By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
Next we will test, or
conclusion so far on hand of the following case study in regards to ancient
China, followed by a conclusion of what we herewith thus found out. Plus, while
we will use the identifiers, Spring and Autumn for Chunqiu and Zhanguo for the Warring States Period, interchangeably, one
critique by us is, that the patterns of international relations in Chinese
history are significantly different from those that we see within European
history. Indeed numerous scholars have suggested points of comparison between
China and the Europe based upon the fact that both periods were indeed feudal.
That is, the rulers used vassalage as a means of ruling over vast territories
that they were otherwise incapable of ruling. But like we suggested before, it
would be a mistake to simply equate feudalism with sovereignty. Feudalism,
which is the system of vassalage between lord and liege and between liege and
serf, represented the organizational structure of one subsystem. The bartered
sovereignty that emerged in Europe was the result of a composite of various
systems: the extensiveness of the church, the paucity of towns and poverty of
trade, and the limitations of horseback warfare. It would be a gross
oversimplification to equate one feudal structure to another.
In fact feudal states
in China were more autonomous, had no overlapping, cross-cutting authorities,
and had strong territorial markers. Given this it would seem that they had an entirely
different set of sovereign principles at work. Indeed, one argument that we
will be making today, is that during the course of the Zhou Dynasty we see a
shift from transborder sovereignty to absolute sovereignty with the Warring
States Period representing a transitional phase to imperial China.
When the Zhou
defeated the Shang they had relatively weak coercive control over the empire
they compensated for this with a relatively strong ideological subsystem in the
form of the Mandate of Heaven (t’ien ming). The accelerated growth of the security subsystem in
the 5th century BC encouraged norms entrepreneurs to develop new principles of
rule. The relatively underdeveloped trade subsystem hampered efforts to
consolidate rule until the late 3rd century BC. Innovations in trade and
agriculture in the 4th and 3rd century BC encouraged an expansion of the trade
subsystem relative to the other subsystems.
When the trade
subsystem became relatively the same size as the security and ideology
subsystems the new sovereign principle rapidly began to structure a stable
international order. The transborder sovereignty that developed during the
beginning of the Zhou dynasty is similar to bartered sovereignty in numerous
ways. This is probably what leads to the conflation of the two in comparisons
of China and Europe. In both the Zhou Dynasty and medieval France the security
subsystem and the trade subsystem are relatively the same size while there is a
relatively large ideological subsystem at work. The key difference is the
marked underdevelopment of the trade and security subsystems in the case of
bartered sovereignty. In the European case the geographic scale of Christendom
so far outstripped the scope of the cities and fiefs that Christendom’s
organizational structure provided little enforceable hierarchy on a day to day
basis. It wasn’t until the fiefs and towns began their renaissance that lasting
hierarchies began to emerge. In the case of the Zhou Dynasty each vassal state
maintained a fair degree of power, especially among the seven major states. The
linkage provided by the Mandate of Heaven was at once far weaker in its ability
to generate unfailing faith in the essential holiness of the king, but was far
stronger in its ability to create a rigid hierarchy among all the numerous
vassals.
The Confucian
revolution of the Warring States Period largely circumscribed the ideological
implications of the Mandate of Heaven while reinforcing the practical rigidity
that its tenets suggested. This was not fully realized until after the Warring
States Period with rise of the Qin and Han dynasties. Transborder sovereignty
results from a set of circumstances where every political unit has the strength
to assert its own independence, but is still bound by the overarching loyalty
to a single identity group, and where the range of available actions are
constrained by the belonging.
This claim must be
weighed not only against the historical evidence, but against prior and
established arguments. The following section will address this issue.
Subsequent sections will deal with the evolution of sovereign principles
through the Zhou Dynasty. (See Cho-yün Hsü and Katheryn M. Linduff,
Western Chou civilization, 1988).
In fact as the only
of its kind, Hui’s work is admirable in its theoretical reach insofar as it
addresses the general problems of IR theory in clearly argued comparisons
between feudal Europe and China. However, the problem Hui addresses is far
different than the one which this dissertation is dealing with. Logics of balancing
and domination are, in some ways, secondary to principles of sovereignty.
Though these competing logics are likely favored based upon the various
sovereign principles at work they are not themselves sovereign principles.
Nonetheless we can draw from Hui’s work a general sense of the state of the IR
research in the Chunqiu and Zhanguo Periods.
Hui critiques two
dominant beliefs about the nature of international relations, one Sinocentric,
the other Eurocentric.(Cho-Yun Hsu ,The Nation-State and Global Order: A
Historical Introduction to Contemporary Politics by Walter C. Opello, Jr.; Stephen J. Rosow,
International Studies Review, 2000, 2 (1):125 – 128).
The Sinocentric
contention is that empire and consolidation are inevitable. The Eurocentric
contention is the opposite: balancing is the prevailing characteristic of the
international system. Hui points to the relative weakness of the Qin state and
its gradual ascent to total domination as proof that the inevitability of each
logic is flawed. Hui contends that the logics of balancing and domination vary
based the external constraints imposed by contending states and the internal
ability to pursue what she calls self-strengthening reforms. The rise of the
Qin dynasty was predicated upon the ability of Qin to subjugate other powers
through superior strategy, superior tactics, and superior organization. While
this tells a convenient story vis-à-vis realism and balance of power politics
it leaves the question of sovereign principles unanswered. Domination and
balancing distinguish between the centripetal and centrifugal aspects of the
international system without specifying the principles by which both forces
operate. Hui is too quick to dismiss the importance of dynastic ideas in the
Chinese case. Some world orders, such as medieval Europe are driven by
non-state actors like the church. In the case of China, balance of power
politics prevailed until Qin finally won out. However, even the context of this
competition is limited by the prior dynasty that the feudal states warred over.
The Zhou legacy while significantly weaker than Christendom bound all
participants to at least acknowledge the inherent linkages between the states.
Where Europe experienced an undisciplined feudalism, what some have called
variously, fragmented, heteronymous, or acephalous, Chinese feudalism, even
during the Chunqiu period, was highly organized and continued to recognize the
centrality of Zhou law and identity.
Roberts points out
one definition of feudalism that fits with Hui’s conception: The use of the
term [feudal] was first proposed by the Marxist historian Guo Moruo in the 1930s, and its first application to China is
based on two assumptions. The first is that feudalism is a form of social
organization which arises under certain conditions, namely the decline of a
powerful centralized state, and its replacement by a congeries of small states
owing only nominal loyalty to a central ruler. . . The second ground for
describing the Western Zhou as feudal concerns the essential element of the
feudal relationship, the granting of fiefs to vassals, who in return promise to
provide their feudal lord with military support. (J. A. G. Roberts, A concise
history of China. Cambridge, 1999, p.9).
