraction and pointed out that the mid-rank official Wu Mingxuan had not notified anyone of his absence, nor provided any excuse. The case was sent to the Board of Personnel to investigate and issue punishment.42 Within a month, the Board of Personnel had deliberated on the matter and concluded that Wu was guilty of misbehavior. President Liu Zhengzong memorialized that Wu would be docked three months’ pay.43

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Absence from ceremony was not uncommon, but it did have to be excused or approved. A survey of Shunzhi- and Kangxi-era routine memorials in the Grand Secretariat Archive shows both the frequent application by officials for absence (for such reasons as sickness, travel, and business), as well as the constant reporting of officials who failed to attend.44 By 1672, cases had become common enough that the Board of Rites sought to regulate the absences and write punishments into law. Officials failing to attend without prior notification along with the submission of a sufficient reason would get docked one month’s pay. For those officials who excused themselves for sickness but were later discovered not at home recuperating would be charged one year’s pay.45 L E G I T I M I Z AT IO N

Alongside representation, there remained the question of who got to be emperor in the first place. Nurhaci and Hong Taiji asserted their authority and continued to justify it through military superiority and political mastery—their charisma propelled them to a position of leadership and attracted supporters and staff. In order to institutionalize the position of sovereign, however, a set of justifications was required that enabled only one man and his descendants to occupy the throne—a precept was needed that would clearly articulate why some and not others could rule. In addition, a backward projection needed to be made to both explain and justify the conquest and state-making efforts of his successors, uniting the genealogy in a myth of dynastic formation. The most common solution to this problem was the construction of an imperial family genealogy that would legitimize rule through bloodline.46 Under such a justification, the emperor had a legitimate right to the throne and to control political resources because he was a part of a long line of kings. This gave him both the charismatic mystique of the royal blood, and the metaphysical blessing of an ancestral line. In the case of the Manchus, this worked by confirming an inside group that could occupy political power and exclude others. Hong Taiji worked to set the terms of the lineage by including the immediate descendants of Nurhaci as part of the imperial family, and giving noble status to those who descended from parallel ancestral lines. This effectively enabled Hong Taiji’s brothers and sons to claim the throne to the exclusion of other would-be contenders.47 This section explores the construction and reproduction of the legitimization of the person of the emperor through worship at the imperial tombs, ancestral temples, and the suburban altars. It seeks to answer the following question: What were the institutional arrangements that both enacted and perpetuated a system of justification for the specific person in the position of the sovereign? It finds that sacrifice at the tombs at regular intervals maintained a connection with ancestors as founders; the constant reminder at various times throughout the year both

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secured and institutionalized the position of emperor as one of right, not privilege; worshiping the ancestors at the ancestral temple and the suburban altars around the capital made a connection between the imperial family and the state; and sacrifice at set times throughout the year evoked ancestors intimately in the metaphorical well-being of the dynasty and the literal activity of the sovereign, his staff, and the imperial relatives. The sovereign and his supporters here constructed the meaning of the emperor and legitimized the position as the occupant of the throne. The immediate solution to the problem of justifying political power was to link certain institutional forms of ancestral worship with the sovereign’s right to rule. The determination of ancestors and the construction of large tombs to house their remains, coupled with formalized worship practices, ensured the exclusion of other family lines from being able to claim a natural right to political resources. The establishment of an ancestral temple and the placing of the ancestral spirit tablets within naturalized the connection between the sovereign and the polity over which he ruled. These issues arose in the 1630s as Hong Taiji’s state came into being, with many of the ritual activities initiated simultaneously with the announcement of the founding of the Qing. While the rituals of legitimization helped establish the sovereign and define the position, they worked less as instruments in aid of the internal struggles for power and more as a means to capture the imagination of external audiences to promote the emergent Qing state. Indeed, the practices employed were not for the Manchus but for the Chinese. Tomb Sacrifice The regular offering of sacrifice at ancestral tombs conferred legitimacy upon the individual holding the throne. The identification and regular acknowledgement of former rulers authorized the specific individual occupying the position as a successor. The sacrifice kept the political imagination alive with the authority and accomplishments of the state founders and at the same time affirmed that the only legitimate transmission of control of the political resources of the resulting and concurrent state was to their offspring. Furthermore, the grandeur of the tombs and the conduct of ritual activity impressed the legitimacy of the occupying ruler upon political subjects. After all, it was not everyone’s father and grandfather who were entitled to such a display and who could command the material resources of the state in death. Indeed, only those of the emperor received such ceremony, which, in a self-fulfilling logic, made the emperor the emperor. The emperor was performed and legitimated through that performance. In this way, tomb worship not only constructed the bloodline but also continued to remind political subjects of royal privilege through constant practice. The practice of worship at the ancestral tombs corresponded to the announcement of the founding of the Qing.48 On the first day of the sixth month of 1636, just

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months before the announcement of the founding of the Qing, Hong Taiji issued an edict laying out regulations on the sacrifice to imperial ancestors. It contained five stipulations that dictated the following: 1. On New Year’s Eve, an official was to be sent to Nurhaci’s tomb to sacrifice an ox and a sheep. 2. In the seventh month, an official was to be sent to Nurhaci’s tomb to light incense. 3. In the spring festival, the khan was to go to the tomb and sacrifice an ox and sheep. 4. On the khan’s birthday, an official was to be sent to the tomb to offer wine and fruit and burn incense. 5. On the day of Nurhaci’s death, an official was to be sent to the tomb to sacrifice wine and fruit, and to offer incense.49 These were just the seasonal sacrifices. In addition, every first and fifteenth of the month, one ox was to be sacrificed at the graves, while wine and fruit were offered and incense lit.50 Nurhaci’s tomb was not the only ancestral tomb to be worshiped. Nurhaci himself had built tombs for his ancestors, both immediate and distant (see table 1). The founding ancestor of Aisin Gioro, Möngke Temür, was entombed in Xingjing, along with his great grandson, Fuman. Fuman’s fourth son, Giocangga, was entombed in Dongjing along with his fourth son, Taksi, who was Nurhaci’s father.51 While these tombs were constructed quite early—some as early as 1598—the rituals practiced at these sites were not formalized until late in Hong Taiji’s reign as part of the process to legitimize the sovereign. The lack of extant documentation makes it hard to pinpoint the process by which this happened, but the Kangxi edition of the Huidian gives a clear indication of what was going on at which tombs and when. Take, for example, the regular sacrifice conducted at the ancestral tombs. At the Xingjing tomb, on the first day of the new year, butcher one ox. On Tomb Sweeping day, butcher one ox. Send a tomb-care-taking official to practice the rite and offer sacrifice. At the Dongjing tomb, on the first day of the new year, butcher two oxen. On Tomb Sweeping day, butcher two oxen. Send a relative of the imperial house to practice the rite and offer sacrifice.52

These practices would be expanded and further regulated in the Shunzhi and Kangxi periods, when the early ancestral tombs were given titles and honors. Throughout this time, the additions to the physical infrastructure were made and protective measures instituted.53 The entire process worked to further the entrenchment of the imperial bloodline and the justification of the individual who held the highest office.

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Formation, 1631–1651 table 1 Qing Dynasty Ancestral Line of Rulers and Their Legitimizing Names and Burials

Given name Möngke Temür ⁴ຮᏝᧁబ Fuman ⑔ṩ Giocangga ⷵ᣽቟ Taksi Ⴁస਎ Nurhaci ദῺລ⿒ Hong Taiji ⊞ᄥᭂ Fulin ⑔⥃ Hiowan Ye ₵Ὰ

Dates

Temple name

Posthumous name

Tomb

1370–1433

Zhaozu ⡸␲

Yuan Huangdi ේ⊞Ꮲ

Xingjing ⥝᥊

?–1583 ?–1583 1559–1626 1592–1643 1638–1661 1654–1722

Xingzu ⥝␲ Jingzu ᥊␲ Xianzu 㘌␲ Taizu ᄥ␲ Taizong ᄥቬ Shizu ਎␲ Shengzu ⡛␲

Zhi Huangdi ⋥⊞Ꮲ Yi Huangdi ⠢⊞Ꮲ Xuang Huangdi ት⊞Ꮲ Gao Huangdi 㜞⊞Ꮲ Wen Huangdi ᢥ⊞Ꮲ Zhang Huangdi ┨⊞Ꮲ Ren Huangdi ੳ⊞Ꮲ

Xingjing ⥝᥊ Dongjing ᧲੩ Dongjing ᧲੩ Fuling ⑔㒺 Zhaoling ᤘ㒺

Sacrificing or paying respects at ancestors’ graves was not a new practice. The fact that Nurhaci had tombs constructed indicates that some type of worship occurred. Furthermore, Manchu records speak of Nurhaci visiting his father’s grave in 1626 to make offerings.54 Similarly, Hong Taiji offered sacrifice at his father’s grave in 1631. In that year, Tiancong-era documents recount, “According to Jin [i.e., Manchu] state precedent . . . they would sacrifice to the ancestors on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.”55 Such revelation indicates that some type of recurring ancestral worship did occur before the proclamations of 1636. Practices were not routinized in the formal ritual logic of the state and institution of the emperor until 1636. Only then, with the issuing of the regulations of ceremony, did the ritual activity become part of the practice to institute the emperor and construct a form of legitimacy around claims to the throne. Prior to 1636, for example, the common Manchu noun of eifu (“grave”), is used to describe the burial place of Nurhaci and other ancestors—the same noun used for any grave. In 1636, however, the noun changed to hvturingga munggan, or “prosperous tomb.” Given that this corresponds directly to the Chinese fuling, the adoption of this institutional form to confer the bloodline and thus legitimacy was propounded, as it is elevated out of regular practice—what all and any might do for their parents—and made a distinctive rite for the imperial family, done only for the emperor. Furthermore, the management of the rituals was removed from the private realm of the families involved and put under the jurisdiction of the Board of Rites, where it was folded into the regular practice and supervision of the bureaucracy. There was a convergence of events around 1635–36 that helped in this process of systematizing li. In 1635, Hong Taiji defined the lineage of the imperial family as those descending directly from Nurhaci, thereby removing other branches and streamlining the ancestry. The next year, he relaxed this decision, incorporating all the descen-

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dants of Nurhaci’s father into the imperial lineage. Then, in 1636, the title of emperor was bestowed upon the ruler, and that of prince to the other descendants. (This was also the year that worship at the ancestral temple [taimiao] was formalized.) The Ritual Act. Before turning to the practice of the ancestral temple, it will be useful to look at an example of sacrifice at the tombs. Such an example conveys the full activity of the ritual and how it worked to impart the necessity of the office to the individual occupying it. It further shows how legitimization acts fit into the system of li in form and practice. To merely state that the ritual act of worshiping the ancestors legitimizes the occupiers of the throne does not quite do full justice to the phenomenon. It is the integration of highly routinized acts and controlled activity of all actors and spectators that distinguishes the work of the ritual. The most complete record available of a sacrifice to the ancestral tombs is in the 1638 Neiguoshiyuan materials. These contemporary records from the Qing history office provide a blow-by-blow account of the year-end rituals to the imperial ancestors, and they capture the complexity of the positioning of the individual in the role of emperor. The rite required the sacrifice of an ox and sheep, and offerings made at Nurhaci’s tomb.56 Ritual activities began in the imperial palace, where the director of rituals, Abai Agu, escorted officials through the main gate before they stood waiting in the eastern hall for the khan to emerge and begin the ceremony. Around 5 a.m., Hong Taiji emerged from the palace, and together with all the retinue, they proceeded to the tomb, some eight miles to the east. Abai Agu presented a liturgy text, and Board of Rites officials set up four tables of food. Hong Taiji made offerings of meat and wine, along with board officials, and then the liturgy was read. This liturgy, read by a Board of Rites official on behalf of the emperor, was a standard text, the phrases and words of which had been formalized and rendered with ritual significance. A similar text can be found year after year. In 1638 it read, “Your filial son kneels and memorializes in front of the spirit throne of father Taizu and mother Taihou. The old year has passed and the new year has arrived. Having prepared the sacrifice for the seasonal rite, I send officials to respectfully sacrifice on my behalf.” After this reading, more kowtowing and wine offering took place. Three sticks of incense were lit and the ceremony concluded.57 A few key acts in this ceremony ensured the potency of the rite and the efficacy of its work. Foremost, the emperor was present at the beginning and end, providing a direct connection of his person as emperor to his ancestors as authorities, and thus linking him to the institution of emperor. At the start of the rite he entered the stage taking a central position and providing the liturgy to be read at the ceremony. Then, at the end, the liturgy was read. Throughout the ceremony, at least a dozen officials were present. Their activity in the rite linked them to the fate of the individual as the successor of rulers. The current ruler was articulated as a descendant of a constructed line of imperial personages whose legitimacy was made manifest

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through the rite. The performance of the ritual by the sovereign applied his presence and prestige to elevate his descendants, while at the same time projecting the illusion that he was simply fulfilling his destiny bestowed by a long line of kings. The Ancestral Temple (Taimiao) Whereas sacrifice and worship at imperial tombs began quite early under Nurhaci, the use of a specialized temple to do as much did not start until the 1630s. Broadly speaking, the ancestral temple was where the spirit tablets of the ancestors were held, and it provided a space for the emperor and his family to worship and give offerings to the ancestors on specified days and for particular occasions of state importance—such as imperial marriages or triumphs in war. Unlike the tomb sacrifice that took place at the site of the tomb and demanded dedicated ritual proceedings, worship at the ancestral temple occurred at the temple outside the southeast gates of the imperial city. It was a state event meant to validate the individual of the sovereign at the head of the political polity, both by placing him on top of the social and political hierarchy and by validating him and his offspring as the bearers of the role, which was naturalized by right of birth. Establishment. The circumstances of the establishment of the ancestral temple and the beginning of ancestral worship are somewhat obscure. The Kangxi-era Huidian says that rituals began in the temple in 1636, but it gives no indication if a temple previously existed or if it was only constructed that year for the said purpose.58 Similarly, the 1684 Mukden Gazetteer only notes the use of the ancestral temple in 1644, and the 1779 edition records the beginning of worship there at the “the state’s beginning” (guochu).59 Later sources give the exact date of the construction of the temple in 1636. The Qianlong-era edited Shilu, for example, records in multiple places the “construction” (yingjian) and “establishment” (jian miao) of the ancestral temple in the fourth lunar month of 1636.60 The Guangxu-era Huidian seems to have picked up this narrative and recorded that “in the first year of the Chongde reign, Hong Taiji built the ancestral temple in Mukden.”61 The problem with these records is that they are not corroborated by contemporary accounts. They appear to be educated guesses by later editors. Or, more accurately, these accounts seem to be editors’ assumptions about the practices and forms of li undertaken by their early predecessors. The first problem is that earlier Manchu texts reference a temple of the ancestors (mafari miyoo) and an ancestral temple (tai miyoo), both of which refer to a temple to worship the ancestors that already existed before later records say it was built.62 The earlier recordings are as follows. On the fourth day of the third month of 1636, the Secretarial Court was ordered to take charge of liturgies for the temple of ancestors (mafari miyoo).63 A month later, at least eight days before the supposed establishment of the ancestral temple, according to the Shilu, imperial relatives

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leading their commanders on a hunt first took them to offer sacrifice at the temple (tai miyoo).64 From just these two references, it appears that the ancestral temple already existed and did not need to be built. It is thus not surprising to find that Manchu records make no mention of the establishment or construction of the temple on the eleventh day of the fourth month of 1636, or of setting up the spirit tablets on the twelfth. In fact, the pomp and ceremony of the eleventh and twelfth that is elaborated in the Shilu is but a few lines in the Manwen yuandang, which recounts that on the eleventh, the khan led the imperial relatives to sacrifice at the ancestral temple,65 and on the twelfth he did so again.66 Similarly, the Shunzhi-era draft copy of the Taizong Shilu, although it does devote many pages to the ceremonies for the dynastic name change, makes no mention of the establishment of the ancestral temple, but rather confines its discussion of ancestral worship to the placing of the spirit tablets.67 The only mention of the temple is in reference to the placing of two ancestors’ spirit tablets on the twelfth after their receipt of honors.68 There are a few conclusions to be drawn from this discussion. The most obvious is that the temple was built prior to 1636, despite what later editors assert. It is unclear, however, when exactly it was established, as the earliest references are those cited above. More to the point, however, the use of ancestor worship as a vehicle to validate the rule of a certain line of monarchs and their successors began somewhat earlier than the founding of the Qing dynasty in 1636. To put this another way, the employment of the ancestral temple in state ritual and imperial ceremony was integral to the making of a Qing system of li, whereby the ancestral temple and its specific ritual practices of worshipping the imperial ancestors coincided with the goals of the early state-makers in constructing the Qing political order. The establishment of and worship in an ancestral temple was not an afterthought of Qing state-makers, occurring only with the announcement of the founding of the Qing. Rather, it was part of an evolving process of the development of the administrative and military institutions and practices of the state in tandem with a system of symbolic and political orders. Formalization. What is clear is that the ritual activities at the ancestral temple became formalized around 1636. The Huidian, as quoted above, discusses the setting of the rites in that year, and the early draft copy of the Shilu discusses the setting up of the spirit tablets and formalization of the sacrifice on the twelfth day of the fourth month.69 Although the Manchu records are more cryptic on formalization in the fourth month of that year, a steady stream of new regulations began appearing in the following month. On the tenth day of the fifth month, for example, the khan received some cherries; he sent his senior officials along with the Board of Rites to offer them at the ancestral temple. This led to the proclamation of a formal practice of presenting food to the ancestors and consuming it only after the offering.70 A month later, a similar version of this regulation was restated,

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which emphasized the need to offer any foods or fruits to the ancestors. Thereupon, Hong Taiji sent his Board of Rites officials to offer plums and cucumbers.71 The more formal regulations on sacrifice at the ancestral temple, according to the extant Manchu records, were issued in the sixth and seventh months of 1636. The edict on the first day of the sixth month laid out four stipulations:72 1. On New Year’s Eve, the khan is to go to the ancestral temple and light incense. 2. In the seventh month, the khan is to go to the temple and sacrifice an ox and a sheep. 3. For the spring festival, officials are sent to the temple to light incense. 4. On his birthday the khan is to light incense at the temple.73 The regulations were promulgated in another edict less than a month later, stipulating the practice of the ritual, which included the standard activities of abstaining for three days, lining up and standing in certain positions and facing particular directions, lighting incense, offering wine and foods, and kowtowing. Of particular note is that despite this being the sacrifice of the emperor to his ancestors, others were involved—the imperial relatives abstained with the emperor, while officials remained in attendance.74 The attendance and roles of all imperial relatives and officials made certain that the position and legitimacy of the emperor, both in place in the hierarchy (he stood in the center for the ceremony) and in lineage, was continually being acted out, as were their own positions.75 Idea and Indeterminacy These practices of legitimacy did not need to take the form that they did. The particularities of the tombs, temples, and altars, and the worship practices that took place there, could have been different. Qing state-makers could have adhered more strictly to Manchu practices; they could have adopted Chinese practices in full. Indeed, different societies throughout time and space have responded to similar demands of legitimization in different ways. Thus, it is natural to ask: Why did state-makers in mid-seventeenth-century northeastern Eurasia respond in the peculiar way that they did? What was the institutional vision that linked the concept to the practice? The most immediate if not logical reference for Qing rulers and officials was the Ming precedent. As seen in the New Year’s Day ceremony, Board of Rites personnel and other officials referred to Ming practices as part of the operation of the system of government and representation of the state. The maintenance of the position of the sovereign in relation to his relatives and administrative officials was contingent upon the construction of an imperial genealogy and regular worship at the ancestral tombs. That is, the position of the emperor could be reproduced through the seasonal rituals done for the imperial ancestors. This would establish a legitimate line of rulership and successfully naturalize the holding of the position

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by a particular individual and his immediate family. Consider, for example, the opening lines of a memorial by ritual official Liu Chang in 1644 on the death of Hong Taiji: “The one appointed by Heaven has returned,” he wrote in reference to the passing of Hong Taiji. “There is an imperial vapor floating without rest. It is of utmost importance to make his tomb and offer sacrifice.” Drawing implicitly on Ming practices, Liu went on to outline the responsibilities of the different officials and departments of the Board of Rites in sacrifice-preparation and tomb-upkeep. He closed his argument to the new emperor by emphasizing the practice of sacrifice to the ancestors as part of the necessary imperial activities: “The sovereign has the fortune of generations [i.e., he has received the throne in good stead from his ancestors]. How can you not repay to the extreme at the land of origin [i.e., the tombs in Mukden]? You cannot be frugal in offering your respects to the spirits of the ancestors in Heaven, or in sacrificing to the founder and the other tombs. This is the first act of the sovereign in expressing his benevolence and filiality, and it is also our responsibility to emphasize [these rituals].”76 Even this particularly Chinese vision of imperial tomb worship was not indivisible, however. A debate initiated within the Board of Rites involving the throne in the first year of the Shunzhi reign exposed the indeterminacy of the institutional form of the ritual activity in fulfilling this function of legitimacy. The debate took shape around the question of exactly who were the ancestors to be worshiped and how far back to reach in the ancestor line for sacrifice. Liu broached the matter in the first year of the Shunzhi reign (1644) in writing about the Jin tombs in a way that raised the issue of sacrifice as part of the imperial lineage. He said his department in the Board of Rites was out looking for the Jin tombs but failed to find six of them. He then went on to talk about the need to locate these for sacrifice.77 The implication of such sacrifice would make Qing rulers direct descendants of the Jin, and the dynasty justified through the lineage of the Jin emperors.78 The throne (i.e., the Shunzhi regents), however, rejected this line, and told Liu to explore the previous practices of worshiping past emperors.79 Over the next month, the throne and other officials, including the Board of Rites president and vice president, went back and forth on the matter. At issue was if they should restore the Jin tombs defaced by the Ming, and if so, in what manner and under what auspices. If they were to do so and treat the Jin tombs as imperial tombs complete with ceremony, then this would effectively make the Jin the ancestral precursors to the Qing. Otherwise, the Jin would remain but a previous dynasty (lidai diwang) to be worshiped in the temple of previous dynasties. Both the Board of Rites president Langkio and vice president Li Mingrui wrote long summary memorials on the issue but failed to provide much normative direction on the matter. At the end of the day, they offered Ming precedent, to which the throne replied, “This all refers to examples of worshiping one’s own ancestors and does not fit our situation.” Further investigation into the matter was called for.80

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This episode conveys the point that Qing state-makers were still trying to position themselves historically, and to determine the institutions that would legitimize their rule. There was no clear or self-evident form to which worship would have to adhere in order to achieve the intended result. The question of how particular worship would be shaped in order to grant the individual sovereign the right to rule was resolved through a process of developing the system and molding practices of li. This process continued in ongoing debates and struggles over different forms of li, many of which were protracted and never definitively resolved. Indeed, the state-making process is never complete, and the practices of li would continue to evolve, just as they had for millennia. C O N C LU SIO N : L I A N D T H E Q I N G E M P E R O R

The ceremonial and ritual practices of the emperor worked to inform the activities of the sovereign and symbolically define the ruler as the head of a hierarchical political system. Grand ceremonies and court audiences elevated the person of the ruler to an abstracted position of sovereign, and represented both in symbol and fact a position that monopolized political and military power. At the same time, the imperial tomb building and ancestor worship gave credence to the individual occupying the throne by legitimizing him through a line of kings and constructed an outward justification for the dynasty by using the power of position of the existing ruler to claim imperial precedence for his ancestors. These acts of representation and legitimization—which were made manifest through the rituals—helped redefine the Qing sovereign as one who sat at the pinnacle of a political order, rather than amid a social and military network; it cast the ruler as one who commanded all political, material, and symbolic resources, rather than sharing them with others. In short, the ceremonies of the sovereign represented him symbolically as an emperor, while the rituals of tomb building and ancestor worship legitimized the newly emerging political order and justified the individual who set the terms. Many of these practices began in 1636 with the announcement of the founding of the Qing state. As Hong Taiji and his supporters consolidated military and political control, and built administrative structures, they simultaneously sought to monopolize symbolic power, employing the Board of Rites to draft regulation and oversee ritual and ceremonial activity that would define the emperor within the political order. Drawing on Ming precedent for imperial activity, and molding it to the immediate political and cultural context of the day, Qing state-makers set up a system of Grand Ceremony and court audience in the midst of state-building activity, and subsequently extended this to the construction of imperial tombs and the worship of the imperial ancestors. In many ways, these activities of representation and legitimization were just as essential to Qing state-makers as the establishment of administrative institutions and the mobilization of military force.

5

The Administrative Order and Its Enactment

The Qing political system was premised on a hierarchy of ranks and positions that were manifest through sets of symbolic and behavioral signifiers. Political resources were distributed downward, with those higher up setting the terms and controlling the opportunities and choices of those farther down. At the top sat the emperor, whose authority and legitimacy to that authority was both formed and symbolized by ceremony and clothing. Extending beneath the emperor were imperial relatives and officials organized in series of ranks; they held positions and exercised power associated with the position, which was expressed not absolutely, but rather in relation to others. This was most immediately expressed through clothing, ceremonies, and rites, which were encased within the system of li. The historical record from the early Qing period is rich with material expressing concern over and regulation of stratification. Extant memorials from the era show officials going to great lengths to make the case to the emperor of the need to set up a system of ranks and positions, and of the need to make them outwardly manifest, most notably through clothing. Manchu and Chinese documents record the discussion and creation of such a system, while the Huidian devoted entire sections to the positions and privileges of imperial relatives and administrative staff. Furthermore, archival materials highlight inner-bureaucratic conflict over how ranks and positions were practiced throughout the course of the Qing, and especially in the eighteenth century. It was not uncommon for officials to take umbrage over improper performance of certain rites attached to certain positions. These materials reveal four key components in disciplining the Qing political order: clothing to reflect the level of rank of political actors; rites for greeting each other; the size of one’s entourage; and the organization of personnel in ceremony. 91

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Rank and stratification manifest in clothing expressed the design of the organization, giving symbolic recognition to each political actor. The hierarchy was then put into motion through the articulation of interpersonal interactions to guide behavior and encounters. Greeting rites told people what to do when they crossed paths—who should be deferential or where the superior should sit. Similarly, the size and type of entourage in travel, and one’s place in line in ceremony further helped guide actors’ encounters and define the power or lack of power of a position. This system was erected not just for civil and military officials, but also to incorporate the imperial relatives, turning them from ambivalent outsiders to consummate insiders. The categorization and imposition of ritual acts and behavioral practices upon the relatives helped integrate them into the state and turn them into administrative actors. Given the importance of this matter to the Qing political system, and the attention paid by contemporary actors, it is not surprising to find modern-day historians taking it up as a topic for investigation. Scholars have long been aware of the organization and classification of Qing political actors, and have focused their efforts on understanding its nature.1 Building on this scholarship, this chapter explores the logic of the organizational and administrative practices, and the process of the development of the system of li employed to discipline political actors. Whereas previous scholarship has focused on the classifications within and the organization of the early order, this chapter explores the regulations for interaction, especially among and between the imperial relatives and officials, demonstrating how the names, ranks, and positions fit together in a cohesive political system. It becomes clear that people were not only divided hierarchically and wore different clothing to represent it, but they also readily agreed to such a setup and continued to reproduce it.2 The first part of this chapter looks at the formation of this political order in the Qing context, and the rules put in place in order to enact it. The chapter then turns to the question of how it was maintained and reproduced: Once brought into being, the system continued to work through a combination of enforcement and internalization. Transgressions against the rite or the order were punished, often quite severely. Actors intuitively understood their own role, and frequently took it upon themselves to both interpret and uphold the rules and practices, lashing out at their superiors or inferiors if they donned what was perceived as the wrong dress or an improper performance of the rite. In this way, the legal system relied on the cultural system for its operation. This type of ritual activity of the Qing can also be seen in other dynasties from the Han to the Ming, to be sure, and the general adherence to norms surrounding status and rank were spread throughout Eurasian courts. Restrictions such as sumptuary laws and the regulation of social interaction based on status and rank structured sociopolitical orders throughout Chinese history, and engrained norms

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concerning these behaviors may have guided other Eurasian regimes. The context surrounding the employment of rites differed in each historical development, however. Politics and culture determined what form these practices would take, how they would be used, and their immediate applications. Rituals varied. Even where the political structures of empires with a China metropole might look similar in form, the routines and politics differed in practice.3 S T R AT I F IC AT IO N A N D T H E I D E A O F O R D E R

The Idea of Social and Political Order In the struggle for political power, and amid the process of building a state, Hong Taiji and his staff of Chinese officials turned to the Ming model of a stratified hierarchy as the best means to organize political society. Early-Qing officials in memorials, and later emperors in their proclamations and edicts, articulated again and again the need to clearly distinguish among classes and ranks. They held that by determining superiors and inferiors, and then expressing and emphasizing these differences clearly in various ways, not only would relations of political command be structured, but also solidarity would be built among the diverse collection of imperial relatives, Manchu and Mongol bannermen, and Chinese officials. The immediate issue for early state-makers was the need to preserve the arrangements of power still evolving under Hong Taiji, and to do so in such a way that those on the top would be secure in a political system that granted them command of political and financial resources, and those on the bottom would know their place and obligation to defer to superiors. In this way, it was held, not only would orders be obeyed and backed up by sanction and force, but, more importantly, the terms of engagement would be fixed and the range of political and social choices available delimited. The concept and practices of li provided a system to achieve such ends. From very early in the state-building project, Hong Taiji’s staff began to call for a systematic way to mark rank and order in society. Almost immediately after the core of the administrative apparatus was set up with the six boards in 1631, numerous officials memorialized the throne in quick succession in late 1632, elaborating the need for clear organization. They advocated for li manifested as a political and social order based on a form of strict stratification in hierarchical ranks. Dividing individuals into social stations, they held, would yield an efficient means of control and enable the propagation of an order that favored those holding power. As Wang Wenkui of the literary office memorialized in the eighth month of 1632, Since old times, states needed to strictly stratify superiors and inferiors, nobles and commoners. Not only is this aesthetically pleasing in form, but more so, it is the central method to rule. . . . If a high and mighty state was differentiated, how could it

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Formation, 1631–1651 fall into such chaos? . . . [If the emperor makes distinctions through clothing] everyone and the future generations will know that the sage has an extraordinary reason for the regulation; the common people will also know that even if they have great prosperity, they are not of the same level as officials.4

The problem, as these memorialists saw it, was that the distribution of power was not clear. Political relations may have been loosely set, with the khan at the center, banner owners in senior positions, and a host of officials and subordinates beneath them, but such arrangements were neither immediately reflected in the political order nor formalized. Failing to clarify the nature of these relations could push the fragile sociopolitical order toward unrest and disruption—chaos, as Wang Wenkui put it. Take, for example, the acts of insubordination by Amin and Manggūltai, as discussed in the New Year’s Day chapter. Amin had disobeyed orders and slaughtered retreating Chinese, and Manggūltai drew his knife against Hong Taiji in a heated argument over military strategy. It is not so much that they saw themselves as superior to Hong Taiji, or wished him to be eliminated, but rather that they considered themselves equals, entitled to an autonomy of action and decisionmaking that many understood as the arrangement intended by Nurhaci. For Hong Taiji and his supporters, however, a strict hierarchy needed to come to define the political order, and practices instituted to help define actors’ range of choices. The idea of political order here advocated was drawn from the Ming. It sought to situate every individual in a particular social station possessed of certain interpersonal duties and relational behaviors. Only in this way, these state-makers held, could proper order be achieved and everyone prosper. As the Kangxi emperor wrote in an edict many years later, “The most important thing for the sovereign in his rule is to maintain public morals and to distinguish among classes.”5 In his reflections on the current social order in 1632, Wang Wenkui spelled out what failing to stratify meant. “I see that the officials and people of my state are without any stratification. The rich are in fact scoundrels wearing upper-class ornamentation and the clothing of princes and nobles, while the astute but poor are in fact high officials dressed in the disheveled rags of servants. If people only hope to acquire personal wealth, they will offend Heaven and transgress principles; there is nothing they will not do.”6 A month later, a Board of Rites official made the same point in a memorial to Hong Taiji, arguing that officials looked like servants, and commoners appeared like officials, which was socially subversive. “Caps and gowns are all mixed up,” he wrote, “so it is hard to tell noble from debased. . . . In this way people respect money and not class, and thus they lose respect for the khan.” He went on to emphasize that such social organization would prevent the state from prospering.7 What it meant for Hong Taiji and his Chinese staff to establish a hierarchy and codify positions was the ability to construct a politics that both determined and

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favored a ruling elite. The settlement of the struggle for social direction and political power had already begun to emerge, whereby the winner, Hong Taiji, continued to shape the terms through his rise both politically as the arbiter of resources, and symbolically as the sovereign. The question was how to both continue to shape and then preserve the settlements that had come to transpire in the late 1620s and 1630s. How to empower those who were on top and enable them to command the majority of political resources in name and function? How to not only maintain the political order but also enable officials to exercise their positions effectively so that the titles would be not empty but indicative of real power? Political relationships needed to be structured in a way that clarified the chain of command and defined how access to resources was controlled. This would entail structuring interpersonal relations in a particular sociopolitical order that restricted some and empowered others. The point of reference in all of these matters would be li, whereby ritual activity both shaped the emergent relations and served as a site where politics could continue to play out. Clothing and the Practice of Order Clothing was key in these discussions. According to contemporary actors, individuals would be distinguished in their social stations according to the clothes they wore. Both memorialist and emperor had seized upon the idea that appearance was necessary in order to obtain the ideal of the stratified world with strict hierarchical divisions among men and women. In fact, appearance was everything—it was seen as the means to organize political relations in a way for lines of power to be understood and accepted; it would grease the wheels of the bureaucracy; it would give officials the authority to carry out their business; and it would put commoners in place. Wang Wenkui made the direct association when he said, “Today we have already established the six boards, the extent of which we can already see. I beg the emperor to resolutely and single-handedly make the distinction in caps and gowns.”8 Regulating clothing facilitated the process of organizing political actors. Not only was it a means to further stratify the political order, as these memorialists argued, but it also served as another method to channel political strife. Although early struggles for power began to subside in intensity after the 1632 New Year’s Day ceremony, questions over what the political organization would look like and who would control access to material and symbolic resources persisted for decades. As one of the earliest rules imposed by the new government, clothing regulation helped shape the emergent order and inform political actors of their roles and options. As laid out below, state-makers first seized upon clothing as a means of categorizing the imperial relatives who might threaten Hong Taiji’s position and then gradually expanded the system to encompass all political actors in an attempt to integrate them into a cohesive order.

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No words were spared in making the case for implementing clothing regulations. As Wang Shun of the Board of Rites put it in the fall of 1632, “This matter the khan may think is not urgent, but I adamantly hold that we cannot take our time.”9 Even in the midst of discussing other affairs of military or finance, officials would come back to the problem of stratification and mark the need for setting clothing guidelines and regulations as the highest priority. Scholar Li Qifeng, for example, in a long memorial of 1632, while discussing military affairs and the staffing of the bureaucracy at great length still arrived, in conclusion, at the crucial topic of clothing. Only by implementing a strict dress code, he urged, could the current disruption of political and social order be settled.10 Censor Zhu Langheng made this argument by distinguishing rule by force and rule by morality, or wende. Writing in 1644, the first year of the occupation of Beijing and the beginning of Qing rule over China proper, Zhu said that administering the country could not rely solely on the power of the military and the strength of the bureaucracy. In addition, people would have to agree to obey—they would need to be instructed and cultivated. “In considering the rule of all under Heaven by past emperors, we use force to put down rebellion and wende to help rule,” he memorialized. “What is force? Things such as armor, bows, and arrows. What is wende? Things like robes, caps, rites, and music.” He went on to make the argument that although the emperor could regulate things like proper dress, wende itself was not something imposed by law. “If you want to rule the people, it is not wende to use the administration to serve as an example for the masses.” Rather, he said, what will achieve this end is clothing. “The tool of officials is gowns, caps, rites, and music.” To ignore this and fail to implement such a system, he said, would throw social and political order to the wind. “To not use caps and gowns to govern the people will fail to straighten out the common people. Furthermore, when holding court ceremony, how will they line up in the proper order?” He concluded with a plea for the creation and implementation of clothing regulations. “I beg you to order the Board of Rites to create clothing distinctions for the different ranks so that superiors and inferiors are divided in ceremony.”11 The tone of such memorializing was strident, and the arguments were more impassioned than reasoned. Indeed, how exactly would the dress of social and political actors create the desired stratified order? As hinted in some of the memorialists’ remarks above, it was meant to distinguish who was who—who would give orders and who would take orders. The donning of certain dress for certain ranks and positions was meant to make the chain of command immediately apparent, and to highlight superiors while deemphasizing inferiors. Such stratification, the logic went, should implant moral thoughts, and lead to action. The idea was that as one rose in rank he would get to wear finer and more ostentatious clothing, possessing higher aesthetic and monetary value, and setting the wearer apart from others. At the highest echelons, positions of stature were fewer, and the scarcity of

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such a rank designated by the clothing would command respect and awe. The Kangxi emperor made this clear in an edict fixing clothing regulations when he said, “Kings of old used compassion to rule under Heaven, and there was not one who did not use the rites.” Those rites, he went on to say, were expressed and reproduced in proper clothing.12 The implementation of such a code of dress was seen as a given, from which all order and moral visions would flow. The world would be set right so long as emperor, relatives, officials, and commoners were each clothed in distinct robes and caps according to their rank and status. “I say that stratification is not in illustriousness,” Wang Wenkui wrote, “but rather in proper caps, in gowns, or in belts.”13 So evident did this appear to advocates that they could not conceive of any dissent. Wang again: “The difference of a thousandth of a millimeter can result in the division of a thousand miles in a system. If the superiors practice it, who would dare transgress?”14 Emperors did believe, and set about enacting and reenacting clothing regulations throughout the course of the Qing, each time trying to perfect this formula of proper clothing for the prosperous rule of social and political order. From Hong Taiji onward, Qing emperors and their staffs would invest in clothing as the first principle of stratification. The thinking on the matter was duly framed by Chinese advisor Li Qifeng in a 1632 memorial to Hong Taiji, where he stated that by setting up a system of stratification, all subjects would fall into line and political order would be solidified. “Each ruler has a system for his time. My khan can set up his own system, as long as it distinguishes superiors from inferiors and [acknowledges] ranks and classes.”15 T H E R E G U L AT IO N S

Early calls for the categorization of political actors came from Hong Taiji himself. In the second month of 1632, more than half a year before the memorials on stratification and clothing began to flow, Hong Taiji told the Board of Rites to crack down on the flamboyant dress of the imperial relatives and bannermen. They “must all stop dyeing their sable skins, making fur coats, hemming a wide trim on their clothes, tacking on the chrysanthemum knobs, and making their hats,” he said.16 The problem was not that they had fur coats or chrysanthemum knobs on their caps, but rather that they followed no standard, tended toward eccentric excess, and thus failed to display the uniformity of appearance that should follow the imposed logic of the emerging political order. By the end of the year, the first positive regulations on dress were issued. They covered the Manchu and Mongol elite and their wives, as well as the bannermen and commoners of all ethnicities. These regulations sought to standardize the outward appearance of different classes of people and, in doing so, effectively stratify the sociopolitical order in a way that reflected the vision of a hierarchical state as

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articulated by Hong Taiji and his Chinese officials. In the 1633 edict on the matter, Hong Taiji noted, “The clothing and caps of my state need to be set. I want to use colors to distinguish classes. The situation now is that there is no system; people are not stratified. The caps and gowns of the state are not uniform, and each takes his own according to his own desires.”17 The announcement of the regulation that followed articulated particular dress with distinctions among different ranks, beginning with the highest relative and progressing down to the lowest official. By situating all of the political groups and classes into the single regulatory announcement, Hong Taiji here worked to construct a cohesive political order by placing all actors in relation to each other. Regulating the Clothing of the Imperial Relatives The first positive regulation on clothing was issued for the imperial relatives. This came on the second day of the twelfth month of 1632 and was set for enactment two and half weeks later on the twentieth.18 The regulation is quite detailed in some regards—dictating when certain groups can wear what and for what occasions— but rather unspecific in others. Targeted at the khan and the eight banner beile, the code required them to always wear their court costumes when in the city, and forbade them from wearing gowns, except when leaving the capital. In winter, they were to wear a fox pelt hat to court and a marten fur hat while at leisure. At spring court, they must wear a Mongol marten fur hat with a chrysanthemum, and during leisure in the summer wear a grass hat. Satin boots should not be worn every day, and yellow fabric and five claw dragon prints were prohibited unless received as a gift from the khan.19 Despite this detail, there is no mention of fur colors or hat ornamentations, which Hong Taiji had been so concerned with six months earlier.20 The most surprising thing about this regulation is that it applied to only a small number of elites. Right up front, Hong Taiji said the edict was meant only for “myself on down to the eight banner beile.” The eight banner beile were those other men who stood at the head of one of the banners and were the direct descendants of Nurhaci. That was only about a dozen men—a dozen men who were the most powerful individuals in the region and all intimately related by birth. It included Hong Taiji himself, as made clear in his opening statement. It also included the two other older brothers, the senior relatives Daišan and Manggūltai, who were supposedly ruling jointly with Hong Taiji. It included the younger brothers Ajige and Dorgon, who headed the Bordered White Banner; Dodo, who headed the Plain White; Hooge and Abatai, who owned the Bordered Yellow; Yoto and Šoto, who had the Bordered Red; Jirgalan, who had the Bordered Blue; and probably Degelei and Sahaliyan, each of whom sat at the head of one of the six boards and also served as banner commanders in their fathers’ banner. This attempt to formalize the dress of such a small number of elite individuals raises a number of questions. Foremost, why was it necessary at all? Could not the

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brothers sit down and decide that they should coordinate their dress for the sake of the presentation of authority? In fact, they probably did have a council meeting and debate the matter. But then why formalize it? And given that Hong Taiji had already shown his hand in asserting his authority over his relatives, and was clearly moving to centralize power, why did anyone agree to this in the first place? Hong Taiji could not just speak and make it happen; his word was not law. This was 1632, when Hong Taiji had only begun to define his role as sovereign with the New Year’s Day ceremony; command over political resources was still undetermined, and the lines of power were still being drawn. Indeed, the imperial relatives still had their autonomy—they were masters over their own banner and had a voice in the direction of state affairs. The move to formalize a dress code for the imperial relatives must be seen as part of the strategy to create a political order in which they had a particular place— in which their role was cast and their sociopolitical station set. It is hard to say whether they embraced this or not, as there are no documents expressing any opinion or response. What can be observed is that others beside Hong Taiji found this to their advantage. The younger relatives were in a struggle for power and position with their elders. The sons and younger brothers of the senior relatives put their support behind Hong Taiji as a patron and guarantor of political resources (especially people like Sahaliyan, who did not own a banner and would be able to receive one from their father). By investing in Hong Taiji, they would have a powerful protector who could ensure they received what they regarded as their due. In this way, the formalization of dress was not just acquiescing to Hong Taiji, but it served their interest in order to secure their position. Stratification helped solidify their still uncertain position—it shored up the still fluid political order, giving form to the tenuous relationships and structuring power by subjecting actors to regulation. Through the designation of their dress, these junior relatives could at once attain a stability of position, and more importantly, gain footing to challenge their seniors.21 This means of stratification, once set in motion, was pursued with full force. The first regulations of 1632 were perhaps perfunctory, putting down on paper what many of the relatives were already doing. But as personnel and administrative reach grew, and more people had to be accounted for, regulations gradually became more detailed and more expansive. The main additions to the dress code were initiated as Hong Taiji’s position as sovereign grew secure in 1636. In that year he expressed his frustration with the situation when he noticed the imperial relatives and officials transgressing norms and offending the political order. “If imperial relatives, banner leaders, or officials are dissolute in state business, corrupt, and pursuing sensual pleasures; if they seek fun and games and take the wealth of the people; if they steal women, come to court disrespectfully, offend the dress code, or pretend to be sick, then the Board of Rites must investigate.”22 A series of

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regulations on dress went into effect over the next couple of years as the first step to help the state keep its administrators in order. In 1636, the Board of Rites imposed more extensive dress codes on the relatives, regulating by rank the ornamentation on hats and belts that each could wear.23 For example, the imperial relatives occupying the highest positions in the political order were to wear the most elaborate hats, consisting of three layers of decoration with a ruby on top, inlaid pearls in the middle, a golden flower with three embedded pearls on the rear broach, and four inlaid pearls on the front broach. Similarly, they had the most ostentatious belts, boasting a gold inlay border and four jade pieces with four inlaid pearls.24 The decorations decreased in type and number of jewels as the social position decreased. So, to illustrate with the extreme contrast, the lowest-ranking imperial relative, the Supporter-general of the State, wore only a crystal on the top of his cap and an iron piece in his belt.25 The regulations for caps and belts were elaborated not only for all the different ranks in between but also for the wives, concubines, and imperial women.26 This all conduced to an organized hierarchy of sociopolitical positions and easy identification among the various strata. Two years later (1638), another set of orders was issued. Eight groups of relatives and officialdom were set in hierarchal order from the prince of the blood of the fifth degree and first-rank duke all the way down to the third-rank guards of the relatives. Each of these classes was required to wear a particular hat and belt with the proper kind and number of stones.27 The seventh group (the second-lowest class here outlined), for example, included third-rank imperial guardsmen, thirdrank guardsmen for first- and second-degree princes, and second-rank guardsmen for a third-degree prince, among others; these ranks were to wear a belt with engraved iron and gold inlay, which was to be closed with round clasps. No hat was prescribed.28 Although the most senior relatives were not immediately constrained by these regulations in their dress any further than what had already been set, their staff were now subject, affecting their position and limiting their ability to assert symbolic authority. Lines around the political order were slowly and more clearly being drawn. Regulating the Clothing of the Military and Civilian Administration The regulations of officials and commoners under Hong Taiji followed a similar timeline as that of the imperial relatives (although the majority of codes were issued in 1632 and 1638), but were farther reaching. Although it contained stipulations aimed at the relatives, the weight of the 1632 proclamation was aimed at “Manchu, Nikan [i.e., Chinese], and Mongol” officials in banner positions.29 The regulation specified that all banner ranks from the banner commanders to captains, as well as affluent individuals, were required to wear a leather-collared gown in winter and summer. They were not allowed to wear their casual gowns. When

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figure 6 . This single-ruby and eight-pearl cap ornament would have belonged to a second-rank imperial relative (junwang). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of the Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1970, Accession No. 1970-6-1.

the commanders went out on patrol, however, they were to wear their casual gowns. Less affluent individuals should wear gowns that did not open at the neck; class would be distinguished with a leather collar. As for hats, in winter, it must be one with a nob or tassel, in summer, a grass-fabric one. A number of articles were off-limits to this class of nonrelatives (unless it had been a gift of the khan), including red fox-pelt hats (although yellow fox-pelt hats were allowed), yellow or gold robes, and five-claw dragon prints. Those below the rank of bodyguard were prohibited from wearing satin: this was done out of consideration for the less affluent, Hong Taiji reasoned, as the price of cotton was cheaper. Hats or collars not expressly prescribed were similarly banned, and military belts and shoulder pads could not be worn at home.30 The 1638 regulations more clearly articulated ranks, specifying the kinds of hats and belts that certain officials of certain positions should wear. This was done in strict hierarchy so that status was reflected in dress, including for the relatives. High banner officials (whether relatives or not) and board presidents, for example, were grouped together in the third category, and must all wear hats with a ruby on top and belts with four inlaid rubies. By contrast, their immediate subordinates, including officials of the inner court, vice presidents, chancellery officials, and lower banner officials, would wear sapphires on their hats and gold belts without any other decorations. These decreasing increments extend systematically down the hierarchy to lower officials, who, like their counterparts among the imperial relatives on the lower end of the rank spectrum, wore but a belt with iron pieces.31

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figure 7 . The winter hat worn by imperial relatives of the second rank depicted in Illustrations of Dynastic Ritual Instruments. Huangchao liqi tushi (1759), 4.64.

