Library:An Outline History of China

An Outline History of China
Author	Bai Shouyi, Fang Linggui, Gong Shuduo, Yang Zhao, Zhu Zhongyu
First published	1982 Beijing
Type	Book
PDF	First Edition Second Edition

Introduction

A Land of 9,600,000 Square Kilometers

The People’s Republic of China is situated in East Asia, on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Its borders reach from the central line of the main navigation channel of the Heilongjiang (Heilungkiang) River near Mohe in the north to the Zengmu Reef in the Nansha Archipelago in the south, and from the Pamirs in the west to the confluence of the Heilong¬ jiang and the Wusuli (Ussuri) River in the east. The total area is about 9.6 million square kilometres, making China one of the largest countries in land size in the world. With a con¬ tinental land boundary of more than 20,000 kilometres, China adjoins Korea in the east, the People’s Republic of Mongolia in the north, the U.S.S.R. in the northeast and the northwest, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan in the west and southwest, and Burma, Laos and Viet Nam in the south. The continental coastline is more than 18,000 kilo¬ metres long, and looks across the seas towards Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The primary administrative divisions in China today are the three municipalities directly under the central govern¬ ment, the twenty-two provinces and the five autonomous re¬ gions (Table I). The capital of China is Beijing.

The Three Municipalities Directly Under the Central Government:

• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Tianjin

The Twenty-two Provinces:

• North: Hebei Shanxi
• Northeast: Liaoning Jilin Heilongjiang
• Northwest: Shaanxi Gansu Qinghai
• East Shandong: Jiangsu Zhejiang Anhui
• Southeast: Fujian Taiwan
• Southwest: Sichuan Guizhou
• Central South: Henan Hubei
• South: Jiangxi Yunnan Hunan Guangdong

The Five Autonomous Regions

• Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (north)
• Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (north)
• Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (northwest)
• Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (south)
• Tibet Autonomous Region (southwest)

Underneath the provinces and autonomous regions are cities, autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and other divisions. The municipalities directly under the central government are subdivided into urban districts and suburban counties. China has many mountain ranges, most of the major ones being located in the western regions. Running west-east are the Altay, Tianshan, Kunlun, Qilian, Karakdrum, Gangdise, Himalaya, Yinshan, Qinling and Nanling mountains. Running north-south is the Hengduan Range, which is formed from the Daxue, Nushan and Gaoligong mountains lying side by side from east to west. In the eastern part of the country are mountain ranges running from the northeast to the southwest: to the west are the Greater Hinggan Range, the Taihang Mountains, and the Wushan, Wuling, Dalou and Xuefeng ranges; to the east are the Changbai Mountains and the Liao¬ dong, Shandong and Minzhe highlands. These mountain ranges and highlands determine the basic features of China’s topography. The Chinese terrain varies conspicuously in elevation and consists of three tiers descending from west to east. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the highest and largest plateau on earth, is commonly known as “the roof of the world”. To the north it is bounded by the northern branch of the Kunlun and Qilian mountain ranges and to the south and west by the Karakorum, Himalaya and Hengduan mountain ranges. Its average elevation is more than 4,000 metres above sea level. Mount Qomolangma in the Himalaya Mountains, located on the border between China and Nepal, is the world’s highest peak, with an elevation of 8,848.13 metres. The Qaidam (Tsaidam) Basin northeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is somewhat lower even though it has an elevation of almost 3,000 metres. This area forms the highest tier in China’s topography. The northern and eastern faces of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau descend to plateaus and basins mostly between 1,000 and 2,000 metres above sea level.

They include the Yunnan-Guizhou

Plateau; the loess plateau which takes in central and eastern Gansu, eastern and southern Ningxia, northern Shaanxi, the whole province of Shanxi and western Henan; the Inner Mongolia Plateau; the Sichuan Basin; the Tarim Basin and the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang. These plateaus and basins form the second tier. East of the Greater Hinggan Range and the Xuefeng Range are hilly country with an elevation of less than 1,000 metres and plains of less than 200 metres. The three main plains of China, the Northeast Plain, the North China Plain and the Lower and Middle Changjiang (Yangtze River) Plain are all in this area. The coastal plains have an elevation of less than 50 metres above sea level. These hills and plains form the third tier in the Chinese terrain.

�4

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Most Chinese rivers flow from west to east and empty into the Pacific Ocean. The major rivers all flow east along most of their courses, such as the Changjiang (Yangtze River), Huanghe (Yellow River), Heilongjiang, Zhujiang (Pearl River), Songhuajiang (Sungari River), Liaohe, Haihe and Huaihe. (Jiang and he are both Chinese words for medium-sized and large rivers.) Some of the south-flowing rivers, such as the Yarlung Zangbu Jiang (the Yalutsangpo or Brahmaputra) River and Nujiang (the Salween River), pass through India, Bangladesh and Burma to empty into the Indian Ocean; others, such as the Lancangjiang, the Mekong River and Yuanjiang, flow through Burma, Laos, Thailand, Kampuchea and Viet Nam into the Pacific Ocean. The Ertixhe (the Kara-Irtysh River) flows north from Xinjiang into the U.S.S.R.

There

are also inland rivers with no ocean outlet, such as the Tarimhe, Qaidamhe and Shulehe; these are mostly confined to Northwest and West China. The longest river in China is the Changjiang at 6,300 kilometres, which passes through Qinghai,

Sichuan,

Tibet,

Yunnan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shang¬ hai, with tributaries flowing through several other provinces including Guizhou, Shaanxi, Gansu and Henan. Huanghe, which passes through Qinghai,

Next is the

Sichuan,

Gansu,

Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Shan¬ dong. The part of the Heilongjiang which lies within Chinese territory and forms the border between China and the U.S.S.R. has a drainage basin which covers the greater part of the northeastern provinces.

The Tarim which has few tributaries

has a relatively small drainage basin.

The Zhujiang, originat¬

ing in the Nanpanjiang in the upper reaches', of the Xijiang (Sikiang or West River), passes through Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Guangdong.

The Songhuajiang in the northeast

has a relatively large drainage basin, and the drainage basins of the Yarlung Zangbu Jiang (within China) and the Haihe are both more than 200,000 square kilometres.

�CHAPTER I

TABLE

5

II

The Longest Rivers in China Name

Length

Drainage basin

Changjiang (Yangtze River)

6,300 km

1,800,000 km2

5,464 km

750,000 km2

Huanghe (Yellow River) Heilongjiang (Heilungkiang or Amur River)

2,965 km*

Tarimhe (Tarim River)

2,179 km

198,000 km2

2,129 km

425,700 km2

1,840 km

545,600 km2

Zhujiang (Pearl River) Songhuajiang (Sungari River)

Lakes of all sizes are scattered throughout China but are more concentrated on the Lower and Middle Changjiang Plain and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The largest fresh water lakes are the Poyang in Jiangxi, the Dongting in Hunan, the Hongze in western Jiangsu and Taihu in southern Jiangsu. The most important of the salt lakes are the Qinghai Lake (Koko Nor) in Qinghai and the Lop Nur (Lob Nor) in Xinjiang; the latter covers an area of more than 2,500 square kilometres but is not fixed either in area or shape. Lake Xingkai (Hsingkai) is a fresh water lake which straddles the Sino-Soviet border.

• Length within China and along the Sino-Soviet border.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

TABLE

III

The Largest Lakes in China Name

Qinghai Lake (Koko Nor) Poyang Lake Dongting Lake (Tungting Lake) Hongze Lake (Hungtse Lake) Taihu Lop Nur (Lob Nor or Lop Nor) Lake Xingkai* (Lake Hsingkai or Hanka) 1

Area

Type

salt fresh

more than 4,400 km2 3,976 km2

fresh

3,915 km2

fresh fresh

3,780 km2 more than 2,200 km2

salt

more than 2,500 km2

fresh

4,380 km2

In addition to the natural rivers and lakes, there are also many canals in China. The most famous is the Grand Canal between Beijing and Hangzhou (Hangchou), 1,782 kilometres in length, which passes through the city of Tianjin and four provinces (Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and links up with five major rivers: the Haihe, Huanghe, Huaihe, Changjiang and Qiantangjiang (Chientang River). The continent of China faces east and south towards the seas. In the east, the most northerly sea is known as Bohai (Po Hai): the Liaodong peninsula and the Shandong peninsula confront each other forming a natural gateway known as the Bohai straits. Southeast of Bohai is the Huanghai (Yellow Sea), south of the mouth of the Changjiang is Donghai (East China Sea), and south of the Taiwan Straits is Nanhai (South China Sea). Bohai is an inland sea of China while the other three are all marginal seas of the Pacific. Morg. than 5,000 islands are scattered across the seas, with half of them located in Donghai, forming a total area of about 80,000 square kilo* Belongs in part to China, in part to the U.S.S.R.

�CHAPTER I

7

metres. The largest island is Taiwan (35,700 square km), followed by Hainan Island (over 34,000 square km) and Chongming Island (1,083 square km). Also well known are the Miaodao Archipelago at the entrance to the Bohai, the Zhoushan (Choushan or Chusan) Archipelago beyond the mouth of the Qiantangjiang, and the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in the Taiwan Straits. The most southerly islands are the coral reefs or atolls known as the Dongsha (Tungsha), Xisha (Sisha), Zhongsha (Chungsha) and Nansha archipelagos. These Nanhai archipelagos are composed of varying numbers of islets, sandbars and reefs totalling more than 170; the Nansha Archipelago consists of close to a hundred of them, and the Xisha comes next with about thirty. Many seaports are strung out along China’s lengthy and winding coastline. The river estuary ports of Tianjin, Shang¬ hai and Guangzhou-Huangpu (Canton-Whampoa) are im¬ portant centres for foreign trade and economic exchange within China. The port of Tianjin stands on the western shores of Bohai Bay at the lower reaches of the Haihe; the port of Shanghai stands at the confluence of the Changjiang, Huangpujiang (Whangpoo River) and Wusongjiang (Woosung River); the ports of Guangzhou-Huangpu stand at the Zhujiang delta which is the confluence of the lower reaches of the Dong jiang, Beijiang and Xijiang (the East, North and West rivers). The bay ports of Dalian (Dairen) on the Liaodong peninsula, Qing¬ dao (Tsingtao) on the Shandong peninsula, Jilong (Keelung) in Taiwan and Zhanjiang (Chankiang) on the Leizhou (Leichow) peninsula all have good natural harbours and are key to sea and land communications. Due to the monsoon climate created by the difference in temperature between continent and ocean, plus the vastness of the land and the complexity of the terrain, there are con¬ siderable variations in air temperature and rainfall in different parts of China, and a wide variety of climates. In summer, the temperature throughout China is generally rather high. The average temperature in July is above 20°C in Heilongjiang,

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

8

15°C in Lhasa and 28°C in Hangzhou. The average tempera¬ ture in winter is about minus 30°C in the most northerly part of Heilongjiang but above 10°C in places like Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian, while in Hainan it can go as high as 15°C or more. When the north is a frozen land, coconut groves flourish in the south. The vastness of the land, the complexity of the terrain and the variation in climate, together with the related regional differences in natural characteristics, combine to make China’s natural

resources

extremely

rich

and

multifarious.

The

fertile plains produce cereal crops such as wheat, rice, maize, millet, sorghum (gaoliang) and soybean, and cash crops such as cotton, hemp, sugar and oil-bearing plants. The vast mountain areas produce, in addition to foodstuffs, tea, tea oil, tung oil, silk, wax and medicinal materials.

Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang,

Qinghai and Tibet have large areas of prairie land providing rich pastures for raising cattle, sheep, horses and camels, in¬ cluding many excellent breeds.

The forests are mostly con¬

centrated in the northeast and southwest, and are also to be found in Fujian and the eastern part of Taiwan.

The forests

are complex with many different types of plants:

there are

more than 2,800 species of trees alone, of which almost 1,000 provide timber of considerable economic value.

The fauna

that live wild in every region throughout China include about 1,150 bird species, more than 400 species of mammals, and over 420 species of reptiles and amphibians, many of them rare.

China is very rich in water resources.

According to

preliminary estimates, the total volume of flow of Chinese rivers is 2,700,000 million cubic metres, with reserves of 580 million kilowatts of hydro-electric power. All the major rivers are open to navigation, with a total of about 160,0.00 kilome¬ tres of navigable waters. Rich reserves of oil, coal and iron are found in various regions of the country. Non-ferrous minerals such as copper, aluminium, tungsten, antimony, molybdenum, tin, manganese, lead, zinc and mercury, along

�m

« as

t*

mm

■?

The Lake of Stars, the source of the Huanghe River, as seen from a distance.

�Mount Tomur of the Tianshan Mountains.

The Huanghe River skirts the southern frihge of the Tengger Desert as it flojys to Zhongwei County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In the middle of the river is a newly built bifurcation dam across the Meili Canal dug in the Han Dynasty.

�Grazing sheep in the foothills of the Yinshan Mountains, Inner Mongolia.

�A country scene in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefec¬ ture, Yunnan Province.

�The Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region.

�A landscape in the Miaoling Moun¬ tains, southern Guizhou Province.

�Riyuetan Lake on a branch stream of the Zhuoshuixi River in the central part of Taiwan Island.

Chengyang Bridge in the Sanjiang Dong Autono¬ mous County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

�Upper: An itinerant song and dance troupe in Inner Mongolia on one of its rounds. Lower right: Song of the Fisher¬ men in the Liangshan Mountains, a dance of the Yi people. Lower left: Drum dance of the Korean nationality.

�CHAPTER I

9

with oil shale, phosphorus, sulphur, magnesite, salt, gypsum and so on are also widely distributed.

Fifty-five Nationalities and a Population of Nearly 1,000,000,000

The People’s Republic of China is a unitary multi-ethnic state, comprising the Han people and over fifty ethnic minori¬ ties. The Han people are the most numerous and live all over the country; their highest concentrations are in the Huanghe, Changjiang and Zhujiang river basins and on the Songhuajiang-Liaohe Plain in the north-east, occupying forty to fifty per cent of the total area of China. According to 1978 statistics, the ethnic minorities have a total population of 55.8 million, which is believed to have increased by now. They inhabit fifty to sixty per cent of the country’s total area. TABLE

IV

China’s Ethnic Minorities (Based on 1978 Statistics) Region

Name

Northeast Manchu

Widely distributed, con¬ centrated in Liaoning Mainly in Jilin, Heilong¬ jiang, Liaoning

Korean Daur Ewenki Oroqen Hezhen North Mongolian

/

)

Mainly in Heilongjiang

Mainly in Inner Mongolia, also in Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang

Population

2,650,000 1,680,000 78,000 13,000 3,200 800

2,660,000

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

TABLE

Region

Name

Northwest Uygur Kazak Kirgiz Xibe Tajik Ozbek Tartar Russian Hui

Dongxiang Yugur Bonan Tu Salar Southwest Tibetan Lhoba Moinba Yi

Miao

Bouyei

IV (cont.) Population

/

5,480,000 800,000 97,000 44,000 22,000 7,500 2,900 600

Widely distributed, but mostly in Ningxia and Gansu; also in Shandong, Yunnan, Qinghai, Hebei, Henan, etc. | Mainly in Gansu r ' Mainly in Qinghai | J

6,490,000 190,000 8,800 6,800 120,000 56,000

\

) In or mainly in Xinjiang

Tibet, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, etc. \ In Tibet, but mostly in Moinyii and Lhoyu regions ) now occupied by India Over one million in Sichuan and over two million in Yunnan More than half in Guizhou, the rest in Hunan, Yunnan, etc. Guizhou

3,450,000 Estimated at 200,000 Estimated at 40,000

^ 4,850,000

3,920,000 1,720,000

�CHAPTER I

11

Table IV (cont.) Name

Dong Bai

Region

Population

Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi Mostly in Yunnan; small

1,110,000

numbers in Sichuan and Guizhou Hani Dai Lisu Lahu Va Jingpo Blang Achang Pumi Nu Jino Benglong Drung Naxi Shui Gelo Qiang

/

1,050,000 960,000 760,000 470,000 270,000 260,000 83,000 52,000 18,000 22,000 19,000 10,000 10,000 4,100

Mostly in Yunnan, also in Sichuan and Tibet ) Mostly in Guizhou, a small number in Guangxi J Sichuan

230,000 230,000 . 73,000 85,000

/

\

)

In or mainly in Yunnan

South and Central-south Mostly in Guangxi, small Zhuang numbers in Yunnan, Hunan, Guangdong, etc. In Guangxi and also in Hunan, Yao Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, Jiangxi, etc. Hunan and Hubei Tujia Guangdong Li Taiwan Gaoshan

12,090,000

1,240,000 770,000 680,000 Estimated at 300,000

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

12 Name

Region

She

In Fujian and Zhejiang, also in Guangdong, Anhui, etc.

Mulam Maonan Jing

i l j

Guangxi

Population

330,000 73,000 31,000 5,400

Apart from the fifty-five ethnic minorities listed in the above table, there are still some groups whose ethnic status remains unclear. The language and script of the Han nationality are the most widely used in China, and are commonly known as the Chinese language and script. Each of the other nationalities, with the exception of the Hui which uses Chinese, has its own language. The language of the She is very close to Chinese. Increasing numbers of people among the ethnic minorities are using Chinese in addition to their own languages. Many of them have no script of their own and use either the Chinese script or the script of a related nationality. The Chinese (Han) language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family. It is often said to be monosyllabic because the smallest meaningful units of speech generally consist of one syllable each. However, very many words of the modern language are polysyllabic compounds of two or more of the one-syllable basic units. Chinese is also described as a tonal language, which means that a syllable generally is pronounced with a characteristic tone (even, rising, falling-rising or falling). On the whole, Chinese lacks the inflections (suffixes, prefixes etc.) that are characteristic of many other languages. These are partly replaced by grammatical “particles”, and the parts of speech in a sentence are chiefly determined by the word order. Over the vast area throughout which the Chinese language is spoken, there are many different dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible. In the last few decades a standard language has gradually been formed, based on the language of the north, with the Beijing pronunciation as the norm and

�CHAPTER 1

13

a grammar modelled on modern vernacular writing. This language is called putonghua and is gradually being populariz¬ ed. It will eventually become the form of spoken and written Chinese in universal use. The Han script consists of pictographs and ideographs com¬ monly known as Chinese characters, some of which go back more than three thousand years. The earliest characters con¬ sisted of a single pictographic or ideographic element: the characters 0 and M were, as they still are, pictographs for the sun and the moon, while JL(_h ) and T* (T) conveyed the meaning of “upper” and “lower” in terms of the relative posi¬ tion of the vertical stroke to the horizontal. The structure of such characters was relatively primitive and simple. A second step was taken when two or more simple characters were com¬ bined to form a more complex character to express a new meaning. For example, the characters 0 and A were com¬ bined to form meaning “bright”, and the character A (man) with the character A (spear) forms the character meaning “defend”. Still later a third type of character was developed, consisting of one element which stood for the mean¬ ing and another for the pronunciation, e.g.: 7j fang:

fragrance

fang: ■pfj fang:

house visit

fang:

fang: fang: U fang:

francium hinder pleasure boat

set down

The character A fang, which means direction, only indicates the pronunciation and does not contribute anything to the meaning; the other element indicates the meaning. Over a long period of time, Chinese characters have undergone very great changes in appearance, and many new characters have been invented, but the principles for the formation of new characters have persisted. In the development of Chinese culture, the Chinese or Han script has played a very great role in facilitating communication between different regions in China and strengthening the unity of the country. But because

�14

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

each character has its own separate form, the Chinese script is much more difficult to learn, write and print than an alpha¬ betic script. For this reason, the Chinese government has set up a committee for the reform of the Chinese script to study and carry out gradual reforms. Twenty-eight of the languages of China’s ethnic minorities belong to the Sino-Tibetan family, including Tibetan, Yi, Zhuang, Bouyei, Dai, Miao and Yao. Another eighteen belong to the Altaic family, including Uygur, Kazak, Mongolian, Manchu and Korean. Va, Blang and Benglong belong to the Austroasiatic family, Gaoshan to the Austronesian family, and Tajik and Russian to the Indo-European family. Some people claim that the Jing language belongs to the Austroasiatic family, but this has not been fully established. Some national minorities, such as the Mongolians, Tibetans, Uygurs, Kazaks, Koreans, Xibes and Dais, have their own alphabetic scripts. The Tibetan script has a history of more than 1,300 years. The Uygurs and Mongolians have used dif¬ ferent alphabetic scripts over periods of more than a thousand years and seven or eight hundred years respectively. The Yi language has a syllabic script which also has a history of over a thousand years.

The Naxi script consists of two elements,

ideographs and a syllabary, and the ideographs go back more than a thousand years. Ethnic minorities which had no script or incomplete scripts have created or improved their scripts in recent years. Ten of them have devised their phonetic alphabets, and nine of these are being tried out. Both in economic and cultural life many of the nationali¬ ties have much in common with each other, yet each has its distinctive characteristics. Han people have had a very long history of agricultural production, and their handicrafts also reached a tairly high level at an early stage. Their inventions, such as printing, the compass, gunpowder and the manufacture of porcelain, tea, silk and paper, have long been famous throughout the world. Han culture is extremely rich in ancient books and records,

�CHAPTER I

15

literature and history. Many great thinkers, scientists, in¬ ventors, statesmen, military strategists, writers and artists have appeared in the course of Chinese history, and great rev¬ olutionary movements have taken place. The Han people have made a very great contribution to the development of Chinese society. Of the twenty-one ethnic minorities that live in North Chi¬ na, twelve are mainly engaged in agriculture, including the Manchus, Koreans, Huis and Uygurs. Among them the Tus, Xibes and Yugurs turned from stock-breeding or fishing and hunting to agriculture only during the last few centuries. The achievements of the Koreans in rice paddy cultivation and im¬ provement are well known. The Uygurs are skilled in estab¬ lishing green oases on basin peripheries and at constructing karez (an irrigation system of wells connected by underground channels), demonstrating their mastery of agricultural pro¬ duction. The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was one of the first area in China where cotton was planted. The Kazak, Kirgiz and Tajik minorities are mainly engaged in stockbreeding. The Kazak regions are famous for their livestock. Agricultural crops flourish in the Ili Basin, which is known as “the granary of northern Xinjiang”. The Mongolians on the northern plateau are mainly engaged in stock-breeding, while those on the Hetao Plain at the Yellow River Bend are mainly engaged in agriculture. The Mongolians raise famous breeds of horses, oxen, cows, sheep and camels.

The Hezhens

are mainly hunters and fishers, and the Oroqens are mainly hunters, but both also practise some agriculture. The Ozbeks and Tartars are for the most part engaged in commerce, but a few also practise agriculture. Of the thirty-four ethnic minorities in the south, the majority are chiefly engaged in agriculture, some in combina¬ tion with stock-breeding, hunting and fishing, or forestry. The Tibetans practise both stock-breeding and agriculture, the former on the extensive, high grasslands and the latter in the river valleys. The large and long-haired yak is unique to the

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

16

Tibetan highlands. The Jings are the only minority which chiefly subsists on fishing, with some agriculture as well. Most of the ethnic minorities have a rich cultural tradition embracing song, dance, oral literature and art. The colourful dances of the Uygurs, Kazaks, Mongolians and Koreans are particularly well known. The Uygurs, Mongolians, Huis, Manchus, Tibetans, Bais and Dais all possess substantial bodies of literature and art as well as historical and technological works and religious classics. Modern industry began in China around the middle of the nineteenth century. After the founding of the People’s Repub¬ lic in 1D49, an all-round development of the national economy got underway, and all kinds of industries were established. At the same time education and cultural activities were im¬ proved and popularized.

The economic and cultural life of

each ethnic group took on a new look. Ethnic minorities which had lingered in a backward condition for a long period achieved a rapid development both economically and culturally, and ex¬ hibited striking changes. In Chinese history no one ethnic group has developed in isolation from the others. Each has contributed to the creation of Chinese history and each shares the destiny of the nation as a whole.

In the protracted struggle against feudalism, colo¬

nialism and imperialism, each group has battled side by side with the others.

In every aspect, economic, political and cul¬

tural, each group absorbs nourishment from its fraternal groups for its own enrichment, and each language is under the con¬ stant influence of the fraternal tongues.

Even the formation

and development of each ethnic group is a constant process of association, separation and fusion, a constant process of emigra¬ tion and immigration between different groups. j\fter the founding of the People’s Republic, a policy of equality and unity between its ethnic groups was put into effect, autono¬ mous areas for minorities living in compact communities were established, the languages and customs of the minorities were

�CHAPTER I

17

respected, and the state helped each of them to develop its economy and culture. Unprecedented unity has been achieved.

1,700,000 Years and 3,600 Years

Human life existed in many parts of China in remote antiq¬ uity, leaving behind traces of primitive society. The earliest man discovered in China is Yuanmou Man, who lived roughly 1,700,000 years ago. The famous Peking Man lived approxi¬ mately 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. The gradual formation of a matriarchal commune took place approximately 40,000 or 50,000 years ago, and the patriarchal commune appeared more than 5,000 years ago. Because of low productivity, exploitation did not appear in primitive society; it was a society of communal production and consumption, and the productive relations were based on the public ownership of the means of production. Primitive socie¬ ty was followed by slave society, in which the relations of pro¬ duction were based on the slave-owners possessing both the means of production and the productive workers, the slaves. It was in slave society that exploitation, classes and the state ap¬ peared for the first time. We still lack concrete evidence to determine when slave society came into being in China. According to traditional ideas, the first dynasty in Chinese his¬ tory was the Xia, which ruled for more than four hundred years. Its activities were centred around the juncture of mod¬ ern Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan. It is generally thought that this dynasty lasted roughly from the 21st century to the 16th century B.C. and saw the beginning of slave society in China. Archaeologists are still trying to find out the truth about the Xia, which is now known to exist only in traditional legend. The first dynasty which can be traced from archaeological discoveries and from records corroborated by these discoveries was the Shang, having begun some 3,600 years ago when, ac¬ cording to our present knowledge, recorded history started in

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

18

China. By the Shang, which lasted roughly from the 16th cen¬ tury to the 11th century B.C., China had entered the stage of slave society. The Western Zhou Dynasty, which succeeded the Shang in the 11th century B.C., was also based on the slave system. The centre of Shang activity was initially around Shangqiu in the southeast of modern Henan, but after repeat¬ ed moves the rulers finally settled around Anyang in modern Henan.

The Zhou capital, Hao, was on the western outskirts

of modern Xi’an in Shaanxi.

The centre of Zhou activity was

the region around the lower reaches of two rivers, the Jinghe and Weihe.

In addition, the Zhou had an eastern capital at

Luoyi, on the west bank of the Luoshui (present-day Luohe) near modern Luoyang in Henan, which formed another centre of activity around the lower reaches of the Yihe and Luoshui. The Jing-Wei plain and the Yi-Luo plain were both well suit¬ ed for agriculture, with fertile soil, a mild climate and relative¬ ly adequate rainfall. abundant there.

Other natural resources were also fairly

These two regions subsequently experienced

several periods of prosperity and decline, but they enjoyed an important political position up until the end of the 9th cen¬ tury.

Considerable bodies of cultural relics, legends and rec¬

ords have also been preserved in other regions within China. The period from 770 to 221 B.C. is known in traditional history as the early Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn, and Warring States periods. It was a time when slave society was gradually disintegrating and feudal society taking shape, a period of transition from slave to feudal society. The relations of production in feudal society were the landlords’ ownership of the means of production and their partial ownership of the productive workers. In addition, there was an individual econ¬ omy where peasants and artisans owned tools and other means of production on the basis of their own labour. But' these in¬ dividual labourers were the objects of landlord control and exploitation. The landlords and peasants were the two antag¬ onistic classes in feudal society, although the different ranks

�CHAPTER I

19

into which the society was divided generally obscured the class division. . In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the feudal hierarchy of land ownership gradually replaced the land ownership by the slave-owning aristocracy; the labour of individual peasants replaced collective slave labour in agriculture, the dependence of the labour force on the land replaced an unstable relationship between the labour force and the land, and the individual peasant family combining plough¬ ing and weaving gradually became the dominant form of labour organization. As for the political system, the system of enfeoffment initiated in the early years of Western Zhou underwent changes, giving rise to a prefectural system of local administration: local government officials were appointed by the court to serve limited terms in a succession of different places, as opposed to the system of hereditary posts. With the appearance and development of the prefectural system, con¬ tacts between the various regions increased, the political or¬ ganization of each locality was strengthened and history pro¬ gressed further along the path to unification of the country. In 221 B.C., Qin Shi Huang (First Emperor of the Qin) estab¬ lished the first imperial dynasty, marking the beginning of feudal predominance throughout the country. The period from 221 B.C. to A.D. 196 was a time when feudalism reached maturity under the three imperial dynasties of Qin, Western Han and Eastern Han. The hierarchical feudal order matured both economically and politically. The emperor possessed supreme political power, and at the same time was the supreme landowner. Under the emperor were landowners with different kinds of hereditary status and privileges, in¬ cluding the imperial relatives on the male and female lines and persons who had rendered meritorious services to the throne. These landed aristocrats with hereditary titles oc¬ cupied the dominant position in the landlord class. In addi¬ tion there were the landowners from powerful families and the mercantile landowners thriving on usury. Both possessed

�20

considerable they did not some even subjected to

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

strength in property and social influence, but belong to the higher ranks in social status, and ranked very low. The hereditary aristocrats exploitation peasants who were registered by

household and bestowed to them by the feudal state. This was the main type of peasant at the time. The registered peasants had a private economic sphere and a certain degree of personal freedom. Although they were exploited, they were better off than the slaves. But they too varied in socio¬ economic status. Their household registration status could not be altered after they were attached to hereditary aristo¬ crats by state decision. The land rent they paid to the landed aristocracy also served as their state tax, the two being com¬ bined in one. The relations of production stated above were established in the period of unity under the Qin and grew continuously under the Western and Eastern Han. Slavery did not vanish in the Qin and Han period but persisted in government and private handicraft industries, and existed in households throughout the feudal era. However, these rem¬ nants of the slave system were insignificant in social pro¬ duction. As for the political system, Qin Shi Huang started a unitary prefectural system of administration, but no historical records survive which describe how it was carried out. Under the Western and Eastern Han the system coexisted with the fiefs. Underneath the prefectures and fiefs were counties and un¬ derneath the counties were administrative organizations at the grassroots. These were the different levels in the political structure, each with some relative independence. Beginning in the 3rd century, the prefectural system gradually supersed¬ ed the fiefs and changed continually. But generally speaking, power became more and more concentrated in tl^e hands of the court and restricted at the local levels. The capital of the Qin Dynasty was Xianyang, and the capital of Western Han was Chang’an; the Eastern Han moved its capital east to Luoyang after Chang’an had been devastat-

�CHAPTER I

21

ed by war. The Jing-Wei plain, the Yi-Luo plain and the lower reaches of the Huanghe were the most fertile regions in these periods. The sphere of activity of the Qin and Han was much wider than those of previous dynasties and included the Huanghe, Changjiang and Zhujiang river basins. There were more extensive records of the history of the ethnic minorities than before. The Han people, the major ethnic group in China, was formed in the Qin and Han periods through the fusion of related tribes and ethnic groups. The name of the Han people is identical with that of a great dynasty. Chinese feudalism experienced its earlier period of ascend¬ ancy from 196 to 907, which covered a period of disunity — the Three Kingdoms, the Western and Eastern Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties — as well as the dynasties of Sui and Tang. The period witnessed protracted struggles as well as large-scale displacement and migration among the nationalities. As a result the territory shared by various groups expanded both northward and southward. The Han group replenished itself, and the ethnic minorities raised their production level and standard of living. A new phase in national fusion appeared, and feudalism developed among groups sharing the same territory. This is an important, feature of the earlier period of ascendancy of Chinese feudalism. The hereditary landed aristocracy of the previous era crumbled under the onslaught of peasant uprisings, and was replaced with the newly arisen landlords of privileged fami¬ lies. Like the landed aristocracy, the privileged families en¬ joyed political status and hereditary rights. But they built themselves up by relying on their traditional position in the feudal officialdom and not as a result of imperial fiat. Their land ownership had a more private character than had been the case with the landed aristocrats. The privileged landowners mainly controlled peasants who had attached them¬ selves to these manorial lords for protection against exorbitant taxes and levies.

These manorial peasants were omitted from

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

22

the household registers of the state and the land rent they paid was no longer part of the state tax. Their position in society was lower than the state-registered peasants, but they were relieved of state taxes which included a heavy burden of labour service. This change in the relations of production was favourable to the growth of the productive forces of society. It was another sign of the ascendancy of Chinese feudalism. The Wei (one of the Three Kingdoms), the Western Jin, and the Later Wei (one of the Northern Dynasties) all set up their capitals at Luoyang. The Sui and Tang had their capitals at Chang’an and maintained an eastern capital at Luoyang. The Wu (another of the Three Kindoms), Eastern Jin and the four Southern Dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen all had their capitals at Nanjing (Nanking).

The northerners who be¬

gan to move south in the Wei and Jin dynasties lent fresh im¬ petus to agricultural production in the southeast by increasing the labour force and spreading productive skills.

The lasting

prominence of Nanjing as a political centre was inseparable from the prosperity of the southeast.

The economic growth

in the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang, emulating that in the fertile areas of the Huanghe river basin, was an¬ other feature of the ascendancy of Chinese feudalism. The years from 907 to 1368 were the later period of ascend¬ ancy of Chinese feudalism.

It began with the Five Dynasties

and Ten Kingdoms, followed by the Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties on one side and the Northern and Southern Song dynasties on another, and finally reunification under the Yuan Dynasty.

Extensive border regions from the north¬

east to the northwest and again in the southwest entered the stage of feudal society in most important Respects at this time.

This was a significant feature of Chinese feudalism in

the later period of its ascendancy. The economic growth in the southeast surpassed that in the north, and the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang became the most prosperous parts of the country.

�CHAPTER I

23

The privileged stratum of landowners of the previous historical period crumbled under the onslaught of peasant uprisings. It was replaced, under the Northern and Southern Song, by bureaucrat landlords who enjoyed certain political status and privileges. With few hereditary privileges, these bureaucrat landlords obtained most of their land through purchase or seizure. The law put no limit on the amount of land they might hold. They were obliged by regulations to pay taxes to the state, and in their turn collected rent from the peasants. The distinction between taxes and rent became clearer. Apart from the bureaucrat landlords there were also the plutocrat landlords and mercantile landlords. Some of the peasants owned small amounts of land, but the majority were tenant-farmers who worked on the lands of the various kinds of landlords. They had a better social position in society and more personal freedom than the manorial peasants in the previous period. Listed in the state household registers, they had to contribute a poll tax and some labour services to the feudal state in addition to payment of rent to the landlords. But generally they were not registered with a certain landlord on the order of the feudal state. This was a major difference between them and the state-registered peasants of the Western and Eastern Han. The imprint of feudal bondage on both landlords and peasants tended to fade away, and the agrarian relations of exploitation in terms of property rights became more distinct. This marked the feudal relations of production in the Northern and Southern Song dynasties. The strength of the Southern Song landlord class was largely preserved after national unification under the Yuan Dynasty, and a most typical feudal economic order prevailed in the regions under its domination. The Yuan Dynasty saw the emergence of a huge stratum of Mongolian aristocratic landowners, many commoner households bearing feudal duties, and a greater number of slaves. This kind of relations of production was, however, confined to the north and was merely a partial phenomenon of retrogression. The feudaliza-

�24

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

tion of extensive border regions was a new phenomenon in the development of production in Yuan society. The states of Liang, Jin (936-946), Han and Zhou in the period of the Five Dynasties established their capitals at Kaifeng, which also served as the capital for the Northern Song and as a secondary capital for Jin (1115-1234). Modern Bei¬ jing was the capital for three dynasties: Liao, which called it Nanjing; Jin (1115-1234), which called it Zhongdu; and Yuan, which called it Dadu. Since ancient times this site has been of strategic, political and economic importance. After the Yuan, the Ming and Qing dynasties retained it as their capitals and today it is the capital of the People’s Republic. The de¬ velopment of Beijing is a joint creation of the Han, Qidan, Niizhen, Mongolian and other ethnic groups. Although the Song capital of Kaifeng and the Yuan capital of Beijing were father distant from the fertile regions of the Southeast, they both used the Grand Canal linking north and south to facilitate the transport of foodstuffs from the south to the north and to bring in the wealth of the southeast. The period from 1368 to 1840, which takes in the Ming Dynasty and a large part of the Qing, saw the decline of Chi¬ nese feudalism. The majority of peasants under the Ming were still tenant-farmers. From the legal point of view, the feudal dependence of the tenant-farmer on the landlord was somewhat weakened. Peasants could choose their own land¬ lords and could reject the landlords’ excessive demands for labour service. Hired labourers selling their labour power for material recompense also made their appearance. The tax law of the Qing converted the poll tax and the land tax into a single tax, so that those with land were taxed and those without were not, giving the tax the character, of a pure prop¬ erty tax. These conditions showed that feudgl bonds had eased considerably. But this did not arise from the kindness of the rulers, but from the necessities of socio-economic de¬ velopment and the fierce struggles of the labouring people. Nevertheless, this was only one aspect of the social phenomena

�CHAPTER I

25

of that time. The other aspect was the rapacious plunder and oppression carried out by the landlord class, especially its ruling group, by using the power in their hands. The unscru¬ pulous use of eunuchs at the Ming court and the strength¬ ening of military rule during the Qing period were attempts to preserve a highly feudalized government. These two as¬ pects may appear to be in disagreement with each other, but they are simply different manifestations of the moribund condition of feudal society. The second manifestation by no means showed the vitality of the feudal landlord class, but revealed its weakness. The two apparently contradictory phenomena were precisely signs of decline. The bureaucrat landlords of the previous historical period and their successors, together with the Mongolian aristocratic landlords, crumbled as before under heavy attacks from peasant uprisings. Taking their position were the newly arisen scholar-official landlords. Apart from officials it included fairly large numbers of intellectuals who had passed the Ming and Qing civil service examinations. The wealthier members of this class not only owned much land but also took up trade, operated pawnshops and issued high-interest loans. This was a reflection of the development of commodity production and a money economy, which nevertheless could not be developed normally because those people were dependent on feudal power. The Ming court directly occupied large areas of land in the form of imperial estates. This, like its appointment of palace eunuchs to collect taxes on commerce and mining and to look for and store up tremendous amounts of gold and silver, re¬ vealed the greed of the rulers of a falling dynasty. The estates of the imperial clan and the nobles and bureaucrats, along with the grain allowance of the imperial clan, amounted to fantastic sums, growing into a malignant tumour on the social economy and national finance. Although the Qing court also had imperial estates, they were aware of the possible harmful effects and kept the area much smaller than under the Ming.

�26

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

However, for a fairly long period, the Manchu homeland of the Qing court in the northeast was a forbidden area, which largely hindered local economic development. “Sprouts of capitalism” could be found as early as the be¬ ginning of the Ming Dynasty. They appeared in greater quantity after mid-Ming and showed a further development in early Qing. But these “sprouts” could never grow to full maturity or break through the declining feudal system because of their insufficient strength. In external relations, the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan were all in a position to take the initiative, but under the Ming and Qing external relations took a distinct turn for the worse. In early Ming there were landings by “Japanese invaders” (wokou), pirates operating off the Chinese and Korean coasts from the 14th to the 16th century, but the Ming court did lit¬ tle against them. From mid-Ming on, coastal harassment by the “Japanese invaders” brought great destruction to the south. During the Ming and Qing period, capitalism had already arisen in the West, but Chinese feudalism hobbled along its own course, and the autocratic rulers knew nothing of world developments. By the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and others had come east to carry out colonial activities and had invaded Chinese territory. They were subsequently followed by Tsarist Russia, England and the United States, whose ambitions in regard to China grew constantly.

The eunuch admiral Zheng He’s voyages to

Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean in early Ming and Chi¬ na’s resistance to Tsarist Russian invasion in early Qing were major events in external affairs, but the overall situation worsened continually, and it was not by chance that the Opium War was followed by a series of national disasters. The history of semi-feudal and semi-colonihl China lasted from 1840 to 1949. At the same time, this was aJi era of re¬ sistance to imperialism and feudalism by all of China’s ethnic groups. The first stage, up to the May Fourth Movement of 1919, was the period of the old democratic revolution. The

�CHAPTER I

27

second stage, from 1919 on, was the period of the new-dem¬ ocratic revolution. The period of the old democratic revolution lasted almost eighty years, taking in the final years of the Qing Dynasty and the first years of the Republic. In this period, due to the invasion of foreign imperialism and its brutal rule over China, China’s social economy underwent major changes, becoming more complex than that in feudal society. In addition to the feudal landlord economy and the individual economy of the peasants and handicraftsmen, which continued to exist, the newly arisen capitalist economy became a major sector in the social economy. The capitalist economy comprised three parts: imperialist capital, bureaucrat-comprador capital and national capital. While imperialism gained control over China’s econom¬ ic lifelines, the feudal landlord class occupied a dominant position in the economy, and the two were in mutual collabora¬ tion. Bureaucrat-comprador capital was an appendage to the imperialist economy and was also closely connected with feudal exploitation. The national capitalist economy was ex¬ tremely weak. It did not form an independent economic system or occupy an important position in socio-economic life, and it also had ties with imperialism and feudalism. Foreign imperialist aggression brought ruin to the self-suf¬ ficient natural economy in the countryside; commodity pro¬ duction developed, but agricultural production and the peas¬ ants’ economic life was drawn deeper and deeper into the vortex of the world capitalist market. These were the main features of China’s semi-colonial, semi-feudal social economy. Along with the violent changes in the social economy, changes also developed in class relations. Following its penetration into China, the foreign bourgeoisie became a dom¬ inant power in Chinese social life, controlling the country’s economy, politics, military affairs and culture. It not only propped up the feudal landlord class as the mainstay of their rule over China, but also created a comprador class to serve the needs of their aggression. Within the feudal landlord class,

�28

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

the newly arisen warlord-bureaucrat landlords, with the sup¬ port of the international bourgeoisie, replaced the scholarofficial landowners as the dominant force. The warlordbureaucrat landlords were an appendage to the international bourgeoisie and were generally the earliest bureaucratcapitalists of a strong comprador character. They held the real power in the regime of the landlord class and became the de¬ cisive force. This was an important manifestation of the compradorization of the landlord regime. The peasant class mostly comprised owner-peasants, tenant-peasants and farm labourers, and accounted for about 70 or 80 per cent of the national population. Under the oppression and exploitation of feudalism and imperialism, the peasants became increasing¬ ly impoverished and bankrupt, so that the owner-peasants became ever fewer and the tenant-peasants ever more numerous. The national bourgeoisie and the proletariat were the two new classes arising in this period. The national bourgeoisie, as determined by their economic position, was a class with a dual character:

on the one hand it exhibited an

anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolutionary character in certain periods and to a certain extent, but on the other hand it tend¬ ed towards a compromise with the enemies of revolution.

The

proletariat was the greatest, most progressive and most rev¬ olutionary class. In the period of the old democratic revolu¬ tion, however, it did not constitute an independent political force, but took part in revolution as a follower of the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie. The socio-economic conditions and class relations in semi¬ colonial, semi-feudal China determined that the basic task of the Chinese revolution was to overthrow the rule of imperial¬ ism and feudalism. In the period of the old democratic rev¬ olution, the people of all ethnic groups in Chftna carried out a bitter, unremitting struggle against the internal hnd external enemies and for the winning of national independence and freedom and happiness for the people. However, they did not find the road to liberation and did not gain the final victory.

�CHAPTER I

29

After the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the proletariat grew in strength, Marxism-Leninism spread to China, the Chinese Communist Party was established and the Chinese revolution took on an entirely new appearance. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the people of each ethnic group in China gained the final victory in China’s democratic rev¬ olution. In 1949, the People’s Republic of China was establish¬ ed and China entered a new age of socialism.

Traces of Remote Antiquity

From Yuanmou Man to Peking Man; the Making of Tools and the Use of Fire

The first primitive man so far known to have existed in China is Yuanmou Man, who lived about 1.70 million years ago. In 1965, two fossil front teeth of primitive ape men were discovered in Yuanmou County, Yunnan Province. Later, stone artifacts, pieces of animal bone showing signs of human work and ash from campfires were also dug up. The primi¬ tive ape man who had inhabited the site came to be known as Yuanmou Man. In 1963 and 1964, a fossil skullcap, the upper and lower jawbones, and three teeth of the ape man were discovered together with stone artifacts and animal fossils in Lantian County, Shaanxi Province. The “Lantian Man” inhabited this site 500,000 to 600,000 years ago.1 Other traces of the ape man have also been found in Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, and Guizhou. But the best-known of all is “Peking Man”. Peking Man, whose remains were discovered at Zhoukoudian to the southwest of Beijing (Peking), lived some 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. In excavations before and since libera¬ tion, a wealth of fossils and other evidence of this culture have been uncovered. In 1966, a relatively complete fossil skullcap was discovered at the site. To date, fossil bon^s deriving from more than forty individuals of both sexes and various ages, 1 Paleogeomagnetic examination reveals that the skullcap and the lower jawbone date from different periods. The former is a million years old, while the latter dates back 500,000 years.

30

�CHAPTER II

31

and more than 100,000 pieces of stone worked by man, fossils of more than a hundred kinds of animals, and traces of campfires have been discovered there. Though still retaining some of the features of the ape, Peking Man’s physical structure already possessed the basic characteristics of man. He was relatively short, the male averaging 1.558 metres, the female 1.435. His face was shorter than that of modern man, his mouth protruded, and he had no chin, while his forehead was low, flat, and receding. His skull was about twice as thick as modern man’s, with the cap small¬ er at the top and widening towards the base. Cranial capacity averaged 1,075 cc., approximately 80 per cent of contemporary man’s, more than twice that of the modern anthropoid ape (415 cc.), and much greater than Lantian Man’s 780 cc. The brain structure was incomparably more advanced than that of present-day anthropoid apes. Peking Man had two inter¬ locking heavy brow bones above the eye sockets which screen¬ ed his eyes, his nose was flat, his cheekbones were prominent, his teeth strong and their grinding surfaces relatively complex. Peking Man’s lower limbs already had the basic form of those of modern man. In size, shape, proportion, and muscular attachment, his thighbones were similar to those of presentday man, though they still possessed some primitive features. The bone walls were thicker and the medullary cavities inside the bones smaller, while the transverse diameter of the middle section of the femur was slightly greater than the diameter measured front to back — more like that of the ape than of contemporary man, whose femoral cross-section is the reverse. But Peking Man could already walk and even run erect, though he was somewhat stooped. Through labour over long periods, Peking Man’s hands had become dexterous, as they had had to adapt to complex move¬ ments. The humerus and collar bone of the upper arm re¬ sembled those of modern man, though the humerus was still a bit primitive, with a relatively small medullary cavity and a thicker wall. Research on the inner surface of the cranium

�32

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

shows that the left cerebral hemisphere was bigger than the right, testifying to the fact that Peking Man normally used the right hand in labour. This point is verified by reference to the stone tools he used. It is clear that the uneven development of the various parts of Peking Man’s physique was due to the nature of the labour in which he was engaged. Hand labour led to the functional differentiation between the upper and lower limbs, with the upper limbs developing faster than the lower. The develop¬ ment of the brain occurred gradually as a result of hand labour and differentiation of the limbs, and thus the primitive character of Peking Man’s head is rather more pronounced. The role of labour in the physical development process proves the truth enunciated by Engels: “Labour created man.”1 Peking Man was already able to make and use tools: tools of wood and bone, but especially of stone. He already had several ways of making stone tools. He used one piece of stone to strike or hammer another stone to pieces, or broke a stone held in his hand by pounding it against a bigger stone, thus knocking off large numbers of usable sharp flakes which could be fashioned into various kinds of tools.

Most of the

tools were made of stone flakes worked on one edge. a few were made of unworked stone flakes.

Only

The stone tools

can be roughly classified as choppers, scrapers, or knife-shap¬ ed tools, according to their different forms and uses. Some were suitable for cutting and fashioning wooden hunting clubs, others for cutting animal skins or meat. The tools made and used by Peking Man prove that he was essentially different from the animals and had already come a long way on the road of human development. A great deal of ash, some of it in piles and some in layers, has been discovered in the caves once inhabited by Peking Man. The ash contains pieces of burnt animal bones and stones 1 Dialectics of Nature, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Mos¬ cow, 1966, p. 170.

�CHAPTER XX

33

of various colours, hackberry seeds, and charred Chinese red¬ bud wood, showing that animal meat was often roasted, and that Peking Man was already able to preserve, use, and con¬ trol fire. The use of fire allowed Peking Man to cook his food, and thus shorten the digestive process and promote the absorption of more nutrients, thereby spurring physical evolution and enhancing health. At the same time, fire could be used to ward off cold and defend against attacks by fierce animals. It could serve as an effective aid in hunting as well. In his mutual relations, Peking Man had already formed links which do not and cannot exist in the animal realm, namely, the links involved in the cooperative creation and use of tools, and the creation of speech through the common labour process. The size of the part of the brain where the speech centre is located shows that he could already speak. Speech originated in joint labour, and in turn promoted the evolution of man’s body; it had an especially great influence on the development of man’s brain. Peking Man’s main productive activities were hunting and gathering. The great quantities of smashed and burnt deer bones discovered in the caves where he lived indicate that deer were his principal game.

Probably his most effective

hunting weapons were the firebrand and the wooden club. Although no clubs have been preserved, the discovery of many choppers and big convex tools suitable for scraping wood, pro¬ vides indirect evidence of their existence. Peking Man led an extremely difficult life in primitive collectives.

He used his crude tools, his limited labour ex¬

perience, and his simple cooperative labour to confront every kind of natural hazard, to stave off repeated attacks by wild beasts, and to procure his essential food. His lifespan was generally not long; of the more than forty individuals whose remains have been discovered, approximately one-third died before the age of fourteen years.

Dingcun (Tingtsun) Man and Upper Cave Man; the Improvement of Tools and the Emergence of Ornaments

About 100,000 years ago, China’s ancient culture entered the “Neanderthaloid” stage.1 Human fossils from this period are relatively widely distributed in China, but the most significant among them are those of “Maba Man”, discovered in Qujiang County in South China’s Guangdong Province; “Changyang Man”, found in Changyang County in Central China’s Hubei Province; and “Dingcun Man”, uncovered in Xiangfen County in North China’s Shanxi Province. Their physical appearance was already different from that of Pe¬ king Man. Maba Man’s skull bones were thinner than those of Peking Man, and his forehead was higher. Changyang Man’s upper jawbone did not protrude so much as Peking Man’s. And both the roots and the crowns of Dingcun Man’s teeth were more advanced than those of Peking Man, closer to those of modern man. Dingcun Man lived in the Fenhe River basin to the west of the Taihang Mountains. His chief tools were still stone implements, but they were more advanced than those of Pe¬ king Man, both in terms of flaking and fashioning technique. In making the flakes, Dingcun Man commonly used a flinging technique, forcefully hurling a large piece of stone against another stone. Dingcun Man’s stone implements were also more clearly differentiated as to type than were those of Pe¬ king Man, with tools like the prismatic knife-edge and stone balls appearing for the first time. About 40,000 years ago, China’s ancient culture entered the stage of “modern man”. Starting then, the hunting and fish_

"H

1 The evolution of man may be roughly divided intO'-the Pithecanthropine (“Apeman”), Neanderthaloid, and “Modern” stages. Some scholars hold that beginning with the time man began to create tools, his morphological development may be divided into three stages, name¬ ly, the “Australopithecus” stage, a Homo erectus stage, and the Homo sapiens stage which includes contemporary man.

