Pub Date : 2024-02-02DOI: 10.1353/late.2023.a918494
Lawrence Zhang, Chong Li
Abstract:
This article highlights a source from the Qing dynasty, published under various titles such as Shangyu tiaoli, Buyuan tiaozou, Gebuyuan tiaolice, and others, and describes its significance and usefulness for the study of Qing history. These publications are official compilations of regulations and legislations from the Qing government that were printed by various provincial governments since the early Qianlong reign to the end of the dynasty. They provide an alternative source for government documents that are sometimes missing from other official compilations such as the Veritable Records and the Shangyu dang. They also preserve elements of inter-agency communication that are routinely excised from these other official compilations, thus offering the historian a useful addition to the repository of sources that one could consult for various topics.
{"title":"Shangyu Tiaoli and the Study of Qing Central Government Legislative Agendas","authors":"Lawrence Zhang, Chong Li","doi":"10.1353/late.2023.a918494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2023.a918494","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article highlights a source from the Qing dynasty, published under various titles such as Shangyu tiaoli, Buyuan tiaozou, Gebuyuan tiaolice, and others, and describes its significance and usefulness for the study of Qing history. These publications are official compilations of regulations and legislations from the Qing government that were printed by various provincial governments since the early Qianlong reign to the end of the dynasty. They provide an alternative source for government documents that are sometimes missing from other official compilations such as the Veritable Records and the Shangyu dang. They also preserve elements of inter-agency communication that are routinely excised from these other official compilations, thus offering the historian a useful addition to the repository of sources that one could consult for various topics.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139679480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-02DOI: 10.1353/late.2023.a918492
Steven B. Miles
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Message from the Editor
Steven B. Miles, Editor-in-chief
The June 2023 issue of Late Imperial China marked the departure of Qitao Guo as associate editor. We thank him for his valuable service and wish him well in a retirement that will be devoted to the continuing study of Huizhou. With the December 2023 issue, Emily Mokros joins the editorial board as an associate editor. I am delighted to have her on our team. [End Page v]
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1353/late.2023.a899674
Jaymin Kim
Abstract:The scholarship on Qing Xinjiang has not paid much attention to the Qing relationship with the Kirghiz. On one hand, the Kirghiz, decentralized and fragmented, escape the attention of scholars interested in Qing relations with Central Asian “polities.” On the other hand, historians of Altishahr consider the Kirghiz as nomadic outsiders, only mentioning them in passing when their paths cross those of the Altishahri. A careful examination of Manchu-language palace memorials from the Qingdai Xinjiang Manwen dang’an huibian, however, shows that there was a subgroup of Kirghiz who the Qianlong emperor (r. 173599) and his officials firmly incorporated into Altishahr and maintained as an integral part of Altishahr society. In turn, these Kirghiz, whom I call “inner Kirghiz,” went on to serve the Qing empire as active agents of early Qing state building efforts in Xinjiang. Using inner Kirghiz life stories, I will ultimately argue that boundaries separating “Qing” and “foreign” remained elastic throughout the second half of the eighteenth century. These boundaries were neither clear-cut nor permanent, constantly fluctuating according to the decisions made by the Qianlong emperor and his officials as well as the inner Kirghiz themselves.
