S12: Era of Divisions

蘭亭臨帖 行書如行雲流水
月下門推 心細如妳腳步碎
忙不迭 千年碑易拓卻難拓妳的美

[…]

At the Orchid Pavilion, copying inscriptions—cursive script flows like clouds and water.
Pushing the door under the moon, my heart is as delicate as your soft steps.
In a flurry, while a thousand-year-old stele can be easily rubbed, your beauty is hard to capture.

無關風月 我題序等妳回
懸筆一絕 那岸邊浪千疊
情字何解 怎落筆都不對
而我獨缺 妳一生的了解

[…]

Unrelated to the winds and moons, I inscribe a preface waiting for your return.
With a poised brush, I craft a masterpiece, yet the waves on the shore rise in countless layers.
How can the word ‘love’ be understood? No matter how I write, it never feels right.
And what I lack is your understanding of my entire life.

• What is Early China and why is it important? Reflections on Han Dynasty
• What were the “Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties”? Period of fragmentation vs. Diversification
• How to read Chinese calligraphy? Preface to Orchid Pavilion

• Why did Sima Qian accept the punishment and dedicated his life to composing a monumental history?
• Why history?
• What history? What distinguishes it from previous written works?

• Sima Qian’s father initiated the project, and by the time of the Li Ling incident, Sima Qian had been working on it for several years.
• Sima Qian aimed to document the totality of human history known to him.
• He understood he lived in a remarkable era of a powerful empire and felt a responsibility to document its history.
• Meticulously recording historical events illustrated great principles, akin to Confucius’ Spring and Autumn Annals.

• There are parallels between the patterns of heaven and humanity but there aren’t universal historical patterns.
• While factual records form the foundation of history, the motivations of influential individuals, as revealed through their biographies.

• The History of the Western Han Dynasty was written a century after Sima Qian’s death by Ban Gu, who came from a prominent literary family.
• Ban Gu was the older brother of Ban Chao, a long-time Han governor in Central Asia, and was encouraged by his father to continue the historical work.
• Ban Gu’s sister, Ban Zhao, became the first female historian in Chinese history and contributed to the compilation of several tables in the book.

• The purpose of the book was to supplement The Grand Scribe’s Records, which ended with Emperor Wu’s reign.
• Same structure of The Grand Scribe’s Records: 12 basic annals, 8 tables, 10 treatises, and 80 biographies of officials and military generals.
• Innovative treatises: “Treatise of Art and Literature,” which preserves the Han imperial library’s bibliography, and the “Treatise of Geography,” the first comprehensive geographical survey of China.

History

• Historians instill a fear of legacy, prompting emperors to consider their future judgment and position in history.

Confucian Classics

• Legacy requires a standard for comparison.
• Confucius presents heaven as the ultimate standard, with sage kings as role models.

Portents from Heaven

• There was a belief in a higher power that disciplines rulers for moral failures.
• Confucius highlighted the past, Sima Qian warned of future judgment, and current celestial events served as reminders for emperors to reflect on their actions.

Inner court

• The emperor and his attendants
• Since their power derives from the emperor, they want his power to be absolute.

Outer court

• The civil bureaucracy: administrators, tax officials, judiciary, and military officials.
• All of these may rise to the rank of prime minister or chief counselor.
• They want rational policy rather than arbitrary diktat.
• They don’t like the eunuchs and concubines in the ear of the emperor.

• The presence of multiple sons from various wives allowed for manipulation of succession.
• Many emperors ascending to the throne as young teens or infants, often due to political maneuvering. They relied on the dowager for power and support.
• Eunuchs, who gained significant influence in court politics, often sought to usurp power from the in-laws.
• Result: cycles of conflict and power shifts as new emperors were established.

Multiple tensions:

• Inner and outer court
• Center and region
• Merit and hereditary right
• Civil and military

Feudalism

The ruler delegates territorial authority to an official, who has limited authority over the law, the judiciary and administration, taxation, infrastructure, building and investment.

Bureaucracy

The ruler dispatches administrators whose authority is limited to carrying out the laws and policies of the central government.

Key questions

• How to recruit officials? By lineage or by worthiness?
• Should the right to hold office be inherited? Should the right to hold office be awarded for performance?

• The Qin had a strict meritocracy.
• The Han, with its early balance of feudalism, allows protection privilege for high-ranking officials.
• At the same time, Han recruited new officials chosen for merit in the form of honesty, filial devotion, and high morals. Schools in the capital were another path to the bureaucracy, but they were limited in scope.

• The state’s withdrawal enabled the rise of private power, resulting in the shutdown of state monopolies and factories.
• The government began buying weapons from contractors instead of using its own industries.
• The state stopped providing disaster relief and struggled to control bandits and powerful families.
• Population declined from 60 million in 2 CE to 10 million in 140 CE.

