Qishan, First Class Marquis (; 18 January 1786 – 3 August 1854), courtesy name Jing'an, was a Mongol nobleman and official of the late Qing dynasty. He was of Khalkha Mongol and Borjigit descent, his family was under the Plain Yellow Banner of the Manchu Eight Banners, and he lived during the reign of the Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng emperors. He served as the Imperial Commissioner of the Qing Dynasty, the second highest-ranking position in the Qing government only below that of emperor, twice. He served in the First Opium War and Taiping Rebellion and famously negotiated and signed the Convention of Chuenpi with British plenipotentiary Charles Elliot, which ceded Hong Kong Island to the British. He, alongside Li Hongzhang, Keying, Elliot, and Henry Pottinger, are considered the founding fathers of modern Hong Kong, making them extremely famous in the city.
Qishan was born in Beijing on 18 January 1786. His early career include obtaining the position of a Yinsheng in the Imperial Examination and entering the Qing bureaucracy in 1806, at the age of 20. He was part of the Jiaqing Emperor's bodyguard force from 1808 to 1814, and served as Vice-commander of the Mongol Plain Yellow Banner from 1814 to 1817, Junior Vice-President of the Court of Colonial Affairs from 1817 to 1819, Provincial governor of Henan province from 1819 to 1821, and Financial Commissioner of Jiangsu from 1821 to 1825. He also served as the Governor-General of Liangjiang, one of the richest regions in the Qing Dynasty, from 1825 to 1827. From 1831 to 1840, Qishan governed Zhili, the province surrounding the Qing capital, Beijing.
In 1840, Qishan was selected to succeed Lin Zexu as the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Commissioner. After successful negotiations in the Hai River and in Guangzhou, Qishan and British Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliot, drafted and signed the Convention of Chuenpi, which demanded the Qing cede Hong Kong Island, pay an indemnity of 6 million silver ingots to compensate for the opium destroyed in 1838, and to reopen Guangzhou for opium trade by February 1841. When Qishan was discovered to have drafted and signed this convention, the Daoguang Emperor was infuriated, leading to Qishan's arrest and stripping of his ranks. He was reinstated as an official in 1842, and was appointed terms as the Viceroy of Tibet in 1843, Sichuan in 1846, and Shaan-Gan (Shaanxi and Gansu) in 1849. In 1852, he was once again appointed as Imperial Commissioner of the Qing to stop the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in a failure. Qishan died in the summer of 1854.
Ancestry
Qishan was part of the Borjigit (博尔济吉特氏; Bó'ěrjìjítè shì) clan and he and his family belonged to the Plain Yellow Banner (正黄旗; Xiāng Huáng Qí) of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty. The Borjigit clan was seen as one of the most prestigious and powerful lineages of Inner Asia, as it was the clan of infamous Mongol leader Genghis Khan. Qishan's Borjigit clan was incorporated into the Qing Dynasty through a strategic alliance between the Mongols and the Manchu people. During the rise of the Manchus under Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, the first and second emperors of the Later Jin Empire in the early 17th century, forming alliances with Mongol tribes was a strategic imperative to avoid a two-front war against the Ming dynasty and the Mongols. The Manchu Aisin Gioro clan actively intermarried with Qishan's Borjigit nobility to secure this alliance.name="Watson1991">
According to the Secret History of the Mongols, the first Mongol was born from the union of a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe. Their 11th generation descendent, Alan Gua, was impregnated by a ray of light and gave birth to five sons, the youngest being Bodonchar Munkhag, progenitor of the Borjigids. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, many of the older Mongolian tribes were founded by members of the Borjigin clan, including the Barlas, Urud, Manghud, Taichiud, Chonos, and Kiyat. Bodonchar's descendant Khabul Khan founded the Khamag Mongol confederation around 1131. His great-grandson Temüjin ruled the Khamag Mongol and unified the other Mongol tribes under him. He was declared Genghis Khan in 1206, thus establishing the Mongol Empire. His descendants are the Chinggisids.The Secret History of the Mongols, chapter 1, §§ 17, 21.Franke, Twitchett & Fairbank, p. 330.Kahn, p. 10.
The etymology of the word Borjigin is uncertain. Members of the Borjigin clan ruled over the Mongol Empire, dominating large lands stretching from Java to Iran and from Mainland Southeast Asia to Veliky Novgorod.Atwood, p. 45. Many of the ruling dynasties that took power following the disintegration of the Mongol Empire were of Chinggisid, and thus Borjigid, ancestry. These included the Chobanids, the Jalayirid Sultanate, the Barlas, the Manghud, the Khongirad, and the Oirats. In 1368, the Borjigid Yuan dynasty of China was overthrown by the Ming dynasty. Members of this family continued to rule over north China and the Mongolian Plateau into the 17th century as the Northern Yuan. Descendants of Genghis Khan's brothers Qasar and Belgutei surrendered to the Ming in the 1380s. By 1470, the Borjigids' power had been severely weakened, and the Mongolian Plateau was on the verge of chaos.Perdue, p. 487.Crossley, p. 213.
The Borjigit Clan was split into branches, and Qishan's specific branch was from the Jasaghtu Khan of the Khorchin Mongols, who were among the first to submit to the Qing and form marriage alliances with the Aisin Gioro house. After intermarrying with the Aisin-Gioro house and successfully annexing Mongolia, Qishan's family was incorporated into the Plain Yellow Banner, which was part of the "Upper Three Banners" of the Qing Dynasty, as they were directly under the command of the Emperor.
