After establishing the Qing Dynasty to rule the Central Plains, the Manchu Qing Continued to use the political achievements accumulated during the Ming Dynasty, including the "clan system". The clan system was a special phenomenon in ancient China, and this relationship maintained an indirect, loose, low-profile ceremonial relationship. As suzeraintys, they have the obligation to protect their vassal states and have the power to interfere in their internal and foreign affairs. As vassal states, they had to ask the Qing court for fiefs and tributes, and accepted this kind of interference in domestic and foreign affairs, although this interference was very rare, and for most of the time, they maintained independent relations.
Since the Qianlong Dynasty's Great Qing Huidian, the Qing Dynasty has regarded Burma as a tributary state in various archives, but Burma has never regarded itself as a tributary state of the Qing Dynasty. Even in the last years of the Qianlong Dynasty, relations with Burma were normalized, and the friendly exchanges between the two dynasties were exchanged according to the rhythm of "one tribute per decade", it was still not a substantive tributary relationship, but a tributary relationship unilaterally approved by the Qing Dynasty itself. In the view of the Burmese king, the exchange of envoys with the Qing court every ten years was a relationship of mutual visits and equality.
Establishment of friendly relations between the Qing Dynasty and Burma
Burma was the last to enter the tributary system of the Qing Dynasty, and the process of communication was also full of twists and turns. Although the Qing Dynasty sent soldiers into Burma in the early days to pursue the officials of the Ming Dynasty, it was more than 100 years later during the Qianlong period when it re-entered Burma. At this time, Burma was in the period of the Toungoo Dynasty, which was also the heyday of Burmese feudal society, which not only unified all of Burma, but also continued to expand abroad. It was also due to years of conquest, which led to serious agricultural damage, peasants in various places revolted, and there were constant battles within the court for the throne.
At this time, at the Maolong Silver Factory, which was mining silver on the border between the Qing Dynasty and Burma, one of the changmin suggested to the Burmese at that time: "The Burmese chieftain Mang Dala sent envoys to pay tribute", in the form of tribute, to obtain the help of the Qing Dynasty at that time. This time, the tribute first arrived at the Maolong Silver Factory, and after waiting for the approval of the Qianlong Emperor, he entered Beijing in the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751 AD). At that time, the Qianlong Emperor stipulated that all personnel should not exceed 100 people, and only 20 people were allowed to enter Beijing.
According to the custom at that time, the Qianlong Emperor also rewarded the Burmese king, princesses, envoys, etc., and then asked to leave the country before December. However, before the mission could return home, its capital was breached by an army from the south, and the Donggu clique collapsed. After the fall of the Dongwu Dynasty, the leader of the Burmese Village of Mushu, Yong Zhiya, rose up, successfully defeated the Mon army, and established the Gongpung Dynasty. The newly established Gongpung Dynasty did not accept the Qing dynasty's tribute to Burma. So the relationship that had just been established was broken.
The Qing Dynasty fought a four-year war with Burma
Soon after the establishment of the Gongbang Dynasty, it adopted an active policy of military expansion, successive years of foreign conquests, Qianlong twenty-three years, the Gongbang Dynasty conquered the Mu state in northern Burma, and since then began to harass the Qing Dynasty's Yunnan border. In the 30th year of Qianlong, the Burmese army entered the Area of Jiulong River and Olive Dam in Cheli, Yunnan Province, on the pretext of hunting down rebels, and occupied the Tucheng City of Cheli. Subsequently, Liu Zao, the governor of Yungui, received an urgent report that the Burmese soldiers had invaded the car, and immediately ordered the deployment of troops to encircle and suppress, and then Liu Zao led his army into Burma, marking the full outbreak of the Qing-Burma War.