�CHAPTER II

35

mg economy underwent a remarkable advance and the matriarchal commune gradually took shape. Traces of the peoples of that period have been found at many places across China’s wide territory. Typical examples are Liujiang Man and Qilinshan Man found in Liujiang and Laibin counties respectively in Guangxi, South China; Hetao Man found along . both banks of the Sjara-osso-gol River in Uxin Banner, Inner Mongolia and in Lingwu County in Ningxia; the Shiyu Culture which existed 28,000 years ago in what is now Shuoxian in North China’s Shanxi Province; and the Upper Cave Man who lived about 18,000 years ago in caves near the top of Dragon Bone Hill at Zhoukoudian, where Peking Man was discovered. Upper Cave Man’s physical make-up and outward ap¬ pearance were hardly different from those of present-day man. As a result of working with, the hands and walking erect, the load on the skeletal muscles had been diminishing. Thus the walls of the bones of the limbs had become thinner, and the medullary cavity larger. As for the head, the cranial capacity had expanded and the structure of the brain was reaching a higher level of complexity and perfection.

Peking

Man’s cranial capacity had averaged 1,075 cc., but Liujiang Man’s and Upper Cave Man’s was between 1,300 and 1,500 cc., similar to that of present man.

As the brain gradually grew,

the forehead became progressively higher, the cranium pro¬ gressively thinner, and the point of maximum breadth of the skull shifted from above the ears to the region where the parietal bones link up. The brow-ridges had become thinner and flatter, and the teeth smaller and less complex. The mouth had receded so that the lower jaw and nasal bridge were more prominent as in modern man. The cranium of Liu¬ jiang Man and Upper Cave Man possessed the basic character¬ istics of that of modern man. From the point of view of race, their heads bore the primeval features of the Mongoloid peo¬ ples, and they represent an important stage in the formation of Mongoloid physical characteristics.

�36

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Upper Cave Man’s labour experience and skill surpassed that of his predecessors. Though his stone implements were still basically made by striking stones against each other and by rough fashioning, he had already acquired the new skills of polishing, scraping, drilling, carving and colouring. Among the tools he left behind were two bone implements, a polished dear antler and a lower jawbone. The polished antler bears carved designs consisting of both straight and curved lines. The best reflection of Upper Cave Man’s improved tool-mak¬ ing techniques is a bone needle. With a length of 82 mm and a diameter varying from 3.1 to 3.3 mm, the needle is round and sharp, and the eye small. To fashion such a needle, an animal bone had to be cut and scraped, the eye had to be goug¬ ed out, and then the whole thing had to be polished. By these complex techniques Upper Cave Man created a needle which could be used to sew animal skins into clothing. Among the ornaments belonging to Upper Cave Man that have been discovered are drilled stone beads, pebbles, the eyesocket bones of black carp, perforated animal teeth and clam shells, and carved tubes made of bird bones.

The making of

these ornaments involved selection of materials,

chipping,

drilling, abrading and colouring. Some of the ornaments were dyed red with.hematite. Upper Cave Man’s main economic activities were hunting and fishing. Hare, red deer, sika, wild boar, antelope, badger and fox were his chief game. He also caught ostrich and other birds. He caught various fish, including black carp a metre in length, and he collected fresh-water clams. He gathered fruit and roots as supplementary food. Upper Cave Man, or even his predecessors, probably already knew how to make fire. Making fireninstead of just preserving it marked another big step forward in man’s effort to control nature. Engels considered the discovery of the fire¬ making technique to be even more important than the dis¬ covery of the steam engine. He pointed out that “the genera¬ tion of fire by friction for the first time gave man command

�CHAPTER II

37

over one of the forces of nature, and thus separated him for ever from the animal kingdom.”1 The invention of the fire¬ making technique paved the way for many subsequent inven¬ tions, such as the making of pottery and metal tools. The shells of salt-water clams found in the upper cave were not local, but could only be obtained at the seaside quite a dis¬ tance away. Whether obtained by exchange or collected directly, they show that man had expanded the scope of his activities and contacts, and was in a better position to do bat¬ tle with nature. The upper cave is approximately 12 metres long and about 8 metres wide, with an area of more than 90 square metres, and could accommodate a dozen or so inhabitants. The cave was divided naturally into “upper” and “lower” chambers. The upper chamber, near the cave mouth, was the common liv¬ ing quarters, while the lower, located deep inside, served as a burial ground.

A vast region around the cave served as the

base for hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. A young female, another of middle age, and an elderly male were interred in the lower chamber of the cave. Hematite powder was scattered around the dead, and stone implements and ornaments were interred with them. The arrangements for the dead give an idea of the activities of the living in the upper chamber. The burial of men and women, old and young together, with production tools and ornaments around them, reflects the closeness of a blood relationship and the produc¬ tion relations of communal labour and consumption. The fact that there is no great differentiation in burial objects suggests equality of the clan members. The hematite powder and ac¬ companying burial objects show that Upper Cave Man adhered to certain burial customs and that his thinking had developed to a new level at which he had begun to formulate primitive re¬ ligious beliefs with a superstitious tinge and ideas that went beyond actual existence.

The Yangshao Culture and Its Matriarchal Communes

Some 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, clans and tribes, big and small, were scattered across China, leaving behind rich cul¬ tural remains. A microlithic culture extended from the North¬ east through Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to Xinjiang and Tibet.1 There was the Yangshao culture2 on the middle reaches of the Huanghe (Yellow River), and the Majiayao culture3 on its upper reaches. Other primitive cultures were distributed elsewhere. The features of the matriarchal commune are displayed relatively distinctly by the Yangshao culture. Mainly dis¬ covered in central Shaanxi, western Henan and southern Shanxi, it stretched as far as the upper and middle reaches of the Hanshui River in the south and the Hetao (Yellow River Bend) region in the north, the upper reaches of the Weihe Riv¬ er in Gansu in the west, and Shandong in the east. The re¬ mains of many settlements have been found in these places, and in some cases they were clustered relatively close together. The inhabitants of the Huanghe River region were engaged mainly in a primitive agriculture, supplemented by animal husbandry. They used pointed wooden sticks for digging the earth, and their stone implements were no longer the roughly fashioned ones made by striking stones, but comparatively re¬ fined ones made primarily by abrading techniques. They had stone axes for cutting away the ground cover, stone and bone spades for loosening and levelling the soil, and various kinds of stone knives for harvesting grain. The main agricultural crop 1 The name “microlith” derives from the small size of the stone implements. The term “culture” is used here in Its archaeological sense, referring to an entire body of archaeological remains with common characteristics from a single period and a single region. Such a culture is commonly identified by the name of the spot of the first discovery or the name of a characteristic site or relic. 2 The name comes from Yangshao Village, Mianchi County, Henan Province, where the culture was first discovered. 3 First discovered in Majiayao, Lintao County, Gansu Province.

�CHAPTER IX

39

was grain,1 but they also planted vegetables. Some simple tools for processing crops had already been invented. Grain was placed on a millstone and ground with a hand-held stone pin or disc until it was husked or powdered. Once man took up agriculture, he was able to produce the food he needed, and thus could settle down. Of course, the methods of cultivation used in primitive agriculture were still in an early stage, and production was always subject to the whims of nature. The yields were low or even came to nothing. In such circumstances a part of or even an entire clan settle¬ ment had to move. Hunting and fishing was second only to agriculture in man’s productive activities, occupying a relatively important position in the economic life of the time. The principal weapons in¬ cluded bows and arrows, stone-tipped spears, fishing lances, fish-hooks, and nets with stone weights attached. Household animal husbandry developed as another sideline. From the pens and animal skeletons found at the Banpo site at Xi’an, we can see that the main livestock were pigs and dogs. Cattle, sheep, horses and chickens may also have been domesticated. But gathering was still an indispensable part of production. Many hazelnuts, pinenuts, chestnuts, hackberry seeds, snail and clam shells were discovered in the homes and cellars at the Banpo site. The rise in the quantity and quality of production and household implements is an indication of the advance of hand¬ icraft industry. The creation of large numbers of ground and polished tools provided man with new tools and spurred the overall development of social production. That cutting, par¬ ing, grinding and drilling techniques were being used can be seen from the axes, adzes, spades, chisels, knives, needles and 1 Between 1973 and 1978, archaeologists unearthed large quantities of carbonated rice remains and bone and wood spade-shaped imple¬ ments used in rice planting at the site of Hemudu Village in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province. These remains go back approximately 7,000 years. To date, they are the first signs of the domestic cultiva¬ tion of rice in China.

�40

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

hairpins. The reflex-barbed fishing spear, the fish-hook and the perforated bone needle had already appeared, indicating the relatively high level of the bone-working techniques of primitive handicraft industry. Weaving and sewing had also made relatively rapid prog¬ ress. Fibre could be stripped from wild hemp and twisted into thread with the use of pottery or stone spinning wheels, and then be woven into cloth. Animal skins were also used to make clothing. The ingenious bone needles or bone and antler awls could be used to sew cloth and leather into various kinds of clothing. Pottery manufacture was a new, distinctive handicraft at the time. One of the characteristics of the Yangshao and Majiayao cultures was that they had various kinds of painted pottery. Remains of pottery kilns have been found at the sites of numerous clan settlements. The pottery paste was prepared from relatively fine loess soil to the proper degree of viscosity. After mixing, it was rolled into cords and then either folded to make a rough blank or coiled into an embryonic shape. Small pieces were molded directly into finished form. The next step was decoration of the blank and the addition of handles, ears, noses, etc. by adhesion or inlay. After the blanks were half dry, the inner and outer walls were again scraped and polished. Hematite and manganese oxide were applied with brush-like tools to paint pictures on finer household utensils. Sometimes, before applying the paint, a white or light red ground was ap¬ plied to make the whole image more colourful. As the kilns were not completely sealed, the iron oxides in the clay would oxidize fully, hence the bulk of the pottery is red or brown. Part of the pottery articles were production tools while most were household utensils: basic cooking utensils ssuch as stoves, steamers, footed vessels and cauldrons for steaming or boiling various kinds of foods; drinking and eating vessels like cups, basins, plates, bowls and tumblers; and jars and pots for stor¬ ing things in. There was an amphora-shaped bottle for drawing water which utilized the principle of equilibrium: placed on

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Upper: Yuanmou Man site, Yuanmou County, Yunnan. Lower right: Yuanmou Man’s teeth, found in Yuan¬ mou County, Yunnan. Low¬ er: The reconstructed cra¬ nium of Lantian Man.

�The bust of a reconstruction of Peking Man.

�Stone tools used by Peking Man, unearthed at Zhoukoudian, Beijing.

Lower animal jawbone, stone and earth burnt by Peking Man, found at Zhoukoudian.

�Stone tools used by Dingcun Man, unearthed at Dingcun Village, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province.

Bone needle and ornaments used by Upper Cave Man, found at Zhoukoudian.

�A neolithic village site with remnants of Yangshao Culture, discovered at Banpo Village, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.

A reconstructed round house at the Banpo site,

�Upper: A stone pickaxe (restored) found at the Banpo site. Middle upper: Mill and pestle, unearthed in Xinzheng County, He¬ nan Province. Mid¬ dle lower: Painted spinning wheels, un¬ earthed in Jingshan County, Hubei Province, and Xichuan County, He¬ nan Province. Low¬ er: Pottery basin with human-mask and net-like de¬ signs, unearthed at the Banpo site.

1

�Black pottery stem¬ med cup with thin body, of Longshan Culture, unearthed in Weifang, Shan¬ dong Province.

A pottery wine con¬ tainer of Longshan Culture, unearthed in Linyi County, Shandong. It is of white clay mixed with fine sand.

�Bronzes of Qijia Culture, unearthed at Huangniangniangtai, Wuwei County, Gansu Province.

Oracle bones of Longshan Culture, kept in the Museum of Chinese History, Beijing.

�CHAPTER II

41

the surface of the water, it would automatically tilt, allowing the water to flow in. Pottery was one of the most important inventions of the matriarchal commune period. It indicates that man’s wisdom was not limited to the working of natural objects, but could create entirely new things. Pottery could be used to cook food, thereby allowing the human body to absorb more fully the nutritious substances of foodstuffs, and it could be used to store liquids, which was beneficial to agricultural irrigation. This contributed to making the sedentary life style more stable. And the principles of pottery-making could also be applied in making ceramic spinning wheels, pellets for hunting, and sink¬ ers for fishing nets. Fire could also be used to bake the earth walls and foundations of primitive buildings.

All of this

had very great significance for the advance of human produc¬ tion and livelihood. Painted pottery was not only practical, but was also a fine handicraft art. The painted designs, patterns, birds and ani¬ mals on the pottery reflect the agricultural labour and hunting and fishing activities of the time with much liveliness and imagination. There are also many marks carved into the sur¬ faces of the pottery which may have been used as symbols for the utensils themselves. a kind of primitive script.

Some scholars believe that they are The birds, fish, deer and frogs de¬

picted on the pottery may have been the clan totems.1 The settlements of that era had a fixed layout in keeping with clan structure.

The Banpo site is a typical clan settle¬

ment. It covers an area of about 50,000 square metres and in¬ cludes three components: a residential section, a pottery-kiln quarter, and a common burial ground.

Cellars of various

1 Totems served as both the names and emblems of the clans. In general, names of animals, plants or inanimate objects were adopted. The function of the totem was to preserve the common pedigree of all clan members bearing its name, thereby serving to distinguish be¬ tween clans.

�42

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

shapes within the village were the clan’s common storehouses. The homes in the residential section are themselves arranged according to a pattern. There was one very large square build¬ ing, a place for public activities, while other medium- and small-sized buildings served as the clan members’ dwellings. A ditch, approximately five or six metres deep and wide, was dug around the residential section, and the clan’s common burial ground was to the north of the ditch, the kiln quarter to the east. This layout demonstrates that the clan members lived in equality, labouring and consuming in common, and the fact that they were buried together when they died shows that they all belonged to a single clan. Women enjoyed a high status in the clan. They played an important role in production and other activities. The custom of burying the females in the centre prevailed in some places: dozens of joint matriarchal clan graves have been discovered at Yuanjunmiao, Huaxian County, and Hengzhen Village, Huayin County, in Shaanxi Province. The bodies of the deceased, found in common pits, were all moved there to be buried to¬ gether; the number of bodies in each pit was uneven, and there were men and women, old and young. The removal and joint burial process was quite complex. When a person died, the corpse was probably first dealt with in an interim fashion, but when a woman of fairly high status in the matriarchal clan died, her body was immediately placed in one of these grave pits in a supine position. Then the remains of the predeceased of the same clan were brought, laid out together, and buried in the same grave. This burial custom, with the women at the centre, is one reflection of the important position women oc¬ cupied in the clans. But what is more, at the Banpo site and at the Jiangzhai site in Lintong County in Shaarixi, the buried objects accompanying the females generally outnumbered those of the males. This is further demonstration that the women’s social status was high. Collective labour and the public character of ownership of the means of production determined that the distribution of

�CHAPTER II

43

goods within the matriarchal commune was perforce one of common consumption by all members. The cellars for storing things at the Banpo and Jiangzhai sites are distributed closely together around the dwellings. In some spots there are more than ten clustered together in one place, forming a cellar com¬ plex. This may have been a form of collective storage. From the graves we can see that after death the majority of clan members were buried in a common burial ground according to a basically similar burial style, and that the great majority of burial objects were ornaments and pottery used in daily life. The maximum number of burial objects in any one of the sev¬ enty-one graves containing such objects at Banpo was ten, the minimum one, and the average 4.3. Although by that time, people’s livelihood had improved somewhat, it was still very difficult. According to the result of a survey of human bones at the Yuanjunmiao site, the peo¬ ple of the time were afflicted with bone-compression spurs be¬ cause of the excessively heavy burdens they had to bear. And because their food was coarse and they had to expend a lot of energy in chewing, their lower jaws were still more sturdy than those of modern man and their teeth show serious wear and tear. The remains in the various grave groups reveal that the life expectancy of the majority was only around thirty or forty years, and that there was a high rate of infant mortality. Precisely because the level of the productive forces was still very low, and the means of livelihood very limited, it was only possible for them to maintain such an arduous, poor life for members of the clan by living, producing and consuming in common.

The Patriarchal Clan Society of the Longshan Culture

Approximately 5,000 years ago, the tribes of the Huanghe River and Changjiang (Yangtze River) valleys gradually en¬ tered the era of the patriarchal clan commune. In general, the

�44

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Longshan, Qijia, Qujialing, Qingliangang, Liangzhu and Dawenkou tribal cultural remains belong to this period.1 The Longshanoid tribes were widely distributed, from the seacoast in the east to the middle reaches of the Weishui River in the west, from the Bohai Gulf coastline of the Liaodong Peninsula in the north to the northern parts of Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu in the south. The principal area was Henan, Shan¬ dong and Hebei, the southern part of Shanxi, and the Weishui River basin in Shaanxi. Taken as a whole, it was greater in extent than the Yangshao culture, and the regional differences were more pronounced. Tribes belonging to the Qijia culture lived on the upper reaches of the Huanghe River in the east¬ ern part of Gansu and the northeastern part of Qinghai. The stone implements and pottery from the late New Stone Age sites found in Tibet have an affinity to those of Qijia; the jade

bi (a piece of jade for ceremonial purposes) and jade beads of the New Stone Age cultural remains of the Wusuli River ba¬ sin in the Northeast are also similar to those of the Huanghe River basin. The Qujialing culture was distributed mainly in the Hanshui River basin in Hubei, while the Qingliangang cul¬ ture was scattered along the lower reaches of the Changjiang River, principally within what is now Jiangsu Province.

The

Liangzhu culture extended along the lower reaches of the Qiantang River and the area around Lake Taihu. The Dawenkou culture was scattered mainly throughout Shandong and the northern parts of Jiangsu and Anhui. Production reached new levels of development, especially in agriculture and animal husbandry, during the Longshanoid period. The rise in handicraft levels was marked by the intro¬ duction of the potter’s wheel and by the beginning of the metal¬ lurgical manufacture of copper. Two new agricultural tools 1 These cultures take their names from their places of first dis¬ covery: Longshan Township, Zhangqiu County, Shandong; Qijia Green, Guanghe County, Gansu; Qujialing, Jingshan County, Hubei; Qing¬ liangang, Huaian County, Jiangsu; Liangzhu, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang; and Dawenkou, Taian County, Shandong.

�CHAPTER II

45

appeared at this time: the wooden fork and the stone or clam¬ shell sickle. It was discovered that by using a stone or clam¬ shell sickle with handle attached, a change could be made from picking the ears of grain to harvesting it with the stems con¬ nected. This raised labour efficiency and made it possible to bring in fodder for the livestock. The development of Longshanoid agriculture is also reflected in the increase in the num¬ bers of reaping tools. At some sites in Hebei, Henan and Shaanxi, reaping tools in the form of stone knives have been found in numbers roughly equal to those of tools for clearing and planting, as represented by the stone axe and stone spade. In some places the reaping tools even outnumber the clearing and planting tools by two to four times. There was also an improvement in the stone knives, which became broader, long¬ er and sharper. By way of contrast, among the argicultural implements of the Yangshao culture, clearing and planting tools normally outnumbered reaping tools by a couple of times. The increase and improvement in the Longshanoid culture’s reaping tools indicate the better harvests in that period. The tribes of the Qujialing, Qingliangang and Liangzhu cultures living on the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang opened up the grass-covered marshy regions, turned them into paddy fields, and planted rice. The numbers and variety of domesticated animals also in¬ creased in this period. Herds of pigs and dogs were raised everywhere, and there were cattle and goats as well as horses and chickens. The bones of livestock excavated from twentysix firepits of the Longshanoid culture at Miaodigou, Shanxian County, Henan, are more plentiful than those from 168 Yang¬ shao firepits; among them, pig bones are especially numerous. Bones from twenty-one pigs were excavated from a single firepit in Jiangou, Handan County, Hebei. More than one-third of a total of 133 graves excavated at Dawenkou yielded pig bones which had been interred with the corpses, the richest tomb in this respect yielding fourteen pig skulls. Of the domesticated animals, pigs have the advantage of reproducing quickly and

�46

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

of tolerating coarse food. The growth of pig raising provided a source of meat for man and made him less reliant on hunting. Livestock raising had already become a new means of liveli¬ hood and it gradually took on increasing importance in eco¬ nomic life. While participating in agricultural labour, the males also devoted themselves to animal husbandry and thus the acquisition of means of livelihood became a primarily male affair. The products from such pursuits accrued more to the males, while the women were confined to labouring chiefly within the household. It was precisely these herds that be¬ came the major private property of the patriarchal family. The hunting-fishing-gathering economy served as a supple¬ mentary means of livelihood and underwent development to varying degrees. Of the hunting implements discovered, the stone, bone and shell arrowheads are highly polished, but in specific areas we still find a few struck flint ones. People of the Liangzhu culture of Shuitianfan at Hangzhou and Qianshanyang in Wuxing, Zhejiang, were already using fishing boats to go out into open waters to fish on a relatively large scale. At the time under discussion, the potter’s wheel had al¬ ready been created. The clay was fashioned into containers by using the force of the rapidly spinning wheel. Pottery made this way was regular in shape and of even thickness, but a more important result was the sharp rise in productivity. The structure of the pottery kilns had also been perfected and peo¬ ple had mastered the technique of sealing them. High temper¬ atures and sealing caused the reduction of the ferrites in the fired blanks, giving rise to a grey-coloured pottery. The wheel-thrown pottery of the Shandong Longshanoid clans was particularly well-developed. Because the blanks were pol¬ ished, the kilns were tightly sealed, and the smoke^was inten¬ tionally allowed to colour it, the fired pottery was pitch-black, with a glossy surface. Black pottery could even be made which was thin as eggshell. And kaolin clay was used to fire a small number of tripod pitchers with a very white surface.

�CHAPTER II

47

The metallurgical industry was one of the outstanding pro¬ duction accomplishments of the patriarchal clan period. Copper tablets have been discovered at the Dacheng Mountain site near Tangshan in Hebei and such things have also been dis¬ covered in some quantity in several dwelling sites and grave of the Qijia culture which came a bit later than that of Longshan. Copper products — knives, awls, chisels and rings — and frag¬ ments of copper utensils have been found at Huangniangniangtai in Wuwei County in Gansu. Copper daggers, awls and rings have also been found at Qinweijia and Dahezhuang in Linxia County, Gansu. All these items were made of very pure cop¬ per; there were small amounts of impurities, but no tin or lead was added in the working process. Such copper was relatively soft and could be directly hammered into various kinds of tools and ornaments. Copper is malleable and can be shaped at will and even recast, and is thus much superior to stone. The dis¬ covery of copper marks a break with the several tens of thou¬ sands of years of stone tool technology of primitive Chinese society; it was a creative new technology which brought about a fresh rise in the productive forces. Making copper imple¬ ments involved a series of steps — mining, smelting, hammer¬ ing, pattern making and casting — which required much more complex production techniques than did the making of either stone implements or pottery. People came to specialize in this profession, furthering the division of handicraft labour. As those who turned out the copper utensils came to know the properties of metals, they also opened the road for subsequent metal manufacture. At the time of the patriarchal clan communes, people still lived under a primitive communal system with collective ownership and sharing, and the clans were still held together by blood ties. In the layout of the clan settlements, the dwell¬ ings and the cellars are still tightly interknit and there are com¬ mon graveyards close to the dwelling areas. The common bur¬ ial grounds of the clans are especially ordered and best reflect the characteristics of the clan system. The clan grave-

�48

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

site of the Longshanoid culture at Miaodigou is situated on the western edge of the site. Within an area of something over 1,100 square metres, 145 graves are laid out, aligned northsouth, the heads of the dead pointing invariably to the south. The public burial ground of the Qijia culture at Qinweijia has more than a hundred graves in six north-south rows and the heads of the dead all face northwest. Somewhat over twenty metres to the east is a smaller burial area with three east-west rows and twenty-nine graves, the heads of the deceased all facing west. These arrangements suggest that the different clans adhered strictly to their own traditional customs for bury¬ ing the dead and that .the members of the clans did not easily leave their own clans under normal circumstances. An important symbol of the patriarchal clan commune was the appearance in marriage relations of a more firm and en¬ during system of monogamy, with succession fixed through the male line. By that time they had adopted the formula of joint burial after death. There are quite a few joint graves of adult men and women at the Dawenkou cultural site and they are also found at the Longshanoid Hengzhencun site in Huayin County, Shaanxi.

In the joint graves of the Qijia culture at

Qinweijia, the males are invariably on the right-hand side, stretched out, their faces upward, while the females are always on the left, reclining on their sides facing the males, legs flexed. This burial style seems to show that the males were in the dominant position and the females in a position of submission and dependence. In the separate conjugal families, the diverse household chores had been transformed from the previous service to the commune to a kind of service to the individual — this marks them off completely from the matriarchal households. It has been discovered that in the graves of the Dawenkoq, culture at Dawenkou, Liulin and Dadunzi of Pixian in Jiangsu, all those whose heads are ornamented have spinning wheels, while those without ornaments have more production tools. In the graves of Majiayao culture discovered at Liuwan in Ledu County in

�CHAPTER II

49

Qinghai, the majority of the burial objects with the males are ground stone axes, adzes, knives and chisels, while the majority of those with the females are pottery or stone spinning wheels, and bone awls and needles. These things all give expression to the division of labour between males and females, the women being excluded from social production and hence losing their previous social status. What is more, pottery and stone sculp¬ tures symbolizing male ancestor worship have been found at the Longshanoid sites at Keshengzhuang in Xi’an and Quanhucun, Huaxian County in Shaanxi, and the Qijia culture site at Zhangjiazui, Linxia County in Gansu. This too is an important sign of the formation of the patriarchal clan. The patriarchal clan commune represented a transitional social stage between primitive communal and slave society. Private ownership, polarization between rich and poor, class division, and the possession of slaves all made their appear¬ ance in the patriarchal clan commune period. As we have not¬ ed, the most important item of private property at the time was the livestock herd. It was the fashion for tribes in various places to use pig palate bones as a yardstick for measuring wealth. The private wealth which people accumulated while alive went into their graves as burial objects after their death. About one-third of 133 Dawenkou culture graves have pig skulls in them, the maximum number being fourteen. In a few graves belonging to the Dawenkou culture at Gangshangcun, Tengxian County, and Yaoguanzhuang, Weifang City in Shan¬ dong, there were also unequal numbers of pig palate bones. Fourteen such bones were found in a grave belonging to the Longshanoid culture at Qinglongquan, Yuanxian County in Hubei, thirty-six pieces were placed in a grave belonging to the Qijia culture at Dahezhuang and sixty-eight pieces were discovered in a grave at Qinweijia. Pig bones in varying num¬ bers have also been found in graves in other places. This shows both that the pigs were owned personally by the grave occupant while alive and that the accumulation of personal property had already reached substantial proportions.

�50

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

The beginning of private ownership was accompanied by polarization between rich and poor. Some wealthy people used grain to brew alcohol. A set of wine containers such as tripod pitchers, kettles and long-stemmed cups discovered in a Dawenkou grave testifies to this situation. There is a clearer re¬ flection of this division between rich and poor and of the in¬ equality in property in the Dawenkou burial grounds. The burials of the wealthy were very extravagant and the pits very big — more than four metres long and three metres wide. The pits were lined with wood, wooden floors were laid to form outer coffins, and some of the coffin bases were daubed with red pigment. The wealthy had fifty or sixty burial objects — the richest more than 160 — including elegant painted, jetblack and pure white pottery, delicate production tools, and various kinds of ornaments made of polished stone and bone. Some graves also had ivory combs and containers with per¬ forated patterns carved in them. In contrast to the lavish burials of the wealthy, of the 133 graves already excavated at Dawenkou, eighty employ only common production tools and household utensils as burial objects, and eight have no burial objects at all. In graves of the same age and style ex¬ cavated at Liuwan, differences in size and great disparities in number of grave objects also appear. The differences in num¬ ber of grave objects, their presence or absence, are a record of the wealth possessed by the grave occupants during their life¬ times, a reflection of the division into poor and wealthy, and evidence that some people expropriated the fruits of others’ labour and made them their own. In the patriarchal clans, relations of bondage were taking root. At the Huangniangniangtai site, one joint adult grave was discovered, containing one male and two females. The male lay face upward in the middle with a female^pn either side; both females lay on their sides facing the male with limbs bent, the lower limbs behind them and their two hands in front of their faces. In graves belonging to the Qijia culture at Liuwan, some males lay in coffins, face upwards with their

�CHAPTER II

51

limbs straight, while young females lay on their sides outside the coffins, their limbs bent and facing towards the males. The women in these graves, whether their relations with the males were conjugal or not, were obviously in a subordinate position and seem to have been in the status of slaves. Oracle bones have been discovered in many of the Longshan and Qijia culture sites. They are the result of a method of divination which used fire to scorch the upper surface of pig, oxen or sheep scapulae to produce cracking patterns which were then used to determine good or bad fortune. The develop¬ ment of this kind of activity later led to the emergence of sorcerers who specialized in divination, becoming daily more divorced from physical labour. Their activities probably were not limited to making entreaties to nature, but may also gradu¬ ally have assumed the character of class oppression.

Myth and Legend

The Legends of Ancient Tribes

Tradition has it that in remote antiquity there were two famous tribes in the Huanghe River valley. One was Ji and had Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor) as its chief. The other, Jiang, was headed by Yan Di. Being closely related, they formed a tribal alliance. They lived at first in the Weihe (Wei River) area and later moved eastwards along the Huanghe Riv¬ er to areas belonging to today’s Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. In old Chinese books there are many legends and stories about Huang Di. He is described as a god resourceful in inventions as well as war, and is credited with the invention of many things, such as carts and boats, clothes, houses, writ¬ ing, and silkworm breeding and silk weaving. Yao and Shun are two leaders who have been much praised in historical tradition and are supposed to be descendants of Huang Di. In Yao’s time disastrous floods occurred and he called together some tribal chiefs to discuss what should be done. Some suggested that a man called Gun be sent to deal with the flooding and Yao followed their advice. Later Shun succeeded to Yao’s position and also summoned some of the tribal chiefs to discuss how their tasks should be assigned to different people. Shun agreed with the recommendation and only functioned as the chairman of the meetin'g. Stories like this give us an idea of the primitive democracy at meetings of tribal alliances. Tribes originally occupying East China were called Yi. They were first active in southern Shandong and later expanded 52

�CHAPTER

III

53

north to northern Shandong and southern Hebei, west to east¬ ern Henan, south to central Anhui, and east to the sea coast. They were famous for their workmanship in bows and arrows and the written character Yi (3ft) was originally a picture of a man (A) carrying a bow ). Taihao, Shaohao and Chiyou were renowned leaders among the Yi people. Chiyou once en¬ gaged in a long and fierce battle against Huang Di on the out¬ skirts of Zhuolu, which according to tradition was in present Hebei. Chiyou was very resourceful and could summon wind and rain. But Huang Di outdid him by sending goddesses to disperse the wind and rain and finally Chiyou was defeated. After he died, Chiyou ascended to Heaven, and became a con¬ stellation known as “the Banner of Chiyou”. Both Huang Di and Chiyou were worshipped later as gods of war. Another chief of the Yi people, according to legend, was the celebrated archer Yi. In his days, there were ten suns in the sky, which burned all the crops, so that the people had nothing to eat. There were also many evil demons harming mankind. The archer Yi shot down nine suns, leaving only one in the sky, and killed all the demons. Because of his great ex¬ ploits he became revered as a god. Along the Changjiang River valley down south, in modern Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces the Miao and other tribes once lived. Among the leaders of these tribes, Fuxi and Niiwa were the best known.

Fuxi was said to be the first man who

used ropes to make nets for hunting and fishing. In the days of Niiwa, the four pillars supporting heaven collapsed and the earth cracked. So flames spread wildly, torrential waters flood¬ ed all the land, while fierce birds and beasts preyed on men. Niiwa smelted rocks to make five-coloured stones with which she patched up heaven. To replace the broken pillars she cut off the four legs of a huge turtle and used them to prop up the fallen sky. With water and land restored to order and the fierce animals killed, the people could once again live in peace and happiness. Niiwa in return was regarded as a goddess for her great achievements.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

54

The tribes mentioned earlier, namely, the Huang Di, Yan Di and Yi tribes, can be regarded as three tribal groups. Though it is difficult to separate legend and reality, we know for certain that they once did exist and had an influence on later historical development.

Tribal Chiefs, Gods and Their Sons

According to myth and tradition, chiefs made important contributions to their tribes, especially in flood control, farm¬ ing and animal husbandry. They were regarded as gods, the sons of gods or both. There was once a tribe called Jintian living in areas belong¬ ing to modern Shanxi. Both its chief, Mei, and his son Taitai, were skilful in water control work. Taitai dredged the Fenshui (Fen River) and constructed the storage lake of Daze so the people in the Taiyuan area could live a stable life. And Taitai became the god of Fenshui, enjoying sacrifices offered by the four states established by his descendants. Xiu and Xi, chiefs of the Shaohao tribe in Shandong, were likewise known for being good at flood control. Their work was carried on by their sons and grandsons while they themselves became water gods.

Gonggong in northern Henan was another tribe known

for its success in water control work.

The people of the tribe

invented the method of building dikes to prevent floods.

Due

to overdependence on the dikes, however, they suffered severe losses when their dikes eventually failed them. Nevertheless their chief, Houtu, was respected as a god of the soil. Later, when helping Yu the Great with water control work, the Gong¬ gong tribe adopted his method too with very good results. The above stories illustrate the fact that water conservation was of great importance in the lives of people in primitive- societies. When the chiefs brought relief to the sufferings of the people, they were deified. However, their achievements were limited by a tribal nature, and it was only Yao’s and Shun’s contem-

�CHAPTER

III

55

porary, Yu the Great, who made contributions in water works construction that affected a larger number of tribal groups. Yu was conceived by some mysterious force. According to one legend, Yu’s mother was called Xiuji, and bore her son after swallowing the Yiyi plant (Job’s-tears). According to an¬ other legend, Yu emerged into the world from the body of the above-mentioned Gun, who had been dead for three years, when his body, which had not decayed, was cut open. Both accounts agree in making the birth of Yu the Great a miracle. Yu was entrusted by Shun with the task of conquering floods in cooperation with fraternal tribes. Having learned from previous failures, Yu studied the characteristics of flow¬ ing water, the direction of its flow and the topography, and adopted the method of dredging the waterways.

Canals were

dug to direct flood water into proper water courses.

Further¬

more, he led people in digging irrigation canals which were beneficial to farm production. Thanks to all these efforts, peo¬ ple could settle down peacefully on the plains without the con¬ stant threat of floods. Yu was so devoted to his work that he did not visit his home for thirteen years, although he travelled nearby three times. He worked tirelessly, regardless of wind and rain, until his hands and feet were severely calloused. In order to open some water courses, he summoned a divine winged dragon.

Once,

while cutting through a mountain, he even turned himself into a bear so as to complete a task beyond man’s ability.

His

celebrated contributions won him the respect of the people who honoured him as “Yu the Great” and god of the soil. Stories about Yu’s exploits in water conservation spread far and wide beyond the boundaries of individual tribes. Shennong was one of those tribes that were good at farm¬ ing and it had a gifted man as its chief. Not only did he invent tools for turning over the soil and teach his men how to farm, but he also discovered many medicinal herbs by personal ex¬ perimentation. Zhu, chief of the Lieshan tribe, became god of

�56

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

agriculture because of his miraculous talent in growing grain crops and vegetables. Above all, Qi, chief of the Zhou tribe, was famous for his achievements in farming and was often compared to Yu the Great in fame. Qi was a son of god and a god himself. Once when walking in the wilderness, his mother, Jiang Yuan, step¬ ped onto a huge footprint of a giant and her body was jolted. She had become pregnant and later bore a son. At first she dared not keep the child so she abandoned him in small lanes, in the woods, and on frozen waterways. But to her great surprise, the child always remained protected and did not die. So she took it back and named it “Qi”, meaning “abandoned”. The child proved to be very handy in farm work when he was still very small. The beans, millet, hemp, wheat, melons and fruit he cultivated all grew well, and the crops he helped others grow were so heavy they bent. He was also good at discover¬ ing better varieties of plants and ways of processing grain. The food he made was so good it even pleased the Lord on High. Later he became god of agriculture under the name of Houji, Lord of Agriculture. Houji lived at the same time as Yu the Great and helped in the water control work together with Xie, Gaoyao, Boyi and Dafei. Gaoyao and Boyi were both from the Yi people in the east. Boyi invented the sinking of wells. Xie’s mother, Jiandi, was once standing on a high platform when she saw a swallow fly by. She swallowed an egg it had laid and later gave birth to Xie. Dafei, about whose birth a similar story is told, was an expert in animal husbandry and the animals under his care were very obedient. Shun married a woman from his clan to Dafei and said to him that his descendants would surely be promising. As it happened, descendants of Yu, Xie and Houji founded the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties respectively, while Dafei became the ancestor of the foundef'-mf the Qin Dynasty. That the tribal chiefs were said to be sons of gods actually reflects the fact that in a society of matriarchal clans people

�CHAPTER

III

57

knew only who their mothers were but not their fathers. An¬ other reason for men becoming gods was that they had dis¬ tinguished themselves by performing the most important social function in a primitive society with a low productivity, namely, the organization of work in water conservation, farm¬ ing and animal husbandry. Despite repeated changes made according to each story-teller’s imagination, these myths to some extent reflect the historical reality of primitive society. As historical conditions changed, so did the role played by the tribal chief.

He became less a public servant than a kind

of power above society. History entered a new stage as class¬ less primitive society changed into civilized society with its class distinctions.

The Hereditary Monarchy of the Xia Dynasty

The Xia Dynasty is traditionally supposed to have begun with the reign of Yu the Great and ended with the fall of Jie, lasting for more than 400 years, from approximately the 21st century B.C. or a little earlier to the 16th century B.C. There were altogether seventeen kings in fourteen generations. Ac¬ cording to an ancient version of history, however, it was not Yu, but his son Qi, who founded the dynasty. The Xia people lived on loess plains formed by alluvial deposits suitable for primitive farming. Their territory extend¬ ed from western Henan and southern Shanxi eastwards along the Yellow River to the point where the borders of modern Henan, Hebei, and Shandong provinces meet and extended south to Hunan and north to Hebei next to the territory of other tribes living there. Since flooding had already been brought under control and people could settle down, we may suppose that animal husbandry and agriculture underwent further de¬ velopment. Development of animal husbandry and agriculture required more knowledge of astronomy and a better calendar to mark

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

58

seasonal changes. After carefully observing the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars, Yao is said to have worked out a calendar dividing a year into spring, summer, autumn and winter to coincide with the seasons of stockbreeding and farming. What was used in Yao’s time was a lunar calendar with the months determined by the phases of the moon.

Since

a year of twelve lunar months is shorter than the solar year, an intercalary month was inserted in certain years.

At the

time of Yao and Shun the solar year was thought to have 366 days which, of course, was not quite correct. It is not known whether the calendar of the Xia Dynasty represented an im¬ provement upon that of Yao but the so-called Xia calendar was much praised by people of later generations. Bronze vessels came into use at the time of the Xia. There was little opportunity to use bronze directly in farming but it could have been useful in the making of farm tools.

Some

tribes are said to have presented bronze to the Xia as tribute, Yu is supposed to have cast bronze tripods, and the Xia used bronze to make weapons. The Xia was an alliance formed by over a dozen closely related tribes of'which the Xiahou tribe was the leading one. Included in the alliance were also some more distantly related tribes and some of the Yi tribes in the east.

According to his¬

torical tradition, the leadership of the alliance originally alter¬ nated between the Yi and the Xia. Due to Yu’s great achieve¬ ments in water control and his victories over the Sanmiao tribes, his personal prestige increased so much that the chief of the clan wielded ever greater authority over the other clan members.

As Yu was getting old, the renowned chief Gaoyao

of the Eastern Yi was elected to succeed him. But Gaoyao un¬ expectedly died before Yu, so Boyi of the Eastern yi tribes was chosen to replace him. After Yu’s death, the Xia tribes, rely¬ ing on their great strength and Yu’s prestige, promoted Yu’s son Qi to the position of king. They asked Qi to grant them audiences and mediate in disputes, and praised him to the sky.

�CHAPTER

III

59

As a result the principle of electing leaders was violated and a new hereditary system came into being. In ancient times this was considered to be the beginning of a system whereby the ruler “takes all under Heaven as his family possession”. The founding of the Xia Dynasty is regarded as a major turning point in history. One tribe named Youhu criticized Qi for having violated the old system. But Youhu was defeated by Xia in a battle at Gan in modern Huxian in Shaanxi.

The defeated survivors

were made into “mushu”, which may be a term for prisoners of war who became slaves collectively owned by the victorious tribe. After attaining kingship, Qi turned out to be fond of drink¬ ing, hunting, singing and dancing.

Qi’s successor, Taikang,

cared nothing for state affairs but rather spent months on end hunting on the northern bank of the Luo River.

This be¬

haviour aroused strong resentment among the people. Houyi, known as a good archer from the Youqiong clan of the Eastern Yi, took the opportunity to attack Xia and made himself king. But the throne was again seized by Houyi’s trusted follower Hanzhuo who bribed Houyi’s family servants to kill him. Taikang, the overthrown ruler, had fled and died in exile, leaving as his heir his younger brother Zhongkang.

-Zhong-

kang’s son Xiang was attacked and killed by Hanzhuo while taking refuge with the Zhenguan and Zhenxun clans.

But

Xiang’s wife, already pregnant, climbed through a hole in the wall and escaped to her mother’s family of the Youreng tribe where she later bore her son Shaokang.

When the son grew

up, he was put in charge of stockbreeding in the clan, but being pursued again by Hanzhuo, he escaped to the Youyu clan which was descended from Shun. There he was made respon¬ sible for food preparation and the tribal chief Yusi married two daughters to him. Shaokang gathered together some other closely related tribes, defeated Hanzhou, and restored the Xia Dynasty.

�60

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

In order to counter the good marksmanship of the Yi peo¬ ple, Shaokang’s son Shu invented coats of mail which played an important role in the defeat of Hanzhuo. After he came to the throne, Shu went on a punitive expedition against the Eastern Yi and drove them back to the sea coast. Because of his great exploits, Shu was regarded by the Xia people as the only worthy heir of Yu, and they made magnificent sacrifices to him after his death. The Yi tribes were one by one brought under Xia’s control, and Yi chiefs even accepted noble titles and became officials of the Xia court offering tribute. After many long years of struggle, Xia’s ruling position was eventu¬ ally recognized by the other tribes, and the new hereditary monarchy had in effect replaced the traditional system of elec¬ tion. The establishment of hereditary monarchy eliminated the function of the tribe as an organization representing the will of its members and taking care of its own affairs. What was emerging instead was a state apparatus in which one class ruled over another. The Xia Dynasty by then had not only erected city walls with moats, but also established its own army, penal code and prisons.

The tribes conquered by Xia or forced to

recognize its position were made to pay tribute which usually consisted of local products. But some defeated tribes were forced to offer their sons and daughters as tribute. Towards the end of the Xia Dynasty, social conflict grew sharper. Tradition has it that in the 16th century B.C., the last ruler of Xia, Jie, abused his power.and increased oppression. He exhausted the resources of the people to build palaces and pavilions for himself. The people were also forced to go to war frequently to exact children, as well as jade and silk, from neighbouring tribes. Filled with hatred for J^ie, the people could no longer put up with his despotic rule and fled in large numbers. Even his court officials cursed him and wished his death, although that might mean that they themselves would perish. Jie, however, still thinking of restoring and strength¬ ening his control over other tribes, gathered all the tribal

�CHAPTER

III

61

chiefs together for a punitive expedition against the Youmin clan. But this made the existing conflicts more acute and alienated the tribes further. Shang Tang took this opportunity to revolt and overthrew the Xia Dynasty.

The Slave State of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties

The Earliest Written History

The Shang and Zhou dynasties were the earliest to have a written history. The Shang (c. 16th-llth century B.C.) lasted over 600 years, with 31 kings belonging to 17 generations. The early Zhou Dynasty is known as Western Zhou because the capital was located in the west. This period (c. mid-llth cen¬ tury to 771 B.C.) lasted more than 290 years, with 12 kings belonging to 11 generations. It was during these 900 years that historical records became consciously and systematically written instead of being spon¬ taneous and fragmentary. This was made possible by the emer¬ gence of two essential conditions, a written script and a cal¬ endar, during the Shang Dynasty. The Shang nobles were superstitious and believed that everything in the world was controlled by gods. They often sought the divine will through oracles and used a method of divination by which a spot on a tortoise shell or an animal bone was heated until it cracked and the oracle was then inter¬ preted on the basis of the pattern of the cracks. This method has been called scapulimancy, since the scapulae or shoulder blades of cattle were often used. In many cases the question and the answer and sometimes the subsequent events were written on the bone or shell and these records ar^'known as oracle-bone inscriptions. Oracle-bone inscriptions were first discovered in Xiaotun Village, in the northwest of Anyang County in Henan. People 62

�CHAPTER

IV

63

began to collect and identify them in 1899, and there have since been more discoveries. According to preliminary research, these inscriptions contain about 4,500 characters, of which some 1,700 have been deciphered. The written characters were already formed in four different ways; there were pictographs, ideographs, associative compounds and phonetic compounds. A method of “borrowing” was used, that is, a synonym or homonym was adopted to express a different thing. For exam¬ ple, the character lai which gave the image of wheat, was borrowed for a homophonous word meaning “to come”; feng M, meaning phoenix, was borrowed to write the word feng meaning wind (now written Jxl). Compared with later Han characters, the oracle-bone script was more detailed in making distinctions between animals of different species and sexes. For instance, the character yu meaning “to drive a chariot”, would take the radical ma 3r (horse) or xiang (elephant), depending on which animal was used. Again, the character mu ft (herding) would take the radical ft tizu (cat¬ tle) or ft yang (sheep), depending on whether the herd was cattle or sheep. The characters 3; ma (horse), ft yang (sheep), ^ shi (pig), quan (dog) and jfg lu (deer) might have addi¬ tional marks to indicate whether the animal was male or female. The characters ft pin and fi mu, which at first meant male and female cattle, were later applied to the males and females of all animals. Some of the oracle-bone characters did not have a fixed form, such as that for the character fi, gui (tortoise). The character sometimes depicted the figure of a turtle from the front and sometimes from the side, with or without a tail. In general, however, the oracle-bone script is the foundation of later Han characters. Judging from the forms of the oracle-bone characters and the grammar of the inscriptions, they must have gone through a rather long period of development, but the origin of this script remains to be ascertained. The number of characters on any given piece of oracle bone could range from a handful to over a hundred. The actual con-

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

64

tent of the oracles was related to various activities of the ruling house, indicating the circumstances at the time. As divinations of good or evil, the oracle-bone inscriptions are the earliest historical records known to us and are invaluable in a study of the Shang Dynasty. From these inscriptions we know that the Shang used a lunar calendar which was combined with the

solar

year

through the addition of an intercalary month, once in a few years, to make up the difference between a year of twelve lunar months and a solar year. The number of days in a month was fixed at 30 for a long month and 29 for a short one.

The

intercalary month was at first added at the end of the year as a 13th month, but later inserted in the middle of the year. Years and months were recorded by numerals in oracle-bone inscriptions.

Ten characters known as “heavenly stems” and

twelve others known as “earthly branches” were used to name the days in a cycle of sixty days. The stems are jia Ep, yi Z3, bing H, ding T> wu jj£, ji £, geng J^, xin 5^, and the branches are zi

ren {£, gui

chou 31, yin If, mao tip, chen

jg, si E, wu wei shen Ep, you Hf> xu jg,, hai -%■ Calendar-making has since gone through many changes and the calculations have become increasingly exact, but the lunar calendar bound to the solar year, and the 60-day cycles con¬ tinued in use for over 3,000 years. The use of a calendar was of great significance to the de¬ velopment of historical records.

Most of the oracle-bone in¬

scriptions only recorded the day and not the year or month. Some recorded all three, but with the day preceding the recorded event, followed by the month and then the year. A record of the year alone, however, did not indicate which king’s reign it referred to. Such information has to besought by other means. In other words, while records of some form did exist, they were incomplete. Only through a study of both written sources and archaeological finds are we able to obtain more comprehensive information on the Shang Dynasty.

�CHAPTER

IV

65

The engravings on Shang bronzes are an important form of documentation. A vessel may have one or a few characters, while some late Shang bronzes are inscribed with as many as 45 characters. These inscriptions are generally called jin wen (writings on bronzes) or zhong ding wen (writings on bells and tripods). Up till now, not very many of such inscriptions have been found, but they are a primary source of historical ma¬ terial for the Shang period. Oracle-bone inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty have been discovered in recent years. The characters are so small that they can only be read with a magnifier. The content of these inscriptions are still under study, but there is a clear increase in writing on bronze vessels from the Zhou period, not only in the number of pieces but in the length of the inscriptions. For example, ling yi, an inscription dating from the early Zhou, has 187 characters; Mao gong ding of the late Zhou has 499 characters. A large number of the bronze inscriptions from the Zhou Dynasty had 100-300 characters each, and show a wider vocabulary than the oracle-bone inscriptions. Most of the Zhou Dynasty bronze inscriptions are written in praise of great achievements or to celebrate grants and re¬ wards. Detailed descriptions are often given on military ex¬ peditions, the capture of war prisoners, and grants of servants and slaves, land, chariots, horses, banners, dresses, ceremonial vessels, and gold and shell articles. Some famous inscriptions contain data about the scale of warfare and number of ser¬ vants bestowed; others record the circumstances concerning grants of land and enfeoffment. The Zhou inscriptions frequently end with the words: “For eternal preservation by our descendants.” This is clearly an expression of hope for the handing down of the inscribed bronzes from generation to generation, and of the fact that the inscriptions were written in a way to suit such a purpose. In other words, they were deliberately written as historical rec¬ ords and, in this sense, represent an advance over the oraclebone texts. Some of the bronzes do not record the time, but

�66

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

there are more bronzes than oracle bones which give years and dates. Unlike the oracle bones, the bronzes indicate the time by using the month-day-year or year-month-day sequence, the latter subsequently becoming the common practice in Chinese historical records. There were also some Shang and Zhou historical records written on bamboo slips or silk. The main part of what has been preserved is contained in the Book of History (Shang Shu) and the Book of Odes (Shijing). The Book of History is a col¬ lection of political documents from the Shang, the Western Zhou and the Spring and Autumn periods. The Book of Odes dates from the Western Zhou and the Spring and Autumn periods. These two works had a far-reaching influence on the philosophy, political ideas and literature of later times. From the point of view of historical value, the Book of History has about twenty papers on Shang and Zhou history that are com¬ paratively reliable and more or less contemporaneous with the historical events they covered. These include accounts of his¬ torical figures, speeches and events. The way in which the material is presented shows a further step forward in making conscious historical records as compared to the bronze inscrip¬ tions. The Book of Odes contains 74 “Lesser Odes”, 31 “Great¬ er Odes” and 31 “Sacrificial Odes of Zhou”. Most of these odes deal with events, and some with offerings to gods, and they were written mainly during the Zhou Dynasty. The book also includes 160 “Lessons from the States”, 4 “Praise-odes of Lu” and 5 “Sacrificial Odes of Shang”, most of which were works of later times. The odes throw light on the historical conditions and are highly valuable for an understanding of history. It can be seen that the various sources for Sfyang and early Zhou history, whether the oracle-bone inscriptions^bronze in¬ scriptions or the Book of History and Book of Odes, all devel¬ oped independently of each other and do not give a complete year by year record of these periods. The situation started to change towards the end of the Western Zhou.

