Indeed Hai-yin was not bearing up well under torture, and his story became confused. Investigators failed to find a Shang-hsing Temple in Hsu-chou, or any family surnamed Jeri in the west gate area. Hai-yin now said he was from Yung-ch'ang County in Honan, but was "evasive," Asha reported, about his address and temple affiliation. Yet he stubbornly maintained his innocence. "I hope to die if those cords on my carrying pole were queues." Such resistance was surely designed "to protect his confederates." Interrogation must press on, wrote the governor, but unfortunately the prisoner had "contracted a prevalent illness of the season" and suffered also from festering infections (from his torture wounds) and was eating and drinking rather little. It had become difficult to question him. A physician had been summoned, and the search for Hai-yin's secret would resume when he had recovered. Meanwhile, the roundup of suspicious characters was proceeding. There should be more criminals with whom to confront Hai-yin, but none had been arrested, and no further cases of queue-clipping had arisen. (Vermilion: "In Peking this wind has not stilled, and cases have also been reported in Jehol. How can your province alone have none? This shows that you are not attending to duty. Highly improper.")59
In Chihli alone, seventeen clipping cases had been reported and three suspicious monks and priests arrested. Asha's assurances that no incidents had been reported in Honan simply would not wash. "It is not consistent with what We have heard," wrote back Hungli, invoking a standard imperial technique by which the monarch implies that he has private, alternative sources of information outside the chain of command. Under this kind of bullying, Asha felt he had to make something of the Hai-yin case, even though the crafty monk would not cooperate. Despite his obstinate denials, the evidence against the wretch was plain. The trouble was that his illness grew worse daily. Medicine was of no effect, and he gasped for breath.
The governor humbly observed that "everyone loathes this kind of traitor who harms the common people." If such a villain were allowed simply to die in prison, "we shall have no way to manifest the Dynas ty's laws and gladden the hearts of the people." Worse, "rumors will arise in the minds of ignorant subjects": a fearful and angry populace would interpret the disappearance of Hai-.yin as an ominous lapse of state control-or perhaps a lack of commitment against sorcery? "Better to publicly execute him in order to dispel the suspicions of the crowd." This would have the added benefit of intimidating other "traitors." Your minister therefore, "without estimating the personal consequences," yesterday, "begging the Royal Order in advance (ch'ing wang-ming), had the criminal taken to the public square and beheaded, and the head exposed to show the crowd" (that is, hung up on a pole and left there).f 0
So Hai-yin was out of his pain, and the governor was relieved of his problem. Having a prisoner die in jail was cause for minor administrative punishment (a trifling fine for a governor), but to lose a major criminal like Hai-yin without obtaining a confession would suggest either incompetence or a cover-up (it might be suspected, for example, that he had revealed a widespread conspiracy, long undetected by provincial officials). Asha's solution rested on the wide powers granted provincial officials to execute criminals summarily, although such powers were more generally used in cases of riot or insurrection. In this case, to drag the dying monk before the market crowd and cut off his head was a powerful message about the state's commitment against sorcery-even in a case where the culprit's guilt was not supported by a confession. It was not, however, the kind of resolution Hungli was looking for. (Vermilion: "Even more futile!")
There had been so few arrests in Honan that Hungli naturally suspected Asha's subordinates of another sort of cover-up: they were withholding information from the governor in order to save themselves trouble or spare themselves prosecution for earlier neglect. The governor showed his zeal, shortly after Hai-yin's execution, by reporting sixteen cases of queue-clipping in the province. (Vermilion: "Just as We suspected!") Three suspicious-looking monks had been arrested, but against none was the evidence convincing. The campaign was at least impressing the local people with the governor's serious intent, for innkeepers and temples were now refusing shelter to wandering monks. But even such stern measures were not producing results, wrote Asha to the Throne, because these criminals were, after all, sorcerers: the reason they leave no traces "must be that they have evil arts that enable them to conceal themselves . . . the better to carry out their hateful designs." (Vermilion: "What's all this stuff? How can such a thing be? If you think this way, it is no wonder your subordinates do not prosecute the case conscientiously and are deceiving you!")
