|
| Warring States China | |
|
| E
Bruce Brooks, University of Massachusetts
at Amherst
Disclaimer This summary, like the preceding one by Taeko, is based on (a) a thorough study and re-dating of the major Warring States texts, leading to (b) a substantially different impression of its ideology and history than is conveyed in the standard scholarly interpretation of those same texts. We see a more developmental, and a more diverse, Warring States than is envisioned in the traditional account. The points made below will thus frequently conflict with standard sources. Readers both inside and outside the Sinological field must weigh the evidence, and make their choices, for themselves. Topics Following are some details on selected topics likely to interest comparative historians. They take for granted the background information given in the Epitome. They have in mind the major states, and ignore the tiny entities, whether states or mere settlements, which play no role in the multi-state system as such. Our data is chiefly about Lu (a medium-sized eastern state), and is scanty or dubious for other states. Differences. The Warring States are in many real ways different from the preceding Spring and Autumn period. Some major points are: (1) The mental geography of the Warring States, at least from the 04c on, was in terms of a Sinitic center (the "central states," a phrase never used during the Spring and Autumn period) opposed to a non-Sinitic and sometimes hostile periphery. This perception became possible only after substantial reduction or destruction of the non-Sinitic states and peoples which had earlier co-existed with the Sinitic states in the area of "China proper," a reduction largely achieved during the previous centuries. The surviving non-Sinitic states became increasingly acculturated: Wu was at one point given cultural membership in the form of a fictive kinship tie with the Jou house, and Chu by the 03c had virtually replaced its own language with Chinese, at least at elite levels; in anticipation of future victory over the other states it created an inclusive pantheon mixing northern and southern local deities, preserving a place for its own shamanic practices. (2) Society was substantially reorganized in the early WS (roughly, the 05c), leading to an end of the military elite's special position, the rise of bureaucracy, the incorporation of the common people in some sense into state structures, and the formation of a mass infantry army on that social basis. Legal systems, and the technology of governing distant and conquered territory, were also fruits of these WS developments. With these advance warnings, we may now revisit the topics treated in the Spring and Autumn counterpart statement by Taeko. Government and Society. There had been some tendency in SA for government to be delegated to, and then to some degree usurped by, ruler kin or non-ruler elite. That had led, in Lu, to a failed attempt by Jau-gung (late 06c) to stage a coup against the rival clans, culminating in his exile. The next two Lu rulers rebuilt court power,and led the social and bureaucratic transformation mentioned above (non-local but generally parallel reasons stimulated similar developments elsewhere). Rulership was thus strengthened, and the tendency for division and obsolescence of rulership was arrested. Over time, the landed military elite became a salary-dependent court officialdom. State structure expanded along with state power, and a recognizable bureaucracy emerges, in which development Chi may have been an early leader. The common people were to some extent incorporated in the structure of the state, perhaps justifying a careful application of the concept of citizenship. A theory of populism emerged during the 04c, according to which the state was not only an object of loyalty, apart from the person of the ruler (as SA military-elite loyalty had been structured), but the people's welfare was defined as the end of government, and the goal of the ruler's efforts. Government purposes developed previous ones: (1) Agriculture and food. Further agricultural progress was made, with continued and eventually severe ecosystem stress. The populace was now recognized as within the ken of government, and stockpiling grain for later famine relief became a conscious policy. (2) Sacrifices to a variety of ancestral or agricultural spirits continued. Wealthy family ancestral cults and lavish burials imitated their precedents in SA ruler practice. Some sacrifices and observances were in part public occasions, and served a display and propaganda function. No unifying religion emerged, but the concept of Heaven as either underlying or outranking the many ancestral and local spirits became the center of a cosmological ideology, one or another version of which became conspicuous from the late 04c onward. The prestige of the ruler came to be linked to this Heaven concept, a linkage that was developed further under the Empire. (3) War occupied an increasingly vital part of state attention and effort. From the northern steppe people's military challenge in the mid and late 04c, defensive zonal walling was undertaken. This permanized the center/periphery cultural perception mentioned above. (4) The government became openly involved in regulating and, within those limits, promoting trade and commerce. Land was still generally state-allocated, but some evidence for private ownership exists. (5) For the new role of the people in the structure and calculations of the state, see above. Coinage (introduced after the Lydian model) considerably stimulated trade. Traders and merchants became wealthy, and in Chi at least came under strict residential and sumptuary restrictions; markets came to be state regulated. State manufactories provided small metal and lacquer goods for export, and state slavery (in punishment for crime) often staffed the factories. Trade blocs can be discovered through study of the circulation of coins; unsurprisingly, Chu, Chi, and the post-Jin states were three foci of trading areas. Trade with the northern steppe continued even during the period of rising military hostility with the steppe. Trade served as a medium of contact with the cultures