Chapter 16 Research Reconnaissance · HIST 270 Background Essays

Audit disposition. Chapter 16 had no HIST 270 background essays, so this reconnaissance covers four new essays and a retroactive audit of the four published FA26 decks (The Gate in the Wall, Grandfather and Grandson, The Kowtow and the Crowd and Inside the Garden, Outside the Law). The four-lecture roadmap passes, and the decks are accurate on most points. Quotations attributed to Ebrey were checked against the printed text and are faithful, with three small exceptions of form. The main problems were textbook errors repeated in visible text: Koxinga "holding out" on Taiwan until 1683, Kangxi jailing Oboi "at fourteen," the Mongols with "bows and arrows only," the Macartney embassy's "only Chinese speaker," the "Hakka" of 1795 and Baoyu passing the jinshi. There were also several cross-deck inconsistencies. Steven approved the fixes, and on 25 October 2026 they were applied to the four published decks; Section 8 lists each issue and the fix applied. Every item was applied except one, the Lec2 F link, which has no stable target yet; Section 8 explains.

1. Governing standards and scope

Research precedes presentation. Ebrey's Chapter 16, "The Creation of the Manchu Empire (1600–1800)," pp. 270–287, is the course baseline, not its ceiling. Dates, names, numbers and quotations in the decks were checked against the textbook (from an OCR of the course PDF, page by page), against standard monographs and the Cambridge History of China, volume 9, and, where the decks quote primary sources, against published translations. Every quotation that a deck attributes to Ebrey was compared with the printed text by script, and the flagged cases were read by hand. Where Ebrey's statements conflict with current scholarship, the essays follow the scholarship and flag the textbook. Where a deck followed the textbook into error, the essays give the corrected history and this audit lists the slide and the fix.

The rule for the fixes is the course rule: visible slides teach the correct history; the textbook's discrepancy is explained only in an instructor note; outside works are cited in a brief notes line and on the Sources slide; no visible "outside the textbook" tags; slide letters are permanent and no slide is added or relettered.

Audience: the instructor's lecture preparation and advanced students. The essays keep plain language and define terms, but cite real scholarship in footnotes and end with annotated reading lists.

2. Textbook baseline

Ebrey's chapter supplies the spine: the Jurchen background, Nurhaci and the banners (pp. 270–271); Hong Taiji, Dorgon and the conquest (pp. 271–273); Ming loyalism and three loyalist thinkers (pp. 272–273); population and living standards (pp. 273–274); Kangxi, the Three Feudatories, Mongolia and Tibet (p. 274); the Biography of Jiang Chun (p. 275); the Jesuits and the rites controversy, Yongzheng and Qianlong (pp. 276–277); the banner system (pp. 277–278); the Documents feature on Fang Bao (pp. 278–279); contacts with Europe and the Macartney embassy (pp. 280–281); the conservative turn, evidential scholarship, Yuan Mei, the Eight Eccentrics and The Dream of Red Mansions (pp. 281–283); the less advantaged, secret societies, sects and the Miao (pp. 283–286); and the summary (pp. 286–287). The reading guide sets eleven review questions and three review-only questions (RQ12–RQ14).

The chapter is clear and well proportioned. Statements needing correction or caution:

Nurhaci's offer against Japan "the next year" after 1590 (p. 271): the invasion and the offer were in 1592.
Nurhaci in 1616 "declared war ... by calling himself khan ... and listing his grievances" (p. 271): the khanate was 1616, the Seven Grievances and war 1618.
Hong Taiji died "at age forty-six" (p. 271): he was fifty.
"Dorgon proposed to Wu that they join forces" (p. 272): most accounts have Wu appealing to Dorgon; the battle of Shanhaiguan is omitted.
Huang Zongxi "served the Ming resistance court at Nanjing" (p. 273): he was persecuted at Nanjing and served the Prince of Lu in Zhejiang.
Koxinga "was able to hold out in Taiwan until 1683" (p. 273): he died in 1662; his heirs held out.
Yangzhou, "slaughtering hundreds of thousands" (p. 273): the scale is unverifiable.
"Global warming" (p. 273): a milder climate after the cold seventeenth century.
Kangxi jailed his regent "at age fourteen" (p. 274): personal rule 1667, Oboi's arrest 1669.
Mongols "armed with bows and arrows only"; "ending two thousand years of northern border defense problems" (p. 274): overstated.
Qing army "occupied Lhasa in 1718" (p. 274): 1720.
Kangxi "outlawed Christian missionaries" (p. 276): permits from 1706; formal ban 1724 under Yongzheng.
Yongzheng "forty-five"; Qianlong died "at age eighty-nine" (pp. 276–277): Chinese count; Western 44 and 87.
"Most of the Chinese bannermen removed" (p. 277): overstated.
Japan among the states that sent envoys (p. 280): Tokugawa Japan did not.
The embassy's only Chinese speaker "a twelve-year-old boy"; Macartney "arrived in Guangzhou"; a letter "from George II" (p. 280): interpreters, Tianjin, George III.
Theaters "were closed" (p. 281): repeated, partial bans.
"Qian Daxian" (p. 281): Qian Daxin.
Baoyu passes "the jinshi examinations" (p. 283): the provincial examination, in the continuation.
The Luo sect "an offshoot of the White Lotus" (p. 285): a distinct tradition.
"A Han ethnic group called the Hakka" in western Hunan in 1795 (p. 286): Han settlers generally ("guest people," kemin).

3. Inventory and authority determination

Authoritative for this audit: the four published FA26 decks in the_lyceum/chinese-history/reveal_decks/chapter-16/ (40, 38, 28 and 34 slides); the Chapter 16 reading guide (RQ1–RQ14); and the arc plan used to build the decks (planning only, not published). Earlier Chapter 16 decks in the chapter's archive/ folder are superseded and were not audited. The background essays are new:

The Gate in the Wall (Lecture 1; RQ1, RQ2; Pierian Spring RQ14, RQ4).
Grandfather and Grandson (Lecture 2; RQ3, RQ5; Pierian Spring RQ13, RQ12).
The Kowtow and the Crowd (Lecture 3; RQ6, RQ7; Pierian Spring RQ11).
Inside the Garden, Outside the Law (Lecture 4; RQ9, RQ10; Pierian Spring RQ8).

4. Fresh chapter-wide research reconnaissance

The Manchu state and the conquest

The field rests on Frederic Wakeman's The Great Enterprise (1985) for the conquest narrative and on the "New Qing History" of the 1990s and 2000s for the Manchus themselves: Pamela Crossley (Orphan Warriors, 1990; The Manchus, 1997; A Translucent Mirror, 1999), Evelyn Rawski (The Last Emperors, 1998) and Mark Elliott (The Manchu Way, 2001). These scholars argue that the Qing was not simply "sinicized" but ruled as an Inner Asian empire with a distinct Manchu identity, maintained above all through the banners. The essays adopt that frame without overstating it. For the Southern Ming and the loyalists, Lynn Struve's The Southern Ming (1984) and Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm (1993) are standard; for Taiwan, Tonio Andrade's Lost Colony (2011); for the queue, Philip Kuhn's Soulstealers (1990).

The high Qing emperors and the frontiers

Spence's Emperor of China (1974) and Ts'ao Yin (1966), Oxnam on the Oboi regency (1975) and Kessler on Kangxi's consolidation (1976) cover the early reign. Peter Perdue's China Marches West (2005) has reshaped the frontier story, and Millward's Beyond the Pass (1998) covers Xinjiang. On Yongzheng, Zelin (1984), Bartlett (1991) and Pei Huang (1974); on Qianlong, Elliott's biography (2009), Berger on Buddhist imagery (2003), Guy on the Four Treasuries (1987) and Kuhn on 1768. On the Jesuits and the rites controversy, Mungello's edited volume (1994), Jami (2012) and Cams (2017).

