Read an Excerpt

Last Emperors

A Social History of Qing Imperial Inst

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By Evelyn Sakakida Rawski

University of California Press

Copyright © 2001 Evelyn Sakakida Rawski
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780520228375

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Chapter 1
The Court Society

A survey of the material culture of the Qing court reveals a great deal about the self-image of the rulers and the politics of rulership. It was no accident that Qing court society was an eclectic blend of several cultural traditions. The Qing empire was founded on multiethnic coalitions, and its rulers sought to perpetuate these alliances by addressing each of the constituent peoples that came under Qing rule in their own cultural vocabularies. While determined to retain their own identity as Manchus, heirs to the ruling tradition of the Jurchen Jin, the Qing rulers projected images of rulership in the cultural patterns of the Han and Inner Asian peoples whom they identified as their primary constituents. Their first and most powerful ties were with the Mongols. They courted Han Chinese literati in the language of Confucianism and cast Manchu rulers as dharmaraja*

in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for the benefit of Mongols and Tibetans. With the conquest of the Tarim Basin, they patronized Muslim mosques and sought (though unsuccessfully) to pose as protectors of the faith. All these elements were present in thematerial culture of the Qing court.

The major capital, Peking, was not only the capital of the preceding dynasty, the Ming (1368-1644), but was a capital of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan as well. The Manchus also commemorated Shengjing as a symbol of the Manchu homeland, and Rehe (Chengde after 1824) was an informal summer capital for at least the first half of the dynasty. Like earlier Inner Asian conquest regimes, the Manchus adopted a policy of residential segregation for the conquest elite. In their language, dress, and other cultural policies the rulers strove to perpetuate their own separate identity as a people, continuing a process of self-definition that began in the late sixteenth century. Nurgaci commissioned the creation of a written language. His successor took the name "Manchu" by imperial injunction in 1635, elaborated on thehistorical origins for the ruling group, and strengthened Manchu identification with a martial tradition. This chapter focuses on the ways in which Qing court society deliberately included many signs of the non-Han cultural origins of its rulers and promoted representation of the regime as cosmopolitan and multiethnic.

Multiple Capitals

The Qing system of multiple capitals was modeled after that of the Khitan Liao (907-1115), Jurchen Jin (1115-1234), and Mongol Yuan (1272-1368), the non-Han conquest regimes that dominated North China from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. Herbert Franke summarizes the significance of this pattern: "Unlike a proper Chinese dynasty, which normally had one capital, the Liao had five capitals, as did the Chin. In both cases this can be interpreted as a remnant of the times when even the rulers had no fixed abode, but it was also a remnant of a ritualized system of seasonal sojourns. On a more practical level, the system of multiple capitals also provided the means to establish centralized agencies in more than one locality."1

Capitals were moved as geopolitical circumstances changed, to facilitate military advance and to consolidate control over newly acquired lands. These policies are illustrated in the history of the Liao and Jin capitals, which moved southward as their armies pushed into North China. Since the political center of these regimes was wherever the ruler and his troops chose to be, capital designations, which adopted the Chinese vocabulary of the cardinal directions, were subject to changes that must have been bewildering from the Han Chinese perspective. Thus the Jin "northern capital" was first Lindong (1138-50), then Ningcheng (1153-1215); their "central capital" was first Ningcheng (1120-53), then Peking (1153-1215), and finally, after the Mongols took Peking, Loyang (1215-33). Liaoyang, like Ningcheng and Peking a former Liao capital, was at various points the Jin "southern capital" (1132-53) and their "eastern capital" (1117-32, 1153-1212), while Datong, the "western capital" of the Liao, was also the western capital of the Jin.2

The desire to be close to the prospective battlefield prompted Nurgaci, the founder of the Manchu regime, to shift his headquarters seven times as he unified the Jurchen tribes by force. Only two of these early political centers were commemorated after 1644. The first, Hetu Ala, was Nurgaci's capital from 1603 until 1619 and the site at which he declared the establishment of the Later Jin state (1616). His successors retained an administrative presence at Hetu Ala (renamed Yenden or Xingjing in 1636) throughout the dynasty. Shenyang, renamed Mukden hoton (in Chinese, Shengjing) in 1634, was Nurgaci's last capital city and the capital until 1644. After the Shunzhi emperor (reigned 1644-61) moved to Peking, Shengjing was retained as a secondary capital.3 Nurgaci and his son Hongtaiji were interred in nearby tombs, so Shengjing was periodically visited by the Qing rulers, and its palaces were renovated through the Qianlong reign (1736-95).

Chengde

If Peking was the primary capital and Shengjing the symbolic "original" capital, the summer capital of Chengde was selected for symbolic and practical reasons. It lay north of the Great Wall, on the boundary between the North China plain and the Mongolian steppe. The Liao, Jin, and Yuan had all had capitals in this area, and the Kangxi emperor consciously followed their precedent when he decided to create a summer capital here. Philippe Forêt argues that the Qing "assumption of simultaneous responsibilities as Emperors of the Han subjects, Khans of the Manchu-Mongol populations and bodhisattva for Lamaist believers led to the elaboration of a system of three capitals, one in Manchuria (Mukden), one in China proper (Peking), and one in Inner Mongolia (Chengde)," with Chengde also serving as "a religious capital for Tibet."4

The search for a northern summer retreat began even before the end of the conquest. Dorgon, regent for the infant Shunzhi emperor, cited the precedents set by previous non-Han dynasties of removing from Peking to "escape the heat of summer days" and ordered construction of a small summer retreat in Chengde shortly before his death. Work on the summer villa stopped when he died and did not resume until after the suppression of the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories.5

Chengde and Mulan were selected as imperial sites by the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722), who turned his attention to the Russian incursions on the empire's northern border as the pacification of southern China drew to a close. Xuanye liked to inspect the terrain for himself, with an eye to military strategy, and the 1675 revolt by Burni, grandson of the Chahar leader Ligdan Khan, underlined the importance of cultivating his Mongol allies. In 1681, on the second of his northern tours beyond the Great Wall, the emperor ventured into the territory of the Kharachin banner of the Josoto League and hunted on the southeastern edge of the Mongol plateau, inlands occupied by the Khorchin, Aokhan, and Ongnirod Mongols. This site became Mulan, the Qing imperial hunting preserve. Xuanye also visited the military governor's headquarters in Jilin, a garrison created to keep closer tabs on this northeastern frontier. The court built an official road (with postal stations) to expedite official communications between the northeastern garrisons, the office of the Mukden (now Fengtian) governor, and Peking.6

The imperial preserve of Mulan was situated 117 kilometers north of Chengde. Its name came from the Manchu word muran (to call deer), referring to the Manchu method of hunting deer by imitating the stag's mating call. Historical precedents tied this huge hunting preserve to the Liao-Jin imperial hunting grounds. Mulan was initially managed by Mongol princes, then after 1706 by a grand minister (zongli dachen ) under the Lifanyuan (court of colonial affairs). The preserve was off-limits to unauthorized persons and was surrounded by a willow palisade. Eight hundred, later fourteen hundred, Manchu and Mongol bannermen were stationed in forty outposts (karun ) to patrol its perimeter. The hunting grounds within this vast preserve were subdivided into sixty-seven (later seventy-two) hunting sites, each bearing a Mongol name.7

The Kangxi emperor hunted at Mulan every autumn from 1681 to the end of his life, with the exception of only two years when he was engaged in major military campaigns. Mongol nobles who were excused from coming to Peking to pay homage because they were vulnerable to smallpox were instead invited in rotation to accompany the emperor in his annual hunts at Mulan: this was the weiban or "hunting rotation," as opposed to the nianban or "annual rotation" to Peking. During these hunts, which lasted an average of thirty days, the emperor and his retinue would kill deer, pheasants, and tigers. Several different hunting methods were used, but the most distinctive was the Manchu abalambi , in which mounted riders would encircle an area then drive the game down from the hills into the valleys, where the emperor and Mongol nobles would shoot them.8

Until 1702, the Kangxi emperor and his entourage lived in tents during their travels to and from Chengde. The imperial retinue, which included imperial consorts, sons, and daughters, was gradually accommodated in rest houses. "Temporary palaces" (xinggong ) were constructed along the official route from Peking through Gubeikou, the pass out of China proper, to Mulan and ranged from simple structures for a brief rest, the drinking of tea (chagong ), or taking of meals (jian'gong ) to substantial buildings for the nightly stop (zhugong ). These buildings probably housed only the imperial family: others still used tents.9 Xuanye and his retinue also lived in tents while hunting. The spatial arrangement of the tent cities that sprang up around him echoed those found in his capitals. The emperor's yellow tent (yellow being the imperial color) stood in the very center of the encampment, fenced off by yellow screens. The area outside the screens, but enclosed by another fence, was the "inner city" (neicheng ), filled with approximately 75 tents. The inner city was surrounded by the "outer city" (waicheng ), with perhaps 254 tents. The mobile government offices of the Grand Secretariat, Six Boards, Censorate, and general in chief were located in tents on the eastern side of the outer city.10

The Yongzheng emperor never went to Mulan, but the autumn hunt was revived by the Qianlong emperor. Hongli spent less time there than his grandfather (an average of twenty days per visit) but still led the autumn hunt some forty times during his reign. He also constructed temporary palaces within the hunting ground beginning in 1755 and developed the preserve to its fullest extent.11 Although the Jiaqing emperor (r. 1796-1820) led the autumn hunt at Mulan twelve times, he spent even less time there than did his father. Yongyan was the last Qing emperor to stage the autumn hunt. Under his successors the hunting preserve languished, while visits to the imperial complex at Chengde flourished.

