 While the Han merchants frequently provoked the anger of the monasteries and the laity for several reasons, the net effect of the monasteries' role was support for Chinese trade.Nevertheless, the empire did make various attempts to restrict the activities of these Han merchants such as the implementation of annual licensing, because it had been the Qing policy to keep the Mongols as a military reservoir, and it was considered that the Han Chinese trade penetration would undermine this objective, although in many cases such attempts had little effects.The first half of the 19th century saw the heyday of the Qing order.