The Hidden Land: The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty 9780367374617, 9780429354656

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The Hidden Land

“The Hidden Land” means that a large amount of land in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) was “hidden” or unknown, since the land was managed by both the administrative and the military systems, and only the former was made public while the latter was being hidden due to confidentiality issues. This is one of the author’s creative findings as a result of his solid textual research and rigorous argumentation. Since the Ming state management system had a great impact on the land, the population, the taxes and corvée, the imperial examinations, the justice, the grassroots organizations and the frontier ethnics during the 500 years from Ming to Qing (1636–1912), the views on the garrisons and guards (weisuo) in the military system are of great help to review the essential issues of the period, which were often misunderstood or neglected before. In addition, the author introduces the present situation, existing problems and basic historical materials in the Ming study which will be beneficial to the Ming researchers and enthusiasts. The late Professor Gu Cheng was an eminent expert in the Ming History Studies of China, at Beijing Normal University. His books include The History of the Southern Ming and The History of Peasant War in the Late Ming and so forth.

China Perspectives

The China Perspectives series focuses on translating and publishing works by leading Chinese scholars, writing about both global topics and China-­ related themes. It covers humanities and social sciences, education, media and psychology, as well as many interdisciplinary themes. This is the first time any of these books have been published in English for international readers. The series aims to put forward a Chinese perspective, give insights into cutting-edge academic thinking in China and inspire researchers globally. Titles in history currently include: John Leighton Stuart’s Political Career in China Hao Ping Merchants and Society in Modern China Rise of Merchant Groups Tang Lixing Merchants and Society in Modern China From Guild to Chamber of Commerce Tang Lixing The History of Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange TENG Jun Chinese Buddhism and Traditional Culture FANG Litian The Hidden Land The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty Gu Cheng For more information, please visit https://www.routledge.com/series/CPH

The Hidden Land The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty

Gu Cheng

This book is published with financial support from Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences. First published in English 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Gu Cheng Translated by Ning Ping, Li Bingjun, Sun Simeng, Liu Lu The right of Gu Cheng to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. English Version by permission of Guangming Daily Press. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-37461-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-35465-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of tables

Foreword Acknowledgments

vii

ix xiii

1 A new analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming 1 2 The transformation of the Ming garrison system in the Qing 40 3 Territorial administration in the Ming dynasty

61

4 The “Garrison” category of household registration in the Ming 93 5 Yongning Guard: a southeastern coastal fortress in the Ming: (on the urgent need for the preservation of ming garrison sites) 122 6 Military affairs of the late Ming 129 7 A guide to the study of the Ming history 150 8 Forty years of studies on the Ming history 222 Afterword Bibliography Index

243 249 261

Tables

1.1 The earliest records of the totals and the breakdowns of tuntian amounts in the Ming dynasty, found in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign 28 1.2 The selected representative figures of the amounts of grain taxed from weisuo tuntian during years of Yongle through Xuande 32

Foreword

Professor Gu Cheng’s excellent work on the history of the Ming and Qing first became known to me, as it did too much of the scholarly community in China and abroad, with the publication of his essay, titled “Doubts about Li Yan,” which appeared in one of the leading Chinese journals, Historical Research, in 1978. I was pleased to learn that he was arriving independently at a position close to my own, that is, that there were too many holes in the widely accepted story of the supposed wise advisor to the rebel leader Li Zicheng to accept it as what we might call straight history. In subsequent years, I drew heavily on Gu’s publications, as well as on those of Luan Xing and Qin Xinlin, to debunk the standard story of Li Yan included in the Ming history and celebrated in histories, novels and plays in China and around the world through the 20th century. In 1986, Professor Gu turned his attention to a different puzzle, the amount of land under cultivation and subject to taxation over the course of the Ming and well into the Qing. In an article titled “A New Analysis of the Amount of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming,” he argued that discrepancies arose in the records, including the standard Ming history, because the Ming administration of land, population and taxes consisted not only of a civil hierarchy, including provinces, prefectures, subprefectures and counties, but also of a distinct military hierarchy consisting of garrisons, guards and battalions, populated by military families that farmed and guarded with an emphasis on cultivation in the interior and on military service on the frontier. In short, the Ming governed China by both civil and military means, both in the interior and on the frontiers. In the early Ming, the military administration was to some extent secret, leading some important commentators to ignore its existence. This military administration of both military and civil households persisted during the Ming, and its obscurity was only exacerbated as it was effectively civilianized and allowed to decline over time. Gu Cheng was in some ways a conventional historian, who, for example, published straightforward “old fashioned” narratives of the “peasant armies” that overthrew the Ming, and of the “Southern Ming” loyalists who resisted the Qing. Gu was also an extraordinary scholar, widely respected in

x Foreword China, Japan and the United States for his courage and creativity in tackling difficult conundrums, and for his energy and persistence in offering and defending distinctive personal solutions to difficult problems. In consulting myriad primary sources on institutional history, he resembled the prominent late-Ming early-Qing historian, Gu Yanwu, whose personal records he used to help outline the Li Yan puzzle. In “doubting antiquity,” Gu Cheng followed in the footsteps of Gu Jiegang, the eminent Republican historian who insisted on distinguishing sharply between myth and history, fiction and fact. Like those esteemed predecessors in the early Qing and early Republic, whose family name Gu Cheng happened to share, in the early People’s Republic, he wrote seminal essays and taught numerous students, soon producing a virtual historiographical “school” that survived his death in 2003 and flourished a decade later. In 2012, the respected and influential Guangming Daily Press used Gu’s articles on Li Yan as keynotes in a published volume containing seventeen other articles by him on related topics. In the same year, the same press used his articles on the Ming garrison system as the core of another volume which included a total of nine sections on related topics. Eight out of the nine sections of this second collection of Gu’s publications have been translated by Professor Ning Ping and are included in this volume. Apparently because I was familiar with some of Professor Gu’s prolific writings work and because I respected his scholarship, the learned translator Ning asked me to serve as a polisher of the English-language draft text. Although I argued that there were (and are) many other scholars more knowledgeable than I about Ming-Qing institutional history, Professor Xie Yang, who has kindly translated one of my books into Chinese, and Professor Peng Yong, who assisted with the translation and publication of Gu’s book, both urged me to sign off on the English-language text. Believing strongly in the need for good translations into English of fine Chinese scholarship, translations which lamentably pale in number in comparison with translations of English-language texts into Chinese, I finally agreed to review Professor Ning’s draft translation. In view of my limited command of Chinese and the limited time allotted for the translation, I adopted the method of reading the draft English translation and checking incomprehensible and/or infelicitous phrases, sentences and paragraphs against the original Chinese text. In conversations in Dalian in spring 2018 and in communications by email since then, Professor Ning and I have agreed that there is sometimes room for debate over how to translate certain Chinese terms into English, and the translations sometimes have important theoretical implications. For example, the Chinese term “jiangtu” could be translated as “land,” “lands” or “territories.” The Chinese term “nongmin” is usually translated by the English term “peasant,” but given the long-standing Chinese emphasis on agriculture and the many different social strata in the Chinese countryside,

Foreword  xi the term might better be translated as “farmer” in some cases. The Chinese term “tianxia” is often translated “empire,” whereas in some cases—maybe most—it might better be rendered literally as “all under heaven” or meaningfully as “the known world.” The Chinese term “zhongguo” is usually translated “China,” but a more literal and revealing alternative might be “the central state(s).” The term “bingbu” is often translated “Ministry of War,” whereas “Ministry of Troops” might be more accurate. The Ming and Qing are usually described as “dynasties,” but, given continuities between them and the “republics” that followed them, they might sometimes be more usefully identified more generally as “polities.” In recognition of the problematics of these and a few other translations, we have sometimes used the common translations and sometimes alternatives, consciously sacrificing consistency and uniformity for complexity and nuance. Our major commitment, of course, has been to convey faithfully Professor Gu’s theses to an English-language readership. Even here, however, there may be some interesting tensions between Gu’s arguments and his terminologies. For example, he argued that the hitherto neglected and/or misunderstood Ming military administration was evidence of “Chinese” authority over much of the northeastern, northwestern, southwestern and eastern territories, but he described the Ming as an “empire” (diguo), thereby raising the question of whether that authority should continue to hold in the Chinese “nation” (guojia). One way out of this apparent contradiction would be to regard the Ming as a particular Chinese polity that had complex and fluid relations with both its internal minorities and its external neighbors, relations that had precedents in past polities and that recurred in future ones. Gu seemed to be aware of this possibility when he alluded to the ­Republican-era views that Huang Chao in the late Tang and Li Zicheng in the late Ming were “roving bandits” and that White Lotus rebels in the late Ming were analogous to the Red Eyebrow and Yellow Scarf rebels in the late Han. On a larger front, Gu suggested that recent scholarship has recognized that mid-Ming China was at the cultural—and perhaps economic—center of Asia and perhaps even of the world, but he continued to think within the Eurocentric and teleological Marxian and Weberian paradigms and persisted in asking the old question of how and why China during the midMing began to “fall behind” “capitalist” and “modern” Europe. The full implications of the contrasts between the Ming and European approaches to civil and military matters therefore remain largely unexamined in this book. Gu nonetheless mentioned the “winding” nature of the historical process and called for further research on the entire Ming polity in historical perspective, raising the possibility of recurrence as well as progress in Chinese and world history,. One of the great virtues of Gu’s scholarship was that it recognized the limits of our knowledge. After his painstaking and detailed examination of the amount of land administered by the Ming military, for example,

xii Foreword he concluded that it was “large,” but the exact number of qing cannot be known. In a related point, he provided an exhaustive account of the changing relations among state land and private land, civil authority and military authority during the entire Ming period and across the entire Chinese polity, but he concluded that the story was too complex to be reduced to a map. Gu was well aware of historiography as well as history, and he took some account of overseas-Chinese, Japanese and American as well as Chinese scholarship on Ming-Qing history. He cited work by He Bingdi on land and population, Sato Fumitoshi on princes and rebels, L. C. Goodrich and Fang Chaoying on biographies and Frederick Wakeman on the Ming-Qing transition. If Gu had lived longer, he would probably have taken note of some more recent books, including David Robinson’s on Ming bandits, eunuchs, and the military; Kenneth Swope’s on the late Ming war with Japan, the Ming military collapse and the rebellion of Zhang Xianzhong; and Michael Szonyi’s on lineage kinship in “late imperial China” and everyday life in Ming garrisons and guards. In any case, faculty, graduate students, undergraduates and members of the serious reading public interested in Chinese history will now have a translation, however imperfect, of a most leading Chinese historian’s last book on Ming institutional history. RVD November 2018

Acknowledgments

As the English version of Mr. Gu Cheng’s original book The Hidden Land: The Garrison System And the Ming Dynasty is to be published, my deepest gratitude goes to all of the learned scholars and my team who have provided great help for this English translation project. Among them I would like first to express my special gratitude to the learned Ming historians in China, Professors Zhao Yi and Peng Yong, and to my friend Professor Liu Guifu, to Ms He Longsu, Gu Cheng’ widow, for all of them recommended me generously and strongly to translate Gu’s original book. And I’d love to single out for special thanks the celebrated American Ming historian Roger V Des Forges at the University at Buffalo and the Chinese Ming historian Peng Yong at the Minzu University of China. Professor Roger, together with Professor Ellen at University at Buffalo, generously read and polished the entire manuscript (from I to VIII) with great care, regardless of fame and gain. Their rigorous academic attitude and selfless dedication is held in high esteem. Professor Peng Yong, Mr. Gu Cheng’s last doctoral student, has been always ready to answer my questions on Gu’s original book at any time and solve out my problems during the difficult course of the translation. And many thanks to Xie Yang, the young scholar of Ming studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who recommended Roger V Des Forges for the whole polishing and himself polished some of the manuscript. Without their help, this English version could not have reached its present form. I am also deeply grateful to Michael Szonyi, professor and historian of Chinese history and director of the Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies at Harvard University, who initially supported us successfully in applying for this translation project and modified some of the translated draft. He also accepted our invitation to Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China, to participate in our international seminar for this translation project and provided detailed and helpful advice. My deep thank also goes to professors Tang Jiang and Li Daqi, who were my college teachers, now at SUNY Oneonta in the USA, for their early polishing for some parts (Parts I,II,V & VIII) of the manuscript.

xiv Acknowledgments I am also greatly indebted to Sun Xiantao, the former deputy editor of Guangming Daily Press, and Ms Gao Chi, the present deputy editor as well as the editor of the Chinese version of the book, Zhu Ran, who have actively supported and cooperated in dealing with the copyright permissions. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my team members, Li Bingjun at Liaoning Normal University and Liu Lu at Beijing Institute of Technology, and to my schoolmate, Dr. Sun Simeng at Nankai University, for their sincere cooperation and serious work. My thanks would last go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me through all process of my translation years. I am grateful to my friend Professor Liang Yanjun and my graduate students Guo Wenhui and Yang Chunze who have been kind enough to give me their help and time in finishing the translation project. Many thanks to Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences! Translator: Ning Ping

1 A new analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming

The amount of cultivated land in the early Ming has long been a topic of interest in academia. With regard to two very different statistics of the total cultivated amount recorded during Hongwu reign (1368–1398), many ­Chinese and foreign scholars have offered different explanations. The author of this book, based on studies of official documents and local gazetteers, presents a new viewpoint. In the early Ming, all the cultivated land in China was under the jurisdiction of the civil administrative system or the military system. The amount of agricultural land under the jurisdiction of the civil administrative system was calculated by the Ministry of Revenue and recorded in the veritable records of the early Ming as roughly 4,000,000 qing. However, in Rules for Administrators, compiled in Hongwu 26 (1393), the total area of cultivated land was said to be approximately 8,500,000 qing, which included cultivated land under the military as well as under the administrative system. This essay will attempt to shed new light on the weisuo (garrison) system in the Ming and to provide an estimate of the relative amounts of state (guan) and private (min) land.

i According to the Ming Shi (the official history of the Ming dynasty ­compiled by the Qing), in fascicle 77, the emperor in his Hongwu reign 26 (1393), had all the agricultural land in the country audited, which amounted to 8,507,623 qing, and there was no unaccounted land in the entire country. …But in Hongzhi 15 (1502), the total cultivated land was said to be no more than 4,228,058 qing and the amount of state land accounted for only one sevenths of the amount of private land in the whole realm. In Jiajing 8 (1529), Huo Tao was assigned to compile the Collected Statutes, which pointed out that during the 140 year period from the Hongwu reign (1368–1398) through the Hongzhi reign (1488–1505), the registered cultivated land of the entire country was reduced by more than one half, and in Huguang, Henan and Guangdong the reduction was even greater. That was in part a result of the accumulation of land by the wangfu (princely establishments) or by dishonest local despots who took their land off of the tax

2  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming rolls. As there were no princely establishments in Guangdong, the loss there was due to official fraudulence in recording or the abandonment of land to bandits. These words have been cited in historical works for a long time to demonstrate the fierceness of the land annexation or enclosure in the Ming. Some historical works even further speculate that although the cultivated land subject to tax by the Ming government was reduced by half, the requisitioning of grain basically remained the same, which means that the feudal government effectively doubled its exploitation of the farmland that remained on the registers. But some doubts can clearly be raised about these two viewpoints. First, there is the huge unexplained gap between the some 4,000,000 qing of state and private land in Hongwu 24 (1391) recorded in the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty and the some 8,000,000 qing of cultivated land audited in Hongwu 26 (1393). Second, there are no direct or explicit records or traces of any so-called doubling of the land tax burden from the early Ming through the Hongzhi reign in the mid-Ming. According to the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, “the total amount of state and private cultivated land” in the early Ming was as follows: Hongwu 14 (1381) Hongwu 24 (1391) Yongle reign (1403–1424) Hongxi 1 (1425) Xuande 1 (1426) Xuande 2 (1427)

3,667,715 qing and forty-nine mu 3,874,746 qing and seventy-three mu No data provided. 4,167,707 qing and thirty mu 4,124,626 qing and sixty-eight mu 3,943,343 qing and twenty-two mu

According to this source, “the total amount of cultivated state and private land” in the early Ming was approximately 4,000,000 qing with little change. However, Huo Tao, the Minister of Rites during the mid-Ming, Jiajing reign (1522–1566), declared that “at the beginning of Hongwu reign the total cultivated land amounted to more than 8,496,000 qing.”1 Although the expression, “the beginning of Hongwu reign,” was not accurate, it was used in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming, which were compiled in the Hongzhi reign (1408–1505) and published in the Zhengde reign (1506–1521). According to this source, during Hongwu reign, the total amount of cultivated land in the country was 8,500,000 qing. When Huo Tao discovered that the statistics in the Collected Statutes were so different from those reported in Hongzhi 15 (1502), he was confused and suspected errors in the documents. When modern historians found the great disparity between the two records of the amount of cultivated land in the Hongwu reign, they treated it as a topic for research over more than the last half century. The representative studies are as follows: Japanese historian Shimizu Yasuji offered his explanation in 1921, arguing that the figure of some 3,800,000 qing in Hongwu 24 (1391)

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  3 documented in the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty refers only to the area of cultivated and uncultivated land, whereas the statistics of approximately 8,500,000 qing documented in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming refers to the total area of cultivated and uncultivated land, plus hills and wetlands.2 Subsequently, after consulting a great many gazetteers, Fujii Hiroshi of Hokkaido University pointed out that the statistics of about 4,000,000 qing in Hongzhi 15 (1502) documented in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming included cultivated land, uncultivated land, hills and wetlands all together. Therefore, he disapproved of Shimizu Yasuji’s interpretation and presented his two new viewpoints. Firstly, of the 8,500,000 qing documented for the Hongwu reign, 2,200,000 qing, reported by Huguang province, was a clerical error in the placement of digits, which resulted in the number being mistakenly multiplied tenfold. That figure should therefore be revised to 220,000 qing. The figure of more than 1,400,000 qing reported by the Henan Provincial Administration Commission, meanwhile, was arrived at by mistakenly adding an extra 1 at the beginning of the number. Consequently, it was mistakenly increased by 1,000,000 qing. By just correcting these two “errors,” approximately 3,000,000 qing would be subtracted from the total of over 8,000,000 qing. Secondly, the other interpretation presented by Shimizu Yasuji is that the cultivated land audited during the Hongwu reign included both the actual land (that is, approximately more than 3,800,000 qing) of cultivated land on which taxes were levied and the arable land to be cultivated. That is, this number is obtained by subtracting the mistaken statistics released by Huguang and Henan from the approximate 8,500,000 qing, as documented in Rules for Administrators and the Collected Statutes of Great Ming.3 This conclusion indicates that Fujii Hiroshi believes that the amount of cultivated land documented in the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu is reliable. Therefore, the amount of the cultivated land from the early Ming to the mid-Ming was not reduced by half, but it actually increased gradually. Liang Fangzhong offers another explanation of the disparity in statistics. He argues that “one of the main reasons for the disparity in the statistics in the registration and documentation in the Ming is the different definition of the measurement unit mu in different areas.” What Liang means is that the statistic of approximately 4,000,000 qing derives from the use of da mu(big mu) as the unit in some areas, while the statistic of more than 8,000,000 qing is the result of using xiao mu (small mu) in other areas. In other words, the amount of cultivated land recorded in various areas could vary in part according to the different sizes of the units used to measure the land in those areas.4 Wu Han, in his article, “The Development of Social Productivity in the Early Ming,” points out that

4  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming as of Hongwu 14 (1381), the total amount of state and private land was 3,667,715 qing. In Hongwu 24 (1391), it increased a bit to 3,874,746 qing. After many years of expanding cultivation and a large-scale cadastral survey, the number increased to 8,507,623 qing in Hongwu 26 (1393). This was 4,840,000 qing more than in Hongwu 14 (1381).5 Wu Han does not compare the statistics from two years that are close in time (e.g. from Hongwu 24–26), which was a method commonly adopted in similar studies. Instead, he compares the statistics of Hongwu 26 (1393) with those of Hongwu 14 (1381), by passing the statistics of 1391 with the phrase “after many years of cultivation.” Even so, Wu Han’s viewpoint is explicit that both the statistic of less than 4,000,000 qing in Hongwu 14 (1381) and Hongwu 24 (1391) and the statistic of 8,500,000 qing in Hongwu 26 (1393) are convincing. The reasons for such a drastic increase lies in the opening up of new arable land and the comprehensive registering of land by the Ming state. Of the aforementioned interpretations, Fujii Hiroshi’s views are the most influential. As far as more recent studies are concerned, a Chinese scholar, Fan Shuzhi, argues that during the Hongwu reign, when the Yellow Registers were compiled by the Huguang Provincial Administration Commission, it was highly likely that an extra digit ‘two’ was added to the beginning of the number (202,175.75 qing) of cultivated land. Such a clerical error increased the cultivated amount by 200,000,000 mu. In Henan, “a ‘one’ was likely added to the beginning of the 449,469.82 qing, therefore, mistakenly increasing the cultivated amount by 100,000,000 mu.”6 Last year, an American historian, He Bingdi (Ho Ping-ti) cited Fujii Hiroshi’s research in a paper he published in the journal Social Sciences in China. He celebrated Fujii Hiroshi as “the most insightful and perceptive” historian of the Ming period.7 The aforementioned are the general views of some Chinese and foreign historians on the statistics of the cultivated land in the Hongwu reign.

ii When discussing the amount of cultivated land of over 8,000,000 qing “in Hongwu 26 (1393),” Chinese and foreign scholars frequently cited Rules for Administrators, Collected Statutes of Great Ming, published during the Zhengde reign, the revised Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Wanli reign, and the Gazetteer of Houhu. These books were all compiled or revised by the court or other government agencies; they are therefore rather authoritative. Although some other individual books also occasionally included records of the overall cultivated amount, the statistics they cited all came

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  5 from these officially published documents. Therefore, our discussion will focus on these books. According to Rules for Administrators, “the total amount of the agricultural land audited by twelve Provincial Administrative Commissions and independent prefectures and departments amounted to 8,496,523 qing.” On the compilation of Rules for Administrators, the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, fascicle 226, had this to say: the Emperor thought that as to various agencies with higher or lower positions and different hierarchies with major or minor functions, if there were no legal hand books on the specific functions of offices, the succeeding officials might be ignorant of the details regarding their duties and executive business. Therefore, the emperor ordered the Ministry of Personnel and Hanlin Chancellors to compile a book on the model of the Six Statutes of the Tang, specifying the duties of officials from the Five Military Commissions, the Six Ministries, the Censorate, and their subordinates. In the 3rd month of Hongwu 26 (1393), this book, titled Rules for Administrators, was finished and was ordered to be issued to the personnel in the central government as well as to local officials. Later, many historical documents regarded the statistics, the more than 8,000,000 qing, recorded in Rules for Administrators, as the number from Hongwu 26 (1393), but, in fact, since the compilation of Rules for Administrators was accomplished in the 3rd month of Hongwu 26 (1393), the amount of cultivated land must have been calculated no later than Hongwu 25 (1392); therefore, it is inaccurate to date these statistics to Hongwu 26 (1393). The Collected Statutes of Great Ming, published during the Zhengde reign, lists two different figures of cultivated land. One was documented in Rules for Administrators, which argued that “the total amount of the cultivated land summarized by the twelve Provincial Administration Commissions and other Zhili prefectures and subprefectures amounted to 8,496,523 qing.” The other, released in Hongzhi 15 (1502), stated, “that, in fact, the cultivated land amounted to 4,228,058.92 qing.” Of all the statistics cited from Rules for Administrators, except the one released by Independent Anqing prefecture, which was 11,029.37 qing in the original Rules for Administrators, and the one in Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde reign, which was 21,029.37 qing, exceeding the previous one by 10,000 qing,8 the statistics documented by twelve Provincial Administration Commissions and those by Zhili prefectures and subprefectures were exactly the same; however, the total amounts of 8,496,523 qing were not correspondingly altered by the increase of 10,000 qing from Anqing prefecture.9 In the revised Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Wanli reign, the amount of cultivated land in the early Ming was corrected to conform to “the Hongwu 26 (1393) figure of 8,507,623.68 qing, as was documented by

6  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming twelve Provincial Administration Commissions and directly administered prefectures and departments.” A meticulous entry-by-entry check reveals that, except that the Collected Statutes of the Wanli version changed the order of the twelve Provincial Administration Commissions and Zhili prefectures and subprefectures, the statistics issued by them are in line with those in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign. The cultivated land documented in the Collected Statutes of the Wanli reign, over 8,500,000 qing, was 11,100.68 qing more than that recorded in Rules for Administrators. This was due to the disparity in the statistics for Anqing prefecture and the minor errors in summarizing all the statistics.10 The statistic in the Gazetteer of Houhu was 8,804,623.68 qing, which was 308,100 qing more than that in Rules for Administrators. People tend to believe that the statistics of the Hongwu reign documented in the Gazetteer of Houhu are more reliable than those in other historical documents because they were based on the Yellow Registers that were stored at Houhu. In fact, this was not the case. The rules of compilation in the Fanli (guidance) of Gazetteer of Houhu state that it is impossible to register all the statistics about households or property in the yearly Yellow Registers. Now we tentatively register the statistics of the early period of the Ming, as well as those of Hongzhi 15 (1502) and Jiajing 21 (1542), in order to demonstrate the increase and decrease of the amounts, thus hopefully providing some evidence and references for later generations. Subsequently, an annotation clearly noted that the statistics at the beginning of the Hongwu reign were based on the Rules for Administrators and Collected Statutes of Great Ming, and those of Hongzhi 15 (1502) and Jiajing 21 (1542)were based on the records in the Gazetteer of Houhu, which were reported to the emperors.11 This statement indicates that the statistics of the cultivated land in the Gazetteer of Houhu were still cited from the Rules for Administrators and the Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde reign， as the latter evolved from the former. However, if so, why are the statistics in the Gazetteer of Houhu 300,000 qing more than those in Rules for Administrators? The reason for this error is still unclear. It is speculated that if the compilers of Gazetteer of Houhu had relied on other sources when calculating the statistics of Nan Zhili, it is not likely that errors only occurred with the two integers at the places of hundred thousand digits and thousand digits. This is more likely an error in computation. Therefore, we can conclude that the statistics of cultivated land of “Hongwu 26 (1393)” were derived from Rules for Administrators. However, to what extent were the statistics reliable in Rules for Administrators? As

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  7 has been mentioned before, the numbers recorded in this handbook could not be taken as the statistics of Hongwu 26 (1393) because its sources had been collected by Hongwu 25 (1392) at the latest. We have learned that the cultivated land of Hongwu 24 (1391) was recorded in the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu to be over 3,800,000 qing, and it was, of course, impossible for the cultivated land of the country to double within one year. Nevertheless, as this phenomenon was so abnormal, we should adopt a more cautious attitude toward it. If, as some scholars have speculated, the statistics of the cultivated land in Rules for Administrators are marred by three major mistakes, namely, the false increase of 1,000,000 qing in Henan, the false increase of more than 2,000,000 qing in Huguang, and the erroneous twofold increase in the total, it would be difficult for us to answer the following questions. 1 Rules for Administrators was an important collection of statutes compiled at the order of Zhu Yuanzhang, who also ordered that the book be issued to the central and the local governments. Zhu Yuanzhang was not a fatuous emperor, but he was well known for arrogating all power to himself and attending to everything personally. If such obvious and serious errors had existed, he probably would not have neglected or ignored them. The Veritable Records of Ming Taizu records a relevant incident. In the 2nd month of Hongwu 23 (1390), Supervising Secretary, Peng Yumin, and seventeen other people were put in jail and sentenced to death because “they violated the emperor’s order by falsely reporting the increases and decreases, and by failing to clearly report the audits of the military rosters.” Thanks to Peng Yumin’s father who emotionally asked the emperor for forgiveness, all of them were pardoned by Zhu Yuanzhang.12 This indicates that during Zhu Yuanzhang’s reign, providing unclear information to the emperor could lead to the death penalty. If the compilers had made such serious mistakes, it would have been very hard for them to avoid trouble. 2 There were adequate documents to verify that during the Hongwu reign, surveying households, farmland and taxes was meticulously done and repeatedly checked. In Hongwu 3 (1370), while the door-plate (hu-tie) system was being implemented, the army was sent “to all subprefectures and counties, and they surrounded each area to check each household.”13 In Hongwu 13 (1377), Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict that all lands, hills and ponds be measured, no matter whether they were near or far, ridges or holes, dry or wet, high or low, having original sources or not.14 The students at the Directorate of Education were sent to the various areas of the country to measure the land, and all subprefectures and counties were ordered to recruit “prestigious and talented people to establish a department in charge of population and taxes,”15 so that when fraudulence or partiality about land use and tax affairs was reported, the officials could be sent to investigate the cases and punish severely those involved.16 Therefore, we have to admit that the statistics

8  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming in the Hongwu reign were probably the closest to being factual. In the 4th month of Hongwu 30 (1397), following Zhu Yuanzhang’s order to choose officials from among the wealthy subjects, the Ministry of Revenue submitted a roster of 14,341 wealthy households, each of whom possessed over seven qing of farmland in Zhejiang and in the other nine Provincial Administration Commissions and independent prefectures and departments.17 This example alone is enough to show the government’s fairly complete familiarity with the households and landed properties all over the country during the Hongwu reign. Given these facts, it is very hard for us to believe that Rules for Administrators, which had been approved by Zhu Yuanzhang, could contain such appalling errors. 3 During the Hongwu reign, the rule of disciplining bureaucratic behaviors was strictly enforced, and, as a result, officials at all levels were nervously cautious about following the rules and orders, especially the officials in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, such as Guo Huan and Zhao Mian, who did not come to good ends. Therefore, it was also unbelievable that the Ministry of Revenue had submitted such erroneous statistics on the cultivated land. 4 There were assertions that the cultivated land under the Huguang Provincial Administration Commission was falsely increased ten times due to an error in placing a single digit. Similarly, the total amount of land under the Henan Provincial Administration Commission had an extra 1 added at the beginning of the number, which changed “over 400,000 qing” to “over 1,400,000 qing.” These assertions, however, are untenable because the likelihood that such errors would occur was almost nonexistent. At that time, the numbers in documents were always written in Chinese characters, not Arabic numerals, so it was impossible to add an extra 1 or 2 at the beginning of a number. Even if some serious errors occurred during the process of registration or transcription, after the compilation and publication of the Rules for Administrators, the Huguang and Henan Provincial Administration Commissions would not have remained silent and other government agencies would not have left them unidentified and unrectified. 5 If the cultivated lands in the Huguang and Henan Provincial Administration Commission were so enormous, then, why, in the same book, were the recorded statistics of the taxes levied in summer and the grain requisitioned in autumn, so small? In Huguang, they were only 2,462,436 dan (133 and 1/3 pounds) and in Henan 2,198,909 dan, less, in both cases, than tax revenues in Zhejiang (with 2,752,727 tan) and in Jiangxi (with 2,664,306 dan), and similar in both cases to those of Shandong and Shanxi. This question is enhanced because the Provincial Administration Commissions in Jiangxi and Shanxi had cultivated land of only a little over 400,000 qing, while the Provincial Administration Commissions in Zhejiang and Shandong were in charge of only 510,000 qing and 720,000 qing, respectively. Why didn’t these Provincial Administration Commissions

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  9 discover the errors and request that they be rectified? Later on, no one ever took Henan and Huguang as examples to accuse the Ming state of imposing unfair taxes or requisitioning inappropriate amounts of grain. 6 Rules for Administrators was an important document among many such statutes in the Ming. In Yongle 2 (1404), He Hai, the Supervising Secretary who was in charge of the pacification in Huguang, proposed that many of the books, such as Zuxun Tiaozhang, Rules for Administrators, Xingyi Tishi, etc. published in the mid Hongwu reign, were lost due to the passing of time, official replacements, and destruction by warfare. Therefore, I beg for the books to be revised and republished in the country so that officials will be able to familiarize themselves with their duties.18 Ming Chengzu approved this proposal. After that, Rules for Administrators was reprinted many times. The version He Bingdi used was the one officially engraved by Daming prefecture in Wanli 7 (1579). The statistics had been cited as authoritative up to the time when the Collected Statutes of Great Ming was compiled during the Hongzhi reign (1488– 1505) under the rule of Ming Xiaozong. This indicates that, for more than a hundred years, no one thought that serious mistakes existed in the Rules for Administrators. This conclusion does not mean that the documents of registration statistics in the Ming are free of errors. In fact, the above-cited Collected Statutes of the Zhengde and the Wanli reign, and the Gazetteer of Houhu, have some errors in summarization. In some local chronicles, inconsistencies also exist between the totals and the breakdowns. In the 4th month of Hongwu 15 (1382), the Ministry of Revenue reported to the emperor that Yellow Registers of the taxes and corvee submitted by the prefectures and counties, and the statistics of population and grain requisition contain many errors, so please have those who committed these errors arrested and accused. The emperor responded that Community Functionaries or countryside village officers might be poor at writing and calculation, so they committed errors. If they were accused, the number of them would be great. Besides, the areas of prefectures and counties are so vast and the tax codes are so complex, some mistakes are unavoidable. Officials should provide the village officers with funds to buy paper and brushes, and should order them to revise and resubmit the Yellow Registers. If mistakes are discovered again, then, they will be accused.19 This citation indicates that errors were unavoidable when the government offices at different levels compiled documents. The issue here is, it is very unlikely that such serious and bizarre errors could have occurred, and even more unlikely that these “errors” could have gone unnoticed for such a long time.

10  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming In order to gain an insight into the causes of the disparity in the amount of the cultivated land in the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu and in the Rules for Administrators, we should first clarify the origins of these two collections statistics. First, let us look at the statistics in the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, fascicle 203, in the 8th month of Hongwu 23 (1390), The Ministry of Revenue proposed to recompile the Yellow Registers, and publish them as a book, which would include specific regulations and duties to be issued to all relevant government agencies. These agencies must not conspire and interrupt the data collection. They should only distribute the written model to each household, and ask them to write down by themselves their family members and properties, following the model. Then the data will be collected and submitted to each neighborhood head for compiling a pamphlet; then, data from every eleven households (that is one neighborhood subcommunity) should be submitted to the head of each li (ten jia, in other words, an administrative community of about 110 households) for the purpose of compiling a booklet; then the booklets from every administrative community will be collected and combined into a book, with the remaining households to be attached to the back of the book as odd households. Subsequently, the books will be submitted to the county government, which will check the statistics and compare them with those in the Yellow Registers compiled in Hongwu 14 (1391). If the statistics showed an increase or a decrease in population, the records will be rectified; if there are land transactions, they must be transferred officially, so that the total numbers of mu of cultivated land will not be adversely affected. The li censors will collect the information about the population, taxes and grain requisition; the officials at the county, subprefecture, prefecture and Provincial Administration Commission will collect and calculate the overall statistics; the statistics will then be submitted to the central government and filed in the Ministry of Revenue. According to this procedure of compiling Yellow Registers, the information on the cultivated land and population, which the Ministry of Revenue obtained, was derived from summarizing the statistics from families, villages, counties, departments and Provincial Administration Commissions. To verify this, we can check and compare the total amount of cultivated land recorded in local gazetteers with itemized entries under the total amount of the whole country. As the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu records only total amounts of state and private land without itemized entries, we can use only the total amount and the itemized entries for Hongzhi 15 recorded in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde reign as a benchmark because its total amount of land is similar to that of the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu. Based on the Collected Statutes, we check the statistics recorded

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  11 in every provincial gazetteer and the itemized entries in prefectural and subprefectural gazetteers, and then use the statistics recorded in the provincial gazetteers to check and compare with those recorded in the gazetteers from some prefectures, subprefectures and counties. Let’s take Huguang as an example. As Mr. He Bingdi put it, in The Records of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing, completed in Jiajing 29 (1550), the amount of cultivated land was reported to be 24,959,391 mu. In Longqing 6 (1572), the Comprehensive Gazetteer of Huguang listed the overall amount of cultivated land from every Provincial Administration Commission as 24,933,453 mu, which is consistent with the records of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing.20 The Huguang Illustrated Gazetteer (Huguang Tujing Zhishu), published in Wuzong’s Zhengde reign, listed the amount of land in Chenghua 8 (1472) and Zhengde 7 (1512). In Chenghua 8, the amount of cultivated land from all prefectures and subprefectures under the jurisdiction of the Huguang Provincial Administration Commission was 25,637,835 mu, while in Zhengde 7 it was 25,120,106 mu.21 These figures are comparable to those in the Comprehensive Gazetteer of Huguang cited by He Bingdi, those in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming of Hongzhi 15 (1502), those in the Collected Statutes in the Zhengde reign and those of Jiajing 21 (1542) recorded in the Gazetteer of Houhu, that is, all fluctuating around 250,000 qing. As another example, the statistics of cultivated land of Henan recorded in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming of Zhengde were 41,609,968 mu. According to General Gazetteer of Henan published during the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), the amount of cultivated land under the jurisdiction of the Henan Provincial Administration Commission in Hongwu 24 (1391) was 275,313.97 qing. In addition, some newly audited state and private land, which had not been previously taxed, amounted to 140,809.75 qing,22 bringing the total up to 416,123.72 qing. Also, according to the Comprehensive Gazetteer of Henan of the Chenghua reign, in Chenghua 18 (1481), the cultivated land was 287,773.25 qing, plus 129,846.05 qing of some state and private land and wetland, which had not been taxed but were newly audited, adding up to a total of 417,619.30 qing.23 Both statistics from these two gazetteers are close to those of Hongzhi 15 (1502) recorded in the Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde reign. As this verification process is very complicated, and the documents used were inconsistent regarding some actual years, complete accuracy is almost impossible. However, the conclusion is well founded and convincing that the statistics of the nationwide cultivated land recorded in the documents of early Ming are based on the Ministry of Revenue’s summation of all cultivated land under the jurisdiction of every Provincial Administration Commission and every independent prefecture and subprefecture. After arriving at the conclusions that the documented amount of land in the whole country was less than 4,000,000 qing during Hongwu reign

12  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming (1368–1398), that it remained at just over 4,000,000 qing until Chenghua (1465–1487) reign and that this number was the summation of lands under all Provincial Administration Commissions and Zhili prefectures and subprefectures, we are now easily tempted to stop here and think that the statistics recorded in the Veritable Records are accurate, while the statistics of over 8,000,000 qing recorded in Rules for Administrators, as well as in the books that cited Rules for Administrators, such as the Collected Statutes of Great Ming and the Gazetteer of Houhu, contain serious errors. In fact, this is not where the problem lies. In order to determine the source of the statistic of 8,500,000 qing of cultivated land nationwide in Rules for Administrators and to answer the question why this amount was much larger than that recorded in the Veritable Records, we should first ask, was the amount of state and private land, which was derived from the Ministry of Revenue’s summation of data from every Provincial Administration Commission and Zhili prefecture and subprefecture, the same as the total amount of cultivated land nationwide? Or, the question can be asked in a different way: was all of the cultivated land in the country really under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Administration Commissions and Zhili prefectures and subprefectures? Let’s begin with the obvious facts. In scrutinizing the numbers in the Rules for Administrators, we will find that the amount of land was disproportionately large under the Huguang and Henan Provincial Administration Commissions. We should also notice that no statistics existed from some regions within Ming territory. In this book, no statistics are found under the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission. The Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde and Wanli reigns as well as the Gazetteer of Houhu indicated “no original statistics” under the Hongwu reign. The Provincial Administration Commission of Guizhou was not established until Yongle 11. Naturally， Rules for Administrators, compiled in the Hongwu reign, did not include an entry for the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission, let alone statistics about its land. The Collected Statutes of Great Ming of the Zhengde reign also included no statistics for the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission in Hongzhi 15 (1502). Instead, it noted only that “the cultivated land has never been audited by the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission. The yearly tax grain and corvée were all to be paid under the name of Native Officials, following a precedent in the Hongwu reign.” Liaodong was another typical example. The provincial administration office was not established until the mid-Ming, so in the early Ming, naturally there were no statistics of the cultivated land audited and compiled by You Si (administrative agencies). Besides, the vast territories north of Xuanfu, west of Datong and west of Shaanxi were all under the jurisdiction of the Ming imperial court without any executive establishments of their own. Then, can we infer that not a single piece of cultivated land existed in the territories extending from Liaodong to Qinghai, Guizhou or Yunnan? Or, as the Collected Statutes of

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  13 Great Ming of the Zhengde reign states, no cultivated land was ever measured in Guizhou in the early Ming, because all the land was under the jurisdiction of ethnic minority chieftains on the borderland? The answers to these questions are all negative. Historical documents show that in the aforementioned provinces or regions, except for the areas under the jurisdiction of aboriginal offices, a vast tract of land, including cultivated land, was under the jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commissions of Yunnan, Guizhou, Liaodong and Daning as well as the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission of Shanxi, Shannxi and Sichuan. Local headmen, such as pacification commissioners, were placed under different administrative subordination systems; some of them were subordinate to the Regional Military Commission and guards in the military system, while others were subordinate to Provincial Administration Commissions, prefectures and subprefectures in the administrative system. Since the Regional Military Commissions of Yunnan, Guizhou, Liaodong, Daning and the Auxiliary Regional Military Commissions of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Sichuan all took charge of large tracts of land (not limited to cultivated land), did the other Regional Military Commissions, the guards and the garrisons also take charge of some land which was not under the control of the administrative agencies at different levels such as prefecture, subprefecture and counties? The answer is that this was often the case. Guards and garrisons that were subordinate to the outer Regional Military Commissions usually possessed lands of various sizes that did not belong to civil officials. Provincial Administration Commissions and their subordinate prefectures, subprefectures and counties had no authority to make decisions about land use. As for inner garrisons located in the capital or nearby, they were not allocated large tracts of land as the outer garrisons were. However, in the early Ming, when large tracts of uncultivated land were available, some of them were allocated by the government to the inner garrisons for the military men to cultivate. These tracts of land were much smaller and more scattered than those allocated to the outer garrison. They also belonged to the military system, not to prefectures, subprefectures and counties. In conclusion, according to the rules devised in the Hongwu reign, all the land (including, but not limited to, the cultivated land) was in reality under the two separate jurisdictions of the administrative and the military systems. In the administrative system, the land statistics were collected by county and subprefecture and were reported to Provincial Administration Commissions, and eventually to the Ministry of Revenue. In the military system, the statistics were controlled by guards and the battalions directly subordinate to the Regional Military Commissions. They were first reported to the Regional Military Commission, then to the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission and finally to the Five Chief Military Commission. The statistics of approximately 4,000,000 qing reflected the Ministry of Revenue’s summation of the numbers submitted by the Provincial

14  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming Administration Commission and officials of the independent prefectures and subprefectures. However, the statistics of 8,500,000 qing, as recorded in Rules for Administrators and other historical documents, seem to have resulted from combining all the cultivated land that was administered separately by officials and garrisons. By reading the Veritable Records carefully, it was discovered that from state and private lands paid, there were taxes levied in summer and grain requisitioned in autumn. But in the background, there were other entries described as “seed grain requisitioned from garrison land (tuntian).” The two categories were originally clearly distinguished in the records. In Chenghua 12, the central government ordered “all Regional Investigating Censors and Provincial Surveillance Commissions to investigate disasters and casualties. If they occurred on private land, they should be reported to Provincial Administration Commission officials; if on military land, to the Regional Military Commission officials.”24 This also clearly shows the differences between the two regarding the superiors to which they were subordinate. Such an interpretation is likely to face two challenges. One is that the total amount of cultivated land countrywide and subitems clearly refer to the statistics from the “twelve Provincial Administration Commissions, independent prefectures and subprefectures,” excluding those from the Five Chief Military Commissions, the Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons. With regard to this challenge, my speculation is that it was purely for the purpose of confidentiality. In the early Ming, the archival military documents were under the strict control of the Five Chief Military Commissions, and other official agencies had no jurisdiction over these archives. According to Chen Yan’s Textual Notes (Cha Shang Lao She), The Five Military Commissions founded by the Supreme Ancestor are under the jurisdictions of no other agencies; only the Commissionerin-chief who holds the official seal is in charge of the military rosters. The former Minister of War, Kuang Ye, asked Wu, Marquis of Gongshun, for permission to check the military rosters, but Wu followed the procedures and reported this to the emperor, and Kuang fearfully apologized to the emperor for his offense.25 Kuang Ye was Minister of War during Zhengtong Reign (1436–1449), but even he, who was the head of the country’s military affairs, was not allowed to access military rosters in the early Ming. Therefore, we are justified to speculate that when the Ming supreme ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the compilation of Rules for Administrators, he required that, on the one hand, the book should reflect the accurate amount of cultivated land nationwide, and, on the other hand, the military confidentiality of some of that land should be protected. As a result, the land listed in the Yellow Registers of garrison fields, held by the Five Chief Military Commission, was ordered to be appended under the name of several Provincial Administration

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  15 Commissions. The unusually large amounts of cultivated land in Provincial Administration Commissions of Huguang and Henan seem to have resulted from adding the statistics from the Five Chief Military Commissions to those of the civil administration. It is speculated that while compiling Rules for Administrators, some government agencies kept silent due to the need for confidentiality. As time passed, fewer and fewer people knew about the existence of the inside information. Huo Tao made a fuss over the statistics during the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), because he was not well informed about how the civil and military land systems worked. As a second challenge, some researchers may doubt that the military system actually controlled over 4,000,000 qing of land in the early Ming based on “the complete statistics of state farmland (tuntian) in different regions” in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign. To address this doubt, we should first point out that the garrison state farmland (weisuo tuntian) constituted only a part of the land under the jurisdiction of the military system. Then we will cite evidence to show that “the total state farm land in different regions” recorded in the Collected Statutes is unreliable.

iii The garrisons (weisuo) in the early Ming were significantly different from the later military barracks. The garrisons had two distinctive features. One was that quite a few of the Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons were in charge of land, and (as in the case of land administered by Provincial Administration Commissions, prefectures, subprefectures and counties) they became recognizable territorial units. The garrisons in the more densely populated inland areas also held some state land which was not under the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties. Strictly speaking, it was also a sort of territorial unit, but as the area it controlled was small, it was easily mistaken for an area administered by subprefectures and counties. The second distinctive feature was that in garrisons, military men were usually accompanied by their family members. So, in addition to the regular military men, their wives, supernumeraries, young kids and, in some cases, even their parents, were stationed there. The military officer’s children in the Regional Military Commissions and garrisons were called housemen or retainer (she ren). There were also other family members. Due to the first feature mentioned above, not only did the military men have sufficient land to cultivate and greatly expand state land, but there was also an uncertain amount of private land within the area of the garrisons that was incorporated statistically into the category of the military system. Due to this second feature, the workforce to expand the state farmland was not limited to the regular military men. In the early Ming when garrisons were set up, they were usually established on land with strategic importance in frontier and remote areas or

16  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming on inland vacant lots. As the Gazetteer of Tongzhou recorded, “in accordance with Ming institutions, the locations for garrisons were always vacant lands.”26 Under each guard, there were about five battalions (some had as many as seven up to ten). There were also battalions that were directly affiliated to the Regional Military Commissions. The outer garrisons usually had a piece of land, so in historical documents, guards and garrisons can refer either to the armed forces stationed at a particular guard and garrison or to the land governed by guards and garrisons. Some guards and garrisons were under separate governance in the same town as the prefectures, subprefectures and counties, but quite a number of them built towns on other chosen places that became their own territory. This kind of settlement was called a “guard town,” a “garrison town” or a “fort.” In the Veritable Records of Taizu and Chengzu, the accounts of the building and repairing of guard and garrison towns are quite numerous. For example, in the 11th month of Hongwu 20 (1387), Tang He reported to the emperor that fifty-nine towns were built in the littoral guard units of Zhejiang,27 and in the Wenzhou prefecture alone, there were three guard towns and seven garrison towns built under the direct jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commission.28 Generally speaking, lands managed by the Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons can be classified into three types: the first type was the land in areas without any Provincial Administration Commission where the land(equivalent to an inland province) was managed by the Regional Military Commission or the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission; the second was the land where both the Regional Military Commission and the Provincial Administration Commission were stationed in the same provincial capital, and the land (equivalent in size to a prefecture, a subprefecture or a county) was managed by garrisons that were subordinate to the Regional Military Commission; the third type was the land in densely populated areas set aside from the jurisdiction of a subprefecture or a county for garrisons to manage and cultivate. The first two types were found mostly in the northern and western areas, while the third was found mostly in the inland and the southeastern coastal areas. The following are illustrative examples. i

Generally, in the early years of the Ming dynasty, the lands in the northern, western and the southwestern areas were all under the jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commissions and garrisons. Some of these places did not have any administrative agency like the Provincial Administration Commission (e.g. Liaodong and Daning regions in Shaanxi and Sichuan under the jurisdiction of the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, and Guizhou). Some others had Provincial Administration Commissions, but in reality they ruled only the places in prefectures, subprefectures and counties that were inhabited by civilian households (e.g. Shaanxi and Sichuan), or some aboriginal offices (e.g.in Yunnan). As early as Hongwu 4 (1371), Zhu Yuanzhang gave

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  17 orders to the Central Secretariat officials: there are subprefectures of Dongsheng, Wei, Wu, Feng, Yun, and Ying, etc., which are located beyond the northern mountain pass and are all extremely remote with deserts all round; they should appoint commanders of battalions and companies to command the soldiers, to pacify the border residents, to farm during peace time and to fight during war time. They should store food and fodder and use them for their own supplies, so it is unnecessary to set up regular officials, or to disturb the inhabitants frequently.29 In the 5th month of Hongwu 15 (1382), when Zhu Yuanzhang talked about state lands in Liaodong, he said: in the past during the Yuan Dynasty, the area where Liaozuo was located used to be affluent. In the 2nd year of my accession to the throne, Yuan officials and subjects came over to submit to the Ming, and they were assigned posts according to their specific conditions. At that time somebody advised me to reinstitute Liaoyang as a Province, but I didn’t want to, on the grounds that this area was cold, wild, and sparsely populated. Instead, we would set up guard and send troops to man it so as not to burden the people. Each year, the food and supplies for the troops would be transported by sea.30 Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to the military state land (junshi tuntian) in Liaodong, not only because of the potential risks in sea transportation of food supplies, but also because it was harmful to the country’s economy and the people’s livelihood if Liaodong’s garrisons did nothing but accept provisions. By the 10th month of Hongwu 19 (1386), By verification of the number of military officers, soldiers, and officials at all ranks in nine guards, including Liaodong and Dingliao, and some others, 18,050 of them did not ask for grain supplies from the central government, while the rest of them, 47,450, received 55,400 dan of grain supply each month,31 (one dan was roughly equivalent to ninety-three kilos in the Ming). The self-sufficiency rate was above 37%. In the 9th month of Hongwu 30 (1397), Zhu Yuanzhang instructed the Ministry of Revenue: every year we continuously transported grain to Liaodong by sea. Recently I have learned about the large surplus of military provisions there. Hence it is no longer necessary to transport grain there; instead, we will order the local soldiers there to cultivate the land for self-sufficiency. … And again the Chief Military Commission of the Left is ordered to inform the Liaodong Regional Military Commission by forwarding this document.32

18  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming In Liaodong, the grains harvested from the state lands were sufficient to feed the people of twenty-one guards, which included about 127,600 military men and their family members. Therefore, the amount of cultivated land definitely would not be small. Moreover, in spite of the fact that Liaodong was “a vast sparsely populated area,” there were still households with registered civilians there. In the 3rd month of Hongwu 14 (1381), “the tax-collection bureau of Liaodong was set up, affiliated with the Regional Military Commission.”33 This is further evidence that there were registered civilian households in Liaodong at that time. In Datong in northern Shanxi, the land governed by the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission was also considerable. In the 1st month of Hongwu 3 (1370), “both the Left and Right Guards of Datong were set up.”34 In the 23rd year (1390), the Left Guard town of Datong was constructed, located 120 li (one li was approximately one-third mile) to the southwest of Datong, and then the Right Guard town was built seventy li to the northwest of the Left Guard town. In the time of Yingzong (reigned 1425–1449, 1457–1464), in order to strengthen the defense against the Mongols, Weiyuan town was ordered sixty li west of the Left Guard town of Datong, and the town of Gaoshan was built right in the middle between the Left Guard and Datong as well.35 At that time, Yin Qian, the grand coordinator of Datong, Gansu and some other regions, submitted a memorandum to the emperor: the newly set-up Weiyuan Guard in Shanxi is adjacent to the Right Guard of Datong. Three sides of the Right Guard are the land that stretches nearly 400 li, while Weiyuan has merely six li of land on all of its four sides, hardly enough to cultivate or rear livestock. It is better to order the sub surveillance commissioner, together with other officers, such as the municipal military commander, to inspect and measure the surplus land. Then, from the neighboring Datong Right Guard and Yulin Guard, mark out unused land, twenty li to the southwest and fifteen li to the northeast from each, and let Weiyuan guards farm and raise livestock on it.36 This quotation shows that during the Hongwu reign, the lands under the jurisdiction of the garrison in northern Shanxi were vast, but during the middle period of the Ming, when new garrisons were added, free vacant land was much smaller in size than before; therefore, some portions of the land had to be allotted from the existing garrison to the new ones in order for them to cultivate grain and pasture livestock. In the Northwest, the lands under the jurisdictions of Shaanxi Regional Military Commission and Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission were even more amazing. Taking Hezhou region, for example, in Hongwu 3 (1370), the Hezhou Guard was set up after Deng Yu, and his army conquered this area. In Hongwu 5 (1372), Hezhou prefecture was established and it governed Ninghe County.

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  19 Then, in Hongwu 7 (1374), the Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission was set up. In Hongwu 10 (1377), both the Left and the Right Guards of Hezhou were instituted. In Hongwu 12 (1379), as the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, prefecture and county of Hezhou were abolished, the Right Guard was transferred to Taozhou Guard, and the Right (an error in the book for Left?) Guard changed to the Hezhou Guard Junmin Zhihui Shisi (The civil-military command departments) which was under the jurisdiction of the Shanxi Regional Military Commission in charge of seven battalions.37 It was not until Chenghua 10 (1474) that the Shaanxi grand coordinator, Ma Wensheng, recommended to change the land within forty-five li around the Hezhou Guard to Hezhou, which was to be affiliated with Lintao prefecture. Hezhou Guard maintained its military functions but was no longer regarded as a territorial unit. This area was transformed from the Hezhou Guard, subject to the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission, to Hezhou, which was under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission, but the state land of this guard remained. According to the Gazetteer of Hezhou, in the Jiajing reign, “In our region, the state land is a little more than fifteen qing and eighty-nine mu, and the private land is a little more than 3,558 qing and eighty-four mu.” It then added “the state land in this guard measures 3,452 qing and seventy-three mu in total.”38 If we use Hezhou as an example to discuss the statistical method for calculating the amount of the cultivated land, we can say that, since Hongwu 12 (1379), the amount of Hezhou had been reported, step by step, from the Hezhou Guard Junmin Zhihui Shisi to the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission, then to the Chief Military Commission, and it was not at all calculated as a part of “the amount of cultivated land nationwide” by the Ministry of Revenue. After Chenghua 10 (1474), the amount of the cultivated land was reported, respectively, by civil officials and by the military system. The registry of the ­P rovincial ­Administration Commission records that the state and private lands (guanmin di) under the jurisdiction of Hezhou amounted to more than 3,574 qing and seventy-three mu. In addition, the Hezhou Guard’s state land (wei tuntian), which was more than 3,400 qing, was still recorded in the tuntian Yellow Registers compiled by the Five Chief Military Commissions. As for the situation in the region of Ningxia, in Hongwu 12 (1379), Ning Zheng was ordered to be concurrently in charge of the affairs of the Ningxia Guard. After he assumed his post, the ancient canals, built in the Han and Tang periods, were renovated. He also ordered the soldiers to cultivate land and irrigate tens of thousands of qing of fields with river water, resulting in the soldiers’ self-sufficiency.39

20  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming In the 2nd month of Hongwu 25 (1392), three new guards, the Left, Right and Middle, were added to the original Ningxia Guard.40 In the 2nd month of Yongle 1 (1403), He Fu, regional commander, of Ningxia, stated: in the four guards of Ningxia, the number of the soldiers in the cavalry and the infantry is 20,413 in total. Now, with the exclusion of 3,173 of them mobilized for military training, of regular military men on duty to defend the town, as well as of the soldiers too young to cultivate the land, there are actually 14,184 people to cultivate over 8,327 qing of land. …These four guards of Ningxia currently keep in storage a little more than 302,100 dan of grains and forage, while the monthly grain consumption by the state armies is a little more than 8,600 dan.41 Based on these statistics, if calculated by the total number of soldiers from these four guards, then each soldier cultivated 40.8 mu on average; however, if calculated by the total number of tuntian soldiers, each soldier’s cultivation averaged nearly 58.8 mu. The grains and forage harvested and reserved from the soldiers’ tuntian in these four guards of Ningxia were sufficient to support their monthly grain consumption for three years. Next, let’s look at the situation in Gansu province. Gansu and some areas such as Xining (now a part of Qinghai province) were basically under the jurisdiction of the military system of the Ming dynasty. This situation lasted until the late Ming period, and then it changed slightly. In the early years of Wanli (1573–1620), Shi Maohua, supreme commander of Military Affairs in the Three Frontiers of Shaanxi, wrote in Yi Suzhou Tianshe Tongpan Shu: “surveys show that the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission of Gansu could take charge of the fifteen guards, and no civil official of any county could be appointed to administer the guard.”42 In the 4th month of Tianqi 4 (1624), the grand coordinator of Gansu, Li Ruoxing, also wrote in a petition for establishing more prefectures: in Liaodong and Gansu, only garrisons were established and not prefectures. Thus, the millions of soldiers and civilians had to feed the low-ranking officers there while the officers mercilessly and greedily exploited the soldiers cruelly and indiscriminately tortured them, rendering them the targets of hatred. The soldiers deeply resented the bullying and humiliation from the officers and secretly plotted to take up arms to rise in rebellion.43 These two petitions indicated that in Gansu, after the establishment of the same grand coordinators as in other provinces, there were still no civil officials until Xizong reign (1621–1627). The local troops and the civilians were both under the jurisdiction of the garrison’s military

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  21 officers. The land, including the cultivated land, was also subject to the military system. For example, in Lanzhou during the late Ming dynasty, the state land occupied an area of only one qing and thirty-five mu, and the private land occupied 421 qing and twenty-seven mu. But the garrison land (tuntian) of Lanzhou Guard covered an area of 3,386 qing and 0.1 mu, and that of Lanzhou central garrison land covered 1,458 qing and fifty mu.44 The two guards’ lands totaled 4,844 qing and fifty mu, which was twelve times that of the state and private land farmed by civilians. The Xining Guard, also under the governance of Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, occupied the territory extending eastward to Gaotai, westward to Jiuquan, southward to the territory of the Fanyi (ethnic minority), and northward to the border of the Hujing (ethnic minority) areas. The entire area was 335 li in width and 250 li in length.45 The quota of military land (tuntian) and civilian land (ketian) for the Xining Guard in Zhengtong 3 (1438) was 2,756 qing and forty-six mu. Military land was the land cultivated by the soldiers of the guard, and civilian land referred to the land cultivated by the civilians living in the areas under the jurisdiction of Xining Guard. Since both of them were the guard’s territories, the amounts of land of the two were not separately listed, and collectively they were called military civil land. By Jiajing 29 (1550), the levied land was actually 3,182 qing and ­twenty-two mu, among which military land (tuntian) took up 1,803 qing and ninety-one mu, and civilian land (ketian) took 1,351 qing and thirty-one mu. In terms of the total numbers, the amounts of military and civilian land were still counted in the calculation for Xining Guard, but they were already listed separately.46 Cases in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan in the southwestern region were also noteworthy. The western region of Sichuan in the Ming dynasty was governed under the military system. One part of it was under the jurisdiction of the Sichuan Regional Military Commission, and another part was under the Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission. Typical regions such as the Native Military Command of Songpan and some other places were governed by the Sichuan Regional Military Commission. Their territory stretched 670 li in width from east to west, and 1,060 li in length from south to north. It was 190 li from the border of Longzhou in the east, 480 li from the edge of Tufan (Tibet) grassland of Moulijiewang in the west, 200 li from the border of independent battalion of Diexi in the south and 860 li from the border of the Taozhou Guard of Shaanxi in the north.47 Likewise, the territory controlled by Pacification Commission in Tianquan Liufan was

22  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming 190 li wide from east to west, and 210 li long from south to north. It was fifty li from the border of Yazhou in the east, 140 li from the border of the Pacification Commission of Changhexi in the west, sixty li from the border of Rongjing County in the south, and 150 li from the border of the Pacification Commission of Dongbuhanhu in the north.48 These two cases indicated that the Sichuan Regional Military Commission controlled not only the small territory including military land of those garrisons in the hinterland, but also a vast sparsely populated area that stretched hundreds, even thousands, of li. Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission had been called Jianchang road (lu)49 in the Yuan dynasty. The Luoluosi Pacification Commission was established to administer it. It was affiliated with Sichuan Province (xingsheng) but later changed to be affiliated with Yunnan Province. In the middle of the Hongwu reign, the Pacification Commission was abolished and the Jianchang guard was established and affiliated with the Sichuan Regional Military Commission. Then, Jianchang Road was changed into a prefecture affiliated with the Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission. When the prefecture was abolished later, the Jianchang guard was changed into the Native Military Commander, and soon the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission was set up to govern the six guards. The land under the jurisdiction of the six guards of the Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission was 550 li wide from the east to the west, 920 li long from the north to the south, extending 500 li eastward to the border of Wumeng prefecture, fifty li westward to the border of Turfan of Changlangbaosheng of 780 li southward to the border of Wuding prefecture of Yunnan and 140 li northward to the border of Ningfan Guard.50 These facts demonstrate that since the early Ming, the vast area in the western part of Sichuan had not been the territory of Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission but was under the jurisdiction of the Sichuan Regional Military Commission and the Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission. A thing they had in common was both administered not only the military garrison and tuntian, but also the civilian households and their properties within the jurisdiction. For instance, the households under the jurisdiction of Songpan Native Military Commander were twenty-one li, and those under the jurisdiction of six guards of the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission were sixty-seven villages (li) in total.51 By the standard calculation of one li comprising 110 households, the seven guards had a total of 9,680 households.

