The Administrative Impact of Smallpox in the Early Years of the Qing Dynasty and Measures Adopted by the Qing Court

History is a theatrical stage fraught withhuman activities. The formation of a histori-cal phenomenon not only comes from thepeople’s social activities, but also results fromthe interaction of various factors, includingnatural factors such as plagues. In the earlyQing, a smallpox epidemic had become asevere annoyance to the Qing government.During winter and spring when epidemicsran out of control, the Manchu emperorssuch as Huangtaiji (reigned 1627-1644) andShunzhi (reigned 1644-1662) had t…