| This dissertation examines the motives and methods of state expansion during the first century of Manchu rule of China, 1650-1750. It is argued that there were two types of state expansion at work during this century. First, intensive or juridical state expansion began shortly after the Manchus occupied Beijing in 1644. The purpose of intensive expansion was to increase Beijing's political-legal control over the frontier societies situated along China's periphery. Second, extensive or physical state expansion emerged late in the Kangxi reign (1662-1722) and continued, albeit in markedly different forms, throughout the Yongzheng (1723-1735) and Qianlong (1736-1796) reigns. This study tracts the motives and methods of extensive state expansion into two frontier areas, the external frontier of Eastern Tibet (mDos-Kham) and the internal frontier of southeast Guizhou, during the Kangxi-Yongzheng and Yongzheng-Qianlong transitions. This dissertation will show that the motives and methods of early Qing state expansion differed not only with regards to the two frontiers in question, but also in how each emperor approached the important core-periphery question: What type of relationship should Beijing have with the non-Han Chinese societies living along China's borders?... |
