Empire and The Circulation of Frontier I

Empire and the Circulation
of Frontier Intelligence
Qing Conceptions of the Otomans
Matthew W. Mosca
University of Hong Kong
S erving in Europe between 1887 and 1890, the Qing diplomat

Hong Jun 洪鈞 (1840–1893) made eforts to solve a problem that had
been puzzling him: why Turkey was called Khungghar (Ch. Hongga’er
鴻噶爾 ) in China. Before inding an answer that satisied him, Hong
consulted Russians and Otoman envoys in Europe, gathered support-
ing references to British and Prussian practice, and surveyed Chinese
sources.1 At irst glance, his research displays the cosmopolitan hall-
marks of late Qing geographic scholarship. But upon closer inspection,
both the underlying questions—Who, what, or where is Khungghar?—
and the search for answers across languages and cultures, through oral
and textual inquiries, continued a line of investigation reaching back to
I wish to thank James E. Bosson for his support and invaluable assistance through-
out this project. Mark C. Elliot has also generously given me the beneit of his expertise,
as have the Journal’s anonymous reviewers. he following people have given advice and
assistance: David Brophy, Devon Dear, Seunghyun Han, Ying Hu, Renyuan Li, Onuma
Takahiro, Jonathan Schlesinger, and Hoong Teik Toh. An earlier version of this research
was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, 2007. Work on
this article was supported by two postdoctoral fellowships, irst at the Center for Chinese
Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently at the Hong Kong Institute
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong, for which I record my
gratitude. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.
1
Hong Jun, Yuanshi yiwen zhengbu 元史譯文證補 , Xuxiu Siku quanshu edition, vol.
293 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995) [hereater XXSKQS], 27xia.3b–4a.
Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute hJAs 70.1 (2010): 147–207 147

148 Matthew W. Mosca
the beginning of the dynasty. he present essay explores the meaning

of Khungghar, or more precisely what generations of scholars and oi-
cials took it to mean, as part of a larger efort to study the circulation of
information within the Qing empire.
To understand how knowledge of the outside world circulated,
the Qing empire must be considered as an integrated unit. Distinctive
regional and intellectual backgrounds certainly inluenced how indi-
vidual subjects understood foreign countries, but such understandings
were formed under the inluence of empirewide networks of informa-
tion. hese included not only oicial channels of communication but
also private ones that were created and sustained, though oten tenu-
ously, by personal contacts within the apparatus of the Qing central
government. Past studies of how the vast and variegated Qing empire
was brought under central control have tended to emphasize the efec-
tive way Manchu rulers—especially the Kangxi (r. 1661–1722), Yong-
zheng (r. 1723–1736), and Qianlong (r. 1736–1796) emperors—adapted
administrative structures and rituals to the cultural norms of their sub-
ject peoples and divided the domain into compartments united only
by their common submission to the same imperial center.2 Viewing
the empire in terms of the circulation of information, this article seeks
by contrast to emphasize connections between subjects. he difer-
ent cultural segments of the empire, despite the barriers posed by lin-
guistic and intellectual heterogeneity, had become integrated enough
to exert an inluence on one another. Knowledge was received, dis-
tributed, and reformulated between regions and communities that at
2
he description of the Qing empire as composed of discrete cultural units, each
administered diferently by the court, is common among studies of what has been called
“New Qing History.” In one inluential description of the imperial ideology underlying
Qing governance, Pamela Kyle Crossley has argued that rulers, above all Qianlong,
aspired to be universal monarchs of “a domain in parts” by legitimizing their rule to each
constituent unit “simultaneously” in the cultural and political idioms most suited to
secure their allegiance. Because the emperor was “the sole point where all speciics articu-
lated” and also “culturally null” (i.e., not personally preferring any one of the models of
rulership prevailing within the empire), subjects were not confronted by the other cul-
tural orientations within the Qing domain. To the contrary, Crossley argues, Qianlong
tried to enforce boundaries to preserve what he considered to represent the pure cultural
and ethical norms of diferent groups from cross-fertilization. See A Translucent Mirror:
History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1999), esp. pp. 1–52, 221–80. For a critique of the model of the Qing as a “compartmental-
ized empire” and its failure to adequately explain imperial cohesion, constructed chiely
from an economic standpoint, see Kwangmin Kim, “Saintly Brokers: Uyghur Muslims,
Trade, and the Making of Qing Central Asia, 1696–1814” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley, 2008), pp. 25–37.
Frontier Intelligence in the Qing 149
irst glance may appear to have been efectively isolated. he low of

information was limited, to be sure, but signiicant enough that evolv-
ing views on many topics of geographic, historical, or strategic signif-
icance—of which Khungghar was only one—cannot be elucidated
unless one considers the empire as a single circuit for the transmis-
sion of knowledge. Needless to say, no homogeneous perspective on
any intellectual or political question emerged among Qing subjects,
but it is also misleading to seek isolated Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu,
or Chinese perspectives. he overarching imperial structure opened
channels of communication, which stimulated new perspectives that
cannot be atributed to a single group of subjects or cultural bloc.
To a large extent, the exchange among groups occurred beyond the
conscious mediation and deliberate policy of the Qing government,
through private channels created unintentionally as a by-product of the
formal administrative structure to which they ran parallel. For reasons
of state, the central government gathered knowledge through multi-
lingual bureaucratic agencies reporting to the Grand Council. Occa-
sionally, the stafs of court agencies were ordered to transform these
administrative documents into oicial compendia. hese documents
and court publications are now the best understood channels of infor-
mation circulation within the empire. Yet the duties of iling and com-
piling these materials that were given to Manchu, Mongol, and Han
Chinese staf inspired private, “of-duty” inquiries, leading to alterna-
tive channels of information transfer not required by bureaucratic reg-
ulations. Court and frontier oicials used their spare time to gather
information from informants, read archives for their own ediication,
question colleagues of other ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and in
some cases record their indings in privately authored manuscripts or
printed works that would complement oicial productions and thus
circulate information not found elsewhere.
he heterogeneity of the Qing imperial elite led information to cir-
culate in paterns distinct from those in European colonial empires.
In addition to their loyal Manchu, Mongol, and Han bannerman,
Qing rulers summoned to Beijing, permanently or in regular rota-
tion, Chinese oicials, Mongol princes, Tibetan Buddhist clerics, East-
ern Turkestani begs, and Jesuit missionaries.3 his diverse elite was
3
A substantial literature has emerged to describe the diversity of the Qing court, of
which the following titles are only a sample. On bannermen, see Mark C. Elliot, he
fragmented because they had diferent bureaucratic career tracks,

social circles, languages, religious and cultural perspectives, and edu-
cational backgrounds. Information commonplace to one group might
be unknown to another. his is in contrast to the circulation of infor-
mation in British India described by C. A. Bayly, who, drawing on the
work of Manuel Castells, argues that an “information order” connected
“the colonial state’s surveillance agencies” with the “autonomous net-
works of social communicators” in Indian society.4 In this model, the
most critical gaps in knowledge transmission were those separating the
“political intelligence” sought by the ruling elite from the “indigenous
knowledge” of its subjects.5 In the Qing case, by contrast, members
of the imperial elite were more isolated from colleagues of other cul-
tural backgrounds than from subjects from the same cultural realm. To
identify a Qing “information order” underlying the empirewide low
of knowledge one must therefore concentrate on the small number of
sites and media that allowed information to cross the linguistic and
cultural barriers.6
his article will concentrate particularly on the low of intelligence
from the empire’s Inner Asian frontier into the hands of Han Chinese
scholars and oicials. Over the course of the dynasty, the mecha-
nisms opening or constricting these channels changed profoundly.
For approximately the irst century of Qing rule, the Manchus and
Mongols who administered the frontier and recorded information in
their own languages held a virtual monopoly on frontier intelligence.
Soon ater 1800, published debates on frontier geographic and politi-
cal afairs emerged almost exclusively from the hands of Han literati
experts, as would be the case for the remainder of the dynasty. Two
Manchu Way: he Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 2001); for contact between Mongol nobles and the Qing court see
Ning Chia, “he Lifanyuan and the Inner Asian Rituals in the Early Qing (1644–1795),”
LIC 14.1 (1993): 60–92; for Jesuits at court see Louis Pister, Notices biographiques et biblio-
graphiques sur les jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine, 1552–1773 (San Francisco: Chinese
Materials Center, 1976); for Tibetan lamas see “he Qing Court’s Tibet Connection:
Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje and the Qianlong Emperor,” HJAS 60.1 (2000): 125–63.
4
C. A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication
in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–4.
5
Bayly, p. 2.
6
On information within the oicial channels of the Qing central government see
Beatrice S. Bartlet, Monarchs and Ministers: he Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723–
1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
major changes during the intervening half century (1750–1800) led to

this radical reordering of the low of information. First, the adminis-
trative and literary demands of the conquest of the Western Regions
(1755–1759) brought about an unprecedented conjunction of inter-
ests between the elite Manchu and Mongol administrators of frontier
areas and their Han colleagues at court. Increasingly the former trans-
mited their knowledge, verbally and in writing, and the later actively
sought out and recorded such information. Second, when the death of
the Qianlong emperor in 1799 allowed the Han scholarly elite to pub-
lish on frontier topics without fear of violating taboos, a huge corpus of
research materials appeared in print. Up to then, knowledge about the
frontier had been largely the preserve of Manchu and Mongol admin-
istrative personnel and the Chinese scholars who had access to them
through court posts; now, through printing, it was opened up to lite-
rati of any oicial or scholarly background. Under the dominance of
Chinese scholarly standards and assumptions, research agendas and
modes of argument came to be framed by the methods of textual
scholarship. In the eyes of textual researchers, continued access to irst-
hand frontier intelligence was unnecessary, and the hearsay on which it
was based appeared suspect.
Investigating the evolving circulation of frontier knowledge also
allows one to reconsider the corpus of available historical sources
regarding Qing interactions with Inner Asia. Due to China’s highly
developed print and manuscript culture, information put into Chinese
was more successfully propagated than that in other languages of the
empire. herefore, it is quite possible that much information has been
lost that was once widely familiar among the non-Chinese segment of
the elites of the empire; and, disturbingly, that we may know far less
about the Qing court and its Inner Asian activities than we think. A
more thorough exploration of Manchu- and Mongolian-language
archival materials will, one hopes, ameliorate this problem over time,
but at present published sources—overwhelmingly in Chinese—still
underpin much of our understanding of Qing Inner Asia. Placing these
Chinese sources, on which scholars have perforce relied heavily, within
the context of the overall Qing information order will illuminate their
limitations.
his article approaches these questions about the Qing infor-
mation order through the study of how the single term Khungghar,
roughly indicating the Otoman emperor and his lands, circulated

within the Qing imperial elite. Because this term was native to none
of the languages and peoples of the empire, yet was known to scholars
and oicials of Chinese, Mongol, Manchu, and Tibetan backgrounds,
it represents a comparatively neutral case that allows consideration
of a wide cross-section of the empire. Our primary focus throughout
will be on the speciic links between two large constellations within
the Qing elite: the comparatively integrated Manchu-Mongol-Tibetan
sphere on the Inner Asian frontier, and the world of Han Chinese
scholar-oicials who, until the very end of the dynasty, were excluded
from high posts in frontier administration.
Lumi or Khungghar? Two Realms of

Early Qing Frontier Knowledge
In the decades ater 1644, in parallel with their conquest of China, the
Manchu rulers of the Qing empire consolidated and expanded their
Inner Asian holdings, especially in Manchuria and Mongolia. heir
involvement in the political world of the northern and western Mon-
gols required political contacts extending to Tibet and the shores of
the Caspian Sea.7 Strategic need compelled the court to gather news
in many languages across an enormous expanse of territory, but this
information was slow to reach Han Chinese scholars, who continued
to use Ming-era (1368–1644) sources to study Central Asia. As a result,
diferent understandings about the frontier circulated in two distinct,
relatively independent spheres, Chinese and Mongol-Manchu; only
gradually were connections forged between these two spheres that
permited the empirewide circulation of information.
One new object of interest that emerged in the Kangxi reign was
a place or person called Khungghar, indicating the Otoman empire or
its ruler.8 Denis Sinor has identiied this word as the Mongolian form
7
For a review of Qing diplomacy among the Mongols before 1759, including the mis-
sion to Ayuki Khan of the Torghud near the mouth of the Volga, see Peter C. Perdue,
China Marches West: he Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 2005), pp. 133–299.
8
A loanword, this term had many variant spellings in Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan,
and Chinese. D. Sinor, citing the dictionary of J. E. Kowalewski, identiies the two Mon-
golian forms Qungγar and Küngγar; see his “Qungγar: a curious Mongol appellation of the
Turks,” in Varia Eurasiatica: Festschrit für Professor András Róna-Tas (Szeged: Department
of Altaic Studies, 1991), p. 165. L. S. Puchkovskiĭ, relying partly on the work of Walther
of the Otoman Turkish hunkār, meaning “sovereign,” adopted by the

Otoman emperor Murad II (r. 1421–1451) and later becoming “a gen-
eral term applied to sultans, mainly by foreigners.”9 Early occurrences
of this term in Qing sources conform to this meaning, but in time its
signiicance became a subject of considerable debate. his paper will
retain it untranslated, in order to preserve the multiple interpretations
given to it by individual authors.
For much of the Ming period, the term roughly equivalent to
Khungghar had been the Chinese word Lumi 魯迷 , a transliteration
of the name Rum or Rumi, which was successively used for Rome,
the eastern Roman Empire centered on Byzantium, parts of Mus-
lim Anatolia, and then the Otoman lands.10 Between 1423 and 1618,
at least thirteen missions from Lumi arrived at the Ming court. Most
came ater the Otoman Empire had raised its proile in Central Asia,
both by conquering Mecca and by the sultans’ adoption of the title of
Caliph, claiming “rulership of the entire Islamic world.”11
As early as 1547, a detailed description of the route from China to
Istanbul (Lumi cheng 魯迷城 ) was in the possession of Chinese geog-
raphers.12 Lumi was accorded entries in many oicial and unoicial
Heissig, identiies the forms Güngger, Küngker, and Küngkür; see his Mongol’skie, Buri͡ at-
Mongol’skie i Oĭratskie Rukopisi i Ksilografy Instituta Vostokovedeni͡ia (Moscow-Leningrad:
Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1957), pp. 41–42. Here I follow Sinor and use the form
Qungγar throughout, modiied as Khungghar.
9
Sinor, pp. 165. Sinor gives a thorough account of past speculation over the origin
of the term. Paul Pelliot also takes up the etymology in less detail in his Notes critiques
d’histoire kalmouke (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1960), pp. 88–89 n. 258.
10
Cemal Kafadar, “A Rome of One’s Own: Relections on Cultural Geography and
Identity in the Lands of Rum,” Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic
World 24 (2007): 7–25. Variants of Lumi date to the Song. he much older term Fulin
拂菻 and its variants, oten indicating Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul, might also
derive from “Rome.” See Donald D. Leslie and Kenneth H. J. Gardiner, Roman Empire in
Chinese Sources (Rome: Bardi, 1996), pp. 281–82.
11
Haneda Akira 羽田明 , Chūō Ajia shi kenkyū 中央アジア史研究 (Kyoto: Rinsen
shoten, 1982), pp. 349–54; Wada Hironori 和田博徳 , “Mindai no teppō denrai to Osuman
teikoku: Shinkifu to Seiiki tochi jimbutsu ryaku” 明代の鐵砲傳來とオスマン帝國 : 神器
譜と西域土地人物略 , Shigaku 史學 31 (1958): 692–719. On Otoman activity in Central
Asia in this period, see Rana von Mende-Altaylı, Die Beziehungen des Osmanischen Reiches
zu Kashghar und seinem Herrscher Ya’qub Beg, 1873–1877 (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1999), pp. 1–5; Colin Imber, he Otoman
Empire, 1300–1650: he Structure of Power (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Central
Asian merchants sometimes posed as ambassadors to China in order to access Chinese
markets; see Joseph F. Fletcher, “China and Central Asia, 1368–1884,” in he Chinese World
Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations, ed. John King Fairbank, with contributions by
Ta-tuan Ch’en and others (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 206–9.
12
Wada, pp. 701–10.
Ming geographic works.13 Ater the Qing conquest, these sources con-
tinued to inform Chinese descriptions of foreign lands. Accounts of
Lumi can be found in the Ming shi 明史 (History of the Ming dynasty;
1739) and other oicially edited early Qing scholarly works.14 Authors
of private geographic writings also drew on this legacy. Gu Yanwu
reproduced the 1547 itinerary in his Tianxia junguo libing shu 天下郡國
利病書 (Book concerning the advantages and disadvantages of admin-
istrative units within the realm; preface 1662), while Gu Zuyu 顧祖禹
(1631–1692) included Lumi in his list of “foreigners to the southwest”
in his Dushi fangyu jiyao 讀史方輿紀要 (Essential record of geog-
raphy for reading histories, 1678).15 Also cited in the early Qing was
Giulio Aleni’s (1582–1649) Zhifang wai ji 職方外紀 (Record of coun-
tries outside the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Operations, 1623), which
described Turkey (Du’erge 度爾格 ) though ignoring its power and
Islamic character.16
A few new descriptions of the frontier became available in Chinese
before 1750. hese early irsthand accounts of frontier areas, including
northern Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet, generally consisted of brief,
unsystematic observations made by authors (almost without excep-
tion Han Chinese) who had either been exiled or were serving on a
military expedition or imperial journey to Inner Asia (see the Appen-
dix). Presumably their Mongol and Manchu counterparts had more
extensive frontier experience and proiciency in local languages; none-
theless prior to the publication, in 1723, of Tulišen’s (Ch. Tu-li-shen 圖
理琛 , 1667–1741) Yiyu lu 異域錄 (Record of foreign regions), virtually
no descriptions of the frontier or foreign lands emerged from the hand
13
Ming huidian 明會典 , Yingyin Wenyuange Siku quanshu edition, vol. 617 (Taibei: Tai-
wan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983) [hereater SKQS], 98.15a; Zhu Siben 朱思本 and Luo
Hong xian 羅洪先 , Guang yutu (Taibei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1969), p. 424. Other references
can be found in Mao Ruizheng 茅瑞徵 , Huang Ming xiangxu lu 皇明象胥錄 (Taibei:
Huawen shuju, 1968), 7.25b–26b; and Yan Congjian 嚴從簡 , Shuyu zhouzi lu 殊域周咨錄
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 15.497–98.
14
You Tong 尤侗 , (Ming shi) Waiguo zhuan (明史 ) 外國傳 , in “Ming shi” dingbu wen-
xian huibian “明史 ” 訂補文獻彙編 , ed. Xu Shu 徐蜀 (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chuban-
she, 2004), 6.8b; Ming shi 明史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 332.8626–27; (Qinding)
Gujin tushu jicheng (欽定 ) 古今圖書集成 (Shanghai: Tushu jicheng yinshuju, 1884),
Fangyu huibian, bianyidian, juan 86.
15
Wada, p. 701; Gu Zuyu, Dushi fangyu jiyao, Yutu yaolan 輿圖要覽 (Taibei: Hongshi
chubanshe, 1981), 6:4.5686.
16
Giulio Aleni [Ai Rulüe 艾儒略 ], Zhifang wai ji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000),
1.48–58.
of a non-Han author outside of oicial channels.17 he early accounts

