By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Introduction: Under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, five 'treaty ports' were opened to Western trade, Hong Kong island was ceded to the British, the Europeans were allowed to station consuls in the open ports, and the old Canton system was replaced by the freedom to trade and the promise that no more than 5 per cent duty would be charged on foreign imports. It was a staggering reversal of the old terms on which China had dealt with the West. But its significance (at this stage) should not be overstated. Irksome as the treaty was to the Chinese authorities, it had certain merits. The foreigners were kept well away from Peking, could not travel freely, and, under the system of consular jurisdiction, would be carefully segregated administratively from the Chinese population. To a great inland, agrarian empire, the snapping of barbarians on the distant coast was a nuisance to be neutralized by skilful diplomacy.

But the treaty was not the end of the matter. It was followed by continual friction between Chinese and Europeans. By 1854 the British were pressing hard for its revision, to open more ports and allow Europeans to move freely into the interior and widen the scope of their trade. In 1856, the 'Arrow' incident, when the Chinese seized a ship allegedly flying the British flag, became the excuse for a second round of military coercion. When the Chinese stalled the implementation of a new treaty agreed in 1858, an Anglo-French expedition arrived at Tientsin and marched on Peking, burning the emperor's summer palace in revenge for their losses. The second great treaty settlement, the Convention of Peking, threw open many more ports, as far north as Tientsin and far up the Yangtze, and gave Europeans (including missionaries) the right to roam in the Chinese interior. Moreover, the old fiction of Chinese diplomatic superiority was to be firmly scotched by forcing the emperor to permit European diplomats to be stationed in Peking. China, it seemed, had been forcibly integrated into the Europeans' international system, on humiliating terms and as a second-rate power, at best.

To the more thoughtful of Chinese administrators and scholars (and Chinese officialdom was recruited from the ablest classical scholars), these startling events required explanation. Their conclusions were uncompromising. Their methods had failed: urgent reform was needed. Better ways had to be found to deal with the barbarians. Western knowledge would have to be systematically translated and disseminated. Transport and communications must be improved. Above all, China must acquire the modern weapons needed to prevent the ability of the West to attack the vital points of the empire almost at will. 'We are shamefully humiliated by [ Russia, America, France and England],' complained the scholar reformer Feng Kuei-fen (1809-74), 'not because our climate, soil, or resources are inferior to theirs, but because our people are really inferior ... Why are they [the Westerners] small and yet strong? Why are we large and yet weak? But, by the time that Feng wrote, the empire was beset by an internal crisis that seemed far more dangerous than the spasmodic coercion inflicted by the Europeans. In the 1850’s and' 60’s, huge areas of central and southern China, some of its richest and most productive regions, were in the grip of rebellion, paralysing trade, cutting off the imperial revenue, and portending the withdrawal of the 'mandate of heaven': the source of dynastic legitimacy. Much the most serious of these great upheavals was the Taiping Rebellion. It began in South West China with the visions of a millenarian prophet, whose preaching combined elements of Christian teaching picked up from the missionaries with the bitter outcry of peasantry oppressed by economic misfortune. Hung Hsiu-ch'uan declared himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and in 1851 proclaimed a new dynasty, the Taiping T'ien-kuo, or Heavenly King.

As we have seen so far, events in the early nineteenth century galvanized Nanjing's elites, convincing them that the strength of the polity depended on their active involvement in administration of both city and empire. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, these events were mostly distant: the White Lotus Rebellion in Sichuan and Henan and the Eight Trigram uprising in the North China Plain. Nevertheless, beginning in 1814 the experiences of literati in Nanjing confirmed their sense of the need to reinvigorate government. That year, severe floods struck the city, prompting the city's elite residents to organize relief efforts. The silting of the Grand Canal in 1824 seemed to confirm that Nanjing's ecological problems were related to problems of govemance, as did the frequency of subsequent flooding (1830-33, 1840, and 1848-49). The Opium War of 1839-1842 spurred the formation of militias to combat the British, and the terms of the 1842 treaty to was signed in Nanjing granting new privileges to the British strengthened the impression that imperial government was not up to addressing the challenges facing the city.

