A History of China Part 9

5 _Sociological a.n.a.lysis of the petty States_

The states that took the place of Fu Chien's empire, those many diminutive states (the Chinese speak of the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms), may be divided from the economic point of view into two groups--trading states and warrior states; sociologically they also fall into two groups, tribal states and military states.

The small states in the west, in Kansu (the Later Liang and the Western, Northern, and Southern Liang), were trading states: they lived on the earnings of transit trade with Turkestan. The eastern states were warrior states, in which an army commander ruled by means of an armed group of non-Chinese and exploited an agricultural population. It is only logical that such states should be short-lived, as in fact they all were.

Sociologically regarded, during this period only the Southern and Northern Liang were still tribal states. In addition to these came the young Toba realm, which began in 385 but of which mention has not yet been made. The basis of that state was the tribe, not the family or the individual; after its political disintegration the separate tribes remained in existence. The other states of the east, however, were military states, made up of individuals with no tribal allegiance but subject to a military commandant. But where there is no tribal a.s.sociation, after the political downfall of a state founded by ethnical groups, those groups sooner or later disappear as such. We see this in the years immediately following Fu Chien's collapse: the Tibetan ethnical group to which he himself belonged disappeared entirely from the historical scene. The two Tibetan groups that outlasted him, also forming military states and not tribal states, similarly came to an end shortly afterwards for all time. The Hsien-pi groups in the various fragments of the empire, with the exception of the petty states in Kansu, also continued, only as tribal fragments led by a few old ruling families. They, too, after brief and undistinguished military rule, came to an end; they disappeared so completely that thereafter we no longer find the term Hsien-pi in history. Not that they had been exterminated.

When the social structure and its corresponding economic form fall to pieces, there remain only two alternatives for its individuals. Either they must go over to a new form, which in China could only mean that they became Chinese; many Hsien-pi in this way became Chinese in the decades following 384. Or, they could retain their old way of living in a.s.sociation with another stock of similar formation; this, too, happened in many cases. Both these courses, however, meant the end of the Hsien-pi as an independent ethnical unit. We must keep this process and its reasons in view if we are to understand how a great people can disappear once and for all.

The Huns, too, so powerful in the past, were suddenly scarcely to be found any longer. Among the many petty states there were many Hsien-pi kingdoms, but only a single, quite small Hun state, that of the Northern Liang. The disappearance of the Huns was, however, only apparent; at this time they remained in the Ordos region and in Shansi as separate nomad tribes with no integrating political organization; their time had still to come.

6 _Spread of Buddhism_

According to the prevalent Chinese view, nothing of importance was achieved during this period in north China in the intellectual sphere; there was no culture in the north, only in the south. This is natural: for a Confucian this period, the fourth century, was one of degeneracy in north China, for no one came into prominence as a celebrated Confucian. Nothing else could be expected, for in the north the gentry, which had been the cla.s.s that maintained Confucianism since the Han period, had largely been destroyed; from political leaders.h.i.+p especially it had been shut out during the periods of alien rule. Nor could we expect to find Taoists in the true sense, that is to say followers of the teaching of Lao Tz[)u], for these, too, had been dependent since the Han period on the gentry. Until the fourth century, these two had remained the dominant philosophies.

What could take their place? The alien rulers had left little behind them. Most of them had been unable to write Chinese, and in so far as they were warriors they had no interest in literature or in political philosophy, for they were men of action. Few songs and poems of theirs remain extant in translations from their language into Chinese, but these preserve a strong alien flavour in their mental att.i.tude and in their diction. They are the songs of fighting men, songs that were sung on horseback, songs of war and its sufferings. These songs have nothing of the excessive formalism and aestheticism of the Chinese, but give expression to simple emotions in unpolished language with a direct appeal. The epic of the Turkish peoples had clearly been developed already, and in north China it produced a rudimentary ballad literature, to which four hundred years later no less attention was paid than to the emotional world of contemporary songs. The actual literature, however, and the philosophy of this period are Buddhist. How can we explain that Buddhism had gained such influence?

