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Hsüeh Fu-Chʻeng and China’s self-strengthening movement, 1865-1894
Corcoran, Eugene J.
Corcoran, Eugene J.
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Abstract
This study proposes to examine the thought and public career of HsUeh Fu-ch'eng (1838-1894), secretary and advisor to the two most powerful regional leaders in nineteenth-century China, Tseng Kuo-fan (1811-1872) and Li Hung-chang (1823-1901). Curiously, as a member of a traditional hierarchical society where rank and title accounted for one's worth and prestige, HsUeh barely made a mark. He never held a truly powerful office within the established bureaucracy and only received sheng-yuan, for first-degree, credentials within the examination system. Upward mobility for HsUeh came not within officially pre-scribed channels, but within the extra-official and peripheral mu-fu ("tent-government") system. At the start of his public career, HsUeh wrote lengthy essays to his mentors covering the entire spectrum of China's pressing issues and his practical suggestions on how best to deal with those issues made a lasting impact on Tseng and Li. Above all, his writings touched the exposed nerve of nineteenth-century Chinese society, namely, the urgency of reform.
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1979
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corcoran_1979_552643.pdf
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