• New religious movements in traditional China were often viewed as heterodox and potentially rebellious.
• The term “heterodox” has issues: it is made from the perspective of the state and does not accurately reflect local social and religious realities. Also, these movements encompass a variety of religious and magical phenomena.

• The Han government quickly suppressed the Yellow Turban uprising by 184 CE, removing key leaders.
• This uprising increased palace conflicts, leading to power struggles among eunuchs and consort families after Emperor Huan’s death in 168 CE.
• General Cao Cao, who defeated the Yellow Turbans, became regent in 192 CE. After his death in 220 CE, his son forced the emperor to abdicate and claimed a new dynasty.

Chinese sources

• Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties (魏晉南北朝)
• Problem: Assumes Chinese unity under a single regime was the normal state of affairs

Western scholarship

• Age of Disunion or Early Medieval period
• Problem: Imposes Western template – antiquity, medieval, modernity – on Chinese history

• During the Wei period, China was split into multiple states divided between the Yellow River in the north and Yangzi regions in the south.
• The northern regions were taken over by tribes that lacked proficiency in Chinese language and culture, leading to internal conflicts among them.
• Elite Chinese clans were pushed southward and formed exiled communities, preserving a continuity of governance.

• The unification of the empire was hindered until the late sixth century, ultimately being restored by semi-foreign clans from the north rather than the displaced southern aristocracies.

• The conquest of Xiangyang in 208 was the peak of Cao Cao’s military campaigns.
• He advanced southward to Jiangling on the Yangzi River, intending to complete his conquest of China with a large fleet.
• However, his fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Red Cliff by Sun Quan’s forces, assisted by Liu Bei’s troops.

• The details of the Red Cliff engagement are obscured by early accounts and later myths, but it marked a significant turning point in Chinese political history.
• The battle highlighted the challenges faced by northern armies in occupying southern regions, particularly the difficulties of distance and naval warfare.
• Cao Cao’s retreat to the north ended any hopes for the swift reunification of China.

• After their victory at Red Cliff, Liu Bei and Sun Quan struggled for control over the central Yangzi region.
• In 215, Sun defeated some of Liu’s commanders and regained territory in Jing province.
• In 219: Liu Bei’s power grew again after a decisive victory over Cao Cao’s commander in northern Sichuan.
• Alarmed by Liu’s rise and resentful of losing Jing province, Sun Quan allied with Cao Cao to defeat Liu and kill Guan Yu.

• After Cao Cao’s death in 220, his son Cao Pi claimed the imperial title, marking the end of the Han dynasty.
• Liu Bei also claimed the title but suffered a disastrous defeat in 222 while seeking revenge against Sun Quan.
• Liu Bei died in 223, leading to the formal division of China into three states.

• Struggle to translate military power into stable regime: Military power and prestige that established the state ended with the founder.
• Struggle between military dynasts and powerful local families: A strong court would accommodate local powers, while a weak court allowed great families to assert their independence.

• By the end of the third century, heredity shaped official appointments and shifted government structure, emphasizing social status over real power.
• Offices were divided into “pure” roles for the elite and “sullied” roles for others.
• While old families held high offices for status, they didn’t stay powerful for long; key positions often went to “new men” loyal to the ruler.

• The fall of the Han marked a literary revolution with the rise of the lyric poem.
• The Cao family and their followers created the first significant body of Chinese lyric poetry by named authors.
• Unlike earlier forms, the new lyric focused on personal experiences and emotions of the poet.
• Topics shifted from imperial themes to more personal subjects like peer gatherings, farewells, and nature.

• Norther tribes captured and sacked Luoyang, the former capital of Han and the capital of the Western Jin dynasty, in 311 CE.
• Luoyang destroyed; residents massacred.
• Considered one of the worst disasters in Chinese history, marking the fall of both the emperor and an ancient capital to “barbarian” forces.

• The boycott originates from actress Liu Yifei’s endorsement of the Hong Kong police. Liu expressed her support for the police amid the pro-democracy and anti-police protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
• The film encountered further criticism for being shot in Xinjiang, a region in China where Uyghurs are being detained.

On her return she sees the Son of Heaven, The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall. He gives out promotions in twelve ranks And prizes of a hundred thousand and more. The Khan asks her what she desires. “Mulan has no use for a minister’s post. I wish to ride a swift mount To take me back to my home.”

• What is the proper role of the daughter as indicated in this part of the poem?
• Can Mulan’s concern and her desire to take her father’s place be justified by reference to Confucian philosophy? If so, how? If not, why not?

