The Everlasting Empire (23 page)

As time went on, the balance of power between the court and the local elites tilted decisively in the latter’s favor. Since members of the elite firmly dominated the officialdom, they could utilize their position to promote their families’ economic interests. In particular, the grossly unfair Han taxation system benefited huge manorial estates rather than small peasant households. Overburdened by government taxes, peasants preferred to transfer their land to a local magnate and become his tenants, which was demeaning in terms of status but beneficial in terms of livelihood. In time, the center of economic and social gravity had shifted from the imperial government to the magnates’ estates.
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While many eminent statesmen and thinkers recognized this development as dangerous and proposed curbing the estates’ size, the officialdom in general was clearly unconcerned. By the end of the Han dynasty, as dynastic power disintegrated in the wake of popular rebellions and military mutinies, local magnates in their huge estates with armies of devoted tenants remained the single most important sociopolitical force to be reckoned with.

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The last years of the Later Han dynasty (25–220 CE) witnessed another development that marked the triumph of local elites. A new system for entering the officialdom emerged, in which the individual’s status was to be determined according to what was termed “local rank.” This rank was fixed according to one’s reputation in his locality, which in practice reflected the opinion of local elite families. This meant that powerful lineages created webs of mutual recommendations, effectively preventing outsiders from joining the national elite.
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Practically, this brought about a reemergence of hereditary aristocracy, which combined wealth, status, and power, and which completely overshadowed the throne. Meritocratic principles of government were not abandoned but were significantly compromised; and the throne proved unable to regain the initiative and curb the aristocrats’ privileges. Especially under the Jin (265–420) and its successor dynasties, which ruled southern China during the age of Fragmentation (318–589 CE), the power of the throne reached its nadir. This age is widely renowned for its cultural florescence, but politically speaking, it was marked by a systemic crisis on a par with that of the Springsand-Autumns period.
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The progressive weakening of the imperial state from the early Han to the Southern Dynasties demonstrated the dangers of excessive reliance on local elites. Although the court retained its symbolic power, it failed to restrain the elites, because these held the rope at both ends, dominating local society as well as the officialdom. It may be not incidental, then, that the resurrection of the throne’s power came from the northern dynasties, established by nomadic and seminomadic conquerors, who brought in a new, tribal, aristocracy, superimposing it on the native, Chinese, one. The ability of some of the northern emperors to maneuver between these two constituencies allowed one of them, Emperor Xiaowen (r. 471–499), to introduce the “equal field” system,” surely the most significant reform of the early imperial period (see chapter 2). A century later, another nomadic regime initiated military reforms (the establishment of the socalled territorial militia
[fubing]
), which provided the throne with a powerful and loyal military force.
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Finally, in the aftermath of the imperial reunification of 589, the Sui (581–618) monarchs discontinued the “local ranks” system, and the throne regained its position as the ultimate source of status and power for members of the elite. The combination of these three developments marked the resurrection of the centralized state after centuries of its devolution.

The Tang dynasty (618–907), which crowned China’s aristocratic age, was incomparably stronger, domestically and internationally, than any of its predecessors since the Han dynasty. This success derived in no small measure from the Tang emperors’ ability to co-opt the aristocratic elite without ceding the power of the throne, as happened under the Later

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Han and its successors. The complex system of selection and promotion adopted by the Tang was tailored so as to benefit the aristocrats, but it did not allow them to monopolize power, and it perpetuated the court’s role as the ultimate source of societal prestige.
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Simultaneously, insofar as the Tang rulers preserved the “equal field” and “territorial militia” systems, they were able to prevent devolution of economic and military power to the aristocrats. It may have seemed that finally, after eight centuries of imperial rule, the court and the aristocratic elite had found a sustainable modus vivendi. This was not the case, however.

In the course of the Tang dynasty, a curious development ensued. Having secured preferential access to political power, members of aristocratic clans gradually shifted their centers of gravity to the imperial capitals in Luoyang and Chang’an, becoming increasingly dissociated from their local power base. As these clans—or, more precisely, the segments of these clans that relocated to the capital—turned into a national superelite based in the empire’s center, new elites began emerging in the provinces. These new elites failed to replace established aristocrats at the higher echelons of power, but they compensated themselves with employment opportunities under the regional courts that proliferated in the second half of the Tang dynasty in the aftermath of An Lushan’s rebellion (755762) (see chapter 1). From the point of view of the dynasty, this was a highly negative development. The court, addicted to its venerable symbiotic relations with the old aristocracy, failed to absorb the newly emerging elites, who in turn were much less inclined to safeguard the dynasty’s interests than were the aristocratic clans. The lack of support from new elites weakened the court’s control over the localities, strengthened its rivals from among provincial military potentates, and eventually hastened the dynasty’s demise.
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We may summarize the first millennium of imperial history as a lengthy age of trial and error during which the empire’s leaders sought ways to accommodate themselves to the power of local elites. Measures that were effective in the short term proved unsustainable in the long term. Elimination of independent elites in the context of absolute bureaucratization of the society, as attempted by the Qin, was financially burdensome; relaxation of control, as in the early Han, meant progressive weakening of the state; while careless co-optation of the elite in the aftermath of Han Emperor Wu’s reforms resulted in the elite’s incorporation of the officialdom rather than the reverse, and, in the long term, resurrection of the politically inefficient aristocratic mode of rule and dramatic devolution of the state’s power to the aristocrats. The Tang model surely was the most successful of all, but the court’s alliance with the old aristocracy prevented its timely incorporation of the newly emerging elites and was responsible for the partial withering away of the Tang state in the late ninth century.

