The Heritage of Chinese Civilization
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THIRD EDITION The Heritage of Chinese Civilization
Albert M. Craig Harvard University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Craig, Albert M. The heritage of Chinese civilization / Albert M. Craig. — 3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-205-79054-8 ISBN-10: 0-205-79054-2 1. China—History. I. Title. DS735.A2C73 2010 951—dc22 2010009898
10987654321
ISBN 10: 0-205-79054-2 ISBN 13: 978-0-205-79054-8 A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page iii
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For Sarah Craig (1960–1992) A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page iv
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CONTENTS
Maps vii Documents viii Preface ix
CHAPTER ONE Early China 1 Origins: Old and New Stone Ages 2 Early Bronze Age: Shang 4 Later Bronze Age: Western Zhou 9 Iron Age: Eastern Zhou 10 Iron Age: Birth of Chinese Philosophy 13 Confucianism 15 Daoism 19 Legalism 21 Early Chinese Thought in Historical Perspective 23
CHAPTER TWO
China’s First Empire (221 B.C. –220 A.D.) and Its Aftermath (220–589 A.D.) 26 Qin Unification of China 27 Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–8 A.D.) 32 The Dynastic Cycle 32 Early Years of the Former Han Dynasty 32 Han Wudi 32 Xiongnu 33 Government During the Former Han 34 The Silk Road 39 Decline and Usurpation 40 Later Han Dynasty (25–220 A.D.) and Its Aftermath (220–589 A.D.) 41 First Century 41 Decline During the Second Century 41 Aftermath of Empire 42
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Han Thought and Religion 44 Han Confucianism 44 History 45 Neo-Daoism 46 Buddhism 49 China’s First Empire in Historical Perspective 52
CHAPTER THREE High Imperial China (589–1368) 55 Reestablishment of Empire: Sui and Tang Dynasties 56 The Sui Dynasty (589–618) 56 The Tang Dynasty (618–907) 57 Government 58 Empress Wu 60 The Chang’an of Emperor Xuanzong 61 The Tang Empire 63 Rebellion and Decline 65 Tang Culture 66 Song Dynasty (960–1279) 72 Agricultural Revolution: From Serfs to Free Farmers 73 Commercial Revolution 74 Technology and Money 74 Trade 75 Government: From Aristocracy to Autocracy 76 Song Culture 78 Philosophy 79 Poetry 81 Painting 83 Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368): China in the Mongol World Empire 84 Rise of the Mongol Empire 84 Mongol Rule in China 86 Foreign Contacts and Chinese Culture 90 Last Years of the Yuan 92 Imperial China in Historical Perspective 92
CHAPTER FOUR Late Imperial China: The Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) Dynasties 97 Economic Regions 99 People 100 A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page vi
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China’s Third Commercial Revolution 102 Women in the Commercial Revolution 103 The Pattern of Ming Rule 105 Emperors 105 Officials 108 Eunuchs 110 Gentry 110 Ming Foreign Relations 111 The Pattern of Qing Rule 113 Kangxi and Qianlong 115 New Institutions 115 Qing Foreign Relations 116 Contacts with the West 117 Ming–Qing Culture 119 Late Imperial China in Historical Perspective 123
CHAPTER FIVE Modern China (1839–1949) 126 The Close of Manchu Rule 128 Opium War and Its Aftermath (1839–1860) 128 Rebellions Against the Dynasty (1850–1873) 130 Self-Strengthening and Decline (1874–1895) 133 The Court at Beijing 133 Regional Governments 135 Treaty Ports 135 The Borderlands 136 The Northwest 136 Vietnam 137 Korea 137 From Dynasty to Warlordism (1895–1926) 138 Cultural and Ideological Ferment: The May Fourth Movement (1914–1920s) 142 Nationalist China 146 Guomindang Unification of China and the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937) 146 War and Revolution (1937–1949) 150 Modern China in Historical Perspective 155
CHAPTER SIX China, the Recent Decades 159 Mao’s China 161 Consolidation 161 The Soviet Model 161 A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page vii
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The Great Leap Forward 163 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1965–1976) 165 From Deng Xiaoping to the Present 167 Political Developments 167 Economic Growth 170 Social Change 174 China and the World 179 Taiwan 181 Modern China in Historical Perspective 184
Index 187
MAPS
1–1 The four great river valley civilizations to c. 1000 B.C.3 1–2 Bronze Age China during the Shang dynasty, 1766–1050 B.C.4 1–3 Early Iron Age territorial states in China during the sixth century B.C.11 2–1 The unification of China by the Qin state 29 2–2 The Han Empire 206 B.C.–220 A.D.34 2–3 The spread of Buddhism and Chinese states in A.D. 500 50 3–1 The Tang Empire at its peak during the eighth century 57 3–2 Chang’an 62 3–3 The Northern Song and Liao Empires and the Southern Song and Jin empires 72 3–4 The Mongol Empire in the late thirteenth century 84 4–1 Regions in Ming–Qing China 99 4–2 Ming Empire and the voyages of Zheng He 111 4–3 The Qing Empire at its peak 114 5–1 The Taiping, Nian, and Muslim rebellions 131 5–2 The northern expeditions of the GMD 148 5–3 The war in the Pacific 152 6–1 China in contemporary Asia 160 6–2 “How big is China’s economy?” 175 A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page viii