of the frontier available to Chinese scholars did not relect the volumi-
nous frontier knowledge that was systematically gathered at the Qing
court.
A rit divided the frontier-oriented writings of Han scholars from
the data circulating among those Manchu and Mongol oicials who
were guiding imperial policy toward Inner Asia. At the Qing court,
intensive diplomacy with the Khalkha, Zunghar, and Torghud Mon-
gols brought atention for the irst time to the powerful country of
Khungghar. Yet most oicial and unoicial geographic and statecrat-
oriented writings produced before 1750 ignored the knowledge of
Manchu and Mongol oicials. he process by which this rit was over-
come, and by which the term Khungghar came to replace Lumi, was
set in motion as this knowledge became available in Chinese, itfully
before 1750 and more extensively thereater.
he Torghud Mongols, a branch of the Oirat or western Mongols,
played a central role in bringing Khungghar to the atention of the Qing
court. hey had migrated early in the seventeenth century to the steppe
around the mouth of the Volga, near Russia and the Crimean khanate,
an Otoman vassal state.18 he Torghud generally allied themselves
with Russia, but they tried to preserve their strategic autonomy by
sending envoys to Persia, the Crimean khanate, and other groups, while
maintaining religious ties with the Dalai Lama in Tibet, and political
contact with the Qing court and the Zunghars.19 Ayuki Khan (r. 1669–
1724) sent the irst Torghud embassy directly to the Otoman court in
1680. Evidently using Muslim ambassadors, he professed loyalty to the
17
Manchu frontier oicials submited memorials that described, among other things,
frontier conditions and peoples. Evelyn Rawski and Pamela Crossley, in their article “A
Proile of the Manchu Language in Qing History,” HJAS 53.1 (1993): 78 n. 46, give the
instances of Umuna and Funingga as authors of “travel writings in Manchu” in the form
of oicial reports to the government on frontier conditions. he present article deines
“travel writing” more narrowly as the voluntary composition of a work intended for circu-
lation outside oicial channels. Prior to the mid-Qianlong period, aside from Tulišen’s,
the only Manchu-authored frontier account I have found is the Saibei jicheng 塞北紀程 ,
by Maska (Ch. Ma-si-ka 馬思喀 ).
18
On steppe politics in this region between 1480 and 1800, see Michael Khodarkovsky,
Russia’s Steppe Frontier: he Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2002), pp. 77–183. In some cases, the term Khungghar referred to the
Crimean khanate as well as the Otoman Empire proper, according to Sinor, p. 167.
19
Michael Khodarkovsy, Where Two Worlds Met: he Russian State and the Kalmyk
Nomads, 1600–1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 90–96.
Otomans and announced anti-Russian views.20 Although Ayuki later

repaired his relations with Russia, he continued to send embassies to
the Otoman sultan in 1704 and 1709.21 hus, by the time they were
drawn into the emerging conlict between the Qing and the Zunghars,
the Torghud were familiar with the geopolitical situation stretching
from Mongolia to the Black Sea and were an important conduit for
intelligence.22
Contact with the Torghud allowed Qing frontier geographers to
expand the scope of their knowledge signiicantly. No other source of
information about Khungghar existed before such contact, because
no access was available to Western Mongolia and Turkestan—which
would become the most fruitful routes of information about Khung-
ghar ater their conquest in 1755—and even contact with Russia was
rare. One of the earliest sources to describe Russia was the Chusai jilüe
出塞紀略 (Brief record of a journey beyond the frontier) by Qian
Liangze 錢良擇 (1645–ca. 1707), who accompanied the high Manchu
oicial Songgotu (Ch. Suo-e-tu 索額圖 , d. 1703?) on a mission to the
Russian border. his book recorded Russian claims that their neigh-
bors—Europe, the Khalkha Mongols, the Zunghars, and Persia—all
feared and served them. Among these neighbors Qian also included
“the Muslims,” but without specifying either Turkey or Khungghar.23
Khungghar irst entered the Manchu and Chinese geographic lexi-
con ater the Qing embassy of 1712–1715 went via Russia to Ayuki Khan
of the Torghud. his is when Tulišen, a subordinate member of this
embassy, learned of “the King of Turkey, Khungghar Khan” (Ch. Tuliye-
sike guowang Gongka’er han 圖里耶斯科國王拱喀爾汗 ; M. Turiyesk’o
gurun i Gungk’ar han), whom he referred to several times in his Yiyu
lu.24 According to Tulišen’s account, the governor of Siberia, Prince
M. P. Gagarin, listed Khungghar Khan as one of the many rulers then
at war.25 Gagarin, Tulišen notes, also described how Tsar Peter the
20
Von Mende-Altaylı, p. 3.
21
Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met, pp. 74–153.
22
Zhang Weihua 張維華 and Sun Xi 孫西 , Qing qianqi Zhong-E guanxi 清前期中俄
關係 ( Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), pp. 184–85; Khodarkovsky, Where Two
Worlds Met, pp. 134–38.
23
Qian Liangze, Chusai jilüe (Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 1991), p. 27.
24
Tulišen, Lakcaha jecen de takūraha babe ejehe bithe/Kōchū iikiroku: Tulišen’s I-yü-lu,
ed. Imanishi Shunjū 今西春秋 (Tenri: Tenri Daigaku Oyasato Kenkyūjo, 1964), pp. 135, 344.
25
Tulišen, p. 107.
Great had seized Azov (M. Adzoo hoton) from Khungghar Khan and
restored it to him only ater peace was concluded.26 Tulišen further
tells how King Charles XII of Sweden (M. Karulusi, Siiyesk’o gurun i
han) was defeated by Russia and forced to take refuge in the Khung-
ghar domain.27
he term Tuliyesike guo, the description of historical events, and
the clear delineation of countries neighboring Russia leave no doubt
that “Khungghar Khan” referred to the ruler of the Otoman Empire.
Tulišen appears to have based his account on irsthand interviews with
Gagarin; indeed he seems to have picked up a smatering of Russian
on his journey.28 However, given that the term Khungghar was in use
among the Mongols around this time, it is likely that the phrase “King
of Tuliyesike, Khungghar han” was a compound of Russian and Mongo-
lian usage, relecting either linguistic assistance lent to the embassy by
Mongols, or a Manchu melding of Russian and Torghud terminology.
Tulišen located the Otoman Empire northwest of Russia (alongside
Sweden, Portugal, and England), rather than listing it among those
(including the Torghud, Zunghars, Persia, and Bukhara) said to lie
south of it.29 His map showed Turkey due west of Moscow, far to the
northwest of Beijing.30 his conception of Khungghar’s location would
vex nineteenth-century Han scholars as they tried to identify it.
Around the same time as Tulišen’s account, the Manchu oicial
Kui-xu 揆叙 (1674?–1717) also mentioned the Otoman Empire in his
Xiguangting zazhi 隙光亭雜識 (Assorted notes of Kui-xu), where he
stated: “What is called Khungghar (Hongke’er 烘克爾 ) in Mongolian,
and ‘Turkey’ (Du’erke 都兒克 ) in the West (Xiyang), is a large Mus-
lim country. Russia once paid it tribute.”31 Kui-xu relied on Mongol
and Western (speciically, Jesuit) sources and seems not to have been
inluenced by Tulišen. he two authors used entirely diferent tran-
scriptions, and their descriptions do not overlap in content. Further-
more, Kui-xu’s suggestion that Russia once paid tribute to Khungghar
26
Tulišen, p. 161.
27
Tulišen, p. 135.
28
Tulišen, p. 23.
29
Tulišen, p. 136.
30
Tulišen, pp. 48–51. For this map see Leo Bagrow, “he First Russian Maps of Sibe-
ria and their Inluence on the West-European Cartography of N.E. Asia,” Imago Mundi 9
(1952): 83–93.
31
Kui-xu, Xiguangting zazhi, XXSKQS, vol. 1146, 2.44b.
contradicts the spirit of Tulišen’s account, which recorded Russian vic-

tories but ignored defeats. hese works represented two views of the
Otoman Empire that would rival each other well into the nineteenth
century: a negative view based on Russian sources, and a positive esti-
mation derived from other Central Eurasian sources.32
Tulišen and Kui-xu, the two men who brought frontier informa-
tion to the atention of Han oicials, were Manchu. As far as we know,
no Han oicial was sent on the embassy through Russia. he sort of
social or bureaucratic gathering where Kui-xu probably encountered
his Mongol informant would have been inaccessible to his Chinese
counterparts. For example, Kui-xu’s brother, Singde (Ch. Xing-de 性
德 , 1655–1685), apparently went on a mission in 1682 to the region
around the Etsina River to investigate conditions among the Oirat,
including the possibility that they had allied with Russia.33 While at
court, Singde took notes about Jesuits, introducing some of them with
“Westerners say” (Xiren yun 西人云 ), perhaps implying personal con-
tact with Catholic missionaries.34 Kui-xu learned about frontier afairs
through well-informed contacts of this kind.
What made Tulišen and Kui-xu exceptional was their determina-
tion to write about frontier afairs in Chinese. Few other Manchus in
the Kangxi period wrote privately concerning their experiences and
thoughts about the frontier, a genre dominated by Han Chinese civil
oicials. High Manchu oicials who had dealt with Russia and the
Mongols, such as Songgotu, Pengcun, Maci, Sabsu, and Fuciowan, lim-
ited their writings to oicial reports. Some patronized frontier writ-
ings by Han authors. Zhang Penghe’s 張鵬翮 (1649–1725) account of
an abortive mission to the frontier to negotiate with Russia originated
in Maci’s (Ch. Ma-qi 馬齊 , d. 1739) desire to have the episode chron-
icled in Chinese. Qian Liangze composed his Chusai jilüe while in
Songgotu’s employ. Fang Guancheng 方觀承 (1698–1768), a Chinese
32
Kui-xu’s rendering of “Turkey” as Du’erke does not quite match Aleni’s Du’erge 度爾
格 or Verbiest’s Du’erge 度兒格 (Zhifang wai ji,1.48; Kunyu tushuo 坤輿圖說 , SKQS, vol.
594, 2.1b). Extant Jesuit texts provided no information that could connect Khungghar with
Turkey; most likely Kui-xu’s knowledge came from a personal encounter with a Jesuit.
33
Liu Dehong 劉德鴻 , Qingchu xueren diyi: Nalan Xingde yanjiu 清初學人第一 : 納蘭
性德研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1997), pp. 341–63. Unlike Kui-xu,
Singde did not record his Inner Asian experiences in a book of jotings, although he did
compose some poetry on the subject.
34
Singde [Xing-de 性德 ], Lushuiting zazhi 淥水亭雜識 , Qingdai biji congkan 清代筆
記叢刊 , vol. 1 ( Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 2001), 2.1b.
scholar who accompanied Fu-peng 福彭 (d. 1748) on campaign to Uli-

yasutai as a private secretary, wrote about this experience and other
frontier topics.35 Manchu oicials promoted the writing of private
chronicles of frontier afairs, but, before 1750, few atempted original
compositions of their own. Most likely this was because private geo-
graphic accounts were generally expected to be composed in the for-
mal style of those whom Benjamin Elman has termed the “writing
elite.”36 Almost every Qing-period account of the outside world was
penned by someone whose education had concentrated on the writing
skills necessary to pass the civil service examinations. Most Manchus,
like most Han, lacked the classical literacy that was evidently consid-
ered essential for geographic writing. Moreover, it seems that they
were both less likely than their Han counterparts to derive a sense of
exoticism from frontier travel and less familiar with earlier traditions of
frontier writing.37
By contrast, Tulišen and Kui-xu had the requisite education to
compose private frontier-oriented works in Chinese. he former was
competent in Manchu and Chinese and worked on the oicial trans-
lation of the Tongjian gangmu 通鑑綱目 (Essentials of the Compre-
hensive mirror in aid of government) into Manchu. He produced both
a Chinese and a Manchu edition of his Yiyu lu, each of which had a
strikingly diferent fate.38 he Chinese version circulated in manu-
script and print, collecting prefaces (seven for the irst edition alone)
from eminent Han scholars. It was reprinted at least twice by Tulišen,
subsequently included in the Siku quanshu manuscript collection, and
further reprinted in at least eight collectanea. By contrast, the Manchu
printing, which appeared around the same time as the irst Chinese
edition, atracted no prefaces except Tulišen’s, was never reprinted,
35
See Arthur W. Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (Washington:
United States Government Printing Oice, 1943–44).
36
For a deinition of the “writing elite” see Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil
Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp.
276–77.
37
Emma J. Teng has argued that frontier travel writing was atractive to Han literati
because of the relative freshness of the subject mater (although some frontiers were
fresher than others) and identiies among Han authors a “passion for ‘distant travels.’” Tai-
wan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), pp. 19–20.
38
A Mongolian translation of the work was also produced at some point. See Sinor, p.
168.
and sank into obscurity.39 he lack of demand for Manchu- and

Mongol-language descriptions of the contemporary frontier is like-
wise suggested by another fact: none of the approximately eighty other
Manchu and Mongol oicials who had also served on Tulišen’s mis-
sion and two further embassies to Russia and the Torghud in the Yong-
zheng period seem to have writen about their service.40
Kui-xu’s linguistic facility can be atributed to changing cultural
conditions: the Kangxi-period lowering of Chinese-language poetry
composed by Manchus who increasingly participated in the Chinese-
language civil service examination system; the emperor’s close rela-
tions with Han scholars; and his enthusiasm for Confucian learning
and literary projects. Some Manchus atained high levels of literary
sophistication, and became disciples of the eminent Han scholars who
had reconciled themselves to Manchu rule and were entering oicial-
dom.41 Kui-xu was part of this trend. His father, the prominent oi-
cial Mingju (Ch. Ming-zhu 明珠 , 1635–1708), was a patron of Chinese
scholars. Kui-xu studied under the scholar-poets Wu Zhaoqian 吳兆騫
(1631–1684) and Cha Shenxing 查慎行 (1650–1727). His elder brother
Singde, who surpassed Kui-xu in fame as a poet, was also an acolyte
of prominent Han oicials.42 Yet few of these Kangxi-period Manchu
poets participated in military afairs, and thus frontier information was
not a major subject of their sophisticated Chinese writings.43
hat Tulišen and Kui-xu were the only Kangxi-period men to
mention Khungghar in their personal writings indicates the novelty of
the term, and the scarcity of individuals able to transfer frontier infor-
mation from one social or bureaucratic sphere to another within the
empire. Given the tenuous connection between the Manchu elite and
the Chinese literate elite, Khungghar could have been widely known at
39
Imanishi Shunjū outlines the history of the two editions in his introduction to
Tulišen’s work, pp. 7–20.
40
he second mission, departing from Beijing in 1729, included a total of ity-eight
people. he third embassy, departing in 1731, had a staf of twenty-three. he leaders of
this mission were Manchus (some might have been Mongol); the ethnicity of the other
staf is unknown. See Zhang Weihua and Sun Xi, pp. 312–19.
41
On the rise of Manchu literary production in the Kangxi period, see Zhang Jiasheng
張佳生 , “Kangxi chao Manzu wenxue xingsheng de yuanyin” 康熙朝滿族文學興盛的原
因 , Manzu yanjiu (1995.1): 52–57.
42
For Kui-xu’s connections, see Hummel, ed., p. 663. For Singde see Lynn Struve, “he
Hsu Brothers and Semioicial Patronage of Scholars in the Kang-hsi Period,” HJAS 42.1
(1982): 254.
43
Zhang Jiasheng, pp. 52–57.
court and on the frontiers while leaving almost no trace in contempo-

rary Chinese writings. Indeed, this seems to have been the case in the
Yongzheng period.
Court Interest in Khungghar and Its

Strategic Signiicance in the
Yongzheng Period
In the Yongzheng period, information about the lands west of the Qing
frontier was sought with unprecedented vigor by high-ranking Manchu
court oicials. Yet almost all our knowledge about this interest comes
from the writings of Jesuits and, in one case, a Russian, who were in
personal communication with them. A rit in the circulation of infor-
mation kept Chinese literati largely unaware of Khungghar despite the
extensive inquiries about it made by their non-Han colleagues at court
and elsewhere, and the appearance of leeting references to it in Mon-
golian-language chronicles. his section surveys the origins of this new
interest in Khungghar against the backdrop of warfare with the Zun-
ghars, and what the Qing court discovered as it pursued knowledge of
foreign lands.
Ater his irst embassy went to the Torghud, the Kangxi emperor’s
interest in lands beyond his western frontier deepened. At the end of
his reign he ordered oicials to make inquiries on the Russian fron-
tier about the tsar’s relations with Sweden and the Zunghars, and to
get to the botom of a rumor that Ayuki was quarreling with a subject
of Khungghar.44 Before his death he ordered Jesuit missionaries to pre-
pare a map of lands between the Qing frontier and the Caspian Sea
based on intelligence reports.45 Having inherited these concerns about
the western frontier, the Yongzheng emperor in 1725 gave the Jesuits
access to some Torghud oicers (oiciers kalmouks) in Qing service
and “several Tartar [probably Manchu] itineraries” in order to make a
new map of the same region.46
44
Memorial of Rasi [La-xi 喇錫 ] et al. (Oct. 17, 1722), in Kangxichao Manwen zhupi
zouzhe quanyi 康熙朝滿文朱批奏摺全譯 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe,
1996), p. 1512.
45
Henri Bernard, “Les étapes de la cartographie scientiique pour la Chine et les pays
voisins (depuis XVIe jusqu’à la in du XVIIIe siècle),” MS 1.2 (1935–1936): 466.
46
Joseph Brucker, “La Mission de Chine de 1722 à 1735,” Revue des Questions Historiques,
With the arrival of a Russian embassy to negotiate the Treaty of