The significance of caps should not be underestimated. As seen in the clothing codes in the 1630s, the emphasis on caps and belts was disproportional to that on clothing. The regulation made references to certain robes, as well as colors and patterns of the clothing, but by and large, the concern of Hong Taiji and his Board of Rites was with the ornamentation on the caps and belts. There were a few reasons for this. Foremost, clothing among individuals varied only slightly. Cloth was traded for and cut in a fashion that ensured efficient mobility for riding and shooting, and variation in color and style was limited. Hats and belts, on the other hand, were ostentatiously distinguished by jewels and inlays piled on. But there was a more important reason for the focus on caps: In the process of constructing the hierarchy, it was the easiest way to immediately identify the position and rank of an interlocutor. Take, for example, the case of Ming general Zhang Xian and his troops. Having surrendered his city just outside Beijing when the Manchus entered Beijing, he was made a Qing general and put in command of all troops and cavalry in the county just outside the capital.32 He reported having everyone’s head shaved and adorning himself and his underlings with “hat ornamentation according to the Manchu clothing regulations in stratification of ranks so as to differentiate.”33 In the early years of the Shunzhi reign, further hat and belt regulations in service of stratification of the military and civilian bureaucracy continued at a feverish pace. In 1645, the Board of Rites made rules for the bureaucratic ranks, noting hats for grades first through ninth, as well as for the degree licensees. Appended to this was a section of prohibitions for those without office. They could not use green cloth; coarse silk for celebrations was allowed but not multicolored cloth. Their

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boots and shoes had to be black.34 Two years later, the Board of Rites put into effect a set of regulations for military ranked officials, including banner commanders and lieutenants. This issue also included codes for the wives of officials.35 Most of the regulations cited above only discussed hat and belt ornamentation. Except for the first order issued in 1632, there was very little instruction on the robes to wear. Beginning in the mid-Shunzhi reign, the first regulations for clothing came out.36 New codes began to be issued regularly in 1647 for the military ranks, and then became more articulated throughout the 1650s. Here clothing became one medium through which politics was conducted. The idea of a stratified state had been planted, and the means of realizing it had been connected to clothing. It was this trend that became the foundation in expressing a political hierarchy that signified the capacity to control political resources. The following sections further explore how this worked. E NAC T I N G T H E P O L I T IC A L O R D E R : G R E E T I N G S , E N T O U R AG E , A N D C E R E M O N Y

The discussion so far has focused on the need and vision of a stratified political order and how it was realized through a code of dress grafted onto hierarchy. The first section showed how the outfitting of each individual according to his political station aimed to identify and articulate the structure of politics and state authority. This order still needed to be enacted, however; it needed to be put into everyday practice so as to both preserve existing relations and to continue to reproduce them. To have a stratified hierarchy and to clothe the individuals involved reflected the ideal by imposing a certain organization upon a group or groups. But this did not tell actors how they ought to relate to each other. It identified superiors and inferiors, but did not offer them guidance in the ways and means to act. This was the burden of another set of rites that instructed imperial relatives and officials how to socialize after having recognized each other. These rites informed actors how to greet each other and how to move about in society; it reminded them of their place in line and of the extent of the power—or lack of power—associated with their rank. Greeting Rites When political subjects encountered each other, how ought they to interact? When two parties and their attendants came upon each other in passing, which one should yield the road and in what manner? Who had precedent, the official or the relative? The regulations that came to dictate the answers to these questions gave concrete meaning to the stratified order in day-to-day activities, organizing actors into their positions and social stations in everyday life, and making interpersonal relations an element of performance even more than a costume to wear. This

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formalized the hierarchical order, clarifying who was deferential to whom and in what way. The amorphous title of an above-rank duke, for example, took on a concrete meaning in the code that stipulated how a holder of this position, when encountering a third-rank beile on the road, was to receive the deference of that beile: the beile was required to stop his horse and stand to the side allowing the duke to pass. The first regulations for greeting rites were set in 1636. The rules began at the very top with the khan. It clarified what was supposed to happen when the khan crossed paths with imperial relatives of the highest ranks—that is, first-, second-, and third-ranked princes. The imperial relative was to move himself and his entire entourage out of the path of the khan, to dismount his horse, and then to pass to the side.37 This seems straightforward enough and befitting of actions between sovereign and subject, except that it had to be written down and regulated at all. Interestingly, there are no other ranks listed, which could mean that none of the other ranks had to be instructed in how to act toward their newly decreed emperor. Or perhaps it was that they knew their place. The imperial relatives were always in struggle with Hong Taiji and each other precisely because they thought that they should be possessed of more authority and exercise control over more political resources. The greeting ritual for the sovereign, therefore, made sure that positions were continually practiced and reproduced on a daily basis, and in doing so, those positions and the political resources associated with them were preserved. As the oft-repeated phrase went, “superiors and inferiors are clarified.” Greeting regulations did not stop with the ruler and the imperial relatives: it continued on down through the ranks. A third-rank relative encountering a firstor second-rank relative—that is, one of the relatives outranking him—was required to move his retinue off the road and let the higher rank pass. If he ran into a banner commander, however, the lower-ranking commander had to dismount and stand to the side while the third-rank relative passed. The commander similarly had to yield the road to a fifth-rank relative, but he did not have to dismount—just stand to the side while the relative passed. The high-ranking banner generals and board presidents also followed the same practice when encountering a fourth-rank relative. Their immediate subordinates, the banner vice commander and lieutenant colonel, were required to stop their horses and stand to the side while the general, commander, or board president passed. A banner captain, however, who was another rank lower, had to dismount. Regulations of this nature continued down the ranks to the very bottom position.38 This entire process of ranking and associating behavior to those ranks was unfolded at once. The designation of new titles and ranks demanded the designation of actions that would be associated with those positions. Indeed, throughout this early period of state-building, the historical record shows the creation of new positions or ranks, and immediately alongside that, the articulation of activity to

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be associated with that rank. Consider, for example, the creation of the imperial family lines in 1638. In the same act of the enunciation of the main and collateral lines of the imperial relative, Hong Taiji and his Board of Rites also decreed how they would interact with others. A subject of the mainline (Ma. uksun, Ch. zongshi) was required to dismount if he encountered anyone of relative status from a first-rank relative down to tenth-rank imperial relative. If he encountered an official of beyond-rank duke or below he need not dismount but only take a different path. A subject of the collateral line (Ma. gioro, Ch. jueluo), however, was required to dismount when crossing paths with a relative of the mainline, and to move to the side of the road of a duke, commander, or board president.39 Instruments and Attendants of an Entourage When imperial relatives and officials moved about in the capital and provinces, they took an entourage of attendants and ritual instruments. These outfits provided protection and service to the official, and at the same time afforded pomp and show in an expression of rank and political position. A pretentious entourage could accomplish this in the same way that clothing could. What better way to make oneself known when passing on the road than by being surrounded by a retinue of attendants waving banners and flags? Furthermore, the stratification of the political order necessitated differentiation among the ranks. The emperor could not be outdone in personnel and glamor by the beile, nor could the relative by the official. It was for this reason that entourages were soon subjected to regulation. The first regulatory move was in the second month of 1632, almost immediately after the defining New Year’s Day ceremony that put Hong Taiji at the center. The newly created Board of Rites was employed to decree the implementation of a regulation on who could have what size of entourage. The khan, it was determined, would have three flags, two umbrellas, and six guards in his entourage. The senior beile—that is, Hong Taiji’s two brothers, Daišan and Manggūltai—were allowed two flags, one umbrella, and four guards. The other beile got one flag, one umbrella, and two guards. Furthermore, the decree went on to give precedence to the khan, calling for the dismissal of an entourage or parts of an entourage when in the presence of the khan. Even the senior relatives were limited in what they could wield when meeting or accompanying Hong Taiji. It was decreed that when meeting the khan, they must leave their guards and instruments at the gate, and if out on tour with the khan only the most senior relatives could use umbrellas.40 This type of hierarchical order gave primacy to those on top and remained stable in the face of changes and expansion. As the administration grew and the relatives became further stratified, however, the type and level of instruments changed. The organization of people in a system of relations continued to evolve and further develop with the state and its operations. With the change of the dynastic name and expansion of the ranks of relatives in 1636, a set of regulations

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proceeded to quantify anew the entourage of the first-, second-, and third-degree princes.41 Shortly after, other ranks of nobility were regulated. The entourage of an above-rank duke, for example, had one gold-and-yellow umbrella, two ritual spears with leopard tails, and six flags. They were forbidden to take this entourage into the city, however, and could employ it solely for tours and marches.42 In accordance with the hierarchy of nobility and bureaucracy, the entourage and instruments shrank with each decreasing rank, so that at the bottom, a third-rank imperial guard and commandant were allowed only one attendant.43 Similarly, in the early Shunzhi period, the entourage paraphernalia for the nine grades of administrative officials was created, which was significantly less than for the relatives and the hereditary ranks. For example, a first-class official was allowed four gold circles on his ritual fan. That was it: a ritual fan with four gold circles—no entourage, no attendants, no guards. A second rank official was allowed three gold circles, and on down to the eighth and ninth ranks, who were required to use white ritual fans.44 Ceremony and One’s Place in Line Grand ceremony and the thrice-monthly court ceremony provided an occasion for the performance of the stratified order. The New Year’s Day ceremony and other grand ceremonies, as seen in chapter 4, were used to ordain Hong Taiji at the top of the political and military order. In addition to the sovereign, that same ceremony also worked to impress the stratification of the entire political order, from the khan down to the banner units and civil officials. By organizing individuals according to their rank and social station, and giving them instructions on how to act throughout the ritual, such ceremonies ensured both the preservation and reproduction of hierarchical rank: the emperor on top, placed in the center and flanked by his brothers; the relatives standing in gradated lines before them, kowtowing on command; the banner commanders bringing officials through in organized fashion. Everything was put into a framework meant to structure the order of command and rank, and to impress upon the actors both the reality and the naturalness of their political positions. In a ceremony, the relatives and civil and military officials were organized according to rank and position, and each individual was given specific performances in relation to the emperor and each other. These enactments of li worked to construct the emperor to such a degree that it is not an exaggeration to see the ceremony as the symbolic organization of the state. The regulations of the ceremonies laid out in 1636 speak to this. For the New Year’s Day ceremony, nine steps were regulated, five of which articulated the hierarchy. From the commencement of the ceremony, the edict decreed, “the first-, second-, and third-degree princes on down to the troops are to line up in the main hall.” The ruler was then to emerge and “lead the princes of the blood and

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chief ministers to the Manchu shrine to kowtow in the three genuflections and nine prostrations to Heaven.” Upon returning to the palace, “the imperial relatives and officials line up.” The ruler was to come out and sit on the throne, and “the imperial relatives and beyond-rank officials perform three genuflections and nine prostrations to him.” The banner commanders next led their banners through to kowtow. All the while, the Censorate was to keep watch, making sure that everyone lined up correctly according to their rank and their position.45 The ceremonies for the emperor’s birthday and the court audience bore similar emphasis on the placing of ranks and the assurance of the political order by ceremonial decree.46 There are a number of different sources outlining the actual event of the ceremony, showing that it did proceed as prescribed. The New Year’s Day ceremony of 1638, for example, tells of the princes of the blood and military and civil officials gathering at the main hall and being led out to make offerings at the Manchu shrine. They returned and lined up according to rank and kowtowed in turn to the emperor, while the Board of Rites called out instructions on how to proceed.47 Other grand ceremonies unfolded in a similar fashion.48 The frequent occurrence of these rituals served as constant reminder of one’s place in the political order. Three times a year the relative or official would partake in a grand ceremony, finding his place in line, with superiors and inferiors above or below him. Three times a year, the actor would fully engage the symbolic act of his political station as a subject in the state order and kowtow to the emperor. The production would remind him of how to act and how to think. It would define his social and political being and make the hierarchy manifest. Then, three times a month on a smaller scale he would also assume his rank and face the emperor. Lining up before dawn among his political peers to wait in the heat and the cold to present his affairs to the emperor, or if there were none, then to be present as an object of the stratified order. O R G A N I Z AT IO N A N D I N T E G R AT IO N O F T H E I M P E R IA L R E L AT I V E S

In laying out rules for clothing, greetings, entourage, and ceremony, Qing statemakers not only included the imperial relatives but, unlike previous conquest regimes, did so in a way that simultaneously put them in the political order alongside other civil and military officials, not in a separate privileged hierarchy. The ranks and positions, and the regulations on clothing, greetings, entourage, and ceremony attached to the positions gave coherent meaning to the relatives in the political order. The effect was the construction of a cohesive order, where relatives and nonrelatives served the state side-by-side as part of the same political system, subject to the same regulations, and punished by the same laws.49

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Constructing the Imperial Relatives On the eve of the ceremonial announcement of the establishment of the Qing dynasty and the ritual proceedings to inaugurate the changing of the name of the state, Hong Taiji ordered the Board of Rites to organize members of the imperial family in a stratified aristocracy. “The members of the imperial family are not stratified (wusuo fenbie),” he cried. “People are not able to distinguish one from the other.” Although the use of red belts had previously been employed among the imperial relatives to “express the difference among superiors and inferiors, elders and juniors,” this system was still too ambiguous and did not differentiate in lineage or status. Hong Taiji thus bifurcated the imperial family, distinguishing between those who descended from Nurhaci and those who descended from the Six Ancestors. “Those in the line of Taizu branch are all called ‘a-ge,’ ” he ordered. “The sons and grandsons of the six ancestors are all called ‘jueluo.’ When they are referred to, they will be called ‘so-and-so a-ge’ and ‘so-and-so jueluo.’ Use this as an ordering principle.”50 The ordering principle to identify who was to be classified as part of the imperial family was adjusted slightly the following year. Originally Hong Taiji defined the imperial family as only those who descended from Nurhaci, which by definition excluded Nurhaci’s brothers and their sons. Jirgalang, for example, who was descended from Nurhaci’s brother, was excluded by the criteria of this system. The next year, however, the definition was expanded to include all the descendants of Nurhaci’s father, Taksi, which brought people like Jirgalang into the imperial family to form the official aristocracy.51 This was done both to include the sons of Nurhaci’s brothers and employ them in service of the state, and also to expand the narrative arc of the formation of the dynasty to include the accomplishments of people like his brother Šurhaci.52 This later development also helped ward off claims of legitimate challenges from competing lines. The immediate effect of all this for the sovereign was to place these junior beile in an organizational system that would begin to define their capacity, function, and authority.53 More to the point, that same year (1636), Hong Taiji handed out ranks to the imperial family members. The system of stratification of the imperial family members was still being formed, and the hierarchy among them evolving as the need arose. At first, only three ranks were articulated, and only a few of the relatives were included.54 The prince of the blood of first degree designation was given to six of the relatives: Hong Taiji’s brothers Daišan, Dorgon, and Dodo; cousin Jirgalang; son Hooge; and nephew Yoto.55 Below the title of prince of the first degree was that of prince of the second degree, which was given to Ajige, Nurhaci’s twelfth son. Below that was the rank of third degree, which was handed out to Abatai, Nurhaci’s seventh son, and Dudu, the eldest son of Nurhaci’s eldest son.56 Thus, initially, there were only nine ranking members.57 The bestowed ranks, however, placed

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them within a hierarchy and organized the levels of authority. “When our country did not know of rites and regulations,” Hong Taiji said, “there was no distinction among superiors and inferiors, nor honored and humble, even in spoken and written orders. If we apply the regulations and rites, then all will be stratified so that when a superior gives an order, the inferior responds. Today I set distinctions among superiors and inferiors.”58 No longer would the joint council be able to operate as the definitive decision-making body, whereby all members had an equal vote.59 Now the ranks had been established and greater or lesser degrees of political resources were divided among the members according to their place in the hierarchy. At the top, of course, was the sovereign, Hong Taiji.60 Social differentiation was the ideal, but the terms were still too loose and the categories still too ambiguous. “The system of ranks and names that was determined and set is not being enacted in law!” Hong Taiji complained to an assembly of titled relatives three years later (1638). He went on to chastise the Board of Rites for not investigating those guilty of transgressing and for not properly holding them responsible. Hong Taiji continued, ratcheting up the tension, accusing all of the high-ranking relatives in attendance of not obeying this system of ranks and titles, and for setting a bad example for all. “You have all agreed on this law; yet it has only been three years and you do not obey!” The consequences, Hong Taiji, explained would be more than just people stepping out of line; it threatened the cohesion of the political body and the health of the state: the envious would get upset when the state did well and rejoice when chaos reigned. “Previously, the [Jin dynasty imperial relatives] worked harmoniously together. Why cannot we do this? Beginning today, if you do not adhere to the title you have been given and continue to violate the law, I am going to destroy my ritual weapons and entourage [i.e., the rites and rituals have no meaning]!” Under such reproach, the relatives repented and said that they would search inside themselves and adhere to their rank and position.61 In addition to the assurances and efforts of the actors, institutional measures were also needed: the ranks had to be deepened and their terms clarified. A month after Hong Taiji’s outburst, the Board of Rites reissued regulations on the ranks and titles for the imperial family, along with standardized procedures for promotion and demotion. Nine ranks were created for imperial family members, and they were assigned according to merit:62 1. Prince of the blood of the first degree (Ma. hošoi cinwang; Ch. hesuo qinwang) 2. Prince of the blood of the second degree (Ma. doroi jyūnwang; Ch. duoluo junwang) 3. Beile (Ma. doroi beile; Ch. duoluo beile) 4. Beile Prince (Ma. gūsai beise; Ch. gushan beizi) 5. Defender Duke (Ma. gurun be dalire gung; Ch. zhenguo gong)

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6. Bulwark Duke (Ma. gurun be aisilara gung; Ch. fuguo gong) 7. Defender general of the State (Ma. gurun be dalire janggin; Ch. zhenguo jiangjun) 8. Bulwark general of the State (Ma. gurun be aisilare janggin; Ch. fuguo jiangjun) 9. Supporter-general of the State (Ma. gurun be tuwakiyara janggin; Ch. fengguo jiangjun) The top four ranks were considered positions of merit that stood “beyond rank,” meaning that these were the highest honors and titles. The other five ranks corresponded to the top honors of non-imperial relatives. The fifth rank Defender Duke, for example, corresponded to the first rank, while the ninth rank Supportergeneral corresponded to a lieutenant colonel (jalan i janggin).63 Those members of the imperial family lacking the accomplishments that could earn them a given rank still held the distinction of “member of the clan” (Ma. uksun, Ch. zongshi). Promotions were codified to follow from one rank to the next, so that an accomplishment would be rewarded with a promotion to the immediate next rank. Similarly, demotions were articulated to move down to the next corresponding rank. The demotion of a ninth-rank member would strip him of all titles and make him a regular clan member.64 Beginning at twelve years old, males were allowed to be entitled, while it was fifteen for females.65 The organization and behavior of the relatives in general was further clarified at this time as well. The main line, beginning with Nurhaci’s father, was called the uksun, and members of this group were to be identified by gold belts. The title was to be applied to all members even if they did not hold rank, and used to refer to the individual alongside his name or official position. By order of the Board of Rites here, when encountering a holder of one of the nine ranks, the untitled uksun was required to dismount from his horse and allow the ranking member to pass. Encountering ranking persons outside of the imperial family of first-rank gong on down they were not required to dismount, but had to alter their routes to accommodate the present relatives.66 Similarly, the relatives of the collateral line, who were termed the descendants of the “Six Ancestors,” were to be known as gioro. These members were to be identified with a red belt, and in their first year of life all children had to be registered with the Board of Rites. Like the uksun, members were to be known by their association as a gioro and identified by that name. Regulations on their greeting rites followed their rank as to whether they were required to dismount or not. A gioro without rank needed to dismount when encountering anyone of the nine ranks of the imperial family. When encountering a ranking noble of gong and below, a banner commander, or a board president, however, he did not need to dismount but should shift aside. For other, lower officials, the gioro should modify his route to honorably accommodate the higher-ranking person.67

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In addition to constructing a political order, this means of stratification delivered greater command of political resources to the sovereign at the expense of the banner lords. Whereas ranks and honors were previously given out by the banners, thus ingratiating the receiver to the banner lord, now the ruler had control over the granting and retraction of such honors and the rewards and privileges that were associated with it. The ruler would determine how the ranks were passed on, if it all, as well as who would be demoted and by what degree.68 Consider the cases of Sahaliyen and Yoto, for example. When Sahaliyen died he was the head of the Plain Red Banner and posthumously was titled prince of the blood of the first degree. His son, Adali, however, was only designated prince of the blood of the second degree.69 Ostensibly he had not yet proved himself adequately, and Hong Taiji wanted to assert his authority. The same type of action was applied in the case of Yoto. Although Yoto was the owner of the Bordered Red Banner and was one of the original princes of the blood of the first degree, when he died his son was only allowed to inherit the rank of prince of the blood of the third degree. Similarly, Hong Taiji at some point found reason to accuse Dorgon, Dodo, and Hooge each in turn of an offense and demote them from first-degree princes to second or even third degree.70 Integration into the Political Order In the course of imposing the hierarchical categories of organization upon the imperial relatives, the Board of Rites also drew up regulations on social activity. These regulations incorporated those key practices of political life discussed above: clothing, greetings, and ceremony. In the same way that such rules worked to discipline the bureaucracies, the Board of Rites also applied them to the relatives. This at once dictated the proper practices for the appropriate ranks of the imperial relative, thereby codifying sociopolitical status in relation to the rank and title held by any given individual, while at the same time aligning them with the administrative staff. Not only did this considerably tighten restriction on the independent activity of the imperial relatives, but it further integrated all actors into the political order by articulating their activity relative to each other and to bureaucratic officials. The imperial relatives were being fully transformed into a service nobility. The regulations on clothing issued by the Board of Rites in 1638, for example, furthered the social stratification and categorization of the relatives, but it did not isolate them. On the contrary, the regulations address them as already functioning political actors, effectively installing them in the same political hierarchy with all other officials. Regulations on the jeweled decorations on the caps and belts are a direct expression of this. Hong Taiji’s 1638 edict on the matter speaks of the imperial relatives in the same way as it does the rest of the civil and military officials. The above-rank positions of the imperial relatives, including the princes of the blood first and second degree, were to wear bejeweled caps and belts appropriate

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to their rank, which no other officials shared. The cap for them was a clear and unique marker of status fit only for the most honored and accomplished persons of the imperial family. Beginning with the fifth-rank title of Defender Duke, however, the cap decoration of two pearls and a ruby, along with gold and jade on the belt was not exclusive to this rank of the imperial relative but shared by the nonrelative of first-rank duke or above. Similarly, the headgear and belt ornamentation of the Bulwark Duke was also worn by the second- and third-rank nonimperial dukes, while the seventh-rank Defender-general donned the same dress as the board presidents. This mixing of the dress of the aristocracy and bureaucracy descended through the ranks in a way that integrated their status and privilege. They were, for all intents and purposes, part of the same political order.71 Greeting rites regulated interactions between aristocrat and bureaucrat. Recall that a third-rank relative encountering a first- or second-rank relative was required to move his retinue off the road to let them pass. If he came across a military general, instead, the lower-ranking general had to dismount and stand to the side while the relative passed. The general similarly had to yield the road to a fourthrank relative, but he did not have to dismount—just stand to the side while the relative passed. The high-ranking officials of commander and board presidents also followed this practice when encountering a fourth-ranked relative.72 The protocol of deference at various encounters could be summarized thus: Relatives → Emperor third rank → first or second rank General → third and fourth rank Commander and board president → fourth rank This scheme integrated the relatives and the nonrelative administrators, ensuring that they operated within a single political system, rather than two separate and unequal hierarchies. In ceremony, imperial family members were organized together with other political actors. Most striking is the very fact that the imperial relatives were included in the ceremonies. In contrast to the Ming, where the imperial relatives had no role in state ceremony or ritual, the Manchu imperial relatives took part in all of the ritual and ceremonial proceedings throughout the year. They often stood in line at the head of the political hierarchy, and they performed all the acts and functions as other members of the professional political classes. They lined up, stood before the emperor, kowtowed, made offerings, and partook of the banquets. In this respect, they were no different from the other civil and military officials attending the same ceremonies. Banquet practices further illustrate this point. Whereas a state like the Ming excluded princes and imperial relatives from formal banqueting occasions, the Qing included them as they did all other political actors.

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The banquet following the Qing New Year’s Day ceremony, for example, took place in the Chongzhengdian Hall with all the imperial relatives lined up with all the officials in the hall. Each actor had a place in line according to his rank and position, from which they would receive and drink wine, kneel, and kowtow. They would come forward in turn, according to rank, and make offerings before returning to their designated place in line. They would then wait while the emperor took his meal, and kowtow when he departed.73 The banquets for the emperor’s birthday ceremony and the Winter Solstice ceremony were similar in practice, with clear directions on the imperial relatives taking part in the same manner as the other officials, in accordance with their inclusion into the political order.74 More noteworthy were the ceremonies surrounding political operations, namely the court audience. When holding court, all the imperial relatives and officials would line up together in the halls of the Chongzhengdian Hall. Beginning with the princes of the first degree at the top of the political order, relatives and officials would stand in line according to their rank. Throughout the proceedings, the relatives, bureaucrats, and military men would be treated as a whole, lining up together accordingly and performing the rites together in political formation. As the statutes put it, “all the relatives and civil and military officials” would rise, sit, kowtow, and disperse as a unit. Only when standing before the emperor to report on affairs would they break ranks, but even then, each person was treated as a political actor reporting to the state on affairs of his jurisdiction. The imperial relative was seen as no different.75 The tea ceremony at court audience also illustrates the distinction of rank, while simultaneously showing the integration of groups as a single body of political actors. The imperial relatives would sit on the steps of the palace hall and be served tea from the inner court. Other officials would also sit on the steps, only distinct by their receiving a different kind of tea.76 By reconfiguring li in the form of ranks and behavioral practices for the imperial relatives, Hong Taiji and his staff effectively incorporated them into the political order as servants of the state. This solution did not completely remove the threat of the relatives, but the immediate politics of the conquest and the organization of the Manchus left the ruler with little room to maneuver. His sons and kin occupied a role in the military and administrative affairs of the state, and Hong Taiji had to contend with their power. In order to subjugate them to his command and ensure their cooperation in pursuing the goals of the state, they were organized into ranks and positions and integrated into the political order. They were grafted onto the professional bureaucracy, working at one with the other political and administrative actors in service to the state and its organizational goals. Such shifts necessitated the construction of new practices and social relations, re-scripting how actors would interact, dress, and see themselves. The institutionalization of this system culminated with the establishment of a bureaucratic organization in 1652 to oversee the imperial relatives, the Imperial Clan Court, which will be taken up in the next chapter.

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The construction and preservation of the stratified order relied on more than simply imposing regulations upon political actors; its successful operation involved more than just decrees stating how individuals ought to enact it. In addition, people had to obey, either through force or persuasion. Indeed, individual consciousness had to grapple with the phenomenon of the self in the hierarchy.77 This worked in the Qing in two ways: through transgression and internalization. In the case of the former, imperial relatives or officials might transgress the rite, meaning they failed to wear the proper clothing, stepped out of place in a ceremony, or ignored proper protocol or performance. When such offenses occurred, the state would intervene and punish, ensuring that the proper order was maintained through the use of administrative enforcement. The other side was the internalization of the rite as a symbol of the political order, which helped in organizing the world. Any violation of the rite, and thus the existing order, actors held, was a serious transgression against the natural order of things, so much so that they would lash out against offenders. This was less a watchful eye for the state, and more the enactment of a worldview. Both the punishment for transgressions and the individual internalizations helped preserve and reproduce the political order. Transgression and Enforcement Transgressions against the political order were not uncommon. Actors were wont, either by design or ignorance, to wear the wrong clothing, not perform their proper role in ceremony, wield the wrong ritual instruments, or tour with the wrong entourage. When such infractions occurred, the state came down hard and punished the perpetrators. Below some examples are adduced. As the key identifier of one’s rank and identity, proper dress stood at the center of the Qing court’s attempt to keep actors in line. Hong Taiji often complained of improper dress and was known to fine bannermen for not wearing their court clothing to political audience.78 In 1653, the Shunzhi emperor ordered the Board of Rites to properly punish those not adhering to the dress code.79 The next year, Board of Rites presidents issued a series of orders admonishing officials to wear their proper outfits to court, or be subject to the relevant punishment.80 Similarly, the Kangxi emperor became particularly vexed over the careless clothing habits of his subjects, complaining year after year that class distinctions were being undermined from “civil and military officials, as well as commoners wearing extravagant clothes without any regard. The rich rush to dress more gaudily than the next, and the poor try to follow. They steal and cultivate bad habits.”81 In just two years’ time the emperor would complain again that the clothing regulations, which had been adjusted and implemented during his reign, were being flouted. “I set the clothing regulation for simplicity,” the Kangxi emperor wrote, “but I did not think that

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when officials went to implement it that they would be overzealous and pick on minute things and harass the people. In this way the market stopped and goods were obstructed, creating a great inconvenience for people.”82 Some years later, the Board of Rites president also memorialized about the extravagance of clothing and the need to resurrect former regulations in order to rein in excesses.83 While the problem of improper ritual performance in ceremony was less common, the issue was not negligible. Hong Taiji, for example, chastised the imperial relatives and Manchu aristocracy for not taking seriously the ceremonial practices. All positions in the order have been set, he remarked, “but you are not respecting the core principle [of li]; you do not observe propriety and just move around randomly!”84 His great-great-grandson, the Yongzheng emperor, similarly complained about unscrupulous sloppiness. In the second year of his reign (1724), the Yongzheng emperor had become particularly irritated by the lack of precision and propriety in grand ceremony and court audience. Noting that in the few years since he became emperor, he had systematically performed the imperial rites and held the grand ceremonies, but, he said, “I see that the ceremonies are more lax than before. . . . If I am not strict now, in the future it will gradually become worse without end.” He complained about the lack of organization and stratification in the ceremony, and threatened to begin strictly enforcing regulations. When matters continued to deteriorate, the emperor exploded over an incident of two officials “making a mess of the court when doing the rituals.” Apparently, Li Jianxun and Luo Zhi were not following proper proceedings, undermining the ceremony, and causing disorder among the ranks. The Yongzheng emperor wanted them punished, and became so enraged at one point that he considered making an example of them by sentencing them both to death.85 Greeting rites were also a site for offense, especially by those in the provinces. A Kangxi-era event furnishes a good illustration of this and what the emperor thought about it. The complaint was that military officials had not adhered to the proper greeting rite when calling upon local magistrates, and that they had even ridden their horses right into yamens. The Kangxi emperor had called it an “offense against the legitimate order.” This was not just an isolated instance, and appears to have occurred more often in the southern provinces. “I see that the rites of reception practiced between the Zhejiang-Fujian garrison general and garrison lieutenant general, and governor-general and governor are not well,” the emperor wrote to his garrison general in reference to interactions among military and civilian officials. “Does this not betray my intention to make a single unity of military and civilian officials?”86 Qing emperors clearly took the proper practice of li seriously. They saw li holding together the political and social order and believed that affronts to li or the improper performance of a rite not only destabilized interpersonal relations, but also threatened the entire social order. Li generally, and the individual practices

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specifically derived from it, helped knit together a tenuous organization of political and ethnic actors and facilitated their harmonious interaction. Should actors fail to practice li properly or transgress against a specific rite, the state would step in to punish perpetrators and ensure the smooth functioning of political actors. Internalization and Naturalization It would be a mistake to understand stratification and its codification as something solely imposed from the top and enacted through force. Although those with the most to gain shaped the process, actors at all levels of the hierarchy partook in the implementation and enforcement of the practice of the stratified order. Individuals saw their place as defined by this order and fought to make sure that it was guaranteed. They found themselves in direct competition with others, fighting for the same rights and preservation of their advantage. In this way, actors naturalized the political order and internalized its means of reproduction and regulation. The prescribed rites, whether those concerned with greetings or one’s place in line, had become the means by which actors vied with each other. The case of G’o Zuji in 1636 exemplifies this. G’o was a unit captain of the Bordered Red Banner. One day he and his entourage were riding on the road and encountered another entourage. The record is somewhat unclear, but the other entourage appears to have belonged to Ts’oo Xi Jiyoo of the plain white banner, who is of unnamed rank here. At the head of Ts’oo’s entourage, however, was a guard charged with the management of the attendants and ritual instruments. When the two entourages approached each other, the guard did not move aside nor yield the road. Outraged at what he deemed a disregard of rank, G’o lashed out and slapped the guard in the face. For this act, G’o was punished by the Board of Rites—although it is unclear whether he received punishment for not adhering to the proper greeting formalities or for enacting his own form of justice.87 In either case, the point is that actors internalized rank and took grave offense if they felt their own rank was not recognized. This internalization is made even more explicit in a mid-Qianlong-era case.88 In 1762, the newly appointed Xi’an garrison general, Sungcun, was received by local Shaanxi officials but took offense at their ritual impropriety. On his way through Shaanxi, Sungcun was first met by the Tongshang circuit, Tu Yongzhong, who did not receive him properly. Then, upon arriving at the provincial capital, the local underlings clasped their hands together but did not kowtow as required. Even more insulting treatment occurred, Sungcun complained, when local officials came to greet him at his yamen. In blatant violation of the greeting rite code, they rode their horses through the main gate all the way up to the ritual gate instead of dismounting outside the main gate. In defense of his subordinates, Governor Zhong Yin went to great lengths to explain in a series of palace memorials that the customs in Shaanxi were different, and that the rites practiced by the local officials

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were done with the utmost respect and deference toward Sungcun. “This does not make sense!” the Qianlong emperor scribbled in red on Zhong’s memorial.89 No matter the customary practice, Qianlong replied in another communication, “each of these people is in charge of local officials and they did not follow the rites.” The emperor and grand council then worked furiously to determine the identity of the local officials who committed the ritual offenses.90 Actors could also muster righteous indignation at violations of the dress code, as the case of Zhou Qiming reveals. In the early Shunzhi period, the Hanyang magistrate, Zhou Qiming, got into an argument with Zhou Wenfeng, an underling of a Guizhou official. Wenfeng claimed that Qiming’s clothing was too extravagant and contrary to regulation, and proceeded to “arrogantly” rip off Qiming’s collar. Mitigating the insubordination of the servant, the investigator of the case found that “many of the southern officials wore clothes of different styles,” which was unacceptable and fell outside of the “regulations for civil and military clothing, stipulating each rank and style.” The investigator proceeded to reproach Qiming for “not respecting the system that the state has set. He wears a different style hat and collar, and himself declares it of a different type.” The investigator recommended an unspecified punishment for Qiming.91 One’s position in a ceremony was also taken very seriously, for it represented status and reflected honor. A Yongzheng-era case of two provincial officials fighting about their ceremonial place in line amply conveys the importance. In 1730, the Xi’an garrison lieutenant general felt he ought to enjoy primacy of position in a ceremony over the governor. He made his opinion quite audible, publicly disputing with the governor during the ceremony. The instance was brought to the attention of the Yongzheng emperor, who decried the behavior as “a great insult to the legitimate order!” He then reminded the accused parties that “we are all engaged in the same business of governing, and we should work together. We all need to respect the rites and act as an example for officials and people. Under the circumstances, pay respects to relations and the rites, especially during public events. If you end up fighting among yourselves, it will be transmitted near and far, making us a joke and bringing great shame.” The emperor then emphasized the order of ritual position with the governor having primacy over the lieutenant general. “It has always been so,” he said, “and the order must be adhered to.”92 What is clear from both the tone and the number of documents on these matters is that such rites of greeting, clothing, and ceremony were very important and officials took them quite seriously. These prescribed practices defined the political and interpersonal relationships among actors, determining the layers of authority and the structuring of the political order. Construction during the Hong Taiji years, and the ongoing process of institutionalization, dictated a particular form of how the different actors of different ranks were to interact and how to do so in a way that formalized their political relationships. The operations of the state, both

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militarily and administratively, relied on such practices, and the actors knew it. They took affronts to this order very personally and mobilized a language that not only evinced their own feeling of indignation and sense of pique, but also the stability and functionality of the entire political operation of the Qing dynasty. C O N C LU S I O N

As Hong Taiji rose to power and his supporters worked to establish him as sovereign, he simultaneously moved to define the political order. Drawing on the concept of li as an organizing force, Hong Taiji and his Chinese staff translated it into a series of practices that were instituted and policed by the Board of Rites. This was done initially through the construction and distribution of segregated ranks and positions whereby each political actor was given a place within the order, and then by attaching specific behaviors and practices to the various positions. Once social and political positions were set, four categories of activity came to define the order—sumptuary, greeting, entourage, and ceremonial position— showing participants how to relate to each other. Clothing was a key identifier of one’s place in the hierarchy, signaling rank, position, and how one ought to be treated by other actors; greeting rites offered instruction on what to do when two political actors crossed paths, protecting each of them from conflict over prerogatives of primacy and offering an acknowledgment of the social system of stratification and rank; entourage composition and size helped keep displays of power in check, regulating the ability of actors to project their status and confining them to the bounds of a preset stratification; and ceremonies organized actors in a way that continually reinforced the sociopolitical order, with each official occupying a particular place in line and performing certain acts of submission at certain times. The political order was here performed: The ritual work brought it into being. This constructed organization and the imposed practices and behaviors not only shaped political life but also worked to build a unified system. All actors were placed into the political order and subsumed in a single system of li. Most immediately, and of greatest importance to the ruler and his circle, was the integration of the imperial relatives. Whereas previous regimes had isolated or excluded their relatives from politics, the Qing made them part of the administrative order, both in their employment as well as within the symbolic ordering. The position of the relatives was built into the political organization and practices: their ranks were gradated within the bureaucracy, not separate from it, which meant that the very symbolic activities they performed were done so in relation to other civil and military officials. Indeed, their very interests and ideals became wrapped up in the single political order that they now took part in; it socialized them with other administrative officials and structured their interactions and dealings.

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The form of li under investigation here was informed by Ming precedent, yet reconstituted for the Qing context. Stratification, clothing, greeting rites, entourages, and ceremonies had long been part of Chinese political culture informed by early political theory going back to at least the Han. The Ming had translated these ideas and practices into a certain form that fit its ruling patterns and politics, whereby a singular political order was constructed and maintained through these mechanisms.93 Yet the politically and culturally diverse makeup of Qing political actors, from the imperial relatives to the Manchu and Chinese officials, necessitated modification and adaptation of the practices of li. Types of clothing and ceremonial proceedings, for example, deviated from former dynastic practices. Revamped and redeployed by the Manchus, these acts took up new political and cultural forms, such as the use of furs. Furthermore, Qing state-makers were forced by dint of the political circumstances to open politics to greater participation and utilize li to incorporate new actors. Most immediately, this meant revising the practices of li to incorporate the imperial relatives so that the ritual and symbolic system not only accounted for the relatives, but also worked to make them part of the order. In contrast to previous regimes, which used separate ritual and ceremonial systems to alienate the imperial relatives, the Qing revised the system of li to shape the political order by overlapping the relatives in stratification and behavioral and political practices. Just how well it worked will be explored in the next chapter.

part three

Institutionalization, 1651–1690

the seating of the shunzhi emperor in 1651 marks the beginning of the institutionalization of Qing state-making. Despite the establishment of the Qing empire a decade and a half prior, ongoing internal struggles among the Manchu elite and the leveraging of the new system of li for personal interests plagued the young order. Without organizational coherency and enforceable standards of action, contemporary political actors formed factions, and, at each turn, worked to stage convincing demonstrations of their own roles by drawing on the tools immediately available and legitimized by other organizational actors. These internal manipulations and abuses of the Qing system of li were compounded by a shift in organizational demography: With the conquest of southern China in the 1650s, the Qing had to mount displays of legitimate rule over Chinese subjects resistant to Manchu sovereignty and resentful of Qing conquest. This had to be carried out while maintaining imperial command over banner forces and remaining true to the practices and symbols that had taken the Manchus this far. The Board of Rites facilitated two key responses to these problems, which helped to institutionalize the settlements of the previous decades. The first was the creation of an independent bureau to curtail the autonomy of the imperial relatives and shuttle them into office to serve the state rather than challenge the authority of the emperor. The second was the resolution of the nature of sovereignty and political domination of Manchu and Chinese subjects by completing the system of li through the development of a style of imperial dress that amalgamated both Chinese and Manchu traditions. These two moves were subsequently complemented with a cumulative act of institutionalization to solidify the political

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order: the production of an administrative code in 1690. This new legal text was premised on the Qing interpretation of the practices and rules of li, and had long been requested by Board of Rites officials; it embodied all the regulations for the organization and operation of the Qing political system, and its issuance summed up a key stage in Qing history.

6

Imperial Relatives in Service of the State

One of the most important groups in the Qing political system was the imperial relatives. Hong Taiji contested for power with his brothers, nephews, and sons; even after successfully establishing himself as sovereign, these family members pursued their own interests, threatened his authority, and thwarted his agenda. By the mid-point of his reign he had not been able to eliminate them all, as he had done with the three main challengers to his position, for the junior relatives were too deeply embedded in the military and administrative apparatuses of the state. Besides, he still needed their political support to secure his position. He thus made them part of the same system of administrative and political order as his civil and military officials, hoping that they too would loyally serve the emperor and the Qing state. Yet, despite Hong Taiji’s efforts to limit and shape their interests, the imperial relatives continued to exercise a degree of autonomy that vexed Hong Taiji, challenged each other, and disrupted the emergent order. This chapter examines the relatives’ ongoing struggles among themselves and shows how the process of institutionalization was shaped by responses to the challenges posed. The chapter begins with a comparative discussion of imperial relatives in Chinese history, giving particular attention to the most relevant or accessible example at hand for the Manchus: the Ming, who had isolated relatives from political life. Despite departing from this model and rendering the relatives a place in government, Hong Taiji was still unable to maintain strict discipline among his kin, and he continued to struggle against their autonomy. The formation of factions to maximize personal interest and protection set up the contest for power upon Hong Taiji’s death in 1643. Although a compromise was reached and the established order was preserved, the infighting continued, as actors mobilized the 123

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system of ranks and rituals against each other, abusing positions and ceremonies to amass political and material resources. The rise of an imperial faction in the early 1650s worked to curb these abuses and moved to stabilize the order by institutionalizing the system of imperial relatives. This culminated in the establishment of a bureaucratic organization in 1652, the Imperial Clan Court, to oversee the imperial relatives. T H E M I N G E XC LU SIO N O F I M P E R IA L R E L AT I V E S

The Qing employment of the imperial relatives in the running of the central government was a unique arrangement of personnel not seen before in the history of the imperial Chinese state. The Tang dynasty allowed its relatives to enter service through recommendation and examination but had no organized system of employment or means to integrate the imperial relatives as a group. The Song and Ming dynasties closeted off their relatives, barring them from any role in political or military life. The Yuan set the sons up in the provinces, which enabled the relatives to act more like semi-autonomous governors rather than political actors, and the lack of a clear political order and chain of command created untoward problems for the ruler. In order to fully understand the implications of the Manchu strategy and to highlight the transformation of li by the Qing, it is helpful to make a comparison with the Ming, whose practice of isolation had drastically different results than the Qing system of integration. In contrast to the Qing system of inclusion, the Ming excluded imperial relatives from all political life. Forbidden to take office or have any role in government or military operations, the sons and brothers of the Ming emperors were exiled to the provinces. On their estates, the princes were subjected to a host of regulations governing their activity, which effectively removed them from social and political life. They could not hold military command or government office. They could not participate in politics or assert themselves in local affairs, let alone national affairs. They were barred from pursuing the professions of scholar, peasant, artisan, or merchant and were designated by birth as an imperial relative, a category that limited their undertakings and restricted their dealings. They could not enter court, establish relationships of any kind with officials or scholars, nor were they allowed to meet and fraternize with other princes. Some of these restrictions loosened in the late sixteenth century, but by that time the trends had already taken form and the role of the imperial relatives cast.1 For all intents and purposes, the Ming princes were stuck on their estates in the provinces, allowed to travel only by permission of the Imperial Clan Court, granted permission to enter the capital only when no other princes were in attendance, and never allowed to meet their siblings or nephews. This system of exclusion developed out of the particular political circumstances of the early Ming. The Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang, like most aspiring rulers

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and strongmen, relied on his kin in conquest. Short of employing them in the central operations of his emergent state, however, he put his sons in charge of border defense and provincial administration. Apart from installing the eldest son as heir apparent, he did not set up a clear system of ranks or even systematic honors that could be used to differentiate. With the death of the founder, the eldest son of the deceased eldest son (the founder’s grandson) ascended the throne. This set off an internal revolt among the sons, with the more politically and militarily capable second son arising to seize the throne. Once established as the Yongle emperor, this son used the pretext of civil war to censor the relatives: Having defeated all parties and established himself as sovereign, the new emperor could restructure political relations and ban sons and all other kin from military operations, possessing private guards and troops, and taking part in political life.2 This set the terms by which the imperial relatives of the Ming would henceforth conduct themselves and preserve political disengagement. Such conditions explain the limited operations of the Ming Imperial Clan Court. In contrast to the Qing Court, which was charged with the integration of actors into the political order, the Ming Court’s core duties were registering imperial family members, regulating proper names for offspring, and overseeing estate administration. The Court assigned each princely estate ten unique characters to use in any combination for their offspring. The chosen names of the newborn sons, then, were to be registered with the Court.3 The handling of the estates and all the logistics entailed in supporting them also figured as key activities of the Ming Court, whereas in the Qing these duties were given over to the Interior Household Department. The supply of grain, for example, was coordinated by the bureau through the Board of Finance. Similarly, the Court granted permissions to travel off the estate and assigned the entourage allowed on such occasions. The Court even regulated the construction of any buildings on the estates, requiring the prince to apply first to the Board of Works, which would then relay it to the Court for approval.4 State ceremonies similarly reflected the isolation of the imperial relatives. Instead of being included in the rituals of the Grand Ceremonies and court banquets, the relatives were absent, nowhere to be seen. The Ming New Year’s Day ceremony, for instance, included “all the civil and military officials” and their place in line along with their ritual activities in the ceremony.5 The only imperial male relatives who had roles were the crown prince and his eldest son, who partook in a separate ceremony apart from all the other officials, which involved paying respects to the emperor through a series of genuflections and prostrations. Later in the day, the crown prince would take his seat in the palace and all officials would come through to pay their respects to him with four bows and choreographed prostrations.6 These practices were repeated for the winter solstice. Court audiences also excluded the imperial relatives, as would be expected from a class that had no political or military role and was not allowed to congregate or travel.

