Editorial contextThe embassy's quarrel was over the 'Tartar ceremony' demanded before the emperor. Ellis notes that the English word kowtow is loose: the court rite is properly 'thrice kneeling and nine times bowing the head', a Manchu court protocol.
The Tartar ceremonial has perhaps improperly been rendered by the Chinese word ko-tou, which more strictly signifies three simple genuflexions, a mode of salutation practised even in private life. The court ceremony has a different name, implying thrice kneeling and nine times bowing the head, San-kwei-keu-kou.
Editorial contextTravelling north from Beijing, Zhang Dehui crossed the pass beyond Xuande and found that from here on every post station belonged to a Mongol clan and was named after its holder. Climbing the ridge he saw for the first time the felt tents and felt carts of herders who moved with water and grass. For him this line marked the end of the Chinese world.
From here northward, all the post stations are held as shares by Mongol clans, and each station is named after its holder. Going up from the ridge, we travelled northeast and for the first time saw felt tents and felt carts; [people] follow water and grass and herd their animals, and that is all. This is no longer the land and custom of the Central Plain.
Editorial contextDiscussing Chinese drinks, Davis says the Tartars still show their pastoral origins in a liking for a strong spirit distilled from mutton, and that one of the soups served at the imperial banquet for Amherst's embassy at Tianjin was said to be made of mare's milk and blood. Davis was on that embassy, but he reports the soup's recipe as hearsay.
The Tartars are said still to preserve a remnant of their pastoral state, in their predilection for a strong liquor which is distilled from mutton. One of the soups, too, presented at the imperial feast conferred on the last British embassy at Tien-tsin, was said to be composed of mare's milk and blood!
What the Chinese fought to keep at the Tartar conquest
Editorial contextEllis notes that the executioners' conical caps kept an ancient shape that the Chinese had been anxious to preserve when the Manchus conquered China, along with the sanctity of their ancestors' tombs. It hints at what the Chinese cared most to keep under their new rulers.
These, I afterwards learnt, were the public executioners, and that the shape of their caps was one of ancient form, which the Chinese, at the Tartar conquest, were most anxious to retain. The sanctity of the tombs of their ancestors was another and more reasonable object of their anxiety.
Editorial contextAfter Altan Khan made peace in 1571, the Ming set rules for border markets: the Mongols would bring gold, silver, cattle, horses, hides and horsetail, and Chinese merchants satin, silk, cloth and iron cooking pots. Each market ran for a month, with three hundred Mongols camped outside the wall and five hundred Chinese troops guarding the marketplace. Iron pots were a key trade good because the Mongols could not easily make them.
One: establish border markets, on the model of the northern tribes' three tributes at the start of Hongzhi. The fan (Mongols) bring gold, silver, cattle, horses, hides, horse tails and such; the merchants bring satin, silk, cloth and iron pots and cauldrons. On market days three hundred of those who come are to camp outside the wall, and five hundred of our soldiers are to be stationed at the marketplace; the market lasts a full month.
