The Everlasting Empire (40 page)

65. For the first of these instances, see Fisher,
The Chosen One
; for the second, Huang,
1587
.

66. For the struggle of one of the Ming emperors, Wuzong (r. 1505–1521), to preserve his individuality and “construct a portfolio of identities in harmony more with his vision of imperial rule rather than with the models advanced by the civil bureaucracy,” see Robinson, “The Ming Court and the Legacy of the Yuan Mongols,” 405; cf. Ray Huang,
1587
, 95–102.

67. See, respectively, Goncharov,
Kitajskaia Srednevekovaia Diplomatiia
; Wakeman,
The Great Enterprise
; idem,
The Fall of Imperial China
.

68. To explain “even”: in the eyes of the Chinese literati a female presence in the public realm, especially in the capacity of a ruler, was absolutely intolerable.

69. See Holmgren, “Seeds of Madness.”

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CHAPTER 3
THE LITERATI

1. Fan Zhongyan, “Yueyang Lou ji,” in
Fan Zhongyan quanji
, 168–169. For Fan Zhongyan’s career and thought, see James T. C. Liu, “An Early Sung Reformer”; Bol,
“This Culture,”
166–175.

2. See, for instance, Yu Yingshi,
Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua
, 1–3; cf. Wakeman, “The Price of Autonomy,” 137–138. Many studies analyze what it meant to be a
shi
at different stages of China’s history: see, e.g., Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 115–135; Ebrey, “Toward a Better Understanding”; Bol,
“This Culture.”

3. My discussion in this chapter is greatly indebted to several major Chinese studies, most notably Liu Zehua,
Xian Qin shi ren yu shehui
; Yu Yingshi,
Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua
; Ge Quan,
Quanli zaizhi lixing
. See also Yan Buke,
Shidafu zhengzhi yansheng shi
.

4. My discussion in this and the next section is based overwhelmingly on Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 115–186. For alternative views, see, e.g., Hsu,
Ancient China
; Lewis,
Writing and Authority
, 53–97.

5. See Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 119–121.

6. See more in ibid., 115–135.

7. See, e.g.,
Lunyu
“Wei zheng” 2.14: 17; “Zilu” 13.23: 141; 13.25–26: 143.

8.
Lunyu
, “Xian wen” 14.42: 159.

9. See Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 123–131.

10. See Pines,
Foundations
.

11. Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 123–131.

12.
Lüshi chunqiu
, “Shi jie” 12.2: 622–623.

13. The citations are, respectively, from the
Lüshi chunqiu
, “Bo zhi” 24.5: 1618, and
Zhanguo ce
, “Qin ce 1” 3.2: 75.

14.
Lunyu
, “Yang Huo” 17.5: 182.

15. See, respectively,
Mengzi
, “Teng Wen Gong xia” 6.3: 142–143; “Li Lou shang” 7.20: 180; “Gaozi xia” 12.7: 287; “Li Lou shang” 7.14: 175; “Liang Hui Wang shang” 1.6: 12–13. See more in Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 147–150.

16. See Pines, “Friends or Foes.”

17.
Xunzi
, “Chen Dao” IX.13: 249.

18.
Xunzi
, “Chen Dao” IX. 13: 250.

19. See Pines, “Friends or Foes.” The market simile for the relations of the
shi
with the rulers is not exclusively modern; it was employed by an astute contemporaneous observer, Han Feizi (
Han Feizi
, “Nan yi” XV.36: 352).

20.
Mengzi
, “Liang Hui Wang B” 2.6: 40.

21. See Pines, “From Teachers to Subjects.”

22.
Xunzi
, “Fei shi’er zi” III.6: 98.

23.
Han Feizi
, “Wu du” XIX.49: 452.

24.
Shiji
6: 255, modifying Watson,
Records
[Qin], 56.

25. Watson,
Records
[Qin], 56; see also discussion in Petersen, “Which Books.”

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26. For Liu An’s activities, see Vankeerberghen,
The Huainanzi
.

27.
Han shu
56: 2523.

28. See Lewis,
Writing and Authority
, 337–362.

29. For the concept of the “victory of Confucianism,” see, e.g., Yao,
The Introduction to Confucianism
, 81–83; for the syncretism of Han thought, see, e.g., Nylan, “A Problematic Model”; for the elevation of Confucius after Emperor Wu’s reign, see Liu Zehua,
Zhongguo zhengzhi sixiang shi
, 2: 134–142.

