Rereading Modern Chinese History

384 Pages·2015·1.098 MB·English

by  Zhu Weizheng, Michael Dillon

Rereading Modern Chinese History
Brill’s Humanities in
China Library
Edited by
Zhang Longxi (City University of Hong Kong)
Axel Schneider (Universität Göttingen)
Volume 8
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bhcl
Rereading Modern Chinese
History
By
Zhu Weizheng†
Translated by
Michael Dillon
LEIDEN | BOSTON
This book is a result of the translation license agreement between Zhongxi Book Company, Shanghai
Century Publishing Group and Koninklijke Brill NV. This book is translated into English from the
original《重读近代史》(朱维铮著) (Chong du jindai shi, by Zhu Weizheng) with financial support from
the China Classics International of the General Administration of Press and Publication of China.
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1874-8023
isbn 978-90-04-29330-4 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-29331-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword ix
Preface xi
Translator’s Introduction 1
Part 1
Historical Uncertainties
1 ‘Backward Therefore Beaten’? 7
2 Questioning the Theory of the ‘Two Cannons’ 10
3 Three Questions on ‘Opening Their Eyes and Seeing the World’ 13
1 Who First Gazed on the Other Side of the World? 13
2 Can It Be That the Chinese Could Only Open Their Eyes When
They Saw Silver? 16
3 Can It Be Said That the Ancestors Closed Their Eyes and Blocked
Their Ears? 20
4 The Logic of ‘Being Modernised’ 24
5 Qing History and Modern History 27
6 The Necessity of Rereading Modern History 30
Part 2
Looking Back
7 Looking Back on the History of ‘Reform’ in the Qing Dynasty 35
8 Origins of ‘Reform’ 38
9 Resurrecting the ‘Statement of Accounts’ Tax Evasion Case 1661 41
10 ‘A Tertius is Not Worth a Single Cent’ 45
11 Manchus Inside, Han Outside and the Emphasis on Civil Over
Military Affairs 50
12 Manchu Han Twin-Track System (1) 54
13 Manchu-Han ‘Twin-Track System’ (2) 57
14 Change and Interchange of Heaven and Man 60
15 Looking Back at the Reign of the Yongzheng Emperor from the
Qianlong Period 64
16 Fake Draft Memorial in the Name of Sun Jiagan 69
vi contents
17 Literary Inquisition after the Death of Mao Qiling 75
18 Official History, Unofficial History and Jottings in the
Qing Dynasty 86
Part 3
On Reform or Modernisation
19 Dealing with Corruption under the Jiaqing Emperor 93
20 Looking at the Jiaqing ‘Reforms’ or ‘Modernisation’ 97
21 The Emperor’s Penitential Decree 100
22 The Qing Emperor Makes a Show of Conciliating the British
Ambassador 105
23 Napoleon Criticises the British 109
24 The Jiaqing Emperor and Napoleon 112
25 Purchase of Office during the Manchu Qing Dynasty 115
26 The Systematisation of Purchase of Office in the
‘High Qing’ 119
27 ‘Varieties’ of Purchase of Office 125
28 The Promotion of Purchasing Office 129
29 The Buying and Selling of Office in Fiction 136
30 Honest Officials and the Purchase of Office 141
31 Bao Shichen’s on Accumulated Wealth (Shuochu) 146
Part 4
The History of Opium
32 Opium from Medicine to Narcotic 153
33 Another Look at the Opium War 157
34 Was the Daoguang Emperor ‘Pitiful’? 160
35 Lin Zexu and Gong Zizhen 163
36 It is Necessary to Say More about Gong Zizhen 166
37 ‘Attacking Poison with Poison’ 170
38 Residual Doubts and Queries after the Opium War 174
Contents vii
Part 5
Gods and Sages
39 ‘The Way of the Gods Established the Teachings’ in the
Qing Dynasty 179
40 The ‘Present Holy Sage’ in Qing History 184
41 How Did Military Sages Prevail over Civilian Sages? 188
42 Ji Yun and ‘Basing Religious Teachings on the Divine Way’ 192
43 The Dual Effect of ‘Basing Religious Teachings on the
Divine Way’ 196
44 The Defeated Heavenly Kingdom 201
45 Issachar Roberts and Hong Xiuquan 205
46 Another Look at ‘Internal Strife in the Heavenly Capital’ 209
47 Plundering the Image of Taiping History Overseas 214
48 Zeng Guofan Gasps at ‘Strange Changes to the Confucian Code’ 218
49 Two Sages: Washington and Napoleon (I) 221
50 Two Sages: Washington and Napoleon (II) 226
Part 6
Rapidly Changing Times
51 The Disintegration of Power in the Late Qing (I) 233
52 The Disintegration of Power in the Late Qing (II) 237
53 ‘Establishing a Reservoir’, the Selection of a Crown Prince (I) 240
54 ‘Establishing a Reservoir’, the Selection of a Crown Prince (II) 244
55 ‘Summons to Interview’ under the Daoguang and
Xianfeng Emperors (I) 248
56 ‘Summons to Interview’ under the Daoguang and
Xianfeng Emperors (II) 252
57 Eleven Years of the Xianfeng Reign 255
58 A Historical Paradox 258
59 The Burning of the Old Summer Palace 261
60 More on the Burning of the Old Summer Palace 266
61 Sushun 270
62 The Coup against the Regency and Sushun 274
63 Sheng Bao’s Fall and Rise 278
64 To the End of the Xianfeng Reign 282
viii contents
Part 7
Problems of Political Reform
65 Learn from the Barbarians or Control the Barbarians? 287
66 Feng Guifen’s Protest from the Jiaobin Studio 290
67 The Grand Council in the Late Qing Period 295
68 Methods of Confucian Scholars during the Qing 299
69 Record of the Difficult Birth of the Zongli Yamen 302
70 Wenxiang and the Zongli Yamen 305