Kiakhta, the tsar’s political and geographic position relative to West and
Central Asian powers became of renewed interest. Early in 1727, Yong-
zheng’s brother Yin-xiang 胤祥 —that is, Prince Yi (1686–1730)—sum-
moned Jesuits to the palace “to interrogate them for a long time about
the borders of Turkey, Persia, and Russia,” and the mutual relations
between these empires.47 Soon thereater, they were commissioned to
produce a map “of Siberia and Russia up to Petersburg.”48 he inter-
est in Russia’s relations with its neighbors, particularly Sweden and
the Muslim empires of Asia, continued ater the Russian embassy had
departed. Fr. Antoine Gaubil (1689–1759), a French Jesuit, reported
two years later that Yin-xiang continued to ask about the Turks and
Persians, and consulted “lamas and other travelers from Kashmir,
Ladakh, and the source of the Ganges [in western Tibet],” along with
Muslims in Beijing who boasted of the extent of Islamic power even in
Europe, a clear reference to the Otomans.49 In 1728, yet another map
of Russia’s frontier with “Asiatic Turkey (la Turquie d’Asie), Persia, and
Tartary” was commissioned.50 he Jesuits came away with the impres-
sion that, during the projected Qing war against the Zunghars, Yong-
zheng strongly desired Russia to be sidelined by a war on its western
frontier. Wrote Gaubil: “hey would very much have liked Persia and
Turkey, and even Sweden, to make war on the Russians.”51
In 1729, the Yongzheng emperor began planning a campaign to
destroy the Zunghars, who, incidentally, were also well aware of Oto-
man power.52 As part of his preparations, he sent a second embassy
to the Torghud, along with the irst formal delegation to the Russian
court. Departing Beijing in 1729 and not returning until 1732, this mis-
29 (April 1881): 515; Antoine Gaubil, Correspondance de Pékin, 1722–1759, ed. Renée Simon
(Geneva: Droz, 1970), p. 173. According to Brucker, these men had arrived via the Syr
Darya basin, and were possibly Torghud from the Volga.
47
Brucker, p. 516. Brucker and Gaubil wrote in French; the translations are my own.
48
Gaubil, pp. 171–75.
49
Bernard, p. 467; Gaubil, pp. 236–37.
50
Brucker, p. 516; Gaubil, p. 235.
51
Brucker, p. 516; Gaubil, p. 237.
52
For details of this campaign, see Perdue, pp. 249–53. In 1722 the Zunghar leader
Tsewang Rabtan asked the Russian envoy Ivan Unkovskiĭ who, the Turkish sultan or the
Chinese khan, was more powerful. his reference has been discovered by Onuma Taka-
hiro 小沼孝博 , “‘Kongga’er guo’ xiaokao: 18 zhi 19 shiji Ou-Ya dongbu Aosiman chao ren-
shi zhi yiduan” “控噶爾國 ” 小考 : 18 至 19 世紀歐亞東部奧斯曼朝認識之一端 , Minzu
shi yanjiu 民族史研究 8 (2008): 156.
sion had two sections: one sent to the Russian court, and the other to
ofer imperial greetings to the new Torghud khan, Tseren Dondug.53 In
1731 the Qing court sent a second mission to Russia, but was barred by
Russia from sending a further mission to the Torghud.54
In 1732, members of this second embassy asked their Russian escort
about “the nature of the Turkish state and the possibilities of a Manchu
mission being sent through Russia to Turkey.”55 Based on questions
put to him, Fr. Gaubil had also come to suspect that this embassy was
relaying to Beijing intelligence “about the Swedes, the Turks, and the
Persians.” Gaubil himself was asked by Yin-xiang about the land route
linking Europe to China via Turkey and Persia.56 Whether the Qing
court was seeking an Otoman connection to solicit aid from Muslims
under Zunghar rule, as Mark Mancall has speculated, or whether they
wished to use Turkey to entangle Russia in the west, subsequent events
completely derailed the Qing court’s strategy. Without Russian con-
sent for their embassies, the Qing court temporarily lost contact with
the Torghud. Yin-xiang, the coordinator of court intelligence gather-
ing, died suddenly in 1730; and the Qing loss of a major batle to the
Zunghars in 1731 interrupted its eforts to destroy them.
Of these two Yongzheng-era missions to Russia scarcely any
trace appears in Chinese-language writings from the Qing period,
although some account of them was given in unpublished Man-
chu documents.57 he only surviving evidence of the court’s knowl-
edge of Khungghar in this period is found on oicial maps produced
between 1725 and 1730 that cover the entire Anatolian peninsula and
part of Otoman Europe. he originals of these maps, which are held
in the First Historical Archives in Beijing, are not currently available
to foreign researchers, and have not been published in high resolution.
On the best available image, of a manuscript map from 1729–1730, the
contours of the Black and Caspian Seas are virtually identical to those
given on the subsequent Qianlong edition of the map.58 his later map,
53
Zhang Weihua and Sun Xi, pp. 309, 314. See also Mark Mancall, “China’s First Mis-
sions to Russia, 1729–1731, Papers on China 9 (1955): 88.
54
Zhang Weihua and Sun Xi, pp. 319–20.
55
Mancall, p. 90.
56
Gaubil, pp. 236–37.
57
Zhang Weihua and Sun Xi cite the Manchu ledger, “Archives concerning Russia”
(Eluosi dang 俄羅斯檔 ).
58
To compare these maps, see Aomen lishi ditu jingxuan 澳門歷史地圖精選 (Beijing:
completed around 1760 and printed in copperplate by 1775, shows “the

city of Constantinople, seat of the Khan of the Khungghar kingdom”
(Hongga’er guo zhi han suoju Gongsidangdinebole hetun 紅噶爾國之汗
所居拱斯當底訥伯勒和屯 ), on the European side of the Bosphorus
and terms Asia Minor Du’erjia guo 都爾佳國 .59 Once more we ind the
Mongolian term Khungghar, probably from a “Kalmyk” (i.e., Torghud)
source, used together with a geographic term, in this case Constanti-
nople, from a Russian or Jesuit source.
Indicating the chasm between the two intellectual worlds, Chi-
nese and Inner Asian, of the empire in the Yongzheng period is that
Khungghar was virtually unknown to Chinese sources but began to be
discussed in Mongol chronicles around this time. he earliest work
was the 1725 G’angg’a-yin urusqal (Flow of the Ganges), a genealogy
composed by the Mongol aristocrat and Qing oicial Gomboǰab (ca.
1670–1750). According to this chronicle, the fourth son of Chinggis
khan’s second son Chaghatai (d. 1242) was “Kungghar, who lived as
ruler in the country of Rum and established his capital in the city of
Istanbul.”60 As L. S. Puchkovskiĭ has noted, however, Kungghar and
the other rulers mentioned in this work were not Chaghatai’s sons,
but rather Central Asian rulers of later periods.61 Given that the name
Khungghar does not seem to occur in earlier Mongol historiography,
Gomboǰab might irst have encountered it during his service in the
central government in the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns.62 Whatever
the source of his claim, it was accepted by later Mongol chroniclers,
including the 1739 Altan kürdün mingγan gegesütü bičig (Book of the
golden wheel with a thousand spokes) by the Tibetan Buddhist cleric
Huawen chubanshe, 2000), p. 46; Da Qing yitong yutu 大凊一統輿圖 (Beijing: Quanguo
tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2003), pp. 119–20. Compare also the treatment
of the Crimean peninsula in these two maps (pp. 97–98), which both show two cities in
the same locations.
59
Da Qing yitong yutu, pp. 119, 139. Hetun is the Manchu hoton, walled city. Dr. H. T.
Toh has suggested to me that Du’erjia likely derives from the Arabic Turkiya, possibly via
a Persian or Turkish source.
60
Gomboǰab, Činggis eǰen-ü altan uruγ-un teuke g’angg’a-yin urusqal neretü bičig orosiba
(Kökeqota: Öbör Mongγol-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a, 1981), pp. 56–57.
61
Puchkovskiĭ, pp. 41–42. I am indebted to James Bosson for drawing my atention to
this source.
62
On Gomboǰab’s life and career, see Walther Heissig, Die Familien-und Kirchen-
geschichtsschreibung der Mongolen, Teil I: 16.–18. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Oto Harrasso-
witz, 1959), pp. 113–17.
Dharma and, via that source, the Bolur erike (Crystal rosary; 1774–
1775) of Rasipungsuγ.63 Even in the nineteenth century, both Mongo-
lian and Tibetan-language histories reiterated Gomboǰab’s view that
Khungghar was the ruler of Rum. None of these sources seem to have
inluenced Chinese historiography or geography.64
In sum, over the course of the Yongzheng reign, Manchu oicials
made extensive inquires about Turkey, and Mongol chroniclers began
to mention Khungghar as the historical ruler of Istanbul. his frontier
intelligence was unavailable to Chinese scholars, however. One rea-
son for this was the convention that oicial Chinese geographic writing
could grant atention only to foreign countries that had past or current
formal relations with the court. hus, despite appearing on Qing maps,
Khungghar, whose connection to Lumi went unrecognized, did not
have its own entry in such works as the Da Qing yitong zhi 大清一統志
(Uniied gazeteer of the Great Qing realm) and was mentioned only
incidentally in the entry on Russia.65 More signiicant, however, was
the dearth of Manchu and Mongol oicials with the literary ability or
incentive to transmit their knowledge to an educated Chinese audience.
he Rising Prominence of Khungghar

on the Frontier and at Court in the
Qianlong Period
Between 1755 and 1759, the Qing government conquered the Western
Regions and stationed soldiers and administrators farther west than
ever before. Understanding and safeguarding these new territories
required that oicials conduct extensive inquiries about surrounding
63
Siregetü Güüsi Dharma, Altan Kürdün Mingγan Gegesütü Bičig, ed. Walther Heissig
(Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1958), p. 27; Walther Heissig, Bolur Erike, ‘Eine Kete
aus Bergkristallen’: Eine Mongolische Chronik der Kienlung-zeit von Rasipungsuγ (1774/75)
(Peiping: Fu-jen University, 1946), pp. 163–64. For brief biographies of Gomboǰab and
Rasipungsuγ, see Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire
(New York: Facts on File, 2004), pp. 43–44, 208–9.
64
Inter alia, references can be found in the Subud Erike: A Mongolian Chronicle of 1835,
ed. Yang Haiyang (Cologne: International Society for the Study of the Culture and Econ-
omy of the Ordos Mongols, 2003), p. 60; and, in Tibetan, in the 1819 Hor Chos-‘byung, in
George Huth, ed. and trans., Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei (Strassburg: Karl
J. Trübner, 1892), pp. 19, 29.
65
Qinding Da Qing yitong zhi 欽定大清一統志 , SKQS, vol. 483, 423.5a.
lands, and they were also able to put informal questions to long-
distance merchants and other informants for their own ediication. As
these eforts to gather intelligence progressed, Khungghar achieved
unprecedented prominence. Reports made on the frontier and at court
described it as the major power of the Muslim world, and one of the
mightiest kingdoms on earth. his section will examine the politi-
cal background of this rise in Khungghar’s proile, the sources and
methods employed to collect information, and the speciic achieve-
ments assigned to Khungghar, including military dominance over
Russia.
Khungghar’s rising prominence can be tracked largely through pri-
vately writen descriptions of the Western Regions by Manchu oi-
cials serving there. he earliest of these survives in two manuscripts:
one published under the modern title Xiyu dili tushuo 西域地理圖說
(Illustrated explanation of the geography of the Western Regions),
and an almost identical unpublished version entitled Huijiang zhi 回疆
志 (Treatise on the Muslim frontier), atributed to a Manchu banner-
man, Yong-gui 永貴 , who served as an administrator in Kashgar until
recalled to Beijing by an edict in September 1763.66 he identiication
of Yong-gui as its author is supported by internal evidence, which sug-
gests that its author was a Manchu bannerman who stopped work on
the manuscript around October 1763.67
Even before Yong-gui wrote his treatise, by the time of the Qing
conquest of the Western Regions, tales of a vast and rich Muslim city
in the west had reached the frontier. As early as 1720, Feng Yipeng 馮一
鵬 had heard in Ningxia of a city among the “turbaned Muslims” with
outer walls of brick that took forty-eight days to circumambulate.68
he Qing general Joohūi 兆惠 (1708–1764) was said to have heard dur-
66
Ruan Mingdao, ed., Xiyu dili tushuo zhu (Yanji: Yanbian daxue chubanshe, 1992);
Yong-gui, Huijiang zhi, manuscript copied in 1893 by Li Wentian, now in National Cen-
tral Library, Taibei, item number 210.8 04104. For Yong-gui’s career in this period see
Guochao qixian leizheng chubian 國朝耆獻類徵初編 (Taibei: Mingwen shuju, 1985),
138:25.17b–20a.
67
Ruan Mingdao 阮明道 observes from the occasional use of Manchu script to tran-
scribe proper names and frequent mistakes in the Chinese that the author was a Man-
chu. See his “Youguan ‘Xiyu dili tushuo’ de liangge wenti” 有關《西域地理圖說》的兩
個問題 , in Zhongguo lishi yu dili lunkao 中國歷史與地理論考 (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe,
2002), pp. 117–20.
68
Feng Yipeng, Saiwai zazhi 塞外雜識 (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936), p. 15.
ing his campaigns of a country called Gong (Gong guo 龔國 ) whose

copper city walls were ive hundred li in circumference.69 Ji Yun 紀昀
(1724–1805), exiled to Urumqi in 1770, also came across such reports,
and skeptically noted: “It is said that the ancestral country of the Mus-
lim regions has walls made of copper. hose in the western Mus-
lim regions say that this city of copper is ten thousand li to their east,
while those in the eastern Muslim region say that this city of copper is
ten thousand li to their west. Each venerates that which is far away—
nobody has ever reached this place.”70
For Yong-gui, this fabulous city was Bukhara. Ater warning his
readers that “because there has never been traic back and forth its
geography and circumstances cannot be known in depth,” he pro-
ceeded to report being told that:
he boundaries of its territory are unrivaled. . . . Russia is still its province
and owes it an annual tax. he size of the capital city of Bukhara is dii-
cult to measure. It is surrounded by over three hundred gates, each ive days
journey from the next. . . . he land is extremely vast, and gold and [pre-
cious] stones emerge there in profusion.71
When it came to describing Khungghar, Yong-gui was more restrained:

“he territory of the Khungghar (Kongka’er 孔喀爾 ) Muslims, some-
times called Laum [i.e., Rum, here rendered in Manchu script]. . . . Its
land is northwest of Bukhara, but since there has never been traic
back and forth the minutiae of its geography are diicult to ascertain.”72
Yong-gui’s incomplete manuscript was heavily revised by the Man-
chu oicial Su-er-de 蘇爾德 , and an account of foreign countries com-
posed in 1779 by a certain Wu-cheng-ge 五誠格 was added to it. Like
Yong-gui’s work, information about distant lands was based on hear-
say. According to his preface, Wu-cheng-ge spent his spare time on
the frontier “repeatedly inquiring of the greatest foreign merchants
about the customs, languages, topography, and routes of the lands they
passed through; I took notes on the information they translated and
69
Zhao Yi 趙翼 , Yanpu zaji 簷曝雜記 , XXSKQS, vol. 1138, 1.20b.
70
Ji Yun, “Yueweicaotang biji” zhuyi 《閱微草堂筆記》注譯 (Beijing: Zhongguo hua-
qiao chubanshe, 1994), 12.1150–51.
71
Xiyu dili tushuo zhu, 6.123–24.
72
Xiyu dili tushuo zhu, 6.124.
gathered them into the ‘Record of Hearsay Concerning Foreign Lands’

(Yiyu chuanwen lu 異域傳聞錄 ) in a single fascicle.”73
In describing Khungghar, Wu-cheng-ge appropriated many of the
atributes Yong-gui had assigned to Bukhara. According to his infor-
mants, it was extremely rich and populous. In size it eclipsed Russia,
which it ruled as a vassal state (shuguo 屬國 ), collecting an annual trib-
ute of ive hundred each of adolescent boys and girls.74 Wu-cheng-ge
stated that Rumu 如木 was an alternative name for Khungghar; and he
located it four or ive months’ journey northwest of Kashgar, beyond
Russia’s western border. his view can be traced back to Tulišen and
Feng Yipeng and probably relects the route of the hajj-pilgrimage,
the primary link between Central Asia and the Otoman Empire in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.75 One of the main routes
to Mecca led northwest from Bukhara to Astrakhan, passed through
Russian territory, emerged into the Crimean khanate, and crossed
the Black Sea to Anatolia before reaching its destination. he entire
route took a minimum of about six months, so the igure of four to
ive months that Wu-cheng-ge estimates for traveling from Kashgar to
Khungghar seems plausible.76 he northwestern trajectory of the irst
stage of this journey, and the passage through Russia into Crimean and
Otoman territory, together explain the tenacious view that Khungghar
was located northwest of Russia. he claim that Russia paid it annual
tribute in people might derive from the Otoman practice of devshirme,
or forced “collection” of Christian youths into the service of the sultan
(although this was a domestic practice and had ceased by the late eigh-
teenth century),77 the tribute Russia once paid to the Crimean khan-
ate, or perhaps the many captives seized by Crimean raids.78
Although the decline of Otoman power accelerated over the
course of the eighteenth century relative to the Russian and Austro-
73
Xinjiang Huibu zhi 新疆回部志 , Siku weishoushu jikan edition, part 9, vol. 7, 4.806.
74
Xinjiang Huibu zhi, 4.811.
75
Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: he Hajj under the Otomans, 1517–1683 (Lon-
don: Tauris, 1994), pp. 139–42.
76
R. D. McChesney, “he Central Asian Hajj-Pilgrimage in the Time of the Early
Modern Empires,” in Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, ed. Michael Mazzaoui (Salt Lake
City: University of Utah Press, 2003), pp. 132–33.
77
Colin Imber, he Otoman Empire, 1300–1650: he Structure of Power, pp. 134–42.
78
Alan W. Fisher, he Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772–1783 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1970), pp. 19–21.
Hungarian empires, it was precisely in this period that Qing sources

emphasized the dominance of Khungghar over Russia.79 his perspec-
tive was laid out starkly in the most widely read and inluential of the
privately composed frontier geographies, the Xiyu wenjian lu 西域
聞見錄 (1777), compiled by Qi-shi-yi 七十一 (zi Chunyuan 椿園 ),
who was of the “Changbai clan” and the Manchu Plain Blue Banner.80
Although the author gave no indication of his sources concerning
Khungghar, these were presumably hearsay from foreigners (whom he
consulted about other countries), or possibly from Torghud or other
nomadic peoples. His lengthy account described Khungghar, located
in the northwest, as the largest Muslim state. he capital was Wulumu
務魯木 (i.e., Rum), a city “extremely vast; to traverse it north to south
by horse would take over ninety days.” his metropolis ruled a network
of cities, some with one hundred thousand citizens. Its soil was rich in
gold and silver, and poverty was unknown. It had rites “just like China,
absolutely incomparable to the bestial behavior of the various nations
of the Western Regions.”81
Qi-shi-yi’s account stressed both the military prowess of the Oto-
man forces and their regional dominance:
Russia was originally their vassal state (shuguo) and had been so for a num-
ber of years. Ater 1756 Russia ceased to pay tribute and tax. For seven years
Russia was not reprimanded but nonetheless atacked Khungghar, which
sent forth troops. hey did great batle, and the entire Russian army was
overcome and destroyed. . . . he Čaγan Khan [Russian tsar] again raised
a levy of one hundred thousand men and also made use of several tens
of thousands of crack Torghud troops. Once more Russia did batle with
79
he 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz is widely seen as a watershed in the Otoman military
decline vis-à-vis European powers. Rifaat A. Abou-el-Haj, “he Formal Closure of the
Otoman Frontier in Europe: 1699–1703,” JAOS 89.3 (1969): 467–75.
80
For biographical details, see Qingchao xu wenxian tongkao 清朝續文獻通考, XXSKQS,
vol. 819, 27.244. According to his own account, Qi-shi-yi was born in or around Beijing
(Yan), and had traveled throughout the empire. he Qing shilu records that he passed the
jinshi exam in 1754. His own account places him in the Western Regions in 1775. Changbai
shi 長白氏 seems to be a geographic marker rather than a clan name per se; see Mark C.
Elliot, “Manchus as Ethnographic Subject in the Qing,” in Empire, Nation, and Beyond:
Chinese History in Late Imperial and Modern Times—A Festschrit in Honor of Frederic
Wakeman, ed. Joseph W. Esherick, Wen-hsin Yeh, and Madeleine Zelin (Berkeley: Insti-
tute for East Asian Studies, 2006), p. 31.
81
Qi-shi-yi, Xinjiang yutu fengtu kao 新疆輿圖風土攷 (Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe,
1968), pp. 54–55.
Khungghar, and once again it was greatly defeated. he Torghud were thus
much afraid, and in 1771, they abandoned Russia and pledged allegiance to
China. Several hundreds of thousands of Khungghar frontier troops crossed
the border, driving all far before them, and put direct pressure on the Rus-
sian capital. he Čaγan Khan was terriied. He acknowledged himself as
a subject (chengchen 稱臣) and sued for peace. It was determined that in
addition to the ordinary payment, Russia would every year provide a contri-
bution of ive hundred young men and women. . . . Some say that upon the
western frontier of Khungghar they have many more subject states, which
pay annual tribute just as Russia does.82
his account of Khungghar’s size, power, and wealth was widely read.
Later Han Chinese scholars of frontier afairs found these strong
claims implausible and in need of correction, but impossible to ignore.
he Qianlong emperor himself also made personal inquiries about
Khungghar. he earliest such reference I have found occurs in a geo-
graphic essay about India of 1768, in which he drew on Buddhist cos-
mology to describe the world as composed of three “great countries”
ranged around Mt. Kunlun on the continent of Jambudvipa: China,
India, and Khungghar.83 It deserves note that, in his private writings,
Qianlong acknowledged other “great countries” with no suggestion
that China was hierarchically superior or that these countries paid him
tribute.
It is not entirely clear how Khungghar came to occupy such an
eminent place in Qianlong’s world view, in the same class as China
and historically prominent India. One possible explanation is that
Qianlong was inluenced by Muslim Central Asian informants who
were in contact with the Qing court during the conquest of the West-
ern Regions. As Onuma Takahiro has recently established through his
work in Manchu-language archives, dignitaries from the Kazakhs and
Khokand informed the court between 1757 and 1759 that they consid-
ered the Qing and Khungghar to be parallel powers, one dominating
the east and the other the west.84 Given the Qianlong emperor’s use
of the Buddhist geographic framework of Jambudvipa, it is also possi-
82
Qi-shi-yi, p. 55.
83
Yuzhi wenji 御製文集 , Second Compilation, SKQS, vol. 1301, 21.2b–5a. his essay is
dated in Gugong suocang Hendusitan yuqi tezhan tulu 故宮所藏痕都斯坦玉器特展圖錄
(Taibei: Gugong bowuyuan, 1983), p. 9.
84
Onuma, pp. 154–55.
ble that he was inluenced by geographic ideas circulating among high-

