Guy, R.

Kent (蓋博堅), The Emperor's Four Treasuries:

Scholars and the State in the Late Ch'ien-lung Era
(Cambridge, Mass.: The Council on East Asian Studies,
Harvard University, 1987), pp. 201-208.

7
Conclusion

Censorship was certainly not the only phase o f the l i terary activities
of the Ch'icn�lung court in the 1 7 70s and 80s which reflected a wide
range o f interests and motives; such diversity was apparent, albeit
w i t h far less disastrous consequences, in all phases o f the Ssu-k'u
effort. The imperial i n i t i ative in the project was one shaped by both
tra1itional ideals ;:m d practical considerations. The scholars, for
their part, responded to t h e i n itiative in a way that reflected the com­
plex institutional environ ment in which they lived, and their deeply­
held beliefs about the nature of truth and the best means o f pursuinR
it. Perhaps the interests of the bureaucracy most i n fluenced the form
of the final Sw-k'u ch'iian-shu manuscripl , and lhese were conditioned
by ideolOgical, factional and person<�! considc.r::-ttions. I n its i n t clkc­
tual stance the Annotated Catalog primarily reflected the v i ews of k'rw­
cheng scholarship, but some of its formulations were u ndoubtedly
constrained by J\1an chu ethnic sensitivities and i m perial pride. Re­
flecting all of these i n terests, the Ssu-k'u prqjcct was dominated by
none. The hypothesis of this research has been that the govr:-rnrnent
sponsored l i terary activity of the late Ch'ien-lnng years was the
product .of an interaction between scholars and the �tat e. This con­
clusion \Vill briefly explore some i m p l i cations o f t h i s finding for e i gh­
tc'· n t h-century political and intellectual h i story.
The findings of t h i s research together with those of other studies
of e ighteenth-century China suggest that government in C h i n a , like
the govc rn•1Jcnt of most states, rested on t he art of th(' possible. But i f

