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READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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A HISTORY OF CHINACHAPTER IX.THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF CHINA(A)
The period of transition: the Five Dynasties
(AD 906-960) 1. Beginning of a new epoch
The rebellion of Huang Ch'ao in fact meant the
end of the T'ang dynasty and the division of China
into a number of independent states. Only for reasons of convenience we keep
the traditional division into dynasties and have our new period begin with the
official end of the T'ang dynasty in 906. We decided
to call the new thousand years of Chinese history "Modern Times" in
order to indicate that from c. 860 on changes in China's social structure came
about which set this epoch off from the earlier thousand years which we called
"The Middle Ages". Any division into periods is arbitrary as changes
do not happen from one year to the next. The first beginnings of the changes
which lead to the "Modern Times" actually can be seen from the end of
An Lu-shan's rebellion on, from c. AD 780 on, and the
transformation was more or less completed only in the middle of the eleventh
century.
If we want to characterize the
"Modern Times" by one concept, we would have to call this epoch the
time of the emergence of a middle class, and it will be remembered that the
growth of the middle class in Europe was also the decisive change between the
Middle Ages and Modern Times in Europe. The parallelism should, however, not be
overdone. The gentry continued to play a role in China during the Modern Times,
much more than the aristocracy did in Europe. The middle class did not ever
really get into power during the whole period.
While we will discuss the
individual developments later in some detail, a few words about the changes in
general might be given already here. The wars which followed Huang Ch'ao's rebellion ]greatly affected the ruling gentry. A
number of families were so strongly affected that they lost their importance
and disappeared. Commoners from the followers of Huang Ch'ao or other armies succeeded to get into power, to acquire property and to enter
the ranks of the gentry. At about AD 1000 almost half of the gentry families
were new families of low origin. The state, often ruled by men who had just
moved up, was no more interested in the aristocratic manners of the old gentry
families, especially no more interested in their genealogies. When conditions
began to improve after AD 1000, and when the new families felt themselves as
real gentry families, they tried to set up a mechanism to protect the status of
their families. In the eleventh century private genealogies began to be kept,
so that any claim against the clan could be checked. Clans set up rules of
behavior and procedure to regulate all affairs of the clan without the
necessity of asking the state to interfere in case of conflict. Many such
"clan rules" exist in China and also in Japan which took over this
innovation. Clans set apart special pieces of land as clan land; the income of
this land was to be used to secure a minimum of support for every clan member
and his own family, so that no member ever could fall into utter poverty. Clan
schools which were run by income from special pieces of clan land were
established to guarantee an education for the members of the clan, again in
order to make sure that the clan would remain a part of the élite. Many clans
set up special marriage rules for clan members, and after some time
cross-cousin marriages between two or three families were legally allowed; such
marriages tended to fasten bonds between clans and to prevent the loss of property
by marriage. While on the one hand, a new "clan consciousness" grew
up among the gentry families in order to secure their power, tax and corvée legislation especially in the eleventh century
induced many families to split up into small families.
It can be shown that over the
next centuries, the power of the family head increased. He was now regarded as
owner of the property, not only mere administrator of family property. He got
power over life and death of his children. This increase of power went together
with a change of the position of the ruler. The period transition (until c. AD
1000) was followed by a period of "moderate absolutism" (until 1278)
in which emperors as persons played a greater role than before, and some
emperors, such as Shen Tsung (in 1071), even declared that they regarded the welfare of the masses as more
important than the profit of the gentry. After 1278, however, the personal
influence of the emperors grew further towards absolutism and in times became
pure despotism.
Individuals, especially family
heads, gained more freedom in "Modern Times". Not only the period of
transition, but also the following period was a time of much greater social
mobility than existed in the Middle Ages. By various legal and/or illegal means
people could move up into positions of power and wealth: we know of many
merchants who succeeded in being allowed to enter the state examina and thus got access to
jobs in the administration. Large, influential gentry families in the capital protected
sons from less important families and thus gave them a chance to move into the
gentry. Thus, these families built up a clientele of lesser gentry families
which assisted them and upon the loyalty of which they could count. The gentry
can from now on be divided into two parts. First, there was a "big
gentry" which consisted of much fewer families than in earlier times and
which directed the policy in the capital; and secondly, there was a "small
gentry" which was operating mainly in the provincial cities, directing
local affairs and bound by ties of loyalty to big gentry families. Gentry
cliques now extended into the provinces and it often became possible to
identify a clique with a geographical area, which, however, usually did not
indicate particularistic tendencies.
