Two—
The Medieval "Community" and Aristocratic Society

The "Communitarian" Structure of Groups in the Wei-Chin Period

The "Communitarian" Orientation of Early Taoism. As we saw in the previous chapter, the kinship order of Shang-Chou society provided a mapping for the political order. In other words, the intrinsic unity of morality and politics functioned as its basic principle. The subsequent society of the Ch'in and Han eras basically lay within the framework of this principle, or rather a reorganization and expansion of it. As time proceeded, however, this social principle eventually became devitalized.

The dissolution of the local village system, one form of "community" in the ancient period, accompanied the phenomenon of the privatization of privilege under a variety of facades: the privatization of state power by maternal relatives and eunuchs, the development of huge landholdings, and the emergence and increase in the number of subordinated people. In the cultural arena, ceremonies to the "god of the soil" (she )^bc —a form of "communitarian" religious faith in the villages—were transformed into individual faith and gave rise to many kinds of popular beliefs concerned more with individual well-being. In short, the decline of a public-oriented principle that had penetrated every aspect of earlier society proved irreversible.

People did not, however, fail to resist this dissolution. The eremitic scholars from the intelligentsia refused to commit themselves to the political world, and Taoists, including many among the populace, took as their personal precepts the re-

straint of self-interest and a devotion to work for the public. The Taoists would not affirm the trend toward privatization of rights in society but rather aimed at a new bond of solidarity between people on the basis of a rejection and surmounting of this trend. This cohesive bond between people was no longer a natural one of kinship, as in the past, but one of a decidedly ethical, religious nature. The restraint of self-interest provided the crucial moment for the cohesion of this "communitarian" world being sought again.

Let us look at the example of the Five Pecks of Rice religious group, which built a state based on the unity of religion and politics in Szechwan during the Three Kingdoms period. The members of this group built public lodgings known as "charitable inns" (i-she ),^bd stocked rice and meat donated by believers, and prepared for the convenience of visitors. If a visitor took a portion larger than personally necessary, they felt he would receive retribution and be stricken with illness.^[24] "Visitors" here implied people who, having left their native village for reasons of famine or war, led a life roaming about other regions. The followers of the religion divided their own life resources for such strangers, and those wayfarers and unfamiliar faces who received their help made it a rule that they would not take more than was necessary. In this way, a personal act of self-restraint on both sides formed a solidarity within the religious group. It was a solidarity that went one step beyond bonds of kinship in that it was mediated by an ethical consciousness.

This phenomenon was not limited to the Five Pecks of Rice group. The Pao-p'u-tzu of Ko Hung^[25] introduced the various "moral injunctions of the way"^[26] as follows:

Those who seek long life ... rejoice in others' good fortune, sympathize with others' hardship, assist others in emergencies, and come to the aid of the impoverished, bring harm to no living creature, do not openly exhort calamities upon others; where you are successful, be happy in others' success, and where you fail, be unhappy if others fail; be not haughty, nor boastful, nor jealous, nor flattering, nor secretive in the wish to harm others.

This clearly shows that the essential spirit of these Taoist

groups was a transcendence of self in practice. The followers sought "long life" (immortality) by observing their religious precepts, a world of the highest good for the individual attained by self-transcendence. While this overcame the kinship world of antiquity, it simultaneously spelled a transcendence over that which destroyed that world. One might venture so far as to say that we have here the logical structure for the sublation of the "communitarian" world itself through a transcendence of that which destroyed the ancient "communitarian" world.

When we look at the trends of intellectuals and the people at the end of the Latter Han, we sense an orientation toward a "communitarian" universe of a higher order, as we saw earlier.^[27] But how did this inclination take root in the subsequent social structure?

Rebellion and the Formation of Medieval Centers of Population. The decisive moment for the breakup of the Han empire was the Yellow Turban rebellion. Unity of political power completely dissolved, and the political situation rushed forward into the confusion of the Three Kingdoms period. The Chin was to gain control over a reunified political authority, but success was momentary as the independence of the alien peoples threw North China into severe political disorder once again. Until the latter half of the fourth century, when the Northern Wei brought stability to North China, the northern region was in a state of upheaval for about two hundred years. How did these various intellectual currents intent on overcoming the basic principles of antiquity, as seen in the late Latter Han, survive amidst political chaos over two centuries?

It would be rash to consider these currents buried and extinguished in the high seas of politics, because in this era of hardship people had to go on living. The thoroughly enervated central government could no longer ensure the continued existence of the people, and the people accordingly had to plan for it themselves, all the while avoiding the fighting of the militarists. But, since they could not live in isolation, they formed groups of various natures and devised methods for survival. These groups themselves gave expression to a modus vivendi under dire circumstances. They formed the social groundwork that enabled people to deal with the blinding

changes wrought by events in the political sphere. The logic of history, as reconstructed earlier, seems to merge with these groups, and I should like now to base these observations in some concrete examples.

Recent scholars have noted the great changes that transpired in the history of Chinese population centers from the Latter Han through the Wei-Chin period. One of these changes was the emergence of the ts'un.^be According to the regulations on households in the K'ai-yuan era (713–741) of the T'ang dynasty, there was no difference between a city and a rural town in the T'ang, as all population sites were united by a "village" system: an urban "village" was called a fang^bf while a rural "village" was called a ts'un.

Miyakawa Hisayuki's essay, "Rikucho^[*] jidai no son ni tsuite" (On the ts'un of the Six Dynasties period),^[28] offers a historical explanation for this. In the Han dynasty, the center of population in town and country alike was generally the hamlet (li ) Later, Miyakawa points out, there developed a distinction between urban and rural areas which, by the T'ang dynasty, had become institutionalized, as described earlier. He notes that only from the Three Kingdoms period on did the word ts'un become a new expression for rural population areas, as a result of this differentiation. The disruption to the Han local village system made people, who had moved to avoid the warfare, form new living areas for self-protection. The sites picked for these areas were not uniform and were sometimes to be found at the remains of an earlier area, but there are many cases of construction in secluded, remote spots. In the poetry of the time, the expression "new ts'un" (hsin-ts'un )^bg was used frequently, and this may provide insight into the historical nature of the ts'un.