Qishan's 7th generation ancestor Enggeder had led his followers to submit to the Qing Dynasty and received a hereditary first class marquis peerage in return. Qishan inherited the peerage from his ancestor. Qishan's great-great-grandfather, Céng Shùn (成顺 / 常绶), held the title of Fuguo Gong (辅国公, Duke of the Third Order), which was a high-ranking noble title in the Qing Dynasty. Qishan's great-grandfather and grandfather, Fùjíng (富景 / 傅景) and Bǐngshù (炳舒 / 炳绶), served as a high-ranking military commanders. Qishan's father, Yùlín (裕麟), held the position of Fengche Duwei (奉车都尉), a prestigious title involving close proximity to the Emperor (who, at the time, was the Qianlong Emperor).
Early life
Qishan was born in Beijing on 18 January 1786, and he was a Khalkha Mongol by birth. He was from the Borjigit clan. Qishan's primary education was conducted through the Qing Banner System, which involved fluency in Manchu and high proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. He was also schooled in the principles of statecraft, law, and the complex administrative machinery of the Qing government. He lived in a multi-courtyard compound in the Banner Garrison Area of Beijing's Inner City, and also studied horsemanship and archery.Hummel, Arthur W., ed. Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (1644–1912). Vol. 1. United States Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 126–129.
In his early career, Qishan also had a Yin privilege, a system of where sons of high-ranking Qing officials were granted official titles or direct access to government posts by virtue of their father's status and service, as Qishan was a young nobleman and part of a banner. This also meant that Qishan did not need to take the standard Civil Service examination, and instead needed to take the Imperial examination.Elliot, Mark C. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 76–78, 305–307.
Career
Qing bureaucracy and successes (1806–1840)
In 1806, aged 20, Qishan obtained the position of a yinsheng (蔭生) in the entry-level imperial examination, meaning he did not need to take the imperial examination to enter the Qing bureaucracy due to his Yin privilege. His first official appointment in the bureaucracy was as a Yuanwailang (員外郎;assistant director) in the Ministry of Justice. The Yuanwailang was a rank 5b position in the Qing bureaucracy, and its role was a section head or deputy director. He would have been responsible for assisting in the review of legal cases, managing documents, and overseeing clerks. For a young man in his early twenties, this was a very high starting point.
In 1808, Qishan was selected as a junior officer (延勤侍) of the elite Imperial Bodyguard. The selection operated as a strategic promotion, as service in the Imperial Bodyguard granted Qishan direct communication with the Jiaqing Emperor, the Qing emperor at the time, and a position in the Imperial Bodyguard was reserved for the most trusted future officials, and it signaled that Qishan was marked for high office. Being part of the Imperial Bodyguard meant he was responsible for the personal security of the Emperor and the inner precincts of the Forbidden City. His routine duties included taking part in the highly ritualized guard rotations at the gates and halls of the Forbidden City and accompanying the Jiaqing Emperor at all times inside the palace, even during imperial processions and ceremonies. Being part of the Imperial Bodyguard also allowed Qishan the role as a political apprentice. They overheard state discussions, learned court protocol and politics firsthand, and connected with other elite scions, senior officials, and eunuchs. From 1809 to 1813, He was intermittently promoted to higher ranks within the Bodyguard, such as Yizheng Dachen (議政大臣).Qing Shilu (Veritable Records of the Qing), Jiaqing reign, juan 180, 210; Daoguang reign, juan 6.
In 1814, Qishan left the Imperial Bodyguard, and this action was followed by an immediate appointment to a substantive mid-to-high-level civil or military post. When Qishan shifted back to the Qing bureaucracy, he was appointed Vice-commander of the Mongol Plain Yellow Banner, where he managed Manchu-Mongol affairs. Around this time, the Qing Dynasty also began to decline, so Qishan was heavily relied on for Stipend and Welfare Management in the Plain Yellow Banner. This included accurate registrations of banner households, and a managed distribution of silver, rice, and land. Corruption and fraudulent claims were also persistent problems throughout Qishan's term as Vice-commander. To battle the corruption and fraud, Qishan oversaw and directed increasingly ritualised training in archery, horsemanship, and firearms. Qishan was also permitted to adjudicate disputes and crimes among Banner members. He was also in charge of organising the banner's contingent for the Qing Dynasty's Mulan Autumn Hunt, a Qing event hosted annually since 1683 by the Kangxi Emperor that revolved around a month of hunting for wild animals. From 1814 to 1817, the Jiaqing Restoration also took place, which was a period where the Jiaqing Emperor, alongside high-ranking Qing officials, attempted to eliminate all corruption and political decay, suppress internal rebellions which negatively impacted the Qing Dynasty's finances, curb the smuggling of opium, and prosecute the Minister of Finance of the Qing Dynasty, Heshen, who was described as one of the most corrupt officials in Chinese History, stealing over 1 billion dollars worth of silver (approx. US$270 million). Qishan, being one of the Jiaqing Emperor's trusted officials, Qishan initiated an anti-corruption rectification campaign, by purging "ghost soldiers" (空额 kōng'é) from banner rolls, who were individuals from his banner that had stolen land. Qishan also administered loans to impoverished banner families to combat the Qing's banner poverty and debt issues. Furthermore, he enforced laws to forbid Han Martial Bannermen and Mongols from marrying Han civilians.