Early China: A Social and Cultural History

by Li Feng

  The trial scribes opened the letter. The officials discussed about the verdict: Wuyou should be cut in halves; but some said that the case should be dismissed. The Superintendent of Trial reports: “[He] should be cut in halves!”

  * * *

  Peasantry versus Great Families: Social Problems of the Han Empire

  The main social problem that had long-term impact on the Han Empire was the worsening condition of the peasants who were largely commoners below the rank-holders, but who shouldered the burden of the empire. At the upper levels of the social ladder were the descendants of kings, dukes, or prominent officials who occupied the highest ranks in Han society. The contrast between the two groups in terms of economic standing and social prestige was dramatic, to say the least. The potential threat posed by the landless peasants to the empire had been fully shown in the rebellions that brought down Wang Mang’s regime. The fundamental issue is that farmers struggling for subsistence had minimum resources to cope with changing circumstances. Therefore, they were the most vulnerable elements of Han society. Facing bad years or emergencies poor farmers could easily fall into debt to their greater rank-holding neighbors who stood always ready to exploit such opportunities. When farmers could not recover from their debt, all they could do was to sell their children and eventually their land and themselves into the “Great Families” (haozu), hence disappearing as taxpayers for the state. The social history of the Han Empire, particularly during the Eastern Han, can be suitably seen as a process of gradual concentration of land and population in the hands of the larger land-owners.

  As mentioned in Chapter 12, part of Wang Mang’s reform was aimed at solving this problem by putting restrictions on the land area and the number of slaves a single family could own. But he failed hopelessly. On the other hand, the great disturbances caused by the rebellions against Wang Mang’s regime and the war fought before the founding of the Eastern Han Empire had laid waste to a large amount of land previously owned by families of high ranks. Seizing on this opportunity, Liu Xiu, the first emperor of the restored Han Empire, ordered a systematic survey of land as a foundation for redistribution. Scholars have had serious doubts about how thoroughly the land survey ordered by Liu Xiu was carried out, particularly in areas where the imperial and aristocratic estates were concentrated. But at the same time, it is also likely that Liu Xiu did make some effort to ease tensions in the countryside, since it was reported that land tax was reduced from one-tenth to one-thirtieth. This trend of decline of the peasantry over the course of the Eastern Han can be viewed in the context of the decrease of population as demonstrated by a comparison of two maps showing changes in population density in AD 2 and AD 140 respectively (Fig. 13.2).

  Fig. 13.2 Population decline in the Han Empire from AD 2 to AD 140.

  The two maps in Fig. 13.2 show a dramatic decline in population over the course of 138 years from the end of the Western Han to the late century of the Eastern Han Empire. They meant an overall loss of some 8–9 million people from AD 2 to AD 140 in the Han Empire, and the census-based data are considered generally reliable.14 There can be different explanations of this sharp decline in population, particularly in the formerly most populated North China, for instance by the natural disasters that occurred in the disturbed years of Wang Mang. In this regard, the impact of the flooding of the Yellow River has been well noted by scholars. But then it is difficult to explain why the population in North China did not recover substantially to reach the pre-Wang Mang level even under the favorable conditions of the first century of the Eastern Han Empire. Another plausible explanation is that, because the data for comparison were derived from statistics in the official histories of the Western and Eastern Han Empires based on information available to the central government, the change represents only a major decline in the number of registered taxpayers, not in the overall population. In other words, to a large extent the difference resulted from conversion by the great families of the free taxpayers of the small households by turning them into their own landless tenants or even slaves who in turn had to depend on them.15 This must have greatly weakened the Han government’s control over the peasants from whom it acquired tax revenues and labor services. Certainly, the process could have been more complex. For instance, given their increased monopolization of the local government, the great families could have effectively shifted their tax burden onto the households of the small farmers, hence forcing them into bankruptcy and to becoming their retainers.

  The great families were the products of the Han social system discussed above. Many of the great families had their origins in the Western Han, being descendants of the local kings or dukes. In fact, Liu Xiu himself was from such a family. Others were descendants of high officials or families of rich merchants who could use their fortune to purchase ranks, a practice that went back to early Western Han. Over centuries, these families built their roots deeply into the local society and became strong competitors for the state by victimizing their weak neighbors. To give a sense of the economic power of the great families, it is recorded that the families of Ma Fang and Ma Guang, sons of the famous Eastern Han general Ma Yuan, each possessed more than 1,000 slaves, 100 million in cash, a large area of rich land in the suburb of the capital, and hundreds of guests who regularly lived in their houses. Liu Kang, king of Jinan in Shandong, is said to have owned as many as 1,400 male and female slaves and 1,200 horses in addition to 80,000 mu of land.16 By Eastern Han standards, a family that had a few thousand people in its household was not rare in the local areas, and a family of some 300–400 people was the basic qualification for being called a “Great Family” (haozu). Certainly, a great family could not have been formed solely by people of the same ancestry. Instead, it took into its domain people of various surnames or origins for various reasons. Each great family was an independent social unit that had its own system of management and norms for conduct, posing important challenges to the commandery and county governments. Many great families also possessed their own armies composed of retainers. They could defend themselves against attacks in times of political and military turmoil, and they could also join local military powers in their war against one another, as frequently happened at the end of the Eastern Han.

