A Brief History of the Tujia: The Tujia in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period (Part 1)
Chapter 4: The Early Semi-Colonial and Semi-Feudal Society — Section 1: The Tujia in the Late Qing and Early Republican Period. I. Politics in Tujia Areas: (1) The Corrupt Qing Rule — During the Taiping Rebellion, the Tujia actively fought against Qing feudal rule, and the government sent troops to suppress them.
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Chapter Four: The Early Stage of Semi-Colonial and Semi-Feudal Society
Section One: The Tujia People in the Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China
I. Politics in the Tujia Region in the Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China
(1) The Corrupt Rule of the Qing Dynasty
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolution, the Tujia people actively participated in the struggle against the corrupt feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing government mobilized large numbers of troops to brutally suppress them. To prevent the Tujia people from rebelling again, the Qing government dispatched Green Standard troops to garrison various prefectures, prefectures, counties, and important military locations, while tightening the baojia system and organizing militia to organize landlord armed forces, further strengthening its reactionary rule. In 1856, the Qing government ordered the strengthening of militia defense in the Tujia region. Each prefecture, prefecture, and county separately formulated militia regulations and organized militia based on natural villages. It was stipulated that able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty serve as militia members, with every household, rich or poor, providing one man; local landlords served as militia heads, responsible for checking household registration and training militia members. A system of collective punishment was also implemented: "each militia group was responsible for clearing its own group, each clan for clearing its own clan; if one family committed an offense, nine families would be punished together." Militia members who were passive or negligent were to be "severely punished." In 1905, under the name of implementing the "New Policies," the Qing government abolished the Green Standard troops and organized new armies, successively establishing a police system in the Tujia region, with police offices set up in each county, in a vain attempt to change forms and stabilize its rule.
After the Opium War, the corrupt and incompetent Qing Dynasty, in order to pay huge war indemnities to foreign aggressors and to meet the enormous military expenditures needed to suppress continuous peasant uprisings, continuously increased taxes and carried out cruel exploitation of the people of all ethnic groups across the country. In 1855, Hunan Governor Luo Bingzhang levied likin within the province, setting up likin bureaus throughout important commodity distribution centers. For people's daily necessities, regardless of size or value, as long as goods passed through, all were taxed; some commodities were taxed several times from raw materials to finished products. Each prefecture, prefecture, and county, to solve the funds needed, also arbitrarily set up bureaus to collect likin, squeezing the people to the bone. In 1892, the Yongshun County magistrate, because of funding shortages for running Daxiang Academy, set up a likin bureau at Wangcun to collect commodity transit taxes. Its taxes were mainly on salt, followed by oil and alkali. Salt transported from Sichuan through Wangcun was taxed 117 wen per basket, and Huai salt entering the region was taxed 70 wen per basket; oil per basket and alkali per bucket were each taxed 40 wen. The result of collecting likin was rising commodity prices, and merchants passed these extra burdens onto the vast Tujia laboring people.
Other miscellaneous taxes and levies were also numerous. Before the Opium War, the Qing court levied only the autumn grain silver tax in the Tujia region, and the amount was not large; after the Opium War, various miscellaneous taxes increased year by year. In Xiushan County, Sichuan alone, the miscellaneous household levies included "daily new deliveries, summer wheat, autumn grain, sesame, tea, bamboo shoots, court tribute memorials, monthly meeting fees, teacher's fees, border defense contributions, and household taxes—recently becoming harsh exactions." In the nine years from 1901 to 1909, the house deed tax increased from 2 fen to 9 fen per tael of principal silver, more than tripling.
Corvée labor and horse service increased without end. Whenever officials passed through the region or civil and military candidates took examinations, corvée was apportioned to peasants, often requiring a thousand or even several thousand laborers. "Those who served were all helpless poor people, exhausted and wailing, filling the roads." Poor Tujia peasants not only bore corvée labor but also had to bear the grain and money for corvée: "grain and money for corvée, sometimes accumulating from one to hundreds and thousands; the common people, ignorant and uncomprehending, suffered its provision year after year."
The corrupt political rule and cruel economic exploitation of the Qing court made class contradictions in the country increasingly acute. In the two or three years before the Revolution of 1911, the struggles of the broad peasant masses against grain requisition, donations, and taxes surged like a mighty wave, sweeping the whole country, and thus Qing rule in the Tujia region became even more cruel. In 1909, the newly appointed Yongshun County magistrate sent by the Qing Dynasty slandered Tujia people who were dissatisfied with the corrupt Qing rule as "bandits," and even threatened that "unless tens of thousands are killed, this catastrophe cannot be ended," in a vain attempt to use bloody massacre to stop the resistance of the Tujia people.
