Wolfram Eberhard's history argues that early Chinese sources cannot be read literally and rejects diffusionist theories of Chinese civilization's origin, organizing China's past into three large periods. The deck covers his chapter structure, editions, periodization, and his treatment of Peking Man, Palaeolithic tools, and early human types in North China.
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Chapter 1 · Question
What does Chapter I of Eberhard's history cover?
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Chapter 1 · Answer
Chapter I, titled 'Prehistory,' covers the sources for the earliest history, the Peking Man, the Palaeolithic Age, the Neolithic Age, the eight principal prehistoric cultures, the Yang-shao culture, the Lung-shan culture, and the first petty States in Shansi. It is the opening chapter of the book's section on the earliest times.
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Section 13 cards
What does Chapter I of Eberhard's history cover?
Chapter I, titled 'Prehistory,' covers the sources for the earliest history, the Peking Man, the Palaeolithic Age, the Neolithic Age, the eight principal prehistoric cultures, the Yang-shao culture, the Lung-shan culture, and the first petty States in Shansi. It is the opening chapter of the book's section on the earliest times.
Chapter 1
How is the book's material organized across its chapters?
The contents divide the book into an Introduction, 'The Earliest Times' (Chapter I on prehistory), 'Antiquity' (Chapters II-V: Shang, Chou, Contending States, Chin), 'The Middle Ages' (Chapters VI-VIII: Han, the first division, Sui and T'ang), and 'Modern Times' (Chapters IX-XII, from the Five Dynasties through the Republic and present-day China).
Chapter 1
What editions and printings does the front matter list for this book?
The book was first published in the U.S.A. by the University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Printings listed are second printing 1955, third printing 1956, second edition (revised by the author and reset) 1960, reprinted 1966, and third edition (revised and enlarged) 1969. The title page names Wolfram Eberhard of the University of California as author.
Chapter 1
Section 24 cards
What two opposing theories about the origin of Chinese civilization does Eberhard reject?
The author rejects both the claim that "the Chinese race" produced high civilization entirely by its own special gifts, and the theory that immigrants from the West, possibly from Europe, brought civilization to the Far East. He argues there was no "Chinese race" in early times; the Chinese resulted from amalgamation of many separate peoples of different races over a long, complicated process.
Chapter 2
Why does Eberhard say early Chinese historical sources cannot be taken at face value?
The author argues the sources were not objective but deliberately represented a particular philosophy. Reports on early emperors and ministers are not historical but served as examples of social policy or glorifications of noble families. Myths were turned into history, and gods were made into men linked by long family trees. The official dynastic histories judge events by Confucian ethics.
Chapter 2
What does Eberhard say about China's relations with its neighbours?
The author argues China should not be seen as a great civilization surrounded by barbarians. He stresses studying the Chinese coming to terms with neighbours—Turks, Mongols, Tibetans, Tunguses, Tai—who had civilizations of different but developed types. He says China was closely associated with them from the first day of her history, greatly indebted to them and also giving much to them.
Chapter 2
What does Eberhard say about the state of research and the purpose of his book?
The author argues a new synthesis is needed because views have changed: excavations now check written sources, and ethnological, anthropological, and sociological research has begun. He admits long periods remain scarcely studied and his picture has no finality. The book targets the general reader, foregrounding social and cultural development and China's relations with neighbours rather than emperors and battles.
Chapter 2
Section 34 cards
What three large periods does Eberhard use to organize Chinese history?
Eberhard divides Chinese history into three large periods: "Antiquity", "The Middle Ages", and "Modern Times". He cautions that these are not to be equated with periods of the same name in Western history, though some similarities exist. He argues that every periodization is to some degree arbitrary and a matter of convenience, since development is continuous and boundaries cannot be fixed to a year.
Chapter 3
Why does modern research reject the traditional account of China's earliest rulers?
The older sources mention no rulers before 2200 B.C., not even their names; earlier ruler names first appear around 400 B.C., with deeds and dates added later. The traditional chronology was shown wrong, requiring lower dates before 900 B.C., and archaeology found no trace of high civilization in the third millennium B.C. Eberhard states a real "Chinese civilization" can only be spoken of from 1300 B.C. onward.
Chapter 3
What does the chapter say about the Peking Man and his remains?
Peking Man's bones were found in caves at Chou-k'ou-tien south of Peking. He is described as vastly different from modern humans, a special branch closely allied to Java's Pithecanthropus, possibly with some characteristics of the yellow race. He lived in caves, was presumably a hunter with simple stone implements and fire-making skills. Since no complete skeletons were found, it is assumed he buried certain bones separately, suggesting religious notions.
Chapter 3
What characterizes the Palaeolithic stone implements found in North China?
About 50,000 B.C. a hunting people lived by lakes in the Ordos region, leaving stone implements (and a few bone ones) found in many places. These are comparable in type to European palaeolithic implements (Mousterian, more rarely Aurignacian or even Magdalenian) but are not exactly like them, having a character of their own. All were found on the surface, exposed by wind sweeping away the loess.
Chapter 3
Section 44 cards
What human type appeared in North China around 25,000 B.C., and what became of them?
A new palaeolithic human type appeared in North China around 25,000 B.C., found in upper layers of the same caves that sheltered Peking Man. The chapter states this type was beyond doubt not Mongoloid and may have been allied to the Ainu of northern Japan. They later disappeared, probably absorbed into populations of central and northern Asia, and remains have been found in graves in northern Korea.
Chapter 4
What four regional neolithic cultures does the chapter distinguish around 4000 B.C.?
Around 4000 B.C. the chapter distinguishes several separate neolithic cultures. In the north-west was cattle-breeding combined with agriculture, marked by finely polished axes of rectangular section. Farther east, in the north and reaching south, was a culture with round or oval-section axes. In the south and coastal region, from Nanking to Tonking and reaching Korea and Japan, was a shoulder-axe culture. Szechwan and Yuennan represented a further independent culture.
Chapter 4
Which modern peoples does the chapter link to the shoulder-axe and oval-axe cultures?
The chapter links the shoulder-axe culture, which later penetrated to eastern India, to the Austroasiatics: the original stock of Australian aborigines, surviving as the Munda tribes in India and the Mon-Khmer in Indo-China, with pockets in Indonesia and Melanesia. The oval-axe peoples are identified as the so-called Papuan peoples of Melanesia. Both groups migrated from southern China and influenced ancient Japanese culture.
Chapter 4
What does the chapter say about the eight principal prehistoric cultures around 2500 B.C.?
Around 2500 B.C. the chapter finds no trace of a Chinese realm, but a considerable number of separate local cultures each developing on its own lines. In the north and west were herdsmen cultures: north-east (Tungus ancestors, hunters with coarse pottery and later pig-breeding), northern (proto-Mongol pastoralists), north-west (probable Turkish ancestors, with horses), and west (Tibetan ancestors, shepherds). In the south were agrarian cultures, the Tai being most powerful and most important to later China.
Chapter 4
Section 54 cards
What defines Yang-shao culture's distinctive pottery, and when did it flourish?
The Yang-shao culture is named after a prehistoric settlement in western Honan found by Swedish investigators. Its hallmark is fine painted pottery in white, red, and black, with stylized patterns, apparently used as gifts to the dead. The style existed from about 2200 B.C., and the typical culture ended around 1600 or 1500 B.C., persisting in remote areas such as Kansu perhaps to about 700 B.C.
Chapter 5
How did Yang-shao people live, and what materials did they use?
They lived in villages near rivers and creeks, in various houses including underground dwellings and animal enclosures. They practised some agriculture—some authors believe rice was known to them—and had domesticated animals. Implements were stone, with rare bone specimens and rectangular axes. Metal was unknown but seems to have been introduced toward the end of the period. For daily life they used mainly coarse grey pottery.
Chapter 5
What is distinctive about Lung-shan pottery, and why does it matter for later China?
Lung-shan culture, discovered in Shantung, is distinguished by exceptionally fine black pottery, polished outside, never painted, at most with incised geometrical patterns, and by a similar absence of metal. Its vessel forms remained typical of Chinese and Far Eastern pottery generally, so the culture may be described as one of the direct predecessors of later Chinese civilization.
Chapter 5
Why is the theory that black pottery arrived via a Pontic migration not generally accepted?
The author notes that typical black pottery is limited to the plains of East China; if brought from the West, considerable amounts should appear in West China. Ordinary black pottery can simply result from a special kiln temperature and occurs almost everywhere. Migrants would also have had to cross the painted-pottery area without leaving many traces. The author suggests Lung-shan peoples were probably of Tai and Yao stocks with some Tunguses.
Chapter 5
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According to Eberhard, how did bronze reach China and where was it first worked?
The author argues bronze came to China from the north, brought by northern peoples such as Turkish tribes (or perhaps only individual smith families), possibly through Mongols. It appears in traces in the middle Yang-shao layers about 1800 B.C. and was widespread by 1400 B.C. Weapon forms initially stayed unaltered; casting soon spread from North China to east and south, which developed their own bronze industries.
Chapter 6
Why did bronze remain scarce and expensive in China, and what economic cycle did this produce?
China has always suffered from scarcity of metal, and copper and tin are few in North China though plentiful in the south, so trade in bronze from south to north set in. Metal was accumulated as capital, raising prices; when prices rose enough, stocks were released and prices fell. With full-value metal coinage, melting implements into coin and coin back into implements produced recurring inflation and deflation, which the author calls virtually an economic law in China.
Chapter 6
What does Eberhard say about Yao, Shun, and the Hsia dynasty?
The author dismisses as political myths the Confucianist stories of Yao and Shun as model virtuous rulers. He suggests a small state under a chieftain Yao in south-western Shansi and another under Shun farther east may have warred until Yao's state was destroyed, around 2000 B.C. The Hsia, dated roughly 2000–1600 B.C., was likely an agrarian culture with bronze weapons and pottery but no writing; excavations yield no clear conclusions.
Chapter 6
What was the Shang capital like, and how were Shang kings buried?
The central territory lay in north-western Honan, extending into the plains, a peasant civilization with towns. The excavated capital near modern Anyang, the Shang capital from about 1300 to 1028 B.C., was probably ringed by a mud wall, with the ruler's palace at the centre and artisans' houses around it. Kings were buried in large subterranean cross-shaped tombs outside the city with implements, animals, and human sacrifices; large burial mounds did not yet exist.
Chapter 6
Section 74 cards
Where did sericulture originate and what fibres did the Shang use?
The chapter states that the invention of sericulture must date from very ancient times in China and undoubtedly originated in the south of China; at first threads from other caterpillars as well as silkworms were used. Besides silk, plant fibres such as hemp were in use, and woollen fabrics do not seem to have been used yet. Found silk fabrics show an advanced weaving technique.
Chapter 7
What agricultural tools and grains characterized Shang farming?
The Shang were agriculturists with primitive implements: no real plough yet, but hoes and hoe-like tools, and grain harvested with sickles. Implements were mainly wood and stone, since bronze was too expensive for the ordinary farmer. The main grains were different kinds of millet and some wheat. Many excavated wine vessels suggest wine made from special millets was a popular drink.
Chapter 7
What was Shang writing like and on what was it preserved?
Shang writing was a rudimentary pictorial script like modern Chinese, also using many phonetic signs; over 3,000 characters were in use, of which some 1,000 can now be read. Surviving fragments are almost exclusively oracles on tortoiseshells or bones: a depression was burnt to form cracks, the future foretold, then questions and answers scratched on. Tens of thousands were found at Anyang.
Chapter 7
How does the chapter describe Shang religion and sacrifices?
Shang religion had many nature deities, especially fertility deities, with no systematized pantheon; local deities were later combined by priests into composite gods, while primeval forms survived in villages. The supreme official god was Shang Ti, a vegetation god; earth was a mother goddess. To promote fertility, many human sacrifices were offered, often prisoners of war, later prohibited though reported secretly into the eleventh century A.D.
Chapter 7
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How did Shang inheritance and marriage differ from later Chinese systems?
The Shang had a patrilinear inheritance system, but after a ruler's death his brothers succeeded him, older brothers first; then sons of older or younger brothers ruled, with no preference for the oldest brother's son or between sons of main and secondary wives. Deceased rulers' wives played a great role in the cult, leading some to conclude a strong matrilinear strain existed, though this cannot be proved.
Chapter 8
Section 94 cards
What was the origin and migration of the Chou before founding their dynasty?
The Chou formed a small realm in the west, first in central Shensi, and before the eleventh century B.C. pushed into eastern Shensi, possibly under pressure from Turkish or Indo-European groups. Their ruling house seems related to the Turkish group, with a population mainly of Turks and Tibetans. Their culture resembled the Yang-shao painted-pottery culture, and they had bronze weapons and the war-chariot.
Chapter 9
How did the Chou found their dynasty and when?
About 1028 B.C. the Chou ruler Wu Wang crossed his eastern frontier into central Honan with an army formed by an alliance of tribes. He forced a passage across the Yellow River, annihilated the Shang army, pursued its remnants to the capital, captured the last Shang emperor, and killed him. Thus the Chou dynasty was founded, which the chapter calls the beginning of actual Chinese history.
Chapter 9
Why did the Chou state become feudal, and how were fiefs granted?
The conquerors were an alien minority who had to spread over an enormous territory with poor communications, so garrisons under tribal chieftains were established as fiefs. Fiefs were granted in a ceremony handing over a piece of earth, with rights and obligations inscribed in a charter. Most fiefholders were members of the Chou ruling family or clan; others were heads of allied tribes or surrendered Shang subjects.
Chapter 9
What did the Chou contribute to religion and to the end of human sacrifice?
The Chou brought their rigid patriarchate and cult of Heaven (t'ien), in which sun and star worship held principal place, closely related to Turkish religion. Some Shang popular deities were admitted as 'feudal lords' under the Heaven-god, and Shang soul conceptions were adopted. The Chou systematized the personality-soul idea into enduring ancestor-worship and officially abolished human sacrifices, using prisoners as slaves and serfs instead.
Chapter 9
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Why did the Chou emperors' power decline in the dynasty's first centuries?
The chapter says some emperors were weak or killed in war, and the empire was too big with slow administration. Feudal lords, busy subduing and governing surrounding villages, paid little attention to the distant centre. The Chou, a small tribe, depended on auxiliary tribes now spread as nobility far away. Near Sian they faced subjugated Turks, Mongols and semi-nomadic Tibetans, while auxiliary forces from feudal lords dwindled.
Chapter 10
What does the author argue caused nomadic raiding on the Chou frontier?
The author argues it is wrong to assume Turkish and Mongolian tribes waged war merely from savagery or love of fighting. Chou garrisons, with artisan quarters and peasant villages, ate into nomad pasturage. Nomads gave up small-scale agriculture for barter or raiding; when the Chinese stopped supplying or demanded excessive payment, they went hungry and were driven to raid, a mutual reaction lasting centuries.
Chapter 10
Section 113 cards
What social symbiosis emerged from the three centuries of conquest?
The author argues a symbiosis formed between urban aristocrats and the country-people: the town rulers adopted almost the whole vocabulary of the general population, which from then on may be called "Chinese," along with elements of material civilization. The subjugated population adjusted to its lords, becoming a lower class, mainly a peasantry. This society endured to the middle of the twentieth century, and most later essential changes came from internal development, not outside aggression.
Chapter 11
Why did the Chou ruler remain necessary after moving to Loyang?
The ruler now ruled little beyond Loyang itself and owed his position to feudal lords, becoming a sanctified overlord rather than chief of the lords—comparable to Japan until the mid-nineteenth century. He was needed religiously: only the Son of Heaven could offer the supreme sacrifices to Heaven, and there could not be multiple sons of heaven. He was also needed practically as an arbiter in the feudal lords' struggles for power.
Chapter 11
What did the prince of Wu's 704 B.C. title claim signify?
In 704 B.C. the feudal prince of Wu proclaimed himself "Wang," which was the title of the Chou ruler. This meant Wu broke away from the old Chou religion of Heaven, according to which there could be only one ruler (wang) in the world. Wu was one of three southern feudal states—with Ch'u and Yueeh—whose small, widely separated garrisons were largely absorbed into the aboriginal population's culture, giving them a character of their own.
Chapter 11
Section 124 cards
What happened to the state of Wei in 660 B.C. according to the chapter?
Nomad tribes, probably Proto-Mongols, attacked the feudal state of Wei in northern Honan, made a direct attack on the garrison town, and conquered it. The remnant of the urban population, no more than 730 people, fled southward. The chapter uses this to show that nomads still lived within the feudal states and remained strong, though unable to eliminate the Chou feudal lords entirely.
Chapter 12
Why did the period of dictators end after about a century?
The chapter states that the period of the dictators ended because no feudal state was any longer strong enough to control all the others. The remaining states formed alliances against which the dictator was powerless. This transition led into the next era, which the Chinese call the period of the Contending States.
Chapter 12
How does the chapter describe Confucius's career and background?
Confucius was born in 551 B.C. in the state of Lu, where Shang institutions remained strong. He acquired scholarly knowledge, taught noble families, and helped administer their properties. Attempts at advancement failed or ended in dismissal, so he wandered from noble to lord with a few disciples, many apparently illegitimate sons of noblemen. He settled in Lu and taught until his death in 479 B.C.
Chapter 12
What does the chapter say about Confucius's Annals of Spring and Autumn?
The chapter says the Annals is basically a dry record of Lu's history based on older documents, ending in 481 B.C. Confucius made small changes to express criticism or recognition, indirectly showing how a ruler should act. He did not shrink from falsifying history: he turned a ruler's flight into a hunting expedition and recorded an eclipse that did not occur. Otto Franke's explanation, some thirty-five years earlier, revealed this method.
Chapter 12
Section 134 cards
According to the chapter, what new meaning did Confucius give to 'chuen-tzu'?
The chapter states that from Confucius on, 'chuen-tzu' came to mean 'a gentleman.' Confucius held that a nobleman should not belong to the ruling elite by birth alone but should be a man of superior moral qualities. The author argues this carried a progressive implication: rule should pass from the worthiest to the worthiest, with the successor first serving a probationary period as minister of state.
Chapter 13
When did Confucius's teaching become important, and how was it adjusted?
The chapter says Confucius had no success or recognition in his lifetime, and his disciples gained none either. His work became important only about three hundred years after his death, when in the second century B.C. his teaching was adjusted to new social conditions. Out of a moral system for the decaying feudal society developed the ethic of the rising social order of the gentry, which claimed access for every civilized citizen to the highest places.
Chapter 13
How does the chapter compare Confucianism to religion?
The author argues Confucianism did not become a religion. Confucius cannot be called a religion's founder, since the cult of Heaven he speaks of existed in the same form before him; he merely systematized those notions. The chapter compares Confucianism to later Japanese Shintoism or to customs like standing for a national anthem, which people observe to belong to their community but would never call religion.
Chapter 13
How does the chapter date Lao Tzu and describe his book?
The chapter says Chinese tradition holds Lao Tzu was an older contemporary of Confucius, but recent Chinese and Western research (A. Waley; H. H. Dubs) places him in the latter part of the fourth century B.C. or later. Virtually nothing is known of his life; legends of travels to the west lack documentary evidence. His teaching is in the Tao Te Ching, written in simple language but deliberately vague, permitting radically differing versions and translations.
Chapter 13
Section 144 cards
How does Eberhard contrast the paths of Confucius and Lao Tzu?
The author argues Confucius sought to assimilate Man as a social being to Nature, keeping activity within the bounds of the community. Lao Tzu's path is for those disappointed with communal life: the Taoist withdraws from social life, performs none of the rites of the upper class, and lives in self-imposed seclusion, following his own nature as part of the Tao.
Chapter 14
What is wu-wei, and how did Lao Tzu think it applied to the state?
Wu-wei is Lao Tzu's doctrine of 'passive achievement'—performing no act that runs counter to the Tao. The author says Lao Tzu assumed an ideal society was possible if everyone followed their own nature with no artificial restrictions. Lao Tzu took monarchy for granted and held the ruler should empty hearts of desire, fill stomachs, and govern by Non-action.
Chapter 14
What did Lao Tzu's doctrine inadvertently provide, according to Eberhard?
The author argues Lao Tzu did not live to learn that such good government would be followed by only one sort of ruler—dictators—and that the Legalist theory providing the philosophic basis for third-century B.C. dictatorship was attributable to Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu himself was not thinking of dictatorship; he was an individualistic anarchist believing that without active government all men would be happy.
Chapter 14
How could one person be both Confucian and Taoist, and what did that require?
The author argues Lao Tzu's teaching, like Confucius's, is a social philosophy rather than a religion, so it became the rule for one person to be both. As official and family head a man thought as a Confucian; as a private individual retired to his country estate, or after dismissal or trouble, he felt as a Taoist. Living as a Taoist required an estate with servants and no manual work.
Chapter 14
Section 154 cards
How did Taoism function socially in Chinese history, according to the author?
The author argues that Lao Tzu's individualist and anarchist doctrine never became popularly accepted and could not form the basis of a general Chinese social order; its use to support dictatorship was not in Lao Tzu's spirit. Instead, Taoism remained the philosophic attitude of individuals in the highest social circles, and its strongest lasting influence was in poetry and painting.
Chapter 15
What happened to the number of states during the Contending States period?
Out of over a thousand states, fourteen remained, and one after another disappeared until only one was left. The author calls this period one of the fullest of strife in all Chinese history: the feudal states had lost all sense of allegiance to the ruler and acted in entire independence, so speaking of a single Chinese State then is a pure fiction.
Chapter 15
Why did the 'scholars' manufacture genealogies for feudal lords?
Because the emperor, though powerless in practice, belonged by tradition to a family of divine origin holding a 'divine mandate'; a lord claiming the throne had to show equally divine, perhaps remoter, ancestry. The travelling scholars turned local deities into human 'emperors' and linked them into dynasties, giving noble families imperial origin.
Chapter 15
What does Shih Ch'ung's essay show about Taoist and worldly life?
His self-description shows the 'Master Mysticus' and 'Mr. Rationalist' united in one person: after twenty-five years as a court official he retired to a villa with cypresses, canal, birds, fish, musicians, lute and reading, and practiced Taoist elixir-making and breathing exercises because he did not want to die. Then he was drawn back into official career.
Chapter 15
Section 164 cards
How did the composition of Chinese armies change during this period?
Earlier armies consisted mainly of nobles in war chariots with their retinues. As power struggles intensified, nobles hired mercenaries such as landless nobles, and soon it became customary to arm peasants and send them as infantry. Cavalry was added in the fifth century B.C. by the northern state of Chao, following Turkish and Mongol neighbours, and other northern states soon copied it.
Chapter 16
What does the author argue about the early use of horseback riders?
The general ethnological theory holds that the horse was first harnessed to a chariot and riding came much later. The author argues instead that riders were known earlier but could not be used effectively in war, because disciplined troops of horsemen and the art of accurate archery from a galloping horse, especially shooting to the rear, had not been developed.
Chapter 16
How did land ownership and inheritance change in this period?
Once individual family heads acquired or cultivated land, they claimed the right to dispose of it, though land belonged to the family rather than the person. Land became a marketable asset bought and sold, aided by the spread of money. Primogeniture remained in ritual and ancestor worship, but landed property was now divided equally among all sons, with the eldest sometimes receiving extra for ancestral worship expenses.
Chapter 16
Why did merchants invest in land and become tax collectors?
Copper coin was bulky and hard to conceal, so hoarding large sums attracted bandits and insecurity; merchants instead invested profits in land, often buying out indebted nobles or peasants. As few great states replaced many small fiefs, the old grain-tax system through lesser lords failed, and rulers entrusted merchants with tax collection, since they had grain stocks or could advance payments. Villagers thus became dependent on them, and merchants became the first provincial administrative officials.
Chapter 16
Section 174 cards
What two types of cities existed in this period, according to the chapter?
The chapter distinguishes the rectangular, planned city of the Chou conquerors, which served as a seat of administration, from the irregularly shaped city that grew out of a market place and only later became an administrative centre. It adds that little is known about city organization, but cities seem to have had considerable independence, since some issued their own city coins.
Chapter 17
Why were frontier walls begun, and what early form of the Great Wall did they create?
As Chinese peasants pushed farther north, rulers had to protect them from northern peoples such as the Hsiung-nu, who had mastered horseback warfare. Because rulers needed their armies for internal struggles, they began building frontier walls against sudden raids on peasant settlements. These were the early forms of the Great Wall and provided the first visible frontier between Chinese and non-Chinese.
Chapter 17
How did Mencius explain who Heaven destined as a new ruler?
Mencius, a follower of Confucianism, accepted that removing the Chou ruling house was no longer difficult; the hard question was when a change of ruler was justified and how Heaven's chosen successor could be known. He replied that the voice of the 'people'—meaning the upper class and its following—would declare the right man, who would then be Heaven's nominee. The chapter says this theory persisted throughout Chinese history.
Chapter 17
What did Mo Ti's school propose, and how did it contrast with the Confucians?
The chapter says the Confucian school held to the old feudal order and allowed only superficial changes, while Mo Ti's school proposed altering society's fundamental principles. It urged extending family love to the whole upper class, called the 'people'; living frugally instead of spending on effete rites; and organizing supporters into a rigid private army of technical and military experts. The Confucianists hotly opposed it.
Chapter 17
Section 184 cards
Who were the Legalists and what did they advocate?
The Legalists, whose most famous representative was Shang Yang (died 338 B.C.), came mainly from old princely families that had lost their feudal possessions. They abandoned Confucian tradition and recognized only the ruler and, next to him, the chancellor as active; the common people were to obey without question. The chancellor drafted laws that operated automatically, while the ruler remained a symbol like inactive Heaven. Their ideas were later developed by Han Fei Tzu.
Chapter 18
Why were Legalist theories adopted first by the state of Ch'in?
The author argues Legalist theories suited the break-up of feudalism around 300 B.C. They were first adopted by Ch'in, the state where the old feudal idea was least developed and where alien peoples were most strongly represented. Shang Yang became the actual organizer of Ch'in, and its population, organized on these principles, removed one opponent after another; by 256 B.C. the last Chou emperor abdicated in favour of Ch'in's ruler.
Chapter 18
What did Tsou Yen teach about the world and the elements?
Tsou Yen (flourished 320–295 B.C.), a native of Shantung, rooted his ideas in earlier Chinese speculation: all that exists is explained by the positive Yang and negative Yin action of the five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. He also held that the world consists not of one continent with China at its centre but of nine continents; the names sound Indian, and his central world-mountain may have come from India.
Chapter 18
What happened to Tsou Yen's school of natural science?
The author argues the school's beginning of science was unappreciated; it led to the first-century B.C. contention that the earth is spherical. When the reciprocal destruction of the elements was applied to politics—identifying dynasties with the five elements to calculate their duration and supersession—strong pressure came against the school. For hundreds of years its books were read only in secret, and many members were executed as revolutionaries, so it was driven underground.
Chapter 18
Section 194 cards
Why do historians disagree about when the Ch'in dynasty began?
Some place its start in 256 B.C., when the last Chou ruler abdicated in favour of the feudal lord of Ch'in. Others prefer 221 B.C., because only then were the remaining feudal states destroyed and Ch'in truly ruling all China.
Chapter 19
How did Ch'in's geography and population aid its break from feudalism?
Ch'in occupied transit regions of Shensi and eastern Kansu, closed by steppes and mountains, with rich cultivable river zones and the route to Turkestan. Its population included Turks and Tibetans, and other Chinese called it a barbarian state. The author argues this foreign influence was favourable soil for overcoming feudalism.
Chapter 19
How did Shih Huang-ti's government reorganize administration after conquest?
Nobles and ruling families were deported to the Ch'in capital, stripping them of their power base. The realm was divided into provinces and prefectures, each with an official. Provinces had civil and military governors plus a controller responsible to the emperor, so no one official could become supreme or grow into a feudal lord.
Chapter 19
Why did the Ch'in government standardize language and script?
Centuries of division produced different dialects and even different written characters, so an official transferred from Ch'in to the east could not understand local speech or read local words. The government therefore unified the language and adopted a definite writing style, setting out word lists and creating the first lexicography through practical administrative need.
Chapter 19
Section 204 cards
Why did the Ch'in regime standardize cart axle lengths?
The only roads were deep cart-tracks, so carts with axles of different lengths could not use them. Since tax grain had to be hauled by cart from far around to feed the crowded new capital, a fixed axle length was laid down. The author notes that the advocates of these reforms—weights, measures, and axle gauges—were also their beneficiaries: the merchants.
Chapter 20
What did the Legalists want the population to be, and why attack Confucian writings?
The Legalists' first principle was training the population in discipline and obedience so it would be a convenient tool for officials—ideally industrious, uneducated, tax-paying peasants. Scholars not working for the state were unwanted. Confucianist writings were attacked because they kept alive memory of the old feudal conditions and its ethic, which might weaken the central administration. In 213 B.C. came the great holocaust of books.
Chapter 20
How does the chapter assess Shih Huang-ti versus Li Ssu?
The author argues Shih Huang-ti was an average man without great gifts, superstitious, drawn to mystical and shamanistic notions, and megalomaniac in expecting ten thousand emperors of his line. The administration's basic principles had been laid down earlier by Legalist philosophers and were given effect by Chancellor Li Ssu, whom the author calls the really great personality of the period.
Chapter 20
What caused the first union of Hsiung-nu tribes and the building of the Great Wall?
Ch'in expansion pushed nomad tribes back and deprived them of the Ordos pasturage, threatening starvation. The chapter explains that threatened nomads often rally round a leader promising new pasturage, producing the first great Hsiung-nu union under T'ou-man. Ch'in responded with a large permanent northern army and, in 214 B.C., rebuilt existing mountain walls into one system—the Great Wall.
Chapter 20
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Why did Emperor Kao Tsu turn to the gentry for officials?
Kao Tsu distrusted merchants as farmers looked down on traders, and he had little faith in the loyalty of army officers. He also would have had to build a new administrative organization for them. So he turned to the class later called the gentry, which already held practical power.
Chapter 21
What was the economic basis of a gentry family's livelihood?
Gentry families owned substantial estates in the provinces, leased to tenants on a contract basis rather than as serfs, though their factual position often differed little from serfs. Rents, usually about half the gross produce, supported the family. One branch normally lived on a small home farm to collect the rents.
Chapter 21
How did gentry families secure themselves against individual failures?
The author describes a double security: one branch held provincial estates while another held official or literati positions in the capital or administrative centres. Officials could use influence to restore estates after bandits or war; if officials lost position or life, the home branch survived and could recruit new members within a generation or two.
Chapter 21
Does the chapter support the three- or four-generation rise-and-fall cycle?
No. The author notes some authors believe leading families pass through a three- or four-generation cycle of rise and decline, but argues actual study of families indicates this is not true. The main branch retains its position over centuries, while some branch families, often created by less able members, tend toward downward mobility.
Chapter 21
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Why did the Hsiung-nu state adopt a national rather than imperialist policy toward China?
The author argues the Hsiung-nu court realized a densely populated China could only be administered from a center inside China, which would mean abandoning flocks, nomad life, and their old ways. The tribal chieftains, main supporters of this national policy, backed this view, and Mao Tun fell in with them. The Hsiung-nu maintained their state for some seven hundred years by adhering to this principle.
Chapter 22
What did the 200 B.C. treaty between Kao Tsu and Mao Tun establish, and was it kept?
Kao Tsu agreed to supply the Hsiung-nu with foodstuffs and clothing materials if they ended raids; the treaty was sealed by marrying a Chinese princess to Mao Tun. The chapter calls it the first international treaty in the Far East between two independent powers recognized as equals, whose diplomatic forms set the standard for a thousand years. It was renewed at each ruler's accession but never fully adhered to by either side.
Chapter 22
How did the Hsiung-nu empire use Chinese migrants and why?
Many Chinese migrated to the Hsiung-nu empire, where they were welcome as artisans and probably farmers, but above all were needed to staff a new state administration. The scriveners in the new state secretariat were Chinese and wrote Chinese, since the Hsiung-nu apparently had no written language. Chinese also served as administrators, court officials, and even army instructors teaching warfare against non-nomads.
Chapter 22
How did Kao Tsu bring the southern empire near Canton under Chinese suzerainty?
Around present-day Canton an independent empire had formed under a Chinese leader, resting on trading colonies but with an indigenous Yueeh population too uncivilized to sustain a state against China. In 196 B.C. Kao Tsu sent a diplomatic mission inviting the ruler to accept Chinese suzerainty. The ruler recognized he could offer no serious resistance and yielded without a struggle, keeping virtual independence.
Chapter 22
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What limitation did Kao Tsu place on the granting of fiefs before his death?
Shortly before his death, Kao Tsu laid down that only members of the imperial family should receive fiefs, to which the title of King was attached. This meant the more important fiefs were held by the imperial family, though rivalries did not end. The empress Lue had earlier revived the feudal system to place her own relatives, meeting strong resistance from the dynasty and its gentry supporters.
Chapter 23
What economic and social developments occurred under Emperor Wen Ti's peaceful reign?
Wen Ti's reign (179-157 B.C.) saw large continuous territory under unified rule without unending internal warfare. Peasant burdens were reduced and the court was frugal; population and cultivated land grew, increasing production and exchange. Restrictions on minting copper coin were abandoned to prevent deflation, taxes rose, and the new gentry moved into towns, raising their standard of living and becoming a class apart devoted to scholarship.
Chapter 23
What was the purpose of the examination system introduced around 100 B.C.?
The examinations tested command of gentry ideals and knowledge of the literature inculcating them, not job efficiency; this was regarded as sufficient qualification for any state position. The system, introduced around 100 B.C. and in principle operating until 1904, was in theory open to every 'respectable' citizen, but in practice no peasant had a chance to become an official through it during its first thousand years.
Chapter 23
How did Tung Chung-shu's view of the Confucian classics create legal inequality?
Tung Chung-shu (179-104 B.C.) declared the classic Confucianist writings, especially the Ch'un-ch'iu, were books of legal decisions containing cases and Confucius's rulings, so any case could be decided by analogy. Only an educated gentry member could claim judgment by Confucius's decisions rather than the code for common people, since Confucius said his rules were for the upper class. Thus the Legalist principle of equality before the law was never seriously considered again.
Chapter 23
Section 244 cards
How did the Han state reduce the power of feudal princes after their revolt?
After a league of feudal kings rebelled and was crushed (the Hsiung-nu declined to join, seeing no prospect of success), the princes were steadily stripped of rights. They were split into two classes, with only privileged ones allowed to live in the capital. Their territories first came under a state-appointed minister, then under normal administration, leaving the prince an empty title with tax income from assigned families, often fewer than the nominal number.
Chapter 24
What limits kept Han emperors from being true despots, according to the author?
The author argues most Han emperors were not despots. In theory the emperor held absolute power but was responsible to Heaven, which could withdraw its mandate and signal this through natural catastrophes; emperors publicly confessed faults after such events. Further, responsibility for some governmental action lay with ministers, not the emperor, and the emperor was bound by the law code—he could not change or abolish it, though some rulers disregarded it and then sought to defend their arbitrary action.
Chapter 24
What role did the court secretariat play among the nine ministries?
The court secretariat was one of the nine ministries and also served as a sort of imperial statistical office, assembling all economic, financial, and military statistical material. Because of this, decisions on issues critical to the whole country could and did come from it. As central statistical authority it held a special position, supervising the administration of other offices—an early form of independent supervision alongside the executive.
Chapter 24
How did the Han system handle war and the transition to civil and military administration?
Local risings or wars were first the concern of the regional officer; if regional troops were insufficient, adjoining regions were drawn upon. If even these failed, a real state of war arose: the emperor appointed eight generals-in-chief, mobilized imperial troops, and intervened, giving the imperial army authority over regional, feudal, protectorate, capital, and palace troops. After the war the army was demobilized and the generals transferred. Gradually a division into civil and military administration developed, with military governors over provinces active mainly in war.
Chapter 24
Section 253 cards
What separation did Han administration achieve that Europe lacked until the late Middle Ages?
The Han administrative system had a clear separation between the emperor's private treasury and the state treasury, with laws determining which received certain taxes and which made certain payments. The author notes this separation, which in Europe occurred not until the late Middle Ages, was abolished in China at the end of the Han Dynasty.
Chapter 25
How independent was provincial administration from the central government under the Han?
The provincial administration was de facto independent of the central administration. Governors and even prefects could rule like kings in their regions, appointing and discharging officials as they chose. The author calls this a vestige of feudalism but also a healthy check against excessive centralization, which kept local life going even when central power collapsed or communications were cut.
Chapter 25
What did Chang Ch'ien accomplish on his mission, and what resulted from it?
Chang Ch'ien was sent in 138 B.C. to ally with the Yueeh-chih against the Hsiung-nu. Politically he had no success, but he returned in 125 B.C. with accurate information about the far west, previously known only through vague merchants' reports. His reports strengthened the desire for direct, assured commercial relations, leading to increased interest in a central Asian policy and campaigns bringing Tarim basin states under tribute.
Chapter 25
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What did China's conquest of western Korea in 108 B.C. bring under government influence?
The western part of Korea was conquered in 108 B.C. Korea was already an important transit region for trade with Japan, so this trade came under the direct influence of the Chinese government. The conquest also represented a peril to the eastern flank of the Hsiung-nu, though the chapter stresses it did not mean the Hsiung-nu were conquered.
Chapter 26
How did the Hsiung-nu empire finally collapse, and what happened in 58 and 51 B.C.?
Continual disastrous wars against the Chinese cost the Hsiung-nu many men and large quantities of cattle, threatening their livelihood; plagues, severe winters, and succession disputes added to their troubles. Rival shan-yue ruled at once, and one yielded to the Chinese in 58 B.C., coming as a vassal to court in 51. The collapse was then complete, freeing China from danger from that quarter.
Chapter 26
Why did China's economic situation worsen in the last century B.C. despite new external trade?
The wars were ruinous, and occupying armies, especially in Turkestan, drained funds. Horses had to be reared by peasants or bought at high prices, and taxes rose while peasants were conscripted. Tribute missions required costly return gifts, upkeep in the capital, and private trade that sent silk and gold abroad for luxuries like glass, precious stones, or stud horses of little economic value.
Chapter 26
What did the 'Discussions on Salt and Iron' reveal about economic policy debates?
Wu Ti called different groups together to discuss economic problems, and the gist of these talks is preserved under the name 'Discussions on Salt and Iron.' One group led by Sang Hung-yang (143-80 B.C.) was business-oriented and thought in economic terms, proposing 'equable transportation' and 'standardization' and favoring state monopolies and controls; their opponents, mainly Confucianists, saw the situation mainly as a moral crisis.
Chapter 26
Section 274 cards
How did gentry cliques control official selection in later Han China?
Officials recommended only sons of their own clique or close associates, and examiners were usually members of the same families as the provincial officials. This made it doubly certain that only candidates favored by the dominant gentry group passed. The author argues this clique influence, not the exams themselves, was the chief mechanism of control.
Chapter 27
How did Wang Mang rise to power and found the Hsin dynasty?
The widow of Emperor Yuean Ti placed her brothers and nephew Wang Mang in key posts. Wang Mang steadily removed opponents, installed boy emperors, and acted as regent. In A.D. 8 he dethroned a baby, ostensibly at Heaven's command, declared himself emperor, and founded the Hsin dynasty, degrading the old imperial family except his supporters.
Chapter 27
What made Wang Mang's usurpation unusual, according to the chapter?
The author notes two unusual features: Wang Mang cultivated public opinion, inducing mass petitions for the Han ruler to abdicate and fabricating heavenly omina in his favor; and he inaugurated a formal abdication ceremony transferring the imperial seal. The seal, a precious stone once given to the Ch'in ruler, became the mark of legitimate rulership for centuries.
Chapter 27
Why does the chapter dispute calling Wang Mang China's first Socialist?
The author argues his laws aimed to fill the exchequer and consolidate power, not help the poor. Land reform targeted only the wealthiest landowners; slave prohibition reserved slaves for the state; state credit made the state a merciless creditor able to dispossess peasants; and equalization offices bought cheap and sold dear.
Chapter 27
Section 284 cards
Why did Wang Mang's reforms fail to benefit the state or peasants?
The author argues the laws were not socialistic and did not enrich the state: Wang Mang's officials turned all the laws to their private advantage, so revenues rarely reached the capital and vanished into subordinate officials' pockets. The result was a further serious lowering of the peasant population's level of existence, with no addition to the state's financial resources.
Chapter 28
How did Wang Mang provoke the Hsiung-nu before his planned campaign?
Preparing for war, Wang Mang sent a mission with dishonouring proposals, including changing the name Hsiung-nu to Hsiang-nu, meaning "subjugated slaves", and altering the shan-yue's title. He also ordered their country partitioned among fifteen shan-yue and declared it a Chinese province. This had no practical result, brought no increased prestige, and only further infuriated the Hsiung-nu, sparking risings.
Chapter 28
Who were the Red Eyebrows and what did their rising become?