But even according to
this definition Western Zhou was not exactly feudal. Feudalism accompanied the
rise of a powerful Zhou state and not the decline of Shang. The Zhou feudal
system increased their ability of the king to rule over vast territories,
instead of limiting their own absolute authority. This is further evidenced by
the dispersion of Western Zhou bronze inscriptions in places distant from the
central Zhou state. In Rome it was a continual act of will to demand submission
by the marcher kingdoms. In the Zhou Empire, this was hardly ever an issue.
Even in the Warring States Period non-Zhou people implicitly accepted Zhou
identity as they became involved in the system. (Edward L. Shaughnessy, Western
Zhou History. In The Cambridge history of ancient China:
from the origins of civilization to 221 B.C, edited by M. Loewe and E. L.
Shaughnessy. Cambridge, 1999 p.
In Europe, the idea
of Christendom was gradually eclipsed by the idea of Europe and its parochial
identities. In the Warring States period, the Zhou identity remained intact
during the rise and fall of numerous hegemons. We must arrive at the conclusion
that feudalism is a rather broad concept. The motives of domination are more
indicative of sovereign principles than the strategies of domination. We may
acknowledge the insights that Hui provides about the strategies and tactics of
domination and competition while also understanding that something is missing.
To say that every ruler throughout history must at least acknowledge the basic
tools of rule and domination is not to say that every ruler ruled the same.
While the tools may be constant, they build many different sorts of houses.
This leaves us with a fairly clear picture of what remains to be explained. We
can grant that Zhou feudalism created within it a logic of domination that Europe
lacked. But what are we to make of the centrality of Zhou in the first place?
Why did Zhou identity remain intact when their power had so obviously
dissipated? We can grant that the Zhanguo period
marked a period of profound turmoil producing within it profound physical
destruction and intellectual ferment. But why were innovations, and more
importantly, innovators, shared so widely among the kingdoms? Even when the
last vestiges of Zhou had died out the common bonds between the Warring States
was never in question. The Zhou dynasty presented what Roberts believes to be
the first vestiges of a Chinese culture.248 A common language united all the
various states; literacy is, of course, an entirely separate issue. Given the
vastness of the territories and populations at issue the tenuous linkages are
curious. The following section will attempt to reproduce the origins of the
transborder sovereign principle as it developed in the early Zhou dynasty and
as it evolved up to the beginning of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC.
Part II: The Origin
of the Mandate of Heaven As the Zhou began to consolidate and take power from
the Shang, King Wen, leader of the Zhou contended that the Mandate of Heaven
had passed from the dissolute and dissipated Shang kings to him by virtue of
his virtue. While we may acknowledge that the Shang had become corrupt and that
the Zhou was likely a more vigorous people, the moral authority to depose the
Shang was somewhat dubious. In battle, the Zhou probably employed a superior
combination of strategy and tactics in the critical confrontations that took
place during this transitional period.
The Shang believed
that the kingship fell from brother to brother and then to subsequent
generations. The pre-existing ideological order had to shift significantly so
that another set of rulers could claim that the Mandate of Heaven had shifted
authority to them. It is from this shift that we can begin to detect the
beginnings of Zhou sovereign principles. Walker notes, that, “Traditional
history reports that the [Zhou] conqueror and his successors set up 1,773
states in the area where the [Zhou] established their power.” (Richard L. Walker,The Multi-state System of Ancient China, 1953 pg.
20.).
It was actually King
Wu, Wen’s son, and later Cheng, Wu’s son, who consolidated much of the
territory that was to be distributed. By the time Qin rose to power in 221 BC
the number of states was down to seven. Nonetheless, we find that as a means to
power, and as a result of power, King Wen and his descendents
were plenty throughout the Yangtze and Yellow River Valleys. Hsu and Linduff are particularly mindful of the relative weakness
of the Zhou at this point of conquest: The [Zhou] had accomplished the nearly
impossible task of allying and uniting the semi-independent and independent
powers of north China. The small armed force that they controlled directly was
not strong enough to hold the vast territory by force. Part of their solution
was to maintain ties established by the Shang and to legitimate them through
moral decree. (Hsü, and Linduff.
Western Chou civilization. pg. 100).
There was thus at the
very beginning a basis for rule based upon moral superiority. The Mandate of
Heaven provided a basis for negotiations that would inevitably need to take
place given the fact that the Zhou lacked the coercive power to enforce
submission. But how did they maintain control over so many independent states?
And, since we know that consolidation took place rather frequently,
consolidation must have occurred frequently to arrive 500 years later at the
130 or states that began that Chunqiu period instead of the thousand or so that
existed at the beginning of the Zhou dynasty, under what principles did the
consolidation take place?
While Shang had been
conquered by Wen and his son Wu, the Shang territory had not been brought under
the dominion of Zhou rule until the rule of Cheng. Cheng’s ascension to the
throne was interrupted by the meddling of Wu’s brother, Zhou Gong Dan, because
Cheng was still in his minority. A civil war subsequently erupted between Zhou GongDan and his brothers. The battle over succession rights
came to also involve the remaining Shang power, Wu Geng.
Wu Geng sided with Zhou Gong Dan. Zhou Gong Dan
triumphed, but Shang would never be a threat to the Zhou kings again. In the
early portion of Cheng’s rule, Zhou Gong Dan acted as the de facto regent. Some
scholars credit Zhou Gong Dan with the creation of Chinese feudalism while
others contend that he actually supported a meritocracy. Cheng and Zhou Gong
Dan’s victory not only secured the eastern portion of the new kingdom for Zhou
domination it also legitimized the process by which the mandate would be passed
along. King Cheng received the mandate, but was dependent upon Zhou Gong Dan
and his half-brother Shao Gong Shi for legitimacy, and indeed was more puppet
than prince. (Shaughnessy, pp. 310-315).
Once Cheng came of
age the debate, captured in the Book of History (Shu Jing), between Zhou Gong
Shi and Shao Gong Shi over the nature of the mandate established the principle
of rule for much of the Western Zhou period into the beginning of the Chunqiu
period. In it Zhou Gong Shi supports a meritocracy while Shao Gong Shi believes
that heaven bestows legitimacy upon the eldest son regardless of merit. King
Cheng sided with Shao Gong Shi. In so doing Cheng established a hereditary
principle of rule that bound all feudal lords to him and his kin while making
merit-based claims more or less illegitimate.
