READING HALL . THE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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A HISTORY OF CHINACHAPTER X.THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF CHINA(B)
Period of Moderate Absolutism
The Northern Sung dynasty
1. Southward expansion
The founder of the Sung dynasty, Chao K'uang-yin, came of a Chinese military family living to the
south of Peking. He advanced from general to emperor, and so differed in no way
from the emperors who had preceded him. But his dynasty did not disappear as
quickly as the others; for this there were several reasons. To begin with,
there was the simple fact that he remained alive longer than the other founders
of dynasties, and so was able to place his rule on a firmer foundation. But in
addition to this he followed a new course, which in certain ways smoothed
matters for him and for his successors, in foreign policy.
This Sung dynasty, as Chao K'uang-yin
named it, no longer turned against the northern peoples, particularly the Kitan, but against the south. This was not exactly an
heroic policy: the north of China remained in the hands of the Kitan. There were frequent clashes, but no real effort was
made to destroy the Kitan, whose dynasty was now
called "Liao". The second emperor of the Sung was actually heavily
defeated several times by the Kitan. But they, for
their part, made no attempt to conquer the whole of China, especially since the
task would have become more and more burdensome the farther south the Sung
expanded. And very soon there were other reasons why the Kitan should refrain from turning their whole strength against the Chinese.
As we said, the Sung turned at once against the
states in the south. Some of the many small southern states had made
substantial economic and cultural advance, but militarily they were not strong.
Chao K'uang-yin (named as emperor T'ai Tsu) attacked them in succession. Most of them fell
very quickly and without any heavy fighting, especially since the Sung dealt
mildly with the defeated rulers and their following. The gentry and the
merchants in these small states could not but realize the advantages of a
widened and well-ordered economic field, and they were therefore entirely in
favor of the annexation of their country so soon as it proved to be tolerable.
And the Sung empire could only endure and gain strength if it had control of
the regions along the Yangtze and around Canton, with their great economic
resources. The process of absorbing the small states in the south continued
until 980. Before it was ended, the Sung tried to extend their influence in the
south beyond the Chinese border, and secured a sort of protectorate over parts
of Annam (973). This sphere of influence was politically insignificant and not
directly of any economic importance; but it fulfilled for the Sung the same
functions which colonial territories fulfilled for Europeans, serving as a
field of operation for the commercial class, who imported raw materials from
it—mainly, it is true, luxury articles such as special sorts of wood, perfumes,
ivory, and so on—and exported Chinese manufactures. As the power of the empire
grew, this zone of influence extended as far as Indonesia: the process had
begun in the T'ang period. The trade with the south
had not the deleterious effects of the trade with Central Asia. There was no
sale of refined metals, and none of fabrics, as the natives produced their own
textiles which sufficed for their needs. And the export of porcelain brought no
economic injury to China, but the reverse.
This Sung policy was entirely in the interest of
the gentry and of the trading community which was now closely connected with
them. Undoubtedly it strengthened China. The policy of nonintervention in the
north was endurable even when peace with the Kitan had to be bought by the payment of an annual tribute. From 1004 onwards,
100,000 ounces of silver and 200,000 bales of silk were paid annually to the Kitan, amounting in value to about 270,000 strings of cash,
each of 1,000 coins. The state budget amounted to some 20,000,000 strings of
cash. In 1038 the payments amounted to 500,000 strings, but the budget was by
then much larger. One is liable to get a false impression when reading of these
big payments if one does not take into account what percentage they formed of
the total revenues of the state. The tribute to the Kitan amounted to less than 2 per cent of the revenue, while the expenditure on the
army accounted for 25 per cent of the budget. It cost much less to pay tribute
than to maintain large armies and go to war. Financial considerations played a
great part during the Sung epoch. The taxation revenue of the empire rose
rapidly after the pacification of the south; soon after the beginning of the
dynasty the state budget was double that of the T'ang.
If the state expenditure in the eleventh century had not continually grown
through the increase in military expenditure—in spite of everything!—there
would have come a period of great prosperity in the empire.
