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Political Concept (2) |
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Vera
Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, EHESS,
Paris Paper (2)
3. The rise of the interest in kingdoms as objects of conceptualizing space may be traced from the Western Zhou (1046/45/40-771 B.C.) - beginning of the Springs and Autumns period (770-404 B.C.) . This is hardly accidental. It is a manifestation of the fundamental transformations in the political and social structure of Chinese society which started to occur at this time and which made the kingdoms the main actors in political history until the founding of the first Chinese empire, the Empire of Qin (221-207 B.C.). These kingdoms originated from the principalities of the Western Zhou state, a quasi-unified political structure founded as a conglomerate of principalities loyal to the Zhou dynasty, and, therefore, already containing the "virus" of disintegration in its organization. By the beginning of the Springs and Autumns period, the Western Zhou had disintegrated completely, and the principalities became independent political units, the kingdoms. As the king of Zhou lost his political (but not ritual) authority, the kingdoms started to fight for political leadership, so-called "hegemony". During the Springs and Autumns the number of kingdoms decreased considerably as the small and weak ones were rapidly annexed by their more successful neighbours. Thus, by the beginning of the Warring States period, according to Chinese historiographical tradition, there were seven main kingdoms left, the so-called "The Seven Mighty" (qi xiong). These became the principal participants of the fight for power. The limited number of participants, and a sort of balance of power among them, made their competition much more vigorous than before. The institution of "hegemony", that is, a temporary leadership of one kingdom recognized by a considerable number of the others, was no longer appropriate in this situation. Yet, no kingdom had enough power to confront its rivals alone. Under these circumstances a new form of communication between the kingdoms was worked out, the rival war unions. The most important of these unions were referred to as "vertical" (he zong) and "horizontal" (lian heng). Literally, he zong means "to unite along the vertical, that is, South-North axis" and lian heng means "to join together along the horizontal, that is, East-West axis". Therefore, according to these titles, the kingdoms engaged in the unions were conceived of as being spatially arrayed in some way along the two core axes. Moreover, the "opposition" of the two axes long accepted in Chinese cosmography served to express political relations between the kingdoms. Thus, the kingdoms on the same axis were qualified as "allies", those on the other axis as "enemies". However, despite the explicit message conveyed by the titles of these unions, many of the extant studies relevant to the political history of the Warring States give surprisingly little consideration to their formal aspect. Cardinally-oriented arrangements of the Seven Mighty Kingdoms found in the "Liao di" ("Estimating the Enemy") chapter of the Wu zi , which I have chosen as an example for detailed examination, are of special interest with respect to this spatial facet of the unions. 4. Now let us take a closer look at the items in question. The "Liao di" contains a discussion of the war capacities of the Seven Mighty Kingdoms. This discussion reputedly takes place between the philosopher Wu-zi and Wu-hou (386-372 B.C.), the ruler of the kingdom of Wei. In the course of this discussion both the participants use spatial schematic representations of the seven kingdoms as instruments for expressing their points of view on political issues. The discussion begins with Wu-hou's description of the dangerous political situation of his kingdom. He says:
Hence, this political situation is described by defining the relative "positions" of the six kingdoms with respect to his own, which is taken as the center. If we accept representing each kingdom as a square or rectangle , the "positions" of the kingdoms would form a pattern in the shape of a cross, as shown in fig. 2. Thus, Qin, Chu, Zhao and Qi hold the four ultimate peripheral "positions", corresponding to the four cardinal points and arrayed on the four arms of the cross. The "positions" of Yan and Han are given according to the ego-centric anthropomorphic idea of space, with the ruler facing the south as the cross-point of a coordinate system. The kingdom of Yan is placed "behind", that is, as bordering on Wei to the north, and the kingdom of Han is placed "in front", that is, as bordering on Wei to the south, so that all together the three of them share the center of the cross pattern. In response, Wu-zi proposes to discuss the "customs" (su) of the kingdoms referred to by Wu-hou. In his view, the "customs" of a kingdom determine the capacities of its army, and these capacities, in their turn, determine the tactics which should be applied against this specific army. First, he concisely characterizes the armies of the kingdoms in question. These characteristics are as follows:
He then repeats these characteristics in the same order but elaborates on them. In this elaborated version, each of the proposed characteristics is prefaced by the "customs" of the corresponding kingdom, and is followed by directions on how to defeat its army (for a translation of this passage see Appendix 1). In contrast to the arrangement of the kingdoms by Wu-hou, Wu-zi does not provide explicit indications of their spatial "positions,", with one exception. In his description of the "customs" of the Three Jin(s), he begins by defining them as "the central kingdoms" (zhong guo). This definition provides the key "angle" which allows us to determine the whole structure. The ascription to the Three Jin(s) of the central "position" implies that the other four kingdoms, Qi, Qin, Chu and Yan, are related to the four cardinal points. Wu-zi may simply have omitted to give their precise locations, taking it for granted that these specific kingdoms could serve as "markers" of the four cardinal directions, east, west, south and north respectively. The derived arrangement of kingdoms (see fig. 3a and fig. 3b for the concise and the detailed versions respectively) is very similar to, though not exactly the same as, that by Wu-hou. Both arrangements correspond to a cardinally-oriented cruciform pattern with a three-fold central section. It is noteworthy that the set of kingdoms which existed during the period of political disintegration is represented as having a "split" center, thereby expressing the idea of political "disorder." The main difference between these arrangements lies in the "positions" of Zhao and Yan. In the scheme by Wu-hou, the kingdom of Yan borders Wei on the north, and, therefore, is referred to as one of the group of central kingdoms, whereas Zhao occupies the ultimate northern "position". According to Wu-zi, the kingdom of Zhao is one of the three central kingdoms, so that Yan has to be referred to as the ultimate northern state. Actually, Yan was situated much further to the north than Zhao (see map 1). It was the most northern principality under the Western Zhou dynasty, and the most northern kingdom during the Springs and Autumns and the Warring States periods. As such, as mentioned above, it could serve as a "marker" of the north. Moreover, Wei did not have a common border with Yan at all, whereas Zhao was not only its closest northern neighbour, but also originated at the same moment and from the same kingdom as Wei. The spatial representation of the seven kingdoms derived from the references to them by Wu-zi corresponds in a more appropriate way to their respective locations. It seems most likely that this representation reflected the acknowledged "positions" of the Seven Mighty Kingdoms. Under these circumstances, Wu-hou, who advanced a different arrangement, had to be more precise about his assignment of each "position." If one addresses the historical context of this period, some data may be discovered which helps to understand the reasons why Wu-hou inverted the "positions" of Yan and Zhao. In the second year of his rulership, the kingdom of Wei began a war with Zhao, and was defeated. So, at the time when the discussion reputedly took place, relations between the two kingdoms were tense. This tension may clearly be seen from a comparison of the "actions" of kingdoms directed against Wei, as defined by Wu-hou and referred to above. The kingdom of Zhao "hits" Wei and, therefore, is referred as its active "enemy," whereas all the other kindoms hold a sort of passive opposition. However, there is, in fact, a rigid criterion according to which the kingdoms of Wei, Yan and Han differ considerably from the other four kingdoms, and have an "authority" allowing them to be placed in the center, as found in Wu-hou's cosmogram. This criterion is the family name of a ruler. The rulers of Wei, Yan and Han shared the same family name with the Zhou dynasty (Ji), while the rulers of the four other kingdoms had differing family names (Zhao and Qin - Ying, Qi - Qiang, since 386 B.C. Tian, Chu - Mi). By using this criterion for arranging the kingdoms, Wu-hou was able to assert that he was one of the direct inheritors of the Zhou dynasty, and, in this way, to clearly mark off his own kingdom from Zhao, despite their common origins. In summary, by "pushing off" the kingdom of Zhao to the ultimate northern "position", Wu-hou expressed specific political