It will be remembered that Buddhism came to China overland and by sea in the Han epoch. The missionary monks who came from abroad with the foreign merchants found little approval among the Chinese gentry. They were regarded as second-rate persons belonging, according to Chinese notions, to an inferior social cla.s.s. Thus the monks had to turn to the middle and lower cla.s.ses in China. Among these they found widespread acceptance, not of their profound philosophic ideas, but of their doctrine of the after life. This doctrine was in a certain sense revolutionary: it declared that all the high officials and superiors who treated the people so unjustly and who so exploited them, would in their next reincarnation be born in poor circ.u.mstances or into inferior rank and would have to suffer punishment for all their ill deeds. The poor who had to suffer undeserved evils would be born in their next life into high rank and would have a good time. This doctrine brought a ray of light, a promise, to the country people who had suffered so much since the later Han period of the second century A.D. Their situation remained unaltered down to the fourth century; and under their alien rulers the Chinese country population became Buddhist.

The merchants made use of the Buddhist monasteries as banks and warehouses. Thus they, too, were well inclined towards Buddhism and gave money and land for its temples. The temples were able to settle peasants on this land as their tenants. In those times a temple was a more reliable landlord than an individual alien, and the poorer peasants readily became temple tenants; this increased their inclination towards Buddhism.

The Indian, Sogdian, and Turkestani monks were readily allowed to settle by the alien rulers of China, who had no national prejudice against other aliens. The monks were educated men and brought some useful knowledge from abroad. Educated Chinese were scarcely to be found, for the gentry retired to their estates, which they protected as well as they could from their alien ruler. So long as the gentry had no prospect of regaining control of the threads of political life that extended throughout China, they were not prepared to provide a cla.s.s of officials and scholars for the anti-Confucian foreigners, who showed interest only in fighting and trading. Thus educated persons were needed at the courts of the alien rulers, and Buddhists were therefore engaged. These foreign Buddhists had all the important Buddhist writings translated into Chinese, and so made use of their influence at court for religious propaganda. This does not mean that every text was translated from Indian languages; especially in the later period many works appeared which came not from India but from Sogdia or Turkestan, or had even been written in China by Sogdians or other natives of Turkestan, and were then translated into Chinese. In Turkestan, Khotan in particular became a centre of Buddhist culture. Buddhism was influenced by vestiges of indigenous cults, so that Khotan developed a special religious atmosphere of its own; deities were honoured there (for instance, the king of Heaven of the northerners) to whom little regard was paid elsewhere. This "Khotan Buddhism" had special influence on the Buddhist Turkish peoples.

Big translation bureaux were set up for the preparation of these translations into Chinese, in which many copyists simultaneously took down from dictation a translation made by a "master" with the aid of a few native helpers. The translations were not literal, but were paraphrases, most of them greatly reduced in length, glosses were introduced when the translator thought fit for political or doctrinal reasons, or when he thought that in this way he could better adapt the texts to Chinese feeling.

Buddhism, quite apart from the special case of "Khotan Buddhism", underwent extensive modification on its way across Central Asia. Its main Indian form (Hinayana) was a purely individualistic religion of salvation without a G.o.d--related in this respect to genuine Taoism--and based on a concept of two cla.s.ses of people: the monks who could achieve salvation and, secondly, the ma.s.ses who fed the monks but could not achieve salvation. This religion did not gain a footing in China; only traces of it can be found in some Buddhistic sects in China. Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, developed into a true popular religion of salvation. It did not interfere with the indigenous deities and did not discountenance life in human society; it did not recommend Nirvana at once, but placed before it a here-after with all the joys worth striving for. In this form Buddhism was certain of success in Asia. On its way from India to China it divided into countless separate streams, each characterized by a particular book. Every nuance, from profound philosophical treatises to the most superficial little tracts written for the simplest of souls, and even a good deal of Turkestan shamanism and Tibetan belief in magic, found their way into Buddhist writings, so that some Buddhist monks practiced Central Asian Shamanism.

In spite of Buddhism, the old religion of the peasants retained its vitality. Local diviners, Chinese shamans (_wu_), sorcerers, continued their practices, although from now on they sometimes used Buddhist phraseology. Often, this popular religion is called "Taoism ", because a systematization of the popular pantheon was attempted, and Lao Tz[)u]

and other Taoists played a role in this pantheon. Philosophic Taoism continued in this time, aside from the church-Taoism of Chang Ling and, naturally, all kinds of contacts between these three currents occurred.

