Institutions of state-organized migration in late Warring States and early imperial China (Paper presented at Association for Asian Studies 2018 Conference, Washington) (original) (raw)
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Journal of Chinese History, 2020
In ancient China, as elsewhere, states did not simply occupy a given territory but actively engaged in the production of space by transforming landscapes, moving populations, and enacting territorial hierarchies, thus creating "state spaces," to borrow a term coined by James C. Scott. In the case of the early Chinese empires of Qin (221-207 BCE) and Han (202 BCE-220 CE), state-induced migration and settlement were key instruments of military control, administrative incorporation, economic intensification, and other processes connected with spatial distribution of state power. This article combines insights from transmitted texts, excavated documents, and archaeological evidence to explore factors and effects of migration in early Chinese empires, discussing the interconnection between state-organized resettlement and private migration as well as their embeddedness in the local geography. As the situation varies according to location, the present article introduces the approach and tests it on a case study, the Guanzhong metropolitan region.
The physical mobility, or the ability of humans to move around their environment, may be considered as one of the key determinants of social life, and the capacity to grant, restrict, or otherwise control this ability was, in all historical societies, congruent with, and principal for social, political, and economic power. This paper analyses the aspects of physical mobility of the officials – the only social group in early imperial China that left over a variety of first-hand written sources reflecting their everyday experiences, practices, and concerns. I consider the controversial nature and miscellaneous manifestations of the state’s involvement in the issues of physical mobility of its subjects during the late Warring States and early imperial period. I argue that this controversy provides a background for understanding the aspects of physical mobility of the officials as reflected in the Qin and Han documents. After a brief discussion of the sources of this study – archaeologically recovered manuscripts on bamboo slips and wooden tablets – the structures of physical mobility are identified and analyzed, such as the economy and logistics of officials’ travels that included financial arrangements and regulations for sponsoring travels; means of transportation; accommodation and medical care provided to the traveling officials; and the institution of efficiency control designed to ensure that officials complied with requirements for the speed of traveling.
During the late imperial period, the Chinese state expanded its efforts to control flows of strategic " resources " (both tangible and intangible) but was constrained by the limitations of premodern technology, bureaucratic precedents and practices, fiscal resources, and ideological principles. Centering on the early modern state's approaches to the management of objects, information, and people, this panel explores how the court mobilized multiple means to achieve its objectives while dealing with various constraints. Chelsea Wang's analysis of memorial delivery illustrates the basic problems of scale and mobility that came with the reality of governing a large territory. The remaining papers each address one aspect of how the early modern state dealt with this problem of scale through some form of delegation, whether to officials, merchants, or local organizations. Michael Chang delineates the patrimonial network that underlay the imperial control of commercial revenues. Meng Zhang examines the state's increasing reliance on market-based purchases to obtain imperial timber. Turning to the cultural sphere, Amy Gordanier reveals the court's efforts to control performers and playwrights through the Suzhou theatre guild. In each case, the state faced the classical principal-agent problem that derived from a conflict of interests between the state and its various delegates. The dynamic processes of coercion, negotiation, and compromise as elucidated in these studies illuminate the court's capacities as well as constraints in managing the mobility of people, goods, funds, and information.
The Neolithic (ca. 8000–1900 B.C.) underpinnings of early Chinese civilization had diverse geographic and cultural foundations in distinct traditions, ways of life, subsistence regimes, and modes of leadership. The subsequent Bronze Age (ca. 1900–221 B.C.) was characterized by increasing political consolidation, expansion, and heightened interaction, culminating in an era of a smaller number of warring states. During the third century B.C., the Qin Dynasty first politically unified this fractious landscape, across an area that covers much of what is now China, and rapidly instituted a series of infrastructural investments and other unifying measures, many of which were maintained and amplified during the subsequent Han Dynasty. Here, we examine this historical sequence at both the national and macroscale and more deeply for a small region on the coast of the Shandong Province, where we have conducted several decades of archaeological research. At both scales, we examine apparent shifts in the governance of local diversity and some of the implications both during Qin–Han times and for the longer durée.
