Could Qing China have done better with a higher number of officials?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
One thing I've seen in a few texts is that an insufficient number of bureaucrats to serve(& control) the booming population did great harm to the stability of the Qing dynasty. For example, taking on more bureaucrats could have perhaps employed some people who became leaders of rebellions on behalf of the regime instead of against it. Also, with more bureaucrats to carry out and check property surveys and collect taxes, perhaps the Qing could have avoided tax-farming and its negative effects on both the population and government revenue.

On the other hand, paying the salaries of a greatly increased number of bureaucrats is expensive and can cause its own fiscal challenges.

Was there an affordable "sweet spot" for the Qing, a scaling up to
a certain number/proportion of additional officials, that would be fiscally and economically sustainable and result in better administration and tax collection and avoided tax farming? And could such have saved the regime from facing the Taiping and other contemporary rebellions?


A follow up question, imagine they significantly scale up the ratio of officials to population - would his work better in the same territorial setup as OTL, or if there was a policy of land based expansion or a policy of sea-based expansion beyond the already substantial Qing agenda of conquest in Taiwan, Mongolia, Qinghai/Amdo/Kokonor, Tibet and Dzungaria/Xinjiang?
 
The thing about the examinations is that they were notoriously hard. First, they were focused on memorizing the Confucian texts, which really does jack at promoting expertise in administration. Second, the amount of examinees allowed to pass isn't determined by grade, but by a very, very small quota, which means the vast majority inevitably fails and pretty much burned up their money. Third, while earlier reforms of the examinations along Western lines is possible, convincing the Confucian-educated bureaucracy and Queen Mother Cixi to do so is about as easy as Ukraine expelling the Russians from Donbass and reclaiming Greater Ukraine. It's that hard.

I do agree though, that had people like Hong Xiuquan actaully joined the bureaucracy, he's probably just be another, likely corrupt Confucian bureaucrat and not a Joseph Smith wannabe on whatever he's smoking to convince himself that he's the Jesus-Bro. However, that's just fixing the symptoms, not the illness.
 
I personally think that increase the number of officials via the normal, (even if reformed post opium war) Confucian exams would not be ideal. It'll just produce corrupt, lazy officials, which China of the time already had an abundance of. Said talents could be sent to be businessmen or something else that could actually make the China great again. IMHO, more officials, even if said officials are actually not corrupt, is not enough to save the Qing.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
what is needed is thorough modernization of Qing Empire. Chinese Empire has always been troubled by 1)too small bureaucracy, and insufficient wage/fund for them 2)semi-employment of gentry too assist governmental jobs 3) insufficient tax rate that decided by First Emperor and very difficult to change 4) ability of gentry to avoid/reduce their tax and shift burden to less well-off 5) lack of change/re-registering of tax once its decided.

All this problem is related. It will need massive effort, probably ruler have to re-conquer its own land to change this, so its not that easy to change.
 
A modernization is needed, indeed. Also a change in mentality - most Qing officials were Manchu, because the ruling dynasty was Manchu, and because of that, the average folks (Han mostly) disliked the upper echelons.
 
The thing about the examinations is that they were notoriously hard. First, they were focused on memorizing the Confucian texts, which really does jack at promoting expertise in administration. Second, the amount of examinees allowed to pass isn't determined by grade, but by a very, very small quota, which means the vast majority inevitably fails and pretty much burned up their money.
The examinations had multiple levels:
  1. Lowest level graduate was styled "tongsheng"
  2. Next level graduate was styled "shengyuan"
  3. Third level graduate was styled "juren"
  4. Fourth and final level graduate was styled "jinshi"
Now, if the examinations are hard - it means the upper level graduate number is limited by quota.
A problem with Qing administration was that the bottom layer of formally appointed, hired and responsible officials were county magistrates as "father and mother officials". A county magistrate had to control an average of 300 000 people by 1800, and his subordinates were not under such level of state control - "clerks" with no state salary provided, de facto paid from corruption, appointed by magistrate in violation of regulations, and not on basis of state examinations and education; and another group being "private secretaries" also with no state salary provided, paid from corrupt incomes of the magistrate and appointed also by magistrate.
Until Sui, there had been a township level below county. Under Yongzheng, there was a proposal to restore them - finally rejected.
Suppose it passes. Say that Yongzheng creates a large number of offices below the level of county magistrate, paid by government and appointed from above the level of county magistrate, and based on examinations just above shengyuan level.
What could be the result?
 
