Conclusion

An indisputable consequence of the demographic and economic expansion in eighteenth-century China was a more mobile and peripatetic population. Whether profitably engaging in commerce, adventurously migrating in search of arable land or urgently seeking seasonal employment, during the eighteenth century Chinese men, and sometimes women, were on the move in search of economic opportunity, better livelihoods or basic sustenance.

Western and Chinese concepts of civilisation have much in common. Unlike the nineteenth-century Western notion that has long been associated with the Age of Enlightenment, modernity and progress, the Chinese con­cept has a much longer pedigree. Most scholars would agree that the concept of civilisation that embodied Confucian principles of moral behaviour, loy­alty and filial piety was well established by the Western Han dynasty (206 bce-220 ce).^[615] Likewise, the idea that civilisation constituted the special character of a society was common in China and the West.

Not surprisingly, given the deep roots of Chinese civilisation, the associa­tion of historical patterns of interpersonal violence with a notion of progres­sive civilisation that begins in the nineteenth century seems irrelevant to China. The civilisational values of reciprocity, benevolence and refinement had survived for over two millennia. As the evidence gleaned from eight­eenth-century homicide illustrates, the increasing incidence of horrendous acts of violence was inextricably linked to unprecedented macro-economic and demographic change in China that simultaneously engendered prosperity and poverty. The situation was so dire that the rural poor who lost out economically often engaged in survival strategies that were desperate, pathetic and, too frequently, horrifically violent. Ultimately, threats to the material well-being of a growing number of Chinese peasants overshadowed the ameliorating power of civilisational ideals. The anguished pleas and plaintive cries of the rural poor attested to the breakdown of shared norms and ideals of justice. Undoubtedly, the Qing officials who regularly reviewed homicide and capital crimes were painfully aware of the threat to social order and the ideological pillars of civilisation. What they did not seem to realise was that the material foundations of civilisation had been irreparably under­mined. Regardless of how we judge the efficacy of the tactics, eighteenth­century rulers undertook an innovative course of action - redefining criminal behaviour and pursuing an aggressive policy of deterrence - that was not wholly compatible with established norms or institutions of Chinese criminal justice. More importantly, to the extent that the underlying causes of vio­lence were not identified and addressed, their efforts were doomed to fail.