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The Changing Relationship between Local Society and the Central Political Power in Former Han: 206 B.C.–8 A.D.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Cho-Yun Hsu
Cho-Yun Hsu
Affiliation:
Academia SinicaNankang Taipei, Taiwan
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Extract

The consolidation of China did not come immediately with China's unification. It was not fully accomplished until the middle of the Former (Western) Han. The monolithic2 nature of the political powers and a group of local elite3 were then forming. And the bureaucracy, becoming much elaborated during this era, served to link the two. The elite group functioned, on the one hand as the reservoir of candidates to officialdom, and on the other hand, as the leading element with education, prestige, and often wealth, in the community. Based on these concepts, this paper ventures to present the formation of the local elite group through the changing social base of political power during Western Han.

Type
Two Patterns in the History of Bureaucracy
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , July 1965 , pp. 358 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1965

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References

2 By “monolithic” is meant that the ‘state” is above the “society”, in which the formal political power not only overrides all social forces but is their fountainhead and final arbiter.

3 They are often referred to as “gentry” in western works. The definition of “gentry” varies with scholars. For a comprehensive discussion, see Wright, Mary C., The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, the Tung Chih Restoration. 1862–1874 (Stanford, StanfordUniversity Press, 1957), p. 127.Google ScholarHsiao-t'ung, Fei, China's Gentry (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 12.Google ScholarPing-ti, Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1962),Google Scholar pp. 34 ff.

4 See Chow Tao-chi's “Hsi Han Chün Ch'üan Yü Hsiang Ch'üan Chih Kuan Hsi” [The Relationship Between the Monarch and the Chancellor in the Western Han Dynasty], Ta-Lu Tsa Chih [The Continental Magazine], XI. no. 12. His data are derived from Han Shu, chap. 19 B.

5 Han Shu (annotated by Wang Hsien-ch'ien), 22/12–13.

6 ibid., 58/14–15.

7 Chün is translated here as provinces to indicate not only the administrative unit but also the circumstance that they constituted a portion of the empire remote from the capital.

8 Han Shu, 4/4, 5/5, Hsin Shu (Han Wei Ts'ung Shu edition), 3/8. Hsin Lun (Quoted in the Ch'üan Hou Han Wen, Ch'üan Shang-ku San Tai Ch'in Han San-kuo Liu-ch'ao Wen (World books Co. edition, vol. II), 13/3.

9 Han Shu, 5/6.

10 ibid., 71/11–12, 72/16.

11 Han Shu, 54/1.

12 Han Kwang I, quoted in Hou Han Shu, 33/5.

13 Hou Han Shu, lb/17 and the annotation also quoted some original phrases from the law code.

14 Yü-ch'üan, Wang, “An Outline of the Central Government of the Former Han Dynasty”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, XII (1949), p. 135.Google Scholar

15 Han Shu, 38/10–11, 44/2–3.

16 Kwang-chih, Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1963),Google Scholar Chapters III, IV, and VI.

17 Han Shu, Chapter 88, consists of biographies of literary men and scholars. No exception is found to the fact that all of them were natives of the eastern regions and taught there.

18 Han Shu, lb/14, 64a/16–17, Yen T'ieh Lun [The Discourse on Salt and Iron], Han Wei Ts'ung Shu edition, 3/1.

19 Wang Yu-ch'üan, op. cit., p. 135.

20 Han Shu, 42/6, cf. Keng-wang, Yen, Liang Han T'ai Shou Tz'u Shih Piao (Tables of Provincials Governors and Circuit Inspectors) (Shang-hai, Commercial Press, 1948),Google Scholar Part I. There are 73 persons-per-tenure before Emperor Wu in Yen's table; 44 of whom were military men, imperial relatives, or else court attendants closely related to the Emperor. It is uncertain what connections the remaining twenty-nine had.