  In any event, the growing power of the great families and worsening conditions of the peasantry were doubtless two sides of the same coin. Seeing this from the standpoint of the great families in a broad historical perspective, the end of the great expansion achieved under the Western Han Empire and its inability to acquire new lands along the frontiers created for the Han social elites a condition where, in order to maintain their growing households, they had to exploit local resources. This was probably the most important dynamic in Han socioeconomic history.

  Han Colonial Enterprise: With a Glimpse at Frontier Society

  Sources are available for us to have a close look at the operation of the state and society, though in relation to military affairs, in specific regions along the frontier of the Han Empire. These are thousands of bamboo and wooden strips written with administrative documents buried in the sands associated with the various Han Dynasty bases and facilities in present-day Gansu Province along the road leading into Central Asia.17 Two initial campaigns into this region led by the general Huo Qubing took place in 121 BC. The alliance with the kingdom of Wusun in present-day Kyrgyzstan following 115 BC caused the Han Empire to take more aggressive actions in this region as a way to counter the influence of Xiongnu. By 72 BC four commanderies were deployed in the region west of the Yellow River with walls and defenses constructed extending into Central Asia; thus for the first time the region was taken into Han administration. By 59 BC, the Han colonial government, “Protector-General of the Western Region,” was established in present-day Xinjiang to coordinate Han military and civil activities in Central Asia. The Eastern Han Empire owed much of its success in the western region to the great spirit of Ban Chao, who served for decades as the Han governor in Central Asia. Before he retu
rned to Luoyang in AD 102, he is said to have been able to mobilize a force of 70,000 soldiers to serve the interest of the Han Empire in Central Asia.

  A recent study by Chun-shu Chang based on the wooden strips excavated from fortresses in Jüyan helps us understand the administration as well as social life in the frontier communities of the Han Empire. In this narrow region of some 250 km along the Jüyan River, the Han developed a society that was managed through the coordination of dual systems. The garrison system was formed by four tiers, divided between two “Chief Commandants” (duwei) stationed in the two mains cities of the region. The second level of authority in each division was formed by seven commandants stationed in seven fortresses, under whom were forty captains who had under their control 260 watchtowers each guarded by two to five soldiers. This method formed the whole system of defense of the Jüyan region. The civil administration of Jüyan replicated the structure in the interior of the Han Empire divided into three levels: county – district – village. The two systems had independent authorities but worked in collaboration with one another. The total of military personnel including both guarding troops and the large units of farmer–soldiers is estimated at 4,066 and the civil population is estimated at 6,016.18 There were also the transportation facilities equipped with carts and horses, and the postal service divided between the regular postal stations and the garrison establishments.19

  The detailed information offered by the Jüyan strips allows us to glimpse some subtle aspects of the frontier society. For instance, about 42% of the soldiers in the region were from the Central Plain regions of the empire in the east, including a good number from the regional kingdoms, but very few from the Han capital region in central Shaanxi. All servicemen were twenty years old and above, and no soldiers were over forty-five as no officials were over fifty.20 In contrast to the guarding troops, the cavalrymen were predominantly from the local Zhangye Commandery which had ten counties including Jüyan; in other words, the cavalry forces were recruited locally from the frontier region. Another interesting aspect is about border control: three different types of passports were issued by the authorities for traveling through the frontier. The first was issued to individuals on government business and entitled them to accommodation at government facilities; the second was a travel permit issued to civilians and carried by the travelers themselves to the control points; the third type was issued to government or garrison personnel, usually split into two halves, one of which was delivered separately to the control points ahead of time to be used to match the other half in the traveler’s hands.21 The guarding soldiers in the numerous watchtowers, besides checking the passports of travelers, kept records of various signals that they handled each day, such as the origin and destination of the signals transmitted, time of signal reception and transmission, soldiers on duty, types of signals, and reasons for sending them, etc.22

