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 ofthe
need to reinvigorate govemment. That year, severe
floods struck the city, prompting the city's elite residents to organize relief
efforts. The silting ofthe 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 ofthe selfIsh (si) to cheat (qi),
deceive (zha), engage in corrupt (fan ) acts, or
otherwise undermine attempts to solve administrative problems. One version ofthis 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 ofthe 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 ofthe 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 ofthe 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 ofthe 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 ofthe 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 ofthe
war are relatively abundant, allowing comparison to Qing state offerings.
Jonathan Withers has made excellent use ofthese
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 ofthe 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 ofthe 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 ofrenewal.
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 ofNanjing 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.
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