THE EPOCH OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF CHINA
(A) The period of transition: the Five Dynasties (A.D. 906-960)
1 Beginning of a new epoch
The rebelion of Huang Ch'ao in fact meant the end of the T'ang dynasty and the division of China into a number of independent states. Only for reasons of convenience we keep the traditional division into dynasties and have our new period begin with the official end of the T'ang dynasty in 906. We decided to cal the new thousand
years of Chinese history "Modern Times" in order to indicate that from c. 860 on changes in China's social structure came about which set this epoch off from the earlier thousand years which we caled "The Middle
Ages". Any division into periods is arbitrary as changes do not happen from one year to the next. The first beginnings of the changes which lead to the "Modern Times" actualy can be seen from the end of An Lu-shan's rebelion on, from c. A.D. 780 on, and the transformation was more or less completed only in the middle of the eleventh century.
If we want to characterize the "Modern Times" by one concept, we would have to cal this epoch the time of the emergence of a middle class, and it wil be remembered that the growth of the middle class in Europe was also
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
118/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
the decisive change between the Middle Ages and Modern Times in Europe. The paralelism should, however,
not be overdone. The gentry continued to play a role in China during the Modern Times, much more than the
aristocracy did in Europe. The middle class did not ever realy get into power during the whole period.
While we wil discuss the individual developments later in some detail, a few words about the changes in general might be given already here. The wars which folowed Huang Ch'ao's rebelion greatly affected the ruling gentry.
A number of families were so strongly affected that they lost their importance and disappeared. Commoners
from the folowers of Huang Ch'ao or other armies succeeded to get into power, to acquire property and to
enter the ranks of the gentry. At about A.D. 1000 almost half of the gentry families were new families of low
origin. The state, often ruled by men who had just moved up, was no more interested in the aristocratic manners of the old gentry families, especialy no more interested in their genealogies. When conditions began to improve after A.D. 1000, and when the new families felt themselves as real gentry families, they tried to set up a
mechanism to protect the status of their families. In the eleventh century private genealogies began to be kept, so that any claim against the clan could be checked. Clans set up rules of behaviour and procedure to regulate al affairs of the clan without the necessity of asking the state to interfere in case of conflict. Many such "clan rules"
exist in China and also in Japan which took over this innovation. Clans set apart special pieces of land as clan land; the income of this land was to be used to secure a minimum of support for every clan member and his own
family, so that no member ever could fal into utter poverty. Clan schools which were run by income from special pieces of clan land were established to guarantee an education for the members of the clan, again in order to
make sure that the clan would remain a part of the élite. Many clans set up special marriage rules for clan members, and after some time cross-cousin marriages between two or three families were legaly alowed; such
marriages tended to fasten bonds between clans and to prevent the loss of property by marriage. While on the
one hand, a new "clan consciousness" grew up among the gentry families in order to secure their power, tax and corvée legislation especialy in the eleventh century induced many families to split up into smal families.
It can be shown that over the next centuries, the power of the family head increased. He was now regarded as
owner of the property, not only mere administrator of family property. He got power over life and death of his children. This increase of power went together with a change of the position of the ruler. The period transition (until c. A.D. 1000) was folowed by a period of "moderate absolutism" (until 1278) in which emperors as persons played a greater role than before, and some emperors, such as Shen Tsung (in 1071), even declared
that they regarded the welfare of the masses as more important than the profit of the gentry. After 1278,
however, the personal influence of the emperors grew further towards absolutism and in times became pure
despotism.
