Bao Shichen
Bao Shichen (Chinese: 包世臣；1775—1855）was a famous calligrapher and reformist scholar in the early nineteenth century. Under the Qing administration, Bao made numorous important suggestions regarding the areas of military affairs, laws and politics, the grain tribute system, the salt monopoly, and the improvement of agricultural practice.
Life
Bao Shichen grew up in a low-class intellectual family, and had fair education. He was son of a low-ranking Green Standard Army officer, and helped his father to suppress the Lin Shuangwen rebellion. When his father was ill, he brought his father home in Anhui province.[1] While taking care of his father by himself, Bao rented a land to farm, aquiring food this way, and sold vegetables and frutis for money. After his father passed away, Bao used his paternal connections to get a commander position in leading the White Lotus campaigns in the northwest.[1]
Throughout his life, Bao had experienced thirteen failures to pass the highest level of the civil service examination, and therefore did not obtain a formal official position until his late years with the help of friends.[1]
Bao had one son and one daughter, both were not famous.
Major works and reputations
In 1801, Bao wrote an essay Shuochu (说储, On Wealth) to list his ambitious thoughts on the reforms that could help Qing empire to regain its political power and became prosperous again.[2] Believing in the theory of "agriculture first", for the country to be prosperous again, he also organized his ideas about agrarian policy into an essay Random notes from the year 1820 (Gengchen zazhu).[1] In 1920s and 1930s, Bao had done a tremendous work on the reforms of the Grain Tribute Administration and the Liang-Huai Salt Administration.[1]
Along with many other scholars in the nineteenth century, Bao is labaled as jinshi--"statecraft". He advocated large scale institutional reforms, such as getting rid of the Grand Council to improve administrational efficiency, allowing the court to consult literatis, giving farmers low gentry degrees based on their agricultural technique, and reconsolidating the baojia (保甲) system.[3]
However, Bao's reputation is earned mostly for being a calligrapher and historian of calligraphy. He wrote a book Yizhou Shuangji (艺舟双楫, Two Oars for the Boat of Art) in 1844 on Wei style character formation.[1] Bao would also have been known in the late Qing as a rabid antiforeign patiot and an extreme hardliner in the opium debates and the first anglo-chinese war of 1839-42.[2] In China, Bao Shichen is well-known as an anti foreign capitalist advocater. He deeply criticized Opium War and exposed the judicial darkness during the war.[4]
In his late years, Bao collected and compiled all his written works into one book titles Anwu Sizhong (安吴四种, Four Catogories of Anwu).[5]
Criticizing Opium Trade
Bao believed that there were three wastages: tobacco, wine, and opium.[6]
In Bao's argument towards the Opium Trade, he accused that large number of silver flowing out of China and the large amount of cash transaction caused the silver money became more valuable and the copper money became cheaper and cheaper. This directly affected the poor community and made their life miserable.[6]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Rowe, William T. "Bao Shichen: An Early Nineteenth-Century Chinese Agrarian Reformer". Johns Hopkins University.
- ^ a b Rowe, William T. (2012). "Rewriting the Qing Constitution: Bao Shichen's "On Wealth" (Shuochu)". T'oung Pao. 98: 178–181 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Rowe, William T. (September 2012). China's Last Empire: The Great Qing (History of Imperial China). Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Reprint edition. pp. 159–160. ISBN 978-0674066243.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ Zhang, Jinfan (2014). The Tradition and Modern Transition of Chinese Law. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 512–513.
- ^ Shi, Zhihong (2017-10-20). Agricultural Development in Qing China: A Quantitative Study, 1661-1911. BRILL. p. 116. ISBN 9789004355248.
- ^ a b Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850 - 2015 (2 vols). BRILL. 2015-10-30. pp. 70–72. ISBN 9789004304642.