ABSTRACT
Assuming that 80 per cent of China’s population were rural of whom a quarter were able-bodied males, and that one-tenth of them were fit for military service, the Qing state could mobilise up to 8 million soldiers to form an alternative army to fight any unrest. 1 Qing society also had 1.5 million Confucian gents. They outnumbered officials by a ratio of 57:1. 2 They provided alternative administrators. Furthermore, China had alternative bureaucracies, called mufu, or ‘office behind the curtain’. They were private institutions performing a public function, and hence acted as alternative governing bodies. The head of the mufu usually held the office. They hired ‘advisers’ (muliao) for their expertise in a patron–clients relationship. 3 To work for as advisers was to have an alternative career from the highly competitive bureaucracy. Finally, the economy was persistently under-taxed. The Qing authorities could have increased the tax revenue by a factor of 5.8 in 1850 to match its population growth without changing the tax rate. 4 Considering China’s 150 per cent inflation, the revenue could have increased by a factor of 8.7. 5 So, alternative revenues were out there to be exploited.