Individual freedom did not show itself only in greater social mobility.
The restrictions which, for instance, had made the craftsmen and artisans
almost into serfs, were gradually lifted. From the early sixteenth century on,
craftsmen were free and no more subject to forced labour services for the state. Most craftsmen in this epoch still had their shops in
one lane or street and lived above their shops, as they had done in the earlier
period. But from now on, they began to organize in guilds of an essentially
religious character, as similar guilds in other parts of Asia at the same time
also did. They provided welfare services for their members, made some attempts
towards standardization of products and prices, imposed taxes upon their
members, kept their streets clean and tried to regulate salaries. Apprentices
were initiated in a kind of semi-religious ceremony, and often meetings took
place in temples. No guild, however, connected people of the same craft living
in different cities. Thus, they did not achieve political power. Furthermore,
each trade had its own guild; in Peking in the nineteenth century there existed
over 420 different guilds. Thus, guilds failed to achieve political influence
even within individual cities.
Probably at the same time, regional associations, the so-called "hui-kuan" originated. Such associations united people
from one city or one area who lived in another city. People of different
trades, but mainly businessmen, came together under elected chiefs and councilors.
Sometimes, such regional associations could function as pressure groups,
especially as they were usually financially stronger than the guilds. They
often owned city property or farm land. Not all merchants, however, were so
organized. Although merchants remained under humiliating restrictions as to the
color and material of their dress and the prohibition to ride a horse, they
could more often circumvent such restrictions and in general had much more
freedom in this epoch.
Trade, including overseas trade, developed greatly from now on. Soon we
find in the coastal ports a special office which handled custom and
registration affairs, supplied interpreters for foreigners, received them
officially and gave good-bye dinners when they left. Down to the thirteenth
century, most of this overseas trade was still in the hands of foreigners,
mainly Indians. Entrepreneurs hired ships, if they were not ship-owners, hired
trained merchants who in turn hired sailors mainly from the South-East Asian
countries, and sold their own merchandise as well as took goods on commission.
Wealthy Chinese gentry families invested money in such foreign enterprises and
in some cases even gave their daughters in marriage to foreigners in order to
profit from this business.
We also see an emergence of industry from the eleventh century on. We
find men who were running almost monopolistic enterprises, such as preparing
charcoal for iron production and producing iron and steel at the same time;
some of these men had several factories, operating under hired and qualified
managers with more than 500 laborers. We find beginnings of a labor legislation
and the first strikes (AD 782 the first strike of merchants in the capital;
1601 first strike of textile workers).
Some of these laborers were
so-called "vagrants", farmers who had secretly left their land or
their landlord's land for various reasons, and had shifted to other regions
where they did not register and thus did not pay taxes. Entrepreneurs liked to
hire them for industries outside the towns where supervision by the government
was not so strong; naturally, these "vagrants" were completely at the
mercy of their employers.
Since c. 780 the economy can again be called a money economy; more and
more taxes were imposed in form of money instead of in kind. This pressure
forced farmers out of the land and into the cities in order to earn there the
cash they needed for their tax payments. These men provided the labor force for
industries, and this in turn led to the strong growth of the cities, especially
in Central China where trade and industries developed most.
Wealthy people not only invested in industrial enterprises, but also
began to make heavy investments in agriculture in the vicinity of cities in
order to increase production and thus income. We find men who drained lakes in
order to create fields below the water level for easy irrigation; others made
floating fields on lakes and avoided land tax payments; still others combined
pig and fish breeding in one operation.
The introduction of money economy and money taxes led to a need for more
coinage. As metal was scarce and minting very expensive, iron coins were
introduced, silver became more and more common as means of exchange, and paper
money was issued. As the relative value of these moneys changed with supply and
demand, speculation became a flourishing business which led to further
enrichment of people in business. Even the government became more money-minded:
costs of operations and even of wars were carefully calculated in order to
achieve savings; financial specialists were appointed by the government, just
as clans appointed such men for the efficient administration of their clan
properties.
