Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768

by Philip A. Kuhn

  32. That is, those positions that bore all four of the "post designations" for difficulty; see G. William Skinner, "Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems" in Skinner and Elvin, eds., The City in Late Imperial China, 314321, on the post-designation system.

  33. The Ch'ien-lung edition of the TCHT does not categorize posts according to their method of appointment, but that of the succeeding Chia-ch'ing reign does. One category listed in TCHT mixes some posts that were within governors' reach with others that were not, so I have not included that category in the 30 percent figure. TCHT, Chia-ch'ing, chiian 4-6, sections on Board of Civil Office. On the categories of posts, see Fu, Ch'ing-tai tofu chih-tu chih yen-chiu, 91-94. Early in his reign, Hungli had to issue a special prohibition against provincial patronage networks based upon regional or classmate ties-a conventional theme, but no doubt heartfelt: "How can Our Dynasty's official posts be [reserved for] the peaches and pears [that is, the clients] of private patrons?" Wang Hsien-ch'ien, Tung-hua hsu-1u, in Shih-erh-ch'ao tung-hualu (reprint; Tainan: Ta-tung shu-chii, 1968), 2.8, CL 2.2.13-

  34. TCSCSH 94.4 (1757).

  35. TCSCSH 94-3(1755)-

  36. TCSCSH 91.4b 0744)•

  37. CSL 153.21b (1741).

  38. CSL 816.7b (1768).

  39. The nominal salary was but a small fraction of an official's total salary, which consisted mostly of the "incorruptibility allowance" (yang-lien). The ratio of yang-lien to nominal salary in the case of a circuit-intendant could be more than forty to one, depending on the jurisdiction. See Chang Chung-li, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), 12-14.

  40. Ch'in-ting li-pu tse-li, 1749 ed., 3.15•

  41. KCSY Cl, 31.1.13.

  42. CPTC nei-cheng, chih-kuan, file 2, no. 118, Cl. 31.2.9 (G'aojin and Mingde); CSLC 21-37-

  43. TCSCSH 93.1b (1750).

  44. TCSCSH 92.3b (1749), 97.3b (1769).

  45. The special character of the Ch'ing regime, as Hungli saw it, was its superiority to the faction-riven government of its Ming predecessors. He was outraged when one governor suggested in 1769 that a special minimum-security prison be built for "official criminals" (to afford greater comfort to those imprisoned for crimes in office). Far from deserving favors, these men were actually worse than commoner-criminals. "Yet you do not scruple to follow the defunct Ming regime's hateful practice of officials' protecting each other." KCSY CL 33-12-15-

  46. CSL 15.30 (1736).

  47. "I'CSCSH 90.4 (1738).

  48. TCSCSH 95.1 (1759)•

  49. CSL 628.6b (1761).

  50. KCSY CL 31.6.17. 1 have not recovered the censor's original memorial. 51. Hungli was disgusted when an elderly brigade-general from a Yunnan garrison, evidently struck dumb by the awesome moment, "uttered not a word from beginning to end." The man's superior, Governor-general Aibida, shortly memorialized that the general was "old and sick" and should be retired. Hungli was furious at Aibida for disclosing such information only when he knew that the imperial eye would have spied out the man's infirmity. TCSCSH 95.2b (176o).

  52. Injen's audience comments have recently been published: Ku-kung powu-yuan, comp., Ch'ing-tai tang-an tzu-liao ts'ung-pien (Peking: Chunghua shu-chii, 1983), vol. 9, 44-157.

  53. TCSCSH 92.2b (1747). The official in question was, by the way, not some rough Manchurian trooper reeking of the saddle but a Han bureaucrat in mid-career, whom Hungli had certainly interviewed before.

  54. I have seen what are probably all the surviving examples of Hungli's audience comments, jotted in vermilion on the official vitae prepared for him by the Board of Civil Office. These are in Kung-chung tang-an, lu-litan, two boxes; First Historical Archives, Peking. The imperial comments are not dated, but as a matter of convenience I have indicated the latest date that appears on the candidate's vita. Evidence for imperial personnel evaluation is not limited to audience notes. In addition, Hungli jotted evaluations on "gratitude" (hsieh-en) memorials from officials who had just received appointments. I noted a few dozen of these in the Peking palace memorial collection under the category "Civil government, officials in service" (nei-cheng, chih-kuan), but there are probably hundreds of them, if not thousands. An example shows that the tone and content are not markedly different from the audience notes. On the "gratitude" memorial of a recently appointed prefect, Hungli noted in vermilion, "He really does know a lot about river conservancy. He should still be used in that specialty. Sacai says he is not as good as Han Huang. His field of appointment (chu-mien) should be river conservancy." CPTC, nei- cheng, chih-kuan CL 45.2.5, T'ang Shih-pi. Besides specifying areas for future specialization, these comments sometimes indicated the top level that Hungli expected the man to attain: "An average talent. Will do only for an easy posting (chien-chih)"; "seems all right for prefect, but rather a minor posting (chu-mien hsiao-hsieh)." CPTC, nei-cheng, chih-kuan CL 45, boxes 63-65-

