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1CHAPTER 5 
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5Diminished Empire 
6and Nomadic Challengers: 
7Song (960-1279) andYuan 
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9(1279-1368) 
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13The half century between the Tang and Song dynasties is known as 
14the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, in reference 
15to five short-lived regimes in the north and ten minor kingdoms 
16competing in the south during these years. Chang'an and Luoyang, the 
17two Tang centers of power, were devastated in the civil wars that fin- 
18ished off the Tang, and the city of Kaifeng, at the mouth of the Grand 
19Canal and three hundred miles closer to the grain-producing regions of 
20south China, became the center of competition among the generals of 
21the north. In 960, General Zhao Kuangyin seized control of Kaifeng 
22and proclaimed a new dynasty, the Song (pronounced Soong). 
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24Zhao Kuangyin, known to history by his reign title of Song Taizu, 
25was one of the pivotal emperors in Chinese history because he created 
26a more centralized state than ever before. From 960 to his death in 
27976, he conquered the south and brought the best troops in the empire 
28under his own direct control to protect the capital. He persuaded his 
29most powerful generals to retire with generous stipends, and he placed 
30their armies in outlying areas under the direct control of his own civil 
31bureaucrats. Many of the powerful aristocratic families of the Tang era 
32were killed or greatly weakened in the civil wars that ended the Tang, 
33and so the Song emperors had far fewer rivals for power than their 
34Tang predecessors. In the Song dynasty, civil bureaucrats were much 
35more likely to become government officials through competing in the 
36civil service examination system rather than through blood ties to other 
37officials. 
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39In the Song period, China came closer than ever before or since to 
40achieving the Confucian ideal of a central bureaucratic state ruled by 
41the emperor with the advice and management of civil bureaucrats who 
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45were deeply committed to the Confucian classics. Perhaps in reaction 
46against the perceived excesses of the Tang empress Wu, Song emper- 
47ors prevented threats to their power from their wives and in-laws. And 
48unlike their Han and Tang predecessors, they suffered no threats to 
49their power from the eunuchs who served the imperial household. 
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51Yet the Song — because Taizu and his brother, who succeeded him, 
52elevated their Confucian scholar-officials over their military command- 
53ers — were never as militarily powerful or assertive toward their neigh- 
54bors as the Han and Tang had been. A powerful nomadic group, the 
55Khitans, occupied the entire northeast, including much of Mongolia 
56and Manchuria, and began to adopt Chinese methods of ruling under 
57a strong leader, Abaoji, who rose to power just as the Tang collapsed. 
58When Abaoji died in 926, his Chinese Confucian advisors suggested 
59that his wife should follow him to the grave. She responded that with 
60only young children in line to succeed him, she would have to remain 
61alive to carry on his work. But to the astonishment of all, she cut off 
62one of her hands to be buried with the deceased emperor, proving her 
63loyalty to him even as she refused to join him in death. She then led 
64the Khitans on a successful campaign to capture sixteen prefectures 
65in the area of today's Beijing, and she proclaimed a new Khitan dynasty, 
66the Liao. 
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68For the first few decades of the Song dynasty, the Khitan Liao 
69administered Chinese communities in Chinese style and Khitan nomadic 
70communities in their traditional tribal ways. They also continuously 
71threatened Chinese settlements in the north and even managed to wound 
72the Song emperor in 979. In 1004, after the Liao had successfully occu- 
73pied much of the Yellow River valley, the Song and Liao courts signed a 
74treaty meant as an agreement between coequal states. The Liao agreed 
75to withdraw from their recently occupied territory, and the Song state 
76agreed to pay the Liao court 200,000 rolls of silk and 100,000 ounces 
77of silver annually. This was virtual extortion of the weak Song state 
78by the powerful Liao, but the payments were cheaper than war, and a 
79small fraction of the Song military budget (which came to absorb over 
8080 percent of all state spending). 
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82The Khitan Liao was not the only threat to the Song dynasty. To 
83the northwest the Tanguts, another nomadic group who came from 
84Tibetan stock, ruled over their own state, the Xi Xia. Like the Khitans, 
85the Tanguts ruled with a combination of Chinese and nomadic tribal 
86methods. And like the Khitans, they occupied northern territory once 
87held by the Tang dynasty and were a continual military threat to the 
88new Song dynasty. In 1040 the Song court agreed to pay the Tangut Xi 
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96Xia court substantial annual payments as well, thus buying peace on the 
97northwestern frontier. 
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99The constant border threats required continuous expansion of the 
100Song military, which swelled from 387,000 troops in 975 to 1,259,000 
101troops in 1045. The cost of training and equipping such a large army, 
102on top of the very large annual "ransom" payments to the Liao and 
103Xi Xia rulers, threatened to bankrupt the state in the eleventh century. 
104In response to this crisis, Song officials in these years carried on the 
105most thorough debate since the Warring States period over the nature of 
106"good government" and the proper relationship between the state and 
107the society it ruled. The result was factional bureaucratic argument and 
108infighting that lasted a generation and has echoed through the halls of 
109Chinese government ever since. 
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111At the heart of the debate was Wang Anshi (1021-1086), an eccen- 
112tric idealist who argued that the state needed drastic reforms to fulfill 
113its classical Confucian obligations to serve the people. Wang believed 
114that most Confucian officials had lost touch with the true meaning of 
115the classics and had grown too comfortable to perceive the crisis faced 
116by the state. In 1069, Wang Anshi rose to the position of chief councilor 
117(like the prime minister) under the young and ambitious Emperor Shen- 
118zong. Wang immediately declared a series of reforms, starting with a 
119government program to make low-interest loans to poor peasants, both 
120to prevent their exploitation by private loan sharks and to use money- 
121lending to raise state revenues. He ordered a land survey to assess new 
122tax rates based on the actual productivity of the land. He declared that 
123taxes would be collected in money, not in labor services, a change aimed 
124particularly at the wealthy. He vowed to reduce the size of the expensive 
125professional army and to train local citizens in self-defense militias. He 
126proposed a nationwide school system to educate those of modest means 
127and called for changing the emphasis of the civil service examinations 
128from poetry and memorization of the classics to current political and 
129economic problems. Wang's government would become more directly 
130involved in the economy, compete with private merchants, set up gov- 
131ernment pawnshops nationwide, and buy local products to transport 
132and sell elsewhere. This would increase state revenues and undercut 
133excessive profits of the merchant class. 
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135When officials opposed Wang's ideas, he was quick to dismiss them 
136from office. He frightened the wealthy and well established, the very 
137people who dominated the government. He tried to do too much too 
138quickly, and his loan program backfired, for local officials ended up 
139charging interest rates as high as the loan sharks, thereby defeating the 
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147purpose of the program. Wang stirred up such powerful opposition that 
148he was forced to resign from office in 1076. After Emperor Shenzong 
149died in 1085, all of Wang's reforms were repealed, and the dynasty con- 
150tinued to limp along financially, not recognizing the disasters that were 
151approaching. 
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153One of the most articulate critics of Wang Anshi's policies was the 
154brilliant scholar-official Su Shi, better known as Su Dongpo (1036- 
1551101). Su had a sharp tongue and suffered through two periods of exile 
156for his opposition to Wang's reforms, but it is indicative of the nature 
157of political battles in the Song that he remained on friendly terms with 
158Wang. They exchanged poems with each other even in old age. In this 
159regard, the Song dynasty represents the high-water mark of civil politi- 
160cal debate in imperial China. Before and after the Song, factional politi- 
161cal conflicts were more often resolved through force — the arrest, exile, 
162or execution of one's opponents. 
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164Despite his political persecution, Su Dongpo became one of the 
165most admired of all Chinese literati. He was a student of the Book 
166of Changes and the Analects of Confucius, as well as Daoist alchemy 
167and Chan Buddhist meditation. Known for his compassion, he worked 
168tirelessly to provide flood control measures and famine relief, found 
169orphanages and hospitals, and provide medical care for prisoners. Su's 
170main legacy to Chinese culture was in his poetry, his calligraphy, and 
171his writings about art. He saw poetry as a way of painting, painting as 
172wordless poetry, and both as precious vehicles of self-expression. He 
173left behind 2,400 treasured poems and 300 song lyrics — a new genre 
174of poetry he did much to popularize. One of the few Chinese literati to 
175master every style of poetry as well as painting and calligraphy, he epit- 
176omized the ideal that inspired Chinese scholars from Song times into 
177the twentieth century: the brilliant scholar, versatile artist, and consci- 
178entious official who would risk his political career to do the right thing 
179and, when driven out of power, would take great solace and pleasure in 
180the beauties of nature and the arts. 
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182In 1101, the year Su Dongpo died, another new emperor, Huizong, 
183took the throne and stated his intention to restore Wang Anshi's reforms. 
184The result was only to intensify rivalries and tensions among Huizong's 
185officials without addressing the fundamental problems of financial and 
186military weakness. Huizong was frankly more interested in art and lit- 
187erature than in the nitty-gritty problems of government. He was a skilled 
188painter and calligrapher and a passionate collector of paintings, ancient 
189bronzes, porcelain ware, and beautiful stones. He particularly excelled 
190at delicate paintings of flowers and birds, and he perfected an exquisite 
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198form of calligraphy called "slender gold." He brought many painters to 
199his court, where he supervised and instructed them as if the survival of 
200the empire depended on their artistic abilities. Unfortunately, it did not. 
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202In the early twelfth century another nomadic group, the Jurchen, 
203formed a powerful coalition of tribes to the northeast of the Khitan Liao 
204under a new leader, Aguda. Aguda had his own dynastic ambitions and 
205proclaimed himself emperor of the Jin dynasty. When Aguda's forces 
206attacked the Song's dangerous neighbor, the Khitan Liao, Huizong's 
207court allied with the Jin in hopes of eliminating its strongest nomadic 
208threat. The strategy backfired as the Jin defeated the Liao with Song 
209help and then kept right on marching in 1127 into Kaifeng, the Song 
210capital. Huizong and his son were captured by the Jin and later died in 
211captivity. Many court officials and another of the emperor's sons fled 
212to the south. They established a new capital south of the Yangzi River 
213at Hangzhou, where the many rivers and canals and wet rice fields pre- 
214vented easy invasion by nomads on horseback. Thus, the Song dynasty 
215is divided into the Northern Song (960-1127) and the Southern Song 
216(1127-1279). 
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218It is easy in retrospect to blame the self-absorbed emperor-artist 
219Huizong for "painting while Kaifeng burned," but there was a self- 
220perpetuating weakness built into the Song state that went far beyond 
221Huizong and his artistic passions. Without control over the northern 
222and northwestern territories that had been held by the Han and Tang, 
223even the Northern Song lacked the capacity to breed the large numbers 
224of horses needed to fend off its powerful nomadic neighbors. In the 
225Southern Song, the main focus of debate among Confucian officials was 
226whether to mount an aggressive counterattack against the Jin occupiers 
227of the north or rest content to maintain a reduced empire in the south. 
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229In 1139 the Southern Song court, under the leadership of chief 
230councilor Qin Gui, signed a peace treaty with the Jin. The fiery South- 
231ern Song general Yue Fei attacked the idea of conceding the north to the 
232barbarians as a treasonous betrayal of the nation's best interest. When 
233the Jin broke the treaty and sent troops southward in 1140, Yue Fei led 
234Song forces in repelling them. However, Yue Fei was seen by the court 
235as dangerous, reckless, and sure to invite a deeper invasion by the Jin 
236or else, in his frustration, to threaten the Song ruling family itself. He 
237was ordered to withdraw from the territory he had taken in the north. 
238Recalled to the southern capital of Hangzhou and held under house 
239arrest, Yue Fei was accused of plotting against the emperor and killed 
240in prison in early 1141. Qin Gui concluded a new peace treaty with the 
241Jin on even less favorable terms to the Southern Song. Since Song times, 
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250The Mongol Empires, 
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252ca. 1280 CE, 
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254WITH EARLIER 
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256SONG BOUNDARIES 
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260Mongol campaigns 
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262â–  Area controlled bv Southern Song 
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265^3 Area lost in 1 1 26 by the 
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267^^ Northern Song 
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269Border of Northern Song (960-1 126) 
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271I Mongol Empire borders 
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273• Cities 
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277Indian Oceon 
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289the Chinese have regarded Yue Fei as a great heroic patriot and Qin Gui 
290as the ultimate traitor to his nation. 
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292The fate of General Yue Fei reflected the Song dynasty's assertion of 
293civilian control over the military and some shifting cultural assumptions 
294in the Song that helped prevent an aggressive military campaign against 
295the Jin regime in the north. Song Confucian officials were much more 
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303self-consciously condescending toward their nomadic neighbors than 
304their Tang predecessors had been. Many of them scorned the martial 
305values they saw in their nomadic neighbors. Whereas horseback riding 
306and archery had been considered perfectly respectable pastimes for the 
307Tang aristocracy, the scholar-official class in Song times became much 
308more concerned with Confucian scholarship, literature, and the arts. 
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310One reason for this cultural shift was the changing nature of Chinese 
311society in the Song period. In the Tang, powerful aristocrats often inher- 
312ited their official positions, but in the Song, the Chinese elite became 
313much more dependent on the civil service examinations to win positions 
314in government. Consequently, families who wanted to maintain their 
315elite status in society had to provide an extensive classical education for 
316their sons. Examinations were very difficult, requiring years of intense 
317study in preparation, and only a small percentage of candidates could 
318pass them and win official appointments. The invention of printing in 
319the Tang and its spread in the Song made more books available to more 
320families, greatly intensifying the competition for civil service examina- 
321tion degrees and official appointments. Confucian scholar-officials came 
322to see their main task as intellectual and cultural — to master the best of 
323Chinese culture in art, literature, and philosophy. 
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325In self-conscious contrast to the uncivilized " barbarians " of the north, 
326Chinese officials looked to men of genius like Su Dongpo for reassurance 
327that China's was after all a far superior culture. In the strong negative 
328reaction to the reform attempts of Wang Anshi, Song Confucian scholars 
329made a clear choice to reject his aggressive moves to build a strong state. 
330Instead, they opted for a more idealistic form of Confucianism that put 
331less emphasis on governmental institutions and more emphasis on what 
332we might call China's moral and spiritual rearmament. 
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334Convinced by Mencius that moral goodness is ultimately the most 
335powerful force in the world, Neo-Confucian scholars called for indi- 
336vidual self-cultivation and rectification of moral faults through study of 
337the Confucian classics and "quiet sitting," a Buddhist-influenced form 
338of meditation and self-reflection. The most important Neo-Confucian 
339scholar was Zhu Xi (1130-1200), who synthesized the work of many 
340Neo-Confucians into one great philosophical system. He wrote commen- 
341taries on and edited all the early Confucian classics. His interpretations 
342became the only accepted answers in the civil service examinations from 
343late Song times until the examination system was abolished in 1905. 
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345Another consequence of the growing concern in Song times to differ- 
346entiate China from its nomadic neighbors was a change in gender rela- 
347tions and gender ideals. As noted, Tang court women were often very 
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355active physically and, at times, very assertive politically (e.g. Empress 
356Wu). In the Song period, male Confucian scholars attacked nomadic cul- 
357tures for their immorality in allowing women so much freedom of move- 
358ment and in their custom of the levirate, in which a widow was expected 
359to marry her husband's brother. Song male Confucians saw the levirate 
360as a form of incest and outlawed it in Chinese society. In their horror at 
361the levirate, some scholars argued that widows should never remarry 
362at all, and some went so far as to praise widows who committed sui- 
363cide in order to avoid remarriage. In reaction against their "uncivilized" 
364nomadic neighbors, many Chinese literati began to emphasize more than 
365ever that a woman's proper place was in the home and nowhere else. 
366
367Foot-binding, which first became popular in the Song dynasty, prob- 
368ably began with court dancers who bound their feet in the belief that small 
369feet were more attractive on a female dancer. In the Song, mothers and 
370grandmothers began binding their daughters' feet at four to six years of 
371age. They took a long strip of cloth, bent the four smaller toes down under 
372the foot, leaving the big toe in place, and wrapped the foot tightly, pull- 
373ing the front and back of the foot together. As the growing foot pushed in 
374vain against the binding, the arch bent and broke, and the heel was pulled 
375under the foot to form its own "natural high heel." The tightly wrapped 
376toes withered, and with circulation impaired, there was always a danger 
377of blood poisoning. The pain was excruciating for at least two years; the 
378result was a tiny, cramped foot three to six inches long. 
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380Why did mothers and grandmothers subject their daughters to such 
381pain so needlessly? Scholars still argue over this question, but the main 
382motivation probably was the quest for social status. Song society was 
383more fluid than Chinese society had ever been, and prominent families 
384were very concerned to marry their daughters to other families of equal 
385or greater prominence. Marriages were arranged by parents for the ben- 
386efit of the family, and a high-status marriage was very desirable for both 
387the daughter and her family. In this kind of competitive atmosphere, 
388anything that made a daughter seem more attractive, more genteel, and 
389more virtuous would improve her marriage prospects. Foot-binding 
390was associated with virtue because it suggested that the girl with bound 
391feet was not one to "run around wildly" and demonstrated that she 
392came from a good family that could afford to have her confined at home 
393like a "good girl." 
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395Ironically, the bound foot also came to have erotic associations. The 
396foot was always covered, and some males found that unwrapping, fon- 
397dling, even sucking a woman's bound foot was sexually exciting. Finally, 
398women covered their bound feet with beautiful embroidered cloth shoes, 
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406adding to their allure. So the female bound foot came to symbolize 
407many things: wealth, leisure, sophistication, artistic skill, beauty, virtue, 
408and sexiness — a powerful combination of positive associations. 
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410In other ways, the Song marriage system improved women's cul- 
411tural opportunities, as wealthy families began to educate more of their 
412daughters so they would be able to teach their young sons in the basics 
413of literacy, to give them a head start in their long examination prepara- 
414tion. Female literacy thus became one more qualification in the com- 
415petitive marriage market. This began a trend that was to continue on 
416into the twentieth century. 
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418China's greatest female poet, Li Qingzhao (1084-c. 1151), lived in 
419the Song period. She had a very close relationship with her husband, 
420Zhao Mingcheng, and they shared a passion for poetry and collecting 
421antique seals, paintings, and bronze inscriptions. Together they compiled 
422an extensive catalogue of early bronze inscriptions and stone carvings. 
423She sometimes celebrated their love in her poems. "Should my beloved 
424chance to ask / If my face is fair as a flower's / I'll put one aslant in my hair 
425/ Then ask him to look and compare." 1 When the Jin invaders came in 
4261127, the couple's home was burned, and they lost most of their precious 
427art collection. They fled to the south, and Zhao died two years later, leav- 
428ing his wife a widow at forty-five. Little is known of her last twenty-two 
429years apart from the fact that she briefly remarried an abusive man and 
430filed for a divorce within three months. Such behavior was scandalous 
431to Chinese scholars in later periods, when chastity was seen as the only 
432proper course of action for a "cultured" woman as a widow. 