The governor wrote back amiably, "Just as Your Majesty pronounced in your Sage Edict, `There must be gangs of persons with seditious plots."' (Vermilion: "You wretched thing!") "Your humble minister is extremely stupid." (Vermilion: "Indeed you are extremely stupid.") Asha pointed out that "while at the triennial provincial examinations, I have been using a blue brush. But I carry with me a black brush so that I can be prepared to write memorials on this case-even while engaged in my routine duties." (Vermilion: "Use whatever you've got on you!") Anyway, fumed the monarch, in this emergency Asha should have delegated the provincial examinations to a subordinate. Asha "used to be a conscientious official" but even he had been imbued with "the disgusting habit of indecisiveness" of the provincial bureaucrat. The campaign had become such an irritant between Throne and bureaucracy that official ineptness was itself becoming one of its targets.li'
The Plot Thickens
"Throughout the month of August, Hungli (still summering amid the lakes and hills of Ch'eng-te) received a mass of contradictory news of sorcery. The spread of incidents from south to north, then from north to west, showed that the criminals were keeping several jumps ahead of his provincial officials. "Though numerous suspects had been arrested, he perceived that they were all from the margins and dregs of society-monks and beggars-and all had been recruited by ringleaders unknown. By the first week of September, he was convinced that the threat was not limited to local society but might be aimed at the dynasty itself'. Peasant Meng he had shown leniency by recommendation of his inquisitors. Nevertheless, commoners were getting the idea that a clipping victim could counter a sorcerer's power by severing his queue "at the root." What next?`'"
On September 7, Hungli issued a court letter to the heads of seven provinces in which at last he broached the subject of the tonsure. All the criminals caught so far, he pointed out, were obviously mere tools of master-plotters with larger aims. On the one hand, these plotters were offering vagrants and beggars cash for queues, without telling them what the queues were for. To be sure, the belief about soul stealing and bridge construction was "absurd and heterodox," which was enough to warrant rigorous prosecution. Yet who could say that the rumor about "whole-queue" prophylaxis was not started by the sorcerers themselves as a way of terrorizing people into symbolic acts hostile to Manchu overlordship? The sorcerers must know that "wearing a queue is an institution of this Dynasty, and that one who cuts off his queue is no longer a minister or servant of the Manchus." The plotters, however, are not in the northern provinces but in the South. "They are either traitor-monks or else scholars who have lost hope of advancement," and their crime is "ten times more horrible" than that of the lowly queue-clippers themselves. Although the lower Yangtze provinces are the source of this evil, upriver the inhabitants of Hunan and Hupei are "crafty and dangerous." In the past they have followed "deviant ways and perverse principles," and it is likely that the rebels (ni-fan) will hide among them. Let the governors of those provinces root them out.
The method of doing so, however, is different from that of prosecuting the queue-clippers themselves, which can be done by soldiers and police. This, by contrast, requires velvet-glove treatment to avoid alerting the targets. Careful but secret investigation will be needed. Hungli ended his letter with his favorite "priority" phrase, "use particular vigor and attention" (mien-chih, shen-chih), an urgent note not sounded when sorcery alone was at issue. No provincial b
ureaucrat could doubt that the heat was on, or that the basis of the prosecution had been transformed: no longer mere sorcery, but sedition.""
The Quest for Salvation
Meanwhile, in the bleak uplands of Chihli, on the road to Mongolia, portentous visions were stirring among commoners as well. Whether these visions grew from fear of sorcery itself, or from the antiManchu implications of queue-clipping, or from anxiety about the apparent loss of dynastic control, we cannot know. But some hastened to make ready for the end of the world. They belonged to a popular Buddhist sect known as "Effortless Action" (Wu-wei chiao), also named "Returning to the Origin" (Show _yuan), an expression associated with millenarian beliefs about the imminent end of the world. The sect traced its origins to the patriarch Lo Ch'ing (fl. 1509-1522). Long proscribed by imperial order, it was now revived by a man named Sun Chia-mou. This sect can be classed as the "sutra recitation" type: congregations practicing vegetarianism and pious living, seeking salvation through the "precious scrolls" transmitted from earlier sect leaders.e'
In Pao-an Department (now Cho-lu County), some sixty miles northwest of Peking, a sectarian convert had confessed that Sun Chiamou had "composed rebellious sayings" in order to revive the sect. The provincial judge himself went immediately to Pao-an to investigate. Hungli was sufficiently alarmed to send secret orders that all culprits be sent directly to the summer capital for interrogation, bypassing the provincial court.'''
