QING MILITARY INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON GOVERNMENT, ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY, 1640–1800

Abstract

This article underscores the impact of the Qing dynasty’s war making capacity and organization on non-military areas. Following a brief account of the Qing military establishment and its major operations in the first half of the dynasty, i.e., 1640–1800, it explores several important examples of how Qing military institutions interacted with the civil bureaucracy and society at large. First, through the practice of appointing officials across the divide between the civil and military bureaucracies, military personnel penetrated into the domain of the civil state apparatus, quietly transforming the Qing government’s makeup. Second, Qing military costs deeply influenced the distribution of dynastic financial resources and general administration at all levels. Finally, the Qing’s wartime logistical system engaged both the civil bureaucracy and society, opening many opportunities for both civil bureaucracy personnel and the private sector, which in turn re-shaped the local socio-economic landscape.

INTRODUCTION

Being a conquest regime, the polity of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) exhibited hybrid features. On the one hand, Manchu rulers retained Confucianism and numerous institutions from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) both for pragmatic considerations and to legitimize their alien rule. On the other hand, they endeavored to maintain their own identity and traditions, including distinctive military values and institutions. ¹ Scholarship on Manchu identity has mainly focused on Manchu efforts to preserve cultural heritage such as language and lifeways, largely overlooking the impact of their military institutions and culture on the state apparatus, economic behavior, social life, and popular culture. The long peace in the dynasty's heartland throughout the eighteenth century has helped obscure Qing military institutions' importance.

This essay explores Qing war-making capacity and institutions, underscoring their impact on non-military areas. It first briefly recounts the Qing military system's establishment and Qing armies' major operations in the first half of the dynasty, circa 1640–1800. It then discusses how Qing military institutions interacted with the civil bureaucracy and society at large by focusing on three issues. The first is the penetration of Qing military personnel into the civil bureaucracy, which left less room to accommodate degree holders who lacked strong political connections and quietly transformed the Qing government's makeup. The second is the distribution of Qing financial resources along civil and military lines. Although a huge portion of the Qing revenues went to support military buildup, historians have only started recently to consider the economic and political impact of this fact. Third is the Qing's innovative wartime logistics, which engaged both the civil bureaucracy and society, not only opening up many opportunities for both the personnel of the civil bureaucracy and the private sector, but also reshaping the local socioeconomic landscape. Like the other contributions to this special issue, this essay argues that Qing military institutions transformed key elements of bureaucratic practice, economic behavior, and social life.

THE QING MILITARY SYSTEM'S ESTABLISHMENT

The Manchu Qing dynasty was founded on its military prowess. Long before the Manchus conquered China proper, they developed a full-fledged military system. Having first set up eight Banners for the Manchus, Nurhaci, the first of the forebears of the dynasty, then founded eight Mongol Banners and eight Chinese Banners, laying a foundation for the Manchu expansion and eventual conquest of China proper. Early in the seventeenth century, the Manchus engaged in constant military campaigns, first to secure control of Manchuria and then to expand into China, Mongolia, and Korea. During these years, the Manchus incorporated elements of rulership from both Chinese and Mongol traditions, while retaining the core values and functions of the original Banner system. After they invaded China proper in 1644 and toppled the Ming dynasty, the Manchus promptly created a new army, the Green Standard Army, to incorporate the defeated and surrendered Ming troops. More importantly, the Green Standard Army remedied a severe shortage of military manpower; the bannermen at this point totaled only about 100,000. ²

When the protracted conquest finally ended in the early 1660s, the Qing had developed a clearly articulated system to utilize and compensate the two armies, the Banners and the Green Standard Army. Considered as elite, mobile field armies, the Banner units were stationed only in Manchuria, Beijing, and a handful of strategic locations in the recently subjugated Chinese lands. In the provinces, Banner garrisons lived in walled compounds, segregated from local Chinese populations. ³ Meanwhile, the Green Standard Army, amounting to 550,000 men then, was stationed throughout the provinces (there were several garrisons in each of the provinces) to oversee local security. The Qing state openly distinguished between the two armies, with the Banners receiving preferential treatment over the Green Standard Army. Additionally, the Banners served in frontier wars as the main and elite forces, whereas the Green Standard forces acted as auxiliary forces. The division of the two armies was not only a military arrangement, but also a political statement intended to manifest Manchu dominance. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the total number of Qing military forces may have reached 800,000 (200,000 bannermen, and 600,000 Green Standard troops). ⁴ Until the end of the eighteenth century, Qing's military forces were the world's largest.

After the Ming-Qing transition, the Qing military remained active. Only a dozen years after the last battle to suppress anti-Qing forces in central China, the dynasty was faced with another civil war. Wu Sangui 吳三桂 (1612–78), the de facto feudatory in the empire's southwest, rebelled in 1673, devastating the region and convincing many Qing officials to join him. ⁵ Although Wu died in the middle of the conflict, the rebellion lasted for eight years and periodically the rebels seriously threatened the Qing dynasty. At one point, the young Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722) even considered leading his troops into battle in person, before being dissuaded by his courtiers. ⁶ After the rebellion was finally quelled in 1681, the Qing was soon threatened by the Zunghar Mongols, the builders of a vast nomadic empire in Eastern Turkestan. This time, Kangxi led expeditions to the steppe three times in the 1690s—he was the only Qing emperor who went to war in person after the Manchus entered China proper. The Qing expeditions effectively frustrated the aggression by the Zunghar, whose leader, Galdan, subsequently died of illness. ⁷ Nevertheless, the peace was brief, and the eighteenth century ushered in new military challenges. In his last years, Kangxi clashed again with the Zunghars, who had regrouped under a new leader, Tsewang Rabdan. More significantly, Kangxi made an unprecedented and risky decision to send an expedition to Tibet to expel a Zunghar army that had occupied Lhasa and taken captive the Dalai Lama, whom they then deposed. Kangxi's decision had a major impact on the trajectory of Qing empire building, leading the Qing to eventually turn Tibet into a protectorate. ⁸ Despite his reputation as a benevolent monarch, Kangxi was also a far-sighted and unrelenting empire builder.