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434Given the Song's assertion of civil authority over military leaders, 
435its elevation of civil over martial values, and the growing military power 
436of its nomadic neighbors, it may seem surprising that the dynasty was 
437able to survive as long as it did. The main reason for this was a virtual 
438economic revolution that made Song China the most prosperous and 
439highly developed society on earth. Agricultural productivity increased 
440dramatically in Song times, in part because more land came under cul- 
441tivation as the population continued to move southward. New strains 
442of early-ripening rice were developed in the south, allowing for two rice 
443crops per year. The government began to print agricultural manuals to 
444spread the newest techniques for increasing crop yields. Farmers began 
445specializing in crops such as mulberry trees for silkworms, tea, sugar 
446cane, bamboo, hemp, and ramie to produce fibers for cloth, and even- 
447tually cotton (introduced from India in Tang times), which became a 
448major cash crop by the end of the Song. Interregional and international 
449trade expanded, and along with these came a thriving money economy. 
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458This detail frotn Qingming Festival Along the River, an eighteenth-century, thirty- 
459holiday in the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng shortly before it was conquered 
460is filled with shops and stalls selling goods and services, and a plethora of vendors, 
461Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China 
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465In 1120, just before the loss of the north to the Jurchen, the Song gov- 
466ernment collected eighteen million ounces of silver in taxes. 
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468In the early Song period, advances occurred in iron smelting tech- 
469nology, including the use of explosives to mine iron ore and the use 
470of hydraulic machinery to power bellows that could generate higher 
471temperatures for smelting iron and steel. The Song government spon- 
472sored the largest iron-smelting industry in the world, which produced 
473125,000 tons of iron in 1078 (quantities not reached in Europe for 
474about another eight hundred years). Iron was important for making 
475plows, other farm implements, locks, nails, musical instruments, and 
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484eigbt-foot-long copy of a twelfth-century kandscroll, depicts a Spring Festival 
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486by tbejin invaders in 1127 . The famous Rainbow Bridge spanning the Bian River 
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488shoppers, and people transporting goods across tbe bridge. National Palace 
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492pans for making salt. Chinese peasants probably used as many iron 
493tools in Song times as in the early twentieth century. 
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495Much of the iron industry produced weapons for defense and coins 
496for the thriving money economy. Chinese coins were round with a 
497square hole in the middle, so 1,000 coins could be strung on one string. 
498In 1041, the Song court ordered one army in Shaanxi Province, facing 
499the Xi Xia on the northwest frontier, to be supplied with three mil- 
500lion strings of cash (requiring 29,000 tons of iron). The government 
501mint produced eight hundred million coins a year by the year 1000 and 
502six billion coins a year by 1085. The government also sponsored the 
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514manufacturing of iron weapons in great quantities. In 1084, the court 
515sent to one army on its northwestern frontier 35,000 swords, 8,000 
516shields, 10,000 spears, and a million arrowheads, all made of iron. 
517
518As agriculture became more specialized and interregional trade 
519expanded, the government began in the early Song to allow a few mer- 
520chants to issue paper certificates for cash deposits in one city that could 
521be redeemed for cash in another city, greatly increasing the convenience 
522of long-distance trade. In the early twelfth century, the government took 
523over the printing and issuing of these certificates, creating the world's first 
524paper money. Song merchants organized guilds, formed partnerships, and 
525raised money by selling stocks in their enterprises. The thriving agricul- 
526tural and commercial economies of Song times can also be seen in thou- 
527sands of Song-era contracts that survive, including tomb contracts that 
528were drawn up to apply in both the world of the living and the dead. 
529
530The Song capitals of Kaifeng and Hangzhou functioned as com- 
531mercial centers far more than had the Tang cities of Chang'an or Luoy- 
532ang. Before it fell to the Jin invaders in 1127, Kaifeng was the largest 
533city in the world, with perhaps one million inhabitants. After the fall 
534of Kaifeng, the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou became an equally 
535thriving center of trade and entertainment. A guide to Hangzhou writ- 
536ten in 1235 describes its markets for every kind of commodity, artisans' 
537workshops, teahouses, inns, wineshops, restaurants, professional ban- 
538quet caterers, every kind of entertainment, including trained bears and 
539insects, as well as public and private gardens, and many volunteer orga- 
540nizations of people with hobbies such as music, physical fitness, exotic 
541foods, and antique collecting — and the list went on and on. 
542
543Song prosperity also stimulated international trade, particularly 
544along the southeast coast, where Arab Muslim merchants operated 
545huge Chinese-made ships with watertight compartments and used the 
546Chinese invention of the compass to facilitate a thriving long-distance 
547trade between China, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. By the 
548early twelfth century, Quanzhou, a coastal city in southern Fujian, had 
549half a million residents. The general prosperity of Song times can also 
550be seen in population growth. Scholars now estimate that China's popu- 
551lation grew from perhaps 70 million in 750 to about 100 million in 
5521100 and perhaps 110 million (including the Southern Song and the Jin 
553state in the north) by 1200, a rate of population growth the world had 
554never seen before. 
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556Reflecting the prosperity of these years, Chinese silks, lacquerware, 
557and porcelains reached their highest level of technical refinement in the 
558Song. By the late Tang, Chinese craftsmen had perfected the production of 
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566true porcelain, using purified clays, firing at temperatures of 1300 degrees 
567centigrade, and producing the fusion of glaze and body to produce a 
568glossy translucent surface. Song porcelains are particularly treasured by 
569collectors around the world for their beautiful monochrome glazes and 
570simple, elegant shapes. While the Song court sponsored the manufacture 
571of large quantities of the finest porcelain, for the first time in the Song 
572period, highly skilled artisans began to produce such things as porcelain 
573and lacquerware on a large scale for the marketplace. During the Song, 
574porcelain surpassed silk as the premier Chinese export, reaching markets 
575as far west as the Persian Gulf and the west coast of Africa. 
576
577Perhaps no cultural symbol is more closely associated with the Song 
578dynasty than landscape painting. Song painters emphasized the beauty, 
579harmony, and magnificence of the natural world, particularly forested 
580mountains amid streams and valleys. In many paintings, human beings 
581are absent or barely visible, blending into the larger harmonies of nature. 
582If a hut or house appears, it blends in with the natural landscape and 
583never dominates or detracts. The busy urban official treasured the rare 
584times when he could get away to the tranquility of deserted mountains 
585and streams and took great pleasure and solace in the landscapes hung on 
586his wall, or rolled in his drawer, to be brought out and shared with friends 
587over wine and the chanting of poetry. Poetry and painting were identified 
588in another way, as painters and calligraphers regularly wrote poems on 
589landscape paintings. The beautiful language and calligraphy of the inscrip- 
590tion came to be seen as necessary complements to the painting itself. 
591
592Despite the economic prosperity, intellectual brilliance, and artis- 
593tic greatness of the Song dynasty, it was continuously under military 
594pressure from its nomadic neighbors to the north and west and in the 
595thirteenth century succumbed to a newly arrived nomadic force, the 
596Mongols of Central Asia. 
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598Before defeating the Southern Song, the Mongols created the most 
599effective fighting force and the largest land empire the world had ever 
600seen. The process began with the rise in 1203 of Temuchin, a skilled 
601fighter, who was able to unify a whole federation of Mongol and other 
602nomadic tribes into one large fighting force. In 1206 Temuchin took 
603the title Genghis Khan, or "Ruler of the Oceans" (that is, the world). 
604Skilled and ferocious fighters, the Mongols under Genghis Khan, and 
605later his son, Ogodei, established their capital at the oasis town of Kara- 
606korum in today's Mongolia. Mongol troops were organized in groups 
607of 100, 1,000 and 10,000, and there were 129 thousand-soldier units 
608when Genghis died in 1227. Troops traveled with three to five horses 
609per soldier so they could carry supplies and weapons, change mounts 
610
611
612
613Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 79 
614
615
616
617
618&'i&*m 3 :. 
619
620
621
622
623
624
625The tenth-century Buddhist painter Juran used a graceful impressionistic style 
626to portray the idyllic and ever-changing scenery ofhills, fields, trees. and clouds 
627along the Yangzi River. In this Song age of urbanization, Chinese scholar 
628officials found solace from the pressures of official life by painting, viewing, and 
629contemplating landscape paintings that made use of empty spaces among toivering 
630mountains, trees, stones, and water to depict the beauty, grandeur, and peaceful 
631harmony of nature. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 
632D.C.: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F19H.168 
633
634
635
636regularly, and keep moving rapidly for days on end. Military command- 
637ers used flags, torches, and message carriers to maintain effective com- 
638munications between units. Soldiers wore light armor made of leather 
639with metal scales and helmets of leather or iron and carried leather-cov- 
640ered wicker shields. Each soldier carried two powerful compound bows 
641and a large quiver of at least sixty iron-tipped arrows. With the use 
642of iron stirrups, soldiers could shoot arrows accurately from a stand- 
643ing position while riding on horseback at full gallop. Light cavalrymen 
644carried a short sword and two or three light spears; heavy cavalrymen 
645carried a mace or spiked club, a curved long sword, and a twelve-foot 
646wooden spear with a metal blade. With the prospect of rich rewards 
647in war booty for loyal service or death for insubordination, Mongol 
648troops were fearless and disciplined in battle. 
649
650With a ferocity and military effectiveness seldom seen in world his- 
651tory, they proceeded over the next fifty years to conquer not only the 
652northern rivals of the Song dynasty — the Jin and the Xi Xia — but also 
653Korea, all of Central Asia, the Russian cities of Moscow and Kiev in the 
654northwest, Hungary and Poland in the far west, and the Persian cities of 
655Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus, and Ormuz in the southwest. 
656
657To succeed in creating the world's largest land empire, the Mongols, 
658with only 150,000 troops, were quick to incorporate other groups into 
659their armies and governmental structures. Given the enormous distances 
660
661
662
66380 
664
665
666
667China in World History 
668
669
670
671involved and the natural tensions that arose among the descendants of 
672Genghis Khan, it is not surprising that the four large khanates soon 
673broke apart and were never centrally controlled. More surprising than 
674this failure was the success of one of Genghis's grandsons, Khubilai 
675Khan, in conquering and ruling China in the Chinese style. 
676
677In 1264, Khubilai moved his capital from Mongolia to Dadu (today's 
678Beijing), and in 1271 he declared himself emperor of the Yuan dynasty 
679and the rightful inheritor of the Mandate of Heaven. As Yuan Emperor 
680Shizu, Khubilai hired many Chinese advisors and officials and quickly set 
681them to the task of conquering south China by hiring Chinese engineers 
682adept at the use of catapults and explosives and commandeering Chinese 
683ships and seamen to defeat the navies of the Southern Song. By the effec- 
684tive use of Chinese, Khitan, Jurchen, Korean, Uighur, and Persian troops, 
685the Mongols were able to take most of south China by 1276, and in 1279 
686the last Song emperor was killed in a naval battle in the far south. 
687
688One of the reasons for the Mongols' military success was their effec- 
689tive use of terror as a weapon. If a city resisted or refused to surrender, the 
690Mongols would burn, loot, kill, and rape indiscriminately and enslave the 
691survivors. If a city surrendered, the inhabitants might survive unharmed 
692and be allowed to continue their lives in a normal fashion. Governing a 
693society as complex as China's was more difficult than conquering it. At 
694most, the Mongol population totaled perhaps two million, ruling over a 
695Chinese population of perhaps sixty to eighty million, much reduced by 
696the wars of conquest from a peak in the Song of 115 million. 
697
698Khubilai established a government modeled after the Chinese dynas- 
699tic institutions, with Mongols and their Central Asian allies in the most 
700important positions but Chinese filling most middle and lower positions. 
701Chinese were forbidden to bear arms, and to punish the Chinese lite- 
702rati for having resisted the Mongol conquest, there were no civil service 
703examinations for Chinese until 1315. Because the south had put up a 
704much greater struggle against the Mongols, strict examination quotas 
705prevented southerners from passing in large numbers. While Mongols 
706were generally tolerant of all religions, Khubilai Khan began to patronize 
707and support Tibetan Lama Buddhism in particular, a form of Buddhism 
708that includes many rituals and the belief that each priest is a lama, or 
709reincarnation of the Buddha. Khubilai and his successors gave Tibetan 
710lamas special privileges and allowed them to convert some Song imperial 
711palaces into Buddhist temples and even to loot the tombs of the Song 
712emperors to sell their treasures for money to build more temples. 
713
714The Mongol conquest of China took a terrible economic toll. The 
715Song iron industry was devastated and never fully regained Song levels 
716
717
718
719Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 
720
721
722
723of productivity. Intense warfare greatly reduced the population, and 
724the spread of infectious diseases, such as bubonic plague, from Central 
725Asia to China produced several terrible epidemics that killed millions 
726in the mid-fourteenth century (and eliminated one-fourth of Europe's 
727population soon thereafter). The wars destroyed farmland and irriga- 
728tion works, and in places Mongol princes and generals turned rice-pro- 
729ducing land into parks and pastures. The combined effects of war and 
730disease greatly reduced the tax base. The Yuan government responded 
731by printing more money, which only fueled inflation and further under- 
732mined the economic health of the dynasty. 
733
734Following their conquest of southern China, the Mongols ambi- 
735tiously undertook naval expeditions of conquest against Japan in 1274 
736and 1281 and against the kingdom of Java in the southern Pacific in 
7371292-1293. They also launched attacks on Vietnam and Burma, failing 
738in both cases but winning the symbolic "submission" of those countries 
739to the "Son of Heaven," Khubilai Khan. These wars were a serious 
740drain on the state's resources and only served to delay the economic 
741recovery of the Yuan from the dislocations of their early years. 
742
743Despite the hardships imposed on the Chinese population during the 
744Yuan dynasty, Chinese life was not greatly changed. The Mongols did 
745not interfere with Chinese customs or religious practices. The Venetian 
746merchant Marco Polo claimed to have spent twenty years (1275-1295) 
747in China during Mongol rule and wrote a bestselling account of his trav- 
748els. Although some have cast doubt on the truthfulness of his story, many 
749of his observations have been confirmed by other sources. He accurately 
750reported, for example, that relations between Han Chinese and their 
751Mongol rulers were very strained but also that south China was far more 
752economically advanced than any country in Europe at the same time. 
753
754Because of the Yuan imperial government's discrimination against 
755the southern Chinese literati, many southerners had to find ways to 
756make a living outside of government service. Some went into medical 
757practice, with benefits to the long-term development of Chinese med- 
758icine. Others became lowly clerks with poor pay and no chance for 
759advancement. Others maintained the lifestyle and traditions of the Song 
760literati and worked as scholars, painters, and poets. 
761
762Some Chinese literati refused to work in the service of the Mon- 
763gol conquerors. One famous scholar-general, Wen Tianxiang, won the 
764admiration of many subsequent generations by his refusal to surrender 
765to the Mongol armies long after any chance of success had disappeared. 
766He was captured in 1275 but escaped and continued to lead troops, only 
767to be defeated again and to witness the capture of many members of his 
768
769
770
77182 China in World History 
772
773
774
775own family. Still refusing surrender, he fled to the southernmost prov- 
776ince of Guangdong, where an epidemic claimed the lives of many of his 
777troops as well as his mother and one of his sons. When finally captured 
778and taken in chains to Khubilai Khan he refused to accept him as his 
779sovereign and asked only to be executed, a wish granted in 1283. 
780
781Other Chinese literati resumed their normal lives but stayed away 
782from the political realm. When the civil service examinations were 
783resumed in 1315, they were based on Zhu Xi's interpretations of the 
784Confucian classics. Cultural trends in painting, ceramics, even philoso- 
785phy and poetry continued on from the Song with little change or devia- 
786tion. One painter, Gong Kai, expressed his opposition to Yuan rule in a 
787subtle way that was to provide a model for later dissenters from imperial 
788orthodoxy. Gong Kai had served as a minor official under the Song; he 
789refused to serve the Yuan, lived in extreme poverty, and supported his 
790family by selling his paintings and calligraphy or exchanging them for 
791food. Only two of his paintings have survived; one is a shocking painting 
792of a starving horse, symbolizing China's fate under Mongol rule. 
793
794Another lasting contribution of the Yuan period to Chinese cul- 
795ture came in a form of four- or five-act dramatic operas called zaju, a 
796term often translated as "Yuan drama." Drawing on popular songs and 
797Central Asian art forms, with stylized costumes and elaborate facial 
798makeup, Yuan drama combines mime, singing, dancing, and carefully 
799choreographed acrobatics to present melodramatic stories of crime, 
800love, war, and politics that have been immensely popular with Chinese 
801audiences of all social classes ever since Yuan times. 
802
803Despite the continuities of Chinese cultural trends under Mongol 
804rule, the Chinese people never fully accepted their position as subjects of 
805non-Chinese emperors. They felt oppressed by inflation, by high taxes, 
806and by the quota system that denied most Chinese any high position in 
807government. While epidemic diseases swept through China in the mid- 
808fourteenth century, massive flooding began along the Yellow River in 
8091344 and lasted for several years. The government forced 150,000 Chi- 
810nese commoners into labor brigades to repair the Yellow River dikes and 
811then paid the men with worthless paper money. By 1351, antigovern- 
812ment uprisings began under the banner of a popular Buddhist sect, the 
813White Lotus Society. This sect declared that the end of history was near 
814when the Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, would appear to punish the 
815wicked (Yuan rulers) and reward the good (Chinese people). In 1368, 
816one rebel band grew sufficiently powerful to invade Beijing and declare a 
817new dynasty, the Ming. The last Mongol emperor and his entourage fled 
818beyond the Great Wall to their original homelands of Mongolia. 
819
820
821
822Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 
823
824
825
826Ironically, during this period of "foreign rule," the Mongol court 
827came to sponsor the very ideas of the Song Neo-Confucian scholars who 
828had failed to protect the Southern Song from collapse and conquest. 
829Perhaps even more important for the future of China, the Mongols 
830managed to create a much larger land empire than even the Han and 
831Tang and a very much larger empire than the northern Song. By making 
832strategic alliances with the Khitans, Tanguts, Uighurs, and Tibetans and 
833integrating officials from each of these groups into their government, 
834the Mongols incorporated these peoples into one large empire in ways 
835the Chinese had never previously managed. Consequently, when the 
836Yuan dynasty collapsed in the fourteenth century, it was replaced by a 
837Chinese dynasty of much greater extent than anything dreamed of by 
838the Song emperors. 
839
840
841
842China in World History 
843
844
845
846C H 
847
848
849
850
851Early Modern China: Ming 
852
853(1368-1644) andEarly 
854
855Qing (1644-1800) 
856
857
858
859Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming dynasty founder, was born into a 
860desperately poor peasant family. He was such a sickly baby that 
861his parents once offered him to the Buddha if his life could be 
862spared. When he was sixteen, during the floods of 1344, his parents 
863and two brothers died during an epidemic, leaving him and one brother 
864alone with no means of support. Finding refuge at a Buddhist temple, 
865he joined in begging on the streets for food and learned basic literacy 
866from some of the monks. In 1352, the Buddhist temple was attacked 
867and burned by the Yuan military because it was seen as part of the Red 
868Turban movement — troops of the White Lotus Society, which had just 
869risen in rebellion against the Yuan government. 
