kuniga.me > Books > Imperial China: 900 - 1800
Imperial China: 900 - 1800
Book by F. W. Mote. As this book title suggests it covers the history of China from 900 to 1800. This corresponds to about the end of the Tang dynasty to about halfway through the Qing dynasty (the last one).
It provides many facts and details about the lives of the Imperial family and also about the people from the steppe of Central Asia (not just the Mongols) which I learned from this book had a very intertwined relationship with China.
The author also provides analysis on demographics, culture and philosophy. He often rejects commonly held assumptions, for example that there was a population explosion during Qing times. His analysis on philosophy feels pretty academic, revolving around Neo-Confucianism which I found repetitive and uninteresting. I feel like the book could be 10% shorter without these analysis.
Next are my detailed notes for selected chapters. My favorite chapters were 17, 18, 22, 27, 30 and 31.
1 - The five dynasties
After the fall of the Tang, there was a period without any dominating dynasty. In the North there were five more or less competing dynasties. In the South there were instead 10 states. This chapter describes a bit about each of these.
Interesting bits:
- Xi’an was the cradle of Chinese civilization and the capital of the Tang dynasty (together with Luoyang) but they moved East because it could not sustain its large population.
2 - Abaoji
Abaoji was a member of the Khitan tribe from the steppes north of China. He was the founder of the Liao dynasty which extended as far south as Beijing, the Southernmost of this five capitals (he was not the founder of Beijing though).
Interesting bits:
- The Uighurs used to live around that area, but were driven West by the Kirghz people. They converted to Maniqueism (Persian) after the relocation.
- This chapter also mentions the Silla and Bohai people, the precursors to Korean kingdom. Lake Baikal seems to be the birthplace of the Altaic Languages which include Turkic, Mongol and Tungusic (Jurchen and Manchu, Bohai, Korean!!! Possibly Japanese).
3 - Building the Liao empire
Discusses the Liao empire under successive leaders. Steppe people didn’t have an established norm succession so it often led to struggle of power between contenders. The Kithans struggled between governing nomadic people and the sedentary Chinese under their domain. They created a dual governing system.
One of the five dynastics (from Chapter 1) was the Later Zhou. Zhao Kuangyin was a general for those rulers and usurped the throne to found the Song dynasty. Relations between Song and Kithan was mostly the former paying tributes to the latter, but otherwise pacific.
Interesting bits:
- The name Cathay cames from Khitai, another pronunciation of Khitan, and was the name by which China was known from early contact with Europeans.
- The kingdom of Koryo started unifying Korea around the same time the Liao empire started.
5 - Creating the Song dynasty
Being a general Zhao Kuangyin was aware of the power of the military, so one of the goals of his reign was to subject it to the civil government. He was able to conquer most of the 10 states in the South.
The Song co-existed with the Liao dynasty in the North, often signing peace treaties (e.g. Shanyuan treaty) which involves paying hefty tributes which for China was probably more economically favorable than waging war.
The Song established their capital at Kaifeng.
7 - Dimensions of the Northern Song Life
The most interesting bits for me are about religion. It mentions that Muslim conquest of India in 1000 cut Buddhism connections to China. It seems to be the Ghaznavids, which connects with what I read about in [1].
The Song emperors patronized Daoism.
8 - Origins of the Xi Xia State
The Tangut lived between China and Tibet, and they were more nomadic than their stepped neighbors, the Kithans. They spoke a language that was similar to Tibetan and had the Tangut script, based on Chinese characters.
Tangus had helped the Tang dynasty and were granted the Xia region, located roughly on the Central North area of China, including Ningxia and Gansu.
The formed a new dynasty called the Da Xia or Xi (west) Xia and also co-existed with the Song and the Kithans.
9 - The Wild Jurchens erupt into history
The Jurchens were nomad people from the Northeast, around Manchuria. In fact the Manchus (founders of the Qing dynasty centuries later) were ethnic kin to the Jurchen.
The Jurchens defeated the Liao empire and the Kithans fled west and formed the Kara Khitai dynasty. The Jurchens were led by Aguda, who founded the Jin (gold) dynasty. He looted Beijing before handing back to the Song.