Macartney, population and the frontiers of settlement

The Macartney embassy has been reinterpreted twice: by Hevia's Cherishing Men from Afar (1995), which read it as a clash of ritual systems, and by Henrietta Harrison (2017; 2021), who shows that the Qing court was better informed and more worried than the edict's tone suggests and recovers the role of the Chinese interpreter Li Zibiao. Population history rests on Ho Ping-ti (1959) and Lee and Wang (1999); the living-standards debate on Pomeranz (2000) and its critics, such as Allen and colleagues (2011). For the poor and unmarried, Sommer (2000; 2015); for the southwest, Hostetler (2001) and Sutton (2003), whose reexamination of the 1795 Miao uprising underlies the Hakka correction.

Culture, sects and the conservative turn

For women and the chastity cult, Mann (1987; 1997), Theiss (2004) and Weijing Lu (2008); for evidential scholarship, Elman (1984) and for ritualism Chow (1994); for theater, Goldman (2012); for the novel, the Hawkes–Minford translation, Levy (1999) and Yu (1997). For the sects, ter Haar (1992) and Overmyer (1976) on the "White Lotus" label; Naquin (1976; 1981) on rebellions; Murray and Qin (1994) and ter Haar (1998) on the Triads; Kelley (1982) on the Luo sect boatmen; and Dai (2019) on the White Lotus war.

5. Four-lecture roadmap audit

The arc plan assigns RQ1–2 to Lecture 1 with RQ14 and RQ4 in its Pierian Spring; RQ3 and RQ5 to Lecture 2 with RQ13 and RQ12 in its Pierian Spring; RQ6 and RQ7 to Lecture 3 with RQ11 in its Pierian Spring; and RQ9 and RQ10 to Lecture 4 with RQ8 in its Pierian Spring. The roadmap passes. It follows the chapter's logic rather than its page order (population, on p. 273, is taught in Lecture 3 with its consequences), and every review question has a home and a Reading Guide slide whose text matches the guide verbatim.

Seams that need care:

The banners are taught in Lecture 1's Pierian Spring and recapped in Lecture 2 (slides V–W); the page cite for debts and land sales differed between the two (Lec1 FF p. 278; Lec2 W "pp. 277, 279"); Lec2 W now cites pp. 277–278.
The Macartney audience picture is captioned correctly in Lecture 3 (slide H: Alexander did not attend) but was "Alexander's 1793 sketch of the audience" in Lecture 2 (slide Y); slide Y now agrees with Lecture 3.
Theater was "closed" in Lecture 4 (slide C) but thriving in Lecture 2 (slide KK, Jiang Chun's two troupes); slide C now speaks of bans on novels and plays, not closed theaters.
The abdication was "1795" in Lecture 2 (slide X) and "1796" in Lecture 4 (slides S, U); slide X now gives the announcement of 1795 and the handover of 1796.
Gu Yanwu's mother (Lec1 T) and the faithful maidens (Lec4 Z) are the same phenomenon and are now linked both ways.
Ages. Lecture 2 mixes Western and Chinese counts (Kangxi "fourteen," Yongzheng "forty-five," Qianlong "eighty-nine"). Chapter 18 uses Western ages, and Lecture 2 now does too (thirteen and fifteen, forty-four, eighty-seven).

6. Individual background essay audits

After the deck fixes of 25 October 2026, each essay was revised so that its references to slides describe the fixed decks rather than the decks as audited.

Essay 1 — The Gate in the Wall

Passes. Gives the corrected Nurhaci chronology (1592; 1616/1618), the Manchu name decree of 1635, Hong Taiji's age, the battle of Shanhaiguan, the two queue orders, Koxinga's heirs and Huang Zongxi's actual service; adds Gu Yanwu's adoptive mother and the limits of the Chinese-banner expulsions.

