A History of China

by Wolfram Eberhard

MODERN TIMES

Chapter Nine

THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF CHINA

(A) The period of transition: the Five Dynasties (A.D. 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. A.D. 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 A.D. 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 A.D. 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 behaviour 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. A.D. 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 examinations 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 councillors. 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 colour 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 labourers. We find beginnings of a labour legislation and the first strikes (A.D. 782 the first strike of merchants in the capital; 1601 first strike of textile workers).

Some of these labourers 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 labour 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 A.D. 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 B.C. 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 A.D. 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 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 B.C., 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'ai-feng, 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 Ch'üan-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.

[Illustration: Map 6: The State of the later T'ang dynasty]

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 regime, 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-yuan, 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 neighbouring 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".

On the whole, the few years of the rule of the second emperor of the "Later Chou" (954-958) form a bright spot in those dismal fifty-five years. Sociologically regarded, that dynasty formed merely a transition stage on the way to the Sung dynasty that now followed: the Chinese gentry ruled under the leadership of an upstart who had risen from the ranks, and they ruled in accordance with the old principles of gentry rule. The Sha-t'o, who had formed the three preceding dynasties, had been so reduced that they were now a tiny minority and no longer counted. This minority had only been able to maintain its position through the special social conditions created by the "Later Liang" dynasty: the Liang, who had come from the lower classes of the population, had driven the gentry into the arms of the Sha-t'o Turks. As soon as the upstarts, in so far as they had not fallen again or been exterminated, had more or less assimilated themselves to the old gentry, and on the other hand the leaders of the Sha-t'o had become numerically too weak, there was a possibility of resuming the old form of rule.

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.

(B) Period of Moderate Absolutism

(1) 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.

[Illustration: 10 Ladies of the Court: clay models which accompanied the dead person to the grave. T'ang period. In the collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin.]

[Illustration: 11 Distinguished founder: a temple banner found at Khotcho, Turkestan. Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, No. 1B 4524, illustration B 408.]

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 favour 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.

2 Administration and army. Inflation

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 A.D. 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 neighbourhood. 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 colour 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 exiles 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 favour 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 behaviour. 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" exercised 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 encyclopaedias 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 conservatism, 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 Ss[)u]-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 neighbouring 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 manoeuvring, 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.

(2) The Liao (Kitan) dynasty in the north (937-1125)

1 Social structure. Claim to the Chinese imperial throne

The Kitan, a league of tribes under the leadership of an apparently Mongol tribe, had grown steadily stronger in north-eastern Mongolia during the T'ang epoch. They had gained the allegiance of many tribes in the west and also in Korea and Manchuria, and in the end, about A.D. 900, had become the dominant power in the north. The process of growth of this nomad power was the same as that of other nomad states, such as the Toba state, and therefore need not be described again in any detail here. When the T'ang dynasty was deposed, the Kitan were among the claimants to the Chinese throne, feeling fully justified in their claim as the strongest power in the Far East. Owing to the strength of the Sha-t'o Turks, who themselves claimed leadership in China, the expansion of the Kitan empire slowed down. In the many battles the Kitan suffered several setbacks. They also had enemies in the rear, a state named Po-hai, ruled by Tunguses, in northern Korea, and the new Korean state of Kao-li, which liberated itself from Chinese overlordship in 919.

In 927 the Kitan finally destroyed Po-hai. This brought many Tungus tribes, including the Jurchen (Juchên), under Kitan dominance. Then, in 936, the Kitan gained the allegiance of the Turkish general Shih Ching-t'ang, and he was set on the Chinese throne as a feudatory of the Kitan. It was hoped now to secure dominance over China, and accordingly the Mongol name of the dynasty was altered to "Liao dynasty" in 937, indicating the claim to the Chinese throne. Considerable regions of North China came at once under the direct rule of the Liao. As a whole, however, the plan failed: the feudatory Shih Ching-t'ang tried to make himself independent; Chinese fought the Liao; and the Chinese sceptre soon came back into the hands of a Sha-t'o dynasty (947). This ended the plans of the Liao to conquer the whole of China.

For this there were several reasons. A nomad people was again ruling the agrarian regions of North China. This time the representatives of the ruling class remained military commanders, and at the same time retained their herds of horses. As early as 1100 they had well over 10,000 herds, each of more than a thousand animals. The army commanders had been awarded large regions which they themselves had conquered. They collected the taxes in these regions, and passed on to the state only the yield of the wine tax. On the other hand, in order to feed the armies, in which there were now many Chinese soldiers, the frontier regions were settled, the soldiers working as peasants in times of peace, and peasants being required to contribute to the support of the army. Both processes increased the interest of the Kitan ruling class in the maintenance of peace. That class was growing rich, and preferred living on the income from its properties or settlements to going to war, which had become a more and more serious matter after the founding of the great Sung empire, and was bound to be less remunerative. The herds of horses were a further excellent source of income, for they could be sold to the Sung, who had no horses. Then, from 1004 onward, came the tribute payments from China, strengthening the interest in the maintenance of peace. Thus great wealth accumulated in Peking, the capital of the Liao; in this wealth the whole Kitan ruling class participated, but the tribes in the north, owing to their remoteness, had no share in it. In 988 the Chinese began negotiations, as a move in their diplomacy, with the ruler of the later realm of the Hsia; in 990 the Kitan also negotiated with him, and they soon became a third partner in the diplomatic game. Delegations were continually going from one to another of the three realms, and they were joined by trade missions. Agreement was soon reached on frontier questions, on armament, on questions of demobilization, on the demilitarization of particular regions, and so on, for the last thing anyone wanted was to fight.

Then came the rising of the tribes of the north. They had remained military tribes; of all the wealth nothing reached them, and they were given no military employment, so that they had no hope of improving their position. The leadership was assumed by the tribe of the Juchên (1114). In a campaign of unprecedented rapidity they captured Peking, and the Liao dynasty was ended (1125), a year earlier, as we know, than the end of the Sung.

2 The State of the Kara-Kitai

A small troop of Liao, under the command of a member of the ruling family, fled into the west. They were pursued without cessation, but they succeeded in fighting their way through. After a few years of nomad life in the mountains of northern Turkestan, they were able to gain the collaboration of a few more tribes, and with them they then invaded western Turkestan. There they founded the "Western Liao" state, or, as the western sources call it, the "Kara-Kitai" state, with its capital at Balasagun. This state must not be regarded as a purely Kitan state. The Kitan formed only a very thin stratum, and the real power was in the hands of autochthonous Turkish tribes, to whom the Kitan soon became entirely assimilated in culture. Thus the history of this state belongs to that of western Asia, especially as the relations of the Kara-Kitai with the Far East were entirely broken off. In 1211 the state was finally destroyed.

(3) The Hsi-Hsia State in the north (1038-1227)

1 Continuation of Turkish traditions

After the end of the Toba state in North China in 550, some tribes of the Toba, including members of the ruling tribe with the tribal name Toba, withdrew to the borderland between Tibet and China, where they ruled over Tibetan and Tangut tribes. At the beginning of the T'ang dynasty this tribe of Toba joined the T'ang. The tribal leader received in return, as a distinction, the family name of the T'ang dynasty, Li. His dependence on China was, however, only nominal and soon came entirely to an end. In the tenth century the tribe gained in strength. It is typical of the long continuance of old tribal traditions that a leader of the tribe in the tenth century married a woman belonging to the family to which the khans of the Hsiung-nu and all Turkish ruling houses had belonged since 200 B.C. With the rise of the Kitan in the north and of the Tibetan state in the south, the tribe decided to seek the friendship of China. Its first mission, in 982, was well received. Presents were sent to the chieftain of the tribe, he was helped against his enemies, and he was given the status of a feudatory of the Sung; in 988 the family name of the Sung, Chao, was conferred on him. Then the Kitan took a hand. They over-trumped the Sung by proclaiming the tribal chieftain king of Hsia (990). Now the small state became interesting. It was pampered by Liao and Sung in the effort to win it over or to keep its friendship. The state grew; in 1031 its ruler resumed the old family name of the Toba, thus proclaiming his intention to continue the Toba empire; in 1034 he definitely parted from the Sung, and in 1038 he proclaimed himself emperor in the Hsia dynasty, or, as the Chinese generally called it, the "Hsi-Hsia", which means the Western Hsia. This name, too, had associations with the old Hun tradition; it recalled the state of Ho-lien P'o-p'o in the early fifth century. The state soon covered the present province of Kansu, small parts of the adjoining Tibetan territory, and parts of the Ordos region. It attacked the province of Shensi, but the Chinese and the Liao attached the greatest importance to that territory. Thus that was the scene of most of the fighting.

[Illustration: 12 Ancient tiled pagoda at Chengting (Hopei). Photo H.
Hammer-Morrisson.]

[Illustration: 13 Horse-training. Painting by Li Lung-mien. Late Sung period. Manchu Royal House Collection.] The Hsia state had a ruling group of Toba, but these Toba had become entirely tibetanized. The language of the country was Tibetan; the customs were those of the Tanguts. A script was devised, in imitation of the Chinese script. Only in recent years has it begun to be studied.

In 1125, when the Tungusic Juchên destroyed the Liao, the Hsia also lost large territories in the east of their country, especially the province of Shensi, which they had conquered; but they were still able to hold their own. Their political importance to China, however, vanished, since they were now divided from southern China and as partners were no longer of the same value to it. Not until the Mongols became a power did the Hsia recover some of their importance; but they were among the first victims of the Mongols: in 1209 they had to submit to them, and in 1227, the year of the death of Genghiz Khan, they were annihilated.

(4) The empire of the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279)

1 Foundation

In the disaster of 1126, when the Juchên captured the Sung capital and destroyed the Sung empire, a brother of the captive emperor escaped. He made himself emperor in Nanking and founded the "Southern Sung" dynasty, whose capital was soon shifted to the present Hangchow. The foundation of the new dynasty was a relatively easy matter, and the new state was much more solid than the southern kingdoms of 800 years earlier, for the south had already been economically supreme, and the great families that had ruled the state were virtually all from the south. The loss of the north, i.e. the area north of the Yellow River and of parts of Kiangsu, was of no importance to this governing group and meant no loss of estates to it. Thus the transition from the Northern to the Southern Sung was not of fundamental importance. Consequently the Juchên had no chance of success when they arranged for Liu Yü, who came of a northern Chinese family of small peasants and had become an official, to be proclaimed emperor in the "Ch'i" dynasty in 1130. They hoped that this puppet might attract the southern Chinese, but seven years later they dropped him.

2 Internal situation

As the social structure of the Southern Sung empire had not been changed, the country was not affected by the dynastic development. Only the policy of diplomacy could not be pursued at once, as the Juchên were bellicose at first and would not negotiate. There were therefore several battles at the outset (in 1131 and 1134), in which the Chinese were actually the more successful, but not decisively. The Sung military group was faced as early as in 1131 with furious opposition from the greater gentry, led by Ch'in K'ui, one of the largest landowners of all. His estates were around Nanking, and so in the deployment region and the region from which most of the soldiers had to be drawn for the defensive struggle. Ch'in K'ui secured the assassination of the leader of the military party, General Yo Fei, in 1141, and was able to conclude peace with the Juchên. The Sung had to accept the status of vassals and to pay annual tribute to the Juchên. This was the situation that best pleased the greater gentry. They paid hardly any taxes (in many districts the greater gentry directly owned more than 30 per cent of the land, in addition to which they had indirect interests in the soil), and they were now free from the war peril that ate into their revenues. The tribute amounted only to 500,000 strings of cash. Popular literature, however, to this day represents Ch'in K'ui as a traitor and Yo Fei as a national hero.

In 1165 it was agreed between the Sung and the Juchên to regard each other as states with equal rights. It is interesting to note here that in the treaties during the Han time with the Hsiung-nu, the two countries called one another brothers—with the Chinese ruler as the older and thus privileged brother; but the treaties since the T'ang time with northern powers and with Tibetans used the terms father-in-law and son-in-law. The foreign power was the "father-in-law", i.e. the older and, therefore, in a certain way the more privileged; the Chinese were the "son-in-law", the representative of the paternal lineage and, therefore, in another respect also the more privileged! In spite of such agreements with the Juchên, fighting continued, but it was mainly of the character of frontier engagements. Not until 1204 did the military party, led by Han T'o-wei, regain power; it resolved upon an active policy against the north. In preparation for this a military reform was carried out. The campaign proved a disastrous failure, as a result of which large territories in the north were lost. The Sung sued for peace; Han T'o-wei's head was cut off and sent to the Juchên. In this way peace was restored in 1208. The old treaty relationship was now resumed, but the relations between the two states remained tense. Meanwhile the Sung observed with malicious pleasure how the Mongols were growing steadily stronger, first destroying the Hsia state and then aiming the first heavy blows against the Juchên. In the end the Sung entered into alliance with the Mongols (1233) and joined them in attacking the Juchên, thus hastening the end of the Juchên state.

The Sung now faced the Mongols, and were defenceless against them. All the buffer states had gone. The Sung were quite without adequate military defence. They hoped to stave off the Mongols in the same way as they had met the Kitan and the Juchên. This time, however, they misjudged the situation. In the great operations begun by the Mongols in 1273 the Sung were defeated over and over again. In 1276 their capital was taken by the Mongols and the emperor was made prisoner. For three years longer there was a Sung emperor, in flight from the Mongols, until the last emperor perished near Macao in South China.

3 Cultural situation; reasons for the collapse

The Southern Sung period was again one of flourishing culture. The imperial court was entirely in the power of the greater gentry; several times the emperors, who personally do not deserve individual mention, were compelled to abdicate. They then lived on with a court of their own, devoting themselves to pleasure in much the same way as the "reigning" emperor. Round them was a countless swarm of poets and artists. Never was there a time so rich in poets, though hardly one of them was in any way outstanding. The poets, unlike those of earlier times, belonged to the lesser gentry who were suffering from the prevailing inflation. Salaries bore no relation to prices. Food was not dear, but the things which a man of the upper class ought to have were far out of reach: a big house cost 2,000 strings of cash, a concubine 800 strings. Thus the lesser gentry and the intelligentsia all lived on their patrons among the greater gentry—with the result that they were entirely shut out of politics. This explains why the literature of the time is so unpolitical, and also why scarcely any philosophical works appeared. The writers took refuge more and more in romanticism and flight from realities.

The greater gentry, on the other hand, led a very elegant life, building themselves magnificent palaces in the capital. They also speculated in every direction. They speculated in land, in money, and above all in the paper money that was coming more and more into use. In 1166 the paper circulation exceeded the value of 10,000,000 strings!

It seems that after 1127 a good number of farmers had left Honan and the Yellow River plains when the Juchên conquered these places and showed little interest in fostering agriculture; more left the border areas of Southern Sung because of permanent war threat. Many of these lived miserably as tenants on the farms of the gentry between Nanking and Hangchow. Others migrated farther to the south, across Kiangsi into southern Fukien. These migrants seem to have been the ancestors of the Hakka which in the following centuries continued their migration towards the south and who from the nineteenth century on were most strongly concentrated in Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces as free farmers on hill slopes or as tenants of local landowners in the plains.

The influx of migrants and the increase of tenants and their poverty seriously threatened the state and cut down its defensive strength more and more.

At this stage, Chia Ssu-tao drafted a reform law. Chia had come to the court through his sister becoming the emperor's concubine, but he himself belonged to the lesser gentry. His proposal was that state funds should be applied to the purchase of land in the possession of the greater gentry over and above a fixed maximum. Peasants were to be settled on this land, and its yield was to belong to the state, which would be able to use it to meet military expenditure. In this way the country's military strength was to be restored. Chia's influence lasted just ten years, until 1275. He began putting the law into effect in the region south of Nanking, where the principal estates of the greater gentry were then situated. He brought upon himself, of course, the mortal hatred of the greater gentry, and paid for his action with his life. The emperor, in entering upon this policy, no doubt had hoped to recover some of his power, but the greater gentry brought him down. The gentry now openly played into the hands of the approaching Mongols, so hastening the final collapse of the Sung. The peasants and the lesser gentry would have fought the Mongols if it had been possible; but the greater gentry enthusiastically went over to the Mongols, hoping to save their property and so their influence by quickly joining the enemy. On a long view they had not judged badly. The Mongols removed the members of the gentry from all political posts, but left them their estates; and before long the greater gentry reappeared in political life. And when, later, the Mongol empire in China was brought down by a popular rising, the greater gentry showed themselves to be the most faithful allies of the Mongols!

(5) The empire of the Juchên in the north (1115-1234)

1 Rapid expansion from northern Korea to the Yangtze

The Juchên in the past had been only a small league of Tungus tribes, whose name is preserved in that of the present Tungus tribe of the Jurchen, which came under the domination of the Kitan after the collapse of the state of Po-hai in northern Korea. We have already briefly mentioned the reasons for their rise. After their first successes against the Kitan (1114), their chieftain at once proclaimed himself emperor (1115), giving his dynasty the name "Chin" (The Golden). The Chin quickly continued their victorious progress. In 1125 the Kitan empire was destroyed. It will be remembered that the Sung were at once attacked, although they had recently been allied with the Chin against the Kitan. In 1126 the Sung capital was taken. The Chin invasions were pushed farther south, and in 1130 the Yangtze was crossed. But the Chin did not hold the whole of these conquests. Their empire was not yet consolidated. Their partial withdrawal closed the first phase of the Chin empire.

2 United front of all Chinese

But a few years after this maximum expansion, a withdrawal began which went on much more quickly than usual in such cases. The reasons were to be found both in external and in internal politics. The Juchên had gained great agrarian regions in a rapid march of conquest. Once more great cities with a huge urban population and immense wealth had fallen to alien conquerors. Now the Juchên wanted to enjoy this wealth as the Kitan had done before them. All the Juchên people counted as citizens of the highest class; they were free from taxation and only liable to military service. They were entitled to take possession of as much cultivable land as they wanted; this they did, and they took not only the "state domains" actually granted to them but also peasant properties, so that Chinese free peasants had nothing left but the worst fields, unless they became tenants on Juchên estates. A united front was therefore formed between all Chinese, both peasants and landowning gentry, against the Chin, such as it had not been possible to form against the Kitan. This made an important contribution later to the rapid collapse of the Chin empire.

The Chin who had thus come into possession of the cultivable land and at the same time of the wealth of the towns, began a sort of competition with each other for the best winnings, especially after the government had returned to the old Sung capital, Pien-liang (now K'ai-feng, in eastern Honan). Serious crises developed in their own ranks. In 1149 the ruler was assassinated by his chancellor (a member of the imperial family), who in turn was murdered in 1161. The Chin thus failed to attain what had been secured by all earlier conquerors, a reconciliation of the various elements of the population and the collaboration of at least one group of the defeated Chinese.

3 Start of the Mongol empire

The cessation of fighting against the Sung brought no real advantage in external affairs, though the tribute payments appealed to the greed of the rulers and were therefore welcomed. There could be no question of further campaigns against the south, for the Hsia empire in the west had not been destroyed, though some of its territory had been annexed; and a new peril soon made its appearance in the rear of the Chin. When in the tenth century the Sha-t'o Turks had to withdraw from their dominating position in China, because of their great loss of numbers and consequently of strength, they went back into Mongolia and there united with the Ta-tan (Tatars), among whom a new small league of tribes had formed towards the end of the eleventh century, consisting mainly of Mongols and Turks. In 1139 one of the chieftains of the Juchên rebelled and entered into negotiations with the South Chinese. He was killed, but his sons and his whole tribe then rebelled and went into Mongolia, where they made common cause with the Mongols. The Chin pursued them, and fought against them and against the Mongols, but without success. Accordingly negotiations were begun, and a promise was given to deliver meat and grain every year and to cede twenty-seven military strongholds. A high title was conferred on the tribal leader of the Mongols, in the hope of gaining his favour. He declined it, however, and in 1147 assumed the title of emperor of the "greater Mongol empire". This was the beginning of the power of the Mongols, who remained thereafter a dangerous enemy of the Chin in the north, until in 1189 Genghiz Khan became their leader and made the Mongols the greatest power of central Asia. In any case, the Chin had reason to fear the Mongols from 1147 onward, and therefore were the more inclined to leave the Sung in peace.

In 1210 the Mongols began the first great assault against the Chin, the moment they had conquered the Hsia. In the years 1215-17 the Mongols took the military key-positions from the Chin. After that there could be no serious defence of the Chin empire. There came a respite only because the Mongols had turned against the West. But in 1234 the empire finally fell to the Mongols.

Many of the Chin entered the service of the Mongols, and with their permission returned to Manchuria; there they fell back to the cultural level of a warlike nomad people. Not until the sixteenth century did these Tunguses recover, reorganize, and appear again in history this time under the name of Manchus.

The North Chinese under Chin rule did not regard the Mongols as enemies of their country, but were ready at once to collaborate with them. The Mongols were even more friendly to them than to the South Chinese, and treated them rather better.

Chapter Ten

THE PERIOD OF ABSOLUTISM

(A) The Mongol Epoch (1280-1368)

1 Beginning of new foreign rules

During more than half of the third period of "Modern Times" which now began, China was under alien rule. Of the 631 years from 1280 to 1911, China was under national rulers for 276 years and under alien rule for 355. The alien rulers were first the Mongols, and later the Tungus Manchus. It is interesting to note that the alien rulers in the earlier period came mainly from the north-west, and only in modern times did peoples from the north-east rule over China. This was due in part to the fact that only peoples who had attained a certain level of civilization were capable of dominance. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, eastern Mongolia and Manchuria were at a relatively low level of civilization, from which they emerged only gradually through permanent contact with other nomad peoples, especially Turks. We are dealing here, of course, only with the Mongol epoch in China and not with the great Mongol empire, so that we need not enter further into these questions.

Yet another point is characteristic: the Mongols were the first alien people to rule the whole of China; the Manchus, who appeared in the seventeenth century, were the second and last. All alien peoples before these two ruled only parts of China. Why was it that the Mongols were able to be so much more successful than their predecessors? In the first place the Mongol political league was numerically stronger than those of the earlier alien peoples; secondly, the military organization and technical equipment of the Mongols were exceptionally advanced for their day. It must be borne in mind, for instance, that during their many years of war against the Sung dynasty in South China the Mongols already made use of small cannon in laying siege to towns. We have no exact knowledge of the number of Mongols who invaded and occupied China, but it is estimated that there were more than a million Mongols living in China. Not all of them, of course, were really Mongols! The name covered Turks, Tunguses, and others; among the auxiliaries of the Mongols were Uighurs, men from Central Asia and the Middle East, and even Europeans. When the Mongols attacked China they had the advantage of all the arts and crafts and all the new technical advances of western and central Asia and of Europe. Thus they had attained a high degree of technical progress, and at the same time their number was very great.

2 "Nationality legislation"

It was only after the Hsia empire in North China, and then the empire of the Juchên, had been destroyed by the Mongols, and only after long and remarkably modern tactical preparation, that the Mongols conquered South China, the empire of the Sung dynasty. They were now faced with the problem of ruling their great new empire. The conqueror of that empire, Kublai, himself recognized that China could not be treated in quite the same way as the Mongols' previous conquests; he therefore separated the empire in China from the rest of the Mongol empire. Mongol China became an independent realm within the Mongol empire, a sort of Dominion. The Mongol rulers were well aware that in spite of their numerical strength they were still only a minority in China, and this implied certain dangers. They therefore elaborated a "nationality legislation", the first of its kind in the Far East. The purpose of this legislation was, of course, to be the protection of the Mongols. The population of conquered China was divided into four groups—(1) Mongols, themselves falling into four sub-groups (the oldest Mongol tribes, the White Tatars, the Black Tatars, the Wild Tatars); (2) Central Asian auxiliaries (Naimans, Uighurs, and various other Turkish people, Tanguts, and so on); (3) North Chinese; (4) South Chinese. The Mongols formed the privileged ruling class. They remained militarily organized, and were distributed in garrisons over all the big towns of China as soldiers, maintained by the state. All the higher government posts were reserved for them, so that they also formed the heads of the official staffs. The auxiliary peoples were also admitted into the government service; they, too, had privileges, but were not all soldiers but in many cases merchants, who used their privileged position to promote business. Not a few of these merchants were Uighurs and Mohammedans; many Uighurs were also employed as clerks, as the Mongols were very often unable to read and write Chinese, and the government offices were bilingual, working in Mongolian and Chinese. The clever Uighurs quickly learned enough of both languages for official purposes, and made themselves indispensable assistants to the Mongols. Persian, the main language of administration in the western parts of the Mongol empire besides Uighuric, also was a lingua franca among the new rulers of China.

In the Mongol legislation the South Chinese had the lowest status, and virtually no rights. Intermarriage with them was prohibited. The Chinese were not allowed to carry arms. For a time they were forbidden even to learn the Mongol or other foreign languages. In this way they were to be prevented from gaining official positions and playing any political part. Their ignorance of the languages of northern, central, and western Asia also prevented them from engaging in commerce like the foreign merchants, and every possible difficulty was put in the way of their travelling for commercial purposes. On the other hand, foreigners were, of course, able to learn Chinese, and so to gain a footing in Chinese internal trade.

Through legislation of this type the Mongols tried to build up and to safeguard their domination over China. Yet their success did not last a hundred years.

3 Military position

In foreign affairs the Mongol epoch was for China something of a breathing space, for the great wars of the Mongols took place at a remote distance from China and without any Chinese participation. Only a few concluding wars were fought under Kublai in the Far East. The first was his war against Japan (1281): it ended in complete failure, the fleet being destroyed by a storm. In this campaign the Chinese furnished ships and also soldiers. The subjection of Japan would have been in the interest of the Chinese, as it would have opened a market which had been almost closed against them in the Sung period. Mongol wars followed in the south. In 1282 began the war against Burma; in 1284 Annam and Cambodia were conquered; in 1292 a campaign was started against Java. It proved impossible to hold Java, but almost the whole of Indo-China came under Mongol rule, to the satisfaction of the Chinese, for Indo-China had already been one of the principal export markets in the Sung period. After that, however, there was virtually no more warfare, apart from small campaigns against rebellious tribes. The Mongol soldiers now lived on their pay in their garrisons, with nothing to do. The old campaigners died and were followed by their sons, brought up also as soldiers; but these young Mongols were born in China, had seen nothing of war, and learned of the soldiers' trade either nothing or very little; so that after about 1320 serious things happened. An army nominally 1,000 strong was sent against a group of barely fifty bandits and failed to defeat them. Most of the 1,000 soldiers no longer knew how to use their weapons, and many did not even join the force. Such incidents occurred again and again.

4 Social situation

The results, however, of conditions within the country were of much more importance than events abroad. The Mongols made Peking their capital as was entirely natural, for Peking was near their homeland Mongolia. The emperor and his entourage could return to Mongolia in the summer, when China became too hot or too humid for them; and from Peking they were able to maintain contact with the rest of the Mongol empire. But as the city had become the capital of a vast empire, an enormous staff of officials had to be housed there, consisting of persons of many different nationalities. The emperor naturally wanted to have a magnificent capital, a city really worthy of so vast an empire. As the many wars had brought in vast booty, there was money for the building of great palaces, of a size and magnificence never before seen in China. They were built by Chinese forced labour, and to this end men had to be brought from all over the empire—poor peasants, whose fields went out of cultivation while they were held in bondage far away. If they ever returned home, they were destitute and had lost their land. The rich gentry, on the other hand, were able to buy immunity from forced labour. The immense increase in the population of Peking (the huge court with its enormous expenditure, the mass of officials, the great merchant community, largely foreigners, and the many servile labourers), necessitated vast supplies of food. Now, as mentioned in earlier chapters, since the time of the Later T'ang the region round Nanking had become the main centre of production in China, and the Chinese population had gone over more and more to the consumption of rice instead of pulse or wheat. As rice could not be grown in the north, practically the whole of the food supplies for the capital had to be brought from the south. The transport system taken over by the Mongols had not been created for long-distance traffic of this sort. The capital of the Sung had lain in the main centre of production. Consequently, a great fleet had suddenly to be built, canals and rivers had to be regulated, and some new canals excavated. This again called for a vast quantity of forced labour, often brought from afar to the points at which it was needed. The Chinese peasants had suffered in the Sung period. They had been exploited by the large landowners. The Mongols had not removed these landowners, as the Chinese gentry had gone over to their side. The Mongols had deprived them of their political power, but had left them their estates, the basis of their power. In past changes of dynasty the gentry had either maintained their position or been replaced by a new gentry: the total number of their class had remained virtually unchanged. Now, however, in addition to the original gentry there were about a million Mongols, for whose maintenance the peasants had also to provide, and their standard of maintenance was high. This was an enormous increase in the burdens of the peasantry.

Two other elements further pressed on the peasants in the Mongol epoch—organized religion and the traders. The upper classes among the Chinese had in general little interest in religion, but the Mongols, owing to their historical development, were very religious. Some of them and some of their allies were Buddhists, some were still shamanists. The Chinese Buddhists and the representatives of popular Taoism approached the Mongols and the foreign Buddhist monks trying to enlist the interest of the Mongols and their allies. The old shamanism was unable to compete with the higher religions, and the Mongols in China became Buddhist or interested themselves in popular Taoism. They showed their interest especially by the endowment of temples and monasteries. The temples were given great estates, and the peasants on those estates became temple servants. The land belonging to the temples was free from taxation.

We have as yet no exact statistics of the Mongol epoch, only approximations. These set the total area under cultivation at some six million ch'ing (a ch'ing is the ideal size of the farm worked by a peasant family, but it was rarely held in practice); the population amounted to fourteen or fifteen million families. Of this total tillage some 170,000 ch'ing were allotted to the temples; that is to say, the farms for some 400,000 peasant families were taken from the peasants and no longer paid taxes to the state. The peasants, however, had to make payments to the temples. Some 200,000 ch'ing with some 450,000 peasant families were turned into military settlements; that is to say, these peasants had to work for the needs of the army. Their taxes went not to the state but to the army. Moreover, in the event of war they had to render service to the army. In addition to this, all higher officials received official properties, the yield of which represented part payment of their salaries. Then, Mongol nobles and dignitaries received considerable grants of land, which was taken away from the free peasants; the peasants had then to work their farms as tenants and to pay dues to their landlords, no longer to the state. Finally, especially in North China, many peasants were entirely dispossessed, and their land was turned into pasturage for the Mongols' horses; the peasants themselves were put to forced labour. On top of this came the exploitation of the peasants by the great landowners of the past. All this meant an enormous diminution in the number of free peasants and thus of taxpayers. As the state was involved in more expenditure than in the past owing to the large number of Mongols who were its virtual pensioners, the taxes had to be continually increased. Meanwhile the many peasants working as tenants of the great landlords, the temples, and the Mongol nobles were entirely at their mercy. In this period, a second migration of farmers into the southern provinces, mainly Fukien and Kwangtung, took place; it had its main source in the lower Yangtze valley. A few gentry families whose relatives had accompanied the Sung emperor on their flight to the south, also settled with their followers in the Canton basin.

The many merchants from abroad, especially those belonging to the peoples allied to the Mongols, also had in every respect a privileged position in China. They were free of taxation, free to travel all over the country, and received privileged treatment in the use of means of transport. They were thus able to accumulate great wealth, most of which went out of China to their own country. This produced a general impoverishment of China. Chinese merchants fell more and more into dependence on the foreign merchants; the only field of action really remaining to them was the local trade within China and the trade with Indo-China, where the Chinese had the advantage of knowing the language.

The impoverishment of China began with the flow abroad of her metallic currency. To make up for this loss, the government was compelled to issue great quantities of paper money, which very quickly depreciated, because after a few years the government would no longer accept the money at its face value, so that the population could place no faith in it. The depreciation further impoverished the people.

Thus we have in the Mongol epoch in China the imposing picture of a commerce made possible with every country from Europe to the Pacific; this, however, led to the impoverishment of China. We also see the rising of mighty temples and monumental buildings, but this again only contributed to the denudation of the country. The Mongol epoch was thus one of continual and rapid impoverishment in China, simultaneously with a great display of magnificence. The enthusiastic descriptions of the Mongol empire in China offered by travellers from the Near East or from Europe, such as Marco Polo, give an entirely false picture: as foreigners they had a privileged position, living in the cities and seeing nothing of the situation of the general population.

5 Popular risings: National rising

It took time for the effects of all these factors to become evident. The first popular rising came in 1325. Statistics of 1329 show that there were then some 7,600,000 persons in the empire who were starving; as this was only the figure of the officially admitted sufferers, the figure may have been higher. In any case, seven-and-a-half millions were a substantial percentage of the total population, estimated at 45,000,000. The risings that now came incessantly were led by men of the lower orders—a cloth-seller, a fisherman, a peasant, a salt smuggler, the son of a soldier serving a sentence, an office messenger, and so on. They never attacked the Mongols as aliens, but always the rich in general, whether Chinese or foreign. Wherever they came, they killed all the rich and distributed their money and possessions.

As already mentioned, the Mongol garrisons were unable to cope with these risings. But how was it that the Mongol rule did not collapse until some forty years later? The Mongols parried the risings by raising loans from the rich and using the money to recruit volunteers to fight the rebels. The state revenues would not have sufficed for these payments, and the item was not one that could be included in the military budget. What was of much more importance was that the gentry themselves recruited volunteers and fought the rebels on their own account, without the authority or the support of the government. Thus it was the Chinese gentry, in their fear of being killed by the insurgents, who fought them and so bolstered up the Mongol rule.

In 1351 the dykes along the Yellow River burst. The dykes had to be reconstructed and further measures of conservancy undertaken. To this end the government impressed 170,000 men. Following this action, great new revolts broke out. Everywhere in Honan, Kiangsu, and Shantung, the regions from which the labourers were summoned, revolutionary groups were formed, some of them amounting to 100,000 men. Some groups had a religious tinge; others declared their intention to restore the emperors of the Sung dynasty. Before long great parts of central China were wrested from the hands of the government. The government recognized the menace to its existence, but resorted to contradictory measures. In 1352 southern Chinese were permitted to take over certain official positions. In this way it was hoped to gain the full support of the gentry, who had a certain interest in combating the rebel movements. On the other hand, the government tightened up its nationality laws. All the old segregation laws were brought back into force, with the result that in a few years the aim of the rebels became no longer merely the expulsion of the rich but also the expulsion of the Mongols: a social movement thus became a national one. A second element contributed to the change in the character of the popular rising. The rebels captured many towns. Some of these towns refused to fight and negotiated terms of submission. In these cases the rebels did not murder the whole of the gentry, but took some of them into their service. The gentry did not agree to this out of sympathy with the rebels, but simply in order to save their own lives. Once they had taken the step, however, they could not go back; they had no alternative but to remain on the side of the rebels.

In 1352 Kuo Tz[)u]-hsing rose in southern Honan. Kuo was the son of a wandering soothsayer and a blind beggar-woman. He had success; his group gained control of a considerable region round his home. There was no longer any serious resistance from the Mongols, for at this time the whole of eastern China was in full revolt. In 1353 Kuo was joined by a man named Chu Yüan-chang, the son of a small peasant, probably a tenant farmer. Chu's parents and all his relatives had died from a plague, leaving him destitute. He had first entered a monastery and become a monk. This was a favourite resource—and has been almost to the present day—for poor sons of peasants who were threatened with starvation. As a monk he had gone about begging, until in 1353 he returned to his home and collected a group, mostly men from his own village, sons of peasants and young fellows who had already been peasant leaders. Monks were often peasant leaders. They were trusted because they promised divine aid, and because they were usually rather better educated than the rest of the peasants. Chu at first also had contacts with a secret society, a branch of the White Lotus Society which several times in the course of Chinese history has been the nucleus of rebellious movements. Chu took his small group which identified itself by a red turban and a red banner to Kuo, who received him gladly, entered into alliance with him, and in sign of friendship gave him his daughter in marriage. In 1355 Kuo died, and Chu took over his army, now many thousands strong. In his campaigns against towns in eastern China, Chu succeeded in winning over some capable members of the gentry. One was the chairman of a committee that yielded a town to Chu; another was a scholar whose family had always been opposed to the Mongols, and who had himself suffered injustice several times in his official career, so that he was glad to join Chu out of hatred of the Mongols.

These men gained great influence over Chu, and persuaded him to give up attacking rich individuals, and instead to establish an assured control over large parts of the country. He would then, they pointed out, be permanently enriched, while otherwise he would only be in funds at the moment of the plundering of a town. They set before him strategic plans with that aim. Through their counsel Chu changed from the leader of a popular rising into a fighter against the dynasty. Of all the peasant leaders he was now the only one pursuing a definite aim. He marched first against Nanking, the great city of central China, and captured it with ease. He then crossed the Yangtze, and conquered the rich provinces of the south-east. He was a rebel who no longer slaughtered the rich or plundered the towns, and the whole of the gentry with all their followers came over to him en masse. The armies of volunteers went over to Chu, and the whole edifice of the dynasty collapsed.

The years 1355-1368 were full of small battles. After his conquest of the whole of the south, Chu went north. In 1368 his generals captured Peking almost without a blow. The Mongol ruler fled on horseback with his immediate entourage into the north of China, and soon after into Mongolia. The Mongol dynasty had been brought down, almost without resistance. The Mongols in the isolated garrisons marched northward wherever they could. A few surrendered to the Chinese and were used in southern China as professional soldiers, though they were always regarded with suspicion. The only serious resistance offered came from the regions in which other Chinese popular leaders had established themselves, especially the remote provinces in the west and south-west, which had a different social structure and had been relatively little affected by the Mongol regime.

Thus the collapse of the Mongols came for the following reasons: (1) They had not succeeded in maintaining their armed strength or that of their allies during the period of peace that followed Kublai's conquest. The Mongol soldiers had become effeminate through their life of idleness in the towns. (2) The attempt to rule the empire through Mongols or other aliens, and to exclude the Chinese gentry entirely from the administration, failed through insufficient knowledge of the sources of revenue and through the abuses due to the favoured treatment of aliens. The whole country, and especially the peasantry, was completely impoverished and so driven into revolt. (3) There was also a psychological reason. In the middle of the fourteenth century it was obvious to the Mongols that their hold over China was growing more and more precarious, and that there was little to be got out of the impoverished country: they seem in consequence to have lost interest in the troublesome task of maintaining their rule, preferring, in so far as they had not already entirely degenerated, to return to their old home in the north. It is important to bear in mind these reasons for the collapse of the Mongols, so that we may compare them later with the reasons for the collapse of the Manchus.

No mention need be made here of the names of the Mongol rulers in China after Kublai. After his death in 1294, grandsons and great-grandsons of his followed each other in rapid succession on the throne; not one of them was of any personal significance. They had no influence on the government of China. Their life was spent in intriguing against one another. There were seven Mongol emperors after Kublai.

