Although Jangboo insisted that he was pursuing all leads, the information from the Shantung confessions led up one blind alley after another. He could not find the Three Teachings Temple in Haichou, where master-sorcerer Ming-yuan was supposed to be awaiting the return of his queue-clipping acolytes. Nor could he find any monk remotely resembling Han P'ei-hsien's description of Mingyuan. One promising lead, extracted from a vagrant arrested in Anhwei, pointed to a certain Soochow "mason" named Chu, who had hired agents to clip queues. But the tip proved worthless; no such man could be found. Finally, the fortune-teller Chang Ssu ju, named in the confession of the Shantung beggar Chin Kuan-tzu, was supposedly to be found in a certain village near P'i-chou; but the village did not exist. To Hungli, however, the clue about the "mason" merely proved that officials were bent on a cover-up. Chekiang masons were also involved in sorcery, but rascally local officials had tried to cover up the case-to "turn something into nothing" (hua-yu wet-wit). Obviously Kiangsu officials were up to the same tricks. As a result, sorcery had spread into many provinces. "The administration of your two provinces is really despicable.""
Where was the harried governor to turn? Could something be wrong with the Shantung confessions? jangboo wrote to Funihan asking that he reinterrogate his prisoners. The answer came back: the Shantung prisoners had been grilled again and had now changed their stories. Master-sorcerers Wu-yuan and T'ung-yuan were not "Kiangnan men" after all, but natives of Wan-p'ing County, in the western suburbs of Peking!'`' At this astonishing news, Hungli issued a frantic order to sweep up all suspicious monks in the capital area, "not sticking to niceties" when names seemed not to match those in the confessions. After all, could not monks change their dharmanames at will?20
The following colloquy (Hungli's side its preserved as vermilion rejoinders between the lines of Jangboo's report of August 29) shows that the case was serving as a lightning rod for deeper tensions between Throne and province. Jangboo had now brought cutpurse Liu to Yangchow for interrogation. Liu confirmed that he was a homeless roving thief. A certain "Bearded Wei," proprietor of an herbal medicine shop, had commissioned him to clip three queues, for which he would get 150 cash each. Liu was soon caught in the act. Jangboo quickly sent agents to see whether Bearded Wei really existed. (Vermilion: "You are saying this because you intend to claim later that no such thing happened. Your subordinates, trying to close the case, will claim that the confession was false." )2'
(Jangboo): These criminals who are caught in the provinces give out names and addresses that are later untraceable, or only give names and no addresses. This is the result of the craftiness of the criminals, who cover up clues and depose falsely by covering up the truth, hoping to delay the investigation.
(Vermilion): That's for sure. If you officials are like that, why be surprised if the criminals are too?
(Jangboo, showing sincerity): Every day these criminals are not caught ... is a day local society is not at peace.
(Vermilion): That's just why We are pushing you officials. But your indecisiveness, in both high posts and low, is incorrigible. What can be done about it?
(Jangboo): In my humble jurisdiction, [ordinary criminals], who merely harm a particular locality, are objects of ceaseless prosecution . . . How dare I be even slightly remiss in prosecuting these vile, traitorous sorcerers?
(Vermilion): Highly improper. Memorialize promptly on the present situation.
The prosecution of the sorcery case had run into a problem endemic to the Ch'ing system, and indeed to any system in which field administrators are the main sources of information on field conditions. Although the palace memorial system had the potential for universal surveillance (one official privately tattling on another for personal advantage), it seems in practice not to have developed that way. The Throne presumed that the interest of the field official was always to reduce his risk of failure by underreporting the problem at hand. In this situation, the routine auditing process that checked performance against norms (as, for example, in the transmission of tax receipts) was useless: there was no norm against which to check the number of sorcerers arrested. An urgent, nonroutine prosecution like this one immediately set Throne and bureaucracy in competition for control of information and gave their relationship a keener edge of tension. But the monarch was not helpless. He now had recourse to an agent within the Kiangnan bureaucracy itself.
