This dissertation analyzes the historical process of how the Qing court in the eighteenth century, when facing various difficulties in maintaining the Manchu ethnic identity, made a series of efforts to link the Manchu people to the Manchurian region. The Qing Empire under the Qianlong emperor’s rule expanded its territory to the extent where boundaries of contemporary China are drawn. The Qianlong emperor did not only launch military campaigns for territorial expansion of the empire, but he also sponsored a multiplicity of scholarly and cultural projects, including the famous Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. It was during those early years of the Qianlong era, however, when the Qing court witnessed obvious signs of declines in economic power, military strength, and language capability among the Manchu people and the Eight Banners, who were believed to be the very ground for the Qing state (Ch. guojia genben, Ma. gurun-i fulehe da). Distinctive features of the bannermen, such as economic stability, horse-riding and shooting skills, the Manchu language – indications of the superior status of the Manchus as a people which conquered the Han Chinese – appeared to have deteriorated rapidly since the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. The Qing court was forced to find a solution to stop further decline in the Manchu ethnic identity, or the so-called Manchu Way.

To prevent deterioration of military powers and Manchu language skill among the Manchus, the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors built schools for the bannermen, teaching the Manchu language and practicing horse-riding and shooting. In addition, they also conducted large scale battle exercises as a form of military training at the imperial hunting grounds in Mulan. More serious problems were in the growing poverty among the Manchus, however, than the loss of military strength and the Manchu language skill. Declines in livelihood of the Manchus, in fact, resulted from chronic problems rooted in the Eight Banners, not simply from personal extravagance among some banner people. The Banner crises came from the fact that the bannermen continued to lose their land while the population of the Banner kept increasing. The Qing state was not able to make enough new positions for the increasing banner population. Many of the banner people failed in preserving their land and were further pressed by the growing number of jobless bannermen who had to depend on the incomes of the families in the banner. All these conditions were combined to lead the majority of the bannermen into serious poverty.

The Kangxi emperor attempted to resolve the problem of bannermen’s livelihood in a direct manner. For example, he tried simply giving cash to the bannermen in demand on money and buying back land to give to the people who lost their banner land. Such an approach did not only resolve the growing poverty among the bannermen, but also led them to helplessly depend on the state’s support. As the bannermen’s poverty grew more severe, the Yongzheng emperor had to find a more comprehensive solution, developing a practical policy for the bannermen to support their own livelihood. By the time when the Qianlong succeeded the throne, the Qing court reached an answer for improving the bannermen’s living condition. They began relocating jobless bannermen from Beijing to Manchuria and allowing them to cultivate land there. This relocation plan for poor and jobless bannermen, as this dissertation explains, eventually led the Qing court to develop a series of policies related to Manchuria.

Considering the Qianlong court’s discussion of military strategies and its experience of developing banner land, an ideal location for the resettlement of the bannermen was to be found in the northwestern region, not Manchuria in the northeast frontier. After long discussion of where to move jobless bannermen in Beijing, the Qing court finally reached the conclusion that the correct place for the bannermen would not be found anywhere other than Manchuria, the sacred birthplace of the Manchus. It was also during this discussion in which the idea of “Place of the Manchu Origins” (genben zhi di) was gradually redefined. By the early years of the Qianlong reign, certain changes in the meaning of the Place of Manchu Origins occurred. At the Kangxi and Yongzheng courts, this expression had largely indicated various places of significance in the empire, for example, Shengjing, Beijing, or even Xinjijang, but by the mid 1800s, it gradually signified Manchuria exclusively. This change clearly demonstrates that the Qing court made an effort to make Manchuria for the Manchu people and, in this process, also develop an imperial ideology for promoting the ethnic status of the Manchu people. The process of building Manchuria as the Place of the Manchu Origins in the Qing imperial ideology ensued a series of practical policies, most notably, the prevention of Han Chinese settlement in Manchuria (fengjin) and the Eastern Tours (dongxun), which were regularly taken by the Qing emperors.