6 Cultural

During the Mongol epoch a large number of the Chinese scholars withdrew from official life. They lived in retirement among their friends, and devoted themselves mainly to the pursuit of the art of poetry, which had been elaborated in the Later Sung epoch, without themselves arriving at any important innovations in form. Their poems were built up meticulously on the rules laid down by the various schools; they were routine productions rather than the outcome of any true poetic inspiration. In the realm of prose the best achievements were the "miscellaneous notes" already mentioned, collections of learned essays. The foreigners who wrote in Chinese during this epoch are credited with no better achievements by the Chinese historians of literature. Chief of them were a statesman named Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai, a Kitan in the service of the Mongols; and a Mongol named T'o-t'o (Tokto). The former accompanied Genghiz Khan in his great campaign against Turkestan, and left a very interesting account of his journeys, together with many poems about Samarkand and Turkestan. His other works were mainly letters and poems addressed to friends. They differ in no way in style from the Chinese literary works of the time, and are neither better nor worse than those works. He shows strong traces of Taoist influence, as do other contemporary writers. We know that Genghiz Khan was more or less inclined to Taoism, and admitted a Taoist monk to his camp (1221-1224). This man's account of his travels has also been preserved, and with the numerous European accounts of Central Asia written at this time it forms an important source. The Mongol Tokto was the head of an historical commission that issued the annals of the Sung dynasty, the Kitan, and the Juchên dynasty. The annals of the Sung dynasty became the largest of all the historical works, but they were fiercely attacked from the first by Chinese critics on account of their style and their hasty composition, and, together with the annals of the Mongol dynasty, they are regarded as the worst of the annals preserved. Tokto himself is less to blame for this than the circumstance that he was compelled to work in great haste, and had not time to put into order the overwhelming mass of his material.

The greatest literary achievements, however, of the Mongol period belong beyond question to the theatre (or, rather, opera). The emperors were great theatre-goers, and the wealthy private families were also enthusiasts, so that gradually people of education devoted themselves to writing librettos for the operas, where in the past this work had been left to others. Most of the authors of these librettos remained unknown: they used pseudonyms, partly because playwriting was not an occupation that befitted a scholar, and partly because in these works they criticized the conditions of their day. These works are divided in regard to style into two groups, those of the "southern" and the "northern" drama; these are distinguished from each other in musical construction and in their intellectual attitude: in general the northern works are more heroic and the southern more sentimental, though there are exceptions. The most famous northern works of the Mongol epoch are P'i-p'a-chi ("The Story of a Lute"), written about 1356, probably by Kao Ming, and Chao-shih ku-erh-chi ("The Story of the Orphan of Chao "), a work that enthralled Voltaire, who made a paraphrase of it; its author was the otherwise unknown Chi Chün-hsiang. One of the most famous of the southern dramas is Hsi-hsiang-chi ("The Romance of the Western Chamber"), by Wang Shih-fu and Kuan Han-ch'ing. Kuan lived under the Juchên dynasty as a physician, and then among the Mongols. He is said to have written fifty-eight dramas, many of which became famous.

In the fine arts, foreign influence made itself felt during the Mongol epoch much more than in literature. This was due in part to the Mongol rulers' predilection for the Lamaism that was widespread in their homeland. Lamaism is a special form of Buddhism which developed in Tibet, where remnants of the old national Tibetan cult (Bon) were fused with Buddhism into a distinctive religion. During the rise of the Mongols this religion, which closely resembled the shamanism of the ancient Mongols, spread in Mongolia, and through the Mongols it made great progress in China, where it had been insignificant until their time. Religious sculpture especially came entirely under Tibetan influence (particularly that of the sculptor Aniko, who came from Nepal, where he was born in 1244). This influence was noticeable in the Chinese sculptor Liu Yüan; after him it became stronger and stronger, lasting until the Manchu epoch.

In architecture, too, Indian and Tibetan influence was felt in this period. The Tibetan pagodas came into special prominence alongside the previously known form of pagoda, which has many storeys, growing smaller as they go upward; these towers originally contained relics of Buddha and his disciples. The Tibetan pagoda has not this division into storeys, and its lower part is much larger in circumference, and often round. To this day Peking is rich in pagodas in the Tibetan style.

The Mongols also developed in China the art of carpet-knotting, which to this day is found only in North China in the zone of northern influence. There were carpets before these, but they were mainly of felt. The knotted carpets were produced in imperial workshops—only, of course, for the Mongols, who were used to carpets. A further development probably also due to West Asian influence was that of cloisonné technique in China in this period.

Painting, on the other hand, remained free from alien influence, with the exception of the craft painting for the temples. The most famous painters of the Mongol epoch were Chao Mêng-fu (also called Chao Chung-mu, 1254-1322), a relative of the deposed imperial family of the Sung dynasty, and Ni Tsan (1301-1374).

(B) The Ming Epoch (1368-1644)

1 Start. National feeling

It was necessary to give special attention to the reasons for the downfall of Mongol rule in China, in order to make clear the cause and the character of the Ming epoch that followed it. It is possible that the erroneous impression might be gained that the Mongol epoch in China was entirely without merits, and that the Mongol rule over China differed entirely from the Mongol rule over other countries of Asia. Chinese historians have no good word to say of the Mongol epoch and avoid the subject as far as they can. It is true that the union of the national Mongol culture with Chinese culture, as envisaged by the Mongol rulers, was not a sound conception, and consequently did not endure for long. Nevertheless, the Mongol epoch in China left indelible traces, and without it China's further development would certainly have taken a different course.

The many popular risings during the latter half of the period of Mongol rule in China were all of a purely economic and social character, and at first they were not directed at all against the Mongols as representatives of an alien people. The rising under Chu Yüan-chang, which steadily gained impetus, was at first a purely social movement; indeed, it may fairly be called revolutionary. Chu was of the humblest origin; he became a monk and a peasant leader at one and the same time. Only three times in Chinese history has a man of the peasantry become emperor and founder of a dynasty. The first of these three men founded the Han dynasty; the second founded the first of the so-called "Five Dynasties" in the tenth century; Chu was the third.

Not until the Mongols had answered Chu's rising with a tightening of the nationality laws did the revolutionary movement become a national movement, directed against the foreigners as such. And only when Chu came under the influence of the first people of the gentry who joined him, whether voluntarily or perforce, did what had been a revolutionary movement become a struggle for the substitution of one dynasty for another without interfering with the existing social system. Both these points were of the utmost importance to the whole development of the Ming epoch.

The Mongols were driven out fairly quickly and without great difficulty. The Chinese drew from the ease of their success a sense of superiority and a clear feeling of nationalism. This feeling should not be confounded with the very old feeling of Chinese as a culturally superior group according to which, at least in theory though rarely in practice, every person who assimilated Chinese cultural values and traits was a "Chinese". The roots of nationalism seem to lie in the Southern Sung period, growing up in the course of contacts with the Juchên and Mongols; but the discriminatory laws of the Mongols greatly fostered this feeling. From now on, it was regarded a shame to serve a foreigner as official, even if he was a ruler of China.

2 Wars against Mongols and Japanese

It had been easy to drive the Mongols out of China, but they were never really beaten in their own country. On the contrary, they seem to have regained strength after their withdrawal from China: they reorganized themselves and were soon capable of counter-thrusts, while Chinese offensives had as a rule very little success, and at all events no decisive success. In the course of time, however, the Chinese gained a certain influence over Turkestan, but it was never absolute, always challenged. After the Mongol empire had fallen to pieces, small states came into existence in Turkestan, for a long time with varying fortunes; the most important one during the Ming epoch was that of Hami, until in 1473 it was occupied by the city-state of Turfan. At this time China actively intervened in the policy of Turkestan in a number of combats with the Mongols. As the situation changed from time to time, these city-states united more or less closely with China or fell away from her altogether. In this period, however, Turkestan was of no military or economic importance to China.

In the time of the Ming there also began in the east and south the plague of Japanese piracy. Japanese contacts with the coastal provinces of China (Kiangsu, Chekiang and Fukien) had a very long history: pilgrims from Japan often went to these places in order to study Buddhism in the famous monasteries of Central China; businessmen sold at high prices Japanese swords and other Japanese products here and bought Chinese products; they also tried to get Chinese copper coins which had a higher value in Japan. Chinese merchants co-operated with Japanese merchants and also with pirates in the guise of merchants. Some Chinese who were or felt persecuted by the government, became pirates themselves. This trade-piracy had started already at the end of the Sung dynasty, when Japanese navigation had become superior to Korean shipping which had in earlier times dominated the eastern seaboard. These conditions may even have been one of the reasons why the Mongols tried to subdue Japan. As early as 1387 the Chinese had to begin the building of fortifications along the eastern and southern coasts of the country; The Japanese attacks now often took the character of organized raids: a small, fast-sailing flotilla would land in a bay, as far as possible without attracting notice; the soldiers would march against the nearest town, generally overcoming it, looting, and withdrawing. The defensive measures adopted from time to time during the Ming epoch were of little avail, as it was impossible effectively to garrison the whole coast. Some of the coastal settlements were transferred inland, to prevent the Chinese from co-operating with the Japanese, and to give the Japanese so long a march inland as to allow time for defensive measures. The Japanese pirates prevented the creation of a Chinese navy in this period by their continual threats to the coastal cities in which the shipyards lay. Not until much later, at a time of unrest in Japan in 1467, was there any peace from the Japanese pirates.

The Japanese attacks were especially embarrassing for the Chinese government for one other reason. Large armies had to be kept all along China's northern border, from Manchuria to Central Asia. Food supplies could not be collected in north China which did not have enough surplusses. Canal transportation from Central China was not reliable, as the canals did not always have enough water and were often clogged by hundreds of ships. And even if canals were used, grain still had to be transported by land from the end of the canals to the frontier. The Ming government therefore, had organized an overseas flotilla of grain ships which brought grain from Central China directly to the front in Liao-tung and Manchuria. And these ships, vitally important, were so often attacked by the pirates, that this plan later had to be given up again.

These activities along the coast led the Chinese to the belief that basically all foreigners who came by ships were "barbarians"; when towards the end of the Ming epoch the Japanese were replaced by Europeans who did not behave much differently and were also pirate-merchants, the nations of Western Europe, too, were regarded as "barbarians" and were looked upon with great suspicion. On the other side, continental powers, even if they were enemies, had long been regarded as "states", sometimes even as equals. Therefore, when at a much later time the Chinese came into contact with Russians, their attitude towards them was similar to that which they had taken towards other Asian continental powers.

3 Social legislation within the existing order

At the time when Chu Yüan-chang conquered Peking, in 1368, becoming the recognized emperor of China (Ming dynasty), it seemed as though he would remain a revolutionary in spite of everything. His first laws were directed against the rich. Many of the rich were compelled to migrate to the capital, Nanking, thus losing their land and the power based on it. Land was redistributed among poor peasants; new land registers were also compiled, in order to prevent the rich from evading taxation. The number of monks living in idleness was cut down and precisely determined; the possessions of the temples were reduced, land exempted from taxation being thus made taxable—all this, incidentally, although Chu had himself been a monk! These laws might have paved the way to social harmony and removed the worst of the poverty of the Mongol epoch. But all this was frustrated in the very first years of Chu's reign. The laws were only half carried into effect or not at all, especially in the hinterland of the present Shanghai. That region had been conquered by Chu at the very beginning of the Ming epoch; in it lived the wealthy landowners who had already been paying the bulk of the taxes under the Mongols. The emperor depended on this wealthy class for the financing of his great armies, and so could not be too hard on it.

Chu Yüan-chang and his entourage were also unable to free themselves from some of the ideas of the Mongol epoch. Neither Chu, nor anybody else before and long after him discussed the possibility of a form of government other than that of a monarchy. The first ever to discuss this question, although very timidly, was Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695), at the end of the Ming dynasty. Chu's conception of an emperor was that of an absolute monarch, master over life and death of his subjects; it was formed by the Mongol emperors with their magnificence and the huge expenditure of their life in Peking; Chu was oblivious of the fact that Peking had been the capital of a vast empire embracing almost the whole of Asia, and expenses could well be higher than for a capital only of China. It did not occur to Chu and his supporters that they could have done without imperial state and splendour; on the contrary, they felt compelled to display it. At first Chu personally showed no excessive signs of this tendency, though they emerged later; but he conferred great land grants on all his relatives, friends, and supporters; he would give to a single person land sufficient for 20,000 peasant families; he ordered the payment of state pensions to members of the imperial family, just as the Mongols had done, and the total of these pension payments was often higher than the revenue of the region involved. For the capital alone over eight million shih of grain had to be provided in payment of pensions—that is to say, more than 160,000 tons! These pension payments were in themselves a heavy burden on the state; not only that, but they formed a difficult transport problem! We have no close figure of the total population at the beginning of the Ming epoch; about 1500 it is estimated to have been 53,280,000, and this population had to provide some 266,000,000 shih in taxes. At the beginning of the Ming epoch the population and revenue must, however, have been smaller.

The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Sung, but now the remaining foreign merchants of Mongol time also fell under these laws, and their influence quickly diminished. All craftsmen, a total of some 300,000 men with families, were still registered and had to serve the government in the capital for three months once every three years; others had to serve ten days per month, if they lived close by. They were a hereditary caste as were the professional soldiers, and not allowed to change their occupation except by special imperial permission. When a craftsman or soldier died, another family member had to replace him; therefore, families of craftsmen were not allowed to separate into small nuclear families, in which there might not always be a suitable male. Yet, in an empire as large as that of the Ming, this system did not work too well: craftsmen lost too much time in travelling and often succeeded in running away while travelling. Therefore, from 1505 on, they had to pay a tax instead of working for the government, and from then on the craftsmen became relatively free.

4 Colonization and agricultural developments

As already mentioned, the Ming had to keep a large army along the northern frontiers. But they also had to keep armies in south China, especially in Yünnan. Here, the Mongol invasions of Burma and Thailand had brought unrest among the tribes, especially the Shan. The Ming did not hold Burma but kept it in a loose dependency as "tributary nation". In order to supply armies so far away from all agricultural surplus centres, the Ming resorted to the old system of "military colonies" which seems to have been invented in the second century B.C. and is still used even today (in Sinkiang). Soldiers were settled in camps called ying, and therefore there are so many place names ending with ying in the outlying areas of China. They worked as state farmers and accumulated surplusses which were used in case of war in which these same farmers turned soldiers again. Many criminals were sent to these state farms, too. This system, especially in south China, transformed territories formerly inhabited by native tribes or uninhabited, into solidly Chinese areas. In addition to these military colonies, a steady stream of settlers from Central China and the coast continued to move into Kwangtung and Hunan provinces. They felt protected by the army against attacks by natives. Yet Ming texts are full of reports on major and minor clashes with the natives, from Kiangsi and Fukien to Kwangtung and Kwangsi.

But the production of military colonies was still not enough to feed the armies, and the government in Chu's time resorted to a new design. It promised to give merchants who transported grain from Central China to the borders, government salt certificates. Upon the receipt, the merchants could acquire a certain amount of salt and sell it with high profits. Soon, these merchants began to invest some of their capital in local land which was naturally cheap. They then attracted farmers from their home countries as tenants. The rent of the tenants, paid in form of grain, was then sold to the army, and the merchant's gains increased. Tenants could easily be found: the density of population in the Yangtze plains had further increased since the Sung time. This system of merchant colonization did not last long, because soon, in order to curb the profits of the merchants, money was given instead of salt certificates, and the merchants lost interest in grain transports. Thus, grain prices along the frontiers rose and the effectiveness of the armies was diminished.

Although the history of Chinese agriculture is as yet only partially known, a number of changes in this field, which began to show up from Sung time on, seem to have produced an "agricultural revolution" in Ming time. We have already mentioned the Sung attempts to increase production near the big cities by deep-lying fields, cultivation on and in lakes. At the same time, there was an increase in cultivation of mountain slopes by terracing and by distributing water over the terraces in balanced systems. New irrigation machines, especially the so-called Persian wheel, were introduced in the Ming time. Perhaps the most important innovation, however, was the introduction of rice from Indo-China's kingdom Champa in 1012 into Fukien from where it soon spread. This rice had three advantages over ordinary Chinese rice: it was drought-resistant and could, therefore, be planted in areas with poor or even no irrigation. It had a great productivity, and it could be sown very early in the year. At first it had the disadvantage that it had a vegetation period of a hundred days. But soon, the Chinese developed a quick-growing Champa rice, and the speediest varieties took only sixty days from transplantation into the fields to the harvest. This made it possible to grow two rice harvests instead of only one and more than doubled the production. Rice varieties which grew again after being cut and produced a second, but very much smaller harvest, disappeared from now on. Furthermore, fish were kept in the ricefields and produced not only food for the farmers but also fertilized the fields, so that continuous cultivation of ricefields without any decrease in fertility became possible. Incidentally, fish control the malaria mosquitoes; although the Chinese did not know this fact, large areas in South China which had formerly been avoided by Chinese because of malaria, gradually became inhabitable.

The importance of alternating crops was also discovered and from now on, the old system of fallow cultivation was given up and continuous cultivation with, in some areas, even more than one harvest per field per year, was introduced even in wheat-growing areas. Considering that under the fallow system from one half to one third of all fields remained uncultivated each year, the increase in production under the new system must have been tremendous. We believe that the population revolution which in China started about 1550, was the result of this earlier agrarian revolution. From the eighteenth century on we get reports on depletion of fields due to wrong application of the new system.

Another plant deeply affected Chinese agriculture: cotton. It is often forgotten that, from very early times, the Chinese in the south had used kapok and similar fibres, and that the cocoons of different kinds of worms had been used for silk. Real cotton probably came from Bengal over South-East Asia first to the coastal provinces of China and spread quickly into Fukien and Kwangtung in Sung time.

On the other side, cotton reached China through Central Asia, and already in the thirteenth century we find it in Shensi in north-western China. Farmers in the north could in many places grow cotton in summer and wheat in winter, and cotton was a high-priced product. They ginned the cotton with iron rods; a mechanical cotton gin was introduced not until later. The raw cotton was sold to merchants who transported it into the industrial centre of the time, the Yangtze valley, and who re-exported cotton cloth to the north. Raw cotton, loosened by the string of the bow (a method which was known since Sung), could now in the north also be used for quilts and padded winter garments.

5 Commercial and industrial developments

Intensivation and modernization of agriculture led to strong population increases especially in the Yangtze valley from Sung time on. Thus, in this area commerce and industry also developed most quickly. Urbanization was greatest here. Nanking, the new Ming capital, grew tremendously because of the presence of the court and administration, and even when later the capital was moved, Nanking continued to remain the cultural capital of China. The urban population needed textiles and food. From Ming time on, fashions changed quickly as soon as government regulations which determined colour and material of the dress of each social class were relaxed or as soon as they could be circumvented by bribery or ingenious devices. Now, only factories could produce the amounts which the consumers wanted. We hear of many men who started out with one loom and later ended up with over forty looms, employing many weavers. Shanghai began to emerge as a centre of cotton cloth production. A system of middle-men developed who bought raw cotton and raw silk from the producers and sold it to factories.

Consumption in the Yangtze cities raised the value of the land around the cities. The small farmers who were squeezed out, migrated to the south. Absentee landlords in cities relied partly on migratory, seasonal labour supplied by small farmers from Chekiang who came to the Yangtze area after they had finished their own harvest. More and more, vegetables and mulberries or cotton were planted in the vicinity of the cities. As rice prices went up quickly a large organization of rice merchants grew up. They ran large ships up to Hankow where they bought rice which was brought down from Hunan in river boats by smaller merchants. The small merchants again made contracts with the local gentry who bought as much rice from the producers as they could and sold it to these grain merchants. Thus, local grain prices went up and we hear of cases where the local population attacked the grain boats in order to prevent the depletion of local markets.

Next to these grain merchants, the above-mentioned salt merchants have to be mentioned again. Their centre soon became the city of Hsin-an, a city on the border of Chekiang and Anhui, or in more general terms, the cities in the district of Hui-chou. When the grain transportation to the frontiers came to an end in early Ming time, the Hsin-an merchants specialized first in silver trade. Later in Ming time, they spread their activities all over China and often monopolized the salt, silver, rice, cotton, silk or tea businesses. In the sixteenth century they had well-established contacts with smugglers on the Fukien coast and brought foreign goods into the interior. Their home was also close to the main centres of porcelain production in Kiangsi which was exported to overseas and to the urban centres. The demand for porcelain had increased so much that state factories could not fulfil it. The state factories seem often to have suffered from a lack of labour: indented artisans were imported from other provinces and later sent back on state expenses or were taken away from other state industries. Thus, private porcelain factories began to develop, and in connection with quickly changing fashions a great diversification of porcelain occurred.

One other industry should also be mentioned. With the development of printing, which will be discussed below, the paper industry was greatly stimulated. The state also needed special types of paper for the paper currency. Printing and book selling became a profitable business, and with the application of block print to textiles (probably first used in Sung time) another new field of commercial activity was opened.

As already mentioned, silver in form of bars had been increasingly used as currency in Sung time. The yearly government production of silver was c. 10,000 kg. Mongol currency was actually based upon silver. The Ming, however, reverted to copper as basic unit, in addition to the use of paper money. This encouraged the use of silver for speculative purposes.

The development of business changed the face of cities. From Sung time on, the division of cities into wards with gates which were closed during the night, began to break down. Ming cities had no more wards. Business was no more restricted to official markets but grew up in all parts of the cities. The individual trades were no more necessarily all in one street. Shops did not have to close at sunset. The guilds developed and in some cases were able to exercise locally some influence upon the officials.

6 Growth of the small gentry

With the spread of book printing, all kinds of books became easily accessible, including reprints of examination papers. Even businessmen and farmers increasingly learned to read and to write, and many people now could prepare themselves for the examinations. Attendance, however, at the examinations cost a good deal. The candidate had to travel to the local or provincial capital, and for the higher examinations to the capital of the country; he had to live there for several months and, as a rule, had to bribe the examiners or at least to gain the favour of influential people. There were many cases of candidates becoming destitute. Most of them were heavily in debt when at last they gained a position. They naturally set to work at once to pay their debts out of their salary, and to accumulate fresh capital to meet future emergencies. The salaries of officials were, however, so small that it was impossible to make ends meet; and at the same time every official was liable with his own capital for the receipt in full of the taxes for the collection of which he was responsible. Consequently every official began at once to collect more taxes than were really due, so as to be able to cover any deficits, and also to cover his own cost of living—including not only the repayment of his debts but the acquisition of capital or land so as to rise in the social scale. The old gentry had been rich landowners, and had no need to exploit the peasants on such a scale.

The Chinese empire was greater than it had been before the Mongol epoch, and the population was also greater, so that more officials were needed. Thus in the Ming epoch there began a certain democratization, larger sections of the population having the opportunity of gaining government positions; but this democratization brought no benefit to the general population but resulted in further exploitation of the peasants.

The new "small gentry" did not consist of great families like the original gentry. When, therefore, people of that class wanted to play a political part in the central government, or to gain a position there, they had either to get into close touch with one of the families of the gentry, or to try to approach the emperor directly. In the immediate entourage of the emperor, however, were the eunuchs. A good many members of the new class had themselves castrated after they had passed their state examination. Originally eunuchs were forbidden to acquire education. But soon the Ming emperors used the eunuchs as a tool to counteract the power of gentry cliques and thus to strengthen their personal power. When, later, eunuchs controlled appointments to government posts, long established practices of bureaucratic administration were eliminated and the court, i.e. the emperor and his tools, the eunuchs, could create a rule by way of arbitrary decisions, a despotic rule. For such purposes, eunuchs had to have education, and these new educated eunuchs, when they had once secured a position, were able to gain great influence in the immediate entourage of the emperor; later such educated eunuchs were preferred, especially as many offices were created which were only filled by eunuchs and for which educated eunuchs were needed. Whole departments of eunuchs came into existence at court, and these were soon made use of for confidential business of the emperor's outside the palace.

These eunuchs worked, of course, in the interest of their families. On the other hand, they were very ready to accept large bribes from the gentry for placing the desires of people of the gentry before the emperor and gaining his consent. Thus the eunuchs generally accumulated great wealth, which they shared with their small gentry relatives. The rise of the small gentry class was therefore connected with the increased influence of the eunuchs at court.

7 Literature, art, crafts

The growth of the small gentry which had its stronghold in the provincial towns and cities, as well as the rise of the merchant class and the liberation of the artisans, are reflected in the new literature of Ming time. While the Mongols had developed the theatre, the novel may be regarded as the typical Ming creation. Its precursors were the stories of story-tellers centuries ago. They had developed many styles, one of which, for instance, consisted of prose with intercalated poetic parts (pien-wen). Buddhists monks had used these forms of popular literature and spread their teachings in similar forms; due to them, many Indian stories and tales found their way into the Chinese folklore. Soon, these stories of story-tellers or monks were written down, and out of them developed the Chinese classical novel. It preserved many traits of the stories: it was cut into chapters corresponding with the interruptions which the story-teller made in order to collect money; it was interspersed with poems. But most of all, it was written in everyday language, not in the language of the gentry. To this day every Chinese knows and reads with enthusiasm Shui-hu-chuan ("The Story of the River Bank"), probably written about 1550 by Wang Tao-k'un, in which the ruling class was first described in its decay. Against it are held up as ideals representatives of the middle class in the guise of the gentleman brigand. Every Chinese also knows the great satirical novel Hsi-yu-chi ("The Westward Journey"), by Feng Meng-lung (1574-1645), in which ironical treatment is meted out to all religions and sects against a mythological background, with a freedom that would not have been possible earlier. The characters are not presented as individuals but as representatives of human types: the intellectual, the hedonist, the pious man, and the simpleton, are drawn with incomparable skill, with their merits and defects. A third famous novel is San-kuo yen-i ("The Tale of the Three Kingdoms"), by Lo Kuan-chung. Just as the European middle class read with avidity the romances of chivalry, so the comfortable class in China was enthusiastic over romanticized pictures of the struggle of the gentry in the third century. "The Tale of the Three Kingdoms" became the model for countless historical novels of its own and subsequent periods. Later, mainly in the sixteenth century, the sensational and erotic novel developed, most of all in Nanking. It has deeply influenced Japanese writers, but was mercilessly suppressed by the Chinese gentry which resented the frivolity of this wealthy and luxurious urban class of middle or small gentry families who associated with rich merchants, actors, artists and musicians. Censorship of printed books had started almost with the beginning of book printing as a private enterprise: to the famous historian, anti-Buddhist and conservative Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072), the enemy of Wang An-shih, belongs the sad glory of having developed the first censorship rules. Since Ming time, it became a permanent feature of Chinese governments.

The best known of the erotic novels is the Chin-p'ing-mei which, for reasons of our own censors can be published only in expurgated translations. It was written probably towards the end of the sixteenth century. This novel, as all others, has been written and re-written by many authors, so that many different versions exist. It might be pointed out that many novels were printed in Hui-chou, the commercial centre of the time.

The short story which formerly served the entertainment of the educated only and which was, therefore, written in classical Chinese, now also became a literary form appreciated by the middle classes. The collection Chin-ku ch'i-kuan ("Strange Stories of New Times and Old"), compiled by Feng Meng-lung, is the best-known of these collections in vernacular Chinese.

Little original work was done in the Ming epoch in the fields generally regarded as "literature" by educated Chinese, those of poetry and the essay. There are some admirable essays, but these are only isolated examples out of thousands. So also with poetry: the poets of the gentry, united in "clubs", chose the poets of the Sung epoch as their models to emulate.

The Chinese drama made further progress in the Ming epoch. Many of the finest Chinese dramas were written under the Ming; they are still produced again and again to this day. The most famous dramatists of the Ming epoch are Wang Shih-chen (1526-1590) and T'ang Hsien-tsu (1556-1617). T'ang wrote the well-known drama Mu-tan-ting ("The Peony Pavilion"), one of the finest love-stories of Chinese literature, full of romance and remote from all reality. This is true also of the other dramas by T'ang, especially his "Four Dreams", a series of four plays. In them a man lives in dream through many years of his future life, with the result that he realizes the worthlessness of life and decides to become a monk.

Together with the development of the drama (or, rather, the opera) in the Ming epoch went an important endeavour in the modernization of music, the attempt to create a "well-tempered scale" made in 1584 by Chu Tsai-yü. This solved in China a problem which was not tackled till later in Europe. The first Chinese theorists of music who occupied themselves with this problem were Ching Fang (77-37 B.C.) and Ho Ch'êng-t'ien (A.D. 370-447).

In the Mongol epoch, most of the Chinese painters had lived in central China; this remained so in the Ming epoch. Of the many painters of the Ming epoch, all held in high esteem in China, mention must be made especially of Ch'in Ying (c. 1525), T'ang Yin (1470-1523), and Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (1555-1636). Ch'in Ying painted in the Academic Style, indicating every detail, however small, and showing preference for a turquoise-green ground. T'ang Yin was the painter of elegant women; Tung became famous especially as a calligraphist and a theoretician of the art of painting; a textbook of the art was written by him.

Just as puppet plays and shadow theatre are the "opera of the common man" and took a new development in Ming time, the wood-cut and block-printing developed largely as a cheap substitute of real paintings. The new urbanites wanted to have paintings of the masters and found in the wood-cut which soon became a multi-colour print a cheap mass medium. Block printing in colours, developed in the Yangtze valley, was adopted by Japan and found its highest refinement there. But the Ming are also famous for their monumental architecture which largely followed Mongol patterns. Among the most famous examples is the famous Great Wall which had been in dilapidation and was rebuilt; the great city walls of Peking; and large parts of the palaces of Peking, begun in the Mongol epoch. It was at this time that the official style which we may observe to this day in North China was developed, the style employed everywhere, until in the age of concrete it lost its justification.

In the Ming epoch the porcelain with blue decoration on a white ground became general; the first examples, from the famous kilns in Ching-te-chen, in the province of Kiangsi, were relatively coarse, but in the fifteenth century the production was much finer. In the sixteenth century the quality deteriorated, owing to the disuse of the cobalt from the Middle East (perhaps from Persia) in favour of Sumatra cobalt, which did not yield the same brilliant colour. In the Ming epoch there also appeared the first brilliant red colour, a product of iron, and a start was then made with three-colour porcelain (with lead glaze) or five-colour (enamel). The many porcelains exported to western Asia and Europe first influenced European ceramics (Delft), and then were imitated in Europe (Böttger); the early European porcelains long showed Chinese influence (the so-called onion pattern, blue on a white ground). In addition to the porcelain of the Ming epoch, of which the finest specimens are in the palace at Istanbul, especially famous are the lacquers (carved lacquer, lacquer painting, gold lacquer) of the Ming epoch and the cloisonné work of the same period. These are closely associated with the contemporary work in Japan.

8 Politics at court

After the founding of the dynasty by Chu Yüan-chang, important questions had to be dealt with apart from the social legislation. What was to be done, for instance, with Chu's helpers? Chu, like many revolutionaries before and after him, recognized that these people had been serviceable in the years of struggle but could no longer remain useful. He got rid of them by the simple device of setting one against another so that they murdered one another. In the first decades of his rule the dangerous cliques of gentry had formed again, and were engaged in mutual struggles. The most formidable clique was led by Hu Wei-yung. Hu was a man of the gentry of Chu's old homeland, and one of his oldest supporters. Hu and his relations controlled the country after 1370, until in 1380 Chu succeeded in beheading Hu and exterminating his clique. New cliques formed before long and were exterminated in turn.

Chu had founded Nanking in the years of revolution, and he made it his capital. In so doing he met the wishes of the rich grain producers of the Yangtze delta. But the north was the most threatened part of his empire, so that troops had to be permanently stationed there in considerable strength. Thus Peking, where Chu placed one of his sons as "king", was a post of exceptional importance.

In Chu Yüan-chang's last years (he was named T'ai Tsu as emperor) difficulties arose in regard to the dynasty. The heir to the throne died in 1391; and when the emperor himself died in 1398, the son of the late heir-apparent was installed as emperor (Hui Ti, 1399-1402). This choice had the support of some of the influential Confucian gentry families of the south. But a protest against his enthronement came from the other son of Chu Yüan-chang, who as king in Peking had hoped to become emperor. With his strong army this prince, Ch'eng Tsu, marched south and captured Nanking, where the palaces were burnt down. There was a great massacre of supporters of the young emperor, and the victor made himself emperor (better known under his reign name, Yung-lo). As he had established himself in Peking, he transferred the capital to Peking, where it remained throughout the Ming epoch. Nanking became a sort of subsidiary capital.

This transfer of the capital to the north, as the result of the victory of the military party and Buddhists allied to them, produced a new element of instability: the north was of military importance, but the Yangtze region remained the economic centre of the country. The interests of the gentry of the Yangtze region were injured by the transfer. The first Ming emperor had taken care to make his court resemble the court of the Mongol rulers, but on the whole had exercised relative economy. Yung-lo (1403-1424), however, lived in the actual palaces of the Mongol rulers, and all the luxury of the Mongol epoch was revived. This made the reign of Yung-lo the most magnificent period of the Ming epoch, but beneath the surface decay had begun. Typical of the unmitigated absolutism which developed now, was the word of one of the emperor's political and military advisors, significantly a Buddhist monk: "I know the way of heaven. Why discuss the hearts of the people?"

9 Navy. Southward expansion

After the collapse of Mongol rule in Indo-China, partly through the simple withdrawal of the Mongols, and partly through attacks from various Chinese generals, there were independence movements in south-west China and Indo-China. In 1393 wars broke out in Annam. Yung-lo considered that the time had come to annex these regions to China and so to open a new field for Chinese trade, which was suffering continual disturbance from the Japanese. He sent armies to Yünnan and Indo-China; at the same time he had a fleet built by one of his eunuchs, Cheng Ho. The fleet was successfully protected from attack by the Japanese. Cheng Ho, who had promoted the plan and also carried it out, began in 1405 his famous mission to Indo-China, which had been envisaged as giving at least moral support to the land operations, but was also intended to renew trade connections with Indo-China, where they had been interrupted by the collapse of Mongol rule. Cheng Ho sailed past Indo-China and ultimately reached the coast of Arabia. His account of his voyage is an important source of information about conditions in southern Asia early in the fifteenth century. Cheng Ho and his fleet made some further cruises, but they were discontinued. There may have been several reasons, (1) As state enterprises, the expeditions were very costly. Foreign goods could be obtained more cheaply and with less trouble if foreign merchants came themselves to China or Chinese merchants travelled at their own risk. (2) The moral success of the naval enterprises was assured. China was recognized as a power throughout southern Asia, and Annam had been reconquered. (3) After the collapse of the Mongol emperor Timur, who died in 1406, there no longer existed any great power in Central Asia, so that trade missions from the kingdom of the Shahruk in North Persia were able to make their way to China, including the famous mission of 1409-1411. (4) Finally, the fleet would have had to be permanently guarded against the Japanese, as it had been stationed not in South China but in the Yangtze region. As early as 1411 the canals had been repaired, and from 1415 onward all the traffic of the country went by the canals, so evading the Japanese peril. This ended the short chapter of Chinese naval history.

These travels of Cheng Ho seem to have had one more cultural result: a large number of fairy-tales from the Middle East were brought to China, or at all events reached China at that time. The Chinese, being a realistically-minded people, have produced few fairy-tales of their own. The bulk of their finest fairy-tales were brought by Buddhist monks, in the course of the first millennium A.D., from India by way of Central Asia. The Buddhists made use of them to render their sermons more interesting and impressive. As time went on, these stories spread all over China, modified in harmony with the spirit of the people and adapted to the Chinese environment. Only the fables failed to strike root in China: the matter-of-fact Chinese was not interested in animals that talked and behaved to each other like human beings. In addition, however, to these early fairy-tales, there was another group of stories that did not spread throughout China, but were found only in the south-eastern coastal provinces. These came from the Middle East, especially from Persia. The fairy-tales of Indian origin spread not only to Central Asia but at the same time to Persia, where they found a very congenial soil. The Persians made radical changes in the stories and gave them the form in which they came to Europe by various routes—through North Africa to Spain and France; through Constantinople, Venice, or Genoa to France; through Russian Turkestan to Russia, Finland, and Sweden; through Turkey and the Balkans to Hungary and Germany. Thus the stories found a European home. And this same Persian form was carried by sea in Cheng Ho's time to South China. Thus we have the strange experience of finding some of our own finest fairy-tales in almost the same form in South China.

10 Struggles between cliques

Yung-lo's successor died early. Under the latter's son, the emperor Hsüan Tsung (1426-1435; reign name Hsüan-tê), fixed numbers of candidates were assigned for the state examinations. It had been found that almost the whole of the gentry in the Yangtze region sat at the examinations; and that at these examinations their representatives made sure, through their mutual relations, that only their members should pass, so that the candidates from the north were virtually excluded. The important military clique in the north protested against this, and a compromise was arrived at: at every examination one-third of the candidates must come from the north and two-thirds from the south. This system lasted for a long time, and led to many disputes.

At his death Hsüan Tsung left the empire to his eight-year-old son Ying Tsung (1436-49 and 1459-64), who was entirely in the hands of the Yang clique, which was associated with his grandmother. Soon, however, another clique, led by the eunuch Wang Chen, gained the upper hand at court. The Mongols were very active at this time, and made several raids on the province of Shansi; Wang Chen proposed a great campaign against them, and in this campaign he took with him the young emperor, who had reached his twenty-first birthday in 1449. The emperor had grown up in the palace and knew nothing of the world outside; he was therefore glad to go with Wang Chen; but that eunuch had also lived in the palace and also knew nothing of the world, and in particular of war. Consequently he failed in the organization of reinforcements for his army, some 100,000 strong; after a few brief engagements the Oirat-Mongol prince Esen had the imperial army surrounded and the emperor a prisoner. The eunuch Wang Chen came to his end, and his clique, of course, no longer counted. The Mongols had no intention of killing the emperor; they proposed to hold him to ransom, at a high price. The various cliques at court cared little, however, about their ruler. After the fall of the Wang clique there were two others, of which one, that of General Yü, became particularly powerful, as he had been able to repel a Mongol attack on Peking. Yü proclaimed a new emperor—not the captive emperor's son, a baby, but his brother, who became the emperor Ching Tsung. The Yang clique insisted on the rights of the imperial baby. From all this the Mongols saw that the Chinese were not inclined to spend a lot of money on their imperial captive. Accordingly they made an enormous reduction in the ransom demanded, and more or less forced the Chinese to take back their former emperor. The Mongols hoped that this would at least produce political disturbances by which they might profit, once the old emperor was back in Peking. And this did soon happen. At first the ransomed emperor was pushed out of sight into a palace, and Ching Tsung continued to reign. But in 1456 Ching Tsung fell ill, and a successor to him had to be chosen. The Yü clique wanted to have the son of Ching Tsung; the Yang clique wanted the son of the deposed emperor Ying Tsung. No agreement was reached, so that in the end a third clique, led by the soldier Shih Hêng, who had helped to defend Peking against the Mongols, found its opportunity, and by a coup d'état reinstated the deposed emperor Ying Tsung.

This was not done out of love for the emperor, but because Shih Hêng hoped that under the rule of the completely incompetent Ying Tsung he could best carry out a plan of his own, to set up his own dynasty. It is not so easy, however, to carry a conspiracy to success when there are several rival parties, each of which is ready to betray any of the others. Shih Hêng's plan became known before long, and he himself was beheaded (1460).

The next forty years were filled with struggles between cliques, which steadily grew in ferocity, particularly since a special office, a sort of secret police headquarters, was set up in the palace, with functions which it extended beyond the palace, with the result that many people were arrested and disappeared. This office was set up by the eunuchs and the clique at their back, and was the first dictatorial organ created in the course of a development towards despotism that made steady progress in these years.