For the rest of the eighteenth century, when the Qing empire was ruled by the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1723–35) and the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–95), the struggle against the Zunghar empire continued. The conflict culminated in Qianlong's coldblooded extermination campaigns in the 1750s, which wiped out the once-mighty Inner Asian power and slaughtered much of the Zunghar population. To the Qing, however, the payoff was handsome, as a vast territory, Xinjiang (“New Dominion”), was absorbed into the empire. Clearly, the wars with the Zunghars in the long period of the 1690s–1750s were the most critical military engagements in Qing history prior to the Taiping civil war in the mid-nineteenth century. ⁹

In addition, both the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors were eager to further expand the empire and showcase the Qing dynasty's might. Shortly after his enthronement, Yongzheng conquered Kokonor (today's Qinghai) and replaced the local Mongol rulers with Qing administrators. At the same time, he sent another expedition to Lhasa to reassert Qing domination in Tibet. Yongzheng also launched a series of military campaigns in the southwest, i.e., Yunnan, Guizhou, and the southern parts of Sichuan, to buttress the results of his reform of non-Han communities by greatly curtailing the administrative responsibilities of indigenous elites and absorbing them into the regular dynastic administrative system, whereby bureaucrats were sent by the central government (known as the gaitu guiliu 改土歸流 campaign—the term means “replacing the tusi [indigenous leaders] with ‘regular’ officials”). Although often overlooked, these minor campaigns were brutal, killing tens of thousands of native residents, including women and children. ¹⁰

Despite his preferred persona as a “cultured monarch,” the Qianlong emperor was just as active on the military front as either Kangxi or Yongzheng. In addition to annihilating the Zunghar empire, Qianlong conducted numerous other campaigns during his long reign. Those on the frontiers include campaigns to subjugate the Turkic Muslim principalities in Altishahr in the immediate wake of the Zunghar wars, two costly campaigns against unruly Gyarong chieftains in Jinchuan, a buffer zone between Tibet and China, and finally invasions into Myanmar and Vietnam. ¹¹ Domestically, Qianlong waged campaigns to quell a sectarian uprising in Shandong, two Muslim uprisings in Gansu, a riot in Taiwan by the immigrants from the mainland, and Miao uprisings in Guizhou and western Hunan. Finally, in the early 1790s, a few years before his retirement, Qianlong ordered the dynasty's last far-flung operation, an invasion of Gurkha Nepal via Tibet to ensure Tibet's security. In his twilight years, the emperor took great pride in his military feats, styling himself as the “old man with ten military successes” (shiquan laoren 十全老人), even though some of his campaigns were pure disasters. ¹² Clad in full armor and sitting on horseback, Qianlong had a portrait of himself painted by a European artist, which became a lasting reminder of the emperor's penchant for military grandeur. ¹³

The scope and strength of the Qing military are well known. Nevertheless, Qing military institutions have yet to receive proper attention from Qing historians. In fact, only in recent decades have scholars begun to engage seriously questions of Qing military history. Their work examines Qing frontiers and Qing management of the empire's margins, chiefly Chinese Eastern Turkistan, Tibet, Manchuria, Taiwan, and the southwestern corner of the empire. Some of those studies explore, explicitly or implicitly, the impact of the Qing expansion and wars on the local areas, arguing that the Qing frontier expansion backed by its military machine played an instrumental role in transforming the frontier areas and affecting the economic life of the nation as a whole. ¹⁴ Meanwhile, several scholars have noted that Qing military culture figured prominently in popular culture, a finding that resonates with what Peter Lorge and David Robinson argue elsewhere in this special issue for the Song and Ming periods, respectively. ¹⁵ Work has also begun on Qing military organization, including its financial system, and material aspects of warfare such as weaponry and logistics. ¹⁶

Even closer, systematic analysis of military institutions promises to shed important new light on key issues in Qing history. Ray Huang once pointed out that war mobilization could extend the vigor of the founding generation of a dynasty long after it had secured the country. Wartime mobilization could provide “a temporary substitute for organizational logic” and force even a feeble state apparatus to function effectively. ¹⁷ The early and high Qing from 1644 to the time of the Gurkha campaigns could be considered as an extended founding era, when incessant frontier crises prompted the state to peak performance to cope with the many campaigns listed above, and adjust its polity and policy to adapt to exigencies brought about by the military campaigns.

In this vein, it should come as no surprise that the Grand Council, the nerve center of the Qing dynasty, owed its origin to the Yongzheng emperor's improvised wartime agency to process military correspondence during the Zunghar campaign. ¹⁸ Meanwhile, the Qing state closely supervised provincial officials who were involved in the military operations (the civil bureaucrats' involvement in war will be further discussed below). As a result, promotions, demotions, and dismissals occurred more frequently than during peacetime. ¹⁹ In addition, communications between the center and the frontline stimulated physical connectedness between the capital and the even farthest points of the empire. The state opened and repaired roads, mapped territory, and acquired knowledge of the margins. ²⁰ As the discussion below shows, military operations deeply shaped the economy. The time is ripe for the field of Qing history to think much more closely about how military institutions relate to broad historical questions, including center-periphery interaction, the emergence of new commercial hubs and networks, the spread of mapping new territories and people, and transportation infrastructure.

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS' INFLUENCE ON THE CIVILIAN SECTOR

Although it fought numerous frontier wars from the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century, the Qing dynasty achieved an enduring peace in its heartland for nearly one and a half centuries after Wu Sangui's rebellion was suppressed in 1681. In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, which constantly engaged in wars to secure its vast and diverse territories, the Qing dynasty, with the exception of limited ethnic and sectarian rebellions, coastal piracy, and banditry, usually along the empire's margins or in less populated areas, maintained order and peace in China proper. Even during the Qing's protracted war against the Zunghar Mongols on the empire's northwest frontier, when the dynasty mobilized to support the military campaigns, many people in the country hardly felt their effects. If they were not in the war zones or near the roads travelled by troops and transport workers delivering war matériel, even fewer were dislocated or uprooted because of the wars. Scholars and students in Jiangnan continued their research and preparation for examinations, opera actors in Beijing maintained their routine of practice and performance, and farmers everywhere in the empire paid no extra taxes to support those campaigns.

After the Zunghar empire in Eastern Turkistan was eliminated, the once-turbulent Inner Asian steppe experienced the “Pax Manchujica,” and the empire was free from any external threat. As a consequence, for the rest of the eighteenth century, vibrant developments elsewhere in society overshadowed military institutions. In the period 1750–1800, prosperity, including the building of new and more complex commercial networks and markets, the flourishing of scholarship, literature, and arts, and a rapidly growing population all seem to argue against war's centrality. Nevertheless, the Qing dynasty's military character continued to loom large, not only within the military domain, but also in non-military sectors, quietly influencing politics and society.