2020
This dissertation explores the relationship between the empire-building and economic change during the formative process of the Qin Empire. It employs transmitted and excavated textual materials as well as archaeological evidence to reconstruct institutions and practices of surplus extraction and economic management and their evolution during the period of Qin’s expansion culminating in the emergence of the first centralized bureaucratic empire in continental East Asia. I argue that the commercial expansion and the formation of markets for land, labor, and commodities during China’s early imperial period (221 BCE – 220 CE) can only be understood by considering their origins in the distributive command economy of the late Warring States and imperial Qin. The study focuses on the southern frontier zone of the empire, which is exceptionally well documented in the official and private documents excavated from the Qin and Han sites along the Middle Yangzi and its tributaries.
How did the Chinese state become what it was before 1949? How did China maintain continuities in its territorial, demographic, and administrative patterns throughout the Qing, Republican, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) eras? Addressing all these questions, Huaiyin Li's The Making of the Modern Chinese State: 1600-1950 offers a systematic account of the making of the modern Chinese state from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Drawing on studies of late imperial and modern China, as well as archival records, memoirs, and officials' works, Li traces the mechanics of the Chinese state's geopolitical setting, fiscal constitution, and identity building. He argues that the distinctive formation of the Qing state was essential to the continuity of China's territoriality and ethnic composition. Challenging the perception that China's transformation from the Qing to the Republican era was a disruptive transition from an empire to a nation-state, Li contends that this painstaking process should be viewed as a transformation from a territorial state into a sovereign state (pp. xi, 48-50). The Qing, to Li, was not an "empire" because it was "neither a typical expansionist empire nor an emerging fiscal-military state resembling its counterparts in early modern Europe and beyond." Instead, it was an "early-modern territorial state," as it "had stable frontiers and effectively controlled its territory that had fixed borders clearly demarcated with the neighboring states" (p. 11). While the Qing departed from the preceding Chinese dynasties by creating a large state encompassing both the Han population and the frontiers of the Inner Asian nomads, its military expeditions beginning in the late seventeenth century were primarily defensive, and its geopolitical goal was to safeguard its strategic security instead of demanding taxes or tributes from the frontiers (p. 9-10). Chapter 2 analyzes the dynamics and limits of the Qing's territorial expansion. As Li demonstrates, it was driven primarily by the imperial rulers' pursuit of geopolitical security (pp. 23-29). The Qing rulers considered the ideological, social, and geopolitical contexts of both the frontier and interior regions and developed different policies and strategies to govern the diverse populations (pp. 31-44). Chapter 3 further reveals how the Qing's "low-level equilibrium"-a static and rigid structure of regular revenues and routine expenditures-helped fulfill the state's geopolitical goals and maintain its military operation. Yet, as Li argues, when this equilibrium lost balance and became increasingly unfavorable to the state in the late eighteenth century, it also determined the limits of the Qing's war efforts and caused a decrease in the government's capacity of handling interior and frontier crisis (pp. 53-69, 77-79). Chapter 4 examines how the Qing managed to survive the devastating wars and even doubled its officially reported revenues in the three decades following the Taiping
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015
The Neolithic (ca. 8000-1900 B.C.) underpinnings of early Chinese civilization had diverse geographic and cultural foundations in distinct traditions, ways of life, subsistence regimes, and modes of leadership. The subsequent Bronze Age (ca. 1900-221 B.C.) was characterized by increasing political consolidation, expansion, and heightened interaction, culminating in an era of a smaller number of warring states. During the third century B.C., the Qin Dynasty first politically unified this fractious landscape, across an area that covers much of what is now China, and rapidly instituted a series of infrastructural investments and other unifying measures, many of which were maintained and amplified during the subsequent Han Dynasty. Here, we examine this historical sequence at both the national and macroscale and more deeply for a small region on the coast of the Shandong Province, where we have conducted several decades of archaeological research. At both scales, we examine apparent shi...