第十章
　　
　　中华帝国后期
　　
　　本章将概述中国的最后两个封建王朝，即明清时期政治，军事以及制度上的发展。由於本章的内容相对来讲比较简单，我们在上课时就不会专门去讲述它了。当然本章所论述的一些内容也会在我们讨论其它问题时出现。比如说，下一章我们将探讨社会历史学，并将明清两朝社会的一些重要的差别指出来。所以，请你们自学这段内容，如果有什么不清楚的地方请向老师提问。
　　
　　明王朝
　　
　　在明朝的早期，皇帝保持着一个庞大的军事力量，并且主动地扩张中国的领土以及中国在海外的利益。比如说，明朝的第三任皇帝曾五次亲自征讨蒙古。他还向印度洋一带派出了七次远航。这些远航到达了包括南亚以及东非沿岸的广大区域。的确，根据最新的考古发现，中国明代的远航周游了整个世界并且在哥伦布之前七十年就‘发现了’美洲大陆。纵观整部中国历史，只有在明朝的这个时期中国才称得上是一个‘海洋强权’。然而，政府中的仇外思想一直跟随着明朝扩张的倾向。与唐朝时中国的开放思想正好相反，明朝皇帝不允许中国人与外国人有任何官方以外的接触。当明朝逐渐成熟起来以后，它早期的扩张主义倾向就结束了。的确，后来当日本海盗不断的袭击中国的一些沿海地区的时候，明朝政府命令在那些地区的国人向内地移居，而且只是在非常不情愿的情况下才组织了有效的防御。中国变成了一个‘内向型’的国家，并且将这种对外界不敢兴趣的状态一直保持到了十九世纪后期。
　　
　　对於那些在政界的人们来说，明朝是一个既危险又充满困难的时期。所以不少士人都远离了政界并将他们的精力放在了对文化事业的热衷上。中国很多最优秀的小说都是在明朝写的。尽管小说这种文学形式在当时并不被主流文人所尊重，在今天许多明代小说都被广泛地看作是世界文学的经典著作。最著名的明代小说有《金瓶梅》、《三国演义》、《水浒传》以及《西游记》。在明代的上层社会小说很受欢迎(记住当时大多数的中国人都是文盲)，因为这些小说比起那些枯燥乏味以及充满道德说教的儒家经典更为有趣。比如说，《金瓶梅》这部作品比起任何现代小说著作在‘不正派’的程度上都是有过之而无不及。一些儒家的道德主义者们批判了像《金瓶梅》这样的小说，将它们看作是‘淫书’。不过似乎这些儒者们私下也读这些作品。明朝也许是中国色.情文化的顶峰。(当然道德主义者们会说这是一个低谷) 比起明代的皇帝，清朝的皇帝们更加‘清教主义’(这个词不是很恰当，但是没有比它更确切的了)，并且推广了限制许多色.情表达形式的一些政策。
　　
　　明代也是一个戏剧创造的高峰期。很多在这个时代写的戏剧都以梦为主题，这种表达方式让人们在创造戏剧的效果上有更大的自由。在十八世纪，很多经典的明代戏剧被大众化以后，产生了京剧这样一种艺术形式。京剧中包括许多精彩的杂技与演唱，直至今日它也非常受欢迎。
　　
　　从十七世纪二十年代开始，满州人就不断地侵略中国的领土。当时的满州即是今天中国东北部边缘的一些地区，与北朝鲜是一界之隔。在十七世纪早期，这些地区并不是中华帝国的领土。从文化上讲，满州人与蒙古人是近亲。蒙古人居住在满州以西的地区，并与满州人一样以游牧为生。在十七世纪二十年代，明王朝在军事上还是很有潜力的。但是当时的明朝缺少政治上的团结，而且还有一些很严重的经济问题。公元一六年，一个名叫李自成的国内叛军领袖攻陷了北京城。京城陷落以后，明朝的末代皇帝上吊自杀了，许多人也步了他的后尘。
　　
　　掌管财政的大臣倪元路[译者注：音译名]与全家十二口一起上吊自杀了。许多朝廷的重臣也都自杀了。[译者注：一些官衔名称不好翻译，故略]那些愿意与明王朝一起死去的中层与下层的官员不可胜数。大约有二百个妇女在紫禁城里的一条小河中自尽。
　　
　　尽管明王朝已无回天之力，但是许多官员与百姓却仍然忠于明朝。所以几乎在整个清朝时期，不少人仍然有着忠於明朝的情结。
　　
　　在李自成的军队大肆洗劫了京城以后，中国与满州的联军将叛军赶出了京城。之后，满州人在明朝的故都里建立了清王朝，中国的最后一个帝国朝代。[译者注：西人从来不用‘封建朝代(Fedual Dynasty) 这个称呼来命名中国的王朝，而是用‘帝国朝代’(Imperial Dynasty) 这个词]
　　
　　清王朝的建立
　　
　　清朝的皇帝基本上保持了明朝的制度，但是也作了一些重要的改变。第一个重大的改变就是在中国北方建立了满州的八旗制度。‘旗’是一个包括了数个军事殖民地的行政单位。这些军事殖民地有在战争期间向中央政府提供一定兵力的义务。满州一共有八个旗，各旗都有自己的属地。各旗中军事殖民地的成员在他们的属地上耕种并且享有减税以及其它的一些优惠政策。他们也有服兵役的义务。除了占大多数的满州八旗以外，清朝政府也建立了少量的中国旗[译者注：即汉军八旗]以及包括了其它民族的一些旗，如蒙古八旗。在清朝后期，八旗的效率衰退了，但是在清朝早期，它不失为维持强大军事组织的一种廉价途径。
　　
　　虽然满州军队占领了京都并且在周围地区建立了他们的八旗制度，直到将近半个世纪以后他们才彻底地征服了中华帝国。在中国南部有着大量的抵抗势力，它们一直维持到了十七世纪八十年代。忠於明朝的军队的最后一个根据地 - 台湾岛，于公元一六八三年陷落。从这时候起，整个中国都在满州人的统治之下，但是中国人的反满情绪一直维持到了王朝的末期。
　　
　　满州的皇帝运用了中国人的行政制度与文化，但是同时他们也保持了满州的文化。满州皇帝基本上极力试图去避免文化以及民族上的矛盾。这些满州的统治者们学习了中国人的语言以及文化，比如说，康熙大帝(一六六二 - 一七二二)是一位儒学以及中国文化的大师。历史学家Ray Huang曾指出：‘清朝皇帝一般来讲比清代以前中国本土朝代的皇帝更加接近中国传统中的理想帝王的形像。’清朝早期的皇帝汉化以后，运用着强硬但是却有效的统治政策，他们比明朝的任何皇帝都更加接近统治者的理想形像。中国人从明朝末年的问题中恢复了过来，并且达到了一定的繁荣。对於那些在明末清初时代中国的读书人来说，这是一个让他们左右为难的现象。而且这种为难在轻一些的程度上伴随着清朝所有时代的中国知识分子。
