A History of China (61 page)

Yet several prominent painters followed the trajectory of traditional art and a few of them actually served the Manchus. Four men known as the Four Wangs, only two of whom were related, fit into that context. Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715), the most prominent of the Wangs, became a government official in the Qing and continued the landscape tradition. The so-called Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou represented the era’s individualism, yet, like many painters of earlier generations, they engaged with antiquity. They sometimes veered away from the past and poked fun at earlier tradition but at least they were well aware of it.

One important work of fiction proved to be dazzling.
The Story of the Stone
(
Hongloumeng
, sometimes also translated as
Dream of the Red Chamber
), a great novel published in mid-Qing times, reflected both the height and the growing troubles of the dynasty. Cao Xueqin (1715 or 1724 to 1763 or 1764), the author, was descended from an illustrious family. His grandfather Cao Yin had been one of the most influential Chinese bannermen of the seventeenth century, and his grandmother had been a wet nurse for Kangxi. The family’s favored position offered power, prestige, and wealth. Throughout Kangxi’s reign, it secured special privileges that began to descend into corruption. Kangxi’s son and successor, Emperor Yongzheng (1678–1735), perhaps concerned about the family’s authority, accused its members of corruption, undercut it, and confiscated its wealth. The family fell into poverty, and Cao Xueqin did not have the distinguished career of his immediate forebears.

The Story of the Stone
, which is semiautobiographical, documents the fall of a powerful and prosperous household, but it goes beyond the specific events described. The conception of reality and illusion are significant themes, and there is a psychological acuity about the dozens of characters the novel portrays. The leading figures are not stereotypes but are depicted in a nuanced manner. Cao himself died young, without finishing the novel. He had written about two-thirds of the work, and two authors completed it some years later.

Composed in written vernacular rather than in classical Chinese, the novel offers a panoramic view of the eighteenth century. It offers insights into family structure; filial piety; status; religion; the roles of music, opera, and the arts; and medicine and food. It documents, in particular, the power accruing to rich families on the local level and their control of the justice system, which allowed them to dominate local government and to engage in illegal behavior without fear of sanctions. It also shows fathers playing a dominant role in the household and, in this case, ensuring that the son marries the woman he has chosen for him. The son’s own beloved dies shortly after this, and he reacts by leaving his wife and becoming a pilgrim. The novel attests that the power of the patriarch and the filial piety owed to him had not diminished by that time. Another pattern that prevails is the performance of elaborate and costly Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist rituals. These ceremonies confirm the family’s wealth and status, which is also revealed in elegant clothing, tea ceremonies, and musical and theatrical extravaganzas.

Only a few years elapsed after Qianlong’s death before the problems that underlay the foreign expansionism and the domestic prosperity surfaced. A few of these problems derived from the dynasty’s successes. Some of the ­territories it had occupied and the foreign peoples it had subjugated proved to be troublesome. Violent outbreaks erupted in Xinjiang as early as 1781 (still during Qianlong’s reign). The early nineteenth century witnessed repeated rebellions in the region. Mongolia and Tibet were not as unstable, but soon disruptions and foreign threats in those lands began to subvert Qing control. The military expenditures required to control and to station garrisons in these territories increased dramatically, imposing severe financial burdens on the government. In some cases, corruption consumed the funds allocated to these garrisons, rendering them undersupplied and increasingly ineffective.

Qianlong added to the financial problems through a series of costly military campaigns. In 1747–1749 and 1771–1776, he dispatched troops to suppress a rebellious hill people in Sichuan province. These so-called Jinchuan wars, which were designed to crush an ethnic group of about thirty thousand people who were related to the Tibetans, entailed enormous expenditures and loss of life. From 1765 to 1769, Qianlong initiated four abortive invasions, and a similar campaign was undertaken against Vietnam in 1788–1789. His only major success was a defeat in 1788–1793 of the Gurkhas, who had attacked Nepal. The Qing bore extraordinary expenses in these generally fruitless campaigns, exacerbating the dynasty’s financial difficulties.

Moreover, the early Qing’s domestic successes, including a bountiful agriculture, could, strangely enough, prove counterproductive. More extensive use of fertilizers, better seeds and strains of grains, and more sophisticated irrigation systems had translated into striking increases in agricultural production. Introduction of such New World imports as peanuts and sweet potatoes, which could be grown in marginal lands, and corn (and tobacco) also contributed to this increase. The initial surpluses facilitated the development of cash-crop farming. Land could be devoted to tea, cotton, silk, sugar, and other goods designed not for local consumption but for trade. As this commercial agriculture began to play a greater role, transportation facilities and market towns developed for the convenience of merchants. Such centers sprang up particularly in south China, the site of much of this production. However, the north, which was less productive, benefited from such growth in trade, leading to larger and larger towns along the Grand Canal, which provided many of the north’s supplies. Merchant networks grew to service the trade, and soon increasingly sophisticated banks were organized to meet the merchants’ needs. Ever-larger workshops and factories supplanted household enterprises in the processing and production of textiles and ceramics.

However, the bountiful economy resulted in an extraordinary increase in population. At the outset of the Qing, the population was about 150 million, but two centuries later it had more than doubled to over 400 million. Part of the explanation was the previously mentioned agricultural production and economic growth. Another factor that may have contributed was the textile factories. Because these factories employed mostly female labor and provided the girls and women with wages (however meager), females, even from poor families, could be said to have economic value. Poor families who might have been tempted to allow a baby daughter to die or actually snuff out her life might now perceive her as a potential contributor to the household. Female infanticide may have declined, and, with more girls surviving, population naturally increased. It is difficult to ascertain how much this factor may have contributed to population increase, but it is a plausible hypothesis. Equally as important, the growth in population led to an excess of labor and thus a disincentive to develop new technology. The government found itself in a trap. The surplus of labor undercut efforts to improve technology, a major distinction between China and eighteenth-century western Europe.