870
871With his temple burned to the ground, Zhu Yuanzhang, at age twenty- 
872four, joined a Red Turban army. Physically imposing, very intelligent, 
873and fearless in battle, Zhu quickly impressed his commander, who made 
874him a top assistant and then gave him command of his own troops. Zhu 
875soon married the commander's adopted daughter, and when his com- 
876mander was killed in battle in 1355, Zhu took his place. In 1356, his 
877troops occupied the important regional city of Nanjing, which had been 
878the seat of several southern kingdoms. He had gained the allegiance of 
879a number of capable men of some learning and experience, and rather 
880than simply loot and plunder, he and his forces began to administer the 
881territory surrounding Nanjing and to impose peace and order in areas 
882that had been in chaos for over a decade. 
883
884As Zhu Yuanzhang's ambitions grew with his success, he came to 
885see the limitations of the Red Turbans, whose forces were splintered 
886and poorly disciplined. He formally broke with the Red Turbans in 
8871366, and within two years he had eliminated his rivals among the 
888
889
890
891Red Turban commanders. He then declared the founding of a new 
892dynasty, the Ming (meaning "bright" or "light") and sent his largest 
893army in 1368 to invade and take over the former Yuan capital, which 
894he renamed Beiping, "The North Pacified." Zhu Yuanzhang's rise from 
895destitute orphan-beggar-monk at age sixteen to Son of Heaven and 
896Emperor of China at forty is probably the most dramatic success story 
897in Chinese history. Yet his rise to power was only the beginning, because 
898Zhu had an additional thirty years to impose his iron will on the coun- 
899try and its government. If Shakespeare had been Chinese, his greatest 
900tragedy would have been the life of Zhu Yuanzhang. 
901
902In 1368, no one could have foreseen the troubles that lay ahead. To 
903have expelled the Mongols and reunify a strong empire under Chinese 
904control for the first time in 250 years gave Zhu and his commanders 
905and officials great pride and cause for optimism. The new emperor took 
906the reign title Hongwu (Abundantly Martial), and he is also known 
907in history as Ming Taizu (the Grand Progenitor of the Ming). He was 
908energetic, smart, dedicated, and determined to ensure that the people 
909of China would never have to suffer as his family had suffered. No 
910emperor of China was ever more sympathetic to the plight of the poor. 
911He ordered an empire-wide land and population survey, kept central 
912government expenses low, and placed the dynasty on a firm financial 
913footing. He built an imposing capital at Nanjing, surrounded by a twen- 
914ty-four-mile wall, forty feet high and twenty-five feet wide at the top, 
915with thirteen magnificent gates. He refused to employ large numbers of 
916eunuchs and vowed to limit the number of concubines in his palaces. 
917(He succeeded on the eunuch front but still ended up with forty con- 
918cubines.) And he ordered villages to be self-regulating in units of 110 
919households, with the village leaders responsible for tax collection and 
920recordkeeping. He also ordered that his Confucian admonitions and 
921teachings be read aloud monthly at every village in the empire, so that 
922the entire population could be taught the virtues of Confucian filial 
923piety and loyalty to the emperor. 
924
925Despite all this, he became — whether from deep character flaws, the 
926terrible insecurities of his youth, or the corruptions of power itself — a 
927paranoid emperor who ultimately tried to control his officials through 
928the blunt use of force and terror. He put out many pleas in 1368 and 
929later for men of talent and dedication to come forward and aid in the 
930great enterprise of government. Yet with the empire fully in his hands, 
931he found it increasingly difficult to trust his subordinates. In 1376, he 
932suddenly ordered the execution of up to a thousand officials for commit- 
933ting the crime of having some government tax documents "prestamped" 
934
935
936
93786 China in World History 
938
939
940
941before being filled out. What might have been a simple move toward 
942efficiency the Hongwu emperor interpreted as proof of corruption. 
943
944In 1380, he discovered that his chief councilor and head of the Con- 
945fucian bureaucracy, Hu Weiyong, was plotting against him, so he had the 
946councilor killed, along with perhaps 15,000 other officials, including any- 
947one with any ties to the traitor. He abolished the position of chief coun- 
948cilor and determined to manage the Confucian bureaucracy himself. 
949
950The only person the Hongwu emperor trusted was his wife, Empress 
951Ma, and after she died in 1382, he became even more paranoid. "In the 
952morning I punish a few," he wrote in exasperation, "by evening others 
953commit the same crime. I punish these in the evening and by the next 
954morning again there are violations. Although the corpses of the first 
955have not been removed, already others follow in their path. The harsher 
956the punishment, the more violations." 1 Unfortunately, he did not have 
957the presence of mind to see the self-defeating destructiveness of his own 
958lethal policies. The "Abundantly Martial" emperor probably executed 
959100,000 officials during his thirty years in power. 
960
961When the Ming founder died in 1398, there was no doubt a gigantic 
962sigh of relief felt throughout officialdom, but more blood was soon to 
963be spilled. Emperor Hongwu had placed on the throne his twenty-one- 
964year-old grandson, the son of his eldest son, who had died earlier. But 
965Hongwu's fourth son, the Prince of Yan, commanded a sizable army 
966around the former Mongol capital, now Beiping, defending the all-im- 
967portant northern borders of the empire. As the oldest surviving son of 
968the founding emperor, he felt he deserved the dragon throne. In August 
9691399, he announced his intentions to "save" his nephew from corrupt 
970advisors and commanded his troops to move on Nanjing. 
971
972The young emperor was mismatched with his battle-toughened uncle, 
973and the troops of the Prince of Yan took Nanjing by force in 1402, burn- 
974ing the imperial palace with the young emperor and his mother in it. The 
975prince declared himself the Yongle Emperor (Emperor of Perpetual Hap- 
976piness), presided over the burial of his nephew, and erased his name from 
977the official records of the dynasty. He was desperate to get the endorse- 
978ment of one or more high officials from his nephew's court, but they 
979steadfastly refused, choosing death (and posthumous fame) instead. 
980
981Fears about his own legitimacy were to haunt the Yongle Emperor 
982for the rest of his life, but despite the violent beginning of his reign, 
983after his nephew's loyalist officials were eliminated, he did not repeat 
984the terrible and destructive purges of his father. He was a vigorous and 
985forceful emperor who consolidated the power of the Ming dynasty dur- 
986ing his reign of twenty-two years and tried very self-consciously to fulfill 
987
988
989
990Early Modern China 
991
992
993
994the Confucian model of a great emperor. He had scholars prepare the 
995definitive edition of The Four Books (Analects, Mencius, Doctrine of 
996the Mean, and The Great Learning), as interpreted by Zhu Xi, for use 
997in the civil service examinations. He also commissioned the compilation 
998of all known works in Chinese into the massive Yongle Encyclopedia, 
999which had 22,000 chapters and fifty million words — the largest work of 
1000its kind in the fifteenth century. 
1001
1002The Yongle Emperor led five military campaigns into Mongolia to 
1003prevent any powerful federation of Mongols from threatening China. He 
1004rebuilt the Grand Canal, and late in his reign he built a magnificent new 
1005capital (with three massive concentric walls) in Beiping, now renamed Bei- 
1006jing, "Northern Capital." He designed the awesome Imperial Palace in the 
1007heart of Beijing. Its large courtyards between massive ceremonial halls on 
1008raised marble platforms comprised the Outer Court, where the emperor 
1009met with his officials and attended to his public duties. To the north of 
1010these were smaller buildings and courtyards, the Inner Court, where the 
1011emperor lived with his many servants and consorts. With some 9,000 
1012rooms, the entire complex extended for 961 meters from north to south 
1013and 753 meters from east to west. The Ming and Qing emperors lived in 
1014this large complex, known as the Forbidden City, from 1421 to 1911. 
1015
1016The most unusual undertaking of Emperor Yongle was to commis- 
1017sion Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch admiral, to assemble the largest naval 
1018fleet the world had ever seen, or would see for the next five hundred 
1019years. In 1405, Zheng He led a fleet of 62 large "treasure ships" and 225 
1020smaller ships carrying 28,000 men southward around Vietnam through 
1021the Indonesian archipelago and into the Indian Ocean as far as Ceylon 
1022(today's Sri Lanka) and the southern coast of India. Some of these trea- 
1023sure ships were 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, about ten times the size 
1024of the ships Columbus used to sail to the New World almost a century 
1025later. From 1405 to 1433, Admiral Zheng led seven such expeditions, all 
1026of a similar size, and some as far as the Arabian Peninsula and the east 
1027coast of Africa. The Yongle Emperor claimed that the missions were to 
1028find the young emperor he had deposed, as there had long been rumors 
1029that he had escaped when his palace was burned in 1402. But the main 
1030reason was to display the power of this new Ming dynasty and to solicit 
1031more tributary states to recognize and send tribute to the Ming court. 
1032
1033Admiral Zheng He presented foreign rulers with Chinese luxury 
1034goods like silks and porcelains as well as everyday goods such as clothes, 
1035calendars, books, and Chinese money. The foreign rulers presented 
1036Zheng He in return with luxury goods from their own country, and in 
1037the case of Africa, with such rare animals as giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, 
1038
1039
1040
1041China in World History 
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046Great Wall 
1047
1048]] Qing Empire in 1850 
1049
1050— Ming Empire 
1051
1052Area of Boxer 
1053Uprising (1900-01) 
1054
1055Colonial possessions and 
1056areas of influence by 1911 
1057
1058Russian 
1059
1060Japanese 
1061
1062I7J British 
1063
1064French 
1065
1066m 
1067
1068
1069
1070â– ^^-Tm^^i^n^ 
1071
1072
1073
1074â– ^r 
1075
1076
1077
1078rhinoceroses, and ostriches. The Chinese took the giraffe to be the fabled 
1079unicorn of Chinese folklore that appeared only rarely in history to signal 
1080the appearance of a sage emperor. Since the main purpose of these trips 
1081was to demonstrate the power and majesty of the Ming court, they were 
1082not financially profitable, and once Zheng He died, they were discon- 
1083tinued. We can only speculate how different the modern world would 
1084
1085
1086
1087Early Modern China 
1088
1089
1090
1091have been if the Chinese had used their naval superiority in the fifteenth 
1092century as the Europeans did two and three centuries later — to conquer 
1093people and territory and seize control of international trade. 
1094
1095Unfortunately, none of the succeeding Ming emperors were very 
1096effective political or military leaders. In one famous case, the Wanli 
1097Emperor spent much of his nearly fifty-year reign, from 1572 to 1620, 
1098in a mental and political tug-of-war with his Confucian officials. After 
1099his officials would not allow him to elevate the consort he loved most to 
1100the position of empress because he already had an empress, he refused 
1101for two decades to hold court, read official documents, or make deci- 
1102sions about government policy. His officials and eunuchs were forced 
1103to carry on a charade of normality while the emperor devoted him- 
1104self to the pleasures of private life in the palace. Meanwhile, increasing 
1105factionalism in the bureaucracy was accompanied by sometimes lethal 
1106power struggles between Confucian bureaucrats and palace eunuchs, 
1107who grew in numbers and influence in the middle and late Ming. By the 
1108end of the dynasty, the government supported perhaps 100,000 eunuchs 
1109and another 100,000 members of the extended imperial family. 
1110
1111In a pattern not unlike the Song period, the political problems of the 
1112Ming did not prevent a second commercial revolution from transform- 
1113ing Chinese society. During the Ming period, more land came under 
1114cultivation in southwest China, and by the late sixteenth century, new 
1115crops from the Americas — tobacco, corn, peanuts, tomatoes, sweet red 
1116peppers, potatoes, and sweet potatoes — were all introduced into China. 
1117These crops could often be grown on hilly or sandy soil not previously 
1118farmed. They helped produce another dramatic burst of population 
1119growth in the late Ming and entire Qing period. Interregional trade 
1120grew steadily, and as merchants accumulated significant wealth, they 
1121began to challenge, in practice if not yet in theory, the traditional Con- 
1122fucian prejudice against merchants. 
1123
1124The southern lower Yangzi valley region around Nanjing, Suzhou, 
1125and Hangzhou became by far the most prosperous area in China. Cot- 
1126ton production grew dramatically during the Ming. Farmers increas- 
1127ingly specialized in cash crops such as fruits, vegetables, rice, wheat, 
1128sugar, cotton, tea, and tobacco, and silver became the main medium of 
1129exchange in the economy. Vast quantities of silver flowed into China 
1130from Japan and, from 1570 onward, from the Spanish production of 
1131silver in Peru and Mexico. The Spanish took silver to Manila, where 
1132they bought Chinese products, especially silk and porcelain. The export 
1133trade grew rapidly as the world began to discover the attractions of Chi- 
1134nese silks, tea, and porcelain. The imperial kilns at the southern town 
1135
1136
1137
113890 China in World History 
1139
1140
1141
1142of Jingdezhen came in the Ming to employ more than 10,000 workers. 
1143Using a special clay from that area and firing pieces at temperatures 
1144exceeding 1,300 degrees Centigrade, they produced elegant blue and 
1145white porcelain wares that have been world famous ever since. 
1146
1147By the late Ming, China was widely seen as the most prosperous coun- 
1148try on earth. Some economic historians have estimated that three-fourths 
1149of all the silver produced in the New World from 1500 to 1800 found its 
1150way to China, because the Chinese economy was the most highly devel- 
1151oped in the world and its products were better and cheaper than those of 
1152any other country. 2 In addition, Portuguese traders had already become 
1153involved in the China trade in the 1540s, when they occupied the small 
1154peninsula of Macao on China's southeast coast, and in 1619 they estab- 
1155lished a fort and trading post on the southern coast of Taiwan. From the 
1156sixteenth century onward, Chinese merchants began to migrate through- 
1157out Southeast Asia, where by the late nineteenth century they formed a 
1158substantial prosperous minority in almost every country. As prosperity 
1159grew, China's population more than doubled during the Ming period. 3 
1160
1161Along with unparalleled prosperity in China in the sixteenth century 
1162came many other social and cultural changes. Growing contradictions in 
1163the life of the Chinese literati helped stimulate more creative philosophi- 
1164cal analysis in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than at any time 
1165since the Neo-Confucian revival of the Song. Every scholar admired 
1166the Confucian ideal of public service, but the only route to officialdom 
1167was examination success, which required rote memorization and the 
1168mastery of a deadly dull prose genre called the eight-legged essay. The 
1169good Confucian official was duty bound to criticize the emperor if he 
1170erred, and in Ming times he often did, even though any Ming official 
1171who spoke up was likely to be publicly beaten within an inch of his 
1172life, exiled, or even executed. One response was to avoid public service; 
1173another was to try to rethink the whole Confucian tradition. 
1174
1175The only later Confucian thinker ever to rival the great Zhu Xi 
1176was the Ming scholar-official and visionary Wang Yangming. Even as 
1177a youngster, Wang had the ambition to become a Confucian sage. He 
1178passed the exams and served with distinction in officialdom, but that 
1179wasn't enough for him. In 1506, when he was thirty-four, he wrote a 
1180memorial criticizing the emperor for protecting a corrupt eunuch. The 
1181emperor had Wang beaten with forty strokes of a bamboo rod and exiled 
1182to a remote region of southern China. While in exile, Wang had a break- 
1183through experience much like what the Buddhists called enlightenment. 
1184
1185Wang drew on the idealism of Mencius, who had proclaimed the 
1186goodness of every person, and on the Chan Buddhist teaching that all 
1187
1188
1189
1190Early Modern China 91 
1191
1192
1193
1194people carry the Buddha-nature within themselves. Wang declared that 
1195to find moral truth one needed above all to look deeply into one's own 
1196heart. The followers of Zhu Xi, in Wang's view, made Confucianism an 
1197abstract philosophy dependent on detailed study of ancient texts. He 
1198argued that knowing and doing are one and the same thing: "I have 
1199said that knowing is the intent of acting and that acting is the work of 
1200knowing and that knowing is the beginning of acting and acting is the 
1201completion of knowing." 4 
1202
1203The implications of Wang's new views were profound. If all people 
1204have the seeds of goodness within themselves, they can cultivate good- 
1205ness, even greatness, without necessarily being brilliant scholars. Some of 
1206Wang's followers emphasized that this principle applied to women as well 
1207as men, challenging the traditional Confucian assumption of male superi- 
1208ority. Some of his followers preached his vision to commoners and refused 
1209to dress in the silk robes and caps of scholar-officials. Wang Yangming's 
1210philosophy seemed made for the times; more and more people were becom- 
1211ing literate, and the wealth and prosperity of society provided new outlets 
1212for creativity besides examination success and government service. 
1213
1214The publishing industry flourished in the Ming as never before, 
1215producing guidebooks to cities, examination preparation books, moral- 
1216ity books for men and women, almanacs, popular stories in vernacu- 
1217lar Chinese (rather than the more difficult classical language), popular 
1218songs, poetry, and dramas for reading as well as performing. Four great 
1219novels, or long pieces of narrative fiction, were published in the six- 
1220teenth century, including The Romance of the Three Kingdoms; Water 
1221Margin, a Robin Hood-like story about a band of righteous outlaws 
1222from Song times; Journey to the West; and Plum in the Golden Vase 
1223(Jin Ping Mei), a social satire and highly erotic tale of a rich, hedonistic 
1224urban merchant and his wife and five concubines. 
1225
1226Status competition in the late Ming embraced various forms of con- 
1227noisseurship, including collections of art, calligraphy, ancient bronzes, 
1228odd-shaped stones, old books, and expensive new editions. Urban mer- 
1229chants and scholar-officials hired landscape artists and architects to 
1230build elegant gardens with ponds, rocks, trees, bamboo groves, pavil- 
1231ions, bridges, and meandering pathways to simulate in a small space the 
1232beauty and grandeur of mountains and natural forests. These gardens 
1233were scenes of endless poetry readings, calligraphy parties, dramatic pro- 
1234ductions, and philosophical discussions. Connoisseurs even competed to 
1235see who could assemble the most highly cultured circle of friends. 
1236
1237Some of the most creative landscape painters in Chinese history 
1238worked during the Ming period. As in earlier dynasties, the court 
1239
1240
1241
124292 China in World History 
1243
1244
1245
1246employed many painters to make imperial portraits, supply murals for 
1247palaces and temples, and commemorate official occasions of all types. 
1248The most famous Ming painters were poet-painters from the central 
1249China region of the southern lower Yangzi valley, particularly the beau- 
1250tiful canal-laced city of Suzhou, where many literati built their private 
1251estates and gardens. The peace and prosperity of Ming times allowed 
1252these amateur artists to travel widely, and to see the paintings of earlier 
1253masters, which were now being assembled in private rather than official 
1254collections. Ming landscape painters were deeply aware of the Song and 
1255Yuan traditions and often made direct references in their work to the 
1256earlier masters. At the same time, some Ming artists self-consciously 
1257manipulated the earlier traditions in order to use painting as a vehicle 
1258for their own artistic creativity. 