Individuals, especialy family heads, gained more freedom in "Modern Times". Not only the period of transition, but also the folowing period was a time of much greater social mobility than existed in the Middle Ages. By
various legal and/or ilegal means people could move up into positions of power and wealth: we know of many
merchants who succeeded in being alowed to enter the state examinations and thus got access to jobs in the
administration. Large, influential gentry families in the capital protected sons from less important families and thus gave them a chance to move into the gentry. Thus, these families built up a clientele of lesser gentry families which assisted them and upon the loyalty of which they could count. The gentry can from now on be divided into two
parts. First, there was a "big gentry" which consisted of much fewer families than in earlier times and which directed the policy in the capital; and secondly, there was a "smal gentry" which was operating mainly in the provincial cities, directing local affairs and bound by ties of loyalty to big gentry families. Gentry cliques now extended into the provinces and it often became possible to identify a clique with a geographical area, which, however, usualy did not indicate particularistic tendencies.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
119/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
Individual freedom did not show itself only in greater social mobility. The restrictions which, for instance, had made the craftsmen and artisans almost into serfs, were gradualy lifted. From the early sixteenth century on,
craftsmen were free and no more subject to forced labour services for the state. Most craftsmen in this epoch
stil had their shops in one lane or street and lived above their shops, as they had done in the earlier period. But from now on, they began to organize in guilds of an essentialy religious character, as similar guilds in other parts of Asia at the same time also did. They provided welfare services for their members, made some attempts
towards standardization of products and prices, imposed taxes upon their members, kept their streets clean and tried to regulate salaries. Apprentices were initiated in a kind of semi-religious ceremony, and often meetings took place in temples. No guild, however, connected people of the same craft living in different cities. Thus, they did not achieve political power. Furthermore, each trade had its own guild; in Peking in the nineteenth century there existed over 420 different guilds. Thus, guilds failed to achieve political influence even within individual cities.
Probably at the same time, regional associations, the so-caled " hui-kuan" originated. Such associations united people from one city or one area who lived in another city. People of different trades, but mainly businessmen, came together under elected chiefs and councilors. Sometimes, such regional associations could function as
pressure groups, especialy as they were usualy financialy stronger than the guilds. They often owned city
property or farm land. Not al merchants, however, were so organized. Although merchants remained under
humiliating restrictions as to the colour and material of their dress and the prohibition to ride a horse, they could more often circumvent such restrictions and in general had much more freedom in this epoch.
Trade, including overseas trade, developed greatly from now on. Soon we find in the coastal ports a special
office which handled custom and registration affairs, supplied interpreters for foreigners, received them officialy and gave good-bye dinners when they left. Down to the thirteenth century, most of this overseas trade was stil in the hands of foreigners, mainly Indians. Entrepreneurs hired ships, if they were not ship-owners, hired trained merchants who in turn hired sailors mainly from the South-East Asian countries, and sold their own merchandise as wel as took goods on commission. Wealthy Chinese gentry families invested money in such foreign
enterprises and in some cases even gave their daughters in marriage to foreigners in order to profit from this business.
We also see an emergence of industry from the eleventh century on. We find men who were running almost
monopolistic enterprises, such as preparing charcoal for iron production and producing iron and steel at the same time; some of these men had several factories, operating under hired and qualified managers with more than 500
labourers. We find beginnings of a labour legislation and the first strikes (A.D. 782 the first strike of merchants in the capital; 1601 first strike of textile workers).
Some of these labourers were so-caled "vagrants", farmers who had secretly left their land or their landlord's land for various reasons, and had shifted to other regions where they did not register and thus did not pay taxes.
Entrepreneurs liked to hire them for industries outside the towns where supervision by the government was not
so strong; naturaly, these "vagrants" were completely at the mercy of their employers.
Since c. 780 the economy can again be caled a money economy; more and more taxes were imposed in form of money instead of in kind. This pressure forced farmers out of the land and into the cities in order to earn there the cash they needed for their tax payments. These men provided the labour force for industries, and this in turn led to the strong growth of the cities, especialy in Central China where trade and industries developed most.
Wealthy people not only invested in industrial enterprises, but also began to make heavy investments in
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
120/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
agriculture in the vicinity of cities in order to increase production and thus income. We find men who drained lakes in order to create fields below the water level for easy irrigation; others made floating fields on lakes and avoided land tax payments; stil others combined pig and fish breeding in one operation.
The introduction of money economy and money taxes led to a need for more coinage. As metal was scarce and
minting very expensive, iron coins were introduced, silver became more and more common as means of
exchange, and paper money was issued. As the relative value of these moneys changed with supply and demand,
speculation became a flourishing business which led to further enrichment of people in business. Even the
government became more money-minded: costs of operations and even of wars were carefuly calculated in
order to achieve savings; financial specialists were appointed by the government, just as clans appointed such men for the efficient administration of their clan properties.
Yet no real capitalism or industrialism developed until towards the end of this epoch, although at the end of the twelfth century almost al conditions for such a development seemed to be given.
