The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China by Keliher Macabe;

Author:Keliher, Macabe;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 5889512
Publisher: University of California Press

POLITICAL STRUGGLE AND SUCCESSION

In the fall of 1643, Hong Taiji abruptly died, throwing the Manchu aristocracy into political crisis. Previously, Inner Asian custom had followed one of two developments upon the death of a khan: either the election of a new one that could command the allegiance and maintain the unity of the body politic or dispersion of the various military leaders in their separate directions to pursue their own futures.32 In 1643, neither of those options came to bear. Despite Hong Taiji’s failure to designate a successor, and the ever-present suspicion of the generals of one banner toward the lords of another—two factors that could have led to the latter situation—the polity held. The relatives and their subordinates adhered to the terms of the settlement hammered out in the past decade and a half, and did so in a way that preserved the general structure of the hierarchies of power and the organization of the concentration of political resources. The contest of succession was not over the structural arrangements of power, as it was during the Nurhaci succession; rather, it was a jockeying for position and interests within the emergent framework.33 Each man began assessing his interests and lining up his support behind a candidate who could best help realize them, and he did so in the language of the categories and ranks established by Hong Taiji.

The Crisis and Resolution

Events following the death of Hong Taiji are opaque. The only documents that remain are those that were rewritten after the politics of the time had played out; they are impressed with a tone of both culpability and inevitability. If a source is not attempting to show the vile and wretched betrayals of an actor, then it presents Hong Taiji’s son, Fulin, who was crowned in the end, as the natural and predestined successor.

An outline of the events of the succession goes something like the following.34 Hong Taiji died on the ninth day of the eighth month of 1643. That day, a number of high-ranking officials of the Yellow Banners called upon Hong Taiji’s eldest and most accomplished son, Hooge, and pledged their support in his bid to accede to the throne. They worked out an agreement that Hong Taiji’s ninth son, Fulin, would be the crown prince in waiting. They made a vow among themselves to live and die together, then went to Hong Taiji’s cousin and supporter, Jirgalang, to solicit his support. At first Jirgalang demurred on the grounds that Dorgon had not approved; but he then consented despite this complication.35 A few days later, Dorgon, wary of these developments, summoned Sonin, a high-ranking Yellow Banner lieutenant, to discuss the succession. As a representative of the Yellow Banners, which had belonged to Hong Taiji, and the commanders who saw it in their interest to have one of their own on the throne, Sonin minced no words, “The previous emperor has sons; one of them must succeed him. As for the others, I do not know.”36 That night Yellow Banner lieutenant Tula told Sonin to ensure that a son of Hong Taiji was enthroned.

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