ranking lamas at court who were familiar with knowledge current in
Tibet. George Bogle, an English envoy to Tibet, found the third Pan-
chen Lama (1737–1780) curious and well informed about both Turkey
and Russia, and eager to know the progress of warfare between them.85
In a conversation in November 1774, according to Bogle’s record, the
Panchen Lama told him that in Tibetan histories, “Hindustan was for-
merly reckoned the greatest Empire in the world, next to it [Otoman]
Turkey [Rum], and ater that China.” 86 In 1789, the Tibetan geogra-
pher ‘Jigs-med-gling-pa likewise wrote that the Mughal and Otoman
(Tib. Rum) empires were the two most powerful in the world.87
he Panchen Lama seems to have derived information about the
Otoman empire from both Muslim and Torghud informants. In his
semi-mythical world geography, entitled Shambhala’i-lam yig (Guide-
book to Shambhala) he refers to Otoman lands as “the land of Rum
Sham” (Tib. Rum Sham gyi yul, Sham from the Arabic aš-Šām, indicat-
ing historical greater Syria)—a term probably used by an Islamic infor-
mant. However, when referring to Mecca, then under Otoman rule, he
remarked that “the tribes dwelling in the north, such as the Torghud,
call it Khung-du-khur padshah or Khung-khur padshah.”88 he reference
to the emperor (padshah) of Khungghar makes clear that the Torghud
had in mind the larger Otoman empire in which Mecca was situated,
not just the city itself.
Not long ater listing Khungghar as one of the world’s “great coun-
tries,” the Qianlong emperor had the opportunity to learn more about
it directly from the Torghud khan, Ubasi (Ch. Wo-ba–xi han 渥巴錫
汗 , 1745–1774). his encounter emerged from the mass migration of
the majority of the Torghud from the mouth of the Volga to Qing terri-
tory in 1771—an exodus whose origins the Qing government wished to
investigate. Because it had occurred during the 1768–1774 war between
85
Alastair Lamb, ed., Bhutan and Tibet: he Travels of George Bogle and Alexander Ham-
ilton, 1774–1777 (Hertingfordbury, U.K.: Roxford Books, 2002), p. 256.
86
Lamb, ed., p. 221.
87
Michael Aris, ‘Jigs-med-gling-pa’s ‘Discourse on India’ of 1789: A Critical Edition and
Annotated Translation of the Lho-phyogs rgya-gar-gyi gtam-brtag-pa brgyad-kyi me-long
(Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies of ICABS, 1995), pp. 38–39.
88
Albert Grünwedel, ed. and trans., Der Weg nach Sambhala (Śambalai lam yig) des
driten Gross-Lama von bKra śis lhun po bLo bzan dPal ldan Ye śes (Munich: Königl. Bayer.
Akad. der Wissenschaten, 1914), p. 59.
Russia and the Otoman Empire, the court’s inquiries drew atention
to political developments in western Eurasia, and Khungghar’s role in
the Torghud light.89
In a memorial of April 25, 1771, Frontier Pacifying Assistant General
of the Right Čebdanǰab (Che-bu-deng-zha-bu 車布登札布 ) and his
colleagues relayed to the Qing court a Russian report of the Torghud’s
light. hereupon the Qing government dispatched a Mongol oicial to
the far north of the Qing domain to gather more information from the
leaders of the Uriyangqai banner of Altan Naγur, who frequently vis-
ited kin in Russian territory. As it happened, one banner leader had just
returned from a trading trip to the Russian Uriyangqai. He informed
the Qing oicial that the Torghud had served Russia victoriously in a
recent war against the khan of Khungghar, and that Russia had rewarded
them by granting their request to return to their old homeland.
he high Qing oicials who relayed this version of events consid-
ered it disinformation that the Russians had peddled to avoid alarm-
ing the tsar’s other Mongol subjects about the Torghud revolt. It
seemed highly unlikely to Qing oicials that the Torghud, had they
been genuinely victorious, would have declined material rewards from
the Russians in favor of enduring a diicult trek back to their origi-
nal homeland. It was more plausible, according to Qing oicials, that
Khungghar had defeated the Torghud, who thereupon absconded to
avoid Russian reprisals.90 Further evidence for this opinion was soon
provided by the Ili general Iletu (Ch. Yi-le-tu 伊勒圖 ), who heard dur-
ing inquiries among Kazakh merchants that the Torghud had led for
fear that they would have to follow the Russians into batle against
Khungghar. If this Kazakh report were accurate, noted the general,
then Russian boasts of victory were the complete fabrication that
Čebdanǰab had suspected.91
When the Torghud arrived upon the frontier, a diferent version
of events emerged. A Torghud Buddhist cleric reported that his people
had long wished to lee to the Qing empire but had feared Russian repri-
sals. Ater winning victories for Russia in two successive campaigns,
89
On the background of the Torghud migration, see Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds
Met, pp. 224–35.
90
“Chafang Tu’erhute huigui zouzhe xuanyi” 查訪土爾扈特回歸奏摺選譯, Lishi dang’an
(1988.2): 36–39.
91
Rescripted 36/5/14. Manwen Tu’erhute dang’an yibian 滿文土爾扈特檔案譯編 (Bei-
jing: Minzu chubanshe, 1988), pp. 9–10.
they took advantage of the chaos generated by the Russo-Otoman

war to escape. Ubasi himself conirmed that his troops won major vic-
tories against Khungghar, but added that they chafed at the Russian
refusal to divide prisoners equitably.92 In both versions of events, the
Russo-Otoman war triggered the Torghud migration; the Torghuds’
diiculty in adjusting to Russian customs and their atraction to the
Qianlong emperor’s patronage of the Gelukpa school of Tibetan
Buddhism formed the underlying cause. Nonetheless, the Qing court’s
public proclamations suppressed the role of the war with Khungghar as
a cause of the Torghud migration.
Although the Qianlong emperor did not elaborate on the politi-
cal background of the migration in his personal writings, he included
details of the inquiries about Khungghar that he gathered during inter-
views with Ubasi Khan. For instance, during one meeting Ubasi and
other leading Torghud ofered the Qianlong emperor a symbolic trib-
ute of swords. A certain Tu-er-du-bai Khwāja 圖爾都拜和卓 identiied
the writing on one sword as “scriptural poetry” (jingshi 經詩 ) writen
in the “Muslim script” (here presumably Arabic), praising the sword
and proclaiming the invincibility of its bearer. Ubasi recalled that the
sword had belonged to his father. hough uncertain of its provenance,
he noted: “When my father [Dondug Dashi, r. 1741–1761] was in Rus-
sia, men from Khungghar would go back and forth, always bearing
goods in tribute. Perhaps this was a sword given by the men of Khung-
ghar.” Qianlong then ordered Yu Minzhong 于敏中 (1714–1779) to
make a record of this “Khungghar script.”93
In sum, between 1760 and 1780, Khungghar gained prominence in
accounts of the frontier and the lands beyond. It was only ater the Qing
expansion into the Western Regions that Khungghar, distinguished by
its size, wealth, and military power, was placed in the irst rank of world
powers by the emperor and frontier oicials. he Otoman empire and
its wars with Russia were known to Qing subjects residing on the Inner
Asian frontier, and to merchants and nomadic peoples arriving from
abroad; and their knowledge was transmited to the emperor and high-
ranking Manchu and Mongol oicials charged with administering the
frontier. Some information was gathered through oicial inquiries, but
much came to light through informal inquiries and conversations.
92
Manwen Tu’erhute dang’an yibian, pp. 23–24, 109–11.
93
Manwen Tu’erhute dang’an yibian, pp. 132, 156–57.
Circulation of Frontier Information among

Han Literati in the Late Qianlong Period
At present, studies of the conveyance of Inner Asian information to
Chinese readers ater the conquest of the Western Regions concen-
trate on two types of sources: the prodigious volume of oicial pub-
lications issued by the Qing court to describe its new lands; and the
poems, travel diaries, and jotings composed by exiled Han oicials.94
Before 1760, Khungghar had been extensively researched at court while
remaining almost unknown to Chinese scholars and oicials. Ater
1760, knowledge about the frontier reached the Han literati in unprec-
edented volume, as the case of Khungghar corroborates. However, the
transmission of knowledge about Khungghar draws our atention to
a distinct type of source, accounts of the frontier writen privately by
Manchu administrators.
Oicial surveys, such as the Qinding huangyu Xiyu tuzhi 欽定皇
輿西域圖志 (Imperially certiied illustrated gazeteer of the Western
Regions in the imperial domain), restricted their atention to lands like
Bukhara or Afghanistan, with whom some contact had occurred dur-
ing or ater the conquest period.95 Han exiles, who had comparatively
short tenures on the frontier and limited contact with foreigners, could
not by their own resources produce thorough, gazeteer-like works. By
contrast, Manchu (and some Mongol) frontier oicials gained from
their administrative experience a more thorough knowledge of Inner
Asian conditions than that possessed by exiles. Having become com-
fortable in writing Chinese in a literary context, men like Qi-shi-yi pro-
duced accounts that were free from formal conventions and broached
topics, such as Khungghar, largely ignored in oicial works.
94
On the role of Han exiles in promoting frontier studies, see Joanna Waley-Cohen,
Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758–1820 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1991), pp. 138–62; L. J. Newby, “he Chinese Literary Conquest of Xinjiang,” Modern
China 25.4 (1999): 451–74. Both scholars draw on Nailene Chou, “Frontier Studies and
Changing Frontier Administration in Late Ch’ing China: he Case of Sinkiang, 1759–1911
(Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1976); Dorothy V. Borei, “Images of the North-
west Frontier: A Study of the Hsi-yü Wen Chien Lu,” American Asian Review 5.2 (1987): pp.
26–46. James Millward pays great atention to cartography, court publications, and his-
torical geography in his thorough consideration of the origins of frontier studies, “‘Com-
ing onto the Map’: ‘Western Regions’ Geography and Cartographic Nomenclature in the
Making of Chinese Empire in Xinjiang,” LIC 20.2 (1999): 61–98.
95
Huangyu Xiyu tuzhi, SKQS, vol. 500, 46.mulu.
Although he represents something of a special case, Qianlong’s

personal prose and poetry should be included in this category of writ-
ings. Whereas formal court compilations were constrained by con-
vention to ignore Khungghar as a non-tributary state, the emperor’s
prodigious output of essays and verse contained a number of refer-
ences to it. Because references to Khungghar in Manchu-language
operational documents were not translated in oicial compendia,
it is only the Qianlong emperor’s own literary productions that have
informed historians—and Han literati in his own day—of the promi-
nent role Khungghar played in his mental world view as a “great coun-
try” and “the largest entity within the Muslim regions.”96
Yet Han literati were not simply the passive beneiciaries of a trend
among Manchus and Mongols to write more extensively in Chinese
about their knowledge of the frontier. Rather, they were active part-
ners, or at least assistants, in this enterprise. Han literati collaborated in
recording, polishing, and circulating the indings of their Manchu and
Mongol colleagues, with the result that frontier knowledge reached
the Chinese-reading public. his collaboration depended on contact
between literati and frontier experts in professional or social situa-
tions, as well as on a shared interest in Inner Asian afairs on both sides.
his section will explore the conditions that enabled Qi-shi-yi’s Xiyu
wenjian lu in particular to become an efective medium for spreading
information about the frontier.
Work on scholarly projects as part of their bureaucratic service led
Han literati increasingly to share an interest in the frontier with their
Manchu and Mongol counterparts. Chinese oicials rarely served as
high-level administrators of non-Chinese regions in the Qing period,
but, as the empire expanded, they became increasingly involved in mil-
itary planning, especially logistics.97 Above all, they became involved
in archiving and compiling materials for the campaign histories, geog-
raphies, and supporting works that began to appear in large numbers
ater the conquest of the Western Regions. At the start of the campaign
in 1755, Qianlong irst ordered a gazeteer of the region (provisionally
completed in 1761 as the Qinding huangyu Xiyu tuzhi), and then in 1759
96
Yuzhi shiji 御製詩集 , 4th compilation, SKQS, vol. 1307, 10.14b–15a.
97
For the role of elite scholars in military afairs, see Iona D. Man-Cheong, he Class of
1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 2004), pp. 179–96.
added a military chronicle, the Pingding Zhunga’er fanglüe 平定準噶爾

方略 (History of the campaign to pacify the Zunghars). To standard-
ize names used in these works the Qinding Xiyu tongwen zhi 欽定西域
同文志 (Imperially certiied treatise on standardized transcriptions
of [names concerning] the Western Regions) was subsequently com-
piled. hese three works were then thoroughly revised, to achieve their
inal form in 1782.98 Meanwhile, the Siku quanshu manuscript project
extended eforts to standardize non-Chinese names and terms to ear-
lier dynastic histories, leading to the Qinding Liao Jin Yuan sanshi guoyu
jie 欽定遼金元三史國語解 (Imperially certiied explanation of [terms
from the respective] dynastic languages in the standard histories of the
Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties). So profoundly did the Qing military
campaigns inluence the work assignments and outlook of oicialdom
that Joanna Waley-Cohen has argued that over the course of the eigh-
teenth century the court tried to recalibrate the balance between mili-
tary and civil values, imbuing Han oicials with martial traits.99
he literary projects emerging from the eighteenth-century war
campaigns required deep knowledge of frontier afairs and languages,
especially Manchu. To meet this need, many of the Han literati elite
who obtained their jinshi degree and were retained for court service
took crash courses in Inner Asian languages, topography, and other
subjects, either as editors or as clerks in the Grand Council. he pri-
mary agency propagating frontier knowledge among Han oicials was
the Oice of Military Archives (Fanglüe guan 方略館 ), established in
1749. As Beatrice Bartlet noted, because campaign histories and other
compilations had to be prepared largely from undigested central gov-
ernment records, this bureau supervised both archival management
and oicial publication. It drew much of its supervision, staf, and mate-
rials from the Grand Council, with which it was closely ailiated.100
Senior oicials, evenly balanced between Manchu and Han, super-
98
Enoki Kazuo, “Researches in Chinese Turkestan during the Ch’ien-lung 乾隆 Period,
with Special Reference to the Hsi-yü-t’ung-wên-chih 西域同文志 ,” in Studia Asiatica: he
Collected Papers in Western Languages of the Late Dr. Kazuo Enoki (Tokyo: Kyuko-shoin,
1998), pp. 458–71.
99
he argument that the Qing government from the Kangxi through the Qianlong
reigns deliberately “recast culture in a more martial mold” is laid out in Joanna Waley-
Cohen, he Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military Under the Qing Dynasty (Lon-
don: I. B. Tauris, 2006), pp. 93–97.
100
Bartlet, pp. 225–28.
vised the compilation of campaign histories, while junior Han bureau-

crats did the bulk of the actual research, writing, and organization.101
Court assignments on editorial projects thus fostered specialized
knowledge about Inner Asia. Yu Minzhong, who recorded the “Khung-
ghar script” on Ubasi’s sword for the Qianlong emperor, began his
career as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy, where he is said to have
mastered Manchu exceptionally well, and went on to edit many of the
emperor’s personal compositions as well as oicial works dealing with
the frontier.102 Wang Chang 王昶 (1725–1806), who became a clerk in
the Grand Secretariat in 1758, thereater worked on several multilingual
projects including the Xiyu tongwen zhi and a collection of sacred Bud-
dhist incantations (dhārani). Qian Daxin 錢大昕 (1728–1804), one of
the greatest scholars of his day and an active court editor in the Qian-
long period, had studied Mongolian to some extent for his personal
research on Yuan history.103 Chu Tingzhang 褚廷璋 (jinshi 1763),
through his work in the Oice of Military Archives on the Xiyu tuzhi
and Xiyu tongwen zhi, became (according to the testimony of his col-
league Wang Chang) “extremely well versed in the topography of the
Zunghar and Muslim regions.”104 Moreover, in his spare time he used
materials culled from his editorial duties to write poems about cities in
Xinjiang, “in order to supplement items not contained in histories.”105
Liu Xigu 劉錫嘏 (jinshi 1769), who worked at the Hanlin Academy
and Oice of Military Archives, gained such luency in Manchu that he
became indispensible for standardizing Chinese transcriptions of for-
eign words required in the histories of the Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Ming
dynasties.106
he activities of the Oice of Military Archives, and of the court’s
editorial agencies more broadly, expanded the number of Han literati
with expertise about frontier afairs. However, because editorial service
101
Yao Jirong 姚繼榮 , Qingdai fanglüe yanjiu 清代方略研究 (Beijing: Xiyuan chuban-
she, 2006), p. 68.
102
Wulanqimuge 烏蘭其木格 , “Qing Qianlong chao Hanzu mingchen—Yu Minzhong
shuping” 清乾隆朝漢族名臣 —–于敏中述評 , Nei Menggu shifan daxue xuebao (Zhexue
shehuikexue ban) 內蒙古師範大學學報 (哲學社會科學版 ) 33.2 (2004): 108.
103
Huang Zhaoqiang 黃兆強 , Qingren Yuan shi xue tanjiu—Qingchu zhi Qing zhongye
清人元史學探究—–清初至清中葉 (Banqiao: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2000), pp. 99–100.
104
For Chu Tingzhang see Guochao qixian leizheng chubian, vol. 149, 129.24a.
105
He-ning 和寧 , Sanzhou jilüe 三州輯略 (Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1968), 8.305.
106
Zuanxiu Siku quanshu dang’an 纂修四庫全書檔案 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chu-
banshe, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 485–86.
on campaign-related works was a duty assigned by their Manchu supe-

