The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet

Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing

Yingcong Dai

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780295800707
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia cinese

During China's last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), the empire's remote, bleak, and politically insignificant Southwest rose to become a strategically vital area. This study of the imperial government's handling of the southwestern frontier illuminates issues of considerable importance in Chinese history and foreign relations: Sichuan's rise as a key strategic area in relation to the complicated struggle between the Zunghar Mongols and China over Tibet, Sichuan's neighbor to the west, and consequent developments in governance and taxation of the area. Through analysis of government documents, gazetteers, and private accounts, Yingcong Dai explores the intersections of political and social history, arguing that imperial strategy toward the southwestern frontier was pivotal in changing Sichuan's socioeconomic landscape. Government policies resulted in light taxation, immigration into Sichuan, and a military market for local products, thus altering Sichuan but ironically contributing toward the eventual demise of the Qing. Dai's detailed, objective analysis of China's historical relationship with Tibet will be useful for readers seeking to understand debates concerning Tibet's sovereignty, Tibetan theocratic government, and the political dimension of the system of incarnate Tibetan lamas (of which the Dalai Lama is one).

1A HUMBLE BEGINNING, 1644–1696

The four provinces of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan are all border areas where soil is meager and livelihood difficult. It is different there from the heartland areas where commercial traffic is heavy, and a vast variety of livelihoods are available.—THE KANGXI EMPEROR, 1694

HISTORICALLY, SICHUAN’S ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE was noted repeatedly by power contenders in China. During its unification war in the third century B.C.E., the state of Qin chose to conquer two kingdoms in the area, the Ba and the Shu, to tap their rich resources and to secure the Qin backyard.¹ During the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth century, in order to place the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) under pincer attack, Kublai Khan first took Yunnan in 1253 and then smashed the Song resistance in Sichuan, thus sealing the Song’s defeat in the lower Yangzi valley.² Nevertheless, when the area did not contribute either strategically or economically to the new rulers of China, it was put at the bottom of the conqueror’s list. Because of the prolonged devastation caused by the Mongol conquest, the population loss in Sichuan was severe and the economy destroyed. Throughout the Yuan dynasty Sichuan had been gradually repopulated, but it never recovered the rich vitality of its economic life. Hence it was no surprise that during the Yuan-Ming transition, the Ming dynasty delayed its conquest of Sichuan until 1371, fifteen years after the Ming was founded in Nanjing in 1356.³ After the Ming claimed Sichuan, the recovery proved to be sluggish. Accordingly, its tax contribution to the Ming state was low.⁴ In a sense Sichuan experienced a loss of status as one of the key economic areas, moving closer to its economically backward neighboring provinces, Yunnan and Guizhou. Interestingly, a similar scenario occurred again in the seventeenth century, when the Manchus launched their conquest of China, taking advantage of many a crisis that doomed the Ming.

A DELAYED CONQUEST

Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou were the last provinces in mainland China to be claimed by the Manchus, a process not completed until 1662, approximately eighteen years after the Qing dynasty was founded in Beijing in 1644. It was not accidental that the Qing dynasty conquered the southwestern part of the country last; rather, this was a deliberate choice by the conquerors. Facing a vast China and so many resistant forces, including several newly founded Southern Ming regimes, the Manchu conquerors, who only had about a hundred thousand soldiers then and limited financial resources, had to prioritize their conquests.⁵ Although the conquerors did not clearly state their war plans in any single document, it was obvious that they had carefully laid down an order of conquest by taking into consideration the varied importance of different areas. After the Qing forces took Beijing, Dorgon, the formidable regent of the young Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1662) and the mastermind of the Qing conquest, chose to concentrate on the strategically important Shanxi-Shaanxi area in the northwest, which was regarded as a strategic barrier to the capital against aggressive nomads from the Mongolian steppe. Dorgon sent his two brothers, Ajige and Dodo, to take the Shanxi-Shaanxi area and clear out the remnants of Li Zicheng’s forces. Following the area’s pacification in late 1644, the Qing court appointed Meng Qiaofang, a Chinese bannerman or “Hanjun,” as the governor-general of Shaanxi to govern this strategically important region.⁶ While Meng continued clearing the area of banditries, his attempts to infiltrate southward into Sichuan were never successful because of the limited size of his troops.

