The cambridge history of china volume 5 part two sung china, 960–1279

Tai Lieu Chat Luong


THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF CHINA
General Editors
Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank
Volume 5
Part Two: Sung China, 960–1279


L I A O
H S I - H S I A

E M P I R E

Western Capital
Ta-t’ung

Southern Capital

Feng-chou

E M P I R E

-P

-T

O

I

CH

S

H O
-

H

IN

G

H

P E
I

H

S

I

Hsiung-chou Pa-chou
Lin
Huo-shan Tai-chou
Pao-chou

Pei-p’ing
Ch’ing-chou
Fu
Ning-hua Chung-shan
Mo-chou
Pao-te
Chi
K’o-lon
Ying-chou
Chin-ning
T’ien-wei
Ts’ang-chou
Teng-chou
Hsien-chou
Hsing-ch’ing-fu
Chen-ting-fu
Ching-chou
Shen-chou
Lan-chou
G
Hsin-chou
Yung-ching
Yin-chou
N Pin-chou
P’ing-ting
Lai-chou
T’ai-yuan-fu
U
NG
T Ti-chou

Ch’ing-yuan-fu Chi-chou
Te-chou
Y
Sui-te
Wei-chou
I
TU
Shih-chou
Chen-wu
En-chou
E
Liao-chou Hsin-te-fu
U
G
Ting-pien
Ch’ing-chou
Fen-chou
Chi-nan-fu
N
N
Hui-chou
MingU
Po-chou
H O - T U N G
Tz’u-chou
Hsi-an
chou
Ting-pien
G
Yen-an-fu Hsi-chou

Huan-chou
Wei-sheng Tz’u-chou
Mi-chou
Lo-chou
Hsi-ning
Ta-ming-fu Yün-chou
C
Ch’ing-tso
C Fu-chouHsiang-chou
Tzu-chou
H
K’ai-te-fu
C
H
I
N
G
Lan-chou
H
Kuo-chou
Ch’ing-chou
Ping-yang
Chi-chou Yen-chou
Ü
Chen-jung
’
P’u-chou
Yuan-chou
Tse-chou
Chi-shih

Hua-chou
I
Fang-chou
Wei-chou Ning-chou
I-chou
T
UNG
Chiang-chou
Wei-chou
Ho-chou
N
Ts’ao-chou Tan-chou
Ching-chou
Meng-chou Huai-chou K’ai-feng
Hsi-chou
Huai-yang
- Shun-te Lung-chou Pin-chou Yao-chou T’ung-chou Chieh-chou
HSI
Hai-chou
F E
Cheng-chou
Kung-chou
Kung-chou
Ho-chungC
Ying-tien-fu
Li-chou
N G
Ho-nan-fu CHINGHsü-chou
T’ao-chou
Shan-chou

H
Ch’in-chou
K’uo-chou
CHI
An-tung
Hua-chou
Feng-hsiang-fu
Min-chou
I
Yang-ch’ang-fu
Ching-chao-fu
H U A I - N A N
Hsi-ho
Su-chou
Ju-chou N
Feng-chou
Ch’u-chou
Hua-ning-fu
G
Po-chou
Ch’eng-chou
Shang-chou
Ch’ing-ho
- H
Huai-an ChaoChieh-chou
hsin T U N G
Mien-chou
Yang-chou
S
Kao-yu

Hao-chou
I
Ssu-chou
T I B E TA N S
Wen-chou
P
T’ai-chou
Yang-chou
Shun-ch’ang-fu
E
C H I N
Hsing-yuan
T’ung-chou
ChenChen-chou
I
Ta-an
Teng-chou
Ts’ai-chou
chiang-fu
G
Ch’u-chou
Chün-chou
Shou-ch’un-fu
- H T’ang-chou
Lung-chou L I - C H O U
Chiang-ning-fu
Chin-chou
Li-chou
Ho-chou
Hsin-yang

Ch’angFang-chou Hsiang-yang-fu S
Kuang-chou Liu-an
Lung-ch’ing
I
chou
P’ing-chiang-fu
T’ai-p’ing-chou
N A
Pa-chou
U Lang-chou
Mao-chou
Hsin-yang
Sui-chou
I
N
K’ai-chou
Wu-wei
A
Hu-chou
HanChia-hsing-fu
Ch’inWei-chou
Te-an-fu
P’eng-chou
Ta-chou
chou
chou
K’uei-chou
U
Ning-kuo-fu
Kuei-chou

