No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Politics of Filiality: Justification for Imperial Action in Eighteenth Century China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Extract
The mid-Ch'ing monarchs are usually considered to have been hard-headed realists, acting the way they did because they had the personal and institutional power to do so. The corollary of this, however, appears to be that they were also moral hypocrites: time-serving Confucianists who trotted out the higher ethical values only to justify their actions or to camouflage them. This part of the theorum, I believe, is at once too simple and too modern. It reduces imperial action to the level of the Big Lie and makes of the monarch either a calculating schizophrenic, able to turn his Confucianism on and off at will, or a political pervert, checked in his Legalist promiscuity only by the intermittent remonstrances of a closed orthodox community. Worse, this view makes the monarch a philistine, working the system to his advantage but somehow standing outside it, as if he were exempt from the values he was manipulating.
- Type
- New Views of Ch'ing History: A Symposium
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1967
References
1 For genealogical data on Ch'ien-lung's mother, see Hsing-yüan chi-ch'ing (Genealogical tables: Ch'ing emperors and their offspring; separately titled and paginated volume of the set, Ai-hsin-chüch-lo tsung-p'u [Genealogical tables of Aisin Gioro], 8 vols., [n.p., n.d.]), p. 60; Tung-hua hi, Ch'ien-lung reign, 1:1; Ch'ing-shih (The Ch'ing history), 8 vols. (Taipei, 1961), V, 3496–97; Huang-shih ssu-p'u (Four biographical registers of the Ch'ing imperial house), 4 chüan, comp. T'ang Pang-chih (Shanghai, 1923), 1:8b–9b; Hummel, Arthur W., ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644–1912), 2 vols. (Washington, D. C., 1943, 1944), I, 369.Google Scholar
2 Edict of Nov. 14, 1749, in Nan-hsün sheng-tien (Record of four imperial southern tours), 120 chüan, comp. Kao Chin (last preface, 1771), 1:1b.
3 For the southern tours, see Nan-hsün sheng-tien, 1:13, 2:18, 3:9, 4:5; also Ch'ing-shih, I, 154–55, 165, 173, 177. In the empress' biography, Ch'ing-shih, V, 3496, she is said incorrectly to have gone on only three of the tours. For the visits to Wu-t'ai shan see Ch'ling-shih, I, 146, 153, 172; for the Confucian temple, 149, 184, 191; for Sung-shan and Kaifeng, in Honan, 154. For two slightly variant lists of Ch'ien-lung's official outings, see Hsiao I-shan, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih (Comprehensive history of the Ch'ing dynasty), 2 vols. (Shanghai, 1927–28), II, 57, and Huang-shih ssu-p'u, 1:9–96.
4 Ch'ing-shih, I, 138, 141, 144, 148, 152, 156 ff. Also, Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 57–58.
5 Among countless examples, see Ch'ing Kao-tsung ch'un-huang-ti shih-lu (Veritable records of the Ch'ien-lung reign), 1500 chüan (Tokyo, 1937–38), 350:4, 18b; 353:11b-12; 356:3b–4, 15, 17b; 360:21b–22; Ch'ing-shih, I, 139, 148; V, 3496. Among the birthday gifts in her later years were paintings, poems and essays executed by the emperor, sceptres, Buddhist icons, caps and robes, hair ornaments, gold, jade, rhinocerous horn and ivory, agate, crystal, glass, enamelware, ceramics, libationery tripods, rolls of silk, flowers, and fruit. See Ch'ing-shih, V, 3496. For a typical Birthday Honors list, see Kao-tsung shih-lu, 403:19–20.
6 Lo-shan t'ang ch'üan-chi (Complete collection of verse and prose from the Lo-shan hall), 40 chüan, by the Ch'ien-lung emperor (first printed 1737), 31:5–50. The title, “Respectfully in celebration of the imperial mother's birthday,” seems anachronistic, referring not to Yung-cheng's mother who died in 1723, one year before Ch'ien-lung is supposed to have begun his writing career, nor to his own, who was too lowly at the time to warrant the honors described, but rather to Yung-cheng's consort, Empress Hsiaoching (1681–1731), who by virtue of her status was “mother” to all Yung-cheng's sons. For a similar problem of identifying the imperial parent, see Charles O. Hucker, “Confucianism and the Chinese Censorial System,” in Confucianism in Action, ed. David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, 1959), p. 201.
7 For example, Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 60–61, and Yūzo, Sugimura, Ken-ryū kōtei (The Ch'ien-lung emperor; Tokyo, 1961), p. 16.Google Scholar
8 Nan-hsün sheng-tien, 1:1b–2. Italics mine.
9 Nan-hsün sheng-tien, 3:2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11.
10 Nan-hsün sheng-tien, Emperor's preface, p. 2b.
11 See Kao-tsung shih-lu, 380:18b–388:4.
12 For the following data, see Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 61–63. Cf. Waley, Arthur, Yuan Met, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet (London, 1956), pp. 54–57.Google Scholar
13 For the relevant edicts, see Nan-hsün sheng-tien, 1:7; 2:2–2b, 3b, 24; 89:5; 91:9b, 11, 12, 13–14.
14 Kao-tsung shih-lu, 387:9b, 12b; 388:1b, 3b, 6; Ch'ing-shih, I, 165, 166; Nan-hs¨n sheng-tien, 5:1.
15 Nan-hsün sheng-tien, 89:7, 9, 10. That such an anchorage in the main shipping channel could be a real hazard is attested as late as the nineteenth century. See Waley, Arthur, The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (London, 1958), p. 17.Google Scholar
16 Ch'ing-shih, VI, 4476. Also, Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 64, where it is quoted out of context.
17 Ch'ing-shih, VI, 4476. Ch'ing-shih lieh-chuan (Ch'ing biographies), 80 chüan (Shanghai, 1928), 30:29b—35b has no mention of the confession.
18 I refer specifically to the supposed remonstrances of Ku Tung-kao (1679–1759), Yin Hui-i (1691–1748), and Hang Shih-chün (1696–1773) in Ch'ing-shih chi-shih pen-mo (Topical history of the Ch'ing), 80 chüan, comp. Huang Hung-shou (Taipei reprint, 1959), 35:1b, 3b, and as reproduced verbatim as fact, without acknowledgement or correction of the obvious chronological discrepancies, notably in Yin's case, in Hsiao, Ch'ing-tai t'ung-shih, II, 63. Sugimura, Ken-ryū kōtei, p. 17, repeats the offence. The official record is silent.
19 Ch'ing-shih chi-shih pen-mo, 35:2 and Hsiao-ting tsa-lu (Miscellaneous notes from the Hsiao pavillion), 10 chüan, by Chi-hsiu chu-jen [Chao-lien] (Shanghai, Hung-chang shu-chü ed.), 10:24.
20 Ch'ing-shih, V, 3496.
21 Ch'ing-shih, I, 150, 152, 154.
22 Madame Dan Pao Tchao, Née Princess Shou Shan, Hsiang Fei, A Love Story of the Emperor Ch'ien-lung, 2nd ed. (Peiping, 1934), pp. 35–43. For another version, see Hummel, Eminent Chinese, I, 74.
23 Hsiao-t'ing tsa-lu, 1:10b.