UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA

The Qing in general preserved the political structure in China proper after the conquest. However, three military, administrative, and political mechanisms were unique to the Qing as opposed to Chinese dynasties such as the Ming. First, the Qing stationed banner troops in strategic points across China after it entered China proper to deter and control the Chinese population (Elliot 2001: 129). Roughly 150,000 troops were stationed in the capital, called jinlü, or Imperial Guards, whereas troops stationed in the provinces were called zhufang, literally station and defense (Ding 2003). 25 garrisons were set up in the capital region, while 14 major garrisons in the provinces (Rhoads 2000). The garrisons were carefully

arranged in terms of location and ethnic composition so that the state could keep the Chinese under control with limited numbers of banner troops.

First, Manchu rulers protected the capital with three defense lines. The first line was the Imperial Guards stationed within the city; the second circle consisted of garrisons built in eight counties

surrounding the capital; and the third defense line included garrisons in eight cities further away in Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong provinces neighboring the capital region (Ding 2003). In the provinces the three major garrisons at Jiangning (modern Nanjing), Xi’an, and Jingzhou in the Southeast, Northwest, and Midsouth, respectively, had the largest numbers of banner troops. Moreover, only the trustworthy Manchu and Mongol banner troops were stationed in Jiangning and Jingzhou, whereas in the outskirts of the huge triangle (the three garrisons mentioned above) both Manchu and Chinese banner troops were stationed. Further, in the peripheral provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong, banner troops that originally belonged to the three feudatories10 _{were stationed. In sum, by the end of the seventeenth}

century the Manchu emperors managed to keep China under control by laying out multiple layers of defense in which Manchu/Mongol banner troops oversaw Chinese banner troops, who in turn oversaw the Chinese Green Standard Army stationed across the country (Ding 2003: 35-36).

Administratively the Qing created an ethnic quota system and applied to top positions in the metropolitan administration, in which Manchus were appointed with Chinese in roughly equal numbers. Indeed the Manchu quotas were further divided into five categories: the imperial lineage, Manchu banner men, Mongol banner men, Chinese banner men, bondservants of the Imperial Household Department; in most instances half of the top posts were reserved for them and the other half were allocated to the Chinese. However, the majority of the subordinate positions were reserved for Manchus, with the Chinese quota making only about 30% of the positions (Du 1995: 11, Rhoads: 2000).

The principle of diarchy applied to only a limited number of positions. Even so the Qing invented mechanisms to cap Chinese influence in the metropolitan administration. For instance, the post of board

10 _{The Qing rewarded the three Chinese generals who had helped the Qing in the process of conquest with prince}

supervision that outranked a board’s two presidents and oversaw the operation of the board was almost always a Manchu. Moreover, the numerous positions at the middle and lower echelons of the Qing nine- rank administrative system were staffed disproportionately by Manchus. For instance, at the Grand Secretariat, 20 of the 24 mid-level positions were reserved for Manchus (Rhoads 2001: 45). Thus it can be inferred that the structure was conceived in such a way that the few token Chinese officials were

controlled by Manchu supervisors from the top and the power of the Chinese to some degree were undercut by the numerous Manchu officials from the bottom.

In the provinces roughly an equal number of Manchus were appointed as governors or governors- general with Chinese. Throughout the entire Qing dynasty Manchus constituted 57% of all governors- general and 48.4% of all governors. A remark is needed here. The percentages of Manchu governors- general and governors declined after the anti-Manchu Taiping Rebellion. Manchus constituted 34.6% of all governors-general and 22.2% of governors between 1851 and 1912 (Rhoads 2001: 48). Hence it can be inferred that Manchus outnumbered Chinese as provincial leaders for the majority of the duration of the Qing. Moreover, the above statistics show that more Manchus served as governors-general than Chinese indicating that in the provinces too Manchus overpowered Chinese for the entire Qing period.

Politically the Qing court gradually changed to secret politics from open politics. In a broad stroke, the open political system worked in the following way: the Titangguan (an official who represented a province but resided in the capital) submitted documents from the province to the official called

tongzhengshisi, whose responsibility was to review and seal the documents and then submit them to the

Grand Secretariat(neige), which was supposed to draft an opinion on each document, then submit it to the

emperor. The emperor read the original document, the cabinet’s opinion, and made remarks, then passed it down to the Imperial Office of Conference(neizoushichu), which in turn passed it to the pibenchu

within the cabinet, which wrote the emperor’s remarks on the title page of the original document under the supervision of the official hanlinzhongshu (Zhongliang). In short, the procedure was open to officials

in the departments involved in the complex process. In addition, Ming emperors held open “court conferences” (tingyi) routinely. Shortly after the conquest, however, the Manchu rulers changed the

procedure. In 1677 the Kangxi emperor created the agency “South Study” (nanshufang), staffed by

officials he selected directly. The organization collected documents directly from provincial officials, and drafted opinions for the emperor (Meng and Wang 2003). The Yongzheng emperor went a step further. In 1726 he secretly set up the Office of Military Supplies (junxufang) within the Ministry of Household to

deal with military campaigns in the Northwest (Meng and Wang 2003: 435, Guo 1998). In 1729 the Office of Military Supplies was changed to junjichu (literally the Bureau of Military Secrets, or the Grand

Council), which consisted of normally five officials appointed directly by the emperor and a number of secretaries (zhangjing) through whom the emperor communicated directly with individual offices in the

provinces without the intervention of the Grand Secretariat, which now dealt with only routines. The Grand Council was secret politics in nature (Guo 1998). Officials could report local issues and their colleagues’ activities directly and secretly to the emperor, thus through the Grand Council the emperor kept a strong hold of the country, the population, and the officialdom. The three mechanisms that the Manchu rulers utilized in China, namely military deployment in important areas, the Manchu dominated bureaucracy, and secret politics, contributed to the long-lasting Manchu rule of China.