Ding Richang
Ding's lengthy 1868 memorial admits to the hopelessness of effective governance without qualified administrators and structural reform.
Known for his talents in writing, Fengshun's magistrate accepted Ding as protégé, and an unidentified sponsor paid the expense of the provincial Canton examination.
In 1854 he was awarded with the rank of an expectant magistrate for help in subduing local Cantonese bandits, and in 1856 was appointed subdirector of schools of Qiongzhou (Hainan Island).
His swift policies were praised by the Jiangxi Wan-an gazetteer, and it is said that he reduced the number of backlogged cases from over a hundred to only a few within a month.
[9] Departing his Jiangxi magistracy in 1859 for a foreign affairs appointment in Guandong, Ding was soon made acting magistrate of Ji'an with the goal of recapturing the county seat.
For his diplomatic handling of staff negotiations in this role, Ding was awarded Shanghai taotai (intendant of Suzhou, Songjiang and Taicang), which entailed constant foreign dealings.
In 1863 he promised to reduce taxes on Chinese junks so as to make them competitive with foreign ships (apparently in bean trade), and wrote to Li Hongzhang suggesting that the Chinese buy and build steamships, which, allowing them to outcompete the foreigners, would remove the need to expel them by force.
In 1865, in response to a need by Li Hongzhang and the Yamen for formal training in mechanics and mathematics, he purchased (as an administrator) machinery from a foreign factory at Shanghai, founding the Kiangnan Arsenal.
[11] Li was promoted to salt controller in September 1865 before being named the Jiangsu finance commissioner, or treasurer, in early 1866, which he performed in 1867.
It called for better personnel training and selection, examinations, increased reward and punishment, longer terms, and higher salaries.
[5] Ding established free schools and lectures, reprinting the Expanded Sacred Edicts, subsidized fertilizer, and pressed for repair of waterworks.
On the penal side of things he drew up plans in late 1868 for weapon's collection to combat piracy, which was successful, attempted to ban delayed burial, and closed some twenty nunneries reputedly used as brothels.
Though southern Jiangsu and Jiangxi was recovering from the war, it also had an element in the imperial court and an economic diversity that attracted patrons in wealth, commerce and the arts.
His efforts hinged on control over clerks and runners, who he focused on bringing under the supervision of magistrates, improving the latter's selection and establishing channels of communication between them and the peasants.
His 1868 memorial to the throne proposed limiting clerk positions to non-degree holding scholars (rather than any semi-literate) on the basis that they might value their reputation more.
In the Baojia system, registers are drawn up of males sixteen to sixty, under which households are divided up by units of tens and hundreds and bound by mutual responsibility, with elected heads that had some level of local influence.
In response to the Japanese invasion, during the great policy debates he proposed the need for Western studies and three regional fleets worth of ironclad battleships.
He laid plans for commercial farming and mining, and naval base and a railway (for military purposes), which were approved by the throne, but did not receive funds.
Although seemingly of the belief that determined men could resolve old problems in a day,[8] Ding considered quick reform unreasonable and punishments impotent.
A man of impetuous conviction who preferred the recognition of his superiors to their approval,[8] Ding was easily perturbed by a disregard for his orders, and sensitive about the performance of officials he had personally appointed.