In feudal treaties
medieval France the fealty of a vassal was contingent upon the time and place
and the nature of the conflict. It was not unusual for a vassal to have to
commit troops to both sides of a conflict. In contrast, in ancient China , we
find enfeoffed elites in Zhou strictly bound by pre-ordained laws and regulations.
For example, the hierarchy of royalty is laid out in the first line of the
first verse of book three: According to the regulations of emolument and rank
framed by the kings, there were the duke; the marquis; the earl; the count; and
the baron:--in all. Five gradations (of rank). There were (also), in the feudal
states, Great officers of the highest grade,--the ministers; and Great officers
of the lowest grade; officers of the highest, the middle, and the lowest
grades:--in all five gradations (of office). (James Legge,
The Sacred books of China: The texts of Confucianism, 1968, pg. 27).
Laid out as such with
five ranks and five offices universally applied we find something far more
hierarchical and consistent than France where titles were varied more according
to local custom and historical circumstance. The section immediately following
the description of rank and office establishes that land granted to the son of
Heaven (the king) and all lower feudal ranks. While it was possible for elites to
be enfeoffed multiple times to gain lands, the allotment of each was
predetermined. In fact it was quite common for feudal lords to trade various
lands amongst each other within the preordained limits. The trade of the lands
was itself strictly regulated by the king and his ministers. Presumably the
regulations of verse 24 reflect specifically on the moral grounds established
in verse 23. The king, the son of Heaven was bound by ritual and decree to hunt
in a sporting manner, that is, to give the prey a chance to escape. Even if we
grant that such regulations were developed after the fact and represent some
sort of agreement between the king and his vassals, we must nonetheless
consider instances in which the Mandate of Heaven overruled norms of religious
propriety. For example, King Wu’s initial war against Shang was based upon
auspicious omens which contradicted accepted norms. Wu’s father Wen had died
and custom held that Wu was supposed to accompany his father’s corpse home.
However, before mourning the death of his father Wen, we read that he used
turtle shell divination and found the omens promising and thus felt obliged to
attack. The conflict then between omens from heaven and regulations determining
behavior are thus present at the very beginning of the Zhou dynasty. Omens
overruled norms in this case. Therefore when we read in the Book of Documents
(Section II, verses 10 & 11) that the king is bound to consult with others
before placing individuals in offices we must assume that such rules, and thus hierarchies
were coequal with the boundaries of the Zhou dynasty if they did not exceed
them in the first place. The Book of Rites notes that: 10: The rule was that
the abilities of all put into offices over the people should first be
discussed. After they had been discussed with discrimination, the men were
employed. When they had been (proved) in the conduct of affairs, their rank was
assigned; and when their position was (thus) fixed, they received salary. (S.
J. Marshall, The mandate of heaven: hidden history in the I ching,
2001, pg. 80).
Officers of the royal
court were able to vouch for capabilities of other potential officers. It is
important to note that at this point while the merit of an officer might be
important the offices were largely distributed through linkages of kinship.
Furthermore, the marriage of rank and office was open to, at the very least,
input from the lesser nobles. The Mandate of Heaven suggests a hierarchy that
exists based strongly in the ideological subsystem. The Zhou sovereign
principle contended that, ‘Place (in terms of rank and office) is determined by
regulations and regimentation is determined by ritual.’ This is clearly
different than both the hierarchical sovereignty of Rome and the bartered
sovereignty of feudal Europe. A common identity exists among and between the
feudal states. It is on the one hand determined by a strict regimentation of
land grants and offices conferred by the king, in consultation with other
officers of the court, and on the other
hand regulated by the laws of heaven. While one might be outside the bounds of
the terrestrial regimentation, one was never outside of the celestial
regulation. Let me be quite explicit here that this is not a common Chinese
identity. The Chinese identity, and idea of China as a territory were quite a
ways off. This is instead an ideological role structure based upon kinship and
rank and land-holding. This is a form of transborder sovereignty. We may
understand it both by its ability to transcend Zhou borders, but also by its
ability to link feudal states inside the Zhou world order.
This principle, which
we can think of in terms of terrestrial regimentation and celestial regulation,
was challenged periodically and over time enforced differently. Ferguson and Mansbach point out that, “The relative isolation in which
early Chinese polities and civilization developed meant that a ‘Chinese’
identity and loyalty to the ideal of a united China were rarely at issue.
Nevertheless, the aspiration toward unity often flew in the face of the reality
of disunity and civil strife.” (Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach, Polities: authority, identities, and change,1996,
pg. 192).
From the onset of the
Zhou dynasty in about 1070 BC to the collapse of the Western Zhou rule in 722
BC we find this principle to be rather stable. It is after barbarian invasions,
from the north and the west, forced the Zhou capital eastward from Zongahou to Luoyang that the underlying subsystems begin to
shift suddenly. In moving eastward the Zhou king Pingwang
was too weak to assert the control that he had formerly had, which had been
marginal to begin with. The mandate remained in name and ideology, but ceased
to regiment and regulate the affairs of the feudal lords. While they remained
bound by a common identity and written language, they were now left to openly
vie for power within the vacuum left by impotent Zhou king. The Spring and
Autumn period was marked by constant and internecine warfare and remarkable
intellectual ferment. (Xueqin Li and Kwang-chih Chang, Eastern Zhou and Qin civilizations, 1985, pg.
9).
In the beginning of
this new intellectual environment we see the rise of the ba
(hegemony) system. Yuri Pines, among others, have divided the Spring and Autumn
period into three distinct eras.261 In the first from about 722 to 643 the
mandate still held significant power among the competing lords. In the second
era, from 643 to 546, the ba system became the
dominant mode of interaction. The last phase from 546 to 453 saw the collapse
of the ba system into a state or near anarchy that
hastened the shift towards the Warring States Period. This section with deal
with the first two phases of the Chunqiu period and the following section will
deal with the last phase.
It is during this
first portion of the Chunqiu period that many of the intellectual foundations
of a shifting sovereign principle were laid. The period between the fall of
Western Zhou and the life of Confucius (Kung-fu Tzu) between 551 and 479 BC
represent an attractive time to attach to the shift in the sovereign
principles. The Warring States Period which began in roughly 403 BC is probably
reflective both of the practical exigencies of the time as well as the
revolution in ideas that had taken place during the Spring and Autumn Period. Pines
contention is that the Confucian revolution that took place in the beginning of
the Warring States Period was more reflective of the prior intellectual
discourse than a new idea of sovereignty sui generis. The variety of
innovations that took place during the Warring States Period are more
reflective of the sort of competing solutions that characterized early modern
Europe. The Spring and Autumn period were the moment when the principle of
transborder sovereignty collapsed. The Warring States Period was the period
when contending solutions battled it out for supremacy. The growing security
subsystem encouraged new contenders to seek new alternative principles of rule,
though they would continue to lack the overall power to enforce these new
sovereign principles. The centuries following the shift represent the attempt
to vie for the power of a unified empire which had only been agreed to in
principle prior to that.
