Personal allegiances in nineteenth-century China’s southern borderland insurgencies

ABSTRACT

A coalition of Chinese, Vietnamese, and French authorities spent much of 1878–1879 putting down a thousands-strong revolt led by Li Yangcai, an officer dismissed from the Guangxi provincial army. Using Chinese and Vietnamese court records, newspapers, and memoirs, I argue that the Li Yangcai rebellion and the imperial reactions, albeit ephemeral and limited compared to other revolts and their responses in the tumultuous nineteenth century, underline the crucial element of personal connections in borderland insurgencies during the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Literature on these figures highlights how personal circumstances, particularistic connections, and the borderland setting played a key role in facilitating the growth of these small but influential insurgencies. My examination of Li Yangcai, focusing on similar elements, contributes to the growing scholarship on limited wars. Additionally, I show how the state, in addition to using official bureaucratic channels, relied on personal relationships with influential characters in the local communities to suppress the rebels. I demonstrate not only how people behaved within institutional constraints but also how the state incorporated personal ties into its institutional arsenal.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Vietnam
• France
• war
• borderland
• frontier
• colony
• nineteenth century
• banditry
• rebellion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ZFYJD, 65a (document 39, 31 October 1878) and 66b (document 40, 5 November 1878).

2. The various factors that contributed to nineteenth-century upheaval are mentioned in Wakeman, “Rebellion and Revolution,” 219–220.

3. Laffey, “Making of a Rebel,” 85–96; Laffey, “Social Dissidence and Government Suppression,” 113–125; and Davis, “Rebellion and Rule under Consular Optics,” 59–91.

4. Davis, “Volatile Allies,” 322–338; Davis, “Black Flag Rumors,” 16–41; and Vu, “The Politics of Frontier Mining,” 31–58.

5. Kuhn, “Taiping Rebellion,” 264–266.

6. McCord, Power of the Gun, 17–45; Hsiao, Rural China,” 294–306; Liu and Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 202; and Li, “Yongying zhidu,” 29–34.

7. Liu and Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 203.

8. McCord, Power of the Gun, 23.

9. The Green Standard Army was created with surrendered ethnic Han Chinese soldiers after the Qing conquest of China. The Green Standard troops were scattered throughout the empire, less funded than the Banner forces, and subjected to frequent rotations. Such rotations inhibited the relationship between officers and soldiers. Liu and Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 203.

10. Schillinger, Body and Military Masculinity, 27, 51.

11. The Bannermen were the Qing hereditary military forces comprised of mostly Manchu and Mongol men and some Han men. The Banner soldiers were instrumental in the Qing conquest of China but lost their prowess in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They were also rotated from garrison to garrison every few years in order to prevent personal military forces from developing. Liu and Smith, “The Military Challenge,” 202–203.

12. McCord, Power of the Gun, 23.

13. Ibid., 23–24

14. Guangxi zhuangzu zizhi qu difang zhi bianzuan hui, Guangxi tongzhi, 52–53.

15. ZFYJD, 16b (document 7, 15 June 1875).

16. ZFYJD, 45a (document 29, 29 October 1875).

17. ZFYJD, 65a (document 39, 31 October 1878).

18. ZFYJD, 65a (document 39, 31 October 1878), 90a (document 56, 5 February 1879).

19. Davis, Imperial Bandits, 41.

20. ZFYJD, 67a (document 40, 5 November 1878).

21. BTBNLT 52b (1b). The author of this collection, Kieu Oanh Mau (1854–1911), was a jinshi (civil service doctorate) and served in the Nguyen government. He listed his sources as the Standard Codes of Dai Nam (Hoang trieu hoi dien chinh bien), the Biographies of Dai Nam (Dai Nam liet truyen), literary collections, official documents from provinces, and news from village leaders and elders, as well as rumors.

22. DNTL, 309 (scroll 58, 18b, October 1878).

23. ZFYJD, 107b–108a (document 71, 28 April 1879).

24. DNTL, 315 (scroll 60, 20b, November 1878) and 324 (scroll 61, 21b, January 1879). The Nguyen emperor Tu Duc requested both Feng and Zhao. Tu Duc had no complaints about Zhao, but plenty about Feng. Tu Duc was disappointed when he heard that Zhao had been removed from his post.