Following on Miyakawa's work, Miyazaki Ichisada has advanced research on this point.^[29] Miyazaki sees the institution of distinct hsiang and t'ing levels as hangovers from ancient city-states. The emergence of the ts'un, he argues, marked the formation of the medieval village, born of the collapse of these ancient city-states. Mutual aid centering around the unit of the hamlet and its ceremonies to the "god of the soil" effectively forged bonds of solidarity between residents under the earlier system. But, in the ts'un system, we have to look for a new

mainstay of mutual aid, both spiritually and socially. Buddhism and Taoism, Miyazaki argues, entered the picture now as they sought to capture men's minds.

At the same time that the "ts'un" phenomenon was spreading, a living area known as the "wu "^bh was in existence. The compound ts'un-wu appears frequently, which would suggest that, in many cases, the two terms indicated similar varieties of population centers. We have quite a number of studies on the wu, one of the first being the classic essay by the late Naba Toshisada, "Ushu ko^[*] " (A study of the wu leader).^[30] Recently, Chin Fa-ken published a comprehensive collection of historical materials concerning this issue.^[31] From these studies, we can put together a general picture of the wu.

The original meaning of the character wu is found in the Tzulin^bi (Character dictionary), cited in Li Hsien's^bj note to the biography of Ma Yüan^bk in the Hou-Han-shu^bl (History of the Latter Han): a small embankment or a small wall. However, the biography of Ma Yüan recounts that as Grand Administrator of Lung-hsi,^bm he memorialized for the construction of a wuhou^bn so as to defend against raids by the Ch'iang people. In this case, wu clearly denoted a military stronghold. The construction of a wu in this sense can also be found in the Chü-yen^bo wood strips of the Former Han.^[32] These were installations for border defense against the Hsiung-nu, and in the Latter Han they were prepared particularly against Ch'iang raids. At the time of the great Ch'iang uprising at the beginning of the second century, it was recorded that wu-hou were installed in 616 strategic positions deep inland so as to link the T'ai-hang^[33] mountain range with the North China plain.

The reason for constructing wu was not simply as defense against external attack, however. In times of civil war, the general populace banded together for self-protection and what they built were called ying,^bppi,^bq and pao.^br The expression wu was also used in this context, the earliest example appearing during the disorders at the end of the reign of Wang Mang. When the Latter Han dynasty was established, the government ordered these installations evacuated and the people returned to agriculture.^[34] During the rebellions at the end of the Latter Han, wu were again set up over a wide area. Once again, during the Yung-chia uprising of 307 under the Western Chin, the

creation of self-protective groups based on the wu form spread widely. As is well known, the uprising of 307 caused many Han Chinese to migrate to various areas. They moved in groups as a means of avoiding hardship, or they established wu at certain points where they congregated. Naba's study shows that the heads of these itinerant bands were called hsing-chu^bs and the persons in charge of wu were called wu-chu. ^bt

Conditions determining the location of wu were in no way uniform. If we judge from the circumstances of the creation of wu recorded in the Shui-ching-chu^[35] (Commentary to the Classic of Waterways ) and elsewhere, however, it seems that there was a strong proclivity toward utilizing naturally strategic positions. For example, I-ho (unified) wu built near the Lo River got its name from being twenty chang ^bu tall, with three sides (south, north, and east) surrounded by natural bluffs, and the west side alone barricaded by manpower.^[36] Also, there was reported to have been a wu in the Lo River basin by the name of Yün-chung wu^bv ("amidst the clouds") because clouds and haze trailed along continuously over the steep mountains there.^[37] Apparently, quite a number of wu were purposefully constructed in areas with natural defenses. In order to manage a group livelihood in such places, provisions for weaponry, foodstuffs, and the like were necessary. The groups planned particularly for self-sufficiency in food by cultivating the mountain lands.

It was only natural then that life in such a wu formed a virtually separate universe. The group life that transpired in these remote mountainous areas out of contact with the external world often stirred up images of Utopia in the imaginations of outsiders. In fact, T'ao Yüan-ming's^bw famous work, T'ao-hua yüan chi^bx (Peach Blossom Spring), is said to have been modeled on the contemporary world of a wu. The advocate of this theory, Ch'en Yin-k'o, argues that Tai Yen-chih,^by who served in the army in Liu Yü's^bz Ch'ang-an campaign in the last years of the Western Chin, explored the upper reaches of the Lo River in compliance with his orders; unable to find the river's source, he turned back midway. It was at this point, however, that he came across Po-ku wu,^ca T'an-shan wu,^cb and a place by the name of T'ao-yüan.^cc Mr. Tai wrote up a report of his survey under the title Hsi-cheng chi^cd (Report on

the western expedition), and T'ao Yüan-ming used it as his source, Ch'en argues, for T'ao-hua yüan chi.^[38]

In short, Ch'en's point is that T'ao-hua yüan chi was not simply the product of a literary imagination but was written on the basis of actual wu of the day. This conception leads us to the idea that the life of the people in the wu was a product of the desire to escape the turbulent world and preserve a peaceful society. For this reason, it was seen as a Utopia from the outside. In order for such a notion to have been conveyed, a moral order had to have been sustained among the inhabitants of the wu. If the wu had been the scene of fighting, it would not have been possible for it to preserve its life secluded from the outside world, and it surely could not have become the object of Utopian images. In the T'ao-hua yüan chi, the recluse Liu Lin-chih^ce from Kiangnan learns of "T'ao-yüan" secondhand, plans to travel there, but is unable to do so because he dies of illness. "T'ao-yüan" became the object of recluse Liu's longing because it was seen both inside and out as a peaceful world free of strife.