2 Political situation in the tenth century
The Chinese cal the period from 906 to 960 the "period of the Five Dynasties" ( Wu Tai). This is not quite accurate. It is true that there were five dynasties in rapid succession in North China; but at the same time there were ten other dynasties in South China. The ten southern dynasties, however, are regarded as not legitimate.
The south was much better off with its ilegitimate dynasties than the north with the legitimate ones. The dynasties in the south (we may dispense with giving their names) were the realms of some of the military governors so often mentioned above. These governors had already become independent at the end of the T'ang epoch; they
declared themselves kings or emperors and ruled particular provinces in the south, the chief of which covered the territory of the present provinces of Szechwan, Kwangtung and Chekiang. In these territories there was
comparative peace and economic prosperity, since they were able to control their own affairs and were no
longer dependent on a corrupt central government. They also made great cultural progress, and they did not lose their importance later when they were annexed in the period of the Sung dynasty.
As an example of these states one may mention the smal state of Ch'u in the present province of Hunan. Here,
Ma Yin, a former carpenter (died 931), had made himself a king. He controled some of the main trade routes,
set up a clean administration, bought up al merchandise which the merchants brought, but alowed them to
export only local products, mainly tea, iron and lead. This regulation gave him a personal income of several
milions every year, and in addition fostered the exploitation of the natural resources of this hitherto retarded area.
3 Monopolistic trade in South China. Printing and paper money in the north
The prosperity of the smal states of South China was largely due to the growth of trade, especialy the tea trade.
The habit of drinking tea seems to have been an ancient Tibetan custom, which spread to south-eastern China in the third century A.D. Since then there had been two main centres of production, Szechwan and south-eastern
China. Until the eleventh century Szechwan had remained the leading producer, and tea had been drunk in the
Tibetan fashion, mixed with flour, salt, and ginger. It then began to be drunk without admixture. In the T'ang epoch tea drinking spread al over China, and there sprang up a class of wholesalers who bought the tea from the peasants, accumulated stocks, and distributed them. From 783 date the first attempts of the state to monopolize the tea trade and to make it a source of revenue; but it failed in an attempt to make the cultivation a state
monopoly. A tea commissariat was accordingly set up to buy the tea from the producers and supply it to traders in possession of a state licence. There naturaly developed then a pernicious colaboration between state officials www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
121/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
and the wholesalers. The latter soon eliminated the smal traders, so that they themselves secured al the profit; official support was secured by bribery. The state and the wholesalers alike were keenly interested in the
prevention of tea smuggling, which was strictly prohibited.
The position was much the same with regard to salt. We have here for the first time the association of officials with wholesalers or even with a monopoly trade. This was of the utmost importance in al later times. Monopoly
progressed most rapidly in Szechwan, where there had always been a numerous commercial community. In the
period of political fragmentation Szechwan, as the principal tea-producing region and at the same time an
important producer of salt, was much better off than any other part of China. Salt in Szechwan was largely
produced by, technicaly, very interesting salt wels which existed there since c. the first century B.C. The importance of salt wil be understood if we remember that a grown-up person in China uses an average of twelve
pounds of salt per year. The salt tax was the top budget item around A.D. 900.
South-eastern China was also the chief centre of porcelain production, although china clay is found also in North China. The use of porcelain spread more and more widely. The first translucent porcelain made its appearance,
and porcelain became an important article of commerce both within the country and for export. Already the
Muslim rulers of Baghdad around 800 used imported Chinese porcelain, and by the end of the fourteenth century
porcelain was known in Eastern Africa. Exports to South-East Asia and Indonesia, and also to Japan gained
more and more importance in later centuries. Manufacture of high quality porcelain cals for considerable
amounts of capital investment and working capital; smal manufacturers produce too many second-rate pieces;
thus we have here the first beginnings of an industry that developed industrial towns such as Ching-tê, in which the majority of the population were workers and merchants, with some 10,000 families alone producing
porcelain. Yet, for many centuries to come, the state controled the production and even the design of porcelain and appropriated most of the production for use at court or as gifts.
