Tifayifu

Tifayifu (simplified Chinese: 剃发易服; traditional Chinese: 剃髮易服; lit. 'shaving hair and changing costume') was a cultural policy of the early Qing dynasty as it conquered the preceding Ming dynasty. In 1645, the Tifayifu edict forced Han Chinese people to adopt the Manchu hairstyle, the queue, and Manchu clothing.[1][2][3] The edict specifically applied to living adult men, who did not fall in the stipulated exceptions.[4]: 3, 6  In 1644, on the first day when the Manchu penetrated the Great Wall of China in the Battle of Shanhai Pass, the Manchu rulers ordered the surrendering Han Chinese population to shave their heads; however, this policy was halted just a month later due to intense resistance from the Han Chinese near Beijing.[4]: 218–219  Only after the Manchu captured Nanjing, the southern capital, from the Southern Ming in 1645 was the Tifayifu policy resumed and enforced severely.[4]: 218–219  Within one year after entering China proper, the Qing rulers demanded that men among their newly defeated subjects adopt the Manchu hairstyle or face execution.[5]: 60  The Qing prince regent Dorgon initially canceled the order to shave for all men in Ming territories south of the Great Wall (post-1644 additions to the Qing). The full Tifayifu edict was only implemented after two Han officials from Shandong, Sun Zhixie and Li Ruolin, voluntarily shaved their foreheads and demanded that Dorgon impose the queue hairstyle on the entire population.[6][7]

The law was strongly opposed by the Han Chinese, especially those who were part of the late-Ming scholar and literati class.[2] Even ten years after the implementation of the Tifayifu edict, there was still resistance to haircutting and adopting Manchu-style clothing.[2] In the Kangxi period, a large number of ordinary people still followed the clothing and hairstyle of the Ming dynasty, except for the officials and military generals, who had to wear the Manchu queue and uniforms.[2] With time, Han Chinese men eventually adopted Manchu-style clothing, such as changshan and magua, and by the late Qing, officials, scholars, and many commoners wore Manchu-style clothing.[5]: 61 

  1. ^ Wang, Yi (2019-09-19). "Contesting the past on the Chinese Internet: Han-centrism and mnemonic practices". Memory Studies. 15 (2): 304–317. doi:10.1177/1750698019875996. ISSN 1750-6980. S2CID 204374195.
  2. ^ a b c d Wang, Anita Xiaoming (2018). "The Idealised Lives of Women: Visions of Beauty in Chinese Popular Prints of the Qing Dynasty". Arts Asiatiques. 73: 61–80. doi:10.3406/arasi.2018.1993. ISSN 0004-3958. JSTOR 26585538.
  3. ^ Wang, Guojun (2019). "Absent Presence: Costuming and Identity in the Qing Drama A Ten-Thousand Li Reunion". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 79 (1): 97–130. doi:10.1353/jas.2019.0005. ISSN 1944-6454. S2CID 228163567.
  4. ^ a b c Wang, Guojun (2020). Staging personhood : costuming in early Qing drama. New York. ISBN 978-0-231-54957-8. OCLC 1129398697.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ a b Rhoads, Edward J. M. (2000). Manchus & Han : ethnic relations and political power in late Qing and early republican China, 1861-1928. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-80412-5. OCLC 774282702.
  6. ^ Wakeman, Frederic E. (1985). The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-century China, Volume 1. Vol. 2 of Great Enterprise (illustrated ed.). University of California Press,l. p. 868. ISBN 0520048040.
  7. ^ Lui, Adam Yuen-chung (1989). Two Rulers in One Reign: Dorgon and Shun-chih, 1644-1660. Faculty of Asian Studies monographs // The Australian National University (illustrated ed.). Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. p. 37. ISBN 0731506545. Dorgon did not want to see anything go wrong in a province and this might be the main reason why the government ... When the Chinese were ordered to wear the queue , Sun and Li took the initiative in changing their Ming hairstyle to ...