Personal Bonds in the Wu. What sort of society was this world of the wu which people of the day perceived as a Utopia? Let us look at the group under T'ien Ch'ou^cf of the Three Kingdoms era, which has frequently drawn the attention of historians in the past. Seeking revenge against enemies of his superior, T'ien Ch'ou led a group of "several hundred fellow clansmen and other dependent people" into a seclusion in the mountains of Hsü-wu^eg (Hopei). Later, many "common folk" (pai-hsing )^ch joined them until they expanded several years later into a huge band of over five thousand families.^[39]

By this account, the structural components of the group were "clansmen," "dependents," and "common folk." The "dependents" have been seen as various kinds of servants, but their identity remains unclear. The "common folk" were primarily self-sufficient farmers. The Chin-shu (History of the state of Chin) speaks of "clansmen and commoners"^[40] with respect to the structure of Yü Kun's^ci group (late Western Chin), which I shall discuss later; and, similarly, it notes that Ch'ih Chien's^cj group was put together by "clansmen and local people."^[41] It seems from these and other examples of the wu structure

that the group centered around the leader's clansmen and included families with different surnames from the same local origin, common people who came from near and far seeking refuge, and various people of subordinate status. Hence, these were not pure kinship groupings but included a wide variety of non-blood-related elements. Also, the more they expanded, the greater was this tendency.

By the time things had come to this stage, the group had to have an established rule of order, the first requirement for which was to decide on a group leader. Since both T'ien Ch'ou and Yü Kun appealed for heads to be chosen for the groups, they were themselves selected by popular demand. Other heads of wu and hsing^ck (itinerant groups) were selected under similar circumstances. Worthy of note here is that wu and hsing leaders were picked through recommendation by reputation. In this way, people chose their own rulers, an expression of total group unity through which people sought mutual cohesion. Thus, in the very way the rulers were picked we can see the nature of this group bond.

It was with this concern in mind that men of the right character were chosen to be wu and hsing heads, and they were men who had gained the confidence of their clansmen and fellow villagers as a whole. This tie built on trust continued after the formation of a refugee group. The basic impetus bringing about such ties was the relief activities of leaders toward their clansmen and fellow local villagers. That is, by dividing up their personal wealth among the people in need and thereby saving lives, these men earned a debt of gratitude from the people. It became a common pattern for people to be deeply respectful of such a personal quality and look up to such men as their leaders.

Nonetheless, the reason this relief-gratitude bond could cohere in the ruling structure of the social group cannot have been independent of the economic conditions of the time. In the severe famines of the day, even literati had no easy time staying alive. In the "Biography of Ch'ih Chien"^cl cited in the chapter "Te-hsing" ^cm of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü^cn (New sayings from the talk of the times), it says that when the grave famine conditions caused by the uprising of 307 struck, the possessions held by literati and commoners were divided up to give Ch'ih Chien

something. This incident was also recorded with different phrasing in his biography in the Chin-shu, where it goes on to say that Ch'ih Chien divided up the resources he had received among the' impoverished in his clan and local villagers.

The fact that in a time of starvation he was given provisions by an acquaintance reveals the high status held by Ch'ih Chien. By further distributing these provisions to others, he was seen as ever more personally high-minded. Thus, the act of personal sacrifice was twofold: Ch'ih Chien, the recipient of an act of individual sacrifice, becomes offerer of the same, and his biography lauds him for it. (It was precisely because of such personal qualities that Ch'ih Chien was later chosen as head of a wu. )

Such an act of personal sacrifice became the opportunity to bind two people spiritually, because it spawned a sense of gratitude on the part of the recipient of the act. The one who offered the relief gave up his attachment to goods in his personal possession and, in an act of justice (an act in compliance with the dictates of his own spirit), he roused the spirits of those he assisted and stirred up a sense of admiration among them for him.

Men who were able to transcend a position of selfishness or profit in this way and come to a world of justice, however, had to be men whose character had fulfilled this spirituality. From the past this role had been played by literati, and it was never simply by chance that leaders of the sort just described came from renowned families in their respective villages. They were practitioners as individuals of literati ethics.

Although ordinary people who lived every day under these straitened circumstances might be liable to act not from a position of justice but rush to one of immediate profit, literati by virtue of their intentions could surpass men of this nature (a hypocritical tendency among literati was born of this as well). They thus surpassed ordinary men spiritually. In their adoration for the personal qualities of such men, the common people were able to correct their own moral lives. If this inclination on the part of common men to seek profit in their daily lives had been left to its own course, conflicts of interest among the populace would have arisen everywhere and the group's livelihood would have fallen into chaos and disorder. The existence of literati leaders had the effect of suppressing this and offering an ethical order to the group.

Once T'ien Ch'ou and Yü Kun had been selected as wu heads, they implemented the various regulations and institutions decided upon. T'ien Ch'ou laid down over twenty items in the "Laws concerning bloodshed, violence, theft, and litigation"^co upon which he pledged his word to the people. In addition, he instituted "Rules for marriages"^cp and revived "Facilities for schools and instruction."^cq Clearly, he was attempting to establish an ethico-ritual order for the life of this closed-off group in the mountains of Hsü-wu. This objective preserved the group bond and was a revenge upon the lord-servant relationship. What T'ien Ch'ou feared most was that if bloodshed and violence were stirred up among the members of the group, the group itself would fall apart and his objective would not be attained.

The same can be said in the case of Yü Kun. He advocated the need for the maintenance of morality among his group's members: "Be not reliant on forts nor seek help in disasters. Be not violent toward neighbors nor destructive of homes. Do not cut and gather wood planted by others. Seek not to act immorally nor commit an injustice. Let us bring together our physical and mental strengths and together care for those in distress." The intent here as well was to prevent the outbreak of trouble through an ethical consciousness, while preserving the existence of the group.

Once he had gained acceptance of his aims by the people, Yü Kun went to work on actual construction for the common welfare by using a natural stronghold to erect wu walls. It was said that: "He took into account the labor involved, devised measures, allocated labor equitably, parceled resources fairly, repaired equipment, and utilized individual capacities to the best end." The necessary realistic concern for the preservation of the group's life prompted a fairness in the labor and livelihood of the people, seen in the establishing of labor quotas and the fixing of weights and measures. In calling for the recommendations of the wisest men in each village to form a leadership structure for the group, he was carrying on a "communitarian" mode of operations for local village society and working to spread the ethico-ritual spirit throughout the entire body.

As we have seen thus far, the wu group of this time was never merely a cluster of refugees but a "communitarian" band centered around a virtuous leader. What made such a "communal"

bond possible was the moral consciousness of each person in the group. Still, this moral consciousness was not divorced from everyday life. This was morally essential for the management of a common livelihood under the distinctive conditions of a wu. The group had a common political orientation, and cooperation among the members of the group was indispensable in the actual circumstances of life, such as the construction of the wu, forging of weapons, and securing of foodstuffs. Furthermore, since the people who gathered into such groups were not all blood-related, groups were mixtures of a variety of unrelated persons, which seems to have necessitated a strong moral awareness among the constituent members of the group.