Ying-chou
Yun-an
H
Yüeh-chou Ming-chou
P’eng-chou T’ung-ch’uan-fu
H
Lin-an-fu
An-ch’ing-fu
Yung-k’ang
Kuo-chou
Wan-chou
Ch’eng-tu-fu
Huang-chou
Hsia-chou
Liang-shan
EO-chou
Ya-chou Ch’iungLIANG-CHE
N
Ch’i-chou
ChienCh’ü-chou Chung-chou Shih-chou
Hui-chou
Chiang-ling
P
Shou-ch’ang
Sui-chou
chou
chou
Fu-chou
Chien-te-fu
Ning-hsi

P’uMei-chou
Ho-chou
C
chou
U
Hsing-kuo
Chiang-chou
T’ai-chou
Chia-chou
Fu-chou
Ch’angH Li-chou
Li-chou
Wu-chou
Nan-k’ang
chou Yü-chou
Tzu-chou

N

N

A

-N

I

S

G

G

N

U

T

IA

N

I

H

C

A

’U

FU

CH

U

F

C

H

’

H

E

N

O

G

-

U

T

-

N

N

A

N

G


U

N

I

U

-

H

G

C

’
K

H

I -

E

-

NG

T’U

M
K I N
G D
O

Wen

Lan

Lung
Yen

T A - L I

Kuan
T’ing

K

P’an

U

A

N

I-chou

N

A

Heng

N

Hsin
Kuei

Pin
Yung-chou
Ch’in-chou

G

Hsiang
Kung

H

T’eng

N

A

Shao-wu

Chien-ning
Nan-chien

Fu-chou

FU - CHI EN
Hsing-hua

Ting-chou

Ch’uan-chou

Nan-an

Nan-hsiung

Wu-chou
Feng-chou

Yung-chou
Yü-lin

Lien-chou

Fu-chou

Ch’ien-ch’ang

Shao-chou

Chang-chou
Mei-chou

Hsün-chou

Ying-te-fu

K U A N G - N A N

I

Pai-chou

Kan-chou
Ch’enchou

Lien-chou
Chao-chou
Chia-chou
-

Ch’ao-ch’ing-fu

S

Ch’u-chou
Wen-chou

Chi-chou

Ch’a-ling

Yung-chou

Ch’uan-chou N
Kuei-yang-chien
Tao-chou

Kuei-chou
Ti

H

C

An-hua
Na

N

S

Wu-kang

P’ing-chou

Ts’ung-chou

N
I

I

IO

U

E S

Heng-chou

S

A

R

IB

Lin-chiang

Yuan-chou

Ching

chou

Ch’ü-chou

Yün-chou

T’an-chou

Shao-chou

Jao-chou
Hsin-chou

Lung-hsing-fu

H

V

Chen-chou

Yuan-chou

M

R

Chen-chou
Ssu-chou
Po-chou

T

A

Ch’ang-te-fu

- N A N
N G
I A

Ch’ing-ning

Yüeh-chou

G

H

Lu-chou

-

Ch’ien-chou

C

Jung-chou

Nan-p’ing

Kao-chou

Ch’ao-chou

T U N G

Te-ch’ing-fu

Hui-chou

Kuang-chou

Hsin-chou
En-nan-chou

Hua-chou

H O U - T A
Lei-chou

Principal roads

Y Ü E H

Canals
Provincial capitals

Ch’iung-chou
Ch’ang-hua

Fu

Chen-chou
Yen-te

Chou

Prefectures

Chün

Military prefectures

Wan-an

Chu-yai

0
0

400 km
200 miles

Map 1. Political map of the Northern Sung, c. 1100. Reprinted by permission from The Times Atlas of China, P.J.M. Geelan and Denis C.
Twitchett, eds. (London: Times Books, 1974).



THE CAMBRIDGE

HISTORY OF
CHINA
Volume 5
Part Two: Sung China, 960–1279
edited by
JOHN W. CHAFFEE and DENIS TWITCHETT


University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom
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It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
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© Cambridge University Press 2015
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First published 2015
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and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.


