, originAtention but happened because there was no other In the future, YangzWt will serve as an example for officials

who do not surrender when our great army arrives. Heaven and earth give men life; it is appropriate that those who seek to resist destiny should end their own lives but they should not involve others. OUf dynasty has inherited the affection of Heaven; if it fights a battle it shall win, if it attacks a city it will overcome it. I am sure you are aware of this. Although virtue must be made manifest through the action of the army, compassion and righteousness are shown by amnesty. This is as clear as a mirror. Presently Prince Fu has usurped the exalted title and wallows in wine and sex; he trusts his entourage while the people suffer more each day. Civil officials toy with power; they know only how to do evil and take bribes. Military officials threaten the monarch and contemplate overawing him to usurp his powers. The government and subjects are not of one heart and the people's plight is truly terrible! When I think of this I cannot help but to sigh. Therefore, I have respeCtfully taken Heaven's mandate to punish these crimes and save the people from their disaster. Let all be clearly informed of this.

co.

2.7

Regent D!on'S Edict to the Board of Wm'

"Now that our dynasty has established its authority in Peking, the soldiers and common people who endured recent calamities are all our children. will save them from disasters and give them security. Send messengers to CItIes and forts of all regions requesting their surrender. If, on the day this message arrives, their inhabitants shave their heads and submit, all local officials shall be promoted one rank. Soldiers and common people will be exempt from deportation. Leading civil and military officials should personally collect tax registers and army rosters and immediately bring them to the capital for imperial audience. Those who claim to submit but do not shave their heads are hesitant and watchful. They should be given a deadline for compliance based on their distance from the capital and rewarded accordingly when they arrive in Peking. If they do not meet the deadline, it is clear that they are resisting and definitely should be punished; troops are to be sent to supress them. Princes with the surname Zhu [members of the Ming imperial family] who conform to this order shall not be deprived of their titles and will continue to enjoy imperial grace."

2.7

AND

2.8

Two
THE HAIR

2.8
EDICTS UNDER CONCERNING OF THE MANCHU WEARING

Imperial Edict to the Board of Rites

RULE
Manchu leaders decided even before the taking of Peking that Chinese subjects should wear their hair dressed in the Manchu tribal style. The hair was to be shaved to the middle of the skull with the remaining hair pulled back around a "cash-shaped" circle of the scalp and braided as it grew. Former Ming subjects who resisted this order symbolizing submission to China's new Manchu rulers did so at the risk of their lives. The colloquial saying: "Lose your hair or lose your head" (Liutou bu liufa, liufa bu liutou) succinctly described the dangers in store for those still sentimentally to the long style of hair-dress popular during the Ming period. Later in the dynasty, cutting off the queue was a symbol of resistance to the Manchus adopted by the Taiping rebels, who were sometimes called "the long-haired rebels," and early twentieth-century revolutionaries often cut off their bianzi as a sign of defiance. When the Qing collapsed in 1911, groups of anti-Qing activists cornered wearers of the queue in Shanghai and other cities to cut off their pigtails. The piles of bianzi lying in the street symbolized the fallen fortunes of the dynasty.

"In the past the system of dressing the hair in a queue was not uniformly enforced. People were allowed to do as they pleased because we wanted to wait until the whole country was pacified before putting into force this system. Now, within and without, we are one family. The Emperor is like the father and the people are like his sons. The father and sons are of the same body; how can they be different from one another? If they are not as one then it will be as if

they had two hearts and would they then not be like the people of different
countries? We do not need to mention this because we believe all subjects under Heaven must be aware of it themselves. All residents of the capital and its vicinity will fulfill the order to shave their heads within ten days of this proclamation. For Zhili and other provinces compliance must take place within ten days of receipt of the order from the Board of Rites. Those who follow this order belong to our country; those who hesitate will be considered treasonous bandits and will be heavily penalized. Anyone who attempts to evade this order to protect his hair or who uses cunning language to argue against it will not be

lightly dealt with. All officials in regions that we have already pacified who
insultingly advance a memorial related to this matter arguing for the continuation of the 1vling system and not following the system of our dynasty will be executed without possibility of pardon. As for other apparel, unhurried change is permitted, but it cannot differ from the system of our dynasty. The aforementioned Board will immediately dispatch this message to the capital and its

34/ THE

MANCHU

CONQUEST

vicinity and . h e provincial, prefectural, sub-prefectural, and coufy,unen and garrisons of Zhili and other provinces. Civil and military yamen officials, clerks, scholars, students, and all members of military and .civilian households shall carry this out without exception."

2.9

THE

SIEGE

OF

JIANGYIN,

1645

The hair-cutting decrees Were a dramatic sign of the changing political order in China and prompted strong resistance in many parts of the south, In the city of Jiangyin, just south of the Yangzi River in Jiangsu, local scholars used this issue to muster resistance to advancing Qing armies and in August 1645 a fierce battle with Manchu forces ensued. This account of the eighty-day siege of Jiangyinwas written by Xu Chongxi, a controversial private scholar and historian of the late 11in g period from Changshu. Xu was praised by some of his contemporaries for his scholarly diligence and criticized by others for his frank and outspoken commentary on the events of his time. (During the Qianlong era, Wu's history of the final years of the Ming period was a proscribed book.) This translation is drawn from Xu's Postscript on the Defense of]iangyin City (Jiangyin chengshou houji) which describes in colorful terms the struggle by Jiangyin's defenders to hold the Manchu invaders outside the walls. The document provides a vivid sense of the violence of warfare during the conquest period and suggests, as well, how the local elite in the Jiangnan region struggled to build forces of resistance to the Qing invaders. After the defeat of Jiangyin, the Manchu army, as at Yangzhou several months before, burned the city and massacred many of its inhabitants. "In the sixth moon of 1645, Magistrate Fang of Jiangyin arrived in the city and conveyed the [Qing] edict to dress the hair in the queue. On the first day of the intercalary sixth moon,4 a local scholar, Xu Yongde, hung a portrait of the Ming founder in the Minglun Lecture Hall [the official local academy for instruction in the classics] and led a crowd who prostrated themselves before it and cried out: "Cut off our heads, we refuse to shave our hair!" That afternoon, the local militia in the North Gate area were the first to rise UPi they arrested the magistrate and jailed him in the local guest house. Tens of thousands of people within and outside the city supported them. Those in revolt requested the release of stores of weapons and ammunition and the local judge Chen Mingxuan agreed. The chief of the local reserve unit was then arrested and a search began for spies within the city. The Huizhou merchant Shao Kanggong
4. Intercalary months were added to the lunar calendar to keep it in harmony with the solar year.