The Red Eyebrows were rebels who painted their eyebrows red as a badge and to bind members to the movement. Their nucleus was a secret society; such societies are usually harmless but can organize peasants for a forcible settlement, and occasionally grow into a popular revolutionary movement against the whole ruling class. That happened here: vast swarms of peasants marched on the capital, killing officials and people of position.
Chapter 28
How did Liu Hsiu rise to found the Later Han dynasty?
Liu Hsiu's power base was the Nanyang district in Honan, a wealthy agricultural centre and iron and steel production centre. The big landowners and gentry of Nanyang joined him, and his party conquered the capital; Wang Mang was killed in A.D. 22. Fighting continued among the prince's branches and against the Red Eyebrows, with millions dying, until Liu Hsiu prevailed in A.D. 24, becoming emperor Kuang-wu Ti (A.D. 25-57).
Chapter 28
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How did the southern Hsiung-nu come under Chinese control?
The southern Hsiung-nu were compelled to submit to the Chinese to gain security from their other enemies. The chapter states that China thus gained a great success without moving a finger, reducing its most dangerous longtime enemies to political insignificance. Their place was taken by the Hsien-pi and Wu-huan, who were at first of much less importance.
Chapter 29
Why did Chang Ti's government abandon conquered Turkestan?
Under Emperor Chang Ti (76-88), the isolationist party gained the upper hand against Tou Ku and Pan Ch'ao's clique. The isolationists contended the danger of a restored Hsiung-nu empire no longer existed, Turkestan should be left to itself, and the small states would favor trade with China on their own. Chang Ti sent neither money nor troops, so much of Turkestan fell away.
Chapter 29
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How did Ts'ao Ts'ao gain permanent power, and what dynasty followed?
Ts'ao Ts'ao recruited foreign troops, including settling nineteen Hsiung-nu tribes in Shansi between 180 and 200 in return for armed aid, giving him permanent power. After his death his son Ts'ao P'ei, backed by powerful allied families, forced the emperor to abdicate and founded the Wei dynasty in A.D. 220.
Chapter 30
Why did Ts'ao Ts'ao's plan for the Hsiung-nu fail?
He intended the Hsiung-nu to be controlled and administered by officials of the surrounding district, following the usual Chinese method of absorbing admitted aliens until they lost their nationality. But the nineteen tribes were too numerous, and after prolonged struggles the provincial administration was too weak, so a small Hsiung-nu realm under several shan-yue arose inside China.
Chapter 30
What made the Shih Chi a model for later Chinese historiography?
Ssu-ma Ch'ien (born 135 B.C.) and his father used state archives, private documents, old books, inscriptions and their own travels. The Shih Chi abbreviates documents while altering the extracts as little as possible, so it retains original-source value. Its arrangement—annals, tables of officials and fiefs, biographies, and monographs on fields like astronomy and music—became the model for all later official historiography.
Chapter 30
Why does the author argue Chinese science was stifled?
Wang Ch'ung's Lun Heng advocated rational thinking and might have led to modern science, as happened in Europe. But the author argues the gentry suppressed this tendency, since criticism of tradition might have attacked gentry dominance and their oppression of merchants and artisans. The author contrasts this with Greece, where the needs of merchants and seafarers stimulated classic science.
Chapter 30
Section 313 cards
How did the Chinese view of the artist and craftsman differ, per the chapter?
The author argues that until recently it was an indispensable condition in the Chinese view that an artist must be "cultured" and a member of the gentry—distinguished, unoccupied, and wealthy. A man paid for his work, such as a portrait for the ancestral cult, was until late times regarded as a craftsman, not an artist. Yet these "craftsmen" produced many works in Han times and earlier that in our view belong to art.
Chapter 31
How did Buddhism first enter China and who served as its early priests there?
According to the chapter, Buddhism entered China from the south coast and through Central Asia at latest in the first century B.C., coming with foreign merchants from India or Central Asia. Because Brahmans could not leave their homes, merchants turned to Buddhist priests, who were not prevented from travelling and used the opportunity for missionary purposes. Thus for a long time Buddhist priests in China were foreigners serving foreign merchant colonies.
Chapter 31
What population figures does the chapter give for the three kingdoms' regions?
The chapter says there are no figures for the years around A.D. 220, so it uses those of 140, since the ratio matters. The regions later belonging to Wei had roughly 29,000,000 inhabitants; those later belonging to Wu had 11,700,000; those later belonging to Shu Han had a bare 7,500,000. The figures exclude the primitive native population, not yet in the taxation lists.
Chapter 31
Section 324 cards
What intellectual change did Buddhism bring to China's worldview?
The chapter states that Buddhism brought new notions, ideals, foreign science, and the first direct knowledge of civilized countries west of China. This forced China to admit that civilized countries existed outside itself, undermining the theory that the Chinese emperor was the Son of Heaven at the world's centre. The author argues this caused a vast widening of China's intellectual horizon.
Chapter 32
What economic choice faced the nomadic conquerors of North China?
The chapter explains that Turkish and Mongol conquerors, having become pure nomads, faced a choice: to remain nomads they must drive the peasants south, enslave them as herdsmen, or exterminate them; alternatively they could install themselves as a ruling noble class over subjugated native peasants. The author argues attention to this problem explains why Turkish rule did not last and these peoples were gradually absorbed.
Chapter 32
Why was Shu Han's position economically and militarily difficult?
Shu Han had irrigated wheat plains, a wealthy merchant class, and trade routes toward India, but its population was too small to stand against the northern state of Wei. Offensives were hard to carry out though defence was strong. Campaigns against southern tribes to secure manpower, slaves, and Indian trade produced no practical result, as the Chinese could not endure the climate or native guerrilla tactics.
Chapter 32
How did Wu's economy and agriculture differ from northern Chinese ways?
Wu consisted of marshy plains and narrow mountain valleys where Tai peoples cultivated rice and Yao tribes hunted. Northern immigrants found wheat and pulse did not thrive, so they slowly learned rice cultivation and replaced sheep and cattle with pigs and water buffaloes. The country was poor; its main assets were trade in metals, timber, and southern products, plus growing overseas trade with India and the Middle East.
Chapter 32
Section 333 cards
How did Wei counter the Wu-Yen alliance plan against it?
Wei used diplomacy: it made Wu believe it had reason to fear an attack from its western neighbor Shu Han, and it negotiated with Japan's Yamato state, offering Yamato the prospect of all Korea if it turned against Yen. Wei then destroyed Yen in 237, wrecking Wu's diplomatic projects.
Chapter 33
What positive developments did the imperial court bring to south China?
For the first time south China had an emperor with full imperial organization. The capital's officials, eunuchs, and court satellites formed a huge market, letting nearby peasants sell more and prosper. Demand increased tillage and trade, prompting new transport means, especially ships, and new trade routes, though transport costs brought fresh taxation; scholars and administrators influx created lasting cultural and economic centres.
Chapter 33
How did the Ssu-ma family end the Wei dynasty?
Wen Ti had relied on powerful families like the Hsia-hou and Ssu-ma, placing many in government. The Ssu-ma family grew so strong that Ssu-ma I controlled the government while Emperor Ming Ti was powerless; later emperors were installed and deposed by the family. In 264 a Ssu-ma declared himself king, and in 265 Ssu-ma Yen staged a formal renunciation of the Wei throne, founding the Chin dynasty.
Chapter 33
Section 344 cards
Why did the Western Chin dynasty decree general disarmament in 280?
After conquering Wu in 280 and removing the last external enemy, the dynasty decreed general disarmament to restore a healthy economic and financial situation and to save the cost of maintaining soldiers, intending to return them to the land as peasants and taxpayers. The decree applied to court, capital, and provincial imperial troops, but not to the princes' regions, whose princes claimed they needed personal guards.
Chapter 34
What happened to weapons and soldiers after the surrender-of-arms decree?
The decree remained a dead letter. Discharged soldiers kept their weapons at first and then preferred to sell them; a large part was acquired by the Hsiung-nu and Hsien-pi in the north, who usually gave up land in return. Many Chinese soldiers went as peasants to regions in the north and beyond the frontier, glad to escape efficient administration and rigid tax collection.
Chapter 34
How does the chapter describe the structure of a tribal federation like the Toba?
The author describes a federation structurally as a cone: at the top the ruler from the leading family of the leading tribe; then the inner circle of tribes, who intermarried with the leading family and served as advisors; then the larger but weaker outer tribes; below them inferior or unfree tribes and individuals, plus conquered agriculturists. Such federations could dissolve and their tribes join new ones.
Chapter 34
What does the chapter call the most pregnant event of the Western Chin period?
The author argues the ineffective disarmament was undoubtedly the most pregnant event of the Western Chin period. Intended to save costs and return soldiers to the land as taxpayers, it achieved nothing—not even more coin in circulation. Instead the central government lost practical power while the military strength of dangerous princes and frontier peoples increased, forcing the government to arm anew.
Chapter 34
Section 354 cards
How did federations like the Hsiung-nu transform tribal units into new structures?
The chapter describes two tendencies: the federation leader built a bureaucratic system using his bondsmen as a nucleus, and original tribal leaders were replaced by members of the leader's family. If this succeeded, tribes were dissolved into military regiments such as Groups of Hundred and Groups of Thousand. Over time these units gained social coherence and appeared as tribes again, which the author calls 'secondary' tribes.
Chapter 35
How did Tibetan states differ from Turkish and Mongol states?
The author argues Tibetan tribal structure was always weak, with leadership developing only in wartime, so their states showed a military rather than tribal structure and depended heavily on leaders' personal qualities. Tibetans were fundamentally sheep-breeders, not horse-breeders, and tended to incorporate infantry. This made them differ strongly from aristocratically organized 'Turkish' states and tribal, non-aristocratic 'Mongol' states.
Chapter 35
Why did the Mu-jung Hsien-pi accept Chinese overlordship in 289?
The Mu-jung marched south in 281 and occupied the region round Peking. After fierce fighting with heavy losses, a treaty in 289 made them recognize Chinese overlordship. The chapter states they were driven mainly by continual attacks from southern Manchuria by the Yue-wen, another Hsien-pi tribe most closely related to them. They used the subjection period to organize their community in North China.
Chapter 35
What caused the mass migration of Chinese to the empire's periphery?
The princes' struggles for power raged round the capital, since each wanted full power and the emperorship, while border regions stayed relatively undisturbed. Their populations suffered much less than people near the central government. So a mass migration of Chinese from centre to periphery occurred, especially into present Kansu, where a governor's good administration and peace, plus immigration and the caravan route to Turkestan, let the territory prosper.
Chapter 35
Section 364 cards
Why did the Hun nobles decide to compete for the Chinese imperial throne in 304?
The Hun council of nobles resolved that the Huns should stop fighting for various Chinese generals or princes and instead enter the struggle for the imperial throne themselves. They argued the Chinese emperor was a nonentity and murders would continue until one general prevailed. The decision was made in 304 with the founding of the "Hun Han dynasty."
Chapter 36
How did Liu Yuean justify Hun rule over China despite claims of alien status?
Liu Yuean and his advisers linked his dynasty to the famous Han dynasty. They cited the pact Mao Tun made five hundred years earlier with the first Han emperor, calling the two states "brethren"; noted Hun rulers had married Chinese princesses; and pointed out Liu was also the Han ruling family's name. Thus the Hun Lius claimed to be legitimate heirs, not aliens.
Chapter 36
What was the fundamental difference between Liu Yuean's aims and the old Hun empire?
The chapter states Liu Yuean had no intention of restoring Mao Tun's old empire of the nomads. Instead he intended to become emperor of China, a country of farmers. This, the author argues, was the fundamental difference between the earlier Hun empire and the new one, distinguishing nomadic empire from rule over an agricultural Chinese state.
Chapter 36
How did Shih Lo's method of rule differ from Liu Yuean's, and what did it achieve?
Shih Lo rejected Chinese methods and held to the old warrior-nomad tradition, making raids with nomad fighters rather than organizing a Chinese-style state. He did not intend to hold central and southern China, withdrawing instead; in 314-315 he brought north-eastern territories, especially Hsien-pi lands, under direct rule as a raid base. In 329 he annexed Liu Yao's remaining empire.
Chapter 36
Section 374 cards
Why did Shih Lo wait to declare himself emperor, and what did he then found?
According to Turkish and especially Hun conceptions of nobility, only descendants of the Tu-ku tribe could legitimately become shan-yue or emperor. Shih Lo, an ex-slave from a non-noble Hun stock, hesitated while the Earlier Chao emperors remained. After destroying Liu Yao he no longer hesitated and made himself emperor of the Later Chao dynasty (329-352).
Chapter 37
How did Shih Lo's background shape his rule and his empire's stability?
The author argues Shih Lo was a forceful commander but lacked statesmanship and Chinese education, hated the Chinese, and wanted north China as grazing land, so he sought only the already-subjugated north. Because the Huns saw him as a revolutionary due to his humble origin, he felt insecure, exterminated every Liu he could seize, and could not rely on Hun loyalty; his empire was unstable.
Chapter 37
What made the Earlier Liang state in Kansu economically distinctive?
Founded by a Chinese governor of Kansu after the Huns executed Chin emperor Huai Ti in 313, the Earlier Liang realm lasted until 376. Though not large, it was prosperous, drew Chinese emigrants, and extended influence to Turkestan. Its capital had quarters of traders from Turkestan and India; Buddhist monasteries served as banks, warehouses, and hostels, so economically it resembled a commercial Turkestan city-state more than an agrarian Far Eastern state.
Chapter 37
How did Fu Chien's Tibetan military organization differ from Hun and Hsien-pi empires?
The author describes the Tibetan organization as purely military, with no relation to tribal structure. This freed the leader from tribal chieftains, gave him considerable personal power, and meant he need not be of noble descent. Fu Chien organized all his troops, including non-Tibetans, on this system regardless of tribal membership. His Earlier Ch'in dynasty (351-394) defeated and annexed the Earlier Yen.
Chapter 37
Section 384 cards
What military innovation did Fu Chien introduce, and why was it valuable?
Fu Chien created an infantry alongside his large cavalry units, recruiting many Chinese, because his military organization ignored the tribal element. Nomad armies had been all cavalry, and tribal leagues could not convert part of their forces to foot soldiers. The infantry proved extremely valuable, especially in fighting on the plains of north China and in laying siege to fortified towns, helping him achieve rapid military predominance.
Chapter 38
What territories had Fu Chien conquered by 376, and what did he then resolve to do?
Fu Chien annexed the proto-Mongol 'Earlier Yen' realm (370), annihilated the Chinese 'Earlier Liang' realm (376), and in the same year the small Turkish Toba realm. This made him supreme over all north China, holding both Ch'ang-an and Loyang, the rich agricultural regions, and the routes to Turkestan. He then resolved, like Liu Yuean before him, to conquer all China and become emperor of China.
Chapter 38
Why did Fu Chien's 383 campaign against the south fail?
His roughly million-man army advanced well at first, but the northern horsemen, mountain men, suffered in the soggy Yangtze plains cut by water-courses and canals. Supplies and reinforcements failed to arrive on time and units missed appointed places. Southern troops under Hsieh Hsuean made surprise attacks on isolated units, defeated or bribed some, and spread false reports, causing widespread panic and a hasty retreat.
Chapter 38
What happened to Fu Chien's empire after his retreat, and which states arose in 384?
His empire had no inner stability and quickly fell into fragments. In 384 a Mu-jung noble founded the 'Later Yen dynasty' (384-409) in central Hopei; other Mu-jung princes founded the short-lived 'Western Yen dynasty' (384-394) in Shensi; and a Tibetan who had joined Fu Chien declared independence, assassinated Fu Chien and his family, took Ch'ang-an, and founded the 'Later Ch'in dynasty' (384-417).
Chapter 38
Section 394 cards
Why did the Later Liang realm fragment into three states?
The Later Liang was a long, narrow strip inhabited by Tibetans, Chinese, Hsien-pi, and Huns whose divergent cultures failed to hold together and which was almost incapable of military defence. In 397 central Huns broke away as the Northern Liang, then conquered other parts; Chinese founded West Liang (400-421) in western Kansu and Hsien-pi founded South Liang (379-414) in eastern Kansu.
Chapter 39
How did Liu Yuean's and Fu Chien's imperial experiments differ and fail?
The author argues both non-Chinese rulers tried to build truly Chinese empires but failed differently. Hun Liu Yuean led a feudal tribal league meant to sit above an unchanged Chinese peasantry; his successors were national reactionaries who abandoned this, so the empire disintegrated and Hun tribes fell back into political insignificance while keeping their national character. Tibetan Fu Chien built a militaristic bureaucracy; his essentially military state shattered after military defeat, worsened by gentry faithlessness.
Chapter 39
How does the chapter classify the Sixteen Kingdoms economically and sociologically?
Economically the author divides them into trading states and warrior states: the western Kansu states (Later Liang; Western, Northern, and Southern Liang) lived on transit trade with Turkestan, while eastern states were warrior states where an army commander ruled via armed non-Chinese and exploited an agricultural population. Sociologically they split into tribal states (Southern and Northern Liang, plus the young Toba realm from 385) and military states of individuals without tribal allegiance.
Chapter 39
Why did the Hsien-pi and Fu Chien's Tibetan group disappear as ethnic units?
The author argues that where states were military rather than tribal, founded on individuals without tribal allegiance, the ethnic groups vanished after political downfall. Fu Chien's own Tibetan group disappeared entirely; other Tibetan military states ended shortly after; Hsien-pi survivors either became Chinese or joined another similar stock, both ending Hsien-pi as an independent unit. The Huns only seemed to vanish, remaining as nomad tribes in the Ordos and Shansi.
Chapter 39
Section 401 cards
How did merchants and peasants become tied to Buddhist monasteries economically?
Merchants used Buddhist monasteries as banks and warehouses, so they were well inclined toward Buddhism and gave money and land for temples. Temples settled peasants on this land as tenants. The chapter states that in those times a temple was a more reliable landlord than an individual alien, so poorer peasants readily became temple tenants, which increased their inclination toward Buddhism.
Chapter 40
Section 413 cards
Why did the Toba government not enslave Chinese peasants in the conquered east?
The author explains that enslaving the peasants would have required spreading the tribes across eastern China, strengthening the tribes and weakening the central power. Also, most Chinese court officials came from those conquered territories and still had relatives there. These officials persuaded the emperor to keep the region under central administration, making the local gentry government officials who collected grain for the capital.
Chapter 41
How did Toba and Chinese family systems differ, and why did this speed sinification?
The author argues the Chinese had patriarchal extended families of often hundreds of members; a member who gained office was obliged to provide for relatives and allied families. The Toba had patriarchal nuclear families, so individuals were more independent and each sought his own fortune. Thus a Chinese official was followed by countless others, while a Toba official remained alone, and sinification proceeded incessantly.
Chapter 41
What did Ho-lien P'o-p'o's change of family name demonstrate about the Hsia kingdom?
The ruler of the Hun 'Hsia' kingdom, Ho-lien P'o-p'o, belonged to the family of Mao Tun and originally bore the sinified family name Liu, like Liu Yuean. He altered it to the Hun name Ho-lien. The author states this single fact demonstrates that the Hsia rejected Chinese culture and were nationalistic Hun, in contrast to the progressively sinifying Toba.
Chapter 41
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Why did the Toba first need to eliminate the Juan-juan before expanding south?
The Juan-juan threatened the Toba from the rear in the north, raiding the empire much as the Huns had earlier raided agrarian China, since agriculture had advanced considerably in the Toba empire. The Toba therefore had to remove this peril before attempting southward expansion. After 429 the Juan-juan peril no longer existed, freeing the Toba to act elsewhere.
Chapter 42
What was the chuen-t'ien land equalization system and who founded it?
The chuen-t'ien system, founded by Li An-shih, aimed to resettle uprooted farmers, prevent further migration, and raise production and taxes. It was basically accepted in 477, implemented in 485, and remained land law until about 750. Each man and woman received personal land for life, redistributed after death, plus inheritable mulberry land. The underlying idea was that all land belonged to the state.
Chapter 42
How did the new land law legally fix social classes?
The land law turned the old informal distinction between free burghers (liang-min) and commoners (ch'ien-min) into law. Only burghers—gentry and free farmers—held full rights. Commoners included slaves (nu), regarded as property; serfs (fan-hu), hereditary state servants working three months yearly for pay; private bondsmen (pu-ch'ue), receiving only 50 percent of a burgher's land; and service families (tsa-hu), each with its own laws and required to marry within its category.
Chapter 42
Why did the Toba become impoverished after their conquests to about 440?
