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5. The Buddhist Qing and Mongol Localization in the Nineteenth Century
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127 CHAPTER FIVE The Buddhist Qing and Mongol Localization in the Nineteenth Century The bones of my beloved mother, The ashes of my holy lama, The plain of my Daichingtala, What of these will be cut off by the pawning Of our Da Wang, who rules us as master? —Khorchin folksong During the Muslim Hui uprisings of the 1860s the banner of Otog of the Yeke Juu League in Ordos suffered greatly.1 Not only did Muslim rebels attack its citizens and ransack Buddhist monasteries, but the people of Otog were also victims of their own local government. In particular, they chafed under the despotic rule of the regent Rashinamjil. He was ruling because Chagdurjab (1862– 1881), the rightful Chinggisid heir and banner prince, was still a child. Nevertheless , both of these problems eventually passed. The Hui uprising was suppressed by Qing forces, and the reign of the regent Rashinamjil was challenged by the people of Otog Banner through a petition sent to Beligbadarkhu, the Bureau of Colonial Affairs’ appointed chairman of the Yeke Juu League. Unfortunately, Beligbadarkhu was not interested in resolving the peoples’ grievances with Rashinamjil; rather, he was more concerned with resolving a long-simmering land dispute between the neighboring Otog and Üüshin banners.2 Beligbadarakhu wanted the government of Otog ¤nally to relinquish all claims to the land that his own Üüshin banner had been offered in 1827 by Otog banner in exchange for money, so that the Otog monastery of Shine Usun Juu could afford to join the new craze for masked cham dances. To this end, he rejected the people’s complaints, and in turn he supported Rashinamjil as long as he agreed to con¤rm Üüshin’s claims to this contested territory with a letter bearing the imperially bestowed of¤cial seal of Otog Banner. Rashinamjil concurred, and shortly thereafter the Üüshin government, which was short of funds, sold a part of this territory to the Belgian Scheut missionaries so they could build their community of Borobalgasu. The government of Otog was appalled at this turn of events. At ¤rst it sent 128 / Localization in the Nineteenth Century troops into the area and demanded that, not only the Catholic Church and its followers, but also that all the people living in this disputed territory pay taxes to Otog and not Üüshin Banner. It eventually went to court in Ningxia, and with the support of the church, Otog won the court case and the residents of Borobalgasu were to pay taxes to Otog. At the same time, however, people in the area continued to pay taxes to Üüshin. Thus the dispute over the land and who was to pay taxes continued. The problem was only further exacerbated when Otog Banner was ordered to pay huge indemnities as reparations for the Boxer Rebellion. During the rebellion Borobalgasu had been burned to the ground, and its Christian converts killed. Unfortunately, the Otog government was very poor, so it took a loan of silver from the Scheut mission in order to pay its debts, and when it was unable to pay this loan back, the government offered the church a piece of land adjacent to the Üüshin border. When the government of Üüshin heard of this arrangement they felt that Otog had given land to missionaries that was not rightfully theirs. In order to resolve this dispute, the church fathers dispatched a group from Borobalgasu to discuss it with Arbinbayar, the prince of Khanggin Banner, who then held the rotating position of Yeke Juu League chairman. But members of Üüshin Banner kidnapped these representatives. Wanting to ¤nally resolve the dispute and con¤rm their actual territorial holdings, the Scheut missionaries set up a new meeting. Yet at the same time as these proceedings were going forward, the Manchu resident general of Suiyuan, Yigu, was pressing the banner princes of Yeke Juu League to open up their territory to Chinese colonization. Thus, in order to curry favor with Yigu, the prince of Üüshin offered up the disputed territory for Chinese cultivation, and it was in this atmosphere that the following letter was composed. Letter from Arbinbayar, Chairman of the Yeke Juu League with the privilege of walking in the Emperor’s presence, ruling prince of an Ordos banner , with the rank of Banner Beise, with four additional honorary ranks and registered three times, holding the title Jinong; sent to Yan Mingzhi [Edmund Vereenooghe] priest of the Catholic religion, with a view to making a communication. If we examine...