Treason by the Book

by Jonathan D. Spence

“A savory, fascinating story of absolute rule, one that not only reveals a great deal about China’s turbulent past but also suggests where some of the more durable reflexes of China’s current leaders have their roots. . . . A detective yarn and a picaresque tale.” (Richard Bernstein, The New York Times)
 
Shortly before noon on October 28, 1728, General Yue Zhongqi, the most powerful military and civilian official in northwest China, was en route to his headquarters. Suddenly, out of the crowd, a stranger ran toward Yue and passed him an envelope—an envelope containing details of a treasonous plot to overthrow the Manchu government. 

This thrilling story of a conspiracy against the Qing dynasty in 1728 is a captivating tale of intrigue and a fascinating exploration of what it means to rule and be ruled. Once again, Jonathan Spence has created a vivid portrait of the rich culture that surrounds a most dramatic moment in Chinese history.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Asia, Biography

320 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2002

About the author

Jonathan D. Spence is a historian specializing in Chinese history. His self-selected Chinese name is Shǐ Jǐngqiān (simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷), which roughly translates to "A historian who admires Sima Qian."

He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history.

Reviews

[Ozymandias · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the story of an abortive rebellion against the Qing dynasty and its suppression. There are two elements to this suppression. The first is the detective work that uncovers the extent and source of the rebellion. The second is the emperor’s personal involvement in persuading the chief instigator through reason and dialogue that he was mistaken.

The investigatory aspects of this book are fantastic. The author knows his stuff and can explain in great detail the progress of the investigation and how Qing China was run. The Chinese state was highly organized and the investigation was very similar to how it would be carried out today, albeit carried out by magistrates and generals rather than police detectives (China never distinguished between giving judgement and investigating crime). Interrogations relied more on a startlingly modern understanding of psychology than on torture (although they did that too) and gathered specific details that were then confirmed through further interrogations of other witnesses (often several hundred miles away) as well as confiscation of documents and well-planned arrests. Evidence was sealed away to be investigated carefully by select experts. Once the widespread arrests had taken place (in pretty effective secrecy) the stories of the various suspects were checked against each other until the truth was uncovered. And all that awaited then was the sentencing.

China had a simply astounding level of control for a premodern state. The emperor was able to direct the investigation process down to the point of dictating exact questions and suggesting fruitful lines of enquiry. Despite being 1200 miles away from the imperial palace in Beijing, the whole affair (discovery, interrogation, imperial response, arrests) was resolved in only a month. While communication took a long time by modern standards (a week’s journey either way) this is a remarkably speedy conclusion to such an affair. There was no other state in the world (including England, who would soon become such a thorn in China’s side) that could pull something like this off. The emperors were reading reports from their key officials daily, and even had a standardized bureaucratic way of replying to them (comments and feedback was given in the margins in red imperial ink). No relying on subordinate officials to handle major matters, this is direct centralized rule at its most effective.

It’s also a chilling look at life in an autocratic bureaucratic state (not unlike the current China in many ways). The first thought of the general who first discovers the conspiracy is to ensure he protects his ass because even the most innocent of moves could result in his execution for treason. The way in which every action taken needed to have several important and hidden witnesses confirming the interrogator’s honesty is treated so casually means it feels completely natural if you don’t think about it. How much time did these guys spend spying and plotting against each other? A lot it seems. Gossip and innuendo are serious business, investigated as firmly as any other crime. Loyalty was what mattered most to the system, although incompetence could produce serious consequences as well.