CONTENTS

List of tables and igures

page xi

List of maps

xii

List of abbreviations

xiii

Preface
Introduction: relections on the Sung
by John W. Chaffee, Binghamton University, State University
of New York
A weak dynasty?
Economic dynamism
Assertions of authority
Sung Confucianism
Elites and their output
A religious society
The Sung in Chinese history
1 Sung government and politics
by Charles Hartman, University at Albany, State University
of New York
Introduction
A bibliographic prelude
The uninished character of the Sung state

The literatus as civil servant
Literati ideas about government
The literati character of Sung government
The civil service system
The Sung monarchy
Government decision making

xv
1

2
3
7
10
12
15
16
19

19
24
27
32
35
43
49
80
112

viii

contents

2 The Sung iscal administration
by Peter J. Golas, University of Denver
Introduction
Agriculture and the countryside
Labor service
Cities, commercial taxes, and monopolies
Disbursements
The monetary system
Conclusion
3 A history of the Sung military
ă Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing
by Wang Tseng-Y u,
The organization of the military in the early Sung
The military history of the Northern Sung
Weapons, logistics, and technology
The military history of the Southern Sung
4 Chinese law and legal system: Five Dynasties and Sung
by Brian McKnight, University of Arizona
Introduction
Five Dynasties law
The Sung legal system
Conclusion

139
139
158

167
175
192
207
211
214
214
220
233
238
250
250
250
253
283

5 Sung education: schools, academies, and examinations
by John W. Chaffee, Binghamton University, State University
of New York

286

Introduction
Methods of recruitment
Early Sung developments
The Ch’ing-li reforms
Policy debates: quotas and curriculum
Wang An-shih’s reforms
The Three Hall System
The early Southern Sung: survival and reconstruction

Southern Sung government schooling
The academy movement
Examinations in the Southern Sung
Conclusion: the Sung educational order

286
287
288
293
295
298
300
305
305
309
312
318


contents
6 Economic change in China, 960–1279
by Joseph P. McDermott, Cambridge University, and Shiba
Yoshinobu, Toyo Bunko
Introduction
Late T’ang to early Sung (742–1080)
Middle Sung (1080–1162)
Late Sung (1163–1276)
7 China’s emergence as a maritime power
by Angela Schottenhammer, Salzburg University
Introduction

Political and economic background
Sea routes and maritime accounts
Nautical and shipbuilding technology
The Sung navy
Oficial administration of maritime trade
Exchange of commodities
Conclusion
8 Sung society and social change
by Robert Hymes, Columbia University
Introduction
Printing and reading
Women and gender
Religion
Elites, locality, and the state
Conclusion
9 Reconceptualizing the order of things in Northern
and Southern Sung
by Peter K. Bol, Harvard University
The Sung intellectual legacy
Culture and ideology, 960–1030
From learning to politics: the Fan Chung-yen faction
The search for coherent systems and methods in the
mid-eleventh century
Finding an alternative to the New Learning
Trends in Southern Sung intellectual culture

ix
321

321

326
385
409
437
437
439
440
450
454
460
491
523
526
526
542
568
595
621
661

665
665
670
674
681
708
721


x

contents

10 The rise of the Tao-hsăueh Confucian fellowship in Southern Sung
by Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Arizona State University
The irst period, 1127–1162
The second period, 1163–1181
The third period, 1182–1202
The fourth period, 1202–1279
Conclusion

727
732
737
759
781
788

Bibliography

791

Index

885


TABLES AND FIGURES

tables

1. Numbers of civil and military graded oficials
page 53
2. Personal-rank grades: civil-administrative and executory-class
oficials
61
3. Subjects in the civil service examinations
289
4. Sung government schools classiied by earliest references per
decade
296
5. Incidence per decade of constructive activity at 64 prefectural
and 108 county schools
308
6. Geographical distribution of private schools
310
7. Census reports, ad 2–1190
328
8. North and south China household distribution
328
9. Regional variations in household population, c.756 and c.1080
329
10. Changes in household population by circuit during the Sung
330
11a. Regional population changes from 742 to 1213 (thousand
households)
331
11b. Summary of regional population changes
333
12. Mineral tax quotas (806–1165)
378

13. Maritime trade ofices (shih-po ssu) and maritime trade bureaus
(shih-po wu)
474
14. Government income derived from maritime trade,
960–1180s (in strings of bronze cash)
487
figures
1. “Chi-nan Liu Family’s Skillful Needle Shop”
(Sung advertisement).
2. “Alerting the world.”
3. “Chart for making the most of your days.”