of India (via Ywnnan and later Bactria), Persia (via Bactria), and later Greece (via Hellenized Bactria after the Alexandrian conquest). The stimulating effect of these casual contacts on WS thought was out of proportion to their size (trivial) and accuracy (often low). Government ideology (1) came to focus on the goal of restoring a Jou-type universal sovereignty, and from the late 04c onward this was the generally acknowledged shape of the future. (2) Local rulers, in anticipation, were strengthened by association with the new Heaven concept. From 0342, many adopted the title King, previously limited to the Jou succession rulers. (3) The previous dignity of the ruler, being enhanced by the majesty of association with Heaven, was also complicated by the requirement of effortful awareness of the needs of the populace. (4) the old elite loyalty and service ethic were generalized and adapted to the civil elite and the wider population; a counterpart authoritarian ethic was devised for the family, in conscious imitation of the state structure. Family and state (gwo/jya) were seen as parallel and mutually supporting institutions. Diplomacy With the rise of more sufficient state military power, much of the basis for the SA diplomacy of cooperation vanished. Diplomatic contact continued, and especially at the elite level, continued as in SA to foster a sense of translocal common identity. Jou culture, in part remembered and in part constructed, and especially as embodied in court performance repertoires (the Shr or Classic of Poetry is in part a survival of that repertoire), became the common content of elite and eventually sub-elite culture. Throughout the multi-state period, the commonality of elite culture (in contrast to the local-centeredness of sub-elite culture) has suggestive parallels with the classical Greek experience. With the end of the (extant) CC text, we are simply less well informed about the minute texture of interstate diplomatic contact in this period, and know more generally that it continued, though under new conditions. Alliances The Han thinkers retrospectively regretted the failure of the states to unite against the threat of Chin; at the time, other threats (or in some cases, no perceived threats) seemed more pressing. Myths of grand alliances grow up, and are still accepted by some scholars as literally true. There were no grand alliances, and the foci of power continued to shift. A major event was the breakup of the state of Jin into three successor states: Ngwei (sometimes spelled Wei), Jau, and Han. What does seem to occur, though for the most part implicitly, is a balance-or-powers type response to the expansions of Chi in particular (see the Toynbee page). Several attempts were made to divide the Sinitic territory (by now fairly well defined geographically) into eastern and western divisions, with Chi as the eastern power center and Chin (or in one variant, possibly Ngwei) as the western one. This amount to a spheres-of-influence type division, in opposition to the eventually successful unification scenario, and if it had been successful would have stabilized the system in a different way. War The mass army, fully in being by the mid and late 04c, begot a new art of generalship, whose classic text is the Sundz Art of War, reflecting Chi theories of that century (the backdating of this text to the late 06c, as is still commonly done, produces serious problems of archaeological and cultural history interpretation). Generalship in this sense was now professional. Actual campaigns seem sometimes to have had dual leadership, the nominal head being a high-status civil individual, with the direction of operations under the military expert. War quickly became, as the Sundz tells us, a matter of life and death for the state. Its costs quickly eliminated the smaller states from any but a bystander role in the process of unification, and made most large battles decisive ones for the survival of the combatants as polities. Only states, like Ngwei, which would lose dozens of cities and many individual battles and still keep a state and an army in being could be players in the unification sweepstakes. Frugality still dominated military thinking, but on a higher total level than before. In sum, Warring States warfare was not only businesslike, but mortal. Military skill was diffused among the general populace, leading to new and dangerous conditions of possible social unrest (fear of rebellion appears in the text record from the early 03c). In the social middle, high officials sometimes possessed private armies equal to those of a small state. Even in peace, the new conditions of war changed the landscape. Summary The technology of rule continued to be decisive. In contrast to "iron age" theories that the final victory of Chin was due to weapons superiority, it appears that the key factors were the ability to mobilize and increase agricultural resources, and to directly rule and culturally absorb conquered territory. Both of these are political, not military, skills. Chu's careful management of civil and military resources for civic ends is worthy of serious study, insofar as the record presents it to be studied, but that of Chin was superior (both states led in the technology of administration of conquered territory). The final century of Chin's expansion from state to empire (0318-0221) would compare with the territorial expansion of Germany under Hitler, if Hitler had in fact been successful. As it is, the Chin example (which continues to underlie the Chinese empire of the present age) is without obvious parallel in world history. It is implicit in this estimate that the Chinese case is at least in some aspects validly comparable to early modern and indeed to fully modern European experience. Granting that in other aspects China is a distinctly unique, and where not unique, a typically ancient situation, that is our considered opinion. We believe that the study of ancient China can contribute not only to the comparative study of ancient history, but to the comparative study of history.
All
lectures and abstracts posted on this site are Copyright ©
by their authors. 19 Apr 2002 / Contact The Project / Conferences Page |
