• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Elections in Qing China - Some Infoboxes and Musings

Tom Colton

domesticated humans?!
Location
Singapore
Pronouns
he/him/his
I guess I should make this a separate thread of its own for simplicity.

After going through The Campaign Trail game a few times out of nostalgia and looking at a map of China with all of its provinces, a most terrible thought arose in my mind of how China was also going through its own issues incorporating conquered peoples in their annexed areas and civil war in the 19th century, and so I began expositing what that could look like with 'party' politics (with Chinese characteristics.)

My first scenario was Lin Zexu as a failed James K. Polk, but more on that later...

===​

How the Electoral College Deliberative Council works

China_electoral map.png
Light grey = provinces, Dark grey = unincorporated territories, White = Not China


Overview

The Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers was a real part of the state administration in Qing China, and it's been revived in this ATL scenario for the sole purpose of electing a regent once every three years, whose official job is to translate the Will of Heaven as expressed by the Emperor into national policy. An elected regent was imposed upon the imperial order by a renegade prince, Fuk'anggan who in ATL lives long enough to oversee the end of the White Lotus Rebellion and sympathise with enough of its principles to threaten the succession of the Qianlong Emperor, only agreeing to drop his claim to the imperial throne in return for an assurance that the Jiaqing Emperor accept an elected regent and take a relative back seat in politics, with the effect of reducing his authority to almost that of the Japanese Emperor.

A regent instead of a chancellor or prime minister* was chosen as a compromise between the imperial clan and the Han population, with at least the semblance of democracy whilst ensuring that power remained amongst the Manchu nobles, whose Bordered Yellow Banner and Plain Yellow Banner factions dominated the regency for the first few cycles of this exercise. However, dissatisfaction with this as evidenced by further uprisings like the Eight Trigrams Uprising which besieged the capital eventually led to the relaxation of the requirements to accept anyone, regardless of racial background, who had passed the imperial examinations and served in government, and then eventually to any subject who had passed the imperial examinations (which was still a tiny minority amongst the population.)

As a deliberate parallel to the US system, the number of ballots per province is calculated by totalling the counties therein and adding two Grand Administrators (think Magistrates as Representatives and Grand Administrators, theoretically splitting each province into two commanderies but always acting in unison), with Zhili (modern Hebei, the state that Beijing is in) getting an extra one to act as a tie-breaker.

*How about a democractically elected President? The official response depicted here

=

Mechanism

As mentioned above, each term was limited to three years, and no individual could serve more than four continuous terms as regent (there were theoretically no limits on non-consecutive terms, but a four-term limit was eventually codified.) Elections are held in the Years of the Rat, Rabbit, Horse and Rooster, with the change in power occurring in the next year, i.e. Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog - while the Gregorian calendar counts the years in which the election dates open, the Chinese dates in the infoboxes record the year in which the regent takes power. The term limit's four as that represents an entire zodiac cycle, and it was agreed as a compromise (and to avoid shogunate shenanigans) that no regent ought to rule for longer than that.

The inexistence of modern transport and communication leads to the election period being as long as the American ones for the same reasons, with a very specific sequence of events:
  • The day after the Dongzhi Festival in an election year (to ensure everyone's back in their hometown), which always tracks to the winter solstice, the magistrate for each county collects votes for the regent, with the candidates being responsible for issuing ballots to the counties (which in turn requires the candidates to be roughly aware of census numbers) delivered in sealed boxes and with witnesses counting before and after.
  • The total ballots are brought to the two Grand Administrators who total them up and issue an official count, delivered to Beijing by a delegation equal to the number of ballots assigned to each province.
  • The delegations all meet in Beijing and count their votes via caucus, in the presence of the Emperor, and are held for the duration of the New Year to prevent news spreading during those reunions, and to prevent the election result being perceived as an auspicious or inauspicious sign.
  • The delegates are released, at the very latest, by the fifteenth day of the New Year to go and communicate the election of the regent, who takes office the day after Longtaitou Festival with its themes of renewal denoting the beginning of his term.
Provinces, like states, are winner-take-all, leading to, uh, some strange results. But more on that later! Let me know what you all think.
 
Last edited:
I like it!

What are the names of the two territories in the northeast? TTL Jilin and Heilongjiang, or something else?
Thanks!

Same as OTL, most probably, and their organisation into the "Imperial Provinces" with the Han farmers' tax becoming the direct income of the Emperor would have been one of the compromises (which gets dropped like a hot potato after further agitation.)
 
Chinese regency election, 1837

China_1820_de.png
Buff indicates provinces won by Mujangga, Green indicates provinces won by Lin Zexu.