For the aristocratic clans their alliance with the Tang dynasty proved

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to be equally disastrous in the long term. Having focused too intently on preserving power in the imperial center, most of these clans abandoned their local power base, and did not survive the dynasty’s fall. With the collapse of the Tang in the early tenth century, the old aristocracy vanished as well, paving the way for the rise of new elites.
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It was up to these newcomers to redefine elite-throne relations; and their ultimate success contributed decisively toward much greater political stability in China during the second imperial millennium.

THE SONG DYNASTY: FROM “NEW POLICIES”
TO ELITE VOLUNTARISM

The Tang-Song transition is widely recognized as a crucial divide between the early and late imperial periods in Chinese history; and changes in the composition and functioning of the elite are considered to be among the primary features of this divide. When the Tang dynasty collapsed amid great domestic turmoil and its old aristocracy perished, its demise opened the way for different groups—from military strongmen to wealthy landowners, from rich merchants to refined but impoverished literati—to compete for status and power. In this open situation, the decision of the founding Song emperors to rely overwhelmingly on the literati as primary allies of the throne appears singularly consequential. Not only did the emperors appoint men of letters to the highest and most prestigious positions, but they significantly modified the examination system so as to enhance its openness and fairness, turning it into the primary vehicle for advancement into the officialdom.
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Although the examination system still witnessed ups and downs well into the early fifteenth century, it was under the Song that it gained for the first time its importance for defining elite status.

The examination system became the single most important factor shaping social dynamics in late imperial China. Contrary to a widespread misconception, its primary importance was not necessarily in enhancing social mobility: actually, wealth, particularly landownership, remained throughout the second imperial millennium the sine qua non for acquiring elite status. Yet, as many merchants knew perfectly well, wealth alone was insufficient to sustain one’s status, let alone to perpetuate it for generations. It is in this regard that examinations became exceptionally significant. While only a tiny percentage of those who entered the examination competition could realistically expect to proceed to the top of the ladder and attain official positions, even a low degree, or, at times, even student status, drew huge prestige and manifold economic and legal privileges. Most importantly, even a minor examination success allowed an individual to join the broad body of literati, who were all understood to be
potential
officials. This would grant him direct access to local magis

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trates, protect him from unwelcome litigation and from abuse by members of the notoriously corrupt clerical subbureaucracy, and allow him to serve as a mediator between his community and the magistrate. Hence sitting for examinations became the default choice for acting and aspiring elite members.

In addition to its social impact, the examination system had farreaching political and cultural consequences. The relative fairness of the examinations beginning in the Song dynasty meant that any elite male (and, nominally, any male except for members of several social groups that were discriminated against) could expect that he or his offspring would earn the right to join the officialdom. This expectation attached the entire body of elite members to the state in a much stronger way than had been possible in the aristocratic age. Moreover, the proliferation of the examinations culture in the life of local elites meant that thenceforth their identity as the literati was much stronger than before. The examinations ensured a certain degree of cultural and ideological cohesiveness (although not necessarily uniformity) among members of the elite throughout the imperial realm, and strengthened their feeling of belonging to the “national” (i.e., empire-wide) elite body. Local elites became a more important political factor than they had previously been, and a more stabilizing and unifying force as well—in both cultural and sociopolitical terms.
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The profound impact of the examination system became fully visible as early as the first century of Song rule. As robust economic growth increased the number of wealthy individuals, while proliferation of printing technology decreased the costs of learning, a great many more men than at any time in the past turned toward examinations, with the number of candidates swelling from dozens to hundreds of thousands during the dynasty’s life span. A parallel expansion in educational facilities brought about further dissemination of the so-called Confucian ideas and values associated with the examinations. All these developments led to the formation of a new type of local elite: broader, more ideologically cohesive, more dependent on the throne to validate its status, but also more politically active than its predecessors.
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The renovation of the elite and its deep political involvement may explain some of the ideological vitality of the Song period, particularly its first half, the Northern Song (960–1127), which, at least in terms of political thought, brought about a much larger volume of innovative work than any preceding or subsequent dynasty. In particular, thinkers and statesmen of that period tackled anew a variety of questions related to state-society relations and to the roles of local elites in the imperial order. This topic did not figure prominently in the political discourse of the Warring States period, when independent elites did not play a significant

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societal role, nor was it systematically discussed by early imperial thinkers. Hence views of the Song statesmen and thinkers and their proposals for developing state-elite relations were of profound consequence for the future development trajectory of imperial China.
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In what follows I shall focus on two of the most important approaches, namely, the radical statism of the great reformer Wang Anshi (1021–1086), and a distinct “community-oriented” (or, more precisely, elite-oriented) ideology associated with the so-called Neo-Confucian thinkers, most significantly Zhu Xi (1130–1200). The ultimate failure of the former resulted, even if not immediately, in the ascendancy of the latter approach, which informed the rest of the empire’s history. In particular, Zhu Xi’s promulgation of what Peter Bol defines as the literati’s “voluntarism”
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—inspiring community-oriented voluntary action undertaken by morally motivated members of the educated elite—became, arguably, the single most important contribution of Neo-Confucianism to Chinese political culture.