He Shen’s Fall and the Mid-Qing Crisis

Under the Qing’s autocratic monarchy, officials used every connection to win promotion or protect themselves, bribing superiors and forming cliques. In the late Qianlong reign the emperor, fond of grandeur and extravagant, also favored the powerful minister He Shen, and corruption grew worse. He Shen (1750–1799), a Manchu of the Plain Red Banner, began as a guard and won the emperor’s trust through his shrewdness and flattery; he rose to Grand Secretary and head of the Grand Council, also overseeing the Boards of Revenue and Civil Office, and his son married the emperor’s favorite daughter, the tenth princess. For over twenty years He Shen monopolized power, formed cliques, sold offices, took bribes and amassed vast wealth. In 1799, when the retired Emperor Qianlong died, the Jiaqing Emperor promptly announced twenty major charges against He Shen, ordered him to die and confiscated his property. The amount seized was reportedly enormous, and a saying spread: “When He Shen fell, the Jiaqing Emperor feasted.” Corruption was widespread; officials deceived the court above and extorted the people below. It reached the army, where the Eight Banners and Green Standard troops, long without war, grew lax and much weaker. Meanwhile, rapid population growth and land concentration sharpened social tensions. In 1796 the White Lotus Rebellion broke out in Sichuan and Hubei; it lasted nine years and cost the Qing about 200 million taels of silver to suppress. In 1813 Eight Trigrams rebels even briefly entered the Forbidden City. By the Jiaqing and Daoguang years the Qing had passed from prosperity to decline, while Western countries were undergoing the Industrial Revolution and the gap with China kept widening.