558
566
566


MAPS

1. Political map of the Northern Sung, c. 1100.
2. Seaports and naval bases in the Southern Sung (1127–1279)
Source: Lo Jung-pang, “Maritime commerce and its relation to
the Sung navy,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient 12 No. 1 (January 1969), p. 65.
3. Maritime Asia during the Sung.

page ii

472
511

ABBREVIATIONS

CMC
CSW
CWTS
CYTC
HCP
SHT
SHY
SKCS
SKCSCP
SPPY
SPTK
SS
SYHA
TFYK
TLSI
WHTK
WTHY
Yao-lu
YH
YTC

Ming-kung shu-pan Ching-ming chi
Chăuan Sung wen
Chiu Wu-tai shih
Chien-yen i-lai Chao-yeh tsa-chi
Hsău tzu-chih tung-chien chang-pien

Sung hsing-tung
Sung hui-yao chi-kao
Ssu-ku chăuan-shu
Ssu-ku chăuan-shu chen-pen
Ssu-pu pei-yao
Ssu-pu tsung-kan
Sung shih
Sung Yăuan hsăueh-an
Tse-fu yăuan-kuei
Tang-lău shu-i
Wen hsien tung kao
Wu-tai hui-yao
Chien-yen i-lai hsi-nien yao-lu
Yău-hai
Chung-chiao Yăuan-tien-chang liu-shih chăuan



PREFACE

This volume has a history of its own. In 1966, my late coeditor Denis
Twitchett, then “a spry forty-one-year-old” – as he put it – undertook the
Herculean task of overseeing, with John K. Fairbank, the creation of The
Cambridge history of China. This project, which was to occupy him the
rest of his life, has to date resulted in ifteen “volumes” with twenty-two
individual books, truly one of the great scholarly accomplishments of recent
years, rivaled in the ield of sinology only by Joseph Needham’s Science and
civilisation in China.
Even as Denis was working to put together the irst volumes of the
premodern period – Sui and T’ang (1979), Ch’in and Han (1986) and Ming

(1988)1 – a parallel development was under way that informed the beginnings
of the Sung volumes, namely the emergence of Sung studies. According to
Conrad Schirokauer, this had its origins at a gathering of half a dozen scholars,
Twitchett among them, with a shared sense of the importance of the Sung
in Chinese history and a conviction that its study was ripe for development.2
From this informal gathering, subsequently referred to as “Sung I,” came the
“Sung II Conference” at Feldaling on the Starnbergesee outside Munich in
1971, at which fourteen papers were presented, the irst research conference
devoted to the Sung outside East Asia. This was a period of ambitious
scholarly endeavors in Sung studies, exempliied by the Sung Project, with
a Biographical Section led by Herbert Franke and a Bibliographical Section
under Yves Hervouet, as well as the beginning of the Sung volume of The
Cambridge history of China.
I do not know the speciics of that beginning, but can date it to the irst
half of the 1970s, for in 1986 Denis convened a group of scholars at Princeton
to move the Sung volumes forward (even then the plan was to have two parts:
historical and topical), and among a number of completed papers on which he
1
2

The second part of the Sui and T’ang volume is as yet unpublished.
Conrad Schirokauer, “Remembering Sung I,” Journal of Song–Yuan Studies 40 (2010), pp. 1–6.


xvi

preface

intended to build was one on Northern Sung government by my late adviser,
Edward Kracke, who had died in 1976. Amid general enthusiasm a number

