Village civil cases in the Qing Dynasty mainly dealt with households and marriage,land,and debts,etc.It was not uncommon for village disputes to end up in court,which functioned as a vent to release the sense of griev...Village civil cases in the Qing Dynasty mainly dealt with households and marriage,land,and debts,etc.It was not uncommon for village disputes to end up in court,which functioned as a vent to release the sense of grievance felt by the disputants.Seemingly trivial cases were thus not trivial at all for those concerned.Prefectural or county officials’mishandling of a petty civil case could spark village conflicts.As a consequence,such trials were seen as a sensitive issue in rural governance.After the 1860s,the unequal treaties had allowed Western missionaries to proselytize deep into the North China countryside,offering“political protection”for their converts in an attempt to maximize their number.The missionaries interfered extensively in village judicial actions,taking the side of their converts in civil lawsuits that pitted church members against ordinary people.This led to a general situation of“deceitful converts against honest men,”making the latter feel they were the victims of injustice.The channels that would have allowed the ordinary villagers to vent their grievances via litigation were thus blocked up.Their accumulated resentment burst its barriers and finally exploded in the violence of the Boxer Uprising.展开更多
The central–local government relationship has always been an important topic for political research of the Late Qing period.Former researchers focused mainly on political systems,finding historical archives to explai...The central–local government relationship has always been an important topic for political research of the Late Qing period.Former researchers focused mainly on political systems,finding historical archives to explain how the Qing Court decentralized or centralized its power.These approaches fail to consider how local officials in fact reacted to central command.This research is an attempt to apply the social science method to a classical historical study.I firstly examine the various political decisions of governors when they were faced with a series of big events during the Boxer Uprising(1900–1901).After arranging them using strict criteria,I will conduct spatial and structural analysis on their diversity,and furthermore explore the internal and external influencing factors.Statistics indicate that governors of coastal provinces and of the provinces along the Yangtze River were more likely to express their opinions to the Qing court,while the North and Northeastern provinces tended to obey the central orders.Regional differences mainly have a positive correlation with provincial structural factors,such as revenue and relations with foreign powers.The correlations are also determined by personal political experience and resources of governors.展开更多
The introduction of Western science in order to change physical and operational aspects of Shanghai＇s Huangpu River had been debated by Qing and Western officials since almost the beginning of its history as a Treaty...The introduction of Western science in order to change physical and operational aspects of Shanghai＇s Huangpu River had been debated by Qing and Western officials since almost the beginning of its history as a Treaty Port. At stake in those debates was the perception of the river＇s proper use： as a natural barrier for military defense, or as a conduit for global trade. After the Western powers unified to militarily suppress the Boxer Uprising in 1900, they attained their long-awaited goal of the right to transform the river for global trade as part of Article 11 of the Boxer Protocol： the Junpuju （or Huangpu Conservancy Board） was created and authorized by the central government to make the Huangpu River navigable for shipping vessels. Although the Junpuju continued the ethos of earlier extra-bureaucratic organizations established during the Self-Strengthening Movement, after 1901 the organization bore the authority of the central government. During the era of the New Policies, Qing officials were intent on revising the original terms of river conservancy so that they would be more favorable to Chinese sovereignty. At the same time, imperialist rivalries among the Western powers ruptured the apparent unity of the earlier alliance during the suppression of the Boxer Uprising. Before long, Western corruption in the Huangpu River dredging was brought to the attention of Qing officials, who deftly used it to recover Qing control over certain parts of the body of the river.展开更多