From the picture of the wu as we have reconstructed it, the "communitarian" universe sought by the eremitic scholars and common people in the late Latter Han seems to have emerged in a subsequent period of convulsion and to have endured in the daily lives of people for a long period of time. While this way of life evoked an exceedingly idealized image, its ideology was indispensable for the continuance of life through such hard times. And thus the wu emerges with a host of different faces.

The Six Dynasties period is known as the era of the aristocracy. What then was the connection between the Six Dynasties aristocratic system and this "communitarian" universe? As noted earlier, the fact that many of the leaders of wu groups were of aristocratic origins with old or great surnames offers one suggestion for dealing with this issue. In the next section, I should like to focus directly on the issue of the aristocracy.

The Autonomous World of the Six Dynasties Aristocracy

The Social Base of the Six Dynasties Aristocracy. As discussed earlier, the structure of Wei-Chin society differed from that of the ancient period in that it took form on the basis of qualitatively new "communitarian" relations. These social bonds should then have been operative throughout the aristocratic system established in this period. In this section, I should like to verify such a prediction.

What was it that gave form to the Six Dynasties aristocracy as a ruling class in this period? Many people have already

pointed out the difficulties involved in seeing a manorial system or a large landownership system as necessary preconditions for this aristocracy. It is more appropriately regarded as a bureaucratic aristocracy or an aristocracy of culture than as a landed aristocracy. I agree that this is undoubtedly true as an expression of the form of the Six Dynasties aristocratic ruling class. But, I feel that two questions have yet to be thoroughly investigated: (1) If we call them a bureaucratic aristocracy, does that imply that their essence as a class was merely as servants to the emperor? and (2) If we call them an aristocracy of culture, what was their relationship to contemporary society?^[42] In short, the unresolved problem remains the class basis of the Six Dynasties aristocracy.

There is more to it than this, though, for the very importance of this problem has apparently not been realized as yet. More generally, the issue is one of how class relations existed without the direct mediation of relations of ownership over the means of production. Thus, it would seem as though this may offer an important hint for explaining the distinctive structure of Chinese history. For this reason, I have in recent years asserted the existence of a medieval "community" at the basis of Six Dynasties society, and I have discussed the logical structure of this assertion in other writings.^[43] Still, much of the criticism of colleagues regarding my work has disappointed me. They cling stubbornly to their own historical views, and few seem aware of the need for flexible thought in which an understanding of Chinese history is not trapped in preconceptions. In other words, they fail to recognize how postwar studies of Chinese history have become miserably bungled because of a lack of such thought.^[44]

To summarize the points thus far raised in connection with this issue,^[45] the literati ethic of self-restraint toward worldly desires (wealth and power) brought into existence a "communitarian" cohesiveness in family, patrilineage, and local village—the literati universe. Personal evaluations or hsiang-lun^cr (evaluation based on local reputation) which revolved around this ethic provided the qualifications for leadership in society. The class position of the Six Dynasties aristocracy was grounded in this hsiang-lun and served as the base for their autonomous status vis à vis dynastic authority.

The ruling structure of the Six Dynasties aristocracy—I shall be looking particularly at the Northern Dynasties—clearly possessed the shared pattern of a "communitarian" bond centered on a moral intelligentsia, as seen in the Taoist and wu groupings. A new orientation toward "community" which becomes evident in the late Latter Han was systematized as the Six Dynasties aristocratic system. More to the point, it was the aristocratic stratum in the Six Dynasties which, riding the crest of this orientation, established itself as a ruling class. The most concrete, structural manifestation of their institutionalization was the Nine Ranks recruitment system for the bureaucracy.

The Six Dynasties aristocracy were superintendents of the moral "community." For people familiar with a historical conception of development modeled on European history, this view may seem exceedingly idealized, but if we are to address the actualities of China's distinctive civil bureaucratic society directly and try to clarify its structure—at the intellectual center of which were Confucian principles—then we must trace the points of contact between this spirit and society. Furthermore, this was not simply a world of ideas. The class basis for the Six Dynasties aristocracy did not form as a direct function of material means but existed at a level in which this was transcended by the spiritual realm. By spiritual realm is meant not simply the universe originally enjoyed by individual aristocrats but the real human relations that brought together an ethically based society (social contacts within family, patrilineage, and local village, and among literati). Here was the essence of the society supporting this aristocratic class as rulers, and it was the essence of this society that enabled the Six Dynasties aristocracy to gain autonomy as a ruling class.

Spurred by the aristocratic spirit, this society formed the foundation that gave clear expression to itself. The antinomian positions of the side spurring and the side being acted on met here, and their synthesis composed "aristocratic society." The aristocratic class was able to achieve autonomy from dynastic authority by being supported by this world. Simultaneously, they enjoyed an independent existence in the formation of this world itself. The aristocracy's spiritual work on behalf of the objective world was not offered merely to gain popularity in public opinion—or even a good post in the

bureaucracy. I cannot claim that such a utilitarian consciousness was totally absent, for it was characteristic of the Chinese not to lapse into an excessive fastidiousness with respect to utilitarianism. However, it seems likely that this spiritual world originally existed among the aristocracy, and the spiritual realm of the Six Dynasties aristocracy existed in a profound way as an issue in their lives. We need to penetrate this internal universe if we are to recognize the strong class autonomy of the Six Dynasties aristocracy and locate its foundation in the moral "community" created by the relations between them and the people.