　　
　　按照孟子的政治理论，从价值论的角度来看，中国人民的满意程度要比统治者的来源更有价值并且重要的多。所以根据这个理论，中国人不应该反对清朝的统治。然而，从另一方面来看，当时的中国人如果服从满州人的统治就是通敌。这两方面的考虑造成了一些人心理内部斗争的来源。
　　
　　作为一个中国人，是应该为一个外来的蛮族人王朝服务，尽管它的统治很有效，还是应该站在忠於以前的明朝的角度上，或者是站在民族主义的角度上，即中国人不应该服从蛮族人，从而拒绝服从中央政府？可以说，这个问题在清代的每一个中国知识分子的脑海中都浮现过。即使是伟大的近代学者Qian Mu[译者注：不是很清楚是何人，所以并未翻译成汉语][转贴者注：应为钱穆] 也不例外。在一九零四年，当他八岁的时候，他非常惊讶地听到老师说中国的皇帝并不是中国人。
　　
　　“我的老师博贵[译者注：音译名] 对我说：‘你可知皇上并非中国人？’我感到非常的惊讶。我说我不知道。我回家以后就问了我的父亲。父亲对我说：‘你的老师说的对。皇上是满人，而我们是汉人。这就是为什么商店里的一些物品有汉满双语的标签。’”在清朝的大部分时期中国并没有现代意义上的民族主义。一种原因是，只有很少一部分人，即有知识的士人阶层，意识到他们自己是中国人。用现代民族的概念去看古代的情况，则很容易高估清代民族矛盾的程度。但是，在整个清代，中国人与满州人之间的矛盾仍然在一定程度上一直显然地或者潜在地存在着。
　　
　　清朝的皇帝一直非常注意中国书籍中对满州人以及其它北方蛮族采取批判态度的内容。清朝政府将这样的书籍全部烧掉，并且对与这些书籍有关系的人们采取非常严厉的惩罚。吕留良是一位反满的学者，医生以及和尚。他在公元一六八三年去世。他所著的反满书籍在中原地区秘密地流传着，这些书籍影响了一位名叫曾净的年轻教师去探讨关于推翻清朝统治的可能性。然而，他的计划被发现了，他本人也被捕了。经过了一番调查之后，雍正皇帝知道了吕留良的反满书籍仍然在流传。他勃然大怒，并将吕留良的尸体发掘了出来，将其碎尸万段。吕留良家族中所有的亲戚，不是沦为奴隶，就是被流放。而曾净却被出人意料地饶恕了。雍正皇帝用了他来做‘正面宣传’，只是将他谴责了一下，说他是一个容易上当受骗的人。不过好景不长，雍正皇帝死了以后，他的儿子乾隆皇帝以对父皇的忠孝为名义，取消了雍正皇帝宽厚的勒令，并将侮辱了父皇的曾净，不幸地在京城的市场里砍成了几段[转贴者注：即凌迟]。尽管总的来说，清代皇帝比起明代皇帝要仁慈一些，但是有一些事情显然是中国的满州统治者们无法饶恕的。
　　
　　虽然中国的新统治者们很快学会了中国的文化并且将他们自己描绘成儒家式的‘圣王’，他们仍然将满州文化的一部分强制性的在中国男子中推行了。作为中国人服从满州人统治的一个标志，清朝政府命令所有的男子都要将他们的发型梳理成满州式的。这种发型与中国式的发型截然不同，头前部的头发都要剃掉，其余的在头的后面留成一个长长的辫子。英文将此称之为‘Queue’。清代的图画与照片非常地容易确认，因为与清代以前以及以后不同，清代中所有的男子都毫无例外地留着长长的辫子。由於留辫子是一个政治行为，所以将辫子剪掉是一种反对满州的政治表态。在清代这样一种行为的代价是死刑。

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原文:

Chapter Ten:
　　
　　Late Imperial China
　　
　　This chapter covers some of the major political, military, and institutional developments during China's last two dynasties, the Ming and the Qing. Because the material here is relatively straightforward, we will not specifically cover it in class, though some of the points here will come up in the course of discussing other topics. The next chapter on social history, for example, makes important distinctions between conditions during the Ming dynasty and the changed situation during the Qing. So, study this material on your own, and ask about anything that is not clear.
　　
　　The Ming Dynasty
　　
　　The first Ming emperor was an odd combination of idealist and ruthless despot. He was a former Buddhist monk who developed a penchant for trying to spread Confucian moral values through the violent methods of the Legalist tradition. Those with an interest in amateur psychoanalysis sometimes theorize that the first Ming emperor suffered from an inferiority complex owing to *physical ugliness.* In any event, he was an activist emperor, writing in 1377:
　　
　　When the ruler, who settles a myriad exigencies every day, becomes negligent, then everything comes to a standstill and endless disasters result. Ever since taking the throne I have forced myself to be diligent. I come to court before dawn and go back to the palace after dark. When I can't sleep at night I get up and dress. Sometimes I scan the skies and take alarm if a star is out of place, and sometimes I ponder public matters, and if I find that something needs immediate action I make a written note of it so I can issue the appropriate orders at dawn. I would like to relax, of course, but I fear the Mandate of Heaven and have to do as I do.1
　　
　　Notice the emperor's concern over the Mandate of Heaven and with astrological portents (his taking alarm if a star is out of place). This emperor took his duty to regulate the harmony of the three realms most seriously.
　　
　　But the first Ming emperor had great difficulty regulating the human realm. He sought personally to wipe out corruption and immorality in his empire and saw himself as the people's teacher. As his reign went on, he became increasingly frustrated by the apparent impossibility of the task. He explained:
　　
　　The ancients instituted punishments in order to stop evil and quell violence, and they had others witness these so that they would not dare commit offenses. But now there exist such corrupt villains that they look upon the state's laws as nothing extraordinary and take punishment just the way they eat or drink. Though they are heavily punished and their limbs mutilated, their minds are so boggled by corruption that they blithely have no fear for themselves and commit even further acts that demand the death penalty.2
　　
　　As he became more frustrated the emperor became more violent. "Heavily punished" became an understatement for anyone who incurred his wrath. He regarded penal terror as moral medicine, and when it failed to have the desired effect, he increased the dose. In one case of corrupt high officials in 1386, he paraded them before their assembled colleagues. Then:
　　
　　I [the emperor] went in person to the Taiping Gate, I gave them [the corrupt officials] countless hard lashes, I cut off their feet, and I exhibited all this to the nonguilty ones of the Board. With my own eyes I witnessed this law and this punishment and my hair stood on end because of it. I was sure there would be no repetition of this crime.