This study of the introduction of telegraphy to China in the late-nineteenth century tells three interrelated stories： China＇s pursuit of telegraphic sovereignty with its strategic networking of the empire in the pe...This study of the introduction of telegraphy to China in the late-nineteenth century tells three interrelated stories： China＇s pursuit of telegraphic sovereignty with its strategic networking of the empire in the period 1881-99; the functioning of China＇s hybrid express courier-telegraphic communications infrastructure; and the international communications crisis during the Boxer Uprising and the ＂Siege of the Legations＂ in 1900. The material reality of two inter-connected networks--the privately owned Imperial Telegraph Administration network and the government-run telegraph network--allowed Qing-era Beijing and its provincial governors to communicate with much greater speed. The materiality of these networks--how this new communications technology affected the practical realities of government communications, including the ease of lateral communications between provincial governors--is explored in the context of the communications crisis of 1900. In May and June of 1900 all telegraph lines to Beijing, and throughout much of North China, were cut or otherwise destroyed. While these blinded Western governments are no longer able to exchange telegrams with their Beijing-based envoys, the Qing express courier system continued to operate. Moreover, both the court and provincial officials quickly improvised ad hoc telegraphic communication protocols through the use of ＂transfer telegrams＂ （zhuandian） that relied on mounted express couriers between Beijing and those North China telegraph stations with working network connections. This assessment of real-time secret imperial communications between the Qing court and the provinces is based on the documentary register Suishou dengji （Records of [documents] at hand） maintained by communications managers in the Grand Council. China lost its telegraphic sovereignty in the capital region when Allied troops occupied the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications in the summer and fall of 1900. Moreover, Western dreams of laying, landing, and controlling submarine cables on the China coast were finally realized in North China by the end of 1900. The British, therefore, were able to add a critical section to their planned global network of secure telegraphic communications. China＇s recognition of the Western and Japanese right of protecting the Beijing-Tianjin line ofcommunications was codified in Article 9 of the Boxer Protocol of September 1901. These losses of China＇s telegraphic sovereignty would not be completely reversed until after 1949.展开更多
Since 1990, New Chinese Military History in the West has remedied scholarly neglect of Chinese warfare and changed the usual stories of modern China. These studies disproved Orientalist assumptions of a unique ＂Chine...Since 1990, New Chinese Military History in the West has remedied scholarly neglect of Chinese warfare and changed the usual stories of modern China. These studies disproved Orientalist assumptions of a unique ＂Chinese way of war＂ or a strategic culture that avoided aggressive confrontation. Scholars also challenge the assumption that Confucian immobility led to a clash of civilizations and decisive defeat in the Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War, and Boxer War of 1900. In fact, Qing officials were quick and successful in creating a new military regime. New military histories of the warlords, the Sino-Japanese Wars, and the Chinese Civil War show that developing new types of warfare was central in creating the new nation. All these wars split the country into factions that were supported by outside powers： they were internationalized civil wars. The article also asks how the choice of terms, labels, and categories shapes interpretations and political messages.展开更多
Mo Yan＇s historical novel Sandalwood Death revisits the Boxer Uprising, exploring a local structure of feeling from the point of view of oral transmissions that, one hundred years after the events, appears gradually ...Mo Yan＇s historical novel Sandalwood Death revisits the Boxer Uprising, exploring a local structure of feeling from the point of view of oral transmissions that, one hundred years after the events, appears gradually to e receding into oblivion. It is a project of recuperation or, rather, aesthetic reconstruction of local knowledge. The staging of a variety of local performances, such as Maoqiang opera, seasonal festivals, military and religious parades, as well as of scenes of excessive violence in executions and battle scenes, appears to be a strategy for the cultural reclamation of these local experiences. The story challenges the ingrained dualism between foreign, modern imperialist and nationalist forms of rationality, and pre-modem, local patterns of beha- viour and thought. Employing polyphony and multivalent historical represent- tations, the novel aspires to portray the social dynamics in a given geo- historical circumstances by measuring the spatiotemporal as well as the cognitive distance between the witnessed event, the testifying witness and the future receivers of the transmitted