In 1505 Wu Tsung came to the throne, an inexperienced youth of fifteen who was entirely controlled by the eunuchs who had brought him up. The leader of the eunuchs was Liu Chin, who had the support of a group of people of the gentry and the middle class. Liu Chin succeeded within a year in getting rid of the eunuchs at court who belonged to other cliques and were working against him. After that he proceeded to establish his power. He secured in entirely official form the emperor's permission for him to issue all commands himself; the emperor devoted himself only to his pleasures, and care was taken that they should keep him sufficiently occupied to have no chance to notice what was going on in the country. The first important decree issued by Liu Chin resulted in the removal from office or the punishment or murder of over three hundred prominent persons, the leaders of the cliques opposed to him. He filled their posts with his own supporters, until all the higher posts in every department were in the hands of members of his group. He collected large sums of money which he quite openly extracted from the provinces as a special tax for his own benefit. When later his house was searched there were found 240,000 bars and 57,800 pieces of gold (a bar was equivalent of ten pieces), 791,800 ounces and 5,000,000 bars of silver (a bar was five ounces), three bushels of precious stones, two gold cuirasses, 3,000 gold rings, and much else—of a total value exceeding the annual budget of the state! The treasure was to have been used to finance a revolt planned by Liu Chin and his supporters.

Among the people whom Liu Chin had punished were several members of the former clique of the Yang, and also the philosopher Wang Yang-ming, who later became so famous, a member of the Wang family which was allied to the Yang. In 1510 the Yang won over one of the eunuchs in the palace and so became acquainted with Liu Chin's plans. When a revolt broke out in western China, this eunuch (whose political allegiance was, of course, unknown to Liu Chin) secured appointment as army commander. With the army intended for the crushing of the revolt, Liu Chin's palace was attacked when he was asleep, and he and all his supporters were arrested. Thus the other group came into power in the palace, including the philosopher Wang Yang-ming (1473-1529). Liu Chin's rule had done great harm to the country, as enormous taxation had been expended for the private benefit of his clique. On top of this had been the young emperor's extravagance: his latest pleasures had been the building of palaces and the carrying out of military games; he constantly assumed new military titles and was burning to go to war.

11 Risings

The emperor might have had a good opportunity for fighting, for his misrule had resulted in a great popular rising which began in the west, in Szechwan, and then spread to the east. As always, the rising was joined by some ruined scholars, and the movement, which had at first been directed against the gentry as such, was turned into a movement against the government of the moment. No longer were all the wealthy and all officials murdered, but only those who did not join the movement. In 1512 the rebels were finally overcome, not so much by any military capacity of the government armies as through the loss of the rebels' fleet of boats in a typhoon.

In 1517 a new favourite of the emperor's induced him to make a great tour in the north, to which the favourite belonged. The tour and the hunting greatly pleased the emperor, so that he continued his journeying. This was the year in which the Portuguese Fernão Pires de Andrade landed in Canton—the first modern European to enter China.

In 1518 Wang Yang-ming, the philosopher general, crushed a rising in Kiangsi. The rising had been the outcome of years of unrest, which had two causes: native risings of the sort we described above, and loss for the gentry due to the transfer of the capital. The province of Kiangsi was a part of the Yangtze region, and the great landowners there had lived on the profit from their supplies to Nanking. When the capital was moved to Peking, their takings fell. They placed themselves under a prince who lived in Nanking. This prince regarded Wang Yang-ming's move into Kiangsi as a threat to him, and so rose openly against the government and supported the Kiangsi gentry. Wang Yang-ming defeated him, and so came into the highest favour with the incompetent emperor. When peace had been restored in Nanking, the emperor dressed himself up as an army commander, marched south, and made a triumphal entry into Nanking.

One other aspect of Wang Yang-ming's expeditions has not yet been studied: he crushed also the so-called salt-merchant rebels in the southernmost part of Kiangsi and adjoining Kwangtung. These merchants-turned-rebels had dominated a small area, off and on since the eleventh century. At this moment, they seem to have had connections with the rich inland merchants of Hsin-an and perhaps also with foreigners. Information is still too scanty to give more details, but a local movement as persistent as this one deserves attention.

Wang Yang-ming became acquainted as early as 1519 with the first European rifles, imported by the Portuguese who had landed in 1517. (The Chinese then called them Fu-lan-chi, meaning Franks. Wang was the first Chinese who spoke of the "Franks".) The Chinese had already had mortars which hurled stones, as early as the second century A.D. In the seventh or eighth century their mortars had sent stones of a couple of hundredweights some four hundred yards. There is mention in the eleventh century of cannon which apparently shot with a charge of a sort of gunpowder. The Mongols were already using true cannon in their sieges. In 1519, the first Portuguese were presented to the Chinese emperor in Nanking, where they were entertained for about a year in a hostel, a certain Lin Hsün learned about their rifles and copied them for Wang Yang-ming. In general, however, the Chinese had no respect for the Europeans, whom they described as "bandits" who had expelled the lawful king of Malacca and had now come to China as its representatives. Later they were regarded as a sort of Japanese, because they, too, practiced piracy.

12 Machiavellism

All main schools of Chinese philosophy were still based on Confucius. Wang Yang-ming's philosophy also followed Confucius, but he liberated himself from the Neo-Confucian tendency as represented by Chu Hsi, which started in the Sung epoch and continued to rule in China in his time and after him; he introduced into Confucian philosophy the conception of "intuition". He regarded intuition as the decisive philosophic experience; only through intuition could man come to true knowledge. This idea shows an element of meditative Buddhism along lines which the philosopher Lu Hsiang-shan (1139-1192) had first developed, while classical Neo-Confucianism was more an integration of monastic Buddhism into Confucianism. Lu had felt himself close to Wang An-shih (1021-1086), and this whole school, representing the small gentry of the Yangtze area, was called the Southern or the Lin-ch'uan school, Lin-ch'uan in Kiangsi being Wang An-shih's home. During the Mongol period, a Taoist group, the Cheng-i-chiao (Correct Unity Sect) had developed in Lin-ch'uan and had accepted some of the Lin-ch'uan school's ideas. Originally, this group was a continuation of Chang Ling's church Taoism. Through the Cheng-i adherents, the Southern school had gained political influence on the despotic Mongol rulers. The despotic Yung-lo emperor had favoured the monk Tao-yen (c. 1338-1418) who had also Taoist training and proposed a philosophy which also stressed intuition. He was, incidentally, in charge of the compilation of the largest encyclopaedia ever written, the Yung-lo ta-tien commissioned by the Yung-lo emperor.

Wang Yang-ming followed the Lin-ch'uan tradition. The introduction of the conception of intuition, a highly subjective conception, into the system of a practical state philosophy like Confucianism could not but lead in the practice of the statesman to Machiavellism. The statesman who followed the teaching of Wang Yang-ming had the opportunity of justifying whatever he did by his intuition.

Wang Yang-ming failed to gain acceptance for his philosophy. His disciples also failed to establish his doctrine in China, because it served the interests of an individual despot against those of the gentry as a class, and the middle class, which might have formed a counterweight against them, was not yet politically ripe for the seizure of the opportunity here offered to it. In Japan, however, Wang's doctrine gained many followers, because it admirably served the dictatorial state system which had developed in that country. Incidentally, Chiang Kai-shek in those years in which he showed Fascist tendencies, also got interested in Wang Yang-ming.

13 Foreign relations in the sixteenth century

The feeble emperor Wu Tsung died in 1521, after an ineffective reign, without leaving an heir. The clique then in power at court looked among the possible pretenders for the one who seemed least likely to do anything, and their choice fell on the fifteen-year-old Shih Tsung, who was made emperor. The forty-five years of his reign were filled in home affairs with intrigues between the cliques at court, with growing distress in the country, and with revolts on a larger and larger scale. Abroad there were wars with Annam, increasing raids by the Japanese, and, above all, long-continued fighting against the famous Mongol ruler Yen-ta, from 1549 onward. At one time Yen-ta reached Peking and laid siege to it. The emperor, who had no knowledge of affairs, and to whom Yen-ta had been represented as a petty bandit, was utterly dismayed and ready to do whatever Yen-ta asked; in the end he was dissuaded from this, and an agreement was arrived at with Yen-ta for state-controlled markets to be set up along the frontier, where the Mongols could dispose of their goods against Chinese goods on very favourable terms. After further difficulties lasting many years, a compromise was arrived at: the Mongols were earning good profits from the markets, and in 1571 Yen-ta accepted a Chinese title. On the Chinese side, this Mongol trade, which continued in rather different form in the Manchu epoch, led to the formation of a local merchant class in the frontier province of Shansi, with great experience in credit business; later the first Chinese bankers came almost entirely from this quarter.

After a brief interregnum there came once more to the throne a ten-year-old boy, the emperor Shen Tsung (reign name Wan-li; 1573-1619). He, too, was entirely under the influence of various cliques, at first that of his tutor, the scholar Chang Chü-chan. About the time of the death, in 1582, of Yen-ta we hear for the first time of a new people. In 1581 there had been unrest in southern Manchuria. The Mongolian tribal federation of the Tümet attacked China, and there resulted collisions not only with the Chinese but between the different tribes living there. In southern and central Manchuria were remnants of the Tungus Juchên. The Mongols had subjugated the Juchên, but the latter had virtually become independent after the collapse of Mongol rule over China. They had formed several tribal alliances, but in 1581-83 these fought each other, so that one of the alliances to all intents was destroyed. The Chinese intervened as mediators in these struggles, and drew a demarcation line between the territories of the various Tungus tribes. All this is only worth mention because it was from these tribes that there developed the tribal league of the Manchus, who were then to rule China for some three hundred years.

In 1592 the Japanese invaded Korea. This was their first real effort to set foot on the continent, a purely imperialistic move. Korea, as a Chinese vassal, appealed for Chinese aid. At first the Chinese army had no success, but in 1598 the Japanese were forced to abandon Korea. They revenged themselves by intensifying their raids on the coast of central China; they often massacred whole towns, and burned down the looted houses. The fighting in Korea had its influence on the Tungus tribes: as they were not directly involved, it contributed to their further strengthening.

The East India Company was founded in 1600. At this time, while the English were trying to establish themselves in India, the Chinese tried to gain increased influence in the south by wars in Annam, Burma, and Thailand (1594-1604). These wars were for China colonial wars, similar to the colonial fighting by the British in India. But there began to be defined already at that time in the south of Asia the outlines of the states as they exist at the present time.

In 1601 the first European, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, succeeded in gaining access to the Chinese court, through the agency of a eunuch. He made some presents, and the Chinese regarded his visit as a mission from Europe bringing tribute. Ricci was therefore permitted to remain in Peking. He was an astronomer and was able to demonstrate to his Chinese colleagues the latest achievements of European astronomy. In 1613, after Ricci's death, the Jesuits and some Chinese whom they had converted were commissioned to reform the Chinese calendar. In the time of the Mongols, Arabs had been at work in Peking as astronomers, and their influence had continued under the Ming until the Europeans came. By his astronomical labours Ricci won a place of honour in Chinese literature; he is the European most often mentioned.

The missionary work was less effective. The missionaries penetrated by the old trade routes from Canton and Macao into the province of Kiangsi and then into Nanking. Kiangsi and Nanking were their chief centres. They soon realized that missionary activity that began in the lower strata would have no success; it was necessary to work from above, beginning with the emperor, and then, they hoped, the whole country could be converted to Christianity. When later the emperors of the Ming dynasty were expelled and fugitives in South China, one of the pretenders to the throne was actually converted—but it was politically too late. The missionaries had, moreover, mistaken ideas as to the nature of Chinese religion; we know today that a universal adoption of Christianity in China would have been impossible even if an emperor had personally adopted that foreign faith: there were emperors who had been interested in Buddhism or in Taoism, but that had been their private affair and had never prevented them, as heads of the state, from promoting the religious system which politically was the most expedient—that is to say, usually Confucianism. What we have said here in regard to the Christian mission at the Ming court is applicable also to the missionaries at the court of the first Manchu emperors, in the seventeenth century. Early in the eighteenth century missionary activity was prohibited—not for religious but for political reasons, and only under the pressure of the Capitulations in the nineteenth century were the missionaries enabled to resume their labours.

14 External and internal perils

Towards the end of the reign of Wan-li, about 1620, the danger that threatened the empire became more and more evident. The Manchus complained, no doubt with justice, of excesses on the part of Chinese officials; the friction constantly increased, and the Manchus began to attack the Chinese cities in Manchuria. In 1616, after his first considerable successes, their leader Nurhachu assumed the imperial title; the name of the dynasty was Tai Ch'ing (interpreted as "The great clarity", but probably a transliteration of a Manchurian word meaning "hero"). In 1618, the year in which the Thirty Years War started in Europe, the Manchus conquered the greater part of Manchuria, and in 1621 their capital was Liaoyang, then the largest town in Manchuria.

But the Manchu menace was far from being the only one. On the south-east coast a pirate made himself independent; later, with his family, he dominated Formosa and fought many battles with the Europeans there (European sources call him Coxinga). In western China there came a great popular rising, in which some of the natives joined, and which spread through a large part of the southern provinces. This rising was particularly sanguinary, and when it was ultimately crushed by the Manchus the province of Szechwan, formerly so populous, was almost depopulated, so that it had later to be resettled. And in the province of Shantung in the east there came another great rising, also very sanguinary, that of the secret society of the "White Lotus". We have already pointed out that these risings of secret societies were always a sign of intolerable conditions among the peasantry. This was now the case once more. All the elements of danger which we mentioned at the outset of this chapter began during this period, between 1610 and 1640, to develop to the full.

Then there were the conditions in the capital itself. The struggles between cliques came to a climax. On the death of Shen Tsung (or Wan-li; 1573-1619), he was succeeded by his son, who died scarcely a month later, and then by his sixteen-year-old grandson. The grandson had been from his earliest youth under the influence of a eunuch, Wei Chung-hsien, who had castrated himself. With the emperor's wet-nurse and other people, mostly of the middle class, this man formed a powerful group. The moment the new emperor ascended the throne, Wei was all-powerful. He began by murdering every eunuch who did not belong to his clique, and then murdered the rest of his opponents. Meanwhile the gentry had concluded among themselves a defensive alliance that was a sort of party; this party was called the Tung-lin Academy. It was confined to literati among the gentry, and included in particular the literati who had failed to make their way at court, and who lived on their estates in Central China and were trying to gain power themselves. This group was opposed to Wei Chung-hsien, who ruthlessly had every discoverable member murdered. The remainder went into hiding and organized themselves secretly under another name. As the new emperor had no son, the attempt was made to foist a son upon him; at his death in 1627, eight women of the harem were suddenly found to be pregnant! He was succeeded by his brother, who was one of the opponents of Wei Chung-hsien and, with the aid of the opposing clique, was able to bring him to his end. The new emperor tried to restore order at court and in the capital by means of political and economic decrees, but in spite of his good intentions and his unquestionable capacity he was unable to cope with the universal confusion. There was insurrection in every part of the country. The gentry, organized in their "Academies", and secretly at work in the provinces, no longer supported the government; the central power no longer had adequate revenues, so that it was unable to pay the armies that should have marched against all the rebels and also against external enemies. It was clear that the dynasty was approaching its end, and the only uncertainty was as to its successor. The various insurgents negotiated or fought with each other; generals loyal to the government won occasional successes against the rebels; other generals went over to the rebels or to the Manchus. The two most successful leaders of bands were Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng and Chang Hsien-chung. Li came from the province of Shensi; he had come to the fore during a disastrous famine in his country. The years around 1640 brought several widespread droughts in North China, a natural phenomenon that was repeated in the nineteenth century, when unrest again ensued. Chang Hsien-chung returned for a time to the support of the government, but later established himself in western China. It was typical, however, of all these insurgents that none of them had any great objective in view. They wanted to get enough to eat for themselves and their followers; they wanted to enrich themselves by conquest; but they were incapable of building up an ordered and new administration. Li ultimately made himself "king" in the province of Shensi and called his dynasty "Shun", but this made no difference: there was no distribution of land among the peasants serving in Li's army; no plan was set into operation for the collection of taxes; not one of the pressing problems was faced.

Meanwhile the Manchus were gaining support. Almost all the Mongol princes voluntarily joined them and took part in the raids into North China. In 1637 the united Manchus and Mongols conquered Korea. Their power steadily grew. What the insurgents in China failed to achieve, the Manchus achieved with the aid of their Chinese advisers: they created a new military organization, the "Banner Organization". The men fit for service were distributed among eight "banners", and these banners became the basis of the Manchu state administration. By this device the Manchus emerged from the stage of tribal union, just as before them Turks and other northern peoples had several times abandoned the traditional authority of a hierarchy of tribal leaders, a system of ruling families, in favour of the authority, based on efficiency, of military leaders. At the same time the Manchus set up a central government with special ministries on the Chinese model. In 1638 the Manchus appeared before Peking, but they retired once more. Manchu armies even reached the province of Shantung. They were hampered by the death at the critical moment of the Manchu ruler Abahai (1626-1643). His son Fu Lin was not entirely normal and was barely six years old; there was a regency of princes, the most prominent among them being Prince Dorgon.

Meanwhile Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng broke through to Peking. The city had a strong garrison, but owing to the disorganization of the government the different commanders were working against each other; and the soldiers had no fighting spirit because they had no pay for a long time. Thus the city fell, on April 24th, 1644, and the last Ming emperor killed himself. A prince was proclaimed emperor; he fled through western and southern China, continually trying to make a stand, but it was too late; without the support of the gentry he had no resource, and ultimately, in 1659, he was compelled to flee into Burma.

Thus Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng was now emperor. It should have been his task rapidly to build up a government, and to take up arms against the other rebels and against the Manchus. Instead of this he behaved in such a way that he was unable to gain any support from the existing officials in the capital; and as there was no one among his former supporters who had any positive, constructive ideas, just nothing was done.

This, however, improved the chances of all the other aspirants to the imperial throne. The first to realize this clearly, and also to possess enough political sagacity to avoid alienating the gentry, was General Wu San-kui, who was commanding on the Manchu front. He saw that in the existing conditions in the capital he could easily secure the imperial throne for himself if only he had enough soldiers. Accordingly he negotiated with the Manchu Prince Dorgon, formed an alliance with the Manchus, and with them entered Peking on June 6th, 1644. Li Tz[)u]-ch'eng quickly looted the city, burned down whatever he could, and fled into the west, continually pursued by Wu San-kui. In the end he was abandoned by all his supporters and killed by peasants. The Manchus, however, had no intention of leaving Wu San-kui in power: they established themselves in Peking, and Wu became their general.

(C) The Manchu Dynasty (1644-1911)

1 Installation of Manchus

The Manchus had gained the mastery over China owing rather to China's internal situation than to their military superiority. How was it that the dynasty could endure for so long, although the Manchus were not numerous, although the first Manchu ruler (Fu Lin, known under the rule name Shun-chih; 1644-1662) was a psychopathic youth, although there were princes of the Ming dynasty ruling in South China, and although there were strong groups of rebels all over the country? The Manchus were aliens; at that time the national feeling of the Chinese had already been awakened; aliens were despised. In addition to this, the Manchus demanded that as a sign of their subjection the Chinese should wear pigtails and assume Manchurian clothing (law of 1645). Such laws could not but offend national pride. Moreover, marriages between Manchus and Chinese were prohibited, and a dual government was set up, with Manchus always alongside Chinese in every office, the Manchus being of course in the superior position. The Manchu soldiers were distributed in military garrisons among the great cities, and were paid state pensions, which had to be provided by taxation. They were the master race, and had no need to work. Manchus did not have to attend the difficult state examinations which the Chinese had to pass in order to gain an appointment. How was it that in spite of all this the Manchus were able to establish themselves?

The conquering Manchu generals first went south from eastern China, and in 1645 captured Nanking, where a Ming prince had ruled. The region round Nanking was the economic centre of China. Soon the Manchus were in the adjoining southern provinces, and thus they conquered the whole of the territory of the landowning gentry, who after the events of the beginning of the seventeenth century had no longer trusted the Ming rulers. The Ming prince in Nanking was just as incapable, and surrounded by just as evil a clique, as the Ming emperors of the past. The gentry were not inclined to defend him. A considerable section of the gentry were reduced to utter despair; they had no desire to support the Ming any longer; in their own interest they could not support the rebel leaders; and they regarded the Manchus as just a particular sort of "rebels". Interpreting the refusal of some Sung ministers to serve the foreign Mongols as an act of loyalty, it was now regarded as shameful to desert a dynasty when it came to an end and to serve the new ruler, even if the new regime promised to be better. Many thousands of officials, scholars, and great landowners committed suicide. Many books, often really moving and tragic, are filled with the story of their lives. Some of them tried to form insurgent bands with their peasants and went into the mountains, but they were unable to maintain themselves there. The great bulk of the élite soon brought themselves to collaborate with the conquerors when they were offered tolerable conditions. In the end the Manchus did not interfere in the ownership of land in central China.

At the time when in Europe Louis XIV was reigning, the Thirty Years War was coming to an end, and Cromwell was carrying out his reforms in England, the Manchus conquered the whole of China. Chang Hsien-chung and Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng were the first to fall; the pirate Coxinga lasted a little longer and was even able to plunder Nanking in 1659, but in 1661 he had to retire to Formosa. Wu San-kui, who meanwhile had conquered western China, saw that the situation was becoming difficult for him. His task was to drive out the last Ming pretenders for the Manchus. As he had already been opposed to the Ming in 1644, and as the Ming no longer had any following among the gentry, he could not suddenly work with them against the Manchus. He therefore handed over to the Manchus the last Ming prince, whom the Burmese had delivered up to him in 1661. Wu San-kui's only possible allies against the Manchus were the gentry. But in the west, where he was in power, the gentry counted for nothing; they had in any case been weaker in the west, and they had been decimated by the insurrection of Chang Hsien-chung. Thus Wu San-kui was compelled to try to push eastwards, in order to unite with the gentry of the Yangtze region against the Manchus. The Manchus guessed Wu San-kui's plan, and in 1673, after every effort at accommodation had failed, open war came. Wu San-kui made himself emperor, and the Manchus marched against him. Meanwhile, the Chinese gentry of the Yangtze region had come to terms with the Manchus, and they gave Wu San-kui no help. He vegetated in the south-west, a region too poor to maintain an army that could conquer all China, and too small to enable him to last indefinitely as an independent power. He was able to hold his own until his death, although, with the loss of the support of the gentry, he had no prospect of final success. Not until 1681 was his successor, his grandson Wu Shih-fan, defeated. The end of the rule of Wu San-kui and his successor marked the end of the national governments of China; the whole country was now under alien domination, for the simple reason that all the opponents of the Manchus had failed. Only the Manchus were accredited with the ability to bring order out of the universal confusion, so that there was clearly no alternative but to put up with the many insults and humiliations they inflicted—with the result that the national feeling that had just been aroused died away, except where it was kept alive in a few secret societies. There will be more to say about this, once the works which were suppressed by the Manchus are published.

In the first phase of the Manchu conquest the gentry had refused to support either the Ming princes or Wu San-kui, or any of the rebels, or the Manchus themselves. A second phase began about twenty years after the capture of Peking, when the Manchus won over the gentry by desisting from any interference with the ownership of land, and by the use of Manchu troops to clear away the "rebels" who were hostile to the gentry. A reputable government was then set up in Peking, free from eunuchs and from all the old cliques; in their place the government looked for Chinese scholars for its administrative posts. Literati and scholars streamed into Peking, especially members of the "Academies" that still existed in secret, men who had been the chief sufferers from the conditions at the end of the Ming epoch. The young emperor Sheng Tsu (1663-1722; K'ang-hsi is the name by which his rule was known, not his name) was keenly interested in Chinese culture and gave privileged treatment to the scholars of the gentry who came forward. A rapid recovery quite clearly took place. The disturbances of the years that had passed had got rid of the worst enemies of the people, the formidable rival cliques and the individuals lusting for power; the gentry had become more cautious in their behaviour to the peasants; and bribery had been largely stamped out. Finally, the empire had been greatly expanded. All these things helped to stabilize the regime of the Manchus.

2 Decline in the eighteenth century

The improvement continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. About the time of the French Revolution there began a continuous decline, slow at first and then gathering speed. The European works on China offer various reasons for this: the many foreign wars (to which we shall refer later) of the emperor, known by the name of his ruling period, Ch'ien-lung, his craze for building, and the irruption of the Europeans into Chinese trade. In the eighteenth century the court surrounded itself with great splendour, and countless palaces and other luxurious buildings were erected, but it must be borne in mind that so great an empire as the China of that day possessed very considerable financial strength, and could support this luxury. The wars were certainly not inexpensive, as they took place along the Russian frontier and entailed expenditure on the transport of reinforcements and supplies; the wars against Turkestan and Tibet were carried on with relatively small forces. This expenditure should not have been beyond the resources of an ordered budget. Interestingly enough, the period between 1640 and 1840 belongs to those periods for which almost no significant work in the field of internal social and economic developments has been made; Western scholars have been too much interested in the impact of Western economy and culture or in the military events. Chinese scholars thus far have shown a prejudice against the Manchu dynasty and were mainly interested in the study of anti-Manchu movements and the downfall of the dynasty. On the other hand, the documentary material for this period is extremely extensive, and many years of work are necessary to reach any general conclusions even in one single field. The following remarks should, therefore, be taken as very tentative and preliminary, and they are, naturally, fragmentary.

[Illustration: 14 Aborigines of South China, of the 'Black Miao' tribe, at a festival. China-ink drawing of the eighteenth century. Collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. No. 1D 8756, 68.]

[Illustration: 15 Pavilion on the 'Coal Hill' at Peking, in which the last Ming emperor committed suicide. Photo Eberhard.]

[Illustration: Chart POPULATION GROWTH OF CHINA]

The decline of the Manchu dynasty began at a time when the European trade was still insignificant, and not as late as after 1842, when China had to submit to the foreign Capitulations. These cannot have been the true cause of the decline. Above all, the decline was not so noticeable in the state of the Exchequer as in a general impoverishment of China. The number of really wealthy persons among the gentry diminished, but the middle class, that is to say the people who had education but little or no money and property, grew steadily in number.

One of the deeper reasons for the decline of the Manchu dynasty seems to lie in the enormous increase in the population. Here are a few Chinese statistics:

Year Population

1578(before the Manchus) 10,621,463 families or 60,692,856 individuals
1662 19,203,233 " 100,000,000 " [*]
1710 23,311,236 " 116,000,000 " [*]
1729 25,480,498 " 127,000,000 " [*]
1741 " 143,411,559 "
1754 184,504,493 "
1778 242,965,618 "
1796 275,662,414 "
1814 374,601,132 "
1850 414,493,899 "
(1953) (601,938,035 ")

[*] Approximately

It may be objected that these figures are incorrect and exaggerated. Undoubtedly they contain errors. But the first figure (for 1578) of some sixty millions is in close agreement with all other figures of early times; the figure for 1850 seems high, but cannot be far wrong, for even after the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion of 1851, which, together with its after-effects, costs the lives of countless millions, all statisticians of today estimate the population of China at more than four hundred millions. If we enter these data together with the census of 1953 into a chart (see p. 273), a fairly smooth curve emerges; the special features are that already under the Ming the population was increasing and, secondly, that the high rate of increase in the population began with the long period of internal peace since about 1700. From that time onwards, all China's wars were fought at so great a distance from China proper that the population was not directly affected. Moreover, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Manchus saw to the maintenance of the river dykes, so that the worst inundations were prevented. Thus there were not so many of the floods which had often cost the lives of many million people in China; and there were no internal wars, with their heavy cost in lives.

But while the population increased, the tillage failed to increase in the needed proportion. I have, unfortunately, no statistics for all periods; but the general tendency is shown by the following table:

Date Cultivated area mou per person in mou

1578 701,397,600 11.6
1662 531,135,800
1719 663,113,200
1729 878,176,000 6.1
(1953) (1,627,930,000) (2.7)

Six mou are about one acre. In 1578, there were 66 mou land per family of the total population. This was close to the figures regarded as ideal by Chinese early economists for the producing family (100 mou) considering the fact that about 80 per cent of all families at that time were producers. By 1729 it was only 35 mou per family, i.e. the land had to produce almost twice as much as before. We have shown that the agricultural developments in the Ming time greatly increased the productivity of the land. This then, obviously resulted in an increase of population. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, assuming that production doubled since the sixteenth century, population pressure was again as heavy as it had been then. And after c. 1750, population pressure continued to build up to the present time.

Internal colonization continued during the Manchu time; there was a continuous, but slow flow of people into Kwangsi, Kweichow, Yünnan. In spite of laws which prohibited emigration, Chinese also moved into South-East Asia. Chinese settlement in Manchuria was allowed only in the last years of the Manchus. But such internal colonization or emigration could alleviated the pressure only in some areas, while it continued to build up in others.

In Europe as well as in Japan, we find a strong population increase; in Europe at almost the same time as in China. But before population pressure became too serious in Europe or Japan, industry developed and absorbed the excess population. Thus, farms did not decrease too much in size. Too small farms are always and in many ways uneconomical. With the development of industries, the percentage of farm population decreased. In China, however, the farm population was still as high as 73.3 per cent of the total population in 1932 and the percentage rose to 81 per cent in 1950.

From the middle of the seventeenth century on, commercial activities, especially along the coast, continued to increase and we find gentry families who equip sons who were unwilling or not capable to study and to enter the ranks of the officials, but who were too unruly to sit in villages and collect the rent from the tenants of the family, with money to enter business. The newly settled areas of Kwangtung and Kwangsi were ideal places for them: here they could sell Chinese products to the native tribes or to the new settlers at high prices. Some of these men introduced new techniques from the old provinces of China into the "colonial" areas and set up dye factories, textile factories, etc., in the new towns of the south. But the greatest stimulus for these commercial activities was foreign, European trade. American silver which had flooded Europe in the sixteenth century, began to flow into China from the beginning of the seventeenth century on. The influx was stopped not until between 1661 and 1684 when the government again prohibited coastal shipping and removed coastal settlements into the interior in order to stop piracy along the coasts of Fukien and independence movements on Formosa. But even during these twenty-three years, the price of silver was so low that home production was given up because it did not pay off. In the eighteenth century, silver again continued to enter China, while silk and tea were exported. This demand led to a strong rise in the prices of silk and tea, and benefited the merchants. When, from the late eighteenth century on, opium began to be imported, the silver left China again. The merchants profited this time from the opium trade, but farmers had to suffer: the price of silver went up, and taxes had to be paid in silver, while farm products were sold for copper. By 1835, the ounce of silver had a value of 2,000 copper coins instead of one thousand before 1800. High gains in commerce prevented investment in industries, because they would give lower and later profits than commerce. From the nineteenth century on, more and more industrial goods were offered by importers which also prevented industrialization. Finally, the gentry basically remained anti-industrial and anti-business. They tried to operate necessary enterprises such as mining, melting, porcelain production as far as possible as government establishments; but as the operators were officials, they were not too business-minded and these enterprises did not develop well. The businessmen certainly had enough capital, but they invested it in land instead of investing it in industries which could at any moment be taken away by the government, controlled by the officials or forced to sell at set prices, and which were always subject to exploitation by dishonest officials. A businessman felt secure only when he had invested in land, when he had received an official title upon the payment of large sums of money, or when he succeeded to push at least one of his sons into the government bureaucracy. No doubt, in spite of all this, Chinese business and industry kept on developing in the Manchu time, but they did not develop at such a speed as to transform the country from an agrarian into a modern industrial nation.

3 Expansion in Central Asia; the first State treaty

The rise of the Manchu dynasty actually began under the K'ang-hsi rule (1663-1722). The emperor had three tasks. The first was the removal of the last supporters of the Ming dynasty and of the generals, such as Wu San-kui, who had tried to make themselves independent. This necessitated a long series of campaigns, most of them in the south-west or south of China; these scarcely affected the population of China proper. In 1683 Formosa was occupied and the last of the insurgent army commanders was defeated. It was shown above that the situation of all these leaders became hopeless as soon as the Manchus had occupied the rich Yangtze region and the intelligentsia and the gentry of that region had gone over to them.

A quite different type of insurgent commander was the Mongol prince Galdan. He, too, planned to make himself independent of Manchu overlordship. At first the Mongols had readily supported the Manchus, when the latter were making raids into China and there was plenty of booty. Now, however, the Manchus, under the influence of the Chinese gentry whom they brought, and could not but bring, to their court, were rapidly becoming Chinese in respect to culture. Even in the time of K'ang-hsi the Manchus began to forget Manchurian; they brought tutors to court to teach the young Manchus Chinese. Later even the emperors did not understand Manchurian! As a result of this process, the Mongols became alienated from the Manchurians, and the situation began once more to be the same as at the time of the Ming rulers. Thus Galdan tried to found an independent Mongol realm, free from Chinese influence.

The Manchus could not permit this, as such a realm would have threatened the flank of their homeland, Manchuria, and would have attracted those Manchus who objected to sinification. Between 1690 and 1696 there were battles, in which the emperor actually took part in person. Galdan was defeated. In 1715, however, there were new disturbances, this time in western Mongolia. Tsewang Rabdan, whom the Chinese had made khan of the Ölöt, rose against the Chinese. The wars that followed, extending far into Turkestan and also involving its Turkish population together with the Dzungars, ended with the Chinese conquest of the whole of Mongolia and of parts of eastern Turkestan. As Tsewang Rabdan had tried to extend his power as far as Tibet, a campaign was undertaken also into Tibet, Lhasa was occupied, a new Dalai Lama was installed there as supreme ruler, and Tibet was made into a protectorate. Since then Tibet has remained to this day under some form of Chinese colonial rule.

This penetration of the Chinese into Turkestan took place just at the time when the Russians were enormously expanding their empire in Asia, and this formed the third problem for the Manchus. In 1650 the Russians had established a fort by the river Amur. The Manchus regarded the Amur (which they called the "River of the Black Dragon") as part of their own territory, and in 1685 they destroyed the Russian settlement. After this there were negotiations, which culminated in 1689 in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. This treaty was the first concluded by the Chinese state with a European power. Jesuit missionaries played a part in the negotiations as interpreters. Owing to the difficulties of translation the text of the treaty, in Chinese, Russian, and Manchurian, contained some obscurities, particularly in regard to the frontier line. Accordingly, in 1727 the Russians asked for a revision of the old treaty. The Chinese emperor, whose rule name was Yung-cheng, arranged for the negotiations to be carried on at the frontier, in the town of Kyakhta, in Mongolia, where after long discussions a new treaty was concluded. Under this treaty the Russians received permission to set up a legation and a commercial agency in Peking, and also to maintain a church. This was the beginning of the foreign Capitulations. From the Chinese point of view there was nothing special in a facility of this sort. For some fifteen centuries all the "barbarians" who had to bring tribute had been given houses in the capital, where their envoys could wait until the emperor would receive them—usually on New Year's Day. The custom had sprung up at the reception of the Huns. Moreover, permission had always been given for envoys to be accompanied by a few merchants, who during the envoy's stay did a certain amount of business. Furthermore the time had been when the Uighurs were permitted to set up a temple of their own. At the time of the permission given to the Russians to set up a "legation", a similar office was set up (in 1729) for "Uighur" peoples (meaning Mohammedans), again under the control of an office, called the Office for Regulation of Barbarians. The Mohammedan office was placed under two Mohammedan leaders who lived in Peking. The Europeans, however, had quite different ideas about a "legation", and about the significance of permission to trade. They regarded this as the opening of diplomatic relations between states on terms of equality, and the carrying on of trade as a special privilege, a sort of Capitulation. This reciprocal misunderstanding produced in the nineteenth century a number of serious political conflicts. The Europeans charged the Chinese with breach of treaties, failure to meet their obligations, and other such things, while the Chinese considered that they had acted with perfect correctness.

4 Culture

In this K'ang-hsi period culture began to flourish again. The emperor had attracted the gentry, and so the intelligentsia, to his court because his uneducated Manchus could not alone have administered the enormous empire; and he showed great interest in Chinese culture, himself delved deeply into it, and had many works compiled, especially works of an encyclopaedic character. The encyclopaedias enabled information to be rapidly gained on all sorts of subjects, and thus were just what an interested ruler needed, especially when, as a foreigner, he was not in a position to gain really thorough instruction in things Chinese. The Chinese encyclopaedias of the seventeenth and especially of the eighteenth century were thus the outcome of the initiative of the Manchurian emperor, and were compiled for his information; they were not due, like the French encyclopaedias of the eighteenth century, to a movement for the spread of knowledge among the people. For this latter purpose the gigantic encyclopaedias of the Manchus, each of which fills several bookcases, were much too expensive and were printed in much too limited editions. The compilations began with the great geographical encyclopaedia of Ku Yen-wu (1613-1682), and attained their climax in the gigantic eighteenth-century encyclopaedia T'u-shu chi-ch'eng, scientifically impeccable in the accuracy of its references to sources. Here were already the beginnings of the "Archaeological School", built up in the course of the eighteenth century. This school was usually called "Han school" because the adherents went back to the commentaries of the classical texts written in Han time and discarded the orthodox explanations of Chu Hsi's school of Sung time. Later, its most prominent leader was Tai Chen (1723-1777). Tai was greatly interested in technology and science; he can be regarded as the first philosopher who exhibited an empirical, scientific way of thinking. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese scholarship is greatly obliged to him.

The most famous literary works of the Manchu epoch belong once more to the field which Chinese do not regard as that of true literature—the novel, the short story, and the drama. Poetry did exist, but it kept to the old paths and had few fresh ideas. All the various forms of the Sung period were made use of. The essayists, too, offered nothing new, though their number was legion. One of the best known is Yüan Mei (1716-1797), who was also the author of the collection of short stories Tse-pu-yü ("The Master did not tell"), which is regarded very highly by the Chinese. The volume of short stories entitled Liao-chai chich-i, by P'u Sung-lin (1640-1715?), is world-famous and has been translated into every civilized language. Both collections are distinguished by their simple but elegant style. The short story was popular among the greater gentry; it abandoned the popular style it had in the Ming epoch, and adopted the polished language of scholars.

The Manchu epoch has left to us what is by general consent the finest novel in Chinese literature, Hung-lou-meng ("The Dream of the Red Chamber"), by Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in, who died in 1763. It describes the downfall of a rich and powerful family from the highest rank of the gentry, and the decadent son's love of a young and emotional lady of the highest circles. The story is clothed in a mystical garb that does something to soften its tragic ending. The interesting novel Ju-lin wai-shih ("Private Reports from the Life of Scholars"), by Wu Ching-tz[)u] (1701-1754), is a mordant criticism of Confucianism with its rigid formalism, of the social system, and of the examination system. Social criticism is the theme of many novels. The most modern in spirit of the works of this period is perhaps the treatment of feminism in the novel Ching-hua-yüan, by Li Yu-chên (d. 1830), which demanded equal rights for men and women.

The drama developed quickly in the Manchu epoch, particularly in quantity, especially since the emperors greatly appreciated the theatre. A catalogue of plays compiled in 1781 contains 1,013 titles! Some of these dramas were of unprecedented length. One of them was played in 26 parts containing 240 acts; a performance took two years to complete! Probably the finest dramas of the Manchu epoch are those of Li Yü (born 1611), who also became the first of the Chinese dramatic critics. What he had to say about the art of the theatre, and about aesthetics in general, is still worth reading.

About the middle of the nineteenth century the influence of Europe became more and more marked. Translation began with Yen Fu (1853-1921), who translated the first philosophical and scientific books and books on social questions and made his compatriots acquainted with Western thought. At the same time Lin Shu (1852-1924) translated the first Western short stories and novels. With these two began the new style, which was soon elaborated by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a collaborator of Sun Yat-sen's, and by others, and which ultimately produced the "literary revolution" of 1917. Translation has continued to this day; almost every book of outstanding importance in world literature is translated within a few months of its appearance, and on the average these translations are of a fairly high level.

