ann
(Ann)
#1
Casualty lists from the Myanmar campaign reports strongly suggest
differential resistance among multiethnic soldiery, although varying exter-
nal conditions experienced by different units doubtless played a role as
well. The possible 1769 outbreak of cerebral malaria previously referred
to, for example, affected all troops. However, it was said to have“devas-
tated”Solon-Ewenki and Oirad troops from Manchuria whereas regular
“Manchu”troops, probably from garrisons in China proper, and Han
Green standard men were comparatively less afflicted. The report con-
cluded that“the Solon and Oirad are unsuited to local environmental
conditions [Ma:muke boihon de acharakū], and they simply cannot stand
the heat. Since they still don’t know how to control their eating and
drinking, many die in consequence.”^79
“Many”could range among highs such as the 48. 5 percent mortality
suffered by a detachment of 307 Orochun troops from northern Manchu-
ria serving in the borderland in 1670 after hostilities formally ended or
the crippling 83 percent visited on a detachment of 2 , 008 “hunting
Solon”the same year. These“deaths from illness” (Ma:nimeku aku
oho) were in stark contrast to deaths from wounds, about 0. 006 percent
in the Orochun unit’s case. Although the precise causes are unspecificin
these cases, the overall context of reports on Inner Asian casualties mainly
relates them to febrile disease in general andindehenin particular. Of
course, Han troops were far from immune. One late 1769 report stated
that the“quite extreme”malarial season that year had lasted through the
winter, sparing only about thirteen thousand out of an original thirty
thousand green standard and one thousand Manchu troops, a mortality
rate of 42 percent. The men were withdrawn to higher ground, leaving
lowlands for chieftainships to garrison. Such hard and fast numbers
doubtless informed general impressions, such as that expressed by Liu
Kun no later than 1680 , that malarial conditions along Yunnan’s rivers
could inflict a 90 percent mortality rate on garrisons within a year, leaving
only debilitated survivors. This estimate proved accurate nearly ninety
years later in 1766 – 67 as a Qing garrison stationed in the Menggen
chieftainship endured an 80 percent mortality rate, with an additional
10 percent ill. An imperial edict rejected these rates as“not credible”and
insisted they were from combat. By 1770 , however, the Qianlong
emperor himself was advocating reliance on chieftainship auxiliary gar-
risons to replace regular troops who could not stand the region’s“foul”
conditions.^80
Such experiences formed part of the working assumptions of Qing
southwestern administrators that indigenous peoples were more
The Nature of Imperial Indigenism in Southwestern Yunnan 197