The third important new development to be mentioned was that of printing, which since c. 770 was known in the form of wood-block printing. The first reference to a printed book dated from 835, and the most important event in this field was the first printing of the Classics by the orders of Feng Tao (882-954) around 940. The first attempts to use movable type in China occurred around 1045, although this invention did not get general
acceptance in China. It was more commonly used in Korea from the thirteenth century on and revolutionized
Europe from 1538 on. It seems to me that from the middle of the twentieth century on, the West, too, shows a
tendency to come back to the printing of whole pages, but replacing the wood blocks by photographic plates or
other means. In the Far East, just as in Europe, the invention of printing had far-reaching consequences. Books, which until then had been very dear, because they had to be produced by copyists, could now be produced
cheaply and in quantity. It became possible for a scholar to accumulate a library of his own and to work in a
wide field, where earlier he had been confined to a few books or even a single text. The results were the spread of education, beginning with reading and writing, among wider groups, and the broadening of education: a large number of texts were read and compared, and no longer only a few. Private libraries came into existence, so that the imperial libraries were no longer the only ones. Publishing soon grew in extent, and in private enterprise works were printed that were not so serious and politicaly important as the classic books of the past. Thus a
new type of literature, the literature of entertainment, could come into existence. Not al these consequences
showed themselves at once; some made their first appearance later, in the Sung period.
A fourth important innovation, this time in North China, was the introduction of prototypes of paper money. The Chinese copper "cash" was difficult or expensive to transport, simply because of its weight. It thus presented great obstacles to trade. Occasionaly a region with an adverse balance of trade would lose al its copper money, www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
122/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
with the result of a local deflation. From time to time, iron money was introduced in such deficit areas; it had for the first time been used in Szechwan in the first century B.C., and was there extensively used in the tenth century when after the conquest of the local state al copper was taken to the east by the conquerors. So long as there was an orderly administration, the government could send it money, though at considerable cost; but if the
administration was not functioning wel, the deflation continued. For this reason some provinces prohibited the export of copper money from their territory at the end of the eighth century. As the provinces were in the hands of military governors, the central government could do next to nothing to prevent this. On the other hand, the prohibition automaticaly made an end of al external trade. The merchants accordingly began to prepare deposit
certificates, and in this way to set up a sort of transfer system. Soon these deposit certificates entered into circulation as a sort of medium of payment at first again in Szechwan, and gradualy this led to a banking system and the linking of wholesale trade with it. This made possible a much greater volume of trade. Towards the end of the T'ang period the government began to issue deposit certificates of its own: the merchant deposited his
copper money with a government agency, receiving in exchange a certificate which he could put into circulation like money. Meanwhile the government could put out the deposited money at interest, or throw it into general
circulation. The government's deposit certificates were now printed. They were the predecessors of the paper
money used from the time of the Sung.
4 Political history of the Five Dynasties
The southern states were a factor not to be ignored in the calculations of the northern dynasties. Although the southern kingdoms were involved in a confusion of mutual hostilities, any one of them might come to the fore as the aly of Turks or other northern powers. The capital of the first of the five northern dynasties (once more a Liang dynasty, but not to be confused with the Liang dynasty of the south in the sixth century) was, moreover, quite close to the territories of the southern dynasties, close to the site of the present K'ai-feng, in the fertile plain of eastern China with its good means of transport. Militarily the town could not be held, for its one and only defence was the Yelow River. The founder of this Later Liang dynasty, Chu Ch'üan-chung (906), was himself an
eastern Chinese and, as wil be remembered, a past supporter of the revolutionary Huang Ch'ao, but he had then
gone over to the T'ang and had gained high military rank.
His northern frontier remained stil more insecure than the southern, for Chu Ch'üan-chung did not succeed in
destroying the Turkish general Li K'o-yung; on the contrary, the latter continualy widened the range of his
power. Fortunately he, too, had an enemy at his back—the Kitan (or Khitan), whose ruler had made himself
emperor in 916, and so staked a claim to reign over al China. The first Kitan emperor held a middle course
between Chu and Li, and so was able to establish and expand his empire in peace. The striking power of his
empire, which from 937 onward was officialy caled the Liao empire, grew steadily, because the old tribal league of the Kitan was transformed into a centraly commanded military organization.
To these dangers from abroad threatening the Later Liang state internal troubles were added. Chu Ch'üan-
chung's dynasty was one of the three Chinese dynasties that have ever come to power through a popular rising.