After the move to
Luoyang, the Zhou kings, who always lacked the logistical ability to enforce
peace over great distances, were effectively deposed. Though it could not be
blamed on a dissolute corruption, as is often the case in traditional Chinese
narratives, the king was weak regardless. His vassals, particularly the Duke of
Zheng, Zheng Huan Gong, rose up to claim power in the empire. Though he would
not claim the title of King, the deference to the Mandate of Heaven had
weakened significantly. Other, less Sinitic states, such as Chu to the south
were quicker to do away with the formalities of the kingship; their leaders
began to refer to themselves as king despite the hierarchy implied by the
mandate. On the one hand this implies that the sovereign principle had failed
utterly and completely. On the other hand the contending states were still
bound by some recognition of their common bonds and that domination of one
another was somehow crucial to the survival of their own state. This suggests
that the anarchy which they entered into was structured à priori by their
recognition of each other. The resultant conflict over the leadership of the
Zhou empire can be understood in this context. At the point when Duke Zheng
began to assume hegemony over the whole of the Zhou system, the empire was
still only marginally organized. States were small and segmented, and were
mostly centered on walled cities. In between the zones of immediate control
were numerous non-Zhou peoples. As Pines notes, “The ‘state’ was but a network
of several walled cities and townships that were ruled from the capital.” (Pines.
pg. 2).
With the move of the
capital that network weakened significantly. There are two significant shifts
to the ba system that took place during this period.
First, in principle the shift from the mandate of heaven weakened the moral
underpinnings of the united Zhou state without undermining the general fact of
their unity. This presented a fundamental problem of organization. How does one
unite the state without being able to use the Mandate of Heaven as a
justification? The moves by Duke Zheng and later Duke Huan of Qi began to
provide the template for this. Second, the growing states began to assert their
control over their territory. The barbarians that forced the Zhou king to move
west were in fact closely related to the nomadic people that interpenetrated
the Zhou city-states. There was a direct threat to Zhou power in the midst of
the numerous Zhou states. The solution borne out, in particular by Duke Huan,
was to absorb the smaller city-states and form larger administrative units.
Taken together these two problems and their solutions begin to point the way
the next revolution in sovereign principles.
Duke Zheng’s
innovation vis-à-vis the Mandate of Heaven was to balance between the order
provided by heaven and the exigencies of realpolitik. On the one hand he
engaged in base politics as needed, conferring and negotiating when necessary,
and conquering and pillaging when necessary as well. On the other hand he
limited the extent of his actions as he deemed them appropriate. In technical
terms he was simultaneously bound by a logic of appropriateness and a logic of
consequences. It is perhaps more apt, to reflect on the period as characterized
by a logic of argumentation in the sense used by Risse.
The justifications for the order and place of Heaven were brought up and
debated in a discursive manner. The evolving ideology of this period did not
spring from one individual’s mind, but emerged from a meeting of minds.
Duke Huan picked up Zheng’s
solution, though it would continue to evolve, and applied it to the
organizational problems of the period. The feudal organization in this period
was highly inefficient. It was far more structured than France, but it was
nonetheless reliant upon a series of demands falling from the king down through
each level of subordinates. Duke Huan’s state of Qi revolutionized the
structure of this system by forming administrative units divided by function
and not by family. In so doing each function could be isolated and called upon
for what issues were necessary. In the process of doing so Qi was able to
absorb numerous bordering states while also exerting control over the other
powerful states that were beginning to emerge. Where the mandate system was
organized by the dual principles of regimentation and regulation, the ba system was organized by the principles of competitive
centralization and administrative efficiency. The state with the most efficient
allocation of resources and hierarchy derived the right through strategic
superiority to demand the fealty of the other states. It was not purely a
principle of domination through preponderance. It was also a far more
impersonal principle than those discussed earlier in the dissertation. As we
shall see in subsequent sections, while this principle came to define numerous
possible outcomes the guiding principle of a centralizing hegemony was
nevertheless constant. Strategies for centralization and efficiency varied,
copycatting was prevalent, but the power of one state over others remained a
central tenet of the system. This set of principles was delineated in the first
phases of the Spring and Autumn Period.
The end of the
Chunqiu period was defined almost entirely by the successive hegemonies of Jin and Chu. This section will show how, despite the
shifting balance of power the essential sovereign principle remained the same.
D. C. Lau points out that in Confucius’ Analects the phrase Heaven’s Mandate (tien ming) is only used twice.
(D. C. Lau, The analects (Lun yü)
of Confucius, 1979, pg. 27).
Pines, argues
convincingly that this is because pragmatic politics had eroded the extent to
which people could trust in an understandable esoteric world order, “Reliance
on Heaven’s justice was not a convincing way of dealing with acute political
problems.” (Pines. pg. 64).
Jin’s
rise was predicated upon this newly forming distinction. Situated to the north
of the central plain upon which the Empire was based Jin
was at once forced to contend with barbarians invasions from the north and
brutal Chinese politics to the south. It was nevertheless a superior state in
many regards. Its most important innovation occurred under Jin
Xian Gong. He sought to eliminate the dominance of aristocracy and kinship
linkages in a decidedly non-Confucian way. Xian Gong consolidated power in
numerous states by killing or otherwise overthrowing the local elites still
tied into the royal lineage.The growing
administrative capacities of the states during this period led to numerous wars
in which states were eliminated and leaders were assassinated. (Nylan Walker, The five "Confucian" classics,
2001, pp. 262-3).
The Jin ruling class was the best at doing this for nearly 80
years. While this may seem short-lived, given the uncertainty of the times it
was impressive regardless. What we find however is that even with this fairly
ruthless shift from kinship based aristocracy to bureaucratic expansion the
basic principles of rule remained the same. The centrality of the common
identity and the pursuit of power over other contending powers continued to
hold the international order together. Some speak of the balancing centripetal
and centrifugal pressures that define Chinese history, but even in the face of
these numerous competing states we ought to be startled at the strength of the
centripetal forces at work. Engaged in bloody and ruthless wars, competing for
hegemony over the system, not only did the lords continue to accept their
essential commonalities, those commonalities spread into the marcher regions of
the international order. The speed of assimilation during this period was
remarkable.
