ann
(Ann)
#1
The Jurchen acquired much of theirfifteenth-century agricultural cap-
acity, critical for their subsequent rise, directly from Han, and also Korean,
captives, who were the main workforce of Manchuria’s sixteenth- and
seventeeth-century“manors”(Ma:tokso). As late as the 1680 s, Han taken
from operations against the Three Feudatories in Guangdong and Fujian
were being sent north to work Shengjing’s burgeoning manors, although
Manchu records state that many“were not acclimated to the region”and
did not even know how to farm.^57 Long-term agrarian relations qualify
the formation of a“Jurchen”or“Manchu”identity as purely arablist or
venery. However, Gao Shiqi’s diary and the Qianlong emperor’s poetry,
along with other postconquest records, indicate that Inner Asians generally
did not devote themselves so wholeheartedly to farming in the ethnically
distinctive way that Han did because of more intimate connections to
foraging, herding, and regional ecology.
Manchurian conditions required devoted farmers. As one study in the
1930 s understated it,“structurally the Manchurian soils are not ideal”for
agriculture. In addition to alkaline soils that render about 10 percent of the
Manchurian plain unarable, seasonal extremes in temperature, relatively
short growing seasons, poor drainage, substantial zones of permafrost, and
meager precipitation in short intensive bursts considerably restrict the scale
and type of cultivation possible in many places. The western Songnen
grasslands, for example, spend about 140 days a year frozen to a depth
of ten centimeters. Changbai in the southeast also spendsfive to six months
of the year at subzero temperatures, during which, as one 2009 account
again understated it,“agriculture rests.”Consequently, the arablist possi-
bilities for the cultivation of Han staples such as cotton are limited to the
milder climes of southernmost Manchuria.^58
Manchurian conditions hardly precluded agriculture everywhere but
did inhibit its state-building potential in the rather cool seventeenth
century. The critical source of Jin economic power was the hunting,
gathering, and trafficking of unique northeastern forage, an exclusively
Inner Asian enterprise grounded in a militant equestrianship and pastor-
alism, not in cereal cultivation. By this time, however, Manchu foraging
was neither pristine nor subsistence, but it had introduced new arablist
relations into its society through the hunting and gathering of agrarian
Han and Koreans.^59 In this respect, hunting and gathering enabled
Manchu identity to diversify beyond exclusively hunter-gatherer rela-
tions. Like its military, Manchu agriculture was a product of foraging.
Conflicts over regional human and natural resources were, conse-
quently, not new by the mid- 1600 s, but their scale and complexity had
The Nature of Imperial Foraging in the SAH Basin 77