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The relatives were isolated both politically and legally. At the Ming court, where audience was held biweekly, civil and military officials would enter the palace and line up according to rank, each coming forth in order to report on his affairs.7 While the Ming Huidian spares no detail in discussion of the organization of ranks and where officials of certain ranks are to stand at certain times, the princes receive no notice.8 Although the crown prince gets a mention as an actor who must come to audience on the said day, he does so after all the officials have left the court.9 Clearly, even this prince was separated from the political order. One of the long-term consequences of excluding imperial relatives was fiscal. Cloistered imperial families grew exponentially, increasing the amount of resources that had to be allocated. The state provided full support to all the imperial relatives and their offspring, and had to do so in a way befitting royalty. Toward the end of the Ming, for example, after approximately two hundred years of imperial births of sons of sons, by some estimates the imperial family numbered over two hundred thousand members, and required stipends equivalent to 143 percent of annual land tax revenues to support.10 Furthermore, as a group they constituted the largest landowners in the Ming, but their revenues went untaxed, thereby depriving the Ming government of sorely needed funds.11 This huge expense contributed to the Ming state’s inability to function efficiently and address crises in the countryside.12 Similarly, the princes in the provinces would make financial demands on their local governments, often causing great financial stress for local administrators. Such demands became impossible to handle and had profound impact on the operations of the state and its abilities to mobilize financial and human resources in times of need. This state of fiscal affairs stands in stark contrast to the Qing. Because they were employed as officials, Qing relatives did not draw stipends, nor did they require the upkeep of large provincial estates. In the early Qianlong period (1736–1795), for example, total expenditure on imperial relatives was only 1 percent of the silver in the Board of Revenue treasury. Some estimates indicate that this may have risen to 1.25 percent of tax revenues in the mid-nineteenth century, but this is still significantly less than even the most conservative estimates of Ming expenditures.13 Another consequence was the lack of a group of advisors that shared the immediate interests of the ruler.14 In a bureaucratic monarchy, the ruler not only needed counsel from his professional class of administrators but also people who could move between circles in the communication and execution of orders.15 A link in the chain of command between emperor and bureaucrat needed to be established so that information flowed unobstructed and policy could be formulated effectively and implemented efficiently. When officials began to pursue their own interests, creating hindrances and friction, they needed to be whipped back in line. Even a strong and tireless ruler would struggle with numerous obstacles and constantly confront limitations in his power and capacity to rule.16

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The inability of Ming emperors to solve this problem has long been seen as one of the causes of the downfall of the dynasty.17 Lacking a natural intermediary class to link the inner and outer courts, such as the imperial relatives, Ming emperors turned to palace eunuchs. These eunuchs comprised a class in and of themselves, serving their own interests politically and financially at the expense of the state; they became the arbitrators of politics, controlling the flow of information and determining what policies could be proposed and implemented. In some periods of Ming rule, the emperor completely absconded from politics, leaving the state in the hands of the eunuchs. This level of eunuch control facilitated the formation of political factions in order for actors to secure patrons and political protection in the face of inconsistent communications and arbitrary response. Contemporary commentators and historians point to such developments as key factors in a breakdown of political order and the inability of government to function effectively in dealing with the everyday demands of state operations and mounting social crisis.18 I N T E R NA L ST RU G G L E S

Whereas Ming relatives sulked in isolation, the Manchu relatives agitated in office. Although accepting of Hong Taiji and the new system, the Qing relatives did not readily submit. Due to their status as the descendants of Nurhaci, and drunk with ambition from military conquest, they constantly posed a threat to Hong Taiji and the emergent order. They embraced the titles, to be sure, but were often displeased with the ranks they received, and they resented the constraints and restrictions on their actions. Many saw themselves as the equals of Hong Taiji, deserving rank higher than the one bestowed; at other times they revolted in word and deed against the entire hierarchical and ritual system. This led to a slow fracturing of the cohesion, as the relatives began to seek alliances with those who shared their interests and discontents. Cracks in the new order emerged almost immediately. In 1638, Hong Taiji admonished the relatives for not adhering to regulations or properly performing rituals. “Ranks and titles have all been set, but you still do not follow what has been established!” he cried. “From the prince of the blood of the first degree to the beile prince on down, you don’t adhere to the established order. When there is a command, you all just nod in acknowledgment but then let it pass and forget. . . . In the three years since establishing the dynasty [in 1636] and the setting up of the system of differentiations and ranks, you have not abided by the regulations!”19 Two weeks later, Hong Taiji followed up this chastisement with an edict to the Board of Rites calling for punishments of relatives “who violate the established order, don’t practice the rites, or transgress the laws.”20 Although he did not cite specific instances, a number of cases hint at the nature of such violations. In early 1637, Bulwark Duke Šoto was punished for defying his given rank and hunting on grounds reserved for

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the princes of the blood of the first degree.21 A few weeks later, Banner Vice Commander Lolohon committed similar acts, and was accused of enhancing the size of his entourage beyond what was stipulated for his rank. This earned him a demotion.22 Later that year, Lolohon was again punished for flouting administrative regulations, terrorizing subordinates, and hoarding booty.23 The relatives did not accede to such restriction and punishment with any alacrity. Dudu, for example, Nurhaci’s first grandson, openly complained to his subordinates about his third-level rank of beile and pointed out the lack of reward or recognition for his accomplishments. “My contribution is great,” he protested, “but it is never acknowledged.” And he went on to enumerate how others received promotions and rewards while he did not.24 Lolohon voiced a similar grievance: Even Han Chinese received titles and became banner generals, he said, while the relatives were but administrative officials or even reduced to commoner status. He went on to emphasize that he was not “blockheaded,” as Hong Taiji suggested, but rather acted “because my resentment has turned to hatred!”25 This kind of resentment was felt even more acutely by Hong Taiji’s brothers, who deemed themselves worthy of grander titles and ranks. For example, Abatai, Nurhaci’s seventh son and Hong Taiji’s older half-brother, complained about his beile rank, while Babuhai, Nurhaci’s eleventh son and Hong Taiji’s younger half-brother, went one further to threaten that he would renounce his banner vice commander position because “banner vice commanders are as abundant as grass and trees, so what need is there for me?” When accused of not acting as a loyal subordinate to the emperor, he angrily retorted, “Am I not the son of Taizu [Nurhaci]?”26 Even close collaborators of Hong Taiji exercised their own agency at the expense of the ruler’s larger statist goals. A case of corruption and personal patronage involving Dorgon in 1638 highlights this point. In 1637, an administrative official in the Board of Punishments, Chen Qi, was convicted of corruption and removed from his post. The accusation, trial, and conviction followed standardized procedures put in place for the oversight of the administrative personnel and the prevention of personal interests taking priority over bureaucratic goals. Some months later, however, Hong Taiji left the capital to go on campaign; the next day Chen Qi was reinstated at the Board of Punishments and his accuser, Bi Cheng, was removed. “I am without crime and yet removed from office!” Bi Cheng wrote indignantly. “It is the corrupt rascal Chen Qi who is being employed instead. If at first they knew Chen Qi was good, then they should not have removed him, and if they knew that I was bad, then they should not have employed me.” This complaint sent the Censorate into action. The department presidents and vice presidents went out to investigate, going first to the Board of Punishments, only to encounter “those who said they did not know, and those who said that Chen was reliable and good.” They thus went to the Board of Personnel to present the case and argued that Chen Qi should not be employed, as he has been convicted of corruption on

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three accounts and is prohibited from again taking office. Censorate president Zu Kefa met with the Board of Personnel president and told him he needed to bring this matter to the attention of the relatives in the Board of Personnel and quickly dismiss Chen. The next morning, Zu and his vice president, Wu Jingdao, ran into the said relative outside morning audience, and this relative proceeded to give them a dressing down, “reprimanding us for speaking absurdities.”27 The relative was Dorgon, Hong Taiji’s younger brother and ardent supporter. As one of the most capable military leaders, he was a powerful banner owner and in charge of the Board of Personnel—positions he exercised to great advantage and often in ways that placed him above administrative process and regulation.28 The continued development of the case further saw Dorgon flouting administrative law and regulatory practice in the assertion of his own authority in placing his people and running his corner of the state. The case continued with Zu and his co-president Zhang Cunren again memorializing Hong Taiji on the matter and requesting that he once again intervene and remove Chen from office. At stake, they argued, was not just this convicted official corrupting government affairs, but subverting the imperial authority of the emperor. “The imperial edict cannot be changed,” Zu and Zhang proclaimed. “Imperial authority cannot be transferred.” Although Chen had been convicted and removed from office, he “still remained in the yamen, complacent and smug,” and seemingly under Dorgon’s protection. Exasperated with the situation and Dorgon’s blatant disregard for the administrative chain of command, the Censorate presidents now incriminated Dorgon and Board of Punishment personnel in the obstruction of procedure and of exercising personal authority to protect a convicted official. “We do not know by what method Chen Qi has been able to obtain the support of the high officials in the Board of Punishments nor what ground the officials of the Board of Punishments have for the prince [i.e., Dorgon] to make use of them. [But] whatever the prince sees and hears, it is diverted and imperial orders repealed. Our duties as remonstrating officials are greatly hindered.”29 No resolution was forthcoming, and justice never served. Thus, despite the legal process and the official posts and job descriptions of administrative censors—and even an order handed down by the emperor—administrative chains of command collided with severe limitations when a junior relative like Dorgon chose to exercise his independent will and flex his authority. As the imposed system of li matured, the relatives used it to bolster their personal and factional advantages. Conflicts turned from a resistance to the khan’s authority, toward complaints and accusations against each other. They sought to elevate and protect themselves, forming factions and attempting to eliminate rivals in the quest for influence and the gathering of political and material resources. Babuhai, for example, was accused of disloyalty by Tantai, a banner commander in Hong Taiji’s Yellow Banners, who called for the relative to be sentenced to death.

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Hong Taiji rejected such a harsh punishment but did strip Babuhai of his rank and status, reducing him to a commoner and absorbing his military units.30 Accusers were also quick to go after those in an immediate circle and factional relations. In the case of Dudu, in addition to suggesting that he be imprisoned and his property confiscated, his accusers recommended that his sons be stripped of their ranks and reduced to commoner status because they had not prevented their father from speaking out.31 This infighting ensured that on the eve of Hong Taiji’s death, the lines of the competing factions for succession were already drawn. P O L I T IC A L S T RU G G L E A N D SU C C E S SIO N

In the fall of 1643, Hong Taiji abruptly died, throwing the Manchu aristocracy into political crisis. Previously, Inner Asian custom had followed one of two developments upon the death of a khan: either the election of a new one that could command the allegiance and maintain the unity of the body politic or dispersion of the various military leaders in their separate directions to pursue their own futures.32 In 1643, neither of those options came to bear. Despite Hong Taiji’s failure to designate a successor, and the ever-present suspicion of the generals of one banner toward the lords of another—two factors that could have led to the latter situation—the polity held. The relatives and their subordinates adhered to the terms of the settlement hammered out in the past decade and a half, and did so in a way that preserved the general structure of the hierarchies of power and the organization of the concentration of political resources. The contest of succession was not over the structural arrangements of power, as it was during the Nurhaci succession; rather, it was a jockeying for position and interests within the emergent framework.33 Each man began assessing his interests and lining up his support behind a candidate who could best help realize them, and he did so in the language of the categories and ranks established by Hong Taiji. The Crisis and Resolution Events following the death of Hong Taiji are opaque. The only documents that remain are those that were rewritten after the politics of the time had played out; they are impressed with a tone of both culpability and inevitability. If a source is not attempting to show the vile and wretched betrayals of an actor, then it presents Hong Taiji’s son, Fulin, who was crowned in the end, as the natural and predestined successor. An outline of the events of the succession goes something like the following.34 Hong Taiji died on the ninth day of the eighth month of 1643. That day, a number of high-ranking officials of the Yellow Banners called upon Hong Taiji’s eldest and most accomplished son, Hooge, and pledged their support in his bid to accede to the throne. They worked out an agreement that Hong Taiji’s ninth son, Fulin,

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would be the crown prince in waiting. They made a vow among themselves to live and die together, then went to Hong Taiji’s cousin and supporter, Jirgalang, to solicit his support. At first Jirgalang demurred on the grounds that Dorgon had not approved; but he then consented despite this complication.35 A few days later, Dorgon, wary of these developments, summoned Sonin, a high-ranking Yellow Banner lieutenant, to discuss the succession. As a representative of the Yellow Banners, which had belonged to Hong Taiji, and the commanders who saw it in their interest to have one of their own on the throne, Sonin minced no words, “The previous emperor has sons; one of them must succeed him. As for the others, I do not know.”36 That night Yellow Banner lieutenant Tula told Sonin to ensure that a son of Hong Taiji was enthroned.37 The next day, a council was called to attendance at the Chongzhengdian Hall to decide the outcome of succession. By some accounts Daišan spoke first, urging that Hong Taiji’s eldest son Hooge should rule. Knowing he did not have the support of Dorgon and the White Banners, Hooge demurred, “My blessings are sparse and my virtue thin. I am not fit to rule.” He then left the assembly. The representatives of the Yellow Banners protested, saying they would only support a son of Hong Taiji who would secure their positions in the Yellow Banners. Daišan excused himself as too partial to partake in the negotiations and left, followed by Ajige. Only Dorgon and Jirgalang remained, who both agreed to support Fulin and divide the Yellow Banners among themselves until Fulin came of age.38 By other accounts, Sonin opened proceedings announcing that the next emperor had to be a son of Hong Taiji. This incurred the wrath of Dorgon, who ordered Sonin to leave. Ajige and Dodo then suggested that Dorgon should take the throne. Upon his hesitation, Dodo said that if Dorgon would not consent then he, Dodo, as the last son of Nurhaci, should be elected. Dorgon did not agree and snidely put forth Daišan as the eldest son of Nurhaci. Daišan then said that the successor should be a son of Hong Taiji, and they thus decided on Fulin, with Dorgon and Jirgalang as regents.39 Although this apparently decided the matter of succession, the next six days were fraught with tension over the possibility of civil war. The swearing of allegiance to the new rulers happened almost immediately, giving actors little time to react or absorb the unfolding events.40 One of the lower-ranking imperial relatives, Aduli, said that he felt pressured by the regents into taking the oath. Finding the entire agreement dubious, and the regents of questionable authority, he ended up refusing to swear allegiance and burned his vows. He was outed and gave himself up some months later, whereupon he and his family were summarily executed and his property confiscated.41 Two other imperial relatives went one step further and planned a coup. Two days after the agreement, Daišan’s son Šoto and his son Alida plotted to put Dorgon on the throne. Before they could begin to mobilize, however, Daišan outed them, and Dorgon chose to execute them for treason.42 These

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executions were meant to help stabilize the settlement, but they only added to the uncertainty of the situation and a growing fear of Dorgon’s power. This prompted the Yellow Banners to gather their men in secret and take a vow to support Fulin.43 The Interests and Politics Despite conflicting accounts and questions of reliability, two things can be ascertained: a struggle had ensued between the Yellow and White Banners; and the forum within which this struggle occurred was the political framework erected by Hong Taiji. In the first case, the internal machinations of the succession expose the interests and fears of the different banners. From the very beginning, the Yellow Banners pushed for a son of Hong Taiji to take the emperorship, with the understanding that it would help them maintain their position and status.44 As banners of the emperor, they enjoyed special status, but if another brother took the throne, not only would the interests of the Yellow Banners be threatened but also many of the upper ranks feared their lives would be as well.45 This explains the anxiety within the ranks of the Yellow Banners during discussions and their show of force outside the hall (“standing at ready in full battle regalia and with bows drawn”). Even when the agreement had been made and the positions determined, the Yellow Banners still feared the power of Dorgon and the White Banners, which led them to bind together and take vows of mutual support. Conversely, the White Banners feared being split, and their leaders, Dorgon and Dodo, marginalized, which had happened after the death of Nurhaci and continued throughout Hong Taiji’s reign.46 The disputes throughout the discussion on the fourteenth reflected this tension, and the friction subsequent to the meeting hints at what actors thought was really at stake. In the end, Fulin of the Yellow Banners would be designated as the emperor in waiting, and Dorgon of the White Banners would serve as regent. This was a compromise to mollify the fears and appease the interests of those who might engender civil war.47 It was clearly not a simple matter of deciding political position and who would be emperor. Notable in this dispute and its resolution was that it continued to develop at a level of politics set in motion by Hong Taiji. This is the second conclusion to be drawn. The struggle, negotiations, and agreement of the 1643 succession were not over charismatic access to political resources; rather, they were about positions and interests within the politics of the state. Whereas the succession struggle after Nurhaci’s death in 1626 followed no guidelines and took place on an amorphous plane of interests and personal loyalties and favors, the Hong Taiji succession seventeen years later played out within a received context of an emperor who had systematically controlled the majority of political resources. The oath is a good illustration. At the 1626 succession, the oath sworn by the relatives was to the corulers and the unity of joint rule. At the 1643 succession, by contrast, the oath was sworn to the emperor and the very idea of the emperor and what he represented.48

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Even as the Yellow Banners felt threatened, they were prepared for civil war rather than secession—as Amin had attempted to do when Hong Taiji took over. Similarly, the arguments about who could be emperor always revolved around the relations previously defined. Sonin spoke of a son of the deceased emperor taking over; Daišan spoke of the eldest son of the emperor. Support for Dorgon rested on the grounds that he was a son of Nurhaci; Dodo claimed legitimacy for himself on the basis of his lineage; and Daišan was put forward at one point for the fact that he was eldest son of Nurhaci. Jirgalang, although only a son of Nurhaci’s brother, and thus from a different family line, was lord of the Bordered Blue Banner and a powerful military leader; as a supporter of Hong Taiji, he further commanded the trust of the Yellow Banners. In the end, an agreement resulted in Fulin, as the son of Hong Taiji, being placed on the throne and Dorgon and Jirgalang holding the key positions of joint regents. Dorgon and Jirgalang represented certain factions, and their merit had earned them leadership. The joint regency was meant to secure the interests of all parties involved, and ensure that the demands of all factions would be represented and heard. The question of why Fulin was chosen as the emperor in waiting does not admit of a clear or obvious answer. As the ninth son of Hong Taiji his merit or suitability over his brothers was not self-evident. Most likely Hong Taiji had not designated a successor because he did not have the political support to be able to do so without inciting backlash.49 But there is speculation that Hong Taiji favored Fulin’s mother, and thus possibly the son, for he honored her with higher titles than those of his other wives.50 It is also quite plausible that the deal makers favored him for youth, exploiting that quality to empower the regents to command the continuing state-building efforts as the Qing conquest marched on. The Political Order Sustained These events of the Hong Taiji succession tested the nascent political order and the integration of different groups. They showed that despite the still ongoing process of the construction of politics, actors had come to accept the basic terms of the arrangement, and to work within the emergent system. The new political framework had begun to be internalized, shaping their choices in the political struggles. At this time, unlike the succession of Nurhaci some fifteen years earlier, actors did not see dispersal of the banners as an option; they did not consider reconstituting an arrangement of diffused access and division of political resources. Instead, the respective banners wished to appoint a representative who would ensure their interests, positions, and influence. Each of the imperial relatives threw his support behind the one whom they thought would most benefit and empower him. The most significant aspect of this development is the adherence to the organizational form of the imperial family laid down by Hong Taiji. This form established the hierarchy that determined who could control more access to more political

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resources. All arguments for succession employed terms within the framework of discourse established by Hong Taiji surrounding the imperial family and its positions: the Yellow Banners spoke of supporting a son of Hong Taiji; some other brothers suggested an imperial family member next in line; Daišan was put forth at one point because of his seniority in the imperial family; and in the end a son with a highly ranked mother was elevated to assume Hong Taiji’s place. The terms were set; but what was now required was for a process of institutionalization to take hold, for without it, the system could continue to be manipulated by factions and personal interests. A NAT OM Y O F T H E FAC T IO N S

On the surface, the succession event appears to be a struggle between the Yellow Banners and Dorgon’s Plain White Banner, where each side feared and mistrusted the other. This understanding emerges from the sources available. Although scholars know that they were produced or edited later from the perspective of the victor, the lack of alternative documentation has meant that historians have largely perpetuated this interpretation. More recently, however, Japanese historians have begun to read existing sources in new ways to interrogate and map the relations among the relatives; they have found a more complex set of issues and number of factions involved.51 The analysis emerging from this research helps make sense of what transpired after the succession, and implicates the direction of institutionalization and next phase of Qing state-making.52 As noted above, three groups vied to replace the emperor: supporters of Hong Taiji’s oldest son, Hooge; supporters of his youngest son, Fulin; and supporters of the strongest and most militarily accomplished brother, Dorgon.53 On the surface, these groups waged a battle over the selection of the person to replace the ruler. They further built support along lines of maternal relations and marriage alliances first, and banner association second. Although the accounts cited above give short shrift to some of these factions—hastily dismissing them from the narrative of events—much was actually being played out behind the scenes in the solidification of factional relations that would continue to define internal struggles into the early Kangxi reign. Foremost was the Hooge faction, which included Jirgalang. This group consisted of supporters from the Plain and Bordered Blue, Plain Red, and Plain Yellow Banners. As Hong Taiji’s oldest son, and an accomplished general in his own right, Hooge had a strong claim to the throne. He distinguished himself early and held a top rank in the small political hierarchy by 1626. When the formal ranking system for the imperial relatives was introduced in 1636, he was made a prince of the blood in recognition of a series of military accomplishments during the formation period. Sometime shortly after Hong Taiji’s ascent, Hooge was made head of the Plain Blue Banner, which he commanded until his death in 1648. He further

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enjoyed the support of his uncle, Abatai, Nurhaci’s seventh son and Hong Taiji’s older brother, who was a Plain Blue Banner official, as well as the most senior relative, Daišan, who headed the Plain Red Banner. Marriage alliances brought many of the key actors into league together and facilitated greater support for Hooge. A number of senior military commanders of the Plain Yellow Banner, including Babuhai, Turgei, Tajan, and Degelei, were related to each other and Hooge through marriage, leading to their unwavering support. Hooge was maternal cousins with Tajan, who married Turgei’s niece. Turgei married Babuhai’s sister, and Babuhai married Tajan’s sister.54 Furthermore, Turge and Tajan both had personal vendettas against Dorgon and resisted his rise.55 This familial alliance bonded these men in support and opposition. The Fulin faction was represented by senior military commanders of the Yellow Banners. The key figures were Sonin, Oboi, Tulai, and Tantai. They had come up under Hong Taiji and saw their interests tied to their positions in the Yellow Banners as the leading banners, giving them primacy of resources and power. By placing the youngest son of Hong Taiji on the throne, they could not only ensure their own privileged position but also increase their political control because Fulin was still too young to make decisions, let alone rule. Although these men were not imperial relatives, they had military power, and personal animosities led them to oppose Hooge and his supporters. Of particular note is the bad blood between Tantai and Hooge supporter Babuhai. Some years earlier, Tantai accused Babuhai of insubordination and called for him to be executed.56 In addition to Dorgon himself, the Dorgon faction drew its greatest strength from Dorgon’s full brothers, Ajige and Dodo, and their sons. Dorgon was Nurhaci’s second-youngest son and the half-brother of Hong Taiji. Ambitious and accomplished, Dorgon owned the Bordered White Banner, and was a mainstay of the military operations throughout the Hong Taiji years. His full younger brother, Dodo, owned the Plain White Banners, while his full older brother, Ajige, commanded several units in the White Banners but was never made a banner owner. This faction also attracted those relatives who resented Hong Taiji, such as Lolohon and Dudu, and their sons, for what they perceived as unjust slights under the late khan. There were also a number of relatives who had long-standing conflicts with Daišan, and they readily joined in opposition to him, particularly his sons Sahaliyen, Šoto, Yoto, and their sons.57 Given such enmity, it is surprising that the order of the imperial relatives held together at all. Despite the discontent and splintering into factions, the organizational system of ranks and rituals set up under Hong Taiji withstood the centrifugal forces. The three factions were locked in an eternal embrace, where each struggled for a superior position to set the terms over what others could and could not do. In the end, they compromised: Fulin would be emperor in waiting, while Dorgon and Jirgalang would jointly rule as regents until he came of age.

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FAC T IO NA L I SM I N T E N SI F I E D

The settlement over the terms of the 1643 succession did not end the feuds among the imperial relatives. Although they agreed to specific terms, Dorgon, Jirgalang, Hooge, and their supporters continued to maneuver among themselves for greater control, protection, and the placement of their people in positions of influence and power. Over the course of nine years, the struggle for power continued: first Dorgon rose, then Ajige, and finally Jirgalang, until the Fulin faction reemerged to assert the primacy of the emperor. Each iteration saw the concentration of decision-making authority put in a relative’s hands as he freely gave out ranks to his supporters, elevated their status, and placed them in key administrative positions. Although the mechanisms to incorporate the relatives into a single political order were working, the operation was still open to abuse, both from the ruler (or the interim ruler) and the factions. Exploitation occurred at the top and trickled down. Dorgon propelled himself to an uncontested position by becoming a patron and making use of Hong Taiji’s method of issuing rank and position. In this way, Dorgon siphoned off enough Yellow Banner support to elevate himself to a supreme position as de facto ruler, and began to place his supporters in key posts. He conferred ranks and titles upon those previously stripped of them by Hong Taiji, and promoted others. He further replaced all the board presidents with his supporters, then created extra-bureaucratic positions for powerful relatives and close confidants to oversee all administrative affairs. Key positions were given to Mandahai, Bolo, and Nikan. He impeached his coregent, Jirgalang, and ousted Ajige and other enemies, stripping them of rank and relative status. In the end he even put Hooge to death.58 When Dorgon died in late 1650, factions reemerged and began using the same techniques of rewards and positions. Ajige and Ubai immediately began to wage a contest for Dorgon’s position. Ubai resurrected Jirgalang, and turned to him for assistance in the struggle with Ajige, who was forced to commit suicide. Ubai then set about naming his supporters to the board presidencies and key administrative positions. But with Ajige out of the way, Jirgalang began cultivating support among the Yellow Banners and Dorgon’s Plain White Banner, gaining support of key relatives Bolo and Nikan. Jirgalang promised them board presidencies, thereby alienating Ubai and propelling himself to the position of ruler. He stripped his enemies of rank and office and persecuted Dorgon supporters.59 In the midst of these struggles among the Dorgon and Jirgalang factions of the early 1650s, the Fulin faction rose. As it gained power, it worked to centralize control and strip the relatives of their autonomous power. In 1651, Fulin formally took the throne as emperor. He was only thirteen years old and thus surrounded by relatives and banner commanders of the Plain Yellow and Plain Blue Banners,

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many of whom had marriage alliances, and some of whom harbored grudges and felt rancor towards Jirgalang.60 With the symbolic authority of the throne and the administrative control of the hierarchy, the Fulin faction implemented measures to limit the independence of the relatives, thereby checking the ability of the other factions to wield power. In 1651, the throne announced that relatives could no longer address impeachment recommendations and proceedings directly to the Board of Punishments; they now had to go through the throne for review. Of even greater concern for the relatives was the revocation of their immunity for crimes against the commoners. The relatives would now be subject to the same laws as those of nonrelative officials. Furthermore, ritual propriety and adherence to ceremonial protocol was used to discipline the relatives by enforcing existing regulations, especially the wearing of prescribed clothing for each rank, the correct practice of greeting rites, and the proper order in procession and state ceremony. In 1652, court ceremony was also fixed at three sessions per month.61 Despite the internecine factionalism and infighting, the political order and system of li held firm. The relatives and their supporters operated within the given framework in an attempt to maximize their interests. Relying on factional networks, they often used the system of ranks and positions to bolster their own positions and to elevate their allies; through this, they took advantage of the existing regulations to expand their choices and influence, while limiting those of their adversaries. All the while, the conquest of the south continued and intensified, which necessitated not only the engagement of the relatives but also the successful operation of the political order and its practices in order to reward, direct, and command. Something more was needed. T H E I M P E R IA L C L A N C OU RT A N D I N S T I T U T IO NA L I Z I N G T H E I M P E R IA L R E L AT I V E S

These new controls enacted under the young Shunzhi emperor were given institutional force and coherency with the establishment of an agency dedicated to overseeing the relatives, the Imperial Clan Court (Zongrenfu). Proposed in the summer of 1652 by the Board of Rites president and commander of the Plain Blue Banners, Langkio, this new organization took over the administrative functions of the Board of Rites for dealing with the imperial relatives. In addition to directing and enforcing ritual activity, the Imperial Clan Court also assumed the key tasks of assigning relatives to the main or collateral line, granting and revoking titles, and recommending relatives for administrative positions—tasks that moved direct jurisdiction of the relatives out of the arbitrary control of the throne or powerful relative administrators, and subjected them to formal processes. Although this limited the power of the relatives and constrained the throne’s arbitrary control over them, it

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standardized the activities, procedures, and positions of the relatives, and thereby worked to mitigate the factional abuses that had plagued the political order over the past decade. Rather than enable a factional leader in a powerful position to grant ranks and administrative positions to his supporters, as had become the norm, the Imperial Clan Court was charged with enforcing new standards for the granting and revoking of titles, and upholding new procedures for placing these people into office. Establishment of the Imperial Clan Court In the late spring of 1652, the organization and stratification of the imperial relatives was formally institutionalized in the administrative organ of the Imperial Clan Court. The establishment of the Court was a key step in the bureaucratization of the imperial relatives, at once regulating their activities, placing restrictions on their functions, and subduing their ambitions, while at the same time fully integrating them into the political order. Although this department was manufactured from a model based on the Ming, it bore little resemblance to the Ming department, save that they both dealt with imperial relatives and went by the same Chinese name, Zongrenfu. The stated justification of the establishment of the Imperial Clan Court was that of bureaucracy building. In the late spring of 1652, as part of the reforms enacted by Fulin when he formally took up rule as the Shunzhi emperor, Board of Rites president Langkio memorialized on the need for the Imperial Clan Court.62 Although the Board of Rites was in charge of assigning relatives into main and collateral lines and granting titles to the deserving, according to the Ming Huidian, he observed, the Ming had a separate administrative organ for this task, and one that was staffed with personnel specifically dedicated to the job. In order to efficiently govern, Langkio argued, the Qing too needed to set up such a department.63 There are two versions of Langkio’s memorial, a Chinese and a Manchu.64 The Chinese is short and to the point. Langkio had looked up the regulations in the Ming Huidian and determined what went into the setting up of the Imperial Clan Court. He sought imperial approval and requested that the Board of Personnel might begin to assign the necessary officials. From this memorial it would appear that the Qing were to copy the Ming, following the late dynasty’s administrative statutes on the organization, functions, and operations of such a department. Here is the Chinese memorial in full: I looked up the old regulations in the Huidian for when the Ming established the Zongrenfu. In order to manage the affairs of those belonging to the imperial family, they set up a director, left and right associate directors, and left and right assistant directors. Now the boards and departments in charge modified the regulation to establish the Zongrenfu. I beg you to order the Board of Personnel to assign officials according to the cited precedent and offer the positions. I don’t dare do so. Please order it.65

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The Manchu version tells a slightly different story. Four times the length of the Chinese document, the Manchu-language memorial speaks briefly of the tasks of the Board of Rites in assigning imperial relatives into main and collateral lines, as well as giving a bit of insight into the rationale behind setting up an Imperial Clan Court. But more importantly, the Manchu has a discussion of the functions of the Court, detailing the operations and nature of oversight of the Clan Court. Langkio enumerated the Clan Court’s functions in what he says were drawn from his reading of the Ming Huidian, which included entitling, recording births and marriages, legal cases involving clan members, and inner communications. The full Manchu document reads: The Board of Personnel and the Three Palace Academies [which later became the Grand Secretariat] together looked up the regulations and reported that our board is assigned with the task of assigning and entitling the uksun and gioro. When looking up the regulation in the Huidian, the Ming state in the beginning had made a “Da zung jeng” department. In the twenty-second year of Hongwu it was changed to be called “Dzung žin fu” with one director, left and right associate directors, and left and right assistant directors. Clan records noted all births of sons and daughters by the wife and concubines, the given names, enfeoffments, births and deaths, offspring, marriages, and posthumous enfeoffments. Also, when the inner clan has an affair to memorialize, [the Court] passed it on to the throne and received the edict. When an edict was received, or if it came out that an inner clan member had committed a crime, they examined and verified the case, submitted it to the throne, and brought it to conclusion. These kinds of things were taken care of. At the beginning of the Ming state they set up honors for the imperial relatives. They had set up meritorious officials to be in charge of those later related by blood. Our state, from the beginning up to now, has not yet set up this department. Now the emperor himself has accepted rule and distinguished the various boards and departments big and small; he has put officials one by one into posts. Please establish the “Dzung žin fu yamun” of the imperial clan following the imitation of the code of the ancient and divine kings, and send down orders to the Board of Personnel to set up officials following the code. This will enable the management of the uksun and gioro positions. This is not the thing that we will handle on our own. Respectfully memorializing, we seek your edict.

In his discussion of the functions of the Zongrenfu, Langkio accented certain activities. The Chinese memorial emphasized the organizational and administrative aspects, and outlined the necessary personnel to staff such a bureau. The Manchu memorial also included this point, which, in fact, came directly out of the Ming Huidian and was repeated in the first Qing Huidian. While the Chinese memorial is brief and halts after naming the positions of the bureau, the Manchu memorial continues, restating parts of the contents of the Ming Huidian section on the Zongrenfu, including its history and its record-keeping functions. The parts in the Manchu memorial about entitlements and judgments also came straight out of the Ming Huidian.66

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The task faced by these Qing state-makers was how to set up such a bureau that would contain the imperial relatives by institutionalizing their position and activity while at the same time maintaining the traditions and practices that were already in effect. Their answer to the first part of this problem was to copy the Ming administrative structure—to create a division staffed by personnel whose sole responsibility was to regulate the activities of the imperial relatives. This division was to be tasked with certain responsibilities and upholding various regulations meant to reproduce a social group in a way that was beneficial to the state and the political order that it aimed to maintain. In the case of the Ming, this entailed the bureau of the Imperial Clan Court complete with a small staff under a local chain of command.67 Early in the Ming, the Imperial Clan Court was responsible for identifying those imperial relatives of talent and employing them in the service of the state.68 When the Yongle emperor excluded all relatives from political life in the early fifteenth century, the main function of the Clan Court was to keep records of the imperial relatives and their life events, regulating the range of names given to the sons, and approving the characters of the name chosen.69 With the removal of the princes to estates in the provinces, the Clan Court also became responsible for regulating the administrative personnel of the estates, the building of new structures, and supervising the movement of the princes in and out of their estates.70 Langkio did not mention a number of key functions of the Ming Clan Court. Foremost, he completely omitted the naming of descendants, which occupies nine of the sixteen and a half pages of the Zongrenfu section of the Ming Huidian. In the Ming version, the different princely titles are listed, each followed by twenty characters ordered according to their element of fire, earth, gold, water, and wood, which were required to constitute part of a descendant’s name.71 Nor did he give any hint of the activity on the estates, which takes up two pages of text in the Ming Huidian. In short, Qing officials ignored two-thirds of the Ming discussion of the Zongrenfu, and chose instead to focus on other aspects. The reason for this is not hard to discern: the Manchus had no tradition of choosing certain characters for names of their offspring, nor one of strict bureaucratic management of their relatives. Furthermore, Manchu imperial relatives were not sent out to estates. The Qing needed a Clan Court that bore the same administrative structure as that of the Ming—that is, a bureau responsible for governing the imperial relatives—but one that organized their activities in ways consistent with Manchu customs and that were beneficial to the emperor and the state. The imperial relatives were integrated and put to work in service of the government, and the Court was to organize them in a way that facilitated the achievement of such purposes. In this way, the Qing Imperial Clan Court would be a department that regulated all aspects of the lives of imperial relatives. But it would do something more: it would mobilize them in service of the state.

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Where the Ming were concerned with regulating the names of principals and their descendants, the key activity of the Qing Clan Court was overseeing titles and their inheritance. Rather than page after page of characters for names, the Qing Huidian section on the Zongrenfu has a similarly long discussion of the setting of ranks and how those ranks were to be inherited by the relative’s offspring.72 The inheritance rules of each title were here codified, along with the ranks assigned to daughters and subsequent offspring. The Qing Clan Court was to keep track of all the imperial relatives and their titles, then oversee the inheritance of these titles. It was to make sure that all registered males would receive their titles at age twenty, and all registered females at fifteen. The standards for promotion and demotion were similarly clarified, as were the practices for promoting or demoting daughters attached to their father’s rank (they were to follow the promotion or demotion of their father).73 The implementation of these regulations on titles entailed administrative duties formerly assigned to the Board of Rites but was now the responsibility of a dedicated bureau for the affairs of the imperial family. The Qing Clan Court bore other administrative responsibilities as well. It was charged with the recording of births, deaths, and marriages of members of the imperial family, and cooperating with the Board of Rites every ten years in compiling these names in an official genealogy of the imperial family.74 It also set guidelines for sacrificing at the ancestral graves and granting permissions for travel outside of the capital environs for visits to springs and grave sweeping.75 In 1658, the Court set up regulations to govern the frequency of the practice of archery and horsemanship: All of the imperial relatives over ten years old were required to assemble with their banner once every five days to practice archery, and once every ten days to practice riding and shooting. Every year, those of age were also to meet three times every spring and three times every fall in full battle regalia to practice shooting.76 One of the most important duties of the Qing Court was placing the imperial relatives in service of the emperor and state. Foremost was the articulation of the regulation on imperial relatives attending court audience. Initially, those ranking members of prince of the first and second degree were to attend court every day; but this requirement was changed in 1657 to only three times a month in order to better correspond with the rest of the political actors. Although the ceremony was overseen by the Board of Rites, the Court had to be at hand to make sure all of its members were in attendance.77 The Court also identified and assessed imperial relatives to serve in bureaucratic office. The bureau evaluated accomplishments and placed them in administrative or military offices according to their capabilities. Given the importance of this operation, and its impact on the running of government, it is worth quoting the statute. In choosing people for the hunt and campaign, and in order to fill the offices that are short of people, examine and evaluate the military accomplishments of the main line

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Over the next thirty-five years, the court vacillated on whether to allow members of the collateral line to serve in administrative office or not. Initially, they were placed in government offices short of personnel. This was a quick ticket into service for one of these members, allowing some to rise swiftly on merit. The next year (1653), it was decreed that relatives of the collateral line would not be allowed to serve in office. Eight years later, however, the decree was overturned and they were allowed once again to serve. It went back and forth like this until the eve of the publication of the first Qing Huidian, when a decision in 1688 was made to prohibit members of the collateral line from holding office unless a member’s rank was equivalent to an office vacancy, in which case he would be permitted to fill it.79 In light of this passage, the Court appears as a conduit for placing capable relatives into office. Officials of the Court would find those members who had accomplishments and then match them with a department short on personnel. Such an operation was critical in employing the imperial relatives in service of the state, as well as identifying capable individuals for office and military campaign. Personnel and Plain Blue Banner control The people behind the establishment and running of the Imperial Clan Court were directly tied to the Plain Blue Banner, and had assumed key positions in the Qing administration over the past decade. Langkio, for example, was the banner commander of the Plain Blue Banner and president of the Board of Rites. A collateralline relative, he served as a vice president of the Board of Punishments and Board of Rites under Hong Taiji, then president of these boards under Dorgon, who also gave him inheritable ranks and promoted him to banner commander of the Plain Blue Banner.80 Similarly, the first administrative staff of the Imperial Clan Court all hailed from the Plain Blue Banner or had some direct relation to the banner, and they previously held high administrative office. The first director of the Court was Nikan, a prince of the blood of the first degree who began his career as a Plain Blue Bannerman and sat on the joint deliberative council under Hong Taiji.81 Under Dorgon, he was looked upon favorably and given a first rank title and put in control of the central administrative apparatus alongside Bolo and Mandahai.82 The two assistant directors of the Imperial Clan Court were Beile Prince Udahai and Beile Šangšan. Udahai belonged to the Plain Blue Banner, became president of the

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Board of Punishments under Dorgon, and a few years later was appointed to the joint deliberative council. He continued to fight in the Plain Blue Banner under Dodo’s son, Doni.83 Likewise, Šangšan headed the Bordered Blue Banner, but he had married into the Plain Blue Banner. Under Dorgon, he had been put in charge of Mongolian affairs and was promoted to the deliberative council.84 The establishment and operations of the Imperial Clan Court served the factional and bureaucratic interests of this group. It gave them primacy over the Jirgalang and Dorgon factions, putting them in control of the careers and opportunities of others. Although these relatives sacrificed some of their own autonomy and ability to seize control of the state, either through a coup or internal machinations, they made up for that by insulating their positions from further attack and thereby stabilized the system of ranks and positions, giving themselves greater permanency of place and power. Bureaucratically, it cannot be overlooked that these men were invested in the efficient operations and administrative functioning of the state. They held key posts under the Dorgon regency and, in the case of Nikan, oversaw the entire administrative operation. It was not only that they wanted to maintain control of the government administration; they had experience and investment in state operations which they aimed to continue to exercise. These men set up the Imperial Clan Court to reduce the existential struggles that had become commonplace among the Qing imperial relatives. They worked to not only empower some over others, but more importantly, to also make permanent the place of the relatives in the structure of the Qing political order. The Work of the Imperial Clan Court The rules for the relatives and the institutional mission of the agency stabilized political relations and systematized the activities of the relatives. The practices of the Imperial Clan Court in the subsequent decades show the agency assuming jurisdiction over the relatives and acting on standardized procedures in order to ensure predictable outcomes and guard against abuses. As the Kangxi emperor put it in 1669, “Since 1661 [the beginning of the Kangxi reign], the Imperial Clan Court has carefully investigated all imperial relatives stripped of their status.”85 This assessment aimed to maintain standards of granting and revoking of ranks and status among the relatives. It included the legacy of a first case in 1652, only days after the Court was officially set up and staffed, where it stripped a relative of an inherited rank upon finding that the rank had been revoked from his father and was not inheritable.86 Decades later, the Court continued to maintain vigilance and enforce the behavior of relatives in society: it stripped a relative of rank and status for beating a commoner to death.87 The Court came to further involve itself in the governing of the relatives. It standardized inheritances and the granting of ranks, removing this from the purview of the banner heads and even the emperor or his regents, thus avoiding the

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abuses of the Dorgon and Jirgalang eras. Further, the Court took over the monitoring of all life activities of the relatives, which had formerly been the responsibility of the banners. Rather than the individual banner units and thus the relatives at the heads of the banners enabling or restricting relative activity, the Court would now control information and requests, such as registering members, recording births and deaths, and granting applications for leave.88 By the mid-Kangxi reign, the statement at the beginning of the administrative code that all “affairs of the imperial relatives [are now] under the control of the Imperial Clan Court,” had become true not just in law but also in fact.89 C O N C LU S I O N

The Qing casting of imperial relatives in politics and administrative operations was not designed to replace the eunuchs, but it did give the relatives a unique role in service to the state. Once a significant obstruction to the ruler and an existential threat to the emergent Manchu state, the relatives became subject to strict oversight by an administrative organ dedicated to organizing them and their activity.90 As this and previous chapters have shown, the relatives’ insider status was cultivated and their interests brought in line with that of the ruler so that they could be employed in service of the state. They were grafted onto the professional administration and worked alongside other political and administrative actors in the organizational and military goals of conquest and rule. They were then fully institutionalized under an agency that not only regulated all aspects of life but also placed them in office. In this way, the Manchu imperial relatives constituted a key component of the Qing political structure. That the relatives would become part of the Qing state was not preordained, nor even a preconceived idea. The choice of integration arose within the emerging settlements for power in the immediate cultural and political context of the day. The politics of the conquest and the organization of the Manchus left the ruler with little room to maneuver. The sons and kin of the ruler played central roles in the military and administrative affairs of the state, and the ruler had to contend with their interests and power. In order to subjugate them to his command and ensure their compliance, the ruler created restrictions, formalized their ranks and positions, and attached prescriptive behaviors to their titles. It was not enough to define this group of people, their status, activities, and life chances, however, for they broke into factions and struggled for control of the emergent system. Not until one faction set up an administrative agency as a means to preserve the status and positions of its members was control over the relatives formalized and the system stabilized. This process occurred as a means to manage the threat of the relatives, and it came to serve the function of Qing state-making.

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Qing state-makers established an Imperial Clan Court to oversee the relatives and institutionalize their role. Based on the Ming institution of the same name, the Qing Imperial Clan Court did the new work of both integrating and controlling the relatives; the particular functions it performed arose out of the factional struggles of the 1650s.91 The Court itself and its functions were not part of a larger vision initiated by Hong Taiji—no line can be drawn from the early regulations and ritual protocols for the relatives to the creation of an agency that would both oversee adherence and promote their interests in Qing politics and administration. Rather, immediate political conflicts necessitated the continued development of a means to harbor the power and interests of the relatives but still limit their influence and autonomy. Unlike the Ming, who set up a similar agency in order to exclude their relatives from all political affairs—and unlike the Yuan, who gave their relatives appanages and kept them out of central government politics—the Manchus developed a system to incorporate the relatives in the structure and operations of the central state. The Imperial Clan Court emerged in the Qing as a solution to the abuses of relatives’ power and position at a time when Qing politics could have degenerated into factional infighting and the implosion of the still young and fragile order. These contingent developments successfully brought about a standardization of the arrangement of the imperial relatives, and helped institutionalize the Qing political order.

7

Completing the System The Case of Imperial Dress

In 1653, shortly after Fulin had taken control of the throne as the Shunzhi emperor, Vice Censor in Chief Fu Jingxing memorialized on imperial dress. He said that the Shunzhi emperor, now having come of age, needed to distinguish himself and his position through clothing and to set standards for court costumes. “Doing this will organize subordinates and commoners, and stratify high and low,” he wrote in echo of arguments made some two decades prior on hierarchical distinction. For Fu and his colleagues, proper dress was of the utmost importance, for it served to differentiate political actors and maintain proper political order. Indeed, the construction of ranks and positions attached to identification and behavioral signifiers was only the beginning of the formalization of the system of li. For Fu, further steps had to be taken: “My emperor sacrifices to Heaven, offers to the temples, and ascends the throne in grand ceremony. But the system is still not complete.” What would help complete it, he argued, was proper imperial clothing.1 Fu’s remarks touched off a decades-long effort to develop the Qing system of li. Three years earlier (1650), Manchu forces had taken southern China, massacring Ming loyalists and liquidating entire cities that refused to submit. Although the piecemeal remnants of the Ming court were sent scrambling southwest and eventually into Burma (where the last Ming emperor died in 1662), the restoration of order was far from complete.2 Most of Chinese territory was now under Qing control, to be sure, yet the immediate issue for the Qing court was how to rule over agrarian Chinese subjects as a legitimate regime and not as a mere occupying force. Resistance still plagued Qing armies, and remnants of Ming loyalists continued to linger, with generals holding out and even Qing commanders reverting back to support a Ming pretender for the throne. This was the case late in the summer of 1652, when 146

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Chinese commanders of Qing armies in the southern province of Guangxi joined Ming loyalist Li Dingguo upon his successful capture of Guilin.3 In response to this predicament, Chinese memorialists in the 1650s argued that the Manchu emperor needed to rule as a Chinese emperor. For them, this meant the use of a legitimizing tradition from the Chinese past and the donning of imperial robes that represented this tradition. Already the Qing sovereign was holding court, commanding administrative officials, and practicing the daily and seasonal rituals and ceremonies required of the position of the emperor. The proper imperial dress would help manifest the sovereign in full, they claimed, and ground the legitimization of his rule in the sage kings, rather than simply military conquest and Manchu genealogy. Doing the latter, they argued, would not only facilitate rule over Chinese subjects, but also contribute to the completion of the system of li, which, in theory, would help realize perfect governance. The Manchu emperor and the conquest elite hesitated but did not oppose such suggestions. They recognized the need to establish legitimacy and to coerce Chinese in conquered territory to voluntarily submit to Qing rule; but they did not fully embrace the idea of becoming Chinese. While the suggestions of imperial dress linked to the Chinese past offered one such solution, the Manchu elite saw themselves and the emperor first as Manchus, with a tradition of riding, shooting, and hunting, and adorned in clothing that was suitable for such practices. These aspects of the Manchu culture not only needed to be preserved, but, no less importantly, they needed to be fully emphasized and expressed in the representation of rule. The Manchus had become the Qing dynasty and would now rule China, not because they were Chinese or had adopted Chinese practices, but rather because they had charismatic khans in Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, who organized militaries and led them to victory on the battlefield. Such a past could not be relinquished; on the contrary, it should inform the foundation of the representation of Qing sovereignty. As Qing armies consolidated the south and the Manchu emperors courted the southern literati, the Board of Rites worked to standardize the imperial dress. In a steady output of sumptuary regulation throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Board worked to not only continue to distinguish the emperor from other political actors by limiting what others could not wear, but also to mold the imperial representation by drawing on both traditions. Not until the Qianlong period, however, was the issue explicitly resolved through an amalgamation of Manchu tailoring and Chinese design. The Qing emperor would sit on the throne adorned in the Chinese symbols and colors reflecting the nature of his rule as a Chinese emperor, but simultaneously the cut of his robes expressed the connection with the Manchu martial tradition of riding and shooting. In this way it was neither Chinese nor Manchu, but an amalgamated form born out of the immediate political and cultural circumstances to facilitate conquest and rule of a multiethnic empire.