of additional papers were commissioned, mine among them, to ill out the
two volumes. Unfortunately that enthusiasm did not translate into timely
results. A number of manuscripts were submitted while others were delayed
from year to year, and in the meantime Denis, by his own account, found
himself consumed with the completion of Volume 6 on Alien regimes and border
ă
states (Liao, Chin and Yuan)
and by the second Ming volume (Volume 8, Part
2). Then in the year 2000 he recruited Paul Jakov Smith and me to serve as
coeditors of Parts 1 and 2 respectively.
When I began working with Denis on this volume, we had a collection of
draft chapters, some quite new but others dating back to the 1970s and in
sore need of revision. Of the authors who had submitted drafts prior to the
1986 meeting, Peter Golas and Brian McKnight were ready and able to revise
theirs (and, as things turned out, to revise them more than once), and now
will inally see them appear in print. For three manuscripts, however, authorial revisions were out of the question. Edward Kracke had died in 1976; James
T. C. Liu, who had written on Southern Sung government, had died in 1993;
and Ira Kasoff, who had written on Northern Sung Neo-Confucianism, had
long left the profession. With some regret, Denis, Paul, and I decided that
the revisions needed to update these chapters adequately would require radical changes and therefore should not be attempted. We therefore decided to
commission new chapters in their place. Charles Hartman’s chapter on “Sung
government and politics” covers the ground that had been treated separately
by Kracke and Liu, while Peter Bol expanded his treatment of Northern Sung
intellectual culture to treat the Neo-Confucian masters of that period. We
also sought chapters on topics that were not a part of the original plan for the
volume. Unfortunately, those on Sung literature, foreign relations with the
dynasty’s continental neighbors, Taoism, and Buddhism did not in the end
materialize. However, Angela Schottenhammer’s chapter on “China’s emergence as a maritime power” proved to be a welcome and important addition,
while others, such as Robert Hymes’s chapter on “Sung society and social
change” and Shiba Yoshinobu and Joseph McDermott’s joint chapter on “Economic change in China, 960–1279,” assumed an unanticipated breadth and

scope.
It has been far too many years since I joined this volume as a coeditor, for
several factors slowed its progress. Some authors were slow in their submissions and, at times, in their revisions. The Editorial Ofice of the Cambridge
History in Princeton, while extremely helpful on the whole, at times proved
to be a bottleneck. This was particularly the case because its priority was
understandably given to the Sung historical volume (Volume 5, Part 1), whose


preface

xvii

contributions were ready much earlier and which appeared in 2009, as well
as the Ch’ing dynasty Volume 9 (Parts 1 and 2), something I eventually
remedied by hiring editorial help at Binghamton for the inal editorial work
on the volume. The most important factor, however, was the death of Denis
in 2006. Although he worked on the volume until almost the end and we
had already made the most important decisions concerning the volume by
the time of his passing, it was a great loss and made my job as the surviving
coeditor a lonely one.
There are several people who should be acknowledged for their contributions to the volume: Denis irst and foremost, whose editorial experience was
peerless and whose friendship was freely given, and also Paul Smith, whose
collaborations, wise counsel, and kind criticisms have proven invaluable. The
editorial staff at the Cambridge History’s Princeton ofice provided important
assistance for many years, especially Ralph Meyer and Michael Reeve, while
Willard Peterson’s supervision of the ofice and ability to keep it funded were
remarkable. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Chang Wook Lee, my graduate
assistant at Binghamton, who did an enormous amount of the inal, painstaking editorial work on the volume. The many editors at Cambridge University
Press with whom I have worked were all extremely supportive. To the many
contributors to this volume, thank you for your patience. Finally, I would

acknowledge the signiicant support given over the years to the Cambridge history of China project by Princeton University’s East Asia Program, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for
International Cultural Exchange.
John W. Chaffee



INTRODUCTION: REFLECTIONS ON THE SUNG
John W. Chaffee

This volume, together with its recently published companion volume
(Volume 5, Part 1), presents fruits of a half-century of Western scholarship on
the history of Sung China (960–1279). “Western” is of course a relative term,
for the presence of Chinese and Japanese authors relects the global character of the Sung history ield. It is nevertheless appropriate as a descriptor of
the scholarly activity focused on the Sung among European and Anglophonic
scholars that has lourished since the 1950s. While drawing heavily on the
pioneering work of Japanese scholars and enriched by the postwar lowering
of Sung scholarship in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, the works
in this volume emerged primarily out of Western discourses on the Sung.
Philosophical profundity; cultural brilliance as seen in unparalleled landscape art, calligraphy, and prose composition; and a sophisticated material
culture, but also military and economic weakness, political humiliation, venal
ministers and effeminate men: these are some of the characteristics that have
traditionally been ascribed to the Sung by historians and the general public,
and they help to explain why the Sung has long found little favor among many
Chinese, especially when it is compared to the “glorious T’ang” (618–907)
that preceded it. All modern scholarship on the Sung, Western and East Asian
alike, has had to deal with this characterization of the dynasty that dominated
traditional historiography and popular opinions about the period. But ever
since the Japanese journalist-turned-scholar Nait¯o Torajir¯o (1866–1934)
argued in 1914 that a massive economic, social and political transformation

beginning in the late T’ang resulted in the beginning of China’s “modern
age” (kinsei) in the Sung, alternatives to the traditional historiography have
lourished, irst among Japanese, then among Western and Chinese scholars.1
From that scholarship has emerged a complex portrait of a dynasty which,
1

For an excellent recent account of Nait¯o Torajir¯o, also known as Nait¯o Konan, and the impact of his work,
see Richard von Glahn, “Imagining Pre-modern China,” in The Sung–Yuan–Ming transition in Chinese
history, ed. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn (Cambridge, MA, 2003), pp. 38–42.


