In our usual historical thinking, there is often a so-called "prosperous age", such as the prosperous age of Kaiyuan or the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong. But how different is the "prosperous age" in the words of this ruler from the "prosperous age" constructed in our thinking? Putting aside the factors that the rulers whitewash or exaggerate in official documents, this prosperous age is to a large extent a prosperous age in the eyes of the upper class. The economy is developing steadily, the political power is stable, the society is stable without major turmoil, and the people are satisfied with food and clothing. No big complaints. But what are the social details of this "gilded" era in the eyes of the rulers? Are there any signs of the future behind the seemingly stable status quo? The "Soul Calling Case", a panic about sorcery that swept across China in 1768, provides us with an excellent entry point.
The story takes place in 1768, the 33rd year of Qianlong's reign. A kind of magic called "soul-calling" suddenly broke out from the south of the Yangtze River, and then gradually swept across the country from south to north. It is said that people who know magic can obtain people's hair, clothes and even names, and then use magic to make their souls serve themselves. People who lose their souls will die immediately. For more than half a year since the case of Wu Dongming, a stonemason in Deqing, in January, the country has been plunged into a wave of witchcraft. The people have been constantly looking for ways to save themselves. Emperor Qianlong was bent on eradicating the witchcraft and destroying the conspiracy behind it, and the officials caught in it On the one hand, they have to cope with the emperor's will and on the other hand, they have to maintain the stable order of society. The campaign to catch monsters and suppress them was carried out in such an environment. Common people identified the monks and Taoists around them, the government was busy arresting the monsters who were escaping to commit crimes, and the emperor implemented his plan step by step with anxiety and worry. However, after wandering from the streets to the palace and mansion until late autumn, killing countless enemies and losing countless hats, the emperor was forced to realize that this was just a complete farce. There were no demons, no demon gangs, and no witchcraft. There were just rumors, frame-ups, and panic. In the end, the emperor had to stop it all.
Following the author's thinking, we can see that this is actually an event about the emperor, officials and civilians. But before clarifying the relationship between the three parties, let us first look at what background history has set for this story.
When describing the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River where it originated, the author not only praised its economic prosperity but also pointed out many problems. The human and land resources in the Jiangnan area are uncoordinated and the employment relationship is unbalanced. Correspondingly, the increasingly rising food prices, especially rice prices, have become a huge burden for the common people. The gap between the rich core areas of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the peripheral poverty-stricken areas has also caused a large number of floating people, which has brought social problems. The danger of instability. Civilian life can satisfy food and clothing, but there are large differences between regions. But equally, it is difficult for them to experience rights in social life. After more than a hundred years of development, the bureaucracy has developed its own complete system. Officials were skillful enough to mediate with the emperor's orders, and could protect their own interests while plundering the people without explicitly violating the will. The emperor's purpose was to stabilize his rule.
I think the best thing about this book is that the author takes us to interpret the "soul-calling" sorcery incident from three angles. In essence, it interprets the society under Qianlong's rule from three angles. .
Rumors spread quickly among civilians and soon spread all over the country. This in itself is not unusual. But why were the targets unanimously targeted at monks, Taoist priests and beggars in the end? Although food and clothing can be satisfied, what is even more frightening is the lack of rights of civilians. As subjects of the Qing Empire, civilians receive almost no feedback from the empire. Their essential job is to lower their heads and work silently to support the operation of the empire, but the empire All the glory has nothing to do with yourself. In the entire society, they are in a relatively marginalized position, and their living space has been repeatedly compressed. The emergence of the soul-calling incident gave civilians who lacked rights a visible right, that is, the right to defend themselves in the face of real and immediate danger and eliminate the danger. It just so happens that the beginning of the incident is related to the monks, and the monks represent the homeless group, a group that was more marginalized in society than the common people at that time. As a result, the usually suppressed people "as a matter of course" took up their own weapons and pointed their guns at the homeless class, which exactly explains why the beggars were also involved in the end.
The author shows us the social psychology of civilians in the "prosperous age" through people's reaction to the "soul calling" incident. When we are used to looking at the society of a certain period from a macro perspective, and when we are used to using some data and official records to represent an era, we often overlook the real living conditions of the common people, the main body in the society. Judging from the "crazy" response of the common people to the counterattack of the refugee class in the later period, even though they lived at the peak of the feudal period, the lack of power and the dilemma of marginalized survival of the common people have not been improved at all.
The situation of the bureaucratic class sandwiched between the emperor and the common people is another story. Officials have direct jurisdiction over the local area and are therefore responsible for the stability of the area. In order to supervise officials, the emperor set up various inspection methods such as assessment and impeachment. At the same time, the emperor was extremely disgusted with clichés and issues such as reporting good news but not bad news. Officials must deal with both the upper and lower parties appropriately in order to protect their own interests to the maximum extent while ensuring their officialdom. Therefore, when they discovered the emperor's determination to eradicate the demon party after "examining the holy will", the officials all spent a lot of effort to investigate, using a lot of manpower and material resources to search for the demon party, and even sacrificed many innocent lives of civilians.
For the government, when ensuring local security is consistent with the emperor's will, there is no price that cannot be paid, which is why tragedies are caused.
The behavior of the government is essentially a microcosm of the entire social power operation model. A huge country requires reasonable and systematic management to operate normally. Any bureaucratic system will one day be surpassed by the times. Only by continuously improving its operating principles and strengthening supervision can it maintain its vitality. More than a hundred years after the founding of the Qing Dynasty, the negative impact of Sinicization and the relatively stable social structure continued to corrode the increasingly rigid bureaucratic system, which was also a precursor to future tragedies.