THE PENETRATION OF MILITARY PERSONNEL INTO THE CIVIL BUREAUCRACY

In fact, military institutions had shaped the civilian sector since the Qing dynasty's earliest days. A revealing instance is the penetration of military personnel into the civil bureaucracy. The Qing dynasty perpetuated the Ming civil service examination system to recruit Han Chinese educated in Confucianism to officialdom, but Qing rulers prioritized the accommodation of the upper echelon of the bannermen, who were initially not at home with the Confucian classics and Chinese literary skills. In so doing, they first made sure that the military bureaucracy was a protected domain for the bannermen. In addition to the leadership positions of all the Banners, bannermen were also appointed to the higher positions of the Green Standard Army, such as provincial military commanders (tidu 提督) and regional military commanders (zongbing 總兵). As the Banner population grew, more options were needed. Soon after the Manchus entered China proper, some bannermen were sent to fill the positions in the civil bureaucracy, especially high-ranking positions in the capital and provinces. ²¹ The practice of appointing officials across the divide between the civil and military bureaucracies, which can be termed “cross-appointments,” was not started by the Manchus. However, the Qing used this method more commonly than any other dynasty in Chinese history. Through this arrangement, military personnel penetrated into the domain of the civil state apparatus, deeply influencing the Qing polity's nature.

The practice of “cross-appointment” was a time-honored tradition. In fact, “chujiang ruxiang” 出將入相, meaning to serve as a general when leaving the capital and to become a prime minister when returning to the capital, was a prized quality for high-ranking personnel of officialdom in China's imperial past. This phrase was first used during the Tang dynasty when a number of leading military officials were appointed to high civil positions. ²² As David Graff's essay in this special issue shows, in peripheral areas, Tang generals were also given administrative prerogatives, serving as de facto viceroys. The scheme ultimately led to the expansion of the power of some military officials, undermining Tang central authorities, and culminating in the An Lushan rebellion in 755–63. As one of the measures taken to weaken the military, the Song imperial house ordered that only high-ranking civil officials could serve as commanders-in-chief in wars. Similarly, high-ranking civil bureaucrats during the Ming times were also appointed as commanders-in-chief in wars, while military officials were barred from entering the civil bureaucracy. Nevertheless, conquest dynasties such as the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing dynasties used the practice to benefit the conquerors, sending military officials to the civil bureaucracy, but not vice versa. In so doing, the horseback warriors were seamlessly transformed into political elites, changing the composition of the civil bureaucracy, which is often assumed to be composed mainly of advanced civil examination degree-holders. ²³

However, it is sometimes difficult to identify China's political elites as exclusively civil or military officials, a distinction even more blurred due to the nature of the Qing as a conquest dynasty. Given the Manchus' roots as horseback warriors, one may be inclined to consider all Manchu bannermen more or less “military” men. The Manchus themselves, however, distinguished between the two cohorts. In 1683, Mingju 明珠, one of the leading advisors to the Kangxi emperor, explained it clearly: “Manchu officials are always cross-appointed (wenwu huyong 文武互用). There are civil officials who are appointed to military positions; and there are military officials who are appointed to civil positions. It's hard to have a unified rule.” ²⁴ Mingju's remarks reveal the distinction between the civil and military bureaucracies among the Manchu bannermen and confirm that cross-appointments were common, even blurring the divide at times.

Throughout the early Qing, many bannermen's bureaucratic alignments are difficult for historians to identify, largely because of cross-appointing. Some were unmistakably military officials, such as Fiyanggū 費揚古, Furdan 傅爾丹, Hailancha 海蘭察, Mingliyang 明亮, and Eldemboo 額勒登保, because they mainly served in military positions throughout their careers, establishing themselves as leading generals by participating in and commanding numerous wars. ²⁵ However, it is more difficult to establish the identity of those who split their careers between the civil and military bureaucracies. A full list of such people could be long; the most prominent among them include Ts'ereng 策楞, Mingšui 明瑞, Agūi 阿桂, Fuk'anggan 福康安, and Cangling 長齡. ²⁶ Among the top echelon, some bannermen were primarily civil officials but were given military duties at times, assuming commandership in the campaigns, even dying in the line of duty as military commanders, such as Necin 訥親, Fuheng 傅恆, Wenfu 溫福, and Nayancheng 那彥成. ²⁷ Rank-and-file Manchu bannermen also received cross-appointments, because the growing Manchu population created intense demands for employment opportunities. ²⁸

The situation of Chinese bannermen, the so-called Hanjun 漢軍, differed somewhat. Chinese bannermen were more likely to be appointed to civil positions, especially as governors and governors-general. In the first decades following the Qing takeover, more Chinese bannermen than either Manchu or Mongol bannermen were appointed as provincial viceroys. ²⁹ Given their advantage in learning the Confucian classics, this cohort was later required to acquire degrees through civil service examinations once they were appointed to the positions in the civil bureaucracy, whereas degrees were not required for either the Manchu or Mongol bannermen who were cross-appointed to civil positions. ³⁰ In time, this cohort was bureaucratized and Confucianized. Starting from the Kangxi period, the Qing state compelled many Chinese bannermen to relinquish their bannermen status (some were sent to join the Green Standard Army) in order to curtail the increasingly high cost of maintaining the Banner system. This policy likely contributed to the Chinese bannermen's diminished presence at the Qing military's highest levels. ³¹ By the end of the eighteenth century, the dynasty's first tier of military leaders included a mere handful of Chinese bannermen. ³²

Yet the Chinese bannermen in civil positions were often given military duties throughout the eighteenth century. Although best known as a haughty satrap who was disgraced and then ordered to commit suicide for not showing due respect to the Yongzheng emperor, Nian Gengyao 年羹堯’s career illustrates Chinese bannermen's important military role in the Qing state. In 1709, Nian became Sichuan's governor and later earned a promotion to governor-general of Sichuan and Shaanxi. In the early 1720s, Nian oversaw a successful campaign in Kokonor against a rebellious Mongol prince, which earned him a soaring reputation as an outstanding military commander, although the main contributor to the victory was Yue Zhongqi 岳鍾琪, the provincial military commander of the Green Standard Army in Sichuan. ³³ Hence, Nian has usually been considered a military man by historians. Nevertheless, his upbringing and his initial official career placed him squarely in the camp of civil officials. He stated himself: “This subject is by nature a civil official (chen ben wenguan 臣本文官).” ³⁴ When he was appointed governor of Sichuan in 1709, the Kangxi emperor especially warned him of the importance of maintaining good relations with the province's military officials. ³⁵ Only when he began to shoulder more military duties did Nian's persona change to the bluff martial figure, which became a conventional image in popular culture. ³⁶

Like many Qing practices, cross-appointment for the bannermen was never clearly articulated in the Qing statutes. Nevertheless, it was used liberally. Looking back, Fuge 福格, a Chinese bannerman, observed in the latter part of the nineteenth century that the Qing did not maintain a rigid division between civil and military bureaucracies for the high-ranking officials:

Our dynasty models itself on the Three Dynasties [i.e., the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties] in that there is no set passage for bannermen to follow in their advancement within officialdom; the high-ranking officials are not defined as either civil or military officials. ³⁷

Fuge intended to suggest that ranking bannermen could easily be cross-appointed in either of the hierarchies, so that it was not meaningful to label a certain bannerman as either a civil or a military person. Elsewhere, he observed: “The bannermen officials, both the civil and military ones, have opportunities to be promoted into the other hierarchy.” ³⁸ As an insider of the Banner hierarchy, Fuge's observations reveal at least two things. First, the Qing had no fixed policy principle when it came to the division between the civil and military bureaucracies. Therefore, one needs to draw one's own conclusion by researching the matter, as Fuge had done. Second, cross-appointment was so common that bannermen could not be defined as exclusively either civil or military officials.

In general, cross-appointment sent more military officials to the civil bureaucracy than vice versa. With few exceptions, it was exclusively used for the bannermen. ³⁹ Although meant to aid bannermen in acquiring official positions in the face of the narrowing employment opportunities within the military domain, cross-appointment generated broader consequences. It served as a gateway for bannermen to invade the civil bureaucracy that had been the Confucian literati class's fiefdom. With their advantage as the conquering nationality, the bannermen's competition with the Chinese degree holders was never on an equal footing.

In this vein, their entrance into the civil bureaucracy via cross-appointment was a way to manifest and maintain the bannermen's political prerogatives. Competition intensified when both the Banners and Chinese populations expanded rapidly in the eighteenth century. Although many bannermen eventually grew accustomed to the civil bureaucracy, they remained standard bearers of Manchu military values for the Manchu rulers. Thus, this practice was designed to perpetuate Manchu dominance in China. In society, the fact that bannermen who lacked decades of training in the Confucian classics and hard-earned degrees came to occupy top positions of the civil bureaucracy counterbalanced the popular obsession with scholarship and scholars, which was especially entrenched in the affluent and urban areas. Coupled with the harsh punishment for any slight disrespect to the Manchus and their culture in literary expression, ⁴⁰ Chinese scholars and scholar-officials no longer publicly belittled or mocked horse-riding nomads and boorish military men in Qing times. Instead, it was the bannermen who often expressed their contempt for the Chinese civil officials' incompetence in military matters. ⁴¹

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES

Military institutions' importance in Qing times was also reflected in the dynasty's distribution of its financial resources. Although it was a universal phenomenon that the military establishment claimed the lion's share of the national resources, the case of the Qing dynasty was peculiar. The founding fathers of the Qing endeavored to avoid repeating the two mistakes committed by the fallen Ming. First, Qing rulers were determined not to over-tax the people. They believed a reduced tax burden was essential to legitimize alien rule and win the hearts and minds of the conquered Chinese. Indeed, one of the first decrees the new Qing rulers promulgated upon taking Beijing in mid-1644 was to abolish all the surcharges that the Ming had imposed in its last decades. ⁴² Second, the Qing was adamant in doing away with the Ming treatment of its military—poor treatment of Ming troops was believed to be a key reason the dynasty fell. Qing rulers vowed to make the needs of its military personnel a top priority. In this vein, the Manchu rulers rejected military farm colonies as the primary means to finance its armies, even though some suggested using it to help support the expanding military forces in the early years of the dynasty. ⁴³

Nevertheless, it was a difficult and delicate task to achieve both priorities. At some point during the long conquest, the Qing state would have to turn to taxpayers for more revenue if it intended to use public funds to support its armies and guarantee the well-being of military personnel. In 1659, the anti-Qing force led by Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功, a warlord based in Taiwan, made a successful sea-borne offensive against the mainland's southeastern coast. At one point, Zheng's fleet reached the city of Zhenjiang on the north bank of the Yangzi River, alarming the entire Jiangnan area. In 1659 and later, much of the revenue levied from Jiangnan had to be retained locally to finance the battle against Zheng and build ships for the Qing forces. In 1659, no taxes, either in grain or in cash, were transported to Beijing from Jiangnan.

To use the limited funds more efficiently, the Qing state ordered that only the campaign in Yunnan against the last Southern Ming regime be supplied by state funds. Military forces in other provinces were to raise funds locally to support themselves. ⁴⁴ However, the Yunnan campaign turned out to be enormously expensive. In 1660, it cost more than 9 million taels of silver, exceeding the state's total annual income, which was 8.75 million taels. The Ministry of Revenue complained: “To exhaust the country's entire revenue income is insufficient to support a single province's expenditure.” ⁴⁵ Meanwhile, as the Green Standard Army rapidly expanded to absorb surrendered Ming solders and anti-Qing rebels, many complained bitterly about the shortage of military funds. In fact, many troops had to live off the land as they did not receive enough funds. ⁴⁶

In early 1661, the Shunzhi emperor died. Facing a shortage of funds exceeding 5,700,000 taels of silver nationwide, the new administration, headed by Oboi 鰲拜, the young Kangxi emperor's regent, reneged on the promise against levying extra taxes upon the people. Early in the autumn of 1661, it reinstated the “militia surcharge” (lianxiang 練餉) used by the Ming dynasty in its final years. ⁴⁷ This act sparked local officials' immediate and intense resistance. Initially, this surcharge was levied at the same rate as in Ming times and the levies were to be surrendered twice a year to the central government. However, after several provinces claimed that there were no surviving Ming records that indicated the rate of the surcharge in their provinces, the central government changed its policy to a universal one extra fen or one hundredth of a tael (1 tael equals 37–40 grams) of silver on every mu (approximately one-sixth of an acre) of taxable land.

However, it still caused confusion and protests as some argued that the productivity of land varied from mu to mu, so it was unfair to levy uniformly one fen on every mu. Some also complained that war devastation and poor harvests rendered taxpayers in some areas totally incapable of paying any surcharges. Many warned that this policy would inevitably cause widespread land flight. When the deadline approached, only a few provinces submitted the due levies in full. In the capital, several high-ranking officials openly criticized levying the surcharge, because it broke the new dynasty's vow to avoid faulty Ming practices. Embarrassed, the Oboi administration abandoned the policy at the beginning of 1662 (the first year of the Kangxi reign), only five months after it was promulgated. ⁴⁸

This incident is significant on a number of counts. It showcases the extraordinary fiscal difficulties of the conquest era, which made it almost impossible for the Qing leadership to adhere to both of their commitments. At the same time, it demonstrates that tax increases were an expedient method to offset fund shortages and that Qing rulers were not adverse to such a policy. However, the policy's failure foreshadows Qing fiscal management in the coming decades. Increased taxes posed political risk, even though the Qing state possessed the power and networks to impose such increases. Having failed to impose more taxes, the Qing had to find other ways to raise funds to complete their conquest.