　　
　　. . . I cut off their feet before the Board, and while the survivors were still in terrible pain and bleeding, and the corpses of the others had not yet been taken away [more official malfeasance was committed]. . . . Officials change good to evil and vice versa, subvert everything to fatten themselves with profit, and while many are executed the rest refuse to take it as a warning. . . . Alas, this is how foolhardy men's minds are. Just looking at this, I don't know how the world can be securely ordered. May wise men take note of this.3
　　
　　Here is an example of the conflict between emperor and officials we examined previously. Though he cut off the feet of corrupt officials for all to see, the act failed to change the others' behavīor or attitudes, at least in the emperor's mind. Notice in the above passages the emperor's near obsession with the law and punishment. While he frequently spoke of Confucius, he acted more like the first emperor of the Qin dynasty.
　　
　　Some policies of this emperor included abolishing slavery, setting up programs to rent farmland and equipment to landless persons at low rates, imposing high taxes on the rich, and otherwise attempting social and economic leveling on a vast scale. Mixing a variety of institutions from previous dynasties, the first Ming emperor set up a powerful centralized administration in which he alone had significant power and authority. The Ming was the most autocratic of China's dynasties, a development its founding emperor encouraged.
　　
　　Early Ming emperors maintained a large standing army and took an active role in expanding Chinese territory and interests abroad. The third emperor, for example, personally led five military campaigns into Mongolia. He also sent out seven naval expeditions into the Indian ocean. These expeditions explored large areas of South Asia and the coast of Africa. Indeed, according to some recent findings, these expeditions circled the globe and "discovered" the Americas about 70 years before Columbus. This period was the only time in China's history that it was a great naval power. Official xenophobia, however, accompanied this early Ming tendency to expand. For example, in striking contrast to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Tang dynasty, Ming emperors forbade Chinese to have any contact with foreigners except on official business. As the Ming dynasty matured, the expansionism of its early years came to an end. Indeed, for several years when Japanese pirate raids in certain coastal areas became a problem, the imperial court ordered all inhabitants of the areas to move inland, organizing effective defenses only reluctantly. China had turned inward, and would maintain this relative lack of interest in the outside world until the late nineteenth century.
　　
　　The first Ming emperor created a method of foreign relations commonly called the tribute system in English. He did not create the tribute system out of the blue, for previous dynasties had long expected foreign rulers who wished to trade with the Chinese empire to present gifts to the emperor and call them "tribute." What the first Ming emperor did was to systematize such practices. Wills explains one reason for the Ming creation of the tribute system:
　　
　　[T]he Ming founders, emperor and officials, shared the general revulsion against foreign rule and the compensatory reassertion of the superiority of every Chinese value and institution. One important expression of this was the insistence that all foreign contact with China take the form of carefully managed embassies bearing 'tribute' and acknowledging the supremacy of the Son of Heaven.4
　　
　　The starting assumption of the tribute system was that China was the center and source of world civilization. The peoples on China's periphery were comparatively barbaric--at least in the eyes of educated Chinese. That the people of these "barbarian" countries desired contact and trade with China and its civilization was understandable, but the Ming emperors determined to keep foreign trade and other contact under close scrutiny and control to serve their own purposes. In many respects *the Ming tribute system* was an extension of internal Chinese social relations (li) outward beyond the borders of the Chinese empire. This mode of foreign relations, and the assumptions behind it, continued to operate during the Qing dynasty, most significantly in the Qing empire's relationship with European countries (see later material in this chapter). In part because the Qing emperors were Manchus, Qing foreign relations with inner Asian countries were rather complex and did not always follow the relatively simple "tribute system" model presented here.