In the author's writing, the emperor is like the director of a drama to some extent. From the beginning of the incident, the emperor had no intention of just treating the matter as an ordinary feudal superstition. The conflict between Manchus and Hans, the Sinicization of Manchus, and the decline of the bureaucratic system are all difficult problems. So the emperor sat in the center and issued orders directly to his subordinates, determined to punish the demons severely, making the suppression the top priority of the empire. In addition, they complained that officials were not doing things well and blamed them for killing innocent people indiscriminately, targeting the bureaucracy. As the incident progresses, more and more evidence shows that this was an unjust case. At this time, the emperor changed his mind. On the premise of admitting that there was a demon party, he placed all the blame on the bureaucracy and carried out a purge.
When we look at the entire incident along Qianlong's train of thought, we will find that the problems he faced from a macro perspective were actually challenges faced by the system of the Qing Empire. Emperor Qianlong was not only a ruler, but also an external ruler. Therefore, the problem he faced was not only the rebellion of the lower class against the upper class, but also the rejection of the Manchus by the Han people. As a foreign conqueror, he must preserve the distinctive characteristics of his ethnic group in a country dominated by Han people. However, when governing the country, he must allow his ethnic group to share Confucian culture with Han landlords and bureaucrats. Faced with the acceleration of the Sinicization of the Manchus and the rejection of the Han people, he wanted to solve it but seemed powerless. The author mentions in the book that the emperor's comments never connected the cutting of Huihun's braids with the conflict between Manchu and Han, as if he was deliberately avoiding it, which is enough to show the emperor's caution and worry. In addition, corruption and rigidity in the bureaucratic system are also problems faced by all dynasties.
Professor Kong Feili is not only a master of storytelling; The narrative of the entire "Soul Calling" incident, from the background to the clues, from the causes to the results, is unfolded in an orderly and detailed manner, with rich content but not boring. When we are in the scene described by the author, we are actually conveyed by the author many aspects of social information about the "prosperity of Qianlong". The entire book takes the "Soul Calling" incident as an entry point, examines and analyzes it from the three perspectives of civilians, officials, and emperors, and paints a picture of the Qing Empire from bottom to top in the mid-18th century. The picture at the political, economic, cultural, social and psychological levels has restored to a large extent the Qing Empire under Qianlong's rule.
Under this picture, what else has the author left for us?
At the end of the new version of the translation, the translator wrote a note in which he said: "What he discusses is all about history, and there is no allusion to reality. The reason why we feel like we have seen each other when reading this book , that’s because there are often shadows of history in reality.”
“Once the government’s crackdown on sorcery is officially launched, people will have a good opportunity to settle old grudges or seek personal gain. Loaded weapons are thrown on the street, and everyone, whether strong or weak, can use them. In this society where power has always been scarce for ordinary people, malicious slander on the basis of soul-calling has suddenly become a kind of thing. Available rights. This power provides relief to anyone who is oppressed by tyrannical tribesmen or greedy creditors. It provides a shield to anyone who wants to gain advantage. , it provides a reward. To the jealous, it is a kind of compensation; to the villain, it is a kind of fun." (Note: Kong Feili, "Calling the Soul", Sanlian Bookstore, pp. 285 pages. )
This is a society temporarily in a state of hysteria. Under the seemingly stable appearance, the empire's crisis continues to spread. Population growth, conflicts between man and land, soaring prices, regional development differences, etc. all threaten the upper-level rule. The lives of civilians have long been suppressed by the political machine. After making silent contributions day after day, they receive almost no feedback from the empire. The long-term lack of rights has changed the perception of civilians. It seems that such a miserable life is an endless cycle. It has become a fantasy to hope that the status quo can be changed through one's own management and struggle in life. Civilian dissatisfaction and disappointment are soaring and can be ignited instantly with just a fire. Therefore, after a threatening public security incident, everyone's rights seem to be in danger of being violated, and with the tacit approval of the upper class, everyone has correspondingly gained the right to defend themselves. Like a blazing fire, the repression of lack of rights is instantly released, and then enters a state of illusion of rights. When power becomes a sharp knife placed on the street for anyone to use casually, then public security and social order are out of the question. In the eyes of civilians, since I am unable to obtain the benefits I should have received from the empire and am constantly being squeezed, then when I take up arms, I must make those who are more marginalized than me compensate me.
This kind of compensation is not money or dignity, but a sense of satisfaction, which is not only ridiculous but also sad. In addition, the more people in society were in a state of repression before, the greater the group effect would be when they were released, quickly transforming from individual hallucinations to collective hallucinations. Individual consciousness and thinking are powerless in the face of collective incitement and influence. They will initially doubt their own judgment, and then their personal values ????and moral awareness will slowly decline under the influence of the behavior of the people around them, until finally the entire society enters Go crazy and enter a state of collective unconsciousness.
Of course, such madness is by no means the sole responsibility of civilians. The person or persons who hold power at the top of the political machine, consciously or unconsciously, regard this madness as a knife to kill the lingering ills in their hearts. And when this is amplified by our bureaucracy, which is constantly fighting for survival and interests, it will eventually lead to tragedies.
Based on this, it is not difficult for us to understand the ugly scenes that have appeared on the stage of history time and time again in modern Chinese history. I have never had any doubts about the author's original intention of writing this book, and I do not think that the author is intentionally alluding to any historical events that occurred later, but this does not prevent us from thinking about whether the root causes of this tragedy are still rooted in our society. and institutional systems. Otherwise, history will repeat itself, just at another time and under a different name.