Essay 2 — Grandfather and Grandson

Passes. Separates 1667 and 1669, Taiwan and the feudatories, and the stages of the missionary ban; corrects the Zunghar firearms point, Lhasa 1720 and the ages; adds Changkya Rolpe Dorje, Guy on the Four Treasuries and Zelin and Bartlett on Yongzheng.

Essay 3 — The Kowtow and the Crowd

Passes. Corrects Japan's place in the tribute list, the embassy's interpreters, its landing place and George III; frames the edict through Harrison; explains "global warming," Lee and Wang's demography and Sutton's reading of the 1795 rising; treats the Hakka label as a misreading.

Essay 4 — Inside the Garden, Outside the Law

Passes. Qualifies the theater bans, gives Cao Xueqin's uncertain dates, assigns the ending to the 1791 continuation and corrects Baoyu's examination; adds ter Haar on the "White Lotus" label and the Luo sect, Murray and Qin on the Triads, Dai on the White Lotus war and Weijing Lu on faithful maidens.

7. Primary-source and narrative shortlist

Wang Xiuchu, Record of Ten Days in Yangzhou (1645), in Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm. The most powerful eyewitness source for Lecture 1; excerpt with care.
Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, "On the Prince" (de Bary translation). Two pages that show loyalist political thought at its most radical.
Kangxi's own words, in Spence, Emperor of China. Short passages on hunting, illness, government and the Jesuits.
Fang Bao, "Random Notes from Prison" (Ebrey's Documents feature, pp. 278–279). Already in the textbook; links the literary inquisition (Lec2 S) to the lives of ordinary prisoners.
Qianlong's edicts to George III (1793), read in a modern translation beside the Backhouse–Bland version, with Harrison (2017).
Macartney's journal, ed. Cranmer-Byng (1962): the kowtow negotiations and his famous image of China as "an old, crazy, first-rate man-of-war."
Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, chapters 1, 17–18 and 42 (Hawkes): the stone myth, the garden and Baochai's confession (Lec4 J).
The 1795 Miao handbill and confessions, quoted in Sutton (2003): the rebels' own statement of grievance.
The official's description of a White Lotus woman leader (Ebrey, p. 285, from Kwang-ching Liu).
Miao albums (Hostetler): images for Lec3 U–W.

8. Deck issues and fixes applied

Each row names the permanent slide letter, the problem, its type and the fix applied on 25 October 2026, after Steven approved the audit. "Textbook error repeated" means the deck had followed Ebrey into a statement that current scholarship rejects. Every fix keeps the slide's letter and position, and no slide was added. Visible slides now teach the corrected history; the textbook's version is explained only in an instructor note; outside works are cited in a brief notes line and on each deck's Sources slide under "Further reading beyond Ebrey." Two items deliberately received no visible change: Lec1 O and Lec4 P/Q/R, where the visible text is accurate and the scholarship belongs in the notes. One item was left unchanged: the Lec2 F link, which has no stable target yet.

Lecture 1 · The Gate in the Wall

Strong and carefully sourced. Verified correct: the Jin dates (1127–1234 for north China), the Korean visitor of 1595–1596, the banner structure, the twenty-four banners by 1644, Shi Kefa, the five-day battle, the Jiading–Changshu–Jiangyin massacres, the 1661–1662 defeat of the two loyalist camps, the dates of the three thinkers, the Inner City clearance and the 2 million acres. Quotations from Ebrey are accurate.

