Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2018

 

Jurisdictional Disputes between the Military Governors Responsible for Militias and Local Officials during the Reigns of Emperors Xianfeng and Tongzhi (Abstract)

Cui Min

 

The low rank and limited power of the officials responsible for militias (tuanlian) meant that they had long suffered from local government interference, frustrating their attempts to utilize the militias for effective defense of their neighborhoods and elimination of bandits. In May and June, 1860, the Qing court appointed nine powerful military governors to be responsible for militias in eight provinces including Henan. However, relations between the governors and local governments fell far short of the harmonious cooperation the Qing court had envisaged; their relationship was quite the opposite, being dominated by suspicion and differences of opinion, with each side feeling that its powers and responsibilities were not a good match. The conduct of affairs was hampered and they kept trespassing on each other’s turf, with disputes manifest particularly in fights over the local financial resources needed to provision the soldiers and run the militia. Further, some local officials charged the military governors with usurping judicial powers. Underlying the disputes over powers and responsibilities was a backdrop of competition between officials and the scholar gentry and between natives of the province and those from outside. With the successive withdrawal of the military governors, the ten-year long implementation of this strategy came to an end, and the corresponding reversion from gentry to official management in the militia’s operational model was completed. This outcome implies that the effort to accelerate social mobilization and strengthen social control by using local gentry, begun in the early years of Xianfeng, ended in failure. It also shows that the two-track system of social control of the late Qing enjoyed only a brief efflorescence.