HuángQīng zhígòng tú 皇清職貢圖
Illustrated Tribute-Bearers of the Imperial Qīng by 傅恒 (Fù Héng, ca. 1722–1770) — fèngchì zhuàn 奉敕撰
About the work
A 9-juan illustrated catalogue of the foreign and indigenous peoples paying tribute to the Qīng court, compiled by imperial command beginning in Qiánlóng 16 xīnwèi (1751) — the Tàishàng tàiwèi / Grand Secretary 傅恒 directing the project on the basis of an imperial edict that ordered the various provincial governors-general and governors to commission paintings of the dress and appearance of the Miáo, Yáo, Lí, Zhuàng, and other indigenous peoples in their territories, plus the foreign fān (vassal-frontier) peoples. The original 7-juan version was completed in Qiánlóng 22 (1757), incorporating the 1755–1759 conquest of Eastern Turkestan (the new Yīlí, Khazakh, Kyrgyz, Wushi, Badakhshan, and Andijan polities, more than 300 zhǒng in total). Two further juan (8–9) were added after Qiánlóng 28 (1763) covering: (i) Afghanistan / Àiwūhǎn; (ii) Kokand / Huòhǎn; (iii) Qǐqíyùsū (Khrutsh?), Wūěrgēnqí (Urgench), and others; (iv) the Tórgūt return-from-the-Volga (1771); (v) the further internal-frontier submissions of the Yúnnán Zhěngqiàn and Jǐnghǎi tǔmù. Each illustration shows a man and woman of the people in question, with a brief textual xìshuō describing their territory, language, dress, religion, and customs.
The work is preceded by the Yùzhì shī (an imperial poem in regulated verse on the work) and a series of officials’ matching poems (gōnghé shī) — by Liú Tǒngxūn 劉統勲 and many others — which the Sìkù compilers preserved as a documentary record of the project’s court-ceremonial context. The work is the most comprehensive Qīng-period documentary record of the empire’s ethnographic diversity, and the principal pre-modern Chinese-language ethnographic catalogue in any genre.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the HuángQīng zhígòng tú in 9 juan, in Qiánlóng 16 (1751) imperially commissioned. With Chosŏn first among the various external vassals; the rest with all the fān and mán — each in the order of their administrative-province assignment.
Meeting the Sage Martial-virtue’s far-extension and the pacification of the Western Regions, expanding territory by 20,000+ lǐ; beyond the Yellow-River source and Yuèzhī (Yue-Zhi territory), ladders-and-ships gather like fish-scales — chēnjìn (gem-tribute) and lǚlái (visiting-and-coming) — accordingly we additionally illustrated the Yīlí, Khazakh, Kyrgyz, Wushi, Badakhshan, Andijan, the various bùluò (peoples) — making over 300 zhǒng, with separate illustrations and accompanying captions, in 7 juan in all; completed in Qiánlóng 22 (1757). After Qiánlóng 28 (1763), Afghanistan, Kokand, Khurts, Urgench, and the various peoples all sent envoys to court; the entire Tórgūt people came over from Russia; in Yúnnán the Zhěngqiàn and Jǐnghǎi tǔmù successively submitted internally; we therefore broadened with a continuation-volume of one juan. Each illustration shows the men-and-women’s appearance, and the various people-leaders’ subordinate persons’ dress-and-cap distinctions; all the dispositions, customs, dress, food, preferences are recorded.
Examining: the Nánshǐ records that Liáng Wǔdì had Péi Zǐyě compose the Fāngguó shǐ tú — broadly relating the abundance of those who came in submission, from the huāngfú to the hǎibiǎo, 20 countries in all. Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s Lìdài mínghuà jì records that Liáng Yuándì had a Zhígòng tú. Shǐ Shéngzǔ’s Xuézhāi zhànbì cites Lǐ Gōnglín saying: Yuándì governing Jīngzhōu made the Zhígòng tú, depicting the form and recording the customs — over 30 countries in all. Their numbers compared to what is now drawn — not even one tenth.
