by Ling Zhang
74 Guided by the “measure of agricultural fields and water benefits,” a major policy of Wang Anshi's reform, regional and local officials engaged in hydraulic works across the empire. For instance, see Pierre-Etienne Will's (1998: 294–297) study of the revival of the irrigation system of the Zhengbai Canal.
75 “Record of the Conducts of Du Chun,” QSW, 2741: 55–58.
76 QSW, 2235: 700.
77 QSW, 2569: 247.
78 White (1991).
79 Wittfogel (1957) postulated that state-sponsored hydraulic works gave rise to a despotic state and caught countries like China within a kind of “hydraulic society.” Since its appearance in the 1950s, this thesis has received enormous criticism from Chinese political, hydraulic, and technological historians. Based on studies mainly about late-imperial China, historians have made two main critiques, respectively from a spatial and a temporal perspective. For the spatial critique, scholars point out that the state was often not the prime hydraulic leader; most of hydraulic works in China were small-scale and carried out by regional and local hydraulic leaders. Localized and scattered hydraulic works gave rise to separate and diffuse regional powers that not only did not congeal into a total power for the imperial state, but also competed with and checked the growth of the state power. Hence, in the state-society equation through the hydraulic lens, there appeared a strong society that the weak state power could not thoroughly penetrate and control, but had constantly to negotiate with, collaborate with, and even rely on. Therefore, a true Wittfogelian despotic state never took place in China. For the temporal critique, scholars point that even when the state functioned as the prime, responsible hydraulic leader to successfully manage water problems, ensure the society's environmental security, and thereby gain strong control over the society, such state efforts could not last forever. Through a cyclical process, the state would invariably neglect hydraulic works; such negligence would cause destruction to the hydraulic works, and inflict environmental disasters to the society. Consequentially, the suffering and resentful society resisted the corrupt state; through disobedience and rebellion, the society challenged the state's control and caused the state to fall. This brought history back to the beginning of a new cycle as a new state emerged and took up hydraulic responsibilities. Throughout this cycle, even if a true Wittfogelian despotic state emerged in historical times, its total power did not last long and did not trap China in a hydraulic society infinitely. These two critiques have led to the creation of two notions, “hydraulic community” and “hydraulic cycle.” The former was coined by Japanese scholars and best elaborated by Akira Morita (1974 and 1990) in his studies on regional hydraulic histories in the Qing Dynasty. The latter was coined by Pierre-Etienne Will (1980) in his studies of the hydraulic history in Ming-Qing China. Despite their criticism of Wittfogel's reductive theorization, both “hydraulic community” and “hydraulic cycle” are derivative concepts and empirical revisions of Wittfogel's ideal-typical theorization. Both notions have inherited and followed Wittfogel's logic of reasoning, the “hydraulic mode of production,” which essentializes the mutually constitutive relationship between power and hydraulics. The “hydraulic community” scholarship does not deny the constitution of political power through hydraulics; it simply argues a limited scale of the power and its location in various hydraulic communities, instead of in a state-level hydraulic regime. The “hydraulic cycle” scholarship endorses the mutual constitution between power and hydraulics at both the state level and the local level. But it insists that the brief, inconsistent hydraulic commitment from the hydraulic leader would invariably turn the first half-cycle of mutual production between power and hydraulics into an ensuing half-cycle of mutual destruction – the trigger for the downturn was the absence of the state attention and efforts. My critique of both Wittfogel and these Wittfogel-influenced scholarships in the following pages targets their productive logic; it does not target the validity of their empirical cases.
80 Note that although I ask similar questions to Scott – how well intended schemes led to unintended, disastrous consequences – I do not emphasize his conclusion, that is the schemes’ disrespect and ignorance of local knowledge and local practices. I certainly do not provide the converse assumption that schemes employing local knowledge and practices would have a better chance to handle environmental problems. Chapter 6 will show that people's individual, local strategies were inadequate to deal with the overwhelming Yellow River–Hebei environmental complex. What I stress here is that, while tackling the trialectic complexity involving the physical environment, the state, and the society, any focus on the state-versus-society dialectics without acknowledging the spontaneity of non-human environmental entities is not adequate.
