Jones, Susan Mann, and Philip Kuhn. "Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.10, Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911, Part 1, edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Jones, Susan Mann, and Philip Kuhn. "Dynastic Decline and the Roots of Rebellion". In The Cambridge History of China, Vol.10, Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911, Part 1, edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

• At the death of the Qianlong Emperor in 1799, the Jiaqing Emperor saw his most important task as removing his father's favorite minister, Heshen 和珅, from influence in the Qing court. Within a month of Emperor Jiaqing's coronation, Heshen was dead and his closest ally publicly humiliated, but the problem of Heshen's extensive influence in the military and regional bureaucracies remained (108).
• Emperor Jiaqing decided that the sheer number of individuals who had been implicated in Heshen's corruption made a purge impractical, he also preferred to believe that most of these officials had simply been led astray. He also feared that such a purge would destroy trust between regional officials and the Emperor, preventing him from controlling regional affairs (108).
• Since Heshen had been able to successful dominate Chinese politics through manipulation of the Grand Council, Emperor Jiaqing decided to have officials report directly to him. What intermediaries were thought necessary were drawn from the pool of officials from the Qianlong court who had opposed Heshen (116).
• The removal of so many of Heshen's men from the upper tiers of Qing administration and their replacement with his former opponents changed the ethnic ratios in the Qing administration for the first time since the invasion, greatly increasing the number of Han Chinese serving at the highest level of Qing government (117).
• The Jiaqing Emperor dedicated his reign to expelling the corruption of the Heshen era from Qing governance, an effort which took his entire reign. Although a reformist by nature, he and his advisers were more obsessed with removing Heshen loyalists than pursuing broader structural reform (144).
• The Jiaqing Emperor also attempted to reduce conspicuous consumption and spending at the Qing court, cancelling many of the gifting traditions and expensive expeditions which had been practiced under Emperor Qianlong. While the Emperor was successful in reducing immediate consumption, most of the extended imperial household refused to limit their spending, and banned practices returned almost immediately after his death (118-119).
• China experienced a massive population growth from the late 1600s to the mid-1800s, largely due to relative peace during this period. During the 18th Century, China's population doubled from 150 million to 300 million people. This further increased, though at a slower rate, to 430 million by the 1850s (108-109).
• Prior to this point China had always been able to produce food in line with an increase in population through settling additional wilderness territories. The introduction of corn and potatoes allowed for increased use of poor quality farmland, further increasing agricultural production. The limits of these gains were being reached by the 19th Century, as land competition became intense in even marginal areas like Guangxi and Sichuan (109-110).
• Those Chinese born in regions with large extant populations either migrated to more sparsely populated areas in the periphery or sought alternative employment as laborers, militiamen, or the servants of officials (110).
• Despite this tremendous population growth, the number of available positions for public office and officialdom did not increase significant, meaning that increasing numbers of educated Chinese were unable to secure employment. This increased competition for employment at all levels and sowed distrust among officials (110-111).
• This surplus of educated men was absorbed into local administration through corruption and nepotism. The clerical staff of local administrators grew enormously during the 18th Century, with many of secretaries and clerks using their minor positions to engage in corruption (111).
• The increased dependency of employment on these sorts of artificially-created positions meant that connections or bribery became increasingly important to secure employment, since there was no real need. These connections made associations like trade guilds or secret societies very attractive to aspiring educated men (114).
• Other educated men were pressured by the intense competition for careers into illegal activities. Some hired themselves out as tax-farmers, collecting taxes on behalf of local government in return for a share of the proceeds, or pettifoggers, handling court proceedings on behalf of litigants. They became ubiquitous in China and were important intermediaries between the population and officialdom (112).
• One of the positions available to educated men unable to obtain official employment was a job as a adviser or scholar to officials. These advisers were often the source of the most reformist and innovative areas, occasionally playing major roles in the development of policy (148). A biography of Wei Yuan 魏源, a prominent adviser is detailed from page 148 to page 154.
