This order to wear the biànzi did not apply to women, in whose aspect the Manchus did not interfere. In some places it resulted in armed rebellions, which were finally suppressed.īe that as it may, the biànzi became a symbol of submission to the dynasty and those who did not wear it were identified as bandits and rebels. Especially in the south, where the population had had less contact with the Tartar tribes and this practice was stranger, the order to wear the biànzi met with greater resistance. In 1953, the death penalty began to be applied to those who refused to comply with the order.Īlthough some officers resisted and preferred to die, the majority of the population complied with the order. However, some Chinese found it more difficult to accept the biànzi than to accept the Manchu government. On the other hand, the new dynasty rewarded with official positions those talented men belonging to the elites who agreed to comply with the change. One of these ways was the appeal to Confucian filial piety, which assimilated the ruler-governed relationship with the father-son family relationship, in which the son must aspire to resemble the father as much as possible. This order was progressively implemented in different regions, in the decades of 1620-1630.īarber shaving the head of a customer, leaving the biànzi on the crown.Īlthough in more recent times this order has been presented as a violent imposition, which would have forced the Chinese to choose between keeping their hair or keeping their heads, it seems that this view is the result of later nationalist rhetoric, and that the Qīng government tried to apply this rule in softer ways than simply resorting to violence. With the restoration of an indigenous government in the Míng 明 dynasty, foreign styles were banned, allowing only inhabitants of Tartar origin to wear biànzi in accordance with their ancestral customs.įinally, with the Manchu conquest of the sixteenth century, it was imposed on Chinese men to shave their heads ( xuēfà 削髮), leaving only a queue on the crown. Other Tartar tribes also wore similar hairstyles, including some of those who established dynasties in China, such as the Khitan (Liáo 遼 dynasty, 907–1125) and the Jurchen (Jīn 金 dynasty, 1115–1234).Īmong the Chinese, it was normal to wear long hair on the entire head, symbol of virility, collected in the back in ponytails or buns, and it was also common to wear caps or turbans on the head, such as the fútóu 襆頭.Įmperor Tàizōng of Jīn 金太宗 already ordered in 1179 that all his Chinese subjects wear Tartar clothing and hair style.Īt the end of the Yuán 元 dynasty (1271-1368), of Mongolian origin, the biànzi was already common in China, although most natives still wore long hair all over the head tied on the crown. Already during the Hàn 漢 dynasty, Xiōngnú 匈奴 nomads wore biànzi. Although widespread throughout China due to the imposition of the Qīng government, the biànzi was a much older tradition among the nomadic peoples of the northern steppes.
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