The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Sue Tsao Endowment Fund in Chinese Studies.

The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

Macabe Keliher

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press

Oakland, California

© 2019 by Macabe Keliher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Keliher, Macabe, author.

Title: The Board of Rites and the making of Qing China / Macabe Keliher.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2019009763 (print) | LCCN 2019012903 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520971769 (e-book) | ISBN 9780520300293 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520971769 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: China. Li bu (Ministry of Rites) | Rites and ceremonies—China. | China—History—Qing dynasty, 1644-1912. | China—Politics and government—1644-1912. | Manchuria (China)—History.

Classification: LCC DS754 (ebook) | LCC DS754.K45 2020 (print) | DDC 951/.03—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009763

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For Chinglan and Yulan

青取之于藍而青于藍

—荀子

The dye of the indigo is more vivid than the indigo itself

—Xunzi

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

PART ONE. CONTEXT

1. Introduction: Li and the Qing State

2. The Manchu Ascendancy and Struggles for Power

PART TWO. FORMATION, 1631–1651

3. The New Year’s Day Ceremony

4. The Institution of the Emperor

5. The Administrative Order and Its Enactment

PART THREE. INSTITUTIONALIZATION, 1651–1690

6. Imperial Relatives in Service of the State

7. Completing the System: The Case of Imperial Dress

8. Codification: The Da Qing Huidian

Conclusion: Li, Qing China, and Early Modern Eurasia

Appendix One: Sons and Grandsons of Nurhaci and Šurhaci Mentioned in the Text

Appendix Two: Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji

Appendix Three: A Note on Sources

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations and Tables

FIGURES

1. Late Ming depiction of a Jurchen

2. Posthumous portrait of Hong Taiji

3. Page from the Manwen yuandang (Original Manchu records)

4. Winter Solstice ceremony at the Alter of Heaven

5. Court ceremony map

6. Ruby cap ornament

7. Winter hat

8. Qing general Zhang Zhiyuan

9. Ming dynasty Jiajing emperor

10. Ming ceremonial cap and gown

11. Cutting Manchu robes from Ming cloth

12. Qing court dress

13. Qing emperor’s winter robe

MAPS

1. Northeastern Eurasia circa mid-seventeenth century

2. The Imperial Palace in Beijing

TABLES

1. Qing Dynasty Ancestral Line of Rulers and Their Legitimizing Names and Burials.

2. Banner Lords under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji

MAP 1. Northeastern Eurasia circa mid-seventeenth century. Map by Than Saffel.

Preface

The present book is an inquiry into a key administrative organization of the Qing government (1636–1912), the Board of Rites (Libu). What did it do? How did it function? Who staffed it? What was its role in military conquest and administrative rule? And why did the Qing—or any other state for that matter—need such an organization? Although widely recognized as an important organ of the Qing bureaucracy that was involved in nearly all aspects of late imperial political and social life, no systematic attempt has previously been made to analyze the role and operations of the Board of Rites. Unlike other administrative institutions of the Qing government, such as the Grand Council or Imperial Household Department, both of which have dedicated monographs, the Board of Rites has not attracted its historians.¹ The reason for this becomes apparent upon review of documents and contemporary accounts of the Board of Rites: The main duties of the organization and its officials were related to something contemporaries called "li in Chinese and dorolon" in Manchu, or what we today might refer to as ceremonies, rituals, and rites imposed upon a rigid, hierarchical organization of political and social actors. Moderns have long deemed these activities non-ancillary to the real workings of government.² Likewise, although Board of Rites officials and regulations were ever present in Qing administrative affairs, on the surface, the nature of such activities seems to lie outside of the analytical categories of government with which we are most familiar, such as communications or finance.³

In recent years, historians have begun to recognize the contradiction between what contemporaries found important and what scholars have traditionally privileged, and have moved to address this shortcoming by investigating the practice and logic of rituals and ceremonies in the late imperial state. The work of such scholars as Chen Shuguo, James Hevia, Li Baochen, Evelyn Rawski, and Angela Zito, has not only illuminated a coherent system of intricate state rites and ceremonies but also demonstrated the importance of these activities in Qing governance.⁴ Their efforts have, in many ways, laid the groundwork for my own research. What they have not done, however, is explain the organizational nature of the Board of Rites and its role in the Qing political system, nor have they shown how the Qing system of li emerged to shape empire.

