Accessing Employment Opportunities on a Qing Frontier: Employees from Mainland China in Taiwan, 1870s-1890s

China’s late nineteenth century was a time of severe unemployment for would-be government officials. However, many of these people found opportunities to fulfil state functions on the frontier by serving as low-ranking officials on informal assignments. How did they manage to secure such employment, and what impact did their employment have on the transformation of the Qing frontiers? I argue that these low-ranking employees staffed and enabled the expanding Qing state apparatus to implement reforms prompted by foreign commercial and military challenges. To uncover the role played by these employees, it is essential to first analyze historical events in terms of employment opportunities. Secondly, it is crucial to recognize the frontier as a promising workplace for job seekers during the late nineteenth century. Taiwan exemplifies such a frontier, offering abundant job opportunities resulting from successive wars, reconstruction efforts, and reforms. Consequently, the island attracted many individuals seeking employment during that historical period. By employing a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses of autobiographies of mainland employees preserved in Qing China’s rare county archives, we can gain insight into their career trajectories, highlighting both the promise of the frontier job market and the challenges of upward mobility. Furthermore, such analyses allow us to understand how these individuals contributed to the staffing of the Qing state, which was one among several empires globally that profoundly transformed its frontier regions during that period.