The empire’s ability to intrude into any aspect of their subjects’ lives is frightening, particularly when the main concern is with what we might call thought crimes: people writing or teaching material critical of the state. Since China was the center of the universe and all civilization it was believed that an emperor’s immoral behavior manifested directly in the physical world. Immoral emperors automatically caused natural disasters, so accusations of impersonal calamity or bad behavior equally indicated that the emperor had lost the Mandate of Heaven and needed to be overthrown. As such, all criticisms needed to be ruthlessly suppressed. Appalling too are the punishments: death by a thousand cuts (i.e. being flayed alive) followed by the murder or enslavement of the entire family. An autocrat’s position is never secure without the most drastic of punishments meted out to even innocent bystanders. Yet the Qing could be remarkably practical as well: the emperor explicitly forbade the punishment of those who merely repeated dangerous rumors. The truly guilty party was the one who invented the story, so punishments of even guilty gossipers were counterproductive as they impeded their ability to track rumors to their source. This led to a long string of Chinese Whispers (that’s Telephone to the Americans in the audience) which carried on for an alarming distance from the eventual outbreak.

These are all great topics and they show something of what life was like in imperial China in a way that broader overviews are simply unable to. I’ve read a few books on Chinese history and while I think I have a reasonable understanding of how society worked it’s often hard to get a feel for just what it would be like to live under such a society. While we do get a strong imperial viewpoint, we also get to see what life was like for people from various social classes living life in China’s provinces. And it’s fascinating stuff.

So far I was loving it, but by about a third of the way through the second topic begins to predominate and my interest waned dramatically. The story becomes a case of tit for tat as the emperor and rebel exchange letters and the latter is gradually convinced of the error of his ways. What’s disappointing here is that this seems to have been intended as the main subject in the first place. The exchange of arguments between an emperor and attempted rebel is unique in Chinese history and that’s what drew Spence to the topic. He never intended the book to become a crime drama, and consequently much of what I found the most fascinating was ultimately an accident: information that needed to be told to get to the main event. Told well mind you, but still just a backstory.

The problem is that the exchange of ideas just isn’t very interesting apart from the obvious curiosity factor about why the emperor bothered. The emperor gives a detailed refutation of all the rebel’s claims, which prove to be based on little more than innuendo. As such it’s not even a real conflict of viewpoints but of ignorance. And this can get tedious when there is no activity happening outside the imperial quarters or inside of a prison cell. There are some interesting investigations: with the help of the rebel it is possible to work out where some of the information came from, which leads to further investigations and a rather odd and slightly sordid story of an imperial impersonator whose motives are unfathomable and short career mysterious. The lack of any real clear answers as to why this happened is frustrating, but enough is uncovered that we understand pretty well the what and how. Still, it’s a pretty thin and tenuous thread that gets followed through to the bitter end. Another sign of how eerily effective Chinese investigations could be.

As a bifurcated book trying to do two related but different things it’s hard to entirely say where I stand on it. The first section was absolutely riveting and worthy of a crime drama. I could not put it down and considered it one of the best nonfiction mysteries I’d ever read. The remainder of the book was a real letdown though, with sporadic moments of interest, and the final resolution makes all the revised focus seem pretty pointless. I think I’d recommend reading it just for an idea of how law and investigations worked back in imperial China, but be prepared for the fact that it may not hold your interest forever.

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think lawyers, prosecutors, investigators of all kinds, as well as writers, litterateurs, critics, and academics would like this book. It's about sedition in imperial China In the early 18th century. But It's also about the astonishingly literary investigative procedures of the day. It is not a thriller, more a documentary. It can be a little dry at times. Recommended.

[风花 · Rating 5 out of 5]

老爷子写故事的功底极为深厚，读的时候带入的是的是《大义觉迷录：附批林批孔运动批判用材料五七一工程纪要》。

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spence is one of the giants of Chinese historians, but his real skill is as a story teller. This book looks at a case of treason that was wrapped up in literature. It is a fascinating insight into Chinese culture under the Qing, which Spence tells very well. It looks at how the imperial bureaucracy works and how seriously they took the writings of scholars, going so far as to try a dead scholar for treasonous writing, banning his books and punishing his descendants. The imperial response to the treasonous plot was to write another book showing the errors of the conspirators. The emperor even pardoned the conspirators and had one of them contribute to the book, showing how he learned from his mistakes. Both the plot itself and the response reverberated throughout China, inspiring other treasonous acts as well as support for the emperor.

