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administration dynastically imposed in response to migration’s arablist
consequences. Subprefectures were also prerequisites for handling larger
waves of Han migration of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the
period from late Kangxi to mid-Qianlong as a whole encompasses a series
of natural disasters and the span of the Zunghar conflict that were critical
for the dynamics of migration. Dynastic prohibition on Han migration
was largely ineffective in the face of this dual impetus.
Of course, Han agrarian and commercial migration to Inner Mongolia
did not begin in the Qing. There may have been, for example, between
fifty to one hundred thousand Han resident there in Altan khan’s reign
( 1521 – 82 ). Facilitated as it was by Manchu control of both sides of the
Great Wall, however, Qing migration was unprecedented in scale and
stability. So, unlike the migrations of the Ming and of other conquest
dynasties, Han settlers in the Qing“literally submerged the Mongols of
Suiyüan and Chahar.”^91
Ecological factors in the process of migration proved particularly
persistent. The major long-term challenge for the dynasty, well before
the Zunghars’defeat, was to balance potentially disruptive agrarian and
pastoral interests. This challenge was taken up as early as the 1720 s,
although the state had dealt in ad hoc fashion with major waves of
Han migration as early as 1712. At this time a belated mandate to
“henceforth”register Shandong migrants beyond the passes was issued
in the wake of a report that“over 100 , 000 ”were clearing farmland in the
region.^92 During the 51 years of the Kangxi reign up to 1712 , Shandong
experienced 220 droughts and 186 floods, an annual average of 4. 3
droughts and 3. 6 floods, aside from periodic frosts, pestilences, earth-
quakes, and the like, annually.^93 Although not all these disasters
necessarily generated refugees and not all of the refugees they generated
fled to Inner Mongolia, officials reasonably believed that disasters were
the primary impetus for migration beyond the passes. Moreover, actual
events such as the 1746 flight of Shanxi Han refugees from the twelve
floods and eighteen droughts that struck the province the previous year
continued to reveal the connections between natural disaster and disrup-
tive Han migration beyond the passes. These refugees soon took up
disruptive residence as aggressive beggars in Hohhot and its environs.^94
The Qing state began to take more systematic measures during the
1720 s in the succeeding Yongzheng reign. In consequence, many important
herding areas beyond the Great Wall fell administratively within prefec-
tures and subprefectures of“China proper,”the areas of northern Shanxi
and northern Zhili. Guihua, now the IMAR capital Hohhot, was the
The Nature of Imperial Pastoralism in Southern Inner Mongolia 145