1259
1260Women in Ming times reveal an interesting paradox. On the one 
1261hand, the Hongwu Emperor tried to promote a very orthodox brand 
1262of Confucianism that emphasized a woman's "Three Bonds": her sub- 
1263ordination to her father, her husband, and her adult sons. The Ming 
1264government began to provide a cash reward for families whose widows 
1265committed suicide or lived out their widowhood in celibacy. Scholars 
1266compiled biographies of virtuous widows and began to emphasize sexual 
1267purity and chastity as the greatest of all female virtues. Some encouraged 
1268and celebrated lifelong chastity or suicide even among young betrothed 
1269"widows" who had not yet married when their fiances died. 
1270
1271On the other hand, with the publishing boom in Ming times, more 
1272women than ever before became literate, and those in the scholar, land- 
1273lord, and merchant classes began to develop the same passions as the 
1274male literati for art and literature. In late Ming poetry, fiction, and drama, 
1275romantic love was a very popular theme. Some of the most prominent 
1276literati in the country had open, much-celebrated affairs with courte- 
1277sans — high-class prostitutes who worked in semibondage yet gained 
1278fame themselves as great poets, painters, calligraphers, and musicians. 
1279
1280One of the most famous of these was the courtesan Liu Shi, who 
1281was sold to a courtesan establishment (the less polite term is brothel) 
1282when still a child. This often happened to young women from poor 
1283families. They worked first as maids in the brothel and once they were 
1284old enough were taught to "serve" the brothel's male customers. At 
1285fourteen, Liu Shi was sold to a government minister to become his con- 
1286cubine. She quickly became his favorite in the household, and he spent 
1287many hours teaching her the arts of poetry, painting, and calligraphy. 
1288This made her the least popular person in the household, and the min- 
1289ister soon sold her back to the same establishment. 
1290
1291
1292
1293Early Modern China 93 
1294
1295
1296
1297As the former concubine of a famous government minister, she became 
1298one of the most expensive courtesans in the Songjiang area (a city south of 
1299the Yangzi where many government officials lived). In subsequent years, 
1300Liu Shi had love affairs with several other very prominent men, including 
1301Chen Zilong and Qian Qianyi, two of the most prominent poet-scholar- 
1302officials of the Ming period. During a pleasure boat trip that lasted several 
1303months, Qian married Liu in a formal wedding ceremony even though 
1304he already had a proper wife. This caused a great scandal, but Qian was 
1305prominent enough that the episode did little to hurt his career. 
1306
1307When the Ming dynasty collapsed in 1644, Liu Shi urged Qian to com- 
1308mit suicide as loyal officials were expected to do in such circumstances. 
1309Incapable of following her advice, he defected to the Manchus and held 
1310an official position for a couple of years before resigning his post. For 
1311such irresolution, he was widely criticized. He and Liu Shi turned increas- 
1312ingly to Buddhism in their later years, seeking detachment from passion 
1313as consolation for their lost dynasty. In 1663, two years after her daughter 
1314was married, Liu Shi shaved her head in the style of a Buddhist nun. Qian 
1315died the next year. When relatives descended on his estate to try to claim 
1316his property for themselves, Liu Shi took her own life by hanging herself. 
1317Qian's son had her buried with Qian as his second wife. 
1318
1319Despite the low status of courtesans and concubines in Chinese cul- 
1320ture, Liu Shi has been widely admired ever since for her abundant tal- 
1321ents in poetry and painting, and even more for her courage and strength 
1322of character, as seen in her steadfast loyalty to the Ming dynasty and 
1323her final act of suicide to protest the greed, arrogance, and malice of her 
1324husband's relatives. She showed to one and all that a mere courtesan 
1325could match the artistic sophistication of the greatest of Chinese male 
1326literati and the highest ideals of Chinese civilization. 
1327
1328Themes of romantic love in literature initially grew out of the flour- 
1329ishing Ming courtesan culture, but the proper wives of scholar-officials 
1330also enjoyed romantic literature along with their husbands, and some 
1331developed companionate marriages in which husband and wife enjoyed 
1332the same intellectual and cultural interests and developed deep emo- 
1333tional ties as both lovers and friends. 
1334
1335A time of great cultural ferment, the late Ming also witnessed grow- 
1336ing political and economic problems. The sixteenth-century surge of 
1337prosperity was concentrated in the southern lower Yangzi valley and 
1338did not extend far toward north or southwest China. The wealthy 
1339found ways to avoid taxes and shift more of the tax burden onto the 
1340poor. Increasing impoverishment forced many peasants to become ten- 
1341ants paying high rents to wealthy landlords. A major tax reform in the 
1342
1343
1344
134594 China in World History 
1346
1347
1348
1349sixteenth century, the "Single Whip Tax Reform," combining land and 
1350labor taxes into one annual payment in silver, increased efficiency but 
1351did little to ease the growing tax burden on the poor. 
1352
1353To make matters worse, the Ming government in the early seven- 
1354teenth century became increasingly paralyzed by deadly factional strug- 
1355gles between powerful eunuchs and crusading scholar-officials. Wei 
1356Zhongxian, the most notorious eunuch of the late Ming, gained control 
1357of the court in 1625. He lashed out against the Donglin Movement 
1358(named after the Donglin Academy where moralistic, reform-minded 
1359scholars studied) and had thousands of scholar-officials jailed, tortured, 
1360and killed. When a new sixteen-year-old emperor came to the throne in 
13611627, he soon arrested Wei, who then hanged himself in prison. This 
1362gave officials some hope that the dynasty might be saved, but the Ming 
1363decline had progressed too far to be reversed. The state was nearly 
1364bankrupted already in the 1590s by providing aid to Korea to help it 
1365resist attacks from Japan, and by the 1620s, the Ming government had 
1366lost the capacity to keep peace within its own borders. 
1367
1368Famines in northwest China provoked peasant uprisings beginning 
1369in 1628, and by 1634 large areas were under the control of rebel bands 
1370of peasant soldiers, led by two different bandit leaders, Li Zicheng and 
1371Zhang Xianzhong. In 1639, Japanese and Spanish merchants both 
1372stopped shipping silver to China, which quickly drove up the price of 
1373silver and led to many riots by peasants against high rents and high 
1374taxes. In 1642, anti-Ming rebels destroyed the dikes of the Yellow River, 
1375leading to extensive floods, famine, and a smallpox epidemic. 
1376
1377All the unrest came to a head in 1644, when Li Zicheng's forces cap- 
1378tured Beijing and the last Ming emperor hung himself on a hill overlook- 
1379ing the Forbidden City. Li's forces were badly disciplined and proceeded 
1380to terrify the population of Beijing and surrounding areas. The strongest 
1381military commander under the Ming, Wu Sangui, guarded the Great 
1382Wall north of Beijing. Although the details remain murky, Wu invited 
1383a powerful army of Manchu troops to join him in taking Beijing back 
1384from the rebel forces. The Manchus were descended from the Jurchen 
1385Jin dynasty rulers who had taken north China during Song times. They 
1386had already declared a Chinese-style Jin dynasty in 1616, and in 1636 
1387they changed the name of their dynasty to the Qing, meaning pure. 5 
1388
1389Wu Sangui surely knew of the power and ambition of the Man- 
1390chus, though his initial invitation to them to breach the Great Wall was 
1391stated in terms promising only wealth in exchange for helping defend 
1392the Ming state. In any case, it quickly became apparent that the Man- 
1393chu forces were the most capable and well-disciplined in the empire. 
1394
1395
1396
1397Early Modern China 95 
1398
1399
1400
1401The Manchus' professional military forces were organized under eight 
1402different colored flags or banners (four solid colors and four with bor- 
1403ders). There were eight Manchu banner divisions, eight Chinese ban- 
1404ners, and eight Mongol banners, all expert riders and archers and all 
1405under Manchu leadership. They quickly took Beijing, restored order, 
1406and proclaimed that the Mandate of Heaven had passed to the Qing 
1407dynasty. 
1408
1409Where the Chinese people surrendered, they were assured that Chi- 
1410nese life and culture would continue on in peace and prosperity. If they 
1411resisted they would be killed, as was demonstrated vividly when the 
1412southern city of Yangzhou refused to surrender. Manchu forces took 
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417This Manchu bannerman, part ofthe Imperial Bodyguard, tests his bow from 
1418a crouching position. Manchu troops ivere all skilled archers who carried a 
1419powerful bow and a quiver full ofarrows and were able to shoot accurately while 
1420riding a horse at full speed. Only the best and most reliable soldiers were made 
1421part of the elite Imperial Bodyguard. Courtesy of Sotheby's, New York 
1422
1423
1424
1425China in World History 
1426
1427
1428
1429the city and for ten days were given free rein to rape, loot, and kill 
1430the entire population at random. Some Chinese officials chose to resist 
1431to the death and to kill their families to prevent their violation by the 
1432invading forces. But many other Chinese, including Wu Sangui, opted 
1433to cooperate closely and fully with the Manchu invaders. They saw 
1434that the Ming cause was hopeless and that the disciplined rule of the 
1435Manchus offered their best chance for a peaceful future. The peasant 
1436rebellions and rent riots of the late Ming proved in the end much more 
1437terrifying to the Chinese landlord-scholar elite than the prospect of 
1438being ruled by the Manchus. 
1439
1440The one serious Manchu intervention in Chinese life was that all 
1441Chinese males had to adopt the Manchu hairstyle: to shave the front 
1442half of the head and grow the remaining hair into one long braid at the 
1443back, the queue. Hairstyle can be a powerful symbol, and Chinese men 
1444had always been proud of their long hair tied in a topknot (something 
1445like Japanese sumo wrestlers today). Forcing the queue on Chinese 
1446males probably increased the resistance rate among the Chinese, but it 
1447also worked as a visible and omnipresent symbol of Chinese submission 
1448to Manchu power. 
1449
1450Despite the effectiveness of the Manchu forces and their Chinese 
1451collaborators, it took a full generation to put the dynasty on a firm foot- 
1452ing. At age fifteen, the Kangxi Emperor took control of the government 
1453in 1669 by arresting his regent, the powerful Prince Oboi, believing that 
1454he was plotting against him. Just four years later, as the emperor turned 
1455nineteen, three former Ming generals, including Wu Sangui who had 
1456been awarded large independent fiefdoms in south China, had risen in 
1457revolt against the dynasty. The Kangxi Emperor led the successful sup- 
1458pression of these forces by 1681, and two years later Qing forces took 
1459the island of Taiwan, wiping away the last remnants of Ming loyalist 
1460resistance to Manchu rule. 
1461
1462Often compared with his contemporary Peter the Great of Russia, 
1463the Kangxi Emperor was one of the most effective rulers China ever 
1464had. He was to hold the throne for sixty years until his death in 1722, 
1465the longest reign in Chinese history to that point. In 1712, he froze the 
1466tax assessment (based on the number of able-bodied males in each area) 
1467so that taxes would not increase in the future even as the population 
1468increased. He extended the empire northward and established the bor- 
1469ders with Korea and Russia that remain in place (with some disputed 
1470areas) today. He also led successful campaigns against the Mongols in 
1471Central Asia, and his troops occupied Tibet, extending the dynasty's 
1472borders westward far beyond anything imagined by the Han or Tang. 
1473
1474
1475
1476Early Modern China 97 
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481An itinerant barber in Beijing, photographed in 1 865, tends a customer ivith 
1482the Manchu hairstyle (head shaved in front and the queue, a long single braid, 
1483in back) that tvas forced on all Chinese males in 1 644 as a universal symbol of 
1484Chinese submission to Manchu rule. Itinerant barbers carried all their equipment 
1485on a shoulder pole; on one side were a bowl, razors, and brushes in a chest that 
1486doubled as a seat for the customer, and on the other side tvere a water container, 
1487bowl, and charcoal burner. Adoc-photos / Art Resource, NY 
1488
1489
1490
1491What made Kangxi a great emperor were not just his military con- 
1492quests but his ability to recruit able and dedicated Chinese officials to 
1493the service of his dynasty. He was a diligent, hardworking emperor and 
1494a good judge of character who valued and rewarded honest answers 
1495from his officials. This in turn inspired their loyalty and devotion to 
1496him. Kangxi honored Ming loyalists who refused to serve the Qing as 
1497long as they did not engage in forceful resistance. He held special exam- 
1498inations to recruit eminent Chinese scholars to work on the official his- 
1499tory of the Ming dynasty, an effective way to enlist proud Chinese in the 
1500service of Manchu rule. He opened the examination system to Chinese 
1501from the south, where resistance to Manchu rule had been widespread. 
1502He also patronized Chinese art, philosophy, and poetry by recruiting 
1503
1504
1505
1506China in World History 
1507
1508
1509
1510scholars and officials to compile a massive encyclopedia, several kinds 
1511of Chinese dictionaries, authoritative editions of important works in 
1512philosophy, and the complete poems of the Tang dynasty. 
1513
1514The Kangxi Emperor was interested in Western learning, which 
1515Jesuit missionaries brought to China starting in the sixteenth century. 
1516Several Jesuits working in the late Ming court explained Western the- 
1517ories of astronomy, calendar calculations, mathematics, geography, 
1518and military technology. The Jesuits saw Chinese ancestor worship 
1519as mere civil ceremonies of respect, not idolatrous pagan rites. Thus, 
1520they allowed their Chinese converts to maintain their social obligations 
1521under Chinese beliefs and customs. In the early eighteenth century, a 
1522papal envoy to the Qing court declared that ancestral worship could not 
1523be performed by Chinese Christians. This intolerance, plus the national 
1524jealousies and competition among Western Christian missionaries, led 
1525Kangxi to place more restrictions on missionary activities, thus ending 
1526the Jesuit dream of converting a Chinese emperor. 
1527
1528In 1722, the Kangxi Emperor died and was succeeded by another 
1529powerful and competent ruler, the Yongzheng Emperor. Some people 
1530accused the Yongzheng Emperor of poisoning his father and seizing 
1531power. Whether true or not, he was a much more guarded and suspi- 
1532cious man than his father. He took several steps to reduce the power 
1533of Chinese officials and to make the government more responsive to 
1534the emperor's will. He expanded a secret memorial system (begun by 
1535his father) whereby high officials could send him confidential messages 
1536quickly by an empire-wide, pony express-type system. He also insti- 
1537tuted a thorough tax reform to try to eliminate tax evasion among the 
1538wealthy and privileged classes. 
1539
1540The Yongzheng Emperor died in 1736 and was succeeded by the 
1541Qianlong Emperor, who, like his grandfather, Kangxi, also reigned for 
1542sixty years. He tried in many other ways to emulate his grandfather. He 
1543made a number of southern tours of the empire as the Kangxi Emperor 
1544had done. He intensified Qing involvement in Tibet and sent more 
1545troops there in the late eighteenth century to help defend the Tibetans 
1546against attacks from the Gurkhas of Nepal. He also extended Qing con- 
1547trol further west into the Mongol regions of Chinese Turkestan (today's 
1548Xinjiang Autonomous Region). The boundaries of China today are 
1549based largely on the Qing borders as established in the Qianlong reign. 
1550
1551The Qianlong Emperor also imitated his grandfather as a patron of 
1552Chinese culture, including the arts, philosophy, and poetry. He became 
1553the most avid art collector and sponsored the greatest library build- 
1554ing effort in the entire history of China. 6 The Complete Works of the 
1555
1556
1557
1558Early Modern China 99 
1559
1560
1561
1562Four Treasuries was to include a copy of every significant work ever 
1563published in Chinese. Part of the emperor's concern was to collect all 
1564known works in order to suppress anything that was judged harmful 
1565to the dynasty or to public morals. Therefore, some military works, all 
1566works with anti-Manchu content, and works judged to be heretical as 
1567pornographic or as anti-Confucian were to be burned. Anyone who 
1568harbored subversive writings faced the death penalty, but if they turned 
1569in such works they were not punished. 
1570
1571The three great emperors of the Qing — Kangxi, Yongzheng, and 
1572Qianlong — saw themselves as sage-kings in ways that extended the Chi- 
1573nese model of emperorship beyond the Chinese-speaking world. They 
1574presided over a multiethnic empire, uniting the Manchus with the Chi- 
1575nese, the Mongols, the Uighurs, the Tibetans, and many minority tribes 
1576in south and southwest China. They were very conscientious, deeply 
1577versed in the traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism themselves, and 
1578not about to tolerate criticisms of their rule. 
1579
1580The Manchu emperors and their Chinese officials saw the eighteenth 
1581century as one of China's greatest eras of peace and prosperity. Cultur- 
1582ally and politically it was a conservative time, partly enforced by strong- 
1583willed emperors and partly embraced by Chinese scholar-officials who 
1584came to reject the late-Ming trends of individualism and creativity in 
1585philosophy and art as somehow responsible for the Ming collapse and 
1586the Manchu conquest. The school of Wang Yangming fell into general 
1587disfavor in the early Qing, but there were also creative developments 
1588in art and philosophy, even if they were not as exuberant as in the late 
1589Ming. Some painters and writers found subtle ways to express their 
1590unhappiness with Manchu rule or with Chinese society. 
1591
1592Two of China's greatest novels were written in the middle of the 
1593eighteenth century. Wu Jingzi, a failed examination candidate, wrote 
1594a brilliant satirical novel, Unofficial History of the Scholars, poking 
1595fun at ignorant and arrogant scholars who cared only about examina- 
1596tion success, wealth, and status. Cao Xueqin, whose Chinese grand- 
1597father had been a close personal bondservant of the Kangxi Emperor, 
1598wrote The Dream ofthe Red Chamber (also known as The Story ofthe 
1599Stone), which is universally acknowledged as China's greatest novel. Set 
1600in a framework of Buddhist reincarnation and proclaiming the illusory 
1601nature of material life, The Dream ofthe Red Chamber is a compelling 
1602psychological portrait of a very large and powerful family gradually 
1603falling into poverty and disgrace. 
1604
1605These two novels seem prophetic, in that the Qianlong reign was 
1606glorious on the surface but showed by its end the unmistakable signs 
1607
1608
1609
1610ioo China in World History 
1611
1612
1613
1614of dynastic decline. Government institutions and revenues did not keep 
1615pace with the rapid population growth of the eighteenth century. In his 
1616last twenty years, the Qianlong Emperor became overly fond of one 
1617of his imperial Manchu bodyguards, Heshen, who used his privileged 
1618position to embezzle millions of ounces of silver for his own private 
1619fortune. This coupled with the continuous military campaigns of Qian- 
1620long's later years left the state near bankruptcy by the end of his reign. 
1621When Qianlong died in 1799, officials were finally free to speak 
1622out against Heshen. Qianlong's son, the Jiaqing Emperor, had Heshen 
1623imprisoned, charged with corruption, and forced to hang himself. When 
1624his fortune was assessed, it equaled in value about half of all the state 
1625revenues for the past twenty years. Heshen was one symptom of dynas- 
1626tic decline in the Qianlong Emperor's later years. An even more ominous 
1627symptom was a serious peasant rebellion, lasting a decade and ranging 
1628over five provinces, under the same White Lotus banner that had sealed 
1629the fate of the Ming dynasty. The rebellion was suppressed by 1804, but 
1630the difficulty Qing forces faced in putting it down showed how much 
1631the Manchu banner garrisons scattered around the empire had declined 
1632in fighting effectiveness during the century of relative peace. 