Although more research is needed to explain fully how the young Qing dynasty survived the protracted and highly expensive conquest without fiscal collapse, the Qing's firm grip on the fertile Jiangnan area was essential. On several occasions, the Qing violently suppressed taxpayers' protests against over-exaction. ⁴⁹ In addition to Jiangnan, the Qing also bore down hard on Shaanxi province, collecting taxes years in advance to acquire sufficient grain and cash to support the conquest campaign. ⁵⁰ The occasional high-handedness was the price to pay for honoring the promise not to have a general tax increase.

Having survived the conquest, the Qing state kept its commitment not to raise taxes nationwide while fully supporting its two armies with state funds. Fortunately for the Qing, as the war-ravaged economy recovered, the economic boom of the eighteenth century worked to its advantage. There was no repeat of the 1661 incident in the following two centuries; the Qing kept its promise not to exhaust the taxpayers to meet the expanding needs of the dynasty, including the costs of maintaining the two armies. In doing so, the Kangxi emperor played an instrumental role, setting a high standard when it came to supporting the military. In 1670, shortly after he had freed himself from his overbearing regent, Oboi, to take the reins of government, the young Kangxi emperor raised the monthly stipends to all rank-and-file Manchu bannermen by one tael of silver and increased their food rations. In the edict to order those increases, he said: “The Manchu bannermen are the country's foundation. [We] must take extra care of them, even though the country is at peace.” ⁵¹ To Kangxi, the most important thing to maintain the troops was to ensure that they received pay on time every month: “What is considered good in treating soldiers is no more than to deliver the amount of stipends and food rations they deserve to their hands. This is the only proper way to nurture the military (yangbing zhidao養兵之道).” ⁵²

Under Kangxi's auspices, a complex system to compensate military personnel took shape in the early eighteenth century, the framework of which would stay in place until the mid-nineteenth century. In general, bannermen were much better compensated than the Green Standard troops. An ordinary bannerman's monthly stipend was four taels of silver, but the Green Standard soldiers' monthly pay was between one and two taels. Meanwhile, both bannermen and the Green Standard soldiers received food rations in kind (sometimes issued in cash ad hoc). The structure of paying the troops both in cash and in kind provided some cushion against inflation, since an increase in the prices of rice and other foodstuffs would devalue their pay. Generally speaking, troops' wages were not high and did not increase in the following two centuries. To supplement regular pay, the Qing state granted military personnel various awards and subsidies in peacetime, some being regular and others being ad hoc, with more generous compensation in wartime, which will be discussed below. Separately from the rank-and-file, military officials were paid via a different system and according to their positions. Similar to the salary system of civil officials, military officials' wages were modest, although the Banner leaders were more favorably treated. Understanding the situation, the Kangxi emperor adopted a laissez-faire attitude when it came to military officials' illicit sources of additional income and often advised civil officials against being overly stringent with military colleagues' pursuit of profit. ⁵³ As he put it, “One should not demand that military officials be too clean” (Fan wuguan buke zezhi guoyuqing 凡武官不可責之過於清). ⁵⁴ Throughout his long reign, Kangxi advocated those points untiringly. He even breached bureaucratic rules in patronizing and protecting military personnel, especially the two armies' upper echelons. ⁵⁵

Given the Qing military's size (the total number of the two armies was about 800,000 most of the eighteenth century, and 860,000 at the highest points in the period), even moderate peacetime pay to military personnel was a colossal fiscal commitment for the central government; a huge portion of the annual revenue income had to be allocated to that end. Although estimates vary, the highest estimation is that more than 70 percent of all the revenues collected each year had to be used to pay the two armies. ⁵⁶ Many scholars, however, have yet to appreciate fully the impact of military expenditure on the dynasty's economic life and political structure.

As the size of the garrison armies varied from province to province, the military funds needed by them differed in amount, sometimes by a huge margin. A quantitative study of the provincial finances in 1746–48 spearheaded by Helen Dunstan has revealed some stunning details. In the late 1740s, the cost of troops' stipends was over 80 percent of some provinces' total yearly expenditures and in the range of 60–70 percent in several other provinces. ⁵⁷ Nevertheless, some provinces with high military expenses had only moderate or small tax quotas. Consequently, their own revenues could not meet their needs. More often than not, those needy provinces were on the frontiers and had large numbers of soldiers. Discrepancies in needs and income prompted the Qing state to classify all the provinces into three categories: the provinces that did not need funds from outside of their own provinces; the provinces that needed outside funds; and those that had a surplus and could send a portion of their taxes to other provinces. The funds that were transferred to other provinces were referred to as xiexiang 協餉 or xiejiyin 協濟銀, both meaning “assistance funds.” Provinces that supplied the assistance funds were called xiejisheng 協濟省 (provinces that provide assistance). Since the major purpose of those funds was to pay the armies (for some provinces, their administrative expenditures also needed to be supplied in part from outside), the funds were sometimes referred to simply as bingxiang 兵餉 (army stipends). This system reflects the Qing state's assessment of each province's value, some being economically important while others were strategically important. ⁵⁸ By using the assistance funds system to transfer funds from affluent provinces to strategically vital but economically needy provinces, the Qing state adopted flexible policies that reflected each region's value to the state.

The assistance funds system affected nearly all the provinces. Because the Banner and Green Standard garrisons were distributed throughout the empire, it would not have been cost-effective to first have the provinces transport their taxes to Beijing and then send them out again to the provinces in need of the assistance funds. Instead, a lateral transferring system was set up to deliver the funds from province to province without having them first sent to Beijing. In this system, the funds needed in the provinces were first deducted from the taxes due to the central government and retained in the provinces. As a result, a majority of the taxes collected were not delivered to Beijing. ⁵⁹ Provinces with a surplus packed the assistance funds, which were always hefty silver ingots, and delivered them to the needy provinces either annually or biannually. In addition to those at either the giving or receiving end, those few provinces that neither gave nor received might be required to take care of the transport of the funds if they were located on the routes those funds travelled through. Dunstan's study shows that procedures and rules were scrupulously set and that the process required enormous attention and effort from officials in all the provinces involved. ⁶⁰ During officials' periodical reviews, handling of the assistance funds was an important factor in the assessment of job performance. Nationwide, supporting the military was not merely a rhetorical claim by the emperor, but also a highly demanding administrative operation that engaged nearly the entire civil bureaucracy on a regular basis.