81 We should carefully distinguish the hydraulics oriented toward flood control from that toward irrigation, as well as hydraulic agendas of gigantic, medium, or small scales. Agendas of different natures and scales do not necessarily follow the same model of hydraulic cycle. The kind of “hydraulic cycle” that Will proposes explains very well water issues of regional or local scales in late-imperial China, such as Peter Perdue's study of the Dongting Lake area in Hunan. But it does not explain the irony seen in state-sponsored Yellow River hydraulics in the Northern Song and in the Yuan-Ming period, when, despite increasing investments from the state, the hydraulic works continued to break down, and the society did not benefit from state investments but suffered increasing destruction.
82 Golas in Chaffee and Twitchett (2015: 139–140).
83 Golas (1998: 90–94).
84 QSW, 2381: 94.
85 QSW, 1517: 13–16.
86 Golas in Chaffee and Twitchett (2015: 167–172).
87 QSW 2480: 122; 2479: 96; and 2472: 323.
88 QSW, 2276: 209.
89 QSW, 2673: 62; 2744: 118–119; and 2427: 224–229. For logging and transportation of vegetative materials to Hebei, see Chapter 8.4.
90 QSW, 644: 176.
91 QSW, 2703: 153.
92 QSW, 1517: 13–16.
93 Elvin (1973: 165).
94 Golas (1988: 90–94).
95 Mitchell (2002: 10).
6
Life in the Yellow River Delta
As the imperial state created its version of the battle with the Yellow River–Hebei environmental complex between 1048 and 1128, there was another struggle unfolding in Hebei – the new Yellow River delta – where individuals and the entire society were thrown into repetitive turmoil. The costly and extensive hydraulic works taking place inside Hebei did not produce a benign physical environment for its people; rather, they continued to harm the population, consume its wealth, and deprive many of the people of even a subsistence livelihood.
The state related to the environmental drama from a distance. Its concerns about harm done to the state's stability by environmental factors were conceptual and futuristic. Most of its political figures never saw the Yellow River or traveled to Hebei. When debating and making decisions about hydraulic policies, they referenced each other's words and consulted classics, histories, and accounting books. Their delicate, pen-holding hands barely touched the troubled water and earth. Farmers in the Yangzi valley and loggers in Shanxi and Shaanxi could not conceptualize the connection between the fruit of their labors and its consumption inside Hebei. These active participants in the environmental drama did not witness how the river's torrents crushed banks and destroyed buildings. Their ears heard no screams, and their families were not plagued by deaths and the loss of livelihoods.
In contrast, the experiences of the Hebei people were physical, material, and concrete. Their bodies were injured, their loved ones drowned, their roofs and walls collapsed, grain supplies and already sown fields were lost in the floods. As a disaster receded, the survivors stood in their devastated gardens, looking at a land scarred with broken trees, construction debris, and stagnant water. Entire roads disappeared without a trace, along with supplies meant to sustain them during the winter or make spri
ng planting possible. Some wondered if the salinized soil could support crops, while others considered leaving Hebei altogether.
The ordinary people in Hebei did not share the state's grand vision of a carefully designed geopolitical landscape in north China. What benefited the state did not necessarily benefit the people in Hebei – in fact, the people often suffered from it. They could not visualize a vast region called Hebei versus one called Henan, or a giant body of water called the Yellow River. What appeared real to them were flooding waters, dreadful scenes of deaths and hardship, and frightening rumors that haunted their daily lives. This embodied, experiential reality shaped how these men and women made sense of the environmental changes, and how they made choices to cope with the disasters. The state's projects did not address the needs of people in Hebei, but instead often called upon them to sacrifice for the state's desire and ambition. Hence, to those trying to survive in Hebei, the battle against the environmental power of the Yellow River–Hebei complex was often a battle against the political power of the imperial state.
