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| China Epitome | |
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| China:
Epitome
DATE: 0771-0221. DEFINING EVENTS: (1) Elimination of the former overlord power Jou in 0771, they being forced from their former NW center to a new enclave location (and a reduced function) on the middle Yellow River. (2) Completion of the unification conquest process in 0221, leaving Chin (occupying the NW territories including the former Jou homeland) as the sole remaining polity in the area. The multi-state system is thus a sequel to a previous sovereignty situation, and this fact is part of its consciousness. Restoring universal sovereignty was an acknowledged goal and presumption toward the end of the multi-state period. PERIODIZATION: Conventionally divided into an early Spring and Autumn phase and a late Warring States phase; the boundary between them is variously given. There are further helpful divisions: (1) the states come into notably closer and more continuous contact in c0650, articulating more completely as a system; (2) there is a shift toward a more inclusive society and to the discontinuation of former elite-warrior privileges in c0500; this corresponds roughly to the beginning of the Warring States period as we define it; (3) there is an archaeologically visible culture shift in the middle and late 04c, with textually visible features such as a literate dialogue among the elite, and the rise of the mass army of maneuver. This is the "classical" period of the philosophical texts, corresponding to and in large part concurrent with, and in certain aspects (we believe) stimulated by, classical Greek civilization. The final decades are the mopping-up process of what had long been perceived as the inevitable consolidation by conquest. SIZE: Roughly 20°-40° N by 100°-120° E = 400 sq degrees of latitude/longitude; the largest of the six cases we are considering. BOUNDARIES: Separated from the Indian culture area on the SW by the Himalayas, a difficult but not impermeable barrier. Open to the steppe cultures along its N extent, and vulnerable to them following their political organization as a federation in the 04c. Since that time, China has been repeatedly conquered, and for long periods ruled in whole or in part, by various steppe peoples. The ocean on the east was not a zone of vulnerability until recent times. HOMOGENEITY: Mixed. The Sinitic peoples proper correspond to the Jou culture, which differed in some respects from the Shang (whom they overthrew in antiquity). The Shang remnant formed one state (Sung) in the multi-state period. There were also pre-urban tribal peoples (Rung, Di, Yi, etc) scattered throughout the territory of interest. Some of these assimilated (Sinicized) sufficiently to form states, and some of these non-Sinitic states were both large and powerful (the greatest was Chu, along the Yangdz River; it was a finalist in the unification sweepstakes of the mid and late 03c). There was not a single culture shared by all the states in the system, though the tendency was toward Sinification (by the 03c, for court and literary purposes, Chu had almost entirely replaced its own language by Chinese; one thinks of French at the Russian Imperial court). By extermination of non-assimilated peoples and conquest of the smaller non-Sinitic states, the geographical situation by the 04c was more nearly that of a Sinitic center and a non-Sinitic periphery, which is how Chinese political theorists of that period and later have seen it. UNITS: Usually said to number in the hundreds as of 0771, but this is misleading. There were about 30 states which the eastern state of Lu allied or fought with in the Spring and autumn period. As of the end of the 04c, there were about a dozen consequential states still in existence. With non-Sinitic states given in bold, these include: Chu, Wu (S), Chin, Ngwei, Han, Jau, Jungshan (N), Sung, Lu, Chi, Yen (E and NE). MATERIAL PROGRESS: Technological progress was an important factor throughout the period, some of the most important innovations being in political technology: how to rule the larger territories resulting from conquest, and how to motivate the general populace to serve in the increasingly large armies. Several agricultural, political, and military revolutions punctuate the period. Ecosystem pressure increased steadily as farmland encroached on forest land; by the middle 03c, deforestation even in mountain areas was an established fact. Trade grew also. All these developments were either initiated by, or at a certain stage came under the control of, the state. There is very little in the Chinese case which can be attributed to spontaneous effort at the popular level, and there is, strictly speaking, no public culture that is not a display of state power. This is in the strongest possible contrast to the general situation of the Greek states. WAR LEVEL: There was continual fighting, and also continual diplomacy, throughout the period. Alliances as such were temporary (later theorists say otherwise), so that it is unsatisfactory to divide this general hostility into "wars" in the modern sense of conflict between defined blocs. There are subperiods which tend to be dominated by one or another of the larger states (beginning with Jin). SOURCES: The texts usually relied on are highly dubious later compilations, often motivated by a revisionist theory of precisely the history we are trying to observe. We are using the Spring and Autumn (Chun/Chyou) chronicle exclusively for the early period, and a careful selection of sometimes reconstructed philosophical and military texts for the Warring States or later period. This criticism of the sources leads to many of the differences abovementioned between this account and the standard traditional view of the period.
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