The Sung emperor, like the rulers of the transition
period, had gained the throne by his personal abilities as military leader; in
fact, he had been made emperor by his soldiers as had happened to so many
emperors in later Imperial Rome. For the next 300 years we observe a change in
the position of the emperor. On the one hand, if he was active and intelligent
enough, he exercised much more personal influence than the rulers of the Middle
Ages. On the other hand, at the same time, the emperors were much closer to
their ministers as before. We hear of ministers who patted the ruler on the
shoulders when they retired from an audience; another one fell asleep on the
emperor's knee and was not punished for this familiarity. The emperor was
called "kuan-chia" (Administrator) and even
called himself so. And in the early twelfth century an emperor stated "I
do not regard the empire as my personal property; my job is to guide the
people". Financially-minded as the Sung dynasty was, the cost of the
operation of the palace was calculated, so that the emperor had a budget: in
1068 the salaries of all officials in the capital amounted to 40,000 strings of
money per month, the armies 100,000, and the emperor's ordinary monthly budget
was 70,000 strings. For festivals, imperial birthdays, weddings and burials
extra allowances were made. Thus, the Sung rulers may be called "moderate
absolutists" and not despots.
One of the first acts of the new Sung emperor, in
963, was a fundamental reorganization of the administration of the country. The
old system of a civil administration and a military administration independent
of it was brought to an end and the whole administration of the country placed
in the hands of civil officials. The gentry welcomed this measure and gave it
full support, because it enabled the influence of the gentry to grow and removed
the fear of competition from the military, some of whom did not belong by birth
to the gentry. The generals by whose aid the empire had been created were put
on pension, or transferred to civil employment, as quickly as possible. The
army was demobilized, and this measure was bound up with the settlement of
peasants in the regions which war had depopulated, or on new land. Soon after
this the revenue noticeably increased. Above all, the army was placed directly
under the central administration, and the system of military governors was thus
brought to an end. The soldiers became mercenaries of the state, whereas in the
past there had been conscription. In 975 the army had numbered only 378,000,
and its cost had not been insupportable. Although the numbers increased
greatly, reaching 912,000 in 1017 and 1,259,000 in 1045, this implied no
increase in military strength; for men who had once been soldiers remained with
the army even when they were too old for service. Moreover, the soldiers grew
more and more exacting; when detachments were transferred to another region,
for instance, the soldiers would not carry their baggage; an army of porters
had to be assembled. The soldiers also refused to go to regions remote from
their homes until they were given extra pay. Such allowances gradually became
customary, and so the military expenditure grew by leaps and bounds without any
corresponding increase in the striking power of the army.
The government was unable to meet the whole cost
of the army out of taxation revenue. The attempt was made to cover the
expenditure by coining fresh money. In connection with the increase in
commercial capital described above, and the consequent beginning of an
industry, China's metal production had greatly increased. In 1050 thirteen
times as much silver, eight times as much copper, and fourteen times as much
iron was produced as in 800. Thus the circulation of the copper currency was
increased. The cost of minting, however, amounted in China to about 75 per cent
and often over 100 per cent of the value of the money coined. In addition to
this, the metal was produced in the south, while the capital was in the north.
The coin had therefore to be carried a long distance to reach the capital and
to be sent on to the soldiers in the north.
To meet the increasing expenditure, an unexampled
quantity of new money was put into circulation. The state budget increased from
22,200,000 in AD 1000 to 150,800,000 in 1021. The Kitan state coined a great deal of silver, and some of the tribute was paid to it in
silver. The greatly increased production of silver led to its being put into
circulation in China itself. And this provided a new field of speculation,
through the variations in the rates for silver and for copper. Speculation was
also possible with the deposit certificates, which were issued in quantities by
the state from the beginning of the eleventh century, and to which the first
true paper money was soon added. The paper money and the certificates were
redeemable at a definite date, but at a reduction of at least 3 per cent of
their value; this, too, yielded a certain revenue to the state.
The inflation that resulted from all these
measures brought profit to the big merchants in spite of the fact that they had
to supply directly or indirectly all non-agricultural taxes (in 1160 some
40,000,000 strings annually), especially the salt tax (50 per cent), wine tax
(36 per cent), tea tax (7 per cent) and customs (7 per cent). Although the
official economic thinking remained Confucian, i.e. anti-business and
pro-agrarian, we find in this time insight in price laws, for instance, that
peace times and/or decrease of population induce deflation. The government had
always attempted to manipulate the prices by interference. Already in much
earlier times, again and again, attempts had been made to lower the prices by
the so-called "ever-normal granaries" of the government which threw
grain on the market when prices were too high and bought grain when prices were
low. But now, in addition to such measures, we also find others which exhibit a
deeper insight: in a period of starvation, the scholar and official Fan
Chung-yen instead of officially reducing grain prices, raised the prices in his
district considerably. Although the population got angry, merchants started to
import large amounts of grain; as soon as this happened, Fan (himself a big
landowner) reduced the price again. Similar results were achieved by others by
just stimulating merchants to import grain into deficit areas.
