The River, the Plain, and the State

by Ling Zhang

  By viewing the region of Huaibei as a “sacrificed portion,” historian Ma Junya examines how the self-profiting Ming and Qing states intentionally locked the lower reaches of the Yellow River, together with its environmental harm, within Huaibei. Such environmental management sought to protect other geopolitically more significant entities, such as the ancestral tombs of Ming's royal family and the Grand Canal.53 In his study of the Huang-Yun area between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century, Kenneth Pomeranz holds that the state survived the turbulent transition from pre-modern to modern times thanks to its selective investment of resources and the resultant development of certain regions. The regional development entailed political, socio-economic, and ecological marginalization and even degradation of a hinterland area, the Huang-Yun.54 In that particular case, the state withdrew its attention and investments from the hinterland, including its hydraulic management of the Yellow River; it thereby abandoned the hinterland from the empire's pursuit of modernity. These later states’ environmental management – through the prioritization of certain parts of its domain, the shift of its engagement and investments, and the redistribution and concentration of its resources – resonates strongly with the history of the early Song's dealing with the Yellow River and Hebei.

  What makes the history of the Yellow River and Hebei different from and perhaps more disturbing than the history of Huaibei or the Huang-Yun is how proactively the state designed and manufactured the destruction of Hebei. The Song state did not simply abandon Hebei by leaving this peripheral region alone or exploiting its resources. It compounded the abandonment by relocating disasters and damage into Hebei, and by reshaping the geophysical composition of the land itself. The creation of a Yellow River delta in Hebei was an outcome of the state's politico-hydraulic deliberation, not merely the unintended consequence or side effect of state negligence. To the state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it redistributed limited productive resources in order not only to prolong its dwindling power but also to join the club of modern states and the modern economy. To the young Song state that carried a survivor's mentality, it redistributed the boundless, destructive environmental forces in order to preserve state power and prevent its own premature death.

  The course shift of the Yellow River contributed to the Song's state building explicitly through transforming the geopolitical landscape of north China. The previous chapters have articulated how the Song state tried to undermine Hebei's autonomous tradition and bring it back under the state's central control. With the geographical relocation of the river and its tremendous disasters into Hebei, the state saw the further downgrading of Hebei to an environmental victim and self-sacrificing periphery. From the mid-eighth century to 1048, for the first time Hebei merged into the imperial state as its political, socio-economic, and environmental subordinate. From the state's point of view, its empire now rested in a core-periphery structure that was perfectly mirrored by environmental conditions: the centrality of the state power was solidly situated in and guarded by the environmentally conserved Henan; it exerted control over and offered indispensable support to the environmental periphery, Hebei. This environmental core-periphery structure was a perfect manifestation of a political philosophy that dominated the everyday life of the early Song state: “Strengthening the trunk [or, main body] and weakening the branches [or, limbs] (qianggan ruozhi 強幹弱枝).”55

  Without the operation of a politico-hydraulic enterprise to shift the river northward, the history of Hebei and Henan would have been entirely different. If that were the case, the political history of the Northern Song would have been different as well, and the imperial state might have dissolved much earlier. Through the transformation of the landscape, we see the building of a well-structured, integrated, centralized imperial state – certainly a strong one, in the state's own hope. W. J. T. Mitchel's famous claim for landscape as “the dreamwork of imperialism” – a medium carrying and producing imperialist power (at least in the power's dreamful thought) – finds a perfect historical manifestation in eleventh-century north China.56

  Parts of this chapter appear in a book chapter in Nature, the Environment and Climate Change in East Asia edited by Carmen Meinhert, see Zhang (2013: 137–162).

  1 By collecting historical data of rainfall, Man Zhimin (2014: 20–25) has postulated a positive correlation between increasing rainfall in middle-period China and the increase in the Yellow River's floods. This view certainly contributes to the general understanding of the flooding events as “natural” disasters.