After receiving Liu Zao's report on the dispatch of troops to eliminate the Burmese troops entering the country, Qianlong ordered that Zao "must be pursued with all his strength, smashed his nest, and ensured that the roots and plants are exhausted and the border areas are cleared." Qianlong ordered Liu Zao to completely eliminate the Burmese troops who had entered the country and escalate the war in an all-round way. What the Qing Dynasty did not expect was that the Qing-Burma War actually took 4 years, and in this 4 years, the Qing army replaced the commander three times, but did not achieve the expected results. During this war, Liu Zao, the governor of Yungui, was ordered by the Qianlong Emperor to be handed over to the Punishment Department for conviction because of his poor command, and then the Ili general Mingrui was transferred to the viceroy of Yungui.
However, Mingrui's lone army penetrated deep into Burma, and eventually the soldiers were defeated and killed, and Qianlong ordered Fu Heng, a university scholar, to go to Burma. The war lasted from the 30th year of Qianlong to the 34th year of Qianlong, Fu Heng was unable to conquer Burma for a long time, and in November he signed an armistice agreement at Laoguantun in Burma, and the Qing-Burma War ended. The LaoGuantun Agreement was not a unified text agreement, and there were serious differences between the Qing Dynasty and Burma over the content of the agreement, which also contributed to the later Qing-Burman contradictions and the Qing Dynasty's contradictions with britain.
After the end of the Qing-Burma War, Fu Heng, the commander of the Qing army, described to the Qianlong Emperor in a report, "Order him to surrender with a watch, send out those who have been left in the interior, and he shall not be harassed after he surrenders to Tusi." Ha Guoxing, who had negotiated with Burma on behalf of the Qing Dynasty, said that his negotiation requirements were: "You must pay tribute according to the ancient ceremony, never trespass on our border, and all those who remain in your place must be sent out. That is to say, the content of the demand is: Burma wants to pay tribute, and send back the Qing Dynasty soldiers and civilians, and never invade the border.
The controversial Laoguantun Agreement
However, the content of the LaoGuantun Agreement on the Burmese side is very different, and its content is roughly as follows: the Gongpung Dynasty in Burma enjoyed the rights of the former Donggu Dynasty, the two countries should have a peaceful and equal friendship relationship, the two countries should open trade, and the monarchs and officials of the two countries should pay homage to each other in the form of letters every ten years. It can be seen that there is a big difference between the content of the agreement with the Qing Dynasty, on the one hand, it requires the enjoyment of the previous treatment, on the other hand, it requires the establishment of equal relations, and it is necessary to reopen border trade, etc. Obviously, the two sides have huge differences in the content of the agreement.
Why are there such differences between China and Myanmar in the LaoGuantun Agreement? This was mainly because the agreement was signed without a complete unified text, but only a temporary armistice between the generals of the two sides. Agreements of this type do not have a treaty nature, will not be agreed to by the other side in content and language, and the agreement between the two sides is only a text of the front-line commander reporting to the rear.
It is precisely because of the huge differences in the agreement between the two sides that after the end of the Qing-Burma War, the relations between the two countries did not improve, but formed a confrontation situation for more than 20 years. The Qing dynasty had been waiting for burma to come to pay tribute and return the captured militia, but what was waiting for the Burmese side was a letter asking for the border to be opened for trade. Of course, the Qianlong Emperor strictly refused the demands made by Burma. The Qianlong Emperor also asked the military chancellor To act as deputy general Ah Gui and the governor of Yungui, Zhangbao, to write an edict reprimanding the Burmese side for its non-compliance, but the emissaries who sent the edict were detained by Burma, causing the situation between the Qing Dynasty and Burma to become tense again.
True tribute
It was not until the fifty-third year of Qianlong that the relationship between the Qing Dynasty and the Gongbang Dynasty slowly improved, because the Burmese king Meng Yu sent a delegation to bring tribute to Shunning Province in Yunnan to ask for tribute, and after the Qianlong Emperor received the report from the Governor of Yungui, he immediately ordered the Governor of Yungui to send an envoy to Rehe to receive him. After receiving the order, the Viceroy of Yungui escorted a delegation of more than 100 people from Dali to Rehe, and the Qianlong Emperor received the delegation at the Rehe Summer Resort, which marked the beginning of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Burma and the Qing Dynasty.