He himself was of peasant origin, and so were a large part of his subordinates and helpers. Many of them had
originaly been independent peasant leaders; others had been under Huang Ch'ao. Al of them were opposed to
the gentry, and the great slaughter of the gentry of the capital, shortly before the beginning of Chu's rule, had been welcomed by Chu and his folowers. The gentry therefore would not co-operate with Chu and preferred to
join the Turk Li K'o-yung. But Chu could not confidently rely on his old comrades. They were jealous of his
success in gaining the place they al coveted, and were ready to join in any independent enterprise as opportunity offered. Al of them, moreover, as soon as they were given any administrative post, busied themselves with the
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
123/257
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
acquisition of money and wealth as quickly as possible. These abuses not only ate into the revenues of the state but actualy produced a common front between the peasantry and the remnants of the gentry against the upstarts.
In 917, after Li K'o-yung's death, the Sha-t'o Turks beat off an attack from the Kitan, and so were safe for a time from the northern menace. They then marched against the Liang state, where a crisis had been produced in
912 after the murder of Chu Ch'üan-chung by one of his sons. The Liang generals saw no reason why they
should fight for the dynasty, and al of them went over to the enemy. Thus the "Later T'ang dynasty" (923-936) came into power in North China, under the son of Li K'o-yung.
The dominant element at this time was quite clearly the Chinese gentry, especialy in western and central China.
The Sha-t'o themselves must have been extraordinarily few in number, probably little more than 100,000 men.
Most of them, moreover, were politicaly passive, being simple soldiers. Only the ruling family and its folowing played any active part, together with a few families related to it by marriage. The whole state was regarded by the Sha-t'o rulers as a sort of family enterprise, members of the family being placed in the most important
positions. As there were not enough of them, they adopted into the family large numbers of aliens of al
nationalities. Military posts were given to faithful members of Li K'o-yung's or his successor's bodyguard, and also to domestic servants and other clients of the family. Thus, while in the Later Liang state elements from the peasantry had risen in the world, some of these neo-gentry reaching the top of the social pyramid in the centuries that folowed, in the Sha-t'o state some of its warriors, drawn from the most various peoples, entered the gentry class through their personal relations with the ruler. But in spite of al this the bulk of the officials came once more from the Chinese. These educated Chinese not only succeeded in winning over the rulers themselves to the
Chinese cultural ideal, but persuaded them to adopt laws that substantialy restricted the privileges of the Sha-t'o and brought advantages only to the Chinese gentry. Consequently al the Chinese historians are enthusiastic about the "Later T'ang", and especialy about the emperor Ming Ti, who reigned from 927 onward, after the
assassination of his predecessor. They also abused the Liang because they were against the gentry.
In 936 the Later T'ang dynasty gave place to the Later Chin dynasty (936-946), but this involved no change in
the structure of the empire. The change of dynasty meant no more than that instead of the son folowing the father the son-in-law had ascended the throne. It was of more importance that the son-in-law, the Sha-t'o Turk Shih
Ching-t'ang, succeeded in doing this by alying himself with the Kitan and ceding to them some of the northern
provinces. The youthful successor, however, of the first ruler of this dynasty was soon made to realize that the Kitan regarded the founding of his dynasty as no more than a transition stage on the way to their annexation of the whole of North China. The old Sha-t'o nobles, who had not been sinified in the slightest, suggested a
preventive war; the actual court group, strongly sinified, hesitated, but ultimately were unable to avoid war. The war was very quickly decided by several governors in eastern China going over to the Kitan, who had promised
them the imperial title. In the course of 946-7 the Kitan occupied the capital and almost the whole of the country.
In 947 the Kitan ruler proclaimed himself emperor of the Kitan and the Chinese.
[Ilustration: Map 6: The State of the later T'ang dynasty]
The Chinese gentry seem to have accepted this situation because a Kitan emperor was just as acceptable to
them as a Sha-t'o emperor; but the Sha-t'o were not prepared to submit to the Kitan regime, because under it
they would have lost their position of privilege. At the head of this opposition group stood the Sha-t'o general Liu Chih-yuan, who founded the "Later Han dynasty" (947-950). He was able to hold out against the Kitan only because in 947 the Kitan emperor died and his son had to leave China and retreat to the north; fighting had
broken out between the empress dowager, who had some Chinese support, and the young heir to the throne.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11367/pg11367.html
124/257
8/15/12