Fathoming Qianlong: Imperial Activism, the Southern Tours, and the Politics of Water Control, 1736-1765

Most students of the Qing dynasty are familiar with the Southern Tours (nanxun) of both the Kangxi and the Qianlong emperors. ¹ The multi-faceted nature of the tours has generated much debate about their purpose and historical significance. ² The tendency among historians, however, has been to assess the Southern Tours almost exclusively as i-nstruments of administration and policy-making, especially in the arena of water control. ³ Indeed, the relationship between the Southern Tours and water control is a tangled one, and their overlapping histories have often been conflated. Historical debates about the precise relationship between the Southern Tours and water control have revolved around questions of imperial motives and administrative adeptness in hydraulic engineering: Did the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors embark on their Southern Tours in order to tend to the administrative business of water control? If so, how effective were they and what contributions did they make?

Much of the scholarship on the Kangxi emperor's Southern Tours has followed this line of inquiry. The result has been a portrayal of the Kangxi emperor's Southern Tours as administrative exercises in Yellow River conservancy: "The primary mission of Xuanye's [i.e., the Kangxi emperor's] six Southern Tours was to control the Yellow River. To be sure, there were other goals of inspecting the provinces and checking on local officials, understanding popular sentiment, and winning over southern intellectuals; however, these were all secondary." ⁴ In this instance, not only has river conservancy been largely depoliticized, but issues of politics and power have been deemed "secondary." Although a few scholars have touched upon some of the other "secondary" aspects mentioned above, ⁵ a broad consensus remains that Kangxi's Southern Tours were primarily geared towards the administrative and policy-oriented problems of controlling the Yellow River. ⁶ In this respect, the Kangxi emperor appears on his Southern Tours not as a politically astute ruler, but rather as a diligent and pragmatic administrator who facilitated the process of economic recovery and the reinstitution of social order following the disruptions of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. ⁷

This tendency among modern historians to overlook the politics of water control and to interpret the relationship between the Southern Tours and river conservation solely in terms of administrative instrumentalism can be traced back to the articulation of a state discourse by Qing officials, as well as by Kangxi and Qianlong themselves. Both bureaucrats and emperors justified the Southern Tours in terms of inspecting critical hydraulic infrastructure. Imperial diarists framed the formal commencement of the Kangxi emperor's first "Southern" Tour on 24 November 1684 entirely in terms of river control:

Because the Yellow River has breached its dikes for many years and caused harm among the people for a long time, His Majesty wishes to personally travel to those affected areas in order to survey the conditions and inspect the hydraulic infrastructure. Thus he ordered a Southern Tour to commence on this day. ⁸

Qing officials also portrayed Qianlong's Southern Tours as exercises in water control—particularly river conservation. In a joint memorial dated October 1749 a group of seven top-ranking provincial officials requested the privilege of an imperial visit. Among the most prominent reasons given was the importance of river conservancy:

Once the imperial procession passes and His Majesty personally visits Jiangnan, the overall conditions of the Yellow River-Grand Canal system. . . would all be within the purview of His Majesty's enlightened radiance. We officials might then personally receive imperial directions concerning all principles of action for maintaining the hydraulic infrastructure. ⁹

Not surprisingly, the Qianlong emperor also justified his Southern Tours largely in terms of the administrative precedent set by Kangxi. In a 1784 essay entitled "Record of the Southern Tours" (Nanxun ji) Qianlong wrote: "My Imperial Grandfather went on six Southern Tours. I have...