An Agent in Place
The post of Soochow textile commissioner (chih-tsao) was customarily filled by a trusted member of the Imperial Household Department (nei-witfu). Stationed right in the middle of the politically sensitive lower Yangtze region, he could provide his master not only luxurious silks but also timely intelligence.22 Serving now in that post was the imperial household bannerman Sacai (d. 1786), a royal relation in the collateral line and scion of a high-ranking military family.21 He had won a provincial-level (chii-jen) degree through the special track in which Manchus could write examination papers in their own language. If this was anything more than affirmative action to ease bannermen into high posts, Sacai's cultural orientation must have been unusually true-blue Manchu by the standards of the day. Moreover, by the time of the sorcery crisis he had been assigned to Soochow for at least five years and could be accounted an old Kiangnan hand. There was accordingly no reason to expect anything but the best from him as imperial eyes and ears in the lower Yangtze.
Imagine, then, Hungli's annoyance when it turned out that Sacai had reported not so much as a brush stroke about the soulstealing threat. "The textile commissioner is responsible for memorializing about [important] affairs." In it teeming city like Soochow, had Sacai heard and seen nothing? In it matter of such importance, how could he remain indifferent?
Can it be that he fears the power of the governor-general and governor? Or perhaps he fears to stir resentment among local officials by unearthing hidden facts? Or is it that he regards governmental affairs to be outside his purview and matters of no concern and therefore intends to remain silent? If that is so, then perhaps the special responsibility of the commissioner to memorialize in detail has been no more than an empty name. How can he just routinely report such matters as rainfall and grain prices, thinking that piling up documents according to regulations will fulfill his responsibilities?21
Like G'aojin and Jangboo before him, Sacai now had to disclose the embarrassing news of the spring sorcery rumors. More embarrassing still, however, were the May events right in the Soochow area, which of course His Majesty had never heard about: the arrest of the Soochow beggars and the incident at Hsu-k'ou-chen, which I related in Chapter i. Sacai revealed how the suspects had been released for lack of evidence, and how local officials had posted notices forbidding commoners to seize innocent people on mere suspicion of sorcery. Sacai wrote that he had not heard of local officials' following up these events with arrests, but neither had he heard of any actual victims of queue-clipping. Now he had to report on his colleagues:
When Governor-general G'aojin was in Soochow holding the Governor's seal in an acting capacity, he spoke to your slave [i.e., Sacai] about these matters. He said that the county investigations had revealed these cases to be baseless. In the fourth month [May June], when Governor Jangboo arrived at his post, he asked whether your slave had heard any news about local affairs. Your slave informed him about this matter. He said the important thing is not to post notices [forbidding commoners to seize suspects], but rather to carry out rigorous investigations and arrests. Why he did not then memorialize Your Majesty, your slave really does not know.25
Hungli had caught Jangboo and G'aojin in a Hagrant cover-up. Their reports had [tinted of neither the Soochow nor the Hsu-k'ouchen affairs, but merely acknowledged "rumors." Although Jangboo had not arrived at Soochow to assume his post until May 13, he was nevertheless briefed by Sacai (if Sacai is to be believed) no later than June 14, when he could very well have alerted the Throne.26 But how could he have expected, back then, that anything would come of it? Whether failure to report t
hese events was due to skepticism or to fear of stirring up trouble, the monarch's suspicions were now resoundingly confirmed. Both officials got scathing reprimands. "Scoundrel" local officials, who had been permitted to "turn right and wrong upside down" by forbidding commoners to seize sorcery suspects, should have been impeached by their provincial superiors. Cover-ups were common in the provinces, "reporting large matters as small, representing something as nothing." But Kiangnan was by far the worst: "G'aojin has long been habituated to fecklessness and has shown no vigor whatever. Jangboo served long in the post of Kiangsu provincial treasurer and could not avoid being imbued with bad habits. Later as governor of Shansi he was fairly vigorous, and We thought that he had repented his chronic faults. But since his transfer to the Kiangsu governorship, they evidently have re- emerged."27
All the criminals arrested and released in May were to be rounded up again and sent immediately to the summer capital at Ch'eng-te for interrogation. (These included the beggars of Soochow and the monks who had been nearly lynched at Hsu-k'ou-chen.) If any were allowed to escape, or if officials "coached their testimony" (chiaokung), G'aojin and Jangboo would be held personally responsible. "We shall be lenient to them no more."
