But the case was now badly compromised. If new evidence discredited these confessions upon which the whole case had been built, what embarrassments might be expected from the numerous provincial cases that were about to descend on Peking? And how were such embarrassments to be told to the monarch, who had invested in this case not only his personal prestige but the honor of the dynasty?
By September 2 1, Hungli was already reacting to the bad news. He complained that the provincial confessions were "all wild and groundless." This was either because the villains were lying, "or because the examining officials are fabricating confessions. In either case, they are not to be believed." Amid such "flickering lights and shadows," what hope is there of catching the real culprits? He rejected a suggestion that suspicious persons be held in indefinite confinement, however; skillful interrogation would identify the innocent, who must then be promptly released.22
The scale of the potential miscarriage of justice was becoming apparent even to the zealous monarch, and by October 5 he speculated (in an unusual letter, in the confidential channel, to all province chiefs) that the whole plot might have been conceived by traitors who sought to stir up hatred of officialdom and so incite uprisings. Yet there was no choice but to press ahead, rounding up all suspicious characters even while taking care not to oppress the innocent: a hopelessly contradictory instruction from the standpoint of the hardpressed provincial bureaucracy.23
In Peking, inconsistencies continued to pile up. The confessions of Ts'ai T'ing-chang and Han P'ei-hsien were hopelessly compro- mised.24 The story of how the singing beggar had been framed was duly conveyed to Hungli. Furthermore, when confronted with "Chang Ssu ju," the original informer, beggar Chin, could not identify him. But the monarch still played the gimlet-eyed prosecutor. Surely, he wrote on October 17, these criminals would have agreed not to identify one another in court, in order to conceal their plot. Liu 'I"ung-hsun was to examine the prisoners with even greater care. As soon as he "detected a hint of discrepancy between words and demeanor," he was to "seize the opportunity to press harder, so that the true thread might be discerned." Furthermore, every effort must be made to wring from monk T'ung-kao the answer to what those queue-hairs were really to be used for.25 But at the summer capital, Duke Fuheng had also become a doubter. On October 17, the inconsistencies were too much for him, and he ordered Governor Jangboo to send all his prisoners from Kiangsu to Peking to have their testimonies cross-checked.26
An opportunity now presented itself to the grand councillors: Grand Secretary Liu T'ung-hsun was about to depart Peking for the summer capital. At sixty-eight, Liu had a distinguished record in the upper reaches of Peking politics (including twelve years on the Grand Council) and a reputation as an incorruptible official, an outspoken breaker of bad news, and an advocate of unpalatable policies. Though Hungli may sometimes have considered him meddlesome, he bore Liu an unshakable respect. He had once briefly imprisoned Liu for an unwelcome suggestion, but shortly pardoned him and continued to employ him in the highest positions, including that of chief tutor of the emperor's sons. So deeply did Hungli appreciate his toughminded servant that upon Liu's death in 1773 he paid a personal condolence call upon his family.27 As senior grand councillor on the scene, Liu had sweated through the Peking summer while the sovereign was at Ch'eng-te. As sorcery fear gripped the capital, he had handled the delicate job of unearthing the culprits while not raising panic among the common people. As soulstealing culprits were shipped in from provincial courtrooms, he had ample exposure to the shoddy and mendacious cases prepared by local prosecutors. His memoranda to Hungli are masterpieces of subtlety: they lay out the defects of the cases, including long quotes or paraphrases of the recantations, all carefully packaged in a (logged zealotry that refuses to accept the "crafty" and "evasive" testimony at face value. These documents, at least, could never expose Liu to charges of being soft on soulstealing. After the singing beggar recanted in Peking on October 15, it was time something was done to spare the Throne worse embarrassment. This would require concerted action in the monarch's presence.
As president of the Board of Punishments, Liu had the annual duty of journeying to Ch'eng-te to help the monarch scrutinize the reports of the autumn assizes, in which condemned prisoners' cases were reviewed. When the reviews had been presented to the Throne, Hungli would check off (kou-tao) those to be put to death. The routine every year was for Liu, who had remained in Peking to manage Grand Council business, to journey to the summer capital around the middle of October and accompany His Majesty back to Peking. On the leisurely southwest progress through the crisp autumn countryside, Hungli, in consultation with Liu, would brush a vermilion "check" next to each condemned name.28 Liu left Peking on about October i8 and was in Ch'eng-te by October 21. He and Fuheng were with the monarch for the next five days.
A meeting of minds must have occurred by October 25, to judge by the tone of Duke Fuheng's subsequent interrogation reports. Gone now was the hedging about miscarriages of justice, gone the apparent reluctance to accept recantations at face value. Liu joined the procession when the court set out upon the road on October 26, while Fuheng remained in Ch'eng-te to finish interrogating the prisoners. The imperial party reached Peking on November i, and two days later Hungli called off the soulstealing prosecution.29
Calling off the campaign was not a simple matter of canceling orders. The Throne had invested in it se, much prestige and moral authority that a more ceremonious ending was required. i0 First, court letters were sent by Fuheng, Yenjisan, and Liu T'ung-hsun to all governors-general and governors. The queue-clipping case had "spread to various provinces" because officials in Kiangsu and Chekiang had not reported it promptly. The response to repeated imperial edicts had been maladministration by "local officials." As a result, those cases that were brought to trial "were not without incidents of extortion by torture." (This last, added to the court letter in vermilion, clearly troubled Hungli, though he certainly had known about it earlier in the campaign.) Therefore he had ordered criminals sent to Peking for reinterrogation. None turned out to be the chief criminals, and there were many instances in which innocent persons had been falsely accused. This was "all the result of local officials in Kiangsu and Chekiang letting the affair fester to the point of disaster." Any further prosecution would simply disrupt local society. This would be "inconsistent with our system of government." The prosecution was therefore to be stopped.
