States and society in 18th century china

Jessica Breedlove- Notes States and Society in 18th Century China (by Albert Feuerwerker) Emperor- The Chinese Emperor was Manchu, but the officials were Chinese& Mongols. $ mattered in obtaining position, because you had to have money to get an education. There were different levels of degrees (academic). The highest was Chin-shih, and that gave you automatic appointment into middle ranks of imperial bureaucracy. Military- Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, the armed forces of the Ch'ing empire consisted of two components: the banner system, and the ;'Army of the Green Standard" (LU-ylng), a force developed from the remnants of the Ming military system". -The latter were employed primarily to keep order within the country, while the banner sytem protected the outer boundries. (pg 13-14)

Communication within the Govt.- Initial system (not really discreet), t'i-pen, which generally concerned local civil affairs and were or became public documents --in the sense that they passed through so many hands that their contents frequently became Widely known. tsou-pen (or tsou-che from 1747). This procedure originated in the efforts of the K'ang-hsi emperor in the 1690s to obtain accurate private information from the provinces by requesting Chinese "bondservants" whom he particularly trusted to submit periodic secret reports directly to the throne. The number of tsou-che received daily was considerably less than the numerous t'i-pen; this, together with the secretness and relative informality of their consideration by the ruler and grand councillors, insured that the more urgent matters of state usually received careful attention.

Cases under the Penal law: Magistrate -> Judicial Commissioner -> Board of Punishments (exercised all punishments except cases punishable by death). The Three High Courts took care of the ones punishable by death, but they needed direct permission from the Emperor.

-Note, there was a danger of the Emperor being isolated- or information withheld from him.

Local government--the hsien magistrate's expenses and the sustenance of his numerous underlings, as well as similar outlays- at higher levels of the provincial hierarchy--was financed primarily by the collection of "customary fees" (lou-kuei, literally "base custom") from the population of the departments and districts.

“As a result of its legislative, executive, and judicial actions, a government would expect to accomplish certain ends, among them: to remain in power, to defend state and society against external enemies, to suppress internal rebellion, to maintain the social order, and to affect the economy.” Although the emperor was a Manchu, his imperial interest was ultimately neither Chinese nor Manchu--it was the preservation of his rule.

The Author doesn’t think it made a huge difference that the Emperor was not Han Chinese. Basically you do what you gottado toget in power, and stay in power. End of story. Chiang Kai-shek 00:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)