Global Crisis
Page 24
What happened to this academic proletariat? Although those who achieved their shengyuan degree were allowed to retain for life the economic and social privileges it brought, the impact of failing subsequent examinations on candidates who had devoted so much of their lives to study (and on the families that had sacrificed so much to support them) could be devastating. A few committed suicide; many suffered a nervous collapse; most went home and either worked while they continued to study (perhaps as secretary to an overworked magistrate or as tutor to the talented son of a rich family), or else vented their frustrations on the local population (a reaction so common that the ‘failed candidate’ became a stock character in Chinese novels). Some abandoned the examination mill and turned to business or medicine; while others still ‘ploughed with their ink stands’ (in the contemporary phrase), producing biographies, plays, novels, essays, epitaphs and (ironically) manuals on how to pass the civil service examinations.47
All these men (and many of their wives and daughters) could read, and thus become familiar with the unprecedented number of printed works available both in urban shops and from rural pedlers. Reading convinced some of these thwarted scholars that they could cope with China's problems better than their successful competitors now in the bureaucracy – a belief confirmed through the numerous ‘scholarly societies’ (wen she), where educated men debated not only literature, philosophy and history but also practical ways of restoring effective government. In 1629 a scholar from Tiacang, close to both Suzhou and Wuxi, called for these societies to join in an amalgamated federation, which would bring together gentlemen-scholars interested in ‘revitalizing and restoring the ancient learning and thus be of some use at a later time. The name of our society, therefore, shall be the Restoration Society (Fu she).’ The following year, when the society already boasted over 3,000 members, 30 of them took and passed the provincial examination in Nanjing, gaining one-fifth of the total juren granted, and the following year twice as many became jinshi.48 Each successful alumnus of the Society worked to advance his colleagues within the bureaucracy through patronage and recommendations while others published collections of ‘model essays’ couched in a new pragmatic style both to popularize their ideas and also to put pressure on the examiners – for if the authors of such meritorious essays should fail, it would suggest bias and corruption.49
Nevertheless, bias and corruption increased. After 1620, the central government, desperate for money, allowed certain localities to sell shengyuan degrees; and in 1643, the last full year of Ming rule in Beijing, money even determined the outcome of the metropolitan examination, with the first and second places going to those who paid the highest price. Rising numbers of examination candidates tried to beat the system by resorting to religion or fortune-tellers; by trying to bribe or intimidate the examiners or the guards; or by cheating – by writing on their clothes or their bodies in special ‘invisible ink’ one of the thousands of successful essays from earlier examinations available in print. Naturally, such practices discouraged honest candidates; so did the Chongzhen emperor's habit of punishing any minister who failed to produce instant success. Many talented civil servants therefore either declined promotion or resigned rather than risk disgrace (and possible death) because, as a contemporary proverb put it, ‘at any time, the jug could strike against the tiles’. Eventually, scores of disenchanted scholars threw in their lot with the ‘roving bandits’ led by Li Zicheng, the former official of the courier service.50
The Rise of ‘the Dashing Prince’
The demoralization of the Ming's educated subjects, and above all of their officials, helped to facilitate the triumph of their enemies. In 1642 Li Zicheng, now known to his followers as ‘the Dashing Prince’, captured Kaifeng, once the capital of all China, while later that year a large Qing army broke through the Great Wall for the third time, pillaging northern China for several weeks before returning home with enormous booty (including copious quantities of food to sustain their own hungry subjects). In their wake, one town in Shandong reported that 30 per cent of its population had died of starvation, with another 40 per cent so poor that they could only survive by joining the bandits.51
This desperate situation produced desperate remedies. The emperor even authorized a secret approach to the Manchu leaders to see whether they might negotiate – until a clerk inadvertently published one of the clandestine documents in the government's official gazette. This slip provoked an avalanche of memorials from the bureaucracy condemning such pacifism, leading the emperor to abandon the talks.52 Meanwhile, some Ming officials agreed to administer their regions in Li's name, and a few accepted an appointment at his ‘court’, encouraging the Dashing Prince to believe that (like other men from humble backgrounds in Chinese history) he could found his own imperial dynasty.53 To win popular support, Li's followers fashioned populist slogans – ‘Equalize land!’, ‘Three years remission of taxes!’, ‘Equal buying, equal selling!’ – and propagated catchy ballads:
Kill the swine, prepare the wine,
Open the gates, prepare a welcome line.
When the Dashing Prince comes,
We won't pay a dime.54
In 1643, with the aid of disaffected officials, Li Zicheng set up a formal government in Xi'an (once the imperial capital), including a chancery and the traditional six ministries, and then declared himself the founder of a new state, Da Shun (meaning ‘Great Compliance’ [with the Mandate of Heaven]) with a corresponding ‘Shun era’ calendar. He also minted his own coins, elevated his leading supporters to noble status, and held civil service examinations to produce his own cadres of administrators. At this stage Li may have thought only in terms of a power-sharing arrangement – either with the Ming or with the Manchus – but early in 1644, perhaps encouraged by the lack of effective Ming resistance to the recent Manchu raid, he led his followers in one of the most extraordinary military feats in Chinese history: a ‘long march’ from Xi'an to Beijing.55
Li demanded exemplary behaviour from his troops – ‘kill no one, accept no money, rape no one, loot nothing, trade fairly’ he ordered – and this tactic encouraged most local commanders and officials in his path to surrender either immediately or after only token resistance. Li ‘pardoned’ most of them and confirmed them in office. The Dashing Prince and his lieutenants also imitated the heroes of the popular novel Water Margin (some took the names of characters from the book), while the literati in his entourage continued to produce catchy ditties:
You'll feed your mates,
You'll dress your mates,
You'll open wide your city gates.