relations between the two kingdoms at the time when his discussion with Wu-zi took place. It is of central importance that even a minor alteration in "positions" of the kingdoms is significant, since it changes the whole set of relationships between the kingdoms represented. From this perspective, Wu-zi's statement that the Three Jin(s) are the central kingdoms may be understood as a strong objection to Wu-hou's scheme. Moreover, the reference to the kingdoms of Zhao, Wei and Han as the Three Jin(s) gives Wu-zi an opportunity to advance implicit criticism of the rulership of Wu-hou himself, as everything said about the Three Jin(s) concerns the kingdom of Wei as well. As far as the arrangement of kingdoms according to Wu-zi is concerned, the detailed one in particular is of special interest, as it gives an account of the qualitative characteristics of each kingdom, thereby showing the "ratings" of their "positions." The "customs" of a kingdom, according to Wu-zi, include its "nature" (xing), always given at the beginning, followed by the character of its government and people, quality of land, etc. The order of the latter characteristics varies, and they are presented in a less formal manner than the "nature". Yet, in general, the characteristics of the kingdoms give an impression not unlike that one would get from the filling out of forms. The "nature" of a kingdom seems to be directly related to its "position". Thus, the "nature" of the Three Jin(s), which hold the central "position", is "harmonious" (he). By contrast, the kingdoms holding the peripheral "positions" have extreme qualities: the "nature" of Qi is "hard" (gang), of Qin is "strong" (qiang), of Chu is "weak" (ruo), and of Yan is "sincere & careful" (que), with the implication of being too "simple-minded". Moreover, an opposition of the "natures" of kingdoms placed on different axes may be traced. Thus, the "nature" of the kingdoms arrayed on the horizontal axis is "hard/strong", and of those on the vertical axis "weak/sincere & careful." The government is "balanced" (ping) in the center, and unbalanced in a different way at the extremities (with Yan as an exception, as no characteristic for its government is provided). Thus, the government of Qin is "severe" (xian), that of Chu is "violating the rules/order" (sao), the government of Qi is "unconstrained" (kuan), and the "salaries" (lu) in the kingdom of Qi are "unbalanced" (bu yue). Although the government of the kingdom of Yan is not characterized, the characteristics of its people are too detailed when compared to the other kingdoms holding cardinally-oriented "positions" ("Its people are cautious (shen), love courage (yong) and the duty/rules (yi), rarely deceive (zha) [and] make sophisticated plans (mou)"). The idea of respect to "duty/rules" seems to provide a certain opposition to the characteristic of the government of Chu, which is "violating the rules/order". The characteristics of the governments of Qin and Qi are pure antonyms ("severe" - "unconstrained"). So, the governments of the kingdoms arrayed at each end of the horizontal axis have contrasting characteristics. The same might be said of the characteristics of the government of Chu and those of the people of Yan, the kingdoms arrayed at each end of the vertical axis. The armies of the Three Jin(s) are characterized as "ordered" (zhi). Yet, these armies "do not function" (bu yong), as something absolutely balanced does not move! The armies of the kingdoms holding ultimate "positions" are disordered in a different way. Thus, the battle arrays of Qin and Qi are "dispersed" (san) and "of double density" (chong) respectively, the battle arrays of Chu are "regular", but this regularity is not stable (bu jiu), so this is not the perfect "order" of the center, while those of Yan are only good at "defence" (shou). Just as the characteristics of the governments of Qin and Qi are contrasting, so are those of their armies. In summary, there is a considerable correlation between the "position" of a kingdom and its characteristics, or, in other words, the characteristics of a kingdom are to a considerable extent determined by the "position" ascribed to it. These characteristics are involved in a complex interplay of relationships: some are similar along the same axis and contrasting along different axes, others are contrasting at the ultimate points of an axis. It also seems of some interest that the relationships with respect to the horizontal axis are articulated in a much more consistent way than those of the vertical axis. The account of the characteristics of kingdoms provided by Wu-zi shows what a complex system of relationships may be hidden behind a simple cardinally-oriented arrangement of kingdoms. [Continued on Next Page]
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