(2) Warlord Chaos and Their Dark Rule
In October 1911, the Revolution of 1911 broke out, overthrowing the corrupt rule of the Qing Dynasty and ending more than two thousand years of feudal autocratic system. However, with the support of imperialism and domestic feudal forces, the fruits of the revolution were usurped by Yuan Shikai. From then on, the Tujia people were again under the dark rule of the Beiyang warlords and local warlords large and small. The pro-Yuan forces controlling the Tujia region appointed officials in each county, dispatched troops to garrison, and established guard teams to strengthen their rule over the Tujia people. Under the name of maintaining local order, they organized militia one after another. In the first year of the Republic of China in Yongshun County, landlords and local tyrants held a meeting and decided to change the former Baojia General Bureau into the Militia Affairs General Bureau, with militia affairs sub-bureaus established in each bao, recruiting militia braves to consolidate the ruling order of the landlord class.
During the National Protection War against Yuan Shikai's restoration of the monarchy, the various warlords who controlled and entrenched themselves in the Tujia regions, under the banner of "opposing Yuan," each raised their own flags and declared independence one after another. In reality, they seized the opportunity to grab power and expand their territories, becoming separatist forces dominating their respective areas. To expand their strength and seize territory, these warlords of various sizes did not hesitate to resort to arms, killing one another in prolonged internecine warfare, leaving the Tujia regions with no peace year after year. The struggle among various forces for Yongshun County was a prominent example. In March 1916, Luo Jianqiu of Zhangjiajie led his followers in an attack on Yongshun county town but soon withdrew. Sun Bingyan, battalion commander of the Pacification Garrison, led over four hundred soldiers to occupy the county town while it was undefended. When he learned that Tian Yueqing, who styled himself commander of the Northern Expedition Army against Yuan, was leading over a thousand men to attack the town, he fled overnight, and Tian Yueqing entered the town without a fight. Within a few days, Yin Guiqing also led over a hundred men into the town to contest it, and Tian Yueqing killed Yin Guiqing on the pretext that Yin had secretly colluded with the Beiyang Army. Gan and Liu, finding the situation unfavorable to them, also withdrew with their followers. Thereupon Tian Yueqing's power gradually grew stronger. Taking advantage of the fact that officials of Baojing and Sangzhi counties had long since fled, Tian sent his younger brother Tian Jiqing to lead troops against Sangzhi and ordered his subordinate Du Biao to attack Baojing.
The prolonged warlord warfare left the people destitute, and bandits who resorted to desperate measures increased daily. They robbed households, ran amok in the countryside, and "at worst formed gangs and bands, calling it 'dragging a troop'; kidnapped people for ransom, calling it 'catching a fat pig'; burned down houses, calling it 'raising the red flag'; and harassed the local areas, calling it 'eating hospitality.'" However, these bandits who caused such grievous harm became an important source of soldiers for the warlords of various sizes. Officials and bandits colluded and depended on each other for survival. Each warlord faction specialized in incorporating armed bandit gangs as their forte, to expand their own power; and the bandits, in turn, used acceptance of amnesty as a protective talisman, searching and extorting guns everywhere. Therefore, soldiers and bandits were truly one family—today a bandit, tomorrow a soldier.
After long and fierce internecine warfare, the various warlord factions, in order to preserve their own strength, temporarily reduced conflicts and compromised with one another, agreeing to establish defense zones within their respective spheres of control. Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, and other areas of eastern Sichuan were placed under Shi Qingyang's jurisdiction; the warlord Zhang Xueji, who contested western Hunan, was stationed in the upper reaches of Yuanling and Chenxi and other places; Fenghuang, Qiancheng, Mayang, and other places were under Tian Yingzhao's jurisdiction; Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing, and Sangzhi were occupied by Lin Dexuan; and the Beiyang warlord Wu Guangxin's Anhui Army, defeated in its attack on Sichuan, entrenched itself in western Hubei. Within their respective defense zones, these warlords not only controlled finances, levied arbitrary taxes, and conscripted labor, but also held all administrative, judicial, educational, and other powers in their grasp. The insatiably greedy militarists well understood the importance of defense zones, knowing that defense zones were the main source of military funds. With military funds, they could continuously expand their armies, and with the expansion of military strength, they could use warfare to expand their defense zones, leading to mutual internecine warfare and unending conflict. They exploited feudal patriarchal ties and people's localist sentiments to build "sons-and-brothers soldiers" loyal to themselves, placing relatives, fellow townsmen, and classmates in leadership positions at all levels of the military, forming feudal military blocs. To maintain and expand their territories and strength, they often colluded with and used one another, but once conflicts of interest arose, they turned hostile without mercy and fought each other.
Between 1911 and 1919, due to incessant warlord warfare and unbridled banditry, the social order in the Tujia regions was turbulent and unstable, and politics were exceptionally dark. In Yongshun County, for example, in the early years of the Republic, sometimes the county was abolished and the prefecture retained, sometimes the prefecture was abolished and the county retained—the administrative structure was unsettled; the already established prefectural assembly also dissolved and reconvened intermittently due to warlord interference, existing in a state of "no fixed system as yet."
