The Withering State and Its Consequences

Behind its façade of extravagance, the Qing state was disproportionately too small for a giant empire. ¹ There were on its payroll fewer than 30,000 bureaucrats, including all civilian officials and military officers. In the central government (Imperial Court, ministries and departments) there were only 2,546 key administrators to keep the vital apparatus running. ² This left about 24,000 mandarins spread across more than 11 million km² to run the military and 18 provinces (sheng), 190 prefectures (fu) and 2,074 counties (xian). ³