Tax Revolt in Late Qing China: The Small Swords of Shanghai and Liu Depei of Shandong

Vol. 6, No. 1 Late Imperial ChinaJune 1985 TAX REVOLT IN LATE QING CHINA: THE SMALL SWORDS OF SHANGHAI AND LIU DEPEI OF SHANDONG Elizabeth J. Perry* Late nineteenth century China saw an outburst of anti-tax riots, several of which developed into significant rebellions against the government . In the case of Western Europe, scholars have suggested that the emergence of the tax revolt as a dominant form of coUective activity in nineteenth century Italy, Germany and France was largely a reaction to a process of state formation underway at the time.1 For China, by contrast, this was a period when the imperial state was in a process of decline. Not until a century later, with the establishment of the People's Republic , can we find an unmistakably strengthened state apparatus. And yet, to suggest that the hundred years between the Opium Wars and the founding of the PRC saw only the progressive weakening of the Chinese state would be misleading. For in fact Chinese statesmen were drawn inevitably into desperate efforts at Statebuilding by the very processes that undermined their traditional polity. As Westerners humbled the Chinese empire with their gunboats, they also introduced new models for political activism. Like their counterparts in Europe, Chinese leaders were soon persuaded to try to enlarge the role of the state vis à vis society. *I am grateful to the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China for supporting the research on which this paper is based. In China, Professors Cai Shaoqing and Mao Jiaqi of Nanjing University, Professor Fang Shiming of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Wang Tingru of the Boshan District Library, and Kong Xiangjun of the Zichuan Foreign Affairs Bureau were most helpful in offering research direction . For the Liu Depei case, I am also deeply appreciative to Professor Tom Chang for sharing materials and ideas. Abbreviations used in notes: NCH: North China Herald, Shanghai; SDZL: Shandong Jindaishi ziliao (Materials on Shandong's Modern History), Jinan, vol. I, 1957. The section on the Liu Depei uprising, pp. 33-126, is a compilation of fifteen primary sources; XDH: Shanghai Xiaodaohui qiyi shiliao huibian (Compendium of Historical Materials on the Shanghai Small Swords Uprising), Shanghai, 1980. 'Charles Tilly, Louise Tilly and Richard Tilly, The Rebellious Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts , 1975. 83 84Elizabeth J. Perry The peculiar combination of deterioration and regeneration which marked the reform efforts of nineteenth-century China gave rise to social responses that were apparently similar, yet actually quite different, from movements underway in Western Europe in the same period. Of particular importance in the case of China was the blurred line separating state from society. While this distinction had always been fuzzy-with the gentry acting as critical intermediaries-it became even more confused under the circumstances of the late nineteenth century. Faced simultaneously with the formidable threats of foreign intervention and domestic rebeUion, the government found it necessary to turn to local society for shouldering much of the burden of resistance. On the face of it, the call for higher taxes, militia formation, and the like was a classic example of state building. But in the context of late nineteenth century China, such measures also played into the hands of local strongmen who proved to be serious rivals for power. The battle for control, based organizationaUy on the local militia and fought over the issue of taxation, suggests the complexity of state-society relations in this period. While the struggle between state and society was a national one, it was played out rather differently in different parts of the country. This paper explores some of the commonalities and variations through case studies of two late Qing tax protests: the Small Swörds of Shanghai (1853-1855) and Liu Depei of Shandong (1862-1863). The comparison highlights the central place of the militia, or tuanlian, in facilitating tax rebellion; and the influence of local environments in shaping the precise forms that resistance assumed. As theorists of collective action have pointed out, effective popular protest is not an automatic response to government oppression. Before a movement can be launched, some form of organizational base must exist to draw people together in concerted action.2...