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F R OM I N F O R M A L O R G A N I Z AT IO N T O F O R M A L RU L E

The concern over imperial clothing began in the mid-Shunzhi reign (1644–1661), almost immediately after the young emperor came of age and formally took the throne to rule in his own right. Given the recent territorial expansion, coupled with political intrigue and factionalism, this was also a time when questions of the nature of sovereignty were pressing. Chinese officials had a certain understanding of the state, and made the argument in a series of memorials on the need to reform the imperial dress to adhere to this ideal. Imperial Censor Kuang Lanzhao and Board of Rites Vice Director of Sacrifice Guo Siwei were the most prominent voices, and their arguments on the representation of the sovereign through imperial dress were premised on the fact of the transition from the informal arrangements of the conquest to a formal institutional rule over an increasingly vast territory that was mainly comprised of Chinese subjects. In a memorial in 1651, censor Kuang Lanzhao laid out what he saw as the completion of the institutional transition to a hierarchically organized administrative state and the need for the emperor to represent this new arrangement appropriately. He spoke of the Qing having “successfully established rule and brought faroff places into submission.” With the work of the early Manchu strongmen nearing completion and the territorial empire not just secure but expanding south and west, Kuang argued that it was now time to create greater institutional permanency by adopting the image and practice of an imperial ideal based on the Ming model. “The work of magnificent peace is achieved by more than one means,” he memorialized. “In a legitimate, just, and proper government there is nothing as important as caps and gowns.”4 Some five year later, Board of Rites Vice Director of Sacrifices Guo Siwei similarly emphasized the transition and the urgency of adjusting the representational form. He memorialized the throne on the need to adopt a different standard of court clothing. The emperor, the court, and his ministers still wore robes tailored for conquest, he pointed out. Guo was referring to the fact that the sleeves and waist hugged the body tight to allow freedom of movement to shoot the bow and wield the sword, while the skirt was hemmed short and slit in the front and rear for mounting and riding the horse (see figure 8).5 Such garb, Guo argued, had its place during the days of conquest and state building, but now that the dynasty had been established and the foundation of the empire secured, the time had come to adopt a dress befitting the imperial court of an emperor. Guo emphasized the contrast and the need to adjust accordingly: “The situation is that Taizong [i.e., Hong Taiji] governed a territory and ruled a population confined to the east. The emperor now rules all under Heaven and governs all the subjects under Heaven. We have built an enterprise to last for ten thousand generations. How can the methods of rule for a small outlying place in the east be used to rule over all under Heaven for ten thousand generations?”6

figure 8 . This portrait shows eighteenth-century Qing general Zhang Zhiyuan dressed in military garb probably very similar to that worn by the early Manchus. Note the tailored sleeves for archery and the split skirt for horseback riding. Eighteenth century. Wikimedia Commons.

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In these articulations, both Guo and Kuang pressed a view of the transition of the informal political arrangements of the early Manchu state in the northeast to the formal, institutionalized form of the Qing dynasty in Beijing. While their arguments were focused on the case for adopting a certain kind of dress, their language embodied state-building and institutional transformation. Guo, in his discussion of the early political organization, tellingly refers only to Nurhaci as the governor of the eastern territory. For him, Nurhaci’s rule did not have the scope and permanency of the territorial administration of Hong Taiji. Still, even Hong Taiji’s rule was of a limited space and form. Confined to the east, Hong Taiji and his staff had to adopt a certain form and representation of leadership that was reflective of their circumstances. The Hong Taiji state, Guo observed, had been in the process of assuming the institutional shape that would give it validity and capability to rule all under Heaven. Now, in wake of the conquest of China proper, and the establishment of key political institutions, he felt that the full expression of imperial rule could be enacted; there was no longer any need to hold on to the practices of the early Manchu organization. In his own words: “My emperor possesses all things under Heaven and has united all within the seas. Although several attempts were made to restore ceremonial cap and gown, each stopped short out of respect of the system of the ancestors. That, and because it was more convenient for riding and shooting.”7 To Guo, there no longer appeared any need to retain the practices of their immediate predecessors, for the Qing had become something different, something greater. As these memorialists argued, not only had the conquest of southern China expanded the scope of Qing rule, but the institutional form of the Manchu state had passed into a new phase sometime in the early Shunzhi period. For them, this transition necessitated full expression through proper clothing. Kuang explicitly made the connection between the maturation of the state in terms of territory and population and the need to represent this properly in dress. He argued that before the fall of the Ming and the conquest of China in 1644, the Qing state was in a liminal phase, where many practices and arrangements were temporary. Having conquered territory and established rule, another form of sovereignty and legitimacy needed to be represented. “To exhibit the legitimate, just, and proper government,” he wrote, “the first thing is to respect yourself [i.e., assume the authority of emperor] and urgently restore caps and gowns in court.”8 M I N G ST Y L E S

The memorialists pushing for reform of the imperial dress—or what they called a restoration of robes and crown—were Chinese who had previously served under the Ming dynasty. They had been educated and staked their political future on the social and political order of the Ming state; they understood the world and the way

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it worked based on Ming society and politics. Take Fu Jingxing, for example. He received his degree in 1637 and served the Ming Chongzhen emperor as a prefectural judge and imperial censor. Having submitted to the Qing during the fall of Beijing in 1644, he was reinstated to his administrative position as censor. The next year he was posted to Shuntian municipality and continued to climb within the bureaucracy, rising as high as a board vice president.9 Similarly, Chen Mingxia, who also contributed his voice to these clothing debates, had served as a compiler of the first class in the Hanlin academy and a senior imperial censor during the last days of the Ming. He submitted to the Qing in 1645 and was allowed to keep his rank and position.10 Not only did such officials bring with them an administrative expertise to aid the early Manchu conquerors, but they also possessed an entire vision of politics, sovereignty, and legitimacy, the most immediate referent for which was the Ming.11 In concrete terms, these officials wanted the emperor and his court to adopt a style of dress that better reflected their ideal of the emperor and imperial state. This was an ideal that took its root in Confucian texts and could be seen in Ming statutes and practices. For them, the Manchu style of dress, with its close-fitting cuts and conservative colors and styles may have been suitable for conquest, but was inappropriate for imperial rule. What was necessary, in their eyes, were long flowing robes of immaculate colors and design, as in the late Ming. Rather than a snug, tailored fit at the sleeves and waist, the robe should fall down in loose folds. Rather than a pleated skirt cut at the sides and tucked under the top, a voluminous wrap should encircle the wearer, cut close to the waist so all designs would be clearly visible. Even more importantly, the clothes that the emperor wore should differ markedly from his officials: he ought to be distinguished. The Ming dynasty Huidian gives a sense of what these officials had in mind.12 The late-Ming emperor’s formal costume, for example, worn for major sacrifices and ceremonial occasions, consisted of an elaborate array of crown, robe, and shoes. The crown extended two feet four inches across when sitting on the emperor’s head (see figure 10a).13 The outside was black and the inside vermillion; the front was rounded and the back square. On each side hung twelve strings of jade beads that came in lines of diverse colors: yellow, scarlet, blue, white, black, red, and green. It had a jade pendant and hairpin, vermillion tassels, and two satin strings each tied off at the end with a jade bead. The emperor’s robe for such formal occasions was black and adorned with six images (see figure 10b).14 On the shoulders were images of the sun and moon. Constellations and mountains were embroidered on the back, and a dragon and a ringed-neck pheasant decorated each arm. Although flowing and wide of girth, it was short enough to not cover the skirt, which was yellow and graced with six images in four vertical lines. The two inner lines contained fire, sacrificial vessels, and wreaths. The outer two lines contained grains and decorative shapes. A large

figure 9 . The Ming dynasty Jiajing emperor dressed in court attire. National Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, Taiwan.

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figure 10 . The Ming emperor’s ceremonial cap and gown in the Ming Huidian. Da Ming huidian (1587), 60.5b–8a.

belt around the waist was plain on the outside and vermillion on the inside, and two long strips hung down off the front in green and vermillion color. The small belt had jade inlays on the front. Scarlet shoes with yellow cords and black tassels completed the outfit.15 The implicit precedent of the Ming clothing regulations lay buried in the details: the styles, colors, and form all have roots in ancient texts. The crown with its twelve strings and colored beaded jade is the proper decoration for the imperial head, as dictated by the classic text on ancient practices, the Book of Rites.16 The black outer robe on top and yellow skirt below conformed to the color indications as found in the Book of Changes.17 The twelve images adorning the imperial robes—the sun, moon, constellations, mountains, dragon, and ringed-neck pheasant on the robe, and the fire, sacrificial vessels, wreaths, grains, and decorative shapes on the skirt—are the twelve images promulgated by the Book of Documents.18 In this way, the once-Ming-now-Qing advisers’ calls to adopt a certain type of imperial dress were not simply attempts to guide their foreign conquerors toward a Ming-style rule or model of government. As they saw it, the implementation of the robes and crown was a restoration of proper social and political order crafted in a worldview of the Han Chinese political system. The ancient texts prescribed a

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certain practice of dress, and by adhering to it the universe could be reordered. This was the system of li, and here the sovereign could reside, and do so legitimately. Or so they held. Q U E S T IO N S O F S OV E R E IG N T Y

The importance of the imperial cap and gown for officials like Guo and Kuang lay in the vision and meaning of the sovereign and his source of legitimacy. Having made the case that a transition occurred between preconquest and postconquest, they went on to lay out an ideal of the emperor, which was articulated through the clothes he and his court should wear. At issue was not the martial valor of a banner leader like Nurhaci or Hong Taiji, but the administrative capacity of a hierarchically organized bureaucracy in which the status of the emperor was conveyed through his dress to both administrators and subjects. “In ancient times,” Guo wrote in his memorial, “the sages instigated, designed, and decorated clothing and music, embroidering them in ways that differentiated them from their disciples. This was not just for the beauty of the ear and eye; clarifying dress would distinguish officials and civilians, and make all under Heaven flourish in an aweinspiring nature.”19 These memorialists held that the idea of the emperor as an institution at the top of a political order could be represented by the clothing he wore. In making this argument, petitioners often drew on the sage kings, as Guo did in his memorial: “As I see it, the emperor takes Yao and Shun as an example. The Book of Changes says, ‘The Yellow Emperor, Yao, and Shun, only need to sit in their robes and all under Heaven is governed.’ If the emperor can learn the way of Yao and Shun and wear their clothes, then there will be no missing arrow or lost arrowhead . . . [corrupted text] . . . and the stubborn ones . . . [corrupted text] . . . and will kneel down and call themselves your servants.”20 Despite the lacunae in this memorial (due to the paper corrosion), the meaning is clear: fashion the office of the emperor in the image of the sage kings by wearing their clothes and all will be at peace. A direct connection was made between the form of the emperor as a position at the head of the imperial polity and the form of government. Or, to put it another way, good governance was more than the individual person at the head of state; rather, the office itself embodied the individual and was made manifest through clothing. Kuang Lanzhao further elaborated this point when he stated, “Since my emperor respects Heaven, is diligent in serving the people, and follows the way of Yao and Shun, it is even more suitable on days of court ritual to use the cap and gown to give sacrifice, to worship the deities, and to go out on tour where people will be astonished and revere. If you do this, then officials and commoners view with pleasure the respectful magnificence. It is like the saying ‘just sit in the robes and all under Heaven is governed’ can again be seen in my emperor!”21 For these memorialists, the idea of the sovereign

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and his rule was bound up in the dress he wore, precisely because the imperial dress outwardly symbolized the implementation of li. The representation of the emperor through dress sat in the minds of these petitioners as an idea about the sovereign and about governance. The sovereign, for them, was not a military leader who strategized and led troops out to battle. He was not a political mastermind who gathered supporters, cultivated constituencies, and manipulated factions. He was not a charismatic figure who rallied people and mobilized personnel. The emperor ideal in their minds was an individual embodied in a place—a spot, an office, and an institution. Kuang’s formulation of this was “just sit in robes and all under Heaven is governed,”22 a saying of seven characters that can also be found peppered throughout the discussions on clothing in this period.23 These sayings communicate the idea that the person of the emperor need not lead through military conquest or even building patronage, as the Manchus had done up to this point; rather, simply by acting and symbolizing the office. The most outward manifestation of this symbolization was the dress worn by the emperor. Concern over imperial dress arose at this point in time precisely because of the maturing transition from an informal political organization to a multiethnic agrarian-bureaucratic empire. Territorial control was expanding, and nearly all of the Chinese population was coming under Qing rule. Moreover, in the court, the regent Dorgon had just died in 1650, and the young Shunzhi emperor assumed full control over administrative and policy affairs. For many, the era of the conqueroremperor had passed, and the need arose to represent the sovereign as a sage alongside the image of him as head of a military force. Whereas Hong Taiji and Dorgon had ridden out to lead battles, the Shunzhi emperor stood at the head of a bureaucracy and an army he did not lead into battle. Thus, for Chinese officials, the role of the emperor had become more administrative and less martial. The generals would go off and fight. The emperor, meanwhile, would need to play the role of administrative sovereign, and do so not just as a Manchu, but also in a form recognizable to the Chinese. Q U E S T IO N S O F L E G I T I M AC Y

Reference to the sage kings also pointed to a particular form of imperial legitimacy manifest in a certain population. The employment of the distant past by these memorialists embodied both an idea of the office of the emperor and the type of government he represented as well as how his person and the state were justified in their claim to power. The arguments made by memorialists forged a connection between the present and the past. The person of the emperor could occupy the pinnacle of the political bureaucracy, dispose of political resources, and lord over territory because of his relationship to the sage kings. The institution of the

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emperor as the head of the Qing state would be accepted by political and social actors as an organization with greater privilege than others because of the emulation and connection to the sage kings.24 The question of legitimacy at this point in time was particularly relevant for reasons of both the individual and the institution of the emperor. Individually, the occupation of the post by the Shunzhi emperor had to be justified. The charismatic rule of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji had its legitimization in the person itself, which was then used to justify the office. The individual allure of these men created their power, around which the office was built. Even Dorgon was able to enact his will, to a degree, and through his military prowess and political manipulation forestall questions about his position. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Shunzhi emperor, by contrast, emerged as a compromise among the imperial relatives and banner leaders, placing him in the position of emperor-in-waiting at five years old. After living within the Forbidden City for eight years he then took control of administrative operations at age thirteen. These circumstances did not yield him a charismatic claim on which to base his position, as had been the case for his predecessors. What would construct the Shunzhi emperor apart from his ancestors’ legacy of conquest? Could they rest a claim to authority on a basis other than military superiority—and convince others to accept their right to control political resources and subjugate others? Indeed, how could they legitimize the new emperor and his regime to a conquered people? For many Chinese officials serving the Qing, a solution to this problem was for the Manchus to relinquish control of symbolic resources. If the Manchu conquerors would relinquish claim to ritual and ceremonial prerogative and embrace the Chinese interpretations of li, then they would legitimize themselves as Chinese rulers. Thus, by wearing the proper clothing, the Shunzhi emperor would emulate and embody the sage kings, which would give him a direct connection to the glorious emperors of the past. By wearing the clothes of Yao and Shun, the Shunzhi emperor would stand in direct line of descent, and source his legitimacy back to ideal emperors. The clothing would signal the Manchu emperor as natural heir to the throne. A similar logic would apply to the legitimacy of the institution of the Qing emperors: to wear the proper clothing was to be a proper and legitimate emperor. The clothing made the institution, and at the same time justified it. As Kuang put it, “I have investigated the system of caps and gowns of previous eras; from the time of the Yellow Emperor, Yao and Shun, to every dynasty thereafter, each has continued this [clothing regulation] and nothing has been changed.”25 MANCHU DRESS

Countering this logic was the voice of the emperors. Both Hong Taiji and the Shunzhi emperor spoke out against changing the Manchu dress. The former emperor did

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so more directly and more forcefully than the latter one, but both called to maintain the customary Manchu garb. The Shunzhi emperor rather curtly rejected Kang’s proposal in 1651 by noting that: “Each era has its own system. The court only needs to respect Heaven and love the people in order peacefully govern all under Heaven. What need is there for caps and gowns?”26 It was not much of a reply—and not commensurate with all the effort that Kang invested in his arguments—so it is not surprising that the last word on the matter had not been spoken, as the continued and extended arguments attest.27 The Shunzhi emperor could find precedent for this position in his father, who, some fifteen years earlier, had warned against discarding Manchu dress for Chinese styles. Speaking to an audience of younger imperial relatives in 1636, Hong Taiji cautioned them on the dangers of losing what made them distinctively Manchu: their clothing and way of life. As the semi-nomadic society morphed into an agrarian-bureaucratic, tax-office state, he said, they must not yield to pressures to adopt the ways of the sedentary civilization. Previously, the wise men . . . would often advise me to abandon our Manchu clothing and hats for Chinese clothing and hats, and to adopt the Chinese way. I refused. They would not accept my reasons. Now, here, I want to give myself as an example. If those of us gathered here wore wide-sleeved clothing, how would we be able to stand with a quiver of arrows on the right side and a bow on the left? How could we take in hand the advance of a brave peregrine falcon [i.e., practice falconry]? If we give up archery and horsemanship, then we can certainly wear wide-sleeved clothing. But then how are we any different from those depraved people who eat meat cut by others?28

No different indeed. For Hong Taiji, wearing Ming-style clothing would mean forsaking Manchu martial valor; it would mean the abandonment of what made them Manchu and anchored the Qing state. Even for the courtier in the emergent political order, who might not be riding and shooting, the outward appearance and symbolic function of the clothing still represented the inner spirit and very nature of the individual. For Hong Taiji, this Manchuness had to be preserved. What was the Manchu style? From the Hong Taiji quote above it is clear that Manchu style dress did not have the wide sleeves of the Ming, nor did it include flowing robes and wide skirts. The art and artifacts of the time give a more positive indication of what it did include: The Manchus tailored their robes to fit tight at the waist, with sleeves short and snug around the arms, making the dress suitable for archery, horsemanship, and falconry; they hemmed the skirt mid-shin and tailored a slit between the legs for ease in mounting and riding the horse. The cloth for these garments came from the Ming. The early Manchus did not weave textiles, and thus obtained in tribute or traded for Ming dragon robes, named for the long Chinese robes embroidered with a large dragon on the chest and back, and dragons horizontally across the skirt.

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Collar added

Cut off

Cut off Taken in slightly

Stripe added

Cut in half Pleated

figure 11 . A sketch illustrating how early Manchu robes were cut from Ming materials. Camman, “Origins of the Court and Official Robes of the Ch’ing Dynasty,” 198.

Manchu tailors conspicuously altered the Ming robes (figure 11). They began by cutting the Ming robe in half at the waist and taking it in at the sides to fit snug around the torso. They then went to work on the extra-wide sleeves, which draped in flowing fashion as the classics prescribed, and hung down well below the hands. The tailors trimmed away all the excess to narrow the cloth to encircle the arm closely, then snipped it at the elbow to avoid severing the dragon pattern on the arms. A new tight-fitting sleeve and cuff was made from some other material—

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usually fur—and attached. The skirt was made out of the lower half of the Ming dragon robe and aggressively pleated at the top to fit snug at the waist but still give the full display of the dragons along the bottom hem. An extra strip of material was added to the waist of the jacket in order to overlap the skirt. (This strip was taken from scrap, reflected by the fact that it was often an incomplete pattern, incongruent with the top and bottom.)29 Clothing for Hong Taiji, then, was more than just a style or simply a cultural form: it was a practicality; a way of life. It helped define the Manchus and express an identity.30 In the first part of the same admonitory speech, he began with a discussion of the thirteenth-century Jin dynasty’s downfall as a result of adopting, among other things, Chinese clothing. The use of Chinese dress, Hong Taiji declared, restricted the martial valor of these Jurchen precursors. In his estimation, the “Old Way” of the first two Jin emperors, Agvda (Jin Taizu, 1115–1122) and Ukimai (Jin Taizong, 1123–1134), had been abandoned by their successors as they “imitated the vile customs of the Chinese.” When Shizong Ulu khan (1161–1189) came to the throne, there was a real fear that Jurchen culture and practices would be forgotten and become assimilated by the Chinese. As Hong Taiji put it, “Originally it was feared that their children and grandchildren would enter the Chinese way. Again and again [Shizong] kept saying, ‘Do not forget the old ways of the ancestors. Wear Jurchen clothing, learn the Jurchen language, and practice archery and horsemanship every day.’ Although he had thus spoken, the khans of later generations entered the Chinese way and forgot shooting and riding. By the age of Aizong [1224–1233], the [Jurchen] Way was wiped out and the state destroyed.”31 Hong Taiji closed his talk by emphasizing that the Manchu way was safe with him. He would not change the clothing or any of the practices. “This speech is not directed at my generation,” he said. “Would I be one to change this Way? That the children and grandchildren of later generations will abandon the Old Way—that they will forget shooting and riding, and enter into the Chinese Way—this is what I fear!”32 Hong Taiji’s concern was profound enough that he reiterated the point half a year later. Addressing the imperial relatives, he once again brought up the example of the Jin dynasty and its decline as a result of becoming less Jurchen and more Chinese. For him, the routinization of the state was at odds with customary practices, and clothing continued to linger both as an object of practical consideration and as a symbol of identity, sovereignty, and legitimacy. The later emperors of the Jin dynasty, he said, “discarded the Old Way of Taizu and Taizong, and emulated the Chinese in gowns and caps.” This is what led to their downfall, he asserted.33 He went on to highlight the importance of riding and horsemanship, and to stress how it was central to the Manchu prowess in war. He concluded by emphasizing once again the clothing of “those who established the country.”34 There was an immediate precedent for Hong Taiji in connecting clothing to culture and sovereignty. His father had made the argument numerous times to

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Mongols for solidarity on the basis of similar clothing, writing that although the language of the two people differed, their clothing and way of life was the same.35 As part of the ongoing attempt to organize the different peoples, tribes, and groups of the north into a conquering force, the implications were clear: We are different from the Chinese, and our clothing signifies as much. In this way, Hong Taiji aimed to continue a tradition and preserve a distinction, or at least carry forward the precedent. His son Fulin as the Shunzhi emperor also needed to assume this cultural form and perpetuate it; he needed to adhere to an established ideal of Manchu practices, even if that conflicted with the forms of sovereignty and legitimacy of the sedentary state that they were now working so hard to create. To draw a line backwards from Fulin, to Hong Taiji to Nurhaci is a tenuous exercise. Such intellectual influences are amorphous connectors at best, and speculation about paternal legacies or historical psychology is even more opaque. It would be more fruitful to inquire into the challenges of the formation of the early state and how actors responded to those challenges. One of the most immediate challenges was the expansion of the justification and legitimizing images and practices of Qing rule. Beginning in the Hong Taiji period and intensifying in the Shunzhi reign, state-makers scrambled to develop an answer to territorial expansion and the influx of Chinese subjects and the fact of Manchu rule over Chinese literati and agrarian peasants. Indeed, the question could be posed rather simply: Whose emperor would he be? Hong Taiji’s pronouncements on clothing and culture were a direct response to the urgency of this issue. In the midst of the transition from the charismatic leadership and martial organization of early Manchu society to the routinized practices and institutionalization of the bureaucratic administration, Hong Taiji and his staff grappled with such questions as they tried to define the institutional shape of politics and its representation. They had two models to work with: the Ming and the Jin. Chinese advisors of the Qing continued to promote the Ming forms, embracing the institutional organization of the Ming state as the natural shape of political order. The threat of taking this too far, however, meant becoming Chinese through the complete adoption of those practices of previous Chinese states. Hong Taiji here articulated the danger of abandoning Manchu culture as the administration became routinized. But what else was one to do? The other models available were those nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples that had undertaken similar experiments in sedentary statecraft: the Liao, Jin, and Yuan.36 The lessons of the Jin were straightforward enough for Hong Taiji. The dynasty had prospered under those emperors who maintained their nomadic cultural practices, and declined under those who abandoned them for the “vile customs of the Chinese,” as Hong Taiji put it. The challenge for Manchu rulers and the emergent Qing state, then, was to find a space in which Manchu forms and practices could flourish amid the institutions necessary to run a sedentary state. It became a

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struggle of cultures in the question of how to implement a routinized staff to administer a land-based empire while at the same time maintaining the practices of the social and military organizational forms that got them there in the first place. The Jin dynasty served as a precedent, and one that offered a negative example for Hong Taiji. Only through the Manchu cultural forms of clothing, language, riding, and shooting, he claimed, could Manchu sovereignty be maintained and the Qing enjoy legitimacy as rulers of a multiethnic empire. The challenge, of course, was how to do this—a conundrum that the Qing ruling elite attempted to solve with the idea of universal emperorship and different representations to different groups.37 The immediacy of this for Hong Taiji and then the Shunzhi emperor was how to signify the authority of the Manchu ruler to both the Manchu military and Chinese literati. If the Manchu ruler had emerged by virtue of his martial prowess, and built a state based on the strength of the Manchu military organization, then these forms were the contents of the culture and needed to be symbolized as such. Here both the ruler and the political organization he represented needed to be justified in these cultural forms of martial superiority. The dress as an outward manifestation and cultural embodiment signified this. Without it, the distinction would be lost in the routinization of politics and governance as the culture of the conquered became more prevalent. Qing rulers recognized the lesson of their predecessors: in order to avoid being completely absorbed by the sedentary culture of the conquered and falling into the trap of losing their internal justifications and thus rule, they needed to maintain distinction, for this was all they had. As Hong Taiji put it in the peroration of his 1636 speech, “How great were our armies in the beginning? Because of our strength in archery and horsemanship, when we went to battle, we crushed all, and when we attacked a city, we took it. We have become known to all under Heaven to stand and not waver; to advance and not retreat. Now, when we leave the border and go to Beijing you Banner officials will cast shame on our great reputation! Remember my words.”38 Dress here was the first line of defense, for if the flowing robes of the Chinese were adopted, the ability to ride, shoot, and attack would decline. The Manchus, it was feared, would become effete. Hong Taiji’s position was immediately relevant in the days of the formation of the early Qing state, when much of society was still organized around military mobilization and conquest. But two decades later, all of China had been occupied and the form of rule was shifting from attempting to monopolize political and military resources to consolidating and institutionalizing symbolic ones. The conquest was not yet complete, to be sure, and the institutions of the Qing state and its relations of power would continue to evolve for the duration of the dynasty, but a phase had passed, where the Qing now ruled over China proper and nonmilitarized subjects, who would not be integrated into the Manchu socio-military order, yet whose support was essential. For many, the Qing could not be alien conquerors,

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with an emperor dressed in alien robes, and still hope to establish legitimate domination.39 T H E B OA R D O F R I T E S A N D T H E C H I N E SE D R E S S OF THE MANCHU EMPEROR

Clothing fell under the administrative jurisdiction of the Board of Rites. Although there is no indication that the Board took a position or had a recommendation on the type of clothing the emperor and his court should wear, what is clear from the existing evidence is that the Board played the main role in turning the issue of Chinese versus Manchu dress into code. Beginning 1651—the year the Shunzhi emperor took the throne and concerns over the imperial dress were first expressed—regulations began to appear at the rate of one per year over the next five years, helping to steer the young Qing state toward a solution of an appropriate representation of sovereignty for governing a Chinese agrarian-bureaucratic empire while preserving the precedent of Manchu authority that Hong Taiji had articulated. One of the first things the Board of Rites faced was the lack of any consistency. The only positive articulation of the emperor’s dress was made in 1636 with a statement about the jewels on Hong Taiji’s hat and belt, and the color of his robe.40 This was a statement, however, not a statute. Although records on the matter are sparse, it seems that even a decade or so after the occupation of Beijing, the emperor was still outfitted in the old Ming dragon robes tailored to Manchu tastes. In fact, anecdotal evidence from officials’ diaries indicates a mélange of styles at court, as the emperor even took special delight in Ming style robes and caps.41 Accordingly, the Chinese memorialists calling for a particular style of cap and gown may have been less concerned with the Manchu military dress than attuned to the absence of any uniformity of distinctive style. The emperor needed to be symbolized not only as the sovereign but also as a projection of authority. To do so properly would have been particularly problematic for someone like Guo, whose job at the Board of Rites was to make sure the emperor was prepared for ceremony and sacrifice. He thus fell back on what was to his mind the most immediate and powerful standard available: the classics and the Chinese past. From 1651 to 1655, the Board of Rites enacted a series of regulations in quick succession, one after another each year.42 These regulations were issued precisely in the years during the debate outlined above. In fact, for each of the five years in question, except one, there was a memorial urging clothing reform—Kang in 1651, Fu in 1653, Chen in 1654, and Guo in 1655—and it appears that each time a regulation was issued to further clarify the matter. Although the new stipulations did not set the record straight on Manchu costumes or Chinese robes with a definitive clarification on imperial dress, they did begin to approach the matter by slowly

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restricting what others could wear, thereby creating an emperor-only style. This strategy worked to define the sovereign as one who was distinct in appearance from his officials, and to come to terms with the demand that the emperor stand at the pinnacle of power. The early regulations might not have been an outline on the robes and crown that memorialists sought, but they contributed to an accomplishment of the same effect. In doing so, these laws helped the Qing to further carve out their own form of sovereignty, reconciling with the Ming model and finding an alternative capacity to rule a large territory and diverse groups of people. Consider, for example, the regulations issued in 1652 and 1655. These codes make direct reference to the emperor and clothes of the imperial figure. 1652. Unless gifted by the emperor, the following are not allowed to be worn outside: five-claw and three-claw dragon satin, full blue-green round satin patches, the colors yellow and incense brown, and black fox skins. Those already in existence are prohibited and not allowed to be kept in the home. Also, it is prohibited to make bed sheets [out of them]. Officials that continue to use or keep [these cloths] will be punished according to their rank. 1655. Use yellow for the dragon robe. Unless gifted by the emperor, it is prohibited to use the five-claw dragon emblem, or for junior ranks to wear yellow hats and red jackets.43

Although there is no direct statement of the sovereign’s dress, the indication is clear: That which is prohibited, if not a gift directly from the emperor, is of the emperor’s dress only. These regulations begin to assert the distinctiveness of the emperor by restricting the clothing that other officials were allowed to wear. The 1651 regulation was not as explicit in its reference to the emperor, but similar in intent: 1651. Officials and commoners are prohibited from using red string for tassels in their caps. They are prohibited from using yellow thread in their collars, bags, and belts. They are prohibited from using yellow to stitch the soles of their boots and the seats of their saddles. They are prohibited from using yellow and incense-brown on the outside or inside of their court clothes and regular clothes.44

The outlawing of red tassels and yellow thread and cloth further distinguished the sovereign in appearance and power from the rest of the political actors. From these regulations, the imperial dress began to develop definitively. In a nod to the Ming, the five-claw dragon was indirectly designated as an imperial symbol, as was the color yellow and the brownish-yellow color called “incense yellow.” Grades of satin were reserved especially for the emperor, or as gifts to worthy officials by the emperor. Similarly, the red tassel came to designate an imperial status, and yellow thread had to be stripped from all places that might signify disrespect— the touching of the ground or one’s behind. Although sleeve width and skirt breadth

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figure 12 . Qing court dress. The four claws of the dragon indicate that this robe belonged to a high ranking official. The dragon on the emperor’s robe would have had five claws. Seventeenth century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of William Christian Paul, 1929, Acquisition No. 30.75.19.

was artfully avoided in these regulations, Manchu characteristics were all there: the caps and their tassels were Manchu styles (note the fur in the Manchu hat in figure 7); boots and saddles show the influence of the northeastern culture; most obvious was black fox skin and fur, a northeastern commodity.45 A clearer picture of the Qing sovereign and his legitimacy thus began to take shape. By regulating what others could not wear, it emphasized what the emperor could wear and how this would set him apart. Many of the items, such as the dragon and the color yellow, were borrowed straight out of the Ming Huidian, thus lending form to an amalgamated idea of the Qing sovereign and his representations. At the same time, however, the lack of a positive articulation of the emperor’s dress made the whole thing rather amorphous and allowed the continued unspoken practice of Manchu dress to persist. It enabled an ambiguity in dressing like a Manchu khan while presiding over sedentary Chinese. That is, the nod to Manchu style was still there, along with the unassuming caps and red tassels or

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animal pelts. In this way, the sovereign could stand apart, and do so not as the creation of the Chinese ideal, but rather grounded in Manchu culture and dress. A new paradigm was emerging. T H E Q IA N L O N G E M P E R O R A N D F O R M A L I Z AT IO N

The process of formalizing the standards and practices of imperial dress begun by the Board of Rites in the seventeenth century culminated in the eighteenth with the imperial commission of stele and texts. This move by the Qianlong emperor enunciated in law what was already fact: the imperial costume was an amalgamation of Chinese and Manchu culture. It clarified the reality of the fusion of symbolism in the emperor’s robes, expressing the authority of the Qing ruler as a Manchu khan while simultaneously enacting his legitimacy as a Chinese emperor. Foremost, in 1752, the Qianlong emperor commissioned stelae to be inscribed with the words of his great-great-great grandfather, Hong Taiji, spoken more than a century prior. He had been reading the annals of that illustrious emperor, he said, “trembling with adoration” at the “tirelessness and diligence of my ancestors in building the state. . . . They established the foundation of rule for ten thousand generations so that up to today all receive boundless prosperity.” He had come across the 1636 speech by Hong Taiji to the Manchu relatives, he said, and the prophecy of Sinicization filled him with fear. It was his duty, and that of his contemporaries, he said, to preserve what Nurhaci and Hong Taiji had toiled so hard to build; to embrace the practices and customs that defined the Manchus. If they did not, Hong Taiji’s warning that the Qing would go the way of the Jin into destitution and collapse may be fulfilled. “My dynasty has passed down the Manchu customs of the founders, which should be forever followed. They should be protected and not replaced.” In order that all remember their Manchu heritage, wear Manchu clothing, speak the Manchu language, and practice archery and horsemanship: the Qianlong emperor had Hong Taiji’s full speech carved in stone and erected on the training grounds of each of the eight banners and the imperial bodyguard.46 This announcement was then followed by the issuing of positive standards. The Qianlong emperor commissioned a text of imperial and court clothing and ritual implements, Illustrations of Dynastic Ritual Instruments (Huangchao liqi tushi), which would fully express in law these sentiments, thereby putting forth standards for what had come into regular practice over the past century, namely, the style of Manchu imperial dress. Heeding the warning of Hong Taiji, and working to preserve the Manchu precedents of culture and clothing, eighteenth-century jurists reconciled this culture with the need to present a Chinese emperor, or at least ground him in a certain tradition and the Chinese past. The Manchu emperor had become invested with a Chinese form of the sovereign as one who heads the

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agrarian-bureaucratic state and undertook various ceremonial activities; at the same time, he remained recognizably Manchu and continued to partake in hunting, riding, shooting, and speaking Manchu. This had been given expression in the dress, and now received legal clarification. The texts prescribe that the emperor wear robes adorned with the twelve symbols advocated by the Book of Documents—which had also served as the staple of the Ming design. At the same time, these robes were to be cut in the early Manchu style, suitable for riding and shooting. Consider the Qianlong emperor’s winter court costume as illustrated and annotated in the Illustrations of Dynastic Ritual Instruments: The imperial winter court robe is worn on the fifteenth or twenty-fifth day of the ninth month [the day of court audience]. It is bright yellow in color. Only use red on the surface of the sun. The broad collar and sleeves are both stone green and gold with a green ocean dragon. A dragon is embroidered on each shoulder across the front and back. The apron has five moving dragons. The lapel has one dragon. The pleats have nine dragons around the front and back. The skirt has two dragons and four moving dragons. The broad collar has two moving dragons, and the cuffs each have a dragon. There are twelve symbols: sun, moon, constellations, mountains, dragon, ringedneck pheasant, and decorative shapes on the robe; and sacrificial vessels, wreaths, fire, and grains on the skirt. Among them are clouds of five colors with eight treasures of water beneath.47

Not the black and yellow of Ming Taizu, to be sure, nor the wide sleeves and flowing pleats, but the twelve symbols are clear enough, as are the ornate intricacies of embroidered dragons and colors.48 The document says nothing about cut. This is not unusual for clothing descriptions in the Qing, for, unlike their Ming counterparts, Qing compilers rarely explained more than the bare essentials of an outfit. The pictures do more than any such description could, however, which is exactly the point of this illustrated compendium of ritual clothing and implements. Clearly the waist is tapered and the sleeves tight. Bows could be drawn, falconry practiced, and horses ridden (see figure 13). Other Manchu characteristics stand out in the text. The broad collar is a Manchu custom—it was made out of a separate piece of fabric and fell over the shoulders and upper back. The apron covered the top of the skirt, closing off any opening between the upper and lower garments, which was contrary to Ming texts that explicitly pointed out the need to keep the skirt uncovered. The pleats indicated that the skirt would be bunched tight at the waist. Furthermore, there are cuffs, as opposed to long-hanging sleeves. Other entries in the text speak of furs and skins, and of semi-conical hats, all unique to the Manchus. This text worked to formalize the imperial dress and institutionalize the Qing sovereign. The emphasis and preservation of the Manchu cut of the emperor’s

figure 13 . The Qing emperor’s winter robe depicted in the Illustrations of Dynastic Ritual Instruments. Huangchao liqi tushi (1759), 4.8. For an image of his crown, see figure 2.

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dress gave the Qing state and its Manchu rulers the martial and political legitimacy both internally among the Manchu elite, as well as within the banners and Manchu constituencies. At the same time, the Chinese colors and symbols decorating the robes embodied the ideal Chinese emperor and a particular form of sovereign rule, appealing to the Chinese literati and broader population of the China region. In this way, the puzzle of legitimizing Manchu rule over a Chinese polity was solved, at least as far as the ruler was symbolized in the clothing of the emperor. C O N C LU SIO N : C U LT U R E A N D A M A L G A M AT IO N

The matter of the clothing of the emperor was not simply one of Chinese representation or Manchu identity. For contemporary actors, it was also the outward expression of the pressing issue over how to come to terms with the internal tension of Manchu rule over a Chinese population. The expansion of rule over southern China forced Qing state-makers to contend with the challenge of extending political authority. Chinese officials argued that the best way to do this was to present the emperor as a Chinese; he needed to wear clothes befitting an emperor, legitimized in the legacy of the mythical time of Yao and Shun, and representing the ideal form and practice of the Chinese ruler. The Manchu elite, meanwhile, bore firmly in mind the warnings of Hong Taiji just a decade and a half earlier about not losing their Manchu martial culture to a sedentary ethos of the conquered population. For the former, the sovereign was no longer a military leader who commanded loyalty through his bravery and political mastery; he was now an emperor at the head of an imperial bureaucracy. For the latter group, the question of how to govern a sedentary population while remaining true to a martial and peripatetic culture remained central. For either side, the question presented itself: What would Qing sovereignty look like and how would it be legitimized? There was no immediate resolution to those concerns first raised in the 1650s, only the beginning of a long process of reconciliation of practices and forms. Working obliquely, the Board of Rites in 1651 began moving toward a standard of imperial dress by regulating what others could not wear. Over the next three decades, the Board would decree what other officials and nobles could and could not clothe themselves in, which in turn left the emperor as the only individual who would be wearing certain clothing for certain situations. The first positive regulation on imperial dress came in 1687, when the Board or Rites propounded the specifics of the imperial cap and gown for grand ceremony sacrifice at altars and temples.49 But not until the Qianlong-era illustrated ritual compendium was an unambiguous expression of the exact imperial garb issued. The style there exhibited was an amalgamation of Manchu tailoring and Chinese design. Between the Chinese symbols and the Manchu cut, Qing rulers integrated and appropriated various forms and practices that facilitated rule over a diverse group

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of people with diverse cultures and practices. They were able to carve out a legitimate representation of a Manchu sovereign transposed and amalgamated with a Chinese emperor. The ruling Manchu elite had come to power on the basis of their superior military skill and organization, out of which they developed a precedent to continue to successfully rule an agrarian-bureaucratic tax-office state. There were few models available to them, and even fewer successful ones. The form of the state and the nature of the head of that state would ultimately be based on the model provided for them by the conquered, even if it was not assimilated in full. This had practical considerations for governing a conquered population and the need to establish legitimate authority. The case of the Jin dynasty haunted these early rulers as an example of what could go wrong for them in such a situation—a history lesson that Qing state-makers read as incentive to hold onto Manchu ways or risk losing all. The path pursued by Qing statesmen and officials was neither the complete adoption nor abandonment of one set of practices, but rather a wholesale reinvention. It was a venture to remake authority, and it required rewriting the system of li to do so.

8

Codification The Da Qing Huidian

In 1684, the Kangxi emperor called to formalize the Qing order. Internal factions had been quelled and the emergent settlements were accepted willingly or begrudgingly. Furthermore, the last of the Ming resistance had finally been defeated, leaving the Manchus as the undisputed rulers of the land. That summer, the Kangxi emperor, son of the Shunzhi emperor, and grandson of Hong Taiji, issued an edict noting the culmination of the Qing state-building project, and expressed the need to put the resultant structure into law. Recounting the trajectory of the Qing, he said, Nurhaci had begun the “great enterprise on an enormous scale,” a monumental effort that Hong Taiji had continued and furthered by “creating standards and enabling a flourishing.” His father, the Shunzhi emperor, then united the surrounding regions and passed on to his descendants an established Qing political authority. “We have set official positions and an administrative order that addresses contemporary needs and consulted ancient standards . . . there is none other that outshines!”1 The time had come, the Kangxi emperor declared, for a cohesive set of rules for government that would formally institutionalize the regulations and practices formed over the past half century. He thereby ordered the compilation of an administrative code for the Qing dynasty, or what would become the Da Qing huidian. The Kangxi emperor’s Da Qing huidian (also referred to as the Kangxi Huidian) was published in 1690 and marks the end of a phase of early Qing state-formation. The administrative order and political arrangements would continue to evolve, to be sure, and internal struggles would still plague politics throughout the life of the dynasty; yet the new administrative code not only summed up the early arrangements and institutionalized the structures and political relations that had emerged 170

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in the mid-seventeenth century, but it also laid a foundation for everything that would follow. In many ways, the issuance of this set of laws governing the Qing political and administrative order was the culmination of the work of the Board of Rites in implementing and institutionalizing li. This chapter examines the process. It investigates the codification of the Qing interpretation of li in the form of the Huidian. The general topic here is the rearticulation of li into law. The specific case is the construction of Qing politics and the development of a set of statutes that organized political life in such a way as to contain conflicts and empower some over others and to do so in ways that might make reference to past forms but was ultimately a new invention born out of the immediate political and cultural circumstances of the Qing. Indeed, having been contested, exploited, and reforged over many decades, li was then codified in a specific form of the Qing experience, where all Qing regulations were summarily compiled and promulgated as a comprehensive body of code to define the state. The resultant text of the Huidian shows the adoption and synthesis of practices and institutions in the building of structures of domination to rule a vast multiethnic empire. O N T H E NAT U R E O F T H E H U I DIA N

The concepts and practices of li were registered in each imperial regime as rules and regulations of administrative organization and procedure. In the Ming and Qing periods, this was the Huidian. In earlier dynasties it was referred to under different names and formats, but in each case this collection of administrative codes laid out the organization and practice of government. And in each case these laws were informed by and encapsulated li. In this way, li embodied administrative law in late imperial China.2 The text called Huidian—which is often referred to in English as the collected statutes3—is a compilation of institutional rules and regulations for administrative organization, procedures, and activity. Although scholars often take the Huidian as a set of bureaucratic guidelines for the Ming and Qing administrations, it also articulates punishable offenses throughout, which suggests that it was something more than an administrative manual that merely provided guidance for official affairs. Legal scholar Lü Li claims that the Qing Huidian is both a document of administrative law and foundational or constitutional law. She argues that the Huidian contained laws that regulated all state operations and laid out the rules for administrative affairs. In this way, it was distinct from a penal code, which put forth guidelines and rules for assessing guilt and punishments. At the same time, she argues, the Huidian served as more than just a handbook for government activity; it organized all political, social, and economic life.4

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The structure of the Huidian mirrors the six ministries and major government departments, providing detailed descriptions of each agency’s operations in respective sections. The basic table of contents for the Huidian is the six boards, where each board has its own chapter. Within each chapter, duties are outlined for the board and its respective departments, often followed by a chronology of ordinances, decrees, edicts, and rescripts that had been made in governing an activity in the course of the dynasty. As the Qianlong emperor wrote of the text, “The civil and military officials of our state, both of the inner and outer court, and of all positions and ranks are recorded in the Da Qing huidian.”5 The entry on the New Year’s Day ceremony in the Board of Rites chapter of the Qing Huidian, for example, opens with a short description of the ceremony followed by many details regarding how the ceremony evolved over the years, beginning with the first ceremony in 1632 and recounting the precedents of the ceremony in 1636, 1651, and 1669. The entry ends with a list of other minor revisions and decrees made over the course of this time.6 In this way, the Huidian charts the developments of regulations and practices, and abstracts their essence to formulate a rule. It had become standard practice in the Tang for a dynasty to outline administrative procedures with clear stipulation of official actions and relations, complete with rewards and punishments. The collection of Tang administrative regulations, the Tang liudian, was based on the ancient texts the Zhouli and Shangshu, and distilled an idealized social organization contained in these texts into an administrative code that provided instruction and regulations for governing the realm.7 The Song produced a similar text called the Huiyao, and the Yuan had the Yuan dianzhang. These works were often legal descriptions, however, rather than statutes and codes, and they were organized by topic rather than administrative category.8 In contrast to what would follow in the Ming and Qing, these precursors were concerned with historical precedents in reference to previous dynasties, rather than the communication of the current state’s laws.9 The Ming produced the first entirely contemporary legal statement of all the regulations, ordinances, decrees, and edicts of the current regime. This was done almost immediately upon the establishment of the dynasty by the Ming founder in the texts The Great Ming Code (Da Minglü), The Great Ming Commandment (Da Mingling), and The Grand Pronouncements (Da gao).10 A hundred years later, these laws were reorganized into administrative statutes and renamed the Da Ming huidian, which subsequently went through four editions over the course of about a hundred years, only two of which survive.11 The last edition was published in 1587 and is known as the Wanli Huidian after the emperor under whom it was compiled. It was this Huidian that helped guide administrative activity in the seventeenth-century Qing court, and upon which Qing state-makers relied, serving as reference for the compilers of the first Qing Huidian.12

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HOW Q I N G O F F IC IA L S U SE D T H E M I N G H U I DIA N

Early Qing administrators relied on the Ming Huidian. Not only did they find that the Ming text provided them with a basis of knowledge for operations in administrative and personnel affairs, it further afforded them a point of reference on how to organize the state, run the government, uphold protocol for hierarchical order, and conduct foreign affairs. They certainly did not find all the answers in the Ming Huidian, but they did get regular guidance on issues that often arose in everyday dealings. Furthermore, it was a standard where no other existed: How many clerks would staff a particular office? When could officials take leave to care for sick parents? What should officials do at temple sacrifices? How to receive a specific tribute mission? Qing officials found answers to all these questions in the Ming Huidian. Documentary evidence shows Qing officials drawing on the Ming Huidian for administrative guidance in four key areas: administrative organization, administrative operations, ritual and sacrifice, and foreign relations. Administrative Organization The Ming Huidian served as the guide and model for the structure and organization of the administration of the Qing state. Hong Taiji ordered it translated into Manchu in 1629, which was completed three years later on the eve of the establishment of the six boards.13 Direct evidence of Qing officials using the Ming Huidian in the early period of Qing administration is rare. However, the Qing six boards were modeled on the Ming administrative system, which was clearly described in the Ming Huidian. Although the form of the Qing boards diverged from the Ming ministries in key ways, such as the existence of two presidents, one Manchu and one Chinese, in the Qing boards, the Ming Huidian still offered orientation, especially as the government began to expand during the Shunzhi period. There are numerous cases of Qing administrators turning to the Ming Huidian for guidance on staffing government agencies, especially in the early Shunzhi period, as the administration grew and positions needed clarification. In the second year of the Shunzhi reign, for example, the supervising secretary of the Rites Office of Scrutiny, Liang Weiben, wrote to warn that the six offices of scrutiny were in disarray as a result of the “lack of clarity on the positions and duties, so that all officials are not without confusion.” He urged the personnel office to “look up in the Huidian the specific duties and positions, and to clearly lay them out in regulation.”14 Similarly, in 1654, the imperial bodyguard was found to be short-staffed and memorialists referenced the Ming Huidian on how to reorganize and enlarge the bureau. Officials from the Imperial Household Department and the Board of War replied with a citation of Ming regulations found in the Huidian to the effect that said the imperial guard was composed of five divisions and ten departments, but “since the founding of our dynasty we have been short.” They advocated the