1633
1634
1635
1636Early Modern China ioi 
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641CHAPTER 7 
1642
1643
1644
1645Decline, Fall, and 
1646
1647Aftermath of the Qing 
1648
1649Empire (1800-1920) 
1650
1651
1652
1653It was a cruel coincidence of history that Qing dynastic decline coin- 
1654cided precisely with the early Industrial Revolution and the rise of 
1655aggressive western European powers competing for world domina- 
1656tion through two major enterprises: trade and warfare. Spain and Por- 
1657tugal had first dominated the Asia trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
1658centuries, the Dutch dominated the trade in the seventeenth century, 
1659and Britain emerged as by far the dominant European power in the 
1660eighteenth century. As western European countries competed during 
1661these years in trade and warfare, they began to enslave millions of Afri- 
1662cans and to conquer and colonize much of the New World, Africa, and 
1663India. The Qing court remained largely ignorant of these processes. 
1664
1665In the late eighteenth century, British traders came to feel increas- 
1666ingly frustrated with problems in the China trade. The British had grown 
1667very fond of Chinese silks, porcelains, and tea and were losing millions 
1668of ounces of silver annually to the China trade. Merchants ranked very 
1669low in the Confucian value system, and the Qing government saw inter- 
1670national trade not as a way to generate new wealth but as a privilege 
1671granted to less-developed "barbarians" in exchange for their paying 
1672respects to the Son of Heaven and his court. British merchants were 
1673allowed to trade only at the southeastern seaport of Guangzhou (known 
1674in the West as Canton), where they were confined to a few warehouses 
1675and allowed to reside only temporarily to load and unload their ships. 
1676
1677In frustration, the British government sent two official missions to 
1678the Qing court in Beijing, in 1793 and 1816, to seek the opening of new 
1679trading ports to British merchants and to request that an official envoy 
1680from the British government be allowed to reside in Beijing. Both of these 
1681missions ended in complete frustration. In 1793, the Qianlong Emperor 
1682dismissed every British request as ridiculous, warning that British mer- 
1683chants would be expelled if they tried to come ashore anywhere other 
1684
1685
1686
1687than Guangzhou and concluding with a standard emperor's command 
1688to his lowly subjects: "Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!" 1 
1689
1690The emperor's condescending attitude reflected how little he under- 
1691stood the power realities of the world at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
1692tury. Lord Macartney, the British envoy to Qianlong's court in 1793, 
1693was struck by the inefficiency and fragility of the Chinese government, 
1694as he perceptively observed that China's ship of state had fallen into 
1695serious disrepair. "She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift 
1696some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shores; 
1697but she can never be rebuilt on the bottom." 2 
1698
1699The problems of the China trade might have remained a minor irri- 
1700tant to the expanding British Empire in the early nineteenth century, 
1701but frustrations increased dramatically on both sides in the next few 
1702decades because of one additional factor: opium. From 1800 to 1810 
1703China accumulated about twenty-six million ounces of silver through its 
1704trade with western (mostly British) merchants, because the British pub- 
1705lic became a nation of tea drinkers, while the Chinese remained largely 
1706indifferent to British products. British merchants found the answer to 
1707this economic problem in the growth and sale of the addictive drug 
1708opium. They began to grow opium on British-controlled plantations in 
1709India and to ship the drug to China in order to pay for the ever-increas- 
1710ing British imports of tea, silk, and porcelain. 
1711
1712Opium, produced from the poppy plant, had long been known in 
1713China as a pain reliever and treatment for diarrhea, but opium addiction 
1714had not been a serious social problem. In the eighteenth century, it was 
1715discovered that by vaporizing the sap from the opium poppy and inhal- 
1716ing the vapors through a long-stemmed pipe, the drug could be efficiently 
1717introduced into the blood stream, producing a strong sense of eupho- 
1718ria. This kind of opium smoking relieved boredom along with physical 
1719and mental pain. It was also highly addictive, and withdrawal produced 
1720chills, trembling, severe cramps, and nausea. As British traders discov- 
1721ered this magical solution to their balance-of-payments problem with 
1722China, opium addiction spread rapidly through a Chinese population 
1723that had little understanding of the poisonous dangers of the drug. 3 
1724
1725The economic effects of the growing drug trade were just as bad 
1726as the social effects. By the mid-1820s, China's trade surplus with the 
1727West had disappeared. Between 1831 and 1833, ten million ounces of 
1728silver flowed out of China, as Britain paid for its tea, silk, and porce- 
1729lain imports with opium profits. By 1836, British merchants sold about 
1730$18 million worth of opium in China and bought $17 million worth 
1731of tea. The Qing court became aware of the opium problem as early as 
1732
1733
1734
1735Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 103 
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740Opium smoking induced feelings of elation and also lethargy, as these men show 
1741by indulging in their habit in prone positions on their portable mat in a garden. 
1742After British traders began selling opium in Guangzhou in the eighteenth century, 
1743opium addiction spread rapidly among all social classes, producing serious social 
1744and economic problems as addiction led to crime and broken families, ivhile 
1745Britain financed its entire consumption of tea, silk, and porcelain with the profits 
1746from opium and still came away with a growing trade surplus. Adoc-photos, Coll. 
1747Gerard Levy, Paris, France / Art Resource, NY 
1748
1749
1750
17511807, when a government official complained that China's laws against 
1752opium smoking were too lax. Occasionally foreign opium dealers were 
1753arrested in Guangzhou, but because Qing government salaries were 
1754low, foreigners were generally able to bribe local Chinese officials to 
1755look the other way. In the mid-1830s, some Chinese officials argued for 
1756the legalization of the opium trade so that the Qing government might 
1757at least tax the trade. Other officials raised strenuous moral objections 
1758to the legalization of such a harmful drug, and they prevailed. 
1759
1760In early 1839, an upright official, Lin Zexu, became the commis- 
1761sioner of trade in Guangzhou, where he was determined to suppress 
1762the opium trade. When he announced a ban on opium, the Western 
1763merchants handed over 1,000 chests of the drug, a small fraction of 
1764the total supply in the waters around Guangzhou. Lin responded by 
1765arresting 350 Westerners and confining them without their servants in 
1766
1767
1768
1769104 
1770
1771
1772
1773China in World History 
1774
1775
1776
1777their "factories" (warehouses). They would be released, he declared, 
1778only when they handed over all the opium in their control. Within two 
1779months, Commissioner Lin collected more than 21,000 chests of opium 
1780(each weighing about five hundred pounds), which was about half the 
1781annual total trade. Much to the shock of the Western merchants in 
1782Guangzhou, and to the British government in London, Lin proceeded 
1783to publicly destroy this entire supply of opium, which could have sold 
1784for somewhere between $10 and $20 million. 4 
1785
1786What Commissioner Lin and the Qing government saw as a wholly 
1787justified law enforcement operation the British government saw as an act 
1788of piracy against free trade, a severe violation of the rights of British sub- 
1789jects, and an insult to the British Crown. Great Britain sent an expedition- 
1790ary force of sixteen warships, four armed steamers, twenty-seven transport 
1791ships, and one troop ship to China in 1840, with a total of 4,000 British 
1792troops. The Chinese had no naval forces capable of defeating such a force 
1793and little comprehension of how deadly serious the British government was 
1794in its determination to force the opium trade to continue and to grow. 
1795
1796After two years of failed negotiations alternating with fighting, the 
1797British forces (increased to 10,000 troops) eventually blockaded China's 
1798major eastern seaport cities and sailed up the Yangzi River to Nanjing, 
1799threatening to cut the Qing Empire in half. The court at this point had 
1800little choice but to surrender and to accept every humiliating condition 
1801the British demanded. The result was the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, 
1802which stipulated that China would pay for all the British expenses in 
1803the Opium War ($12 million), the market cost of the opium destroyed 
1804(conservatively set at $6 million), and the accumulated debts of Chinese 
1805merchant houses owed to British merchants ($3 million). In addition, 
1806Great Britain took control of Hong Kong, an island of fishing villages 
1807off the south China coast, which had what turned out to be one of 
1808the best deepwater harbors in the world. Four new coastal cities were 
1809opened to trade with the British, and China promised to deal with West- 
1810ern governments as equals in the future. 
1811
1812In a supplementary treaty following the Opium War, China agreed 
1813to set a fixed tariff rate on its trade with the Western countries, to extend 
1814its agreements with Britain to every other Western country, and to allow 
1815Westerners in China to be subject not to Chinese law but to Western 
1816laws, under what was called extraterritoriality. The Qing court agreed 
1817to these stipulations without realizing that they were in effect giving up 
1818control of their own policies in trade and foreign relations. Opium was 
1819politely not mentioned in any of these agreements, but it was under- 
1820stood on both sides that the opium trade would continue without being 
1821
1822
1823
1824Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 105 
1825
1826
1827
1828regulated or taxed. By 1880, China imported about 80,000 chests of 
1829opium per year, twice the amount imported in the late 1830s. 
1830
1831As painful as it was, the Opium War was only the beginning of 
1832the Qing court's troubles in the nineteenth century. The serious eco- 
1833nomic and social dislocations caused by the war and by the opium trade 
1834itself produced conditions ripe for rebellion. In 1850, a religious and 
1835military uprising threatened the immediate survival of the dynasty: the 
1836Taiping Rebellion, named for a peasant movement called Taiping Tian- 
1837guo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace), which was inspired by Hong 
1838Xiuquan, a failed examination candidate from south China. Hong was 
1839from the Hakka people, a small minority group in south China whose 
1840women did not bind their feet. He had a nervous breakdown and suf- 
1841fered hallucinations after failing the civil service examinations several 
1842times. When he recovered, he recalled having read a Christian mission- 
1843ary pamphlet that he now felt explained the visions he had experienced. 
1844He came to believe he was the second son of the Westerners' Christian 
1845God and the younger brother of Jesus Christ. 
1846
1847Hong inspired his followers to pool their wealth, to worship this 
1848new Western god, Jehovah, and to destroy Confucian and ancestral 
1849temples as heathen idols. When local government officials tried to sup- 
1850press this movement in 1850, Hong and his followers rose in open revolt 
1851against the Qing dynasty. They quickly recruited desperate peasants and 
1852unemployed workers to their cause, trained them to fight fiercely, and 
1853by 1854 had occupied the major city of Nanjing on the Yangzi, where 
1854they established the capital of their self-proclaimed Heavenly Kingdom. 
1855They asserted control of the prosperous Yangzi valley, and their armies 
1856came within twenty miles of Beijing in 1855, but poor planning for the 
1857northern winter and the dispersal of their forces in too many directions 
1858at once doomed that effort to failure. 
1859
1860The Taiping movement was a curious combination of Western Chris- 
1861tianity with many traditional Chinese elements. Hong Xiuquan lived 
1862as a Chinese-style emperor in Nanjing, in palatial splendor with many 
1863concubines, while his movement outlawed opium use, declared equal- 
1864ity of land ownership and taxation, and abolished the painful custom 
1865of foot-binding for women. Western missionaries were at first amazed 
1866and delighted at the thought of a Chinese Christian uprising that might 
1867overthrow the Qing dynasty. But when they learned of Hong's claim to 
1868be the younger brother of Jesus Christ and his direct visions from God, 
1869they quickly lost their enthusiasm. Western traders successfully pres- 
1870sured their governments to support the Qing forces battling the rebels, 
1871as they feared above all the Taiping threat to the opium trade. 
1872
1873
1874
1875106 China in World History 
1876
1877
1878
1879Hong Xiuquan's power was based heavily on his direct access to 
1880divine revelation through his visions, and soon another Taiping leader, 
1881Yang Xiuqing, began to have his own visions, which posed a threat to 
1882Hong. This led to a bloody power struggle in Nanjing that decimated 
1883the Taiping leadership in 1856. Despite this setback, Nanjing was not 
1884recaptured by the government until 1864. By the mid-nineteenth cen- 
1885tury, the Manchu banner forces were so weak and ill-trained that the 
1886Qing court was forced to give several Chinese officials more military 
1887power and authority than ever before under Qing rule. The man most 
1888responsible for the eventual Qing victory over the Taiping forces was 
1889Zeng Guofan, a conservative Confucian who saw the Taipings as a 
1890much greater threat to the Chinese way of life than the Manchu rul- 
1891ers. Zeng and several other Chinese officials recruited and trained their 
1892own armies from their own home districts. These Chinese armies could 
1893have posed a grave danger to the Qing court, but in the heat of the 
1894Taiping Rebellion, the court had no choice but to give more power and 
1895autonomy to its top Chinese officials. 
1896
1897An estimated twenty million people were killed in the Taiping Rebel- 
1898lion, and there were several other rebellions that occurred during and 
1899after the Taiping. In the middle of these rebellions, in 1858-1860, what 
1900could be called a second opium war broke out when a joint Anglo-French 
1901force invaded Beijing, burned the emperor's Summer Palace, and forced 
1902more unequal treaties on the Qing. This marked something of a turning 
1903point in relations with the West, as Western governments now got almost 
1904everything they wanted from the Qing court, including the right to have 
1905diplomats reside permanently in the capital. Fourteen treaty ports were 
1906now opened to Western trade, with whole sections of treaty ports com- 
1907pletely under Western control. After 1860, Westerners also took over 
1908the entire administration of China's taxes on trade and commerce. The 
1909once-great Qing Empire had become a semicolony of the West. 
1910
1911Western "coolie" (after the Chinese word, kuli, "bitter laborers") 
1912traders recruited poor illiterate Chinese men with false promises, or simply 
1913kidnapped them, put them on virtual slave ships, and sent them to work 
1914in gold mines, to build railroads in the western United States, or to work 
1915on sugar and other plantations in Western colonies in Southeast Asia, 
1916the Caribbean, and South America. Treated as indentured servants, these 
1917workers were charged for their meals and transport and forced to work 
1918for years to pay off their "debts" to their overseers. The Qing government 
1919was powerless to protect its own citizens from this kind of exploitation. 
1920
1921The internal rebellions and the external wars of the nineteenth cen- 
1922tury served to keep the court engaged in a daily struggle for survival, 
1923
1924
1925
1926Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 107 
1927
1928
1929
1930leaving no one with time or energy to assess the dynasty's need for long- 
1931term political and economic reforms. There were Confucian officials in 
1932the late nineteenth century who called for "self-strengthening," learning 
1933from the West, and who began to build modern weapons, steamships, 
1934railroads and telegraph lines. But the Qing Empire was a vast, poor, 
1935mostly agricultural and overpopulated territory with a small, weak gov- 
1936ernment, and the modernization efforts were confined to tiny coastal 
1937areas that had little impact inland. 
1938
1939No Qing emperor in the nineteenth century was very capable, and 
1940in any case the problems facing the dynasty were so great and complex 
1941that even a capable and engaged emperor would have had great dif- 
1942ficulty in meeting the twin challenges of internal rebellion and external 
1943aggression. In 1860, the Tongzhi Emperor took the throne as a young 
1944man while real power was shared between his uncle, Prince Gong, and 
1945his mother, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Having entered the palace as 
1946a low-ranking concubine, Cixi became, through her combination of 
1947beauty, ambition, and shrewdness in cultivating allies among officials, 
1948the most powerful single individual in the Qing court, from her initial 
1949rise as empress dowager in 1860 to her death in 1908. No woman since 
1950the Tang Empress Wu had ever held as much power and influence in 
1951Chinese politics as the Empress Dowager Cixi. 
1952
1953The Empress Dowager has often been blamed by modern Chinese 
1954nationalists for selling out the interests of the Chinese people and living in 
1955splendid luxury in the palace while foreigners continued to increase their 
1956power and influence over China. She rebuilt the Summer Palace, which 
1957Western troops had burned down in 1860, and among other excesses she 
1958used funds originally intended for naval expansion to have a pleasure 
1959boat carved in marble beside the lake there. Today, tour groups from all 
1960over are shown this boat as a symbol of Cixi's selfish indulgences and the 
1961corruption of the late Qing court. In retrospect, she was more a symptom 
1962than a cause of Qing weakness. The court was torn between conserva- 
1963tive and reformist officials, and she maintained her power by alternating 
1964appeals to each group, allowing neither to dominate for long. 
1965
1966In 1894-1895, fighting over influence in Korea, Japanese troops 
1967quickly and soundly defeated Qing forces. This was a great shock to 
1968China and to the whole world, as the small island nation of Japan was 
1969roughly the size of one Chinese province and had long been regarded as a 
1970weak peripheral state. The Qing court agreed to pay Japan two hundred 
1971million ounces of silver and to cede to Japan the island of Taiwan, and 
1972the Pescadores chain of islands. Suddenly, all Western nations feared the 
1973coming collapse of the Qing dynasty, and each nation pressured the court 
1974
1975
1976
1977108 China in World History 
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982Empress Dowager Cixi rose to power in 1860 when her young son was enthroned 
1983as the Tongzhi Emperor. Because ofthe importance of fdial piety, even adult 
1984emperors often felt obliged to obey their mothers. By manipulating the imperial 
1985succession when the Tongzhi Emperor died in 1874, Cixi was able to become 
1986one of the most powerful women in all of Chinese history, second only to Tang 
1987Empress Wu. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-56127 
1988
1989
1990
1991to grant it special trading and taxation privileges in its own "sphere of 
1992influence," in what became known as the "scramble for concessions." 
1993
1994Preoccupied with the anti-Spanish rebellion in Cuba and the Span- 
1995ish-American War, the United States did not get deeply involved in the 
1996scramble for concessions, but after defeating Spain and taking over 
1997
1998
1999
2000Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 
2001
2002
2003
2004109 
2005
2006
2007
2008the Philippines in 1899, the U.S. government became worried that the 
2009European powers and Japan might start fighting colonial wars with 
2010each other in China. In September 1899, John Hay, America's secretary 
2011of state, issued a series of "Open Door Notes" to Britain, France, Ger- 
2012many, Russia, Italy, and Japan, calling on all foreign powers in China to 
2013allow free trade in all spheres of influence. The scramble for concessions 
2014soon subsided, not because of Hay's Open Door Notes but because the 
2015foreign powers decided to ease pressures on the Qing court since they, 
2016too, feared the breakup of China. 
2017
2018The humiliating defeat of Qing forces at the hands of Japan pushed 
2019some Chinese to begin to call for the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, while 
2020others called for radical reforms within the dynastic system. In the summer 
2021of 1898, Kang Youwei, a brilliant Confucian scholar who admired Japan 
2022for its rapid adoption of Western institutions and industrialization, gained 
2023an audience with the young Guangxu Emperor, who was growing impa- 
2024tient with his subordination to the Empress Dowager Cixi. The emperor 
2025was so taken with Kang that within the short space of one hundred days, 
2026he issued edict after edict announcing sweeping reforms, including the 
2027introduction of Western subjects in Chinese education, the abolition of 
2028thousands of sinecure positions, a crackdown on government corruption, 
2029and a crash program of industrialization and Westernization. 
2030
2031Conservative officials quickly grew alarmed at the direction of these 
2032pronouncements and approached the empress dowager to intervene. 