30. The major “Confucian” text from which Emperor Wu drew inspiration, the
Gongyang zhuan
, is of disputed relation to the mainstream legacy of Confucius and his disciples. See more in chapter 1, note 58.

31.
Shiji
47: 1947.

32. For criticism of Emperor Wu and indirect comparison of his policies to those of the First Emperor, see van Ess, “Emperor Wu”; cf. Declerq,
Writing against the State
, 20–38. This criticism notwithstanding, Emperor Wu’s treatment by subsequent historians was incomparably milder than that of the First Emperor.

33. See Goodrich,
The Literary Inquisition
; Guy,
The Emperor’s Four Treasuries
; cf. Brook, “State Censorship.”

34. For the most powerful presentation of this point, see Ge Quan,
Quanli zaizhi lixing
.

35. See, e.g., Farmer,
Zhu Yuanzhang
.

36. For an example of such active imperial support for a single ideological current, see Smith, “Shen- Tsung’s Reign.”

37. See Elman,
Cultural History
, 78–105.

38. For Han Yu’s views and career, see Hartman,
Han Yü
; the citations are from his most famous essay, “On the Origins of the True Way” (
Yuan Dao
) (
Han Changli
, 13–19).

39. For printing, see Brook, “State Censorship.” For academies, see Walton,
Academies and Society
; Meskill,
Academies in Ming China
.

40. See Elman,
Cultural History
, 173–238ff.

41. See Bol,
“This Culture,”
48–58.

42. See Levine,
Divided by a Common Language
.

43. Cited from Chafee,
The Thorny Gates
, 79. All the tabooed phrases are closely associated with views of Wang Anshi’s opponents.

44. See Bol, “Examination and Orthodoxies”; idem,
Neo- Confucianism
; see also James T. C. Liu,
China Turns Inward
. For the attempt to persecute “NeoConfucians,” see Schirokauer, “Neo- Confucians under Attack.”

45. Brook, “State Censorship.”

46. These are the words of the eminent historian Sima Qian (ca. 145–90 BCE) (
Han shu
, 62: 2732); see also an excellent discussion in Declercq,
Writing against the State
, 21–38 and passim. For earlier examples, see Sima Qian’s “Biographies of Confucian Scholars” (
Shiji
121: 3115–3129).

47.
Zizhi tongjian
19: 638; cited from Wu Fusheng,
Written at Imperial Command
, 14.

48.
Lunyu
, “Wei zheng” 2.12: 17.

49. These long- term patterns are summarized by Du Jiaji, “Zhongguo gudai

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junchen.” See also Liu Zehua,
Zhongguo de Wangquanzhuyi
, 263–279; Ge Quan,
Quanli zaizhi lixing
, passim.

50. Liu Zehua,
Zhongguo de Wangquanzhuyi
, 175–181 and passim.

51. See details in Berkowitz,
Patterns of Disengagement
; Declercq,
Writing against the State
. For the background of the idea of disengagement, see Vervoorn,
Men of the Cliffs
.

52. Citations from the accounts concerning recluses in the
New Tang History
(
Xin Tang shu
), cited from Wong, “On the Reclusion,” 148–149.

53. To illustrate this point, suffice it to adduce the case of a lofty recluse, Fan Ying, who finally heeded the summons of Han Emperor Shun (r. 125–144), but even in the court behaved haughtily and provocatively. Emperor Shun, nonetheless, “respected [Fan’s] reputation” and continued to treat him courteously despite Fan’s affronts (
Hou Han shu
82: 2723). By contrast, the Xiongnu emperor of the Xia dynasty, Helian Bobo (381–425, r. 407–425), was appalled by the tooswift positive response of a famous recluse, Wei Xuan, to Helian’s summons and had Wei executed (see Berkowitz,
Patterns of Disengagement
, 134).

54. The major exception to this rule was shunning the office out of loyalty to the fallen dynasty— a matter of far-reaching consequences in the ages of dynastic change (e.g., Mote, “Confucian Eremitism”).