  55. TCSCSH 93.1 (1750).

  56. TCHTSL 78.8.

  57. This contrasts with his father's instinct for regularity; at the outset of his reign, Injen reinstituted the Capital Investigation, which had been suspended since 1685, and decreased the interval from six years to three. The self-evaluation requirement remained in effect. TCHTSL 78.8.

  58. R. Kent Guy has begun to explore the appointment process as it affected governors-general and governors: "The Appointment of Provincial Governors in Qing China: a Preliminary Analysis" (typescript).

  59. TCSCSH g1.4 (1742).

  60. CPTC, nei-cheng, chih-kuan CL 34-1.27-

  61. In one example from 1768, twenty-three lines of an official's reply follow sixty-six lines of an imperial edict. CPTC 86o.11, CL 33.9.15 (Funihan).

  62. One memorial, for instance, dutifully quoted five separate scoldings, all quite humiliating. CPTC 815.13, CL 33.8.15 (Feng Ch'ien).

  63. CPTC 861.6, CL 33.8.11 (Asha).

  64. CSL 814.27, CL 33.7.11. In vermilion, inserted into a later court-letter draft: "How can you not impeach such negligent subordinates?" KCTC CL 33-7-15-

  65. CPTC 862.2, CL 33.7.14 (Jangboo).

  66. KCTC CL 33.7.15•

  67. CPTC 863.2, CL 33.7.21.

  68. The execution of Chang Kuang-ssu, for allegedly botching the military campaign against the Chin-ch'uan aborigines in 1749, was notorious. In the Burma campaign of 1767, Hungli had two officials put to death for mendacious reporting from the field. On these cases, see Chapter 3. In the case of the Bogus Memorial of 1751, Hungli jailed the Shantung governor, Juntai, and confiscated all his property for failing to report material evidence. KCTC CL 16.8.27.

  69. CPTC 862.4, CL 33.7.20.

  70. See, for example, CPTC 853.6, CL 33.7.21 (Jangboo).

  71. KCTC CL 16.8.27 (October 15, 1751). This edict does not appear in CSL. On the Bogus Memorial case, see Chapter 3.

  72. CSL 78o.23b, CL 32.3.7. Wu was also said to be in ill health. When the monarch queried Governor-general G'aojin, however, G'aojin said he had heard nothing about Wu to justify alarm. G'aojin promised a follow-up report later, which I have been unable to unearth. In any event, Hungli believed Wu to be an experienced official with "a sincere character" and kept him on the job.

  73. Biographies of Wu and his sons are in CSK 327.10777-79.

  74. CPTC 856.7, CL 33.8.22 (Wu Shao-shih).

  75. CPTC 862.26 CL 33.10.7.

  76. Wu T'an's original memorial has not been recovered, but it is summarized by Governor Jangboo, to whom Wu sent an urgent report, as well as in Hungli's edict in response. CPTC 862.15, CL 33.8.26, and CSL 817.36, CL 33.8.29. For the background of this case, see David E. Kelley, "Temples and Tribute Fleets: The Luo Sect and Boatmen's Associations in the Eighteenth Century," Modern China 8.3 (1982): 361-391; also his "Sect and Society: The Evolution of the Luo Sect among Qing Dynasty Grain Tribute Boatmen, 1700-1850" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1986), esp. chap. 3-

  77. CPTC SLHK 281, CL 33- 10.1 (Jangboo).

  78. KCI'C, CL 33.8.29, CSL 817.36, CL 33.8.29. The caution about "sedi
tious writings" was added to the court letter with the vermilion brush. In the end, Jangboo recommended that the Soochow sectarian leaders be sentenced to strangulation with execution deferred (i.e., jailed indefinitely under sentence of death) and that followers suffer heavy beatings and exile. CPTC SLHK 281, CL 33.10.1 (Jangboo).