This is written almost as a novel, with no footnotes and a short discussion of sources at the end. It is meant to be enjoyed and provide some ideas of Chinese government and society at the time, particularly on issues of family and filial piety. I loved it and recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese history.

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 4 out of 5]

One must praise China for its historical consciousness when one reads this book. Spence writes about the case of treason and its trial like a novel would run. With fantastic details and sometimes insights into what the historical characters were thinking. How impressive for a civilisation to preserve such detail of its past. The book is a fascinating story of ideology and treason. After reading this book we can comfortably define ideology as a set of ideas that justify a course of action. It is Mencian Ideology that leads Zeng Jing to turn into a rebel and again Tang and Imperial Chinese ideology that drives the Qing Emperor? At the heart of all such clarifications is a difficult-to-crack mystery. Spence takes us through the maze of Chinese culture - about nation, food, history, religion, economics - using this one event from the eighteenth century. A must-read.

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Treason by the Book starts off very well. It has been very hard for me to find literature that carry the subject of governmental policy and process (of any kind). Jonathan Spence is exceptional at crafting an interesting narrative on what can be considered a boring subject.
This book isn't so much about policy as it is sacrifice and influence. It reveals that the measure and weight of our sacrifice is what's most important.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of an interesting case, and one that shows the inner workings of Manchu government at the height of its power: organised, efficient, firm yet merciful. But the book drags on too long. The pardon of the traitor is not the end of the story, but it *is* the climax, and the remainder should be wound up in two chapters at most.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's about 1730; a messenger hands a treasonous letter to a remote general, listing all the shortcomings fo the current Manchu emperor, asking for revolt; away from the Manchu, back to the Qing.

The general, with an eye on his own precarious position, arrests the messenger, and with the emperor's help, the case is slowly unraveled. It turns out that a remote scholar named Zeng Jing is behind the case, who is himself greatly influenced by the late Lü Liuliang. The emperor himself keeps a close watch on this case, trying to understand everyone's motive, eventually succeeding in turning Zeng Jing to his side. Ultimately, they co-author a book on the case of Zeng Jing. The majority of Treason By The Book concerns itself with the emperor's manifold letters and notes on this case. And I thought Napoleon was a micro-managing ruler....

It's a complex book, describing an unusually literate society where every person has a diary and writes poetry with perhaps-treasonous undertones, with family members and remote connections being under the 'influence' of various scholars, with complex China-wide court politics of generals trying to outdo each other in pleasing the emperor, with the emperor spending his days writing memos, letters, and micro-managing any potential case of treason.

For an example, see Wikipedia's explanation of Lü Liulang's treasonous poem:

Lü Liuliang wrote a famous anti-Qing poem. "The light breeze, however delicate, does not blow on me; the bright moon has never stopped casting its light on us." (清風雖細難吹我，明月何嘗不照人?) In this poem, the "light breeze" (qing feng 清風) contains the character for "Qing" (as in the dynasty), and "bright moon" (ming yue 明月) the character for "Ming".

See? Layers! Even Zeng Jing's uprising is literature- he does not raise an army, he only writes letters.

Now I need to read more books from Jonathan Spence.

[Bert van der Vaart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonathan Spence was a brilliant scholar of Chinese history with a penchant of making that history readable and fascinating as a story--interesting my dear wife was his secretary and typed up two wonderful books written by Spence: The biography of Matteo Ricci and "The Gate of Heavenly Peace". This one, "Treason by the Book" is brilliant history but the style of writing may be a little longer or more turgid than the other books of his I have read--hence the 4 stars.

First, the story. We are in 17288 China, where the Ming Dynasty has been replaced by the Manchu invaders--invaders who subsequently seek to become fully Chinese and seek to establish their own, the Qing, dynasty. But there remain a substantial number of old Ming dynasty admirers, especially in the scholarly/bureaucratic class (the reader will know that Chinese civil service positions in those days were filled in general only by successful examination takers (or increasingly those who could buy good examination results. These bureaucrat/scholars looked down on the "new" men from beyond China's traditional borders--uncultured "barbarians" threatening violence and asserting their power. Perhaps because the new government--Manchu in race and later to be called the Qing dynasty--needed the bureaucrats and system of regional government, these new men sought every means to assimilate into traditional Han Chinese culture, thereby to gain legitimacy.

The book starts in a province far away from China's capital city Beijing. The local ruling Governor General is traveling in his sedan chair when an odd but apparently cultured individual thrusts a fat letter in his hands. It is address to "The Commander-in-chief deputed by Heaven". By the title alone, of course, this letter is calling into question whether the General should continue to obey the Qing Dynasty and its present Manchu Emperor--given that the General is supposedly responsible to a higher authority, namely Heaven or later, the traditions of the Han civilization.

The letter refers to the previous Song and Ming dynasties as "Chinese" and to the Qing dynasty as invaders. It alleges a wide range of abuses and seeks to encourage the General's participation, acceptance or even leadership of a coup to "restore China" or to "make China great again.".

The general hands the letter over to the Emperor, and we begin our journey through how the Emperor has to deal with this, potentially serious attack on his and the Qing dynasty's legitimacy. The Emperor is ostensibly the absolute ruler of China; however, it becomes increasingly clear that he must take into account his vast civil service--all there because they passed the relevant examinations (even if some have had to purchase their test results). In assessing the letter, the Emperor and his advisors must also deal with a body of Chinese scholarly writing ultimately derived at least in part from Confucius--a fully respected scholar but one with a somewhat Burkean reverence for tradition, which could in fact point to the nostalgia of the past and the primacy of tradition.

In following the vast Chinese administration's treatment of this letter, the reader is confronted by the inherent elitism, not to say racism, of the Deep State in China--and of an elite that does not fully accept the new leadership. Man made laws are still subject to some form of the Heavenly Mandate--whether equivalent to Locke's Natural Law or the Club rules of the hereditary bureaucracy; indeed, there is an uneasy undercurrent that the scholars/bureaucracy will tolerate the Qing Dynasty as long as they are left to remain at the head of the administrative state and the country is kept safe. But if the Emperor steps too far out of line, the nameless administrative state MAY support a revolution, given that the Emperor in that case will have been deemed to have lost "his mandate of Heaven."

Two key decisions await the Emperor. The author of the letter--Zheng Jin-- must be found and interrogated, all who were involved and their family members must also be found and interrogated and--the presumption is--they should all be killed, with the degree of culpability determining the form of execution (and there are quite a few variations). The question to be considered: is this procedure going to extirpate the potential for revolution?

Secondly, apparently a major foundation for the anti-Qing argumentation in the letter are the writings of Lu Liu-liang--who among the many writings he left behind are some key texts considered classic works on Confucius. It should be noted that Lu is dead for quite some time, and that his writings are scattered throughout China.

Without going through the book in detail, the Emperor shows himself to be hard working and intelligent--he seeks to analyze and rebut the many allegations Zheng Jin made, and engages in many conversations with Zheng. Much to the surprise of his scholar/bureaucrats and against their virtually unanimous recommendation, the Emperor lets Zheng live. The emperor collects his correspondence with Zheng and his rebuttals thereto into a weighty tome, entitled Awakening from Delusion. Zheng is convinced that the Emperor is correct, benevolent and that he should be obeyed, accordingly, Zheng recants and becomes an apologist for the Emperor and the Qing dynasty. The Emperor causes the book, Awakening by Delusion, to be printed and provided to governors and municipal authorities to be made available to all, even requiring monthly readings from the book to take place. Transparency, reasoning and education would, it is hoped, cause "the people" to come fully round in support of the Qing:

"The purpose of the ...venture is to have the group of scholars 'travel to the two provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu to enlighten the people there about the emperor's instructions and to awaken them from their own false assumptions. If the people in those two provinces can sincerely respect their ruler, feel close to their own superiors, and get rid of their old accumulated grudges, then they would live in harmony and feel at peace. I am also asking Heaven to give us its blessing'" says the emperor.