2

john w. chaffee

despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically
powerful, culturally brilliant, socially luid, and the most populous of any
empire in world history to that point. It was also a dynasty beset by problems
and contradictions, belying simple generalizations.
The contributions to this volume bear witness to the richness and complexity of the Sung historical record and the fruits of recent scholarship.
Covering a wide spectrum of topics – government, economy, society, religion,
and thought, in roughly that order – they range widely, often well beyond
the apparent conines of their topics, frequently intersecting with each other
and not always agreeing, for the phenomena with which they are dealing
often defy pigeonholing. The result is a rich mixture that offers the reader a
portrait of this remarkable period that is detailed, complex, and essentially
complementary. In introducing the volume, my goal is to underline that
complementarity by identifying themes that cut across the chapters.
a weak dynasty?
We should begin by acknowledging that there are elements of truth to the

traditional portrayal of the Sung. Even during the Northern Sung (960–1127),
the dynasty’s territorial reach was less than that of any of the other major dynasties, with borders in the northeast that did not include modern Peking, in the
northwest that did not extend beyond the eastern end of the Kansu corridor,
and in the far south that did not include Yunnan or especially Annam, which
had been part of Chinese empires for a thousand years. The catastrophic loss
of north China to the Jurchen which resulted in the severely shrunken borders
of the Southern Sung (1127–1279), and the lengthy Mongol conquest of the
Sung that inally extinguished the dynasty in 1279 provide clear evidence that
the Sung could not handle their neighbors as well as the Han (206 bc–ad 220)
or T’ang. Moreover, the terms by which the Sung secured peace with the Liao
(907–1125), and later the Chin (1115–1234), were to Chinese sensibilities
deeply humiliating, involving as they did tribute payments by the Sung and,
in the case of the Chin, the Sung emperor addressing his Chin counterpart as
“elder brother.”
The blame for this unenviable record has generally fallen upon the Sung
military and on treacherous political leadership, most notably in the latter case
ă Fei (1103–42) by the chief counthe recall and execution of the iconic Yueh
cilor Ch’in Kuei (1090–1155) during the irst war against the Jurchen. As we
ă chapter (and from the entire volume 5, Part 1),
learn from Wang Tseng-yu’s
the Sung engaged in a great many wars against their varied enemies, and most
of them ended poorly. Wang details numerous instances of bad decisions made
at the court, poor generalship, and corruption, in addition to badly prepared


reflections on the sung

3

troops. But he also describes noteworthy successes in the dynasty’s use of the

military. Sung T’ai-tsung’s (r. 976–97) unsuccessful campaign against the Liao
notwithstanding, he and his brother T’ai-tsu (r. 960–76) before him managed to reunify the vast majority of agricultural China while at the same time
successfully controlling the military, speciically military governors and the
capital army, two challenges that had proved largely insurmountable during
the preceding century. The Sung subsequently succeeded in maintaining a
huge army – peaking at 1,259,000 troops during the 1040s – that was professional and supported by a well-developed logistical structure and by an armaments industry that excelled at technological military innovation, including
the development of gunpowder technologies.2 The military’s strengths were
primarily defensive, necessarily so because of the Sung lack of pastureland and
therefore of good horses, but with some obvious exceptions it was a formidable
defensive force.3
It is possible, indeed, to lip the common assertion about the weakness of
the Sung military and argue instead that it was Sung military strength that
preserved it in an age of exceptionally powerful states in Central and East Asia,
states that combined the power of highly developed equestrian warfare with
sophisticated state systems. In what was the most multipolar East Asian world
in Chinese imperial history, the ability of the Sung not merely to survive but
to thrive was remarkable, and it is to the economic sources of that thriving
that we will now turn.