stories. Thus, the inquiry does not focus on the historical events as facts, but rather on their cultural afterlife in （founding） narratives. In times of a growing gap between the modernist vision of human liberation and the actual conditions of growing inequality, delegitimization and dispossession, this tale of unrest in the wake of globalization has as much to say about the world＇s peoples around the year 2000, when the novel was published, as about the microcosm of Shandong Gaomi County around the year 1900, when the historical events took place. Taking into account that the novel was written as a local Maoqiang opera in the making and that theatres are major providers of cultural space for the enactment of the human self as the subject of history, Sandalwood Death can perhaps best be described as a theatre of reclamation.展开更多
文摘Village civil cases in the Qing Dynasty mainly dealt with households and marriage,land,and debts,etc.It was not uncommon for village disputes to end up in court,which functioned as a vent to release the sense of grievance felt by the disputants.Seemingly trivial cases were thus not trivial at all for those concerned.Prefectural or county officials’mishandling of a petty civil case could spark village conflicts.As a consequence,such trials were seen as a sensitive issue in rural governance.After the 1860s,the unequal treaties had allowed Western missionaries to proselytize deep into the North China countryside,offering“political protection”for their converts in an attempt to maximize their number.The missionaries interfered extensively in village judicial actions,taking the side of their converts in civil lawsuits that pitted church members against ordinary people.This led to a general situation of“deceitful converts against honest men,”making the latter feel they were the victims of injustice.The channels that would have allowed the ordinary villagers to vent their grievances via litigation were thus blocked up.Their accumulated resentment burst its barriers and finally exploded in the violence of the Boxer Uprising.
基金support of the China Scholarship Council and advises and helps from Professor James Tong in University of California,Los Angeles(Grant no.201406010081).
文摘The central–local government relationship has always been an important topic for political research of the Late Qing period.Former researchers focused mainly on political systems,finding historical archives to explain how the Qing Court decentralized or centralized its power.These approaches fail to consider how local officials in fact reacted to central command.This research is an attempt to apply the social science method to a classical historical study.I firstly examine the various political decisions of governors when they were faced with a series of big events during the Boxer Uprising(1900–1901).After arranging them using strict criteria,I will conduct spatial and structural analysis on their diversity,and furthermore explore the internal and external influencing factors.Statistics indicate that governors of coastal provinces and of the provinces along the Yangtze River were more likely to express their opinions to the Qing court,while the North and Northeastern provinces tended to obey the central orders.Regional differences mainly have a positive correlation with provincial structural factors,such as revenue and relations with foreign powers.The correlations are also determined by personal political experience and resources of governors.
文摘The introduction of Western science in order to change physical and operational aspects of Shanghai＇s Huangpu River had been debated by Qing and Western officials since almost the beginning of its history as a Treaty Port. At stake in those debates was the perception of the river＇s proper use： as a natural barrier for military defense, or as a conduit for global trade. After the Western powers unified to militarily suppress the Boxer Uprising in 1900, they attained their long-awaited goal of the right to transform the river for global trade as part of Article 11 of the Boxer Protocol： the Junpuju （or Huangpu Conservancy Board） was created and authorized by the central government to make the Huangpu River navigable for shipping vessels. Although the Junpuju continued the ethos of earlier extra-bureaucratic organizations established during the Self-Strengthening Movement, after 1901 the organization bore the authority of the central government. During the era of the New Policies, Qing officials were intent on revising the original terms of river conservancy so that they would be more favorable to Chinese sovereignty. At the same time, imperialist rivalries among the Western powers ruptured the apparent unity of the earlier alliance during the suppression of the Boxer Uprising. Before long, Western corruption in the Huangpu River dredging was brought to the attention of Qing officials, who deftly used it to recover Qing control over certain parts of the body of the river.