Rather than attempt to piece together an understanding of the Board of Rites and the institutional nature of li/dorolon/ritual from the perspective of the high Qing (eighteenth century), or grandiosely charting its imperial development from the Han (202 BCE–220 CE) onward, it seemed to me that the best way to understand the Board of Rites was to examine its origins and initial activity in the Qing administrative apparatus. Examining its establishment and early operations, as well as how contemporary state-makers articulated a rationale for its existence, not only yields insight into its place and importance in the operations of the Qing state but also helps explain how the political system of the Qing arose. This approach led me back to the beginnings of the Manchu state and the making of the Qing, with a focus on the establishment of the Board of Rites in 1631 and its particular role in the early state-formation process.

Diving into archival records and poring over other sources and accounts from the period, I began to chart what the Board of Rites did and how contemporary rulers, officials, and state-makers talked about it.⁵ It turns out the Board of Rites was involved in most aspects of the formation of the Qing state and its organization and operations—it was tasked with an eclectic array of activities from setting imperial protocol to navigating familial relations. Nonetheless, one clear theme emerged: The Board of Rites worked to establish modes of political domination and impose discipline. Far more than just overseeing ritual performance or undertaking an assortment of seemingly random ceremonial tasks, the Qing Board of Rites instilled discipline in the new political regime. Through the imposition of political hierarchies in the form of ranks and titles with attached behavioral practices and sumptuary rules, and the regulation of interpersonal relations through rituals, rites, and ceremonies, the Board of Rites helped define order—it engaged in the transition from uncertain struggles for power and political organization to the institutionalization of empire. It put politically and ethnically diverse actors into relation with each other and invested them with a sense of common purpose to conquer and rule. In short, the Board of Rites and the practices it instituted structured political relations and guided sovereigns, imperial relatives, officials, and other state-makers in their endeavors.

The present book emanates from this discovery. Proceeding from extensive archival evidence relating to the Board of Rites and key Board officials, the chapters that follow illuminate the instrumental role of the Board and its officials in the making of the Qing state. The book is divided into three parts, serving to mirror the process of Qing state-making: context, formation, and institutionalization.⁶ The chapters move chronologically, interrogating early conflicts and quests for political mastery, and charting the settlements and institutions that emerged in the early Qing. Beginning in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, part 1 outlines the early organization of the Jurchens (later called Manchus) under a charismatic leader, and details the ensuing struggles to determine and control the direction of empire. Part 2 turns to the process of state-formation. With the establishment of the Board of Rites and the administrative apparatus in 1631, li became increasingly important in shaping the outcome of political struggles and guiding the actions and choices of political actors. Over the next two decades, the rules, regulations, and practices that facilitated the construction of political order and its operating culture developed, beginning with ceremonial proceedings that defined political relations in the emergent state. It was during this time (1631–1651) that the role, position, and power of the emperor was developed, and the nature of administrative activity and official practices were determined.

The conquest of China proper and the seating of the Shunzhi emperor in 1651 initiated a process of institutionalizing the political arrangements formed over the past two decades. Part 3 analyzes these developments in the final stage of early Qing state-formation. Despite the establishment of the Qing empire some fifteen years prior, ongoing internal struggles among the Manchu elite led to the creative use of the new system of li for personal interests. Although this did not threaten the coherency of the political order, it did exacerbate infighting, prompting the imperial relatives and their allies to intensify their factional activities, whereby each worked to stage a convincing demonstration of his own role by drawing on the tools and institutions immediately available and legitimized by other organizational actors. This internal tension was compounded by issues arising from the expansion of territory under Qing control and the incorporation of large numbers of Chinese subjects. These developments raised questions about the nature of Qing sovereignty and how the sovereign would be represented—as a Manchu ruler or Chinese emperor.