The Spirit of Transcending the Mundane. When we examine the spiritual way of life of the Six Dynasties aristocracy, we cannot assess it simply as asceticism, as several examples may demonstrate. Ts'ui Po-ch'ien^cs of Po-ling^ct was satisfied to live according to the "way of refinement" (ya-tao )^cu and refused to have contact with or seek advancement from Ts'ui Hsien,^cv a younger member of his clan, who was a powerful official of the Eastern Wei court.^[46]

Then there was Lu I-hsi^cw of Fan-yang^cx who, at the end of the Northern Wei, for many years remained in a leisurely sinecure and retained a nonchalant attitude. When urged to meet with important officials and request advancement, he refused, saying: "I have learned the way of the former kings, and I revere the implementation of their will. Why need I seek any wealth and fame at all?"^[47]

There is also the following anecdote about Lu. The court favorite of the Empress Ling,^cy Li Shen-kuei,^cz sought the hand of Lu's daughter in marriage, but Lu rejected the offer and married her into another family. Upon hearing this, the Empress dispatched a secret imperial messenger on the night of the wedding with an order to stop the ceremony. Undaunted, Lu I-hsi showed no sign of being upset. Were he to have sought wealth or glory by any means, then forging a marriage liaison with such an influential man would surely have been a shortcut. At the time, the end of the Northern Wei, such a trend had become rather general. However, Lu was too proud to "seek any wealth and fame at all" and wanted to live according to the "way of the former kings." The case of Ts'ui Po-ch'ien was the

same. Rather than follow the authorities in power and pursue personal distinction, he chose to live peacefully in his own world with the "way of refinement."

As these common examples describe, glory in the bureaucratic world was not necessarily the one and only way of life for concerned aristocrats. The reason they did not boldly pursue their own advancement was not simply out of moral propriety but because they considered it most important that a realm that sustained their attitudes toward life exist and that they live in it. This realm was the "way of refinement" for Ts'ui and the "way of the former kings" for Lu; for both we might call it the realm of the "way" (tao ).^da This was a spiritual realm transcending the mundane world, as the term "way of refinement" aptly expressed. Primary for these people was dependency on it and life within it. It would seem that because they possessed this spiritual realm within themselves, they could achieve a freedom from having their minds trapped in the affairs of the mundane world.

What actually constituted this spiritual realm that I have just dubbed the realm of the "way?" Looking again at Lu I-hsi's words, we see that he did not deny wealth and fame in and of themselves. He was too proud to "seek any wealth and fame at all," or to keep after men in authority and gain wealth and fame with their help. For Lu, the position of wealth and fame ought to have been the result of having "learned the way of the former kings and having implemented their will." He considered that a desire for wealth and power which dispensed with these basic principles was shameful for a scholarly man. In this conception, it was the interiority of a human being—his learning and its application—that had to determine that person's social position. And no external element could be vital in the establishment of that position.

The notion that the political position of the aristocracy had to be this way was not limited to Lu I-hsi. The family of Li Hsiao-chen^db of Chao-chün,^dc who served the Northern Ch'i court, repeatedly formed marriage relations with the imperial household, beginning with his female cousin who became empress to Emperor Wen-hsüan^dd (r. 550–560). Li's brothers both had attained success through their own literary talents and were embarrassed by the fact that they were [now] maternal relatives."^[48]

Also, there was a fascinating exchange between Wei Shou^de (author of the Wei-shu ) and Ts'ui Ling^df (from a famous clan in Ch'ing-ho prefecture). Although the two men had been at odds for some time, when Wei as an emissary to the state of Liang passed through Hsü-chou, Ts'ui (the governor of Hsü-chou) sallied forth in a state procession of great pomp to meet him and had another man address Wei: "Fear not the many ceremonial bodyguards; there is strength in cultivation." And Wei responded: "Tell Ts'ui of Hsü-chou that perhaps there is merit in raising troops, perhaps there is some cultivation involved." Always proud of his pedigree, Ts'ui became extremely angry upon hearing these words.^[49]

Ts'ui was a man who had reached a high position in the Eastern Wei state through meritorious service at the time Kao Huan^dg had raised an army (to quell a rebellion against the throne). Wei Shou pointed out that Ts'ui's position as governor of Hsü-chou owed nothing to cultivated learning, and ridiculed him for having gotten it by depending on men in power.

As these two examples demonstrate, the aristocracy of the period were proud of having attained their political positions not by relying on the powers that be but through their cultured talents (cultivation), in which they had trained themselves in literature and scholarship. Wei's aloofness from Ts'ui's mundane concerns represents a common notion among the aristocracy then. There is a certain thread connecting Lu I-hsi's and Ts'ui Po-ch'ien's rejection of "seeking any wealth and fame at all" with the realm of the "way" in which they sought to live. In other words, the notion that a human being's position in society should be based of necessity on this internal realm is common to these cases. Also, it was implicitly clear that learning gave expression to this internal realm as knowledge. In short, it is no exaggeration to say that cultivated learning was what enabled the Six Dynasties aristocracy to have autonomy as a ruling class. This supports the view, mentioned earlier, of a cultivated aristocracy, but we must go on to ask what was meant by "learning" as the intellectual expression of the internal realm of the aristocracy.

The Meaning of Learning for the Six Dynasties Aristocracy. Yen Chih-t'ui^du has the following to say in his Yenshih chia-hsün (Family instructions for the Yen clan).^[50]

People do not always have the support of a family or local village. If forced into exile, they would have no one to protect them and would have to look out for themselves. The most appropriate skill with which to be equipped under such circumstances, Yen argued, was book learning. This was Yen Chiht'ui's perception of learning, acquired through the lengthy experience of having tasted the bitterness of wandering from the states of Liang to Northern Chou,^di and on to Northern Ch'i,^dj and from there back to Northern Chou, and on to Sui.^dk For Yen, a literatus in search of the final authority upon which to base his life would find it not in the family or in the local village but in the learning he acquired for himself.

Yen's view of learning reflected a social trend of that time when the system of a pedigreed aristocracy was rapidly declining. As Yoshikawa Tadao has noted, one pervasive feature of that time was a belief in a principle that stressed the importance of men of ability.^[51] However, the origin of the aristocratic system, in the last analysis, was neither the clan nor the local village, but in fact the very learning cultivated by literati—namely, their autonomous spirit. This point needs further study, but Yen Chih-t'ui's words speak to the value of knowledge of books as a way to make a living. What, after all, was the true objective of book learning or scholarship?