Yet no real capitalism or industrialism developed until towards the end
of this epoch, although at the end of the twelfth century almost all conditions
for such a development seemed to be given.
2.
Political situation in the tenth century
The Chinese call the period from 906 to 960 the "period of the Five
Dynasties" (Wu Tai). This is not quite accurate. It is true that there
were five dynasties in rapid succession in North China; but at the same time
there were ten other dynasties in South China. The ten southern dynasties,
however, are regarded as not legitimate. The south was much better off with its
illegitimate dynasties than the north with the legitimate ones. The dynasties
in the south (we may dispense with giving their names) were the realms of some
of the military governors so often mentioned above. These governors had already
become independent at the end of the T'ang epoch;
they declared themselves kings or emperors and ruled particular provinces in
the south, the chief of which covered the territory of the present provinces of
Szechwan, Kwangtung and Chekiang. In these territories there was comparative
peace and economic prosperity, since they were able to control their own
affairs and were no longer dependent on a corrupt central government. They also
made great cultural progress, and they did not lose their importance later when
they were annexed in the period of the Sung dynasty.
As an example of these states one may mention the small state of Ch'u in the present province of Hunan. Here, Ma Yin, a
former carpenter (died 931), had made himself a king. He controlled some of the
main trade routes, set up a clean administration, bought up all merchandise
which the merchants brought, but allowed them to export only local products,
mainly tea, iron and lead. This regulation gave him a personal income of
several millions every year, and in addition fostered the exploitation of the
natural resources of this hitherto retarded area.
3.
Monopolistic trade in South China. Printing
and paper money in the north
The prosperity of the small states of South China was largely due to the
growth of trade, especially the tea trade. The habit of drinking tea seems to
have been an ancient Tibetan custom, which spread to south-eastern China in the
third century AD. Since then there had been two main centres of production, Szechwan and south-eastern China. Until the eleventh century
Szechwan had remained the leading producer, and tea had been drunk in the
Tibetan fashion, mixed with flour, salt, and ginger. It then began to be drunk
without admixture. In the T'ang epoch tea drinking
spread all over China, and there sprang up a class of wholesalers who bought
the tea from the peasants, accumulated stocks, and
distributed them. From 783 date the first attempts of the state to monopolize
the tea trade and to make it a source of revenue; but it failed in an attempt
to make the cultivation a state monopoly. A tea commissariat was accordingly
set up to buy the tea from the producers and supply
it to traders in possession of a state licence. There
naturally developed then a pernicious collaboration between state officials and
the wholesalers. The latter soon eliminated the small traders, so that they
themselves secured all the profit; official support was secured by bribery. The
state and the wholesalers alike were keenly interested in the prevention of tea
smuggling, which was strictly prohibited.
The position was much the same with regard to salt. We have here for the
first time the association of officials with wholesalers or even with a
monopoly trade. This was of the utmost importance in all later times. Monopoly
progressed most rapidly in Szechwan, where there had always been a numerous
commercial community. In the period of political fragmentation Szechwan, as the
principal tea-producing region and at the same time an important producer of salt,
was much better off than any other part of China. Salt in Szechwan was largely
produced by, technically, very interesting salt wells which existed there since
c. the first century BC. The importance of salt will be understood if we
remember that a grown-up person in China uses an average of twelve pounds of
salt per year. The salt tax was the top budget item around AD 900.
South-eastern China was also the chief centre of porcelain production,
although china clay is found also in North China. The use of porcelain spread
more and more widely. The first translucent porcelain made its appearance, and
porcelain became an important article of commerce both within the country and
for export. Already the Muslim rulers of Baghdad around 800 used imported Chinese
porcelain, and by the end of the fourteenth century porcelain was known in
Eastern Africa. Exports to South-East Asia and Indonesia, and also to Japan
gained more and more importance in later centuries. Manufacture of high quality
porcelain calls for considerable amounts of capital investment and working
capital; small manufacturers produce too many second-rate pieces; thus we have
here the first beginnings of an industry that developed industrial towns such
as Ching-tê, in which the majority of the population
were workers and merchants, with some 10,000 families alone producing
porcelain. Yet, for many centuries to come, the state controlled the production
and even the design of porcelain and appropriated most of the production for
use at court or as gifts.