From 841 B.C.,

�CHAPTER

IV

67

the Zhou royal house began to keep annals, and some vassal states did the same about this time. Henceforth China had his¬ torical records for each year. Thus the year 841 B.C. marked the beginning of conscious, systematic records. Although historical records of the Shang and Western Zhou are still rather inadequate to help us understand the history of this period, they nevertheless free us from dependence on legends.

The Slave-Owning Shang Dynasty

According to legend the Shang Dynasty traced its origin to an ancient tribe on the lower reaches of the Huanghe River. As stated in the previous chapter, the founder of the Shang Dynasty, Xie, had assisted Yu in harnessing rivers. The leg¬ endary accounts tell us that Xie was also an official in charge of education during the reign of Shun.

This may be attribu¬

table to the fact that the Shang tribe had a relatively high cultural level. The Shang moved its centre of activities five times under the three kings from Xie to Xiang Tu, and three times after Xiang Tu, during the eleven generations from Chang Ruo to Tang. These moves occurred mainly along the Huanghe River in present-day Shandong and Henan provinces. Shang rule became powerful under Xiang Tu, its influence extending eastward to Mount Tai and north to the coast of Bohai Sea. It grew still stronger under Tang, who was also called Tai Yi. State organization already existed under Tang. He had two men, Yi Yin and Zhong Hui, as his ministers, both known as capable officials. At that times Jie, the ruler of the Xia Dynasty, was opposed by the people. From Bo, a place south of present-day Caoxian in Shandong, Tang launched at¬ tacks against Xia rule. He first conquered a dozen nearby tribes and small states and then started an expedition against

�68

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

the Xia king, Jie. He issued a proclamation denouncing Jie for his misrule and the harm he had done to the people’s pro¬ ductive pursuits. He said that the house of Xia had committed such crimes that the Lord on High had commanded him to destroy it, and since he feared the Lord on High, he dared not disobey. Tang also told people that they would be richly rewarded if they followed him and succeeded in their god-giv¬ en task. If they did not follow him, he would enslave them or kill them and they should not expect to be able to save them¬ selves. Tang’s words show that the soldiers were free men and not slaves but that Tang himself behaved in the manner of a slave-owner. Jie was defeated in a battle fought at Mingtiao (present-day Fengqiu in Henan) and fled to Nanchao (presentday Chaoxian in Anhui), where he died. The Xia Dynasty was overthrown, and the Shang Dynasty established, with presentday Shangqiu city in Henan Province as the centre of its activities. The state power of the Shang Dynasty was exercised by the king and the slave-owning nobility. The king was assisted by ministers and vice-ministers.

Other officials with religious

functions were the shamans, the recorders and the diviners. Actually the ministers were also religious officials.

Others

took charge of military affairs, production, etc. The numerous official posts were mostly hereditary for members of noble families. The dynasty had a large and powerful army. Oracle-bone inscriptions state that “the king has set up three army units, right, centre and left.” The core of the army consisted of members of the nobility, while the soldiers were mainly com¬ moners. A number of slaves were pressed into the service as foot-soldiers or for the performance of miscellaneous duties. Sometimes a clan constituted a unit of the army. The oracles record orders for “three clans”, “five clans” or “a clan with many sons” to go to battle. The army was armed with bronze weapons, the commonly used ones being axe, battle-axe, lance, spear, sword, javelin, helmet, bronze battle-axe with iron edge

�CHAPTER IV

69

and leather shield. Tn late Shang chariots became the principal combat force. Each chariot was drawn by two horses and carried three soldiers clad in armour — one driving, one holding a lance or spear, and the third carrying bow and ar¬ rows; alongside the chariots marched foot-soldiers. The number of soldiers in war usually varied from three to five thousand, and could reach thirty thousand. Prisons were set up and punishments were instituted for more than ten different crimes. The Shang kings claimed that their first ancestor was the son of the Lord on High on whose command the dynasty had been founded. Thus a central element in Shang religion was the identification of the earliest royal ancestor with the su¬ preme god. The Shang kings were bom to become masters of the people and became gods after death. While they lived they ruled over the living, and after they died they ruled over the dead. In remote antiquity, the tribal heads who had worked for the good of the people and made contributions to their common cause were venerated as gods. The Shang still regard¬ ed their chiefs as gods, but these were gods who stood above the people and ruled them as kings and so were no longer the servants of the people. The Shang possessed a complete set of instruments of violence and weapons of spiritual control as well as a welldeveloped written language. It was already a slave-owning state of considerable scale but retained a great many customs of primitive society. Special sacrifices were offered to a per¬ son’s deceased mother and the heavenly stems were used for the titles of deceased grandmothers. This shows the great respect the Shang people paid to matriarchal authority. After the death of Tang, as his eldest son Tai Ding had died young, he was succeeded by Tai Ding’s younger brother Wai Bing who was in turn succeeded by another brother, Zhong Ren. A few years later, Tai Ding’s son Tai Jia became the fourth king of Shang. He refused to take the advice of Yi Yin, the prime minister, who then dethroned him, but

�70

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

restored him when he changed for the better a few years later. Another story says that Tai Jia was at first put under house arrest by Yi Yin. He escaped, killed Yi Yin and seized the throne. This restoration marked the beginning of a period of stability under six kings from Tai Jia to Tai Wu. After Zhong Ding succeeded Tai Wu, struggles for the throne occurred many times, and the internal contradictions of the nobility intensified. Misery spread wide among the people, and the dynasty declined. Small states that had submitted to the Shang now renounced their allegiance. Con¬ ditions improved somewhat under the rule of King Zu Yi, the fourth successor of Zhong Ding. Oracle-bone inscriptions show that sacrifices were offered to three kings together — Tai Yi, Tai Jia and Zu Yi, the last posthumously given the title of Zhong Zong. To honour them, 300 heads of cattle and sheep were used in the sacrifices. However, struggles for the throne continued in the whole period from Zhong Ding to Yang Jia. During the reign of King Pan Geng, the Shang removed its capital to Yin (modern Anyang in Henan), laying a new foun¬ dation for Shang rule which from then on was also called the Yin Dynasty (or Yin-Shang). One of the next kings, Wu Ding, is supposed to have spent his early years among the common people and was therefore familiar with their difficulties in making a living. After becoming king he appointed Gan Pan and Fu Yue as ministers and made great efforts to consolidate his rule. Wu Ding also launched many military expeditions against the surroYmding tribes and states. These campaigns centred on present Shanxi, northern Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia. The Tu Fang tribe and another nomadic tribe north of the Hetao (the Yellow River Bend) had joined forces to attack the Shang. For each campaign Wu Ding conscripted three to fiye thousand men. The more powerful nomadic tribe Gui Fang, which lived in present Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and further north, resisted the forces of Wu Ding for three years before they were con¬ quered. In the northwest there was also the Qiang Fang tribe

�CHAPTER

IV

71

against which Wu Ding once employed 13,000 men. In the south he also attacked the Jing Chu people and extended his influence to the Changjiang basin. His reign lasted 59 years and he received the posthumous title of Gao Zong. Wu Ding was succeeded by Zu Geng and then by Zu Jia. The rulers after Zu Jia were mostly pleasure-seeking and paid little attention to state affairs while social contradictions deepened. The last two kings were Di Yi and Di Xin. Di Yi launched many expeditions against the Yi (Eastern Yi) tribes between the Changjiang and Huai rivers and was victorious. He moved the capital to Zhaoge, present-day Qixian in Henan. Di Xin or Zhou is known in history as an infamous tyrant. He devised many cruel laws and means of torture, oppressing and exploiting the slaves and common people. Building luxurious palaces and gardens, he led a life of debauchery with com¬ panions from the nobility. By tradition, the old nobles held power in Shang. But by the end of the dynasty, particularly under King Zhou, the centralized autocracy had the effect of setting aside the “elders” and only favouring those congenial to the king. This aggravated the contradictions among the nobility and caused internal dissension. Zhou also spent nearly a year personally leading a war against the Yi. Although he won a victory after one year’s bitter fighting, he exhausted much of the resources of his realm and increased the burdens of the people. The intensification of class contradictions brought about great confusion. Taking advantage of the op¬ portunity, King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty launched an attack and overthrow the Shang Dynasty.

The Social Economy of the Shang Dynasty

Animal husbandry had a long history already in Shang times. In the late Shang period, the number of cattle and sheep used in a single sacrifice might be 300-400, sometimes up to a thousand. The oracle-bone inscriptions many times mention hunting, e.g., in one hunting trip 384 deer were

�72

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

captured, and hunting was common for quite a long period. The inscriptions also record the kind and sexes of the animals, showing the developed state of animal husbandry. Agriculture was the principal part of production with many kinds of crops. In the ruins of the Shang capital at Zhengzhou in Henan, remains of rice have been found. In the oracle-bone inscriptions we find the names of the main cereals and some other plants, e.g., he 7^, meaning growing grain; shu HI, sticky millet; su M, rice or millet in husk; mai wheat; ji W., millet; mi yft, rice; sang mulberry; and ma$$, hemp. In the ruins of Yin at Anyang have been discovered cellars for storing grain. Some of the walls and floors of these cellars had been plastered with a mixture of mud and straw. The character ling JJl in the oracle-bone inscriptions, which means granary, applied to such cellars. Different kinds of wine were brewed — sweet wine was made of rice and fragrant wine was made of black millet. The many wine vessels found in the Yin ruins show that drinking wine was common among the nobility. Wine making and drinking were a result of the advances in agriculture. Iron had been discovered and was already in use. Ironblade bronze battle-axes of the Shang have been unearthed recently but not yet iron farm implements. Tools were mainly made of wood or stone, such as wooden spades to dig earth, stone hoes for weeding grass and stone sickles for harvesting. Hundreds of sickles have been found near the royal palace among the Yin ruins, mostly showing signs of having been used. The handicraft tools included axe, adze, knife, saw, chisel, drill, awl, needle, shovel, etc. — all made of bronze. Bronze metallurgy was the most highly developed among the handicrafts. Remains of bronze foundries upder the direct control of the royal house have been discovered at Zhengzhou, Anyang and other places. The raw material consisted of mala¬ chite (copper oxide ore), tin and lead, and charcoal was used for fuel. Pottery moulds were first made, into which molten bronze was poured. The mould was removed after the liquid

�CHAPTER

IV

73

had cooled off and solidified. The bronze was then decorated by carving to make it more attractive. The famous large rec¬ tangular cauldron si mu wu ding can be taken as a representa¬ tive of the advanced bronze metallurgy of the late Shang. The height is 133 cm to the top of the handles, the opening 110 X 78 cm, and the weight 875 kgs. The furnace used for smelting bronze was made of red pottery with a thick inside wall and could stand high temperature without breaking. Usually it could only take 12.5 kgs of molten bronze. To make the above-mentioned, large cauldron, 70-80 furnaces were re¬ quired. A couple of hundred skilled craftsmen performing different tasks were needed, not including those making the mould and handling transport. Chemical analysis has shown the tripod to contain 84.77 per cent of copper, 11.64 per cent of tin and 2.79 per cent of lead. Separate moulds were made for the ears, the body and the legs, each requiring from two to eight pieces. Besides the common gray, black and red pottery, there were white and hard pottery and primitive porcelain made of por¬ celain clay fired in a kiln. These were highly heated, so that they became hard and did not easily absorb water.

The white

pottery has a clear pure colour with fine texture and beautiful decorations. The surface has a thin, blue or yellowish green glaze, the body is greyish white, the structure is solid, and the vessels emit a metallic sound when struck. Experimental analysis has shown that the temperature of firing was about 1,200 ± 30° C. The vessels were still quite rough, but may be said to be primitive porcelain. The Shang people already had linen and silk textiles. On the bronzes traces of silk fabrics have been found — rough silk with plain design and damask with lozenge design. Cowrie shells and a small number of copper shells have been unearthed from Shang ruins. The oracle-bone inscrip¬ tions record the acquisition and bestowal of shells. The shell was at first used as an ornament. It began to be used as money with the growth of exchange. Documents of the

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

74

early period of the Zhou Dynasty mention traders driving ox¬ carts carrying goods to distant places. At Zhengzhou and An¬ yang, hard pottery with impressed design, sea shells, clam shells, whale and tortoise scapulae (used for divination) have been found to have come from far away. The development of production was closely connected with the advance of scientific knowledge.

Astronomy was needed

to determine the seasons for farming and animal husbandry. And mathematics and mechanics helped water conservancy planning and design and construction in the cities. The oraclebone inscriptions have records of solar and lunar eclipses and of some constellations and newly discovered stars. The Shang calendar shows the important results of astronomy and mathe¬ matics of that time.

Numerals from one to ten thousand with

a decimal system were used. Tradition says that Xie, the founder of the Shang royal lineage, worked together with Yu in harnessing the rivers and that Ming,

Tang’s ancestor eight generations

drowned while doing the same work.

before,

was

In its early period the

Shang people had inhabited the lower reaches of the Huanghe River and had much to do with water control. There must have been many records concerning this, but now they are no longer available. The Shang capital cities were built according to a plan that determined the arrangement of palaces, temples and various workshops.

The characteristic of Chinese architecture based

on wooden structures had already taken shape.

The founda¬

tions of the palaces and temples of Yin ruins were generally of pounded earth, one of them as large as 46.7 by 10.7 metres. The remains of the stone or bronze bases of the rows of columns allow us to see the complicated structure of the palaces with heavy gates and compound rooms. These building foundations, with a north-south or east-west direction, formed groups of mutually compatible structures. Their style and technique exercised a far-reaching influence on the architecture of later ages, and the knowledge of applied mechanics was already fairly advanced. In the relations of production, the Shang Dynasty had entered slave society.

The slaves were engaged in farming,

domestication of animals and primitive handicrafts, or did household work for slave-owners. The oracle-bone inscriptions record using war prisoners for farming and animal husbandry. There is not much historical material on the actual conditions under the slave system. In the oracle-bone inscriptions the character ^ zhong, (meaning many people), resembles a picture of three men under the sun and has commonly been interpreted as slaves labouring in the fields.

In a large tomb

at Wuguan Village at Anyang, which had been twice plun¬ dered, 79 skeletons were found, buried with the man the tomb was made for.

The other tombs of the Yin ruins also contain

the remains of people buried alive with the dead or killed as sacrifices.

It is generally explained that these people were

slaves. That is more or less guesswork and does not clarify the position of slaves in social production. Not until the Zhou Dynasty did more factual data on the slave system appear.

The Rise of the Zhou and the Establishment of the Slave-Owning Zhou Dynasty

The people of Zhou were an ancient tribe on the loess plateau in the middle reaches of the Weishui (the Wei River). The ruling clan’s family name was Ji. Their earliest ancestor, Qi, was worshipped as the god of agriculture. Qi lived in Tai, which is said to be present Wugong County in Shaanxi.

His great-grandson Gongliu started a settlement

in Bin, the area around Binxian and Xunyi counties'in Shaan¬ xi. He studied the topography, found the water sources and organized production, developing agriculture and the domes¬ tication of animals.

Ten generations from Gongliu to Gugong

�CHAPTER IV

77

Tanfu lived in Bin. Threatened by the Rong and Di* tribes from the northwest, Gugong Tanfu led his people to Zhouyuan (the Zhou plain) at the foot of Mount Qi (now Qishan County in Shaanxi). People in his time gave up cave-dwelling and built houses and city walls and began to live in cities called yi, which were administered by officials. Making use of the rich soil of Zhouyuan, the people developed farm production and laid the foundation for the rise of the Zhou. About this time Zhou began to have contacts with the Shang. Gugong Tanfu was later honoured as Great King. He was succeeded by Ji Li, or King Ji, during whose reign the Zhou state grew strong. In the wars against the Rong Di tribes the captured prisoners were made slaves. The relations between the Zhou and the Shang became closer; Ji Li married the Shang woman Tai Ren and was received in court by the Shang king who granted him some land and gave him horses, jade and other valuables. He was also appointed an official in charge of livestock. However, later he was killed by King Wen Ding of the Shang. Ji Li was succeeded by his son Chang, who later became the celebrated King Wen of the Zhou.

Seeing that the Shang

king, Zhou, had earned the hatred of the nobility by his efforts to win over and recruit the slaves of certain tribes and states, Chang proposed an agreement among the slave-owners. It au¬ thorized searches for escaped slaves, who should be returned to their respective owners and must not be hidden by anyone. This agreement won the support of the nobility and raised King Wen’s prestige among the tribes and states. He carried out a series of campaigns against hostile tribes and states and subdued them. Then he attacked Chong (now Huxian in Shaanxi), a powerful state on the Zhou’s eastern

• “Rong” or “Xi Rong” was the ancient name applied to ethnic

groups in Northwest China, while “Di” or “Bei Di” was the name used for ethnic groups in North China. The groups in both Northwest and North China were also generally referred to under the name of “Rong Di”.

�78

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

border. Chong was friendly to the Shang and was treated as an enemy by the Zhou. With the help of his allies King Wen subdued Chong, capturing many of its people. He then moved his capital to Fengyi (on the west bank of the Feng River in Shaanxi), ready for eastward expansion. The many rivers and rich soil in this area favoured agriculture. In King Wen’s last years, his power extended to the southwestern part of present Shanxi and the western part of present Henan, posing a threat to Zhaoge, the Shang capital. Ji Fa, King Wen’s son, succeeded as King Wu. He moved the capital to Hao (southwest of present-day Xi’an in Shaanxi). In the ninth year of his reign when the contradictions in Shang society sharpened, he attacked Shang which had been ex¬ hausted in its wars against the Eastern Yi tribes. When his forces reached Mengjin (now Mengxian, Henan), 800 enfeoffed lords spontaneously joined him, but he did not continue his drive until two years later. Then he advanced eastward with 300 war chariots, a shock brigade of 3,000 men and 45,000 armoured soldiers.

The forces of the tribes of the southwest

also joined in when he started the campaign against King Zhou of the Shang.

At Muye to the southwest of the Shang capital

of Zhaoge, he and his men took an oath denouncing King Zhou for failing to offer sacrifices to ancestors and distrusting his kinsmen and for shielding people who had committed crimes and slaves who had escaped from their masters. The Zhou and Shang armies fought a battle at Muye. As the Shang soldiers turned against their ruler, King Wu quickly captured Zhaoge, where the Shang king burnt himself to death. Having vanquished the Shang, King Wu established the Zhou Dynasty. Among his chief ministers were Dan, the Duke of Zhou; Shi, the Duke of Zhao; and the Venerable Duke Jiang (Lti Shang, also known as Taigong Wang or Jian& Taigong). He enfeoffed Wu Geng, the son of King Zhou of the Shang, at Yin and appointed his own brothers Guan Shu, Cai Shu and Huo Shu to watch over Wu Geng. King Wu died two years later and was succeeded by his young son Song as King Cheng

�CHAPTER XV

79

with his uncle, the Duke of Zhou, as regent.

Guan Shu and

Cai Shu and other nobles were dissatisfied and Wu Geng took this opportunity to rebel against Zhou rule in collaboration with these nobles and some tribes and small states in the east. The Duke of Zhou led his forces in an eastern expedition, crushed the rebellion in three years, and extended the in.fluence of the Zhou Dynasty to the lower reaches of the Huanghe and Huaihe rivers. The Zhou capital city, Hao, was far removed from the east where the Duke of Zhou was carrying on his military cam¬ paign.

Luoyi, now Luoyang city in Henan, was then chosen

as the eastern capital and as a strategic centre from which the east could be controlled politically and militarily.

Here many

people who remained loyal to the Shang were forced to move and troops were stationed to watch them.

The new dynasty

was stabilized only after the eastern expedition of the Duke of Zhou and the building of the eastern capital. The Zhou regime was a dictatorship by the slave-owning nobility.

It was based on a coalition of the royal clan and

other noble clans, with or without the same surname as the royal family, under the supreme authority of the king. In each of the fiefs, power was based on a similar coalition of the ruling family and other noble clans, with or without the same surname, under the supreme authority of the fiefholder. Under Zhou rule there were many fiefdoms, some ruled by clans with the same surname as the royal house and some ruled by clans with other surnames. Of the latter there were those who were related by marriage to the Zhou rulers, leading clans surviving from the Shang period, and also fiefdoms trans¬ formed from old tribes. Some had been set up before and were then recognized by the Zhou ruling house; others were estab¬ lished after the reclamation of land and construction of city walls and ancestral temples. The Zhou enfeoffment policy had a positive significance in the development of production.

The

principal fiefdoms were Jin, Wei and Yan to the north of the

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

80

Huanghe River, and Xu, Cai, Chen, Song, Cao, Lu and Qi to the south of the river. The state of Wu in the far southeast gradual¬ ly became important, and so did Qin and Zheng which were established later. This enfeoffment policy benefited vassals who were related to the royal house in one way or another. It also preserved the power of the noble clans which, though unrelated to the new dynasty, did not challenge its authority.

In this way the Zhou

Dynasty won the general support of the nobility. At the height of its power, the Zhou domain extended south across the Changjiang River, northeast to present-day Liao¬ ning, west to Gansu, and east to Shandong.

In the northeast

the Su Shen tribe inhabiting the vast area from the Songhuajiang to the Heilongjiang rivers presented King Wu with an arrow that had a head made of stone and a shaft made of wood. King Wu inscribed some words on the shaft and gave it to the state of Chen which kept it in its treasury down to the Spring and Autumn period.

After the successful eastern expedition

of the Duke of Zhou, this tribe again sent an emissary to offer congratulations. The Zhou Dynasty established a patriarchal clan system. Within the clan there was a distinction between major and minor lineages. The king made the eldest son born of his wife heir to the throne — this was the major lineage.

The other

sons born of his wife and of his concubines became the heads of minor lineages. The vassal lords with the royal surname be¬ longed to minor lineages in relation to the king, but in their own states they established the same kind of lineage system with a major lineage and many minor ones.

A dafu (great

officer) belonged to a minor lineage in relatiop to the vassal lord, but within his own fief he also maintained a system under which the first son of his wife was his legitimate heir representing the major lineage.

Thus by combining blood re¬

lationship with an enfeoffment policy, the nobles bearing the same surname were united. At the same time, the royal house

�CHAPTER IV

81

intermarried with the ruling families of the fiefdoms and be¬ came related to those with different surnames. The king of Zhou of a younger generation called the vassal lords with the same surname paternal uncles and those with different sur¬ names maternal uncles. Such a clan relationship, coupled with intermarriages, strengthened the ties between the royal house and the vassal lords. Of the various officials under the king the taislni or taibao (prime minister) was the most powerful. There were a minister of civil administration and land affairs (situ), a minister of military affairs (sima), a minister of construction (sikong), a minister of justice (sikou), and officials in charge of agricul¬ ture. Most of the official posts were held by nobles by heredi¬ tary right; the fiefs were, of course, also hereditary.

The

political organization in each fiefdom was similar to that at the royal court. The king and the vassal lords each had his own armed forces.

As in the Shang Dynasty, the main fighting force

was composed of soldiers riding in chariots. To maintain the rule of the dynasty, rites and laws were formulated.

Punishments were used to control the slaves and

common people while the function of ritual was to maintain the hierarchy within the nobility.

Mainly an expression of

different political status, the ranks also indicated seniority and the relative position of men and women. The power of the king was bestowed by Heaven or the Lord on High.

Like the Shang, the Zhou Dynasty identified

its ancestral god with the supreme god.

The Zhou admitted

that the Shang kings were the elder sons of the Lord on High, but since they had failed to live up to his expectations, the Lord on High shifted his favour from the east to the west.

As

the Zhou Dynasty embodied the divine will, it was given supreme power over the human world. But the mandate of Heaven was not permanent; it depended on whether the con¬ duct of posterity met with the approval of Heaven. Here again the ancestral god became separated from the supreme god, because the former was not the only son of the latter. It seems that the supreme god of the Shang was autocratic, while that of the Zhou, though autocratic, was also rational. The Shang god belonged to the Shang alone, while the Zhou god did not, but stood above dynasties and tribes. In this respect the Zhou religion was more developed than the Shang religion, and this also reflected the political ideas of the Zhou Dynasty in its early period.

Economic Development Under Zhou Slavery

The slave system was well developed under Zhou rule. The king, vassals and high officials owned slaves of different status and under different names and forced them to create great wealth for them. The slave-owners held power and were also dominant economically. The common people living in the capital cities were called guo ren, also interpreted as “freemen”. The peasants in rural communes were called ye ren or “people in the fields”. After the Zhou conquest a large number of the Shang peo¬ ple and their slaves became slaves of the new rulers. An¬ cient records state that King Wu attacked 99 states, taking prisoner large numbers of people who possibly became slaves. The kings of Zhou conducted expeditions to the east and the south and frequently fought against the Gui Fang tribe in the north. In one battle 13,081 men and many chariots, horses, cattle and sheep were captured. Convicts were another source of slaves. The common people who revolted against the nobles were considered to have “committed crimes” and criminals were often converted into slaves and forced to per¬ form all sorts of labour. But they were not necessarily slaves for life, and were generally released after serving their sen¬ tences. Bronze inscriptions record the grants by the Zhou kings and nobles of tens, hundreds or thousands of slave families.

�84

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

One of the characteristics of the slave system in ancient China was the organization of the slaves on a family basis, although this was not the case with all slaves. In these inscriptions gifts of slaves are often mentioned along with gifts of all kinds of utensils, money, cattle, horses and land. This shows that slaves were treated in the same way as utensils or animals. They could be bought and sold. According to one inscription, five slaves were worth a horse and a bundle of silk. There were fewer cases of slaughtering slaves and pris¬ oners of war under Zhou rule than under the Shang, but it was still rather common to bury people alive to accompany the dead, though in smaller numbers. This shows that, under the Zhou slave system, production could obviously absorb a greater labour force than under the Shang. In the bronze inscriptions there are many examples of slaves being forced to perform productive labour — mostly farming and in some cases handicraft work. The royal house was nominally the owner of all land in the country. The royal domain around the capital was directly owned while the nobles and officials each had his own fief. These fiefs were hereditary and, to a large extent, could be handled freely by their owners.

The land system was one

of ownership by the slave-holding nobility. A poem from the Zhou Dynasty describes thousands of people working in the fields.

The grain of the slave-owner

piled high on the farms. The poem says that a thousand granaries and ten thousand baskets should be prepared to handle the grain. This is probably a description of a bumper harvest with the slaves working collectively on the land. Within the rural commune, farmland was periodically dis¬ tributed on the basis of fertility. An able-bodied peasant could use 100 mu of the best land and 50 mu of fallow; or 100 mu of middle-grade land and 100 mu of fallow;'or 100 mu of poor land and 200 mu of fallow. The peasant worked a piece of land distributed to him and let another piece lie fallow. Land was redistributed after several years. Between

�CHAPTER IV

85

the fields were irrigation canals along which roads were built. Although there is no definitive proof, this may have been the farming system that was later referred to as the “well fields” (jingtian Eight households are supposed to have cultivated one plot of land each with a common field in the middle. According to one interpretation, the crops from the central field were given to a lord. The character jing #, “well”, resembles such a group of nine fields. The peasant clans lived together in the rural communes. The settlements were called yi or she and were surrounded by open fields. They had their own houses, gardens or orchards. Between them there was equality, but the neigh¬ bourhood leaders controlled who was joining or leaving these communities. Women were brought together for “making ropes at night”. The peasants were given land by the com¬ mune to produce grain, vegetables, fruits, domestic animals, fuel and clothing to support themselves. Tools for farm production used during the Zhou period were not much different from those of the Shang Dynasty. But production was improved as the slaves and the peasants of the communes had accumulated much experience over a long period. The main method of farming was called ou geng, or “two men working together”.

This was probably designed

to make deeper ploughing possible.

The system of' fallow

was a progressive development and gradually replaced the slash and burn method. The technique of simple drainage and irrigation was also improved as were weeding, seed breed¬ ing and pest control. People grew rice, sorghum, sticky millet, wheat, beans, millet, mulberry, hemp, melons and fruits. There was a greater variety than in the Shang period, covering nearly all the principal crops we have today. Handicrafts continued to develop. After conquering Shang, the Zhou kings sent the “six clans of Yin people” and “seven clans of Yin people” to the states of Lu and Wei, and among these there were rope-makers, makers of two different kinds of vessels and potters as well as makers of flags, horse har-

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

86

nesses, files and axes, fences and mallets. These captured handicraftsmen played an important role in the development of Zhou handicrafts. Bronze casting continued to be an important handicraft, especially the building of chariots which were not only a means of conveyance for the nobility but, more importantly, a kind of military equipment. As more fiefs were established, the construction of buildings also developed. Zhou handicrafts and trade were mainly controlled by the nobles or officials and served the nobility. The status of the workers and their leaders was inherited. At this time slaves, cattle and horses, arms and jewellery were exchanged through barter, and in the capital there were markets under state control. Cowries were still used as money, with strings of shells as the units of calculation. Metals were also used as means of exchange. Among the common people barter mostly involved daily necessities.

The Zhou Dynasty from Prosperity to Decline

After the death of King Wu, the Duke of Zhou was in charge of state affairs for seven years until King Cheng came of age. The four decades under King Cheng and his son King Kang were marked by political stability and economic pros¬ perity. Under the next rulers, King Zhao and King Mu, the strength of the dynasty was at its height and wars were fought against the peoples of the surrounding areas. These conflicts intensified with the Zhou side enjoying the initiative. King Mu, powerful and ambitious, is said to have toured the regions far out in the west. After King Mu and throughout the reigns" of King Gong, King Yi, King Xiao, King Yi and King Li, thevprestige of the dynasty gradually declined and contradictions between the royal house and the people began to surface. King Li exploited the capital residents or freemen more mercilessly

�CHAPTER IV

87

than ever and that roused general opposition. His ministers advised him to stop his oppression, but he refused to listen. Instead, he suppressed all public discussion. His tyranny continued for three years; then the capital residents could no longer tolerate it and rose in armed revolt. the royal palace and forced the king to flee.

They attacked Then they sur¬

rounded the residence of the Duke of Zhao where they had heard that Prince Jing, heir to the throne, was hiding.

The

Duke made his own son take the place of the prince, thus saving the heir who later became King Xuan. After King Li had fled, the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Zhao, descendants of the two mentioned earlier, took charge of the government; this period was called the gonghe.

One

account says that the man in power was Duke He of the state of Gong, hence the name gonghe. The first year of gonghe was 841 B.C.

From that year on, we have accurate dates of

recorded Chinese history. King Li died in Zhi (now Huoxian in Shanxi) 14 years after his flight. The Dukes of Zhou and Zhao had Prince Jing enthroned as King Xuan.

In the first years of his rule severe

droughts occurred, but they did not develop into a serious situation. Later King Xuan carried out wars against some neighbouring tribes and states and won some victories, but was defeated in wars against the Jiang Rong tribe1 and against the Tiao Rong and the Ben Rong tribes.2

For a time during

King Xuan’s reign there were signs of prosperity.

But the

contradictions between the Zhou state and the neighbouring peoples and the social contradictions in the Zhou-controlled areas were not resolved. Moreover, continuous wars consumed much of the dynasty’s manpower and material resources. lrrhe Jiang Rong tribe first inhabited Gua Zhou (west of presentday Dunhuang County in Gansu Province) and later moved eastward. 2 The Tiao Rong and Ben Rong tribes lived in the area around present-day Mingtiaogang north of the Zhongtiao Mountains near Yuncheng County in Shanxi Province.

�88

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

King You, who succeeded King Xuan, was a stupid, selfindulgent and cruel ruler. The existing contradictions grew worse. As the Book of Odes pointed out: “Some people leisurely stay at home, some work untiringly for the country, some lie in bed doing nothing, some always have to go to war, some drink and make merry, some are fearful of meeting disaster, some talk nonsense or gossip, some have to do all kinds of work.” The struggles between big and small slave¬ owners became sharper with the small slave-owners complain¬ ing: “People have land, you take it away; people own slaves, you seize them!” Uninterrupted famine and severe earth¬ quakes compelled people to leave their homes and wander about. Those who were politically sharp used the earthquakes as a pretext to warn that “high cliffs may turn into deep valleys, while valleys may become hills and mountains.” The Zhou Dynasty faced a crisis. During King You’s reign the neighbouring peoples made continuous attacks. He dismissed Queen Shen and the crown prince Yi Jia and made his favourite concubine Bao Si queen and her son heir to the throne. Marquis Shen, father of Queen Shen, attacked the king in collaboration with the Quan Rong tribe1 and Lti, Zeng and other states. As the vassals refused to send him reinforcements, King You was killed at the foot of Mount Li. The capital was sacked and its treasures plun¬ dered. Under the threat of the Quan Rong and their allies, the Zhou ruler had lost control of the old capital by 771 B.C. In the following year King You’s successor, King Ping, moved the capital to Luoyi with the support of some of the nobles and vassals. From this year the dynasty is known as Eastern Zhou. The dynasty’s power and prestige had declined sharply, and history entered a new stage.

1 The Quan Rong tribe led a nomadic life in the Jing and Wei river valleys, or present-day Binxian and Qishan counties in Shaanxi Prov¬ ince, during the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The Early Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn, and Warring States Periods: Transition from Slavery to Feudalism

The Early Eastern Zhou and the Spring and Autumn Period: Contention for Supremacy Among the Major States

In 770 B.C., King Ping moved the centre of political power eastward to Luoyi (present-day Luoyang), and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty came into being. In 256 B.C. the Eastern Zhou came to an end after 514 years of existence under 25 succes¬ sive kings. The period from 722 B.C., 49 years after the Zhou capital was moved east, to 481 B.C. is known to his¬ torians as the Spring and Autumn Period and the subsequent period, to 221 B.C., is known as the Warring States Period.1 The eastward move by the Zhou was an important polit¬ ical event. This was followed by annexation among the vassal states. During the Spring and Autumn Period, big states conquered 30 or more small states, some as many as 40 or 50 small states. It is said that there were 1,800 states under the Western Zhou, but the number dwindled to 100 by the Spring and Autumn Period as the result of conquest and an¬ nexation. Of the 100 only about a dozen were politically 1 The term “Spring and Autumn Period” refers to the period covered by the book The Spring and Autumn Annals, namely from 722 to 481 B.C. There are three definitions, however, for the Warring States Period. Some hold that it began in 475 B.C., others say 476 B.C., and still others cite 403 B.C. The third definition is used in the present book. The 76 years (480 B.C. to 404 B.C.) lying between the two periods are regarded as part of the Spring and Autumn Period. 89

�90

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

significant. During the Warring States Period, only 7 states, plus a few smaller ones, remained before they were finally absorbed by the Qin. The early years of the Eastern Zhou, the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States Period were all marked by great upheaval. After moving his capital to the east, King Ping reestab¬ lished the power of the dynasty with the help of such states as Jin, Zheng, Wei and Qin. He relied particularly on Jin and Zheng for support. The capital of Zheng was located at modern Huaxian, Shaanxi Province; it was then moved to modern Xinzheng, Henan Province, at the time when the Eastern Zhou moved its capital. Duke Zhuang of Zheng was active politically during the first two decades of the Spring and Autumn Period. Jin, located in the southern section of modem Shaanxi Province, was a state of fertile land where Han communities were interspersed with Rong and Di tribes. It gained considerable strength during the first few years of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Qin, a newcomer among the states, grew in power amidst struggles against the Rong; it extended its jurisdiction to the eastern section of modern Gansu Province and the central section of modern Shaanxi Province.

Among the strong powers of this time were Jin,

Qin, Qi (in today’s Shandong Province) and Chu (in the Changjiang and Huanghe river basins and the southern section of modern Henan Province). Because of its continuing expansion to the north, Chu became a formidable threat to the northern states and an object of their defence. In 679 B.C., Duke Huan of Qi stopped the civil war in Song; then he called a meeting that was attended by the various states and thus established the supremacy of his state. The stage was set for the contention of power, of which the previous 90 years had been only a preparatory stage. Duke Huan designated a statesman named Guan Zhong to carry out reforms, the purpose of which was to build up a rich state with strong armed forces. He succeeded in uniting some of the vassal lords by invoking the slogan of “loyalty

�CHAPTER V

91

to the King of Zhou” and by putting up strong resistance against Chu, Rong, and Di that had been a menace to the allied states. As the Bei Rong (Northern Rong) was harassing the state of Yan and as the Di was attacking the state of Xing after having conquered the state of Wei, Qi supported Yan in defeating the Bei Rong and helped Wei to reestablish itself, besides moving Xing to a safer region. In 656 B.C., Duke Huan led an alliance of Qi, Lu, Song, Zheng, Chen, Wei, Xu, and Cao to attack Cai and Chu. The allied army fought its way to Zhaoling (modern Yancheng, Henan Province) and forced Chu to pay tribute to the king of Zhou. Qi’s supremacy had now reached its apex. It is said that the great alliance headed by the duke met on nine occasions. At the well-known con¬ ference held at Kuiqiu (to the east of modern Lankao, Henan Province) in 651 B.C., a treaty to be observed by all the par¬ ticipants was signed. In 643 B.C., Duke Huan died, and his death was followed by intense contention for succession. Be¬ fore long, hegemony passed to the state of Jin. Duke Wen of Jin was the second overlord of this period. He became the sovereign of his state when he was over 60, after nineteen years of exile during which he learned to understand contemporary society better than any other sov¬ ereign of his time.

Hu Yan, Zhao Cui and others who had

accompanied him during the exile were all outstanding polit¬ ical figures. Duke Wen ascended the throne in 636 B.C. and, the very next year, raised the slogan of “loyalty to the King of Zhou”. He brought back to the capital King Xiang of Zhou who had left the capital because of fratricidal fighting within the court itself. He also succeeded in putting down rebellions. In 632 B.C., the state of Chu led an alliance with Chen, Cai, Zheng and Xu in an attack against Song on account of the latter’s pro-Jin policies. In response, Jin led the forces of Song, Qi and Qin and met the invaders at Chengpu (today’s Linpu township to the southwest of Juancheng County, Shan¬ dong Province) and decisively defeated them. For the first time, Chu suffered a serious setback in its expansion towards

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

the north. The successful encounter enabled Duke Wen to enjoy a fame more widespread than that of Duke Huan of Qi. For next 80 years and more, the contention between Jin and Chu for supremacy was the dominant feature of Chinese history and each side had victories and losses. In 597 B.C. Chu defeated Jin’s forces at Bi (near modern Zhengzhou, Henan Province), and the victory made Duke Zhuang of Chu an overlord of the states. Duke Mu of Qin, aided by able statesmen, was also ambi¬ tious. He assisted two princes of Jin to return to their home¬ land as rulers, and Duke Wen of Jin was one of the two. In 627 B.C., Duke Mu took the advantage of Duke Wen’s death to launch a surprise attack on Zheng. He was defeated by Jin, and all his three generals were captured. From then on as Qin could not expand much to the east, it concentrated its efforts on the west. As a result, Duke Mu became famous as an overlord in the western regions. Wars among big states in the Huanghe River valley brought nothing but disasters to the small states which, as the bones of contention, could not cope with the situation. In the mean¬ time, the intermittent wars intensified the fighting within the ruling classes in each state, and the resulting rise and fall of different political forces left it powerless to cope with a big state’s aggression. longing for a change.

Not surprisingly, many states were

In 579 B.C. and again in 546 B.C., the

state of Song, which had suffered enormously from the war¬ fare among the big states, called a peace conference. It suc¬ ceeded in attaining its goal during the second conference. It was agreed that the eight small states of Song, Lu, Zheng, Wei, Cao, Xu, Chen and Cai would pay tribute to both Jin and Chu, and that the two big states of Qi and Qin would enter into an alliance relationship with Jin and Chu respec¬ tively. Thus Jin and Chu had an equal share of the suprem¬ acy. The agreement temporarily put an end to the conten¬ tion for hegemony among the states in the Huanghe River valley.

�CHAPTER V

93

After the peace conference, China entered the late Spring and Autumn Period, which was marked by two important events: the intensification of struggle between the leading noble families and the houses of the sovereigns within each state and expansion to the Huanghe River area by two new states, Wu and Yue, that rose to prominence in the lower reaches of the Changjiang River. Like the overlords among rulers of the states, the leading noble families held real power within each state.

After the

death of Duke Wen, some nobles in Jin gradually attained prominence during wars against foreign states.

By the late

Spring and Autumn Period, political power in each state had passed from the sovereign to the nobles.

Having no control

over generals and soldiers, the sovereign led a life of luxury and self-indulgence and paid little attention to the lot of the common people. The nobles, on the other hand, were stronger than the ruler because they were supported by able advisers and armed forces. They also attached some importance to the winning of the masses. As a result, contradictions continued to sharpen between the sovereign and the nobles and among the nobles themselves. In the state of Jin, six noble families, Zhi, Zhao, Wei, Han, Fan and Zhonghang emerged and ruled the state among them. Later the Fan and Zhonghang families collapsed as a political force, and only four families remained active. In 453 B.C., Zhao, Wei and Han divided Zhi among them. The ground was then set for the three remaining fami¬ lies to divide the state of Jin whenever they liked. Like Jin, the noble families in Qi grew in power after the death of Duke Huan.

Among them were Guo, Gao, Luan,

Bao, Cui, Qing, Yan and Tian, the last one eventually over¬ whelming all the others by intrigues and brutal force. B.C., the Tians went as far as They did the same thing again political power in Qi beginning they could replace the sovereign

In 489

killing the sovereign of Qi. in 481 B.C. They held the in 480 B.C. From then on, of Qi anytime they wished.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

94

Smaller states had their noble families, too. In Lu, for example, there were the families of Jisun, Mengsun, and Shusun, all of whom had originally belonged to the ruling house. In 562 B.C., they divided the land and labourers of the ruling duke,

virtually partitioning Lu into three separate

states. The duke could only live on the tributes paid by the noble families. The capital of Wu was located in today’s Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

The ruling family of Wu had the same surname as

the king of Zhou’s, but the state later became a dependency of Chu.

In 584 B.C., having learned archery and the use of

war horses and chariots from the people of Jin, Wu strength¬ ened its armed forces and began to communicate with the northern states. The relationship between Wu and Chu also underwent a change.

The prince of Wu, He Lii, appointed Wu

Zixu to be his military adviser and Sun Wu commander of the army.

In 506 B.C., Wu launched five separate attacks

against Chu and won them all.

It captured Chu’s capital Ying-

du (now Jiangling County, Hubei Province). King Zhao of Chu fled, and the whole state was on the verge of being exter¬ minated.

Qin then sent troops to help Chu; meanwhile, in¬

fighting broke out among the Wu aristocrats. Yue took advan¬ tage of the situation to attack Wu, and the latter was com¬ pelled to withdraw from Chu. Yue, whose capital was located at modern Shaoxing County, Zhejiang Province, grew quickly in power with the help of Chu.

Led by Prince Gou Jian, it defeated Wu in a decisive

battle, in which Prince He Lii suffered an injury which led to his death. He was succeeded by his son Fu Chai, who sought revenge. In 494 B.C., Wu defeated Yue an$ reduced the latter to a dependency. Debasing himself as a ^Vu subject, Prince Gou Jian prepared to restore his state. In 482 B.C., when Prince Fu Chai was in the north to confer with other princes, Yue attacked and captured Wu’s capital. In 473 B.C., it ended Wu’s existence altogether.

�CHAPTER V

9S

After victory over Yue, Prince Fu Chai of Wu had met with other princes at Huangchi (modern Fengqiu County, Henan Province) in his attempt to seize hegemony from the prince of Jin. After Yue defeated Wu, Prince Gou Jian also went to the north to confer with other princes for the same purpose. Both journeys indicated that the relationship be¬ tween the north and the south had been greatly strengthened by then. The attempt of Wu and Yue to seize hegemony nevertheless marked the last, days of the Spring and Autumn Period when the struggle for supremacy was no longer as significant as before.

The Seven Powers of the Warring States Period

In 403 B.C., Jin was divided into three independent states, Han, Zhao and Wei. In 386 B.C., the Tian family openly seized state power in Qi. These four states plus Qin, Chu and Yan are referred to by historians as the seven powers of the Warring States Period. Geographically Chu was located in the south, Zhao in the north, Yan in the northeast, Qin in the west, Qi in the east, and Han and Wei in the centre. By this time, none of the states used the slogan of “loyalty to the King of Zhou” any more as Zhou had become a much smaller state. Instead of confrontation between Chu and the northern states of the Spring and Autumn Period, the seven powers of the Warring States Period contended with one another. Fierce fighting went on among the seven as each tried to an¬ nex its neighbours until Qin succeeded in conquering all the rival powers. Greater social changes took place during the Warring States Period than in the preceding period. Far-sighted states¬ men perceived these changes and took the initiative to ex¬ pedite them politically. This brought up the issue of political reforms. During the earlier stage of this period there were men like Li Kui in Wei, Wu Qi in Chu, and later Shang Yang in Qin, whose reforms had a great impact on history.

�96

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

In the early Warring States Period, Wei was a powerful and prosperous state. Marquis Wen of Wei, as a monarch of high aspirations, searched for talented men and found Li Kui whom he put in charge of reforms. Li Kui, in his turn, ap¬ pointed people according to their abilities instead of their so¬ cial status, and gave high positions to those who had rendered meritorious services to the state. Having studied the budg¬ et of farmers, he realized their financial difficulties and pro¬ posed measures to raise production. He introduced a system of stabilizing grain prices whereby the government bought grain at a reasonable price during a good harvest and sold it at a rea¬ sonable price during a bad harvest. In this way, grain prices would not rise or fall drastically, and both producer and con¬ sumer would benefit and lead a more secure life. Measures of this kind played a significant role in maintaining social stability, strengthening the government, and building a rich and powerful Wei. Wu Qi, a famous statesman and strategist, had won vic¬ tories on the battlefield for both Lu and Wei. He had also distinguished himself as an administrator in Wei. Yet the aristocrats in both states rejected and persecuted him, and he had to leave Wei for Chu in 382 B.C. In Chu King Dao made him his chief minister.

As chief minister, Wu Qi introduced

new laws, invalidated sinecure, and abolished the privileges of the king’s distant relatives. Money thus saved was used for the strengthening of the armed forces. He also stipulated that the enfeoffed land of the nobles must be returned to the s state after three generations. These reform measures certain¬ ly benefited the state, but they aroused the resentment of the nobles. As soon as King Dao died in 381 B.C., the nobles sought him out and wanted to kill him. He diefl taking refuge behind the king’s corpse, and some of the arrows aimed at him pierced the king’s body as well. When the crown prince ascended the throne and became King Su of Chu, he ordered the execution of all the nobles who desecrated the late king’s body while killing Wu Qi, and more than seventy families were

�CHAPTER V

97

eliminated as a result. The execution dealt a heavy blow to the conservative forces of Chu and provided new impetus to the development of the state. In 359 B.C., Shang Yang launched his reform in Qin, a reform that historians regard as the most significant event in the Warring States Period. The reform also indicated that the middle stage of the Warring States Period had arrived. Shang Yang was a native of Wei, and his surname was Gongsun. Shang was the title of his fief, and Yang his personal name. Having won the confidence of Duke Xiao of Qin, he began to introduce reforms. He made clear what the laws were, rewarding those who had distinguished themselves in farming or on the battlefield. The purpose was to strengthen monarchal rule. He abolished the land-owning system of the past, promoted production by individual peasants, and carried out a policy of “elevating agriculture and downgrading com¬ merce”. Land now could be sold or bought. Measures were adopted for a full utilization of labour power for agricultural development. For instance, families with two or more male adults living in the same house were required to pay twice the amount of taxes compared to families with only one male adult. Those who harvested more grain or produced more silk would be exempted from corvee, while merchants and those too lazy to work would be condemned to slavery together with their wives and children. Shang Yang abolished the tradi¬ tional privileges of the nobles and introduced a new system in which there were 20 ranks of honour, which were granted to those who deserved them. Social hierarchy was clearily defined, and a person with rank would be entitled to an appro¬ priate amount of land, houses, retainers, concubines, and clothing. A member of nobility who had not distinguished himself on the battlefield would see his name deleted from the royal roster. On the other hand, he who had distinguished himself on the battlefield would be rewarded with honour, which was denied to those without military credit, no matter how wealthy they were. To establish a political system of

�98

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

autocratic monarchy, Shang Yang grouped all villages and towns of the state into 30 to 40’ counties governed by magis¬ trates and their deputies, who were appointed and removed by the sovereign himself. He also divided households into groups of five or ten, responsible for one another’s behaviour. Those who failed to report a criminal act would be cut in two at the waist; those who reported would be rewarded as if they had killed an enemy; those who harboured a criminal would be severely punished as if they had surrended to an enemy. Shang Yang also standardized and made uniform weights and measures. These reforms were opposed by many people. When the crown prince Si broke the law, Shang Yang said that since the resistance to law enforcement came from above, the crown prince must be punished. However, since the culprit was the heir apparent and could not be punished, he punished the prince’s two tutors instead. Those who opposed his reform were also punished. From then on, his reform became very effective. However, like Wu Qi, he aroused resentment as well. After the death of Duke Xiao, those who had opposed the reform wrongly accused him of having started a rebellion. Subsequently he and his whole family were put to death. The reform of Shang Yang lasted more than twenty years and greatly strengthened Qin. Qin became a power held in awe by all other states. The reform also paved the way for the Qin rulers to realize their imperial ambition. In the third year of Shang Yang’s reform, Prince Wei ascended the throne in Qi. He rewarded the officials who had reclaimed wasteland and made people wealthy; he punished those who had failed to promote production, driven people to poverty, accepted bribes, or lied to the sovereign. He appointed Zou Ji to be the prime minister and put the strategist Sun Bin in charge of military reform. The purpose was to strengthen the state of Qi both politically and militarily. As Qin and Qi became powerful, Wei, which had held a superior position during the early Warring States Period, now

�CHAPTER V

99

became a victim of attacks by both Qin and Qi and grew weak daily. However, Wei launched an attack on Zhao in the year 354 B.C. The next year Qi sent out troops to rescue Zhao at the latter’s request. Qi’s army, adopting Sun Bin’s strategy, launched a sudden attack on Daliang (modern Kaifeng City, Henan Province), Wei’s capital. The Wei forces were com¬ pelled to withdraw so as to defend their capital. The Qi army intercepted and routed Wei forces at Kuiling (to the west of modern Changyuan County, Henan Province). The strategy has come to be known in Chinese military history as “besieging Wei in order to rescue Zhao”, or rescuing the besieged by attacking the base of the besiegers. In 342 B.C. Wei attacked Han; once again, Qi dispatched troops to help the victim. This time, Sun Bin lured the enemy to as far as Maling (to the southwest of modern Darning County, Hebei Province) where the Qi army dealt him a severe blow. Wei’s crown prince, Shen, was captured; Wei’s general, Pang Juan, committed suicide. During the time when Shang Yang was carrying out his reforms, Qin made repeated attacks on Wei. In 352 B.C., Qin captured Anyi (modern Xiaxian County, Shanxi Province) of Wei. In 340 B.C., the Qin army, led by Shang Yang himself, attacked again and this time captured Wei’s top commander, Prince Qiong. From then on, the Qin army repeatedly marched eastward, and Wei was forced to cede Yinjin (modern Huayin County, Shaanxi Province) to Qin. The occupation of Yinjin provided the Qin army with a strategic passageway for ad¬ vancing eastward. Wei was forced to cede its land west of the Huanghe, enabling Qin to use the river as natural barrier. The war between Wei on one side and Qi and Qin on the other weakened Wei considerably and gave Qin footholds in its march eastward. Qin also defeated Yiqurong1 to its west and exterminated Shu2 in the south, and grew more powerful 1 “Yigurong” was a nationality in ancient China, residing in an area around today’s Qingyang and Jingchuan counties in Gansu Province. 2 “Shu” was also a nationality in ancient China, residing in the cen¬ tral and western section of modern Sichuan Province. It was also the name of the state.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

100

as a result.

