A solid brick tower thought to guard against Tartars
Editorial contextAt Tong-choo-foo, the river port of Beijing, the embassy examined an old eleven-storey brick pagoda with no door or window in its solid lower stories. Nobody knew what it had been for; the guess Staunton reports is that it was an ancient watch tower against sudden Tartar raids.
It is built of brick, and in its exterior form resembles what are called in Europe Chinese pagodas … It is thought most probable that this building was erected prior to the existence of Tong-choo-foo, and perhaps of the great Chinese wall, and was intended for a watch tower, to guard against the sudden approach of the Tartar enemy.
About Chinese; 'the Tartar enemy'
Keep in mind
Staunton admits the tower's 'original destination is not known with certainty'; the watch-tower idea is a conjecture, and many solid brick pagodas in north China were Buddhist relic towers.
'No Chinese may punish me on the Tartar side of the wall'
Editorial contextAlthough Chinese and Tartars had one master, Staunton found the Great Wall still treated as the boundary between two peoples. Just past it, a Tartar attendant facing punishment by Chinese mandarins loudly refused, claiming they had no authority over him on the Tartar side. On the next page a Chinese mandarin dares not sit before a Tartar officer of equal rank.
The line it has traced, continues still to be considered as a demarkation between the respective nations of Chinese and Tartars. … one of the Tartar attendants was about to be punished for some misdemeanour, by order of the Chinese mandarines; but he resisted with much vehemence, loudly exclaiming, that no Chinese had a right of exercising authority over him on the Tartar side of the great wall.
About Manchus (Tartar attendants) and Chinese
Tartar women with unbound feet
Editorial contextCrossing Beijing, the embassy noticed that most women in the watching crowds were said to be of Tartar race. Unlike Chinese women their feet were not bound, and they wore broad-toed shoes with thick soles. On the next page Staunton adds that some Tartar ladies rode on horseback astride, like men.
Among the spectators of the novel sight, some women were observed. The greatest number were said to be natives of Tartary, or of a Tartar race. Their feet were not cramped, like those of the Chinese; and their shoes with broad toes, and soles above an inch in thickness, were as clumsy as those of the original Chinese ladies were diminutive.
About Manchu ('Tartar') women
Tartar soldiers paid double
Editorial contextFrom a Chinese officer's figures Staunton reports that much of the cavalry was Tartar, that Tartars held the posts of trust, and that a Tartar horseman drew seven ounces of silver and twenty measures of rice a month, against three and three-tenths ounces and fifteen measures for a Chinese horseman.
Of the troops, especially cavalry, a vast number are Tartars, who have a higher pay than their Chinese fellow soldiers. The principal officers of confidence in the army are Tartars also. … A Tartar horseman, seven similar ounces of silver, and twenty measures of rice for the same period.
About Manchu and Mongol ('Tartar') bannermen
Keep in mind
Figures supplied by the mandarin Van-ta-Zhin, whom Staunton thinks candid but not always careful.
The Tartar princes and their fiefs
Editorial contextAfter the birthday festivities the tributary Tartar princes went home. Staunton describes them as chiefs of large clans who owed troops in wartime under the 'grand banners of Tartary', held hereditary fiefs that needed the emperor's investiture, and usually married women of the imperial family.
They were the chiefs of numerous clans dependent on them, and could bring large bodies of troops into the field. They were often called upon in time of war, and had their respective stations, rank, and duty, assigned to them under the grand banners of Tartary. Their lands, or fiefs, were properly hereditary by primogeniture
About Mongol tributary princes ('Tartar princes')
Born in Beijing, but still Tartars
Editorial contextStaunton explains that the Qianlong emperor, though four generations removed from the conquest and born in Beijing, was seen by everyone, and saw himself, as a Tartar. His ministers, generals, wives and servants were mostly of the same race, and every male of Tartar descent drew a stipend from birth. Here 'Tartar' plainly means the Manchu conquerors.
Tho the Emperor Chen-Lung, be the fourth in descent from him who successfully invaded China in the last age, and tho the last three succeeding generations were all born at Pekin, yet they are universally regarded by their subjects, and they regarded indeed themselves, as Tartars. Their principal ministers, their confidential servants, the chiefs of their armies, most of their wives, concubines, domestics, and eunuchs, are of that race.
About Manchus (Qing imperial house)
A story that the Manchu emperors came from Kublai Khan
Editorial contextThe Tartar princes at court, Staunton says, revered the emperor as a descendant of Kublai Khan: Kublai's heirs, driven out of China in the fourteenth century, fled to the Manchus, intermarried, and produced the 'Bog-doi Khans' who conquered China. It shows how the Qing dynasty was presented to, or understood by, its Mongol allies.
They hold the Emperor in the greater veneration, as considering him descended from Kublai-Khan, the conqueror of China in the thirteenth century. His descendants being in the fourteenth century expelled from the throne of that empire, fled into the country of the Man-choos in Eastern Tartary; and from their intermarriages with the natives, sprung the Bog-doi Khans
About Mongol tributary princes; Manchus
Keep in mind
A genealogical belief reported at second hand; the Qing ruling clan is usually traced to Jurchen (Manchu) chiefs, not to Kublai.
Kalmyk chiefs who fled Russia for China
Editorial contextAt the emperor's birthday theatricals most of the guests who came to meet the British envoy were Tartars, since few Chinese were invited to Zhe-hol. Among them were two chiefs of 'Calmoucks' whose people had recently left Russian rule on the Caspian and migrated to Chinese Tartary, an event of 1771.
Most of them were Tartars ; few original Chinese being invited to Zhe-hol. There were likewise two Mussulmen, chiefs of some hordes of Calmoucks, who, not long since, on occasion of discontent or misunderstanding with the government of Russia, migrated in great numbers from the northern coast of the Caspian sea into Chinese Tartary, and put themselves under the Emperor's protection.
About Manchus and Mongols at court; Kalmyks from the Volga
Keep in mind
The Kalmyks (Torghuts) who made the 1771 migration were Tibetan Buddhists, so calling their chiefs 'Mussulmen' looks like a confusion.
Horses stabled in the emperors' palaces
Editorial contextOn the Grand Canal Staunton notes that the Chinese still looked on Tartars in general as barbarians. As proof they told a four-hundred-year-old story about the Mongol capture of Beijing: the conquerors lived in tents and put their horses in the imperial palaces.
they repeat the story, popular amongst them for four centuries, that when the Mongol Tartars seized first upon Pekin, they erected tents for their own accommodation, while they put their horses in the palaces of the Chinese emperors.
About Mongols ('Mongol Tartars'), as remembered by the Chinese
Keep in mind
A popular Chinese tale, reported as such; not evidence of what happened in 1215.