However, while the bureaucracy obeys the letter of this law, there are delays, internal squabbles and half-heartedness throughout the Deep State. This the more so that the Emperor seems to disagree with the elite, that Lu Liu-liang be assassinated. Lu Liu's writings deeply favor the Han Chinese civilization as against all other peoples in China (we would say today, racist) and therefore inherently against the Qing Dynasty. Says the Qing emperor now, Lu and his family are to be exhumed from their tombs and decapitated skeletally, and surviving relatives killed or (especially the women) sold into slavery and for "use" by the army. But here the Deep State objects as well--Lu was surely loyal to the Ming dynasty but given he was living during that dynasty, why were his actions wrong or treasonous?--they ask.

Perhaps fortuitously, the Emperor dies, and his 24-year old son comes to rule. The son moves after a few months to reverse his father's decisions: Zheng Jin is arrested from his civil service sinecure and with his family put to death, while Lu and his family is exonerated and honored.

What has happened? Implicitly, the Deep State has won, or the new Emperor has in fact embraced the principles of the Ming dynasty. The Deep State is satisfied, and China marches on, with the sons of the bureaucratic/scholarly elite given the advantages in the examinations which is likely to their succeeding the elitist life style of their parents--who have now accepted the new Emperor as sufficiently "Chinese".

There are many take-aways from Spence's deeply researched book. Perhaps foremost, the hereditary scholarly elite/Deep State is not something new, as the Trump administration, or the Boris Johnson/Liz Truss faction of the UK government might have been taken to "discovered.} Rather, the parents in power want to have their children stay in power---whether in the time of Qing Dynasty's special tutorials and extra chances to the wealthy on examinations to the civil service or, in the USA, where parents who have graduated from Ivy schools do everything they can to ensure their children will be accepted as "legacy" students or resort to special "gifts" to athletic departments or "scholarship programs." A change in "Power" at the top--think Donald Trump in 2016--is not automatically able to count on execution by the civil service's ranks.

Perhaps inevitably, the "Awakening from Delusion" campaign founders--through neglect, negative spin by the existing scholars, or "spread of hateful rumors"--we might again today say "fake news". Justifying the 180 degree turn by the emperor's son succeeding the "Manchu emperor" in favor now of executing Zheng and restoration of Lu Liang--in other words--what the Deep State has longed for, the emperor's son notes: "How can I stand against the feelings my people have about the nature of common good and of evil?"

Spence himself concludes:

"One emperor thought that by airing all the negative facts against himself, he could purge the record of the noxious rumors, and because of his honesty posterity would revere his name. But his people remembered the rumors and forgot the disclaimers. The second emperor thought that by destroying the book he would lay his father's ghosts to rest. But his people thought that the reason he wanted to destroy the book was because so much of what it contained was true....Emperor Yongzheng's attempt to patch his reputation was no match for such a multitude, nor could his earnest son banish the chattering host."

The China we are left with at the end is not a happy place. The land is no longer equitably divided, but the rich get richer--with the rich being primarily the scholar/bureaucratic class. This class becomes ever more "glib" and "superior"--with "the people" lagging ever further behind. The emperor is cut off from reality, virtually kept captive in his forbidden city. Largely left to themselves, the elite manage their lands from afar and press for ever higher rents and privileges. Writes Spence: such a land "cannot be stable".

Treason by the Book is thus a marvelously researched book about an empire far away and long ago--but yet one which is today in 2023 much more relevant and "closer by" than we might like. There needs to be closer communication between the elected ruler and his/her people. The elite is all too uniform, and diversity of viewpoints and bona fide debating of policy and fact checking of politician's assertions should be encouraged, not suppressed. The question of how to sponsor free communication and how to suppress "harmful rumors" or "fake news" is not answered, nor is there any obvious cause for optimism given from the Qing Dynasty example.

One can only hope for a better result today.

[Vicki Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Qing Dynasty China in 1728 a general in Xian is offered a package that turns out to be a letter inviting him to commit treason against his Emperor, Yongzheng. “Treason by the Book” is the story of events triggered by this letter.