Requiring precise coordination and planning of movements, provisions, and shelter, the large hunts of the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns closely resembled military campaigns. The parties of imperial princes, central government ministers, banner officials, and nobles of Mongol, Kazakh, and Uighur origin that hunted with Hongli at Mulan are said on occasion to have numbered thirty thousand persons. The hunt regulations show a formalized and ritualized sequence of events, with displays of imperial archery by the emperor, his sons, and grandsons; mock battles between forces led by Manchu and Mongol nobles; presentation to the emperor of the annual Mongol tribute of the "nine whites" (nine white camels or nine white horses); and reciprocal feasting, with Mongol ballads, dances, horse races, and wrestling as well as the emperor's presentations of silk, silver, and gold to the Mongol nobles.12

The building of the imperial complex of Bishu shanzhuang (villa to escape the summer heat) at Chengde began in 1702 and continued until 1792. The Rehe temporary palace, as it was initially called, stood on the southwestern bank of the Wulie River. The walls around this temporary palace enclosed an area that was 5.64 square kilometers, making it larger than the three gardens comprising the Yuanmingyuan, near Peking. Within, a complex system of artificial lakes and islands provided venues for palaces modeled after those in Peking, lakes that imitated Jiangnan gardens; a mountain district; and terrain made to resemble the Mongolian steppe, with sites for banqueting and military displays. The whole has been critically analyzed by Philippe Forêt as an "imperial landscape," in which the wailed temporary palace was balanced in a Buddhist-inspired universe by the huge temples constructed on the opposite bank of the river.13

The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors also constructed eight (originally twelve) temples outside the Bishu shanzhuang. The first two, the Purensi and the Pushansi, were Tibetan Buddhist temples, part of the court patron-age of this religion (see chapter 7). The Qianlong emperor built nine major temples on the surrounding slopes, many of them for specific occasions. The Puningsi was consciously modeled on bSam-yas, the first Tibetan monastery, and constructed in honor of the Qing success against the Zunghars (1755);14 another, the Anyuanmiao, was patterned after a temple destroyed by the Zunghar leader Amursana during his revolt against the Qing.

Both Forêt and Ning Chia point out that Chengde functioned as a third capital of the Qing empire, even though it did not bear that official designation.15 The region surrounding the imperial villa was administratively designated as a subprefecture (Rehe ting ) during the 1720s, then in 1733 made into a department, Chengde zhou , under the Zhili lieutenant governor. Reverting to subprefectural status in 1742, it became a prefecture in 1778.16 Symbolically it was the outer capital, where Mongols, Uighurs, and Tibetans performed court rituals under the jurisdiction of the Lifanyuan. Chia argues that the ritual of submission before the emperor (chaojin ) was inspired by Muslim pilgrimage traditions and thus bore religious connotations. Although Tibetans were excused from chaojin , other Inner Asian nobles were divided into rotas for the annual trip to the Qing court. Chaojin was frequently performed at the summer palace at Chengde, just as another court ritual the imperial hunt (weilie ), was performed at Mulan. Chia characterizes the imperial hunt, in which Tibetan prelates, Mongol nobles, and Muslim begs participated, as a form of ritual activity that derived from Mongol and Manchu customs. The hunt gave lower-ranking members of the Inner Asian elite an opportunity to come in close contact with the emperor while participating in an activity that linked the Manchus to Inner Asia.

Chengde was the scene of lavish spectacles during the Qianlong reign. Celebrations of the emperor's birthday—over forty of them—added to the magnificence of the banquets and entertainments staged here. It was at Bishu shanzhuang that the emperor celebrated the submission of theDörböt Mongols (1754) and received the Sixth Panchen lama (1780) and Lord Macartney's embassy (1793).17

Imperial Villas

Ming emperors remained within the Forbidden City, whereas Qing rulers escaped Peking and frequently conducted the affairs of government from villas in the suburbs. After taking over personal control of government in 1667, the young Kangxi emperor began to use the parks of the former Ming rulers well outside the Forbidden City. In 1682 he had a temporary palace erected in the Nanyuan, a hunting preserve six miles southwest of Peking. Suppression of the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories in 1683 permitted further construction in the hills northwest of Peking, where he could relax amid scenic vistas. The Changchunyuan (garden of joyful springtime), completed in 1690, occupied a site that had been favored by the Jin, Yuan, and Ming rulers. The Changchunyuan became the Kangxi emperor's favorite residence; because he spent so much time there, all the major central government agencies opened offices at the villa so that government business could go on as usual. The Changchunyuan was the site for Xuanye's public denunciation of Yinreng, his heir apparent in 1712; it was where the ailing emperor was taken in 1722, and where he died. After his death, the villa became the residence of the empress dowager.18

In 1709 Yinzhen had received land for a princely garden slightly north of the Changchunyuan. His villa was named the Yuanmingyuan. The Kangxi emperor visited the Peony Terrace in this garden in 1716 and again in 1722. After 1725, as the Yongzheng emperor, Yinzhen expanded the buildings to accommodate the different government offices that moved there when he was in residence. He used this villa extensively and died there in 1735.19 His successor, the Qianlong emperor, also favored the Yuanmingyuan, which had been his home as a youth (he lived in the Changchun xian'guan during his father's lifetime).20

Hongli added more imperial villas: the Jingyiyuan (1745) and the Changchunyuan (garden of lasting springtime, 1749-70), adjoining the Yuanmingyuan on its eastern boundary. Giuseppe Castiglione designed and erected fountains and palaces in the European style in the northern part of this garden. By 1772 the Yuanmingyuan, Changchunyuan, and Qichunyuan (subsequently renamed the Wanshouyuan) sprawled over a vast acreage northwest of the capital. In honor of his mother's sixtieth birthday, the Qianlong emperor dredged this lake, renamed it Lake Kunming, andrenovated the Qingyiyuan, a villa on its eastern shore that had been completed in 1749. After its gardens were destroyed by the Allied Expeditionary force in October 1860, the Qingyiyuan was rebuilt, expanded, and renamed the Garden to Nurture Harmony (Yiheyuan) by Empress Dowager Cixi.21

Peking

Major aspects of Peking's spatial structure and its architecture had been set long before the Qing occupation. A capital in the Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, the city was oriented along a central north-south axis, had very wide streets leading to the massive palace complex at the center, and was divided into a chessboardlike pattern of squares (fang ) that were further subdivided into smaller alleys or hutong . Even the lakes inside the city walls were constructed features that persisted seven centuries later.22

What the Qing added to the city, however, was not insignificant. Ad Yi, the distinguished Qing historian, credits the Qianlong emperor with the renovation of Peking. No other Ming or Qing ruler had as great an impact on the capital. The empire was at peace; the surpluses in the imperial treasury were diverted to finance public works. For three decades after 1738, Hongli carried out an ambitious building program. He improved the city's water control system, repaired the city's roads and walls, renovated palaces and villas, and built the Ningshou palace for his retirement.23 The dilapidated Temple of the Ancestors was reconstructed in 1736; during the 1740s and early 1750s many temples were erected and the major state altars were rebuilt.

The Manchus retained Peking's Confucian symbolism. Peking was a sacred city, the secular equivalent of the capital of the deity Shangdi, the emperor of heaven. Since the two primary functions of a state were sacrifice (i.e., religious worship) and war, the major altars in the state religion were a crucial component of the capital city. Canonical precedent located them in the suburbs, outside the city walls. From the Later Han dynasty (25-220 A.D. ), the sacrifice to Heaven at the winter solstice should take place in the southern, the sacrifice to Earth at the summer solstice, in the northern suburbs (map 2). Peking's Altar to Heaven stood in a vast walled park in the extreme south of the Outer City; the Altar to Earth stood north of the Inner City.24 The Altar of the Sun and the Altar of the Moon, located to the east and west of the Inner City walls, completed imperial worship in the four cardinal directions.

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MAP 2.
Location of major altars and divisions of Qing Peking.

The most important modification made by the Manchus was the division of Peking into an Outer City (waicheng ) and an Inner City (neicheng ). This double-city model, which first appeared in Peking with the Liao dynasty, was duplicated in all the pre-1644 Manchu capitals, and even in the spatial arrangement of the tent city created during the emperor's trips north of the Great Wall (see the earlier discussion of Chengde and Mulan).25 Peking's subdivisions coincided with the political and social divisionsof the empire. The rulers and bannermen lived in the Inner City (foreigners referred to it as the "Tartar city"); the conquered Chinese population resided in the Outer City. This residential segregation began four years after the Manchu armies had entered Peking. Earlier, Dorgon had encouraged Chinese acquiescence to Manchu rule by forbidding bannermen from plundering civilians (1644) and proclaiming that "Manchu and Han are one family" (1647). Ethnic strife, however, forced the regent to rule on October 5, 1648, that the two races should be separated so that each could "live in peace." All Chinese were ordered to move to the southern city. The policy of residential segregation was implemented throughout the empire, so that bannermen lived in separate walled quarters within Chinese cities.26

The Outer City

The Outer or Chinese city was the commercial heart of the capital and served China's largest consumer market. The busiest shopping streets were at the Xuanwu, Zhengyang, and Chongwen gates between the Inner and Outer Cities. The city may have had 600 or 700 shops in 1744.27 Merchants from all parts of the empire assembled in Peking to do business, and this southern city was full of huiguan , native-place associations patronized by officials and traders to pursue mutual advantage. Liulichang, the book and antiques district, became famous during the 1780s when the "four treasuries" project drew over 160 scholars to the capital. The Chinese city was also the entertainment center for bannermen. With the exception of the erja , the little gates on the northern side connecting it with the Inner City, the popular pleasure districts were in the Chinese city. The brothel district developed in the Outer City in the streets between Qianmen and Hepingmen, north of Zhushigou (pearl market street).28

Inner City

Approximately sixteen miles in circumference, the Inner City was the center of Qing government. The Six Boards, the Censorate, the Lifanyuan, some agencies of the Imperial Household Department, and banner offices were all located here. It was also the residential quarter for the conquest elite. In the mid-nineteenth century, an estimated one hundred thirty thousand bannermen lived in the Inner City and the suburban district around the imperial villas: they formed the Metropolitan Divisions of the banners and staffed the gendarmerie, a thirty- to forty-thousand-man force who patrolled the residential districts and guarded the sixteen gates of the Inner and Outer Cities.29 The banners were assigned quarters to live in accordancewith the colors assigned to the different compass directions. The troops of the Plain Yellow Banner occupied the city's northwestern sector, the Bordered Yellow the northeastern, the Plain White the eastern, the Bordered White the southeastern, the Plain Blue and the Bordered Blue the southern, the Plain Red Banner the western, and the Bordered Red Banner the southwestern sector. These troops were organized into two wings: the left wing consisted of the Bordered Yellow, Plain and Bordered White, and Plain Blue Banners who lived in the eastern half; the right wing of the Plain Yellow, Plain and Bordered Red, and Bordered Blue Banners. Each of the banners included a Manchu, Mongol, and Hanjun banner unit, headed by a lieutenant general (dutong ) and two deputy lieutenant generals (fudutong ).

