The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China

This book was a long read, and it was not an easy one either. It took me almost a month to finish it, and from time to time I felt the impulse to flip back a couple of pages to check the earlier stories of that person that was mentioned later in the book again in some other occasions. This book was good in a sense that it was a comprehensive coverage of the history in the period of late Ming and early Qing Dynasty with solid references and research behind it. And what the author, Frederic Wakeman Jr., made it unique was that he was able to fit the history into the background of the global development and comment on how the history influenced the world and vice versa.

On the other hand, though, the read would be tough if you don’t have much knowledge in what happened during that period in China. I only briefly learned the history when in elementary and junior high school, and almost couldn’t recall anything but some major milestones. Apart from the major events, this book introduced many anecdotes and detailed stories of those figures that the author believed played a role during that period. As a result, there appeared to be a lot of names which made me really difficult to memorize (especially that I’m not the kind of person that is extremely sensitive to names). Additionally, although the chapters followed the overall timeline, there were some places where the storyline was organized by a policy concept or around certain characters, which lost me a couple of times.

Of course, I paid extreme respect to this grand work. Never have I seen any other English literature that peeled the layers off and explained the history of this period in this detail. And it was definitely a time-consuming work which required a lot of patience for the author whose mother tongue was not Chinese to read through all different materials in ancient Chinese either by himself or through translators.

Some good learnings I definitely wanted to share:

• To make the important functions, such as the military, work, we need to make sure that the teams’ basic needs are fulfilled (e.g., the people are sufficiently paid, the necessary equipments are provided)
  • One of the key reasons that caused the collapse of the Ming Dynasty was that the salaries were far from enough for the soldiers to survive (which was caused by both the internal and external reasons), thus leading to protests/ riots from the soldiers and the chaos in the local community (since many soldiers started to rob the civilians to make ends meet) In that case, the soldiers were not satisfied, and the civilians were not either, which partly led to the locals’ genuine hope for a reform or, more directly, a new ruler. When the Dorgon troops came in, many civilians warmly welcomed them and gave out free food and drinks – as you can see, how disappointed they were about the then Ming Emperor.
  • Additionally, the lack of loyalty and practice of the soldiers directly made the troops unable to fight and soon lost the battles.
• There needs to be a mechanism in place for the rulers to listen to the locals (including the local leaders)
  • One problem of the Chongzhen era (the last emperor in the Ming Dynasty), which contributed significantly to the collapse of the kingdom, was that he had little trust of the outside people but the officials that worked directly with him in the palace on a daily basis. As a result, fewer proposals and comments from the “outsiders” could be passed onto the king, and the trusted officials only brought up issues that catered towards their own interests. Not only did Chongzhen’s perspectives get twisted, but it also gradually fostered the trends of picking sides and bribery from the lower level officials.
• It’s always easier to win over a territory through military power, while there’s another battle that the rulers have to win but is tougher: the hearts and respect of the people
  • When Dorgon (the one who ended the Ming Dynasty; he was never a king though) established the Qing Dynasty, he decided to waive the death penalty to the officials who previously served the Ming emperors. Instead, he actively recruited some capable Han people to serve in his term for two reasons.
    • First of all, in the new empire he conquered, Han was the majority. They shared significantly different living patterns and culture. He figured the most effective way was to let their people rule their people.
    • Secondly, he wanted to clarify his attitude towards ruling this country. By not punishing the “old” officials but placing them in important management roles, he was able to attract more capable Han people to help him and get more buy-ins from the Han civilians.
  • And indeed, many of the Han people he recruited didn’t let him down: some helped him win a number of important battles in the following years, and some proposed effective policies to rule the country.
• What caused the new empire in turmoil at times was the constant tension between the Manchu and Han people – racial disparity remained a huge problem no matter which country and era we were in.
  • Although Dorgon promoted quite a number of Han officials, he, at the back of his mind, didn’t fully trust the Han people because after all they were of a different race. His growing suspicions created a ceiling for the Han officials: no matter how hard they worked and how many achievements they made for the new emperor, they knew that they would never be able to sit on the same seat with the Manchu people. And of course, some Manchu officials took advantage of this disparity as well. When similar cases happened again and again, it brought down the loyalty of the Han officials, and some of them eventually decided to put on the “Ming” hat again hoping to (help) establish a new empire where they could be fairly treated.
• To be liked by the king and respected by other people, one needs to work hard to gain the credentials by making tangible achievements. Only by showing that you are capable will you be able to ask for more (e.g., benefits, promotions).
• Featuring a personal story sometimes is way more effective than other methods say, war, to unite the people.
  • This book shared a number of cases where the Han gradually believed in the new emperor because of some personal anecdotes they heard about the emperor and/or the loyal officials. They started to unite and support the new emperor not because they were forced to but that they believed the emperor was a capable one and they would have a better future by doing so.
  • Similar examples could be seen in many presidential speeches.
• We talked a lot about benchmarking these days, but only looking at the successful cases in the past won’t necessarily help pave the road to success. Instead, grabbing on the past may deter the pace of innovation and growth.
  • At the later stage of Qing Dynasty, the country started to lag behind because they only followed the policies and principles of their ancestors as these seemed to work very well in the past. They didn’t realize that although the country seemed to still move forward bit by bit, this was just caused by the inertia. Once some negative forces became visible, the big empire could collapse in one day.
  • Of course, another important reason of the eventual collapse of the Qing Dynasty was that there was no apparent threats outside of the country at their best times. As a result, they didn’t feel the impulse to change and innovate. A learning for us: we should always find a “competitor” out there to inspire and push us to grow and work hard, even if it’s just ourselves.
• There was an interesting discussion in the book: What is the right thing to do for those “old” officials who were previously loyal to the Ming Dynasty? Should they commit suicide to demonstrate their loyalty and integrity (which a lot of Ming officials did as well as their families), or should they accept the destiny and serve the new empire because, given this open and brilliant new ruler, this would be an excellent opportunity to push forward good policies and grant the people a better world to live in?
  • A deeper question lies: do people believe in destiny? Is the reconstruction of the empire a destiny for them, so they should just accept it, go ahead and embrace it although they may have to bear the reputation of being a traitor?
  • There’s no right or wrong answer. Some did commit suicide and later on was appreciated by the Qing emperors because of their pure loyalty. And some did go ahead and serve the new emperor and became well liked officials who did significant contribution to the welfare of the people and development of the country.

I will probably go back to this book again after reading and watching some more materials about the history of that era. It was a very complicated and interesting era, and there’s a lot (more) for us to learn from.