The Chinese state cult, the cult of Heaven saturated with Confucianism, was another living form of religion. The alien rulers, in turn, had brought their own mixture of wors.h.i.+p of Heaven and shamanism. Their wors.h.i.+p of Heaven was their official "representative" religion; their shamanism the private religion of the individual in his daily life. The alien rulers, accordingly, showed interest in the Chinese shamans as well as in the shamanistic aspects of Mahayana Buddhism. Not infrequently compet.i.tions were arranged by the rulers between priests of the different religious systems, and the rulers often competed for the possession of monks who were particularly skilled in magic or soothsaying.

But what was the position of the "official" religion? Were the aliens to hold to their own wors.h.i.+p of heaven, or were they to take over the official Chinese cult, or what else? This problem posed itself already in the fourth century, but it was left unsolved.

(D) The Toba empire in North China (A.D. 385-550)

1 _The rise of the Toba State_

On the collapse of Fu Chien's empire one more state made its appearance; it has not yet been dealt with, although it was the most important one.

This was the empire of the Toba, in the north of the present province of Shansi. Fu Chien had brought down the small old Toba state in 376, but had not entirely destroyed it. Its territory was part.i.tioned, and part was placed under the administration of a Hun: in view of the old rivalry between Toba and Huns, this seemed to Fu Chien to be the best way of preventing any revival of the Toba. However, a descendant of the old ruling family of the Toba succeeded, with the aid of related families, in regaining power and forming a small new kingdom. Very soon many tribes which still lived in north China and which had not been broken up into military units, joined him. Of these there were ultimately 119, including many Hun tribes from Shansi and also many Hsien-pi tribes.

Thus the question who the Toba were is not easy to answer. The leading tribe itself had migrated southward in the third century from the frontier territory between northern Mongolia and northern Manchuria.

After this migration the first Toba state, the so-called Tai state, was formed (338-376); not much is known about it. The tribes that, from 385 after the break-up of the Tibetan empire, grouped themselves round this ruling tribe, were both Turkish and Mongol; but from the culture and language of the Toba we think it must be inferred that the ruling tribe itself as well as the majority of the other tribes were Turkish; in any case, the Turkish element seems to have been stronger than the Mongolian.

Thus the new Toba kingdom was a tribal state, not a military state. But the tribes were no longer the same as in the time of Liu Yuan a hundred years earlier. Their total population must have been quite small; we must a.s.sume that they were but the remains of 119 tribes rather than 119 full-sized tribes. Only part of them were still living the old nomad life; others had become used to living alongside Chinese peasants and had a.s.sumed leaders.h.i.+p among the peasants. These Toba now faced a difficult situation. The country was arid and mountainous and did not yield much agricultural produce. For the many people who had come into the Toba state from all parts of the former empire of Fu Chien, to say nothing of the needs of a capital and a court which since the time of Liu Yuan had been regarded as the indispensable entourage of a ruler who claimed imperial rank, the local production of the Chinese peasants was not enough. All the government officials, who were Chinese, and all the slaves and eunuchs needed grain to eat. Attempts were made to settle more Chinese peasants round the new capital, but without success; something had to be done. It appeared necessary to embark on a campaign to conquer the fertile plain of eastern China. In the course of a number of battles the Hsien-pi of the "Later Yen" were annihilated and eastern China conquered (409).

Now a new question arose: what should be done with all those people?

Nomads used to enslave their prisoners and use them for watching their flocks. Some tribal chieftains had adopted the practice of establis.h.i.+ng captives on their tribal territory as peasants. There was an opportunity now to subject the millions of Chinese captives to servitude to the various tribal chieftains in the usual way. But those captives who were peasants could not be taken away from their fields without robbing the country of its food; therefore it would have been necessary to spread the tribes over the whole of eastern China, and this would have added immensely to the strength of the various tribes and would have greatly weakened the central power. Furthermore almost all Chinese officials at the court had come originally from the territories just conquered. They had come from there about a hundred years earlier and still had all their relatives in the east. If the eastern territories had been placed under the rule of separate tribes, and the tribes had been distributed in this way, the gentry in those territories would have been destroyed and reduced to the position of enslaved peasants. The Chinese officials accordingly persuaded the Toba emperor not to place the new territories under the tribes, but to leave them to be administered by officials of the central administration. These officials must have a firm footing in their territory, for only they could extract from the peasants the grain required for the support of the capital. Consequently the Toba government did not enslave the Chinese in the eastern territory, but made the local gentry into government officials, instructing them to collect as much grain as possible for the capital. This Chinese local gentry worked in close collaboration with the Chinese officials at court, a fact which determined the whole fate of the Toba empire.