Jangboo threw himself on the imperial mercy: he had "carelessly allowed subordinates" to gloss over important matters and feared that he himself had been "somewhat imbued with bad practices." He asked Hungli to have him impeached and punished by the Board of Civil Office. (Vermilion: "It is still too early to impeach you; let's see how well you can do at catching the criminals." )2" As a practical matter, the governor could only busy himself pursuing sorcerers already implicated by others' confessions. It was only a matter of days before cutpurse Liu's master, "Bearded Wei," was arrested, and jangboo interrogated him personally. He admitted recruiting cutpurse Liu but said that he himself had been hired by a former shopassistant to procure the queues for him for "medicinal" uses.29 There, for the moment, the trail went cold.
Coming Clean in Chekiang
The minor Manchu aristocrat, Yungde, had slipped perhaps too easily into the upper reaches of the provincial bureaucracy. This collateral relation of the imperial line30 had served only a brief apprenticeship in the Board of Punishments before being posted to the premier circuit-intendancy in Chekiang, among the duties of which was coastal defense of the Hangchow region. Having served for a decade without mishap, he was elevated in 1765/66 to be provincial treasurer. His suggestions for minor administrative improvements must have pleased Hungli, for he was promoted to provincial governor, a post he assumed on April 25, 1 768.11
The newly promoted Yungde must have been astonished and dismayed when he received a communication from Shantung governor Funihan (sent around July 24): confessions of the beggar-criminals Ts'ai and Chin had revealed the Chekiang origins of the mysterious queue-clipping cult that had now surfaced in Shantung. Yungde realized that the Throne would now have to be informed of the Chekiang "soulstealing" affair, which seemed to have been ended so neatly without disturbing His Majesty. Yungde braced himself for the inevitable imperial court letters, which indeed arrived at his Hangchow yamen on August 4 and 6, demanding information and urgent action.32
Yes, replied Yungde, in the early spring of this year, the rumor of soulstealing had "suddenly" arisen among the local people. He himself, then still in the subordinate post of provincial treasurer, had realized right away that sorcery was a serious felony. He had immediately "reported orally" (no documentary record, of course) to his superior, then Governor Hsiung Hsueh-p'eng. Investigation quickly turned up the stories of the Te-ch'ing and Hsiao-shan sorcery scares, which turned out to have been started by groundless rumors among credulous rustics. "That is why former Governor Hsiung did not report these affairs to Your Majesty." Once Yungde had become governor, he had "suspected that there might be criminals secretly stirring up trouble" and had warned local officials to be vigilant.
Now, Yungde continued, the confessions in the recent Shantung case had revealed hidden masters of the soulstealing cult in Chekiang. He had dispatched plainclothesmen all through the province, but no monks with the name "Wu-yuan" had turned up. All that could be found was one monk with a homophonous name (same sound, different ideographs), who could not be shown to have had any traffic with criminals. Furthermore, even in the remotest mountain monasteries, nobody could be found with the name "Chang Ssu ju" (the fortune-teller implicated by Chin Kuan-tzu) or with other names supplied by the Shantung prisoners. All Yungde could do was to keep looking. Furthermore, he would impeach the magistrate of any county where such criminals were found to be hiding. Hungli's vermilion brush traced his contempt for such bland assurances: "I would not have expected that you would prove to be so useless .1133
With that, the whole story had to come out. Yungde now forwarded to Peking a complete account of the interrogation of all the Chekiang criminals from last spring, including mason Wu, peasant Shen, the Hsiao-shan monks, and constable Ts'ai.=i ' The monarch read it with mounting annoyance. Chekiang officials had plainly "been lenient to villains and nourished traitors." Indeed, accusations against the masons of Te-ch'ing "cannot have been entirely without cause." Punishing the accusers (constable Ts'ai, for instance) amounted to "turning right and wrong upside down." After this, how would commoners dare to seize malefactors, or constables dare to make arrests? As for Yungde himself, there was no use putting the blame on his predecessor. As provincial treasurer at the time, he himself was responsible for reporting directly to the Throne. If' provincial treasurers merely reported financial trivia, and provincial judges merely court cases, "how would that accord with Our basic purpose in permitting you to communicate confidentially and directly with Us?" In matters so urgent, all officials were prosecutors. As for the criminals arrested and released last spring (the masons and monks): ship them in chains to the summer capital, where competent inquisitors would wring the truth from them.;,'