Because the conquest elite eventually included many different peoples, Peking's Inner City housed a diverse population. There were Russians enrolled in the Bordered Yellow Banner, who had been captured in the Albazin campaign (1685); Russian Orthodox priests, in an ecclesiastical mission established after the Treaty of Kiakhta (1727). From a dozen to fifteen high ministers of Han Chinese background were given houses within the Inner City as a mark of special imperial favor. Europeans serving the Qing court had churches in different parts of the Inner City. Turkic Muslim elites and artisans, brought to the Qing capital after the conquest of the Tarim Basin, were clustered in a Uighur camp located just south of Nanhai. Tibetan artisans were brought to Peking in the 1740s to build stone watchtowers in the Tibetan style for army drills; after Fuheng's victory in the first Jinquan campaign (1749), the emperor had them construct the Tibetan Shishengsi (temple of victory) in the northwestern suburbs. Later, in 1776, the Tibetans were incorporated into a bondservant company of the Plain White Banner under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Household Department.30

The emperor was the principal landlord in the Inner City. When Han Chinese civilians moved out of the Inner City in 1648, their houses were assigned to bannermen, who gradually asserted property rights over their residences, as is demonstrated by existing contracts for mortgages, sales, and purchases of houses.31 In theory these houses continued to belong to the state but in reality became imperial property: much of the land within the Inner City in the nineteenth century was owned by the emperor and managed by the Imperial Household Department, the Neiwufu. The Guanfangzuku (office for collecting rents of official properties) had initially been under the palace's own Department of Works (Yingzaosi) but later became an autonomous agency supervised by a Neiwufu minister.32

The Guanfangzuku was in charge of maintaining, renting, and otherwise managing all state property within Peking. That included the mansionsgiven to members of the imperial lineage, the Aisin Gioro, and to banner nobles (see chapter 3). Because the size, structure, and ornamentation of the mansions were governed by sumptuary laws, houses were assigned to princes without regard for their banner affiliation and taken back as the rank of descendants was reduced. Princely residences rarely remained in the same family for generations. Three maps of the Inner City in 1750, 1846, and circa 1911 show only five residences remaining in the same family. Not surprisingly, all five belonged to princely lines with the right of perpetual inheritance (see chapter 2).33

Most of the houses handled by the Guanfangzuku were modest in size. In 1800 the Jiaqing emperor gave permission for these houses to be sold to Aisin Gioro. Of the ten such houses and their purchasers listed in an 1803 memorial, half were smaller than 20 jian , and only two were larger than 100 jian .34 There is no information on how many nobles availed themselves of the opportunity to buy; judging from a study of the eighteen houses assigned to nobles in less than two weeks at the end of 1855 and early 1856, the Guanfangzuku retained its centrality in this part of Peking's housing market.35

Imperial City

Within the inner city and separated from it by a wall six feet thick, fifteen feet high, and eight miles in circumference lay the imperial city. Here were located the horse stables, storehouses, workshops, and offices of the Imperial Household Department and the residences of the imperial family. The imperial city was dominated by three lakes, the Beihai, Zhonghai, and Nanhai, which the Qing rulers ornamented with pavilions, temples, and other buildings. In the years before the Kangxi emperor constructed his villa in the Western Hills he moved to summer quarters on Yingtai, an island constructed in the Nanhai. From 1898-1900 and after the Boxer Uprising, Yingtai was also the residence of the Guangxu emperor (r. 1875-1908). On the western bank of Nanhai stood the Ziguangge, built by the Kangxi emperor, where after 1761 the Mongol affines were feted during the New Year celebrations. Adjoining this hall was a drill ground, where the emperor held archery contests.36

Two important altars in the Confucian state rituals were in the imperial city. The Temple of the Ancestors, or Taimiao, was located just southeast of the main entrance into the Forbidden City. The installation of the tablets of Nurgaci, his wife, and the recently dead Hongtaiji was accomplishedonly eight days after the Manchus entered Peking. The Taimiao housed not only the tablets of imperial ancestors but, in a side hall, tablets of meritorious generals and civil officials. To its west stood another large enclosed compound housing the Altar of Land and Grain (sheji tan ), a single square altar made of stone, on which five-colored soil was arranged on the day preceding the ritual. Ming and Qing ritual specialists seem to have regarded the sheji as fertility gods. In ancient times, enfeoffment rituals involved bestowing a clump of soil from the sheji altar to a vassal, so the sheji appear to have represented the territory over which a ruler reigned. This old association was symbolically continued when soil from the provinces was deposited on the altar during later dynasties.37

The imperial city housed other altars linked to the Qing polity. Chinese Buddhist temples, several erected by Qing emperors, were scattered on the streets and along the lake shores. Several Tibetan shrines and temples also testified to the active patronage of Tibetan Buddhism by the Qing rulers. These included the White Pagoda, erected in 1651 to commemorate the visit of the Dalai lama to Peking; the Mahakala*

temple, a historical artifact of the dynasty's affinities with Tibetan Buddhism (see chapter 7) which was located in the southeastern corner; and the Fayuansi near Jingshan, one of the temples built by the Kangxi emperor to house Mongol lamas who translated and printed Tibetan and Mongol liturgical books. Perhaps because the Jesuit missionaries had entered imperial service, there was also a Catholic church in the imperial city from the eighteenth century.38

The Forbidden City

This innermost palace was simultaneously the emperor's administrative headquarters, his residence, and the center for a vast array of activities supervised by the Imperial Household Department (see chapter 5). Since palace construction was directed by a hereditary descent line that survived the Ming-Qing transition, the architectural style and construction of palaces remained unchanged despite extensive renovations.39 Architectural continuity concealed changes in the use of the various halls within the palace that reflect Qing strategies of rule.

Four gates, located in each of the compass directions, provided access into the Forbidden City (map 3). The central gate in the southern wall, the Wumen, was used for rituals and was normally closed. By tradition, with the exception of the three top degree-winners in the palace examinations, only the emperor was entitled to use the Wumen's central gate.40 Civil officials

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MAP 3.
A simplified plan of the Forbidden City.

with business at court were supposed to enter by the east gate (Donghuamen), their military counterparts by the west gate (Xihuamen). Consorts were obliged to use the back gate (Shenwumen).

The Forbidden City was divided into the outer and inner courts. An individual fortunate enough to obtain admission found himself in a walledcourtyard (see map 3), confronting the three public halls arranged on a north-south axis that dominated the "outer court" (waichao ). The Taihedian (throne hall of supreme harmony) was the primary hall for important state rituals, the Zhonghedian (hall of central harmony) was where the Qing emperor inspected the agricultural tools before the plowing rites and rested before ceremonies in the Taihedian, and the Baohedian (hall of preserving harmony) was where the emperor received ambassadors from vassal states, presided over the palace examinations, and received the degree winners. These halls were erected on a three-tiered marble platform and were completely enclosed by high walls. On ordinary days, when no major ritual was scheduled, the Wumen and Taihemen, the two sets of gates leading to them, would be closed.41

The scale and grandeur of the three public halls were designed to awe officials and ambassadors, who were forced to dismount at the Wumen and walk. The immensity of the space must have been especially impressive at dawn, the customary hour for court audiences: "Recall that imperial elephants stood between the tunnel openings through the Wumen, and that they would have been dwarfed by the openings which are six to seven meters high.... [The Taihedian courtyard] was the closest the ordinary minister got to the emperor; these were the stones against which he knocked his head. He must have had keen eyesight indeed even to see the emperor on his throne."42 In earlier dynasties, the outer court was the space within which government business was conducted. What the Qing did was to move a substantial part of government affairs from this area into the emperor's private residence, into the area known as the Great Interior (danei ).

The Great Interior The distinction between the public space of the outer court and the private residences of the inner court dates only from 1669, when the young Xuanye, the Kangxi emperor, moved his sleeping quarters from the Qingning palace (later renamed the Baohedian) into the Qianqing palace. He and his father, who had also resided in the Baohedian for eight years, seem to have preferred this hall for its good condition and its grandeur. After renovation of the Qianqing palace in 1669, the separation of public and private space in the Forbidden City became permanent.43 The inner court was an area barred to all but a handful of selected high officials and princes (the army of eunuchs, maids, and other servants who worked in this area was not, of course, counted). The inner court included not only the residences of the imperial family, but also the offices from which the emperor conducted the daily affairs of state.