  2 “Lun xiuhe diyizhuang [The first memorial on repairing the Yellow River],” 109: 1642–1644; “Lun xiuhe dierzhuang [The second memorial on repairing the Yellow River],” 109: 1646–1648; “Lun xiuhe disanzhuang [The third memorial on repairing the Yellow River],” 109: 1650–1652 in OYXQJ.

  3 “Shang Renzong lun xiu Shanghukou [Memorial to Emperor Renzong on repairing the bank rupture at Shanghu],” GSJ, 31: 12b–13b, p. 1095–1668.

  4 White (1945: 2).

  5 Two years in the eighth century, three years in the ninth century, twenty-six years in the tenth century, and twelve years in the first forty-seven years of the eleventh century. The data are collected from Jiu Tang shu, Xin Tang shu, Jiu Wudai shi, Xin Wudai shi, Zizhi tongjian, Xu Zizhitongjian changbian, Song shi, Song huiyao, and various personal diaries and collections between the eighth and early twelfth centuries.

  6 Zizhi tongjian, 270: 8824 and 272: 8890.

  7 Jiu Wudai shi, 141: 1882–1883. SS, 91: 2256–2257.

  8 SS, 91: 2256–2257.

  9 For the history of the Five Dynasties, see Naomi Standen and Hugh Clark in Twitchett and Smith (2009).

  10 SS, 91: 2257.

  11 SS, 91: 2257–2258.

  12 Li (1986: 138–144).

  13 Wittfogel (1957).

  14 For detailed studies on the Song's water management, especially on its hydraulic institutions, see Yoshioka (1978) and Nagase (1983). For hydraulic technology, see Needham et al. (1971) and Flessel (1974).

  15 XCB, 13: 283–285.

  16 XCB, 13: 293.

  17 For environmental conditions of Kaifeng, see Cheng (2002).

  18 For a political and military history of north China, see Lau Nap-yin and Huang K'uan-chung in Twitchett and Smith (2009: 206–278). For a discussion on the early Song's administrative geography, see Mostern (2011: 103–165).

  19 In the rest of the book I will compare our case study with studies on hydraulics in late-imperial China by scholars such as Pierre-Etienne Will (1980, 1985) and Peter Perdue (1987), and point out their differences, especially in terms of the relationship between hydraulics and state power. A fundamental difference lies in different waterbodies and imperial states’ differing perceptions toward them. Unlike the Yellow River in the Song period as a national-security issue that directly threatened the state's sense of survival, many water issues in late-imperial China that scholars have studied were regional or local issues, but not necessarily a state affair from the state's point of view.

  20 SS, 91: 2258.

  21 For studies about Yu the Great, see Lewis (2006). Heping Liu (2012: 91–126) examines how the legend of Yu the Great influenced the Northern Song state's governance. Ruth Mostern (2011) discusses the development of geographic scholarship on the text, “Tribute of Yu,” in the Song period.

