Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768

by Philip A. Kuhn

  By October 2, the frustrated Hungli had reached his own conclusions: soulstealers were scattered everywhere, but their main gang was moving from province to province. Having come north from Kiangnan into Shantung, Chihli, and Jehol, they now were plainly moving westward into Shansi, Shensi, and the middle Yangtze area. Their traces faded in one province, only to emerge in another. Furthermore, it was now evident that the plotters were trying to incite tonsure violations by scaring the common people into cutting off their own queues. Hungli was certain of this because queueprophylaxis had virtually stopped, now that it was officially forbidden. "This shows that the belief [in queue-prophylaxis] was unfounded" (that is, had no preexisting basis in popular lore), and that it therefore could only have resulted from traitors' "concocting evil doctrines to delude ignorant commoners." The culprits caught so far were all small fry. This meant that there must be others behind them, men who harbored seditious designs, who sought "to injure the Dynasty's established institutions" (that is, the tonsure decree) to provoke rebellion. 18

  Three days later he amplified these somber thoughts in an unusual court letter to all province chiefs, but with a new perspective: the plotters might be hoping to touch off a major uprising by stirring up popular anger against the bureaucracy. In response to harsh measures by local officials, "the people will surely become fearful," which may result in "touching off uprisings." The plotters would then be able to "stand on the sidelines" and yet attain their seditious purposes. Clearly the campaign could not be stopped in its tracks merely out of fear of the people's anger. But province chiefs must now use special care. Being "neither lax nor oppressive," they must ensure that the innocent are not injured while the malefactors are hunted down. Even the monks and beggars that are swept up in provincial dragnets must be treated gingerly. When a culprit is first brought to court, he must be questioned "impartially." Inquisitors must neither "seek by punishment" (that is, fish for incriminating admissions by applying torture) nor keep culprits locked up unreasonably. Of course, if there are "suspicious circumstances," then the full force of inquisition may be applied. If not, the culprits are to be released. Here Hungli appears to be reaching for a principle of "probable cause," a twostage process in which neither torture nor lengthy imprisonment can be used in the early phases of investigation. Yet due care was not to mean relaxing the intense hunt for the main plotters, who must still be in Kiangnan. "If they are not treacherous monks, then they must be disheartened scholars. Their intentions are extremely dangerous, and their movements are extremely secretive." They must be hunted relentlessly, not only in the traditional bandit lairs around Lake T'ai, but also throughout the countryside in "secluded villages and derelict temples." How such an invasive manhunt was to be reconciled with proper concern for the innocent was a question that Hungli left to the practical sense of his provincial officials."'

  An Obdurate Case

  How difficult provincial officials found these contradictory instructions was soon to be seen in the case of master-sorcerer Ming-yuan. According to his apprentice, Han P'ei-hs:ien, whose confession we heard in Chapter 4, this sinister monk was supposed to be awaiting his queue-laden agents at the Three Teachings Temple in Hai-chou, but he had so far eluded the authorities. In Chekiang, Governor Yungde's agents had combed through monasteries and temples and had turned up a monk with the dharma-name Ming-yuan, who had been quickly shipped to the summer capital for questioning. But it was not until October g that the real Ming-yuan seemed finally to be in hand, captured in Anhwei Province, near the city of Hofei. A monk named Yu-ming, from a small local temple, who bore the "style" or second dharma-name of Ming-yuan, had been arrested for queue-clipping. Among his belongings had been found a small wooden doll, a charm written on cloth, two suspicious wooden seals, a curious sign, and a pair of scissors; but no queues.

  Ming-yuan told his inquisitors that he supplemented his begging income by practicing medicine (just as Han had indicated in his confession). On July 26, he was out on the road, with his belongings loaded on a donkey, some fifty miles northwest of his home temple. At a village near Shou-chou, he stopped to drink from a well. Because there was no bucket to dip the water, he approached a house where three children were playing in the dooryard. They ignored him when he asked to borrow a bucket, so he just patted a boy on the head and walked on, still thirsty. He had gone less than a mile when he was overtaken by several villagers, who accused him of clipping the boy's queue.

