Читать книгу Asia Past and Present - Peter P. Wan - Страница 43

The fall of the Han Dynasty ushered in a period of disunity that lasted for three and a half centuries. The fact that China’s disunity lasted for so long is an indication that the people of this vast area still didn’t share adequately in a common culture and economy. But by the time of the reunification by the Sui and Tang Dynasties after the period of disunity, the general population in “China Proper” had been mixed and kneaded into one people who shared all the essential characteristics of modern Han Chinese.

Map of Northern Wei and Southern Qi (ca. 4th‐6th centuries).

The main dynasties of the period of disunity were the Three Kingdoms (220–265), the Jin Dynasty (265–420), and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–581). The Three Kingdoms occurred at a time when three warlords divided up China Proper. The Jin Dynasty defeated the three kingdoms and reestablished its capital at Luoyang on the Yellow River. But the nomadic tribes had, in the meantime, taken over control of much of China Proper along the borders, and they soon advanced and captured the whole of North China. The Jin Dynasty was forced to relocate its capital from Luoyang to Jinling (modern Nanjing) on the Yangtze River in 317.

This ushered in the Northern and Southern States period, when northern nomadic states faced off with the Southern Han Chinese state across the Yangtze River. While the nomadic tribes took over what used to be Han Chinese territories in North China, Northern Han Chinese fled across the Yangtze River to settle in South China, and drove the local inhabitants into the mountainous regions. This was a huge population shift for the nomadic tribes, the Northern Chinese, and the Southern Chinese.

Northern Wei nomadic tribes founded 16 regimes to rule North China in a merry‐go‐round for one and a half centuries. Eventually, one of the 16 non‐Han regimes, Northern Wei (386–557), unified North China and ruled for another one and a half centuries. It was a nomadic Xianbei dynasty, but its early emperors believed that they could survive only if they abandoned their nomadic ways of life and adopted the Han Chinese ways of life. Their emperor relocated his capital to Luoyang (493) and began adopting Chinese ways on a grand scale. He encouraged, coaxed, and coerced his people into giving up their animal husbandry and roaming lifestyle, and adopt the Han Chinese agricultural way of life. He made them intermarry with Han Chinese, and give up their language and family names in favor of the Han language and names. He also adopted the Han Chinese form of centralized bureaucratic government, its system of tax collection, and its ideology of Confucianism. As a result, a centralized state took shape, their nomadic economy evolved into an agricultural economy, their aristocrats became landed feudal lords, and science and culture flourished. His efforts at Sinicization were so thorough that, by the time of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Xianbei people had totally merged with the Han population and disappeared as a distinct ethnic group.

Meanwhile, the great amount of manpower, capital, and know‐how the Han population brought with them to South China combined with the vast natural resources of South China to create a flourishing economy. China’s economic center shifted from the North to the country’s Central and South. It would not be long before the Lower Yangtze Valley would be China’s granary, and its commerce and culture would thrive as well.

China became a huge “melting pot” during the four centuries of disunity. All the racial and ethnic groups were thrown in the pot to stew together. They were stirred, mixed, and blended mercilessly into a single stew. The lines of race and ethnicity were blurred in the long years of war and peace, migration and intermarriage, and learning to live and work in close proximity whether they liked it or not. This big heterogeneous mix eventually coalesced into a single multiethnic people that had all the essential characteristics of the modern Han Chinese population. Influence went both ways, but the main thrust was in the direction of the Sinicization of the non‐Han peoples.

Chinese have traditionally subscribed to the idea that unity under a strong, centralized government is a good thing, and disunity is bad. But this dictum does not always apply. Take the Han Dynasty, for example. The Martial Emperor had a very strong, centralized, and stable government that controlled a vast territory, a huge population, vital portions of the economy, and even people’s thinking, but it produced no outstanding intellectual figures. (Sima Qian wrote his great work, Historical Record, in secret.) On the other hand, during the periods of disunity of the Warring States and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a galaxy of intellectual talents. It seems evident that a strong despotic government stifles intellectual creativity, while the removal of the heavy hand of government releases creative energies.

Two outstanding works, one on agriculture and the other on geography, were written during the sixth century. Jia Sixie’s Vital Technologies That Benefit the Common People is a systematic summery of the Han people’s methods of growing grains, fruit trees, and forests; raising domestic animals, fowl, and fish; processing and preserving foods; and utilizing feral plants. Li Daoyuan’s On the Waterways describes over a thousand rivers in China’s network of waterways; it also reports on the towns, cities, and produce along the rivers, and the local customs, legends, and histories. It is of great literary merit as well.

The decline and fall of dynasties throughout the ages have much in common. A manageable list of contributing factors might look something like this:

1 An emperor’s personal flaws were often the biggest problem. Since his primary qualification for becoming emperor was birth and not merit, his personal traits—such as his ignorance and arrogance, his extravagant lifestyles and costly construction projects, and worst of all his unnecessary wars—would often inflict irreparable damage to the dynasty. And since there were no institutional checks and balances on his power, or only inadequate ones, his destructive behavior would generally continue until his demise.

2 The existence of multiple centers of power was always a threat to the survival of a regime. These challengers usually came from the queen’s family, powerful bureaucrats at the imperial court, frontier generals, and eunuch cliques. The increase of power of these factions would reduce the emperor to a figurehead and induce paralysis at the highest levels of power. Discordance, palace intrigues, wars, famines, peasant rebellions, and nomadic invasions would follow.

3 The polarization of wealth and poverty always intensified as dynasties aged. The rich and powerful social groups would gradually acquire tax exemption status, reducing the size of the taxable land and population, and shifting the tax burden onto the small landholders and peasants. Excessive taxation, backed by inescapable harsh repression, would increase social tensions and shake the foundations of imperial rule.

4 The peasantry would be driven to rise in armed rebellion when the burden of taxes and labor service became unbearable, or when natural disaster (such as drought, flood, and locusts) struck. Most would soon be wiped out by government forces, but not before they had shaken the foundations of the old, dysfunctional regime. Peasant rebellions never managed to create a distinctly new and sustainable regime. A few would succeed in founding a new dynasty, and such emperors would always outdo their traditional counterparts in their brazen tyranny and brutality.

5 The struggle between the agricultural Han Chinese and their nomadic non‐Han neighbors was an ongoing problem in Chinese history. When a Han Chinese regime was strong, it would expand and encroach on nomadic territories; and when the non‐Han nomads grew in strength, they would raid and invade Han Chinese territories. These struggles did damage to both parties in the long run.