Eventually the state
of Chu began its ascension to a prominent position in the Zhou world order. Chu
developed on its own outside of the Zhou dynasty. For a time in the middle to
late Chunqiu period became its most powerful state. Chu attempted to take
control of the ba during the course of its rise, but
it was stymied in numerous circumstances by the other contending states of the
time, Qi, Qin, Jin, and later Wu. Chu was far more
powerful than any other single state. Jin had, by
that time, fallen back into the pack. Together with other states Jin was able to check Chu power. However Chu was still able
to introduce its own innovations into the international order. Chief among them
was the complete dismissal of the Mandate of Heaven. (Constance A. Cook, The
Ideology of the Chu Ruling Class: Ritual Rhetoric. In Defining chu: image and
reality in ancient China, edited by J. S. Major and C. A. Cook, 1999, pp.
70-1).
Though unable to
fully shoulder the power and responsibilities of the ba,
the Chu were nonetheless able to deeply influence the discourse of power at the
time. Trade, warfare, and assimilation continued apace of each other, while the
ideological scope of the mandate shrank and became less relevant relative to
other contending ideologies. The Chu focused the justification for their power
on neither a mandate nor destiny, but on the pragmatic facts of their
centralization and bureaucratization. Ironically, the instability of the
Chunqiu period finally resulted in a stable sovereign principle precisely when
no power was able to dominate enough to implement it. Numerous scholars,
including Hui, have referred to this period as a multi-state system based upon
balance of power politics. Rightly so, the logic of balancing was dominant
during this period. However, the immediate practicalities of balance of power
politics continued to operate under the umbrella of competing attempts at
domination based, in part, on the Chu model of rule—hereditary kingships,
centralized bureaucracies, and discredited minor nobility. “Domains were no
longer to be divided among the relatives and sons of rulers as fiefs; by the
end of the [Chunqiu] period the common practice was to appoint magistrates to
govern the districts of a state. Such an administration had long been in effect
in Chu. (Cho-yün Hsü,
Ancient China in transition: an analysis of social mobility, 722-222 B.C,
1965,pg. 92).
The Warring States
Period that followed, as I shall show in the following section, was in some
ways inevitable, and inevitably fleeting. The scope of every subsystem was
growing beyond any individual state, but the rulers of each were incapable of
defeating each other immediately. On the surface of things the Warring States
period ushered in a brutal era of war and contestation among the remaining
great powers. This is certainly one of the implied consequences of having fewer
powers, consolidated states, and continuing competition for dominance. However,
as Hsu points out this period actually experienced fewer wars albeit with ten
times as many soldiers. (Ibid. pp. 62-8).
It would seem as if
the generals of the Warring States period sought larger engagements with more
decisive outcomes, this certainly follows from widely accepted strategies as
enumerated in the Art of War. On the basis of war frequency the Warring States
period is something of a misnomer; on the basis of casualties it is, however,
quite apt. Sun Tzu’s strategy relied on equal parts deterrence and deception.
He believed in building a large army to discourage battle in the first place,
but in the course of battle he believed in value of surprise as a means of
minimizing losses. Confucius believed that the regulations of the Mandate of
Heaven fell to each individual, not just the elites, and indeed the peasantry
and the gentry were absorbed into the warring classes. The dominance of
chivalry and chariot warfare was gradually replaced by the more ‘democratic’
strategy of sending hundred of thousands of soldiers
in waves against each other. Given the intensity of wars and the nature of the
strategies one is tempted to classify it as an example of realist logic. The
dominant strategies among the states during the time amounted to variations in bandwagoning and balancing strategies.
There are problems
with such an analysis. If we were to accept a defensive version of realism we
ought to expect the states to compete for power up to the point where they
guaranteed their own security. Alternatively if we were to accept an offensive
version of realism the would compete for power up to the point that, as
Clausewitz argued, “the establishment of an equilibrium is no longer
conceivable” (Carl von Clausewitz, The book of war (Sunzi),
Edited by C. Carr, 2000, pg. 923).
States ought to
compete for hegemony or domination, and not peace. On the surface the latter
certainly seems to be true. Each state dismissed the need to a hegemon, but
they each individually sought to assume that role. Because of this balancing
techniques were prevalent in the early part of Zhanguo
period and continued to be used throughout the period. Contradicting the
contention that there was a growing logic of domination s was the fate of all
previous domination-seekers Qi, soon experienced a decline in power. And here
it is not that logics shifted, but that capacities shifted. The offensive
realist position seems to be more descriptive, but even this claim is
problematic. It is not at all clear that the Warring States pursued power
purely for the sake of power and/or security. Rather it seems more likely that
they pursued a similar goal: domination of the Zhou order. The goal of
politics, policy, and war then seems to dedicated to an agreed upon norm; each
state individually pursued domination over a predefined concept, a Zhou world
order, rather than a nebulous concept like power or domination.
After Confucius a
great flowering of philosophies took place. We find his disciple Mencius
preaching the inherent goodness of people, the Taoists preaching a curious
political philosophy of reflection and inaction, and the Legalists preaching
the benefits of power politics and order. (Adda B. Bozeman, Politics and
culture in international history: from the ancient Near East to the opening of
the modern age, 1994, pp. 140-141).
It was the discourse
between these schools that was notable. By the end of the Warring States period
the Legalists had formed the dominant core of political philosophy, “From the
age of Confucius onward, the Chinese people in general and their political
thinkers in particular began to think about political matters in terms of the
world.” (Youlan Feng and Derk
Bodde, A short history of Chinese philosophy, 1948,
pg. 181).
While power politics
and administrative efficiency became paramount the discursive milieu in which
it occurred suggested a common goal for that pursuit of power. Any revolutions
that occurred after Confucius and during this period were indeed substantial,
but only reinforced trends that had been in place before Confucius during the
rise of Qi. During the Zhanguo period a declining Jin state and a rising Chu state were pitted against each
other with many of the middle states playing decisive roles in the war between
them. Out of these initial battles other states began to rise. The first of
these was Wu. The Jin state broke apart during a
period of civil strife into three separate states: Han, Wu, and Zhao. Of them
Wu remained the most vital. Wu was succeeded by Wei and finally by Qin. Each of
these only realized a very brief sort of dominance and nothing resembling the ba system that had existed previously. In each of these
states their ascendance was formed in the same way that Qi had realized its
dominance: through administrative innovation to improve their ability to rule
over a territory that they already recognized as unitary whole. In Wei, for
example, large-scale feudal farming was replaced by small-scale farming with
lands allocated to households. This allowed for increased production with
decreased control which further increased the
efficiency of the state. Competing states would quickly copy the innovations of
the rising state in order to manage and restrain each other’s ability to
dominate. Over a relatively short period of time administrative capacities to manage
the various subsystems changed and improved at a remarkable pace. The sovereign
principle remained more or less totalizing though: centralize all power, remove
challengers, and increase efficiency. Whether proto-Confucian, Confucian, or
Legalist all of these philosophies reinforced the pre-existing sovereign
principle. It was really a matter of finding the proper set of administrative
tools to realize the new efficiency principle embedded in this Qi sovereign
principle. In many ways Qin’s rise to dominance was surprising. Where Chu was
large and wealthy, Qin was smaller and relatively poor. Where Wu formed a
central part of the Chinese core states, Qin languished on the eastern
periphery. Where Wei and Qi were contemporary innovators with much greater
power and wealth Qin was ignored, under constrant
threat and in a strategically inopportune place. All of that began to change
around under the ministrations of Shang Yang. Shang Yang was chief minister to
the Qin duke Hsiao around 358 BC. (Mark E. Lewis, Warring States Political
History. In The Cambridge history of ancient China: from the origins of
civilization to 221 B.C, edited by M. Loewe and E. L. Shaughnessy, 1999, pg.