The third important new development to be mentioned was that of
printing, which since c. 770 was known in the form of wood-block printing. The
first reference to a printed book dated from 835, and the most important event
in this field was the first printing of the Classics by the orders of Feng Tao (882-954) around 940. The first attempts to use
movable type in China occurred around 1045, although this invention did not get
general acceptance in China. It was more commonly used in Korea from the
thirteenth century on and revolutionized Europe from 1538 on. It seems to me
that from the middle of the twentieth century on, the West, too, shows a
tendency to come back to the printing of whole pages, but replacing the wood
blocks by photographic plates or other means. In the Far East, just as in
Europe, the invention of printing had far-reaching consequences. Books, which
until then had been very dear, because they had had to be produced by copyists,
could now be produced cheaply and in quantity. It became possible for a scholar
to accumulate a library of his own and to work in a wide field, where earlier
he had been confined to a few books or even a single text. The results were the
spread of education, beginning with reading and writing, among wider groups,
and the broadening of education: a large number of texts were read and
compared, and no longer only a few. Private libraries came into existence, so
that the imperial libraries were no longer the only ones. Publishing soon grew
in extent, and in private enterprise works were printed that were not so
serious and politically important as the classic books of the past. Thus a new
type of literature, the literature of entertainment, could come into existence.
Not all these consequences showed themselves at once; some made their first
appearance later, in the Sung period.
A fourth important innovation, this time in North China, was the
introduction of prototypes of paper money. The Chinese copper "cash"
was difficult or expensive to transport, simply because of its weight. It thus
presented great obstacles to trade. Occasionally a region with an adverse
balance of trade would lose all its copper money, with the result of a local
deflation. From time to time, iron money was introduced in such deficit areas;
it had for the first time been used in Szechwan in the first century BC, and
was there extensively used in the tenth century when after the conquest of the
local state all copper was taken to the east by the conquerors. So long as
there was an orderly administration, the government could send it money, though
at considerable cost; but if the administration was not functioning well, the
deflation continued. For this reason some provinces prohibited the export of
copper money from their territory at the end of the eighth century. As the
provinces were in the hands of military governors, the central government could
do next to nothing to prevent this. On the other hand, the prohibition
automatically made an end of all external trade. The merchants accordingly
began to prepare deposit certificates, and in this way to set up a sort of
transfer system. Soon these deposit certificates entered into circulation as a
sort of medium of payment at first again in Szechwan, and gradually this led to
a banking system and the linking of wholesale trade with it. This made possible
a much greater volume of trade. Towards the end of the T'ang period the government began to issue deposit certificates of its own: the
merchant deposited his copper money with a government agency, receiving in
exchange a certificate which he could put into circulation like money.
Meanwhile the government could put out the deposited money at interest, or
throw it into general circulation. The government's deposit certificates were
now printed. They were the predecessors of the paper money used from the time
of the Sung.
4.
Political history of the Five Dynasties
The southern states were a factor not to be ignored in the calculations
of the northern dynasties. Although the southern kingdoms were involved in a
confusion of mutual hostilities, any one of them might come to the fore as the
ally of Turks or other northern powers. The capital of the first of the five
northern dynasties (once more a Liang dynasty, but not to be confused with the
Liang dynasty of the south in the sixth century) was, moreover, quite close to
the territories of the southern dynasties, close to the site of the present K'aifeng, in the fertile plain of eastern China with its
good means of transport. Militarily the town could not be held, for its one and
only defence was the Yellow River. The founder of
this Later Liang dynasty, Chu Ch'üan-chung (906), was
himself an eastern Chinese and, as will be remembered, a past supporter of the
revolutionary Huang Ch'ao, but he had then gone over
to the T'ang and had gained high military rank.