With the social structure of medieval Europe, similar financial and fiscal developments which gave new chances to merchants, eventually led to industrial capitalism and industrial society. In China, however, the gentry in their capacity of officials hindered the growth of independent trade, and permitted its existence only in association with themselves. As they also represented landed property, it was in land that the newly-formed capital was invested. Thus we see in the Sung period, and especially in the eleventh century, the greatest accumulation of estates that there had ever been up to then in China. Many of these estates came into origin as gifts
of the emperor to individuals or to temples, others were created on hillsides
on land which belonged to the villages. From this time on, the rest of the
village commons in China proper disappeared. Villagers could no longer use the
top-soil of the hills as fertilizer, or the trees as firewood and building
material. In addition, the hillside estates diverted the water of springs and
creeks, thus damaging severely the irrigation works of the villagers in the
plains. The estates (chuang) were controlled by
appointed managers who often became hereditary managers. The tenants on the
estates were quite often non-registered migrants, of whom we spoke previously
as "vagrants", and as such they depended upon the managers who could
always denounce them to the authorities which would lead to punishment because
nobody was allowed to leave his home without officially changing his
registration. Many estates operated mills and even textile factories with
non-registered weavers. Others seem to have specialized in sheep breeding.
Present-day village names ending with -chuang indicate such former estates. A new development in this
period were the "clan estates" (i-chuang),
created by Fan Chung-yen (989-1052) in 1048. The income of these clan estates
were used for the benefit of the whole clan, were controlled by clan-appointed
managers and had tax-free status, guaranteed by the government which regarded
them as welfare institutions. Technically, they might better be called
corporations because they were similar in structure to some of our industrial
corporations. Under the Chinese economic system, large-scale landowning always
proved socially and politically injurious. Up to very recent times the peasant
who rented his land paid 40-50 per cent of the produce to the landowner, who
was responsible for payment of the normal land tax. The landlord, however, had
always found means of evading payment. As each district had to yield a definite
amount of taxation, the more the big landowners succeeded in evading payment
the more had to be paid by the independent small farmers. These independent
peasants could then either "give" their land to the big landowner and
pay rent to him, thus escaping from the attentions of the tax-officer, or
simply leave the district and secretly enter another one where they were not
registered. In either case the government lost taxes.
Large-scale landowning proved especially
injurious in the Sung period, for two reasons. To begin with, the official
salaries, which had always been small in China, were now totally inadequate,
and so the officials were given a fixed quantity of land, the yield of which
was regarded as an addition to salary. This land was free from part of the
taxes. Before long the officials had secured the liberation of the whole of
their land from the chief taxes. In the second place, the taxation system was
simplified by making the amount of tax proportional to the amount of land
owned. The lowest bracket, however, in this new system of taxation comprised
more land than a poor peasant would actually own, and this was a heavy blow to
the small peasant-owners, who in the past had paid a proportion of their
produce. Most of them had so little land that they could barely live on its
yield. Their liability to taxation was at all times a very heavy burden to them
while the big landowners got off lightly. Thus this measure, though
administratively a saving of expense, proved unsocial.
