Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (12 page)

The Banner Elite

By the midpoint of his reign, Hungli sat atop a minority ruling group
that was already split between a tiny elite and an impoverished mass.
The warrior group that had conquered China in 1644 had three
ethnic components: besides the Manchus, there were the ethnic
Chinese living outside the Great Wall who had submitted to the
Manchus before the conquest and enrolled in the banner organization as hereditary military retainers; and those Mongols whose tribes
had become allies of the Manchus. Of this band of about 347,000
able-bodied males and their families, Manchus themselves comprised
only about 16 percent. By the third decade of the eighteenth century,
the number of able-bodied males had nearly doubled, and Manchus
comprised about 23 percent.37 Here was a tiny minority of the
empire's total population (with their families, probably less than 1
percent by the mid-eighteenth century). Though a few thousand had
lucrative careers in civil or military posts, the majority were "poor,
indebted, and unemployed."38 The lands that had been set aside for
them had largely fallen under the control of Chinese estate-managers. Bannermen themselves lived almost entirely within urban garrisons, where the decrees that kept them from intermarrying with
the surrounding Chinese population were of diminishing effect. Military skills languished, as did other cultural hallmarks of the conquest
elite, particularly the Manchu language."" With neither the selfesteem afforded by a firm economic base nor the bracing challenge
of military threats, the rank and file had little to buttress their pride
as a conquest group. For the Throne, however, Manchu pride seemed
a matter of urgency. Hungli evidently thought that his leverage over
the bureaucracy, to say nothing of the regime's control of the conquered Chinese population, depended on the survival of Manchu
ethnic identity. In this age of assimilation, Hungli became a champion of Manchu language and values, even while an enthusiastic patron
of Chinese culture.40

Such an enterprise would seem hopeless; yet it was required of
every ruling dynasty, whether of domestic or foreign origin. Leadership, as distinct from routine bureaucratic management, distinguished the conquerors from the thousands of civil servants who
managed the empire. To survive as a ruling group, the conquerors
must preserve their original elan and distinction. Yet to bring the
civil service into camp, these same conquerors must appear to be
legitimate participants in Confucian culture. Exclusivity and assimilation were never conceivable in isolation from each other. This was
Hungli's dilemma, as head of both the Manchu people and the universal Chinese empire. For him, holding these roles together was a
preoccupation, from which grew the political history of his reign.

Cultural Contagion

Hungli's fears about the Manchus' degeneration were generally
phrased in terms of what they were losing (martial skills, cultural
treasures, personal qualities), but these losses were also expressed as
scorn for a decadent Han elite, which he feared his Manchus were
coming to resemble. Bannermen ought to exemplify a superior standard of courage, simplicity, and grit that could hardly be expected
of any Han (not even those semi-Manchuized Han bannermen whose
forebears had been brought into Manchu service before the conquest). Yet case after case showed him that the old virtues were
fading.

A Manchu guard officer of distinguished lineage had figured out
how to sell choice appointments to ambitious bannermen, through a
cozy arrangement with clerks of the Board of War. Hungli made him
an example: "How can there be such officers among us Manchus?"
Even more repellent was the very idea that Manchus would seek
cushy posts: "When We appoint Manchus to provincial posts, We do
so partly because they retain the old unspoiled nature and integrity
of the Manchu people, as well as their admirable personal talents and
their skills with bow and horse. Thus may they serve as a standard
for the provincial Green Standard forces the Han constabulary]. It
is certainly not just to provide them with a route for personal
advancement and emoluments." No longer was there to be special
clemency for Manchu rascals. Earlier in the dynasty, such men seemed worth rehabilitating; in those great times, moral standards
were higher. But as the Manchu population had increased, bannermen had been gradually "steeped in wicked customs and extravagance and have even lost the honest nature" of their forebears. Such
men as these sought convenience and ease and were "virtually no
different from Han.""