• The only lasting government in northern China for over a century was the non-Chinese Tabgach.
• The Tabgach first appeared in the second century as a tribal confederacy in the steppe from the Liao River to the Gansu corridor.
• They were known in Chinese sources as the Xianbei tribe or Tuoba clan, with “Tuoba” meaning “lords of the earth.”
• The Tabgach included various tribes that spoke Turkic and Mongolian languages and had no written language.

• Nomadic hunters and herders living in temporary dome-shaped dwellings, likely yurts.
• Their leaders were chosen based on bravery and judgment, not inheritance.
• Unmarried women shaved their heads, while married women grew their hair and wore hoods; Tabgach men had a unique hairstyle, shaving the front of their heads after marriage.
• Women learned to tend herds and hunt while men were away, giving them more power than women in settled societies.

• The Tabgach adopted a Chinese law code, and Tuoba Gui, who took power in 386, is recognized as the founder of the Northern Wei dynasty.
• In 396, Tuoba Gui assumed the Chinese title of emperor.
• By 398, he began constructing a permanent capital in northern Shanxi, forcibly resettling over 300,000 Chinese, including officials, tribesmen, and craftsmen.

North China:

• Primarily produced wheat, millet, sorghum, and soybeans; cotton and tobacco were later introduced as commercial crops.
• Agriculture involved interplanting grains with vegetables.
• Faced frequent calamities such as floods, droughts, and locusts, leading to a constant threat of famine.

South China:

• Landscape dominated by mountains and hills.
• Mainly focused on rice cultivation as a food crop, along with silk, tea, and various oils as commercial crops, in various river valleys.
• Farms were small and intensively worked, but land ownership was concentrated among large lineages who rented land to peasant tenants.

• In the pre-Qin and Han periods, retiring as a hermit was often seen as a moral or political choice due to societal decay or corruption in state service.
• Elites in the southern dynasties integrated aesthetic reclusion into their lives, with gardens and rural landscapes becoming important in literature and elite status.

• In 353, calligrapher Wang Xizhi and his friends gathered at the Orchid Pavilion to celebrate the spring festival.
• They held a poetry competition by a stream.
• Eleven men completed two poems, and fifteen completed one.
• Sixteen participants, including Wang’s son Xianzhi, who did not finish were penalized with three extra cups of wine.

後之視今，亦由（猶）今之視昔，悲夫！故列敘時人，錄其所述，雖世殊事異，所以興懷，其致一也。後之攬者，亦將有感於斯文。

When future generations look back to my time, it will probably be similar to how I now think of the past.
And record their musings, even though times and circumstances will change,
As for the things that we regret, they are the same.
For the people who read this in future generations, perhaps you will likewise be moved by these words.

There are twenty-one appearances of “之” (zhi, auxiliary used between an attribute and the word it modifies) in Wang Xi Zhi’s Preface to the Orchid Pavilion; every one of them is unique.

• Calligraphy was the most prized visual art form in traditional China, valued above all others.
• Calligraphy became a literati art during the Han dynasty due to the development of running and cursive scripts.
• Cursive script started as fast, flowing writing but evolved into a dynamic artistic form, enabling writers to create their own unique styles.
• These scripts provided greater freedom of brushwork and allowed the calligraphic line to reflect the individual’s personality.

• The value of calligraphy was rooted in the belief that it reflected the author’s spirit and personality.
• This connection to the individual elevated calligraphy from a simple clerical skill to a prestigious art form.
• The lines of the writing were seen as a testament to the character and lofty spirit of the person who created them.

• Verse, music, and calligraphy became key ways for leading families to communicate.
• The famous gathering at the Orchid Pavilion, featuring calligraphers Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, exemplified this cultural exchange.
• Through these artistic performances, families portrayed themselves as refined figures, known as fengliu, distinguishing themselves from those who were just wealthy or powerful.

Han families:

• Social status mainly by material wealth, land ownership, social connections, and control of court offices.

New literary elites:

• Focus on cultural and literary activities.
• Key pursuits included verse composition, calligraphy, philosophical conversations, distinctive costumes, and refined manners.
• This cultural emphasis allowed them to differentiate themselves from those who were simply wealthy or powerful.

• The Learning of Mystery (xuanxue), or neo-Daoism, emphasizes natural development and discourages interference.
• It promotes naturalness and spontaneity, advocating for the rejection of social and political norms.
• Pure Conversation (qingtan) uses anecdotes to reveal a person’s essence, reflecting an aristocratic culture focused on ranking individuals based on stories.

• A sacred and literary geography developed that was independent of, yet influenced by, the imperial system.
• Local traditions were affirmed through verse and local histories.
• These traditions, established in Southern China during the Southern Dynasties, became classical forms for expressing elite regionalism in later Chinese history.