The six other states, threatened by Qin, were

susceptible to the idea that they should form an alliance for defence.

As the allies had contradictions among themselves,

the alliance was anything but solid.

Qin took advantage of

this situation and tried to separate them from one another. It persuaded each of them to form an alliance with it instead. Qi and Chu had a treaty of alliance between them, but Qin succeeded in making the treaty ineffective and repeatedly at¬ tacked Chu, which lost both men and territory in the process. In 299 B.C., Prince Huai of Chu went to Qin with which he was hoping to form an alliance, but he was held as a captive at Qin’s capital Xianyang, where he later died.

From then on,

Chu became weaker and weaker. As Qin and Chu fought against each other, changes also took place in Zhao, Qi and Yan. In 307 B.C., Prince Wuling of Zhao carried out military reforms by organizing a powerful cavalry and clothing the cavalry men in the style of nomadic peoples, making it easier for them to ride and to shoot their arrows. Qi, taking advantage of the internal turmoil of Yan, attacked and captured its capital in 314 B.C. The invader killed Prince Kuai and stationed troops on Yan’s soil. In 284 B.C., Prince Zhao of Yan dispatched general Yue Yi to attack Qi and, in five years, took more than seventy cities, leaving only two cities still in Qi’s control.

Prince Zhao died in 279 B.C.,

and his successor, being suspicious of Yue Yi, replaced him with Qi Jie as commander.

Qi’s

general Tian

Dan

took

advantage of Yue Yi’s absence by launching an offensive and succeeded in routing Yan’s army.

He killed Qi Jie and re¬

covered the lost territories. The war between Qi and Yan, lasting 35 years, exhausted the strength of both,nweakening the eastern states in their confrontation with Qin in ttje west. As the war between Qi and Yan lingered on, Qin launched an allout offensive against Chu and succeeded in taking over half of the latter’s territory. Finally, in 278 B.C., Qin’s army marched into Chu’s capital, Ying. By then the later stage of the Warring

�CHAPTER V

101

States Period had arrived, a stage in which Qin tried to unify the country by its own strength. During the late stage of the Warring States Period, Qin first concentrated on attacking Han, Zhao and Wei. In 260 B.C., Qin and Zhao fought at Changping (modern Gaoping County, Shanxi Province). Before the battle, Qin succeeded in sowing discord in the enemy’s ranks, making Zhao replace the experienced general Lian Po with the armchair strategist Zhao Kuo. Then General Bao Qi of Qin lured the Zhao forces into a trap where they were surrounded on all sides and their route of retreat cut off.

When the battle was over, Zhao lost

more than 400,000 men, including Zhao Kuo who was killed in action. Apart from military offensives, Qin also adopted a policy of befriending distant states while attacking those nearby.

It

bought support in the enemy’s ranks with cash and resorted to assassination as well. In 246 B.C., Prince Ying Zheng ascended the throne, and the new ruler was later known as the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. In 230 B.C., Qin conquered Han and, in nine years, conquered Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi as well. Since the nobles in Qi had taken more gold from Qin than those in any other state, Qi surrendered to Qin without a fight in 221 B.C.

The Transition from Slavery to Feudalism

Great changes had taken place in productive forces during the early period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. When consequent changes took place in production relations, the time had arrived for the slave society to be transformed into a feudal society. The development of social productive forces in the period that covered the early Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods was marked by the increasing popular¬ ity of iron tools. Iron had been discovered and used as early as

�102

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

the Shang Dynasty. By the late period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, iron tools were in common use. In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, people knew quite a bit about exploring and mining iron. It was recorded then that wherever reddish-brown objects were seen in the mountains, there might be iron deposits underneath. The record also said that there were 3,609 mountains yielding iron. The iron¬ smelting site in Linzi County, Shandong Province, covered an area of over 100,000 square metres. At the iron mining site of Tonglu Mountains, in Daye County, Hubei Province, the mine tunnel supports since discovered were quite advanced and complete. Facilities and installations for transportation, ven¬ tilation, and water drainage have also been found. Normally, the ore first went through a selection process in the pit before it was brought up by winches. As part of the iron-smelting equipment, the bellows were made of leather, connected to the furnace by a tube at one end and a handle made of porcelain at the other end. The turning of the handle forced air into the furnace, causing the charcoal to burn and the heat of the furnace to go up. In the late Spring and Autumn Period, craftsmen in the state of Wu already knew how to cast iron into sharp swords. In 513 B.C., with iron collected as tax, the state of Jin made a tripod on which the entire criminal code was cast. All this demonstrated that iron instruments had become quite popular among the common people after a considerable period of development. Iron weapons dating back to the Warring States Period include armours, sticks, swords, broad swords, awls, halberds and daggers. A study of the steel swords and halberds unearth¬ ed at the secondary capital of Yan, located in modern Yixian County, Hebei Province shows that the final^ product came about through carbonization and repeated heating and ham¬ mering, followed by a sudden immersion in water. The steel thus obtained was martensitic, noted for its hardness and strength. At this time, people also discovered that a magnet attracted iron and that a magnetic needle always ran in a

�CHAPTER V

103

north-south direction. They invented the early form of a compass, known as Sinan.

i In the middle Spring and Autumn Period, farm tools made of iron were in use in Qi. The iron farm tools in common use during the Warring States Period included plough, pick, hoe, spade and sickle and the common iron-made tools for handicraft work were axe, chopper, saw, awl, chisel and hammer. For women, the iron-made tools were needle, knife, awl, etc. People in Yan used iron moulds to mass-produce farming tools, handicraft tools, and spare parts for wagons. The use of iron tools made it possible to employ draught animals for agricultural production. Oxen ploughing the fields became a common sight in the Spring and Autumn Period. Horses were also employed for ploughing during the Warring States Period. All this helped intensive farming and did much to increase agricultural productivity. Closely related to the development of agricultural pro¬ ductivity in the Warring States Period was the construction of water conservancy projects. In 486 B.C., King Fu Chai of Wu, in an attempt to seek supremacy in the north, constructed the Han Canal from Jiangdu to Huai’an, both in modern Jiangsu Province, so that the Huaihe River was linked with the Changjiang River.

Later, he constructed a deeper canal

connecting the Yishui River in the north with the Jishui River in the west, joining the drainage of the Huaihe and the Huanghe. This was a gigantic project constructed primarily for water transportation. Ximen Bao of Wei in the Warring States Period irrigated farmland in Ye (modern Linzhang County, Hebei Province) with water from the Zhanghe River, turning large tracts of saline-alkaline soil into fertile fields, demonstrating the important role that water conservancy proj¬ ects could play in improving agriculture. Li Bing of Qin built in modern Guanxian County, Sichuan Province, the Dujiang Weir, cutting Minjiang River into an inner and an outer tributary. The project prevented flood and facilitated water transportation, and provided irrigation which turned the

�104

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Chengdu Plain into a vast expanse of rich farmland. The state of Qin also employed Zheng Guo, an expert in water con¬ servancy from the state of Han, to build a 150-kilometre-long canal connecting the Jingshui with the Beiluoshui rivers. The use of silt-laden water from these two rivers for irrigation transformed over 40,000 hectares of saline land into fertile fields. At this time, well sweeps were in use to bring water from low to high areas. Farmers in the Warring States Period could already tell the differences among various types of soil and knew how to transform one type of soil into another. They classified soil into 9 categories and selected the suitable crops. They used a variety of manure, ranging from animal droppings to wood ashes and green manure. They mixed crop seeds with animal bones and called the mixture “fertilized seeds”. In crop management, they paid attention to the right distance between plants, straight rows, selection of healthy young plants and root protection. They knew the importance of weeding and the elimination of locusts and snout moths. Books on agricul¬ ture were in existence. The ancient book Lu’s Almanac and some other works all contained chapters on agriculture. During the Warring States Period, progress was made in salt making, lacquerware manufacturing and the casting of bronzes. Sea salt in Qi and Yan, lake salt in Anyi of Wei, and well salt in Ba and Shu were well-known. Beginning with the middle of the Warring States Period, musical instruments, weapons, outer coffins, and many utensils for daily household use were coated with lacquer. In the casting of bronzes, such new techniques as etching, inlaying of gold and silver, en¬ chasing and gilding were all used. The increase of social productivity in agriculture during the early Eastern Zhou, the Spring and Auturqn, and the Warring States periods gradually changed the nature of the productive forces. Apart from the newly invented farming tools, slaves who had been engaged in collective farming were now replaced as labourers by peasants each working on his

��Left: Tortoise shell with inscrip¬ tion (Shang Dynasty). Upper right: Inscription on an ox shoul¬ der blade (Shang Dynasty). Lower right: The Heavenly Stems and

Earthly Branches for designating years (remnant, Shang Dynasty).

�3W-

The Yu tripod of the reign of King Kang of the Zhou Dynasty.

�•V,

�* •

A pledge on jade chips, of the Spring and Autumn Period, unearthed in Houma, Shanxi Province.

Inscribed bamboo strips of the Warring States Period, unearthed at Yangtianhu, Changsha, Hunan Province.

�A bronze wine con¬ tainer of the Warring States Period, unearthed in Cheng¬ du, Sichuan Province. It is engraved with designs rep¬ resenting various aspects of human activity: feasting, music playing and battling on land and water. Lower: The designs in detail. Upper:

�A tiger-shaped tally of the States Period, unearthed in Province. Such tallies were token authority for troop

State of Qin in the Warring the suburbs of Xi’an, Shaanxi issued to generals as a ruler’s movement in ancient China.

Coins of the Spring and Autumn-Warring States Period, kept in the Department of History of Beijing Teachers’ University.

�An iron mould for casting a pair of sickles of the Warring States Period, unearthed in Xinglong County, Hebei Province.

A chime of bells of the Warring States Period, un¬ earthed in Suixian County, Hubei Province.

�CHAPTER V

105

own. Independent peasants also replaced those who formerly worked in communal villages. The inadequate manpower resulting from slowdown or the escape of slaves worried the slave-owners during the late stage of slave society. A poem from Qi in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period says: “Stop ploughing the fields, for wild grass is shooting up.” Touring the state of Chen, an envoy from the Eastern Zhou complained that the crops there had all been covered up by weeds. Clearly, land lay waste in some areas owing to the shortage of manpower. Under these circum¬ stances, slave-owners were compelled to give up the practice of using slave labour, as they realized that it was more advantageous to exploit individual peasants. The old practice of distributing land according to its fertility gradually lost its appeal. Now peasants could make their own arrangement regarding land rotation, since it was no longer necessary to rotate land on a community basis. A special relationship was thus established between a peasant and the land he tilled permanently. This in turn gave birth to the concept of the family as a productive unit. We now know that Jin was the first state to use administrative power to promote such a practice in 645 B.C. The individual peasant had two distinct features. First, he was tied to land, unlike the relationship between slaves and land or between a village commune and land.

Secondly, an

individual family, where the husband tilled and the wife wove became known as a “household”, or a productive unit. All this further increased the peasants’ dependence on land. The change in social productive forces inevitably led to changes in production relations. The production relations of the slave system could no longer suit the new productive forces and had to be replaced by the production relations of the feudal system. The representative of the new productive forces must be one who had a certain degree of freedom and was engaged in private economy, not simply a tool that could speak. When exploiters took individual peasants as their main target

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

106

of exploitation, they could no longer own the producer as com¬ pletely as they did the slave. Now the ownership was only partial. Under these conditions, the exploiters became land¬ lords. The beginning of confrontation between peasants and landlords marked the appearance of the feudal relations of production. Beginning with the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period and particularly during the Warring States Period, some princes and dukes changed from slave-owners to land¬ lords.

Most of the landlords acquired land through grants as

a reward for their military deeds.

Some of the individual

peasants might also grow into landlords. In places where land could be traded, merchants might also become landlords. Feudal landownership was a system where land was owned by landlords.

Different landlords occupied different political

and social positions.

Such ranks were merely a reflection of

different grades of landownership. Spring

and

After its inception in the

Autumn and Warring

States

periods,

feudal

landownership in China always represented a hierarchy. In all of the reforms carried out by Shang Yang in the state of Qin, including the encouragement of married sons to live in separate households, the rewarding of those who had done well in farming and weaving, the registration and organi¬ zation of households, and the suppression of commerce, he tried to transform a household into a production unit where men tilled and women wove, thus tying the labour force to the land.

His other measures of reform, such as the granting

of the twenty ranks of honour according to military deeds, the distribution of land and houses according to merit, and the downgrading of nobles who had failed to distinguish them¬ selves in war, were all aimed at the replacement ofjdie slave¬ owning class by the new landlord class. The reform, enforced through administrative power, accelerated the development of the new productive forces and the corresponding feudal landownership based on a system of ranks.

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The change in production relationship was no easy matter and was bound to be accompanied by complicated struggle. Class struggle, including the struggle among the exploiting classes, was inevitable. The reforms of Wu Qi and Shang Yang posed, from the very beginning, a confrontation with the nobility of the old order. The fact that they were killed for their reforms indicated the harshness of the struggle. The running away of slaves, the roaming about of “thieves and robbers” and the “fleeing of citizens” in general were actually different forms of class struggle that went on all the time. History recorded the “fleeing of male and female slaves” and the “fleeing of masses”; all this indicated that ordinary citi¬ zens or slaves ran away because they could no longer bear the heavy burden of military and labour services imposed upon them by the ruling classes. In 641 B.C., rulers of Liang (to the south of modern Hancheng County, Shaanxi Province) forced people to build the city walls. When they ordered the weary labourers to dig a moat, they caused a “mass fleeing of citizens”.

Qin seized

the occasion to attack Liang and succeeded in conquering it. A hundred and twenty-two years later, when Chu built its capital at Yingcheng in 519 B.C., the above incident was still regarded ' as a lesson to be avoided, indicating its far-reaching impact. “Thieves and robbers” were a serious threat to the ruling classes of various states. They could be found on the highways of Chu, or in the capital city of Jin. According to legends, there was a leader of a mass uprising named Zhi, referred to by rulers of various states as Thief Zhi. He had a strong force of several thousand people under his command and dealt telling blows to the ruling classes. Struggles of this kind might be small in scale and did not have many slaves as participators, but whoever participated fought bravely against the slave¬ owning class, weakened the rule of the slave system, and paved the way for the rise of feudalism. Industry and commerce during the early Eastern Zhou, the Spring and Autumn, and the Warring States periods, unlike

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agriculture, did not play a dominant role in the social economy as a whole. As far as the record goes, the traders and the industrialists all had considerable influence. Two stories about merchants during the Spring and Autumn Period deserve special mention. In 627 B.C., while journeying to Zhou on a business trip, Xuan Gao, a merchant of Zheng, encountered Qin’s army on its way to attack Zheng by surprise. He gave four pieces of tanned leather and twelve oxen to the Qin army in the name of the sovereign of Zheng. The Qin army mistakenly thought that news of their projected attack must have leaked out, and it decided to withdraw. During the battle at Bi between Jin and Chu in 597 B.C., an official of Jin, Xun Ying, was captured. Merchants of Zheng planned to smuggle him out of Chu in a cart loaded with merchandise. Before the plan was carried out, Chu released him. The Zheng merchants in these two stories might not be ordinary businessmen but people with political status. Zi Gong, a disciple of Confucius, was not a professional merchant, and all his commercial activ¬ ities were closely related to politics.

Lii Buwei was not only

a successful merchant of the late Warring States Period, but also a political manipulator.

He masterminded and financed

the return to Qin of Prince Yi Ren, who had been held in Zhao as a hostage. After Zi Chu ascended the throne as Prince Zhuangxiang, Lii Buwei became his prime minister. Agricultural and side-line products were the main trade items during the Warring States Period. They included grain, silk, bast fibre, textile, ko-hemp cloth, special local products of various regions, and luxuries used by the ruling class. Bai Gui, a merchant of Wei, amassed a huge fortune by purchasing grain and selling silk and lacquerware in years of good harvest and by selling grain and buying textile and cQtton goods in years of bad harvest. Iron-smelting and salt-makingjwere both profitable trades. Guo Zong and the Zhuo family' of Zhao, Cheng Zheng of Qi, the Kong family of Liang, and the Bing family of Cao all made fortunes by smelting iron. Yi Dun of Lu and Diao Jian of Qi became rich by making salt or trading

�CHAPTER V

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in fish. All of them employed slaves for production. Slavery persisted for a long time in the iron-smelting and salt-manu¬ facturing industries.

Confucius, Mo Zi, Other Thinkers and the Elegies of Chu

During the early Eastern Zhou, the Spring and Autumn, and the Warring States periods, persistent social upheavals gradually broke up the monopoly of culture and literature by members of the nobility, a monopoly that began as early as the Western Zhou. Private schools became a trendy development. During the late Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius started the trend by providing private teaching. Then, in the Warring States Period, many schools of thought came into existence and began to contend with one another. Ci, a new form of litera¬ ture reflecting the trend of the time, appeared in the middle of the Warring States Period. Confucius, whose personal name was Qiu and courtesy name Zhongni, was born in 551 B.C., in Zhou Yi, modern Qufu County, Shandong Province, then a part of the state of Lu. He died in 479 B.C. His ancestors used to be slave-owners in Song, but his great grandfather fled to Lu due to failure, in his political career.

By his father’s time, the noble family had

declined financially.

During his youth, Confucius was for a

time a low-ranking official managing warehouses; then he tended sheep and oxen. For the most part of his life, however, he was a private teacher.

It is said that he had more than

3,000 students, 70 of whom were considered to be excellent. He often took some of his students with him while touring the various states. The rulers of these states all received him courteously and consulted him. Nevertheless, Confucius never had the opportunity to put his theory of government into practice. Not until his fifties did he become an official in charge of criminal punishment and the maintenance of social order in

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the state of Lu. He was then able to participate in state admin¬ istration, but held the post for only three months. He devoted his later years to the collation and editing of literary works. He was said to have edited the Book of History and the Book of Odes. He added explanatory notes to the Book of Changes, a work on divination. He compiled the Spring and Autumn Annals. The Book of Rites and the Book of Music were examined and revised by him, too. Except for the Book of Music which has been lost, the other five books, in later years, became known as the Confucian classics which followers of Confucianism must read and abide by. The Spring and Autumn Annals was the earliest and more or less complete chronicle, which had great impact on later historical works. After Con¬ fucius’ death, his disciples compiled his statements to form a book entitled The Analects. His lectures and tours indicated clearly that, like many others who did not enjoy the political status of the nobles, Con¬ fucius intended to take part in politics. These people were a rising force in a time of turmoil. Most of them were com¬ moners, but some may have been nobles in origin who had lost their status.

Confucius said that those who did well in

studies could become officials.

Thus

the

purpose

of

his

teaching was to help his students acquire the necessary skill to get into politics.

He often praised his students by saying

that this one would do well in politics and that one could become a prime minister. The content of Confucius’ private teaching was antagonistic to that taught by the official schools of the nobles. He held that men were alike in nature, a teaching that was contrary to the basic concept of a slave society where social status was preordained. Speaking about politics, Confuciu^ proposed that good and capable people should be appointed to official posts, a proposal that was contrary to the practice of hereditary rule. All this reflects the progressive aspect of his thinking. As for the rites that supposedly governed the behaviour of the nobles beginning with the Western Zhou Dynasty, Confu-

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cius believed that they should not be merely a formality but should instead be combined with benevolence. Rites without benevolence would be totally meaningless. Confucius, nevertheless, was only a reformist. He did not carry his ideas to their logical conclusion. Though he initiated private teaching, what he taught was nevertheless the same as the nobles used to learn. He did not believe that the noble status was preordained, but he defended the hierarchy of the nobility. He advocated the elevation of good and capable peo¬ ple, but he never raised objection to the official hereditary system, even advising good and capable men to be satisfied with their poverty and lowly position. He emphasized the importance of benevolence and regarded it as the highest ideal of morality. Yet, according to him, benevolence meant differ¬ ent grades of love — more love for those who were close and less for those who were distant, more for the highly placed and less for the lowly. Only the socially elevated could be loving, he said, while those below were merely objects of love. On the one hand, he stressed that rites should be combined with benevolence. On the other, he held that benevolence should be practised within the strict boundary of rites. Attempting to solve problems involving rites and benevolence, Confucius failed to use the new ideas to replace the old formality; in¬ stead, he adhered to the old formality as a means of reshaping old ideas.

While his activities contained some progressive

elements, such as his aspiration to be a statesman, basically, he defended the interests of the slave-owning nobles without being able to break through the shackles of the old order. Con¬ fucius viewed the upheavals of the Spring and Autumn Period as an abnormal situation in which society was not guided by right principles; he longed for the return of the Western Zhou times when society was guided by such principles. Rationally he knew that the Western Zhou times would never return; emotionally, however, he could not bring himself to face the fact. Many described him as a man who “does what he knows is impossible”.

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As the first private teacher who brought education to a large number of people, Confucius was properly regarded as having made great contributions in the cultural history of China. We must be reminded, however, that being politically conservative, he worked against the tide of history. The school of thought founded by Confucius was known as Confucianism. A later school of thought which had equal influence was the school of Mohism founded by Mo Zi. Mo Zi, whose personal name was Di, was a native of either Lu or Song. He was active during the period of 468-376 B.C. More in line with the interest of the common people, some of his important theories were in direct conflict with those of Confucius. His ideas could be found in a book entitled Mo Zi. Mo Zi advocated universal love, the love for all without discrimination. One must treat another person, his family and his country in the same way as one treated oneself, one’s own family, and one’s own country. Thus Mo Zi’s love was totally different from the concept of benevolence taught by Confucius. Mo Zi had no use for rites and music; his teaching of frugality on funerals and other occasions was in sharp contrast with the kind of life the nobles had and the kind of advice Confucius gave. In politics, Mo Zi believed that people with ability should be elevated; he was opposed to inherited wealth or nobility. He said that a man with ability should become a government official even though he might be a lowly peasant or an ordi¬ nary worker. This idea of his was different from that of Con¬ fucius who did not clearly oppose the hereditary system in the officialdom. According to Mo Zi, heaven and the demons rewarded the good and punished the evil. King Jie of Xia,-,King Zhou of Shang, and King You and King Li of Zhou, being, tyrannical rulers, were punished for their opposition to the will of heaven, while Great Yu of Xia, King Tang of Shang, and King Wen and King Wu of Zhou, being saintly leaders, were reward¬ ed for their compliance with the wishes of heaven. He believed

�CHAPTER V

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that reward and punishment were meted out by heaven and the demons in accordance with the way people behaved. Poverty and wealth and people’s status were neither preor¬ dained nor immutable. He invoked the will of heaven to per¬ suade rulers to display kindness, so that “the starving may have food, those suffering from cold may have clothes, and the toilers may have some rest”.

Though all this was merely a

wish, his opposition to fatalism was nevertheless progressive. Ideologically speaking, both Confucius and Mo Zi were idealists. But there are noteworthy elements of materialism in Mo Zi’s theory of knowledge. Some of his criteria of authentic knowledge had to do with proof by facts and objective result. Mohists of later days inherited this fine tradition and devel¬ oped the materialistic view of the theory of knowledge. They made their contributions in the realm of natural sciences. Mohism was an organized school of philosophers.

After

the death of Mo Zi, Ju Zi emerged as the leader of the school, which not only enforced its own discipline but also put its beliefs into practice. During the Warring States Period, apart from Confucian¬ ism and Mohism, there were also Taoism and Legalism. In ad¬ dition, there was the school of Logicians that studied the distinction between name and reality — a school that empha¬ sized the importance of logic and debate. The yin-yang school, on the other hand, tried to explain natural and social phenom¬ ena by an analysis of yin and yang — the negative and the positive forces in the universe. The author of the book Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi of the Taoist school, Mencius and Xun Zi of the Confucian school, and Han Fei of the Legalist school were the best known scholars. Lao Zi, whose surname was Li and personal name Er, was also known as Lao Dan. Roughly a contemporary of Confu¬ cius, he hailed from the state of Chu. The book Lao Zi, which has been attributed to him, was actually a work of the Warring States Period. It may not fully express his ideas.

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The book repudiated the theory of a god, a heaven, or a supreme authority that had been popular since the Shang Dynasty. It replaced the theory with the Way, an absolute, overriding spirit transcending time and space and encompass¬ ing the whole universe. The Way had existed long before the physical universe came into being; it was in fact the source of everything in the universe. This represented the standpoint of objective idealism. j In the area of political thought, the book Lao Zi refuted the Confucian theory of benevolence and the Mohist concept of elevating good, virtuous people. It was in favour of letting nature take its own course and of non-interference in people’s life. People would be better off without knowledge or desire. An ideal society was one small in population and territory, where there were no advanced implements and tools, no boats or vehicles, and no wars. People recorded events by making knots with ropes, and they never visited people of a neighbour state for the duration of their lives even though “they could hear the crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs on the other side of the border”. The idea expressed above reflected the pessimism among rulers of the village communes in decline. The book Lao Zi contained some naive ideas of dialectics. It unveiled the unity of opposites in the objective world such as disaster and fortune, soft and hard, strong and weak, more and less, above and below, early and late, true and false, honour and shame, clever and stupid, etc.

Lao Zi realized the

contradictions in things and the transformation of the oppo¬ sites. In his view, however, the changes in things did not develop in a forward fashion; instead, it went on in an endless cycle. Besides, the transformation of the opposites was abso¬ lute and unconditional. He attempted to resolve contradictions in a subjective way, and this attempt gave birth to the idea of “acting without striving” in politics. Zhuang Zi (c. 369 B.C.-286 B.C.), whose personal name was Zhou, hailed from the state of Song. Among the over 30 chapters in the book Zhuang Zi, some were his own writing.

�CHAPTER V

115

Like the author of Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi regarded the Way as the substance of the universe. By claiming that he had identi¬ fied himself with the Way, he changed the objective idealism in Lao Zi into a subjective idealism. From Zhuang Zi’s point of view, only the Way was absolute, while everything else was relative. He equated the subject with the object, life with death, longevity with short life, right with wrong, and disaster with fortune. He dismissed all difference between opposites and advanced a theory of rel¬ ativism or nihilism. He denied the validity of the concepts of right and wrong debated between Confucians and Mohists, and regarded all cultural progress as meaningless. He once said that there would be peace and order if the learned men gave up their knowledge, and all fighting would stop with the aboli¬ tion of weights and measures. His ideal society was one in which people lived in harmony with animals and birds. Zhuang Zi’s denial of the differences between right and wrong, life and death, oneself and others, illusion and reality, his antagonism to progress and his longing for a return to the prehistoric times, reflected a deep sense of pessimism, similar to that expressed in Lao Zi. The pessimistic view of both struck a sympathetic chord among the classes in decline throughout Chinese history. By refusing to recognize reality, however, the author of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi also took a negative view of the “early kings”, including Great Yu, King Tang of Shang, and King Wen and King Wu of Zhou, revered and extolled by Confucians and Mohists. In so doing they helped people, albeit unconsciously, to emancipate their minds. Mencius, active during 372-289 B.C., was a native of Zou (modern Zouxian County in Shandong Province). His personal name was Ke and courtesy name Ziyu. His life experience was similar to that of Confucius. He too was a private teacher and took his students with him while touring the various states. While travelling, he was at one time accompanied by several hundred disciples and scores of chariots. He was also received with courtesy by rulers of various states, but none

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

116

accepted his political ideas.

His teachings were contained in

a book entitled Mencius. Mencius condemned tyranny, describing it as a system that “directs beasts to eat people”. He was concerned with the sharpening of social contradictions, especially the fleeing of labour from productive pursuits. He inherited the Confucian concept of benevolence and developed it further by emphasiz¬ ing its importance as a governmental policy. He believed that every person should have his own immovable property. A family of eight should have 100 mu of land in order to grow enough food to eat. It should raise domestic animals for meat, and plant mulberry trees and cultivate silk worms for clothing. In addition, there should be schools to teach people to be dutiful towards their parents and respectful towards all elders. If all this was done, people would be “friendly towards one another, helping one another in difficulties or in poor health.” In that case, they would have no desire to move to other places all their lives.

All this, in Mencius’ opinion, would be benefi¬

cial to the building of a strong state.

The purpose of having

immovable property for everyone, as proposed by Mencius, was to combine tilling with weaving to create a small-scale agricultural economy where labour would be permanently tied to land. This meant the feudalization of the socio-economy that had apparently taken place during the time of Mencius.

He

wanted to promote it by administrative method. The basis for Mencius’ theory of a government by benevo¬ lence was that man was born with goodness.

Man possessed

the inherent quality of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom, which some people were able to preserve, while others could not.

In Mencius’ view, every sovereign was able

to rule by a policy of benevolence, and every citizen was able to accept it. Both the rulers and the ruled were able to be good. In other words, the moral standards for two different classes were preordained. He made this point even clearer when he said that “those who labour with their minds govern

�CHAPTER V

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others; those who labour with their hands are governed by others.” The constant wars of annexation were strongly opposed by Mencius. He maintained that those who loved to wage wars should be severely punished. As he realized that the trend during the period of the Warring States was towards unifica¬ tion, he stated, “only those who hate killing will be able to unify the country”. He meant that one could unify the country only through benevolence, not by violence. Mencius advocated the democratic principle that the people were more important than kings.

A king enjoying popular

support deserved to be called a king; a king who had lost popu¬ lar support would be a lonely tyrant, who deserved to be put to death by anyone.

A king who had done harm to the state

should be replaced. Representing the landlord class, Mencius was an idealist in thought, and the measures he preached were those of recon¬ ciliation.

Nevertheless, he was progressive in the sense that

he hated despotic rule and attached great importance to peo¬ ple’s economic life and their importance to the government. Xun Zi, also known as Xun Kuang or Xun Qing, hailed from the state of Zhao.

He was active during 298-238 B.C.

He travelled to the state of Qi twice as a visiting teacher and served on two occasions in Chu as magistrate of Lanling (located to the southwest of Zaozhuang City, modern Shan¬ dong Province).

While touring Qin, he met with King Zhao

whose political system he admired.

In his old age, he retired

to Chu, where he concentrated on writing. The extant Xun Zi contains his works. Han Fei, a student of Xun Zi, was a native of the state of Han. He died in 233 B.C., but the year of birth is not known. Seeing the decline of his native state, he repeatedly presented ideas of reform to the king of Han. But none was accepted. When his written works were brought to Qin, the king of Qin admired it greatly. Han Fei went to Qin, only to be mur-

�118

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

dered by Li Si and other Qin officials. His written works were preserved in a book entitled Han Fei Zi. Xun Zi and Han Fei lived in the late Warring States Period, shortly before the state of Qin unified China. By this time, the feudal landlord class had already established its position of supremacy, and the political trend was clearly the development of an autocratic monarchy and the unifica¬ tion of China. This trend showed itself in academic and political thought in the predominance of the school of Legalism and in comprehensive criticism of previous schools. Both Xun Zi and Han Fei had evaluated and criticized the various schools of thought before their time. “Criticism of the Twelve Schools” in Xun Zi, and “Prominent Schools of Learning” and “Five Evils” in Han Fei Zi are well-written examples of this kind. Xun Zi’s concept of nature was a step forward compared to the naive materialism or atheism initiated during the Spring and Autumn Period. He viewed the stars, days and months, the four seasons, wind and rain, cold and heat, yin and yang as phenomena of change in nature.

They were governed by

their own rules, without will or aim. Nature could not dis¬ pense with winter no matter how much human beings were afraid of cold, and land would not shrink no matter how much people wanted to hurry from one place to another.

The laws

that governed the motion of nature did not come about be¬ cause of the existence of a wise king named Yao; they would not disappear because of the rise of a tyrant named Jie. Xun Zi noted that people were afraid of the falling of meteors or the strange sound caused by wind blowing against trees, but these phenomena indicated nothing but some rare changes in the yin-yang equilibrium that governed the normal function of the universe. They were not something to be afraid of. He believed that if people would work harder in agriculture and practise frugality, nature could not make them poor; if people would wear enough clothes, eat properly, and do physical exercise, nature could not make them ill. On the

�CHAPTER V

119

other hand, if people gave up agricultural production and were given to extravagance nature could in no way bring them prosperity. If they did not have enough food or clothes and did not do much physical exercise, nature could not do much about their health. Man, in his view, had the capacity of adapting himself to his environment and of making good use of natural laws so as to make everything in the universe serve his own ends. The idea of Xun Zi represented the upward movement of a feudal society dominated by landlords; it was different from that of Confucius, Mencius, Zhuang Zi, Mo Zi and the author of Lao Zi. Xun Zi also spoke of benevolence, but he emphasized the importance of rites. He believed that learning should begin with the study of the Book of Odes, the Book of History, and other classics; it should end with a study of rites, which marked the apex of the learning process. He carried forward Confucius’ view on rites, though with some reservation. On the one hand, he realized that the purpose of emphasizing the importance of rites was to maintain the class difference be¬ tween the rich and the poor, the noble and the humble. On the other hand, he often mentioned law and rites in the same breath and considered them almost synonymous.

In partic¬

ular, he emphasized the importance of law, saying that no country could be governed without it. He explained the origin of rites with the supposition that man was born with evil. Beginning with his birth, man desired material things and sought among themselves for the satisfaction of such a desire, and the fight, in turn, caused social disorder. The need to maintain social order gave rise to rites. Xun Zi’s view on rites showed his preference, sometimes, for Legalist ideas. His disciple Han Fei carried the argument further and became an important Legalist. According to Xun Zi’s theory of innate evil, the good qual¬ ities man had were acquired through learning after birth. He held that studying hard would enable one to change from being foolish to being wise and that those who studied most

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

diligently might even become “sages”. Though Xun Zi’s theory was in direct conflict with that of Mencius who maintained that people were born with goodness, both philosophers talked about man’s nature in the abstract without taking into con¬ sideration the factor of class influence. Both were idealists. Nevertheless, Xun Zi explained his theory from the viewpoint of material desire, emphasized learning after one’s birth, and paid particular attention to the influence of environment on man. As a philosopher, he tended towards materialism. He was a progressive in his time. According to him, a major reason for the chaos during the Warring States Period was “too many schools of thought expressing too many different ideologies”. To ensure social stability, there should be no more than one school of thought, from which even sages should not differ. By this point of view, he was in favour of thought control under an autocratic feudal government. Han Fei held that history was evolutionary, each era being more progressive than the preceding one.

He classified his¬

tory into three stages, the early ancient times, the middle an¬ cient times, and the late ancient times. In the early ancient times, wild animals outnumbered human beings.

To protect

humans from attack by wild animals, one sage invented a tree house that was very much like a bird’s nest, so humans had a place to live in. To prevent diseases caused by food, an¬ other sage invented fire by drilling wood, so they could cook their food and eat better. In the middle ancient times, there was a big flood, which Gun and Yu succeeded in controlling, eventually. In the late ancient times, King Jie of Xia and King Zhou of Shang imposed such despotic rule upon humans that King Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou led uprisings to depose them. If, at the time of the Xia Dynasty, someone still lived in trees and made fire by drilling wood, he would be laughed at by Gun and Yu. If, at the time of thelShang Dyn¬ asty, someone still regarded flood control as the most press¬ ing priority, he would be laughed at by King Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou. If, at the present time, someone still

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eulogized Yao, Shun, Gun, Yu, Tang, and Wu as perfect sages, he would and should be laughed at by all of today’s sages. Han Fei concluded that today’s sages should neither long for the past nor copy obsolete rules. They should, instead, take a long, hard look at today’s social conditions and adopt ap¬ propriate measures. Having studied political history and learned its lessons, Han Fei made a political proposal for the purpose of strength¬ ening feudal rule, a proposal that combined the use of law, tactics, and power. “Law”, enacted by the monarch, consisted of written regulations whereby the people were subjected to his rule. “Tactics” were the means by which the monarch governed his citizens. Han Fei maintained that law and tactics were equally important. Ruling with laws minus tactics could not prevent officials from building up their own power at the expense of the monarch’s authority. On the other hand, ruling with tactics minus law would weaken the stability of the gov¬ ernment. In addition to law and tactics, power was necessary. By power was meant the monarch’s supreme authority, which alone could make law and tactics effective. All the three — law, tactics, and power — were the indispensable tools for the monarchy. Han Fei proposed that all power be concen¬ trated in the hands of the monarch who would then use a combination of the three to govern the people effectively. Han Fei’s opposition to conservatism was clear-cut and his advocacy of reform positive. Representing the interests of the feudal landlord class, he was laying the ideological foundation for the advent of feudal autocracy. New successes in art and literature were achieved during the later part of the middle Warring States Period. A typical example was the Elegies of Chu, a collection of poetic verses and songs written in the local dialect and tone of Chu. It possessed strong regional characteristics and a unique style. Qu Yuan, whose personal name was Ping, became famous as the author of these works. A native of Chu, he was born around 340 B.C. and died in 278 B.C. In his works, he told

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

impressive stories of Chu’s mountains and rivers, products, local customs, and songs and dances. He narrated many fairy tales and popular legends. More significantly, his works por¬ trayed vividly the actual situation in Chu during the drastic changes in the late Warring States Period. They reflected his sincere love for his country and people. Chu was still powerful and prosperous when Qu Yuan was young. With an aristocratic family background, he intended to pursue a political career. He won the trust of the Prince of Chu and was appointed the Left Minister. As an senior official, he was able to participate in the making of deci¬ sions involving the state’s internal and foreign affairs. He advocated the choosing of virtuous and capable men as officials and the enactment of good laws to strengthen the state. In foreign affairs, he was in favour of a military alliance with the state of Qi against the state of Qin. However, the prince soon distrusted him and banished him from the capital. Mean¬ while, corruption and incompetence, combined with repeated defeat by Qin, gradually weakened Chu.

Refusing to be as

corrupt as other members of Chu’s nobility, he was hoping that he could regain the prince’s trust and receive an appoint¬ ment again.

But he hoped in vain.

He was so worried that

he wanted to give up everything. Yet there was the suffering of the people a patriot must face. Where should Chu stand, now that the unification of China had become a distinctive trend? Torn by all these contradictions, he could not help feeling irritated and frustrated. When he poured out his sorrows and anger in the form of poems, the splendid works of the Elegies oj Chu were born. When Chu’s capital Ying was captured by Qin and when his state was on the verge of extinction, he committed suicide by drowning himself in a river. Unlike poets before his time who were anonymous, Qu Yuan was the first poet to leave his name in the history of Chinese literature. His works exerted tremendous influence on the development of Chinese literature.

The Qin and Han Dynasties: the Growth of Feudal Society

The Qin, China’s First Feudal Dynasty

Feudal society reached maturity in the Qin and Han dyn¬ asties. The Qin Dynasty, the first feudal empire in China, unified the country on a scale unknown in China since the Shang and Zhou dynasties and established a form of govern¬ ment which had a lasting influence on Chinese feudalism. Among the accomplishments of the Qin Dynasty was the con¬ struction of the Great Wall. In power only 15 years (c. 221207 B.C.) through the reigns of two emperors, the Qin Dynasty gave way to four years of Chu-Han conflict before the Han Dynasty was established which lasted over 400 years. Historians divide the Han Dynasty into Western Han (c. 202 B.C.-A.D. 5) which continued through 11 emperors and an empress regent belonging to ten generations and Eastern Han (c. 25-220) which was ruled by 14 emperors through eight generations. There was a short interval of 18 years between the Western and Eastern Han when Wang Mang, then Liu Xuan ruled. Starting in 196, as the Three Kingdoms — Wei, Shu and Wu — began to evolve, the Han Dynasty existed in name only. The Qin in 221 B.C. conquered its six rival states (Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi) at the end of the Warring States Period, a period in which all seven states contributed to a trend of regional unification. In fact, the Qin was able to prevail not only through war but, more significantly, through this existing unity and its own developed productive forces and political organization. The Qin then further expanded along the lands 123

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of the middle and lower Huanghe and Changjiang rivers, as well as the Zhujiang River. Given the scope of the Qin domain, King Ying Zheng of Qin decided to give himself a more distinguished title, the First Emperor (Shi Huang Di), and decreed that his succes¬ sors be titled the Second Emperor, the Third Emperor, and so on. He hoped that the Qin empire would be passed on in this way forever through his descendants. He also devised some exclusive terminology for the emperor’s use only in issuing edicts and in addressing himself. The First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang, as he is generally known) set up a complete autocratic system of state administra¬ tion extending from the central court to the local levels. In the imperial court, the cheng xiang (prime minister) assisted the emperor in governing the country, the tai wei (marshal) took charge of military affairs, and the yu shi (censor) super¬ vised officials of all ranks. The whole empire was divided into 36 prefectures (later increased to more than 40), each of which comprised a number of counties. These prefectures and coun¬ ties had officials who were counterparts of the prime minister, marshal and censor at the central level. Under the counties, township officials administered education, justice and taxation, and pubic security. And under the townships, households, consisting of individual families in which men farmed and women wove at home, were organized in groups of five or ten. This administrative set-up was like a pyramid. Perched on top, the imperial court extended its control right down to the grass-roots units of the household groups which supplied la¬ bour, grains and draftees. The First Emperor understood the basic importance of the individual families to the feudal em¬ pire. “Men are satisfied with farming their land and women are engaged at home” was a phrase he coined to describe the foundation of Qin rule. The prefecture-county system instituted by the First Em¬ peror had gradually evolved in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

This system was different from the

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feudal fiefdoms in the Western Zhou Dynasty in that, in the first place, the throne and offices held by the nobles in the fiefdoms were hereditary while officials under the prefecturecounty system were appointed and dismissed by the imperial court; secondly, the prefectures and counties had to accept orders from the central government which was not necessarily so with the hereditary fiefdoms. Devised to meet the require¬ ments of feudal autocracy, the Qin system was to have a lasting influence on government in China’s feudal society. However, records give no details on the extent to which the prefecturecounty system was actually carried out during the reign of the First Emperor. For instance, the state of Wei, born in the be¬ ginning of the Western Zhou period, disappeared as a state as late as 12 years after the introduction of the Qin government system. This indicates that the First Emperor’s new system could not have prevailed in the whole country within a short time. To rule more effectively, the First Emperor ordered that the written language and weights and measures be standardized. The first step was aimed at simplifying communication in official documents, and the second at making easier the col¬ lection of grain, silk and other materials as tax in kind and tribute, and metrological calculations for construction projects. These standards all proved helpful for cultural, production and trade development. The First Emperor also ordered large-scale road and canal building. Two broad highways with pines planted on both sides, called “imperial chariot roads”, were constructed with Xianyang, the capital, as centre, one stretching eastwards through present-day Hebei and Shandong provinces to the seacoast, and the other southwards to modern Jiangsu and Zhe¬ jiang provinces. Roads were also built between Hunan, Jiang¬ xi, Guangdong and Guangxi, and in the remote provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou. The First Emperor ordered his general, Meng Tian, to build another road leading from Xianyang through Yunyang (north of today’s Chunhua County in Shaan-

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xi Province) and Shangjun (in north Shaanxi) to Jiuyuan (northwest of present-day Baotou in the Inner Mongolia Auton¬ omous Region). Besides roads, the First Emperor also built the Lingqu Canal, dug in the northeast part of modern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to connect the Lijiang and Xiang¬ jiang rivers and serve as a passage between the Changjiang and Zhujiang river systems. Although inspired by the military and political needs of the First Emperor, the opening up of land and water routes developed a transport network which fur¬ thered communications throughout the country. The First Emperor took various measures to suppress or forestall anti-Qin activities. He collected and destroyed weap¬ ons from the vanquished states. Fortifications that might be of military use, and even some city walls, were demolished. He had 120,000 rich families from all over the country moved to the imperial capital, weakening the old local powers and strengthening the court’s command over them. Primarily as a show of strength, he often toured the empire, mostly to the ter¬ ritories of the former states of Qi and Chu. At a court banquet in 213 B.C., some scholars spoke in fa¬ vour of tbe fief system. Li Si, the Prime Minister, held that any dissension over the emperor’s decrees could hurt the authority of the sovereign. So he proposed that all historical records in the imperial archives except those written by Qin historians be burned; that the Book of Odes, the Book of His¬ tory and works by scholars of different schools be handed in to the local authorities for burning; that anyone discussing these two particular books be executed; that those using ancient examples to satirize contemporary politics be put to death and their families killed; and that those who had not burned the listed books within 30 days of the decree be sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The First Emperor accepted all these proposals to exercise autocratic control over thinking and cul¬ ture. But critics of the imperial regime were not silenced. In the second year of the burning of books, the First Emperor heard of people criticizing him. Regarding this as slander, he

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ordered an investigation and finally had more than 460 im¬ plicated scholars buried alive. During the Warring States Period, a powerful nomadic people called the Xiongnu (the Huns) lived north of the states of Qin, Zhao and Yan. To keep out these nomads who often clashed with them, the three states built wall fortifications along their northern frontiers. The First Emperor had these defence works linked together to form the Great Wall extend¬ ing from Lintao (present-day Minxian County, Gansu Province) in the west to the Liaodong Peninsula in the east. Although this engineering feat did not check the southward invasions of the Xiongnu, it stands as a monument to the knowledge and creative powers of the labouring people in ancient China. Li Si, the First Emperor’s trusted Prime Minister, came from Shangcai (in present-day Henan Province) of the state of Chu. As a Legalist, he was responsible for many of the policies under the feudal dynasty of Qin.

Peasant Uprisings in the Late Qin Dynasty

The First Emperor played a progressive role in establishing the unified Qin Dynasty, promoting the growth of social pro¬ ductive forces and developing production. On the other hand, he became increasingly tyrannical. Peasants were forced to fight expeditionary wars, guard frontiers, transport provisions for the army and build the Great Wall. The emperor ordered a string of palaces to be built. For the construction of the Epang (Efang) Palace alone, some 700,000 peasants were con¬ scripted, and the same number laboured to build the First Em¬ peror’s mausoleum. Many peasants died working on these projects. Moreover, they never knew when they might be punished at any moment on any pretext under the harsh laws of the Qin Dynasty. Though progressive in nature compared with slave society, feudal society is a prison for labouring people, especially when

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a despotic ruler is on the throne. Even though the First Em¬ peror of the Qin was aware of the importance of the individual families to his feudal empire, he enslaved the common people. In his later years, people began to organize against the Qin Dynasty. They were like kindling, ready to be ignited to de¬ stroy the imperial regime. In 210 B.C., the First Emperor died in Shaqiu (northeast of modern Pingxiang County, Hebei Province) while on an in¬ spection tour. The eunuch Zhao Gao and Prime Minister Li Si conspired to forge an imperial decree ordering their opponents, the Crown Prince Fu Su, and General Meng Tian, to commit suicide, and declaring as successor the emperor’s second son, Hu Hai, who was then placed on the throne as the Second Em¬ peror. Zhao Gao encouraged the new emperor to indulge in debauchery and to deal harshly with those he disliked or suspected. All this sharpened the class contradictions in so¬ ciety and the contradictions within the ranks of the ruling class. Not to mention the labouring people, many members of the imperial house, many ministers and even some of the First Emperor’s sons and daughters were killed. In 209 B.C., when the Second Emperor had been barely 10 months on the throne, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang hoisted the anti-Qin standard at the head of an insurgent peasant army. Chen Sheng, whose other name was Chen She, was a na¬ tive of Yangcheng (southeast of modern Dengfeng County, Henan Province) while Wu Guang, also known as Wu Shu, came from Yangxia (modern Taikang County, also in Henan). Chen and Wu were among the 900 conscripted peasants as¬ sembled in Daze Township (part of today’s Suxian County in Anhui Province). While heading for Yuyang (in modern Miyun County, Beijing), they were delayed by heavy rain that made the roads impassable, which meant they could not ar¬ rive on time. The law required those failing to report on time to be executed. At this point, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang considered their options. According to the Han Dynasty historian, Sima Qian, in his Records of the Historian, Wu

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argued: “Since we will have to die anyway, why not rise in revolt?” And Chen said, “the common people have suffered more than enough. So we have only to raise the standard of rebellion for them to answer like an echo.” They then thought up a plan to lay the foundation for an uprising. Not long afterwards, one of the conscripts found in the belly of a fish he had bought a piece of silk with the vermilion characters, “Chen Sheng will be the king”. This amazed the other conscripts. Late that night, somebody saw a sort of willo’-the-wisp in a temple in the nearby woods and then heard, amid a howl like a fox, a voice saying, “The great State of Chu has been restored. Chen Sheng has become its king.” The voice was so loud that it woke the peasant conscripts. When they saw Chen Sheng the next morning, they quietly exchang¬ ed remarks about him. And so he became the centre of atten¬ tion. One day, Wu Guang intentionally quarrelled with the of¬ ficer in charge of the conscripts when the officer was drunk. The infuriated man beat Wu and threatened him by drawing his sword. Wu seized his weapon and killed him. Meanwhile, Chen Sheng killed two other officers.