Particularly fine work was produced in the field of porcelain in the Manchu epoch. In 1680 the famous kilns in the province of Kiangsi were reopened, and porcelain that is among the most artistically perfect in the world was fired in them. Among the new colours were especially green shades (one group is known as famille verte) and also black and yellow compositions. Monochrome porcelain also developed further, including very fine dark blue, brilliant red (called "ox-blood"), and white. In the eighteenth century, however, there began an unmistakable decline, which has continued to this day, although there are still a few craftsmen and a few kilns that produce outstanding work (usually attempts to imitate old models), often in small factories.

In painting, European influence soon shows itself. The best-known example of this is Lang Shih-ning, an Italian missionary whose original name was Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766); he began to work in China in 1715. He learned the Chinese method of painting, but introduced a number of technical tricks of European painters, which were adopted in general practice in China, especially by the official court painters: the painting of the scholars who lived in seclusion remained uninfluenced. Dutch flower-painting also had some influence in China as early as the eighteenth century.

The missionaries played an important part at court. The first Manchu emperors were as generous in this matter as the Mongols had been, and allowed the foreigners to work in peace. They showed special interest in the European science introduced by the missionaries; they had less sympathy for their religious message. The missionaries, for their part, sent to Europe enthusiastic accounts of the wonderful conditions in China, and so helped to popularize the idea that was being formed in Europe of an "enlightened", a constitutional, monarchy. The leaders of the Enlightenment read these reports with enthusiasm, with the result that they had an influence on the French Revolution. Confucius was found particularly attractive, and was regarded as a forerunner of the Enlightenment. The "Monadism" of the philosopher Leibniz was influenced by these reports.

The missionaries gained a reputation at court as "scientists", and in this they were of service both to China and to Europe. The behaviour of the European merchants who followed the missions, spreading gradually in growing numbers along the coasts of China, was not by any means so irreproachable. The Chinese were certainly justified when they declared that European ships often made landings on the coast and simply looted, just as the Japanese had done before them. Reports of this came to the court, and as captured foreigners described themselves as "Christians" and also seemed to have some connection with the missionaries living at court, and as disputes had broken out among the missionaries themselves in connection with papal ecclesiastical policy, in the Yung-cheng period (1723-1736; the name of the emperor was Shih Tsung) Christianity was placed under a general ban, being regarded as a secret political organization.

5 Relations with the outer world

During the Yung-cheng period there was long-continued guerrilla fighting with natives in south-west China. The pressure of population in China sought an outlet in emigration. More and more Chinese moved into the south-west, and took the land from the natives, and the fighting was the consequence of this.

At the beginning of the Ch'ien-lung period (1736-1796), fighting started again in Turkestan. Mongols, now called Kalmuks, defeated by the Chinese, had migrated to the Ili region, where after heavy fighting they gained supremacy over some of the Kazaks and other Turkish peoples living there and in western Turkestan. Some Kazak tribes went over to the Russians, and in 1735 the Russian colonialists founded the town of Orenburg in the western Kazak region. The Kalmuks fought the Chinese without cessation until, in 1739, they entered into an agreement under which they ceded half their territory to Manchu China, retaining only the Ili region. The Kalmuks subsequently reunited with other sections of the Kazaks against the Chinese. In 1754 peace was again concluded with China, but it was followed by raids on both sides, so that the Manchus determined to enter on a great campaign against the Ili region. This ended with a decisive victory for the Chinese (1755). In the years that followed, however, the Chinese began to be afraid that the various Kazak tribes might unite in order to occupy the territory of the Kalmuks, which was almost unpopulated owing to the mass slaughter of Kalmuks by the Chinese. Unrest began among the Mohammedans throughout the neighbouring western Turkestan, and the same Chinese generals who had fought the Kalmuks marched into Turkestan and captured the Mohammedan city states of Uch, Kashgar, and Yarkand.

The reinforcements for these campaigns, and for the garrisons which in the following decades were stationed in the Ili region and in the west of eastern Turkestan, marched along the road from Peking that leads northward through Mongolia to the far distant Uliassutai and Kobdo. The cost of transport for one shih (about 66 lb.) amounted to 120 pieces of silver. In 1781 certain economies were introduced, but between 1781 and 1791 over 30,000 tons, making some 8 tons a day, was transported to that region. The cost of transport for supplies alone amounted in the course of time to the not inconsiderable sum of 120,000,000 pieces of silver. In addition to this there was the cost of the transported goods and of the pay of soldiers and of the administration. These figures apply to the period of occupation, of relative peace: during the actual wars of conquest the expenditure was naturally far higher. Thus these campaigns, though I do not think they brought actual economic ruin to China, were nevertheless a costly enterprise, and one which produced little positive advantage.

In addition to this, these wars brought China into conflict with the European colonial powers. In the years during which the Chinese armies were fighting in the Ili region, the Russians were putting out their feelers in that direction, and the Chinese annals show plainly how the Russians intervened in the fighting with the Kalmuks and Kazaks. The Hi region remained thereafter a bone of contention between China and Russia, until it finally went to Russia, bit by bit, between 1847 and 1881. The Kalmuks and Kazaks played a special part in Russo-Chinese relations. The Chinese had sent a mission to the Kalmuks farthest west, by the lower Volga, and had entered into relations with them, as early as 1714. As Russian pressure on the Volga region continually grew, these Kalmuks (mainly the Turgut tribe), who had lived there since 1630, decided to return into Chinese territory (1771). During this enormously difficult migration, almost entirely through hostile territory, a large number of the Turgut perished; 85,000, however, reached the Hi region, where they were settled by the Chinese on the lands of the eastern Kalmuks, who had been largely exterminated.

In the south, too, the Chinese came into direct touch with the European powers. In 1757 the English occupied Calcutta, and in 1766 the province of Bengal. In 1767 a Manchu general, Ming Jui, who had been victorious in the fighting for eastern Turkestan, marched against Burma, which was made a dependency once more in 1769. And in 1790-1791 the Chinese conquered Nepal, south of Tibet, because Nepalese had made two attacks on Tibet. Thus English and Chinese political interests came here into contact.

For the Ch'ien-lung period's many wars of conquest there seem to have been two main reasons. The first was the need for security. The Mongols had to be overthrown because otherwise the homeland of the Manchus was menaced; in order to make sure of the suppression of the eastern Mongols, the western Mongols (Kalmuks) had to be overthrown; to make them harmless, Turkestan and the Ili region had to be conquered; Tibet was needed for the security of Turkestan and Mongolia—and so on. Vast territories, however, were conquered in this process which were of no economic value, and most of which actually cost a great deal of money and brought nothing in. They were conquered simply for security. That advantage had been gained: an aggressor would have to cross great areas of unproductive territory, with difficult conditions for reinforcements, before he could actually reach China. In the second place, the Chinese may actually have noticed the efforts that were being made by the European powers, especially Russia and England, to divide Asia among themselves, and accordingly they made sure of their own good share.

6 Decline; revolts

The period of Ch'ien-lung is not only that of the greatest expansion of the Chinese empire, but also that of the greatest prosperity under the Manchu regime. But there began at the same time to be signs of internal decline. If we are to fix a particular year for this, perhaps it should be the year 1774, in which came the first great popular rising, in the province of Shantung. In 1775 there came another popular rising, in Honan—that of the "Society of the White Lotus". This society, which had long existed as a secret organization and had played a part in the Ming epoch, had been reorganized by a man named Liu Sung. Liu Sung was captured and was condemned to penal servitude. His followers, however, regrouped themselves, particularly in the province of Anhui. These risings had been produced, as always, by excessive oppression of the people by the government or the governing class. As, however, the anger of the population was naturally directed also against the idle Manchus of the cities, who lived on their state pensions, did no work, and behaved as a ruling class, the government saw in these movements a nationalist spirit, and took drastic steps against them. The popular leaders now altered their program, and acclaimed a supposed descendant from the Ming dynasty as the future emperor. Government troops caught the leader of the "White Lotus" agitation, but he succeeded in escaping. In the regions through which the society had spread, there then began a sort of Inquisition, of exceptional ferocity. Six provinces were affected, and in and around the single city of Wuch'ang in four months more than 20,000 people were beheaded. The cost of the rising to the government ran into millions. In answer to this oppression, the popular leaders tightened their organization and marched north-west from the western provinces of which they had gained control. The rising was suppressed only by a very big military operation, and not until 1802. There had been very heavy fighting between 1793 and 1802—just when in Europe, in the French Revolution, another oppressed population won its freedom.

The Ch'ien-lung emperor abdicated on New Year's Day, 1795, after ruling for sixty years. He died in 1799. His successor was Jen Tsung (1796-1821; reign name: Chia-ch'ing). In the course of his reign the rising of the "White Lotus" was suppressed, but in 1813 there began a new rising, this time in North China—again that of a secret organization, the "Society of Heaven's Law". One of its leaders bribed some eunuchs, and penetrated with a group of followers into the palace; he threw himself upon the emperor, who was only saved through the intervention of his son. At the same time the rising spread in the provinces. Once more the government succeeded in suppressing it and capturing the leaders. But the memory of these risings was kept alive among the Chinese people. For the government failed to realize that the actual cause of the risings was the general impoverishment, and saw in them a nationalist movement, thus actually arousing a national consciousness, stronger than in the Ming epoch, among the middle and lower classes of the people, together with hatred of the Manchus. They were held responsible for every evil suffered, regardless of the fact that similar evils had existed earlier.

7 European Imperialism in the Far East

With the Tao-kuang period (1821-1850) began a new period in Chinese history, which came to an end only in 1911.

In foreign affairs these ninety years were marked by the steadily growing influence of the Western powers, aimed at turning China into a colony. Culturally this period was that of the gradual infiltration of Western civilization into the Far East; it was recognized in China that it was necessary to learn from the West. In home affairs we see the collapse of the dynasty and the destruction of the unity of the empire; of four great civil wars, one almost brought the dynasty to its end. North and South China, the coastal area and the interior, developed in different ways.

Great Britain had made several attempts to improve her trade relations with China, but the mission of 1793 had no success, and that of 1816 also failed. English merchants, like all foreign merchants, were only permitted to settle in a small area adjoining Canton and at Macao, and were only permitted to trade with a particular group of monopolists, known as the "Hong". The Hong had to pay taxes to the state, but they had a wonderful opportunity of enriching themselves. The Europeans were entirely at their mercy, for they were not allowed to travel inland, and they were not allowed to try to negotiate with other merchants, to secure lower prices by competition.

The Europeans concentrated especially on the purchase of silk and tea; but what could they import into China? The higher the price of the goods and the smaller the cargo space involved, the better were the chances of profit for the merchants. It proved, however, that European woollens or luxury goods could not be sold; the Chinese would probably have been glad to buy food, but transport was too expensive to permit profitable business. Thus a new article was soon discovered—opium, carried from India to China: the price was high and the cargo space involved was very small. The Chinese were familiar with opium, and bought it readily. Accordingly, from 1800 onwards opium became more and more the chief article of trade, especially for the English, who were able to bring it conveniently from India. Opium is harmful to the people; the opium trade resulted in certain groups of merchants being inordinately enriched; a great deal of Chinese money went abroad. The government became apprehensive and sent Lin Tsê-hsü as its commissioner to Canton. In 1839 he prohibited the opium trade and burned the chests of opium found in British possession. The British view was that to tolerate the Chinese action might mean the destruction of British trade in the Far East and that, on the other hand, it might be possible by active intervention to compel the Chinese to open other ports to European trade and to shake off the monopoly of the Canton merchants. In 1840 British ships-of-war appeared off the south-eastern coast of China and bombarded it. In 1841 the Chinese opened negotiations and dismissed Lin Tsê-hsü. As the Chinese concessions were regarded as inadequate, hostilities continued; the British entered the Yangtze estuary and threatened Nanking. In this first armed conflict with the West, China found herself defenceless owing to her lack of a navy, and it was also found that the European weapons were far superior to those of the Chinese. In 1842 China was compelled to capitulate: under the Treaty of Nanking Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, a war indemnity was paid, certain ports were thrown open to European trade, and the monopoly was brought to an end. A great deal of opium came, however, into China through smuggling—regrettably, for the state lost the customs revenue!

This treaty introduced the period of the Capitulations. It contained the dangerous clause which added most to China's misfortunes—the Most Favoured Nation clause, providing that if China granted any privilege to any other state, that privilege should also automatically be granted to Great Britain. In connection with this treaty it was agreed that the Chinese customs should be supervised by European consuls; and a trade treaty was granted. Similar treaties followed in 1844 with France and the United States. The missionaries returned; until 1860, however, they were only permitted to work in the treaty ports. Shanghai was thrown open in 1843, and developed with extraordinary rapidity from a town to a city of a million and a centre of world-wide importance.

The terms of the Nanking Treaty were not observed by either side; both evaded them. In order to facilitate the smuggling, the British had permitted certain Chinese junks to fly the British flag. This also enabled these vessels to be protected by British ships-of-war from pirates, which at that time were very numerous off the southern coast owing to the economic depression. The Chinese, for their part, placed every possible obstacle in the way of the British. In 1856 the Chinese held up a ship sailing under the British flag, pulled down its flag, and arrested the crew on suspicion of smuggling. In connection with this and other events, Britain decided to go to war. Thus began the "Lorcha War" of 1857, in which France joined for the sake of the booty to be expected. Britain had just ended the Crimean War, and was engaged in heavy fighting against the Moguls in India. Consequently only a small force of a few thousand men could be landed in China; Canton, however, was bombarded, and also the forts of Tientsin. There still seemed no prospect of gaining the desired objectives by negotiation, and in 1860 a new expedition was fitted out, this time some 20,000 strong. The troops landed at Tientsin and marched on Peking; the emperor fled to Jehol and did not return; he died in 1861. The new Treaty of Tientsin (1860) provided for (a) the opening of further ports to European traders; (b) the session of Kowloon, the strip of land lying opposite Hong Kong; (c) the establishment of a British legation in Peking; (d) freedom of navigation along the Yangtze; (e) permission for British subjects to purchase land in China; (f) the British to be subject to their own consular courts and not to the Chinese courts; (g) missionary activity to be permitted throughout the country. In addition to this, the commercial treaty was revised, the opium trade was permitted once more, and a war indemnity was to be paid by China. In the eyes of Europe, Britain had now succeeded in turning China not actually into a colony, but at all events into a semi-colony; China must be expected soon to share the fate of India. China, however, with her very different conceptions of intercourse between states, did not realize the full import of these terms; some of them were regarded as concessions on unimportant points, which there was no harm in granting to the trading "barbarians", as had been done in the past; some were regarded as simple injustices, which at a given moment could be swept away by administrative action.

But the result of this European penetration was that China's balance of trade was adverse, and became more and more so, as under the commercial treaties she could neither stop the importation of European goods nor set a duty on them; and on the other hand she could not compel foreigners to buy Chinese goods. The efflux of silver brought general impoverishment to China, widespread financial stringency to the state, and continuous financial crises and inflation. China had never had much liquid capital, and she was soon compelled to take up foreign loans in order to pay her debts. At that time internal loans were out of the question (the first internal loan was floated in 1894): the population did not even know what a state loan meant; consequently the loans had to be issued abroad. This, however, entailed the giving of securities, generally in the form of economic privileges. Under the Most Favoured Nation clause, however, these privileges had then to be granted to other states which had made no loans to China. Clearly a vicious spiral, which in the end could only bring disaster.

The only exception to the general impoverishment, in which not only the peasants but the old upper classes were involved, was a certain section of the trading community and the middle class, which had grown rich through its dealings with the Europeans. These people now accumulated capital, became Europeanized with their staffs, acquired land from the impoverished gentry, and sent their sons abroad to foreign universities. They founded the first industrial undertakings, and learned European capitalist methods. This class was, of course, to be found mainly in the treaty ports in the south and in their environs. The south, as far north as Shanghai, became more modern and more advanced; the north made no advance. In the south, European ways of thought were learnt, and Chinese and European theories were compared. Criticism began. The first revolutionary societies were formed in this atmosphere in the south.

8 Risings in Turkestan and within China: the T'ai P'ing Rebellion

But the emperor Hsüan Tsung (reign name Tao-kuang), a man in poor health though not without ability, had much graver anxieties than those caused by the Europeans. He did not yet fully realize the seriousness of the European peril.

[Illustration: 16 The imperial summer palace of the Manchu rulers, at
Jehol. Photo H. Hammer-Morrisson.]

[Illustration: 17 Tower on the city wall of Peking. Photo H.
Hammer-Morrisson.]

In Turkestan, where Turkish Mohammedans lived under Chinese rule, conditions were far from being as the Chinese desired. The Chinese, a fundamentally rationalistic people, regarded religion as a purely political matter, and accordingly required every citizen to take part in the official form of worship. Subject to that, he might privately belong to any other religion. To a Mohammedan, this was impossible and intolerable. The Mohammedans were only ready to practice their own religion, and absolutely refused to take part in any other. The Chinese also tried to apply to Turkestan in other matters the same legislation that applied to all China, but this proved irreconcilable with the demands made by Islam on its followers. All this produced continual unrest.

Turkestan had a feudal system of government with a number of feudal lords (beg), who tried to maintain their influence and who had the support of the Mohammedan population. The Chinese had come to Turkestan as soldiers and officials, to administer the country. They regarded themselves as the lords of the land and occupied themselves with the extraction of taxes. Most of the officials were also associated with the Chinese merchants who travelled throughout Turkestan and as far as Siberia. The conflicts implicit in this situation produced great Mohammedan risings in the nineteenth century. The first came in 1825-1827; in 1845 a second rising flamed up, and thirty years later these revolts led to the temporary loss of the whole of Turkestan.

In 1848, native unrest began in the province of Hunan, as a result of the constantly growing pressure of the Chinese settlers on the native population; in the same year there was unrest farther south, in the province of Kwangsi, this time in connection with the influence of the Europeans. The leader was a quite simple man of Hakka blood, Hung Hsiu-ch'üan (born 1814), who gathered impoverished Hakka peasants round him as every peasant leader had done in the past. Very often the nucleus of these peasant movements had been a secret society with a particular religious tinge; this time the peasant revolutionaries came forward as at the same time the preachers of a new religion of their own. Hung had heard of Christianity from missionaries (1837), and he mixed up Christian ideas with those of ancient China and proclaimed to his followers a doctrine that promised the Kingdom of God on earth. He called himself "Christ's younger brother", and his kingdom was to be called T'ai P'ing ("Supreme Peace"). He made his first comrades, charcoal makers, local doctors, peddlers and farmers, into kings, and made himself emperor. At bottom the movement, like all similar ones before it, was not religious but social; and it produced a great response from the peasants. The program of the T'ai P'ing, in some points influenced by Christian ideas but more so by traditional Chinese thought, was in many points revolutionary: (a) all property was communal property; (b) land was classified into categories according to its fertility and equally distributed among men and women. Every producer kept of the produce as much as he and his family needed and delivered the rest into the communal granary; (c) administration and tax systems were revised; (d) women were given equal rights: they fought together with men in the army and had access to official position. They had to marry, but monogamy was requested; (e) the use of opium, tobacco and alcohol was prohibited, prostitution was illegal; (f) foreigners were regarded as equals, capitulations as the Manchus had accepted were not recognized. A large part of the officials, and particularly of the soldiers sent against the revolutionaries, were Manchus, and consequently the movement very soon became a nationalist movement, much as the popular movement at the end of the Mongol epoch had done. Hung made rapid progress; in 1852 he captured Hankow, and in 1853 Nanking, the important centre in the east. With clear political insight he made Nanking his capital. In this he returned to the old traditions of the beginning of the Ming epoch, no doubt expecting in this way to attract support from the eastern Chinese gentry, who had no liking for a capital far away in the north. He made a parade of adhesion to the ancient Chinese tradition: his followers cut off their pigtails and allowed their hair to grow as in the past.

He did not succeed, however, in carrying his reforms from the stage of sporadic action to a systematic reorganization of the country, and he also failed to enlist the elements needed for this as for all other administrative work, so that the good start soon degenerated into a terrorist regime.

Hung's followers pressed on from Nanking, and in 1853-1855 they advanced nearly to Tientsin; but they failed to capture Peking itself.

The new T'ai P'ing state faced the Europeans with big problems. Should they work with it or against it? The T'ai P'ing always insisted that they were Christians; the missionaries hoped now to have the opportunity of converting all China to Christianity. The T'ai P'ing treated the missionaries well but did not let them operate. After long hesitation and much vacillation, however, the Europeans placed themselves on the side of the Manchus. Not out of any belief that the T'ai P'ing movement was without justification, but because they had concluded treaties with the Manchu government and given loans to it, of which nothing would have remained if the Manchus had fallen; because they preferred the weak Manchu government to a strong T'ai P'ing government; and because they disliked the socialistic element in many of the measured adopted by the T'ai P'ing.

At first it seemed as if the Manchus would be able to cope unaided with the T'ai P'ing, but the same thing happened as at the end of the Mongol rule: the imperial armies, consisting of the "banners" of the Manchus, the Mongols, and some Chinese, had lost their military skill in the long years of peace; they had lost their old fighting spirit and were glad to be able to live in peace on their state pensions. Now three men came to the fore—a Mongol named Seng-ko-lin-ch'in, a man of great personal bravery, who defended the interests of the Manchu rulers; and two Chinese, Tsêng Kuo-fan (1811-1892) and Li Hung-chang (1823-1901), who were in the service of the Manchus but used their position simply to further the interests of the gentry. The Mongol saved Peking from capture by the T'ai P'ing. The two Chinese were living in central China, and there they recruited, Li at his own expense and Tsêng out of the resources at his disposal as a provincial governor, a sort of militia, consisting of peasants out to protect their homes from destruction by the peasants of the T'ai P'ing. Thus the peasants of central China, all suffering from impoverishment, were divided into two groups, one following the T'ai P'ing, the other following Tsêng Kuo-fan. Tsêng's army, too, might be described as a "national" army, because Tsêng was not fighting for the interests of the Manchus. Thus the peasants, all anti-Manchu, could choose between two sides, between the T'ai P'ing and Tsêng Kuo-fan. Although Tsêng represented the gentry and was thus against the simple common people, peasants fought in masses on his side, for he paid better, and especially more regularly. Tsêng, being a good strategist, won successes and gained adherents. Thus by 1856 the T'ai P'ing were pressed back on Nanking and some of the towns round it; in 1864 Nanking was captured.

While in the central provinces the T'ai P'ing rebellion was raging, China was suffering grave setbacks owing to the Lorcha War of 1856; and there were also great and serious risings in other parts of the country. In 1855 the Yellow River had changed its course, entering the sea once more at Tientsin, to the great loss of the regions of Honan and Anhui. In these two central provinces the peasant rising of the so-called "Nien Fei" had begun, but it only became formidable after 1855, owing to the increasing misery of the peasants. This purely peasant revolt was not suppressed by the Manchu government until 1868, after many collisions. Then, however, there began the so-called "Mohammedan risings". Here there are, in all, five movements to distinguish: (1) the Mohammedan rising in Kansu (1864-5); (2) the Salar movement in Shensi; (3) the Mohammedan revolt in Yünnan (1855-1873); (4) the rising in Kansu (1895); (5) the rebellion of Yakub Beg in Turkestan (from 1866 onward).

While we are fairly well informed about the other popular risings of this period, the Mohammedan revolts have not yet been well studied. We know from unofficial accounts that these risings were suppressed with great brutality. To this day there are many Mohammedans in, for instance, Yünnan, but the revolt there is said to have cost a million lives. The figures all rest on very rough estimates: in Kansu the population is said to have fallen from fifteen millions to one million; the Turkestan revolt is said to have cost ten million lives. There are no reliable statistics; but it is understandable that at that time the population of China must have fallen considerably, especially if we bear in mind the equally ferocious suppression of the risings of the T'ai P'ing and the Nien Fei within China, and smaller risings of which we have made no mention.

The Mohammedan risings were not elements of a general Mohammedan revolt, but separate events only incidentally connected with each other. The risings had different causes. An important factor was the general distress in China. This was partly due to the fact that the officials were exploiting the peasant population more ruthlessly than ever. In addition to this, owing to the national feeling which had been aroused in so unfortunate a way, the Chinese felt a revulsion against non-Chinese, such as the Salars, who were of Turkish race. Here there were always possibilities of friction, which might have been removed with a little consideration but which swelled to importance through the tactless behaviour of Chinese officials. Finally there came divisions among the Mohammedans of China which led to fighting between themselves.

All these risings were marked by two characteristics. They had no general political aim such as the founding of a great and universal Islamic state. Separate states were founded, but they were too small to endure; they would have needed the protection of great states. But they were not moved by any pan-Islamic idea. Secondly, they all took place on Chinese soil, and all the Mohammedans involved, except in the rising of the Salars, were Chinese. These Chinese who became Mohammedans are called Dungans. The Dungans are, of course, no longer pure Chinese, because Chinese who have gone over to Islam readily form mixed marriages with Islamic non-Chinese, that is to say with Turks and Mongols.

The revolt, however, of Yakub Beg in Turkestan had a quite different character. Yakub Beg (his Chinese name was An Chi-yeh) had risen to the Chinese governorship when he made himself ruler of Kashgar. In 1866 he began to try to make himself independent of Chinese control. He conquered Ili, and then in a rapid campaign made himself master of all Turkestan.

His state had a much better prospect of endurance than the other Mohammedan states. He had full control of it from 1874. Turkestan was connected with China only by the few routes that led between the desert and the Tibetan mountains. The state was supported against China by Russia, which was continually pressing eastward, and in the south by Great Britain, which was pressing towards Tibet. Farther west was the great Ottoman empire; the attempt to gain direct contact with it was not hopeless in itself, and this was recognized at Istanbul. Missions went to and fro, and Turkish officers came to Yakub Beg and organized his army; Yakub Beg recognized the Turkish sultan as Khalif. He also concluded treaties with Russia and Great Britain. But in spite of all this he was unable to maintain his hold of Turkestan. In 1877 the famous Chinese general Tso Tsung-t'ang (1812-1885), who had fought against the T'ai P'ing and also against the Mohammedans in Kansu, marched into Turkestan and ended Yakub Beg's rule.

Yakub was defeated, however, not so much by Chinese superiority as by a combination of circumstances. In order to build up his kingdom he was compelled to impose heavy taxation, and this made him unpopular with his own followers: they had to pay taxes under the Chinese, but the Chinese collection had been much less rigorous than that of Yakub Beg. It was technically impossible for the Ottoman empire to give him any aid, even had its internal situation permitted it. Britain and Russia would probably have been glad to see a weakening of the Chinese hold over Turkestan, but they did not want a strong new state there, once they had found that neither of them could control the country while it was in Yakub Beg's hands. In 1881 Russia occupied the Ili region, Yakub's first conquest. In the end the two great powers considered it better for Turkestan to return officially into the hands of the weakened China, hoping that in practice they would be able to bring Turkestan more and more under their control. Consequently, when in 1880, three years after the removal of Yakub Beg, China sent a mission to Russia with the request for the return of the Ili region to her, Russia gave way, and the Treaty of Ili was concluded, ending for the time the Russian penetration of Turkestan. In 1882 the Manchu government raised Turkestan to a "new frontier" (Sinkiang) with a special administration.

This process of colonial penetration of Turkestan continued. Until the end of the first world war there was no fundamental change in the situation in the country, owing to the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia. But after 1920 a period began in which Turkestan became almost independent, under a number of rulers of parts of the country. Then, from 1928 onward, a more and more thorough penetration by Russia began, so that by 1940 Turkestan could almost be called a Soviet Republic. The second world war diverted Russian attention to the West, and at the same time compelled the Chinese to retreat into the interior from the Japanese, so that by 1943 the country was more firmly held by the Chinese government than it had been for seventy years. After the creation of the People's Democracy mass immigration into Sinkiang began, in connection with the development of oil fields and of many new industries in the border area between Sinkiang and China proper. Roads and air communications opened Sinkiang. Yet, the differences between immigrant Chinese and local, Muslim Turks, continue to play a role.

9 Collision with Japan; further Capitulations

The reign of Wen Tsung (reign name Hsien-feng 1851-1861) was marked throughout by the T'ai P'ing and other rebellions and by wars with the Europeans, and that of Mu Tsung (reign name T'ung-chih: 1862-1874) by the great Mohammedan disturbances. There began also a conflict with Japan which lasted until 1945. Mu Tsung came to the throne as a child of five, and never played a part of his own. It had been the general rule for princes to serve as regents for minors on the imperial throne, but this time the princes concerned won such notoriety through their intrigues that the Peking court circles decided to entrust the regency to two concubines of the late emperor. One of these, called Tz[)u] Hsi (born 1835), of the Manchu tribe of the Yehe-Nara, quickly gained the upper hand. The empress Tz[)u] Hsi was one of the strongest personalities of the later nineteenth century who played an active part in Chinese political life. She played a more active part than any emperor had played for many decades.

Meanwhile great changes had taken place in Japan. The restoration of the Meiji had ended the age of feudalism, at least on the surface. Japan rapidly became Westernized, and at the same time entered on an imperialist policy. Her aims from 1868 onward were clear, and remained unaltered until the end of the second World War: she was to be surrounded by a wide girdle of territories under Japanese domination, in order to prevent the approach of any enemy to the Japanese homeland. This girdle was divided into several zones—(1) the inner zone with the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Korea, the Ryukyu archipelago, and Formosa; (2) the outer zone with the Marianne, Philippine, and Caroline Islands, eastern China, Manchuria, and eastern Siberia; (3) the third zone, not clearly defined, including especially the Netherlands Indies, Indo-China, and the whole of China, a zone of undefined extent. The outward form of this subjugated region was to be that of the Greater Japanese Empire, described as the Imperium of the Yellow Race (the main ideas were contained in the Tanaka Memorandum 1927 and in the Tada Interview of 1936). Round Japan, moreover, a girdle was to be created of producers of raw materials and purchasers of manufactures, to provide Japanese industry with a market. Japan had sent a delegation of amity to China as early as 1869, and a first Sino-Japanese treaty was signed in 1871; from then on, Japan began to carry out her imperialistic plans. In 1874 she attacked the Ryukyu islands and Formosa on the pretext that some Japanese had been murdered there. Under the treaty of 1874 Japan withdrew once more, only demanding a substantial indemnity; but in 1876, in violation of the treaty and without a declaration of war, she annexed the Ryukyu Islands. In 1876 began the Japanese penetration into Korea; by 1885 she had reached the stage of a declaration that Korea was a joint sphere of interest of China and Japan; until then China's protectorate over Korea had been unchallenged. At the same time (1876) Great Britain had secured further Capitulations in the Chefoo Convention; in 1862 France had acquired Cochin China, in 1864 Cambodia, in 1874 Tongking, and in 1883 Annam. This led in 1884 to war between France and China, in which the French did not by any means gain an indubitable victory; but the Treaty of Tientsin left them with their acquisitions.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1875, the young Chinese emperor died of smallpox, without issue. Under the influence of the two empresses, who still remained regents, a cousin of the dead emperor, the three-year-old prince Tsai T'ien was chosen as emperor Tê Tsung (reign name Kuang-hsü: 1875-1909). He came of age in 1889 and took over the government of the country. The empress Tz[)u] Hsi retired, but did not really relinquish the reins.

In 1894 the Sino-Japanese War broke out over Korea, as an outcome of the undefined position that had existed since 1885 owing to the imperialistic policy of the Japanese. China had created a North China squadron, but this was all that can be regarded as Chinese preparation for the long-expected war. The Governor General of Chihli (now Hopei—the province in which Peking is situated), Li Hung-chang, was a general who had done good service, but he lost the war, and at Shimonoseki (1895) he had to sign a treaty on very harsh terms, in which China relinquished her protectorate over Korea and lost Formosa. The intervention of France, Germany, and Russia compelled Japan to content herself with these acquisitions, abandoning her demand for South Manchuria.

10 Russia in Manchuria

After the Crimean War, Russia had turned her attention once more to the East. There had been hostilities with China over eastern Siberia, which were brought to an end in 1858 by the Treaty of Aigun, under which China ceded certain territories in northern Manchuria. This made possible the founding of Vladivostok in 1860. Russia received Sakhalin from Japan in 1875 in exchange for the Kurile Islands. She received from China the important Port Arthur as a leased territory, and then tried to secure the whole of South Manchuria. This brought Japan's policy of expansion into conflict with Russia's plans in the Far East. Russia wanted Manchuria in order to be able to pursue a policy in the Pacific; but Japan herself planned to march into Manchuria from Korea, of which she already had possession. This imperialist rivalry made war inevitable: Russia lost the war; under the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 Russia gave Japan the main railway through Manchuria, with adjoining territory. Thus Manchuria became Japan's sphere of influence and was lost to the Manchus without their being consulted in any way. The Japanese penetration of Manchuria then proceeded stage by stage, not without occasional setbacks, until she had occupied the whole of Manchuria from 1932 to 1945. After the end of the second world war, Manchuria was returned to China, with certain reservations in favour of the Soviet Union, which were later revoked.

11 Reform and reaction: the Boxer Rising

China had lost the war with Japan because she was entirely without modern armament. While Japan went to work at once with all her energy to emulate Western industrialization, the ruling class in China had shown a marked repugnance to any modernization; and the centre of this conservatism was the dowager empress Tz[)u] Hsi. She was a woman of strong personality, but too uneducated—in the modern sense—to be able to realize that modernization was an absolute necessity for China if it was to remain an independent state. The empress failed to realize that the Europeans were fundamentally different from the neighbouring tribes or the pirates of the past; she had not the capacity to acquire a general grasp of the realities of world politics. She felt instinctively that Europeanization would wreck the foundations of the power of the Manchus and the gentry, and would bring another class, the middle class and the merchants, into power.

There were reasonable men, however, who had seen the necessity of reform—especially Li Hung-chang, who has already been mentioned. In 1896 he went on a mission to Moscow, and then toured Europe. The reformers were, however, divided into two groups. One group advocated the acquisition of a certain amount of technical knowledge from abroad and its introduction by slow reforms, without altering the social structure of the state or the composition of the government. The others held that the state needed fundamental changes, and that superficial loans from Europe were not enough. The failure in the war with Japan made the general desire for reform more and more insistent not only in the country but in Peking. Until now Japan had been despised as a barbarian state; now Japan had won! The Europeans had been despised; now they were all cutting bits out of China for themselves, extracting from the government one privilege after another, and quite openly dividing China into "spheres of interest", obviously as the prelude to annexation of the whole country.

In Europe at that time the question was being discussed over and over again, why Japan had so quickly succeeded in making herself a modern power, and why China was not succeeding in doing so; the Japanese were praised for their capacity and the Chinese blamed for their lassitude. Both in Europe and in Chinese circles it was overlooked that there were fundamental differences in the social structures of the two countries. The basis of the modern capitalist states of the West is the middle class. Japan had for centuries had a middle class (the merchants) that had entered into a symbiosis with the feudal lords. For the middle class the transition to modern capitalism, and for the feudal lords the way to Western imperialism, was easy. In China there was only a weak middle class, vegetating under the dominance of the gentry; the middle class had still to gain the strength to liberate itself before it could become the support for a capitalistic state. And the gentry were still strong enough to maintain their dominance and so to prevent a radical reconstruction; all they would agree to were a few reforms from which they might hope to secure an increase of power for their own ends.

In 1895 and in 1698 a scholar, K'ang Yo-wei, who was admitted into the presence of the emperor, submitted to him memoranda in which he called for radical reform. K'ang was a scholar who belonged to the empiricist school of philosophy of the early Manchu period, the so-called Han school. He was a man of strong and persuasive personality, and had such an influence on the emperor that in 1898 the emperor issued several edicts ordering the fundamental reorganization of education, law, trade, communications, and the army. These laws were not at all bad in themselves; they would have paved the way for a liberalization of Chinese society. But they aroused the utmost hatred in the conservative gentry and also in the moderate reformers among the gentry. K'ang Yo-wei and his followers, to whom a number of well-known modern scholars belonged, had strong support in South China. We have already mentioned that owing to the increased penetration of European goods and ideas, South China had become more progressive than the north; this had added to the tension already existing for other reasons between north and south. In foreign policy the north was more favourable to Russia and radically opposed to Japan and Great Britain; the south was in favour of co-operation with Britain and Japan, in order to learn from those two states how reform could be carried through. In the north the men of the south were suspected of being anti-Manchu and revolutionary in feeling. This was to some extent true, though K'ang Yo-wei and his friends were as yet largely unconscious of it.

When the empress Tz[)u] Hsi saw that the emperor was actually thinking about reforms, she went to work with lightning speed. Very soon the reformers had to flee; those who failed to make good their escape were arrested and executed. The emperor was made a prisoner in a palace near Peking, and remained a captive until his death; the empress resumed her regency on his behalf. The period of reforms lasted only for a few months of 1898. A leading part in the extermination of the reformers was played by troops from Kansu under the command of a Mohammedan, Tung Fu-hsiang. General Yüan Shih-k'ai, who was then stationed at Tientsin in command of 7,000 troops with modern equipment, the only ones in China, could have removed the empress and protected the reformers; but he was already pursuing a personal policy, and thought it safer to give the reformers no help.

There now began, from 1898, a thoroughly reactionary rule of the dowager empress. But China's general situation permitted no breathing-space. In 1900 came the so-called Boxer Rising, a new popular movement against the gentry and the Manchus similar to the many that had preceded it. The Peking government succeeded, however, in negotiations that brought the movement into the service of the government and directed it against the foreigners. This removed the danger to the government and at the same time helped it against the hated foreigners. But incidents resulted which the Peking government had not anticipated. An international army was sent to China, and marched from Tientsin against Peking, to liberate the besieged European legations and to punish the government. The Europeans captured Peking (1900); the dowager empress and her prisoner, the emperor, had to flee; some of the palaces were looted. The peace treaty that followed exacted further concessions from China to the Europeans and enormous war indemnities, the payment of which continued into the 1940's, though most of the states placed the money at China's disposal for educational purposes. When in 1902 the dowager empress returned to Peking and put the emperor back into his palace-prison, she was forced by what had happened to realize that at all events a certain measure of reform was necessary. The reforms, however, which she decreed, mainly in 1904, were very modest and were never fully carried out. They were only intended to make an impression on the outer world and to appease the continually growing body of supporters of the reform party, especially numerous in South China. The south remained, nevertheless, a focus of hostility to the Manchus. After his failure in 1898, K'ang Yo-wei went to Europe, and no longer played any important political part. His place was soon taken by a young Chinese physician who had been living abroad, Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), who turned the reform party into a middle-class revolutionary party.

12 End of the dynasty

Meanwhile the dowager empress held her own. General Yüan Shih-k'ai, who had played so dubious a part in 1898, was not impeccably loyal to her, and remained unreliable. He was beyond challenge the strongest man in the country, for he possessed the only modern army; but he was still biding his time.

In 1908 the dowager empress fell ill; she was seventy-four years old. When she felt that her end was near, she seems to have had the captive emperor Tê Tsung assassinated (at 5 p.m. on November 14th); she herself died next day (November 15th, 2 p.m.): she was evidently determined that this man, whom she had ill-treated and oppressed all his life, should not regain independence. As Tê Tsung had no children, she nominated on the day of her death the two-year-old prince P'u Yi as emperor (reign name Hsüan-t'ung, 1909-1911).

The fact that another child was to reign and a new regency to act for him, together with all the failures in home and foreign policy, brought further strength to the revolutionary party. The government believed that it could only maintain itself if it allowed Yüan Shih-k'ai, the commander of the modern troops, to come to power. The chief regent, however, worked against Yüan Shih-k'ai and dismissed him at the beginning of 1909; Yüan's supporters remained at their posts. Yüan himself now entered into relations with the revolutionaries, whose centre was Canton, and whose undisputed leader was now Sun Yat-sen. At this time Sun and his supporters had already made attempts at revolution, but without success, as his following was as yet too small. It consisted mainly of young intellectuals who had been educated in Europe and America; the great mass of the Chinese people remained unconvinced: the common people could not understand the new ideals, and the middle class did not entirely trust the young intellectuals.