riors, it is unclear whether Han Chinese scholars were genuinely inter-
ested in the material. Nonetheless, evidence about the backgrounds of
those scholars who helped prepare Qi-shi-yi’s Xiyu wenjian lu when of
duty, or who copied and circulated portions of it (particularly passages
mentioning Khungghar) in their personal writings, demonstrates that
many scholars who worked on these projects were interested in Inner
Asia afairs.
Editorial projects opened channels of unoicial communica-
tion that made Han bureaucrats aware of Khungghar. Qi-shi-yi began
his career by earning a jinshi degree in a class that included such emi-
nent scholar-oicials as Qian Daxin and Ji Yun. he examination
system and work in the central government most likely expanded
opportunities for making the acquaintance of Han oicials, who then
undoubtedly contributed to the success of his work. Chen Kangqi 陳
康祺 (1840–1890) noted that the Xiyu wenjian lu had such a ine style
because “probably, it was in reality polished (runse 潤色 ) by the Pres-
ident of the Board of Punishments, Ruan Kuisheng 阮葵生 [1727–
1789].”107 Ruan, according to his near contemporary Fu-qing 福慶
(ca. 1747–1819), contributed a preface to the work and published it.108
Although I have been unable to locate this edition, circumstantial evi-
dence supports Fu-qing’s claim: Ruan included excerpts from Qi-shi-
yi’s writings—including his account of Khungghar—in his own book
of jotings, Chayu kehua 茶餘客話 (Talks with guests over tea).109
How Ruan met Qi-shi-yi is not known, but Fu-qing describes Qi-shi-yi
as a staf member of a bureau within a ministry (bucao 部曹 ), suggest-
ing that he spent part of his career working as a mid-level bureaucrat in
Beijing.110
Ruan had developed an avid interest in frontier afairs as a by-
product of his court service. Ater earning his jinshi degree in 1761, he
107
Chen Kangqi, Langqian jiwen chubi 郎潛紀聞初筆 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1997), 7.155.
108
Fu-qing, Yiyu zhuzhici 異域竹枝詞 , Congshu jicheng chubian edition, vol. 3277
(Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), p. 1. According to Fu-qing, Ruan’s edition was
published under the title Xinjiang jishi zhengxin lu 新疆紀實徵信錄 .
109
Ruan Kuisheng, Chayu kehua, XXSKQS, vol. 1138, 13.12a.
110
Fu-qing, p. 1. Bucao was a general term used in the Qing to refer to siguan 司官 or
siyuan 司員 , the staf of bureaus (qingli si 清吏司 ) within ministries, and certain other
positions.
irst served as secretary in the Grand Secretariat, and then concur-

rently as a compiler (zuanxiu guan 纂修官 ) on the Zunghar campaign
history and a clerk in the Grand Council. In 1773, he joined the Siku
quanshu project and worked on revisions to the Xiyu tuzhi and Xiyu
tongwen zhi.111 While on duty he read voraciously in Qing archives
to satisfy his own curiosity, even soliciting night shits from his co-
workers to peruse them more extensively. His large book collection
and wide circle of acquaintances allowed him to pursue extensive per-
sonal researches into the Western Regions.112
he same patern of court editorial service holds true for schol-
ars in the Qianlong period who read Qi-shi-yi’s work and incorporated
passages into their own writings. Zhao Yi’s (1727–1814) 1796 Nianershi
zhaji 廿二史劄記 (Notes on the twenty-two standard dynastic histo-
ries) listed Khungghar among the Muslim countries in Asia, citing as
his source the Yiyu suotan, a variant name for the Xiyu wenjian lu.113
Starting of in 1756 as a clerk in the Grand Council, Zhao was then
transferred to compilation work in the Hanlin Academy before going
on to become one of the irst private chroniclers of the Qianlong mil-
itary campaigns. Another high-ranking oicial, Guan Ganzhen 管幹
珍 (1734–98), also drew on Qi-shi-yi’s account to make reference to
Khungghar in a work entitled the Zhifang zhi 職方志 (Treatise on the
[geographic records preserved in the] Bureau of Operations).114 Guan
was a jinshi of 1766 and worked as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy.
He later supervised the compilation of a work on Mongol genealogy
that contained some of Ubasi’s remarks about Khungghar.115 Hong
111
Wang Zeqiang 王澤強 , Ruan Kuisheng nianpu 阮葵生年譜 , Huaiyin shifan xueyuan
xuebao 淮陰師範學院學報 28.1 (2006): pp. 14–18.
112
Wang Zeqiang, “Luelun Qingdai biji mingzhu Chayu kehua de wenxian jiazhi” 略論
清代筆記名著 ‘茶餘客話 ’ 的文獻價值 , Xibei minzu daxue xuebao (Zhexue Shehui kexue
ban) 西北民族大學學報 (哲學社會科學版 ) 2008.2: 113–18.
113
Zhao Yi, Nianershi zhaji, XXSKQS, vol. 453, 34.22a.
114
Guan Ganzhen’s comments are cited by Yu Zhengxie in his Guisi cungao 癸巳存
稿 , in Yu Zhengxie quanji 俞正燮全集 , 3 vols. (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2005), 2:6.223.
Guan’s original work appears no longer to be extant.
115
his work, the Qinding waifan Menggu Huibu wanggong biaozhuan 欽定外藩蒙古回
部王公表傳 (Imperially certiied genealogical tables and biographies of the Mongol and
Muslim aristocracy of the outer regions), recorded that Ubasi had presented a sword to
court, stating: “It is said that his ancestor Ayuki received it from Khungghar (Honghuo’er
洪豁爾 ). . . . Since ancient times, it has never had intercourse with China. herefore, it
has not been among the tributary countries (bu li Zhifang 不隸職方 ). . . . Ayuki pastured
along the Ecil [Volga] River and had intercourse with Khungghar, thus he obtained this
Liangji 洪亮吉 (1746–1809) borrowed from Qi-shi-yi to give Khung-

ghar an entry in his Qianlong fu-ting-zhou-xian tuzhi 乾隆府廳州縣圖
志 (Illustrated treatise on the sub-provincial administrative divisions
of the Qianlong era).116 Although he did not become a Hanlin com-
piler until late in the Qianlong reign, he had worked as an editor at
court in earlier decades. Not every reference to Khungghar came from
the pen of a court editor: Wang Dashu 王大樞 , who relied heavily on
Qi-shi-yi for the account of Khungghar and other foreign countries that
Wang gave in his Xizheng lu 西征錄 (Record of westward service), was
drawn to frontier afairs ater being exiled to Ili in 1788.117 Nonetheless,
the earliest scholars known to have read and copied Qi-shi-yi’s work
were chiely Han Chinese oicials connected to the Grand Council
and editorial projects.
Zhao, Guan, Hong, and Wang seem to have read manuscripts of
Qi-shi-yi’s works, but information about Khungghar was also propa-
gated among oicials at court through oral transmission, as when the
poet Yuan Mei 袁枚 (1716–1798) heard a story from Umitai 伍彌泰 .
A member of the Mongol Plain Yellow banner, Umitai not only held
posts in the capital but also served on the frontier, where he met with
the Panchen Lama and Torghud envoys, one or both of whom was
likely his source of knowledge about Khungghar; there is also some
reason to believe that he had visited Russia.118 he story Yuan Mei
sword,” SKQS, vol. 454, 102.2b. he sword was presumably given to Ayuki when he for-
mally submited to the Otomans, who bestowed them in ceremonies of vassalage. Swords
were presented to Crimean khans together with requests to campaign on behalf of the
Otomans (Fisher, pp. 15–16), and a sword was granted to Ya‘qub Beg at the time of his
formal subordination to the Otomans in 1873; see Hodong Kim, Holy War in China: he
Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877 (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 2004), pp. 151–52.
116
Hong Liangji, Qianlong fu-ting-zhou-xian tuzhi, XXSKQS, vol. 627, 50.21b.
117
Wang Dashu, Xizheng lu, Guji zhenben youji congkan edition (Beijing: Xianzhuang
shuju, 2003), vol. 13, 3.6875–78.
118
Umitai served two stints as an amban (resident Qing oicial supervising local
afairs) in Tibet, once between 1756–1759, and again between 1773–1776. During the irst
of these appointments he had contact with a Torghud embassy that visited the Dalai and
Panchen Lamas; see Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan suocun Xizang he Zangshi dang’an
mulu (Man, Zangwen bufen) 中國第一歷史檔案館所存西藏和藏事檔案目錄 (滿、藏
文部分 ) (Beijing: Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan, 1999), pp. 146–47. He had another
potential opportunity to hear about Khungghar when he accompanied the Panchen Lama
on part of his journey to Beijing in 1779–1780; Qing shi gao 清史稿 (Beijing: Zhong-
hua shuju, 1976), vol. 36, 323.10823. he circumstances in which he visited Russia were
less clear. he scholar Yu Hao 俞浩 cited a work by him entitled “Record of a Mission
heard from Umitai, although ostensibly about India, clearly relates to

Khungghar. Recorded in Yuan’s Zi bu yu 子不語 (hat of which Con-
fucius did not speak; 1781), a collection of fantastic and bizarre tales,
it began: “Over four thousand li southwest of Further Tibet there is
Wulumu, that is, what the Buddhist Canon terms ‘Central India.’ ” He
elaborated that this land was the home of the Buddha, and described
its magniicent palaces and abundant gold and silver. Yuan continued:
“I have heard that, in the irst year of the Yongzheng reign [1723], Rus-
sia wished to seize their land and sent forth over ten thousand troops,
driving before them several hundred ferocious elephants to come do
batle. he Buddha maintained prohibitory mantras, and sent many
thousands of poisonous pythons to go forth and block them. he
Russians were terriied, and asked to come to terms . . . [the Buddha]
decreed that because this land had few people each decade they should
then come and ofer 500 young boys and girls, who would be ordered
to mate. To the present it is still thus.”119 Russia’s defeat and conse-
quent payment of ive hundred adolescent boys and girls, along with
a reference to Wulumu, puts this story irmly in the tradition of fron-
tier lore about Khungghar. It is possible that Umitai had seen Qi-shi-
yi’s work before telling this story to Yuan, or that Yuan himself had also
read the 1777 edition of Xiyu wenjian lu before puting down Umitai’s
report in his Zi bu yu.
Yuan Mei was not in government service at the time of the Zun-
ghar campaigns, and how he met Umitai is unknown. Yet it is well doc-
umented that he had studied Manchu in 1740 at the Hanlin Academy
(his failure to master it resulted in his expulsion), and that he num-
to Russia” (Shi Eluosi ji 使俄羅斯記 ) in his own 1848 book on frontier history, but this
appears no longer to be extant. Yu, presumably on the basis of this work, states that Umi-
tai went to the frontier in 1730 to meet a Russian embassy to discuss frontier afairs. his
date falls within the period when Qing envoys visited St. Petersburg, but Yu does not hint
that Umitai was on such a mission; Xiyu kaogu lu 西域考古錄 (Taibei: Wenhai chuban-
she, 1966), 2:18.14a–b. According to an anecdote recorded by Yuan Mei, Umitai told Yan
Changming that he had “gone on a mission to Ele 鄂勒 in the Yongzheng period.” he
somewhat fantastic anecdote involves an overland journey to the icy Northern Sea with a
party of Westerners (Xiyang ren 西洋人 ). Arthur Waley considers Ele to be a variant tran-
scription of Eluosi 鄂 /俄羅斯 , the standard Qing name for Russia; Yuan Mei: Eighteenth
Century Chinese Poet (New York: Grove Press, 1956), pp. 124–26. he Chinese text can
be found in Yuan Mei quanji 袁枚全集 , 8 vols. (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1993),
4:21.418–19.
119
Yuan Mei, Yuan Mei quanji, 4:21.419.
bered among his patrons the high-ranking Manchu oicials Ortai and
Injišan.120 As with those who read Qi-shi-yi’s manuscript, Yuan Mei
and other Han oicials who learned frontier lore from Umitai likewise
had experience as editors in the Qing court. An example is Yan Chang-
ming 嚴長明 (1731–1787), who heard an anecdote about Umitai’s jour-
ney into Russia. Ater receiving a juren degree by special decree in 1762,
Yan served in the Grand Council and as a compiler of the Zunghar
campaign history and geographical works. hrough service in polyglot
enterprises, this literatus from Nanjing acquired, according to Qian
Daxin, a luent reading ability in both Mongolian (including the Todo
script used by the Oirats) and Tibetan. Making use of this ability, the
court ordered him to serve in the Sutra and Dharani Bureau ( Jingzhou
guan 經咒館 ) and to work on the translation into Chinese of the Mon-
gol chronicle Erdeni-yin tobči (he precious summary; Ch. Menggu
yuanliu 蒙古源流 ).121 Umitai was also the source of a story about
Tibet recorded by Ji Yun in his Yueweicaotang biji, where he added the
encomium that the Mongol “never spoke recklessly in his entire life.”122
Ji had worked extensively on court editorial projects and was briely
exiled to Urumqi. Although the circumstances in which these Han
scholars met Umitai are obscure, it is clear that encounters occurred
in the social milieu of Qing state service. Poetry and literature played
a signiicant role in Han-Manchu social exchanges. As Yuan Mei com-
mented, “Recently, Manchus have come exceedingly to surpass Han in
their literary pursuits; though he may command an army, none among
them is incapable of writing poetry.”123
In sum, the rising interest in intelligence from Inner Asia was
closely linked to changing paterns of bureaucratic employment. To
succeed in court service, Han scholars had to adapt themselves to
working within the framework of large, polyglot court editorial proj-
ects, many of which also employed Manchu, Mongol, and Tibetan
scholars. To process and digest the oicial archives of a multi-ethnic
empire they had to master historical, geographic, and linguistic details
120
J. D. Schmidt, Harmony Garden: he Life, Literary Criticism, and Poetry of Yuan Mei
(1716–1798) (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 14–16.
121
Guochao qixian leizheng chubian, vol. 151, 146.4a.
122
Ji Yun, Yueweicaotang, 6.262.
123
Yuan Mei, Suiyuan shihua buyi 隨園詩話補遺 , in Yuan Mei quanji, 3:7.717. his line
is translated more elegantly but less literally in Waley, p. 28.
about the frontier. he compilation projects generated the irst signii-

cant cohort of Han literati to grapple intellectually with their dynasty’s
vast Inner Asian possessions and the world beyond. For many schol-
ars, professional duty stimulated personal curiosity and prompted
them to seek additional information about the frontier. hey consulted
not only oicial archives and publications, but also the private writ-
ings of frontier administrators. Aiding the transfer of knowledge were
personal relationships between Han oicials and their Manchu and
Mongol colleagues. As the example of Khungghar demonstrates, these
relationships constituted new channels through which frontier infor-
mation reached the ears and eyes of Han Chinese. Gaps in the infor-
mation order among the imperial elite were narrowed signiicantly.
he Qianlong-Jiaqing Transition and the

Qing Information Order
he term Khungghar, known on the Qing frontier in the early eigh-
teenth century and familiar to elite Han literati serving at court
ater 1760, had, by the early nineteenth century, become a subject of
research and debate within the broader Chinese scholarly community.
his continuity of interest was sustained despite fundamental changes
in the channels circulating frontier-related intelligence, both between
Han scholars and Manchu and Mongol frontier oicials, and within
the world of Chinese language scholarship. Ater 1800, the low of fresh
information from beyond the Inner Asian frontier into the sphere of
Chinese scholarship diminished. At the same time, information that
had been recorded by court scholars in the eighteenth century became
more widely available to the Chinese scholarly readership. In con-
sequence, knowledge about the frontier was pursued in a new way,
through textual scholarship. Using the case of Khungghar to illustrate
this shit, we will pay particular atention to why it remained on the
collective research agenda of eminent Han scholars until the fall of the
dynasty.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the environment in which
frontier studies were conducted began to change. Koon-piu Ho has
pointed out that three successive emperors, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and
particularly Qianlong, were generally suspicious of private scholarship
and sought to replace it as far as possible with oicial projects.124 Dis-

cussions of frontier maters were particularly suspect. he Qianlong
emperor’s extreme sensitivity to potential slights against Manchus
caused many Ming-era works on frontier management to be banned.
Oicial literary surveillance, which was particularly active between
1776 and 1782, watched for the slightest sign of disrespect toward
the empire’s non-Han rulers.125 Under these conditions, even loyal
Chinese subjects hesitated to publish in a ield so sensitive that a mis-
construed passage could have grave repercussions. Ater Qianlong’s
death, restrictions were relaxed. Seunghyun Han’s analysis of local gaz-
eteers and similar writings in Jiangnan demonstrates that, although
the Qianlong court largely succeeded in silencing private geographic
and historical works in the later half of the eighteenth century, an
“emancipation” in the Jiaqing (r. 1796–1820) and Daoguang (r. 1820–
1850) reigns allowed both new and older (sometimes banned) works
to be published.126
During the Jiaqing reign, the intellectual environment for pub-
lishing works related to the frontier likewise grew freer. To illustrate
this, the Appendix outlines the publication histories of ity-one pri-
vately writen works that describe the empire’s Inner Asian frontier and
were composed between 1644 and the Qianlong emperor’s death in
1799. hese works represent, though not exhaustively, a range of genres
(poetry, travel records, and comprehensive descriptions). he Appen-
dix excludes oicially ordered gazeteers and books compiled under
imperial instruction, whose publication was undertaken by the state. It
includes only books composed before 1799, whose publishing histories
can relect changing conditions before and ater the Qianlong emperor’s
Koon-piu Ho 何冠彪 , “Qingdai qianqi junzhu dui guan si shixue de yingxiang” 清
124
代前期君主對官私史學的影響 , Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 , 16.1 (1998): 155–84.