All this made itself felt especially in the south
with its great estates of tax-evading landowners. Here the remaining small
peasant-owners had to pay the new taxes or to become tenants of the landowners
and lose their property. The north was still suffering from the war-devastation
of the tenth century. As the landlords were always the first sufferers from
popular uprisings as well as from war, they had disappeared, leaving their
former tenants as free peasants. From this period on, we have enough data to
observe a social "law": as the capital was the largest consumer,
especially of high-priced products such as vegetables which could not be
transported over long distances, the gentry always tried to control the land
around the capital. Here, we find the highest concentration of landlords and
tenants. Production in this circle shifted from rice and wheat to mulberry
trees for silk, and vegetables grown under the trees. These urban demands
resulted in the growth of an "industrial" quarter on the outskirts of
the capital, in which especially silk for the upper classes was produced. The
next circle also contained many landlords, but production was more in staple foods
such as wheat and rice which could be transported. Exploitation in this second
circle was not much less than in the first circle, because of less close
supervision by the authorities. In the third circle we find independent
subsistence farmers. Some provincial capitals, especially in Szechwan,
exhibited a similar pattern of circles. With the shift of the capital, a
complete reorganization appeared: landlords and officials gave up their
properties, cultivation changed, and a new system of circles began to form around
the new capital. We find, therefore, the grotesque result that the thinly
populated province of Shensi in the north-west yielded about a quarter of the
total revenues of the state: it had no large landowners, no wealthy gentry,
with their evasion of taxation, only a mass of newly-settled small peasants'
holdings. For this reason the government was particularly interested in that
province, and closely watched the political changes in its neighborhood. In 990
a man belonging to a sinified Toba family, living on
the border of Shensi, had made himself king with the support of remnants of
Toba tribes. In 1034 came severe fighting, and in 1038 the king proclaimed
himself emperor, in the Hsia dynasty, and threatened the whole of north-western
China. Tribute was now also paid to this state (250,000 strings), but the fight
against it continued, to save that important province.
These were the main events in internal and
external affairs during the Sung period until 1068. It will be seen that
foreign affairs were of much less importance than developments in the country.
3. Reforms and Welfare schemes
The situation just described was bound to produce a
reaction. In spite of the inflationary measures the revenue fell, partly in
consequence of the tax evasions of the great landowners. It fell from
150,000,000 in 1021 to 116,000,000 in 1065. Expenditure did not fall, and there
was a constant succession of budget deficits. The young emperor Shen Tsung (1068-1085) became
convinced that the policy followed by the ruling clique of officials and gentry
was bad, and he gave his adhesion to a small group led by Wang An-shih
(1021-1086). The ruling gentry clique represented especially the interests of
the large tea producers and merchants in Szechwan and Kiangsi. It advocated a
policy of laisser-faire in trade: it held that everything would adjust itself.
Wang An-shih himself came from Kiangsi and was therefore supported at first by
the government clique, within which the Kiangsi group was trying to gain
predominance over the Szechwan group. But Wang An-shih came from a poor family,
as did his supporters, for whom he quickly secured posts. They represented the
interests of the small landholders and the small dealers. This group succeeded
in gaining power, and in carrying out a number of reforms, all directed against
the monopolist merchants. Credits for small peasants were introduced, and
officials were given bigger salaries, in order to make them independent and to
recruit officials who were not big landowners. The army was greatly reduced,
and in addition to the paid soldiery a national militia was created. Special
attention was paid to the province of Shensi, whose conditions were taken more
or less as a model.
It seems that one consequence of Wang's reforms
was a strong fall in the prices, i.e. a deflation; therefore, as soon as the
first decrees were issued, the large plantation owners and the merchants who
were allied to them, offered furious opposition. A group of officials and
landlords who still had large properties in the vicinity of Loyang—at that time
a quiet cultural centre—also joined them. Even some of Wang An-shih's former
adherents came out against him. After a few years the emperor was no longer
able to retain Wang An-shih and had to abandon the new policy. How really
economic interests were here at issue may be seen from the fact that for many
of the new decrees which were not directly concerned with economic affairs,
such, for instance, as the reform of the examination system, Wang An-shih was
strongly attacked though his opponents had themselves advocated them in the
past and had no practical objection to offer to them. The contest, however,
between the two groups was not over. The monopolistic landowners and their
merchants had the upper hand from 1086 to 1102, but then the advocates of the
policy represented by Wang again came into power for a short time. They had but
little success to show, as they did not remain in power long enough and, owing
to the strong opposition, they were never able to make their control really
effective.
Basically, both groups were against allowing the
developing middle class and especially the merchants to gain too much freedom,
and whatever freedom they in fact gained, came through extra-legal or illegal
practices. A proverb of the time said "People hate their ruler as animals
hate the net (of the hunter)". The basic laws of medieval times which had
attempted to create stable social classes remained: down to the nineteenth
century there were slaves, different classes of serfs or "commoners",
and free burghers. Craftsmen remained under work obligation. Merchants were
second-class people. Each class had to wear dresses of special color and
material, so that the social status of a person, even if he was not an official
and thus recognizable by his insignia, was immediately clear when one saw him.
