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Where Diasporas Met: Hunanese, Cantonese, and the State in Late-Qing Guangxi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2020

Steven B. Miles Open the ORCID record for Steven B. Miles [Opens in a new window]
Steven B. Miles*
Affiliation:
Washington University in Saint Louis, USA, email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Drawing on physical and textual records of Hunanese and Cantonese active in Guangxi, as well as state archival sources, this article traces the expansion of these two diasporic cohorts in Guangxi from the early nineteenth century, through the mid-century wars, and into the postwar era, when they reintegrated this southwestern frontier province into the late-Qing empire.

Keywords

migrationdiasporasQing
Type
Late Imperial China
Information
Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊 , Volume 5 , Special Issue 2: The State and Migration in Chinese History , July 2021 , pp. 263 - 284
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I wish to thank Anthony Barbieri, Micah Muscolino, Jonathan Schlesinger, and other participants of the “State and Migration in Chinese History” conference for their comments on my conference paper, which helped to steer me toward writing this article. I also thank Anthony and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on this article.

References

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21 I exclude sixteen officials whose names are illegible or not given, as well as subordinate officials for independent departments and native chieftaincies.

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24 Zuo Shiju 左世榘.

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29 E.g., Guixian zhi 貴縣志 (1894), 6:7b–8a, 8:22b.

30 Foreign Office: Kwangtung Provincial Archives, held at the National Archives, Kew, London, Great Britain, FO 931/1487. For matching the “Guangdong huiguan” in this document with the “Yuedong huiguan,” Cangwu xian zhi 蒼梧縣志 (1941), 5:42a–b.

31 Gaoming xian zhi 高明縣志 (1894), 13:97a; “Chongxiu huiguan bing xitai beiji.” On postwar martyrologies, see Meyer-Fong, Tobie, What Remains: Coming to Terms with Civil War in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 135, 164–65Google Scholar.

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33 Liu Changyou 劉長佑, Liu Wushen gong (Changyou) yishu 劉武慎公（長佑）遺書, in Jindai Zhongguo shiliao congkan, vol. 245–50 (Taipei: Wenhai, 1974), 1:8a, 2:44a; Su, Ping Gui jilue, 4:3b.

34 Jian Youwen (Jen Yu-wen) 簡又文, Taiping tianguo quanshi 太平天國全史 (Kowloon: Mengjin shuwu, 1962), vol. 2, 938.

35 Liu Changyou, Yishu, 1:7a; Xinning xian zhi 新甯縣志 (1893), 26:42a.

36 Liu Changyou, Yishu, 1:8b.

37 G. William Skinner, “Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional Systems Analysis,” in Carol A. Smith, ed., Regional Analysis, Volume I: Economic Systems (New York: Academic Press, 1976), 335.

38 Robert J. Antony, “Subcounty Officials, the State, and Local Communities in Guangdong Province, 1644–1860,” in Dragons, Tigers, and Dogs: Qing Crisis Management and the Boundaries of State Power in Late Imperial China, edited by Robert J. Antony and Jane Kate Leonard (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 41.

39 Xinning zhou zhi 新寧州志 (1878), 3:13a–b.

40 Antony, “Subcounty Officials,” 39–40.

41 Like tiben 吏科題本, held at First Historical Archives of China, Beijing, 11786–039/GX2.8.5; QDJSLJC, vol. 23, 307.

42 Like tiben, 11786–039/GX2.8.5; Junjichu quanzong 軍機處全宗, held at First Historical Archives of China, Beijing, 4650–009/TZ8.9.25; Xinning zhou zhi, 273; Zhen'an fu zhi 鎮安府志 (1892), 4:44a; QDJSLJC, vol. 30, 194, vol. 37, 515; Baise ting zhi 百色廳志 (1891), 6:38b; “Chongxiu Yuedong huiguan beiji.”

43 Fieldnotes, Zhongdu, Luzhai, Guangxi, July 3, 2017; Liu Changyou, Yishu, 1:36a, 3:22b, 42a; Shunde xian zhi 順德縣志 (1929), 10:2b; Xinning zhou zhi, 273–274.