In this chapter, we will piece together a general picture of the suffering and damage in Hebei. This effort is to reveal how the hydraulic mode of consumption took a heavy toll on the Hebei society, not only from the imperial state as seen in the previous chapter. We shall then observe the different choices the Hebei people faced and the strategies they took to preserve their subsistence livelihood. By doing so, we may catch a glimpse of their everyday resistance to both the destructive environment and the indifferent state.
6.1 People, Villages, Towns
Let us begin with some demographics.
The long-term demographic trend in middle-period China shows a clear growth in the overall population, manifested in an increase in the number of registered households. Given that the highest number on record had occurred in the mid-Tang period (specifically in 754), from then on the Chinese population had suffered a drastic decline due to the centuries-long political turmoil and civil war, and it only started to recover in the early Northern Song Dynasty. Although its starting point was rather low in the 980s, the Song population experienced a steady rise during the early eleventh century; in the mid-eleventh century, the population surpassed the Tang's highest level. Considering that the Song territory was a mere two-thirds of the mid-Tang territory, we must say that this population growth was rather impressive. Not only was the Song's overall population count higher, but its average population density was also much higher than that in the Tang. As previous scholarship has shown, much of this dramatic growth was due to migration to southeast and southwest China, the incorporation of native populations, and an enormous increase in reproductive rates in the southern parts of China enabled largely by burgeoning agricultural production.1
Hebei's regional situation was not as impressive as the Song's empire-wide growth. Chapters 1 and 2 showed that Hebei's population recovered steadily from war damage in the early Song period. The numbers in Table 3 indicate that the recovery and growth seem to have carried over all the way through the eleventh century. Yet, irrespective of how the numbers look, the overall size of Hebei's population in the Song period failed to match its mid-Tang level. Moreover, while the entire population in the empire exploded, Hebei's demographic growth seems to have taken place at a much slower pace.2 This slow growth is seen in the continuous drop in Hebei's share of the empire-wide population, from 15.6 percent in 754 to 5.9 percent in 1102. In comparison with the up-and-coming southern parts of China, Hebei was no longer the empire's top reproducer.
Table 3. Hebei's Registered Households
YearHebei's HouseholdsTotal Households in the CountryHebei's Percentage of Total Households
754 1,410,793 9,069,154 15.6
circa 980 574,502 6,499,145 8.84
1045 705,700 10,682,947 6.6
1078 1,232,659 16,569,874 7.44
circa 1080 984,195 14,041,980 7
1102 1,192,285 20,264,307 5.9
Notes: The household figures are collected from Xin tangshu, Chapters 37–43; Taiping huanyu ji; Ouyang Xiu's “Lun Hebei caichan shang shixiang shu,” OYXQJ, 118: 1825–1828; XCB, 157: 3814; Yuanfeng jiuyu zhi; Wenxian tongkao, Chapter 11; and SS, Chapters 85–90. They are comparatively used along with the statistics made by Liang (1980: 86–94, 122, 132–137, 141–148, and 152–160). The area of the Hebei Circuit in the Tang Dynasty was a third larger than the size of Hebei in the Northern Song; the northern third remained under the control of the Liao Dynasty. To compare the household numbers in Tang Hebei and Song Hebei on a same geographic basis, the 754 figures shown in Table 3 exclude the household numbers of the districts in the northern third of Tang Hebei. We must be aware that these household figures reflect more about the government's household registration than actual birth rate among the population.
Look closely at Hebei's household numbers: the sharp surge in 1078 is startling. This might indicate a pure natural growth of the population from its 1045 demographic basis. But, it was more likely the result of Wang Anshi's reforms, which sought to ferret out unregistered households. By so doing, the number of legal taxpayers and corvée laborers increased in the government's accounting books. Ironically, this absurdly large number might also be a result of people's deliberate resistance to the reforms. By breaking down one large household into several small ones and a large chunk of property into several small lots, a Hebei household could reduce its obligation for corvée service, and enjoy a lower tax bracket. This means that although the state added a large number of households on paper, it did not necessarily gain more revenue or labor force in actuality. The 1080 number might also have been influenced by the reforms. The 1102 number from the early years of Emperor Huizong, who restored many reform policies as soon as he took the throne, was very likely a result of political manipulation as well. In comparison with these later numbers, the numbers from the 980s and 1045 were rather small. It is possible that they were a result of underestimation, because the government failed to register some households in the rather unstable social circumstances as in the 980s, or it failed to count many illegal, unregistered households who physically lived in Hebei but avoided tax responsibilities. In the aggregate, the five numbers for Hebei suggest that Hebei's population grew slowly after the 1040s, certainly not at a rate as high as the empire-wide growth.