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  23 The land statistics of the civilian households naturally merged into calculations under the military system due to their relationship of subordination. Moreover, the households and land of such native offices (tusi) as the pacification commission and chief’s office governed by each guard were not yet included because accurate statistics were lacking at that time. In the Hongwu reign, the majority of the land in Guizhou was under the jurisdiction of the Guizhou Regional Military Commission, except for the land of some native chiefs who were affiliated with the three Provincial Administration Commissions of Yunnan, Huguang and Sichuan. In Hongwu 21 (1388), by the order of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Marquis of Puding， Chen Huan, “arrived at Bijie from Yongning to have the lands’ dimensions measured, the trees and fences surround the military barracks, each with 20,000 soldiers, and the roads built through wild jungles, grasslands, and paddy fields, so that the land could be distributed for cultivation. That was a long-term plan”.52 The records here show only one example of the military land established in Guizhou, but it serves to illustrate the large scale of military land there during Hongwu reign. In Yongle 11 (1413), after suppressing the rebellion of Tian Zongding, the pacification commissioner of Sinan, and Tian Chen, the pacification commissioner of Sizhou, the court of the Ming decided to divide twenty-two chief offices in Sizhou into four prefectures, as Sizhou, Xinhua, Liping and Shiqian, and to divide seventeen chief offices in Sinan into four prefectures, Sinan, Zhenyuan, Tongren and Wuluo. But in Guizhou (later known as Guiyang) and other places, they set up Cheng Xuan provincial administrative agencies, heading the eight prefectures.53 It’s worth noticing that after setting up Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission and eight prefectures, most of Guizhou was still under the jurisdiction of the Guizhou Regional Military Commission. In the book titled New Gazetteer and Maps of Guizhou compiled during the Hongzhi reign, we can see that， except for the established prefectures of Sinan, Tongren, Shiqian, Liping, Sizhou, Zhenyuan and Duyun in the eastern area neighboring Huguang, and the established subprefectures of Yongning, Zhenning, Anshun and Zhenfan in the southwestern area near Yunnan and Guangxi, most of the remaining lands were under the control of the eighteen guards, including Yongning, Chishui, Bijie, Wusa, Pu’an, Annan, Dingzhuang, Puding, Pingba, Zhengqing, Longli, Xintian, Pingyue, Qingping, Xinglong, Guizhou and Guizhouqian, as well as the two independent battalions of Pushi and Huangping, which were directly under the jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commission. Let’s take the Bijie Guard affiliated with the Guizhou Regional Military Commission as an example. The area under the jurisdiction of this Regional Military Commission extended

24  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming forty-five li eastward to the border of Chishui Guard, 215 li southward to the border of Guizhou Pacification Commission, one hundred li west to the border of Wusa Guard, eighty li north ward to the border of Sichuan Mangbu prefecture, 180 li to the border of the Guizhou Pacification Commission in the southeast, 150 li to the border of Wusa Guard in the southwest, 160 li to the border of Chishui Guard in the northeast and 220 li to the border of Sichuan Mangbu prefecture in the northwest.54 Similar to Guizhou, Yunnan started its military lands on a large scale in early Ming. In the 9th lunar month of Hongwu 19 (1386), Mu Ying, the Xiping marquis, reported to the emperor that there was a vast amount of land in Yunnan, but most of it was uncultivated and suitable for military use. The soldiers should be ordered to cultivate the land for storage and reserve. Ming Taizu highly praised Mu Ying and said: “Mu Ying’s proposal is indicative of his loyalty and dedication, and he has a great ambition to learn from the great ancients. We should act on his advice.”55 In the 9th lunar month of the following year (1387), Mu Ying was ordered to enlist the soldiers who were under Commissioner-in-Chief Zhu Ming’s command and who had no wives and kids “to cultivate the land by setting up a battalion of troops for each one hundred li from Chuxiong to Jingdong.”56 The garrison in Yunnan also administrated a vast amount of land. For example, in Jinchi region in Hongwu 15 (1382), a prefecture was established by following the Yuan system, and at the same time a Jinchi Guard was set up. Later, the prefecture was abolished and transformed into Jinchi Guard Junmin Zhihui Shisi. Under the jurisdiction of Jinchi Guard, Yongping County had a registration of nine li, totaling 9,085 households with 48,078 residents, and 352 qing and ninety-four mu of state and private land. Another example was in Beisheng subprefecture there were fifteen villages of households, and 352 qing and eighty-six mu of state and private land. In Hongwu 15 (1382), this subprefecture was under the jurisdiction of Junmin Fu of Heqing, but later, in Hongwu 29 (1396), it was transferred to be under Lanchang Guard.57 At that time, there were three subprefectures under the jurisdiction of Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Lanchang Guard. Besides Beisheng subprefecture, two others were Yongning and Langqu. In Yongle 4 (1406), Yongning was upgraded from subprefecture to prefecture. Then in Zhengtong 6 (1441), Beisheng subprefecture was subordinated to the Provincial Administration Commission, leaving only Langqu subprefecture under the jurisdiction of Lanchang Guard.58 Thus, it is evident that in the early Ming, Yunnan had its special situations: some subprefectures and counties were affiliated with guards and

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  25 became subordinate units in the military system. Provincial Administration Commissions in the administrative system had jurisdiction over some local chiefs, but the Han people, composed mostly of the garrison military men and the descendants of military families, as well as some local chiefs, were under the jurisdiction of the garrison belonging to Yunnan Regional Military Commission. Only after the mid-Ming, through several transformations, did the land of garrisons become land of subprefectures and counties, as we have seen in many places. Their subordinate relations also changed from The Regional Military Commissions of the military system to the Provincial Administration Commissions of the administrative system. ii There were generally two types of garrisons in the inland areas and the southeast coastal areas. One kind administered a landed territory, but it was not as large as the garrisons on the northern and western frontiers. The other had land allocated only for the purpose of cultivation and pasturage. Historical data indicate that the jurisdictions of some inland garrisons were not small. For example, after the Tu Mu Crisis, the Jining Left Guard (formerly the left petrol Guard of Yanzhou), subordinate to Shandong Regional Military Commission, deployed its troops to Linqing to strengthen the defense of the capital. The vacated land (in Yanzhou) was transformed into Juye and Jiaxiang counties. In other words, before Jingtai 1 (1450), Juye and Jiaxiang were administered by one guard only.59 Of course, the area of most inland garrisons was small. For example, within Yangzhou region, three guards, Yangzhou, Gaoyou and Yizhen, were set up. These guards and their subordinate battalions and companies were “interlaced with some counties,” and “were directly affiliated with the Chief Military Commission of the Center.” The soldiers of the three guards “were all divided into ten units, with eight of them farming and the remaining two guarding the territory. The units rotated in farming and guarding so that all had an equal chance for work and rest.”60 In another example, Zhou Hongzu, in his General Discussions of Maritime Defense, enumerated the details of the coastlines “from the joint border between Lehui County in Guangdong and Annan” to “the Yalu River on the border with Korea.” From the territorial units listed above, we can see that the terms “guard” and “garrison” were used more frequently, while “subprefecture” and “ county” were used much less. This indicates that most areas along the long coastlines were under the jurisdiction of the garrison.61 For example, in the Ming, today’s Xiamen in Fujian was the Central Left Garrison, subordinate to the Yongning Guard. In the Ming dynasty, weisuo tuntian (the garrison farmland) was a widely accepted system. Due to variations in population density, in the amount of virgin land and in the labor force needed for farming dry land and paddy field, the amount of land allotted to garrisons varied in different areas.

26  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming Generally speaking, the Jiangnan region (in the lower Changjiang river valley) had less allotted land than the Jiangbei region (north of the river). The amount of land allotted to each soldier to cultivate ranged from twenty or thirty mu, up to more than one hundred mu, even several hundred mu in some cases. The amount of state land allotted to the garrisons under the Henan Regional Military Commission was representative: each soldier farmed one qing.62 In some places, each family with a soldier serving in the army could be allotted two portions of state land to farm, namely, one for the regular soldier himself, and the other for another member in his family.63 However, at the end of the Yuan dynasty when there was an abundance of unworked land after the wars, restrictions on both civilians and soldiers of the garrison were lifted. Now they were allowed to cultivate as much land as they could. Taking Sizhou region as an example, during the Hongwu reign, when the soldiers first started to farm on tuntian, each of them was given thirty-five mu, considered as one share. The annual grain tax was levied at two dan of wheat in summer and four dan of rice in autumn. During the Zhengtong reign (1436–1450), Assistant Minister, Xue issued an order to add fifteen mu to each share, which amounted to fifty mu in total, for each soldier to farm, but the levied tax on grains remained unchanged. As a matter of fact, originally the land was largely uncultivated and sparsely populated, and the militaries were strong and the civilians weak. At the beginning of tuntian, land ownership was not restricted, and the land was not measured or allocated. Even so, there was still surplus land available. After land was allocated, the cultivated land was increased and exceeded the need. As a result, the amount of tuntian of the three battalions near the towns did not exceed the provision by much, while the amount of tuntian of the six battalions far away from the towns did exceed the quotas. For this reason, the amount of one share of tuntian now varied from no less than a hundred mu to several hundred mu. If we calculate it by distributing one dou of seeds for each mu of the lands mentioned above, then the seeds needed would be as few as ten dan, at least no less than seven or eight dan, or as many as dozens of dan.64 The Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, fascicle 185, also recorded that in the 9th month of Hongwu 20, “an imperial edict orders soldiers who farm 500 mu to pay grain taxes of fifty dan per year.” This indicates that in early Ming, the amount of garrison state land (tuntian) varied from place to place, and in some places, the difference was vast. In the early Ming, there were often varying numbers of local residents living in the area allotted to garrisons. For example, in Hongwu 25 (1392), Lan Yu, the local governor of Liangguo, submitted a proposal to the emperor: “in Liangzhou guard, there are over 1,700 households of civilians who have long been attached to the Guard, and taxes should be levied on their farms and

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  27 paid to Gansu.” Zhu Yuanzhang responded that the taxes should wait until there was a good harvest and thus ample food for the people.65 This indicates that households registered in Liangzhou Guard were over 1,700. Some garrisons had even more inhabitants (some of them were minorities governed by local chiefs living under their jurisdiction), so the name of guard was correspondingly changed into XX Junmin Zhihui Shisi. For example, in Hongwu 15 (1382), the name of Minzhou Guard was changed into the civil-military command departments (Junmin Zhihui Shisi),66 and in Hongwu 20 (1387), Songzhou Guard was changed into the civil-military command departments of Songpan and some others.67 What’s more, the names of garrisons were changed to military and civilian battalion, such as Huichuan junmin garrison in Sichuan (later upgraded to Huichuan Guard Junmin Zhihui Shisi). Another example is that in the 3rd month of Hongwu 30 (1397), Xiangwushouyu/independent battalion in Guangxi was changed into Xiangwu Junmin battalion.68 It should be emphasized here that all these guards or Junmin Zhihui Shsi, including civilian households, were under the jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commissions; their land records and household statistics were all reported by following the procedures outlined for the military system. In addition, the garrison lands in the early Ming included not only the grain-producing tuntian, but also pastures for horses and gardens for fruits or vegetables. Due to space limitations, this article will not discuss this matter further here.69 In summary, during the early Ming dynasty, the garrisons’ land for tuntian alone was sizable. Considering there were also lands for pasture and for fruits or vegetables, as well as the garrisons’ private land, we have good reason to believe that the amount of cultivated land excluded or missing from the administrative calculations must have been enormous.

iv The earliest records of the totals and the breakdowns of tuntian amount in the Ming dynasty are found in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign (Table 1.1). The amounts of tuntian from each Regional Military Commission and garrison add up to 896,350.40 qing. The amount of land in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign is referred to as “the original figure” in Wanli period. It is reasonable from the revisers’ point of view. However, it would be a serious mistake if we just read the two words “original figure” and take it as the total amount of all the tuntian in the early Ming. The original figure of the garrisons’ tuntian during the later Hongwu reign cannot be obtained with accuracy because the tuntian Yellow Registers from the Gazetteer of Houhu was destroyed. Yet from what has been collected so far, we can prove that the amounts of tuntian listed in the Zhengde Collected Statutes are extremely imprecise. For instance:According to the chart, the amount of tuntian of the Shandong

28  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming Table 1.1  T  he earliest records of the totals and the breakdowns of tuntian amounts in the Ming dynasty, found in the Collected Statutes of the Zhengde reign Names of du si /guard/garrison Jinyi Guard etc. in Beijing Jinyi Guard etc. in Nanjing Central capital guard and its guards including the royal graves guardians (Zhongduliushousi and its subordinate garrisons as well as Huangling guardians) North Zhili garrison South Zhili garrison Daning officialdom (du si) and its subordinate garrison Wanquan Dusi Zhejiang Dusi Hu guang Dusi, Xing Dusi Henan Dusi Jiangxi Dusi Shaanxi Dusi Shaanxi Xing Dusi Guangxi Dusi Shandong Dusi Liao-dong Dusi Shanxi Dusi Shanxi Xing Dusi Guangdong Dusi Sichuan Dusi Sichuan Xing Dusi Fujian Dusi Yunnan Dusi

Guizhou Dusi

Amount of tuntian (unit: qing) 6,338.51 9,368.79 7,953.78

7,937.49 19,087.25 2,126.76 19,065.72 2,274.19 11,315.25 36,390.17 5,623.41 29,444.22 13,012.50 513.40 2,060 12,386 12,963.08 10,118.20 7,002.33 658,344.71 1,200.55 1,607.37 10,877.43

9,339.29

Source: hubu iv, tuntian, in Statutes of the Great Ming, book 19, Zhengde version. Figures less than one mu omitted.

Regional Military Commission is merely 2,060 qing, but by the time of Wanli reign, the guard of Pingshan alone, which was subordinate to this Shandong Regional Military Commission, possessed more than 2,913 qing and eleven mu of tuntian,70 which was much more than that of the entire Regional Military Commission. And according to the Rules for Administrators in the Hongwu reign, eleven guards and four directly subordinate battalions were under the jurisdiction of the Shandong Regional Military Commission. In Table 1.1, the total amount of tuntian of the garrison subordinate to Fujian Regional Military Commission is 1,667 qing and thirty-seven mu. However, the Gazetteer of Fuzhou Prefecture records that “in our county the amount of tuntian of the three guards in town and one guard in Zhendong is no less than 4,000 qing.”71 According to Rules for Administrators, during

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  29 the years of the Hongwu reign, in Fujian, apart from Fuzhou’s Central, Left, Right and Zhenhai Guards， there were still seven other guards (including Xinghua, etc.), as well as the six guards that were affiliated with Fujian Auxiliary Regional Military Commission and one directly subordinate garrison. According to the Zhengde gazetteer of Yunnan, the Jinchi Guard, Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Yunnan still possessed 7,441 qing and twenty mu of tuntian, and another 352 qing, ninety-four mu and nine fen of civilian land in its jurisdiction.72 However, according to the Zhengde Collected Statutes, “The amount of tuntian in the Yunnan Regional Military Commission and its subordinate garrisons totaled 10,877 qing, forty-three mu and three fen.”73 There were fifteen guards under the jurisdiction of the Yunnan Regional Military Commission. Supposing the amount of tuntian of one Jinchi Guard was more than 7,400 qing, it was impossible for the other fourteen guards combined to possess only a little more than 3,400 qing of tuntian. Moreover, in the early Ming dynasty, the number of registered civilian households within the jurisdiction of garrisons was attached to the report of their affiliated garrison as part of the military system. Therefore, more than 350 qing of the state and private land should naturally be included in the total amount of land of this guard. The Collected Statutes record that “the total amount of Henan Regional Military tuntian of the Henan Regional Military Commission and its subordinate garrison” was 36,390 qing and seventeen mu, while the tuntian of Henan Dusi, as recorded in the Jiajing reign’s General Gazetteer of Henan, was 45,012 qing and thirty-six mu,74 almost 10,000 qing more than that in the Collected Statutes. According to the Zhengde Collected Statutes, the total amount of tuntian of Sichuan Regional Military Commission was over 658,000 qing, which was surprisingly high. In the Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan of the Jiajing reign, the situation of tuntian by the mid-Ming was described as follows: “as the years passed, people became idle and slack; corruption and malpractice were rampant. Considered as a potential threat, books such as Green Mountain, Green Water,75 and Fish-Scale Registers were banned.” By Jiajing 19 (1540), Lu Shiyong, the supervisor of the Sichuan Surveillance Commission (Anchasi), found out that There were originally 63,636 soldiers in the twenty-one guards under the Sichuan Regional Military Commission, the total amount of the cultivated land, including the original, the newly-added, the extras, and the sample land, was 10,844 qing and ten mu…Based on this amount of land, 14,874 dan of grain should be turned over…. The total amount of the cultivated land of the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, including the original and newly added, was 3,047 qing and sixty-six mu… from this, 70,509 dan of grain should be turned over…76 These figures differ greatly from those recorded in the Collected Statutes. The amount of the cultivated land of Sichuan Regional Military Commission is

30  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming only one-sixth of that in the Collected Statutes， while the amount of the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission is more than two times the 1,200 qing recorded in the Collected statutes. Thus, the source of “the total amount of tuntian in different places” in the Zhengde Collected Statutes is very questionable. The figures are neither the original ones of tuntian during the Hongwu reign, nor the actual ones during the Hongzhi and Zhengde reigns. It seems that the amount of the land administered and cultivated by the Regional Military Commission, guard and garrison during the Hongwu reign will most likely remain a question to be answered. The system of decentralization and military confidentiality in the early Ming can be observed clearly in the local records. Generally speaking, the local records compiled earlier in the Ming dynasty did not include the specifics about the military system. Approximately during the Jiajing reign when local administrative officials were holding posts superior to those of the Regional Military Commission and garrison officers, some local records began to include the figures of soldiers and tuntian under the Regional Military Commission and garrisons. Still there was a lack of such data in some local records because of their adherence to outdated practices. For instance, in the New Gazetteer and Maps of Guizhou (Guizhou Tujing Xinzhi) compiled during the Hongzhi reign, only the names of the eighteen guards and two battalions directly subordinate to the Regional Military Commission were listed, and it was silent, like a cold cicada, about the amount of land, the population and the grain tax. The Zhengde edition of Gazetteer of Yunnan, fascicle 12, records that Beisheng subprefecture originally belonged to Heqing military civil prefecture. In Hongwu 29 (1396), it became subordinate to Lancang Guard until Zhengtong 6 (1441) under Emperor Yingzong’s reign when it shifted to the jurisdiction of the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission. This indicates that before Zhengtong 6 (1441), Beisheng subprefecture belonged to the Yunnan Regional Military Commission system. In Beisheng subprefecture, there were “352 qing, eighty-six mu and six fen of state and private land” farmed by civilians, yet under the item of tuntian, it only mentioned that “there was tuntian managed by fifty Companies within the area.” No specific figures were given to show how much tuntian was actually cultivated. In fascicle thirteen of the same chronicle, under the item of tuntian in Tengchong Junmin Zhihui Shisi, more than fifty village names were listed, but not the actual amount of state land (tuntian). Let’s look at another example; in the Jiajing edition of Gazetteer of Chizhou Prefecture, it was recorded in detail that the total amount of the state and private lands, hills and ponds within the territory of this county subordinate to the prefecture was 9,064 qing and thirty mu; however, yet again, under the item of tuntian, only the names of “six guards and two garrisons” were listed, without any specific figures.77 Furthermore, it should be noted that since the Yongle reign (1403–1424), the administration of the tuntian system had been undermined rapidly, with more and more soldiers escaping and the officers encroaching on the tuntian

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  31 land. Thus, in some local gazetteers after the mid-Ming dynasty, even if the amount of tuntian within the regions was recorded, it did not approach the original figure of the late Hongwu reign.

v By saying that the number of the soldiers and the amount of tuntian in the early Ming were kept confidential, we do not mean that such statistics did not exist. The Five Chief Military Commission system created Yellow Registers not only of the military membership but also of the tuntian land. During the mid-Ming, Minister of War, Ma Wensheng, wrote in a memorial to the emperor, In the beginning when Ming Taizu founded the Ming Dynasty after conquering all the lands, he governed the country by following the laws of the ancients. Firstly, the amount of land cultivated by civilians was delimited and measured in order to calculate the taxation for the use of the state and its military; then, the tuntian were delimited, and the grain paid as food supply for soldiers. Such a system is so vital to the Empire, it should be preserved for many, many years to come and never be abolished. Thus branch office (yisi) for tuntian was established by the Ministry of Works to be specifically in charge of the management of farming tools such as ploughs, spades, ploughshares, etc. needed for cultivating tuntian. In all garrisons at the time, 70% of all soldiers sent to the border area were farming the tuntian, the remaining 30% were guarding the towns; for those sent to the inland, 80% of them farmed and 20% guarded. Under this rule, even the soldiers guarding the houses of the princes had to work on the tuntian. Each soldier was allocated one hundred mu, or fifty mu, or even only twenty to thirty mu of land. From the grain they harvested, twelve dan was allowed to be kept as the monthly food supply for the army, and six dan from the rest had to be collected and stored in barns. For this reason, every garrison had abundant grain supplies and the barns were full, some grain even rotting there. There were no worries of food shortage for the soldiers. By the time of Taizong Wen Emperor (ie, the Yongle reign), special attention was paid to tuntian, and the model field (Hongpai) system78 was set up to promote exemplary practices and comply with relevant regulations. The rules were very clear and transparent in the record books, and no one dared to cheat. Yet we cannot say clearly when the tuntian system started to crumble, and the record books went missing. Everyone just clung to the habitual routines and no officials bothered about finding the past records. Some military officers of garrisons abused their power to encroach on, steal or sell 50–60% of the land, rendering the tuntian system an empty name. As a result, grain from tuntian, which should have been turned over to the garrisons as the soldiers’ monthly food supply, actually was delayed for one or two years.

32  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming After that, Ma Wengsheng continued to suggest that the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue should be requested to issue an official document to check, in the Hou Hu document center, the tuntian Yellow Register during the Hongwu, Yongle and Hongxi reigns, and simultaneously, to investigate the garrisons in Nanjing and Beijing to identify which of them were previously established, which are newly set up, which are relocated, what is the percentage of resident who farm in the tuntian of a particular garrison, and how many qing of lands there are. In short, all that was related to the tuntian had to be thoroughly investigated.79 Ma Wensheng’s proposal shows us that apart from the “civilian household books (min ce),” there were “tuntian Yellow Registers” in the Hongwu, Yongle and Hongxi reigns. In the Veritable Records, we could also see the corresponding “figures of tax grain” and “tuntian grain levied.” The so-called “figures of tax grain” refers to the grain levied from the state and private lands of every Provincial Administration Commission and Zhili prefecture and subprefecture, and the “figures of tuntian grain” refers to the grain collected from the tuntian planted by the soldiers in the military system. Lü Kun said, “civilian labor service (min chai) is not required of those who work on military land, while those who pay the august grain tax will not be required to supply the tuntian seed grain.”80 Apparently, the civilians’ land or min tian (referring to the state and private lands or guan min tian planted by households (renhu) governed by subprefectures and counties, not the same as the private land or min tian as opposed to the state land or guan tian) was originally clearly distinguishable from the military land (Table 1.2). The following are representative figures of the amount of grain taxed from weisuotuntian during selective years of Yongle (1403–1424) through Xuande (1426–1435): Table 1.2  T  he selected representative figures of the amounts of grain taxed from weisuo tuntian during years of Yongle through Xuande Year

Regular tax grain (in dan)

Tuntian tax grain (in dan)

1st year of Yongle reign 4th year 5th year 8th year 11th year 17th year 18th year 21st year 1st year of Hong-xi reign 2nd year of Xuande reign 6th year 9th year

31,299,704 30,700,569 29,824,436 30,623,138 32,352,244 22,248,673 32,399,206 32,373,741 31,800,234 31,250,110 30,300,315 28,524,732

23,450,799 19,792,050 14,374,240 10,368,550 9,109,110 7,930,920 5,158,040 5,171,218 6,130,699 4,600,092 9,366,420 2,307,807

Source: the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty.

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  33 The chart shows that in the early Ming, the scale of garrison military tuntian grain tax was rather great. There are no surviving records of the total amounts of tuntian grain tax for the Hongwu reign. When Chengzu ascended the throne in the Yongle reign and the Jingnan War81 ended, the tuntian system was en route to recovering and returning to normal. Even so, the amount of tuntian grain in Yongle 1 was as high as 23,450,799 dan, which was the highest among the existing records seen in the entire Ming dynasty so far. That year, the figure of tax grain from the state and private lands in every Provincial Administration Commission under the Ministry of Revenue and Zhili subprefecture, prefecture was 31,299,704 dan; with the figure 23,450,799 dan of grains from garrison tuntian, the total reached 54,750,503 dan. The tax grain from garrison tuntian accounted for more than 42.83%, that is, nearly the half of the total of tax grain collected during that year through the two administrative and military systems combined! This is an enlightening figure because it shows that in the Ming dynasty, less than 57.17% of the total tax grain was collected from the nearly 4,000,000 qing of lands in the civil administrative system, that is, close to half of the total amount of land recorded in Rules for Administrators, while the tax grain from garrison tuntian accounted for more than 42.83% of the total. Judged by the fact that the land and tax grain numbers each constituted about half of the total from both systems, we can say the proportions of the two basically match. In discussions about the garrison system and military tuntian, it is very common for people to mistakenly think that the mid- and the late Ming, with all their changes, represented the conditions of the early Ming. In fact, the weisuo tuntian system of the Ming dynasty began to decay during the years of Yongle (1403–1424). The figures listed in Table 1.2 show a rapid decline in the amount of grain from military tuntian. From the Yongle 1 to 18, the amount of tuntian grain fell from 23,450,799 dan to 5,169,120 dan, which was less than one-fourth of the original figure; in Xuande 2 (1427), it was reduced even further to 4,600,000 dan. That is why in the 3rd month of the following year, Xuanzong reprimanded B ­ eijing Ministry of War for hiring the wrong person, which resulted in a severe grain shortage for military armies and the “existence of tuntian in name only.”82 The following six years saw slight growths in the production of grains from tuntian, yet by Xuande 9, it dropped again to little more than 2,300,000 dan, merely one-tenth of the number in Yongle 1 (1403). It should be noticed that, during the same period, the amount of tax grain collected from the state and private lands administered by provinces, prefectures and subprefectures did not decrease, and it remained at around 31,000,000 dan. This indicates that since the Yongle reign, major and serious problems had occurred in the functioning of the military tuntian system. In history, Chengzu who governed in the Yongle reign was a wellaccomplished emperor, and his accomplishments deserved full recognition. However, we should also notice his craving for the grandiose, hence

34  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming his abuse of manpower and material resources, and his over-tight policies. These had some negative impacts on social and economic development. During the Yongle reign (1403–1424), the deployment of military forces was quite shocking, whether in terms of scale or length of time. Under his rule of twenty-two years, he had his armies involved in five incursions northward into Mongolia, the deployment of 800,000 troops to Jiaozhi (the area of the coastline and islands) in the south, a large-scale ocean voyage, the constructions of palaces in Beijing and the Changling tomb (his own, initially known as the Tianshou Mountain project), the Da Baoen Temple in Nanjing, Taoist temples in the Wudang Mountains, as well as the canals, of which 385 li long was built from Yongle 8 to 9 (1410–1411), and which “took 300,000 soldiers and 200 days”83 to complete. As one of the direct consequences of such continued large-scale employment of soldiers, the military tuntian inevitably turned into unused land due to a severe shortage of labor force. In the 11th month, Yongle 22 (1424), not long after Renzong ascended the throne, he discussed with Minister of Revenue, Xia Yuanji, that the regulations on the tuntian system established by the former emperor were brilliant and great attention was paid to the content. But later, the system was obstructed by such frequent expeditions and compulsory services that it became not only inopportune but also ineffective. The grain storage declined to less than 30% or even 20% of that which had been stored before. When an emergency arose, the civilians were inevitably burdened with transporting the grain. Renzong ordered that from that day on no tuntian soldiers in all of the garrisons should be allowed to do other unauthorized business which prevented them from farming. Violators will be severely punished.84 It is evident that Renzong (Zhu Gaozhi) intended to adopt a policy of civilian recuperation during his short reign. Yet a year later, the young and capable Xuanzong ascended the throne, succeeding Renzong, and he followed in the steps of his grandfather, the Yongle Emperor, which exacerbated the abandonment of the original tuntian system. During the years from Yongle (1403–1424) to Xuande (1426–1435), due to the frequent deployment of soldiers and the worsening bureaucratic corruptions, officers of all ranks everywhere seized the opportunity to encroach on tuntian, and forced the soldiers and militias to provide private services. This, in turn, led to the further deterioration of part of the tuntian system. The encroachment on tuntian and the building of private mansions by military officers and the garrison officers inevitably resulted in tuntian Yellow Registers being destroyed, abandoned or filled with false information. After Yingzong ascended the throne, the Ministry of Revenue reported that “it is obvious that almost none of soldiers of the weisuo could be sent to farm in the tuntian. There are few products being produced, yet many mouths to feed.”85

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  35 Therefore, the imperial administrators reaffirmed the policy formulated and applied it in the Hongwu and Yongle reigns, namely, “for the soldiers at the border area, 30% of them were to be guarding while the remaining 70% were to be farming; for those in the interior, 20% were to be guarding and 80% to be farming.” Meanwhile, they had two important reforms: first, to stipulate that the quantity of grain required from each military man was reduced from twelve dan to six dan;86 second, to transfer the management of all the granaries of garrisons to the jurisdiction of civil administrators, except for the garrisons in the border areas.87 That is, for inland garrisons, tax grain from the military regulars and irregulars shall be collected by prefectures, subprefectures and counties. This reform shows that the imperial administrators had lost confidence in rectifying the tuntian system by the military system and were forced to shift the administration of tuntian tax grain from some garrisons into the administrative system. It is not difficult to see that this reform was not a thorough one, for it did not involve garrisons in the border areas. As for the inland garrisons, the reform merely turned the granary administrative power over to civil administrators, and the statistics for the tuntian might still have not been checked up properly. From a broader perspective, the garrison system of the Ming dynasty underwent a complex process of evolution, which became increasingly obvious after the mid-Ming, about the time when Yingzong ascended the throne (1427). This is mainly because, with the increasingly corrupt military administration, with the prevalent emphasis on academics and neglect of the military and with the gradual expansion of the power of civil officials, the whole military system was no longer what it used to be. The power of the Five Chief Military Commission was gradually handed over to the Ministry of War, while in the Chief Military Commission, officers’ posts existed in name only or were being used by nobles to seek additional titles and by generals to obtain higher ranking titles. The power of the Regional Military Commissioners was replaced by that of Regional Commanders. As the established Grand Coordinator and Regional Investigating Censors gradually became set positions, the Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons were placed under the rule of the local administrative officials. Zheng Xiao wrote at the end of Jiajing reign (ca 1567), “now the two Zhili provinces and thirteen Provincial Administration Commissions are in command of 152 prefectures, 240 subprefectures, 1,134 counties, 193 guards and 2,554 garrison.”88 Apparently, by the Jiajing reign, guards and garrisons were habitually taken as subordinate units of Zhili provinces and Provincial Administration Commission. The expanded power of the old and new prefectures, subprefectures and counties caused many guards and garrisons of the past to lose the status of territorial units. In many of the local gazetteers in the southwest and northwest regions, we frequently find records of certain guards and garrisons being changed into prefectures,

36  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming subprefectures or counties. After such reforms, the original guards and garrisons still existed, but their power was reduced to only administering the militaries and the registered households in guards, as well as the tuntian they cultivated; however, even such limited power faced the interference from civil officials. In the Gazetteer of Tengxian in Shandong, it was recorded that Most of the county was surrounded by mountains and passes, and the county was also adjacent to the regions of Yi and Fei, where many gold-diggers and salt merchants crossed the borders from time to time. Unless their merchandise belonged to civil officials, these people would be severely punished with whips. Thus, a number of battalion commanders and company commanders for independent battalions were appointed. Moreover, in the early Ming, since military merits were highly regarded, and those in the military who were eager to settle disputes with weapons, would often choose roads different from those travelled by civil officials and would divide up and demarcate the area to be ruled by themselves. The people there lived in fear. Later, an Assistant Surveillance Commissioner learned about this and punished those particularly unscrupulous officers according to the laws and took away their power. All the authority for arresting criminals and holding trials, collecting levies, and assigning labor service, fell into the hands of civil officials. That is the main reason for civil officials’ prosperity on the one hand, and garrison offices’ decline on the other.89 It is very clear that, “in the early Ming,” battalions and officials “outlined the lands and ruled them” in separate jurisdictions, but later, after the ups and downs, all the powers “were taken over by officials.” At the same time, the lands (including military tuntian) governed by the Regional Military Commission, guards and garrisons in the early Ming shrank rapidly due to various reasons. The confidentiality regulations of military affairs in the early Ming and the destruction and abandonment of Yellow Registers, which were considered confidential, made the quest for the actual amount of the garrisons’ cultivated land extremely hard. Even so, we can at least say that in our exploration of the two types of lands of the cultivated lands in early Ming, a strong argument based on solid evidence can now replace previous speculations. It is clear that the amount of the nearly 4,000,000 qing refers to the Ministry of Revenue’s summation of all the cultivated lands managed by the administrative system—in most documents, a county or subprefecture is usually used as the basic unit. Besides that, there also existed a huge amount of cultivated lands managed by garrisons and guards, including the military tuntian. It is this finding that has led to a new scientific explanation of the statistic of 8,500,000 qing of cultivated land.

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  37 (originally published in China Social Sciences, 1986. 04. pp. 193–213) Translated by Ning Ping, Li Bingjun and Liu Lu Polished by Roger V Des Forges, Tan Jiang and Li Daqi

Notes 1 Huo Tao, “Xiushu Chenyan Shu,” in Ming Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 187. 2 A condensed translation of Shimizu’s essay by Zhang Xilun is in Shi Huo (Food and Money), vol. 10, issue 3 (1936). 3 For Shimizu’s and Fujii’s views, see Liang Fangzhong’s, Zhongguo Lidai Hukou, Tiandi, Tianfu Tongji, p. 337; He Bingdi, “Nan Song Zhijin Tudi Shuzi de Kaoshi he Pingjia,” in Zhongguo Shehui Kexue, vol. 2, issue 3, 1985. 4 Zhongguo Lidai Hukou, Tiandi, Tianfu Tongji, p. 338. 5 Lishi Yanjiu, issue 3, 1955. 6 Fan Shuzhi, “Wanli Qingzhang Lunshu,” in Zhongguo Shehui Jingjishi Yanjiu, issue 2, 1984. 7 He Bingdi, Nan Song Zhijin Tudishu de Kaoshi he Pingjia, ii. 8 According to “Tianfu (Field Taxes),” vol. 4 in Zhili Anqing Junzhi, published in Tianshun 6 (1462), the statistics of the state and private land, ponds and reservoirs remained at over 21,000 qing from Hongwu 24 (1391) to Tianshun 6 (1462). For example, the statistic was 21561.87 qing in Hongwu 24. Besides the amount of the state and private land, there were statistics from all the counties attached to prefectures, which can prove that the statistics in Collected Statutes of the Great Ming were correct. 9 “Hubu 4·Zhouxian 2· Tiantu,” in the Zhengde Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, vol. 19. 10 “Hubu4·Tiantu,” in the Wanli Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, vol. 17. 11 “Huangce Shichan,” in Gazetteer of Houhu, vol. 2; “Fanli” in Gazetteer of Houhu, vol. 1. 12 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 200. 13 Li Xu, Jie’an Laoren Manbi, vol. 1. 14 Li Zizhao, Xinfeng County magistrate, Jiangxi province during the Hongwu reign. “Zou Jian Qianliang Junxu Kepai Shu,” see Gazetteer of Xinfeng County, vol. 12, in Kangxi 58. 15 “Jiguan”, Gazetteer of Qiantang County, Wanli 37; Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 254. 16 For example, the three counties of Shanggao, Gao’an and Xinchang in Ruizhou prefecture, Jiangxi. See the gazetteers of the three counties. 17 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 252. 18 Ming Taizong Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizong), vol. 36. 19 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 144. 20 He Bingdi, “Nan Song Zhijin Tudi Shuzi de Kaoshi he Pingjia,” ii. 21 Huguang Tujing Zhishu of the Zhengde version, also titled Xu Huguang Tongzhi (Continued General Gazetteer of Huguang). The original Book 1, which records the total statistics of Bu Zhengsi, was lost. The cited statistics here derive from the summary of those documented in the books of the prefecture and subprefecture. 22 “Tianfu (Field Taxes),” General Gazetteer of Henan published in Jiajing 34, vol. 10. 23 “Tianfu (Field Taxes),” Comprehensive Gazetteer of Henan published in Chenghua 22, vol. 2. 24 “Zaishang,” in Collected Statutes of the Great Ming of the Wanli version, vol. 17.

38  Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming 25 See Wu Han, “Dushi Zhaji,” Soldiers of the Ming，p. 101. Wu refers to Wu Kezhong, Marquis of Gongshun. 26 Gazetteer of Tongzhou, vol. 6, of Kangxi 33. 27 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 187. 28 “Zaibian,” in Gazetteer of Wenzhou Prefecture, of Jiajing version, vol. 6. 29 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 62. 30 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 145. 31 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 179. 32 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 255. 33 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 136. 34 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 48. 35 Gu Yanwu, “Shanxi,” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original vol. 17; HanYingyuan, Yunxi Dili Tushuo. 36 Yang Ding, “Huiyi Datong deng chu Shiyi.” in Ming Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 40. 37 This is based on Gazetteer of Hezhou of the Jiajing reign 42 (1563). The records in the Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vols. 122 and 125, were slightly different. 38 “Shi Huo Zhi (Essay on Food and Money in the Ming History),” in the Gazetteer of Hezhou, Jiajing 42, vol. 1. 39 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 245. 40 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 216. 41 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 17. 42 “Yiwen Kao,” in Gazetteer of Xining, of Shunzhi 14 version. 43 “Shaanxi volume i,” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition, vol. 18. 44 “Fu’e,” in Gazetteer of Fulan County, vol. 9, Qianlong’s version; Wuwei·Liangxiang, vol. 11 of the same book. 45 “Xining Guard·Dilizhi (Xining Guard·Essay on Geography),” in Gazetteer of Xining, Shunzhi 14. 46 “Suijizhi·Tuntian,” in Gazetteer of Xining, Shunzhi 14. 47 “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Songpan,” in Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuang, vol. 15, Jiajing 20 version. 48 “Zhaotao Shisi of Tianquan Liufan,” in Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan, vol. 15, Jiajing 20 version. 49 The lu was a kind of local administrative institution similar to a prefecture. 50 “Sichuan Xingdusi,” in Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan, vol. 15, Jiajing 20 version. 51 “Sichuan Xingdusi,” in Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan, vol. 15, Jiajing 20. 52 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 190. 53 Ming Taizong Shilu, vol. 139. 54 “Zhihui Shisi of Bijie Guard,” in New Gazetteer and Maps of Guizhou, vol. 16, of Hongzhi version. 55 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 179. 56 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 185. 57 “Beishengzhou,” in Gazetteer of Yunnan, vol. 12, of Zhengde version. 58 “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Lanchan Guard,” in Gazetteer and Maps of Yunnan, vol. 4, Jingtai 6 version. 59 “Shandong(i),” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 15. 60 “Yangzhou,” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 12. 61 “Fujian(i),” in Tianxia Junguo Libingshu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 16.

Analysis of cultivated land in the early Ming  39 62 “Bingyu,” in General Gazetteer of Henan, vol. 13, of Jiajing 34 version. 63 “Fujian,” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 16. It quoted from Gazetteer of Fuzhou Prefecture: “at initial stage of the reign, in tuntian system every regular and irregular soldier was allotted with 30 mu of land to farm.” 64 “Fengninghui,” Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 9. 65 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 216. 66 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 144. 67 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 180. 68 Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 251. 69 See “Tianfu (Field Taxes) 4,” in Xiongcheng (i), of Jiajing 12 (1533); also see Ming Taizu Shilu (Veritable Records of Ming Taizu), vol. 215; also see Tianxia Junguo Libingshu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 9, cited from Gazetteer of Sizhou, etc. 70 “Gazetteer of Bingrong,” in Gazetteer of Dongchang Prefecture, vol. 13, Wanli period. 71 “Fujian,” in Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), vol. 16. 72 “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Jinchi,” in Gazetteer of Yunnan, vol. 13, Zhengde 5 version. 73 “Hubu4·Tuntian,” in Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, vol. 19, Zhengde version. 74 “Bingyu,” in General Gazetteer of Henan, vol. 13, Jiajing 34 version. 75 Qingshanlüshui: a kind of book for registration (noted by the translator). 76 “Jingluezhi·Juntun,” in Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan, vol. 16. Jiajing version. 77 “Tianfupian,” in Gazetteer of Chizhou Prefecture, vol. 4, of Jiajing 24 version. 78 The Hong pai system was set up by the central government for the garrison (noted by the translator). 79 Ma Wensheng, “Qing Tuntian yi Fu Jiuzhi Shu,” in Ming Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 63. 80 LüKun, “Minwu·Qingjun Ditu,” in Shizhenglu, vol. 4. 81 Jingnan War, a war for taking the throne in the Ruling Class of Ming Dynasty, during the 1st to 4th year of the Jianwenreign (1399–1402) (noted by the translator). 82 Ming Xuanzong Shilu, vol. 39. 83 Ming Taizong Shilu, vol. 116. 84 Ming Renzong Shilu, vol. 4(ii). 85 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 18. 86 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 1, which recorded that the 1st month of Xuande 10, Yingzong ascended the throne and issued the edict to release the criminals nationwide; later, it was called “Zhengtong xinli.” 87 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 7; Mingshi (Official History of the Ming Dynasty), vol. 167. 88 Zheng Xiao, Jinyan, vol. 12, item 157. 89 “Shandong(i),” in Tianxia Junguo Libing shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm), original edition book 15.

2 The transformation of the Ming garrison system in the Qing

As I have pointed out in my essay “A New Analysis of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming,” guards and garrisons were in most cases military geographical units rather than purely military organizations. One important basis for this argument is that the garrison system survived for a long time in the Qing dynasty. Obviously, if guards and garrisons had been merely military organizations, it would have been difficult to explain why the Qing government permitted the persistence of the system after overthrowing the Ming dynasty. In the Qing, most guards and garrisons had jurisdiction over areas where the grain requisitioned in armies (jun, banners [qi], houses [she] and other places [yu]) differed greatly from the grain requisitioned in the subprefectures and counties of the administrative system in terms of number and methods.1 The systems of corvée were also different. When the Qing rulers took over of the country, they implemented the policy of maintaining the status quo in guards and garrisons, which had lost their military functions. Therefore, guards and garrisons, the local military administrative units equivalent to the civil administration of subprefectures and counties, continued in existence for over eighty years into the Qing dynasty, during which Regional Millitary Commissions (du si) and guards underwent a distinctive transformation. This transformation was characterized by the following: (1) The officers in the Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons were appointed rather than hereditary. (2) The processes of “demilitarization” inside guards and garrisons and of “civilianization” in the jurisdictions were accelerated. (3) Guards and garrisons were incorporated or converted into subprefectures and counties, thus making the garrison system a historical relic and attaining greater uniformity in the local administrative systems in the whole country. In the 7th month of Shunzhi 2 (1646), the Prince Regent Dorgon, in a letter to Yü Prince Duoduo, instructed him to convert Nanjing into Jiangnan Province and Yingtian prefecture into Jiangning prefecture, while the Regional Military Commissioner and the commanders in charge of military land should temporarily remain in office while the other commanders should be removed. The guards and garrisons were

Transformation of Ming garrison system  41 converted into subprefectures and counties and would be reformed further when the domestic situation was stabilized.2 In the 10th month of Shunzhi 3 (1647), the central government approved a report submitted by the Ministry of War: commanders, battalion commanders and company commanders have been removed while guards and garrisons must be retained; therefore, an officer in power should be appointed for every guard to be in charge of military affairs and should be renamed Provincial Surveillance Commissioners; Battalion Commanders are still named Battalion Commanders, who are appointed for the garrisons by the Supreme Commanders; the garrisons that are not subordinated to guards (e.g. battalions that had been directly subordinated to Regional Military Commissions in the Ming were referred to as independent battalions) are ordered to defend the passes and borders of the country. The status of the soldiers in the guards was changed into that of farmers cultivating military land. The affairs of garrisons, such as taxes, operating duties and water transport of grain to the capital and shipbuilding, were now administered by Regional Military Commissions and the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission by following the routines.3 In the 7th month of Shunzhi 4, in a gracious imperial edict issued after the situation of Guangdong was stabilized, the Qing government reiterated that the status of the soldiers in the guard has been changed into that of farmers cultivating military land (tunding), and they will never be drafted again as supplementary troops. The officials who had been exiled to guards will return to their native places.4 That the guard soldiers were turned into tunding was officially confirmed by an edict, and was the long-lasting general trend of “demilitarization” within the garrison system. However, the military nature of Regional Military Commissions, guards and garrisons did not change. Especially, the officers of these agencies were still regarded as military officers in the early Qing. In the 11th month of Shunzhi 5, the Emperor granted gracious awards by presenting the officers with honors for their four-generation ancestors. One of the awards was that “the administrators of the inner and the outer garrisons, which used to be hereditary officers, now should be officers with prior or new merits, and they will be granted an investiture of hereditary rights.”5 The investiture of hereditary rights was soon partially abolished. In the 4th month of Shunzhi 6 (1649), the official in charge of water transport of grain to the capital reported to the emperor that “the hereditary offices have been removed,” and the Provincial Surveillance Commission and Qianzong are regularly relocated.6 In the 6th month of the same year, an incident occurred. The Zhengnan Great General, Tan Tai, consistent with an edict appointing and removing officials in Jiangxi Province, appointed Ji Guoxian, manager without specific portfolio (li shi guan) in the Supervision

42  Transformation of Ming garrison system Office, as the Regional Military Commissioner in Jiangxi Province. However, the ministry decided that Ji Guoxian was “a civil officer who should not be appointed to a military position,” and finally “his position and the title were removed and half of his property was confiscated.”7 In the 8th month of Shunzhi 10 (1653), the Qing government re-stipulated the ranks of military officers: the Regional Military Commissioner in a provincial capital holds the sub-second rank; the Assistant Regional Commander holds the third rank; the Mobile Corps Commander(and others)…., all hold the subthird rank; the Municipal Military Commander holds the fifth rank; the Vice Municipal Military Commander holds the sub-fourth rank; the independent battalion commander holds the fifth-rank; the battalion commander holds the sub-fifth rank.8 Obviously, the stipulation confuses the two categories of military positions which survived from the Ming: (1) The officers in the garrison (weisuo) system, such as the Provincial Surveillance Commission. (2) And the officers in the military system such as the Provincial Surveillance Commission. Admittedly, such confusion was also a relic left behind by the Ming dynasty. The government in the early Qing only matched up the officer positions by their corresponding ranks in the two different systems of servicemen and soldiers. Although in the early Qing the officers of guards and garrisons were regarded as military officers, their military features were greatly diminished while their duties and responsibilities were akin to those of the officers in prefectures, subprefectures and counties. In the 11th month of Shunzhi 18, the Ministry of War proposed that although there were six kinds of military officers…, they were only in charge of finance and requisitioned grain, not soldiers and horses. They were subordinated to the Grand Coordinators. The responsibility for providing convoys for ships transporting grain to the capital was transferred to the administration of the Supreme Commander and Military Superintendent stationed along the rivers. The emperor’s comment was simply ‘The proposal is approved.’9 In the 5th month of Kangxi 8, the Qing government promulgated a decree that “the taxes levied and the grain requisitioned from guards are incorporated into civil land taxes as a criterion by which to evaluate the Grand Coordinators’ performance.”10 According to the Ming system, Regional Military Commissions, Provincial Administration Commissions and the Provincial Surveillance Commissions were all under the command of the Grand Coordinator. The grain requisitioned from tuntian administered by guards, garrisons and Regional Military Commissions was named seed particle, which was different from the civil land taxes levied in subprefecture

Transformation of Ming garrison system  43 and county in terms of tax rate, taxation policies and reporting systems. This decree was significant in that it abolished the category of seed particle, incorporating the taxes from military land and the taxes levied from the other farmlands administered by guard and garrison into the total land taxes of provinces. However, due to the big differences between garrisons and subprefectures/counties regarding their taxes, requisitioned grain and corvée, the incorporation was difficult to implement at the grassroots level. Therefore, the system of guard, garrison and Regional Military Commission was kept in the levying process. In the 6th month of Kangxi 10, In the reply by the Ministry of Revenue after a discussion, the Grand Coordinator of Shandong Province, Yuan Maogong reported in his memorial to the emperor: the position of Regional Military Commission was established to be in charge of the taxes and requisitioned grain in guards and garrisons. The Regional Military Commissions are responsible for taxation and requisition, by which they are evaluated. This is true of all provinces except for Shandong where the governments of prefectures are in charge of taxation and requisition. I propose that it follow the routines of the other provinces and transfer such responsibilities to the Regional Military Commissions. The emperor’s comment: it should be implemented as proposed. The proposal is approved.11 Moreover, at the beginning of the Qing dynasty, the garrisons were dissolved and merged. For example, in the 6th month of Shunzhi 9 (1652), the zhili Zhenshuo Guard and Yingzhou Guard were incorporated into the Jizhou Guard; the Dongsheng Right Guard and Kuanhe Garrison were incorporated into Zunhua Guard; The Zhuolu Left Guard, the Central Guard and Xingzhou Zhongtun Guard were incorporated into the Zhuolu Guard; the Funing Guard was incorporated into the Shanhai Guard; the Lulong Guard, Dongsheng Left Guard, Xingzhou Right Guard were incorporated into Yongping Guard. The Miyun Rear Guard was incorporated into Miyun Central Guard; the Yingzhou Rear Guard was incorporated into Xingzhou Houtun Guard; the Tongzhou Right Guard, Shenwu Central Guard and Dingbian Guard were incorporated into Tongzhou Left Guard; the Tianjin Left Guard and Right Guard were incorporated into Tianjin Guard; the Shenwu Right Guard, Daoma Garrison and Pingding Garrison and Tangshan Tun were incorporated into Zhending Guard; the Baoding Central Guard was incorporated into Baoding Left Guard; the Baoding Front Guard and Rear Guard were incorporated into Baoding Right Guard; and the Yingzhou Zuotun Guard, Bohai independent Battalion, Baiyangkou Rear Garrison, Zhenluoguan Garrison, Shunde independent Battalion were dissolved.12

44  Transformation of Ming garrison system In the 12th month of Kangxi 7, “the office of Zhili Daning Regional Military Commission was removed and incorporated into Baoding Left Guard; the Wanquan Regional Military Commission was removed and incorporated into Xuanfu Front Guard.”13 In the 7th month of the subsequent year, the previous School of Daning Regional Military Commission was converted into the School of Baoding Left Guard, and the School of Wanquan Regional Military Commission was converted into School of Xuanfu Front Guard.14 The same policy was implemented in the inner garrison. In Shunzhi 7, the Ministry of War submitted a report—that the thirty-two extant guards be merged into ten guards—which was approved by the emperor. Because the ten guards “levy too little taxes and pay too high salaries,” the Ministry of War proposed again to dissolve four guards and retain only six guards while reducing the number of officials correspondingly. This proposal was approved by the emperor.15 Now that the demilitarization inside garrisons, which had started in the mid-Ming, was almost accomplished in the early Qing when the soldiers in guards were given the status of farmers cultivating state farmland, the gap between the garrison system and the subprefecture and county system was minimized. According to the Veritable Records of the Qing, in the 9th month of Kangxi 23, the ministries, including the Ministry of Revenue, followed the Emperor’s order to discuss with the Ministry of War regarding the budget for land workers who defended cities in the thirteen garrisons such as Yuezhou in Hunan Province. It was decided that land workers were not soldiers paid by the government. Besides, in each province, the missions of defense and public security were carried out by Green Standard state troops. Therefore, the Green Standard army could accomplish the mission of defense in the vicinity of their garrisons. Moreover, there were no precedents of paying land workers for defending cities, so the budget for them in the above-mentioned guards who defended cities should be suspended beginning from the 23rd year. The Emperor commented: the proposal is approved.16 This evidence proves that although the Ming garrison system, in which 20% of the inland soldiers defended cities while the other 80% cultivated farmland, had collapsed; there were no precedents of “paying land workers for defending cities” in any province. The thirteen garrisons in Hunan were reformed in Kangxi 23, thus terminating the military nature of garrisons. Meanwhile, more and more people insisted that garrisons be converted or incorporated into subprefectures and counties. In Shunzhi 15, the Left Censor-­in-Chief, Wei Yijie, submitted a memorial to the emperor proposing that guards and garrisons be eliminated or incorporated into the civil administration and that land workers and tuntian be transferred to the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties. He called this “a great policy to

Transformation of Ming garrison system  45 promote benefits and eliminate malpractice and a prioritized measure to bring prosperity to the state and welfare to the people.” In his memorial, he stated that the soldiers and military farmland of guard and garrison “existed only on paper” after Yingzong’s (Zhengtong/Tianshun) reign. All the participants in the discussions realize that guards and garrisons should be dissolved, but they refuse to admit it because of their perceived need for the water transport of grains to the capital, and their belief that such a policy will impose burdens on the people. I believe that the number of guards and garrisons responsible for the water transport of grain is limited while the number of guards and garrisons with other functions is huge. There are four great benefits if those other guards and garrisons are incorporated into nearby subprefectures and counties: 1. Savings will be made from reducing the salaries of officials and staff. 2. The taxes and corvée will be diluted for all the people, whereas they had grown heavier for the people for over 300 years. 3. The relevant government agencies can exercise better leadership and supervision than military officers, thus promoting cultivation of unused land and the increase in population. 4. The unfaithfulness to the Qing of those who had inherited titles from the Ming dynasty will be eliminated. Therefore, I propose that except for the guards and garrisons which are responsible for water transport of grain and the defense of the frontiers, all the other guards and garrisons should be incorporated into the subprefectures and counties in the vicinity which are under the jurisdiction of the government officials.17 Although Wei Yijie’s proposal was made in the fifth month of the year along with the emperor’s order that concerned ministries discuss and decide on the issue, it was not adopted during the Shunzhi reign (1644–1661). During the Kangxi reign (1622–1722), on the one hand, the names of guards and garrisons were retained; on the other hand, the trend of converting some guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties which emerged in the late Ming dynasty continued. For example, in Kangxi 2, the Right Provincial Administration Commission governed four prefectures including Lintao, Gongchang, Pingliang, and Qingyang with the office located in Gongchang, therefore dissolving eighty-five guards and garrisons. In Kangxi 5, the Right Provincial Administration Commission was reorganized as the Gansu Provincial Administration Commission. Its office, now relocated to Lanzhou, had the responsibility of the provincial department of supervision governing four prefectures, nine subprefectures and twenty-eight counties.18 In the first month of Kangxi 3, the Jingyuan Guard in Shaanxi was converted into Jingyuan County, where positions such as subprefect, lieutenant

46  Transformation of Ming garrison system and manager were removed and the offices of county magistrates and clerks were established.19 In the 12th month of Kangxi 10, the Qing government approved the proposal advanced by Cao Shenji, Grand Coordinator of Guizhou, that five guards including Longli, Qingping, Pingyue, Puding and Duyun should be converted into counties under the management of magistrates and clerks. Besides, the Anzhuang guard was incorporated into Zhenning subprefecture, as was Huangping garrison into Huangping subprefecture, and Xincheng garrison into Pu’an county. Meanwhile, all offices of the Provincial Surveillance Commissions were cut.20 In the 6th month of Kangxi 26, based on a proposal by Fan Chengxun, governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, fifteen guards and ten battalions directly subordinated to civil officials were reformed as follows: pianqiao guard was incorporated into Shibing county; Xinglong guard was incorporated into Huangping subprefecture, substituting the administrative system of a prefecture for the management of the guards; Xintian guard was incorporated into Guiding county, substituting the administrative system of the county for the management system of the guard. Guizhou guard and Guiqian guard were converted into Guizhu county; two guards including Zhenxi and Weiqing and two garrisons including Hesheng and Weiwu were converted into Qingzhen county; Pingba guard and Rouyuan Garrison were converted into Anping county; Annan guard was converted into Annan county; Dingnan Garrison was dissolved and incorporated into Puding county; Pu’an guard was dissolved and incorporated into Pu’an subprefecture; Anlong Garrison was dissolved and incorporated into Anlong Ting;… the other four garrisons including Xiuwen, Zhuoling, Xifeng and Yuxiang were converted into Xiuwen county; Yongning guard and Pushi garrison were converted into Yongning county; two guards including Bijie and Chishui were converted into Bijie county; Wusa guard was dissolved and incorporated into Weining prefecture.21 Because the area under the jurisdiction of the inland garrisons was small, the general practice was to incorporate the garrison into the subprefecture and county in the vicinity after it was dissolved. For example, in Kangxi 9, when Nanchang guard and Jiujiang guard were dissolved, the tuntian belonging to the two guards was incorporated into other counties such as Pengze County.22 Another interim measure for the “bureaucratization” of guards and garrisons was to change the subordination to state officials (dusi) into the subordination to prefectures. Though the names of the guards were retained, the guards were integrated into the administration system,

Transformation of Ming garrison system  47 thus becoming almost comparable to subprefectures and counties. For example, in the ninth month of Kangxi 28, the Ministry of Revenue replied after discussion that a flooded area “included zhili forty-four subprefectures, counties, guards and garrisons such as Xuanfu, Guangping, and Zhending which were a hundred percent affected by the flood” and “fifty-six subprefectures, counties, guards and garrisons such as Baoding, Shunde, Daming, Shuntian and Hejian which were seventy percent, eighty percent or ninety percent affected by the flood.”23 In the 11th month of the same year, the Emperor informed the Ministry of Revenue that in response to a drought in Hubei, a commissioner has been dispatched to investigate the disaster with the governor of the province. A situation report on the stricken area, including twenty-nine subprefectures and counties as well as eight guards subordinated to Wuchang prefecture, should be submitted. Following this it is mentioned that four prefectures of Wuchang, twenty-eight subprefectures and counties as well as four guards and garrisons were affected by a disaster; in Jingzhou and Anlu, nine subprefectures and four guards and garrisons were affected by a disaster.24 Many records of this kind are available in historical documents, indicating that in the early Qing dynasty, guard and garrison were converted into geographical units for administration under the jurisdiction of prefectures. Large-scale conversions of guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties were implemented during the Yongzheng reign. In the third month of Yongzheng 3, the Qing government declared in an order issued to Gao Qizhuo, the Supreme Commander of Yunnan and Guizhou, that “the civil and military officials in Guizhou Province are low spirited while on duty” and such a situation should be rectified. The civil officials, including intendants, prefects, subprefects, county magistrates and guards should give priority to pacifying and governing the people; the military officials including defense commanders, assistants, brigade commanders, etc. should spend more time on military training. This is to ensure that the people will not suffer from the heavy burdens of taxes and corvées, and the soldiers will not develop a habit of indolence and disobedience.25 Apparently, the officials governing guards and garrisons at that time were regarded as civil officials comparable to those governing prefectures, subprefectures and counties. Therefore, in order to achieve uniformity in the local governmental system in the whole country, large-scale conversions and incorporations of guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties became an irreversible tendency. In the intercalary fourth month of ­Yongzheng 2, the

48  Transformation of Ming garrison system Ministry of Troops and some other relevant ministries discussed and replied: as for the conversion and incorporation of guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties, it is discovered that soldiers and civilians under different household registrations have different corvées, thus they have not been integrated. Besides, the military officials selected by imperial examinations are candidates for serving as Provincial Surveillance Commissions, and as commanders in guards and garrisons. If all the guards and garrisons are dissolved, the candidates will not need to be promoted in a timely fashion, so this issue does not need further discussion. The Emperor replied: the perspective of the ministries is too limited on this issue. The guards and garrisons have been dissolved in Yunnan and Sichuan without any negative consequences. At present, with the exceptions of the guards and garrisons in frontier regions which have no subprefectures and counties to merge into, and guards and garrisons that are responsible for water transport of grain to the capital and have soldiers and civilians with different corvée, all other inland guards and garrisons have been ordered to be incorporated into subprefectures and counties26 In the sixth month of the same year, a report of the Ministry of Troops approved the selection and appointment of military provincial and metropolitan graduates.27 After the ruler’s order was issued, it was implemented in all the provinces. However, given the different situations in different regions, the concrete policies varied during implementation. In general, the guards and garrisons with smaller jurisdictions were incorporated into the nearby subprefectures and counties. For example, Chen Shixia, Grand Coordinator of Jiangsu Province, stated in his memorial to the emperor in the first month of Yongzheng 5 (1728) that in Jiangnan province twenty-three guards, which were subordinated to civil officials, have been removed. The taxes levied and the warehouses audited in the guards and garrisons should be transferred to the nearby prefecture and subprefecture to be accounted for. We propose that guards including Xin’an in the upstream areas be incorporated into the prefecture including Huizhou; that the guards including Suzhou in the downstream areas be incorporated into Suzhou prefecture; and that the guards including Jianghuai and Xingwu be incorporated into Jiangning prefecture.28 In Shandong Province, guards and garrisons were dissolved with the jurisdictions incorporated into the subprefectures and counties in the vicinity. However, in the 11th month of Yongzheng 4, the central government consented to the proposal advanced by Chen Shiguan, the former Grand Coordinator of Shandong, that the seven guards including Andong and the two removed garrisons Xiongya and Fushan are important coastal frontier regions with

Transformation of Ming garrison system  49 hard-to-access terrains so we propose that they be maintained. The guards and garrisons in Jinan, which are different from the coastal frontier regions, should be incorporated into the nearby subprefectures and counties.29 In Yongzheng 13, the Qing government decided to dissolve the guards and garrisons, which had been retained in Shandong. The eighteen villages (tun) subordinate to Weishan Guard were incorporated into Ninghai prefecture, Wendeng County and the newly established Haiyang County.30 In Guangdong Province, the office of the seal-holding commander was abolished, and ten guards were dissolved including Zuohai, Qianhai, Houhai, Nanhai, Huizhou, Chaozhou, Zhaoqing, Shendian, Yangnan and Guanghai, as well as twenty-five garrisons including Dongguan, Xinyi, Xinning, Zengcheng, Conghua, Jingyuan, Lianzhou, Nanxiong, Shaozhou, Heyuan, Longchuan, Changle, Chenghai, Chengxiang, Guangning, Xinxing, Yangchun, Gaozhou, Ningchuan, Wanzhou, Yazhou, Haimen, Jinghai, Pengzhou and Qinglan.31 “Tuntianis now under the county administration while the examination of land workers (for recruiting excellent candidates for state-run schools) is administered by the county.”32 According to the Gazetteer of Xinhui County, “in Yongzheng 3, twelve guards and twenty-six garrisons were all dissolved. Thereby, Xinhui garrison was divided and incorporated into four counties including Xinhui, Xinning, Xiangshan and Kaiping.”33 This evidence shows that the Xinhui battalion was not a military unit located in Xinhui County; rather, its jurisdiction extended to all four of the aforementioned counties. It has been discussed above that in densely populated areas where administrative machinery including subprefectures and counties was highly concentrated, weisuo were generally incorporated into nearby subprefectures and counties after being dissolved. Those weisuo with large jurisdictions and without subprefectures and counties established in the vicinity were converted into subprefectures and counties. For example, Zhili ­Tianjin guard was converted into Tianjin subprefecture in the third month of ­Yongzheng 3 and was upgraded to Tianjin prefecture in the second month of the ninth year. In the meantime, Liangcheng garrison/battalion was transformed into Ninghe County.34 In Sichuan Province, the Huichuan guard was incorporated into Huili subprefecture in Yongzheng 7;35 Ningfan guard was converted into Mianning County; Lida garrison was converted into Qingxi County;36 in the twelfth month of Yongzheng 9, Songpan guard was dissolved, with the subordination transferred to Long’an prefecture. Later on, Songpan guard was changed to Songpan County.37 In Hunan, Jiuxi guard and Yongding guard were merged into one county, which was named Anfu County.38 In the fifth month of the same year, Anfu garrison, which had been subordinated to Jiuxi guard, merged with Sangzhi local chiefdom into Sangzhi County.39 It should be noted that according to the order issued in the intercalary fourth month of Yongzheng 2, “the guard and garrison in the frontier

50  Transformation of Ming garrison system regions should still follow the old system when there was no subprefecture or county available for the incorporation.” It seemed that Yongzheng had intended to retain the guard and garrison, but, in fact, the most striking part of this reform is that the guards and garrisons in the frontier regions with no subprefecture and county available for them to be incorporated into and with quite large areas were directly converted into prefectures, subprefectures and counties. The following are some examples. In the 5th month of Yongzheng 3, Shuoping prefecture and Ningwu prefecture were established in areas originally under the jurisdictions of the weisuo in the north of Shanxi. The office of Shuoping prefecture was located in Youyu, while the office of Ningfu prefecture was located in the former Ningwu battalion. Youyu guard was converted into Youyu county; Zuoyun guard was converted into Zuoyun county; Pinglu guard was converted into Pinglu county (which is now located in Pinglu in the southwest of Youyu county); Shuozhou county and Mayi county, which had been subordinated to Datong prefecture, were transferred to the jurisdiction of Shuoping prefecture. Ningwu garrison was converted into Ningwu county; Shenchi Bao was converted into Shenchi county; Pianguan garrison was converted into Pianguan county; Wuzhai Bao was converted into Wuzhai county. The four newly converted counties mentioned above were subordinated to Ningwu prefecture. Tianzhen guard was converted into Tianzhen county; Yanggao guard was converted into Yanggao county, transferring the office of Tongpan of Yanggao to the city where the government of the prefecture was located. The above-mentioned two counties were subordinated to Datong prefecture. Ninghua garrison was converted into police chief office (Xunjiansi), subordinated to Ningwu county. A position of a prefect was assigned to Shuoping and Ning prefecture respectively; a position of a vice prefect was assigned to Ningwu prefecture; nine positions of District Magistrate and nine positions of county jailor were assigned to the nine counties including Youyu; a position of police chief was assigned to Ningwu. The following positions were removed: two positions of Tongzhi in charge of the central and western parts of Taiyuan prefecture, ten positions of Provincial Surveillance Commission in the guard including Youyu, and thirteen positions of commander in the garrison including Ningzuo. The former Grand Coordinator of Shanxi, Nuo Min also made the proposal.40 Previously, in the eighth month of Yongzheng 2, Nuo Min submitted a memorial to the emperor proposing that seal-holder commander in Shanxi take the responsibility for the requisition of grain in tuntian and the governing of the weisuo. Now the weisuo are to be dissolved, as the Fan (Provincial Administration

Transformation of Ming garrison system  51 Commissioner) and the Nie (Provincial Surveillance Commissioner) used to be concurrently in charge of taxes and laws, I propose that these offices and their leaders and aides all be removed.41 This proposal was approved by the central government. Thus, officials, guards and garrisons, a heritage of the Ming dynasty, were totally incorporated into the Qing administrative system. The northwestern region including Yulin (in Shaanxi), Gansu, Ningxia and Xining (in Qinghai) were the jurisdictions of the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, guards and garrisons of the military system in the Ming dynasty. After the late Ming, with the exception of a few that were converted to prefecture, subprefecture and county, the administration of guards and garrisons, in general, remained unchanged until the beginning of the Yongzheng reign. For example, Tongguan of Shaanxi was directly subordinated to the Chief Military Commission of the Center instead of the nearby Regional Military Commission in Shaanxi and Henan. In ­Zhengtong 3, the “School of Tongguan guard” was established.42 In Yongzheng 5, according to the memorial submitted by Yue Zhongqi, governor of ­Sichuan and Shaanxi, the “Tongguan guard should be converted into Tongguan county with one position of a district magistrate and another position of a district jailor.”43 Yet, the position of Provincial Surveillance Commissioner in the Tongguan guard was not removed until the fifth month of Yongzheng 10.44 Another example is that today’s Yulin in the north of Shaanxi was, in the early Ming, “only a small fort for soldiers to stay and prepare for the winter.” After the Jingtai reign, Yulin guard was established under the administration of officials including commanders, intendants and others, thus becoming a strategically important town in the northwest.45 Yulin prefecture was established only after the 11th month of Yongzheng 8, and at the same time, two forts, Dingbian and Huaiyuan, were designated as its subordinate counties.46 In Yongzheng 2, Nian Gengyao, governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, submitted a memorial stating that the sub-prefecture in the Hexi area in Gansu had been a prefecture and county from ancient times to the Ming dynasty when they were converted into guard and garrison. At present, these areas, which are as populous and prosperous as the inland areas, should be converted into a subprefecture and a county. Therefore, I propose that the Ningxia guard be converted into Ningxia prefecture; its subordinates, the Left guard (according to the convention of the Ming system, Ningxia Left guard was a unit parallel with Ningxia guard, both were subordinated to Shaanxi officials) be converted into Ningxia county, the Right guard be converted into Ningshuo county, and the Central guard be converted into Zhongwei county, Pingluo garrison be converted into Pingluo county, Lingshou garrison be converted into Ling subprefecture…… Xining sub-prefecture be converted into Xining prefecture, its subordinate,

52  Transformation of Ming garrison system Xining guard, be converted into Xining county, Nianbo garrison be converted into Nianbo county. In Beichuan of Xining a guard should be established and be named Datong guard, as a subordinate to Xining prefecture. I also propose that Liangzhou subprefecture be converted into Liangzhou prefecture, its subordinate, Liangzhou guard, be converted into Wuwei county, Zhenfan guard be converted into Zhenfan county, Yongchang guard be converted into Yongchang county, Gulang garrison be converted into Gulang county, Zhuanglang garrison be converted into Pingfan county with subprefect, manager, and tea affairs remaining in office, subordinated to Liangzhou prefecture. I propose that Ganzhou Ting be converted into Ganzhou prefecture, in which the left guard and the right guard be merged and converted into Zhangye county, Shandan guard be converted into Shandan county, Gaotai garrison be converted into Gaotai county, incorporating Yi garrison of Suzhi subprefecture, all under the jurisdiction of Gansu prefecture. The three positions such as second captain, lieutenant, and inspector in all the above-mentioned guard and garrison should all be removed. This proposal was approved by the central government in the 10th month of the same year.47 In the 6th month of Yongzheng 3, Peng Zhenyi, Grand Coordinator of Gansu, requested that the two guards, Pingliang and Guyuan, in Shaanxi be transferred to the jurisdiction of Pingliang prefecture; Qingyang guard be transferred to the jurisdiction of Qingyang prefecture; the three guards of Lintao, Hezhou and Lanzhou, as well as one of the Deyi garrisons be subordinated to Lintao prefecture; and the three guards of Taozhou, Minzhou and Jingni, as well as one of Xigu garrisons, be subordinated to Gongchang prefecture.48 In the 3rd month of Yongzheng 4, Zhi Wenzhuo, Grand Coordinator of Gansu, addressed the issue in a memorial to the emperor about convicts still being exiled to Gansu for penal servitude as before. He stated, now that all guards have been converted into a subprefecture and a county except for three (Chijin, Jingni and Datong), if too many convicts are exiled there, I am afraid that there will be negligence and permissiveness in management. I propose to order the subprefecture and county to be in charge of the exiled convicts, just like the guard already converted or incorporated at east of the Yellow River….Approved.49 Apparently, the majority of guards and garrisons in Gansu (subordinated to the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission of Shaanxi in the Ming dynasty) had been converted into subprefectures and counties by the beginning of the Yongzheng reign.