2033When disciples of Kang Youwei countered by asking Yuan Shikai, the 
2034leading military official in the empire, to back the reformers in any con- 
2035flict with conservatives at court, General Yuan reported this move to 
2036the empress dowager, who immediately ordered the reform movement 
2037crushed. The Guangxu Emperor was in effect imprisoned on the small 
2038island in the lake of the Summer Palace, and Kang Youwei and his clos- 
2039est disciple, Liang Qichao, fled to Japan to escape arrest and execution. 
2040Six of Kang's closest followers, including his younger brother, were 
2041arrested and executed. One of them, Tan Sitong, refused to flee when 
2042offered the chance, saying that effective change in China would require 
2043the blood of martyrs. 
2044
2045With the reformers crushed after only one hundred days, conserva- 
2046tives now seized control of the court, a dangerous turn of events that 
2047happened to coincide with the boiling over of a sense of rage and frus- 
2048tration in the north China countryside. During the severe drought of 
2049the summer of 1899, secret society groups of peasants and illiterate day 
2050laborers called the Boxers went on a rampage, capturing and killing any 
2051foreigners they could find. Most of this anger was directed at Western 
2052
2053
2054
2055iio China in World History 
2056
2057
2058
2059Christian missionaries who moved into many parts of the Chinese coun- 
2060tryside in the late nineteenth century. Western missionaries were coura- 
2061geous people, and some of them did amazing medical and social work in 
2062China. The first women's movement against foot-binding was inspired 
2063by Western missionary women. But many Chinese could not forgive the 
2064fact that Western Christianity and opium came to China at the same 
2065time and in the same way, backed by Western guns pointed at Chinese 
2066heads. Much wealthier than most Chinese peasants, Western missionar- 
2067ies lived in their own walled compounds apart from the Chinese, under 
2068the protection of extraterritoriality. Some poor Chinese "converted" to 
2069Christianity for economic reasons, gaining the label "rice Christians," 
2070and authorities suspected Chinese criminal elements of becoming nomi- 
2071nally Christian only to use extraterritoriality to avoid Chinese prosecu- 
2072tion. All of these practices angered poor Chinese peasants, as did all the 
2073foreign wars and unequal treaties of the past half century. 
2074
2075After initially trying to suppress the Boxers' attacks on foreigners, 
2076the Qing court in the summer of 1900 decided to support the Boxers 
2077and to try to use them to drive the foreigners out of China once and for 
2078all. One factor in the empress dowager's decision to back the Boxers 
2079was that foreign governments had strenuously objected to her plans 
2080to depose the Guangxu Emperor in 1898, an act she saw as an intoler- 
2081able level of foreign interference in Chinese affairs. Some court officials 
2082also told her that the Boxers' religious rituals made them immune to 
2083Western firearms, and this appeared to be true when she was given a 
2084demonstration (with the shooters using blanks). 
2085
2086All that saved the dynasty from collapse at this point was the fact that 
2087southern Chinese officials ignored the court's orders to declare full-scale 
2088war on all foreigners. An eight-nation invasion force (the Western powers 
2089plus Japan) quickly took Beijing in 1901, and the empress dowager fled 
2090the capital disguised as a Buddhist nun. On her trip through the desolate 
2091countryside, she was confronted for the first time with the realities of Chi- 
2092na's poverty and weakness. Once a new truce was negotiated, with China 
2093agreeing to pay four hundred million ounces of silver in damages, the 
2094empress dowager returned to Beijing, invited the wives of Western dip- 
2095lomats to her court for tea, and vigorously promoted the same kinds of 
2096modernizing reform she had violently suppressed just three years earlier. 
2097
2098The Boxer Rebellion brought the Qing dynasty's reputation to an 
2099all-time low throughout the world. China was now seen as a backward, 
2100dangerous, and barbaric place. One Westerner who perceived the larger 
2101significance of the event was Robert Hart, an Irishman who oversaw the 
2102China Maritime Customs Office from 1865 to 1908. In the aftermath 
2103
2104
2105
2106Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire III 
2107
2108
2109
2110of the Boxer uprising, Hart predicted with uncanny accuracy that in 
2111fifty years' time, twenty million or more Boxers "will make residence in 
2112China impossible for foreigners, will take back from foreigners every- 
2113thing foreigners have taken from China, will pay off old grudges with 
2114interest, and will carry the Chinese flag and Chinese arms into many a 
2115place that even fancy will not suggest today . . ." 5 
2116
2117In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Qing government 
2118tried finally to promote the reforms that might yet save the dynasty. 
2119However, it was too little, too late, as more and more Chinese concluded 
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124A stereographic pbotograph labeled "Some of China's trouble-makers" shows 
2125Boxer prisoners captured by the 6th U.S. Cavalry in Tianjin. The United States 
2126joined the European powers and Japan in sending troops to free the foreign 
2127legations in Beijing and quell the Boxer uprising in 1901. Library of Congress, 
2128LC-USZ62-688H 
2129
2130
2131
2132112 China in World History 
2133
2134
2135
2136that the Manchus had in effect betrayed China by giving in to Western 
2137demands in order to preserve their own power. Many young Chinese 
2138began to study in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States, while 
2139Sun Yat-sen and others agitated for the overthrow of Qing rule. The 
2140court promised the adoption of a constitutional monarchy (basically 
2141what Kang Youwei had proposed in 1898), but as provincial assemblies 
2142were set up after 1908, they became centers of opposition to, rather 
2143than support for, the Qing imperial system. 
2144
2145Sun Yat-sen was a charismatic visionary from Guangzhou who 
2146went to Hawaii at age thirteen to live with his brother. He became a 
2147Christian, attended a British medical school in Hong Kong, and prac- 
2148ticed medicine briefly in Macao. But his true calling was politics, and 
2149his great desire was to save his country. After the Sino-Japanese War, 
2150he decided the only hope for China was to overthrow the Qing dynasty 
2151and replace it with a democratic republic. In 1895, Sun and several 
2152friends were discovered plotting an armed uprising in Guangzhou, and 
2153he escaped to Japan. He cut off his queue, grew a mustache (then the 
2154popular style in Japan), adopted a Japanese name, Nakayama (Zhong- 
2155shan, or "Central Mountain," in Chinese), and started wearing Western 
2156clothes. He attracted a following among Chinese students in Japan and 
2157inspired audiences with his vision of a modern democratic China. He 
2158called for three principles of the people: racialism, meaning China for 
2159the Chinese and not the Manchus or foreigners; democracy, or people's 
2160rights; and socialism, or people's livelihood. To answer the argument 
2161that China was not ready for democracy, Sun suggested a transition 
2162period of "tutelage" during which military rulers would gradually turn 
2163over power to an elected civilian government. 
2164
2165Sun's career was almost ended in 1896 when he was seized and held 
2166in the Qing embassy in London when officials there recognized him 
2167as a revolutionary. Fortunately for Sun, his British friends successfully 
2168lobbied the British government to pressure the embassy to release him. 
2169Thereafter, Sun stayed safely out of China and raised money for his 
2170revolutionary cause among overseas Chinese communities around the 
2171world. He plotted many uprisings against the Qing government in the 
2172first decade of the twentieth century, and some of his co-conspirators 
2173were caught and executed. 
2174
2175One of the most impressive of the anti-Manchu revolutionaries was 
2176a woman, Qiu Jin. When her merchant husband wanted to take a con- 
2177cubine in 1904, she left him in disgust, sent their two children to her 
2178parents, and sold the jewelry in her dowry to finance a trip to Japan to 
2179study. She dressed like a man, carried a sword, and wrote fiery calls for 
2180
2181
2182
2183Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 113 
2184
2185
2186
2187revolution against both the Manchus and the traditional Chinese fam- 
2188ily system. She returned to China in 1906 to work for the end of Qing 
2189rule. In the second week of July 1907, she heard that her cousin had 
2190been arrested for plotting to assassinate a Manchu provincial governor 
2191and knew they would soon be coming for her. She refused to flee and 
2192instead wrote these lines to a friend: "The sun is setting with no road 
2193ahead / In vain I weep for loss of country. Although I die, yet I still live 
2194/ Through sacrifice I have fulfilled my duty." 6 Qiu Jin was soon arrested 
2195and beheaded for treason. Her death made her a national celebrity and 
2196only intensified the populace's growing anger at their Manchu rulers. 
2197
2198When the Qing dynasty finally fell, after a century of decline, rebel- 
2199lion, and humiliation, it seemed almost accidental. The examination 
2200system was abolished in 1905, leaving many upper-class Chinese uncer- 
2201tain how they could relate to the Qing government, which had prom- 
2202ised a constitutional monarchy but seemed to be dragging its feet. The 
2203empress dowager died in 1908, one day after the Guangxu Emperor 
2204(whom she was rumored to have poisoned so that he would not be able 
2205to assume power himself). The throne was passed to the three-year-old 
2206imperial prince, Puyi, who became the Xuantong Emperor. The court 
2207was now at its weakest point in two and a half centuries. 
2208
2209On October 9, 1911, in the central Chinese city of Wuchang on the 
2210Yangzi River, a group of revolutionaries loosely affiliated with Sun Yat-sen 
2211were preparing to rise in revolt when one of them carelessly set off an explo- 
2212sion as a live ash from his cigarette fell into the gunpowder he was putting 
2213into rifle shells. The explosion brought the authorities to investigate, and 
2214they found revolutionary tracts and plans for a rebellion. Facing immediate 
2215arrest and execution, the revolutionaries in the Wuchang vicinity decided 
2216to declare themselves at war with the Qing state on October 10. The local 
2217governor-general had recently sent his best troops west to Hunan to sup- 
2218press riots over disputed railroad rights in the area. Rather than calmly 
2219commanding the suppression of this ramshackle uprising, he fled Wuch- 
2220ang, and the rebels found themselves in control of a major city. 
2221
2222Word of this local revolt spread quickly, and some provincial assem- 
2223blies began to declare their independence from Qing rule, while some 
2224troops, newly trained in the Western style, refused to support the Qing 
2225and instead began fighting for the rebels. Sun Yat-sen read about the 
2226Wuchang uprising on a train outside Denver, Colorado, where he had 
2227been raising money among overseas Chinese in America. Knowing the 
2228battle for China was just beginning, he headed east to London, where 
2229he hoped to raise more money for his cause. At this point, the Manchu 
2230court looked to the top Chinese military official in the empire, Yuan 
2231
2232
2233
2234114 China in World History 
2235
2236
2237
2238Shikai, who had earlier sided with the empress dowager against the 
2239reformers of 1898. But the revolutionaries also appealed to Yuan to 
2240support a new republic of China, free of Manchu imperial rule. Yuan in 
2241effect negotiated the end of the Qing dynasty. 
2242
2243The Qing court agreed to the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor abdi- 
2244cating the dragon throne in exchange for the promise that he and his 
2245family would continue to live in the imperial palace with a generous 
2246annual stipend while maintaining possession of the immense imperial 
2247palace collection of art treasures. Much to the relief of the revolution- 
2248aries, the Qing dynasty had been overthrown without China's descend- 
2249ing into chaos and without the Western powers and Japan carving up 
2250the country like a melon. Because Yuan Shikai controlled the military 
2251forces of the fledgling state, he rather than Sun Yat-sen assumed the 
2252presidency of this new republic on February 12, 1912. 
2253
2254While the anti-Qing revolutionaries were united in their desire to 
2255overthrow the dynasty, they were divided on most other issues. Sun Yat- 
2256sen and his followers now organized a new political party, the Guomin- 
2257dang (Nationalist Party), which they saw as a "loyal opposition" party 
2258that would compete in electoral politics with the followers of Yuan 
2259Shikai. A number of other parties were formed as well, and National 
2260Assembly elections were held in December 1912. Only men who owned 
2261property, paid taxes, and had an elementary school education could 
2262vote. Some forty million men were qualified to vote, about 10 percent 
2263of the population. Given China's lack of experience with electoral poli- 
2264tics over the previous 2,000 years, this was an impressive start, and 
2265the elections of 1912 went remarkably smoothly. The manager of the 
2266Nationalist Party campaign effort was Song Jiaoren, an articulate advo- 
2267cate of democracy from Hunan who hoped to become prime minister in 
2268President Yuan's cabinet. The Nationalists won 43 percent of the vote, 
2269far more than any other single party, and Sun Yat-sen, who had agreed 
2270to become the director of railroad development, was very pleased. 
2271
2272To Yuan Shikai, the idea of a "loyal opposition" was a contradic- 
2273tion in terms; he saw the Nationalist Party's criticisms of his policies 
2274and their electoral success as a threat to his attempts to create a strong 
2275central government. Song Jiaoren had been outspoken in criticizing 
2276President Yuan's cabinet choices and his policies. As Song was wait- 
2277ing in Shanghai to board the train for Beijing on March 20, 1913, a 
2278stranger walked up to him and shot him twice at close range. He died 
2279in a Shanghai hospital two days later, two weeks short of his thirty-first 
2280birthday. The gunman was never caught, but most assumed, with good 
2281reason, that Yuan Shikai had ordered the assassination. 
2282
2283
2284
2285Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 115 
2286
2287
2288
2289President Yuan was a heavy-set, jovial man who charmed his dinner 
2290guests with his witty comments, but he was very traditional in his out- 
2291look (having for himself a dozen concubines) and quite ruthless toward 
2292his political opponents. The Nationalist Party responded to the assas- 
2293sination of Song Jiaoren with calls for Yuan's resignation and soon rose 
2294in open revolt. As the man who had overseen the military moderniza- 
2295tion program at the end of the Qing dynasty, Yuan enjoyed the loyalty 
2296of most military commanders in the nation. In 1913, he made short 
2297work of the Nationalist Party uprising, crushing their armed forces very 
2298quickly and sending Sun Yat-sen fleeing once again into exile in Japan. 
2299
2300Yuan took all the power he could for himself and borrowed huge 
2301quantities of money from foreign banks and governments to buy weap- 
2302ons for his armies. He wanted a strong, modern industrialized state, but 
2303he could not quite imagine any effective political system other than the 
2304monarchy he had known as a Qing official. In 1915, he plotted with his 
2305advisors to restore the monarchy with himself as emperor. But too much 
2306had changed since 1911, and almost no one outside Yuan's personal 
2307circle supported such a move. Yuan died of kidney failure in 1916, leav- 
2308ing a power vacuum at the center, with no national consensus about 
2309how political power should be created and exercised. 
2310
2311The period from Yuan Shikai's death in 1916 until 1927 was one 
2312of the darkest and most violent in China's long history. Yuan's former 
2313generals could not unite in support of one leader but began to compete 
2314with each other and use their troops as personal armies loyal only to 
2315themselves. The period is thus known as China's Warlord Era, when the 
2316country was splintered into dozens of small warlord kingdoms. Who- 
2317ever controlled Beijing was recognized as the "president of the repub- 
2318lic," but the republic was really a fiction as warlords large and small 
2319competed by raiding, looting, or taxing to death the areas under their 
2320control. The number of armed soldiers in China grew from 500,000 in 
23211913 to 2.2 million in 1928. Much of the wealth created during that 
2322time was absorbed in the training and equipping of these forces. 
2323
2324Some warlords were little more than bandits, while others actually 
2325tried to build a viable government in the area under their control. One 
2326of the "best" was Feng Yuxiang, who rose from a humble peasant back- 
2327ground to become one of the most powerful military commanders in the 
2328country. Widely known as the Christian General, he indoctrinated his 
2329troops in Christian teachings as well as good military discipline, built 
2330orphanages and schools, and occasionally held mass baptisms for his 
2331troops, using a fire hose for sprinkling water on the converts. Zhang 
2332Zuolin was a former bandit from Manchuria, which he ruled with an 
2333
2334
2335
2336China in World History 
2337
2338
2339
2340iron hand; Yan Xishan controlled the northwest province of Shanxi, 
2341where he promoted public morality and industrialization. 
2342
2343With nearly complete fragmentation of power, the central govern- 
2344ment had little control of the areas outside the capital, Beijing, and no 
2345way to collect taxes from the nation as a whole. During World War I, 
2346Chinese businessmen were able to begin some successful modern indus- 
2347tries because Westerners were so preoccupied with the war in Europe. 
2348Japan took advantage of World War I by issuing to Yuan Shikai's govern- 
2349ment a list of "21 Demands" in 1915, demands that would have given 
2350Japan de facto control of the Chinese government. When public protests 
2351broke out against Japan, the Japanese dropped their most outrageous 
2352demands and settled for increased economic rights and privileges. 
2353
2354After the United States, Britain, and France defeated Germany, end- 
2355ing World War I, the victors at the Versailles peace negotiations decided 
2356that the former German-held concessions in north China would be 
2357turned over directly to Japan. News of this decision hit Chinese stu- 
2358dents, professors, and businessmen like a bolt of lightning. The Chinese 
2359had allied with the United States, Britain, and France in World War I 
2360and had sent 100,000 workers to Europe to support the allied pow- 
2361ers. Woodrow Wilson had taken the United States into World War I 
2362declaring his idealistic desire to make the world safe for democracy and 
2363to promote self-determination for all countries of the world. For the 
2364Western democracies to reward Japan with formerly German property 
2365in China struck all informed Chinese as the height of hypocrisy, remi- 
2366niscent of the Opium War being justified as a defense of "free trade." 
2367
2368Word of this decision reached Beijing on the evening of May 3, 
23691919, and the next day, 3,000 Chinese students marched to the Gate of 
2370Heavenly Peace in front of the Forbidden City to protest the Versailles 
2371peace treaty. They marched to the home of a pro-Japanese government 
2372official and looted and burned it to the ground. Two dozen protesters 
2373were arrested, and in the following months students, professors, busi- 
2374nessmen, and workers all organized protests and anti-Japanese strikes 
2375and boycotts. The May Fourth Movement came to be the name for 
2376these protests as well as a whole movement promoting cultural change 
2377that had begun already several years before. 
2378
2379Four years earlier, in 1915, two Beijing University professors, Chen 
2380Duxiu and Hu Shi, had begun a new journal called New Youth. In 
2381the first issue, Chen wrote an essay calling on Chinese young people 
2382to reject Chinese traditions, suggesting that they follow six principles: 
2383(1) be independent, not servile; (2) be progressive, not conservative; 
2384(3) be aggressive, not retiring; (4) be cosmopolitan, not isolationist; 
2385
2386
2387
2388Decline, Fall, and Aftermath of the Qing Empire 117 
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393^m 
2394
2395
2396
2397^^^M 
2398
2399
2400
2401Student demonstrators surround the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing on May 
24024, 1919. Tbeir protest against tbe Versailles Peace Treaty quickly grew into a 
2403popular urban movement against both foreign imperialism and traditional Chinese 
2404culture. Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, 
2405Minneapolis, MN 
2406
2407
2408
2409(5) be utilitarian, not formalistic; and (6) be scientific, not imaginative. 
2410China was backward, Chen argued, because it was too conservative 
2411and gave too much respect to tradition and to the elderly. Young people 
2412should rebel against the authority of their elders, reject the "wisdom of 
2413the past," and embrace independence, individualism, and freedom. 
2414
2415The events of 1919 suddenly brought many young people into the 
2416camp of the critics of Chinese tradition. In analyzing the foreign and 
2417domestic crises of the Warlord Era, students, teachers, writers, and 
2418journalists published periodicals, short stories, poems, and propaganda 
2419posters all blaming China's weakness on two things: foreign imperial- 
2420ism and the conservative Confucian culture of Chinese tradition. The 
2421pace of change began now to accelerate. 