The policy of limiting Han Chinese access to Manchuria, first implemented in a large scale in 1740, gradually expanded its boundary for application throughout the Qianlong period. By expanding its limits and scale, the Qianlong emperor exercised the prevention policy in Manchuria more thoroughly than previous rulers, who had also limited Han Chinese entrance to Manchuria, but only in certain areas in the northeastern region. It was under the Qianlong rule that the Qing court took thorough, decisive action to preserve Manchuria only for the Manchu people. In this sense, the Eastern Tour of 1743, the very first visit to Manchuria by the Qianlong emperor, should be deemed as his effort to confirm for himself the conditions of this vital region in the empire. Prior to the Qianlong era, it had been mainly Russian threats that pushed the Qing court to make a policy of protecting Manchuria for the military defense of the empire. Unlike such external pressures as Russian advances that his grandfather had faced, internal problems caused the Qianlong emperor to seriously consider Manchuria, that is, the crises of the Manchu ethnic identity. The emperor tried to find solutions in the northeast region for resolving challenges the Manchus faced at the time, such as gradual declines in military capabilities and language skills, as well as economic poverty among the bannermen. The Qianlong emperor paid his first visit to Manchuria when the Qing state newly enforced two interconnected policies in regards to Manchuria; one was the extended prevention of Han Chinese settlement in the region and the other the relocation of the bannermen in this same place, plans all aiming at connecting the Manchu people physically with Manchuria. The prevention of Han Chinese settlement and the relocation of the bannermen in Manchuria provided the Qianlong emperor with an answer for solving predicaments of the Manchus in the capital. By personally visiting and experiencing the place himself, the emperor was able to strengthen the imperial ideology for making the Place of the Manchu Origin and promoting the status of both Manchuria and the Manchu people in the empire.

In order to improve the ever-worsening living conditions of the bannermen, which was in fact an inevitable outcome of the chronic shortage of banner positions, the Qianlong emperor began to take a more drastic action than relocating the bannermen from Beijing to outside the capital – the expulsion of Han Chinese bannermen. The plan for removing Han Chinese from the Eight Banners was a ground-breaking step throughout the entire Qing history. This action was no doubt aimed at saving the Manchu bannermen by the sacrifice of Han Chinese bannermen. This approach attempted to settle the financial problems of the Eight Banners by discriminating different ethnic groups in the system. The expulsion of Han Chinese bannermen from the banner was enforced along with other policies in regard to the Manchus, including a variety of actions of enhancing military powers and Manchu language skills, displacing the bannermen in Beijing and instead limiting Han Chinese accesses in Manchuria. All these changes in the Qing governance of the Eight Banners were closely linked to the new policy of making Manchuria the Place of Manchu Origins.

In the later years of the Qianlong era, the efforts to link the Manchu people to Manchuria went in another direction, in which the Qing court unprecedentedly emphasized the status of Hetu Ala (Xingjing), the old capital of Nurhaci, by promoting it as the very homeland of the Manchus. The book Researches on Manchu Origins (Manzhou yuanliu kao), imperially commissioned and printed by the Qianlong emperor, used the name of Hetu Ala in indicating not only the old capital of Nurhaci, but the entire region of Manchuria as well. Having its geographic implications expanded, Hetu Ala replaced Mukden (Shengjing) as the representative city of the entire Manchurian region. The reason why the Qing court wanted to replace Mukden with Hetu Ala can be traced to the fact that the former had long been a territory of Han Chinese people. Unlike Mukden where the Qing court enjoyed a relatively short history of ruling, Hetu Ala was a place in which the early Manchu ancestors had settled and the founder of the Qing court built his state for the first time. Just as the expulsion of Han Chinese bannermen completed the process of making the Eight Banners a purified Manchu institution, Hetu Ala, the untainted birthplace of the Qing imperial court and therefore arguably maintaining the essence of the Manchu Way, was deemed to be a better, more proper place than Mukden to be identified with the Manchu people.

The Qianlong emperor’s efforts to make Manchuria the Place of the Manchu Origin left a strong legacy in this region, which was commonly regarded as a land preserved for the Manchu people until the mid nineteenth century when Han Chinese were gradually freed from the limits of accessing and allowed to cultivate land there. Some scholars of China have long believed that the prevention of Han Chinese access was the primary reason that the Qing came to let Western powers, especially Russia, expand their influence into the Manchurian region in the modern era. As this dissertation addresses, however, such an argument fails in taking the very important feature of the Qing rule into consideration – that is, the Qing emperors were more a khan of the Manchu people than a mere ruler of Han Chinese and emperor of the Chinese world. As a leader of the Manchu people, the Qing emperors were obliged to maintain their ethnic identity and tradition. For the purpose of fulfilling his mission, protecting the Manchu people and culture, the Qianlong emperor made efforts to find a future for the Manchus in the Place of the Manchu Origins, Manchuria.