文摘This study of the introduction of telegraphy to China in the late-nineteenth century tells three interrelated stories： China＇s pursuit of telegraphic sovereignty with its strategic networking of the empire in the period 1881-99; the functioning of China＇s hybrid express courier-telegraphic communications infrastructure; and the international communications crisis during the Boxer Uprising and the ＂Siege of the Legations＂ in 1900. The material reality of two inter-connected networks--the privately owned Imperial Telegraph Administration network and the government-run telegraph network--allowed Qing-era Beijing and its provincial governors to communicate with much greater speed. The materiality of these networks--how this new communications technology affected the practical realities of government communications, including the ease of lateral communications between provincial governors--is explored in the context of the communications crisis of 1900. In May and June of 1900 all telegraph lines to Beijing, and throughout much of North China, were cut or otherwise destroyed. While these blinded Western governments are no longer able to exchange telegrams with their Beijing-based envoys, the Qing express courier system continued to operate. Moreover, both the court and provincial officials quickly improvised ad hoc telegraphic communication protocols through the use of ＂transfer telegrams＂ （zhuandian） that relied on mounted express couriers between Beijing and those North China telegraph stations with working network connections. This assessment of real-time secret imperial communications between the Qing court and the provinces is based on the documentary register Suishou dengji （Records of [documents] at hand） maintained by communications managers in the Grand Council. China lost its telegraphic sovereignty in the capital region when Allied troops occupied the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications in the summer and fall of 1900. Moreover, Western dreams of laying, landing, and controlling submarine cables on the China coast were finally realized in North China by the end of 1900. The British, therefore, were able to add a critical section to their planned global network of secure telegraphic communications. China＇s recognition of the Western and Japanese right of protecting the Beijing-Tianjin line ofcommunications was codified in Article 9 of the Boxer Protocol of September 1901. These losses of China＇s telegraphic sovereignty would not be completely reversed until after 1949.
文摘Since 1990, New Chinese Military History in the West has remedied scholarly neglect of Chinese warfare and changed the usual stories of modern China. These studies disproved Orientalist assumptions of a unique ＂Chinese way of war＂ or a strategic culture that avoided aggressive confrontation. Scholars also challenge the assumption that Confucian immobility led to a clash of civilizations and decisive defeat in the Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War, and Boxer War of 1900. In fact, Qing officials were quick and successful in creating a new military regime. New military histories of the warlords, the Sino-Japanese Wars, and the Chinese Civil War show that developing new types of warfare was central in creating the new nation. All these wars split the country into factions that were supported by outside powers： they were internationalized civil wars. The article also asks how the choice of terms, labels, and categories shapes interpretations and political messages.
文摘Mo Yan＇s historical novel Sandalwood Death revisits the Boxer Uprising, exploring a local structure of feeling from the point of view of oral transmissions that, one hundred years after the events, appears gradually to e receding into oblivion. It is a project of recuperation or, rather, aesthetic reconstruction of local knowledge. The staging of a variety of local performances, such as Maoqiang opera, seasonal festivals, military and religious parades, as well as of scenes of excessive violence in executions and battle scenes, appears to be a strategy for the cultural reclamation of these local experiences. The story challenges the ingrained dualism between foreign, modern imperialist and nationalist forms of rationality, and pre-modem, local patterns of beha- viour and thought. Employing polyphony and multivalent historical represent- tations, the novel aspires to portray the social dynamics in a given geo- historical circumstances by measuring the spatiotemporal as well as the cognitive distance between the witnessed event, the testifying witness and the future receivers of the transmitted stories. Thus, the inquiry does not focus on the historical events as facts, but rather on their cultural afterlife in （founding） narratives. In times of a growing gap between the modernist vision of human liberation and the actual conditions of growing inequality, delegitimization and dispossession, this tale of unrest in the wake of globalization has as much to say about the world＇s peoples around the year 2000, when the novel was published, as about the microcosm of Shandong Gaomi County around the year 1900, when the historical events took place. Taking into account that the novel was written as a local Maoqiang opera in the making and that theatres are major providers of cultural space for the enactment of the human self as the subject of history, Sandalwood Death can perhaps best be described as a theatre of reclamation.