Earlier campaigns were lightning wars of conquest that yielded great booty, which the Toba used to develop luxury. Later campaigns, especially against South China, were long and hard, and brought no booty because the enemy retired slowly and took everything with them. Since plunder was the Toba's main source of wealth, they grew impoverished, while their herds deteriorated from disuse and the Chinese gentry grew richer and more powerful.
Chapter 42
Section 434 cards
Why did Chinese officials want the Toba capital moved to Loyang?
The Chinese gentry officials wanted the capital at Loyang, the old centre of China, partly for personal advantage: their landed properties lay near that capital, so the grain they produced found a ready market. They also urged the emperor to claim dominion over all China in theory. The old capital's food supply was failing because it was not on a navigable river and grain had to be carted. In 493-4 they secured the transfer.
Chapter 43
What reforms did Emperor Wen Ti impose between 490 and 499?
The chapter states that in 490-499 the Toba emperor Wen Ti (471-499) took decisive steps required by internal development: all aliens were prohibited from using their own language in public life, and Chinese became the official language. Chinese clothing and customs also became general. The administration, largely following an early third-century Wei pattern, was reshaped into a form that became the model for the T'ang dynasty. An office for religious affairs, mainly handling Buddhist monasteries, was created for the first time.
Chapter 43
Why did the Toba rulers foster Buddhism, according to the chapter?
The chapter offers two reasons. Buddhism accepted all foreigners alike, whereas Confucianist Chinese made non-Chinese feel they were still "barbarians" and that only real Chinese could be real Confucianists. Secondly, it can be assumed the Toba rulers intended to break the power of the Chinese gentry; the chapter notes later Tibetan, Japanese, and Burmese kings accepted Buddhism for similar reasons, and that acceptance by Far Eastern rulers always meant an attempt to create a more autocratic regime.
Chapter 43
How does the chapter explain the non-Chinese elements at Yuen-kang?
The chapter rejects the exaggerated view that Greek art traveled via Alexander's campaign, degenerated into Gandhara art, and reached China in distorted forms. It notes some eight hundred years separated Alexander's campaign from the Toba sculptures, and the cultural contents differed entirely. Instead, suggestions came from the centre of Greco-Bactrian culture in present Afghanistan and were worked out by Toba artists: old forms filled with new content, a synthesis of Western inspiration and Turkish initiative.
Chapter 43
Section 444 cards
What did the Maitreya school promise, and who supported these village monks?
The Maitreya school promised the appearance on earth of a new Buddha who would end all suffering and introduce a Golden Age. Exploited peasants supported the monks because this Messianism gave the poor hope in this world. Impoverished Hun and Toba tribes also joined; their revolts looked religious but were really results of extreme impoverishment.
Chapter 44
What was the 446 action against Buddhists really about, according to the chapter?
The chapter says the famous 446 action destroyed many temples and monasteries and killed many monks, but such Buddhist-Taoist clashes reflected power struggles between cliques more than conflict between religions. A gentry faction led by the Ts'ui family allied with Taoist leader K'ou Ch'ien-chih against a rival faction led by the crown prince.
Chapter 44
How did the Toba empire split into Northern Ch'i and Northern Chou?
The Kao family, tied to eastern Chinese gentry, took a puppet emperor to Yeh; Kao Yang then deposed him and founded Northern Ch'i (550-577). In the west, a Yue-wen family member made himself emperor, founding Northern Chou (557-580), and remaining unsinicized Toba tribes moved there. The split followed from separating tribal nobles from their tribes at the empire's founding.
Chapter 44
What happened to the Juan-juan after the Turks rose, and who replaced them as the main menace?
The Turks defeated the Juan-juan in 552; remnants fled to Ch'i or Chou. Friction led Ch'i to annihilate its Juan-juan in 555, and under Turkish pressure Chou handed over its own, who were killed the same year. The Juan-juan disappeared from Far Eastern history. The Turks then destroyed the Ephthalites and became the dominant Central Asian power, a far more dangerous menace.
Chapter 44
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Why did the Chou revival of Toba customs ultimately fail?
The author argues that after two centuries the old nomad tribal life could not be restored, and too many Chinese remained with whom close bonds had formed and could not be broken. Consequently Chou had no choice but to organize a state essentially similar to the great Toba empire, despite reviving sacrifices to Heaven, the carpet-lifting at accession, and Toba names.
Chapter 45
How did Yang Chien rise to found the Sui dynasty in 581?
Through tangled marriage ties to the Chou imperial house and to the old Hun Tu-ku noble family, Yang Chien gained prestige. After Chinese cliques regained predominance in Chou, his position was strong enough to massacre the imperial family's members and declare himself emperor in 581, beginning the Sui dynasty—the first to rule all China again.
Chapter 45
What happened to the Toba people after the Chou empire ended?
The Toba disappeared for all time, as the Juan-juan had shortly before. Tribes that did not disintegrate seem to have joined Turkish and other tribes, living on under the name of the tribe leading the new league. Most Toba nobility, however, became Chinese; their families, sometimes keeping tribal names, appear in Chinese history for centuries.
Chapter 45
Why did Chinese gentry flee south when the Huns destroyed the Chin dynasty?
The author argues they fled not from loyalty or national feeling, but because they saw little prospect of rank and influence at alien courts, feared the aliens would turn fields into pasturage, and feared the end of the economic and monetary system the gentry had built for their own benefit.
Chapter 45
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How did southern manors (pieh-yeh) differ from taxed farmland?
The chapter explains that manors were fruit plantations with luxurious buildings, often established on tax-free village commons. Farmland was taxed because it produced grain or mulberry leaves, and its size was legally restricted, while gardens were unrestricted. Around A.D. 500 officials were allowed manors of three hundred mou, yet far larger manors existed. Cultivated by tenants, manors sold fish, vegetables, fruit and bamboo, yielding more income than ordinary rice or wheat land.
Chapter 46
What dietary change occurred in the south between A.D. 300 and 600?
The chapter states that between A.D. 300 and 600 rice became the main staple in the southern states, although wheat could theoretically have been grown there. The resulting vitamin and protein deficiencies were offset by greater consumption of vegetables, especially beans, and partly by fish and seafood. In the north, rice became the upper class's staple while wheat remained the lower classes' main food, and new wheat preparations such as dumplings appeared.
Chapter 46
Why did northern immigrant officials treat the south as colonial country?
The chapter says officials immigrating from the north regarded the south as colonial and more or less uncivilized. They went to its provinces to get rich quickly and had no desire to live there long, sharing the big landowners' dislike of provincial existence. Most families stayed in the capital near the court, where provincial products were sent and sold, and where the gentry pursued intrigues, music, poetry and harem social life.
Chapter 46
What does the chapter say about the Eastern Chin rulers' power?
The chapter states that not a single ruler of the Eastern Chin dynasty possessed personal or political qualities of any importance. Their power was extremely limited because, except for the founder Yuean Ti, they belonged to the group of new immigrants, had no firm footing, and were caught in the net of the regrouping gentry class. Yuean Ti lived to see the first great rising, under Wang Tun, which began in the Hankow region.
Chapter 46
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How did Huan Wen build and use his power base in the south?
Huan Wen rose as a military commander after his father gained a high post through friendship with Yue Liang. In 347 he reconquered Szechwan and deposed its local dynasty, then sent brothers and relatives to administer the fertile upper Yangtze regions, which became the basis of his power. In 371 he deposed the reigning emperor and installed a frail old prince, but Huan Wen died before he could take the throne himself.
Chapter 47
What did the southern campaigns against the north achieve, and why were they limited?
The author states the joint Huan and Yue campaigns were the south's first reaction against the north, which had usually been the aggressor. Their aims included regaining eastern Honan, northern Anhwei and Kiangsu, where the Huan, imperial and Hsieh families held seats, and gaining a better frontier against the expanding Earlier Ch'in. The author argues they brought no important practical benefit, since only one court clique backed them and not whole-heartedly.
Chapter 47
How did Huan Hsuean rise and fall around 402-404?
Huan Hsuean, son of Huan Wen, broke with the Hsieh and allied with the Wang and Yin families. Liu Lao-chih, defending the capital, defected to him, so Huan Hsuean took the capital, deposed the emperor and began his own dynasty. Then Liu Yue, an earlier subordinate of Liu Lao-chih, led the reaction; in 404 he marched on the capital, Huan Hsuean fled and was killed in the upper Yangtze region.
Chapter 47
What was the popular rising around 400 and how was it suppressed?
The author describes it as the first rising in the south, led by members of a secret society directly continuing the Yellow Turbans of the later second century and organized church-Taoism. It drew in the exploited and ill-treated lower classes, spread from the southern coast as far as the neighbourhood of Canton, and was suppressed mainly by Liu Yue, whose success in this raised his military power and political influence.
Chapter 47
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How did Liu Yue found the Liu-Sung dynasty in 420?
After military successes in Shensi in 416-17, Liu Yue returned to the capital but lost most of his gains to the Hun ruler Ho-lien P'o-p'o. He then killed the emperor in 419 and installed a puppet, who was forced to abdicate in 420, making Liu Yue emperor. He named his dynasty Sung; it is called Liu-Sung to distinguish it from the later, more famous Sung dynasty.
Chapter 48
What caused the long fighting between the Liu-Sung and the Toba?
Part of the old imperial family and its followers fled north from Liu Yue and surrendered to the Toba, agitating for a campaign of vengeance against South China. They were supported at the Toba court by gentry families with landed interests in the south. The long fighting mainly concerned the domains of the deposed imperial family and its following, and brought little success to south China.
Chapter 48
How did Hsiao Tao-ch'eng establish the Southern Ch'i dynasty?
The Hsiao family gained power through General Hsiao Tao-ch'eng, aided by a marriage alliance with the imperial house. In 477 he had the emperor killed by an accomplice, the son of a shamaness, set a boy on the throne and made himself regent. Soon after, the boy emperor and all members of the imperial family were murdered, and he created the Southern Ch'i dynasty (479-501).
Chapter 48
How did the Liang dynasty end and who founded the succeeding dynasty?
The first Liang emperor, Wu Ti (502-549), left politics to his court clique. The Toba leader Hou Ching invaded in 548 with a dissatisfied Liang prince's aid, captured the capital in 549 and killed Wu Ti, then made himself emperor but was driven out and killed in 552. Later, Chou invaders installed a feudatory at Hankow (the 'Later Liang'). Hsiao Yen, of the imperial family, removed the reigning emperor and founded the Liang dynasty in 502.
Chapter 48
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How did the Ch'en dynasty begin and what was its territorial extent?
General Ch'en Pa-hsien installed a shadow emperor, forced him to abdicate, and made himself emperor, founding the Ch'en dynasty (A.D. 557-588). The chapter describes it as even feebler than preceding dynasties, confined to the lower Yangtze valley, with cliques and rival pretenders preventing any constructive home policy. It gained only minor advantages in north China over the Northern Ch'i.
Chapter 49
How did the Sui conquest end the Ch'en empire and the period of division?
Yang Chien had brought the Chinese Sui dynasty to power in the north. The Sui first liquidated the quasi-feudal state of the Later Liang, then in 588-9 conquered the Ch'en empire almost without serious resistance. This reunified all China under single rule and ended a period of 360 years of division.
Chapter 49
How did music and Buddhism develop in the southern gentry culture?
The author argues old Chinese music disappeared in south and north alike. In the south, native courtesans brought aboriginal non-Chinese music to court; poets wrote Chinese songs for it, and the old music was forgotten. The southern gentry, a 'colonial' gentry, were raised Confucian but drawn to meditative Buddhism close to original Taoism; monks' warnings of the wicked's fate prompted rich gifts to monasteries.
Chapter 49
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Why did revolts break out in the south under Wen Ti?
The south expected the government to transfer population to the sparsely peopled north-west around Ch'ang-an, to settle peasants who could support the growing official staff and satisfy the local gentry. This prospect produced several revolts in the south.
Chapter 50
How did Wen Ti's background shape his governing style?
As an old soldier long a subject of the Toba, Wen Ti was a practical man with little interest in theory. He was anti-intellectual and attached to Buddhism, opposed Confucianism, demanded from officials the obedience of soldiers, and was extremely thrifty, almost miserly, because he saw finances could only be set right by great exertion.
Chapter 50
Why did the gentry back Prince Kuang's rebellion against Wen Ti?
The gentry of the north-east and south resented being required to cut consumption, being excluded from political office now concentrated in the west, and losing the nearby capital market for their produce. These dissatisfied circles incited Prince Kuang, who murdered the emperor, set aside the heir, and took the throne as Yang Ti.
Chapter 50
What did Yang Ti do after taking the throne?
Yang Ti moved the capital back east to Loyang, near the grain-producing regions, and ordered great canals built to carry grain to the capital and give north-eastern and southern producers a new market. The first forerunner of the Imperial Canal linked the Yangtze with the Yellow River, and another canal ran north almost to modern Peking.
Chapter 50
Section 514 cards
Why did China attack Korea during the Sui period?
After China's unification, Korea sought an alliance with the Turks as a counterweight against China. A Turco-Korean alliance, possibly extended to Japan, would have meant encirclement for China with grave consequences. The Chinese therefore determined to attack Korea while also opening negotiations. The fighting lasted throughout the Sui period, required combined land and sea attacks, and generally brought little success.
Chapter 51
What expenses and habits wrecked the prosperity built under Yang Ti's father?
Continual warfare and bribery-dependent intrigues were costly, and the great canal works were still more expensive. The emperor Yang Ti was extravagant, building enormous palaces and making long journeys with an immense following. The author argues the journeys were partly pleasure but probably also meant to hinder risings and give direct control; yet the empire was too large for administration while traveling, producing disorder and unrest.
Chapter 51
How did the T'ang equal-field land law fall short of its aims?
The law aimed to equalize ownership so all peasants held similar land, prevent large estates, and protect peasants from losing land. It was a modification of the Toba chuen-t'ien law. But gentry connected to the imperial house got privileged positions, officials were excluded from the leasing prohibition, and temples were exempted from taxation. These exceptions favored the gentry, and many provisions went unenforced, so a new gentry formed.
Chapter 51
What was the T'ang pao-chia system renewed in 624?
As part of a general administrative reform in 624, the T'ang renewed the old pao-chia system. Groups of five families were collectively responsible for payment of taxes, the corvee, crimes committed by individuals within the group, and loans from state agencies. The system is attested for pre-Christian times, was re-activated in the eleventh century, and recurred from time to time down to the present.
Chapter 51
Section 524 cards
What was the origin of the title tu-tu before it spread to other peoples?
The chapter notes that in the fourth century the title of commander of these armies, tu-tu, meant a commander in the church-Taoist organization. It was used by the Toba and, from the seventh century on, became widely accepted as a title among the Uigurs, Tibetans, Sogdians, Turks and Khotanese.
Chapter 52
Why did the new T'ang regional army commanders become a threat to the central government?
Special regional armies were created from 678 on. Their commanders soon became more important than civil administrators because they commanded districts making up a whole province, and the financial administration of their commands was put under them. This improved military functioning but let governors-general pursue their own policy, even against the central government.
Chapter 52
What did the mid-eighth-century T'ang state budget include, and how did it compare to Han?
The annual budget included over a million tons of grain for the capital, palace and salaries of civil and military officials; twenty-seven million pieces of textiles for capital, palace and army consumption and supplementary grain purchases; and two million strings of money for salaries and the army. The chapter states this was much more than the Han state budget.
Chapter 52
How did the T'ang defeat the eastern Turks around 629-30, and what happened to them after?
Disturbances broke out in 627 led by Turkish Uighurs and allies. The Chinese took advantage and in a great campaign in 629-30 overthrew the eastern Turks; the khan was taken to Ch'ang-an and the emperor made himself 'Heavenly Khan.' Despite ministerial protest citing the Later Han settlement policy, over a million eastern Turks were settled in the bend of the upper Hwang-ho under two governors-general.
Chapter 52
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Why did Chinese policy aim to prevent a union between Turks and Tibetans?
The chapter states that after the T'u-yue-hun were annihilated by the Sui, a new political unit, the T'u-fan, formed in northern Tibet, apparently with a Turkish-Mongol upper class and Tibetan lower class. As in the Han period, Chinese policy was bound to prevent a union between Turks and Tibetans. This, together with commercial interests, seems to have been the political motive behind the T'ang policy in Turkestan.
Chapter 53
What internal Turkish events helped China conquer Turkestan in 640-648?
The chapter explains that the western Turks, to whom Turkestan had become subject, were crippled by two internal events: a tribal rising, and then the rebellion and rise of the Uighurs (640-650). The Chinese could rely on the Uighurs, and the Toeloes Turks furnished a large army with which China turned against Turkestan again in 647-48, definitively establishing its rule there.
Chapter 53
How did Li Shih-min become emperor, and what marked his reign?
Li Shih-min was not named heir because he was not the eldest son, causing tension with his father and brothers. In 626, as western Turks threatened the capital, an armed collision occurred in which Li Shih-min was victorious. His brothers and their families were exterminated and his father forced to abdicate. He became emperor as T'ai Tsung (627-649), and the chapter says his reign marked the zenith of China's and the T'ang dynasty's power.
Chapter 53
What groups backed Empress Wu, and what did she do for the Buddhists?
The chapter suggests Empress Wu had a group opposing the ruling clique: the eastern gentry, out of power since the Northern Chou and Sui, who had to pass examinations while western gentry claimed family privileges. She moved the capital to Loyang and relied on eastern gentry, who were closely associated with western Asian foreign merchants and the Buddhist Church. In gratitude for Buddhist help she endowed them with enormous sums and tried to make Buddhism a sort of state religion.
Chapter 53
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How did Buddhist monasteries exercise influence over the money market in this epoch?
The monasteries grew wealthy through foreign trade and land purchases, becoming repositories of capital. They accumulated large quantities of metal, stored as bronze Buddha figures, and records of the figures' total weight indicate the money value they represented. The monasteries also owned shops with rental income and operated mills, controlling the price of flour and polished rice.
Chapter 54
What did the Turkish khan demand in 698, and how did Empress Wu respond?
At the height of his power, the Turkish khan demanded a Chinese prince for his daughter rather than the usual princess for his son, apparently intending to conquer China, remove Empress Wu, and restore the T'ang under Turkish overlordship. Wu sent a member of her own family, whom the khan rejected; he demanded the deposed T'ang emperor's restoration and campaigned against China. Wu then recalled the deposed emperor as heir to the throne.
Chapter 54
What were the sources of the Chinese theatre, and why is it better called opera?
The Chinese theatre developed from two sources: religious games, bullfights and wrestling among Turkish and Mongol peoples, which became dancing displays; and sacrificial games of South Chinese origin. Because it was united with music, it should rather be called opera, though it offers a pantomimic show. A court conservatoire trained actors and musicians as early as the T'ang period, selecting them from the best-looking commoners.
Chapter 54
What were the main achievements and influences in T'ang painting?
The author argues the T'ang period's principal achievement lies in painting. Alien influences are strong: Hsieh Ho's six fundamental laws of painting were probably drawn from Indian practice, and foreigners were brought in to decorate Buddhist temples since the Chinese initially did not know how to present the new gods. Wu Tao-tzu, the most famous T'ang painter, was strongly influenced by Central Asian works; Wang Wei ranks first among landscape painters.
Chapter 54
Section 554 cards
What did Eberhard identify as the main danger of the military governor office?
The author argues that the military governor post, with its great command of power, was useful against external enemies but became dangerous when the central power was weak and no important external enemies remained. An Lu-shan's rising, the first of many in the later T'ang period, demonstrated this, and eastern gentry were ready to support him hoping to gain from a realm centered again in the east.
Chapter 55
How did Eberhard characterize the role of non-Chinese in the An Lu-shan rebellion?
The author notes that not only were the rebels An Lu-shan and Shih Ssu-ming non-Chinese, but so were most generals opposing them, including Kuo Tzu-i and the Kitan commander. The Uighurs fought against Turks whom they regarded as Chinese. Eberhard argues these people regarded themselves as Chinese, and that present-day notions of national feeling should not be applied to those times.
Chapter 55
What did the T'ang government pay the Uighurs for their aid?
After the victory near the capital in late 757, the Uighurs received 10,000 rolls of silk with a promise of 20,000 rolls a year, and the Uighur khan was given a daughter of the emperor as his wife. Later the Uighurs crowded into the capital, compelled the Chinese to buy horses at enormous silk prices, behaved like lords, and expected government maintenance.
Chapter 55
What happened to the 'equal land' system in 780 and why did it not help the government?
In 780 the 'equal land' system was officially given up, along with a tax system based on the idea that every citizen had the same amount of land and therefore paid the same taxes. The new system tried to equalize tax burden and corvée obligation, not land, possibly indicating greater freedom for private enterprise. But most tax income was retained by the governors for their armies and courts, so the government did not benefit.