The law moved fast. Only a week later, the grand councillors in Ch'eng-te were able to report on their interrogation of a band of Pao-an sectarians. The sect-master, Ts'ui Yu-fa, claimed to have inherited a five-character mantra ("Universal Felicity Nourishes Manifest Virtue"; p'u-fu yang hsien-te) from the Ming patriarch P'u-ming. Each sect member adopted a dharma-name that began with one of the five characters. Sun Chia-mou had joined the sect in 1750, taking the dharma-name Hsien-fu ("manifest riches"). County authorities had arrested sect-master Ts'ui in 1 753 but released him on condition that he abjure the religion. Ts'ui secretly continued to practice it, however, and announced that he was "receiving instructions from the Venerable Mother of Universal Light" (p'u-kuang lao-mu) about the "disasters and good fortune" that would befall mankind.66 He also concocted "golden pills and honey-liquor" and sold them as medicine. In the current year, his disciple Sun Chia-mou had written "treasonous sayings" on placards, which he planned to have distributed among sect members. Under torture, Sun confessed that these "sayings" were of two kinds: "things having to do with Ts'ui's cheating people of money" (probably soliciting contributions as offerings against calamity), and a "nine-lotus chant" (chiu-lien-tsan) transmitted from the patriarch P'u-ming. By the seventh month, master Ts'ui had heard of the spread of queue-clipping sorcery and "urged the people to pray for deliverance from calamity." The violence of dynastic change meant chaos and suffering for ordinary people. This was the occasion to reactivate the sect and to proselytize among the public. Authorities seized sect members distributing placards in the walled city of Pao-an, as well as persons who had collected money on Ts'ui's behalf or had kept copies of his sutras.
The inquisitors recommended harsh punishment, under the "High Treason" (ta-ni) statute: Ts'ui and Sun were to be executed by slow slicing. Of their principal followers, some were to be beheaded, others beaten and exiled. Since the people of that prefecture were obviously "incorrigible," the severed heads of the sect leaders were to be publicly displayed to discourage future converts. As we shall see in Chapter g, officials who had treated Ts'ui leniently fifteen years earlier were to be found and disciplined.',
Hungli's ruthless destruction of the Pao--an sect followed naturally from his conclusion (September 7) that the soulstealers, by intentionally raising the issue of tonsure symbolism, had committed themselves to sedition. By that logic, the sectarian response was just what the queue-clippers had wanted. Whatever the soulstealer's strategy, it is in fact likely that the Pao-an sectarians were moved by the imminent perils that queue-clipping seemed to portend. Popular fears of dynastic change-and the natural disasters that came with it- were readily crystallized by Ts'ui and his doctrines. The panic factor was now fairly at work. Or so it must have seemed to the court at Ch'engte, still shaken by the spread of sorcery through the capital and provinces.
CHAPTER 7
On the Trail of the
Master-Sorcerers
By early autumn, it seemed to Hungli that the spread of queueclipping into North China was only the beginning of much more extensive trouble for the dynasty. Once aware of the political menace lurking behind the queue-clipping scare, he began to alert officials in hitherto unaffected provinces so that the movement could be contained. On September 22, he sent a court letter to the governors of Shansi and Shensi, urging preparedness. The gangs of sorcerers, he wrote, had spread from Kiangnan into Shantung, Honan, and Chihli. Peking already had "many cases," and in recent days even at the summer capital their traces had been discovered. Now that energetic measures were underway in Chihli, who could say that the criminals would not take refuge elsewhere?'