44 QDJSLJC, vol. 33, 509; Hunan tongzhi 湖南通志 (1885), 151:23a.

45 The Ningxiang native who led this force was Zhou Dawu 周達武.

46 QDJSLJC, vol. 38, 359; [Hunan Ningyuan] Daishi zongpu 戴氏宗譜 (1936), 2下:東田甫房世系錄:3a–b, 5:9a–10a; Ningxiang xian zhi 寧鄉縣志 (1941), biographies, 45:5b; Fuchuan xian zhi 富川縣志 (1890), 4:6b; Jen, Taiping Revolutionary Movement, 309–10; Jenks, Robert D., Insurgency and Social Disorder in Guizhou: The “Miao” Rebellion, 1854–1873 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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48 QDJSLJC, vol. 54, 384–90, vol. 61, 404–10.

49 Xinning xian zhi, 5:20a, 25b; Yulin zhou zhi 鬱林州志 (1894), 10:25b; Zhen'an fu zhi, 4:48a.

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51 Miles, Steven B., Upriver Journeys: Diaspora and Empire in Southern China, 1570–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017), 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ibid., Opportunity in Crisis: Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021), chap. three.

52 Shunde xian zhi, 10:1a–8b. On the “regular” vs. “irregular” routes to office, see Ch’ü, T'ung-tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 18–19Google Scholar.

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54 Longshi zupu, 14:34a; QDJSLJC, vol. 44, 198, vol. 51, 205, vol. 66, 402, vol. 85, 410; Shunde xian zhi, 10:7b.

55 Longshi zupu, 14:1a–b, 44a–b, 49b–50a, 66a, 74a; Shunde xian zhi, 10:6a–b; Zhaoping xian zhi 昭平縣志 (1934), 4:19a.

56 Elisabeth Kaske, “The Price of an Office: Venality, the Individual and the State in 19th Century China,” in Metals, Monies, and Markets in Early Modern Societies: East Asian and Global Perspectives, edited by Thomas Hirzel and Nanny Kim (Berlin: Lit, 2008), 302–3.

57 QDJSLJC, vol. 39, 214, vol. 44, 195, vol. 51, 203, vol. 51, 384, vol. 61, 405, vol. 64, 229, vol. 66, 403; Longshi zupu, 17:12b, 23a; Shunde xian zhi, 10:6b; Guy, R. Kent, Qing Governors and Their Provinces: The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China 1644–1796 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), 98–99Google Scholar; Zhang Zhenguo 张振国, “Qingdai difang zuoza guan xuanren zhidu zhi biange” 清代地方佐杂官选任制度之变革, Lishi dang'an 3 (2008), 64–65.

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59 Junjichu dang 軍機處檔, held at National Palace Museum, Taipei, 127447/GX10.R5.7.

60 Kaske, “Fund-Raising Wars,” 87; Xu Daling 許大齡, Qingdai juanna zhidu 清代捐納制度 (Beijing: Hafo Yanjing xueshe, 1950), 76.

61 Kaske, “Fund-Raising Wars,” 84, 100.

62 Pierre-Étienne Will, “Expectant Officials in Provincial Capitals in the Nineteenth Century,” revised version of unpublished “Being an Official: The Sale of Public Offices and Its Effects in Comparative Perspective,” paper presented at the Harvard Fairbank Center Workshop, April 25, 2009, 20. Many thanks to Professor Will for sharing this paper with me.

63 Kaske, “The Price of an Office,” 294–295; Xu, Qingdai juanna zhidu, 90.

64 Rongxian zhi 融縣志 (1936), 2:103; Xupu xian zhi 漵浦縣志 (1921), 18:15a–16a, 24:1b–2a.

65 Rongxian zhi, 2:90, 142; Xupu xian zhi, 20:11a, 14a–b; QDJSLJC, vol. 38, 355; Daniel McMahon, “Identity and Conflict on a Chinese Borderland: Yan Ruyi and the Recruitment of the Gelao During the 1795–97 Miao Revolt,” Late Imperial China, 23.2 (December 2002), 53, 57. On migrant grooves, McKeown, Adam, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), 85Google Scholar.