Chapter 55
Section 562 cards
What did the 843 secularization of Buddhism involve, and why was Taoism spared?
The edict secularized 4,600 Buddhist temples and 40,000 shrines and monasteries, required all statues melted down and delivered to the government, and returned 260,500 monks to ordinary citizenship. Temples had been tax-exempt, holding millions of acres leased to tenants plus some 150,000 temple slaves. Taoism was not touched because the ruling gentry were Confucianist and simultaneously Taoist.
Chapter 56
Who led the great peasant rising from 874, and what was Huang Ch'ao's background?
The rising began in 874 in the chief agrarian region, south of the present Hopei. It was led by the peasant Wang Hsien-chih together with Huang Ch'ao, a salt merchant fallen into poverty who joined the hungry peasants with his own fighting group. The author notes Huang was well educated and is said to have failed the state examination; he is not the first merchant to become a rebel.
Chapter 56
Section 574 cards
Who killed Huang Ch'ao, and with whose help was his rising overcome?
The Sha-t'o, under their commander Li K'o-yung, defeated Huang Ch'ao after attacks on the capital in 881 and 883; he fled and was killed by the Sha-t'o in 884. The chapter states the popular rising was overcome only with the aid of foreign troops, and that this brought the end of the T'ang dynasty.
Chapter 57
How did Chu Ch'uean-chung end the T'ang dynasty?
A former follower of Huang Ch'ao, Chu Ch'uean-chung became the strongest commander and fought Li K'o-yung from 890. The emperor fell into his hands; Chu killed the emperor's entourage, especially the eunuchs, then the emperor himself, set a puppet on the throne, and at the beginning of 907 took over rule as emperor of the Later Liang dynasty.
Chapter 57
According to the chapter, what caused the downfall of the T'ang dynasty?
The author argues the downfall was brought about by military governors who built up power as independent hereditary satraps, exploited the people, and through continual mutual struggles undermined the empire's economic structure. The empire was also weakened by foreign trade and by dependence on foreigners, especially Turks, with much national income going abroad, which explains the great popular risings.
Chapter 57
What changes did the author say mark the start of 'Modern Times' in China?
The author argues 'Modern Times' began around 860, with roots from about 780, and was largely complete by the mid-eleventh century; any period division is arbitrary. He characterizes the epoch as the emergence of a middle class, though the gentry continued to play a role and the middle class never really got into power, unlike in Europe.
Chapter 57
Section 584 cards
How did the gentry divide in Modern Times, and what bound the two parts?
The gentry split into a "big gentry" of few families directing policy in the capital, and a "small gentry" operating in provincial cities and managing local affairs. The small gentry were bound to big gentry families by ties of loyalty, forming clienteles. Gentry cliques extended into the provinces and could often be identified with a geographical area, though this usually did not indicate particularistic tendencies.
Chapter 58
What limits kept guilds from gaining political power?
Guilds were essentially religious in character, providing welfare, standardizing products and prices, taxing members, cleaning streets and regulating salaries, with apprentices initiated in semi-religious ceremonies. But no guild connected people of the same craft across different cities, and each trade had its own guild—over 420 existed in nineteenth-century Peking. Thus guilds failed to achieve political influence even within individual cities.
Chapter 58
What were vagrants, and why did entrepreneurs prefer hiring them?
Vagrants were farmers who had secretly left their own or their landlord's land for various reasons and moved to other regions where they did not register and thus paid no taxes. Entrepreneurs liked to hire them for industries outside the towns, where government supervision was weaker. Naturally, these vagrants were completely at the mercy of their employers.
Chapter 58
What monetary changes followed the return to a money economy around 780?
Since c. 780 the economy can again be called a money economy, with more taxes imposed in money rather than in kind. This pressure forced farmers off the land into cities to earn cash for taxes, supplying labour for industry and fueling city growth, especially in Central China. Scarce metal and costly minting led to iron coins, more silver, and paper money; fluctuating relative values made speculation flourish.
Chapter 58
Section 594 cards
How did the state attempt to monopolize the tea trade from 783?
From 783 the state first tried to monopolize the tea trade for revenue but failed to make cultivation a state monopoly. Instead a tea commissariat bought tea from producers and supplied licensed traders. This bred collusion between officials and wholesalers, who eliminated small traders and used bribery; both state and wholesalers opposed smuggling, which was strictly prohibited.
Chapter 59
What were the consequences of printing's invention in China?
Printing, known as wood-block printing from about 770, made books cheap and plentiful instead of scarce copyist products. Scholars could build private libraries and compare many texts rather than a few. Education spread to wider groups, private libraries appeared alongside imperial ones, and publishing grew, allowing a literature of entertainment. The author notes some effects emerged later, in the Sung period.
Chapter 59
Why did paper money prototypes arise in North China?
Copper cash was heavy and costly to transport, hindering trade, and deficit regions could lose all their copper, causing deflation. Some provinces banned copper export at the end of the eighth century, which ended external trade. Merchants then created deposit certificates that circulated as payment, first in Szechwan, leading toward banking. Late in the T'ang the government issued and printed its own certificates, predecessors of Sung paper money.
Chapter 59
What was the significance of officials' association with wholesalers?
The chapter states that the association of officials with wholesalers, or even with a monopoly trade, appears here for the first time and was of the utmost importance in all later times. Monopoly advanced fastest in Szechwan, which had a large commercial community. As principal tea producer and important salt producer, Szechwan was better off than other parts of China during political fragmentation.
Chapter 59
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Why did the gentry refuse to cooperate with Chu Ch'uean-chung's Later Liang?
Chu was of peasant origin, as were many of his helpers, some former independent peasant leaders and others under Huang Ch'ao. All opposed the gentry, and the great slaughter of the capital's gentry shortly before Chu's rule was welcomed by him and his followers. The gentry therefore would not cooperate with Chu and preferred to join the Turk Li K'o-yung.
Chapter 60
How did the Later T'ang rulers organize their state, and who staffed its officialdom?
The Sha-t'o rulers treated the state as a family enterprise, placing family members in the most important positions. Lacking enough relatives, they adopted large numbers of aliens of all nationalities, and gave military posts to bodyguards, domestic servants, and clients. Despite this, the bulk of officials still came from educated Chinese, who won the rulers over to Chinese cultural ideals and laws favoring the gentry.
Chapter 60
How did the Later Chin dynasty come to power, and what did it cost?
In 936 the Later T'ang gave way to the Later Chin, with the son-in-law rather than the son ascending the throne. The Sha-t'o Turk Shih Ching-t'ang achieved this by allying with the Kitan and ceding some northern provinces to them. The Kitan then regarded the new dynasty as merely a transition stage toward annexing all of North China.
Chapter 60
Why did the Sha-t'o oppose the Kitan occupation while the Chinese gentry accepted it?
The Chinese gentry seem to have accepted the Kitan emperor because a Kitan ruler was just as acceptable to them as a Sha-t'o one. The Sha-t'o, however, would not submit, since under Kitan rule they would have lost their position of privilege. The Sha-t'o general Liu Chih-yuean led this opposition and founded the Later Han dynasty in 947.
Chapter 60
Section 614 cards
What were the main territorial and economic shifts noted in this period?
The north-west around Ch'ang-an was so ruined and depopulated by fighting that it ceased to be a centre of power for a century. The north was ruled by the Kitan, whose trade was diverted to Peking. The south, especially the lower Yangtze region and Szechwan, made economic progress and gained political importance.
Chapter 61
What was the immediate reason for the 955 persecution of Buddhism?
The immediate reason seems to have been that too many men entered monasteries to avoid being taken as soldiers. The law secularized 30,336 temples and monasteries, leaving only some 2,700 with 61,200 monks, and placed Buddhists under regulations defining their position in society.
Chapter 61
What conditions did the 955 law set for becoming a monk?
Private persons could no longer erect temples; the number of temples per district was legally fixed. A person needed the head of family's permission, had to be over fifteen, and know by heart at least one hundred pages of texts. Ordinations required a state-controlled examination, annual lists in two copies, and six identification cards.
Chapter 61
Why did the Sung turn south instead of attacking the northern Kitan?
The author argues the Sung adopted a new course: rather than fighting the northern peoples, especially the Kitan (Liao), they attacked the weak southern states, absorbing them until 980. The gentry and merchants favoured annexation for a wider economic field, and control of the Yangtze and Canton regions strengthened the empire.
Chapter 61
Section 624 cards
What did the Sung emperor do with the army and generals after 963?
The emperor ended the separate military administration, placing all administration under civil officials. Generals were pensioned or transferred to civil posts, the army was demobilized, and peasants were settled on depopulated or new land. Soldiers became state mercenaries instead of conscripts, and the army was placed directly under the central administration, ending the military governors. The gentry supported this because it removed military competition and expanded their influence.
Chapter 62
Why did rising Sung army numbers not mean rising military strength?
Numbers grew from 378,000 in 975 to 912,000 in 1017 and 1,259,000 in 1045, but this implied no increase in strength. Men stayed in the army even when too old for service. Soldiers grew exacting: they refused to carry their own baggage, requiring porter armies, and demanded extra pay before going to regions remote from home. Such allowances became customary, so military spending soared without matching striking power.
Chapter 62
How did the Sung state try to cover army costs, and what did inflation do?
Unable to meet costs from taxation, the government coined fresh money, aided by greatly increased metal production. Minting cost about 75 percent or more of the coin's value, and metal came from the south while the capital was in the north. Huge quantities of new money entered circulation; the state budget rose from 22,200,000 in 1000 to 150,800,000 in 1021. Deposit certificates and early paper money, redeemable at a reduction of at least 3 percent, added revenue. Inflation profited big merchants.
Chapter 62
How did the gentry shape Sung capital and landholding?
The author argues the gentry as officials hindered independent trade, allowing it only in association with themselves. Since they also represented landed property, newly formed capital was invested in land, producing the greatest accumulation of estates so far in the eleventh century. Estates came as imperial gifts or were created on village hillsides, ending village commons; managers often became hereditary, and tenants were often unregistered migrants. Fan Chung-yen created tax-free clan estates in 1048.
Chapter 62
Section 634 cards
Why did the Sung tax system prove socially harmful?
The author argues that making tax proportional to land owned hurt small peasants: the lowest tax bracket covered more land than a poor peasant actually owned, so they paid heavily while big landowners, whose land was largely freed from the chief taxes, got off lightly. Administratively cheaper, the measure was unsocial.
Chapter 63
How did geography around the capital shape landholding and production?
The author describes concentric circles: the gentry sought land near the capital, the largest consumer of perishable high-priced goods. The first circle grew mulberry for silk and vegetables, with the highest concentration of landlords and tenants; the second grew transportable staples with slightly less exploitation due to looser supervision; the third held independent subsistence farmers. Moving the capital reorganized everything.
Chapter 63
Who backed Wang An-shih's reforms and what did they target?
Emperor Shen Tsung (1068-1085) backed Wang An-shih (1021-1086), whose poor-family group represented small landholders and small dealers. Reforms included credits for small peasants, bigger official salaries, army reduction with a militia, and attention to Shensi. They were directed against monopolist merchants and plantation owners, who furiously opposed them, and the policy was abandoned after a few years.
Chapter 63
Why did Shensi yield about a quarter of state revenues?
The author calls it grotesque: Shensi had no large landowners and no wealthy gentry evading taxes, only newly settled small peasant holdings, so it produced roughly a quarter of total revenues. The government therefore watched the province closely, especially after a sinified Toba king proclaimed the Hsia dynasty in 1038 and tribute of 250,000 strings was paid.
Chapter 63
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What social welfare bureaus did the state create around 1098–1104?
In 1098 a bureau for housing and care created homes for the old and destitute; in 1102 a bureau for medical care sent state doctors to homes, hospitals, and private homes to treat poor patients; from 1104 a bureau of burials covered burial costs for poor persons. Buddhist priests often handled medical care, burials, and hospitalization, receiving state premiums for good work.
Chapter 64
How did Neo-Confucianism explain the problem of evil and human inequality?
Ch'eng Hao and Ch'eng I held that nature is neutral, but physical form arises when nature combines with Material Force (ch'i), producing imbalance or disharmony in individuals. Man should transform physical form and recover original nature, with jen (love) as the creative force enabling this. Neo-Confucianism accepts inequality of men, and jen must be channelled by li, rules rooted in a stratified class society.
Chapter 64
How did Neo-Confucianism relate to Buddhism and to the greater gentry?
Neo-Confucianism, the Sung school, united Confucianism and Buddhism for the first time, adopting elements of a Buddhism the author describes as having turned reactionary. This gave Confucianism a metaphysic it had lacked, extending its influence while undercutting Buddhism. The greater gentry never again sided with the Buddhist Church as in T'ang times; when tired of Confucianism they turned to escapist, meditative Buddhism or Taoism.
Chapter 64
What was Chu Hsi's role and influence in the Neo-Confucian school?
Chu Hsi (1130–1200) systematized Neo-Confucian thought and wrote 'simplified li' for burghers outside the gentry who could not perform all li; it influenced Korea and Annam, strengthening patriarchal, patrilinear family systems. His commentaries became standard for centuries, until the early twentieth century. Though a symbol of conservatism, the author notes he was interested in science and open to change.
Chapter 64
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What were the two main streams of Sung painting and how did they differ?
The decorative school was pompous and realistic, stressing detail; later theoreticians linked it to the northern school of meditative Buddhism, and its painters were often court officials, like Li Lung-mien, who painted imperial horses. The southern school treated painting as intimate personal expression, seeking inner realities and the spirit of landscape rather than outer forms; Mi Fei is its best-known figure, and the emperor Hui Tsung typically disliked his work.
Chapter 65
Why did the Northern Sung collapse so quickly to the Juchen in 1125-1126?
The eleventh century was a period of diplomatic manoeuvring to avoid war: tribute was paid to the Kitan and the Hsia, and each was stirred up against the other. When the Juchen broke the Kitan in 1125 and marched on the Sung, the capital fell in 1126 and the emperor and his retired father were taken prisoner. The author explains that the whole security edifice rested on balance and diplomacy, and neither state was armed, so both collapsed at the first assault.
Chapter 65
How did the Liao dynasty arise and what ended its plan to rule all China?
The Kitan, a league of tribes under an apparently Mongol leadership, became the dominant power in the north around A.D. 900. In 927 they destroyed Po-hai, bringing Tungus tribes including the Jurchen under their dominance; in 936 they set the Turkish general Shih Ching-t'ang on the Chinese throne as a feudatory and in 937 renamed their dynasty Liao to claim the Chinese throne. The plan failed: Shih tried to become independent, Chinese fought the Liao, and in 947 the sceptre returned to a Sha-t'o dynasty.
Chapter 65
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Why did the Kitan ruling class come to prefer peace?
The author argues the Kitan ruling class grew rich from conquered regions, tax collection (passing only the wine tax to the state), horse herds sold to the horse-less Sung, and tribute payments from China after 1004. Settling frontier regions and using soldier-peasants to feed armies further increased their stake in peace, since war with the Sung empire had become costly and less remunerative.
Chapter 66
What was the Kara-Kitai state and who really held power?
After the Liao fell, a small troop under a member of the ruling family fled west, fought through pursuit, and after years of nomad life in northern Turkestan gained tribal allies and invaded western Turkestan. They founded 'Western Liao' or 'Kara-Kitai,' capital Balasagun. The author stresses it was not purely Kitan: the Kitan were a thin stratum, real power lay with autochthonous Turkish tribes, and the Kitan were soon assimilated. It was destroyed in 1211.
Chapter 66
How did the Hsi-Hsia state arise and what ended it?
Descendants of the Toba, based between Tibet and China, gained strength in the tenth century and courted China, receiving presents and the Sung family name Chao in 988. The Kitan then proclaimed their chief king of Hsia in 990. In 1031 he resumed the Toba name, broke with the Sung in 1034, and proclaimed the Hsia dynasty in 1038. The Mongols forced submission in 1209 and annihilated the state in 1227.
Chapter 66
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Why did Ch'in K'ui secure General Yo Fei's assassination and make peace with the Juchen?
The author argues the greater gentry, led by Ch'in K'ui, one of the largest landowners, opposed the Sung military party. Their estates lay around Nanking, the deployment and recruiting region. Peace freed them from war costs that ate into revenues, and they paid hardly any taxes. Ch'in K'ui had Yo Fei assassinated in 1141 and concluded peace; the Sung became vassals paying 500,000 strings of cash in annual tribute.
Chapter 67
What was Chia Ssu-tao's reform law and why did it fail?
Chia, of the lesser gentry, proposed that state funds purchase greater-gentry land above a fixed maximum. Peasants would be settled on it, and its yield would fund military expenditure, restoring the country's strength. He began south of Nanking, where the principal estates lay, and held influence until 1275. The greater gentry hated him mortally; he paid with his life, and the gentry helped bring down the emperor.
Chapter 67
Why does the chapter say Southern Sung literature was unpolitical and philosophical works scarce?
The author argues the lesser gentry and intelligentsia, suffering inflation, depended on greater-gentry patrons. Salaries bore no relation to prices: a big house cost 2,000 strings, a concubine 800. Living on patrons shut them out of politics. Hence literature was unpolitical and took refuge in romanticism and flight from realities, and scarcely any philosophical works appeared. Poets were numerous but hardly outstanding.
Chapter 67
How did the Southern Sung finally fall to the Mongols?
After allying with the Mongols in 1233 against the Juchen, the Sung faced the Mongols defenceless, all buffer states gone. They hoped to stave them off as they had the Kitan and Juchen, but misjudged the situation. In the great operations begun in 1273 they were defeated repeatedly; in 1276 the capital was taken and the emperor made prisoner. A fugitive emperor survived three more years until the last perished near Macao.
Chapter 67
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Why did a united Chinese front form against the Juchen, unlike against the Kitan?
The Juchen took not only state domains but also peasant properties, leaving Chinese free peasants only the worst fields unless they became tenants on Juchen estates. Since all Juchen were tax-exempt and could seize any cultivable land they wanted, peasants and landowning gentry alike formed a united front against the Chin, a coalition the author says was not possible against the Kitan and which contributed to the Chin's rapid collapse.
Chapter 68
What internal crises weakened the Chin after they occupied the old Sung capital?
Once the Chin held cultivable land and urban wealth, they competed with each other for the best winnings, especially after the government returned to the old Sung capital, Pien-liang (modern K'aifeng in eastern Honan). Serious crises developed in their own ranks: in 1149 the ruler was assassinated by his chancellor, a member of the imperial family, who was himself murdered in 1161. The author argues the Chin thus failed to reconcile the population or win Chinese collaborators.
Chapter 68
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How did Mongol nationality legislation rank China's conquered population?
The population was divided into four groups: Mongols (themselves in four sub-groups), Central Asian auxiliaries such as Naimans, Uighurs, Turks and Tanguts, then North Chinese, and finally South Chinese. Mongols held all higher government posts and stayed militarily organized in garrisons. Auxiliaries entered government service and often used privilege for trade. South Chinese had the lowest status and virtually no rights.
Chapter 69
What restrictions did Mongol law place on the South Chinese?
Intermarriage with South Chinese was prohibited, they were not allowed to carry arms, and for a time they were even forbidden to learn Mongol or other foreign languages. The aim was to keep them from official positions and political life. Their ignorance of other Asian languages also blocked them from commerce, and travel for trade was obstructed, while foreigners could learn Chinese and enter internal trade.
Chapter 69
Why did Mongol military strength decline by about 1320?
After the conquests, Mongol soldiers lived on pay in garrisons with nothing to do. The old campaigners died and their sons, born in China, had seen no war and learned little of soldiering. After about 1320, an army nominally 1,000 strong failed to defeat barely fifty bandits; most no longer knew how to use their weapons and many did not even join the force.
Chapter 69
How did Mongol rule affect Chinese peasants and the gentry?
The Mongols kept the Chinese gentry's estates, since the gentry had sided with them, though they stripped their political power. Peasants faced forced labour for palaces and for canals and fleets supplying Peking, and many lost their land. They also had to support roughly a million Mongols at a high standard, adding enormously to their burdens. The author argues this greatly increased peasant hardship.
Chapter 69
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How did Mongol religious endowment of temples affect peasants and state revenue?
The Mongols endowed temples and monasteries with great estates, and peasants on those estates became temple servants. Temple land was free from taxation, so roughly 170,000 ch'ing—farms of some 400,000 peasant families—was taken from peasants and no longer paid taxes to the state, though peasants still had to make payments to the temples.
Chapter 70
Why does the author argue Marco Polo's glowing account of Mongol China is misleading?