Transformation of Ming garrison system  53 The situation of Guizhou province is as follows: in the Ming dynasty, Guizhou governed ten prefectures, twenty guards, nine subprefectures and fourteen counties. The Qing dynasty followed the system. Eight guards at the provincial level were incorporated into a county, sixteen guards were converted into a county, and one independent battalion was removed and upgraded to a prefecture.50 What should be explained here is that “incorporating eight guards into a county” means that guards were dissolved and the jurisdictions of guard were incorporated into the county in the vicinity. “Converting sixteen guards into county” means that sixteen guards were converted into a county. Therefore, there were totally twenty-four guards in Guizhou. However, what is mentioned above is that Guizhou province “governed twenty guards” in “the Ming dynasty.” Why do four more guards appear in the above statistics? This is because four guards which had been subordinated to the offices of Huguang were transferred to the jurisdiction of Guizhou province in the Ming dynasty. In the 4th month of Yongzheng 4, the Qing government decided to transfer the two guards of Pingxi and Qinglang in Hunan to the jurisdiction of Guizhou province.51 Besides, for the purpose of mutual containment, Wukai guard and Tonggu guard, which were established in Guizhou, were subordinated to the Regional Military Commission of Huguang in the Ming dynasty. This created a strange situation in which the administrative system in Liping prefecture “was subordinated to two provinces with its powers and responsibilities not clarified.” In the 4th month of Yongzheng 3, the Qing government approved the proposal advanced by the governor of Yungui, Gao Qizhuo, that Wukai guard and Tonggu guard be merged into one county subordinated to Liping prefecture.52 In the 3rd month of Yongzheng 5, the newly appointed governor of Yungui, Eertai, after conducting “careful investigations,” concluded that it was unreasonable to merge the two guards. On the contrary, “Wukai and Tonggu must be subordinated to two different counties, which will be beneficial to the region.”53 In the intercalary third month of the same year, the central government approved E’ertai’s proposal, deciding officially that Wukai guard was converted into Kaitai County, Tonggu guard was converted into Jinping County, Pingxi guard was converted into Yuping County and Qinglang guard was converted into Qingxi County.54 Therefore, during the early Yongzheng (1723–1735) reign, Guizhou province, where the guard and garrison had had jurisdictions over majorities of the regions, was eventually incorporated into the administrative system, whereas guards and garrisons as the units of geographical administration faded into history. Weisuo of the Ming dynasty continued for over eighty years into the Qing dynasty. The reform of incorporating guards and garrisons into the administrative system by and large was completed by the beginning of the Yongzheng reign. From the many documents about this reform, we can further

54  Transformation of Ming garrison system conclude that the guards and garrisons that were promoted at the beginning of the Ming dynasty as a system were in most cases unique military units. They not only carried out military missions like all domestic and foreign military organizations in history, but also had a distinctive feature, namely, governing an area not subordinated to the civil administrative system. For this reason, they were also geographical units in the territory of the central government. They also requisitioned more from the military households of guards and garrisons than from the civilian households of the subprefecture and county. (The civilian households here included the military households who were registered in their native places.) The guards and garrisons survived for a long time in the Qing dynasty. If guards and garrisons had been merely military organizations, would it have been possible for the Qing dynasty to allow many troops of the Ming dynasty to exist after the founding of the Qing dynasty? Many historians have paid special attention to “the bureaucratization of native officers” implemented during the Yongzheng reign and have published many scholarly articles on this topic. However, the reform of incorporating or converting guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties, which affected the administrative system in most areas of the country, has been neglected, mainly due to inadequate research on the garrison system in the Ming dynasty. Therefore, the source materials about guards and garrisons which frequently appear in historical documents have often been neglected. When guards and garrisons as geographical units were gradually converted or incorporated into subprefectures and counties from the late Ming to the mid-Qing dynasty, the jurisdictions under the government agencies in the administrative system such as Provincial Administration Commissions, subprefectures and counties as well as the statistics on the amount of cultivated land, population, taxes and corvée increased correspondingly. This development is affirmed by historical facts. After guard and garrison were converted or incorporated into subprefectures and counties in Gansu, regarding the areas under the jurisdictions of different prefectures, subprefectures and counties, the areas of Lintao, Gongchang, Pingliang, and Qingyang can be checked in the old documents, but the guards and garrisons on the west side of the Yellow River, where statistics are too few and unspecific, have been converted to subprefectures and counties only recently. As for the guards and garrisons located on the east side of the Yellow River, the statistics of their jurisdictions come from the registers newly created by subprefectures and counties, which are quite different from the previous registers. Besides, although the previous statistics about land taxes exist, the guard and garrison on the west side of the Yellow River have been recently converted

Transformation of Ming garrison system  55 into subprefectures and counties, and those located on the east side of the Yellow River have been dissolved or merged, the statistics of the cultivated land and land taxes which have been allotted to subprefectures and counties should use the statistics of Yongzheng 10 as the criterion.55 For example, after Qingyang guard was dissolved, the jurisdiction of the guard was “divided and incorporated into different subprefectures and counties,” among which 877.48 qing of tuntian and seventy-two land workers were incorporated into Ningzhou; 4,054.63 qing of tuntian under the jurisdiction of the Qingyang guard and Liuyi garrison and more than 1,284 qing of tuntian and 293 land workers under the jurisdiction of Huan County battalions were incorporated into Huan County; 3291.58 qing of tuntian and 651 land workers under the jurisdiction of Qingyang guard were incorporated into Anhua County, which simultaneously incorporated 59.24 qing of tuntian and twenty-five land workers under the jurisdiction of Pingliang guard.56 It has been mentioned that some guards and garrisons were converted into counties in Kangxi 10, and in the process of conversion, the jurisdictions and the population were correspondingly transferred into the administrative system. Pan Chaoxian, Guizhou provincial administration commissioner at the time, stated in On the Conversion to County Governance that the office of Pingyue guard used to be in the same town as the office of Pingyue, and the office of Puding guard used to be in the same town as the office of Anshun prefecture. Civil officials and military officers were not subordinated to the same administrative system, and soldiers and civilians were prejudiced against each other. The Pingyu guard should be dissolved and converted into Pingyue county. Puding guard should be dissolved and converted into Puding county with their tuntian and land workers being converted to the jurisdiction and the population of the county. The county is subordinated to the prefecture; thus, the hierarchy of the administrative system will be established, and the military and the administrative systems will be integrated as one, which may last long and eliminate the disadvantages. In a different example, the Qingping guard was previously Qingping county. Because the system of county was abolished and the system of guard was retained, the local administration gradually became lax with the intensifying conflicts between soldiers and civilians. I propose that the system of guards be abolished and Qingping county be reestablished with the tuntian and the land workers transferred to the jurisdiction of the county. The Longli guard, which is in the vicinity of the provincial capital, was governed by a sub-prefect appointed by Guiyang prefecture. Later the position of the subprefectual official was ordered to be removed and transferred back to the prefecture, and this has caused difficulties to manage the daily expenditure on tuntian. I propose that the guard be dissolved and converted to Longli county, transferring the guard land and land workers

56  Transformation of Ming garrison system as well as their previous responsibility for the land taxes and corvées to the administration of the county. The office of Anzhuang guard is in the same town as the office of Zhenning subprefecture, without much land taxes and many land workers. I propose that the guard be dissolved and incorporated into the subprefecture, thus providing convenience for soldiers and civilians. The office of Duyun guard is in the same town as the office of Duyun prefecture; therefore, the guard should be dissolved and converted to Duyun county with the tuntian becoming part of the county’s land and land workers part of the county’s population. This will facilitate the levying of taxes and the pacifying of the people. The office of Huangping garrison is in the same town as the office of Huangping subprefecture, and the office of Xincheng garrison is in the same town as the office of Pu’an county. The land taxes and the number of land workers of the two garrisons are limited. I propose that the two garrisons be dissolved and incorporated into the subprefecture and county.57 In Kangxi 50, Changyi County in Shandong province had a population of 37,112, levied taxes of 8,313 liang of silver and had cropland of 10,474.77 mu. After incorporating the dissolved Laizhou guard, the county took over 224 qing of cultivated land and 144 land workers from the thirteen villages (tun) which were levied in Yongzheng 4 after the poll tax was apportioned in the area of cultivated land.58 Because the jurisdictions of most guards and garrisons interlocked with the jurisdictions of subprefectures and counties in the Ming dynasty, and some of them even existed as an “enclave” in the jurisdictions of subprefecture and county while guard and garrison were dissolved, converted or incorporated into subprefecture and county, the jurisdictions tended to be adjusted. For example, the jurisdictions of the three guards, including Tianjin, Tianjin Left and Tianjin Right, amounted to over 9,202.43 qing. Due to enclosure at the beginning of the Qing dynasty, the jurisdictions of the three guards were reduced to a little over 2,000 qing. In Shunzhi 9, the three guards were merged into Tianjin guard, which was converted into Tianjin subprefecture in Yongzheng 3, “incorporating the guard’s original 143 villages (tun)into the five subprefectures and counties including Wuqing, Jinghai, Qingxian, Cangzhou and Nanpi in the vicinity” and “transferring 267 villages previously subordinated to Wuqing, Jinghai and Cangzhou to Tianjin subprefecture.” Thus, although Tianjin subprefecture evolved from Tianjin guard of the Ming dynasty, we cannot conclude that the jurisdictions of the two were the same.59 At this point, we can gain new insight into the reason for the rising statistics of the amount of cultivated land in the early Qing. In the Ming dynasty, the statistics of the cultivated land remained at approximately 8,000,000 qing, which were recorded in most historical documents as referring only to an aggregate of the cultivated land from the administrative system under the Ministry of Revenue, while the amount of the cultivated land under the jurisdiction of the military system was unknown and ignored. In the Qing

Transformation of Ming garrison system  57 dynasty, the military function of guard and garrison left over from the Ming dynasty gradually atrophied and eventually disappeared. In the jurisdictions of guards and garrisons, though the means of levying taxes and the tax rates were different from those of subprefectures and counties, the figures which were calculated and summarized by the Ministry of Revenue included the statistics from both the administrative and the military systems in the Ming dynasty. According to the Qing, in Shunzhi 18, the whole country had “5,265,028.29 qing of arable land which included farmland(tian), other land (di), hilly land (shan), wetland (dang), and rectangular land (qi), over 25,724,120 liang of silver from levied taxes, and over 6,107,558 dan of requisitioned rice, soybean and wheat…”60 In the 5th year of the Kangxi reign, the arable land of the various categories increased to 5,395,262.36 qing, the levied taxes reached over 25,830,840 liang of silver and requisitioned crops of various types climbed to over 6,161,327 dan.61 Apparently, the statistics of over 5,000,000 arable land refers to the land that was actually cultivated and taxed. The figure was smaller than the figure derived from the land measurement at the beginning of the Wanli reign while Zhang Juzheng was in office, but higher than the figures of the cultivated land in different reigns recorded in the Veritable Records of the Ming (except for the figures in Xiaozong Shilu and the figures after the Wanli reign). What is noteworthy is that in the intercalary 4th month of the Kangxi 6, the Censor of Huguang Dao, Xiao Zhen, stated in his memorial to the emperor that “it is discovered that the abandoned farmland amounts to more than 4,000,000 qing in all the provinces.”62 If this figure is taken into consideration, the arable land (formerly cultivated and recently deserted) of the whole country in Kangxi 6 will be around 10,000,000 qing, which is about 3,000,000 qing over the figure measured by Zhang Juzheng. Xiao Zhen used the word “deserted farmland” in his memorial, to describe the more than 4,000,000 qing of arable but uncultivated land that had become barren due to natural and man-made disasters since the end of the Ming dynasty. In fact, the amount of the land that was deserted due to wars was rather large at the beginning of the Kangxi reign. Even in Sichuan province, also known as “the land of abundance,” the size of the cultivated land (as opposed to unworked land) was rather small. What is worse, in Kangxi 6, when the decree requiring migration from the coast into the interior was implemented, the arable land within thirty li of the seacoast was deserted in the provinces in Southeast China. According to the decree, the deserted land was to be exempted from taxes. As for the 4,000,000 qing, Xiao Zhen argued that, “if the land is awarded to the capitulated soldiers for re-cultivation, military supplies and population will gradually increase…” So it appears that the farmland deserted due to coastal migration should be excluded from paying taxes. Thus, it can be estimated that the area of the cultivated and deserted land might have amounted to over 10,000,000 qing in the whole country at the beginning of the Kangxi reign. We know that the farmland never amounted to 10,000,000 qing in the Shunzhi reign and at the beginning of the Kangxi reign, so this figure must

58  Transformation of Ming garrison system have been handed down from the Ming dynasty. At the end of the Hongwu reign in the Ming dynasty, the farmland amounted to more than 8,500,000 qing in the whole country. So, it is reasonable to believe that the farmland increased to more than 10,000,000 qing after 200 years of cultivation. According to the Veritable Record of Ming Shenzong, fascicle 379, “in Wanli 30, the state and private farmland amounted to over 11,618,948.81 qing.” This was the highest amount of farmland ever recorded in the Ming dynasty. If 7,013,976 qing, the number from Zhang Juzheng’s measurement (for Wanli 9), is subtracted from this figure, the remainder is 4,604,972 qing. Roughly speaking, the figure of more than 4,600,000 qing is the figure of the farmland under the jurisdiction of the Regional Military Commission, guard and garrison. Because the two systems of managing farmland in the Ming dynasty obscured the statistics of the farmland under the jurisdiction of the military system, the farmland amount of the Ming dynasty seen by people of later generations is often from incomplete statistics. In the Qing dynasty, because the farmland under the jurisdictions of guard and garrisons was incorporated into the administrative system, the figure of the cultivated land at the beginning of the Qing dynasty was, in reality, much smaller than that in the Ming, which had experienced a long period of peace, but the statistics in the registers showed the opposite. Therefore, the research on the system of guard and garrison can also help clarify the mysteries surrounding the country’s farmland amounts in the Ming and Qing dynasties. This essay originally ran in Journal of Beijing Normal University. Vol. 2, 1988: 15–22. Translated by Li Bingjun and Ning Ping Polished by Roger V Des Forges, Tan Jiang and Li Daqi

Notes 1 For example, in Kangxi 10, the grand coordinator of Guangdong, Liu Bingquan, submitted a memorial to the emperor, stating that more than 3,500 qing of tuntian in the east of Guangdong is deserted. It is discovered that three dou of grain is requisitioned per mu in tuntian, which is perhaps several times as much as what is requisitioned from private farmland. Intimidated by the heavy land taxes, the peasants dare not admit that the farmland has been cultivated. (Qing Shengzu Shilu vol. 35) the taxes levied from the farmland of the garrisons were higher than those levied from private farmland, because the former fell into the category of state farmland. 2 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 19. 3 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 28. 4 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 33. 5 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 41. 6 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 43. 7 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 44.

Transformation of Ming garrison system  59 8 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 77. 9 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 5. 10 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 29. 11 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 36. 12 Qing Shizu Shilu, vol. 65. 13 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 27. 14 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 30. 15 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 11. 16 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 116. 17 Wei Yijie, “Zoushu (memorials),” in Jianjitang Wenji, vol. 2. This memorial is also available in Gazetteer of Tangshan, vol. 11, but the diction is somewhat different. 18 “Jianzhi Yange”, in Gazetteer of Gansu, vol. 3, of Qianlong 1 (1736). 19 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 11. 20 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 37. 21 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 130. See Qiannan Shilue, vol. 2; “Dashi Jizhong,” in Gazetteer of Guiyang Prefecture, vol. 2, in the Daoguang period. 22 “Tuntian”, in Gazetteer of Pengze County, vol. 5, of Kangxi period. 23 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 141. 24 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 143. 25 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 30. 26 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 19. 27 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 21. 28 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 52. 29 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 50. Chen Shiguan’s whole memorial is available in Gazetteer of Weihai Guard. 30 “Shihuo (Food and Money),” in Gazetteer of Weihai Guard, vol. 4, published in Qianlong 7. 31 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 31. 32 See also “Shiji”, in Gazetteer of Zhaoqing Prefecture, vol. 22, published in Daoguang 10; see also “Shilue”， in Gazetteer of Wuchuan County, vol. 10, published in Guangxu 23, and some other gazetteers of the prefecture, subprefecture, and county of Guangdong. 33 “Biannian”, in Gazetteer of Xinhui County, vol. 2, published in Qianlong 6, The author’s note: two more guards are recorded than in Qing Shizong Shilu. 34 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 30 and 103. 35 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 80. 36 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 89. 37 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 123. 38 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 88. 39 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 81. 40 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 32. 41 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 23. 42 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 42. 43 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 54. 44 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 118. 45 Ming Xiaozong Shilu, vol. 107. 46 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 100. 47 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 25, 33. 48 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 34. 49 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 42. 50 “Zongxu”, in Qian Nan Zhilue, vol. 1, of Qianlong 14 version. 51 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 43. Also see the same book, vol. 53, the two guards were decided to be subordinated to Sizhou prefecture in the 2nd month of the 5th year.

60  Transformation of Ming garrison system 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 31. Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 54. Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 55. “Fanli”, in General Gazetteer of Gansu, vol. 1, of Qianlong 1 version. “Bingfang”, in Gazetteer of Qingyang Prefecture, vol. 16, of Qianlong 27 version; “Tianfu (land taxes),” vol. “Lizheng•Guanzhi (official management • bureaucratic establishment),” in Huangchao Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 18. “Hukou•Tianfu (households • land taxes),” in Gazetteer of Changyi County, vol. 3, of Qianlong 7 version. See“Fuyi (The corvée),” in Gazetteer of Tianijn Guard, vol. 2, of Kangxi version; “Diyu (Territory),”, in Gazetteer of Tianjin County, vol. 3, of Qianlong version. Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 6. Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 20. Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 22.

3 Territorial administration in the Ming dynasty

I have argued in my essay “A New Analysis of the Amount of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming”1 that “the territory of the entire country was administered by the administrative system and the military system.” This point of view is directly related to several issues: the territory of the Ming, its administration, the land (including cultivated land), the population, the ratio of state land to private land, the household registration system and the explanation of the cultivated land in the early Qing dynasty. A comprehensive exposition to these issues would take a full-length book, and in this essay, I can only give an overview with a few selected examples.

The territory of the Ming dynasty and its administration So far, the most accurate account is by Mr. Tan Qixiang, who oversaw the compilation of The Historical Atlas of China that depicts the territory of the Ming in volume 7. However, because the Ming system of territorial administration constantly changed, and the lands under the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties in the administrative system were usually interwoven with the lands under guards and garrisons in the military system, it is almost impossible to draw precise maps of the Ming territory. The best way to appreciate the high quality of Tan’s work is to compare it with a quotation from Mr. Bai Yang in Taiwan who wrote: “by the time of the Ming dynasty, the territory of China was the same size as that of the Qin Dynasty in the second century BCE (Before Common Era), and it was only half of China’s present territory.”2 The territory of the Ming depicted by Tan’s group is a bit larger than the present territory of China, while Bai Yang claimed “it was only half” that size. This huge gap results from Bai Yang’s idea that only thirteen provincial administrations and the two Zhili constituted China in the Ming period. (North Zhili roughly consisted of Beijing, Tianjin3 and Hebei province; South Zhili roughly included Jiangsu and Anhui provinces as well as Shanghai city.) By his calculation, the Ming territory was limited to only the sixteen provinces (and autonomous regions) and three municipalities of the present day, while the entire Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Xizang(Tibet) and other regions were excluded from the territory of the Ming dynasty. I do not agree with this viewpoint.

62  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty The compilers of the official version of the Ming History should bear primary responsibility for the confusion that had the Ming territory belonging simultaneously to the administrative and to the military systems. At that time the scholars who worked in the Ming History Institute were a group of literati, and under their brushes appeared this confused statement: “the Ming settled the known world through military merit, reformed the old Yuan system, and established guards and garrisons at all levels from the capital to the prefectures and counties.”4 As the known world was settled, the strategic regions were to be selected and measured, and a garrison was to be set up in a prefecture, a guard was to be set up in the connected prefecture. A guard led roughly 5600 people, a battalion 1120 people, and a company, 112 people. In a guard there were two Platoon Commanders,5 and ten Squad Commanders and these joined together to form an army…. The armies were all hereditary. That was the general situation. “At that time, the Regional Military Commissioner, Provincial Administration Commissioner and Provincial Surveillance Commissioner were jointly called the three administrative offices, and were considered to be the high officers on the frontier.”6 These descriptions may cause people to understand it according to a modern model: that is, the Ming’s territorial units were prefectures and counties in the administrative system, while the Regional Military Commission, guards and garrisons within the military system were just like military camps garrisoned within the territorial units of subprefectures and counties and therefore limited to those administrative territories. In fact, any serious study of Ming sources reveals that the whole territory of the Ming was subordinate, respectively, to the administrative system of the Six Ministries: Provincial Administration Commission (Zhili prefectures and subprefectures), prefectures (Zhili subprefectures), counties (those belonging to prefectures);and to the military system, that is, the Five Chief Military Commissioners and the Regional Military Commissions (The Auxiliary Regional Military Commissions, the guards of Zhili Military Commission), guards (independent battalions in Metropolitan Region),and battalions. The Censorate, meanwhile, with its dispatched Regional Investigating Censor—Provincial Surveillance Commission—took responsibility for supervising the administrative and military systems. In other words, according to the institutional provisions of the Hongwu reign, the three systems of the administrative, the military and the supervising should all be under the direct control of the emperor. Each of the administrative and military systems dealt with its own affairs; the two systems were connected but did not interfere with each other. The supervising system acted on behalf of the emperor to supervise the affairs of the empire in accordance to the law.

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  63 The basic organizations in the administrative system—subprefectures and counties (subdivided into a number of administrative communities, each containing about 110 households)—were forms of territorial units. The problem is, in the Ming’s military system, the Regional Military Commissions (the Auxiliary Regional Military Commissions), garrisons and guards were also, in most cases, territorial units which were in control of large territories of the Ming dynasty that were not under the administrative system. Somehow, this important feature of the Ming’s system has always been ignored by historians of the Ming. For clarification, we can classify the Ming garrisons into four types: (1) the border garrisons, (2) the coastal garrisons, (3) the inland garrisons (neidi weisuo) and (4) the inner garrisons (zainei weisuo). The terms “inner garrisons” and “outer garrisons” are frequently seen in Ming documents. The former refers to garrisons within capitals including the Southern Capital and the Northern Capital; the latter to the first three types of garrisons. Let me elaborate, respectively, in the following text. The border garrisons They refer to the border area ranging from the northeast to the northwest and extending to the southwest. These areas, which made up about half of Ming territory, generally did not have administrative offices in the Ming (especially in the early Ming), and they were administered by The Regional Military Commissions (and Auxiliary Regional Military Commissions) and their subordinate garrisons. For example, the northeast area in the Ming belonged to the Nuergan Regional Military Commission and the Liaodong Regional Military Commission. The area under the Nuergan Regional Military Commission’s jurisdiction included the whole Heilong Jiang river basin, Kuye (Sakhalin) Island, today’s Jilin province and some other places. The Liaodong Regional Military Commission administered most areas of the present Liaoning province. In Yongle 7 (1409), Zizai subprefecture was set up where the Liaodong Regional Military Commission was located (the present Liaoyang city), and Anle subprefecture was set up in the location of the Sanwan Guard and Liaohai Guard (Kaiyuan town). The two subprefectures were quite different from those in the inland, for there were “no neighborhood subcommunities (wulijia) there, only newly attached ethnic minorities.”7 To the west of the Liaodong Regional Military Commission was Daning Regional Military Commission, which was located in today’s Ningcheng County, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia. In the 9th month of Hongwu 20 (1387), “Daning Regional Military Commission and Daning central guard, left guard and right guard were set up, and under their administration were all of Huizhou Guard, Muyu Guard, Xincheng Guard and others.”8 In Hongwu 26 (1393), Zhu Quan, who was the vassal king of Daning, assumed office. Besides its subordinate garrisons composed of Han military men and their family members, the Daning Regional

64  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty Military  Commission also administered the three guards of Wuliangha that included Taining, Duoyan and Fuyu. In the course of the Jingnan War, Zhudi, who was the Prince of Yan, sought help from the guards of the Prince of Ning and from the military forces of Daning Regional Military Commission. He later had Daning Regional Military Commission move into the area of Baoding. The vassal king of Ning, who originally stayed in Daning, was relocated to Nanchang. The territory formerly controlled by Daning Regional Military Commission was under the administration of three guards of Wuliangha. These changes happened just within the systems of the Ming dynasty. However, under the brushes of the Ming’s Han officials and gentries, they were referred to as “abandonment of Daning.” Apparently this was erroneous. During the reign of Emperor Yingzong (1436–1449), the Jurchen people’s Wuzhe Guard, Feihe Guard and Ouhanhe Guard as well as Yeren Nüzhi (the later Jurchens) branch guard attacked and fought against the three guards in Wuliangha of the Mongols. To settle this, the imperial court issued two edicts, respectively, in the 10th and the 11th months of Zhengtong 10 (1445), to order both parties to constrain their subordinates. In the edict to An Chu, the vice prefect of a regional military commissioner in Fuyu Guard, it said, “both of you, Wuliangha and Nüzhi, are branch guards set up by the court. Your retaliation against each other violates the law…”9 This clearly shows that after the Yongle reign, the original territory of the Daning Regional Military Commission was still a branch garrison of the Ming dynasty. To the west of the Daning Regional Military Commission was Wanquan Regional Military Commission, which mostly had jurisdiction over the area that is now Zhangjiakou of Hebei province. Presumably, few scholars have been aware that even some parts of the area within Juyong Pass in the Ming did not belong to Shuntian prefecture of North Zhili, but to the Longqing Guard of the Wanquan Regional Military Commission. It was later called the Yanqing Guard because of the reign title of Emperor Muzong. This piece of land to the south of the Pass did not merge into Changping until Qianlong 24 (1759) of the Qing dynasty.10 In the Ming, the northern part of today’s Shanxi province and some areas of today’s neighboring Inner Mongolia were primarily under the jurisdiction of the Shanxi A ­ uxiliary Regional Military Commission, which was set up in Datong. Although ­Datong prefecture under the jurisdiction of Shanxi Provincial Administration Commission was already set up in Datong, both of them had their administrative offices (i.e., yamen) in the same town. There was a very clear boundary line drawn between their lands. For example, Yulin Guard, which was subordinate to the Shanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission in the early Ming, was set up in what is today Inner Mongolia and Linger, and Yunchuan Guard was set up in the southwest of the present Huhehuote City. During the Yingzong reign (1436–1449), both of them moved to Shahukou, with the Yulin Guard being adjacent to Datong Right Guard, while the Yunchuan Guard was close to the Datong Left Guard.11 This was how the

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  65 present Youyu County and Zuoyun County of Shanxi province came about. Tianzhen County to the east of Datong originated from the combination of Tiancheng Guard and Zhenlu Guard in the Ming, while Yanggao County originated from the combination of the Yanghe Guard and Gaoshan Guard in the Ming.12 Pinglu County to the west of Taiyuan was originally Pinglu Guard in the Ming, while Ningwu prefecture was located in the present Ningwu County that was established in the Qing on the basis of Ningwu battalion in the Ming. The situations of the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission were more complicated. It was located in Xi’an, where the Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission was located. Some of the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission’s subordinate garrisons were interwoven with prefecture, subprefecture and county (and therefore should be listed as inland garrisons), but most of them were border garrisons. For example, Ningxia in the Yuan dynasty once belonged to Gansu province, and at the end of the Yuan, it was separately set up as Ningxia province. During the early Ming, Ningxia prefecture was temporarily formed, and it was under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission. In Hongwu 5 (1372), when the prefecture and county were revoked， Ningxia was changed into a Guard. Later, because of its vast territory and extremely heavy defense burdens, Ningxia Front Guard, Ningxia Left Tun Guard, Right Tun Guard and Central Tun Guard were set up, making it a cluster of five guards, all of which were subordinate to the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission.13 Briefly speaking, the present Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was not part of the civil administrative system during the Ming dynasty, but was part of the military system under the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission. In the early Ming, among the institutions equivalent to provincial government, the Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission administered the most extensive territory. In Hongwu 7 (1374), it was decided by the Ming imperial court to set up Xi’an (the city of Xi’an) Auxiliary Regional Military Commission in Hezhou Guard, and to appoint Ning Zheng, the original commander in Hezhou Guard, to the position of Regional Military Commissioner. In the following year, its name was changed to Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission whose jurisdiction included most areas of the current Gansu province (together with another smaller area belonging to the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission), Xinjiang (including some part of the territory encroached upon by Russia in the Qing dynasty), Qinghai, Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region as well as a few places in west Sichuan. According to the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, when Ning Zheng was commander of Hezhou Guard, he had attracted and pacified Bu yan Tiemuer,14 the Anding Wang (the king of the region of Sali Uygur) and others, and had Guanding (abhiseca) guoshi of Duogan region in Tufan, and some tribes of Wusizang region pay tribute to the imperial court.

66  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty After Ning Zheng was promoted to the Auxiliary Regional Military Commissioner, the imperial court authorized him to administer and mobilize Duogan Guard and Wusizangdu Guard. He again summoned Duo erzhishijie, the right Prime Minister of the Yuan Dynasty，and others to surrender. Then he requested to set up a Xining Guard and a few others.15 Later, the Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission was relocated to Ganzhou, ruling the Regional Military Commission of Wusicang Guard. The Auxiliary Regional Military Commission of Duogan Guard gradually fell into the hands of the imperial court. The local affairs in Xinjiang and some other places were reported to the imperial court via the Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission. In the Ming, the administration of the vast territory to the west of Jiayu Pass was distinctly characterized by the flavor of ethnic self-rule. Thus, Han soldiers were generally not dispatched or appointed there. (In Shazhou, now Dunhuang, and Han, soldiers were once sent there but only to set up the Shazhou Guard.) Based on their status levels, the imperial court usually conferred hereditary official titles in the military system on the native minority people’s chieftains. Here, what should be particularly pointed out is the significant difference between the minority-inhabited areas within Ming territory and the neighboring countries that paid tribute to the Ming empire. The two were similar with regard to paying tribute, but the officials of the minority-inhabited areas within Ming territory were generally ­appointed to military posts by the imperial court and were included in the official ranks, while the kings in neighboring countries, although some required approval and seals from the Ming emperors, were able to ­appoint their own officials at all ranks according to their own traditions. In Xiyu, for example, in the 7th month of Hongxi 1 (1425) (when Xuanzong had already ascended the throne), Mianli Tiemuer, the Zhongshun Wang (the king of the region) of Hami, sent Tuotuobuhua, the Regional Military Commissioner, to the imperial court to present horses as tribute. In the same month, Yinjiercha, the assistant to the Central Military Executive of the town of Turfan, came to the court to present horses as tribute.16 In another example, in the 3rd month of Jingtai 7 (1456), an envoy from Samaerhan region, Maheimasheliban, came to present horses, camels and special local products as tribute to the court, and his post title was commander and his followers were “military judges, housemen” and others. In the 5th month of the same year, Maheimasheliban, the commander, and others went outside of Beijing’s Fucheng gate to enshrine and sweep the ancestral graves.17 These kind of data have been frequently found in historical documents since the Hongwu reign, and they have served as evidence that today’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and part of the regions to the west were territory of the Ming dynasty.

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  67 During the Ming period, some areas in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces established some organs of their administrative system. The Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission was set up in Hongwu 15 (1382); the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission was established only in Yongle 11 (1413). Both provinces had notable features of the border guard. The particularities of the guard-garrison, as a territorial unit, were evident in Yunnan. It not only administered the guard’s land and population under normal conditions, but also directly administered some subprefectures and counties. Taking Lancang Guard as an example, in Hongwu 29 (1396), it started to build a town in the southern part of Beisheng subprefecture as the location for the civil-military command departments, which commanded the three subprefectures of Beisheng, Yongning and Langqu. In Yongle 4 (1406), Yongning subprefecture was upgraded to a prefecture. In Zhengtong 6 (1441), Beisheng subprefecture was changed to be subordinate to the Provincial Administration Commission, which ruled only one subprefecture, Langqu, at the time.18 As for Beisheng subprefecture, it was turned into a subprefecture in Hongwu 15 (1382), which was subordinate to Heqin Junmin Prefecture. In Hongwu 29, it was transferred to be subordinate to Lancang guard; and in Zhengtong 6 (1441), it was transferred to be directly subordinate to the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission. Its registered households had: fifteen li (each with 110 households); its farmland had: 352 qing, eighty-six mu, six fen of state and private land; its guard land: fifty companies tuntian scattered within Naqihaikou, Mengzhuangba, Pianjiao and other villages, all belonging to the army of Lancang Guard19 These documents demonstrate that since Hongwu 29 (1396), Beisheng subprefecture, Yongning subprefecture and Langqu subprefecture had been established by the administrative system, but they were subordinated to the civil-military command departments of Lancang Guard. In Yongle 4 (1406), Yongning subprefecture was upgraded to prefecture, which was changed to be subordinate to the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission. In Zhengtong 6 (1441), Beisheng subprefecture too was changed into an independent subprefecture, belonging to the Yunnan Provincial ­Administration Commission. After that, Lancang Guard was still in charge of Langqu subprefecture, which was not under the jurisdiction of the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission. The case of Jinchi Guard was similar. In the Yuan dynasty, the Pacification Commission and Tengchong prefecture were set up in Jinchi and some other places. In Hongwu 15 (1382), Jinchi prefecture, Tengchong prefecture and Jinchi Guard were set up. In Hongwu 23 (1390), those two prefectures were revoked, and Jinchi Guard

68  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty was transferred to the civil-military command department to administer the region. Tengchong prefecture was changed into Tengchong independent battalion, and it was upgraded to the civil-military command department of Tengchong Guard in Zhengtong 14 (1449), which, together with Jinchi Guard, was subordinate to the Yunnan Regional Military Commission. In Jiajing 3 (1524), a part of Tengchong Guard was cut out to form Tengyue subprefecture, which was transferred into the administrative system and was in charge of eight li households. Subordinate to the civil-military command departments of Jinchi Guard were “nine li households, one county (Yongping), one Pacification Commission (in Lujiang), and two Chief Offices (in Fengxi and Shidian).”20 What these two cases demonstrate is that after Yunnan was taken over by the Ming, there were not only a large number of garrisons consisting of Han military officers, soldiers and their families, to build the towns and to cultivate the land, which resulted in a territorial unit having a military nature, but also a small number of subprefectures and counties under the judicial authority of the guard’s civil-military command departments, rather than under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Administration Commission. Due to their different affiliations, the statistics of the land and population of subprefecture and county under guard’s jurisdiction, naturally, could not be included in the registration books of the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission and the Ministry of Revenue. The statistics of civilian households and cultivated state and private land cited above for Beisheng subprefecture had been like this before the 6th year of the Zhengtong reign (1441). The present Guizhou province during Hongwu reign (1368–1398) had most of its land and population administered by the Guizhou Regional Military Commission, except for a few areas with established prefecture and subprefecture that were under the jurisdiction of the neighboring ­Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission and the Huguang Provincial ­Administration Commission. In Yongle 11 (1413), although Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission was established, its subordinate prefectures and subprefectures were quite different from the inland ones because they were established for the purpose of controlling some of the local chiefs in Guizhou and had no subordinate counties.21 The residential area of Han people (mostly the families of the military officers, similar to that in Yunnan) and most of the local chiefs in Guizhou were still subordinate to the garrison under the Guizhou Regional Military Commission. This can be clearly seen from a branch of the supervisory system established in Yongle 21 (1423). In the four Dao (Circuits) of Guizhou (Dao: supervision area; here including Guining, Anping, Xinzhen and Sinan), 70% of the areas were supervised by garrisons, while only 30% were supervised by prefectures and subprefectures.22 After the mid-Ming, to strengthen the administration of Guizhou, the imperial court gradually used some of garrisons’ land to set up prefectures, subprefectures and counties, thereby converting the military system to the administrative system.

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  69 The coastal garrisons Normally, the coastal garrisons should have been included in the category of the border garrison, but the coastal garrisons in the Ming (except for those on Liaodong Peninsula) were mainly established in the more economically developed and highly populated southeastern coastal areas. ­A lthough the coastal garrisons were considered as a territorial unit, the land and population under their jurisdiction were generally less than those of their neighboring subprefectures and counties (Tianjin was an exception). Generally speaking, in the early Ming, the coastal garrisons were clearly distinguished from their neighboring subprefectures and counties, and there were very few garrisons/battalions that appeared in the same towns as prefectures, subprefectures and counties. After the mid-Ming, because of ­pirate intrusion and for other reasons, some of prefectural, subprefectural and county yamen (offices) were moved into the towns with guards (or regions administrated by garrisons). At the same time, the land and population of the garrisons showed a trend of demilitarization. However, by the fall of the Ming dynasty, many coastal garrisons were still used as territorial units and ­remained so in the Qing dynasty, some traces of which can be seen even today. For example, in Shandong, there were the Jinghai Guard, Aoshan Guard, Lingshan Guard, Andong Guard, Xunshan Garrisons, Ningjin Garrisons, Haiyang Garrisons and Shijiu Garrisons. In Shanghai, there were the Jinshan Guard and some others. All of these used to be the lands of the guards in the Ming.23 When it comes to Tianjin city and Weihai city in Shandong, the Chinese character “guard” still stays in the memory of the people, as the result of their long existence after being established in the Ming. Xiamen city in Fujian province used to be the central-left battalion during the Ming dynasty, which was subordinate to the Yongning Guard. Thus, the statement about Zheng Chenggong in the ­h istorical documents—“Guoxingye (Koxinga) was stationed in the Central-left battalion”—should be understood to mean that Zheng Chenggong had once been in Xiamen, rather than that he stayed in the barracks of a particular battalion. In the few existing records of coastal guards, Weihai Guard can be used as an example for the purpose of analysis: in the Ming, the Weihai Guard was subordinate to Shandong Regional Military Commission. Its geographical area extended “eastward, one li to the sea and ten li to Liu Gong Island; southward, ninety li to Wendeng county; westward, 120 li to Ninghai subprefecture; and northward, ten li to the sea.”24 Since the land within the guard territory was “barren and hilly with scarce vegetation,” it was barely enough for the regular and irregular military men to cultivate. So some “uncultivated land” was marked out from Ninghai subprefecture and Wendeng County for the construction of eighteen villages. As for their affiliations, ­neither the land nor the population within the guard, nor the eighteen tun (villages) within the natural territory of Ninghai and Wendeng, were subsumed into the administrative system (i.e. the Shandong Provincial Administration Commission).

70  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty Another example, in the Jiaqing reign Haizhou Zhili Zhouzhi (Gazetteer of the Independent Sub-prefect of Haizhou), fascicle 20, referred to “the land in Haizhou……starting from Ganyu in the north, and bordering the A ­ ndong Guard of Qingzhou prefecture in Shandong.” This proved that A ­ ndong Guard was a territorial unit, but was considered to be subordinate to Qingzhou prefecture, which reflected the characteristics of the Qing dynasty. However, according to the regulations of the Ming dynasty, there was no affiliated relationship between the Andong Guard and Qingzhou prefecture. As early as the early Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang attached so much importance to coastal defense that garrisons were established in most ­areas near coastal lines and offshore islands. A ­ lthough the territories of these coastal garrisons were small, they were unquestionably not territorial units in the administrative system. The inland garrisons The similarities between the land of inland garrisons and that of the coastal ones lay in that they were all in densely populated subprefectures and counties, and their lands were usually small and scattered. The differences between them were that the yamen of inland garrisons was usually built in the same towns as those of prefectures, subprefectures and counties. ­Naturally, this practice was not absolute or without exceptions. The jurisdictional area of the civil-military command departments of Shizhou Guard in ­Huguang was roughly equivalent to the present area of Enshi, Hubei province. Since it was so large, the civil-military command departments had to be listed separately when the Huguang map was being compiled in the late Ming.25 That the jurisdictional area of inland garrisons was independent of the administrative system can be verified by much evidence found in the ­records of the Veritable Records of the Ming and Qing. If there was a flood, drought and locust disaster somewhere, the imperial court would usually specify them in the decrees about grain tax exemptions for subprefectures and counties and about grain payment exemptions for garrisons. For example, in the 10th month of Zhengtong 3 (1438), Zhang Shan, the regional inspector of Jiangxi, reported that the province “had witnessed no rain and no harvest since the lunar 6th month, and the autumn grain harvested and grain paid did not match in prefectures of Jiangxi, Jiujiang and others, Pengze county and others, and Nanchang front guard.” In the 10th month of Zhengtong 5 (1440), Zhou Chen, the Zhili Grand Coordinator who was ordered to survey and inspect the flood in the Zhili prefectures of Su, Song, Chang and Zhen and in the Zhejiang prefectures of Jia, Hu and others, reported: “prefectures of Yingtian, Taiping, Ningguo, Chizhou, Anqing, Huizhou and others, subprefecture of Guangde and all the garrisons were suffering from the drought….” The reason these two examples from the period of Yingzong’s reign (1436–1449) are selected is that the official ranks of grand coordinator and regional inspector at that time were gradually

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  71 becoming the established system, and they were ranked above commander, financial commissioner and judicial commissioner. They not only had the authority to supervise the affairs in the two systems but also were very familiar with the jurisdictional areas of every prefecture, subprefecture, county and garrison due to their work-related duties. In Shunzhi 8 (1651) in the Qing dynasty, Wei Xiangshu, based on the situations in his hometown, placed guards and small counties in the same category,26 which roughly reflected the general size of the Ming inland garrison, that is, in most cases the land and population under the jurisdiction of a guard were equivalent to those of a small county. In Wei Yijie’s Zhuo Cai Weisuo Ding, Tian yi Gui Zhou Xian Shu (Consider to reduce personnel and land at weisuo into subprefectures and counties), he proposed that, “except for the garrisons transporting grain and providing defense, all others should be incorporated into the administration of the administrative agencies, adjacent subprefectures, and counties.”27 That indicates that many inland garrisons were still coexisting with “the adjacent subprefectures and counties” in the early Qing. The inner garrisons Inner garrisons were concentrated in the area of Nanjing during the Hongwu and Jianwen reigns. Due to the relocation of the capital to Beijing during the Yongle reign (1403–1424), parts of the army were dispatched to guard Beijing, but those staying in Nanjing were still numerous. In order to grasp military power and maintain political power, the number of inner garrisons and the density of troops in Beijing and Nanjing exceeded by far those outside those cities. Therefore, it was impossible to allocate comparably large tracts of land near Beijing and Nanjing to those garrisons. However, under the circumstances of more unworked land after the military conflagration in the early Ming, the imperial court, in order to make full use of the land and to promote self-reliance in the inner garrisons, allocated a small amount of garrison land in the area near the capital for cultivation. These lands were probably within the counties under the jurisdiction of Yingtian prefecture and Shuntian prefecture, but the statistics of tuntian and population, due to their different affiliations, were not included in the statistics from the two prefectures and their subordinate counties mentioned above. Inner garrisons, as territorial units, were vaguely defined because their tuntian were both small in size and extremely scattered, and their official military men and families were living among the other residents in subprefectures and counties. In spite of this, the tuntian and the population in the inner garrisons were, after all, not administered by the subprefectures and counties. During the Wanli reign (1572–1620), Shen Bang, the magistrate of Wanping county (one of the Fuguo counties28 affiliated with Shuntian prefecture, ­another one was Daxing), wrote that there were initially fifty villages in Wanping county, but later only twenty-five were left, because

72  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty in today’s Wanping, all the public security labor services belong to The Five City Wardens Offices.29 In its vicinity, there were thirty to forty li whose households were still registered and administered by depot and guard, and the county officials were not allowed to casually arrest them or bring them to trial….30 The same book recorded that thirty-two people of those “prominent personages” registered their households, but only one of them was registered in Wanping county, while those who temporarily registered their households in Wanping, from the Imperial Body Guard, Jinwu Front Guard, the Left Guard, Wugong Guard and some others were as many as twenty-four people. Shen Bang, as the county prefect, naturally knew that the people whose households were registered in the guards did not belong to the county according to the Ming system, and so he called them “temporary stays.”31 At the end of the Ming dynasty, there were two Grand Secretaries from the Imperial Body Guard: Fang Congzhe who “temporarily stayed” in Wanping county and Shi Kefa who “temporarily stayed” in Daxing county.32 This proved that in both of the counties there were Imperial Body Guards’ land and population (i.e. military households). This issue will be further addressed in the following section about the guard household registration. As mentioned above, more than half of the territories in the Ming were administrated by the military system; thus, the mapping of the country in the early Ming had to use two systems, the administrative and the military, to mark the territories so that the map could be presented to the emperor as a complete one. During the Hongwu reign, in addition to ordering all the Provincial Administration Commission and Zhili prefecture and subprefecture to draw maps of their own jurisdictional areas, Zhu Yuanzhang further ordered all Regional Military Commissions to draw maps of their own areas and to present them to him. For example, in the 7th month of Hongwu 15 (1382) an edict was issued that all Regional Military Commissions have the maps drawn of all their garrisons and towns and present them to the emperor, showing the distances of roads and paths, the features of mountains and rivers, the positions of defensive passes and observation  fortresses, the transportation routes of ships and carts, the locations of storehouses and mail posts, and products of the land. And once again, in the 12th month of Hongwu 25 (1392), another edict was issued to the Five Chief Military Commissions to order all Regional Military Commissions to report the numbers of army horses and amounts of stored grain, as well as to draw maps of the passes and fortresses, the conditions of mountains and rivers, and the distances of roads and paths.33

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  73 It was only during the Yingzong reign (1436–1449), when the official title, Grand Coordinator, had been bestowed in every region on those whose ranks were above the commander, supervising officer and commissioner, that a complete, corresponding territorial map was drawn, which showed the lands from the administrative and military systems within the Grand Coordinators’ jurisdictional areas. Ye Sheng, who successively held senior official posts in Xuanfu and Liang Guang, wrote two entries, “the map of Liang Guang” and “the map of Shanxi territory,” in The Diary of East Water, which listed the numbers of prefectures, subprefectures, counties and garrisons shown on the maps. It is not clear if the two maps that Ye Sheng described showed the boundaries of the garrisons’ jurisdictions, but in the Ming’s local gazetteers, the territorial boundaries of most garrisons were not marked for the reasons of confidentiality. Hu Ruli, author of The New Ningxia Gazetteer in the gengzi year of the Jiajing reign (1796–1820), said, in the whole country, there were a little over 150 prefectures, a little over 220 subprefectures, and a little over 1,200 counties. The numbers of garrisons were no less than that of counties, and among them no less than a hundred garrisons had their own local gazetteers compiled.34 Hu Ruli was from Ningxia, where all lands were controlled by guards. He definitely knew that garrisons were territorial units, the same as subprefectures and counties. If this was the case, it was hoped that garrisons would also have their local gazetteers compiled for their jurisdictions, just like subprefectures and counties. However, due to the military confidentiality involving garrisons and their slower cultural development than subprefectures and counties, even though there were no less than a hundred different kinds of local gazetteers compiled for guards and battalions (battalions here r­efers to independent battalions belonging directly to the Regional Military Commission), as their numbers were no less than those of counties, the proportion of these guards having gazetteers was relatively very small compared with proportions of subprefectures and counties having gazetteers. Even fewer were those handed down to the present day.

The convertibility of territorial units Since subprefectures, counties and most garrisons were territorial units, according to the institutional provisions in the early Ming, they could be converted from the administrative system to the military system (i.e. from prefectures, subprefectures and counties to garrisons), or vice versa, from the military system to the administrative system (i.e. from garrisons to prefectures, subprefectures and counties). At the founding of the Ming dynasty when Zhu Yuanzhang created the two systems, the territorial units from part of the Yuan administrative system were transferred to garrisons, thus becoming part of the Ming military system. For example, in the Yuan

74  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty dynasty, Liaoyang province was established at a place, which was roughly the same as that of today’s Liaoning province. In the 2nd month of Hongwu 4 (1371), Liu Yi, the former Yuan Dynasty official for government affairs in Pingzhang, Liaoyang province, sent Dong Zun, the Right Prime Minister, and Yang Xian, the Assistant Commissioner at the Bureau of Military Affairs to surrender, bringing with them the map of Liaodong and its statistics of military troops, horses, funds and grain storage.…the edict ordered the establishment of the Regional Military Commission of the Liaodong guard and the appointment of Liu Yi the Ming vice commander. Later, the Liaodong Regional Military Commission (initially called Dingliao Du Wei) was established in the place today called Liaoyang, which had its jurisdiction over twenty-five guards. In the 5th month of Hongwu 15 (1382), Zhu Yuanzhang said: in the past during the Yuan Dynasty, the area where Liaozuo was located used to be affluent. In the 2nd year after my accession to the throne, Yuan’s officials and subjects came over to submit to the Ming, and were assigned posts according to their specific conditions. At that time somebody advised me to reinstitute Liaoyang as a Province, but I didn’t want to, on the grounds that this area gets cold early, has poor soil, and has few people. Instead, we would set up a guard there and send troops to guard it so as not to burden the people. Each year, the food and supplies for the troops would be transported by sea. Another example, in the 3rd month of Hongwu 4 (1371), Zhu Yuanzhang gave orders to officials of the Central Secretariat: the subprefectures of Dongsheng, Wei, Shuo, Wu, Feng, Yun, and Ying, etc., which are located on the outside of the northern mountain pass, are all extremely remote with deserts all around. These areas are suitable for setting up battalion and company to command the soldiers, to pacify the border residents, to farm during peace time and to fight during war time. The stored food and fodder should be used for their own supplies, so it is unnecessary to set up civil official administrative agencies, in order to avoid adding burden to the residents.35 In these areas, administrative institutions had existed since ancient times. After the Ming dynasty came into being, subprefecture, county and other officials were abolished and transferred into the administration of garrisons in the military system. The Feng subprefecture was established in the 4th

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  75 year of the Zhenguan reign (630) by Emperor Tang Taizong, and in the early Ming, it became the Yunchuan Guard, which was later moved and relocated to within the Great Wall. In the Muzong reign (1567–1573) period, the worthy wife San Niangzi, the Saint Lady, had Guihua town built here, which is today’s city of Huhehuote in Inner Mongolia. Another example was the present Zhangjiakou region of Hebei province, which in the 3rd year of the Yuan dynasty (1343) became Shunning prefecture due to an earthquake, administering three counties and two subprefectures. By Hongwu 4 (1371) in the Ming all the subprefectures and counties had been abolished. In Hongwu 26, the Wanquan Regional Military Commission was established in Xuan prefecture, leading fifteen guards, three independent battalions, and five forts, which were subordinate to the Koubei dao.36 As for the many places in the northwest and southwest that were classified into the military systematic organization during the Ming dynasty, just as Nian Gengyao said in Yongzheng 2 (1724), “several sub-prefectures (ting) in the Hexi area of Gansu had been prefectures and counties since ancient times, but they were transformed into garrisons at the beginning of the Ming dynasty.”37 After the mid-Ming, it was the general trend that some land was marked out from the territories of the Regional Military Commission, guard and garrison to establish subprefectures and counties. For example, during the Hongwu reign, Duyun region in Guizhou was initially called Duyun Guard, but soon it was changed to the civil-military command department of Duyun Guard due to the large number of households within its jurisdiction. In Hongzhi 7 (1494), under the rule of Ming Xiaozong, the majority of Duyun Guards’ land was allocated to establish Duyun prefecture, which was made subordinate to the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission; the reduced Duyun Guard was reissued the seal, with “the two Chinese characters ‘jun and min’ deleted, now only known as The Regional Military Commission of Duyun Guard.”38 In my previous description of Jinchi Guard and Tengchong Guard in Yunnan, I have already mentioned the situations in which the subprefectures under the jurisdiction of guards had been transferred to be under that of Provincial Administration Commission. The allocation of some land from guard for the establishment of administrative institutions was mainly because, in the remote areas, the economy was developing and the civilian households were increasing, and the hereditary officials in garrisons were difficult to manage. This more or less reflected that, with the decline of garrison system, the Ming’s state management system started its localized reforms. It is worth noting that during Muzong’s reign (1566–1572), some proposals for a reversal had been put forward. In Longqing 2 (1568), Liu Yingjie, the Grand Coordinator of Shuntian prefecture, concerned about the threat to

76  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty Beijing and the surrounding areas from Mongol ethnic groups, proposed to the imperial court that “the subprefectures and counties of Changping, Huairou, Shunyi, Miyun, Sanhe, Jizhou, Yutian, Pinggu, Fengrun, Zunhua, Qian’an, Funing, Lulong and Changli should be transferred to garrisons, and have one or two deputies designated by them to restrict them.” The officials discussed it and thought “his proposal to turn prefectures and counties into guards and garrisons was not feasible, and the Emperor went with the opinion of the officials.”39 Liu Yingjie’s proposal to transfer the subprefectures and counties to garrisons, involving fourteen subprefectures and counties directly subordinate to Shuntian prefecture and Yongping prefecture, did not materialize due to the ruler’s rejection. However, as a high-ranking local governor, his opinion was not considered as a fantasy, because his proposal did not go against the Ming system. Moreover, he was soon promoted from Grand Coordinator of Shuntian to Supreme Commander of Jizhen, Liaodong and Baoding. It is often mistakenly thought that the corruption of the garrison system and the rise of the military system led to the demise of the garrison system itself. This is undoubtedly a serious distortion of Ming history. Since the mid-Ming dynasty, although the allocation of some land from the guards for the establishment of subprefectures and counties was slowly underway, the administerization process within the garrison territory was steadily accelerating. This is, for one thing, the power of the Ministry of War was increasing; the Supreme Commanders and Grand Coordinators were the civil officials for controlling commanders, and financial and judicial commissioners; in addition, other Surveillance Commissioners out of the civil officials ­(initially the Surveillance Commissioners were all held by Regional Military Vice Commissioners of Provincial Surveillance Commission and Assistant Surveillance Commissioners) already had the authority to supervise prefectures, subprefectures, counties and garrisons in the designated area, and, as a result, the self-regulatory system of the military had somewhat changed. For another, with the social norm of valuing letters and belittling arms, the silent transformation and subtle changes within garrisons became very obvious. Since the land of the inland garrisons had been interwoven with that of subprefectures and counties, over time, some land could have been stolen or sold as civilian land. Moreover, peasants were called upon to cultivate the land abandoned by fleeing soldiers so that the peasants could pay the grain tax. Consequently, the land and the people of the military tuntian became more and more civilianized. However, the extent of the civilianization of the garrisons in the Ming should not be overestimated. Up to the end of the Ming dynasty, the majority of garrisons remained as territorial units similar to subprefectures and counties, and this basic pattern had not changed. The reasons were as follows: the garrison officials would not easily give up their own hereditary rights; there was still a need for the existence of border garrisons and grain transporting garrisons to complete military water transportation tasks; big differences existed between

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  77 subprefecture, county and garrisons regarding the levy of grain tax (ben se), non-grain taxes (zhe se) and corvée, and thus the resistances to reform and the difficulties involved were overwhelming. Therefore, as far as the military function of garrisons was concerned, it had been severely weakened since the mid-Ming. The military system based on recruitment and selection gradually became the military mainstay in the Ming. After the Qing’s takeover, the military nature of garrisons virtually disappeared, but garrisons as a territorial unit, similar to the subprefectures and counties, continued to exist for a long time. In the early Qing, a series of measures were taken, including the abolition of the Regional Military Commission and the hereditary system of garrison officers, the reduction and combination of the Regional Military Commission and garrisons, changing military men (junshi) to garrison cultivaters (tunding), and so forth. These greatly accelerated the civilianization process of the garrisons. It was during the Yongzheng reign (1722–1735) that there was a large-scale transformation or integration of garrisons into prefectures, subprefectures and counties. After that, only a few of garrisons remained as they were. This point of view has been explained in my essay “The transformation of the Ming garrison system in the Qing Dynasty.”40

Data on cultivated land and population in the Ming The amount of cultivated land in the Ming It has been explained above that in the early Ming, a part of the country’s territory was marked out to be under the jurisdiction of the Six Ministries in the administrative system (the Provincial Administration Commission, the independent prefecture and subprefecture, the subprefecture and the county), while another part of the territory was under the jurisdiction of the Five Chief Military Commission in the military system (the Regional Military Commission, the Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, the guards of the independent Five Chief Military Commission, independent battalions of the independent Regional Military Commission and the Battalions). Therefore, as we have seen, the data on the land (including the cultivated land), the population and the revenue (through taxation in the administrative system, the grain payment in the military system and tax grain from the attached civilian households) should be reported to their separate systems. Since the statistics from the military system were confidential, as we have also seen, most of the records contained only the numbers from the Provincial Administration Commissions and from the independent prefectures and subprefectures. For example, in the Veritable Records, the amount of land, the number of households and the statistics on taxation were mostly those summarized by the Ministry of Revenue in the administrative system. Occasionally, in some documents, there appeared cultivated land which was much more than that from the Ministry

78  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty of Revenue. As we have also seen, the total cultivated land recorded in Rules for Administrators compiled in the 3rd month of Hongwu 26 (1393) was more than 8,490,000 qing, which was more than double the 3,830,000 qing in Hongwu 24 (1391) recorded in Veritable Records of Ming Taizu (Ming Taizu Shilu). In another example, Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, which was compiled during Hongzhi reign (1487–1505), quoted Rules for Administrators to show land of over 8,490,000 qing during Hongwu reign, but it also said that “in Hongzhi 15 (1502), the actual cultivated land from the thirteen Provincial Administration Commissions and Zhili prefectures and subprefectures totaled 4,228,058 qing, ninety-two mu.”41 But the cultivated land in Hongzhi 15 (1502) recorded in Ming Xiaozong Shilu was over 8,350,000 qing, while by Hongzhi 18 (1505), after Wuzong’s accession to the throne, the total land fell sharply to some 4,690,000 qing.42 A further example, in Wanli 6 (1578), after Zhang Juzheng, the Grand Secretary, took charge of the exact measurement of the land, “the actual cultivated private land (in the administrative system) totaled 7,013,976 qing, twenty-eight mu.”43 However, in Wanli 30 (1602), the cultivated land reached its high record in the Ming: “the amounts of state and private land totaled a little over 11,618,948 qing, eighty-one mu.”44 Why, during the three reigns of Hongwu, Hongzhi and Wanli, which, respectively, represented the early Ming, the mid-Ming and the late Ming, were there two very different figures for the cultivated land of “the entire country” (the difference exceeding 4,000,000 qing)? In two previous essays, I pointed out that the smaller number of the two referred to summaries which subprefectures and counties supplied to the Ministry of Revenue, and the larger one referred to the total from both the administrative and the military systems. The latter was the accurate total of cultivated land in the Ming dynasty.45 On the whole, the cultivated land under the jurisdiction of the administrative system was on the increase, from over 3,830,000 qing during the Hongwu reign (1368–1398), to over 4,000,000 qing during the mid-Ming and then to over 7,010,000 qing during Wanli reign (1572–1620). The main reason for this increase lay in the reclamation of land that had gone fallow during the wars at the end of the Yuan. Another contributing factor was the transfer of part of the garrison land to the prefectures and subprefectures.46 Regarding the Ming’s total amount of cultivated land, due to the Tumu Incident47 in 1449 and other events in the mid-Ming, the land belonging to the north-border garrisons shrank.48 Meanwhile, the land in the administrative system had not been measured carefully, and many officials from prefectures, subprefectures and counties were only concerned about maintaining the original figures. As a result, the total amount of cultivated land in the entire country as recorded in the administrative documents also declined slightly. Not until the exact measurement of a cadastral survey in the Wanli reign was it evident that the actual total cultivated land was also on the increase. The actual decline in the total cultivated land in the entire country started during the Chongzhen reign and lasted till the suppression of the Revolt of Three Feudatories in Kangxi 20 (1681) in the Qing.49 The amount

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  79 of various types of cultivated land in Shunzhi 18 (1661) in the Qing was over 5,265,000 qing.50 Some historians were not aware of the secret in statistical calculations during the Ming dynasty. They thought the amount of cultivated land in the early Qing was larger than that in the heydays of the Ming. They even used this as evidence to highly praise Dorgon, Fu Lin and others for their land reclamation efforts. As a matter of fact, that was not at all the case. One of the important reasons for the recorded increase in the amount of land in the early Qing was that the Ming’s lands within garrisons (whether or not transferred and incorporated into those of subprefectures and counties) were summed up and reported to the Ministry of Revenue. Thus, the figure of the total amount of cultivated land released by the Qing Ministry of Revenue was computed on a different basis from figures recorded by the administrative system and by the Ming Ministry of Revenue. Population in the Ming dynasty The population statistics from the Hongwu reign to the end of the Ming dynasty did not seem to vary much, ranging from about 50,000,000 to 60,000,000 persons. However, scholars generally believed that because of the relatively peaceful and calm years during the two centuries from the early Ming to the Wanli reign, the natural growth of the population must have been considerable. After the Hongwu reign, the population statistics was recompiled and reedited once every ten years, which soon became a mere formality, without any serious demographic surveys. The purpose was not to get an accurate count of the population but simply to indicate that the quota of corvée was being met. Consequently, the scholar-­officials doing ­research on Ming population could only speculate to arrive at ­approximations of the country’s population. In this essay I do not intend to give my own estimate, but only to point out, from the perspective of studying the system of garrison household registration, that the entire population statistics recorded in existing Ming documents were all only Ministry of Revenue summaries of estimates made of subprefectures and counties and did not include the populations in the garrisons. The garrison household registration in the Ming dynasty is a very important topic, but, unfortunately, there have been too few scholars studying it. Some of them have caused all sorts of misunderstandings by confusing the garrison households (weiji) with the military households administered by subprefectures and counties (junhu). In the Ming dynasty, the concept of “army household (junhu)” was sometimes used on two strongly contrasting occasions: one referred to the army households in garrisons, and the other to the military servicemen originally registered in their native subprefectures and counties. For example, a male resident went into exile to a garrison together with his wife; then his parents and brothers would become a military household. The former was under the military system, while the latter was under the administrative system. In the 6th month of

80  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty the 4th year (1429) of his reign, Xuanzong issued an edict Youmian Junhu ding chai chi: all military men at garrisons who left hometown for military service had to tackle the difficulties themselves and supply their own uniforms. From now on in all the military households, each military man should be given preferential treatment by exempting one person’s corvée from his household in his native place. If there was an irregular military man (yuding) at military barracks from his military household, one person’s corvée should be also exempted and this person should be ordered to be specially responsible for the provision of the travelling expenses for military men to serve in the army, lest the military men lose their source of livelihood. You must follow my orders, with no negligence or omissions.51 Here, the military households mentioned are somewhat vague in meaning. They included both “those in the native place” and “those who were excess soldiers at the garrisons.” Before the Xuande reign, the kinship between the military households at garrisons and those at their native place was relatively close, so mixing the concept of military household was reasonable. After the mid-Ming, the kinship between the military households in garrison household registration and those of the first generation of the hereditary military men in their native place became increasingly estranged; thus, to keep calling the two as the same military household would only cause confusion. The households under the administration of subprefectures and counties can be classified into army (jun), civilian (min), craftsman (jiang), salt (zao) and so on. This kind of military household referred to the soldier’s original family home, and its purpose was to guarantee one military serviceman at the designated garrison (i.e. if he died and no offspring could take his place, one had to be recruited from his original military household to supplement the armed forces), to sometimes subsidize part of the cost for the soldier and to grant one of them rights to be exempted from corvée. Apart from these differences, they were similar to the civilian households.52 Garrison household registration was quite another story. It mainly pertained to the descendants of the military officers and soldiers who inhabited garrisons. It was mentioned in the previous essay that garrison was a territorial unit with military characteristics. During the early Ming while garrisons were being set up, all those who were sent to garrisons, whether they joined the army by means of revolt, submission or draft (with one household subject to draft for every three civilian households), or as criminals for penal servitude (for life or for generations), must take their wives and children with them to the garrisons. Those without wives should receive subsidies from their original military households or help from the neighborhood for their marriages. In other words, garrison officers (commanders, battalion commanders and company commanders, as well as their deputies), and platoon commanders, squad commanders, and hereditary military men were living

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  81 at garrisons for generations as family units. The families of officers at garrisons were called guan hu (officers’ households), while the families of qi and jun were called junjia (military families). Since they were living at garrisons with a family as a unit, and with the hereditary system in place, two outcomes became possible. One was that a military man had no male heirs after he escaped or died. In this situation, garrisons would report it to the Five Chief Military Commission who would convey it to the Ministry of Wars. Then through the Provincial Administration Commission and Provincial Surveillance Commission, the Ministry of War would issue an order to his native subprefecture and county to replenish a male based on the order of kinship with his family, and this male would come to the troop with his wife. Another possible outcome was that the garrison Guan and Jun/officers and military men gave birth to two or more sons—Guan’s eldest son was called yingxi sheren, the second one and those younger were called sheyu. Jun’s eldest son was called junya, and the second son and those younger were called junyu. Since ancient times, Chinese families have enjoyed having “more male offspring,” so the second outcome was obviously much more likely than the first. Thus, the descendants of zujun (the first generation of the hereditary military men), who made up the main body of garrison household registrants, were much more numerous than the military serviceman. The number of military servicemen declined for several reasons, including the garrison officers released servicemen to make money, they replenished servicemen with others when the original servicemen escaped and some servicemen’s original households died out without replacements. However, this does not necessarily mean that the population of registered garrison households declined, for some part of jun’s descendants was likely to multiply from generation to generation. Another part of Jun, lacking soldiers due to some kind of “accident,” was unable to fill the quota of the soldiers with the descendants from other military households. Lao Kan, who once held the post of Fujian grand coordinator and some others during the Wanli reign (1572–1620), gave a detailed account in his Drawing Out Men (Chouding Shuo) written at the end of Jiajing reign: in our great country between heaven and earth, every one of us is the emperor’s subject. To run the country through household registration has been a constant practice of the polity… it has been more than 190 years since the founding of the state! At first, if one military serviceman died, his position could be supplemented by one irregular military man who, when he died, would be replaced by a land worker (i. e. one who cultivated tuntian), and when he died, he once again, would be replaced by another irregular military man. The reason and the tendency/potential are necessary. Meanwhile, if at first one military serviceman died but he had no relatives, his position could be taken by someone from his original households, again, when, the supplemented ones died out, the reason and the tendency/potential are inevitable.

