CHINA
The Manchu Dynasty
(Ta Ch'ing Ch'ao )
BRIEF HISTORY
The
Ch'ing dynasty is of Manchurian nomadic origin. They rose
to prominence in their home province during the late
sixteenth century. Nurhachi, Prince of the Jurgen clan,
conquered Manchuria and proclaimed himself Emperor of the
Mongol hordes in 1606. He established a new state in 1616
and called it T'a Ch'ing Kuo (the
Empire of Great Purity) and his dynasty the Chin.
Inheriting a remarkably successful military machine, his
sons were able to extend his empire deep into Chinese
territory. The T'ai Tsung Emperor changed the name of the
dynasty in 1636 to Ta Ch'ing Ch'ao (the Great Pure
Dynasty) instead of Chin, a phrase having negative
connotations in Chinese. After a lengthy power struggle,
exacerbated by a weakened Ming dynasty, his grandson
entered Peking and mounted the Imperial throne in 1643.
The Shih-tsu Emperor was merely five years old. His
successor, the Shêng Tsu Emperor enjoyed a long and
remarkable reign of sixty years. After some notable early
successes in extending dominion over Tibet, Mongolia and
Taiwan, Shih-tsu's successors ruled over a stagnant and
decaying empire for the next two centuries. By the middle
of the nineteenth century, it had become prey to internal
factions, prone to sporadic rebellions increasingly
subjected to humiliations by foreign powers. Significant
military defeats in 1860, 1895 and 1900 resulted in the
cession of territories to Russia, Japan, Britain, France
and Germany. Each of whom also enjoyed significant
extra-territorial rights and commercial privileges within
the rest of China. During most of this period the Empire
was dominated by the Grand Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi.
A former concubine of the Emperor Hsien-fêng, Tzu Hsi
rose to prominence through intrigue and sheer guile.
Reactionary, vindictive, malicious, she presided
over a period of decline opposing every reform, every
attempt at progress and development. Although a far
reaching reform programme was planned and implementation
begun after her long overdue death in 1908, these came
too late and too slowly to forestall catastrophe. A
pro-republican uprising in 1911, after a period of bitter
civil war, prompted the regent to abdicate temporal
authority on behalf of the child Emperor Hsüan-t'ung.
The Articles of Favourable Treatment of 1912 and other
documents which constituted the act of transferring power
to the republic, guaranteed the continuation of ranks and
titles in perpetuity, to the Emperor himself, to his
family, members of the Imperial clan, and to servants of
the Imperial household. In all respects, the Emperor was
to be accorded honours and privileges by the republican
authorities, in the same manner as a foreign sovereign.
The first official President of the Republic, Marshal
Yuan Shi Kai, acceptedthe Imperial throne on 11th
December 1916, after instigating a corrupt campaign of
memorials and petitions in his favour. He set about
planning an enthronement ceremony and created fifty
titles of nobility, including a princedom of the first
rank, for his Vice-President Li Yuan-hung. His plans
proved generally unpopular and were postponed several
times, before his death in June 1917.
The republican regimes which followed were weak,
ineffectual, and ridden by factionalism and corruption.
Governments rose and fell in rapid succession. Presidents
and Prime Ministers came and went out of office with
surprising speed. Warlords ruled in the provinces, seized
great cities and occaisionally took the capital. The
capital itself being transferred from city to city,
depending on which general happened to hold power at any
given time. One coup d'état followed another.
After yet another coup d'état, the dictatorship
headed by General Huang Fu, abrogated the Articles of
Favourable Treatment and expelled the Emperor from the
Forbidden City on the 5th of November 1924. An
act never actually confirmed by any legal or
constitutional process, then or since.
In the meantime, Japan intervened increasingly in the
north and east, seizing Manchuria, parts of Inner
Mongolia, and eventually significant areas of China
proper. At their behest, the former Emperor was restored
in 1934 under the reign name of K'ang Teh. He became
Emperor of Manchuria (Manchutikuo), or incorrectly but
popularly known as Manchukuo, the ancient homeland of his
house which had taken no part in the revolutionary
upheaval of 1911. He fell into Russian Communist hands at
the close of the Second World War, was turned over to the
Chinese Communists in 1949, and spent the next ten years
in prisons and re-education centres. Freed in 1959, he
returned to Peking, became a gardener and later a member
of the National People's Congress. Better known by his
personal name of P'u-yi, the former Emperor lived out his
days in the rambling old mansion of his father, the
former Regent. The official report says that he died from
cancer in 1967, but according to unofficial rumour, from
the effects of wounds received during severe torture and
mutilation, at the hands of "cultural
revolutionaries".
RULES OF SUCCESSION:
The Emperor could name his successor, from amongst his
surviving sons. Two edicts were drafted (secret after
1723), both done in the Emperor's own hand, one of them
being sealed and placed above the throne. In case of a
childless Emperor, he could appoint a prince from a
collateral branch of the dynasty, provided he was from
the next immediate generation. Princes, so appointed need
not necessarily be the next in line of descent or by
order of primogeniture. In most cases, the Emperor
adopted the appointed heir before his death. If he had
failed to do so before dying, his widow or mother could
adopt in his stead. Despite these Confucian rules, there
have been several instances in Chinese history where
brothers have succeeded brothers, or cousins succeeded
cousins. Ultimately, might has usually decided right.
After the restoration of the dynasty in the ancestral
provinces of Manchuria, new rules of succession were
passed under The Law Governing Succession to the Imperial
Throne, March 1, 1937. Article 1 limited the succession
to male descendants. Article 5 allowed for the absence of
sons or descendants and stipulated that brothers of the
reigning Emperor, borne of the same mother, and their
male-line descendants succeeded according to age. They
took precedence over brothers of the half blood, even if
younger than the latter. Brothers of the half-blood and
their descendants succeeded next. Article 6 stipulated
that in the absence of brothers and their descendants,
the uncles of th reigning Emperor and of the full blood
succeeded. According to these regulations, Emperor K'ang
Teh's full-brother, Prince Pu-chieh, become the Heir
Apparent.
Since the death of Prince Pu-chieh without male issue in
1994, the rightful successor has been more difficult to
establish. His surviving young brother of the half-blood
would have succeeded according to the 1937 Law, the most
recently accepted, officially approved and published
house rules.
However, matters are complicated by claims that the late
Emperor adopted a distant cousin, Prince Yü-yan
[Yan-jui], while both were prisoners of the Russians in
Siberia. Although this procedure seems to be in
accordance with earlier precedent and Confucian custom,
no official papers have come to light, which verify the
adoption. Nevertheless, several individuals continue to
testify in its favour. The Emperor's own autobiography
does mention a conversation with the prince, in which he
proposed to adopt him. However, the tone and language
used in the relevant passages suggest that the motivation
behind holding out such a prospect, may also have been to
induce personal servitude in an environment devoid of
servants and household staff.
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K'ang-Hsi. Pimlico, London, 1992.
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SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Dr. Morris Bierbrier, FSA.
Justin J. Corfield.
Hans Hägerdal, Department of Humanities, University of
Växjö, Sweden.
Hamish Todd.
Copyright© Christopher Buyers, January 2001 - March 2008