The various warlord factions could appoint and dismiss officials at will and control local political power. Using the power in their hands, they invented pretexts, increased taxes, and carried out cruel exploitation and oppression, making the burden on the Tujia people increasingly heavy. In 1912, the Hunan Provincial Assembly, in the name of the people's obligation to pay taxes, converted the large quantities of military grain purchased in western Hunan during the Qing Dynasty into land taxes and stopped issuing silver for purchases, causing the peasants' land tax burden to increase sharply. The Yongshun County government stipulated: those who failed to pay land tax on time would be subject to three deadlines, each deadline being twenty days—"for the first deadline, sixty wen added per dan; for the second deadline, double that; for the third deadline, double again." In 1914, additional surcharges for the police reserve, police station, education promotion office, and city garrison soldiers were added, collected together with the land tax.
In 1917, according to statistics from the Hunan Provincial Governor's Office alone, the annual taxes collected from the five counties of Yongshun, Baojing, Sangzhi, Zhangjiajie, and Longshan amounted to as much as 26.82 million yuan.
In addition, the costs of maintaining troops and all corvée duties were borne by the peasants. Frequent troop movements and continuous internecine warfare brought disaster to merchants and civilians alike. Whenever troops passed through, they extorted hospitality fees from merchants and civilians, or forced them to raise various donations on their behalf. "From the fifth year of the Republic onward, attacking towns and raiding strongholds became commonplace; with bullets at the waist and guns on the shoulder, they looked just like soldiers, yet they still unfurled large banners, some calling themselves the Northern Expedition, others styling themselves as opposing Yuan, raising funds and extorting goods without a single day's pause. The government had no way to deal with them and forcibly offered amnesty, but in the end, as one was suppressed another rose, causing endless disaster."
Those soldiers stationed in one place were even more like wolves and tigers, insatiably greedy. When Xiang Zenan, a regimental commander under Zhang Xueji, was stationed in the Shangxia Langbao area of Yongshun County, he "amassed a huge fortune, and the local area could not bear his harassment; many local people went to Chenxi to lodge complaints." Zhang Xueji, deeply fearing it would be disadvantageous to himself, was forced to secretly send Li Dawu under the pretext of planning military affairs to execute Xiang. But Li's greed was even greater than Xiang's. He took most of the huge fortune Xiang had amassed for himself, and regarding the official lands near Yongshun city—the Old Parade Ground, New Parade Ground, Gunpowder Bureau, and the land in front of and behind the Xie Office—he used armed threats to force the people to buy them in parcels, pocketing all the proceeds.
The bureaucrats and warlords who held local power also recklessly issued paper currency, plundering at will and amassing great fortunes. In 1912, Lian Peiji, the prefect of Yongshun, exploited the difference between officially minted standard coins and privately minted market coins in circulation. He ordered the banning of market coins on the one hand, while sending trusted subordinates to force merchants and civilians to exchange their market coins for standard coins. When standard coins in circulation gradually decreased and market coins depreciated massively, he then forced merchants and civilians to exchange their standard coins for market coins, "profiting from the exchange back and forth," lining his own pockets while merchants and civilians suffered greatly. The warlord Zhang Xueji privately established the Xiangxi Bank and recklessly issued paper currency that could not be redeemed. At that time, the paper currency issued by the Xiangxi Bank alone and circulating in the market included 280,000 yuan in Xiangxi bonds, about 1.2 million yuan in Xiangxi Bank silver-dollar notes, and as much as 200,000 strings of copper-coin notes. In 1918, various paper currencies issued by the Hunan Bank, such as silver-dollar notes and copper-coin notes, because they could not be redeemed, were worth only four or five thousandths of their face value. In the spring of 1919, when Zhang Jingyao served as military governor of Hunan, under the pretext of rectifying finance, he ordered the Yuxiang Bank, which he had established, to issue paper currency, and also issued "Huimin Savings Certificates" with a five-year term. Within a few months, Zhang was defeated and fled, and these currencies became worthless waste paper, leading to "industrial bankruptcy and commercial stagnation."
The prolonged warlord warfare and dark political rule brought endless disasters to the Tujia people. Soldiers and bandits ran rampant, present at all times, with no place escaping their ravages—this became the greatest calamity of the time. Commerce withered, markets opened and closed intermittently, and prices soared ever higher day by day. Rural fields lay waste, households dwindled, and the vast number of peasants could neither produce nor live. Whenever there was a poor harvest, grain prices rose, with a dou of rice costing a thousand coins, and impoverished peasants had only to dig fern roots and arrowroot, or even peel tree bark and eat grass stems, living in extreme misery.