Over the course of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the Han population of Inner Mongolia more than doubled, from roughly 700,000 in the late sixteenth century to 1.5 million, bringing them from a minority to nearly twice the indigenous Mongolian population (p. 25). How and why this demographic change occurred, and what exactly it meant for the people living there and for China at large, are the historical problems that Yi Wang investigates in this brilliant new monograph. Wang examines Qing archives from Mongol Banners and the Qing Court, Republican-era Inner Mongolia archives, and a set of oral testimonies related to Dashengkui, a Han Chinese commercial trader. Her rich source base and analytical acuity allow her to examine Mongolia's relationship to China through multiple perspectives, including their business relationships, regional governance, and Mongolia's importance to larger geopolitics.
Wang's overriding thesis is that the twin forces of capitalism and Western imperialism drove a long-term trend of Sinicization in the area now known as Inner Mongolia. At a high level, this means that the region and its native inhabitants were subject to a form of settler colonialism, much as were nomadic peoples in eastern Russia and in the New World. At a more granular level, Sinicization took three distinct forms. First, it meant incorporation into the political and economic structures of Han China. Second, it meant a demographic shift in which ethnic Han came to displace ethnic Mongols. Third, it meant a sociocultural transformation in which formerly nomadic Mongols adopted settled agriculture and other Han institutions (though, to be sure, this transformation went both ways—particularly in the early years of the Qing, when Han adopted Mongol surnames and converted to Tibetan Buddhism).
Chapter 1 starts with the conquest of Mongolia by the Manchus, the northeastern ethnic group that would go on to found the Qing dynasty. This commenced in 1612 and lasted until 1756, with the annihilation of the final independent Mongol state. It then details the Qing's institutions of governance. The new dynasty implemented territorially bounded pasturelands granted to specific “banners.” These were administered by Mongol jasag, or princes, who were ultimately answerable to the Qing court's Lifanyuan. This method of governing through an enfeoffed nobility differed markedly from governance in ethnically Han China, in which bureaucrats were appointed by the court. Chapter 2 shows how the Qing burdened Mongolia with onerous, indirect taxes denominated in silver. This meant that “the Mongols became increasingly absorbed into a silver-based monetary system, as the needs of tax payment at a definite time rendered them dependent on the financial mediation of Chinese merchants” (p. 80). In other words, they had to sell goods, livestock, and land. When proceeds from commerce proved insufficient, Mongol princes went into ruinous debt, borrowed from ethnically Han merchants.
Chapters 3 and 4 form the heart of the book. Chapter 3 narrates the steady increase in Han migration, as Han agriculturalists left the increasingly overpopulated regions of China proper to set up homesteads in traditionally Mongolian regions. This led to bitter Han-Mongol ethnic conflicts over land. More importantly, Han migration brought about the gradual but consistent erosion of Mongol political autonomy. This chapter stands out for its creative use of diverse sources. In addition to archival records, it limns a series of poignant folk songs about the experience of Han settlers leaving their homeland for Inner Mongolia. In chapter 4, we learn about the entrepreneurs who facilitated Han migration. Land merchants from Shanxi Province bought up territory in Inner Mongolia and invested in agricultural infrastructure, most importantly irrigation. The most successful of these land merchants, Wang Tongchun, was a “self-made ‘King of Canals’” who was worshipped as a River God after his death (p. 154).
The final two chapters demonstrate how increasing pressure from Western powers accelerated Sinicization. After the Opium War, Catholic missionaries gained numerous converts in Inner Mongolia, particularly among Han settlers. The missionaries brought significant social welfare and fostered prosperous Han, Catholic communities. But they also promoted purchases of Mongol pastureland on behalf of Han farmers and thus “helped shatter the existing property regime of the Mongols” (pp. 208–9). The closing chapter follows Yigu, an enterprising Manchu official determined to bring Mongolia under greater central control. Yigu surveyed and then nationalized vast stretches of land—both Mongol and Han—and converted Inner Mongolia from a system of hereditary fiefdoms into one of alienable and therefore taxable land. He also embarked on an ambitious canal-building and settlement scheme supported by a new “Reclamation Administration” and funded by a quasi-private “Reclamation Corporation” (pp. 230–31). This met with initial success but fizzled out when Yigu was cashiered in 1908 on charges of embezzlement.
Ultimately, Wang tells a narrative that is sympathetic to almost all of her actors—the original Mongol inhabitants, the Han settlers, and the Catholic missionaries were all trying to protect their ways of life, their faiths, and their economic interests. The Qing state comes off less well. Its extractive policies put the Mongols at a disadvantage, while it failed to spur real infrastructural development. Nevertheless, the Qing set in motion the process of “migration and settlement in Inner Mongolia” that “gathered momentum during the Republican and PRC periods owing to advances in modern technologies and new forms of mass mobilization” (p. 262). Thus, the book is relevant not only to Qing history but to understanding the Inner Mongolia of today—a mostly Han province, reliant on extractive industries such as coal and rare earths.
Wang's monograph is scrupulously researched, elegantly written, and extremely erudite. Her detailed knowledge of business, ecology, demography, religion, and four different cultures is impressive. As such, this wonderful book is an essential read for anyone interested in the business, demographic, or ecological history of Inner Mongolia and of China.