Then, again according

to the historian Sima Qian, Chen and Wu said to the other con¬ scripts, “We were delayed by rain and will be executed accord¬ ing to law.

Even though we are able to survive this time, we

would most likely die when we are put on guard duty later on. We will die like men and for a worthy cause, if we have to. We can be great men, too. For no kings, dukes, generals and ministers are such by birth.” The soldiers responded by vowing to fight together for the overthrow of the Qin Dynasty and made Chen their general and Wu their field commander. The anti-Qin war led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang was the first large-scale peasant rebellion ever recorded in Chinese history. The idea advanced by Chen, that royalty, officers and ministers were not so by birth, was a revolutionary political thought negating the idea of hereditary aristocracy that had been in existence since the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

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Having first occupied Daze, Qi (south of present-day Suxian in Anhui) and several other neighbouring towns, the in¬ surgent army took Chenxian County (modern Huaiyang County in Henan). Now it had 600-700 war chariots, more than 1,000 mounted soldiers and several tens of thousands of foot soldiers. The insurgents set up the state of Zhang Chu and made Chen Sheng king. Peasants all over the country respond¬ ed, rising and killing local officials.

Chen’s army quickly

grew. Basing himself in Chenxian County, Chen Sheng divided his forces for attacks on government-held areas.

One route,

commanded by Wu Guang, launched an attack on the stra¬ tegically important Xingyang (in modern Henan).

Another

route, under Wu Chen, Zhang Er and Chen Yu, crossed the Huanghe River and advanced on Hebei Province.

A third

route, directed by Zhou Wen, pushed towards the imperial capital of Xianyang. Many smaller detachments of peasant insurgents occupied lesser towns. Zhou Wen’s troops swiftly expanded their ranks along the way until they numberd several hundred thousand armed men with

1,000 war chariots.

Crossing the Hangu Pass

(southwest of modern Lingbao County, Henan Province), they came to the Xishui River (east of modern Lintong County, Shaanxi Province) in the vicinity of Xianyang.

But they

failed to withstand the counter-attacks by the imperial army under General Zhang Han.

Badly defeated, Zhou Wen fled

to Mianchi (west of the modern county of the same name in Henan) with Zhang in hot pursuit. suicide, and his troops scattered.

Finally, he committed Zhang followed up his

victory by marching eastwards to Xingyang.

‘ B^ then Wu

Guang had been killed by a subordinate named Tian Zang. Zhang defeated Tian’s detachment, occupied Xingyang and approached Chenxian. Chen Sheng retreated to Chengfu (northwest of present-day Mengcheng County in Anhui), where he was murdered by a carriage driver. This was in the

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beginning of 208 B.C., only six months after the outbreak of his uprising. Though the rebellious army suffered setbacks in Zhou Wen’s defeat and Chen Sheng’s murder, the movement went on to bring down the Qin regime in less than two years after Chen’s death. After Chen, two men — Xiang Yu and Liu Bang — emerged as leaders of the two strongest peasant forces. With the defeat of the Qin, they would become rivals themselves for power. Liu, a native of Peixian County (in modern Jiang¬ su Province), came from a peasant family (or the family of a small landlord, according to other historical records). Re¬ sponding to the call of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, he gathered a number of peasant rebels around himself and occupied his native county with the help of Xiao He and Cao Can, local petty officials. Unlike Xiang Yu, who slaughtered people in the cities he captured and killed surrendering enemy soldiers and commanders, Liu Bang respected the welfare of the people and treated well those Qin military commanders who sur¬ rendered. Xiang Yu was a noble of the former state of Chu and his uncle, Xiang Liang, was the son of a Chu general nam¬ ed Xiang Yan. Uncle and nephew staged an uprising in Guiji (modern Suzhou in Jiangsu Province) and then led 8,000 men northwards across the Changjiang River. Learning of the death of Chen Sheng, they put the grandson of King Huai of the former state of Chu on the throne and addressed him as “King Huai of Chu”. They allied themselves with some other insurgent forces, including those under Liu Bang, and quickly gained in influence and prestige. Growing arrogant and off guard in his northward march against the Qin empire, Xiang Liang was defeated and killed in Dingtao (in modern Shandong Province) after the Qin general Zhang Han hit his army in a surprise attack. Soon afterwards, Zhang surrounded the peasant force in Julu (modern Pingxiang County in Hebei). Song Yi and Xiang Yu were ordered by King Huai to lead their troops to the

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rescue of the encircled rebels. However, Song refused to advance after arriving at Anyang (in modern Henan Province), whereupon Xiang Yu had him executed. Then Xiang led his unit across the Zhanghe River where — to make clear that no one could turn back unless victorious — he had all the boats and cooking vessels destroyed and ordered his soldiers to carry enough rations for only three days. With this mandate, the rebel soldiers drove forward with resounding battle cries against Zhang Han’s army. After nine engagements, in which the peasant army pitted one against ten, the imperial army was routed and Zhang Han surrendered with his 200,000 re¬ maining forces. This marked the virtual annihilation of the military strength of the Qin Dynasty. When Song Yi was advancing north, Liu Bang was march¬ ing west, also on the order of King Huai of Chu. He fought his way forward almost unopposed. In a year’s time his troops took the Wuguan Pass (west of modern Shaanxian, Henan), gateway to the heartland of the Qin regime, threatening the capital city of Xianyang. It was during this period that the Qin Prime Minister, Li Si, died at the hands of his eunuch colleague Zhao Gao, who also murdered the Second Emperor and placed the emperor’s nephew, Zi Ying, on the throne. Be¬ fore long, Zi Ying, who assumed the title “King of Qin” in¬ stead of the Third Emperor, had the chief eunuch killed. Then Liu Bang laid siege to the imperial capital, forcing Zi Ying to surrender at Bashang (east of modern Xi’an in Shaanxi). This finished the Qin regime in the winter of 207 B.C. and marked for the first time in Chinese history the overthrow of a feudal dynasty by peasant insurgents.

Establishment and Consolidation of the Western Han Dynasty

Following the downfall of the Qin Dynasty, the struggle for power began among the leaders of the victorious rebel armies. Although Liu Bang prevailed in 202 B.C. to become

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the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, the struggle to establish and consolidate the feudal dynasty of Han went on about 66 years (207-141 B.C.), beginning with Liu Bang’s entry into Xianyang and going through the reigns of Emperor Hui Di, Empress Lii, Emperor Wen Di and Emperor Jing Di. A characteristic of these early days of the Western Han Dynasty was that the emperor and most of his subordinate rulers were of humble origin, a marked change — which proved Chen Sheng’s view that royalty was not a matter of birthright — in China’s political life from the time of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. After he entered Xianyang, Liu Bang declined with thanks all gifts presented by the people as a token of respect to his army and further won acclaim by assembling the local people to announce the repeal of the harsh laws of the Qin government. He wanted them to observe only this law: “Let those who kill be executed, and those who inflict injuries on or rob others be punished.” This announcement was of great political significance in that it reflected the popular demand of the time for personal safety and the right to survival. Liu Bang’s first confrontation with Xiang Yu following the overthrow of the Qin Dynasty came when Xiang Yu reached the Hangu Pass.

Earlier, King Huai of Chu had promised the

territory west of the pass to the first man who entered it. Having had the good fortune to be that man, Liu Bang made himself supreme in the region and ordered his men to guard against intrusions by other forces. When Xiang Yu reached there with an army of 400,000 — claimed to be a mil¬ lion strong — and found his way barred, he was furious and prepared to attack Liu Bang. Because Liu Bang had only 100,000 men, he was forced to sue for peace. This helped to stabilize the situation for the time being. A few days later, Xiang Yu marched into Xianyang where he slaughtered people and burned houses. The fires raged for three months. He called himself the “Hegemonic King of Western Chu” and made Pengcheng (now Xuzhou, Jiangsu) the capital of his dominion. He called King Huai “Righteous

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Emperor”, but later got rid of him while King Huai was being moved from Pengcheng to Chenxian (in present-day Hunan). Altogether, Xiang Yu named 18 princes, some of whom, how¬ ever, were given territories much smaller than their former domains. With regard to Liu Bang, he ignored the promise of King Huai and accorded him, instead, the title of “Prince of Han”, with a diminished fief covering Hanzhong, Ba and Shu. In making these allocations, Xiang Yu aggravated the con¬ tradiction between himself and Liu Bang, as well as the armed forces under others. In 206 B.C., within less than six months after Xiang Yu had granted fiefdoms to the various princes, Liu Bang marched east from Hanzhong and took the Hangu Pass and the area west of it. The following year, he attacked Xiang Yu with the collaboration of other armies, with a combined force of 560,000 men. He entered Pengcheng but was thoroughly de¬ feated when Xiang Yu counter-attacked. Liu Bang escaped with a few scores of his cavalrymen. This was followed up by fierce battles between the two sides, centring on Xingyang and Chenggao (the Hulaoguan Pass to the northwest of today’s Xingyang, Henan). In 203 B.C., Liu Bang seized Chenggao and surrounded Xingyang. By then, his army had gained superioity, thanks to ample provisions and increased morale, while Xiang’s army suffered from lack of supplies and decreased morale. Liu took this opportunity to make peace with his rival. An agreement was reached that Honggou (“Deep Chasm”) Canal (in modern Zhongmou, Henan) be made the demarcation line, with the territory on the east going to Chu and on the west to Han. When Xiang Yu led his men back eastwards, Liu Bang ordered a surprise attack on him in Guling (northwest of modern Huaiyang, Henan), onty to be rout¬ ed. Later, Liu Bang joined hands with Han Xin and^Peng Yue and surrounded Xiang Yu in Gaixia (southeast of modern Lingbi, Anhui). Xiang Yu’s army had decreased in number and was now running out of provisions. But he managed to collect 800 cavalrymen and fight his way to a ferry named

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Wujiang (modern Wujiangpu northeast of Hexian, Anhui) where, in the year 202 B.C. at the age of 32, he committed suicide. With his chief rival gone, Liu Bang proceeded to build his feudal dynasty, i.e., the feudal regime of the Western Han Dynasty. He ascended the throne two months after Xiang Yu’s death, to become known posthumously as Emperor Gao Zu of the Han Dynasty. He first chose Luoyang as his capital but shortly afterwards moved it to Chang’an. Liu Bang had the valuable help of “the Three Heroes of the Early Han”: Xiao He, a native of Fengxian (in modern Jiangsu), who was made Prime Minister; Zhang Liang, the chief counsellor, who was a descendant of a noble family in the former state of Han; and Grand General Han Xin, who came from Huaiyin (also in modern Jiangsu). During its first 60 years, the Western Han rulers took two major steps to consolidate their feudal regime. The first step was taken in the economic field, aimed to alleviate class con¬ tradictions and ensure revenue for the imperial treasury so as to strengthen the foundation of the empire. The second step was to eliminate the menace which the fiefdoms present¬ ed to the imperial court. Fifteen years of ruthless oppression and exploitation under the Qin Dynasty, followed by eight years of incessant wars, caused a heavy toll on the common people. Population in major cities dwindled by 70-80 per cent, and people could barely make both ends meet. Even the emperor couldn’t find four horses of the same colour to draw his carriage; the prime minister and generals had to travel in cars drawn by oxen. In this situation, the need for restoring and developing so¬ ciety’s productive forces was more than obvious. The emperors, from Emperor Gao Zu down to Emperor Jing Di, all devoted themselves to this task. In half a century or more, population in some areas doubled or even showed a five-fold increase. Life in general became easier for the peas¬ ants. Landlords gained much more and could even get official

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ranks according to the amount of grain they voluntarily de¬ livered to the frontier regions and grain-deficient areas. Dur¬ ing the reign of Emperor Wen Di, two economists, Jia Yi and Chao Cuo, developed theories which were to become the basis of the economic thinking of landlord-class statesmen for centuries. Jia Yi (200-168 B.C.), a native of Luoyang who wrote New Political Views, advanced the idea that agriculture was the foundation of the nation, and that only when grain was in abundant supply could an offensive or defensive war be fought with success. Chao Cuo (?-154 B.C.), a native of Yingchuan (modern Yuxian County, Henan), proposed measures against commerce in favour of agriculture. He also maintained that the peasants should be attached to the land to enable the feudal state to win their support and thus con¬ solidate its power. The ideas of Jia Yi and Chao Cuo were clearly an advance on the thinking of Shang Yang of the War¬ ring States Period. After the founding of the dynasty, the Western Han ruling clique was worried about the growth of the power of the various fiefdoms, particularly seven principalities under men who were not members of the imperial Liu family. The administrative system consisted of prefectures and counties as well as fiefdoms, including principalities and marquisates. In the principalities the officials, except for the prime minister, were all appointed by the princes. Each principality might embrace from 30 to more than 100 towns, and during the early days of the Western Han, the combined territory of the seven above-mentioned principalities was greater than the prefectures and counties directly under central authority. Among the princes were Han Xin, an outstandfpg strategist, and Peng Yue and Ying Bu, who were excellent generals. Each of them had made important contributions to the found¬ ing of the dynasty. What worried the imperial court most was that they all had armed forces of their own. In 196 B.C., Han Xin was killed by the throne, as were Peng Yue and Ying Bu afterwards. Three other princes either escaped or were

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displaced so that by the time immediately before Liu Bang’s death in 195 B.C., principalities controlled by those not bearing the royal surnames had practically been wiped out. Only the principality of Changsha remained, but it came to an end in 157 B.C. when the prince died without issue. Hoping to perpetuate the supremacy of the imperial court, Liu Bang installed nine princes of royal blood to head fiefdoms formerly under persons who were not members of the royal family. He regarded this as representing his ideal that “the whole empire is under one family”. He commanded, “Let anyone not of the Liu family who dares proclaim himself prince suffer universal attack.” But the territories of the Liu princes were also extensive and their power formidable. Their fiefdoms grew in economic strength with rises in productivity. So the principalities still posed a threat to the central govern¬ ment. In 177 B.C., Liu Xingju, Prince of Jibei, rebelled. In 174 B.C., Liu Zhang, Prince of Huainan, also plotted a rebel¬ lion. These events took place less than 20 years after the death of Liu Bang, during the reign of Emperor Wen Di (ISO157 B.C.). The scholar Jia Yi recommended to the court that more princes be installed in each principality to divide its strength. In regard to the powerful fiefs, Jia Yi made an analogy to the body of a person who had swollen and could hardly move be¬ cause both legs had become as thick as the waist and the fingers as big as the arms. He argued that by installing more princes the central authority could control all of the prin¬ cipalities in the same way as a person controls his limbs. Jia Yi’s proposal was accepted and put into practice, though no serious effort was ever made for its thorough implementation. During the reign of Emperor Jing Di (157-141 B.C.), Chao Cuo proposed reducing the territories of the various fiefdoms, and this was carried out. He predicted that such a measure would invite resistance on the part of the kings, but argued: “There will be revolts, whether you cut their territories or not. Cut¬ ting their territories will quickly lead to revolts which might

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bring smaller calamities in their wake, while not cutting them will only delay revolts which, once they occur, may entail greater calamities.” In 154 B.C. Liu Bi, Prince of Wu, in alliance with the kingdoms of Chu, Zhao, Jiaodong, Jiaoxi, Jinan and Zichuan, staged a revolt, which he had been plotting for a long time, in the name of getting rid of Chao Cuo.

Emperor Jing Di re¬

sponded by sending Marshal Zhou Yafu on a punitive expedi¬ tion which was successful within less than three months. Taking advantage of this victory, the emperor took steps to relieve the princes of their administrative powers, reduce the number of officials in the principalities and change the title of their prime ministers to minister.

These steps drastically

restricted the power of the princes while strengthening the imperial government.

Golden Age of the Western Han Dynasty

In 139 B.C., Emperor Wu Di succeeded to the throne to rule until his death in 87 B.C., a reign that became known as the golden age of the Western Han Dynasty. Socio-economic conditions had already taken a marked change for the better, thanks to the gradual rehabilitation of the social productive forces during the preceding 60 or so years. Historical records say that in those days most people were decently fed and clad, granaries were filled to overflowing, and the state budget showed a surplus. Countless strings of cash were stored in the imperial treasury, tied by cords mildewed with age. Emperor Wu Di took further steps to weakep the local au¬ thorities and strengthen the hands of the central government, carrying out the recommendation made by Jia Yi in the time of Emperor Wen Di. He decreed that when a prince died, his eldest son by his first wife was to succeed him, and the territory of his principality was to be divided among all of his sons who would thus be co-heirs of their father and, with the

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exception of the eldest son, each would be granted the status of a marquis. This meant that the power of the principalities was dispersed without their enfeoffed land being taken back by the imperial court. The emperor divided the whole coun¬ try, including the prefectures and fiefdoms, into 13 regions. To tighten control over the localities, he appointed an itinerant inspector for each of these regions to keep a watchful eye on the powerful families as well as the prefects and the ministers of the various fiefdoms. At the imperial court a secretariat was set up to handle the memorials presented by court ministers. This reinforced the autocratic monarchy in that it stripped the prime minister of his power to handle such papers. In economic matters, Emperor Wu Di enlisted the services of Sang Hongyang on whose suggestion a series of measures were adopted to increase state revenues and curtail the finan¬ cial pressures put on the central government by local authori¬ ties. By law anyone could engage in minting coins, boiling salt and smelting iron without restrictions. In reality, how¬ ever, these rights were monopolized by the rich, the princes and the influential ministers to victimize the peasants and disrupt social economy.

Emperor Wu Di decreed a state mo¬

nopoly on mintage — all five-zhu* coins were to be made by the central government — and forbade minting by local au¬ thorities or individuals. Government offices were set up in specified places for state sales of iron and salt. Offices handl¬ ing tribute from various districts were also established. They picked the goods which could easily be damaged and those in¬ volving a high cost of transportation, shipped them to needy areas, and sold them at high prices, the profit going to the state. Official departments in the capital were created to buy up certain surplus commodities when prices fell and to sell them at higher prices when there was a scarcity.

• Zhu was a unit of weight in ancient China. During Han Dynasty,

24 zhu made a Hang (tael), and 16 Hang made a jin (catty). — Trans.

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In 119 B.C., Emperor Wu Di imposed a heavier property tax on merchants and usurers. Handicraftsmen were required to pay one unit of tax (120 copper coins) on every 4,000 copper coins’ worth of possessions while the merchants had to pay two units of tax for the same amount. The common people paid one unit of tax for each horse-drawn cart they owned, as compared to two units for the merchants. Merchants were also ordered to send in an account on their property. Anyone giving a false report had his property confiscated and was sent to guard duty on the frontiers for two years. Huge quantities of property and large numbers of bondservants and houses belonging to merchants were expropriated. The economic measures instituted by Emperor Wu Di helped to strengthen the autocratic monarchy. Meanwhile, he also broadened his dynasty’s relations with the ethnic minorities to an extent never seen before. The Xiongnu (Hun) nomads were very powerful in the initial period of the Western Han. In 200 B.C., Liu Bang was even hemmed in by them in Pingcheng (modern Datong City, Shanxi Province) for seven days and nights and broke through only after strenuous effort. Rebellious forces within the Western Han ruling clique also allied themselves with the Xiongnu to oppose the court. The chief policy to prevent Xiongnu invasion in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty was to try to maintain peace by arranging marriages between the royal family and the Xiongnu chieftains or sending enormous quantities of gifts. But this had been unsuccessful and Emperor Wu Di tried a new tact. He repeatedly sent Generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing on large-scale expeditions against the Xiongnu, forcing them to move to the far north so that it became im¬ possible for them to re-establish their rule south of the Gobi. Of course, war could not resolve the differences between the Han Dynasty and the various nationalities. Nevertheless, these expeditions dealt a crushing blow to the intruders from the north and thus defended the agricultural regions in the Central Plains.

�CHAPTER VI

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To conquer the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu Di planned to form an alliance with the Dayuezhi, which would make possible a converging attack on them from the east and west. Originally living in the Gansu Corridor, the Dayuezhi had been driven to Daxia (Bactria) in the north part of modern Afghanistan. In the beginning of his reign, Emperor Wu Di sent Zhang Qian as envoy to the land of the Dayuezhi, but he was captured en route by the Xiongnu. He was kept prisoner for more than 10 years before managing to escape to make his way to his destination where, however, he failed to achieve his mission. In 119 B.C., Zhang Qian was again chosen as the Han emissary, this time to the land of the Wusun who were settled in the Ili River valley. His aim was to form a common front with this people to cut the right flank of the Xiongnu.

Though Zhang

Qian failed a second time, his visits promoted understanding between the Western Han Dynasty and the regions north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. The countries there began to send goodwill missions to the Han court, which on its part opened up military colonies for land reclamation along their frontiers. All this helped to spread the influence of the Han empire and to cement its links with adjoining regions. The minority nationalities in Sichuan, Yunnan and Gui¬ zhou provinces were then collectively known as the South¬ western Yi. Some of them — for instance, the Yelang peo¬ ple around modern Zunyi City in Guizhou and the Dian peo¬ ple near what is now Kunming City in Yunnan — already had entered a slave society. During Emperor Wu Di’s reign, prefectural and county governments were set up in these regions, and the chieftain of the Dian was elevated to the status of king and given a royal seal. As a result, contacts increased further between southwest China and the interior. The reign of Emperor Wu Di also saw new developments in China’s foreign relations. Zhang Qian’s journeys marked the beginning of contacts between China and some countries of Central and West Asia. He and his deputies reached the countries of Dayuan (Ferghana, in the eastern part of the

�142

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the U.S.S.R.), Kangju (along the lower reaches of Syr Darya in the U.S.S.R.), Daxia (Bactria), Anxi (Parthia, or modern Iran) and Yuandu (the modern In¬ dian Subcontinent). From then on, the Han court every year sent from five to a dozen missions to the West, each including one to several hundred members. After Zhang Qian’s west¬ ward trips, many Han products, notably silks, were brought to the Western countries. And introduced to China were thoroughbreds, grape vines, pomegranates, glazed tiles, woollen carpets, etc. Sea routes were charted to link China with Korea and Japan. At the time, merchant ships sailed between China’s Xuwen County (in present-day Guangdong Province) and Hepu County (in modern Guangxi) on the one hand, and India’s east coast and some Southeast Asian ports on the other. Emperor Wu Di’s period witnessed significant academic and cultural achievements. It was in his time that Confucian¬ ism gained supremacy as the ideological weapon of the feudal dynasties. Emperor Wu Di was keenly interested in literature. Among those attending to him were some famous men of let¬ ters, for example, Yan Zhu, Dongfang Shuo, Mei Gao and Sima Xiangru.

Sima Xiangru (179-118 B.C.), a native of Chengdu

in modern Sichuan Province, excelled in writing prose-poems which had developed out of the songs of the state of Chu. His representative prose-poems include Zi Xu Fu and Shang Lin Fu, both masterpieces in the Western Han time. During Emperor Wu Di’s reign, yueju poems appeared. (Yuefu was an official department of music whose duty it was to collect and process folk songs.) These poems were composed of sen¬ tences of varying lengths, common for folk son^s of the Han time, and were intended to be set to music and son^at the im¬ perial court. However, more of the folk songs of the Han Dynasty consisted of five-character lines. Sima Qian (c. 145-90 B.C.), from Longmen (modern Hancheng County in Shaanxi Province), was a great historian in

�CHAPTER VI

the time of Emperor Wu Di.

143

His major work, Records of the

Historian, is a 130-juan* general history of China which de¬ scribes legends from the time of the mythical Emperor Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), events in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, upheavals of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty and the birth and consolidation of the Han Dynasty.

Records of the

Historian is unique in its accounts on different historical stages and their characteristics, its portrayal and appraisal of historical figures and its description of social conditions. Sima Qian showed originality in editing historical data and working out a style for historical writings.

Though he regarded em¬

perors, kings, generals and ministers as the creators of history, he was progressive in recognizing the role played by the peo¬ ple, such as in the peasant uprisings, in the making of history. He also recognized the influence of social status in determin¬ ing individual consciousness. His writings had a tremendous impact on later Chinese historiography. Despite the burning of books in the Qin Dynasty, the teachings of the various schools that had emerged in the not too distant Warring States Period continued to spread in the early Han Dynasty. In 140 B.C. —that is, not long after Em¬ peror Wu Di’s ascension — Dong Zhongshu (c. 179-104 B.C.) proposed the task of the “grand unification” of the empire in political philosophy, and consequently the institution of an ideological system serving the autocratic feudal regime. Em¬ peror Wu Di accepted his proposal, adopted Confucianism as official philosophy, and denied scholars of all other schools the opportunity to enter the civil service. Confucian classics gradually became the main reading of scholars, and Con¬ fucianism became predominant. Comparing social to natural phenomena formalistically, Dong Zhongshu theorized that the relationship between ruler and subject was something eternal,

• A traditional thread-bound volume, usually containing a much

shorter text than a volume in modern book publishing.— Trans.

�144

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

a natural order. He advanced the doctrine of the ‘ Three Cardinal Guides”, which later Confucians summarized as “the sovereign guides the subject, the father guides the son, and the husband guides the wife”. The mainstay of Confucianism, these were a severe mental constraint on the masses of peo¬ ple in the long years of feudal society. Dong Zhongshu, a na¬ tive of Guangchuan (to the southwest of modern Jingxian County in Hebei Province), had a number of books to his credit, among them the Chun Qiu Fan Lu (Spring and Autumn Studies). To suit the needs of building a feudal autocratic dynasty, Emperor Wu Di organized many battles and launched a series of big engineering projects. He made repeated inspection tours, gave generous gifts to his favourites and formulated harsh laws. Things became more and more intolerable for the com¬ mon people until, in his late years, a number of uprisings broke out in Shandong Province.

When Emperor Wu Di died in

87 B.C., he was succeeded by Emperor Zhao Di who was then only eight years old and had to be assisted by Grand General Huo Guang, Chancellor of Military Affairs.1 In 74 B.C., Emperor Xuan Di ascended to the throne. He paid great attention to improving the local administration and, according to historical records, “officials were competent, and the people pursued their occupations peacefully” during his reign. This period was marked by sharpening differences within the Xiongnu tribe so that in 54 B.C., it split into two sections, the northern and the southern. Huhanye, Chieftain of the Southern Xiongnu, occupied the whole tribal territory after the Han had defeated the Northern Xiongnu. Since he had pledged allegiance to the Han court the ne^t 40 years or 4The official titles in the Western Han Dynasty were inherited from those of the Qin Dynasty, during which the prime minister, the chancellor of military affairs and the great censor were the three top officials. In the later period of the Western Han, the chancellor of military affairs who was concurrently the grand general became the top man in charge of both civil and military affairs.

�CHAPTER

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145

more were a period of rapprochement between the Han empire and the Xiongnu. Emperor Xuan Di carried on the cause of Emperor Wu Di, maintaining the power and prosperity created by his predeces¬ sors. Though he greatly valued the services of the Confucians, he spoke his mind when he said, “The Han house knows how to rule the country, that is, by combining the hegemon’s way and the king’s way.” He was referring to government by the Legalist method, by force and political trickery, and to gov¬ ernment by the Confucian method, by conquering the minds of the ruled. These dual tactics were to be employed by the rulers of the succeeding feudal regimes.

Decline of the Western Han Dynasty; Uprisings of the Green Woodsmen and Red Eyebrows

In 48 B.C., Emperor Yuan Di came to the throne. His reign, followed by those of Emperors Cheng Di, Ai Di and Ping Di, marked the beginning of the decline of the Western Han until in 6 A.D., Wang Mang, a nephew of the wife of Emperor Yuan Di, usurped the throne and three years later founded the Xin Dynasty. Not long afterwards, peasant uprisings broke out throughout the country which led to Wang Mang’s downfall, the restoration of the Han regime in A.D. 25 and the period Chinese historians call the Eastern Han Dynasty. Giving high official positions to family members of the em¬ presses was a tradition of the Han period. From the time of Liu Bang through the reigns of Empress Lii and Emperor Wu Di to those of Emperors Zhao Di and Xuan Di, the influence of the relatives of the court women increased continuously. When Emperor Yuan Di was on the throne, palace eunuchs Hong Gong and Shi Xian collaborated with the Shis and Xus, all relatives on the empress’ side, in controlling the government. Family members of Empress Wang also began to interfere in state affairs until they became a dominant group in the time of Emperor Cheng Di. During the period of Emperor Ping Di,

�146

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

who was only 9 years old when placed on the throne, Empress Wang assumed the reins of government as one belonging to the generation of the reigning emperor’s grandmother.* As the old lady’s nephew Wang Mang was appointed Chancellor of Military Affairs who was also in charge of civil administra¬ tion throughout the empire. Emperor Ping Di became a pup¬ pet of Wang, who poisoned the youth to death five years later. In A.D. 6, Wang was made imperial regent and took charge of the government as “Substitute Emperor”. He proclaimed himself emperor proper in A.D. 9 and named his regime the Xin Dynasty. Wang Mang was aided by a mystical theory of the time following Emperor Yuan Di’s rule which indicated some lack of confidence in the future of the Western Han Dynasty and which helped prepare public opinion for the usurping of power by a careerist. The theory held that no dynasty could exist forever because, by the mandate of Heaven, another one soon¬ er or later would emerge to replace it. This led some people to comment that the Han house was nearing its end and that it was time to hand over power to others. After the reign of Yuan Di, the difference between rich and poor in terms of property became even more glaring than be¬ fore. Appropriation of land by influential officials and nobles meant misery for the peasants who, moreover, had to shoulder many other burdens. In the first years of the rule of Emperor Yuan Di, 11 prefectures and fiefdoms suffered floods in which the common people faced starvation. But the feudal nobles, the wealthy landlords and merchants, and corrupt officials con¬ tinued to lead a life of luxury and debauchery. Class contra¬ dictions intensified in the time of Emperor Cheng Di which witnessed a number of uprisings by peasants in different re¬ gions and by prisoners doing hard labour. The social crisis

• Empress Wang was the Queen of Emperor Yuan Di and the

mother of Emperor Cheng Di. As Emperor Cheng Di had no son, two nephews were chosen successively to become Emperor Ai Di and Ping Di — Trans.

�CHAPTER VI

147

grew even more serious during the reign of Emperor Ai Di. Feudal oppression threatened the personal freedom and even the lives of the common people, relegating the difference be¬ tween rich and poor to a secondary place. Country-wide peas¬ ant uprisings could break out any moment. The Western Han Dynasty achieved little in the academic field during the years following Emperor Yuan Di’s rule. But among the famous scholars of the time were Liu Xiang (79-8 B.C.), Liu Xin (?-A.D. 23) and Yang Xiong (53 B.C.A.D.18), all of whom had great achievements to their credit. When Emperor Cheng Di was on the throne, Liu Xiang, of im¬ perial ancestry, was ordered to collate important books kept in the imperial library, such as the Confucian classics, works of the different schools of thought written in the pre-Qin period, collections of poems and prose-poems and military and medical writings.

He wrote a report to the emperor about each book

collated, listing its contents and giving a synopsis of it. During the period of Emperor Ai Di, Liu Xin, son of Liu Xiang, took over his father’s job.

He classified all the books under seven

headings and briefly described the contents of each, and the summaries were later incorporated into the Seven Categories of Writings.

The painstaking efforts of the Lius contributed to

the preservation, classification and dissemination of China’s ancient works. Though Liu Xiang and his son propagated the mystical theory on the non-permanence of dynasties, they took differing political stands on it. The father used mysticism as a means of remonstrating with Emperor Cheng Di on the need to guard against the ambitious family members of Em¬ press Dowager Wang, while the son spread such views to help Wang Mang seize power from the Han house. A native of Chengdu, Yang Xiong wrote Tai Xuan, a book on philosophy modelled after The Book of Changes, and Fa Yan, which was an exposition of Confucianism modelled after The Analects. Though his writings were not innovative, he did disagree with the theory that there was a “God” who controlled

�148

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

everything on earth.

He was progressive in as much as he

opposed the prevalent mysticism. Having usurped the throne, Wang Mang carried out succes¬ sive reforms of the officials system, currency, land tenures, taxation and state monopolies of commodities. Most of his new measures were impractical, and some were merely copied from books of antiquity. Because the reforms were too numerous and revised too frequently, general uncertainty was felt in so¬ ciety. This presented an opportunity for the officials to swindle and oppress the people who were liable to be declared guilty on trumped-up charges, which meant bankruptcy, im¬ prisonment and even death. To flaunt his power and prestige, Wang Mang repeatedly organized provocative activities against the ethnic minorities in north and southwest China. Apart from worsening the friendly relations between China’s various nationalities, this increased the burdens on the people in the Central Plains who had to do conscripted labour more and more often. Many peasants went bankrupt as a consequence. Peasant uprisings gathered momentum in A.D. 17 when Lu Mu of Haiqu (to the west of modem Rizhao County, Shan¬ dong Province) led the local peasants in taking up arms.

In

Xinshi (to the northwest of modern Jingshan County, Hubei Province), peasant insurgents under Wang Kuang and Wang Feng joined forces with those in the neighbouring areas. Mak¬ ing Lulin (Green-Wooded) Hills (modern Dangyang County, Hubei Province) their operational base, they became one of the most well-known insurgent groups in Chinese history and are referred to in history as the Greenwood Army. The following year, Fan Chong of Langya (modern Zhucheng County, Shan¬ dong Province), led an uprising at Ju (modern Juxian County, Shandong). With its headquarters in Mt. Taishan, his contin¬ gent quickly grew to be several tens of thousands strong. Called the army of the Red Eyebrows because their brows were painted red as a mark of identification, this group, too, is wellknown in Chinese history. Meanwhile, scores of big and small insurgent groups rose on the great plain in present-day Hebei

�CHAPTER

VI

149

and Shandong provinces north of the Huanghe River. At Yuan (modern Nanyang City, Henan Province), 7,000-8,000 peasants led by Liu Xiu and his older brother Liu Yan hoisted the ban¬ ner of reconstructing the Han empire. The armies of the Green Woodsmen and the Red Eyebrows were the largest among the peasant armed forces of the period. Later, Liu Xiu’s men and a number of Lii Mu’s men joined hands with the Green Woodsmen and the Red Eyebrows re¬ spectively. Among the Green Woodsmen there were some landlord elements, like Liu Xiu, a native of Caiyang County (modern Zaoyang County, Hubei) and his brother who were both scions of the Han house. On the other hand, the Red Eye¬ brows were simple peasants who announced, “He who kills shall pay with his own life, and he who injures others shall be dealt with accordingly.” This is roughly the same law Liu Bang announced when he entered Chang’an: “Those who kill be executed, and those who inflict injuries on or rob others be punished.” That the Red Eyebrows did not mention robbery but stressed personal safety and the right to survival is a re¬ flection of the most pressing issue concerning the peasants at the time. In late A.D. 20, Wang Mang sent troops to attack the Red Eyebrows. Defeated after one year’s fight, he tried again by mustering more than 100,000 picked men. In the winter of A.D. 22, the two hostile armies fought it out in Chengchang (west of modern Dongping County, Shandong) where Wang’s forces were routed. This changed the situation on the east China front, and Wang Mang had to shift to the defensive. On the southern front, in A.D. 21 Wang Mang attacked the Green Woodsmen with 20,000 men, but lost several thousand soldiers and all his materiel. The Green Woodsmen steadily grew stronger. In A.D. 23, Wang Mang dispatched his generals Wang Yi and Wang Xun at the head of a crack unit of 420,000 in yet another offensive on the Green Woodsmen. Purported to be one million strong, his army made a show of force when it marched to the battlefield, with its colours and transport

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

150

vehicles stretching as long as 1,000 li (500 kilometres). The Green Woodsmen defended their besieged city, Kunyang (mod¬ ern Yexian County, Henan), with about 90,000 men while Liu Xiu went enlisting reinforcements elsewhere. He mustered all the forces he could, organized a vanguard unit of 1,000 or more, and put it under his own command. The Green Woods¬ men fought bravely, pitting one against a hundred and kill¬ ing large numbers of enemy soldiers.

Exploiting the succes¬

sive victories, Liu Xiu led a “do-or-die” unit of 3,000 men to strike at Wang Mang’s main force, which was put to rout. General Wang Xun was killed.

Then the Green Woodsmen

defending Kunyang came out to join in a converging attack on Wang Mang’s men who ran over each other in a helterskelter retreat. A rainstorm happened to have caused the river outside Kunyang to rise, and several tens of thousands of Wang Mang’s soldiers were drowned trying to cross it. Wang Yi and a few other generals escaped on horseback over the corpses of their men. The Kunyang campaign is one of the well-known examples in the annals of war showing how a small army can overcome a big one.

Dealing a crushing blow to Wang Mang both mili¬

tarily and politically, it gave impetus to the anti-Wang up¬ risings across the country. One month before the Kunyang campaign,

the

Green

Woodsmen installed Liu Xuan, a member of the Han royal house, as emperor, using the reign title of Gengshi. They pur¬ posely adopted the name of the Han house for the new regime, and formally proclaimed their objective of restoring the Han Dynasty after their victory in Kunyang. This meant that some changes were taking place within the ranks of the rebellious army as well as in the character of the peasant uprisings. But in any case, the Kunyang battle added to the prestige of Liu Xiu. The Green Woodsmen followed up their Kunyang success with attacks on the Wuguan Pass and the city of Luoyang.

�CHAPTER

151

VI

Aided by uprisings against Wang Mang within the city, the troops marching on the pass took it with comparative ease. Then they thrust towards Chang’an.

Fishing in troubled

waters, the armed forces of the landlords around Chang’an tried to enter the Han capital where people were also ready to rise in revolt. Wang Mang fled for life, but was killed en route from the capital by a merchant.

His death, which marked the

end of the Xin Dynasty, came only three months after the Kunyang campaign, that is, in the ninth month on the lunar calendar in the year A.D. 23.

In the same month, a detach¬

ment of the Green Woodsmen took Luoyang. Following the fall of the Xin Dynasty, the Gengshi regime made Luoyang its capital.

It sent emissaries to pursuade the

Red Eyebrows to surrender, asking Liu Xiu to go to Hebei with the task of enlisting the services of the rebellious armies operating there.

But when Fan Chong came to Luoyang with

a score of his generals, the Gengshi authorities failed to unite with them.

Conflicts began to appear between Gengshi and

the Red Eyebrows until they assumed serious proportions.

In

A.D. 25 the Gengshi government moved its capital to Chang’an, from which Liu Xuan had to flee when the Red Eyebrows cap¬ tured it the next year. The downfall of his regime came short¬ ly afterwards when he was killed by the Red Eyebrows. Meanwhile, Liu Xiu was successful in his activities in Hebei. He gradually detached himself from Liu Xuan and ex¬ tended his own influence, so that in A.D. 25 he proclaimed himself emperor in Haonan (modern Baixiang County, Hebei) and

is

known

in

history

as

Emperor

Guang

Wu.

The

next two years saw him defeating the Red Eyebrows and the remnant forces of the Green Woodsmen until they were basic¬ ally wiped out.

Thus Liu Xiu appropriated the fruits of the

peasant struggle and finally restored the Han house, henceforth known as the Eastern Han Dynasty because the capital, Luo¬ yang, was to the east of the Western Han capital of Chang’an.

The Establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Prolonged Turbulence, and the Yellow Turban Uprising

The opening years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) were a period of establishing relative stability through the 40 plus years between 25 and 88 when emperors Guang Wu (Liu Xiu), Ming Di and Zhang Di ruled. At the outset between A.D. 25 and A.D. 36, Liu Xiu put down the rival regimes in various localities and asserted his authority over the whole territory of the former Western Han Dynasty. The dynasty established by Liu Xiu was even more auto¬ cratic than the Western Han. Although he gave titles and fiefs to his followers, he did not allow them to share in real power. He also took direct control of the department handling imperial documents, making it an office directed by the em¬ peror which could decide on policy and issue orders to the whole country. The reputed three chancellors, i.e., the chan¬ cellor of civil administration, the chancellor of military affairs and the great censor, no longer had any real power, while the inspectors in the localities were empowered by Liu Xiu to watch over or impeach officials in the prefectures and counties and the lords of the fiefdoms by circumventing the chancellors and approaching the court directly. He also made use. of the current Taoist practice of making prophecies, which was very popular among politicians, to add a mystical colour to his regime. After long years of war, Liu Xiu had to pay attention to the problems of landholdings and agricultural labour which had an important bearing on state revenues. In A.D. 39, he ordered a country-wide check-up on land reclamation and census. But the local officials shielded the big landlords and cheated on fig¬ ures so as to shift the tax burden onto the peasants. Liu Xiu had a dozen of the most notorious officials executed, but to no avail. Both the peasants and landlords put up a violent re¬ sistance to the order — each group having its own ax to grind, the peasants whose interests were encroached upon and the big

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

154

landlords who concealed the true amount of their land. The emperor, who could do nothing effective, had to let the matter ride.

Later he issued a number of rescripts decreeing the im¬

provement of the status of bondservants before the law and the emancipation of some of them.

This was also designed to

increase the labour force. After Liu Xiu died in A.D. 57, the throne was occupied first by Emperor Ming Di and then by Emperor Zhang Di, both of whom carried on and contributed to the work of the founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

They also set store by Taoist

divination, and did much to spread the already theologized Confucianism, calling themselves “prophets” to deceive the masses.

In A.D. 59 Emperor Ming Di personally lectured in

the imperial academy and discussed Confucian classics with scholars. Nearly 100,000 people are said to have attended.

In

A.D. 79 Emperor Zhang Di brought together the famous East¬ ern Han scholars in the White Tiger Hall in Luoyang to discuss the different versions of the Five Classics. He himself made the conclusions, which were later incorporated into Bai Hu Tong Yi (Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall), a book serving to deify and consolidate imperial authority. In foreign relations, the Han court received a Japanese goodwill envoy in A.D. 57, to whom Emperor Guang Wu gave a seal inscribed with a title of honour.

Later, Han iron and

bronze wares and silk goods found their way to Japan.

The

year A.D. 67 marked the beginning of the spread of Buddhism in China

when

the

Indian

monks

Kasyapa-matanga

and

Dharmaranya came to Luoyang at the invitation of the Han emissary to their country. Emperor Ming Di ordered the White Horse Monastery built in their honour and asked them to translate Buddhist sutras into Chinese. They whre followed by the Parthian monk An Shigao (An Shih-kao), who came to China in A.D. 148 and stayed for more than 20 years. He be¬ came a well-known translator, rendering into Chinese 95 Buddhist works comprising 115 juan during his stay.

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155

The Eastern Han period witnessed a steady rise in the ex¬ port of Chinese silks to the Western world. To maintain its monopoly of the trade, Parthia kept trying to obstruct China’s contacts with Daqin (the Roman Empire). In A.D. 97 the East¬ ern Han court dispatched an emissary, Gan Ying, to Daqin. As the most famous traveller after Zhang Qian, Gan Ying re¬ turned with a wealth of information about many regions in West Asia. However he never reached Daqin. When he reached the Persian Gulf, he was warned by the Parthians of the “insurmountable” difficulties of the voyage across it to reach Daqin. Nonetheless, Chinese silks were in great demand in the Roman Empire. In 166, the ambassador of King An Tun (thought to be the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) of Daqin arrived in China, bringing with him gifts of ivory, rhinoceros horns and tortoise shells for the reigning Han emperor. The Eastern Han Dynasty entered its middle period when Emperor He Di, at the age of ten, ascended to the throne in A.D. 88. By then, the Xiongnu tribe had again split into two groups, the northern and the southern. But by 91, the northern group had practically been wiped out during both Han and Southern Xiongnu expeditions, and the surviving forces either migrated west or surrendered to the Chinese court. This vic¬ tory over the Northern Xiongnu, a major event in the early years of Emperor He Di’s reign, enabled Dou Xian, commanderin-chief of the Han forces and a relative of the empress’, to take advantage of his military successes to seize power. This threw the court into prolonged turmoil. There was nothing unusual in Emperor He Di’s beginning his reign as a 10-year-old boy. Eight of the occupants of the throne after him became sovereigns when they were less than 15 years, or were even under 10. Therefore, reins of govern¬ ment had to be held by empress regents. As the empress moth¬ ers had more faith in their own relatives than others, power fell into the hands of their clansmen. When an emperor grew up, he tried to break away from the control of the empress’

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

family, seeking the support of eunuchs close to him. His suc¬ cessor also depended on his mother for state administration and, upon attaining majority, took measures to clip the wings of the consort families with the help of his eunuch confidants. This pattern was repeated until the power of the eunuchs grew formidable. Generally speaking, the years A.D. 88-146 (be¬ tween the reign of Emperor He Di and that of Emperor Zhi Di) were marked by the predominance of the families of court women. The year 146, when Emperor Huan Di came to the throne, was a turning point at which the palace eunuchs began to rise to supremacy, causing even greater upheavals in the court. The Eastern Han Dynasty entered its last stage. For more than a century, the struggles raged between, on the one hand, an emperor and his eunuch supporters, and on the other, members of the empress’ family. The court officials either attached themselves to the dominant party or resisted it, often unable to perform their normal functions and powers. Supreme imperial authority, once the objective of Liu Xiu, had now proved to be a dilemma in which the emperor was power¬ less to do anything significant. And this was the logical out¬ come of the development of the contradictions inherent in autocratic monarchy. Between the closing years of its first period and the early part of its second period, the Eastern Han produced three out¬ standing scholars: the historian Ban Gu, the ideologist Wang Chong and the scientist Zhang Heng. Ban Gu (A.D. 32-92), a native of Anting (east of present-day Xianyang County, Shaanxi Province), was the editor of Com¬ prehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall. He theologized and systematized the teachings of Confucianism. But what earned him lasting academic fame is his Histdry of the Han Dynasty. Tracing history from the peasant uprisihgs towards the end of the Qin Dynasty to the defeat of Wang Mang, this voluminous work follows Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian in reflecting the official views. But it describes the various events in detail, incorporates some of the texts of the state-

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VI

157

ments by important figures, and blazes a trail in the method of delineating geography, waterways, agriculture, currency, the penal code and other official documents. His prose-poem, The Western and Eastern Capitals, ranks among the best literary works of the Han period. A native of modern Shangyu County in modern Zhejiang Province, Wang Chong (c. A.D. 27-97) was a militant mate¬ rialist whose main work, Lun Heng (Discourses Weighed in the Balance), lashes out at orthodox theology. Regarding yuan qi (primordial substance) as the original material basis of all things, heaven and earth included, he took matter as the point of departure in interpreting natural phenomena and life itself. This was a criticism of the prevailing Confucian theology which took a certain mystical spirit as the dominant force in everything. Wang Chong maintained that there was no differ¬ ence in human nature, and that the difference between man (kings and princes being no exception) and an inanimate thing lay in that the former possessed knowledge and wisdom while the latter did not. This repudiated the Confucian theory that there were different grades of human nature and that some persons were born sages. Wang Chong was against the view that Confucius and Mencius were above criticism, and he ex¬ posed many contradictions between what they said and what they did. His Discourses Weighed in the Balance was written only shortly after the completion of Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall, and was, in fact, a challenge to the dominant ideology of the imperial court. Zhang Heng (78-139), a native of Xi’e (west of modern Nanyang County, Henan), was a multi-talented scientist who invented the seismograph and was also skilled in other dis¬ ciplines. In politics, he pointed to the crisis resulting from the carving up of power at the time and laid bare the absurdity of Taoist divination. In astronomy, he held that the universe was oval in shape, that the earth was like the yolk of an egg suspended in its centre, and that the universe revolved around the earth once every day. Making use of the achievements in

�158

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

mechanical engineering, he created an armillary sphere (celestial globe) operated by water power. It revolved at the same speed as the sun and other celestial bodies, showing their positions and the courses of their movement automatically and rather correctly. Zhang Heng’s seismograph was an urn-like instrument with a central pendulum. An earth tremor would cause the pendulum to loose balance and activate a set of levers. Then, each of the eight dragons placed in eight direc¬ tions on the outside of the urn would release a bronze ball held in its mouth, emitting a sound in the mean time. Thus people could know when and in which direction an earthquake had occurred. Zhang Heng wrote Ling Xian (Law of the Universe), a theoretical work on astronomy. Dealing severe blows at the official theology of the time, this book and his astronomical instruments claim an important place in the history of natural science in China. The work of Wang Chong and Zhang Heng and the differ¬ ences between their beliefs and those of Ban Gu reflected, in the realm of ideas, the ever-sharpening social contradictions of the period. In 107, not long after the death of Wang Chong and when Zhang Heng was still in his prime, peasant uprisings began to break out up and down the country.

The subsequent

70-80 years saw more than 100 uprisings, each involving a few hundred or a few thousand people and some even tens of thou¬ sands.

The Qiangs in northwest China and some of the tribes

in the southwest also launched struggles against feudal oppres¬ sion. The sustained development of these insurgent activities culminated in the Yellow Turban uprising in 184. The leader of the Yellow Turban Army (named after the colour of their headdresses) was Zhang Jiao of Julu (south of present-day Ningjin County, Hebei), who founded a secret re¬ ligious sect named “Taiping Tao” (Doctrine of Justice). His travels propagating his faith and dispensing free treatment to the sick brought him into contact with the masses. He also sent men to enlist followers in other places in present-day Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and Anhui. In time he

�CHAPTER

VI

159

built up an organization of several hundred thousand. He divided it into 36 fang (section), a bigger fang comprising more than 10,000 members and a smaller one 6,000-7,000. Zhang Jiao spread the idea that the “Blue Heaven” (refer¬ ring to the Eastern Han government) had already “passed away” and it was time for the “Yellow Heaven” (referring to the Yellow Turbans) to take over. He said that the whole coun¬ try would be “blessed” in the cyclical year of Jia Zi (i.e., the year 184), an obvious call for an uprising against the Eastern Han court to establish a peasant regime. Ma Yuanyi, who was in charge of organizing the effort, travelled between the cap¬ ital Luoyang and other places to see that everything was in order.

He succeeded in winning the support of some court

eunuchs who undertook to help the uprising from within. But shortly before the day set for joint action, the fifth day of the third month on the lunar calendar in the year 184, a turncoat informed against the Yellow Turbans.