The civil bureaucracy's involvement in maintaining the massive military forces in the Qing times is a complex issue, which deserves further research. What follows are a few preliminary observations. First, the Qing dynasty developed procedures to fully support its armies with state funds, as had been laid down by its founding fathers. Throughout the first half of the dynasty, the state was largely successful in fulfilling this commitment through lateral transfers of the assistance funds, although other measures were also adopted to help guarantee the well-being of both the bannermen and the Green Standard personnel. ⁶¹ Second, the Qing state was greatly constrained financially, because a large portion of the revenues was reserved and delivered to the armies, which conditioned or minimized the state's spending in the other areas. As is well known, the Qing dynasty had a fairly small civil bureaucracy—the number of the officials who were paid by the state was tiny relative to the empire's total population, by both global standards of the eighteenth century and modern standards. The Qing dynasty's limited financial capacity partly explains this phenomenon. Third, at the provincial level, funding garrison forces also absorbed a great deal of resources. Its impact on the provinces was twofold. First, money to support the garrisons in many provinces constituted the lion's share of their operational budgets, which made military needs the provinces' highest priority. Second, the lateral transference of assistance funds was an enormous administrative undertaking and among the provincial government's most important obligations. It directly and indirectly influenced civil officials' careers and ordinary people's livelihoods. We are only beginning to grasp fully the significance and repercussions of the lateral circulation of the taxes in Qing China.

Despite its success in supporting the military garrisons outside the capital for many decades, the system of lateral circulation of revenues may have played a role in the erosion of the central government's grip on the provinces, given that most of the revenues due to the central government were not delivered to Beijing, but were either retained in the provinces or transported to other provinces. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, most provinces failed to deliver their revenues due to the central government on time, accumulating increasingly large arrears. In the many wars either against foreign enemies or domestic rebels, as discussed above, the state often went after the affluent provinces for financial contributions to help fund the operations, which exacerbated the problem of arrears. ⁶² During its prolonged campaign to suppress the White Lotus rebellion, the central government turned to the provinces and the private sector for money after the central treasury was nearly depleted. Many provinces had to dig from their own reserves to comply with Beijing's orders. ⁶³ After the campaign, it became even more difficult for the central government to make the provinces pay taxes and clear arrears. In fact, long before the mid-nineteenth century, when decentralization figures so prominently in narratives of the political and military changes transforming state and society, the state's leverage in commanding provincial resources had been deeply compromised. ⁶⁴

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC LIFE

War made clear the Qing dynasty's capacity to mobilize civil bureaucracy and society, although it directly affected only certain areas. ⁶⁵ Unlike the modern military system that usually is a syndicate encompassing both combat and logistical functions, the Qing dynasty did not build and maintain a regular top-down logistical system. In peacetime, except for firearms and some cold weapons, which were manufactured in official workshops and distributed to the army, the army's other weapons, equipment, and supplies other than staple foodstuffs, were usually acquired from the local market. In wartime, the Qing state turned to its local government and civilians in the war zone to create ad hoc logistical services. Basically, the Qing always underwent two mobilizations each time it waged a war. First, the armies—both the mobile field forces, i.e., the Banner units in Beijing, Manchuria, and other places, and the Green Standard forces—were deployed and marched to the front. Second, in the war zone, the local government, from the provincial level to the county level, was mobilized to support the operations. Open-ended and improvisatorial, the Qing wartime logistical system was bound to involve the non-military sector and personnel.

Generally, the governors-general and governors whose jurisdictions were involved in the war were ordered by the throne to command the military operations or serve as the chief executives of the logistical services. In the war zone, ad hoc offices, junxuju 軍需局, or “logistical bureaus,” were set up, which were usually staffed with prefects, magistrates, clerks, and expectant office-holders. Having taken shape during the war against the Zunghar Mongols during the Yongzheng period, the logistical bureaus were responsible for receiving and issuing war funds, hiring civilians to serve as porters, servants, and guides, and coordinating with local officials in support of military operations. There was no set format for the composition of the logistical bureaus. Sometimes, they consisted of no more than one boss and several assistants, although they were usually under the close supervision of either a governor-general or a governor in the war zone. ⁶⁶ In addition, some local officials were also recruited by the armies to march with them and handle their logistical needs on the spot.

Besides those working in the logistical bureaus and embedded in the armies, all other local government personnel in the war zone were obliged to aid campaigns in their jurisdictions by maintaining communication lines, organizing militias, building forts, securing cities, towns, and passes, building or repairing roads and bridges to facilitate the movement of the armies, destroying them to obstruct the enemy, housing injured and sick troops, hosting logistical convoys and commissioners passing through their areas, relieving and settling displaced civilians, and so on. When local officials and functionaries in the war zone were not sufficient to meet a campaign's needs, the central government would send to the front their counterparts from other parts of the country as well as Beijing. Many expectant officials responded enthusiastically to the call to go to the front, for wartime service often served as a steppingstone to formal appointments to offices, greatly shortening an otherwise agonizingly long waiting period. ⁶⁷

Also attracted by service to the military were members of the literati class. In Qing times, commanders often had both the civil officials and scholars on their staff when they went to war. Civilians would help the commanders with a wide spectrum of tasks, from providing advice to clerical duties, including drafting correspondence and drawing maps. Some literati who had served in that capacity wrote memoirs afterward of their experience with the armies and in war, glorifying violence and cheering for the invincibility of the Qing military. The most important works of this kind from the eighteenth century were by Wang Chang 王昶 and Zhao Yi 趙翼 , both being renowned for their literary achievements. ⁶⁸

Moreover, two distinctive practices of the Qing dynasty made the Qing wartime mobilization unprecedented, involving large numbers of civilians from all walks of life and transforming the socioeconomic landscape in the war zone. First, unlike its predecessors, the Qing dynasty did not include corvée, or compulsory labor obligation, in its tax policy. When the state needed manpower for public projects such as water projects, highway building, and city wall building or repair, as well as the projects of the imperial household, for example, building or repairing palaces, temples or imperial gardens, the state used only paid laborers. Although he did not create this practice, the Qianlong emperor was particularly vocal in its praise. He once observed: “It had been a practice since ancient times to levy labor tax. Only our dynasty does not do this.” ⁶⁹ On another occasion, he pointed out that those public projects in fact provided employment opportunities to the poor people: “When our country has projects to do… [we] pay for both materials and labor. Not only are the people not burdened at all, the poor also benefit from the job.” ⁷⁰ Qing historians have drawn attention to the abolition of corvée tax. Dai Yi argues that the public work during the Qing dynasty functioned as a relief to the poor and natural disaster victims. ⁷¹

