And three law-and-order topics instead of four:
However, these topics seem to have less garbage.
Still doing a good job noting the expected occurrences: some of Qianlong's 10 Great Campaigns are here, but notice that the suppressive campaigns loom largest: the two against the Jinchuan hill people in 1747-49 and 1771-76 are the biggest spikes, and the three Southeast Asian campaigns are the lesser spikes: Burma in 1765-69, Vietnam in 1788-89, and the Gurkha campaigns in 1790-92. The offensive campaigns in Xinjiang (1755-57) barely register in the "Border Rebels Topic."
If we compare this to a military composite, the Xinjiang Campaigns do register, along the Jinchuan suppressions and the Burma Campaign, as the most significant military events; more significant military events than Vietnam or the Gurkhas.
This means that the "Border Rebels" topic is not just identifying battle involving border groups - it is identifying wars that Yongzheng and Qianlong saw as suppressing rebels, that differed from the campaigns in Xinjiang.
There is also some new stuff here. Did a bunch of reading last night, and it look like those (blue) spikes in the law and order topics under Qianlong (including Kuhn's 1768 spike) are worries about sedition and other "crafty" crimes. Did sedition spike under Qianlong, or was he simply more worried about it?
The red topic (here called "trials") covers a lot of criminal behavior viewed at the trial stage. That said, it appears to mostly be nonviolent crimes that attracted central notice for other reasons (salt-smuggling, illegal minting, stuff like that).
The green topic (here called "policing) is more about capturing criminals than trying them. But it appears (preliminarily) to be more about violent crime, especially banditry, riots and murder.
These are preliminary results, need to go read a few dozen more entries to confirm (or deny) my suspicions). But this looks to me like it captures a major shift in the Qing. The topics that peak early are about establishing the bounds of imperial power - projecting foreign policy and cracking down on treasonous mutterings:
As well as less abstract infrastructure:
The topics that peak late show the state failing: major internal rebellions and a rise in violent crime:
A few other interesting things to look at:
