Society Under the Qing

27.1.2: Society Under the Qing

Under Qing rule, the empire’s population expanded rapidly and migrated extensively, the economy grew, and arts and culture flourished, but the development of the military gradually weakened central government’s grip on the country.

Learning Objective

Describe the characteristics of Qing society

Key Points

  • During the early and mid-Qing period, the population grew rapidly and was remarkably mobile. Evidence suggests that the empire’s expanding population moved in a manner unprecedented in Chinese history. Migrants relocated hoping for either permanent resettlement or, at least in theory, a temporary stay.
  • The Qing society was divided into five relatively closed estates. The elites consisted of the estates of the officials, the comparatively minuscule aristocracy, and the intelligentsia. There also existed two major categories of ordinary citizens: the “good” and the “mean.”
  • In the 18th century, markets continued to expand but with more trade between regions, a greater dependence on overseas markets, and a greatly increased population. The government broadened land ownership by returning land that was sold to large landowners in the late Ming period by families unable to pay the land tax. To give people more incentive to participate in the market, the tax burden was reduced and the corvée system replaced with a head tax used to hire laborers. The relative peace and import of new crops to China from the Americas contributed to population growth.
  • The early Qing military was rooted in the Eight Banners first developed by Nurhaci. During Qianlong’s reign, the emperor emphasized Manchu ethnicity, ancestry, language, and culture in the Eight Banners, and in 1754 started a mass discharge of Han bannermen. This led to a change from Han majority to a Manchu majority within the Eight Banner system. The eventual decision to turn the banner troops into a professional force led to their decline.
  • After a series of military defeats in the mid-19th century, the Qing court ordered a Chinese official, Zeng Guofan, to organize regional and village militias into an emergency army. Zeng Guofan relied on local gentry to raise a new type of military organization, known as the Xiang Army. The Xiang Army and its successor the Huai Army were collectively called the Yong Ying (Brave Camp). The Yong Ying system signaled the end of Manchu dominance in Qing military establishment.
  • Under the Qing, traditional forms of art flourished and innovations developed rapidly. High levels of literacy, a successful publishing industry, prosperous cities, and the Confucian emphasis on cultivation all fed a lively and creative set of cultural fields, including literature, fine arts, and even cuisine.

Key Terms

Eight Banners
Administrative/military divisions under the Qing dynasty into which all Manchu households were placed. In war, they functioned as armies, but the system was also the basic organizational framework of Manchu society. Created in the early 17th century by Nurhaci, the armies played an instrumental role in his unification of the fragmented Jurchen people (later renamed the Manchus) and in the Qing dynasty’s conquest of the Ming dynasty.
Great Divergence
A term coined by Samuel Huntington (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981), referring to the process by which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of all time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, Joseon Korea, and the Ottoman Empire.
Xiang Army
A standing army organized by Zeng Guofan from existing regional and village militia forces to contain the Taiping rebellion in Qing China (1850 to 1864). The name is taken from the Hunan region where the army was raised. It was financed through local nobles and gentry as opposed to the centralized Manchu-led Qing dynasty. Although it was raised specifically to address problems in Hunan, the army formed the core of the new Qing military establishment and thus forever weakened the Manchu influence within the military.
Green Standard Army
A category of military units under the control of the Qing dynasty. It was made up mostly of ethnic Han soldiers and operated concurrently with the Manchu-Mongol-Han Eight Banner armies. In areas with a high concentration of Hui people, Muslims served as soldiers. After the Qing consolidated control over China, it was primarily used as a police force.
Yong Ying
A type of regional army that emerged in the 1800s in Qing dynasty army, which fought in most of China’s wars after the Opium War and numerous rebellions exposed the ineffectiveness of the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. It was created from the earlier tuanlian militias.

 

During the early and mid-Qing period, the population grew rapidly and was remarkably mobile. Evidence suggests that the empire’s expanding population moved in a manner unprecedented in Chinese history. Migrants relocated hoping for either permanent resettlement or at least in theory, a temporary stay. The latter included the empire’s increasingly large and mobile manual workforce, its densely overlapping internal diaspora of merchant groups, and the movement of Qing subjects overseas, largely to Southeastern Asia, in search of trade and other economic opportunities.

The Qing society was divided into five relatively closed estates. The elites consisted of the estates of the officials, the comparatively minuscule aristocracy, and the intelligentsia. There also existed two major categories of ordinary citizens: the “good” and the “mean.” The majority of the population belonged to the first category and were described as liangmin, a legal term meaning good people, as opposed to jianmin meaning the mean (or ignoble) people. Qing law explicitly stated that the traditional four occupational groups of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants were “good,” with the status of commoners. On the other hand, slaves or bonded servants, entertainers (including prostitutes and actors), and low-level employees of government officials were the “mean” people, considered legally inferior to commoners.

 

Economy

By the end of the 17th century, the Chinese economy had recovered from the devastation caused by the wars in which the Ming dynasty were overthrown. In the 18th century, markets continued to expand but with more trade between regions, a greater dependence on overseas markets, and a greatly increased population. After the re-opening of the southeast coast, which was closed in the late 17th century, foreign trade was quickly re-established and expanded at 4% per annum throughout the latter part of the 18th century. China continued to export tea, silk, and manufactures, creating a large, favorable trade balance with the West. The resulting inflow of silver expanded the money supply, facilitating the growth of competitive and stable markets.

The government broadened land ownership by returning land that was sold to large landowners in the late Ming period by families unable to pay the land tax. To give people more incentives to participate in the market, the tax burden was reduced in comparison with the late Ming and the corvée system replaced with a head tax used to hire laborers. A system of monitoring grain prices eliminated severe shortages and enabled the price of rice to rise slowly and smoothly through the 18th century. Wary of the power of wealthy merchants, Qing rulers limited their trading licenses and usually banned new mines, except in poor areas. Some scholars see these restrictions on the exploitation of domestic resources and limits imposed on foreign trade as a cause of the Great Divergence by which the Western world overtook China economically.