The Board of Rites worked to address such issues in the latter half of the seventeenth century through a refinement and development of the system of li. In response to the problem of the imperial relatives, Board officials spun off a bureau to oversee the relatives and instituted arrangements of direct control, effectively nullifying the threat of the relatives and placing them in service of the state. At the same time, recognizing a transition in the nature of the state due to territorial and demographic expansion, officials simultaneously sought to assert sovereignty and political domination over both Manchu and Chinese subjects by completing the system of li through the development of a style of imperial dress that amalgamated both Chinese and Manchu traditions. The book concludes in 1690 with the consolidation of China proper and the publication of the first Qing administrative code, the Da Qing huidian. Premised on the Qing interpretation of the practices and rules of li, this text embodied all the regulations for the organization and operation of the Qing political system that had formed over the past sixty years; its compilation represented the culmination of this early stage of the making of the Qing state and set the terms for much of what would come after.

This monograph is based on my PhD dissertation, The Manchu Transformation of Li: Ritual, Politics and Law in the Making of Qing China, 1631–1690, completed at Harvard University in 2015. Some divergence and significant developments between the former and present work are the positive results of a three-year process that benefited immensely from the input of many individuals and organizations in Cambridge and well beyond. It thus pleases me to be able to offer my gratitude to all those involved throughout the research and production of this work on the Qing Board of Rites.

My mentors at Harvard were instrumental throughout the gestation, research, and writing of much of this work. My foremost thanks must go to my graduate school advisor, Mark C. Elliott, who helped shape the core ideas and set the research trajectory of this project, and to Michael Szonyi, who kept me focused on the significance of my story and constantly pushed to strengthen the arguments. I am equally grateful for the advice, input, and inspiration of Peter Bol, Michael Puett, and Daniel Smail. I can only hope that this final product has adequately incorporated their suggestions and addressed their concerns. Roberto Mangabeira Unger has inspired my thinking throughout, and his influence is all over the pages of my work. Our weekly and sometimes daily conversations over the years have been a source of insight on the fundamental questions of history and humanity, as well as in marrying scholarship with what really matters: to lead bigger lives, both individually and collectively.

I also wish to thank Edward McCord for his continued support and sustained interest in my work and development. His guidance has charted my direction in the field from the very beginning of my graduate student days, and his input on this project has not only helped frame the argument but also brought the final product home with a thorough reading of the manuscript. Likewise, Hsinchao Wu has seen the project at every stage of research and writing, and her tireless input and insight into all matters of content, context, and form have made this book as much a product of her genius as it is of my effort. To say that it would look much different without her is an understatement. Many long conversations with Christopher Isett in Taipei coffee shops have also informed my thinking here, and I am ever so appreciative of his thorough comments on an early draft, which resulted in what has become chapter 2 here, among other things.

Much of this project was researched and written in Taipei. My fondest memory is sitting in the document reading room of the National Palace Museum next to Professor Chuang Chi-fa and pestering him with questions about Manchu language and practices, which he generously tolerated and graciously answered. I was also fortunate to be able to study Manchu under him. Others in Taipei who shared their time, expertise, and insight include Chih-jou Jay Chen, Chen Hsi-yuan, Chi Ruu-hsuan, Lai Fushun, Wang Chen-main, Wu Jen-shu, and Yeh Kao-shu. The staff at the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library also went out of their way to track down references and dig up rare books, for which I am most grateful.

In Beijing, I was welcomed by some wonderful scholars and institutions. Yao Nianci has entertained me on numerous occasions over the years, and is a source of infinite knowledge and insight on seventeenth-century China. On more than one occasion, he led me through conceptual deadlocks and pushed me in new and unexplored directions. Liu Xiaomeng encouraged my inquiry and shared his knowledge and sources of the period, for which I am thankful. Liu Wenpeng was always a great resource, and I am grateful for his help in accessing materials at the Qing History Project. I would also like to thank Qiu Yuanyuan and Wang Tianchi. The history department at Peking University hosted a yearlong stay in Beijing; professors Guo Runtao and Li Xinfeng were particularly encouraging and supportive. The staff at the First Historical Archive were also of great help, especially Yang laoshi, as were the librarians in the rare book reading room at the National Library of China, Beijing, who helped me access original editions of the Manchu-language Kangxi Huidian.

