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Eh, sort of, but that first quote (and more generally the problem of murder and robbery of long-distance travellers) dates back to the early 18th century, so this was still some way off the real crisis of the late Qing. In fact, state officials exerted enormous effort to stamp the problem out; towns in the most affected regions were supposedly plastered with appeals for help in murder-theft cases. They weren't always very good at it, of course.
Yep, this is it really I think, institutions.
That would be the high Qing? Did you mean early 19th century?
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if post-Qianlong the Qing was mostly completely inept at policing its cities. Tax was light enough that the bureaucracy was extremely stretched, corruption was rampant just to keep the machine going, and this was the time where rebellions just started sprouting like weeds throughout the empire.
I did mean early 18c. I only meant to say late imperial China in respect of that part, I didn't mean to imply that this was in the late Qing (well the problem did persist of course, but it didn't start then).
Fair enough. You’re right that it is something that was important enough to be written about, and Qing china in particular was fairly frugal with its state expenditures.
The wokou during the Ming were quite often actually Chinese or bankrolled by disgruntled Chinese merchants, as well.
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