The author argues travelers like Marco Polo give an entirely false picture because, as foreigners, they held privileged positions, lived in the cities, and saw nothing of the situation of the general population. Their enthusiastic descriptions of magnificence coexisted with the continual and rapid impoverishment of China.
Chapter 70
Who led the popular risings, and whom did they attack?
The risings were led by men of the lower orders—a cloth-seller, a fisherman, a peasant, a salt smuggler, the son of a soldier serving a sentence, an office messenger, and so on. They never attacked the Mongols as aliens but always the rich in general, whether Chinese or foreign, killing the rich and distributing their money and possessions.
Chapter 70
How did the Chinese gentry help prolong Mongol rule against the rebels?
The gentry, fearing being killed by the insurgents, recruited volunteers and fought the rebels on their own account, without the government's authority or support, thus bolstering Mongol rule. Later, when rebels captured towns and offered terms, some gentry joined the rebels purely to save their lives and could not go back.
Chapter 70
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How did Chu Yuean-chang's background lead him to become a rebel leader?
Chu was the son of a small peasant, probably a tenant farmer. A plague killed his parents and all his relatives, leaving him destitute. He entered a monastery and became a monk, then begged for a living. In 1353 he returned home and collected a group, mostly villagers, peasant sons, and former peasant leaders. Monks were often peasant leaders because they promised divine aid and were usually better educated than other peasants.
Chapter 71
What role did gentry advisers play in changing Chu's strategy?
Capable gentry members joined Chu, including a committee chairman who yielded a town and a scholar whose family opposed the Mongols and who had suffered injustice in his career. They gained great influence and persuaded Chu to stop attacking rich individuals and instead establish assured control over large regions, which would enrich him permanently. They gave him strategic plans, and he changed from leader of a popular rising into a fighter against the dynasty.
Chapter 71
What three reasons does the author give for the Mongols' collapse?
The author argues three reasons: (1) the Mongols failed to maintain their armed strength in peacetime, and soldiers became effeminate through idle town life; (2) ruling through Mongols and other aliens while excluding Chinese gentry failed due to insufficient knowledge of revenue sources and abuses from favoring aliens, impoverishing the country and peasantry and driving them to revolt; (3) psychologically, the Mongols saw their hold weakening and little to gain, so they lost interest in ruling.
Chapter 71
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How did Lamaism reach China and what artistic effect did it have under the Mongols?
Lamaism, a Tibetan form of Buddhism fusing Bon elements with Buddhism and resembling Mongol shamanism, spread through the Mongol rulers' predilection for it. Through the Mongols it advanced greatly in China, where it had been insignificant. Religious sculpture came entirely under Tibetan influence, notably via the Nepalese-born sculptor Aniko (b. 1244), and this influence persisted until the Manchu epoch.
Chapter 72
How did the Tibetan pagoda differ from the older Chinese pagoda form?
The previously known pagoda had many storeys growing smaller as they go upward; these towers originally contained relics of Buddha and his disciples. The Tibetan pagoda, which came into prominence alongside it during the Mongol period under Indian and Tibetan architectural influence, lacks this division into storeys, and its lower part is much larger in circumference and often round. Peking remains rich in Tibetan-style pagodas.
Chapter 72
What were the initial character and later transformation of Chu Yuean-chang's rising?
The risings of the latter half of Mongol rule were purely economic and social, not initially anti-Mongol. Chu's rising was at first a purely social, even revolutionary movement; Chu was of the humblest origin, a monk and peasant leader. Only after the Mongols tightened nationality laws did it become national, and only when gentry joined him did it become a dynastic struggle preserving the social system.
Chapter 72
What was the character of Japanese piracy during the Ming and how did China respond?
Japanese trade-piracy had a long history in the coastal provinces; Chinese merchants cooperated with Japanese merchants and pirates, and some persecuted Chinese became pirates themselves. From 1387 China built coastal fortifications. Raids were organized: fast flotillas landed unnoticed, marched on towns, looted, and withdrew. Defenses were of little avail since the whole coast could not be garrisoned; some settlements were moved inland.
Chapter 72
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Why did the Ming abandon their overseas grain flotilla to Manchuria?
The Ming organized an overseas flotilla of grain ships to bring grain from Central China directly to the front in Liao-tung and Manchuria, since canal transport was unreliable and land transport was still needed from the canal's end. The plan was later given up because the ships, vitally important, were so often attacked by pirates.
Chapter 73
How did pirate-merchant foreigners shape Chinese views of Europeans?
Coastal pirate activity led the Chinese to believe that basically all foreigners arriving by ship were "barbarians." When Europeans replaced the Japanese toward the end of the Ming and behaved much the same as pirate-merchants, Western European nations were likewise regarded as barbarians and viewed with great suspicion. Continental powers, even enemies, had long been regarded as states, sometimes as equals.
Chapter 73
What reforms did Chu Yuean-chang attempt, and why were they frustrated?
Chu's first laws targeted the rich: many were forced to migrate to Nanking, losing land and its power base; land was redistributed to poor peasants; new registers were compiled to prevent tax evasion; idle monks were cut down and temple possessions reduced. But the laws were only half enforced, especially near present Shanghai, because the emperor depended on wealthy landowners there to finance his armies.
Chapter 73
How did the Ming military colony system work and what did it achieve?
Soldiers were settled in camps called ying as state farmers, accumulating surpluses used in wartime when the same farmers became soldiers again; many criminals were also sent to these state farms. Especially in south China, the system transformed territories formerly held by native tribes or uninhabited into solidly Chinese areas. Place names ending in ying still mark these outlying areas.
Chapter 73
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What advantages did Champa rice, introduced in 1012, have over ordinary Chinese rice?
Champa rice, brought from Indo-China's kingdom of Champa into Fukien in 1012, was drought-resistant, highly productive, and could be sown very early. Its initial drawback was a hundred-day vegetation period, but the Chinese soon developed quick-growing varieties taking only sixty days from transplantation to harvest, enabling two harvests instead of one.
Chapter 74
How did the abandonment of fallow cultivation affect production and population?
The chapter states that alternating crops was discovered, the old fallow system was given up, and continuous cultivation, sometimes with more than one harvest per field per year, was introduced even in wheat areas. Since under fallow from one half to one third of fields lay uncultivated yearly, the production increase was tremendous. The author argues the population revolution starting about 1550 resulted from this earlier agrarian revolution.
Chapter 74
What role did fish play in Ming rice cultivation?
Fish were kept in the ricefields, producing food for farmers and fertilizing the fields, so continuous rice cultivation without decreasing fertility became possible. The chapter notes incidentally that fish control malaria mosquitoes; although the Chinese did not know this, large areas of South China formerly avoided because of malaria gradually became inhabitable.
Chapter 74
How did cotton reach China and how was it used in the north?
Real cotton probably came from Bengal over South-East Asia to China's coastal provinces, spreading into Fukien and Kwangtung in Sung time; it also reached China through Central Asia, appearing in Shensi by the thirteenth century. Northern farmers could grow cotton in summer and wheat in winter. They ginned cotton with iron rods, and raw cotton was sold to merchants who carried it to the Yangtze valley.
Chapter 74
Section 754 cards
How did printing affect examination access in the Ming era?
With the spread of book printing, all kinds of books became easily accessible, including reprints of examination papers. Even businessmen and farmers increasingly learned to read and write, and many people could now prepare for the examinations. Attendance still cost a great deal, however: candidates had to travel to capitals, live there for months, and often bribe examiners or gain favour with influential people.
Chapter 75
Why did Ming officials collect more taxes than were due?
Official salaries were so small that it was impossible to make ends meet, and each official was personally liable with his own capital for full receipt of the taxes he collected. So every official began at once to collect more taxes than were really due, to cover deficits and living costs, including repaying debts and acquiring capital or land to rise socially. The old gentry, being rich landowners, had no need to exploit peasants on such a scale.
Chapter 75
How did Ming emperors use eunuchs against the gentry?
The new small gentry lacked the great families' standing, so to play a political part they needed gentry connections or direct access to the emperor, whose entourage was the eunuchs. Some members had themselves castrated after passing the state examination. Ming emperors used eunuchs as a tool to counteract gentry cliques and strengthen personal power; when eunuchs controlled appointments, established bureaucratic practices were eliminated and arbitrary, despotic rule became possible.
Chapter 75
What does the chapter say about the Ming novel and censorship?
The chapter states the novel may be regarded as the typical Ming creation, growing from story-tellers' and monks' tales: it was divided into chapters matching story-teller interruptions, interspersed with poems, and written in everyday language. It names Shui-hu-chuan, Hsi-yu-chi, and San-kuo yen-i, and says the sensational and erotic novel was mercilessly suppressed by the gentry. The author argues censorship of printed books began almost with private printing, with Ou-yang Hsiu credited for early censorship rules.
Chapter 75
Section 764 cards
Who were the two most famous dramatists of the Ming epoch?
The chapter names Wang Shih-chen (1526-1590) and T'ang Hsien-tsu (1556-1617) as the most famous Ming dramatists. T'ang wrote the well-known love drama Mu-tan-t'ing ("The Peony Pavilion"), described as full of romance and remote from all reality, and also the "Four Dreams," in which a man lives through years of his future life in a dream, realizes life's worthlessness, and decides to become a monk.
Chapter 76
What musical problem was solved in China in 1584, and by whom?
The chapter states that in 1584 Chu Tsai-yue attempted to create a "well-tempered scale," solving in China a problem not tackled until later in Europe. Earlier Chinese theorists who occupied themselves with this problem were Ching Fang (77-37 B.C.) and Ho Ch'eng-t'ien (A.D. 370-447). The author presents this as an important endeavour in the modernization of music accompanying the development of Ming drama and opera.
Chapter 76
How did the first Ming emperor deal with his former helpers?
The chapter says Chu Yuean-chang recognized that his helpers had been serviceable during the struggle but could no longer remain useful, so he got rid of them by setting one against another so that they murdered one another. In his first decades dangerous gentry cliques re-formed and struggled; the most formidable, led by Hu Wei-yung, controlled the country after 1370 until Chu beheaded Hu and exterminated his clique in 1380.
Chapter 76
Why were Cheng Ho's naval expeditions discontinued?
The chapter offers several possible reasons: as state enterprises the expeditions were very costly, since foreign goods could be obtained more cheaply if merchants came to China or Chinese merchants travelled at their own risk; the moral success was assured, with China recognized as a power throughout southern Asia and Annam reconquered; after Timur's death in 1406 no great power remained in Central Asia, so trade missions such as that of 1409-1411 could reach China; and the fleet would have needed permanent guarding against the Japanese.
Chapter 76
Section 774 cards
How did Middle Eastern fairy tales reach South China, according to the chapter?
The author argues Persian-form tales traveled overland to Europe by many routes, and the same Persian form was carried by sea to South China in Cheng Ho's time. Earlier Indian tales had come via Buddhist monks through Central Asia. The result is that some of Europe's finest fairy tales appear in nearly the same form in South China.
Chapter 77
Why did fables fail to take root in China, per the chapter?
The author argues the Chinese were realistically minded and produced few fairy tales of their own; most came from India via Buddhist monks, who used them to make sermons more interesting. These stories were adapted to Chinese taste. But fables failed because the matter-of-fact Chinese was not interested in animals that talked and behaved like humans.
Chapter 77
What compromise ended the exam monopoly of the Yangtze gentry?
Under Emperor Hsuean Tsung (1426-1435), fixed numbers of candidates were assigned for state examinations. The Yangtze gentry had dominated them through mutual relations, virtually excluding northern candidates, and the northern military clique protested. The compromise: at every examination one-third of candidates must come from the north and two-thirds from the south. The system lasted long and caused many disputes.
Chapter 77
How did eunuch Liu Chin consolidate power under the young Wu Tsung?
Wu Tsung came to the throne in 1505 at fifteen, controlled by the eunuchs who raised him. Liu Chin, their leader, got rid of rival eunuchs within a year, then obtained official permission to issue all commands himself while the emperor pursued pleasures. His first decree removed, punished, or murdered over three hundred prominent opponents, and he filled posts with supporters, extracting large sums from the provinces.
Chapter 77
Section 794 cards
What did the Chinese do about the fighting among Tungus tribes in 1581-83?
The Chinese intervened as mediators in the struggles among the Tungus tribal alliances and drew a demarcation line between the territories of the various Tungus tribes. The chapter notes this matters because the Manchu tribal league, which later ruled China for some three hundred years, developed from these tribes.
Chapter 79
How did Matteo Ricci gain access to the Chinese court in 1601?
Ricci gained access through the agency of a eunuch, made presents, and the Chinese regarded his visit as a mission from Europe bringing tribute. He was therefore permitted to remain in Peking. As an astronomer he demonstrated the latest European astronomy to Chinese colleagues, and after his death Jesuits were commissioned in 1613 to reform the calendar.
Chapter 79
Why does the chapter say universal conversion of China to Christianity was impossible?
The author argues the missionaries had mistaken ideas about Chinese religion. Even an emperor personally adopting a foreign faith would not have converted the country: emperors interested in Buddhism or Taoism treated it as a private affair and still promoted the politically expedient system, usually Confucianism, as heads of state. Missionary activity was later prohibited for political, not religious, reasons.
Chapter 79
What was typical of the rebel leaders Li Tzu-ch'eng and Chang Hsien-chung?
The chapter says none of the insurgents had any great objective. They wanted enough to eat for themselves and their followers and to enrich themselves by conquest, but were incapable of building an ordered new administration. Li made himself 'king' in Shensi and called his dynasty 'Shun', yet there was no land distribution, no tax plan, and no pressing problem was faced.
Chapter 79
Section 803 cards
Why did Peking fall to Li Tzu-ch'eng on April 24, 1644?
Though the city had a strong garrison, the government was disorganized and the different commanders worked against each other. The soldiers had no fighting spirit because they had gone unpaid for a long time. So the city fell, and the last Ming emperor killed himself. A prince was proclaimed emperor and fled through western and southern China, but without gentry support he ultimately fled into Burma in 1659.
Chapter 80
Why did Wu San-kui ally with the Manchus and enter Peking in 1644?
Wu San-kui, commanding on the Manchu front, saw that the capital's conditions would let him secure the imperial throne if he had enough soldiers. He negotiated with Prince Dorgon and formed an alliance with the Manchus, entering Peking with them on June 6, 1644. The Manchus then established themselves in Peking rather than leaving him in power, and Wu became their general.
Chapter 80
Why does the author say the Manchus conquered China more through China's internal situation than military superiority?
The author argues the Manchus prevailed because the gentry had lost trust in the Ming, found rebel leaders unacceptable, and viewed the Manchus as just another sort of rebel; most of the elite collaborated once offered tolerable conditions, and the Manchus did not interfere with land ownership in central China. The author notes the dynasty's insults—pigtails, dual government, garrisons—yet says all opponents failed, leaving no alternative.
Chapter 80
Section 814 cards
How did the Manchus win over the gentry in the second phase of the conquest?
About twenty years after capturing Peking, the Manchus won gentry support by desisting from interference with land ownership and using Manchu troops to clear away rebels hostile to the gentry. They then set up a reputable government in Peking free of eunuchs and old cliques, recruiting Chinese scholars for administrative posts. The author argues rapid recovery followed.
Chapter 81
What does the author identify as a deeper reason for the Manchu dynasty's decline?
The author argues a deeper reason was the enormous population increase. Population rose from roughly 60 million in 1578 to about 414 million by 1850, while cultivated land per person fell sharply. The author stresses the decline began while European trade was still insignificant, so the foreign Capitulations after 1842 cannot be the true cause.
Chapter 81
Why did China's population grow so fast after about 1700, according to the chapter?
The author attributes the high growth rate to long internal peace from about 1700: wars were fought far from China proper, so the population was not directly affected. The Manchus also maintained river dykes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, preventing the worst floods that had previously killed millions.
Chapter 81
How did population pressure differ between China and Europe or Japan?
In Europe and Japan, industry developed before population pressure became too serious and absorbed the excess population, so farms did not shrink too much. In China no such industrial absorption occurred: the farm population was still 73.3 percent of the total in 1932 and rose to 81 percent in 1950.
Chapter 81
Section 824 cards
Why did Chinese merchants invest in land rather than industry?
The author argues businessmen had enough capital but invested in land because industrial enterprises could be seized by the government at any moment, controlled by officials, or forced to sell at set prices, and were always subject to exploitation by dishonest officials. A businessman felt secure only after investing in land, buying an official title, or pushing a son into the bureaucracy.
Chapter 82
How did the opium trade affect farmers and merchants differently?
From the late eighteenth century, opium imports reversed the silver flow and silver left China again. Merchants profited from the opium trade, but farmers suffered: taxes had to be paid in silver while farm products were sold for copper, so the price of silver rose. By 1835 an ounce of silver was worth 2,000 copper coins instead of 1,000 before 1800.
Chapter 82
What was the Treaty of Nerchinsk and why was it revised?
The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk was the first treaty concluded by the Chinese state with a European power, negotiated after the Manchus destroyed a Russian fort on the Amur in 1685; Jesuit missionaries served as interpreters. Translation difficulties left the Chinese, Russian, and Manchurian texts obscure, particularly on the frontier line, so in 1727 the Russians asked for revision, leading to the Treaty of Kyakhta.
Chapter 82
Why did the Manchus oppose Galdan's independent Mongol realm?
The author explains the Manchus could not permit an independent Mongol realm because it would have threatened the flank of their homeland, Manchuria, and would have attracted Manchus who objected to sinification. As the Manchus became culturally Chinese, even forgetting Manchurian, the Mongols grew alienated. Galdan was defeated in battles between 1690 and 1696 in which the emperor personally took part.
Chapter 82
Section 834 cards
Why were the Manchu encyclopaedias compiled, and how did they differ from the French ones?
The author argues they were compiled on the initiative of the Manchu emperor for his own information, since as a foreigner he could not gain thorough instruction in things Chinese. Unlike the French eighteenth-century encyclopaedias, which aimed to spread knowledge among the people, the Manchu encyclopaedias were too expensive and printed in too limited editions for that purpose.
Chapter 83
What was the 'Han school' or 'Archaeological School' and who led it?
It was built up during the eighteenth century and was usually called the 'Han school' because its adherents went back to Han-time commentaries on the classical texts and discarded the orthodox explanations of Chu Hsi's Sung school. Its most prominent later leader was Tai Chen (1723-1777), whom the chapter calls the first philosopher with an empirical, scientific way of thinking.
Chapter 83
Which works does the chapter call the finest novel and a mordant social critic of the Manchu epoch?
The chapter calls Hung-lou-meng ('The Dream of the Red Chamber') by Ts'ao Hsueeh-ch'in, who died in 1763, by general consent the finest novel in Chinese literature; it describes the downfall of a rich gentry family and a decadent son's love. Ju-lin wai-shih by Wu Ching-tzu is described as a mordant criticism of Confucianism's rigid formalism, the social system, and the examination system.
Chapter 83
How did the missionaries at the Manchu court influence Europe, and what ended their position?
The missionaries sent enthusiastic accounts of China to Europe, helping popularize the idea of an 'enlightened' constitutional monarchy; the author argues these reports influenced the French Revolution, and that Leibniz's 'Monadism' was influenced by them. In the Yung-cheng period (1723-1736) Christianity was banned, since captured foreigners calling themselves 'Christians' seemed linked to court missionaries and to their internal disputes.
Chapter 83
Section 844 cards
Why did the Ch'ien-lung campaigns conquer territories of little economic value?
The author argues there were two main reasons: the need for security, since each conquest was needed to make the previous one safe (Mongols, then Kalmuks, then Turkestan and the Ili region, then Tibet); and a possible awareness of European powers, especially Russia and England, dividing Asia, so China secured its own share. The author notes many conquered lands cost money and brought nothing in.
Chapter 84
What did the White Lotus rising of 1775 lead to after its leader escaped?
After the White Lotus leader escaped capture, a sort of Inquisition of exceptional ferocity began in the affected regions. Six provinces were affected, and in and around the single city of Wuch'ang more than 20,000 people were beheaded in four months. The cost to the government ran into millions. The rising was suppressed only by a very big military operation, and not until 1802.
Chapter 84
How did the government misread the causes of the popular risings?
The author states the risings were produced by excessive oppression of the people by the government or governing class. But the government failed to realize the actual cause was general impoverishment, and instead saw a nationalist movement. This actually aroused stronger national consciousness among the middle and lower classes, plus hatred of the Manchus, who were blamed for every evil, though similar evils had existed earlier.
Chapter 84
What did the Turgut Kalmuks do in 1771 and with what result?