{"title":"Becoming Inner Kirghiz: Qing Policy Toward the Five Tribes in Xinjiang, 1750s–1790s","authors":"Jaymin Kim","doi":"10.1353/late.2023.a899674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2023.a899674","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The scholarship on Qing Xinjiang has not paid much attention to the Qing relationship with the Kirghiz. On one hand, the Kirghiz, decentralized and fragmented, escape the attention of scholars interested in Qing relations with Central Asian “polities.” On the other hand, historians of Altishahr consider the Kirghiz as nomadic outsiders, only mentioning them in passing when their paths cross those of the Altishahri. A careful examination of Manchu-language palace memorials from the Qingdai Xinjiang Manwen dang’an huibian, however, shows that there was a subgroup of Kirghiz who the Qianlong emperor (r. 1735<en>99) and his officials firmly incorporated into Altishahr and maintained as an integral part of Altishahr society. In turn, these Kirghiz, whom I call “inner Kirghiz,” went on to serve the Qing empire as active agents of early Qing state building efforts in Xinjiang. Using inner Kirghiz life stories, I will ultimately argue that boundaries separating “Qing” and “foreign” remained elastic throughout the second half of the eighteenth century. These boundaries were neither clear-cut nor permanent, constantly fluctuating according to the decisions made by the Qianlong emperor and his officials as well as the inner Kirghiz themselves.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"44 1","pages":"119 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49257191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1353/late.2023.a899672
Tony D. Qian
Abstract:This article examines the recurrent narratives, tropes, and motifs that were utilized in the disposition of marriage controversies in the late Ming case collection, New Accounts of Case Decisions (Zheyu xinyu), attributed to the prefectural judge Li Qing (16021683). The collection consists of 210 judgments divided into ten categories and begins conspicuously with marriage cases. This article emphasizes how Li Qing tells the story of each case by using references to classical, historical, and literary texts, and situates each controversy within broader cultural and moral conceptions of justice. Though Li is not primarily preoccupied with the formal law, I argue that this is not necessarily an indication that these judgments do not reflect actual legal practice. Instead, Li is presenting himself as a moral arbiter writing to underscore the social and moral ramifications of these controversies. By examining cases of marriage repudiations, divorce, and widow remarriages in this collection, this article shows how literary texts and conventions were vehicles for judicial storytelling that humanized the legal system, instilling confidence in the outcomes as reflecting mainstream values and as ultimately fair and just in accounting for mitigating factors.
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Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1353/late.2023.a899673
J. Suh
Abstract:This article analyzes the epitaphs produced for the unburied dead in the Ming and the Qing. These epitaphs were the product of a popular custom called delayed burial (tingzang), the practice of leaving a dead body without permanent interment until a suitable burial site was arranged. The period of unburial varied depending on family circumstances, often spanning years and decades, during which the unburied body symbolized an uncertain place of the deceased within the family. The epitaphs show how families coped with the precarity caused by the delay of burial through creating a literary space where they could explore, construct, and contest the value of the unburied. The epitaphs, in other words, were a strategic tool for building a bond with the deceased when the ritual and material logistics for ancestor-making remained incomplete. Engaging several practical, tangible, and contentious matters pertaining to death and burial within elite households, such as inheritance, financial troubles, official career, and property management, the epitaphs helped family members negotiate ancestorhood in response to the shift of family circumstances.
{"title":"Negotiating Ancestorhood: Epitaphs for the Unburied in Ming-Qing China","authors":"J. Suh","doi":"10.1353/late.2023.a899673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2023.a899673","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article analyzes the epitaphs produced for the unburied dead in the Ming and the Qing. These epitaphs were the product of a popular custom called delayed burial (tingzang), the practice of leaving a dead body without permanent interment until a suitable burial site was arranged. The period of unburial varied depending on family circumstances, often spanning years and decades, during which the unburied body symbolized an uncertain place of the deceased within the family. The epitaphs show how families coped with the precarity caused by the delay of burial through creating a literary space where they could explore, construct, and contest the value of the unburied. The epitaphs, in other words, were a strategic tool for building a bond with the deceased when the ritual and material logistics for ancestor-making remained incomplete. Engaging several practical, tangible, and contentious matters pertaining to death and burial within elite households, such as inheritance, financial troubles, official career, and property management, the epitaphs helped family members negotiate ancestorhood in response to the shift of family circumstances.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"44 1","pages":"41 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45189966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article examines the career trajectory of Ding Gongchen (1800–1875), a Muslim maritime merchant and amateur military technologist from Fujian, to shed light on the changing social landscape of military technological learning in China from the first decades of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the Self-Strengthening Movement in the 1860s. The gradual loosening of state control on military knowledge in the early nineteenth century facilitated the rise of a transprovincial literati network centered on cannon technology during the Opium War (1839–42). An active member of this network, Ding Gongchen participated in local militia training, engaged in textual research and hands-on experimentation with cannons, and established connections with Manchu and Han officials and nonofficeholding literati and gentry. Tracing the production and circulation of Ding's cannon manuals shows how Ding leveraged his maritime experiential knowledge and native-place ties to establish his authority as a cannon expert, which led to his remarkable rise in midcentury officialdom and statecraft circles. However, Ding's involvement in the Self-Strengthening military industrialization of the 1860s was limited and short-lived. The latter stages of Ding's career illustrate how the Opium-War network of cannon technology, which drew on an earlier tradition of military statecraft traceable to the Ming, became rapidly marginalized by an industrializing scheme that privileged the direct importation of foreign machines and expertise.