• During the 18th Century, China underwent a commercialization, driven by an expansion of internal market alongside population growth and increased demand for Chinese goods in European markets. Areas along these major trade routes became prosperous, and merchants accumulated large amounts of capital in private banks during this period (109).
• Whereas higher education institutions under the Ming had been privately run, the Qing government increasingly placed academies under state control. While most remain technically independent, they were subject to financial pressure and potential censorship to focus almost exclusively on the technical skills needed to take exams rather than other literary or scholarly activities (113).
• The Qing government exercised central control over three departments in all provinces: the grain tribute administration, the salt monopoly, and the Yellow River conservancy. The Grain Administration organized the collection of rice from the eight southern provinces and its transportation to Beijing for distribution across northern China (119).
• The Grain Administration was rare for primarily controlling a mass of non-bureaucratic officials, as opposed to most other areas of Qing government. Most employees of the Grain Administration were grain boatman, a hereditary position, who ferried the grain along the Great Canal. The Grain Administration also maintained its own inspection staff, guards for checkpoints, and militia to protect the grain (119).
• By the ascension of Emperor Jiaqing, the Grain Administration had become corrupt and inefficient. Bribes were paid every time the grain changed hands or passed an inspection, and the boatmen had begun abusing their position to hire enormous numbers of hired laborers to do all their work for them (121).
• As corruption increased the costs of maintaining the grain fleet on the Great Canal, the taxes to support the fleet also increased. This increase was so onerous that many local nobles requested tax exemptions due to potential insolvency. This ultimately led to a commercialization of the grain trade, as local officials were often forced to purchase rice to meet their quota because so many nobles had been exempted from the grain levy (121).
• While provincial officials were held responsible for meeting the grain quota in their province, the actual collection of grain was organized on the district level, with districts hiring middlemen to collect the grain from farms and deliver it to collection points. The regional officials were prevented from communicating directly with the Grain Administration, and were vocal in advocating abandoning the corrupt system surrounding the Great Canal and transport the grain by sea (122).
• There were a number of factors at the time suggesting that transporting the grain by sea would be efficient. A study of trade in contemporary China found that most trade was from north to south, with ships often having to fill their ballasts with mud on journeys north. Qing officials noted that these private traders could be hired to help transport the grain levy to the north, thus avoiding the corruption associated with the Great Canal (123).
• The adoption of grain transport by sea had first been suggested in 1803 after flooding silted portions of the Yellow River and slowed transport to Beijing. The issue was raised by Emperor Jiaqing after corruption led to delays in 1810 -- and again in 1815 -- but was dropped after key provincial officials in Nanjing, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu objected to the alternation of imperial precedent (122-123).
• The group of officials associated with the Great Canal and the private naval merchants were the strongest blocs arguing against the adoption of a seaborne route. The officials on the Great Canal made enormous sums of money from bribes, corruption, and the illegal use of canal boats to ship private grain north for sale and smuggle salt south. The private naval merchants viewed the plan as a restriction of commercial freedom, a privilege only granted by the Kangxi Emperor in 1684 (123-124).
• The material arguments put forward by opponents of the sea route of transport were unconvincing, as the coast did not experience very severe weather nor did it experience much piracy during this period. Thousands of private merchants traded by sea during this period without serious difficult (123).
• The issue reemerged in 1824 when the grain fleet became mired in silt outside of Gaoyu, in Hebei province, with only one-quarter of expected grain reaching Beijing. The incident was severe enough that Emperor Daoguang accepted the proposal of the President of the Board of Revenue, Yinghe, and sent Qishan 琦善, a Manchu statesman, to organize the shipment of grain by sea from Shanghai (124).
• This incident resulted in the firing of the Head of the Grain Administration, throwing the entire department into chaos for two years as multiple successors were fired for failing to make adequate reforms and repairs to the canal (124).
