Visualizing Modern China: Image, History, and Memory, 1750–Present
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Figure 2.14 Intermediate day camp (jianying, dunying, or wu-dun; Manchu: uden-I ba), where the emperor and his guards would rest and take midday meals and which resembled the hunting camp depicted in Figure 12.8 ( see website). Qing huidian tu [Illustrations of the Qing Huidian]. c. 1899. From: Qing huidian tu. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991, v. 1, p. 1028, juan 104, 8a.
Here the irony and the lesson is that when we think about the visual impact of the southern tours, we actually cannot simply rely upon the court paintings of the southern tours. As we have seen, southern tour scrolls alone do not necessarily reveal whether encampments were used on Qianlong’s southern tours. Instead, the historian must rely upon written sources (administrative regulations, archival documents, imperial poetry, etc.) for that information.
So what use are Qing court paintings and other types of visual sources to us as students of history? What can or what do they reveal about the past? Clearly none of the court paintings necessarily represent reality in any direct (or positivistic) manner. On the contrary, they are themselves ideologically imbued documents that serve to maintain strict and stereotypical boundaries between northern and southern landscapes, between civil and military spheres, and between Chinese and Inner Asian cultural and political sensibilities. Curiously enough, Qianlong put Jesuits—namely, Giuseppe Castiglione, Ignatius Sichelbart (Ai Qimeng, 1708–1780), Denis Attiret (Wang Zhicheng, 1702–1768), and Jean-Damascène Salusti (An Deyi, d. 1781)—in charge of the “Illustrations of the Mulan Hunt” as well as the “Illustrations of Military Victories.” Meanwhile, he left Xu Yang, a court (artisan) painter from Suzhou, to direct the “Illustrations of the Southern Tours.” Might this rather stark division of labor between Jesuit and court (artisan) painters on the one hand, and Han literati painters on the other stem from Qianlong’s presumption that the latter group (Chinese literati) harbored some sort of cultural aversion (or at the very least a sensitivity) toward the painterly depiction of triumphantly martial motifs? This question is beyond the scope of the present study and is perhaps best left for more qualified colleagues to take up in future research.
In any case, the three sets of court paintings allow us to unravel an important skein of cultural reference, from which we might reconstruct important meanings associated with the use of encampments and ger (yurts) during the southern tours, a fact corroborated by written sources. Considered together and read against each other, the “Illustrations of Southern Tours,” “Illustrations of the Mulan Hunt,” and “Illustrations of Military Victories” form a neat visual taxonomy (or a symbolic index) in which tent encampments and Mongolian ger (yurts) are exclusively associated with Inner Asian landscapes and a highly mobile and militarized political culture. Meanwhile, the southern tour paintings are intended as a tribute to southern landscapes and political sensibilities. It is against this highly idealized and stereotypical southern landscape that painterly portrayals of encampments and Mongolian ger (yurts) would have been wholly out of place.
But if we read the southern tour paintings as a tribute to more delicate southern Chinese sensibilities, this does not necessarily mean that the southern tours themselves were also mere exercises in Han cultural appeasement. The southern tour paintings were viewed by a very limited audience with ready access to the inner palace complex in Beijing, where experts believe they were kept.13 However, the actual use of imperial encampments and Mongolian ger (yurts) during the southern tours actually played out on the ground in the Lower Yangtze delta to a much broader audience of spectators.
In the eyes of the emperor and the broader conquest elite, the use of imperial encampments during Qianlong’s southern tours alluded to more nomadic and tribal modes of governance and political organization in which mobility was itself a form of security and a sign of martial prowess. According to a well-known Qing noble and historian of the Qianlong era, Aisin Gioro Jooliyan (Zhao-lian, 1780–1833),14 the use of imperial encampments during imperial hunts as well as tours of inspection was undertaken not only “in reverence of simplicity and frugality” but also “for the purpose of remembering the origins” of the empire.15 Qianlong himself equated the use of encampments during his first southern tour with free-ranging mobility on the open steppe. In early May 1751, he composed a poem entitled “Felt Quarters” (zhanshi), which is worth quoting in full:
Lodging overnight on the overland route, We use “felt quarters” as usual.
The shadows of strong steeds fall upon empty window openings.
Moving about at will through both north and south,
In warm and cold weather, according to the seasons.
Immediately upon waking, We give orders to break camp,
And make proper arrangements to dispatch the scouts.