2422
2423
2424
2425n8 China in World History 
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430CHAPTER 8 
2431
2432
2433
2434Civil Wars, Invasion, and 
2435
2436the Rise of Communism 
2437
2438(1920-1949) 
2439
2440
2441
2442The betrayal of China in 1919 by the Western democracies marked 
2443a major turning point in Sun Yat-sen's political career and in the 
2444history of modern China. Before this time, Sun had looked pri- 
2445marily to the West for support of a progressive and democratic China. 
2446Now, the Western democracies seemed more concerned with foreign 
2447rights and privileges in China, and with the warlords of Beijing, than 
2448with Sun Yat-sen and his cause. Moreover, the Bolshevik Revolution in 
24491917 in Russia suggested to many that a Marxist movement could seize 
2450power in a poor backward country and jump-start the process of rapid 
2451modernization, building a wealthy, powerful, and independent nation. 
2452The German thinker and revolutionary Karl Marx had argued that 
2453capitalism was a major historical advance over feudalism, releasing new 
2454powers of productive capacity that promised to liberate human beings 
2455from the precarious struggle for survival. But capitalism, in Marx's 
2456view, required such severe exploitation of workers by their capitalist 
2457overlords that it would inspire a lethal class struggle and eventually col- 
2458lapse under the weight of its own contradictions. The industrial workers 
2459leading this struggle would establish an egalitarian socialism in which 
2460all workers would enjoy the full fruits of their labors. Co-owning the 
2461factories where they worked, they would develop their full potential as 
2462well-rounded and cultured human beings. 
2463
2464Marx thought socialist revolutions could only occur in the most 
2465advanced capitalist countries with a large industrial proletariat. In Rus- 
2466sia, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin argued that a highly disciplined 
2467socialist party with its own army could seize power in a poor, backward 
2468country like Russia and move directly from precapitalist feudalism to 
2469a workers' socialism, tolerating enough capitalism on the way to bring 
2470prosperity and equality to the country simultaneously. In a very influ- 
2471ential pamphlet, Imperialism as the Last Stage of Capitalism, Lenin 
2472
2473
2474
2475argued that Western imperialism was not just an accident of history but 
2476the logical result of the ever-expanding demands of industrial capital- 
2477ism for raw materials, exploitable workers, and new markets. To edu- 
2478cated Chinese readers, Lenin helped explain the Western exploitation of 
2479China for the past hundred years with compelling force. 
2480
2481Sun Yat-sen did not fully embrace Marxism-Leninism, but he was 
2482impressed by the effectiveness of the Russian Bolsheviks in seizing power 
2483and even more by their immediate renunciation of the unequal trea- 
2484ties Czarist Russia had forced on the Qing court in the nineteenth cen- 
2485tury. In 1920, Sun began meeting with agents of the Soviet-sponsored 
2486Communist International, or Comintern, an organization dedicated to 
2487spreading workers' revolutions throughout the world. They offered Sun 
2488military assistance and political advice if his Nationalist Party would 
2489join in a formal alliance with the tiny recently founded Chinese Com- 
2490munist Party. The two parties would remain separate but would work 
2491together to promote workers' organizations, to develop a joint army, 
2492and to try to seize power from the warlords who were bleeding the 
2493country. 
2494
2495In 1923 Sun and his supporters formally reorganized their Nation- 
2496alist Party along Leninist lines, meaning that members would have to 
2497observe party discipline and implement whatever policies the leader- 
2498ship adopted. Communist Party and Nationalist Party members would 
2499cooperate wherever possible, and together they formed a military offi- 
2500cers' training school, the Whampoa Military Academy, on an island in 
2501the Pearl River ten miles downstream from Guangzhou. The first leader 
2502of this academy was Chiang Kai-shek, an ambitious young soldier who 
2503had undergone military training in China and Japan before 1911 and 
2504who went to Russia for a few months in 1923 to study Soviet govern- 
2505mental and party organizational methods. 
2506
2507There were always tensions in this alliance between the more radi- 
2508cal Communist Party organizers and more conservative Nationalist 
2509Party members. The former wanted to promote workers' and peasants' 
2510rights and overturn the traditional Chinese social hierarchies. The latter 
2511were more concerned about seizing power from the warlords and uni- 
2512fying China into a strong industrialized state. Sun Yat-sen had enough 
2513prestige with both groups to hold the alliance together, but suspicions 
2514were growing on both sides in early 1925, when Sun went to Beijing to 
2515negotiate a possible truce with the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, 
2516who was then in control of Beijing. Sun fell seriously ill in Beijing, was 
2517diagnosed with liver cancer, and died on March 12. On May 30, Japa- 
2518nese troops fired on Chinese workers demonstrating in Shanghai, and 
2519
2520
2521
2522120 China in World History 
2523
2524
2525
2526suddenly many Chinese cities erupted with strikes, demonstrations, and 
2527boycotts. The May Thirtieth Movement, as it came to be known, swelled 
2528the membership of the Chinese Communist Party from 1,000 to 10,000 
2529between May and November 1925 and to 30,000 by July 1926. 
2530
2531Having supervised the first three classes of military officers to 
2532graduate from the Whampoa Military Academy, Chiang Kai-shek was 
2533appointed commander in chief of the new National Revolutionary 
2534Army in June 1926. He enjoyed a strong personal loyalty from the vast 
2535majority of 6,000 newly trained officers who commanded an army of 
253685,000 soldiers recruited from peasant and worker families in south 
2537China. One of Chiang's main rivals to become leader of the National- 
2538ist Party after Sun's death was Liao Zhongkai, who had been a close 
2539associate of Sun Yat-sen and who, like Sun, maintained cordial relations 
2540with the more radical Communists. In August 1925, Liao Zhongkai 
2541was assassinated, eliminating one of the obstacles to Chiang Kai-shek's 
2542rise to power. 
2543
2544In July 1926, Chiang Kai-shek and the National Revolutionary 
2545Army launched the Northern Expedition, a two-pronged campaign 
2546along the east coast and through the center of south China to oust the 
2547regional warlords and unify south and central China under Nation- 
2548alist Party rule. The Communist Party labor and peasant organizers 
2549infiltrated areas in advance of the troops and helped undermine local 
2550warlord forces through strikes and nationalistic propaganda calling on 
2551people to resist foreign imperialism and support the Nationalists against 
2552the warlords. Within one month, the National Revolutionary Army 
2553was in control of the southwestern city of Changsha. In September and 
2554October, Nationalist forces took Nanchang and the major Yangzi River 
2555port city of Wuhan. By December, they had taken the coastal city of 
2556Fuzhou. In March 1927, they took the city of Nanjing (the early Ming 
2557capital), and by April, the great seaport and commercial capital Shang- 
2558hai was in Nationalist hands. 
2559
2560Chiang Kai-shek had never trusted his Communist collaborators. 
2561Since the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925 had radicalized many work- 
2562ers and pushed them toward the Communist camp, he feared his move- 
2563ment and his army might be taken over by its most radical elements. In 
2564his early days, he had briefly been a stockbroker in Shanghai, where he 
2565developed close ties with the banking community and with the Green 
2566Gang, a mafia-style organization that ran the prostitution, gambling, 
2567and opium dens of Shanghai. With support of the Green Gang and 
2568its henchmen, Chiang's forces struck against their Communist "allies" 
2569without warning on April 12, 1927, and murdered any and all known 
2570
2571
2572
2573ClVIL WARS, INVASION, AND THE RlSE OF COMMUNISM 121 
2574
2575
2576
2577or suspected Communists in all the cities under their control. Thou- 
2578sands were killed without trials or hearings. 
2579
2580The Russian advisors to the Nationalist Party fled as quickly as they 
2581could, but Joseph Stalin, with little understanding of the real situation 
2582in China, urged the Chinese Communist Party to cooperate with "pro- 
2583gressive" elements in the Nationalist Party and to resist Chiang Kai- 
2584shek with armed opposition. This was disastrous advice, as Chiang had 
2585most military commanders under his control. The end result was the 
2586death of perhaps 20,000 of the most loyal and committed Communists 
2587and non-Communist labor organizers in the spring of 1927. 
2588
2589The northern warlords Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang now threw 
2590their support to the anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek. In June, the 
2591Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin was killed when his railroad car 
2592was blown up by Japanese troops. Zhang's son, Zhang Xueliang, inher- 
2593ited his father's troops and immediately declared his allegiance to a new 
2594government headed by the Nationalist Party. Thus, after thirteen years 
2595of warlord domination of China, civil war, and near anarchy, the coun- 
2596try was at least nominally unified under its new president, Chiang Kai- 
2597shek. Chiang established his capital at Nanjing, since his real power base 
2598was in the Yangzi valley of central China, renaming Beijing (Northern 
2599Capital) Beiping (Northern Peace). 
2600
2601The northern warlords now donned Nationalist uniforms and 
2602declared themselves loyal to the Republic of China under Chiang Kai- 
2603shek. For the next decade, known in history books as "the Nanjing 
2604decade," Chiang attempted to promote rapid industrialization and the 
2605development of a modern government and a strong nation that would 
2606participate in the international community as an equal rather than as a 
2607semicolony of foreign powers. Chiang was a very strict disciplinarian 
2608and demanded (and usually received) the utmost loyalty from his troops. 
2609He was attracted to the doctrines of fascism, which were developing in 
2610Europe in the 1930s, and he came to rely heavily on German advisors in 
2611training his army and organizing his government in Nanjing. Although 
2612never able to suppress his political rivals completely, he was a master 
2613manipulator of factions within the Nationalist Party and an effective 
2614speaker, despite a high, squeaky voice and heavy Zhejiang accent, in 
2615rallying his followers against the "evils" of communism. 
2616
2617An additional factor in Chiang's rise to power was his much-publicized 
2618marriage in December 1927 to Soong Meiling, the daughter of one of China's 
2619wealthiest families and the sister of Sun Yat-sen's widow, Soong Qingling. 
2620Soong Meiling had been educated in the United States and would become 
2621an extremely effective ambassador for her husband and his government to 
2622
2623
2624
2625122 China in World History 
2626
2627
2628
2629the United States and the entire international community. The Soong fam- 
2630ily was Christian, and Chiang (who already had one wife) had to promise 
2631to consider becoming a Christian as a condition of the family's consent to 
2632the marriage. He was baptized as a Christian in October 1930. 
2633
2634Chiang's connections with the Soong family had a profound effect 
2635on his government. His wife's brother, T. V. Soong, became prime minis- 
2636ter, and her brother-in-law, H. H. Kung, minister of finance. These men 
2637managed to create a modern centralized banking system that brought 
2638some much-needed economic stability to the cities. A beginning was 
2639made to establish a functioning tax system, though many provincial 
2640revenues never made it to the central government. Economic growth 
2641occurred mainly in the cities where foreign capitalists still tended to 
2642dominate the urban economy, but Chinese merchants and entrepreneurs 
2643began to grow in both numbers and prosperity. 
2644
2645To provide a counterweight to the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, 
2646and anti-Confucian ideology of his left-wing opponents, Chiang pro- 
2647moted the "New Life Movement" in the 1930s, which called for a 
2648revival of traditional Confucian values, including reverence for elders, 
2649for the nation, and for its political leaders. In the wake of the May 
2650Fourth Movement, which had discredited much of Chinese tradition 
2651in the eyes of young people in particular, Chiang Kai-shek's attempts 
2652to revive traditional values was often viewed with cynicism by urban 
2653Chinese youth and by journalists, writers, and university professors. 
2654
2655One of the most vibrant developments in the 1910s and 1920s was 
2656a women's movement to abolish foot-binding, end concubinage, eradi- 
2657cate widow suicide, and promote education for women and the freedom 
2658of young people to choose their own marriage partners. Many older 
2659women had suffered a great deal to achieve bound feet that had long 
2660been regarded as beautiful, so it was confusing and distressing to be 
2661told now that they were backward and ignorant victims of an oppres- 
2662sive custom. It also caused almost as much pain to unbind one's feet as 
2663to bind them in the first place. Despite the persistence of some women's 
2664pride in their bound feet, Chinese society as a whole quickly abandoned 
2665a custom that had become the norm over a period of eight centuries. 
2666
2667In the same years, the leaders of the May Fourth Movement called 
2668for the promotion of vernacular written Chinese and the abandonment 
2669of the cumbersome classical language, which required years of study just 
2670to acquire basic literacy. Within a few years classical Chinese became a 
2671dead language, except that a few continued to write poetry in classical 
2672forms. Vernacular Chinese became the universal means of written com- 
2673munication in newspapers, books, and periodicals. 
2674
2675
2676
2677Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 123 
2678
2679
2680
2681In 1931, the best-selling novel in China was Family, by Ba Jin, a 
2682writer drawn to the political philosophy of anarchism. Based on his 
2683own upper-class family's life in the western province of Sichuan, Ba 
2684Jin's novel dramatized the oppressive nature of the old family system 
2685by showing three brothers in varying degrees of rebellion against the 
2686Confucian-style family. The youngest brother in the novel rebels against 
2687his family almost completely, while his eldest brother sees its injustices 
2688but cannot bring himself to challenge his elders directly. Ba Jin had no 
2689concrete proposals for organizing a new social and political system, 
2690but he very effectively condemned the old order and helped to infuse a 
2691whole generation with the May Fourth spirit. 
2692
2693In China's major cities, Western styles of dress became the norm, and 
2694girls began going to school with boys for the first time. Conservatives in 
2695the Nationalist Party resisted many of these changes. Nationalist Party 
2696zealots formed the Blue Shirts, an organization patterned in part after 
2697the Brown Shirts of Nazi Germany. These "morality police" sometimes 
2698went so far as to imprison young women for wearing their short bobbed 
2699hair with Western-style permanent waves. They also intimidated and 
2700even assassinated intellectuals who spoke out publicly against Chiang 
2701Kai-shek's policies. Chiang and his closest followers began to promote 
2702fascism as the answer to China's problems. All Chinese, in their analy- 
2703sis, should cultivate a greater sense of self-sacrifice to the needs and 
2704goals of the nation and an ever greater sense of loyalty to the one leader 
2705of the country, Chiang Kai-shek. 
2706
2707One of the major accomplishments of Chiang's government was to 
2708regain some aspects of Chinese sovereignty that had been lost in all the 
2709humiliating unequal treaties forced on China in the nineteenth and early 
2710twentieth centuries. From 1928 to 1933, China regained control of its 
2711own trade tariffs, something lost after the Opium War, and Chiang's 
2712government took complete control of the China Maritime Customs Ser- 
2713vice and reduced the number of foreign concessions in China from thir- 
2714ty-three to nineteen. Later, during World War II, China's Western allies 
2715ended extraterritoriality, that century-long symbol of Chinese subordi- 
2716nation, and Chiang met personally with Roosevelt and Churchill as a 
2717full partner in the Allies' coalition against the Axis powers. 
2718
2719Despite these advances and some growth of a modern industrial 
2720economy in the major cities, the vast majority of Chinese peasants con- 
2721tinued under Nationalist rule to live in dire poverty. Without the ben- 
2722efits of modern medicine, peasants suffered especially from parasitic 
2723worms and snails that multiplied in the night soil that peasants had used 
2724as fertilizer for millennia. If the night soil was not properly heated to 
2725
2726
2727
2728124 China in World History 
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733From tbe fifteenth century on, Beijing (renamed Beiping, or Nortbern Peace, in 
27341927) was knotvn for its magnificent walls and gates, including Qianmen, tbe 
2735138-feet-high "Front Gate" ofthe inner city, photographed here ivith a mixture 
2736of rickshaw pullers, cars, trucks, and electric trams in 1931. Modernization 
2737sometimes caused serious social tensions, as when 25,000 rickshaw pullers (who 
2738traditionally hired themselves out to move people about the sprawling city) rioted 
2739in October 1929, attacking the newly installed electric trams and tbeir passengers. 
2740Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-137015 
2741
2742
2743
2744kill them, tapeworms and other parasitic organisms survived and eas- 
2745ily bore into the skin and infected peasants who waded with bare feet 
2746and legs through muddy rice paddies. Millions of Chinese peasants died 
2747every year from such parasitic diseases. 
2748
2749The traditional sources of peasant misery — floods, droughts, and 
2750famines — continued to inflict great damage in the Chinese countryside 
2751
2752
2753
2754Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 125 
2755
2756
2757
2758in the 1920s and 1930s. A major problem in the countryside was a 
2759very high rate of tenancy, with many farmers owning no land and pay- 
2760ing up to 50 or even 70 percent of their crops in rent. Landlords and 
2761loan sharks charged high interest rates, often 30-40 percent annually, 
2762so that peasants who fell into debt were unlikely ever to be free of debt 
2763payments. The great British economist R. H. Tawney spent a year in 
2764China in the early 1930s studying China's rural economy. After describ- 
2765ing the desperate position of Chinese peasants in his classic book Land 
2766and Labor in China, he made a chilling historical prophecy with typical 
2767British understatement. "The revolution of 1911 was a bourgeois affair. 
2768The revolution of the peasants is yet to come. If their overlords continue 
2769to exploit them as hitherto, it will not be pleasant. It will not, perhaps, 
2770be undeserved." 1 
2771
2772At the very moment Tawney was writing, Mao Zedong a young, 
2773ambitious Communist, and his comrades in a poor rural area were 
2774beginning to organize Chinese peasants to turn the traditional rural 
2775power structure upside down. A tall, thin young man with sad eyes, 
2776Mao was born into a wealthy peasant family in rural Hunan Province, 
2777near the provincial capital of Changsha. Rebellious from his youth, Mao 
2778often came into conflict with his father. After his high school education, 
2779Mao went to Beijing for six months, where he was deeply influenced by 
2780Li Dazhao, the Beijing University librarian, one of the founders of the 
2781Chinese Communist Party. In sharp contrast to Marxist orthodoxy and 
2782the views of Stalin, Li Dazhao argued that Chinese peasants should be 
2783the heart and soul of the Chinese revolution. 
2784
2785What gave Mao a chance to rise in the Chinese Communist Party 
2786hierarchy was Chiang Kai-shek's successful suppression of Communist 
2787organizational activities in the cities of south and central China in the 
2788spring of 1927. While Moscow continued to emphasize the urban labor 
2789movement, even after Chiang Kai-shek's violent purge of Communist 
2790and labor organizers, Mao and two military leaders, Zhu De and Peng 
2791Dehuai, went in a different direction. In the early 1930s, they began to 
2792organize their own soviet — a Communist-controlled network of villages 
2793and market towns — in Jinggang Mountain, a poor, remote mountain- 
2794ous district in the border area between the provinces of Hunan and 
2795Jiangxi. 
