Abstract
Grieving officials lined the road by which Dorgon’s body was returned to Beijing on January 8, 1651. The Shunzhi emperor was not yet 13 years old, but there would be no second regency. As early as January 17, the young monarch ordered that “all the business of the country’s governance be referred via memorial to Us,” and some weeks later, on March 12, he undercut the whole notion of princely rule by anathematizing Dorgon posthumously and indicting a few other Manchu aristocrats for, among other things, hijacking imperial communications and ruling in the shadow of the throne. The pendulum of political fortune, swinging violently since the late Ming, thus continued to operate in the early Qing. Yet this 1651 oscillation, which seemed to be in intra-Manchu politics a shift toward direct imperial control, would prove in the Chinese context to be a confused lurch in the other direction, toward some form of gentlemanly rule. The sword of power that Shunzhi grasped so impatiently turned out to be double edged, and neither he nor the gentry-officials who also aspired to it were ever fully able to wield it effectively. Shunzhi’s reign would end in considerable disappointment and frustration.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Da Qing Shizong Zhang (Shunzhi) huangdi shilu, ch. 51, 11a, ch. 54, 12a-13b, reprinted in Da Qing Shizong Zhang (Shunzhi) huangdi shilu, vol. 2, 596, 632–33; Frederic Wakeman Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 905–6.
Tu Lien-che, “Wu Wei-yeh,” in Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, ed. Arthur Hummel (Taipei: Ch’eng wen, 1972), 883;
Zhang Huijian, Ming Qing Jiangsu wenren nianbiao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban-she, 1986), 602, 627, 635–36;
Shen Yun, Sheng hu za lu (Mr. Shen of Jiaxing: 1918), 12b.
William S. Atwell, “From Education to Politics: The Fu She,” in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, ed. William Theodore de Bary et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), 349–50;
Jerry Dennerline, The Chia-ting Loyalists: Confucian Leadership and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 16–23, 30–39;
Lu Shiyi, “Fu She ji lue,” in Donglin shimo, ed. Wu Yingji et al. (Taipei: Guangwen shu ju, 1977), 207–8;
Xie Guozhen, Ming-Qing zhi ji dang-she yundong kao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 136;
He Zongmei, Ming mo Qing chu wenren jieshe yanjiu (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2004), 155–56;
Harry Miller, State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 106–11, 140–41.
Wei Qingyuan, Zhang Juzheng he Mingdai zhonghouqi zhengju (Guangzhou: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 8–12, 269–80;
John Meskill, Gentlemanly Interests and Wealth on the Tangtze Delta (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 1994), 132–33;
Willard Peterson, “Confucian Learning in Late Ming Thought,” in The Cambridge History of China, ed. Denis Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote, vol. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 730–31;
Gu Xiancheng, “Jian Wu Cheru guanglu,” in Jinggao cang gao, ch. 5, 18b-19a, reprinted in Siku quanshu, vol. 1292 (Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1986), 64;
Wu Weiye, “Fu she ji lue,” in Donglin shi mo, ed. Wu Yingji et al. (Taipei: Guangwen shuju, 1977), 158.
Zhang Huijian, Ming Qing Jiangsu wenren nianbiao, 636, 639–41; Feng Qiyong and Ye Junyuan, comps., Wu Meicun nianpu (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2007), 182, 190, 193, 200–201.
Wang Chenglan, “Qing chu jingshi Han guan de shenghuo kongjian he guanxi wangluo—yi Chen Mingxia he Liu Zhengzong wei ge an,” Jianghai xuekan 2007.6, 144–49; Tan Qian, “Chen Mingxia,” Bei you lu, ji wen xia (Hong Kong: Longmen shudian, 1969), 389.
Pan Zhifeng, “Wei Yijie de daotong lun,” Hebei daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 28, no. 3 (September 2003): 102.
Bay Huang, 1587, A Tear of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 42–44;
Liu Fangling, “Diwang daotonghua lixiang yu Qing chu shidafu dui jingyan rijiang de tuijin,” Yanshan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban) 10, no. 3 (September 2009): 88–89.
Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 37–2.
Copyright information
© 2013 Harry Miller
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Miller, H. (2013). The Shunzhi Emperor, 1651–1661. In: State versus Gentry in Early Qing Dynasty China, 1644–1699. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334060_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334060_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46255-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33406-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)