Transformation of the Bannerman Elites in Hunchun during the Late Qing and the Early Republican Period

In the late Qing Dynasty, the Manchu in Beijing and other banner garrisons in China proper experienced a decline in political power and increase in economic difficulties. With the 1911 revolution, they suddenly fell from a privileged people to an untouchable caste discriminated against by the Han Chinese. However, this article demonstrates that during the same period the Manchu elites in Hunchun had a very different experience. Throughout most of the Qing period, the ruling elite in Hunchun consisted of banner officials. They came from prestigious lineages among Hunchun banner people; often possessed large properties, and asserted themselves as state authorities through their offices. In the late Qing period, they further consolidated their power with the induction of immigrant people and reform policies. Now the banner officials could easily find and employ immigrant peasants to reclaim their wastelands, collect rental fees from merchants who had set up their stores in banner people's lands and find new lucrative positions within the new reformative offices. In 1909, the banner offices of Hunchun were abolished, but the banner officials themselves succeeded in maintaining their political influence. The banner officials were reeducated in new local education institutes to become modern politicians with a knowledge of modern local administration and legal systems and found new positions in Hunchun local assemblies. The former banner officials dominated the local assemblies of different levels in Hunchun. As a result Hunchun remained under the control of the Manchu by the early Republican period.