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DOCUMENTS
Chinese Writing 7 Languages of East Asia 7 Human Sacrifice in Early China 8 Confucius Defines the Gentleman 16 Daoism 20 Legalism 22 Chinese Women Among the Nomads 35 Ban Zhao’s Admonitions for Women 36 The Position of Women 37 The Peach Blossom Spring 43 Sima Qian on the Wealthy 48 The Castration of Sima Qian 49 A Petty Clerk Thinks About His Career 60 A Poem by Li Bo 67 “Chaste Woman” Shi 76 Su Dungpo Remembered by a Disciple 81 Marco Polo Describes the City of Hangzhou 89 The Thin Horse Market 104 The Seven Transformations of an Examination Candidate 109 Qianlong’s Edict to King George III of England 118 A Star in Heaven 122 Commissioner Lin Urges Morality on Queen Victoria 129 Imperialism, a Chinese View 134 Liang Qichao Urges the Chinese to Reform (1896) 139 Chen Duxiu’s “Call to Youth” in 1915 144 Lu Xun 145 Mao on the Peasant Movement in Hunan 154 Mao’s View of China on the Eve of the Great Leap Forward 163 Deng on the Cultural Revolution 167 The Chinese Economy in Transition 171 The Condition of Women: A Positive Appraisal 178 The Condition of Women: A Negative Appraisal 178 viii A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page ix
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PREFACE
China was a birthplace of civilization. Of the original world civilizations, only China has continued down to the present. The civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India were all submerged or supplanted by subsequent waves of very different cultures. Chinese civilization, to be sure, was not static. It continued to evolve; but while absorbing outside influences, it was never wholly swamped by them. During the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., China’s writing system, philosophy, and technology spread to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, defining the area known today as East Asia. Its poetry, literature, and arts were no less influential. Today, China is a nuclear power with a fifth of the world’s population. Its economy is growing apace. To understand today’s world, one must understand China, and for that, we must understand its past. This volume originally began as an expanded version of the China chapters of The Heritage of World Civilizations. In the second edition, the chapters were extensively revised, and the Romanization of Chinese names and terms was changed to pinyin. In this third edition, further changes and additions have been made in each chapter. This work attempts to give a chronological framework and a short narrative of the sweep of Chinese history. It does not neglect the ruling dynasties, but it also treats social, economic, and cultural developments that cut across dynastic lines. For the instructor who wishes to approach Chinese history topically and assign monographs, documents, novels, and movies, the brevity of this text may prove an advantage. Since brevity was a goal, the author asserts with seeming confidence many things that may be true only in the balance. Proper qualifications would take up many pages. The author has picked key historical variables for his reconstruction of the past. In doing so, he has inevitably left out other variables that are not without merit. Further readings from the works listed in the bibliographies at the end of each chapter may provide a counterpoint to the story told in the text. Written history is an abstraction. In any society, change or stability is a conse- quence of the feelings and actions of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. Each person lives in a family, has social ties extending to the larger society, works for a living, and is protected and constrained by a structure of rule. The totality of such rela- tionships shapes the course of a nation. The historian, at best, grasps bits and pieces of this past. In China, despite the fact that its written record in the premodern era sur- passed that of any other nation, the vast majority of the people lived in obscurity and left no traces. Writing its history from surviving sources is like doing a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. It is always difficult to see the past in the terms in which it saw itself. Our contemporary assumptions intrude. Even studying the West—our own civilization— we catch only glimpses of what it meant to be, say, a merchant in medieval Hamburg.