As for the Shānhǎijīng — what it records of the various countries is mostly empty fabrication, generally not reliable. The Hànshū Xīyù zhuàn and below — what the historians narrate is mostly from hearsay; checking by route-and-distance and mountains-and-rivers, often loses its actual fact. Also not as far-as the present drawing.
Or [those drawn here] receive the tribute baskets and personally see the people; or holding the fúyuè (military insignia) and riding the post-cart, in fact passing through their land. Truly the Shètí and Héluò (the great Yellow-River-Luò civilizations) since these have not seen — what lóngguǐ (illustrious tracks)! Yet we respectfully read the Yùtí long-poem — fāng yǐ bǎotài chéngxiū yīnyīn zījǐng (now with maintaining-thoroughness inheriting-blessing earnestly examining-warning) — this jǐngmìng (great mandate) is here repeatedly affirmed; the tiānshēng (heavenly-sound) is therefore further spread. From now onward, those who divine-the-wind and verify-the-sea and arrive — we no longer know how many. The ěrbǐ (brush-bearing) ministers also stand on tiptoe expecting the new illustration’s continuation. Respectfully proof-read in the eighth month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).
Abstract
The HuángQīng zhígòng tú is the most comprehensive Qīng-period documentary record of the empire’s ethnographic diversity and the principal pre-modern Chinese-language ethnographic catalogue. It was commissioned by the Qiánlóng emperor in Qiánlóng 16 (1751) under Grand Secretary 傅恒 (Fù Héng, ca. 1722–1770; CBDB 510988); the original 7-juan version was completed in 1757, and two further juan (1763–1771) added later. It comprises some 300 illustrations, each showing a man and woman of a particular people in characteristic dress, with a brief xìshuō description.
The work’s principal scholarly value is as: (i) the foundational documentation of the eighteenth-century Qīng imperial ethnographic worldview, with each people categorised under its administrative-region assignment; (ii) the only systematic pre-modern Chinese-language record of the indigenous-peoples administrative geography of the entire Qīng empire — including detailed coverage of: the Miáo, Yáo, Lí, Zhuàng, Tǔ, Tǔjiā, Bā, Bùyī peoples of the southwest; the Tibetan and Tibetan-related peoples of Wūsīzàng, Sōngpān, Lāsà; the Mongolian peoples of NèiWàiMěnggǔ and the Tórgūt; the Tarim Basin peoples; the Manchurian peoples (Jurchen, Daur, Solon, Even); the Turkic peoples (Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Andijani, Khoqandi); plus the fān peoples (Korea, Vietnam, Siam, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Java, Sumatra, Sulu, etc.); (iii) the foundation of subsequent Western-language ethnographic surveys of Qīng China.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 594.11). The yùzhì shī and matching court-officials’ gōnghé shī preserved at the front of the Sìkù copy are an important documentary record of the project’s court-ceremonial context.
Translations and research
- Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago, 2001). The principal English-language critical study; uses the Huáng-Qīng zhí-gòng tú as one of its central sources.
- Laura Hostetler, “Qing Connections to the Early Modern World: Ethnography and Cartography in Eighteenth-Century China,” Modern Asian Studies 34.3 (2000): 623–662.
- David Bello, Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain (Cambridge, 2016).
- Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror (UC Press, 1999).
- Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way (Stanford, 2001).
- Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1943), s.v. Fu-heng.
- Standard Chinese editions: Zhōng-yāng mín-zú dà-xué ed., Qīng-cháo Huáng-Qīng zhí-gòng tú jiào-bǔ (Beijing, 1991).
- The Manchu and Tibetan parallel versions of the imperial-archive set are also extant in palace archives.
- Wilkinson §74.6.
Other points of interest
The HuángQīng zhígòng tú is the principal late-imperial Chinese contribution to the global early-modern ethnographic-cataloguing tradition that includes Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti antichi et moderni (1590), the Dutch Leyden Print Series, and the Edo-period Japanese Banhōchi. Its existence as a state-sponsored centralised ethnographic project — predating most European parallels — is a major datum in the historiography of “early-modern” knowledge regimes.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet linked
- Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise (Chicago, 2001)
- Wilkinson §74.6