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
E	Visible: Nurhaci "offered to help fight Japan in Korea in 1591." The invasion began in 1592, and the offer was made then. Ebrey's "the next year" after 1590 produces 1591.	Textbook error repeated	Visible "in 1592." Instructor note on Ebrey's "the next year" (Swope 2009).
E	Ebrey's 1616 "declared war ... listing his grievances" merges the Later Jin proclamation (1616) and the Seven Grievances and attack on Fushun (1618).	Textbook compression	Kicker 1583–1618; visible: khan in 1616, war on the Ming in 1618; notes give the grievances of 1618. Instructor note (Swope 2009; Wakeman 1985).
F	Names box: Manchu was "the name the Jurchens adopted for themselves as Nurhaci's state grew." The name was decreed by Hong Taiji in 1635.	Error (minor)	Names box: "the name Hong Taiji ordered his people to use in 1635, replacing Jurchen." Notes to match; instructor note (Crossley 1997).
NN (notes)	Hong Taiji died "at forty-six" (Ebrey, p. 271). He was born in 1592 and died at fifty. The notes also name Dorgon as sole regent; Jirgalang was co-regent at first.	Textbook error repeated	Notes: "at fifty," with Jirgalang as co-regent; visible "the leading regent." Instructor note on Ebrey's figure.
B	Caption implies the Wanchun Pavilion is where Chongzhen died. Tradition places the spot on the hill's eastern slope.	Caption precision	Caption: "Wanchun Pavilion on Jingshan, the hill just north of the Forbidden City; the last Ming emperor hanged himself on the hill's slope."
L	Follows Ebrey's "Dorgon proposed to Wu." Most accounts have Wu appeal to Dorgon; the decisive battle of Shanhaiguan (27 May 1644) is omitted.	Textbook simplification	Visible: "Wu appealed to the Manchu regent Dorgon" and "Together they beat Li Zicheng's army at the pass." Notes give the battle of 27 May 1644; instructor note (Wakeman 1985). The reading-guide bullet stays.
N	Visible "killing hundreds of thousands," and notes "the number is enough," present Ebrey's figure as established; the ten-day duration from Wang Xiuchu's account is not given.	Caution	Visible: "let his army sack the city for about ten days, killing a huge number of people." Notes on Wang Xiuchu and the 800,000 claim; instructor note (Struve 1993; Meyer-Fong 2003).
O	Ebrey's sequence (soldiers first, then all men) is accurate as far as it goes, but the first order of 1644, its withdrawal and the July 1645 reimposition are absent.	Omission	Instructor note on the 1644 order, its withdrawal and the July 1645 reimposition (Kuhn 1990; Wakeman 1985). Visible text left unchanged, as recommended.
Q	Visible: "Zheng Chenggong, known in the West as Koxinga, held out on Taiwan until 1683." He took Taiwan in 1662 and died that year; his son and grandson held it until 1683.	Textbook error repeated	Visible: "took Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662; his family held out there until 1683." Notes name his son and grandson and Shi Lang; instructor note (Andrade 2011).
S (notes)	Notes repeat Ebrey's "served the Ming resistance court at Nanjing." Huang was persecuted by the Nanjing court and served the Prince of Lu's regency in Zhejiang.	Textbook error repeated (notes)	Notes: "served the Ming resistance in Zhejiang under the Prince of Lu." Instructor note (de Bary 1993).
T	Gu Yanwu's "mother" was his adoptive mother, a betrothed faithful maiden. Links to Lec4 Z.	Omission (enrichment)	Headline and bullet now say "adoptive mother," with a recap link to Lec4 Z; notes and instructor note (Weijing Lu 2008).
U	The Wang Fuzhi quotation is truncated without an ellipsis.	Quotation form	Ellipsis added.
EE / Lec2 W	"Most Chinese bannermen" removed (Ebrey, p. 277) is overstated; the expulsions fell mainly on provincial garrisons.	Caution	Visible "many Chinese bannermen" on Lec1 EE and Lec2 W; instructor note (Elliott 2001).