When the Dashing Prince arrives there'll be no more rates.56
In addition, they drafted proclamations that exuded confidence and reassurance: ‘Our army is made up of good peasants who have worked the fields for ten generations; we formed this humane and righteous army to rescue the population from destruction.’ As soon as he arrived in an area, Li established tribunals that allowed tenants to press claims against their landlords and granted titles to abandoned domain land. To widespread popular acclaim he also arrested, humiliated and executed all Ming clansmen who fell into his hands, while his followers tore down the arches and temples erected by forced labour as memorials to illustrious local dignitaries.57
The Chongzhen emperor and his remaining advisers continued to debate extreme remedies: demanding forced loans from all ministers and eunuchs (which raised only 200,000 taels); issuing paper money to pay the troops; evacuating the crown prince to Nanjing; making a deal with either Li or the Manchus; recalling the only remaining reliable army, commanded by General Wu Sangui, from the Great Wall to defend the capital. Only the last measure took effect – and even then Wu was still far away when on 23 April 1644, a mere eight weeks after they had left Xi'an, Li and his army stood before the capital of the Ming empire.
Although defended by walls that stretched for over 20 miles, with 13 huge fortified gates and the largest urban population in the world, Beijing presente
d a soft target: the garrison had not been paid for five months and food reserves had run low. Some disaffected defenders opened one of the outer gates to Li but, since the Imperial City remained intact, the emperor summoned his ministers and prepared to make a last-ditch stand there. When no one came, he disguised himself as a eunuch and tried to escape, but his own palace guards fired on him and he turned back. So finally, after a reign of 17 years, he went into the palace garden, where he wrote an epitaph on his white robe that combined (in characteristic fashion) self-criticism with blame of his advisers:
My inadequate virtues and weak flesh have invited punishment from Heaven. Now the treacherous rebels are invading the capital. My officials have caused all this! I must die, but I am ashamed to face my ancestors. Therefore I take off my crown and cover my face with my hair.
He then hanged himself to avoid being captured, humiliated and executed by his subjects.58
Li now controlled most of northern China, including its capital, but he faced three urgent problems. First Zhang Xianzhong, the ex-soldier turned bandit leader (page 123 above), had conquered Sichuan where he proclaimed himself the ‘Great King of the West’. Although Zhang did not threaten the capital, his brutal administration devastated one of the wealthier provinces of China and undermined both the resources and the reputation of the central government. Second, although Li's troops had kept good order on their march to Beijing, they now expected their reward. To avoid looting, the Dashing Prince needed to arrange for taxes to flow into the capital once more – but his earlier depredations complicated this task. A traveller from the south who reached Beijing at this time marvelled that in the ‘villages we passed through’ on the way ‘there were only broken-down walls and ruined chimneys leaning against one another. For several hundred miles there was no sign of human habitation.‘59 Finally, Li urgently needed to pay and win over the army of Wu Sangui – all that stood between the capital and the Manchu forces beyond the Great Wall.
At first, not knowing whether the crown prince might still be alive somewhere in the city, and anxious to win over Wu and his loyalist troops, the Dashing Prince behaved with great prudence. For example, he sat beside the imperial throne (not on it) to receive the obeisance of the civil and military personnel in the capital. Once again his moderation succeeded: of the 2,000 or more Ming officials in Beijing when it surrendered, fewer than 40 elected to follow the example of their late master by committing suicide – amazing testimony to how the Chongzhen emperor had alienated his ministers. Li now ordered former civil servants in the capital to make ‘substantial contributions’ to his new treasury, preferably voluntarily but if necessary under duress. The Shun treasury received some 70 million taels in this way (compared with only 200,000 offered to the Ming emperor a few days before), which allowed the Dashing Prince both to pay his troops and to ‘forgive’ the tax arrears of all areas that recognized his authority.
Most senior officials initially seem to have regarded their ordeal as a just punishment for failing to serve their late master better (and to commit suicide on learning of his death); but before long Li lost control over his followers, who started to plunder the houses where they lodged, to abuse their hosts, to attack their neighbours and to abduct or rape teahouse servants, female entertainers, and finally elite women in their homes. When the new master led his troops out of the city on 18 May, only three weeks after their triumphant entry, Beijing rejoiced.
The Tipping Point: China's ‘Battle of Hastings’
The Dashing Prince left his new capital to deal with Wu Sangui, the Ming general whose troops manned the Shanhai pass, where the ridge of mountains that carries the Great Wall reaches the sea north of Beijing. Wu had refused to recognize the ‘Shun state’ and, when a detachment of Li's army attacked him, he defeated it, provoking the Dashing Prince to murder Wu's father and other relatives whom he had captured. Almost immediately, Wu appealed to the Qing for help against Li.