635).
While minister he was
equally formidable and despicable; he was a leader cut in Machiavellian cloth.
It was his internal reforms that allowed Qin to gain the strength and momentum
necessary to conquer the whole of the Zhou order even after his execution. We
can focus simply and briefly on the three reformations that had the most
profound consequences on Qin’s fortunes: agricultural reform, abolishing slave
labor, and the creation of a written and stable set of laws. Beginning with
last, the Book of Law, which Shang Yang introduced created what Li Yu-Ning has
referred to as a principle of collective liability. Anybody associated with a
lawbreaker was equally culpable. The draconian punishments ensconced in the law
had a profound effect on the relationship between the gentry and the
aristocracy, “an important purpose of this [law] was to strike at the
resistance of the declining slave owner-aristocrats, in order to safeguard the
interests of [the] newly rising landlord class, and thereby consolidate its
regime.” Yu-ning Li, Introduction. In Shang Yang's
reforms and state control in China, edited by K. u. Yang and Y. Li, 1977). The
laws, which threatened death to those that abetted criminals in any way, worked
to encourage compliance with the other reforms that Shang Yang undertook. In so
doing Shang Yang was able to erode the economic base of aristocratic power.
Shang Yang’s agricultural reforms put farms into the hands of peasant farmers
and removed them from aristocratic control. In tandem his agricultural and
legal reforms encouraged greater production while simultaneously removing levels
of governance between the central bureaucracy and the masses. The policy of
collective liability was similarly applied to the productive efforts of the
masses. Lack of production was grounds for punishment. Feudal tithing was
eliminated at the same time that command and control functions of the
bureaucracy were extended and deepened. This level of despotism and cruelty
would continue to define Qin even after its victory and the establishment of
the Qin dynasty. Shang Yang was known as a capable general, but it was
primarily after his death that Qin began the process of shifting from a
defensive development phase to an offensive consolidation phase. In 316 BC Qin
began conquering the states in its immediate vicinity. Besides evidencing the
superior strength that was developing in the state of Qin it provided a
practical strategic advantage. The local consolidation during this period
allowed Qin to remove its immediate geopolitical threats and provide a secure
base from which it could strike out at neighboring states. Its new territory
was well-protected from most barbarian incursions and had secured an important
breadbasket—the states of Shu and Ba that bordered Qin to the south. (Burton
Watson, Intro duction. In Han Feizi: basic writings,
edited by F. Han and B. Watson, 2003, pg. 4).
This strategic
advantage would prove decisive in securing further political advantages.
Subsequent rulers would draw heavily upon Shang Yang’s administrative
innovations, but would also develop their own methods of conquest and
consolidation. Influential in the consolidation process was a Legalist
philosopher named Han Feizi. Disregarded in his own
state, his teachings were ironically used by the king of Qin, Qin Ying Zheng,
who later conquered Han Feizi’s home state. Burton
Watson says of Han Feizi, “He is not the inventor of
Legalism, buts its perfecter, having left us the final and most readable
exposition of its theories.” (Burton Watson, Introduction. In Han Feizi: basic writings, edited by F. Han and B. Watson,
2003, pg. 4).
Inasmuch as it was
Qin Ying Zheng who would come to conquer the six other major states and
consolidate China under imperial rule we ought to be particularly interested in
what Han Feizi had to say about the nature of power,
politics, and rule. The core concepts that he supported were deception and
control. This was not an overt form of deception, but rather one that poker
players might call ‘keeping it close to the vest’. Among ministers, allies, and
enemies the chief imperative for the leader was to never reveal what he wanted.
Doing so allowed ministers to curry favor and build private cliques and it
allowed other states to prepare for one’s advances, diplomatic or otherwise.
The core of this idea is that the ruler should act as a unitary ruler. As Han Feizi puts it:…the Way itself is never plural, therefore it
is called a unity. For this reason the enlightened ruler prizes solitariness,
which is the characteristic of the Way. The ruler and his ministers do not
follow the same way. The ministers name their proposals, the ruler holds fast
to the name, and the ministers come forward with the results. When names and
results match, then superior and inferior will achieve harmony. The way to
listen to the words of the ministers is to take the statements that come from
them and compare them with the powers that have been invested in them.
Therefore you must examine names carefully in order to establish ranks, clarify
duties in order to distinguish worth. This is the way to listen to the words of
others: be silent as though in a drunken stupor. . . . Let others say their
piece, I will gain knowledge thereby. (Fei Han and Burton Watson. Han Feizi: basic writings, Translations from the Asian
classics, 2003, pp. 37-8).
This passage espouses
a new and final evolution of the prior sovereign principle. Where prior rulers
had progressively removed lesser nobility from the offices of power in favor of
what some have termed a meritocracy they still allowed too much of what Han Feizi might term a ‘plurality’. Left to their own devices
the ministers, while more loyal than the aristocracy, would still plot to gain
power, curry favor, and generally improve their standing. By gathering as much
information as possible while not revealing any of his own information or
preferences, the ruler was thus able to consolidate power within the state and
initiate actions surreptitiously outside the state. Subsequent writings by Han Feizi suggest that the ruler ought to build bridges with
other states rather than arbitrarily maintain adversarial relationships with
powerful opponents and ought to exploit those advantages where necessary. The
state had finally become a unitary thing in the minds of rulers and
philosophers alike. It was neither ministers, nor rulers who were the state,
but the reason of the state, the Way, that represented the state. The ruler was
now entreated to make decisions solely on the basis of relative power. The Ten
Faults warns against using increased power towards decadent ends.