  I couldn't argue them out of it. They grabbed me and searched my kit, but there was no queue. Then they took me to Liu Ming-ch'i's house and tied me up and beat me and stabbed me with an awl. They couldn't find a queue-end, but they demanded that I guarantee the father that his child wouldn't die. Because I had been beaten and stabbed, I had to draw him a charm for protection. He also wanted a written guarantee. Because I was desperate to save myself, I wrote one that said there'd been no queue-clipping.

  The injured monk was let go and allowed to depart for his home temple. But government runners heard what had happened and went to investigate. Liu Ming-ch'i showed them the charms and guarantee, whereupon they alerted Ho-fei authorities, who tracked down Mingyuan and arrested him.

  In preliminary questioning, the culprit tried to explain the suspicious paraphernalia from his baggage (which, to officials, were plain evidence of "evil arts"). The two wooden seals were for "increasing the respect" of prospective donors. One read "Monk Aided by the Five Kings" (wu wang-yeh t'i seng) ;20 the other, "Yin-kung Department Assistant Magistrate." Ming-yuan explained that his grandfather had held a post as brigade-general, which meant that the monk was falsely claiming an official title for himself. What about the suspicious wording on the sign (evidently a medical practitioner's placard for setting up by the roadside), which read, "Ming-yuan, from the Capital, by Grace of the Censorate"? This, he replied, was merely advertising to make prospective patients believe that his remedies had been used by high officials. The cloth charm was for "warding off sorcery" (chen-hsieh-of the sort discussed in Chapter 5). Here was just the sort of humbug one would expect to find in the kit of a traveling medicine man. To Ming-yuan's inquisitors, however, it was sinister stuff: he was "undoubtedly a major criminal," and the truth would now have to be extracted by torture.

  Ming-yuan proved an obdurate case. He would say nothing under torture except that he had clipped no queues. The inquisitors, who included Governor Feng himself along with subordinate prefects and magistrates, did their best to encourage frank testimony. Whatever it was that they did, within a week it had killed him. When Hungli was told, he asked angrily if Ming-yuan had been tortured to death or somehow allowed to take his own life. Not at all, insisted Governor Feng. The prisoner had died of "a cold contracted in prison." The inquisitors had surely not tortured him to death, as examinations by the coroner and physician would attest. Alit they did was to have the criminal kneel on chains for three days, during which time no chiakun was used on his legs, and the finger-press was applied only once. Then he was questioned nonstop by relays of officials for two more days and nights. "Whenever he closed his eyes, they shouted at him" to prevent his dozing. Fearing he might be somewhat "fatigued" by the ordeal, Feng ordered him kept in prison for a few days before interrogation was resumed. Before he could be questioned again, however, the jailers reported his death. (Vermilion: "Noted." )2'

  That was the shape of the case as it reached its final stage: a review of all the evidence by the Grand Council itself. The grand councillors had pushed the prosecution loyally for three months as instruments of the implacable Hungli. There is no documentary evidence, so far, to suggest that they had been anything but fully committed to the antisorcery campaign. Yet as they began their final task, we have to wonder what they must have thought of the record as it appeared by mid-October: confused by perjury, cluttered with trivia, and strewn with dead prisoners.

  CHAPTER 8

  The End of the Trail

  As the chill of Manchurian autumn seeped into the summer capit
al, the court was preparing for its stately progress back to Peking. Duke Fuheng, however, was still vexed by soulstealing suspects who had been brought to him, and whose agonized testimony he strove to untangle. It will be recalled that Hungli had ordered the whole group of Shantung queue-clippers sent north, some to Peking and others all the way to Ch'eng-te, for interrogation by the grand councillors, once it became apparent that their confessions had led Kiangsu officials on it wild goose chase. Other criminals entrusted to the Grand Council were the singing beggar Chang Ssu and his son, and all the culprits from the spring soulstealing cases: mason Wu and the Hsiaoshan monks, along with the Soochow beggar Ch'en Han-ju and the monk Ching-chuang and his companions who had been so nearly lynched at Hsu-k'ou-chen. Some of the criminals had already arrived in the summer capital. Others remained at Peking, where they were interrogated by those grand councillors who had stayed behind at the Forbidden City. Now the empire's most powerful ministers would clear up this affair, which had so mightily troubled the court for the past three months. As they began their job, however, the inquisitors were aware of some recent unpleasantness that had clouded the already ►nurky case.