By the end of the 18th century the population had risen to 300 million from approximately 150 million during the late Ming dynasty. This rise is attributed to the long period of peace and stability in the 18th century and the import of new crops China received from the Americas, including peanuts, sweet potatoes, and maize. New species of rice from Southeast Asia led to a huge increase in production. Merchant guilds proliferated in all of the growing Chinese cities and often acquired great social and even political influence. Rich merchants with official connections built up huge fortunes and patronized literature, theater, and the arts. Textile and handicraft production boomed.

 

Military

The early Qing military was rooted in the Eight Banners first developed by Nurhaci to organize Jurchen society beyond petty clan affiliations. The banners were differentiated by color. The yellow, bordered yellow, and white banners were known as the Upper Three Banners and remained under the direct command of the emperor. The remaining banners were known as the Lower Five Banners. They were commanded by hereditary Manchu princes descended from Nurhachi’s immediate family. Together, they formed the ruling council of the Manchu nation as well as high command of the army. Nurhachi’s son Hong Taiji expanded the system to include mirrored Mongol and Han Banners. After capturing Beijing in 1644, the relatively small Banner armies were further augmented by the Green Standard Army, made up of Ming troops who had surrendered to the Qing. They eventually outnumbered Banner troops three to one. They maintained their Ming-era organization and were led by a mix of Banner and Green Standard officers.

Banner armies were organized along ethnic lines, namely Manchu and Mongol, but including non-Manchu bonded servants registered under the household of their Manchu masters. During Qianlong’s reign, the Qianlong Emperor emphasized Manchu ethnicity, ancestry, language, and culture in the Eight Banners, and in 1754 started a mass discharge of Han bannermen. This led to a change from Han majority to a Manchu majority within the Eight Banner system. The eventual decision to turn the banner troops into a professional force led to its decline as a fighting force.

Soldiers of the blue banner parading in front of Emperor Qianlong

Initially, Nurhaci’s forces were organized into small hunting parties of about a dozen men related by blood, marriage, clan, or place of residence, as was the Jurchen custom. In 1601, Nurhaci reorganized his troops. Four banners were originally created: Yellow, White, Red, and Blue, each named after the color of its flag. In 1615, the number of banners was doubled through the creation of “bordered” banners. The troops of each of the original four banners would be split between a plain and a bordered banner. The bordered variant of each flag was to have a red border, except for the Bordered Red Banner, which had a white border instead.

After a series of military defeats in the mid-19th century, the Qing court ordered a Chinese official, Zeng Guofan, to organize regional and village militias into an emergency army. He relied on local gentry to raise a new type of military organization that became known as the Xiang Army, named after the Hunan region where it was raised. The Xiang Army was a hybrid of local militia and a standing army. It was given professional training, but was paid for out of regional coffers and funds its commanders – mostly members of the Chinese gentry – could muster. The Xiang Army and its successor, the Huai Army, created by Zeng Guofan’s colleague and mentee Li Hongzhang, were collectively called the Yong Ying (Brave Camp). The Yong Ying system signaled the end of Manchu dominance in Qing military establishment. The fact that the corps were financed through provincial coffers and were led by regional commanders weakened central government’s grip on the whole country. This structure fostered nepotism and cronyism among its commanders, who laid the seeds of regional warlordism in the first half of the 20th century.

 

Arts and Culture

Under the Qing, traditional forms of art flourished and innovations developed rapidly. High levels of literacy, a successful publishing industry, prosperous cities, and the Confucian emphasis on cultivation all fed a lively and creative set of cultural fields.

The Qing emperors were generally adept at poetry, often skilled in painting, and offered their patronage to Confucian culture. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, for instance, embraced Chinese traditions both to control the people and proclaim their own legitimacy. Imperial patronage encouraged literary and fine arts as well as the industrial production of ceramics and Chinese export porcelain. However, the most impressive aesthetic works were by the scholars and urban elite. Calligraphy and painting remained a central interest to both court painters and scholar-gentry who considered the arts part of their cultural identity and social standing.

Literature grew to new heights in the Qing period. Poetry continued as a mark of the cultivated gentleman, but women wrote in larger numbers and poets came from all walks of life. The poetry of the Qing dynasty is a field studied (along with the poetry of the Ming dynasty) for its association with Chinese opera, developmental trends of classical Chinese poetry, the transition to a greater role for vernacular language, and poetry by women in Chinese culture. In drama, the most prestigious form became the so-called Peking opera, although local and folk opera were also widely popular. Even cuisine became a form of artistic expression. Works that detailed the culinary aesthetics and theory, along with a wide range of recipes, were published.

A full-page delicate gouache painting showing the daily life of family of the officials in the Qing Dynasty. The image is bordered by a bright blue silk ribbon.

The Qing emperors generously supported the arts and sciences. For example, the Kangxi Emperor sponsored the Peiwen Yunfu, a rhyme dictionary published in 1711, and the Kangxi Dictionary published in 1716, which remains to this day an authoritative reference. The Qianlong Emperor sponsored the largest collection of writings in Chinese history, the Siku Quanshu, completed in 1782. Court painters made new versions of the Song masterpiece, Zhang Zeduan’s Along the River During the Qingming Festival, whose depiction of a prosperous and happy realm demonstrated the beneficence of the emperor.

By the end of the 19th century, all elements of national artistic and cultural life recognized and began to come to terms with world culture as found in the West and Japan. Whether to stay within old forms or welcome Western models was now a conscious choice rather than an unchallenged acceptance of tradition.

Attributions