Yen Chih-t'ui gave the following answer to this question: "The reason for reading and studying is primarily to open one's mind and clarify one's vision in order to benefit one's conduct."^[52] In other words, the significance of reading and scholarship was that they enabled people to live their lives through the development of knowledge. Yen criticized well-read men who did not live in a fashion corresponding to their learning, and he stressed that knowledge of books should be linked to practice. Yet how are knowledge and practice connected? Yen argued that men who had not behaved in a filial manner toward their parents would learn through books of the deeds of past men who had served their parents devotedly, reflect on themselves and feel a strong sense of shame, and then resolve to act in accordance with prescriptions of filiality.

And this learning would apply not only to parental obedience. Men who had not known to serve a lord would learn from the loyal acts of past men, reflect on themselves, and

resolve to sacrifice themselves in allegiance. Men who had been profligate would study the ethics of humility exemplified in the actions of past men and ponder living that way themselves. Men who had originally been miserly and avaricious would learn, through the deeds of past men, of the generosity of stressing justice, self-restraint, and charity; and then they would strive for these ends themselves. Similarly, men of violence would learn from men of the past the commendable morality of tolerance and change their earlier attitudes; while cowards, inspired by the bravery of past men, would seek to live their lives with courage.

Yen lists many other objectives to learning, but the idea he expressed was that one would realize through the actions of the ancients that one was not living as befit one's character and, through a profound, penetrating self-reflection, take a step to putting such a life into practice. Thus, knowledge was transformed into action through a kind of mental conversion.

What gave rise to this conversion that mediated knowledge and action? Clearly, it was the result of realizing one's immorality in comparison with the ethical behavior of the ancients. If we delve a little deeper into this opposition between morality and immorality, we find a fundamental difference over what constitutes a human being, for a spirit of selflessness impelled men to act morally and egotism impelled men to immorality. For example, in order for filiality—acting in a devoted manner to one's parents—to come into existence, the individuality of the child had to be obliterated. Loyalty to state and sovereign resembled this. Surely, there were a variety of ways of expressing this spirit of selflessness when it came to humility, stressing justice over wealth, self-restraint, giving charity, and acting tolerantly. Also, courage was itself the result of transcending egotism. The moral actions of the ancients were permeated with this spirit of selflessness. In contrast to the pure and noble character of such men, the self was merely the spokesman of a narrow egotism in one's relationship with parents, sovereign, and others. Thus, one became aware of a fierce sense of shame before this degeneration of a selfish humanity which this comparison illuminated. And, on the basis of a change of heart, the determination to put morality into practice was born.

The aim of reading and learning for Yen Chih-t'ui, as we

have seen, was to awaken men to pursue moral and righteous ways through self-reflection. This conversion was an awakening to one's own ignominious bearing, illuminated by the moral acts of past men and cooped up in one's egotism. Thus, "learning" for Yen also possessed a religious nature; or, rather, it was not limited merely to a conception of learning. In the words of Lu I-hsi, whom we met earlier—"I have learned the way of the former kings, and I revere the implementation of their will. Why need I seek any wealth and fame at all?"—learning is also connected directly to practice, and Lu was attempting to transcend the realm of selfishness inherent in "seeking any wealth and fame at all." I have already referred to this as the universe of the "way," a kind of transcendent spiritual realm. The intellectual structure supporting and legitimizing it was learning. This was both the learning of ethical norms and an understanding of history as indicated by the practices of "the ancients" who bequeathed "the way of the former kings." Hence, it was not simply an abstracted metaphysics.

The importance of learning for the Six Dynasties aristocracy may now be a bit clearer. The selfless spirit of the aristocracy became a daily ethic in their appeal to the world around them. It formed the pivot for "communitarian" cohesion in the outside world, and it was learning that nurtured this spirit. In other words, literati learning at that time can be seen as an intellectual system aimed at human education. The ethical activities of the Six Dynasties aristocracy carried on the long and rich tradition of scholarship centered on the classics. Hence, this scholarship was conducted and accumulated with a focus on the realization of the moral "communitarian" realm in Chinese society. The literati, the aristocracy of the day, mediated this learning for society.

Generally, the Six Dynasties aristocracy may be called men of learning, like Yen Chih-t'ui. The famous clans of the Northern dynasties such as Ts'ui, Lu, Li, and Cheng each produced formidable scholars of great erudition. We cannot list each and every one of them, but in the biography of Li Tzu-hsiung^dl from Chao-chün it says: "Although his family had for generations established itself through scholarship, Li Tzu-hsiung alone studied equestrianship and archery. His elder brother Tzutan^dm called him to task for this, saying 'to discard the word

(wen )^dn and revere the sword (wu )^do is no way for a literatus to be.'"^[53] Thus, learning itself was not only the indispensable grounding for a literatus but also a family occupation by which one established oneself with each generation.

To say that learning served as the existential basis for the aristocracy may not be an exaggeration. The fount of the qualifications befitting a leader in society lay in his personal qualities, and what nurtured these qualities was in fact learning. The basic significance of the point that the Six Dynasties aristocracy was an aristocracy of culture should now be apparent. Private ownership of the means of production did not directly establish their social position. Rather, transcending the direct control over the means of production, it was grounded in their being leaders who integrated a society structured around individual owners. Their leadership was accordingly intellectual and moral, and learning served an indispensable function in ruling the people.

In order to clarify the meaning of learning in this context more fully, we have to examine what it actually entailed, but that cannot be done here. If I might add one word though, the essential point for literati learning was of course its moral scope, and thus classical scholarship was of central importance. Yet the Yen-shih chia-hsün deplored the fact that learned men of the day lacked knowledge of jurisprudence and civil administration, to say nothing of their ignorance of architecture or agriculture, and incurred the ridicule of military men and petty functionaries. Literati learning actually included knowledge for practical learning of this sort.

A look through the biographies of Northern aristocrats shows that the learning they attained—yin-yang, astronomy, mathematics, the calendar, medicine, divination, and prediction based on the direction and sound of the winds—while not necessarily orthodox, did include fields in the life sciences. However, we also find the metaphysics of Taoism and Buddhism, as well as literature as a form of expressionism. As noted earlier, learning was itself a form of historical understanding, and with the development of genealogical study, historiography at this time pioneered its own distinctive field. Thus, at the mountain peak of learning stood classical scholarship, and at its foot was an extremely broad mixture of metaphysical and material

fields that seemed to form an expansive system. While this composed the intellectual basis for transcendence by the Six Dynasties aristocracy, it was also the source for praxis in the objective world.

