Chinese Civilians Beyond the Palisade: an Inquiry on the Opening of Northern Manchuria to Han Commoners in the Yongzheng era

Even before the Qianlong ban of 1740 (fengjin zhengce 封禁政策), which officially and thoroughly prohibited Han civilians’ migration to Manchuria, the Qing rulers’ attitude toward the phenomenon was, most of the time, a negative one. Generally speaking, the court meant to preserve the territory to the imperial family themselves and the Manchu people. More specifically, as the policies addressing southern Manchuria (present day Liaoning province) changed over time, as the rulers’ wish to keep the place to their own people clashed with concerns about repopulation and land reclamation – for which Chinese settlers could be a resource, spontaneous settling in the northern part of the region (bianwai 邊外, “beyond the (Willow) Palisade”) was always formally forbidden. Such a difference was clearly reflected by the local administrative structures. The Chinese-fashioned system, zhouxianzhi 州縣制, was present in southern Manchuria since 1653, whereas it was established in Jilin only in Yongzheng era. Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong controlled or opposed the growth of the Chinese civil population in Manchuria. As a consequence, they kept unaltered or weakened the Chinese branch of the local government while making efforts to develop the local Eight Banners’ structures. Yongzheng’ policies were headed toward a different direction. Not only did the sovereign enlarge the civil administration in Liaoning; even more significantly, he ordered the foundation of three civil administrative centres in northern Manchuria – Yongji 永吉, Changning 長寧 and Taining 泰寧, which were in charge of the increasing civil population. Neither in China nor in western studies such policies have been attached the importance they are worth of. In addition, Qing sources such as Veritable Records, Gazetteers and the Collected Statutes provide very scarce information on such maneuver. By resorting to archival sources, both in Chinese and in Manchu, this work aims at researching into the rationales and the decision making process which lead to a brief but important interruption of the main trend of Qing rule of their motherland.