55. Saying by Ming Shizong, cited from Chu, “The Jiajing Emperor’s Interaction,” 222; cf. Huang,
1587
, 223–225.

56. Huang,
1587
, 135; the entire Hai Rui story is told on pp. 130–155.

57. For Shizong’s career, see Fisher,
The Chosen One
; Geiss, “The Chia- ching Reign.”

58. For “commemorative immortality,” see Pines, “Chinese History- Writing,” 335–340. For an example of the ups and downs of an official’s reputation during his life and after his martyrdom, see Hammond,
Pepper Mountain
.

59. For details, see Dardess,
Blood and History
; cf. Wakeman, “The Price of Autonomy.”

60. Huang,
1587
, 136.

61. The dramatic power the Hai Rui affair resurfaced in the late 1950s when this model remonstrator became associated with loyal critics of Mao Zedong. See Wagner, “In Guise.”

62. For Zhu Xi’s view of the rulers, see, e.g., Huang, “Imperial Rulership”; for his quest for an enlightened monarch, see Yu Yingshi,
Zhu Xi
, 13–15 and passim. For Huang Zongxi, see de Bary,
Waiting for the Dawn
, 92 (translation modified).

63. This point is powerfully made by Eisenstadt in his “Frederic Wakeman’s Oeuvre.”

64. For a marked example to the contrary, see Levine,
Divided by a Common Language
.

CHAPTER 4
LOCAL ELITE

1. Many insightful studies have been published in recent decades on the nature of Chinese local elites and their interaction with the imperial state. See, espe

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cially, essay collections edited by Dien (
State and Society
) for the early imperial period; by Hymes and Schirokauer (
Ordering the World
) for the Song dynasty; and by Rankin and Esherick (
Chinese Local Elites
) for the late imperial period. For monographs, see references below.

2. See Esherick and Rankin, “Introduction,” and Rankin and Esherick, “Concluding Remarks,” for further elaboration and criticism of previous scholarship.

3. Wittfogel,
Oriental Despotism
.

4. Hobsbawm,
Nations and Nationalism
, 80.

5. For details of Qin’s policies, see Pines et al., “General Introduction.”

6. For socioeconomic functions of the preimperial state, see, e.g., Liu Zehua,
Zhongguo de Wangquanzhuyi
, 19–42. For the economic dependence of the
shi
on the power- holders, see Pines,
Envisioning Eternal Empire
, 136–140. For the role of village elders in preimperial and early imperial society, and Qin’s attempt to co- opt them into its administrative apparatus, see insightful observations by Perelomov,
Imperiia Tsin’
; cf. Bu Xianqun, “Cong jiandu kan.”

7. See Loewe, “The Former Han Dynasty,” 110–153, for further details.

8. See discussion in Mao Han- kuang, “The Evolution”; Cui Xiangdong,
Han dai haozu
.

9. These policies are summarized by Sima Qian in chapter 30 of the
Shiji
(Watson,
Records
[Han] II: 61–85).

10. See details in Loewe,
Crisis and Conflict
.

11. These discussions are presented (not necessarily in their original form) in
Yantie lun
; see Gale,
Discourses
.

12. For a somewhat apologetic account of Wang Mang’s reign, see Bielenstein, “Wang Mang.”

13. See Ebrey, “The Economic and Social History of Later Han”; for the abolition of mass conscription in the Han dynasty, see Lewis, “The Han Abolition.”

14. See Ebrey, “The Economic and Social History of Later Han.” For the Han taxation system as benefiting large estates, see Mao Han- kuang, “The Evolution,” 74–75.

15. See Graffin, “Reinventing China,” 145–155, for the function of the new system.

16. For aspects of the systemic difficulties faced by the southern dynasties in that era, see Holcombe,
In the Shadow
, 34–72; Graff,
Medieval Chinese Warfare
, 76–96; Crowell, “Northern Émigrés.”

17. For the equal feld system, see Wang Zhongluo,
Wei Jin
, 522–538; for militia, see Graff,
Medieval Chinese Warfare
, 109–111.

18. For the Tang recruitment system, see Herbert,
Examine the Honest
.

19. See Johnson,
The Medieval Chinese Oligarchy
; Bol,
“This Culture,”
36– 48; Tackett, “Great Clansmen.”

20. The precise nature of the processes that hastened the demise of the old aristocratic oligarchy and changed the composition of the elite during the TangSong interregnum is still debatable. For a recent attempt to readdress it, see Tackett, “The Transformation.”

21. See Bol,
“This Culture,”
48–58.

22. For the manifold aspects of the examination system and its cultural im