More Help from Shantung
Back in Kiangsu, even as Jangboo was stymied in the case of cutpurse Liu, he faced a new problem: the dragnet in neighboring Shantung, which had already caught so large and promising a batch of sorcerers, now offered fresh challenges. On September 12 Governor Funihan reported that, way back on July 3, a government runner in a county town had arrested T'ung-kao, a suspicious-looking wandering monk. The prefect of Yen-chou had just sent him a report about this case, so the criminal had actually been languishing in jail for upward of two months. The criminal had protested that he was no queue-clipper but was on his way to Chihli to visit relatives. Inquiries in Chihli had turned up nobody resembling his relatives, so he was sent to the prefectural yamen to be interrogated. He confessed that he had taken the monastic tonsure in Honan and later had become the disciple of a monk named Wu-ch'eng, who resided at the Temple of the Purple Bamboo Grove in Nanking. His new master was a sorcerer with "magical techniques of clipping queues" and enlivening paper men and horses with the soul-force drawn from clipped queue-ends. These would then become "yin-souls," who would serve their master by stealing people's possessions. Wu-ch'eng sent T'ung-kao forth with eight other disciples, all supplied with knives and "stupefying drugs," to clip the necessary queues where they could. T'ung-kao named two men whose queues he said he had clipped, and local authorities reported that these crimes had indeed been verified by the victims. The drugs, knife, and queues he had abandoned earlier, while on the run, so the incriminating exhibits were not available to the court. Nevertheless, his guilt was hardly in question, because his confession squared with damning circumstantial evidence. 16
All this was by now a familiar story to the alert Governor Funihan, who immediately realized that the criminals were none other than the gang of' his first culprit, beggar Ts'ai, and had changed their names to avoid detection. Yet Tung-kao would not admit knowing fortune-teller Chang, monk Ming-yuan, or any of the other sorcerers named by previous culprits. Funihan had notified Kiangnan officials to be on the lookout for sorcerer Wu-ch'eng and his eight other disciples.
;' Kiangnan officials now had plenty of leads to pursue. Jangboo rushed his agents to Nanking to seize Wu-ch'eng; but the sorcerer had slipped away, forewarned by means unknown. Meanwhile, an even more vexing case was absorbing Jangboo's attention.
The Ill-Fortune of ' Chang Ssu ju
The name of the Kiangnan fortune-teller, Chang Ssu ju, had first emerged in the confession of Funihan's Shantung prisoner, the queue-clipper and sodomite, beggar Chin. Chin had revealed that it was fortune-teller Chang who had told him of the sorcerer-monk Yu-shih and had enlisted him in the queue-clipping gang.;" Now the hunt for Chang was high on the agenda of officials throughout the Kiangnan region. Since Kiangnan officials began receiving communications from the Shantung governor in late July, they had been aware that the epicenter of the plot was in their jurisdiction. Through the steamy weeks of August, the names and addresses revealed in the Shantung confessions had been tracked down relentlessly. Governor-general G'aojin reported to the Throne that he had ordered the Su-chou authorities to search secretly for the Dark Dragon Temple where lurked the master-sorcerer Yu-shih.=i`' Though a temple of that name was found, no monk there was called Yu-shih. (Vermilion: "What's this stuff? Can't he change his name?") Nor were there found books or paraphernalia of sorcery. Temples else where with similar-sounding names were searched, also fruitlessly. The governor-general suggested that, since beggar Chin had said he had only heard of Yii-shih through fortune-teller Chang, clearly Chang was the criminal to find in order to track down this mastersorcerer.
Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 Page 15