  79. The routine-channel memorials that handled the impeachment, submitted in April and June of 1769, are Li-k'o t'i-pen, packet 71, CL 34.3.23; and packet 52, CL 34.5.14.

  80. The date from which accountability was calculated differed from place to place, depending on when the sect was known to have been transmitted to a particular jurisdiction.

  81. CPTC, 865.19, CL 33.9.1 1 (Dingcang).

  82. On one occasion when Governor-general G'aojin personally interrogated a soulstealing suspect, he brought along Feng Ch'ien, governor of Anhwei, who happened to be in Nanking on other business. CPTC 862.21, CL 33.9.12 (G'aojin).

  83. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936), 118.

  84. CPTC 862.10, CL 33.8.15 (Jordai).

  85. CPTC 862.9, CL 33.8.13 (G'aojin). G'aojirE was, however, authorized to carry out the re-registration in Kiangsu.

  86. Hungli accepted this for discussion and referred it to the Board of Rites. CPTC 864.12, CL 33.9.2 (Tseng Yueh-li).

  87. CPTC 866.1, CL 33.8.18 (Surde).

  88. CSL 81g.16b, CL 33.9.24• Surde has completely dropped out of the biographical record, perhaps for reasons that seemed good at the time.

  10. Theme and Variations

  1. Roger Chartier uses "representation," in one of its aspects, to mean "the operation of classification and delineation that produces the multiple intellectual configurations by which reality is constructed in contradictory ways by various groups." Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1888), g.

  2. SYT CC 15-5-22-

  3. Shen Pao-chen, Shen Wen-su-kung cheng-shu, 188o ed. (reprint, Taipei: Wen-hai ch'u-pan-she, 1967), 6.67; CSL.Kuang-hsu 34.2, KH 2.6.1; CSL.Kuang-hsu 38.17, KH 2.8.14; CSL.Kuang-hsu 39.iob, KH 2.8.23; Chiao-wu chiao-an tang, 3rd ser., 3 vols., comp. Chung-yang yen-chiu yuan, Chin-tai-shih yen-chiu-so (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1967), 627. See also de Groot, The Religious System of China, V, 489-490, for a discussion of this episode. In the 1870s the "evil arts" were associated, in the official mind, with gangs of armed outlaws, so that prosecuting sorcery was really part of a general repression of public disorder. Christian converts were immune from prosecution, not only because the treaties guaranteed them freedom of worship, but also because foreign powers (particularly France) looked for excuses to send gunboats to protect their co-religionists.

  4. On these campaigns, see Chuang Chi-fa, Ch'ing Kao-tsung shih-ch'uan wukung yen-chiu (Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1982), chaps. 4 and 6. We have already seen how Hungli dealt with the commanders of the Burma campaign after receiving the report of his advisor Fulinggan; see Chapter 3.

  5. For example, a report from Jangboo that certain criminals had been clipping queues drew from Hungli the marginal vermilion comment: "How?" CPTC 853.5, CL 33.7.18. The documents contain other hints of this sort that suggest a morbid curiosity about the techniques of sorcery as such.

  6. Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300-1500 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 36-37. On diabolism, see also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 521-525.

  7. Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 1-13-

  8. Recent Chinese history has seen an abundance of such fantasy-power injected into society. I am reminded of a 1982 conversation in Peking with a former Red Guard, then a low-paid service worker. Mao's "Cultural Revolution," he said wistfully, was a wonderful time for people like him who lacked the formal qualifications to advance in society through conventional channels, but whose ambitions were well served by the sudden access of power from the top, in the form of Mao's summons to the young to make revolution. Now, he complained, society was so "exam-ified" (k'ao-shih-hua) that he had no hope of rising above his deadend job.

  9. Edwin M. Schur describes the social function of "labeling": "Through deviation ... we construct the social meaning of conformity and delineate the boundaries of the social system." Labeling Deviant Behavior: Its Sociological Implications (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 147.

  10. Lester C. Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for Economic Change (New York: Basic Books, 1980).

  11. I am advisedly not speaking of "the elite" here, for the archives of soulstealing bear not a trace of those literati not in office, the "local gentry" whose presence became so visible a century later. These gentlemen stayed discreetly out of sight throughout the soulstealing crisis. Local gazetteers, which reflected gentry interests, breathe scarcely a word of it. Certainly nobody in government asked the gentry to lend a hand, and they stuck their necks out for nobody-whether as pursuers of sorcerers, as protectors of innocents, or as mediators. The days of "gentry" activism were yet to come.