Lecture 2 · Grandfather and Grandson

Rich and well structured. Verified correct: Shunzhi's death and the smallpox choice; 1661 for the accession (with a note on Ebrey's 1662); the reign, personal and temple names; the Three Feudatories (1673–1681); the eighty thousand men of 1696; the Xinjiang conquest of the 1750s; the 1768 queue scare; the Four Treasuries and the two thousand titles; Yongzheng's 1729 council and 1724 meltdown-fee reform; Jiang Chun's six visits (1751–1784). Quotations from Ebrey are accurate.

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
E	Headline "At Fourteen Kangxi Jailed His Regent and Ruled for Himself" joins two events: personal rule in 1667 (thirteen, or fourteen sui) and Oboi's arrest in 1669 (fifteen). The notes already give 1669.	Textbook error repeated	Headline: "As a Teenager Kangxi Jailed His Regent and Ruled for Himself." Bullet: 1667 at thirteen, arrest in 1669; notes to match. Instructor note on "fourteen" (Oxnam 1975).
I	Visible: "Afterward Taiwan ... was made" part of Fujian, as if a result of the feudatory war. It was a separate campaign: Shi Lang's victory at Penghu (1683), a prefecture in 1684.	Textbook compression	Kicker 1673–1684. Visible: "In 1683 a Qing fleet took Taiwan ... and in 1684 it became part of Fujian province." Notes name Shi Lang; instructor note (Shepherd 1993).
J	Visible headline and bullet: guns gave Kangxi Mongolia and "ended two thousand years of border wars"; the Mongols had "only bows and arrows." Galdan's Zunghars had firearms; the Zunghar threat lasted until the 1750s.	Textbook error repeated	Headline: "Guns, Grain, and Diplomacy Won Kangxi Mongolia." Bullets name Galdan, heavier guns and supply, and the Zunghars until the 1750s. Notes rewritten (Dolon Nor, Jao Modo, Nerchinsk) and cut from 378 to under 300 words. Instructor note (Perdue 2005; Petech 1972).
J (notes)	Notes repeat Ebrey's "occupied Lhasa in 1718." The 1718 force was destroyed; Lhasa was taken in 1720.	Textbook error repeated (notes)	Notes: Lhasa 1720; the instructor note keeps Ebrey's 1718.
M / DD	Headline "Kangxi Banned the Missionaries" and "He outlawed Christian missionaries" compress a process: permits from 1706, the 1721 vermilion endorsement, the formal ban by Yongzheng in 1724.	Textbook compression	M headline: "... Kangxi Turned Against the Missionaries"; bullet: permits, then no preaching, Jesuit experts kept. DD bullet: no preaching, and the formal ban by his son in 1724. Instructor notes (Mungello 2013). The wording of Review Question 13 is unchanged.
O	Visible list includes "Tibetan and Tangut"; in Qing usage "Tangut" usually meant Tibetan. The check-yourself question invites students to count languages.	Error (minor)	Visible: "Mongolian, Uighur, and Tibetan." Instructor note on Tangut; notes name Changkya Rolpe Dorje (Berger 2003).
W	Source line "pp. 277, 279" and a notes cite of p. 279 for debts and land sales; the passage is on pp. 277–278 (Lec1 FF cites p. 278).	Page cite	Source line "pp. 277–278"; notes cite p. 278.
X	Visible "abdicated in 1795" and "aged eighty-nine." He announced the abdication in 1795 and handed over the throne in February 1796; he died at eighty-seven (Western count). Lecture 4 uses 1796.	Textbook error repeated / cross-deck	Headline: "... Then Gave Up the Throne." Bullet: announced in 1795, handed over in 1796, died in 1799. Notes: "eighty-seven." Instructor note on sui.
FF	Headline "A Forty-Five-Year-Old Prince" is the Chinese count; he was forty-four.	Age convention	Headline: "A Forty-Four-Year-Old Prince"; bullet and notes to match; instructor note.
Y	Caption: "AI-enhanced redraw of William Alexander's 1793 sketch of Lord Macartney's audience." Alexander did not attend; Lec3 H says so.	Cross-deck inconsistency	Caption, source line and notes: Alexander's picture, drawn from others' sketches; he did not attend.
JJ (notes)	Reading-guide notes say "the slides tag the outside ones," contradicting the no-tags rule (the decks carry no visible tags).	Notes wording	Reworded as recommended.
F (link)	The Ch. 1 L3 Mandate of Heaven link points to the SU26 deck by slide number (`#/4`). It works now but will break when Ch. 1 L3 is rebuilt.	Maintenance	Left unchanged. The Ch. 1 L3 SU26 deck has no slide ids, so there is no stable target yet, and the FA26 rebuild will change the file name anyway. Update when that deck exists.