125
R. Kent Guy found the Qianlong-era censorship campaign an efort to “to expunge
from the historical record signs of early Sino-Manchu conlict and Chinese disrespect for
Manchu custom, heritage and tradition”; see his he Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars
and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East
Asian Studies, 1987), p. 166. As Wu Zhefu 吳哲夫 proved, denigrating the Manchus, the
Jurchens, other foreign peoples, or Qing rule and policies, were among the major rea-
sons for books to be banned in this period; see his Qingdai jinhui shumu yanjiu 清代禁
燬書目研究 (Taibei: Jiaxin shuini gongsi wenhua jijinhui, 1969), pp. 27–39. Mark Elliot
observes, however, that Manchu-related maters were discussed with relative freedom in
nineteenth-century jotings (biji); “Manchus as Ethnographic Subject,” pp. 17–37.
126
Seunghyun Han, “Re-inventing Local Tradition: Politics, Culture, and Identity in
Early 19th Century Suzhou” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2005), pp. 94–154.
death. Of the ity-one titles, twenty-one remained in manuscript

until ater 1840. Of the thirty titles that were published, we can con-
sider the number of printed editions (including reprints) of frontier-
related titles that appeared in each of three periods: ten in the Kangxi
and Yongzheng reigns; thirteen in the Qianlong reign (to 1799); and
thirty-three in the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns (up to 1840). In short,
the irst four decades of the nineteenth century saw the publication
or reprinting of about two and a half times as many titles as the six-
decade-long Qianlong reign.
A close look at the Qianlong period itself further shows that, of
the twelve titles whose publication years we can ascertain, four were
published in 1755 or earlier, and six ater 1790. In the span within these
dates, which represents both the period of greatest oicial literary
activity regarding the Western Regions and the period of most strin-
gent censorship, we ind only two privately printed titles about Inner
Asia. In this period substantial manuscript works concerning the
Western Regions were produced but not printed. By contrast, in the
ive decades ater 1790 we ind thirty-nine printed editions of frontier-
oriented titles.
In the decades ater Qianlong’s death, the widespread availability
in print of older works about the frontier, including many now pub-
lished for the irst time, changed the way information about the fron-
tier circulated and was analyzed. First, it meant that scholars far from
the frontier and the court could satisfy their curiosity about Inner
Asian lands and peoples. Second, it meant that textual scholarly tech-
niques could be applied to frontier knowledge. In the eighteenth cen-
tury, court scholars simply copied into their writings information,
which itself was oten hearsay gleaned on the frontier, from Manchu
and Mongol oicials. By contrast, at that time in the more developed
ield of Classical studies, there was a trend toward evidential schol-
arship (kaozheng 考證 ), which valued the careful analysis of a wide
range of textual evidence, oten through collaborative research eforts
and well-deined debates. Under these conditions, textual researchers
vested authority in scholarship that employed specialized techniques
and participated in cumulative scholarly dialogue.127 By approaching
127
Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of
Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian
Studies, 1984), pp. 97–99.
the frontier exclusively through texts, Han scholars who had never vis-
ited the Inner Asian frontier could, ater 1800, become acknowledged
experts, and could even take it upon themselves to refute or correct
claims made by seasoned Manchu and Mongol frontier administrators.
Because of this trend toward text-based research, the perceived
value of such works as the Xiyu wenjian lu, which were based on per-
sonal frontier experience, steeply declined; and studies that were
not based on academic and editorial efort no longer appeared. his
limited the low of intelligence from Manchu and Mongol oicials to
Chinese-reading scholars. he last example of a Manchu recording
fresh information on the subject of Khungghar in Chinese occurred
in the Xiaoting zalu 嘯亭雜錄 (Miscellaneous records of Zhao-lian;
1815) of the prince Zhao-lian 昭璉 (1780–1833), who learned about it
from a colleague named Bai-shun 百順 . Bai-shun, who held the rank
of Commander-general of the Guards Brigade, an elite unit protecting
imperial palaces, himself claimed to have visited the frontier of Khung-
ghar, and had been told by an unnamed source that the people of that
country claimed to have migrated from the Solon region (in north-
eastern Manchuria). Zhao-lian speculatively connected them to the
group led westward by the Western Liao leader Yelü Dashi 耶律大石
(1087–1143).128
It was not because knowledge of Khungghar disappeared from the
Qing frontier that new information ceased to reach Han Chinese schol-
ars. Nineteenth-century writings by Mongols and Tibetans continued
to refer to it. Khung-khur and Rumsham were described in a Tibetan
historical and geographical work of 1889.129 Even in the early twen-
tieth century, a Russian scholar found that stories about Khungghar
128
Zhao-lian, Xiaoting zalu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 2.52–53. here are sev-
eral Bai-shuns, and I have been unable to trace one holding this rank. If we accept his
claim to have visited the frontier of Khungghar, then this would seem to connect him with
the Yongzheng-era embassies to Russia and the Torghud. Presumably, then, Zhao-lian
was told of his claims ater his death. Bai-shun reported that the men of Khungghar were
skilled in mounted archery, which might indicate a reference to nomadic Otoman sub-
jects living near the Torghud. Onuma Takahiro speculates that the name Bai-shun might
refer to the Qing oicer Shun-de-ne 順德訥 , who in 1757 visited the setlement of Keng-
ger Tura near the Russian frontier. Zhao-lian, in this hypothesis, would then have con-
fused Kengger Tura for Khungghar and represented it as a major country. More evidence
would be needed to conirm or disconirm this hypothesis; Onuma, pp. 160–62.
129
Dharmatāla, Chen-po Hor-gyi yul-du dam-pa’i chos ji-ltar dar-ba’i-tshul gsal-bar brjod-
pa padma dkar-po’i phreng-ba, translated by Piotr Klakowski as Rosary of White Lotuses:
were still circulating among Mongols around Khobdo.130 Khungghar

also continued to come to the atention of Qing frontier oicials. A
Manchu memorial reported that Qing border guards had intercepted
an Otoman subject trying to cross into the empire from Russia in the
Jiaqing period.131 In 1857, the Qing general at Ili reported the statement
of an Andijani merchant that “the Russians have recently been ight-
ing back and forth with Khungghar and the English for several years,
and they have lost a great amount of territory”—referring here to the
Crimean War. 132 he Qing court received, in addition to the memo-
rials mentioned above, ten boxes of Russian books in 1845, whose
titles were translated into Chinese as “Campaign History of the Paci-
ication of Khungghar” (Pingding Konggu’er fanglüe 平定空谷爾方略 )
and “An Account of the Country of Khungghar” (Konggu’er guozhi 空
谷爾國誌 ).133 Yet, in contrast to the eighteenth century, the writings
of Han literati cite no new evidence about Khungghar from the fron-
tier or the court. In particular, frontier informants of the sort who had
been essential to the writings of Qi-shi-yi and other eighteenth-cen-
tury Manchu oicials ceased to be consulted; instead research came to
stress textual sources and standards.
Given that new information about Khungghar ceased to low into
Chinese, and the credibility of older accounts came under atack,
it might be expected that it would be forgoten by Chinese scholars.
To the contrary, however, Khungghar came to be studied and dis-
cussed by them with unprecedented intensity. here were three inter-
twined reasons for this. First, a new generation of Han literati emerged
who made frontier geography a research priority, despite having no
obvious personal or bureaucratic links to Inner Asia. Second, these
Being the Clear Account of How the Precious Teaching of Buddha Appeared and Spread in the
Great Hor Country (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1987), pp. 49–51.
130
Onuma, pp. 156–57.
131
Jonathan Schlesinger kindly discovered and transcribed for me a Manchu docu-
ment in the archives in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, reporting that a man named Aidimir, a
“subject of Kungg’ar” was arrested at a frontier post near Kiatkhta. Interrogated with the
aid of “Muslim traders,” he stated that he had been held prisoner in Russia. He found the
conditions unbearable and atempted to lee to China along with three Muslim Russian
subjects. All four were sent back to Russia. he document (#M2D1–307.4) is dated Sept.
26, 1815.
132
Memorial of Ili General Zha-la-fen-tai 扎拉芬泰 , rescripted Oct. 19, 1857 (XF7/9/2).
Chouban yiwu shimo 籌辦夷務始末 , XXSKQS, vol. 416, p. 585.
133
He Qiutao, Shuofang beisheng, XXSKQS, vol. 741, 39.8b–11b.
scholars formed a close-knit community that engaged in its own

cumulative scholarly dialogue; repeatedly over the course of decades,
they returned to problematic points. Finally, since these Han literati
learned about the frontier primarily through published writings, their
text-based methodology compelled them to make a detailed analysis
even of suspect works like the Xiyu wenjian lu, and reinterpret them
through elaborate textual comparisons. For these reasons, the problem
of Khungghar’s identity continued to intrigue Chinese scholars for the
remainder of the dynasty, as textual methods led them to reach conclu-
sions that were markedly diverse.
hus, the critical factor in sustaining interest in Khugghar and the
Inner Asian frontier, and in transforming the way these regions were
approached, was the training of a new cohort of Han Chinese scholars.
he Mongol scholar and frontier administrator Sungyūn (Ch. Song-
yun 松筠 , 1752–1835) played a pivotal role in preserving a continuity
of interest between the scholarly world of the Qianlong period, which
favored direct evidence about the frontier, and that of the Jiaqing reign,
which preferred textual evidence. Like Qi-shi-yi and Wu-cheng-ge,
he took advantage of his contact with foreigners to satisfy his curios-
ity about foreign conditions. As a biographer commented, “On the day
of the arrival of tributary envoys from such countries as the Kazakhs,
Kirghiz or Russia, he would call them into his presence and question
them on the political situation (zhiluan 治亂 ) in their countries.”134
Assigned to accompany Lord George Macartney (1737–1806) from
Beijing to Hangzhou, Sungyūn took the opportunity to increase
his knowledge. Macartney found him “a young man of high quality”
who “asked many proper questions relative to the riches and power of
Russia.”135 Sungyūn recorded the English envoy’s answers in a fu poem
entitled “A Concise Record of Frontier Areas” (Suifu jilüe). One inter-
polated note read: “In 1793, the King of England, which is in the Great
Western Ocean, sent an envoy to pay tribute. . . . He had once been sta-
tioned on duty in Russia for three years. herefore I made inquiries
of him. . . . Russia in the north neighbors the country of Khungghar
(Kongka’er guo 空喀爾國 ). It is Muslim. hey commonly ight with
134
Zhao-lian, 4.109.
135
George Macartney, An Embassy to China: Being the Journal Kept by Lord Macartney
During His Embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–4, ed. J. L. Cranmer-Byng (Hamden,
Conn.: Archon Books, 1963), pp. 126–27.
each other over territory. It is passed on that Khungghar is extremely

large. It makes city walls out of copper. he eastern and western gates
are separated by a journey of some length. I suspected that this was a
fable, and inquired about it. Macartney informed me that Khungghar
was originally situated in an island in the sea, and trusting to the safety
of the water it was as if it had the irmness of a copper wall. his is proof
that the narration of the Yiyu lu lacks veracity.”136
When he became Ili general, Sungyūn retained as compiler an
exiled magistrate, Wang Tingkai 汪廷楷 (who resided in Ili approxi-
mately from 1802 to 1805), but state sponsorship for the project was
denied in 1807 on the grounds that the court could instead update the
Xiyu tuzhi. Undaunted, Sungyūn privately commissioned a second
exiled scholar, Qi Yunshi 祁韻士 (1751–1815), to expand the drat into a
book.137
Like other scholars serving at the Qianlong court, Qi had been
exposed to frontier afairs when serving as an editorial oicial. A jinshi
of 1778, he learned Manchu in the Hanlin Academy and subsequently
served as junior compiler (bianxiu 編修 ) in the Oice of State History.
His familiarity with Manchu led to an assignment to assist in the Qin-
ding waifan Menggu Huibu wanggong biaozhuan project, where he and
another Manchu-trained Han counterpart consulted the oicial sur-
vey map of the empire, genealogies preserved in the Court of Colo-
nial Afairs (Lifanyuan 理藩院 ), and piles of Manchu-language routine
documents submited by the various Mongol banners.138
Sungyūn’s employment of Qi Yunshi (and later of another ex-
compiler, Xu Song) had a mixed inluence on the circulation of infor-
mation about Khungghar. Qi Yunshi’s editorial standards, based on
the oicial formats used at court, resulted in a work whose coverage
136
he Yiyu lu mentioned here is almost certainly not Tulišen’s account (which does
not discuss the size of the walls of Khungghar) but rather Qi-shi-yi’s work, which does.
Now generally known as the Xiyu wenjian lu, it had earlier circulated under several titles,
some of which began with the term yiyu. For example, Fu-qing, a rough contemporary of
Sungyūn, referred to the work as the Yiyu suotan 異域瑣談 .
Macartney is probably referring to the peninsular location of Istanbul, or perhaps the
Topkapi Palace in particular, with something lost in translation.
137
Enoki Kazuo, “Jo Shō no Seiiki chōsa ni tsuite” 徐松の西域調査について, in Enoki
Kazuo chosakushū 榎一雄著作集 (Kyuko shoin, 1992), 2:69–74.
138
A large staf seems to have been working on this project. Presumably, Qi Yunshi and
his biographers meant that he was in charge of the day-to-day editorial decisions, while
other tasks were carried out by his subordinates.
of foreign lands was far more restricted than Qi-shi-yi’s Xiyu wenjian lu
had been. Qi-shi-yi had conceived of his work as a supplement to oi-
cial compilations, reporting accurately on topics they neglected—“the
fragmentary afairs of back alleys, and vulgar circumstances of foreign
regions.”139 Qi Yunshi preferred textual evidence to hearsay, and criti-
cized the slipshod methods of earlier authors. In particular, he chided
previous exiles who cherished “books such as the Suotan and Wen-
jian lu [both variant terms for Qi-shi-yi’s book] . . . what they record
is not free of forced interpretations, factual lapses, and a tendency to
like the odd and note down the strange. heir topographies and his-
torical geographies are without factual foundation (wu kaoju 無考據 )
when compared to historical records.”140 Neither Qi Yunshi nor Xu
Song, who later succeeded him as editor, sought out hearsay accounts
about foreign countries. Disconnected from the Eurasian information
circuit, their writings brought no fresh information about Khungghar
to the Han literati.141
Although Sungyūn’s project, as executed by Qi Yunshi, limited
the scope of inquiry on the frontiers of the Western Regions, it helped
promote knowledge of Inner Asia among relatives, friends, and col-
leagues in China proper. In 1810, Sungyūn was transferred to the gov-
ernor-generalship of Liang-Jiang, the cultural and academic center of
China. Packed in his baggage was a drat of the Xichui zongtong shilüe
(Brief account of maters pertaining to the general administration of
139
Qi-shi-yi, p. 3.
140
Qi Yunshi, Xichui yaolüe 西陲要略 (Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1968), p. 1.
141
he work edited by Qi Yunshi, Xichui zongtong shilüe 西陲總統事略 , limited itself
to describing the Kazakhs, Kirghiz, and Khokand (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1965),
11.mulu. he successor to this version was edited by Xu Song and published with impe-
rial endorsement. Although Xu was famous for his irsthand investigation of Xinjiang’s
geography during his exile, he speciically excluded from his gazeteer distant countries
that were not important for frontier security and describes only the Kazakhs and Kirghiz.
Qinding Xinjiang zhilüe 欽定新疆識略 (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1965), 2:12.1a–2b.
Manchus and Mongols continued to write about the frontier, but did so in a consciously
scholarly and textual-research oriented fashion. he Mongol frontier oicial He-ning
(d. 1821) composed a Huijiang tongzhi 回疆通志 , but this work quoted heavily from exist-
ing writings, especially oicial compilations. He omited reference to all foreign countries
except the Kirghiz, who were in correspondence with Qing oicials on the frontier: (Tai-
bei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1966), p. 10. he learned Mongol oicial Wo-ren 倭仁 (d. 1871)
also mentioned only foreign countries bordering on Xinjiang in his Shache jixing 莎車紀
行 , which likewise cited heavily from textual sources: Wo Wenduan gong (Genzhai) yishu
倭文端公 (艮齋 ) 遺書 , 2 vols. (Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1968), 2:11.31b.
the western frontier), which Qi had completed two years earlier. He

sent a copy to Cheng Zhenjia 程振甲 , a former colleague in the Grand
Council; Cheng found the work so fascinating that he undertook to
edit and print it, together with poems by Qi Yunshi and Sungyūn’s own
Suifu jilüe tushi.142 Here again we ind a scholar who had editorial expe-
rience in Qianlong’s court promoting frontier studies.
he next year, Sungyūn was transferred to the governor-generalship
of Liang-Guang. Around the same time, the young scholar Yao Ying 姚
瑩 (1785–1853) accepted an invitation to serve privately in the oice of
Guangdong’s provincial education commissioner. His great uncle, Yao
Nai 姚鼐 (1731–1815), who had served in editorial posts at court, was an
old acquaintance of Sungyūn. hrough this connection Yao Ying met
Sungyūn socially and eventually developed an interest in frontier and
foreign afairs. Naturally, Yao began by reading the books available to
him in Guangdong, but as he worked his way through a mass of oicial
geographies, campaign histories, and private works, he noticed numer-
ous contradictions and puzzles. To reconcile these accounts and deter-
mine their value he then turned to Sungyūn for help.143
he phenomenon of frontier oicials or court editors successfully
propagating their research agendas among private scholars can also be
seen in the case of Yu Zhengxie, the irst private Han literatus to take
up Khungghar as a textual problem. Yu moved to Beijing and in 1805
became a private assistant to Ye Jiwen 葉繼雯 , an oicial engaged in
revising the Da Qing huidian (Collected statutes of the Qing dynasty).
Despite his lack of oicial rank, Yu, through this connection, was able
to gain access to the Qing archives, and to pursue thereby private geo-
graphic and historical inquiries which led him to compose a major
essay on the Qing conquest and administration of Mongolia, Xinjiang,
and Tibet. he same materials allowed him to write extensively about
Russia, completing a study of the Russian banner company in 1806; a
general study, “Eluosi shiji” 俄羅斯事輯 (Compilation of afairs per-
taining to Russia); and two other essays, “Eluosi changbiangao ba”
142
For a summary of Cheng Zhenjia’s career see Shuyuan jilüe 樞垣記略 (Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 18.211. For Cheng’s preface to Sungyūn’s poems, see Xichui zong-
tong shilüe, pp. 817–18. For the publishing history of this work, see Enoki Kazuo, “Jo Shō,”
2:74–81.
143
Shi Liye 施立業 , Yao Ying nianpu 姚瑩年譜 (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2004), pp.
51–53.
俄羅斯長編稿跋 (Postface to a drat of an extended compilation on

Russia; autumn 1806) and “Luocha” 羅剎 ([Explanation of the term]
Luocha).
hough he had never let China proper, Yu claimed expertise in
frontier afairs by “examining oicial and private writings in detail, in
order to correct and verify them” (xiangjian guan si zhushu, wei ding-
zheng zhi 詳檢官私著述 , 為訂證之 ). his method led him to judge Qi-
shi-yi’s Xiyu wenjian lu to be valuable in some ields but “particularly
out of accord with reality” in regard to foreign afairs.144 Yu thought
the archives and the clerks who kept them, the court survey map, and a
host of published geographic texts could bring him closer to the truth.
Drawing on Yuan Mei’s story that Russia had once atacked Wulumu
(which his reading of Qi-shi-yi led him to identify with the Khungghar
khan) and Qianlong’s essay, Yu wove a complex theory arguing that
Russia had destroyed Khungghar in the Yongzheng period.145 Flatly
refuting Qi-shi-yi, Yu asserted that Russia had again defeated the Oto-
mans in the Qianlong period. As he summarized it, Russia “is in the
extreme north, yet some say that the Khungghar khan of its southwest-
ern subject state lies north of it, and they further say that Khungghar
can conquer Russia . . . these arguments are all nonsense.”146
Together, the inluence of Yu and Qi stimulated further interest in
Khungghar. Qi Yunshi’s son Qi Junzao 祁寯藻 (1793–1866) was related
by marriage to a certain Zhang Mu 張穆 (1805–1849). Zhang, shortly
ater his arrival in Beijing in 1832, had met Yu Zhengxie, who interested
him in the study of historical geography. Qi Junzao later hired Zhang
to edit some of his late father’s frontier-related manuscripts. Zhang
likely irst encountered the term Khungghar when he helped edit part
of Yu Zhengxie’s essays and notes into a work entitled the Guisi leigao
癸巳類稿 (Drats categorized in the guisi year [1833]). As his expertise
deepened through his editorial tasks, Zhang himself became intrigued
by the problem of Khungghar’s identity. In 1839, he completed a “sup-
plemental collection of afairs” explicitly to correct errors he found
in Yu’s work—errors that he identiied by reading the textual sources
closely. As He Qiutao 何秋濤 (1824–1862) later observed, most of
144
Yu Zhengxie, Guisi cungao, in Yu Zhengxie quanji, 2:6.227–30.
145
Yu Zhengxie, Guisi cungao, 2:6.223.
146
Yu Zhengxie, Guisi leigao, 1:9.432–34.
these “corrections” simply relected Zhang’s reliance on the authority

of Sungyūn’s earlier Suifu jilüe. In this case Zhang accepted Sungyūn’s
claim that Khungghar was north of Russia; and although he noted that
Yu had disputed this conclusion, he did not review Yu’s lengthy argu-
ment or explain the process of reasoning that had led him to prefer
Sungyūn’s view.147
By 1820, almost all publications about the Qing empire’s Inner
Asian frontiers and lands beyond emerged from the private eforts
of Han literati. Ater the Qianlong reign, the court both reduced the
volume of its publications and relaxed its literary surveillance—two
changes that spurred scholars to publish privately. As writen sources
about the frontier became more widely available, and textual research
techniques became more dominant, claims found in Manchu and
Mongol frontier hearsay accounts were no longer taken at face value.
Rather, their contents were considered authoritative only if they could
be corroborated by Han literati through bookish inquiry. However,
private literati interest in the frontier owed much to the patronage and
assistance of Manchu and Mongol oicials and Han court editors, who
not only imparted their expertise but whose personal connections pro-
duced a circle of scholarly interest outside the court. Even as Inner
Asian sources ceased to be as widely circulated in Chinese, an interest
in Khungghar was kept alive.
Scholarship ater the Opium War:

Khungghar Interpreted through
Western Sources
Like the turn toward textual scholarship, the rising inluence of West-
ern sources ater the Opium War (1839–1842) seemed at irst glance to
augur ill for the continued relevance of Khungghar; in fact it height-
ened the interest in the subject. As Western writings translated into
Chinese gained in popularity and authority, scholars neither lost inter-
est in Inner Asia nor rejected the earlier Qing sources describing it;
rather, they returned, armed with new data, to earlier problems about
147
Zhang Mu, Eluosi shi buji 俄羅斯事補輯 , in He Qiutao, Shuofang beisheng, XXSKQS,
vol. 742, pp. 106.
frontier afairs. Han literati now recognized that the meaning of Khung-
ghar was an outstanding puzzle; applying existing textual research
techniques to fresh information, they ofered new solutions.
he irst scholar to approach Khungghar through newly translated
Western materials was Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1857). His case illustrates
how the research agenda concerning frontier maters that emerged
among Han literati at the Qing court was transmited to a new gen-
eration of scholars. A chain of events that led Wei Yuan to the subject
began with Cheng Tongwen 程同文 (jinshi 1799), a secretary in the
Board of War who had served on duty assignment in the Grand Coun-
cil for over a decade. Like other scholars an editorial assignment—in
his case the revision of the Da Qing huidian, in which he edited the sec-
tion on the Court of Colonial Afairs and the maps of Tibet and Qing-
hai—prompted him to master not only frontier geography but also
Liao, Jin, and Yuan history, evidently learning some Mongolian along
the way.148 Cheng passed his interest in frontier afairs on to Gong
Zizhen 龔自珍 (1791–1841), the son of his close friend, who became a
secretary in the Grand Secretariat. Gong worked briely on the revised
imperial gazeteer of the empire, and wrote a number of essays on fron-
tier afairs.149 When Wei Yuan arrived in Beijing as a young scholar, he
met both Gong and Yao Ying, who, as mentioned above, had studied
frontier geography under Sungyūn. By the time Wei was engaged by
He Changling as an editor for his projected Huangchao jingshi wen-
bian 皇朝經世文編 (Compilation of statecrat writings of the present
dynasty; completed late in 1826), he was ready to include his own writ-
ings about the Qing frontier alongside those of Chang Tongwen and
Gong Zizhen.150
148
According to an entry in the Tongxiang xianzhi, Cheng was “exceptionally strong in
his [knowledge of] geographic works, and he always spoke most judiciously about maps
of foreign countries and historical and contemporary geographic nomenclature”; Bei-
zhuan jibu 碑傳集補 (Taibei: Mingwen shuju, 1985), 120:7.5b. He wrote works on geog-
raphy and Yuan history, including Yuanshi yiyin 元史譯音 , the title of which implies some
acquaintance with Mongolian; see Fan Kezheng 樊克政 , Gong Zizhen nianpu kaolüe 龔自
珍年譜考略 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2004), p. 32.
149
For a detailed study of Gong Zizhen’s career and relations with Cheng Tongwen,
see Guo Liping 郭麗萍 , “Lun Gong Zizhen xibei shidi yanjiu yu Qingdai guanxiu
xibei shuji” 論龔自珍西北史地研究與清代官修西北書籍 , Jinyang xuekan 晉陽學刊
(2005.2): 87–91.
150
Huang Liyong 黃麗鏞 , Wei Yuan nianpu 魏源年譜 (Changsha: Hunan renmin chu-
banshe, 1985), pp. 35–71; Huangchao jingshi wenbian, 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1992), 3:80.1a–81.48a.
During the Opium War, Lin Zexu sent Wei Yuan the translations
of Western-language books and newspapers Lin had commissioned at
Canton. Combining these sources with existing materials in Chinese,
he completed the Haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志 (Illustrated gazeteer of the
maritime countries), which revolutionized the practice of geographic
research in late Qing China. At the same time, he also applied infor-
mation from these new translations to Qing military history, which he
reviewed in his Shengwu ji 聖武記 (Record of imperial military cam-
paigns; 1842). In this later book Wei wrote extensively about Russia,
and noted the existence of its rival, Khungghar. Following Yu Zheng-
xie in dismissing the value of Qi-shi-yi’s account, Wei concluded that
Russia had in fact always been more powerful than Khungghar. What
had happened, in Wei’s opinion, was that the Torghud had become
angry with Russia, so that when they arrived on the Qing frontier,
“their words all demeaned the Čaγan Khan [i.e., the Russian tsar] and
exaggerated Khungghar. . . . Chinese oicials immediately believed this
and penned several records. How careless!” Using Western maps to
show that no land lay north of Russia, Wei postulated that the coun-
try of Tuliya 圖里雅 ,151 which Tulišen had linked to the Khungghar
khan, was in fact the place called Pulishe 普里社 , Prussia, in new West-
ern sources.152 his interpretation was later accepted by Wei’s friend
Yao Ying.153 In the more famous Haiguo tuzhi, Wei continued to atack
what he considered Qi-shi-yi’s credulous errors. He described the sup-
posed Khungghar siege of the Russian capital recorded in the Xiyu wen-
jian lu as “a nonexistent event; false nonsense.”154 Perhaps the most
poignant indication of the parallel decline of Khungghar’s reputation
and the authority of eighteenth-century sources was Wei’s emendation
of Qianlong’s essay, in which Wei substituted Russia for Khungghar
among the triumvirate of “Great Countries.”155 Although Wei took the
151
Shortening this name to Tuliya from Tulišen’s original Tuliyesike serves Wei’s philo-
logical purposes in this case, but it is not as disingenuous as it may appear. Yu Zhengxie
noted that “sike [i.e. a form of the Russian adjectival suix -skiĭ] is like a Chinese provin-
cial or prefectural seat”; Yu Zhengxie quanji, 1:9.429. Wei was familiar with Yu’s work, and
we may assume that he omited the -sike termination on this basis.
152
Wei Yuan, Shengwu ji, XXSKQS, vol. 402, 6.6a–8b.
153
Yao Ying, Kangyou jixing 康輶紀行 , in Siku weishoushu jikan 四庫未收書輯刊 (Bei-
jing: Beijing chubanshe, 1997), part 5, vol. 14, 12.8a.
154
Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi, 3 vols. (Hunan: Yuelu shushe chubanshe, 1998), 3:56.1542.
155
Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi, 1:19.677.
time to annotate Qi-shi-yi’s account of Khungghar in detail, he pro-

nounced it to be no beter than a work of iction, devoid of reference
value.156
Another early exponent of Western geography, Xu Jiyu 徐繼畬
(1795–1873), also grappled with the problem of interpreting Qi-shi-yi’s
work. In his Yinghuan zhilüe 瀛環志略 (Concise treatise on the mar-
itime circuit), Xu considered and rejected Wei’s idea that Khungghar
was a European nation. Based on the dates given, he noted, the war-
fare described by Qi-shi-yi had to be with the country that European
sources called Turkey (Tu’erqi 土耳其 ). But then what was “Khung-
ghar”? Xu argued that the Turkish capital was sometimes called Kangsi-
tanyinuoge’er 康思坦貽諾格爾 (Constantinople). he termination -ga’er
of Khungghar (Kongga’er in Qi-shi-yi’s Chinese rendering) resembled
the termination -ge’er in the Chinese transcription of Constantinople.
Xu reasoned that, if the preceding ive characters of the Chinese ren-
dering were abbreviated from Kang-si-tan-yi-nuo into kong, then it
appeared that Khungghar was simply short for Constantinople. Xu also
noted that Wulumu, said to be the capital of Khungghar, was likely a
transliteration of Luoma, Rome. Despite disagreeing with Wei Yuan on
other points, Xu concurred with him that Qi-shi-yi’s account of Khung-
ghar’s power was a lie prompted by Ubasi’s animus against Russia,
which was then uncritically accepted into the Xiyu wenjian lu.157
Western sources soon penetrated not only studies of foreign coun-
tries, but even those concentrating on the Qing empire’s northern and
western frontiers. Around 1846, Zhang Mu led the promising Fujianese
scholar He Qiutao into the ield of Inner Asian studies, particularly
Mongol and Yuan history. He’s interest gravitated to Russia, and in 1857
he completed a massive compendium of all available sources, given the
title Shuofang beisheng 朔方備乘 (Complete historical record of the
northern lands).158 He Qiutao mentioned Khungghar several times,
and concluded that Qi-shi-yi’s account was unreliable.159 Of its treat-
ment of Khungghar he commented, “At that time there was this kind of
156
Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi, 3:56.1544.
157
Xu Jiyu, Yinghuan zhilüe (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2001), 4.128–29.
158
For a summary of He Qiutao’s scholarly development see Guo Liping, Jueyu yu jue-
xue: Qingdai zhongye xibei shidixue yanjiu 絕域與絕學 : 清代中葉西北史地學研究 (Bei-
jing: Sanlian shudian, 2007), pp. 260–74.
159
He Qiutao, Shuofang beisheng, XXSKQS, vol. 742, 52.14a.
hearsay, and everyone then set pen to paper and recorded it. hey did
not know it was an error.”160 He preferred the explanation put forward
by Xu to that by Wei.161
In the last decades of the dynasty, Qing scholars, having an even
greater corpus of translated materials at their disposal, developed a
more subtle and sophisticated knowledge of European history and
geography. his led several scholars to revisit the consensus of Xu Jiyu
and He Qiutao that Khungghar indicated Turkey. he new position
was evidently irst staked out in the Shuofang beisheng zhiji of Li Wen-
tian 李文田 (1834–1895). In the course of annotating He’s earlier com-
pendium, Li observed, “his Khungghar is Hungary (Xiongyali guo 匈
牙利國 ). Further, it is the Kongga’er country in Qi-shi-yi’s record of
things seen and heard.” As he explained, Xu Jiyu, Wei Yuan, and He
Qiutao
simply had not examined the afairs of Hungary in detail. he books of
these three gentlemen all frequently mention maters pertaining to Hun-
gary. Hungary (Xiongyali) is a phonetic representation (duiyin 對音) of
Khungghar. . . . Xu Jiyu takes Khungghar to be the capital of Turkey. his is
also wrong.162
his dissenting opinion was also held by another Han scholar of

the frontier, the diplomat Hong Jun, who, as we have seen, included
Khungghar among the researches into Mongol history he started while
posted abroad.163 Following intricate kaozheng textual deliberations,
Hong concluded that when the Otomans conquered Hungary their
ruler must have begun to call himself “Khan of Hungary,” just as Vic-
toria had become “Empress of India.” Earlier Qing authors like Tulišen
had misunderstood this and begun to refer to Turkey as Khungghar—
that is, “Hungary”—not realizing the origins of the term.164 A similar
view was expounded by the late Qing scholar Ding Qian 丁謙 (1843–
1919) who printed an annotated edition of Tulišen’s work in 1915. To
explain his reference to Khungghar khan, Ding made the following
argument:
160
He Qiutao, Shuofang beisheng, XXSKQS, vol. 742, 57.3a–3b.
161
He Qiutao, Shuofang beisheng, XXSKQS, vol. 742, 56.1a–1b.
162
Li Wentian, Shuofang beisheng zhaji 朔方備乘札記 XXSKQS, vol. 742, 1.20a–20b.
163
Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese, pp. 360–361.
164
Hong Jun, vol. 293, 27下 .3b–4a.
Khungghar was originally the name of a race of people. hey call themselves
Magyars (Majia 馬加). In truth, this race of men is descended from the
Xiongnu. Westerners call the Xiongnu “Huns” (Henni 狠尼), or Hungary
(Xiongyali). . . . Khungghar is a phonetic rendering (zhuanyin 轉音) of this.
All lands subject to Turkey . . . belonged to the Xiongnu in ancient times.
herefore the Sultan of Turkey holds concurrently the title “Khungghar
khan.” It is just like how at present the ruler of Austria concurrently holds
the title King of Hungary [lit. “khan of the Magyars,” Majia han 馬加汗],
which is an example of this sort of thing. Earlier, commentators were con-
fused in their arguments and none of them made this point.165
hese examples show that at the turn of the twentieth century, despite
(or perhaps because of) a greater familiarity with Western geographi-
cal works, the mistaken view that Khungghar derived from the word
“Hungary” was gaining prominence.
he textual turn in frontier research diminished the perceived
necessity and usefulness of new geographic and political intelligence
from Inner Asia. In efect, though for diferent reasons, the late Qing
Han literati were almost as far removed from certain currents of
frontier information as they had been in the Kangxi and Yongzheng
periods. Increasingly great efort was put into translating and circu-
lating European and American geographic knowledge, but no com-
parable efort was made to translate and circulate the knowledge and
world views of Mongols, Tibetans, Eastern Turkestanis, and other res-
idents of the Inner Asian frontier. Ater the Opium War, Khungghar
was viewed as simply a variant way of referring to some foreign coun-
try more properly called by a standard name derived from a European
source (whether that name was Prussia, Turkey, or Hungary). In court
documents and translated Western sources, the Otoman Empire was
almost always called “Turkey” ater 1840.166 For instance, the Grand
Council remarked in an edict of 1875 to Zuo Zongtang 左宗棠 (1812–
1885) that they had learned that “the cities of Xinjiang . . . border Tur-
key (Tu’erqi) to the west . . . recently it has been heard that the Muslim
165
Ding Qian, Yiyu lu dili kaozheng 異域錄地理攷證 , in Penglaixuan dilixue congshu 蓬
萊軒地理學叢書 (Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 2008), 4:20a–b.
166
For instance, in 1854 the Shanghai daotai Wu Jianzhang 吳健彰 transmited reports
from foreign merchants explaining the outbreak of the Crimean War between Russia and
Deji E� (i.e., Turkey). Other references to Turkish afairs can be found in the Index to
Ch’ing Tai Ch’ou Pan I Wu Shih Mo (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1960), p. 716.
leader of Kashgar [Ya‘qūb Beg] has newly received the enfeofment of

the Muslim tribe of Turkey.”167 Khungghar became literally a footnote
to studies of history and current afairs, dominated by printed mate-
rials and analyzed by textual scholarship.
Conclusion
he circulation and interpretation of the term Khungghar show three
layers of information networks that carried news, about the Otomans
and their wars with neighboring countries, from the shores of the Cas-
pian Sea to the core of China. First, there were the people—envoys,
merchants, pilgrims, nomads, and missionaries—who carried political
intelligence across Eurasia as a by-product of political, economic, and
religious activities. Second, there was the information circuit of Qing
Inner Asia—frontier residents, Qing administrators, and the court
agencies that supervised them—who circulated knowledge via Man-
chu memorials, Mongol chronicles, Tibetan histories and geographies,
and tales told orally. Finally, there was the scholarly world of Chinese-
language publications, ranging from comprehensive gazeteers to
short jotings. Writings in Chinese formed the largest and most efec-
tive information-propagating tool within the empire, but their authors
were largely dependent on non-Chinese informants for information
about Inner Asia and more distant places.
For information to transit these networks, it had to pass two criti-
cal botlenecks: the Inner Asian political boundary and the Chinese
cultural boundary. he Qing government possessed limited knowl-
edge about the outside world, especially non-tributary states, but
when occasion demanded or permited, both the state and individual
functionaries were skillful and tenacious in pursuing foreign intelli-
gence. hrough Manchu and Mongol oicials, like Yin-xiang at court,
Qi-shi-yi and Sungyūn on the borders, and Tulišen abroad, knowledge
about the outside world entered the Qing empire. From the standpoint
of information circulation, it proved more diicult for this knowledge
to penetrate the boundary between the Chinese and non-Chinese
segments of the empire than it had for it to low across the Inner Asian
frontier into the Qing state apparatus. Writings about Khungghar in
167
Qingji waijiao shiliao 凊季外交史料 (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1985), 1:1.4a.
Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan had virtually no inluence on the

Han literati, whose bureaucratic careers also largely excluded them
from personally experiencing the frontier. Rather, the circulation of
knowledge of the lands beyond the frontier depended on the relatively
small cohort of Manchu and Mongol frontier administrators who hap-
pened to possess literary abilities and ambitions in Chinese.
Analyzing the second of these botlenecks in light of the case of
Khungghar highlights changes in the wider imperial information order.
In the irst phase, before 1750, the indings of Manchu and Mongol
frontier administrators were largely inaccessible to Han bureaucrats
and literati. In the next phase, between 1750 and 1800, the low of
frontier intelligence into Chinese reached an unprecedented volume,
as Han literati at court were prompted to seek a deeper understand-
ing of the frontier for both professional and personal reasons. During
this period, a large volume of information about Khungghar passed
through private writings based on information gained in “of-duty”
encounters facilitated by oicial functions. In the Qianlong reign, to
a degree never seen before or aterwards, Han literati became privy to
current information circulating across Eurasia, with the result that the
three information networks became more tightly integrated.
he developing patern of communication among Han Chinese
scholars in the Qing period resembles in several respects changes in
the Song dynasty identiied by Hilde De Weerdt. In both periods there
emerged “a literati network disseminating . . . oicial news and archival
materials for literate elites regardless of their ranking or membership in
the bureaucracy” via “parallel networks” closely linked to oicial chan-
nels. hese networks relied increasingly on publishing to reach literati
without bureaucratic posts.168 However, the structure of the Qing
government added a further dimension to the information order: the
Han literati, whether at court or outside it, formed only one circuit of
knowledge circulation and depended on the non-Han frontier elite for
fresh information. herefore, even though information already avail-
able in Chinese came to be propagated more widely among Han lite-
rati circles over the course of the nineteenth century, fresh frontier
knowledge was not necessarily more available to them.
168
Hilde De Weerdt, “Byways in the Imperial Chinese Information Order: he Dis-
semination and Commercial Publication of State Documents,” HJAS 66:1 (2006): 145–49.
Indeed, in the changing political and intellectual context of the