66 Nanhai xian zhi 南海縣志 (1911), 15:12a; [Nanhai] Liao Weize tang jiapu 廖維則堂家譜 (1930), 11:41b.

67 Untitled stele, 1859 (XF8.12), Qixing gongyuan, Guilin, Guangxi.

68 Lingui xian zhi 臨桂縣志 (1905), 16:149.

69 Untitled stele, 1859 (XF9.6), Qixing gongyuan, Guilin, Guangxi.

70 For another deity credited for the defense of Changsha, see Schluessel, Eric, “Exiled Gods: Territory, History, Empire, and a Hunanese Deity in Xinjiang,” Late Imperial China, 41.1 (June 2020), 113–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Hunan tong zhi, 242:12b; Lingui xian zhi, 15:123; Luchuan xian zhi 陸川縣志 (1941), 6:33a; Lingyun xian zhi, 凌雲縣志 (1942), unpaginated.

72 “Chongjian huiguan bing xitai bei” 重建會館並戲臺碑 (1873/74), Yuedong huiguan, Pingle, Guangxi; Like tiben, 11282–033/XF9.11.25; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang'anguan cang Qingdai guanyuan lüli dang'an quanbian 中國第一歷史檔案館藏清代官員履歷檔案全編 (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue, 1997), vol. 26, 294, 296; Panyu xian zhi, 48:9a.

73 Tongzhi liunian juxing dingmao ke Guangxi xiangshi timing lu 同治陸年舉行丁卯科廣西鄉試題名錄, 2b; Gaoming xian zhi, 12:26a–28b.

74 “Chongjian huiguan bing xitai bei.”

75 Tang Ling 唐凌, “Lun shangye huiguan beike ziliao de lishi jiazhi: ji yu 17–20 shiji Guangxi jingji yimin huodong de fenxi” 论商业会馆碑刻资料的历史价值-基于17～20世纪广西经济移民活动的分析, Guangxi minzu yanjiu 106 (2011), 152.

76 Pingle xian zhi, 2:21b; Fang Bingkui 方炳奎, Modun ji 磨盾集 (1867), in Qingdai shiwenji huibian, vol. 690 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2010), 57a–58a.

77 Fieldnotes, Daxu, Lingchuan, Guangxi, July 5, 2012.

78 Fieldnotes, Piaoli, Longsheng, Guangxi, June 30, 2012; “Yuwanggong” 禹王宮, stele, 1887, Hunan huiguan, Piaoli, Longsheng, Guangxi; Zhong, Guangxi jindai xuzhen yanjiu, 394.

79 Inspectorate General of Chinese Imperial Customs, Decennial Reports, 1892–1901 (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the Inspectorate General of Customs), 334.

80 Report of the Mission to China of the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, 1896–1897 (Blackburn: The North-East Lancashire Press Company, 1898), F. S. A. Bourne's Section, 120–22.

81 Luo Yudong 羅玉東, Zhongguo lijin shi 中國釐金史, in Jindai Zhongguo shiliao congkan xubian, vol. 612 (Taipei: Wenhai, 1979), 358; Cangwu xian zhi 蒼梧縣志 (1874), 10:8a–b, 17a–b, 12:31b–32b; Cangwu xian zhi (1941), 2:19b.

82 Panyu xian zhi, 48:8b; Chen Weizong 陳偉宗, “Xuzeng Taipusi qing teshou Guangxi Pingle fu zhifu Jiantian Chengong fujun xingzhuang” 卹贈太僕寺卿特授廣西平樂府知府見田陳公府君行狀 (n.d.), xinshu jielüe, 4a–b.

83 Fang Bingkui, Modun ji, 25a–27b.

84 Luo Yudong, Zhongguo lijin shi, 19; see Goodman, Native Place, 130.

85 [Hunan Daoxian] Jiangshi zupu 蔣氏族譜 (1922), 3:44a–b, 52b–53a, 7:52b, 8:51b.

86 [Shunde Maqi] Chenshi zupu 陳氏族譜 (1923), 3:18a–b, 24b, 27a.

87 Yang, Tanyuan riji, 162, 181–85.