Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur |
Review of
Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of
Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2005.
Pp. xx, 725. ISBN 978-0-674-01684-2. |
Peter
Perdue, professor of history and Asian civilizations at MIT, is the
author of many publications on China and its role in Central Eurasia.[1]
The present complex and multi-faceted book recounts a vast enterprise
by three able Manchu rulers of China's Qing dynasty during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of the three protagonists at the
beginning of the struggle--China, Russia, and Zungharia--only the
first two survived at the end, the Zunghar state and people having
been eliminated and eastern Central Eurasia absorbed into the Chinese
empire. China Marches West is divided into five parts with
sixteen chapters, plus appendices, detailed footnotes, and an
extensive bibliography of archival and manuscript materials, published
primary sources in Russian and Chinese, and many secondary sources.
New and old maps, illustrations, plus an index and notes on names,
dates, weights, and measures make this book magisterial in scope.
Part
One, "The Formation of Eurasian States," provides background in three
chapters. Central Eurasia, extending from Ukraine to the Pacific Ocean
and Siberia to Tibet, was inhabited mainly by nomadic peoples with no
natural boundaries separating them. Most records concerning the nomads
were written by their "civilized" neighbors, who characterized them as
"universally greedy, primitive and poor" (21). Since ancient times
trade has linked the great civilizations bordering Central Eurasia,
most notably the Silk Road connecting the Chinese and Roman empires
and lands between. The region as a whole was politically united only
in the thirteenth century, under Genghis Khan and his successors. The
Chinese empire and the nomads of Central Eurasia rarely enjoyed
peaceful relations. Nomads raided the sedentary Chinese who retaliated
with punitive campaigns and wall building; stability was always
transient.
Most
of Part One relates the formation of three Central Eurasian states:
China, Russia, and Zungharia. In the late fourteenth century, a major
shift between the settled states and nomadic peoples of Central
Eurasia began with the defeat of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China by
the Han Chinese Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Early Ming warrior emperors
campaigned deep into Mongolia, pursuing the Mongols to the shores of
Lake Baikal, but failing to destroy them. The Mongols enjoyed a brief
resurgence under Tamerlane, but his death in 1405 brought disunity and
bitter strife between rival groups. After 1450, China relied on a
defensive strategy against the nomads by building defensive walls and
regulating border trade. Construction costs and the maintenance of
large garrisons along the Great Wall exhausted the Ming treasury and
contributed to the economic distress and peasant revolts that ended
the dynasty. The succeeding Qing dynasty (1644-1911) finally and
decisively solved China's two-millennia-long problem with the nomads
of Central Eurasia.
As
Ming power declined, a vassal chief named Nurhaci in northeast China
(Manchuria) began unifying his people, later named Manchus, who
practiced both farming and herding. He organized them into a
formidable army under a banner system with an effective
administration. Nurhaci and his son Hong Taiji recruited eastern
Mongols living in Manchuria and eastern Mongolia to be Manchu subject
allies and adapted the Mongol alphabet to create a written Manchu
language. They conciliated Han Chinese by creating banner units for
them also and recruiting them to staff the civil government. Luck then
transformed the emerging frontier Manchu state into a national
dynasty: after a peasant rebel army entered the Ming capital Beijing
in 1644 and the emperor committed suicide, the Ming army commander at
the eastern terminus of the Great Wall allied with the Manchu regent
(for Hong Taiji's five-year-old son) to oust the rebels. While the
Chinese general chased the rebels to their doom, the young boy was
placed on the vacant throne, becoming Emperor Sunzhi of the new, Qing
dynasty.
Meanwhile the westernmost Mongol realm, the Khanate of the Golden
Horde, was breaking apart. Muscovy (later Russia), its would-be
successor, emerged victorious by dealing with the Kazans and other
nomads much as the Manchus had in their successful relationship with
the eastern Mongols. After incorporating Kazan into the Russian
empire, the tsars continued expanding across Siberia to the Pacific,
using Cossacks to subdue native peoples and to build a chain of
fortresses along river banks to guard the conquests. The cold climate
and poor agricultural resources precluded large-scale settlement of
Siberia by Russian peasants. The area was, however, valuable for its
fur trade with China and Europe, and later for minerals. As Russians
advanced toward Lake Baikal in the seventeenth century, they met new
groups of western Mongols called Oirats, a branch of whom, later
called Zunghars, sought Russian help against the Manchus to their
east. Another Oirat tribe, called Kalmyks in Russia and Torghuts in
China, soon migrated westward and settled along the Volga River,
becoming Russian vassals.