I was most fortunate to have intellectual support and shared insight throughout the research and writing process. Ongoing discussions on China and the early modern world with Javier Cha, Subah Dayal, Lionel Jensen, John Lee, Ian Miller, Kaya Sahin, Jeffery Snyder-Reinke, and Matthew Vester have been most fruitful and extremely stimulating. A trip to Shenyang with Yinan Luo provided an opportunity to explore the old Manchu capital and the tombs of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, as well as continue our never-ending discussions of state-formation and social structures. I also wish to thank my graduate school cohort, including He Bian, Devon Dear, Devin Fitzgerald, John Kim, Max Oidtmann, Jake Ransohoff, Eric Schluessel, and Victor Siew; special thanks to Iiyama Tomoyasu for his help tracking down many Japanese references.

In preparing the final manuscript, I am humbled that so many took the time to read through an entire draft and offer such detailed feedback. Thomas Bouye, Michael G. Chang, Ed McCord, and David Porter not only closely read the manuscript but also made the trip to Morgantown to discuss it with me in a workshop. I am most grateful to them all, not least for encouraging what has become the form of the final preface. Likewise, this would be a more defective book without invaluable comments from Norman Kutcher, Evelyn Rawski, David Robinson, and an anonymous reviewer. I also thank Matthew Sommer for comments on drafts of chapters 5 and 6, and Geoffry Koziol for comments on chapter 3—it is Geoff who suggested framing the ritual here as a means to publicly humiliate others.

Numerous grants and institutions have made my work possible. A Fulbright Foundation grant gave me a full year in Taiwan, and the Fellowship for Doctoral Candidates at Academia Sinica extended it, while the Fredrick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship funded my work in China. Small grants from the American Historical Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the Fairbank and Asia Centers at Harvard allowed me to take periodic trips to archives in Taipei and Beijing. In Taipei, the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica and the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica sponsored my stay at various points, and the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library provided me office space during my tenure. A China Council Exchange Program scholarship from the Chinese government allowed me to live and work uninterrupted in Beijing and gave me an association with Peking University. The Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation supported my final year of dissertation writing, while a Jerome Hall Fellowship at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law gave me an uninterrupted postdoctoral year to continue work on the project, and an IU international research grant afforded a summer of follow-up archival work in Beijing. The History Department at West Virginia University provided me with a research budget and departmental travel grants for further archival trips, a Riggle Fellowship in the Humanities sponsored a summer in Taipei and Beijing, a WVU Humanities Center grant funded a summer of final revisions, and a WVU conference grant helped bring in scholars to workshop the manuscript. A Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS fellowship contributed to the final stages of research and revision, and the Clements Department of History at Southern Methodist University generously provided funding for the post-production process, despite my only very recent arrival in the department.

Portions of chapters two and six appeared first in The Problem of Imperial Relatives in Early Modern Empires and the Making of Qing China, American Historical Review 122, no. 4 (October 2017): 1001–37. Parts of chapter eight were published previously in "Administrative Law and the Making of the First Da Qing Huidian," Late Imperial China 37, no. 1 (June 2016): 55–107. A Chinese version of chapter five was published in under my Chinese name, Ke Li, as Li zhe xingzhenfa ye: shiqi shiji zhengzhi fenceng yu Qingchao xingzheng zhixu de jiangou, Fudan Law Review 3 (May 2016): 84–114.

PART ONE

Context

1

Introduction

Li and the Qing State

Li is the ultimate principle. When all things are embodied by this principle, then there is order.

—RITUAL MANUAL FOR THE QIANLONG EMPEROR, HUANGCHAO LIZHI, 1.1.

