A Conquest Dynasty’s Dilemma

When the Manchu-led Qing dynasty established its capital in Beijing in 1644, it faced an unprecedented challenge: how to provide for tens of thousands of banner soldiers and their families who had followed the court southward. The solution, implemented just months after the conquest, would leave lasting scars on the landscape and people of China’s northern heartland.

The Manchus, originally a nomadic people from northeast Asia, had developed a unique “banner system” that organized their society into military-administrative units. These banners – distinguished by colored flags – formed the backbone of Qing military power. But transplanting this system into agricultural China created urgent land requirements that would be met through one of the most aggressive property seizures in Chinese history.

The Enclosure Edicts: Systematic Dispossession

In December 1644, Prince Dorgon, the de facto ruler during the young Shunzhi Emperor’s reign, issued the first enclosure decree. Ostensibly targeting “ownerless wasteland” near the capital, the policy quickly became a wholesale confiscation of Han Chinese properties across what is now Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei province.

Contemporary accounts describe the brutal process: “Wherever the enclosure teams arrived, landowners were immediately expelled. Everything in their homes became [the bannermen’s] property. If the wife or children were ugly, they might be left behind – if one dared to leave them.” The original cultivators, now landless, often had no choice but to work as tenant farmers on their former properties.

The Qing court attempted to justify the seizures with promises of compensation. In February 1645, Dorgon ordered that “wherever civilian properties are enclosed by Manchus in exchange for other locations, the local officials must quickly provide replacement lands of equal quality.” But as provincial inspector Fu Jingxing reported that June, displaced farmers typically received only “barren, alkaline military colony lands” of far inferior quality.

The Human Toll: Displacement and Desperation

Local gazetteers preserve heartbreaking accounts of the enclosures’ impact. In Xiong County, Hebei:

“Officials would arrive with ropes to measure the land. Two horsemen would stretch the ropes around a village’s perimeter, claiming everything inside… Homes, courtyards, and grain stores all became [banner] property, while the original tax registers were erased. People fled south in terror, many dying along the roads.”

The 1678 Qingdu County Gazetteer noted how the compensation system failed in practice:

“The allocated replacement lands often existed only on paper. The registry might describe boundaries using absurd references like ‘where the chicken and dog meet’ or ‘spring equinox to autumn waters.’ Farmers couldn’t locate these imaginary plots but still had to pay taxes on them.”

By 1647, a single enclosure round seized over 993,707 shang (about 6 million acres) of prime land across 41 counties. Although Han officials repeatedly protested that the enclosures “harm both state revenues and people’s livelihoods,” the seizures continued until 1685, when the Kangxi Emperor finally ordered a permanent halt.

The “Voluntary” Surrender System: Coercion Disguised as Charity

Parallel to the enclosures, the Qing implemented the “tou chong” (投充) or “voluntary surrender” system. Officially presented as providing livelihood opportunities for displaced farmers, it became another vehicle for land grabs.

Han Chinese who “surrendered” themselves to banner households became agricultural serfs – a regression from Ming-era tenant farming systems. As the Huairou County Gazetteer explained:

“Cunning locals would attach their lands to banner registries, calling it ‘surrender with property.’ At first, they merely borrowed the banner name to avoid taxes while keeping their land. Later, the banner would claim full ownership, selling the property or reassigning it to new managers. Those who once owned vast fields found themselves without enough land to stick an awl into.”

By 1646, abuses had grown so severe that the court issued a prohibition – largely ignored – against forced surrenders. Powerful figures like Dorgon himself continued accepting “surrenders,” including 680 wealthy households who brought extensive properties under his son’s name.

Ecological and Economic Consequences

The scale of property transfer was staggering. In Zunhua Prefecture, taxed civilian lands shrank to less than 1% of pre-conquest levels. Jizhou retained just 2%, while Dong’an County saw complete enclosure: “every last plot measured and taken, with nothing remaining.”

Contemporary poet Fang Wen captured the devastation:
“After surrenders and enclosures,
The Han people’s lands remained few.”

The enclosures created a new agrarian order where Manchu elites lived as rentier landlords, often employing ruthless Han intermediaries to manage their estates. These estate managers, sometimes granted minor official ranks, formed a brutal middleman class that insulated the absentee Manchu owners from local resistance.

Legacy of the Great Enclosure

The enclosure policies reshaped northern China’s social fabric for generations. They established patterns of:

1. Ethnic hierarchy (Manchu over Han)
2. Concentrated land ownership
3. Serf-like agricultural relations

While the Qing eventually stabilized its rule, these early policies sowed lasting resentments. The banner lands remained a privileged category throughout the dynasty, and the displacement trauma entered local folklore. Modern historians view the enclosures as a key example of how conquest dynasties balanced ethnic privilege with practical governance – often at devastating human cost.

The enclosures also demonstrated the Qing’s pragmatic flexibility. What began as emergency measures for troop support evolved into enduring systems of land tenure and social control. This adaptability helped the Manchus rule China for 268 years – but always atop foundations of initial violence that neither poetry nor policy could fully conceal.