201
�U1 Conclusion

the Ch'ien-lung Emperor was not a despot, he was not necessarily

incompetent or weak either. The capacities of the Ch'icn-lung gov­
lTnment were great, but so were the limitations inherent in the char­
acter of imperial rule, and the weight of established social interests
and habits of thought in an empire long undisturbed by foreign or
domestic calamity. As committed as he was to serving as moral and
symbolic leader of his empire, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor was perhaps
ruore significant as a ruler who demonstrated the strengths and limi­
tations of traditional rule in the face of the contrary tendencies of
eighteenth-century Chinese society than as a force for the encour­
agement or repression of any single tendency.
The successes of the Ch'ien-lung government in the Ssu-k'u proj­
ect were indeed impressive. The largest book collection of Chinese
history was assembled, and a cat;tlog that is still useful in spite of its
limitations was prepared. The products of the Ssu�k'u Commission
were not only monuments of government achievement, they were
demonstrations of the qudlity and vitality of eighteenth-century
scholarship. Moreover, in at least partially integrating scholars into
a political } ! : . · ! archy, the Ch'ien-lung government achieved a goal
which had eluded many of its Ch)ing and late Ming predecessors.
These accomplishments should not be underestimated. The Ch'icn­
lung government held sway over an area that was, in population,
geographical expanse, and social complexity, greater than that ruled
Ly any previous Chitn.:se government. Moreover, intellectuals were
(lerhaps more profoundly alienated from the seventeenth and eigh­
teenth-century Chinese government than they had ever been before.
Accomplishing even the appearance of unity was no mean feat. Yet
signs of dynastic decline, to the extent that they were apparept in the
Ssu-k'u project, did not interfere with the public fa(:ade of harmony
anJ achievement.
:tvJany of the failures of the Ssu-k'u effort were, by contrast, evi- ·
dent in the light of critical retrospect. Few saw the manuscript errors
that marred the texts of the Ssu-k'u chVlan-shu, and the errors· of judg�
mcnt and evaluation in the Annotated Catalog have not yd been fully
listed and documented. The most spectacular failure of the Ch'ien­
luug government in the literary realm was its inability to censor
expeditiously and effectively. This was, of course, a task which has
frustratt:d many modern governments, and which was not even at­
LCllljJLed by earlier Ch'ing emperors.
The late Ch'ien-lung era was undoubtedly a turning-point in
Ch'ing government, hut i t seems futile to try to prepare a scorecard
of successes and failures or to attC'mpt to characteri?;e the age e i f h n
a s t h e beginning of t h e e n d o r t h e e n d of the begi n n i ng. It is m or('
important to observe the patterns and processes which shaped the
achievements and failun:" o f the era. These, it must be noted, were
not the -crea1 ion of a s i n gle man or faction. C h i nese historians' ex­
planations to the con trary, the decline of bureaucratic morale, the
groWth of tensions <Jmong l i terati, and the govcrnnl('n t's inability to
utilize completely the talents of its 1nost creative subjects did not
occur overn i ght. If anything, these 1 rcnds were related to a gradunl
erosion of consensus which accompanied the growth of a complex
and perhaps even pluralistic society.
One eVolving rel ationship of particular i n terest and importance i n
eighteenth-century C h i n a was that between Manchu rulers a n d their
Chinese subjects. Much of t h e writing on Ch'ing history has u n fortu­
natrly tended to read the concerns of sen.nteenth-century Manc:hu
le&dcrs into the pol icies of all Ch'ing governments. Clearly, hov:nTr,
the <lttitudes and goals of Manchus changed \Yith changes i n their
soctn-�conomic status, ("ul t u ral attainm�nts and polit i("al security.
VVhilc ful l docutncntation does not yet exist o f the reasons for the
Ch-';en-lung Emperor's inauguration o f censonhip, nor can the- pre­
cise nature o f the relationships between H o Shcn, A-kuei and their
Chinese countcrp<lrts he completely filthnmcd, some preliminary
observa ! i n n s can be mt�de about the state o f Manchu-Chincse rela­
tions at m id�dynasty. The personnel l i s t o f the Ssu-k'u Commission
sh-_"!\VS that Manchus held none of the substantive offices on the Com­
mis.o; ion;,.they d i d , howevf'x, serve a s proctors, proofreaders and d i ­
-
rectors�gcneraL Manchu leaders were almost certainly aware o f t h i s
fact. Their sensitivity about thr e t h n i c d i ff'crcnccs separating thc:m
from t h e i r Chi nese subjects was apparent in orders to collators to
change texts of works deal i n g with Sino-foreign relations, in the
ren:arkablc series o f publications o f t h e 1 7 70s anJ 1 7 8 0 s dealing with
Manchu heri tage and history, and most spectacul arly, in their cam­
paign of censorship. The M ; l twhus of the e i ghteenth-century knew
that they were a foreign m i n ority, albeit one that had achieved a
rcm?�rkable mastery of the civilizing arts of C h i nese l i fe . By contrast
many Chinese of the e-i ght.centh-ccnlury seem to h ave, iJ not pre­
cisely forgi-1ttcn the fo reign origins of Manchu rulers, Clt kast ac­
cepted their leadership. C h i n ese scholars were willing to follow
Manchu 0\icrJords. In fact, many C h i nese showerl themselves q o i t e
204 Conclusion