Ma was arrested and

murdered, as were more than a thousand others in the capital. Zhang Jiao, calling himself “Heavenly General”, had to order the launching of the long-awaited uprising one month ahead of schedule. He was aided by his younger brothers Zhang Bao, “General of the Earth”, and Zhang Liang, “General of Men”. In less than a month, the movement took hold with people responding from all over the country, and the uprising pro¬ gressed rapidly. This was big shock to the Eastern Han court. Emperor Ling Di appointed He Jin, brother of the empress, commander-in-chief of the imperial army and ordered him to defend Luoyang by stationing troops in its suburbs. General Lu Zhi was sent to Hebei to fight Zhang Jiao while two other generals, Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun, proceeded to Yingchuan in Henan, leading an expeditionary army against the Yellow Turban detachment of Bo Cai. Bo Cai first defeated Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun. But the tables were turned when the government troops organized a joint attack during which they made use of a windstorm and

�/

100

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

set fire to the camps of the peasant army. The Yellow Tur¬ bans suffered casualties of several tens of thousands, and Bo Cai died in action. On the Hebei front, Zhang Jiao stationed his men in Guangzong (east of modern Weixian County) and held out against the attacks by Lu Zhi’s unit. The unsuccessful Lu was later re¬ placed by Dong Zhuo, who in turn was succeeded by Huangfu Song. Having lulled the vigilance of the peasant rebels by a ruse, Huangfu sprang a surprise attack and put more than 80,000 insurgents out of action. The Yellow Turbans retreated to Xiayangqu (west of modern Jinxian County, Hebei), only to suffer more defeats in encounters with Huangfu’s army there. Another 100,000 or more were killed, and Zhang Jiao and his two brothers either died of illness or in battle. After nearly nine months of fierce battles, the main force of the Yellow Turban Army was wiped out and its chief leaders killed. But the flames of peasant uprisings were far from ex¬ tinguished. Many armed insurgent units kept on fighting. By 192, there were still 300,000 or more Yellow Turbans operating in present-day Shandong. Thirteen years later, the Heishan (Black Hill) Army in central-south Hebei, an ally of the Yellow Turbans, still numbered upwards of 100,000. Despite the failure of the Yellow Turban uprising, it shook the Eastern Han regime to its foundations. numbered.

Its days were

On the death of Emperor Ling Di in 189, Emperor Shao Di ascended to the throne. Because the court continued to be plagued by eunuchs who now possessed even greater power, Grand General He Jin summoned Dong Zhuo, who was then in control of Hedong (the southwest part of modern Shanxi Province), to the capital to deal with them. However, informa¬ tion was leaked to the eunuchs who acted first andliad He Jin killed. In retaliation, Yuan Shao, another warlord, marched with "his forces into the palace, killing more than 2,000 eunuchs. Not long after that, Dong Zhuo entered Luoyang, where he deposed Emperor Shao Di and put Emperor Xian Di on the throne. Dong who was extraordinarily cruel to the common people, despising the court ministers who soon came to see through his wild ambition to seize supreme power. Many careerists tried to expand their own forces and influence in the name of launching punitive expeditions against Dong. In 196, Cao Cao, one of the most powerful warlords, brought Emperor Xian Di to Xuchang, which was then made capital of the em¬ pire. From then on, Cao used the name of the puppet emperor to legalize his acts. The Eastern Han Dynasty endured only nominally, soon to give way to the Three Kingdoms.

The Development of Social Productive Forces

The Qin-Han period witnessed advances in many fields including agriculture, science and handicraft industry, medi¬ cine, engineering, city planning and architecture. It was a period which saw the invention of paper. Farming methods were improved through new implements like hydraulic water lifting devices; the building of canals and dams promoted irri¬ gation and water conservation; and advanced iron-smelting techniques led to the mass-production of cheap, high-grade steel. In the meantime, physicians mastered acupuncture and the prescribing of herbal medicines, astronomers worked out a 385

new calendar based on the formula of 365——

looy

days to a

solar year and craftsmen produced exquisite wool, cotton and silk fabrics. And above all, perhaps, stands the engineering wonder of the Qin Dynasty, the Great Wall of China. In agriculture, special treatises by Si Shengzhi reflected the level of development reached at the time by summarizing both technical and theoretical questions about farm production. To begin with, iron ploughs and ox farming were popularized and improved while a wide range of farm implements — many of them innovations — were in use.

Plough frames were

equipped with the main parts of animal-drawn ploughs. Al¬ ready in extensive use was a plough for turning up earth,

�CHAPTER VI

163

crushing stones, building up ridges between furrows and regu¬ lating the depth of ploughing. During the latter period of Em¬ peror Wu Di, Zhao Guo, an army provisions official, invented and popularized a plough of a new type which was drawn by two oxen and operated by three people, one guiding the ani¬ mals, one manipulating the plough shafts and one steering the plough itself. As time went on, the plough was adapted to fit into a team first of two oxen and one man and later of one ox and one man to save manpower and facilitate deep ploughing. The seed plough used at the time saved labour and improved the quality of sowing through the three-fold action of furrowing, sowing and covering the furrows with earth. Besides the hydraulic water lifting devices, winnowers and water-powered mills were introduced and raised efficiency by a wide margin. Iron farm tools came into much wider use in the mid-Western Han period. New methods of farming were also introduced, such as the “alternation method” by Zhao Guo and the “small plot method” by Si Shengzhi. In the “alternation method” the land was ploughed into furrows and the earth turned up to make ridges. Crop seeds were sown into the furrows.

As the young plants

grew, the earth of the ridges, together with weeds, was piled around their roots so that they grew up fast and sturdy.

To

maintain the fertility of the land, the ridges and furrows were alternated every year so that the ridges of this year became furrows of the next, and vice Versa. This method raised the per-unit-area yield by one to two-thirds and was best suited to dry regions. In the “small plot method”, deep ploughing and close planting were applied on small plots, where water and manure were used effectively and in a concentrated way and field management was intensified to ensure high crop yields. Water conservancy projects were undertaken for agricul¬ ture, animal husbandry and navigation. The Linqu Canal built during the time of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty was an engineering success. Many of the water conservancy works of the Western Han period were constructed during the reign

�164

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

of Emperor Wu Di. The Caoqu Canal, dug in 129 B.C. by tens of thousands of people under the supervision of the noted water conservancy expert Xu Bo, channelled the Weihe River water east from the metropolis of Chang’an to the Huanghe River. This shortened the route of water transport of grain to the cap¬ ital and brought irrigation to large tracts of farmland. Many more canals were dug later in present-day Shaanxi which irri¬ gated the fields and improved the soil. Irrigation was also well developed in present-day Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shanxi and, in particular, the Ningxia Plain. In the Eastern Han period, efforts were concentrated on repairing and rebuilding the old water conservancy works.

In A.D. 69, hundreds of thousands

of people were recruited to harness the Huanghe River under the supervision of the famous specialist Wang Jing. As a re¬ sult, no major breaks in the dykes or change in the river course occurred through the following 800 years. Salt-making, iron-smelting and cloth-weaving were the three principal handicraft trades. There were sea, lake and well salts. In the mid-Han period, natural gas was used to boil salt in present-day Qionglai County, Sichuan Province. Iron¬ smelting was well developed both in scale and technique during the Qin and Han dynasties, especially after the mid-Western Han period. Grey cast iron, which is better than white iron, appeared around the mid-Western Han period. The invention of fettling and the improvement of the repeated tempering technique, two important indications of the progress of iron¬ smelting in the Qin-Han period, opened the way for the mass production of cheap, high-grade steel. By, the Eastern Han Dynasty, iron and steel had replaced bronze in making the principal weapons. Cloth-weaving, the main household side-occupation in the Qin-Han period, covered silk, flax, ko-hemp and woollen fab¬ rics. The silk fabrics used by aristocrats were of fine work¬ manship and exquisite design. The cotton cloth from the prefecture of Shu (Sichuan) and the silk from the prefecture of Qi (Shandong) were famous at the time. Chinese brocade,

�CHAPTER VI

165

which was characteristic of the high standards of Chinese textiles, found a brisk market in Home. The hand-operated spinning wheels, weaving looms and figured fabric weaving looms of the time had lasting influence over China’s textile industry. There was an elaborate division of labour in the making of . lacquerware during the Han Dynasty. Present-day Sichuan was known for its gold- or silver-decorated lacquers. A kind of paper-like material was made for writing in the early days of the Western Han. But the type of paper we know today was not invented until the Eastern Han Dynasty, in A.D. 105, by Cai Lun who made it of rags, old fishing nets and tree bark. It was called Marquis Cai’s paper in honour of the inventor. The use of these materials greatly raised the quality and effi¬ ciency of paper-making, enlarged the source of raw materials, reduced cost, put an end to the use of bamboo and silk as writ¬ ing materials and created a favourable condition for the spread of culture. As techniques improved, Chinese lacquerware was introduced into Asian and European countries where it was .

favourably received.

Chinese paper-making spread to Japan

from Korea in the 7th century, to Arabia in the 8th and to Europe in the 12th, contributing greatly to the development of world culture. The Qin-Han period witnessed new achievements in civil engineering. Besides the Great Wall, engineers during the Qin Dynasty built imperial chariot roads, the Zhidao Highway across mountains and valleys, the Epang (Efang) Palace, im¬ perial villas, temporary imperial residences, and the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. With a circumference of 25 kilometres, Chang’an, the capital of Western Han, was a model of city plan¬ ning. It had 160 neighbourhoods, 8 main streets where 12 car¬ riages could run abreast, the Weiyang Palace that occupied one-fourth of the city area, and separate residential districts for dignitaries and commoners. The famous Zhandao plank road built along treacherous chiff faces during the Qin-Han period shortened the distance between Sichuan and Shaanxi.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

166

High terraces and multi-storyed buildings were designed in such a way that their wooden structure formed an intergrated whole by itself. Special components were used for beams and beam supports, bricks and tiles were of varied shapes, and new bricklaying methods were introduced. All these laid the foun¬ dation for further development in Chinese architecture. In shipbuilding, vessels from 3.6 to 8.4 metres in width were made. In the Western Han period, the water-borne army at its strongest had 250,000 men and its vessels had two to four decks. Ten-deckers appeared later in the Eastern Han Dyn¬ asty. Han boats were equipped with rudders, sculls and cloth sails. Development in production brought in its wake a corre¬ sponding development in astronomy, mathematics and medical science. The “Chapter on Astronomers” in Records oj the Historian by Sima Qian is a systematic account of the astronomical knowledge of ancient China.

On orders from Emperor Wu Di

in 104 B.C., Sima Qian, Gongsun Qing and Hu Sui, basing their work on surveys by instruments and calculations by Tang Du and Luo Xiahong, developed a new calendar that had far-reach¬ ing influence in the history of Chinese calendrical science. The number of days of a solar year was calculated by the formula 365

385

and that of a lunar month by the formula 29

43

. The

new calendar contained the 24 solar terms and reasonable arrangements of the intercalary month. The first lunar month became the beginning of the year, whereas it was the tenth in the calendar of Qin and early Han. The Mathematical Classic on the Gnomon, written around late Western Han, is the earliest extant treatise^of its kind in China. The Mathematics in Nine Sections, completed in early Eastern Han after repeated revisions over a long period, sys¬ tematically summarized the important achievements in this field since the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. The book contained 246 applied mathematics prob-

�CHAPTER VI

167

lems and was divided into nine sections according to the meth¬ ods of solution and the fields of application. Its appearance demonstrated that mathematics in China had developed into a scientific system. In the medical field, as early as the Warring States Period the noted physician Bian Que had mastered the methods of diagnosis of feeling the patient’s pulse, observing his symp¬ toms and listening to his voice and the methods of treatment of acupuncture, medical potions and hot compression. To con¬ solidate his rule, Emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty ordered the burning of all the books except medical classics. Another indication of the level of medical science at the time is a section in Records of the Historian on Chunyu Yi, a noted physician of the period of the Western Han’s Emperor Wen Di. The chapter describes 25 of his cases in terms of pathology, examination of symptoms, methods of treatment, and prognosis. The Yellow Emperor’s Classics of Internal Medicine, written in a question-and-answer form around the early West¬ ern Han period, explains the physiological signs and patholog¬ ical changes of the human body, gives the earliest elucidation of its blood circulation and points out the importance of pulse¬ feeling in diagnosis.

Apart from suggesting the methods of

treatment for 311 ailments and illnesses of 44 categories, it emphasizes disease prevention and getting at the root of a disease to seek a permanent cure. Emperor Shen Nong’s Materia Medica, a pharmaceutical work of the Eastern Han, records 365 medicines — 252 medicinal herbs, 67 animal drugs and 46 mineral drugs — their functions, their time and meth¬ ods of collection, their efficacy and their mixed application. The two works are monuments to the beginnings of traditional Chinese medical and pharmaceutical systems. In the Qin-Han period agriculture with its wide areas of application continued to occupy the predominant position in the social economy. The agricultural labour force at that time was formed by individual peasants who enjoyed personal free¬ dom to a certain degree and showed tremendous interest in pro-

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

168

duction under the private economy. This labour force had two characteristics. First, the peasants were dependent upon the land, which meant a guarantee of work hands for the landlords and the use or ownership of the land for the peasants. Second, the production unit was formed by the household and combined farming and weaving, a system which, though making it hard to get separate households organized, made it possible for them to achieve self-sufficiency in food and clothing.

In this way,

the peasants enjoyed better working conditions than the serfs, which meant a change in the character of the labour force. This new labour force combined with the developed production tools and technique to form a new social productive force that accelerated the development of feudal relations.

The Growth of Feudal Relations

The Qin-Han period was one in which feudal relations reached maturity in China. The feudal landownership and the corresponding structure of the landlord class, both character¬ ized by a hierarchy, were basically established in the middlelower Huanghe, middle-lower Changjiang and Zhujiang river valleys. The hierarchy in landownership was, in the order of im¬ portance, composed of the following strata: 1. The emperor 2. 3. 4.

The landed aristocrats with hereditary titles The landowners of powerful families The mercantile landowners

The emperor, the supreme landowner, embodied a unity of landownership and political power. After his conquest of the six states, Qin Shi Huang had a stele erected which con¬ tained the inscriptions: “The land in all corners of the earth belongs to the emperor” and “Where there is human habitation, there is the rule of emperor.” These inscriptions showed that no distinction was made between land ownership and political

�Upper left: A bronze weight of the Qin Dynasty, unearthed in Qinan County, Gansu Province, inscribed with impe¬ rial edicts of the 26th year of the first emperor and the first year of the second emperor. Upper right: A pottery meas¬ ure of the Qin Dynasty, unearthed in Zouxian County, Shandong Province, imprinted with an edict of the 26th year of the first Qin emperor, on the unifica¬ tion of weights and measures. Lower: Life-size terracotta figures of warriors, unearthed at Qin Shi Huang’s mauso¬ leum in Lintong County, Shaanxi.

-1;

�Rubbing from an inscribed Qin Dynasty stone tablet at Langyatai, made during the reign of Emperor Tong Zhi of the Qing Dynasty.

UK

A hand-copied inscription from the Langyatai stone tablet.

�Upper: Painted brocade of the Western Han Dynasty, un¬ earthed at Mawangdui, Chang¬ sha, Hunan Prov¬ ince. Middle: Embroidery on orange silk of the Western Han Dynasty, un¬ earthed at Mawangdui. Lower: Embroidery on light brown silk of the Western Han Dynasty, unearthed at Mawangdui.

�Upper: Legs of an iron seed plough of the Western Han Dynasty, unearthed at Qinghe, Beijing. Lower: A Western Han pottery grain bin inscribed with four characters * meaning, “Ten Thousand Piculs of Wheat”, kept in the Museum of Chi¬ nese History, Beijing.

�Upper: A brick recording the marriage of a Western Han princess to a chan yu (chief of Xiongnu). Lower: A tile inscribed with “Heaven-Mandated Chan Yu” of Western Han, unearthed near Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

�complete cortege of bronze figurines of warriors, chariots and horses the Eastern Han Dynasty, unearthed in Wuwei County, Gansu Province,

�Upper: An Eastern Han stone fresco of the tilling of land by oxen-drawn plough, unearthed in Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province. Middle: Rubbing from an Eastern Han stone fresco of the same theme, unearthed in Tengxian County, Shandong Province. Lower: Rubbing from an Eastern Han stone fresco of the same theme, unearthed in Suining Coun¬ ty, Jiangsu Province.

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£%jrJiiiilhi

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!»!«/!« 6HMfk|n£

sraassassa* 3‘lis

An Eastern Han stone fresco featuring a weaving scene, unearthed in Tongshan County, Jiangsu.

An Eastern Han brick painting of a salt-field, unearthed in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

�CHAPTER VI

169

domination. Private ownership of land did exist, but it took the form of a hierarchy, with universal recognition of the em¬ peror’s supreme ownership. While toasting his father at a grand banquet, Emperor Gao Zu of the Western Han, i.e. Liu Bang, said to the old man, “You used to say that I was a goodfor-nothing, unlike Second Brother who knew how to build up family property. Who do you think has built up more proper¬ ty, I or Second Brother?” The courtiers attending the banquet greeted these remarks with deafening cheers of “wan sui!” (“May the Emperor live ten thousand years!”) Clearly, both the emperor and his subjects regarded the entire country as the monarch’s private property. This way of merging the private with the public and the imperial household with the state also found expression in the functions of the officials. The nine ministers in both the Qin and Han dynasties mainly took care of the daily needs and property of the emperor, being respon¬ sible separately for the ancestral temples of the ruling house, the imperial palaces, the security of the ruling house, the im¬ perial stable, the welfare of the members of the royal house, and the imperial treasury and granary. Even the highestranking officials, the three chancellors, were in a way retainers of the royal house. No matter who were in power, eunuchs or royal relatives on the side of the court ladies, the changes in the political situations in the Qin-Han period always took the form of internal disputes within the ruling house.

This su¬

preme authority of the emperor far exceeded the kingly authority in the Shang and Zhou dynasties and the power of the princes in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Next to the emperor were the landed aristocrats with hereditary titles. Each of them had a fief embracing a great number of households. The powerful landlords had a deeprooted local influence, but enjoyed no political prestige. The mercantile landlords, otherwise called “rich people”, had much social influence but were discriminated against politically. As a short-lived dynasty, the Qin left few records about these

�170

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

ranks among the landlords, and the stratification was not so clear until the Western Han. Among the landed aristocrats in the Qin and Han dynasties there were relatives of the royal house bearing the same sur¬ name as the emperor and those from families that had rendered outstanding service to the court. In the Han Dynasty the landed aristocracy was augmented by relatives of the emperor on the side of his mother or wife as well as some of the descendants of Confucius and well-known teachers of Confu¬ cianism. Although Qin Shi Huang granted no fiefs after his conquest of the six states, he did create a feudal aristocracy by providing descendants of the royal house with food, clothing and a regular income from land rent and tax. Also, merito¬ rious officials could be granted the title of marquis and could request land. The Han Dynasty saw the rise of large numbers of princes, marquises, etc. among members of the ruling house and the meritorious. There were many influential families among the royal relatives on the side of the emperor’s mother or wife. Liang Ji of the Eastern Han, for one, was granted ter¬ ritories with a total of 30,000 households.

His brothers and

sons were granted fiefs each with 10,000 households. In all, seven members of the Liang family were made marquises. According to History of the Han Dynasty, the number of house¬ holds during the late Western Han Dynasty was 12,233,062 with a total population of 59,594,978, of which 23 principalities accounted for 1,343,390 households with a total population of 6,382,205. The book contains no records of the number of households in the 187 marquisates, but it was estimated at 1,510,000 with a total population exceeding 7,050,000. Accord¬ ing to Sequel to the History of the Han Dynasty, the number of households during the middle period of th^ Eastern Han Dynasty was 9,698,630 with a total population of 49*150,220, of which 19 principalities accounted for 1,694,690 households with a total population of 10,314,523. The book makes no mention of the number of households in the 95 marquisates, but it was estimated at 930,000 with a total population of more than

�CHAPTER VI

171

4,700,000. The statistics of the two books show that the prin¬ cipalities and marquisates accounted for approximately onefourth of the country’s total number of households in the Western Han period and more than one-fourth in the Eastern Han period. These figures, however, did not include the la¬ bourers forced to work on the land illegally incorporated into these principalities and marquisates. The landlords of powerful families included the descend¬ ants of the nobilities of the six states and influential local families. Although the former had lost their noble status after the fall of the six states, they remained an influential social force during the Qin and early Han periods. They also partic¬ ipated in the anti-Qin struggle of the late Qin peasant insur¬ gents. Mindful of their prestige, both Qin and Han rulers moved many of these families from the east to the areas around the capitals so as to put them under control. It is hard to pinpoint the time at which these influential local families appeared in history. Around the time of the uprisings of the Red Eyebrows and Green Woodsmen, Ru Yinshi, with a clan of over 1,000 people and some proteges, and Gongsun Shu, with' a clan of 10,000 people, ranked among the most powerful local landlords. Liu Xiu, founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was assisted by a number of generals from influential local families who later became aristocrats.

During the Eastern Han period,

although the powerful local families had steadily gained strength, they could not yet overshadow the feudal aristocrats. Some of the wealthy people in frontier regions were also counted among the powerful families. One of them was Ban Yi, an ancestor of the noted historian Ban Gu and a big herdsowner who possessed thousands of flocks of cattle and sheep. The mercantile landlords generally got rich by branching out into commerce or handicraft industry. Around the West¬ ern Han period, people with wealth amounting to three mil¬ lion five-zhit coins were regarded as wealthy while those be¬ low that level were regarded as middle class. A small number of people had amassed wealth to the tune of fifty million or

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

172

even a hundred million five-zhu coins.

Some people, such as

a descendant of the powerful Tian family in one of the six states, was a big landlord as well as a wealthy merchant.

In

the social economic conditions of the time, a rich person was invariably wedded to the land, however wealthy he might be. In the words of the famous historian Sima Qian, the practice was to “acquire fortune by attending to the non-essential and preserve it by attending to the essential.”

In contemporary

usage, the “non-essential” meant handicraft industry and com¬ merce and the “essential” meant farming.

It was generally

believed that a landowner was in a more secure position than a man with money alone. The fact that the emperor co-existed with the three categories of landlords as well as numerous medium and small landholders reflected the existence of ranks in agrarian relations.

The emperor’s undisputed possession of

the nation’s land was shared by the hereditary aristocrats, the powerful families enjoyed royal recognition of their landownership,

while

the

mercantile

landlords

acquired

land

mainly through illegal channels, as acquisition of land through one’s wealth was forbidden by law. landownership

of

the

Qin-Han

In the stratified feudal period,

the

hereditary

aristocrats held a dominant position, second only to that of the emperor. In addition to paying the agricultural tax in grain and dif¬ ferent kinds of poll tax, peasants in the Qin-Han period had 'to perform corvee and military service. These feudal burdens were in essence land rent paid by the direct producers to the landlords, partly in kind and mostly in corvee, the poll tax be¬ ing a form of the latter. State tax was identical with land rent — there were no other forms of state tax. The exploitation of peasants by hereditary aristocrats mainly consisted of a share in the rent paid to the royal house. The exploitation of peas¬ ants by powerful landlords was heavier than that by the royal house in terms of rent in kind, but was probably lighter in terms of corvee because peasants in this category did not have

�CHAPTER VI

173

to perform military service and excessive corvee and the land rent they paid to landlords was not part of the state tax. To ensure its sources of soldiers and food grain and to en¬ force its rule and exploitation, the feudal state organized the scattered peasants on a tithing basis. These peasants were called “registered people”. Polarization between rich and poor constantly occurred among these “registered people”. Some became big or small landlords, but most of them were impoverished. Stratification of peasants took place not only through polarization but also through the practice of conferring titles of honour on them. There were twenty such titles in the Qin-Han period, each in¬ dicating a certain status of the titleholder. Peasants with cer¬ tain titles were exempted from corvee. The feudal hierarchy in the Qin-Han period was complicated; it often covered up the true features of classes. The growth of feudal relations in this period brought closer in economic life people scattered over wide areas who spoke more or less the same language and enhanced their na¬ tional consciousness. It was in these historical conditions that the Han nationality came into existence.

The Three Kingdoms, the Jin, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui and the Tang: the Earlier Period of Ascendancy of Chinese Feudalism

The Three Kingdoms

Feudal society developed through a period of disunity in China in the Three Kingdoms, Western Jin and Eastern Jin, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the short-lived Sui Dynasty to the reunification of the country in the 289-year-old Tang Dynasty, one of the most glorious eras in Chinese history. The Three Kingdoms period, in which the rival states of Wei, Shu and Wu existed side by side, dates approximately from 220 to 266 (or as far back as 196 if calculated from the time that the Wei rose as a political entity). The Western Jin, ruled by four emperors of three generations, lasted 51 years, from 266 to 316; the Eastern Jin, ruled by 11 emperors of four gen¬ erations, extended over 103 years, from 317 to 420.

The

Southern and Northern Dynasties period, 420-589, covers 169 years, starting from the two rival dynasties of Song and North¬ ern Wei and ending with the conquest of the Chen by the Sui, and going through the intertwining period of the Qi and the Liang in the south and the Eastern Wei, the Western Wei, the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou in the north. Thq dynasty of Sui, 581-618, had just two emperors of two generations on the throne for only 37 years. The 289-year-old Tang Dynasty, 618907, was ruled by 20 emperors and 1 empress belonging to 14 generations. The Western and Eastern Jin dynasties also saw 174

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a number of independent local regimes, known in Chinese his¬ tory as the Sixteen States. The defeat of the Yellow Turban uprising at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was followed by a tangled warfare of more than ten years between the various local feudal lords which was to end with the country divided and ruled by three of them. Cao Cao, who had been building up his political and military strength in the middle and lower Huanghe River val¬ ley, forced Emperor Xian Di to move his capital to Xuchang (in present-day Henan Province) in 196 and, in the emperor’s name, continued to expand his influence. However, Cao Cao found a formidable obstacle in Yuan Shao who had grown strong in Jizhou and Youzhou, both in present-day Hebei Prov¬ ince. Cao Cao and Yuan Shao fought a decisive battle in 200 at Guandu (now Zhongmou County, Henan Province), where Cao Cao’s smaller forces bested those of Yuan Shao. In the two or three years that followed, Cao Cao cleared off Yuan Shao’s remaining forces and brought the entire middle and lower Huanghe River valley under his control. Around the time of the Battle of Guandu, the southernbased Sun Quan, who had carried on the cause pioneered by his father and elder brother, was ruling in the lower Changjiang River valley. Liu Bei, who claimed to be connected with the Han royal house, was also preparing for a bid for power. He had in his brain-trust the great statesman and military strategist Zhuge Liang and the services of the renowned gen¬ erals Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun.

However, without

a stable political base, Liu Bei had to bide his time by seeking the patronage of Liu Biao, the Prefect of Jingzhou (the greater parts of modern Hubei and Hunan provinces and southwestern Henan Province). In 208, Cao Cao led a massive force southward to capture Jingzhou, chase Liu Bei around, and pose a direct menace to Sun Quan. At Zhuge Liang’s instance, Liu Bei and Sun Quan decided to put up joint resistance to Cao Cao. Sun Quan’s army, led by its field marshal Zhou Yu, set fire to scores of

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

176

Cao Cao’s war vessels on the Changjiang River at Chibi* *. Taking advantage of the ensuing confusion, the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei, totalling less than 50,000, launched an all-out attack and crushed the hostile army that boasted more than 200,000 men. After Cao Cao pulled back to his northern base, Sun Quan consolidated his position in the south while Liu Bei seized part of the regions under the jurisdiction of Jingzhou Prefecture and later took Yizhou (mostly in pres¬ ent-day Sichuan Province) in the west. And so a situation arose in which the country was divided and ruled by the three feudal lords. After Cao Cao’s death in -220, his son, Cao Pi, deposed the Eastern Han emperor Xian Di and proclaimed himself Em¬ peror of Wei, with Luoyang as. his capital.

The following

year, Liu Bei declared himself Emperor of Han, historically known as the Kingdom of Shu or Shu Han, and made Cheng¬ du his capital.

In 229, following the examples of Cao Pi and

Liu Bei, Sun Quan called himself Emperor of Wu with the capital at Jianye (now Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province).

These

kingdoms — Wei, Shu and Wu — are known as the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history. Before the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao had introduced a land reclamation system** in the Xuchang area with excellent results. After setting up the Kingdom of Wei, Cao Pi enforced the system on a larger scale, had large numbers of water con¬ servancy works built and many paddy fields opened up, quickly reviving and developing the war-torn economy in the Huanghe River valley. Politically, the Wei had many more talented people in its service than the two other states because

• • 1

• The site is identified as Chijishan to the west of present-day

Wuchang County, Hubei, or Chibishan to the northwest of^Puqi County, also in Hubei.

• • A system whereby destitute peasants placed under military

officers were organized into civilian colonies to work the land while soldiers, when not fighting, were encouraged to grow crops in military colonies. — Trans.

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Cao Cao promoted people to important posts on their merit rather than on their family background. In the Kingdom of Wu the land reclamation system was also introduced extensively in the Changjiang and Huaihe river valleys. Irrigation works were built in what is now Zhe¬ jiang Province and advanced production technique was brought from the north to develop the lower Chang jiang River areas. The Kingdom of Wu was also enthusiastic about forg¬ ing ties with the outside world. Under orders from Sun Quan in 230, Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi led a large fleet with 10,000 soldiers aboard to Yizhou (now Taiwan). Three years later, another Wu fleet of the same size called at Liaodong along the northeastern coast and brought back some of the local finebreed horses. Sun Quan also sent Kang Tai and Zhu Ying as his envoys to various states on the South China Sea. Upon their return, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying wrote books on their travels. Merchants from the Roman Empire came by the South China Sea route to trade in Wu, some of them staying as long as seven or eight years. As Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Shu, Zhuge Liang worked hard to develop agricultural production in Sichuan. He appointed special officials in charge of the ancient Dujiang Weir and had many more water works built. To secure a peaceful environment for the kingdom, he took care to im¬ prove relations with the ethnic minorities inhabiting presentday Guizhou and Yunnan provinces and to strengthen the political, economic and cultural ties between the Han people and these nationalities. The Wei reached a higher level of cultural development than the other two states. A new sect appeared in the realm of philosophy, called xuan xue (a school of Taoism) which took the three books — Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi and the Book of Changes — as its “Three Classics”. The founder of this school was Wang Pi (226-49), a native of Shanyang (now Jiaozuo City, Henan) and author of Annotations to “Lao Zi”, Notes on the “Book of Changes” and A Brief Exposition of the “Book

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

of Changes”. Wang Pi preached that Non-being was more im¬ portant than Being and the world of Being took Non-being as its substance. This theory of objective idealism boiled down to “acting without striving” or “letting things take their na¬ tural courses”. In other words, it aimed to relegate feudal moral codes to a secondary position and provided members of the feudal upper strata with excuses for their greediness and indulgence. An ideological reflection of the depraved life of the upper strata at that time, Wang Pi’s works nevertheless had extensive influence in the history of Chinese philosophy. Cao Cao (155-220) and his sons Cao Pi (187-226) and Cao Zhi (192-232) were all great names in literature. Cao Cao’s poems, A Short Song and A Stroll Out of Summer Gate, written in a plaintive style at once virile and unrestrained, rank among the most famous in Chinese poetry. The Historical Allusions and Essays by Cao Pi is the earliest piece of literary criticism extant in China. The poems of Cao Zhi have left their mark on the development of the wu yan shi (poems with five characters to a line). The relationship between the three states began with Wu and Shu joining hands against Wei. Later the two allies fell out in their scramble over Jingzhou. In 220, when Guan Yu, commander of the Shu garrison in Jingzhou, was locked in bat¬ tle with the Wei forces, Wu sprang a surprise attack, captured Jingzhou and killed Guan Yu. In 222, Liu Bei led a huge force out of Shu in an expedition against Wu. A decisive battle was fought at Yiling (north of Yidu County, Hubei Province), in which the Shu troops were routed. Liu Bei died the following year, and his son, Liu Shan, succeeded to the throne with the help of Prime Minister Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang switched back to the earlier policy of alliance with Wu against Wei, his aim being to drive north to occupy the Central Plaips and re¬ cover the cause of the Han house. But the several northern expeditions he did undertake failed. In the last expedition in 234, Zhuge Liang died on his sickbed at the front at a time when his army was fighting to a stalemate with the Wei forces under the command of Field Marshal Sima Yi at Wuzhangyuan (southwest of Meixian County, Shaanxi Province). The Shu troops then pulle.d back to Sichuan. From then on, Shu de¬ clined while the state power of Wei gradually passed into the hands of the Sima family. After the death of Sima Yi, his sons, Sima Shi and Sima Zhao, successively held the reins of the Wei government, relegating the Wei emperor to the status of a figurehead. In 263, Wei vanquished Shu. Three years later, Sima Yan dethroned the Wei emperor and established the Jin Dynasty (historically known as the Western Jin), with the capital re¬ maining at Luoyang as during the Wei Dynasty. In 280, Sima Yan, later known as Emperor Wu Di of Jin, defeated Wu and unified — though only for a short period — the China that had remained divided for scores of years after the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The Western Jin, the Eastern Jin and the Sixteen States

The 25-year reign (266-290) of Emperor Wu Di was a com¬ paratively quiet period in the Western Jin Dynasty. His measures, such as relief for refugees, lessening of and exemp¬ tion from corvee and compulsory marriage between' men and women of age, led to a rapid increase in the country’s population. In the 15 years from 266, both the number of households and population in the north rose by more than 100 per cent — an important indicator of social stability at the time. Another indicator was the wholesale migration to the hinterland of the people of the ethnic minorities in the frontier regions, such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di'and Qiang. The changes in the throne in the Wei-Jin period had been brought about through palace coups. Emperor Wu Di believ¬ ed he could avoid this by building up the influence of the royal family in the localities as a reliable force to shore up the court. He enfeoffed large numbers of the members of the Jin house,

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27 of them with princely titles and their own principalities, armed forces and the power to appoint and remove their civil and military officers. This practice of Wu Di did change the situation prevailing in the kingdom of Wei, in which the various princes were mere figureheads. But he had not fore¬ seen that it would open the way for new power struggles. During Wu Di’s time, the Jia and Yang families — both relatives of court ladies — gradually came into political prom¬ inence. After Emperor Hui Di succeeded to the throne, Em¬ press Dowager Yang and her father, Yang Jun, took over state power by a joint scheme and so set the stage for a great turmoil that was to sweep across the country. In 291, Empress Jia, the wife of Emperor Hui Di, ganged up with the Prince of Chu, Sima Wei, and killed Yang Jun, his family members, relatives and followers — several thousand all told — and ap¬ pointed the Prince of Runan, Sima Liang, as regent. Shortly afterwards, on Empress Jia’s order, Sima Liang was murdered by Sima Wei whom, in his turn, was put to death by the Em¬ press. Large-scale internecine wars then ensued, involving, one time or another, eight princes of the Sima family for a period of 16 years (291-306).

These wars, known as the

“Disturbances of the Eight Princes”, dislocated the social econ¬ omy and devastated the nation’s population, rending millions homeless. The Western Jin government was paralysed. The last few years of the “Disturbances of the Eight Princes” saw refugees and immigrants of the ethnic minorities rising against the Western Jin regime in one rebellion after another. In 301, the officials of Yizhou aroused a storm of protest when they ordered refugees to return to their home towns and villages. .Led by Li Te, a Di immigrant, the refugees rebelled and occupied Guanghan (in modern Sichuan Prov¬ ince). In 304, Li Xiong, Li Te’s son, captured Chengdu and declared himself King of Chengdu. Two years later, he pro¬ claimed himself emperor and called his domain Kingdom of Dacheng. The Xiongnu (Hun) noble, Liu Yuan, also assumed the title of king in the same year Li Xiong claimed himself

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

King of Chengdu. Four years later, he declared himself em¬ peror and called his domain Kingdom of Han, with the capital at Pingyang (southwest of present-day Linfen City, Shanxi). The two independent regimes were the earliest of the Sixteen States. Beginning in 309, Liu Yuan and his son Liu Cong, launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Luoyang, the Western Jin capital. In 311 Liu Cong occupied Luoyang, and in 316 captured Chang’an. He took prisoner both Emperor Huai Di and his successor, Emperor Min Di, which spelled the end of the Western Jin Dynasty. Subsequently, the Kingdom of Dacheng was renamed Han, historically known as the Cheng Han.

The Kingdom of Han

established by Liu Yuan moved its capital to Chang’an and was renamed Zhao, historically known as the Former Zhao. In the north, there were the Later Zhao, Former Liang, Former Yan, Former Qin and other independent regimes. In the south, an Eastern Jin Dynasty was set up by Sima Rui, a member of the Jin royal house. The Later Zhao was set up in 319 by Shi Le, a Jie tribes¬ man and previously general in Liu Yuan’s service, its capital being first at Xiangguo (southwest of present-day Xingtai City, Hebei) and then at Ye (southwest of present-day Linzhang County, Hebei).

At its height, the Later Zhao occupied

present-day Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi and Henan provinces as well as parts of Gansu, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei and Liaoning provinces, making itself the largest of the Sixteen States. The Former Liang, founded by Zhang Mao, a Han, in 320, covered northwestern Gansu, southern Xinjiang and a part of Qinghai, with its capital at Guzang (now Wpwei County, Gansu Province). v The Former Yan, established by the Xianbei noble Murong Huang in 337, dominated Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan and a part of Liaoning, with its capital first at Longcheng (now Chaoyang County, Liaoning Province) and then

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at Ye. A powerful state in the north the Former Yan enjoyed political stability for a time. The Former Qin was founded in 351, with its capital in Chang’an, by the Di tribesman Fu Jian who was succeeded by Fu Jian a year later, in 352. Fu Jian’s prime minister Wang Meng, a Han statesman, adopted a policy of restraining the big landlords and easing the burden of the people, which enabled the Former Qin to enjoy a stability virtually denied to China since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Over the years, Fu Jian annexed the lands of the Later Zhao, Former Liang and Former Yan to unify the greater part of northern China. In 317, Sima Rui proclaimed himself emperor of Eastern Jin (known in history as Emperor Yuan Di), making Jiankang (previously called Jianye, now Nanjing City) his capital. As he had little to start out with, he enlisted the support of the statesman Wang Dao, who brought together the big immigrant northern landlords and the southern landholders in a joint ef¬ fort to prop up the Eastern Jin regime in southern China. Of the ranking Eastern Jin officials, Zu Di was the most insistent on a northern expedition to recover the Central Plain.

With

little backing from the court, he led a small expeditionary force north which, after eight years’ bitter fighting, regained some of the lost territories. The expedition stopped in 321 after Zu Di’s death. Twenty-six years later, the Eastern Jin general Huan Wen vanquished Cheng Han. In 354, he led a force against the Former Qin and fought his way straight to Bashang at the doorstep of its capital, Chang’an. In 369, he drove as far north as Fangtou (southwest of present-day Junxian County, Henan) in an expedition against the Former Yan. These victories, though unprecedented in the military history of the Eastern Jin, were soon followed by a series of setbacks. This, combined with Huan Wen’s ambition to usurp the throne, gave rise to sharp contradictions and power strug¬ gles within the Eastern Jin ruling clique. After Huan Wen’s death in 373, Xie An became the chief minister. Although

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

peace reigned in Eastern Jin, the menace of Former Qin loom¬ ed. In 383, the ruler of the Former Qin, Fu Jian, led an in¬ fantry force of 600,000 and a cavalry force of 270,000 in a march on the Eastern Jin. Obsessed with the desire to swal¬ low up the Eastern Jin, Fu Jian boasted, “We can stop the flow of any river by throwing our riding whips into it!” The op¬ posing army was much smaller, with only 80,000 men under the command of Xie Shi and Xie Xuan. But the Qin army, outwardly strong, was actually a force with low morale. Many of its men had been conscripted against their will; the Han officers and men in the ranks were half-hearted about the war and the Xianbei and Liang tribal chiefs each had his own axe to grind. Liu Laozhi, a subordinate general of Xie Shi, led a 5,000-strong crack force in a skirmish against the Qin vanguard unit at Luojian (east of present-day Huainan County, Anhui). The Qin unit suffered 15,000 casualties. When the Jin army advanced to the east bank of the Feishui (now Feihe River south of Shouxian County, Anhui), it asked the Qin troops to move back a little for it to cross the river for a decisive battle. Fu Jian complied, hoping to strike his blow home when the Jin troops were half-way across.

But when the order of

withdrawal was issued, the Qin troops panicked and ran. Jumping at the opportunity, the Eastern Jin troops launched a full-scale offensive, scattering the enemy. By the time Fu Jian reached Luoyang, his army was down to only a little more than 100,000 men. The Battle of Feishui was followed by a great change in the situation in northern China. Between 384 and 385, a num¬ ber of states appeared in what had been the Former Qin’s territory, such as the Later Qin set up by the Q4ang tribesman Yao Chang, the Later Yan by the Xianbei tribesman Murong Chui, the Western Qin by another Xianbei tribesman Qifu Guoren, and the Later Liang by the Di tribesman Lii Guang. Fu Jian was captured and killed by Yao Chang in 385. In the 12 years between 397 and 409, six more states emerged as the

�Tomb brick paintings of the Wei-Jin period unearthed at Jiayuguan, Gansu Province. Tilling land by oxen-draw plough.

Winnowing.

Gathering mulberry leaves.

�Painted clay figurines of the Tang Dynasty (9.7-16 cm. high), unearthed at Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. From left to right: husking rice with mortar and pestle, separating grain from chaff and waste by a dust-pan, milling flour, and making pancakes.

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A three-colour glaz¬ ed camel of the Tang Dynasty, un¬ earthed in Luoyang, Henan Province.

�Upper: A celadon covered bowl of Eastern Jin, unearthed in Nanjing. Lower: A glazed porcelain jar of Northern Qi, unearthed in Puyang, Henan.

�Tang Dynasty damask with a de¬ sign of confronting birds, un¬ earthed at Turpan, Xinjiang.

Eight-colour silk damask of the Tang Dynasty, unearthed at Tur¬ pan, Xinjiang.

Tang Dynasty damask with de¬ signs of birds, sheep, and trees, unearthed at Turpan, Xinjiang.

�Upper left: Model of a south-pointing device with a magnetic ladle men¬ tioned in records of the third century B.C. Upper: Model of a chariot with a south-pointing device, invented by Ma Jun early in the third century. Lower: Model of a chariot with a distance-counting device, third century.

�The single-arch stone bridge at Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province, built in the Sui Dynasty.

�Stele commemorating the union between the Tang Dynasty and Tufan (modern Tibet) in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region.

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�Nestorian Tablet in China (Tang Dynasty) in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.

Nestorian Tablet in the old Syrian language.

�Sitting Buddha on the right side of Cave 6 in the Yungang Grottoes.

Sculptures of the North¬ ern Wei Dynasty on the north wall in the ante¬ chamber of Cave 12 of the Yungang Grottoes in the western suburbs of Da¬ tong, Shanxi Province.

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�Tang Dynasty niche to Lokesvararadja Buddha at Fengxian Temple in the Longmen Grottoes in the southern suburbs of Luoyang, Henan Province.

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Painted sculptures of the Tang Dynasty in Cave 32g in the Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang, Gansu Province.

��CHAPTER VII

185

Northern Liang, the Southern Liang and the Western Liang split off from the Later Liang; the Southern Yan and Northern Yan from Later Yan; and the Xia from Later Qin. These ten states were the last independent regimes to emerge among the sixteen states. Plagued by internecine wars among these states, northern China was thrown into confusion which ended only in 439 when the Northern Wei reunified that part of the country. Exploiting its victory in the Battle of Feishui, the Eastern Jin launched a northern expedition and regained some of the lost territories. General Liu Laozhi fought all the way to the city of Ye, the former capital of Later Zhao and Former Yan. These victories, however, failed to resolve the internal con¬ tradictions of the Eastern Jin regime. After Xie An died in 385, Sima Daozi, a member of the royal house, and his son, Sima Yuanxian, were placed in power, setting off a struggle within the ruling house as well as between the royal house and the influential households. In 389, Huan Xuan, General Huan Wen’s son, rebelled against the Simas and carved out his sphere of influence in Jiangzhou Prefecture (now Jiujiang City, Jiangxi), not far upstream from the Eastern Jin capital Jiankang.

In 399, the people of Guiji (now Shaoxing

County, Zhejiang), unable to bear the misrule of the Simas, rebelled in force and, led by Sun En, inflicted one defeat after another on the government forces. After Sun En died in 402, his cause was carried on by Lu Xun. That same year, Huan Xuan stormed into Jiankang and killed the Simas. In 404, Huan Xuan deposed Emperor An Di and proclaimed himself em¬ peror. But three or four months later, Liu Yu, Liu Laozhi’s subordinate general, drove him out of Jiankang and placed Emperor An Di back on the throne. Then Liu Yu sent an ex¬ peditionary force north against the Southern Yan and the Later Qin and another to suppress the insurgents led by Lu Xun. Having built up his own prestige, Liu Yu decided in 420 to take over the throne. He dismissed the emperor and replaced the Eastern Jin with his Song Dynasty.

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186

During the tumultuous years from the Western Jin to the Sixteen States, the ruling classes needed something to take their minds off the harsh realities and to lull the will of the people. Buddhism with its tenets of reincarnation and transmigration enabled people to find an escape from their cares by pinning their hopes for happiness on a next life. For the time, its doctrines were more attractive than those of Confucianism and the Xuan Xue School. Famous Buddhist monks in this period included Zhu Fa Hu of the Western Jin and Fo Tu Cheng, Dao An, Hui Yuan and Jiu Mo Luc Shi of the Eastern Jin. Jiu Mo Luo Shi (Kumarajiva) was a wellknown Buddhist author and translator. In 399, the monk Fa Xian went west in search of Buddhist scriptures. When he returned to China 14 years later, he wrote of his travels in A Record of the Buddhist Countries in which he described the Buddhist developments, natural landscapes and customs in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The book is the earliest detailed account of China’s sea and land communications with the

outside

world

and

provides

important

material

for

historical studies. While it was an appendage to the Xuan Xue School during the Western Jin period, Buddhism enjoyed greater influence in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and more so in the north than in the south. The Western and Eastern Jin period also witnessed the spread of the Xuan Xue School. Its principal exponent in this period, Pei Wei (267-300), author of On the Importance of Being, opposed Wang Bi’s doctrine of Non-being. He argued that Non-being could not produce Being, by which he meant the feudal ethical code, which was indispensable to the land¬ lord class for maintaining its rule. Guo Xiang (252-312), author of Annotations to “Zhuang Zi”, identified Beipg (the feudal ethical code) with Non-being (real nature). According to him, the feudal distinctions between the high and the low and be¬ tween the rich and the poor are only natural, and the different classes should accept things as they are. It followed that it should be taken for granted that people of rank were free to

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187

enjoy a dissipated life while the poor should suffer under feu¬ dal exploitation. In the world of literature, Lu Ji (261-303) and Zuo Si (c. 250-305) of the Western Jin excelled in poetry. Lu Ji’s spe¬ cial treatise, On Poetry Writing, contributed to the development of China’s literary thought. The Ode to the Three Captals (of the Three Kingdoms), written by Zuo Si in a vigorous style, created such a stir among the men of letters that it was copied and passed from hand to hand, causing a shortage of paper sup¬ ply in the capital city of Luoyang. Tao Yuanming (365-427), the poet and prose writer of the Eastern Jin, was famous for his five-character poems full of poetic imagination and the flavor of rustic life. Formerly an Eastern Jin official, Tao Yuanming resigned after becoming disillusioned with the cor¬ rupt government to lead a secluded life in the countryside. His outstanding prose piece, Peach Blossom Stream, a descrip¬ tion of a Chinese Arcadia, expressed his longing for a society without power struggle,

cut-throat competition, lying and

cheating. During the Western and Eastern Jin period, the pian ti wen (a flowery antithetic style of writing) was very popular. It was gorgeous in form but lacked depth. Calligraphy and painting reached a high level of develop¬ ment in the Eastern Jin.

Wang Xizhi (321-379 or 306-61) ab¬

sorbed the essence of calligraphy of the Han-Wei period and created a style of his own to earn his fame as the “Sage Cal¬ ligrapher”. Gu Kaizhi (345-406) was noted for his portraits of human figures with highly expressive eyes. The mural paint¬ ing of Vimalakirti, a lay Buddhist, done for the Waguan Tem¬ ple of Jiankang, impressed art-lovers with its brightly coloured and finely drawn lines. His work, On the Art of Painting, was a masterpiece on painting techniques. The Western and Eastern Jin period turned out more his¬ torical works than ever. There were an outpouring of history books on the Eastern Han, the Three Kingdoms, the Jin and the Sixteen States, notably the History of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou (233-297), An Extension of the History of the Han Dynasty by Sima Biao (?-c. 306) and Records of the Later Han Dynasty by Yuan Hong (328-376). The History of the Three Kingdoms enjoys a fame only next to that of Records of the Historian and History of the Han Dynasty. Written in biographical form, it describes the rise, growth and fall of the Three Kingdoms. An Extension of the History of the Han Dynasty originally had 80 juan but only 30, about the in¬ stitutions and statutes of the Eastern Han Dynasty, survive. Records of the Later Han Dynasty, annals of the Eastern Han, shows innovation in the preservation and compilation of his¬ torical material. The period from the Western Jin to the Sixteen States, though a period of turmoil in Chinese history, established the preliminary conditions for the re-unification of China — con¬ ditions which further developed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

The Southern and Northern Dynasties

The Song established by Liu Yu and the three successive dynasties of Southern Qi, Liang and Chen are known as the Southern Dynasties. They all had their capital at Jiankang. In its early days Song controlled a domain much larger than the other three, its northern territory stretching from Tongguan in Shaanxi in the west to Qingzhou (now Yidu County, Shandong Province) in the east. Liu Yu, later known as Em¬ peror Wu Di, was the most powerful ruler of the South since the Eastern Jin period. After he ascended the throne in 424, Em¬ peror Wen Di continued Liu Yu’s policy and concentrated on strengthening the court, so that the economy in the Changjiang River valley enjoyed relative stability during hi^ 30-year reign. In the early Song period, there were five states in the north, the Western Liang, Northern Liang, Northern Yan, Western Qin and Xia. In 386, Tuoba Gui, a member of the Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe, set up the state of Northern Wei. In 398, he made Pingcheng (east of present Datong City, Shanxi) his

�CHAPTER VII

191

capital and, the following year, proclaimed himself emperor, later known as Dao Wu Di. In 423, Emperor Ming Yuan Di of the Northern Wei crossed the Huanghe River in a march on the Song and seized Luoyang and other places south of the river. In 439, Emperor Tai Wu Di of the Northern Wei con¬ quered Northern Liang and unified the north that had been divided and ruled by the Sixteen States. The more than 30 years after 420 marked the early, golden, period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. In 450, a large-scale war broke out between the Song and the Northern Wei. The following year, although the Northern Wei troops had swept all the way to Guabu (now Liuhe County, Jiangsu), many of the towns and cities on the route of their march remained in the Song’s hands. The war ended with tremendous losses to both sides. In 452, Emperor Tai Wu Di of the Northern Wei was murdered by the eunuch Zong Ai and the following year Emperor Wen Di of Song was killed by Liu Shao, the heirapparent.