These events gave urgency to the desire ofNanjing's elite residents to reform government. Throughout the fIrst half of the century, the emotional pitch of their expressions of concern intensified. When (inner and outer) Qigong literati diagnosed the root causes of flooding, foreign incursion, and rebellion, they (like Yun Maoqi) discerned the tendency of selfish interests to undermine social cohesion, the inability of elites to address the problem collectively, and the resulting imbalance of qi. These perceptions of political problems in turn shaped their sense of the importance of ritual for effecting change.

When Nanjing elites wrote about the problems afflicting the empire in the fIrst half ofthe nineteenth century, they frequently referred to its "deterioration" (bi). They underscored the tendency of the selfIsh (si) to cheat (qi), deceive (zha), engage in corrupt (fan) acts, or otherwise undermine attempts to solve administrative problems. One version of this phenomenon was the use of government funds for personal gain. Another was the perceived inability of Qing provincial government officials to address new challenges like the opium trade. This concern went beyond the bureaucracy; Nanjing's elites were equally worried about themselves. They feared that the process of gaining status and position corrupted those who took part. These nineteenth-century concerns about the ethical makeup of literati were in part responses to earlier characterizations of the class by eighteenth-century Qing emperors. One of the central problems of Qing governance involved the proper activities and responsibilities of elite men trained in Qigong and other classics. (See Philip Kuhn and Susan Mann Jones, "Dynastie Decline and the Roots ofRebellion," pp. 107162 in John K. Fairbank, ed., The Cambridge History ofChina, Vol. 10, The Late Ch 'ing, 1800-1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). ldeally they would realize this goal through government service, but strict examination quotas afforded this opportunity to only a very select few. Furthermore, because literati viewed themselves as inheritors and transmitters of the traditions, they feit obligated to criticize those government activities they believed violated received norms and to praise those initiatives seen to be in accord with their ancient models of Qi or/and Ying and Yang.(See also Philip Kulm. Origins ofthe Modern Chinese State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

By sharing their ideas about government policy from a moral standpoint, literati could claim prerogatives of official positions that were not otherwise available to them. Through essays, poetry, and letters criticizing imperial decisions, literati could also express (tacitly or directly) to educated elites throughout the empire an ideal of government: that considered scholarly opinion could be a check on the power of Qing monarehs. Both the eagemess of elites and officials to read such publications and the willingness of Qing emperors to tolerate open remonstrance changed over time. Early Qing emperors were deeply suspicious of acts to affect policy that appeared to be part of coordinated campaigns outside of the emperor' s control. As we next observed,  politically motivated literati groupings conjured images of perpetual factional warfare among riyal bureaucratic cliques, thus making effective imperial rule impossible.The Qing thus moved to limit formalliterati associations and to narrow the circle of people who deliberated on political appointments, thus reducing the likelihood of the formation of factional groups.The imperial perception of the dangers of morally inspired literati remonstrance was intimately tied to interpretations of the fall of the Ming. The Qianlong emperor attributed the decline of the Ming dynasty to self-interested maneuvering on the part ofbands of literati who allowed their political goals to obstruct the larger interests ofthe dynasty.

"Before long," wrote the Qianlong emperor, they ceased asking whether their actions supported the state, and even came to regard beatings at court as expanding their reputations for being straightforward and honest. This kind of thing is fiendish and monstrous, and should not happen in the dynasty. We must prevent it from spreading. In short, even though the examination curriculum trained literati to treat political questions as moral issues, any attempt to claim a moral high ground in criticisms of the imperial bureaucracy could be (but was not always) treated as a danger to the dynasty, even tantamount to sedition.

Between 1800 and 1850, population growth, economic dislocation, and popular rebellion destabilized the dynasty, forcing a realignment of the relationship between Qing emperors and literati. Emperors grew more willing to acknowledge, even solicit, wide input on policy issues, and literati feIt that the growing social upheaval necessitated a more activist approach to both local and imperial politics. The accession of the Jiaqing emperor to the throne in 1799 proved to be a turning point. Jiaqing forced his father' s chief minister, Heshen, to cOlnmit suicide following revelations of a string of administrative abuses. Heshen, a Manchu, had amassed an enormous personal fortune, and many Han Chinese officials and literati blamed the length and severity of the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804) on Heshen's corrupt minions. The episode galvanized low-ranking and expectant officials into believing that collective action was necessary for good government in general and for their own career advancement. At the same time, the Jiaqing emperor issued a general call for suggestions on how to correct the problems that remained as the legacy ofHeshen.( David S. Nivison, "Heshen and His Accusers: Ideology and Political Behavior in the Eighteenth Century," pp. 209-244 in Confucianism in Action, ed. by David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), pp. 240-241.)

