Warfare in the Ming-Qing Context
When considering the Ming and Qing dynasties, the first thing comparative military historians should keep in mind is the sheer size of the empire. From 1500 to 1800 the population of China swelled from roughly 150 million to perhaps 400 million.
Managing an empire of this size required a massive military establishment that needed to be able to deal with a multiplicity of threats in varying terrains. Even a cursory perusal of the official dynastic chronicles, known as the Veritable Records (Ming and Qing shilu), reveals that military affairs were always in the forefront of imperial concerns. Thus, the Ming and Qing were constantly developing new technologies and experimenting with new tactics to realise the dynasty's strategic aims. Responses to military threats varied according to relative dynastic military strength as well as the particular needs and interests of individual monarchs and competing official power blocks. The mid-Ming emperors tended to be more defensive in orientation whereas Wanli (r. 1573-1620) sought to reassert Ming primacy within Asia by virtue of military achievements early in his reign, only to be thrown on the defensive by the rising Manchu challenge later.[192] For their part, after a forty-year war to defeat Ming loyalist groups, the Qing embarked upon a period of aggressive territorial expansion that was unprecedented in Chinese history.[193] And both these dynasties routinely participated in what are laconically dubbed ‘pacification' campaigns in the traditional sources. These could range from the eradication of a group of local bandits or pirates to massive campaigns mobilising hundreds of thousands of troops.Indeed, this era was regarded as particularly violent by contemporary observers and later scholars alike. In a study of collective violence in the Ming period, 80 per cent ofJames Tong's cases occurred between 1506 and 1644.[194] An examination of Gu Yingtai's Mingshijishi benmo (A Topical History of the Ming Dynasty), one of the most highly regarded histories published shortly after the dynasty's fall, bears out Tong's findings.[195] Some two-thirds of the chapters dealing with the later Ming period in the Topical History treat military topics.
Additionally, the six chapters appended to the end of the work proper deal with strategic military concerns pertaining to the Manchu wars in the north-east dating from the late sixteenth century. More recently, in a work on the global crisis of the seventeenth century, Geoffrey Parker has opined that China was more adversely affected by climate change and military disasters than any other place in the world.[196] In the eyes of the imperial state, as revealed by most of the surviving sources which are of course from the perspective of the centre, the government was bringing peace and order to the countryside. But from the perspective of local people, the state was often simply upping the ante on violence.The greatest problem faced by Chinese empires in general was the diversity of threats with which they were confronted on a regular basis. I have identified eight major military challenges faced by the Ming and Qing. My list is derived from readings of primary and secondary materials and is meant to reflect the way they were typically treated in contemporary sources. Most could be described as being endemic to traditional Chinese empires and some even remain present today in the eyes of the People's Republic of China. These strategic threats, as viewed from the perspective of state authorities, were as follows: (1) the Mongols (in Ming and Qing contexts); (2) peasant rebels and bandits; (3) minority revolts; (4) pirates; (5) the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-8); (6) sectarian rebels; (7) the Jurchen/Manchu Invaders (1616-44); and (8) troop mutinies.
Challenges to the imperial state could sometimes consist of a variety of these threats, and strict delineation between them is not always possible. It was possible for one event to lead to another. Petty bandits could spark larger peasant rebellions, as could sectarian movements, particularly in times of widespread natural disaster and government turmoil. Troop mutinies along the frontiers sometimes sparked Mongol raids or aboriginal uprisings as minority groups seized opportunities presented to them.
Sectarian uprisings similarly had the potential to explode, seen most notably in the massive White Lotus Rebellion of 1796-1805. I concur with Tong's findings, which indicate that while there was not necessarily always a direct correlation between the type and level of threat, in the eyes of the state it was the potential for expansion that mattered.[197] Belying popular generalisations, sources suggest that the empire as a whole was a violent and dangerous place.As far as the relative importance of these threats is concerned, it depended upon the time in question. The Mongols constituted the paramount threat to Ming security for most of the dynasty, but they were regarded as far less dangerous after the late sixteenth century when a combination of peace settlements and Ming military victories reversed the strategic balance of power. The so-called Japanese pirates (wokou) took centre stage in the mid sixteenth century, and the threat of a massive Japanese invasion of the Asian mainland was the major strategic concern of the 1590s. In the seventeenth century the Manchus assumed the role of Ming nemesis, to be joined by sectarian and peasant rebels in the 1620s. During the long Ming-Qing struggle, the invaders selectively applied violence to consolidate and legitimate their rule. Under the Qing, border clashes involved new methods of using violence for strategic ends, but were not necessarily threatening the survival of the empire. Sectarian revolts reemerged in the late eighteenth century, seeming to presage the military decline of the Qing. Thus, the range of strategic threats necessitated the adoption of a variety of ways of warfare and strategic applications of violence.