The houses of different classes differed from one another by the type of tiles,
the decorations of the doors and gates; the size of the main reception room of
the house was prescribed and was kept small for all non-officials; and even
size and form of the tombs was prescribed in detail for each class. Once a
person had a certain privilege, he and his descendants even if they had lost
their position in the bureaucracy, retained these privileges over generations.
All burghers were admitted to the examinations and, thus, there was a certain
social mobility allowed within the leading class of the society, and a new
"small gentry" developed by this system.
Yet, the wars of the transition period had
created a feeling of insecurity within the gentry. The eleventh and twelfth
centuries were periods of extensive social legislation in order to give the
lower classes some degree of security and thus prevent them from attempting to
upset the status quo. In addition to the "ever-normal granaries" of
the state, "social granaries" were revived, into which all farmers of
a village had to deliver grain for periods of need. In 1098 a bureau for
housing and care was created which created homes for the old and destitute;
1102 a bureau for medical care sent state doctors to homes and hospitals as
well as to private homes to care for poor patients; from 1104 a bureau of
burials took charge of the costs of burials of poor persons. Doctors as
craftsmen were under corvée obligation and could
easily be ordered by the state. Often, however, Buddhist priests took charge of
medical care, burial costs and hospitalization. The state gave them premiums if
they did good work. The Ministry of Civil Affairs made the surveys of cases and
costs, while the Ministry of Finances paid the costs. We hear of state
orphanages in 1247, a free pharmacy in 1248, state hospitals were reorganized
in 1143. In 1167 the government gave low-interest loans to poor persons and
(from 1159 on) sold cheap grain from state granaries. Fire protection services
in large cities were organized. Finally, from 1141 on, the government opened up
to twenty-three geisha houses for the entertainment of soldiers who were far
from home in the capital and had no possibility for other amusements. Public
baths had existed already some centuries ago; now Buddhist temples opened
public baths as social service.
Social services for the officials were also
extended. Already from the eighth century on, offices were closed every tenth
day and during holidays, a total of almost eighty days per year. Even criminals
got some leave and exilees had the right of a home
leave once every three years. The pensions for retired officials after the age
of seventy which amounted to 50 per cent of the salary from the eighth century
on, were again raised, though widows did not receive benefits.
4. Cultural situation (philosophy, religion,
literature, painting)
Culturally the eleventh century was the most active
period China had so far experienced, apart from the fourth century B.C. As a
consequence of the immensely increased number of educated people resulting from
the invention of printing, circles of scholars and private schools set up by
scholars were scattered all over the country. The various philosophical schools
differed in their political attitude and in the choice of literary models with
which they were politically in sympathy. Thus Wang An-shih and his followers preferred
the rigid classic style of Han Yü (768-825) who lived
in the T'ang period and had also been an opponent of
the monopolistic tendencies of pre-capitalism. For the Wang An-shih group
formed itself into a school with a philosophy of its own and with its own
commentaries on the classics. As the representative of the small merchants and
the small landholders, this school advocated policies of state control and
specialized in the study and annotation of classical books which seemed to favor
their ideas.
But the Wang An-shih school was unable to hold
its own against the school that stood for monopolist trade capitalism, the new
philosophy described as Neo-Confucianism or the Sung school. Here Confucianism
and Buddhism were for the first time united. In the last centuries, Buddhistic ideas had penetrated all of Chinese culture: the
slaughtering of animals and the executions of criminals were allowed only on
certain days, in accordance with Buddhist rules. Formerly, monks and nuns had
to greet the emperor as all citizens had to do; now they were exempt from this
rule. On the other hand, the first Sung emperor was willing to throw himself to
the earth in front of the Buddha statues, but he was told he did not have to do
it because he was the "Buddha of the present time" and thus equal to
the God. Buddhist priests participated in the celebrations on the emperor's
birthday, and emperors from time to time gave free meals to large crowds of
monks. Buddhist thought entered the field of justice: in Sung time we hear
complaints that judges did not apply the laws and showed laxity, because they
hoped to gain religious merit by sparing the lives of criminals. We had seen
how the main current of Buddhism had changed from a revolutionary to a
reactionary doctrine. The new greater gentry of the eleventh century adopted a
number of elements of this reactionary Buddhism and incorporated them in the Confucianist system. This brought into Confucianism a
metaphysic which it had lacked in the past, greatly extending its influence on
the people and at the same time taking the wind out of the sails of Buddhism.