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creation of more offices to mirror the Ming based on the Huidian, and outlined the ranks and positions that needed to be added.15 In each case the Huidian was ready at hand, offering convenient criteria and points of reference for the organization of offices and personnel.16 Administrative Operations In the same way that the Huidian set the standard on how to set up an administrative structure, it similarly provided a model for how that structure should operate. Qing officials turned to the Ming Huidian for guidance in three key areas of Qing administrative activity: general administrative procedure, such as paperwork and filling vacancies; taking leave of office to care for sick parents; and honoring the dead. In administrative procedure, the Huidian informed Qing officials of the day-today activity of government—how to write official documents, for example. In 1656, the Board of Rites deliberated on a memorial from the Zhejiang provincial military commander complaining about the improper composition of documents among officials in the provincial offices. According to this commander, inferiors were writing to superiors using incorrect forms of address and under the auspices of document titles reserved for equals. The Board of Rites consulted the Huidian and found that when a provincial military commander communicates with the magistrate he should use the form of an “order” (diewen), and when a magistrate communicates with a provincial military commander he should use the form of a “report” (shenwen).17 This became the convention accepted by the actors and enforced by the Board of Rites.18 Similarly, in 1662, confusion ensued about who was supposed to use a summary (huangtie) at the end of a memorial and when such a summary was appropriate. The Personnel Office of Scrutiny suggested following regulations laid out in the Huidian, whereby officials of the third rank and above did not need to use a summary if they were not reporting on corruption and the memorial “contained only a few characters.”19 Officials also turned to the Ming Huidian as an authority in administrative disputes. In 1653, Supervising Secretary in the Punishments Office of Scrutiny Chen Tiaoyuan opened impeachment proceedings against Supervising Secretary of the Personnel Office of Scrutiny Wei Xiangshu for failing to follow procedure as laid out in the Huidian. Under dispute, according to Chen, was that two officials took leave from office and that the Huidian required those positions to be filled in their absence. It was the responsibility of Wei as the supervising secretary to make sure the positions were filled accordingly. A week into the absences, however, no one had been assigned to those positions. Chen accused Wei of this oversight and sought to have him impeached for dereliction of duty. He relied on the Huidian as the standard by which Wei needed to be held accountable.20 In his defense, Wei argued that he did in fact follow the procedure outlined in the Huidian by calling

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for those positions to be filled. In his capacity as supervising secretary, he said that he sent the memo to the Board of Personnel, who confirmed that the positions would be filled. The fact that they had not been filled could not be attributed to any negligence on his part, for such personnel action was beyond the charge of his office. Wei emphasized that he followed procedure as dictated by the Huidian, and he was now but the messenger, not the executor.21 Similarly, when an official’s obligations to the state and to his parents conflicted, he turned to the Huidian. According to Confucian practice, one should care for one’s sick or frail parents, which would sometimes necessitate taking leave from office. In 1652, Supervising Secretary of the Military Office of Scrutiny Li Renlong asked for leave to care for his eighty-five-year-old mother. “According to the Huidian,” he wrote, “if one’s parents are old with no one else to care for them, then he should return to care for them until they die.” The imperial rescript asked the appropriate board to look into the regulation and prepare for Li to leave office accordingly.22 Similarly, in 1653, Feng Youjing, a censor in Fujian, considered himself justified in asking for personal leave to care for his seventy-five-year-old father: “The Huidian precedent allows for one to return to care [for him] if there is no one else to do so.”23 As the Qing administration grew, the requests for leave to care for parents increased. Recognizing this problem, the Shandong governor, Geng Dun, in 1654, penned a long, sixteen-page memorial on the need to clarify Qing policy. The occasion for the discussion was a request for leave by Zhang Wanxuan, a vice director in the Board of Punishments, to care for his eighty-year-old mother. Anyone with parents over seventy should be allowed to care for them, Geng wrote, quoting a Huidian regulation that allowed an official to take leave from office to attend to his parents. The catch, however, was that the Huidian statute applied only to those without brothers. Geng thus sent officials to investigate Zhang’s family situation to ascertain if he had siblings who could take care of their sick mother, which would disqualify him from leave. After months of investigations, Geng found that Zhang did indeed have brothers, but they were elsewhere serving in office. Given this situation, Geng concluded, “according to the Huidian he should be allowed to go.”24 A third aspect of administrative activity guided by the Ming Huidian was the determination of the occasions and procedures of granting posthumous honors. The matter of granting honors to ranked officials who had died in service constantly arose as a request and became a topic of discussion in court. At issue was not whether a late official should be honored or not—the act of granting such honors seems to be taken as an accepted and necessary practice—but rather, the standards of who got honored and how. In the fall of 1655, the Manchu president of the Board of Rites, Enggedei, issued a series of memorials requesting honors for deceased officials for service and death in battle. “Previously, Manchu officials gave

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Han officials posthumous honors according to Huidian regulations, which were approved by the emperor [at the time],” he averred.25 A few weeks later he cited a passage from the Ming Huidian to support his case, noting that when twenty-three Ming officials had been killed by bandits they received posthumous honors, memorial arches, shrines, and state-sanctioned annual sacrifice.26 The privileges attached to posthumous honors included state-sponsored interment and sacrifice. To have a tomb and a stele recording achievements gave honor, status, and influence to one’s descendants. To receive sponsored sacrifice conducted by officials from the Board of Rites once or twice a year even further elevated the position of the family. Given these benefits, officials and descendants lobbied heavily to receive such privileges, and drew upon the Huidian to make their case. In 1656, for example, the president of the Board of Punishments asked permission to hold an official ceremony and sacrifice for his recently deceased father. “I checked the Huidian,” he memorialized, “and will perform the interment sacrifice according to precedent.”27 By 1660, a standard for granting such ceremonial privileges had been worked out based on the Ming Huidian. In the fourth month of that year, the Board of Rites promulgated an order on which ranks and positions would receive what kind of sacrificial service in death. Nine stipulations framed this law, each one corresponding to a set of ranks and positions. The first, for example, dictated that upon the death of an official holding the above-rank title of duke, earl, or count, “adhere to the Huidian in building a tomb according to his rank.” It further granted supplies of ghost money and wine for sacrifice, as well as officials to make offerings. The ritual goods and sacrificial officials would accord with the position of the deceased. And on down the ranks the regulation proceeded, each of the nine stipulations weighing the positions and ranks of officials so as to hierarchically organize social stations according to the Huidian and assign the appropriate kind of interment and sacrifice that would be received in death.28 These three kinds of administrative domains—administrative procedure, filial piety, and death rites—are representative of the uses of the Huidian as frequently mentioned in the existing documents. They comprise some of the key operations of the bureaucracy and concerns of officials, and show the importance of administrative regulations in guiding these actions. For Qing officials, the Ming Huidian was the standard reference on important administrative issues. Sacrifice Qing sovereigns and officials also looked to the Ming Huidian for guidance in conducting state sacrifice. Parts of the state ritual system were copied from the Ming and implemented quite early. The nature of the ceremonies and the deities to which offerings were made followed the historical precedents of previous dynasties, and, given the language and categories employed, they were most likely devel-

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oped out of the Ming Huidian. Writing in the early Shunzhi period, former Ming official Tan Qian observed that all Qing rituals were borrowed from the Ming.29 This is obviously an exaggeration (as previous chapters have shown, not all Qing rituals were drawn from the Ming), but the point remains that when conducting a state ceremony, officials most frequently referenced the Huidian. It is not unlikely that officials consulted the Ming Huidian throughout the early years in establishment and practice of sacrifices, but the documentary evidence does not reveal discussion of the matter until late Shunzhi. The earliest sources referring to the Huidian in connection with the sacrificial system of the Qing are from 1659. In the seventh month of that year, the Board of Rites reported on a memorial asking to “follow the Huidian in holding triennial ancestral sacrifices in the ancestral hall.”30 This was approved by the emperor, and sacrifices commenced at the end of that year.31 A few years later, the Huidian was consulted on a similar issue of the biannual sacrifice to the historical emperors and kings at the Diwang temple. The ceremony was inaugurated in 1645 with the founders of the previous dynasties, including Liao Taizu, Jin Taizu, Yuan Taizu, and Ming Taizu, and then expanded in 1661 to include the second emperors of dynasties going back to the Shang. The proclamation ordered sacrifices to be conducted “at each of their tombs according to the Huidian regulation.”32 Qing officials further drew on the Ming Huidian to help standardize annual sacrifices. In 1660, officials pointed out that the routine ceremonies and sacrifices differed from those of previous dynasties, and they recommended that the annual sacrifices to various deities be performed together rather than separately and at random. This suggestion was implemented and the imperial order on the matter decreed to “follow the Huidian in holding combined sacrifices every autumn and spring at the suburban altars.”33 Two months later, the Board of Rites clarified that in “the combined ritual system as outlined in the Huidian” there are twenty-four altars that require sacrifice once a year. The memorial went on to say that after dividing the suburbs into four quadrants, the combined sacrifice stopped, but that this year it would begin again with the deities all receiving worship together at the respected altars.34 The Ming Huidian also provided clarification for Qing officials on the role of participants in the ceremonies and sacrifices. The Huidian offered precedents to follow for the preparation and activity for combined sacrifice. The month after it was decided to combine sacrifices, the Board of Rites set out instructions to consult the Huidian on setting up the temples for sacrifice, telling the Board of Works to build stages at the altars, and specified that the master of ceremonies should follow the precedent for the sacrifice as outlined in the Huidian.35 In 1673, confusion arose over what officials should do at the altar and temple sacrifices; clarification came from the Huidian. The Board of Rites wrote that it had consulted the Huidian on the regulation for officials during the sacrifice, and found that Board

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of Rites officers should all line up accordingly and do the rite.36 This reference worked to further standardize the ceremonial activity, as well as to organize politics and give hierarchical form to the ceremony. Foreign Relations The Ming Huidian also served as a guide for diplomatic engagement with rulers with whom the Qing had had no prior interactions. It offered a reference on how to receive the ambassadors from countries far outside of the historical domain of Manchu interaction. In 1653, the Qing court reported that the Ryukyu prince had sent a tribute mission and wanted to exchange the old Ming seals of investiture for new ones.37 This caused some confusion in the Qing court over protocol: What gifts should the mission bear? How should they be received? And who were these people and their king, anyway?38 For answers, Qing officials turned to the Ming Huidian, which contained information about Ryukyu and its previous missions to China.39 By all accounts, this facilitated a successful interaction between the young Qing dynasty and the Ryukyu kingdom, resulting in the exchange of seals, the reception of tribute and giving of gifts, and a banquet hosted by the Board of Rites.40 The Huidian provided a precedent for foreign relations and the standards to which tribute states needed to be held accountable. It confirmed and helped actualize the hierarchy of international relations. Take for example the Annam and Siam tribute missions in the early Kangxi reign. Annam sent a mission that arrived in early 1664, but did so with tribute gifts that “were inconsistent with the Huidian,” according to Qing officials.41 An imperial decree to Annam to bring the proper tribute went unheeded, and the next mission, three years later, also failed to meet the standard of gifts. The Board of Rites memorialized, asking to pardon the oversight of the Annam mission, for “they have come with tribute every three years in accordance with the Huidian.” This led the memorialists to conclude that Annam “respected the imperial instruction and authority.” The Annam mission was excused.42 A few years later, the same problem arose with a Siam tribute mission. When the mission arrived in Guangdong, that province’s governor reported in advance that it bore “tribute goods inconsistent with the Huidian. They are short in comparison with the precedent.” Noting the previous case of Annam being excused, but finding no other precedent upon which to act, he asked if he should accept these goods and send them on to Beijing or deal with them in Guangdong.43

The use of the Ming Huidian in these four areas of activity—administrative organization, administrative operations, ritual sacrifice, and foreign relations—helped carve out a particular expression of the organization and operations of the early

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Qing state. The Huidian not only provided guidance on issues of governance, but also laid out the hierarchical structure of the state and how officials should operate within that structure, providing details for everything down to the number of corvée clerks in each government department. Officials thus turned to the Ming Huidian as a reliable source to clarify routine practices and create formality and predictability. In short, the Huidian offered a model by which to organize actors hierarchically, and instructed them on how to behave both individually and in relation to each other. T H E N E E D F O R A Q I N G H U I DIA N

Despite their constant recourse to the Ming Huidian, Qing officials also found Ming regulations insufficient. They were old, for one. Produced almost a hundred years prior, they reflected the concerns of a different time and a different state confronted with different issues. Society and politics under the Qing had changed, whereby the Qing state differed from the Ming in both structure and organization: it had officials from multiple ethnic groups, including Manchu, Mongol, and Hanjun (Chinese bannermen); it had a military system organized around permanent mobilization; it had different kinds of diplomatic relations with different states. In this way, officials found that the Ming Huidian could not speak to some important issues of the emerging political order. In an effort to deal with institutions like the banners, different political and ethnic actors, and new counterparts in foreign relations, officials demanded revisions in the administrative regulations. Most immediate was the need to regulate the Qing system of ranks, titles, and positions, and to do so in a way that reflected the interests and ideals of Manchu elites. This can be seen across four fields of documentary evidence: general calls for a new Huidian with new laws tailored to the Qing dynasty, administrative organization, administrative operations, and foreign relations. A New Political Order and Calls for a Qing Huidian Calls for compiling a new Huidian began very early. Shortly after the establishment of the six boards in 1631, a debate erupted over whether the Ming Huidian should be revised or not. On one side were those former Ming subjects advising Hong Taiji and his associates in setting up an administrative apparatus. Invested in the model of the Ming state, they sought to push the emergent Qing administration in that direction and argued that a document like the Huidian consisted of “the laws and promulgations that only the sages can set.” For them, the regulations needed to be strictly adhered to and could not be changed. The structure of the state and its operations, they argued, depended on standardized rules and practice. The six boards followed the Huidian, after all, and the Chinese officials brought in to help manage and advise them took the Huidian as the standard. Changes and

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amendments made to the Huidian would undermine its authority and compromise administrative integrity and operations.44 Rejecting the inviolability of the Huidian, others argued that regulations needed to adapt as the sociopolitical order changed. More specifically, they held that Ming regulations were not sufficient for Manchu administrative practices and organization. These officials saw the need to revise the regulations to form an entirely new code suitable for the emerging Manchu state—a Qing-specific Huidian was necessary, as Chinese advisor and Hong Taiji confidant Ning Wanwo put it. Ning continued to press the point in a long memorial to Hong Taiji, arguing against doctrinalists: “The six boards in name and design followed the southerners [i.e., the Ming]. Because Manchu officials did not originally know the operations of these boards, we have Chinese officials manage them with reference to the Huidian.” He went on to point out that in actuality, Qing use of the Huidian was sporadic: “Some parts we use and it works; some parts do not work. Some parts are added to and some parts subtracted from.” In characterizing this selective use of the Ming Huidian, Ning called it “referencing the Han [Chinese] in consideration of the Jin [i.e., Qing]” (canHan zhuoJin).45 The full formation of the Manchu state, Ning held, would rely on statutes drawn from both Chinese and Manchu institutions, which would come into being as the practices arose. Noting that, “Every day, Manchu officials go before the khan and make reports. These practices and affairs become routine, and gradually they will become the system of China (Zhongguo),” he argued that sufficient reason had been established to put them down in a Huidian specific to the dynasty. “Someday we will have the southern territory; we must act without confusion [and have clear regulations for the administration and operation of the state].” The problem with the Ming Huidian, according to Ning, was that it was outdated and parts of it inapplicable to the contemporary situation. “Although the Da Ming huidian is a good book, my state today should not follow it in its entirety. They [i.e., the Ming] ruled for two to three hundred years with borders spanning thousands of miles, and with immeasurable finances,” all of which stood in stark contrast to the young Manchu state controlling a very small territory in the northeast. For officials like Ning, regulations and practices should be revised to reflect the situation and practices of the Qing. But even more, Ning argued, “given that from Hongwu to today, the Huidian was added to, subtracted from, and changed countless times, how is it that now we do not even consider changing one character of this Huidian?” Not revising it seemed absurd to Ning and his allies. “Each dynasty of rulers must have a system for its dynasty.”46 The fact that it would take another sixty years before Ning’s plea for a Qing Huidian was heeded and acted upon does not mean that calls for a new Huidian ceased. In fact, quite the opposite—they intensified. Throughout the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, officials continued to petition for the production of a Qing-specific

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Huidian. There are at least nine extant petitions for a new Huidian, beginning with Ning’s in 1633. In 1648, for example, Wei Xiangshu, then a supervising censor in the Office of Scrutiny for Works, wrote a long memorial arguing the merits of producing a new Qing-specific Huidian.47 The next appeal came in 1657 from a Board of War official,48 followed by two petitions at the middle and end of 1658 by censors from Henan and Fujian, respectively.49 In 1668, Wang Xi called for compiling all the new regulations and assembling them in a new Qing Huidian,50 and in 1670, the Jiangnan circuit intendant, frustrated with the lack of a Qing text, memorialized with the same suggestion.51 In these petitions, officials argued that the political organization of the Qing was different from the Ming, and that regulations needed to be expressed accordingly by Qing jurists in Qing—not Ming—law. “Reference and consider what is appropriate for the time,” wrote a Henan censor in 1658. “Make corrections and put it together as a book, then print it and circulate it.” The Board of Rites and the Censorate seconded this memorial, recommending that the suggestion be followed.52 At issue was both the idea that each dynasty should have its own set of rules, and the fact that the Qing was constantly forming new regulations, which ought to be promulgated and circulated. These positions are well summed up in Wei Xiangshu’s 1648 memorial. Arguing at length for the need to compile a new Huidian as part of the formalization of the state and establishment of the dynasty, he claimed it would “clarify the administration and the system of government.” Wei went on to lay out his argument for revisions in accordance with the Qing state: The emperors and kings of old created a system and established laws. Each dynasty has changes and has made additions and subtractions [to these laws]. Our state was established five years ago, and now the rites and music are complete, the laws and regulations are renewed, the temples are glorious, and the dynasty will last for ten thousand years. If there is still something that needs fixing and which we find lacking, it is certainly the Huidian. . . . Today all the government offices imitate it and use it in their practice. When a situation is pertinent, they reference it; when a situation differs, they depart from it and consider something else. How can it be extensive enough? If we continue to use it when the situations are not appropriate, and do so without changing it, then it will not work for future generations.

Officials like Wei saw the Huidian as an evolving document, containing the rules and regulations of an empire, that would be revised and adapted by subsequent generations. As a new political order formed, so did the laws to govern it. Wei asserted that new regulations needed to be standardized and codified for state operations. He pointed out that laws needed to take account of new circumstances in order to remain pertinent for governance and social order. “In the process of establishing our dynasty, laws have not yet been standardized, and thus they

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cannot be shown to others or made permanent,” he wrote. The way to proceed, he maintained, was “to order each government office to assess previous generations, to consider the deliberations of Manchus and Chinese, and to compile these and send them on to the inner court. Then edit this and put it together as a book.” This book would be the Qing Huidian.53 Compelling as Wei’s brief might have been, it did not spur any action. What it did do, however, was highlight the need for compiling and standardizing state laws and regulations. Beginning in the late Shunzhi period, officials noted the growing number of new regulations, which they argued should be distilled in a Qing Huidian.54 In 1657, the first use of the name Da Qing Huidian appeared in a memorial from the Supervising Secretary in the Military Office of Scrutiny, Jin Handing, who pointed out that new regulations and administrative precedents constantly arose but were being implemented under the name of the old Ming Huidian. “These are not regulations that were set by one king to rule over others. Today we need to consider a new name: the Da Qing huidian.”55 Administrative Organization The main shortcomings of the Ming Huidian were that it was based on the Ming administrative structure and ill-suited to Qing organization. Most immediately, the Ming Huidian offered no rules relevant to the multiethnic composition of the Qing state. Unlike the more homogenous Ming government, the Qing employed Manchus, Mongols, and Hanjun in addition to Han Chinese. The former groups were accorded special treatment and consideration, and thus new rules were needed to reflect their activity and privileges. Board of Personnel officials put this in clear perspective around 1652, when they pointed to the fact that the Ming Huidian was insufficient for staffing the government: “The Huidian does not account for the Manchu system of officials.” They emphasized that “each department has a certain number of Manchus, Mongols, and assistants of positions of high and low ranks.” These positions, although already filled, still needed legal clarification, and a request was sent to the inner court. Grand Secretary Fan Wencheng began to outline the Qing organization of posts, titles, and positions, but he could not find a consistent vocabulary in Manchu to describe them and was reduced to transliterations from Chinese. In a memorial on the translation of office names, Fan listed eight Manchu positions and the corresponding Chinese characters, which, he said, “can be used in a revision of the Huidian.”56 Administrative Operations As the Ming Huidian fell short in accounting for the administrative organization of the Qing state, so it was also inadequate for application to the operations of Qing governance. In each area of administrative activity that the Huidian was

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consulted for, it was also found lacking and unable to address the issue at hand. In administrative practice, the Huidian did not provide guidance in dealing with officials or in managing corruption. The precedents for filial piety were either dated and impractical or completely inappropriate for Manchu practices, and standards for posthumous honors often failed to correspond to the Qing system of ranks and positions.57 Foremost, early Qing officials needed standardized procedures for dealing with personnel problems, ranging from making appointments to managing cases of corruption. In 1654, Fan Wencheng as director of the Hanlin Academy confronted a discrepancy in promotions and hiring. “We do not have a standardized system,” he memorialized, and hinted that it might be better to discontinue the current practice of hiring based on internal decisions (as stipulated in the Huidian), and instead transfer the task to the Board of Personnel.58 Even with a single department in command of assignments, the Ming Huidian proved to be at odds with the practices of Qing administration. In 1660, the Board of War attempted to follow the Huidian in replacing imperial guards, but found that doing so would offend the Manchu system of ranks. If it filled the position according to Ming precedent, then the guard would be a lower rank than what the Manchu system of ranks demanded. The matter was left unresolved in the interim and sent to a council for discussion.59 The lack of clarity in administrative procedures continued to haunt the administration. In 1666, Xiong Cilü, an official in the Palace Academy for the Advancement of Literature, memorialized on the corruption and exploitation by officials occurring in the provinces as a result of the lack of clear laws. He requested that the emperor investigate all the governors-general and governors, promote those with merit, and purge those found to be corrupt. The next step would be to “reference the old regulations and consider what is suitable for the age and order the compilation of a Huidian.”60 He emphasized again, “I beg that the council discuss a system and put together a Huidian. Superiors will follow the way and inferiors will adhere to the law.”61 The discrepancy between rule and reality also spilled over into the matter of filial piety. In the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, Board officials were inundated with requests to honor ancestors in ways that were not always in accord with the Huidian. In some cases, the Boards insisted on following the Ming Huidian, as shown above, but in others they opted to write new precedents. In 1654, for example, a Jiangxi circuit attendant requested that his birth mother also receive his existing rank and honors. The Board of Personnel checked the Huidian and found that if the first wife of the father was still alive, then any secondary wives could not be honored. Based on the Huidian, the Board recommended not to grant the request. The Shunzhi emperor intervened, however, responding, “Although this is in accord with the administrative system, the Huidian was edited in the early Wanli period

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of the previous Ming Dynasty and there were many regulations that were not provided for. Today in our dynasty’s ritual system, sons express their feelings and we should have precedents. Go and consider again.”62 The regulation on the matter was subsequently changed and the Ming precedent scrapped.63 Some years later, Wang Xianzuo, a provincial administration commissioner under the Shanxi governor, requested that his honorary title be extended to his grandparents. The Board of Personnel checked the Huidian on extending honors to find that it was allowed only for capital officials. “But provincial and capital officials should be treated together as a single body,” the Board of Personnel reasoned, then concluded, “Wang Xianzuo should be able to extend.” This judgment led to the changing of the precedent so that the same rights and privileges were given to all officials regardless of posting.64 Further changes to mourning rites were also necessary, especially for non-Han Chinese officials. Given that the Ming Huidian contained no rule on how officials of the banners were supposed to mourn, a standard had to be created. In 1661, the Board of Personnel was ordered to research mourning regulations from the preconquest period, but neither the Board of Personnel nor the Board of Rites contained records of any such regulation. Board officials only discovered a case from the third month of 1653, when the Guangdong censor took three years’ mourning according to the Huidian, and a case from later in the same year when it was deemed inconvenient for Manchu, Mongol, and Hanjun officials to take leave from their posts for mourning. This informal practice had become the precedent over the past eight years. Given this situation, and under order to establish a standard, the Boards deliberated and determined that capital officials should continue to follow the existing practice of mourning for a month, regardless of whether they were Manchu, Mongol, or Hanjun. When the period was complete, they should return to their duties; however, they were to continue to observe mourning rites when at home for the next three years. Those bannermen stationed in the garrisons or serving as officials in provincial posts would, in case of a parent’s death, follow the existing practice. If the parent was in the capital, then the official would be allowed to return to the capital and given half a year of mourning leave. This practice became the official arrangement and was later codified as such.65 Early Qing officials also found fault with the system of posthumous honors in the Ming Huidian. Although the Ming Huidian provided a standard procedure for granting posthumous honors and for the funerals and sacrifices associated with those honors, it contained a number of important deficiencies. Tombstones, for one. The Huidian regulated the size of the tombstone for the various ranks and positions, but it said nothing about the text that went on the tombstone. A Qing official of the three inner courts memorialized that Ming examples included tombstones that had an official’s name and position, while others had the full text of his honors and patent, while still others had nothing written on them at all.66 More

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importantly, the problem with trying to follow the Ming Huidian to the letter was that the ranks and titles of the Ming did not correspond to those of the Qing. Or worse, they were not standardized to begin with. As an official from the Board of War put it in a memorial, “The funerary honors to be given to those who have died in battle as recorded in the Huidian are not uniform.” The memorialist continued to enumerate the default practice of the Qing, which included differentiated amounts of ghost money for interment according to the position of the deceased military officer. “This has been the practice, but there is no uniform regulation; the situations are all different for dealing with the military dead,” he wrote. At issue for the Board of War here was to clarify the practices of interment for the different ranks and to set that down in law.67 Regulations in 1660, drawn up and issued by the Board of Rites, took steps to address these problems by stipulating the interment and ceremony for the hierarchy of ranks and positions. The nine regulations laid out by the Board of Rites used the Huidian as a point of reference but often explicitly departed from it. The first stipulation dealing with above-rank officials, for example, allowed a tomb according to the Huidian, but gave differing amounts of ghost money, sacrificial wine, and officials to offer sacrifice according to their rank. Exceptions were then incorporated into the law, indicating that those with a particular honor or inherited rank could petition the emperor for further services. Some of the stipulations were based on the Huidian, detailing which ranks would receive tombs and ceremony. But other regulations completely bypassed the Ming Huidian. For example, new rules were needed for ranks and positions of lieutenant colonel, regiment colonel, senior bodyguard of rank adaha hafan, bureau directors and vice directors, and banner captains of rank batalabure hafan. The reason being was that these were all banner positions.68 Not only did the rejection of the Ming Huidian and formation of new rules for administrative operations respond to evolving situations on the ground, it also helped shape the political order. Even as officials cited the Ming Huidian as an authoritative source to undergird the hierarchical organization, they also found it lacking when the Qing and Ming systems of ranks and positions did not correspond, or when inconsistent regulations contributed to malfeasance. In areas of administrative procedure, granting posthumous honors and rights, and mourning, Qing officials found the Ming regulations insufficient to deal with their affairs, and they subsequently changed the regulations. These alterations accounted for the Manchu system, accommodating different ethnic groups, the banner system, and new positions into a cohesive administration. Foreign Relations Even in foreign relations the Ming Huidian came up short. By the early Kangxi reign, the Qing attracted missions from states for which the Ming Huidian contained no

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precedent. In 1663, for example, the Shaanxi governor-general reported that the monk Dang-ha-er was coming to pay tribute.69 The Board of Rites searched the Huidian for a precedent but found none. “He is sincere and we should prepare to allow him to bring tribute,” the Board confirmed.70 A few years later, in 1668, the Board of War reported that other unnamed foreigners had appeared on the coast wishing to offer tribute gifts and trade at the borders. Lacking any precedent, the case was sent to the Board of Rites, which checked the Huidian but found no system of tribute or trade for the newcomers, and thus referenced the Dutch trade in 1663 and the Siam trade in 1664. Because relations with both of these states had ended in 1666, the Board recommended they neither receive tribute from the foreigners in question, nor allow them to conduct trade.71 This decision was not made based on the Ming Huidian, however, for it lacked any precedent and thus provided no guidance for the Qing in this situation. Rather, the Qing Board of Rites referred to the more recent cases of Qing dealings with foreign states, showing that Qing officials had begun to form and build upon their own body of precedents. New precedent was also created in existing foreign relations to displace the Ming Huidian. Late in 1668, for example, the Board of Rites reported that Siam paid tribute to the Qing court but presented gifts that were not in accordance with the Huidian. The exchange and nature of relations between the Qing and Siam was supposed to follow the precedents laid out in the Ming Huidian, and the Board of Rites requested that the Siam mission make up their shortcomings in the next tribute mission. Recognizing that “Siam is small and their goods and products come from other countries,” the Kangxi emperor observed that it was “hard for them to adhere to the Huidian.” He therefore excused them, changing the regulation so that in the future they would not need to offer as much tribute.72 Similar accommodations were granted in 1673 to Turfan, a state in what is the easternmost part of present-day Xinjiang.73 The ruler of the state asked if he should render tribute according to the old precedent in the Ming Huidian or if a new standard had been set for him to follow. The Board of Rites pointed out that in 1656 they brought 324 horses as a tribute gift, which was then reduced. They were subsequently required to present 4 western horses and 10 Mongol horses, while continuing to follow the Ming Huidian with regard to other items, including camels, daggers, grapes, and saddles.74 In 1673, however, the emperor recognized that an official visit from Turfan to Beijing posed exceptional challenges and wrote that the mission only needed to bring horses and jade, but not the other items.75 This became the standard practice as was recorded in the Qing Huidian when it was finally compiled some twenty years later.76

The inadequacies of the Ming Huidian led to the formation of new regulations, and officials continued to recommend that these new precedents be compiled and

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collected into a new, Qing Huidian. In the Qing, they claimed, new regulations were needed in order to account for non-Han Chinese officials and for new positions in the administration. Similarly, they saw the operations of this administration requiring new regulations in areas of procedure, filial piety, and posthumous honors that were in accord with contemporary practices among all ethnic groups of the Qing empire. In foreign relations, Qing officials also needed to revise the Ming rules to respond to changing circumstances and to develop protocol for new diplomatic counterparts. Each of these areas reflected a particular vision of the Qing state as a multiethnic administration. In both the creation of new regulations and the standardization of official practices, there was an interplay between rule making and the development of the structure of the state. T H E KA N G X I H U I DIA N

In 1684, the Kangxi emperor ordered the compilation of a Qing Huidian. Although officials had unsuccessfully petitioned three different emperors over fifty years and received only more regulations in return, something seems to have happened in the early 1680s to make it clear that a new Huidian could wait no longer. Although direct evidence on the logic behind the timing is scarce, what can be said is that a number of factors converged that all point to the recognized need for a system of laws that would demonstrate and enforce the emergent order. Foremost among the circumstances, the end of military hostilities created new opportunities for standardization. In 1681, the Qing suppressed the Three Feudatories revolt, and two years later the last of the anti-Qing forces holding out on Taiwan finally surrendered. This left the Manchus in 1683 as the undisputed rulers of China, a position that could only be further confirmed by a collection of statutes and laws articulating the structure and operations of the government. Furthermore, as offices and personnel were no longer occupied by operations of warfare, the large number of officials necessary for the collection and compilation of laws could be spared for work on a Huidian project.77 Although it is tough to substantiate these claims from available documents, both are plausible, especially in light of the trend towards greater record keeping and rulemaking under the emergent Qing administration.78 The early 1680s also began a new era in Qing politics. The defeat of the Three Feudatories in the south and the Zheng regime on Taiwan led to the political demise of an older generation of Manchus who had advocated for a system of feudal lords and suzerainty over these territories.79 They were replaced by officials and advisors, consisting of younger, next-generation Manchus and Chinese, who divided not along banner lines, as political factions had done previously, but rather regionally into northern and southern factions. Although the southerners were more versed in the legislative models of the Ming, it is not the case that the southern faction had

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outsized influence on the decision for the Huidian. The two editors, for example, Isangga and Wang Xi, were both northerners—Isangga belonged to the Plain Yellow Banner and was a collateral-line imperial relative; Wang Xi had long been involved in the academic institutions of the Qing, occupying the highest rank within the Hanlin Academy, holding editorial office, and giving imperial lectures. As noted above, he had begun calling for a Qing-specific Huidian from the time that the young Kangxi emperor ascended the throne. Indeed, those involved had less interest in the preservation of banner politics and Manchu-centered structures of power, but rather were more invested in the formalization of an administrative state that could effectively rule over Chinese populations. Politics in this period became less about different visions of the state and more attuned to the accumulation of political and material resources within the existing institutions.80 This situation enabled the Kangxi emperor to play factions off against one another in order to assert the primacy of the sovereign; it also created a favorable environment to propound a set of rules to regulate ranks and the organization and operations of the administration. The Kangxi emperor himself pointed to the need for a cohesive set of rules for government. In the edict ordering its compilation, the emperor repeated many of the arguments made over the past fifty years on the need for a Huidian: each dynasty must have its own laws and regulations, old precedents are unusable and new practices established, and officials are confused by the abundance of regulations accumulated and scattered throughout the departments. He used most of the space, however, to discuss the growth of new regulations and the need to collect and organize them into a single series of statutes. Doing so, he insisted, would furnish clarity of regulation and standardization of administration: “At times there have been additions and subtractions, which were necessary only because they were appropriate for the situation and done with the hope that they might achieve perfection. [Doing this] enabled officials to rely on what they know and not commit error. But the problem is that the many regulations are scattered [throughout the various departments]. It is hard for officials to consult them and for people to know what to do.” For this reason, the emperor concluded, a Huidian was necessary, and he ordered all departments to assign staff to collect their internal regulations and begin compilation.81 Commissioned in 1684 and published in 1690, the entire process of compiling and editing took six years. Over seventy editors are listed in the front of the Huidian, but many more were involved. Each board, internal office, and government department devoted personnel to collecting regulations, orders, and precedents from the past sixty years, sifting through them, and organizing them in a way that would give meaning and coherency to a set of statutes to be followed for administrative procedure. All departments ordered their officials to then sift through internal records and to organize and date items for inclusion.82 In addition, formal

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state records, memorials, and other published books and manuals were reviewed and selectively incorporated.83 The aim was to be comprehensive in the collection of all the precedents and statutes concerning the Qing state, and to extract the most relevant and instrumental aspects of Qing social and political organization. The resultant Qing Huidian was a carefully constructed document that drew upon Qing precedents and practices with a conscious design consistent with the organization and character of the Qing state. It was not simply copied from the Ming, but rather reflected the unique political project of Qing state-formation. “SI N C E A N C I E N T T I M E S . . .”

Despite the production of a new Huidian specifically tailored to the emergent multiethnic empire, Qing state-makers and officials sought to conceptually situate the text in Chinese precedent.84 References to past sages and classical texts were appropriated to legitimize both its production and the rules contained therein; furthermore, from its name to the organization of its content, the Kangxi Huidian took the Ming Huidian as its inspiration and used Ming law as a template. State-makers and compilers worked to ground the text and the Qing political regime in a long tradition of rule, thereby casting Qing sovereigns not as Manchu innovators who created the state, but rather as protectors and organizers of politics and society who restored order in the midst of chaos. They did this, it is implied, by observing and working with examples handed down from the Chinese past to collocate existing pieces and elements. Largely grounded in the concepts (not practices) of li, these claims enabled Qing state-makers to validate legal claims and institutionalize rule over Chinese subjects. The structure of the Kangxi Huidian was deliberately shaped to conform to the Chinese legal tradition. In his imperial preface, the Kangxi emperor emphasized this point. “Since ancient times,” he wrote, “in order to manage affairs and govern [society], there is not one emperor who did not establish regulations. This [enabled them] to govern appropriately.”85 He went on to trace the genealogy of the Huidian to the early texts of the Rites of Zhou (Zhouli) and Book of Documents (Shangshu), and on through the Tang liudian and Song huiyao, the legal texts of the Tang and Song dynasties respectively. Honoring the legacy of these texts, he said, the Ming compiled their codes and called it the Huidian. The Qing empire, he declared, would also adhere to this model and adopt the name chosen by the Ming: “The path to sound governance and a system of rule is in formalizing regulation,” he wrote. “Therefore, I specifically ordered my officials to compile a Huidian: to outline all stipulations, to leave out no aspect, and to connect everything cohesively from beginning to end.” With this order, the Qing compilers followed the previous dynasty in organizing the text according to the six boards and administrative departments, and title the sections and subsections according to the activities of

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the department in question.86 In fact, a cursory view would easily allow one to mistake the Qing Huidian for a copy of the Ming Huidian with only the name of the dynasty changed—an erroneous impression some modern scholars have perpetuated, overlooking the ingenuity and innovation in the content of new regulations for the governance of a Qing-specific political order.87 The Kangxi emperor wrote the Qing into this legacy, to be sure. In his telling, the Manchu sovereigns rescued the people and spared them the horrors of anarchy and chaos. The Qing founder, Nurhaci, emerged to “save the people.” He did not reconstitute society, but rather “suppressed unrest and brought order to the land through the making of new laws and regulations.” Hong Taiji “built on this foundation and put all affairs in their proper place.” He applied military force only when necessary, and governed with moral prerogative. The Shunzhi emperor “brought harmony to all the seas and lands” with his “moral character” and “upright governance.” Now the Kangxi emperor had taken the throne, and “these past thirty years I have been conscious day and night of inheriting the regulatory system of governance of my ancestors.” He emphasized the Qing rulers as purveyors of social order and arrangers of politics, not sages or mythical kings creating from nothing; and cast himself as a ruler who actively maintained the social and political arrangements already judiciously recomposed by his Qing forbears. A salient theme in the text is the pivotal role of the ruler as the arranger of order. The Kangxi emperor did not speak of the Qing and its rulers as outsiders introducing new understandings of cosmological order and social relations; rather, he situated his dynasty in a particular tradition of Chinese sovereignty and legal conceptualization. Drawing on the Rites of Zhou, the Kangxi preface deployed a concept of the sovereign as one who establishes order but does not create it. Rather than a sage who brings the world into being, the ruler depicted in the Rites of Zhou helps restore society in a time of upheaval; he works with what he has, not to change the world, but to rearrange it and stabilize social relations. In this way, the thrust of the text gives primacy to the ruler to take action and organize the world in a particular way rather than offering a new vision of natural or divine order as an attempt to legitimize rule. Here the adaptive ingenuity of the ruler takes precedence over divine right and cosmological order.88 Given the need to legitimize the Manchu regime in the eyes of recently conquered Chinese populations, it is not surprising that state-makers related Qing rulers and their regulations to a legacy of classical and legal texts. Nor is it surprising that the Kangxi emperor referenced a tradition of Chinese classics and sages to help make arguments about Manchu sovereigns as peacemakers and organizers, not conquerors and creators. Like previous rulers and state-makers, from Wang Anshi to Ming Taizu, the Qing effectively used texts like the Rites of Zhou to assert universal principles in the application of a specific project of state-formation and rule. Also like other regimes, they latched onto an overarching concept and the

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principles of the sovereign—and more generally li—consciously framing it in a tradition, and then building around it the specific meanings required of the contemporary political and cultural context.89 In each case, the practices embodied by the general principles would vary but still remain rooted to a common foundation, broadly articulated as li. The Kangxi emperor was very aware of this practice and process, noting the distinction between concept and practice: “Although one generation after another has made laws,” he said, “they are not completely the same. The details have to change according to the situation.” Changing the practices to fit the situation was exactly what the Qing did. C O N C LU SIO N : B E T W E E N C O N C E P T A N D P R AC T IC E

As the legal foundation of the Qing political order, the Da Qing huidian was the institutionalized expression of li, and it provided a formal outline of the activity of the Board of Rites. Developed in concert with the formation of the Qing political order, the rules and regulations for administrative procedure as codified in the Huidian served as the basis for Qing governance and domination. These laws knitted together disparate political interests and ethnic and class groups in a unified political body, and invested them with common goals and incentives in the running of empire. In arriving at these conclusions, Qing state-makers had turned to the ideas and expressions of the distant and immediate past in this phase of state-formation. To guide administrative organization and activity, they relied on the rules of the previous order, referring constantly to the Ming Huidian. Not only did this text of the previous dynasty serve as a handy and reliable reference for running a tax-office state, but it also offered a legitimate means to institutionalize administrative operations in a time of transition and territorial conquest and expansion. Imbued with this sentiment, the Kangxi emperor rhetorically deployed the Chinese sages and classics to situate the Qing and justify the issuing of a new set of codes specific to the Qing historical setting. Qing rulers did not create something new; rather, they organized, adapted, and arranged what was already there, reimposing social relations through political hierarchies and issuing laws to institutionalize them. At the same time, Qing officials frequently found the specific rules and practices of the past deficient or unsuitable for dealing with the tasks of the present. This led officials to call for revisions to the regulation and the production of a new compilation of statutes. In administrative organization, the inclusion of Manchu, Mongols, and Hanjun in addition to Han Chinese in the Qing administration, as well as the employment of the imperial relatives, presented an administrative problem not addressed in the Ming regulations. This especially pertained to uniquely Qing institutions, such as the banners, for which the Ming Huidian provided no guidance to help manage affairs, such as discrepancies in treatment

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involving bannermen in the capital versus those in the provinces. But it also implicated the Qing-specific practices of li that had emerged—the New Year’s Day ceremony, for example. As political relations were further worked out and practices clarified and standardized, protocols were developed so as to correspond to the relations of power and the hierarchies established. The new Qing regulations were then codified into administrative law and published in the Kangxi Huidian of 1690. The Qing Huidian was the resolution of the contradiction between the concept and the practice. To put it another way, the layers of structure and content in the Huidian reflected the relation between the concept of li, handed down from antiquity, and the articulated practices of li, as expressed in the various regulations. As seen in texts from the Rites of Zhou to the Ming Huidian, the top layer consisted of the general concept of the organization of the state, outlined in terms of a professional administrative staff in service to the sovereign, where each actor was appropriately situated within a system of hierarchical relationships. The middle layer was the particular names of the ministries, bureaus, and offices that comprised the administration and organized and enacted government operations. The third layer consisted of the practices. This final layer was the foundational layer of the Huidian—the very content itself. Where the first two layers articulated li as the organizational idea of the state, the foundational layer gave it meaning in practice and changed from dynasty to dynasty, reflecting the different interpretations of li that corresponded to the specific political relations and cultural demands existing at a particular time. In this way, Qing laws expressed the political realities of the seventeenth-century Manchu state.

Conclusion Li, Qing China, and Early Modern Eurasia

At its most abstract level, this is a book about power, authority, and legitimacy. It is about the construction of social institutions that gave some more access to more symbolic and material resources, enabling them to set the terms over what others could and could not do. It is about the formation of a hierarchical organization of positions with radiating control, giving office holders the capacity to act and to command. It is not about external constraints and punishments, although those did exist; nor is it about the exercise of will; rather, it is about the imposition of a system of internal constraints that shaped beliefs and desires, and resulted in the consent to being dominated. In this way, the present book examines a type of power that prevented people from having or acting on grievances by shaping their perceptions and preferences in such a way that they accepted the existing order of things and their roles within it. It shows how power operated in the context of mid-seventeenth-century northeastern Eurasia, as well as how it came to be institutionalized in the construction of an early modern empire. In making such analyses, it is easy to fixate on power itself and to equate the drive to obtain it in manifest form with innate human ambition. While it is true that individuals will seek power for its own sake, it is no less true that power is never formless. This is most obvious in the conceptual distinction between power and authority, where the former refers to the ability to make others comply irrespective of their own volition and the latter compels others to act willingly because the commander’s power is legitimate.1 In a mature society, power is legitimized in preexisting institutions and positions, whereby the power seeker must navigate the existing context to obtain command—fighting for control over political resources to wield the existing state machinery, for example. In a period of formation, however, the 193

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context is less clear, as institutions and practices are either amorphous or inchoate. In these moments, vision—either articulated or assumed—becomes critical for the manifestation of power and the wielding of authority. The struggle, then, becomes less about position or political resources and more about the fate of society. In this latter situation, the power seeker must answer the question of the future and decide what form society ought to assume. Such was the situation of the Manchus in the mid-seventeenth century. A central premise of this book is that the Board of Rites was a key organization in determining both the form and function of power, authority, and legitimacy in the early Qing state. Generally speaking, what the Board of Rites did was to construct and enforce particular kinds of political relationships, and to constantly define and redefine the terms by which those relationships could take place according to particular interests. Furthermore, throughout the period under consideration, the Board of Rites continued to serve as a site where those relationships were contested and renegotiated. It accomplished as much by drawing on a certain concept of order and developing political practices and conditions of engagement that defined that order. The result was the organization of political actors into rigid hierarchies with behavioral prescriptions and ritual acts attached to the newly established social stations. The construction, implementation, and enforcement of a form of domination made the Board of Rites instrumental in the formation of the Qing state. The Board provided answers to pressing questions of authority and legitimacy, and it developed the practices and institutions to uphold them. In the early struggles among the imperial relatives, the Board of Rites offered a particular vision of imperial power that was structured and enacted through various behaviors and formal proceedings. This vision was seized upon by eventual Qing emperor Hong Taiji, who emerged as the victor of the early struggles for power; and was utilized by him to ensure that he and his supporters continued to monopolize political and symbolic resources. The system of imperial power and administrative operations put into place by Hong Taiji through the use of the Board of Rites, and further overseen and adjusted by Board personnel, facilitated the development of a particular political order and laid the grounds for empire. Even after the dust had settled and the basic structure and practices of Qing politics were determined, the Board continued to play an instrumental role in shaping the nature of ongoing struggles, both in routine maneuvering for political position and policy influence, and in the quest for the command of state resources. Indeed, the most instrumental political actors in this period either held positions in the Board or made use of it to achieve their ends. This administrative organ not only helped structure politics in the emergent Qing state but also supervised bureaucratic operations, providing disciplinary guidelines and regulations and ensuring that the diverse number of political actors, who often had divergent interests, pos-

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sessed a sense of common purpose. In short, it constructed the organizational reality of Qing politics.