An even more shocking case was that of a bannerman, seconded
to a Green Standard garrison, who hanged himself rather than face
prosecution for failure to quell a local riot. The monarch was furious:
when Manchus were assigned to Green Standard garrisons, he
declared, it was to use their riding and archery skills, as well as their
courage, to "correct the vile ways of the Green Standards. "42 Because
this man "was it hereditary Manchu trooper" (Man-thou shih-p'u), he
should have led troops to suppress this local outrage, even at the cost
of his life.

Even though this would not have been comparable to death in battle,
yet We would have granted special grace to his family ... But to die
like this, fearful of punishment, is just it common death ... How can
there be such contemptible men among hereditary Manchu troopers?
This trend is really vile. Let it be strictly proclaimed to all Manchu
military men serving with the Green Standard that they must exert
themselves bravely and energetically in all matters, to reclaim the old
Manchu ways and to expunge this cowardly and decadent trend.

Decline was ominously marked, thought Hungli, by the erosion of
Manchu language skills. Quite apart from the statutory bilingualism
at court (which required translation bureaus to render certain classes
of documents into Manchu), there was a broader assumption that
bannermen would be as conversant with their linguistic heritage as
they were with riding and shooting. Manchu was the language that
symbolized Ch'ing power in Central Asia. If Manchus in border
garrisons lost their "culture and heritage," they would be "ridiculed
by the Muslim and Kazakh tribes." But linguistic standards were
plummeting, in the interior as in the border garrisons. A local banner
commander bemoaned the grammatical and lexicographical chaos in
the Manchu-language paperwork prepared in his province. Although
Manchu was the "cultural root of bannermen," their written work
contained "mistakes within mistakes."`':' The rot was spreading even
within the Manchu homeland. Hungli fumed that officials serving in
Manchuria, who were expected to memorialize mainly in Manchu,
11 use only Chinese . . . If the subject-matter is too complex and Manchu cannot wholly express what they have to say, so that Chinese
must be used, yet they ought to use Manchu along with it." These
personnel "are actually being infected by Han customs and are losing
their old Manchu ways." Though it might not serve all the demands
of present-day government, Manchu was a touchstone of cultural
integrity.44

Hungli naturally offered himself as a model and lost no opportunity to correct a faulty translation or to question a job candidate
personally in Manchu. He was fastidious about Han translations of
original Manchu edicts on military affairs and reprimanded the editors of the chronicle of the Zungar campaign for their overly free
translations, which "lost the proper meaning" of the original Manchu.
In this case, faithfulness to the Manchu texts was surely less pedantic
than talismanic.45

Apart from its talismanic power, Manchu was useful as a confidential language in sensitive affairs of state, particularly military matters.
In 1767 Hungli sent the trusted aristocrat Fulinggan (eldest son of
Prince Fuheng, Hungli's brother-in-law) to investigate the conduct of
his stalled campaign against the Burmese. Fulinggan sent back secret
memorials in Manchu revealing that the reports of the commanders,
Yang Ying-chu and Li Shih-sheng, were "all mendacious." Yang and
Li were arrested and condemned to death. Here the Manchu language added an extra level of secrecy to an already confidential
communication system, in a case, significantly, where Han commanders were the targets of investigation.46

The Kiangnan Problem

Fear and mistrust, admiration and envy: all marked the Manchu view
of Kiangnan, where soulstealing originated. In that "land of rice and
fish," elegance and scholarship were nourished by lush agriculture
and thriving commerce. From Kiangnan came, by way of the Grand
Canal, much of Peking's food supply. Hence imperial rulers had, for
centuries, found themselves in dogged competition with Kiangnan
elites for the region's surplus. Just as perplexing was how to achieve
political control of Kiangnan's haughty scholar elite, who took more
than their share of civil-service degrees and high offices. If anyone
could make a Manchu feel like a loutish outsider, it was a Kiangnan
literatus. To the old Kiangnan problem, this old love-hate relationship, Hungli addressed himself in his own ways.47 Here was the cultural center of everything the Manchus considered most essentially
"Han": the most luxurious, most learned, most artistically refined
culture of the realm. From a straitlaced Manchu point of view, it was
also the most decadent. Its threat to Manchu values (as Hungli liked
to think of them) stemmed from its very attractiveness. If Manchus
were to lose themselves to Chinese culture, the culture of Kiangnan
would do the worst damage.