71 Wang Maoyin and Late Qing Views on Foreign Relations 309
72 Name and Reality of the Zongli Yamen in the Late Qing Period 313
73 Did the Manchu Qing ‘Inherit a Worn Out Process of Change’? 317
Part 8
Remembering the Empress Dowager Cixi
74 From Xianfeng to Cixi 321
75 The Legality of Cixi’s Regency 325
76 Shengbao and Cixi 328
77 Shengbao Had to Die 332
78 Cixi Does Away with the Conventions of the Manchu Qing 335
79 Empress Cixi 339
80 Who was Responsible for the Defeat in the 1894–5 War
with Japan? 343
81 The Empire Terminated by Cixi 349
Postscript 359
Index 361
Series Editors’ Foreword
The rise of China as an economic and political power is unquestionably one of
the most striking phenomena of global significance as we enter the first decade
of the twenty-first century. Ever since the end of the “Cultural Revolution”
and the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, tremendous changes have transformed
China from an isolated and relatively weak country into a rapidly developing
and dynamic society. The scale and speed of such transformations have taken
the world—even the Chinese themselves—by surprise; China today is drasti-
cally different from, and in a remarkably better condition than, China thirty
years ago despite the many economic, social, and political difficulties and
problems that yet remain to be dealt with. China scholars in Europe and North
America are called upon to provide information and explanation of the rise of
China, a country with history and tradition reaching back to antiquity and yet
showing amazing strength and cultural virility in the world today. Interest in
China is not limited to the traditional field of Sinology or China studies, nor is
it confined to the academic world of universities, for more and more people
outside of academia are curious about China, about its history and culture,
as well as the changes taking place in the contemporary world. The Western
news media brings images from China to every household; Sinologists or China
scholars publish numerous articles and books to satisfy the general need for
understanding: China is receiving a high-level of attention in the West today
whether we turn to the scholarly community or look at popular imagination.
In understanding China, however, very little is available in the West that
allows the average reader to have a glance at how China and its culture and
history are understood by the Chinese themselves. This seems a rather strange
omission, but in much of the twentieth century, the neglect of native Chinese
scholarship was justified on the grounds of a perception of political control in
China, where scholarship, particularly in the humanities and social sciences,
was dominated by party ideology and strictly followed a prescribed party line.
Such politically controlled scholarship was thought to be more propaganda
than real scholarship, and consequently Western scholars rarely referred to
contemporary Chinese scholarship in their works.
In the last thirty years, however, Chinese scholarship and public opinion,
like everything else in China, have undergone such tremendous changes that
the old stereotype of a politically controlled scholarship no longer holds. New
and important archaeological findings in China have changed our knowledge
of ancient texts and our understanding of Chinese history in significant ways,
and detailed studies of such new materials are available in native Chinese
x Series Editors’ Foreword
scholarship. Since the 1980s, many Chinese scholars have critically reflected
on the nature of scholarship and questioned the old dogma of political and
ideological orthodoxy, while many important books have been published that
present a new outlook on Chinese history and culture. The time has come for
Western scholars and other interested readers to engage academic perspec-
tives originating in China, and making important academic works from China
available in English is an important step in this engagement. Translation of
influential academic works from China will greatly contribute to our better
understanding of China from different perspectives and in different ways,
beyond the dichotomies of the inside and the outside, a native Chinese view
and a Western observer’s vantage point.
Brill’s Humanities in China Library is a newly established book series that
has been commissioned by Brill in response to that need. The series aims to
introduce important and representative works of native Chinese scholarship
in English translation, in which each volume is carefully selected and expertly
translated for the benefit of Western scholars as well as general readers who
have an interest in China and its culture but may not read the Chinese lan-
guage in the original. It is our hope that this series of representative books
in translation will be useful to both specialists and general readers for under-
standing China from a different point of view, and that it will be an important
step towards a fruitful dialogue and an exchange of ideas between Chinese and
Western scholars.
Zhang Longxi
Axel Schneider
July 29, 2008