82  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty Some military households at garrisons had large families with more offspring but had a quota of only one military serviceman, while some others without offspring had to be supplemented by recruits from their native subprefectures and counties, and such a hereditary system had caused a series of troubles: to replenish the army forces with the civilians, it is said that their households were registered, they should not serve the army; to replenish the army forces with the irregular military men, it would be blamed and criticized. During the time without war, this happened year in and year out. If fortunate, there was only one military serviceman who had no offspring out of ten irregular ones; while if unfortunate, there could be two to three, or even four to five out of ten without suitable progeny. In this case, how could there be a sufficient number of officers and soldiers prepared to go to war? Under such circumstances, the army was always busy with cleaning-up and recruiting troops, and it turned out that the army was always insufficient anyway. Lao Kan further pointed out: for one thing, there were differences between troops for tuntian at garrisons and troops for farming at subprefectures and counties. For another, troops at subprefectures and counties had to serve other corvée and troops at garrisons also had to perform some other tasks. But there were institutional norms for troops at subprefectures and counties to abide by, while there was none for those at garrisons. The recompilation of the household records once every ten years was systematic, but it was carried out only at subprefectures and counties and not at garrisons. That junyao (equal service) should last for three years was also a system, but it was carried out at subprefectures and counties and not at garrisons. If no household records were compiled, their names could not be registered in the chart; consequently, even the ruler would be unable to learn about how many military households there were. If there was no equal service, no one would know the profit or loss to the economy. How could garrison officers learn about the situations and the different treatments extended to them? Therefore, due to the different systems, the implementation process was quite unreasonable. As for each military household (referring to the ones at garrisons), if there were ten or more people in it, then one out of the ten had to serve in the army, two or three had to cultivate the tuntian, and the rest must provide the supplies for the one who served in the army. As for those who had a big family at garrisons, if there were over one hundred people in it, they should practice the same rules as mentioned above. In this way, the supply would be sufficient, wouldn’t it? As for the officers’ families, if there were ten people in each, they would be called officials of all of the nine

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  83 grades, and they would be given preferential treatment and not forced to enlist someone to serve in the army; if there were one hundred in each family, their privileges were greater, weren’t they? Once again, due to the different systems, the implementation process was quite unreasonable. If it was intended to make the two consistent with each other, the recompilation of their household registration once every ten years should be implemented at garrisons, as in subprefectures and counties. If it was intended to be reasonable for both systems, those at garrisons should provide equal service for three years, the same as those in subprefectures and counties.53 Lao Kan mainly focused on introducing the system of compilation (he called it compilation of the household) and equal service into garrison administration, changing the simple hereditary mode at garrisons so as to make the military forces and provisions sufficient at garrisons and reducing the burdens of subprefectures and counties. His proposal, of course, was unlikely to be realized because garrison officers occupied the troops and lands, and the bad old practices die hard. However, his book made it known that, in the Ming garrisons, the system of the household recompilation once in every ten years was not implemented, and even the emperor was unable to learn about the numbers of them. What the imperial court learned about was only the number of the first generation of the hereditary military men, while, as a result of more than 200 years of multiplying, many of the people at garrisons were unregistered. This contradictory phenomenon of the large reduction of military men in quotas at garrisons and the large expansion of population registered in garrison households was also recorded in Tan Lun’s writing. In his words, the military officers and soldiers at garrisons could neither kill the bandits nor guard themselves, which was usually conceived as evidence that the armed forces were short of strength and were merely in the list, and that seemed to be the case. However, in Zhejiang, at the coastal garrisons such as Ningbo, Shaoxing, Wenzhou and Taizhou and some others, there were no civilian households living within the towns, and those whose houses were gathering together next to each other were not the people of the garrisons!/? There were eight reasons for this reduction in the military. First, some people from affluent families usually went to the government offices to arrange matters. Second, some left the army by bribing the officials and went to nonlocal places for trade and business. Third, some came to be engaged in handicraft. Fourth, some were recruited for well-paid service in the army without joining the army. Fifth, some entered the military officers’ houses as servants. Sixth, some became engaged in folk art performances. Seventh, some became civilian staff. All of those mentioned above, together with the military men sent back by garrisons to the regions nearby and their original

84  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty places had to be collecting the appropriate amount of money each year. Then in the eighth case some warriors were unwilling to take part in the drill and defense. All of the eight kinds of people mentioned above accounted for half of the military men and were all part of the elite force. As for those who supplemented the military forces and took the army provisions, they were all the old, weak, sick and disabled. As a result, the morale of the army was not encouraging, and with no guarantee for fighting or defending, the malpractice was ubiquitous. As for the reason for the soldiers’ escape, it was merely one aspect of the problem.54 The examples Tan Lun cited here referred to the situations at the garrisons in Zhejiang, but, as a matter of fact, they represent the general situation at garrisons after the mid-Ming. There was a shortage of military servicemen, but an increase in the population of garrison households who engaged in all walks of life. After the mid-Ming, there were quite a few people in garrison households who took powerful and influential official positions through the imperial examinations. They included Li Dongyang, the grand secretary originally from Chaling in Huguang, who was in the Jinwu Left Guard and was transferred from the Yanshan Right Guard. There was also Hai Rui, the honest and upright official reputed far and near, whose original family home was Fanyu in Guangdong, and he was from the Hainan Guard. Then there were Jiao Hong, who ranked first in the imperial examination, whose original family home was Rizhao in Shandong, who was from Nanjing Qishou Guard; Yang Sichang, the grand secretary, whose original family home was in South Zhili, Guangde subprefecture, and who was from the Chuangde Guard; Wang Xigun, whose original family home was Huayin in Shaanxi, and who was from the Yunnan Right Guard; Zheng Fengyuan, whose original family home was Dongchang, in Shandong, who was from the Guizhou Pingxi Guard and so forth. The so-called original family home here refers to the origin of the first generation of hereditary military men in the early Ming. The first generation military men moved together with their families to live at garrisons, generation after generation, until their aforementioned famous descendants appeared. Five generations were needed for some members to become famous (e.g. Li Dongyang); nine (e.g. Zheng Fengyuan) or ten (e.g. Yang Sichang) generations were needed for others. In the Ming, the people in garrison households all knew their own original family homes, and there were registration books for the Clearance Hook System rectifying records of soldiers to ensure their availability; however, in the h ­ ousehold registration system and in the minds and hearts of participants, their ­effective native places were the garrisons where they had grown up and were living from generation to generation. The population of military households in garrisons was not included in the statistics collected by the Ministry of Revenue, and the population of the guard household registration had not all descended from the first-­ generation military men. The garrisons, as territorial units in the military system, included quite a few civilian households. During the Hongwu reign,

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  85 when the guards were set up, native households in a few localities had been relocated to nearby subprefectures and counties. For example, in Hongwu 5 (1372), when Ningxia prefecture, then subordinate to the Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission, was abolished and transferred to the Ningxia Guard, the native households were relocated to the other subprefectures and counties in Shaanxi and resettled there.55 However, under most circumstances, after a region was incorporated into the newly established garrisons, the native households were detached from the administrative system and transferred to be administered by garrisons instead. It is estimated that the population of civilian households administered by the Regional Military Commission, the guard and the garrison was rather considerable, but because they were not administered by subprefectures and counties, their numbers were not included in the statistics of all the households, the cultivated lands and the tax grain of the entire country collected by the ­Ministry of Revenue. At the beginning of Xuanzong’s accession, he ordered Xia ­Yuanji, minister in the Ministry of Revenue in B ­ eijing, writing that: Minzhou was close to the border area, and its locals were previously administered by garrisons to enable them live and work in peace. But it was recently learned that the locals there were so inconvenienced and scourged by garrison officers in various ways that many of them escaped. Now, although they have been pardoned and allowed to return home to farm, their houses and lands have already been occupied by bullies and crafty persons. Henceforth, all the locals in Minzhou should be administered by their own garrisons whose civil servants will certainly be able to comfort and compensate them; any property occupied by others must be recovered and restored so that the locals will not become destitute and homeless.56 In the 8th month of Tianshun 1 (1457), during Yingzong’s reign, Shen Gu, the Minister of Rites, reported: in border areas if there were more than enough people to man the garrisons, three households could be joined together, and one soldier could be made responsible for the provisions of all. As for those who had been sent to inland garrisons for military service and who wished to be in the border areas, they should be deleted from the inland garrison. By these means, they could be employed both in wartime and peacetime, and they would be different from the troops mobilized from a distance for border defense. Yingzong respected Shen Gu’s opinion and instructed the Ministry of War: I am concerned that the people in the border areas from Liaodong to Gansu have been frequently invaded and harassed by bandits and deprived of peaceful lives and rewarding work. Men in the inland

86  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty government army have frequently shifted to the border areas in rotation for drill and defense, but they have not been familiar with the conditions there, so there was no benefit in their doing this. Now I think that the people living near the border with their doughty character and ­extraordinary physical strength have long been familiar with the ­m inority nationalities in the border area. Therefore, no matter whether they were jun (militaries), min(civilians), sheren (hereditary soldiers), yuding (supplementary soldiers), or others, whoever were willing to serve the imperial court should be allowed to enter their names by themselves, and they should be taken in and administered by border garrisons, and also ordered to do all kinds of work as military servicemen. For this, they should be awarded one liang of silver and provided with horses and other equipment. They should be provided with grain for food in autumn and winter drills, and should provide themselves with food from their own farms in spring and summer. As for the military servicemen’s families, they should be exempted from five dan of tax grain, from providing provisions for others, and from various corvée. The head managers must be given preferential treatment. If there was some loss of the indigenous soldiers of a local minority for some reason, it was not permitted to make up for it. Militaries were still militaries, civilians still civilians, and they should pay the tax grain and do some kinds of service as before. Later if someone grew up, it should be reported as a rule. Those who had performed meritorious service must all be promoted and rewarded. Your Ministry of War should include the annunciation in a public notice and let it be well known to all the people in the border areas.57 It was mentioned above that the vast northern border area from Liaodong to Gansu westward, where subprefectures and counties were, by and large, not established, was administered by the Regional Military Commissions and the garrisons. The commissions and garrisons included civilian households. According to Shen Gu, among the civilian households within the border garrisons there were some people who had been exiled “years before” to inland garrisons. That is, these civilian households were akin to the military households subordinate to subprefectures and counties, while the military servicemen were within the inland garrisons. What Yingzong ordered was that civilian households within border garrisons should serve as the local soldiers, and what he said was that “they should be taken in and administered by the nearby border garrisons as military servicemen.” That did not refer to the households of militaries, civilians or hereditaries, and extras were originally under the jurisdiction of the garrisons. It meant the able-bodied men who entered their names by themselves and had status equivalent to the military servicemen should be administered by the garrisons. The key here was that “Militaries were still militaries, civilians still civilians, and they should pay the tax grain and provide services as before.”

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  87 That is, the status of the civilian households within garrisons remained unchanged, and the able-bodied men willing to serve in the army were to be recruited with approval. What their households paid was tax grain (shuiliang) rather than seed grain (zi li). It is worth noting that the appearance of a great many civilian households within the military garrisons was not a unique phenomenon in the northern border garrisons, from Liaodong to Gansu. Some garrisons in Yunnan, Guizhou and elsewhere had so many civilian households within them that their names were changed accordingly from so-and-so Guard Military Commission to so-and-so Guard Civil Military Commission. As we have mentioned, within the Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission, prefectures, subprefectures and counties were not established at all. The statistics of the civilian households administered by garrisons were few and far between, so it is probably impossible to compute the total number of civilian households administered by the garrisons in the military system in the Ming dynasty. What can be affirmed are only two points: (1) The civilian households administered by the garrisons, due to their different affiliation, were not included in the statistics announced by the Ministry of Revenue. (2) From the vast length and breadth of garrisoned land, it can be estimated that the amounts were by no means insignificant. Moreover, from what Lao Kan said in the quotation cited above, the recompilation of household registration within garrisons was not carried out even once every ten years; consequently, even the ruler was at a loss to know the correct figures. ­Although no one can figure out an exact number, it can be seen, after all, by doing some research on the garrison system, that besides the statistics of the households registered in the records of subprefectures and counties (i.e. the ones announced by the Ministry of Revenue, gathered from all levels step by step), there was a huge population from garrison households registration. It seems that the scholars who have studied the Ming population have not fully noticed this so far. Should we disregard the households registered within garrisons as Ming subjects, only because their statistics were not included in the Ministry of Revenue statistical books based on those from subprefectures and counties (i.e. the ones announced over the years in Veritable records of the Ming dynasty (Ming Shilu))?

On the amount of state and private land in the Ming The state (guan) and private (min) land in the Ming has been one of the heatedly discussed topics in recent years. In general, research has focused on the heavily taxed areas in the southern part of the Yangtze River. When it came to the total amount of state and private land in the Ming and the proportion of each of them in the cultivated land of the entire country, the following words from the “Ming History Essay on Food and Money” were frequently cited in published articles: “in Hongzhi 15 (1502), the total land (tianxia ­tutian) was 4,228,058 qing and state land accounted for only one-seventh of

88  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty the private land.” From this, it was further figured out that the state land in the Ming accounted for 14% of the total cultivated land (kentian), and private land constituted more than 85%. But that is incorrect. These records originated in the Collected Statutes of the Great Ming printed in the Zhengde reign (1506–1521). The original text was: in Hongzhi 5 (1502), from the thirteen Provincial Administration Commissions and Zhili prefectures and subprefectures, the total amount of land was 4,228,058 qing, ninety-two mu. (Among them) the state land was 598,456 qing, ninety-two mu, the private land, 3,629,601 qing, ninety mu. Under this item were listed the amount of state and private land from the twelve Provincial Administration Commissions and the twenty-eight prefectures and subprefectures in southern Zhili and northern Zhili. It was written under the item of Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission: the cultivated land in Guizhou had not been measured since the foundation of the Ming dynasty, the tax grain to be paid every year was collected together under the name of the local officer, just as what was practiced during the Hongwu reign (1368–1398).58 In the item of tuntian in the same volume of the same books, the following can be read: “the tuntian of Guizhou Regional Military Commission and its subordinate garrisons totaled 9,339 qing, twenty-nine mu, three fen,59 one li, eight hao.” This case alone is sufficient to prove that the amount of state and private land during the Hongzhi reign (1487–1505) recorded in Collected Statutes of the Great Ming and later in the Ming History compiled by imperial order was merely the statistics held in the administrative system. From this we can see that when we add the land cultivated and administered by garrisons, the amount of Ming state and private land, and the proportion of each of them, are all very different. The Ming’s military cultivated land all belonged to the category of state land. At the end of the Ming, Chen Longzheng wrote in “On Reclaiming Uncultivated Land” that: according to the system at the beginning of the Ming, the difference between the state land and private land was clear. Military men at border garrisons and inland ones were responsible for initiating guards, and the common people were responsible for cultivating unworked land. Tuntian was administered by the government officials, the amount of the land distributed was fixed, the cultivators were all officials, the cultivated land was all used by the state and was special for maintaining the army. The unworked land was freely cultivated by the common people themselves, who might cultivate as much as possible. It was said that the land was to be bestowed on them as family property for generations, ­although the land was the king’s (wangtu), in reality it was private

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  89 (sitian). It was said not to be taxed (qike), so from ancient times no grand ceremony. All of these arrangements were made because Shengzu (Kangxi) believed that the people in the northwest area were too far away to be governed directly. That was the difference between military tuntian and cultivated land (kentian), which mainly lay between state and private authority.60 Here, we still come across two difficulties. First, the amount of military tuntian recorded in Collected Statutes of Great Ming and in some other books was inaccurate (see my essay “A New Analysis of the Amount of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming”). As a result, the total amount of the state land or military tuntian was hard to pin down. The main reason for this was that he garrisons were mobilized inland, thus the amount of the military tuntian during the Hongzhi reign (1487–1505) should have been less than that in the early Ming. Second, the amount of land cultivated by civilian households within garrisons was not clear, for there were certainly both private land and state land within garrisons cultivated by civilian households. The ­accurate amounts and the proportions of both remain to be further explored. In addition, this topic also involves some other problems such as the amount of government revenue, taxes and corvée, and the distribution of the population. The Han people, by practicing the garrison system, were anchored in some outlying areas where ethnic minorities lived, while some ethnic minorities were helped to settle down in the border and in inland garrisons. In this essay, I cannot discuss these issues in detail. (This essay was originally cited in Lishi Yanjiu (Historical Research), vol. 3, 1989, pp. 135–150.) Translated by Ning Ping Polished by Roger V Des Forges

Notes 1 See Social Sciences in China, 1986, 04. 2 Bai Yang, Ugly Chinese, The Time Literature and Art Press, 1987, p. 36. 3 Tianjin in the Ming was an area of a guard, but its present area under Tianjin city’s jurisdiction is equivalent to that of several subprefectures and counties in North Zhili in the Ming. 4 “Bingzhi 1,” in Official History of the Ming Dynasty, vol. 89. 5 Platoon commander: head of the basic unit of the army, in charge of fifty soldiers; squad commander: in charge of ten soldiers (noted by the translator). 6 “Bingzhi 2,” in Official History of the Ming Dynasty, vol. 90. 7 Zhang Tianfu, “Shandong·Fu Liaodong Dusi,” in Huangyu Kao, vol. 10. 8 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 185. In the following 7th month, Daning Regional Military Commission was transferred to Beiping Auxiliary Regional Military Commission. See Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 192. 9 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 134, 135. 10 “Jingji·Changping Zhou ii,” in Rixia Jiuwen Kao, vol. 135.

90  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty 11 Zhong Xiu, Zhang Zeng, “Yange”, in Gufeng Shilue, vol. 5; “Guji (Antiquities),” in the same book, vol. 8. 12 Noted in Ming Xianzong Shilu, vol. 153: on the day of Gengxu, the 5th month of Chenghua 12, “to have set up four official schools in Datong left Yunchuan Guard, Datong Right Yulin Guard, Tiancheng Zhenlu Guard and Yanghe ­Gaoshan Guard.” That is, to have set up one official school in the two close guards which got the initial preparation for their later combinations. 13 “Jianzhi Yange,” in New Gazetteer of Ningxia, vol. 1 of Jiajing version. 14 Buyan Tie mu’er: the descendant of the king of Mongolia in Yuan Dynasty, here, the supreme ruler in Saliweiwuer region (or Uygur) in the late Yuan and early Ming (noted by the translator). 15 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 245. 16 Ming Xuanzong Shilu, vol. 4. 17 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 264, 266. 18 “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Lancang Guard,” in Gazetteer and Maps of Yunnan, vol. 4, of Jingtai 6 version. 19 “Beisheng Subprefecture,” in Gazetteer of Yunnan, vol. 12, of Zhengde 5 version. 20 “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Jinchi” and “Junmin Zhihui Shisi of Tengchong”, in Gazetteer of Yunnan, vol. 13, of Zhengde 5 version; Wang Qi, “YudiKao·Yunnan”, in Xu Wenxian Tongkao, vol. 231; Pan Guangzu: “Yunnan,” in Huiji Yutu Beikao Quanshu, vol. 16. 21 In the systems of the Ming and the Qing, there were Qin min guan (Grassroots officials) serving for county and subprefecture. In Guizhou ethnic minority ­areas, prefectures were set up by the Ming’s imperial court with the intention of claiming that the prefects of the prefectures were four-pin officials with more prestige and authorities, compared with seven-pin prefect of a county. 22 See Ming Taizong Shilu, vol. 26. 23 Besides the coastal garrisons, there were a lot of names of the Ming garrisons jurisdiction preserved till the present, for example, the Central Guard County in Ningxia, and Longmen Garrison in Hebei province, and in the northern regions, many rural places called “Pu” originated from the military units of the Ming’s guards. 24 “Jiangyu (The Region),” in Gazetteer of Weihai Guard, vol. 1, of Qianlong 7 version. 25 See Huguang Tujing Zhishu of Zhengde version; Zhang Tianfu, “Huguang,” in Huangyu Kao, vol. 6; Pan Guangzu, “Huguang,” in Yutu Beikao Quanshu, vol. 11. 26 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 47, 72; Wei Xiangshu, “Zoushu,” in Hansong Tang Quanji, vol. 1. 27 Wei Yijie, Wei Wenyi Gong Zouyi, vol. 2. 28 Fuguo county refers to a county whose office was located in the same place as that of the prefecture, and sometimes as that of a guard (noted by the translator). 29 The Five City Wardens Offices: also called Wu Cheng Bing Ma Si, the supreme body of public security administration for Beijing (noted by the translator). 30 Shen Bang: Wanshu Zaji, vol. 2, 16. 31 Shen Bang: Wanshu Zaji, vol. 2, 16. 32 Fang Congzhe’ ancestral home was from Deqing county, Zhejiang; Shi Kefa’ was from Xiangfu county, Henan. 33 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 155, 223. 34 Tuoba Xia Kaozheng,” in New Gazeteer of Ningxia, vol. 6. 35 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 61, 145, 62. 36 Wang Qi, “Yudi Kao·Bei Zhili,” in Xu Wenxian Tongkao, vol. 225. 37 Qing Shizong Shilu, vol. 25. 38 Ming Xiaozong Shilu, vol. 97. After the establishment of Duyun prefecture, its location was within the guard, which was still a territorial unit. Duyun Guard was not transferred to Duyun county until Kangxi 10 in the Qing dynasty. See

Territorial administration in Ming dynasty  91 Huangchao Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 18; Pan Chaoxian, “Gaishe Xianzhi Yi (On The Conversion to The County Governance),” Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 37. 39 Ming Muzong Shilu, vol. 16. 40 Originally published in Journal of Beijing Normal University, 1988, 02; also see this book in Chinese, p. 33–47. (noted by the original editor). 41 “Hubu 4·Zhouxian 2· Tiantu,” in Collected Statutes of Great Ming, vol. 19, inscribed during Zhengde period and compiled in Hongzhi period. 42 Ming Xiaozong Shilu, vol. 194; Ming Wuzong Shilu, vol. 8. 43 Under this item is a list of the amounts from each province, see Fu Weilin’s “Gazetteer of Tutian,” in An Unofficial History of the Ming, vol. 67. 44 Ming Shenzong Shilu, vol. 379. While Zhang Juzheng was in power, the amounts of cultivated land measured were only the ones from the administrative system, which could be proved from what recorded in Yutu Beikao Quanshu collected and edited by Pan Guangzu at the end of the Ming, in its vol. 2. Yutushuo, it said in the Southern Zhili and the Northern Zhili, there were twenty-two prefectures, thirty-six subprefectures, 213 counties; thirteen Provincial Administration Commissions of Chengxuan, administrating 138 prefectures, 146 subprefectures, 943 counties, 69556 li (a basic level unit in Li jia system, consisting of 110 households ), 7013976 qing twenty-eight mu, of the cultivated land. 45 The so-called “statistics on the cultivated lands ” refers to: ① the number of qing and mu that were, to a great extent, units used for computing and paying taxation, not the result from accurate measurement of land on the ground; ② usually including no data on the cultivated land under the jurisdiction of native chiefs (Tusi). 46 For example, originally there were no original statistics of the cultivated land from the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission during the midMing, but after some land was allocated from the Duyun Guard and others for the establishment of a prefecture, by the time of “Wanli 6 there was a report that there were 5,166 qing, eighty-six mu of land in Zhenyuan prefecture and Duyun prefecture, etc.” See Pan Guangzu’s “Guizhou”, in Huiji Yutu Beikao Quanshu, vol. 17. 47 The Tumu Incident refers to Ming Yingzong, the Emperor (Zhu Qizhen)’s defeat which took place after he led the troops northward to fight Waci/Wala descendants of the Yuan dynasty in Zhengtong 14 (noted by the translator). 48 During Wanli reign (1572–1620), Luo Zun said in “Qing Ken Tuntian Shu,” In the vast stretches of the frontier, more than ten thousands of li, from Dun Huang in the west to Liaohai in the east, when military guards were initially set up, tuntian was assigned to each of them, although far or near, the number roughly in equal and impossible less. The reasons for later loss of tuntian were for one thing, the military conflicts appeared and disappeared without regularity, the inhabitants living on the border area feared to plow; for another, those who should rent the tuntian for cultivation had to take the place of others to do a great deal of fatigues, the miserable inhabitants there refused to plow. See “Yiwen (Art and Literature),” in General Gazetteer of Gansu, vol. 45, of Qianlong 1 version. 49 The Revolt of Three Feudatories (San Fan zhi Luan) refers to the anti-Qing ­mutiny led by Wu Sangui, called the Prince who Pacifies the West; Shang Kexi, the Prince who Pacifies the East; and Geng Jingzhong, the Prince who Pacifies the South in the early Qing (noted by the translator).

92  Territorial administration in Ming dynasty 50 Qing Shengzu Shilu, vol. 6. 51 Huang Ming Zhaoling (Imperial Edicts of the August Ming), vol. 9. 52 In the leap 3rd month of Hongwu 4, the edict issued that all the military households in subprefecture and county, by taking three qing of land as a standard, can be exempted from all the corvee except for the tax grain; if there was more land left, count it, the corvee should be the same as that of the civilians households. See Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, vol. 63. On the wuxu day in the 9th month, in Hongwu 21: the edict was issued that all the subprefecture and county should compile the household registers by the category of the military household in order to record their population. If some persons were needed to replenish the armed forces, officials should dispatch them according to the register; those who had no relatives should be exempt from it. Since the measures taken, there should be no more fraud and false reports, and the corvee should be undertaken by their relatives with the same family name. See Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, vol. 193. Obviously, the military household mentioned here refers to the one in the military man’s original place administered by subprefecture and county. 53 “Bingzhi Bu,” in Rongzheng Dian, vol. 62, Gujin Tushu Jicheng, Jingji Huibian (collection of economics). 54 Hu Zongxian, “Shi Junwu,” in Chouhai Tubian, vol. 11. 55 “Jianzhi Yange,” in New Gazeteer of Ningxia, vol. 1, of Jiajing version. 56 Ming Xuanzong Shilu, vol. 5, yihai date, the leap 7th month, in Hongxi 1. 57 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 281. 58 “Hubu 4·Zhouxian 2· Tiantu,” in Collected Statutes of Great Ming, vol. 19 of Hongzhi of Zhengde version. 59 fen: a unit of land measurement; one fen, equivalent to 66.67 square meter; ps: one mu=ten fen; one fen=ten li; one li=ten hao. 60 Huang Zongxi, “Zoushu,” in Ming Wenhai, vol. 65. The version in 1987, published by Zhonghuashuju (Zhong Hua Book Company), p. 584 (original note).

4 The “Garrison” category of household registration in the Ming

It is important to understand fully the garrison household registration (weiji) in researching the history of the Ming, especially the history of Ming eminent personages. The garrison household registration was a special one formed in the context of the Ming garrison system, which greatly influenced the population’s migration and distribution. It has been noted that, in the Ming dynasty, registration (ji) and native place (guan) were not the same. Guan meant something like xiang-guan (hometown), close to the present jiguan (or residence). Ji referred to the various kinds of hereditary obligations to the feudal state, such as the military, the civilian, the craftsman and the salt man. That is, within the same subprefecture and county, “all the residents were classified by their ji to undertake related obligations.”1 This is correct within a certain range, but it cannot explain the garrison household registration. Below, I explore some specific issues.

Li Dongyang’s native place (jiguan) Li Dongyang was a well-known litterateur in the mid-Ming, who rose to be the grand secretary during the reigns of Hongzhi (1488–1505) and Zhengde (1506–1521). Several historical sources mentioned that he was from Chaling County in Huguang.2 However, if we carefully read the records related to his family background in the The Collected Works of Li Dongyang, it is not difficult to find out that Li’s ancestors had lived in Jiangxi province for eight generations before migrating to Chaling, in today’s Hunan province, in the ninth generation, of Li Dongyang’s great-great-grandfather. At the beginning of the Hongwu reign, Li Ji’er, the great-grandfather of Li Dongyang, joined the army and served as an officer in the Jinan guard; shortly after, he was assigned to the left escort guard of Yanshan, and migrated to Beijing together with his family. After his death, his son, Li Yunsan, inherited the post. Due to his military merits in the Jing Nan War, Li was promoted to squad commander, transferred to be subordinate to the Jinwu left guard and ordered to enter a service agency in the imperial palace that supervised the manufacture of military equipment.3 His residence had been beside the Baishi Bridge. Due to the extension of the imperial palace during the Yongle reign (1403–1424), the area of his residence was incorporated inside the

94  The “garrison” category Bei’an Gate. The Li family thus moved to the west edge of Haizi Pond (the present Jishuitan). During the Zhengtong reign of Emperor Yingzong (1436– 1449), Li Yunsan had to be replaced due to his illness, and his eldest son Li Chun, the father of Li Dongyang, should have inherited this post. However, as a merchant, Li Chun wanted to make a living by engaging in business, and so he handed over the duty to his younger brother Li Ze. According to the Ming system, Li Ji’er—Li Yunsan—Li Ze belonged to the upright army (zhengjun) and banner (qi), while Li Chun and his son Li Dongyang were extra soldiers (yu ding) of the Jinwu left guard. The f­ amily branch of Li Ji’er from Chaling down to Li Dongyang had lived in Beijing for four generations, and the changes in their life styles and customs over one hundred years were recorded in Li Dongyang’s writings. When his great grandfather “initially moved to the north, he was unaccustomed to the natural conditions and the local customs, and did not understand the local dialects.”4 By the generation of Li Chun, Dongyang’s father, things were quite different. “During the time from the grandfather to the grandson, the able-bodied became old, the kids grew up to be able-bodied, their voices changed, and customs gradually differed from previous ones.”5 By Li Dongyang’s time, they had already become veritable local people of Beijing. The Chinese had a tradition of cherishing the memory of their family origin and ancestry. Thus, when death fell upon Li Dongyang’s grandfather, he left the following words to his descendants: “my parents were buried in the Capital Beijing, and I was unable to return to our hometown but had to follow them upon my death. Yet you, all of you, must not forget Chaling.”6 In Chenghua 8 (1472), Li Dongyang once accompanied his father to Hemuping in Chaling to hold a memorial ceremony and sweep the tomb of his great-great-grandfather. In the case of Li Dongyang, it was reasonable to say that he was a native of Beijing (Beijing ren), because starting from his great-grandfather, all members of his family had lived in Beijing; however, considering the original home (yuanji) of his great-great-grandfather, it was also not unreasonable to say that he was from Chaling in Hunan (Hunan Chaling ren). Li Dongyang was not the only case; there were many other high-ranked scholar-officials whose ancestors had been registered in garrisons (weiji ren). How can we define their native places (jiguan)? The case that raised the issue was Peng Ze, who lived in Li’s time and held the high position of Minister of War in the Zhengde reign (1506–1521). According to the official History of the Ming, fascicle 198, “Peng Ze, with the courtesy name Ji Wu, was from L ­ anzhou (Lanzhou ren).” It seemed that he was taken as a Gansu native (Gansu ren). But, in the “Informal Biography of the Minister Master Peng” by Liu Geng from Lanzhou, of Jiao Hong’s Record of the Polity’s Meritorious Campaigns, fascicle 39, “Peng Ze, courtesy Ji Wu, pseudonym Xing Yan, was from ­Lanzhou Guard (Lanzhou wei ren).” With more careful examination, it was not difficult to find out that the case of Peng Ze was the same as that of Li Dongyang. Peng’s family was originally from Xiangyin County in Hunan province, and his ancestors served in the army in the early

The “garrison” category  95 Ming before ­living for generations in the Lanzhou Guard. As an old Chinese saying goes, a dying fox always heads toward its original home cave. Li Dongyang always kept a nostalgic sentiment in his heart, and Peng Ze did not forget his ancestral origins (zuji) and clansmen (zuren) either. He wrote in a poem on sending off a grandson from Lanzhou to Hunan: At the side of Zhi Bridge, near the stone lion, lies our family’s geomantic treasure land, never forget to sweep our ancestral graves at all of the annual festivals.7 Li Dongyang and Peng Ze were in the same situations. So why should the former’s native place be defined by his ancestral origin (zujun yuanji), while the latter’s native place was defined by his garrison household registration (weiji)? When the Ming History “rectified” Peng Ze’s native place by making it Xiangyin in Hunan, it added a local person of virtue to the provincial record. Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, “He who gains also loses,” there were also numerous personages whose native places were in other regions but who were listed as natives of Hunan due to their being registered as members of garrison households in that province. For example, the distinguished late-Ming and early-Qing thinker Wang Fuzhi was well known as being from Hengyang (Hengyang ren) in Hunan while his native place (zuji) was actually Gaoyou (the present city with that name in Jiangsu province). In the early Ming, his ancestor, because of his military merits, was appointed vice commander of the Hengzhou Guard; henceforth, his branch of the family was registered in the Hengzhou Guard. To celebrate his nephew Wang Min’s 50th birthday, Wang Fuzhi wrote the following verse: Our ancestors from Hanjiang (in the Gaoyou region of Jiangsu) migrated to the Xiangjiang region(of the Hengyang Guard) due to their military achievements; thus Xiao Qi, our earliest ancestor, had generations of descendants down to yours.8 Wang Yu, the son of Wang Fuzhi, also wrote a poem that included the following lines: From Hanjiang originated our ancestors, with swords we gained excellent merits. For generations the emperors’ grace embraced us, with endless loyalty our oath of allegiance lasts, till the Xiangjiang River will dry up and the Nanyue Mountains will shrink.9

96  The “garrison” category Another example was the Yang family, quite prominent in Changde, Hunan, at the end of the Ming. During the Chongzhen reign (1628–1644), Yang He held the position of governor of Yansui or Yulin, Ningxia, Gansu: his son Yang Sichang gained even more favors and trust from the emperor and became not only a grand secretary but also minister of rites and minister of war. Later, he was appointed grand commander with orders to track down and exterminate the roving rebels. Unfortunately for him, he failed and died. Yang Lu, a cousin of Yang He, once held the position of deputy supervisor in the Ceremonial Office. Yang E was the supreme commander of (Si) Chuan Hu (Guang) and other regions during the Hongguang reign (1645–1646); Yang Hong was a grand secretary in the Eastern Hall10 in the era of Prince Yongli. In short, the Yang family was at the height of its power and splendor for a long time. However, this Yang family actually originated from (yuanji) today’s Langxi County, in Anhui province. It was simply because the Yang’s ancestor joined the army (congjun) in the early Ming that the family began to be subordinate to the Changde Guard. In the 9th month of Chongzhen 7 (1634), Yang Sichang stated clearly in his memorial to the throne: “my native place (yuanji)” was in Jianping (in the Ming, subordinate to Guangde subprefecture, in Nan zhili). Based on the records of our military achievements, my family was attached to the Changde Guard. Under imperial orders, the first few generations of my ancestors left home on military expeditions, and eventually died in the impoverished, backward, and malarial southern China. Not until its fifth generation did my ancestors start schooling. In the eighth generation, my ancestor Shi Fang was selected as a tributary student, first class, who was the first member of the family to be eligible to hold office. “Although he was a person with great ambitions, he failed in holding an office…”11 After four months, he mentioned this in another memorial saying: I am 48 years old now, from Wuling county, Changde prefecture, Huguang. In Wanli 38 (1610), I succeeded in becoming a metropolitan graduate and was appointed as instructor in a Confucian School in Hangzhou prefecture of Zhejiang province and was successively promoted…12 This example clearly and typically reflected the administrative character of the garrison system at the end of the Ming. Yang Sichang was very aware that his native place (jiguan) should have been the Changde Guard under the jurisdiction of Huguang regional military commission. Because of the long-term evolution of garrison system, however, some residential areas of the Changde Guard, where his family resided, had been gradually incorporated into Wuling County.13 Thus, Yang sometimes directly introduced himself as “from Wuling county.” These cases are concerned with Hunan, but other such cases also existed in other provinces in the Ming. Li Mengyang, a personage in the literary

The “garrison” category  97 circle in the mid-Ming known as the “former seven masters,” was mentioned in the Ming History and The Annals of the Xian Campaign as a native of Qingyang (Qingyang ren) ( in today’s Gansu province); as a matter of fact, he was also registered in a Qingyang Guard household. Li Dongyang wrote in an epitaph for Li Zheng, Li Mengyang’s father: based on the data, the Li family originated in Fugou county in Kaifeng prefecture, Henan province; Mengyang’s great-grandfather named En, followed his uncle (his mother’s brother) to join the army and to garrison Qingyang, he later died on the frontier for some reason.14 It turned out that Li Mengyang’s native place (zuji) was in Fugou, and not until his great-grandfather followed his uncle and joined the army did the Li family start to be registered in the Qingyang guard household. Li Zheng had held the post of instructor in the Confucian School in the prefecture and had educated the Feng Qiu Prince in the estate of the Zhou Prince. He had lived in Kaifeng during this period, and Li Mengyang was also born there, but he was not eligible to take the provincial examinations of Henan province. Instead, he “had to participate in the provincial examinations of Shaanxi. Fortunately, he gained the first place in competition in Hongzhi reign 6 (1493)” (in the Ming, all the government students in the Shaanxi provincial administration commission, Shaanxi regional military commission and Shaanxi branch regional military commission went to Xi’an to take the provincial examinations). Li Mengyang thus became a metropolitan graduate. With these scholarly honors, Li Mengyang was called Li Beidi (of the Northern), while Li Dongyang was known as Li Xiya (of the Western Shore). Hai Rui was an honest and upright official of high reputation in the Ming, but his native place was a source of confusion. Where did he come from? In his biography in the Ming History, fascicle 226, it was written: “Hai Rui, courtesy name. Ruxian, was from Qiongshan.” The “Biography of Master Hai Zhongjie,” written by Huang Bingshi during the era of Tianqi (1621– 1627), recorded that: “he was named Rui, with the courtesy name of Ruxian, and was registered in Nanhai Guard in Guangdong. He was from Panyu county while living in Qiongshan for generations.”15 His student Liang Yunlong wrote in “The Personal Record of Master Hai Zhongjie”: he was named Rui, his courtesy name was Ru Xian; the information on his ancestors was unknown. At the beginning of the Ming, because of military merits, one of his ancestors was given the position of commander in the Guangdong Guard, and was registered as a member of Panyu Guard household, thus he became a native of Panyu (Panyu ren). In Hongwu 16 (1383), (Hai) Da’er (another ancestor of Hai Rui), joined the army and served in Hainan, and made the surname Hai wellknown in this region called Qiong; therefore, Hai Rui was taken as a native of Qiongshan. Hai Da’er had very few offspring, but because of

98  The “garrison” category them his family still prospered; many tributary students appeared in the family. One of them, named Kuan, was well-known for his classical studies, succeeded in the provincial examinations, and became a district magistrate in Fujian. It was he who was the grandfather of Hai Rui.16 Probably, “The Chronological Biography of Hai Zhongjie,” edited by Wang Guoxian, offered more accurate information. Hai Rui’s ancestors originated from Fujian, and then immigrated to Panyu in Guangdong in the Southern Song. In Hongwu 16 (1383), Hai Da’er joined the army in Hainan and resided in Qiongshan. Although he had very few offspring, the family members increased in number, many of them succeeding in the civil service examinations. Hai became a distinguished surname in Hainan.17 Whatever their differences, scholars working on the Ming-Qing transition inevitably mention two personages, Shi Kefa and Ma Shiying, who played important roles in the Hongguang reign established in Nanjing in the 5th month of 1644. Scholars’ knowledge of the native places of even such eminent figures, however, has heretofore been limited. Numerous biographies have mentioned that Ma Shiying was from Guiyang and even that he was from the Guizhou Guard,18 but data on the founder of his military family have not been available. Yang Wencong, who was Ma Shiying’s brother-­ in-law (i.e. his younger sister’s husband), usually recorded as a native of ­Guiyang, was also from the Guizhou Guard. The founder of his family was in Ji’an, Jiangxi province.19 The native place of Shi Kefa was in Xiangfu County in Kaifeng prefecture, Henan. His ancestor joined the army in the Hongwu reign (1368–1398) and was promoted to be a company commander in the royal bodyguards. It was thought that Shi Kefa’s whole family moved to Beijing following the relocation of the capital there during the Yongle reign (1403–1424). The government militaries and the royal bodyguards ­resided, respectively, in Daxing and Wanping, two local units affiliated with Shuntian prefecture.20 Shi Kefa’s family had been living for generations in Daxing County so there was no problem saying that Shi Kefa was from Daxing County of Beijing, that he was registered in the royal bodyguard or that he was a native of Daxing County.21 What is puzzling is that in ­various academic works, without exception, both Ma Shiying and Yang Wencong were considered as being from Guiyang (i.e. the location of their guard registration), while Shi Kefa was stubbornly “traced back” to Xiangfu, in ­Henan, which was the native place of his founding ancestors 200 years earlier. In the Southern Ming, He Tengjiao successively held the high positions of grand coordinator, supreme commander and the general commanding armies as a grand secretary during the princely reigns of Hongguang (1645– 1646), Longwu (1645–1646) and Yongli (1647–1683), respectively. In Shunzhi 6 (1649), he was captured and killed by the Qing army in Xiangtan, Hunan.

The “garrison” category  99 He was given the posthumous title Prince of Central Xiang, and the Yongli Prince came personally to attend the memorial ceremony in front of his tomb. In almost every historical document, it was recorded that He Tengjiao was a native of Liping, Guizhou; in some records, he was even directly called “Lipingxiang Master” instead. However, more accurately, his native place was in the Wukai Guard (that was in the same town as Liping prefecture), and his founding ancestor’s native place was in Shaoxing, Zhejiang.22 Wang Xigun was also a grand secretary who died in trying to suppress the Shadingzhou Rebellion23 in Yunnan in the late Ming. In his biography of the Ming History, fascicle 279, he was said to be a native of Lufeng, but in fact he was from “the right guard register of Yunnan.” In Wang Xigun’s “Account of My Father’s Activities,” composed for his father Wang Quanshi, he wrote: our household had been living in Huayin, Shaanxi for generations, when my ancestor Wang Zhongkuan, as a son of a good family, joined the army and followed the Yingchuan earl (that is, Fu Youde, the famous general during the Hongwu reign to participate in the conquest of Yunnan. For his military achievements, he was awarded the title of Platoon Commander, as well as much military land and a decent official salary, enabling his descendants to settle down in this place.24 After the mid-Ming, more and more people with guard household registration went to school, passed the examinations and subsequently held civil ­offices at all different levels. As for the military officers, the number was even larger. For example, Yu Dayou, the famous general during the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), was recorded in his biography in the Ming History as coming from Jinjiang, in Fujian. Another essay, written by his contemporary Li Du, recorded that the Yu family originated in Huoqiu, Fengyang. Yu Dayou’s earliest ancestor, named Min, followed the High Ancestor (Zhu ­Yuanzhang) to fight on battlefields all over the country for forty years and thus was appointed to a commander’s post in Quanzhou, Fujian.”25 At the end of the Ming, in Chongzhen 2 (1629), because Yuan Chonghuan was ­arrested and put into prison, Man Gui, the regional commander of Ningyuan, was ­appointed as the military’s highest commanding officer. Afterward, he fell in battle at Beijing, and for this he was highly praised in historical documents. At the end of the Tianqi reign, because his surname Man was rare at that time, he was suspected to be from the ethnic minorities in the north. He refuted that idea in a memorial to the throne, saying: “my majesty, my native place (yuanji) was in Yi county, Yanzhou prefecture, Shandong, due to our ancestral military service, we lived for generations (shiju) in the Xuanfu front guard.”26 In the late Ming and the early Qing, Wu Sangui, another influential scholar-official of the day, was also from the guard household registration. According to the Draft History of the Qing, fascicle 474, “Wu Sangui, courtesy name Chang Bo, was from Gaoyou, Jiangnan (the lower

100  The “garrison” category Yangzi river valley) and his household was registered in Liaodong.” Sun Xu, in his Record of the Pacification of Wu, mentioned that Wu Sangui was “from Tieling in Liaodong.” In Record of Palace Hearsay, fascicle 1, Liu Jian wrote clearly: “Wu Sangui, courtesy Yuesuo, had forefathers who moved from ­Huizhou to Gaoyouzhou, then mobilized to Liaodong and settled down there.” In the following paragraphs, Liu Jian added that Wu Sangui’s father Wu Xiang, courtesy Lianghuan, with his household was registered in the central-rear garrison of the Ningyuan Qiantun Guard, and ­succeeded in becoming a military metropolitan graduate in Tianqi 2 (1622). ­A fterwards, he was step by step promoted to be the Regional Military Commissioner, garrisoning Ningyuan. We do not know for sure in which generation Wu Sangui’s ancestors started to serve the army, but it is quite certain that his family founder’s native place was in today’s Gaoyou County of Jiangsu province and his father had ­already been registered in the central-rear garrison of the Ningyuan Qiantun Guard. In the modern context, Mangui’s native place should then be in ­Xuanhua city, Hebei province, while Wu Sangui should be from Xingcheng County, Liaoning province. For discussing the issue of garrisons, I have collected abundant materials on the figures who had guard household registration. If I were to list all of them, this monograph would become largely a compilation of data; however, if the examples I cite were too few, it would be difficult to expound on the universality and importance of garrison household registration in the Ming. From the examples mentioned above, we can at least understand how confusing the various historical documents and works, including the Ming History, on the native places of the Ming figures in guard household registers were. Some records cited native place (yuanguan), some cited their guard household registration (rongji) and others were entangled in themselves because of the various kinds of sources. In history, the migration of population was an extremely common phenomenon; consequently, there often existed inconsistency between one’s native place (zuji) and hometown where his household registered (jiguan). As for the guard household registration (weiji) in the garrison system, it originated, on the one hand, from the compulsory policy implemented by the Ming government, which resulted in involuntary population migration, and, on the other hand, from the policy that stipulated the ancestral native place (zujun yuanji) be clearly and correctly recorded. Historical writings cannot be separated from writing historical figures; when it comes to the figures in the guard household registration, it would be the best, in my opinion, to take the garrisons’ locations, where their families had been living for generations, as a benchmark. Certainly, I do not argue against pointing out their native place (i.e. their zujun’s native place), but I hope to make two points very clear. First, try to understand without any ambiguity what the guard household registration

The “garrison” category  101 was; second, when it comes to writing the native places of the personages in guard household registers, consistency should be stressed. We should avoid using the guard household registration (yuanji) in some cases and the native places (yuan guan) in others.

The emergence of the guard household registration In the early Ming, all the military officers, bannermen and soldiers were hereditary. This situation was summarized very briefly by only five Chinese characters “bannermen and soldiers were all registered by generations” in the “second essay on the military” in the Ming History, fascicle 90. That description was rather too simple because it involved many complicated ­issues. In ensuring no decrease in the number of garrison bannermen and troops, the key lay in how to put the hereditary system into practice. Previously historians have paid more attention to the Clearance Hook System. If bannermen and soldiers escaped or died, they should be replenished from the military households at their native places, based on their close or distant relationship in their genealogy. This was merely an additional measure taken to maintain the number of the troops in the military system, but it would lead to ignoring some important aspects. When the Ming founder established the garrison system, he tried to lay a solid foundation that would ensure the continuity of the system. (1) All the military officers, bannermen, and soldiers should bring their wives and children to the garrison and live together with them as a family unit. (2) Some lands should be allocated for the garrisons to manage, including military land, pasture for raising horses and gardens for fruits or vegetables, which were different in number, based on different situations in different regions. The two rules provided the soldiers at garrisons with good conditions for ensuring their natural reproduction and inheritance. During the founding of the Ming, the realm was not calm and there was fighting. Under such circumstances, the garrison consisted mainly of the active servicemen led by the military officers. Once each garrison was set and there was surplus grain harvested from military land (except those set aside for self-supporting), the militaries’ wives, children and some other relatives would be sent to the garrison by the subprefecture and county of their native places, through a certain reporting procedure. The general situation can be seen in the following cases. 1 It was recorded in “Military Serviceman Falsely Claims a House for His Wife”, Grand Pronouncement, first edition, item 6: in Hongdong county in Shanxi, Yao Xiaowu’s wife, Shi Lingzhi, had given birth to their three sons and daughters, but Tang Runshang, a military serviceman, reported falsely to the Ministry of War that he wanted to marry her. The Ministry of War checked it and notified Hongdong county to arrange for the departure of

102  The “garrison” category Tang Runshang’s supposed family dependent (Shi Lingzhi) for Zhenjiang to complete the marriage. Upon the departure, Yao Xiaowu, the actual husband of Shi Lingzhi, brought a lawsuit against Tang Runshang in the county, pointing out that Shi Lingzhi was not Tang’s wife. The officials of Hongdong county knew perfectly well the real legal situation but they did not intend to distinguish right from wrong for ordinary people and to arrest the crafty Tang. They shirked their  obligations and lied that the case had already been examined and decided by the Ministry of War and they dared not disobey… 2 “On the 3rd day in the 3rd month of Hongwu 17 (1384), both Zhou Ren and Zhai Zhong, the garrison investigators, dispatched directly by the Ministry of War, conveyed the imperial rescript: go to tell the officials at the garrison in Yunnan, Dali and elsewhere that if convicted military men arrive, they should put them into the ranks of the army and order them to farm.… then, each garrison should decide on the time to farm, and inquire of every military man about the grain harvested; if there was surplus grain, the officials from the state should be dispatched to send the militaries’ family dependents to the garrison. Respect this.”27 3 It was recorded in a note to military officials in the 6th month of Hongwu 31 (1398) that the battalion in Longli of Guizhou was defeated by the minority ethnic group, upon the battle site were all the corpses, about 800 men and women, old and young. Among them only 150 were military servicemen; all the rest were their parents, wives, children and brothers. It was called a battalion, but more than 900 members of it were those who were set free privately, as well as those who escaped. As for those battalion and company commanders who bought and sold the soldiers, their family members were all killed.28 It is learned from examples 1 and 2 that the military servicemen brought their wives and children to live together in the garrison after its establishment. Tang Runshan from the Zhenjiang Guard originally had no wife and children. According to the system established by Zhu Yuanzhang, military men who had no wife should be able to marry a woman chosen from a military household located in his native place. If there were problems, their neighbors must help to resolve them. Tang Runshan broke the law by casting greedy eyes on his countryman’s wife and by misleading the Ministry of War. Then example 3 illustrated that, by the end of Hongwu reign, the military men at garrison were already living together with their wives and kids, and some of them had even brought their parents along with them. In the Ming official and military documents on garrisons, the common phrase “residing in barracks” easily raised some misunderstandings. Since

The “garrison” category  103 the military men in the Ming resided at garrisons together with their family members, it was natural to show consideration for their families’ needs while building the army barracks. For example, in Tianqi 4 (1624), the Haiyan County Illustrated Text cited the Garrison Gazetteer to the effect that: at the beginning of the state, the Commander was allocated five mu of land to build five main/central rooms and two other simple wingrooms in the foreyard and seven rear-rooms in the backyard. The battalion commander was given four mu of land to build five main/central rooms and two simple wing-rooms in the foreyard and five rear-rooms in the backyard. Company commanders were allocated two mu of land to build three main/central rooms in the foreyard and three rearrooms in the backyard. Each military man was provided a room in the barracks. During the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), He Guangyu, the supervising secretary of the Office of Scrutiny and Revenue, received an order from the emperor to clear up the list of soldiers at the emperor’s resting place.29 Then he said: at Ling Guard none of barracks was originally built, it was very hard for the soldiers to be on duty there, and it was inconvenient for us to call for them. Therefore it is suitable to provide one partitioned district for one guard, and one room for one military man whose wife and kids should be ordered to live together with him. However, this order was opposed by the Ministry of War, considering that “if every military man had one room there would need to be many thousands of rooms and this is not advisable given the current financial difficulties.” Later, however, the plan was supported by the emperor who issued the order that “it is still urged to build the barracks.”30 From some scattered data, when the buildings for the garrisons were built, they seemed to be in very good order. But after two or three generations, besides the legitimate inheritors (the eldest sons) of some officers and servicemen, there were certain groups of younger sons and extra troops who arranged to have houses and rooms to be built for their own residences. In other words, the number of the military households from the first generation at garrison should be basically equal to that of the military servicemen and officers at the garrison. At that time, the garrison household registration had not yet been initiated. After two or three generations, there might have been bidirectional changes. For one thing, there were vacancies created when servicemen left because they could no longer put up with the oppression and exploitation inflicted by generals and officers, or with bad living environments at the garrison. Some men had no male offspring to replace them. For another thing, the number of the descendants from the military founders was constantly increasing because, under most circumstances, the legitimate officers and men did not

104  The “garrison” category give birth to only one son and the second and third sons became heads of more and more small families attached to the garrisons. During the Wanli reign (1573–1620), Lao Kan wrote in his Essay on Military Households: some asked: upon the initial establishment of guards at the beginning of the Ming, why not incorporate them into subprefectures and counties? It was answered: at first, simply concerning the sources of troops; later, simply concerning those who had no offspring. Couples, after only three generations, were able to multiply into big families. That was unexpected at the initial foundation of the Ming.31 It stands to reason that the term “household registration” might have been used to describe the population living at a guard from its establishment till three generations later, but it was only after the mid-Ming that the term household registration was more widely used in the documents. Furthermore, it was closely related to the garrison (see below) and the civil service examination system. Since the garrison in the Ming usually administered an area, large or small, and the households at the garrison were not all from the military officers and servicemen, the question arises what the increasing population in the guard household registration did for a living. Generally speaking, the garrison was, after all, a territorial unit with a military nature, and the excess servicemen usually shouldered some subsidiary military obligations, but, under most circumstances, there was not much difference between the lives of garrison populations and those of families subordinate to subprefectures and counties. Many historical sources show that the residents living within a garrison, including the indigenous civil households but excluding inheritors of the posts of the military servicemen, were engaged in all walks of life, such as that of scholar bureaucrats, peasants, craftsmen and businessmen. To provide the population in garrison household registers, especially the offspring of the officers, with education, schools were set up at the guards with the approval of the court and with abbreviated names akin to the schools at prefectures, subprefectures and counties. The origin of guard schools was explicitly recorded in the Veritable records of the Ming. For example, in the 4th month of Hongwu 28 (1395), “one instructor and four truant officers were designated to change official schools in Jinzhou, Fuzhou, Haizhou and Gaizhou in Liaodong into official guard schools.”32 This was because after Liaodong province in the Yuan dynasty was changed into Liaodong Regional Military Commission in the Ming, all of the original subprefectures were changed into guards, and the subprefectural official schools were correspondingly changed into official guard schools. Another kind of guard school was established by the officers of garrisons to serve their increasing numbers of children and grandchildren. For example, in the 12th month of Yongle 4 (1406), it was recorded that: during the Hongwu reign (1368–1398), an edict was issued that in Ningxia Middle Tun Guard, as well as in Ningxia Left Tun Guard and

The “garrison” category  105 Ningxia Right Tun Guard, one general official school should be set up in each guard, having the same rank as that of schools in the prefecture, and having an official seal with the words official school of Ningxia Middle Tun Guard, etc. At this time, with the Middle Tun Guard incorporated into the Ningxia Guard, it was changed into the Ningxia Guard school, etc. Its official seal changed accordingly, but its official rank was unchanged.33 Lu Rong said: in the yimao year 10 (1435) of the Xuande reign, all military guards set up schools. In spring and autumn annually, there were two great offerings of sacrifices to ancestors, which were presided over by military officers, while the instructors/civil officials only distributed the material.34 This was recorded in more detail in the Ming Xuanzong Veritable Records. In the 3rd month of Xuande 7 (1432), Guo Jin, the Minister of Personnel, and some others memorialized that Lin Shi, the Assistant Surveillance Commissioner of the Provincial Surveillance Commission in Shaanxi, said: it was suitable for all guards to set up schools for instructing the offspring of military officers. But after discussion we came up with the opinion that the children in the garrisons neighboring prefectures, subprefectures, and counties, should be instructed to attend the schools in those places. If a garrison was too far from its neighbors, one school should be set up in one guard or shared by two or three guards for instructing and training the children. If there were excellent students in such guard schools, they should be allowed to take the local provincial examinations.35 This source clearly indicated that the guard school was in the same category as schools in prefectures, subprefectures and counties. The last sentence in the quotation above is the most noteworthy: “if there were excellent school performers, they should be allowed to take the local provincial examination.” It made clear that no matter whether at a civil or at a military school, students with academic promise should be allowed to participate in the civil provincial examinations. If they met the standards, they should be enrolled as provincial scholars eligible to participate in the metropolitan examinations held by the Ministry of Rites and the palace examinations held by the ruler. Even if they failed in the highest examinations, they could still serve in the lower ranks of officialdom. Even though after the mid-Ming, there was a rising tendency in society to value literary culture and depreciate military talent, the candidates who originated in the garrison household registers, frequently called “military candidates” in the historical documents, became provincial and metropolitan graduates enjoying the respect of society and access to officialdom. In Wanli 17

106  The “garrison” category (1589), Jiao Hong, who won the highest grade in the palace examination that year, belonged to the Qi Shou Guard household register of Nanjing. His ancestral military native place was Rizhao County in Shandong, where his father had inherited the post of battalion commander. In Jiao Hong’s biography in the Ming History, he was said to be from Jiangning (that is from Nanjing), and he was highly popular in literary circles at that time. The more scholars from the guard household registers passed through the examination system and took civil posts, the more frequently the words of garrison household registration were used in the documents. During the mid- and the later Ming, people from the guard household registers, who pursued the career of the official, were mainly the descendants of the officers and the servicemen and very few came from the civilian households that were administered temporarily by the garrison. This obviously indicated that, within the garrison, the households of the officers were in a dominant position, and the social atmosphere of valuing culture and ignoring the military rapidly spread among the households of garrison officers and servicemen. Since the famous personages with guard household registration were mostly descendants from their original militaries, in order to avoid the misunderstanding, it is necessary to remember that the population of the guard household registers consisted mainly of such persons. In addition, there were still some native civilian households (yuanju minhu) administered temporarily by garrisons.

