Roots and Branches: Woodland Institutions in South China, 800-1600 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Miller, Ian Matthew. 2015. Roots and Branches: Woodland Institutions in South China, 800-1600. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467396 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Roots and Branches: Woodland Institutions in South China, 800-1600 A dissertation presented by Ian Matthew Miller to The Committee on History and East Asian Languages in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History and East Asian Languages Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2015 © 2015 Ian Matthew Miller All rights reserved. Advisor: Professor Michael Szonyi Ian Matthew Miller Roots and Branches: Woodland Institutions in South China, 800-1600 Abstract In this dissertation I trace the evolution of the institutions governing woodland in South China over the longue durée. I claim that after a high point of state forestry the imperial government lost both the interest and the ability to manage woodland effectively. Forestry was largely taken over by lineages - kin groups organized around the worship of shared ancestors. I tie this transition in woodland governance to two interrelated trends: growth in the power and independence of lineage organizations, and of long-distance trade in wood products. First, I show changes in local state capacities for tax collection and dispute resolution, the growing organizational capacity of lineages. Second, I argue that the growth of trade in woodland products affected state and lineage differently. On the one hand, government bureaus had increasing difficulty governing wood land while finding it increasingly convenient to obtain wood products on the market. On the other hand, lineages were well-equipped for the business of managing local landscapes, and saw substantial profits to be made from the export of timber and other forest commodities. Finally, I argue that the rise of lineage influence shaped the terms in which woodland was claimed for private use. Over hundreds of years, claims to woodland shifted from the formal legal discourse specified by the imperial state to focus on the specialized language of fengshui. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, claims no longer trumpeted the productive capacity of forests or their role in paying the taxes important to the state; they now focused on the iii physical and metaphysical powers of the wooded landscape and its role in protecting the graves important to lineages. Contrary to existing scholarship, I claim that the decline of state forestry did not necessarily lead to the decline of the woods themselves; lineage oversight was highly effective at managing forests for both production and protection, and areas of strong lineage control remained well-forested into the modern era. iv Acknowledgements This project would have been impossible without help and guidance from a number of people. I benefited from a truly ideal committee of advisors who shaped this project from multiple angles. Michael Szonyi and Peter Bol have guided my path through graduate studies since long before this project took form, and have influenced my thinking on essentially every aspect of the dissertation. They have helped me balance my tendency toward overambitious projects with a focus on specifics. Ian Jared Miller has been a key advisor throughout my time at Harvard, and has given perhaps the greatest insight into the most interesting questions in this thesis - especially the role of graves. Paul Warde has been an incredible source of knowledge on forests in addition to providing a welcome outsider’s perspective. During a summer and a year in China, Zhang Weiran 张伟然 of Fudan University and Liang Hongsheng 梁洪生 of Jiangxi Normal University were exceptional sources of expertise and guides to navigating local archives. Liang Hongsheng and Li Pingliang 李平亮 of Jiangxi Normal, and Guan Yongyi 管永义, recently retired from the Anfu County Museum, were exceptionally generous with their time and expertise during trips to Xincheng 新城, Wuyuan 婺 源 and Anfu 安福 Counties. Ye Xiang 叶翔 of the Jishui County Museum was also a great resource during my brief visit to Jishui 吉水. The staff of the Shanghai Library Genealogy Archive were exceptionally helpful during my time there. I also benefitted enormously from conversations with the members of several lineages who were generous enough to share their genealogies with me, including the Zhongtian Lu 中田鲁, Anfu Ouyang 安福歐陽，Fangli Ouyang 防里歐陽, Qianxi Liu 前溪劉, Longyun Liu 龍雲劉, Cigu Liu 茨谷劉 and Cixi Liu 茨 溪劉. Particular thanks are due to Ouyang Yun 欧阳运, who introduced me to the broader v Ouyang lineage. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Huang 黃 family and another anonymous local who helped out when transportation was difficult, and to the village leaders of Zhexi 柘溪, Tangbian 塘遍, Yantian 嚴田, Qiaotou 桥头, and at the Anfu County seat who were all exceptionally welcoming. Much of my thinking is still influenced by my two advisors emeriti, Lillian Li and James “Woody” Watson. I have also benefited from an exceptional group of tongxue and senpai. Much of this dissertation has grown out of an eight-year conversation with John S. Lee. Javier Cha and Wen Yu 于文 have also been vital intellectual companions throughout my time at Harvard. Other aspects of my thinking were strongly shaped by discussions with Macabe Keliher, Sakura Christmas, Devin Fitzgerald, Maura Dykstra, Eric Schleussel, Ling Zhang 張玲, Victor Seow, Devon Dear, Huan Jin 金環 and many others. I have also benefitted enormously from relationships with two exceptional students-turned-peers, Rachel Wong and Adam Mitchell. Finally, I must thank my family, who have been a huge source of support and inspiration. My parents Jane and Wally Miller and my stepmother Christina Smith have commented on multiple versions of research proposals, chapter drafts and talks derived from this project and been constant sources of moral support. My in-laws He Guomian 何国勉 and Xiao Wenjia 肖文 佳 hosted me during my time in Shanghai and provided huge amounts of encouragement as well as child-care. My son Rye has been an immense source of inspiration, and accompanied me on numerous trips to parks and botanical gardens for “research.” Most of all, I must thank my wife Evelyn He 何及, my harshest critic and greatest supporter. Any mistakes are my own. vi Table of Contents Front Matter Abstract iii Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vii Introduction 1 Historiographical Context 5 Social dynamism and state-society relations in late imperial China 5 Continuities and discontinuities in lineage development 9 Commons, enclosure, and the specter of environmental decline 15 A brief history of woodland institutions in China 19 Structure of the Dissertation 26 Part I - Households and Villages 36 Chapter 1 - Taxing Jiangxi: Tax Policy and Oversight in the Old South 39 Sources and approach 43 Precursors to the Ming tax system, 980 to mid-1300s 46 Ming structures of taxation and local control, late 1300s 51 The Fish-Scale Registers 51 The Yellow Registers 52 The Village-Tithing System 53 Direct Supply and increased tax burdens, early 1400s 55 The extent of early Ming tax avoidance 57 Market recovery and commutations of the land tax, mid 1430s and 40s 61 Stable land tax, problematic corvee 63 Solving the corvee problem, mid 1440s to 1530s 66 1430s-1450s: “Equalized Corvee” and silver surcharges 66 1460s-1530s: “Equalized Silver” and “Ten Sectors” reforms 68 The effectiveness of corvee reforms 70 The Single Whip Reforms, 1550s to 1580s 73 The land surveys of 1581 78 Conclusion 81 Chapter 2 - Magnates and Magistrates: Courts and the Law in Ming Jiangxi 86 vii Understanding Ming law 89 The Code and the Placard 89 “New Precedents” 90 The court hierarchy 92 Sources and approach 93 Power differentials 94 Migrants and outlaws 97 Magnates 100 Officials as magnates 100 Functionaries as magnates 105 Money and power 111 Restricting the magnates 116 Lawsuits and litigators 122 The growth of private legal expertise 125 Persecuting the magistrates 126 Unclogging the courts 127 Conclusion 132 Part II - Ancestors and Descendants 134 Chapter 3 - The Lineages of Ji’an: Continuities and Discontinuities in Kinship Organization 137 Ritual lineage formation 139 Formalizing lineage institutions 143 Funding and organizing the lineage 146 Early genealogy compilations 148 The era of gentry lineages 149 Public genealogy 152 Shrines to local worthies 154 Transitions to corporate structures 159 A resurgence in public genealogy 162 Lineage grafting 165 Building the corporate lineage 168 From kin group collaboration to corproate lineage integration 172 viii Conclusion 179 Chapter 4 - 1000 years of Ouyangs: A Ji’an lineage over the longue durée 182 Documentary considerations 184 Origins and developments 186 Forwards and postfaces 194 “Descendants multiply” 繁衍 196 “Fires of war” 兵燹 202 “Shared ambitions” 同志 209 Shines and halls 217 Comprehensive genealogy 221 Conclusion 227 Part III - Forests and Trees 230 Chapter 5 - Forest Economies: Woodland and Wood Markets under State and Private Control 234