On the eleventh day of the fourth lunar month of 1636, in the cool spring dawn of Mukden, the Manchu capital, Hong Taiji adopted the title of emperor and announced the founding of the Qing empire. This double proclamation—that a new empire was born and its sovereign was to be known as emperor (Chinese, huangdi; Machu, hūwangdi)—was made amid a scripted ceremony to legitimize the act and lend authority to political actors. As the sky began to lighten in the pale morning hours, Hong Taiji led all his officials—Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese—out the palace gates to the suburban Altar of Heaven and Earth.¹ Participants dismounted from their horses and took positions according to rank. Hong Taiji ascended the altar and stood in the center facing north, where he occupied a symbolic position at the center of the universe—a place only the emperor could take to represent the human link between Heaven and Earth. He placed three sticks of incense in the burner and bowed; he presented three bolts of silk, and made three offerings of wine.² After each presentation, all in attendance performed a rite of obeisance of three genuflections and nine prostrations.³

Hong Taiji read a statement. It had been prepared for the ceremony, and its intended audience was no less than Heaven. I humbly inherit the enterprise of my forbearers, he began, and went on to express his constant devotion to and vexation of ruling over the past ten years. With the blessing of Heaven and the ancestors, Hong Taiji professed, he had been able to oversee accomplishments worthy of imperial formation: the subjugation of Chosŏn Korea, the pacification of the Mongols and bringing them under Manchu rule, expanding borders, and establishing territorial rule. Furthermore, all this was legitimized when he obtained the Yuan dynasty state seal from conquered Mongols. "Officials and people have promoted my accomplishments and asked that I take the title of emperor . . . but I have repeatedly declined doing so. They have insisted, and so I submit to their entreaties. . . . I take the position of emperor and establish the Qing state [jian guohao]."⁴

This proclamation was undoubtedly the climax, but the ceremony did not end there. Rites continued for the rest of the day and carried on for the duration of the following day. The founding announcement was repeated in Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese. More prostrations were made to Heaven and to the new emperor. Small precious gifts were given to Hong Taiji by his immediate relatives and Manchu leaders, and sacrifices were made at his father’s tomb. The next day, plaques were set in the ancestral temple, and posthumous titles were given to Hong Taiji’s ancestors going back seven generations to the founding ancestor, Möngke Temür. One black ox and one sheep were sacrificed before each ancestral placard. Hong Taiji again announced the founding of the Qing empire and his ascension to emperor, although this time not to Heaven but to his ancestors.

The ceremony was well attended. At hand were Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese political and military officials of the fledgling state, as well as foreign dignitaries and local Manchu leaders. These men both observed and participated; they not only witnessed the founding event but also, through their very presence, helped define the meaning of politics and society. The ceremony constructed a political world where ethnically diverse and independently ambitious men bound themselves in an ever-tightening bond in service of a common goal. This goal was expressed most immediately for the political community though state-prescribed socialized forms of interaction done in repetitive ways—that is, ritual.⁵ In this case, on this day, it was the ceremonial proceedings to announce the founding of a multiethnic empire.

STATE-MAKING THEORY AND THE QING STATE

The moment of the founding ceremony had been long in the making, and it would continue to reverberate for centuries throughout Eurasia. Before becoming the Qing, the Manchu—previously called Jurchens—were seminomadic and non-intensive agrarian peoples living in autonomous organizations and villages in northeastern Eurasia.⁶ In the late sixteenth century they began to organize under Hong Taiji’s father, Nurhaci, who placed them into socio-military units called banners. As military successes mounted and their numbers and territory grew, Nurhaci established a governing apparatus that relied on Manchu norms and laid the foundation for Hong Taiji’s Qing. A small bureaucracy was created and examinations administered; a tax-office state oversaw conquered territory and extracted agricultural surpluses. This furthered military conquest, enabling the expansion of territory, the subjugation of Mongol tribes, and the invasion of Korea, where the Chosŏn king was forced to recognize the Manchu rulers over the Ming dynasty. Simultaneously, Han Chinese political and military subjects were absorbed, and Qing armies went on to capture Beijing and then take all of China proper, eventually becoming one of the largest land-based empires in the early modern world. In many ways, the coronation ceremony confirmed the state-making enterprise and initiated what was to be nearly three centuries of Qing rule over China and parts of Inner Asia.