The relationship between garrison household registration and military households The term “military household” (junhu) was frequently used in a confused way in the sources when the garrison was established at the beginning of the Ming because of the very close blood ties between the militaries at garrisons (weisuo de jun) and the original households of the subprefectures and counties (yuanji zhouxian de benhu). This was not considered strange at the time. However, their relationship after the following three generations became increasingly estranged. As a common saying put it, a far-off relative is not as helpful as a nearby neighbor. Not only did the blood ties between the military households at the garrison and the native households of the ancestral armies (zujun) became more and more estranged by generations, but also the garrisons were geographically located thousands of miles from the servicemen’s native places. Nevertheless, the households from which there were some people enlisted in the army, no matter whether they were rebels who supported Zhu Yuanzhang, the drafted36 who joined later or those doing penal servitude for generations, were called military households (junhu). They were under the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties, that is, one of household register categories of jun (military household), min (civilian household), jiang (craftsman household), zao (saltern household) and so on, which

The “garrison” category  107 were listed in all the local gazetteers. The Gazetteer of Wuxi County of the Kangxi reign (1662–1722) recorded: according to the previous system of the Ming, when a boy turned sixteen he entered manhood and was listed in the Yellow Registers, registered for military service, and called on to perform corvée per capita. The registers were to be recompiled every ten years. In the process, each household was provided with a certificate (guan tie) for their native places, where the taxes and other services were listed item by item. The officers personally examined the maps and updated them according to the actual number of people in the household registers. There were two categories of registers (ce), the military registers and the civilian registers, which were recompiled simultaneously. It was ordered that the upper and lower community heads37 who were on duty that year take turns bearing responsibility for this. One civilian ce of each tu (a grass-rooted unit of administration) should be sent to Jing (the capital at Nanjing), one to the prefecture, one to the county, and one draft should be kept for storage. Thus, altogether there were four copies. The one sent to the Capital was especially important for it was stored in the back lake (houhu) in Nanjing for fire protection. Meanwhile the military ce were sent to the Ministry of War in both Nanjing and Beijing. However, due to the situation of increasing numbers of civilians and fewer militaries, twenty-two copies of the military ce were distributed to the rural towns (xiang) while the civilian ce were allocated to the tu. The Jing and prefectures were separately provided with the 414 copies. Whoever had zujun within tu were listed in the military ce, and whoever had none were not.38 The military ce mentioned here referred to the native household registers under the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties. It was quite different from the military Yellow Registers of the garrisons. To illustrate the relationship between the garrison household registration and the military households under the jurisdiction of subprefecture and county, as well as their difference from each other, let’s take Zeng Xingwu’s household as an example. Zeng was the Minister of Works39 at the beginning of the Wanli reign. According to his own words, “the Zeng family reported the residence registration (zhanji) at Jiudu, Taiping township in Pengze region, which was called Qiaoting’s residence or Qiaoting Zeng family, by the locals. The Zengs’ origins were ages earlier, before the Yuan dynasty.” That is, by the end of the Yuan dynasty, the Zeng family had become the natives of Pengze, Jiangxi. During the Yuan Shundi reign, master Zeng had four sons, respectively, Yongyi, Yonger, Yongsan and Yongsi. In 1363, while Zhu Yuanzhang was leading his army against Chen Youliang in the battle of Poyang Lake, he once passed by Pengze County. “Along the road villagers prostrated themselves to show their respect and cheered to welcome Zhu’s army.” Zeng Yongsi, due to his huge strong body, drew the attention of Zhu

108  The “garrison” category Yuanzhang, and was asked to lift up a stone to try his strength. Qualified, he was enlisted as a military man under the command of Chang Yuchun, later registered in Anlu Guard (its name was changed into Chengtian Guard after Ming Shizong’s accession to the throne. It was ­located roughly in the current Zhongxiang region of Hubei). According to the Ming system, the descendants of Zeng Yongsi belonged to the Anlu Guard household registration, while Yongyi, Yonger and Yongsan in the Pengze native place were military households, who had the obligation to provide the military servicemen at the garrison with subsidies. When their elders were alive, their mutual concerns could be imagined, “the communications and exchanges between Anlu and Pengze were without interruption.” Up to the early Jiajing reign, more than a hundred years had passed, and the descendants of Zeng Yongsi at Anlu Guard who had inherited the military posts still, by convention, sent some people back to their native households for the equipment expenses, but unexpectedly the Zeng clans there would not recognize their distant relatives. In order to avoid taking on the military households’ legal responsibilities, they even destroyed their ancestral tablets by fire. Since then, the two sides severed contact with each other for nearly fifty years. Unexpectedly, not long after, father Zeng Fan and son Zeng Xingwu, at the Chengtian Guard household registration, met the standard of the metropolitan examinations and successively held high-ranking official posts. Although His Eminence Zeng Xingwu once returned home to honor his ancestors, and the descendants of the Qiaoting Zeng family were very proud of that,40 at that time the people all considered him to be a native of what is now Hubei, the same as Wang Zhuan. Zeng Xingwu was also trusted and favored at court since he was a fellow townsman of Zhang Juzheng, the regent and grand secretary. But upon Zhang Juzheng’s death, his house was searched and his property confiscated. Zeng Xingwu was involved in the power struggle and suffered from it. In this case, members of the Qiaoting Zeng clan in Pengze had been shirking their duties as military households since the Jiajing reign. This phenomenon may have been very common at that time. Take Linchuan prefecture in Jiangxi as an example. According to one source, “in all parts of the prefecture, the original figures of militaries from all the guards were 17,944 households. After deducting the loss from accidents and no offspring, during the Longqing reign (1567–1572) there were only 5,779 households.” Following these words were listed the detailed figures of the military servicemen (zhengjun) sent by four counties subordinate to the prefecture: Qingjiang, Xingan, Xinyu and Xiajiang. It also listed the guards in almost the entire country.41 From these figures it can be calculated that during the period of 200 years, the number of the military households who had no offspring to perform their inherited duties exceeded two-thirds. Normally in peaceful times, this situation should not have occurred to this extent. The reasons for the decreasing number of the military households under the jurisdiction of subprefectures and counties are manifold. The main one was that military households subordinate to subprefectures and counties

The “garrison” category  109 worried that they might be forcibly sent to the garrisons to replenish those who were lost. Shen Jing in his Record of the Double Pearl described some examples of the lives and replenishments in some military households. Wang Ji was originally from Zhuolu (today’s Hebei). Some of his ancestors had been sent into exile and registered in the Yunyang Guard in Huguang. “My grandparents gave birth to my uncle and my father. Unfortunately my father died early, and my uncle was listed by the Yunyang Guard as the replenishment.” From an early age, he was very good at reading and “received a cultural education” and “was expected to have his name put on the published list of successful candidates.” Just when he was ready to take the imperial examination, the local officials of Zhuozhou got the indenture (contract) from the Ministry of War. “Based on the report from the Yunyang Guard, the military man Wang Yi died of illness and now his post was vacant. By verification, his native place was Zhuozhou, which should implement the replenishment. For this reason, the local officials in Zhuozhou were ordered to recruit a relative from Wang Yi’s native household and to send him to the guard, together with his wife.” Then the officials in Zhuozhou ordered the local grassroots managers (lilao) to check the registration. The managers said: Wang Jin is Wang Yi’s younger brother, Wang Ji is the son of Wang Jin who died, so Wang Ji should replenish his father’s post in the army. Simply arrest Wang Ji and his wife and send them under escort to the Yunyang Guard. The subprefecture officials immediately ordered Fang Fu and Chang Jie (those in charge of local security) to break into Wang Ji’s residence and to tie him and his wife up, just like catching thieves and brigands. Subsequently, the Wang couple, together with their four-year-old elder son, Wang Jiuling, were sent away from home to the Yunyang Guard. After Wang Ji replenished the family’s place in the guard, his younger sister was still in Zhuozhou, attending to their old mother: “my mother is alive, my elder brother and his wife are at guard; we have been cut off from each other and isolated from the rest of the world. I’m afraid we will never meet again.” Thereafter, Wang Ji made great efforts, and, for his military meritorious service, he was ­appointed a notary in the bureau of military affairs (a Song post in the Yuan state and no longer extant in Ming). His son, Wang Jiuling, by chance, was able to go to school and take the civil service examinations. Amazingly, he became a metropolitan graduate and was appointed censor-in-chief, and this story ended happily. In general, however, the militaries replenished in the Ming were unable to achieve such a dramatic and positive result. In reality, the effect of the replenishment was very poor. As has been mentioned in many sources, it was very hard to recruit one out of ten. The reasons for this have already been discussed by many scholars and will therefore not be repeated in this essay. As for the practice of sending criminals into exile, which was adopted

110  The “garrison” category from the beginning of the Ming to its end, it is very questionable whether this measure succeeded in increasing the military force. At the beginning of Xuanzong’s reign, Fan Ji, a military man at the Left Tun Guard of Xingzhou (who had once held the post of prefect of Guangxin), reflected on his experience of more than forty years after he was demoted and exiled. He submitted a memorial to the emperor saying: in recent years, many convicted officials and people have been sent into exile, among them there were some pasty-faced students, elders, the weak and the sick. Since such kinds of people have been enrolled in the army, the money and the grain to support them have been wasted; when faced with active service in war, the capable ones avoided service by paying money, and the impoverished had to make up the difference by going to the battlefield. They were unable to prepare the uniforms and to provide grain for themselves. If they were expected to fight bravely against the enemy, they shuddered from fear. Some died by their own hand and others ran away.42 The exiled criminals were classified into two categories: those whose sentence of exile lasted only for their own lifetimes, and those whose criminal status was inherited by generations of descendants. The latter turned out to be the new ancestral armies (zujun) and the new military households (junhu). After the above discussion, another issue should be noted, that is, the arrangements were made to send the garrisons’ extra members of military families back to their native subprefectures and counties. This occurred ­after the early and the mid-Ming. For example, in the intercalary 6th month of Hongwu 20 (1387), Taizu issued an edict that, since the generals and soldiers at the garrisons in Jing (the Capital) were mostly from Shandong and Henan, and were often accompanied by their entire families, the fields and gardens at home lay waste. The Five Chief Military Commission was ordered to verify it and to send home the distant relatives of the generals and soldiers at the garrisons, only the parents, wives, and kids, should be kept in the capital city.43 In the 2nd month of Zhengtong 1 (1436), Wang Xuan, the local official at Pacification Commission in Yongning, Sichuan, put forward five proposals. One of them was: the officers and the militaries at garrisons in the country mostly had their accompanying persons, such as their foster sons and sons in law left by their forefathers, thus, bringing about more and more extra members. Some of them did a lot of illegal things. It is advisable to verify all

The “garrison” category  111 of it, so that the officers should keep the relatives who should inherit, and the military servicemen should keep the excess soldiers who should be kept. All of the rest should be sent back to their native places for service. …then the Ministry of Revenue at Beijing applied for approval. The rescript was acted upon accordingly.44 Shortly after, the order was extended to the retainers of the officers and the surplus men of the military soldiers. During the Jingtai (1450–1457) reign, Wang Ji, the Supreme Commander and the Minister of War in Nanjing, submitted a memorial saying: the militaries mobilized from the outside to Longhu Left Guard and Baotao Right Guard of Nanjing, heard that in the barracks there were so many militaries that the monthly grain was not enough to support themselves, as a result, many of them escaped. Then Li Long,the earl of Xiangcheng, was requested to inspect the things there, and it was, as expected. So it was ordered that if there were really some who were unable to support themselves, then to keep the household of the military serviceman in the barracks, as well as one soldier to assist in taking care of their daily lives. As for all of the rest, if they are willing to return to their native places, then let them be.45 In Tianshun 8 (1464), it was ordered not to allow the extra retainers from the households of the officials and the militaries at garrison to have their households registered in the vicinity. If no relatives remained at their native places, it was allowed to select one extra soldier to be sent back there.46 Thus, it can be seen that by the mid-Ming, since the population registered at the garrisons expanded, their lives were hard to sustain, and some of the excess soldiers at the garrisons were approved by the court to be sent back to their native subprefectures and counties. Here is a rather interesting example: speaking of the famous literatus, Xu Wei (Xu Wenchang) in the Jiajing reign, everyone believed that he was from Shanyin, Zhejiang, but quite a few local chronicles recorded that his father, Xu Cong, was from the Longli Guard, in Guizhou. Xu Lu, his elder brother was, too, the examinee with military status from the Longli Guard. He himself once expressed that, when it was not going well for him to take the examination, he could have gone to Guizhou to take the provincial examination to spring into fame, but was unable to do so for no other reason than that he had no traveling expenses.47 Why was that? It turned out that Xu Wei’s ancestors “had been banished to the Longli guard as offenders,”48 and his father, Xu Cong, had taken the provincial examination of Yunnan and Guizhou as an examinee with military status from Longli Guard, Guizhou, in Hongzhi 2 (1489) (at that time owing to the small number of examinees in Yunnan and Guizhou, the two provincial examinations were combined into one held at Y ­ unnan; from Jiajing 14 they were held separately again in the two provinces).

112  The “garrison” category Xu Cong was a successful provincial graduate, and he successively held the posts of subprefect and county magistrate in Jujin and elsewhere in Yunnan, and the post of associate prefect in Yezhou, in Sichuan. Even though there was no clear record in Xu Wenchang’s writings, we can still learn that his father Xu Cong seemed to be preparing for stepping into an official career by participating in the provincial examinations in Guizhou and Yunnan. When he was dismissed from office, he did not return to Longli, but instead went to Shanyin County. Xu Wei had two elder brothers, Xu Huai and Xu Lu, both of whom were registered in the school of Longli Guard, and who gained the qualifications of the examinee with military status at that school. However, Xu Huai was engaged in business, admired supernatural beings (faeries) and had no desire to pursue scholarly honors or official ranks. Xu Lu, because of his native place, gained examinee qualifications at school in Shaoxing prefecture, but in the culturally developed Jiangzhe region, he “did not perform well in the examinations.” Hence, he made up his mind to follow his father’s example, and set out with his wife and children on the long trek to the Longli Guard in Guizhou. In this way, in the culturally less developed province, he got the top place in the list every time when taking the examinations at guard schools. This aroused the resentment of other students “who agitated to sue him for speculation and fraud”; eventually, he died of some disease at the Longli Guard. Xu Wenchang wrote in his “second elder brother’s epitaph” that “at home my elder brother was always a gentleman with a benign countenance; later, due to the household’s straitened circumstances, he worked hard. He did not begrudge spending his money on travelling thousands of miles to trade with the inhabitants in remote border areas. During this time, accompanied by servants, he ate the same coarse rice, wore the same coarse clothes, lived in the same caves and bamboo forests where tigers took shelter, and borrowed money at usurious interest rates from the southern natives (Manzi).49 …while the garrison certainly lacked civilization, therefore, from the high-ranking officials to the low-ranking company commander and the military households, all had great esteem for my brother. However, since the local folk customs were uncouth, people usually failed to make a distinction between the right and the wrong. Because of trifles, they frequently engaged in street fighting, and my clansmen behaved even worse.”50 The sentence “my clansmen behaved even worse” is worth noting; it indicates that not a few members of Xu Wei’s clan (i.e. the descendants of the same ancestral army as his father) were staying and living in Longli Guard. It was possible that Xu Cong and his three sons were selected as soldiers to return to their native places. The problem was that they had participated in the provincial examination of Yunnan and Guizhou with the qualification of the examinee with military status in the Guizhou Guard. That is, they had evaded the difficult and taken the easy path to gain something by trickery. In the Ming, that was specifically called pretending to be registered as a household. It was the father and sons, who had tried to pursue regular civil official positions in breach of the rules, who

The “garrison” category  113 created confusion in recording the actual historical data. Xu Wei was generally recognized as a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, but, in the General Gazetteer of Guizhou, he was listed as being from Guiyang prefecture, instead.51 As for Xu Wei’s father and brothers, they were more clearly recorded in the Guizhou provincial gazetteer owing to their names listed in its schools. As far as the issue of the relationship between the garrison household registration and the military households at subprefecture and county is concerned, its complexity can be imagined since it covered the period of over 200 years throughout the country. The discussion above was merely a rough sketch of the basic situation; the emphasis was placed on the difference between the garrison household registration and the military household at ­subprefecture and county, as well as their partially separated relationship.

The influence of the garrison household registration on population distribution in the Ming The garrison system in the Ming played an important role in Chinese history by influencing the distribution of ethnic groups in the population. Speaking of the two provinces, Yunnan and Guizhou in southwest China, everyone knows that they have been part of China’s territory since ancient times. But, before the Ming dynasty, the two provinces were basically populated by ­ethnic minorities and the Han population was very small. During Hongwu 14 and 15 (1381–1382), under the order of Ming Taizu, the senior generals Fu Youde, Lan Yu and Mu Ying led an army of 300,000 men to seize control of Yunnan which had been forcibly occupied by ­Bazalawaermi, the king of the Liang State of the Yuan dynasty and the Duan clan. At this time, the native official of Dali, named Duan, wrote to Fu Youde. At the beginning of his letter, he composed a verse: “since ­ancient times, ­Yunnan has been the easiest to pacify and the hardest to keep at peace.” In the letter, he repeatedly expressed the hope that the court would not e­ stablish guest troops in Yunnan. I think that if you were to keep the guest troops as garrisons in Yunnan, the loss would be as heavy as Mount Tai and the benefit would be as light as a goose feather. If you garrison the province with our locals, there would be benefits to you from the tribute paid to the imperial court and there would be no loss for you from our providing the troops with the supplies. He also wrote with the threatening words: we can disarm your armies without needing to sharpen our knives and we can annihilate your armies without bloodying the blade. Naturally, in April and May the rainwater keeps pouring down, consequently, the rivers overflow, the roads are obstructed, and the traffic held up.

114  The “garrison” category And then I believe that the soldiers must be extremely exhausted, their grain supplies exhausted and their morale lost. Then eight or nine out of ten soldiers will die or flee, six or seven out of ten will die from disease. Finally, he offered this advice to Fu Youde: you might as well find the way out as soon as possible, in fine weather with dry roads, retreating to your hometown intact…. Hopefully, you would rather die in the Central Plains (i.e. at home) than be a ghost in the remote borderland52 Fu Youde replied tit for tat in an official accusation: in the subprefecture and county newly-submitted to the authority of the imperial court, circuits and prefectures were all established, the garrison soldiers were increased to a large number, and the state lands were greatly expanded. This project was believed to be never wavering in upholding the fundamental principle crucial for generations to come. How could there be the malpractice of long-stationed troops suddenly rising in rebellion!53 The garrisoned soldiers and state lands mentioned here reflected the situations in which the garrison system established by Zhu Yuanzhang was carried out in Yunnan. Some of the historical documents record that in Hongwu 22 (1389), Mu Ying, the Xiping Earl who garrisoned Yunnan, after having an audience with the Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, was leading more than 2,500,000 people from Jiangnan and Jiangxi to move into Yunnan. They were provided with seeds, funds, and allocated land distributed in various prefectures and counties, such as Linan, Qujing, Yunwu, Yaoan, Dali, Heqing, Yongchang, and Tengchong. In the following year, again the memorial presented a request for 800,000 of residents from Huguang and Jiangnan to move into Yunnan to augment the population there, and also a request for distributing the treasury money 3,000,000 liang to them. The emperor approved all of the requests. Mu Ying had garrisoned Dian (Yunnan) for ten years. During that period of time, more than 4,000,000 “people migrated in Yunnan and the cultivated land increased to more than 9,000,000 mu.” After his death, Mu Ying’s son Chun continued to garrison Yunnan, “vigorously expanded the tuntian, substantially amended the policy for state land, made more than 300,000 people move from Nanjng to Yunnan, and cultivated more than 2,000,000

The “garrison” category  115 54

mu of the land.” This record was written later and might not be accurate regarding the number of immigrants and the method of compilation, but it roughly reflected the situation of a large number of Han people moving to Yunnan to settle there in the early Ming. The method of their relocation was mainly to enroll them into the garrison. For example, Preface to the Li Family Genealogy, written by Li Mingzhong, recorded that his forefathers were originally from Nanjing. After the pacification of Yunnan in the early Ming, the royal court was concerned that the less developed cultures of the peoples in the Southwest would impede indoctrination, so it took measures to disseminate the culture of the Central Plains among the ethnic groups in Yunnan. It therefore sent people from the eight prefectures of Nanjing to enrich the border area and settle down in various garrisons. That was where most of the Han people registered in Yunnan were from. Li Mingzhong’s forefathers in the Hongwu reign (1368–1398) “were ordered to come, subordinate to the Tengchong Guard.”55 The large-scale immigration to Yunnan through the garrison system continued during the midMing period. For example, during the Zhengtong (1436–1449) reign, when Si Renfa rose in armed rebellion56 in Luchuan kingdom,57 Yingzong ordered Wang Ji, the Minister of War, to lead the army on a punitive expedition. After the fighting subsided, quite a number of the militaries involved stayed behind, were stationed in Yunnan and cultivated the tuntian hereditarily. As Xu Bin put it, in his Record of the Tengchong Jinjiayuan Xu Family’s ­Migration from Nanjing to Tengyue that I am from Shangyuan in Yingtian prefecture in Nanjing. Over generations, my family has produced some distinguished scholars in the Song Confucian school of principle (lixue)……I studied Confucianism up to the age of twenty-five (in Hongwu 27), when the local government recruited soldiers by the poll tax (paid at the same rate by every adult in a particular area). Together with my second and third younger brothers, I put down the brush and took up arms. In the Ji You month of Xuande 4 (1429), when I was sixty years old, I was awarded the post of company commander, along with my two brothers. In Zhejiang my younger male cousins, Zhong and Xin, also received posts, all of which were hereditary at the sixth rank. All the  juniors from my household joined the army to serve the imperial court. …in Zhengtong 3 (1438), Si Renfa, the rebel in Luchuan, seized Tengchong…in the 6th year, Wang Ji, the Minister, was ordered to supervise the militaries, and to mobilize a 150,000man army from Jing, Hu, Jiang, Zhe, Chuan, Guang, Shan, Shaan, and Fujian to suppress it…. Our army won a total victory, and I was ordered to stay behind and garrison it, with the regular and irregular militaries belonging. …for my military achievements I was promoted

116  The “garrison” category to associate battalion commander at Tengchong and granted garrison farmland of sixty-seven mu. My two sons, Gang and Shi, were all promoted to company commander, and each was granted forty-eight mu of farmland which were all to be inherited, administered, and cultivated by their subordinate servicemen. Among their militaries, three-tenths of them should conduct military drills and seven-tenths should cultivate the land.58 It is noteworthy that Xu Bin, who was anchored in the Tengchong Guard in Yunnan and held the hereditary post of associate battalion commander, was the grandson of Xu Heng (Mr. Lu Zhai), the distinguished scholar of the school of principle in the Yuan dynasty. The situation in Guizhou was quite akin to that in Yunnan. During the Hongwu and Jianwen reigns, within the area of the current Guizhou province, most of the land and population was administered by the Guizhou Regional Military Commission and its subordinate garrisons, except that prefectures and subprefectures were established in a few regions which were put under the administration of the neighboring Provincial Administration Commissions in Sichuan and Huguang. In Yongle 11 (1413), although the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission was set up, it mainly ­administered the prefectures which were above the local officials, while most of the regions were still under the jurisdiction of the Guizhou Regional Military Commission. The vast majority of the Han people who settled down in Guizhou were included in the garrison registration system. Let’s read the memorial to the throne from Zhu Xieyuan, the supreme commander of Chuan-Gui in Chongzhen 5 (1632): at the time of the initial establishment of Qian province (Guizhou) in the past, only garrisons and no prefectures and counties were set up, only guards and fortresses but no villages were there. Later, it was gradually expanded and, as a result, the prefectures, subprefectures, and counties were added, and the so-called civilians there were all the Miao people, who were all subordinate to border chieftains sanctioned by the court… therefore, there were light grain taxes and no levy taxes, and there was only about half of it, that is, the items of ding (soldier) service also had quota requirements but no actual recruitment. …if to change the military land into the civilian land, then it turned out to be even less of the quota grain requirements, but the garrison system was completely lost, which seemed not beneficial.59 It can be seen that up to the end of the Ming, the majority of Han people in the whole of Guizhou province were still registered in garrison households, whose cultivated land was still called military land (juntian). These households of Han military officers and soldiers, who had successively moved into Yun-Gui garrison since the early Ming, gradually developed into the

The “garrison” category  117 local people (i.e. into the garrison household registration) after three or four generations. According to the Gazetteer of Guiyang Prefecture, fascicle 75, With the establishment of garrisons in the Ming, it could not only safeguard subprefecture and county authority but also guarantee the official salary for their meritorious militaries for generations. Therefore, no matter whether they were high or low in rank, all of them, from commanders down to soldiers, could be succeeded and inherited, sharing weal and woe with the country. At the start, the people were mobilized from all corners of the country to be here, and with the passage of time and the vicissitudes of the country, they had been by degrees assimilated into the indigenous people. Moreover, guard schools were set up everywhere and their children could go to school and take the provincial examination nearby. As time passed, it faded from their own memory that they used to reside in the place far away from hometown. From the data in the local gazetteers of Yunnan and Guizhou, it can be seen that during the Ming’s more than 200 years reign, the Han population in this region substantially increased, because they came from all the provinces through the garrison system; in association with the local minorities, the brotherly friendship between the Hans and the locals was enhanced and the exchanges of their culture and customs were promoted. What’s more, it accelerated the development in the southwest area and consolidated the reunification of the ancestral country. While pointing out that one of the results of the implementation of the garrison system was that a large number of Han population moved and resided in the southwest area, we have to see that some of the ethnic minorities were willingly helped to settle down in inland garrisons by the imperial court. The following are a few typical examples: On the yimao day, 2nd month of Hongwu 22 (1398), “it was ordered that 3,000 rooms of army barracks were to be built for Dada (Tartar Mongols) militaries to reside at the Jingzhou Left Guard as well as at the guards of Huangzhou, Changde, Yuezhou, Yuanzhou, Qizhou and Wuchang.”60 On the gengshen day, of the 7th month of Jingtai 2 (1451), “Bu’erhanding, the company commander of the Hui people (i.e. Muslims), came over and paid allegiance to the court. He was ordered to take the official salary at Nanjing Imperial Guard, and granted silver, clothes, cattle and sheep, rice, houses, beds, utensils and so forth.”61 On the yihai day in the 2nd month of Jingtai 3 (1452), at Wu Zhe Guard, and some others, Bahacha, the associate commander of the Jurchen people, and some nine other persons first were captured by Oriat Mongols, then their envoys were sent to pay tribute to the imperial court and they willingly submitted to it. While setting up the Zhou Left Guard, Mangku and some six other Jurchens came over to

118  The “garrison” category submit. They were all ordered to hold their former posts and to serve as chieftains subordinate to the Nanjing Imperial Guard. They were given clothes, paper money, houses, utensils and so forth.62 Similar examples are very often seen in the Ming Veritable Records. The three examples selected above illustrate that the ethnic minorities who had moved into inland garrisons were Mongolians, Muslim Han and Jurchen people. With approval from the imperial court, they moved into the garrisons in the Han residential area and were generally given preferential treatment. “Cangwu Zongdu Junmen Zhi (The Record of the Military Service Men under the Cangwu General Commander),” recompiled during the Wanli reign (1573–1620), describes the situations of four guards in Guangzhou that helped resettle the “Daguan”, “Dashe”, and “Daqijun”. They were not only given official salaries, boots and hats according to their ranks, but also funds with which to build houses. Each Da who had only one room received silver of two liang; those who had three rooms received silver of 3.5 liang; those who had more rooms, received one more liang for each additional room, and they needed to buy the materials to build the houses by themselves. Those who had no wife and kids would be given five liang of silver to marry a wife and then to be on duty for serving the country. It is also specially mentioned in the book that “the local authorities initiated construction of mosques in Dadong, Xiaodong, Xiaoxin and Xiying.” From this it appeared that they were most probably the group of “Da”guan and Qijun who believed in Islam, and the Ming government even took good care of their religious activities. In Wanli 6 (1578), Ling Yunji, the Supreme Commander, said: “this kind of Da guan, qishe, stayed to resettle in the Two Guangs (Guangdong and Guangxi) after the recent military events. They were given good treatment in many ways, and thus at present their population is gradually multiplying.”63 The facts show that in the process of strengthening the cohesion of all nationalities, the garrison system implemented in the Ming dynasty played a significant role. Originally published in Journal of Beijing Normal University, 1989, 05, pp. 56–65. Translated by Ning Ping and Sun Simeng Polished by Roger V Des Forges

Notes 1 Minglü·Hulü·Huyi. 2 Hu Guang here refers to the area of the present Hunan and Hubei included (noted by the translator).

The “garrison” category  119 3 Jing Nan War the civil war started during the reign of Jianwen, Zhu Yunwen (1399–1402), one of Zhu Yuanzhang’s grandsons. On August 6, 1399, Zhu Di, the fourth son of Ming Taizu, led the troops to rebel against Jianwen, his nephew, which lasted for three years. On July 13, Zhu Di, leading his army, seized the capital, Yingtian (the present Nanjing), then ascended the throne and eventually became known as Chengzu. Jianwen went missing (noted by the translator). 4 “Zukao Shaofu Fujun Gaoming Beiyin Ji,” in The Collected Works of Li Dongyang, vol. 8. 5 “Ji Gaozu Chushi Fujun Muwen,” in The Collected Works of Li Dongyang, vol. 8, Nanxinggao. 6 “Gaozu Wuqi Fujun Muzhi,” in The Collected Works of Li Dongyang, vol. 8, Nanxinggao. 7 Deng Xianhe, ed. Yuan Xiang Qijiu Ji, vol. 12. 8 Deng Xianhe ed. Yuan Xiang Qijiu Ji, vol. 34. 9 Deng Xianhe ed. Yuan Xiang Qijiu Ji, vol. 60. 10 A title for the grand secretary who worked in the Eastern Hall in The Forbidden City during the Ming and the Qing (noted by the translator). 11 “Weichen Shouguan Sizai Shu,” in Ming Qing Shiliao, xinbian (book 8), p. 189. 12 “Gongfeng Shengzhi Chengqing zhiqi Shu,” in Ming Qing Shiliao, xinbian (book 8), p. 194. 13 The original author’s note: some lands of Changde Guard were located within the three counties in the jurisdiction of Changde prefecture, namely, Wuling, Taoyuan and Longyang; some of them were within Yiyang County in Changsha prefecture. See “Gazetteer of Bingfang,” in Gazetteer of Changde Prefecture, vol. 14, of Jiajing 26 (1547). 14 “Daming Zhoufu Fengqiu Wang Jiaoshou Zeng Chengde Lang Hubu Zhushi Li Jun Mubiao,” in The Collected Works of Li Dongyang, wenhougao (the appendix part of a book), vol. 16. 15 Hai Rui Ji, Zhong Hua Book Company, 1962, p. 549. 16 Hai Rui Ji, Zhonghua Book Company, 1962, pp. 533–534. 17 Hai Rui Ji, Zhonghua Book Company, 1962, pp. 577–578. 18 Ming Qing Jinshi Timing Beilu. (Record of Ming Qing Metropolitan Graduates). 19 “Zashi i,” in Gazetteer of Guiyang Prefecture, yupian (appendix), vol. 19, Daoguang 20. 20 Daxing and Wanping at that time were also called Fuguoxian, which referred to those counties lacking their own office and sharing the offices with prefectures and subprefectures (noted by the translator). 21 In “Inquiry into Metropolitan Graduates of the Previous Dynasty,” in the Gazetteer of Daxing County of Kangxi 24, vol. 5, ii, it recorded that Shi Kefa was a metropolitan graduate of Chongzhen 1 (in 1628); the Record of Ming Qing Metropolitan Graduates declared that Shi Kefa was from Xiangfu, Henan, while his younger brother Shi Kecheng (a metropolitan graduate of 1643) was in the imperial guard of Shuntian prefecture. It can be seen here that the terms ancestral home, native place and guard registration were frequently used at that time. 22 Zhang Dai, Shikui Shu Houji, vol. 47; Wen Ruilin, Nanjiang Yishi, vol. 21. 23 Shadingzhou Rebellion (also, Sha Pu Rebellion) refers to the series of rebellions led by chieftains in southern Yunnan at the end of the Ming and beginning of the Qing. 24 Ming Diannan Wu Mingchen Ji·Lufeng Wang Zhongjie Gong Ji. 25 Zhengqi tang Ji, vol. 1. See also Mingshan Cang, ben zhuan. 26 Chongzhen Changbian, vol. 4, on the yimao day (the 4th day) in the 12th month, Tianqi 7. 27 Huang Dan, Yunnan Jiwu Chaohuang; See also Wang Shizhen, Zhaoling Zakao, iii, in Yanshan tang Bieji, vol. 87.

120  The “garrison” category 28 Huang Ming Zhaoling (Imperial Edicts of the August Ming), vol. 3. The original author noted: Zhu Yuanzhang died in the intercalary/leap 5th month this year, so this imperial edict should be issued by Emperor Jianwen. 29 Ling Guard: Ling (emperor’s resting place) Guard, according to the Ming regulation, after one emperor passed away, one Ling Guard was set up to guard the Ling (noted by the translators). 30 Ming Shizong Shilu, vol. 369. 31 Zhang Huang, Tushu Bian, vol. 117. 32 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 238. 33 Ming Taizong Shilu, vol. 62. 34 Shuyuan Zaji, vol. 11, 6. 35 Ming Xuanzong Shilu, vol. 88. 36 The drafted usually refers to those drafted to garrisons, that is, one out of three civilian households (noted by the translator). 37 In the Ming dynasty, the basic administrative organs in rural areas were Li and Jia. Shang and Xia were the upper and lower levels of Jia (noted by the translator). 38 “Hukou,” Gazetteer of Wuxi County, vol. 27, of the Kangxi period. 39 One of the six ministries of the ancient central government offices (Li, Bing, Hu, Li, Xing, Gong), in charge of the national tuntian, irrigation works, civil engineering, transportation and government-run industry (noted by the translator). 40 “Qiaoting Zufen Baisao Ji,” in Yiwen Zhi (Essay on Literature), ii, in Gazetteer of Pengze County, vol. 13, of Kangxi 22. 41 “Fuyi,” in Gazetteer of LinjiangPrefecture, vol. 7, of Longqing 6 (1572). 42 Ming Xuanzong Shilu, vol. 6; “Yi Queshang Shu” written by Fan Ji, collected in Ming Jingshi Wenbian, vol. 29 was apparently drawn from Shilu, but it added one Chinese character “gu” between “weishi guanli” without authorization, and made another pause in reading unpunctuated ancient writings, which resulted in causing great change in meaning. 43 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 182. 44 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 14. 45 Wangji: “Jichu Junshi Shu,” Ming Jingshiwen Changbian, vol. 28. 46 “Hubu vi, Hukou i,” in Wanli Da Ming Huidian, vol. 19. 47 Xu Wei Ji (the collected works of Xu Wei), (n.p. Zhonghua Book Company, 1983), book iv, p. 1107. 48 “Ming Qijiu Zhuan,” iii, in Gazetteer of Guiyang Prefecture, vol. 75 of Daoguang 22 (1842). 49 Man zi: a discriminatory appellation, with rather unfriendly tone, esp. for the southern minorities. 50 Xu Wenchang Ji, book ii, p. 633. 51 In “Guji (Antiquities),” General Gazetteer of Guizhou, vol. 28, of Kangxi 31 (1692), when it came to the scenic spot, Yanglongkeng (dragon pit) in Xingui County, it said “this county man Xu Wei once wrote the poem.” But in the same book, vol. 22, Xu Wei was considered as from Longli Guard, Guizhou, who was a “liuyu” (non-doms resident) in Shanyin, Zhejiang. 52 Wang Shizhen, Zhaoling Zakao, “Xinju Shishi,” in Yanshan tang Bieji, vol. 85. 53 “Dali Zhanshu Fu,” in Yanshantang Bieji, vol. 85; the words in “Zhengnan Jiangjun Yingguo Gong Fu Youde Zhuan,” collected in Diancui were slightly different from the quotation. 54 “Yunnan Shishou Qianning Wang Muying Zhuan fu Housi Shisi Shi Shilue,” in Diancui. 55 Yongchangfu Wenzheng, wen (a writing style for local chronicles), vol. 10. 56 In 1440, Si Renfa led his army, repeatedly defeated the Ming armies’ attacks and occupied Ganya, Tengchong, Yongchang and some other regions (noted by the translator).

The “garrison” category  121 57 Luchuan kingdom (1312–1604) (now Ruili County in Yunnan, bordering on Burma) was an ancient kingdom established by Dai ancestors west of the ­Yunnan- Guizhou Plateau (noted by the translator). 58 Yongchangfu Wenzheng, wen, vol. 2, cited from Xu family genealogy. 59 Chongzhen Changbian, vol. 64. 60 Ming Taizu Shilu, vol. 195. In another manuscript Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty “3000 rooms” was written as “thirty rooms” which might be correct. 61 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 206. 62 Ming Yingzong Shilu, vol. 213. 63 “Jingfei,” in The Record of the Military Service Men under the Cangwu General Commander, vol. 14, recompiled during Wanli reign.

5 Yongning Guard: a southeastern coastal fortress in the Ming (On the urgent need for the preservation of ming garrison sites) During the Hongwu reign (1368–1398), the Quanzhou Guard and the Yongning Guard were established in the geographical territory of Quanzhou prefecture. The Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer·Public Offices, fascicle 75 in the Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming, reads: Quanzhou Guard (note: located in the west of the Prefecture, once an executive and military office of the governor in the Yuan dynasty, converted to a guard at the beginning of the Hongwu reign’ Yongning Guard (note: situated to the southeast of the capital of the Prefecture, established in Hongwu 20; Fuquan Independent Battalion (note: to the southeast of Jinjiang County); Jinmen Independent Battalion (note: to the southeast of Tong’an County, established in Hongwu 20 with the Fuquan Battalion), Zhongzuo Independent Battalion (note: to the southwest of Tong’an County); Gaopu Independent Battalion (note: to the west of Tong’an County, established in the mid Hongwu reign with Zhongzuo Garrison and Gaopu Garrison, all subordinated to Yongning Guard). The Quanzhou Guard was established in Hongwu 1 (1368), with the guard Military Commission and its five subordinate battalions including the left, the right, the central, the front and the back, all located within the boundary of the Quanzhou prefectural town.1 The Yongning Guard was established much later, with the guard office and most of the subordinate battalions established in strategically important coastal areas outside the capital prefecture for the purpose of warding off attacks from Japanese pirates (wokou) and strengthening the armed forces for coastal defense. The following are my opinions about three questions concerning the Yongning Guard.

The establishment of the Yongning Guard The Qianlong edition of Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer is not consistent in its record about the Yongning Guard. For example, according to the section titled Walls and Moats in fascicle 11,

Yongning guard  123 Yongning town, located at Sanshi Capitals (SanShi Du), was a water stockade in the Song dynasty. It was converted into a guard by Zhou Dexing, the Marquis of Jiangxia, in Hongwu 27 (1394), and he ordered Tong Ding to build the town…. However, according to section titled “Public Offices” in fascicle 12, of the same book, “the office of Yongning Guard Military Commission was ­located in the southeast of Jinjiang County, and it was built by Zhou D ­ exing, the Marquis of Jiangxia, in Hongwu 20 (1387)….” According to the Veritable records of Ming Taizu, fascicle 181, on the 1st day of the 4th month of Hongwu 20 (1387), on the day of wuzi (the name of the day according to the heavenly stems and earthly branches in the Chinese calendar), Jiangxia Marquis, Zhou Dexing was ordered to go to Fujian and draft one out of every three men from the households of the four Prefectures: Fuzhou, Xinghua, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou to defend the coastal guard and garrison from the Japanese pirates. Guards and garrisons that were not located in the strategically important areas would be displaced. Upon arriving in Fujian, Zhou Dexing drafted soldiers based on household registers and inspected the strategically important areas. For those areas suitable for town defense, he had maps drawn for further development. He drafted 15,000 strong laborers to build sixteen forts and added forty-five positions of policemen as subordinates under these guards to reinforce defense. In fascicle 220 of the same book, on the 1st day of the 8th month of Hongwu 25 (1392), “the siwei day, Jiangxia Marquis Zhou Dexing was executed for promiscuity and his enfeoffed farmland was confiscated.” Since Zhou Dexing had already been executed by Zhu Yuanzhang in the 8th month of the Hongwu reign (1392), the record about his inspection of the coastal frontier in Fujian and the building of guard and garrison could be refuted. Apparently, the Yongning Guard was established in Hongwu reign 20 (1387) rather than in Hongwu 27 (1394).

The numbers of battalions and troops in the Yongning Guard How many battalions were subordinated to the Yongning Guard? Some essays state that there were five, but according to Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer, there were eleven. The eleven battalions were distributed as follows. Inside the town of Yongning Guard there were five: the left, the right, the central, the front and the back battalions; outside, there were Fuquan independent battalion, located in Jinjiang county; Chongwu independent battalion, located in Hui’an County; Zhongzuo independent battalion, Jinmen independent battalion and Gaopu independent battalion, located in Tong’an County; and Baiyeban independent battalion, located in Anxi

124  Yongning guard County.2 The eleven battalions were mistaken for five because the record of the left, the right, the central, the front and the back battalions, which were located inside the town of the Yongning guard, was neglected. Because of the ambiguity in the understanding of the battalions under Yongning Guard, there also existed misconceptions about the number of soldiers stationed there. According to The Gazetteer of Jinjiang County published in Qianlong 30 (1765), “the Yongning Guard Military Commission managed five battalions with a total of 6,935 servicemen including seamen and military farmers.”3 Therefore, it is generally believed that the garrisoned soldiers in the guard were no more than 7,000. Based on the aforementioned analysis, the five battalions mentioned in the said document actually refer to the number of soldiers in the five battalions stationed inside the town of the Yongning Guard (i.e. the left, the right, the central, the front and the back battalions), which exceeded 5,600 soldiers per guard. Besides, according to the “Military System” of The Gazetteer of Quanzhou prefecture, fascicle 24 of the Qianlong edition, the Chongwu garrison managed 1,221 soldiers and seamen; Fuquan garrison managed 575 soldiers; Jinmen managed 1,535 soldiers; Zhongzuo garrison managed 1,204 soldiers and seamen; Gaopu garrison managed 1,258 soldiers and seamen. Even though the record about the Baiyeban defensive battalion was flawed, the number of the soldiers in the five garrisons located inside the town of the guard totaled 6,935, while the number of the soldiers in the five garrisons outside the town was 5,793, totaling to 12,728, an equivalent of the troops of two regular guards. During the Hongwu reign (1368–1398), the Quanzhou Guard and the Yongning Guard, which managed eleven battalions, were established in Quanzhou prefecture. This was because Quanzhou had been the center of foreign trade in the southeast coastal regions since Song and Yuan times. Citong town (Zaitun), mentioned in the writing of Marco Polo, was another name for Quanzhou. Because the invasion of Japanese pirates, starting from the end of the Yuan dynasty, threatened coastal defense and inland peace, Zhu Yuanzhang dispatched generals Tang He and Zhou Dexing to make an inspection tour of the coastal frontiers and to build a massive coastal defense system. Yongning Guard, an extraordinary guard and a strategically important fort, was founded at a special location and under special circumstances to strengthen the border defense.

The question of “Zhongzuo” battalion (Xiamen) As mentioned above, Zhongzuo was a battalion subordinated to Yongning Guard. Since its founding in Jiahe Yu of Tong’an County in Hongwu 27 (1394), it was called the Zhongzuo battalion until it was renamed Siming subprefecture during Zheng Chenggong’s administration in the late Ming and then Xiamen in the Qing dynasty. This battalion enjoyed great fame in history. However, some questions still exist in some historical documents and in the academic community today. For example, in “Public offices II” of the Qianlong edition of The Gazetteer of Quanzhou prefecture, fascicle 12,

Yongning guard  125 the Zhongzuo independent battalion was “established in Hongwu 27 (1394) by the Regional Military Commissioner, Xie Zhu, who had transferred the Zhongzuo Battalion of the Jianning Guard to defend the area.” The section on “Walls and Moats” (i.e. cities), of the same book fascicle 11, states that the town of Xiamen, which was located in Jiahe Yu of Ershiyi Du, was the town of Zhongzuo battalion, founded by Jiangxia Marquis Zhou Dexing in Hongwu 27 (1394) who…transferred Zhongzuo battalion of Yongning Guard to defend the town…… One section mentions the Jianning Guard, while another mentions the Yongning Guard, so the gazetteer is self-contradictory. According to the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, fascicle 231, in the 2rd month of Hongwu 27 (1394), “Zhongzuo battalion of the Yongning Guard was founded at Jiahe Mountain in Tong’an Xian.” Apparently, the Zhongzuo battalion belonged to the Yongning Guard instead of to the Jianning Guard (Jianning Left Guard and Jianning Right Guard were subordinated to Fujian Auxilitary Regional Military Commission). Besides, some scholars attribute the name of the Zhongzuo Guard to the transfer of central battalion and left battalion in the town of Yongning Guard to Jiahe Yu, jointly known as ­Zhongzuo battalion. In the military system of the Ming dynasty, a regular guard consisted of five battalions such as the left, the right, the central, the front and the back battalions. However, other battalions were frequently founded in addition to the original five due to strategic needs, and they were usually named “central-central,” “central-left,” “central-right,” “central-front” and “central-back.” Some were also named after the areas controlled by the garrison, such as the independent battalions of Fuquan, Chongwu, Jinmen, Gaopu subordinated to the Yongning Guard. The Zhongzuo battalion of the Yongning Guard belonged to the category of the additionally founded battalion. It was one battalion rather than two of the central and the left battalions that was transferred from the town of the Yongning Guard. It was transferred for the following reasons: (1) If “Zhongzuo Battalion” had referred to two battalions such as the central and the left, it would have been expressed literally and not as the transferred “Zhongzuo Battalion.” (2) The section on “Public Offices” in fascicle 12 of The Gazetteer of Quanzhou Prefecture published in Qianlong 28 (1763) records the locations of the left, right, central, front and back battalions in the town of the guard in addition to the Guard Military Commission and its subordinate agencies such as the registry, the judge, the archives and the armory. For example, the left-front battalion was located on the left side of the watch tower, with ten companies stationed in the east and west verandas. In Xuande 5 (1430), the construction was destroyed by fire. In Jingtai 4 (1453), the Commander of the Battalion, Zhang Jun, reconstructed the building, which was destroyed again in a storm in Tianshun 8 (1464) before the reconstruction was completed.

126  Yongning guard This indicates that left-front battalion had existed in the town of Yongning Guard until the end of the Tianshun reign (1464); therefore, it could not have been transferred to Jiahe Yu in Hongwu 27 (1394). (3) The Gaopu independent battalion subordinated to the Yongning Guard was originally named Zhongyou battalion of the Yongning Guard. In Hongwu 23 (1390), it was transferred to Shisi Du of Tong’an County and was renamed Gaopu Battalion.4 Apparently, the Yongning Guard included not only the left-front battalion but also the central-right battalion, but the name of the ­c entral-left battalion was never changed. This is a general discussion of the establishment of the Yongning Guard and its armed forces in the Ming dynasty. This essay does not address the jurisdiction, tuntian and evolution of the Yongning Guard. The emphasis instead is on the special position of Yongning Guard among many guards and garrisons in the Ming dynasty. The Yongning Guard became a strategically important fort in the southeast coastal region because many troops were deployed there. During the 150 years after the establishment of the Yongning Guard, Quanzhou and the area in the vicinity maintained social stability, which also benefited the people in the inland areas. Because the military ranks and titles were hereditary in the systems of guard and garrison, the corruption in the army became more rampant with the passing of time. Many soldiers deserted the army and the combat capability gradually declined. Japanese pirates started to invade the coastal area in the vicinity of Quanzhou from Jiajing 34 (1555). They captured the Yongning Guard fortress twice in the 2nd and 3rd month of 1562, causing heavy casualties inside the town. Because of the vigorous counterattacks led by some generals such as Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou, social stability was restored in the southeast region including Fujian and Zhejiang, thus ensuring the socioeconomic and cultural development of the region. At the initial stage of the Qing, Zheng Chenggong’s most vital anti-Qing base was the two islands of Jin(men) and Xia(men). If there had been no long-term management and development of the Zhongzuo battalion and Jinmen battalion subordinate to the Yongning Guard, Zheng Chenggong and his son, Zheng Jing, would have been unable to persist in resisting the Qing dynasty for about twenty years. In a word, the establishment of Yongning Guard had an indelible historical significance in guarding the coastal areas of Fujian and in guaranteeing of the well-being of the inland residents.

On the need to preserving Ming garrison sites During the Hongwu and Yongle reigns at the start of the Ming dynasty, a large number of guards and garrisons were founded all over the country, playing a significant role in maintaining social stability and exploiting the frontier. After the middle of the Ming dynasty, the armaments declined. The tendency of demilitarization appeared in many forts of the guards and garrisons. Some forts were transferred to the jurisdiction of subprefectures

Yongning guard  127 and counties, while some were just allowed to collapse. However, there were still many forts that were retained until the early Qing dynasty. Due to the policy of converting guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties (or incorporating guard and garrison into subprefectures and counties) in populous areas in the early Qing and due to the widespread conversion or incorporation of guards and garrisons into subprefectures and counties during the Yongzheng reign (1723–1735), there were ever fewer remains of the Ming guards and garrisons. For example, according to the Record of the Yongning Guard, in Shunzhi 18 (1661), due to the implementation of the policy of moving population back from the coast to contain Zheng Chenggong, the city walls of Yongning Guard were among many that were razed. Today, with the accelerating modernization process and the increasing number of construction projects, great changes have occurred in cities and towns. Only a tiny number of the garrison sites have survived. Due to a lack of surveys, I know of only one relatively well preserved fort of a garrison in Zhejiang close to the border of Fujian, and, even there, the buildings inside the fort have changed beyond recognition. In a remote area in Anshun, Guizhou, there exists a bao (a fort which was possibly subordinate to a battalion in the Ming dynasty) where the residents still observe the customs of the Ming dynasty (especially evident in women’s garments). Some remains of the constructions belonging to Zhenyuan Guard in the Ming dynasty are preserved in Zhenyuan, Guizhou. In Yantai, Shandong, a small section of the garrison remains from the Ming dynasty and has been listed as the Cultural Heritage Conservation Site. In addition, it is said that there are some remnants of several Ming garrison sites in the coastal and northwestern regions and in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. In the past twenty years, with the rapid development of the Chinese economy, cities and roads have been greatly expanded. At such times, the conservation of cultural relics and historic sites such as the few garrison remains from the Ming dynasty has become a pressing issue. Since the Yongning Guard occupied a prominent position among garrisons in the Ming dynasty, the protection of its site and the restoration of its fort should be given priority. The municipal government of Shishi, Fujian, and the government of Yongning town and the Yongning Neighborhood Committee are emphasizing the importance of protecting the site of the Yongning Guard, and are now collecting relevant historical documents about it. Such efforts are not only conducive to local studies and tourism but also helpful to protecting the historical and cultural heritages of the entire nation. This will help future generations understand the important role of the garrison system in Chinese history. In recent years, both domestic and overseas historians have undertaken more research on the garrison system of the Ming dynasty and related issues, and they have produced some highlevel works. Such a trend is gaining momentum. Protection of the garrison sites and remains of the Ming dynasty will be crucial to further academic research in this area.

128  Yongning guard This essay was originally published as A Study on the Ancient Garrison Town of Yongning, Fujian People’s Publishing House, 2001: 1–7. Translated by Li Bingjun Polished by Roger V Des Forges, Tan Jiang and Li Daqi

Notes 1 “Gongshu (Public Offices),” in Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer, vol. 12, of the Qianlong version. 2 “Gongshu” in Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer vol. 12, of Qianlong version. Some questions exist revolving around the existence of Baiyeban battalion. According to the Gazetteer of Anxi County, published in Qianlong 22, a place located at Chongxin Li in the county was named Baiyeban in the vicinity of Zhangzhou and Tingzhou. This area was “mountainous with dense forest. Some evil people gathered in the forest …plundering the nearby area frequently. The nearby subprefectures and counties had been harassed without any peace.” After suppressing the bandits, the Fen Xundao, YuKuang constructed a fort in Baiyeban. Yiwen i (Art and Literature i) vol. 11, includes “Ming Jiajing jian Pingkou Xingxue Ji” by Wang Shenzhong (xun’an of Henan) from Jinjiang, “Ming Qianxian Yu Gong Pingkou Beiji,” written by Zhang Yue (Vice Minister of War) from Hui’an and “Zhu Baiyeban Chengbao Ji,” written by Chen Da (du yushi) from Sanshan ­(Fuzhou). However, the gazetteer of the county almost does not mention Baiyeban battalion. Only Chen Da mentions that a fort was constructed with a perimeter of 140 zhang after the defeat of the Wokou. The fort, with “the central part as the office of officials and the western part as the office of military officers,” was defended by 200 officers and soldiers from Quanzhou Guard. If this had been the so-called Baiyeban independent battalion, that would have occurred after ­Jiajing 25. Meanwhile, it is not clear whether it was subordinated to the Quanzhou Guard or to the Yongning Guard. 3 “Wuwei Zhiyi·Zhizhi (record of military affairs and defense system),” in Gazetteer of Jinjiang County vol. 7, of the Qianlong version. 4 “Gongshu,” in Gazetteer of Quanzhou Prefecture. vol. 12, of Qianlong version.

6 Military affairs of the late Ming

The crisis in Ming dynastic rule The complete corruption of the ruling circle In Wanli 10 (1582), with the demise of Grand Secretary and Regent Zhang Juzheng, the reform he advocated was soon totally repudiated by Zhu Yijun (Shenzong, 1563–1620). After a vigorous revival in politics, military affairs and economy during the regency, the Ming dynasty continued the trend toward corruption that resulted in crisis during its reign. From the mid Wanli reign, the supreme leaders of the Ming government had led befuddled lives and paid little attention to the national economy and the people’s livelihood. After the accession of Zhu Youjian (Chongzhen, 1611–1644) in 1628, despite the transitory improvement in the domestic situation, the fall of the Ming became irreversible. Ming Shenzong was notorious for his fatuity. In his forty-eight-year reign, he neglected government affairs for twenty years. Ministers who asked to present a memorial to the emperor face to face were not given permission. Their memorials were often “retained in the palace” without eliciting any written instructions, plunging the government into semi-paralysis. Wanli was voracious for gold, silver and jewelry. He dispatched many eunuchs and officers of the Imperial Bodyguard (the secret service of the Ming dynasty) to “exploit mines” and “levy taxes” in various places, looting the resources of the country from his subjects in unscrupulous exercises of sovereign power. Take the tax supervisor, Gao Huai of Liaodong, as an example, According to one source, it is not an exaggeration to depict his tour of inspection as looting. ­ ecently the people in Liaodong composed a ballad, saying: ‘when the R Grand Counselor in the Palace goes out on a tour of inspection, it is just like ‘a tiger eating people. There is no road to heaven, there is no gate to earth.’ Another ballad says that ‘august heaven is indifferent, the Grand Counselor is ruthless. The people in Liaodong are miserable, they will soon rebel.’1

130  Military affairs of the late Ming Shortly afterward, Liaodong experienced a dramatic worsening of the military situation, which was closely linked with its people’s misery caused by the plunder by the mine and tax supervisors. After the mid-Wanli reign, mine and tax supervisors were sent to various areas of the country, causing damage and pain for twenty years. In Wanli 48 (1620), Shenzong died, and his successor Zhu Changluo (temple name Guangzong 1582–1620) died one month after his accession. His eldest son Zhu Youxiao (Xizong, 1621–1627) was enthroned. He neglected government affairs and trusted the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, thus strengthening the power of eunuchs. The conflicts between two factions, Donglin (the Eastern Forest) scholars and the so-called Yandang (eunuch party) which had emerged at the end of the Wanli reign, became worse and proved to be irreconcilable until the fall of the dynasty. The contradictions among classes intensified continuously After the mid-Ming dynasty, the power of the nobility (the royal lineage, the hereditary aristocrats and other kinsmen of emperors), government officials and landlords expanded continuously. They annexed farmland and relentlessly squeezed the people for wealth. Farmers and craftsmen were trapped in economic plight due to natural and man-made disasters. While farmers were struggling and were on the verge of death, the Ming government “exacted heavy taxes” instead of providing people with relief. Farmers were so desperate that they waged armed rebellions frequently. In Wanli 16 (1587), Liu Ruguo led a rebellion in Taihu and Susong, calling himself “the king who helps the poor.” He instigated famine victims to loot the grain in the rich people’s granaries. He was followed by tens of thousands of famine victims.2 In Wanli 27 (1599), Zhao Guyuan, a member of White ­Lotus Society, organized a rebellion in the area of Xuzhou. “On the second day of the 2nd month, eight teams of troops rebelled simultaneously, first conquering Yang Huai and then Xinhekou in Xuzhou to block the transportation of grain. They subsequently plotted to conquer Jinling and Yandu and were successful.” The local officials exclaimed, “the disasters of the Yellow Turban and Red Eyebrow uprisings have reappeared.”3 In Wanli 34 (1606), Liu Tianxu, a believer in the Non-Purposive Action religion, conspired with others to rebel, “calling himself the Li Prince who Opens the Land and Settles the Cosmos).”4 In Tianqi 2 (1622), other members of the White Lotus Society waged a rebellion led by Xu Hongru in Shandong, c­ onquering the towns of Yuncheng, Zou, Teng and Yishan, plotting to “conquer Xuzhou, Huai’an, Chenzhou, Yingzhou, Qizhou, and Huangzhou to the south to block the transportation of grain and to take the capital in the north, ascend the throne, and found a new state.”5 A cudgel society led by Yu Hongzhi, a resident of the Jing County of Hebei, rebelled in response. Although these medium- and small-sized revolts of farmers were suppressed by the Ming government by force of arms, the revolts continued to escalate, leading to an impending farmers’ war at the end of the Ming dynasty.

Military affairs of the late Ming  131 The decline of military governance At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, the army, which was considered the backbone of the Ming, adopted the garrison system which featured the hereditary system of officers and soldiers whose fighting capacity gradually declined later on. After the mid-Ming, due to the implementation of largescale conscription, the lack of military power was alleviated. However, due to the overall decline of military management, the Ministry of War and military officers indulged in bribery and exploitation; therefore, soldiers could not purchase necessary weapons and equipment, and even their subsistence could not be guaranteed. In Tianqi 7 (1627), grand coordinator of Shaanxi, Hu Tingyan, reported in his memorial that soldiers’ pay, which has amounted to over 200,000 liang of silver, has been suspended for five or six years in the frontier areas such as ­Lintao and Gongchang. The same problem has also arisen in the frontier fortresses such as Jinglu for the last two or three years. From Wanli 47 (1619) to Tianqi 6 (1626), the soldiers who were responsible for transporting grain to the capital in Guzhen did not get the expected payment of over 159,000 liang of silver. In the past, the soldiers sold their clothes and arrows; now they sell their children and wives. In the past they  begged for food in the streets; now they desert the army. In the past they expressed their dissatisfaction in the privacy of fortifications; now they cry out in public.6 The soldiers’ extreme poverty not only weakened their fighting capacity but also led to a series of mutinies. Take Chongzhen 1 (1628) for example. In the 7th month, the officers and soldiers of Ningyuan in Liaodong, who did not get their pay for four months, were starving and so launched a mutiny. The grand coordinator of Liaodong, Bi Ziyan, and the regional commander of Ningyuan, Song Mei, were captured by the rebel forces. “Beaten by the soldiers with clubs,” Bi Ziyan committed suicide due to humiliation and indignation. In the second year, the Qing army invaded the capital area, and the central government ordered the local governments to send armies to defend the emperor. The soldiers who came from Shanxi mutinied in the suburbs of the capital, and the soldiers from Gansu mutinied in Anding (which is now Dingxi in Gansu), both due to the lack of pay and no settling-in allowance. The decline of military management was also demonstrated in the collapse of military discipline. The army, which the government had intended to “establish to defend civilians,” wrecked the country and brought ruin to the people at the end of the Ming dynasty. Some military officers armed their family retainers to defend themselves at critical moments. A portion of soldiers’ pay allocated by the government was embezzled by the officers; ­another portion was spent on arming the officers’ family retainers. Most ­soldiers were only nominally counted in the quotas of the army, thus ­eroding its overall fighting capacity. On the other hand, some military leaders who

132  Military affairs of the late Ming depended on their own armed forces were disloyal to the central government. Some warlords fled before going into battle or betrayed the country at the end of the Ming dynasty, mostly due to the privatization of the army under the system of family retainers. The corruption in military mismanagement was an important aspect of the crisis in the Ming rule. During the Chongzhen reign, a large portion of the government revenue was allocated to soldiers’ pay, the dramatic increase of which imposed heavy pressure on the government budget. In order to guarantee soldiers’ pay, the government had to levy taxes, which led to people’s revolt. In order to suppress the revolts, the government had to levy heavier taxes. The Ming dynasty moved toward its fall in such a vicious cycle.

The foundation of Jin state and the occupation of Liaodong The foundation of the Jin state The Manchus, who originated among the Jurchen, are one of the ethnic groups in China. After the foundation of the Ming, the government established many guards and garrisons in the areas where the Jurchen people lived, appointing the chieftains of the tribes, regional military commissioner, commander, battalion commander and company commander, and establishing the administrative agencies of different hierarchies in charge of military management. The ancestors of the rulers of the Qing dynasty were from the left guard of Jianzhou. In the 2nd month of Wanli 11 (1583), after pacifying a rebellion plotted by Atai, the leader of right guard of Jianzhou, the regional commander of Liaodong, Li Chengliang, who was instigated by another chieftain NikanWailan, killed the innocent leader of the left guard of Jianzhou, Giocangga, and his son Takesi, who were the grandfather and the father of the Qing founder Nurhachi (temple name Taizu). In order to appease Nurhachi, the Ming government permitted him to inherit the office of regional military commissioner, bestowing thirty edicts and thirty horses upon him. Nurhachi, who was twenty-five years old at that time, was at the height of his youth and vigor. He was determined to unite the Jurchen tribes to get rid of the Ming control due to the fact that his grandfather and father were killed and also because the Ming government adopted the policy of dividing and ruling the Jurchen tribes. In that era, in the Jurchen tribes including Sukesuhu River, Hun River, Wangjia, Dong E, Zhechen, Neyin, Yalu River, Woji, Waerka, Kuerka, Wula, Hada, Yehe and Huifa, many warlords appeared, coronated themselves and strove for the leadership of the tribes. They controlled different areas and fought with each other. Even brothers fought with each other, the strong tribes bullied the weak ones and the populous tribes bullied the less populous ones. Such fights went on endlessly.7

Military affairs of the late Ming  133 While the Jurchen nationality was torn apart by the tribal conflicts, Nurhachi revolted with only thirteen pieces of military equipment left by his grandfather and father and with fewer than one hundred soldiers. He adopted “the policy of tempering justice with mercy, ruling the obedient with virtue and conquering the disobedient with military force,”8 thus launching the campaign of uniting the Jurchen tribes. Due to the scarcity of the military force, Nurhachi took advantage of the fact that each individual tribe was weak due to the tribal conflicts. He adopted the strategy of conquering the weak tribes first and then the strong ones, and conquering the tribes in the vicinity first and then the faraway ones. He gradually annexed the Jurchen tribes. In Wanli 15 (1587), he built a town at Hulan-Hada-­ Nangang and “­ established a state government.”9 Nurhachi made use of the 500 letters patent bestowed by the Ming government on the tribes to receive annual rewards. Meanwhile, he traded with the Ming merchants at four strategic passes including Fushun, Qinghe, Kuandian and Aiyang. “Gradually the Manchu people and state prospered.”10 Aware of his inadequate power, Nurhachi avoided conflict with the powerful Haixi tribe of Jurchen, adopted the policy of amity with adjacent Mongolia and Korea and demonstrated obedience to the Ming government. He traveled to Beijing in person to pay tribute to the emperor while focusing his energy on the management of the Juchen tribes. In Wanli 17 (1589), the Ming government bestowed the title of assistant commissioner-in-chief upon him and promoted him to left commissioner-in-chief in Wanli 19 (1591), and to dragon-tiger general in Wanli 23, to recognize his contribution in defending the frontier regions. With the rise of the Jurchen tribes in Jianzhou, more conflicts emerged with the Jurchen tribes of Haixi. In the 9th month of the Wanli 21 (1593), the chieftain of the Yehe tribe of the Haixi, Jurchen, Buzhai, and beile (nobleman) Nalinbulu mustered eight tribes including Hada, Wula, Haifa, Kerqin, Xibo, Gurjia, Zhusheli and Neyin, and organized an army of 30,000 soldiers to attack the Jurchen tribes in Jianzhou along three routes. Faced with the powerful enemy pressing on the border, “many in Jianzhou were scared.”11 However, Nurhachi stayed calm, sending scouts to spy on the deployment of enemy forces and declaring to his subordinates that the leaders of the tribes have no well-organized deployment of the army. Such a mob will flinch, so at the front of the enemy troops must be the leaders. When we confront their attack, if we hurt one or two leaders, the remaining soldiers will flee immediately. Although we are outnumbered, if we unite our forces to fight, we will defeat them.12 He positioned his soldiers calmly and defeated the enemy led by three beile of the Yehe and Kerqin tribes. The chieftains of the nine tribes were scared, “deserting their soldiers and escaping themselves.” Nurhachi led his subordinates to chase the enemy, killing 4,000 soldiers and seizing 3,000 horses and 1,000 pieces of armor. “From then on, the Manchus gained

134  Military affairs of the late Ming awe-inspiring fame based on military force.”13 In the subsequent decade, Nurhachi ­defeated and conquered the tribes including Hada, Huifa and Wula. With the increasing population submitted to him, Nurhachi strengthened the organization of the tribes and the people. He first established companies consisting of 300 people governed by a commander, which was later expanded to eight banners, stipulating that five companies constituted a regiment led by a commander, and five regiments constituted a banner led by a commander. The eight banners included yellow, white, blue, red, bordered ­yellow, b ­ ordered white, bordered blue and bordered red. When on a vast terrain, the eight banners marched parallel to each other, forming neat lines. If on a narrow terrain, eight banners filed one after another in a clear order. The soldiers were banned from conversing loudly and the marching troops must be kept in order. After enemies were conquered, achievement should be awarded and misconduct punished based on investigations. Even if those who committed errors were relatives, they were punished according to the laws. Even if those who accomplished feats were foes, they were awarded. Nurhachi directed military operations with miraculous skills and the generals and soldiers were so eager to attain achievements in battles that they were happy upon hearing about impending battles. They tried to be the first to attack enemies and fought with enemies bravely. They conquered enemies in an overwhelming attack with the force of thunder and the speed of wind.14 Besides, Nurhachi mandated the coinage of Manchu characters, the smelting of iron and the mining of gold and silver. As his power increased, ­Nurhachi became arrogant and disobeyed the Ming government, standing up as an equal. The Ming government also predicted that the rise of Jianzhou would threaten the peace of the northeast, thus reinforcing the need for a preventive strategy. In Wanli 43 (1615), when Nurhachi was about to invade the Yehe tribe, the Ming government decided to send an army to protect it. In the first month of the subsequent year, supported by the ministers, Nurhachi founded a state named the Later Jin and asserted his authority under the reign title Mandate of Heaven. Battle of Sarhu In Wanli 46 (the third year of the Tianming reign in the Later Jin, 1618), Nurhachi decided to wage war on the Ming. On the 13th day of the 4th month, after a sacrificial ceremony to proclaim his “seven grudges,” such as the Ming killing of his grandfather and father and sending an army to help the Yehe tribe in the defense, Nurhachi led an infantry and a cavalry consisting of 20,000 soldiers to attack the Ming. Among the so-called “seven grudges,” the most severe accusation was that the Ming government had hindered

Military affairs of the late Ming  135 his attempt to unite the Jurchen tribes. In Nurhachi’s words, “The heaven-­ bestowed ruler of a great state should be the master of the known world, so why does he treat our country unfairly?” He declared that the Ming’s support of the Harda and Yehe tribes was “in defiance of heaven.”15 Nurhachi divided the army into two columns, ordering the soldiers of the four banners to attack Dongzhou and Magendan (both south of Fushun) along the left route, while he led the soldiers of the four banners to attack Fushun, which was soon captured. The Ming mobile corps General Li Yongfang surrendered. Dongzhou, Magendan and more than 500 fortresses were also conquered. Nurhachi awarded the captured 300,000 people and animals to his generals and soldiers. The Ming Regional Commander of Guangning, Zhang Chengyin, and Division Deputy Commander of ­Liaoyang, Gu Tingxiang led 10,000 soldiers to counterattack Nurhachi, who led his army to fight back. Although the Ming army was equipped with cannons, the Qing soldiers rushed into their camps. The Ming generals, including Zhang Chengyin as well as 70%–80% of the soldiers, were killed. The soldiers of the Later Jin captured 9,000 horses, 7,000 pieces of armor and a huge amount of other military supplies. In the 7th month, Nurhachi invaded Qinghe. Regional commander, Zou Chugong, the general in charge of defending the town, led 10,000 soldiers in a tenacious defense. The soldiers of the Later Jin set up ladders to capture the town. The Ming commander Zou Chugong and his subordinates were massacred. Upon receiving the battlefield report, the Ming government was shocked. It immediately appointed Yang Hao to make plans for Liaodong and ordered him to lead Regional Commanders, Du Song, Ma Lin, Liu Ting and Li ­Rubai and an army of 100,000 soldiers (declared to be 470,000 soldiers) to pacify Liaodong. In the 2nd month of Wanli 47 (1619), Yang Hao ordered the army to attack Hetuala (Xingjing, which was located in today’s Xinbin County, Liaoning) along four routes, starting, respectively, from Fushun Pass (now east to Fushun), Tieling, Kuandian and Yahu Pass (located between today’s Benxi and Xinbin in Liaoning), attempting to overwhelm the Later Jin with superior forces. Facing the crisis, Nurhachi stayed calm, taking advantage of a lack of communication between the Ming troops approaching Hetuala, adopting the strategy that “no matter how many routes the enemies invade along, I confront one route at a time.”16 Nurhaci thereby defeated the enemy troops one by one. He first integrated the forces to confront the Ming main force of the central route led by Du Song. On the 1st day of the 3rd month, Du Song’s troop was slaughtered. On the 2nd day, Nurhachi defeated Ming troops along the northern route at Shangjian Ya (in the vicinity of Jiguan Mountain to the northeast of Tieling), and only Regional Commander Ma Lin fled. Nurhachi left 4,000 soldiers to defend Hetuala against the Ming troop led by Li Rubai before his main force turned to the southeast to confront the Ming army led by a famous general Liu Ting. On the 3rd day, Liu Ting defeated 500 defensive soldiers and killed two company c­ ommanders at Dong E (located in today’s Huanren County