By devising new meanings for Qing ritual practices, Nanjing's elite residents had interpreted, modified, and re-envisioned existing notions of the polity. Their utopian state had nonetheless remained a Qing state; they sought to displaee but not dethrone the Qing monarch. The Taiping movement was an entirely different matter. These Christianity-inspired iconoclasts insisted that the establishment oftheir Heavenly Kingdom necessitated extirpating the emperor and any trace of the system that had supported him. As Qing and Taiping vied for supremaey, eaeh required their officials to perform offerings. Comparing their praetices can thus tell us about the ways that state ritual was thought to establish political authority in times when claims to powerwere clearly not hegemonie. threats meant that the city slowly shifted from a civilian population center to become a military compound, with many of the city's inhabitants compelled to leave.

 

Nanjing as Heavenly Capital: Urban Life Under the Taiping

Upon their defeat of Qing forces in Nanjing in 1853, Taiping leaders moved to establish civil government in the city. I will concentrate on their acts in the period between 1853 and 1854 for two reasons. First, it was in this interval that the city's elites became acquainted with the practices and aspirations of the movement. Taiping administration of the city helped dictate their choices about whether to stay or leave. Second, sources for Taiping ritual practices in this early stage of the war are relatively abundant, allowing comparison to Qing state offerings. Jonathan Withers has made excellent use of these sources in his work on urban life in Nanjing under the Taiping, which provides a clear picture of the changing circumstances ofthe city during the war. 10 In 1853 and 1854, civilian administration stood alongside military conquest as joint aspects of the Taiping pro gram. As the war progressed, battlefield realities increasingly trumped the Taiping goal of creating a community of God's followers living in a cosmos where (not unlike the worlds imagined by Yun Maoqi and Nanjing elites) peaceful equilibrium had been restored. As we will see, Taiping ritual played out this vision.

Adherents of the T aiping movement employed spiritual, political, and familial metaphors to describe their connections to God and to each other. God was both the "Heavenly Father" and "Shang di." and the semantic range ofthe term di included both "deity" and "emperor." Hong Xiuquan and the other top Taiping leaders referred to themselves as "kings" (wang ) and "brothers" [xiong di]. "Kings" was a term of subordination to the High God. In proclamations by Taiping leaders, adherents were called "Older and younger brothers, older and younger sisters" suggesting a common familial connection with the Heavenly Father.Hong Xiuquan proclaimed that he was reviving ancient worship of Shang Di, and that the Heavenly Kingdom was a restoration of a golden age.11 Accordingly, the Taiping organized their army using ranks recorded in the Rites ofZhou, a work that supposedly recounted the organization of the ancient bureaucracy. This work divided the army into units of four people under the command of a corporal. Larger groupings of these units established a chain of command from the corporals to generals who were to head divisions of 13,155 troops. (Jonathan Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 01 Hong Xiuquan (New York: Norton, 1996), p. 127; Michael, p. 2: 131-139.)

For civilian administration, the Taiping instituted their own civil-service examinations with questions based on the Old and New Testaments, Hong's commentary on the Ten Commandments, and other Taiping proc1amations. In contrast to the highly-competitive Qing testing regime, the Taiping did not have quotas, but they did share with the Qing a three-tiered system of local, provincial, and capital degrees. More importantly, the examinations encouraged study of (and thus defined) Hong's new truth. In this respect, Taiping administrative policy paralleled their goals in ritual. Both declared that the movement had established a new kingdom on earth, and that this kingdom entailed new hierarchies, new canonical texts, and new forms of state practice. Taiping leaders paired the rhetoric of return to ancient practices with condemnation of current government. Their tracts phrased this censure with reference to demons, worldly incarnations of otherworldly malevolent spirits (gui), a word that Nanjing literati used for ghosts) that opposed God.