Why did the Gongpung Dynasty suddenly send envoys? According to the Records of the Burmese side, the Qing Dynasty first sent envoys to visit Burma, and the Burmese side paid a return visit this time. For this matter, there is no record in the Qing Palace archives, but there is a record in local documents, and it is recorded in the "Factory Record" compiled by Tan Cui at that time, "The Burmese chieftain had an internal attachment, and entrusted Gengma Tusihan Chaoyi to invite tribute from the Burmese king." At times, Yongchang paid tribute to Chen Lingxian and Yu Gengma, and Han Chaoyi entrusted Chen Lingxian to burma. Therefore, the Burmese king sent envoys to Gengma. It can be seen that the burmese side of the tribute was promoted by the shunning prefect.
In the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong, the Burmese side once again sent envoys to pay tribute, and at this time there were two tasks, one of which was to celebrate the birthday of the Qianlong Emperor, and on the other hand, to ask the Qianlong Emperor to give the Burmese king a title. Qianlong received envoys at Rehe and made Mengxia king of Burma. At this point, the Qing Dynasty completed the tributary system to Burma and the edict of the Burmese king.
Subsequently, the Qing Dynasty and Burma normalized relations, and the two sides continued friendly relations for nearly a hundred years, during which Myanmar sent envoys and tributes a total of 14 times, but the archival documents record that there are great differences. Burma records that every ten years, the Qing Dynasty first sent a mission to Burma, and then Burma sent a mission to visit the Qing court. The initiators of this Rashomon incident were local officials in Yunnan, whether it was Wu Shangxian, Chen Lingxian, and Yonghui during the Qianlong period, Yang Tingrui during the Tongzhi period, and Li Zhenguo during the Guangxu period, all of whom were sent from the Yunnan region.
The task of these delegations was, on the one hand, to issue edicts, and on the other hand, to invite the Burmese side to pay tribute, all of which were handed over by the Governor of Yungui. Why were the visiting Burmese missions sent from Yunnan instead of directly from the Qing Dynasty? In fact, an important reason is that the tributary system of the Qing Dynasty stipulates that the tributary states and the local governors are parallel to each other. For example, the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang is responsible for Ryukyu and Sulu, the Governor of Liangguang is responsible for Siam and Vietnam, and the Governor of Yungui corresponds to Burma and Nanzhao.
Although the Burmese side found that the delegation was sent by the Yunnan region, they still believed that it was sent by the Qing Emperor, so they also quickly returned to visit and believed that it was an exchange of visits between the two countries. This is the true history of exchanges between the two countries, and it is also the truth of Burma's tribute to the Qing Dynasty. So when was this lie debunked?
In 1885, the Third Anglo-Burmese War broke out between Britain and Burma, and the British soon occupied mandalay, the capital of Burma, and captured the then king Xi Pao. Then, on January 1, 1886, the British declared Burma as its colony and placed it under Indian jurisdiction, and the Gongpung Dynasty collapsed and all of Burma became a British colony. Before and after the Third Anglo-Burmese War, the Qing Dynasty proposed that Burma should pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty, and the British believed that there was no precedent, according to the historical records of Burma at that time, there was no tributary relationship, so far, this lie of more than 100 years was punctured.
The lie about the tribute between the Qing Dynasty and Burma is the basic system of traditional Chinese foreign relations and an important part of maintaining relations and order around the country. The long-standing tributary trade and clan relationship did not have the essence of tributary and clan, but a loose, formalistic ceremonial relationship. Under the clan system, in addition to gaining the prestige of a great power, the Qing Dynasty gained very limited results purely from the perspective of material interests, and it was more of a sense of majesty and satisfaction in pursuing a big country.