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Chakhar hunting preserves would be regularized as military agricultural
colonies, which had long been advocated. It was especially necessary to
tax this unauthorized cultivation, previously exempt because of its loca-
tion in Mongol territory. It was also critical to establish a state presence
that would serve to control the“bad people”(youmin) and“corrupt
practices”(liubi) produced by“unauthorized clearance for cultivation”
(siken).^36
For Zhang, human resources were underdeveloped in both imperial
pastoral and arablist terms. The solution was a greater interconnection
between the two practices to strengthen dynastic control of the Mongo-
lian borderland. Although ties to livestock clearly remained a critical
component of the steppe borderland construct, Mongols were supposedly
not conducting them properly to avoid famine and consequent degrad-
ation of borderland security. Zhang’s conceptualization exemplifies the
theme of orchestration of relations between identity and ecology central
to Qing borderland construction policies.
Zhang’s view of proper conduct involved an enhanced arablization of
herding through the stockpiling of fodder, the livestock equivalent of
grain. Further augmentation along these lines would be implemented
through direct arablization of pastoral space as military agricultural
colonies to ensure improved food security, probably through weather-
resistant grain storage. Finally, appropriate arablization would not only
increase food resources for security purposes, but it would also enable the
state to systematically inhibit the formation of“bad,”or destabilizing,
Hanyouminidentities (literally“green bristle grass people”or“weed
people”). These weed people were also produced through agricultural
relations, but ones that were conducted, like those of shack people,
without state oversight. Unfortunately, state intervention was substan-
tially impeded by bureaucratic myopia to adverse“ecological effects”that
“crossed administrative boundaries.”^37 In this and other respects, the
framework of state control had become too narrow and precarious to
contain these effects or to accommodate the alternative Han agrarian
identities that were grassroots adaptive responses to diversity and change
within China proper.
Of course, Zhang’s proposals were based on trends that had long been
present north of the passes. However, as demonstrated by the rank
presence of weed people, arablization was often not authorized or fully
supported by dynastic authorities. Even legitimate activities were gener-
ally limited by counterbalancing concerns to preserve an imperial pastoral
banner Mongol identity and were accordingly restricted in scale.
Borderland Hanspace in the Nineteenth Century 237