Outside the state the
traditional balancing strategies of lianheng
(horizontal balancing similar to bandwagoning) and hezong (vertical balancing similar to balancing) became
tools to be used when advantageous and spurned when disadvantageous. While
other states debated the superiority of one strategy over the other and only
changed reluctantly Qin was notable because of the alacrity and fluidity of its
strategy. This manner of administrating the state and interstate relations was
aided in large part by Qin Pin Zheng’s ability to comprehend and act upon Han Feizi’s admonitions. In 221 when Qin Ping Zheng became Qin
Shi Huangdi (First Emperor of Qin) the Zhou system had finally and
fundamentally shifted under the weight and efficiency of this new ascendant
sovereign principle; a sovereign principle far closer to modern absolute
sovereignty. How were the social subsystems evolving during this period? This
is, of course, a central question. It is thus, beneficial to proceed with a
brief examination of the state of the subsystems at the beginning of the
Western Zhou period.
There is some
disagreement regarding the nature and scope of the Western Zhou security
subsystem. Without a doubt, it was founded upon the technology of the chariot,
but the centrality of the chariot to actual battlefield tactics is somewhat
unclear. Lewis contends that chariot warfare was largely ornamental, in much
the same way that combat between knights in Europe was during the Middle Ages,
but Hsu and Linduff argue that it was the combined
superiority of Zhou tactics over broken ground and the ability of the Zhou to
use the chariot as a command and control structure that led to their early
triumphs over the Shang. (Western Chou civilization. pg. 85).
This difference of
opinion suggests that in spite of the technology available at the time certain
norms of warfare existed beforehand which limited the organization and extent
of warfare. Regardless of whether one believes Lewis or Hsu and Linduff we ought to be struck by both the small size of the
armies, usually smaller than 30,000 strong, and the odd centrality of chariots
given the plethora of hills, mountains, and rivers. The Zhou superiority in
tactics was thus a marginal one. We can infer from this a number of things
about the centrality of warfare and the scope of the security subsystem. The
most important of these was that there was a concerted effort to limit the art
of war to a specific class. This limitation had a profound effect on the
ability of the Zhou to exert their power over great distances. The logistical
abilities that a larger army provides that were missing from the Western Zhou
period. The nature of the chariot, an offensive weapon, and the small size of
the armies forced the security subsystem into a secondary role. While one could
communicate with one’s neighbors because of the horse one was also unable to
exert coercive control over them from a distance.
Zhou territory was
vast; from the capital the king was limited in his ability to enforce any peace
among his vassals or the barbarians. The Zhou population was not small by any
means and we can thus attribute a good deal of this limitation to the structure
of the security subsystem. Military honors and battlefield successes were
largely reserved for the elites. Foot soldiers were present, but were artificially
limited in their unit size and prescribed role during this period. The material
for an expansive security subsystem had probably existed from early on in the
Zhou dynasty, but during the Western Zhou period this type of expansion did not
take place with any regularlity. Over the course of
the eight centuries from the rise of Zhou to the rise of Qin the security
subsystem underwent remarkable changes. By the time Qin Ping Zheng came to
power armies had shifted to massive infantries. The chariot was almost entirely
displaced. The aristocratic norm of calling out one’s opponent and engaging in
individual combat had been replaced by massive engagements with hundreds of
thousands of soldiers and sometimes hundreds of thousands of casualties. The
new principle of absolute sovereignty accelerated the process of creating new,
better, bigger, and faster armies.
We have already
earlier presented an overview of the different Chinese dynasties:
From the ascendance
of King Wen to the beginning of the Chunqiu period the relative scope of the
security subsystem remained the same. It had a central role in aristocratic
identity, but a subsidiary role to the control of the dynasty. While wars were
rather frequent, engagements were limited, and the art of conquering and
occupying territory was even more limited. However, around the time of Sun Tzu
we know that armies began to expand rapidly and that the centrality of the
chariot to warfare began to decline as well. This shift happened rather close
to the period in which the sovereign principle shifted from transborder to
absolute. The trade subsystem was limited as well. For example, we know that
while more advanced and developed than other early civilizations, because of
the prevalence of iron in the area, that the Zhou dynasty did not cultivate
land much beyond its network of interlinked cities. The abundance of iron
allowed for improvements in agriculture that the west would not experience for
quite some time.
However, the feudal
system of regulating the farms ensured that the productive capacities of the
farmers were arbitrarily limited. China was growing cities and states at a
remarkable rate. The growth and dominance of the Zhou dynasty was aided by
their agricultural techniques and limited by their inability to profit from it
efficiently. The role structure of this trade subsystem was based largely on
slavery and serfdom. Free farmers were only small parts of the system during
the Western Zhou period. The diffuse network of fiefs meant that the amount of
land being tilled was correspondingly small. The serfs and slaves would work
near the fief, but much of the intermediate frontiers between the fiefs was
left to barbarians and was only mildly integrated into the economic system of
the Zhou dynasty. The trade subsystem was limited relative to the ideological
subsystem. Near the middle of the Chunqiu period coinage began to appear in the
Zhou empire. The first coins to be found throughout the Zhou states were those
of Jin.
Jin held
the ba from 632 BC to roughly 550 BC. We can
attribute this shift in technology and the increasing scope of the trade
subsystem to this period. Perhaps coins had originated prior to this period,
but they had not found wide circulation in the way that Jin’s
coinage had. The use of coinage in place of other alternatives had two profound
effects on the trade subsystem. First, it disrupted the linkage between feudal
lords and peasants. It was no longer necessary to have a slave class and an
overlord class. Control could be exerted through taxation. By releasing the
peasants from the control of the aristocracy, and often then forcing them
towards small household farming, subsequent rulers were able to vastly increase
the size of the land being tilled. Large populations farming small plots close
to the city were becoming obsolete. By the time Shang Yang began implementing
changes the goal had shifted broadly to cultivating as much as area as possible
and directly monitoring and taxing the product of the peasants. The change in
the trade and security subsystems is therefore nearly identical. Their relative
scopes had always been quite similar to each other, but had been outstripped by
the ideological subsystem. During the Chunqiu period both began to shift rapidly
outwards. The declining viability of the Mandate of Heaven was foretold by the
rising importance of infantry armies and currency based economies. Once Jin began to use coinage widely the mandate was effectively
defunct. The state of Qi’s ascendance to hegemon started the process by which
these other events began to unfold.
In light of our current investigation it is also notable that during the long period of
consolidation no state had to undertake an extensive program of Sinicization in
the way that Romans and the French had to undertake nation-building projects.