21 Han Shu, 6/10, 64a/19. “Local elite” is my translation of the term hao-chieh. Dubs, in The History of the Former Han Dynasty, Vol. II (American Council of Learned Societies, 1944), p. 52,Google Scholar translates it as “ braves and stalwarts”. Some translate Yu-hsia into “knight-errant”. Neither is a happy equivalent of Yu-hsia or Hao-hsia as used in the Han Dynasty: see Ho Ping-ti's review of Watson's translation of Shih Chi in Pacific Affairs, XXXVI (1963), p. 2.Google ScholarHao-hsia stands for a type of local leader who held influence over a certain area through some informal organization and often had income from illicit sources for himself and his followers. Such leaders normally held no official positions, or only low positions, if any. They might have befriended influential officials, yet their power was mainly based upon their loyal followings of low social status; cf. Lao Kan, “Lun Han Tai Ti Yu Hsia” [‘Yu Hsia’, A Type of Knight-Errant in the Han Dynasty], Bulletin of the College of Arts, National Taiwan University, no. 1, 1950. Hao may be translated as “magnate”, a person of high social status or its borrowed prestige, who was usually the head of some influential family, or influential because of wealth and prestige, as a former official in retirement, or a relative of some high ranking official in the home town. We may translate Hao, therefore, as “local magnate”. Both groups may be included in the general term, Hao and Hsia, or “local elite”, which will be used throughout this paper. Hao-hsia may also denote some high official or his protdge, who was fond of treating and retaining guests and thus built up some added measure of influence in the capital. This group, similar to the former two groups in some respects, may have some functional connections with them, yet it need not be regarded as occupying the same place in the local social order. The distinction among the three patterns and the translations of the terms are in part the result of a discussion with Professor James T.C. Liu of Stanford University.

22 Shih Chi (Hui Tsu K'ao Chen edition), 30/6, Han Shu, 43/13.

23 Hou Han Shu, 40a/10.

24 Han Shu, 43/13.

25 ibid., 4/20, 5/5, and the annotator's note in 28a–l/38.

26 ibid., 6/3, 10, 35, 64a/19.

27 ibid., 8/5, 11, 12.

28 ibid., 28a/19, 28a/38.

29 ibid., 90

30 Masubuchi, Tatsuo, Society and State in Ancient China (in Japanese) (Tokyo, Kobondo, 1957),Google Scholar pp. 235 ff.

31 Lao Kan, “Liang Han T'zu Shih Chih Tu K'ao” [The System of Provincial Supervisors of the Dynasty, Han], Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, XI (1943), p. 43.Google Scholar Wang Yü-ch'üan, op. cit., pp. 154 ff. The translation is from Wang (p. 159).

32 The accommodating policy and its relation to the status of local valiants is wellindicated in the biography of Chi An and Cheng Tang-shih. Both held the Taoist philosophy in belief as well as in action, and they were friendly with valiant-type elite— even becoming valiant-type elite themselves. Han Shu, 50. It seems that they were the last representatives of the early Han officials who abided by the autocratic nature of the local community.

33 Yen Tieh Lun, 2/1.

34 Shih Chi, 129; Han Shu, 91. An English translation is available in Swann, Nancy Lee (tr. and annotated), Food and Money in Ancient China (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1950),Google Scholar 405 ff.

35 Han Shu, 91/3, 24a/13–14, 24b/10, N.L. Swann, op. cit., pp. 165–265, 419.

36 Han Shu, 91/11. N.L. Swann, op. cit., p. 393 ff.

37 Han Shu, 24b/12–13, 19, cf. N.L. Swann, op. cit., pp. 282–286, 317–319.

38 Han Shu, 24a/14, 24b/7. Swann, op. cit., pp. 168 ff., 245.

39 Keng-Wang, Yen, Chung Kuo Ti Fang Hsin Cheng Chih Tu Shih {History of the Regional and Local Administration in China), Part I (Taipei, Academia Sinica, 1961), pp. 93–96,Google Scholar 388.

40 Han Shu, 50, 42/6.

41 Yen, op. cit., pp. 74–75.

42 Yen, op. cit., p. 73.

43 Yen, op. cit., p. 216 ff.

44 Yen, op. cit., pp. 237–251. cf. Han Shu, 89/9–10, 76/10. Chih-po, Hsieb, “Hsien Ch'in Liang Han Hsiang Kuan K'ao” [Village Functionaries From Pre-Ch'in Period to the Han Dynasties], Kuo Chuan Yueh K'an, vol. 3–5 (1936), pp. 8–14.Google Scholar

45 Hou Han Shu, 11/9.

46 Shih Chi, 101, Han Shu, 92. cf. Kan, Lao, op. cit., Bulletin of the College of Arts, National Taiwan University, no. 1 (1950).Google Scholar

47 Many Japanese scholars have done a great deal of research on the lineage pattern in the Han Dynasty. Some tend to believe that the three-branch lineage was in existence even at the very beginning of the Han Dynasty. Others conclude that the extended family is the leading or most universal pattern. Three excellent surveys of this topic are, Moriya, Mitsuo, A Study of the Chinese Family System During the Han Dynasty (Tokyo, Harvard-Yenching Institute— Doshisha Eastern Cultural Lectures Committee, 1954);Google ScholarUtsunomiya, Kiyoyoshi, Studies on Social-Economic History of the Han Dynasty (Tokyo, Kobondo, 1954),Google Scholar Chapter 11; and the latter's paper, “A Study on Powerful Local Clans During the Han Dynasty”, Tohogaku, 23 (1962).Google Scholar