His northern frontier remained still more insecure than the southern,
for Chu Ch'üan-chung did not succeed in destroying
the Turkish general Li K'o-yung; on the contrary, the
latter continually widened the range of his power. Fortunately he, too, had an
enemy at his back—the Kitan (or Khitan),
whose ruler had made himself emperor in 916, and so staked a claim to reign
over all China. The first Kitan emperor held a middle
course between Chu and Li, and so was able to establish and expand his empire
in peace. The striking power of his empire, which from 937 onward was
officially called the Liao empire, grew steadily, because the old tribal league
of the Kitan was transformed into a centrally
commanded military organization.
To These dangers from abroad threatening the Later Liang state internal
troubles were added. Chu Chuan-chung's dynasty was
one of the three Chinese dynasties that have ever come to power through a
popular rising. He himself was of peasant origin, and so were a large part of
his subordinates and helpers. Many of them had originally been independent
peasant leaders; others had been under Huang Ch'ao.
All of them were opposed to the gentry, and the great slaughter of the gentry
of the capital, shortly before the beginning of Chu's rule, had been welcomed
by Chu and his followers. The gentry therefore would not co-operate with Chu
and preferred to join the Turk Li K'o-yung. But Chu
could not confidently rely on his old comrades. They were jealous of his
success in gaining the place they all coveted, and were ready to join in any
independent enterprise as opportunity offered. All of them, moreover, as soon
as they were given any administrative post, busied themselves with the
acquisition of money and wealth as quickly as possible. These abuses not only
ate into the revenues of the state but actually produced a common front between
the peasantry and the remnants of the gentry against the upstarts.
In 917, after Li K'o-yung's death, the Sha-t'o Turks beat off an attack from the Kitan, and so were safe for a time from the northern
menace. They then marched against the Liang state, where a crisis had been
produced in 912 after the murder of Chu Ch'üan-chung by one of his sons. The Liang generals saw no reason why they should fight for
the dynasty, and all of them went over to the enemy. Thus the "Later T'ang dynasty" (923-936) came into power in North
China, under the son of Li K'o-yung.
The dominant element at this time was quite clearly the Chinese gentry,
especially in western and central China. The Sha-t'o themselves must have been extraordinarily few in number, probably little more
than 100,000 men. Most of them, moreover, were politically passive, being
simple soldiers. Only the ruling family and its following played any active
part, together with a few families related to it by marriage. The whole state
was regarded by the Sha-t'o rulers as a sort of
family enterprise, members of the family being placed in the most important
positions. As there were not enough of them, they adopted into the family large
numbers of aliens of all nationalities. Military posts were given to faithful
members of Li K'o-yung's or his successor's
bodyguard, and also to domestic servants and other clients of the family. Thus,
while in the Later Liang state elements from the peasantry had risen in the
world, some of these neo-gentry reaching the top of the social pyramid in the
centuries that followed, in the Sha-t'o state some of
its warriors, drawn from the most various peoples, entered the gentry class
through their personal relations with the ruler. But in spite of all this the
bulk of the officials came once more from the Chinese. These educated Chinese
not only succeeded in winning over the rulers themselves to the Chinese
cultural ideal, but persuaded them to adopt laws that substantially restricted
the privileges of the Sha-t'o and brought advantages
only to the Chinese gentry. Consequently all the Chinese historians are enthusiastic
about the "Later T'ang", and especially
about the emperor Ming Ti, who reigned from 927 onward, after the assassination
of his predecessor. They also abused the Liang because they were against the
gentry.
In 936 the Later T'ang dynasty gave place to
the Later Chin dynasty (936-946), but this involved no change in the structure
of the empire. The change of dynasty meant no more than that instead of the son
following the father the son-in-law had ascended the throne. It was of more
importance that the son-in-law, the Sha-t'o Turk Shih Ching-t'ang, succeeded in doing this by allying
himself with the Kitan and ceding to them some of the
northern provinces. The youthful successor, however, of the first ruler of this
dynasty was soon made to realize that the Kitan regarded the founding of his dynasty as no more than a transition stage on the
way to their annexation of the whole of North China. The old Sha-t'o nobles, who had not been sinified in the slightest, suggested a preventive war; the actual court group, strongly sinified, hesitated, but ultimately were unable to avoid
war. The war was very quickly decided by several governors in eastern China
going over to the Kitan, who had promised them the
imperial title. In the course of 946-7 the Kitan occupied
the capital and almost the whole of the country. In 947 the Kitan ruler proclaimed himself emperor of the Kitan and the
Chinese.