These events were harbingers of constant turmoil

and gradual decline for both the southern and northern states and marked the beginning of the middle period of the South¬ ern and Northern Dynasties. In the 26 years after Emperor Wen Di’s death Song went through the reign of six sovereigns, three of whom were mur¬ dered. In 479, Xiao Daocheng, Commander of the Imperial Guards, usurped the power of the Song and changed its name to Qi, or the Southern Qi as historians call it. Xiao Daocheng was later known as Emperor Gao Di of Qi. The Southern Qi was the most unstable of the Southern Dynasties. In 22 years, it was ruled by seven emperors, three of whom were either de¬ posed or murdered. In 486, Tang Yuzhi led an uprising in Fuyang (in present-day Zhejiang), which touched off a series of other uprisings. In 501, Xiao Yan, Garrison Commander of Xiangyang (near present-day Xiangfan City, Hubei Province), who had long been on the lookout for his chances, took advan¬ tage of disturbances in the Southern Qi to seize power. In one fell swoop, he renamed the dynasty Liang. Xiao Yan, later

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

known as Emperor Wu Di, reigned for 48 years without em¬ broiling his state in sizable wars. However, the rule of Liang, while outwardly stable, rested on a weak foundation as the peasants, ground down by ruthless exploitation, started one riot after another. After Emperor Tai Wu Di’s murder, the Northern Wei was torn by even sharper conflicts between classes and nationali¬ ties as well as by contradictions within the ruling class and the ruling tribe of Xianbei. In 471, when Xiao Wen Di ascend¬ ed the throne as a baby, state power fell into the hands of Empress Dowager Feng. The Empress Dowager adopted a policy — a policy carried on after her death by Emperor Xiao Wen Di — that helped fuse the Xianbei with the Han people. Between 484 and 486, Emperor Xiao Wen Di carried out a num¬ ber of political reforms geared to the social customs of the Han people, including the introduction of regular salaries* for government officials and the system of land equalization for peasants. After moving his capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang in 493, the emperor issued an order banning tribal lan¬ guages and the wearing of tribal dress and encouraging the Xianbeis to adopt Han surnames and marry the Hans. This policy helped to win the support of the Han landlords for the Northern Wei regime and consequently to consolidate the foundation of its rule. But for the Xianbei, the policy created a gap in political treatment and material benefits between the Xianbei nobles who had moved south to the Huanghe River valley and the Xianbei garrison commanders in the northern frontiers. A process of impoverishment was going on among the Xianbei soldiers guarding the northern frontiers. This, coupled with the compulsory nature of the policy of the assim¬ ilation of Han culture, sharpened the contradictions within the Xianbei tribe and tended to weaken the foundation of the Northern Wei regime. Incessant uprisings of the people took

• The Tuoba clan of the Xianbei tribe was a backward, predatory

group, and its officials had received no regular pay but lived on plunder and embezzlement. — Trans.

�CHAPTER VII

place during unsuccessful this showed flabbiness of

193

the reign of Emperor Xiao Wen Di and, after 497, wars were waged against the Southern Qi. All the instability of the political situation and the the government.

In 523, mutinies were staged by the garrison soldiers of Woye, Huaishuo, Wuchuan, Fuming, Rouxuan (all in modern Inner Mongolia) and Huaifang (north of Zhangjiakou, Hebei), followed by many others in present-day Hebei, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu. The insurgent leaders included Poliuhanbaling, Du Luozhou, Xianyuxiuli and Ge Rong. Taking ad¬ vantage of the turmoil, frontier commanders seized control of the Northern Wei government. In 534, Northern Wei was di¬ vided into the eastern and western parts. The Eastern Wei came under the control of General Gao Huan, a Han who had adapted himself to Xianbei customs and practices, while power in the Western Wei fell into the hands of General Yuwen Tai, a member of the Yuwen clan of the Xianbei tribe. In 550, Gao Huan’s son, Gao Yang, declared himself emperor and changed the Eastern Wei to the Northern Qi. In 557, Yuwen Tai’s son, Yuwen Jue, deposed the Western Wei emperor and set up the Northern Zhou. Both the Eastern Wei and the Northern Qi had their capital at Ye while both the Western Wei and the Northern Zhou had their capital at Chang’an. The areas east of Luoyang were successively held by the Eastern Wei and the Northern Qi which both controlled Luoyang itself, while those west of it by the Western Wei and the Northern Zhou. The split of Northern Wei which marked the beginning of the later period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, tipped the scale in favour of the south. The rulers of the Liang Dyn¬ asty could have seized this golden opportunity to launch an expedition against the north, but they let it slip through their v fingers. In 547, the Eastern Wei general Hou Jing, who was stationed south of the Huanghe River and had a personal grudge against Gao Cheng, another son of General Gao Huan, surrendered to the Liang. Emperor Wu Di of the Liang then ordered him to attack the Eastern Wei with a supporting force

�194

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

dispatched by the court. Defeated by the Eastern Wei, Hou Jing saw an opportunity to turn this situation to his own ad¬ vantage as he pulled his army back in a southward drive. The following year, he marched on Jiankang, and laid siege to the palace city of Taicheng, where Emperor Wu Di starved to death. Hou Jing’s troops ravaged Jiankang and some of the other richest places in the south, looting or burning much of the wealth accumulated from the time of the Eastern Jin. In 552, General Chen Baxian defeated Hou Jing, recovered Jian¬ kang and, in 555, placed Xiao Fangzhi on the throne of the Liang. In 557, Chen Baxian deposed the emperor and estab¬ lished the Chen Dynasty. He was later known as Emperor Wu Di of the Chen. Rising from the ruins of Liang, the Chen gov¬ ernment directed all its efforts towards the rehabilitation of the social economy in its early period. The Chen was the small¬ est of the Southern Dynasties, its domain smaller than all its precursors — the Song, the Qi and the Liang, and its northern border reaching only the southern bank of the Changjiang Riv¬ er. However, it was strong enough to resist the incursions of the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou. In 573, it allied with the Northern Zhou in a successful expedition against the Northern Qi. Generally speaking, neither the Liang nor the Chen of the south was in a position to make anything out of the divisions in the north. In the north, there was a negligible gap in strength between the Eastern and the Western Wei and be¬ tween the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou. But the North¬ ern Zhou rested on sounder political ground and its military strength had grown steadily. On the other hand, the North¬ ern Qi after the reign of Gao Yang had been ruled by tyrants, each worse than the previous one, until finally not even the ruling clique could close its own ranks. The nqrth was re¬ unified in 577 when Emperor Wu Di of the Northern Zhou conquered Northern Qi. Emperor Wu Di died in 578, and was succeeded by Emperor Xuan Di, a corrupt and fatuous monarch. When his son, Emperor Jing Di, succeeded to the

�CHAPTER VII

195

throne at the age of eight, power fell into the hands of Yang Jian, a royal relative on the female line. In 581, Yang Jian proclaimed himself emperor and set up the Sui Dynasty in place of the Northern Zhou. In 589, Yang Jian, later known as Emperor Wen Di of the Sui, wiped out the Chen in the south and brought the whole of China under his unified control. From the time of Emperor Wen Di of Song, many venerable Buddhist monks came to China from the west, and Buddhism of various sects flourished during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. were

Large numbers of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures

translated

into

Chinese.

Among

the

emperors

and

princes, the most devout Buddhists were Xiao Ziliang, Prince of Jingling of the Qi, and Emperor Wu Di of the Liang.

Em¬

peror Wu Di many times retired to a Buddhist temple to be¬ come a novice and each time had to be bought out of the temple by his ministers.

At one time, Jiankang alone boasted more

than 500 Buddhist monasteries housing upwards of 100,000 monks and nuns.

Famous Buddhist monks were held in awe

by people of rank and title.

Monks such as Fa Yun, Zhi Cang

and Seng Min drew large audiences of nobles and scholars whenever they preached Buddhist teachings. During the Sixteen States period, the Former Liang and the Northern Liang were the Buddhist centres in the north. Buddhism lost ground for a time under Emperor Tai Wu Di of the Northern Wei, who suppressed Buddhism in favour of Taoism. But after Emperor Xiao Wen Di of the Northern Wei moved his capital to Luoyang, the Empresses Dowager of sev¬ eral generations believed in Buddhism, and the religion began to catch on again.

During the reign of Emperor Xuan Wu Di

the Venerable Bodhidharma came to Northern Wei from south¬ ern India to teach Buddhism in the north after preaching in south China.

He advocated meditating, cultivating the mind,

and getting rid of wishful thinking for the salvation of the soul and opposed the way famous Buddhist monks in the south lumped Buddhism and Xuan Xue together in their preachings.

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

196

The Chan sect founded by him was an influential one, popular first in the north and later spreading to the south. Large num¬ bers of Buddhist monasteries were built in the north, with over 1,300 in Luoyang alone and more than 30,000 throughout the domain of the Northern Wei. The rulers of the Northern Dyn¬ asties expended fabulous amounts of money, manpower and material supplies on the digging of grottoes at Yungang in Datong, Shanxi Province, and at Longmen in Luoyang, Henan Province.

Each of these grottoes was bejewelled with exqui¬

sitely executed Buddhist images.

The 53 existing Yungang

Grottoes, completed before the Northern Wei moved its capital to Luoyang, contain over 51,000 Buddhist images, the tallest of which is 17 metres. Digging of the Longmen Grottoes start¬ ed around the time when the Northern Wei made Luoyang its capital and continued down to the Tang period.

During the

Northern and Western Wei dynasties, work continued on the Dunhuang Grottoes dug in the Sixteen States period in Gansu Province and a host of Buddhist statues were added. Yungang, Longmen

and

Dunhuang

are

all

world-famous

for

their

engravings. When Buddhism was gaining ground both in the south and the north, the outstanding atheist Fan Zhen (c. 450-515) voiced his opposition in his On the Destructihility of the Soul written at the end of the Southern Qi Dynasty. and the body are interdependent.

He said that the soul

According to him, the soul

is to the body as sharpness is to the blade; as sharpness cannot exist independently of the blade, neither can the soul exist in¬ dependently of the body. If the body dies, the soul dies too, he said.

The professions about the undying soul, reincarnation,

transmigration and retribution, he contended, -are absurdities pure and simple. Fan Zhen’s theories came as a shock to the Buddhist believers. Prince Xiao Ziliang of the Southern Qi summoned many learned Buddhist monks to debate Fan Zhen, but they were unable to demolish his arguments. In 507, Em¬ peror Wu Di of the Liang organized more than 60 dignitaries

�CHAPTER VII

197

and learned monks for another debate, and again they failed to bring Fan Zhen to his knees. During the reign of Emperor Wu Di of the Northern Zhou, the Buddhist monasteries had be¬ come a heavy drain on the sources of state revenue and soldiery. The emperor was forced to summon his ministers for a series of debates with Buddhist monks. Finally, he dealt a heavy blow to Buddhist influence by resorting to a policy of “recruiting soldiers from among Buddhist monks and requisi¬ tioning land around Buddhist pagodas and temples”. The Southern Dynasties laid greater claim to fame in litera¬ ture and historical studies than did the Northern Dynasties. In literature, poetry enjoyed popularity in the south. Xie Lingyun (385-433) was famous for his nature poems. Bao Zhao (c. 412466) wrote many poems which gave free flow to his aspirations and longings for a better life and exerted some influence on the renowned Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai. The Critique of Po¬ etry written by Zhong Rong (?-552) of the Qi-Liang period comments on 122 poets from the Han to the Liang period, at the same time analysing the various poetic trends and their origins. The 30-juan Anthology Through the Ages, compiled by famed scholars under the auspices of the Liang crown prince Xiao Tong (501-531), a literary enthusiast, contains the cream of literature since the pre-Qin period and exerted far-reaching influence on the literature of later generations. The 50-chapter Wen Xin Diao Long by Liu Xie (c. 466-c. 520) of the Liang Dyn¬ asty, one of China’s famous works of literary criticism, presents a comprehensive and systematic study of literary questions and contains the author’s original ideas on the relationships be¬ tween content and form in literature and between the develop¬ ment of literature and its time. Of the literary works of the Northern Dynasties, the best-known is The Song of Mu Lan. This narrative poem, about a girl who disguises herself as a man to take her aging father’s place in the army, was supposed to have been adapted from a folk ballad. The author, Yu Xin (513-581), who had been detained in the north during a diplo¬ matic mission there from the southern regime of Liang, was an accomplished poet. Most of his works, notably A Lament for the South, expressed his nostalgia for his homeland. The 20-chapter Family Admonitions by Yan Zhitui (c. 531-590), covering a wide range of subjects — political, economic, cul¬ tural and educational — is notable among literary works for its easy and smooth style of writing. Readers in the old days, how¬ ever, were mainly interested in its teachings about social con¬ duct, looking upon it as a guide to the philosophy of life in feudal society. Yang Xuanzhi’s Temples and Monasteries in Luoyang, in five juan, gives some idea of the political, eco¬ nomic, cultural and social aspects of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Apart from their value to historical research, these two works are also of a high literary quality. There were many genealogical records, records of village men of virtue and biographies of famous personalities during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but few of them survive. Important historical works in this period include History of the Later Han Dynasty by Fan Ye (398-445) of the Song, His¬ tory of the Song Dynasty by Shen Yue of the Liang, History of the Southern Qi Dynasty by Xiao Zixian, and History of the Wei Dynasty by Wei Shou of the Northern Qi. The History of the Later Han Dynasty, well-documented, fresh in style and original in the judgement of historical facts, emerged as the most successful historical work after History of the Han Dyn¬ asty and History of the Three Kingdoms.

The Establishment of the Sui Dynasty and the Peasant Uprisings in Its Closing Years

Like the Qin Dynasty which united China in 221 B.C., the Sui established another feudal dynasty for the whole country, only to fall in a few decades. The Sui Dynasty liad only two sovereigns. Yang Jian, later known as Emperor Wen^Di of Sui, ruled for 23 years beginning with his conquest of Northern Zhou in 581, before he was slain by the heir-apparent, Yang Guang, in 604. His reign lasted only 15 years if counted from

�CHAPTER VII

203

the year of the fall of the Chen Dynasty. Yang Guang, later known as Emperor Yang Di, was on the throne for only 13 years. Immediately after the proclamation of his new state, Yang Jian reorganized his central government into three key depart¬ ments — the Secretariat in charge of confidential, highly im¬ portant matters and the enactment of imperial decrees; the Grand Council which examined and approved these decrees; and the Chancery responsible for the administration of the whole country. The chiefs of the three departments were equivalent to the prime minister of the Qin-Han period, whose powers and functions were now divided among these three of¬ ficials who were directly accountable to the emperor. Local administrative divisions were also changed — from the threelevel system (prefectures, sub-prefectures and counties) of the Northern Dynasties to a two-level system (prefectures and counties). Local officials from the ninth grade up were ap¬ pointed or removed by the court and their work was reviewed and appraised annually by the Board of Civil Office. Chief local officials were transferred every three years, their dep¬ uties every four years. All these measures helped strengthen the rule of absolute monarchy. Yang Jian also abolished the system practised since the Wei-Jin period, by which local officials were selected by pre¬ fects. He set up institutions of learning in prefectures and counties, from which candidates with fine academic records were nominated for yearly court examinations and for ap¬ pointment according to the results. This opened a new chan¬ nel for more people to enter upon an official career and so helped enlarge the class basis of feudal rule. A new penal code, based on but much simpler than that of Northern Wei and Northern Qi, was adopted. It consisted of only 12 chapters, omitting more than 1,000 articles of the old code. Only five kinds of punishment were provided for — death, exile, imprisonment, heavy flogging and light flog¬ ging. Whoever considered the verdict unjust had the right

�204

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

to file his appeal level by level up to the emperor himself. Persons guilty of treason and other “monstrous crimes” were not to be pardoned. Yang Jian also adopted measures to prevent persons from avoiding conscription and the payment of taxes. In 585, two strict general censuses were taken in the prefectures and coun¬ ties, through which the exact ages of the inhabitants were checked on the spot and recorded in government register. Some 600,000 adult males were discovered. In the same year, measures aimed at lightening the burden of taxation and con¬ script labour were taken to reclassify the households into dif¬ ferent categories according to property and size. Every year taxes were collected and labour service recruited accordingly. These measures increased the labour force available to the government by encouraging the peasant proteges of manorial lords to break away from them and entering these peasant households into the state register. After conquering the Chen in 589, Yang Jian cracked down on the local forces in the south. This aroused a storm of pro¬ tests from the influential landlords there, who, in 590, rose in rebellions, captured towns and cities and killed government officials. General Yang Su was sent to suppress the rebels and the tense situation was taken in hand. The political reforms initiated by Yang Jian and the quell¬ ing of the rebellions in the south created political stability in the early period of Sui and, consequently, a speedy economic growth. Abundant harvests were reaped in the first dozen years and both handicrafts and commerce flourished. Many state granaries were built, notably the Hanjia Granary at Luoyang with a capacity of 480,000 piculs (133.33 pounds to a picul); the Xingluo Granary at Luokou (modern Gongxian County, Henan) with a capacity of 24,000,000 piculs;, and the Huiluo Granary north of Luoyang with a capacity of 2,400,000 piculs. During his later reign, Yang Jian reportedly had a grain reserve large enough to see the whole nation through several years.

�CHAPTER VII

205

The Sui court paid great attention to its relations with the frontier peoples. Since the Wu fleet led by Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi called at Taiwan, an increasing number of people had migrated there from the mainland to join the local Gaoshan people in their pioneering efforts. In 607, Zhu Kuan, a cavalry commander, and He Man, a naval officer, were sent by Emperor Yang Di on an inspection tour of the island, then known as Liuqiu. The following year, Zhu Kuan again visit¬ ed Taiwan, this time on a good-will mission. In 610, a Sui fleet set sail for Taiwan from Yi’an (now Chaozhou City, Guang¬ dong Province). Mistaking the fleet for merchant ships, the Gaoshans poured out onto the waterfront bringing local prod¬ ucts for trade. From that time, the ties between Taiwan and the mainland became closer. The Sui Dynasty had contacts with the states set up by the ethnic minorities, such as the Qidan, Shiwei and Mohe in the Liaohe, Heilongjiang and Ergun river valleys in the Northeast; the Turks (the Tujue) south of the Altay Mountains; the Tuyuhun south of the Qilian Mountains and north of the Xueshan Mountains; as well as those inhabiting Gaochang, Quici, Yanqi and Yutian in present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. People from these states often came to the hinterland to barter for local products.

The Sui married daughters of

the royal house to the tribal chiefs of the Turks and Tuyuhun and to the king of Gaochang and had Pei Ju based in Zhangye (in modern Gansu Province) to take care of the commercial and other ties with the Western Regions. There were three trade routes to the West during the Sui Dynasty: the northern route, from Yiwu (modern Hami, Xin¬ jiang) via Puleihai (now Lake Barkol) and the region of the Tiele tribe to the state of Fulin (Syria); the central route, from Gaochang (now Turpan, Xinjiang) via Yanqi, Quici and Congling Range to Persia (now Iran); and the southern route, from Shanshan (near present-day Lake Lop Nur, Xinjiang) via Yu¬ tian and Congling Range to north “Poluomen” (a translitera¬ tion of the word “Brahman”, now north India and Pakistan).

�206

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Of the three routes, the central and the south extended even farther west. Two major events in the Sui period were the construction of the capital Luoyang and the digging of the Grand Canal. To tighten his control of the rich middle-lower Huanghe River valley and the areas south of the Changjiang River, Yang Guang (Emperor Yang Di) launched the large-scale construc¬ tion of his capital in 605, in the early period of his reign. The project involved tens of thousands of workers and cratfsmen for a duration of 12 months. The inner part of the city con¬ sisted of palace buildings, the intermediate part of government institutions, and the outer part of official residences and the dwelling houses of common people. The outer part also served as the commercial district, with well over 100 streets and al¬ leys and three market centres. When the project was com¬ pleted, the emperor ordered large numbers of the influential households and wealthy merchants to move to Luoyang. The Grand Canal project was launched at the same time as the construction of Luoyang with the participation of hundreds of thousands of workers. The canal had three sections. The first, the Tongji Channel, directed water from the Gushui and Luoshui rivers at Luoyang’s West Park all the way to the Huanghe River and from the Huanghe at Banzhu east of Luo¬ yang through the old Langdang Ditch to Shanyang (now Huai’an County, Jiangsu Province) on the south bank of the Huaihe. From Shanyang the Huaihe River water was guided through the old Han Canal dug in the time of King Fu Chai of Wu in the Spring and Autumn Period to empty into the Changjiang River at Jiangdu (now Yangzhou City, Jiangsu). The whole section, from Luoyang to Jiangdu, was more than 1,000 kilometres long. The second section, the Xongji Chan¬ nel, directed water from the Qinshui at Luokou south to the Huanghe River and north to Zhuojun (now Beijing) — also a total of more than 1,000 km. The third section, the 400-kmlong Jiangnan Channel, drew its water from the Changjiang River at Jingkou to join the Qiantang River at Yuhang (now

�CHAPTER VII

207

Hangzhou City, Zhejiang). In brief, the Grand Canal, totalling 2,500 km .in length, extended to Zhuojun in the north and to Yuhang in the south, with Luoyang as its centre. A water transport artery, the Canal helped promote economic develop¬ ment and unify the country. Both the construction of Luoyang and the digging of the Grand Canal took a heavy toll among the builders. When the Yongji Channel was being cut, the shortage of able-bodied men was made up by women. After the canal was completed, Yang Guang repeatedly went on pleasure trips to Jiangdu by boat, imposing a heavy strain on the nation’s manpower and material resources. Yang Guang was an emperor with a craze for the gran¬ diose. To punish the Korean king for his refusal to pay respects to the Sui court, he launched three successive wars against Korea in the three years 612-14. A great deal of manpower, material and financial resources were wasted on these wars, bringing the class contradictions at home to a fever pitch. Popular uprisings had been brewing prior to the wars against Korea, when millions of peasants were pressed into military and labour service. Many of the warship builders along the coast at Donglai in present-day Shandong Province had maggots below their waistlines from working days and nights in water. Three or four out of every ten of the labour¬ ers were literally worked to death. The stage for the late Sui peasant revolts was set in 611, when the peasant leader Wang Bo started an uprising in the Changbai Mountains (in modern Zhangqiu County, Shandong). He rallied the peasants around him by composing a song, “Don’t Go and Die in Liaodong”. Wang Bo’s uprising inspired others led by Dou Jiande, Du Fuwei, Fu Gongshi and Zhai Rang in Shandong, Hebei, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Ningxia. These peasant forces, some of them tens of thousands while others more than a hundred thousand strong, captur¬ ed towns and cities and killed corrupt officials and local tyrants.

�208

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

The outbreak of the peasant rebellions caused divisions within the ruling clique. Seeing that the bulk of the govern¬ ment troops were pinned down by the fast-expanding peasant forces, Yang Xuangan, a Sui noble, also rose against the court in 613 with an army which quickly grew to some 100,000. He was soon defeated, but many of the rebels under him went over to swell the ranks of the peasant insurgents. The unit led by Zhai Rang operated in Henan Province, with Wagang (near Huaxian County, Henan) as its base. In 616, Li Mi, another Sui noble who had been with Yang Xuan¬ gan in his rebellion, joined the Wagang army. He won over many lesser armed bands to the Wagang side, which swiftly expanded to become the most formidable peasant force. In 617, the Wagang army captured the Xingluo Granary and distributed the grain among the poor and destitute. This won enthusiastic mass support for the Wagang army, which by now had grown to hundreds of thousands until finally Luoyang was completely isolated from the greater part of Henan. Meanwhile, the insurgent force led by Dou Jiande, which had been active at Gojibo (northwest of Enxian County, Shandong), fought its way to Hebei Province where, in 617, it wiped out the Sui main force under General Xue Shixiong and captured many towns and cities. The band that had been manoeuvring in the Changjiang and Huaihe river valleys under the leadership of Du Fuwei and Fu Gongshi also defeated repeated Sui attacks and incor¬ porated many lesser hands. By early 618, its influence had reached the areas along the Changjiang, posing a direct menace to Jiangdu where Yang Guang was enjoying himself on one of his pleasure trips. The flames of peasant uprisings continued to rage until they engulfed the greater part of the Sui domain, 'leaving only Luoyang, Jiangdu and a few other secluded cities unscorched. Seeing that the situation had grown out of hand, many local officials, landlords and nobles began to look around for ways to preserve themselves or to expand their own influence in

�CHAPTER Vn

209

the turmoil. Some even renounced their allegiance to Sui and proclaimed themselves king or emperor. In 617, Li Yuan, an aristocrat, led an army revolt in Taiyuan and captured Chang’an. In spring the following year, Yang Guang was assasinated in Jiangdu. Soon afterwards, Li Yuan declared himself emperor of Tang, historically known as Emperor Gao Zu of the Tang Dynasty.

The Golden Age of the Tang

After his ascension, with the help of his second son, Li Shimin, Li Yuan drew Li Mi and Du Fuwei into his service, suppressed Dou Jiande, wiped out the landlords’ independent regimes in various places and, in 623, unified the whole of China.

In 626, Li Yuan gave up the throne to Li Shimin, who

became the famous Emperor Tai Zong of the Tang Dynasty. As an outstanding statesman and military strategist, Li Shimin was exceptional among all the Chinese emperors.

His

assistants, such as Li Jing, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Zhangsun Wuji and Wei Zheng, were all talented administrators. Li Shimin believed that he had an important historical lesson to learn from the rapid fall of the once powerful Sui Dynasty. He often discussed with his ministers the merits and demerits of Sui politics to find better ways to consolidate his regime. He encouraged his ministers to come out with whatever dif¬ fering opinions they had in mind on political questions.

This

style of work enhanced his political prestige and strengthened the unity of the court. Political reforms were carried out on the basis of the Sui institutions. The three key departments of the Sui regime re¬ mained the principle organs of the central government — the Secretariat through which the emperor issued his orders, and which handled memorials to the emperor, the formulation of policies and the drafting of edicts and decrees; the Grand Council which offered advice to the emperor and examined

�210

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

and approved the imperial edicts and decrees; and the Chan¬ cery which was in charge of national administration and which had the Six Boards under it: the Board of Civil Office, of Revenue, of Rites, of War, of Justice and of Works. The three departments were binding on and supplementary to one anoth¬ er in their functions and powers. Local administrative divisions were the prefectures and counties. In important frontier regions, governors’ offices were established to take care of military and civil affairs there. In addition, the coun¬ try was divided into 10 circuits (dao). A circuit was not an administrative division and had no administrative office; it was rather an inspection area where imperial commissioners went from time to time to examine the work of local officials and learn about the grievances of the people. In the military system, the Tang regime inherited the com¬ pulsory service of Northern Zhou and Sui. A total of 634 commanderies were set up throughout the country, each in com¬ mand of 1,000 soldiers. The soldiers engaged in farming in peace time and in drills in slack seasons. They were exempt¬ ed from corvee and tax but had to rotate for regular guard duties in the capital. In case of war, they responded to the call-up, taking their own weapons, clothing and provisions. When the war ended, they returned to their work behind the plough.

Later, to meet the needs of massive warfare a sup¬

plementary, mercenary system was instituted, which in time outstripped the compulsory system in importance. A new penal code was worked out under the supervision of Fang Xuanling and others. The Tang code was based on that of Sui but was simpler and shorter and contained lighter punishments. It was clarified by Zhangsun Wuji and others in the 30-juan Exposition of the Tang Penal Code. The Tang code together with the Exposition was the most ^complete feudal statute in Chinese history, and its influence large on all the later feudal codes. Li Shimin was anxious to enlist talented people into his service. In the foundation period of Tang, he had won over

�CHAPTER VII

211

many qualified personnel — both civil and military — from hostile political groups. After his ascension to the throne, he paid great attention to the selection of competent local of¬ ficials, which he considered the key to peace and order across the land. The imperial civil examination initiated under the Sui was extended during Li Shimin’s reign as an important system in selecting people of ability. During the Tang Dynasty, there were two main degrees for examination can¬ didates, the Ming Jing (Senior Licentiate) and the Jing Shi (Advanced Scholar). Confucian classics were a must in the examination for the first degree, poetry for the second. In the course of time, the Jing Shi became the favoured degree. After Li Shimin’s death, Emperor Gao Zong succeeded him. His empress, Wu Ze Tian was a capable woman with political ambition. In 655, she began to participate in court affairs and, in 660, took all powers in her hands. In 690, she ascended the throne and called herself Emperor Sheng Shen. She made a point of drawing talented people into her service and succes¬ sively appointed the outstanding statesmen Li Zhaode, Di Renjie and Yao Chong as prime ministers to help herself run state affairs.

At the same time, she befriended some wicked

and treacherous courtiers and appointed tyrannical officials notorious for their injustices, although she would not let them go too far or invest them with too much power. Wu Ze Tian’s reign lasted for half a century, during which the royal power of the ruling Li house was greatly impaired, but the political situation created by Li Shimin did not end and the social econ¬ omy continued to develop. The Tang regime reached the height of its power and pros¬ perity during the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong (712-756), who ascended the throne after seven or eight years of turmoil following the death of Empress Wu Ze Tian. Bent on making the country prosperous, he carried out political reforms and promoted competent people to premiership. He was receptive to criticism and advice from his ministers. In the first 30 years or more of his reign, the country became strong and pros-

�212

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

perous and the population grew tremendously — a phenom¬ enon never known before. A number of palace coups and local peasant uprisings took place after the founding of the Tang Dynasty. In 653, a woman peasant leader, Chen Shuozhen, staged an uprising at Muzhou (modern Jiande County, Zhejiang), declared herself Emperor Wen Jia and captured some of the places in Zhejiang. These incidents, however, had no vital bearing on the country as a whole. The social economy developed continuously for over 120 years, from 618 to 741, at the height of Tang, longer than in any of the previous dynasties. The golden age of Tang also witnessed closer relations between the various nationalities within China’s borders, al¬ though there were also wars between them. In the early Sui period, the Turks in the northwest split into the eastern and western branches, controlling regions north and south of the Gobi Desert and the Central Asian areas east of the Caspian Sea. In 626, the Khan of the Eastern Turks, Xieli, harassed Wugong (in modern Shaanxi Province) and pushed on to the neighbourhoods of Chang’an. In 629, on orders from Li Shimin, Xu Shiji and Li Jing led a massive counter-attack.

An internal split and a sharp decrease in the

livestock population after several years of blizzards weaken¬ ed the fighting strength of the Eastern Turks. In 630, the Tang army won a decisive victory, conquering the Eastern Turks and capturing Xieli Khan. The Tang government resettled the officers and men of the Eastern Turks, who had pledged al¬ legiance to the Tang, in the areas starting from Youzhou (modern Beijing) in the east to Lingzhou (modern Lingwu County, Ningxia) in the west. Four governors’ offices were established there, while the Dingxiang and Yunzhong gov¬ ernors’ offices were set up in the former territories of the Eastern Turks. The Eastern Turks rose again during^the reign of Emperor Gao Zong. Ashinaguduolu, an Eastern Turki aristocrat, rebelled and made war on Tang for many years. After Pijia Khan assumed power in 716, he sued for peace, and

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the Tang government promised to trade with the Eastern Turks and exchange its silk for their horses. Subsequently, friendly ties were forged between the two sides. When the Khan’s elder brother, Queteqin, died in 731, Emperor Xuan Zong sent an envoy to express his condolences and had a monument erected to honour his memory, which bore an in¬ scription in both the Han and Turki languages. The Western Turks under the rule of Shaboluo Khan broke off relations with Tang in 651.

In 657, the Tang generals Su

Dingfang and Xiao Siye defeated Shaboluo Khan and con¬ quered the Western Turks.

And with the states of Tuyuhun,

Gaochang, Yanqi and Quici yielding their allegiance to Tang, the Tang was able to maintain its rule over the areas north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.

The Tang government

established the Beiting Protector-General’s Office north of the Tianshan and 16 governors’ offices to its south to take charge of the political and military affairs there. From then on, the economic and cultural contacts between China’s hinterland and the areas north and south of the Tianshan Mountains be¬ came increasingly closer and safe traffic was ensured along the route leading to West Asia through the Tianshan Mountain area. The Uygurs (Hui-he), a nomadic tribe inhabiting the north of the Gobi Desert, had paid allegiance successively to the Xiongnu, the Xianbei and the Turks.

They had grown strong

gradually in the Sui period and, in 627, made their might felt north of the Gobi when they defeated 100,000 Turki troops with a crack force of 5,000.

The Uygurs had aided the Tang

in its wars to conquer the Eastern and Western Turks. The Tang Dynasty maintained close ties with the national¬ ities living in the northeast. It set up the Heishui Governor’s Office there, with the chieftain of the Mohe tribe living in the lower Heilongjiang River valley as the governor, assisted by officials sent by the Tang court. The ruler of the state of Bohai established by the Sumo tribe in the Wusuli River valley

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

214

was given the title Prince of Bohai by the Tang government and trade contacts were frequent between the two sides. The Tufans, the ancestors of modern Tibetans, had made the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau their home from time immemorial. In the early Tang period, Tibet witnessed its height of pros¬ perity under the rule of King Songzan Gambo. When Li Shimin married Princess Wen Cheng of the Tang house to Song¬ zan Gambo, she took with her large quantities of silk fabrics, handicrafts and farm tools to Tibet. During the reign of Em¬ peror Zhong Zong, the Tibetan king Chide Zugdan married another member of the Tang royal house, Princess Jin Cheng, who also took with her many silk fabrics and artisans as well as Confucian classics such as the Book of Odes, Book of Rites and Zuo Qiuming’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals.

These two marriages made it possible for

the technology and culture of the Han people to find their way into Tibet. From ancient times, many tribes had lived in present-day Yunnan Province.

They were known as the Six Zhao’s.

In

the early Tang period, the southernmost Meng She Zhao, otherwise called the Southern Zhao, grew strong. Its chieftain often sent envoys to pay his respects to the Tang court.

Dur¬

ing the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong, the chieftain of the Southern Zhao, Piluoge, secured the permission of the Tang emperor to unify the five other tribes into one state. The Tang court conferred upon him the title King Gui Yi of Yunnan. Tang culture also found its way into the Southern Zhao as bilateral trade contacts increased. At its height, the Tang empire developed extensive ties with many countries and regions in Asia, including Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and'Arabia. Jap¬ anese envoys had come to China during the Three^Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Many more — joined by educated monks and students — came to China in the Sui and Tang dynasties. During the reign of Emperor Gao

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Zong, large Japanese missions were sent to China, the biggest including some 500 members. The growing domestic and foreign contacts made the Tang capital Chang’an not only the nation’s leading city but a cos¬ mopolitan city as well. People of the minority nationalities in China as well as foreign emissaries, ecclesiastics and mer¬ chants came to Chang’an en masse, bringing with them exotic products, music, dance, acrobatics, customs and religions. Some of them got married and settled down in Chang’an. With its vivid foreign flavour, culture in the golden age of the Tang Dynasty surpassed the achievements of previous dynasties. Poetry, prose, historical studies and religion all flourished. As in the Qi-Liang period, prose in early Tang emphasized parallelisms while poetry was flowery. During the reign of Emperor Gao Zong and the early period of Em¬ press Wu Ze Tian, the famous poets Wang Bo (649-76) and Luo Binwang (c. 640-84) began to break away from the poetic style of the Qi-Liang period. By broadening subject matter and probing new rhyming schemes they were behind the de¬ velopment of the unique style of Tang poetry.

Their prose

pieces, however, remained bound by parallelisms. Chen Zi’ang (661-702) was firmly opposed in theory and in practice to the bombasts and embellishments in Qi-Liang literature. Rep¬ resentative of his works was Random Thoughts, a collection of 38 poems. He also wrote many prose pieces without paral¬ lelisms, contributing to the creation of new forms. Not long afterwards, Tang poetry attained its peak in the celebrated poets Li Bai (Li Po) and Du Fu (Tu Fu). The change in writ¬ ing style in the Tang period brought further achievements through great writers like Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan. History books compiled in biographical style were the major accomplishments in the historical studies of this period. In the first years of the Tang Dynasty, history books about the post-Three Kindoms period were not complete. There were none about the Liang, Chen, Northern Qi, Zhou and Sui dynasties although there were as many as 18 about the Jin

�216

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Dynasty. On orders from Li Shimin, special people were as¬ signed to compile a number of history books: the 56-juan History of the Liang Dynasty and the 36-juan History of the Chen Dynasty, both by Yao Silian; the 50-juan History of the Northern Qi Dynasty by Li Baiyao; the 50-juan History of the Zhou Dynasty by Linghu Defen and others; the 85-juan History of the Sui Dynasty by Wei Zheng and others; the Historical Records of the Five Dynasties (of the Liang, Chen, Zhou, Northern Qi and Sui) by Yu Zhining and others; and the revised, 130-juan History of the Jin Dynasty by Fang Xuanling and others. In addition, Li Yanshou condensed the historical records of the Southern Dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen into an 80-juan History of the Southern Dynasties and the historical records of the Northern Dynasties of Wei, Qi, Zhou and Sui into a 100-yuan History of the Northern Dynasties. These completed the histories of the dynasties that came after the Three Kingdoms. In 710, the historian Liu Zhiji (661-721) completed his famous 20-juan Critique of Historical Works, the first of its kind in Chinese history. The book re¬ viewed the previous historical works, analysed the merits and demerits of the different styles of history writing, especially the biographical style, and pointed out the importance of historical studies. According to Liu Zhiji, a historian must have talent, knowledge and judgement in his field — a view¬ point much valued by contemporary and later historians. A number of religious faiths were introduced into China during the height of Tang, such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Nestorianism. from Persia and Islam from Arabia. Followers of Zoroastrianism, founded by the Persian Zoroaster, were called Fire-worshippers because they made a cult of fire as the good light spirit in the cosmic conflict between light, the good spirit, and darkness, the evil spirit. Zoroastrianism spread to north China during the Southern ancT' Northern Dynasties. Zoroastrian temples could be found both in Chang’an and Luoyang. Manichaeism, whose followers were later known as Light-worshippers, was introduced to China in

�CHAPTER VII

217

694 and was granted permission to build temples in Chang’an in 768. Founded by another Persian named Mani, Manichaeism also revered light in the struggle between light and darkness in the world, and so. the places of worship were called the Brightness Temple. Nestorianism, or Nestorian Christiani¬ ty, spread to China in 635, and its first temple was built in Chang’an in 638. Muhammad, founder of Islam, was interest¬ ed in Chinese culture.

“Though China is far, far away,” he

said, “we should go there in quest of knowledge.” The Islamic religion was introduced into China in 651 when an Arabian mission came to this country. From then on, religious services were frequently held by Arabian and Persian Muslims in Chang’an, Luoyang, Yangzhou and Guangzhou. Buddhism was the most popular religion in this period. Chang’an and Luoyang were among many places where Bud¬ dhist monasteries could be formed.

Among the famous Bud¬

dhist monks were Xuan Zhuang (Hsuan Tsang or Tripitaka), Dao Xuan, Yi Jing, Fa Zang, Shen Xiu and Hui Neng. Zhuang (602-64) was a learned monk.

He

Xuan

surmounted all

kinds of difficulty to go to India in search of Buddhist scrip¬ tures.

After his return to China, he translated 75 Buddhist

books running to 1,335 juan.

His translations were far better

than all previous ones in faithfulness and fluency.

He also

wrote, with the help of his disciple Bian Ji, the 12-juan Rec¬ ords of Western Travels, in which he described the geograph¬ ical features, customs and religious myths of the 111 states he

had

visited

as

he had heard about.

well

as

those

of

the 28

other states

The book provides valuable material for

the study of the history and geography of Southwest and Central Asia.

In recognition of his translation of Buddhist

classics, Li Shimin especially wrote “An Introduction to the Sacred Teachings of Monk Tripitaka of the Great Tang Dynasty”, followed by Emperor Gao Zong’s “Notes on ‘An Introduction to the Sacred Teachings of Monk Tripitaka of the Great Tang Dynasty’ ”. Xuan Zhuang founded the

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

218

Dharmalaksana sect, but it declined after a short time.

Based

on his interpretation of the Avatamsaka-sutra, Fa Zang (642712) founded the Avatamsaka sect, which existed for a con¬ siderable length of time in China and spread to Korea and Japan.

Shen Xiu (606-706) and Hui Neng (638-713) were

founders respectively of the northern and southern branches of the Chan sect.

The southern branch first gained ground

in a few southern regions and gradually spread to the north to take the place of the northern branch and attain nation¬ wide influence. Later, the southern branch also found its way abroad.

The fourth major Buddhist sect of Tang was the

Tiantai sect, named because it had originated in the Sui period from the area of Tiantai Mountain in Zhejiang Province.

By

the late Tang period, the Chan sect had grown so influential that it virtually became the only Buddhist sect in China. Monk Dao Xuan (596-667) was a learned Buddhist historian, who joined Xuan Zhuang in translating Buddhist scriptures and compiled

the

books

Extensive

Teachings

and

Sequel

to

Biographies of Venerable Monks. Monk Yi Jing (635-713) also made a pilgrimage to India, where he stayed for 25 years and collected 400 Sanskrit Buddhist books. On his homeward journey he wrote The Record of the Buddhist Practices Sent Home from the Southern Sea and Biographies of the Venerable Monks of the Great Tang Dynasty Who Studied Buddhist Classics in the Western Regions.

After returning to China, he

translated 56 Buddhist books with a total of 230 juan. As a religious faith which, encouraged by royalty, had a mass following, Buddhism left a deep mark in the political, economic and cultural spheres during the height of Tang. To pray and to propagate Buddhist doctrines to fprtify its own rule, the royal house had many pagodas and temples erected and grottoes dug. These were invariably embellished with sculptures and paintings, which explains the large member of Tang engravings and graphic arts to be found in Tang Dynasty temples and grottoes. Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang have

�CHAPTER VII

219

1,352 caves, 750 niches and 97,000 Buddhist images, more than half of which belong to the height of Tang. Of the carved stone statues, the most famous are housed in Fengxian Temple. In Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, there are 492 caves with more than 2,100 coloured sculptured figures and murals covering more than 45,000 square metres, many of which date back to the golden age of Tang. These artistic gems at Longmen and Dunhuang are executed by a perfect combination of the Indian and traditional Chinese methods. Tang sculptures and paintings were not confined to Buddhist architecture alone; many of them were also found in imperial palaces and mausoleums. Great names in Tang sculpture and painting included Wu Daozi, the “sage painter”; Yang Huizhi, the “sage sculptor”; and Song Fazhi and Wu Zhimin, both of the early Tang period. The figure paintings by Yan Lide, the landscapes by Wang Wei (699-759) and Li Shixun (648-713), the portraits of women of noble birth by Zhang Xuan (early 8th century) and Zhou Fang, and the paintings of horses by Cao Ba and Han Gan (early 8th century) are all masterpieces of the golden age of Tang or a little later. Taoism, which came into its own as a religious faith during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, won special royal favour in the Tang period, because Li Er, who was supposed to be its founder, had the same family name as the ruling house. Taoist priests were invited by Tang emperors to im¬ perial palaces to make elixir pills for immortal life. In one of his edicts, Li Shimin explicitly said that Taoist priests and nuns should be given priority over Buddhist monks and nuns. Emperor Gao Zong conferred on Li Er the posthumous title of the Supreme Emperor of the Profound Heavens. During the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong, many temples were erected to Li Er’s memory on royal order, and the Taoist classics Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi were designated as musts in imperial civil examinations. Still, Buddhism had far more influence than Taoism.

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Fu Yi (555-639), an atheist scholar, and Lti Cai (600-665), a philosopher, were vocal in their opposition to religious super¬ stition in the thick religious atmosphere of the early Tang period. In 624, Fu Yi appealed to Emperor Gao Zu to abolish Buddhism. He pointed out that life and death were natural phenomena and that it was the sovereign’s business to impose penalties or act with compassion. He considered it the height of absurdity to give these powers to Buddha and argued that by doing so, Buddhism was usurping the powers of the sovereign. According to him, Buddhist monks and nuns just sat around doing nothing but evading rent and tax payment, and should be ordered to return to the laity, engage in pro¬ ductive efforts, get married and bear children to increase the nation’s revenue and military strength. Knowledgeable about divination, astrology and astronomy, Lti Cai took advantage of Emperor Tai Zong’s assigning him to collate and systematize books on divination and astrology to voice his opposition to fatalism and other superstitious beliefs.

He cited a wealth of

historical facts to show that one’s life or death, longevity or premature death, proverty or wealth, and high or low position are determined more by one’s own action than by one’s horoscope or the location of one’s ancestral tombs. These ideas of Fu Yi and Lti Cai are invaluable, especially in view of the context of their time. Confucianism remained as a weapon used by the court to control people’s ideology. Li Shimin authorized Yan Shigu to collate and edit the texts of the “Five Classics” — the Book of Changes, Book of History, Book of Odes, Book of Rites and Zuo Qiuming’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn An¬ nals. Later, he entrusted Kong Yinda and others with writing explanatory notes for the Five Classics. These notes were circulated throughout the country under the title chosen by Emperor Gao Zong himself, Annotations to the Five Classics. With uniform interpretations stipulated by royalty of the Confucian classics, little change has ever been made in Confucian doctrines.

Turmoil in the Mid-Tang Period

The middle period of the Tang Dynasty, the years 742-820, was a period of disorderly government, strife between the court and independent local forces, and discord among na¬ tionalities. But despite the constant turmoil which brought suffering to the people and damaged the social economy, culture managed to advance. The disorder was caused by the corrupt policies of Emperor Xuan Zong (712-56), which fostered the eight-year An Lushan-Shi Siming Rebellion. Though the rebellion was quelled in 763, it seriously hurt the rule of the Tang Dynasty. As an example of his perverted practices, Emperor Xuan Zong in 742 changed his reign title to “Tian Bao” and at the same time called himself “Emperor with Sage Literary Attainment and Godly Prowess.” He also invented a story about Heaven favouring him with a divine list of attributes to hint that he enjoyed sacred protection, was deft with the writing brush and with the sword, and was both a sage and a deity. The em¬ peror’s odd behaviour indicated that he was so politically de¬ tached he believed nothing could interfere with his rule. However, inherent in his pipe-dreams were latent contradic¬ tions — contradictions which, when they surfaced, pounded the Tang regime. Several of Emperor Xuan Zong’s most trusted men began to appear in the political arena in 742 to help dig the grave of the Tang Dynasty. His prime minister, Li Linfu, was an in¬ sidious man, who used his power to persecute those with talent, who had performed meritorious services, who enjoyed high prestige or who crossed his path. He went even further to implicate his enemies’ family members, relatives, friends, colleagues and subordinates. Yang Guozhong, a worse villain, took over after Li Linfu’s death in 752. Also in Emperor Xuan Zong’s good graces was An Lushan, who took advantage of the emperor’s stupidity to acquire influence and power to the point where he was able to mount a successful rebellion

�222

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

against the throne in 755. An Lushan steadily came into the limelight by currying royal favour and through the good words put in for him by Li Linfu and the emperor’s close attendants and favourite concubines. In 742, he was appointed the mili¬ tary satrap of Pinglu, which had its seat at Yingzhou (west of modern Jingzhou, Liaoning). In the following 10 years, he was concurrently appointed the military satrap of Fanyang, which had its seat at Youzhou (now Beijing), the inspector of the Hebei Circuit, and the military satrap of Hedong, which had its seat at present-day Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province. His jurisdiction covered modern Beijing, Hebei and Shanxi and parts of Liaoning, Shandong and Henan, and he had a strong, large force under his command. His political ambi¬ tions kept pace with his increasing power. Yang Yuhuan, the most favoured in Emperor Xuan Zong’s harem, was connected with both Yang Guozhong, who was her cousin, and An Lu¬ shan, who was her adopted son. Her family members and rel¬ atives all held important posts and were so influential that they made no bones about openly taking bribes. Gao Lishi, a long-time eunuch close to the emperor, was also an influential personage, to whom both Li Linfu and An Lushan owed their support. In late 755, An Lushan led a force of 150,000 in a southward march. Hebei and other places were a shambles and yet the muddleheaded Emperor Xuan Zong refused to believe army reports of An Lushan’s rebellion. In early 756, the rebels crossed the Huanghe River and captured Chenliu, Xingyang and Luoyang. Having proclaimed himself Emperor of Great Yan at Luoyang, An Lushan sent a force to attack Tongguan, the gateway to the Tang capital Chang’an. After the fall of Tongguan, Emperor Xuan Zong, Yang Yuhuan and Yang Guo¬ zhong fled in panic towards Chengdu, accompanied by the heir-apparent, a small number of officials and the Imperial Guards. When the royal party reached Maweiyi west of modern Xingping County, Shaanxi Province, the soldiers in his retinue refused to go any farther unless the emperor put

�CHAPTER VII

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Yang Guozhong and Yang Yuhuan to death. Only after Yang Guozhong had been beheaded and Yang Yuhuan hanged did the party resume its trek west. Soon afterwards, Chang’an fell easily to the rebels. The heir-apparent, Li Heng, stayed at Maweiyi to take care of military affairs. Then he went to Lingwu (northwest of present Lingwu County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region), where he ascended the throne to be known in history as Em¬ peror Su Zong. Meanwhile, Li Mi, who had been on Li Heng’s staff while he was heir-apparent, also arrived at Lingwu, to be followed by General Guo Ziyi with a crack force of 50,000. Both Li Mi and Guo Ziyi were great statesmen and military strategists of the mid-Tang period. Although Emperor Su Zong was not always ready to take their advice, they managed later to help him recapture Chang’an. Another military strategist, Li Guangbi, also distinguished himself in quelling the rebellion. In 757, An Lushan was killed by his son, An Qingxu who set himself up as emperor. That same year, Guo Ziyi defeated An Qingxu and recaptured Chang’an and Luoyang.

In 759,

An Lushan’s subordinate general, Shi Siming, murdered An Qingxu and usurped the throne of Great Yan. In his turn, Shi Siming was killed by his son, Shi Chaoyi, in 761. Two years later, Shi Chaoyi hanged himself after being defeated. This brought to an end the eight-year An Lushan-Shi Siming Re¬ bellion. After the rebellion was quelled, the former subordinates of An Lushan and Shi Siming outwardly accepted court mandates while actually preserving their independent forces. From then on, it was customary for officers and men of the frontier commanderies to choose their own commanding generals, and the positions of military satraps became hered¬ itary — a practice which the Tang court dared not change. Emperor De Zong tried to change this situation by bringing pressure to bear on the local independent forces, but to no avail.