48 For the law on the segmentation of households, see the treatise on the Wei law code in Ch'in Shu, 30/12. Moriya points out that the term Yi Tzu means “establishing branch families”. He, however, misinterpreted the phrase, Ch'u Yi Tzu Chih K'e, as a law prohibiting the establishment of branch families. From the context, Shih Fu Tzu Kung Ts'ai, this phrase apparently means that the original law of prohibition was abolished for the purpose of “ensuring that the father and his son can enjoy their property jointly”. Moriya, op. cit., p. 22–23, English summary, p. 3. Ochi Sigeaki holds the same view with the same argument as that of Moriya, see Sigeaki, “The Meaning of the I-tzu Chih Ko, a Legislation existing under the Wei and Chin Dynasties”, Tohogaku, 22 (1961). For compulsory dissolution of bigger clans or the moving of branches to different localities, see annotation by Wang, Hou Han Shu, 33/12.

49 Indeed, the early Han records frequently cited so many families of a particular clan. These named clans were, however, the branches of the royal houses of the Warring States. For an example, see Han Shu, 43/13. Some magnates were also mentioned as having family branches. Whether such were related by blood seems dubious. For example, the Kuan clan of Yin-chuan province was mentioned as having several “branches”. It was, however, made up of only two generations, the father being the first to adopt this clan name. There was hardly time for the Kuans to develop into a lineage. “Guests” and “retainers” were mentioned in other passages still of the same context. It is possible that the “branches” referred to were those of retainers. Han Shu, 52/10, 14,7.

50 Tatsuo Masubuchi's theory on the Han society stresses the key role of Yu-hsia groups in the social order, based upon the evidence both before Han and after Emperor Wu. Attention should be drawn to the fact that Yu-hsia were most active in the early years of the Han; cf. Masubuchi, op. cit., p. 49, pp. 65 ff.

51 Han Shu, 7/5, 8/11.

52 The literal translation of Hsiao-lien is “filially pious and uncorrupted persons”. We use the transliteration here to avoid the clumsy term.

53 Kan, Lao, “Han Tai Tsa Chu Chih Tu K'ao” [The Recommendatory System of Local Govennent of the Han Dynasty], Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, XVII (1948).Google Scholar

54 ibid., p. 84, Han Shu, 6/8.

55 Kan, Lao, loc. cit., Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, XVII (1948), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

56 Han Shu, 9/7.

57 The local elite in the early period usually did not play the game according to rule, because the rule was not available. Thus, they had to build up their leadership by means of accumulating influence, specifically by means of organizing people as hoodlums or in other informal organizations.

58 Keng-wang, Yen, “Ch'in Han Lang Li Chih Tu Kao” [On the ‘Lang' and ‘Li' Institutions of the Ch'in and Han Dynasties], Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, XXIII, part one, pp. 113–118.Google Scholar

59 Not more than a dozen persons had been recorded in the Han Shu as having held the Hsiao-lien degree. For the theory on Cooptation as the mechanism to legitimatize the political organization, see Selznick's, PhilipT V A and the Grass Roots (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1949),Google Scholar pp. 259 ff.

60 Yen Keng-wang, History of Regional and Local Administration, pp. 351 ff.

61 ibid., p. 345 ff.

62 Han Shu, Chapters 83 and 90, particularly 83/10–12, 90/8–9.

63 Han Shu, 76/li, 83/2–3.

64 Han Shu, 90/9.

65 Keng-wang, Yen, loc. cit., Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, XXIII, part one (1951), p. 34.Google Scholar Yen listed twelve in his table, with one included by error. Of the rest, two were imperial relatives, two were there because of their scholarship, and four were of undetermined origin, cf. Han Shu, 72/3, 8, 20, 75/5, 77/1, 79/6, 8, 85/19, 86/15, 88/8, 100/2. For the last one, 72/16.

66 Han Shu, 71/1, 74/1, 76/1, 89/2, 9, 92/7–8.

67 Han Shu, 86/1–2.

68 Han Shu, 76/4.

69 Han Shu, 9/10, 10/12.

70 Yü Ying-Shih, “Tung Han Cheng Ch'uan Chih Chien Li Yü Shih Tsu Ta Hsin Chih Kuan Hsi” (The Establishment of the Political Power of the Later Han Dynasty and its Relations With the Distinguished Clans and Notable Families), The New Asia Journal, vol. I, no. 2 (1956), table facing p. 226.Google Scholar

71 Lien-sheng, Yang, “Tung Han Ti Hao Tsu” [Landed Nobility of the Eastern Han Dynasty], Tsing Hua Journal, vol. XI, no. 4 (1936).Google Scholar