By the early nineteenth century, population growth had nearly outstripped food supply, and peasants were turning to marginal land to attempt to feed the populace. Poverty increased and raised the potential of famine if a bad harvest or a natural disaster were to afflict part or much of the country. The potential for social disorder also increased. Nuisance and sales taxes and payments for simple government services imposed additional burdens on the lower social classes. A general increase in grain prices, prompted by the food required by the growing population in the cities and market towns and by the sizable horde of silver from Europeans, permitted peasants to pay these sharply increased taxes for a while. However, by the early nineteenth century, the payments had become onerous and generated considerable discontent. Aware of the growing rural animosity with the system and the government, a few local officials, on occasion, falsely claimed that peasants in their region had suffered from natural disasters and appealed to the central government to waive taxes. Yet, even with some tax holidays, many peasants, faced with continuous government demands, became increasingly restive.

Corruption and so-called gifts to superiors exacerbated these tensions. Local landowners, who lived luxuriously and also had to offer customary payments as gifts to high-level bureaucrats, demanded an ever-increasing amount of tax from peasants, often for their own benefit. Officials also often received gifts from litigants in court cases, adding to the stigma of an unfair judicial system that favored the rich. Heshen (1746–1799) was the quintessential symbol of the corruption that plagued the official system. A bannerman, Heshen attracted Emperor Qianlong’s attention and favor and was repeatedly ­promoted and granted greater and greater authority. Soon he occupied numerous offices and began to appoint his own followers to influential government positions. In 1790, he arranged the marriage of one of his sons to one of Qianlong’s ­daughters, which offered him greater leverage. Corruption and nepotism advanced hand in hand, particularly as Qianlong aged, lost control, and became mesmerized by Heshen. Eventually Heshen accumulated vast quantities of gold, silver, sheep, cattle, and other commodities through Qianlong’s bequests and others’ “gifts,” as well as through extortion, bribery, and, most ominously, higher taxes. He also owned vast tracts of land, employed hundreds of servants, and had a sizable harem. This state of affairs had a debilitating effect on the dynasty. Heshen’s recklessness and his illegally secured wealth showed the dynasty’s weakness and decline. Shortly after Qianlong’s death, Heshen’s enemies placed him in jail and compelled him to commit suicide. However, the damage had been done. Gross corruption had eroded trust in the dynasty and could not be readily controlled.

In addition to corruption, the bureaucracy was riddled with other problems. The number of officials did not increase in proportion to the growth in population. The larger number of civil-service examination candidates led to a higher failure rate, creating still another discontented group – and an educated one, to boot. Moreover, the relatively understaffed government offices could not respond to the population’s needs. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, some turned to extralegal or indeed illegal activities. Even if they did not initially succumb to illegal behavior, they still were a volatile and potentially troublesome force. The Qing did not find outlets for this educated citizenry.

Evidence of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’ decline may be gleaned from the grain-shipping system, which was vital for north China. South China was generally self-sufficient in its food supply, but the north could not sustain itself and repeatedly faced acute shortages. Thus, the proper operation of the transport system via the Grand Canal was essential. The waterways and canals needed to be maintained, and avaricious local officials had to be prevented from imposing illegal levies on boats trading along the waterways. Contemporaneous accounts indicate that inadequate supervision and maintenance led to silting and flooding, and that corruption compelled shippers to pay excessive fees for use of the Grand Canal. Illegality in the grain-transport system and the ensuing exploitation bred frustration and anger. Honest officials proposed substitution of sea transport for the canal, and grain and other commodities were, on occasion, delivered along the coast. However, these deliveries were insufficient.

Corruption and nepotism in the bureaucracy, educated men stalled in their careers due to a low number of official positions, and the turbulence precipitated by expansion into Xinjiang all contributed to unsettled and volatile ­conditions by the early nineteenth century. The economic disparities between the gentry/official class and the peasantry and between the rich merchants and ordinary urban dwellers, together with the exploitation of much of the ­population, almost inevitably led to disturbances and violence. Early-nineteenth-century China, which on the surface still appeared to be a great power and was at that time still regarded as such by the Western countries, actually faced ­corrosive social divisions. Development of secret societies was one reaction to these dislocations. Initially found in south China, they assisted rural migrants who had come to the cities for work, mostly as manual laborers, and had scant support in the harsh and alienating urban environments. Known familiarly as the Triads, one of these societies at first provided hospitality and aid to ­newcomers but soon became linked to piracy, smuggling, gambling, and eventually drugs. These antisocial activities gradually became antidynastic. Demonizing the Qing as a foreign, Manchu dynasty that exploited China, some members of these secret societies sought a return to Chinese rule, as reflected in an attempt to restore the Ming dynasty. Thus, they became a revolutionary force that the government needed to suppress and, by the mid nineteenth ­century, had ­actually suppressed.

Like earlier dynasties, the Qing also faced religious millenarian opposition. The White Lotus Society, which had undermined the Yuan dynasty, reemerged as a force in the late eighteenth century. Its beliefs centered on the arrival of the Maitreya, or Future Buddha, which would lead to the destruction of demons and other evildoers and would bring about prosperity and universal peace. As its leadership turned more and more against the dynasty, it attracted adherents who did not necessarily share its spiritual and (particularly) ascetic vision. Still later, bandits, oppressed peasants, and disloyal merchants and smugglers joined the sect. Thus, it may be misleading to refer to the White Lotus disturbances and their rebellion as religious movements. In any event, the Qing army could not suppress the White Lotus Society and had to rely extensively upon the elites in local areas and their militias and mercenaries to crush the dissidents. Even then, about a decade elapsed before the White Lotus Society was finally defeated around 1805.