The Turgut, mainly Kalmuks who had lived by the lower Volga since 1630, decided to return to Chinese territory in 1771 as Russian pressure on the Volga region grew. The migration was enormously difficult, almost entirely through hostile territory, and a large number perished. However, 85,000 reached the Ili region, where the Chinese settled them on lands of the eastern Kalmuks, who had been largely exterminated.
Chapter 84
Section 854 cards
Why did opium become the chief article of trade with China from 1800?
European woollens and luxury goods could not be sold in China, and food transport was too costly for profit. Opium, brought mainly by the English from India, had a high price and took up very little cargo space. The Chinese were already familiar with opium and bought it readily, so from 1800 onward it became increasingly the chief trade article.
Chapter 85
What did the 1842 Treaty of Nanking require of China?
After British warships bombarded the coast and threatened Nanking, China capitulated in 1842. Under the treaty Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, a war indemnity was paid, certain ports were opened to European trade, and the Canton merchants' monopoly was ended. The treaty also contained the Most Favoured Nation clause and provided for European consular supervision of Chinese customs.
Chapter 85
What did the 1860 Treaty of Tientsin provide?
It opened further ports, ceded Kowloon opposite Hong Kong, established a British legation in Peking, allowed freedom of navigation on the Yangtze, let British subjects purchase land in China, subjected them to their own consular courts, and permitted missionary activity nationwide. The commercial treaty was revised, the opium trade was permitted again, and China paid a war indemnity.
Chapter 85
How did the treaties damage China's finances, according to the chapter?
The chapter states that China's balance of trade turned adverse and worsened, since under the commercial treaties she could neither stop imports nor set duties on them, nor compel foreigners to buy Chinese goods. The efflux of silver caused impoverishment, state financial stringency, and inflation. Unable to float internal loans, China borrowed abroad, giving economic privileges as security, which the Most Favoured Nation clause then extended to non-lending states.
Chapter 85
Section 864 cards
Why did the Chinese and Mohammedans of Turkestan come into continual conflict?
The Chinese, described as fundamentally rationalistic, treated religion as a political matter and required every citizen to take part in official worship, while permitting private faiths. Mohammedans refused to participate in any worship but their own. Chinese attempts to apply general Chinese legislation to Turkestan also proved irreconcilable with Islam's demands, producing continual unrest.
Chapter 86
What was Hung Hsiu-ch'uean's background and how did he found the T'ai P'ing movement?
Hung (born 1814) was a simple man of Hakka blood who gathered impoverished Hakka peasants around him. He had heard of Christianity from missionaries in 1837 and mixed Christian ideas with those of ancient China, proclaiming a doctrine promising the Kingdom of God on earth. He called himself "Christ's younger brother" and named his kingdom T'ai P'ing ("Supreme Peace").
Chapter 86
What reforms did the T'ai P'ing programme include?
The programme, influenced by Christian ideas but more by traditional Chinese thought, was in many points revolutionary: all property was communal; land was classified by fertility and equally distributed among men and women, with surplus produce going to a communal granary; administration and taxes were revised; women had equal rights, fought in the army and held office, with monogamy requested; opium, tobacco and alcohol were prohibited and prostitution illegal; foreigners were regarded as equals and capitulations not recognized.
Chapter 86
Why did the Europeans side with the Manchus against the T'ai P'ing?
After long hesitation the Europeans backed the Manchus, not because they believed the T'ai P'ing lacked justification. They had concluded treaties with the Manchu government and given it loans that would vanish if the Manchus fell; they preferred a weak Manchu government to a strong T'ai P'ing one; and they disliked the socialistic element in many T'ai P'ing measures.
Chapter 86
Section 874 cards
What were the Nien Fei risings, and when were they suppressed?
The Nien Fei were a purely peasant revolt in the central provinces of Honan and Anhui. It began before 1855 but only became formidable after that year, owing to the increasing misery of the peasants, worsened by the Yellow River's change of course. The Manchu government did not suppress it until 1868, after many collisions.
Chapter 87
What two characteristics marked all the Mohammedan risings?
First, they had no general political aim, such as founding a great universal Islamic state; separate states were founded but were too small to endure, and no pan-Islamic idea moved them. Second, they all took place on Chinese soil, and all the Mohammedans involved, except in the Salar rising, were Chinese—these converts are called Dungans.
Chapter 87
Why did Yakub Beg's state fail despite foreign support?
The author argues Yakub Beg was defeated less by Chinese superiority than by circumstances. Heavy taxation to build his kingdom made him unpopular with his own followers, who had paid lighter taxes under the Chinese. The Ottoman empire could not aid him, and Britain and Russia preferred a weakened China to a strong new state they could not control. Tso Tsung-t'ang ended his rule in 1877.
Chapter 87
How did Turkestan's status change from 1881 to 1943?
After Yakub Beg's removal, Russia occupied Ili in 1881, then returned it by the Treaty of Ili in 1880-81 as the powers preferred weak China to hold Turkestan. In 1882 the Manchu government made Turkestan the province of Sinkiang. Russian penetration grew after 1928, but by 1943, with Russia diverted west and China pushed inland by Japan, the Chinese government held the region more firmly than in seventy years.
Chapter 87
Section 884 cards
What were Japan's three zones of domination after 1868?
Japan aimed to surround its homeland with a girdle of dominated territories in three zones: an inner zone of the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Korea, the Ryukyu archipelago, and Formosa; an outer zone of the Marianne, Philippine, and Caroline Islands, eastern China, Manchuria, and eastern Siberia; and an undefined third zone including the Netherlands Indies, Indo-China, and all of China.
Chapter 88
How did the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 end for China?
The war broke out over Korea, stemming from the undefined position since 1885 and Japan's imperialist policy. China had only created a North China squadron as preparation. Li Hung-chang lost the war and signed the harsh Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, relinquishing China's protectorate over Korea and losing Formosa. French, German, and Russian intervention forced Japan to drop its demand for South Manchuria.
Chapter 88
Why does the author argue China failed to modernize while Japan succeeded?
The author argues the difference lay in social structure. Japan had a centuries-old merchant middle class in symbiosis with feudal lords, making the transition to capitalism and imperialism easy. China had only a weak middle class under gentry dominance, too weak to support a capitalist state, while the gentry remained strong enough to block radical reconstruction and permit only limited reforms serving their own power.
Chapter 88
How did Manchuria pass to Japanese influence by 1905?
Russia and Japan clashed over Manchuria: Russia leased Port Arthur and sought all of South Manchuria, while Japan planned to enter Manchuria from Korea. War followed, Russia lost, and under the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 Russia gave Japan the main Manchurian railway with adjoining territory. Manchuria thus became Japan's sphere of influence without the Manchus being consulted.
Chapter 88
Section 894 cards
What did Kang Youwei urge the emperor to do in 1895 and 1898?
Kang Youwei, a scholar of the Han (empiricist) school, gained access to the emperor and submitted memoranda calling for radical reform. In 1898 the emperor issued edicts ordering fundamental reorganization of education, law, trade, communications, and the army. The chapter says these laws were not bad in themselves and would have paved the way for liberalizing Chinese society, but they aroused hatred among conservative and moderate gentry.
Chapter 89
How did Empress Dowager Cixi end the 1898 reforms?
When she saw the emperor was seriously considering reforms, the empress moved with lightning speed. The reformers had to flee; those who failed to escape were arrested and executed. The emperor was imprisoned in a palace near Peking until his death, and the empress resumed the regency. The reform period lasted only a few months of 1898. Troops from Kansu under the Mohammedan commander Tung Fu-hsiang played a leading part in crushing the reformers.
Chapter 89
What was Yuan Shikai's role in 1898 and after?
Yuan Shikai commanded 7,000 modern-equipped troops at Tientsin, the only such force in China. He could have removed the empress and protected the reformers, but pursued his own policy and thought it safer to give them no help. The chapter calls this a dubious part and says he remained unreliable to the empress, biding his time as the strongest man in the country. He was dismissed in early 1909 and then contacted the revolutionaries.
Chapter 89
What did the 1910 national assembly reveal about the gentry?
The government made concessions to progressives by creating the beginnings of parliamentary rule. In 1910 a national assembly was convoked with a Lower House of provincial representatives (provincial diets were also set up) and an Upper House of imperial house, nobility, gentry, and protectorate representatives, all nominated by the regent. The Lower House members, mainly provincial gentry, proved to have a much more practical outlook than Peking's routineers, so the Lower House grew in importance, feeding the revolutionary movement.
Chapter 89
Section 904 cards
What sparked the 1911 railway disturbances in Szechwan?
The disturbances broke out in western China as the response of railway shareholders in Szechwan to the government decree nationalizing all railways. Modernist students, mostly sons of merchants who owned railway shares, supported the movement, and the government could not control them. At the same time the anti-Manchu revolution began in Wuch'ang, led by officer Li Yuean-hung, after government action against a group of terrorists.
Chapter 90
Why did Yuean Shih-k'ai and the revolutionaries need each other?
Yuean's troops were loyal to him, and he could have fought for the dynasty, but victory offered him no personal gain; he saw the anti-Manchu side as his springboard. The revolutionaries could not remove the Manchus or win concessions while Yuean's army defended them, so they had to win him over. Thus, the author argues, both sides were forced into each other's arms.
Chapter 90
What did the February 12, 1912 edict accomplish?
Yuean Shih-k'ai told the imperial house the monarchy could no longer be defended because his troops were unreliable, and induced the Manchu government to issue an edict on February 12th, 1912, renouncing the throne of China and declaring the Republic the constitutional form of state. Sun Yat-sen then resigned in Nanking and recommended Yuean as president. The author notes the young emperor was later installed in Manchuria after 1931, with no real power until 1945.
Chapter 90
How did the gentry's position deteriorate after 1912?
The author argues the gentry were decomposing: land fell in value as other investments appeared, cheap imported foodstuffs pushed prices to world levels, and silk faced Japanese and rayon competition. Land itself became capital for speculation, but the gentry lacked fluid capital and had consumed rents unproductively. Their class solidarity dissolved, cliques lost the emperor as regulator, and bribery and corruption flourished until 1927.
Chapter 90
Section 914 cards
What three stages of progress did Sun Yat-sen lay down for republican China?
Sun Yat-sen set out three phases: the phase of struggle against the old system, the phase of educative rule, and the phase of truly democratic government. The educative rule phase was to be a sort of authoritarian system with democratic content, under which the people would be familiarized with democracy and grow politically ripe for true democracy. These ideas appear in works such as San-min chu-i and Chien-kuo fang-lueeh.
Chapter 91
Why did Confucianism fail to suit the Chinese middle class?
The chapter states Confucianism was unacceptable to the middle class for several reasons: it rejected the principle of equality of all people, at least in theory required by the middle class; its great-family system was irreconcilable with middle-class individualism; and its form of state could only be a monarchy. Every attempt to bolster Confucianism in practice or theory was bound to fail and did fail, and even the gentry could scarcely defend it.
Chapter 91
What was Hu Shih's 'literary revolution' and why did it matter?
Hu Shih published his proposal for a literary revolution in New Youth in 1917, replacing the old classical literary language with the vernacular, the language of daily life. The classical style was so remote from everyday speech that no uneducated person could understand it, and mastering it required decades of study. The gentry had made it their monopoly, barring outsiders from literary and administrative life. The vernacular opened literature to anyone literate.
Chapter 91
How did modern Chinese create words for new scientific and technical ideas?
Because Chinese script cannot write foreign words accurately and can only provide rough paraphrases, the practice began of expressing new ideas through newly formed native words. Thus modern Chinese has very few foreign words yet carries all the new ideas. Examples given include 'lightning-letter' for telegram, 'not-have-wire-lightning-communication' for wireless telegram, 'self-flow-ink-water-brush' for fountain-pen, and 'strike-letter-machine' for typewriter.
Chapter 91
Section 923 cards
Why did proposals to replace Chinese characters with an alphabet fail?
The author argues the proposals were unsatisfactory because the Chinese language as it stands is unsuited to an alphabetical script. More importantly, an alphabet would destroy China's cultural unity: dialects like Cantonese and Shanghainese differ so greatly that separate literatures would emerge, and China could break into areas with different languages. Chinese characters are independent of pronunciation, so speakers of different dialects can read each other's newspapers.
Chapter 92
What is the aim of modern Chinese education regarding language and script reform?
The aim is to establish "High Chinese", the former Mandarin official language, throughout the country and to limit the use of dialects. The author argues that once this is achieved, a radical script reform can proceed without risking political separatist movements or the break-up of cultural unity through separate dialect literatures. Unification of the spoken language has made great progress; alphabetic script is used only to help illiterate adults read very simple information.
Chapter 92
What did the three groups in the revolutionary party disagree about?
The left wing, mainly intellectuals and manual workers, wanted more or less vague socialistic institutions; liberals such as traders wanted a liberal democracy on the American pattern; and nationalists merely wanted the removal of the alien Manchu rule. They united only for the practical reason that this was the only way to get rid of the dynasty, and they gave unreserved allegiance to Sun Yat-sen as leader.
Chapter 92
Section 934 cards
What were Japan's 1915 'Twenty-one Demands' and how did Yuan Shih-k'ai's government respond?
Japan, after occupying the former German-leased territory of Tsingtao and Shantung's railways, planned to make the whole province a protectorate, since Shantung was rich in coal and metals. Its plans were revealed in the 'Twenty-one Demands' of 1915. Against furious opposition, especially from Peking students, Yuan Shih-k'ai's government accepted the greater part of the demands.
Chapter 93
How did Yuan Shih-k'ai attempt to restore monarchy, and why did it fail?
Yuan secured a 1914 constitutional amendment putting governing power entirely in the president, appointment as president for life at the end of 1914, and at the end of 1915 a parliamentary resolution that he become emperor. Republicans resented it, gentry generals with the same ambition were annoyed, and disturbances arose, especially in the south under Sun Yat-sen. The foreign powers, preferring a divided China, opposed him; he died before ascending the throne.
Chapter 93
What did the Washington Conference of 1921-1922 accomplish for China?
After the failure of the international banking consortium plan, the Washington conference (November 1921-February 1922) was the last means of preventing military conflict between the powers in the Far East. It tried to set narrower limits to Japan's influence over China and to re-determine the relative strength in the Pacific of America, Britain, France, and Japan. This brought China some relief, as Japan had to yield for the time to western pressure.
Chapter 93
How did the Kuomintang develop under Sun Yat-sen before his death in 1925?
The Kuomintang continued Sun Yat-sen's earlier Komingtang, a middle-class party that had worked to remove the dynasty. The new party was more socialistic, admitting Communists and stressing land reform. Sun was elected generalissimo in 1921 and re-elected in 1924 with a mandate for a northern campaign; the first general congress met in Canton in 1924. He went to Peking at the end of 1924 to discuss reunion but died in early 1925 before results.
Chapter 93
Section 943 cards
What event on May 30, 1925, triggered a boycott of British goods in China?
British soldiers shot at a crowd demonstrating in Shanghai on May 30th, 1925. This produced a widespread boycott of British goods in Canton and British Hong Kong, inflicting great loss on British trade with China. The boycott brought considerable advantages to Japanese trade and shipping, and from its start the Japanese grip on Chinese coastwise shipping began.
Chapter 94
What choice did Chiang Kai-shek make as his army reached Shanghai in March 1927?
Chiang chose to ally with the capitalists rather than let the left wing expropriate them. Allied through marriage to a great banking family, he and his closest colleagues decided to conclude an alliance with the capitalists and limit expropriation of landed estates. Shanghai fell without a struggle, and Shanghai financier capital, soon joined by foreign capital, financed his troops and administration. Russian advisers were dismissed or executed.
Chapter 94
How did Chiang Kai-shek consolidate power against his three rival commanders?
After 1928 there were four supreme commanders: Chiang, Feng Yue-hsiang, Yen Hsi-shan, and the Muslim Li Chung-yen. Chiang's three rivals tried to free themselves from his growing influence, and various military groups rose repeatedly, even in Canton. These struggles, waged more by diplomacy and bribery than at arms, lasted until 1936. Chiang, the most skilful player and backed by foreign governments and Shanghai financiers, won and unified China under his dictatorship.
Chapter 94
Section 954 cards
Why did Japan seek a 'Greater East Asia' sphere, according to the chapter?
The chapter states Japan believed that to raise living standards for its large population and remain a world power, it needed raw material sources and export markets in case of collision with Western powers, plus an extensive security girdle against possible conflict with Russia. Japan held that Greater East Asia must be secured before the European conflict broke out.
Chapter 95
What incident triggered the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937?
The signal was an 'incident' at the Marco Polo Bridge south of Peking on July 7th, 1937. The chapter says the Japanese government profited by a quite unimportant incident, undoubtedly provoked by the Japanese, to extend its dominion. China still hesitated and negotiations occurred, but Japan brought reinforcements and made demands China could not be expected to fulfil.
Chapter 95
How did China's universities and factories respond to the Japanese conquest of the eastern half?
Chiang Kai-shek's government fled to Ch'ung-k'ing, holding only Szechwan and surrounding undeveloped provinces with no industry. Machinery from hastily dismantled factories was carried westwards, and students and professors went west with all their universities' contents, working on in small villages under very difficult conditions—which the chapter calls one of the most memorable achievements of this war for China.
Chapter 95
What was the Wang-tao propaganda, and what actually happened under Japanese occupation?
Japan paid lip service to a policy of 'sister peoples' helping each other, with propaganda for a new 'Greater East Asian' philosophy, Wang-tao, under which all Eastern peoples could live in peace under a thinly disguised dictatorship. The chapter says what actually happened was that Japanese capitalists established themselves in former Chinese industrial plants, bought up land and securities, and exploited the country for their war.
Chapter 95
Section 964 cards
Why did Sun Yat-sen cooperate with Soviet Russia without becoming a communist?
The chapter states Sun Yat-sen became interested in Soviet developments after 1920 but never actually became a communist. His belief that the soil should belong to the tiller could not be combined with communism, which advocates abolishing individual landholdings. Soviet Russia still found it useful to help him and advised the Chinese Communist Party to collaborate with the KMT until Shanghai fell in 1927.
Chapter 96
What unorthodox idea did Mao develop in 1927, and how was it received?
After leaving his studies in Peking, Mao returned to Hunan and organized the farmers there; the chapter says his adherents reportedly numbered in the millions by the time of Chiang's northern expedition. In 1927 he argued in writing that communism in China could succeed only if based upon farmers. Because of this unorthodox attitude, he was for years severely attacked as a deviationist.
Chapter 96
How did the KMT-communist alliance collapse in 1927, and where did the communists go?
When Chiang Kai-shek separated from the KMT in 1927, the main body remained in Hankow as the legal government. Chiang executed leftists, union leaders, and communists who fell into his hands, while tensions grew in Hankow until the KMT turned on the communists and reunited with Chiang. The remaining communists retreated to the Hunan-Kiangsi border, the centre of Mao's activities, where even his orthodox critics had to seek his protection.
Chapter 96
Why did the Nationalist regime fail to win popular support after the Japanese war?
The chapter says the returning Nationalist government lacked support in liberated areas: farmers feared landlords would reclaim land the communists had given or promised them; workers hoped for new social legislation; businessmen faced destroyed factories and unchecked inflation; youth blamed the old regime and looked left; and soldiers, long separated from home, would not fight other Chinese. Meanwhile the communists were well armed and strengthened by KMT deserters.
Chapter 96
Section 974 cards
How did Chiang Kai-shek structure Taiwan's government to support his claim over all China?
Chiang retained his former mainland government organization, complete with cabinet ministers, administrators, and an elected parliament, under the name 'Central Government of China,' controlled through the KMT. Taiwan itself was organized as the 'Provincial Government of Taiwan,' with leading positions initially held by KMT mainlanders. The military was commanded by mainlanders, and the education system was set up by mainland specialists following former mainland practices.
Chapter 97
What did land reform and the Joint Council on Rural Reconstruction achieve in Taiwan?
A land-reform program limited land ownership, reduced rents, and redistributed formerly Japanese-owned land—the same program the Nationalist government had failed to enforce in liberated China after the Pacific War. The Joint Council on Rural Reconstruction, with American advisers and Chinese specialists, introduced better seeds, fertilizers, and other innovations farmers quickly adopted, making the island self-supporting despite a growing population of thirteen million in 1968.
Chapter 97
How did the end of American economic aid shift economic power toward Taiwan-Chinese?
American aid had tied local businessmen to American industry, favoring mainland Chinese who had US contacts, while Taiwan-Chinese had contacts mainly in Japan. After aid ended, Taiwanese trade with Japan, the Philippines, and Korea grew, strengthening Taiwan-Chinese businessmen. After 1964 Taiwan became a strong export competitor to Hong Kong and Japan in industries like electronics and textiles, which the author describes as Rostow's 'take-off' stage.