In wartime, the Qing state hired civilians to transport grain and other matériel and to provide other services to the armies. As early as the conquest period, Manchu conquerors sometimes paid the civilians for transporting funds and grain to support the conquest campaigns. In 1673, shortly after Wu Sangui started his rebellion, Mishan 米思翰 (1632–75), the Minister of Revenue, suggested allocating funds from the state treasury and paying all military expenses with state funds, including military labor, which became a regular rule for the ensuing military campaigns. ⁷² Because the money used to pay military laborers was from the war funds allocated by the central government instead of from the provincial treasuries, the logistical authorities usually paid the military labor force highly—of course, it was easy prey to wartime corruption. In addition to wages, sometimes laborers also received food rations and other allowances. Even labor force casualties were compensated. ⁷³

Consequently, the cost to hire military laborers in a war was often among the largest expenditures. In the second Jinchuan campaign in 1771–76, more than 460,000 persons were hired to serve as porters to transport foodstuffs and other matériel and guard the grain stations along the transportation routes. Correspondingly, the cost amounted to 32 million taels of silver, which was more than half of the total war funds allocated by the throne. ⁷⁴ In addition to human labor, warfront logistical services also paid for draft animals such as mules, camels, and horses. Naturally, the money went to their owners, who went with their draft animals to handle and care for them. During the campaign to suppress the White Lotus rebellion in 1796–1805, the cost of draft animals increased steeply because of both the scarcity of mules and horses in the war zone and the manipulation of officials who were in charge of logistics. It eventually cost 12 taels of silver to hire one mule for one month, which was equal to the annual stipend of a Green Standard infantry soldier, becoming one of the biggest expenditures in that campaign. ⁷⁵

A second important dimension of Qing wartime military policy is that because the state compensated its military forces highly when they were deployed to war, Qing armies functioned as massive consumption corps. Qing wartime finances were structured much differently from those in peacetime, and the state was far more generous in its treatment of forces sent to war. First, deployed armies were all paid yancaiyin 鹽菜銀. Although it means literally “salt and vegetable silver,” it was a de facto wartime monthly stipend, and the rates were set according to military personnel's rank and position. This practice began early in the dynasty, and during the early and high Qing periods, the throne raised stipends from time to time. In addition, rates for Green Standard soldiers were about the same as their monthly cash stipends in peacetime, namely, one to two taels of silver, while the rates were slightly higher for rank-and-file bannermen.

Most importantly, this stipend did not replace their regular monthly stipends, which were still issued in their home garrisons to their families. Therefore, all military personnel received double wages whenever they were deployed for war. ⁷⁶ In addition to salt and vegetable silver, officers and soldiers alike were also granted other subsidies when deployed. One was xingzhuangyin 行裝銀 or “equipment subsidy.” Issued upon their deployment, this subsidy was meant to help the troops make their weaponry and equipment ready, given that many failed to use their limited regular stipends to maintain weapons and equipment in good shape in peacetime. Initially, deployed forces had to pay back the equipment subsidy through deductions from their monthly stipends. As the throne often exempted them from paying back the borrowed money after the war, this item evolved into a regular allowance. By the late eighteenth century, the subsidy was set at 6–10 taels of silver for the Green Standard soldiers, and 20 taels for the Manchu bannermen. ⁷⁷

In addition to those fixed wartime incomes, the regular troops could also expect to receive rewards and awards at the emperor's discretion. In addition to being rewarded with cash, promotions, or honorific titles, for a victory or meritorious deeds, they might also receive awards en masse either on the occasion of festivals or as special favors from the emperor. Added to favors directly from the throne, army commanders also granted awards to troops or even civilians serving in the armies as an incentive. Money needed for those awards was usually taken from war funds, even though some commanders did pay out of their own pockets. More often than not, commanders bought gifts, usually silks and satins, from businessmen who flocked to the war zone, and then gave them to the troops as awards. This practice, known as shanghao 賞號 (“materials for awards”), did not exist when the Manchus conquered China; it was started by some field commanders early in the eighteenth century, became well established by the middle of the century, and even survived the Qianlong emperor's effort to abolish it. Shanghao contributed to the rising costs of war in the eighteenth century. ⁷⁸ Marveling at the military's abundant wartime income, Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1856) remarked:

Two differences separate the management of military affairs of our dynasty from that of the previous dynasties. One is that our dynasty uses fewer soldiers [in war]. The other is that our dynasty pays more to the soldiers [when they are deployed]…. During all the preceding dynasties, military campaigns were supported by adding taxes on people. Therefore, there were more soldiers but less money for them. But our dynasty uses only the state funds [to support campaigns] without increasing taxes. Therefore, our dynasty deploys fewer soldiers, but pays them more. ⁷⁹

To a great extent, Qing capacity to mobilize society to support military operations was fueled by the war funds lavishly allocated by the central government in each of the wars. Given that both military personnel and civilians hired to support the operations had cash to spend, merchants, peddlers, and venturesome people were attracted to the warfront, sometimes from afar, and traded with the two cohorts. As early as the three expeditions against the Zunghar Mongols in the 1690s, a throng of merchants and peddlers traveled with the Qing armies over long distances from China proper to the heart of the steppe. Although the main foodstuffs needed by the armies, rice and wheat, were transported by designated troops led by high-ranking Green Standard officers, which was not often the case in the wars of the eighteenth century, the other needs of the military forces were met by traders, some of whom perished during the long and hard journeys. ⁸⁰ Throughout the eighteenth century, armies were always accompanied by hordes of businessmen who traded with the soldiers, officers, laborers and other civilians hired in the war and met all their needs. The commodities they brought to the front soon expanded from necessities to luxuries such as silks, satins, liquor, tobacco, dried seafood, jewels, and so on, turning the war zone into a massive makeshift market. In fact, in some campaigns, traders set up booths and formed what contemporaries termed maimaijie 買賣街, literally “commercial streets.” ⁸¹ By the end of the eighteenth century, entertainment too emerged. In the campaign to suppress the Miao uprisings in Guizhou and Hunan and the long campaign against the White Lotus rebels, generals enjoyed performances by opera troupes, singers, and dancers when they threw parties or banquets in their headquarters. ⁸²