The 1837 Chinese regency election was held between the Dongzhi and Longtaitou festivals in the seventeenth year of the Daoguang Emperor's reign. In an upset victory, Lin Zexu, the radical governor of Henan and Hubei, became the first Han Chinese candidate to win the election since the system's inception in 1801, and also became the first (and only) representative of the Han Green Banner faction to become regent. His victory is especially notable due to Mujangga, the incumbent regent, successfully forcing the Bordered Yellow Banner and Plain Yellow Banner factions to compromise and avoid splitting the establishment vote.

While candidacy requirements had been relaxed following the 1813 Eight Trigrams uprising, few Han Chinese candidates had met the requirements and even fewer had access to ballot distribution networks; Lin Zexu was able to exploit coastal communications networks through connections in Guangdong, and communications lines into Northern China from Hubei. Zexu's campaign focused on two primary issues: frustration over the increasing influx of opium through the ports leading to an epidemic of drug addiction at the expense of Qing taxpayers and enriching the British Empire, and the agitation of Han settlers in Inner Mongolia who wished to see the territory incorporated as a province with full voting rights.

Zexu's victory was the result of both appeals, winning every coastal province along with his own viceroyalty, and all the provinces along China's northern border, with his majority in the latter provinces being delivered by Han settlers in Inner Mongolia whose legal residences were recorded as being in Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi. Although a relatively close vote both in the Deliberative Council and popular vote, Mujangga was persuaded by the Daoguang Emperor to avoid contesting the result and let Zexu act as a bellwether for Han ambitions for the regency.

Their judgement would be vindicated, as Zexu's order to destroy opium in mass amounts at the ports provoked a harsh response from the British Empire, beginning the First Opium War where the Qing military was dealt a humiliating defeat. Zexu was forced to stand down from the next election, leading to Keying winning uncontested and ushering in his 12-year stay in office, the maximum term for a regent. The project to incorporate Inner Mongolia as a province also ended with Zexu's defeat. While vilified at the time, later Qing historians rehabilitated Zexu's image, noting his uprightness of character and his bringing about a watershed victory for Han Chinese in the regency, with knock-on effects in the lower administrations, some even going so far as to claim this election ushered in the Second Regency System.

Qing China election Infobox 1837 copy.png
 
Last edited:
I love and hate this so much.
The thing about this is that one level it's the utterly awful trend of 'what if COUNTRY X had an Electoral College' and on the other it's already obvious that it's so much more thought through than most of those that if they were all like this it wouldn't be an awful trend.
Thank you both so much, it's fun creating truly cursed content actually.

This forum needs a love function.
:love:

Speaking of cursed content, here's a new one which I just made for this thread! You might have noticed some changes in the previous one, mainly because I was using the wrong portraits. Anyway...

=​

Chinese regency election, 1840

China_1840_de.png
Blue indicates provinces won by Keying.

The 1840 Chinese regency election was held between the Dongzhi and Longtaitou festivals in the twentieth year of the Daoguang Emperor's reign. The incumbent regent, Lin Zexu, was banned from contesting in the election as the imperial court and the government blamed him for their current crisis, namely the First Opium War with the British Empire which had begun with his policy of destroying stocks of opium at ports with the aim of denying British profits from drug addiction in the country. Going even further, the government suppressed the distribution of ballots for all candidates except a successor to Mujangga to whom the Emperor was agreeable, namely the Manchu nobleman Keying from the Plain Blue Banner faction.

Aware of the dissatisfaction with the lack of choice this election, the government still proceeded with the facade of a democratic election, with Keying unsurprisingly winning all provinces and ballots; magistrates nevertheless noted that about one in every ten votes was a spoiled ballot, with a plurality of write-in ballots being in favour of Lin Zexu, who still remained popular in some provinces along the coast. Keying took office the next year with the mandate of the emperor and people, with the mission to end the Opium War on terms which were as favourable as possible. Despite the humiliating nature of these "unequal treaties", Keying was still able to win three more elections, being the first regent to reach the term limit of twelve years.

The longevity of Keying's regency has been characterised as the Second Regency System (with some also lumping in Lin Zexu's sole term), characterised by the resumption of imperial control of the regency and opposition candidates no longer running with the aim to unseat the ruling factions' authority of the entire country, but only with localised efforts to win individual provinces and therefore send delegations to protest their grievances (especially, but not exclusively those of Han Chinese) before the Emperor and Keying. Therefore, despite the seeming overwhelming majorities with which Keying won his elections, the foundations had already been set for the regionalist campaigns which would shape the chaotic 1852 election and the subsequent outbreak of civil war.

Qing China election Infobox 1840 copy.png
 
...

You're going to have history go exactly the same, aren't you?


I refer you to my previous post.
getattachment-aspx.jpg
 
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane? Data-Driven Testing? Death-Defying Theatre?

...