If the outer court was the natural home of the Han Chinese literati, the inner court was the bastion of a Manchu-dominated coterie of imperial advisers. Beatrice Bartlett describes how the Kangxi emperor's inner court was dominated by high-level Manchus and Mongols, with Han Chinese largely segregated in the Nanshufang or Southern Study. Using the palace memorial system and ad hoc committees to deliberate on military strategy and other important state matters, the Kangxi emperor sought to bypass the constraints imposed on his prerogative by the bureaucratic culture of the outer court. Although the personnel of the inner court underwent important changes during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns, this kind of division continued throughout the dynasty and was characteristic of Manchu rule.44

Two gates, the Jingyun to the east and the Longzong to the west, marked the boundary between the outer and the inner courts. These gates opened onto the courtyard behind the Baohedian. Located just inside the Jingyun gate was the outer office of the Chancery of Memorials, where palace memorials that bypassed the routine bureaucratic channels were handed in to be read by the ruler. The chancery, which was headed by a guardsman and supervised by an adjutant general, also had an office staffed by eunuchs, just inside the Qianqing gate on the west side. The chancery played a critical intermediary role: it transmitted oral edicts to outer court bureaucrats to write up in draft form, handled all the tallies that permitted officials and princes an audience with the emperor, managed the daily work shifts at the outer chancery and the Qianqing gate, and received all presents intended for the emperor.45

The Qianqing gate led directly into the Qianqinggong. The Qianqing palace was the first of the three central buildings that paralleled the three halls of the outer court. During the Ming era the palaces behind the Qianqing gate had been residences that were used for government business only in emergencies. The Kangxi emperor, however, converted the Qianqing palace into an office for the conduct of routine business, using the buildings located in the eastern and western sections of the Great Interior as residences. With his successor, imperial audiences and conferences with high officials also took place in the Yangxindian, a large building complex in the Great Interior located to the west of the Qianqinggong, which served as the emperor's sleeping quarters.46

The second of the three back halls, the Jiaotaidian (hall of fusion and permeation), was where the imperial seals were kept in the Kangxi reign. These seals, which were reengraved in the Qianlong reign, were differentiated according to their use for different state functions, such as the naming of an heir to the throne, the issuing of orders for war, or investiture of nobles. To its north lay the Kunninggong (palace of earthly tranquillity), which had been the residence of the empress during the Ming dynasty. Although the Qing retained the use of this palace as a bridal chamber (see chapter 5), Qing empresses resided elsewhere. Instead, the Kunning palace housed the Office of Shamanism (Shen fang) and the altars at which shamans made daily offerings to the ancestral spirits.47

An east and west gate (neizuo men, neiyou men ) flanked the Qianqing gate and led into narrow alleys with gates to individual courtyards where the empress dowager, empress, and consorts lived. The informality and human scale of these buildings contrasted markedly with the impersonality and massiveness of the public halls. Their arrangement of rooms facing south into interior courtyards reproduced the intimacy of commoner residences. The bifurcation of the Forbidden City into public and private space was thus very different from a European palace or noble's townhouse, which by combining public and private rooms into one building forced the aristocracy to live in drafty large rooms.

During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, compounds to the east and west of the Qianqing palace also served as residences for imperial sons and grandsons. The five residences to the east (Qiandongwusuo) were separate walled compounds, some with a small front hall as well as a sleeping chamber. All the Daoguang emperor's sons lived here in separate compounds with their staffs of eunuchs, wet nurses, nurses, and maids. A special commissary or tea office was established to prepare meals for them.48

During the first part of the Yongzheng reign, Hongli and his wife lived in one of the residences to the west of the Qianqing palace (the Xiersuo). After he became emperor, he converted these residences to other purposes and replaced them with the Nansansuo (southern three residences), located outside the inner court.49 The Yuqing palace, situated to the southeast of the emperor's Qianqing palace, was the residence of crown prince Yinreng. Kangxi's grandsons Hongli and Hongzhou lived here before Hongli's marriage. Home for many of Hongli's brothers and nephews after they entered the Palace School, the Yuqing palace was also where his successor lived from the age of five to fifteen. Yongyan later reminisced about his life there with his brothers Yongxing and Yonglin: "every day we would hasten to the Shangshufang [palace school] and study together."50 After he ascended the throne, however, Yongyan decided to discontinue itsuse as a residence for princes, fearing that residence there implied selection as heir apparent.

The Nansansuo was also known as the Xiefangdian or as the Agesuo (prince's residence) or as the Sansuo (three residences). It stood on the site of a former Ming structure within its own walled enclosure to the east of the main public halls. The young Hongli lived here for a time. Yongyan, the Jiaqing emperor, moved here in 1775, when he was fifteen and apparently remained until he was declared crown prince in 1795. His successor, Minning, was born in the Sansuo and continued to live here after his marriage, along with his elder brother; other cousins also lived within the compound. Abandoned temporarily in 1831 when Yiwei, the Daoguang emperor's eldest son, died there, the Nansansuo was used again by Yizhu, the future Xianfeng emperor (r. 1851-61).51

The Qing made important changes in the way the halls of the Forbidden City were used. From the Kangxi reign onward, high-level decision-making moved into the inner court, the private domestic realm of the imperial household. This was the space that in Ming times (and in Han Chinese commoners' households) would have corresponded to the women's quarters. Even in the Qing, admission into the Great Interior was strictly limited to a select circle. The spatial shift reflected the emperor's reliance on an "inner circle," drawn predominantly from the conquest elite that by-passed the Han Chinese bureaucracy.

Another major change made by the Qing was integrally tied to its policies concerning sons and brothers (see chapter 3). Whereas the Ming emperors had designated the heir apparent when he was still a child, removing all other sons to fiefs in the provinces, the Qing made all sons eligible for the throne and required that they remain in Peking. Imperial princes were mobilized for administrative and military duties, and it was therefore in the ruler's interest to strengthen fraternal bonds. The co-residence within the Forbidden City of all the emperor's sons extended the period during which the emperor could evaluate his sons, test their abilities through governmental assignments, and consolidate the fraternal sentiments that were a bulwark of dynastic strength.

Seasonal Sojourning

Like other non-Han rulers, the Qing adhered to a pattern of seasonal sojourning. Emperors spent a great deal of time in their imperial villas in thenorthwest, outside the city walls. For the first 150 years of the dynasty, they also spent the summer and early autumn on the plateau outside the Great Wall, at Chengde and Mulan.

In the first decades after 1644, the emperors divided their time between the Forbidden City, the three lakes in the imperial city, and the Nanyuan. The Shunzhi emperor fled the capital when outbreaks of smallpox occurred, moving to Nanyuan or even to Zunhua, northeast of the capital (although he died of the disease).52 After the adoption of variolation in 1681, it was no longer so important to avoid Peking during the winter and spring months for health reasons, but the completion of the conquest (1683) enabled emperors to expand their alternative residences. During 1681, the Kangxi emperor was in residence in Peking for slightly over half the year; he spent August and most of September in Yingtai; in April, May, and October he traveled to the imperial cemetery, Dongling, and to the northeast in what was only his second visit to districts outside China proper. The emperor began to spend more and more time at his villa, the Changchunyuan, and at his new hunting grounds north of Chengde. In 1714, for example, he spent only 18 days in the Forbidden City, 131 days in the Changchunyuan, and 139 days in Chengde and its environs53

Seasonal sojourning also aptly described the movements of the Qianlong emperor. As Father Benoit reported:

During the year the emperor only lives in Peking about three months. He ordinarily spends some time there before the winter solstice, which must be in the eleventh month of the Chinese year. The spring equinox is always in the second month of the following year ... before the fifteenth [of the first month] the emperor with his entourage goes to live in his villa at Yuanmingyuan, which is situated five miles northwest of Peking.... All the rest of the year, excepting the time he hunts in Tartary, he spends at Yuanmingyuan; whence he goes to Peking when called by ceremony; the ceremony completed, he immediately returns to the Yuanmingyuan.54

During 1762, the emperor spent about half of his time in his villa or in the Bishu shanzhuang at Chengde; he resided in the Forbidden City for about one-third of the time and spent the rest of his days on the road.55

Cultural Policies

From the onset of their entry into Peking, the Manchu conquerors assiduously courted the Han Chinese literati while simultaneously enacting policies to perpetuate their separate cultural identity. What this identity was,and how it was created, will be treated in chapter 7; this section focuses on the retention of Manchu language, clothing, archery, and food as symbolic markers for the Qing conquest elite.56

Language Policy

The name "Manchu" was adopted in 1635 by Hongtaiji, who proclaimed:

Our gurun (tribe, state) originally had the names Manju, Hada, Ula, Yehe, and Hoifa. Formerly ignorant persons have frequently called [us] jušen . The term jušen refers to the Sibo and Chaomergen barbarians and has nothing to do with our gurun . Our gurun establishes the name Manju. Its rule will be long and transmitted over many generations. Henceforth persons should call our gurun its original name, Manju, and not use the previous demeaning name.57

By this action, Hongtaiji accomplished several goals. He provided a new identity that could superscribe the tribal identities of the Jurchen and other northeastern tribes, many of whom had been subjugated by force. Chapter 7 will describe the policies that inscribed this new identity with an origin myth and transformed shamanic rituals to serve new political goals. This new identity was accompanied by the invention of a Manchu written language.

The invention of a writing system coincided with the emergence of the Qing state. Jurchen belongs to the Tungus group of Altaic languages. Although the Jurchen Jin had devised a written language, the Jianzhou Jurchen ancestors of Nurgaci had abandoned its use in favor of Mongolian. In 1599 Nurgaci ordered two men to create a "national writing system"; they produced an adaptation of the Mongol script called (retroactively) tongki fuka aku*

hergen (script without circles or dots) or "old Manchu."58 Changes to the script in 1632 produced the tongki fuka sindaha hergen (script with circles or dots) used for the rest of the dynasty.