136  Military affairs of the late Ming in Liaoning). He then marched to Abudali Gang (forty li south of Xinbin County) where he was trapped in an ambush mounted by the Later Jin army. In the tangled warfare that ensued, Liu Ting was killed and his troops were slaughtered. Upon receiving the battlefield report, Yang Hao, who had assumed command in Shenyang, immediately ordered Li Rubai’s troops which had marched to Hulan (located east of today’s Qinghe Town) to retreat. Within five days, of the four columns of the Ming army, three were totally defeated. The battle for Sarhu ended with the triumph of the Later Jin. From then on, the Later Jin, whose power and renown were greatly enhanced, posed a serious threat to the frontier regions of the Ming. Battle of Ningyuan After the Battle of Sarhu, Ming military forces in Liaodong continued to suffer heavy losses. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Nurhachi conquered Kaiyuan (in 1619), annexed Yehe (in 1619) and captured Shenyang in Liaoyang (1620), along with a large part of Liaodong Peninsula. In Tianqi 2 (in Tianming 17 of the Later Jin, 1622), he captured Guangning (today’s Beizhen of Liaoning), and the Ming Regional Commanders Liu Qu and Qi Bingzhong and their troops were slaughtered. The strategist of Liaodong, Xiong Tingbi, and the Grand Coordinator Wang Huazhen led the Ming soldiers and civilians to retreat through Shanhai Pass, and almost all the territory outside Shanhai Pass was lost to the Later Jin. After the army of the Later Jin retreated, and facing a loss of morale among the people, Military Defense Circuit Intendant of Ningqian, Yuan Chonghuan, recaptured Ningyuan (in present-day Xingcheng of Liaoning) and Yizhou (in today’s Yi County of Liaoning) and recruited refugees to strengthen the defense of the towns. In Tianqi 6 (Tianming 11 of the Later Jin, 1626), Nurhachi decided to launch another large-scale attack on the Ming. On the 14th day of the 1st month, he commanded the army in person to cross the Liao River and to march westward. While hearing the news of the attack of the Later Jin main force, the Ming troops in the seven towns including Jinzhou, Songshan (south of today’s Jinzhou), Da Linghe (in Jin County of Liaoning), Xiao Linghe, Xingshan (to the south of today’s Jinzhou), Lianshan (Jinxi) and Tashan (to the north of Jinxi) were scared. They “burned the houses and grain and fled.”17 The army of the Latter Jin marched to the outskirts of Ningyuan, and another troop was dispatched simultaneously to five li southeast of Ningyuan in order to block the road to Shanhai Pass. Attempting to depend on his superior force to subdue the Ming army without fighting, Nurhachi sent a captured Han in person to induce Yuan Chonghuan to capitulate, saying “I will attack the town with an army of 200,000 soldiers, and so will conquer it easily. If you and the other Ming officials surrender, I will reward you with prominent positions” in my state. Yuan Chonghuan responded unflinchingly that “I am obliged to defend the town to the last. I would not be

Military affairs of the late Ming  137 18

justified in surrendering.” “It is a shame for you to declare that you have an army of 200,000 soldiers, which is not the case. If you declared that you have an army of 130,000 soldiers, I would not consider them few.”19 Realizing that it was futile to summon Yuan Chonghuan to surrender, Nurhachi commanded his forces to launch courageous attacks. Yuan Chonghuan together with regional commander Man Gui and assistant regional commander Zu Dashou tenaciously defended the solid town wall. “Huge blocks of birch wood, pots filled with gunpowder and massive stones were thrown from the top of the rampart and the soldiers fought desperately.”20 The army of the Later Jin suffered a setback and had to retreat. The next day, Nurhachi commanded the army to launch another attack, which was repelled by the Ming soldiers. While attacking the town, two mobile corps, two company commanders and 500 soldiers of the Later Jin were killed. Nurhachi mounted numerous military expeditions, conquering many places and losing no battles since he had risen in rebellion at the age of twenty-five. In Wanli 47 (1619), he had defeated the Ming troops of the four routes, and had come to believe that he was invincible. He had not expected that he would suffer heavy casualties and would be totally defeated by an intermediate official. This defeat delivered a heavy blow to his mind. In the first tenday period of the second month, Nurhachi retreated to Shenyang in despair. He soon fell ill and died on the eleventh day of the eighth month. Battle of Songshan After the demise of Nurhachi, Huangtaiji, his eighth son who had been awarded the title of the Fourth Prince, ascended the throne and changed the reign title to Tiancong, “natural intelligence” (Tianqi 7, 1627). In order to ensure domestic stability and eliminate threats from the rear, Huangtaiji made clear his intention to negotiate with the Ming government and he even promised to give up his title of Lord (dihao) and to revere the Ming dynastic lord as the common master of the known world on the condition of extorting a huge amount of treasure and restoring the frontier trade in order to strengthen the economy of the Later Jin and weaken the power of the Ming. Meanwhile, he waged attacks eastward into Korea (in 1627 and 1636) and westward (in 1628, 1632 and 1635) against the Mongolian Chahar tribe. Chahar, which had been on good terms with the Ming, at this moment submitted to the rule of the Later Jin. In 1636 (Chongzhen 9), Huangtaiji changed the title of his dynasty into Qing and adopted the reign title Chongde (lofty ­virtue). At that time, the Qing dynasty not only gained momentum in Liaodong but also controlled Korea and the Mongolian region north to the Gobi desert. Huangtaiji extorted gold, silver and other materials and took advantage of the Mongolian cavalry and bases to invade the inland area of the Ming. In the Tiancong and Chongde reigns, Huangtaiji three times bypassed the main force of the Ming army, concentrated in the area from Jinzhou to Shanhai Pass, and invaded by destroying the frontier wall. Of the three attacks,

138  Military affairs of the late Ming the first and the third were the most severe blows to the Ming d ­ ynasty. Martial law was enforced in the capital, and many subprefectures and counties were captured. Wherever the Qing army marched, the soldiers indulged themselves in killing and pillaging. Tens of thousands of people and millions of liang of gold and silver as well as other properties were plundered. However, because the route from Jinzhou through Ningyuan to Shanghai Pass was defended with massive Ming forces, the Qing army was worried about the threat to its rear area and thus avoided lingering in the inland area for a long time. In order to conquer the Central Plains, Huangtaiji was determined to eradicate the Ming’s strategic fortresses outside Shanhai Pass. In the 3rd month in 1640 (Chongzhen 13 in the Ming and Chongde 5 in the Qing), Huangtaiji adopted the strategy of “surrounding Jinzhou from the periphery, approaching the core area gradually and finally besieging Jinzhou.”21 He appointed Prince Zheng, Jirgalang, the commander of the right route, and the doro belle, Duoduo, the commander on the left route, to besiege Jinzhou with half of the Qing military force. Zu Dashou, the Ming general in charge of the defense, fought back tenaciously, and the Qing army encountered setbacks. In the 5th month, Huangtaiji came to the outskirts of Jinzhou in person, urging the soldiers to harvest the crops in the suburbs. In the 6th month, he ordered Prince Dorgun and Prince Haoge to command the other half of the military force to take over the military force commanded by Jirgalang and Duoduo to besiege Jinzhou continuously. Later on, such sieges were carried out every three months to allow for the rest and reorganization of Qing soldiers. Zu Dashou was besieged for such a long time that his military forces suffered heavy losses, so he was forced to turn to the central government for help. At the end of the year, Emperor Chongzhen ordered the governor of Jiliao, Hong Chengchou, with his subordinates including regional commander Li Fuming, Wang Pu, Tang Tong, Cao Bianjiao, Bai Guangen, Ma Ke, Wu Sangui and Wang Tingchen, to lead an army of 130,000 soldiers for the purpose of Zu Dashou’s rescue. Hong Chengchou learned a lesson from Yang Hao’s rash actions, adopting the strategy of marching ahead steadily and surely. In the 5th month of 1641, he led the elite force of the reinforcements to build a camp to the northwest of Songshan which was also eighty li south of Jinzhou, echoing Zu Dashou’s force inside the town of Jinzhou. Jirgalang ordered the troops on the right route to attack the Ming reinforcements but was repelled and even the camps established on the top of the mountain as well as the encampments of the Red Banner, the Bordered Red Banner and the Bordered Blue Banner were defeated by Ming forces. Because of Zu Dashou’s bravery and skillfulness in the battles and Hong Chengchou’s experience and prudence, the Qing army encountered many setbacks in besieging Jinzhou and attacking the Ming reinforcements. Meilejingzhang(Vice Commander-in-chief ), Shuoweng and others were killed and the company secretary, Foluo, surrendered to the Ming’s army.22 At that moment, the reserve of grain in Jinzhou was enough to support the defending troops for one or two years; meanwhile, the

Military affairs of the late Ming  139 reinforcements were not far away; therefore, the morale in Jinzhou was kept stable. According to Hong Chengchou’s deployment, the vanguard of the reinforcements defended Songshan tenaciously, waiting for the follow-up troops to escort supplies from Tashan and Ningyuan to Songshan and then breaking through the line of Qing’s defense at one stroke to converge with Zu Dashou’s force. However, the Minister of War, Chen Xinjia, catered to Emperor Chongzhen’s desire for a quick victory and pleaded with him to issue a decree authorizing warfare. Zhang Ruolin, director of the Bureau of Operations of the Ministry of War, went to Songshan with Emperor Chongzhen’s confidential decree and the documents issued by the Ministry of War, urging Hong Chengchou to wage a decisive battle immediately to force the Qing army to raise the siege of Jinzhou. Hong Chengchou had to store the army provisions in the area of Tashan and concentrate his force in the area of Songshan. In the 8th month, the chief commanders Duogun and Haoge, at the frontline of the Qing’s army, submitted a report to Huangtaiji that “the enemy’s force is superior to ours. Please order a prince to command the other half of the military force to unite with us to fight the enemy.”23 They actually proposed to change the policy that one half of the military force would launch attacks, while the other half would rest and be reorganized. They argued that the entire military force should be deployed immediately to fight with the Ming army. Huangtaiji realized that this was the decisive moment when he would triumph or fail, and he led the army in person to the frontline. Considering that Hong Chengchou’s army of 130,000 soldiers was concentrated in the narrow area of Songshan and Rufeng Mountain, whereas a large amount of his provisions was stored in Tashan, Bijia Mountain and Ningyuan, Huangtaiji immediately decided that the main force should march to the area between Tashan and Songshan. Meanwhile, he ordered Ajige to conquer Bijia Mountain, seizing twelve piles of grain. Huangtaiji learned from intelligence that Hong Chengchou didn’t carry many provisions and when the transportation of military supplies was disconnected, he would inevitably retreat. Therefore, he ordered the soldiers to dig trenches and install blockades in the area between Songshan and Tashan and waited for an opportunity to ambush the Ming army with his main force. Hong Chengchou had predicted such a peril. Now trapped in a hopeless situation, he tried to salvage the situation. He ordered Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen to defend Songshan tenaciously and ordered the other six regional commanders including Wu Sangui, Wang Pu, Tang Tong, Ma Ke, Bai Guang’en and Li Fuming to fight in the southwest to recover the transportation of supplies. However, Hong Chengchou was plunged into a strategically passive situation and was unable to rectify the central government’s strategic error. While breaking out of the encirclement, Wu Sangui and the other regional commanders were assaulted incessantly and almost routed by the Qing army. Tens of thousands of Ming soldiers were chased, killed or were drowned in the sea. Only a minority of soldiers and horses broke out of the encirclement. Hong Chengchou, whose

140  Military affairs of the late Ming plan to open the transportation route of military supplies failed, was trapped in the besieged town just like Zu Dashou had been in Jinzhou. In order to strengthen the defensive force of Songshan, he ordered Cao Bianjiao to abandon Rufeng Mountain and to defend Songshan with him. Cao Bianjiao broke out of the encirclement and rushed to Huangtaiji’s camp unintentionally, so the Qing army was “greatly shocked.”24 From the 9th month, Hong Chengchou, grand coordinator and superintendent of military affairs in Liaodong, Qiu Minyang and regional commanders Wang Tingchen and Cao Bianjiao led an army of no more than 10,000 soldiers to defend Songshan, launching constant attacks, which were repelled by the Qing army. On the 18th day of the second month in 1624 (Chongzhen 15, Chongde 7), division deputy commander Xia Decheng shifted his loyalty and admitted the Qing army into the town. Qiu Minyang, Wang Tingchen and Cao Bianjiao were captured and killed. Hong Chengchou was captured and soon surrendered. In the third month, after Zu Dashou surrendered, the Qing army occupied Jinzhou. The battles for Songshan and Jinzhou therefore ended with Qing victories. Ming authority was now limited to the area between Ningyuan and the Shanhai Pass, and the Ming could no longer compete with the Qing in the northeast.

Peasant War at the end of the Ming and the fall of the Ming Li Zicheng defeated Ming forces five times in the Central Plains In Tianqi 7 (1627), a great peasants uprising broke out in Shaanxi. For over a decade, rebel troops led by different commanders sometimes united and sometimes split, they adopted the strategy of evading the Ming’s main force and striking its weak points and fought on both sides of the Yellow River. Despite amassing ever larger military forces and provisions, the Ming government could not suppress these volts which spread like a raging fire. In the 1st month of Chongzhen 14 (1641), Li Zicheng, nicknamed the Dashing Prince (Chuang Wang), captured Luoyang in Henan and executed the Ming Prince of Fu, Zhu Changxun. A large number of famine victims came to Li for food and shelter. In the 7th month, another rebel troop was led by Luo Rucai united with Li Zicheng in Henan; therefore, the force of Li Zicheng’s troop was strengthened immediately. After learning about the fall of Luoyang and the execution of his uncle, Zhu Youjian (Chongzhen) issued an urgent decree that Fu Zonglong, the governor of Shaanxi, and the ­regional commander of Yansui, Ningxia and Gansu should lead He Renlong and Li Guoqi as well as an army of 20,000 soldiers to unite with the governor of Baoding, Yang Wenyue, who was leading regional commander Hu Dawei’s troops, to attack the united troops led by Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai. In the 9th month, the government army was ambushed by rebel troops in ­Mengjia village, in Xiangcheng County, in Henan. After realizing that the situation was unfavorable, He Renlong, Hu Dawei and Li Guoqi fled to Shenqiu, while Yang Wenyue, supported by his subordinates, escaped to Chenzhou

Military affairs of the late Ming  141 (Huaiyang) in Henan. Fu Zonglong, whose force was limited to only 6,000 soldiers and horses, was encircled by the insurrectionary army. Several days later when the arrows and provisions were used up, Fu Z ­ onglong tried to break out of the encirclement. Assaulted by the rebel troops, the soldiers scattered and Fu Zonglong was captured and killed. After Fu Zonglong’s defeat and death, the Ming government appointed Wang Qiaonian, the governor of Shaanxi and the three frontiers, to be in charge of suppressing Li Zicheng’s insurrectionary army. In the 2nd month of the Chongzhen reign, Wang Qiaonian led regional commanders He Renlong, Zheng Jiadong, Niu Chenghu, Zhang Guoqin and Zhang Yinggui as well as an army of 30,000 soldiers to march out of Tong Pass to coordinate with the army led by Zuo Liangyu to suppress the rebel troops from the east and the west simultaneously. At that moment, the rebel army led by Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai encircled Zuo Liangyu’s army at Yancheng in Henan. Wang Qiaonian immediately went to Xiangcheng and urged He Renlong, Zheng Jiadong and Niu Chenghu to march to Yancheng. After learning that the government army was approaching, Li Zicheng decided to stop besieging the town and used his main force to confront the attack of the government army. On the 13th day of the 2nd month, the rebel troops defeated the government army from Shaanxi at a place forty li east of Xiangcheng. Regional commander Zhang Guoqin was killed, and the other three regional commanders, He Renlong, Zheng Jiadong and Niu Hucheng, fled back to Shaanxi without permission. After the siege was raised, Zuo Liangyu led his army to escape to the east instead of chasing the insurrectionary army westward. What Wang Qiaonian could command was a troop of four or five thousand soldiers led by regional commander Zhang Yinggui who defended Xiangcheng. On the 17th day, the insurrectionary army captured the town and killed Zhang Yinggui. Wang Qiaonian was captured and executed. The insurrectionary army took advantage of this opportunity and captured many towns in Henan. In the 5th month of the same year, Li Zicheng launched his third attack on Kaifeng. The Ming government immediately ordered commander Ding Qirui and the governor of Baoding Yang Wenyue to lead regional commanders Zuo Liangyu, Hu Dawei, Yang Dezheng and Fang Guo’an to reinforce Kaifeng. They commanded an army of 180,000 soldiers and intended to launch a decisive battle with Li Zicheng and LuoRucai. On the 13th day of the 5th month, the vanguard of the government army marched to Zhuxian town. Li Zicheng promptly decided to withdraw his troops that were besieging Kaifeng and to confront the Ming reinforcements with his main force. Despite the massive number of soldiers in the government army, most generals (except Zuo Liangyu) and soldiers had been transferred temporarily from Shaanxi, the camps in the capital and the regions south of Changjiang (the Yangzi River). Regional commanders from different towns looked on and shrank from their responsibilities, while commander Ding Qirui was so weak and incompetent that he overly counted on Zuo Liangyu, and was called “an advisor in Zuo’s

142  Military affairs of the late Ming residence.”25 In the battle of Zhuxian town, upon seeing the superior force of the insurrectionary army, Zuo Liangyu led his subordinates to flee southward in order to preserve his own force. The other commanders also escaped without fighting. Ding Qirui and Yang Wenyue lost control of the army and escaped in haste to Gushi and Guide (Shangqiu in Henan), respectively. The insurrectionary army chased and captured tens of thousands of surrendered soldiers and obtained 7,000 mules and horses. On the 25th day of the 5th month, Li Zicheng’s rebel troops ­encircled Kaifeng again. In the three deployments of troops in the Central Plains, the generals relied on their own armies, defied orders from the supreme and other commanders and fled even before confronting the enemy, thus disrupting the whole military deployment. Given the aforementioned problems, and also because of the desperate effort to raise the siege of Kaifeng, the Ming government decided to enforce strict military discipline and to consolidate the military forces. First, regional commander Yang Dezheng, who had avoided fighting in the battle of Zhuxian Town, was executed, which was a warning to the other generals such as Zuo Liangyu. Next, the newly appointed governor of Shaanxi and the frontier, Sun Chuanting, received a secret order to convoke a conference of the generals, where regional commander He Renlong was suddenly arrested. He was accused of escaping many times and plunging the governors Fu Zonglong and Wang Qiaonian into deathtraps. He was beheaded in public. In the ninth month, urged by the central government time and again, Sun Chuanting commanded an army to march out of Tong Pass with his subordinates including regional commander Zuo Xiang, Bai Guang’en, Zheng Jia, Niu Chenghu and Gaojie. At the time, Kaifeng was submerged because Ming officials had broken the dyke of the Yellow River, and heavy rain resulted in the flooding of the entire city. Li Zicheng and Luo Rucheng’s army marched to the southwest of Henan. After entering Tong Pass, Sun Chuanting’s army marched southward immediately. On the first day of the tenth month, the two armies confronted each other in Jia County. Sun Chuanting ordered Zheng Jiadong, Gaojie and Suo Xiang to wait in ambush, while Niu Chenghu fought the insurrectionary army. Shortly after the start of the battle, Niu Chenghu pretended to retreat due to his inferior force. Not realizing that this was a trick, Li Zicheng led his army to chase Niu Chenghu and was trapped in the ambush. The Ming troops in the ambush attacked Li Zicheng from two sides, and Niu Chenghu also turned around and fought tenaciously. Li Zicheng was defeated and retreated hastily. Upon seeing the large amount of ordnance and provisions discarded by the insurrectionary army, the government troops abandoned chasing their enemies and focused on seizing their property. Luo Rucai’s army took advantage of this opportunity to launch a prompt attack on Ming forces. The government army was unprepared and was defeated. Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai chased the government army, killing thousands of officers and ­soldiers and seizing a large number of battle steeds. Sun Chuanting reorganized the defeated army and retreated into Tong Pass.

Military affairs of the late Ming  143 After defeating the government army from Shaanxi, the insurrectionary army occupied the majority of subprefectures and counties in Henan. The leaders of “Ge and Zuo’s Five Battalions” including He Yilong, Ma Shouying, Liu Xiyao, He Jin and Lin Yangcheng who had moved about in the border areas of Anhui, Henan and Hubei decided after a discussion to lead their army to Henan, where they would unite their force with that of Li Zicheng’s and Luo Rucai’s. In the intercalary 11th month, the allied forces of Li Zicheng, LuoRucai and “Ge and Zuo’s Five Battalions” occupied Runing (Runan in Henan) and captured and killed the Chong Prince, Zhu Yougui, and the governor of Baoding, Yang Wenyue. Up to this moment, the prefectures in Henan, south of the Yellow River, had been occupied by the insurrectionary army. Because that area had been affected by droughts, locust plagues and constant warfare, the economy almost stagnated, and the insurrectionary army which concentrated in Henan could not obtain adequate provisions. Therefore, after the battle of Runing, Li Zicheng and the other leaders led the main force of 400,000 soldiers via Nanyang to Xiangyang in Huguang, where regional commander Zuo Liangyu was stationed. Zuo was shocked at the arrival of the insurrectionary army, decamping immediately and fleeing to Wuchang along the Han River. From the 12th month of Chongzhen 15 (1642) to the 1st month of the subsequent year, the insurrectionary army occupied Xiangyang, Jingzhou, Chengtian (Zhongxiang in Hubei) and De’an (Anlu in Hubei). Li Zicheng, who was honored as Great Commander Invested by Heaven and Advocating Civil and Martial Virtues, renamed Xiangyang as Xiangjing (Xiang Capital) and established central administrative agencies. He also reorganized and divided the insurrectionary armies into garrisons in charge of local defense and five battalions including the front, the back, the central, the left and the right battalions for field operations and capturing cities. When the news arrived in Beijing, Chongzhen was shocked. He immediately ordered Sun Chuanting to reorganize his military force, to re-enter Tong Pass and to attack the insurrectionary army together with Zuo Liangyu’s army stationed in Wuchang. This decision was opposed by most high-level officials including Sun Chuanting himself. The Vice Minister of War Zhang Fengxiang presented the most representative opinion that “Sun Chuanting commanded selected soldiers and generals, who were the emperor’s last elite force and should not be deployed casually.”26 Zhu Youjian was so stubborn as to urge Sun Chuanting to demonstrate exceptional valor and to march out of Tong Pass and “suppress the roving bandits.” In the 8th month, Sun Chuanting led regional commanders Bai Guang’en, Gao Jin and Niu Chenghu with an army of approximately 100,000 soldiers to march east out of Tong Pass. He ordered the regional commander of Henan, Chen Yongfu, who had defended Kaifeng from the rebels, to join forces with him at Luoyang and then to advance southward. He also sent documents to Zuo Liangyu, ordering him to lead his force westward. After receiving the news that Sun’s army had entered Henan, Li Zicheng personally commanded his main force in

144  Military affairs of the late Ming moving from Xiangyang (rebel Xingjing) to Henan to meet the government army head-on. Li Zicheng adopted the tactic of luring the enemy in deep and stopped the government army with small forces in the vast area to the south of Luoyang. “No defense was deployed in cities and towns,”27 and the main force was concentrated in Jia County. After Sun Chuanting occupied Luoyang again, he marched to Baofeng County without confronting any resistance. Discovering that the government army from Shaanxi was farther away from its rear base,28 Li Zicheng ordered general Liu Zongmin to take a bypath to the rear of the government army and to halt the transportation of the military provisions at Baisha in Ruzhou. Sun Chuanting was shocked, because he realized that it was impossible to collect military provisions locally. Meanwhile, he was not confident that his starving army could be victorious. He was compelled to retreat to avoid the blockade on the route of grain transportation. In order to prevent the insurrectionary army from pursuing him, he ordered the Henan soldiers led by Chen Yongfu to stay behind. The Henan generals and soldiers were dissatisfied with Sun Chuanting’s decision to preserve his own lineal army and to use them as scapegoats when things went wrong. They therefore refused to obey the order and retreated northward without permission. Perceiving the opportunity, Li Zicheng ordered the launching of a general offensive. The government’s military force was in chaos. The soldiers strove to escape to such an extent that the road was blocked by a traffic jam. The cavalry of the insurrectionary army chased the government army bravely, and the infantry annihilated the enemies who were unable to escape: “40,000 soldiers in the government army were killed and tens of thousands of armors, horses and mules were captured.”29 Sun Chuanting and regional commanders Gao Jie and Bai Guang’en reorganized the remaining military force and retreated into Tong Pass. In the battle of Jia County and Ru subprefecture, the elite force of the Shaanxi government army was almost annihilated, and the morale never recovered after the setback. At the beginning of the 10th month, Li Zicheng captured Tong Pass and Sun Chuanting was defeated and killed. Several days later, Xi’an was captured by the insurrectionary army and the rule of the Ming government in the northwest collapsed. Zhang Xianzhong’s fighting on both sides of the Changjiang In the peasant war at the end of the Ming dynasty, the insurrectionary army led by Zhang Xianzhong made an ineffaceable contribution to the overthrow of the Ming. Titling himself the Eight Great Princes of the Western Camp, Zhang rose in rebellion in the third year of the Chongzhen reign (1630). He engaged in mobile warfare in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei and Sichuan. In Chongzhen 11 (1638), because of the government’s rigid suppression, the peasants’ uprising faced hard times. After Li Zicheng’s army encountered several setbacks in Shaanxi and Gansu, the surviving 1,000 soldiers and horses retreated to the mountains in the border areas of Shaanxi,

Military affairs of the late Ming  145 Sichuan and Hubei to avoid suppression. “Ge and Zuo’s Five Battalions” also retreated to the Ying Huo area (in the Dabie Mountains) and avoided conflict with the government army. Some other previously renowned leaders such as Liu Guoneng, nicknamed Dashing Disaster (Chuang Ta Tian), and Li Wanqing, nicknamed Arrow Disaster (She Ta Tian), surrendered to the Ming government, acting like falcons and hounds for the government to suppress the insurrectionary army. Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai (nicknamed Cao Cao) pretended to be appeased, stationing themselves in Gucheng and Fang county in Hubei, but they refused to be reorganized and redeployed by the government. For a period of time, the policy of suppression and appeasement seemed to be effective. In Chongzhen 12 (1639), Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai rose in rebellion again, occupying Gucheng and Fang County. In the 7th month, they defeated Zuo Liangyu’s and Luo Dai’s armies which rushed to suppress them in Boji Camp of Fang County, thus terminating the hard times of the peasant uprising. Emperor Chongzhen was utterly discomfited and he arrested and convicted Xiong Wencan, who was the commissioner of military affairs in charge of appeasing the rebels. In the 9th month, he appointed the trusted minister Yang Sichang head of the Regional Military Commission. Before Yang left, Chongzhen gave him a secret edict to concentrate a superior force to suppress Zhang Xianzhong while adopting a policy of “suppression and appeasement” for the other insurrectionary armies.30 Yang Sichang obeyed this edict and deployed the superior force composed of the Bandit Suppressing General Zuo Liangyu’s army and the Shaanxi government army, attempting to annihilate Zhang Xianzhong’s force in western Hubei and eastern Sichuan. Thus, from the summer of Chongzhen 12 to the end of the Chongzhen 13, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai’s insurrectionary army shouldered the mission of fighting with the government’s suppressing force, thus alleviating the pressure on Li Zicheng and “Ge and Zuo’s Five Battalions.” In the 2nd month of Chongzhen 13 (1640), in Manao Mountain, Taiping County (Wanyuan in Sichuan), Zuo Liangyu’s troops rushed into the permanent residential camp of Zhang Xianzhong and were inflicted severe losses there. In the 3rd month, Zhang Xianzhong was defeated at Hanxi Temple by the Shaanxi government army. In the autumn, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai decided to unite their forces and to enter Sichuan. They adopted the strategy of “defeating enemies through guerrilla tactics.” They moved hither and thither, making the suppressing government army trail them wearily. In the 1st month of the Chongzhen reign, taking advantage of the conflicts between Yang Sichang and Zuo Liangyu, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai led their forces eastward suddenly. They defeated the fierce-as-a-tiger army which chased them to Huanghou town in Kai County. Then, they advanced to Hubei and captured Xiangyang on the 14th day of the second month, killing the Xiang Prince, Zhu Yiming. The Regional Military Commissioner and Grand Secretary Yang Sichang died exhausted.

146  Military affairs of the late Ming From Chongzhen 14 to 15 (1641–1642), Zhang Xianzhong’s troops were fighting on the move in Hubei, Henan and Anhui. In the spring of the 16th year, while Li Zicheng’s force moved southward from Henan to prefectures such as Xiangyang in Huguang, Zhang Xianzhong led his force westward from Anhui to Huguang, and captured the provincial capital Wuchang in the 5th month, executing the Chu Prince Zhu Huakui and establishing a dynasty named Great West (Da Xi). In the 7th month, Zhang Xianzhong led the Great West army to the area that is now Hunan province, and soon ­afterward captured Yuezhou (now Yueyang in Hunan), Changsha, Hengzhou (now Hengyang in Hunan), ultimately taking a large part of the province. Prince Hui and Prince Gui fled to Guangxi, and Prince Ji fled to Guangdong. Zhang Xianzhong also dispatched a section of his force to Jiangxi, capturing two prefectures, Yuanzhou and Ji’an. The Da Xi government, which had been established in Hunan and Jiangxi, expanded its claims to a vast region. In the winter of the same year, Zhang Xianzhong received the news that Li Zicheng had annihilated the Shaanxi government army and predicted that the Ming dynasty would fall in the near future. In order to avoid serious conflicts with Li Zicheng, he decided resolutely to desert Hunan and Jiangxi and to march to Sichuan, attempting to maintain his autonomy in an impregnable area with the Qinling Mountains to its north and the Three Gorges to its east. In the 6th month of 1644 (Chongzhen 17, Shunzhi 1 in the Qing and Yongchang 1 in the Da Shun), the Da Xi army captured Chongqing and executed Prince Rui; then it captured Chengdu and Prince Shu committed suicide by drowning himself in a well. Zhang Xianzhong dispatched his subordinates to take over the subprefecture and county in Sichuan, which immediately surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong’s regime. In the 10th month, Zhang Xianzhong renamed Chengdu the Western Capital (Xijing), coronating himself the emperor of Da Xi with the reign title of Great Concordance (Dashun), thus establishing the central government and various levels of local government in Sichuan.31 Li Zicheng seized San Bian of Shaanxi and captured Beijing On the 11th day of the 10th month in the Chongzhen 16, Li Zicheng’s insurrectionary army occupied Xi’an. San Bian was an area where the Ming stationed massive military forces in order to defend against the Mongols. The local residents adored martial arts and learned how to fight. Most elite ­soldiers and generals came from this area. In order to advance eastward to contend for the dominion of the whole country, Li Zicheng had to capture the important garrison towns in San Bian and eliminate the menace from the rear. After capturing Xi’an, he divided his force into three routes. The north-route army led by Li Guo, Liu Fangliang and Li Zicheng himself ­invaded the area north of Shaanxi. After capturing Yan’an, Li Zicheng returned to Xi’an, while Li Guo and Liu Fangliang continued to campaign in Yulin, which was captured on the 27th day of the 11th month. The southroute army, led by Tian Jianxiu, invaded Hanzhong and captured Chenghu,

Military affairs of the late Ming  147 ­ anzheng (Hanzhong of Shaanxi), in the 11th month. Regional commander N Gao Ruli surrendered. Tian Jianxiu ordered his subordinates to guard Hanzhong, and he returned to Xi’an. The west-route army, led by Liu Zongmin, Hejin and Yuan Zongdi, captured Qingyang, Guyuan, Ningxia (Yinchuan of Ningxia) and Gongchang (Longxi of Gansu). Regional commanders Bai Guang’en, Zuo Guangxian and Chen Yongfu surrendered. Some generals, including Liu Zongmin, returned to Xi’an, while He Jin continued the westward expedition, capturing Lanzhou, Liangzhou (Wuwei of Gansu), Ganzhou (Zhangye of Gansu) and Suzhou (Jiuquan of Gansu). In the 1st month of 1644, while invading Xining Guard, He Jin was trapped and killed by the local original officers, who pretended to surrender. His subordinates were so furious that they captured the Xining Guard, and the local native chieftains surrendered one after another. After San Bian was pacified, in the 1st month of 1644 (Chongzhen 17 in Ming, Shunzhi 1 in Qing), Li Zicheng founded his state with the title Great Concordance (Da Shun), with the reign title Ever Flourishing (Yongchang), and with a capital at Xi’an (renamed Xijing). The central government was composed of a grand councilor and six administrative agencies (which were equivalent to the Six Ministries in the Ming); the provincial government was led by a military commissioner, local government was led by a garrison commander, followed by the low-ranking officials including prefect, subprefect and county magistrate. Meanwhile, he rewarded meritorious subordinates, granting the title of marquis to Liu Zongmin, Tian Jianxiu, Li Jin (namely Li Guo), Liu Fangliang, Yuan Zongdi, Zhang Nai, Gu Ying and Liu Guochang. The foundation of a state in Xi’an meant that Li Zicheng estimated that the opportunity for him to overthrow the rule of the Ming dynasty was ­mature. On the 18th day of the 12th month in 1643, Li You and Bai Jiuhe, who had been previously dispatched to lead the vanguard to cross the Y ­ ellow River eastward, captured some counties including Ronghe in Shanxi. On the 8th day of the 1st month, Li Zicheng led his main force out of Xi’an, thus beginning the rebels’ march to Beijing. In terms of the military deployment, Li Zicheng decided to lead the main force together with Liu Zongmin to advance to Beijing via Linfen, Taiyuan, Datong, Yanghe (Yanggao in Shanxi, also Xuanda, the site of the governor’s office in the Ming), Xuan Fu ­(Xuanfu Region) and Juyong Pass, with the strategic goal of annihilating the armed force deployed in the frontier area from Datong to Juyong Pass, thus ­i mpeding any Ming effort to rescue the capital from the rebels. The army taking the other route was led by the Ci Marquis, Liu Fangliang; it marched eastward along the north bank of the Yellow River, capturing Huaiqing of Henan (now Qinyang in Henan), Lu’an of Shanxi (now the Changzhi area in Shanxi), Weihui of Henan (the office of prefect was located in Ji County), Zhangde (now the Anyang area in Henan) and subsequently to enter the vicinity of the capital via Daming, Handan, Xingtai, Hejian and Baoding to converge with the main force at Beijing. The strategic goal was not only to capture most of the subprefectures and counties in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei, but also to eliminate contacts between the central government and

148  Military affairs of the late Ming the south. It was not only to prevent Chongzhen and others from escaping to Nanjing but also to block any military force that might be dispatched from the south in Jianghuai to “defend the emperor.” In the spring of 1644 (year of jiashen), the two-route pincers movement of Da Shun military forces went smoothly. The north-route army led by Li Zicheng himself fought for two days to take Ningwu, in Shanxi. In other areas such as Datong, Yanghe, Xuanfu and Juyong Pass, the defending generals surrendered without any resistance. The south-route army led by Liu Fangliang also encountered a desperate resistance organized by the local officials and gentry in Baoding, but, in other areas he passed through, the defending generals immediately surrendered. On the 17th day of the 3rd month, the main force commanded by Li Zicheng reached Beijing. The three battalions led by the Xiangcheng Earl, Li Guozhen, also immediately surrendered. As for the military force transferred by the central government to defend the emperor, 8,000 soldiers led by regional commander of Jizhentown, Tang Tong, obeyed the emperor’s order and arrived in Beijing, but later surrendered at Juyong Pass. The soldiers led by regional commander of Liaodong Wu Sangui took their families and entered Shanhai Pass sluggishly on the thirteenth day of the third month and lingered at Yongping prefecture (now Lulong in Hebei) until the Da Shun army captured Beijing. The regional commander of Shandong, Liu Zeqing, defied the emperor’s order and led his army to flee southward. Therefore, the defense of Beijing existed only in name. Only when the low-rank inner officials were driven to the city wall were there enough soldiers behind the battlements. Emperor Chongzhen was in despair, crying into the air, walking around the palace, thumping his chest and stamping his feet, and sighing all night, yelling that ‘all the ministers victimized me.’ He convened a meeting of the ministers in panic, but everybody shuddered and contributed no strategies in silence.32 In an effort to persuade Emperor Chongzhen to surrender, Li Zicheng ordered the Ming eunuch Du Xun, who had surrendered at Xuan Fu, to enter Beijing and persuade the ruler to abdicate. However, Emperor Chongzhen attempted to delay the time through negotiations. On the 18th day of the 3rd month, the negotiations came to nothing. Under the leadership of Liu Zongmin, the Da Shun army captured the outer city. At night, Zhu Youjian realized that his day had gone and he committed suicide by hanging himself. On the morning of the 19th day of the 3rd month, the Da Shun army captured the inner city of Beijing. At noon, Li Zicheng, accompanied by the civil and military officials, entered the city through the Flourishing V ­ irtue Gate (Deshengmen). The Crown Prince (Zhu Cilang), Prince Ding and Prince Yong were arrested. Most officials surrendered and pledged loyalty to the Da Shun government excepting only a few who committed suicide. The Ming government, which had existed for 276 years, finally collapsed in the great peasant uprisings.

Military affairs of the late Ming  149 This essay originally ran in Zhongguo Junshi Shilue, edited by Gao Rui, Military Science Publishing House, 1992: 398–416. Translated by Li Bingjun Polished by Roger V Des Forges33

Notes 1 He, Erjian, Anliao Yudang Shugao. 2 Mao Qiling, Houjian Lu. 3 Ming Shenzong Shilu, vol. 345. 4 Shen Defu, Wanli Yehuo Bian, vol. 29; see also Ming Shenzong Shilu, vol. 428. 5 Wang Yizhong, “Jing Fei Lu,” in Guacang Congshu, vol. 1. 6 Chongzhen Changbian, vol. 1. 7 Qing Taizu Shilu, vol. 1. 8 Qing Taizu Shilu, vol. 1. 9 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 2. The government was transferred to Hetuala in the thirtyfirst year of the Wanli reign. Both places are located in today’s Xinbin County in Liaoning province. 10 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 2. 11 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 2. 12 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 2. 13 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 2. 14 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 4. 15 Manzhou Shilu. vol. 4. 16 Fu Guo, Liaoguang Shilu, vol. 1; “Liaozuo Bingduan,” in Mingshi Jishi Benmo Buyi, vol. 1. 17 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 8. 18 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 8. 19 Qing Taizu Shilu, vol. 10. 20 Manzhou Shilu, vol. 8. 21 Qing Taizong Shilu, vol. 55. 22 Qing Taizong Shilu, vol. 57. 23 Qing Taizong Shilu, vol. 57. 24 Qing Taizong Shilu, vol. 57. 25 Hou Fangyu, “Ningnanhou Zhuan,” in Zhuanghuitang Wenji, vol. 5. 26 Li, Changxiang, “Jiashen Tingchen Zhuan,” in Tianwenge Ji, vol. 1. 27 Gao, Doushu, Cunhan Lu, alternately entitled Shouyun Jilue. 28 Because the disasters were serious in Henan and also because Li Zicheng ordered the local rebel troops to empty houses and harvest fields, the grain for the government army had to be transported long distance, mainly to the region north of the Yellow River. 29 Peng, Sunyi, Liukou Zhi (Gazeteer of Liukou), vol. 8. 30 Yang, Sichang, “Wuyin Liu Yue Ba Ri Zhaodui,” in Yang Wenruo Xiansheng Ji, vol. 43. 31 The time for Zhang Xianzhong to proclaim himself emperor is not the same in different historical documents such as the eighth, the tenth, the eleventh month or the first month in the subsequent year. 32 Zhang, Zhengsheng, “Ersu Jishi,” attached to Queshu by Jiang Dejing, the block-printed edition of early Qing. Note: Zhang Zhengsheng was Langzhong of Zhifangsi of the Ministry of War before the fall of the Ming.

7 A guide to the study of the Ming history

Introduction to the historical documents of the Ming The Ming period was not so long ago and Ming scholars loved to write books to express their ideas, so enormous volumes of historical documents have been preserved. Here we can offer only a general introduction. Fundamental historical sources of the Ming dynasty Annalistic compilations 1 Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty: 3,045 fascicles. In accordance with Ming convention, the compilation of veritable records should be initiated after a new emperor’s accession. An official was appointed to serve as the general monitor and supervisor by the new emperor, and he organized a group of officials from the Hanlin Academy to compose the veritable records of the previous reign. Arranged chronologically, the Veritable Records covered significant domestic affairs in terms of politics and the military during the reign of each emperor. For the scope of recording, see “prefaces” at the front of each reign since the founding ruler (e.g. Ming Taizu). Sources for the veritable records were mainly official memorials to the throne, as well as imperial edicts and decrees located in the official archives with certain abridgments. Since most of the official Ming archives were destroyed, the Veritable Records served as the most complete and systematic source for understanding the basic historical facts of the polity. Although the Veritable Records were quite detailed compared with other historical records, there was no veritable record for the Jianwen reign (r. 1399–1403) of Zhu Yunwen, but only a record of the Jingnan War led by Zhu Yunwen’s uncle (temple name Chengzu), from Hongwu 31 to 35 (1398–1402). The details in Veritable Records for Emperor Xizong, covering from Tianqi 4 (1624) to Tianqi 6 (1626), were also missing. They were destroyed by an ex-Ming Grand Secretary Feng Quan, who was charged with having close relations with the powerful eunuch Wei Zhongxian and who held high office under the Qing. The Ming dynasty collapsed in Chongzhen 17 (1644), and for this reason, there were

Guide to study of Ming history  151 no Veritable Records compiled for the Chongzhen reign (1628–1644) of the last effective Ming ruler. The Veritable ­Records of Emperor Huaizong, which was incorporated into the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, was actually compiled carelessly from the Ming History Archives in the early Qing, based on fragmentary court reports (di bao). As for the editions of the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, the first point should be that its original manuscripts submitted to the throne were not preserved. According to the Ming’s t­ radition, the Veritable Records of each reign should be hand-copied in the regular script and revised over and over again after its completion. Subsequently, a ceremony was held for presenting it to the emperor, and the original manuscripts were entirely destroyed. In this way, the great state records were solemnly composed and had few problems with omissions or with wrongly written characters. The official version of Veritable Records was kept in the Imperial Library called the Golden Chamber, and it was strictly forbidden to remove them from the court. From the mid-Ming period, although the ban was not cancelled, supervision gradually slackened. Abusing their privileges, some officials of the Grand Secretariat and Hanlin Academy secretly took out some Veritable Records and made illegal copies. Therefore, copies of supposedly secret records were present in the mansions of a small number of officials. Two reproductions of Veritable Records of the Ming ­Dynasty were often used: one was from the copy stored in the State Studies Library in Nanjing and photocopied during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s; the other was that of the Institute of History and Philology, “Academia Sinica,” Taiwan, which was reprinted based on a selection of several hand-copied versions, with supplements including The Family Instructions of the Ming Dynasty, The Extended Records of Chongzhen’s Reign and The Veritable Records of the Censorate in Xizong 7 (1627), and notes of revision. The latter edition was more complete, accurate and convenient to use. The Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty was a must-read source for studying historical events of the Ming period. However, it had two obvious defects: firstly, due to the stylistic norm, the record of historical facts laid emphases on significant events at the imperial court and in local governments, but rarely contained information regarding society, economics or culture, which would have been useful in writing a new history of Ming examining various layers of the history. Secondly, in spite of its name, the “Veritable Records” included quite a few accounts that distorted facts. For example, the Veritable Records of Ming Taizu was originally composed during the reign of Emperor Jianwen ­(1399–1402). After the Jingnan War, the Prince of Yan (Zhu Di) usurped the throne and had the Veritable Records of Taizu rewritten twice, boosting his own prestige by using forged records. Nevertheless, the Veritable Records was still the most fundamental historical record of the Ming dynasty, describing causes and effects and supplying precise dates for numerous events.

152  Guide to study of Ming history 2 Guo que (An Appraisal of a State): compiled by Tan Qian during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, 108 fascicles in total, including the first four fascicles of an introduction. Its typeset edition was published by Zhong Hua Book Company. In his youth, Tan Qian had already decided to compose a history of his contemporary dynasty, the Ming. After the collapse of the dynasty, out of nostalgic sentiments toward the former state, he made great efforts in his plan. For as long as thirty years, he faced difficulties and obstacles, but he never gave up collecting as many sources as he could, thus finally composing a voluminous detailed chronicle. This personal annalistic history clarified some ­obscurities and corrected some inaccuracies in the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, recorded historical facts concerning the Jianzhou Jurchens and provided an account of Chongzhen reign by using court records as sources. In these ways, Tan made considerable contributions to the study of Ming history. However, due to the author’s limited means and relatively low social status, sources for this compilation work were quite restricted, thus could not reach the goal of accurate textual criticism. Besides, by the early Qing, the author’s opinions were obsolete and stubborn, resulting in obvious bias in some of his arguments. 3 Ming ji (Records of the Ming): composed by Chen He and Chen Kejia, grandfather and grandson, sixty fascicles, edition of Tongzhi 10 (1871). This book series was originally written by Chen He in the late Ming dynasty, and its accounts covered the history until the beginning of the reign of Emperor Chongzhen, thus filling fifty-two fascicles. Subsequently, his grandson Chen Kejia continued to write another eight volumes to complete the whole series. The last three volumes, namely, the histories of the Fu, Tang and Gui Princes, provided records of what became known as the Southern Ming. 4 Ming Tongjian (A Comprehensive History of the Ming): compiled by Xia Yan in the era of Emperor Xianfeng, in ninety-six fascicles, when the cultural central authority of the Qing dynasty tended to be less intense and surviving books gradually came out. It was based on existing works and on the author’s own research. Being reasonably detailed, this work criticized some faults in existing historical records, thus could be used as a good guidebook for Ming studies. In addition, we also had the sixteen-fascicle Mingjian Gangmu (Outline of the Ming Mirror) revised by Yin Luanzhang, and published by the National Studies Society in 1936. This book is rather sketchy and can be used merely to get an outline of Ming history. Compilation of records and biographies 1 Mingshi (History of the Ming): 332 fascicles. Among numerous ­editions, the best and most commonly used is that of the Zhonghua Book Company, a typeset edition published in 1974. The compilation was initiated

Guide to study of Ming history  153 early in the reign of Shunzhi and completed in Qianlong 4. Nominally, it was compiled by the grand secretary Zhang Tingyu et al. In fact, after the establishment of the Ming History Bureau, the compilation work was shared by several compilers: Wan Sitong compiled an initial draft manuscript; Wang Hongxu edited a second draft that was printed; and Zhang Tingyu signed off on the final, official version that became the standard history of the Ming, named The Ming History, which had ­obvious merits, such as a comprehensive introduction, a serious examination of original texts regarding certain historical facts and a concise writing style. In addition, on account of the long-term process of its compilation, some faults, often found in other historical records, were avoided in this official history. However, its repeated deletions and modifications had a serious impact on the understanding of original sources, and its narrative mode was rather mediocre, insipid and unappealing to readers. Ultimately, the compilation confronted many prohibitions. Although the rulers of Qing dynasty repeatedly asserted the incomparably authentic nature of the text, what concerned them most was merely to realize their own intentions. Records related to the Manchus were strictly supervised, and the misdeeds of Ming emperors and officials were sometimes elided. 2 Other Records and Biographical Compilations: for example, Ming Shu (an Unofficial Ming History) by Fu Weilin (171 fascicles), A Record of Criminal Reflections (Zuiweilu) by Zha Jizuo (120 fascicles) and A Book to Hide (Xu Cang Shu) by Li Zhi (twenty-seven fascicles) et al. were also histories of the Ming dynasty in record or biographical styles. The chapter titled “Record of Classifying Edicts” in An Unofficial History of the Ming conserved a number of imperial edicts and decrees issued in the early Ming; A Record of Criminal Reflections supplemented the historical facts of late Ming and early Qing eras; A Book to Hide, particularly worthy for the author’s original arguments, could be treated as a source for studying ideological history, but its value for studying Ming history was insufficient. Other historical writings by individual author 1 Mingshi Jishi Benmo (The Major events of Ming History from the Beginning to the End): composed by Gu Yingtai in the early Qing dynasty, eighty fascicles. Completed in the Shunzhi reign, it was first named The Major Events of Ming Dynasty (Mingchao Jishi Benmo). Compared with the official Ming History, it had more original sources and was expressed in concise and elegant words and phrases. With the systematic account of Ming’s significant events, which were arranged in different topics, readers could more easily comprehend causes and effects; in this sense, it was an important guidebook for studying Ming history. But it emphasized political and military matters and neglected economics and culture.

154  Guide to study of Ming history 2 Yanzhou Shiliao (Historical Sources of Yanzhou): one hundred fascicles and Yanshan Tang Bieji (Anthology of Yan Mountain Hall) one hundred fascicles were both composed by Wang Shizhen. Among intellectual works of the Ming dynasty, the historical writings of Wang Shizhen had a particular reputation. Living in the Jiajing and Wanli reigns, Wang was a literary celebrity of that time. From his grandfather to himself, the three generations of Wang’s family held high offices, and thus were familiar with the institutions of the central government. From his youth, Wang Shizhen was determined to compose a history of his contemporary dynasty. With this goal in mind, he collected a large sum of primary sources, and made great efforts to examine texts. The Historical Sources of Yanzhou and The Anthology of Yan Mountain Hall, with some overlapping, were in fact the primary sources collected for the “national history” and a part of its drafts. The Anthology of Yan Mountain Hall was edited and published during the author’s lifetime, but, for fear of offending persons in authority, a number of important drafts were not included in this anthology. After the death of Wang Shizhen, his friend completed the edition of Historical Sources of Yanzhou, which represented the most splendid achievement of his historical writings and was regarded as an important work for study of the Ming. There were two typeset editions: a complete one of one hundred fascicles and a fragmentary one of thirty-four fascicles. 3 Ming Shan Cang (Archive at the Mountain of Names): composed by He Qiaoyuan, 109 fascicles, block-printed edition of the late Ming dynasty. This work describes the history of the Ming in biographical style, covering the period from the early Ming to Muzong (Longqing 6 (1572). Thirty-seven records were included, among which Dian mo Ji (Record of Managing Plans) was equivalent to the Benji (basic annals) in other sources; the Kunze Ji to Houfei Zhuan (biographies of empresses and imperial consorts), the Kai sheng Ji includes biographies of Zhu Yuanzhang’s grandfather and father, and Xianzong’s father, the Prince Xingxian, Ji ti Ji to Taizizhuan (biography of the crown prince who suffered premature death), Tian Yin Ji (biographies of Guo Zixing and Han Lin’er), Tian qu Ji (biographies of Chen Youliang et al.). Other Ji were either lie zhuan (aligned biographies) or zhishu (essays and ­monographs). Yudi Ji (Record of astronomy and geography), Dianli Ji ­(Record of ceremony and ritual) and Yuewu Ji (Record of music and dance) were missing in this edition. This work systematically composed Ming’s history before the reign of Emperor Wanli (1573–1620), and can be used as a reference in Ming studies. 4 Huang Ming Shigai (Outline History of the August Ming): composed by Zhu Guozhen, five versions of the book were in 109 fascicles, with a wood-block printed edition of the late Ming dynasty. It was divided into twenty-four fascicles of Huang Ming Da Zheng Ji, sixteen fascicles of Huang Ming Da Xun Ji, fifty fascicles of Huang Ming Da Shi Ji, thirteen fascicles of Huang Ming Kaiguo Chen Zhuan and five fascicles of Huang

Guide to study of Ming history  155 Ming Xunguo Chen Zhuan, with one fascicles of preface. In the preface, the author wrote, “during all these thirty years, I did not realize that the number of my fascicles had been more than one hundred.” In the reign of Emperor Chongzhen, the five sections published were not more than 109 fascicles, and other manuscripts not published at that time were probably sold by his descendants to Zhuang, which led to the wellknown unjust case of the literary inquisition into Zhuang Tinglong. As an assistant official of the crown prince and grand secretariat at Jianji Hall in the late Ming era, Zhu Guozhen “prepared in the Hanlin Academy, visited the imperial palace and had access to collections in the state archives.” At the same time, he also collected genealogies and popular romances, and was determined to compile a history of the Ming dynasty. In his words, the “spirits of half a life and the career of a whole life” all existed in this work. As for the errors in previous history works, the author ferreted them out with a “critical spirit.” Also, analyses of politics at the court were a unique feature of this book. 5 Jianwen Chaoye Huibian (Informal Collection on the Jianwen Reign): composed by Tu Shufang, the book in twenty fascicles was woodblock printed in the Wanli reign. After the Jingnan War, historical records of Emperor Jianwen were quite rare. For fear of offending a taboo against discussing Yongle’s ascent to the throne, relevant veritable records were missing, and the private writings of contemporaries were also hard to find. To fill in the almost blank record, the author collected considerable sources for this composition and consulted 138 books. “Xunguobiannian” (annals of the abdication), treated in the first sixth fascicles, substituted for the basic annals of Jianwen; “Bao guo lie zhuan” (aligned biographies of defenders of the state) constituted the seventh to the eighteenth fascicles and included o ­ fficials who remained loyal to Jianwen; the nineteenth fascicle was named ­“Jianwenzhuanyi” and the twentieth fascicle was named “Jianwen ding lun” (a settled discussion about Jianwen). To ascertain the historical facts during the Jianwen reign (1399–1402), it is necessary to read this work. 6 Tu Shu Bian (Picture book compilation): composed by Zhang Huang, 127 fascicles in the Ming edition. Its composition started in Jiajing 41 (1562) and was completed in Wanli 5 (1577). It claimed to describe “the laws of the development in nature and in human societies, with illustrations” as indicated by its title. Its content included astronomy, geography, medicine, the school of principle (or the Cheng Zhu school of Song neo-Confucianism), rules and regulations of dynasties, calendars, ritual, music, military organization, horse administration, criminal law, military colonies, water utilities, canal transport, and so forth. With a reference to 213 books, rich contents and illustrations, this book was very helpful in understanding various aspects of the Ming dynasty. 7 San Cai Tu Hui (Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms): composed by Wang Qi, 106 fascicles, Ming edition. It summarized knowledge

156  Guide to study of Ming history of different subjects under the three categories of Heaven, Earth and ­ umanity. It was an encyclopedia, like The Picture Book Compilation, H but it had more vivid illustrations and different emphases. 8 Huang Ming Shifa Lu (Record of Generations of Laws of the August Ming): composed by Chen Renxi, ninety-two fascicles, late Ming edition. Praising highly the Daxue Yanyi (Elaboration of Meanings of the Great Learning) of Zhen Dexiu and the Daxue Yanyi Bu (Supplement to the Elaboration of Meanings of the Great Learning) of Qiu Jun, the author Chen wrote: “it is regrettable that our dynasty’s allusions to the past are not detailed, making people debate the past and neglect the present.” As a result, “the affairs of the imperial court and local governments during these three-hundred years are not clearly known.” Therefore, he collected sources concerning the national economy and policies of Ming dynasty in this book, in order to make officials ­respect and follow the examples of predecessors and practice efficient and e­ ffective governance, eventually achieving a prosperous country with a powerful army. With its rich sources, this book contributed to the study of politics, the military and frontier defense in the Ming period. 9 Record of Sights and Sounds from the Western Garden (Xiyuan Wenjian Lu): composed by Zhang Xuan, 107 fascicles. Zhang Xuan was a metropolitan graduate of Wanli 26 (1598). That year, the History Bureau just started functioning, and he participated in compiling historical texts. In his spare time, he collected the veritable records of previous reigns, from Hongwu to Longqing, which were 300 fascicles in total. He subsequently abridged them into one work that was named Daily Record of the Western Province (Xisheng Richao). In addition, “(he) selected and edited one third of these records, all together one hundred fascicles in total, and named it Little Record of Knowledge of the Western Province (Xisheng Shi Xiaolu).” Afterward, both books were destroyed in a fire. But thanks to his solid accumulation of Ming’s history and collection of books, Zhang Xuan “selected once again the historical facts and sayings from the Hongwu to the Tianqi reign, and composed the Record of Sites and Sounds from the Western Garden.” With contents arranged into different categories, this book covered a large range of historical facts, and had great value as a reference for studying the history of the Ming dynasty before the Tianqi reign. The original edition was published during the Chongzhen reign (1628–1644), and the most accessible version was that of the Harvard Yenching Institute in the 29th year of the Republic of China (1940). Official history books and compilations of documents 1 Ming Jingshi Wenbian (Essays on Statecraft in the Ming): compiled by Chen Zilong and others in the late Ming, 508 fascicles. Living in an

Guide to study of Ming history  157 era of internal problems and external dangers, the compilers embraced the idea that learning should be beneficial to contemporary conditions. They selected memorials to the throne and articles from collected works of officials of successive Ming reigns, which concerned the affairs of state, and compiled them together, to acquaint readers with the political evolution of the dynasty. This book drew on a large number of collected works, most of which are no longer extant. Therefore, this compilation is highly valued as historical source material for studying the politics, military, economics, regulations, laws and national relationships of the Ming dynasty. During the compilation, however, the compilers deleted and even changed some parts of the original documents. In 1962, the Zhonghua Book Company reprinted this book, six fascicles in hardcover, with a classified index, which is convenient for readers to use. 2 Collected Statutes of the Great Ming (Da Ming Huidian): there were two editions: one of 180 fascicles, compiled in Hongzhi 15 (1502) and published in Zhengde 4 (1509); the other of 228 fascicles, published in Wanli 15 (1587). Between these two editions, another one was recompiled during the reign of Emperor Jiajing (1522–1566); however, it was not published after submission to the throne, and was subsequently lost. By collecting the regulations and procedures of the Ming dynasty and organizing them by certain categories, this work is of high historical value. 3 Xu Wenxian Tongkao (Supplement to the Comprehensive Investigations Based on Literary and Documentary Sources): written by Wang Qi of the Ming, it consisted of 254 fascicles. It was written as a sequel to Ma Duanlin’s work with the same title that had been printed during the reign of Ningzong (1168–1124) of the Song dynasty. It covered the period from Ningzong in the Northern Song to Shenzong in the Ming. In this highly valued book, Wang Qi dealt with the society, economics, administrative institutions and regulations of the Ming dynasty, and provided relevant bibliographies in great detail. The official Qing edition of this work was compiled during the Qianlong reign (1736–1795), and included 252 fascicles. The Qing rulers highly praised the official edition, while denigrating that of Wang Qi. In fact, each of these editions had its own merits: Wang Qi’s edition had more abundant primary sources on the history of the Ming before Wanli, while the official edition had a better general layout and was more complete. 4 Da Ming Yitong Zhi (Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming): compiled by Li Xian and others, it consisted of ninety fascicles. Also named Records of the Unity of the Known World, it described the geography of the whole early Ming polity. Due to the absence of complete gazetteers in some prefectures (e.g. the first gazetteers of Zhejiang province were not finished until the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), the compilation of a ­geographical work for the whole known world still lacked a solid foundation. Therefore, this work was quite brief and sketchy.

158  Guide to study of Ming history 5 Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm): written by Gu Yanwu, originally printed in thirty-four fascicles, with appended notes. The compilation of this book started in Chongzhen 12 (1639), just before the fall of Ming, and supplements and revisions continued until the Kangxi reign (1662–1722). It focused on the geographical condition, institutional evolution and local government’s good and bad deeds in various places. Mainly based on local gazetteers of the Ming (and a small part of the Qing), it conserved considerable primary sources on society, economics and the military. It was therefore valued as a significant book for studying Ming society. Judging from its genre and layout, it was obviously an unfinished work. 6 Da Gao (The Grand Pronouncement), Da Gao Xubian (Supplement to the Grand Pronouncement), Da Gao Sanbian (Third Installment of the Grand Pronouncement), Da Gao Wuchen (Grand Pronouncements to Military Officers), Dusi Zhizhang (Rules for Administrators), Da Ming Ling (Great Ming Commandment), Da Ming Lü (Great Ming Code), Huang Ming Zuxun (The Ancestral Instructions of the August Ming) were composed in part by Ming Taizu and in part by scholars following his orders. These documents have great significance for studying political, legal and social issues of the early Ming. The Gao Huangdi Yuzhi Wenji (High August Lord’s Collected Writings on the Royal Court System), ­although incomplete, is a must-read for an understanding of early Ming history and Zhu Yuanzhang. 7 Jifei Lu (Records of Misdeeds): it was originally composed by Zhu Yuanzhang and his preface was written in Hongwu 20 (1387), but some of the events which it recorded actually happened after the composition of the preface and probably were gradually added to the work. In this compilation, aimed at warning his descendants, Zhu Yuanzhang enumerated the illegitimate acts of princes, the crimes of his son, the Qin Prince Zhu Shuang, and of his grand-nephew, the Jingjiang Prince Zhu Shouqian. It was an important historical work, especially for studying the imperial clan of Ming, but it exists only in manuscripts, thus making it rather difficult for readers to locate and use it. 8 Qin Jilu (Record of Royal Collections): this book contained imperial orders related to Buddhism and Taoism of the early Ming, mainly during the Hongwu reign (1368–1398). Most records in this book were not found elsewhere, so it was of great significance for understanding the religious policies and situations of the early Ming. It was included in Jinling Fancha Zhi (Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Nanking) compiled by Ge Yinliang, which was rare to find and use. 9 Huang Ming Tiaofashi Leizuan (A Compilation of Imperial Laws of the August Ming): originally compiled by Dai Jin, there were fifty fascicles, with a supplementary appendix. It included a lot of legal and judicial cases from Tianshun 8 (1464) to Hongzhi 9 (1496), and classified them into eight categories: the five punishments, famous precedents, and the Ministries of Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Works.