The most amazing aspect of this story is not the attempted treason but the investigation of the crime and the eventual response of the Emperor.

The system of information flow—both to the Emperor and from him to his bureaucrats—in the early 18th century, is hard to believe possible. The general’s initial report reached the Emperor by horse and rider across a distance of 850 miles in about 6 days. Other correspondence later in the investigation, dispatched to various points in a China almost as vast then as it is today, moved at a similar speed.

The original conspirators are identified by locating and arresting the family of the letter carrier in Hunan and questioning them on every visitor they’ve interacted with and been influenced by in recent years. Those identified are also arrested and questioned. While the conspirators are eventually located using this method, the scholar who sowed the original seeds of dissent in their minds proves elusive. He travelled under a false name and false pretenses. But the record keeping system of the Chinese bureaucracy eventually makes it possible to track the movements of people until the man is identified. He had died and was buried long before his treasonous ideas were acted upon.

While the investigation is ongoing, the Emperor is also rehabilitating Zeng Jing, the leader of the conspiracy, by having him write reflective essays on his actions to which the Emperor responds. The Emperor’s eventual judgment against Zeng Jing is not the death penalty, as the law required, but that he should pardoned and returned to his home in Hunan to work in the office of public morality. The Emperor’s decision is influenced by his own sense of guilt over the court intrigue that brought him to the throne as well as by his interpretation of the Confucian obligation to be benevolent in the face of the loyalty offered by his repentant subject.

At the same time, the Emperor decided to publish his correspondence with Zeng Jing as “A Record of How True Virtue Led to an Awakening from Delusion” and mandated its distribution and dissemination nationwide. It became widely discussed but did not have the desired effect among the Emperor’s subjects of underscoring the virtue of Confucian loyalty.

Consequently when his son took the throne after Yongzheng’s death just two years later, the book was recalled. Zeng Jing was re-arrested and executed. Confucian order was restored.

This short tale offers profound insights into early 18th century Qing China—the system of communication, record keeping, investigation, and decision making. Yet certain aspects of the story are familiar in Confucian-influenced Asian societies even today, making this book both fascinating and relevant.

[Caroline Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to push myself to get through this, but it is a fascinating book, based on incredibly well-preserved documentation regarding a case in about 1728 in China - the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng.

An obscure, barely educated, foolish man decides to make a big statement based on hearsay, and persuades another idiot to deliver his statement to a General the foolish man admires over the Emporer. The General tries to handle the information without losing the trust of the Emperor. The Emperor decides to try to use the foolish man as a means of communicating with the populace - to address rumours and show his benevolence. However, the law says that the idiot and the messenger should be killed, and all the officials argue in support of the law.

I won't go on - I don't want to spoil the story. The actions in the matter ae so well-documented that it makes it clear how things "worked" at the time in China. All writings in a suspect's house were collected and analyzed for treasonous ideas. The written word held more weight than hearsay, but then many interpretations could be force-fit to the written words.

Such a detailed glimpse of the time period. Yet - like the readings a friend and I did about Tsarist Russia (inspired by the election of Trump in the USA in 2016) - I felt I could see the practices of China today in the practices of the 1700s: writing is controlled and censored, and used as proof of loyalty or treason. Everything has changed, and nothing has changed.

[Michael Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Treason by the Book by Jonathon Spence...slogging through the first fifty or so pages I was prepared to write a scathing two star review, but then something weird and cool happened it sucked me in. The fear of treason consumes the leadership throughout 1600's China having just recently overthrown a previously corrupted impure leadership. But who has committed this treason and how ? Treason is a sickness gripping society where words, actions, the people you associate with, even the books you read fall under the scrutiny of the authorities often consuming many innocents. Book also provides interesting insights into the power of words and ideas to influence a population and the war of propaganda waged between the "evil books" and counter propaganda created by the state. Overall, its not an easy book to read through, its' a book that requires an exercise of free thought because there are surface ideas like what happens to persons accused of treason? And then broader ideas like what happens when a culture of fear is created amid a culture of ever shifting propaganda and counter propaganda?