  The Weakness of the Imperial Institution and the Crisis of the Han Empire

  The most important politics of the empire are those which surrounded the succession of the emperor. On this point, the Han Empire seems to have been on a stronger footing in comparison to the Roman Empire where the lack of rules governing imperial succession led to endless usurpation and murder that ended the lives of the majority of the Roman emperors. However, the strong unity of imperial rule and dynastic tradition in the Han Empire did not ensure that the emperor who thereupon came to rule was the best choice for the empire; in many cases, not even the better choice. This opened ways for a different type of political struggle among the contending groups aimed at control, instead of takeover (which was certainly possibly as in the case of Wang Mang, but it was very difficult) of the emperor. This struggle centered on the central court served to disintegrate the Han social elites and eventually undermined the imperial institution in the face of strong, regional military leaders.

  The rules governing the succession of Han emperors have been carefully analyzed by Anne Kinney. She shows that although two early Han emperors, Wen and Jing, did entertain the notion of appointing brothers to succeed them, the normal rule of succession established by Liu Bang who passed the throne onto his oldest son of the primary wife formed an important base for the rhetoric against such unorthodox attempts. And once an heir apparent was established, he was often hard to change, and the increasing influence of Confucianism at the Han court made straying from or manipulating the system more difficult and less attractive.23 Therefore, the rule that the emperor was to be succeeded by his son, notwithstanding the usurpation by Wang Mang who was eventually unsuccessful, stood particularly firm through to the end of the Eastern Han Empire.

  In fact, the founding of the Eastern Han Empire gave the imperial Liu family a chance to reinforce its dynastic rule. Liu Xiu, the “Bright Marshal Emperor,” was himself well educated, enlightened in military strategy, and fond of Confucian values. Liu Xiu’s intellectual quality was inherited by the next two emperors Ming and Zhang, whose succession caused no dispute. During their reigns, Luoyang was transformed into the center of culture and learning, and the empire as a whole enjoyed long-lasting peace and prosperity. The Eastern Han Empire had a total of fourteen emperors, and although dynastic rule remained strong, in almost no case was an emperor succeeded by his oldest son by his primary wife, except Emperor Shun. Since an emperor often had multiple sons by different wives, behind whose back were located different lines of family influence, there was enough room for manipulation of the succession by the interested parties. As a matter of fact, after Emperor Zhang died in AD 88 almost all Han emperors were established in their early teens, and quite a few in their infancy. There seems little doubt that in most cases this was the result of manipulation.

  This condition of the emperorship gave rise to a recurrent pattern of political conflict between the eunuchs and the party formed around the imperial in-laws. When an emperor was young, the power was in the hands of the dowager; in order to control the court, the dowager naturally relied on her father and brothers, as had already happened in the time of Wang Mang. In the long years during which a young emperor grew up, the only males he knew were the eunuchs who were both his emotional supporters and political allies, and who, because of their personal intimacy with the emperor, dangerously entertained the dream of taking over power from the in-laws, in most cases through brutal murder. Because there were always young emperors, over time the eunuchs had formed a deep root in court politics, and in AD 126 their heads began to possess titles of nobility. When a new emperor was established, a new group of in-laws would take over the court and drive the eunuchs back to the palace; but the same process would then be repeated. The worst case was the murdering of the Liang family which produced three empresses, six concubines, and fifty-seven ministers and generals. However, in AD 159 five eunuchs helped Emperor Huan to massacre the entire Liang family, for which they were granted the title of “Marquis” by the emperor. Later, the Confucian officials and students in the imperial university formed an association to counter the power of the five eunuchs and this led them to strike back, resulting in the deaths of 100 scholars and students in AD 168. During the subsequent purge over 10,000 people were brutally murdered.

  The end of the Han Empire followed exactly the same course. In AD 189, the “Grand General” He Jin, half-brother of Empress Dowager He, was brutally murdered by the eunuchs in the palace. In revenge, He Jin’s followers attacked the palace and killed all eunuchs therein. When Dong Zhuo brought his army from the northwestern frontier of the empire and attacked the capital, having been previously summoned by He Jin, the Han Empire was completely thrown into interregional warfare by local military leaders. In AD 220, the last emperor of the Han Empire was dethroned by the Cao family which established control over most part of North China, founding the Wei Dynasty (AD 220–265).

  Selected Reading

  Twitchett, Denis, and Michael Loewe, The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC – AD 220 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1
990).

  Ch’u, T’ung-Tsu, Han Social Structure (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972).

  Loewe, Michael, Crisis and Conflict in Han China, 104 BC to AD 9 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974).

  Bielenstein, Hans, The Restoration of the Han Dynasty (Stockholm: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1953).

  Kinney, Anne Behnke, Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).