Lecture 3 · The Kowtow and the Crowd

Well judged; the Backhouse translation and the Alexander picture are already cautioned. Verified correct: Macartney's career, the five goals, eighty-four people and six hundred cases, the twelve-year-old Staunton, the summer retreat audience, the population figures, the four causes, partible inheritance, sex-selective infanticide, the Miao revolt of 1795, the embassy books and the standard-of-living argument.

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
B (notes)	Notes quote Ebrey's tribute list including Japan; Tokugawa Japan sent no envoys to the Qing.	Textbook error repeated (notes)	Japan dropped from the notes' paraphrase; instructor note (Toby 1984).
G	Headline and bullet: "His Only Chinese Speaker Was a Twelve-Year-Old Boy." The embassy's interpreters were Chinese Catholic priests from Naples, chiefly Li Zibiao.	Textbook error repeated	Headline: "... and the Only Briton Who Spoke Chinese Was a Boy of Twelve." Bullets name Li Zibiao and the Naples priests; notes and instructor note (Harrison 2021); added to Sources.
H (notes)	Ebrey's "arrived in Guangzhou" and "George II" are slips: the embassy landed near Tianjin and left via Guangzhou; the letter was from George III. The deck's visible text is correct.	Textbook slips	Instructor note naming both slips.
I (notes)	Ebrey's sentence is quoted without "however" and without an ellipsis.	Quotation form	"However" restored.
I	The court's answer lacks the strategic context: fear of British India and the Gurkha war, and secret orders to strengthen coastal defenses.	Omission	Notes: British India, the Gurkhas and the coast-defense orders (Harrison 2017; Hevia 1995). The optional visible bullet was not added, to keep four bullets.
L	Visible "Global warming lengthened the growing season" may be read as modern climate change.	Terminology	Visible: "A milder climate after the cold 1600s lengthened the growing season." Notes to match; instructor note (Lee and Wang 1999).
U / X	Names box and slide X follow Ebrey's "Hakka." The rebels' "guest people" (kemin) were Han settlers in general.	Textbook error repeated	Names box: "Guest people: kemin, Han settlers, newcomers to Miao country"; headline "... and the Han 'Guests'"; X: "Han settlers had recently been moving into that area." Instructor notes (Sutton 2003).
I (notes)	"He was eighty-two": born 25 September 1711, Qianlong was eighty-one at the audience of 14 September 1793 and was about to celebrate his eighty-second birthday (eighty-three sui).	Precision (trivial)	"Eighty-one."

Lecture 4 · Inside the Garden, Outside the Law

Accurate on the novel's plot and the sects' beliefs, and it already corrects Ebrey's "Qian Daxian." Verified correct: the Hawkes quotation (slide J), the mantra (Q), the official's description of the woman leader (R), Yan Ruoju (CC), the 1793 investigation and the eight years of the White Lotus war (S), the 300 million figure (U) and the Luo sect hostels (EE).