2796
2797In these isolated mountain villages, Mao worked on political ques- 
2798tions of party organization and land reform, while Zhu De and Peng 
2799Dehuai organized peasant sons into a disciplined Red Army. The army 
2800could protect and secure rural villages, where land seizures and land- 
2801lord executions could be implemented without fear of reprisals from the 
2802
2803
2804
2805126 China in World History 
2806
2807
2808
2809provincial or national government. Mao and his comrades adopted the 
2810Leninist model of the party controlling the army, but they also went far 
2811beyond Lenin in their organizational approach and philosophy. Mao 
2812had studied the ancient Chinese military classic The Art of War, by 
2813Sunzi, and he loved the stories of military battles and inventive strate- 
2814gies in the sixteenth-century novels Water Margin and Romance of the 
2815Three Kingdoms. From these varied sources, Mao developed a unique 
2816philosophy of guerrilla warfare that was made to order for the weaker 
2817side in any battle. 
2818
2819The basic principles of guerrilla warfare are captured in slogans the 
2820Red Army soldiers learned at Jinggang Mountain: "The enemy advances, 
2821we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the 
2822enemy retreats, we pursue." 2 The guerrilla army evades its more power- 
2823ful foe and, through superior intelligence, fights only the battles it can 
2824win. This army depended on strong political indoctrination. Knowing 
2825who they fought and why, the Red Army troops were well disciplined 
2826and taught not to raid, rape, loot, or destroy the property of the people. 
2827By winning the support of peasants in the remote countryside, the Red 
2828Army also gained superior intelligence that yielded precise information 
2829about the movements, strength, and plans of the enemy. 
2830
2831These principles were first developed in local skirmishes around 
2832Jinggang Mountain, and it did not take long for Mao's organizing 
2833efforts to attract the attention of Chiang Kai-shek. From 1931 to 1934, 
2834Chiang sent his Nationalist troops on five separate "extermination cam- 
2835paigns" against the Communist forces on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. 
2836Each of Chiang's first four campaigns ended in defeat as his armies 
2837were outmaneuvered by the smaller Communist forces, divided into 
2838subunits, and lured into ambushes. By the fifth such campaign in 1934, 
2839Chiang Kai-shek adopted a more deliberate approach: he encircled the 
2840Communist forces with his overwhelming superiority in numbers and 
2841weaponry and slowly tightened the noose, trapping the Red Army for 
2842a final showdown. When these tactics began to succeed, Mao argued 
2843for a radical response: to break out of the blockade and flee, with the 
2844entire Red Army, to northwest China. This was a move both desperate 
2845and brilliant: desperate in that it risked annihilation for an uncertain 
2846outcome and brilliant in that it would demonstrate to the world that 
2847the Red Army was disciplined and, as Japanese aggression mounted, 
2848dedicated to defending China's peasants against Japan, whose role in 
2849China's internal politics would soon prove crucial. 
2850
2851From October 1934 to October 1935, Mao, Zhu De, and Peng 
2852Dehuai led the Red Army — about 86,000 troops (including thirty-five 
2853
2854
2855
2856Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 127 
2857
2858
2859
2860women) — on what has become known as the Long March, one of the 
2861most impressive feats of endurance in the history of warfare. Losing 
286280-90 percent of their troops along the way — to injury, frostbite, deser- 
2863tion, death, disease, or capture — the Long Marchers traversed, mostly 
2864on foot, over 6,000 miles in 368 days, enduring frequent harassment or 
2865attack. They crossed twenty-four rivers, moved through twelve prov- 
2866inces, and crossed over eighteen mountain ranges. Though pursued 
2867by an army that was much better equipped, the Red Army survived 
2868through ingeniously daring tactics and sheer force of will. In the middle 
2869of the Long March, Mao was recognized for his strategic brilliance and 
2870made head of the Chinese Communist Party. 
2871
2872Zigzagging their way through southwestern and western provinces, 
2873the Communists arrived in October 1935 in northwest China, one of 
2874the poorest regions of the country, where they made their headquar- 
2875ters in peasant-built caves in Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. This area 
2876was chosen in part because it was far removed from Chiang Kai-shek's 
2877base in south central China and in part because it was much closer 
2878than Jinggang Mountain to Chinese areas now occupied by Japan. 
2879Japanese aggression in China accelerated in the early 1930s, in part 
2880because Japan feared a truly unified Republic of China. The Japanese 
2881had seized control of Manchuria, the original homeland of the Man- 
2882chus, in 1931-32. This large area north and east of Beiping was rich in 
2883forests and coal and oil deposits and, unlike most of China, it was not 
2884heavily populated. 
2885
2886Preoccupied with the growing worldwide economic depression, the 
2887United States and European countries paid little attention to Japan's take- 
2888over of Manchuria. The League of Nations sent an investigating team 
2889that pronounced Japan the aggressor, but beyond verbally condemning 
2890Japan, the League did nothing to contest Japan's fait accompli, and Japan 
2891protested the League's censure by withdrawing from the League. 
2892
2893Throughout the early 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly complied 
2894with Japanese demands and shied away from any military confronta- 
2895tion. Japan set up a puppet state, Manchukuo, in Manchuria, under the 
2896nominal leadership of the last Manchu emperor, Henry Puyi. Japan also 
2897seized territory in Inner Mongolia and made ever more demands on the 
2898Nationalist government for rights and privileges. Comparing Japanese 
2899aggression to a disease of the skin and Chinese communism to a disease 
2900of the heart, Chiang argued that he must first wipe out the Communists 
2901before he could confront Japan. This policy made Chiang begin to look 
2902to his own people like an appeaser, ready to sell out part of his country 
2903to maintain his own power. 
2904
2905
2906
2907128 China in World History 
2908
2909
2910
2911Chiang's policy almost cost him his life in December 1936 when 
2912he flew into the northwest provincial capital of Xi'an to meet with 
2913the young Marshall Zhang Xueliang, son of Zhang Zuolin, the Man- 
2914churian warlord whom the Japanese had murdered in 1928. Zhang's 
2915troops had fled their homeland when Japan took over Manchuria in 
29161931, and now Chiang Kai-shek was urging them to attack the Com- 
2917munist camps around Yan'an. Increasingly resistant to fighting fellow 
2918Chinese while Japan colonized their homeland, Zhang Xueliang and 
2919his troops rebelled against Chiang's authority and literally kidnapped 
2920him at gunpoint. They invited Mao's confidant Zhou Enlai to sit down 
2921with Chiang and negotiate an anti-Japanese truce between the Com- 
2922munists and Nationalists. Chiang reluctantly agreed and flew back to 
2923Nanjing, after a two-week captivity, to announce an end to the Chinese 
2924civil war. 3 
2925
2926Japan was quick to see the significance of the growing anti-Japanese 
2927hostility in China, and in July 1937, Japanese troops south of Beiping 
2928opened fire at Marco Polo Bridge in what was to become the opening 
2929round of World War II. As Japan had modernized and Westernized in 
2930the late nineteenth century, it had quickly adopted the Western ver- 
2931sion of imperialism, which viewed the world as locked in a struggle for 
2932survival between the weak and the strong, the backward and the pro- 
2933gressive. As the most advanced eastern nation, Japan saw itself as the 
2934most logical power to colonize and modernize China. In Japan's view, it 
2935was only following the example of Britain in India, Holland in the East 
2936Indies, the United States in the Philippines, France in Indochina, and the 
2937French, British, and Belgians in Africa. 
2938
2939Assuming that Chiang Kai-shek would soon seek a truce, leaving 
2940Japan in a strong position in north and northeast China, Japan expected 
2941the fighting in China to be brief and decisive. But instead of seeking 
2942a peaceful compromise, Chiang and his entire Nationalist government 
2943evacuated the eastern half of China and set up a wartime capital in the 
2944far western provincial city of Chongqing on the Yangzi River. To slow 
2945the Japanese advance westward, Chiang's air force bombed the dikes 
2946of the Yellow River in June 1938, thereby flooding millions of acres of 
2947farmland, drowning perhaps 300,000 people, and leaving two million 
2948people homeless. 
2949
2950The Japanese forces often operated with considerable autonomy 
2951from Tokyo, and they reacted with fury when Chinese refused to sur- 
2952render quickly. When local forces resisted the Japanese occupation of 
2953Shanghai and its advance on Nanjing in late 1937, the Japanese mili- 
2954tary adopted a deliberate policy of raping, looting, and murdering the 
2955
2956
2957
2958Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 129 
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963lll equipped and no match for Japan's powerful modern army, Cbiang Kai-sbek's 
2964Nationalist forces enter the Shandong city ofTai'an in 1937 as they retreat from 
2965the invading Japanese. Too weak to offer much resistance, Chiang's forces beat 
2966a hasty retreat westward, and his fledgling air force bombed the dikes of the 
2967Yellow River in June 1938 to slow the Japanese advance. Library of Congress, 
2968LC-USZ62-137679 
2969
2970
2971
2972civilian population with impunity. In six weeks' time, they raped at least 
297320,000 Chinese women and killed 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese civil- 
2974ians (historians still debate the numbers) in what has become known to 
2975the world as the Rape of Nanjing, one of the more infamous atrocities 
2976of the twentieth century. 
2977
2978The Western world, preoccupied with the Nazi movement and its 
2979growing threat in Europe, looked on this Japanese butchery in China 
2980with some indifference. A stalemate was reached in China by 1939, when 
2981Japan controlled the eastern third of the country, the Chinese Commu- 
2982nists controlled its small base area in the northwest, and the Nation- 
2983alists controlled the southwest. Chinese Communists and Nationalists 
2984cooperated only nominally, and Chiang Kai-shek often positioned his 
2985best troops not so as to engage the Japanese but so as to contain his 
2986Communist "allies" in the northwest. 
2987
2988
2989
2990: 3° 
2991
2992
2993
2994China in World History 
2995
2996
2997
2998When Japan moved into French Indochina and occupied a naval 
2999base there in the summer of 1941, the United States declared an embargo 
3000on further trade with Japan. Since the United States had been its main 
3001supplier of oil and scrap metal up to this point, Japan saw the trade 
3002embargo as a virtual declaration of war. Japan offered to pull out of 
3003French Indochina in exchange for the lifting of the embargo. The United 
3004States refused, and Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Har- 
3005bor without warning on December 7, 1941. Chiang Kai-shek and Mao 
3006Zedong both rejoiced to have the United States, finally, as a full partner 
3007in the war with Japan. 
3008
3009China's war against the invading Japanese was made to order for the 
3010Maoist style of guerrilla warfare. Japanese troops were easily identifiable 
3011anywhere in China, and Chinese Communist forces now subordinated 
3012their class warfare to the task of uniting all Chinese in the struggle against 
3013Japan. In August 1940, Communist forces launched a major offensive 
3014against the Japanese in north China, cutting railway lines and roads, 
3015blowing up bridges, and sabotaging strategic assets like coal mines. Jap- 
3016anese commanders responded with a scorched-earth policy of "kill all, 
3017burn all, loot all," designed to terrorize the Chinese population into sub- 
3018mission. What it did instead was to send ever-increasing numbers of Chi- 
3019nese into the Communist Party. Throughout the war, the Communists 
3020modified their land policies — they reduced rents while guaranteeing their 
3021payment, thus winning the support of all classes. Peasants were so grate- 
3022ful to the Chinese Communist Party for organizing resistance to Japan 
3023that they happily sent their sons to join the Red Army. In 1935, the Com- 
3024munists commanded some 30,000 troops and controlled perhaps two 
3025million people. By the end of World War II, the Communist Party had 
3026a well-trained, highly motivated army of nearly one million troops and 
3027controlled a total population of about one hundred million people. 
3028
3029During World War II, the Chinese Communist Party developed 
3030many of the techniques it would later use to rule all of China. In the 
3031heat of a war that everyone saw as a struggle for survival, the Party 
3032developed an iron-clad discipline and a strong spirit of self-sacrifice for 
3033the sake of the Party and the nation. Mao delivered a stirring eulogy of 
3034Norman Bethune, an idealistic Canadian surgeon who went to Yan'an 
3035to help the Chinese Communists resist Japan, worked tirelessly to teach 
3036Chinese doctors and nurses the techniques of battlefield surgical opera- 
3037tions, blood transfusions, and so on, and died of blood poisoning after 
3038failing to treat a cut he had suffered during surgery: "Comrade Bet- 
3039hune's spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, 
3040was shown in his boundless sense of responsibility in his work and his 
3041
3042
3043
3044Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 131 
3045
3046
3047
3048boundless warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people. 
3049
3050Every Communist must learn from him We must all learn the spirit 
3051
3052of absolute selflessness from him." 4 
3053
3054Mao seemed such a brilliant military and political strategist that he 
3055gained ever-increasing authority. Once he and his small group of Party 
3056leaders (including Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai) determined 
3057and announced the military strategies and political policies for the day, 
3058every Party member was obligated to implement these strategies and 
3059policies with enthusiasm. Every Party member was obliged to read and 
3060study the speeches and essays of Party Chairman Mao. 
3061
3062When many writers and intellectuals fled to the wartime base of 
3063Yan'an, they were quickly indoctrinated against writing the kinds of 
3064critical essays or short stories that showed the seamy side of society. 
3065Instead, they were told to write clear propaganda in support of the 
3066Chinese people and their war effort. In 1942 Mao delivered a series 
3067of lectures on literature and art in which he declared that writers and 
3068intellectuals must identify themselves with the peasant class and write 
3069for the sake of the nation (and the Communist Party). What the country 
3070needed from its writers, he concluded, was not "more flowers on the 
3071brocade" but "fuel in snowy weather." 5 
3072
3073China's greatest woman writer in Yan'an, Ding Ling, fled to Yan'an 
3074after having been imprisoned by the Nationalists. She was disappointed 
3075to discover the low status of women in the Communist Party and wrote 
3076a story showing the contrast between Party rhetoric about women's 
3077equality with men and the realities of life under Party control. In keep- 
3078ing with Mao's policies on art and literature, she was harshly criticized 
3079for her efforts, forced to confess her "bourgeois outlook," and pres- 
3080sured to write only propaganda favorable to Mao and the Party. 
3081
3082As for Mao's "fuel in snowy weather," the Party organized mass 
3083associations to communicate Party policies to every person in Party- 
3084controlled areas. Propaganda teams went into villages to perform plays, 
3085puppet theater, songs, and folk dances, all carrying the message that 
3086the Chinese Communist Party would lead China to victory against the 
3087Japanese aggressors. Peasant associations worked to reduce rents and 
3088interest rates while being careful not to attack landlords, who were 
3089also enlisted in the anti-Japanese war. Women's associations mobilized 
3090women to work collectively in support of the war effort, confronted 
3091men who beat their wives, and worked to promote women's freedom 
3092of marriage and divorce. Youth associations rallied young people in the 
3093war effort as well, stirred their idealistic impulses, and recruited thou- 
3094sands to become members of the Communist Party. 
3095
3096
3097
3098132 China in World History 
3099
3100
3101
3102Chiang Kai-shek's forces, by contrast, grew in numbers but not in 
3103strength. He appointed commanders on the basis of their personal loy- 
3104alty to him rather than their competence or honesty. Commanders often 
3105inflated their troop rolls, sold off their allotted rations on the black mar- 
3106ket, and left their troops starving and weaponless in the field. Nation- 
3107alist forces died more often from disease and starvation than enemy 
3108bullets. American diplomats in China often contrasted the high morale 
3109and discipline of the Communist forces with the corruption and incom- 
3110petence of the Nationalist forces. The crusty American general George 
3111Stilwell, known as "Vinegar Joe" for his sharp tongue, felt nothing but 
3112contempt for Chiang Kai-shek, who seemed to care far more about his 
3113own power and Communist rivals than defeating Japan. Eventually the 
3114United States recalled Stilwell from China in order to try to improve 
3115America's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek. 
3116
3117When World War II ended, the United States was anxious to avoid a 
3118renewed civil war in China between the Communists and the National- 
3119ists. General George Marshall, one of America's most respected generals, 
3120went to China to try to negotiate a peaceful compromise between the 
3121two sides, but his efforts were doomed by the deep suspicions on both 
3122sides based on their long history of lethal conflict and feigned "coopera- 
3123tion." Having suffered through an eight-year war that left twenty million 
3124Chinese dead and millions more wounded, sick or starving, the Chinese 
3125people desperately wanted peace. But Chiang Kai-shek was not about 
3126to tolerate an independent Communist army in China, and Mao would 
3127never again agree to lay down arms and trust the goodwill of Chiang. 
3128
3129On paper, the Nationalists had about a four-to-one advantage in 
3130numbers of armed troops (four million to one million); overwhelming 
3131technical superiority in terms of tanks, aircraft, and weapons; and the 
3132clear and strong support of the United States, which provided Chiang's 
3133forces with about $2 billion in military aid from 1946 to 1949. But 
3134Chiang was overconfident in thinking the United States could not and 
3135would not let him lose a shooting war with his Communist rivals. 
3136Against American advice, Chiang used U.S. air transport to fly his best 
3137forces into northeast China and Manchuria in 1946-1947 in order to 
3138try to prevent the Communists from taking the Japanese surrender and 
3139establishing Communist power in those areas. When full-scale civil war 
3140broke out in early 1947, the Communists abandoned their wartime cap- 
3141ital of Yan'an, scattered into the countryside in classic guerrilla fashion, 
3142and renamed their forces the People's Liberation Army. 
3143
3144Chinese Communist forces had moved into Manchuria with some 
3145tactical help from the Soviet Union (which had also sent troops into 
3146
3147
3148
3149Civil Wars, Invasion, and the Rise of Communism 133 
3150
3151
3152
3153China on the request of the United States when the overwhelming 
3154concern was to force Japan's quick surrender). In mid-1947, the Com- 
3155munists seized the initiative in Manchuria, surrounded the Nationalist 
3156forces in the cities, and cut railway and communication lines. Chiang 
3157refused to recognize the looming defeat of his troops there and sent 
3158in reinforcements. In late 1948, the Communist general Lin Biao led 
3159a final massive assault in Manchuria, capturing in two months' time 
3160230,000 rifles and 400,000 of Chiang's best soldiers. 
3161
3162Even then, the Nationalists still enjoyed numerical superiority in 
3163men and a virtual monopoly on tanks and planes. That changed in 
3164the central Yangzi valley battle of Hwaihai (Xuzhou) from November 
31651948 through January 1949. When the Nationalist general at Hwaihai 
3166found himself encircled and cut off by Communist forces, he heard 
3167that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to bomb his troops to keep them 
3168and their equipment from falling to the Communists. He quickly sur- 
3169rendered his force of 460,000 troops to the People's Liberation Army. 
3170The Nationalist effort was further undermined by rampant inflation 
3171that swept through Nationalist-controlled territory with the force of a 
3172hurricane. From January 1946 to August 1948, prices multiplied six- 
3173ty-seven times. In late 1948, all confidence in the Nationalist govern- 
3174ment collapsed. Prices multiplied 85,000 times in six months, and the 
3175Nationalist currency became as meaningless as a Qing dynasty copper 
3176coin. Chiang Kai-shek fled first to Sichuan Province in the far west and 
3177then to Taiwan, along with nearly two million Nationalist troops and 
3178officials and their families. (Taiwan, a Japanese colony from 1895 to 
31791945, had been returned to the Republic of China upon the surrender of 
3180Japan in August 1945.) On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong stood atop 
3181the Gate of Heavenly Peace in the center of Beijing and proclaimed the 
3182founding of the People's Republic of China.