The Jin eventually decided to conquer Song. They took the Song emperor Huizong (who had abdicated) and his son Qinzong captives. Qinzong’s younger brother Zhao Gou (Emperor Gaozong) fled Kaifeng to Hangzhou and started the Southern Song dynasty. The previous Song dynasty is also known as the Northern Song since it held control mostly over the north.
The Jin co-existed with the Xi Xia State. Both were destroyed by the Mongols later.
13 - The southern Song
Zhao Ji (Emperor Huizong, last emperor of the Northern Song) had 65 children (!) 20 of which died young. He also adopted a son named Zhao Bozong, who became the successor of the Gaozong emperor, known as emperor Xiaozong, and was the high point of Southern Song dynasty. He abdicated after the death of his step father. Southern Song went downhill after his reign until the Mongol conquest.
Interesting bits:
- The author makes an interesting suggestion that the move south that was richer empowered the elite and weakened the monarchy.
14 - Chinese Civilization and the Song Achievement
This is one of the chapters where the author focuses too much on political thought. There was one interesting remark though:
In China and in Renaissance Europe, medicine became the profession of barbers. I looked it up, and Wikipedia says it’s because they were good surgeons, owning and being skilled with razors!
16 - A mid-13th century overview
It discusses some interesting theories about the Chinese writing system, suggesting that Chinese civilization never adopted a phonetic alphabet because of specifics of their spoken language (for example, tones being hard to capture).
It also mentioned that the Xia and Liao had contact with alphabetic writing systems (via the Tibetan and Uighur) but still opted to develop a writing system based on Chinese, possibly in deference to their culture.
Buddhism was not officially supported in China and was seen by steppe people as a religion outside of Chinese cultural influence (being of Indian origin), so that might have had influence on their adoption of it. However, the Buddhism they adopted had the Chinese form, so it served as a transport channel for Chinese culture to the steppe people.
17- The Career of the Great Khan Chinggis
Chinggis childhood was pretty interesting (if true). Chinggs’ dad was poisoned and his mother raised him and his siblings by herself after being ostracized from her tribe. Before dying his father he was promised a bride at 11 and his father-in-law honored the union even though Chinggs prospects looked bleak as a fatherless boy. This helped him ascent into power.
The chapter claims that there’s no evidence he was a military genius, but a leader who commanded loyalty and discipline, including from absorbed tribes. Uighurs and Ongüts submitted and were leveraged because they were a more advanced civilization, having learned some governing from the Chinese. Their Turkic writing system was adopted in official documents.
Interesting bits:
- The Mongols were not mentioned in Chinese records until the Jin period. It suggests they were not very powerful. They might have come from the Manchurian forests.
- There were subgroups of the Mongol people such as the Merkits and Kerait. Like the Uyghurs, the Merkits and Kerait were also Nestorian Christians.
18 - Forging the Mongol World
One of the most interesting chapters to me, since I’m particularly fascinated by the Mongol conquests, in particular the 3 western campaigns.
The first western Mongolian campaign was led by Genghis Khan and last from 1220 to 1223, where they destroyed Bukhara and Samarkand. He reached the Indus River, but stopped there. Generals Jebe and Subutai and his son Jochi pushed further West all the way to Russia, at the sea of Azov.
The second western campaign was led by Subutai and Jochi’s son Batu then Khan of the Golden Horde. In 1238 Moscow was captured, Kiev fell in 1240. They reached all the way to Poland and Hungary in the second campaign but Ogodei died in Karakorum and they were asked back.
The third Western campaign was led by Hulegu: He defeated the assassins order [5] and took over Persia. He ended the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. In the levant he seems to have had some alliance with the Christians of the Seventh Crusade and only attacked Muslim bastions, taking Aleppo and then Damascus around 1260. They lost in Southern Palestine to the Mamluks which cut short their plans to invade Egypt. Hulegu withdrew from the Levant and stayed in Persia.
The great Khan Mongke ordered his brother Khubilai Khan to attack the Southern Song via Yunnan, where he defeated the Dali Kingdom and brought it under the Mongol empire.