The state of China in 1911 was as lamentable as could be: the European states, Russia, America, and Japan regarded China as a field for their own plans, and in their calculations paid scarcely any attention to the Chinese government. Foreign capital was penetrating everywhere in the form of loans or railway and other enterprises. If it had not been for the mutual rivalries of the powers, China would long ago have been annexed by one of them. The government needed a great deal of money for the payment of the war indemnities, and for carrying out the few reforms at last decided on. In order to get money from the provinces, it had to permit the viceroys even more freedom than they already possessed. The result was a spectacle altogether resembling that of the end of the T'ang dynasty, about A.D. 900: the various governors were trying to make themselves independent. In addition to this there was the revolutionary movement in the south.

The government made some concession to the progressives, by providing the first beginnings of parliamentary rule. In 1910 a national assembly was convoked. It had a Lower House with representatives of the provinces (provincial diets were also set up), and an Upper House, in which sat representatives of the imperial house, the nobility, the gentry, and also the protectorates. The members of the Upper House were all nominated by the regent. It very soon proved that the members of the Lower House, mainly representatives of the provincial gentry, had a much more practical outlook than the routineers of Peking. Thus the Lower House grew in importance, a fact which, of course, brought grist to the mills of the revolutionary movement.

In 1910 the first risings directed actually against the regency took place, in the province of Hunan. In 1911 the "railway disturbances" broke out in western China as a reply of the railway shareholders in the province of Szechwan to the government decree of nationalization of all the railways. The modernist students, most of whom were sons of merchants who owned railway shares, supported the movement, and the government was unable to control them. At the same time a great anti-Manchu revolution began in Wuch'ang, one of the cities of which Wuhan, on the Yangtze, now consists. The revolution was the result of government action against a group of terrorists. Its leader was an officer named Li Yüan-hung. The Manchus soon had some success in this quarter, but the other provincial governors now rose in rapid succession, repudiated the Manchus, and declared themselves independent. Most of the Manchu garrisons in the provinces were murdered. The governors remained at the head of their troops in their provinces, and for the moment made common cause with the revolutionaries, from whom they meant to break free at the first opportunity. The Manchus themselves failed at first to realize the gravity of the revolutionary movement; they then fell into panic-stricken desperation. As a last resource, Yüan Shih-k'ai was recalled (November 10th, 1911) and made prime minister.

Yüan's excellent troops were loyal to his person, and he could have made use of them in fighting on behalf of the dynasty. But a victory would have brought no personal gain to him; for his personal plans he considered that the anti-Manchu side provided the springboard he needed. The revolutionaries, for their part, had no choice but to win over Yüan Shih-k'ai for the sake of his troops, since they were not themselves strong enough to get rid of the Manchus, or even to wrest concessions from them, so long as the Manchus were defended by Yüan's army. Thus Yüan and the revolutionaries were forced into each other's arms. He then began negotiations with them, explaining to the imperial house that the dynasty could only be saved by concessions. The revolutionaries—apart from their desire to neutralize the prime minister and general, if not to bring him over to their side—were also readier than ever to negotiate, because they were short of money and unable to obtain loans from abroad, and because they could not themselves gain control of the individual governors. The negotiations, which had been carried on at Shanghai, were broken off on December 18th, 1911, because the revolutionaries demanded a republic, but the imperial house was only ready to grant a constitutional monarchy.

Meanwhile the revolutionaries set up a provisional government at Nanking (December 29th, 1911), with Sun Yat-sen as president and Li Yüan-hung as vice-president. Yüan Shih-k'ai now declared to the imperial house that the monarchy could no longer be defended, as his troops were too unreliable, and he induced the Manchu government to issue an edict on February 12th, 1912, in which they renounced the throne of China and declared the Republic to be the constitutional form of state. The young emperor of the Hsüan-t'ung period, after the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1931, was installed there. He was, however, entirely without power during the melancholy years of his nominal rule, which lasted until 1945.

In 1912 the Manchu dynasty came in reality to its end. On the news of the abdication of the imperial house, Sun Yat-sen resigned in Nanking, and recommended Yüan Shih-k'ai as president.

Chapter Eleven

THE REPUBLIC (1912-1948)

1 Social and intellectual position

In order to understand the period that now followed, let us first consider the social and intellectual position in China in the period between 1911 and 1927. The Manchu dynasty was no longer there, nor were there any remaining real supporters of the old dynasty. The gentry, however, still existed. Alongside it was a still numerically small middle class, with little political education or enlightenment.

The political interests of these two groups were obviously in conflict. But after 1912 there had been big changes. The gentry were largely in a process of decomposition. They still possessed the basis of their existence, their land, but the land was falling in value, as there were now other opportunities of capital investment, such as export-import, shareholding in foreign enterprises, or industrial undertakings. It is important to note, however, that there was not much fluid capital at their disposal. In addition to this, cheaper rice and other foodstuffs were streaming from abroad into China, bringing the prices for Chinese foodstuffs down to the world market prices, another painful business blow to the gentry. Silk had to meet the competition of Japanese silk and especially of rayon; the Chinese silk was of very unequal quality and sold with difficulty. On the other hand, through the influence of the Western capitalistic system, which was penetrating more and more into China, land itself became "capital", an object of speculation for people with capital; its value no longer depended entirely on the rents it could yield but, under certain circumstances, on quite other things—the construction of railways or public buildings, and so on. These changes impoverished and demoralized the gentry, who in the course of the past century had grown fewer in number. The gentry were not in a position to take part fully in the capitalist manipulations, because they had never possessed much capital; their wealth had lain entirely in their land, and the income from their rents was consumed quite unproductively in luxurious living.

Moreover, the class solidarity of the gentry was dissolving. In the past, politics had been carried on by cliques of gentry families, with the emperor at their head as an unchangeable institution. This edifice had now lost its summit; the struggles between cliques still went on, but entirely without the control which the emperor's power had after all exercised, as a sort of regulative element in the play of forces among the gentry. The arena for this competition had been the court. After the destruction of the arena, the field of play lost its boundaries: the struggles between cliques no longer had a definite objective; the only objective left was the maintenance or securing of any and every hold on power. Under the new conditions cliques or individuals among the gentry could only ally themselves with the possessors of military power, the generals or governors. In this last stage the struggle between rival groups turned into a rivalry between individuals. Family ties began to weaken and other ties, such as between school mates, or origin from the same village or town, became more important than they had been before. For the securing of the aim in view any means were considered justifiable. Never was there such bribery and corruption among the officials as in the years after 1912. This period, until 1927, may therefore be described as a period of dissolution and destruction of the social system of the gentry.

Over against this dying class of the gentry stood, broadly speaking, a tripartite opposition. To begin with, there was the new middle class, divided and without clear political ideas; anti-dynastic of course, but undecided especially as to the attitude it should adopt towards the peasants who, to this day, form over 80 per cent of the Chinese population. The middle class consisted mainly of traders and bankers, whose aim was the introduction of Western capitalism in association with foreign powers. There were also young students who were often the sons of old gentry families and had been sent abroad for study with grants given them by their friends and relatives in the government; or sons of businessmen sent away by their fathers. These students not always accepted the ideas of their fathers; they were influenced by the ideologies of the West, Marxist or non-Marxist, and often created clubs or groups in the University cities of Europe or the United States. Such groups of people who had studied together or passed the exams together, had already begun to play a role in politics in the nineteenth century. Now, the influence of such organizations of usually informal character increased. Against the returned students who often had difficulties in adjustment, stood the students at Chinese Universities, especially the National University in Peking (Peita). They represented people of the same origin, but of the lower strata of the gentry or of business; they were more nationalistic and politically active and often less influenced by Western ideologies.

In the second place, there was a relatively very small genuine proletariat, the product of the first activities of big capitalists in China, found mainly in Shanghai. Thirdly and finally, there was a gigantic peasantry, uninterested in politics and uneducated, but ready to give unthinking allegiance to anyone who promised to make an end of the intolerable conditions in the matter of rents and taxes, conditions that were growing steadily worse with the decay of the gentry. These peasants were thinking of popular risings on the pattern of all the risings in the history of China—attacks on the towns and the killing of the hated landowners, officials, and moneylenders, that is to say of the gentry.

Such was the picture of the middle class and those who were ready to support it, a group with widely divergent interests, held together only by its opposition to the gentry system and the monarchy. It could not but be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve political success with such a group. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), the "Father of the Republic", accordingly laid down three stages of progress in his many works, of which the best-known are San-min chu-i, ("The Three Principles of the People"), and Chien-kuo fang-lüeh ("Plans for the Building up of the Realm"). The three phases of development through which republican China was to pass were: the phase of struggle against the old system, the phase of educative rule, and the phase of truly democratic government. The phase of educative rule was to be a sort of authoritarian system with a democratic content, under which the people should be familiarized with democracy and enabled to grow politically ripe for true democracy.

Difficult as was the internal situation from the social point of view, it was no less difficult in economic respects. China had recognized that she must at least adopt Western technical and industrial progress in order to continue to exist as an independent state. But the building up of industry demanded large sums of money. The existing Chinese banks were quite incapable of providing the capital needed; but the acceptance of capital from abroad led at once, every time, to further political capitulations. The gentry, who had no cash worth mention, were violently opposed to the capitalization of their properties, and were in favour of continuing as far as possible to work the soil in the old style. Quite apart from all this, all over the country there were generals who had come from the ranks of the gentry, and who collected the whole of the financial resources of their region for the support of their private armies. Investors had little confidence in the republican government so long as they could not tell whether the government would decide in favour of its right or of its left wing.

No less complicated was the intellectual situation at this time. Confucianism, and the whole of the old culture and morality bound up with it, was unacceptable to the middle-class element. In the first place, Confucianism rejected the principle, required at least in theory by the middle class, of the equality of all people; secondly, the Confucian great-family system was irreconcilable with middle-class individualism, quite apart from the fact that the Confucian form of state could only be a monarchy. Every attempt to bolster up Confucianism in practice or theory was bound to fail and did fail. Even the gentry could scarcely offer any real defence of the Confucian system any longer. With Confucianism went the moral standards especially of the upper classes of society. Taoism was out of the question as a substitute, because of its anarchistic and egocentric character. Consequently, in these years, part of the gentry turned to Buddhism and part to Christianity. Some of the middle class who had come under European influence also turned to Christianity, regarding it as a part of the European civilization they had to adopt. Others adhered to modern philosophic systems such as pragmatism and positivism. Marxist doctrines spread rapidly.

Education was secularized. Great efforts were made to develop modern schools, though the work of development was continually hindered by the incessant political unrest. Only at the universities, which became foci of republican and progressive opinion, was any positive achievement possible. Many students and professors were active in politics, organizing demonstrations and strikes. They pursued a strong national policy, often also socialistic. At the same time real scientific work was done; many young scholars of outstanding ability were trained at the Chinese universities, often better than the students who went abroad. There is a permanent disagreement between these two groups of young men with a modern education: the students who return from abroad claim to be better educated, but in reality they often have only a very superficial knowledge of things modern and none at all of China, her history, and her special circumstances. The students of the Chinese universities have been much better instructed in all the things that concern China, and most of them are in no way behind the returned students in the modern sciences. They are therefore a much more serviceable element.

The intellectual modernization of China goes under the name of the "Movement of May Fourth", because on May 4th, 1919, students of the National University in Peking demonstrated against the government and their pro-Japanese adherents. When the police attacked the students and jailed some, more demonstrations and student strikes and finally a general boycott of Japanese imports were the consequence. In these protest actions, professors such as Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei, later president of the Academia Sinica (died 1940), took an active part. The forces which had now been mobilized, rallied around the journal "New Youth" (Hsin Ch'ing-nien), created in 1915 by Ch'en Tu-hsiu. The journal was progressive, against the monarchy, Confucius, and the old traditions. Ch'en Tu-hsiu who put himself strongly behind the students, was more radical than other contributors but at first favoured Western democracy and Western science; he was influenced mainly by John Dewey who was guest professor in Peking in 1919-20. Similarly tending towards liberalism in politics and Dewey's ideas in the field of philosophy were others, mainly Hu Shih. Finally, some reformers criticized conservatism purely on the basis of Chinese thought. Hu Shih (born 1892) gained greatest acclaim by his proposal for a "literary revolution", published in the "New Youth" in 1917. This revolution was the logically necessary application of the political revolution to the field of education. The new "vernacular" took place of the old "classical" literary language. The language of the classical works is so remote from the language of daily life that no uneducated person can understand it. A command of it requires a full knowledge of all the ancient literature, entailing decades of study. The gentry had elaborated this style of speech for themselves and their dependants; it was their monopoly; nobody who did not belong to the gentry and had not attended its schools could take part in literary or in administrative life. The literary revolution introduced the language of daily life, the language of the people, into literature: newspapers, novels, scientific treatises, translations, appeared in the vernacular, and could thus be understood by anyone who could read and write, even if he had no Confucianist education.

It may be said that the literary revolution has achieved its main objects. As a consequence of it, a great quantity of new literature has been published. Not only is every important new book that appears in the West published in translation within a few months, but modern novels and short stories and poems have been written, some of them of high literary value.

At the same time as this revolution there took place another fundamental change in the language. It was necessary to take over a vast number of new scientific and technical terms. As Chinese, owing to the character of its script, is unable to write foreign words accurately and can do no more than provide a rather rough paraphrase, the practice was started of expressing new ideas by newly formed native words. Thus modern Chinese has very few foreign words, and yet it has all the new ideas. For example, a telegram is a "lightning-letter"; a wireless telegram is a "not-have-wire-lightning-communication"; a fountain-pen is a "self-flow-ink-water-brush"; a typewriter is a "strike-letter-machine". Most of these neologisms are similar in the modern languages of China and Japan.

There had been several proposals in recent decades to do away with the Chinese characters and to introduce an alphabet in their place. They have all proved to be unsatisfactory so far, because the character of the Chinese language, as it is at this moment, is unsuited to an alphabetical script. They would also destroy China's cultural unity: there are many dialects in China that differ so greatly from each other that, for instance, a man from Canton cannot understand a man from Shanghai. If Chinese were written with letters, the result would be a Canton literature and another literature confined to Shanghai, and China would break up into a number of areas with different languages. The old Chinese writing is independent of pronunciation. A Cantonese and a Pekinger can read each other's newspapers without difficulty. They pronounce the words quite differently, but the meaning is unaltered. Even a Japanese can understand a Chinese newspaper without special study of Chinese, and a Chinese with a little preparation can read a Japanese newspaper without understanding a single word of Japanese.

The aim of modern education in China is to work towards the establishment of "High Chinese", the former official (Mandarin) language, throughout the country, and to set limits to the use of the various dialects. Once this has been done, it will be possible to proceed to a radical reform of the script without running the risk of political separatist movements, which are always liable to spring up, and also without leading, through the adoption of various dialects as the basis of separate literatures, to the break-up of China's cultural unity. In the last years, the unification of the spoken language has made great progress. Yet, alphabetic script is used only in cases in which illiterate adults have to be enabled in a short time to read very simple informations. More attention is given to a simplification of the script as it is; Japanese had started this some forty years earlier. Unfortunately, the new Chinese abbreviated forms of characters are not always identical with long-established Japanese forms, and are not developed in such a systematic form as would make learning of Chinese characters easier.

2 First period of the Republic: The warlords

The situation of the Republic after its foundation was far from hopeful. Republican feeling existed only among the very small groups of students who had modern education, and a few traders, in other words, among the "middle class". And even in the revolutionary party to which these groups belonged there were the most various conceptions of the form of republican state to be aimed at. The left wing of the party, mainly intellectuals and manual workers, had in view more or less vague socialistic institutions; the liberals, for instance the traders, thought of a liberal democracy, more or less on the American pattern; and the nationalists merely wanted the removal of the alien Manchu rule. The three groups had come together for the practical reason that only so could they get rid of the dynasty. They gave unreserved allegiance to Sun Yat-sen as their leader. He succeeded in mobilizing the enthusiasm of continually widening circles for action, not only by the integrity of his aims but also because he was able to present the new socialistic ideology in an alluring form. The anti-republican gentry, however, whose power was not yet entirely broken, took a stand against the party. The generals who had gone over to the republicans had not the slightest intention of founding a republic, but only wanted to get rid of the rule of the Manchus and to step into their place. This was true also of Yüan Shih-k'ai, who in his heart was entirely on the side of the gentry, although the European press especially had always energetically defended him. In character and capacity he stood far above the other generals, but he was no republican.

Thus the first period of the Republic, until 1927, was marked by incessant attempts by individual generals to make themselves independent. The Government could not depend on its soldiers, and so was impotent. The first risings of military units began at the outset of 1912. The governors and generals who wanted to make themselves independent sabotaged every decree of the central government; especially they sent it no money from the provinces and also refused to give their assent to foreign loans. The province of Canton, the actual birthplace of the republican movement and the focus of radicalism, declared itself in 1912 an independent republic.

Within the Peking government matters soon came to a climax. Yüan Shih-k'ai and his supporters represented the conservative view, with the unexpressed but obvious aim of setting up a new imperial house and continuing the old gentry system. Most of the members of the parliament came, however, from the middle class and were opposed to any reaction of this sort. One of their leaders was murdered, and the blame was thrown upon Yüan Shih-k'ai; there then came, in the middle of 1912, a new revolution, in which the radicals made themselves independent and tried to gain control of South China. But Yüan Shih-k'ai commanded better troops and won the day. At the end of October 1912 he was elected, against the opposition, as president of China, and the new state was recognized by foreign countries.

China's internal difficulties reacted on the border states, in which the European powers were keenly interested. The powers considered that the time had come to begin the definitive partition of China. Thus there were long negotiations and also hostilities between China and Tibet, which was supported by Great Britain. The British demanded the complete separation of Tibet from China, but the Chinese rejected this (1912); the rejection was supported by a boycott of British goods. In the end the Tibet question was left undecided. Tibet remained until recent years a Chinese dependency with a good deal of internal freedom. The Second World War and the Chinese retreat into the interior brought many Chinese settlers into Eastern Tibet which was then separated from Tibet proper and made a Chinese province (Hsi-k'ang) in which the native Khamba will soon be a minority. The communist regime soon after its establishment conquered Tibet (1950) and has tried to change the character of its society and its system of government which lead to the unsuccessful attempt of the Tibetans to throw off Chinese rule (1959) and the flight of the Dalai Lama to India. The construction of highways, air and missile bases and military occupation have thus tied Tibet closer to China than ever since early Manchu times.

In Outer Mongolia Russian interests predominated. In 1911 there were diplomatic incidents in connection with the Mongolian question. At the end of 1911 the Hutuktu of Urga declared himself independent, and the Chinese were expelled from the country. A secret treaty was concluded in 1912 with Russia, under which Russia recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia, but was accorded an important part as adviser and helper in the development of the country. In 1913 a Russo-Chinese treaty was concluded, under which the autonomy of Outer Mongolia was recognized, but Mongolia became a part of the Chinese realm. After the Russian revolution had begun, revolution was carried also into Mongolia. The country suffered all the horrors of the struggles between White Russians (General Ungern-Sternberg) and the Reds; there were also Chinese attempts at intervention, though without success, until in the end Mongolia became a Soviet Republic. As such she is closely associated with Soviet Russia. China, however, did not quickly recognize Mongolia's independence, and in his work China's Destiny (1944) Chiang Kai-shek insisted that China's aim remained the recovery of the frontiers of 1840, which means among other things the recovery of Outer Mongolia. In spite of this, after the Second World War Chiang Kai-shek had to renounce de jure all rights in Outer Mongolia. Inner Mongolia was always united to China much more closely; only for a time during the war with Japan did the Japanese maintain there a puppet government. The disappearance of this government went almost unnoticed.

At the time when Russian penetration into Mongolia began, Japan had entered upon a similar course in Manchuria, which she regarded as her "sphere of influence". On the outbreak of the first world war Japan occupied the former German-leased territory of Tsingtao, at the extremity of the province of Shantung, and from that point she occupied the railways of the province. Her plan was to make the whole province a protectorate; Shantung is rich in coal and especially in metals. Japan's plans were revealed in the notorious "Twenty-one Demands" (1915). Against the furious opposition especially of the students of Peking, Yüan Shih-k'ai's government accepted the greater part of these demands. In negotiations with Great Britain, in which Japan took advantage of the British commitments in Europe, Japan had to be conceded the predominant position in the Far East.

Meanwhile Yüan Shih-k'ai had made all preparations for turning the Republic once more into an empire, in which he would be emperor; the empire was to be based once more on the gentry group. In 1914 he secured an amendment of the Constitution under which the governing power was to be entirely in the hands of the president; at the end of 1914 he secured his appointment as president for life, and at the end of 1915 he induced the parliament to resolve that he should become emperor.

This naturally aroused the resentment of the republicans, but it also annoyed the generals belonging to the gentry, who had the same ambition. Thus there were disturbances, especially in the south, where Sun Yat-sen with his followers agitated for a democratic republic. The foreign powers recognized that a divided China would be much easier to penetrate and annex than a united China, and accordingly opposed Yüan Shih-k'ai. Before he could ascend the throne, he died suddenly—and this terminated the first attempt to re-establish monarchy.

Yüan was succeeded as president by Li Yüan-hung. Meanwhile five provinces had declared themselves independent. Foreign pressure on China steadily grew. She was forced to declare war on Germany, and though this made no practical difference to the war, it enabled the European powers to penetrate further into China. Difficulties grew to such an extent in 1917 that a dictatorship was set up and soon after came an interlude, the recall of the Manchus and the reinstatement of the deposed emperor (July 1st-8th, 1917).

This led to various risings of generals, each aiming simply at the satisfaction of his thirst for personal power. Ultimately the victorious group of generals, headed by Tuan Ch'i-jui, secured the election of Fêng Kuo-chang in place of the retiring president. Fêng was succeeded at the end of 1918 by Hsü Shih-ch'ang, who held office until 1922. Hsü, as a former ward of the emperor, was a typical representative of the gentry, and was opposed to all republican reforms.

The south held aloof from these northern governments. In Canton an opposition government was set up, formed mainly of followers of Sun Yat-sen; the Peking government was unable to remove the Canton government. But the Peking government and its president scarcely counted any longer even in the north. All that counted were the generals, the most prominent of whom were: (1) Chang Tso-lin, who had control of Manchuria and had made certain terms with Japan, but who was ultimately murdered by the Japanese (1928); (2) Wu P'ei-fu, who held North China; (3) the so-called "Christian general", Fêng Yü-hsiang, and (4) Ts'ao K'un, who became president in 1923.

At the end of the first world war Japan had a hold over China amounting almost to military control of the country. China did not sign the Treaty of Versailles, because she considered that she had been duped by Japan, since Japan had driven the Germans out of China but had not returned the liberated territory to the Chinese. In 1921 peace was concluded with Germany, the German privileges being abolished. The same applied to Austria. Russia, immediately after the setting up of the Soviet government, had renounced all her rights under the Capitulations. This was the first step in the gradual rescinding of the Capitulations; the last of them went only in 1943, as a consequence of the difficult situation of the Europeans and Americans in the Pacific produced by the Second World War.

At the end of the first world war the foreign powers revised their attitude towards China. The idea of territorial partitioning of the country was replaced by an attempt at financial exploitation; military friction between the Western powers and Japan was in this way to be minimized. Financial control was to be exercised by an international banking consortium (1920). It was necessary for political reasons that this committee should be joined by Japan. After her Twenty-one Demands, however, Japan was hated throughout China. During the world war she had given loans to the various governments and rebels, and in this way had secured one privilege after another. Consequently China declined the banking consortium. She tried to secure capital from her own resources; but in the existing political situation and the acute economic depression internal loans had no success.

In an agreement between the United States and Japan in 1917, the United States, in consequence of the war, had to give their assent to special rights for Japan in China. After the war the international conference at Washington (November 1921-February 1922) tried to set narrower limits to Japan's influence over China, and also to re-determine the relative strength in the Pacific of the four great powers (America, Britain, France, Japan). After the failure of the banking plan this was the last means of preventing military conflicts between the powers in the Far East. This brought some relief to China, as Japan had to yield for the time to the pressure of the western powers.

The years that followed until 1927 were those of the complete collapse of the political power of the Peking government—years of entire dissolution. In the south Sun Yat-sen had been elected generalissimo in 1921. In 1924 he was re-elected with a mandate for a campaign against the north. In 1924 there also met in Canton the first general congress of the Kuomintang ("People's Party"). The Kuomintang (in 1929 it had 653,000 members, or roughly 0.15 per cent of the population) is the continuation of the Komingtang ("Revolutionary Party") founded by Sun Yat-sen, which as a middle-class party had worked for the removal of the dynasty. The new Kuomintang was more socialistic, as is shown by its admission of Communists and the stress laid upon land reform.

At the end of 1924 Sun Yat-sen with some of his followers went to Peking, to discuss the possibility of a reunion between north and south on the basis of the program of the People's Party. There, however, he died at the beginning of 1925, before any definite results had been attained; there was no prospect of achieving anything by the negotiations, and the south broke them off. But the death of Sun Yat-sen had been followed after a time by tension within the party between its right and left wings. The southern government had invited a number of Russian advisers in 1923 to assist in building up the administration, civil and military, and on their advice the system of government had been reorganized on lines similar to those of the soviet and commissar system. This change had been advocated by an old friend of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, who later married Sun's sister-in-law. Chiang Kai-shek, who was born in 1886, was the head of the military academy at Whampoa, near Canton, where Russian instructors were at work. The new system was approved by Sun Yat-sen's successor, Hu Han-min (who died in 1936), in his capacity of party leader. It was opposed by the elements of the right, who at first had little influence. Chiang Kai-shek soon became one of the principal leaders of the south, as he had command of the efficient troops of Canton, who had been organized by the Russians.

The People's Party of the south and its governments, at that time fairly radical in politics, were disliked by the foreign powers; only Japan supported them for a time, owing to the anti-British feeling of the South Chinese and in order to further her purpose of maintaining disunion in China. The first serious collision with the outer world came on May 30th, 1925, when British soldiers shot at a crowd demonstrating in Shanghai. This produced a widespread boycott of British goods in Canton and in British Hong Kong, inflicting a great loss on British trade with China and bringing considerable advantages in consequence to Japanese trade and shipping: from the time of this boycott began the Japanese grip on Chinese coastwise shipping.

The second party congress was held in Canton in 1926. Chiang Kai-shek already played a prominent part. The People's Party, under Chiang Kai-shek and with the support of the communists, began the great campaign against the north. At first it had good success: the various provincial governors and generals and the Peking government were played off against each other, and in a short time one leader after another was defeated. The Yangtze was reached, and in 1926 the southern government moved to Hankow. All over the southern provinces there now came a genuine rising of the masses of the people, mainly the result of communist propaganda and of the government's promise to give land to the peasants, to set limits to the big estates, and to bring order into the taxation. In spite of its communist element, at the beginning of 1927 the southern government was essentially one of the middle class and the peasantry, with a socialistic tendency.

3 Second period of the Republic: Nationalist China

With the continued success of the northern campaign, and with Chiang Kai-shek's southern army at the gates of Shanghai (March 21st, 1927), a decision had to be taken. Should the left wing be allowed to gain the upper hand, and the great capitalists of Shanghai be expropriated as it was proposed to expropriate the gentry? Or should the right wing prevail, an alliance be concluded with the capitalists, and limits be set to the expropriation of landed estates? Chiang Kai-shek, through his marriage with Sun Yat-sen's wife's sister, had become allied with one of the greatest banking families. In the days of the siege of Shanghai Chiang, together with his closest colleagues (with the exception of Hu Han-min and Wang Chying-wei, a leader who will be mentioned later), decided on the second alternative. Shanghai came into his hands without a struggle, and the capital of the Shanghai financiers, and soon foreign capital as well, was placed at his disposal, so that he was able to pay his troops and finance his administration. At the same time the Russian advisers were dismissed or executed.

The decision arrived at by Chiang Kai-shek and his friends did not remain unopposed, and he parted from the "left group" (1927) which formed a rival government in Hankow, while Chiang Kai-shek made Nanking the seat of his government (April 1927). In that year Chiang not only concluded peace with the financiers and industrialists, but also a sort of "armistice" with the landowning gentry. "Land reform" still stood on the party program, but nothing was done, and in this way the confidence and co-operation of large sections of the gentry was secured. The choice of Nanking as the new capital pleased both the industrialists and the agrarians: the great bulk of China's young industries lay in the Yangtze region, and that region was still the principal one for agricultural produce; the landowners of the region were also in a better position with the great market of the capital in their neighbourhood.

Meanwhile the Nanking government had succeeded in carrying its dealings with the northern generals to a point at which they were largely out-manoeuvred and became ready for some sort of collaboration (1928). There were now four supreme commanders—Chiang Kai-shek, Fêng Yü-hsiang (the "Christian general"), Yen Hsi-shan, the governor of Shansi, and the Muslim Li Chung-yen. Naturally this was not a permanent solution; not only did Chiang Kai-shek's three rivals try to free themselves from his ever-growing influence and to gain full power themselves, but various groups under military leadership rose again and again, even in the home of the Republic, Canton itself. These struggles, which were carried on more by means of diplomacy and bribery than at arms, lasted until 1936. Chiang Kai-shek, as by far the most skilful player in this game, and at the same time the man who had the support of the foreign governments and of the financiers of Shanghai, gained the victory. China became unified under his dictatorship.

As early as 1928, when there seemed a possibility of uniting China, with the exception of Manchuria, which was dominated by Japan, and when the European powers began more and more to support Chiang Kai-shek, Japan felt that her interests in North China were threatened, and landed troops in Shantung. There was hard fighting on May 3rd, 1928. General Chang Tso-lin, in Manchuria, who was allied to Japan, endeavoured to secure a cessation of hostilities, but he fell victim to a Japanese assassin; his place was taken by his son, Chang Hsüeh-liang, who pursued an anti-Japanese policy. The Japanese recognized, however, that in view of the international situation the time had not yet come for intervention in North China. In 1929 they withdrew their troops and concentrated instead on their plans for Manchuria.

Until the time of the "Manchurian incident" (1931), the Nanking government steadily grew in strength. It gained the confidence of the western powers, who proposed to make use of it in opposition to Japan's policy of expansion in the Pacific sphere. On the strength of this favourable situation in its foreign relations, the Nanking government succeeded in getting rid of one after another of the Capitulations. Above all, the administration of the "Maritime Customs", that is to say of the collection of duties on imports and exports, was brought under the control of the Chinese government: until then it had been under foreign control. Now that China could act with more freedom in the matter of tariffs, the government had greater financial resources, and through this and other measures it became financially more independent of the provinces. It succeeded in building up a small but modern army, loyal to the government and superior to the still existing provincial armies. This army gained its military experience in skirmishes with the Communists and the remaining generals.

It is true that when in 1931 the Japanese occupied Manchuria, Nanking was helpless, since Manchuria was only loosely associated with Nanking, and its governor, Chang Hsüeh-liang, had tried to remain independent of it. Thus Manchuria was lost almost without a blow. On the other hand, the fighting with Japan that broke out soon afterwards in Shanghai brought credit to the young Nanking army, though owing to its numerical inferiority it was unsuccessful. China protested to the League of Nations against its loss of Manchuria. The League sent a commission (the Lytton Commission), which condemned Japan's action, but nothing further happened, and China indignantly broke away from her association with the Western powers (1932-1933). In view of the tense European situation (the beginning of the Hitler era in Germany, and the Italian plans of expansion), the Western powers did not want to fight Japan on China's behalf, and without that nothing more could be done. They pursued, indeed, a policy of playing off Japan against China, in order to keep those two powers occupied with each other, and so to divert Japan from Indo-China and the Pacific.

China had thus to be prepared for being involved one day in a great war with Japan. Chiang Kai-shek wanted to postpone war as long as possible. He wanted time to establish his power more thoroughly within the country, and to strengthen his army. In regard to external relations, the great powers would have to decide their attitude sooner or later. America could not be expected to take up a clear attitude: she was for peace and commerce, and she made greater profits out of her relations with Japan than with China; she sent supplies to both (until 1941). On the other hand, Britain and France were more and more turning away from Japan, and Russo-Japanese relations were at all times tense. Japan tried to emerge from her isolation by joining the "axis powers", Germany and Italy (1936); but it was still doubtful whether the Western powers would proceed with Russia, and therefore against Japan, or with the Axis, and therefore in alliance with Japan.

Japan for her part considered that if she was to raise the standard of living of her large population and to remain a world power, she must bring into being her "Greater East Asia", so as to have the needed raw material sources and export markets in the event of a collision with the Western powers; in addition to this, she needed a security girdle as extensive as possible in case of a conflict with Russia. In any case, "Greater East Asia" must be secured before the European conflict should break out.

4 The Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945)

Accordingly, from 1933 onward Japan followed up her conquest of Manchuria by bringing her influence to bear in Inner Mongolia and in North China. She succeeded first, by means of an immense system of smuggling, currency manipulation, and propaganda, in bringing a number of Mongol princes over to her side, and then (at the end of 1935) in establishing a semi-dependent government in North China. Chiang Kai-shek took no action.

The signal for the outbreak of war was an "incident" by the Marco Polo Bridge, south of Peking (July 7th, 1937). The Japanese government profited by a quite unimportant incident, undoubtedly provoked by the Japanese, in order to extend its dominion a little further. China still hesitated; there were negotiations. Japan brought up reinforcements and put forward demands which China could not be expected to be ready to fulfil. Japan then occupied Peking and Tientsin and wide regions between them and south of them. The Chinese soldiers stationed there withdrew almost without striking a blow, but formed up again and began to offer resistance. In order to facilitate the planned occupation of North China, including the province of Shantung, Japan decided on a diversionary campaign against Shanghai. The Nanking government sent its best troops to the new front, and held it for nearly three months against superior forces; but meanwhile the Japanese steadily advanced in North China. On November 9th Nanking fell into their hands. By the beginning of January 1938, the province of Shantung had also been conquered.

Chiang Kai-shek and his government fled to Ch'ung-k'ing (Chungking), the most important commercial and financial centre of the interior after Hankow, which was soon threatened by the Japanese fleet. By means of a number of landings the Japanese soon conquered the whole coast of China, so cutting off all supplies to the country; against hard fighting in some places they pushed inland along the railways and conquered the whole eastern half of China, the richest and most highly developed part of the country. Chiang Kai-shek had the support only of the agriculturally rich province of Szechwan, and of the scarcely developed provinces surrounding it. Here there was as yet no industry. Everything in the way of machinery and supplies that could be transported from the hastily dismantled factories was carried westward. Students and professors went west with all the contents of their universities, and worked on in small villages under very difficult conditions—one of the most memorable achievements of this war for China. But all this was by no means enough for waging a defensive war against Japan. Even the famous Burma Road could not save China.

By 1940-1941 Japan had attained her war aim: China was no longer a dangerous adversary. She was still able to engage in small-scale fighting, but could no longer secure any decisive result. Puppet governments were set up in Peking, Canton, and Nanking, and the Japanese waited for these governments gradually to induce supporters of Chiang Kai-shek to come over to their side. Most was expected of Wang Ching-wei, who headed the new Nanking government. He was one of the oldest followers of Sun Yat-sen, and was regarded as a democrat. In 1925, after Sun Yat-sen's death, he had been for a time the head of the Nanking government, and for a short time in 1930 he had led a government in Peking that was opposed to Chiang Kai-shek's dictatorship. Beyond any question Wang still had many followers, including some in the highest circles at Chungking, men of eastern China who considered that collaboration with Japan, especially in the economic field, offered good prospects. Japan paid lip service to this policy: there was talk of sister peoples, which could help each other and supply each other's needs. There was propaganda for a new "Greater East Asian" philosophy, Wang-tao, in accordance with which all the peoples of the East could live together in peace under a thinly disguised dictatorship. What actually happened was that everywhere Japanese capitalists established themselves in the former Chinese industrial plants, bought up land and securities, and exploited the country for the conduct of their war.

After the great initial successes of Hitlerite Germany in 1939-1941, Japan became convinced that the time had come for a decisive blow against the positions of the Western European powers and the United States in the Far East. Lightning blows were struck at Hong Kong and Singapore, at French Indo-China, and at the Netherlands East Indies. The American navy seemed to have been eliminated by the attack on Pearl Harbour, and one group of islands after another fell into the hands of the Japanese. Japan was at the gates of India and Australia. Russia was carrying on a desperate defensive struggle against the Axis, and there was no reason to expect any intervention from her in the Far East. Greater East Asia seemed assured against every danger.

The situation of Chiang Kai-shek's Chungking government seemed hopeless. Even the Burma Road was cut, and supplies could only be sent by air; there was shortage of everything. With immense energy small industries were begun all over western China, often organized as co-operatives; roads and railways were built—but with such resources would it ever be possible to throw the Japanese into the sea? Everything depended on holding out until a new page was turned in Europe. Infinitely slow seemed the progress of the first gleams of hope—the steady front in Burma, the reconquest of the first groups of inlands; the first bomb attacks on Japan itself. Even in May, 1945, with the war ended in Europe, there seemed no sign of its ending in the Far East. Then came the atom bomb, bringing the collapse of Japan; the Japanese armies receded from China, and suddenly China was free, mistress once more in her own country as she had not been for decades.

Chapter Twelve

PRESENT-DAY CHINA

1 The growth of communism

In order to understand today's China, we have to go back in time to report events which were cut short or left out of our earlier discussion in order to present them in the context of this chapter.

Although socialism and communism had been known in China long ago, this line of development of Western philosophy had interested Chinese intellectuals much less than liberalistic, democratic Western ideas. It was widely believed that communism had no real prospects for China, as a dictatorship of the proletariat seemed to be relevant only in a highly industrialized and not in an agrarian society. Thus, in its beginning the "Movement of May Fourth" of 1919 had Western ideological traits but was not communistic. This changed with the success of communism in Russia and with the theoretical writings of Lenin. Here it was shown that communist theories could be applied to a country similar to China in its level of development. Already from 1919 on, some of the leaders of the Movement turned towards communism: the National University of Peking became the first centre of this movement, and Ch'en Tu-hsiu, then dean of the College of Letters, from 1920 on became one of its leaders. Hu Shih did not move to the left with this group; he remained a liberal. But another well-known writer, Lu Hsün (1881-1936), while following Hu Shih in the "Literary Revolution," identified politically with Ch'en. There was still another man, the Director of the University Library, Li Ta-chao, who turned towards communism. With him we find one of his employees in the Library, Mao Tse-tung. In fact, the nucleus of the Communist Party, which was officially created as late as 1921, was a student organization including some professors in Peking. On the other hand, a student group in Paris had also learned about communism and had organized; the leaders of this group were Chou En-lai and Li Li-san. A little later, a third group organized in Germany; Chu Tê belonged to this group. The leadership of Communist China since 1949 has been in the hands of men of these three former student groups.

After 1920, Sun Yat-sen, too, became interested in the developments in Soviet Russia. Yet, he never actually became a communist; his belief that the soil should belong to the tiller cannot really be combined with communism, which advocates the abolition of individual land-holdings. Yet, Soviet Russia found it useful to help Sun Yat-sen and advised the Chinese Communist Party to collaborate with the KMT (Kuomintang). This collaboration, not always easy, continued until the fall of Shanghai in 1927.