25. See note 23 above.

26. ZFYJD, 96b (document 63, 19 March 1879).

27. ZFYJD, 99a–99b (document 66, 24 March 1879).

28. ZFYJD, 97a (document 64, 24 March 1879).

29. ZFYJD, 101b (document 68, 24 March 1879).

30. Liu heard of Feng’s sentiments, as shown in his memorial concerning Feng’s bad rapport with Tu Duc. ZFYJD, 107b (document 71, 28 April 1879).

31. ZFYJD, 65b (document 39, 31 October 1878).

32. ZFYJD, 96a–96b (document 63, 19 March 1879).

33. ZFYJD, 88a (document 56, 5 February 1879).

34. ZFYJD, 133a (document 80, 23 October 1879).

35. Dai, “Reluctant Guerrillas, 767–768.

36. ZFYJD, 65a-65b (document 39, 31 October 1878).

37. After the Tianjin Massacre, supporters of qingyi, defined as social orthodoxy and political conservatism, demanded a policy of war against the French. Eastman, Throne and Mandarins, 23–24.

38. Tsuboï, 199.

39. ZFYJD, 102b–103a (document 69, 26 March 1879).

40. BTBNLT, 52b (1b).

41. Ibid.

42. Luo, Liu Yongfu lishi cao, 148.

43. Davis, Imperial Bandits, 73.

44. Tsuboï, L’Empire vietnamien, 101.

45. Swope, “General Zuo’s Counter-Insurgency,” 947.

46. Ibid.

47. Davis, Imperial Bandits, 74.

48. Tsuboï, L’Empire vietnamien, 147–155.

49. ZFYJD, 91b (document 58, 10 February 1879).

50. CBTN, 272–273/305 (12 November 1878).

51. ZFYJD, 90a (document 57, 10 February 1879).

52. ZFYJD, 87a (document 56, 5 February 1879).

53. See note 49 above.

54. Fairbank and Teng, “On the Ch’ing Tributary System,” 112–113.

55. ZFYJD, 91b–92a (document 58, 10 February 1879).

56. ZFYJD, 92a (document 58, 10 February 1879).

57. See note 49 above.

58. Fairbank and Teng, “On the Ch’ing Tributary System,” 141.

59. Tu Duc sent a petition to the Qing court in 1868 concerning border disturbances but received little response. Laffey, “French Adventurers and Chinese Bandits,” 45.

60. Worthing, “From Bac Le to Haiphong,” 25–26.

61. CBTN, 26–28/326 (12 June 1879).

62. DNTL, 373 (scroll 62, 24b, September 188).

63. DNTL, 315 (scroll 60, 20b, November 1878).

64. CBTN, 86–87/308 (24 November 1878).

65. CBTN, 356–357/308 (10 December 1878).

66. DNTL, 382 (scroll 62, 24b, October 1879).

67. CBTN 46–49/326 (15 June 1879).

68. See note 66 above.

69. ZFYJD, 107b (document 71, 28 April 1879).

70. DNTL, 329 (scroll 61, 21b, January 1880).

71. CBTN 106–107/327 (5 December 1879).

72. DNTL, 372–73 (scroll 61, 24b, September 1879).

73. Laffey, “In the Wake of the Taipings,” 81.

74. Gawthorpe, “All Counterinsurgency is Local,” 846.

75. Mampilly, “Performing the Nation-state,” 81–84.

76. Rid, “Nineteenth Century Origins,” 727.

77. Sukanya Podder characterizes these approaches as collusive, conciliatory, and conflictual. Podder, “Understanding the Legitimacy of Armed Groups,” 695–698.

Additional information

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Linh D. Vu

Linh D. Vu is an assistant professor of history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Her first book, Governing the Dead: Martyrs, Memorials, and Necrocitizenship in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2021), examines the efforts of the Chinese nation-state to record, commemorate, and compensate for military and civilian dead and how such efforts transformed social and cultural institutions. Her ongoing projects include war commemoration, virtuous citizenship, terrorism and insurgencies, and sovereignty at the turn of the twentieth century in East and Southeast Asia.