　　
　　Relations between the emperors and their officials were generally poor throughout the Ming dynasty. It was as if the increased authoritarian character of the Ming state caused greater bureaucratic intransigence. We have seen the frustration of the first Ming emperor in his unsuccessful attempts to use violence to bend the bureaucracy into his vision of ideal government officials. In contrast to the vigorous personal administration of the early Ming emperors, later emperors often allowed eunuchs to direct the workings of government. These later emperors still distrusted their officials, but they also lacked the will or interest personally to take the lead in affairs of state. They therefore allowed eunuchs to make decisions about matters of state, which led to the eunuchs becoming extremely powerful. Eunuchs were men, nearly always impoverished in their youth, who underwent castration to serve in the emperor's inner palace. Because of their strategic locations, some eunuchs got the emperor's ear and affected his thinking, decisions, and policies. Regular officials despised the eunuchs for their meddling in state affairs, and few eunuchs had any great liking for the scholar-officials. Allowing eunuchs to become powerful, therefore, was one way that an emperor could punish the bureaucracy without exerting a great deal of effort. Although eunuchs had sometimes become powerful in earlier dynasties, their power and influence reached new heights during the second half of the Ming dynasty.
　　
　　The most notorious example of an emperor relinquishing power to eunuchs was the Wanli emperor (r. 1573-1620). For reasons we need not examine here, he became so cynical that for roughly twenty years he essentially stopped working. John King Fairbank explains:
　　
　　The Wanli Emperor . . . became so disenchanted with the moralistic attacks and counterattacks of officials that he was thoroughly alienated from his imperial role. He finally resorted to vengeful tactics of blocking or ignoring the conduct of administration. For years on end he refused to see his ministers or act upon memorials. He refused to make necessary appointments. The whole top echelon of Ming administration became understaffed. In short, Wanli tried to forget about his imperial responsibility while squirreling away what he could for his private purse. Considering the emperor's required role as kingpin of the state, this personal rebellion against the bureaucracy was not only bankruptcy but treason.5
　　
　　With so much power and importance vested in the office of the emperor, one who decided to stop working could cause severe problems for the government.
　　
　　The last half of the Ming dynasty was a time of unimpressive emperors. One emperor, Xizong (r. 1620-27)6, had no apparent interest in anything except carpentry and woodworking. He built chairs and various kinds of furniture in his palace workshop and was apparently very good at it. So busy was he with woodworking that he never learned to read and write--quite an embarrassment in a culture that regarded writing as the highest form of cultural accomplishment. Under Xizong's reign, the dynasty's most notorious eunuch despot, Wei Zhongxian (1568-1627), came to power, presiding over a reign or terror while the emperor built furniture. Wills aptly characterizes the Ming emperors in general as "a most unimpressive line of individuals."7
　　
　　Let us turn to a famous example of a morally courageous official of the Ming dynasty. Hai Rui (1515-1587) began his career as an instructor at a government school. He worked his way up the ladder of officialdom, eventually becoming Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue. Blunt and fearless, in 1565 he wrote a scathing memorial to the reigning emperor, Shizong. The memorial charged the emperor with neglect of government, excessive interest in unusual religious ceremonies, and misuse of state funds to build extravagant palaces and mansions for himself. Hai Rui even compared the emperor unfavorably with certain infamous rulers of past dynasties.
　　
　　Enraged upon seeing the memorial, the emperor ordered guards to make sure *Hai Rui* did not escape. The guards answered that there was no need to worry. Hai Rui was calmly waiting outside and had even brought his own coffin along. The emperor realized that having Hai Rui killed immediately would make him a martyr, and all of his accusations against the emperor would ring true to other officials, who might then cause trouble. So the emperor had Hai Rui thrown in prison while the court manufactured evidence against the courageous official. Hai Rui was tortured and sentenced to death, but Emperor Shizong died unexpectedly, before the sentence could be carried out. The next emperor realized that he could use Hai Rui to enhance the imperial image by appearing to heed criticism and favor honest officials. Hai Rui resumed his official career, but his sharp criticism was not reserved for the emperor alone. He also managed to offend many other officials, which caused his *dismissal from office,* though only temporarily. Hai Rui was eventually "promoted" to the prestigious but "harmless" post of Censor-in-Chief of Nanjing. This post was a great honor but lacked actual power. After his death, Hai Rui became idealized as a perfect official and paragon of courageous remonstrance. Courageous remonstrance was one of the highest values in Chinese political culture, but those who actually practiced it were few.