At its highest point there were four khanates in the Mongol empire: the Golden Horde in Russia, the Khanate of Chagatai in Centra Asia, the Il-Khanate in Persia (headed by Hulegu) and the Khanate of Mongolia, which also controlled the Khanate of China.
The golden horde known as Kipchak, became more Turkic in culture, converted to Islam. Idea that existing culture is very strong, tends to be assimilated by outsiders [6].
Timur was from the Chagatai Khanate (ethnic Turk) and founded the Timurid empire. He tried to annex China too. Ancestor of Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire [1].
The author says: For a century, Mongol history was fully merged with Chinese history.
19 - Khubilai Khan becomes emperor of China
Khubilai Khan was the son of Tolui, himself the youngest son of Chinggs Khan with his main consort Börte. He was assigned the governorship of China under Mogol rule and later founded the Yuan dynasty. The explorer Marco Polo stayed with Khubilai from 1275 to 1291. The Mongol invasion decimated ⅔ of the North China population.
Kubilai understood the importance of restoring economy in China for his own benefit. He moved his Mongol capital from Karakorum to 200 miles north of Beijing and called it Supreme Capital, or Shangdu, or Xanadu.
Mongols invaded Japan in 1274 (Kyushu island) aided by the Koreans. Storms saved the Japanese twice!
20 - China under Mongol rule
The author suggests that the Chinese mode of government might have influenced post-Mongol developments in Central Asia, Iran and Russia.
The Mongols created the Muslim Bureau of Astronomy and hired Persian astronomers. This also enhanced cultural exchanges between east and west.
Mongol and Manchu alphabets were based on Uighur script. Kubilai requested the Tibetan monk Phagspa to come up with a new script that was suitable to represent languages such as Chinese, Mongol, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Uyghur, It was based on the Tibetan script system and it was phonetic. It was never massively adopted but it is an important historical record: it documents how Chinese was pronounced around the 14th century. This information would be otherwise lost since the Chinese script is non-phonetic! There’s also a theory that it might have inspired the Korean Hangul script!
Mongols used consultation and consensus to make decisions - a similar observation was made by Michael King on the Maoris in [2].
Buddhism in the Yuan: Chan (Zen) was more common but the Mongol emperor adopted the Lama (Tiben origin). It later influenced Mongolia to convert to Buddhism. It had interesting repercursions on the relation between China and Tibet.
22 - Zhu Yuanzhang Builds his Ming dynasty
Zhu Yuanzhang is one of the most interesting emperors. Both on his humble origins and his unique way of governing.
He was born poor and became orphan at an earlier age. He didn’t have a plot of land to be able to bury his parents, so had to ask the neighbors. This fact has an interesting relevance to his apparent obsession with the construction of the Ming tombs (his is in Nanjing, but later Ming emperors are located in Beijing).
To be able to sustain himself, he became a Buddhist monk. He eventually joined the Red turbans insurgents which had religious origins. From there on his power grew and he was able to challenge the weakening Mongols from the Yuan dynasty, going on to start the Ming.
His reign was marked by centralization of power and micro-management. His mental health declined as he became increasingly paranoid about people around him.
23 - Civil War and Usurpation
Yuanzhang’s son died before him, so his grandson Yunwen became an emperor in 1398. However, his uncle, Zhu Di, prince of Beijing, usurped the throne and killed Yunwen.
24 - The “Second Founding” of the Ming dynasty
Zhu Di was known as the Chengzu emperor. He moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden city. He also constructed the Ming tombs in Beijing to continue the traditon from Yuanzhang who started it in Nanjing.
A common theme on Chengzu’s reign is trying to add legitimacy to this reign, despite having usurped the throne.
This chapter has an interesting section about the eunuchs. It claims that most eunuchs were not Chinese (central Asians). They tend to be powerful because the proximity of the emperor and were able to exert great influence over weaker emperors. Zheng He, the famous Chinese navigator was actually ethnic Turkic, a Muslim and eunuch!
Interesting analysis of Zheng He - the Chinese fleet was more powerful than the European one that conquered the Americas. Yet, they chose not to become an empire. This was mostly a personal project of Yongle.
During this time China attempted to annex Northern Vietnam (Annan) during 1407-1427. This kindom was actually governed as a province of China until the Tang dynasty.