Curiously, however, the court letter insisted that this should not be taken by local officials as a signal to relax vigilance. Watchfulness was still the order of the day, and an official who captured a "chief criminal" would thereby be deemed to have "redeemed his faults. 1131
On the same day was promulgated an open edict that cast all the blame on provincial officials. The soulstealing menace, it began, first appeared in Kiangsu and Chekiang, then spread to Shantung and other provinces. Had provincial officials rigorously prosecuted the case "when they first heard of it," pressing their local subordinates for results, "clues could naturally have been found, and the chief criminals would have been unable to slip through the net." Instead, "right from the beginning" bureaucrats had followed their accustomed routines and failed to report the matter, "seeking to turn something into nothing," and only when pressed by the Throne itself did they begin to order prosecution.
Now, although there have been arrests in Shantung, Anhwei, Kiangsu, and Chekiang, "We feared that among them there were some whose depositions were extorted by torture." Therefore Hungli had ordered that the criminals be sent to Peking for interrogation by a tribunal drawn from the Grand Council, the Board of Punishments, and the Peking Gendarmerie. The original depositions proved unreliable, and there were indeed cases of extortion by torture. "It was apparent that in those provinces officials began by concealing the facts and followed by evading responsibility." As a result, the "principal criminals" were not caught. Nothing was done but to "send petty functionaries out in all directions to cause trouble for the
villages." This was "entirely out of keeping with our system of government." Here Hungli bit the bullet: "Now, at last, it will not be necessary to continue prosecuting this case."
How are we to reconcile the ambivalence of the secret court letters and the vindictiveness of the open edict? It is plain (from the vermilion emendation) that Hungli was personally upset and embarrassed by the confessions concocted under torture. Yet the fact that he continued to insist (in the secret channel) on vigilance, and (in both channels) on the objective existence of the "chief criminals" even though not a single one had been found, suggests a face-saving compromise. Hungli's state of mind emerges most lucidly in an extraordinary vermilion rescript to a memorial from Funihan. The Shantung governor had replied to the November 3 court letter in plaintive terms. He had prosecuted the case "with dedication" and had "spared no effort." Although the chief criminals had not been caught, "Shantung was then free of queue-clipping incidents after mid-August." The vermilion reads:
Seen. Although Shantung's handling of this case did exceed the bounds of propriety, We shall not blame you. If you were held responsible for excesses after being ordered to prosecute rigorously, then how would provincial officials know, in the future, what course to follow? Nevertheless, planting evidence and seeking-by-torture are really not the Correct Way.3°
Let such candor not tempt the governor into "negligence," warned Hungli. Yet a whiff of royal remorse was in the air, and provincial officials were exceedingly sensitive to the prevailing winds. Hungli knew that the dignity of the Throne could be maintained only by insisting on the reality of the plot and by punishing officials who had failed to prosecute with sufficient vigor. The other side of the compromise, however, was to impeach officials who had tortured false confessions out of innocent people.