Guide to study of Ming history  159 10 Jishi Lu (Records of Historical Events): contained manuscripts of the Ming dynasty in four books and eight fascicles, with an anonymous compiler. It recorded in detail various procedures of imperial ceremonies until the Longqing reign of Muzong and offered accurate information for research on imperial activities. 11 Houhu Zhi (Gazetteer of Houhu): the Xuanwu Lake of Nanjing city was a forbidden area in the Ming, for on an island in the Lake were built storehouses that took special responsibility for collecting Yellow Registers complied by local governments every ten years. The Gazetteer of Houhu was such a work that was compiled by contemporary officials, concerning the compilation and collection of Yellow Registers. It r­ ecorded part of the statistical data of the Yellow Registers, the quantity of Yellow Registers and stories and incidents of Yellow Registers starting from the beginning of the Ming dynasty. Since the Yellow Registers collected within the district of Xuanwu Lake were totally ruined by wars during the end of the Ming and the beginning of Qing, the historical sources collected by the Gazetteer of Houhu had significant value for studying the registered households, farmlands, taxes and corvée in the Ming. In Zhengde 8 (1513), it was revised by Zhao Guan and Yang Lian, including three fascicles of deeds, five fascicles of examples and two fascicles of poems and prose as an appendix. In Jiajing 28 (1549), it was reedited by Wan Wencai and Li Wanshi. With the addition of two fascicles of examples and an appendix of “ancient and modern literature in a single fascicle,” this new edition had ten fascicles in all and an appendix. In Wanli 39 (1611), Lu Fengyi made a new revision to the works and kept the number of fascicles unchanged. The edition then used was the ­revised Wanli edition, which was supplemented during the era of Tianqi. 12 Da Ming Jili (Collected Rites of the Great Ming): fifty-three fascicles ­(according to the 5th and 6th fascicles of Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, it was completed in the 9th month, of the 3rd year of Hongwu and originally had fifty fascicles). The Emperor Taizu ordered the Confucian scholar-officials to make the compilation, and in Jiajing 9 (1530), it was published by the Grand Secretariat and was the currently used edition. The works recorded the ceremonies of ji, xiong, jun, bin and jia, with an appendix of guan fu, chelu, yizhang, lubu, zixue and yue. The text was supplemented by images of many ceremonies and rituals. It had great value for the study of ceremonies in the Ming. Supplementary historical sources of the Ming dynasty Unofficial histories and private notes The Ming dynasty had a huge number of unofficial histories and private notes. They included many important historical materials on politics, military affairs, society, economy, customs, laws and regulations. In these terms, they could make up for the deficiency of official history and give

160  Guide to study of Ming history supplementary information from other perspectives. Their respective values, however, greatly differed. Some were based on the authors’ personal experience, some related anecdotes that were not credible and others merely picked up ancient records. Therefore, when we refer to these materials, we should compare them with other primary sources so as to confirm their credibility. Considering that there exist so many unofficial histories and private notes dating from the Ming, we shall just select some representative ones to make a brief introduction. 1 Jilu Huibian (Collection of Records): 216 fascicles, compiled by Shen Jiefu of the Ming. The existing edition is a photo-print of the Ming Wanli block-printed edition by Hanfenlou. It collected 123 unofficial histories from the early to the mid-Ming, some of which were excerpts from verifiable texts and therefore had significant reference value. 2 Guochao Diangu (Dynastic Statutes): 110 fascicles, compiled by Zhu Dangmian, a member of the imperial clan of the Ming dynasty; no block-printed edition found. It collected many kinds of primary sources from the early Ming to the mid-Ming and had high value. 3 Wanli Yehuo Bian (Compilation of Country Harvests of the Wanli Reign): written by Shen Defu, thirty-four fascicles. The common edition in use was the printed copy of Zhonghua Book Company. The author was born in an official family and had a large circle of friends. He also paid much attention to collecting anecdotes of both the court and the s­ ociety. His private notes provided detailed descriptions of decrees, regulations and court affairs of the Ming, and thus had great historical value. 4 Yong Zhuang Xiaopin (Little Works of Surging Streamers): written by Zhu Guozhen, thirty-two fascicles, in printed copy. The author was once grand secretary and his sources of materials were rather credible. The works had much reference value for study of the late Ming. 5 Wu Zazu (Five Mixed Platters): written by Xie Zhaozhe, sixteen fascicles, printed copy by Zhonghua Book Company. The works provided a special record on social and economic conditions of the Late Ming and included many valuable historical sources. 6 Wanli Wugong Lu (A Record of Military Achievements of Wanli): written by Qu Jiusi, fourteen fascicles. Printed after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the works recorded the military activities during the reign of Emperor Wanli (1573–1620), including the Ming government’s measures to suppress peasant uprisings and to confront the Mongols and Jurchen. Since the author lived during the period ­recorded, the information offered by this work is relatively reliable. 7 Shikui Shu Houji (Later Collection of Stone Cabinet Books): written by Zhang Dai, sixty-three fascicles. The common edition in use is the printed ­ uring the copy of Zhonghua Book Company in 1959. The author lived d late Ming and early Qing dynasties and once wrote a biographical history book concerning the Ming under the title Shikui Cangshu (Book

Guide to study of Ming history  161

8

9

10

11

from the Stone Cabinet Archive). However, he could not finish it due to the lack of enough historical sources about the Chongzhen reign. In the reign of Shunzhi, Zhang Dai assisted Gu Yingtai in composing Ming Historical Events from the Beginning to the End. Zhang took the opportunity to finish his own previous works, by using the ­materials on the Chongzhen reign which were collected by Gu Yingtai. For this reason, it was called a sequel, and it mainly covered the history of the reign of Emperor Chongzhen and partly that of the Southern-Ming, all in biographical style. Although the work had some omissions and errors, it used primary sources of high quality and recorded comprehensively the life and deeds of important persons during the late Ming. In this sense, it was an important reference for studying the history of that period. Huailing Liukou Shizhong Lu (Record of the Roving Robbers of Huailing from Beginning to End): compiled by Wu Shu and Dai Li, eighteen fascicles. Its original name was Koushi Biannian (Chronicle of Robber Events). Based on court reports and other primary sources, it recorded chronologically the whole process of farmers’ uprisings during the late Ming dynasty, and thus had great reference value. The common edition in use is the photo-printed copy in the Xuanlan Tang Congshu ­(Collectania of the Xuanlan Hall). Sui Kou Jilue (Record of the Pacification of Robbers): written by Wu Weiye, twelve fascicles, with a later supplement of three fascicles. It was also one of the most essential books for studying the history of peasant uprising during the late Ming dynasty. In terms of style, it was to present the history in separate accounts of important events. The author was an outstanding intellectual during the beginning of Qing dynasty; his writings, therefore, had significant influence on examining the related records of the Ming History. The work had both merits and defects: sometimes it offered very accurate records; for example, it presented the complete list of local officials appointed by Li Zicheng in establishing Xiangyang as his regime base. Some of them could be verified by local chronicles. At the same time, due to the bad habits of the literati, Wu’s work included quite a few absurd details. Liukou Zhi (Record of the Roving Robbers): written by Peng Sunyi, fourteen fascicles. The common edition to consult is the typeset copy of Zhejiang People’s Publishing House and the typeset copy of Ping Kou Zhi (Record of Pacifying the Robbers) of the Shanghai Classics Publishing House. Similar to the Record of the Roving Robbers of Huailing from Beginning to End), it was another monograph that provided a chronological account of the peasant uprisings during the late Ming and preserved historical sources that were not found in other works. Nanjiang Yishi (A History of the Southern Territory): written by Wen Ruilin, in fifty-two fascicles. In the early Qing dynasty, Wan Sitong undertook the composition of the Ming history. Since his treatment of Ming regimes that resisted Qing authority after 1644 was limited by

162  Guide to study of Ming history constraints imposed by the Qing, he entrusted Wen Ruilin to write a separate private history of what came to be known as the Southern Ming. After that work was compiled, however, it could not be published due to the high pressure from the Qing government. After the revolution of 1911, a typeset copy finally replaced the manuscripts. The edition published by the Zhonghua Book Company published in 1959 became widely available. The book presented a series of biographies that covered rather completely the events of the reigns of the princes and would-be emperors Hongguang, Longwu, Yongli and Lujianguo. Works on science and technology 1 Ben Cao Gang Mu (Outline of Herbal Medicine): written by Li Shizhen, in fifty-two fascicles, with two fascicles of illustrations. The common edition in use is that of People’s Medical Publishing House. In order to carry forward the Chinese traditions of medicine, the author spent nearly thirty years investigating and verifying varieties of medicines and prescriptions, and finally finished the magnificent work in Wanli 6 (1578).The work described 1,892 kinds of herbal medicine, 11,096 prescriptions and 1,110 pictures, and it has won a great reputation both at home and abroad. 2 Nongzheng Quanshu (A Complete Handbook of Agricultural Administration): written by Xu Guangqi, in sixty fascicles. Typeset edition of Zhonghua Book Company. The author lived during the late Ming when social conflicts broke out; in order to make the country prosperous and its army powerful, he devoted himself to research on agricultural technology. He not only collected related materials and summed up previous experiences, but also made experiments on his own and described the ancestors’ efficient methods of planting, processing and storing ­agricultural goods. The book was epoch-making among studies of agricultural activities and techniques during the Ming. 3 Tian Gong Kai Wu (The Creations of Nature and Man): written by Song Yingxing, in eighteen fascicles. It provided a detailed description of production techniques of handicraft industry and agriculture during the Ming. In order to make a strong impression on his readers, the author drew more than 200 illustrations of machinery and the production process. The result was a vivid treasure showing the level of production and technology at that time. 4 Xu Xiake Youji (The Travel Record of Xu Xiake): written by Xu Hongzu. The common edition in use was published by Zhonghua Book Company in 1985. Since his youth, the author had had great interests in rivers and mountains. He traveled around sixteen provinces and made detailed investigations into the landforms, geology, hydrology, climates as well as plants of different regions. He wrote his work in diary form, and it is of extremely high value for studies of Chinese geography.

Guide to study of Ming history  163 5 Wubei Zhi (Record of Military Preparations): composed by Mao Yuanyi, in 240 fascicles. It systematically recorded strategies, tactics, weapons and warships in previous dynasties, with a supplement of battle diagrams and maps. The well-known Nautical Charts of Zheng He were included in this work. 6 Dong Xi Yang Kao (Investigation of the Eastern and Western Oceans): written by Zhang Xie, in twelve fascicles. It was finished during the Wanli reign (1573–1620), and the common edition in use is the typeset copy published by Zhonghua Book Company in 1981. It offered a systematic description of the Western and Eastern countries (including today’s Southeast Asian countries and Japan) and the contacts between the Ming polity and those countries. It also recorded in detail the Westerners’ invasions into Southeast Asia and the disasters visited on local residents by mine-tax officials sent by Emperor Shenzong. In order to compose the work, the author made use of official documents from the court (e.g. di bao) and interviewed old folks to collect their stories. He talked with marine traders, merchants and ship crew to get firsthand materials. For these reasons, the work was of high historical value and became an essential source in studies of diplomatic history during the middle and late Ming. Collections of essays The collections of essays handed down from the Ming are voluminous. Some collections of the early Qing could also serve research on Ming history, and sources in this field are even more numerous. Information from collections, however, was always broad, and quite a few pieces were written for the purpose of social engagement or expressing emotions. Other collections covered the authors’ classical studies, history notes, essays, letters and poems to demonstrate the authors’ great erudition. In such cases, the value of the voluminous collections was actually quite limited. Collected works of certain Ming government officials included their memorials to the throne, official documents and letters to other officials during their tenure, although collected privately, these materials actually comprised government documents and had significant value for studying Ming history. For example, the Shengyu Lu (Record of Sagely Edicts), collected in Dongli Xiansheng Wenji (The Collected Works of Mr. Dongli) by Yang Shiqi, recorded the imperial instructions given to the Grand Secretariat by three emperors, Yongle, Hongxi and Xuande, and was thus an essential source for studying government affairs in the early Ming. Another example was the Yang Wenruo Xiansheng Ji (Collected Works of Mr. Yang Wenruo) written by Yang Sichang, who successively held the posts of Xuanda governor-general, minister of troops, and commander and grand secretary. This collection mainly included his memorials to the throne, suggestions for imperial consultation and correspondence with other officials discussing military affairs. For the

164  Guide to study of Ming history Chongzhen reign (1628–1644), there were no veritable records, and official archives of this period were already destroyed and only some incredible unofficial histories were left to us. In this situation, Yang Sichang’s collected works could supplement other records, and could be used to detect and correct the errors of other historical materials. They were useful in studying peasant/farmer uprisings during the late Ming, wars between the Ming and Qing and other military affairs during the Chongzhen reign. In the collections whose authors were not government officials, some articles were based on the author’s personal experience, thus offering useful information for certain events or social background. For example, Zhang Lüxiang’s Yang Yuan Xiansheng Quanji (The Complete Works of Mr. Yang Yuan) collected not only his Bu Nong Shu (Addenda to the Manual of Agriculture) but also other articles useful for studying the social history of late Ming. Local gazetteers We Chinese have had a tradition of compiling local gazetteers. As early as in the Song dynasty, such records were already composed in some developed areas. In the Ming, except in distant regions, nearly every county had its own gazetteer; nowadays we have about 1,000 local records that were passed down from the Ming dynasty. Gazetteers composed during the early Qing dynasty also contained many historical sources that were useful for studying the history of the Ming. Gazetteers focused on local events provided plenty of historical materials and were a great treasure in Chinese historiography. Generally speaking, they had several functions as follows. 1 Evolution of local governing units, geography of mountains, rivers and villages. 2 The “Shi Huo Zhi (record of food and money)” and “Fu Yi Zhi (record of taxes and services)” offered detailed statistics concerning local population, farmlands, taxes and corvée. By comparing these statistics of different years, we can see the changes in the local economy. 3 The chapter on “customs” contained important materials for folklore studies and also offered valuable historical sources on the social economy. The chapter on “products” demonstrated local resources and could reflect to some extent the local level of economic development. 4 The historical documents on historical personages categorized as “keju” (civil service examinations), “zhiguan” (officials), “minghuan” (distinguished officials), and “liuyu” (migrants), and the biographies in “Yiwenzhi” (the literature section) were so abundant that they were unparalleled in any other historical sources. Many figures who were not recorded in other historical sources could be found in the local chronicles. Some could be used to verify or question figures in other sources. 5 Major events in history were generally recorded quite briefly in official histories and other historical records where errors also appeared. In the case of gazetteers, compilers wrote down local events according to local

Guide to study of Ming history  165 experiences and added plenty of details that were often ignored in other historical sources. Sometimes gazetteers could be used to correct false or inaccurate records in other sources. 6 Although focused on local events, local gazetteers also collected, for one reason or another, important historical materials concerning other places, and thus might offer researchers some unexpected information. For example, in Wanli 28 (1600), Zhao Guyuan planned to raise a large-scale revolt of the Bailian Jiao (White Lotus Society), which was recorded in many historical records. Unexpectedly, the whole decree issued by Zhao Guyuan, in the name of Shuntian Wang (the prince who accords with heaven), was included in the Gao’an Xianzhi (Gazetteer of Gao’an County) of Jiangxi province. That was because Zhu Wubi, a censor at the time in Nanjing, was a native of Gaoan County, and the gazetteer of Gaoan included his memorials to the throne, one of which quoted the important decree of Zhao Guyuan. Recently, some domestic and foreign scholars have shown their passions for regional studies and have focused on researching historical developments in aspects of society, economy, culture and customs within a certain place. For this sort of research, local gazetteers naturally become the sources that cannot be ignored. Others 1 Genealogies: jiapu (family records), zupu (clan records), zongpu (lineage records) and so forth. Among existing documents of Ming and Qing dynasties, genealogies account for a substantial portion. Genealogies are important because they enable us to determine the birth dates and the relative names of historical figures, to obtain detailed information about their distinguished clansmen and to make comparisons with other related sources. In this sense, the proper use of genealogy could contribute to composing biographies and discovering valuable primary sources. However, genealogies have their own defects: they are imbued with the dense ideology of the patriarchal clan, aiming at glorifying and illuminating the ancestors; they usually highly praised ancestral merits and virtues, while often concealing their misdeeds and crimes. The contents of some genealogies were quite brief, and thus their value to researchers was limited. 2 Nianpu (chronological life stories): a famous person often had his/her own chronicle. The chronicle examined his/her whole life experience over time with specific times and places, thus putting other ­materials into context and greatly facilitating the writing of a full-blown biography. The composition of such a chronicle was sometimes complicated. Some were written by one’s self, or by one’s son or even by another of one’s relatives, which was relatively reliable. Others, however, were composed by authors of different abilities who lived much later. Among

166  Guide to study of Ming history them there were certainly masterpieces, but also many works with omissions and errors. 3 Dang’an (Archives): most of the Ming archives were destroyed during the late Ming and early Qing periods; therefore, among the 9,000,000 titles in the First Historical Archives of China, only thousands dated back to the Ming, of which a small number belonged to the early and middle periods. Most of them were various kinds of memorials (ti ben, zou ben, and tixinggao) submitted by officials to the court during the Tianqi (1621–1627) and Chongzhen reigns. Despite their limited number, the surviving archives of the Ming included many precious primary sources, for example, household registers and land deeds of the Hongwu era, miansi tiequan (iron credential to get absolution) conferred on meritorious officials of the Chenghua era, military-officer registers reedited during the Wanli reign (1573–1620), and memorials to the throne which reflected class and national struggles in the late Ming period…1 Also, quite a few early Qing archival materials were concerned with late Ming historical phenomena. In addition to the First Historical Archives of China, other institutions for cultural relic and book collection also preserved a small amount of Ming materials. For example, the Liaoning Provincial Archives preserved 1,080 fascicles of materials on the Liaodong district of the Ming dynasty, which were precious primary sources for studying the local politics, economy, military and nationality relations at that time.2 Institutions such as the “National Palace Museum” in Taiwan and the National Library of China in Beijing also collected some Ming archival materials. All we mentioned above were official archives, but some archival materials were preserved in individual documents, such as memorials in officials’ anthologies, private and official correspondence and public announcements. Likewise, local gazetteers included numerous memorials composed by local figures or concerned with local affairs; moreover, document collections compiled during the Ming and Qing dynasties also preserved many archival sources. 4 Inscriptions: apart from the epitaphs and tombstones that offered ­biographical materials for certain figures, there existed also inscriptions for commemorating important events such as several inscriptions memorializing Zheng He’s voyages and two inscriptions on the founding of the Yongning Temple under the command of Yi Shiha. Certain inscriptions were also written to solve or prevent certain disputes, among which were preserved many primary sources regarding politics, society, the military and the economy.

The history of Ming history studies The outline of Ming historiography Studies on the history of the Ming dynasty started around the middle and late Ming period, and were regarded as the “national history of the current

Guide to study of Ming history  167 dynasty” at that time. For the purpose of summing up historical experiences and maintaining the authority of the Ming polity, scholar-officials asserted the practical utility of history and began the process of collecting, editing and criticizing historical books and documents. After the fall of the Ming, some Han-Chinese scholar-officials did not forget the ruling family they had served, adopted the slogan “the state could be destroyed but the history cannot be” and compiled and wrote certain works on Ming historical events. With the literary inquisition policy of the high Qing period, many intellectuals were sent to prison, including some who wrote histories of the Ming that departed from the standard Ming History. During the reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing, for more than one hundred years, the history of the Ming effectively became a taboo field. After the Opium Wars, the Qing dynasty gradually declined. Witnessing the Qing’s corruption and weakness in dealing with foreign forces, some Han Chinese wanted to overthrow the Qing and establish a modern democratic state. In this political contest, there was a boom in studying Ming history, and particularly the resistance and revolt of the Southern Ming patriots. This phenomenon lasted until the first years of the Republic of China, symbolized by the publication of Zhang Huangyan’s Zhang Cangshui Ji (Collected Works of Zhang Cangshui), Zhu Ziyu’s Zhu Shunshui Ji (Collected Works of Zhu Shunshui) and the Tong Shi (Histories of Pain) that constituted primary sources of the late Ming and early Qing periods. These works reflected the intentions of many authors of that time. However, during this stage, related studies were limited to the collection and publication of primary sources, and veritable research works were still quite few. Afterward, some intellectuals concentrated on collecting and editing Ming historical sources: Xie Guozhen’s Wan Mingshi Jikao (Record of Sources of the Late Ming), which was completed after efforts of many years, and Zhu Xizu’s Ming ji Shiliao Tiba (Colophons to Sources on Late Ming History). Seeing the discovery of ancient books, Zheng Zhenduo decided to rescue these precious sources and thus republished the Xuanlan Tang Congshu (A Collectania of the Xuanlan Study) and Ming ji Shiliao Congshu (A Collectania of Historical Materials of the Late Ming), which made indelible contributions to the conservation and academic study of Ming historical records. Based on such records, Xie Guozhen wrote a collection of essays titled Ming-Qing zhiji Dangshe Yundong Kao (A Study of Party and Society Movements during the Ming- Qing Transition), which included topics related to several political events of the late Ming and early Qing. They included the campaign of the Fushe (Restoration Society) from the years of Wanli to the early Qing, and the rebellion of slaves in the late Ming. Zhu Tan’s Ming ji Shedang Yanjiu (Studies of Societies and Parties in the Late Ming) (The Commercial Press, August 1945) covered various subjects, such as the participants in the Donglin movement and their works and Ruan Dacheng’s manipulation of the Ying she, Ji she and Zhongjiang she. It is necessary to mention here the concern of Liu Yazi for Southern Ming history. He had collected a large range of materials in order to write a history of the Southern Ming; although his plan was never

168  Guide to study of Ming history realized, we can still see his efforts to that end in his Huaijiu Ji (Collected Works of Huaijiu). Since the 1820s, after some twists and turns, the archives of the Ming and the Qing originally collected in The Forbidden City were transferred to the Institute of History and Philology of the Central Academia (Academia Sinica). Under the auspices of the Institute, scholars preliminarily arranged and edited these archives, and thus published the first three collections of the Ming Qing Shiliao (Historical Documents of the Ming and Qing), Chongzhencun Shishu Chao (Surviving real draft documents from Chongzhen) and other compilations. Although most of the Forbidden City’s archives were from the Qing dynasty, a small part of them dated from the late Ming and therefore filled in a part of the blanket of historical sources of this period. With the establishment of a modern educational system in China, some universities and colleges set up history departments, and the history of the Ming dynasty was taught either as part of the General History of China or as an independent course. Correspondingly, a number of textbooks, in the form of lecture notes, were published, for example, the Ming Qing Shi Jiangyi (Lectures on Ming and Qing History) of Meng Sen. In his monograph, Ming Yuan Qing xi Tongji (Record of the Ming, Yuan, and Qing History), Meng Sen, examined the genealogical history of the Jurchen (who became Manchus) before the foundation of the Qing. Through this valuable academic work, readers could understand the situation of the Jianzhou Jurchen, especially their relations with the Ming government. Monographic studies on Ming history 1 Studies of the Ming society. The studies began in correspondence with the spread of modern Western historiography and Marxism into China. Approving different theoretical systems, scholars analyzed Chinese society in various ways. Naturally, these analyses involved studies of China’s social patterns since the Ming and Qing dynasties. Since the 1930s, there emerged a number of essays discussing Chinese socioeconomic history, including that of Ming. In this area, Liang Fangzhong’s studies on the corvée and tax institutions of the Ming Dynasty made a remarkable contribution. During the 1930s and the 1940s, he published several essays, such as:“Mingdai Yulin Tuce Kao (Research on the fish-scale records in the Ming)” published in Dizheng Yuekan (Local Government Monthly), (1933, issue 8), “Yitiaobian Fa (the Single Whip Law)” published in Zhongguo Jindai Jingjishi Yanjiu Jikan (Journal of Research on China’s Modern Economy, 1936, vol. 4, issue 1) and “Mingdai de Hutie (household registers of the Ming period)”and “Mingdai Shi duanjin Fa (the Ming Law on Ten Pieces of Brocade)” published in Renwen Kexue Xuebao (Journal of Humanities and Sciences, 1943, vol. 2, issue 1), all of which were creative works supported by solid, professional argumentation. By using abundant historical sources, Liang

Guide to study of Ming history  169 Fangzhong investigated the evolution of corvée and tax institution of the entire Ming dynasty, and proposed certain arguments that were totally innovative at that time. For example, after researching the “Single whip law,” Liang pointed out that its implementation “broke through the payment of land-tax system in kind that had lasted for two or three thousand years,” and “could be seen as the start of a modern land-tax system.”3 Wu Han also researched the social conditions of the Ming, and his representative works were two essays published in the 1930s, titled “Mingdaizhi Nongmin” (“Peasantry of the Ming Dynasty”) and “Shisi Shijishizhi Fanzhi Gongchang” (“Textile factories in the 14th century”).4 These pioneering works opened new fields of study for the Ming, and their contributions should be remembered. 2 Studies on Ming politics, military, laws, institutions and historical compilations. In these respects, “Mingdai de Junbing” (“Soldiers of the Ming”) and “Ji Mingshi Lu” (“Notes on Ming Veritable Records”) by Wu Han, and “Mingshi Zhuanxiu Kao” (“Examination of the Compilation of Ming History”) by Li Jinhua, were all significant and convincing works. In the Mingdai Chizhuanshukao Fuyinde (Notes on Imperial Compilations during the Ming dynasty, with index), published by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, in June 1932, Li Jinhua gave a comprehensive introduction to the bibliographies either composed by emperors themselves or compiled by scholar-officials with imperial orders. This work acquainted readers with the Ming’s official historical records. However, several errors exist in this work: for example, it records Zhusi Zhizhang (Rules for Administrators), Zongfan Yaoli (Regulations of the Clan States) and Ji Fei Lu (Record of Wrongs) as lost works, but they actually still exist. In terms of the edited studies of the Ming, the twelve-volume Mingdai Banben Tulu Chubian (First edition of the illustrated books of the Ming Period) by Pan Chengbi and Gu Tinglong, published by Kaiming Book Company, in 1941, should be mentioned. With pictures of various editions of books of the Ming dynasty and relevant brief descriptions, this work is helpful for readers by identifying the origin and evolution of various editions. The compilation, distribution, lost and existing parts and values of the Yongle Da Dian (Yung-lo Encyclopedia) have also been well researched; numerous related essays have been published. 3 The field of Ming intellectual culture. This was well studied before the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, and relevant publications and journals were numerous and brilliant. It took Rong Zhaozu several years to write the Mingdai Sixiang Shi (A History of Ming Period Thought), published by Kaiming Book Company, in 1941. This highlevel academic work considered the Source Book of Ming Confucians by Huang Zongxi to be a good reference work. Along with the evolution of thought in different ages, it was necessary to break through the restrictions in Huang’s judgments. In terms of materials, the limitations of the

170  Guide to study of Ming history Source Book should also be surpassed. With a lot of hard work, Rong Zhaozu achieved his original goal; his work is very innovative in terms of opinions, materials and also manners of expression, and thus it is still valuable for use nowadays. Among the distinguished ideologues of the Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming and Li Zhi were the most studied. Monographs on the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties, especially the Yangmingxuepai (Yangming school), were quite numerous, including Hu Zhefu’s Lu Wang Zhexue Bianwei (Distinguishing the philosophy of Lu Wang), Zhonghua Book Company, 1930, Song Peiwei’s Wang Yangmingyu Ming Lixue (Wang Yangming and Studies of Principle in the Ming), The Commercial Press, 1931, Jia Fengzhen’s Yangming Xue (Yangming Studies), The Commercial Press, 1933, Ji Wenfu’s Zuopai Wang Xue (Left wing Wang Studies), Kaiming Book Company, 1934) and so forth. Around the Revolution of 1911, the thoughts of Li Zhi attracted the attentions of some scholars, such as Liu Shipei and Wu Yu. The latter wrote “Li Zhuowu Xiansheng Xueshuo (The scholarship of Mr. Li Zhuowu)” (Tianyibao, 1907, issue 6, using the pseudonym “Bu gong chou”) and “Ming Li Zhuowu Biezhuan” (“An Informal Biography of Li Zhuowu of the Ming”) (Jinbu Zazhi, 1916, vol. 9, issue 3, 4) on purpose to diffuse Li’s heretical ideology. Subsequently, Rong Zhaozu and Ji Wenfu continued this research and emphasized that Li Zhi was an ideologist who broke through the restrictions of ancient moralities; also, they launched systematic research on Yangming leftism.5 In terms of religious history, Chen Yuan was remarkably productive. His monographs on Buddhism Ming ji Dian Qian Fojiao Kao (An Investigation of Buddhism in Yunnan and Guizhou in the Ming), on Catholicism Jidujiaoru Hua Shilue (A History of the Entrance of Christianity into China) and Daxili Xiansheng Xingji Shi (A biography of Mr. Daxili) and also the biographies for Li Zhizao and Wang Zhi, all have great academic value. In addition, a number of scholars and churchmen contributed studies of the missions of Catholic priests in China, for example, Xu Zongze’s Zhongguo Tian zhujiao Chuanjiaoshi Gailun (Essays on the propagation of Catholicism In China) and Fei Laizhi’s Zaoqizai Hua Yesuhuishi Liezhuan ji qi Zhuzuo Tiyao (The Lives And Works of Jesuits in China in the Early Period). Since the May 4th Movement (1919), studies on Ming literature made significant progress in terms of novels and dramas. Lu Xun, Hu Shi, Zheng Zhenduo and Sun Kaidi all studied systematically the popular literature of the Ming. Ranging from the context of a work’s creation, the author’s life experience and main ideas, the social implications and the literary values to sources and diffusion of different versions, they made valuable contributions. In the Zhongguo Xiaoshuo Shilue (An Outline History of Chinese Novels) by Lu Xun and the Chatu ben Zhongguo Wenxueshi (An Illustrated History of Chinese Literature) of Zheng Zhenduo, some chapters concentrated on discussing Ming literature. It was their initiatives that helped Ming popular

Guide to study of Ming history  171 literature to gain high status in the history of Chinese literature and that made a solid foundation for later researchers. Besides, during his editing of Xu Xiake Youji (Travels of Xu Xiake), Ding Wenjiang wrote Xu Xiake Xiansheng Nianpu (Chronological Biography of Mr. Xu Xiake) and took charge of composing an attached atlas,6 which were the two best works on Xu Hongzu’s life. 4 On the aspects of Ming’s relations with foreign countries. As early as the 19th century, the subject of Zheng He’s expeditions had already attracted the attention of Western scholars, who published a number of academic articles. In the early years of the 20th century, the Chinese scholar Liang Qichao composed the Zuguo Da Hanghaijia Zheng He Zhuan (Great Navigator of Our Ancestral Land: a Biography of Zheng He), in which he listed thirty-nine place names where Zheng He had been, and pointed out that Zheng He’s voyages started six decades before Columbus’s discovery of the America and seven decades before Vasco da Gama found the new route sailing to the India; in this sense, it could be seen as part of the ‘glory of national history’.7 In 1912, Yuan Jiagu discovered the “epitaph of Ma Hazhi”; in 1930s, Zheng Hesheng found the text of Tongfan Shiji Bei (funerary inscription relating the affairs of all of the feudatories) that was originally set up in Liujiagang, Taicang County. Meanwhile, the inscription of Tianfei Lingyingzhi Ji (record of the spirit of the heavenly consort) and “Zheng He Jiapu (Zheng He’s genealogy)” were discovered in Changle County, Fujian province and Yuxi, Yunnan province, respectively. These archaeological findings contributed significant materials for studying Zheng He’s family background and navigation routes. In 1929, Mr. Xiang Da published his article “Guanyu Sanbao Taijian Xia Xiyang de Jizhong Ziliao” (some materials related to the three treasure eunuchs’ descent to the western ocean) in which he introduced and examined the content and editions of texts on Zheng He’s voyages. Subsequently, more than twenty articles sprang up during the 1930s and 1940s, among which Wu Han’s representative “Shiliu Shiji qian zhi Zhongguo yu Nanyang (China’s relations with Nanyang before the 16th century)” was included in Wu Han’s Selected Historical Essays, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1984, 9. There were also monographs, such as Zhongguo Nanyang ­Jiaotong Shi (A History of Communication between China and Nanyang) by Feng Chengjun (1937), Zheng He Nanzheng Ji (A Record of Zheng He’s March to the South) by Shu Shicheng (1941), Zheng He Hanghai Tu Kao (An Illustrated Inquiry into Zheng He’s Maritime Travels) by Fan Wentao (1943) and Zheng He (1945) and Zheng He Yishi Huipian (A Compendium of Zheng He’s Legacy) (1948) by Zheng Hesheng.8 After the September 18th incident, beholding that the Japanese imperialists were continuously expanding into China, some scholars

172  Guide to study of Ming history devoted themselves to studying Japanese pirates and the war between China and Japan in the late Ming. They wrote numerous monographs on this subject, aiming at arousing the patriotism of the Chinese people, for instance, Mingdai Wokou Kaolue (An Examination of the Dwarf Pirates in the Ming) by Chen Maoheng (Beijing: Harvard-Yenching ­Institute, 1934), Mingdai Wokou Fan Hua Shilue (An Outline History of the Dwarf Robbers Revolt against China in the Ming Period) by Wu Chonghan (Commercial Press, 1939) and many articles and brochures. 5 On the studies of Ming peasant uprisings. Before the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, interpretations varied according to authors’ political preferences. The Jiashen Sanbainian Ji (The Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644), written by Guo Moruo in 1944, had exerted broad influences at that time and after the foundation of the PRC. Certain works reached a high academic level; for example, in Wan Ming Minbian (Popular Uprisings of the late Ming), published in 1948, Li Wenzhi made a comprehensive analysis of peasant wars in the late Ming, which attracted broad attention and achieved positive evaluations by domestic and international historians. On the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, under the impetus of progressive ideas, scholars concentrating on Ming history wrote a number of works aiming at exposing the darkness of Guomindang’s rule, using the past to satirize the present. Wu Han’s Zhu Yuanzhang Zhuan ­(Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang), Mingchu de Xuexiao (Schools at the Beginning of the Ming), Shehui Xianda Qian Qianyi (The Prominent Worthy in Society, Qian Qianyi), and Ye Dingyi’s Mingdai Tewu Zhengzhi (the Politics of Special Matters in the Ming), all belonged to this sort of work. Although these works all cited quite a few primary sources and had certain academic characteristics, they were composed during a specific age and served ­political purposes, so their objectivity was influenced by this.

The current situation in the study of Ming history The general conditions in the Ming history study since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China The science of history has achieved magnificent progress ever since the foundation of the PRC. Studies on Ming history have also flourished with great achievements in three aspects: first of all, with the wide acceptance of Marxist theory, senior historians as well as middle-aged and young scholars were generally capable of using the basic principles of Marxism to observe and analyze social problems of Ming society. In other words, their new studies followed the main lines of class struggle and productive struggle and tried to get rid of the limitations of certain prejudices, thus significantly contributing to the recovery of the essence of historical facts. Secondly,

Guide to study of Ming history  173 the related fields of research have greatly expanded. Apart from deepening traditional political studies by coming up with new points of view, great ­academic achievement has been achieved within the previously neglected fields of economic history, peasant warfare and intellectual history, which prominently addressed issues such as seeds of capitalism, peasant warfare and enlightened statecraft thinking of the late Ming era. Meanwhile, studies on regional economy and social problems gradually attracted more and more attention and have been well developed. Thirdly, there emerged a multitude of professional researchers and talented teachers who were well trained and cultivated, while, at the same time, many amateurs participated positively in various academic activities on Ming history. Currently, a new generation of researchers in Ming history has been established all over the country, and has surpassed scholars of preceding generations in both the quantity and the quality of studies. Reviewing the last thirty years of Ming studies, it is not difficult for us to come to the conclusion that the academic prosperity was spurred by the political stability and unity of the country. Those conditions initially emerged during the 1950s and early 1960s, but they were consolidated at a higher level after 1978. The progress since 1978 is mainly reflected in the following aspects. 1 The rapid expansion of researchers working on Ming history. Thanks to the authorities’ dedication to education, numerous university history departments and the Institute of History of CASS (the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) have strengthened their research on Ming-Qing history by increasing the number of research staff and equipment. Some units have even established specialized institutes (or centers) focusing on the Ming history. More importantly, local academies (or institutes) of social sciences at the provincial, municipal and autonomous regional levels were newly founded and emerged as a group of institutions of higher education. Within these newly founded institutions, the Ming studies started from “zero” and had broad prospect. In recent years, along with the compilation of local gazetteers, nearly every county and superior administrative units above have established their own compilation committees, and during this compilation course, many people have been attracted to the study of the Ming-Qing memories. According to a rough estimation, we have 200 to 300 specialists within this very area, with about 1,000 sidebar researchers and numerous amateurs, who now (ca 2000 CE) form a sizable research team in the Ming history. 2 Large quantities of academic works and papers of good quality have been published. According to the estimation of CASS, from October 1949 to September 1984, 270 works (monographs, collections of sources, reference books) and 6,460 articles (papers, comments, source introductions, book reviews) were published, among which one in six were ­academic papers on Ming history. After October 1984, large numbers of academic works of Ming history were continuously published.

174  Guide to study of Ming history Among these publications, we had some representative works: Li Guangbi’s Mingchao Shilue (A Brief History of the Ming) (Hubei people’s ­Publishing House, 1957), Lou Zengquan and Yan Zhangpao’s Mingchao Shihua (History Stories from the Ming Dynasty) (People’s  Publishing  House, 1984), Tang Gang and Nan Bingwen’s Ming History vol. 1 (Shanghai people’s Publishing House, 1955), Xie Guozhen’s Nan Ming Shilue (A Brief History of Southern Ming) (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1957), Li Xun’s Ming-Qing shi (History of Ming-Qing) (People’s  Publishing  House, 1956) and Mingshi Shihuo Zhi Jiaozhu (­ Annotations on the Food and Money Chronicles in the Ming History) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1982), Fu Yiling’s Mingdai Jiangnan Shimin Jingji Shitan (Discussions on Urban Economies of the Jiangnan Region) (People’s Publishing House, 1957) and Ming-Qing Shehui Jingji Shilun Wenji (Collection of Articles on Ming-Qing Social and Economic History) (People’s Publishing House, 1982), Chen Shiqi’s Mingdai Guan Shougongye Yanjiu (Research on the Official Handicraft Industry in the Ming) (Hubei people’s Publishing House, 1958), Wei Qingyuan’s Mingdai Huangce Zhidu (The Yellow Register System of the Ming Period) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1961), Wang Yuquan’s Mingdai de Juntun (The Military Colonies of the Ming) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1956), Liang Fangzhong’s Mingdai Liangzhang Zhidu (The System of Tax Captains) (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1956), Wu Dange’s Mingdai Tudi Zhidu he Fuyi Zhidu de Fazhan (The Development of the Land and Taxation System in the Ming Dynasty) (Fujian people’s Publishing House, 1981), Qin Peiheng’s Ming-Qing Shehui Jingji Shi Lungao (Draft discussion on Ming-Qing Social and Economic History) (Zhongzhou Classics Publishing House, 1984), Zhang Weihua’s Mingdai Haiwai Maoyi Jianlun (A Brief Discussion of the Overseas Trade in the Ming ­Period) (Shanghai people’s Publishing House, 1956), Li Guangbi’s Mingdai Yuwo Zhanzheng (The Defensive War against Japanese Pirates in the Ming Period) (Shanghai people’s Publishing House, 1956), Chen ­Maoheng’s Mingdai Wokou Kaolue (Textual Research on Japanese ­Pirates in the Ming Period) (People’s Publishing House, 1957), Dai Yixuan’s Mingdai Jia-Long jian de Wokou Haidao yu Zhongguo Ziben Zhuyi de Mengya (Japanese Pirates in the Ming Eras of Emperors Jiajing and Longqing and the Sprouts of Capitalism) (China Social Science Publishing House, 1982), Zhang Xuejun and Ran Guangrong’s Ming-Qing Sichuan Jingyan Shigao (Draft History of Sichuan’s Salt Wells in the MingQing Eras) (Sichuan people’s Publishing House, 1984), Sun Zhengrong’s Zhu Yuanzhang Xinian Yaolu (Summary Annals of Zhu Yuanzhang) ­(Zhejiang people’s Publishing House, 1983), Huang Yunmei’s Mingshi Kaozheng (Textual Research on Ming History) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1980), Yang Yifan’s Ming chu Zhongdian Kao (Textual Research on Law Codes in the Early Ming Era) (Hunan people’s Publishing House, 1984), Guo Yingqiu’s Li Dingguo Jinian (Annals of Li Dingguo) (Zhong

Guide to study of Ming history  175 Hua Book Company, 1960), Hong Huanchun’s Mingmo Nongmin Zhanzheng Shi Luelun (A Brief Discussion of ­Peasant Wars in the late Ming Era) (Jiangsu people’s Publishing House, 1962), Yuan Tingdong’s Zhang Xianzhong Zhuanlun (On the Biography of Zhang Xianzhong) (Sichuan people’s Publishing House, 1980), Liu Yinan’s Li Zicheng Jinian fu Kao (Annals of Li Zicheng with Textual C ­ riticism) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1983), Gu Cheng’s Mingmo Nongmin Zhanzheng Shi (History of Peasant War in the late Ming Era) (China Social Science Publishing House, 1984), Fang Furen’s Li Zicheng Shishi Xinzheng (New Arguments on Li Zicheng) (Zhejiang Ancient Book Publishing House, 1985), Yang Yang’s Mingdai Nurgan Dusi ji qi Weisuo Yanjiu (Studies on the Nurgan Military Commission and its garrisons in the Ming period) (Zhongzhou calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, 1983). In respect to the collection and publication of historical materials, many significant historical classics of and about the Ming were published. The Ming History, the Ming History Events from Beginning to End, the Comprehensive Mirror of the Ming and so forth were all e­ dited and published along with the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty, by the Institute of History and Philology in Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 1962. Besides, other sources of Ming history also came out occasionally, such as the Ming Jingshi Wenbian (Essays on Statecraft in the Ming) photocopied and edited by a group of scholars under the direction of Wu Han and published in six large tomes of 508 fascicles (by the Zhong Hua Book Company, 1962), Guo Que (An Evaluation of the Events of Our ­Dynasty), in six tomes, including 104 fascicles (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1958), Yuan Ming Biji Shiliao Congkan (Collection of Historical Materials in Informal Notes of the Yuan and Ming) published by Zhong Hua Book Company (twelve books in thirteen fascicles), Wan Ming Shiliao Congshu (A Collectania of Historical Materials on the late Ming) (eight books in five fascicles, published from 1959 to 1960), Mingmo Qingchu Shiliao Xuankan (Selected Historical Sources of the late Ming and the Early Qing) (eighteen books in ten fascicles) published by Zhejiang People’s Publishing House (subsequently by Zhejiang ­Ancient Classics Publishing House), Mingshi Ziliao Congkan (Collection of Sources on Ming History) by Jiangsu People’s Publishing House which published three collections, including eight historical sources, Zhong-Wai ­Jiaotong Shiji Congkan (Series of Historical Materials on Sino-foreign Interrelation and Communication) by the Zhong Hua Book Company, the photocopied Tianyige Mingdai Fangzhi Xuankan (Selected Ming-period Gazetteers in the Tianyige Library) (107 works in total, divided into sixty-eight volumes) published by the Shanghai Ancient Classics Publishing House, Ming ji Shiliao Jizhen (Compilation of High-value Historical Materials of the late Ming Era) and Mingdai Lunzhu Congkan (Selected Treatises of the Ming period) published by Taiwan Weiwen publishing house and the photocopied Huang Ming

176  Guide to study of Ming history Tiaofashi Leizuan (Collection of Great Ming Law Codes) and other precious sources published by the Japanese Institute of classics. Finally, the United States also sold numerous microfilms of historical records of the Ming dynasty conserved in the Library of Congress. Meanwhile, compilations of historical materials were also published in a large quantity, including Wu Han’s Chaoxian Li Chao Shilu zhong de Zhongguo Shiliao (Chinese Historical Materials in the Veritable Records of the Li Dynasty of Korea) (Zhong Hua Book Company, 1980, over 3,000,000 characters, twelve fascicles), Mingmo Nongmin Qiyi Shiliao (Historical Records of Peasant Uprisings in the late Ming Era) (Kaiming Bookstore, 1952), editor-in-chief Zheng Tianting, two tomes of Ming Qing Shi Ziliao (Ming-Qing Historical Materials) (Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1980), Mingdai Shehui Jingji Shiliao Xuanbian (Selected Historical Records on the Social Economy of the Ming Period) (Fujian people’s Publishing House, 1980–1981) edited by Xie Guozhen, and Ming Qing Huishang Ziliao Xuanbian (Selected Materials on Hui Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties) (Anhui Huangshan publishing house, 1985) edited mainly by Zhang Haipeng and Wang Tingyuan. Qingdai Dang’an Shiliao Huibian (Collection of Historical Materials from the Archives of the Qing Period) edited and published in volumes by the First Historical Achives of China, also covered some historical facts of the late Ming era. Volume 6, published in 1980, contained a large amount of historical records of the late Ming peasants uprising that were never published before. Moreover, some publishing houses printed or photocopied many works of historical value composed by certain figures active during the Ming dynasty. In addition, Zhongguo jin Bashi nian Mingshi Lunzhu Mulu (Bibliography of Books And Articles on Ming History in China for the Last Eighty Years), compiled by the Ming History Research Office, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and published by Jiangsu people’s Publishing House, 1981, offered a useful index on the monographs and papers on Ming history published before 1980 in China. As for the Ming Qing Shiliao (Ming-Qing Historical Materials), which was of great importance as sources, its first three volumes had been published before the foundation of the PRC; afterward, the fourth volume came out; then, another six volumes were published in Taiwan. All these volumes contained numerous precious archival materials from the late Ming. 3 Academic conferences held and professional journal periodicals founded. With the revitalization of academic circles after 1978, in order to communicate with each other concerning the latest research findings and to create new occasions for communication, scholars of Ming history set about various academic activities. In 1980, an international academic conference especially on Ming-Qing history opened up under the proposal of Zheng Tianting of Nankai University and attracted more than one hundred scholars from China, Japan, the USA

Guide to study of Ming history  177 and Australia, and the conference papers were collected and published by Tianjin people’s Publishing House. In 1983, the first academic conference on Ming history in China was held in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. It focused on certain significant issues such as the urban economy in the Jiangnan area, land property rights and class structure. In 1985, the second academic conference on Ming history was held in Huangshan city, Anhui province. Scholars from Japan, the USA and Australia attended this meeting. Besides, many particular meetings on certain Ming historical events were also held, such as the Nanking conference of 1981 on China’s sprouts of capitalism, and the Xiamen conference of 1982 on Zheng Chenggong’s recapture of Taiwan, for which the Fujian People’s Publishing House published several collections of sources and papers on Zheng Chenggong. In 1983 and 1984, two academic conferences on Zheng He’s voyage to the Western ocean were held in Jiujiang city by the Academy of Chinese navigation history and in Nanjing city on the part of Jangsu province, after which the first and second volumes of Zheng He Xia Xiyang Lunwen Ji (Symposium on Zheng He’s Voyages to the Western Ocean) were edited and published by the People’s Transportation Publishing House and Nanking University Publishing House. In 1984, the symposium in memory of Yuan Chonghuan’s 400th anniversary was held in Tengxian County, Guanxi province, and the Guangxi Ethnic Publishing House published Yuan Chonghuan Ziliao Jilu (Compilation of Historical Records on Yuan Chonghuan), edited chiefly by Yan Chongnian. In the same year, the Hebei Academy of History held in Qinhuangdao city an academic conference on the 340th anniversary of the Battle of Shanhai Pass. Mizhi County of Shanxi province, Shimen County of Hunan province and Tongshan County of Hubei province successively held symposia on Li Zicheng. All of these conferences provided scholars with occasions for sharing research findings and discussing different opinions, and thus contributed to the development of Ming studies. As for the publishing platforms for academic works, a great number of papers on Ming history were published in various international and Chinese academic journals. In 1981, the professional journal of Ming history, Mingshi Yanjiu Luncong (Articles on Ming History), came into being and was edited by the Ming History Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and published by Jiangsu People’s Publishing House. Three volumes have been published so far. Specialized research journals of Ming history were also created abroad and in our Taiwan province. In 1967, Professor Yamane Yukio from the ­Department of Liberal Arts and Science of Tokyo Women’s Christian ­University and other specialists of Ming history initiated and founded the Institute of Ming history in Japan, and published their journal Minshi ­Kenkyu ­(Studies on Ming History) beginning in 1974. It was basically an

178  Guide to study of Ming history annual journal, but two volumes were published in 1975. Each volume contained approximately sixty to seventy pages, including three or four treatises that covered aspects of politics, economy, society, military and culture; a bibliography; and introductions to sources and the latest research findings in Ming history all over the world (Cf. Ling Ming, “On Japanese Magazine of Ming History Research,” in Articles on Ming History, vol. 1). Since the autumn of 1975, the History Department of the University of Minnesota also started editing and publishing a journal named Mingshi Yanjiu (Ming Studies). Two fascicles were published in spring and autumn every year and contained about seventy pages. In addition to publishing some academic papers, this journal mainly focused on introducing the situation regarding research on the history, fine arts, philosophy and literature of the Ming dynasty, and providing a venue for academic communication. In 1976, the two-volume Mingdai Renwu Zhuanji Cidian (Dictionary of Ming Biography) was published by Columbia University Press in New York. One hundred and twenty-five scholars from seventeen countries and regions participated in the compilation and the whole work, which covered 650 figures, and took ten years to complete. In July 1978, the new journal on research in Ming history (Mingshi Yanjiu Zhuankan (Journal of Ming Studies) was initiated in Taiwan province by the research team of Ming history, Institute of History, Chinese Culture University. One volume of this journal is published every year, emphasizing the social and economic history of the Ming. In addition, Taiwan scholars contributed significantly to the studies on Zheng Chenggong and the Zheng clan, and on the issue of Mazu (e.g. Tianfei: heaven concubine) entitled Tianhou (empress of heaven) by Kangxi. The environment for the study of certain issues of the Ming period Since the foundation of the PRC in 1949, studies of Ming history obviously developed both in range and in depth. Here, I would like to offer a general summary of this progress from my limited perspective. On the question of the sprouts of capitalism Before the foundation of the PRC, the question of the time of the appearance of the modern capitalist mode of production was subject to much academic discussion. At that time, the discussion was still limited to raising problems and expressing tendentious opinions, rather than consciously looking into it. After the foundation of the PRC, it became one of the significant research topics. Since most Chinese scholars believed that capitalist sprouts germinated in the middle and late eras of the Ming dynasty, opponents had to look into the status of the Ming dynasty commodity economy and whether it manifested the seeds of capitalism. Numerous scholars devoted themselves to solving this problem, and their work included both comprehensive analysis and specialized research into certain forms or areas of production. Up to

Guide to study of Ming history  179 now, hundreds of treatises have been published. In 1957, the Sanlian Bookstore and the Chinese History section of People’s University published the two-volume Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wenti Taolun Ji (Discussions on the Question of the Sprouts of Capitalism in China) in 1960; Sanlian and the Department of History of Nanjing University published as supplementary book, Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wenti Taolun Xubian (Supplements to the discussions on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China); in 1981, Shanghai People’s Publishing House published Ming Qing Zibenzhuyi Mengya Yanjiu Lunwen Ji (Essays on Sprouts of Capitalism in the Ming and Qing); in 1982, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House published Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wenti Lunwen Ji (Essays on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China). The last two books were edited by the section on Ming-Qing history, in the Department of History, Nanjing University. With research and discussion on the urban economy in the Jiangnan region, the reformation of the tax system and the roles of the Huizhou merchants, studies of the sprouts of China’s capitalism reached new heights. Here, I would like to list several main problems in the discussion of the sprouting of China’s capitalism. 1 Signs of capitalist sprouts and the time of their initial appearance. Did the sprouts of capitalism as a mode of production emerge in pre-modern China? If so, when did they first appear? These questions had been discussed intensively ever since the foundation of the PRC. However, the question of its time was in fact the problem of symbols. According to the published articles, the Warring States period, Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, Song dynasty (especially Nan-Song), the late Yuan and the early Ming, the mid-Ming, the late-Ming, the era of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong of the Qing dynasty were, respectively, viewed as the seedbeds of the capitalist mode of production. Meanwhile, some scholars tended to believe that there was never any real sign of the capitalist mode of production before the Opium War. The opinion that the capitalist sprouts appeared in the middle and late eras of the Ming dynasty was based on the following arguments. First of all, the commodity economy had experienced much more sustained growth than in previous dynasties. The traditional natural agricultural economy in the form of “men plowing fields, and women weaving cloth” preliminarily tended to be broken down under the impact of commodity exchange, and the domestic market was slowly and gradually being formed. Secondly, handcraft industry was freed from the direct control of the imperial government, and a number of private workshop emerged. In the silk industry, the capitalist mode of employment in the form of “owners offer capital, laborers provide manpower” had become common in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and labor markets with significant capitalist features had appeared in the ceramic and mining industries. Traditional state-run workshops that featured compulsive conscription and a bound labor force gradually faded and were replaced by private

180  Guide to study of Ming history managers employing labor. Thirdly, the reformation of the tax system not only reflected the development of the social commodity economy, but also accelerated the increase in personal independence of farmers and artisans. The introduction of replacement fee for government-­ registered artisans and the Yitiaobian Fa (Single Whip Law) marked the dissolution of the traditional corvée system. Fourthly, in terms of agriculture, the rapid expansion of cultivated areas of cash crops ensured the further commercialization of grain production and consumption. Fifthly, the rise of early enlightenment thought and “citizen literature” reflected an evident change in the economic foundation. At last, “citizen movements” in the Wanli era marked the appearance of a “citizen stratum” that was formed along with the development of commodity economy and emerged on the political stage as a social force in the struggle against the mining tax collectors. However, on the other hand, some comrades believed that there were no capitalist sprouts in the Ming era. From their perspective, the examples viewed as proof of a capitalist mode of production by many scholars were merely various patterns within the traditional commodity economy. For example, handicraft workshops that were seen as a typical form of the sprout of capitalist production actually remained within the traditional guild scope, and the family textile industry connected by merchant employers continued to be a household sideline production in the traditional society; moreover, the so-called rising wage-labor continued to be serf labor. Therefore, they believed that the arguments that declared the appearance of capitalist sprouts in the Ming dynasty failed to recognize the essential features of capitalist mode of production and thus mistook the commodity production of traditional society for capitalism. Some scholars overestimated the capitalist production of the Ming dynasty. In their opinion, the appearance of mass of refugees in the 1430s proved that at that time, an “enclosure movement” and “a fierce process of primitive accumulation” also took place in China.9 This capitalist mode of production “had already gradually developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, and slowed down since the second half of 17th century to the late 18th century.”10 During these periods, the so-called “pirates” active along the southeast seashore of China were actually a group of powerful merchants who desired to develop overseas trade. “Their emergence reflected the fact that, since The Jia-jing reign of the Ming dynasty, China’s traditional society had been undergoing evident change, and the sprouts of new socio- economic relations and their contradictions had germinated.”11 This group of scholars highly praised the citizen movement during the Wanli reign. They believed that this movement that fought against tax collectors throughout the whole country was enough to prove that capitalist forces within Chinese society had grown significantly in terms not only of the economy, but also of the

Guide to study of Ming history  181 political arena, and were becoming a new force that dared to confront the current government. This discussion involved many aspects of history, and in order to find out the truth, scholars consulted a large number of historical materials. Their discussion gradually shifted from general argumentation citing examples into focused research on certain areas of the economy, industries and regions. Although disagreements might still exist on the ­nature of the economy, it was certain that, with the gradual deepening of discussion, scholars’ understanding of the socioeconomic conditions in the Ming would reach a new level. 2 The process of the development of capitalist sprouts in the Ming dynasty. Those scholars who argued that capitalist sprouts had germinated in the middle and late Ming realized that this new mode of production germinated within the gaps in the traditional economy, which declined but was still absolutely predominant. Therefore, the conservative forces in the society consistently contained its development. Especially in the second half of the Wanli era, due to the plunder of tax collectors and subsequent brutal wars that lasted for half a century, the whole social economy including commodity production in the nature of capitalist sprouts suffered extremely heavy losses. Consequently, the fragile sprouts of capitalism did not develop at all, but were interrupted. It was not until the Kangxi reign in the Qing, with the revival of the social economy, that capitalism sprouted again, and it achieved remarkable progress in the Qianlong reign. Opinions on this general tendency roughly reached a consensus; however, when it came to analyze the reasons for which China’s capitalist sprouts did not grow and bear fruit, scholars offered different ideas. Their disagreements mainly lay in their different emphases on the different sides of the commonly approved factors. For example, some scholars believed that the traditional state that maintained the benefits of the dominant landlord class was the major obstacle of the development of the commodity economy. In order to protect the preexisting hierarchy in every aspect of social life, the court stipulated strictly and in detail the use of different residences, clothes and daily supplies, thus fastidiously restricting the use of many handicrafts and overseas trade goods to a relatively small number of people in the upper classes; these kinds of measures became a huge obstacle to the development of commodity production and sales. Some other comrades emphasized the negative effects of the traditional land system on the development of the commodity economy. In their opinions, in the preexisting land system, buying farmlands and collecting land rents could ensure a relatively stable income from exploitation, while operating handicraft industries and trading goods tended to be more risky. According to the historical records, those who accumulated their wealth by handicraft industry or trade generally did not invest their profits in expanding their businesses,

182  Guide to study of Ming history but rather to purchase new farmland. In this way, the cycle of “using capital to preserve it” severely restricted the primitive accumulation of capital. Some comrades considered that the critical factor was China’s ancient imperial regime that had lasted for such a long time. To maintain their dominant position, the landlord class consistently reformed and adjusted the terms of the economic structure, political system, and its ideology and culture. Thus endured the Chinese imperial regime, which was hard to break out of. In addition, there was another opinion that the low level of productivity was the main cause of the slow growth of capitalist sprouts in China. 3 Progress on research methodology. On the issue of capitalist sprouts, related research has made evident progress in recent years, as demonstrated in three aspects. First of all, comparative studies between China and foreign countries have attracted scholars’ attention; secondly, studies of typical industries and regions have been strengthened; lastly, quantitative analysis has been emphasized in research. On the first point, since the beginning of discussion of China’s capitalist sprouts in the 1950s, numerous articles have been published. Although the discussion was gradually deepened, with new ideas revealed one after another, a common weakness of research was exposed. Scholars tended to find several examples from historical records and analyze them in a theoretical framework, but we lacked in-depth studies from macroscopic perspectives. After recognizing this defect, many historians began to carry out studies that were wider and broader. Some scholars concentrated on comparative studies between China and foreign countries, and expected to find out why the Western original accumulation of capital led to bourgeois revolution and the Industry Revolution. These events propelled Western European countries into a modern world with new forms of politics, economy, science, technology and the military, while capitalist factors within Chinese commodity economy simply remained at the stage of sprouts and the basic structure of Chinese society never went through any significant change. Therefore, discussing differences between China and Western European countries in terms of political institutions, urban economy, agricultural productive structure, overseas trade, ideology and culture as well as manners and customs not only could provide scientific explanations for the winding development of Chinese capitalist sprouts, but also could benefit the current construction of the four modernizations. ­ uizhou Second, many scholars conducted a thorough research on the H merchants from Anhui province, the urban economy of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Taihu region, the ceramic industry of Jingdezhen, a town in Jiangxi Province, exchange shops of Shanxi province, cities and towns alongside canals, the salt well industry of Sichuan province, cash crop cultivation in mountain areas, degrees of agricultural commercialization and changes of rent forms, the nature of Ming-Qing overseas trade

Guide to study of Ming history  183 and the maritime embargo and the influence of Western missionaries in terms of scientific technology and culture. They used various sources such as documents, archives, genealogies, records, contracts and inscriptions, and proposed persuasive arguments. This kind of study was stimulated by the problem of capitalist sprouts; on the one hand, it reflected the vertical development of discussion on the issue of capitalist sprouts; on the other hand, it surpassed this narrow area and opened up new areas for socioeconomic history of Ming-Qing society. Related publications attracted wide attention at home and abroad. Thirdly, the emphasis on quantitative analysis with various economic data was gradually being generalized. An increasing number of historians devoted themselves to collecting data related to their research topic in all directions, and tried to give accurate data insofar as conditions permitted. For example, in the studies on the urban economy of Jiangnan region, some scholars carefully looked into related sources such as local gazetteers, and compiled statistics on the number of towns and cities, the urban population and the rough proportion between employers and employees, thus convincingly proving that since the mid-Ming era, the numbers of towns, cities and urban households all experienced an evident increase. In particular, it worked out that a majority of the households were in handcraft industry or commerce, revealing that these new towns were different from traditional ones. On the amount of Ming’s cultivated land and its land system The land system of the Ming dynasty was rather complicated; and it is one of the relatively weak fields of study. The current situation may be reviewed as follows. 1 On the amount of cultivated land in the Ming. Ever since the Hongwu reign, the Ming authority had attached great importance to examining, cleaning up and verifying farmland statistics. Apart from the Yellow Registers of all years that are centrally preserved at Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, a great deal of data was also preserved in various historical records. Normally, the records should be rather convincing; however, the inconformity of numbers from different origins left scholars of later ages with confusion. Scholars have found two kinds of records that were quite far away from each other. According to the Statutes of the Great Ming of Zhengde and Wanli eras, the cultivated land was approximately 8,500,000 qing (=6.6667 hectares), which was originally quoted from The Rules for Administrators edited in Hongwu 26 (1393); other figures of cultivated land in Hongwu 14 (1381) and 24 (1391), quoted from Ming Veritable Records, were more than 3,660,000 and 3,870,000, respectively. Therefore, judging between right and wrong numbers had become a widely concerned issue within domestic and international academic

184  Guide to study of Ming history circles. Since the figure of cultivated land of Hongwu era was directly associated with that of the whole Ming dynasty, its related discussion was thus an essential issue for understanding Ming’s socioeconomic status. We had seen several representative views in this discussion. Firstly, Japanese scholar Shimizu Yasuji believed that in Mingshi Lu, the 3,800,000 qing of Hongwu 24 (1391) actually referred to the sum of farmland and original land, while in Statutes of the Great Ming and some other records, the 8,500,000 qing covered not only farmland and original land, but also hills and shallow lakes. Secondly, another Japanese scholar Fujii Hiroshi pointed out that two reasons led to the sum of 8,500,000 qing of Hongwu era: on the one hand, due to writing errors, the actual 220,000 qing within the item of provincial administration commission was wrongly recorded as 2,200,000 qing, and 400,000 qing within that of Henan Provincial Administration Commission was falsely added 1,000,000 and thus became 1,400,000. If these two errors could be corrected, about 3,000,000 qing should be subtracted from the aforesaid 8,000,000 qing. On the other hand, 5,000,000 qing included both actual cultivated land and government-estimated potential farmlands. In other words, in Fujii Hiroshi’s opinion, the number from Mingshi Lu of Hongwu era was credible, and from the early Ming to the mid-Ming periods, domestic farmland actually did not reduce by half, but gradually extended from less than 4,000,000 to more than 4,000,000 qing. Thirdly, Liang Fangzhong raised another explanation, “the variety of units of measurement in different areas was one of the reasons that led to the contradictory of official registered statistics in Ming dynasty,”12 that is, an area of the same land could be calculated as two figures that were far away from each other. Fourthly, Wu Han considered that the figure of less than 4,000,000 qing from Shi Lu of Emperor Hongwu did not contradict with the 8,500,000 qing from other sources such as Ming Shi, for they might reflect the progress of social productivity from 1381 to 1393 and the results of thorough survey of farmland.13 2 State and private lands. The ownership of lands during the Ming dynasty was very complicated, and was closely involved with class relations, tax systems and even the status of the Ming regime. The institution of stateowned and private lands was one of the characteristics of the land system during the Ming dynasty. In this field, much academic progress has been made since the year of 1949, as related articles looking into this issue were quite numerous, but still lacked profundity. At present, the research situation could be summarized into the following points: the first was the range, amount and proportion of state-owned land in the total. When many scholars discuss the issues of state-owned land, they follow the definition set by the Official History of the Ming Dynasty: in the Ming dynasty, land-ownership was divided into two categories, namely private land and state-owned land. At first, state-owned

Guide to study of Ming history  185 lands merely consisted of the officially acquired land of the Song and Yuan dynasties, but later it included returned lands, confiscated lands, ­legally adjudged lands, school lands, royal estates, grasslands,… lands by city walls, pasture, cemeteries, public margin lands, estates of princes, princesses, honored relatives, ministers, eunuchs and temples, lands for b ­ ureaucratic salaries, welfare lands for frontier guards, and also garrison lands run by military, civilians or merchants. All of these aforesaid categories were state-owned, and all other lands belonged to the category of private land.14 However, some scholars argued that the situation of bestowed estates was quite complicated: some were originally private lands that were “reported vaguely to the throne and were thus acquired” by princes, honored relatives and eunuchs; some merely provided grantees with ­silver currency and crops levied in accordance with the official tax rate via local authorities, and according to precedents, these lands should be taken back by the state in due time; some other estates were managed by beneficiaries themselves, and after the death of beneficiaries, they should be hereditary instead of going back to the state. Lands of the last category barely differed from those of “self-obtained estates” that were acquired by princes, honored relatives and eunuchs via purchasing or accepting offering. Therefore, they believed that not all the “bestowed estates” could be classified as state-owned lands. As for the “welfare lands for frontier guards,” it referred to state-owned farmlands attributed to military officers according to their ranks, since the military status was hereditary during Ming dynasty. As long as they were so attributed, state farmlands became officers’ private property, no longer state lands according to the original definition of that term. The divergence between people’s guard lands (min tun) and merchant guard land (shang tun) was even larger. Some scholars argued that the official nature of min tun existed only during the early Ming period and was gradually lost later. As for shang tun, according to the general opinion, in the early Ming period, in order to make up for the insufficiency of military pay and provisions in remote areas, the state introduced the Laws of Salt Monopoly to attract merchants to exchanging grain for (salt vouchers) yanyin at the appointed place; as a result, there emerged a large amount of tuntian operated by merchants. Until the reign of Xiaozong, the Reform of Ye Qi allowed merchants to buy salt vouchers with silver currency in the neighborhood, which led to the collapse of merchant guard land. On the second point, the amount, scale and proportion of state-owned lands, scholars could not reach a consensus. By quoting the record of Ming History, many scholars argued that the amount of stateowned lands was approximately one-seventh of that  of private lands. For example, in reference to the Collected Statutes of the Great Ming, Wu Dange figured out that “state-owned lands took 14.15% of the total

186  Guide to study of Ming history amount of the whole country’s lands, and the rest was private.”15 Recently, some scholars have suggested that the amount of state-owned land was huge and made up half of the cultivated lands in the whole country. They pointed out that the record in the Official History of the Ming Dynasty that “state-owned lands were only a ­seventh of that of private lands” was based on figures from The Collected statutes of the Great Ming of the Zhengde reign. As we have seen, however, these figures covered only the farmlands under the government of the Provincial Administration Commission and Zhili subprefecture and prefecture, and did not include farmlands under the authority of regional military commissions and garrisons, which was enormous in the era of the early Ming. The third point is that, since the state-owned farmlands (guantian) belonged to the feudal government, there was a discussion of the nature of land ownership in the Ming period. A majority of scholars believed that state ownership and private ownership of land coexisted in the Ming, but when it came to precise issues, they could not agree with each other. Some scholars divided the land ownership of the Ming dynasty into two major categories: state ownership (for state-owned farmland) and landlord ownership (for private farmland). Others came up with three categories, namely, feudal state ownership, landlord ownership and farmer ownership of which the latter two constituted the private farmland mentioned in historical records. In addition, some scholars argued over the nature of official farmlands in the Jiangnan region. One opinion was that the official farmland of the Ming dynasty was not actually owned by the state, but was a particular sort of private farmland, because it differed from the private farmland only in terms of tax regulation and because it could be purchased and sold without limits. In other words, there was no essential distinction between this land and private land. Scholars holding opposite opinions nonetheless agreed that the range of state-owned farmlands was not limited to Jiangnan, but included military state farms throughout the whole country. Even when it came to the Jiangnan state-owned farmlands, they were not supposed to be freely bought and sold in the early years of the Ming dynasty. Although tenant peasants who worked on the state-owned farmlands might transfer farmlands in private at times, the transfer was merely of rights to work the land and not to own it. As with the common phenomena of “selling state-owned farmlands to private individuals” after the mid-Ming, it only demonstrated the bankruptcy of the state ownership of farmlands. Some scholars noticed that since the middle stage of the Ming dynasty, state ownership experienced an evident decline as state-owned farmlands turned into private ones. This was a gradual process that included both the disappearance of distinction between state-owned farmlands and private farmlands in the tax reform in Jiangnan and the steep decline of large-scale military farmlands that had been under court control since early Ming. This decline was partially due to abandonment and

Guide to study of Ming history  187 idleness, but the main reason was that generals and guarding eunuchs seized soldiers’ lands, including farmlands cultivated by guards of the princes before they had become private possessions of princes or private farmland. There were also cases in which soldiers ignored the prohibition and pledged or sold state-owned military farmland to non-military households. Although agreement has been reached among scholars on this general tendency, the estimations about the extent of privatization have still differed. A ­ ccording to Wu Dange, “in the late Ming and early Qing, the court barely controlled any state-owned farmland” (Ref. Mingdai de Guantian yu Mintian cited above). Some comrades thought that even though in the late Ming reign of Wanli, there was a saying that “every square inch of farmlands” that the Prince of Fu gained “was seized from the common people,” according to the memorials of local officials, some of those farmlands were state-owned, and there were still considerable numbers of military farmlands even at the end of Ming. These facts proved that state ownership of farmland experienced a giant change from prosperity to decline that lasted through the whole Ming dynasty era. 3 The farmland plundered by royal princes, honored lords, eunuchs, officials and the gentry. Starting from the mid-Ming, large-scale land ownership grew rapidly, and those persons who relied heavily on their political power to annex fields were called privileged landlords in some academic works. In comparison, land-holding people from the middle or lower classes lacking political power were described as unprivileged landowners. In recent years, more and more scholars have noticed that privileged landlords, including nobles and officials, were actually the key players dealing with many issues in the society, economy and politics of the late Ming era; meanwhile, studies on peasants/farmers and unprivileged landlords status and political attitudes were also closely related to the research on privileged landlords. Consequently, Chinese and foreign scholars have written abundant academic works dealing with this social class. Wang Yuquan’s articles “Mingdai de Wangfu Zhuangtian” (Estates of royal princes in the Ming period), “Mingdai Xun Gui Dizhu de Dianhu” (Tenants of privileged landlords in the Ming dynasty) and “Ming Qianguo Gong Mushi Zhuangtian Kao” (Research on the estates of the family of the Qianguo Duke Mu), collected in Laiwu Ji (botany weeds collection), Zhong Hua Book Company, October 1983, were representative works. The Japanese scholar Sato Fumitoshi’s “Guanyu Mingmo jiu Fanwangfu de Da Tudi Suoyou: yi Lu Wangfu Wei Li” (Large estate ownership of princes in the late Ming: the example of the estate of the Lu Prince) focused on the farmlands owned by Prince Zhu Yiliu who had been enfeoffed in Weihui, Henan province.16 The encroachment of farmlands conducted by royal estates, noble lords and eunuchs mainly took place in the capital and its environs. Progress has been made in the research on land ownership

188  Guide to study of Ming history in this area. Meanwhile, historians attached great importance to the annexation of land by official landlords (guanliao dizhu). The range of their research on this issue stretched from the tax exemption privileges of officials and gentries, their obtaining lands and accepting offered estates by all means and the brutal annexation of farmlands to maintain the prominent status and function of the privileged class in political and social life. In Japan, studies on the gentry (xiangshen) in the Ming dynasty have drawn widespread attention. Currently, there exist different understandings of the meaning of the term “gentry” (xiangshen or jinshen). In some opinions, gentry referred to those families that had produced public officials contemporarily or for several generations, but not to those scholars who passed the provincial level civil service examinations (juren) and thus became qualified to become officers. Some scholars put forward a different idea that the formation of the gentry in the Ming dynasty was closely related to the examination system. They held that government students (sheng yuan) and provincial graduates (juren) enjoyed lifelong status and enjoyed the same treatment as that of quasi-bureaucrats. Their social status was therefore different from that of the common people. Therefore, from the viewpoint of the Ming civil service examination, the gentry (jinshen) included all degree holders above the government students. The former definition was consistent with that used by the Jin Shen Ce (Register of Gentry) of the Ming period, while the latter equated “jinshen” with “shenjin” (local gentries and scholars). This divergence due to different starting points did not influence the substantial discussion. According to Terada Takashinobu, “the xiangshen problem has become the most important topic in the studies of Ming-Qing history,”17 which showed that Japanese historians had paid much attention to this issue. In recent years, Chinese scholars also strengthened the study of gentry landlords in the Ming and published many related treatises.18 4 On the peasantry under Ming dynastic rule. Scholars have generally considered that due to the peasant wars at the end of Yuan dynasty, a large amount of farmland became ownerless in the early Ming. Ming Taizu carried out several measures such as encouraging immigration and cultivation that resulted in the appearance of a large number of land-holding farmers. For this reason, land-holding peasants constituted a large proportion of the rural society in the early Ming. During the Yongle reign, the phenomenon of land-holding farmers going bankrupt and fleeing the countryside became increasingly grave. By the Zhengtong reign (1436–1450) of Yingzong, the number of refugees ­(liumin) became a social problem. For this reason, many scholars suggested the need for studies of issues related to farmers, such as the types of taxes and corvée imposed by the state on farmers, landlord exploitation of farmers by such means as breaking their holdings in land into small pieces and passing the burden on to tenants, the growth of the

Guide to study of Ming history  189 burdens on peasants, the origins and characteristics of slave-holding in Jiangnan and the general deterioration in peasants’ living conditions resulting in the rapid growth of refugees. These problems resulted in class struggles including tenant unrest, slave riots and peasant uprisings. Scholars could reach a consensus on these issues with the exception of the refugee problem. Some scholars believed that refugees had become a certain kind of independent force in society and thus were essentially different from ordinary peasants and might even be seen as predecessors of modern proletarians. However, other scholars argued that despite a few refugees who sought jobs in urban areas, sneaked into officially off-limits mountains to mine or participated in illegal overseas trade and even piracy, generally speaking, refugees from their homes in the Ming were no more than traditional impoverished peasants who migrated to escape from natural and man-made disasters. On the systems of tax and corvée in the Ming The system of tax and corvee was relatively simple in the early Ming, but became more and more complicated as time went by, and resulted in confusion that is difficult to clarify. Since the foundation of the New China， some preliminary progress has been achieved in the studies on this issue, including articles reviewing the evolution of tax and corvée system throughout the whole dynasty, articles particularly looking into the evolution of tax and corvee system of a certain area or within a certain period of time, of which a rather large proportion focused on the heavy tax burden of the Jiangnan region, the Single Whip Law and the additional taxation at the end of the Ming dynasty. Some scholars have discussed specific themes such us huji (household registers), li jia (tax communities), liangzhang (tax captains), tianfu (farmland tax), caoyun (water transportation), zhena (conversion method), yanfa (salt tax law) and cha ma (horse trading). Here, I would like to summarize several significant issues as follows. 1 The heavy tax burden in Jiangnan. First, there existed different understandings about the heavy tax burden. Some believed that it was a fact that the Jiangnan region suffered from a heavy tax burden, regardless of whether from taxation rates, the sheer number of taxes in kind and in currency or the actual individual burdens. Others have argued that the real reason why Suzhou and Songjiang prefectures in Jiangnan submitted much more tax in kind and in currency than any other district, was not the heavy taxation but the existence in this region of a large amount of state-owned farmlands. The grain, cloth and silver submitted by the tenant farmers who cultivated these state-owned farmlands were not really taxes but rather rents. Opinions also differed on the effects of the heavy tax burden in Jiangnan. Some believed that the heavy taxation brought grave disasters to

190  Guide to study of Ming history local residents and trapped them in extreme impoverishment, causing that mass of peasants to flee the countryside or became tenants and serfs of the landlord class, which severely obstructed the development of social productive forces. Some others argued that the heavy taxation fitted in with the great economic development of Jiangnan, and tax rates set by the government did not exceed the bearing capacity of the local economy. In the Ming, both agriculture and handicraft industry in Jiangnan experienced growth rather than decline; as for peasants’ living conditions, Jiangnan farmers were much better off than most farmers in other places, especially in North China. 2 On “Yitiaobian Fa” (Single Whip Law). From this law, which appeared in the late Ming, to the “no more poll-tax for newborns in a flourishing age’ in the Kangxi reign, to the “tan ding ru di (absorbing the poll-tax into the land tax)” in the Yongzheng reign, policies reflected a giant change in the taxation system of China, that has attracted scholars’ attention for a long time. Since the foundation of the PRC, many treatises on this issue have been published. They have not only studied in depth the origin, pilot testing and widespread promotion of the Single Whip Law and its characteristics in different places, but also noticed the historical background of its promulgation, viewing its appearance and extension as a result of social-economic development to a certain degree. As for the historical function of the Single Whip Law, comments have differed due to diverse starting points. Some comrades have paid more attention to vertical analyses, emphasizing the epoch-­ making significance of the Single Whip Law among other laws in the long history of China. Thanks to the introduction of this institution, various sorts of corvée were converted into silver and levied together with the land tax. The government increasingly used the collected silver currency to employ the labor force; in this way, the taxation system was simplified and peasants’ personal dependence on the government was also largely weakened. The conversion of the grain tax and corvee into silver expanded the fields of currency circulation and contributed to the development of the commodity economy. However, some other scholars presented a different argument. They have pointed out that the positive influence of the Single Whip Law should be affirmed but not overvalued. Indeed, the introduction of this law reflected the development of social economy, but essentially aimed at and was used for solving the financial difficulties of the government and restabilizing the sharply declining domination of the landlord class. In light of the situation of its implementation, it failed to guide the taxation system into order; on the contrary, various additional taxes, illegal private taxes and other exploitations came in a continuous stream. Even the Single Whip Law itself ended up with imposing additional taxation. These facts show that under the historical circumstances of that time, the Single Whip Law could not meet the designers’ expectations and hardly benefited the development of the commodity economy.