The chapters of this book closely examined this process of Qing state-formation. Rather than focusing on war and bureaucracy—two areas of common scholarly concern—investigations here took up a third and equally important aspect: political discipline and domination. In this telling, there were two key stages: a period of formation, beginning with the establishment of the Board of Rites and the other five boards in 1631, and a period of institutionalization, culminating with the publication of the first Qing Huidian in 1690. While the reality of human activity is always messier than the order the mind tries to impose upon it, these dates serve as convenient markers to frame the emergence of the structure of the Qing state. Discussions initiated by the Board of Rites in late 1631 over the New Year’s Day proceedings resulted not only in a revamped New Year’s Day ceremony that would inform Qing politics and imperial practice for the next two and a half centuries but also aided some in struggles for power over others and the implementation of a centralized, hierarchical vision of the state. This ceremony, and the others that were modeled on it, shaped the outcome of the contest over political resources by crafting a context that would guide choices, leading some to support others and enabling wills to be carried out by setting the parameters for what others could not do. Over the subsequent decade, the Board of Rites continued to underwrite the quickening pace of rulemaking, largely through borrowing and redefining the principles of li. In the 1630s and 1640s, the role and position of the emperor gradually came to be constructed in terms of the legitimization of power and position, as well as in relation to other political actors. The ceremonies, rituals, and symbols set up to do this work defined the position of sovereign and elevated the individual in that role. Simultaneously, disparate groups of political actors were reconstituted as a cohesive administrative body through a system of positions and ranks distinguished by clothing and behavioral regulations. Manchus, Mongols, and Chinese were brought together alongside imperial relatives in service of the Qing state, as the choices of each political actor were shaped by the emergent system of discipline and domination. Institutionalization of this system began almost immediately but only reached its pinnacle in 1690 with the publication of the Da Qing huidian. Throughout the state-making process, the ruler, his staff, and other political actors worked tirelessly to develop, suggest, and impose rules that would solidify the gains made and to ensure power and position. The organization and activities of the New Year’s Day ceremony, for example, exemplified the attempt to elevate some over others and regulate command. Similarly, the regulations on court and imperial dress functioned to establish and maintain political roles in the ongoing struggles within

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and for the state. The greatest push for institutionalization occurred in the 1650s, however, with the occupation of Beijing and the beginning of the conquest of China proper. The establishment of the Imperial Clan Court to manage the imperial relatives was the first big move, for it not only enforced existing arrangements and regulations for this fractured and threatening group of political actors but also defined their role in the emergent state. Simultaneously, imperial dress worked to further clarify the emergent system of li and stabilize the position of the emperor and the nature of rule. Developments culminated with the publication of the Huidian in 1690, which was a compilation of the rules, regulations, and prescriptions that had evolved over the past sixty years, editing them into a form that gave articulation to the Qing state. LI IN THE QING

Throughout this process, Qing state-makers drew upon the concept of li to organize political actors. They simultaneously constructed new practices of li to shape behavior and interpersonal relations. This is to say, the concept of li as an organizing principle was a given, but it needed to be applied and implemented according to the immediate cultural and political context. In their state-building efforts, rulers and their allies found the general concept useful in defining politics to the extent that it was favorable to their vision of order and situated each political and military actor within a sociopolitical hierarchy that was constantly performed through ceremony, ritual, and dress. State-makers further elaborated this concept by attaching practices that orchestrated all aspects of social and political interaction, from greeting other persons on the road to the methods and forums for conducting administrative affairs. In this way, while the military enabled conquest and expansion, and the bureaucracy provided the institutional structure and protocol for government operations, li informed all actors of their place within the political system and shaped their behaviors and responses within. In short, state-makers employed li to structure domination, which helped the Qing state work the way that it did. While the concept of li remained constant—generalizable as the maintenance of a hierarchical political and social order with strict behavioral and ceremonial practices—the specific practices of li in the Qing were constructed anew to assimilate diverse actors and affirm the primacy to the sovereign. Confronting a novel set of political and cultural circumstances, Qing state-makers both drew on existing Chinese and Manchu practices as well as invented new ones to legitimize power and organize political actors in the construction of the Qing political system. Generally speaking, li in the Qing was transformed in two key ways: it gave greater primacy to the sovereign, and it worked to incorporate other political actors. In terms of the sovereign, Qing state-makers relied on li to help construct the role and position of emperor as an active political, moral, and social force that

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lorded over other political actors. The remaking of the New Year’s Day ceremony, for example, focused attention on the ruler by consigning all political actors in subordinate positions within the hierarchical political order, whereby some had more access to more political resources and could dictate what others could and could not do. The Qing ceremony situated the emperor as the main actor, who subjugated others and received subservience. This relational order was manifest in institutional form through practices like the kowtow and court audience, where the sovereign as emperor was not only removed from routine political challenge but also elevated to political mastery with the capacity to command other actors, either by force or the shaping of consent. The Qing further transformed the practices of li to accommodate new political actors. In constructing a political and administrative organization, state-makers mobilized various disciplinary techniques and practices to incorporate different ethnic groups and the imperial relatives. Most immediate was the multiethnic composition of the Qing administration. Unlike the Ming, who only employed Han Chinese, the Qing incorporated Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol administrators, and rewrote the rules of the state in order to not only coordinate these different groups but to also ensure that all were mutually invested as a cohesive body in Qing conquest and rule. Political actors of different ethnic groups were employed in the administration, and the boards each had a dual Manchu-Chinese presidency. This institutional order was enabled through the constant revision of regulation and practice in the mid- to late-seventeenth century in the development of political cohesion, as jurists issued stipulations for ceremonial and ritual ordering and harmonized practices such as mourning rites. Similarly, the imperial relatives were placed in service of the state. Whereas previous Chinese dynasties either excluded their relatives from politics or kept them engaged in posts far from the capital, the Manchus employed their imperial relatives in the running of the central government. Under Hong Taiji, they held ministerial positions and commanded armies. After his death, they contested for power among themselves, but did so under an implicit agreement to preserve the emergent state and its structures of power. When the Shunzhi emperor took the throne in 1651, he and his staff institutionalized the employment of the relatives and used them to fill key administrative positions. The relatives’ dual role both as insiders and close confidants of the throne as well as outsiders in the workings of the civil and military bureaucracies gave them a unique position in the late imperial Chinese state. For the duration of the Qing empire, the imperial relatives would continue to play important political and military roles, shouldering responsibility for the conquest and defense of the empire, as well as enacting and implementing key bureaucratic innovations. This system of li and the practices and regulations associated with it were not simply adopted or imposed upon existing institutional arrangements, nor were

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they made up. To the contrary, they emerged out of early contests for power, first over visions of the state, and then for control within the emerging institutional and symbolic frameworks. It was never foreordained that Nurhaci’s enterprise would result in an agrarian-bureaucratic empire run through a tax-office administrative state. Alternatives continued to be entertained, and organizational and administrative practices continued to evolve, even as the state took shape in the 1630s, with contestants articulating and acting on different arrangements premised on military organization and other traditions of control. Although Hong Taiji’s monopolization of political and symbolic resources and the establishment of the Qing empire all worked to begin to solidify political relations, internal tensions continued to shape the emergent order, necessitating further institutionalization. The relatives had to be tamed; the nature of Qing sovereignty needed to contend with Manchu and Chinese forms; and legalization of the regime had to be stated. Ready solutions to many of the problems of the day were offered by advisors and officials through consultation of the Ming Huidian, which provided a model on how to organize and command politics. Yet, at the same time, its shortcomings were apparent, as it was unable to respond adequately to the immediate political and cultural context of seventeenth-century Manchu state. The result, as ultimately reflected in the publication of the Da Qing huidian in 1690, was the Qing political system of institutions and domination as an amalgamation of old forms, both Chinese and Manchu, and new practices. T H E S T RU C T U R I N G O F Q I N G D OM I NAT IO N

Although 1690 marks the culmination of early Qing state-making, the evolution and development of the state did not stop there. The publication of the Kangxi Huidian in that year initiated a period of rulemaking and formalization.2 In both structure and content, this massive codification and compilation of regulations served as the model for further regulation and formal articulation of administrative activity. Some forty years after the publication of the first Huidian, an update was issued under the Yongzheng emperor, expanding the regulations and precedents, but adhering to the same structure and conventions established in the first edition. The Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Guangxu emperors all followed suit and issued updated and expanded editions of this administrative code. In total, the Qing produced five Huidian, which were the legal structure that informed the workings of the Qing state.3 Throughout all the editions and revisions, the underlying logic of the Huidian remained li, and it continued to inform the organizational structure and operation of the Qing state. Take for example, the last Qing Huidian, produced under the Guangxu emperor in 1899. The regulations of the Guangxu edition made up exactly one hundred volumes (juan), but were supplemented with over a thousand

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volumes of precedents that accounted for almost a century of developments and changes of political activity and administrative practice since the last update.4 Despite the new rules, and the variations on old ones, the Guangxu emperor emphasized that the core principle of the code was li. “The spirit of this book is to make clear the established regulations of li for administration,” he wrote. “Following and practicing it will achieve perfect goodness and perfect beauty [in governance].”5 At the heart of the government organization and administrative procedures of the Qing, the emperor implied, lay this principle of li. The structure of personnel, the rankings of officials, the means of transmission of policy and the execution of orders, even the clothes that officials wore, was all contained by it. “No matter if an official is civil or military, of the inner or outer court, pure or impure—no matter if his position is big or small, superior or inferior—all are subsumed absolutely by li.”6 For the Guangxu emperor, as was the case for his predecessors, the Qing political system was embodied by li, while oversight was the task of the Board of Rites. As evidenced here, the structure of domination and disciplinary practices formed in the seventeenth century, served as the foundation for much of what came after. The greater material and symbolic division of political resources of the sovereign enabled a strong patrimonial bureaucracy and increased the capacity of the late-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century emperors to act; the integration of the imperial relatives allowed for innovations in statecraft and central government institutions; and the centralization of the banners gave the Qing a strong military capacity that served it well in conquest and expansion. The sociopolitical and cultural forms that emerged in the seventeenth century continued to develop into the eighteenth century and contributed to the prosperity of the Qing state and the growth of Qing society. The case of the imperial relatives illustrates this influence.7 The role of the imperial relatives as agents in the Qing state formed a tri-partite political structure that included the emperor and nonrelative administrative officials.8 Over the course of the Qing dynasty, political resources, appointment of personnel, and delegation of tasks would be shared between these groups, with occasional struggles for greater control and power, and conflicts of particular agendas.9 This arrangement enabled the Qing to innovate administratively in ways that previous dynasties could not, laying the foundation for conquest and consolidation. In 1723, for example, Hong Taiji’s great grandson, emperor Yongzheng, appointed princes of the blood to the head of three administrative boards, while his younger half-brother, Prince Yi, was placed in charge of a secret military commission that later became the central administrative organ of the Qing, the Grand Council.10 These appointments allowed Yongzheng to centralize the administration and consolidate imperial power while at the same time command conquest of outlying territory and polities. Similarly, in the early nineteenth century, a son of the Daoguang emperor

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negotiated the Opium War settlement with the British; and when the provinces revolted in the early twentieth century, the generals protecting the capital were all imperial relatives.11 Successful in some areas, these changes were still not enough. Social structures did not change in ways that would enable flexibility to develop in new directions or afford different actors different opportunities and greater freedom of decision. Painting in broad strokes, those on the top would continue to collude with those in the middle against those at the bottom, which ensured a very limited range of possibilities for new forms of social, political, or economic life. In the last analysis, despite the institutional innovations leading to territorial expansion and a multiethnic state, another set of major structural reforms was necessary to facilitate the unlocking of greater productive powers and organizational capacities of human societies. When it finally came, it did so in the form of revolutionary upheaval, once in 1911 and again in 1949. In these instances, along with transformations in state and society, culture was also changed. New practices and new systems of li were constructed to give new meaning to new societies.12 L I I N C H I N E SE H I ST O RY

Although this book has focused on the Qing Board of Rites and its implementation of li as a form of domination in Qing state-formation, both li and political discipline are generalizable. The Qing employment of li as a disciplinary mechanism, and state-makers’ transformation of the political practices of li, was not a unique event in Chinese history; rather it sustained a trend of imperial Chinese states. Throughout history, state-makers seized upon the concept of li while changing the practices to accord with the immediate political and cultural circumstances. It goes without saying that these circumstances changed, both between dynasties and over the course of the rule of any single dynasty. Han state-makers, for example, attached a cosmological component to li when building an empire and confronting Daoist challenges;13 Tang emperors adapted and adjusted state ritual to harmonize with a shifting meaning of sovereignty;14 Song thinkers grappled with the question of to whom an adopted emperor should offer sacrifice, his biological father or adoptive father;15 and Ming officials changed imperial marriage rituals in order to manipulate the nature of familial relations.16 In each period of Chinese history, developments such as these testify to the malleable and indeterminate practices of li.17 No set form of li could be indiscriminately applied to yield a complete institutional order, nor was there a complete range of practices that would determine all political and social action. There was no quintessential Chinese state undergirded by singular philosophical concepts and utilizing a predetermined system of rituals and administrative practices. The practices of li were changed throughout history according to the immediate polit-

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ical and cultural circumstances of the time; they were refashioned to account for different political actors and shape their internal struggles for power and position. Although the terminology and principle of a hierarchical organization built upon ritual acts may have been preserved in the concept of li, the practices and their meaning shifted as the structure of the state was remade and reimagined. These insights on li help explain the structure and transformation of imperial and late imperial Chinese states. Notwithstanding similarities, different dynasties had different levels of political development with varying organizational structures. For example, the Tang had a strong aristocracy with oversized political clout, the Ming lacked a prime minister, and the Qing employed different types of actors in politics and administration. Even from these few references, it is clear that it is not tenable to equate all imperial Chinese states, nor does anyone really believe that they remained unchanged in political organization and practice from the Han to the Qing. Yet the reality of mutability must be reconciled not only with an everpresent idea of empire, but more fundamentally with the constant reference to li by contemporaries in each era as the organizing principle of state and society. Separating the concept from the practice and viewing the practices as contingent upon the immediate historical context permits us to make sense of this seeming contradiction. Such perspective brings into focus the logic of the state and its institutions and facilitates a better analysis of the changes and transformations throughout Chinese history.18 D OM I NAT IO N I N E A R LY M O D E R N E U R A SIA

The general problems the Manchus confronted in their seventeenth-century stateformation project were no different from other state-makers in the early modern world: how to build political order, discipline diverse actors with divergent interests, legitimize rule, and establish authority. In short, how to construct a system of domination? Shifting the focal point from war making and institution building, and concentrating more on organizational concepts of the state and disciplinary practices can help explain developments of early modern Eurasia. Whereas it is no longer viable to employ indivisible social types (e.g., feudalism, oriental despotism, etc.) and chart a linear trajectory of historical development (e.g., feudalism to capitalism, early modern to modern, etc.), historians still face the challenge of explaining general and clearly observable trends throughout the early modern world while still accounting for widespread institutional variation among states and empires. In historical terms, what I mean is this: Throughout the Eurasian continent, early modern rulers centralized power, conquered and consolidated territory, built up bureaucracies, and exercised far-reaching control throughout their realms. Beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a sharp reduction in the number

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of independent polities in Eurasia, as formerly independent territories and kingdoms were folded into larger cohesive units. This led not only to the centralization of authority under a single political formation, represented and ruled by a monarch, but also to new types of ruling practices and techniques that monopolized material and symbolic resources. In order to effectively wield this power, statemakers and empire-builders constructed ever more robust administrative apparatuses that extended control throughout the realm. Furthermore, rulers during this period developed new disciplinary techniques to invest political actors with a sense of common purpose to conquer and rule.19 To explain this convergence, historians have predominately sought out institutional isomorphism, focusing on shared organizational structures and practices, such as commercial institutions and law, extensive territorial and demographic mapping, or the growth of urban centers.20 Institutional differences, say, between the Ottoman empire and Tokugawa, are often overlooked in attempt to foresee the success or failure of modernization. The problem with such explanation is that it fails to account for the historical reality: these empires not only flourished in their time, but also dominated the world for centuries, and did so through vastly different institutions of domination. The fact is that different early modern states faced common political problems but responded to them differently. The given response by any one ruler was not arbitrary, nor was it premised on best practices that may have resulted in an absolute form of rationalization or efficiency. Rather, responses were conditioned by the immediate political and cultural circumstances. That the Manchus centralized power in an emperor, built a hierarchical administrative apparatus, employed the imperial relatives, and developed an integral system of social discipline and political legitimization based on li was not a necessary form, but rather the outcome of an internal struggle and the appropriation of existing cultural practices. The resultant institutional arrangement was premised on this local response, not an abstract social type, and it worked to both empower some over others and to expand and rule empire. Furthermore, the institutional arrangements that did emerge shaped state structure and pointed toward the future. How China would respond to more advanced forms of economic and military power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for example, was premised on developments which emerged from these early responses. More than just a non-Western contribution to explain key factors in stateformation that have already been identified in European history, the China case forces a rethinking of domination in early modern Eurasia. I have made the case elsewhere that imperial relatives stood at the heart of rulers’ concerns in early modern dynastic states and empires, and that a solution for dealing with the relatives was premised on the immediate political and cultural circumstances of a society.21 Abstracting that argument one level further leads to a questioning of

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the form of the political order and the role of the relatives in the political system. Here then, before concerns of conquest and the types of administrative organs, before settling on communication systems and tax extraction methods, rulers had to construct their own legitimacy and ensure that political actors were guided by interests that furthered those of the emergent state. In short, the problem of securing obedience lay at the heart of state-making efforts in the early modern world.

APPENDIX ONE

Sons and Grandsons of Nurhaci and Šurhaci Mentioned in the Text

The number adjacent the name corresponds to the biological order of the offspring. N U R HAC I’ S S O N S

1. Cuyen (1580–1615) • Oldest son • Brother of Daišan • Dudu (1597–1642) oldest son 1626 Made beile in old system of ranks 1636 Made beile in new systems of ranks 2. Daišan (1583–1648) • 1626 Appointed co-ruler • 1627 Supported Hong Taiji’s bid for the throne • Yoto (1598–1638) Eldest son 1626 Made beile in campaign against Mongols Supported Jirgalang peace over Amin’s war in Korea 1631 President of the Board of War 1636 Made qinwang but then accused of hiding the designs of Manggūltai and Šoto • Šoto second son 1643 executed for conspiring to make Dorgon emperor • Sahaliyen (d. 1636.5) Third son 1626 Made beile in campaign against Mongols 1631 President of the Board of Rites

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APPENDIX 1 5. Manggūltai (1587–1633)

• Brother of Degelei • 1626 Appointed co-ruler • 1631 Reprimanded for drawing sword against Hong Taiji and demoted for the New Year’s Day ceremony 7. Abatai (1589–1646) • Seems to have been a Hong Taiji supporter based on following: Not given beile title until Hong Taiji ascension in 1626 1631 President of the Board of Works 1638 Complained about lack of title and refused to attend a banquet for a Mongol chief; others demanded that he be punished but Hong Taiji merely gave him a light fine • Sons: Bolo, Yolo 8. Hong Taiji (1592–1643) • Hooge (1609–1648) Eldest son 1626 Made a beile 1636 Given rank of qinwang 1631 President of the Board of Revenue • Fulin (1638–1661) ninth son 1644 Became Shunzhi emperor 1650 Took over rule from regents 10. Degelei (1596–1635) • Brother of Manggūltai 12. Ajige (1605–1651) • • • • • •

Brother of Dorgon and Dodo 1626 Made beile after campaign against Mongols the previous year 1627 Given several niru in white banners but not given own banner 1636 Made junwang 1644 Made jiangjun 1650 Attempted to crown self as regent after Dorgon’s death but arrested by Jirgalang 14. Dorgon (1612–1650)

• 1626 Made hošoi beile 15. Dodo (1614–1649) • 1636 Made qinwang ŠU R HAC I’ S S O N S

2. Amin (d. 1640) • 1626 Appointed co-ruler

APPENDIX 1

207

6. Jirgalang (1599–1655) • • • • • • • •

Sixth son of Šurhaci but raised by Nurhaci 1625 Made beile from campaign to Mongolia led by Abatai 1627 Served under Amin in Korea and concluded peace agreement with the Korean king 1630 Received Amin’s bordered blue banner 1631 President of the Board of Punishments 1636 Made qinwang 1643 Coregent with Dorgon 1647 Removed by Dorgon on charge of usurping imperial privilege and demoted

APPENDIX T WO

Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji

Systematic record keeping for the Eight Banners did not begin until the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. Prior to that time, however, it is possible to piece together leadership and thereby chart the influence and power of the imperial relatives. This table shows Nurhaci’s sons in key positions during his tenure as ruler, and then the replacement of some as Hong Taiji rose and worked to install his supporters.

table 2 Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji

Plain Yellow Bordered Yellow Plain White Bordered White Plain Red Bordered Red Plain Blue Bordered Blue

Early Nurhaci

Nurhaci

1627

1636

Nurhaci

Nurhaci Nurhaci Hong Taiji Dudu Daišan Daišan Manggūltai Amin

Hong Taiji Hong Taiji Dodo Dorgon Daišan Yoto Manggūltai Amin

Hong Taiji Hong Taiji Dodo Dorgon Daišan Yoto Degelei/Hooge Jirgalang

Cuyen Daišan Šurhaci

source: Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguanqian guojia faluzhidu shi, 160–64; Sugiyama, “Hakki kiōsei no seiritsu.”

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APPENDIX THREE

A Note on Sources

The research for this book involved Chinese- and Manchu-language archives and documentary sources, including memorials and edicts, official statutes, and court histories and their unofficial drafts. Memorials and edicts from the preconquest and Shunzhi period, although significantly fewer than those from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are more abundant than scholars have long assumed. Documents from both the Hong Taiji and Shunzhi periods can be found in the Grand Secretariat Archive at Academia Sinica, Taipei, and the First Historical Archives, Beijing. The latter has a small but rich and under-utilized cache of documents from the Shunzhi period called “Beida yijiao tiben,” or “routine memorials moved from Peking University.” Among official court histories, the published version of the Shilu, or “Veritable Records,” is the most basic reference for the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Research for this book made ample use of the Chinese-language edition of the Shilu, and consulted Manchulanguage editions in Taipei and in Beijing.1 Of even greater value and interest to the historian is the Dorgon-era draft of the Shilu for the Hong Taiji period, the Da Qing Taizong wen huangdi shilu, which is closer in time to the period it discusses, and covers ground that the later finalized editions do not. It is written with less literary flourish, in favor of more straightforward and simple Chinese; and the only known copy now resides at the National Palace Museum library in Taipei.2 The Manchu-language court records of the seventeenth century complement the Shilu, and all of the various editions of these records in both their published and archival forms have been consulted. The Manbun rōtō and Manwen yuandang are the two most commonly used modern-day published versions of the Manchu records from the Nurhaci and Hong Taiji periods, and the Neiguoshiyuan dang are those for the later Hong Taiji and Shunzhi periods.3 Research here also drew on the originals at the Taipei National Palace Museum 209

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library and the First Historical Archives in Beijing, used to check the published transliterations and peek behind the lines of text crossed out by contemporary editors. Other primary sources include Qing statutes, memorials, and edicts. The five editions of the collected statues of the Qing dynasty, or Huidian are an invaluable resource for the scholar of the operations of the Qing state and its variations over time. The chapters of this book drew mostly on the Kangxi-era published edition of the Huidian, as it is the subject of analysis on the codification under question. Other editions from the Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Guangxu periods were also consulted in order to note the changes and evolution of various practices. The Kangxi and Yongzheng editions contain both the rule and the precedent, one following the other; beginning with the Qianlong edition, however, the precedents had grown too numerous and were extracted from the rule and placed in a set called zeli (Qianlong) or shili (Jiaqing and Guangxu). Archival documents and published primary sources are frequently found in both Chinese and Manchu—the Chinese reading right to left front to back, and the Manchu left to right back to front.4 Among memorials, there are discrepancies in phrasing and content between the two languages, especially in the early period, and it is not unusual to find the Manchu more explicit and containing greater detail. In the case of some documents, only one language’s version has been preserved. Manchu-language sources often give a fuller account of the activity than do the Chinese, at least in the early period. Where the Shilu might have a short mention of the practice of some ritual on a certain day, for example, the Manchu records go into great detail on what transpired. Take, for example, the New Year’s Day ceremony of 1636: The Chinese-language Shilu gives a simple account of the emperor visiting the Manchu temple and returning, and then lists the high-level participants of the ceremony, including the foreign embassies.5 The Manchu version, by contrast, considers all the officials and military personnel in attendance, whom they led in acts of submission to the emperor, and the sequence of their actions. The Manchu further details the organizing activity of Board of Rites officials, indicating which officials gave certain instructions at certain times.6 One explanation for this difference is that by the time of the final compilation of the Shilu in the mid-Kangxi period, editors assumed that readers would know what occurred during such rites and that the use of the correct signifier in the text would be enough to give all indication of what transpired and elicit the proper associations for readers.7 Furthermore, if more detail were required, the reader could turn to the Huidian that had recently been compiled. (The fact that the Manchu-language Shilu, issued simultaneously with the Chinese, is similar in its brevity, only bolsters the credibility of this explanation.) For the Manchu reader in the 1630s and 1640s, however, no such understanding could be assumed; everything needed to be spelled out. The details of li had to be recorded because the Qing Huidian was still a long way off and practices not yet standardized. The meaning of li had to be made clear, precedents had to be set, and the regulations had to be propounded. This was not just an assumption of audience of the day, but also an effort in rulemaking at a time when activities, relationships, and institutions were still being formalized.

abbreviations

R E IG N A B B R EV IAT IO N S

JJ Cz Tm Tc Cd Sz Kx Yz QL JQ Gx

Jiajing 1521–1567 Chongzhen 1627–1644 Tianming 1618–1626 Tiancong 1627–1636 Chongde 1636–1643 Shunzhi 1644–1661 Kangxi 1662–1722 Yongzheng 1723–1735 Qianlong 1736–1795 Jiaqing 1796–1820 Guangxu 1875–1908 A B B R EV IAT IO N S U SE D I N T H E N O T E S

BDTB CZBSL ECCP ECBZ FHA GSA GXHD GXHDSL HCLQTS JMZD

Beida yijiao tiben Chuzuanben shilu Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period. Qinding guoshi erchen biaozhuan First Historical Archives Grand Secretariat Archives Qinding da Qing huidian (Guangxu chao) Qinding da Qing huidian shili (Guangxu chao) Huangchao liqi tushi Jiu Manzhou dang 211

212

abbreviations

JQHDT KXHD MQNAF MR MWLFZZ MWYD MZSL NGSY QLHDZL QSG SKQS SL TCZY TZGSL TZSX TZWSL WLHD ZZ

Qinding da Qing huidian tu (Jiaqing chao) Da Qing huidian (Kangxi chao) Ming-Qing Name Authority File database Manbun rōtō Manwen lufu zouzhe Manwen yuandang Manzhou shilu Qingchu neiguoshiyuan Manwen dang’an Qinding da Qing huidian zeli (Qianlong chao) Qingshigao Siku quanshu Qing shilu Tiancong chao chengong zouyi Taizu gaohuangdi shilu Da Qing Taizong wenhuangdi shengxun Da Qing Taizong wenhuangdi shilu Da Ming huidian (Wanli chao) Zouzhe

notes

References cited in the notes are followed by volume and page number. This is followed by a date, where the two letters are the initials of the reign name followed by the year, month, and day of the lunar calendar separated by a period. Thus, MR 6.1049, Cd1.5.14 refers to the Manbun rōtō, volume 6, page 1049, the entry of which was made on the 14th day of the 5th month in the 1st year of the Chongde reign.

P R E FAC E

1. Two exceptions might be Ho Yun-yi’s study of the Ming incarnation of the Board of Rites (Ho, “The Organization and Functions of the Ministry of Rites in the Early Ming Period”) and Chia Ning on its relation to the Lifanyuan (see essays in Schorkowitz and Chia, ed., Managing Frontiers in Qing China). The former, however, focuses on suburban sacrifices while the latter on foreign relations. 2. For an analysis of this position, see Puett, “Ritual Disjunctions.” 3. Charles Hucker once wrote, “Anyone who works extensively with the Ming documents . . . cannot avoid the conclusion that proper government in the Ming view was largely a matter of performing the proper rituals” (Hucker, The Traditional Chinese State in Ming Times, 68). Yet his scholarship focused almost exclusively on administrative and organizational aspects of the state not pertaining to ritual. 4. Also see Di Cosmo, “Manchu Shamanic Ceremonies at the Qing Court”; Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China; Smith, “Ritual in Ch’ing Culture”; Waley-Cohen, The Culture of War in China, ch. 4. 5. For a discussion of sources, see Appendix 3. 6. This conceptualization of the process of state-making is derived from Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, and Unger, The Critical Legal Studies Movement, 17–20. 213

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Notes

1 . I N T R O DU C T IO N : L I A N D T H E Q I N G S TAT E

1. Although the sources are ambiguous, it appears that there was only one altar at this time for Heaven and Earth. Once the Qing entered Beijing in 1644, however, separate altars were used. 2. The number 3 often appears in Chinese ceremonies and rituals, although the meaning and significance of the particular number remains unclear. See Tan, “Shuzi ‘san’ ‘wu’ chongbai de fasheng”; Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors.” On auspicious numbers generally, see Wilkinson, Chinese History, 485–86. 3. What would later become known in the West as the infamous Chinese kowtow consisted of a set number of genuflections and prostrations, which were formalized by the Manchus according to occasion and performer. See Ke and Chi, “Xunfu tianxia”; Wilkinson, Chinese History, 107–8. 4. This account of the founding announcement and ceremony is taken from CZBSL 22.39a–51b. A slightly revised account can be found in the SL, 361.1a–63.1b. The MR 6.993 and MWYD 10.118 make only passing note of the event. 5. This definition of ritual is influenced by Puett, “Innovation as Ritualization”; Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences. For a full discussion see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 64–79. 6. The name Manchu was applied retroactively by Hong Taiji at this time in order to create unity. See Kanda, “Manzhou guohao kao.” 7. This legacy is reflected in both the territorial boundaries and the ethnic composition (see Elliott, “La Chine moderne”), as well as the political culture (see Keliher and Wu, “How to Discipline 90 Million People”; Keliher and Wu, “Corruption, Anticorruption, and the Transformation of Political Culture in Contemporary China”). 8. I refer to the state here and throughout as an organization that held not only a monopoly on the legitimate use of both physical force (Weber) and symbolic violence (Bourdieu) but also the power to set binding rules backed up by force (Mann). See Bourdieu, “Rethinking the State”; Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 37; Weber, “Politics as a Vocation.” 9. Recent works begin to touch on the matter. See Wang, “The Significance of State Sacrifice in the Early Qing”; You, “Cong hanguo dao diguo.” For a good discussion on the use of history to justify rule in the early Qing, see Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be?”. On the importance of the seventeenth century in Qing history see Keliher, “Qing Formations.” 10. Early scholarship saw this process in terms of primitive organization and military society gradually morphing into a Chinese-style tax-office state as the Manchus adopted Chinese ruling institutions and practices. Some representative works are Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguangqian guojia faluzhidu shi; Liu, Manzu cong buluo dao guojia de fazhan; Michael, The Origin of Manchu Rule in China; Roth Li, “State Building before 1644”; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise. More recently, historians have shown the importance of ethnicity and revealed organizational and administrative innovations that took place to build not just a Chinese-style dynasty but a multiethnic empire. For two good overviews, see Guy, “Who Where the Manchus?”; Waley-Cohen, “The New Qing History.” 11. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, 67; Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” 42.

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12. For a critique of this type of analysis, see Wong, China Transformed. 13. A good discussion of these trends in scholarship on the Mughal empire is found in Subrahmanyam, “The Mughal State—Structure or Process?” Also see Alam and Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State, 1526–1750; Richards, The Mughal Empire. The most representative work on the Ottoman empire is Finkel, The Administration of Warfare. A more recent discussion is Atcil, “State and Government in the Mid-Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire.” 14. See appendix 3 for a discussion of sources. 15. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution, xvi. 16. Patricia Thornton places a similar emphasis on discipline and moral imposition in different periods of early modern and modern Chinese history. Thornton, Disciplining the State. 17. Weber first made clear the relation between power, authority, and legitimacy in his discussions of domination: Weber, Economy and Society, 53–54, 941–54. This theme has received further refinement in the fields of sociology and organizational theory, e.g., Biggart and Hamilton, “The Power of Obedience”; Hall, “A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics.” 18. Weber, Economy and Society, 212 (emphasis in original). 19. To be sure, much of the scholarship from the New Qing History does this for ethnicity and the emergence of the multiethnic empire. See Crossley, A Translucent Mirror. For a political and institutional perspective see Sugiyama, Daishin teikoku no keisei to hakkisei. 20. This tendency is reflective in the titles of works highlighting the transformation of the Manchus, e.g., Liu, Manzu cong buluo dao guojia de fazhan; Spence and Wills, From Ming to Ch’ing; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise; You, “Cong hanguo dao diguo.” 21. See Şahin, “Staging an Empire.” 22. Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV. 23. Şahin, “Staging an Empire.” 24. While Ivan the Terrible married seven times, it is even more remarkable that two of the weddings were only six months apart. See Martin, A Bride for the Tsar; Martin, “Symbol, Ritual, and Dynastic Legitimacy in the Weddings of the First Romanov Tsars.” 25. Caneque, “On Cushions and Chairs.” 26. For a full discussion of early modern developments, see Keliher, “The Problem of Imperial Relatives in Early Modern Empires and the Making of Qing China,” 1007. 27. This finding corresponds with those of Graeber and Sahlins, who develop Hocart’s argument that government derives from ritual. Graeber and Sahlins, On Kings. 28. Historians often translate li as ritual or rites. With a few exceptions, this study resists such a translation because, in the words of Noah Fehl, there is “no suitable translation” (Fehl, Li, 3). Indeed, as discussed below, li was much more than simply rituals or rites, but embodied an entire social and political system. (For a full discussion, see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 41–43.) The Manchu term doro initially referred to sovereignty or a quality of rulership that was legitimate and righteous; it later came to take on expanded meanings, such as “ritual” and “ceremony” (see Di Cosmo, “Nurhaci’s Gambit,” 119). The term dorolon is first used in 1631 for the naming of the Board of Rites i.e., Dorolon i jurgan (see Li Guangyao and Li Xuezhi, Ming-Qing dang’an cunzhen xuanji, 23–24). 29. The conceptualization of the process of institutionalization culminating in a hardened legal code is developed from Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, and Unger, The Critical Legal Studies Movement, 17–20.

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30. The extended argument of the Huidian as administrative law is made in Keliher, “Administrative Law and the Making of the First Da Qing Huidian.” A further case for li as a form of administrative law is made in Ke Li, “Li zhe xingzhenfa ye.” 31. This is not to say that the Huidian reflected all political activity. Although precedents in the Huidian do show the government in operation, I do not examine how the Huidian was used in the running of the state. Rather, this book demonstrates how the political order and its operations were formed and then codified. 32. This source bears the same name as the official version produced in the Kangxi period, Da Qing Taizong wen huangdi shilu, but is written with less literary flourish and contains slightly different content. I refer to it in the notes and bibliography by its moniker in the archives at the National Palace Museum, Taipei: Chuzuanben shilu (CZBSL). For discussions of this source, see Chuang Chi-fa, Qing Taizong Hanwen shilu chuzuanben yu chongxiuben de bijiao; Matsumura, “Junchi shosan shin taisōjitsuroku ni tsuite.” 33. The first Qing Huidian was published in 1690 under emperor Kangxi and is referred to as the Kangxi Huidian. 34. For examples of studies focused on the actor see Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Man-Cheong, The Class of 1761. 35. I explore one aspect of effects on individual actors in Islam and Keliher, “Leading through Ritual.” 36. As McDermott wrote in the opening lines of an edited volume on state ritual in China, “Ritual has been a central concern of Chinese culture for at least four thousand years.” McDermott, State and Court Ritual in China, 1. 37. The evolution of li from ritual practices to a political system is discussed in Pines, “Disputers of the ‘Li.’ ” Xunzi’s innovations are explored in Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order; Sato, “Li as a Way to Order.” 38. Jiali huitong (1734). Quoted with adjustments in Smith, “Ritual in Ch’ing Culture,” 281. 39. See Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 41–58 40. Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order, 166. Also see Laidlaw, “On Theatre and Theory.” 41. See Jiang, The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code, 5–13. 42. Others have explored the ritual and the administrative systems separately, e.g., Smith, “Ritual in Ch’ing Culture” for the former; Metzger, The Internal Organization of Ch’ing Bureaucracy for the latter. 43. Rawski, The Last Emperors, and Waley-Cohen, The Culture of War in China, are two examples of scholarship that convey the legitimizing functions of li. Zito, Of Body and Brush, and Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, are examples of works that equate li with power. 44. Lukes, Power, 13. 45. A good example of this approach is Zito, Of Body and Brush. 46. A fourth transformation also occurred at the local level where literati developed a particular interpretation of li as an ideology of proper ritual practice at the expense of didacticism and debate. The local enforcement of the lineage and its ritual practices as the main institution in local society replaced horizontal networks and personal ties, becoming the predominant form of social control. See Chow, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism. For a discussion of the rise of the local literati and their influence in state and society see Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History, esp. ch. 4 and 7.

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47. Chang, A Court on Horseback; Crossley, “The Rulerships of China”; Crossley, A Translucent Mirror. 48. This discussion is based on Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China. 49. See Jiang, The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code. 50. Rawski, The Last Emperors. 51. Waley-Cohen, The Culture of War in China, 74. 52. Elliott, The Manchu Way, 4. 53. Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, 55. 54. Hevia, “A Multitude of Lords,” 80–82. 55. These developments can also be seen at the level of administrative organizations, where the relatives were instrumental in enabling the creation of new mechanisms of communication and control. See Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers; Spence, Ts‘ao Yin and the K‘ang-Hsi Emperor. 56. This point is explored more fully in Keliher, “The Problem of Imperial Relatives in Early Modern Empires and the Making of Qing China.” For a general overview, see Rawski, The Last Emperors, ch. 2 and 3. For a detailed exploration of the Qing hierarchy, see Du Jiaji, “Qingdai zongshi fenfeng zhishulun.” 57. Elliott, The Manchu Way, 154. 58. Jiang argues that the Ming attempted to obliterate ethnic distinction and turn others into Chinese. Jiang, “Thinking about ‘Ming China’ anew.” 59. The Qing-specific organizational structure of two presidents—one Manchu and one Han—jointly serving on each board makes the term “board” more appropriate than “ministry”; the latter term being used for the Ming, which assigned but a single president, or minister, to each board, or ministry. Cf. Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 97, who vacillate between the accuracy of the term “board” and the more familiar equivalent of “ministry.” 60. This nepotism was later abrogated in the Shunzhi period and a dual presidential command was set up with one Manchu and one Han serving jointly. 61. Many of these early Han Chinese officials serving the Manchus had been living in the northeast and dropped off the Ming radar. Subsequently, very little is known of their background. See below, pp. 38–40. 62. See below, chapter 3. 63. Liu, “Daoist Priests and Imperial Sacrifices in Late Imperial China.” 64. GSA 278678-013, Kx7.2.16. 65. Reed, Talons and Teeth. 66. The modern equivalent in the US would be the order of the cabinet secretaries entering the House chamber for the State of the Union address. 67. Wilkinson, Chinese History, 257–58. Also see corresponding entries in Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles. 68. Ho, “The Organization and Functions of the Ministry of Rites in the Early Ming Period,” 54–60; Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles, 306–7, 318–19. 69. The establishment of the Grand Secretariat later in the Ming put the boards under its direct responsibility and collectively became known as the outer court. 70. Ho, “The Organization and Function of the Ministry of Rites,” 11–12. 71. Ho, “The Organization and Functions of the Ministry of Rites,” 6–8, 61.

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72. Ho, “Ritual Aspects of the Founding of the Ming Dynasty.” 73. On literati in the early Ming, see Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy. 74. See Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History, chap. 4; Faure, Emperor and Ancestor; Szonyi, “Local Cult, Lijia, and Lineage”; Zheng, “Shenmiao jidian yu shequ fazhan moshi”; Zheng, Xiangzu yu guojia. 75. MR 6.1049, Cd1.5.14. 76. Qing feasts, cuisine, and their provisioning are discussed in Li Guoliang, “Bishu shanzhuang yushan zatan”; Wang Shuqing, “Qingdai gongzhong shanshi”; Wu Zhengge, Manzu shisu yu Qinggong yushan. 77. DMHD 3.1669. 78. KXHD 720.3813. 79. This continued to be the case in the Kangxi era, where banquets were used to build political support during the conquest. See Chang, “Of Feasts and Feudatories.” Also see the discussion of banqueting in the Qianlong court in Zito, Of Body and Brush. 80. The structural and institutional differences of the Qing from other dynasties, especially the Ming, have been of central concern to modern scholars. Some representative works are Guy, Qing Governors and Their Provinces; Peterson, “Introduction: New Order for the Old Order”; Rawski, “The Qing Formation and the Early-Modern Period”; Spence and Wills, eds., From Ming to Ch’ing.” 81. More recent studies and ventures to vindicate this position include Ho, “In Defense of Sinicization”; Huang, Reorienting the Manchus; Li Zhiting, “Xuezhe ping ‘xin Qingshi.’ ” 82. The foundational works of this interpretation include Crossley, A Translucent Mirror; Crossley, The Manchus; Elliott, The Manchu Way; Rawski, The Last Emperors. In recent years, scholarship has continued to fill in this picture. For a thoughtful overview and critique see Shen, “Xin Qingshi de remen he mendao.” 83. Despite the differences emphasized in this book, there are still salient continuities in the late imperial period. Politically see Spence and Wills, eds., From Ming to Ch’ing. Socially see Zheng Zhenman, Xiangzu yu guojia. 84. Guy refers to Qing institutional and administrative adjustment as “tinkering” in that it did not effect radical transformations over previous dynastic systems. Guy, Qing Governors and Their Provinces, 8–9. 85. In the words of Tom Tyler, “People obey the law if they believe it is legitimate, not because they fear punishment.” Tyler, Why People Obey the Law, 178. 2 . T H E M A N C H U A S C E N DA N C Y A N D S T RU G G L E S F O R P OW E R

1. The general history of the early Manchus has been well rehearsed. The most comprehensive outlines can be found in Liu Xiaomeng, Manzu cong buluo dao guojia de fazhan; Roth Li, “State Building before 1644,” 9–72; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise. For a succinct overview, see Elliott, The Manchu Way, ch. 1. 2. Di Cosmo, “Nurhaci’s Gambit.” 3. MR 2.653–54. 4. Crossley, A Translucent Mirror, 138–45; Li Xuezhi, “Qing Taizu shiqi jianchu wenti de fenxi”; Wada Sei, “Some Problems Concerning the Rise of T’ai-tsu, the Founder of the Manchu Dynasty.” Cf. Di Cosmo “Nurhaci’s Gambit” for a good discussion of Nurhaci’s legitimizing claims and empire building.

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5. Quoted in Roth Li, “State Building before 1644,” 36. 6. Fletcher introduced the term in “Bloody Tanistry: Authority and Succession in the Ottoman, Indian Muslim, and Later Chinese Empires,” and later developed it in “TurcoMongolian Tradition in the Ottoman Empire.” The concept has been employed and extended in Chan, “From Tribal Chieftain to Sinitic Emperor”; Togan, Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations. 7. The early Ottomans provide an example of how such a system of struggle was institutionalized. Before 1600 it was expected that the sons would fight among themselves and the strongest succeed the father. See İnalcık, “The Ottoman Succession and Its Relationship to the Turkish Concept of Sovereignty;” Pierce, The Imperial Harem. 8. Some doubt has been cast on the veracity of Nurhaci’s conflicts with Šurhaci and Šurhaci’s violent death. See Stary, “From ‘Clan-Rule’ to ‘Khan-Rule.’ ” 9. Li Hsueh-chih, “An Analysis of the Problem in the Selection of an Heir during the Reign of Nurhaci,” 174–81; Li Xuezhi, “Qing Taizu shiqi jianchu wenti de fenxi”; Okada, “How Hong Taiji Came to the Throne”; Roth Li, “State Building before 1644,” 35, 44–45; Wang Sizhi, “Huang Taiji cewei yu zhu dabeile de maodun.” 10. Amba beile in Manchu and da beile in Chinese. The two brothers were Daišan and Manggūltai, and the cousin was Amin. (Note: Beile does not mean “relative” but rather was a title. Because the only individuals holding the title at this time were brothers and cousins of the ruler, I have chosen to translate the term here as “relatives.”) 11. Like many of the early Qing political actors, there is almost no information on this official’s background or activity. The extent of what can be ascertained is that he surrendered around 1629, was a scholar, and had strong opinions about centralizing authority around a single sovereign. Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” 117; MQNAF, “Ma Guozhu”; QSG, 9517. 12. TCZY, 35b. 13. Jiang, Donghualu, 3.14. This event is not in the Manchu records, and its authenticity is further undermined by the fact that it is recorded merely as Hong Taiji’s reflection. Even if the conversation never happened, however, it illustrates the reality of a perceived tension between Hong Taiji and his relatives. 14. Roth Li, “The Rise of the Early Manchu State,” 123–24. 15. MR 5.539–43. Quote from QSG, 9000. 16. Xiao beile in Chinese. This term appears sporadically in the Tiancong-era Chineselanguage sources to contrast those relatives empowered by Hong Taiji and the four senior relatives anointed by Nurhaci, i.e., Daišan, Manggūltai, Amin, and Hong Taiji. See TZGSL, 140.2; TZWSL, 50.1, 54.2, 66.1, 265.2. The Chinese scholarship uses this term more broadly to refer to the group of sons of the senior relatives and younger sons of Nurhaci who supported Hong Taiji against the senior relatives. For example, see Du Jiaqi, Baqi yu Qingchao zhengzhi; Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi. There is no precise term used in the Manchu sources to refer to these men apart from the plural form of beile, beise. For example, see MR 4.108–9. 17. The Qianlong-era Shilu records the xiao beile as constituting ten individuals, which contemporary scholars have tended to follow. See Du Jiaqi, Baqi yu Qingchao zhengzhi, 129–30. Yao Nianci, rejects this narrow definition, however, on the grounds that other actors fit the definition. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, ch. 3; conversation with Yao Nianci, Beijing, June 2013. 18. TZGSL, Tm11.9.xinwei. See also Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 125.

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19. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 112. 20. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 193. 21. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 193. 22. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 178–82. 23. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 119. 24. TZWSL, 124.1–2, Tc5.7.8. 25. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 142–46. 26. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 124. 27. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 178, 182. 28. MR 4.410. 29. Fletcher, “Turco-Mongolian Tradition in the Ottoman Empire.” 30. Crossley, The Manchus, 54. See also Crossley, A Translucent Mirror, 138–67. 31. SL, 71.1, Tm1.4.4. 32. MZSL, 279.2, Tm4.8.19. 33. MZSL, 376.1, Tm10.1.14. 34. SL, 50.1, Tc2.5.23. 35. CZBSL 8.18b, Tc5.11.9. 36. SL, 46.1, Tc1.5.11. 37. The narrative of Dalinghe is recounted in detail in Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 170–86. 38. MR 1.46–48, WL43.6. 39. Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguanqian, 302–11. 40. This change in thinking can be seen in statements over the course of a sixteen-year period from the first year of his khanship in 1627 to the formation of the Hanjun in 1642. For some examples see SL, 46.1, Tc1.5.11; SL, 93.1, Tc4.2.22; JMZD, 156, Tc9.5.27; Baqi tongzhi, v. 1, Cd5.7. Although note that not all Chinese were placed in the Hanjun. 41. SL, 75.2, Tc3.10.20. 42. MR 4.383–86, Tc4.5.13. 43. Although Hong Taiji would win this struggle and establish a tax-office state, Qing statemakers also claimed estates worked by rusticated bannermen to serve the imperial household, akin to a feudal system. Isett, State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria, 29–30. 44. On Chinese officials in the Hong Taiji period see Chen Wenshi, “Qing taizong shidai de zhongyao zhengzhi cuoshi”; Guo Chengkang, “Shixi Qing wangchao ruguanqian dui hanzu de zhengce”; Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” esp. 13–78; Chen-main Wang, The Life and Career of Hung Ch’eng-Ch’ou; Wang Tingyuan and Wei Jianxun, “Shilun Huang Taiji zhongyong Hanguan de zhengce”; Zhi Guang, “Hanguan Fan Wencheng.” 45. For a brief discussion of Chinese on the Ming northeast frontier see Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 37–49. 46. A collection of memorials to Hong Taiji by Chinese advisors was compiled by Luo Zhengyu in 1924, and is the most comprehensive statement of their role and influence. TCZY. 47. See Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan”; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise. Also see Guy, Qing Governors. 48. The date of establishment of the six boards was Tc5.7.8. For an analysis of the document announcing the establishment of the six boards see Li Guangtao and Li Xuezhi, eds., Ming-Qing dang’an cunzhen xuanji, 18–23.

