ann
(Ann)
#1
vegetables. The emperor’s inclination to, in effect,“let them eat rabbits”
was reinforced by his conviction that“rich”Ordos lamas, who“generally
arrogate the Mongols’livestock,”had donated nothing for relief.^48 The
spirit of Qing relief regulations for Mongolia in the early eighteenth
century was reliance on local elites and resources as much as possible to
free up strategic resources such as grain. State grain could be used if
necessary, as in the 1733 Dörbed and other cases, but was not the only,
or even thefirst, recourse if there were rabbits to take down, roots to dig
up, or lamas to shake down.
The reluctance of the Qing state to involve itself with direct transfers of
livestock is made somewhat more comprehensible in view of the scale of
disasters such as that which struck the Urad Banner Mongols, pasturing
west of Hohhot in the Ulaanchab League, a year later in 1734. A vast
snowstorm, likely adzud, killed around 70 percent of the livestock, and
its aftereffects threatened tofinish off the remainder. During this event
5 , 054 households numbering 24 , 501 people lost all their herd animals. Of
these, 2 , 015 households of 9 , 116 people had been taken in by other
households relatively unaffected by the disaster, leaving the state to deal
with the remaining 3 , 039 households of 15 , 385 people. At rates
employed in the 1733 calculations of 1 team of 2 oxen for every 4
households, the remaining Urad in need required 1 , 519. 5 animals, about
8 percent more than the number the Dörbed needed.^49
The Urad were clearly not, however, primarily agricultural, but were
herders dependent on a fairly common combination of horses, cattle, and
sheep. They may even have needed cattle in a greater proportion of one ox
per household than the agrarian Dörbed. But even this increase of over
200 percent in oxen required for the 3 , 039 Urad households would be
dwarfed by their need for sheep. Although not entirely clear, data from other
aid operations suggest that 5 sheep per herding household was a min-
imum.^50 The Urad would thus also have needed 15 , 195 sheep, a number
representing almost 12 percent of the 130 , 165 sheep in the whole of the main
imperialflocks grazing in the Shangdu/Dabsun Nuur and Dariganga pasture
complexes between 1738 and 1739.^51 Such numbers seem to have been
exclusively reserved for military operations, although the emperor occasion-
ally granted up to several thousand head to individuals.^52 Instead the Urad
were granted a six-month supply of more than 7 , 244 huleof state grain.^53
In the case of disaster relief for state herds, where maintenance and
expansion of head was the priority, neither grain nor silver was an entirely
adequate response. This could compel pasture administrators to attempt a
direct replacement of lost livestock. Unfortunately, livestock could not be
The Nature of Imperial Pastoralism in Southern Inner Mongolia 133