  22 For a detailed analysis on the emperor's edict, especially on contrasting notions like “public” and “private” in the light of the state-society relationship, see Zhang (2013: 137–162). Emperor Taizu's perception of the state–society relationship influenced Northern Song politics throughout the dynasty; it was strongly echoed and further strengthened by reformist political thinkers like Wang Anshi in the 1060s–1070s, who advocated a powerful, activist state that superseded, led, regulated, and delivered care to the society. See further discussion about this in Chapter 5. In this book, I acknowledge the state as a self-conscious, self-preserving entity with bounded autonomy and capacity. Thi
nking along with various statist theorists (e.g., Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol in Bringing the State Back In; and Joel S. Migdal for the “state-in-society” approach and the emphasis on the state's everyday life), I consider the state as a compromised, partially autonomous entity that strives to behave rationally and to formulate self-promoting intentions, but in reality it constantly suffers from bounded rationality and external complications Such a state is incapable of forming or asserting lucid and coherent intentions; it has to collaborate, negotiate, and conflict with the society, thus sharing blurry boundaries with the society. Despite such limitation, the state still maintains consciousness of its own existence and well-being. It distinguishes its core values and interests from those of the society. And it strives to keep its self-identity and self-image even when burdened by external complications and facing constant encroachment from societal forces. Throughout the Northern Song period, the awareness and emphasis of the state (guojia) remained strong among its ruling members. Such awareness of the existence of a state and the pursuit of statehood were especially strong when challenges to the state arose and its conflicts with the society became intensified. This was when, such as in the early Song, the state rulers prioritized the state's interests and sacrificed the needs and interests of the society. This understanding of the state resonates with Chaffee and Twitchett's (2015: 7) judgment of the pragmatic nature of the Song state. Emphasizing the state's self-consciousness and self-protection, I regard Emperor Taizu's utilization of the legend of Yu as an ideological tool for the purpose of preserving the state, not foremost and ultimately for the purpose of caring for the people. This understanding differs from Heping Liu's (2012: 91–126) interpretation that Song rulers used the legend of Yu as inspiration for ideal rulership and benevolent governance. In her study on famine relief and flood control during the Qing and Republican periods, Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley (2014: 447–469) discusses the legend of Yu and holds a similar interpretation as Heping Liu. But she also suggests a shift of state emphasis “from ‘nourish the people’ to ‘sacrifice for the nation’” during the late imperial-modern transition. The Song history demonstrates that there was never such a shift in the Song period. As the present and next two chapters continue to show, the state prioritized self-protection and self-promotion by demanding the society's sacrifice; it always put its survival and prosperity before the well-being of the society.

  23 To follow Peter Perdue's (1987) argument on the limited capacity of state power based on his study in the Ming-Qing period.

  24 Heping Liu (2012: 99) suggests that “Yu's leadership in the flood myth became a powerful paradigm to epitomize Song emperorship, good government, and the efficiency and effectiveness of state organization.” Building on a previous footnote [Note 22], I argue that the early Song state and its rulers used the legend not idealistically, but pragmatically. It is less about how Song emperors could become perfect rulers by modeling sages like Yu; it is more about how they construct a particular discourse around the legend to help them cope with the contemporary, critical challenges.

  25 To ask what this landscape did politically, we may think with W.J.T. Mitchell (2002: 17), “These semiotic features of landscape, and the historical narratives they generate, are tailor-mae for the discourse of imperialism, which conceives itself precisely (and simultaneously) as an expansion of landscape understood as an inevitable, progressive development in history, an expansion of ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ into a ‘natural’ space in a process that is itself narrated as ‘natural.’”

  26 SS, 91: 2258.

  27 Mitchell (2002: xi).

  28 SS, 91: 2261–2262.

  29 SS, 91: 2261.

  30 XCB, 84: 1917.

  31 XCB, 93: 2153.

  32 XCB, 94: 2164.

  33 XCB, 94: 2164.

  34 SS, 91: 2263.

  35 SS, 91: 2263.

  36 “The tomb epitaph of Li Chui,” QSW, 590: 121–122.

  37 Lamouroux (1998: 554–555).

  38 XCB, 84: 1917.

  39 Wang Gungwu (1967: 208–215) argues that Hebei military leaders and politicians dominated political power and political life in the early Song period.

  40 SS, 91: 2259–2264.

  41 Shi ji, 29: 1412–1413.

  42 XCB, 97: 2247.

  43 XCB, 114: 2682; 115: 2691; and 115: 2703. For detailed studies on the 1034 bank rupture and shift of the course, see Zou (1986b).