Ming tried to keep Mongols divided to prevent it from becoming too powerful. The author claims that they failed at that, but the Mongols failed to unify among themselves anyway. The Mongol Tamerlane attempted to invade China but died on the way.
Blue China (sea, expansionist international) vs Yellow China (yellow river, domestic)
Chapters 25 and 26 cover the Ming emperors in the Fiftheenth and Sixteenth Century. The most interesting bit was the discussion on the The Grand Canal. A man-made river which connects Beijing to other major cities such as Hangzhou and Kaifeng (via the Yellow river).
He also provides an interesting comparison between the Yellow (north) river and the Yangzi (south). The former is prone to flooding and brings in lots of silt from Central Asian deserts. The latter has a deeper bed, and is confined between hills and gorges.
27 - Ming China’s borders
This is one of my favorite chapters, providing a glimpse on different cultures during the Ming times. I learned a bunch, especially on the Western and Southwest frontiers.
The 9 defense areas along the Great Wall of China. The wall was built in early Ming but the Yongle emperor retracted a bit and built a inner layer
The Great Wall of China is considered an engineering feat but was the product of a bad administration and over indexing against the Mongols threat. It wasn’t even that effective in stopping them. A settlement by Altan Khan (Mongol) and Wang Chonggu (China) resolved the Chinese Mongol impasse and led to peaceful relations until the end of the dynasty!
The Tibetans were expansionists during 7th century and had relations with the Tang dynasty. It was ruled by the Buddhist church. Relations weakened with India after Muslim invasions.
The Yuan had favored the Saskya-pa sect, but later Mongols supported the Gelug-pa (Yellow hat), founded by Tsong-kha-pa. The term Dalai was given by the Mongol Altan Khan and starting from the 3rd head of the sect, called Dalai Lama, they are all considered reincarnations of Tsong. The fourth Dalai Lama was actually the grandson of Altan. The fifth one built the Potala palace.
Talks about the different regions in Southern China that were slowly incorporated the Chinese empire, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan. It offers an interesting analysis on borders since Europeans conquest of Southeast Asia: the international southern borders were fluid until the English and French demarcated a hard line. If not for this, China might have continued to infiltrate in those countries. One example is the border of Tibet: it was never defined by Europeans so it was slowly incorporated into China.
It also describes the first time Chinese used gunpowder cannons in war (1448) against the Shan people in the Burma border were insurecting.
Maritime borders of Eastern China. Most of coastal China is not amenable for deep water sea ports. Claims that the Ming didn’t prioritize sea trading because it was harder to control and trading was not prestigious.
The Portuguese captured the port of Malacca and di violent incursions in China led by Tomé Pirez. He was eventually arrested and died in prison. Macao was founded during this time.
29 - The lively society of Ming China
Ming tried to introduce paper cash but inflation made it useless - reminds me of that idea of money being the fantasy people believe in from Harari’s Sapiens. Lots of silver flowed from the new world into China through the Europeans - same as happened to India [1]. Ming China had the highest level of literacy in the world.
30 - The course of Ming failure
I found the end of the Ming and the rise of the Qing dynasty fascinating. The dramatic turn of events would be hard to make up!
After the Mongol conquests the Jurchens from the Jin dinasty were absorbed into Yuan dynasty, but fled back to Manchuria during the Ming. The most advanced tribes were Jianzhou, near the Korean border. One member of that tribe, Nurhaci, founded the house of Aisin Gioro and also named his dynasty Jin and founded a capital in Mukden. They increasingly attacked the northern border of China.
At the same time, neglected soldiers in Shaanxi became desperate and started to plunder around. They eventually grew in size and power and started challenging the Ming emperors.
Hong Chengchou, an able military leader who was able to contain the main roving bandit leader, Li Zicheng, got re-assigned to defend the border against the Manchus. He lost and then defected to the other side. As an individual he played a key role both in the fall of the Ming and the Qing dynasty.
Li Zicheng eventually reached the walls of the Forbidden city and after breaching it, the emperor at the time, Zhu Youjian, comitted suicide, effectively ending the Ming dynasty.