  Maledictions among the People

  Sedition in the Family

  Early in September a man of the lower elite (a county student, shengyuan) journeyed the six hundred miles from his Shansi home to Peking on a mission of state. He carried a sample of "seditious writings" to turn over to the Censorate, along with a report that these had been composed by his father's younger brother. Although the record does not reveal their content, these writings were hostile enough to infuriate Hungli when the Censorate duly brought them to his attention. Deputies from the Grand Council rushed to Shansi to join Governor Surde in his investigation. A delegation of silkgowned dignitaries searched the uncle's house but found "no traces of seditious writing." Searching the homes of confederates named in the accusation proved just as futile. The uncle protested that he was unjustly accused, and even the accuser's father said he knew nothing of the charges and believed them to be groundless. The county student, Chang T'ing jui, was now questioned. The investigators' report:

  At first his testimony was evasive, but after we had gone over it repeatedly and checked its accuracy, he bowed his head and wept bitterly. He confessed that his uncle, Chang Ju-t'iao, and his aunt had ruled like tyrants over the joint family estate. His own father and mother were weak and had suffered their oppression for many years. Student Chang had wanted to report the true situation to local officials, but feared that he would not only fail to receive a fair hearing but would, on the contrary, suffer his uncle's retribution. He brooded about it day and night, weeping and losing his desire to live. He therefore composed some seditious writings himself and went to the capital to present his accusation. All this he now regrets extremely.

  The investigators could hardly believe that, for such a trifling cause as a family property dispute, student Chang would have fabricated a treason charge, or would have implicated so many people. Further, the uncle might indeed have been engaged in illegal activities, so the investigation would continue. But Hungli sensed what had happened. He noted in vermilion: "It probably is indeed a false accusation." The Code's "most extreme penalties" were to be applied.'

  A Persistent Creditor

  A Chihli man, Kuan Te-lin, was accused of queue-clipping by Chang Erh, who had found a clipped queue in Kuan's possessions. The case was quickly taken out of provincial hands and brought before the grand councillors at the summer capital. Their Excellencies must have used persuasive methods on all parties, for they reported to Hungli on September 20 that the matter was not as it seemed. Kuan Te-lin was originally a Chinese bannerman from a garrison near Peking. In line with the government policy of reducing the number of Han bannermen, however, he had changed his registration to that of an ordinary subject.2 In the process he moved to Ch'ang-p'ing, some twenty miles northwest of Peking. From Chang Erh, a villager, he rented land to farm. Later he moved back to the Peking area, where he lived in his own family cemetery and went into business as a peddler. He had loaned his former landlord, Chang Erh, the sum of 6,ooo cash, and repeatedly asked that he be repaid. When landlord Chang claimed that he did not have the money, Kuan simply moved into Chang's house. He abused Chang relentlessly and even demanded his wife for sexual services. Offended and furious, Chang stormed out of the house and went over to the home of a neighbor, Liu San, to buy some warm wine. There he spied some discarded hair, recently trimmed from the head of Liu's daughter-in-law. This he took and bound into three queues. Later, when Kuan was out, he stuffed the false queues along with his wife's scissors into Kuan's sack, then hurried to the local constabulary post to accuse his creditor of queue-clipping)

  The monarch found this case disturbing, mainly because the evidence of queue-clipping in the provinces might now be cast into doubt. While confirming a deferred sentence of strangulation for the "despicable" Chang Erh, he cautioned his prosecutors: "Do not, because of this case of false accusation, permit your will to be swayed, or show the slightest negligence in pursuing the queue-clippers, lest the true criminals slip through the net."4

