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ANTI-MANCHUISM (反满主義 fan man zhuyi) is a topic which has been often neglected in modern Chinese historiography. It can be described as the feeling held by the Han Chinese against the Manchus as being considered culturally inferior or “barbarian”. This cultural feeling was very much linked to a nationalistic feeling, since many Hans saw it as a disgrace to be under the political control of the Qing dynasty. The little research done on this subject is easily explained by the official policy according to which different ethnicities are supposed to live harmoniously and to form one “Chinese nationality” (中华民族 zhonghua minzu). Consequently, historical studies on the interactions between the Hans and other minorities tend to present a very polished account of the political tensions and conflicts.
Studies on early Qing Christianity have therefore largely occulted the power dynamics between the Hans and the Manchus. It is largely presupposed that Christianity was able to gain converts indifferently both from the Manchus at the court and from the Han literati and common people. Opponents to Christianity can also be found both among the Hans and the Manchus. However, this grid of analysis is not adequate for understanding more subtle strategies between the Hans and the Manchus, and to answer the following questions: when a foreign religion like Christianity came to China, how was it inserted into the complex political relationship between the Manchus and the Hans? How may have the Manchu power used Christianity to affirm its own rule over China? How may have some Han literati used Christianity as a political marker for limiting the Manchu rule? I would like here to briefly tackle these issues by looking at the events surrounding the difficult proclamation of the Edict of Tolerance by the Kangxi emperor in 1692.
Persecution against Christianity in Zhejiang in 1691
During the early years of the Kangxi’s reign, Christianity was without firm legal support. Though the missionaries had been authorised in 1671 to return to the capital and the provinces after the resolution of the Calendar Case, yet the authorities explicitly forbade any Chinese to worship in churches. In other words, missionaries could live in their houses and practise for themselves Christian rituals, but local Chinese should not attend. Furthermore, missionaries were forbidden to build or buy new houses or to publish and distribute books. In fact, such stringent regulations were rarely observed and most Catholic communities were functioning quite normally. Yet, there was always the possibility of a more zealous official who would strictly enforce the regulations. And indeed this kind of isolated event constituted quite a regular pattern in the life of Catholic communities.
The most stringent enforcement happened in Zhejiang, in the year 1691. It started with a minor incident in the 临安 Lin’an county, where a Chinese catholic came to be involved in a legal dispute and was punished by the local magistrate, 陈谦吉 Chen Qianji. This case could have ended there, but the magistrate made a link between the criminal and his Christian faith, and consequently forbade Christianity in his district. The second incident happened further away from Hangzhou, in 衢州市 Quzhou city, involving the Dominican Pedro de Alcala who was arrested for having illegally bought a house and transformed it into a church. Were these two isolated cases? According to the Jesuit accounts, there was in fact behind these two cases a general anti-catholic campaign orchestrated by the governor of Zhejiang, 张鹏翮 Zhang Penghe.(2) Indeed, on September 8th, Zhang issued an order of proscription for the whole province. He first mentioned the existing decrees of 1669 and 1671 and then enumerated the crimes of the Italian Jesuit Prospero Intorcetta: his stay in Hangzhou without authorisation, his publication of books and the distribution of medals and calendars, the circulation of pamphlets in the whole province, and the baptism of more than 1,000 people. Zhang Penghe ordered Intorcetta to be arrested and expelled, all the books to be burnt and the printing woodcuts destroyed. Zhang Penghe did not only target the missionaries and their illegal activities but he decreed also the arrest of Chinese Catholics.(3)
Intorcetta thought he had powerful connections in Hangzhou to defend himself, since he had stayed there for more than thirteen years. He went into some intermediary courts to present his case and mentioned his personal encounter with Kangxi when this one came up in an inspection tour in Hangzhou a few years before. Probably the mention of this personal relation with the emperor avoided Intorcetta being thrown in jail, but all church activities were completely stopped. Unable to solve the crisis locally, Intorcetta decided to write a letter to the Beijing Jesuits and the matter was reported by Jean-François Gerbillon to Prince 索额图 Songgotu, an uncle of the emperor and a powerful prince at the court.
Immediately, Songgotu sent a message to the governor Zhang asking him to end the persecution and to restore the situation to what it was before. However, even after receiving this private instruction from a Manchu prince, Zhang continued the persecution and, in November, less than two months after the first order, he issued a second order, confirming the arrest of any Chinese Christian. He explicitly mentioned the confiscation of churches without residing priests in Hangzhou, Haining and Jiaxing.(4) A certain Catholic, named Tchin-Tasen, was condemned to the cangue for publically proclaiming his faith. At the same time, Zhang Penghe was contacting high officials at the court to gain support for his policy.
We can be quite surprised about the attitude of Zhang Penghe. Why did he launch this anti-Christian campaign? Why did he disobey the instructions of Songgotu? Indeed, what were his true motivations? It is difficult to believe that it was by pure legalism that he acted upon some twenty-year-old regulations which had never been consistently enforced. Some Chinese historians, like Zhang Xianqing, explain today the governor’s attitude by his loyalty to Confucianism and his hate for any unorthodox teaching.(5) Besides this culturalist element, we would like to stress here the political dimension in this subtle power dynamic. Zhang was born in 1649 in Sichuan from a humble family and earned his jinshi degree at the age of 21. He occupied different functions, first in the Board of Rites and then in the provinces. He was famous for his integrity and was praised by Kangxi for his incorruptibility. In fact, from very early, the career of Zhang received strong support from Songgotu. In 1688, Zhang followed him to take part in the negotiations with Russia, for delimiting the northern border. His promotion to the important position of governor of Zhejiang was largely due to Songgotu. Also, when the news came to the court about the persecution in Zhejiang, Songgotu did not doubt at all that Zhang would obey his instructions and back down...
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1. This article is derived from an academic paper given at the conference “In the Light and Shadow of an Emperor”, organized by the Macao Ricci Institute, November 27th-29th 2008. The paper was originally entitled: “The conditional service of missionaries to the court and the opposition from Han literati.”
2. Three accounts of the events related to the Edict of Toleration have been published: Louis Le Comte 李明, Nouveaux Mémoires sur l’État Présent de la Chine, Paris, 1696; Jose Soares, “Libertas Evangelium Christi annunciandi et propagandi in Imperio Sinarum”, in Leibnitz, Novissima Sinica, 1697; Charles Le Gobien, Histoire de l’Édit de l’Empereur de la Chine, Paris, 1698. The account by Jose Soares has been translated from the Latin into Chinese by Thierry Meynard, in Novissima Sinica (The most recent events in China)《中国近事》, 郑州 Zhengzhou, 大象出版社 Daxiang Press, 2005.
3. Unfortunately, the original Chinese text is not extant anymore and we have only its translation in different Western languages.
4. The original Chinese text can be found in 黃伯祿 Huang Bailu, 正教奉褒 Zhengjiao Fengbao (In Praise of the True Teaching), Shanghai, 1903.
5. 张先清 Zhang Xianqing,《康熙三十一年容教诏令初探》(Preliminary research on the Edict of Toleration in the t0hirty first year of Kangxi), 《历史研究》Historical Research, Vol. 5, 2006,
pp. 72-87.
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