Those non-military activities in wartime transformed the areas involved. The massive consumption by all parties greatly stimulated both the local and national economy—goods from afar were brought in and new commercial networks were set up. To facilitate the armies' movement, physical connectedness between the center and the margins had to be upgraded. In Yunnan's southwestern border regions, several new roads were created during the conflicts with Myanmar in 1765–70 to transport matériel and to deliver military correspondence. Thanks to the new roads and the revamped military relay-horse postal system in Yunnan, the time needed to communicate between Yunnan's western borders with Myanmar and Beijing was shortened by one-third, from more than two weeks to ten days. ⁸³ Similar scenarios occurred in other campaigns. ⁸⁴

The improved transportation conditions in turn prompted businessmen who came to trade with the armies in war to either stay put or keep the areas within the scope of their business operations after the war ended. In the wake of the Myanmar campaign, more Chinese immigrants moved to Yunnan's border regions. Merchants came as well, opening mines and setting up other enterprises. ⁸⁵ After the second Jinchuan war, some outside merchants set up the first shops and restaurants in the mountainous and sparsely populated Jinchuan area. ⁸⁶ Having served as the headquarters of the logistical operations in Sichuan during the White Lotus war, Dazhou, a middle-sized town in northeastern Sichuan, became a bustling hub of goods and merchants from neighboring provinces. Meanwhile, Shaanxi's Xing'an, a town by the Han River in the province's southwestern corner, experienced a similar transformation. ⁸⁷

Outsourcing the logistics in wartime to the civil bureaucracy and local society testifies to the Qing state's effective political control of the provinces and skillful management of its resources. Nevertheless, given that so much money was sent to and spent in the war zone, abuses and misappropriations of the war funds were rampant. Ultimately, the state was unable to control fully how the war funds were spent and proved powerless in the face of warfront corruption. Throughout the long Qianlong era, campaigns became increasingly expensive. In the second Jinchuan war, the state allocated as much as 60 million taels of silver, which in turn pales in comparison to the colossal cost of the White Lotus war, in which 120 million taels of silver were allegedly spent, depleting the central treasury's abundant savings. Not surprisingly, warfront corruption was more pervasive in the latter campaign. While the dynasty entered its financial downturn, numerous nouveaux riches headed home from the war with piles of cash and cartloads of goods. Erosion of the Qing dynasty's fiscal solvency during its last military campaign in its golden age speaks volumes about the momentous impact of the military activities on the dynasty's fortune.

CONCLUSION

As this essay has demonstrated, Qing military institutions were vitally important during the early and high Qing periods, circa 1640–1800. Given the long peace of the eighteenth century in the dynasty's heartland, we may doubt war's centrality. Nevertheless, the survival of Manchu traditions valorizing the military and the creation of preferential policies and systems kept military institutions at the top of the state's priorities, placing the military personnel, especially the bannermen, in a privileged position vis-à-vis their Chinese counterparts in the civil bureaucracy. With the bannermen's ready penetration of the civil bureaucracy and many provinces spending a great deal of their energy and resources to help guarantee the supply of funds to every local garrison and outpost in their provinces, it is no exaggeration to consider what occurred in the high Qing period as a “routinization” of the military presence. In other words, the intertwining of the military institutions with the non-military institutions was bona fide reality, deeply influencing the dynasty's political, economic and social systems and the lives of civil bureaucrats and civilians.

After all, this phenomenon was a manifestation of highly centralized state power. By exercising its political leverage, the Qing state could move the bannermen from military ranks to civil positions without being hampered by bureaucratic and ideological obstacles, transfer taxes collected in the provinces from one place to another to make sure all the garrisons and outposts were well supplied, and mobilize both the civil bureaucracy and the private sector to work in the ad hoc logistical system when a campaign was waged. Those practices in Qing China sharply contrasted with what unfolded in Western Europe in the early modern period, namely, that the constant wars stimulated the reinforcing of the state power so that the state was capable of levying more taxes to fund the military machine. In delineating the differences between the Qing case and the European situation, Peter C. Perdue has maintained:

From the defeat of the Three Feudatories in 1681 to the outbreak of the White Lotus Rebellion in 1796, the Qing rulers faced no external or internal military threats requiring major military reforms. China's revenues were based on relatively light taxation of a prosperous agrarian economy. European states, by contrast, had to extract greater levies from a more backward agricultural base. Brandenburg-Prussia, faced with creating a “first-rate state from a third-rate economy,” relied on heavy agrarian levies which severely hampered the growth of the rural economy. England, on the other hand, was forced into innovative measures, particularly excise taxes and the creation of a national debt, to meet growing fiscal demands. The Qing rulers in the eighteenth century were fortunate in that they could meet the demands of the bureaucracy and military without unduly burdening the peasant, and they faced no pressure to tax commerce. On the other hand, the light hand of the state meant that the relative impact of state policies decreased as the economy grew. ⁸⁸

Perdue was the first to highlight the different routes Qing China and Western Europe took when it came to the effect of war on the political structure and taxation policy. While in Europe centralization came as a result of wars, in Qing China, a highly centralized state had long been in place, which enabled the Qing rulers to allocate a large portion of its revenues to support the military establishment. Therefore, the two armies of the Qing dynasty were much better financed than their European counterparts. Meanwhile, the Qing did not need to increase taxes, given a vastly prosperous economy and a large agrarian base for taxation. More importantly, the Qing state chose not to increase taxes, as explained earlier in the essay. For the Qing, the problem was ensuring delivery of funds to the armies all over the country.

In this regard, the “assistance funds” system and the lateral transferring networks were important innovations that guaranteed the delivery of the military funds to all garrisons and outposts. Nevertheless, toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Qing state ultimately felt the strains of maintaining its huge military system. The lateral transferring of the revenues ultimately loosened the central government's grip on the provinces. Similarly, the state's generous financial support to wars led to widespread wartime corruption. It was no coincidence that the abundant reserves in the central treasury were depleted in the White Lotus war, the last war in the golden age of the Qing dynasty. For the Qing dynasty, like all its predecessors, maintaining its massive military institutions and supporting all the military personnel were among the most critical matters of the state. Likewise, the success or failure in fulfilling the missions was tied to the dynasty's wax and wane. Meanwhile, these are also the issues that place Qing history within the global context, providing a significant angle from which one can view and explore the uniqueness of Qing China in the early modern world. As in early modern Europe, military activities initially helped maintain the vigor of the Qing dynasty, prompting the ruling elites to search for ways to compensate for deficiencies in the state apparatus. Unlike Europe, where wars propelled the centralization of state power, the highly centralized Qing China headed in a different direction with the eighteenth century winding down; the Qing commitment to its military establishment turned out to be more detrimental than beneficial to the health of its fiscal system and, in due course, its political stability.