Sorcery Moves West
Governor Mingsan of Shensi certainly knew his way around. Though this collateral relative of the imperial house had held governor's rank only seven years, he had served at intermediate levels of provincial administration for seven years before that. He must have been credited with a just sense of proportion, for while serving as governor of subtropical Kwangtung in 1762/63, he had recommended to the Throne that local officials no longer be required to kneel in the road wearing their heavy dragon-embroidered ceremonial gowns to welcome provincial dignitaries. In Shensi, he was well acquainted with the territory: by the time of the queue-clipping crisis, his tenure as governor had so far lasted (with a year's interruption to serve in the Yangtze region) for five years.2
Mingsan reported on October 3 that he had heard of the Shantung cases when they first occurred and had already sent "secret orders" to county officials and military garrisons to take precautions. Rural markets were likely to "harbor traitors," so he had ordered local officials to send agents among the crowds to keep watch. On October 18, 1 g, and 20, three men reported that their queues had been clipped on the street by criminals unknown: two soldiers from nearby garrisons, and one schoolboy. County officials had examined the queue-ends, however, and found that they did not appear to have been clipped. Governor Mingsan himself had the complainants brought before him and found their queue-ends to be untouched.'
Further questioning revealed that the schoolboy, Kuo Hsing-li, aged twelve, was a student at the local academy. He had stopped on the street to watch a jugglers' troupe and made himself late for school. Rather than brave his schoolmaster's wrath, he had run home to his mother and claimed his queue-end had been clipped. Mingsan was unwilling to press charges against a twelve-year-old. The soldiers, he suspected, were either trying to find an excuse to postpone the payment of debts, or needed an excuse for being late to duty. Though he thought they "ought to be beaten," Mingsan was afraid that "the little people would not understand why, and there might be some genuine clipping-victims who would then not report the matter." The soldiers were sent back to their units to face the music.
Two other cases, however, were cause for concern. One commoner, Liu, feared that his queue had been clipped and had barber Ch'en clip off it little more as prophylaxis. Though the man was obviously "extremely stupid," his actions were "provocative and an incitement to the public." Another troublesome case was that of a seven-yearold boy, Chao Wang-pao, who was playing in the street in front of barber Wang's stall. Somehow he had heard of queue-clipping and started pestering barber Wang to cut off a little of his queue too. Barber Wang at first ignored him, then decided to humor him by cutting off just a little. The boy then became frightened and reported the incident to his mother. County deputies were sent to investigate, and barber Wang was haled into court and interrogated. Though the magistrate was satisfied that no evil was intended, the provincial judge ordered that he be brought before hi
m and questioned under the chia-kun. No new revelations were forthcoming. Wang's barber stall was searched, but no "illegal articles" were discovered. Governor Mingsan then questioned the man himself and was satisfied that the deed had been done as a joke. Yet such a joke at such a time was "provocative and illegal." Barber Wang, along with imagined clipping-victim Liu and barber Ch'en, were exposed in the cangue "to show the public." In the ten days since that time, Mingsan assured his master, no further incidents had been reported. He would "redouble his supervision" of preventive police work and "dared not permit the slightest laxit.y." (Vermilion: "Probably just empty words. Do not fail to exert yourself. Be conscientious and watchful.")
Sorcery Afloat
As his barge made its stately way along the Grand Canal, the directorgeneral of Grain "Transport, Yang Hsi-fu, docked on September 7 at it salt inspectorate in northwest Shantung. There he encountered a case of attempted soulstealing. As the grain fleet returned empty from the North, boat-trooper Chou had come aboard the captain's boat bringing his wife, who complained that a corner of her clothing had been clipped by it beggar-woman on August 2 1, whereupon she felt suddenly dizzy and had to be revived by a physician. On the twenty-seventh, a tattered beggar-woman again came on board and clipped a piece of cloth from her clothes. This time the crone was caught and was found to possess scissors and a scrap of cloth that seemed to match the victim's clothing. Suspect and evidence (including the victim's cotton vest) had been turned over to Magistrate Shih of 're-thou, who undertook to dig out the truth and reported to director-general Yang the following facts."
Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 Page 17