Mongolian continued to be a major language among the banner elite, but the documents were now written in Manchu, and the new offices created by the growing state apparatus were given Manchu names. After 1644 Manchu, which was called "Qing writing" (Qingwen ) in Chinese, became one of the two official languages. In actuality, since many officials during the Shunzhi reign did not know Chinese, spoken and written Manchu dominated the highest levels of government until the 1670s. Thereafter, Manchu became a security language for the rulers. Manchu officials were required to communicate in Manchu and documents relating to the imperial lineage, banner affairs, and Inner Asian military matters were oftenwritten only in Manchu. Numerous studies demonstrate the importance of these Manchu-language archival materials for Qing historians.59

Manchu was altered by the conquest. While Jianzhou Jurchen, the spoken language of Nurgaci and his kinsmen, was rendered into writing and became the standard for "classical" Manchu, the growth of the bureaucracy stimulated a rapid increase in the Chinese terms that were directly imported into the language. The Chinese words for "capital city" (ducheng ), "imperial city" (huangcheng ), and Forbidden City (zijincheng ) were among many that found their way into Manchu. Meanwhile, beginning in the 1620s, the Manchu rulers ordered translations of a large number of Chinese-language works on Confucian thought, Chinese law, and history.60

The use of Manchu for governance created a demand for dictionaries. Dictionaries answered the needs of Chinese officials who studied Manchu and also served as texts in the new banner schools. The earliest Manchu-Chinese dictionary, completed in 1682, was compiled by a Chinese named Shen Qiliang. His second work, the daicing gurun-i yooni bithe (in Chinese, Da Qing quanshu ), appeared in 1683 and was reprinted in 1713. According to scholars, it preserves many colloquial terms and unstandardized renderings of words found in the Manchu of the Kangxi era, which disappeared after the 1708 publication of the imperially authorized han-i araha manju gisun-i buleku bithe (Yuzhi Qingwenjian ). In its 1772 revision, the han-i araha nonggime toktobuha manju gisun-i buleku bithe (Yuzhi zengding Qingwenjian ) became a standard primer in banner schools. Eventually this work was produced in the five languages of the subject peoples identified by the Qianlong emperor: Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, Turkic, and Chinese.61

Manchu was purged of much of its Chinese-derived vocabulary during the Qianlong reign. The emperor complained that too many Chinese terms had crept into Manchu-language memorials and ordered a group headed by Grand Secretary Nacin to draw up a list of new Manchu terms that would replace the old loanwords. In 1747 a list was distributed and officials were ordered henceforth to "write in a Manchu manner" (manjurame ubaliyambuhe bithe ).62 At this point, capital became gemun hecen , the imperial city dorgi hoton , and the Forbidden City dabkuri dorgi hoton in Manchu. Place-names were also changed. Hongli himself seems to have suggested the Manchu renderings that would differentiate homophones, both pronounced “Jinzhou," in two place-names under the jurisdiction of Shengjing. He ordered that the Chinese renderings of Manchu and Mongol place-names be standardized and written in their entirety, lest errors be made. The project eventually introduced over 1,700 new Manchu words.

The purification of Manchu vocabulary took place in the written language used for official communications and in prayers to shamanic deities. The written or "classical" form of Manchu was preserved until 1911, while spoken Manchu continued to evolve. Phonetic changes in the language spoken by Peking bannermen reflected the influence of other Jurchen dialects, imported into the capital by native speakers in banner units, and were also products of prolonged contact with a Chinese-speaking society.63 Imperial edicts notwithstanding, classical Manchu became an artifact of the bureaucratic communications that were its primary raison d'être. Its colloquial flavor was lost as the written style influenced Manchu speech. Sentences became longer, and more indirect expressions were used. But Manchu survived as a living language among banner troops garrisoned in the far west and northeast.

During the early seventeenth century the Manchus had subjugated the Mongol- and Tungus-speaking peoples inhabiting Northeast Asia. To counter Russian penetration into the Amur River drainage, the Qing incorporated many of these peoples into the banners as "new Manchus" (ice manju ) and stationed them in garrisons constructed in the region.64 Like the other banner troops, the new Manchus were "Manchuized." Banner schools were established in the garrison towns to teach Manchu and to acculturate groups of hunter-fishers to the bureaucratic routines. The first school was created in 1693 by the military governor of Jilin, and eventually the major northeastern garrisons had schools. The impact of this "Manchuization" on the Daur Mongol language was lasting and has been studied by several scholars.65

Linguists classify Manchu into four regional subgroups, of which the standard, Peking speech, is called the western dialect. Shengjing, the pre-1644 capital, is the center of southern Manchu; Ningguta, the center of eastern Manchu; and the speech of persons living along the Sahalian and Nun Rivers is designated as northern Manchu. According to linguists, southern Manchu is the speech closest to the parent language, Jurchen. Ice manju troops were assigned to garrison duty in Shengjing, and others were later sent to Xinjiang, so Manchu-speakers were dispersed from their original homeland and lived in enclaves for much of the dynasty. Xibo communities in Xinjiang and a few Manchu communities in remote parts of Heilongjiang preserved Manchu as a living language through the late nineteenth century. Even today, when virtually everyone in the three northeastern provinces speaks Chinese as their native language, researchers claim to have identified one village in Heilongjiang in which Manchu is still spoken.66 Until about 1750, the Qing rulers believed that Manchu was (or should be, for the non-Manchus) the native language of bannermen. Banner education, which had initially focused on training bannermen to govern Chinese-speaking populations, now emphasized training in the traditional martial arts and proficiency in spoken and written Manchu. Although schools were also established for ordinary bannermen's children, the proportion of places to the size of the potential school-going population heavily favored imperial kinsmen. The Imperial Clan Academies (zongxue ) and their counterparts (jueloxue ) for descendants of Nurgaci's brothers held periodic examinations among candidates for appointment to office, in the banner administration, palace administration, and civil service.67

Manchu Names

Manchus were forbidden to adopt the Han Chinese custom of using a surname and the Manchu equivalent, the clan (mukûn ) name, was not cited in normal official correspondence. Emperors railed against persons who adopted three-character personal names because the first character of such names, written in Chinese, might be mistaken for a surname. Even more objectionable were attempts to use man (as in Manchu) or juelo (gioro ) as names: in 1767, the emperor issued an edict: "Recently the Board of Rites nominated Manjishan, the son of Mamboo. The name Manjishan is really using 'man' as a surname. I have changed Manjishan's name to Jishan. Jishan is a juelo , which is very prestigious. But Jishan doesn't honor this, instead he takes 'man' as a surname, like Han people. Where's the principle in this? The Imperial Clan Court ought to pay attention to prevent this kind of thing."68 During the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, emperors ordered the banner officials and the Imperial Clan Court to ensure that imperial kinsmen did not adopt three-character names. Nonetheless, within four generations kinsmen in the main line were taking Chinese names that followed the Han conventions (see chapter 3). In the collateral (juelo ) line, however, Manchu naming seems to have persisted.69

Clothing

In contrast to the "ample, flowing robes and slippers with upturned toes of the sedentary Ming," the Manchus wore the "boots, trousers, and functional riding coats of nomadic horsemen."70 Manchu clothing resembled the dress of earlier conquest dynasties in its fundamental features. Hoods provided insulation for the head, essential in the cold Northeast Asian winters. Whereas the wide and long-sleeved loose robes of the Han Chinese encumbered movement, Manchu clothing allowed physical mobility. The coat was close fitting, and slashed openings on four sides helped the wearer move freely when on horseback. Its long, tight sleeves ended in cuffs shaped like a horse's hoof, designed to protect the back of the hands from the wind. Trousers, worn by both sexes, protected the wearer's legs from the horse's flanks and the elements. Boots with rigid soles facilitated mounted archery by allowing riders to stand in the iron stirrups. The stirrup, "perhaps mankind's most important technical invention since the bit," made mounting easy and permitted the rider to stand in the stirrups, thus extending the distance a horse could cover. Moreover, standing in the stirrups permitted an archer to shoot with greater force and accuracy.71

Manchu dress was made synonymous with martial vigor. Hongtaiji, who drew up a dress code after 1636, made a direct connection between the decline of the Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties and their adoption of Han Chinese clothing, speech, and the sedentary way of life. In 1636 and again in 1637, he exhorted the banner princes and Manchu officials to "always remember" that the Manchu conquests were founded on riding and archery. He argued that the "wide robes with broad sleeves" of the Ming were completely unsuited to the Manchu way of life and worried lest his descendants forget the sources of their greatness and adopt Han Chinese customs.72

The Manchu conquerors firmly rejected the adoption of Ming court dress. Chen Mingxia, an early Ming adherent to the Manchu cause, was impeached and executed in 1654 for suggesting (among other things) that the Qing court adopt Ming dress "in order to bring peace to the empire."73 This theme was reiterated by the Qianlong emperor, who cited Hongtaiji's historical analogies and enjoined his descendants to retain the Manchu clothing. All bannermen, regardless of whether they were in the Manchu, Mongol, or Hanjun banners, were required to wear Manchu dress.

The Qing also forced the conquered Han Chinese population to adopt the Manchu hairstyle. From 1645, every Chinese male was ordered to shave his forehead in the Manchu manner and to wear his hair in a queue (tifa ) as a symbol of his acquiescence to Manchu rule. This North Asian hairstyle contrasted sharply with the Ming custom, in which men combed their long hair into elaborate arrangements hidden under horsehair caps. Especially in central and south China, the Manchu regulation of 1645 united educated men and peasants in outraged resistance.74

Qing rulers did not uniformly apply the same regulations to all subjects. Rather, they followed the Liao and Jin precedents in adapting different regulations for different ethnic subjects. While the Han Chinese populationwere governed using the Ming precedents, bannermen were subject to the very different banner laws, shaped outside China proper, just as Mongols, Tibetans, and Uighurs were ruled in accordance with their own traditions. Scholars note that the shaved forehead and queue was not required of Mongols, Tibetans, Uighurs, or the minorities in southwestern China. Even though attempts to assimilate the southwestern minorities were intensified during the Yongzheng reign (1723-35) and after the suppression of the Jinquan rebellions in the 1770s, the tifa policy was only nominally applied.75

Bannerwomen were forbidden to adopt the Chinese custom of footbinding. They were also barred from wearing Ming-style dresses with wide sleeves, and the Chinese single earring instead of the Manchu custom of wearing three earrings in one ear. From the middle of the eighteenth century, emperors complained that the dress code was being infringed. As the Qianlong emperor stated,

When I inspected the xiunü [marriage draft] this time, there were girls who emulated Han Chinese clothing and jewelry. This is truly not the Manchu custom. If they do this before me, what is willfully worn at home?... Although this is a small matter, if we do not speak to correct it, there must gradually be a change in our customs, which are greatly tied to our old Manchu ways. Take this and have the banner high officials proclaim it to the bannermen.76

Bannerwomen continued to break the rules. In another inspection of potential brides in 1775, the emperor observed that bondservant daughters were wearing only one pendant earring and not three pierced earrings in one ear. In the 1804 xiunü inspection, nineteen young girls in the Bordered Yellow Hanjun showed up with bound feet. An 1839 edict punishing the fathers of young girls who presented themselves for imperial inspection wearing Chinese-style coats with wide sleeves shows that emperors continued to resist these signs of acculturation.77

Court Robes Qing officials wore a variant of Manchu dress at court. The Shunzhi emperor responded in 1651 to a censor's request that the Ming imperial robe and crown be adopted: "Each dynasty has its own regulations. A court consists in venerating Heaven and loving the people, and in ruling the empire in peace. Why must it consist of using the robe and crown?"78 The clothing of the emperor, nobles, and court officials was divided into three categories: court dress (lifu, chaofu ) for ritual occasions, semiformal dress (jifu ), and ordinary wear (changfu, bianfu ). Court dress, the most formal attire, "was the most conservative" in "preserving features distinctive to Manchu national costume worn prior to the conquest."79 The color and decorative motifs on the clothing of all males and females at court were seasonally regulated to conform to the rank of the wearer. Rank badges (puzi ), square insignia displayed on the surcourt worn with semiformal dress by civil and military officials, were a Ming practice that was continued by the Qing.

