Abstract:

This MPhil thesis focused on retired officials in the Qing. By using the routine memorials from the Board of Civil Service concerning the retired officials during the Yongzheng reign and matching retired officials with entries in the bureaucratic evaluation system records, I constructed a database of more than 800 retired officials with their information such as names, ages, official posts, reasons for retirement, and emperor's comments to them. I argue in my thesis that retirement was an essential part of the phasing-out process of the Qing bureaucracy. It served as a filter for the Qing bureaucracy by sifting out incompetent officials and as a whip to discipline badly-behaved officials. By cautiously processing officials' retirement petitions and offering the retired officials rewards, Qing rulers selectively adhered to the Confucian ideology of caring for the elderly and carefully maintained the fragile balance between central demand and local control, Manchu and Han interests.