The Hsien-pi of the newly conquered east no longer belonged to any tribe, but only to military units. They were transferred as soldiers to the Toba court and placed directly under the government, which was thus notably strengthened, especially as the millions of peasants under their Chinese officials were also directly responsible to the central administration. The government now proceeded to convert also its own Toba tribes into military formations. The tribal men of n.o.ble rank were brought to the court as military officers, and so were separated from the common tribesmen and the slaves who had to remain with the herds.

This change, which robbed the tribes of all means of independent action, was not carried out without bloodshed. There were revolts of tribal chieftains which were ruthlessly suppressed. The central government had triumphed, but it realized that more reliance could be placed on Chinese than on its own people, who were used to independence. Thus the Toba were glad to employ more and more Chinese, and the Chinese pressed more and more into the administration. In this process the differing social organizations of Toba and Chinese played an important part. The Chinese have patriarchal families with often hundreds of members. When a member of a family obtains a good position, he is obliged to make provision for the other members of his family and to secure good positions for them too; and not only the members of his own family but those of allied families and of families related to it by marriage. In contrast the Toba had a patriarchal nuclear family system; as nomad warriors with no fixed abode, they were unable to form extended family groups. Among them the individual was much more independent; each one tried to do his best for himself. No Toba thought of collecting a large clique around himself; everybody should be the artificer of his own fortune. Thus, when a Chinese obtained an official post, he was followed by countless others; but when a Toba had a position he remained alone, and so the sinification of the Toba empire went on incessantly.

2 _The Hun kingdom of the Hsia (407-431_)

At the rebuilding of the Toba empire, however, a good many Hun tribes withdrew westward into the Ordos region beyond the reach of the Toba, and there they formed the Hun "Hsia" kingdom. Its ruler, Ho-lien P'o-p'o, belonged to the family of Mao Tun and originally, like Liu Yuan, bore the sinified family name Liu; but he altered this to a Hun name, taking the family name of Ho-lien. This one fact alone demonstrates that the Hsia rejected Chinese culture and were nationalistic Hun. Thus there were now two realms in North China, one undergoing progressive sinification, the other falling back to the old traditions of the Huns.

3 _Rise of the Toba to a great Power_

The present province of Szechwan, in the west, had belonged to Fu Chien's empire. At the break-up of the Tibetan state that province pa.s.sed to the southern Chinese empire and gave the southern Chinese access, though it was very difficult access, to the caravan route leading to Turkestan. The small states in Kansu, which dominated the route, now pa.s.sed on the traffic along two routes, one northward to the Toba and the other alien states in north China, the other through north-west Szechwan to south China. In this way the Kansu states were strengthened both economically and politically, for they were able to direct the commerce either to the northern states or to south China as suited them. When the South Chinese saw the break-up of Fu Chien's empire into numberless fragments, Liu Yu, who was then all-powerful at the South Chinese court, made an attempt to conquer the whole of western China. A great army was sent from South China into the province of Shensi, where the Tibetan empire of the "Later Ch'in" was situated. The Ch'in appealed to the Toba for help, but the Toba were themselves too hotly engaged to be able to spare troops. They also considered that South China would be unable to maintain these conquests, and that they themselves would find them later an easy prey. Thus in 417 the state of "Later Ch'in" received a mortal blow from the South Chinese army. Large numbers of the upper cla.s.s fled to the Toba. As had been foreseen, the South Chinese were unable to maintain their hold over the conquered territory, and it was annexed with ease by the Hun Ho-lien P'o-p'o. But why not by the Toba?

Towards the end of the fourth century, vestiges of Hun, Hsien-pi, and other tribes had united in Mongolia to form the new people of the Juan-juan (also called Ju-juan or Jou-jan). Scholars disagree as to whether the Juan-juan were Turks or Mongols; European investigators believe them to have been identical with the Avars who appeared in the Near East in 558 and later in Europe, and are inclined, on the strength of a few vestiges of their language, to regard them as Mongols.