In the meantime, Mao Tse-tung had given up his studies in Peking and had returned to his home in Hunan. Here, he organized his countrymen, the farmers of Hunan. It is said that at the verge of the northern expedition of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao's adherents in Hunan already numbered in the millions; this made the quick and smooth advance of the communist-advised armies of Chiang Kai-shek possible. Mao developed his ideas in written form in 1927; he showed that communism in China could be successful only if it was based upon farmers. Because of this unorthodox attitude, he was for years severely attacked as a deviationist.

When Chiang Kai-shek separated from the KMT in 1927, the main body of the KMT remained in Hankow as the legal government. But now, while Chiang Kai-shek executed all leftists, union leaders, and communists who fell into his hands, tensions in Hankow increased between the Chinese Communist Party and the rest of the KMT. Finally, the KMT turned against the communists and reunited with Chiang Kai-shek. The remaining communists retreated to the Hunan-Kiangsi border area, the centre of Mao's activities; even the orthodox communist wing, which had condemned Mao, now had to come to him for protection from the KMT. A small communist state began to develop in Kiangsi, in spite of pressure and, later, attacks of the KMT against them. By 1934, this pressure became so strong that Kiangsi had to be abandoned, and in the epic "Long March" the rest of the communists and their army fought their way through all of western and north-western China into the sparsely inhabited, underdeveloped northern part of Shensi, where a new socialistic state was created with Yen-an as its capital.

After the fall of the communist enclave in Kiangsi, the prospects for the Nationalist regime were bright; indeed, the unification of China was almost achieved. At this moment a new Japanese invasion threatened and demanded the full attention of the regime. Thus, in spite of talk about land reform and other reforms which might have led to a liberalization of the government, no attention was given to internal and social problems except to the suppression of communist thought. Although all leftist publications were prohibited, most historians and sociologists succeeded in writing Marxist books without using Marxist terminology, so that they escaped Chiang's censors. These publications contributed greatly to preparing China's intellectuals and youth for communism.

When the Japanese War began, the communists in Yen-an and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek agreed to co-operate against the invaders. Yet, each side remembered its experiences in 1927 and distrusted the other. Chiang's resistance against the invaders became less effective after the Japanese occupied all of China's ports; supplies could reach China only in small quantities by airlift or via the Burma Road. There was also the belief that Japan could be defeated only by an attack on Japan itself and that this would have to be undertaken by the Western powers, not by China. The communists, on their side, set up a guerrilla organization behind the Japanese lines, so that, although the Japanese controlled the cities and the lines of communication, they had little control over the countryside. The communists also attempted to infiltrate the area held by the Nationalists, who in turn were interested in preventing the communists from becoming too strong; so, Nationalist troops guarded also the borders of communist territory.

American politicians and military advisers were divided in their opinions. Although they recognized the internal weakness of the Nationalist government, the fighting between cliques within the government, and the ever-increasing corruption, some advocated more help to the Nationalists and a firm attitude against the communists. Others, influenced by impressions gained during visits to Yen-an, and believing in the possibility of honest co-operation between a communist regime and any other, as Roosevelt did, attempted to effect a coalition of the Nationalists with the communists.

At the end of the war, when the Nationalist government took over the administration, it lacked popular support in the areas liberated from the Japanese. Farmers who had been given land by the communists, or who had been promised it, were afraid that their former landlords, whether they had remained to collaborate with the Japanese or had fled to West China, would regain control of the land. Workers hoped for new social legislation and rights. Businessmen and industrialists were faced with destroyed factories, worn-out or antiquated equipment, and an unchecked inflation which induced them to shift their accounts into foreign banks or to favour short-term gains rather than long-term investments. As in all countries which have suffered from a long war and an occupation, the youth believed that the old regime had been to blame, and saw promise and hope on the political left. And, finally, the Nationalist soldiers, most of whom had been separated for years from their homes and families, were not willing to fight other Chinese in the civil war now well under way; they wanted to go home and start a new life. The communists, however, were now well organized militarily and well equipped with arms surrendered by the Japanese to the Soviet armies as well as with arms and ammunition sold to them by KMT soldiers; moreover, they were constantly strengthened by deserters from the KMT. The civil war witnessed a steady retreat by the KMT armies, which resisted only sporadically. By the end of 1948, most of mainland China was in the hands of the communists, who established their new capital in Peking.

2 Nationalist China in Taiwan

The Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan with those soldiers who remained loyal. This island was returned to China after the defeat of Japan, though final disposition of its status had not yet been determined.

Taiwan's original population had been made up of more than a dozen tribes who are probably distant relatives of tribes in the Philippines. These are Taiwan's "aborigines," altogether about 200,000 people in 1948.

At about the time of the Sung dynasty, Chinese began to establish outposts on the island; these developed into regular agricultural settlements toward the end of the Ming dynasty. Immigration increased in the eighteenth and especially the nineteenth centuries. These Chinese immigrants and their descendants are the "Taiwanese," Taiwan's main population of about eight million people as of 1948.

Taiwan was at first a part of the province of Fukien, whence most of its Chinese settlers came; there was also a minority of Hakka, Chinese from Kuangtung province. When Taiwan was ceded to Japan, it was still a colonial area with much lawlessness and disorder, but with a number of flourishing towns and a growing population. The Japanese, who sent administrators but no settlers, established law and order, protected the aborigines from land-hungry Chinese settlers, and attempted to abolish headhunting by the aborigines and to raise the cultural level in general. They built a road and railway system and strongly stressed the production of sugar cane and rice. During the Second World War, the island suffered from air attacks and from the inability of the Japanese to protect its industries.

After Chiang Kai-shek and the remainder of his army and of his government officials arrived in Taiwan, they were followed by others fleeing from the communist regime, mainly from Chekiang, Kiangsu, and the northern provinces of the mainland. Eventually, there were on Taiwan about two million of these "mainlanders," as they have sometimes been called.

When the Chinese Nationalists took over from the Japanese, they assumed all the leading positions in the government. The Taiwanese nationals who had opposed the Japanese were disappointed; for their part, the Nationalists felt threatened because of their minority position. The next years, especially up to 1952, were characterized by terror and bloodshed. Tensions persisted for many years, but have lessened since about 1960.

The new government of Taiwan resembled China's pre-war government under Chiang Kai-shek. First, to maintain his claim to the legitimate rule of all of China, Chiang retained—and controlled through his party, the KMT—his former government organization, complete with cabinet ministers, administrators, and elected parliament, under the name "Central Government of China." Secondly, the actual government of Taiwan, which he considered one of China's provinces, was organized as the "Provincial Government of Taiwan," whose leading positions were at first in the hands of KMT mainlanders. There have since been elections for the provincial assembly, for local government councils and boards, and for various provincial and local positions. Thirdly, the military forces were organized under the leadership and command of mainlanders. And finally, the education system was set up in accordance with former mainland practices by mainland specialists. However, evolutionary changes soon occurred.

The government's aim was to make Mandarin Chinese the language of all Chinese in Taiwan, as it had been in mainland China long before the War, and to weaken the Taiwanese dialects. Soon almost every child had a minimum of six years of education (increased in 1968 to nine years), with Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction. In the beginning few Taiwanese qualified as teachers because, under Japanese rule, Japanese had been the medium of instruction. As the children of Taiwanese and mainland families went to school together, the Taiwanese children quickly learned Mandarin, while most mainland children became familiar with the Taiwan dialect. For the generation in school today, the difference between mainlander and Taiwanese has lost its importance. At the same time, more teachers of Taiwanese origin, but with modern training, have begun to fill first the ranks of elementary, later of high-school, and now even of university instructors, so that the end of mainland predominance in the educational system is foreseeable.

The country is still ruled by the KMT, but although at first hardly any Taiwanese belonged to the Party, many of the elective jobs and almost all positions in the provincial government are at present (1969) in the hands of Taiwanese independents, or KMT members, more of whom are entering the central government as well. Because military service is compulsory, the majority of common soldiers are Taiwanese: as career officers grow older and their sons show little interest in an army career, more Taiwan-Chinese are occupying higher army positions. Foreign policy and major political decisions still lie in the hands of mainland Chinese, but economic power, once monopolized by them, is now held by Taiwan-Chinese.

This shift gained impetus with the end of American economic aid, which had tied local businessmen to American industry and thus worked to the advantage of mainland Chinese, for these had contacts in the United States, whereas the Taiwan-Chinese had contacts only in Japan. After the termination of American economic aid, Taiwanese trade with Japan, the Philippines, and Korea grew in importance and with it the economic strength of Taiwan-Chinese businessmen. After 1964, Taiwan became a strong competitor of Hong Kong and Japan in some export industries, such as electronics and textiles. We can regard Taiwan from 1964 on as occupying the "takeoff" stage, to use Rostow's terminology—a stage of rapid development of new, principally light and consumer, industries. There has been a rapid rise of industrial towns around the major cities, and there are already many factories in the countryside, even in some villages. Electrification is essentially completed, and heavy industries, such as fertilizer and assembly plants and oil refineries, now exist.

This rapid industrialization was accompanied by an unusually fast development of agriculture. A land-reform program limited land ownership, reduced rents, and redistributed formerly Japanese-owned land. This was the program that the Nationalist government had attempted unsuccessfully to enforce in liberated China after the Pacific War. It is well known that the abolition of landlordism and the distribution of land to small farmers do not in themselves improve or enlarge production. The Joint Council on Rural Reconstruction, on which American advisers worked with Chinese specialists to devise a system comparable to American agricultural extension services but possessing added elements of community development, introduced better seeds, more and better fertilizers, and numerous other innovations which the farmers quickly adopted, with the result that the island became self-supporting, in spite of a steadily growing population (thirteen million in 1968).

At the same time, the government succeeded in stabilizing the currency and in eliminating corruption, thus re-establishing public confidence and security. Good incomes from farming as well as from industries were invested on the island instead of flowing into foreign banks. In addition, the population had enough surplus money to buy the products of the new domestic industries as these appeared. Thus, the industrialization of Taiwan may be called "industrialization without tears," without the suffering, that is, of proletarian masses who produce objects which they cannot afford for themselves. Today, even lower middle-class families have television consoles which cost the equivalent of US $200; they own electric fans and radios; they are buying Taiwan-produced refrigerators and air conditioners; and more and more think of buying Taiwan-assembled cars. They encourage their children to finish high school and to attend college if at all possible; competition for admission is very strong in spite of the continuous building of new schools and universities. Education to the level of the B.A. is of good quality, but for most graduate study students are still sent abroad. Taiwan complains about the "brain drain," as about 93 per cent of its students who go overseas do not return, but in many fields it has sufficient trained manpower to continue its development, and in any case there would not be enough jobs available if all the students returned. Most of these expatriates would be available to develop mainland China, if conditions there were to change in a way that would make them compatible with the values with which these expatriates grew up on Taiwan, or with the Western democratic values which they absorbed abroad.

Chiang Kai-shek's government still hopes that one day its people will return to the mainland. This hope has changed from hope of victory in a civil war to hope of revolutionary developments within Communist China which might lead to the creation of a more liberal government in which men with KMT loyalties could find a place. Because they are Chinese, the present government and, it is believed, the majority of the people, consider themselves a part of China from which they are temporarily separated. Therefore they reject the idea, proposed by some American politicians, that Taiwan should become an independent state. There are, mainly in the United States and Japan, groups of Taiwan-Chinese who favour an independent Taiwan, which naturally would be close to Japan politically and economically. One may agree with their belief that Taiwan, now larger than many European countries, could exist and flourish as an independent country; yet few Chinese will wish to divorce themselves from the world's largest society.

3 Communist China

Both Taiwan and mainland China have developed extremely quickly. The reasons do not seem to lie solely in the form of government, for the pre-conditions for a "takeoff" existed in China as early as the 1920's, if not earlier. That is, the quick development of China could have started forty years ago but was prevented, primarily for political reasons. One of the main pre-conditions for quick development is that a large part of the population is inured to hard and repetitive work. The Chinese farmer was accustomed to such work; he put more time and energy into his land than any other farmer. He and his fellows were the industrial workers of the future: reliable, hard-working, tractable, intelligent. To train them was easy, and absenteeism was never a serious problem, as it is in other developing nations. Another pre-condition is the existence of sufficient trained people to manage industry. Forty years ago China had enough such men to start modernization; foreign assistance would have been necessary in some fields, but only briefly.

Another requirement (at least in the period before radio and television) is general literacy. Meaningful statistical data on literacy in China before 1937 are lacking. Some authors remark that before 1800 probably all upper-class sons and most daughters were educated, and that men in the middle and even in the lower classes often had some degree of literacy. In this context "educated" means that these persons could read classical poetry and essays written in literary Chinese, which was not the language of daily conversation. "Literacy," however, might mean only that a person could read and write some 600 characters, enough to conduct a business and to read simple stories. Although newspapers today have a stock of about 6,000 characters, only some 600 characters are commonly used, and a farmer or worker can manage well with a knowledge of about 100 characters. Statements to the effect that in 1935 some 70 per cent of all men and 95 per cent of all women were illiterate must include the last category in these figures. In any case, the literacy program of the Nationalist government had penetrated the countryside and had reached even outlying villages before the Pacific War.

The transportation system in China before the war was not highly developed, but numerous railroads connecting the main industrial centers did exist, and bus and truck services connected small towns with the larger centers. What were missing in the pre-war years were laws to protect the investor, efficient credit facilities, an insurance system supported by law, and a modern tax structure. In addition, the monetary system was inflation-prone. Although sufficient capital probably could have been mobilized within the country, the available resources either went into foreign banks or were invested in enterprises providing a quick return.

The failure to capitalize on existing means of development before the War resulted from the chronic unrest caused by warlordism, revolutionaries and foreign invaders, which occupied the energies of the Nationalist government from its establishment to its fall. Once a stable government free from internal troubles arose, national development, whether private or socialist, could proceed at a rapid pace.

Thus, the development of Communist China is not a miracle, possible only because of its form of government. What is unusual about Communist China is the fact that it is the only nation possessing a highly developed culture of its own to have jettisoned it in favour of a foreign one. What missionaries had dreamed of for centuries and knew they would never accomplish, Mao Tse-tung achieved; he imposed an ideology created by Europeans and understandable only in the context of Central Europe in the nineteenth century. How long his success will last is uncertain. One school of analysts believes that the friction between Soviet Russia and Communist China indicates that China's communism has become Chinese. These men point out that Communist Chinese practices are often direct continuations of earlier Chinese practices, customs, and attitudes. And they predict that this trend will continue, resulting in a form of socialism or communism distinctly different from that found in any other country. Another school, however, believes that communism precedes "Sinism," and that the regime will slowly eliminate traits which once were typical of China and replace them with institutions developed out of Marxist thinking. In any case, for the present, although the Communist government's aim is to impose communist thought and institutions in the country, typically Chinese traits are still omnipresent.

Soon after the establishment of the Peking regime, a pact of friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union was concluded (February 1950), and Soviet specialists and civil and military products poured into China to speed its development. China had to pay for this assistance as well as for the loans it received from Russia, but the application of Russian experience, often involving the duplication of whole factories, was successful. In a few years, China developed its heavy industry, just as Russia had done. It should not be forgotten that Manchuria, as well as other parts of China, had modern heavy industries long before 1949. The Manchurian factories ceased production because, when the Russians invaded Manchuria at the end of the war, they removed the machinery to Russia.

Russian aid to Communist China continued to 1960. Its termination slowed development briefly but was not disastrous. Russian assistance was a "shot in the arm," as stimulating and about as lasting as American aid to Taiwan or to European countries. The stress laid upon heavy industry, in imitation of Russia, increased China's military strength quickly, but the consumer had to wait for goods which would make his life more enjoyable. One cause of friction in China today concerns the relative desirability of heavy industry versus consumer industry, a problem which arose in Russia after the death of Stalin.

China's military strength was first demonstrated in the Korean War when Chinese armies entered Korea (October 1950). Their successes contributed to the prestige of the Peking regime at home and abroad, but they also foreshadowed a conflict with Soviet Russia, which regarded North Korea as lying within its own sphere of influence.

In the same year, China invaded and conquered Tibet. Tibet, under Manchu rule until 1911, had achieved a certain degree of independence thereafter: no republican Chinese regime ever ruled Lhasa. The military conquest of Tibet is regarded by many as an act of Chinese imperialism, or colonialism, as the Tibetans certainly did not want to belong to China or be forced to change their traditional form of government. Having regarded themselves as subjects of the Manchu but not of the Chinese, they rose against the communist rulers in March 1959, but without success.

Chinese control of Tibet, involving the construction of numerous roads, airstrips, and military installations, as well as differences concerning the international border, led in 1959 to conflicts with India, a country which had previously sided with the new China in international affairs. Indeed, the borders were uncertain and looked different depending on whether one used Manchu or Indian maps. China's other border problem was with Burma. Early in 1960 the two countries concluded a border agreement which ended disputes dating from British colonial times.

Very early in its existence Communist China assumed control of Sinkiang, Chinese Central Asia, a large area originally inhabited by Turkish and Mongolian tribes and states, later conquered by the Manchu, and then integrated into China in the early nineteenth century. The communist action was to be expected, although after the Revolution of 1911 Chinese rule over this area had been spotty, and during the Pacific War some Soviet-inspired hope had existed that Sinkiang might gain independence, following the example of Outer Mongolia, another country which had been attached to the Manchu until 1911 and which, with Russian assistance, had gained its independence from China. Sinkiang is of great importance to Communist China as the site of large sources of oil and of atomic industries and testing grounds. The government has stimulated and often forced Chinese immigration into Sinkiang, so that the erstwhile Turkish and Mongolian majorities have become minorities, envious of their ethnic brothers in Soviet Central Asia who enjoy a much higher standard of living and more freedom.

Inner Mongolia had a brief dream of independence under Japanese protection during the war. But the majority of the population were Chinese, and already before the Pacific War, the country had been divided into three Chinese provinces, of which the Chinese Communists gained control without delay.

In general, when the Chinese Communists discuss territorial claims, they appear to seek the restoration of borders that China claimed in the eighteenth century. Thus, they make occasional remarks about the Hi area and parts of Eastern Siberia, which the Manchu either lost to the Russians or claimed as their territory. North Vietnam is probably aware that Imperial China exercised political rights over Tongking and Annam (the present-day North and part of South Vietnam). And, treaty or no, the Sino-Burmese question may be reopened one day, for Burma was semi-dependent on China under the Manchu.

The build-up of heavy industry enabled China to conduct an aggressive policy towards the countries surrounding her, but industrialization had to be paid for, and, as in other countries, it was basically agriculture that had to create the necessary capital. Therefore, in June 1950 a land-reform law was promulgated. By October 1952 it had been implemented at an estimated cost of two million human lives: the landlords. The next step, socialization of the land, began in 1953.

The co-operative farms were supposed to achieve higher production than small individual farms. It may be that any farmer, but particularly the Chinese, is emotionally involved in his crop, in contrast to the industrial worker, who often is alienated from the product he makes. Thus the farmer is unwilling to put unlimited energy and time into working on a farm that does not belong to him. But it may also be that the application of principles of industrial operation to agriculture fails because emergencies often occur in farming and are followed by periods of leisure, whereas in industry steady work is possible.

In any case, in 1956 strains began to appear in China's economy. In early 1958 the "Great Leap Forward" was promoted in an attempt to speed production in all sectors. Soon after, the first communes were created, against the advise of Russian specialists. The objective of the communes seems to have been not only the creation of a new organizational form which would allow the government to exercise more pressure upon farmers to increase production, but also the correlation of labor and other needs of industry with agriculture. The communes may have represented an attempt to set up an organization which could function independently, even in the event of a governmental breakdown in wartime. At the same time, the decentralization of industries began and a people's militia was created. The "back-yard furnaces," which produced high-cost iron of low quality, seem to have had a similar purpose: to teach citizens how to produce iron for armaments in case of war and enemy occupation, when only guerrilla resistance would be possible. In the same year, aggressive actions against offshore, Nationalist-held islands increased. China may have believed that war with the United States was imminent. Perhaps as a result of Russian talks with China, a detente followed in 1959, but so too did increased tension between Russia and China, while the results of the Great Leap and its policies proved catastrophic. The years 1961-64 provided a needed respite from the failures of the Great Leap. Farmers regained limited rights to income from private efforts, and improved farm techniques such as better seed and the use of fertilizer began to produce results. China can now feed her population in normal years.

Chinese leaders realize that an improved level of living is difficult to attain while the birth rate remains high. They have hesitated to adopt a family-planning policy, which would fly in the face of Marxist doctrine, although for a short period family planning was openly recommended. Their most efficient method of limiting the birth rate has been to recommend postponement of marriage.

First the limitation of private enterprise and business and then the nationalization of all important businesses following the completion of land reform deprived many employers as well as small shopkeepers of an occupation. But the new industries could not absorb all of the labor that suddenly became available. When rural youth inundated the cities in search of employment, the government returned the excess urban population to die countryside and recruited students and other urban youth to work on farms. Reeducation camps in outlying areas also provided cheap farm labor.

The problem facing China or any nation that modernizes and industrializes in the twentieth century can be simply stated. Nineteenth-century industry needed large masses of workers which only the rural areas could supply; and, with the development of farming methods, the countryside could afford to send its youth to the cities. Twentieth-century industry, on the other hand, needs technicians and highly qualified personnel, often with college degrees, but few unskilled workers. China has traditionally employed human labor where machines would have been cheaper and more efficient, simply because labor was available and capital was not. But since, with the growth of modern industry and modern farming, the problem will arise again, the policy of employing urban youth on farms is shortsighted.

The labor force also increased as a result of the "liberation" of women, in which the marriage law of April 1950 was the first step. Nationalist China had earlier created a modern and liberal marriage law; moreover, women were never the slaves that they have sometimes been painted. In many parts of China, long before the Pacific War, women worked in the fields with their husbands. Elsewhere they worked in secondary agricultural industries (weaving, preparation of food conserves, home industries, and even textile factories) and provided supplementary income for their families. All that "liberation" in 1950 really meant was that women had to work a full day as their husbands did, and had, in addition, to do house work and care for their children much as before. The new marriage law did, indeed, make both partners equal; it also made it easier for men to divorce their wives, political incompatibility becoming a ground for divorce.

The ideological justification for a new marriage law was the desirability of destroying the traditional Chinese family and its economic basis because a close family, and all the more an extended family or a clan, could obviously serve as a center of resistance. Land collectivization and the nationalization of business destroyed the economic basis of families. The "liberation" of women brought them out of the house and made it possible for the government to exploit dissension between husband and wife, thereby increasing its control over the family. Finally, the new education system, which indoctrinated all children from nursery to the end of college, separated children from parents, thus undermining parental control and enabling the state to intimidate parents by encouraging their children to denounce their "deviations." Sporadic efforts to dissolve the family completely by separating women from men in communes—recalling an attempt made almost a century earlier by the T'ai-p'ing—were unsuccessful.

The best formula for a revolution seems to involve turning youth against its elders, rather than turning one class against another. Not all societies have a class system so clear-cut that class antagonism is effective. On the other hand, Chinese youth, in its opposition to the "establishment," to conservatism, to traditional religion, to blind emulation of Western customs and institutions, to the traditional family structure and the position of women, had hopes that communism would eradicate the specific "evil" which each individual wanted abolished. Mao and his followers had once been such rebellious youths, but by the 1960's they were mostly old men and a new youth had appeared, a generation of revolutionaries for whom the "old regime" was dim history, not reality. In the struggle between Mao and Liu Shao-ch'i, which became increasingly apparent in 1966, Mao tried to retain his power by mobilizing young people as "Red Guards" and by inciting them to make the "Great Proletarian Revolution." The motives behind the struggle are diverse. It is on the one hand a conflict of persons contending for power, but there are also disagreements over theory: for example, should China's present generation toil to make possible a better life only for the next generation, or should it enjoy the fruits of its labor, after its many years of suffering? Mao opposes such "weakening" and favours a new generation willing to endure hardships, as he did in his youth. There is also a question whether the Chinese Communist Party under the banner of Maoism should replace the Russian party, establish Mao as the fourth founder after Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, and become the leader of world communism, or whether it should collaborate with the Russian party, at least temporarily, and thus ensure China Russian support. When, however, Chinese youth was summoned to take up the fight for Mao and his group, forces were loosed which could not be controlled. Following independent action by youth groups similar in nature to youth revolts in Western countries, the power and prestige of older leaders suffered. Even now (1969) it is impossible to re-establish unity and order; the Mao and Liu groups still oppose each other, and local factions have arisen. Violent confrontations, often resulting in hundreds of deaths, occur in many provinces. The regime is no longer so strong and unified as it was before 1966, although its end is not in sight. Quite possibly far-reaching changes may occur in the future.

Three factors will probably influence the future of China. First, the emergence of neo-communism, as in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in an attempt to soften traditional communist practice. Second, the outcome of the war in Vietnam. Will China be able to continue its eighteenth-century dream of direct or indirect domination of South-east Asia? Will North Vietnam detach itself from China and attach itself more closely to Russia? Will Russia and China continue to create separate spheres of influence in Asia, Africa, and South America? The first factor depends on developments inside China, the second on events outside, and at least in part on decisions in the United States, Japan, and Europe.

The third factor has to do with human nature. One may justifiably ask whether the change in human personality which Chinese communism has attempted to achieve is possible, let alone desirable. Studies of animals and of human beings have demonstrated a tendency to identify with a territory, with property, and with kin. Can the Chinese eradicate this tendency? The Chinese have been family-centered and accustomed to subordinating their individual inclinations to the requirements of family and neighborhood. But beyond these established frameworks they have been individualistic and highly idiosyncratic at all times. Under the communist regime, however, the government is omnipresent, and people must toe the official line. One senses the tragedy that affects well-known scholars, writers and poets, who must degrade themselves, their work, their past and their families in order to survive. They may hope for comprehension of their actions, but nonetheless they must suffer shame. Will the present government change the minds of these men and eradicate their feelings?

Communist China has made great progress, no doubt. Soon it may equal other developed nations. But its progress has been achieved at an unnecessary cost in human lives and happiness.

That the regime is no longer so strong and unified as it was before 1966 does not mean that its end is in sight. Far-reaching changes may occur in the near future. Public opinion is impressed with mainland China's progress, as the world usually is with strong nations. And public opinion is still unimpressed by the achievements of Taiwan and has hardly begun to change its attitude toward the government of the "Republic of China." To the historian and the sociologist, the experience of Taiwan indicates that China, if left alone and freed from ideological pressures, could industrialize more quickly than any other presently underdeveloped nation. Taiwan offers a model with which to compare mainland China.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

The following notes and references are intended to help the interested reader. They draw his attention to some more specialized literature in English, and occasionally in French and German. They also indicate for the more advanced reader the sources for some of the interpretations of historical events. As such sources are most often written in Chinese or Japanese and, therefore, inaccessible to most readers, only brief hints and not full bibliographical data are given. The specialists know the names and can easily find details in the standard bibliographies. The general reader will profit most from the bibliography on Chinese history published each year in the Journal of Asian Studies. These Notes do not mention the original Chinese sources which are the factual basis of this book.

Chapter One

p. 7: Reference is made here to the T'ung-chien kang-mu and its translation by de Mailla (1777-85). Criticism by O. Franke, Ku Chieh-kang and his school, also by G. Haloun.

p. 8: For the chronology, I rely here upon Ijima Tadao and my own research. Excavations at Chou-k'ou-tien still continue and my account should be taken as very preliminary. An earlier analysis is given by E. von Eickstedt (Rassendynamik von Ostasien, Berlin 1944). For the following periods, the best general study is still J.G. Andersson, Researches into the Prehistory of the Chinese, Stockholm 1943. A great number of new findings has been made recently, but no comprehensive analysis in a Western language is available.

p. 9: Comparison with Ainu has been made by Weidenreich. The theory of desiccation of Asia is not the Huntington theory, but I rely here upon arguments by J.G. Andersson and Sven Hedin.

p. 10. The earlier theories of R. Heine-Geldern have been used here.

p. 11: This is a summary of my own theories. Concerning the Tungus tribes, K. Jettmar (Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte, vol. 9, 1952, p. 484f and later studies) has proposed a more refined theory; other parts of the theory, as far as it is concerned with conditions in Central Asia, have been modified by F. Kussmaul (in: Tribus, vol. 1952-3, pp. 305-60). Archaeological data from Central Asia have been analysed again by K. Jettmar (in: The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin No. 23, 1951). The discussion on domestication of large animals relies on the studies by C.O. Sauer, H. von Wissmann, Menghin, Amschler, Flohr and, most recently, F. Han[vc]ar (in: Saeculum, vol. 10, 1959, pp. 21-37 with further literature), and also on my own research.

p. 12: An analysis of the situation in the South according to Western and Chinese studies is found in H.J. Wiens, China's March toward the Tropics, Hamden 1954. Much further work is now published by Ling Shun-sheng, Rui Yi-fu and other anthropologists in Taipei. The best analysis of denshiring in the Far East is still the book by K.J. Pelzer, Population and Land Utilization, New York 1941. The anthropological theories on this page are my own, influenced by ideas of R. Heine-Geldern and Gordon Luce.

p. 14: Sociological theory, as developed by R. Thurnwald and others, has been used as a theoretical tool here, together with observations by A. Credner and H. Bernatzik. Concerning rice in Yang-shao see R. Heine-Geldern in Anthropos, vol. 27, p. 595.

p. 15: Wu Chin-ting defended the local origin of Yang-shao; T.J. Arne, J.G. Andersson and many others suggested Western influences. Most recently R. Heine-Geldern elaborated this theory. The allusion to Indo-Europeans refers to the studies by G. Haloun and others concerning the Ta-Hsia, the later Yüeh-chih, and the Tocharian problem.

p. 16: R. Heine-Geldern proposed a "Pontic migration". Yin Huan-chang discussed most recently Lung-shan culture and the mound-dwellers.

p. 17: The original Chu-shu chi-nien version of the stories about Yao has been accepted here, together with my own research and the studies by B. Karlgren, M. Loehr, G. Haloun, E.H. Minns and others concerning the origin and early distribution of bronze and the animal style. Smith families or tribes are well known from Central Asia, but also from India and Africa (see W. Ruben, Eisenschmiede und Dämonen in Indien, Leiden 1939, for general discussion).—For a discussion of the Hsia see E. Erkes.

Chapter Two

p. 19: The discussion in this chapter relies mainly upon the Anyang excavation reports and the studies by Tung Tso-pin and, most strongly, Ch'en Meng-chia. In English, the best work is still H.G. Creel, The Birth of China, London 1936 and his more specialized Studies in Early Chinese Culture, Baltimore 1937.

p. 20: The possibility of a "megalithic" culture in the Far East has often been discussed, by O. Menghin, R. Heine-Geldern, Cheng Tê-k'un, Ling Shun-sheng and others. Megaliths occur mainly in South-East Asia, southern China, Korea and Japan.—Teng Ch'u-min and others believe that silk existed already in the time of Yang-shao.

p. 21: Kuo Mo-jo believes, that the Shang already used a real plough drawn by animals. The main discussion on ploughs in China is by Hsü Chung-shu; for general anthropological discussion see E. Werth and H. Kothe.

p. 22: For the discussion of the T'ao-t'ieh see the research by B. Karlgren and C. Hentze.

p. 23: I follow here mainly Ch'en Meng-chia, but work by B. Schindler, C. Hentze, H. Maspero and also my own research has been considered.

p. 24: I am accepting here a narrow definition of feudalism (see my Conquerors and Rulers, Leiden 1952).—The division of armies into "right" and "left" is interesting in the light of the theories concerning the importance of systems of orientation (Fr. Rock and others).

p. 25: Here, the work by W. Koppers, O. Spengler, F. Han[vc]ar, V.G. Childe and many others, concerning the domestication of the horse and the introduction of the war-chariot in general, and work by Shih Chang-ju, Ch'en Meng-chia, O. Maenchen, Uchida Gimpu and others concerning horses, riding and chariots in China has been used, in addition to my own research.

p. 26: Concerning the wild animals, I have relied upon Ch'en Meng-chia, Hsü Chung-shu and Tung Tso-pin.—The discussion as to whether there was a period of "slave society" (as postulated by Marxist theory) in China, and when it flourished, is still going on under the leadership of Kuo Mo-jo and his group. I prefer to differentiate between slaves and serfs, and relied for factual data upon texts from oracle bones, not upon historical texts.—The problem of Shang chronology is still not solved, in spite of extensive work by Liu Ch'ao-yang, Tung Tso-pin and many Japanese and Western scholars. The old chronology, however, seems to be rejected by most scholars now.

Chapter Three

p. 29: Discussing the early script and language, I refer to the great number of unidentified Shang characters and, especially, to the composite characters which have been mentioned often by C. Hentze in his research; on the other hand, the original language of the Chou may have been different from classical Chinese, if we can judge from the form of the names of the earliest Chou ancestors. Problems of substrata languages enter at this stage. Our first understanding of Chou language and dialects seems to come through the method applied by P. Serruys, rather than through the more generally accepted theories and methods of B. Karlgren and his school.

p. 30: I reject here the statement of classical texts that the last Shang ruler was unworthy, and accept the new interpretation of Ch'en Meng-chia which is based upon oracle bone texts,—The most recent general study on feudalism, and on feudalism in China, is in R. Coulborn, Feudalism in History, Princeton 1956. Stimulating, but in parts antiquated, is M. Granet, La Féodalité Chinoise, Oslo 1952. I rely here on my own research. The instalment procedure has been described by H. Maspero and Ch'i Sz[)u]-ho.

p. 31: The interpretation of land-holding and clans follows my own research which is influenced by Niida Noboru, Kat[=o] Shigeru and other Japanese scholars, as well as by G. Haloun.—Concerning the origin of family names see preliminarily Yang Hsi-mei; much further research is still necessary. The general development of Chinese names is now studied by Wolfgang Bauer.—The spread of cities in this period has been studied by Li Chi, The Formation of the Chinese People, Cambridge 1928. My interpretation relies mainly upon a study of the distribution of non-Chinese tribes and data on early cities coming from excavation reports (see my "Data on the Structure of the Chinese City" in Economic Development and Cultural Change, 1956, pp. 253-68, and "The Formation of Chinese Civilization" in Sociologus 7, 1959, pp. 97-112).

p. 32: The work on slaves by T. Pippon, E. Erkes, M. Wilbur, Wan Kuo-ting, Kuo Mo-jo, Niida Noboru, Kao Nien-chih and others has been consulted; the interpretation by E.G. Pulleyblank, however, was not accepted.

p. 33: This interpretation of the "well-field" system relies in part upon the work done by Hsü Ti-shan, in part upon M. Granet and H. Maspero, and attempts to utilize insight from general anthropological theory and field-work mainly in South-East Asia. Other interpretations have been proposed by Yang Lien-sheng, Wan Kuo-ting, Ch'i Sz[)u]-ho P. Demiéville, Hu Shih, Chi Ch'ao-ting, K.A. Wittfogel, and others Some authors, such as Kuo Mo-jo, regard the whole system as an utopia, but believe in an original "village community".—The characterization of the Chou-li relies in part upon the work done by Hsü Chung-shu and Ku Chieh-kang on the titles of nobility, research by Yang K'uan and textual criticism by B. Karlgren, O. Franke, and again Ku Chieh-kang and his school.—The discussion on twin cities is intended to draw attention to its West Asian parallels, the "acropolis" or "ark" city, as well as to the theories on the difference between Western and Asian cities (M. Weber) and the specific type of cities in "dual societies" (H. Boeke).

p. 34: This is a modified form of the Hu Shih theory.—The problem of nomadic agrarian inter-action and conflict has been studied for a later period mainly by O. Lattimore. Here, general anthropological research as well as my own have been applied.

p. 36: The supra-stratification theory as developed by R. Thurnwald has been used as analytic tool here.

p. 38: For this period, a novel interpretation is presented by R.L. Walker, The Multi-State System of China, Hamden 1953. For the concepts of sovereignty, I have used here the Chou-li text and interpretations based upon this text.

p. 40: For the introduction of iron and the importance of Ch'i, see Chu Hsi-tsu, Kuo Mo-jo, Yang K'uan, Sekino, Takeshi.—Some scholars (G. Haloun) tend to interpret attacks such as the one of 660 B.C. as attacks from outside the borders of China.

p. 41: For Confucius see H.G. Creel, Confucius, New York 1949. I do not, however, follow his interpretation, but rather the ideas of Hu Shih, O. Franke and others.

p. 42: For "chün-tz[)u]" and its counterpart "hsiao-jen" see D. Bodde and Ch'en Meng-chia.

p 43: I rely strongly here upon O. Franke and Ku Chieh-kang and upon my own work on eclipses.

p. 44: I regard the Confucian traditions concerning the model emperors of early time as such a falsification. The whole concept of "abdication" has been analysed by M. Granet. The later ceremony of abdication was developed upon the basis of the interpretations of Confucius and has been studied by Ku Chieh-kang and Miyakawa Hisayuki. Already Confucius' disciple Meng Tz[)u], and later Chuang Tz[)u] and Han Fei Tz[)u] were against this theory.—As a general introduction to the philosophy of this period, Y.L. Feng's History of Chinese Philosophy, London 1937 has still to be recommended, although further research has made many advances.—My analysis of the role of Confucianism in society is influenced by theories in the field of Sociology of religion.

p. 45: The temple in Turkestan was in Khotan and is already mentioned in the Wei-shu chapter 102. The analysis of the famous "Book on the transfiguration of Lao Tz[)u] into a Western Barbarian" by Wang Wei-cheng is penetrating and has been used here. The evaluation of Lao Tz[)u] and his pupils as against Confucius by J. Needham, in his Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge 1954 et seq. (in volume 2) is very stimulating, though necessarily limited to some aspects only.

p. 47: The concept of wu-wei has often been discussed; some, such as Masaaki Matsumoto, interpreted the concept purely in social terms as "refusal of actions carrying worldly estimation".

p. 49 Further literature concerning alchemy and breathing exercises is found in J. Needham's book.