The dragon robes that constituted semiformal attire first appear in Chinese court records in the late seventh century. The dragon was a popular symbol in both Han and non-Han culture. From the Song dynasty, the dragon became the symbol of the emperor and by convention to refer to the emperor's person: his body was the dragon body, his hands the claws, his capital the dragon's pool. The Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties forbade subjects to wear robes with dragon patterns. But the dragon symbolism did not simply isolate the emperor from everyone else. There was a hierarchy of nine types of dragons, of which the highest, the five-clawed dragon (long ), was prominently featured on the emperor's court robes. The four-clawed dragon (mang ) appeared on the robes of his brothers who held the higher princely ranks. And dragons topped the seals of rank (bao ) presented to empresses and consorts.80

The Jurchen elaborated and modified the Ming ranking system, which classified dragon robes by their color and the type of dragon portrayed. Initially (1636) first-rank princes and the emperor were permitted to wear yellow robes with five-clawed dragons. The 1636 code reflected a collegial political tradition in which the emperor was primus inter pares; as the imperial power increased at the expense of the princes, the clothing hierarchy was altered to reflect the new power configuration. In the dress code of 1759, it was not the five-clawed dragon so much as the twelve symbols that were reserved for the sole use of the emperor and empress. The right to wear robes decorated with nine five-clawed dragons was restricted to the emperor, his sons, and princes in the first and second ranks. Among males, only the emperor could wear bright yellow (minghuang ) robes; his sons wore other shades of yellow, while other princes and all Aisin Gioro wore blue or blue-black robes.81

Court clothing was part of the Qing emperor's gift exchanges with the rulers of Tibet and Mongolia. The privilege of wearing five-clawed dragon robes was extended to the Dalai lama, Panchen lama, and Jebtsundamba khutukhtu of Urga, the three most prominent dignitaries of Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibet dragon robes could be worn only by nobles and high lamas. Dragon robes were presented to Mongol nobles as the Mongol tribes were brought under Qing control: from 1661, the Qing dress code was appliedto the Mongol nobility. Mongol nobles and their wives who accepted Aisin Gioro brides for their sons were given court robes as part of the bride's dowry; sons-in-law also received court robes. The use of these robes on special occasions in Mongolia seems to have persisted even after the dynasty ended.82

Archery

Although their direct ancestors were sedentary agriculturalists, the Manchus prized horses and the art of mounted archery. They used the Asian reverse or composite bow, which accumulates significantly more force than the European simple bow, yet is short enough for use by warriors on horseback. The arrow used with the Asian bow was also much lighter than its European counterpart, enabling riders to carry up to fifty arrows in a quiver. Accurate to at least three hundred yards, this bow was capable of piercing through armor at a hundred yards.83

Archery was of course not confined to the steppe peoples. Archery and riding are cited in the Zhou li among the six arts, and the founder of the Ming had himself held archery contests among officials. Skill in archery, particularly mounted archery, was however part of the steppe tradition. The mounted archers of the Manchu banners had the central role in the conquest of Northeast Asia and North China; the banners needed to maintain this skill in order to remain an effective fighting force. "Shooting the willow" (sheliu ) a popular competition among the bannermen, was itself derived from a Khitan shamanic ritual.84

From 1667, each banner was responsible for manufacturing its own bows and arrows, using materials that came from the northeast. Bows were made in specified grades, determined by the "pull"—that is, the force with which the arrow would be released. Bows of the lowest grade, made for ordinary bannermen, had a pull of eight; those made for imperial princes and for the emperor had pulls of up to eighteen. Different kinds of wood were used for different qualities of bows: the emperor's "inspection bow" (dayue gong ) and his "hunting bow" (xingwei gong ) were made of mulberry wood, while princes' bows were made of birch and banner officers' bows of elm. Arrows were also differentiated by length and point into twenty-seven types, made out of poplar, willow, and birch. Manufacture of the emperor's own bows and arrows was the responsibility of the Imperial Armory, which was part of the Imperial Household Department.85

Qing emperors singled out mounted archery as a vital feature of Manchu identity and exhorted their descendants never to abandon it. As Hongtaijionce boasted, "Because [our soldiers] are skilled at mounted archery, they are victorious in fierce combat. When they attack cities, they take them. The people of the empire say of our soldiers, 'If they stand, they will not waver; if they advance, they will not retreat.' Their reputation is awesome, and nowhere more than in the vanguard."86 Hongtaiji required bannermen to be put into three classes depending on their ability to hit a target on foot and on horseback. Those who failed to make the three grades were disciplined. If ten or more men in a company failed the test, their captain was stripped of his post; a banner with six hundred or more delinquent troops would have its top officers punished.87

The emphasis on archery and horsemanship increased in the eighteenth century. Complaints at the deterioration of the martial spirit actually began in 1636, when Hongtaiji contrasted the spirit of his generation with the lackadaisical attitude of the younger set:

Nowadays sons are only acquainted with roaming the streets and planning plays and music. In the old days when everyone was poor, we were happy if a hunt were announced. Very few had servants; everyone looked over their horses, cooked food, and saddled up to go. Even with hardship everyone still unceasingly put forth their best effort.... Nowadays when there is a hunt, many youngsters say, "My wife or son is sick," or "I'm busy with affairs at home." If they're clinging to wife and babies and don't know how to exert themselves, how can the nation not be weakened.88

Precepts about continuing the hunting traditions were reiterated through-out at least the first half of the dynasty. Hongtaiji, Xuanye, and Hongli had chairs made with deer antlers with the ancestral precepts carved on their backs (see figure 1). In 1752 Hongli ordered steles inscribed with Hongtaiji's exhortations erected at the arrow pavilion within the Forbidden City, the viewing platform in Yuanmingyuan, and the drill grounds of the imperial guards and banners "in order that later generations will all know the traditional customs of the Manchus and respectfully follow them, studying mounted archery and familiarizing themselves with the Manchu language, prizing simplicity and eschewing extravagance."89

Archery was emphasized in the curriculum at the Palace School. The emperor's sons and some of his daughters were taught to hunt with the bow and arrow. A reminiscence by Yihuan, Prince Chun, discloses that imperial daughters continued to be proficient at archery into the 1850s:

During the Xianfeng reign, I accompanied eighth brother ... and ninth brother... to reside in the Agesuo. We would be summoned to test our literary and martial skills for glory or shame. One day the emperor ...

ordered me, followed by fourth elder sister ... to compete in archery. Eighth brother put four arrows into the cloth target, ninth brother thirteen arrows, and the emperor gave each of them a jade piece. I hit the target three times, but I was not rewarded. Instead, he ordered a tiny pigeon five cun in size to be hung and said to me, "If you hit this pigeon, you'll get a reward." At this point fourth sister bent her bow and took her first shot, hitting the target. I then shot and with my second arrow I hit it. I was summoned in front of the emperor and he personally handed me a jade lion.90

Skill in martial arts was naturally a prerequisite for rulership. Court painters were commissioned to depict emperors using the bow and arrow during the hunt. The Kangxi emperor proudly recalled the skill of his heir apparent, Yinreng, who brought a tiger down when he was nine. The Qianlong emperor recalled, "Since I was twelve sui and waited on my grandfather [the Kangxi emperor], I received great praise whenever I shot."91 Another anecdote tells how the future Daoguang emperor (r. 1821-50), then nine years old, pleased his grandfather by hitting the target three times.92

Archery contests were a regular feature of imperial inspections of the troops. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors held archery contests for banner and Green Standard troops during their southern tours and personally participated in them. Stories about the archery skills of the Kangxi emperor abound. The emperor could apparently pull the bow with either hand. Xuanye once stated that he could bend a bow with a pull of fifteen li and fire a fifty-two-inch arrow.93 The emperor shot before an assembly of soldiers and officials on many occasions and, according to the Veritable Records, rarely missed the target.