This ought to highlight to us the extent which the Zhou empire during this
period was a consolidated state waiting to be realized. This is not to imply a
teleological inevitability to the rise of the Qin dynasty, the aristocracy
could have responded differently, the barbarian incursions could have had more
or less profound consequences, instead it suggests that the ability of one
state to dominate the others was informed by an understanding of all the states
as inherently linked. Where the security and trade subsystems changed and grew
rapidly in the middle of the Chunqiu period, the ideological subsystem seems to
have been rather stagnant. China, during this period, did not grow
substantially, but its internal unity rapidly increased. The shift from
transborder sovereignty to absolute sovereignty was a case of the state
catching up to the nation rather than, in the European case, the nation
catching up to the state. Mark Lewis noted of this shift that: The new style of
polity that appeared in the Warring States period was both an expansion and a
contraction of the old Zhou model. It was an expansion in that it developed a
full-blown territorial state in place of the city-based state of the Zhou
world, but it was a contraction in that it concentrated all power in the court
of the single monarch. . . . The foundations of these changes were laid in the
Spring and Autumn period, when the pressures of war which had led both rulers
and ministerial households to increase their armies through the recruitment of
the rural populace. (Lewis, Mark E. Ibid. Warring States
Political History. pp. 597-8).
The essential
structure of the ideological subsystem at the beginning of the Zhou dynasty was
built on a two-fold distinction. One tenet held the centrality of king and the
Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule. The second tenet held the centrality
of law and order variously derived as the overarching legitimating factor for
any given ruler. This sounds more beneficent than it actually was, but among
elites it provided the justification for both their overthrow of the Shang
dynasty and the stability of their rule during the Western Zhou period. Working
together the first rule created a center of gravity within the international
order while the second rule expanded the scope of the subsystem to new states
and new peoples. The moralistic underpinnings of the mandate provided compelling
leverage for negotiations with barbarian peoples as the Zhou began to develop
the frontiers inside and outside their empire.
After the shift to
Luoyang and the formation of the ba system the first
tenet of the ideological subsystem, the centrality of the king, began to weaken
fundamentally. Without the centralizing force of the king the second part of
the ideological subsystem continued to function, but lost much of its
coherence. The intellectual milieu that developed during the end of the Chunqiu
period reflected much of this problem. Zhou elites were struggling to form a
legitimate basis for rule absent a consistently legitimate ruler. The resulting
uncertainty caused by this loss of a center caused the ideological subsystem to
stagnate. Many of the roles remained the same; the relationship of the states
to each other and the hierarchy among nobles remained more or less consistent.
Other roles changed significantly. The relationship between feudal lords and
royal ministers changed fundamentally after the Legalist philosophies came to
dominate the political and social realms. The ideological subsystem stagnated
because many of the policies of development were turned inwards on the states
themselves. The content of Zhou identity was fairly stable, but the
organization, the social hierarchy, that it implied underwent drastic changes.
The shift from kinship-based aristocracy to a meritocracy created profound
upheavals in Zhou society. The ultimate effect was to increase the density of
relationships in a stable area rather than expand that area. The growth of the
Zhou order during the period was rather slow. A few states on periphery did
come to play a major role in the politics of the time, Chu and Qin, chief among
them, however the relative growth of this subsystem slowed substantially during
the Eastern Zhou period. It should come as no surprise then that the relatively
large size of the ideological subsystem as the beginning of Western Zhou period
began to have a smaller and smaller impact on Zhou sovereign principles during
the Chunqiu period. Transborder sovereignty evolved because the Zhou king was
able to establish a broad kinship network, over a thousand fiefdoms, over the
whole of ancient China, and keep those fiefs linked through fealty to the Mandate
of Heaven. Even when the number of states had dwindled drastically to around
one hundred fifty by the beginning of the Chunqiu period the mandate was still
a compelling linkage between the remaining states. The mandate was strong, but
the ability to develop and control the internal regions of the state was very
limited. Even up through the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period non-Chinese peoples lived in the lands between the fiefs
and were outside the immediate control of the feudal lords and largely excluded
from the trade patterns that were developing.
During the Chunqiu
period Zhou’s policies of expansion turned inwards. Many of the social and
technological improvements were focused on growing the individual states. The
ideological subsystem became dedicated to the expansion and improvement of the
individual states. This allowed for the absorption and expulsion of the non-Chinese peoples and also allowed for a dramatic
increase in productive capacity. In so doing the states increased the population
from which they could draw troops for the incessant and internecine wars in
which they were engaged. Furthermore they increased their capacity to fund
those wars and provide the logistical support necessary to sustain the wars
over great distances. The inward focus of the ideological subsystem was
countered by the expanding importance of the trade and security subsystems. By
the time we reach the Zhanguo period the sovereign
principle had already shifted to absolute sovereignty. Within the context of the
warring states each had realized what was at stake and the basic process by
which one might achieve dominance. The rapid and successive improvements in the
bureaucracies’ extractive and organizational capacities represent competitive
attempts be the first to unite the seven states and to be the first to reclaim
the Mandate of Heaven. Sima Qian, the Grand Historian
of the Han Dynasty, who compiled much of what we know about ancient China,
quotes Qin Ping Zheng’s advisors as saying, “But now Your Majesty had raised
troops to punish the evil and remiss, brought peace to the world, made the
entire area within the seas into provinces and districts, and insured that laws
and rulings shall proceed from a single authority. From highest antiquity to
the present, such a thing has never occurred before, nor could the Five
Emperors equal it.” (Qian Sima and Burton Watson,
Records of the grand historian, Columbia University Press, 1993, pp.
42-3).
This implies of
course that the seven states considered themselves a bound group, “the world”,
and that such a goal had been the aim of prior kings and emperors, “such a
thing has never occurred before.” We can therefore accept that absolute
sovereignty, as a principle, had existed prior to the first Qin emperor. The
shift from transborder sovereignty to absolute sovereignty presents us with a
distinctly different story than what we have traditionally accepted. We tend to
accept without question the existence of the state before the nation, of the
bureaucracy before territoriality, and of a heteronomous feudalism before an
ordered and comprehensible anarchy. Instead, ancient China shows us a highly
structured feudalism, a territorially bound state that struggled to develop a
bureaucracy to govern it, and a nation rich in tradition before a state could
grow powerful enough to govern it. These variations on feudalism lead us back
to the basic premise of this dissertation. Sovereign principles are more
complex, more fluid, and more varied than we tend to realize. Furthermore, it does
not seem that technology or war or wealth by themselves dictate the course of
this sovereign evolution and instead it seems to reinforce the claim that we
have made earlier, that it is the relative scope of the underlying subsystems
that dictates the timing and nature of sovereign shifts.
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