The Bordered Red Banner Archives and Other Historical Sources on the Eight Banners from the Yung-cheng Period

Jōkōki Tō, Yōsei chō 鐘紅旗檔 雍正朝 (The Bordered Red Banner Archives, Yung-cheng Period), published by The Seminar on Manchu History, Toyo Bunko, March, 1972, contains the text of the earliest 54 Manchu documents among more than 2,400, which cover a period of more than two-hundred years between 1723 and 1925. Most of the documents are memorials to the throne (wesimburengge), to which imperial decrees (hese) are added. Each item, often comprising several documents, is kept in an envelope which bears the date, a Chinese character from the Thousand Character Essay corresponding to a particular year and a number to indicate the sequence within that year, and a very brief summary of the contents. The documents may be divided by their contents into four categories: inheritance of the posts of arrow commander (nirui janggin); inheritance of hereditary titles; appointment of officials; and records of administrative affairs.It is no accident that no documents from the K’ang-hsi or earlier reigns are found in the Bordered Red Banner Archives. Until Yung-cheng came to the throne, the banner commanders (gūsa be kadalara amban), who had no office buildings of their own, used to attend to their duties at their private homes, and consequently their papers were often lost; in the reign of Yung-cheng, archives from the times previous to 1690’s were no longer available for consultation. To improve the situation, Yung-cheng ordered a series of reforms, including official cataloging and preservation of the banner archives, prescription of set forms, stamping of the official seals of banner commanders, and others, with a view to preventing such illegal practices as rewriting older documents showing antecedents. The Bordered Red Banner Archives, Yung-cheng Period is the best indication of what were done for preservation of documents under Yung-cheng and of how the imperial power began at that time to penetrate the hitherto immune social structure of the Eight Banners.journal articl