A
Zunghar state in western Mongolia emerged under a chieftain named
Galdan. The Zunghars had converted to the Yellow Hat branch of Tibetan
Lamaist Buddhism headed by the Dalai Lama. Galdan Khan and his
successors and several incarnations of the Dalai Lama formed mutually
supporting relationships that offered prestige and sanctuary to the
Zunghars in their struggle against China. To prevent Tibetan support
of its antagonist, China moved to conquer neighboring Kokonor or
Qinghai and control Tibet. Although Zungharia was the smallest and
least powerful among the Central Eurasian states, it profited from a
trade route between Russia and China that crossed its territory.
In
Part Two, "Contending for Power" (chapters 4-7), Perdue treats the
century-long struggle between China and Zungharia that also involved
Russia diplomatically. In 1662, a seven-year-old boy ascended the Qing
throne as Emperor Kangxi. His sixty-one year reign, the longest in
China since the first century B.C., was one of the greatest: "Kangxi's
dynamic intervention [in Central Eurasia] transformed the Qing from a
promising but limited enterprise into an unprecedented project of
expansion. The Mongol campaigns signaled most definitively this
transformation of the Qing into a Central Eurasian empire with world
significance" (133). Kangxi had to deal early on with major rebellions
in southern China. Galdan, a nominal vassal of the Qing, seeking
recognition as the pre-eminent frontier lord of the Qing empire,
conquered two important oases, Hami and Turfan (in present-day
Xinjiang) to gain additional resources, then demanded part of Qinghai
for its access to Tibet. Kangxi, fearing collusion between Galdan and
the Dalai Lama, sought a peaceful solution to frontier tensions and
hoped to negotiate terms of trade, tribute, and other matters. But
Kangxi's conciliatory stance only emboldened Galdan, who drove the
Khalkhas, an eastern Mongol tribe, from their headquarters at
Karakorum and chased the defeated survivors into Chinese and Russian
territories.
Galdan
and his successors' capacity to cause chaos along their frontiers led
China and Russia to negotiate treaties (in 1689 and 1727) delineating
the border between their empires and stipulating the locations and
terms of trade between the two states and the repatriation of refugees
and deserters. The tribal nomads became subjects of either Russia or
China and were no longer free to move as they wished. Significantly
the Zunghars could not any longer play Russia against China and vice
versa. Perdue refutes the assertions of modern nationalistic Chinese
and Russian historians that their countries conceded too much in the
treaties, maintaining that realpolitik motivated both sides to
demarcate a boundary neither fully controlled.
In
1690, Kangxi personally launched a three-pronged campaign against
Galdan with 60,000 troops. Illness, blunders, supply problems, and
unrest in southern China prevented a decisive victory and Galdan
escaped. Kangxi used the next six years to solidify his relationship
with other Mongol tribes, notably the Khalkha. He invited their
leaders to a meeting at Dolon Nor, where he overawed them by a huge
display of Chinese military might, flattered them with lavish gifts,
and tamed them by fixing their tribal borders and imposing Manchu
officials to supervise their affairs. He also improved his supply
lines and took steps to cut communications between the Dalai Lama's
and Galdan's headquarters.
In
1696, Kangxi launched his second anti-Galdan campaign with three
armies totaling 72,970 men. Two hundred and thirty-five large and 104
light cannon had to be carried on camel backs for the last 580
kilometers. The units that set out from Beijing traveled 1,740 km. to
reach the appointed destination. Although decisively defeated at the
Battle of Jao Modo, Galdan and a few followers still escaped capture.