No sooner had the Shanxi-Shaanxi area been placed under the Manchu flag than Dorgon transferred the valiant Dodo to the financially crucial Jiangnan region in the southeast, which included Jiangnan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces and part of Anhui province. Although the conquests in Jiangnan were marked by brutal massacres that were chiefly responses to the staunch protests against the notorious hair-shaving orders, this “key economic area” was firmly under Qing control by the summer of 1646.⁷ After both the strategically important northwestern and the economically important southeastern regions were taken, the Qing conquerors steadily took provinces in the heartland, such as Henan, Hubei, and Hunan, which also bore the “tribute grain” responsibility.⁸ Finally, the Qing cavalry swept through southern China, seizing the southern provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi. By the beginning of the 1650s, most of the country had been conquered by the Qing forces. The areas that had not been claimed—Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan—were considered peripheral to the pressing needs of consolidating the new regime and gaining legitimacy for China’s foreign rulers.

Nevertheless, the realities were more complicated. While there seemed to be no sound reason for the conquerors to invest their insufficient resources in Sichuan first, they were apparently concerned with what was unfolding there, as waves of refugees from Sichuan were telling disturbing stories about a force of monsters that had overrun the province, destroying cities and homes and slaughtering thousands of people. The man who led that force was Zhang Xianzhong, a legendary rebel who had competed with Li Zicheng in becoming the Ming dynasty’s most fearful enemy.⁹ In 1643, Zhang took Wuchang in Hubei and proclaimed himself Xi Wang, or the “King of the West.” However, Zhang was soon forced to abandon his holdings in Hubei under joint pressure from both the Ming and Li Zicheng’s forces. In early 1644, Zhang intruded into Sichuan at the same time as Li was attacking Beijing. Attempting to make Sichuan his base for his imperial aspirations, Zhang founded his own regime, Daxi, or the “Great West,” and enthroned himself as the emperor in Chengdu in late 1644. Although all the rumors depicted him as a cold-blooded monster, some eyewitnesses saw Zhang otherwise. Among these were two Jesuits, Louis Buglio of Sicily and Gabriel de Magalhães of Portugal, who had been captured by the rebels.¹⁰ According to de Magalhães, Zhang had tried hard to build a functional government. He even showed an interest in the Western sciences and promised to uphold Catholicism once he became the ruler of the entire country.¹¹ Although the cruel side of Zhang’s character would soon become manifest, de Magalhães admitted that in the beginning Zhang stirred some sanguine anticipations among the local people.¹²

Unable to verify those rumors telling that the area was engulfed in sheer terror and havoc, the Qing rulers must have taken the message with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the rumors certainly painted Sichuan as a place unworthy of being on top of their conquest agenda. On the other hand, Zhang’s regime building in Sichuan was deeply perplexing. For the Manchu conquerors an aimless bandit could be dealt with at a later time, but a competing regime could not be allowed to exist. Therefore, even though Sichuan itself did not display much strategic or economic significance to the conquerors, it seemed urgent to exterminate Zhang’s regime quickly. To this end, Dorgon sent two expeditions to Sichuan in 1646. The first one left the capital in early 1646 and was led by Holohoi, a Manchu general.¹³ Holohoi moved slowly, however, caught in fighting with the remnants of Li Zicheng’s forces in Shaanxi, and never made his way to Sichuan. The second expedition was sent in March, the chief commander being Haoge, the elder brother of the Shunzhi emperor.¹⁴ Being a loser in a power struggle with Dorgon two years earlier, Haoge remained a thorn in Dorgon’s flesh. Sending Haoge to the far Sichuan served Dorgon’s purpose to ostracize his rival away from Beijing and more important areas. Haoge was called back from Jiangnan when he was appointed the commander of the Sichuan expedition. Meanwhile, the choice of Haoge also demonstrated the gravity of the concern over Zhang’s regime in Sichuan on Dorgon’s part. After all, Haoge was one of the leading Qing generals. His expedition would be a sure cure for this nuisance. Sending Haoge to Sichuan was part of Dorgon’s strategy of killing two birds with one stone: to banish Haoge and to uproot Zhang’s regime.