In more recent times, malevolent spirits worked their deceptions through demons who, in the guise of gods, bewitched by claiming credit for the work of God. People came to see demons, rather than God, as bringers of rain, bestowers of good harvests, and protectors in wartime. By making offerings to demons, people misplaced their devotions. Such was the power of demons and malevolent spirits that even Taiping leaders seemed potentially vulnerable. There were whispers that the golden dragons that Hong Xiuquan wore on his robes were demons. The context for the voicing of the rumor was a debate about Hong' s mistreatment of female attendants. If he wore demons on his robes, could it be the case that they led Hong to immoral behavior? In the published court debate on the issue, Taiping leaders acknowledged that many dragons were in fact demons. They resembled serpents, the most famous of which had tempted Eve to eat forbidden fruit in Eden. Other exampIes inc1uded "The OId Snake of the Eastern Sea, that is Red Eyes, who is also called by the peopIe of the world Yama [King ofHell], and all the snakelike demons, which confuse and harm human perspicacity: these are named 'dragons' and they truIy are demons." The dragons on Hong's robes were of a different ilk however. They were golden dragons, and had been seen when Hong visited God in heaven. Having been in heaven, the golden dragons were c1early not demons.

In the political realm, the Qing conquest of the Ming dynasty was but the most recent manifestation of demonie usurpations. The Taiping dehumanized Manchus and claimed that Manchus did the work of demons. Most epithets used the term hu"tribe” from the north," translated below as "barbarian."

Since the demonic barbarians have seized and occupied China, they have induced man to trust malevolent spirits ever more profoundly, and the demonic fiends have conducted strange practices to an ever greater extreme. They deceived, seduced, and ensnared the souls of men under heaven, causing them to sink into hell where they could not turn to Heaven. The people of the world fell for these schemes and were thoroughly poisoned. All of these constituted the strange and abnormal activities [of the demons]. No wonder the [people] sank without realizing it themselves.

In proclamations and published treatises, Taiping leaders insisted on the need to destroy the devices of demons and turn to the "true" (zhen): the true way and the true God. Awakening, enlightenment purification, and renewal were the tasks ofTaiping government. Loyalty meant undergoing a conversion that allowed one to see the true nature of things: With regard to human life, respect for Heaven and support of the Sovereign lie essentially in loyalty; to cast off the malevolent spirits and become human - this must come through an awakening. Ritual confmned this loyalty, and was necessary in part because the Taiping community could expect their loyalty to be tested. God was capable of bringing ultimate victory over the demans, but would not do so immediately: It can be known that the Heavenly Father's power and ability are indeed omnipresent. However, the fact that our Heavenly Father refrains from immediately exterminating the ruthless demons is perhaps because of his desire to make OUT brothers and sisters determined at heart, to make them double their efforts in discipline that they may enjoy the Heavenly Father's great blessings.The new world would be one ofblessings bestowed by the Heavenl Father, whom all should praise and thank. Bringing about the Heavenly Kingdom meant exterminating (zhu) the demons and the instruments of their deceptions, including alcohol, opium, and excessive sexual desire. In an 1853 proclamation to the people ofNanjing, Yang Xiuqing described the task as "sweeping clean the cosmos" (fi). The results of this sweeping were devastating to the city' s banner population, of whom perhaps 30,000 committed suicide or were slaughtered when the Taiping took the city. The Taiping flattened the quarter of the city that had housed the banner garrison, tearing down structures and eradicating traces ofbanner (i.e. "Manchu") presence in the new Heavenly Capital. (For the deaths of bannermen, Bing Yuan :W35t, "Jinling zhao zhong ci bei wen" [Stele inscription ofJinling's Shrine to Reveal Loyalty], JLWC, 1897, p. 14/10a. See also Chapter Seven. Destruction of garrison buildings, Withers, "Heavenly Capital," 1983, pp. 52-53; Joseph Edkins, "Narrative of a Visit to Nanjing" p. 280 in Jane R. Edkins, Chinese Scenes and People (London: James Nisbet, 1863). A 1739 estimate of the total population ofthe banner garrison in was 51, 000; see Elliot, The Manchu Way, 2001, p.)

The Taiping also eliminated other demons - the images of gods that populated Nanjing's temples. Others witnessed the annihilation with horror. Nanjing resident Chen Zuolin (1837-1920) whose father had been a friend of Wu Guangyu and patron of the lifesaving bureau, was too frightened to leave his house, but from his rooftop he witnessed the burning ofthe Chaotian Temple, the Daoist complex in the center ofthe city.23 Because Taiping soldiers might kill religious professionals on sight, Buddhist and Daoist priests in Nanjing changed c10thes to disguise their occupations. (Jian Youwen fliIx.x:, Tai ping tian guo quan shi ASjZ:;RW11J-i:~ [Comprehensive history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom] (Hong Kong: Mengjin shu wu, 1962), p. 532.)