{"title":"War and Technology: Ding Gongchen and His Cannon Practice Manuals","authors":"S. Fong","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the career trajectory of Ding Gongchen (1800–1875), a Muslim maritime merchant and amateur military technologist from Fujian, to shed light on the changing social landscape of military technological learning in China from the first decades of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the Self-Strengthening Movement in the 1860s. The gradual loosening of state control on military knowledge in the early nineteenth century facilitated the rise of a transprovincial literati network centered on cannon technology during the Opium War (1839–42). An active member of this network, Ding Gongchen participated in local militia training, engaged in textual research and hands-on experimentation with cannons, and established connections with Manchu and Han officials and nonofficeholding literati and gentry. Tracing the production and circulation of Ding's cannon manuals shows how Ding leveraged his maritime experiential knowledge and native-place ties to establish his authority as a cannon expert, which led to his remarkable rise in midcentury officialdom and statecraft circles. However, Ding's involvement in the Self-Strengthening military industrialization of the 1860s was limited and short-lived. The latter stages of Ding's career illustrate how the Opium-War network of cannon technology, which drew on an earlier tradition of military statecraft traceable to the Ming, became rapidly marginalized by an industrializing scheme that privileged the direct importation of foreign machines and expertise.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"137 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47687740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This paper provides an overview of the judicial practices on adultery cases that led to homicide in seventeenth-century China. I argue that the lifting of the punishment for the husband who killed only the adulterer in the Ming Code did not lead to immediate changes in judicial practices. On the contrary, the officials deviated from the letter of the code and encouraged, or even urged, the husband to kill both the adulterer and the wife, embracing the idea of "double killing"—killing both the wife and the adulterer "on the spot" and "immediately"—as an assertion of masculinity, a restoration of conjugal morality, and a proof of the killer's motive. The officials' shared view that illicit sex was a heinous crime was consistent with the surging popularity of the chastity cult and moral heroism. Layered legal institutions and multiple applicable statutes related to adultery and homicide also offered convenient space for manipulation by the ruling elites. Therefore, even when the conditions of the homicide did not meet the prerequisites for impunity, some judges argued for a lenient punishment or even impunity for the husband, at the expense of the law.I then analyze a court case story by the editor and publisher Yu Xiangdou (active 1588–1637), whose crime stories with innovative format combining narrative with formal legal documents were widely read and circulated since the late Ming. As a prolific commercial publisher attuned to the tastes of the literati, Yu provides a mildly critical perspective on the statute and its unintended moral consequence that is rarely seen in the more orthodox writings by officials.
