32
R. G. GROVES
was part of a system of inter-lineage relations, concludes that: "it cannot be dismissed as the sign of a particular crisis in the society of southeastern China. The data... refer to the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, but in fact the pattern [of violence] is probably very much older."
Even at times of optimum efficiency, the ability of the imperial government to control the activities of its numerous subjects was limited, if only because officials and military forces were thinly spread over China's large land mass. Routine police functions were largely vested in mutual responsibility systems, the heads of which were answerable to the district magistrate. During periods of social upheaval, the de facto responsibility for the preservation of parochial law and order rested, as often as not, upon members of local elites. When provincial and military officials did attempt to pacify the countryside, their efforts frequently had the character of punitive expeditions. The effects were often so disastrous that every effort was made to avoid official intervention.
As a consequence, there had for long been a tradition of local self-defence in southeastern China. Powerful lineages maintained fighting corps which protected their members against external aggression and enabled them to impose their will upon weaker neighbours. Smaller lineages and villages banded together in an effort to achieve similar objectives. The political and military potentialities of these associations were viewed with ambivalence by the officials of the empire. Their usefulness in certain circumstances could not be denied. But their capacity for violence contributed to the disorder of the countryside and posed the constant threat of an organizational capability which might be turned to sedition and rebellion.
It is generally agreed that from the beginning of the nineteenth century if not earlier the imperial bureaucracy increasingly manifested those symptoms which in the past had presaged a dynastic decline. Corruption and incompetence were rife in civil and military administration. The system of rural control "had declined so far in one institution after another that no amount of imperial effort could revive it." Natural disasters multiplied, contributing to the disorder and the increasing disaffection of sections of the rural population. It was under these circumstances that the imperial government had to cope, first, with two wars with the
32
R. G. GROVES
was part of a system of inter-lineage relations, concludes that: "it cannot be dismissed as the sign of a particular crisis in the society of southeastern China. The data. . . refer to the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, but in fact the pattern [of violence] is probably very much older."
Even at times of optimum efficiency, the ability of the imperial government to control the activities of its numerous subjects was fimited, if only because officials and military forces were thinly spread over China's large land mass. Routine police functions. were largely vested in mutual responsibility systems, the heads of which were answerable to the district magistrate. During periods of social upheaval, the de facto responsibility for the preservation of parochial law and order rested, as often as not, upon members of local elites. When provincial and military officials did attempt to pacify the countryside, their efforts frequently had the character of punitive expeditions. The effects were often so disastrous that every effort was made to avoid official intervention,5
As a consequence, there had for long been a tradition of local self-defence in southeastern China. Powerful lineages maintained fighting corps which protected their members against external aggression and enabled them to impose their will upon weaker neighbours. Smaller lineages and villages banded together in an effort to achieve similar objectives. The political and military potentialities of these associations were viewed with ambivalence by the officials of the empire. Their usefulness in certain circum- stances could not be denied. But their capacity for violence con- tributed to the disorder of the countryside and posed the constant threat of an organizational capability which might be turned to sedition and rebellion.
It is generally agreed that from the beginning of the nineteenth century if not earlier the imperial bureaucracy increasingly manifested those symptoms which in the past had presaged a dynastic decline. Corruption and incompetence were rife in civil and military administration. The system of rural control "had declined so far in one institution after another that no amount of imperial effort could revive it." Natural disasters multiplied, con- tributing to the disorder and the increasing disaffection of sections of the rural population. It was under these circumstances that the imperial government had to cope, first, with two wars with the
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