Envisioning Eternal Empire
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CHINESE HISTORY (Continued from front flap) Y U R I P I N E S preimperial and imperial polity: the ruler, the elite, and the commoners. Regarding each of them, he identifies both the com- mon ground and unresolved intrinsic ten- OF RELATED INTEREST sions of Warring States discourse. Thus, THIS AMBITIOUS BOOK looks into the ENVISIONING while thinkers staunchly supported the reasons for the exceptional durability of the idea of the omnipotent universal monarch, States Era Chinese Political Thought of the Warring Divided by a Common Language Chinese empire, which lasted for more than they were also aware of the mediocrity and two millennia (221 BCE–1911 CE). Yuri ineptitude of acting sovereigns. They were Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China Pines identifies the roots of the empire’s committed to a career in government yet ENVISIONING longevity in the activities of thinkers of the feared to compromise their integrity in ser- ARI DANIEL LEVINE Warring States period (453–221 BCE), who, vice of corrupt rulers. They declared their 2008, est. 216 pages in their search for solutions to an ongoing dedication to “the people” yet firmly op- Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8248-3266-7 ETERNAL EMPIRE political crisis, developed ideals, values, posed the lower strata’s input in political and perceptions that would become essen- processes. Pines asserts that the persistence Between 1044 and 1104, ideological disputes divided China’s sociopolitical elite, who ETERNAL EMPIRE tial for the future imperial polity. In marked of these unresolved tensions eventually be- organized into factions battling for control of the imperial government. Advocates and distinction to similar empires worldwide, came one of the most important assets of adversaries of state reform formed bureaucratic coalitions to implement their policy the Chinese empire was envisioned and to China’s political culture. The ensuing im- CHINESE POLITICAL agendas and to promote like-minded colleagues. During this period, three emperors a certain extent “preplanned” long before it perial political system was not excessively and two regents in turn patronized a new bureaucratic coalition that overturned the came into being. As a result, it was not only rigid, but sufficiently flexible to adapt itself THOUGHT OF THE preceding ministerial regime and its policies. This ideological and political conflict es- a military and administrative construct, but to a variety of domestic and foreign pres- also an intellectual one. Pines makes the sures. This remarkable adaptability within calated with every monarchical transition in a widening circle of retribution that began WARRING STATES ERA argument that it was precisely its ideologi- the constant ideological framework contrib- with limited purges and ended with extensive blacklists of the opposition. Divided by a cal appeal that allowed the survival and re- Common Language is the first English-language study to approach the political history uted decisively to the empire’s longevity. generation of the empire after repeated pe- of the late Northern Song in its entirety and the first to engage the issue of factional- riods of turmoil. ism in Song political culture. Ari Daniel Levine explores the complex intersection of Envisioning Eternal Empire presents a Chinese political, cultural, and intellectual history by examining the language that panoptic survey of philosophical and social ministers and monarchs used to articulate conceptions of political authority. conflicts in Warring States political culture. By examining the extant corpus of preim- YURI PINES is Michael W. Lipson perial literature, including transmitted texts Professor of Chinese Studies at the and manuscripts uncovered at archaeologi- Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Cover photo: cal sites, Pines locates the common ideas of The Throne of the Emperor in Jiaotai Hall, reprinted from The Forbidden City, edited by Li Xia and Zhang Quan (Beijing, 2007). competing thinkers that underlie their ideo- logical controversies. This bold approach Cover design: Julie Matsuo-Chun allows him to transcend the once fashion- PINES able perspective of competing “schools of thought” and show that beneath the im- mense pluralism of Warring States thought one may identify common ideological choices that eventually shaped traditional Chinese political culture. The result is a refreshingly novel look at the foundational period in Chinese intellectual history. Pines’ analysis of the political thought UNIVERSITY of of the period focuses on the thinkers’ per- HAWAI‘I PRESS ceptions of three main components of the HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I 96822-1888 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu (Continued on back flap) Envisioning Eternal Empire ENVISIONING Eternal Empire Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era Yuri Pines University of Hawai‘i Press HONOLULU © 2009 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 6 5 4 3 2 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATA L OGING -IN -PUB L I C ATION DATA Pines, Yuri. Envisioning eternal empire : Chinese political thought of the Warring States era / Yuri Pines. p. cm. Includes bibliographical reference and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3275-9 (hard cover : alk.paper) 1. Political culture—China—History. 