Why did a cultured aristocracy established on the basis of learning result in a system of pedigree? "Learning" was an activity aimed at the formation of acquired character. I have not yet worked out fully my own ideas on this issue, but as we have seen, the intellectual system of that time did not exist simply as objective knowledge but seems to have been an embodiment of an exceptional personalism or transcendence. Thus, if one recognized the need for human qualities to match a mastery of learning, then might this not usher in a status system of pedigree?

There is an inescapable contradiction here, however. One's acquired nature, which is ancillary to learning, conflicts with the innate qualities of a wise man. The emergence of the principle of laying stress on men of talent as opposed to that of pedigree was a necessary process in this sense. That the cultured aristocracy would eventually spawn an examination system should be seen as a natural conclusion. Yen Chih-t'ui's bitterness in decrying the ignorant ways of high-born sons who had earned the ridicule of military men and petty officials ought to indicate negatively the inseparable link between the Six Dynasties aristocratic system and learning.

The States of the Northern Dynasties, Sui, and T'ang, and the "Community" Ethic

The Han Chinese Aristocracy and the Regimes of the Five Barbarians and the Northern Wei. We have thus far concentrated our discussion on the autonomy of the Han Chinese aristocracy as a ruling class in North China. Now we need to delve more deeply into the history of their relationship to state power. Under the regimes of the "Five Barbarians"—non-Chinese peoples of the Northern dynasties—their position as a ruling class was not fully established in the political sense. Especially from the period of the Five Barbarians through the first half of the Northern Wei, the state was organized in a dual Han-barbarian structure in which each race was put under a

respective ruling system. The non-Chinese peoples still retained the vestiges of their tribal "community"' from the era when they had lived outside China's borders; this was particularly evident in the changes in the organization of their military, which made up the core of state power.^[54]

When a state so heavily colored by its alien rulers came to rule the North China plain, it encompassed Han society under its control. The aristocrats who were the leaders in Han society naturally were appointed as officials. Some of these officials of aristocratic origin were active in central politics and on occasion became leaders of state, enjoying the full confidence of the sovereign. Examples would include Chang Pin^dp under Shih Lo^dq [274–333, founder of the Latter Chao^dr dynasty], Wang Meng^ds under Fu Chien^dt [338–385, head of the Former Ch'in],^du and Ts'ui Hung^dv and Ts'ui Hao^dw (father and son) in the early years of the Northern Wei. Many Han Chinese aristocrats became high or subordinate officials in their native districts and spent their lives in their local villages.

The bureaucratization of Han aristocrats, however, did not mean that they participated in state power in a completely subjective manner, for sovereignty remained in the hands of the non-Chinese. The "slip of the pen" incident involving Ts'ui Hao, which occurred during the reign of Emperor T'ai-wu^dx [r. 424–452] of the Northern Wei, made this realization bitterly clear for Han aristocrats. The incident originated when the Northern Wei national history being written by Ts'ui Hao and others incurred the animosity of the aliens. It was said that Ts'ui had been actively maneuvering to reorganize the Northern Wei into an aristocratic state, and this invited a barbarian reaction. As is well known, along with the steady progress made in the unification of North China in the time of Emperor T'ai-wu, Han aristocrats entered political circles in large numbers. The absolute confidence that the Emperor T'ai-wu placed in Ts'ui Hao caused the illusion to arise that a barbarian regime was now apparently being transformed into a Han-style aristocratic state. As a result, Ts'ui was executed (in 450) and those implicated extended to the Ts'ui family and the Shantung aristocratic families related by marriage to them.

As this indicated, the political discrimination of barbarian and Han was strictly enforced in the unified Northern Wei state.

The political role of the barbarians in the Northern Wei state was primarily military. Troops at the center and in the localities consisted mostly of soldiers of barbarian roots. To non-Chinese fighters who achieved military successes there opened the road to civil officialdom. This point would lead one to believe that the structure of the state, at least in an overall sense, was not formed by an aristocratic system.

In the dozen or so years after T'ai-wu was assassinated by the eunuch Tsung Ai,^dy bloodly secret feuds occurred within the Northern Wei imperial court. In this interval there was no external expansion. By the time Emperor Hsien-wen^dz [r. 466–471] had succeeded in annexing the Shantung region, it seems that the extent of contact between the Northern Wei state and Northern Chinese society was considerably deepened. Emperor Hsiao-wen's^ea [r. 471–500] decisive moving of the capital to Lo-yang thereafter was apparently a result of these conditions, for earlier the government had inaugurated policies for structuring the agricultural society of North China. We see this in the early years of Hsiao-wen's reign when the Empress Wen-ming^eb held control of the government with the creation of the "three chiefs" (san-chang )^ec and equitable field (chün-t'ien )^ed systems. These policies may reveal the connections at the time between the barbarian regime and the Han Chinese aristocrats.

The Equitable Field System and Aristocratic Ethics. The view has recently gained favor of looking at the equitable field system as an extension of the system of per capita land allocation (chi-k'ou shou-t'ien ),^ee which flourished in the years of the unification wars under Emperor T'ai-wu.^[55] My own view differs in no way from the notion of a linkage in the history of agricultural management policy of the Northern Wei state between per capita land allocation and the equitable field system. But the problem lies in what meaning we are to attach to this linkage. Many commentators have understood this as a state policy flexing its external muscles vis à vis Han aristocrats (and hence a policy to repress the Han aristocracy). There is also the position that sees this as a distinctly non-Chinese policy. What view are we to assume? Clearly, behind the system of per capita land allotment lay a policy for handling a con-

quered people under state power, known as the relocation policy. The equitable field system itself was a kind of policy to limit land ownership with the premise of state intervention. It can be assumed that the functions of this state power gave rise to these earlier perspectives, but this is still a rather simplistic understanding of the problem.

With the relocation policy that lay behind the system of per capita land allotment, the state moved the conquered people to strategic environs near the capital and put into effect centralized control over these areas. The per capita land allotment system supplied land to people in accordance with the labor power possessed by the migrant populace and looked toward the establishment of a self-cultivating peasantry as the basic structure for Han society. The principle of the equitable field system shared this conception in that "the land is to be used by all and no man will be idle." When we examine the essence of these conceptions, a linkage is forged with the broad world of the self-managing peasantry.