Whether on the move or in camp, the tents remain unaltered [constant].
Thus are they nicknamed “boats of the steppe.” [pingyuan zhi zhou]16
Han Chinese elites hailing from Jiangnan also recognized the martial connotations that inhered in Qianlong’s use of tent encampments. For example, Shen Deqian (1673–1769), a prominent poet and literary critic from Suzhou, described his imperial audiences with the Qianlong emperor in 1751 and 1757 as having occurred within the “military encampment” (wuzhang) pitched at the confluence of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal in Qingjiang.17
Many other Han elites who witnessed the use of imperial encampments in the south may have either consciously or unconsciously avoided such references precisely because encampments symbolized the court’s non-Chinese origins and ongoing preoccupations with Inner Asian diplomacy and military conquest. As noted earlier, the military encampments in the “Illustrations of Military Victories” were prominently painted on the walls of the ceremonial hall for military heroes—the Ziguang ge—in Beijing. This means that such images were seen by a public audience comprised of not only Inner Asian tributaries and courtiers, but also metropolitan officials, many of whom hailed from Jiangnan. Moreover, such scenes of Inner Asian conquest and diplomacy also circulated beyond official circles in the capital. In fact, prints of these very same conquest scenes (made from copper engravings etched in Paris18) were eventually installed at fourteen locations along the route of the southern tours in June of 1784 immediately after the completion of Qianlong’s sixth and final southern tour.19 The reception of local dignitaries and officials at encampments during the southern tours must have appeared quite similar or at least analogous to scenes from the “Illustrations of Military Victories” in which Inner Asian tribal leaders submitted to the Qing court’s authority (Figure 2.11, website, and Figure 2.12).
The Spectacle of a “Ruler on Horseback”: the Imperial Procession
In his well-known Record of Pleasure-Boat Yangzhou (Yangzhou huafang lu, c. 1795), Li Dou, an eighteenth-century denizen and local historian of Yangzhou, describes camps set up at docks approximately one mile (2–3 li) outside of city walls along the Grand Canal.20 The main structure at each of these dock encampments was a medium-sized tent with a Mongolian-style domed roof. We may fairly assume that this description refers to the intermediate day camps discussed above. Archival documents also indicate that boats carrying imperial bodyguards, Tibetan lamas, high officials from the Board of War, and twenty-four of the emperor’s steeds from the Palace Stud were the first to dock outside any urban center along the Grand Canal.21 We also know that the Superintendency of the Imperial Encampment was in charge of setting up and securing these dock camps as well as of preparing the necessary number of horses for entering cities such as Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou.22 Given the weight of this evidence, we may reasonably conclude that the dock encampments described by Li Dou were part and parcel of the emperor’s triumphal entries on horseback and served as staging areas for a series of ritually militarized parades through Lower Yangtze cities.23 This brings us to the visual impact of the imperial procession which centered upon the conspicuous display of a ruler on horseback.
The first two standard dynastic histories, Sima Qian’s Records o
f the Grand Historian (Shiji) and Ban Gu’s History of the Former (Western) Han Dynasty (Hanshu), both denigrated the act of “ruling from horseback” as an illegitimate mode of governance, based solely upon the use of military force. The locus classicus for this pejorative understanding of the trope “ruling from horseback” was the biography of Lu Jia, (re)written sometime between 200–400 CE.24 Lu Jia, a native of Chu renowned for his eloquence, served the Han dynasty founder, Liu Bang (a.k.a. Han Gaozu, r. 206–195 BCE), during the overthrow of the Qin dynasty. According to his biography in both the Shiji and Hanshu, Lu Jia incessantly urged the Han founder to heed the political teachings found in the Book of Poetry and the Book of Documents. Liu Bang, for his part, grew impatient and lambasted Lu, saying, “Indeed, We have obtained [the realm] on horseback. So how can We follow the Book of Poetry and the Book of Documents?!” Lu Jia responded with his now-famous adage, “Do you mean that if you take the realm on horseback you can rule it on horseback? (Ju mashang de zhi, ning keyi mashang zhizhi hu; 居馬上得之, 寧可以馬上治之乎)”25 In the final section of this essay, we will explore how, by reviving the practice of imperial touring, the Qianlong court attempted to transform the spectacle of “ruling from horseback” from a stigmatized sign of illegitimate military rule into a specific badge of ethno-dynastic (Manchu) discipline and diligence as well as benevolent civilian rule.