31 - Alien rule returns
After conquering Beijing, Li Zicheng went to the place where the general Wu Sangui was defending against the Manchus. In desperation and thinking it being the lesser of the woes, Sangui made a pact with the Manchus to battle against Zicheng, allowing them to enter China unopposed.
Zicheng retracted and fled to Shaanxi but the Manchus took advantage of the situation and claimed Beijing as the Qing capital.
Imposition of the hairstyle from the Manchus: shaved hair except at the back - Chinese men resisted fiercely the imposition coming from a “lowly” culture which also went counter to Confucian values. This hair style is commonly depicted in popular culture such as in movies as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and often seen in early photographs of Chinese immigrants in America.
Ming loyalists were trying to continue the dynasty in the South, the Southern Ming - in the models of the Southern Song with the Jin dynasty. One of the attempts was by the Longwu Regime under Zhu Yujian.
He asked for help from a powerful warlord, Zheng Zhilong, from the Fujian coast who refused to take action. Zhilong’s son was Zheng Chen / Sen (born in Japan to a Japanese mother), and was a Ming loyalist. Zheng Chen is known better as Koxinga, the military leader who expelled the Dutch from the island of Taiwan in 1661 [3].
Koxinga suffered from mental health problems and killed himself in 1662. The Qing emperor Kangxi eventually annexed Taiwan into their empire in 1684.
33 - The Kangxi Reign
Kangxi was regarded as one of the most able governors from the Qing.
China’s central asia territories today are only so because of the Manchus, who had interest in the region. Chinese society never saw a need for conquering territories. Only under Mongol and Manchu leadership did it expand into places like Yunnan, Xinjiang, Manchuria and Taiwan.
Manchus asked to move from Manchuria and Liaodong into China (within the walls). Land was expropriated and given to them as banner lands. Many Chinese were made slaves.
Russia start pushing eastward, into Mongol territory. If Ming had not fallen, maybe Mongolia would be part of Russia today. Treaty of Nerchinsk signed - the first between China and an European nation (1689)
Kangxi is believed to be behind the murder of the 6th Dalai Lama in 1706.
34 - The Yongzheng emperor
The Yongzheng was considered a rational, even cold blooded emperor. Sought efficiency and centralization of power. He expanded the secret message system (created by Kangxi) to communicate privately with powerful officials.
35 - Splendor and Degeneration
The emperor Yongzheng named the emperor Qianlong his heir secretly so as to avoid politics and factional disputes for the succession. The emperor Qianlong retired in 1796 as deference to his grandfather Kangxi (to avoid surpassing his reign of 60 years).
His reign was regarded as lavish and ostentatious, making use of the economic improvements brough up by his father’s reign. Qianlong claimed that this stimulated the economy but it ran into financial trouble towards the end of his reign.
Qianlong demonstrated lack of humility and inwardness, in his response to an attempt by King George III from England. He refused a lavish gift containing among other things valuable scientific equipment and denounced him as not being civilized enough.
Qianlong ordered the compilation of all existing books called the Four Treasuries (classics, histories, philosophies and belles arts). It was a monumental library with more than 360 million words. The first copy took 9 years to compile.
However, during this process he also edited / censored and destroyed works that went against his politics or the Manchus. He went forther and performed the “Literary inquisition”: punished living writers that offended him but also exhumed dead ones and punished their descendants.
During this time, Gurkha leaders (Hindus) moved to Kathmandu and founded Nepal in 1768. The existing Nepalese people there were Buddhists in connection with Tibet. The Gurkhas also invaded Tibet from Nepal in 1788 and the Manchu sent a force to expel them. Qianlong also instructed Tibet to prevent the East India Company to trade there (it already had influence over Nepal).
The general political decline of the Qing which were exacerbated by foreign powers.
36 - China in a legacy world
Despite of the apparent conservatism embodied by the emperor himself, the author makes the claim that foreign (Western) values were accepted less coercively in China than what happened with the French in Vietnam, the Dutch in Indonesia and the Japanese in Taiwan and Korea.
The author also claims that the Chinese of late imperial times enjoyed more freedom and prosperity than after 1950 (and before the economic boom) and that China lost its connection with its past in 1950, even before the Cultural revolution of 1966.