One of the more dramatic of these attempts has been translated by Jonathan Spence.94 In 2699, the emperor was in Hangzhou. He led his sons and the best archers in shooting from horseback. "After his first arrow had hit the target, he ... dropped the reins and rode straight toward the target, but just as he was about to shoot the horse shied sharply away to the left; quickly the Emperor changed his grip on the bow and shot, the arrow hitting the target as the horse galloped past." According to the Veritable Records, the assembly knelt and praised the emperor's "godlike" martial skills (shenwu ). On another occasion in 1684, when the nineteen-year-old emperor displayed his riding and archery skills, the Mongol nobles and high officials witnessing his "superhuman horsemanship and archery" (qi she chaoshen ) and his "severe military countenance" (junrong yanzheng ) were all awestruck.95 Imperial skill at archery figured in Qing relations with their Mongol allies. The archery contests held every year at the Mulan hunting grounds were intended to impress the Mongol nobles.96 The Qianlong emperor once wrote,

The Mongols used to esteem military matters. When in former years I would practice mounted archery or shoot a rifle at Mulan hunting ground, none of the Mongols who had accompanied me for several decades was unaware of the excellence of my martial skills. But since I did not go to the hunting ground this year, Mongol princes may say that I have become lazy ... so I had deer (driven forth) to test my skills; those that I have recently killed were all killed with one shot. When I had this announced to the Mongol princes, they all submitted themselves with joy.97

Food

The palace kitchens had to prepare food for the emperor, his family, and the large number of maids, eunuchs, and other palace staff. Ordinary meals for the court came under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Household Department, in particular the Yuchashanfang (imperial buttery); state banquets were managed by the Guanglusi (court of banqueting), an agency of the Board of Rites. The Imperial Buttery itself was initially composed of several subdepartments specializing in tea, milk tea, and food. Although these were merged into one unit in 1750, the agency was later split into two units serving the inner and outer courts.98

When the Manchus entered Peking, they found Shandong chefs running the palace kitchens. The Manchus installed their own cooks, and Manchu taste dominated palace tables during the Shunzhi, Kangxi, and Yongzheng reigns. New food influences were introduced by the Qianlong emperor, who added famous chefs from Suzhou and Hangzhou to the kitchen staff. Zhang Dongguan, a Suzhou cook favored in the 1765-80 period, accompanied the emperor on his travels and received special rewards five times. During the late Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, the palace employed approximately four hundred chefs. This staff was cut in half during the 1820-50s but expanded again during Empress Dowager Cixi's regencies. Chefs held lifelong tenure and could pass their posts on to a son. They were generally well treated. The best—a very small percentage of all employed—received stipends that were the equivalent of a district magistrate's salary.99

Qing imperial cuisine was cosmopolitan. With the exception of dog meat, which was taboo for Manchus, the food at court mirrored the diversecultures in the empire. Although (see below) Manchu food was served to tributary ambassadors at the formal banquets and at court celebrations, the mingling of chefs representing different cuisines eventually gave rise to a new palace cuisine, with elements borrowed from the northeast, from Shandong, and from the Lower Yangzi, called the "Manchu-Chinese banquet" (Man Han quanxi ). Never featured in palace banquets, the new eclectic style was described by writers during the 1760s as the fashion in government office kitchens. By the nineteenth century, the Manchu-Chinese cuisine had developed regional variants and could be found in major cities from Canton to Tianjin.100

The raw materials for the cuisine were also drawn from across the empire. Although the palace purchased some of its supplies in Peking, many of its grain, meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit came from its own estates. While the palace staff ate yellow, white, and purple "old rice" from the official granaries, the imperial table was supplied with first-grade rice from its own estates in the Yuquan mountains, Fengzeyuan, and Tangquan and some rice from Korea. Butter, milk cakes, and koumiss for the court were produced from cattle pastured outside the Great Wall at Zhangjiakou. Imperial estates sent muskmelons, watermelons, peas, eggplants, cabbages, cucumber, and different types of dried vegetables to Beijing, where they were put into vegetable vaults. The palace also had its own sources of honey, grapes, apricots, peaches, Chinese hawthorns, and other fruits.101

A significant part of the imperial diet was also supplied by tributary presentations. The seasonal shipments of local produce were a concrete manifestation of submission to imperial rule, required of subjects and of tributary states. Each winter the military governor stationed at Mukden sent sixty head of young deer to the court. Outer Mongols sent sheep and koumiss. Milk cakes, special kinds of local fish, winter bamboo shoots, deer tails (a delicacy), deer tongues, and a myriad of different foodstuffs were sent in seasonal rotation to Peking. A list of hundreds of such items sent to the court from 1774 to 1778 shows that the northeast ranked first in terms of the frequency, quantity, and types of foodstuffs sent to the court.102 Father Ripa, residing in Peking during the Kangxi reign, observed: "'During the period of frost,' that is, from October till March, Northern Tartary sends to the capital an enormous quantity of game, consisting chiefly of stags, hares, wild boars, pheasants, and partridges; whilst Southern Tartary furnishes a great abundance of excellent sturgeon and other fish, all of which being frozen, can easily be kept during the whole winter."103 Fresh lichee was sent by governors and governors-general from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.104 Interest in southern products was dampened duringthe Daoguang reign—Minning preferred northern dishes—but rose to new heights under Empress Dowager Cixi. Coastal areas submitted sharks' fins, abalone, sea cucumber, prawns, jellyfish, kelp, and other seafoods during the late nineteenth century to satisfy the Guangxu emperor's love of these foods.

The most elaborate palace cuisine was served at banquets. The court distinguished between Manchu banquets, which were subdivided by cost into six grades, and Han Chinese banquets. The first-, second-, and third-class Manchu banquets were prepared for the deceased imperial ancestors. The highest grade of Manchu banquet served to living human beings, grade four (at a cost of 4.43 taels per table), was the food served at the New Year, on imperial birthdays, weddings, and the winter solstice. Korean ambassadors, Mongol sons-in-law, the Dalai lama, and the Panchen lama were feted at grade-five Manchu banquets, other tributary envoys at grade six (2.26 taels per table).105

In keeping with their cultural policies, the Qing rulers regarded their traditional cuisine as the primary cuisine of their empire, especially appropriate for their relations with the non-Han peoples. Manchu food was served to tributary missions coming to court and at the birthday, wedding, and major seasonal banquets held for the emperor and his court: the latter included banquets feting Kazakh, Tibetan, Uighur, and Mongol nobles, held in Chengde and Peking; the banquet for Mongol sons-in-law, held every year as part of the New Year festivities; and the banquet for close kinsmen (see chapter 2), which was held annually beginning with the Daoguang reign. Han banquets, which were also classified into six grades, were served to compilers of the Veritable Records, examiners at the metropolitan civil service examination, and civil and military degree-winners at the metropolitan examinations.106

Archival documents, which preserve the daily menus and food expenditures for at least part of the Qing dynasty, reveal the eating habits of the imperial family on ordinary days. According to Father Benoit,

His Majesty always eats alone, being assisted at his meals only by the eunuchs who serve him. The hour of his dining is fixed at 8 A.M. and of his supper at 1 P.M. Outside these two meals, he takes nothing during the day except some drinks, and toward evening some light refreshment.... His ordinary drink during meals is tea, which may be simply infused with ordinary water, or mixed with milk, or composed of different types of tea.... Despite the quantity and the magnificence of the meals that are served to his Majesty, he never takes more than a quarter of an hour for each repast.107 Usually the emperor ate in his residence, sometimes he ate in the palace in which he held audiences and conducted business. The meals were served at his order, in whatever locale he chose. The archival records tell us that on November 2, 1747, the Qianlong emperor had his morning meal, served after 6 A.M., in the Hongdedian. The next day he took his evening meal—normally served after the noon hour, and the major meal of the day—in the Chonghuagong. The emperor might have snacks in between these meals, or a light snack at 6 P.M. These meals tended to be much simpler and featured traditional Manchu specialties such as boiled pork, wild meat, and sweet cakes (bobo ). Many emperors, including the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Daoguang emperors, preferred plain dishes.108

Milk, used in tea and in cakes, was a distinctive feature of the Qing imperial diet. While in residence in Peking, the court was supplied with milk from cows in paddocks in Nanyuan, the hunting preserve south of the capital. When the emperor traveled north to Chengde and the hunting grounds at Mulan, milk cows were moved from imperial estates in the northeast. Palace regulations show that twenty-four milk cows, each supplying two catties of milk a day, were reserved for the empress dowager; one hundred cows for the emperor and empress, and so on down to the two cows designated for a fifth-ranking imperial consort. In the early nineteenth century, these allowances were significantly reduced because of a shortage of milk cows, but the practice continued.109

The Language of Rank

The Qing dynasty's special titles were partially derived from non-Han and partially from Ming precedents. The official terminology referred to the emperor with the character shang meaning "supreme." References to the emperor were elevated above the text to show respect. The character zhen was reserved for the imperial "I" used in edicts, and special verbs (yi, yu ) were used to describe his movements. Special terms—zhuanshan (transmitting food), jinshan (presenting food), and yongshan (using food)—were used to describe the act of eating by imperial personages.110

Imperial ancestors were called by their temple names; prayers addressed to them used their temple and posthumous names. Each ancestor had Manchu and Chinese posthumous names.111 In Manchu records, Nurgaci, who had been called the sure beile (wise prince) in the first part of his life, and, after 1616 han (khan), became dergi huwangdi*

. Since dergi signified "upper" or "superior," the title itself was a conflation of the Manchu dergi ejen (superior ruler) and the Chinese Taizu huangdi , being the title frequently given to the founder of a dynasty. Hongtaiji's name was probably a rendition of the Mongol noble title, Khongtaiji, and many imperial kinsmen in the conquest period had Mongol titles and names.112 Mongols called the Manchu emperor the Ejen Khaghan (ruler khan of khans) or Bogdo Khaghan (great khan of khans). In the Khalkha Mongol chronicle of the different reincarnations of their highest Tibetan Buddhist prelate, the Jebtsundamba khutukhtu, the Manchu ruler is the "emperor of the Black Kitad," as opposed to the Russian czar, the "emperor of the Yellow Kitad." Echoing the Mongol practice, the Russian embassy of 1653 addressed the emperor as the "Bogdo khan czar."113

Officials addressed the emperor as "divine khan" (enduringge han ) and "divine ruler" (enduringge ejen ) in their Manchu-language memorials. Until 1723 memorialists referred to themselves as "slaves" (aha in Manchu, nücai in Chinese); this phrase probably originated in Manchu custom: Ishibashi Takao argues that the Manchu hierarchy created during the seventeenth century and culminating in the Yongzheng reign emphasized the lord-slave (ejen-aha ) relationship and made the ruler the only ejen within the state. Thereafter, the use of nücai by high officials was prohibited, but it continued to show up in memorials, even when the memorialists themselves were imperial princes. Examples of such memorials include reports in 1799 on the Qianlong emperor's tomb, written by Prince Zhuang and other imperial agnates.114

High officials and princes holding office normally used the term meaning "minister" (amban in Manchu, chen in Chinese), except in the formulaic memorials giving thanks for imperial grace, when nücai remained. The term (amban ) was also used by the emperor himself when addressing his ancestors.115 An emperor's references to his parents (in the third person) would also be elevated above the rest of the text to show respect. The Manchu act of respect, putting one knee on the ground, continued to be normative behavior for the social inferior when two bannermen met. The accompanying hand gesture was initially to have the right hand hanging down while kneeling with the right leg. Later the gesture was simplified so that the right leg was deeply bent but not kneeling, while the body was upright with the right hand down. Imperial nobles performed the "double kneeling," kneeling on the right leg while placing both hands on the left knee, which was bent. The superior would acknowledge this greeting by bowing. There were parallel gestures appropriate for bannerwomen.116

The court vocabulary extended to birth and death. The birthday of an empress or consort of the first three ranks was "a thousand autumns"

(qianqiu ); the empress dowager's birthday was the "ten thousand years" (wan shou jie ); and the emperor's birthday, "ten thousand years' sacred fete" (wan shou sheng jie ). There was a special verb (beng ) for the death of an emperor or empress; another (hong ) for the death of a prince, princess, or higher-ranking consort; and yet a third (ke, keshi ) for the deaths of other court personages. There were at least three different terms for coffins, and two for tombs. References to these matters in Manchu also used special terms.