Why did Wu take this fateful decision? Apart from resentment at the death of his relatives, several other considerations played a part. First, commanding scarcely 40,000 soldiers, no doubt Wu feared that the victorious Shun army, numbering perhaps 100,000 men, would overwhelm him if he fought alone (as indeed they almost did). Second, several of his surviving relatives had surrendered to the Manchus in Liaodong and an alliance with the Qing would secure their continued good treatment. Third, several Chinese regimes in the past had survived by appealing to a northern neighbour for assistance in time of peril. Fourth, the Manchus had previously shown no interest in permanent conquest: their earlier invasions of China had targeted booty not land. Finally, the Qing ruler Hong Taiji died late in 1643, leaving two quarrelsome brothers as regents for his 6-year-old son, and Wu may have assumed that this family squabble would fatally undermine Manchu strength and cohesion.
All these considerations were valid, but Wu overlooked the crucial impact of climate change. Long before they received his appeal for help, the Manchus had concluded that the recent famines would force them to invade China or perish: the tree-ring series for East Asia shows 1643–4 as the coldest years in the entire millennium between 800 and 1800, and the winter monsoons brought little rain (Fig. 18). The Manchu leaders therefore assembled a Grand Army of 60,000 or more warriors close to the Great Wall, while their Han Chinese advisers prepared announcements to persuade their compatriots to support the new invasion: ‘The righteous army comes to avenge your ruler-father for you. It is not an enemy of the people. The only ones to be killed now are the [Shun] bandits. Officials who surrender can resume their former posts. People who surrender can resume their former occupations. We will by no means harm you.‘60
The Grand Army stood poised to break through the Great Wall into Shanxi when Wu's desperate appeal revealed the widespread hostility to the Shun regime. This, according to Wu, offered a unique ‘opportunity to rip down what is withered and rotten. Certainly there will never be a second chance!‘61 The Manchu leaders therefore abandoned their plan to invade Shanxi and instead led their troops to the Shanhai pass where Wu, threatened by Li's approaching army, let them through.
18. East Asian temperatures, 800–1800.
Although temperatures, as measured by tree-ring width, began to fall in the fourteenth century, with a partial recovery in the sixteenth, the lowest temperatures – more than 2°C cooler – occured in the mid-seventeenth century with the nadir in 1644, the year the Manchus drove the Ming from north China.
The Qing Regent Dorgon (‘badger’ in Manchu), in command of the Grand Army, skilfully exploited his advantage. His troops took no part in the battle between Wu and Li, which sinologist Mark Elliott has called ‘China's battle of Hastings’, until the last moment, when they charged the Shun flanks. As a result, Wu's forces bore the brunt of the battle and sustained heavy casualties, leaving them too weak to confront the Manchus. Dorgon therefore called upon Wu to become a Qing vassal. If he did this, Dorgon promised, ‘your ruler will be avenged and you and your family will be protected’ (an unsubtle reference to the presence of Wu's relatives in the Qing camp). In addition ‘your posterity will enjoy wealth and nobility as eternal as the mountains and rivers’.62 Powerless to resist, Wu and his surviving soldiers shaved their heads in the Manchu manner as a dramatic gesture of submission.
Meanwhile, Li and his defeated troops fell back on Beijing, which they re-entered on 31 May 1644. The Dashing Prince now had nothing to lose by proclaiming himself emperor, and the hasty enthronement of the first (and last) Shun emperor took place. The following day, realizing that the approach of Wu and the Manchus made his position untenable, Li set fire to the Forbidden City and ordered his men to retreat. The wits of Beijing jested:
Zicheng hacked his way to power –
But he's not the Son of Heaven.
He mounted the throne on horseback –
But not for very long!63
The population of the capital prepared to greet Wu Sangui, perhaps accompanied by the missing Ming crown prince; but instead,
on 5 June 1644, Dorgon mounted the ceremonial platform they had prepared and told the onlookers: ‘“I am the prince regent. The crown prince will arrive in a little while. Will you allow me to be the ruler?” The crowd, astonished and uncomprehending, was only able to lamely answer “yes.”’ Since the few remaining palace guards offered no resistance, a detachment of Manchu troops took possession of the smouldering Forbidden City, the hub of the entire Chinese state.64
Many people in Beijing only realized that a new dynasty had seized power when they read a proclamation issued by Dorgon later that day. It first declared that the ‘Great Qing Dynasty’ had long sought harmonious relations with the Ming ‘hoping for perpetual peace’, and in the past had invaded only when their letters were ignored. Meanwhile the bandits had taken control, but now the Qing had exacted ‘revenge upon the enemy of your ruler-father’:
We burned our bridges behind us, and we have pledged not to return until every bandit is destroyed. In the counties, districts and locales that we pass through, all those who are able to shave their heads and surrender, opening their gates to welcome us, will be given rank and reward, retaining their wealth and nobility for generations. But if there are those who resist us and act disobediently, then when our Grand Army arrives, the stones themselves will be set ablaze and everyone will be massacred.