Settling Accounts with the Bureaucracy
So far, there had been no concession that the case itself was poorly founded. On the contrary, the chief "criminals" had really existed and had eluded justice because of provincial mismanagement. Punishment was now in order: "Those governors-general and governors of Kiangsu and Chekiang, who let this case fester to the point of disaster," were to be referred to the Board of Civil Office for "rigorous discipline," in order to "rectify the bureaucratic system.":;; Here was Hungli's revenge for the cover-up. Those to be disciplined for laxity and mendacity were Governor-general G'aojin (Liangkiang), Governor] an gboo (Kiangsu), Governor Feng Ch'ien (Anhwei), Governor Hsiang Hsueh-p'eng (Chekiang), Governor Yungde (Chekiang), Governor Mingde (Yunnan, formerly Kiangsu), and Governor Surde (Shansi). A number of county-level officials were cashiered for having exonerated sorcery suspects the preceding spring. To keep the compromise in balance, a number of lower officials were impeached for manufacturing evidence through the improper use of torture on innocent prisoners. Some distinguished careers were ruined, particularly among lower officials. Prefect Shao Ta-yeh of Hsu-chou, for instance, was a renowned administrator whose flood control work had spared his people from inundation over a tenure of seven years. In retribution for his part in botching the case of the singing beggar, he was rusticated to a remote military post, where he died a few years later.34
The nub of the problem, however, was Governor Funihan himself, whose memorials (and enclosed confessions) had kept the soulstealing case on the boil for three months. Day after day, the grand councillors at the summer capital and at Peking had viewed the human debris sent up from Shantung courts as they reinterrogated the soulstealing criminals. Governor Funihan had insisted all along that his own interrogations "did not rely upon torture," a statement that had greatly enhanced the credibility of the confessions.35 What, then, asked the grand councillors, was the meaning of these gravely wounded prisoners, whose lacerated bodies still had not healed? Monk T'ung-kao, should he survive, would be maimed for life. If they had been tortured in county or prefectural courts, had not Funihan seen their condition personally when they were brought before him? Funihan was ordered to explain himself.36
The governor replied that, when he first saw beggars Ts'ai and Chin, it was evident that they had been tortured, but "they could still walk," and had named their masters and confederates without undergoing further ordeals. As for the crippled T'ung-kao, he had only appeared at the governor's court after the dispatch of the "no torture" memorial. Funihan then humbly reminded His Majesty of his own command of August 5 to "do your utmost" (chin fa) to dig the truth out of the culprits. With that sort of backing, he asked, why would he have hesitated to report that "conscientious investigating officials had used torture" in pursuing the case? At this rather spunky rejoinder came the vermilion sneer: "Even more mendacious." The Board of Civil Office was ordered to recommend punishment.37 When it came, the punishment was rather mild, considering how much trouble the governor had inflicted upon the bureaucracy, and embarrassment upon the Throne. The offense, of course, was not torturing prisoners (Hungli had already expressed a certain sympathetic understanding on that point), but lying about it to the Throne. Funihan was demoted to the post of provincial treasurer of Shansi (Vermilion: "and take away his rank while in the job") but was perhaps relieved that Hungli forbore to route the case into the criminal track, as he had for his predecessor Governor Chun-t'ai sixteen years earlier in a roughly similar context. In the light of all that had happened, Funihan had received but a slap on the wrist: an unmistakable concession of royal error .38
The End of the Trail
Once the monarch was firmly oriented toward calling off the prosecution, the inquisitors knew that it was all right to resolve these embarrassing cases. Exonerations followed quickly and clearly. First resolved were the cases of the monks who were nearly lynched at Hsu-k'ou-chen and the beggars of Soochow. On November 8, Fuheng confirmed the original finding of the Wu County magistrate: Chingchuang and his companions were all "honest monks true to their calling" and should be released forthwith. Fisherman Chang, who had accosted them in the temple and pursued them into the street, was to be held responsible for the disturbance. Although they were unable to prove that this was an attempt at extortion (like that of constable Ts'ai in Hsiao-shan), the grand councillors decided that a beating was not enough for fisherman Chang. Besides being required to make restitution to the monks for their lost baggage and money, he was to be exposed in the cangue for two months "to instruct the people." The ruffians who had robbed their boat, Li San and T'ang Hua, were each to be beaten eighty strokes according to the useful statute that forbade "doing what ought not be done."39
Of the three original Soochow beggars, only Ch'en Han ju was still alive (Chang Yu-ch'eng had died in jail; Ch'iu Yung-men was reported to have died later of illness). Here, too, the original judgment by the county magistrate was upheld. The ten-year-old boy Ku Chen-nan, whose testimony had implicated the beggars in queueclipping, had been brought to Ch'eng-te along with his father. The boy now related that "he had been ordered by the constabulary officer to identify them," but could only say that beggar Ch'en's clothing "looked like" that of the man who he thought had jerked his queue. This had not been good enough for the magistrate, nor was it now for Fuheng. Beggar Ch'en "is definitely not a queue-clipper," and should promptly be escorted back to Soochow and released. (Vermilion: "Let it be done as recommended.") The Soochow cases were closed.40
Mason Wu and the Hsiao-shan monks, it will be remembered, had been rearrested in early September and sent, by imperial order, on the long journey beyond the Great Wall to the summer capital. The trip took slightly over a month, and upon their arrival in early October the emperor immediately appointed an investigative team of Grand Council staff members, supervised by Duke Fuheng. All the culprits were questioned anew, including the self-confessed perjurer, constable Ts'ai, who was brought before the panel and tortured. The inquisitors asked, presumably just to make sure: Might not the Chekiang provincial authorities have concealed a real sorcery case by making him a scapegoat, "instructing a confession" to make the inquisitors believe it was all a frame-up? The doomed constable reasonably
objected that he would hardly perjure himself in order to "obtain future benefits" from provincial superiors, if he would at the same time be admitting to a capital crime. The panel took his point. They sentenced him to be strangled, with execution delayed until after the autumn assizes.
On November 19 the panel confirmed the findings of the Chekiang court: the monks had been framed by constable Ts'ai, their confessions wrung from them by torture. Hair from the supposedly clipped "queues" was carefully examined and found to be of identical color and texture. Duke Fulieng narrowly observed the bearing and demeanor of Chu-ch'eng and the other monks, and found that "they exhibited no signs of sorcery or villainy." They were to be escorted home and released.41
It remained for the inquisitors to grill mason Wu about his role in the spring soulstealing affair in Te-ch'ing. Just as they began, there arrived from Chekiang some curious intelligence about those spring events, which cast a new light on the origins of the sorcery panic.42
Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 Page 21
