By James Wehn
Reports and photographs of the deadly clash between Uighur and Han Chinese have headlined international news the last several days. However, these are not the first images of ethnic conflict to have come out of Xinjiang. During the Qing dynasty, Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799; reigned 1736-1799) issued an edict on July 13, 1765, commanding that a series of sixteen copperplate prints be made to commemorate his conquest of this region. The engraved prints, made in “the European style” by French artists, highlight pivotal battles and scenes of enemy surrender.
The image shown above is a detail from one of these prints, titled La Grande victoire de Qurnam (The Great Victory at Qurnam). It depicts a battle on February 3, 1759, when General Fude and six hundred Qing soldiers successfully liberated General Zhouhui’s camp, which had been besieged for months by an army of five thousand Muslim men. In this scene the Qing are armed with bows and arrows and wear short, round caps, while the Muslims wear tall hats with wide brims and fight with spears.
News reports about recent events in Xinjiang have stressed the tensions between Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs, however, both of these ethnic groups were dominated by the Manchu during the Qing period.
In 1644, Manchu tribes from northeast Asia took control of Beijing, where the Ming dynasty had collapsed as the result of peasant rebellions. The Manchu proceeded to conquer the remaining Chinese regions and incorporate the Qing dynasty, becoming the second non-Han ruler of China by 1659. Next, the Qing began to annex territories to the west, competing for control of central Asia with Muscovite Russia and the Dzungar Mongolian confederation. After nearly a hundred years of sporadic warfare, Emperor Qianlong seized an opportunity to conquer the Dzungars who were weakened by infighting. In 1755, he launched a four-year military campaign that first destroyed the Dzungars, and then subdued nearby Turkic Muslim tribes, including those known today as Uighurs. By 1759, Qianlong had taken control of the vast western desert that later became known as Xinjiang, or “New Territory.”
The Qing dynasty’s ability to maintain political power first over the more numerous Han population, and later the inhabitants of annexed regions, was due in part to their organization of the military into a banner system, which evolved into a social, administrative, and ethnic institution. The banners, each of which was essentially its own governing body within the larger state, predominately included Manchu, assimilated loyal allies, and a select group of Han Chinese. It was critical, however, that the Qing dynasty preserve an elite Manchu identity and thus its martial advantage. Qianlong, who feared that living among the Han was causing his people to lose their sense of Manchu identity, used the military victories in the western regions to reiterate an image of dominance over those that had been conquered, and also to reinvigorate a spirit of military superiority among the Manchu.
Engravings, like La Grande victoire de Qurnam, along with others in the series, were one way that Qianlong commemorated his army’s success. The emperor, who is famous for his fascination with European culture, commissioned the series after seeing engravings after battle scenes painted by the German artist Georg Philipp Rugendas (1666-1743). Qianlong’s prints were produced by the best French engravers in the royal academy under the direction of Claude Nicolas Cochin. The scenes were modeled after copies of paintings (now lost) that Qianlong described as field sketches, and which hung in his ceremonial hall of glory along with one hundred portraits of distinguished heroes, including Generals Fude and Zhouhui.
Although today photographs of the conflict in Xinjiang appear in international news media within a matter of hours, it was nearly a decade before Qianlong received 200 impressions of each scene from France along with the engraved copper plates. Also, while the images distributed by photo journalists today are generally intended to be unbiased, Qianlong’s prints were certainly politically charged. Inscriptions of poems composed by Qianlong about the events were handwritten on many of the prints, and were stamped with his imperial seal. Qianlong gave eighty-one sets to imperial relatives and other favorites, and later commanded that sets be distributed to various imperial palaces and temples across China.
To view a complete list of prints in the French-made series along with images visit the Cleveland Museum of Art online. Images of battle prints commissioned by Emperor Qianlong, including some engraved in China to commemorate other military campaigns, can also be viewed online at the British Museum.
An example of a battle print by German artist Georg Philipp Rugendas can be viewed by following this link to the online gallery at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Copyright 2009 James Wehn & myartcanon.net
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