Investigations concerning the various tribes, however, show that among the Juan-juan there were both Mongol and Turkish tribes, and that the question cannot be decided in favour of either group. Some of the tribes belonging to the Juan-juan had formerly lived in China. Others had lived farther north or west and came into the history of the Far East now for the first time.

This Juan-juan people threatened the Toba in the rear, from the north.

It made raids into the Toba empire for the same reasons for which the Huns in the past had raided agrarian China; for agriculture had made considerable progress in the Toba empire. Consequently, before the Toba could attempt to expand southward, the Juan-juan peril must be removed.

This was done in the end, after a long series of hard and not always successful struggles. That was why the Toba had played no part in the fighting against South China, and had been unable to take immediate advantage of that fighting.

After 429 the Juan-juan peril no longer existed, and in the years that followed the whole of the small states of the west were destroyed, one after another, by the Toba--the "Hsia kingdom" in 431, bringing down with it the "Western Ch'in", and the "Northern Liang" in 439. The non-Chinese elements of the population of those countries were moved northward and served the Toba as soldiers; the Chinese also, especially the remains of the Kansu "Western Liang" state (conquered in 420), were enslaved, and some of them transferred to the north. Here again, however, the influence of the Chinese gentry made itself felt after a short time. As we know, the Chinese of "Western Liang" in Kansu had originally migrated there from eastern China. Their eastern relatives who had come under Toba rule through the conquest of eastern China and who through their family connections with Chinese officials of the Toba empire had found safety, brought their influence to bear on behalf of the Chinese of Kansu, so that several families regained office and social standing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map 4: The Toba empire (_about A.D. 500_)]

Their expansion into Kansu gave the Toba control of the commerce with Turkestan, and there are many mentions of tribute missions to the Toba court in the years that followed, some even from India. The Toba also spread in the east. And finally there was fighting with South China (430-431), which brought to the Toba empire a large part of the province of Honan with the old capital, Loyang. Thus about 440 the Toba must be described as the most powerful state in the Far East, ruling the whole of North China.

4 _Economic and social conditions_

The internal changes of which there had only been indications in the first period of the Toba empire now proceeded at an accelerated pace.

There were many different factors at work. The whole of the civil administration had gradually pa.s.sed into Chinese hands, the Toba retaining only the military administration. But the wars in the south called for the services of specialists in fortification and in infantry warfare, who were only to be found among the Chinese. The growing influence of the Chinese was further promoted by the fact that many Toba families were exterminated in the revolts of the tribal chieftains, and others were wiped out in the many battles. Thus the Toba lost ground also in the military administration.

The wars down to A.D. 440 had been large-scale wars of conquest, lightning campaigns that had brought in a great deal of booty. With their loot the Toba developed great magnificence and luxury. The campaigns that followed were hard and long-drawn-out struggles, especially against South China, where there was no booty, because the enemy retired so slowly that they could take everything with them. The Toba therefore began to be impoverished, because plunder was the main source of their wealth. In addition to this, their herds gradually deteriorated, for less and less use was made of them; for instance, horses were little required for the campaign against South China, and there was next to no fighting in the north. In contrast with the impoverishment of the Toba, the Chinese gentry grew not only more powerful but more wealthy.

The Toba seem to have tried to prevent this development by introducing the famous "land equalization system" (_chun-t'ien_), one of their most important innovations. The direct purposes of this measure were to resettle uprooted farm population; to prevent further migrations of farmers; and to raise production and taxes. The founder of this system was Li An-s.h.i.+h, member of a Toba family and later husband of an imperial princess. The plan was basically accepted in 477, put into action in 485, and remained the land law until _c_. 750. Every man and every woman had a right to receive a certain amount of land for lifetime.

After their death, the land was redistributed. In addition to this "personal land" there was so-called "mulberry land" on which farmers could plant mulberries for silk production; but they also could plant other crops under the trees. This land could be inherited from father to son and was not redistributed. Incidentally we know many similar regulations for trees in the Near East and Central Asia. As the tax was levied upon the personal land in form of grain, and on the tree land in form of silk, this regulation stimulated the cultivation of diversified crops on the tree land which then was not taxable. The basic idea behind this law was, that all land belonged to the state, a concept for which the Toba could point to the ancient Chou but which also fitted well for a dynasty of conquest. The new "_chun-t'ien_" system required a complete land and population survey which was done in the next years. We know from much later census fragments that the government tried to enforce this equalization law, but did not always succeed; we read statements such as "X has so and so much land; he has a claim on so and so much land and, therefore, has to get so and so much"; but there are no records that X ever received the land due to him.