Chapter 97
Why does the Taiwan government reject the idea of an independent Taiwan?
Because they are Chinese, the present government and, it is believed, the majority of the people consider themselves part of China from which they are temporarily separated. They therefore reject the idea, proposed by some American politicians, that Taiwan should become an independent state. The author notes some Taiwan-Chinese groups in the US and Japan favor independence and that Taiwan could flourish as an independent country, yet argues few Chinese would wish to divorce themselves from the world's largest society.
Chapter 97
Section 983 cards
What did 'literacy' versus 'educated' mean in pre-1937 China?
The chapter says "educated" meant a person could read classical poetry and essays in literary Chinese, which was not the language of daily conversation. "Literacy" might mean only reading and writing some 600 characters, enough for business and simple stories. Only about 600 characters are commonly used, and a farmer or worker could manage with about 100. The author notes 1935 illiteracy figures of 70 percent of men and 95 percent of women must include that last category.
Chapter 98
How does the chapter characterize the unusual nature of Communist China's development?
The author argues Communist China's development is not a miracle possible only because of its form of government. What is unusual is that it is the only nation possessing a highly developed culture of its own to have jettisoned it for a foreign one. The author says Mao Tse-tung achieved what missionaries dreamed of for centuries: imposing a European-created ideology understandable only in the context of nineteenth-century Central Europe. How long this lasts is uncertain, and two schools of analysts disagree on whether communism will become Chinese or eliminate Chinese traits.
Chapter 98
What did the end of Russian aid in 1960 do to China's development?
Russian aid continued to 1960; its termination slowed development briefly but was not disastrous. The chapter calls Russian assistance a "shot in the arm," as stimulating and about as lasting as American aid to Taiwan or European countries. Applying Russian experience, often duplicating whole factories, was successful, and China developed heavy industry in a few years. The author notes Manchuria and other regions had modern heavy industry long before 1949, though the Russians removed Manchurian machinery when they invaded at the war's end.
Chapter 98
Section 994 cards
How was China's heavy-industry buildup financed, and what did land reform cost?
The author states that industrialization had to be paid for, and as in other countries it was basically agriculture that created the necessary capital. A land-reform law was promulgated in June 1950 and implemented by October 1952 at an estimated cost of two million human lives, the landlords. Socialization of the land began in 1953.
Chapter 99
What purposes does the author suggest the communes and back-yard furnaces served?
The author argues communes aimed to create a new organizational form letting the government pressure farmers to raise production, correlate labor with industry's needs, and possibly function independently during wartime governmental breakdown. Back-yard furnaces, producing high-cost low-quality iron, seem to have taught citizens to make iron for armaments under enemy occupation, when only guerrilla resistance would be possible.
Chapter 99
What did the 1950 marriage law actually mean for women, according to the author?
The author argues that despite being called "liberation," the 1950 law mainly meant women worked a full day as their husbands did and still did housework and childcare as before. The law made partners equal but also made divorce easier for men, with political incompatibility a ground. The author notes Nationalist China had earlier created a modern liberal marriage law and women were never the slaves sometimes portrayed.
Chapter 99
Why did the author consider employing urban youth on farms shortsighted?
The author explains that twentieth-century industry needs technicians and highly qualified personnel, often college graduates, but few unskilled workers, unlike nineteenth-century industry's mass labor needs. Since modern industry and farming will revive the labor problem, the policy of sending urban youth to farms is shortsighted. Re-education camps in outlying areas also provided cheap farm labor.
Chapter 99
Section 1004 cards
What three factors does the author say will influence China's future?
The author identifies three: the emergence of neo-communism seeking to soften traditional communist practice (as in Czechoslovakia in 1968); the outcome of the Vietnam War and whether China can pursue its eighteenth-century dream of dominating Southeast Asia; and whether Chinese communism can change human nature, given people's tendency to identify with territory, property, and kin.
Chapter 100
What does the author say about the human-nature goal of Chinese communism?
The author argues it is questionable whether the personality change Chinese communism attempted is possible or even desirable. Studies of animals and humans show a tendency to identify with territory, property, and kin. The Chinese were family-centered but individualistic beyond family and neighborhood; under communism the government is omnipresent, and scholars, writers, and poets must degrade themselves to survive.
Chapter 100
How does the author compare Taiwan with mainland China?
The author argues that to historians and sociologists, Taiwan's experience indicates China could industrialize faster than any other underdeveloped nation if left alone and freed from ideological pressures. He notes public opinion is impressed by mainland progress but unimpressed by Taiwan's achievements, and says Taiwan offers a model for comparison with the mainland.
Chapter 100
What does the author conclude about communist China's progress and the regime's strength?
The author states communist China has made great progress and may soon equal developed nations, but argues this was achieved at an unnecessary cost in human lives and happiness. He adds that the regime being less strong and unified than before 1966 does not mean its end is in sight, and that far-reaching changes may occur soon.
Chapter 100
Section 1011 cards
What is Eberhard's view of the 'well-field' system and its interpreters?
Eberhard says his interpretation of the "well-field" system relies partly on Hsue Ti-shan and partly on Granet and Maspero, using anthropological theory and South-East Asian fieldwork. He notes other interpretations by Yang Lien-sheng, Wan Kuo-ting, Wittfogel and others, and that some, like Kuo Mo-jo, regard the whole system as a utopia while believing in an original "village community."
Chapter 101
Section 1024 cards
Why does Eberhard reject Wittfogel's irrigation-based theory of Oriental despotism?
Eberhard states he does not accept Wittfogel's theory, which treats irrigation as a key economic and social factor. Instead, Eberhard argues that evidence points toward the importance of transportation systems rather than government-sponsored or operated irrigation systems. He notes Wittfogel offers a different interpretation of the Han material as well.
Chapter 102
How do scholars disagree over Li K'ui's role in creating Chinese law?
Hulsewe, whose Remnants of Han Law is called the best English work on early Chinese law, does not regard Li K'ui as the main creator of Chinese law, though Kuo Mo-jo and others do. Eberhard observes that Han law was not created by Han Chinese alone and that some code must have existed before Han, even if Li K'ui did not write it.
Chapter 102
What does Eberhard say about the theory of a cycle of social mobility?
The theory of the cycle of mobility was advanced by Fr. L. K. Hsu and others. Eberhard bases his criticism on a forthcoming study of social mobility in traditional Chinese society. He argues the basic point is not a family's momentary economic or political power but its social status, which was increasingly defined and fixed by law, as Ch'ue T'ung-tsu noted.
Chapter 102
How does Eberhard characterize the Han selection system and the term 'Hundred Families'?
Eberhard refers to the Han system of examinations, or rather of selection, which Yang Lien-sheng studied, with analyses of candidates' social origins published in the Bulletin of Chinese Studies. The meaning of the term 'Hundred Families' has been discussed by Eichhorn, Kuo Mo-jo, Ch'en Meng-chia and especially Hsue T'ung-hsin; it was later also a fiscal term.
Chapter 102
Section 1034 cards
When did gold coins or bars appear in China and when did they nearly disappear?
The chapter states that gold was used in China from about 600 B.C. in the form of coins or bars, but it disappeared almost completely from A.D. 200 onward, the period of economic decline. The author notes this case could serve as a test of M. Lombard's theories about the importance of gold in the West.
Chapter 103
How was the tribute from border tribes divided according to later sources?
According to later sources, one third of the tributary gifts went to the Imperial ancestor temples, one third to the Imperial mausolea, and one third was used as gifts for guests of the Emperor. The chapter also notes that the trade aspect of tribute was pointed out by E. Parker, later by O. Lattimore, and recently by J. K. Fairbank.
Chapter 103
What evidence points to foreign trade in early China, and where was the glass thought to come from?
The most important trait pointing to foreign trade is the occurrence of glass in Chinese tombs in Indo-China and of glass in China proper from the fifth century B.C. onward. It is assumed that this glass was imported from the Near East, possibly from Egypt, according to O. Janse, N. Egami, and Seligman.
Chapter 103
How does the author's view of the 'Old character school' differ from other scholars?
The author argues that the differences between the schools were political, following the Chinese school represented by Ku Chieh-kang and his friends, plus his own studies. He notes this evaluation is not generally accepted: Tjan Tjoe Som, R. P. Kramers, and others regard the differences as philological rather than political.
Chapter 103
Section 1044 cards
What distinction does the author say is very important when discussing slaves in Chinese society?
The author argues that a clear distinction between slaves and serfs is very important. The author notes that the question of slaves and their importance in Chinese society has always received much attention from Chinese Communist authors, and cites Niida Noboru, Ch'ue T'ung-tsu and Tamai Korehiro as sources used for this discussion.
Chapter 104
Which text first mentions problems of state versus church, and who studied them?
The first text in which such problems of state versus church are mentioned is Mou Tzu, translated by P. Pelliot. More recently, some of these problems were studied by R. Michihata and E. Zuercher. Michihata also studied temple slaves, while temple families, which were slightly different, were studied mainly by R. Michihata, J. Gernet and Wang Yi-t'ung.
Chapter 104
What does the author say about the political use of Buddhism outside China?
The author states that the political use of Buddhism has been asserted for Japan as well as for Korea and Tibet, citing H. Hoffmann's work on Tibetan Bon religion. The author adds that a case could be made for Burma, and notes that in China Buddhism was later again used as a tool by rulers.
Chapter 104
What does the author say about sources on Empress Wu and the need for study?
The author notes that some authors, such as J. K. Rideout, point to the growing influence of eunuchs in this period. The author also observes that the sources paint the picture of Empress Wu in very dark colours, and concludes that a more detailed study of this period seems to be necessary.
Chapter 104
Section 1054 cards
Under the Buddhist persecution, what happened to metal, stone, clay, and wooden statues?
Metal statues had to be delivered to the Salt and Iron Office to be converted into cash, and iron statues were collected by local offices for making agricultural implements. Figures of gold, silver, or rare materials went to the Finance Office. Figures of stone, clay, or wood were not affected, according to Michihata.
Chapter 105
Who typically led the popular movements discussed in this chapter?
The author argues it is important to note that popular movements were often not led by simple farmers or members of the lower classes. Instead, salt merchants and persons of similar status are known as leaders, suggesting leadership came from somewhat higher social strata than one might assume.
Chapter 105
How do scholars differ on when a new period begins in Chinese history?
Many Chinese and Japanese authors start a new period in the early tenth century (Ch'ien Mu) or late tenth century (T'ao Hsi-sheng, Li Chien-nung), while others prefer a break in the middle of the T'ang Dynasty (Teng Ch'u-min, Naito Torajiro). Many Marxists treat the author's 'Modern Times' as at best a sub-period of a larger era beginning with 'Medieval China.'
Chapter 105
What does the author say about the tong of U.S. Chinatowns?
The author states the tong of U.S. Chinatowns (tang in Mandarin) are late and are organizations of businessmen only, citing S. Yokoyama and Laai Yi-faai. They are not the same as the hui-kuan, so parallels with other guild-like organizations should not be overestimated.
Chapter 105
Section 1064 cards
What does the chapter say about the state of Chu Hsi studies in English?
The chapter calls a comprehensive study of Chu Hsi a great desideratum, noting that in English there are mainly Feng Yu-lan's essays, translated and annotated by D. Bodde, in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 7, 1942. It adds that T. Makino emphasized Chu's influence on the Far East and J. Needham his interest in science.
Chapter 106
What does the author argue about the 'agrarian revolution' in China's development?
The author argues that further research would likely show the 'agrarian revolution' was a key factor in China's economic and social development. He suggests it probably changed dietary habits and certainly raised labour input per person, meaning more full working days per year. He adds that it may have turned China away from technology and industry, but only further research can test this.
Chapter 106
How does the chapter describe the later fate of Buddhism's 'social gospel' in China?
The chapter notes that it is interesting that later Buddhism gave up its 'social gospel' in China. It adds that Buddhist circles in Asian countries at the present time attempt to revive this attitude.
Chapter 106
What does the chapter say about Lamaism in Mongolia after its early period?
The chapter states that Lamaism in Mongolia disappeared later, however, and was re-introduced in reformed form by Tsong-kha-pa (1358-1419) in the sixteenth century. It cites R. J. Miller, Monasteries and Culture Change in Inner Mongolia, Wiesbaden 1959, for this.
Chapter 106
Section 1074 cards
What does Eberhard say about the state of analysis of Ming political history?
The author states that he regards his own analysis of Ming political history as unsatisfactory, but notes that to his knowledge no large-scale analysis of that subject has been made. He also mentions using mainly his own research for Wang Yang-ming.
Chapter 107
How does Needham's view of Ricci's contribution differ from the usual one?
The author notes that J. Needham has recently tried to show that Ricci and his followers did not bring much that was not already known in China, and that they actually attempted to prevent the Chinese from learning about the Copernican theory. This challenges the standard picture of the Jesuits as sole bearers of new science.
Chapter 107
What does the chapter say about Huang Tsung-hsi's significance?
The author says Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695) deserves special mention as the first Chinese who discussed the possibility of a non-monarchic form of government, in his treatise of 1662. He cites Lin Mou-sheng and especially W. T. de Bary for further reading on him.
Chapter 107
What population figures does the chapter give for China around 1953 and 1960?
The 1953 population given includes Chinese outside mainland China; the mainland population was 582.6 million. The author suggests that if the roughly 2 percent annual increase continued, mainland population in 1960 might be close to 680 million, and refers readers to P. T. Ho's studies on China's population, 1368-1953.
Chapter 107
Section 1084 cards
What basis did Mongolia's declaration of independence cite?
The declaration of independence of Mongolia rested on an early treaty the Mongols made with the Manchus in 1636, which stated: "In case the Tai Ch'ing Dynasty falls, you will exist according to previous basic laws." Eberhard cites this via R. J. Miller's Monasteries and Culture Change in Inner Mongolia (1959).
Chapter 108
Which works does the chapter recommend for Hu Shih and language reform?
For Hu Shih, the chapter points to his own The Chinese Renaissance (Chicago, 1934) and to J. de Francis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China (Princeton, 1950). These are listed as further reading on Hu Shih, alongside Kiang Wen-han's book on the ideological background of the Chinese student movement.
Chapter 108
What sources does the chapter give for the 1927 events and early Mao?
For 1927, it cites a Marxist analysis by M. N. Roy, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China (Calcutta, 1946), with relevant documents translated in Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank's A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (1952). On Mao, it names B. Schwartz's Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao and J. E. Rue's Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, 1927-1935.
Chapter 108
Which contrasting village studies does the chapter suggest?
For a sympathetic view of rural life in communist China, the chapter recommends J. Myrdal, Report from a Chinese Village (New York, 1965). For Taiwanese village life, it recommends Bernard Gallin, Hsin Hsing, Taiwan: A Chinese Village in Change (Berkeley, 1966). The pairing lets readers compare village conditions on the mainland and on Taiwan.
Chapter 108
Section 1094 cards
What does the chapter say about the origin and spread of cities?
The chapter lists the origin of cities at page 19, and the spread and growth of cities at pages 31, 55-6, 175, 229, and 250-1, 252. It also notes twin cities at page 33 and refers readers to city states and specific cities such as Ch'ang-an, Sian, Lo-yang, and Hankow.
Chapter 109
How does the chapter describe the stages of feudalism in China?
The chapter distinguishes early feudalism (pages 24, 29, 30 ff., 37, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 85) from its end (51, 59, 62-3), late feudalism (71-2, 77 ff.), new feudalism (81), and nomadic feudalism (76, 131). It cross-references serfs, aristocracy, fiefs, and bondsmen.
Chapter 109
What does the chapter say about the examination system?
The chapter lists the examination system at pages 74, 78, 85-6, 91, 175, 197, 216, 252-3, 259, and 280. It separately notes examinations for Buddhists at page 207, and cross-references schools, universities, academies, script, and education.
Chapter 109
How does the chapter define gentry and the gentry state?
The chapter gives a definition of gentry at page 72 and describes the gentry state at pages 71 ff. It lists gentry across many pages (44, 78, 80, 101, 108, 133, 138, 143, 144, 166, 173, 174, 196, 197, 203, 209, 210, 214, 236, 239, 252 ff., 257, 268, 272, 297, 303-4, 307), plus colonial gentry (163) and southern gentry (153).
Chapter 109
Section 1114 cards
What does the index entry for 'Secret societies' list as related movements?
The entry for secret societies cites pages 61 and 95 ff., and cross-references Red Eyebrows, Yellow Turbans, White Lotos, Boxer, and Rebellions. This links secret societies to peasant and religious rebellion movements across Chinese history, rather than treating them as isolated organizations.
Chapter 111
Which rulers does the index list under the name 'Shih'?
The index lists Shih Huang-ti (pages 63 ff., 78), Shih Lo (123-126), Shih Hu (125 ff.), Shih Pi (170), Shih Ssu-ming (185), Shih Tsung the Manchu ruler (264, 282), Shih Ching-t'ang (204, 222), and Shih Heng (260). Several share the 'Shih' prefix but are distinct figures from different periods.
Chapter 111
What topics does the index cross-reference under 'Religion'?
Under Religion (pages 8, 22-4, 37, 42, 44, 48, 135-6; popular religion at 101), the index cross-references Bon, Shintoism, Persecution, Sacrifice, Ancestor cult, Fertility cults, Deities, Temples, Monasteries, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Mazdaism, Manichaeism, Messianic religions, Secret societies, Soul, Shamanism, and State religion.
Chapter 111
What does the index show about the city of Nanking?
Nanking is listed as a capital of China across many pages (38, 121, 156, 162, 225, 228, 235, 246, 250, 254, 257, 262, 263, 266, 270, 286, 287, 290, 291, 302, 315, 316, 318), and the index separately notes a 'Nanking regime' at pages 314 ff. This indicates the city served repeatedly as a seat of government.
Chapter 111
Section 1124 cards
What does the chapter index list under the entry for the T'ang dynasty?
The entry lists the T'ang dynasty at pages 83-4, 144, 147, and 172 ff., and separately notes a Later T'ang dynasty at pages 204 ff. It also cross-references T'ang rulers elsewhere, such as T'ai Tsung (the T'ang ruler, also known as Li Shih-min) and the writer T'ang Hsien-tsu.
Chapter 112
How does the index describe the Tanguts and which groups does it cross-reference?
The Tanguts are described as a Tibetan tribal federation and/or state, cited at pages 99, 102, 118, 224-5, and 233. The entry cross-references the Ch'iang, and the Tibet entry also points to the Tanguts among related groups.
Chapter 112
What does the index say about the Toba and which related groups does it list?
The Toba are listed as a Turkish tribal federation, cited across many pages including 76, 116-20, 126-7, 132, 136 ff., and 159-61. The entry cross-references T'o-pa as an alternate spelling, and the Turks entry lists Toba among related groups such as the Gök Turks, Uighurs, and Sha-t'o.
Chapter 112
What does the index show about the White Lotos sect?
The White Lotos sect (Pai-lien) is cited at pages 239, 267, and 284-5. The index gives no further description of its beliefs or activities; it appears only as a named entry with page references, alongside other sects and secret societies such as the Yellow Turbans.
Chapter 112
Section 1134 cards
What does the transcriber say about the inconsistent spellings listed in the notes?
The transcriber states that the author spelled certain words inconsistently, such as 'Northwestern', 'Programme', 'practise', and 'favor'. These inconsistent spellings were not changed in the text but are listed in the notes for the reader's awareness.
Chapter 113
How does the transcriber handle obvious typos and misspellings in the original text?
The transcriber notes that most typos and misspellings were left as in the original text. In some obvious cases they are noted in the Transcriber's Notes, which also record corrections such as 'celestrial' for 'celestial' and 'Statues' likely meaning 'Statutes'.
Chapter 113
What kinds of inconsistencies does the transcriber say were left unchanged?
The transcriber lists several categories left unchanged: American and UK English, unusual hyphenation, more than one spelling of Chinese proper nouns, uncapitalized terms like Marxism, and correctly used double words like 'had had'. Inconsistent spellings of words such as 'Lotos', 'Ju-Chen', and 'cooperate' are also listed but not altered.
Chapter 113
Which specific page corrections does the transcriber note, and what are they?
The notes list corrections including page 25 'celestrial' to 'celestial' and 'millenium' to 'millennium', page 80 'Statues' likely meaning 'Statutes', page 197 'examina' possibly 'examinations', page 275 'allevitate' to 'alleviate', and page 278 'particulary' to 'particularly'. A duplicate 'cent' on page 209 was removed.
Chapter 113
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #17695 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-26. Cards reviewed 2026-10-26.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
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