뉴스레터

One of the interesting topics that draw attention from the community studying the history of Qing at home and abroad is the controversy surrounding the two opposing viewpoints of understanding Qing's history. The one argues that the Manchu had successfully ruled China through Sinicization. And the other takes the position that in ruling China the Qing Dynasty had held fast to Machurian traditions, including Manchurian language, Manchurian letters, and Manchurian customs, since it took possession of Shanhaiguan.

Qing's Foreign Conquests

Some examples of Manchurian traditions maintained during the Qing period are aggressive foreign conquests through the use of armed force. These foreign conquests continued before and after Qing's taking possession of Shanhaiguan, into the Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝) period, reaching its peak during the Emperor Qianlong era. Considering their origin and nature, these foreign conquests were obviously continuation of Manchurian traditions, not results of Sinicization. After all, the Ming Dynasty, particularly in its middle and late years, was plagued by Mongolia from the north and Japanese pirates on the southeastern seas, and busy trying to fend off the Manchu toward the end of its years.

But if we turned our eyes to the inland of China, we could find a completely different aspect of the Ming Dynasty. In the inland, Ming was consistently aggressive, subduing and assimilating ethnic minorities, or even annihilating them altogether. This characterizes Ming's attitude toward ethnic minorities in such regions as Sichuan (四川), Huguang (湖廣), Yunnan (雲南), Guizhou (貴州), and Guangxi (廣西). Ming used force to punish the resistance of ethnic minority officials (土司) in the southwest, and tamed them while persistently pursuing the policy of gaitu guiliu (改土歸流: bureaucratization of native officials). As a result, by the Qing period, gaitu guiliu was completed, and rebellion threatening national security became significantly less frequent than it had been during the Ming period. It is my opinion that Ming's campaigns of conquest of inland that came to fruition made it possible for the campaigns of conquest by Emperor Kangxi Emperor or Emperor Qianlong to succeed in the Qing period. The emperors of Ming, with the exception of early years, didn't have enough strengths to set out on foreign conquests, but were keen on inland conquests. In this respect, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that they shared thirst for conquest with the emperors of Qing.

Emperor Qianlong's Military Achievements and Qing Getting Stronger

Calling himself "Old Man of the Ten Completed [Great Campaigns]," Emperor Qianlong took pride in his military achievements made during his domestic and foregin conquests in the 1740s through the 1790s. The ten campaigns included the suppression of internal rebellion as well as foreign conquests, and those ambiguous ones that may or may not be considered victorious. However, it is a clear fact that those ten campaigns allowed Emperor Qianlong to defend and expand the boundary of the Qing Dynasty. Of those campaigns, Emperor Qianlong was most proud of the First Dzungar War which took place from February to June of 1755 (Qianlong Year 20) and ended in a purportedly perfect victory 'without a single soldier wounded and a single arrow broken.' I have published a paper on this war. My impression of the war from reading up on related documentation or annals such as Military Annals of the Pacification of the Dzungars (平定準噶爾方略) as part of preparation for writing that paper was twofold.

First of all, I realized that the Qing Dynasty led by Emperor Qianlong and the members of the Council of the State assisting him was a great empire capable of thoroughly mobilizing large-scale human and material resources for efficient deployment to the distant battlefields. Qing's such capability is being reproduced in modern China, which has recently launched an aircraft carrier capable of transporting a large amount of weapons and troops transcending spatial limitations.
Secondly, I wondered if the leaders of the Dzungars would have dared to come face-to-face and fight Qing, if they had understood Qing's enormous war capacity for what it really was. Although the sources I referred to were limited to documentation by Qing and didn't include any historical records of the Dzungars, Qing's overall war capacity was much greater than it had been 100 years ago when it was struggling with inland conquests, thanks to the remarkable development made by Qing in all fronts over that period, including politics, society, and economy. By 1750 (Qianlong Year 15), Qing had become a superpower thought to have accounted for over 30 percent of the global manufacturing output.

By drawing on these capabilities, Emperor Qianlong dispatched 30,000 Northern Route Army troops and 20,000 Western Route Army troops, which included the Forbidden Eight Banner Army stationed in Beijing, the Provincial Eight Banner Army, and Mongolian soldiers. Over 10,000 Green Standards Army troops (漢人綠旗兵) were also mobilized, but the command of the Two Routes Army (兩路軍) consisted solely of Manchurians and Mongolians, completely ruling out the Han Chinese. Emperor Qianlong ordered war reports to be made exclusively in written Manchu for fear of the leakage of military secrets. And he made the generals hold one another in check in the manner of 'using Mongolians to subdue Mongolians (以蒙制蒙)' or 'using Manchus to subdue Mongolians (以滿制蒙).' To carry the luggage of the soldiers, 100,000 camels were drafted. And 150,000 war horses and 10,000 heads of cattle and sheep were purchased mainly from the plains of Mongolia. Up to 1,750 tons of dried noodles and rick cakes were also included in the military provisions. All these troops and supplies travelled over distances ranging from hundreds of kilometers up to a thousand kilometer to be deployed to the front lines. The war of conquest so meticulously planned ended as soon as it began as most of the Dzungar leaders and common people in the internal trouble caused by the ruler Dawachi's tyranny surrendered to Qing.

Qing's Influence Maximized Following the Expedition to Dzungar

The victorious Emperor Qianlong ordered the compilation of Military Annals of the Pacification of the Dzungars, and erected a monument on Mount Ogden (格登山) in Ili, the stage for Dawaji's last stand, with inscriptions written in Manchu, Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan celebrating the suppression of the Dzungars. He also ordered the erection of another such monument (御製平定準噶爾告成太學碑), written in Manchu and Chinese, in the Imperial Academy and other schools across the country. This is how Emperor Qianlong declared and showed off to the many peoples under Qing's rule, such as Mongolians, Tibetans, Manchus, and the Han Chinese, particularly the Han Chinese as the absolute majority, that he had incorporated Dzungar into the Qing Empire. In addition, he offered sacrifices in person to Taimiao (太廟) telling of the suppression of the Dzungars, and sent government officials to have them offer sacrifices to the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Earth, gods of soil and grain, and the Confucius Temple (孔廟) in Qufu (曲阜).

Thinking that he had completely subdued the Dzungars, Emperor Qianlong was feeling extremely proud of himself at this point of his life. The mood of nationwide feast was short-lived, however, as the surrendered leader of Dzungar Amursana rose in rebellion in a few months. Amursana, who wanted to be the only ruler of the four provinces of Dzungar, rose up against Qing as Emperor Qianlong stuck to a policy of divide and rule. Emperor Qianlong carried out the 2nd Dzungar Expedition (1755-1758), completely uprooting Dzungar, a nomadic state threatening the Qing Dynasty, out of the plains. Afterwards, Qing named this region New Territory (新疆) and placed the region under its rule. Emperor Qianlong called himself the 'Only Master of Regions Outside China (中外共主)' or 'Great Ruler over All Things Under Heaven (天下大君),' meaning that he was the ruler exerting influence over not only the Qing Dynasty which had integrated the nomadic society into the agrarian society but also its neighboring states and peoples. Considering the scale and development of the campaigns of conquest undertaken by Emperor Qianlong. one cannot exactly write off his title as a false show.