Working the Qing Palace Machine

Abstract

This chapter asks about the personnel working at and for the Qing court. It explores their numbers, working conditions, labour relations, and social positions with a temporal focus on the mid and late Qing. Labour relations, in accordance with the definitions of the Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations, include the non-working, reciprocal, tributary, and commodified types. All of these types were represented at the Qing courts in various constellations. The paper outlines work incentives and sanctions based on Palace Regulations and Precedents (Qinding gongzhong xianxing zeli) and personal accounts of a palace maid and a eunuch in the early twentieth century and gives insights into the interaction of humans with the institutional mechanisms of the palace machine.