After taking the throne, the Yongzheng Emperor (reigned 1722–1735) pursued policies to strengthen central control and improve governance. In the southwest, this meant pushing beyond symbolic authority to more direct administration. The change set the stage for replacing hereditary chieftains with appointed officials.
Before major reforms, the Qing governed much of Yunnan and Guizhou indirectly through tusi (hereditary native chieftains) recognized by the state. This system helped the dynasty project authority in rugged frontier areas where regular county administration was hard to maintain. By the early 1700s, Qing leaders increasingly viewed tusi rule as unstable and costly to police.
In the mid-1720s, the Qing court relied on Ortai (E’ertai; 鄂爾泰) to implement gaitu guiliu (“replacing native rule with regular administration”). The policy aimed to remove semi-independent tusi authorities and establish standard Qing institutions (counties, prefectures, and appointed magistrates). In practice, it blended negotiation, coercion, and military force.
Between the late 1720s and early 1730s, Ortai led campaigns to pacify resistance and break powerful chieftain networks in the region. These operations were closely tied to converting tusi jurisdictions into regular Qing administrative units. The use of force during this period became a lasting source of grievance in some communities.
In northeastern Yunnan, unrest involving the Wumeng tusi became a major test for the reform program. The Qing response combined pressure, military action, and administrative reorganization to turn former tusi territories into areas governed by appointed officials. This episode signaled to other chieftains that the court was serious about ending hereditary autonomy.
In Guizhou, efforts to replace tusi authority and tighten state control contributed to an uprising commonly called the Miao Rebellion (1735–1736). The conflict reflected broader tensions around taxation, land, local power, and the sudden expansion of direct administration. The Qing defeated the rebellion, reinforcing the state’s commitment to the new system.
After the Yongzheng-era push, the tusi system declined sharply across much of Yunnan and Guizhou, with many offices abolished during the 18th century. Regular counties and prefectures expanded, and appointed officials increasingly managed taxation, justice, and land registration. Even so, some frontier tusi remained where terrain, politics, or local resistance made full conversion difficult.
A large uprising in the region from 1795 to 1806 highlighted continuing problems under direct rule, including official abuses, heavy burdens on local communities, and land pressures. While not caused by a single policy, it unfolded in a landscape reshaped by earlier gaitu guiliu reforms. The Qing suppression restored order but did not resolve underlying governance tensions.
From 1854 to 1873, a major multi-ethnic uprising erupted in Guizhou amid poverty, poor administration, and competition for arable land. The broader crisis of the mid-19th century Qing state—including fiscal strain and other wars—worsened local conditions. The rebellion was eventually crushed, but it left deep demographic and social damage in the province.
The 1911 Revolution ended the Qing dynasty and brought a new political framework that challenged older hereditary privileges. In frontier regions, Republican authorities increasingly treated tusi power as incompatible with modern provincial governance. This shift set up a new phase: limiting tusi authority through transitional state offices rather than Qing-style titles.
In 1913, Yunnan’s provincial government established offices such as suppression commissioners (弹压委员) in some western Yunnan tusi territories as a tool for “gaitu guiliu” under the Republic. These posts were meant to extend provincial oversight while avoiding an immediate administrative break that might trigger conflict. In several places, however, authority remained shared or contested, producing a “tusi and state co-rule” pattern.
Scholarly work on the end of the tusi system emphasizes that the post-1911 political transformation was decisive, and that the Republic’s rescission of tusi obligations and privileges marked a fundamental end point. In the Yunnan–Guizhou story, 1913 is commonly treated as the closing marker for the abolition drive that began in the 1720s, even though some tusi structures persisted in certain frontier localities afterward. The long arc shows a shift from indirect rule to direct administration, and finally to a Republican legal framework aimed at eliminating hereditary chieftain privileges.
Tusi (native chieftain) administration and its abolition in Yunnan–Guizhou (1725–1913)