skillful Juring the campaign of censorship in using Manchu sensi­

tivities to resolve old social and economic squabbles. The apparent
incongruity of Manchu self-consciousness and Chinese tolerance
was perhaps not so strange given the relative size of the two groups:
the Manchus' small numbers and exalted social and political position
must have been very much on their minds throughout their rule.
The attitudes of Chinese and lvfanchus toward the ethnic issue prob­
ably led to a situation in vvhich the difference was highly important
in th�: hothouse atmosphere of court politics, and of rapidly declining
significance the further away one moved from the imperial _city in
Peking. Such a hypothesis would account both for the extraOrdinary
sensitivity of the Peking government to slights of Manchus (a sensi­
tivity which led them to set up a committee to eliminate the charac­
ter t'u "rabbit" from all lV1anchu names in the historical re(:ord) and
the relative absence of ethnically based opposition to Ch'ing rule in
the provinces.
Ch'ing rulers' consciousness of their ethnic origins probably
affected Ch'ing polit ical and court history, but did such conscious­
ness affect other dimensions of modern Chinese development?
\Vhat, if any, di !rerence did it make for institutional or intellectual
history that the compilers of the Ssu-k'u ch'Uan-shu were Manchus?' To
the t,;xtent that this question implies the counterfactual query ("Ilow
would the Clum .:se have done it differently?") it is, of course, unan­
swerable. Yet certain speculations may be advanced. While the
precedents for imperial honk collecting were very old, in fact several
centuries had passed - since any Chinese ruler had employed them.
Anxious to demonstrate, among other things, how conversant he was
'>-v ith the classical Chinese past, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor awakened
long dormant traditions, probably realizing only dimly that the . insti­
tutions and neeUs of Chinese scholars and rulers had changed. The
result vvas a situation in which imperial dictates were not in accord
with social and intellectual needs. Such a pattern, recurrent in
Ch'ing hiswry, has often been seen as having a stultifying effect on
Chinese development. Yet in the case of the Ssu-k'u project, Chinese
�uHJ l\tfanchu elites set about the task of creatively adapting traJition­
al forms to meet new needs. The Ssu-k'u ch'U.au-shu, offering Chinese
scholars an opportunity to C<.Jlkct and comment on their own intel­
l<:ctual heritage and consolidate their philosophical movements,
served a very different purpose from Liu Hsiang's Pieh-lu. As
 Conclusion 205

research on Ch'ing institutions continues, such instancrs of institu­

tional .c reativity may not prove to be uncommon responses to the
changing charac!cr of Chinese society, and the unparallcl!ed fact of
prolonged and se1 l!re Ch'ing control of the Chinese imperiurn.
One reason for the richness, complexity, and, if the argument of
the previous paragraph is credited, creativity of institutions like the
Ssu-k'u Commission was that they were the work Of many hands.
Until recently, historians concerned with establishing the social and
economic bases of elite status in traditional China have i gnored the
ways in which segments of the Chinese elite consciously differen­
tiated themselves from one another. Yet one implication of the pres­
en_t study is that there were among China's elite many different styles
of l i fe, and conceptions of social and political du ty. All those ex­
amined here were intellectuals in Edward Shils' sense of those who
employed in their speech and writing- vvith relatively greater fre­
quency than those around them symbols of abstract scope and gen­
eral reference. Yet some clearly enjoyed the political arena \vhile
others dwdt on its peripheries in institutions of i mage-making or
recruitment. Still others like Tai Chen and Sh;:w Chin-ban preferred
pure scholarship, Each of these segments of the elite had different
reasons· for participating in the Ssu-k'u prc�ject, and the strengths
and faults of the fmal product reAected the diversity of the ct J : > � p i k rs.
The Ssu-k'n project may not have reflected any particularly new
developments in the eighteenth-century bureaucracy, but since the
tasks of collecting and evaluating books were ones fOr which bureau­
crats' common classical education should i n t heory h ave s u i ted them
perfectly, the project may h:1ve rcve<�kd the limitations and c<lpctci­
ties of the late eighteenth-century ruling apparatus more clearly th;:m
did other contemporary efforts. These strengths and l imitations
were, in a sense, built into the structure of the bureaucracy. If one
were to Jiken Ch'ing government to a game, it would be one in which
the en;peror held a1l the cards, but the bureaucrats habitually played
them. Since all legitimate authority in Chinese government derived
from the emperor and his rossession of a mandate from heaven,
bureaucrats were in theory utterly dependent on h i m . In the face of
an imperial order, be it one to collect and edit the best books 0f to
destroy offensive ones, the Ch'ing emperor's serv;:mts and <;Llvcs
could do nothing but obey. Surely part of the tone of anger and pent­
up frustration that characterizes imperial rcprimanrl.:; derived from
206 Condu!:>iOtl