  12. CPTC 861.1o, CL 33.q.11 (Asha). Asha's complete list of soulstealing suspects arrested in Honan over a three-month period is as follows:

  Hsiang fu County: A roving monk from Hu-kuang who sold medicinal ointments.

  Nan-yang County: a roving monk from Kiangnan, who had been "begging" by intimidating people. Though no outright criminal activity could be found, he deposed that his "elder brother" monk had the same dharma-name and native place as a suspect named by the Shantung criminal Ts'ai T'ing-chang.

  Hsin-yang County: A Kiangnan beggar accused of clipping women's lapels, along with his wife and four other beggars. Also, a criminal from Kiangnan who was reported to be carrying a queue-end and a knife, presently being sent to the provincial capital for further interrogation.

  Lu-shan County: A roving monk from Kiangnan whose name sounded something like that of a monk implicated in one of the Shantung confessions.

  Pi-yang County: Two roving monks from Hu-kuang.

  Feng-ch'iu County: A roving monk from Hu-kuang.

  Nan-yang Prefecture: A wandering stranger who turned out to be Ho- nanese; also three wandering monks and a lay Taoist from Hukuang.

  Ku-shih County: A monk from the Kuan-yin Temple who had been implicated by the Shantung criminal monk T'ung-kao.

  Chang-te Prefecture: Three wandering monks from Shantung, and a Shantung beggar.

  Yen-ling County: Two lay vagrants from Shantung.

  Hsu-chou Sub-prefecture: Two criminals from Hu-kuang who were carrying medicinal charms.

  13. Twenty-one million was the official count from the census of 1787, which probably represented considerable underreporting. See Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 281-283. A comparison with witchcraft prosecutions in England, though it can be only suggestive, provides a reference point for the scale of state effort. In the county of Essex, where the population may have been in the neighborhood of ioo,ooo, in the peak years of witchcraft prosecution the courts produced 35 convictions in 1584, and 50 in 1645. For population estimates, see William Hunt, The Puritan Moment: The Coming of Revolution in an English County (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), 25; and J. A. Sharpe, Crime in Seventeenth-Century England: A County Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 15; and on witchcraft prosecutions, Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, 26-27.

  Bibliography

  Bracketed numbers after romanized Chinese and Japanese titles refer to Part II of the Glossary.

  Archival Sources

  The archives on which this study is based are, unless otherwise noted, held in the First Historical Archives of China, Peking. The principal classes of documents are:

  Chu-p'i tsou-che, CPTC [i]. Imperially rescripted palace memorials. These are reports sent directly to the emperor by officials in provinces and capital. They bear the emperor's comment
s and instructions in his own hand, written in vermilion ink. Unless otherwise noted, the document numbers in the notes refer to memorials currently classified under "Peasant Movements, AntiCh'ing Struggles" (nung-min yun-tung, fan-Ch'ing tou-cheng).

  Kung-chungshang-yu, KCSY [2]. Imperial edicts in the palace collection. Often edited and augmented in the emperor's vermilion, these are open-channel imperial pronouncements drafted by the grand councillors.

  Kung-chung t'ing-chi, KCTC [3]. Court letters in the palace collection. Drafted by the grand councillors and often emended in the emperor's vermilion, these are confidential instructions to specific provincial officials, sent to the field and later returned to the palace.

  Lu-fu tsou-che, fa-lii, ch'i-ta, LFTC/FLCT [4]. Grand council file copies of memorials, legal affairs, miscellaneous. When a memorial had been read by the emperor, it was copied out by Grand Council clerks before being returned to the sender. The copy was filed along with any enclosures (such as lists, exhibits, or courtroom confessions) that had been sent to Peking with it. For my purposes, the enclosures are the most useful. They include not only the confessions of sorcery suspects but also detailed reports on local management of soulstealing cases. These materials have to be used with care. The "confessions," for example, are not necessarily verbatim transcripts of what a suspect said. They must be considered government documents and viewed with due skepticism. Most can be checked against other evidence (the findings of a lower court against those of a higher court, or facts reported in memorials from other quarters).

  Shang-yu-tang fang-pen, SYT [51. Grand Council record book of imperial edicts, square volumes. These volumes include copies of both open-channel edicts and confidential court letters. They also include confidential memoranda from the Grand Council to the Throne, which are not available from any other source, except an occasional unrescripted memorial from a grand councillor in the lu-fu tsou-che collection.

  Hsing-k'o shih-shu [6]. Chronological summaries of routine memorials relating to "Punishments."