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that horseback riding became a marker of Manchu ethnic identity in the early- to mid-Qianlong period. The Qianlong emperor seized upon horseback riding as part of an essentialized “Manchu Way” that was supposed to simultaneously indicate and inculcate traits of martial prowess and vigor.26 Throughout the 1750s, the emperor voiced his concerns over the growing tendency among high-ranking Manchu officials to ride in sedan chairs. Qianlong saw this trend as a sign of laziness and dissipation among the conquest elite and responded by trying to encourage horseback riding in a number of ways. First, he issued a number of proclamations that explicitly prohibited Manchu officials from riding in sedan chairs. The corollary to this prohibition was a mandate that all high-ranking Manchu officials, regardless of whether they were serving in civil or military posts, were to ride on horseback instead.
Second and more germane to present discussion, the Qianlong emperor attempted to set a more positive example by personally embarking upon numerous imperial tours of inspection starting in the late-1740s. These included his southern tours. While in Suzhou on his second southern tour of 1757, Qianlong proclaimed in an edict:
Generals and provincial commanders are responsible for commanding officers and soldiers. If they enjoy their high position by living in ease and seeking comfort for themselves [that is, by riding in sedan chairs and carriages] then how will they be capable of leading the troops and instilling bravery by personal example? . . . Commanders and vice commanders of the metropolitan banner forces are all to ride on horseback, and Manchu vice directors [of the six boards] are forbidden to ride in sedan chairs. . . .
Qianlong concluded his tirade by emphasizing, “In the areas through which We tour, We continue to ride on horseback each day.”27
As this last statement clearly indicates, imperial tours of inspection were closely associated with horseback riding, which Qianlong, in turn, identified as an emblem of martial vigor and Manchu leadership. Imperial tours, then, were for Qianlong a means through which Manchu dominance might be secured, maintained, and displayed.28 In other words, imperial tours, including the southern tours, were occasions for the performance, preservation, and promotion of ethno-dynastic identity and virtue.
Not surprisingly, the spectacle of Qianlong’s ritual entries on horseback into urban centers appears in both the southern tour and the Mulan paintings—two genres of painting which are otherwise diametrically opposite in terms of their cultural references. In Figure 1.2 (see Introduction) we see an image of Qianlong’s triumphal entry into Suzhou via Xumen taken from the Qianlong-era southern tour scrolls. A similar scene also appears in the Mulan scrolls (Figure 2.15, see website) where we see Qianlong entering the summer palace complex at Chengde, again on horseback and surrounded by his bodyguard. We might also compare these images to a third painting (Figure 2.16, website) entitled “Qianlong Engaging in the Battue Hunt” (Qianlong congbo xingwei tuzhu).
Qianlong’s steeds in all three of these scenes appear to be tribute horses presented by Inner Asian tribes such as the Khalkas (in 1743) and Eastern Kazakhs (in 1757).29 The three scenes are set in very different locales: the first (Figure 1.2) being Suzhou, a quintessential literati city in the prosperous and Chinese-dominated south; the second (Figure 2.15, website) being the summer palace complex at Chengde, north of the Great Wall; and the third (Figure 2.16, website) being a battue site in the Mulan hunting complex itself, a bit further north of Chengde. Some minor differences in details notwithstanding,30 Qianlong’s bodyguards in all three paintings are dressed identically, as is the emperor himself—in plain-colored riding jackets (magua) and frocks. More importantly, all three paintings reinforce Qianlong’s image as an Inner Asian ruler on horseback surrounded by his most loyal Manchu and Mongolian troops—all of whom are, not surprisingly, on horseback as well.
As should be obvious by now, themes of martial prowess and ethnic difference also clearly mark the historical record of the southern tours but have rarely been noticed or commented upon by historians. In the final section of this paper we will explore how the Qianlong emperor also orchestrated spectacles of ruling from horseback in order to transvalue martial prowess and ethnic dominance into founts of benevolent civil rule as well.
