Píngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè 平定兩金川方略
Campaign History of the Pacification of the Two Jīnchuāns by 阿桂 (奉敕撰)
About the work
The Píngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè — formally Qīndìng pīngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè 欽定平定兩金川方略 — is the comprehensive imperially commissioned campaign history covering both the First Jīnchuān war of 1747–1749 and the much larger and bloodier Second Jīnchuān war of 1771–1776 against the tǔsī of Greater and Lesser Jīnchuān (Suōnuòmù 索諾木 of Greater Jīnchuān; Sēnggésāng 僧格桑 of Lesser Jīnchuān). It thus supersedes the earlier Qīndìng pīngdìng Jīnchuān fānglüè (KR2c0011) as the definitive Qiánlóng-era treatment, incorporating its materials and going on to record the much greater Second Jīnchuān operation. The chief compiler of record was the senior Manchu commander Āguì 阿桂 (1717–1797), who had himself been the operations’ field commander, joined by Fù Kāng’ān 福康安 and the Hàn Grand Secretary Liáng Guózhì 梁國治. The book was commissioned by edict in Qiánlóng 41 (1776) on the conclusion of operations and the work first appeared in 1786; the Sìkù edition was respectfully presented in the 1st month of Qiánlóng 54 (1789). According to the tíyào, the work consists of yùzhì xù 御製序 / jìlüè 紀略 in 1 juǎn, tiānzhāng 天章 (imperial poetry) in 8 juǎn at the front, and chénggōng shīwén 臣工詩文 (officials’ poems and prose) in 8 juǎn at the back, with the substantive day-by-day documentary record in between. The catalog meta records the extent as 136 juǎn; Theobald and the standard editions give 152 juǎn (printed 1786); the Sìkù tíyào of the Qiánlóng-54 transcription opens “Píngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè in fifty-two juǎn”, which appears to be a copyist’s loss of “one hundred” before “fifty-two” (一百五十二 → 五十二). These edition-count differences are noted but not adjudicated here.
Tiyao
(Translated from the Wényuān gé witness file. The Sìkù tíyào is preserved at the head of this volume.)
The reverently respectful: Píngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè in [one hundred and] fifty-two juǎn was, in Qiánlóng 46 (1781), reverently composed by the Grand Secretary Āguì 阿桂 and others on imperial command. — At the front are placed the Yùzhì xù and jìlüè in 1 juǎn, and the Tiānzhāng (imperial poetry) in 8 juǎn; at the end the chénggōng shīwén (officials’ poems and prose) in 8 juǎn. The narrative of the pacification of the two Jīnchuāns runs from the guǐhài day of the 6th month of Qiánlóng 20 (1755) to the rénwǔ day of the 11th month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). — After the Jīnchuān submission at Jíkǎ 即卡, no rebellious sword was again raised, but the wolves bred again: Suōnuòmù 索諾木, with his head-man Dānbā Wòzá’ěr 丹巴沃雜爾, incited the chieftain of Lesser Jīnchuān, Sēnggésāng 僧格桑, who, swallowing the nine kindred tǔsī and raising arms without cause, ignored repeated edicts of forbearance — bringing in turn the disasters of ten years’ running, and the failure of two-step rules of warning. — Yet rapacity has no limit, and the gulf cannot be filled; bordering Wéizhōu 維州, they were going to vex the encroachment again. Better to seize the initiative than to wait for the back-coming evil at the frontier; better to crush them in their lair than at the marches. The throne therefore swept aside the doubting voices, and from heaven’s own edict ordered the second mobilisation of the Six Armies, the renewal of the Nine Punishments. Although the rebels relied on their terrain and broke into a brief fury, they were yet shattered by our levin-stroke and ended in fish-rot. Sēnggésāng’s bone, in his single chariot, was offered to the standard-gate; thereafter, after a thousand-turn rolling combat, the three lairs were levelled, Suōnuòmù in his weakness lay his face in the mud and was taken. — Since the three antiquities, the soldiers of the Central Kingdom have not reached this place. Only His Majesty by sage calculation and the thunder of imperial sound has at last opened up this corner of pre-civilisational night. Hence in distance one has reached the most remote of waters, in the breadth of one’s measuring-rod the Tianshan double-route, in the count of breeds something not amounting to a thirty-sixth of the Xī yù; and yet those who praise the shèngwǔ feel that this campaign together with the Yǐhài westward expansion of more than twenty thousand lǐ are altogether of the same yoke. Could one say less than that what no earlier age could conquer, only this age has now conquered? — Reverently reading the present compilation, beholden detail of the deciding of strategy from beginning to end, ever clearer of how the Wùchén affair (the First Jīnchuān) was a tiānxīn rén’ài — Heaven’s heart in mercy unwilling to exhaust the troops, not a matter of force not reaching. — Reverently collated, Qiánlóng 54 (1789), 1st month. Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Senior collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Second Jīnchuān war was the largest, longest, and most expensive of the Shíquán wǔgōng — five years of mountain warfare, two and a half guǎn (some 70 million taels) of silver expended, and the total absorption of the two Jīnchuān tǔsī into directly administered Sìchuān (the surviving population was settled into the new tūnzhèn military-agricultural districts and the gàitǔ guīliú 改土歸流 process completed). The work, although nominally compiled by Āguì, was the product of the now permanent Fānglüè guǎn; its three principal compilers (Āguì, Fù Kāng’ān, Liáng Guózhì) were all themselves participants in the war or its aftermath. The book is the most comprehensive Chinese-language source on the campaign, preserving in serial form imperial edicts, memorials, supply schedules, capture reports, troop movements, and the various peace-overtures and their rejections — together, in the appended materials, with the elaborate poetic celebration of the victory. The book was so important to Qiánlóng’s self-conception of the Shíquán cycle that it received an unusually heavy weight of tiānzhāng — eight juǎn of imperial poetry. Ulrich Theobald’s monograph (2013) is the principal Western-language study, drawing on this fānglüè together with the surviving Junjīchù and Fānglüè guǎn archival materials.
The catalog meta carries the extent as 136 juǎn; the standard printed edition is 152 juǎn; the present _000.txt text of the tíyào prints 五十二卷 (52), which is best read as a transcription error.
Translations and research
- Theobald, Ulrich. 2013. War Finance and Logistics in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Second Jinchuan Campaign (1771–1776). Leiden: Brill. The standard Western-language treatment. Makes extensive use of Qīndìng pīngdìng liǎng Jīnchuān fānglüè together with the Jīnchuān dàng archival series.
- Féng Míngzhū 馮明珠 et al., eds. 2007. Jīnchuān dàng 金川檔. 6 vols. Gùgōng bówùyuàn. The principal archival corpus on the Second Jīnchuān, complementing the fānglüè.
- Dài Yìngcōng. 2009. The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet. Seattle: University of Washington Press, ch. 7.
- Waley-Cohen, Joanna. 2006. The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty. London: I. B. Tauris.
- Hummel, biographies of Ā-guì, Fù Kāng’ān, Liáng Guózhì, Wēn Fú 溫福.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History, §26.3, §66.6.1.
Other points of interest
The eight-juǎn opening tiānzhāng — Qiánlóng’s own poetic series on the Second Jīnchuān — is a significant primary source for the political symbolism of the Shíquán cycle and the Manchu warrior identity Qiánlóng wished to project. The campaign’s success was officially the second of the Ten Complete Military Victories.