The reconstruction of this world had been a problem since the time of Tung Chung-shu in the Former Han. Its aims through the policy to limit large landholdings had always ended in failure throughout the Han. A new characteristic from the Three Kingdoms on was to limit large landholdings and, as well, to institute a land allocation policy for the small peasantry. The linkage from "military colonies" (t'un-t'ien ),^ef to "lands in possession" (chan-t'ien ) and "assessment lands" (k'e-t'ien ),^[56] to the equitable field system testifies to this effect. The per capita land allotment system also, without a doubt, formed one part of this lineage.

What sort of social class gave rise to this string of policies? We know only that the name of the man who designed the equitable field system was Li An-shih,^eg and we cannot overlook the fact that he came from the famous Li clan of Chao-chün. If we accept the view that the Six Dynasties aristocracy were large landowners, then we face a logical contradiction in that policies for limitations on large landholdings, like the equitable field system, were initiated by this very aristocracy. As we have seen thus far, however, the class base of the Six Dynasties aristocracy was not to be directly found here. Rather, it lay in an ethical bond with a society in which the self-managing peas-

antry were the backbone of the agricultural village. In other words, there was a mutual relationship between the moral ties of the aristocracy to the outside world and the societal reputation produced thereby. Aristocrats who did have large landholdings were deeply troubled for falling into rivalries with the self-cultivating peasants (contesting the people for profit), for they were supposed to function as an organ of relief for the people. The stress on justice over wealth, which was the proper literati bearing—namely, the life ethic of frugality, self-restraint, relief, and disinterest in one's own property—was not unconnected to landownership.

Thus, the principles of the equitable field system and the concept of landownership in the aristocratic ethic did not contradict each other but even shared a certain spirit. What were these large landholdings that the equitable field system tried to restrain? It was management over large tracts of land aimed at expanding the extravagances and profits of large landowners. This management established competitive relations with the self-cultivating peasantry and wiped them out, causing a polarization of the annexers and the propertyless. This circumstance not only ran contrary to the literati ethic but it also gave birth to an unbalanced relationship between land and labor power, resulting in an irrational state economy.

To say that those responsible for managing large landholdings did not include aristocrats would be an exaggeration. Cases in which the aristocratic class forgot the literati ethic on which it was founded and sought personal economic profit were not rare. Furthermore, this trend seems to have been rather closely linked to a tendency toward stabilizing the position of the aristocracy with the development of a system of pedigree. Gradually, they moved away from their original class base.

The equitable field system may then be seen as the original economic ethic of the aristocracy being systematized as a state land law under the state control of a barbarian people. In short, at the stage prior to Emperor Hsiao-wen's policy for aristocratic pedigree, there was ample room for the implementation of joint Han-barbarian government on the basis of this common principle.

The Base Structure of the Sui-T'ang Reunification. The "sin-

ification" policy during the period of Emperor Hsiao-wen's personal rule, however, aimed at changing the very nature of the state. With the withdrawal of earlier racial discrimination, the state attempted to organize a bureaucratic structure by differentiating scholars and commoners. Thus, the aristocratic system permeated state power, and the influence of Southern dynastic pedigrees was strongly felt as a consequence. The Han aristocracy adhered to state power, which completed the institutionalization of the aristocracy. The ruling position of the aristocratic class was guaranteed and fixed by the power of the state. Yet, in one regard this caused a deterioration of the aristocracy. Characteristic of the years after Hsiao-wen's reign were many cases where a decline in the literati ethic caused public rebuke of Han aristocrats.

Hsiao-wen's policy, though, proved unable conclusively to make the Han aristocracy bear the brunt of state power, for at this same time the main military force remained officers and troops of non-Chinese stock. Thus, when the Han aristocracy gained a preeminent political position, the non-Chinese military men were faced with a basic dilemma. Military service had carried with it the honor of being the cornerstone of the state; it had opened up opportunities for bureacratic advancement. But now, it only meant being a running dog of the Han Chinese aristocracy.

I have already discussed in detail elsewhere^[57] how the explosion of this dilemma brought about the revolt of the central imperial guard and the uprising of the Six Commanderies, caused riots of the military households attached to the commanderies, and brought about the dissolution of the Northern Wei. When these uprisings occurred, the Han aristocrats tried to defend their positions by organizing militarily with local villagers. As noted earlier, the relationship between them and the local people (local militias) might best be seen as having made the everyday relationship of aristocrat and villager function militarily now. Thus, when the aristocratic class could no longer rely on the regime, they tried to confront the crisis with a latent power which they still held. The "communitarian" universe that formed the base structure for medieval Chinese society once again revealed itself quite clearly now.

As this development became institutionalized as a state structure, we can see its main traits. The fu-ping^eh (militia)

system of the Western Wei, formed with the strong base of local blocs, provided the military backbone subsequently for the Northern Chou, Sui, and T'ang states, and demonstrated its tremendous might in the task of reunifying China. It had a qualitatively similar importance to the equitable field system, created with the principle of the aristocratic ethic in mind, which systematized agricultural management of these later unified states.

In order for the state institutionalization of the aristocratic ethic to be realized, there were generated various changes within the social structure of aristocratic rule. To describe this new type of aristocracy oriented toward these changes, I have used such expressions as the principle of stress on talent, new aristocratism, and enlightened aristocratism.^[58] This new trend can be seen as well in the structure of these local militia bands, but of course this whole trend was later institutionalized in the examination system from the Sui dynasty onward.

Thus far, scholars have understood the flow toward China's reunification, which takes its source from the later Northern Dynasties, as the power of the state keeping the aristocrats down. No clear answer has been given to the question of the class nature of the ruling structure of this state. My own view on the Sui-T'ang empire comes back to the point that "communitarian" society of both Han and barbarian merged through mutual penetration and created a state based on these new aristocratic principles. This was a crystallization of the medieval "community" and in this sense may be regarded as the fulfillment of the medieval state. The direct root form of this completed state was the Western Wei and Northern Chou. The principle of the Western Wei's "Liu-t'iao chao-shu"^ei (Edict of six articles) vividly indicated how the state worked to diffuse through itself the aristocratic ethos.^[59]