It is worth noting that Haoge took with him only a relatively small Manchu force that was not proportional to the tasks of conquering Sichuan and clearing the province of all anti-Qing forces.¹⁵ In addition, the central government halted other troops’ movement to Sichuan and even suspended their operational funds.¹⁶ It is likely that Haoge himself understood the meaning of this assignment. When he arrived in Shaanxi, he delayed his marching to Sichuan for months.¹⁷ Yet his coming delivered a shockwave to Zhang, who was not prepared for an attack led by such a first-grade Manchu general. In October 1646, when he heard that Haoge and his cohorts were approaching Sichuan from the north, Zhang decided to abandon Sichuan and head toward Shaanxi. An obviously unwise decision, Zhang’s moving this direction would make his confrontation with Haoge inevitable. Before Zhang withdrew from Sichuan, however, he made an arrangement that would have a long-lasting impact on Sichuan and the two southwestern provinces after Zhang himself was dead: he divided his forces into four divisions led, respectively, by his four key generals and instructed them to operate independently if anything happened to himself. Zhang ultimately turned sinister toward the people of Sichuan, where he had failed to take root, and ordered massacres before his departure from Chengdu.

On February 1, 1647, Zhang encountered Haoge head-on in Xichong, central Sichuan, and was killed in battle; details about his death varied widely from one story to another.¹⁸ With Zhang’s death his regime collapsed, and Sichuan lay open to Haoge’s conquest. Haoge soon took Chengdu, only to find that the previously splendid provincial capital had been sacked by Yang Zhan, a former Ming official, in the interval between Zhang’s leaving and Haoge’s arrival.¹⁹ The countryside was no better: years of war and destruction had caused serious food shortages everywhere. Haoge let loose his soldiers in their food hunting; they fought each other, looted, and even killed residents who failed to surrender their food.²⁰ The worst occurred in Xuyong, southern Sichuan, where a detachment of Haoge’s had to eat weeds and kill all their horses and mules for food, finally resorting to cannibalism on every enemy they caught, as reported by the commander of the detachment.²¹ To make things worse, an epidemic erupted that killed many and drove others to flee.²² It is plausible that more people left their homes at this time to escape Haoge’s troops and the plague than during Zhang’s brief rule.

Having lost many of his soldiers in battle and to famine and diseases during his several-month stay in Sichuan, Haoge did not see any reason to linger longer in this inhospitable land. He retreated to Baoning, northern Sichuan, leaving behind Li Guoying, the newly appointed governor of Sichuan, and several thousands of Green Standard soldiers, who had been brought to Sichuan by Haoge. To prove that he had already conquered the province, Haoge hastily appointed a host of officials to administrative posts at various levels. But many of those appointees turned out later to be completely incompetent.²³ In the fall of 1647, Haoge reported to the central government that he had claimed Sichuan.²⁴ The Qing throne held a celebration upon receiving Haoge’s report and ordered him to return to Beijing shortly afterward. What was waiting for Haoge in Beijing was not awards, however. Instead, he was arrested and died in prison later that year. Although there is no question that Haoge’s demise was wrought by Dorgon, there is one thing that Dorgon got right: Haoge’s claim that Sichuan was pacified was premature.²⁵ Sichuan was not fully controlled by the Qing authorities for another dozen years after his leaving. What Haoge and his subordinates witnessed and experienced in Sichuan—the extent of famine and the severity of destruction were far more serious than the Manchu conquerors had expected—would reconfirm the disinterest of the new regime in occupying Sichuan at this crucial early stage.²⁶ Justifiably, they paid more attention to the other areas following Haoge’s withdrawal from Sichuan.

Similar to his own obscure status in Qing history, Haoge’s expedition to Sichuan has been overshadowed by the more popular stories about Zhang Xianzhong’s alleged massacres, by which nearly the entire population in Sichuan had been killed by Zhang...