One consequence of the new land law was a legal fixation of the social cla.s.ses. Already during Han time (and perhaps even earlier) a distinction had been made between "free burghers" (_liang-min_) and "commoners" (_ch'ien-min_). This distinction had continued as informal tradition until, now, it became a legal concept. Only "burghers", i.e.

gentry and free farmers, were real citizens with all rights of a free man. The "commoners" were completely or partly unfree and fell under several heads. Ranking as the lowest cla.s.s were the real slaves (_nu_), divided into state and private slaves. By law, slaves were regarded as pieces of property, not as members of human society. They were, however, forced to marry and thus, as a cla.s.s, were probably reproducing at a rate similar to that of the normal population, while slaves in Europe reproduced at a lower rate than the population. The next higher cla.s.s were serfs (_fan-hu_), hereditary state servants, usually descendants of state slaves. They were obliged to work three months during the year for the state and were paid for this service. They were not registered in their place of residence but under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture which distributed them to other offices, but did not use them for farm work. Similar in status to them were the private bondsmen (_pu-ch'u_), hereditarily attached to gentry families. These serfs received only 50 per cent of the land which a free burgher received under the land law. Higher than these were the service families (_tsa-hu_), who were registered in their place of residence, but had to perform certain services; here we find "tomb families" who cared for the imperial tombs, "shepherd families", postal families, kiln families, soothsayer families, medical families, and musician families. Each of these categories of commoners had its own laws; each had to marry within the category. No intermarriage or adoption was allowed. It is interesting to observe that a similar fixation of the social status of citizens occurred in the Roman Empire from _c_. A.D. 300 on.

Thus in the years between 440 and 490 there were great changes not only in the economic but in the social sphere. The Toba declined in number and influence. Many of them married into rich families of the Chinese gentry and regarded themselves as no longer belonging to the Toba. In the course of time the court was completely sinified.

The Chinese at the court now formed the leading element, and they tried to persuade the emperor to claim dominion over all China, at least in theory, by installing his capital in Loyang, the old centre of China.

This transfer had the advantage for them personally that the territories in which their properties were situated were close to that capital, so that the grain they produced found a ready market. And it was indeed no longer possible to rule the great Toba empire, now covering the whole of North China from North Shansi. The administrative staff was so great that the transport system was no longer able to bring in sufficient food. For the present capital did not lie on a navigable river, and all the grain had to be carted, an expensive and unsafe mode of transport.

Ultimately, in 493-4, the Chinese gentry officials secured the transfer of the capital to Loyang. In the years 490 to 499 the Toba emperor Wen Ti (471-499) took further decisive steps required by the stage reached in internal development. All aliens were prohibited from using their own language in public life. Chinese became the official language. Chinese clothing and customs also became general. The system of administration which had largely followed a pattern developed by the Wei dynasty in the early third century, was changed and took a form which became the model for the T'ang dynasty in the seventh century. It is important to note that in this period, for the first time, an office for religious affairs was created which dealt mainly with Buddhistic monasteries. While after the Toba period such an office for religious affairs disappeared again, this idea was taken up later by j.a.pan when j.a.pan accepted a Chinese-type of administration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 6 Sun Ch'uan, ruler of Wu. _From a painting by Yen Li-pen (c_. 640-680).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 7 General view of the Buddhist cave-temples of Yun-kang.

In the foreground, the present village; in the background, the rampart.

_Photo H. Hammer-Morrisson_.]

Owing to his bringing up, the emperor no longer regarded himself as Toba but as Chinese; he adopted the Chinese culture, acting as he was bound to do if he meant to be no longer an alien ruler in North China. Already he regarded himself as emperor of all China, so that the South Chinese empire was looked upon as a rebel state that had to be conquered. While, however, he succeeded in everything else, the campaign against the south failed except for some local successes.

The transfer of the capital to Loyang was a blow to the Toba n.o.bles.