tile bet that whatever olficials did they did i t in the emperor's name.
\'V hen Hai Ch'eng allowed the 7Zu-kuan to circulate, or whet) copyists
made errors in the texts of Ssu-k'u books, they were in a �en se mis­
using the a u t !Jfnity entrusted to them from above. lvfisusing author­
i r y was not lllerdy an administrative error, but a moral one:
Given the finality of the emperor's orders, however, it Lehoovcd
the sensible oHicial to prevent him from issuing !ltu!l. Or, if ordas
wc(c issued, the wise official made sure that they were worded as
vaguely as pos13ible so that the administrator would have lhe l flaxi­
mum scope fo r maneuvcr. Not only administrative obstacles but, as
the evidence above has repeatedly demonstrated, i n ter-bureaucratic
competition in a world largely dependent on imperial favor a1fcctt':d
the vvay the emperor's policies were actually carried out. In a time
when neither external challenges nor internal u n rest forced priorities
on the empire, and precedent and the way it was i n terpreted con­
strained the imperial will, the bureaucrats' capacity to shape central
government policy in this indirect manner was great. The conven­
tions of court-ccnter-ed histo riography hu.v�: normally concealed the
process by which bureaucrats shaped Chinese policy from view. B u t
i n the Ss u-k'u project, t h e outlines of bureaucrats' influence on policy
making were visible, albeit through the historiographical glass d i m:ly,
l�ll too many d i fferen t sorts of o1licials had a n in terest i n the project.
Ck;u-ly, local educational oHicials, capital educational officials -like
Chu Yun, senior statesmen at court like YU I'viin-chung a n d. Liu
T'ung-hsun, and scholars- turned-officials like Yao Nai and Shao
Chin-han, all iufiuenced the Ssu-k!u ch'iian-shu. Tile irony o f Ch'ing
bureaucracy was that y,•hik al1 of t l w:;e officials would have had to
bow in compliance, as many did, Uefore direct imperial orders, the
pwjl:ct could not have succceU<-.:d unless it Sl:rvcd each of their intcr­
e�t.s i n some way.
Probably the most interesting and historiographically important
motivations to exam ine were those of the scholars. Often the partici­
pation of eightccntlt-century scholars in the Ssu-k'u project has been
characterized as an ill-advised and self-interested capitulation to a
crud a n d barbarou.s regime. This book has argued, on the Contrary,
that the scholars enthusiastically took part in the effort because they
saw in it an opportunity to achieve guals which wen; beyond their
private and individual resources. This finding has implications for
our image of Ch'ing scholarship, a n d of the Ssu-k'u products. 'fhe
k'ao�cheng scholar's concern with issues of philology and textual
 Conclusion 207