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How a Hangzhou merchant during the Southern Song dynasty saw family, society, and the universe is even more difficult to ascertain. But some inkling may be gleaned from original sources. To this end, poems, philosophy, essays, and scenes from novels are presented both in the narrative and in boxed quotations. The immediacy of these writings provides windows into the actual thought and feelings of the actors in China’s history. They illuminate the history, and also remind us that Chinese living a thousand years ago had many of the same hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows that we have today. We recognize these shared feelings despite the powerful shaping of human experience by cultural modalities and social organization. This volume contains many maps. Beijing in China’s north is as different from Guangzhou in the near tropical southeast as Boston is from El Paso. Most place names that appear in the narrative may be found on chapter maps. The final section of each chapter attempts to place chapter materials in a larger historical or comparative per- spective. Such comparisons advance our understanding but can only be taken so far. A note on Chinese, which is not an easy language. Until twenty or so years ago, most Western scholarship on Chinese history used the Wade-Giles system to romanize Chinese names and terms. Today, most scholars and all newspapers use the pinyin sys- tem, which is the system used in China. I have used pinyin throughout. Thus, I write Mao Zedong, not Mao Tse-tung. On the whole, pinyin is not difficult for an English speaker. The “Way” in pinyin becomes “Dao,” not “Tao,” and that is what it sounds like in Chinese. But since the pinyin system was devised in the 1950s with Russian speakers in mind, several letters have values different from English. Their pronuncia- tions should be kept in mind:
1. The old “hs” (as in Hsia dynasty) is now written “x” (so the dynastic name becomes Xia). 2. The old aspirated “ch’” (as in Ch’ing dynasty) is written “q” (so Qing dynasty). 3. The old “ts’” (as in Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, a modern thinker) is now romanized as “c” (So Cai Yuanpei).
In China, as in Korea and Japan, the family name comes first. So the person in the previous example is Mr. Cai, not Mr. Yuanpei. Now and then, to bridge the transi- tion to pinyin romanization, I put a more familiar name in parenthesis after the pinyin. For example: Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) or Guangzhou (Canton). Some book titles in the Suggested Readings use the old Wade-Giles system. For example, they use “Sung,” rather than “Song” for the dynastic name. These can usually be understood by context. In writing this book, I have drawn on many fine studies; my intellectual debts are legion and, as usual in a text, largely unacknowledged. But I would like to men- tion those persons to whom I owe a particular and personal debt: my first teachers in Chinese history—Benjamin Schwartz, Edwin Reischauer, Lien-sheng Yang, and A01_CRAI0548_03_SE_FM.qxd 5/6/10 4:58 PM Page xi
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John Fairbank—and also the colleagues from whom I have learned so much over the years—Peter Bol, Paul Cohen, Nicola DiCosmo, Ronald Egan, Mark Elliott, Merle Goldman, William Kirby, Philip Kuhn, Dwight Perkins, Michael Puett, Ezra Vogel, and Robin Yates. And the following reviewers offered valuable suggestions: Henry Antkiewicz, East Tennessee State University; Yongtao Du, Washburn University; and Xiaorong Han, Butler University. I must also mention my wife, Teruko Craig, for her constant moral support and editorial advice. All errors are my own.
NEW TO THIS EDITION In this edition, there are changes in every chapter:
• There is new coverage of early Buddhism • New materials have been added on sea routes to China • There is new coverage of the Ming and Manchu dynasties • Coverage of contemporary China has been updated • In Chapter 4, in response to suggestions from reviewers, the following changes were made: ° The Ming and Qing dynasties are presented chronologically (in contrast with the thematic approach found in the second edition) ° The Manchu elements in Qing rule are more clearly delineated • Chapter 6 has been brought up to date and in some ways revamped.
It is not easy to keep up with the dynamism of contemporary China.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Albert M. Craig is the Harvard-Yenching Research Professor of History Emeritus at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1959. A graduate of Northwestern University, he received his Ph.D. at Harvard University. He has studied at Strasbourg University and at Kyoto, Keio, and Tokyo universities in Japan. He is the author of Choshu in the Meiji Restoration (1961), The Heritage of Japanese Civilization (2011), and, with others, of East Asia: Tradition and Transformation (1989). He is the editor of Japan, A Comparative View (1973) and co-editor of Personality in Japanese History (1970). At present he is engaged in research on the thought of Fukuzawa Yukichi. For eleven years (1976–1987) he was the director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. He has also been a visiting professor at Kyoto and Tokyo universities. He has received Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Japan Foundation Fellowships. In 1988 he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government.
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