Chapter Four

p. 51: I have used here the general framework of R.L. Walker, but more upon Yang K'uan's studies.

p. 52: The interpretation of the change of myths in this period is based in part upon the work done by H. Maspero, G. Haloun, and Ku Chieh-kang. The analysis of legends made by B. Karlgren from a philological point of view ("Legends and Cults in Ancient China", The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin No. 18, 1946, pp. 199-365) follows another direction.

p. 53: The discussion on riding involves the theories concerning horse-nomadic tribes and the period of this way of life. It also involves the problem of the invention of stirrup and saddle. The saddle seems to have been used in China already at the beginning of our period; the stirrup seems to be as late as the fifth century A.D. The article by A. Kroeber, The Ancient Oikumene as an Historic Culture Aggregate, Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1945, is very instructive for our problems and also for its theoretical approach.—The custom of attracting settlers from other areas in order to have more production as well as more manpower seems to have been known in India at the same time.

p. 54: The work done by Kat[=o] Shigeru and Niida Noboru on property and family has been used here. For the later period, work done by Makino Tatsumi has also been incorporated.—Literature on the plough and on iron for implements has been mentioned above. Concerning the fallow system, I have incorporated the ideas of Kat[=o] Shigeru, [=O]shima Toshikaza, Hsü Ti-shan and Wan Kuo-ting. Hsü Ti-shan believes that a kind of 3-field system had developed by this time. Traces of such a system have been observed in modern China (H.D. Scholz). For these questions, the translation by N. Lee Swann, Food and Money in Ancient China, 1959 is very important.

p. 55: For all questions of money and credit from this period down to modern times, the best brief introduction is by Lien-sheng Yang, Money and Credit in China, Cambridge 1952. The Introduction to the Economic History of China, London 1954, by E. Stuart Kirby is certainly still the best brief introduction into all problems of Chinese Economic history and contains a bibliography in Western and Chinese-Japanese languages. Articles by Chinese authors on economic problems have been translated in E-tu Zen Sun and J. de Francis, Chinese Social History, Washington 1956.—Data on the size of early cities have been collected by T. Sekino and Kat[=o] Shigeru.

p. 56: T. Sekino studied the forms of cities. C. Hentze believes that the city even in the Shang period normally had a square plan.—T. Sekino has also made the first research on city coins. Such a privilege and such independence of cities disappear later, but occasionally the privilege of minting was given to persons of high rank.—K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, New Haven 1957 regards irrigation as a key economic and social factor and has built up his theory around this concept. I do not accept his theory here or later. Evidence seems to point towards the importance of transportation systems rather than of government-sponsored or operated irrigation systems.—Concerning steel, we follow Yang K'uan; a special study by J. Needham is under preparation. Centre of steel production at this time was Wan (later Nanyang in Honan).—For early Chinese law, the study by A.F.P. Hulsewé, Remnants of Han Law, Leiden 1955 is the best work in English. He does not, however, regard Li K'ui as the main creator of Chinese law, though Kuo Mo-jo and others do. It is obvious, however, that Han law was not a creation of the Han Chinese alone and that some type of code must have existed before Han, even if such a code was not written by the man Li K'ui. A special study on Li was made by O. Franke.

p. 57: In the description of border conditions, research by O. Lattimore has been taken into consideration.

p. 59: For Shang Yang and this whole period, the classical work in English is still J.J.L. Duyvendak, The Book of Lord Shang, London 1928; the translation by Ma Perleberg of The Works of Kung-sun Lung-tzu, Hongkong 1952 as well as the translation of the Economic Dialogues in Ancient China: The Kuan-tzu, edited by L. Maverick, New Haven 1954 have not found general approval, but may serve as introductions to the way philosophers of our period worked. Han Fei Tz[)u]; has been translated by W.K. Liao, The Complete Works of Han Fei Tz[)u], London 1939 (only part 1).

p. 60: Needham does not have such a positive attitude towards Tsou Yen, and regards Western influences upon Tsou Yen as not too likely. The discussion on pp. 60-1 follows mainly my own researches.

p. 61: The interpretation of secret societies is influenced by general sociological theory and detailed reports on later secret societies. S. Murayama and most modern Chinese scholars stress almost solely the social element in the so-called "peasant rebellions".

Chapter Five

p. 63: The analysis of the emergence of Ch'in bureaucracy has profited from general sociological theory, especially M. Weber (see the new analysis by R. Bendix, Max Weber, an Intellectual Portrait, Garden City 1960, p. 117-157). Early administration systems of this type in China have been studied in several articles in the journal Yü-kung (vol. 6 and 7).

p. 65: In the discussion of language, I use arguments which have been brought forth by P. Serruys against the previously generally accepted theories of B. Karlgren.—For weights and measures I have referred to T. Sekino, Liu Fu and Wu Ch'eng-lo.

p. 66: For this period, D. Bodde's China's First Unifier, Leiden 1938 and his Statesman, Patriot, and General in Ancient China, New Haven 1940 remain valuable studies.

Chapter Six

p. 71: The basic historical text for this whole period, the Dynastic History of the Han Dynasty, is now in part available in English translation (H.H. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, Baltimore 1938, 3 volumes).

p. 72: The description of the gentry is based upon my own research. Other scholars define the word "gentry", if applied to China, differently (some of the relevant studies are discussed in my note in the Bull. School of Orient. & African Studies, 1955, p. 373 f.).

p. 73: The theory of the cycle of mobility has been brought forth by Fr. L.K. Hsu and others. I have based my criticism upon a forthcoming study of Social Mobility in Traditional Chinese Society. The basic point is not the momentary economic or political power of such a family, but the social status of the family (Li-shih yen-chiu, Peking 1955, No. 4, p. 122). The social status was, increasingly, defined and fixed by law (Ch'ü T'ung-tsu).—The difference in the size of gentry and other families has been pointed out by a number of scholars such as Fr. L.K. Hsu, H.T. Fei, O. Lang. My own research seems to indicate that gentry families, on the average, married earlier than other families.

p. 74: The Han system of examinations or rather of selection has been studied by Yang Lien-sheng; and analysis of the social origin of candidates has been made in the Bull. Chinese Studies, vol. 2, 1941, and 3, 1942.—The meaning of the term "Hundred Families" has been discussed by W. Eichhorn, Kuo Mo-jo, Ch'en Meng-chia and especially by Hsü T'ung-hsin. It was later also a fiscal term.

p. 75: The analysis of Hsiung-nu society is based mainly upon my own research. There is no satisfactory history of these northern federations available in English. The compilation of W.M. MacGovern, The Early Empires of Central Asia, Chapel Hill 1939, is now quite antiquated.—An attempt to construct a model of Central Asian nomadic social structure has been made by E.E. Bacon, Obok, a Study of Social Structure in Eurasia, New York 1958, but the model constructed by B. Vladimirtsov and modified by O. Lattimore remains valuable.—For origin and early-development of Hsiung-nu society see O. Maenchen, K. Jettmar, B. Bernstam, Uchida Gimpu and many others.

p. 79: Material on the "classes" (sz[)u] min) will be found in a forthcoming book. Studies by Ch'ü T'ung-tsu and Tamai Korehiro are important here. An up-to-date history of Chinese education is still a desideratum.

p. 80: For Tung Chung-shu, I rely mainly upon O. Franke.—Some scholars do not accept this "double standard", although we have clear texts which show that cases were evaluated on the basis of Confucian texts and not on the basis of laws. In fact, local judges probably only in exceptional cases knew the text of the law or had the code. They judged on the basis of "customary law".

p. 81: Based mainly upon my own research. K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, New Haven 1957, has a different interpretation.

p. 82: Cases in which the Han emperors disregarded the law code were studied by Y. Hisamura.—I have used here studies published in the Bull, of Chinese Studies, vol. 2 and 3 and in Tôyô gakuho, vol. 8 and 9, in addition to my own research.

p. 85: On local administration see Kat[=o] Shigeru and Yen Keng-wang's studies.

p. 86: The problem of the Chinese gold, which will be touched upon later again, has gained theoretical interest, because it could be used as a test of M. Lombard's theories concerning the importance of gold in the West (Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, vol. 12, Paris 1957, No. 1, p. 7-28). It was used in China from c. 600 B.C. on in form of coins or bars, but disappeared almost completely from A.D. 200 on, i.e. the period of economic decline (see L.S. Yang, Kat[=o] Shigeru).—The payment to border tribes occurs many times again in Chinese history down to recent times; it has its parallel in British payments to tribes in the North-West Frontier Province in India which continued even after the Independence.

p. 88: According to later sources, one third of the tributary gifts was used in the Imperial ancestor temples, one third in the Imperial mausolea, but one third was used as gifts to guests of the Emperor.—The trade aspect of the tributes was first pointed but by E. Parker, later by O. Lattimore, recently by J.K. Fairbank.—The importance of Chang Ch'ien for East-West contacts was systematically studied by B. Laufer; his Sino-Iranica, Chicago 1919 is still a classic.

p. 89: The most important trait which points to foreign trade, is the occurrence of glass in Chinese tombs in Indo-China and of glass in China proper from the fifth century B.C. on; it is assumed that this glass was imported from the Near East, possibly from Egypt (O. Janse, N. Egami, Seligman).

p. 91: Large parts of the "Discussions" have been translated by Esson M. Gale, Discourses on Salt and Iron, Leiden 1931; the continuation of this translation is in Jour. Royal As. Society, North-China Branch 1934.—The history of eunuchs in China remains to be written. They were known since at least the seventh century B.C. The hypothesis has been made that this custom had its origin in Asia Minor and spread from there (R.F. Spencer in Ciba Symposia, vol. 8, No. 7, 1946 with references).

p. 92: The main source on Wang Mang is translated by C.B. Sargent, Wang Mang, a translation, Shanghai 1950 and H.H. Dubs, History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol, 3, Baltimore 1955.

p. 93: This evaluation of the "Old character school" is not generally accepted. A quite different view is represented by Tjan Tjoe Som and R.P. Kramers and others who regard the differences between the schools as of a philological and not a political kind. I follow here most strongly the Chinese school as represented by Ku Chieh-kang and his friends, and my own studies.

p. 93: Falsification of texts refers to changes in the Tso-chuan. My interpretation relies again upon Ku Chieh-kang, and Japanese astronomical studies (Ijima Tadao), but others, too, admit falsifications (H.H. Dubs); B. Karlgren and others regard the book as in its main body genuine. The other text mentioned here is the Chou-li which is certainly not written by Wang Mang (Jung-chai Hsü-pi 16), but heavily mis-used by him (in general see S. Uno).

p. 94: I am influenced here by some of H.H. Dubs's studies. For this and the following period, the work by H. Bielenstein, The Restoration of the Han Dynasty, Stockholm 1953 and 1959 is the best monograph.—The "equalization offices" and their influence upon modern United States has been studied by B. Bodde in the Far Eastern Quarterly, vol. 5, 1946.

p. 95: H. Bielenstein regards a great flood as one of the main reasons for the breakdown of Wang Mang's rule.

p. 98: For the understanding of Chinese military colonies in Central Asia as well as for the understanding of military organization, civil administration and business, the studies of Lao Kan on texts excavated in Central Asia and Kansu are of greatest importance.

p. 101: Mazdaistic elements in this rebellion have been mentioned mainly by H.H. Dubs. Zoroastrism (Zoroaster born 569 B.C.) and Mazdaism were eminently "political" religions from their very beginning on. Most scholars admit the presence of Mazdaism in China only from 519 on (Ishida Mikinosuke, O. Franke). Dubs's theory can be strengthened by astronomical material.—The basic religious text of this group, the "Book of the Great Peace" has been studied by W. Eichhorn Maspero and Ho Ch'ang-ch'ün.

p. 102: For the "church" I rely mainly upon H. Maspero and W. Eichhorn.

p. 103: I use here concepts developed by Cheng Chen-to and especially by Jung Chao-tsu.

p. 104: Wang Ch'ung's importance has recently been mentioned again by J. Needham.

p. 105: These "court poets" have their direct parallel in Western Asia. This trend, however, did not become typical in China.—On the general history of paper read A. Kroeber, Anthropology, New York 1948, p. 490f., and Dard Hunter, Paper Making, New York 1947 (2nd ed.).

Chapter Seven

p. 109: The main historical sources for this period have been translated by Achilles Fang, The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Cambridge, Mass. 1952; the epic which describes this time is C.H. Brewitt-Taylor, San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shanghai 1925.

p. 112: For problems of migration and settlement in the South, we relied in part upon research by Ch'en Yüan and Wang Yi-t'ung.

p. 114: For the history of the Hsiung-nu I am relying mainly upon my own studies.

p. 117: This analysis of tribal structure is based mainly upon my own research; it differs in detail from the studies by E. Bacon, Obok, a Study of Social Structure in Eurasia, New York 1958, B. Vladimirtsov, O. Lattimore's Inner Asian Frontiers of China, New York 1951 (2nd edit.) and the studies by L.M.J. Schram, The Monguors of the Kansu-Tibetan Frontier, Philadelphia 1954 and 1957.

p. 118: The use of the word "Huns" does not imply that we identify the early or the late Hsiung-nu with the European Huns. This question is still very much under discussion (O. Maenchen, W. Haussig, W. Henning, and others).

p. 119: For the history of the early Hsien-pi states see the monograph by G. Schreiber, "The History of the Former Yen Dynasty", in Monomenta Serica, vol. 14 and 15 (1949-56). For all translations from Chinese Dynastic Histories of the period between 220 and 960 the Catalogue of Translations from the Chinese Dynastic Histories for the Period 220-960, by Hans H. Frankel, Berkeley 1957, is a reliable guide.

p. 125: For the description of conditions in Turkestan, especially in Tunhuang, I rely upon my own studies, but studies by A. von Gabein, L. Ligeti, J.R. Ware, O. Franke and Tsukamoto Zenryû have been used, too.

p. 133: These songs have first been studied by Hu Shih, later by Chinese folklorists.

p. 134: For problems of Chinese Buddhism see Arthur F. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History, Stanford 1959, with further bibliography. I have used for this and later periods, in addition to my own sociological studies, R. Michihata, J. Gernet, and Tamai Korehiro.—It is interesting that the rise of landowning temples in India occurred at exactly the same time (R.S. Sharma in Journ. Econ. and Soc. Hist. Orient, vol. 1, 1958, p. 316). Perhaps even more interesting, but still unstudied, is the existence of Buddhist temples in India which owned land and villages which were donated by contributions from China.—For the use of foreign monks in Chinese bureaucracies, I have used M. Weber's theory as an interpretative tool.

p. 135: The important deities of Khotan Buddhism are Vai['s]ramana and Kubera, (research by P. Demiéville, R. Stein and others).—Where, how, and why Hinayana and Mahayana developed as separate sects, is not yet studied. Also, a sociological analysis of the different Buddhist sects in China has not even been attempted yet.

p. 136: Such public religious disputations were known also in India.

p. 137: Analysis of the tribal names has been made by L. Bazin.

pp. 138-9: The personality type which was the ideal of the Toba corresponded closely to the type described by G. Geesemann, Heroische Lebensform, Berlin 1943.

p. 142: The Toba occur in contemporary Western sources as Tabar, Tabgaç, Tafkaç and similar names. The ethnic name also occurs as a title (O. Pritsak, P. Pelliot, W. Haussig and others).—On the chün-t'ien system cf. the article by Wan Kuo-ting in E-tu Zen Sun, Chinese Social History, Washington 1956, p. 157-184. I also used Yoshimi Matsumoto and T'ang Ch'ang-ju.—Census fragments from Tunhuang have been published by L. Giles, Niida Noboru and other Japanese scholars.

p. 143: On slaves for the earlier time see M. Wilbur, Slavery in China during the Former Han Dynasty, Chicago 1943. For our period Wang Yi-t'ung and especially Niida Noboru and Ch'ü T'ung-tsu. I used for this discussion Niida, Ch'ü and Tamai Korehiro.—For the pu-ch'ü I used in addition Yang Chung-i, H. Maspero, E. Balazs, W. Eichhorn. Yang's article is translated in E-tu Zen Sun's book, Chinese Social History, pp. 142-56.—The question of slaves and their importance in Chinese society has always been given much attention by Chinese Communist authors. I believe that a clear distinction between slaves and serfs is very important.

p. 145: The political use of Buddhism has been asserted for Japan as well as for Korea and Tibet (H. Hoffmann, Quellen zur Geschichte der tibetischen Bon-Religion, Mainz 1950, p. 220 f.). A case could be made for Burma. In China, Buddhism was later again used as a tool by rulers (see below).

p. 146: The first text in which such problems of state versus church are mentioned is Mou Tz[)u] (P. Pelliot transl.). More recently, some of the problems have been studied by R. Michihata and E. Zürcher. Michihata also studied the temple slaves. Temple families were slightly different. They have been studied mainly by R. Michihata, J. Gernet and Wang Yi-t'ung. The information on T'an-yao is mainly in Wei-shu 114 (transl. J. Ware).—The best work on Yün-kang is now Seiichi Mizuno and Toshio Nagahiro, Yün-kang. The Buddhist Cave-Temples of the Fifth Century A.D. in North China, Kyoto 1951-6, thus far 16 volumes. For Chinese Buddhist art, the work by Tokiwa Daijô and Sekino Tadashi, Chinese Buddhist Monuments, Tokyo 1926-38, 5 volumes, is most profusely illustrated.—As a general reader for the whole of Chinese art, Alexander Soper and L. Sickman's The Art and Architecture of China, Baltimore 1956 may be consulted.

p, 147: Zenryû Tsukamoto has analysed one such popular, revolutionary Buddhist text from the fifth century A.D. I rely here for the whole chapter mainly upon my own research.

p. 150: On the Ephtalites (or Hephtalites) see R. Ghirshman and Enoki.—The carpet ceremony has been studied by P. Boodberg, and in a comparative way by L. Olschki, The Myth of Felt, Berkeley 1949.

p. 151: For Yang Chien and his time see now A.F. Wright, "The Formation of Sui Ideology" in John K. Fairbank, Chinese Thought and Institutions, Chicago 1957, pp. 71-104.

p. 153: The processes described here, have not yet been thoroughly analysed. A preliminary review of literature is given by H. Wiens, China's March towards the Tropics, Hamden 1954. I used Ch'en Yüan, Wang Yi-t'ung and my own research.

p. 154: It is interesting to compare such hunting parks with the "paradeisos" (Paradise) of the Near East and with the "Garden of Eden".—Most of the data on gardens and manors have been brought together and studied by Japanese scholars, especially by Kat[=o] Shigeru, some also by Ho Tzû-ch'üan.—The disappearance of "village commons" in China should be compared with the same process in Europe; both processes, however, developed quite differently. The origin of manors and their importance for the social structure of the Far East (China as well as Japan) is the subject of many studies in Japan and in modern China. This problem is connected with the general problem of feudalism East and West. The manor (chuang: Japanese shô) in later periods has been studied by Y. Sudô. H. Maspero also devotes attention to this problem. Much more research remains to be done.

p. 158: This popular rebellion by Sun En has been studied by W. Eichhorn.

p. 163: On foreign music in China see L.C. Goodrich and Ch'ü T'ung-tsu, H.G. Farmer, S. Kishibe and others.—Niida Noboru pointed out that musicians belonged to one of the lower social classes, but had special privileges because of their close relations to the rulers.

p. 164: Meditative or Ch'an (Japanese: Zen) Buddhism in this period has been studied by Hu Shih, but further analysis is necessary.—The philosophical trends of this period have been analysed by E. Balazs.—Mention should also be made of the aesthetic-philosophical conversation which was fashionable in the third century, but in other form still occurred in our period, the so-called "pure talk" (ch'ing-t'an) (E. Balazs, H. Wilhelm and others).

Chapter Eight

p. 167: For genealogies and rules of giving names, I use my own research and the study by W. Bauer.

p. 168: For Emperor Wen Ti, I rely mainly upon A.F. Wright's above-mentioned article, but also upon O. Franke.

p. 169: The relevant texts concerning the T'u-chüeh are available in French (E. Chavannes) and recently also in German translation (Liu Mau-tsai, Die chinesischen Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Ost-T[vu]rken, Wiesbaden 1958, 2 vol.).—The Tölös are called T'e-lo in Chinese sources; the T'u-yü-hun are called Aza in Central Asian sources (P. Pelliot, A. Minorsky, F.W. Thomas, L. Hambis, et al.). The most important text concerning the T'u-yü-hun had been translated by Th. D. Caroll, Account of the T'u-yü-hun in the History of the Chin Dynasty, Berkeley 1953.

p. 171: The transcription of names on this and on the other maps could not be adjusted to the transcription of the text for technical reasons.

p. 172: It is possible that I have underestimated the role of Li Yüan. I relied here mainly upon O. Franke and upon W. Bingham's The Founding of the T'ang Dynasty, Baltimore 1941.

p. 173: The best comprehensive study of T'ang economy in a Western language is still E. Balazs's work. I relied, however, strongly upon Wan Kuo-ting, Yang Chung-i, Kat[=o] Shigeru, J. Gernet, T. Naba, Niida Noboru, Yoshimi Matsumoto.

pp. 173-4: For the description of the administration I used my own studies and the work of R. des Rotours; for the military organization I used Kikuchi Hideo. A real study of Chinese army organization and strategy does not yet exist. The best detailed study, but for the Han period, is written by H. Maspero.

p. 174: For the first occurrence of the title tu-tu we used W. Eichhorn; in the form tutuq the title occurs since 646 in Central Asia (J. Hamilton).

p. 177: The name T'u-fan seems to be a transcription of Tüpöt which, in turn, became our Tibet. (J. Hamilton).—The Uighurs are the Hui-ho or Hui-hu of Chinese sources.

p. 179: On relations with Central Asia and the West see Ho Chien-min and Hsiang Ta, whose classical studies on Ch'ang-an city life have recently been strongly criticized by Chinese scholars.—Some authors (J.K. Rideout) point to the growing influence of eunuchs in this period.—The sources paint the pictures of the Empress Wu in very dark colours. A more detailed study of this period seems to be necessary.

p. 180: The best study of "family privileges" (yin) in general is by E.A. Kracke, Civil Service in Early Sung China, Cambridge, Mass. 1953.

p. 180-1: The economic importance of organized Buddhism has been studied by many authors, especially J. Gernet, Yang Lien-sheng, Ch'üan Han-sheng, K. Tamai and R. Michihata.

p. 182: The best comprehensive study on T'ang prose in English is still E.D. Edwards, Chinese Prose Literature of the T'ang Period, London 1937-8, 2 vol. On Li T'ai-po and Po Chü-i we have well-written books by A. Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po, London 1951 and The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, London 1950.—On the "free poem" (tz[)u]), which technically is not a free poem, see A. Hoffmann and Hu Shih. For the early Chinese theatre, the classical study is still Wang Kuo-wei's analysis, but there is an almost unbelievable number of studies constantly written in China and Japan, especially on the later theatre and drama.

p. 184: Conditions at the court of Hsüan Tsung and the life of Yang Kui-fei have been studied by Howard Levy and others, An Lu-shan's importance mainly by E.G. Pulleyblank, The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan, London 1955.

p. 187: The tax reform of Yang Yen has been studied by K. Hino; the most important figures in T'ang economic history are Liu Yen (studied by Chü Ch'ing-yüan) and Lu Chih (754-805; studied by E. Balazs and others).

pp. 187-8: The conditions at the time of this persecution are well described by E.O. Reischauer, Ennin's Travels in T'ang China, New York 1955, on the basis of his Ennin's Diary. The Record of a Pilgrimage to China, New York 1955. The persecution of Buddhism has been analysed in its economic character by Niida Noboru and other Japanese scholars.—Metal statues had to be delivered to the Salt and Iron Office in order to be converted into cash; iron statues were collected by local offices for the production of agricultural implements; figures in gold, silver or other rare materials were to be handed over to the Finance Office. Figures made of stone, clay or wood were not affected (Michihata).

p. 189: It seems important to note that popular movements are often not led by simple farmers of members of the lower classes. There are other salt merchants and persons of similar status known as leaders.

p. 190: For the Sha-t'o, I am relying upon my own research. Tatars are the Ta-tan of the Chinese sources. The term is here used in a narrow sense.

Chapter Nine

p. 195: Many Chinese and Japanese authors have a new period begin with the early (Ch'ien Mu) or the late tenth century (T'ao Hsi-sheng, Li Chien-nung), while others prefer a cut already in the Middle of the T'ang Dynasty (Teng Ch'u-min, Naito Torajiro). For many Marxists, the period which we called "Modern Times" is at best a sub-period within a larger period which really started with what we called "Medieval China".

p. 196: For the change in the composition of the gentry, I am using my own research.—For clan rules, clan foundations, etc., I used D.C. Twitchett, J. Fischer, Hu Hsien-chin, Ch'ü T'ung-tsu, Niida Noboru and T. Makino. The best analysis of the clan rules is by Wang Hui-chen in D.S. Nivison, Confucianism in Action, Stanford 1959, p. 63-96.—I do not regard such marriage systems as "survivals" of ancient systems which have been studied by M. Granet and systematically analysed by C. Lévy-Strauss in his Les structures élémentaires de la parenté, Paris 1949, pp. 381-443. In some cases, the reasons for the establishment of such rules can still be recognized.—A detailed study of despotism in China still has to be written. K.A. Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism, New Haven 1957 does not go into the necessary detailed work.

p. 197: The problem of social mobility is now under study, after preliminary research by K.A. Wittfogel, E. Kracke, myself and others. E. Kracke, Ho Ping-ti, R.M. Marsh and I are now working on this topic.—For the craftsmen and artisans, much material has recently been collected by Chinese scholars. I have used mainly Li Chien-nung and articles in Li-shih yen-chiu 1955, No. 3 and in Mem. Inst. Orient. Cult. 1956.—On the origin of guilds see Kat[=o] Shigeru; a general study of guilds and their function has not yet been made (preliminary work by P. Maybon, H.B. Morse, J. St. Burgess, K.A. Wittfogel and others). Comparisons with Near-Eastern guilds on the one hand and with Japanese guilds on the other, are quite interesting but parallels should not be over-estimated. The tong of U.S. Chinatowns (tang in Mandarin) are late and organizations of businessmen only (S. Yokoyama and Laai Yi-faai). They are not the same as the hui-kuan.

p. 198: For the merchants I used Ch'ü T'ung-tsu, Sung Hsi and Wada Kiyoshi.—For trade, I used extensively Ch'üan Han-sheng and J. Kuwabara.—On labour legislation in early modern times I used Ko Ch'ang-chi and especially Li Chien-nung, also my own studies.—On strikes I used Kat[=o] Shigeru and modern Chinese authors.—The problem of "vagrants" has been taken up by Li Chien-nung who always refers to the original sources and to modern Chinese research.—The growth of cities, perhaps the most striking event in this period, has been studied for the earlier part of our period by Kat[=o] Shigeru. Li Chien-nung also deals extensively with investments in industry and agriculture. The problem as to whether China would have developed into an industrial society without outside stimulus is much discussed by Marxist authors in China.

p. 199: On money policy see Yang Lien-sheng, Kat[=o] Shigeru and others.

p. 200: The history of one of the Southern Dynasties has been translated by Ed. H. Schafer, The Empire of Min, Tokyo 1954; Schafer's annotations provide much detail for the cultural and economic conditions of the coastal area.—For tea and its history, I use my own research; for tea trade a study by K. Kawakami and an article in the Frontier Studies, vol. 3, 1943.—Salt consumption according to H.T. Fei, Earthbound China, 1945, p. 163.

p. 201: For salt I used largely my own research. For porcelain production Li Chien-nung and other modern articles.—On paper, the classical study is Th. F. Carter, The Invention of Printing in China, New York 1925 (a revised edition now published by L.C. Goodrich).

p. 202: For paper money in the early period, see Yang Lien-sheng, Money and Credit in China, Cambridge, Mass., 1952. Although the origin of paper money seems to be well established, it is interesting to note that already in the third century A.D. money made of paper was produced and was burned during funeral ceremonies to serve as financial help for the dead. This money was, however, in the form of coins.—On iron money see Yang Lien-sheng; I also used an article in Tung-fang tsa-chih, vol. 35, No. 10.

p. 203: For the Kitan (Chines: Ch'i-tan) and their history see K.A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of Chinese Society. Liao, Philadelphia 1949.

p. 204: For these dynasties, I rely upon my own research.—Niida Noboru and Kat[=o] Shigeru have studied adoption laws; our specific case has in addition been studied by M. Kurihara. This system of adoptions is non-Chinese and has its parallels among Turkish tribes (A. Kollantz, Abdulkadir Inan, Osman Turan).

p. 207: For the persecution I used K. Tamai and my own research.

p. 211: This is based mainly upon my own research.—The remark on tax income is from Ch'üan Han-sheng.

p. 212: Fan Chung-yen has been studied recently by J. Fischer and D. Twitchett, but these notes on price policies are based upon my own work.—I regard the statement, that it was the gentry which prevented the growth of an industrial society—a statement which has often been made before—as preliminary, and believe that further research, especially in the growth of cities and urban institutions may lead to quite different explanations.—On estate management I relied on Y. Sudô's work.

p. 213: Research on place names such as mentioned here, has not yet been systematically done.—On i-chuang I relied upon the work by T. Makino and D. Twitchett.—This process of tax-evasion has been used by K.A. Wittfogel (1938) to construct a theory of a crisis cycle in China. I do not think that such far-reaching conclusions are warranted.

p. 214: This "law" was developed on the basis of Chinese materials from different periods as well as on materials from other parts of Asia.—In the study of tenancy, cases should be studied in which wealthier farmers rent additional land which gets cultivated by farm labourers. Such cases are well known from recent periods, but have not yet been studied in earlier periods. At the same time, the problem of farm labourers should be investigated. Such people were common in the Sung time. Research along these lines could further clarify the importance of the so-called "guest families" (k'o-hu) which were alluded to in these pages. They constituted often one third of the total population in the Sung period. The problem of migration and mobility might also be clarified by studying the k'o-hu.

p. 215: For Wang An-shih, the most comprehensive work is still H. Williamson's Wang An-shih, London 1935, 3 vol., but this work in no way exhausts the problems. We have so much personal data on Wang that a psychological study could be attempted; and we have since Williamson's time much deeper insight into the reforms and theories of Wang. I used, in addition to Williamson, O. Franke, and my own research.

p. 216: Based mainly upon Ch'ü T'ung-tsu.—For the social legislation see Hsü I-t'ang; for economic problems I used Ch'üan Han-sheng, Ts'en Chung-mien and Liu Ming-shu.—Most of these relief measures had their precursors in the T'ang period.

p. 217: It is interesting to note that later Buddhism gave up its "social gospel" in China. Buddhist circles in Asian countries at the present time attempt to revive this attitude.

p. 218: For slaughtering I used A. Hulsewé; for greeting R. Michihata; on law Ch'ü T'ung-tsu; on philosophy I adapted ideas from Chan Wing-sit.

p. 219: A comprehensive study of Chu Hsi is a great desideratum. Thus far, we have in English mainly the essays by Feng Yu-lan (transl. and annotated by D. Bodde) in the Harvard Journal of Asiat. Stud., vol. 7, 1942. T. Makino emphasized Chu's influence upon the Far East, J. Needham his interest in science.

p. 220: For Su Tung-p'o as general introduction see Lin Yutang, The Gay Genius. The Life and Times of Su Tung-p'o, New York 1947.—For painting, I am using concepts of A. Soper here.

p. 222: For this period the standard work is K.A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of Chinese Society, Liao, Philadelphia 1949.—Po-hai had been in tributary relations with the dynasties of North China before its defeat, and resumed these from 932 on; there were even relations with one of the South Chinese states; in the same way, Kao-li continuously played one state against the other (M. Rogers et al.).

p. 223: On the Kara-Kitai see Appendix to Wittfogel-Feng.

p. 228: For the Hakka, I relied mainly upon Lo Hsiang-lin; for Chia Ssu-tao upon H. Franke.

p. 229: The Juchên (Jurchen) are also called Nü-chih and Nü-chen, but Juchên seems to be correct (Studia Serica, vol. 3, No. 2).

Chapter Ten

p. 233: I use here mainly Meng Ssu-liang, but also others, such as Chü Ch'ing-yüan and Li Chien-nung.—The early political developments are described by H.D. Martin, The Rise of Chingis Khan and his Conquest of North China, Baltimore 1950.

p. 236: I am alluding here to such Taoist sects as the Cheng-i-chiao (Sun K'o-k'uan and especially the study in Kita Aziya gakuh[=o], vol. 2).

pp. 236-7: For taxation and all other economic questions I have relied upon Wan Kuo-ting and especially upon H. Franke. The first part of the main economic text is translated and annotated by H.F. Schurmann, Economic Structure of the Yüan Dynasty, Cambridge, Mass., 1956.

p. 237: On migrations see T. Makino and others.—For the system of communications during the Mongol time and the privileges of merchants, I used P. Olbricht.

p. 238: For the popular rebellions of this time, I used a study in the Bull. Acad. Sinica, vol. 10, 1948, but also Meng Ssu-liang and others.

p. 239: On the White Lotus Society (Pai-lien-hui) see note to previous page and an article by Hagiwara Jumpei.

p. 240: H. Serruys, The Mongols in China during the Hung-wu Period, Bruges 1959, has studied in this book and in an article the fate of isolated Mongol groups in China after the breakdown of the dynasty.

pp. 241-2: The travel report of Ch'ang-ch'un has been translated by A. Waley, The Travels of an Alchemist, London 1931.

p. 242: Hsi-hsiang-chi has been translated by S.I. Hsiung. The Romance of the Western Chamber, London 1935. All important analytic literature on drama and theatre is written by Chinese and Japanese authors, especially by Yoshikawa Kôjirô.—For Bon and early Lamaism, I used H. Hoffmann.

p. 243: Lamaism in Mongolia disappeared later, however, and was reintroduced in the reformed form (Tsong-kha-pa, 1358-1419) in the sixteenth century. See R.J. Miller, Monasteries and Culture Change in Inner Mongolia, Wiesbaden 1959.

p. 245: Much more research is necessary to clarify Japanese-Chinese relations in this period, especially to determine the size of trade. Good material is in the article by S. Iwao. Important is also S. Sakuma and an article in Li-shih yen-chiu 1955, No. 3. For the loss of coins, I relied upon D. Brown.

p. 246: The necessity of transports of grain and salt was one of the reasons for the emergence of the Hsin-an and Hui-chou merchants. The importance of these developments is only partially known (studies mainly by H. Fujii and in Li-shih-yen-chiu 1955, No. 3). Data are also in an unpublished thesis by Ch. Mac Sherry, The Impairment of the Ming Tributary System, and in an article by Wang Ch'ung-wu.

p. 247: The tax system of the Ming has been studied among others by Liang Fang-chung. Yoshiyuki Suto analysed the methods of tax evasion in the periods before the reform. For the land grants, I used Wan Kuo-ting's data.

p. 248: Based mainly upon my own research. On the progress of agriculture wrote Li Chien-nung and also Kat[=o] Shigeru and others.

p. 250: I believe that further research would discover that the "agrarian revolution" was a key factor in the economic and social development of China. It probably led to another change in dietary habits; it certainly led to a greater labour input per person, i.e. a higher number of full working days per year than before. It may be—but only further research can try to show this—that the "agrarian revolution" turned China away from technology and industry.—On cotton and its importance see the studies by M. Amano, and some preliminary remarks by P. Pelliot.

pp. 250-1: Detailed study of Central Chinese urban centres in this time is a great desideratum. My remarks here have to be taken as very preliminary. Notice the special character of the industries mentioned!—The porcelain centre of Ching-tê-chen was inhabited by workers and merchants (70-80 per cent of population); there were more than 200 private kilns.—On indented labour see Li Chien-nung, H. Iwami and Y. Yamane.

p. 253: On pien-wen I used R. Michihata, and for this general discussion R. Irvin, The Evolution of a Chinese Novel, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, and studies by J. Jaworski and J. Pru[vs]ek. Many texts of pien-wen and related styles have been found in Tunhuang and have been recently republished by Chinese scholars.

p. 254: Shui-hu-chuan has been translated by Pearl Buck, All Men are Brothers. Parts of Hsi-yu-chi have been translated by A. Waley, Monkey, London 1946. San-kuo yen-i is translated by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor, San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shanghai 1925 (a new edition just published). A purged translation of Chin-p'ing-mei is published by Fr. Kuhn Chin P'ing Mei, New York 1940.

p. 255: Even the "murder story" was already known in Ming time. An example is R.H. van Gulik, Dee Gong An. Three Murder Cases solved by Judge Dee, Tokyo 1949.

p. 256: For a special group of block-prints see R.H. van Gulik, Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Dynasty, Tokyo 1951. This book is also an excellent introduction into Chinese psychology.

p. 257: Here I use work done by David Chan.

p. 258: I use here the research of J.J.L. Duyvendak; the reasons for the end of such enterprises, as given here, may not exhaust the problem. It may not be without relevance that Cheng came from a Muslim family. His father was a pilgrim (Bull. Chin. Studies, vol. 3, pp. 131-70). Further research is desirable.—Concerning folk-tales, I use my own research. The main Buddhist tales are the Jataka stories. They are still used by Burmese Buddhists in the same context.

p. 260: The Oirat (Uyrat, Ojrot, Ölöt) were a confederation of four tribal groups: Khosud, Dzungar, Dörbet and Turgut.

p. 261: I regard this analysis of Ming political history as unsatisfactory, but to my knowledge no large-scale analysis has been made.—For Wang Yang-ming I use mainly my own research.

p. 262: For the coastal salt-merchants I used Lo Hsiang-lin's work.

p. 263: On the rifles I used P. Pelliot. There is a large literature on the use of explosives and the invention of cannons, especially L.C. Goodrich and Feng Chia-sheng in Isis, vol. 36, 1946 and 39, 1948; also G. Sarton, Li Ch'iao-p'ing, J. Pru[vs]ek, J. Needham, and M. Ishida; a comparative, general study is by K. Huuri, Studia Orientalia vol. 9, 1941.—For the earliest contacts of Wang with Portuguese, I used Chang Wei-hua's monograph.—While there is no satisfactory, comprehensive study in English on Wang, for Lu Hsiang-shan the book by Huang Siu-ch'i, Lu Hsiang-shan, a Twelfth-century Chinese Idealist Philosopher, New Haven 1944, can be used.

p. 264: For Tao-yen, I used work done by David Chan.—Large parts of the Yung-lo ta-tien are now lost (Kuo Po-kung, Yüan T'ung-li studied this problem).

p. 265: Yen-ta's Mongol name is Altan Qan (died 1582), leader of the Tümet. He is also responsible for the re-introduction of Lamaism into Mongolia (1574).—For the border trade I used Hou Jen-chih; for the Shansi bankers Ch'en Ch'i-t'ien and P. Maybon. For the beginnings of the Manchu see Fr. Michael, The Origins of Manchu Rule in China, Baltimore 1942.

p. 266: M. Ricci's diary (Matthew Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century. The Journals of M. Ricci, transl. by L.J. Gallagher, New York 1953) gives much insight into the life of Chinese officials in this period. Recently, J. Needham has tried to show that Ricci and his followers did not bring much which was not already known in China, but that they actually attempted to prevent the Chinese from learning about the Copernican theory.

p. 267: For Coxinga I used M. Eder's study.—The Szechwan rebellion was led by Chang Hsien-chung (1606-1647); I used work done by James B. Parsons. Cheng T'ien-t'ing, Sun Yueh and others have recently published the important documents concerning all late Ming peasant rebellions.—For the Tung-lin academy see Ch. O. Hucker in J.K. Fairbank, Chinese Thought and Institutions, Chicago 1957. A different interpretation is indicated by Shang Yüeh in Li-shih yen-chiu 1955, No. 3.

p. 268: Work on the "academies" (shu-yüan) in the earlier time is done by Ho Yu-shen.

pp. 273-4: Based upon my own, as yet unfinished research.

p. 274: The population of 1953 as given here, includes Chinese outside of mainland China. The population of mainland China was 582.6 millions. If the rate of increase of about 2 per cent per year has remained the same, the population of mainland China in 1960 may be close to 680 million. In general see P.T. Ho. Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953, Cambridge, Mass., 1960.

p. 276: Based upon my own research.—A different view of the development of Chinese industry is found in Norman Jacobs, Modern Capitalism and Eastern Asia, Hong Kong 1958. Jacobs attempted a comparison of China with Japan and with Europe. Different again is Marion Levy and Shih Kuo-heng, The Rise of the Modern Chinese Business Class, New York 1949. Both books are influenced by the sociological theories of T. Parsons.

p. 277: The Dzungars (Dsunghar; Chun-ko-erh) are one of the four Ölöt (Oirat) groups. I am here using studies by E. Haenisch and W. Fuchs.

p. 278: Tibetan-Chinese relations have been studied by L. Petech, China and Tibet in the Early 18th Century, Leiden 1950. A collection of data is found in M.W. Fisher and L.E. Rose, England, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, 1765-1958, Berkeley 1959. For diplomatic relations and tributary systems of this period, I referred to J.K. Fairbank and Teng Ssu-yü.

p. 279: For Ku Yen-wu, I used the work by H. Wilhelm.—A man who deserves special mention in this period is the scholar Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695) as the first Chinese who discussed the possibility of a non-monarchic form of government in his treatise of 1662. For him see Lin Mou-sheng, Men and Ideas, New York 1942, and especially W.T. de Bary in J.K. Fairbank, Chinese Thought and Institutions, Chicago 1957.

pp. 280-1: On Liang see now J.R. Levenson, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China, London 1959.

p. 282: It should also be pointed out that the Yung-cheng emperor was personally more inclined towards Lamaism.—The Kalmuks are largely identical with the above-mentioned Ölöt.

p. 286: The existence of hong is known since 1686, see P'eng Tse-i and Wang Chu-an's recent studies. For details on foreign trade see H.B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635-1834, Oxford 1926, 4 vols., and J.K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, 2 vols.—For Lin I used G.W. Overdijkink's study.

p. 287: On customs read St. F. Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs, Belfast 1950.

p. 288: For early industry see A. Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844-1916), Cambridge, Mass., 1958.

p. 289: The Chinese source materials for the Mohammedan revolts have recently been published, but an analysis of the importance of the revolts still remains to be done.—On T'ai-p'ing much has been published, especially in the last years in China, so that all documents are now available. I used among other studies, details brought out by Lo Hsiang-lin and Jen Yu-wen.

p. 291: For Tsêng Kuo-fan see W.J. Hail, Tsêng Kuo-fan and the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, New Haven 1927, but new research on him is about to be published.—The Nien-fei had some connection with the White Lotus, and were known since 1814, see Chiang Siang-tseh, The Nien Rebellion, Seattle 1954.

p. 292: Little is known about Salars, Dungans and Yakub Beg's rebellion, mainly because relevant Turkish sources have not yet been studied. On Salars see L. Schram, The Monguors of Kansu, Philadelphia 1954, p. 23 and P. Pelliot; on Dungans see I. Grebe.

p. 293: On Tso Tsung-t'ang see G. Ch'en, Tso Tung T'ang, Pioneer Promotor of the Modern Dockyard and Woollen Mill in China, Peking 1938, and Yenching Journal of Soc. Studies, vol. I.

p. 294: For the T'ung-chih period, see now Mary C. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservativism. The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862-1874, Stanford 1957.

p. 295: Ryukyu is Chinese: Liu-ch'iu; Okinawa is one of the islands of this group.—Formosa is Chinese: T'ai-wan (Taiwan). Korea is Chinese: Chao-hsien, Japanese: Chôsen.

p. 297: M.C. Wright has shown the advisers around the ruler before the Empress Dowager realized the severity of the situation.—Much research is under way to study the beginning of industrialization of Japan, and my opinions have changed greatly, due to the research done by Japanese scholars and such Western scholars as H. Rosovsky and Th. Smith. The eminent role of the lower aristocracy has been established. Similar research for China has not even seriously started. My remarks are entirely preliminary.

p. 298: For K'ang Yo-wei, I use work done by O. Franke and others. See M.E. Cameron, The Reform Movement in China, 1898-1921, Stanford 1921. The best bibliography for this period is J.K. Fairbank and Liu Kwang-ching, Modern China: A Bibliographical Guide to Chinese Works, 1898-1937, Cambridge, Mass., 1950. The political history of the time, as seen by a Chinese scholar, is found in Li Chien-nung, The Political History of China 1840-1928, Princeton 1956.—For the social history of this period see Chang Chung-li, The Chinese Gentry, Seattle 1955.—For the history of Tz[)u] Hsi Bland-Backhouse, China under the Empress Dowager, Peking 1939 (Third ed.) is antiquated, but still used. For some of K'ang Yo-wei's ideas, see now K'ang Yo-wei: Ta T'ung Shu. The One World Philosophy of K'ang Yu Wei, London 1957.