The monarch himself was both attracted and repelled by Kiangnan.
Hungli had, after visiting the region, imported fragments of
Kiangnan elite culture to adorn the Manchu summer capital at
Ch'eng-te. But besides refinement and elegance, Kiangnan also
meant decadence and assimilation. Its decadent culture ruined good
officials who served there, whether bannermen or ordinary Han.48
Luxurious and corrupt, lower Yangtze society eroded virtue as sugar
erodes teeth. Liu Yung, son of Grand Councillor Liu T'ung-hsun (a
good northern family, of course), submitted a scathing memorial on
the subject in 1762, having just completed a term as Kiangsu educational commissioner. He described how the power of Kiangsu's
rich, commercialized elites had outgrown the government's capacity
to control them. "The arrogant lower gentry cause trouble and
behave outrageously, but the local officials cover up for them." These
officials "fear the had elements, but also fear the lower gentry and
the clerk-runners of local government." The guilty went free, and
government was negligent in the extreme. So powerful were the local
elite that county and prefectural bureaucrats learned the delicate art
of ignoring trouble to avoid having their own fingers burnt. Hungli
responded: "Liu Yung's memorial hits the nail on the head with
respect to the Kiangsu administration's evil practices. The scholars
and people of Kiangnan have extravagant customs. If you add to this
the perversity and leniency of the authorities, the situation has grown
steadily worse and is by now incorrigible."

Of all the provincial jurisdictions, Hungli continued, "Kiangnan is
the most outrageously lax. And this is not merely Liu Yung's individual opinion." Yenjisan, governor-general of Liangkiang, and
Ch'en Hung-mou, governor of Kiangsu, had set a bad example.
These officials had served in the area longest (Yenjisan for six years,
Ch'en for four). Both had "regarded lack of trouble as a blessing."
And because they had abundant administrative experience, "concord
with superiors, amity with subordinates" was their habitual work style.
"Those whom they supervise are mostly their old subordinates," and they covered up their misdeeds. Supervision was so lax that wicked
officials actually conspired to hinder the conduct of government
business. Yenjisan and Ch'en could not escape personal responsibility
for this mess. If such high officials could not maintain standards, who
below them would fail to get the message? They must clean up their
jurisdictions by impeaching the corrupt and inept bureaucrats Liu
Yung had denounced. If they merely used this as a way of impeaching
their enemies, "they can hardly hope to evade Our penetrating eye."49

Kiangnan decadence had infected even Manchu stalwarts such as
Yenjisan, to say nothing of veteran Han bureaucrats like Ch'en Hungmou. Its miasma penetrated all levels, from provincial grandees down
to county magistrates. The "rule of avoidance" (hui-pi), designed to
insulate the bureaucracy from local influence, could not withstand
long service in the morally corrosive atmosphere of the lower
Yangtze. If Kiangnan culture was a snare for Manchus, the weaker
fiber of even the best Han officials was even more susceptible. Laxity,
cronyism, reluctance to face problems for fear of trouble, cautiousness and indecisiveness: all led bureaucrats to lie and dither when
communicating with the Throne. These were the Kiangnan "accumulated bad practices" (chi-hsi) that menaced the integrity of govern-
rnent. We shall discover more about them as we examine the behavior
of the bureaucracy in 1768 under the lash of the Throne's antisorcery
campaign.

Hungli's fears of Kiangnan linked Manchu assimilation to a conventional concern of monarchs: the general decline of bureaucratic
effectiveness. His rhetoric, by mid-reign, seemed to reflect his direst
presentiment: assimilated Manchus and corrupted Han officials
descending, hand in hand, the slope of dynastic decline. For confronting such anxieties, the soulstealing crisis offered Hungli a rich
context. He could define and protect Manchu cultural identity by
labeling, as opprobriously as possible, men who threatened or
betrayed it. He could exorcise the decadence of Kiangnan culture by
finding and crushing Kiangnan's grotesque counter-elite, the mastersorcerers of the South.'" Meanwhile, sorcery was about to break out
of its Kiangnan homeland and explode upon the national scene.