The examinations had multiple levels:
  1. Lowest level graduate was styled "tongsheng"
  2. Next level graduate was styled "shengyuan"
  3. Third level graduate was styled "juren"
  4. Fourth and final level graduate was styled "jinshi"
Now, if the examinations are hard - it means the upper level graduate number is limited by quota.
A problem with Qing administration was that the bottom layer of formally appointed, hired and responsible officials were county magistrates as "father and mother officials". A county magistrate had to control an average of 300 000 people by 1800, and his subordinates were not under such level of state control - "clerks" with no state salary provided, de facto paid from corruption, appointed by magistrate in violation of regulations, and not on basis of state examinations and education; and another group being "private secretaries" also with no state salary provided, paid from corrupt incomes of the magistrate and appointed also by magistrate.
Until Sui, there had been a township level below county. Under Yongzheng, there was a proposal to restore them - finally rejected.
Suppose it passes. Say that Yongzheng creates a large number of offices below the level of county magistrate, paid by government and appointed from above the level of county magistrate, and based on examinations just above shengyuan level.
What could be the result?

Given that salaries for township officials is going to take a huge chunk off the treasury (and away from the pockets of magistrates), I imagine it'll be very unpopular among higher officials. However, since the county magistrates could now focus in managing some few hundred to thousands lower officials rather than hundreds of thousands of civilians directly, I imagine the administration would be run more smoothly.

Of course, trying to weed out corruption in a massively expanded bureaucracy, never mind the already large one OTL, is a hell of a lot more difficult.
 
No. The OTL balance was the right one, and it created the most stable and prosperous era in Chinese history. Sure, there were many, many problems. But hiring more officials in the High Qing era, far from making administration more smooth as @Remitonov says, could kill the empire.

The strengthening of state power on a micro-level will alienate both the gentry (deprived of their traditional prerogatives) and the people (forced to pay more taxes to support the new layer of bureaucrats), and the support of both are critical to the continued existence of the empire. Just as centralizing reforms caused significant rebellions in nineteenth-century Vietnam, such a reform will mean immense popular anger and innumerable rebellions supported by the regional elite with their local support, made even worse by the foreignness of the Manchus. Nor would the possibility of acquiring government posts placate the majority of the gentry, because even if the Qing expanded the number of offices by ten (250,000 offices) there would be no place for some three-fourths of the gentry. And for what, exactly? Vietnam had military needs to centralize and make the state more powerful, but what military fiscal needs does Qing China have? None, because the sheer size of the empire means it has no neighbors with access to nearly the same amount of resources. Why would the Qing risk the very existence of the empire for no practical reason? The Qing has every reason not to undergo such reforms - until it's too late. There's a reason the Yongzheng emperor, a perceptive and intelligent monarch, refused to create an additional local layer of bureaucrats.

And what benefits would there really be? The 18th century was an era of extremely efficient administration, even though much of local governance was essentially handled by the gentry and clerks. The Qing state negotiated with gentry and merchants to create the everlasting granaries, a system that halted famine during a succession of crop failures in the most impoverished region of China in the 1750s. Nor were 18th-century subbureaucrats and clerks always corrupt, per a recent case study ("Money and Justice: Clerks, Runners, and the Magistrate's Court in Late Imperial Sichuan"). Despite the low official : population ratio, High Qing China was a very efficiently managed state. 19th century China was not, and yes, in the 19th century having more officials could have helped. But given the climate of the century it was even less possible to enact such drastic reforms; reformers during the Jiaqing reign realized this and decided on state retreat, giving up former state prerogatives (like the everlasting granaries) to local actors.
 
Top