The state recognized the distinctive efficacy of this combination in
imperial arablist terms expressed as an ethnic hierarchy topped by Han
grain cultivators. This hierarchy was particularly pronounced in border-
lands in general and in southern Mongolia in particular, where, unlike
southern Manchuria, sustained Han cultivation was a comparatively
recent introduction in the wake of the 1644 conquest. A distinction
between Mongol and Han styles of agriculture soon arose, substantially
in response to thefirst wave of Han migration, authorized and otherwise,
beyond the Great Wall.
Two poems penned by the Qianlong emperor on themes of“Wild
Fields”(“Huang tian;” 1754 ) and“Mongolian Fields”(“Menggu tian;”
1782 ) are based on a very general Qing arablist conviction that Mongols
were casual cultivators by (pastoral) nature, a characteristic expounded
upon in particular detail in“Wild Fields”:
Originally a land of hunting and herding,
Now farmingfields is steadily given weight.
With no knowledge of weeding and hoeing, each works diligently.
Merely saying dearth and plenty always depend on Heaven,
They move out in pursuit of grass and water all summer long,
Returning just before the autumn harvest;
They plow indifferently for an indifferent result.
The preface to this poem defines what it terms the Mongol agrarian
cultivation of“fields that rely on heaven”(kao tian tian), where“no
attention is paid”to weeding and hoeing. Mongols instead“sowfields,
then go herding and hunting in every direction and only during the autumn
harvest do they return.”The fact that they bother to cultivate at all is
inaccurately attributed to“the long period of peace”after the Qing con-
quest that has resulting in using“mountains forfields.”The act of farming
itself is thus portrayed as“not the original source of Mongol livelihood,”
but arising from the Qing pacification of Inner Asia and China proper.^70
This theme also appears in the imperial poetic commentary on one of a
number of poems entitled“Beyond the Passes”(“Kouwai,” 1775 ). Here
the Qianlong emperor writes that ever since“center and periphery”
became“one family...pastoral peoples have obtained no benefit”from
the vast territory opened to initially unrestricted Han access.^71 This famil-
ial pacification has profound consequences for Mongolian interaction with
the land, as further elaborated in“Mongolian Fields”:
When Mongols plantedfields in the past,
They casually sowed, then departed.
“Depending on heaven,”it was called.
Qing Fields in Theory and Practice 45