{"title":"\"Killing the Adulterer\": Masculine Revenge Fantasies in Seventeenth-Century China","authors":"Mengdie Zhao","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper provides an overview of the judicial practices on adultery cases that led to homicide in seventeenth-century China. I argue that the lifting of the punishment for the husband who killed only the adulterer in the Ming Code did not lead to immediate changes in judicial practices. On the contrary, the officials deviated from the letter of the code and encouraged, or even urged, the husband to kill both the adulterer and the wife, embracing the idea of \"double killing\"—killing both the wife and the adulterer \"on the spot\" and \"immediately\"—as an assertion of masculinity, a restoration of conjugal morality, and a proof of the killer's motive. The officials' shared view that illicit sex was a heinous crime was consistent with the surging popularity of the chastity cult and moral heroism. Layered legal institutions and multiple applicable statutes related to adultery and homicide also offered convenient space for manipulation by the ruling elites. Therefore, even when the conditions of the homicide did not meet the prerequisites for impunity, some judges argued for a lenient punishment or even impunity for the husband, at the expense of the law.I then analyze a court case story by the editor and publisher Yu Xiangdou (active 1588–1637), whose crime stories with innovative format combining narrative with formal legal documents were widely read and circulated since the late Ming. As a prolific commercial publisher attuned to the tastes of the literati, Yu provides a mildly critical perspective on the statute and its unintended moral consequence that is rarely seen in the more orthodox writings by officials.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"1 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41418665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This paper examines the production of local maps of Qing Khalkha Mongolia in the 19th century. In 1864, the Zongli Yamen initiated a mapping policy that aimed at designing a coherent system of geographical correspondences to record places, distances, and boundaries on the Mongol steppe. This system departed from the longitude and latitude system and enabled the correspondences of boundary markers on the maps and in situ. The producers of geographical knowledge were local Mongol banner and aimag rulers who had to coordinate with neighbors to set the location of obuγas or boundary-markers, draw maps, and record the set boundary-markers on an addendum accompanying the maps. The mapping standards issued by the central state elicited expressions of resistance among local Mongols who actively negotiated the mapping aesthetics and advocated for their own ways of representing the land. The result was a localized form of geographical knowledge that rendered visible the gap between a prescriptive state view on steppe geography and local practices of territorial administration.
{"title":"Mapping Pasturelands: The Production of Geographical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Qing Mongolia","authors":"Anne-Sophie Pratte","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines the production of local maps of Qing Khalkha Mongolia in the 19th century. In 1864, the Zongli Yamen initiated a mapping policy that aimed at designing a coherent system of geographical correspondences to record places, distances, and boundaries on the Mongol steppe. This system departed from the longitude and latitude system and enabled the correspondences of boundary markers on the maps and in situ. The producers of geographical knowledge were local Mongol banner and aimag rulers who had to coordinate with neighbors to set the location of obuγas or boundary-markers, draw maps, and record the set boundary-markers on an addendum accompanying the maps. The mapping standards issued by the central state elicited expressions of resistance among local Mongols who actively negotiated the mapping aesthetics and advocated for their own ways of representing the land. The result was a localized form of geographical knowledge that rendered visible the gap between a prescriptive state view on steppe geography and local practices of territorial administration.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"139 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46794377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Focused on the production of genealogies in southern Zhejiang's Longyou County, this article investigates the relationship between local politics and book production in China between the 1750s and the 1920s. During that era, the major social groups in Longyou—native residents and Fujianese immigrants—actively participated in the production of genealogies. Analyzing fifty-nine genealogies from that county, this article shows that by the early twentieth century, book production had become a widely available strategy for identity construction and political control in local society. Over the course of the long nineteenth century, the right to be recorded through publishing moved down the social ladder to include most Chinese males.
{"title":"Local Politics and Book Production: The Popularization of Genealogies in Southern China, 1750s–1920s","authors":"Xin Yu","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Focused on the production of genealogies in southern Zhejiang's Longyou County, this article investigates the relationship between local politics and book production in China between the 1750s and the 1920s. During that era, the major social groups in Longyou—native residents and Fujianese immigrants—actively participated in the production of genealogies. Analyzing fifty-nine genealogies from that county, this article shows that by the early twentieth century, book production had become a widely available strategy for identity construction and political control in local society. Over the course of the long nineteenth century, the right to be recorded through publishing moved down the social ladder to include most Chinese males.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"43 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45704703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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