early nineteenth century, the transfer of information that had been
successful in the previous decades created conditions that disengaged
Han scholars from Inner Asian information networks. In the third
phase of the circulation of frontier knowledge, ater 1800, a new cohort
of literati emerged that was eager to research the frontier even when
no high-level court duties demanded it. Relying primarily on writings
that were published ater 1790, they came to develop the ield largely
independent of court and frontier intelligence. Dismissive of hearsay
accounts, they sought to correct older sources using their own schol-
arly judgment, without the advantage of new information from the
frontier. Following the advent of translated Western sources ater the
Opium War, scholars like Wei Yuan, Yao Ying, and Xu Jiyu reconsid-
ered further past claims of Khungghar’s prominence; their indings
would inluence later experts in frontier geography, such as He Qiutao,
Li Wentian, Hong Jun, and Ding Qian. he debates about Khungghar
thus remained vital even in the early Republican period.
Ater 1800, in addition to the methods of textual criticism adopted
by Han Chinese scholars, other factors served to detach Han literati
from the frontier information circuit: the return of the Torghud in the
1770s and the rebellions that troubled large tracts of Inner Asia ater
the mid-nineteenth century doubtless diminished the low of informa-
tion into the empire from Central Asia. Moreover, the demand for a
standardized geographic vocabulary to coordinate global diplomacy
in the late Qing sidelined geographic terms not used in translated
European sources. Yet the decrease in new intelligence from the fron-
tier is evident from very early in the nineteenth century, before most
of these factors took hold. he impulse to verify knowledge through
wide reading led Han scholars to form a closed, autonomous sphere of
argument. Although they were receptive to European materials, which
were in a systematic, writen form, they no longer wished to hear the
oral testimony of Inner Asian informants or the views of Manchu and
Mongol oicials who relied on those testimonies.
he changing structure of the imperial information order is rele-
vant to the interpretation of Chinese-language sources. On one hand, it
must be remembered that, especially in periods when Han literati and
oicials were more isolated from frontier intelligence, silence on a topic
even in major Chinese reference works or documentary collections is
no guarantee that the topic was not familiar to high oicials or among
frontier administrators; such was true of Khungghar in the Yongzheng
period. On the other hand, when the Han literati were connected
with sources of knowledge about the frontier, they produced writ-
ings of unique value. hey were much more active than their Manchu
and Mongol counterparts in joting down and preserving intelligence.
Similarly, Manchu and Mongol authors seem to have preferred to use
Chinese when writing about the frontier, presumably because doing so
would give them a wider audience. For this reason, Chinese sources are
oten the only place where one can ind information that was obtained
or circulated through oral inquiry but was irrelevant for governance.
It seems safe to assume that every item of frontier news that made it
through formidable barriers to receive even a single citation in Chinese
can be taken to have enjoyed a much wider circulation in oral trans-
mission than surviving records indicate. Even ater Manchu and Mon-
gol documents about the frontier have been more fully exploited, then,
works like the Xiyu wenjianlu and the biji of court oicials will preserve
value not only as records of the circulation of knowledge, but also as
repositories of information not found elsewhere.
he advantage of studying the wider information order of the
Qing empire through the case of Khungghar, as opposed to, say, travel
accounts of cities in Xinjiang, is that interest in it was not limited to
only one sector of the empire. Other topics, such as the diaries of exiles
or poetry about the frontier, would give undue emphasis to the dis-
tinctive preoccupations of Han Chinese culture. By contrast, study-
ing how information from Eurasia circulated within the Qing empire
ofers a more comprehensive view of the Qing realm as a whole.
Because of its empirewide relevance, conclusions concerning the
case of Khungghar can form part of a new approach to the study of Qing
intellectual and cultural history. When the Manchu Aisin Gioro ruling
house brought diverse regions under its rule, the resulting empire was
more than the sum of its parts. New paterns of interaction, exchange,
and integration were made possible within the Pax Manjurica, repro-
ducing on a smaller but more intensive scale the unprecedented Eur-
asian linkages permited centuries earlier by the Pax Mongolica. Any
analysis of the regions involved must recognize the inluence of supra-
regional networks and inluences. In this regard, research into the
political and cultural history of Qing Mongolia has been particularly
advanced.169 Scholars of commerce and political economy have also

come to study the empire as an interconnected unit.170 A similar com-
merce in knowledge integrated the empire, blending perspectives and
cultures, especially in the Qianlong period, the time of multilingual
scholars Gomboǰab and Rasipungsuγ, whom I have discussed above.
Undoubtedly the most emphatic proponent of the necessity of poly-
glot knowledge for scholarly research was the Qianlong emperor
himself. A leitmotif in his copious scholarly output was demonstrat-
ing to his Chinese subjects that monoglots ignorant of the languages
and histories of Inner Asia would profoundly misinterpret their own
historical, and indeed Classical, heritage.171 Only a supra-regional
analysis can show how individual Qing subjects interpreted the new
constellations of information made available to them by Qing rule.
Accordingly, to understand the term Khungghar and its inluence, one
must examine every major region and language of the Qing realm from
1715 to 1915. One cannot hope fully to grasp Chinese, Manchu, Mongol,
or Tibetan perspectives on the world in the Qing period by examining
each independently.
To understand why Turkey was called Khungghar in Chinese, it is
necessary to take an intellectual journey through the major cultural,
political, and linguistic spheres of the empire. Each subject’s perspective
169
For instance, Christopher P. Atwood has noted that as early as the eighteenth cen-
tury, Manchu rule had introduced Chinese tropes of imperial grace into Mongol concep-
tions of their relations with Qing rulers, creating a single language of loyalty throughout
the empire; “‘Worshipping Grace’: he Language of Loyalty in Qing Mongolia,” LIC, 21.2
(2000): 86–139. Johan Elverskog in his Our Great Qing: he Mongols, Buddhism and the
State in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006) has also dem-
onstrated the transformative role of Manchu rule in Mongol self-conceptions through
“larger intellectual and cultural discourses” (p. 10).
170
For an early, Marxist-inspired view of changing economic relations between diferent
parts of the empire, see M. Sanjdorj, Manchu Chinese Colonial Rule in Northern Mongolia
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980); for more recent work, see James A. Millward, Beyond
the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759–1864 (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1998); Perdue, especially pp. 303–406, Hua Li 華立 , “Qian-Jia shiqi Xinji-
ang nanbacheng de neidi shangmin” 乾嘉時期新疆南八城的內地商民 , in Xiyu kaocha yu
yanjiu 西域考察與研究 (Urumqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1994), pp. 373–90. A force-
ful recent argument of the role of commerce in binding the Qing empire is Kwangmin Kim.
171
For a representative essay of this type, see his “Wusi-Zang ji Wei-Zang shuo” (Dis-
course explaining that Wusi-Zang means Wei-Zang), in which he explains that Chinese ref-
erences to Tibet in standard histories will be misunderstood unless one understands the
underlying Tibetan language and its structure; Yuzhi wenji, vol. 1301, 5.1a–3a. Elsewhere,
Qianlong argues that the Chinese Classics are not properly understood unless read in
Manchu.
was shaped by the broader imperial environment in which they func-

tioned. In reference to case of the Otoman Empire Cemal Kafadar
argued that it is important to reconstruct the “Otoman point of view,”
to preserve the “imperial character” of its history from an “ethniciza-
tion” that reduces individuals to narrow compartments.172 In the his-
tory of intelligence gathering it is likewise important to recognize a
“Qing point of view” that recognizes the intersection between local
sources of knowledge and the state structure of the Qing government.
Tracing the genealogy of individual references to Khungghar uncovers
the intellectual pedigree of an idea that deies classiication into sim-
plistic Manchu-Han, center-periphery, or oicial-unoicial dichot-
omies. hrough the compounding of hybrid views, the Qing empire
looked at the world.
172
Cemal Kafadar, “he Otomans and Europe, 1400–1600,” Handbook of European
History, 1400–1600 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 1:619–20.
Appendix
Publishing History of Frontier-Related Private Writings

Composed between 1644 and 1799
Date Printings
Title Author Composed pre 1840s
Pre-Qianlong-Reign Works
Feng Changbaishan ji Fang Xiangying 方象瑛 (l. 1667– 1679 SL, LW, ZD,
封長白山記 1679) [H] XH
Fengshi Eluosi xingcheng lu Zhang Penghe 張鵬翮 (1649–1725) 1688 SL, YH
奉使俄羅斯行程錄 [H]
Jueyu jilüe 絶域紀略 / Fang Gongqian 方拱乾 (1596– 1662 SL, ZD
Ningguta zhi 寧古塔志 1666) [H]
Saibei xiaochao 塞北小鈔 Gao Shiqi 高士奇 (1645–1704) [H] 1683 SL, KX, ZD
Xizheng jilüe 西征紀略 Yin Huaxing 殷化行 (1643–1710) [H] ca. 1695SL, ZD
Zangcheng jilüe 藏程紀略 Jiao Yingqi 焦應旗 (l. 1711–21) [H] 1721 1721
Yiyu lu 異域錄 Tulišen 圖理琛 (1667–1741) [Ma.] 1720 1723, 1724,
JY, ZG,
ZD, ZH
Xizheng jilüe 西征紀略 Wang Wanxiang 王萬祥 (d. 1702) [H] ? 1734
Longsha jilüe 龍沙紀略 Fang Shiji 方式濟 (d. 1717) [H] ca. 1713–17 1755, JY, ZG,
ZD
Xibeiyu ji 西北域記 / Mei- Xie Jishi 謝濟世 (1689–1765) [H] ca. 1726–30 LW, 1825
zhuang zazhu 梅莊雜著
Chusai jilüe 出塞紀略 Qian Liangze 錢良擇 (1645–1707) ca. 1688 JY, ZG, ZD,
[H] ZH
Saiwai zaji 塞外雜紀 Feng Yipeng 馮一鵬 [H] ? JY, ZG, ZH
Ningguta jilüe 寧古塔紀略 Wu Zhenchen 吳振臣 (b. 1664) ca. 1664–81 CY, ZD
[H]
Congxi jilüe 從西紀略 Fan Zhaokui 范昭逵 (l. 1719) [H] ? ZD
Jin Zang jicheng 進藏紀程 Wang Shirui 王世睿 (l. 1732) [H] ca. 1732 ZD
Saicheng bieji 塞程別記 Yu Cai 余寀 (l. 1697–1700) [H] ? ZD
Waiguo ji 外國記 Zhang Yushu 張玉書 (1642–1711) ? ZD
[H]
Zangxing jicheng 藏行紀程 Du Changding 杜昌丁 (l. 1720– ca. 1720–21 ZD
1721) [H]
Beizheng riji 北征日記 Song Daye 宋大業 (jinshi 1685) [H] 1696 None
Bukui fengtu ji卜魁風土紀 Fang Guancheng方觀承 (1698– ca. 1711–31 None
1768) [H]
Congjun zaji 從軍雜記 Fang Guancheng [H] ? None
Ding Zang jicheng Wu Tingwei 吳廷偉 (l. 1703–1721) ca. 1720–21 None
定藏紀程 [H]
Liaozai qianji 遼載前集 Lin Benyu 林本裕 (l. 1690) [H] 1690 None
Date Printings
Title Author Composed pre 1840s
Ningguta shanshui ji Zhang Jinyan 張縉彥 (jinshi 1631) ca. 1660–68 None
寧古塔山水記 [H]
Saibei jicheng 塞北紀程 Ma-si-ha/ka 馬思哈 /喀 (d. 1704)a ca. 1690 None
[Ma.]
Saishang zaji 塞上雜記 Xu Lan 徐蘭 [H] ? None
Xizang kao 西藏考 Anon. YZ None
Xizheng lu 西征錄 Wang Zhenxuan 王振翧 (l. 1728) ca. 1728 None
[H]
Zang jigai 藏紀概 Li Fengcai 李鳳彩 (YZ period) [H] YZ None
Zang Lu zongji 藏鑪總記 Wang Woshi 王我師 (l. 1719–1724) ca. 1719–23 None
[H]
Qianlong-Reign Works (to 1799)
Hetao zhi 河套志 Chen Lüzhong 陳履中 [H] ca. 1739 1742
Xizang jishu 西藏紀述 Zhang Hai 張海 (l. 1731–1741) [H] ca. 1731–41 1749
Rusai shi 入塞詩 Fang Guancheng [H] ? 1755
Xizang jianwen lu Xiao Tenglin 蕭騰麟 [H] ca. 1737–41 1759
西藏見聞錄
Xiyu wenjian lu Qi-shi-yi 七十一 (l. 1754–1777) 1777 1777, 1814,
西域聞見錄 [Ma.] 1818, 1837
Wei Zang tuzhi 衛藏圖志 Ma Jie 馬揭 and Sheng Shengzu 盛 1792 1792
繩祖 [H]
Xizang zhi 西藏志 b Anon. Before 1741 1792
Xizang ji 西藏記 Anon. ? LW
Xizhao tulüe 西招圖略 Song-yun 松筠 (1752–1835) [Mo.] 1795 1798
Saiwai fengfan cao Sai-er-deng 塞爾登 (l. 1736–1750) ? QL
塞外封藩草 [Ma.]
Wulumuqi zashi Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805) [H] ca. 1770–71 JY
烏魯木齊雜詩
Xizheng lu 西征錄 Wang Dashu 王大樞 [H] ca. 1788–99 1814c
Huijiang zhi 回疆志 Yong-gui 永貴 [Ma.] ca. 1763 None
Menggu yange zhi Shen Zongyan 沈宗衍 (l. 1793– 1793 None
蒙古沿革志 1795) [H]
San Zang zhilüe 三藏志略 d Shen Zongyan [H] 1795? None
Wei Zang tongzhi He-lin 和琳 (d. 1796) [Ma.] ca. 1792–94 None
衛藏通志
Wulumuqi zhenglüe Anon. ca. 1778 None
烏魯木齊政略
Xichui jishi benmo Anon. ca. 1793 None
西陲紀事本末
Xinjiang Huibu zhi Su-er-de 蘇爾德 [Ma.] 1772 None
新疆回部志
Xiyu yiwen 西域遺聞 Chen Kesheng 陳克繩 (l. 1733) [H] QL None
Yijiang huilan 伊江彙覽 Ge-beng-e 格琫額 (l. 1775–1777) 1775 None
[Ma.]
Table Notes:
he table divides works into those writen before the Qianlong reign, and those writ-
ten under his rule (to 1799). Within each of these categories, works are listed in order of
printing. Unpublished works are listed alphabetically by title. his list does not claim to be
exhaustive and is more thorough for prose works than for poetry collections concerning
the frontier. he details provided in the table are derived almost wholly from the following
sources: Zhongguo difangzhi zongmu tiyao; Hummel, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing
Period; Chūgoku shiseki kaidai jiten 中国史籍解題辞典 (Ryōgen shoten, 1989); HOLLIS
catalog (hollisclassic.harvard.edu); Catalog of National Library of China (opac.nlc.gov.cn);
National Bibliographic Information Network (nbinet.ncl.edu.tw/screens/opacmenu.html).
Title column: a slash ( / ) indicates alternate titles.
Author column: the author’s ethnicity is indicated within the square brackets with the
abbreviations H = Han Chinese; Ma. = Manchu; and Mo. = Mongol.
Dates-composed column: a question mark indicates that the date is unknown. When the
precise date of composition is unknown, “ca.” indicates the approximate period when
the author was on frontier. Here and in the next column, the following abbreviations
are used:
KX Kangxi reign (1661–1722)
YZ Yongzheng reign (1723–1736)
QL Qianlong reign (1736–1796)
Printing column: For individual printings, the dates are given; where date is unknown,
the reign period of printing is indicated. For works published as part of collectanea,
the date of printing is indicated by a leter code corresponding to the following
abbreviations:
SL Shuoling 說鈴 , ed. Wu Zhenfang 吳震方 . Printed 1702–1705; rpt. 1799, 1825.
LW Longwei mishu 龍威秘書 , ed. Ma Junliang 馬俊良 . Printed 1794; rpt. 1796.
JY Jieyueshanfang huichao 借月山房彙鈔 , ed. Zhang Haipeng 張海鵬 . Printed
1807–1810.
YH Yihai zhuchen 藝海珠塵 , ed. Wu Xinglan 吳省蘭 . JQ printing.
ZG Zeguzhai chongchao 澤古齋重鈔 , ed. Chen Huang 陳璜 . An abridgement of
JY. Printed 1823.
CY Ciyantang congshu 賜硯堂叢書 , ed. Gu Yuan 顧沅 . Printed 1830.
XH Xuehai leibian 學海類編 , ed. Cao Rong 曹溶 . Printed 1831.
ZD Zhaodai congshu 昭代叢書 , ed. Zhang Chao 張潮 (in 1695), supplemented
by Yang Fuji 楊復吉 (1776). he sections relevant to this article were irst
printed in 1833.
ZH Zhihai 指海 , ed. Qian Xizuo 錢熙祚 . Printing began in 1836.
Speciic References:
a Maska/Ma-si-ka 馬斯喀 appears to be the correct form of his name; Hummel, ed.,
Eminent Chinese, p. 568. However, several editions of the work render it Ma-si-ha 馬斯哈 .
b he authorship of this work, which covers events up to 1741, is unclear. It was
printed in 1792 by He-ning; see Zhongguo difangzhi zongmu tiyao 中國地方志總目提要
(Taibei: Sino-American Publishing Company, 1996), 3:24.8–9.
c his work contains a preface by Wang Dashu himself entitled Ke Xizheng lu zhiyan
刻西征錄識言 (Note on printing the Xizheng lu), dated 1814. I have not, however, found
reference to an actual printed edition.
d his work bears a 1795 preface by Shen Zongyan; however, Shen states that it is sub-
stantially the work of Yue Zhongqi (1686–1754). Moreover, the manuscript also contains
material from the later Jiaqing and Daoguang (1821–1850) periods. It is dated here accord-
ing to the preface.

Empire and The Circulation of Frontier I

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Empire and The Circulation of Frontier I

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Empire and the Circulation

S erving in Europe between 1887 and 1890, the Qing diplomat

Published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute hJAs 70.1 (2010): 147–207 147

the beginning of the dynasty. he present essay explores the meaning

irst glance may appear to have been efectively isolated. he low of

fragmented because they had diferent bureaucratic career tracks,

major changes during the intervening half century (1750–1800) led to

roughly indicating the Otoman emperor and his lands, circulated

Lumi or Khungghar? Two Realms of

of the Otoman Turkish hunkār, meaning “sovereign,” adopted by the

of a non-Han author outside of oicial channels.17 he early accounts

Otomans and announced anti-Russian views.20 Although Ayuki later

contradicts the spirit of Tulišen’s account, which recorded Russian vic-

scholar who accompanied Fu-peng 福彭 (d. 1748) on campaign to Uli-

and sank into obscurity.39 he lack of demand for Manchu- and

court and on the frontiers while leaving almost no trace in contempo-

Court Interest in Khungghar and Its

With the arrival of a Russian embassy to negotiate the Treaty of

completed around 1760 and printed in copperplate by 1775, shows “the

he Rising Prominence of Khungghar

ing his campaigns of a country called Gong (Gong guo 龔國 ) whose

When it came to describing Khungghar, Yong-gui was more restrained:

gathered them into the ‘Record of Hearsay Concerning Foreign Lands’

Hungarian empires, it was precisely in this period that Qing sources

ble that he was inluenced by geographic ideas circulating among high-

they took advantage of the chaos generated by the Russo-Otoman

Circulation of Frontier Information among

Although he represents something of a special case, Qianlong’s

added a military chronicle, the Pingding Zhunga’er fanglüe 平定準噶爾

vised the compilation of campaign histories, while junior Han bureau-

on campaign-related works was a duty assigned by their Manchu supe-

irst served as secretary in the Grand Secretariat, and then concur-

Liangji 洪亮吉 (1746–1809) borrowed from Qi-shi-yi to give Khung-

heard from Umitai, although ostensibly about India, clearly relates to

about the frontier. he compilation projects generated the irst signii-

he Qianlong-Jiaqing Transition and the

and sought to replace it as far as possible with oicial projects.124 Dis-

代前期君主對官私史學的影響 , Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 , 16.1 (1998): 155–84.

death. Of the ity-one titles, twenty-one remained in manuscript

were still circulating among Mongols around Khobdo.130 Khungghar

scholars formed a close-knit community that engaged in its own

each other over territory. It is passed on that Khungghar is extremely

the western frontier), which Qi had completed two years earlier. He

俄羅斯長編稿跋 (Postface to a drat of an extended compilation on

these “corrections” simply relected Zhang’s reliance on the authority

Scholarship ater the Opium War:

time to annotate Qi-shi-yi’s account of Khungghar in detail, he pro-

his dissenting opinion was also held by another Han scholar of

leader of Kashgar [Ya‘qūb Beg] has newly received the enfeofment of

Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan had virtually no inluence on the

Indeed, in the changing political and intellectual context of the

advanced.169 Scholars of commerce and political economy have also

was shaped by the broader imperial environment in which they func-

Publishing History of Frontier-Related Private Writings

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