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

In 805, Li Chun, historically known as Emperor Xian Zong, ascended the throne to become a politically alert sovereign. Assisted by his competent prime ministers Li Jiang and Pei Du, he succeeded in healing the splits that had lasted for long years since the An Lushan-Shi Siming Rebellion. In 806, he put down a rebellion by the Chengdu-based Liu Pi and, in 807, another by Li Qi in the areas around Zhenjiang. Beginning in 807, he changed the practice of local independent forces’ choosing their own commanding generals in favour of the em¬ peror’s direct appointment of military satraps. From 815 to 817, he suppressed a rebellion by Wu Yuanji, military satrap of Zhangyi based in Caizhou (now Runan County, Henan). In 818, the satraps of Henghai (based in Cangzhou) and Youzhou filed petitions pledging their allegiance to the court. That same year, Emperor Xian Zong launched a punitive campaign against the disloyal Li Shidao, satrap of Ziqing. The follow¬ ing year, the expeditionary force killed Li Shidao and re¬ covered Ziqing satrapy, which was the most powerful of all, covering almost the whole of modern Shandong Province and small parts of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

This put

an end to the separatist regimes of the military satraps and brought about a temporary national unification.

At the same

time, however, the power of palace eunuchs had steadily grown so that even Emperor Xian Zong himself was murdered by them the year after he suppressed the Ziqing rebellion. The attainment of power by palace eunuchs started in the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong when he entrusted Gao Lishi with the handling of the memorials presented by his officials. Emperor Su Zong continued this policy and, on his return to Chang’an, set a precedent for giving eunuchs access to military power by putting the eunuch Li Fuguo in charge of the Im¬ perial Guards. Li Fuguo had earlier sided with the supporters of the emperor when he acceded to the throne at Lingwu. The emperor also appointed another eunuch, Yu Chao’en, as army supervisor, for fear that he might not be able to control Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi and other generals who had distinguished

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themselves in quelling the An Lushan-Shi Siming Rebellion. Emperor Su Zong died of shock in 762 when Li Fuguo and another eunuch, Cheng Yuanzhen, killed Empress Zhang Liangdi and put Heir-Apparent Li Yu on the throne. Li Yu, historically known as Emperor Dai Zong, took advantage of the conflicts between the eunuchs and killed Li Fuguo. He continued, however, to place confidence in Cheng Yuanzhen and Yu Chao’en. Only because of strong opposition from his ministers did he dismiss the two eunuchs and stop appointing eunuchs as army supervisors. But palace eunuchs regained their power during the reign of Emperor De Zong when the emperor survived a mutiny with their protection, and once again appointed them as Imperial Guards superintendents and army supervisors. Emperor Xian Zong, who had ascended the throne through eunuch support, was murdered by eunuchs because he refused to allow them to manipulate him. Discord among nationalities figured prominently in the mid-Tang turmoil.

The Tufans stormed into Chang’an in 763,

at a time when the Tang military strength was depleted by the An Lushan-Shi Siming Rebellion. After their evacuation of Chang’an under the pressure of Guo Ziyi’s troops, the city was in a terrible state with many of its buildings reduced to rubble. Constant wars continued between the Tang and the Tufans until both sides were too weak to carry on. The Southern Zhao had been on good terms with Tang dur¬ ing the early period of Xuan Zong’s reign, and its ruler had accepted titles of honour conferred on him by the Tang em¬ peror. During the last years of Emperor Xuan Zong, when King Geluofeng of the Southern Zhao came to the Tang Em¬ pire on a return visit, he was humiliated by a subordinate of Xianyu Zhongtong, military satrap of Jiannan, and so he shifted his allegiance to the Tufans in confrontation with the Tang. Although he had helped the Tufans attack Chang’an, King Geluofeng believed that he had done so against his original intention, and expressed his warm feelings for Tang in an inscription on a stele erected at Taihe (now Dali County,

�226

OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

Yunnan Province). During the reign of Emperor De Zong, thanks to the good offices of Wei Gao, military satrap of Jiannan, the Southern Zhao renounced its allegiance to the Tufans and reconciled with Tang. Then it joined the Tang troops led by Wei Gao in a succession of victorious battles against the Tufans. Poetry flourished in the mid-Tang period, with Li Bai and Du Fu as the two greatest poets of the time. Li Bai (701-762), a romanticist master, has been known for more than 10 centuries as a “poet-immortal”. And Du Fu (712-70), was a master of realism whose poetry has been described as “poetic history”. Li Bai liked to travel, and many of his poems sing of the beauty of the scenic areas he visited. In 742, he was summoned at the age of 42 to the capital where — held in esteem by Emperor Xuan Zong and the courtiers — his fame as a poet spread far and wide. Three years in court service broadened his poetic vision although it also brought him in touch with the corruption and decadence of official circles. Many of his works survive today, the best-known being “The Steep Road to Shu”, “An Exhortation”, “An Elegy” and “His Dream of the Sky-Land: A Farewell Poem”. With their un¬ restrained feeling, rich imagination and unique style, Li Bai’s poems often strike a responsive chord in readers’ hearts. Speaking of Li Bai’s accomplishments at the time, his con¬ temporary Du Fu said: “His writing brush sweeps like a thunderstorm, his lines touch the hearts of ghosts and spirits.” Du Fu, an erudite man of letters, lived in Chang’an around the time of An Lushan’s rebellion where he was an eye-witness to the corruption of the Tang ruling group and the barbarity of the rebels. Later, his life as a wartime refugee gave him a better understanding of the sufferings of the common people with whom he was thrown during those harsh years. His poetry mirrored the times in which he lived an<J' truthfully reflected his own concern for the destiny of his country and the plight of his people. Du Fu had a lasting influence on the development of realist Chinese poetry. Many of his poems

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227

are also extant, of which the most famous are “The Xin’an Official”, “The Officer at Tongguan”, “The Shihao Official”, “Lament of the New Wife”, “The Homeless” and “The Old Man Returns to War”. Of these two great masters Li Bai and Du Fu, another noted Tang poet, Han Yu, wrote: “The writings of Li and Du never lose their charm, radiating rays of light a hundred thousand feet high”. Han Yu (768-824) and Bai Juyi (Pai Chu-yi) (772-846) were great poets in the latter part of the mid-Tang period, each with a style of his own. Carrying on the realist tradition characteristic of Du Fu, Bai Juyi wrote a great number of satirical poems in which he drew on typical instances to ex¬ pose the corruption of the official circles and the tribulations of the common people. Easy to understand and filled with realism, many of his poems were also histories in verse and filled in omissions in history books. His ten “Shaanxi Songs” and fifty “New Folk Songs” were written with realistic brushstrokes. His two narrative poems, “The Eternal Grief” and “A Singsong Girl”, gained popularity for their high artistic merits. His Anthology of Bai Juyi is still read today. The noted poets Yuan Zhen and Wang Jian shared Bai Juyi’s approach to creative writing, and the three together formed a distinguished school in their time.

Yuan Zhen was as famous

as Bai Juyi, their names often being mentioned at the same time. The Anthology of Yuan Zhen has been handed down to posterity. The poems of Han Yu are marked by profundity and compactness, quite unlike Bai Juyi’s, and owe their at¬ tractiveness to a fresh and virile style. Han Yu as well as Meng Jiao, Lu Tong, Jia Dao and Li He represented another school in Tang poetry. Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi were con¬ temporary poets with Han Yu but with a different style. Both Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan (773-819) enjoyed a greater fame as prosaists than as poets. As great prose writers, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan con¬ tributed to changing the rhythmical prose style current since the Jin period, which was marked by parallelism and or-

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nateness and a jumbling together of allusions and set phrases. Han Yu stood for carrying on the fine traditions of ancient prose writing, primarily substantiality and originality in con¬ tent, and opposed following set rules and patterns. His prose and essays were forceful, digressive and yet lucid, the bestknown being “Esteem Teachers”, “On Slanders”, “In Refuta¬ tion of Avoidance of Using the Personal Names of People in Superior Stations”, “The Scholar’s Apology”, “Memorial of Remonstrance Against the Worship of Buddha’s Bones” and “In Memory of My Nephew”. Liu Zongyuan was second in importance only to Han Yu in the reform of writing style. His prose pieces were much on the theoretical exposition side, while his travelogues were fresh and minutely descriptive, often with his gloomy mood thrown in. The work of both Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan have been in circulation to this day. The new style of writing encouraged by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan was closer to the vernacular than the rhythmical style. As it promoted relating events and expressing thoughts and feelings, it exerted an extensive influence over literary and cultural developments. For instance, under the new style, the zhuan qi (tales and romances about marvels and strange phenomena, mainly love stories), which had appeared in the early Tang period, began to flourish.

Many of these tales and

romances were contained in the Taiping Miscellany.

The best-

known were The Story of Liu Yi by Li Chaowei, The Story of Huo Xiaoyu by Jiang Fang, The Story of a Singsong Girl by Bai Xinjian and The Story of Yingying by Yuan Zhen. The Story of Yingying was to be widely adapted by later writers. Some scholars believe that the new style of writing also promoted the appearance of bian wen. While preaching Bud¬ dhist doctrines, Buddhist monks in the Tang period often told mystic stories from Buddhist classics, which were^called bian wen (telling a story in a popular version). Folk story-tellers at the time also adopted the bian wen in recounting folk tales and historical stories. Viewed in the development of literary and artistic forms, both zhuan qi and bian wen were the pre-

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cursors of the later hua ben (prompt books), popular tales, drama and fiction. Though they were important partners in the practice and promotion of creative prose writing, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan differed in philosophy. Han Yu held idealist philosophical concepts, much as he had opposed the worship of Buddha’s bones and the preaching of Buddhist doctrines at a time when Buddhism was in full glory. Calling for the need of defending orthodox Confucianism, he spared no effort to preach the Confucian doctrines of benevolence and righteousness. He believed in the will of Heaven and held that feudal rule was dictated by Heaven. As a materialist philosopher, Liu Zongyuan believed that the universe was made of dynamic original matter and that there was nothing mysterious about heaven, earth or orig¬ inal matter, which were all products of nature. He held that objective trends or conditions led to human development from men’s inability to feed and defend themselves at first to their being able to use certain tools for survival and then to set up sovereigns, leaders and government.

Liu Zongyuan’s evolu¬

tionary view of history was quite progressive in his time. Liu Yuxi (772-842) was close to Liu Zongyuan in his think¬ ing. In his article “On Heaven” he tried to explore the rela¬ tionship between heaven and human beings and held that while both were capable of many feats, neither was omnipotent. Heaven could produce many things, he said, while humans could control many things. According to him, the relationship between heaven and human beings was that of “mutual strug¬ gle” and “mutual use”. Some of Liu Yuxi’s works are still available today. There were great scholars in historical studies in the mid-Tang period, including Du You (734-813). His 200-juan Encyclopaedia contained data and reviews on finance, economy, selection of officials, government, military and judiciary sys¬ tems, and administrative divisions of the various dynasties. Focusing on finance and economy, he chronicled the important political developments from the dawn of history — a signifi-

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

230

cant innovation in Chinese historiography. Some of his views are penetrating and incisive even by modern standards. The book provides a well-documented history of the Tang Dynasty in its earlier periods. Du You gained rich experience through his service as an administrative and financial official in both central and local government. This, combined with his deep learning, made it possible for him to complete this voluminous work in little more than 30 years, ending in 801. The Tang Dynasty produced a galaxy of calligraphers, of whom the most influential was Yan Zhenqing. Yan Zhenqing (709-785) won fame for his zheng kai (regular script), which was marked by elegance and majesty — a new style considered by later generations as the orthodox school in Chinese calligraphy.

The Decline of the Tang Empire and the Late-Tang Peasant Uprisings

The late-Tang period, or the period of decline of the Tang empire, covered 87 years, 820-907, during which palace eunuchs held sway at the court and courtiers formed coteries, the two conspiring with and struggling against each other. On the local level, each frontier commander tried to carve out his own sphere of influence, while the frontier districts themselves were each torn by internal strife. Finally, large-scale peasant uprisings brought down the Tang regime amid a continuous growth of the power of the eunuchs and frontier commanders. After the murder of Emperor Xian Zong by eunuchs, seven out of the next eight emperors were brought to the throne through eunuch support. The only exception, Emperor Jing Zong, was killed by eunuchs. Before putting a new emperor on the throne, eunuchs invariably deposed or assassinated the legitimate successor, dismissed or murdered some of the cour¬ tiers, and killed those eunuchs who were against them. Eunuchs had gained power over the Imperial Guards since the mid-Tang period and had become a special force in the palaces.

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They often had their own way with the emperor, controlling him by encouraging him to indulge in dissipation and pleasure¬ seeking and to shun the company of his wise ministers. In 831, Prime Minister Song Shenxi plotted to get rid of the eunuch Wang Cheng but was demoted to a local official when his scheme was exposed. Four years later, the eunuch Chou Shiliang killed the courtiers Li Xun and Zheng Zhu, who had conspired to assassinate him, as well as several thousand people who were found guilty by association. In 854, a secret plan proposed by Prime Minister Linghu Tao to the emperor for restricting eunuch power was discovered by eunuchs and further aroused their hatred for courtiers. Each setback sustained by courtiers only served to increase the power of the eunuchs and further undermine the foundation of the Tang regime. The courtiers’ coterie strife was mainly the strife between one faction headed by Niu Sengru and Li Zongmin and another headed by Li Deyu. It began when Li Deyu, out of personal grudge, tried to squeeze out Li Zongmin who then joined with Niu Sengru to attach themselves to eunuchs for protection. Li Deyu won Emperor Wu Zong’s confidence in the years 840-846 when he was Prime Minister. With his help, the emperor freed the northwestern regions from harassment by certain Uygur tribes, put down a rebellion by the military satrap of Zhaoyi, weakened direct eunuch interference with certain military moves, demolished or closed down large numbers of Buddhist, Taoist, Nestorian, Zoroastrian and Manichaean temples and monasteries, and cut down unnecessary local officials. The Tang court during the reign of Emperor Wu Zong owed its re¬ juvenation largely to the political and military talent of Prime Minister Li Deyu. Wu Zong’s successor, Emperor Xuan Zong, did exactly the opposite and removed Li Deyu to put members of the Niu Sengru faction in important posts. After being de¬ moted four times, Li Deyu died at Yazhou (modern Qiongshan County, Guangdong) in 849. The defeat of Li Deyu’s faction hastened the decline of the Tang regime.

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Most prominent in the scramble for spheres of influence were the three frontier commands in modern Hebei Province, namely, Youzhou (now Beijing), Chengde (now Zhengding), and Weibo (now Darning), whose rulers were actually succes¬ sors to An Lushan. They all offered their allegiance to the court during the reign of Emperor Xian Zong but declared their independence immediately after the emperor’s death. The three frontier commands were themselves torn by incessant power plays involving the murder of commanding generals and the appointment of new ones of their own choice. The Tang court, being on its last legs, recognized each new general and did nothing to reassert its authority over these frontier regions. The people there fared ever worse as did those under the direct rule of the Tang court. Driven to desperation, they rose in rebellion. In January 860, when Qiu Fu led a hundred people in revolt in eastern Zhejiang, impoverished peasants flocked to join him by the thousand. After they had taken Xiangshan and Yanxran (modern Shengxian County, Zhejiang), their ranks quick¬ ly swelled to well over 30,000. Qiu Fu was chosen as the Gen¬ eralissimo Under Heaven, with Luo Ping as his reign title. The insurgent army fought for six months before it was defeated. In 868, led by Pang Xun, the frontier guards at Yongzhou (around modern Nanning City, Guangxi) staged a mutiny and captured some prefectures and counties.

On their way to Xu-

zhou, where they originally had come from, they were joined by poverty-stricken peasants, many of them women, to become a massive force of more than 200,000. They fought bitterly for fourteen months until they too were defeated. These two peasant uprisings were preludes to a yet larger one in 874, when Wang Xianzhi, a native of Puzhou, rose in revolt with several thousand men at Changyuan* (northeast of modern Changyuan County, Henan). Shortly affer, Huang Chao, a native of Caozhou (north of modern Caoxian County, Shandong), responded by rising with several thousand men. The insurgents defeated Tang troops, took Caozhou and Puzhou

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and grew into a force several tens of thousands strong. From Shandong they swept into Henan, where they captured many towns and cities, extending their influence south of the Huaihe River. After Wang Xianzhi was killed in battle in 878, Huang Chao took over the command under the name of HeavenStorming General and led the peasant army across the Changjiang River to Zhejiang, Fujian and then to Guangzhou in the far south. In 879, under the name of Heaven-Ordained Equalization General, Huang Chao issued a proclamation denouncing the misrule of the Tang court and led his men in a northward drive. He captured many towns on his way, fight¬ ing from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui to Zhejiang and swelling his ranks to hundreds of thou¬ sands. In 880, the peasant forces took Luoyang. Marching west from Luoyang, they captured first the strategic pass of Tongguan and then Chang’an, the Tang capital. The people of Chang’an lined the streets in welcome as the well-disciplined peasant rebels marched into the city. They were told that Huang Chao had revolted to save the common people — unlike the Li royal house who cared nothing about their well-being — and that they should go about their business as usual and settle down to a peaceful life. Huang Chao proclaimed himself em¬ peror at Chang’an and called his new regime the Great Qi. However, being always on the move and without base areas of support, the insurgents had not been able to consolidate their gains from their many victories, nor had they wiped out the main forces of the Tang regime. Around the time of the inauguration of Huang Chao’s new dynasty, the Tang govern¬ ment mustered reinforcements from all parts of the country to throw a tight cordon around Chang’an and cut off its food supplies. Meanwhile, disorganization took place among the insurgent army and each of its influential commanders began to fight on his own in defiance of Huang Chao’s orders. One of them,

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Zhu Wen, turned his back on Huang Chao and went over to the Tang side. In its fight against the peasant forces, the Tang court enlisted the support of the Shatuo* under Li Keyong. In 883, Li Keyong crossed the Huanghe River in northern Shanxi and fought his way to the vicinity of Chang’an. Huang Chao led his remnant forces east to Henan and then to Shandong. He killed himself in 884 after being cornered near Mount Taishan. The peasant war had lasted 10 solid years and had engulfed half of China, exceeding all previous peasant wars in scale. In calling himself Heaven-Ordained Equalization Gen¬ eral, Huang Chao — although not expressing this in any official slogan — did voice the insurgents’ demand for equality between high and low and between rich and poor. In this sense, Huang Chao’s uprising can be considered a cut above all previous peasant revolts that aimed only at opposing enslave¬ ment and striving for survival. Both the eunuchs and frontier commanders took advantage of the chaotic situation arising from the peasant war to expand their own influence. After the peasant army had taken Tongguan, the eunuch in power, Tian Lingzi forced Emperor Xi Zong to flee to Chengdu. He took arbitrary power over every¬ thing in defiance of the emperor and put his numerous adopted sons in command of the armed forces. At the same time, he sent many of his trusted followers to spy on local officials and trumped up charges against those who refused to do his bid¬ ding. The new frontier commanders, Zhu Wen and Li Keyong, who had built up their power in the process of suppressing the peasant uprising, were more ambitious than the others who drew the line at carving out local spheres of influence. After the defeat of Huang Chao, the frontier commanders in their scramble for independent domains began to embroil themselves in a tangled warfare, while the eunuchs and cour¬ tiers, with the sharpening of the contradictions between them,

• A branch of the Western Turks which inhabited the northern

part of modern Shanxi and attached itself to the Tang under Emperor De Zong.

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each tried to court the frontier commanders in the hope of gaining external support. The frontier commanders, on their part, all struggled to lay hold of the emperor as their political capital, and even scrambled several times for the person of Emperor Zhao Zong. Beginning in 896, Zhu Wen banded to¬ gether with the prime minister Cui Yin to form a coterie. The influence of the palace eunuchs were wiped out to the last vestige in 903, when Zhu Wen and Cui Yin started a massacre of the eunuchs at Fengxiang (in modern Shaanxi Province) and Chang’an and of those sent to the various places as army su¬ pervisors. In 904, Zhu Wen murdered Emperor Zhao Zong and put Li Zhu on the throne, who was later known as Emperor Zhao Xuan Di. Three years later, he deposed Zhao Xuan Di and proclaimed himself emperor of the Liang Dynasty, usher¬ ing in the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States. Li Keyong and a few other frontier commanders still held their own spheres of influence at the time. In the late Tang period, when the Tufan was on the decline, it ceased to pit itself against the Tang empire. In 822, the Tu¬ fan ruler met with the emissary of the Tang emperor Mu Zong at Lhasa to discuss the alliance between the Tufan and the Tang, and a Monument of Unity was erected in front of the Jokhan Monastery the following year. Later, the Tufan was torn by a prolonged split, which ended only in the second half of the 13th century when it accepted the rule of the Yuan em¬ pire. After the Uygur Khanate was conquered by its subordi¬ nate tribe Xiajiasi in 840, the Uygurs moved west to the Tianshan Mountains area and became the ancestors of the Uygur people in present-day Xinjiang. During the late Tang period, the Southern Zhao was on very bad terms with the Tang as it frequently raided the empire’s southwestern frontiers. In 830, the Southern Zhao troops stormed into Chengdu and kidnapped tens of thousands of people, many of them handi¬ craftsmen. In 861, they attacked Yongzhou and carried off many of its inhabitants. In 870, they laid siege to Chengdu once again. In 875, the Tang government appointed Gao Pian

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Military Satrap of Xichuan, who, after a bitter fight, drove the Southern Zhao troops across the Dadu River. In 902, the state of the Southern Zhao was lost to one of its powerful ministers. After more than 30 years of turmoil, a noble named Duan of the Baiman tribe established the Dali Kingdom in the former domain of the Southern Zhao. With the weakening of the empire, late Tang culture was also on the decline, with only a sprinkling of poets, notably Du Mu and Li Shangyin, lamenting over their personal mis¬ fortunes and the plight of the empire. Du Mu (803-53) was a grandson of Du You, author of The Encyclopaedia. Some of his poetic works reflected his worry and anger over the mis¬ rule of the government and the decline of the empire. His famous work, “Ode to the Epang (Efang) Palace”, expressed his disapproval of the late Tang emperors’ depraved life by casti¬ gating the misdeeds of an ancient emperor. His equally wellknown poems, “Spring Comes to the South” and “Lying at Anchor on the Qinhuai River”, revealed his concern for events of his day between the lines of landscape description. In his earlier days, Li Shangyin (813-58) had written a number of poems giving free flow to his personal aspirations and his dis¬ content with the way eunuchs scrambled for power and fron¬ tier commanders for spheres of influence.

In his later years,

many of his poems breathed his disappointment over his un¬ successful official career. His achievements served as an epilogue of the golden age of Tang poetry. There rose to prominence a new verse form, the ci, in the late Tang period when the traditional type of poetry, shi, was losing ground. The ci is a lyric with lines of irregular length set to a certain melody. The number of sentences, the number of words in each sentence, the rhyming and the tonal pattern are all governed by definite rules. The ci first appeared ap¬ proximately in the early Tang period. Judging from the ci set to music in Dunhuang Grottoes, it might have developed from folk ballads. The mid-Tang poets, Liu Yuxi and Bai Juyi, were great ci writers, whose ci verses, “Yi Jiang Nan” (“Recollections of the South”) and “Chang Xiang Si” (“Everlasting. Love”), have become well-known ci melody names. Wen Tingjun (c. 812-c. 870) and Wei Zhuang (c. 836-910) were famous ci writers of the later Tang period, whose works, together with those of the well-known ci writers of the Five Dynasties and Ten States period, were contained in the Collection of Flowers. and they were known as the “Flowery School”. The ci writers of this school were given to florid descriptions of love and the appearance and costumes of women at a time when society was in chaos. They left to posterity nothing but some technique of ci writing. As far as content and message were concerned, their ci verses were far inferior to those by the noted ci writ¬ ers of the Song Dynasty.

The Development of Social Productive Forces

Agriculture leapt forward from the Three Kingdoms through the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Sui to the Tang period. As a whole, agricultural production was more advanced in the north than in the south as shown in The Manual of Important Arts for the People, a systematic sum¬ ming-up of farming in the north written by Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The book covers a wide range of sub¬ jects, including sowing, cultivation, farm tools, tree planting, animal husbandry, veterinary science, sericulture (production of raw silk through the raising of silk worms), fish farming and the processing and preservation of farm produce.

It em¬

phasizes the need to adapt agricultural production to local con¬ ditions and to do farm work in the right season, arguing that this is the key to more gains with less effort. It also points out the need to strive for high yields per unit area.n “Better reap good harvests over small areas than poor harvests V0ver large areas,” it says. Agricultural production in the north, as shown in the book, continued to grow despite the havoc wrought by successive wars during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

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Farm tools improved both in quality and variety. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao appointed Han Ji to popularize iron smelting by hydro-power blowers, resulting in the mass-production of iron farm tools. Animal-drawn ploughs were widely used during the Southern and Northern Dynas¬ ties. In the Sui-Tang period, a new type of plough was popu¬ larized, whose beam was designed to facilitate the mobility of the implement. It could be adjusted to work at varying depths and had 11 parts, its iron mould-board capable of depositing big earth clods on either side to make deep-ploughing easier. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, a new type of seeder was introduced, complete with a tool for covering the seeds with earth to promote their germination and growth. There were several kinds of implements for hoeing. By the Tang Dynasty, crescent-shaped sickles were used; they were better than the old ones which were slender at one end and thick at the other. Progress was made in water conservation. Famous irriga¬ tion works were repaired or built during the Three Kingdoms, the Eastern Jin, the Southern Dynasties and. the Sui period. According to rough estimates, 270 irrigation projects were built in the Tang period. A canal dug in the early Tang period served 40,000 hectares and another dug during the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong brought water to 20,000 hectares. The Tang gov¬ ernment set up a special bureau for water conservation admin¬ istration and promulgated decrees on river and canal control, irrigation, shipping and bridge engineering. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a man named Bi Lan invented the fan che (water lifting device) and ke wu (pump). Ma Jun of the state of Wei in the Three Kingdoms period improved the fan che so that even children could handle it. During the Tang Dynasty, water-carts with wooden pails attached to them for drawing water from wells appeared in the north. In the Changjiang River valley, there were water¬ wheels shaped like spinning wheels, with bamboo pails attached that were turned by force of water-flow to raise water from lower to higher points.

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In agricultural production, emphasis was placed on inten¬ sive farming, prevention of drought, retention of moisture, preservation and improvement of soil fertility, and the selec¬ tion of seed. Cultivating was done according to the four sea¬ sons with primary and secondary ploughings in each season and vertical or transverse ploughings for different depths. Meas¬ ures were developed to prevent dryness and waterlogging of the soil. One of these was constant hoeings in the course of crop growth which was considered important for increasing crop yields by preventing dryness and retaining moisture. New experience and information were gained about manure applica¬ tion, crop rotation and multiple cropping to preserve and raise the fertility of the soil.

Farmers of the Sui and Tang periods

also paid special attention to the selection of good seed strains, which was partly responsible for the many good harvests reaped at that time.

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, there

were 86 varieties of millet, the major food crop in the north, and 24 varieties of rice, the merits and demerits of which were well understood by the experienced peasants. The development of handicrafts also made swift progress. Ma Jun of the Three Kingdoms period made the old damask weaving loom easier to operate by changing the number of pedals from 50 and 60 to only 12. Silk weaving was fairly well developed in the state of Shu which found brisk demand for its silk fabrics in many other parts of the country. The weft patterning technique was introduced from Persia into China during the Tang Dynasty, which was then used on silk fabrics made for export to cater to foreign tastes. There was a wide range of textiles during the Tang Dynasty. Silk fabrics in¬ cluded brocade, pongee, gauze, damask and satin. In variety, the damask ranked first, brocade second and satin third. There was cloth made of ko-hemp, hemp, ramie and abaca (Manila hemp). In the northwest, woolen fabrics were woven from animal hair. In Gaochang in present-day Xinjiang, fine cloth was woven from cotton, which was not yet grown in the hinterland at that time,

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The salt industry expanded swiftly during the Tang Dynasty under the patronage of the court, and the salt tax was an important source of government revenue in the midTang period and afterwards. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, a new steel¬ making method was introduced, in which molten pig iron was poured on wrought iron to smelt it into good-quality steel by quenching with animal urine and grease. The steel produced by this process was hard but pliable, much better than that made by the previous repeated tempering method. This advanced method, which had a vital bearing on later genera¬ tions, was mentioned by Tao Hongjing (456-536), a scholar in the south, and used by Qiwu Huaiwen, a metallurgist in the north, in making swords and knives — which shows that the method was adopted in both southern and northern China at the time. Tea-making was a new industry developed in this period, although tea-growing dated back much earlier. During the Tang Dynasty, tea was grown in all the provinces in the south, with more than 20 famous varieties.

The present Qimen

County in Anhui Province and Huzhou City in Zhejiang Prov¬ ince were major tea-growers, and the tea tax was an important source of state revenue. The Book of Tea by Lu Yu (733-804) of the Tang Dynasty, the world’s first special primer of its kind, deals systematically with the cultivation of tea bushes and methods of tea-processing. Porcelain-making, an important Chinese invention, reached maturity in this period. (Primitive celadon, a green porcelain, appeared as early as the Shang Dynasty.) Different kinds of porcelain ware were produced in present-day Zhejiang, Jiang¬ xi, Anhui, Hunan, Sichuan, Fujian, Guangdong, Hebei and Henan provinces, the best-known being the celadon from the Yue Kilns in modern Shaoxing County, Zhejiang, and the white porcelain from the Xing Kilns in modern Neiqiu County, Hebei. Besides ordinary articles for daily use, porcelain was used during the Tang Dynasty to make exquisite art objects,

-

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

such as the lively tribesmen on horse or camel backs and the different kinds of animals unearthed in various parts of Chi¬ na. The present porcelain city of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Prov¬ ince was already the leading producer at that time, whose high quality products were much sought after both at home and abroad. Paper-making technique had improved by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and in the period from 220 to 907 paper was used as writing material instead of bamboo and silk. It was widely used for many other purposes, such as the paper money burned at funeral services. Paper-making reached a high level of development in the Tang period, when paper of different types and colours were produced from an abundant choice of materials, such as bast fibres, the bark of paper mulberry, common mulberry and rattan, bamboo, and stalks of wheat and rice. The paper made during the Tang Dynasty was internationally known for its even and fine texture, neatness and smoothness.

The fine, white, high-quality Yu

Ban Xuan paper made in Xuanzhou (modern Jingxian County, Anhui), now known as the Xuan paper, is still treasured by traditional Chinese painters and calligraphers today. Printing from engraved wood blocks appeared in the first years of the Tang Dynasty, or even earlier. Its forerunners were oracle bone engravings of the Shang-Zhou period, the seal and stone engravings of the pre-Qin period and the brick engravings of the Jin Dynasty. These engravings usually bore inscriptions (some of which were carved in the reverse direc¬ tion) and sometimes pictures. At first, wood-block printing was used in printed matter that was less voluminous but en¬ joyed wider circulation, such as Buddhist images and scrip¬ tures, almanacs and arithmetic booklets. Later,, even the an¬ thologies of poets like Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen wqre printed by this method. There were bookshops dealing specially in printed books in Chengdu in the late Tang period. The earliest extant printed book is the Diamond Sutra of 868, which is 16 feet long and one foot wide and made up of seven sheets of

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paper to form a juan (roll). Both printing from engraved blocks and paper-making are great inventions attributed to China. New advances were made in architecture and city plan¬ ning. Construction of Buddhist temples and pagodas became an important architectural occupation with the spread of Bud¬ dhism. Buddhist buildings in China, which bore an Indian stamp in the beginning, quickly blended with the traditional style of Chinese architecture. The plans of the Buddhist temples, including their pavilions, eaves and embellished walls, were all eloquent with Chinese flavour, as were the tower-like wooden pagodas and multi-eave brick pagodas. Chang’an, the capital of both the Sui and Tang dynasties and the largest city in the world at that time, is among the masterpieces of city planning in the history of Chinese architecture. Yuwen Kai (555-612), a famous architect of his time, was responsible for the city planning of Chang’an in the Sui period. Municipal construction continued during the Tang Dynasty. Chang’an in the Tang period covered an area of 84 square kilometres and consisted of a Palace City and an Im¬ perial City. There were 14 main streets running parallel from north to south and another 11 main streets running parallel from west to east, dividing the entire urban district into 108 neighbourhoods.

The Great Brightness Palace atop

the Dragon Head Hill on the northeastern outskirts provided a commanding view of the city. Water supply was convenient, with four canals flowing through it from south to north. Chang’an furnished for posterity a brilliant example of city planning. The Anji Bridge, the world’s oldest open-spandrel bridge built in the early Sui period by Li Chun and other craftsmen over the Xiaohe River at Zhaozhou (now Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province) is one of the engineering feats of China. The structure, spanning 37.37 metres and made up of 28 component arches placed side by side, is 50.82 metres long and 9 metres wide, with a gentle slope to facilitate traffic. It has two minor

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

arches at each of its two spandrels, which help lighten the weight of the main body, provide spillways for the water in time of flood and lend added majesty and grace to the bridge itself. The Anji Bridge, also known as the Zhaozhou Bridge, remains serviceable today despite the impact of the many serious floods and earthquakes of the past 1,300 years. Shipbuilding grew with the development of transport and communications. From the Tang Dynasty onward, Chinesebuilt ships constantly plied between Guangzhou and the Per¬ sian Gulf. Commerce flourished in Chang’an, Luoyang, Yangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Youzhou, Bianzhou (now Kaifeng, Henan) and Mingzhou (now Ningbo, Zhejiang). Guangzhou and Mingzhou were foreign trade ports during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

Chinese commodities found a ready market

in Japan, Arabia and a number of South China Sea countries, and its silk fabrics and porcelain wares were favourite luxuries of the aristocrats and rich people there. An ancient form of bill of exchange, known as fei qian (“flying money”), appeared during the Tang Dynasty.

Merchants who sold their goods

to commercial firms at Chang’an could get fei qian drafts with which they could draw money in other places, saving them the trouble of carrying large amounts of money with them on their trips. New successes were achieved in fields connected with productive endeavours, such as astronomy, recording of calendar time, hydrology and health and medicine. Yu Xi, an astronomer of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, discovered the pre¬ cession of the equinoxes. He held that the sun moved some¬ what west from the winter solstice of one year to the winter solstice of the next, instead of returning to its original posi¬ tion. According to his calculations based on "historical rec¬ ords, the sun moved one degree west every 50 years. Al¬ though his calculations missed being completely accurate, Yu Xi was the first in Chinese history to study the precession of the equinoxes. His study was carried on by He Chengtian

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of the Song period and Zu Chongzhi of the Song and Qi periods during the Southern Dynasties. The preces¬ sion as calculated by He Chengtian was one degree every 100 years, a little less than the true figure. Zu Chongzhi (429-500) was the first to apply the precession to the recording of calendar time. The Darning Calendar worked out by him was more accurate than all previous ones, the length of its tropical year being only 50 seconds wide of the length of the modern Gregorian Calendar. What distinguished Zu Chongzhi most was that he worked out the precise figure of % to be between 3.1415926 and 3.1415927, well over one thousand years earlier than did European mathematicians. The Tang Dynasty astron¬ omer, Monk Yi Xing (683-727), organized and directed a survey of the height of North Pole and the length of the shade of the sun — or the length of the meridian line — at 12 work centres in the country. He was the first in the world to carry out a scientific survey of the meridian. In hydrological studies, the Waterways Classic written by an unknown author of the Three Kingdoms period gives a brief account of the country’s 137 major waterways. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, Li Daoyuan (465- or 472-527) wrote a commentary on it, Commentary on “Waterways Clas¬ sic”, in which he quotes from more than 430 ancient books and draws on data based on his own on-the-spot investigations. Apart from explaining the waterways mentioned in the Waterways Classic he filled in an outline of 1,252 others, mak¬ ing his book 21 times as big as the Waterways Classic. Writ¬ ten with ease and grace, the Commentary is also a literary work. In medical science, A Treatise on Fevers by Zhang Zhongjing (Zhang Ji), a noted physician of the Three Kingdoms period, describes methods of treatment for different kinds of fevers and contains more than 100 prescriptions. His Gold Chest Dissertations deals with the symptoms of illnesses and ailments other than fevers as well as methods of treatment for them. Hua Tuo, a celebrated surgeon living at about the

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

same time as Zhang Zhongjing, used an anaesthetic for abdominal operations. He also attached great importance to physical exercise as a means to keep fit and devised a set of health-building exercises called “Five Animals’ Games” which consisted of imitating the movements of a tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird. During the Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Chinese medicine embraced eight branches: medical theory, acupuncture, diagnosis, pathology, herbal medicine, prescription, dietetics and veterinary science. Historical records show that surgical operations such as am¬ putation and harelip repair were performed. The 10-juan Treatise on the Pulse, the earliest extant treatise of its kind in China by the noted physician of the Jin Dynasty, Wang Shuhe, analyses twenty-four types of pulse and lays the theoretical basis for diagnosis by pulse-feeling. The Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Huangfu Mi (215-282), the earliest treatise on this subject, still remains in use today. The Prescriptions for Emergencies by Ge Hong (c. 284-364) is a collection of the tested prescriptions by celebrated doctors. As a specialist in refining elixir pills for immortality, he con¬ tributed to the development of pharmaceutical science through his knowledge about the chemical properties of mercury, suphur, lead, copper and iron. The Treatise on the Prepara¬ tion and Dispensing of Medicines and Drugs by Lei Xiao, a famous pharmacologist of the Southern and Northern Dyn¬ asties, has earned its place in China’s pharmaceutic history through its presentation of 17 methods of preparing medicines. Tao Hongjing contributed to the progress of pharmacology with his Supplement to “Prescriptions for Emergencies” and Annotations to “Emperor Shen Nong’s Materia Medica”, a book which added 365 drugs to the same number listed in Emperor Shen Nong’s Materia Medica and proposed methods for pharmacological classification. The Sui government estab¬ lished — and the Tang Dynasty further expanded — an Academy of Imperial Physicians and an Imperial Medical In¬ stitution to take care of court medical and health affairs and

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the training of medical personnel. A special work in the history of Chinese medicine, the Treatise on the Causes and Symptoms of Diseases which runs to 50 juan with 1,720 articles covering 67 disciplines, written by the Sui medical academician Chao Yuanfang in 610, discusses with thorough documentation the causes, pathological changes and symptoms of the diseases as viewed within such disciplines as internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics and the “five sense organs” (ear, eye, mouth, nose and tongue). On orders from the Tang emperor Gao Zong in 657, Su Jing, Zhangsun Wuji and others started work on the first government-authorized pharmacopoeia in the world, A New Compendium of Materia Medica, for which they had collected specimens and illustra¬ tions of medicines from various parts of the country. The 54juan book, completed in 659, consists of a catalogue of 844 drugs, including 400 corrected and 100 added after research. The Precious Prescriptions and Supplement to “Precious Prescriptions” by the outstanding Tang pharmacologist Sun Simiao (581-682) deal exhaustively with the diagnosis, preven¬ tion and treatment of diseases, especially gynecological diseases and child care. They record the collection and prep¬ aration of over 800 common drugs. Sun Simiao was honour¬ ed as “Master of Pharmacology” and temples were erected to cherish his memory. The Pharmacopoeia in Four Divisions, compiled by the celebrated Tufan medical scientist Yutuo Yuandangongbu during the mid-Tang period based on Tibetan folk experience with reference to medical works by Han authors, was an important work in Tibetan medicine. It was introduced to Mongolia and contributed greatly to the devel¬ opment of both Tibetan and Mongolian medicines.

The Development of Feudal Relations and the Feudalization of Regions Inhabited by Several Nationalities

Feudal relations developed in the period from the Three Kingdoms through the Tang Dynasty as private landowner-

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ship expanded within the feudal hierarchical system and changes took place in the status of both the landlords and the peasants, while the process of feudalization began in areas where several nationalities lived together. The landed aristocrats with hereditary titles of the QinHan period which had been decimated during the Yellow Turbans Uprising were replaced by landlords from privileged families who, like the landed aristocrats, enjoyed hereditary social status as well as economic and political privileges. But they were different in that they owned land which was not enfeoffed by the state but was handed down from generation to generation; they had under their control peasants and family servants who were not listed in government register and were therefore immune from tax payment and labour service; and the land rent they managed to squeeze out was not part of the state tax. Landlords from privileged families were those which de¬ veloped over time from the hereditary landed aristocracy of the late-Han period or from powerful local landlords. Those who rendered meritorious service to the new dynasty also be¬ came privileged landlords, but it had taken their families a considerable length of time to build up their prestige before joining this privileged class. In 220, the kingdom of Wei created a law establishing prestigious persons in various places as zhong zheng to recommend talented people for classifica¬ tion into nine grades for government appointment. Soon, landlords from the privileged families seized this method of selecting talented people to consolidate and expand their privileges during a time of social upheaval. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, many of these landlords went south from the Central Plain together with their family members, relatives, family servants and fellow-villagers. Politically, they became an important force supporting the Eastern Jin court in the south, while economically they seized large tracts of land any way they could. The big native landlords also join¬ ed their ranks. After Emperor Xiao Wen Di of the Northern

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Wei moved his capital to Luoyang, the nobles of the different clans and branches of the Xianbei tribe settled down at Luo¬ yang as privileged families and gradually merged with the Han people. Later, when the Northern Wei split into the eastern and western parts, the privileged families in the Central Plain were divided into the Shandong and Guanzhong groups. Among the country’s privileged families, the Shan¬ dong group enjoyed high prestige for a long time. With the introduction of the civil examination system during the Sui and Tang dynasties, although the old privileged families re¬ mained a force to be reckoned with, their social status was weakened as more and more people entered into political com¬ petition with them. Both Li Shimin and Wu Ze Tian tried to rearrange the genealogical ranks of the landlord class, so as to play down landlords from the privileged families and play up the new bigwigs, but without much success. Buddhist monks also became powerful in the landlord class. They owned large monasteries, huge amounts of monastic land and other assets, all of which passed from master to disciple.

Large numbers of workers were at their

service. These monasterial landlords were exempt from taxa¬ tion and labour service.

Each of them set up on his own ac¬

count and each had his own system of imparting Buddhist learning. They did not have to respect the sovereign, and were bound by no secular laws. When Monk Xuan Zhuang (Hsuan Tsang) fell ill in 664, Emperor Gao Zong sent imperial phy¬ sicians to treat him. After his death, the emperor stopped giving audience for several days and had the monk’s body put in an inner coffin of gold with an outer coffin of silver. It was recorded that 1,000,000 people attended the funeral service and 30,000 mourners kept vigil around the graveyard. In the words of a memorial of the early 8th century, “Seven or eighttenths of the wealth under the sun belong to Buddha.” Much as this might exaggerate, these records throw a revealing light on the wealth and prestige enjoyed by the monasterial land¬ lords. They were actually privileged landlords in Buddhist

�OUTLINE HISTORY OF CHINA

250

robes, and some of them had even more land and wielded more influence than their secular counterparts. During the Three Kingdoms and later, so-called landlords of humble origin — landlords other than those from the priv¬ ileged families, such as bureaucrat landlords, powerful local landlords

and

mercantile

landlords — also

gained

status.

Speaking of the compilation of the Clan and Family Gazette, Li Shimin gave the instruction: “Grade according to the pres¬ ent official ranks, with no regard to the situation generations ago.” This regard only for present official ranks was precisely what set the bureaucrat landlords apart.

After the kingdom

of Wei made the law on classifying talented people into nine grades for government appointment, officials not from the privileged families — most of them low-ranking — also receiv¬ ed both land and labourers from the state.

With the introduc¬

tion of the civil examination during the Sui and Tang dynas¬ ties, this social stratum grew to become a political rival of the landlords from privileged families, and some of its members even became prime ministers.

Eunuchs grew increasingly

powerful after the mid-Tang period.

They held high official

ranks and commandeered vast tracts of land in the metropol¬ itan area.

Being different from ordinary officials, they be¬

longed to another category of bureaucrat landlords. Another great local feudal force — neither from the of¬ ficials nor from the privileged families — was the powerful local landlords.

Some of the powerful local landlords might

turn into bureaucrat landlords or privileged landlords.

Each

of these three kinds of landlords had its own characteristics although they were not much different in some cases.

In

times of social stability, powerful local landlords often tyran¬ nized the common people; in times of social upheaval, they often mustered their own forces for self-protection or for set¬ ting up independent regimes. During the Three Kingdoms period, Li Dian, a subordinate general of Cao Cao, moved his 13,000 family servants and clansmen to the city of Ye; and

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Xu Chu got together neighbourhood youngsters and thousands of clansmen to resist peasant insurgent armies before he join¬ ed Cao Cao to become one of his subordinate generals.

Both

Wei Yan and Huo Jun, Liu Bei’s subordinate generals, were powerful local landlords who took their own family servants with them when they joined Liu Bei. When peasant rebellions broke out at the end of the Sui Dynasty, many of the powerful local landlords took advantage of the situation to seize towns and cities. Some of the bureaucrat landlords and privileged landlords used their position and power to conduct commercial activities despite the repeated imperial edicts which forbade them to do so.

Officials in Guangzhou and other foreign trade ports

stood a greater chance of making fabulous profits than those in other places.

During the mid-Tang period and afterwards,

shops were opened by military commanders in Yangzhou and other cities, which, being run in the military’s name, enjoyed far greater success than others.

But these people were dif¬

ferent from the plutocrat landlords who, coming from among ordinary landlords, raked in large amounts of money from reg¬ ular business deals.

A man named Mi Zhu in the Three King¬

doms period boasted 10,000 servants and a fabulous fortune accumulated

over

generations

by

his

merchant-ancestors.

Once, he made Liu Bei a present of 2,000 servants and a large amount of gold and silver to make up his shortage of military supplies.

A certain Zheng Fengzhi in the Sui-Tang period —

so influential that even men of rank vied to associate with him — had warehouses, manors and residences in many parts of the country. He bragged to Emperor Gao Zu of the Tang Dynasty that he had enough pongee to go around even if each of the trees on Zhongnan Mountain was hung with one bolt. People like Mi Zhu and Zheng Fengzhi could be counted as bigshots among the plutocrat landlords. There were many specialized merchants in the Three Kingdoms period and after¬ wards. But none of them — from wealthy merchants to small

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252

pedlars, especially salt and tea merchants — could avoid be¬ ing dependent on feudal forces. Both the monasterial landlords and the landlords of humble origin, like those from the privileged families, had their own proteges not listed in the government register, which indicat- ' ed a scramble between the landlords and the feudal state for labourers. The feudal state adopted specific measures to re¬ bind the drifting peasants to the land. One of these was to in¬ crease the number of households in government register by a general check-up.

Another was to institute a land equaliza¬

tion system favourable for the re-binding. The land equalization system was practised in several forms from the Three Kingdoms period onward.

In 196, Cao

Cao introduced a system at Xuchang, whereby drifters were organized along military lines and given land for cultivation. Those who used government oxen in farming had to turn over six-tenths of their harvests to the government as rent yvhile the rate was only half for those who used their own oxen.

In

280, during the Western Jin Dynasty, peasants of both sexes became entitled to two types of land, the zhan tian (possessed, field) which was rent-free, and the ke tian (tax field) for which land tax had to be paid, mainly in grain, pongee and cotton. In 485, under the land equalization programme of the North¬ ern Wei

Dynasty,

peasants

of

both

sexes

were

given

a

certain amount of lu tian (open field) for growing food grain, which could not be sold and had to be returned to the govern¬ ment when the recipient reached the age of 70; and a certain amount of sang tian (mulberry field) for growing mulberry, elm and date trees, which could be kept for good and could be sold in part.

The peasants in turn were required to pay the

government land rent in grain and silk.

In 624v during the

Tang Dynasty, land was distributed according to sex, age and health status. The lu tian was then known as kou fen tian (per capita field), which was generally unsalable and had to be re¬ turned to the government when the recipient died. The sang

�CHAPTER VII

253

tian was called yong ye tian (perpetual field), which could be inherited by the recipient’s heirs. Both kinds were salable in given conditions. Each adult male or female peasant was re¬ quired to pay the government in grain, pongee, cotton, cloth or bast fibres and perform 20 days’ labour service annually. Two points demonstrated the heightened social status of peasants under the feudal state: the classification into the tax field and possessed field, then into the open field and mulberry field, and then into the per capita field and per¬ petual field with their salability in given conditions which af¬ firmed the private ownership of the peasants over part of the land they received; and, secondly, the specific number given for annual labour service days which clearly defined this burden on the peasants.

Other signs of the development of

the land equalization system were that, unlike the proteges of the landlords from the privileged families, the peasants had to pay land rent which formed part of the state tax, and, also, the feudal state demanded grain and pongee for the open field and mulberry field it gave the peasants, which showed govern¬ ment efforts to strengthen the combination of agriculture and household handicrafts to preserve the structure of the natural economy characterized by the men working on the land and the women working at the looms. The laws and decrees of feudal states were seldom carried out to the letter. The early Tang provisions on land equaliza¬ tion were violated in the mid-Tang period with constant land annexations and wars.

In 780, the Tang court issued a decree

providing for a tax levy according to the needs of state ex¬ penditure and tax payment in proportion to the amount of one’s property and land. No mention was made of the per¬ petual field and per capita field, nor of government distribu¬ tion of land and its return to the government — which meant extensive state recognition of the private ownership of land and the existence of state tax independent of land rent. This great change pointed to the economic development of Chinese

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254

feudal society. The new decree benefited only the feudal state and the landlords, who could increase taxes or annex land at will. Consequently, from the end of the Tang Dynasty onward, the peasants rising against enslavement also had to fight for the possession of land. The various areas where several nationalities lived together began their process of feudalization at one time or another from the Three Kingdoms to the Tang period.

Ethnic minor¬

ities like the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di and Qiang, who inhabit¬ ed the northwestern and northern frontier regions, were at dif¬ ferent stages of social development, some in primitive clan society and others in slave society. In the closing years of the Western Jin Dynasty, they immigrated to the Huanghe River valley where, mixing with the Han, they experienced a leap forward in their social development.

During the Sixteen

States period, most of the states established by ethnic minor¬ ities — such as the Han and the Former Zhao of the Xiongnu, the Later Zhao of the Jie, the Former Qin of the Di and the Later Qin of the Qiang — speeded up their process of feudali¬ zation by appointing officials of Han nationality, adopting the forms of government of the Han people and implementing feudal political and economic policies. After unifying the northern part of China, the Northern Wei established by the Xianbei pressed ahead with this pro¬ cess in regions where several nationalities lived together.

The

process developed even further during the reign of Emperor Xiao Wen Di. Feudalization also took place in the southern regions where several nationalities lived together.

The chaos caused by

frequent wars forced the labouring people in the north to move south en masse to Jingzhou and Yangzhou which were largely inhabited by the Shanyue and Man peoples. The Shanyues and Mans gradually accepted the advanced produc¬ tion techniques and social system from the north, which help¬ ed accelerate their process of feudalization.

�CHAPTER VH

255

Feudalization in regions inhabited by several nationalities was significant in the development of Chinese history in that the Han people and the ethnic minorities absorbed each other’s positive attributes to activate the productive forces of society and bring about prosperity in the social economy.

The Five Dynasties, the Song and the Yuan: the Later Period of Ascendancy of Chinese Feudalism

The Ming-Qing Period: the Twilight of Feudalism

Semi-Colonial and Semi-Feudal Society; The Old Democratic Revolution