The Research On The Political Crises During The Reigns Of Jiaqing And Daoguang In Qing Dynasty

This paper probes into the symptoms, reasons and nature of the political crises during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang in Qing Dynasty, which covers half a century from 1796 when Jiaqing took the throne to 1850 when Daoguang passed away. The"political crises"here means the state government rulers can not rule and populace can not live as ever before.There are mainly four symptoms of the political crises during the reigns of Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang. The first comes to the administrative crisis of the officials which was shown by the morality crisis and the talent crisis in officials. As to the official morality crisis, most of the government officials hadn't abided by the conduct criteria, namely, benevolent governance, loving populous, loyalty to the Emperor and the state, honesty in duty-fulfillment, being fair and square,and assiduity. All these were mainly shown by the comprehensive corruption in officialdom, ill treatment to the populace, deceiving and hoodwinking, slackness in duty, and ignorance to the populace's well-being. As to the official talent crisis, a large number of creative talents were terribly inhibited and throttled while the mean, the mediocre and even the greedy achieved great success in officialdom in this decadent period, in which the imperial autocracism and the traditional morality in the service of it further exposed their backwardness and rottenness. The second comes to the social crisis which was shown from three aspects: large numbers of migrants, vagabonds and starving people; large numbers of secret religious associations; continuous peasant uprisings. These three were interrelated, interacted and invariably connected with each other. Being homeless and destitute, thousands of migrants, vagabonds and starving people struggled for survival by various means, which disrupted the normal social order and resulted the sharp social instability; the secret religious associations, on the whole, threatened and undermined the social stability; the peasant uprisings, no less than a social crisis and political crisis, destructed the foundation of the feudal ruling. The third comes to the national crisis which was mainly shown by the conflicts between the Manchu and the Han people and the conflicts between Chinese nation and foreign invaders. As to the officialdom, the ethnic discrimination policy---elevating the Manchu and degrading the Han people taken by the Manchu government resulted in extremely low efficiency in state administration, the total neglection of duties of officials at all levels, deliberate neglection of mountains of social problems and indifference to people's sufferings. All these made the operation and administration of the Qing Empire a total failure, a failure fatal for a big state and equal to a rather serious political crisis. As for the conflicts, or even the wars, between Chinese nation and the Western powers, they were not simply reflected in the failure of the Qing government and the victory of Western powers. Worse still, the failure of the Qing government had virtually brought many social and political problems, such as opium problem, economic problem, diplomatic problem, domestic class contradictions as well as national sovereign problem, etc.. All these destabilized the ruling and the regime of the Qing government, thus, the national crisis at this time was actually a sort of political crisis. The fourth comes to the failure of political reform. Confronted with the political crisis, the chief representative and the very symbol of the Qing Dynasty Jiaqing Emperor and Daoguang Emperor did attempt to initiate some reforms to save the government from the approaching doom. Nevertheless, the end had come and the hopeless situation full of domestic disturbance and foreign invasions thwarted all the efforts, leaving the Qing Dynasty in instability. All these four aspects were interrelated, interacted and interchangeable, which aggravated the then political crisis.The reasons of the political crisis during the reigns of Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang in Qing Dynasty are particularly complicated. This paper analyzes them from five aspects. The first one refers to the political mess left by Emperor Qianlong in the late Qianlong years to his son Emperor Jiaqing, namely, a mess of official corruption, social unrest, state treasury deficit, thought imprisonment and the decline of the Qing Dynasty from prosperity. The second one refers to the conventional guiding ideology employed by Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang. The want of the spirit and confidence to surpass the precedent emperors for the overstatement of the past achievement, together with the strong negative impact of traditional thoughts and the long life in palace isolated from the populace, the two emperors had little knowledge of people's livelihood and were ignorant of statecraft, particularly ignorant of the national and the world situation, as a result, they blindly followed the convention. This is the ideological root-cause of the political crisis during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang. The third refers to the inappropriate administrative polices. The administrative policies adopted by Jiaqing and Daoguang were determined by their guiding ideology. The main contents can be summarized in four points, namely: the laissez-faire population policy, the economic policy of emphasizing the agriculture and restricting the development of industry and commerce, the management policy of regarding moral almighty and the closed-door diplomatic policy. In terms of administrative policies, these two emperors made no innovation but completely followed the tradition. During the reigns of Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang, China and the world had undergone major changes, thus, the principle"following the tradition without knowing its changes"became inappropriate for it hardly gratified the needs of national economic and social development and social stability and even gave rise to some new conflicts and crisis. Inappropriate administrative polices, therefore, is the strategic reason of the political crisis in this period. The fourth refers to the feudal system itself. Here the analysis is summed up mainly in eight points, namely: moral asceticism, low pension system, corrupt regimes, the tax paying system, the system of elevating the Manchu and degrading the Han people, the autocratic monarchy, the imperial examination system and the literary persecution. The analysis here focuses on the close relation between some feudal systems and the political crisis during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang. In this part, the author mainly analyzes the feudal system that inhibited and throttled the talents, which is the institutional cause leading to the political crisis. The fifth one refers to the then international situation. Analysis to the political crisis during this period is done by the comparison between the then West and the then China. Here four aspects are elaborated, namely: the rise of the western democratic thoughts and the apathetic atmosphere in China, the establishment of the western democratic system and the strengthening of autocraticism in China, the western industrialization movement and China's policy to stifle the industry and commerce, the overall prosperity of western science and technology and the Chinese rulers'wrong thought to regard science and technology as clever tricks and wicked craft. Judging from those, we can see that the Western countries and the Qing dynasty were not at the same historical phase; the gap between them was as wide as a whole historical era: one being a traditional agricultural and economic society, the other a modern industrial society; one a state in corrupted autocratic system, the other a state in modern democratic system; one counting the people worthless and ignoring the people's livelihood, the other valuing human rights, freedom and equality; one a monarchical state governed by man, the other a state based on human rights and governed by laws; one regarding science and technology as clever tricks and wicked craft, suppressing the development of science and technology, the other achieving full prosperity of science and technology; one emphasizing agriculture and restricting industry and commerce, sparing no efforts to stifle the development of industry and commerce, the other fully encouraging the development of industry and commerce; one implementing the closed-door policy, the other actively promoting opening-up and expanding the international trade; one with corrupted, incompetent, mediocre and stupefied bureaucratic leadership, the other with shrewd, able, ambitious leadership with international view and foresight. Through the extensive space-time comparative analysis, we can have a clearer understanding of the profound reasons beneath the political crisis during the reigns of Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang.The political crisis during the reigns of Emperors Jiaqing and Daoguang was not a mere crisis indicating the end of the feudal dynasties, but also the crisis of China's feudal autocratic system, and even the crisis at the historical transition period. As to the crisis indicating the end of the feudal dynasties, the normal political functions of Qing Dynasty tended to lose at this time, and the Qing Dynasty could not save itself from the crisis. This was shown in the following: the Jiaqing and Daoguang government in Qing Dynasty had been unable to absorb the social elite; the issuing of national policies and the acquiring of the basic information were almost impeded, the efficiency of the state government's operation to integrate the society was rather low; the rulers could not take effective measures to end the social ills and the class contradictions were irreconcilable. The features of the political crisis during the reigns of Emperors of Jiaqing and Daoguang were more obvious and deeper in degree than any other past dynasty, for the crisis did not just signify the end of the feudal dynasties, but it also an institutional crisis of the feudal autocracy. In the light of that, the worst the crisis brought was that it produced a crop of unthinking, submissive flunkies with no sense of undertaking , which seriously constrained the state government's policymaking and lowered its efficiency to implement the policies, resulting in the closure, hardening and stiffness of China's feudal political system. This makes the feudal dynasties unable to resort to its own power to conduct peaceful self-adjustment and self-repair in the event of a crisis, on the contrary, the regimes were invariably changed through violence. Such a system was not good for the individual to play its part; worse still, it placed the state in a vicious circle of constant rise and fall, continuous order and disorder. China's feudal autocratic system was the root-cause of the ruling crisis during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang. The mere change of dynasty but not the improvement of feudal autocracy itself could never fundamentally solve the political crisis during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang. The socio-political crisis in the period is not only a crisis signifying the end of Qing Dynasty, but also the institutional crisis of feudal autocracy, therefore, the final resolving of the crisis can not rely on the old means of dynastic change but the profound changes in political and social systems. Since the then China's domestic and international situation was undergoing profound and overall changes, thus, the political crisis during the reigns of Jiaqing and Daoguang can also be regarded as the political crisis at the historic transitional period. The political crisis at historical transition period possessed dual meanings: first, China had stepped into the semi-colonial and semi-feudal state from the feudal state; second, the feudal autocratic system in China at this time began to become unstable, and the backward agricultural economy, science and technology, ideology and culture as well as the rotten autocracy could not remain their performance, but shall make a fresh start. The invasion by the western powers pushed the monarchical politics to transform to the democratic politics. Although it is 60 years before the Revolution of 1911 finally overthrew the monarchy and established the Republic of China, the history did turn itself for the better and a ray of hope emerged in the long night of China's thousands of years of autocratic ruling.