On May 25, 1900, the central ruling clique of the Qing Dynasty, represented by Empress Dowager Cixi, decided to recruit the Boxers and declared war on the Eleven Kingdoms. After the news came out, the whole world was in an uproar, and Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi, Sheng Xuanhuai, and other local powerful factions, in order to protect the border and the people, strictly sealed the news of the declaration of war in the southeast region, and with the help of the General Taxation Department, negotiated with the consuls of various countries and reached an agreement on mutual protection in the southeast. On July 7, the Southeast Mutual Insurance was officially established, and since then, Shandong, Liangguang, Fujian and Zhejiang have announced their participation, far exceeding the scope of mutual insurance in the Yangtze River Basin geographically.
The southeast mutual protection was the first confrontation between local forces and the Qing central government in the history of the Qing Dynasty, and it was not only an emergency, but also a microcosm of the decline of centralized power in the late Qing Dynasty. The demarcation of the boundaries and self-preservation of local governors shows the continuous intensification of local centrifugal tendencies, and marks the formation of the pattern of light and external importance within the Qing Dynasty.
▲Southeast mutual insurance province
The expansion of local power in the late Qing Dynasty began with the Taiping Rebellion, and continued to grow in the great social transformation of military modernization into a precursor, so that it showed a trend of not falling behind, and finally developed into the regret of Gengzi. In order to regain power, the Qing government was forced to implement a new policy in the last decade of its rule, but due to the combination of the central and local governments, it intensified the long-standing contradictions and triggered the betrayal and revolt of the local powerful factions.
Starting from the rise of local forces in the late Qing Dynasty, this article portrays the transmutation of the relationship between the central and local governments in the late Qing Dynasty, and brings its own summary and reflection.
I. Internal and External Troubles: The Crisis of Centralization in Change
When the Opium War broke out in 1840, when the British invaders opened the door of China with strong ships and cannons, the Qing government had already entered a stage of total decline. For the rulers of the late Qing Dynasty, they faced not only the distribution of power within the dynasty and the reconciliation of contradictions, but also a sensitive issue brought about by the Invasion of the West: the changing relationship between the central and local governments.
▲ Opium War
The first was the signing of a series of unequal treaties that weakened the central authority of the Qing dynasty and challenged the traditional central and local frameworks. Before the Opium War, great unification was the essential feature of the centralized system, and the Qing Dynasty strictly controlled the country's politics, economy, culture, etc., weaving an airtight control network. After the Opium War, the Qing government not only destroyed its territorial integrity, but also began to gain privileges over worldly power, some local dignitaries were attached to foreigners, and the stability and order of the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty began to be broken.
The second is the disintegration of traditional social structures, which breaks the inherent pattern of domination. After the Opium War, China's social structure changed, the natural economic disintegration of some treaty ports accelerated, and national capitalism began to emerge and modern enterprises were founded. The establishment of modern enterprises has not only significantly improved the economic strength of the localities, but also intensified the economic dependence of the central government on the localities. At the same time, the invasion of the great powers brought about the importation of culture, a group of bureaucratic intellectuals who advocated learning from the West emerged, and the ruling clique began to divide within itself.
▲Late Qing treaty port
Second, the downward shift of power: the gradual expansion of local forces
In 1851, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolted, and with the momentum of the wind and clouds, it dealt a devastating blow to the Eight Banners and The Green Camp and other economic troops that the Qing Dynasty relied on as its arm. Faced with such a dangerous situation, the Qing government had to implement a policy of laissez-faire supervision, shifting the military and political power that had long been in its hands to the localities, allowing the localities to save themselves, and the rise of local forces and localism. In the process of suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, the Xiang Army, the Huai Army and other local and private armies took advantage of the situation and formed a pattern of soldiers as generals. The local governors not only controlled considerable military and administrative power, but also controlled the Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Affairs powers of the Qing Government, and their strength gradually expanded.
▲Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement
(1) In terms of military affairs, local military forces became the main military pillar of the Qing government to maintain its rule. In 1865, the Mongol prince Senggelinqin was killed by the Twister Army, and the Mongol cavalry under his command was annihilated, which made the last powerful fighting force under the control of the Qing central government no longer exist. After that, the Qing government could no longer get rid of its military dependence on local military forces such as the Xiang Army and the Huai Army, and could only pin its hopes of suppressing the peasant uprisings in the country entirely on the Xiang and Huai armies and grant them greater power, so much so that Xu Shouheng, who served as the Shangshu of the Bingbu during the Guangxu years, once said:
"Our military department only knows the number of soldiers in the Green Battalion, and if its brave battalion trains its army, each inspector will do its own thing, and our military department will be at peace." Whenever the state encounters a war, it dispatches local troops, one soldier and one soldier, one soldier and one porridge, and the imperial court is ready to supervise."
(2) In terms of finance, the financial power of supervision has been expanded, and the finances of the provinces have gradually become independent. The Qing Dynasty Household Department originally had the power to "control the funds of the world", and the provinces did not have financial power, but were only ordered to collect taxes and keep them, and the household department managed revenue and expenditure in a unified way. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the fierce impact of the military war led to the tilt of the social center of gravity, and the whole army had an overriding priority. In order to facilitate the allocation of resources in wartime, the original system of dissolution agreements was gradually abolished, and the clan divisions in charge of local finances and obeyed the orders of the central household department began to be subject to local superintendents, and the central government was no longer able to control local finances through the clan departments.