To complicate these numbers and their surface value, the following pages will discuss the impact of environmental changes on the population. The eleventh century was blessed by the absence of major social chaos like war; such peace should have led to greater human reproduction. The chaotic environmental conditions, however, made reproduction hard to sustain. Our non-quantitative, descriptive sources give us a picture of a high mortality rate as well as a high emigration rate in Hebei during the last eight decades of the Song period. It is also possible that Hebei's birth rate was below replacement rate. These three factors must have engendered a continuous population loss. Since we do not have any numbers for the overall natality, I will conclude my assessment of Hebei's population by suggesting that the birth rate at best remained stable after the 1040s, if it did not in fact decline.
Shortly before the Yellow River entered Hebei, Ouyang Xiu, then Hebei's Fiscal Commissioner, made an estimate of Hebei's population. Around 1045, Hebei had 705,700 registered civilian households, about 1,200 officials who were most likely under a separate household registration, and 477,000 soldiers for the Imperial Armies, the District Armies, and the Righteous and Brave troops.3 Included in this latter number, the soldiers of Imperial Armies were counted at about 180,000. These individuals fell under an independent military registration, which I assume involved their households; this is to say that there were 180,000 military households.4 Combining civilian, official, and military households, we can calculate an overall household number for Hebei to be 886,900. Historians usually assume that each household was made up of an average of five members in middle-period China.5 Accepting this assumption and combining it with the non-Imperial Armies militi
a members (477,000 minus 180,000), we reach a population number for Hebei of 4,731,500 heads. This figure certainly does not reflect the actual population at the time, but it is statistically valuable to indicate the rough size of the legally registered population.
Beginning with this demographic baseline – roughly five million people – Hebei experienced repeated depopulation during the next eight decades. Its death and emigration rates rose for the first time in 1048, after the Yellow River surged into central Hebei in the summer and a severe drought broke out in the winter and into 1049.6 The prolonged effects, including harvest failure, food shortages, and a dearth of various resources, drove enormous numbers of people onto the road. According to Liu Chang, the refugees “amounted to one million.”7 Ouyang Xiu made an even higher, most likely exaggerated, estimate, suggesting that 80–90 percent of the people in the region affected by the disasters turned to migration.8 Starving and exhausted, not many could make it through their journey toward security, and many perished on the road. In Ouyang's words: “Over a distance of more than a thousand li, the roads are full of the corpses of men.”9 In an equally despairing, though perhaps exaggerated claim, Sima Guang cried that “fathers and sons consumed each other” in the ensuing famine.10
Refugees from central Hebei flowed in any direction offering food and safety. In Dingzhou in northwestern Hebei alone, the local government distributed relief to reportedly several million people.11 Jia Changchao, Prefect of Daming in southern Hebei, was said to have received and given relief to nearly a million refugees.12 In Heyang 河陽 in southwest Hebei, “fields and buildings were thoroughly washed away,” and more than 100,000 people were uprooted.13 Crossing southern Hebei, the refugees continued further south, where the government set up relief stations at ports on the Yellow River, bestowing every adult with two sheng (1.33 liters) of grain per day and every child half that amount so that they could survive the rest of the trip into Henan. At least half a million people were said to have ended up in Qingzhou in Shangdong, where Prefect Fu Bi witnessed the congregation of refugees in urban slums.14 Hunger, fatigue, poor hygienic conditions, and infectious diseases were rife. Despite the efforts of benevolent officials like Fu to set up temporary lodgings for them, and to recruit adult males into local armies, the refugee mortality rate was still high.