  44 XCB, 115: 2703; 116: 2724; 118: 2785; 118: 2787; 122: 2887; and 131: 3109.

  45 SS, 91: 2267.

  46 XCB, 131: 3109.

  47 XCB, 133: 3160.

  48 XCB, 136: 3247–3248.

  49 SS, 91: 2256.

  50 Lamouroux (1998: 555).

  51 Nixon's (2011) notion brilliantly captures the kind of interventions that the Song state performed on both the Yellow River and the region of Hebei. Such interventions and their catastrophic consequences take place over a long time and show no obvious, evil intention. The absence of a clearly articulated intention and of causal links between various steps during the process makes the resultant catastrophe appear inevitable, random, and “natural.” Thereby, such absence makes invisible and untraceable the profound violence grounded within the entire process. In our case, none of the Song emperors and officials stated an intention to purposefully harm Hebei and its people; in their political reasoning and hydraulic ideas, they avoided specifying the potential harm Hebei would receive if the river shifted northward. This absence of bad intention cannot obscure the reality that step by step the state reasoned and acted to prioritize its own interests while ignoring negative consequences to Hebei. Such slow violence contrasts with instant, apparent violence. The latter can be seen in many historical cases; for instance, as Chapter 5 and the Epilogue will show, at the end of the Northern Song the governor of Kaifeng ordered a breach of the Yellow River's bank in order to inflict a flood to halt the invasion of the Jurchen army. A similar case is from 1938 when the Republican government bombed the Yellow River's dykes to create a flood in order to halt the Japanese invasion. These two later cases differed from the early Song case, because their intentions were articulated, and they operated within short periods of time. For the 1938 case, see Muscolino (2011: 291–311) and (2015).

  52 Lefebver (2009: 223).

  53 Ma (2011).

  54 Pomeranz (1993).

  55 For the early Song state's sense of center-periphery structure from the perspective of political philosophy, see Deng (2006). From the perspective of territorial administration, see Mostern (2011: 294) and note 2.

  56 Deriving from an interrogation of landscape painting in colonial and postcolonial contexts, W. J. T. Mitchell (2002: 9–14) broadens the definition of “landscape” to be “a physical and multisensory medium (earth, stone, vegetation, water, sky, sound and silence, light and darkness, etc.) in which cultural meanings and values are encoded,” and thereby encoded with power. He consciously extends this theorization to question the landscape-power relationship in other forms of imperialism, “including Chinese imperial experiences.”

  Part II

  Post-1048

  The Unfolding of the Environmental DramaIn the next four chapters, we shall tackle these questions:

  How did the river, the state, and the plain respond to the changing environmental circumstances after 1048? How were they affected by continuous changes and repeated disasters, as they vied with each other to occupy physical space and acquire resources?

  5

  Managing the Yellow River–Hebei Environmental Complex

  By this time, the Hebei Plain had become the Yellow River's delta. Within a same space, the environmental entities of the river and the plain now converged to form a gigantic environmental complex. In a geopolitical sense, the imperial state saw the departure of the violent river from Henan and the reduction of environmental harm at its political core, along with the continued peripheralization of the regional power of Hebei, and the consolidation of the state's political
centrality – as Emperor Taizu and his followers anticipated.

  This production of a favorable physical environment, a subdued regional society, and strengthened state power seem to have resonated very well with what Karl Wittfogel's theory of the “hydraulic mode of production” sought to capture. This mode of production features a symbiotic, mutually constitutive relationship between political power and hydraulics. “No matter whether traditionally nonhydraulic leaders initiated or seized the incipient hydraulic ‘apparatus,’ or whether the masters of this apparatus became the motive force behind all important public functions, there can be no doubt that in all these cases the resulting regime was decisively shaped by the leadership and social control required by hydraulic agriculture.”1 Although this line triggers a question of whether the growth of state power precedes state-sponsored hydraulic works or vice versa, it is the production process and its end products that seem to matter more. As historian Donald Worster suggests, “Do chickens make eggs, or eggs make chickens? It hardly matters when we sit down to dinner.”2 Our previous chapter has followed Worster to demonstrate the decades-long preparation for such a “dinner” and the presentation of its products in 1048.