　　
　　(In Ming times, and also today, a common technique for criticizing others in China was to compare them with certain historical figures. In 1962 Wu Han, Deputy Mayor of Beijing, wrote a play, Hai Rui Dismissed from Office (Hai Rui ba guan). The play featured Hai Rui as an honest minister who stood up for the common people but whom an autocratic emperor dismissed from office. Such a play might seem devoid of controversy at first glance, but at the time, many considered it a thinly veiled critique of China's autocratic leader Mao Zedong, who in 1959 dismissed his defense minister under circumstances similar to those Wu Han depicted in the play. Many historians regard a 1965 article denouncing Wu Han's play as the start of the Cultural Revolution.)
　　
　　The Ming dynasty was a dangerous, frustrating time for those involved in politics. Many would-be officials therefore stayed out of government and turned their attention to cultural pursuits. Many of China's greatest novels were written during the Ming dynasty. Although the novel was not a fully respected form of literature at the time, today many Ming novels are considered classics of world literature. The most famous Ming novels are The Golden Lotus (also known as Jin Ping Mei), The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin (also known as All Men Are Brothers), and Journey to the West. *Novels* were quite popular in Ming times among the well-to-do (remember, the majority of Chinese at this time were illiterate), who found them much more interesting than dry, moralistic Confucian literature. The Golden Lotus, for example is as racy as any modern novel, if not more so. Some Confucian moralists condemned this and other novels as pornography but still managed, it seems, to read them in private. The Ming dynasty was perhaps the high water mark for Chinese erotic culture (or low water mark, some moralists would say). The Qing emperors proved to be much more puritanical (for want of a better term) than their Ming counterparts and promoted policies to suppress many forms of sexual expression. (#more about novels#)
　　
　　The Ming dynasty was also a time of great activity in drama. Many plays written at this time took the form of dreams, which allowed for greater freedom of dramatic effect. In the eighteenth century, many classic dramas from the Ming dynasty were adapted to popular audiences. This process gave birth to #Beijing Opera,# featuring elaborate acrobatics and singing, which is still popular today.
　　
　　By the 1620s, the Manchus began to encroach on Chinese territory. The region known as Manchuria is today the extreme northeast portion of China, across the border from North Korea. In the early 1600s it was not part of the Chinese empire. The Manchus were cultural cousins of the Mongols, who lived farther to the west and pursued a similar lifestyle of nomadic herding. By the 1620s, the Ming dynasty was potentially still quite strong. It lacked political unity, however, and also faced serious financial problems. A domestic rebel, Li Zicheng, captured Beijing in 1644. When the capital fell, the last Ming emperor hung himself and many others took their own lives as well:
　　
　　Minister of Revenue Ni Yuanlu hanged himself, and twelve members of his household followed him. Others who committed suicide included the minister of works, the censor in chief, a vice minister of justice, and the chief justice of the Grand Court of Revision. Officials of middle grades and junior ranks who chose to die rather than survive the dynasty were countless. Some 200 women drowned themselves in the creek that flowed through the palace compound.8
　　
　　Although the Ming dynasty was not able to save itself, it retained the loyal support of many officials and other subjects. Throughout the next dynasty, there would remain a lingering feeling of loyalty to the memory of the fallen Ming.
　　
　　Combined Chinese and Manchu forces drove the rebel Li out of Beijing, though not before Li's soldiers went on a rampage of terror and looting. The Manchus set themselves up in the fallen Ming capital, thereby establishing China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing.
　　
　　Founding of the Qing Dynasty
　　
　　In general, the Qing emperors left the Ming system of government in place, but they made a few significant changes. The first major change was establishing the Manchu banner system in north China. A "Banner" was an administrative unit that consisted of several military colonies. These colonies were responsible for supplying designated numbers of soldiers to the government in times of military need. There were several banners, each with its own lands. The members of the military colonies engaged in agriculture and enjoyed tax and other benefits in return for their military service obligations. Most of the Banners were Manchu, but the dynasty did establish some Banners that consisted of Chinese or other ethnic groups such as Mongolians. The effectiveness of the banner system declined in the later part of the dynasty, but in early Qing times, it functioned well as a cost-effective way to maintain a powerful military organization.
　　
　　Although Manchu soldiers had taken the capital and established their banner system in the vicinity, it would be almost half a century before they completely conquered the Chinese empire. Resistance to the Manchus in the south of China was widespread and lasted into the 1680s. The last stronghold of the Ming loyalists was the island of Taiwan, which fell in 1683. It was at this point that all of China came under Manchu rule, but an undercurrent of Chinese resentment of the Manchus lingered throughout the life of the dynasty.