The greater gentry never again placed themselves on the side of the Buddhist
Church as they had done in the T'ang period. When
they got tired of Confucianism, they interested themselves in Taoism of the
politically innocent, escapist, meditative Buddhism.
Men like Chou Tun-i (1017-1073) and Chang Tsai (1020-1077) developed a cosmological theory which
could measure up with Buddhistic cosmology and
metaphysics. But perhaps more important was the attempt of the Neo-Confucianists to explain the problem of evil. Confucius and
his followers had believed that every person could perfect himself by
overcoming the evil in him. As the good persons should be the élite and rule
the others, theoretically everybody who was a member of human society, could
move up and become a leader. It was commonly assumed that human nature is good
or indifferent, and that human feelings are evil and have to be tamed and
educated. When in Han time with the establishment of the gentry society and its
social classes, the idea that any person could move up to become a leader if he
only perfected himself, appeared to be too unrealistic, the theory of different
grades of men was formed which found its clearest formulation by Han Yü: some people have a good, others a neutral, and still
others a bad nature; therefore, not everybody can become a leader. The Neo-Confucianists, especially Ch'eng Hao (1032-1085) and Ch'eng I
(1033-1107), tried to find the reasons for this inequality. According to them,
nature is neutral; but physical form originates with the combination of nature
with Material Force (ch'i). This combination produces
individuals in which there is a lack of balance or harmony. Man should try to
transform physical form and recover original nature. The creative force by
which such a transformation is possible is jen, love,
the creative, life-giving quality of nature itself.
It should be remarked that Neo-Confucianism
accepts an inequality of men, as early Confucianism did; and that jen, love, in its practical application has to be channelled by li, the system of
rules of behavior. The li, however, always started
from the idea of a stratified class society. Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the famous scholar and systematizer of
Neo-Confucian thoughts, brought out rules of behaviour for those burghers who did not belong to the gentry and could not, therefore,
be expected to perform all li; his "simplified li" exercized a great
influence not only upon contemporary China, but also upon Korea and Annam and
there strengthened a hitherto looser patriarchal, patrilinear family system.
The Neo-Confucianists also compiled great analytical works of history and encyclopedias whose
authority continued for many centuries. They interpreted in these works all
history in accordance with their outlook; they issued new commentaries on all
the classics in order to spread interpretations that served their purposes. In
the field of commentary this school of thought was given perfect expression by
Chu Hsi, who also wrote one of the chief historical
works. Chu Hsi's commentaries became standard works
for centuries, until the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, although Chu
became the symbol of conservativism, he was quite
interested in science, and in this field he had an open eye for changes.
The Sung period is so important, because it is
also the time of the greatest development of Chinese science and technology.
Many new theories, but also many practical, new inventions were made. Medicine
made substantial progress. About 1145 the first autopsy was made, on the body
of a South Chinese captive. In the field of agriculture, new varieties of rice
were developed, new techniques applied, new plants introduced.
The Wang An-shih school of political philosophy
had opponents also in the field of literary style, the so-called Shu Group (Shu means the present
province of Szechwan), whose leaders were the famous Three Sus.
The greatest of the three was Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101); the others were his father, Su Shih, and his brother, Su Che. It is characteristic of these Shu poets, and also of the Kiangsi school associated with them, that they made as
much use as they could of the vernacular. It had not been usual to introduce
the phrases of everyday life into poetry, but Su Tung-p'o made use of the most everyday expressions, without diminishing his artistic
effectiveness by so doing; on the contrary, the result was to give his poems
much more genuine feeling than those of other poets. These poets were in
harmony with the writings of the T'ang period poet Po Chü-i (772-846) and were supported, like
Neo-Confucianism, by representatives of trade capitalism. Politically, in their
conservatism they were sharply opposed to the Wang An-shih group. Midway
between the two stood the so-called Loyang-School, whose greatest leaders were
the historian and poet Ssŭ-ma Kuang (1019-1086) and the philosopher-poet Shao Yung (1011-1077).