[Sillyrabid · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm donationg this one fast. Second worst book ever. Maybe third. No no, second. If you're wondering: the first worst is The Great Gatsby, the third worst is Under the Tuscan Sun.
I threw aside Under the Tuscan Sun with ten pages left and Treason by the Book still sucks more than Under the Tuscan Sun.
This is like on the show Chopped when one of the chefs forgets to plate one of the ingredients and still doesn't get chopped because somebody else sucked so much more. This book is that chef who sucked so much more.
I feel bad donating this book and inflicting it on another human being. I can only hope it falls into the hands of somebody I dislike intensely or maybe just possibly it will make its way into the hands of someone who can appreciate it. Maybe. Just maybe. But I doubt it.

[Bill Hammack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed,
but not as much as the reviews lead me to believe. Well-written,interesting, although abstract subject, but too many proper names to keep track of. To be fair I read this a bit fast toward the end because I wanted to finished it before leaving for Sweden. This is a true book of history, although highly narrative. I've read other books by Spence and enjoyed them - The Rise of Modern China and The Question of Hu.

[Andrew Polito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another scholarly and literary tour de force by Spence. The author has an incredible talent for pulling engaging stories from ancient records and source materials and rendering them as well written and entertaining books. When you stop to really think about what it took to research and write this book it's incredibly impressive.

[Marshall Vandegrift · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written, full of meticulous detail while still keeping the thread of an overall narrative moving. Ultimately though I was left mostly with a sense of futility -- the underlying events involved so much furor over so little.

[Eleanor · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very impressive piece of historical research, but not the most compelling read.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual for Jonathan Spence, the book contains detailed retelling of a plot gleaned from Chinese archives. This time, it is the Qing dynasty at its height attempting to stamp out a very small nest of anti-Manchu sentiment in countryside Hunan.

It is all so reminiscent of the contents of Eastern European communist secret police archives pre-1990. There is probably really only one way of running a totalitarian administration. A very interesting, but also rather pessimistic addition to a debate about universal human condition. I kept looking away from the text and shaking my head.

Spence is not telling us how critical he was with the archival record. Similar communications in communist secret police archives are frequently completely bogus or thoroughly infested with disingenuous posturing. It is often thought that the cogs of the whole system were completely cynical regarding their ends. Here, Spence interprets the vermilion ink remarks of the emperor on their face value, and similarly for the memos of the lower ranking officials. This creates an image of a definite Confucian moral positivism in the Qing hierarchy, which I have hard time believing to the same extent as Spence.

People who write as much as Spence typically forget where the waste basket is in their office. Such is the case here. The book is at least twice as long as it should be. I think it is difficult to appreciate the book without a solid knowledge of Chinese geography and the general circumstances of the Ming/Qing transition--the author spends no time on this.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Zhia's crime was that in one of the examination questions on the classical text The Great Learning he had told the students to comment on a phrase in Book One, Section Three, 'where the people rest.' Anyone could see, the charge ran, that this was not an innocent textual choice, for if one juxtaposed the first and last characters of the four-character phrase, one came up with two characters with the reign name of the current emperor, but in each case missing the top stroke. Zha Siting, in other words, had been luring the students to think of beheading their emperor." (50-1)

"It is true that the relative hierarchical positions of the two authors are dramatically shown by the size of the type in the book: that used to record Zeng Jing's thoughts is half the size of that given to the emperor, and his answers are printed sixteen vertical columns to the page, a opposed to the emperor's eight. It is also true that Zeng Jing, in his responses to the emperor's questions, never uses his own name, but always refers to himself, using a derogatory four-character term, as 'the man whose crimes reached to Heaven.' But the one hundred and seventy-eight pages dedicated to these exchanges in Sections One and Two give Zeng Jing an astonishing opportunity to share his own thoughts with this countrymen at large." (160)