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49. NGSY 167–68, Tc7.10.10. 50. My reading of this event on 1633.10.10 derives from the NGSY document (NGSY 166–69). This event is also recorded in the CZBSL (12.36b), MZSL, SL (213.1), and in Kangxiand Qianlong-era compilations of Tiancong-era edicts (2.5a). The former reference is distinct from the latter set of documents in tone and content. In the NGSY, Hong Taiji makes it very clear that he is ruler and alone wields the power to shape the institutions of state. He does not aim to build a Chinese style government, he affirms, but rather to mold an administration with himself at the center and the relatives subjugated in bureaucratic roles. By contrast, the post-1644 documents portray the Chinese advisers in a positive light, and Hong Taiji’s tone is more conciliatory. 51. See chapter 3. 52. See chapter 5. 53. See chapter 7. 54. See chapter 8. 55. QSG, v. 239, 9507–12. 56. Institutional innovation and reform seem to have taken place from within existing frameworks, as officials in the early Qing moved to rationalize and adjust law, finance, and personnel. See Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 454–65. 57. This conclusion aligns with David Sneath’s findings that nomadic societies were organized not necessarily through kinship groups but rather in networks of elites who were confirmed not through private ownership but social relations. Sneath, The Headless State. 58. The tension between emperor and scholar is discussed in Ge, The Scholar and the State. For an unglamorous portrait of the Ming emperor as incompetent in the face of bureaucratic maneuvering, see Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance. 59. Roberto Unger has theorized these types of developments in human societies in False Necessity and Plasticity into Power. 3 . T H E N EW Y E A R’ S DAY C E R E M O N Y

1. The description is drawn from MWYD 8.50–51; MR 5.619–21. The original file of the MWYD can be found in the National Palace Museum under file number 111000002. For a full translation see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 83–84. 2. Visiting the shrine, or tangse, was a practice with Inner-Asian origins. See Inoue, “Shinchō kyūtei shamankyō siden ni tsuite,” 89–90; Mo Dongyin, Manzu shiluncong, 189– 95; Du Jiaji, “Cong Qingdai de gongzhong jisi he tangzi jisi kan Sa-Manjiao.” It continued to be emphasized as the core of the Qing New Year’s Day ceremony in the writings of Qing scholars and officials. Cha Zhenxing, Renhaiji, 8, 121; Qinding manzhou jishen jitian dianli (1747), 1.25; Suo Ning’an, Manzhou sili ji (1795), 1a–b, 36a–b; Xiao Shi, Yongxianlu, 75. 3. For a detailed outline of the early ceremony and translation of existing records see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 87–92. 4. MR 1.67. Most of the early records are from Manchu sources; Chinese-language sources, by contrast, do not begin covering New Year’s Day ritual practices until the beginning of Hong Taiji’s reign, and even then, only lightly. 5. MR 1.76. 6. MWYD 2.336; MR 2.465.

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7. MWYD 4.177–79; MR 2.881. 8. MWYD 6.3. See also MR 4.1–2. 9. See MWYD 6.162–79, 229 (Tc2), 6.299 (Tc3), 6.445–46 (Tc4), 7.309, (Tc5). 10. MWYD 6.3. 11. CZBSL 8.29b, Tc5.12.28. He went on to propose the correct order. More on this below. 12. MWYD 6.3. The ceremony is also recorded in CZBSL 2.1a. 13. MWYD #111000001. Although this document is reproduced in the recently published slides of the MWYD (6.3), the text is unreadable, thus necessitating reference to the original. 14. CZBSL 8.29b–31a. For a complete translation of this document see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 107–8. 15. See Schlesinger, A World Trimmed with Fur, ch. 1. 16. The case of the fourth senior relative, Amin, also speaks to this point. See chapter 2. 17. CZBSL 8.29b–31a. 18. CZBSL 8.31a. 19. MWYD 8.51. See also MR 5.620–21 (emphasis added). 20. MWYD # 111000039. This document is also reprinted in MWYD 8.339–41, although the photographic reproduction makes the crossed-out sections illegible. This document is not contained in MR but most certainly dates to sometime after 1632, when dots and circles in the Manchu script were consistently used and verb endings were standardized with “fi” instead of “bi,” as in “hengkilefi” (the original 1632 document reads “hengkilebi”). 21. MWYD 8.51. See also MR 5.621. 22. It is unclear who is this individual or whether it refers to the “fourth beile.” 23. MWYD 4.177–79; MR 2.881. Banner assignments are discussed in Chen Jiexian, “Hou Jin lingqi beile luekao”; Kanda, “Shinchō no beile ni tsuite.” 24. On the organization of the banners in battue and geographical station see Liu, Manzu cong buluo dao guojia, 146–51; Wang Tianping, “Qingdai baqi zhidu.” On the origins of this formation see Zhao Lian, Xiaoting zalu, 219. 25. KXHD 715.1916–17. 26. This summary of the Qing New Year’s Day ceremony is based on seventeenth-century precedents in Beijing. See KXHD 715.1917–1931. 27. NGSY 1; CZBSL 11.1. 28. NGSY 1; CZBSL 13.1. 29. JMZD 9; CZBSL 18.2b. 30. NGSY 142; CZBSL 27.1a. 31. CZBSL 30.1. 32. NGSY 1.503. 33. CZBSL 13.1. 34. CZBSL 18.1a. 35. KXHD 715.1920–30. 36. MWYD 10.185–88, Cd1.5.14; MR 6.1050–52. See also KXHD 715.1917. 37. Affirmation of this structure in the late Kangxi period is made by Cha Zhenxing, Renhaiji, 121. 38. TCZY 1.5a, Tc6.1.8.

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39. They would have turned to the fourth and most recent edition of the Ming statutes, which was issued by the Wanli emperor in 1587. This definitive administrative code outlined the workings of the six boards and the operations of the state. It served as the basis of knowledge about the state structure and the duties and responsibilities of each board in the Ming government, and would similarly serve the Manchu state in the same capacity until the issuing of the Kangxi Huidian in 1690 (see chapter 8). 40. This summary is from DMHD 2.803–7. Translations and description can be found in Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 278–82. 41. The Ming emphasis is clarified in a late Ming ritual manuscript, Ni lizhi (c. 1642), which emphasizes the organization of the bureaucracy. See Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 288–89. 42. See chapter 6. 43. The Ming order and its rationale are discussed in Jiang, The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code, 146. 44. NGSY 1–2, Tc8. 4 . T H E I N S T I T U T IO N O F T H E E M P E R O R

1. See Zito and Barlow, eds., Body, Subject and Power in China; Zito, “Ritualizing Li: Implications for Studying Power and Gender”; Zito, Of Body and Brush; Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar; Rawski, The Last Emperors, esp. 202–7. 2. See chapter 3. 3. TCZY, 3.10a–11a, Tc8.12.14. 4. Tsai Sung-yin makes the case that Chinese advisors did not begin to use huangdi or huang shang as terms of address until the Chongde years. My own investigations of contemporary materials confirm this finding and indicate advisors used the Chinese term han to refer to Hong Taiji. See Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” 252–72. 5. TCZY, 3.10a–11a, Tc8.12.14. 6. On debates in the late Hong Taiji period over the extent of territorial rule see Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” chap. 5. 7. SL, 284.1. 8. The original edict is in the Grand Secretariat Archive, GSA 163606, Cd1.5.14. A draft copy can be seen at GSA 167435. It is also contained in altered form in the MWYD, 10.185–88 and MR 6.1050–60. 9. KXHD, 715.1915. This stress on deliberations and revisions should be contrasted with the Ming Huidian, which emphasized that Ming ritual practices were derived from antiquity. WLHD 2.803. 10. KXHD 715.1934. 11. KXHD 715.1937. 12. MR 7.1462–65, Cd1.11.25. 13. The gates for officials are named in NGSY 3.291 and KXHD 716.2014–19. 14. The section of the Kangxi-era Huidian that covers the rite is 715.1937–42. On officials performing the rite in their yamen see KXHD 715.1942. For a case of performing the rite in the provinces see BDTB 02-01-02-2131-018, Sz11.2.27. 15. The memorial contains both languages. BDTB 02-01-02-2130-023, Sz11.1.23.

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16. BDTB 02-01-02-2130-024, Sz11.1.23. 17. BDTB 02-01-02-2200-009, Sz11.1.23. The rescript simply says to inform the Board of Rites which officials should be sent to make offerings. 18. For a discussion of documentary confusion over which day the ceremony actually took place that year, see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 331n21. 19. The ceremony is detailed in NGSY 3.291–93, Sz11.2.2. 20. Especially see McKnight, The Quality of Mercy. 21. GSA, 107569, Cd5.10.25. I have drawn on corresponding passages in the CZBSL to help fill in the illegible sections. See CZBSL 34.11a. For the sake of clarification in the translation, the list of numbers attached to the enumerated crimes has been added. 22. TCZY 1.35b, Hu Gongming, Tc7. 23. TCZY 33b, Ning Wanwo, Tc7.7.22. 24. TCZY 36a, Chen Tinglin, Tc7.9.5. 25. TCZY Wang Wenkui, Tc7.7.22. 26. TCZY 1.43b, Ma Guangyuan, Tc6.11.28. 27. TCZY 1.46a. This part of the bureaucracy was based on the Ming structure and would be responsible for monitoring the flow of documents between the emperor and the boards. See Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles, n. 3793 28. TCZY 2.1b, Ma Guozhu, Tc7.1.19. 29. TCZY 1.29a, Li Qifeng, Tc6.9. 30. TCZY 3.22a, Fan Wencheng, Tc9.2.16; TCZY 3.23a, Ning Wanwo, Tc9.2.16. 31. TCZY 3.15a, Bao Chengxian, Tc9.1.24. 32. MWYD 10.187; MR 6.1053, Cd1.5.14. 33. KXHD 716.1978. 34. KXHD 716.1986–88. 35. KXHD 716.1988–91. 36. KXHD 716.2000–2001. 37. KXHD 716.2006–2011. 38. This is not to say that the emperor was beyond reproach, for throughout the Qing era officials regularly spoke critically and voiced disagreement with the emperor on policy. 39. MR 6.1084, Cd1.5.29; SL, 377.1. 40. MR 7.1442, 1445, 1447, 1448–50, Cd1.11.15. 41. NGSY, 616–17, Cd3.10.1. The presentation of the ritual calendar is discussed in Williams, “The State Religion of China during the Manchu Dynasty.” Other scholars have interpreted the presentation of the ritual calendar in more metaphysical terms, e.g., Rawski, The Last Emperors, 214; Gernet, China and the Christian Impact. In their estimation, the ritual calendar was a means to control space and time. My evidence shows the ritual calendar could also serve as a political tool to both represent the sovereign and to routinize sociopolitical order. 42. BDTB 02-01-02-1982-021, Sz11.4.14. The imperial rescript can also be found in GSA 294426-100. 43. BDTB 02-01-0201982-023, Liu Zhengzong, Sz11.5.3. 44. Some examples are GSA 185043-066, Zhang Mingjun, Sz1.7.3; BDTB 02-01-02-1976003, Tong Fengcai, Sz5.8.27; BDTB 02-01-02-2131-018, Dong Guoqi, Sz11.2.27; BDTB 02-0102-1982-021, Hu Shian, Sz11.4.14.

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45. KXHD 716.1985. 46. On the use of bloodline to legitimize rule see Weber, Economy and Society, 1135–39. 47. For a brief overview of the Qing imperial nobility see Elliott, The Manchu Way, 79–81. 48. There is surprisingly very little historiography on tomb sacrifice in the early Manchu state. Most research focuses on later Qing emperors and their graves, e.g., Lu Haiying, Shenjing sanling; Lu Haiying, Shenjing yongling; Rawski, “The Imperial Way of Death”; Rawski, The Last Emperors, 72–75, 208–10; Qingdai diwang lingqin; Williams, “Worshipping Imperial Ancestors in Peking.” 49. MR 6.1095–96, Cd1.6.1. 50. KXHD 718.3185. 51. See KXHD 718.3149; de Groot, The Religious System of China, 3.1353–68. 52. KXHD 718.3184–85. 53. For example, see KXHD 718.3149–53, 3157, 3185–57. 54. MR 3.965, Tm10.3.3. 55. MR 5.690, Tc6.2.9. 56. After occupying Beijing, the emperor rarely made the trip north to sacrifice at the ancestral tombs. The Shunzhi emperor attempted to go a few times but failed in his endeavor, first as a result of the ongoing civil war and then acquiescing in arguments from his staff against the journey (see Chen Tzu-hui, “Qing shizu li hanzhengce,” 27). Only well into the Kangxi reign did the emperor return. KXHD 718.3157. 57. NGSY, 732–35, Cd3.12.29. 58. KXHD 718.3028. 59. Shengjing tongzhi, 2.1b; Qinding Shengjing tongzhi, 19.3b. 60. SL, 363.1, 364.1. 61. GXHD 5.747-1. 62. These two names usually refer to the same temple. In the sources, mafari miyoo is used earlier, and tai miyoo was introduced shortly afterward. The former term is used in the MWYD/MR, both before and after the introduction of the latter term, but often to refer to the same temple. I account for the dual usage of these nouns by the lack of standardization of language and names in the early period of Manchu record keeping. 63. MWYD 10.75; MR 6.956, Tc10.3.4. 64. MWYD 10.110; MR 6.986, Tc10.04.03. 65. MWYD 10.118; MR 6.993, Tc10.4.11. 66. MWYD 10.119; MR 6.994, Tc10.4.12. 67. CZBSL 22.43a–44a, Tc10.4.12. 68. CZBSL 22.50a, Tc10.4.11. 69. See especially CZBSL 22.43a. 70. MWYD 10.179; MR 6.1044–45, Cd1.5.10. 71. MWYD 10.279; MR 6.1136–37, Cd1.6.16. Further examples can be found in Cd3: NGSYc, 292, 350, 370, 378, 386, 387, 391. 72. These four stipulations were promulgated together and interspersed with the five for the tombs. I have separated them here for analytical purposes. The fifth regulation of this edict was for practices on the day of Nurhaci’s death. Although this edict does not give instructions for activity at the ancestral temple, activity did take place at the temple on

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Cd3.8.11. See NGSYc, 527. Furthermore, the Huidian lists this day as one of the days for sacrifice. See KXHD 718.3028. 73. MWYD 10.239–40; MR 6.1095–96, Cd1.6.1. 74. MWYD 10.333–38; MR 6.1180–86, Cd1.7.14. 75. For more on the psychological aspects of ritual in the processes of institutionalization, see Islam and Keliher, “Leading through Ritual.” 76. GSA 087634, Sz1.6.21. 77. GSA 087634, Sz1.6.21. 78. This is a particularly interesting development, since Hong Taiji had rejected any connection with the Jin. See Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be?” 79. GSA 185043-018 (p. 3), Sz1.7.7. 80. GSA 185043-018, Sz1.7.7; GSA 185043-047, Sz1.7.20. The matter was not settled until thirteen and a half years later, when the Shunzhi emperor drew a clear distinction between the Qing and Jin, relegating the latter to a distant and separate bloodline. “As far as I am concerned,” the Shunzhi emperor said, “Heaven’s blessing upon our dynasty has nothing to do with the Jin” (SL, 827.1, Sz14.1.15). 5 . T H E A DM I N I ST R AT I V E O R D E R A N D I T S E NAC T M E N T

1. See Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguanqian guojia faluzhidu shi; Lei Bingyan, Qingdai baqi shijue shizhi yanjiu; Rawski, The Last Emperors, ch. 2; Yang and Zhou, Qingdai baqi wanggong guizu. A short discussion of the significance of ranks in ceremonial practice is found in Sugiyama, “The Ch’ing Empire as a Manchu Khanate,” 33–35. 2. This approach helps explain the distinctive nature of the Qing legal and political orders, and how they differed from those of previous states, and changed over time. Contrast this with a Weberian approach that takes contemporary articulations as the expression of a timeless Chinese law. For an example of the latter, see Ch’ü, Law and Society in Traditional China. 3. An analysis of the indeterminacy of li in different time periods in China is discussed in Keliher, “State Ritual and Political Culture in Imperial and Late Imperial China.” Examples of European practices can be found in Elias, The Civilizing Process; Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV. 4. TCZY 1.20a–21a, Wang Wenkui, Tc6.8. For biographical information on Wang, see chapter 2. 5. GSA 278678-030, Kx11.8.11. 6. TCZY 1.20b, Wang Wenkui, Tc6.8. 7. TCZY 1.31a, Wang Shun, Tc6.9.24. 8. TCZY 1.20b, Wang Wenkui, Tc6.8. 9. TCZY 1.31b, Wang Shun, Tc6.9.24. 10. TCZY 1.27a–29b, Li Qifeng, Tc6.9. Also see Wang Wenkui cited above, who said explicitly that the matter of clothing is the most important. 11. GSA 185043-040, Sz1.7.17. 12. GSA 278678-034, Kx13.12.13. 13. TCZY 1.20b, Wang Wenkui, Tc6.8. 14. TCZY 1.20b, Wang Wenkui, Tc6.8. 15. TCZY 1.29a, Li Qifeng, Tc6.9.

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16. MR 5.687, Tc6.2.4. 17. SL, 193.2, Tc7.6.9. 18. MR 5.868, Tc6.12.2; CZBSL 10.32a–33b, Tc6.12.2. The Shilu inexplicably puts this date at Tc7.6.9. 19. The material significance of furs in Manchu society is discussed in Schlesinger, A World Trimmed with Fur. 20. MR 5.868–70, Tc6.12.2; CZBSL 10.32a–33b, Tc6.12.2. 21. See Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi tanwei, esp. ch. 4.1. 22. TZWSL, 376.1, Cd1.5.14. 23. See KXHD 716.2308–44; MWYD 10.299–304, Cd1.7.1; MR 6.1153–57, Cd1.7.1. Interestingly, the Manchu documents only record the regulation for women. It could be that the other sections were lost or omitted. 24. KXHD 716.2308. 25. This was changed in Sz9 to a ruby with ruby inlay. KXHD 716.2313. 26. See esp. MWYD 10.299–304, Cd1.7.1; MR 6.1153–57, Cd1.7.1. 27. NGSYc, 506–9, Cd3.8.5. 28. NGSYc, 509, Cd3.8.5. 29. MR 5.870, Tc6.12.2. 30. MR 5.869–71, Tc6.12.2; CZBSL 10.32b–33b, Tc6.12.2. 31. NGSYc, 507–9, Cd3.8.5. For depictions of the emperor’s hat see figures 2.2 and 2.3. 32. SL, 84.1, Sz1.9.2. 33. GSA 153290, Zhang Xian, Sz2.6.22 (emphasis added). 34. GSA 038683, Libu, Sz2.6r.6. 35. SL, 288.2–289.1, Sz4.12.23. 36. KXHD 716.2308–44. Also see Qingding fusemao yu yongli. 37. MR 6.1124–25, Cd1.6.11. 38. MR 6.1124–27, Cd1.6.11. 39. NGSYc, 513–14, Cd3.8.5. Such greeting rites were also extended to the field administration when it was established in the early Shunzhi period. See Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 389–92. 40. MWYD 8.99, Tc6.02.04; MR 5.686, Tc6.02.04. For depictions of imperial umbrellas see figure 4. 41. MR 6.1027, Cd1.5.1. 42. KXHD 716.2289. 43. KXHD 716.2290. 44. KXHD 716.2291. 45. MWYD 10.185–86, Cd1.5.14; MR 6.1050–52, Cd1.5.14. 46. MR 6.1052–53, Cd1.5.14. 47. NGSYc, 142–64, Cd3.1.1. 48. For example, see GSA 5632 for wanshoujie on Sz12.9.14, and GSA 89712 for the Winter Solstice on Sz12.10.4. 49. Sugiyama came to a similar conclusion relying on later materials. He also notes some of the distinctions in privileges. See “The Ch’ing Empire as a Manchu Khanate.” 50. These quotes are from the CZBSL 16.8a-b. The TZWSL differs slightly: TZWSL, 289.1. This passage is also cited in full and discussed in Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguan qian, 446–47.

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51. For brief overviews see Elliott, The Manchu Way, 78–81; Rawski, The Last Emperors, 74–75. 52. See Guo and Zhang, Qing ruguan qian, 447. 53. See Yao, Qingchu zhengzhi, 194. 54. Although only these three ranks were set at the time, the title of “gushan beizi” begins to show up around the same time. See TZWSL, 384.2–386.1. Other titles, such as “zhenguo gong,” do not begin to appear until later. See TZWSL, 574.2. 55. These six were all banner owners (Hong Taiji being the owner of the other two banners), and the originally entitled individuals who were referred to as “ru bafen,” or inside the banner division. All other relatives were said to be “weiru bafen,” or not inside. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 194. 56. MR 6.1014–16; CZBSL 12.66a–67a; TZWSL, 372.2–373.1, Tc10.4.23. 57. Yang Xueshen and Zhou Yuanlian detail the establishment of a deeper set of ranks on this date and more people being entitled. It appears they have followed later sources, however, particularly Qingchao wenxian tongkao. The MR and both of the Shilu editions say it was three ranks, and neither mentions Sahaliyen, most likely because he had just died. Yang and Zhou, Qingdai baqi wanggongguizu, 38–40. 58. MR 6.1109–13, MR Cd1.6.6. Also see CZBSL 22.83a. 59. How the system of ranks undermined the joint council is taken up in Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 194–97. 60. Hong Taiji makes this case in an edict on Cd1.6.6. See MR 6.1109–13; CZBSL 22.82b– 83a. 61. Quotes from CZBSL 28.6a–7b. See also NGSY, 409–12; SL, 550.1, Cd3.7.1. 62. In order to convey the lack of territorial control of the relatives, English translation for the first two ranks follows Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China. Translations of subsequent ranks follow Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Clunas prefers “king” over “prince” for comparable titles for Ming imperial relatives—a translation that I resist for the Qing on account of the lack of appanages or territorial command in the case of Qing relatives. Clunas, Screen of Kings, 13, 201n24. 63. NGSY, 509. 64. NGSY, 511. 65. NGSY, 510. 66. NGSY, 512. 67. NGSY, 512–13. 68. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 194. 69. CZBSL 22.84b, Cd1.6.11. 70. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 194–96. 71. NGSY, 506–9, Cd3.8.5. 72. KXHD 716.2219–24. The regulations for the Shunzhi and Kangxi years are on pages 2224–27. 73. KXHD, 720.3814. 74. KXHD, 720.3821. 75. KXHD 716.1977–78. 76. KXHD 720.3827.

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77. This has been theorized by Foucault as “biopower” (see Discipline and Punish; The History of Sexuality), and Bourdieu as the “bureaucratic field” (see Bourdieu, “Rethinking the State”). 78. NGSY, 698, Cd3.13.5. 79. SL, 575.1, Sz10.2.29. 80. BDTB 02-01-02-2130-016, Hu Shian, Sz10.2.29; BDTB 02-01-02-2130-024, Langkio, Sz11.1.23. 81. GSA 278678-030, Kx11.8.11. 82. GSA 278678-034, Kangxi, Kx13.12.13. 83. GSA 120775, Libu, Kx19.10.9. 84. SL, 550.2, Cd3.7.1. 85. SL, 305.1–2, Yz2.4.15; SL, 319.2–320.1, Yz2.5.4. 86. SL, 107.2–108.1, Kx22.4.5. 87. MR 6.1144, Cd1.6.24. 88. This case was assembled from the following documents: ZZ 04-01-01-0252-002, Zhong Yin, QL27.4.30; ZZ 04-01-012-0112-064, Zhong Yin, QL27.5.24; MLZ 03-0179-1942028, Grand Council, QL27.5r.9; SL, 369.1–2, QL27.4.12; SL, 392.2–393.1, QL27.5.13; SL, 394.2– 395.1, QL27.5.17. 89. ZZ 04-01-01-0252-002, Zhong Yin, QL27.4.30. 90. SL, 394.2–395.1, QL27.5.17. 91. GSA 016612, Lu Xiaojin, Sz3.3.28. 92. SL, 293.2, Yz8.7.26. 93. See Yuan, “Dressing for power.” 6 . I M P E R IA L R E L AT I V E S I N SE RV IC E O F T H E S TAT E

1. Wang, The Ming Prince and Daoism, 10. 2. Wang, The Ming Prince and Daoism, 4–10. 3. DMHD 1.57–59. 4. DMHD 1.60. 5. DMHD 2.803–4. 6. DMHD 2.812–14. 7. DMHD 2.817–19. 8. DMHD 2.820a. 9. DMHD 2.836. 10. Rawski, The Last Emperors, 94. 11. Wang, The Ming Prince and Daoism, 15. 12. Chan, The Glory and Fall of the Ming Dynasty, ch. 9–10; Huang, “Fiscal Administration during the Ming Dynasty”; Hucker, “Ming Government,” 24–25. 13. It should be noted, however, that a good deal of Qing finances went to supporting the eight banners and the conquest military caste—as much as 20 to 25 percent of state revenues. Elliott, The Manchu Way, 311. To make a more accurate comparison one would then have to include at least some of the expenses of the Ming military. 14. On the divergent interests of the ruler and his administration, see Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires.

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15. For an analysis of this problem in the Ming, see Huang, “Ni Yuan-Lu’s Realism”; Huang, “The Lung-Ch’ing and Wan-Li Reigns,” 529–30. 16. Huang, “The Lung-Ch’ing and Wan-Li Reigns,” 557; Kuhn, Soulstealers. 17. See Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance. 18. A more favorable view of Ming eunuchs is found in Tsai, The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. Also note that Qing rulers had their own issues with eunuchs. See Kutcher, Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule; Kutcher, “Unspoken Collusions”; Zheng Tianting, Qingshi tanwei. 19. CZBSL, 28.6a–7b, Cd3.7.1. 20. NGSY 1.332, Cd3.7.16. 21. NGSY 1.506; SL, 879a–80a, Cd8.1.13. 22. SL, 881a–b, Cd8.1.26. 23. SL, 907b–8a, Cd8.8.5. 24. SL, 712b–13a, Cd5.12.3. 25. SL, 907b–8a, Cd8.8.5. 26. He was accused by Tantai, a senior commander in Hong Taiji’s banner. SL, 484a, Cd7.8.6. 27. This case is found in Chongde sannian hanwen dang’an, 21–22; TZWSL, 543.2–44.1. 28. See Tsai Tsung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” 210–11. 29. Chongde sannian hanwen dang’an, 25. 30. SL, 484a, Cd7.8.6. Accusations also flew among the relatives over the failure to mourn the death of Hong Taiji’s consort in 1642. Merrymaking one evening by Prince of the Blood of the Second Degree Ajige, Nurhaci’s twelfth son and Hong Taiji’s younger brother, for example, was denounced and it was recommended that he and eight others in attendance be stripped of their rank and reduced to commoners (SL, 869b–70a, Cd7.10.29). Prince of the Blood of the Second Degree Adali was separately accused of improperly observing the death of Hong Taiji’s consort (NGSY 1.506; SL, 879a–80a, Cd8.1.13). 31. SL, 712b–13a, Cd5.12.3. 32. See Chan, “From Tribal Chieftain to Sinitic Emperor”; Fletcher, “Turco-Mongolian Tradition in the Ottoman Empire.” 33. On this point especially see Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 250–60; Li Ge, “Guanyu Duoergun yongli Fulin wenti.” 34. There is a fair amount of scholarship on the succession in English, Japanese, and Chinese, but much of this scholarship takes the episode as an event in the inevitability of the Qing conquest. By contrast, I see it as a process of institutionalization. For works in English see Dennerline, “The Shun-Chih Reign,” 74–79; Lui, Two Rulers in One Reign; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 298–99. Most of the Japanese scholarship on the matter is from earlier years: Naitō Konan, “Shinchō shoki no keishi mondai;” Imanishi Shunju, “Shin no taisō no rittaishi mondai”; Imanishi Shunju, “Shin no taisō no rittaishi mondai ho”; Okada Hidehiro, “Shin no taisō shiritsu no jitsujō.” Works in Chinese are cited below. 35. SL, 298.2, Sz5.3.yihai. 36. QSG, v. 249, liezhuan 36. 37. QSG, v. 249, liezhuan 36.

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38. This account is from the Korean envoy at the Qing court from 1637 to 1645, Lee Ho, Simyang changgye (Shenyang zhuangqi). Wakeman quotes the relevant passage in full. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 298–99. 39. Much of this account is drawn from Sonin’s biography in the Qingshi gao. QSG, v. 249, liezhuan 36. 40. SL, 29.1–30.1, Cd8.8.yihai. 41. SL, 64.2, Sz1.6.guiwei. 42. SL, 32.1, Cd8.8.dingchou. Yao Nianci argues that they had no real capacity to act and would have been unable to pull off a coup. The punishment of execution was thus an overreaction. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 256. 43. TZWSL, 30.2, Cd8.8.guiwei. 44. See Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 261. 45. Yao, Qingchu zhengshishi, 251–52. 46. On the fracturing of the White Banners and their internal conflicts, see Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 256–57. For a discussion of the change of leadership of the White Banners in the Chongde era, see Du Jiaji, “Qingchu liangbaiqizhu Duoergun yu Duodo huanqi wenti de kaocha.” 47. For a laudatory study of Dorgon’s role in this compromise and Qing history, see Li Ge, “Guanyu Duoergun.” 48. See Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 256. 49. Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 251. 50. Zhang Jie, “Shunzhidi Fulin xuwei yuanyin xinxi.” 51. Isobe, “Junchitei sokui wo megutu kōkikijin no dōkō ni tsuite”; Isobe, “Shinchō junchi shoki ni okeru seiji kōsō”; Suzuki, “Shinsho ni okeru abataikei sōshitsu.” 52. For another statement to this effect see Isobe, “Junchichō ni okeru kōtei ki’ō kankei ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu.” 53. An analysis of the factions has been made here through a close reading of existing sources cited throughout this chapter. 54. See Isobe, “Shinchō junchi shoki ni okeru seiji kōsō,” 9–11. 55. Anami, “Hakkitsūshi manshūkanki daijin nenpyō jōranki kō.” 56. SL, 484a, Cd7.8.6. 57. In 1620, Daišan asked for permission to kill his sons Šoto and Jasanggū for infractions. The request was denied but led to long-standing animosity between Daišan and many of his sons. See Okada, “Shin no taisō siritsu no jijō,” 85. Many in the Dorgon faction also belonged to the Ula Nara clan, which had begun to form a strong support network during Hong Taiji’s reign. Isobe discusses this clan affiliation at length in “Shinchō junchi shoki ni okeru seiji kōsō,” esp. see 4–9. 58. Isobe, “Shinchō junchi shoki ni okeru seiji kōsō,” 4–9; Oshibuchi, “Shinchou junji shoseki no habatsuteki kousou ni tsuite,” 1–2; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 881–85; Yang Hongbo, “Qingchu Manzhou guizu jituan neizheng,” 26–28; Yao, Qingchu zhengzhishi, 269. 59. Isobe, “Junchichō ni okeru kōtei ki’ō kankei ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu;” Oxnam, Ruling from Horseback,” 47–50; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 894–99; Yang Hongbo, “Qingchu Manzhou guizu,” 28–29. 60. Isobe, “Junchichō ni okeru kōtei ki’ō kankei ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu.”

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61. Dennerline, “The Shun-chih reign,” 104–6; Isobe, “Junchichō ni okeru kōtei ki’ō kankei ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu,” 33–38. Studies by Chen-main Wang point to the importance of ritual and ceremony in these struggles, especially see “Claiming Dynastic Legitimacy.” 62. The extent of the reforms is discussed in Hu, “Reinstating the Authority of the Five Punishments; Hu, “Sex, Status, and the Normalization of the Law;” Hu, “Drawing the Line between the Civil and the Criminal.” 63. BDTB 02-01-02-2033-020, Sz9.4.22. 64. The Shilu has but one sentence on the matter: “The Zongrenfu was set up.” SL, 504.2. 65. BDTB 02-01-02-2033-020, Sz9.4.22. The Chinese and Manchu are together in the same memorial. The Chinese begins at the front and reads right to left, front to back; the Manchu begins at the back and runs in reverse, moving left to right, back to front. 66. DMHD 1.57. 67. For more on the Ming Zongrenfu, see Yang Yejin, “Mingdai Zongrenfu.” 68. DMHD 1.59 (2a–b). 69. DMHD 1.57–59 70. DMHD 1.60 (1a–2a). 71. DMHD 1.57 (1b). 72. The discussion of ranks begins on page 2 and carries on to page 9. KXHD 711.2–9. 73. KXHD 711.18. 74. KXHD 711.10, 21. The section in the Qing Huidian on the compilation of the imperial genealogy is only two and a half lines. Weighed next to the twenty-three pages of regulations this was clearly not the most important function of the Clan Court. For a case of collaboration with the Board of Rites on a registration issue, see BDTB 02-01-02-2130-026, Sz11.1.24. 75. For cases of applications for leave from the capital, see BDTB 02-01-02-2132-007, Sz11.3.20; BDTB 02-01-02-2134-002, Sz12.8.12. 76. KXHD 711.14. 77. KXHD 711.9. 78. KXHD 711.21–22. 79. KXHD 711.22–23. 80. Manming chenzhuan 42.575–81. 81. In 1657 (Sz14), the directorship position passed to Yolo of the Plain Blue Banner, the fourth son of Abatai. SL, 882b. 82. ECCP, 590–91; NGSY Cd4.11.8; QSG, 104, 108. 83. QSG, 8941. 84. Isobe, “Junchichō ni okeru kōtei ki’ō kankei ni tsuite no ichi kōsatsu,” 43; QSG, 8956–58. 85. QSG, 178, Kx8.6.27. 86. SL, 511a, Sz9.6.15. 87. QSG, 222, Kx26.5.22. 88. A long memorial in 1654 discussed the new standards for granting status and rank for the relatives and how these should be inherited. BDTB 02-01-02-2142-011, Sz11.3.20. The system is outlined in KXHD 711.2–8, 18–19. The “Zongrenfu” section of the administrative code (Huidian) outlines these duties and gives some precedents. Especially see KXHD

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711.10–12, 16–18. Specific cases on these matters, including registration problems and applications for leave, can be found in the archives. For a registration case, see BDTB 02-01-022130-026, Sz11.1.24. For two requests for leave see BDTB 02-01-02-2132-007, Sz11.3.20 and BDTB 02-01-02-2134-002, Sz12.8.12. 89. KXHD, 711.1–2. 90. This is not to deny that succession struggles among the emperor’s sons continued. Most egregious was the fight to succeed emperor Kangxi, Fulin’s son. See Suzuki Makoto, “Shinchō kōki nenkan no kō’i keishō mondai to ki’ō kenmon no dōkō”; Silas H. L Wu, Passage to Power. 91. Around this time, the Imperial Household Department was reestablished and the Eight Banners reorganized into the Upper Three and Lower Five Banners, with the “upper three” consisting of the Yellow and Plain White Banners and belonging to the emperor. These institutions worked to further concentrate power in the hands of the emperor and those factions supporting him. 7 . C OM P L E T I N G T H E SYS T E M : T H E C A SE O F I M P E R IA L D R E S S

1. GSA 037207, Fu Jingxing, Sz10.1.9. 2. See Dennerline, “The Shun-chih reign.” 3. Struve, The Southern Ming, 147–49. 4. GSA 088224, Kuang Lanzhao, Sz8.2.22. 5. The cut of early Manchu court clothing is discussed in Cammann, “Origins of the Court and Official Robes of the Ch’ing Dynasty” and in Cammann, China’s Dragon Robes. 6. GSA 008384, Guo Siwei, Sz12.1.22. 7. GSA 008384, Guo Siwei, Sz12.1.22. 8. GSA 088224, Kuang Lantiao, Sz8.2.22. 9. ECBZ, “Fu Jingxing,” NPM 030181; MQNAF, “Fu Jingxing.” 10. ECCP, 95. 11. For a good discussion of the late imperial vision of politics and the idea of moral order see Peter Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History, esp. ch. 4. 12. To avoid being accused of sedition officials almost always refrained from referencing the Ming directly. There is, however, the infamous case of Chen Mingxia, who was charged in Sz11 with a long list of crimes, one of which was directly advocating a reinstatement of Ming dress. GSA 006574, Ning Wanwo, Sz11.3.1; SL 640–42. This case is also touched on by Wakeman and Rawski as opposition to clothing reform, a claim that I read slightly differently for two reasons. First, it is unlikely that Chen actually spoke of the Ming; rather it was put this way by his enemy Ning Wanwo in order to build a case against him. Second, as this chapter shows, others repeatedly brought up the issue of clothing without the political or existential consequences that later commentators and scholars claim it had. See Rawski, The Last Emperors, 40; Wakeman, The Great Enterprise, 976. To be sure, Qianlong-era biographies of Chen do make an issue out of Ning’s claims on clothing, see ECBZ “Chen Mingxia,” NPM 030181, 8–9. 13. Given that the difference of the measurements in the Chinese cun and chi are approximate when converted into inches and feet, I have opted not to convert here. See Wilkinson, Chinese History, 556.

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14. Yellow was the color of the emperor’s everyday casual dress. DMHD 2.1026-1. 15. This description has been taken from DMHD 2.1018–19. For illustrations see DMHD 2.1019–22. 16. Liji, “Liqi.” 17. Yijing, “shuo gua,” “kun gua.” 18. Shangshu, “Yu shu.” 19. GSA 008384, Guo Siwei, Sz12.1.22. 20. GSA 008384, Guo Siwei, Sz12.1.22. 21. GSA 088224, Kuang Lanzhao, Sz8.2.22. 22. Chuiyishang er tianxia zhi ি۪፴֚ۖՀए 23. In fact, they are lifted right out of the Book of Changes, “xici xia” section. On the use of the Yijing in Chinese politics, see Hon, The Yijing and Chinese Politics. 24. On the significance of the relation of the sovereign to his ancestors and sage kings, see Puett, To Become a God. On the use of antiquity as a source of legitimacy, see Bol, “Emperors Can Claim Antiquity Too; Chan, Legitimation in Imperial China. 25. GSA 088224, Kuang Lantiao, Sz8.2.22. 26. SL, 431.1. 27. Interestingly, the language that the emperor used here about each era having its own system and respecting Heaven and loving the people was used by subsequent memorialists to argue for the need for caps and gowns. See GSA 037207, Fu Jingxing, Sz10.1.9; GSA 008384, Guo Siwei, Sz12.1.22. 28. MWYD 10.648–49, Cd1.11.13. Also found in MR 7.1438–41, and in Chinese in CZBSL 23.42b–43b, SL, 401.1, and TZSX 3.10b–11b. All of these accounts are more or less the same, with no discrepancy in meaning and very little deviation in language. 29. Detailed discussions of early Manchu clothing can be found in Cammann, “Origins of the Court and Official Robes of the Ch’ing Dynasty.” Also see Rawski, The Last Emperors, 39–43; Vollmer, Ruling from the Dragon Throne. For more images see Cammann, “Costume in China, 1644 to 1912”; Garrett, Chinese Clothing; Vollmer, “Clothed to Rule the Universe”; Qingdai fuzhi zhanlan tulu. 30. Elliott speaks directly to this point in The Manchu Way, 276–77. 31. MWYD 10.647–48, Cd1.11.13; MR 7.1439–40, Cd1.11.13. 32. MWYD 10.649, Cd1.11.13; MR 7.1441, Cd1.11.13. 33. Hong Taiji’s negative view of the Jin was a break from Nurhaci, who saw the Manchus as direct descendants. See Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be?” Also note, modern-day scholars see the Jin decline not as a result of Sinicization but rather as consequence of the military superiority of the Mongols. See Frank, “The Chin Dynasty.” 34. CZBSL 24.53a-b, Cd4.4.28. I have quoted the CZBSL here, which differs considerably from the SL and TZSX, the implications of which I discuss below. 35. MR 1.160, Tm4.6; MR 1.192, Tm4.10; MR 1.211, Tm5.1.17. Elliott also makes this point in The Manchu Way, 68–69. 36. On the Manchu discussions and references to other conquest dynasties see Elliott, “Whose Empire Shall It Be?” On other conquest dynasties see Chan, Legitimation in Imperial China. Other options available to nomadic conquerors are discussed in Unger, Plasticity into Power, 70–80. 37. See Crossley, Translucent Mirror; Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva.”

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38. MWYD 10.649–50, Cd1.11.13; MR 7.1441, Cd1.11.13. 39. The inherent tension in representing the emperor both in martial valor and in sagely wisdom was evident in other practices as well, especially in imperial touring and sacrifice at sacred sites. See Chang, “Civil-Military Tensions during the Kangxi Emperor’s First Southern Tour.” 40. KXHD 716.2305. 41. See Tan Qian, Beihai lu, 389. 42. Apart from regulations in 1644 and 1646 prohibiting lower officials and commoners from wearing certain grades of cloth, there were no clothing regulations issued in the Shunzhi period. Not until early Kangxi were more regulations introduced; but even then, they were concerned with the designs and images on the uniforms of officials. 43. KXHD 716.2331–33. The complete edict for 1652 can be found in SL, 501–2. 44. KXHD 716.2331. 45. See Schlesinger, A World Trimmed with Fur, 25. 46. QL17.3.20. SL, 379.2–381.1 47. HCLQTS, 4.10. 48. For more on this illustrated compendium see Cammann, “Costume in China, 1644 to 1912”; Vollmer, “Clothed to Rule the Universe,” 97–98; Zito, Of Body and Brush, 44–46. 49. KXHD 716.2305. 8 . C O D I F IC AT IO N : T H E D A QI N G H U I DIA N

1. This edict is reproduced at the beginning of the KXHD (711.1–2) and in the Shilu (SL, 195.2–96.1, Kx23.5.4). 2. I make an explicit case for li as administrative law in Ke Li, “Li zhe xingzhenfa ye.” 3. Metzger, The Internal Organization of the Ch’ing Bureaucracy, 211; Wilkinson, Chinese History, 843. It has also been referred to as a constitution (see Preston, “Constitutional Law of the Chinese Empire”); although the late-Qing scholar Liang Qichao rejected such a Western classification on account of the lack of a declaration of citizens’ rights. Liang took a very narrow view of the Huidian, seeing it as containing only bureaucratic regulations. Liang Qichao quanji, 3:1312. 4. Lü Li, “Lun Qing Huidian de genbenfa yu xingzhengfa de heyixing”; Lü Li, “Qing Huidian bianxi.” Pierre-Etienne Will echoes this position in a discussion of the Ming Huidian, which he calls an “administrative constitution” that was both descriptive of the structure of the state, and prescriptive of the behavior of state actors. Will, “Virtual Constitutionalism in Late Ming Dynasty,” 264. 5. SKQS, v. 1, shengyu, QL45.9.17. 6. KXHD 715.1916.1931. 7. Lü Li, “Lun Zhongguo gudai de liyifa”; Lü Li, “Qing Huidian bianxi.” 8. Wilkinson, Chinese History, 645–46, 757. Shiga, “Shindai no hōsei.” 9. See Guo Songyi, “Qingchao de Huidian he zeli”; Metzger, The Internal Organization of the Ch’ing Bureaucracy, 217. 10. Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang; Jiang, The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code, xxxix–xl. 11. Wilkinson, Chinese History, 797.

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12. There is a debate among historians about the existence of a Chongde-era Huidian. One group of scholars argues that the Qing produced a Huidian in 1636, while another impugns the claim. The debate was sparked by Zhang Jinfan and Guo Chengkang in a 1983 article over the existence of the characters “huidian” in reference to fifty-two regulations that appeared in a copy of a Shunzhi-era Taizong shilu. Shimada Masao and Kanda Nobuo each independently investigated the claims and came to a similar conclusion that there is no substantial or convincing evidence that such a Huidian was composed or existed. Kanda determined that all uses of “huidian” in the early Qing referred to the Ming Huidian. The articles of these debates are reproduced along with a rejoinder in Zhu Yong, ed., “Chongde huidian,” “hubu zeli” ji qita. I agree with Shimada and Kanda that there was no Chongde Huidian. The regulations referenced by Zhang and Guo were part of the process of the formation of the Qing legal code, which was later expressed in the Kangxi Huidian. 13. Zu Wei, “Luelun Qingchu Chongde Huidian de yiding,” 163–65. 14. SL, 175.1, Sz2.8.gengchen. 15. SL, 660.1–2, Sz11.6.renshen. 16. For a case using the Huidian to determine the number of office personnel see GSA 185048-023, Sz1.8.28. Also see the use of the Huidian in the creation of the Court of the Imperial Clan, as discussed in chapter 6. 17. Fairbank and Teng say that a “die” is an order from a superior to a subordinate, while a “shen” is a report from a subordinate to a superior. Fairbank and Teng, “On the Types and Uses of Ch’ing Documents,” 59, 65. 18. SL, 821.1, Sz13.12.wuxu. 19. GSA 167265-017, Kx1.5.27. The imperial rescript said to forward the suggestion to the appropriate board for deliberation. 20. GSA 039012, Sz10.8.23. 21. GSA 038901, Sz10.8.23. 22. GSA 085742, Sz9.9. 23. GSA 085433-001, Sz10.4. 24. GSA 085442, Sz11.9. 25. GSA 05889, Sz12.7.13. 26. Enggedei’s reference to the Ming Huidian and officials are in the memorials GSA 05578, Sz12.7.24; BDTB 02-01-02-2135-009, Sz12.10.24 (the former also references earlier memorials discussing the Huidian). 27. GSA 36535, Sz13.4. 28. SL, 1034.2–35.1, Sz17.4.wuzi. 29. Tan Qian, Beiyoulu, 412–13. 30. SL, 984.2, Sz16.7.bingxu. 31. KXHD 718.3064-3065. 32. SL, 50.2–51.1, Sz18.2.yisi. Also see KXHD 719.3241. 33. SL, 1021.1–2, Sz17.2.renyin. 34. SL, 1034.1, Sz17.4.yiyou. 35. SL, 1026.2–27.1, Sz17.3.xinyou. 36. SL, 584.2–85.11, Kx12.12.jiayin. 37. SL, 605.2, Sz10.6r.wuzi. 38. A recording of these is found in SL, 267.2, Sz4.6.dingchou. 39. BDTB 02-01-02-2182-002, Sz11.3.28.

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40. For the record of this mission, in addition to the above sources, also see SL, 644.2, Sz11.3.dingyou; SL, 652.1, Sz11.4.dingchou; SL, 667.1, Sz11.6.yashen; SL, 667.2, Sz11.7.wuzi. 41. SL, 168.1, Kx3.1.wuyin. 42. SL, 361.1, Kx7.5.jiazi. 43. SL, 511.1, Kx11.3.wushen. 44. This position was outlined by Ning Wanwo in a memorial that proceeded to attack such a position (TCZY 2.35a–b). 45. This is a phrase that appears sporadically throughout documents from the early Hong Taiji period. Officials used it in discussion about the formation of the early Qing state and political practices. See Tsai Sung-yin, “Huang Taiji shiqi de Hanguan,” esp. ch. 3. 46. The Ning Wanwo memorial can be found in TCZY 2.35a–b. 47. GSA 006603, Sz5.11. 48. SL, 833.1. 49. SL, 916.2, 939.2. 50. QSG, 9694 liezhuan Wang Xi. 51. SL, 446.1. 52. SL, 916.2, Sz15.5.yichou. 53. GSA 006603, Sz5.11. 54. In addition to the cases discussed here also see SL, 916.2, Sz15.5.yichou; SL, 939.2, Sz15.11.dingyou; SL, 446.1, Kx9.5.binzi. 55. SL, 833.1, Sz14.1.wuchen. Also see Wang Xi’s call for standardization in QSG, 9694, liezhuan Wang Xi. 56. GSA 006609, Sz9.7.20. 57. There is also a case in 1654 of the need to include regulations on military pay and equipment for the banner system. The Board of Personnel requested that the court revise the Huidian regulation with the banners in mind. GSA 121826, Sz11.2.3. 58. GSA 163987, Fan Wencheng, Sz11.3.1. 59. SL, 1046.1, Sz17.5.gengchen. 60. SL, 307.2–10.2, Kx6.6.jiaxu. 61. QSG 9891, liezhuan 49, Xiong Cili 62. SL, 636.2, Sz11.2.guiyou. The outcome of this case is unclear, and the regulations in the Kangxi Huidian remain obscure. On the one hand, the regulation follows the Ming, stating that if the first wife is alive then the birth mother cannot assume the title. But the text goes on to say that both the first wife and the birth mother can receive titles, while a stepmother cannot (KXHD 712.540). This was clarified in the Yongzheng period, when the regulation was changed to echo the Shunzhi emperor’s sentiments to allow all mothers to receive the title (GXHDSL 2.834). 63. KXHD 712.535–48. 64. SL, 103.1–2, Kx1.1.dinghai. 65. SL, 87.1–2, Sz18.9.gengyin. For further discussion of mourning periods and the different standards for Manchu and Han see Elliott, The Manchu Way, 206–7. 66. SL, 756.2, Sz13.1.jiyou. 67. GSA 163883, Sz9.12.11. 68. It was determined that if such an official died in battle he would receive a tomb and sacrifice. SL, 1034.2–35.1, Sz17.4.wuzi.