• The Daoguang Emperor only managed to convince the court to adopt the sea-based transport route by selling it as a temporary emergency measure. Despite the pleas of officials involved in the administration of the sea route, the Great Canal was restored as the only means of grain transport in 1827 (124).
• The Qing government did eventually adopt a permanent sea transport system for grain, but this was not until the late 1840s. The main change was the government's perception of the hereditary boatmen. Whereas the Qing government previously sought to safeguard their employment, the increased organization of the boatmen into secret societies -- many with anti-Manchu political beliefs -- made the government increasingly unsympathetic to their well-being. Accordingly, there was little controversy when a sea-borne route was adopted in 1845 after a severe food shortage in Beijing (125).
• The Yellow River Conservancy were deeply mired in corruption during this period, with a fraction -- perhaps as little as 10% -- of the funds meant for maintaining the Yellow River actually being used appropriately. Moreover, the Conservancy failed to perform its proscribed duty, with floods occurring on a semi-regular basis; these floods often used as an excuse for additional funds for the Conservancy (127).
• The immense corruption of the Conservancy allegedly began during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, when Minister Heshen demanded the Conservancy divert much of its funds to his private accounts. After the death of Heshen, Conservancy officials simple kept the profits of corruption for themselves (128).
• Corruption for decades meant that treasuries were close to depleted at all times, a problem which Emperor Jiaqing made the priority for provincial officials, demanding that governors make up for shortages during the Heshen period. Rather than decreasing corruption, local officials simply demanded more taxes from an already impoverished population (128).
• The increase in the number of clerks and hangers-on in official service bloated the costs of the local administration, as well as opportunities for corruption. This meant that even more tax revenue was required to meet both the official and unofficial costs of administration (129).
• The necessity of paying taxes in silver further increased the 'real' costs of taxes for the peasantry. The exchange of grain or other products for silver was managed by private merchants associated with local administration, who often manipulated the exchange rate to privilege tax-collectors and silver merchants at the expense of taxpayers (129).
• The impoverishment of the Chinese peasantry due to all of these factors was so severe during the 19th Century that by 1848 the tax arrears in China were equal to the taxes actually collected. This was partially from impoverishment and partially from tax-resistance movements which mobilized during the 1840s and 1850s (130-131).
• The price of grain rose substantial during the 18th Century, largely due to influxes of silver from European purchases of Chinese goods. This meant that, despite the exchange rate pressures placed on Chinese peasants, the value of silver did not increase too precipitously to trigger mass indebtedness or insolvency among the peasantry (129).
• This changed during the 1830s, as the opium trade reversed the dynamics of Chinese trade by causing a net outflow of silver from the country. This inflated the price of silver relative to copper currency and grain, increasing the 'real' value of taxes and driving many small farmers into bankruptcy (130).
• In the region around the lower Yangtze River, officials recognized the scope of the calamity from mass impoverishment and repeatedly faked and falsely reported natural disasters to the Qing government in order to obtain tax exemptions (130).
• Beginning in the 1720s, the Qing attempting to normalize and regularize the administration of Miao territories, which had previously been governed autonomously. This initiated centuries of military conflicts with the Miao, to which the Qing responded with increased repression, confiscation of land of rebels, and the construction of large military garrisons in Miao areas (132).
• The increased immigration of Han settlers into conquered and garrisoned Miao areas increased social tensions, which spilled over in 1795 along the Hunan-Guizhou border in a massive revolt. Exploitative local officials manipulated and cheated to rob Miao of land and sell it to Han settlers, when the Miao rebelled against these officials, the conflict raged for 11 years (133).
• The Qing military performance in the campaign was abysmal and reflected the degree to which corruption had penetrated the army. The nature of the guerrilla warfare allowed commanders to artificially inflate body counts and falsify reports while avoiding combat. When offensive operations were undertaken, civilians were the most frequent victims, both to falsify reports and out of vindictiveness towards rebellious populations (141).