Dragostea Din Tei?


One of the most Nastasepunk songs,despite the singers being from Basarabia,but they have dual Romanian citizenship so they’re considered Romanian singers as well.

Fun fact:they had other songs like Why Do The Chitars Cry,a cover of a classic Moldavian Seventies song:



Or About You,which is just Dragostea Din Tei but with different lyrics:



Dan Balan btw has a successful solo career,making realllly creepy party sex songs:





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWHC2hxCjtE
 
What's more cursed than Romanian pop? This map.

=
Chinese regency election, 1852

China_1852_de.png
Buff indicates provinces won by Zeng Guofan, Orange indicates provinces won by Zhang Lexing, Red indicates provinces won by Feng Yunshan, and Green indicates provinces claimed by Zhang Xiumei, later allocated to Zeng Guofan.

The 1852 Chinese regency election was held between the Dongzhi and Longtaitou festivals in the twentieth year of the Daoguang Emperor's reign. The incumbent regent, Keying, had reached the end of an unprecedented 12-year tenure as regent, and declined talk of bending law and breaking tradition to run for a fifth term despite the emerging crises across the country, instead endorsing Zeng Guofan, the first major faction Han Chinese candidate for regent since the unfortunate sole term of Lin Zexu.

Zeng Guofan's candidature was a deliberate ploy by the Qing establishment to ameliorate Han agitation which had been brewing under the seeming calm of Keying's four continuous terms, chiefly from the aftermath of both the First Opium War and the recent famines across the country, especially its north, in 1851. Going beyond the post-Zexu norms of targeted campaigning in provinces with relatively low populations with the aim to send delegations to the Emperor to petition their cause, two major factions, the Nian Alliance in the north and the Great Peace Society strove to hold the government hostage by denying Guofan a majority in the Deliberative Council.

The Nian Alliance was a combination of associations of Han settlers in the Chinese far north, Inner Mongolia, and the northeastern territories who had been severely affected by the famines and saw no recourse for official representation besides directly petitioning the Emperor. Their candidate was their leader Zhang Lexing, a scholar and landlord whose family had been engaged in salt smuggling. The Nian Alliance printed and distributed ballots in Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Zhili, also sending them to settlers in Inner Mongolia and the northeast, representing nearly 400 ballots; the government would only need to lose around 160 more to be denied a majority.

Although initially distrustful of them the Nian Alliance coordinated with the rapidly spreading Great Peace Society in the south, the secular wing of the God Worshipping Society chaired by self-styled millenarist prophet, and later dictator Hong Xiuquan, whose candidate Feng Yunshan (being the only member of the senior leadership who had passed the imperial examinations) distributed ballots across the coastal provinces as well as the movement's bases in Guangxi and Jiangxi. Their platform was based on the continuing humiliation of the unequal treaties the government had been forced to sign after the Opium Wars and the continuing damage of its aftermath, along with promises of religious equality. Had they won every province they had contested, they would have deprived the government of 266 ballots. While this was not enough to deny Guofan a mandate alone, together with the Nian Alliance they challenged 665 ballots, which would have been more than sufficient.

Unbeknownst to either wing of these protest movements, the Miao people of Yunnan and Guizhou also intended to petition the Emperor, albeit with a much more direct method - kidnapping the magistrates and great administrators, and sending their own representatives to the Forbidden City with stuffed ballot-boxes declaring for their own leader Zhang Xiumei. While they, by nature of their clandestine "campaign", claimed all the votes in the two provinces they inhabited, their total along with those of the Nian and the Great Peace Society was insufficient to deny Zeng Guofan a majority, albeit only narrowly; for some years afterwards he was derided with the nickname "The Hokkien" as it turned out that his victory had been reliant on less than 200,000 votes in Fujian.

Noting enormous irregularities in the Miao vote count, their delegation was investigated and discovered to be nothing but "a rabble of simple peasants who could neither read nor write" who had abused their magistrates and forged their vote, and they were all arrested and executed. The Nian and Great Peace delegates protested against their mistreatment, and took their first opportunity to flee the capital before the end of the New Year, reporting to their leaders that not only had they lost the election, but the government was interpreting their opposition as sedition. When Qing soldiers arrived in their provinces in pursuit, the government's emissaries were ambushed and killed, beginning the First Chinese Civil War which would come to define Zeng Guofan's tenure as regent.


Qing China election Infobox 1852 copy.png
 
Bumping with probably my favourite sentence in this entire horror show:
Noting enormous irregularities in the Miao vote count, their delegation was investigated and discovered to be nothing but "a rabble of simple peasants who could neither read nor write" who had abused their magistrates and forged their vote, and they were all arrested and executed.
“What should we do with faithless electors?”

“...kill them.”
 
Back
Top