Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China

Chen Hongmou (1696-1771) was arguably the most influential Chinese official of the eighteenth century and unquestionably its most celebrated field administrator. He served as governor-general, governor, or in lesser provincial-level posts in more than a dozen provinces, achieving after his death cult status as a model official. In this study, the author draws on Chen’s life and career to answer a range of questions: what did mid-Qing bureaucrats think they were doing? How did they conceive the universe and their society, what did they see as their potential to save the world, and what would the world, properly saved, be like? The answers to these questions are important not only because vast numbers of people were subject to these officials governance, but because the verdict of their successors was that they did their jobs remarkably well and should be emulated.