Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768

by Philip A. Kuhn

  In denouncing Ocang's literary pretentions, the outraged monarch wrote that Manchu culture "has always based itself on respecting the sovereign and revering those in authority; and on personal qualities of simplicity and sincerity, loyalty and respect. Confining its concerns to riding and shooting, it has had no place for frivolous or decadent practices." But recently, he declared, contact with Chinese culture had led many Manchus into pompous literary affectations, which had worked evil upon their characters. Originally, Manchus had not spent their time reading books, but merely understood "the great principles" of obedience and of reverence for authority. Although the followers of Confucius used literature to spread their teachings, they also placed respect for ruler and father before anything else. If one knew only literary affectation and had no sense of basic social obligations, then of what use was learning? Hungli warned that he would punish Manchus who forgot their roots, and strictly forbade them to cultivate literary relationships with Chinese.36 Such a warning, if observed, might indeed have curbed factionalism, because such relationships were the sinews of literati cliques. Yet we cannot overlook the substantive message, which was about sedition and assimilation.

  The Rot of Assimilation

  Courage and vigor, honesty and simplicity: such were the self-proclaimed virtues of the Manchu conquest elite. Here was a carefully polished mirror image of the vanquished. Not only had these qualities been victorious in battle; they were ideally suited to ruling well the empire that the defeated Ming house had ruled badly. This sturdy vision was nevertheless blemished from the outset by the need to govern the empire with the help of Chinese institutions and Chinese personnel.

  Even before the Manchus had crossed the Great Wall, the struggle within the Manchu nobility had led the Throne to adopt Chinesestyle bureaucratic and centralizing measures. Thereafter, the need to represent the conquest regime as a legitimate successor and a worthy vessel for Heaven's Mandate required the dynasty to promote the ideology of imperial Confucianism (whereby virtue, not ethnicity, was the basis of legitimate rule), and at the same time preserve what it considered to be its special Manchu ethos. The conquerors were separate and uncorrupted, and must remain so. How could they, at the same time, weld an alien culture to their own? It was an insoluble puzzle. Add to this the need to "get on" in the Chinese world, to say nothing of enjoying it, and one can begin to grasp the Manchu problem of the eighteenth century. To Hungli sedition and assimilation were linked dangers, but assimilation was the more insidious and may indeed have generated in him the greater anxiety. For the Manchu ruling elite, the Ch'ien-lung reign (1736-1796) was a painful time of transition. The threat of assimilation was ever more apparent-but it was not yet apparent that nothing could be done about it.

  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 ominous
ly 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.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Crime Defined

  Late ,July, 1768: The worst of the summer's heat was already upon Peking, and at the Forbidden City preparations were under way for the annual move to the summer capital at Ch'eng-te. There, in the hills and forests of the old Manchu homeland beyond the Great Wall, was a cunningly designed park in the style and spirit of Kiangnan- the lower Yangtze region where Hungli, like his grandfather before
him, delighted to tour. On 1,300 acres lay palaces of sumptuous rusticity and pleasure pavilions in the southern style, set amid serene lakes fringed with willows and artfully contoured to conceal artifice. This little touch of Kiangnan in Manchuria had been created in 1702 by the K'ang-hsi emperor, Hungli's grandfather, and was greatly expanded by Hungli himself.

  Spending the hot months there was more than a relief from the unpleasant Peking summer. By coming to Ch'eng-te, the monarch could lead his Manchu elite back to their old haunts, summon them to the saddle, and marshal them on grand hunts and maneuvers in the old rugged style. Here hardihood could for a season replace refinement, and the dust of settled life be shaken, however briefly, from the feet of the conquerors. High politics were served, too: here, at the gateway to the forests and steppes, Inner Asian lords could be entertained and their dependency upon the emperor reaffirmed. Here the Inner Asian faith of Lamaist Buddhism, key to controlling Mongolia and "Tibet, was lavishly patronized by Hungli. To appeal to Lamaists, he constructed magnificent temples in the Tibetan style. At the time of our story, Hungli had already begun to construct the gigantic imitation of Lhasa's Potala, to serve the devotional needs of Inner Asian lords at the celebration of the imperial sixtieth birthday two years later. This curious summer capital, an amalgam of Manchu machismo, Kiangnan kitsch, and Inner Asian diplomacy, was a mere 130 miles from Peking; two days sufficed for a courier to bring a report from the committee of grand councillors left behind in Peking and return with an imperial reply. The business of the empire went on uninterrupted.