24.6 The far east: a.d. 901 to 1000

The far east

Back to The Far East: A.D. 801 to 900

China and manchuria (t'ang to 907, divided kingdom to 960 and then sung dynasty)

In Manchuria (and a part of Mongolia) Khitan tribes established the Liao Dynasty about A.D. 916 and overran part of China as the T'ang Dynasty collapsed. The Liao administration was well established in the P'o Hai area of eastern Manchuria by 934 and they executed invasions of northern China in 936 and 960, using siege machines, metaled corselets and helmets, with disciplined troops organized on a decimal system similar to that of the ancient Assyrians and the Mongol armies of the future. (Ref. 279 ) The name "Cathay" was derived from Khitae or Ch'i-tan, as they were sometimes called. They resisted Sinicization better than any other invader and retained their tribal nomadic life while remaining essentially Shamanists. Their use of human sacrifice and brutish punishments were particularly offensive to the Chinese. (Ref. 45 , 8 , 68 , 101 )

Having become the dominant war-lord of north China by 900, Chu Wen soon took the imperial T'ang court at Ch'ang-an under his protection and then slaughtered the ruling eunuchs. He followed this in 904 by murdering the emperor himself, installing a boy successor for three years and then taking over the throne personally. But with this turmoil and the Liao pressure, China broke up into the "Age of the Ten States". It was only in 960 that reunification was accomplished by General Chao-Kuang-yin who founded the northern Sung Dynasty, using a bureaucracy of Confucian officials and an almost socialistic control of the economy. The Sung, however, had to pay tribute to the Manchurian Liao all through this and the next century and they were never able to recover the northern tier of Chinese provinces.. In Charles Hucker 's classification the year 960 marks the end of the Early Empire of China. (Ref. 101 )

Throughout all the political changes of the century the cave temples of Dunhuang, mentioned in the previous chapter, went undisturbed and, in fact, carving in the caves continued. Today there are still 492 grottoes on five distinct levels. (Ref. 282 , 285 ) Paper money first appeared in A.D. 950 and the first report of chemical explosives for military use was in A.D. 1,000. By that time the Chinese seemed to have achieved biological accommodations to their previous infections and the population began to jump rapidly. In spite of malaria, bilharzias, and dengue fever the Yangtze Valley was finally conquered. (Ref. 101 , 140 )

By the year A.D. 1,000 China had reached its "modern" form and it changed very little thereafter until the 20th century. In comparison with the West, the limitations of this society were:

• Human agriculture production (instead of animal and plow) kept a narrow margin between subsistence and production per agricultural head and gave less chance for a high standard of living for common people
• A low level of peasant consumption of artisan products, which were essentially restricted to landlords and officials. European manufacturing, although on cruder material, catered to a wider base
• Merchants were disreputable in China, as Confucius had ranked them near the bottom of the social scale. This inhibited the development of massive mercantile capital and hindered trade abroad. Thus, exploitation of Chinese inventions like paper, porcelain and gun-powder had to wait for the looser ordered society of western Europe. This was one of the side effects of the "command" system mentioned at the beginning of this chapter