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69. The identity and provenance of this monk remain unclear. 70. SL, 161.1–2, Kx2.10.jiazi. 71. SL, 354.1, Kx7.3.dingmao. 72. SL, 377.2, Kx7.11.yihai. 73. Tu-lu-fan. On the location of Turfan, see KXHD 720.3716. 74. The list of tribute items is in KXHD 720.3718. 75. SL, 561.2, Kx12.6.xinchou. 76. KXHD 720.3716–18. 77. Memorials calling for the production of a Qing Huidian often outlined a process that included assigning numerous officials from each department to collect regulations. For a complete list of assigned officials, see Li Liuwen, “Da Qing Huidian yanjiu,” 12–13. 78. The treatises on the management of military affairs (Zhongshu zhengkao) was published in 1672, and the initiation of the court diaries (Qijuzhu) began in 1670, as did the compilation of the veritable records (Shilu) in 1686. 79. On the position of the old generation of Manchus in the Three Feudatories revolt, see Miller, “Factional Conflict and the Integration of Ch’ing Politics,” 100–132. On the Zheng regime and the problem of Taiwan, see Ke Li, “Shi Lang de gushi.” 80. Spence, “The K’ang-Hsi Reign,” 160–65. 81. KXHD 711.1–2. 82. This process is outlined in the preface of the Qianlong edition, QLHDZL. 83. The editorial process and materials are discussed in Guo Songyi, “Qingchao de Huidian he zeli;” Ding Huadong, “Qingdai Huidian he zeli de bianzuan jiti zhidu,” 50–52; Zhu Jinfu, “Luelun Da Qing Huidian de zuanxiu,” 126–33; Li Liuwen “Da Qing Huidian yanjiu.” Note, zeli, or precedents, were not produced until Qianlong. 84. This discussion of the Kangxi Huidian is based on both the Chinese- and Manchulanguage editions. I located five extant Manchu-language editions, all of which are kept in the rare books reading room at the National Library of China, Beijing. Based on the emphasis on the Chinese past, and the transliteration of Chinese terms into Manchu, it appears that the Manchu is a corresponding translation of the Chinese. Wang Zhonghan discusses the problem of language and translation in the context of Kangxi’s last memorial in “Qing shengzu yizhao kaopian,” esp. see 383–84. 85. The preface can be found in KXHD 711.1–8. 86. For a chart comparing the headings and sections of the Ming and Qing Huidian see Keliher, “The Manchu Transformation of Li,” 273–76. 87. The misconception is not uncommon. Consider the representative statement by van der Sprenkel: “The codes of the Ch’ing dynasty were closely modeled on those of their immediate predecessors, the Ming, which themselves reproduced features of earlier dynasties— especially the Sung—for which the T’ang codes were the basic model.” van der Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China, 56. More recently, Zhang Jinfan claims that “the legal system of Qing dynasty was inherited from the legal system of Ming dynasty.” The Tradition and Modern Transition of Chinese Law, 286, also see 220–23. 88. This reading is inspired by Puett, “Centering the Realm.” 89. Various regimes’ use of the Rites of Zhou in this manner is discussed in Elman and Kern, Statecraft and Classical Learning.

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C O N C LU S I O N : L I , Q I N G C H I NA , A N D E A R LY M O D E R N E U R A SIA

1. In Weberian terms, authority is legitimate power. Weber, Economy and Society, 53–54. Also see Uphoff, “Distinguishing Power, Authority, and Legitimacy.” 2. The early Qing process of administrative standardization and codification marks an important stage in state formalization and legal development, not only in Chinese history but also in the early modern world. See Keliher, “Law in the Mongol and Post-Mongol World.” 3. In addition to the Huidian, a penal code was published in 1740. This code, or Da Qing lüli, mirrored the organization of the Huidian by structuring the law around the six boards and the main administrative bodies. It put forth the punishments for transgression of rules laid out in the Huidian. The evolution of the Qing code is discussed in Zheng Qin, “Pursuing Perfection.” 4. Beginning with the Qianlong edition of the Huidian, editors began separating the rule from the precedent, placing the rule as a type of code in the Huidian and the precedents in a separate collection called zeli (Qianlong) or shili (Jiaqing and Guangxu). See Lin Gan, “Qing Huidian de lici zuanxiu”; Tanii, “Shindai zokurei shōrei kō.” 5. GXHD, fanli. 6. Quoted in Lü Li, “Qing Huidian bianxi,” 54. 7. Also see works by Sugiyama, who discusses the importance of the Qing imperial relatives in the context of the banners, esp. Daishin teikoku no keisei to hakkisei; “The Qing Empire in the Central Eurasian Context.” 8. On the use of the imperial relatives as a counterweight to the professional administration see Wang and Adams, “Interlocking Patrimonialisms and State Formation in Qing China and Early Modern Europe.” Also see Crossley’s excellent study of the imperial relatives as part of the Qing conquest elite, “The Conquest Elite of the Ch’ing Empire.” 9. On the internal tension between the emperor and bureaucracy see Kuhn, Soulstealers. 10. Beatrice Bartlett remarked, “Prince Yi served Yongzheng in many ways that an ordinary official who was not a close relative could not have done.” She cites his handling of problems of intrigue and treachery in the court, and his role in providing policy suggestions. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers, 69–70. 11. Dabrignhaus, “The Monarch and Inner-Outer Court in Dualism in Late Imperial China.” 12. The importance of li as discipline in modern and contemporary China is explored in Keliher and Wu, “Corruption, Anticorruption, and the Transformation of Political Culture in Contemporary China”; Thornton, Disciplining the State. 13. Sato, “After Xunzi.” 14. Chou, “In Pursuit of the Holy Rite.” 15. Kroher, “With Malice Toward None to A House Divided”; and Meyer, “Negotiating Rites in Imperial China.” 16. Zhan, “Deciphering a Tool of Imperial Rule.” 17. Keliher, “State Ritual and Political Culture in Imperial and Late Imperial China.” 18. Two other studies that offer thoughtful reflections on this matter include Pines, The Everlasting Empire; Zhao, The Confucian-Legalist State.

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19. For a general overview of these early modern trends, see Getz and Streets-Salter, Modern Imperialism and Colonialism, chap. 1. A more pointed analysis of consolidation and centralization is articulated succinctly in Lieberman, “What Strange Parallels Sought to Accomplish,” 931–38. New forms of sovereignty are taken up in Subrahmanyam, “Written on Water: Designs and Dynamics in the Portuguese Estado da Índia,” 42–69. Early modern administrative developments are discussed in the Ottoman context in particular, but with parallels drawn to the Habsburg, Safavid, and Mughal empires, as well as England and France, in Şahin, Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman. 20. The issue of institutional variation in early modern and modern societies is discussed in Eisenstadt and Schluchter, “Introduction: Paths to Early Modernities—A Comparative View.” This matter has been of central concern to scholars of early modern Europe, especially social scientists attempting to explain variation in the formation of modern European states. For a good overview, see Vu, “Studying the State through State Formation.” Scholars of the non-Western world have been less attuned to the problem of early modern variation, but rather have focused on showing the similarities and convergences. For example, see Lieberman, Strange Parallels, vol. 1. 21. Keliher, “The Problem of Imperial Relatives in Early Modern Empires.” A P P E N D I X 3 : A N O T E O N S OU R C E S

1. The editions consulted were all published or republished in the Qianlong era and varied little in content or language. Indeed, the Manchu and Chinese appear to be nearexact translations of each other. 2. I refer to this in the notes and bibliography by its moniker in the archives in the National Palace Museum: Chuzuanben shilu (CZBSL). For discussions of this source see Chuang Chi-fa, Qing Taizong Hanwen shilu chuzuanben yu chongxiuben de bijiao; Matsumura, “Junchi shosan shin taisōjitsuroku ni tsuite.” 3. Kanda Nobuo provides a brief account of the finding and publication of these Manchu records in “From Man-Wen Lao-Tang to Chiu Man-Chou Tang.” Also see Chuang Chifa, “Wenxian zuwei.” 4. Chuang Chi-fa has written about the language differences in the context of comparing different sources in “Wenxian zuwei.” Also see Crossley and Rawski, “A Profile of the Manchu Language in Ch’ing History.” 5. TZWSL, 344.2, Tc10.1.1. 6. MR 6.885, Tc10.1.1. 7. This discussion is an elaboration of Wilkinson, who notes that the Shilu was a digest and not a complete account of all events and affairs. Wilkinson, Chinese History, 611.

bi blio g ra phy

A R C H I VA L S O U R C E S

BDTB: Beida yijiao tiben ർᄢ⒖੤㗴ᧄ. First Historical Archives, Beijing. CZBSL: Da Qing Taizong wenhuangdi shilu ᄢᷡᄥቬᢥ⊞Ꮲኪᙕ (Chuzuanben shilu ॣᤊ ‫ء‬ኔᙕ). 41 vols. 1649. Catalog no. 103000136-76, National Palace Museum, Taipei. ECBZ: Qinding guoshi erchen biaozhuan ᱄ቯ࿡ผ⾅⤿⴫ொ. 1792. Catalog no. 30175030181, National Palace Museum, Taipei. FHA: First Historical Archives รԫᖵ‫׾‬ᚾூᙴ. Beijing. GSA: Grand Secretariat Archives (Neige dang’an փᎹᚾூ). Academia Sinica, Taipei. Huangchao lizhi ઄ཛ៖‫ݳ‬. Catalog no. 033362, National Palace Museum, Taipei. Daicing gurun i taidzung genggiyen šu hūwangdi i yargiyan kooli. 1735. Catalog no. 113000001, National Palace Museum, Taipei. MWLFZZ: Manwen lufu zouzhe የ֮ᙕ೫৉ኹ. First Historical Archives, Beijing. Manwen yuandang የ֮଺ᚾ. Catalog no. 111000001-40, National Palace Museum, Taipei. Ni lizhi ᡆ⑥ᔒ. 28 vols., 1642. National Central Library, Taipei. Qinding manzhou jishen jitian dianli ᱄ቯṩᵮ⑂␹⑂ᄤౖ⑥. 6 vols. 1747. Catalog no. 024299-304, National Palace Museum, Taipei. TZSX: Da Qing Taizong wenhuangdi shengxun Օ෎֜ࡲ֮઄০ᆣಝ. Catalog no. 101000001-4, and 7-12, National Palace Museum, Taipei. ZZ: Zouzhe ৉ኹ. First Historical Archives, Beijing. PRINTED SOURCES

Alam, Muzaffar, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds. The Mughal State, 1526–1750. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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Index

Numbers in italic refer to information in figures (“fig”), maps (“map”), or tables (“tab”). Abatai (Nurhaci’s 7th son), 32, 206, 208tab., 219n16 administrative codes. See Da Ming huidian; Da Qing huidian; Shangshu; Tang liudian; Yuan dianzhang Ajige (Nurhaci’s twelfth son), 32, 52, 98, 135, 206, 230n30 Altar of Heaven (Tiantan ֚ᕽ) sacrificial rites at the Sun Altar for the emperor’s birthday, 74 Winter Solstice sacrifice at, 67, 70fig., 71 Altar of Heaven and Earth (Tianditan ֚‫چ‬ᕽ) establishment of, 214n1 and the ritual founding of the Qing by Hong Taiji, 3 Amin (Šurhaci’s second son), 52, 206, 208tab., 219n10, 219n16 Bordered Blue Banner of, 31, 33, 208 death (1631), 31 harsh steppe practices favored by, 38, 42 and Hong Taiji, 31, 32, 33–34 and Nurhaci’s succession, 29 and seating arrangements for the New Year’s Day rite, 48 and succession struggles following Nurhaci’s death, 29 war in Korea (1627), 31

ancestral sacrifices. See ancestral temple; sacrificial rituals ancestral temple (taimiao ֜ᐔ) establishment of (jian miao ৬ᐔ), 86 imperial visits after occupying Beijing, 225n56 location in Imperial Palace in Beijing, 57map and the Manchu terms mafari miyoo and tai miyoo, 86, 225n62 in Manchu texts, 86–87 of Nurhachi, 83–85, 84tab. and “the state’s beginning” (guochu ഏॣ), 86 banner system banner lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, 208tab. Bordered Blue Banner, owners of (see Amin; Jirgalang) Bordered Red Banner, and the case of G’o Zuji, 116; owners of (see Šoto; Yoto) Bordered White Banner, owners of (see Ajige; Dorgon); scribe Wang Wenkui, 40 Bordered Yellow, owners of (see Abatai; Hooge) gūsa (banners) of, 25 Hanjun ዧ૨ (Chinese bannermen), 179, 182, 184, 191, 220n40

257

258

index

banner system (continued) and Hong Taiji’s establishment of the Board of Rites, 19–20 Nurhaci’s organization of, 4, 25–28 Plain Blue Banner: commander of (see Langkio); owners of (see Degelei; Hooge) Plain Red Banner, owners of (see Daišan) Plain White Banner, owners of (see Cuyen) Plain Yellow Banner, commanders of (see Tantai); owners of (see Hong Taiji; Nurhaci) processional order of units, 45, 53, 106–107; and Qing military strength, 199; and Qing multiethnicity, 179, 182, 191; reorganization by the Imperial Household Department, 233n91 ru bafen ԵԶٝ (inside banner division), 228n55 Bartlett, Beatrice S., 239n10 Board of Personnel (Libu ‫ٴ‬ຝ), 182, 183 Dorgon as president of, 34 as one of the six administrative boards, 18 Board of Punishments (Xingbu ٩ຝ) Jirgalang as president of, 34 as one of the six administrative boards, 18 Board of Revenue (Hubu ֪ຝ) Degelei as president of, 34, 98 as one of the six administrative boards, 18 Board of Rites (Libu ៖ຝ) and the Court of Imperial Sacrifices (Taichangsi ֜ൄ‫)ڝ‬, 19 Enggedei (Manchu president of) memorials on posthumous honors for deceased officials, 175–176, 236n26; functions, 17, 20 history/development of, 18–20 and imperial dress regulations, 39, 148, 150, 154–155, 168 importance of, xi, 20–21, 43 and Langkio, 72–74 and the New Year’s Day ceremony, 20–21, 59 as one of the six administrative boards (liubu), 17, 18 regulations on the ranks and titles for the imperial family reissued by Hong Taiji, 109–111 regulations on the ranks and titles related to sacrificial services, 176–178, 185 and the ritual performance of ancestral sacrifices, 84–85 role in Qing state-making, xii–xiii, 19–21, 185–187, 194–195, 199 Sahaliyen as president of, 34, 98; staffing of, 18

summary memorials on imperial tomb worship by Langkio and Li Mingrui, 89 tribute collection by, 60 See also Li Bolong; ranks and titles Board of War (Bingbu ܎ຝ) and issues with following the Huidian, 183, 185 as one of the six administrative boards, 18 treatises on the management of military affairs (Zhongshu zhengkao խᑐਙ‫)ە‬, 238n78 Yoto as president of, 34 Board of Works (Gongbu ՠຝ) Abatai as president of, 34 as one of the six administrative boards, 18 Book of Changes (Yijing ࣐ᆖ), 154, 234n23 Censorate (Duchayuan ຟኘೃ), 56, 71, 73, 78, 107, 181 Censor Zhu Langheng on ruling by morality wende ֮䄧, 96 imperial dress reform advocated by Kuang Lanzhou, 39, 148, 150 and internal struggles, 128–129 president Zu Kefa, 129 Vice Censor Fu Jingxing, 146, 151 Chen Mingxia ຫ‫ټ‬୙, 151, 233n12 Chen Tiaoyuan ຫᓳց, 174–175 Chinese literati and officials as Hong Taiji’s advisors, 38–40 and li, 14, 217–218n46 Manchu reliance on, 21, 147 See also Fan Wencheng; Fu Jingxing; Guo Siwei; Li Bolong; Ning Wanwo Chongzhengdian Hall ശਙᄥ council deciding succession of Hong Taiji held at, 131 court audiences at, 77, 113 clothing: and organizing political actors, 95–97, 102, 105–107 and ruling by morality (wende ֮䄧), 96 violations of the dress code by Zhou Qiming, 117 See also Manchu clothing regulations; Qing dynasty, court dress Confucianism: filial piety, 14–15, 73, 85, 176, 183–184, 187 court audience clothing worn for, 166 “hearing of administrative affairs” (tingzheng ᦫਙ), 47, 79–78, 79–80 and the hierarchical organization of political actors, 43, 51–54, 90, 107, 113, 197 and the Ming court, 125–126

index and the presentation of the ritual calendar, 80 routinization of, 180 thrice-monthly scheduling of, 77, 141 and transgressions and lack of propriety, 80, 114–115 court ceremony (changchaoyi ൄཛᏚ), 65 background of, 68–69, 75–76 Qing origins of, 76–78 ritual performance of, 65, 78–80 and transgressions by Wu Mingxuan and other officials, 80–81 Court of State Ceremonial (Honglusi ពᤍ‫)ڝ‬, 56, 60, 61, 80 Cuyen (Nurhaci’s eldest son), 205, 208tab. and Nurhaci’s succession, 29 Daišan (Nurhaci’s second son), 105, 205, 208tab., 219n16 and Hong Taiji’s ranking of the imperial family, 108 and Hong Taiji’s succession, 32, 131–135 and Nurhaci’s succession, 29, 31–32 relatives with long-standing conflicts with him, 135, 231n57 Dalinghe Օରࣾ location of, xmap Manchu conquest of, 31 Da Ming huidian Օࣔᄎࠢ and filial piety, 14–15, 73, 176, 183–184, 187 and foreign relations, 185–187 and Ming administrative structure, 173, 182–183 and Ming clothing regulations, 151, 153 and mourning regulations, 15, 174, 184–185, 187, 197 New Year’s Day ceremony in, 61–62 Qing use of, 173–179 and regulations for ranks and positions, 185 Da Qing huidian Օ෎ᄎࠢ, 10, 170–192passim calls for the compilation of, 179–180 as the institutionalized expression of, li, 191–192, 196–198, 210 Kangxi’s compilation in 1690 of, 187–192, 195–196 and the Ming Huidian, 191–192 and the New Year’s Day ceremony, 60–64 New Year’s Day ceremony in, 60–64 political order and its operation codified by, 10–11, 173–174, 198, 216n31 on rites performed by officials at their yamen, 223n14

259

on rituals at ancestral tombs, 83 on rituals at the ancestral temple, 86 selective use of the Ming Huidian, 180, 237n45 and state ceremony performance in the Qing, 173, 176–178 structure of, 172 and tribute arrangements in the Qing, 178–179 and zeli (precedents), 238n83, 239n4 Degelei (Nurhaci’s 10th son), 32, 108, 135, 206 and the conquest of Dalinghe, 31 Plain Blue Banner of, 33, 208tab. as president of the Board of Revenue, 34, 98 and the redistribution of banners after Nurhaci’s death, 33 discipline: and li, xii, 9–11, 16, 20, 46–47, 92, 111, 137, 195, 200, 239n12 and modern state-formation, 5–11 Dodo (Nurhaci’s 15th son), 32, 108, 206 as head of the Plain White Banner, 98, 132 and Hong Taiji’s succession, 130–133 Dorgon (Nurhaci’s 14th son), 32, 108, 206 and Hong Taiji’s succession, 132–133 duoqing ኆൣ (mourning while in office), 15 Dudu (Nurhaci’s first grandson), 32, 128 early modern empires, 8–9, 193, 201–203 Elliott, Mark C., 234n30, 234n35 ethnic sovereignty defined by, 15 on Qing finances, 229n13 emperors institution of, 65–90passim Ming dynasty emperors (see Jiajing; Taizu) position at the top of a hierarchy, 7, 15–16, 43–44, 53–54, 61, 63–64, 66, 71–72, 196–197 Qing dynasty emperors (see Guangxu; Hong Taiji; Jiaqing; Kangxi; Qianlong; Shunzhi; Yongzheng) and the terms huangdi, huang shang, and khan, 67, 223n4 Enggedei (En Guotai ஑ഏ௠) (Manchu president of the Board of Rites), 175–176, 236n26 Fan Wencheng ⊦֮࿓, 38, 77, 182, 183 distribution of supply grain to commoners by, 37 Qing organization outlined by, 182, 183 Fehl, Noah Edward, 215n28 Fengtian Palace ࡚֚ᄥ, 60

260

index

Fletcher, Joseph, 28, 219n6 Fu Jingxing ແནਣ, 146, 151 Fulin (Hong Taiji’s ninth son), 206 as emperor (see Shunzhi emperor) faction associated with, 135 and Hong Taiji’s succession, 130–133 and Nurhaci’s succession, 29–30 Fuling ጝສ (Nurhaci’s tomb), 83–85, 84tab. Grain Altar (Shejitan षᒞᕽ), 57map, 67 Grand ceremony (dajie Օᆏ or dadian Օࠢ) about, 65, 69–70 and the stratification of political order, 68, 78 “three grand ceremonies” (san dajie ԿՕᆏ), 69–70 See also Imperial Birthday Rite; New Year’s Day ceremony; Winter Solstice Grand Secretariat (Neige փᎹ), 139, 201, 217n69 oversight of the six administrative boards (liubu), 17 Grand Secretariat Archive (GSA), 241 and edicts from the Shunzhi period, 209 routine memorials related to absences in, 81 Guangxu emperor ٠ፃ (r. 1875–1908) updated and expanded editions of the Huidian issued by, 198, 210, 239n4 vision of social and political order, 199 Guo Chengkang, 236n12 Guo Siwei ພ؄ፂ (Board of Rites Vice Director of Sacrifice) imperial dress reform advocated by, 39, 148, 150, 154–155 Guy, R. Kent, 22, 218n80, 218n84 han ‫ۀ‬. See khan Hanjun ዧ૨ (Chinese bannermen). See banner system Hevia, James L., xii, 16 Hong Taiji ઄֜ᄕ as Banner Lord of the Plain Yellow Banners, 29 Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, 208tab. Board of Rites established by, 19–20, 109–111, 194 discussion of the formation of the early Qing state, 237n45 on imperial clothing related to territorial administration, 148, 150, 155 on Manchu garb, 157–161 and military efforts in the 1620s, 35–36 and Nurhaci’s succession, 29, 31–32

posthumous portrait of, 30tab. ritual founding of the Qing by, 3 sons (see Fulin; Hooge) succession of, 130–134 and the term khan, 67, 223n4 vision of social and political order: humane treatment of surrendered populations, 37, 220n40; and his negative; regulations on the ranks and titles for the imperial family, 109–111; and a tax-office state, 37–38, 220n43; view of Jin dynasty, 159–161, 165, 234n33 Hooge (Hong Taiji’s eldest son), 32, 206 factional allies of, 134–135 as a prince of the blood, 98, 134 Hu Gongming ઺ಥࣔ (Chinese official employed in the Bordered Red Banner), 29, 76 Huidian ᄎࠢ Nature of 171–172 See also Da Ming huidian; Da Qing huidian Huidian shili ᄎࠢࠃࠏ, 86, 210, 239n4. See also zeli “hundred officials” (baiguan ‫)ࡴۍ‬, 58 Imperial Birthday Rite (wanshoujie ᆄኂᆏ), 72–75 and displays of filial piety, 73 and the opening of jails, 74 Imperial Clan Court (Zongrenfu ࡲԳࢌ), 138–144passim court diaries (Qijuzhu 䫉ࡺࣹ), 238n78 establishment of, 124, 137–138, 137–142 institutional function of: affairs of imperial relatives controlled by, 144, 232–233n88; integration of relatives via issuing ranks and titles, 145. See also ranks and titles Imperial Palace map of, 57map See also ancestral temple; Taihedian Hall; Grain Altar; Taihemen Gate; Wumen Gate; Zhonghedian Hall imperial relatives Ming exclusion of, 124–127 Qing employment of, 124, 144–145 tensions between junior and senior relatives, 29–34 See also Qing dynasty, imperial relatives institutional isomorphism, 202, 240n19 Jiajing emperor ቯቀ (r. 1521–1567), 152fig. Jiaqing emperor ቯᐜ (r. 1796–1820) and the Huidian shili, 210, 239n4

index updated and expanded editions of the Huidian issued by, 198, 210, 239n4 Jin dynasty ८ཛ distinguished from the Qing by the Shunzhi emperor, 226n80 Hong Taiji’s negative view of, 159–161, 165, 234n33 and issues of sacrificing to a previous dynasty (lidai diwang ᖵ‫ז‬০‫)׆‬, 89, 226n78 Manchu records on sacrificing to ancestor’s graves, 84 Jinzhou ᙘ‫ڠ‬, location of, xmap Jirgalang (Šurhaci’s 6th son), 207 Bordered Blue Banner awarded to, 31, 33, 133 and Hong Taiji’s succession, 32, 33, 131 as president of the Board of Punishments, 34 judicial system Da Qing lüli Օ෎৳ࠏ (penal code) published in 1740, 239n3 and li as a form of administrative law, 10–12, 16, 92, 216n30 and Qing institutional innovation, 198–199, 226n2, 239n2 See also Board of Punishments; Da Qing huidian; Imperial Clan Court Jurchen (Nüzhen guo Ֆటഏ) Late Ming depiction of, 26fig. and Manchu origins, 4, 25, 159, 215n28 Kanda, Nobuo, 236n12, 240n3 Kangxi emperor ൈዺ (r. 1661–1722) and control of the Imperial Clan Court, 144, 233n90 sixtieth birthday celebration, 16 succession struggles following his death, 233n90 and visits to the ancestral tombs, 225n56 vision of social and political order, 94; Da Qing huidian compiled in 1690 by, 187–192, 195–196; and official court clothing regulation, 79; and the practice of duoqing, 15 khan (han ‫)ۀ‬, 67, 223n4 and Amin’s assuming his equality with Hong Taiji, 31, 35, 94 and ceremonial sacrifice in the Manchu shrine, 47–54 Chinese versus Manchu dress of, 159–160, 162–165 and formalities at ceremonies, 41, 45–50, 63–64, 67–72, 87–88

261

Hong Taiji as, 16, 29, 31–34, 41, 63–64, 67–69, 94, 223n4 Inner Asian custom upon the death of a, 130 and junior relatives, 31–33 as a keeper and distributer of slaves and goods, rather than a ruler of men, 35 Manchu khanate organization contrasted with agrarian tax-office state, 24–25, 36 Nurhaci as, 25–28, 41, 47 and tribal wars and internecine feuds, 28–29 kowtow (ketou ᒗᙰ) (three genuflections and nine prostrations) formalization by the Manchus, 214n3 performance of, 3, 17, 47–48, 51–52, 56, 64, 106–107, 112–113, Kuang Lanzhao ‫ٯ‬ᥞ٢ (Imperial Censor), 39, 148, 150 Langkio (Liang Qiu ߜ५) (Board of Rites president) and the imperial birthday rite of 1654, 72–74 Imperial Clan Court established by, 137–138 and imperial tomb worship debates, 89 and the Plain Blue Banner of, 142 summary memorials on imperial tomb worship, 89 li ៖ (Ma. dorolon) as a form of administrative law, 10–12, 16, 92, 216n30 as both prophecy of the sovereign and its fulfillment, 7, 43–44, 53–54, 66, 66 Da Qing huidian as its institutional expression, 191–192, 196–198, 210 as discipline, xii, 9–11, 16, 20, 30–31, 46–47, 92, 111, 137, 195, 200, 239n12 evolution from ritual practices to a political system, 11–16, 63–64, 129, 199–201, 202, 216n37 as the foundation of the Qing political system, 9, 12, 15–16, 92–95, 198–200 as governance, 67–69, 196–198, 200–201 and imperial dress reforms advocated by Kuang Lanzhao and Guo Siwei, 154–155 and interpretations by local literati, 14, 216–217n46 legitimizing functions of, 12–16, 81–84, 216n43 and the Manchu term doro, 215n28 and Ming Taizu’s vision of social and political order, 19 and mourning rites, 15, 184–185, 187, 197 Qianlong manual on li as the ultimate principle, 3

262

index

li ៖ʳ(continued) and Qing ethnic sovereignty, 15–16 and the Qing Shilu, 210 and sacrificial rituals (see Altar of Heaven; sacrificial rituals) and the Sinicization of conquest dynasties, 14 transformation of, 14–17, 196–198, 200–201 and the transmission of policy and orders, 34, 66, 199 See also court ceremony; rites and ceremonies; ritual Li Baochen, xii Li Bolong ‫܄ޕ‬ᚊ and Ning Wanwo, 60 on standardizing New Year’s Day ceremony practices, 17–18, 39, 48–50, 59–60, 67 Li Qifeng ‫ޕ‬ཨଅ, 77, 96, 97 Liang Weiben ඩፂ‫( ء‬supervising secretary of the six offices of scrutiny), 173 literati. See Chinese literati and officials Manbun rōtō (MR), 209, 214n4, 225n62, 228n57 Manchu clans collateral line (Ma. gioro, Ch. jueluo ᤚᢅ), 105, 108, 139 and legitimization, 81 “member of the clan” (Ma. uksun, Ch. zongshi ࡲ৛), 105, 110, 139 and struggles for power, 28, 219n6 Manchu clothing regulations and Chen Mingxia, 233n11 in the 1630s, 102–103 from 1647 through the 1650s, 103 military garb of, 149fig. See also Qing dynasty, court dress Manchu shamanistic shrine (Ma. tangse; Ch. tangzi ഘ՗), 45, 46–48, 55, 60, 221n2 Manggūltai (Nurhaci’s 5th son), 32, 105, 206, 208tab., 219n16 and the conquest of Dalinghe, 31 and Nurhaci’s succession, 29 and the redistribution of banners after Nurhaci’s death, 33 Manwen yuandang (MWYD) (Original Manchu records), 209 on Manchu New Year’s Day ritual practices, 47–48, 49fig., 221n1, 222n13, 222n20 on sacrifices at the ancestral temple, 86–87, 225n62 McDermott, Joseph Peter, 216n36 Ming dynasty ࣔཛ

administrative codes (see Da Ming huidian) attacked by Manchus, 27, 31, 35–36 Board of Rites, 18–19 ceremony, 20–21, 59–62 court dress: ceremonial cap and gown, 153fig.; dragon robes, 151, 153fig., 158–159, 158fig.; Qing dynasty advocates of, 148, 150–151, 233n12 emperors, 41, 61, 221n58, (see Jiajing; Zhu Yuanzhang) eunuchs, 127, 144, 230n18 foreign relations, 25, 26fig., 27 founding of, 19, 41, 124–125 Imperial Clan Court (Zongrenfu), 138–145passim imperial relatives, 16, 123–127 and li, 15, 19, 39–40 as a model, 22, 59–62, 65, 88–90, 93–94, 138, 148, 224n27, 238n87 officials serving the Qing, 17, 38, 58, 150–151 (see also Fu Jingxing; Li Bolong; Wang Wenkui) transition to Qing, 8, 10, 22 Ming Huidian. See Da Ming huidian Mukden (Shenyang ާ㧌) ancestral temple in, 86 ancestral tombs in, 89 ceremonial hall at, 45 Hong Taiji’s founding of the Qing empire at, 3 location of, xmap See also ancestral temple Neiguoshiyuan dang (NGSY), 85, 209, 221n50 New Year’s Day ceremony (yuandanjie ց‫؟‬ᆏ), 45–64passim basic structure of, 54–55 and the Manchu shamanistic shrine (tangse), 45, 46–48, 55, 60, 221n2 Manwen yuandang (Original Manchu records) on, 47–48, 49fig., 221n1, 222n13, 222n20 Ming and Qing Huidian accounts compared, 20, 59–64, 192 and Qing state-making, 63–64 records in Chinese-language sources, 221n4 seating arrangements for, 46, 48–54, 64 standardization urged by Li Bolong, 17–18, 39, 48–50, 59–60, 67 Nikan, 136, 142, 143 Ning Wanwo ⓻‫ݺݙ‬ accusations against Chen Mingxia, 233n12 on the danger of cliques, 77 and the early Hong Taiji period, 38, 60

index memorial on creating a Qing Huidan, 180–181, 237n44 on the selective use of the Ming Huidian (can Han zhuo Jin ೶ዧ಼८), 180, 237n45 Northeastern Eurasia mid-seventeenth century map of, xmap See also Dalinghe; Jinzhou; Mukden; Shanhaiguan; Songshan; Yongping Nurhaci banner (gūsa) system organized by, 4, 25–27 birth and early years, 25 brothers (see Šurhaci) conquests of, 25–28 family and descendants, 28–32, 83, 110–111, 206–207 joint-rule framework established by, 31, 59, 65 and military efforts in the 1620s, 35–36 sacrifices to his tomb and Aisin Gioro ancestors, 83–85, 84tab. succession struggle following his death, 28–29 official documents, forms of diewen ᅎ֮ (orders), 174 huangtie ႓၀ (summaries), 89, 174 shenwen ‫( ֮ع‬reports), 61; 174 Ottoman empire, 5, 9, 202, 219n7, 240n19 policy making and the bureaucratic operations of the six boards, 18–19, 34 debates over imperial policy, 7, 224n38 the emperor’s position at the top of a hierarchy, 7, 53–54, 63–64, 75–76 grand ministers (sunja amban) appointed by Nurhaci, 27 and li, 34, 199 and Nurhaci’s joint-rule framework, 59, 65 and political order, 7, 50–51 and the roles of imperial relatives, 39, 50–51, 60, 108–109 Qianlong emperor on the Da Qing huidian, 172 Illustrations of Dynastic Ritual Instruments (Huangchao liqi tushi) commissioned by, 102fig., 165–166, 167fig. imperial dress formalized by, 165–168 on li as the ultimate principle, 3 stele erected with Hong Taiji’s remembrance of Manchu Heritage, 165 veritable records of (see Shilu)

263

Qianqingmen Gate ೓෎॰ location in Imperial Palace in Beijing, 57map and the New Year’s Day ceremony, 56 Qing dynasty ෎ཛ court dress: adaptation of Ming dragon robes, 157–159, 158fig., 161–168, 164fig., 167fig.; and advocates of Ming-style court dress, 151, 233n12; and the fusion of Chinese and Manchu culture, 159, 165–169; rank and stratification manifested by, 91–92, 95–97; ruby caps, 100, 101, 101fig., 112; winter hats, 102fig. See also Manchu clothing regulations definition of, 15 differences with Ming, 20, 61–62, 69–70, 112, 138–143; 218n79 emperors (see Guangxu; Hong Taiji; Jiaqing; Kangxi; Qianlong; Shunzhi; Yongzheng) and ethnic sovereignty, 15–16, 160–162, 168 and the formative years of the seventeenth century, 5, 7–8, 214n9 imperial relatives: ancestral line, 84tab.; expenditure on, 126; Hong Taiji’s concern with their lack of stratification (wusuo fenbie ྤࢬ։ܑ), 108; integration into the political order, 16, 39, 41, 50–51, 60; junior relatives (xiao beile ՛ߦ೬), 219nn16–17; senior relatives (da beile Օ ߦ೬), 30, 31–32, 219n10; and tensions between an official’s obligations to the state and his parents, 174–176, 183; stratification of, 63–64, 68, 78, 93–95, 108, 145. See also Manchu clothing regulations; Qing dynasty, court dress; ranks and titlesand lack of information about early Han Chinese officials, 217n60, 219n11 incorporation of foreign dignitaries in the New Year’s Day ceremony, 56, 58 and innovations, 8, 19–22, 189–190, 197–200, 214n10, 221n56 kowtow formalized by, 214n3 legacy of, 5, 190–191, 214n7 legal system of: and Ming dynasty precedents, 236n12, 238n87. See also Imperial Clan Court military: and conflicts over strategy, 35–36; and Manchu identity reflected in imperial court dress, 159, 165–169; and marriage alliances between senior military commanders of the Plain Yellow Banner, 135; military garb of, 149fig.; and Ming

264

index

Qing dynasty ෎ཛʳ(continued) general Zhang Xian ്⽟, 102; and Ming state connections of advisors and officials to Hong Taiji, 38, 220n46; and Prince Yi, 199, 239n10. See also banner system and the need for a Qing Huidian, 179–182 and the need for new regulations, 186–189 ranks and titles administration of (see Board of Rites; Imperial Clan Court) expansion of ranks of relatives in 1636, 105–106, 108 and issues with following the Huidian in replacing imperial guards, 183 nine grades of administrative officials: articulation of, 108–109; entourage paraphernalia for, 106; and ru bafen ԵԶٝ (inside banner division), 108, 228n55; 1. Prince of the blood of the first degree (Ma. hošoi cinwang; Ch. hesuo qinwang ࡉࢬᘣ‫)׆‬, 109 (see also Daišan; Dodo; Dorgon; Hooge; Jirgalang; Nikan; Sahaliyen); 2. Prince of the blood of the second degree (Ma. doroi jyūnwang; duoluo junwang ‫ڍ‬ᢅಷ‫)׆‬, 109 (see also Ajige); 3. Beile (Ma. doroi belie; Ch. duoluo beile ‫ڍ‬ᢅߦ೬), 109 (see also Šangšan); 4. Beile Prince (Ma. gūsai beise; Ch. gushan beizi ࡐ՞ߦ՗), 228n54 (see also Udahai); 5. Defender Duke (Ma gurun be dalire gung; Ch. zhengguo gong ᠜ഏֆ), 109, 110, 112, 228n54; 6. Bulwark Duke (Ma. gurun be aisilara gung; Ch. fuguo gong ᎖ഏֆ), 110, 112 (see also Šangšan; Šoto; Yoto); 7. Defender general of the State (Ma. gurun be dalire jangjin; Ch. zhenguo jiangjun ᠜ഏല૨), 110; 8. Bulwark general of the State (Ma. gurun be aisilare jangjin; Ch. fuguo jiangjun ᎖ ഏല૨), 110; 9. Supporter-general of the State (Ma. gurun be tuwakiyara jangjin; Fengguo jiangjun ࡚ഏലല૨), 110 and sociopolitical order, 64, 79–80, 91–92, 95–97, 103–105, 127 and violations of regulations, 127–130 Rawski, Evelyn, xii, 15, 216n43, 233n12 rites and ceremonies greeting rites, 103–105 See also court ceremony; Grand ceremony; Imperial Birthday Rite; kowtow; New Year’s Day ceremony; ritual

Rites of Zhou (Zhouli ࡌ៖) and Kangxi’s Huidian, 189, 190–191 and the Tang liudian ାքࠢ, 172 ritual definition of, xi guest ritual (binli ᎏ៖), 15 and imperial procession guards (luanyiwei ᨶᏚᓡ), 105 manuals: Huangchao lizhi (ritual manual of the Qianlong emperor), 3; Ni lizhi (Ming ritual manuscript), 223n4 music: and the Board of Rites, 18, 19; and ceremonial practice, 56, 58, 60, 61; and Daoist priests, 18 Qing rituals adapted from the Ming for an ethnically inclusive organization, 21, 147, 187 and the ritual calendar, 74, 80, 224n41, 224n41 and variation, 47, 58, 93, 199 See also li; rites and ceremonies; sacrificial rituals sacrificial rituals ancestral sacrifices: issues concerning sacrificing to a previous dynasty (lidai diwang ᖵ‫ז‬০‫)׆‬, 89; Manchu records on sacrificing to ancestor’s graves, 84; and the Manchu shamanistic shrine (tangse), 45, 46–48, 55, 60, 221n2; and the Manchu term hvturingga munggan (“prosperous tomb,” Ch. fuling ༄ສ), 84; to Nurhaci’s tomb and Aisin Gioro ancestors, 83–85, 84tab.; to specialized temples (see ancestral temple); triennial performance of, 177 and symbolic power, 3, 7, 53–54, 63–64, 66, 81–86 See also Altar of Heaven; li Sahaliyen (Daišan’s third son), 32, 205, 208tab. posthumous title of prince of the blood of the first degree, 111 and president of the Board of Rites, 34, 98 Šangšan (Beile), 142–143 Shangshu ࡸ஼, 172 Shanhaiguan ՞௧ᣂ, location of, xmap Shenyang ާ㧌. See Mukden shili ࠃࠏ (precedents). See Huidian shili Shilu ኔᙕ (veritable records) compilation of (1686), 238n78 Qianlong-era records of the “construction” (yingjian ᛜ৬) and “establishment” (jian miao ৬ᐔ) of the ancestral temple, 86 raiding and pillaging reported in, 35–36

index Shunzhi emperor ႉए (r. 1644–1661) attempt to visit the ancestral tombs, 225n56 and clothing regulation: form of dress related to territorial administration, 148, 150, 155, 157, 160; “hearing of administrative affairs” (tingzheng ᦫਙ), 79; on Manchu garb, 156–157 and Fu Jingxing’s memorial on imperial dress, 146 memorials and edicts found in the Grand Secretariat Archive, 209 Qing distinguished from the Jin by, 226n80 years prior to his ascension (see Fulin) Sinicization of conquest dynasties and Hong Taiji’s warning about the fate of the Jin, 165, 243n33 and li, 14 Qing as a multiethnic empire contrasted with, 21–22, 147, 161 six administrative boards (liubu քຝ) and the Department of State Affairs (shangshu sheng ࡸ஼ઊ) and Prime Minister (zaixiang ୬ઌ), 18–19 establishment of (1631), 17, 19–20, 38–39, 76, 93, 220n48 Grand Secretariat oversight of, 17 and “hearing of administrative affairs” (tingzheng ᦫਙ), 79 overview of, 18 policy-making capability of, 18–19, 34, 39 and the structure of the Huidian, 172, 173 See also Board of Personnel (Libu); Board of Punishments (Xingbu); Board of Revenue (Hubu); Board of Rites (Libu); Board of War (Bingbu); Board of Works (Gongbu) six offices of scrutiny (Liuke քઝ), 76 Liang Weiben (supervising secretary of), 173 Sneath, David, 221n57 Song huiyao ‫ݚ‬ᄎ૞, 172, 189 Songshan ࣪՞, location of, xmap Sonin (junior relative), 231n39 Šoto (Daišan’s second son), 32, 205, 208tab., 231n57 punishment for defying his given rank, 128–129 state-formation and the importance of discipline and culture, 5–11 and the compilation of the Da Qing huidian, 187–192, 195–196

265

role of the Board of Rites in, xii–xiii, 19–21, 185–187, 194–195, 199 See also symbolic power state-making. See state-formation Sugiyama, Kiyohiko, 227n49, 239n7 Šurhaci second son (see Amin) sixth son (see Jirgalang) violent death of, 28–29, 219n8 symbolic power and the emperor’s position at the top of a hierarchy, 7, 15–16, 43–44, 53–54, 61, 63–64, 66, 71–72, 196–197 and the importance of discipline and culture in modern state formation, 8–9 and Qing political domination, 5–6 of seating arrangements, 48–54 See also Banners; clothing; Imperial Birthday Rite; Manchu clothing regulations; New Year’s Day ceremony; Qing dynasty, court dress; ranks and titles; rituals; sacrificial rituals Taihedian Hall ֜ࡉᄥ imperial birthday rite at, 73, 74 location in Imperial Palace in Beijing, 57map map of the positions for the various ranks and attendants for court ceremony, 79fig. New Year’s Day ceremony at, 56 Taihemen Gate ֜ࡉ॰, 55 Tan Qian ᓫᔢ, 177 Tang dynasty administrative regulations (Tang liudian), 172 Board of Rites during, 18 state ritual adjusted to harmonize with the shifting meaning of sovereignty, 200 strong aristocracy of, 210 Tang liudian ାքࠢ (Tang dynasty administrative regulations), 172, 189 Tangse. See Manchu shamanistic shrine Tantai (banner commander), 129, 135, 230n26 Temple of Heaven (tiantan ֚ᕽ). See Altar of Heaven Thornton, Patricia M., 215n16, 215n16 Tiancong reign ֚ᜣཛ (1635) Bao Chengxian on the need for rites to establish proper political relationships, 77 Hong Taiji’s sacrifice at his father’s grave, 84 New Year’s Day Celebration, 55 Tilly, Charles, 9 Tsai Sung-yin, 223n4

266

index

Turfan (Tulufan ‫ٷ‬ᕙ྾), 186 Udahai (Beile Prince), and the Imperial Clan Court, 142–143 Unger, Roberto Mangabeira, 221n59 van der Sprenkel, Sybille, 238n87 Waley-Cohen, Joanna, 216n43 Wang Wenkui ‫֮׆‬৊, 39, 40 on clothing as key for maintaining sociopolitical order, 95, 97, 226n10 memorial advocating for li to maintain sociopolitical order, 93–94 Wang Xi ‫׆‬ዺ, 181, 184, 188 Wang Xianzuo ‫᧩׆‬శ, 184 Wei Xiangshu ᠿွᑐ (official in the Office of Scrutiny) impeachment proceedings against, 174–175 memorial from 1648 on producing a Qing-specific Huidian, 181–182 Winter Solstice ceremony ‫۟מ‬, 67, 70–72 Wumen Gate ֑॰, 55–56, 57map, 60 Xiong Cilü ዼᔅᐌ, 183 yamen ᇒ॰ (Ma. yamun) clerks working for, 18 rites performed by officials at, 223n14 Yang Xueshen and Zhou Yuanlian, 228n57 Yongping ‫ؓة‬, location of, xmap, 31, 33, 37 Yongzheng emperor ሸ‫( إ‬r. 1723–1735), 15, 115

Huidian edition published by, 198, 210 and infractions against ceremonial order, 115, 117 and Prince Yi, 199, 239n10 Yoto (Daišan’s eldest son), 32, 205, 208tab. inheritance of his title as prince of the blood of the first degree, 111 as owner of the Bordered Red Banner, 98, 111 Yuan dianzhang ցࠢີ (Yuan dynasty administrative practices), 172 zeli ঞࠏ (precedents) beginning in Qianlong, 210, 238n83, 239n4 See also Huidian shili Zhang Jinfan, 236n12, 238n87 Zhang Xian ്⽟, 102 Zhongdemen Gate ࢘൓॰, 71 Zhonghedian Hall խࡉᄥ and the imperial birthday rite, 73, 74 location in Imperial Palace in Beijing, 57map and the New Year’s Day ceremony, 56 Zhouli ࡌ៖. See Rites of Zhou Zito, Angela, xii, 216n43 Zhu Yuanzhang ‫ڹ‬ցᑾ as founder of the Ming dynasty, 19, 124–125 Hong Taiji’s administration contrasted with, 41 Ming dress of, 166; and the practice of duoqing (mourning while in office), 15 triennial ancestral sacrifices by, 177 Zongrenfu ࡲԳࢌ. See Imperial Clan Court Zu Kefa ల‫ױ‬ऄ, 129

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