The significance of the Qing empire in Chinese history cannot be overstated. Like their early modern counterparts, Qing state-makers consolidated foreign kingdoms, developed new forms of imperial rule, incorporated different ethnic groups, and embraced various cultural practices. In governing, much like their contemporaries in the Ottoman, Mughal, and Russian empires, Qing statesmen further centralized power and focused greater authority in the sovereign; they built up a robust administrative apparatus and staffed it with multiethnic personnel, enabling effective responses to new challenges; they created a sophisticated communications and reporting system and extended far-reaching control throughout their realm. In addition to shaping the early modern world, the Qing also bestowed a legacy upon modern and contemporary China. As the last imperial dynasty to rule China, the Qing court abdicated in the early twentieth century only after losing the support of the gentry and military, and even then negotiated favorable terms for the imperial family. Such longevity and influence meant that remnants of the imperial state and its accomplishments would continue to cast a shadow over its successors, right up to the present day.⁷

A central aim of the present study is to explain the workings of the political system that made all this possible. The book takes as its subject not the institutions and activities of the military or bureaucracy, as has been most conventional. Instead, the focus is on the symbolic practices that structured domination and legitimized authority. The chapters that follow show that the ritual and disciplinary practices developed in the mid-seventeenth century not only defined power and authority but also played a key role in the construction of the Qing state and the shaping of the political system.⁸ In contrast to nearly every other aspect of the state-building process, no detailed examination has previously been made of the system of Qing political domination in what is widely considered to be a formative moment in early modern China. Even where discipline and symbolic power are central to the organization of diverse political actors and their obedience, as well as to legitimization, the subject is almost exclusively explored from the perspective of the high Qing, rather than the early formative years.⁹

One reason for this neglect is that scholars have been focused on the processes of war making and bureaucracy. In most accounts of Qing state-formation, historians emphasize these aspects of the story, military conquest and administrative rationalization. Often weaving these two developments in a single narrative, scholars highlight the innovative social organization of the banners, which rendered a society mobilized for war and enabled the conquest of not just China but also parts of Inner Asia, greatly expanding the territorial control and ethnic composition of the empire. In most narratives, this historical development was accompanied by the implementation of administrative institutions and procedures required to govern a vast territory: a bureaucracy based on the model of the Ming’s six boards and field administration, a censorate to oversee officials and remonstrate, examinations to staff positions, and a judicial system with comprehensive legal codes. Together, the conventional story goes, these two developments—conquest and bureaucracy—produced the Qing state.¹⁰

The focus on military and state capacity is not surprising. The most influential theories on state-formation point to the emergence of early modern and modern states by way of military competition in the Western European theater. As rulers waged war, the theory goes, they needed to raise money, increase taxes, conscript men, register and keep track of populations, control unrest, and administer both new and old subjects. Concurrently, the development of more robust administrative and financial apparatuses furthered the capacity of the state to wage and win wars. In the words of Charles Tilly, War made the state, and the state made war.¹¹ Although early modern China differed from the European states that Tilly and his interlocutors have discussed, historians of China have for good reason found the theory useful in analyzing the Qing, both to understand the rise of a powerful and expansive empire, and to place China in comparative perspective with the rest of the world.¹² To this end, historians of China have succeeded in utilizing these general social theories to chart the rise and development of the Qing, just as historians of other non-European states have also done.¹³

This book is concerned with a third aspect of state-formation: discipline and domination. Recent work on other early modern states shows war and bureaucracy to be necessary but insufficient in state-building. Moreover, the discovery of new documentary sources and a reexamination of old ones point to other, simultaneous concerns and problems.¹⁴ The time is thus ripe to review our understanding of the making of Qing China. Doing so will not only help to explain the rise of the Qing empire but also shed light on more general trends occurring throughout early modern Eurasia.

Something more than war and institutions are required to produce social and political order: namely, coercion. Taking up the cases of early modern Germany and the Netherlands, Philip Gorski argues, What steam did for the modern economy . . . discipline did for the modern polity: by creating more obedient and industrious subjects with less coercion and violence, discipline dramatically increased, not only the regulatory power of the state, but its extractive and coercive capacities as well.¹⁵ To complete a ruling apparatus of military and administrative institutions, other techniques were needed to compel and coerce individuals and groups to partake in certain types of political and social activities linked to the abstract concept of the polity defined by the amorphous idea of the state beyond the ruler. In addition, legitimacy had to be sought, constructed, and conferred, and done so in ways that not only justified existing social relationships but also helped create new ones. In short, people had to obey, and to do so not because of any threat of force, but because they wished to do so.¹⁶