• After the rebellion ended, the Qing recognized the need to pacify Han-Miao relations in the border region, appointing Fu Nai 傅鼐 to manage issues with the Miao. Magistrate Fu established military agricultural settlements throughout the border region to support permanent garrisons in the area. The military was tasked with enforcing new rules limiting trade to small centers, giving local offices to Miao, and forbidding Han officials from entering Miao villages (133).
• Magistrate Fu's plans were designed to prevent the 'contamination' of Han Chinese culture by separating the ethnic groups while sinicizing the Miao by introducing Chinese education and forbidding their traditional religious practices (133).
• Although the Qing attempted to forbid the transfer of land from Miao to Han, or visa-versa, the high taxation rates of Miao land and continued Han immigration the area created market pressures that resulted in the continued sale of Miao land to Han settlers under exploitative conditions (133).
• Triads, secret societies known by a number of names, emerged among Fujianese immigrants in Taiwan during the mid-1600s. They coalesced around Ming loyalism, often mixed with other religious or political beliefs. During the 1700s, Triad membership spread to Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi, moving into the Yangtze River by the 19th Century. The main adherents of Triads were sailors, laborers, immigrants, and petty officials, for whom the Triads served as their only social organization (134).
• Triads had always been partially criminal, engaged in piracy and smuggling, as well as participating in local corruption facilitated through members of the secret society. They were organized in lodges, which coordinated all organized crime within a specific area. They often penetrated local administrations, who worked alongside the Triads (134).
• Triads became much more politically active beginning around the turn of the 19th Century, beginning with a revolt against Qing authority among settlers in Taiwan in 1786 led by Lin Shuangwen 林爽文, a local Triad boss. Triads led revolts throughout the southern coast, at the same time expanding their influence in Annamese piracy and organized crime as far inland as Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guizhou (135).
• During the 1840s, the composition of the Triad members in the south began to change from migrant and settler communities to more established families in the Pearl River delta. This change may have been caused by the intensity of land competition, prompting increasing numbers of men to join the Triads as an alternative to limited agricultural opportunities (135).
• In these conditions, Triads along the Pearl River and in Guangxi became more locally-oriented, centralizing and distributing the profits of banditry to its members, acting as a sort of welfare system to impoverished populations (135-136).
• The increased strength of the Triads became a serious problem for the Qing following defeat in the Opium War, after which Triad forces in Guangdong outnumbered the Qing. Their newfound connections with local rural elites allowed the Triads more direct access to manpower, and by the mid-1840s, the established Triads in the Pearl River delta were able to mass armies of thousands and invade walled cities (136).
• This climaxed in the Red Turban Rebellion of 1845, when Triads captured dozens of towns in Guangdong, including Foshan. Although militarily successful, their calls for Ming restoration failed to mobilize urban elites, while attempts to curb looting and institute government alienated Triad government from their largely criminal base. Overall the lack of political vision combined with a criminal makeup prevented the Red Turbans from being a viable alternative to Qing rule (136).
• The White Lotus Society was an association of loosely related and religiously diverse Buddhist congregations existing in an arc between Sichuan and Shandong. The White Lotus Societies shared a millenarian belief that either a 'Prince of Light' 明王 or the last Buddha -- Maitreya 彌勒菩薩 -- would extinguish all evil from the world (137).
• Most preachers for the White Lotus were hereditary, along some also trained new lines of preachers. Due in a large part to persecution by the Qing government, these preachers were constantly on the move and proselytizing in new communities (137). This movement allowed different White Lotus congregations to coordinate and forge a common identity (139).
• The White Lotus Society had been responsible for the great revolt in the 14th Century which toppled the Yuan dynasty and ended Mongol rule over China. The Society remained active throughout the Ming period, leading revolts during the early 17th Century. The Society experienced a resurgence beginning in 1775 when Liu Zhixie, a preacher in Hubei, announced that he had discovered that his teacher's son was both a legitimate heir of the Ming throne and the reincarnation of Maitreya (137).