After two more campaigns, Kangxi accepted the surrender of
many Zunghars in their homeland and treated them generously. Galdan,
however, had again eluded capture, necessitating a new campaign in
1697. This brought the oases in southern Xinjiang and Qinghai under
Qing control and ended in Galdan's death by suicide or poisoning. At a
great victory celebration in Beijing, Galdan's remains were scattered
and obliterated, although most of his lieutenants, his wife, and
children were granted amnesty.
Although the Zunghar people survived, they caused no more trouble for
Kangxi, who had enjoyed campaigning with his men, living a rough camp
life, and diligently recording his experiences. At war's end, he set
his European Jesuit experts to map the conquests, which resulted in a
modern atlas of the empire. He also ordered scholars to set down a
detailed history of his campaigns, to signify that the nomads would
not reduce Qing China to a defensive posture as they had the previous
dynasty. His policies also presaged China's permanent control of the
northwest--the Qing would accomplish what its great predecessors, the
Han and Tang dynasties could not.
Although much reduced, the Zunghars were not finished because Galdan's
nephew and rival, Tsewang Rabdan, began rebuilding the shattered
state. He avoided clashes with the Qing, instead focusing on trade
with Siberia, developing good relations with Russia, and warring
against the Kazakhs to expand westward. For the remainder of his reign
Kangxi consolidated his control over Mongol tribes in Mongolia and
Xinjiang by planting military colonists in the oases, building roads,
and establishing granaries to stockpile food. He also sent one of his
sons on an expedition to Tibet that ousted Zunghar forces there and
began cleaning up the murderous intrigues among the Mongol chieftains
and clerics in selecting their top religious leaders, the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas. Under his grandson, Qianlong, China gained final
control over selecting the top lamas.
Kangxi's son and successor, Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1724-35), made it
his goal to finish the Zunghar state and secure Qing suzerainty over
Tibet. He brought Qinghai under firm control and severed the ties of
the Mongol people and lamaseries in Qinghai with the Dalai Lama. He
also removed the current Dalai Lama from power.
In
1727, Yongzheng negotiated the Treaty of Kaikchta, which fixed a
2,600-mile border between Russian Siberia and a Qing vassal, the
Khalkha Mongols, and prevented Russia from aiding the Zunghars in a
future showdown. Tsewang Rabdan died in 1727 and was succeeded by his
son, Galdan Tseren. Subsequent war between Qing and Zungharia yielded
no clear victor. Though Yongzheng had not taken personal command, he
blamed himself for not finishing his father's work. Being a diligent
and capable administrator, however, he made institutional reforms that
ensured ultimate victory.
Emperor Qianlong, Yongzheng's son and successor (r. 1736-95),
completed Kangxi's work by rebuilding the damaged economy and
improving the infrastructure that focused on northwestern China--a
project that took eighteen years--while maintaining peaceful trade
with the Zunghars. Meanwhile the Zunghar state suffered from civil
wars among Galdan's Tseren's three sons and daughter. In 1755,
Qianlong charged one of the sons with usurpation and sent in two
armies, each 25,000 strong. Thanks to the Treaty of Kaikchta, Russia
declined to help Zunghar leader Amursana, who fled to Russia in 1757
and soon died of smallpox. Perdue explains that
Large
number of Zunghars were submitting to the Qing, who regarded them with
great suspicion. Those who appeared "completely trustworthy" were
allowed to move to the interior pastures after September, 1757, but
the slightest indication of disloyalty
justified their extermination. The emperor clarified that he "did not
formerly have the intention [of eliminating the Zunghars]. It was only
because they repeatedly submitted and then rebelled that he had to
wipe them out." … With this policy, the Qing succeeded in imposing a
"final solution" to China's northwest frontier problem, which lasted
for about a century. The Zunghars disappeared as a state and a people
and the Zungharian steppe was almost completely depopulated (284-85).
A
contemporary official history estimated the total Zunghar population
at 600,000: 40% died of smallpox, 20% fled to Russia and Kazakh lands,
30% were killed by the Qing army, and the remainder, women and
children, were made bond servants. New groups of people were sent to
populate the empty space, including almost 100,000 surviving Torghuts
who returned from Russia rather than submit to military service
imposed by Tsarina Catherine II in 1771.