Slide	Issue	Type	Fix applied
B	Source line cites p. 280; the late-Ming sentence is on p. 281.	Page cite	"p. 281" in the source line and notes.
C	Headline and bullet "Moralists Closed Theaters and Banned Novels" overstate repeated, partial bans; contradicts Lec2 KK (Jiang Chun's two opera troupes) and the 1790 Anhui troupes.	Textbook overstatement / cross-deck	Headline: "After the Conquest, Moralists Turned Against Plays and Novels." Bullet: "the state banned many novels and plays"; notes on repeated, partial bans; instructor note (Goldman 2012). Same wording on AA.
E	"Cao Xueqin (1715–1764)" in visible text; both dates are uncertain.	Caution	Visible: "c. 1715–1763/64." Instructor note.
F	Caption "an early woodblock-printed edition ... 1791": the 1791 Cheng–Gao edition was printed with movable wooden type; its illustrations were woodblocks.	Caption precision (optional)	Caption: "the 1791 Cheng–Gao edition, the first printed edition of the novel."
I	The tricked wedding is presented as Cao's plot; it is in the 1791 continuation.	Omission	Visible: "In the last forty chapters, added by another writer, ..." Notes cite Levy (1999).
FF	Headline "Baoyu Passed the Highest Exam, Then Walked Away" and bullet "passing the jinshi." He passes the provincial exam (seventh place, ch. 119), in the continuation.	Textbook error repeated	Headline: "Baoyu Passed the Provincial Exam, Then Walked Away"; bullet: provincial exam, seventh place; notes on chapter 119; instructor note.
P / Q / R	"The White Lotus Society" as one organization; ter Haar shows the label was largely official.	Scholarly caution	Instructor note on slide P (ter Haar 1992). No visible change, as recommended.
EE	"An offshoot called the Luo sect": the Luo teaching was a distinct tradition.	Textbook error repeated	Visible: "A related sect, the Luo teaching, ..." Instructor note (Kelley 1982; ter Haar 1992).
W	Source line "pp. 280–281"; the passage is on p. 281.	Page cite	"p. 281."
AA	The corrected name "Qian Daxin" appears inside a quotation taken from Ebrey, who prints "Qian Daxian."	Quotation form	The name now stands outside the quotation marks; the instructor note on the misprint is kept.
Z	No link to Gu Yanwu's adoptive mother (Lec1 T), the best-known faithful maiden in the course.	Cross-deck enrichment	Recap link to Lec1 T on the first story-beat; a notes paragraph on Gu Yanwu's adoptive mother (Weijing Lu 2008).

Not issues. The decks already handled the following correctly before the fixes: Lec2 C (1661 vs. Ebrey's 1662), Lec3 H (Alexander did not attend), Lec3 I (Backhouse translation cautioned), Lec4 C and AA (Qian Daxin), Lec4 U (300 million), and the use of Sommer, Kuhn, Zelin and Bartlett in the notes and Sources slides.

9. Linked research apparatus

Lecture 1 deck: The Gate in the Wall · essay: The Gate in the Wall
Lecture 2 deck: Grandfather and Grandson · essay: Grandfather and Grandson
Lecture 3 deck: The Kowtow and the Crowd · essay: The Kowtow and the Crowd
Lecture 4 deck: Inside the Garden, Outside the Law · essay: Inside the Garden, Outside the Law
Reading guide: Chapter 16 Reading Guide

Audit conclusion

The Chapter 16 decks are accurate, well sourced and faithful to Ebrey's words. Before the audit they already corrected several textbook slips (Kangxi's accession year, Qian Daxin, the Alexander picture, the Backhouse translation). The audit found about forty items. Roughly a dozen were textbook errors repeated in visible text: Lec1 E and Q; Lec2 E, I, J, M, X and Y; Lec3 G, L and U/X; and Lec4 C, FF and EE. The rest were instructor-note additions, page cites, quotation form and cross-deck links. All were applied on 25 October 2026 except one: the Lec2 F link to the Chapter 1 SU26 deck, which has no stable slide id to point to. Lec1 O and Lec4 P/Q/R received instructor notes only, by design. The four background essays and the decks now teach the same corrected history.