A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (review)

Michael Chang's A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 is a study of imperial touring during the eighteenth century. In particular, this book's focus is the Qianlong emperor's six southern tours between 1751 and 1784. The author's main argument is that southern tours played a critical role in political culture and in the formation of Qing rule during the eighteenth century. The author emphasizes that the Qianlong emperor's southern tours were an integral component of the court's responses to historical challenges such as military threats and floods as well as population growth and commercialization.

This book analyzes the imperial tours in eight chapters. The author's exploration of the southern tours starts with their antecedents (chap. 1). According to Chang, by the early sixteenth century, the practice of imperial touring was closely associated with non-Han regimes such as the Khitan Liao, the Jurchen Jin, and the Mongol Yuan. The author emphasizes that the Qing Empire's imperial touring in the eighteenth century revealed its character as a non-Han regime.

In chapter 2, Chang demonstrates that the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors practiced the imperial tour as an emblem of the Manchus' ancestral virtues in both the civil and the military fields. In this regard, the author focuses on the Inner Asian elements of the Qing in imperial touring. Chang explains that even though imperial tours referred to abstract and elastic concepts, such as filial piety, diligence, and benevolence, Qing imperial tours also were intended to enhance the political prestige of the conquest elite. It was necessary for the Qing court to express its assertion of multiethnic privilege in a way acceptable to Han scholar-officials.

Chapters 3 and 4 portray the martial content of the Qianlong emperor's southern tours. The author points out that the detailed planning of the southern tours was undertaken by the Manchu and Mongol members of the conquest elite (chap. 3). The Qing court considered the management of imperial tours—including the southern tours—as a highly sensitive matter to be entrusted to banner men. For this reason, Han Chinese officials could not serve on the superintendency of the imperial encampment. Also, through explaining the structure of the imperial camp, Chang shows that it was another conspicuous emblem of the Qing court's claim to an Inner Asian heritage of martial mobility and prowess.

In addition, Chang examines how Qianlong used imperial tours to showcase the ruling house as a model of Manchu skill as well as to highlight banner men as members of an active and disciplined conquest elite (chap. 4). As evidenced by a number of court paintings that depict the Qianlong emperor entering local cities in the saddle, Chang emphasizes that the Qianlong emperor thought of riding horseback as a symbol of ethnic honor closely associated with Manchu martial preeminence. In addition, the author suggests that the Qianlong emperor considered the mastery of horsemanship and archery as a proof of an individual banner man's diligence and moral character.

Chapters 5 and 6 explore the Qianlong emperor's efforts to encompass groups of Jiangnan Han Chinese elites. First, the author details the relationship between merchants and the Qianlong court. He points out that the Qianlong emperor's southern tours facilitated cultivation of Han commercial elites as sources of revenue during the middle of the eighteenth century. Consequently, in the 1760s, after the floods and military crises had subsided, Qianlong raised a question of "returning to purity and simplicity." It was an antimercantile discourse. At the same time, the Qing court began to pay attention to other Chinese elites who hoped to expand their hegemonic status within the examination system and the local society.

The Qing court's embrace of scholarly elites is the subject of chapter 6. There the author focuses on the...