ABSTRACT
The many instances of regional insurgency and unrest that erupted on China’s borderlands at the turn of the nineteenth century are often regarded by scholars as evidence of government disability and the incipient decline of the imperial Qing dynasty. This book, based on extensive original research, argues that, on the contrary, the response of the imperial government went well beyond pacification and reconstruction, and demonstrates that the imperial political culture was dynamic, innovative and capable of confronting contemporary challenges. The author highlights in particular the Jiaqing Reforms of 1799, which enabled national reformist ideology, activist-oriented administrative education, the development of specialised frontier officials, comprehensive borderland rehabilitation, and the sharing of borderland administration best practice between different regions. Overall, the book shows that the Qing regime had sustained vigour, albeit in difficult and changing circumstances.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |14 pages
Introduction
part |44 pages
Transitions in education and ideology
chapter |17 pages
Dynastic decline, Heshen, and the ideology of the Jiaqing Reforms
part |44 pages
Management of the Hunan Miao Frontier
chapter |25 pages
Identity and conflict on a Chinese borderland
chapter |17 pages
New order on China's Hunan Miao Frontier, 1796–1812
part |60 pages
Management of the southern Shaanxi highlands
chapter |27 pages
Qing reconstruction in the southern Shaanxi highlands
chapter |31 pages
Southern Shaanxi border officials in early nineteenth-century China
part |29 pages
Management of the Guangdong coast