marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
marycatelli ([personal profile] marycatelli) wrote in [community profile] books2020-04-13 09:39 pm
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The Manchu Way

The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China by Mark Elliott

A study of the practices of the Qing dynasty with regard to the Manchus, as conquerors, and the Han whom they ruled. Not that it was ever that simple. There were Mongols in the Eight Banners system all along, and Chinese bannermen were only briefly dispensed with. (Someone had to wrangle the artillery.)

A subject matter that includes the eight banners that Manchus (and some others) were classified and the larger but subordinate purely Han Green Standard, the importance of hunts, the strength of a bow that a soldier should be able to pull, the less formal communications between Manchu officials and emperors (sometimes with the emperor going so far as to refer to "us" -- shocking for a Chinese emperor), the walled garrisons where Manchu bannermen lived and which were, in theory, only temporary postings for people whose true home was Beijing (causing much conflict about where people should be buried for proper rites), and more