Chapter Eleven

p. 305: I rely here partly upon W. Franke's recent studies. For Sun Yat-sen (Sun I-hsien; also called Sun Chung-shan) see P. Linebarger, Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic, Cambridge, Mass., 1925 and his later The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen, Baltimore 1937.—Independently, Atatürk in Turkey developed a similar theory of the growth of democracy.

p. 306: On student activities see Kiang Wen-han, The Ideological Background of the Chinese Student Movement, New York 1948.

p. 307: On Hu Shih see his own The Chinese Renaissance, Chicago 1934 and J. de Francis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China, Princeton 1950.

p. 310: The declaration of Independence of Mongolia had its basis in the early treaty of the Mongols with the Manchus (1636): "In case the Tai Ch'ing Dynasty falls, you will exist according to previous basic laws" (R.J. Miller, Monasteries and Culture Change in Inner Mongolia, Wiesbaden 1959, p. 4).

p. 315: For the military activities see F.F. Liu, A Military History of Modern China, 1924-1949, Princeton 1956. A Marxist analysis of the 1927 events is Manabendra Nath Roy, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China, Calcutta 1946; the relevant documents are translated in C. Brandt, B. Schwartz, J.K. Fairbank, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, Cambridge, Mass., 1952.

Chapter Twelve

For Mao Tse-tung, see B. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, second ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1958. For Mao's early years; see J.E. Rue, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, 1927-1935, Stanford 1966. For the civil war, see L.M. Chassin, The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War, 1945-1949, Cambridge, Mass., 1965. For brief information on communist society, see Franz Schurmann and Orville Schell, The China Reader, vol. 3, Communist China, New York 1967. For problems of organization, see Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, Berkeley 1966. For cultural and political problems, see Ho Ping-ti, China in Crisis, vol. 1, China's Heritage and the Communist Political System, Chicago 1968. For a sympathetic view of rural life in communist China, see J. Myrdal, Report from a Chinese Village, New York 1966; for Taiwanese village life, see Bernard Gallin, Hsin Hsing, Taiwan: A Chinese Village in Change, Berkeley 1966.

INDEX

Abahai, ruler
Abdication
Aborigines
Absolutism (see Despotism, Dictator, Emperor, Monarchy)
Academia Sinica
Academies
Administration;
provincial
(see Army, Feudalism, Bureaucracy)
Adobe (Mud bricks)
Adoptions
Afghanistan
Africa
Agriculture;
development;
Origin of;
of Shang;
shifting (denshiring)
(see Wheat, Millet, Rice, Plough, Irrigation, Manure, Canals,
Fallow)
An Ti, ruler of Han
Ainu, tribes
Ala-shan mountain range
Alchemy (see Elixir)
Alexander the Great
America (see United States)
Amithabha, god
Amur, river
An Chi-yeh, rebel
An Lu-shan, rebel
Analphabetism
Anarchists
Ancestor, cult
Aniko, sculptor
Animal style
Annam (Vietnam)
Anyang (Yin-ch'ü)
Arabia;
Arabs
Architecture
Aristocracy (see Nobility, Feudalism)
Army, cost of;
organization of;
size of;
Tibetan
(see War, Militia, tu-tu, pu-ch'ü)
Art, Buddhist (see Animal style, Architecture, Pottery, Painting,
Sculpture, Wood-cut)
Arthashastra, book, attributed to Kautilya
Artisans;
Organizations of
(see Guilds, Craftsmen)
Assimilation (see Colonization)
Astronomy
Austroasiatics
Austronesians
Avars, tribe (see Juan-juan)
Axes, prehistoric
Axis, policy

Babylon
Baghdad, city
Balasagun, city
Ballads
Banks
Banner organization
Barbarians (Foreigners)
Bastards
Bath
Beg, title
Beggar
Bengal
Boat festival
Bokhara (Bukhara), city
Bon, religion
Bondsmen (see pu-ch'ü, Serfs, Feudalism)
Book, printing;
B burning
Böttger, inventor
Boxer rebellion
Boycott
Brahmans, Indian caste
Brain drain
Bronze (see Metal, Copper)
Brothel (Tea-house)
Buddha;
Buddhism
(see Ch'an, Vinaya, Sects, Amithabha, Maitreya, Hinayana,
Mahayana, Monasteries, Church, Pagoda, Monks, Lamaism)
Budget (see Treasury, Inflation, Deflation)
Bullfights
Bureaucracy;
religious B
(see Administration; Army)
Burgher (liang-min)
Burma
Businessmen (see Merchants, Trade)
Byzantium

Calcutta, city
Caliph (Khaliph)
Cambodia
Canals;
Imperial C
(see Irrigation)
Cannons
Canton (Kuang-chou), city
Capital of Empire (see Ch'ang-an, Sian, Loyang, etc.)
Capitalism (see Investments, Banks, Money, Economy, etc.)
Capitulations (privileges of foreign nations)
Caravans (see Silk road, Trade)
Carpet
Castes, (see Brahmans)
Castiglione, G., painter
Cattle, breeding
Cavalry, (see Horse)
Cave temples (see Lung-men, Yün-kang, Tunhuang)
Censorate
Censorship
Census (see Population)
Central Asia (see Turkestan, Sinkiang, Tarim, City States)
Champa, State
Ch'an (Zen), meditative Buddhism
Chan-kuo Period (Contending States)
Chancellor
Ch'ang-an, capital of China (see Sian)
Chang Ch'ien, ambassador
Chang Chü-chan, teacher
Chang Hsien-chung, rebel
Chang Hsüeh-hang, war lord
Chang Ling, popular leader
Chang Ti, ruler
Chang Tsai, philosopher
Chang Tso-lin, war lord
Chao, state;
Earlier Chao;
Later Chao
Chao K'uang-yin (T'ai Tsu), ruler
Chao Mêng-fu, painter
Charters
Chefoo Convention
Ch'en, dynasty
Ch'en Pa-hsien, ruler
Ch'en Tu-hsiu, intellectual
Ch'eng Hao, philosopher
Cheng Ho, navy commander
Ch'eng I, philosopher
Cheng-i-chiao, religion
Ch'eng Ti, ruler of Han;
ruler of Chin
Ch'eng Tsu, ruler of Manchu
Ch'engtu, city
Ch'i, state;
short dynasty;
Northern Ch'i
Ch'i-fu, clan
Chi-nan, city
Ch'i-tan (see Kitan)
Ch'i Wan-nien, leader
Chia, clan
Chia-ch'ing, period
Chia Ss[)u]-tao, politician
Ch'iang, tribes, (see Tanguts)
Chiang Kai-shek, president
Ch'ien-lung, period
ch'ien-min (commoners),
Chin, dynasty, (see Juchên);
dynasty;
Eastern Chin dynasty;
Later Chin dynasty,
Ch'in, state;
Ch'in, dynasty;
Earlier Ch'in dynasty;
Later Ch'in dynasty;
Western Ch'in dynasty
Ch'in K'ui, politician
Chinese, origin of
Ching Fang, scholar
Ching-tê (-chen), city
ching-t'ien system
Ching Tsung, Manchu ruler
Ch'iu Ying, painter
Chou, dynasty;
short Chou dynasty;
Later Chou dynasty;
Northern Chou dynasty
Chou En-lai, politician
Chou-k'ou-tien, archaeological site
Chou-kung (Duke of Chou)
Chou-li, book
Chou Tun-i, philosopher
Christianity (see Nestorians, Jesuits, Missionaries)
Chronology
Ch'u, state
Chu Ch'üan-chung, general and ruler
Chu Hsi, philosopher
Chu-ko Liang, general
Chu Tê, general
Chu Tsai-yü, scholar
Chu Yüan-chang (T'ai Tsu), ruler
chuang (see Manors, Estates)
Chuang Tz[)u], philosopher
Chün-ch'en, ruler
Ch'un-ch'iu, book
chün-t'ien system (land equalization system)
chün-tz[)u] (gentleman)
Chung-ch'ang T'ung, philosopher
Chungking (Ch'ung-ch'ing), city
Church, Buddhistic
Taoistic
(see Chang Ling)
Cities
spread and growth of cities
origin of cities
twin cities
(see City states, Ch'ang-an, Sian, Loyang, Hankow, etc.)
City States (of Central Asia)
Clans
Classes, social classes
(see Castes, ch'ien-min, liang-min, Gentry, etc.)
Climate, changes
Cliques
Cloisonné
Cobalt
Coins (see Money)
Colonialism (see Imperialism)
Colonization (see Migration, Assimilation)
Colour prints
Communes
Communism (see Marxism, Socialism, Soviets)
Concubines
Confessions
Confucian ritual
Confucianism
Confucian literature
false Confucian literature
Confucians
(see Neo-Confucianism)
Conquests (see War, Colonialism)
Conservatism
Constitution
Contending States
Co-operatives
Copper (see Bronze, Metal)
Corruption
Corvée (forced labour) (see Labour)
Cotton
Courtesans (see Brothel)
Coxinga, rebel
Craftsmen (see Artisans)
Credits
Criminals
Crop rotation

Dalai Lama, religious ruler of Tibet
Dance
Deflation
Deities (see T'ien, Shang Ti, Maitreya, Amithabha, etc.)
Delft, city
Demands, the twenty-one
Democracy
Denshiring
Despotism (see Absolutism)
Dewey, J., educator
Dialects (see Language)
Dialecticians
Dictators (see Despotism)
Dictionaries
Diploma, for monks
Diplomacy
Disarmament
Discriminatory laws (see Double Standard)
Dog
Dorgon, prince
Double standard, legal
Drama
Dress, changes
Dungan, tribes
Dynastic histories (see History)
Dzungars, people

Eclipses
Economy
Money economy
Natural economy
(see Agriculture, Nomadism, Industry, Denshiring, Money, Trade, etc.)
Education (see Schools, Universities, Academies, Script,
Examination system, etc.)
Elements, the five
Elephants
Élite (see Intellectuals, Students, Gentry)
Elixir (see Alchemy)
Emperor, position of
Emperor and church
(see Despotism, King, Absolutism, Monarchy, etc.)
Empress (see Lü, Wu, Wei, Tz[)u] Hsi)
Encyclopaedias
England (see Great Britain)
Ephtalites, tribe
Epics
Equalization Office (see chün-t'ien)
Erotic literature
Estates (chuang)
Ethics (see Confucianism)
Eunuchs
Europe
Europeans
Examination system
Examinations for Buddhists

Fables
Factories
Fallow system
Falsifications (see Confucianism)
Family structure
Family ethics
Family planning
Fan Chung-yen, politician
Fascism
Federations, tribal
Felt
Fêng Kuo-chang, politician
Fêng Meng-lung, writer
Fêng Tao, politician
Fêng Yü-hsiang, war lord
Ferghana, city
Fertility cults
differential fertility
Fertilizer
Feudalism
end of feudalism
late feudalism
new feudalism
nomadic feudalism
(see Serfs, Aristocracy, Fiefs, Bondsmen, etc.)
Fiefs
Finances (see Budget, Inflation, Money, Coins)
Fire-arms (see Rifles, Cannons)
Fishing
Folk-tales
Food habits
Foreign relations (see Diplomacy, Treaty, Tribute, War)
Forests
Formosa (T'aiwan)
France
Frontier, concept of
Frugality
Fu Chien, ruler
Fu-lan-chi (Franks)
Fu-lin, Manchu ruler
Fu-yü, country
Fukien, province

Galdan, leader
Gandhara, country
Gardens
Geisha (see Courtesans)
Genealogy
Genghiz Khan, ruler
Gentry (Upper class)
colonial gentry
definition of gentry
gentry state
southern gentry
Germany
Gök Turks
Governors, role of
Grain (see Millet, Rice, Wheat)
Granaries
Great Britain (see England)
Great Leap Forward
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Great Wall
Greeks
Guilds

Hakka, ethnic group
Hami, city state
Han, dynasty
Later Han dynasty
Han Fei Tz[)u], philosopher
Han T'o-wei, politician
Han Yü, philosopher
Hankow (Han-k'ou), city
Hangchow (Hang-chou), city
Heaven (see Shang Ti, T'ien)
Hermits (see Monks, Sages)
Hinayana, religion
Historians
Histories, dynastic
falsification of histories
Historiography
Hitler, Adolf, dictator
Hittites, ethnic group
Ho Ch'êng-t'ien, scholar
Ho-lien P'o-p'o, ruler
Ho Ti, Han ruler
hong, association
Hong Kong, colony
Hopei, province
Horse
horse chariot
horse riding
horse trade
Hospitals
Hou Ching, ruler
Houses (see Adobe)
Hsi-hsia, kingdom
Hsi-k'ang, Tibet
Hsia, dynasty
Hunnic Hsia dynasty
(see Hsi-hsia)
Hsia-hou, clan
Hsia Kui, painter
Hsiao Tao-ch'eng, general
Hsiao Wu Ti, Chin ruler
Hsieh, clan
Hsieh Hsüan, general
Hsien-feng, period
Hsien-pi, tribal federation
Hsien Ti, Han ruler
Hsien-yün, tribes
Hsin, dynasty
Hsin-an merchants
Hsin Ch'ing-nien, journal
Hsiung-nu, tribal federation (see Huns)
Hsü Shih-ch'ang, president
Hsüan-tê, period
Hsüan-tsang, Buddhist
Hsüan Tsung, T'ang ruler
Manchu ruler
Hsüan-t'ung, period
Hsün Tz[)u], philosopher
Hu, name of tribes (see Huns)
Hu Han-min, politician
Hu Shih, scholar and politician
Hu Wei-yung, politician
Huai-nan Tz[)u], philosopher
Huai, Ti, Chin ruler
Huan Hsüan, general
Huan Wen, general
Huang Ch'ao, leader of rebellion
Huang Ti, ruler
Huang Tsung-hsi, philosopher
Hui-chou merchants
hui-kuan, association
Hui Ti, Chin ruler
Manchu ruler
Hui Tsung, Sung ruler
Hui Tz[)u], philosopher
Human sacrifice
Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, leader of rebellion
Huns (see Hu, Hsiung-nu)
Hunting
Hutuktu, religious ruler
Hydraulic society

i-chuang, clan manors
Ili, river
Imperialism (see Colonialism)
India (see Brahmans, Bengal, Gandhara, Calcutta, Buddhism)
Indo-China (see Cambodia, Annam, Laos).
Indo-Europeans, language group (see Yüeh-chih, Tocharians,
Hittites)
Indonesia, (see Java)
Industries
Industrialization
Industrial society
(see Factories)
Inflation
Inheritance, laws of
Intellectuals (see Élite, Students)
Investments
Iran (Persia)
Iron
Cast iron
Iron money
(see Steel)
Irrigation
Islam (see Muslims)
Istanbul (Constantinople)
Italy
Japan (see Meiji, Tada, Tanaka)
Java
Jedzgerd, ruler,
Jehol, province,
Jen Tsung, Manchu ruler
Jesuits
Jews
Ju (scribes)
Juchên (Chin Dynasty, Jurchen)
Juan-juan, tribal federation
Jurchen (see Juchên)

K'ai-feng, city (see Yeh, Pien-liang)
Kalmuk, Mongol tribes (see Ölöt)
K'ang-hsi, period
K'ang Yo-wei, politician and scholar
Kansu, province (see Tunhuang)
Kao-ch'ang, city state
Kao, clan
Kao-li, state (see Korea)
Kao Ming, writer
Kao Tsu, Han ruler
Kao Tsung, T'ang ruler
Kao Yang, ruler
Kapok, textile fibre
Kara Kitai, tribal federation
Kashgar, city
Kazak, tribal federation
Khalif (see Caliph)
Khamba, Tibetans
Khan, Central Asian title
Khocho, city
Khotan, city
King, position of
first kings
religious character of kingship
(see Yao, Shun, Hsia dynasty, Emperor, Wang, Prince)
Kitan (Ch'i-tan), tribal federation (see Liao dynasty)
Ko-shu Han, general
Korea (see Kao-li, Pai-chi, Sin-lo)
K'ou Ch'ien-chih, Taoist
Kowloon, city
Ku Yen-wu, geographer
Kuan Han-ch'ing, writer
Kuang-hsü, period
Kuang-wu Ti, Han ruler
Kub(i)lai Khan, Mongol ruler
Kung-sun Lung, philosopher
K'ung Tz[)u] (Confucius)
Kuomintang (KMT), party
Kuo Wei, ruler
Kuo Tz[)u]-hsing, rebel leader
Kuo Tz[)u]-i, loyal general
Kyakhta (Kiachta), city

Labour, forced (see Corvée)
Labour laws
Labour shortage
Lacquer
Lamaism, religion
Land ownership (see Property)
Land reform (see chün-t'ien, ching-t'ien)
Landlords
temples as landlords
Language
dialects
Language reform
Lang Shih-ning, painter
La Tz[)u], philosopher
Laos, country
Law codes (see Li K'ui, Property law, Inheritance, Legalists)
Leadership
League of Nations
Leibniz, philosopher
Legalists (fa-chia)
Legitimacy of rule (see Abdication)
Lenin, V.
Lhasa, city
Li An-shih, economist
Li Chung-yen, governor
Li Hung-chang, politician
Li K'o-yung, ruler
Li Kuang-li, general
Li K'ui, law-maker
Li Li-san, politician
Li Lin-fu, politician
Li Lung-mien, painter
Li Shih-min (see T'ai Tsung), T'ang ruler
Li Ss[)u], politician
Li Ta-chao, librarian
Li T'ai-po, poet
Li Tz[)u]-ch'eng, rebel
Li Yu, writer
Li Yu-chên, writer
Li Yüan, ruler
Li Yüan-hung, politician
Liang dynasty, Earlier
Later Liang
Northern Liang
Southern Liang
Western Liang
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, journalist
liang-min (burghers)
Liao, tribes,
Liao dynasty (see Kitan)
Western Liao dynasty
Liao-chai chih-i, short-story collection
Libraries
Lin-chin, city
Lin-ch'uan, city
Lin Shu, translator
Lin Tsê-hsü, politician
Literati, (see Scholars, Confucianists)
Literature (see pien-wen, pi-chi, Poetry, Drama, Novels, Epics,
Theatre, ballads, Folk-tales, Fables, History, Confucians, Writers,
Scholars, Scribes)
Literary revolution
Liu Chi, Han ruler
Liu Chin-yüan, ruler
Liu Chin, eunuch
Liu Hsiu (see Kuang wu Ti), Han ruler
Liu Lao-chih, general
liu-min (vagrants)
Liu Pang (see Liu Chi)
Liu Pei, general and ruler
Liu Shao-ch'i, political leader
Liu Sung, rebel
Liu Tsung-yüan, writer
Liu Ts'ung, ruler
Liu Yao, ruler
Liu Yü, general
emperor
Liu Yüan, sculptor
emperor
Lo Kuan-chung, writer
Loans, to farmers
foreign
Loess, soil formation
Logic
Long March
Lorcha War
Loyang (Lo-yang), capital of China
Lu, state
Lü, empress
Lu Hsiang-shan, philosopher
Lu Hsün, writer
Lü Kuang, ruler
Lü Pu, general
Lü Pu-wei, politician
Lun, prince
Lun-heng, book
Lung-men, place
Lung-shan, excavation site
Lytton Commission
Ma Yin, ruler
Ma Yüan, general
painter
Machiavellism
Macao, Portuguese colony
Mahayana, Buddhist sect
Maitreya, Buddhist deity (see Messianic movements)
Malacca, state
Malaria
Managers
Manchu, tribal federation and dynasty
Manchuria
Manichaeism, Iranian religion
Manors (chuang, see Estates)
Mao Tun, Hsiung-nu ruler
Mao Tse-tung, party leader
Marco Polo, businessman
Market
Market control
Marriage systems
Marxism
Marxist theory of history
(see Materialism, Communism, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung)
Materialism
Mathematics
Matrilinear societies
Mazdaism, Iranian religion
May Fourth Movement
Medicine
Medical doctors
Meditation (see Ch'an)
Megalithic culture
Meiji, Japanese ruler
Melanesia
Mencius (Meng Tz[)u]), philosopher
Merchants
foreign merchants
(see Trade, Salt, Caravans, Businessmen)
Messianic movements
Metal (see Bronze, Copper, Iron)
Mi Fei, painter
Middle Class (see Burgher, Merchant, Craftsmen, Artisans)
Middle East (see Near East)
Migrations
forced migrations
(see Colonization, Assimilation, Settlement)
Militarism
Militia
Millet
Mills
Min, state in Fukien
Ming dynasty
Ming Jui, general
Min Ti, Chin ruler
Ming Ti, Han ruler
Wei ruler
Later T'ang ruler
Minorate
Missionaries, Christian (see Jesuits)
Mo Ti, philosopher
Modernization
Mohammedan rebellions (see Muslim)
Mon-Khmer tribes
Monarchy (see King, Emperor, Absolutism, Despotism)
Monasteries, Buddhist
economic importance
Money
Money economy
Origin of money
paper money
(see Coins, Paper, Silver)
Mongolia
Mongols, tribes, tribal federation, dynasty (see Yüan dynasty,
Kalmuk, Tümet, Oirat, Ölöt, Naiman, Turgut, Timur, Genghiz, Kublai)
Monks, Buddhist
Monopolies
Mound-dwellers
Mu-jung, tribes
Mu Ti, East Chin ruler
Mu Tsung, Manchu ruler
Mulberries
Munda tribes
Music (see Theatre, Dance, Geisha)
Muslims
Muslim rebellions
(see Islam, Mohammedans)
Mysticism

Naiman, Mongol tribe
Nan-chao, state
Nanyang, city
Nanking (Nan-ching), capital of China
Nanking regime
Nationalism (see Kuomintang)
Nature
Nature philosophers
Navy
Near East (see Arabs, Iran, etc.)
Neo-Confucianism
Neolithicum
Nepal
Nerchinsk, place
Nestorian Christianity
Ni Tsan, painter
Nien Fei, rebels
Niu Seng-yu, politician
Nobility
Nomadic nobility
(see Aristocracy)
Nomadism
Economy of nomads
Nomadic society structure
Novels

Oil
Oirat, Mongol tribes
Okinawa (see Ryukyu)
Ölöt, Mongol tribes
Opera
Opium
Opium War
Oracle bones
Ordos, area
Orenburg, city
Organizations (see hui-kuan Guilds, hong, Secret Societies)
Orphanages
Ottoman (Turkish) Empire
Ou-yang Hsiu, writer
Outer Mongolia

Pagoda
Pai-chi (Paikche), state in Korea
Pai-lien-hui (see White Lotus)
Painting
Palaeolithicum
Pan Ch'ao, general
pao-chia, security system
Paper
Paper money
(see Money)
Parliament
Party (see Kuomintang, Communists)
Pearl Harbour
Peasant rebellions (see Rebellions)
Peking, city
Peking Man
Pensions
People's Democracy
Persecution, religious
Persia (Iran)
Persian language
Peruz, ruler
Philippines, state
Philosophy, (see Confucius, Lao Tz[)u], Chuang Tz[)u],
Huai-nan Tz[)u], Hsün Tz[)u], Mencius, Hui Tz[)u], Mo Ti,
Kung-sun Lung, Shang Tz[)u], Han Fei Tz[)u], Tsou Yen, Legalists,
Chung-ch'ang, T'ung, Yüan Chi, Liu Ling, Chu Hsi, Ch'eng Hao,
Lu Hsiang-shan, Wang Yang-ming, etc.)
pi-chi, literary form
pieh-yeh (see Manor)
Pien-liang, city (see K'ai-feng)
pien-wen, literary form
Pig
Pilgrims
P'ing-ch'êng, city
Pirates
Plantation economy
Plough
Po Chü-i, poet
Po-hai, state
Poetry
Court Poetry
Northern Poetry
Poets (see T'ao Ch'ien, Po Chü-i, Li T'ai-po, Tu Fu, etc.)
Politicians, migratory
Pontic migration
Population changes
Population decrease
(see Census, Fertility)
Porcelain
Port Arthur, city
Portsmouth, treaty
Portuguese (see Fu-lan-chi, Macao)
Potter
Pottery
black pottery
(see Porcelain)
Price controls
Priests (see Shamans, Ju, Monks)
Primogeniture
Princes
Printing (see Colour, Book)
Privileges of gentry
Proletariat (see Labour)
Propaganda
Property relations (see Laws, Inheritance, Primogeniture)
Protectorate
Provinces, administration
pu-ch'ü, bondsmen
P'u-ku Huai-en, general
P'u Sung-lin, writer
P'u Yi, Manchu ruler
Puppet plays

Railways
Manchurian Railway
Rebellions (see Peasants, Secret Societies, Revolutions)
Red Eyebrows, peasant movement
Red Guards
Reforms; Reform of language (see Land reform)
Regents
Religion
popular religion
(see Bon, Shintoism, Persecution, Sacrifice, Ancestor cult,
Fertility cults, Deities, Temples, Monasteries, Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, Mazdaism, Manichaeism, Messianic religions, Secret
societies, Soul, Shamanism, State religion)
Republic
Revolutions; legitimization of revolution (see Rebellions)
Ricci, Matteo, missionary
Rice
Rifles
Ritualism
Roads
Roman Empire
Roosevelt, F.D., president
Russia (see Soviet Republics)
Ryukyu (Liu-ch'iu), islands

Sacrifices
Sages
Sakhalin (Karafuto), island
Salar, ethnic group
Salary
Salt
Salt merchants
Salt trade
Samarkand, city
San-min chu-i, book
Sang Hung-yang, economist
Sassanids, Iranian dynasty
Scholars (Ju) (see Literati, Scribes, Intellectuals,
Confucianists)
Schools, (see Education)
Science, (see Mathematics, Astronomy, Nature)
Scribes
Script, Chinese
Sculpture
Buddhist sculptures
sê-mu (auxiliary troops)
Seal, imperial
Secret societies (see Red Eyebrows; Yellow Turbans; White Lotus;
Boxer; Rebellions)
Sects
Buddhist sects
Seng-ko-lin-ch'in, general
Serfs (see Slaves, Servants, Bondsmen)
Servants
Settlement, of foreigners
military
(see Colonization)
Sha-t'o, tribal federation
Shadow theatre
Shahruk, ruler
Shamans
Shamanism
Shan tribes of South East Asia
Shan-hai-ching, book
Shan-yü, title of nomadic ruler
Shang dynasty
Shang Ti, deity
Shang Tz[)u], philosopher (Shang Yang)
Shanghai, city
Shao Yung, philosopher
Sheep
Shen Nung, mythical figure
Shen Tsung, Sung ruler
Manchu ruler
Sheng Tsu, Manchu ruler
Shih-chi, book
Shih Ching-t'ang, ruler
Shih Ch'ung, writer
Shih Hêng, soldier
Shih Hu, ruler
Shih Huang-ti, ruler
Shih Lo, ruler
Shih-pi, ruler
Shih Ss[)u]-ming
Shih Tsung, Manchu ruler
Shih-wei, Mongol tribes
Shintoism, Japanese religion
Ships (see Navy)
Short stories
Shoulder axes
Shu (Szechwan), area and/or state
Shu-Han dynasty
Shun, dynasty
mythical ruler
Shun-chih, reign period
Sian (Hsi-an, Ch'ang-an), city
Siao Ho (Hsiao Ho), jurist
Silk
Silk road
Silver
Sin-lo (Hsin-lo, Silla), state of Korea
Sinanthropos
Sinkiang (Hsin-Chiang, Turkestan)
Slash and burn agriculture (denshiring)
Slaves
Slave society
Temple slaves
Social mobility
Social structure of tribes
Socialism (see Marxism, Communism)
Sogdiana, country in Central Asia
Soul, concept of soul
South-East Asia (see Burma, Champa, Cambodia, Annam, Laos,
Vietnam, Tonking, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Mon-Khmer)
Soviet Republics (see Russia)
Speculations, financial
Ss[)u]-ma, clan
Ss[)u]-ma Ch'ien, historian
Ss[)u]-ma Kuang, historian
Ss[)u]-ma Yen, ruler
Standardization
States, territorial and national
State religion
Statistics (see Population)
Steel
Steppe
Stone age
Stratification, social (see Classes, Social mobility)
Strikes
Students
Su Chün, rebel
Su Tsung, T'ang ruler
Su Tung-p'o, poet
su-wang (uncrowned king)
Sui, dynasty
Sun Ts'ê, ruler
Sun Yat-sen (Sun I-hsien), revolutionary leader, president
Sung, dynasty
Liu-Sung dynasty
Szechwan (Ss[)u]-ch'uan), province (see Shu)

Ta-tan (Tatars), tribal federation
Tada, Japanese militarist
Tai, tribes (see Thailand)
Tai Chen, philosopher
Tai Ch'ing dynasty (Manchu)
T'ai P'ing, state
T'ai Tsu, Sung ruler
Manchu ruler
T'ai Tsung, T'ang ruler (see Li Shih-min)
Taiwan (T'ai-wan, see Formosa)
T'an-yao, priest
Tanaka, Japanese militarist
T'ang, dynasty
Later T'ang dynasty
T'ang Hsien-tsu, writer
T'ang Yin, painter
Tanguts, Tibetan tribal federation and/or state (see Ch'iang)
Tao, philosophical term
Tao-kuang, reign period
Tao-tê-ching, book
T'ao-t'ieh, mythical emblem
Tao-yen, monk
Taoism, religion
Taoists
(see Lao Tz[)u], Chuang Tz[)u], Chang Ling, etc.)
Tarim basin
Tatars (Ta-tan) Mongolian tribal federation
Taxation
Tax collectors
Tax evasion
Tax exemptions
Taxes for monks
Tax reform
Tê Tsung, Manchu ruler
Tea
Tea trade
Tea house (see Brothel)
Teachers (see Schools)
Technology
Tell, archaeological term
Temples (see Monasteries)
Tengri khan, ruler
Textile industry (see Silk, Cotton)
Thailand, state (see Tai tribes)
Theatre (see Shadow, Puppet, Opera)
Throne, accession to (see Abdication, Legitimacy)
Ti, Tibetan tribes
Tibet (see Ch'iang, Ti, T'u-fan, T'u-yü-hun, Lhasa Tanguts)
T'ien, deity
Tientsin (T'ien-chin), city
Timur, ruler
Tin
Ting-ling, tribal federation
T'o-pa (see Toba)
T'o-t'o, writer
Toba, Turkish tribal federation
Tocharians, Central Asian ethnic group
Tokto (see T'o-t'o)
Tölös, Turkish tribal group
Tombs
Tonking, state
Tortoise
Totalitarianism (see Dictatorship, Fascism, Communism)
Tou Ku, general
T'ou-man, ruler
Towns (see City)
Trade
barter trade
international trade
(see Merchants, Commerce, Caravans, Silk road)
Translations
Transportation (see Roads, Canals, Ships, Post, Caravans, Horses)
Travels of emperors
Treasury
Treaty, international
Tribal organization (see Banner, Army, Nomads)
Tribes, disappearance of
social organization
military organization
Tribute (kung)
tsa-hu, social class
Tsai T'ien, prince
Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei, scholar
Ts'ao Chih, poet
Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in, writer
Ts'ao K'un, politician
Ts'ao P'ei, ruler
Ts'ao Ts'ao, general
Tsewang Rabdan, general
Tsêng Kuo-fan, general
Tso Tsung-t'ang, general
Tsou Yen, philosopher
Ts'ui, clan
T'u-chüeh, Gök Turk tribes (see Turks)
Tu Fu, poet
T'u-fan, Tibetan tribal group
Tu-ku, Turkish tribe
T'u-shu chi-ch'eng, encyclopaedia
tu-tu, title
T'u-yü-hun, Tibetan tribal federation
Tuan Ch'i-jui, president
Tümet, Mongol tribal group
Tung Ch'i-ch'ang, painter
T'ung-chien kang-mu, historical encyclopaedia
T'ung-chih, reign period
Tung Chung-shu, thinker
Tung Fu-hsiang, politician
Tung-lin academy
Tungus tribes (see Juchên, Po-hai, Manchu)
Tunhuang (Tun-huang), city
Turfan, city state
Turgut, Mongol tribal federation
Turkestan (see Central Asia, Tarim, Turfan, Sinkiang, Ferghana,
Samarkand, Khotcho, Tocharians, Yüeh-chih, Sogdians, etc.)
Turkey
Turks (see Gök Turks, T'u-chüeh, Toba, Tölös, Ting-ling, Uighur,
Sha-t'o, etc.)
Tz[)u] Hsi, empress

Uighurs, Turkish federation
United States (see America)
Ungern-Sternberg, general
Urbanization (see City)
Urga, city
University
Usury

Vagrants (liu-min)
Vietnam (see Annam)
Village
Village commons
Vinaya Buddhism
Voltaire, writer

Walls
Great Wall
Wan-li, reign period
Wang (king)
Wang An-shih, statesman
Wang Chen, eunuch
Wang Ching-wei, collaborator
Wang Ch'ung, philosopher
Wang Hsien-chih, peasant leader
Wang Kung, general
Wang Mang, ruler
Wang Shih-chen, writer
Wang Shih-fu, writer
Wang Tao-k'un, writer
Wang Tun, rebel
Wang Yang-ming, general and philosopher
War
size of wars
War-chariot
cost of wars
War lords
Warrior-nomads
(see Army, World War, Opium War, Lorcha War, Fire-arms)
Washington, conference
Wei, dynasty
small state
empress
Wei Chung-hsien, eunuch
Wei T'o, ruler in South China
Welfare state
Well-field system (ching-t'ien),
Wen Ti, Han ruler
Wei ruler
Toba ruler
Sui ruler
Wen Tsung, Manchu ruler
Whampoa, military academy
Wheat
White Lotus sect (Pai-lien)
Wholesalers
Wine
Wood-cut (see Colour print)
Wool (see Felt)
World Wars
Women rights
Writing, invention (see Script)
Wu, empress
state
Wuch'ang, city (see Hankow)
Wu Ching-tz[)u], writer
Wu-huan, tribal federation
Wu P'ei-fu, war lord
Wu San-kui, general
Wu Shih-fan, ruler
Wu-sun, tribal group
Wu Tai (Five Dynasties period)
Wu Tao-tz[)u], painter
Wu (Ti), Han ruler
Chin ruler
Liang ruler
Wu Tsung, Manchu ruler
Wu Wang, Chou ruler
wu-wei, philosophical term

Yakub beg, ruler
Yamato, part of Japan
Yang, clan
Yang Chien, ruler (see Wen Ti)
Yang (Kui-fei), concubine
Yang-shao, archaeological site
Yang Ti, Sui ruler
Yao, mythical ruler
tribes in South China
Yarkand, city in Turkestan
Yeh (K'ai-feng), city
Yeh-ta (see Ephtalites)
Yehe-Nara, tribe
Yellow Turbans, secret society
Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai, politician
Yen, state
dynasty
Earlier Yen dynasty
Later Yen dynasty
Western Yen dynasty
Yen-an, city
Yen Fu, translator
Yen Hsi-shan, war lord
Yen-ta (Altan), ruler
Yen-t'ieh-lun (Discourses on Salt and Iron), book
Yin Chung-k'an, general
Yin-ch'ü, city
Yin and Yang, philosophical terms
Ying Tsung, Manchu ruler
Yo Fei, general
Yü Liang, general
Yü-wen, tribal group
Yüan Chen
Yüan Chi, philosopher
Yüan Mei, writer
Yüan Shao, general
Yüan Shih-k'ai, general and president
Yüan Ti, Han ruler
Chin ruler
Yüeh, tribal group and area
Yüeh-chih, Indo-European-speaking ethnic group
Yün-kang, caves
Yünnan (Yün-nan), province
Yung-cheng, reign period
Yung-lo, reign period

Zen Buddhism (see Ch'an)
Zoroaster, founder of religion