This matter is not simply the abstract speculation of the modern-day historian; it goes to the heart of some of the most fundamental concerns of early modern actors. In the case of the Qing, contemporary sources show that simultaneous with the determination of military power and the establishment of an administrative apparatus, relational and organizational problems vexed state-makers—problems of rulership, for one. An emperor stood at the top of a hierarchy and could theoretically do things others could not, such as issue orders and sacrifice to Heaven. How, then, should he interact with his relatives and other civil and military officials? How might he greet others in passing, or speak about affairs of the state? As the final arbiter of political matters, he was to make and issue policy decisions; but how to promulgate them? How would political meetings take place? In short, how to be emperor? Similarly, there were questions about politics and the political order: How to invest a diverse group of actors, possessed of individual interests, with a sense of common purpose to conquer and rule? What means of political organization could keep internal personal and political tensions at bay and mitigate factional dispute, especially in the face of policy debates with the potential to disturb the social and political structures of the state? Even more critically, how to not only dampen the inevitable challenges and disruptions of political actors but at the same time harness their energy and ingenuity in the running of the state? And what to do with the imperial relatives, who could help the ruler but also undermine his position? Should they be exiled, politically castrated, or made to serve?

As solutions to these problems were devised and agreements reached in the 1630s and 1640s in conjunction with waging war and institution-building, state-makers’ efforts gradually shifted to solidifying gains and making arrangements permanent. Guarantees were needed to secure the existing settlements of power and position, and to give the emergent system and those operating within it some degree of predictability. Actors not only demanded stability in their daily operations but also called for generational guarantees for the future of their families. The overriding concern was how to turn normative agreements into objective institutions that structured political and social relations and defined the state.

For the historian to understand the answers that contemporaries arrived at, it is not enough to chart military accomplishments, outline bureaucratic efficiency, or analyze legal codes; in addition, disciplinary practices and the nature of domination must also be considered. Power begets authority, but not without discipline and legitimization, for naked force cannot produce domination.¹⁷ In the words of Max Weber, "Every genuine form of domination implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that is, an interest (based on ulterior motives or genuine acceptance) in obedience."¹⁸ For such consideration, however, the Qing political system as a whole needs to come into focus, not just a single aspect divorced from the totality of its operations. This is to acknowledge that the forms of discipline and domination in the Qing were intertwined with the emergence of the relations of power; they were not the adopted vestiges of Han Chinese culture, nor were they practices imposed once the political regime was set up. Rather, domination was an integral part of the system itself.

Accounting for this aspect of the Qing political system compels one to rethink the dynamics of the state-formation process. Identifying the emergence of new practices of discipline and the establishment of new institutions of domination shifts the emphasis from the Qing state as a phenomenon of late imperial China—where there is a fluid transition from the Ming, and innovation and empire commence in the eighteenth century—to the process of the construction of rulership, administrative practice, and politics.¹⁹ The tendency of the former position to regard the rise of the Qing and its conquest of China as historical fact overlooks the ingenuity applied in that rise and the innovations that fueled it.²⁰ While it does offer an explanation of how a small band of seminomadic warriors built an early modern empire, it is a regrettably linear one that focuses on the ability to make war, and to borrow and wield Chinese organizations and practices; it misses the equally important reshaping of the political order and its culture. To take into account the nature of the internal struggles for power and direction, the molding of authority, the imposition of legitimacy, and the processes of institutionalization not only provides a key part of the explanation of the making of the Qing empire but also illuminates the nature of politics and the structure of domination in late imperial China.

Recognizing the importance of discipline and culture in early modern state-formation also helps explain political and social developments in the early modern world. The number, frequency, and impact of formal ceremonial and behavioral activities in everything from political and social stratification to circumcision ceremonies grew throughout Eurasia from approximately 1400 to 1800.²¹ Rulers, ministers, officials, and other state-makers, from Tudor England to Tokugawa Japan, became increasingly concerned with aspects of rank and status, as well as with the upholding of norms assigned to those positions and titles; they