The Chinese gentry seem to
have accepted this situation because a Kitan emperor
was just as acceptable to them as a Sha-t'o emperor;
but the Sha-t'o were not prepared to submit to the Kitan régime, because under it they would have lost their
position of privilege. At the head of this opposition group stood the Sha-t'o general Liu Chih-yüan,
who founded the "Later Han dynasty" (947-950). He was able to hold
out against the Kitan only because in 947 the Kitan emperor died and his son had to leave China and
retreat to the north; fighting had broken out between the empress dowager, who
had some Chinese support, and the young heir to the throne. The new Turkish
dynasty, however, was unable to withstand the internal Chinese resistance. Its
founder died in 948, and his son, owing to his youth, was entirely in the hands
of a court clique. In his effort to free himself from the tutelage of this
group he made a miscalculation, for the men on whom he thought he could depend
were largely supporters of the clique. So he lost his throne and his life, and
a Chinese general, Kuo Wei, took his place, founding
the "Later Chou dynasty" (951-959).
A feature of importance was that in the years of the short-lived
"Later Han dynasty" a tendency showed itself among the Chinese
military leaders to work with the states in the south. The increase in the political
influence of the south was due to its economic advance while the north was
reduced to economic chaos by the continual heavy fighting, and by the complete
irresponsibility of the Sha-t'o ruler in financial
matters: several times in this period the whole of the money in the state
treasury was handed out to soldiers to prevent them from going over to some
enemy or other. On the other hand, there was a tendency in the south for the
many neighboring states to amalgamate, and as this process took place close to
the frontier of North China the northern states could not passively look on.
During the "Later Han" period there were wars and risings, which
continued in the time of the "Later Chou".
There had been certain changes
in this period. The north-west of China, the region of the old capital Ch'ang-an, had been so ruined by the fighting that had gone
on mainly there and farther north, that it was eliminated as a centre of power
for a hundred years to come; it had been largely depopulated. The north was
under the rule of the Kitan: its trade, which in the
past had been with the Huang-ho basin, was now perforce diverted to Peking,
which soon became the main centre of the power of the Kitan.
The south, particularly the lower Yangtze region and the province of Szechwan,
had made economic progress, at least in comparison with the north; consequently
it had gained in political importance.
One other event of this time
has to be mentioned: the great persecution of Buddhism in 955, but not only
because 30,336 temples and monasteries were secularized and only some 2,700
with 61,200 monks were left. Although the immediate reason for this action
seems to have been that too many men entered the monasteries in order to avoid
being taken as soldiers, the effect of the law of 955 was that from now on the
Buddhists were put under regulations which clarified once and for ever their
position within the framework of a society which had as its aim to define
clearly the status of each individual within each social class. Private persons
were no more allowed to erect temples and monasteries. The number of temples
per district was legally fixed. A person could become monk only if the head of
the family gave its permission. He had to be over fifteen years of age and had
to know by heart at least one hundred pages of texts. The state took over the
control of the ordinations which could be performed only after a successful
examination. Each year a list of all monks had to be submitted to the
government in two copies. Monks had to carry six identification cards with
them, one of which was the ordination diploma for which a fee had to be paid to
the government (already since 755). The diploma was, in the eleventh century,
issued by the Bureau of Sacrifices, but the money was collected by the Ministry
of Agriculture. It can be regarded as a payment in lieu of land tax. The price
was in the eleventh century 130 strings, which represented the value of a small
farm or the value of some 17,000 litres of grain. The
price of the diploma went up to 220 strings in 1101, and the then government
sold 30,000 diplomas per year in order to get still more cash. But as diplomas
could be traded, a black market developed, on which they were sold for as
little as twenty strings.
CHAPTER X.THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF CHINAThe Northern Sung dynasty
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