[Jim Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prof. Spence has searched the extensive files held in both Taipei and Beijing to produce this study of an exceptionally abortive “plot” to overthrow the third Manchu Emperor of China. The actual event was a letter sent by a minor scholar to a governor urging rebellion (more or less on the grounds of throw out the barbarians). The scholar claimed to be part of a major network. Given the amazingly bureaucratic nature of Qing government, the governor had to take this seriously. Arrests began.
Things got more complicated when Emperor Yongzheng involved himself in the government response. Eventually he decided to give the scholar a chance to repent. When he did, he was pardoned. Meanwhile others had gotten involved. Arrests were made, petitions circulated, dead “rebels” punished (and their descendants executed). Finally, after the Emperor died, his son completed the investigation and cleaned up loose ends.
This is a well written and informative look at how arguably the world’s greatest power functioned in the 1730s.

[Joshua Tintner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite the "Oriental John Le Carre" that one cover quip promises, but still an impressive historical reconstruction of an 18th century effort by the Chinese emperor Yongzheng to combat rumors that question the legitimacy and competence of his reign. If this were a Smiley novel, I would appreciate the intricate details of the unfolding plot, but feel let down by an ending that, while enlightening of Chinese rulership, falls flat from an excitement standpoint.

For readers with little China knowledge, the names and places may be hard to keep straight... I think this is one reason I picked up and put down this book several times in the past years.

Even though the Qing dynasty is long in the past, there are elements of Confucian philosophy and general mindset that seem of a thread still woven into modern Chinese thought and rule. And with China currently under the rule of another would-be emperor, I found the insight into the Emperors' logic, arrogance and brutality familiar.

[Tyler Wolanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for anything about the Chinese (especially Qing) bureaucracy. This book was great on the intimate and mundane details of a scholar's life, with almost a micro-history uncovered in the course of the law's investigations of a small, ragtag, barely-unified group of dissidents. Truly a triumph for the archives.
But I feel like the book was unwilling to take a step back and say, "you realize, of course, that this is insane." Both emperors were premodern despots and, from the lack of context of other occurrences in the historical time period, the impression is given that they spent their entire day arguing with, essentially, shitposters about how hard it was to run the government. I would have appreciated some framing, some context, some judgement.

[Brett Weaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going into this book knowing positively nothing about Chinese history, I am blown away by the authors ability to frame up early 18th-century China and its culture in such an accessible manner that I was able to be truly invested in the curious case of Zeng Jing and Emperor Yongzheng. The author constantly reinforces the characters, who they are and why it mattered and the significance of the exceedingly unlikely events that played out. I enjoyed Treason By The Book much more than expected and looking forward to picking up more of Spence's books.

[Babe Gladwaller · Rating 4 out of 5]

雍正以为向天下人说明对他不利的传言，便可让流言不攻自破，因为眼睛雪亮的后代会尊敬他。但是他的子民却记得了谣言，而忘了皇帝的苦心。乾隆却以为把书毁掉，便能告慰父皇在天之灵。而他的子民却以为他之所以想毁去此书，就是因为书中内容乃真有其事。雍正刊印发行《大义觉迷录》一书，除了政治动机，还蕴含了内在深层的文化意义。雍正很清楚，仅仅凭借武力统治这个多民族的帝国是不够的，更需要长期而有效的思想统治，使汉族知识分子在意识形态上接受满人的统治。

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic history by Spence. He does a fantastic job of not at all dumbing it down while simultaneously being able to present information to the average reader. As a scholar of Chinese, I found this fascinating, but it is a book that I could hand to my wife, or any other intelligent person who knows little about China, and feel like they would find it equally fascinating.

A great exploration of a treason in Qing China and the role that the book played in society. Does everything a good microhistory should do, explores a particular event while concommittantly echoing the larger problems of the age.

[Ivan Cooper]

L

[Beau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic!

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

couldn't be bothered to finish - Spence has the annoying habit of writing of just not making me give a d@%# about his subject

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like Deuteronomy, but with less action and excitement.

[Finley Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

not an easy read but a very intriguing true story that shows how the Qing dynasty operated during the 1720s