  Although these cases were most prominent in the recent memories of the grand councillors, other curious occurrences were coming to the attention of provincial officials. In Honan, for example, "bad characters spend their fathers' money or dispose of their wives' possessions, then clip their own queues and falsely assert that someone had robbed them and clipped their queues. Sons cheat their fathers, husbands cheat their wives. There are even cases in which bad children skip school, clip their own queues, and falsely assert that someone clipped them and made them ill, as an excuse for skipping school. Such things are happening all over.' The situation in Kiangsu was similar, though it was not reported to Peking until late November: "All jurisdictions have reported cases of commoners clipping the tips of their own queues and falsely accusing others, or turning in others to collect rewards."" Though the full dimensions of this problem emerged only some weeks later, a certain skepticism is already discernible in Grand Council discussions of sorcery by mid-October. In this atmosphere we join the inquisitors as they reopen the cases of the most notorious of the soulstealing criminals.

  Soulstealers in the Dock

  Chang Ssu ju Tells All

  We left the singing beggar Chang Ssu and his eleven-year-old son in the county lockup at Su-chou, Anhwei, charged with queue-clipping at Chao Village. Acting Magistrate Liu reported that the singing beggar had admitted under torture that he had been recruited by the tall stranger, Chao San, to clip queues. Yet he was unable to make him admit that he was really the Chang Ssu ju named by the Shantung queue-clipper, beggar Chin. A search for the tall stranger had proved fruitless. Now beggar Chang and son were bundled into criminal-transport carts and shipped to the prefectural yamen at Feng-yang, where "(:hang Ssu" confessed that he was, indeed, Chang Ssu-ju. Here at last was a link to master-sorcerer Yu-shih, who had so far eluded the imperial dragnet. Governor-general G'aojin, who was then nearby in Hsu-chow managing flood control on the Yellow River, ordered the criminals brought for him to question personally. Finally, there seemed to be an end to this troublesome business.

  Flanked by the local circuit-intendant and prefect, Governor-general G'aojin had beggar Chang and his son Ch'iu-erh dragged before him. But the result was not what he had expected. The criminal now recanted his entire confession and "poured out his grievances," insisting that he had been framed by village headman Chao. G'aojin decided that it was "inconvenient" to verify the story by applying torture, since the criminal's ankles already bore the marks of the chia kun and were badly swollen and infected. Village headman Chao was now brought to court, questioned sternly, and made to tell the following story.'

  Chang Ssu and his boy had sung their song and then pleaded for food outside headman Chao's house. Two other beggars, who were hawking woven bamboo ladles, were given one piece of steamed bread between them, and beggar Chang was given half a piece. This
was just enough to enrage the famished creatures, who roundly cursed their benefactor. Headman Chao warned them, "There are queue-clippers around these (lays. You'd better be off!" (meaning, "don't tempt me to turn you in"). Chang cursed him again, and the beggars walked away. "'T'hen I was really angry," admitted Chao, "and I suspected they might be had characters from outside." So he ordered his hired hands and tenants to seize them. One of beggar Chang's companions was found to be carrying a small bag of medicine, and the other a paring knife. Were these in fact the queueclipping sorcerers everyone was talking about? "But there were no clipped queues, and they wouldn't admit it." Then the men threatened the boy with a beating and terrified him into admitting the beggars were queue-clippers. When beggar Chang and the others continued to deny it, headman Chao had them tied to trees and beaten with an iron chain. They were badly hurt, and Chao feared that if they were released they might lay charges against him. So, to fortify the evidence, he ordered hired-hand Fei, who was growing bald and wore a false queue, to donate part of it. This damning item, along with the knife and drugs, filled out the list of incriminating evidence that sorcery lore required, and the headman could confidently turn the criminals over to county authorities.

  Governor-general G'aojin found witnesses to corroborate all these details. He also determined that the knife was too dull to cut hair and the drugs incapable of "stupefying" anyone. Yet both county and prefectural authorities had previously sustained the case. There was no alternative but to send the criminals to Peking to face the Shantung criminal, beggar Chin, who had been brought to the capital to have his tangled testimony combed out by the grand councillors themselves. Beggar Chin, who had named Chang Ssu ju in the first place, would surely know him when he saw him.