In addition to its poems, the Sung literature was
famous for the so-called pi-chi or miscellaneous notes. These consist of short
notes of the most various sort, notes on literature, art, politics,
archaeology, all mixed together. The pi-chi are a treasure-house for the
history of the culture of the time; they contain many details, often of
importance, about China's neighboring peoples. They were intended to serve as
suggestions for learned conversation when scholars came together; they aimed at
showing how wide was a scholar's knowledge. To this group we must add the accounts
of travel, of which some of great value dating from the Sung period are still
extant; they contain information of the greatest importance about the early
Mongols and also about Turkestan and South China.
While the Sung period was one of perfection in
all fields of art, painting undoubtedly gained its highest development in this
time. We find now two main streams in painting: some painters preferred the
decorative, pompous, but realistic approach, with great attention to the
detail. Later theoreticians brought this school in connection with one school
of meditative Buddhism, the so-called northern school. Men who belonged to this
school of painting often were active court officials or painted for the court
and for other representative purposes. One of the most famous among them, Li
Lung-mien (ca. 1040-1106), for instance painted the different breeds of horses
in the imperial stables. He was also famous for his Buddhistic figures. Another school, later called the southern school, regarded painting as
an intimate, personal expression. They tried to paint inner realities and not
outer forms. They, too, were educated, but they did not paint for anybody. They
painted in their country houses when they felt in the mood for expression.
Their paintings did not stress details, but tried to give the spirit of a
landscape, for in this field they excelled most. Best known of them is Mi Fei (ca. 1051-1107), a painter as well as a calligrapher,
art collector, and art critic. Typically, his paintings were not much liked by
the emperor Hui Tsung (ruled 1101-1125) who was one of the greatest art collectors and whose
catalogue of his collection became very famous. He created the Painting
Academy, an institution which mainly gave official recognition to painters in
form of titles which gave the painter access to and status at court. Ma Yüan (c. 1190-1224), member of a whole painter's family,
and Hsia Kui (c. 1180-1230) continued the more
"impressionistic" tradition. Already in Sung time, however, many
painters could and did paint in different styles, "copying", i.e.
painting in the way of T'ang painters, in order to
express their changing emotions by changed styles, a fact which often makes the
dating of Chinese paintings very difficult.
Finally, art craft has left us famous porcelains
of the Sung period. The most characteristic production of that time is the
green porcelain known as "Celadon". It consists usually of a rather
solid paste, less like porcelain than stoneware, covered with a green glaze;
decoration is incised, not painted, under the glaze. In the Sung period,
however, came the first pure white porcelain with incised ornamentation under
the glaze, and also with painting on the glaze. Not until near the end of the
Sung period did the blue and white porcelain begin (blue painting on a white
ground). The cobalt needed for this came from Asia Minor. In exchange for the
cobalt, Chinese porcelain went to Asia Minor. This trade did not, however, grow
greatly until the Mongol epoch; later really substantial orders were placed in
China, the Chinese executing the patterns wanted in the West.
5. Military collapse
In foreign affairs the whole eleventh century was a
period of diplomatic maneuvering, with every possible effort to avoid war.
There was long-continued fighting with the Kitan, and
at times also with the Turco-Tibetan Hsia, but
diplomacy carried the day: tribute was paid to both enemies, and the effort was
made to stir up the Kitan against the Hsia and vice
versa; the other parties also intrigued in like fashion. In 1110 the situation
seemed to improve for the Sung in this game, as a new enemy appeared in the
rear of the Liao (Kitan), the Tungusic Juchên (Jurchen), who in
the past had been more or less subject to the Kitan.
In 1114 the Juchên made themselves independent and
became a political factor. The Kitan were crippled,
and it became an easy matter to attack them. But this pleasant situation did
not last long. The Juchên conquered Peking, and in
1125 the Kitan empire was destroyed; but in the same
year the Juchên marched against the Sung. In 1126
they captured the Sung capital; the emperor and his art-loving father, who had
retired a little earlier, were taken prisoner, and the Northern Sung dynasty
was at an end.
The collapse came so quickly because the whole
edifice of security between the Kitan and the Sung
was based on a policy of balance and of diplomacy. Neither state was armed in
any way, and so both collapsed at the first assault from a military power.
CHAPTER XI.THE PERIOD OF ABSOLUTISM(A)The Mongol Epoch (1280-1368)
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