Part
Three of China Marches West, "The Economic Basis of Empire,"
comprises chapters 8-11. We learn that Zunghar leaders met their
military needs by developing trade and agriculture. They used Russian,
Swedish, and Chinese captives to teach their population a range of
skills including manufacturing, mining, and cartography. The Qing,
though faced with much greater logistical and economic
problems due to challenges of terrain--deserts, steppes, and
mountains, enjoyed far greater human and economic resources. Qing
leaders moved simultaneously along several fronts in preparation for
the struggle. Militarily they brought other frontier tribal areas of
mixed populations under firmer imperial control: for example, they
eliminated a back door for Zunghar infiltration of Tibet by
incorporating Qinghai, home to Mongols, Tibetans, and Han peoples. In
addition, Han and Manchu relocated to Qinghai promoted economic
development. Military colonists, poor farmers from neighboring Gansu
province, and convict exiles were settled in Xinjiang to develop
agriculture, horse raising, mining, and other economic activities,
which the government too optimistically hoped would create a
self-sufficient economy. Such policies followed Han- and Tang-dynasty
precedents and still continue under the People's Republic. Government
bureaus also kept precise statistical records of rainfall, harvest,
and public works, while efforts to relieve famine, something rare in
pre-modern governments, anticipated the modern welfare state.
In
Part Four, "Fixing Frontiers" (chapters 12-13), Perdue discusses how
modern Eurasian states established fixed, stable boundaries following
conquests. He notes, too, that early Qing emperors traveled widely,
Kangxi commanding armies and making tours of inspection. Though a desk
general, Qianlong spent four months a year throughout his reign
touring his realm, sometimes with Central Eurasian vassal chiefs in
tow to impress his subjects. Imperial tours, victory celebrations, the
commissioning of paintings and engravings of victorious battles, and
the erection of huge commemorative stone steles at battle sites, along
borders, and in the capital city reminded all of the dynasty's great
accomplishments. Stele texts were in four languages--Chinese, Manchu,
Mongolian, and Tibetan--showing the multiethnic composition of the
Qing empire. Qing monarchs broke new ground in commissioning
authoritative campaign histories to signify that their victories were
divinely willed.
In
Part Five, "Legacies and Implications" (chapters 14-16), Perdue traces
how early Qing achievements still impact modern China with its
multiethnic self-image. He also compares Qing accomplishments with
those of, for example, Russia, France, and the United States. In the
latter case, he points out that just as the Qing conquest of Central
Eurasia seemed to fulfill China's historic mission, so too, Americans
once idealized their country's expansion from coast to coast as
"Manifest Destiny." Perdue also debunks older interpretations of
China's growth, based on new evidence. He offers interesting ideas,
for instance, to explain why Qianlong took the decision to wipe out
the Zunghar people when victorious Chinese rulers had not previously
annihilated defeated foes. Han Chinese rulers had simply regarded the
nomads as beyond the pale of civilization and thus built walls to
segregate them. On the other hand, because Manchus also originated
from Central Eurasia, they naturally viewed Zunghars as humans, and
therefore expected them to respond to ethical appeals. Thus, when
Zunghars rejected Qing's moral persuasion, they were deemed traitors
whose extermination was justifiable.
China Marches West fully accomplishes its author's goal of
demonstrating that "The Qing conquest decisively changed the history
of the Chinese empire, the Russian empire, and the Central Eurasian
people between them" (518). In its scale and range of information,
this important scholarly book is a major contribution to the
literature of the history of early modern Central Eurasia. While too
detailed and complex for the general reader, it is must reading for
scholars and advanced students of the history of this area and era.
Eastern Michigan University
jupshur@emich.edu
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[1] See Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant
in Hunan, 1500-1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U Pr, 1987),
"Military Mobilization in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century
China, Russia, and Mongolia," Modern Asian Studies 30
(1996) 757-93, "Comparing Empires: Manchu Colonialism,"
International History Review 20 (1998) 255-62, and "Strange
Parallels across Eurasia," Social Science History 32 (2008)
263-79.
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