economic dynamism
In their chapter on Sung economic change, Joseph McDermott and Shiba
Yoshinobu anchor their account irmly in the late T’ang, a period when the
government was unable to maintain its direct controls over economic activity in the countryside (through the equitable-ields measure) and regulated
markets in the cities. By allowing virtually unlimited private landownership
rather than allotting land to peasants for a lifetime tenure, freeing markets
from government regulation, and relying on both land and commercial taxes
as well as government monopolies for their revenue, the authorities created the
conditions for a fundamental economic transformation. Whether the ensuing
change deserves the title of “economic revolution” – as Mark Elvin has claimed
2

3

See Professor Wang’s treatment of gunpowder weapons, and also Peter Allan Lorge, The Asian military
revolution: From gunpowder to the bomb (Cambridge and New York, 2008), pp. 32–44.
Sung responses to their chronic lack of warhorses are well treated by Paul Jakov Smith in Taxing heaven’s
storehouse: Horses, bureaucrats and the destruction of the Sichuan tea industry, 1074–1224 (Cambridge, MA,
1991).


4

john w. chaffee

but McDermott and Shiba resist4 – is open to debate, but without question the
economic growth in the early Sung was spectacular and unprecedented, and
the wealth that it created was manifested in a population which by 1100 had
exceeded 100 million for the irst time in Chinese history, and in the emergence of a lourishing urban culture and a social elite that was far larger than
the aristocratic elite of T’ang times had been.
This much is commonly acknowledged by most scholars. In their chapter,
Professors McDermott and Shiba move well beyond these generalizations to
present a detailed and complex portrait of the Sung economy. The spread of
agricultural technologies and seed types (e.g. early-ripening Champa rice5 )
and increases in cultivated land are presented as factors helping to sustain the
growth in population. But the authors also raise the question why the population did not grow yet more, and through their analysis of the individual
macroregions within the Sung empire they describe in sobering detail the
often devastating impact of famines and epidemics (especially in the north) as
well as environmental degradation. Indeed, the environmental costs of both
agricultural and industrial practices are a major theme of the chapter and
an important part of their question why population growth was not even
greater.

McDermott and Shiba also provide a useful tripartite periodization for the
economic history of the Sung, namely (1) early Sung (960–1080), a period
of expansion characterized by the spectacular rise of the south agriculturally
and the industrial development of the capital region around K’ai-feng in the
north; (2) middle Sung (1080–1162), a period of continuity up until the catastrophic loss of the north followed by turbulent recovery; and (3) late Sung
(1162–1279), a period of frequent warfare and economic decline. While early
Sung prosperity and late Sung decline are common themes in most accounts of
Sung history, the choice of a middle period spanning rather than breaking at
the Northern/Southern Sung divide is unusual. Since that period began with
the New Policies of Wang An-shih (1021–86), which involved an unprecedented engagement by the government in agriculture and commerce, its continuation well into the Southern Sung suggests that the continuities over that
tumultuous eighty-year period were more signiicant than either the cessation
of the reform policies late in Hui-tsung’s reign (c.1120) or the war with the
Chin and loss of the north.
4
5

For Elvin, see The pattern of the Chinese past (Stanford, 1973), Part 2.
Although McDermott and Shiba stress the role of Champa rice and document its use in various localities in
southern China, it should be noted that this is a point of some disagreement among economic historians.
For a more skeptical view of the role of Champa rice, see Li Po-chung, “Yu-wu 13, 14 shih-chi te chuanche? Sung-mo tao Ming-chu Chiang-nan nung-yeh te pien-hua,” in Tuo shih-chiao k’an Chiang-nan chingchi-shih (Peking, 2003), pp. 21–96.


reflections on the sung

5

Commerce is another major theme in the McDermott–Shiba chapter, one
that is central to any understanding of the Sung economy. Using the comprehensive list in the Sung hui-yao chi-kao (A draft compendium of Sung documents)
of tax quotas c.1077 for 2,600 tax stations, they are able to delineate the hierarchical marketing structure through which goods moved and document the
ascendance of the south – especially the Lower and Middle Yangtze macroregions – and the emergence of large and vibrant cities there. They also detail