Any resident who refused to recite prayers to God also faced death. The Taiping even treated other forms of Christianity with suspicion. Ten Chinese Roman Catholics fled to Shanghai and recounted the following story to the priests there:

On March Twenty-first, the Tseu [Xu?] family, the richest and most distinguished of our Christian families, was expelled from their house which the rebels wanted for their leaders, and thirty-one members ofthis family were shut up in the neighboring house, where they were quickly burnt alive. Two young men of this family, aged seventeen and eighteen, who had been absent when their parents were burnt, have just arrived in Shanghai, after having covered seventy or eighty leagues as beggars. Five other members of the same family were also absent during the execution of the thirty-one, but no one knows where they have gone or what has become ofthem. Everything which pertained to Christianity at Nanjing, church ornaments, silver, papers, all were deposited with the Tseu family. Consequently everything is lost without recourse. The same day several insurgents entered the city chapel, where the Christians were gathered and were reciting the prayers of Holy week; the rebels forbade them to kneel for prayers and ordered them to be seated while reciting the new prayer to the Heavenly Father. The Christians answered that they were Catholics and did not know any other religion. 1t was pointed out that if, within three days, they still would not obey, they would all be decapitated. (A Letter by Mgr F X Maresca, Catholic Bishop ofNanking," from N. Brouillon, Memoire sur /'etat actue/ de /a Mission du Kiangnan 1842-55. Translated in Clarke and Gregory Western Reports on the Taiping: A Se/ection oi Documents, pp. 37-40.)

While extirpating Nanjing's demons, Taiping leaders attempted to change elements ofurban life that might delude residents into new reliance on these false idols. Hong Xiuquan issued an edict banning the smoking of opium beeause dependency on the drug eould turn users into "living demons" (sheng yao ). (Edkins, "Narrative," 1863, p. 279. The statement was an exaggeration. Some temple buildings remained but were used for other purposes. See Withers, "Heavenly Capital," 1983, p. 104: "The Wenchang Gong, the Temple ofthe God ofLiterature, for example, became the new Office ofPrinting; the Guandi Temple became a factOl'Y for the manufacture of gunpowder." The walls of the county temple to Confucius remained standing, see Jian, Quan shi, p. 531.)

In 1854 Yang Xiuqing issued a "Proclarnation to the People ofNanjing" explaining that separation of sexes was neeessary as a temporary measure "in order to avoid any beginning of: impropriety in conduet. Selfishness (si) was another temptation, one exacerbated by wealth. The Taiping did not allow private property for city residents, insisting that people share a common treasury. As John Withers has demonstrated, the Taiping ereated new urban institutions to enact their program of renewal. When the Taiping leaders took over govemance of Nanjing in 1853, they subdivided the urban population into units ealled guan ("dwellings"). Guan leaders were responsible for deciding legal disputes, providing edueation, alioeating funds, and overseeing religious ceremonies. In fact  the guans were  the primary social unit ofthe Taiping state.

They were made up of the citizenry ofNanjing, divided into twenty-five member groups and organized according to oeeupation: there were guan for brieklayers, earpenters, millers, bakers, shoemakers, embroiderers, artists, tailors, and even the makers of soy sauce and bean eurd - all of whose produee was turned over to the state treasury and from which in turn they drew rations and supplies. The aged were placed in their own institutes, as were orphans and the handieapped (canfei), and were assigned duties suitable to their physieal eapabilities. Women also had their own guan, led by women officers, which were strietly segregated from the rest, in part because ofthe rebels' puritanical dogma and in part so as to be able to make maximum use oftheir labor. This form of organization reinforced the ideas promulgated in Taiping edicts and publications: that their aim was to reshape the world. Prior attachments to one's property, to one's family, or to one's emperor were to be abandoned in favor of the new community of awakened followers of the one true God. Taiping leaders attempted to convince the populace of Nanjing that working for the new state was the equivalent of enacting God's will. These policies changed over time according to military exigencies, rivalries among Taiping leaders, and reactions ofthe Nanjing populace, the composition ofwhich was fluid. By 1854, many of Nanjing's surviving literati were trying to flee the city following the failure of a plot by Qing loyalists to unlock the gates for the troops of the Great Encampment of Jiangnan.

 

For updates click hompage here