• The Qing government recognized the significance of the claim that Maitreya had been born by 1793 and sent officials to investigate White Lotus congregations. Local government took this as an excuse to terrorize the White Lotus Society, demanding that adherents pay or be killed. Many congregations armed themselves to defend against rapacious local officials; militarization was intensified by the Miao revolts ongoing in Guizhou (138).
• Full-scale revolt broke out in February 1796 in western Hubei, quickly spreading across the border into Sichuan and Shaanxi as armed congregations seized control of garrisons and towns. The White Lotus quickly retreated to remote mountain outposts, raiding Qing forces and towns for supplies and weaponry (138).
• Like the Triads of the Pearl River area, local bandits in Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi were deeply involved in the welfare of marginalized local communities and shared the fruits of their plunder with villages. These groups had strong connections with the White Lotus Society and formed its military backbone (140).
• The Qing military performed horribly in its suppression of the White Lotus Society, failing to adjust its tactics to the terrain. Rebel leaders were able to hide, with most combat only killing peasants paid or coerced to fighting for the rebels. A new policy of constructing strategic hamlets for the protection of peasant communities from the rebel was suggested in 1797, but it was rejected by Heshen and not implemented until after his death in 1799; it ultimately has the key to Qing victory against the Society (142).
• The strategy of strategic hamlets robbed the rebels of social support and access to essential resources, allowing the secondary Qing offensive to succeed. Emperor Jiaqing mobilized Manchurian banners and had these soldiers, supplemented by local mercenaries, lead devastating offensives against White Lotus strongholds. By 1805, they had managed to absolutely crush the rebellion (143).
• The repression of the White Lotus from 1796 to 1805 was ultimately a major loss for the Qing, as the campaigned drained the treasure, while failing to extinguish the cult of the White Lotus from the devastated region. Similar rebellions occurred elsewhere throughout the early 19th Century (144).
• The reign of the Daoguang Emperor was defined by his dependence on Cao Zhenyong 曹振镛, a prominent Beijing official and devout Confucian. While frugal and fierce against corruption, Cao Zhenyong was rigid and refused to deviate from Confucian protocol or imperial tradition. The anxious Emperor Daoguang took his advice in almost every aspect of rule, making him a thoroughly inflexible monarch (145).
• "An apocryphal account [...] records the earliest advice given to the newly- enthroned and anxious Tao-kuang Emperor. Ts'ao is said to have assured him that there was no need to agonize over the flood of official correspondence that reached him daily; that officials considered it their duty to memorialize about problems, even where none existed. Memorialists could not be admonished or punished, however, for that would be tantamount to ignoring forthright criticism, an unseemly posture for a Confucian monarch. Therefore one had to assure them that their complaints were heard, on the one hand; yet somehow reduce the volume of complaints, on the other. Ts'ao's solution was simple. The emperor was merely to scan memorials for errors in calligraphy or composition and punish the offender accordingly. In that way he could simultaneously demonstrate his own careful attention to detail, chastise the trouble- maker, and ignore the issue in question" (145).
• The weakness of the imperial government had worsened since the Qianlong Emperor, as demonstrated by the increased willingness of provincial officials to ignore imperial advice. This was clear during the modernization programs undertaken by provincial governments during the 1840s and 1850s despite the Daoguang Emperor's opposition (146).
• One of the defining features of the collapse of imperial authority from the 1770s onward is the shift of resources from the public to the private sector. More state employees operated with private interests in mind: "These included such obvious groups as the patronage networks, salt smugglers and sub-bureaucratic personnel (clerks and runners), who took the public resources of the state - tax revenues, waterworks projects, grain and salt distribution systems - and transformed them into sources of private profit. Yet the shift from public to private seems to have been more profound than even these observers realized. Instead of public employment, scholars were now turning to private employment. Instead of using conscripts, the canal system was hiring private labourers. In the place of effete hereditary soldiers, the army rolls were increasingly composed of paid militiamen. Tax collectors purchased their grain from private traders; grain tribute administrators leased boats from private shippers" (161).