the roles played by developments in boat transport, the spreading use of paper
money and instruments of commercial credit, and the creation of joint investment partnerships, all of which served to create a commercial order the likes
of which had never before been seen. Indeed, such was the importance of commerce that it features prominently in three other chapters in this volume.
In her chapter on “China’s emergence as a maritime power,” Angela Schottenhammer addresses a topic that has aroused great interest among global
historians, namely the central role played by China in a world trading order
that spanned maritime Asia from the tenth through fourteenth centuries. In
ă (12701368),
contrast to all other Chinese dynasties save the Mongol Yuan
the Sung not only permitted overseas trade, they also welcomed and facilitated it through the use of maritime trade ofices or superintendencies, which
taxed incoming goods but also supervised the trade and even aided foreign
merchants when they were in need. This did not preclude corrupt practices, as
Schottenhammer makes clear, but it created remarkably hospitable and stable
conditions for a trade that involved a plethora of goods, most notably exports of
ceramics (including porcelain, a new invention), metals, and silk, and, among
imports, especially hsiang-yao, a term covering aromatics, perfumes, and drugs.
For the irst time, Chinese merchants in Chinese junks ventured across East
and Southeast Asia, joining the ranks of Arab, Persian, Indian, Malay, and
Korean traders who were engaged in the trade and who, in many cases, established trading communities in port cities, particularly Kuang-chou (Canton)
ă
and Chuan-chou.
It should also be noted that the revenues from maritime
commerce provided a signiicant if minor source of government revenue; averaging around a half-million strings of cash through much of the irst century,
these revenues increased to around 1 million strings in the late eleventh century and then 2 million in the early Southern Sung.
In his chapter on Sung government, Charles Hartman makes the striking
observation not only that, compared to the Ming (1368–1644), Sung governmental revenues constituted a higher proportion of national revenue, but
also that those from nonagricultural sources – commercial taxes and revenues
from the government monopolies – were nine times as great. Commercial
revenues are a central theme for Peter Golas in “The Sung iscal administration.” Of course the chapter covers far more than commercial taxes. The

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john w. chaffee

Sung government’s approach to iscal matters was pragmatic and innovative.
Thanks in particular to the enormous cost of maintaining a professional military (including a large navy, the great cost of which is documented by Schottenhammer), the dynasty’s early iscal health turned into chronic deicits by
the mid-eleventh century. The land taxes, together with their accompanying
labor service system, were of great importance but were increasingly unable
to keep up with the government’s ever-increasing inancial needs, so that by
the 1070s they accounted for only one-third of government revenues. One
response was the development of a professional iscal administration, whose
cadre of career specialists established and implemented policies that met those
needs with remarkable success; indeed, Golas credits the economic astuteness
of Sung inancial oficials and their willingness to work with merchants for
much of the dynasty’s success in iscal matters.6
More speciically, government monopolies (salt, wine, tea, alum, and mining), long a feature of imperial governance, were dealt with pragmatically;
in some cases the government exerted maximal control in order to maximize
revenues, while in others the same goal led to a loosening of controls in favor
of private merchants. The money supply was expanded, in part through such
practices as short strings of cash and iron coinage (in regions like Szechwan
where copper coins were scarce) and increasingly through the use of paper
money, and this served to expand commercial activities. But as Golas documents, it was the commercial taxes – primarily sales and transit taxes – that
proved to be the primary underpinnings for the dynasty. Growing from just
4 million strings in the early years of the eleventh century to over 19 million in the 1040s, and relecting not simply the expansion of trade but the
growth of cities, the commercial taxes brought about a iscal order unique in
Chinese imperial history in its relative nondependence on land taxes and the
rural economy. Liu Guanglin has gone so far as to argue that the Sung was a
iscal state (ts’ai-cheng kuo-chia), collecting revenues primarily through indirect
taxes and using a professionalized iscal administration, an arrangement driven
in no small part by the need to support a large professional military.7 Whether

or not one agrees with Liu’s argument, the central role played by commercial
and other indirect taxes in the empire’s inances undeniably set the Sung apart
from other dynasties.
Writing from an entirely different perspective, Robert Hymes in his chapter identiies money and commerce as a fundamental structural feature of
6

7

See Robert Hartwell’s classic treatment of inance oficials in the Sung bureaucracy: “Financial expertise,
examinations, and the formation of economic policy in northern Sung China,” Journal of Asian Studies
30 No. 2 (February 1971), pp. 281–314.
Liu Kuang-lin (Liu Guanglin), “Shih-ch’ang, chan-cheng ho ts’ai-cheng kuo-chia – tui Nan Sung fu-shui
wen-t’i ti tsai ssu-k’ao,” T’ai-ta li-shih hs¯ueh-pao 42 (December 2008), pp. 221–85.