Qing Rulership in Art

"The early Ch'ing emperors used the arts as tools for the glorification of the state."117 Nowhere was the multicultural nature of Qing rulership more evident than in the paintings, porcelains, and other objets d'art that were created for palace use and for presentation to officials and embassies. The use of material culture as an expression of the court's cosmopolitan vision is exemplified in the activities of the Qianlong emperor.

Hongli pursued the traditional connoisseurship of Han Chinese literati. He began to collect Chinese paintings and calligraphy while still in his teens, and eventually owned "the finest collection of antique Chinese paintings in history." He acquired inkstones and inscribed inkstones, ink cakes, and brushes for presentation to officials as well as for personal use. He was an avid collector of many things. Throughout his life he kept a staff of assistants busy cataloging his acquisitions and he himself wrote innumerable colophons commenting on individual pieces in his collection. With his various kinds of antiques and objets d'art , the Qianlong emperor owned "more than a million objects."118

Han Chinese aesthetic pursuits were behind only one part of the imperial collection. The Qing palace also held curiosities from Europe such as the elaborate clocks presented by embassies to the court, which were imitated in the palace workshops with technical assistance from Jesuits (see chapter 5). European enameling techniques entered through trade and through the Jesuits, inspiring production of new kinds of colored enameled porcelain such as famille rose . Although many of these porcelains were made for export, very fine porcelains and cloisonné pieces, decorated with European decorative motifs, were also produced for the palace.119 Hongli prized Hindustan jades, a term that includes jades carved in territories under Ottoman and Mughal rule. The jades were presented as tribute and, especially after the Qing conquest of the Tarim Basin, as trade items. TheQianlong emperor's poems, which are inscribed on many of the pieces in the imperial collection, extol their delicacy, the thinness of the carving, and the refinement of the decorative designs.120

The court lived amongst possessions that came from every part of the globe; and designedly so. The syncretic and eclectic taste displayed in the products of the palace workshops testify to the exposure of the court to the technical and aesthetic accomplishments of both east and west. The paintings commissioned by the Qing emperors for their palaces speak even more directly to their political goals. Sometimes the political motivation was direct and explicit, as in the Qianlong emperor's desire to commemorate the Qing victory over the Zunghars (1755). Hongli ordered Jesuit artists to engrave sixteen prints of decisive battles in this campaign, commissioned portraits of meritorious officials (mostly soldiers), and personally inscribed (in both Manchu and Chinese) the first fifty portraits. Portraits such as the one of Ayusi (see figure 2) were displayed in the Ziguangge, a hall on the shores of Zhonghai within the imperial city, where European ambassadors were received and Mongol in-laws were entertained.121

Qing emperors also wished to display the might of their empire in paintings. The political inspiration for handscrolls depicting "Foreign Envoys Bearing Tribute" commissioned by the Qianlong and Jiaqing emperors seems straightforward: artists were to show, as accurately as possible, the vast (290 persons in all) and diverse peoples who had submitted to Qing overlordship.122 Something of the same interest—showing the diversity of peoples who came to offer tribute—probably prompted the emperor to order Ignace Sichelbart (1708-80) to paint on the upper and middle portions of a screen depictions of the faces (lianxiang ) of ambassadors from Europe (Xiyang) who visited the court in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong reigns; the faces of the Jesuits Ignace Kögler (1680-1746), Castiglione, and Sichelbart himself were painted on the bottom portion.123

Other political messages conveyed through paintings can be ascertained from an inspection of the subject matter. Giuseppe Castiglione's wonderful painting "A Hundred Horses," painted at court during the Yongzheng reign, depicts a herd of horses in a setting reminiscent of the pasturelands of the north. The Qianlong emperor commissioned many paintings of hunts at Mulan and entertainments at Chengde. He inscribed (in Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese, and Uighur) paintings of his favorite horses each with its own name; and paintings of his hunting dogs (in Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese).124

The most interesting and subtle imperial self-images that pertain toQing rulership appear in paintings recently analyzed by Wu Hung. Although scholars have commented before on the ideological significance of the tangkas representing the Qianlong emperor as Manjusri*

, the bodhisattva of compassion and wisdom (see chapter 7), it is Wu Hung who in 1995 introduced to a Western audience the fourteen album paintings held by the Palace Museum, Beijing, which depict the Yongzheng emperor in different guises. Although some of the paintings depict Yinzhen in a Han Chinese cultural setting—as a Daoist or a Chinese scholar—others show him as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, a Mongol noble, and even in European wig, vest, and breeches.125 When Wu Hung notes, "No previous emperors, either Chinese or Manchu, had ever had themselves portrayed in this manner," he must be referring to the explicitly non-Han representations of Yinzhen, since there are many Qing court paintings depicting not only Yinzhen but other Qing emperors dressed in (the forbidden) Han Chinese robes.126 What should we make of such paintings?

In other writing, Wu Hung rightly stresses the importance of the format of a painting in interpretations of its meaning.127 Paintings that are mounted on screens are on permanent public display; if they are displayed in halls where audiences or other formal assemblies take place, the emperor must have intended to convey messages through their visual representations. One example of this kind is a set of paintings of twelve Chinese beauties, which were initially mounted in a screen in Yinzhen's study when he was still a prince. Scholars dismiss the notion that the women depicted on the screen were Yinzhen's consorts. The women are idealized figures and belong to a well-known Chinese painting genre. Wu Hung argues that such paintings "gained new significance when they were transported from their original Chinese cultural context into the court of non-Chinese rulers."128 Among their several meanings is a discourse about the relationship between the Qing and the subjugated Han Chinese. The beau-ties symbolize "an imaginary south" (China), exquisite but also decadent and weak, which the Qing rulers possessed or conquered. What adds to the interest is that these paintings were displayed in the period before Yinzhen ascended the throne. Wu speculates that placing these idealized beauties in his study is evidence of a "fundamental dualism" in the prince's self-identity—a dualism that disappeared when he became emperor. Yinzhen then altered his villa and had the paintings of the twelve beauties rolled up and put into storage.129

Paintings mounted in scrolls could be unrolled and hung on walls—this was the case for the "ancestor portraits" hung in the Shouhuangdian (seechapter 8), the imperial hall lying north of the palace that was used for family rituals in which women, who were banned from the Temple of the Ancestors, could participate. Ancestor portraits were intended for display only on specified ritual occasions. Album paintings, and paintings in a handscroll format, however, can really only be seen by an individual viewer. As such, they are the most private of the different paintings that appear in an imperial collection. The album paintings of Yinzhen in different cultural guises would thus fall into a category of paintings produced not for those admitted to imperial audience but presumably for the emperor himself. The paintings suggest that Yinzhen had already developed the idea that part of being emperor in an empire composed of diverse peoples was to take on the persona of the conquered subject(s). Yinzhen's use of painting to convey symbolic messages foretells the multicultural policies that culminated in the Qianlong reign.

"Spring's Peaceful Message" is a painting by Giuseppe Castiglione that was originally part of a screen in a room holding the Qianlong emperor's most prized Chinese art pieces. Although some date it to the Yongzheng reign, Wu Hung argues that it was commissioned by the Qianlong emperor. The painting has a deep blue background, against which two men, dressed in informal Chinese robes with their hair in topknots, stand facing obliquely toward each other and the center of the painting. The older man holds a branch of flowering prunus; the younger grasps the lower end of the branch with his left hand while his right touches a bamboo stalk. The faces on the men make it clear that the older is Yinzhen and the younger, Hongli. The painting conveys the message that Hongli is his father's chosen successor. Wu's interpretation of the symbolism of this painting suggests that a further advance in the image of rulership has taken place: garbed in Chinese robes, the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors "have themselves become representatives of Chinese culture; their virtues are manifested through traditional Chinese symbols.... The emperors' disguise [in Chinese robes] ... legitimates their possession and appropriation of the Chinese tradition by denying, however artificially, their image as outsiders who came to own this tradition through seizure."130

Taken as a whole, Qing court paintings exemplify the vision of Qing rulership held by the rulers themselves. Produced by court painters from Europe as well as China, the paintings range widely in their subject matter. They depict not just emperors masquerading as Han Chinese literati, butemperors hunting in Mulan, and sitting as manifestations of bodhisattvas in Tibetan Buddhist iconography. The Qing rulers did not present themselves simply as Chinese or Manchu monarchs. Governing diverse peoples, they "took on" different cultural guises and portrayed themselves within different cultural frames. Only thus could they act as the integrating center of the empire.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Last Emperors by Evelyn Sakakida Rawski Copyright © 2001 by Evelyn Sakakida Rawski. Excerpted by permission.
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