transmission has often been seen as a product of h i s fear t h a t by nd­

dressing l a rger social or philosophical issues, h e would court govern­
rncnt repression. Yet , as has been shown here, the arc:1s of I'vJ andw
sensitivity were fairly narrow and predictable. The vast m ajority o f
Ch'ien-lung editors' textual emendations and book banni ngs i n ­
·volvcd writings which dealt w i t h t h e history of Sino-foreign relations
or with the M :mchus' sixteenth and seventeenth-century risf' to
power. No evidence has appeared in the course of this study to sug­
gest that the Ch'ing government ever used censorship to change the
fu nUamental directions o f Chinese thought i n other areas. G i ven this
finding, one must consider the possibilities that Ch'ing intellectuals
examined philol ogical and epistemological issues either bec<1usc they
fou nd it financially rewarding to do so, o r because they believed such
issues genuinely important. Until much more is knmvn about the
financial commitments and resources o f Ch'ing scholars, the first
proposition will be difficult to eval uate. ft c:1n he safely suggested,
bowcver, that hope of financial gain was not the major motive of
scholarly participation in the Ssu-k'u cornpihtinn. But there is mnplc
evidence of the truth of the second proposition i n the writings o f
eighteenth-century intellectuals a n d i n t h e Annotated Catalo.e o f t h e Sw­
k'u ch'iian-shu. Chu Yu n <1nd h i s collc<�gucs examined ancir'td texts
because they believed they could recapture in them ancient truths.
Shao C h i n-ban corrected the historical record in order t o p rovide
those who followed h i m with a model of conduct and political
wisdom.
The products of the Ssu-k'u compilation both shaped and reflected
t h i s belief. The Ssu-k'u project afforded scholars an opportunity t o
�Acview texts o n a much larger sc::Jk t h an their private resonrccs
would permit, to inspect the YunJt-!O t.a-tirn, and to pronounce their
judgments from <1 forum which commanded the respect and atten­
tion of all litcrati. It i s true that certain projects recommf'ndcd by
Chu and h i s circle were not approved by t h e Grand Council, b u t th i s
was because t h e y were i m p ractical n o t because t h e y were impolitic.
Perhaps the best sign o f the degree t o which the book collection proj­
ect reflected t h e concerns of eighteenth-century scholarship was the
reaction it caused. Yao NCJ.i and his followers ·were not opposed to the
concept o f a book colicction project per se) nor did they object to the
fact of scholarly collaboration. Their reaction was to the imperial
endorsement of the goals and concerns o f the k'ao-chenl? mo\Trncnt
which the Ssu-k'u project represented.
208 Conclusion

The willing participation of eighteenth-century intellectuals in the

Ssl,-k'u effo rt suggests some more general couclusions about the sig­
nilicance of imperial prerogatives in the Chinese scholarly world.
Clearly, if truth coulJ be certified Ly imperial imprimatur, i t was in
the interests of the opposing sides on various questions to compete
to attract imperial favor. On the other hand, an emperor who per­
ceived that the security of his empire rested on the allegiance ofliter­
atc clitcs could hardly afford to be capricious in his endorsements.
Indeed, this probably was the reason why the imperial prerogatives
i11 the scholarly world were usually exercised by institutions of gov­
ernment rather than by the emperor personally. In the final analysis,
was eighteenth-century sch�)lars' competition for the favor of an
emperor concerned with pu�lic opinion markedly different from the
competition for public esteem which characte1·izes modern intellec­
tual discourse? There were, of course, cases where emperors over­
ste_IJped their role, 0verrode the institution.s of imperial scholarship
and sought to impose personal or family considerations on intellec­
tual life. In fact, the Ch'icn-lung Emperor's effort to eradicate from
the historical record unfavorable references to his 1\1anchu ancestors
probably represented such a case. Yet the chaos which follOwed from
his orders illustrated the dangers that attended such an overstepping
and the reasons why wise rulers !eft such tasks to the organs of gov­
ernment created to carry them out. To be sure, the fact that the
Chinese emperor was both sage and ruler imposed constraints on the
scholarly world- conventions for referring to the ruler, taboos, etc.
But to a thinker who accepted the emperorship as part of the fu rni­
ture of the universe, such conventions probably did not seem to Le
constraints, but inevitable concomitants of civilized life. Is there any
evidence that these conventions impinged upon the creatiV ity of the
Chinese intellectual any more than the forms of Western scholarly
discourse limit the freedom of modern thinkers? If, as the evidence
of the present study suggests, the answer to this question is no, then
there is no reason to suspect tha[ the Chinese scholar in the context
of his assumptions was any more restrained in his expressions of
social and political opinion than his western counterpart. The chal­
lenge this poses to the historian uf Chinese thought is to understand
the character o ( constraints and, instead of decrying the depotism of
Chinese rulers, assess the achievements of Chinese schu!ars.