Extending Ethnic Prerogatives by “Observing the People” while “Ruling from Horseback”
The image of a ruler on horseback was not restricted to court paintings, but also permeated Qianlong’s poetry. As mentioned above, Qianlong produced many poems while on tour, and they were meant for broad public consumption. In fact, the first chapters in gazetteers for prefectures—such as Yangzhou (1810), Suzhou (1824, 1877), and Hangzhou (1784)—consist entirely of reprinted imperial poems written during the southern tours.31 Qianlong ordered the compilation of his poetry while he moved through these areas, and he clearly wanted them to serve as a narrative record for posterity.32
As one might expect, the many poems that the Qianlong emperor composed (or had someone else compose) during his southern tours are replete with refutations against possible claims that he might be visiting the Lower Yangtze on a mere pleasure junket. Upon arriving in Suzhou in 1751, Qianlong wrote, “The imperial procession alights in old Suzhou. / This is for the purpose of taking measure of popular sentiments. How could it be for Our Own pleasure?”33 While riding his horse through Changzhou during his second southern tour, Qianlong wrote, “The purpose of coming to the South is to observe the people. / How could it be for the purpose of enjoying the wispy scenery?”34
Verses such as these can be found throughout the voluminous corpus of Qianlong’s southern tour poems. Clearly, he strove to present himself as an emperor hard at work, not hard at play. In doing so, he seized upon a canonical discourse of “observing the people” (guanmin). While in Suzhou in 1757, Qianlong declared that “in visiting the south, two matters are of utmost importance: inspecting the Yellow River and observing the people.”35
Qianlong was fully cognizant that “observing the people” was not only about seeing, but also about being seen. In early 1750, a full year before his inaugural southern tour began, Qianlong issued an edict “regarding preparation of the royal road” in which he insisted upon high visibility: “Although the view in some areas is interrupted or entirely blocked by straw and cloth bunting, the view from wide open spaces must be kept completely unobstructed.”36 On the day of his actual departure from Beijing, the emperor eagerly anticipated the “throngs of people” who had already “crowded city boulevards in order to gaze upon the imperial procession” and was pleased to hear that “the gentry, local elders, and commoners all hoped to draw close to the radi
ant aura of the imperial presence.” There was, however, one problem. Qianlong “truly feared that some local authorities were worried about overcrowding and might thus cordon off their jurisdictions ahead of time.” Nevertheless, he was adamant about keeping the niggling of petty bureaucrats from putting a damper on the show. “If the roads are wide and spacious and securing the route is not expected to cause undue congestion,” Qianlong wrote in a special edict, “then local officials are not to issue blanket prohibitions aimed at obstructing the sincere desire of ordinary subjects to draw near and gaze upon the emperor [zhanjiu].”37 Having reached Suzhou six weeks later, Qianlong proudly proclaimed: “Since entering the province [of Jiangsu] a short time ago, both elderly and young have eagerly come forth, drawing near and gazing upon the imperial procession. Their genuine admiration and respect are quite pleasing.”38 Li Dou echoed the emperor’s account: “Colorfully draped pavilions and waterborne stages were set up along the imperial route. All were a manifestation of deep sincerity. Every place through which [the imperial procession] passed was like this.”39 As Qianlong would have it, the act of gazing was mutual and suffused with specific meanings; it “both satisfied the [general populace’s] sincere desire for an imperial visit and provided occasion for Us to observe the flourishing of local customs and popular sentiments.”40 In short, the southern tours were for Qianlong a means of conjuring popular acclamation.
These well-rehearsed rituals of manufacturing consent were ideologically unassailable because the phrase “observing the people” alluded to canonical precepts of benevolent civil governance found in the Book of Changes (Yijing or Zhouyi),41 the Book of Poetry (Shijing or Mao Shi),42 and the Liji43 that were firmly supported by authoritative Han, Tang, and Song-era commentaries by well-known Confucian scholars: Zheng Xuan (127–200), Kong Yingda (574–648), and Zhu Xi (1130–1200). The Qianlong emperor’s stated desire to “allow common folk to draw nearer” so that they might “more easily gaze upon [Us]” dovetailed nicely with standard interpretations of the hexagram for “contemplation” (guan) in the Book of Changes. Qianlong elucidated his own interpretation of “observing the people” in a poem he composed on April 25, 1780, as he set out for Jiangning on the return leg of his fifth southern tour.44 The imperial interpretation derived from a canonical reading of the hexagram guan in which “a slight variation in the tonal stress gives the Chinese name for this hexagram [guan] a double meaning. It means both contemplating [that is—seeing, viewing, or observing] and being seen, in the sense of being an example. . . . The hexagram shows a ruler who contemplates the law of heaven above him and the ways of the people below, and who, by means of good government, sets a lofty example to the masses.”45