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Tracing The Specter Of "Rebellion" - Sun Jiagan 's Pseudo - Manuscripts In The Perspective Of Communication Studies (1751 - 1753)

Posted on:2014-09-04Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:J R ZhanFull Text:PDF
GTID:1108330434473178Subject:Spread
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In1751, the sixteenth year of Emperor Qianlong, the governor-general of Yunnan-Guizhou reported to emperor that a palace memorial, in name of a high official Sun Jiagan, not only impeached officials close to emperor but also listed "five unforgivable acts and ten great transgressions" of the emperor. Infuriated by the bogus memorial, Qianlong Emperor decreed to find out the originator of the bogus memorial. Then it was reported that the copies of the bogus memorial had spreaded in seventeen provinces.As an official instrument, the creation of the Qing rulers, the palace memorial was an powerful instrument to make the emperor become the center of the communication-decision system, which contributed greatly to the emperor’s control over the whole bureaucracy. The history of the palace memorial between Kangxi Emperor and Yongzheng Emperor indicated that the political communication system was close related to the changes of the power and its structure.The circle of the bogus memorial is the groups whose lives were involved into market. They relied on monetary income to make a living, and as a result they were greatly affected by the rising price especially during the eighteenth century. The circle of the bogus memorial, the communication network motivated by the market, certainly went beyond the memorials’circulation defined by power, which impacted the existing power relations. The bogus memorial spreaded too wide in the society that the Qianlong Emperor had to motivate the whole bureaucratic machine to find out the originator of the bogus memorial. The emperor should prove the memorial fake to refute kinds of gossip which questioned the legitimacy of his rule. The emperor also should find out the originator and destroy all the bogus memorials to keep the political communication in order.However, the course of the investigation indicated that the palace memorial system could not offer emperor sufficient information, and it could not help emperor to control the empire, neither. The palace memorial system had created few political goals shared between the emperor and his ministers. In such a communication system, what ministers only cared were their own safety and their own interest. Moreover, the communication system increased both the information competition and tensions between emperor and ministers, which make the political system dissociated. It is particularly presented in this dissertation that bureaucrat ensured their own safety or got benefited but told the truth via communicating with the emperor. As the time went on but the originator of the bogus memorial could not be find out, tension rose between the emperor and his ministers. To wind up the case, emperor had to rely on grand councilor to settle the disturbed situation, which might forebode that the imperial power would be inclined to rely on the inner court but the bureaucratic machine. At the end of the story, by dismissing some local officials, Emperor Qianlong aimed to teach local officials to report sincerely. However, the memorials, in which officials expressed their thankness for emperor forgiving their sins, actually did not suggested what the emperor did worked.The case of the bogus memorial suggested that diversified political communication systems had developed in mid-Ch’ing history. The communication systems had several different subjects which got and deliveried political information for their own purposes. It was the crisis of the empire expressed in this case that the diversified political communication systems impacted and even reconstructed the existing power structure of the empire. That is, the couse of communication was changing the power relations of the Ch’ing Empire.
Keywords/Search Tags:The case of bogus memorial, the political communication systems, thecrisis of imperial control
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