2. Political science — China—Philosophy—History. 3. China—History— Warring States, 403–221 B.C. 4. China—Politics and government—To 221 B.C. I. Title. JQ1516.P56 2009 320.0931—dc22 2008038712 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press production staff Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I —The Ruler 1. Ritual Figureheads 13 2. Ways of Monarchism 25 3. The Search for the Ideal Ruler 54 4. An Omnipotent Rubber Stamp 82 Part II—Shi: The Intellectual 5. The Rise of the Shi 115 6. To Serve or Not to Serve 136 7. Shi and the Rulers 163 Part III—The People 8. Ruling for the People 187 9. “Full Bellies, Empty Hearts” 198 The Legacy of the Warring States 219 Notes 223 Bibliography 271 Index 297 v Acknowledgments In the mid-1990s, I worked on my PhD dissertation at the Nankai University, Tianjin, under the guidance of Professor Liu Zehua 劉澤華. Already then I began contemplating how to introduce insights regarding traditional Chinese political culture of Professor Liu and his disciples, Ge Quan 葛荃, Zhang Fen- tian 張分田, and Zhang Rongming 張榮明, to the Western audience. It is to Liu Zehua and to Nankai friends that I owe my deepest intellectual debt, and it is to them that this book is dedicated. My second debt is to my Western colleagues, who offered plenty of insight- ful comments and criticisms of the drafts of this manuscript or portions thereof and of my earlier publications. I am particularly grateful to (in alphabetic or- der) Michal Biran, Erica Brindley, Miranda Brown, Nicola Di Cosmo, Patricia Crone, Lothar von Falkenhausen, Carol Gluck, Paul R. Goldin, Martin Kern, Michael Nylan, Andrew Plaks, Charles Sanft, and Gideon Shelach. Many others, with whom I communicated at conferences and informal meetings and who shared with me their publications, further contributed toward maturation of my research and the completion of this book, and I am indebted to them. While working on the manuscript, I benefited from the support of the Israeli Science Foundation (grant No. 726/02-1) and the Michael William Lip- son Chair in Chinese Studies. I am particularly grateful for Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro Membership in the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ (2006), where extraordinarily favorable intellectual atmosphere greatly bol- stered my research. And, of course, it is to my friends, most specifically Wang Yu 王宇, whom I am must thank for their multifaceted assistance during these years. v i i Introduction The year 221 BCE1 marks a momentous beginning in the political history of humankind. After a series of wars, the king of the northwestern state of Qin 秦 brought the Chinese world2—which for him equaled to the civilized world, “All under Heaven”—under his control. Triumphant, the king ushered in a series of ritual, administrative, and religious innovations to mark his unprec- edented success, adopting the new title of “emperor” (huangdi 皇帝, literally “the august thearch”)3 instead of a mere “king” (wang 王). This was the official proclamation of a new, imperial, age in Chinese history, an age that was to last for 2,132 years under an almost uninterrupted succession of emperors, until the last child monarch, Puyi 溥儀, abdicated on February 12, 1912, in favor of the newly proclaimed Chinese Republic. The durability of the Chinese empire defies easy explanation. Chinese em- perors ruled over a vast land, with territory as diverse and population as het- erogeneous as in other large continental empires, and they faced similar threats of foreign invasions, internal rebellions, and sociopolitical crises.4 What differed in the Chinese case was not the empire’s indestructibility—for it witnessed several spectacular collapses—but its almost miraculous resurrection after years of disorder. This resurrection was not merely symbolic—as it was in the case of the various self-proclaimed heirs of the Roman Empire, for instance5—but substantial, as far as political structure is concerned. Despite changes over the centuries in every sphere of life—from demography and topography to religion and socioeconomic structure—the basic premises of imperial rule, which were shaped in the age of the first imperial dynasties, remained largely intact. The notion of the nominally omnipotent monarch, who considered the inhabitants of All under Heaven as his subjects, presided over an ostensibly meritocratic officialdom, tolerated few, if any, instances of institutional autonomy, and pro- nounced his care for “the people” while denying them a role in decision-mak- ing was as valid for the Qin (秦, 221–207) and Han (漢, 206 BCE–220 CE) eras as it was for the late imperial dynasties, Ming (明, 1368–1644 CE) and Qing (清, 1644–1912).