　　
　　The Manchu emperors embraced Chinese institutions and culture but simultaneously took steps to preserve Manchu culture. With a few exceptions, they went out of their way to avoid exacerbating cultural and ethnic tensions. The Manchu rulers undertook the study of Chinese language and culture, and the great Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722) was a master of the Confucian classics and other forms of Chinese literature. Ray Huang points out that "The Qing emperors, on the whole, lived much closer to the expectation of the Chinese tradition than did numerous indigenous rulers of preceding dynasties."9 Early Qing emperors became sinicized, ruled firmly but well, and came closer to the ideal of sage rulers than any emperor of the previous Ming dynasty. The population recovered from the problems of the late Ming years and prospered. This situation engendered a dilemma for those educated Chinese who had lived during the time of the Ming dynasty, and, to a lesser extent, educated Chinese any time in the Qing era:
　　
　　Traditional statecraft, growing out of the teachings of Mencius, taught them [educated Chinese] to value the satisfaction of the population at large regardless of the origin of the ruler . . . . On that count, they had no cause to raise their standard against the Qing. Yet, bound by the practice of those days, to acquiesce [to Manchu rule] was to collaborate, which would always be a source of inner conflict.10
　　
　　Should one serve an alien dynasty of "barbarians" that nevertheless ruled well, or, should one refuse to serve the state out of loyalty to the previous Ming dynasty or out of an ethnocentric sense that "Chinese" do not serve "barbarians?" It is safe to say that this issue crossed the mind of nearly every educated Chinese at one time or another during the Qing dynasty. Even the great modern scholar Qian Mu had to deal with these sorts of questions. At age eight, in 1904, he was shocked to hear from a teacher that the emperor of China was not Chinese:
　　
　　My teacher Bogui also told me, 'You know that our emperor is not Chinese, don't you?' I was shocked and said I didn't know. When I got home I asked my father about it. He said, 'Your teacher is right. Our emperor is a Manchu, and we are Han [Chinese] people. That's why there are sometimes things in the shops with both Han and Man[chu] writing.'11
　　
　　Throughout most of the Qing dynasty we do not find nationalism in the modern sense of the word.12 For one thing, only a small portion of the total population--persons with a high level of education--probably had a strong consciousness of themselves as distinctly "Chinese." It is easy to overstate the degree of ethnic tension at the time by reading our modern conceptions of "nation" into the premodern past. Still, some degree of Chinese-Manchu ethnic tension always existed at or below the surface of Qing China.
　　
　　Qing emperors were ever on the lookout for Chinese writings critical of Manchus or northern "barbarians" in general. Qing authorities burned such writings, and those associated with them would face severe punishment. Lu Liuliang was a bitterly anti-Manchu scholar, physician and monk who died in 1683. His anti-Manchu writings circulated underground in central China and inspired a young schoolteacher, Zeng Jing, to explore the possibility of overthrowing the Qing state. His plot was found out and he was arrested. Upon investigating the matter, the Yongzheng emperor became enraged that Lu's writings were in circulation. He responded by having Lu's corpse exhumed and dismembered. Then he had all of Lu's surviving relatives enslaved or exiled to remote locations. As for Zeng Jing, the emperor used him for positive publicity: "He made a dramatic gesture of pardoning Zeng with no more than a reprimand on the grounds that he had been gullible."13 But Zeng was not so fortunate in the long run. When the Yongzheng emperor died, his son, the new emperor, "Claiming filial loyalty to his insulted father . . . reversed Yongzheng's edict of clemency and ordered the unfortunate Zeng Jing . . . sliced to pieces in the market of [Beijing]."14 Though generally more benevolent than their Ming predecessors, there were some things China's Manchu rulers would not tolerate.
　　
　　Although China's new rulers quickly learned Chinese culture and presented themselves as Confucian sages, they did impose one aspect of Manchu culture onto the entire Chinese male population. As a sign of submission to Manchu rule, the dynasty required all males to wear their hair in Manchu style. This style differed markedly from Chinese style and required shaving some hair at the top of the forehead and allowing the rest to grow into a long braided ponytail. In English, this hair style is commonly called the *queue.* It is easy to identify pictures and photographs from the Qing period because men will inevitably have queues during this dynasty but not before or after. Because wearing the queue was a political act, cutting it was one way to make an anti-Manchu political statement--a statement punishable by death during Qing times.

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