Li Hongzhang, governor of Liangguang
The gold system and local salary broke the highly centralized financial management system of the Qing Dynasty and formed two financial systems with parallel development between the central and local governments. With the growth of local financial power and the relaxation of the marketing system, the household department cannot understand the actual situation of the finances of the provinces, and in order to maintain the central tax source, it can only be apportioned between the provinces. Even so, "in the past fundraising of the household department, there were always one or two policies or several policies that could not be passed through the provinces, and even one case was requested several times, which lasted for several years and the provinces did not comply with it." ”
▲ The Golden Bureau
The Qing government was not completely unaware of the situation in which the growth of local power endangered central rule, but was powerless to be subject to the social conditions at that time. At a time when local power was gradually expanding, the imperial court still controlled the appointment and dismissal of provincial governors and the right to transfer offices, and could dismiss and transfer governors. Although the Qing government in this period did not completely lose its ruling authority, the relationship between the central and local governments was already different from the past, and the local centrifugal tendency was still developing.
Third, the internal light is heavy and the external is heavy: the establishment of a local decentralization system with supervision as the core
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, with the gradual deepening of the degree of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the ruling authority and ruling ability of the Qing government were further weakened, the local forces continued to expand, and the power structure of the state was gradually replaced by the centralized power system centered on imperial power by the local decentralization system with supervision as the core, and the power pattern of light and external importance within the late Qing Dynasty gradually took shape.
Some powerful local governors often perfunctory or even turned a deaf ear to the Qing government's edicts, even if the emperor himself strictly reprimanded them. On August 26, 1889, the Guangxu Emperor issued an edict:
That is, for example, Liu Kunyi and Tan Chonglin, the governors of Liangjiang and Liangguang, did not repeat a word of what was ordered to be organized in May and June of this year. After being urged by telegram, Liu Kun did not arrive at a verbal article, and he was reprimanded by a telegram. Tan Chung Lin did not reply and ignored it. The governor and others have been deeply blessed, and those who have been sent to the frontier for a long time have been so discouraged, so what hope is there for recovery? If there is any further delay, it will be severely punished.
It is not difficult to see from this how indifferent the local governors are to the Qing government's decrees, which is not only due to the edicts, but also the local officials' conformism and laziness in politics, which led to the failure of the Qing Dynasty's government decrees, but also the centrifugal deviation of local forces from the central ruling group.
▲Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang
In 1900, the dictatorship of the governor was further developed into a southeastern local governor who ignored the central edict and privately reached a southeast mutual insurance agreement with the Western powers. Therefore, during the Gengzi period, the Qing Empire had a grotesque situation in which the central government declared war, the local government negotiated peace, the northern war of resistance, the southern self-protection, the two palaces fled west, and the governor was at ease. The reason why the local governor dared to openly confront the imperial court and make the Qing government's ruling authority sweep away showed that the Qing government at that time had lost the ability to control the local governor. This political pattern became increasingly prominent with the intensification of social contradictions in the late Qing Dynasty and the contradictions within the ruling clique, and became a key factor in determining the life and death of the future Qing Dynasty.
Fourth, the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty: the betrayal and revolt of local forces
The disobedience of the southeast governor made it impossible for the Qing court to confront the West militarily, and the central ruling group of the Qing court had to flee under the blows of the Eight-Nation Alliance. At this time, the central government of the Qing Dynasty was already a flower rack, unable to exercise its functions at all, and the disgrace of the central authority forced the Qing government to change and strive to be strong. On January 29, 1901, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict in the name of the Guangxu Emperor to "make an appointment to change the law", which was actually to "use the name of the change of law to collect the truth of the right".
▲Empress Dowager Cixi
The intention of the Qing government is very obvious, that is, to restore the central authority by training the new army to not only collect the financial power of the local superintendents, but also to divide and disintegrate its military power. This act of centralization seriously infringed on the foundation of self-esteem on which local governors relied, and caused serious differences between the central and local governments. Faced with such a major disagreement, the Qing government sent the Manchu pro-Gui Tieliang south, and the people of the time analyzed:
"To see its intention is nothing more than to gather the wealth and power of the provinces to the government, nothing more than to collect the military power of the provinces and belong to the governments, and the reason for its intention is to put it in a word, it is only the centralization of power."
But what the Qing government did not expect was that the ultimate beneficiary of its efforts to weaken the power of the southeast governor and military reform was not itself, but directly subordinate to the governor Yuan Shikai, and the power of Jiangnan and Jiangbei fell into his hands. The Qing government took the risk of breaking with the local government to centralize power, which not only completely offended the powerful local forces, but also cultivated another even more terrible military group, the Beiyang clique. In the last decade of the late Qing Dynasty, the New Deal not only did not restore the Qing government's ruling authority, but because of its tough attitude and radical centralized measures, it intensified the contradictions between the Qing central government and the localities, which eventually led to the betrayal and revolt of the local powerful factions and accelerated the collapse of the Qing Dynasty.
▲Edict of abdication of the Qing Emperor
rethink
In the late Qing Dynasty, as internal and external troubles intensified, the Qing government had to decentralize its power in wartime, which promoted the rise of local forces and the failure to lose power. From a dynamic point of view, the characteristics of the relationship between the central and local governments in the late Qing Dynasty can basically be summarized in one sentence: power is constantly tilted to the localities. The downward shift of power, on the one hand, led to the continuous central government's centralization of power; on the other hand, it led to the vigorous decentralization of power by local governors. The emergence, development, and intensification of the contradictions between the two eventually developed into a high degree of antagonism between the two sides, and the result was the collapse of the Qing government and the expansion of local forces.
▲Distribution of local governors in the late Qing Dynasty
The struggle for power was due to the destruction of the system, and with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as the boundary, the original set of power restraint systems of the state were seriously damaged and gradually lost their former role, and a new set of restraint systems failed to emerge in time. The main important reason for the decline of the Qing government and the expansion of local forces was that it was not able to debug or establish a new system of power restraint and supervision in a timely manner.