Guide to study of Ming history  191 On the Ming political and military systems The Ming political and military systems, which were themselves evolving, served as links between the past and the future in Chinese feudal society. On the whole, studies of them have been unsatisfactory to this day, marked more by static narration than by dynamic research. Some scholars are obviously confined to the various records in the Ming History, and inclined to the view that there was not much change in the Ming political and military systems. Even when there was recognition of an evolution over time, there were simply general discussions of the problems with the abolition of the Central Secretariat, the separation of the Grand Chief Military Commission into Five Chief Military Commissions, the formation of the two Capital system ­(Beijing and Nanjing after the Jingnan War), the establishment and routinization of the grand coordinators and the gradual replacement of the inherited military (jun) by conscripted or hired troops (bing), which were researched too shallowly. Here, then, is a brief account of studies of the Ming’s political and military systems since the foundation of the New China. 1 The causes and significance of the emergence of feudal authoritarianism at the beginning of the Ming. The feudal authoritarian centralization reached a high stage in the Ming period and was carried forward into the Qing. Regarding this historical phenomenon, previous historical records emphasized Zhu Yuanzhang’s character traits, that is, “his nature full of wild ambition and suspicion” and his alleged resort to, “decisive slaughter.” Some researchers think that the power disputes between the noble group in Huai Xi and the gentry group in Jiang Zhe region threatened the august authority, so Zhu Yuanzhang had to take decisive measures to centralize state power in the august lord himself. However, the others, observing the evolution of the feudal autocratic system itself, think that in the whole feudal society, the feudal authoritarian system symbolized by the imperial power had been increasingly strengthened and consolidated, and what Zhu Yuanzhang did reflected the inevitable trend of social development and should be approved. Another group of researchers think that the reinforcement of the feudal autocratic system indicated that the society was entering its own late stage, for there were a variety of inherent contradictions constantly intensifying, for example, the contradictions between the landlord and peasant classes. The landlords, in order to stabilize their domination, had to rule absolutely with the help of the highly centralized imperial power. Therefore, the reinforcement was taken as a negative product of the declining feudal system which maintained the decadent force hindering social progress and should be denied. In addition, there is another opinion accepting that the declining feudal rule needed to strengthen the squirearchy’s support for the state, but acknowledging that Zhu Yuanzhang left a deep imprint on history due to his extremely selfish character traits. They pointed out that the senior grand secretaries gradually evolved into “The prime

192  Guide to study of Ming history minister without the title but with the power,” indicating that it was infeasible for Zhu Yuanzhang to strictly prohibit the establishment of the official position of prime minister; Zhu’s practicing of nepotism and granting of titles  to his sons were already outmoded methods of ruling the country, which resulted in the decentralization of state power in a period of time and the civil war of the Jingnan War. All of these measures left deep traces on the Ming dynasty and were not historically inevitable. As for the foundation of the totalitarian politics in the Ming, some think that it was the product of the small-scale peasant economy combined with agriculture and handicraft industry. Others think that the feudal state was a political institution for the landlord class to oppress the small peasants. If so, we should not say that the small-scale peasant economy was the economic foundation for the domination of the landlord class. Instead, we should take the ownership system of the landlord class as the foundation of the feudal autocratic regime. In addition, some others think that in the early Ming, the great amount of feudal state-owned land was the basis for the survival of the feudal autocratic regime, and with the disintegration of the state-owned system, the political system of autocratic centralization was also weakened accordingly. There are also different views on the effects of measures taken to reinforce the autocratic regime in the Ming. Some think that the powerful and prosperous early Ming proved that the autocratic regime at that time was progressive and effectively resisted harassment by remnants of the Yuan dynasty, cracked down on the outlawed bullies and the corrupt and evil officials and strengthened the feudal regime, thereby, creating conditions for the recovery and development of social production. Others basically have negative attitudes toward these measures. They think that under the rule of autocracy, the social, economic and cultural life were artificially incorporated into a certain model which resulted in the whole society adopting a stereotyped complexion of autocracy and a state that lacked the energy to propel the society forward. 2 The eunuch and secret police depots of the Ming period. Eunuchs at court often gained power in Chinese history, but they became particularly active in the late Ming. Also, the rulers often sought to assert their personal control over officials, but they did so with extraordinary institutions such as the Eastern and Western Depots in the late Ming. Historians have been aware of this and have so far so far focused on three aspects—the eunuchs like Wang Zhen in Zhengtong’s Yingzong reign (1436–1449), manipulating power and playing politics, the embroidered guard and Eastern and Western Depots secret service agency and the eunuch supervision of the mining taxes. In recent years, some historians have turned their attention to the grave consequences of eunuch interference in the various sectors of the social economy, and their encroachment on the manors and pastures, textile and porcelain

Guide to study of Ming history  193 manufacture, tax collection, tribute and so forth in the capital region and other garrisoned towns. However, there is still a lack of deep and systematic research on the eunuchs pervasion in all aspects of the state political life, and high-level treatises are rarely seen on the relationship between the eunuchs’ autocratic and sovereign power and the cabinet’s power, and on the relationships between the garrisoned eunuchs sent to all parts of the country and the local civil and military officials. As for the specific circumstances of the Ming eunuchs holding posts in various departments in the capital and taking charge of some regional affairs, although there are a lot of relevant historical documents, the research is still insufficient. When it comes to the Ming eunuchs, people often think of all the maladies they brought while ignoring the greatly meritorious deeds of prominent eunuchs, such as Zheng He and Yi Shiha. It seems that there is not enough attention paid to the question why, in the early Ming, those who shunned no difficulty and danger and bravely opened up new dimension were mostly eunuchs. 3 The bureaucratic organs in the Ming. Among students of the bureaucracy, Chinese scholars did comparatively more research on the Ming cabinet  system and less on the scope of official duties and the activities of other administrative agencies. Overseas scholars published a number of thematic treatises on state administrative agencies, such as the Censorate and its regional investigating censor. Judging from the current research situation, there are still gaps in two aspects: firstly, in ­understanding the responsibilities and the interrelationship between the central and local administrative organs at all levels, and the bureaucratic institution as well as the regulations for officials’ promotions. For example, the Ministry of Personnel was claimed to be the head of The Six Ministries and to have wielded the power to select the officials, but the studies were oversimplified on the roles played by, for example, the minister of personnel and other high officials in promotions of officials, and on the relations between the minister of personnel and the senior grand secretary of the cabinet. In some historical works, there existed some inaccuracies when it came to official titles, such as the titles for some supreme commanders, grand coordinators and circuit intendants that were written as the actual position, and the exact meanings of hanlin (metropolitan graduates chosen to be literary attendants to the ruler and temporary appointees chosen for the same work) were generally unclear. This phenomenon demonstrates that our studies of the bureaucratic establishment of the Ming dynasty are not conducted in depth. Secondly, there is a lack of systematic exposition of the evolution of the bureaucratic establishment of the Ming dynasty. For example, the local high-ranking officials, The Regional Military Commission, Provincial Administration Commission and Provincial Surveillance Commission were gradually demoted to be grand coordinator, surveillance commissioner and regional commander. That is, the officials from the three

194  Guide to study of Ming history offices became their own subordinate bureaucrats. In officialdom, there was an evolution from the evaluation of the militaries and devaluation of civil officials in the early Ming, to the valuation of the civilians and devaluation of the militaries in the middle Ming, and then again, in the late Ming, the militaries acted arbitrarily. In appointing officeholders, there was a change from the three ways combined together in the early Ming into the single evaluation of the metropolitan officials. In addition, the subprefecture and county establishments and conversions in all parts of the country related closely with the current social situations, such as the lands under the jurisdiction of garrisons being moved to be under the authority of prefectures and counties. This reflected not only the decline of the garrison system, but also, to some extent, the development of the local economies. In the Ming, the establishment of local regimes, such as a grand coordinator or governor in Yunyang, Pingshun County in Shanxi, Xifeng County in Guizhou and so forth directly ­resulted from local class or ethnic struggles. Studies of these issues also need to be strengthened. On peasants wars Since the foundation of the New China, Chinese historians have generally paid much attention to applying class analysis to study feudal society and attached much weight to the struggle of the peasant rebels long called bandits by the ruling class. There have therefore been outstanding achievements in the historical field of peasant wars. Here is a brief introduction to the field. The study on the Ming’s peasant uprisings is mainly represented in two aspects: firstly, many-sided penetrating research has been conducted on previous studies of large-scale peasant wars (e.g. in the late Ming), and the ­academic level has been significantly improved; secondly, systematic research has been done on the small- and medium-scale peasant uprisings that had seldom been studied before, and, so far, quite a number of highlevel treatises have been written on the peasant uprising in the early, the middle and late Ming, and on the peasants’ wars at the end of the Ming as well as the anti-Qing struggle in which the peasant armies are taken as the main body. In the domain of systematic research, previous studies on the peasant uprisings usually started with the Tang Saier Uprising, in Shandong, in Yongle 18 (1420), rarely mentioning the peasants’ armed struggles against the Ming state during the half century before this uprising. And this flaw inevitably led to an erroneous estimation of the general social class conditions during the Hongwu reign. The essay “A preliminary study of Peasant uprisings during Hongwu reign (1368–1398)”19 by Lin Jinshu filled this gap to a great extent. He pointed out that “the frequency of the uprisings was great, rarely seen before in history, and some of the uprisings even had considerable impacts at that time.” He calculated, on the basis of Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, that “during the Hongwu reign (1368–1398),

Guide to study of Ming history  195 there were more than 190 uprisings, e.g. an average of sixty a year.” He also analyzed the causes of the peasant uprisings, from one important profile, ­revealing that the antagonism between social classes was quite fierce during the Ming founder’s reign (1368–1398). The study of the Tang Saer uprising in the Yongle reign has made progress by probing into the relations among the different classes and the causes of the outbreak including the abuse of financial resources during the Yongle reign. As for the studies of the three larger-scale peasant uprisings in the mid-Ming, there were quite a number of new achievements. For example, in previous discussions of the Hebei peasant uprising, general historical data were used, but Chen Gaohua found, in Houjian Lu (A Record of Hindsight) written by Xie Fen in Guochao Diangu (Dynastic Classical Allusions), the two confessions by Zhao Sui, the leader of the uprising, and by Zhang Wei, the Hui Anbo responsible for arresting Zhao under the order of Ming imperial court. Chen published his thesis “On the Issues of Liu Liu, Yang Hu Uprisings in the mid Ming”20 in 1978, which not only allowed readers to understand better the details of this uprising but also offered fresh interpretations of the evidence. Some other scholars also did pioneering research on the uprisings of ethnic minorities in the Ming, in which secret societies organized anti-government activities. There has been wide interest in the peasant wars at the end of the Ming. Published treatises on this topic have outstripped, both in quantity and in quality, other studies of peasant wars in ancient China and in the Ming. In addition to a great deal of publications by domestic historical scholars and amateurs, there are quite a number of works published by foreign scholars, such as the Japanese historians of the Ming and the Qing dynasties, Yamane Yukio, Taniguchi Kikuo, Mori Masao， Fuma Susumi, Sato Fumitoshi and so forth, who brought many achievements to public attention. The American James Parsons wrote The Peasant Revolts at the end of Ming. In the conference volume From Ming to Qing, published by Yale University Press in 1979, several papers such as “The Shun Interregnum of 1644” by Frederic Wakeman, Jr,. highlighted the peasant wars. This was a specialized article on the activities of the Da Shun army while it occupied Beijing. Thus, it can be seen that the peasant war in the late Ming, due to its greatness in strength and impetus as well as its far-reaching influence, has become one of the commonly discussed subjects by scholars at home and abroad. Nevertheless, there are differences in the discussions focused on the peasant war at the end of Ming, involving the following issues. 1 The historical role of the peasant war at the end of Ming. The majority of scholars have believed that, in the feudal society, the armed peasant struggles against the cruel oppression by the landlord class were the just force and impetus pushing society ahead. The peasant war at the end of Ming, which broke out in the late stage of feudal society, struck a heavy blow, on a large scale, to the aristocratic gentry forces. It weakened the shackles on the development of productive forces, overthrew the decayed

196  Guide to study of Ming history Ming dynasty and made efforts to reform the whole society, and so its positive significance cannot be denied. However, a minority of scholars considered that the peasant uprisings in the feudal society neither opposed the feudal system nor introduced a new mode of production. The rebellions were not, therefore, the motive force for social progress. Indeed, in this view, the wars and chaos brought about by the peasant uprisings for years on end caused serious damage to social production. A few scholars even think that Li Zicheng should be “criticized” and should be held partly responsible for the slowness, backwardness and vulnerability of China’s national development. Still other scholars have affirmed, on the pretext of extolling unity, that Manchu nobles, in cooperation with the Han gentry landlords, suppressed the fiery peasant uprising. According to this view, Li Zicheng and his Dashun regime were negative force that hindered social unity. 2 The properties of the regimes of Da Shun and Da Xi. As in the case of studies of other large historical peasant uprisings, studies of the history of the peasant war at the end of the Ming raise the issue of the class attributes of the resulting regimes. Some studies argue that the regime established by a peasant uprising could only be a feudal one. First, the peasant rebels were unable to transform the economic base of feudalism, and on this basis, any regimes established were inevitably feudal in accordance with the principle that the economic base determines  the  superstructure. Second, the peasants themselves were royalists and had no objection to the power of the landlord class headed by a good emperor. Therefore, the regimes established by the peasants, no matter in form or in substance, would merely revert to the feudal regime. If there was any difference between the old and new regimes, it was only between a decadent falling regime and a newly rising one. Third, in order to support their idea, the rebels also enumerated the desired constituents of their officials and the forms of their organization. There were no essential distinctions between the regimes established by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and the late Ming’s political authority at all levels. Other scholars think that, in the process of the uprising, the rebels could sometimes establish peasant political power (i.e. revolutionary power), representing the peasants’ interests. This kind of peasant political power, because it did not represent or introduced a new mode of production, was impossible to consolidate, and it was usually destroyed by the landlord class or transformed into the political power of the landlord class. As far as the peasant war at the end of Ming was concerned, the political powers established by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were, on the whole, still the peasant revolutionary powers until the fall of their regimes, for their policies were to protect the poor peasants’ interests and their target was the landlord gentry force. But the Da Shun and Da Xi regimes, like other peasant revolutionary powers in history, were more or less marked by feudalism from their

Guide to study of Ming history  197 beginning, and later, quickly or slowly, moved toward transformation by the feudal powers. Therefore, in the analysis of the nature of these regimes, we must pay attention to its mainstream, that is, the social groups their implemented policies favored. While discussing the transformation of the peasants’ power, scholar have introduced some new ideas in recent years. In previous studies, it was generally considered that the main causes of the deterioration of the peasants’ power were the influences from the literati of the landlord class who joined in the rebel army. In the new point of view, it is thought that the main causes of the deterioration of peasant power lay in the class characteristics of the peasants themselves. In other words, they were the laborers and the exploited, which determined their inevitable uprising when they were cruelly oppressed and driven into the corner by the landlord class and the imperial authority; however, the peasants were also small proprietors whose mentality of private ownership was held in common with that of the landlord class. Therefore, with their military victories in succession and their torchbearers’ positions improved by degrees, their mentality of private ownership grew stronger. That was the internal, subjective cause of the metamorphosis of the torchbearers of the peasant uprising, while the influence of the feudal literati was at most an external objective cause. 3 On the question of “Roving robberism (Liukouzhuyi).” This term was rooted in the period of the Second Revolutionary Civil War (1924–1927) and connotes the following: (1) no desire to establish a consolidated base; (2) yearning to go to the metropolis for spending and feasting; (3) expanding the army by recruiting deserters and traitors. Huang Chao, the torchbearer in the late Tang, and Li Zicheng, in the late Ming, were censured as representatives of the “roving robbers.” In recent years, some historians have disapproved of using the term “roving robber,” and have pointed out that it began as a derogatory term in the feudal historical record, which was frequently used to blame the peasants for the failure of their uprisings; thus, it counted for little for us to turn the pejorative word of slander into a kind of ideology of mobile warriors. If we take seriously the study of the peasant uprisings, including the one led by Li Zicheng, it can be seen that in the course of many historical peasant uprisings, the mode of mobile fighting was a kind of military tactic that had to be adopted under the circumstances of a great disparity between the uprising peasants and the government army. It was designed to strike the enemy’s weakest point and to avoid confronting its strongest one. The rebel armies led by Li Zicheng et al. after the long hard fight, wiped out some of the main force of the government army. Thereafter, they tried their best to establish their own political power and to hold on to the fruits of their victory. Thus, there is little evidence that they did not care about establishing and consolidating their local authority.

198  Guide to study of Ming history 4 On the question of the “land equalization and tax exemption (Juntianmianfu)” policy. Since the foundation of New China, history scholars have had extensive discussions of the “land equalization and tax exemption” implemented during the uprisings led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. On the issue of land equalization, there are roughly three viewpoints. (1) According to Chujie Jilue (In a calamity record it briefly), Gu’er Yutian Lu (The orphaned call on heaven to record), and sporadic records from the archives and other documents, it can be asserted that Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong both implemented the policy of expropriating big land owners and distributing the land equally to the landless. At that time, the peasant wars were still fiercely in progress, the political powers of Da Shun and Da Xi were soon to be destroyed by the landlord class and the size of the area where land equalization was implemented still needs further study. It cannot be denied, however, that the policy was implemented. (2) It was thought that during the Ming and the Qing, the “land equalization” was simply a substitute word for the averaging of taxes and corvée, and records that Li Zicheng carried out “the policy of land equalization for all whether gentle or simple” pertained to this case. In this view, as for the peasants taking over and working the aristocratic gentry’s land, it was merely a spontaneous behavior of the peasants themselves rather than a policy enacted by Da Shun power. The described situation in Chujie Jilue could explain only that after the Dashun County magistrates took office, were peasants allowed to “reclaim” their own land annexed by the landlords, and this cannot be taken as the confiscation of the land and property from the landlords and equal allocations to the peasants. It was just an isolated case, not a policy widely adopted that in Changde, the peasant rebels led by Zhang Xianzhong were ordered to investigate the lands of Yang Sichang, the grand secretary of the Ming, and return them to the peasants. (3) It was true that the authorities of Dashun and Daxi enacted no statutes for land equalization; however, as a result of the sweeping victories of the peasants’ war, the seigniors, royal kinsmen, eunuchs and bureaucratic landlords who had occupied an enormous amount of land either fled or died. Additionally, with the overthrow of the Ming and the termination of the late Ming surtaxes and corvée, the problem of the peasants’ land ownership was solved to a large extent. In other words, from transformations in land possession before and after the uprising, the peasant wars at the end of Ming did address and partly solve the land problem. Some scholars think that the grain tax exemption for three years put forward by Li Zicheng was universally practiced by Da Shun up to its defeat at Shanhai Pass and its withdrawal to Shaanxi. The records from all regions proved that no taxes were levied during the ascendancy of the Da Shun regime. It was just because of this that, in order to acquire provisions and funds for the rebel troops and for their political authorities at all levels, measures were taken by the rebels to make the official gentry disgorge their

Guide to study of Ming history  199 spoils and to issue pay for the soldiers, in addition to taking over the treasuries of the Ming central and local authorities and confiscating the noble family’s property. Not until their retreat to Xi’an in June 1644 did the Da Shun authorities start to collect taxes by “issuing a general order for the exemption of official gentry” due to the situational change. Other historians believe that Da Shun political power allowed only limited tax breaks and never implemented a policy to cease levying taxes completely. 5 The roles played by Zhang Xianzhong’s rebel army in the peasant war at the end of Ming. Some scholars have thought that among historians there was an inclination to “appreciate Li Zicheng and depreciate Zhang Xianzhong,” and so they wanted to highlight Zhang Xianzhong’s role. But others did not think there was or should be any appreciation or depreciation of Li or Zhang, but rather there should be sound judgment and respect for the facts in accounting for and evaluating Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. These scholars also believe that we should pay more attention to the other peasant armies and the mass struggles against the Ming to avoid reducing the whole history of peasant wars at the end of the Ming to the campaigns’ two leading figures, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. With regard to the study of Zhang Xianzhong, it made greater progress since the foundation of the New China. For example, aimed at the groundless allegation that Zhang Xianzhong’ army slaughtered more than 60,000,000 people in Sichuan, Yuan Tingdong and Hu Shaoyi published two crucial articles to clarify the truth through research.21 In March 1980, some domestic historians were invited to Chengdu for a seminar on “Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan,” by the editorial department of the journal of Social Sciences Research in the Institute of Social Science in Sichuan, after which a collection of papers was published. This meeting played a major role in pushing forward the studies on the issues of Zhang Xianzhong’s historical position, the so-called “tushu” (the slaughter in Sichuan) and the causes of the Da Xi army’s failure. On the evaluation of some historical figures in the Ming Since the foundation of the New China, there have been many treatises published on a few noted or controversial figures from the Ming, but there has been insufficient research on many others who played comparatively greater positive or negative roles in history, and there has been no research on a few of them. From the published works so far, the more controversial figures are as follows. 1 Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang, temple name Taizu (Great ­Ancestor), as the founder of the Ming dynasty and its foundational systems, had profound and lasting influence on the whole polity and even on the successor Qing. It is because of this that he has received widespread

200  Guide to study of Ming history attention from the academic community. The Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang by Wu Han was a pioneering work; it was followed by many articles, the more controversial one, published in the 1960s, was on Zhu’s transformation. In recent years, studies have focused on the impact of his policies during his time and later on. Some scholars considered that Zhu Yuanzhang’s achievements during his reign should be fully ­affirmed, and that his positive contributions to social progress should be emphasized, including strengthening national unification, maintaining social stability, combating powerful forces and corrupt officials, protecting the owner-peasant economy and commerce, valuing the reclamation of unworked land and the conservation of water and so forth. Others pointed out that while affirming his achievements, we should also take into account the negative effects of his actions. For example, with the help of state authority, Zhu imposed hereditary military service on all kinds of households, and placed numerous rigid restrictions on social activities, which, consequently, resulted in the whole society becoming stagnant. Another example was that foreign trade in the Yuan dynasty was quite well developed, but the maritime ban imposed by Zhu Yuanzhang, although designed to protect the coastal residents, obstructed the channels of foreign trade and restricted the growth of the commodity economy. From a macro-angle, the negative effects of the policy of the maritime ban greatly exceeded its limited positive effects. Moreover， at the beginning of the Ming, the destruction and suppression of the feudal literati were quite cruel, and resulted in cultural desolation during the Hongwu reign. An exception was the cursorily written Yuan History based on documents left by the Yuan imperial court and some official books written by Ming Taizu himself and the courtiers instructed by him. Some scholars have had reservations about what they have considered to be exaggerated charges that Zhu Yuanzhang ­enforced the laws too strictly and sacrificed consanguinity for the sake of righteousness, and they consider such allegations to be propaganda, not in line with the truth. They also have pointed out that Zhu Yuanzhang frequently gave unjust verdicts and slaughtered many accomplished officials and innocent people to maintain the rule of his descendants, who did not deserve to be affirmed in power. In short, Ming Taizu became a model tyrant whose example was unfortunately followed by the later emperors. 2 Zhu Di. As for Ming Chengzu, it was pointed out in many writings that the Jingnan War was the consequence of the intensified internal contradictions in the ruling group, that the wars between the uncle and his nephew were actually caused by Ming Taizu and that neither side of the war should be blamed too much. With regard to Zhu Di’s achievements after his enthronement, such as the establishment of the capital in Beijing, the construction of the grain canal, the five expeditions he personally led into Mongolia, the establishment of the Nurgan Regional

Guide to study of Ming history  201 Military Commission, the consolidation of the unity of Ming and its social stability, the dispatch of Zheng He’s voyages and the organized compilation of the Yongle Dadian (Yung-lo Encyclopedia), all of these show that Zhu Di was a greatly accomplished ruler in our history. In recent years, some scholars, after probing the conditions of the political, economic, military and classes in the Yongle reign, brought forward a new view. While fully affirming Ming Chengzu’s achievements, we have to notice that, during his twenty-two years in power, he excessively misused the human and material resources of the state, and the military and government officials began to be corrupt, which promptly intensified class contradictions and had negative effects on economic development at the time. 3 Shi Kefa. Among evaluated figures in the Ming period, Shi Kefa was more controversial. Some scholars argued  strenuously that he was an outstanding national hero. They discussed all sorts of evidence that he was an incorruptible, dedicated and deeply respected official, most prominently after the Qing army occupied Beijing. In the otherwise thoroughly corrupt Hongguang court, he was a towering figure who endured humiliation and was blamed for mediating a variety of disputes inside the imperial court and among warlords. In organizing the defense of Yangzhou, he was mentally and physically exhausted, and was finally martyred for his motherland. According to one biographer, “The Anti-Qing struggle led by Shi objectively accorded with the interests of the people and reflected the demands and aspirations of the people.”22 Others disapproved of what they considered to be the exorbitantly high evaluation of Shi. During and after the Chongzhen reign, Shi took an active part in suppressing the peasant uprisings. When the Qing army occupied Beijing and continued the policy of ethnic conquest, he joined Ma Shiying who wielded the scepter over major issues in court, and pinned his hopes on “uniting captives from the north to exterminate the invaders.” Not until the Qing army’s campaign south to the Huai and Jiang valleys did governor Shi organize a sound defense. They also pointed out that, based on Shi’s will and other works written at that time, the bloody battle for Yangzhou did not last as long as ten days, as was suggested in one influential account. The only certainty was that he refused to surrender after he was captured and died a martyr for the Ming, which was a tragedy. Ultimately, it was inappropriate to take him as an outstanding national hero.23 On studies of Ming geography So far, studies of the geography of the Ming period have been relatively weak and have focused disproportionally on certain areas. There were comparatively more studies of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission, the Liaodong Regional Military Commission, as well as its subordinate

202  Guide to study of Ming history garrison establishment and jurisdiction in the northeast. There was also an emphasis on the opening up of Taiwan and Penghu in the southeast. There were fewer studies of the northwest and southwest regions. Tan Qixiang, in volume seven of his The Historical Atlas of China, laid the foundations of Ming historical geography. Administrative divisions and economic development shifted constantly during the Ming, making it impossible to map the polity by merely depicting administrative territories at any one time. In the early Ming, Provincial Administration Commissions, directly administered municipalities and Regional Military Commissions, together administered the realm, but after the mid-Ming, a considerable part of the area under the jurisdiction of the military system was gradually taken over by administrative agencies. The complex result is impossible to map and is still unfamiliar to many historians. On another front, much research has been done on the replacement of native officials by centrally appointed bureaucrats (gaituguiliu), especially during the Yongzheng reign (1723–1735). There have been many fewer elaborations on the functions of the native offices and their evolution in the Ming. Current topics of research include the development of agriculture (subsistence farming, commercial crops, stock breeding, fisheries, etc.), the development of industry (handicrafts, mining, salt, river and canal transport and business), the rise of the cities and towns in Jiangnan, the development of some mountain areas and the offshore islands and the flows in population. Preliminary research on polity-wide transportation and communication needs to be further pursued. On the issues of the Ming’s ethnic minorities and religions Some Ming officials and scholars left quite a few treatises on ethnicity. After the foundation of the New China, historians have conducted comprehensive studies of ethnic relations, and have looked into the relations between the Han majority and the various ethnic minorities during the whole Ming dynasty. On the basis of systematic data, the historians have drawn a new conclusion: during the 276 years of the Ming dynasty, friendly exchanges, solidarity and progress among all ethnic groups were the mainstream of history. Several early Ming rulers, such as Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, who early on dispatched generals or went in person to fight with the Mongols, came to treat the Mongol issue as a domestic ethnic one. The historical facts also demonstrate that during the Hongwu and Yongle reigns, many effective measures were taken for uniting the Mongol tribes. In the early Ming, especially in the Yongle reign, many Mongol generals were elevated and reused, and their subordinates were also properly appointed to office. The Mongol officers’ salaries were generally higher than those of the Han officials. These preferential policies strengthened the centripetal force of the Mongolian nationality and contributed to the unification of the empire under the Ming. Zhao Lisheng once correctly pointed out that Ming Chengzu was “open-minded,” “had little thought of racism,” did not discriminate

Guide to study of Ming history  203 against the Mongols and was the most active policy-maker for the Western regional relations.24 As for the relationship between the Han and the Manchus, we must say it was good in general. The establishment of Nurgan Regional Military Commission and the Regional Military Commissions strengthened friendly exchanges between the Manchus and the Han and stabilized Ming dominance in Liaodong and the Heilongjiang river valley. The rise and prosperity of the Manchus in the late Ming was closely related with their long-time gradual absorption of the advanced Han culture and life style. In the southwest, Ming Taizu carried forward elements of the Yuan system, and implemented the policy of coexistence of Han officials and native offices in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, which not only maintained the unity of the country, but also accorded with the interests of the minority chieftains in the Southwest. In brief, the current researches on the relations of all ethnic groups in the Ming are not thorough enough, but in the overall understanding, we extricated ourselves from the negative influence of the feudal historical records. For one thing, Ming history is now understood to be the joint creation of multiethnic groups; for another, based on historical facts, the mainstream of ethnic relations was identified as friendly exchanges, suggesting significant progress in the study of the Ming history. Previous studies have offered only a few descriptions of specific issues relating to Ming Taizu, Chengzu and Yingzong. In recent years, more important progress has been made in the study of the evolution of religion in different periods of the Ming political and social life. For example, a traditional view in the past was that the Ming founder was a monk in his youth and that he took advantage of some monks and Daoist priests before and after his enthronement. Among officials’ memorials to the throne during Hongwu reign, there were some that admonished others for stopping Zhu Yuanzhang from revering Buddhism, which led to the misunderstanding that Buddhism had once enjoyed special treatment in the early Ming court. As a matter of fact, during the Hongwu reign, Buddhism and Daoism were quite strictly restricted, their religious activities were almost completely under the control of the authorities, the sizes of temples and Daoist abbés was small and the forces of the monks and the Daoists were very small. There was not much change before the Xuanzong reign. After Yingzong, the social climate of having blind faith in Buddhism spread, and the temple economy increased. On Sino–foreign relations in the Ming One of the characteristics of Ming history was our (i.e. China’s) frequent and extensive association with overseas countries. Since the foundation of the New China, the study of these relations has been highly valued. Studies have focused on three issues: firstly, Zheng He’s voyages; secondly, Japanese pirates during the Jiajing (1522–1566) and Longqing (1567–1572) reigns; thirdly, the European Jesuits in China from the late Ming to the early Qing. The present research situations can be described as follows.

204  Guide to study of Ming history 1 Zheng He’s Voyages. The oceangoing voyages led by Zheng He during the period from Yongle to Xuande in the Ming are of significance not only in Chinese history but also in world history. They were symbols of the powerful and prosperous early Ming as well as of its leading position in the world. First of all, we should affirm the multifaceted substantive progress in the research on Zheng He’s voyages since the foundation of the New China, including collating and publishing relevant historical records and data and exploring the general picture and details of previous voyages as well as the life stories of Zheng He and others. All of that is admirable. However, there are different opinions on certain issues. The greatest disagreement is over the motives of the imperial court in dispatching Zheng He to the southern oceans in the first place. Some scholars still agree with what was recorded in the old historical documents, that Ming Chengzu ordered Zheng He to sale to the West Ocean, because he suspected that his nephew, Jianwen, whom he had deposed and replaced on the throne, had somehow survived and escaped overseas. In order to eliminate future challenges to his authority, he dispatched Zheng He as the head of a large number of sailors to at all costs track Jianwen to the ends of the earth. For example, in A Brief Compilation of China’s General History, written by Fan Wenlan, it is said that the intention of Zheng He’s voyage was “mainly to search for Zhu Yunwen.” More recently, such an explanation has been discarded by most scholars. At present, there are several other explanations of Zheng He’s voyages to the West: (1) First, other domestic political needs. Those who hold this view think that, because Ming Chengzu seized the throne by force and was widely charged with usurpation, he took a series of measures to enhance his legitimacy. They included the restoration of Taizu’s old system of government, the reuse of officials who had been dismissed by Jianwen, the gathering of a large number of literati to compile Yongle Dadian and the dispatch of Zheng He to the Western Ocean with special products and gifts. By means of this last measure, Chengzu was able to attract many foreign countries’ ambassadors to pay return visits and pay respects. In the words of one historian, “To restore and develop the political relations between the Ming government and overseas countries was the main goal of Zheng He’s voyages.”25 Therefore, Zheng He’s voyages were not the outcome of socioeconomic development in the early Ming and were not designed to open up overseas markets. (2) The goal of Zheng He’s voyages was to establish and expand the “Tributary  trade,”26 that is, the Ming rulers’ bestowal of silk and porcelain on foreigners in exchange for special tributes from them to satisfy the desire of the feudal rulers for political recognition. This kind of trade method violated the laws of the commodity economy and was a reversal of the more developed folk goods trade in the Song and the Yuan periods. It was beneficial only in consolidating the centralized feudal system, and it seriously hindered the development of the social economy. (3) In a third view, Zheng He’s voyages adapted to

Guide to study of Ming history  205 the requirements of the socioeconomic development at that time and formed an important link in the long history of China’s overseas trade. It did have a strong political color, but we should not, because of this, ignore its direct relations with the contemporary socioeconomic development. (4) In a fourth view, Zheng He paid visits abroad as a friendly envoy of the Chinese government. Ming Chengzu sent Zheng He to voyage on the South Seas as far as Africa “to deepen the political friendship with the Asians and Africans and to communicate the splendid civilization of the Chinese people.” When Zheng He’s fleet arrived in another country, they carried out some trade, but “it was just a subordinate means for promoting friendship, not a major motive.”27 (5) A fifth view is that Ming Chengzu dispatched Zheng He to the oceans to contact countries in West Asia so as to thwart the eastern expansion of Tamerlane’s ­empire.28 Although this point of view tried to place Zheng He’s voyages in a broader international context, it lacked strong factual foundations and attracted little support. 2 “Japanese pirates” during the Jiajing (1522–1566) and Longqing (1567– 1572) reigns. Disagreements over this issue focused mainly on what kind of force the so-called “Japanese pirates” was after the mid-Ming. Some thought that “Japanese pirates” “represented a system of looting everywhere with the support of the Japanese feudal lords using their commercial capital,” and this kind of foreign force colluded with Chinese “frenzied pirates and hooligans,” rushing hither and thither to harass the Chinese people everywhere, inflicting disaster and pain on them, actions which were hard to put into words. The patriotic generals Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou led the Ming armies to annihilate the Japanese pirates and accelerated Ming social development. The wars were therefore progressive and just; they constituted a glorious chapter in the history  of  the Chinese people’s struggle against foreign aggression and oppression.29 In recent years, some historians have conducted research from a new perspective, considering that “the Japanese p ­ irates” during the Jiajing and Longqing reigns were actually “those Chinese people in the southeast coastal area, who were struggling against the cruel exploitation and oppression of the feudal landlord class and against the policy of forbidding maritime commerce, thus engaging in revolutionary activity, ….”30 Before this, Lin Renchuan had pointed out in his “The Ming Merchants’ Private  Sea  Commerce and ‘the Japanese ­Pirates’”31 that “the war to defend against ‘the Japanese Pirates’ during the Jiajing reign (1522–1566) was a struggle between ‘maritime-ban’ and anti-‘maritime-ban’, i.e. between oppression and anti-oppression, between exploitation and anti-exploitation.” The torchbearers and most of their members were bankrupt peasants, handicraftsmen, townspeople and merchants, “the real ‘Japanese pirates’ were only ten percent or so,” including “Japanese islanders” mustered by the Chinese coastal residents to “scare” the feudal rulers. Therefore, “the Japanese Pirates” should be reconsidered; in essence, they were

206  Guide to study of Ming history virtually the anti-feudal movement participated in by the peasants and the civilians allied with the people of all classes in the southeast coastal area in the budding period of capitalism within the feudal society. According to Dai Yixuan, the wars were between those who supported the maritime ban and those who struggled against it. Wang Zhi and others who were stigmatized as “Japanese Pirates” were actually Chinese “skilled in overseas trade, good at sea navigation, and full of risk-taking spirits. Because of all of this they were the group of Chinese people with the broadest horizons and the most liberal ideas in the Ming Dynasty.” “Wang Zhi should have been awarded a Citation for Merit,” and “it was a historical tragedy for him to be suppressed.”32 3 The European Jesuits’ activities in the late Ming and their historical roles. On this there are roughly three kinds of opinions: the first one is basically affirmative. It is thought that the European Jesuits came into China from the late Ming to the early Qing mainly for religious activities; thus, they should not be regarded as the same as the Western colonialists who invaded China after the mid-Qing. Since in that Western world there were more advanced  science and technology, the European Jesuits, in order to gain the Chinese authorities’ favor and the right to work in China, introduced advanced knowledge of astronomy, the calendar (calculation), geography, firearms, mechanics, paintings and so forth. As China at the time faced intensified class contradictions and ethnic conflict, it was an objective necessity to introduce Western science and technology. In fact, the scientific and cultural knowledge brought by the Western missionaries was rapidly spreading in China, as the feudal officials and the literati actively learned and promoted it, and it caused a huge echo in Chinese ideological and cultural circles. If this momentum had not been interrupted, it would have had an immeasurable impact on Chinese scientific and technological progress and on the whole society. The second view is that the scientific and cultural knowledge brought by the Western missionaries should not be overvalued. They pointed out that the Western Jesuits, against the background of Western colonialism, came into China, not to lead China into the ranks of the world’s advanced countries but to pave the way for the Western colonialist forces to invade China along with their religious activities. They also noted that the science and technology they taught was quite limited and did not represent the most advanced knowledge of Western countries. In recent years, there has appeared a third view that the Jesuits’ activities in China “should be evaluated as one dividing into two,” that is, “while we are exposing the background and purpose of their coming to China, we also should affirm their positive roles in China,” including the “introduction of Western science and culture into China” and the “objective promotion of the scientific and cultural communication between the West and China.”33 Someone else pointed out that we

Guide to study of Ming history  207 ought to take an analytical attitude toward the missionaries to China. “There were great differences between Matteo Ricci coming in the late 16th century and Timothy Richard in the late 19th century. We have no right to indiscriminately consider and scold them as equal.”34 On Ming culture Ming culture occupies a prominent position in Chinese cultural history. In literature, the full-length novels, such as The Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and Plum Flower in a Golden Vase, and the short stories, such as “San Yan” and “Liang Pai,” and the dramas, such as “Yu Ming Tang’s four dreams,” all have epoch-making significance. In philosophy and social thought, the various schools represented by Wang Yangming and Li Zhi not only influenced contemporary conditions but also exerted a profound and lasting impact on future generations. In science and technology, as we have seen, Li Shizhen’s General Pharmacopeia, Song Yingxing’s The Creations of Nature and Man, Xu Guangqi’s Complete Handbook of Agricultural Administration, Xu Hongzu’s Xu Xia Ke’s Travel Diaries, all enjoy high reputations at home and abroad. In historiography, we have noted that it has produced many local gazetteers, a staggering number of unofficial histories, official documents and individual collected works. In particular, the Yongle Encyclopedia was an incomparably monumental reference book in world history up to that time. All of them marked a new level of our historical/ cultural development. Here are some brief introductions to major pieces: 1 Literature. First of all, it should be mentioned that The History of Chinese Literature by You Guoen and others, and The History of Chinese Literature by the Institute of literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, both based on the studies of Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo, focused on the new achievements. They not only comprehensively narrated Ming literature, but also gave readers an insight into its historical status, inheriting the past and preparing for the future. With regard to thematic studies, they mainly concentrated on the representative works. For example, an amazing number of articles were published on The Water Margin. Nevertheless, on the study of this well-known classical novel, little progress has been made so far on some basic questions. For example, who was the author of the Water Margin, Luo Guanzhong or Shi Nai’an? When was it finished, in the early Ming or in the midMing? What was the author’s creative intention? Which periods and mentalities of the society are displayed by the main characters and plots depicted in the novel? There exist many difficulties in explaining these issues. In recent years, the study of the Water Margin has been developing in depth and breadth, as scholars headed by those in Hubei and Jiangsu provinces have held symposia and published collections of papers on The Water Margin.

208  Guide to study of Ming history In research on Ming novels and dramas, discussions have focused on the so-called citizen (shiminwenxue) literature. Some scholars have thought that the novel Plum Flower in a Golden Vase (The Golden Lotus) and the short stories in San Yan and Liang Pai as well as legendary drama in the middle and late Ming possessed the strong flavor of citizens. These stories were enjoyed by the citizen class because some of them reflected their lives and some of them offered a bright feature of individual emancipation. The authors and readers embraced the sprouts of capitalism in the socioeconomic field, and with their mutual reflections, the texts should naturally be called citizen literature. Other scholars, who disagreed with the very existence of a citizen class shaped in the middle and late Ming, naturally denied that there was citizen thought and citizen literature in the Ming. Nonetheless, even those who held the latter view still considered that many elements in the novels and dramas reflected the social life of the time and had high literary value and historical significance. Generally speaking, in academic circles, there are more studies on the Ming’s novels and dramas, and fewer on the various schools of orthodox literature boosted by the Ming literati. From the standpoint of today’s readers, it is true that they have taken in far more cultural nutrition from the former than from the latter; however, the historians are supposed to take those various schools of orthodox literature as a constituent part of a social and cultural form to study, and in this way, to correctly explain why they were able to enjoy a high prestige and great reputation in the literal world at that time. 2 The history of thought (Sixiangshi). In philosophy, with the dramatic social changes, there appeared a great number of famous thinkers. In The General History of Chinese Thought vol. 4, issue 2, and in some chapters of its vol. 5, edited by Hou Wailu, the philosophical views of the Ming’s thinkers were systematically expounded.35 As far as the published articles are concerned, they mainly centered on the evaluations of the philosophical thought of Wang Yangming and other enlightening thinkers, especially Li Zhi in the late Ming. With regard to Wang Yangming’s philosophical thought, domestic scholars usually took a sharp and critical attitude toward it and pointed out that his ideological system was subjective idealism and that his purpose was to oppose the peasants’ uprising so as to maintain the feudal rule of the landlord class. In recent years, some have pointed out that the total denial of Wang’s thought was incorrect. They considered that Wang Yangming “took man’s conscience as the criterion to judge the right from the wrong in order to break out of the bondage of traditional thought,” “which fulfilled the function of breaking superstition and emancipating the mind at that time.” Objectively, Wang’s philosophy was beneficial to the development of materialism and progressive thought.36 Foreign scholars have always paid high attention to Song-Ming neo-Confucianism, including Wang

Guide to study of Ming history  209 Yangming’s philosophy. In Japan, the treatises on Wang Yangming have been emerging in an endless stream from the end of 19th century to the present;37 also, some American scholars did research on Wang. In general, they disapproved of making a choice between idealism and materialism simply based on the criteria of each of them. Instead, they believed that Wang Yangming’s philosophy marked a new developmental stage of Chinese classical philosophy, and his ideological system not only exerted a significant impact on the thinkers of that time but also continue to have influence today and are worth studying and carrying forward. With regard to the enlightened thought of Li Zhi and others, it has been one of the central topics of concern in historical and philosophical studies since the foundation of the New China. On the origins of the enlightened thought, there have been a lot of different views. Some have thought that it was a reflection of the evolution of Chinese society itself in the ideological circles, that is, it was the product of the budding of capitalism in China. These scholars usually associated the enlightened thought closely with the civic thought, and deemed it to be the sublimation of civic thought. Another group of scholars denies the emergence of capitalism and of a citizen class in China at that time. In these scholars’ eyes, the enlightened thought reflected the decline of Chinese society, the appearance of a variety of increasingly sharp social contradictions and a proliferation of critical attitudes taken by some insightful men in ideological circles. These kinds of enlightened thoughts may be utilized later by some people who claimed to develop capitalism in China, but it was not in itself the product of budding capitalism. Still, it is thought that the emergence of the enlightenment thinkers in the late Ming was closely related with the development of the communication between the West and China. They pointed out that many of the enlightened thinkers were directly or indirectly affiliated with the Jesuits, and they employed the Jesuits’ learning to challenge Chinese traditional stereotypes as incompatible with the Jesuits’ teachings. The full range of traces between Chinese thinkers and the Jesuits remains to be found out. In recent years, the peasants’ thought has been discussed. On many occasions from the Hongwu reign to the fall of the Ming, torchbearers of peasant uprisings often took Chanping Wang (the Shovel King) as their own title.38 In the late Ming slave uprisings, there was egalitarian thought calling for breaking out of the dependence on feudalism, and that thought was reflected in the teachings of a variety of secret associations which have drawn researchers’ attention. Li Zicheng’s thought was once discussed in the Journal of Social Science Research in Guangdong. Since this research involved such significant topics as whether the peasants, the overwhelming majority of the population in the feudal society, actually had their own thought, a new road was opened up for probing into the study on the history of thought. But relevant documents were limited, and achievements so far are unremarkable.

210  Guide to study of Ming history 3 Historiography. With regard to Ming historiography, it has been not highly evaluated, for there supposedly were no first-rate monumental historical works, but this view was probably a little one-sided. The major feature of Ming historiography was its multiplicity. For one thing, there were quite a number of literati who aspired to write contemporary annals of the Ming, and they obtained a considerable achievement. Wang Shizheng was one of the best. For another thing, Ming literati were concerned about various social problems, diligently collected data, traced sources, compiled books and probably went beyond their predecessors in these respects. Numerous materials were available for the study of almost any social problem. In particular, local gazetteers, the records for specialized issues (e.g. Houhu Zhi (Gazetteer of Houhu), Nanyong Zhi (Gazetteer of Nanyong), Nanjing Hubu Zhi (Record of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue), Wubei Zhi (Record of Military Preparations)), various kinds of collected works and literature collections, as well as manuscripts and unofficial historical records built up a huge cultural treasure house. Even now we are still amazed at the Ming people’s broad horizons and interests. From the thirty years’ studies, some documents have been sorted out, and a few Ming historians as well as their works have been discussed. However, the studies have not been balanced. For instance, there were not a few articles on Tan Qian and his Guo Que (An Evaluation of the Events of Our Dynasty). But with the decadence of the ruling group and the intensification of domestic class contradictions and ethnic conflicts after the mid-Ming, a group of literati who were the former officials at the court or at the localities, or those with no official career, under the edification of using the classics to serve present needs (jingshizhiyong),39 devoted themselves to summarizing the successes and failures of the current government and spent decades and considerable energy on compiling great works of contemporary history. Nevertheless, serious studies have rarely been made of them, and even insightful reviews have seldom been published.

Future prospects for the study of Ming history When it comes to the future prospects for research on Ming history, several factors should be taken into account. The weakness in research history and status quo The current study of Ming history is unbalanced and has many weaknesses. Roughly speaking, before the foundation of the New China, research on Ming history was rather weak. Except for some lecture notes with an emphasis on political and military activities, researchers conducted fragmentary studies on their topics of interests. After the foundation of the New China, the research force of the Ming history was somewhat strengthened,

Guide to study of Ming history  211 but it was not strong enough. In the past ten years, the research on Qing history has been expanded rapidly, while research on Ming history has not kept up with topics and publications. Longitudinally, works concentrating on the beginning and the end of the Ming account for a large proportion, whereas studies of the period between the Hongxi reign and the Longqing reign are few and far between. Such scarcity indeed reflects the fact that the mid-Ming was ostensibly relatively stable, with no important events shocking the government or the public. However, greater changes took place in the society of the Ming than in any other dynasty in China, and the politics, economy, military affairs and culture at the end of the Ming were greatly different from those at the beginning of the Ming. It is impossible to formulate a scientific discussion on the whole history of the Ming without intensive studies of the middle of the Ming. Horizontally, since the foundation of the New China, the study of Ming history has been confined to some limited issues such as farmers’ uprisings, the seeds of capitalism and a small number of enlightened ideologists. No adequate studies have been conducted on the socio-economy, the relationship among social classes, laws and regulations, ideology and culture, national minorities, foreign relationships and religion, and so we have merely developed a blurred picture of some issues in these fields so far. While pointing out some weaknesses in the existing research on Ming history both longitudinally and horizontally, we should also be aware of weaknesses that exist even in already hot fields in which many works have been published. In fact, although many achievements can be found in the large number of papers which have been published, general surveys account for a large proportion, and the issues deriving from the discussions need further study. For example, a large number of papers have been published on peasant wars, the seeds of capitalism, Zheng He’s voyages to the west and Zhu Yuanzhang policies; however, many issues have not been studied thoroughly. With the academic efforts in the past thirty years, we have attained great progress in studying these issues, and we have some advantages over scholars working overseas. However, more needs to be done to provide human resources to continue academic efforts on the current bases in China so that Chinese scholars’ leading positions on some issues in international studies of Ming history will be maintained. For the aforementioned missions to be accomplished, the priority should be given to developing talent as well as to holding academic conferences to exchange information, distribute the current academic resources properly, foster collaboration with each other, expand the research fields and initiate comprehensive and systematic studies in order to remedy the defects in the current research. Given the fact that researchers have to devote year-afteryear efforts to obtain genuine progress in academic studies, the seminars that were frequently held in a hubbub in the past could only generate a warm atmosphere but could not solve substantive problems. Therefore, while seminars are held, big conferences should revolve around the exchange of

212  Guide to study of Ming history the academic achievements in various fields in the Ming history instead of predetermining a central issue. Small and medium-sized seminars should ­invite those researchers who have really conducted relevant studies instead of inviting anyone as a mere formality. Besides, it is necessary to collate and publish documentation so that the research level will be elevated. Much has been done in this aspect in recent years, and the scholars of Ming history are grateful to the collators and the publishers. However, many important documents in the Ming have not been passed down to the present, and the libraries tend to impose strict limitations on borrowing so to protect the documents, thus bringing inconvenience to the borrowers. Under such circumstances, it is urgent to coordinate human resources and win the support of the relevant government agencies to accelerate the collation and publication of the historical documents of the Ming. When collated, the historical documents should be published as the original work, with no unnecessary abridgment and extraction except on some special occasions. Choosing research projects based on their academic and practical importance 1 Chinese-Western contrastive studies should be emphasized. In recent years, academia has emphasized the position of the Ming dynasty in Chinese history and in the contemporary world.40 This tendency reflects the purpose of conducting studies on the Ming history from a broad perspective instead of considering it in isolation. For a long time, many scholars have attempted to seek the reasons why the feudal society fell into long-term stagnation or developed slowly in China or why the development was broken periodically. They hope to boost the development of China in various fields and avoid detours through summarizing the experience and lessons in the history. The Ming history has naturally become the focus in such explorations. Shortly after the foundation of the New China, Fan Wenlan published a paper discussing the reasons for the long-term stagnation of the feudal society in China, in which most evidence was cited from the Ming dynasty. Such a focus stems from three characteristics of Ming dynasty: (1) It is in the later period of the feudal society that the inherent contradictions typical of the feudal society were unprecedentedly intensified, and with the decline of the dominant old system, the new things inevitably budded in the matrix. (2) The Ming dynasty, which ruled China for almost three centuries, collapsed approximately coincidently with the outbreak of the capitalist revolution in Britain. What conclusion would be derived from the comparison between China and Western Europe within the 300-year period? Did China fall behind at the beginning of the Ming or did it undergo a process from prosperity to decline? If such a process did exist, what was the reason for it? (3) The late Ming is also the period when the colonial forces invaded China from Western Europe

Guide to study of Ming history  213 as well as a period when there were great achievements in Chinese non-­ governmental overseas trade. Both Chinese and foreign scholars have noticed such an important historical fact that China attained foreign trade surplus from the Wanli reign to the Chongzhen reign, with the earned silver coins circulating in the domestic market. If such a situation had persisted, the industry and business would have been greatly stimulated and the capital accumulation would have been accelerated. This contrasted dramatically with the situation in which China was reduced to a place where the Western capitalist powers dumped their goods and obtained raw materials. What was the reason for such a change? Most scholars believe that at the beginning of the Ming, China occupied an advanced position in the world. The great feats of Zheng He’s voyages to the West symbolized that China had surpassed the Western countries in navigation. The widespread application of firearms in the early Ming, especially the establishment of Shenjiying (special troops with firearms) at the beginning of the Yongle reign (1403–1424), verifies that China established an armed unit featuring gunpowder-launched tubular weapons one century earlier than Western Europe. One hundred years later in the middle of the Ming, China lagged behind West Europe in science and technology. However, during this era, the Chinese society also experienced constant transformations. The dynamic commodity economy, the budding capitalism, the desire for shattering the fetter of feudal tradition and the improvement and diversification of firearms can be verified by a large amount of documentation. From the later period of the Ming to the beginning of the Qing, China lagged behind the West in ocean voyages and firearm manufacturing. However, although various factors led to Zheng Chenggong’s recovery of Taiwan and Kangxi’s victory over the Russian invading forces in a just war, such feats also demonstrated that the gap in military technology was not enormous between China and the West. The contrast of these historical facts indicates that the turning point from prosperity to decline occurred approximately within the 400 years from the middle of the Ming to the middle of the Qing. Therefore, the mission of the researchers on the history of the Ming and the Qing is to study the speed of social development in China and the West and to explore the underlying reasons. History has proved that the policies formulated by the dominant hierarchies which hold state power were closely related with the development or the decline of a society, economy and culture. The ruling circles in the Ming and the Qing pursued the policies of emphasizing agriculture and inhibiting industry and commerce, banning maritime trade or intercourse with foreign countries, closing hillsides to prevent exploitation, merchants’ procuring materials for the royal family and court, officials engaging in business and state procuring goods and services. Meanwhile, scholar-officials looted handicraftsmen and merchants for legitimate or illegitimate reasons.

214  Guide to study of Ming history The damages which such policies caused to the Chinese commodity economy have not been studied systematically. The Cheng and Zhu neo-Confucianism and the selection of officials based on eight-legged essays advocated by the ruling circles seriously constrained people’s thoughts and suppressed science and technology, which were excluded from the official culture. In summary, only through multifaceted contrastive studies between China and the West can we discover what forces boosted the advance of history in China and what forces delayed or even disrupted it; what policies adopted by the ruling circles were beneficial to social, economic, military development and what policies obstructed that development. 2 Dynamic study on the Ming history should be emphasized. For a long time, it has been customary to conceive politics, military affairs, institutions, social life, customs and cultures of the Ming as static. Such a conception is closely related to the fact that the annals in the different chapters of Ming History did not narrate clearly the changes in various aspects of the Ming. In fact, in the 270-year history of the Ming, the society experienced drastic changes, which were reflected in various fields. If a researcher of the Ming history only focuses on the hermeneutics of the Ming institutions such as officials, garrisons, taxes and corvée as well as costumes rather than specify what era their hermeneutics corresponded to, he or she has not mastered the history of the Ming polity in a strict sense. Such a situation is demonstrated clearly in the teaching of general history and dynastic history (which refers to the Ming history here) and also exists in disquisitions in which the problem, however, is not serious. Above all, the dynamic study on the whole Ming society has not been really launched. Besides, the disquisitions on the institutions of taxes and corvée and commodity economy tend to be confined to a stage with obvious transformations rather than conducting systematic study on their evolution. For example, the study of the growth and decline of the power of the ruling class in the whole society and in the ruling class itself is not adequate. The current frequently used exemplification clarifies that the drastic land annexation could not reveal the whole picture of evolution of the class structure. It is also true of the situation of merchants and handicraftsmen. How did the commerce and handicraft develop in the Ming? Where did the practitioners come from? What were their business models? What were their relationships with the landlord class, the feudal state and the bankrupt peasants? How did the so-called citizens, miners, pirates and slum dwellers come into being and what role did they play in different stages and regions? All these issues, which are actually related to the speculation about social development in the Ming, cannot reveal the social transformation over the 270-year period without systematic research.

Guide to study of Ming history  215 3 The research on regions, sectors and special subjects should be strengthened. In recent years, many people have frequently argued that both macro-research and micro-research should be equally emphasized. ­Micro-research should be the basis of macro-research; without the synthesis of the results of micro-research, the so-called macro-research will lose its scientific base and researchers will be reduced to making subjective speculations. Therefore, in order to improve the level of the research, the studies of specific issues should be deepened, on the basis of which longitudinal and cross-sectional studies should be launched. ­Micro-research should be strengthened for the following reasons: first, the territory of China is vast with great differences among various regions. Second, due to the diversity of social life, the simple summarization of the Ming politics, military affairs, economy, ideology and culture will confine the research on the Ming history to common sense. Third, China has many ethnic groups. It would be difficult to get rid of banal and insular patterns deriving from the focus on the history of the Han nationality without profound research on the minorities in the Ming. In terms of the feasibility of research, China enjoys exceptional advantages in the historical study of regions, sectors and special subjects, because there is an unrivaled multitude of documents left over by the scholars and the governments of the earlier reigns and the cultural relics revealing different architectural styles and crafts. The number of the cultural relics deriving from the post-Ming period is especially amazing. With the Chinese culture thriving and also with many institutions of research and higher education established and teams of professional and amateur researchers significantly enlarged, the general history of China and the dynastic history of the Ming will become basic subjects and the focus will shift to research on regions, sectors and special subjects. The tradition of local study has existed in China since ancient times, but the resulting texts were manipulated by the landlord class, so such a study never developed into a scientific system. In modern times, some foreign historians have been committed to collecting and sorting out materials on the evolution of the Chinese frontier geography with the apparent purpose of facilitating the imperialists’ invasion of China. In response to such situations, some Chinese patriotic scholars have laid emphasis on the evolution of Chinese frontier geography, proving with indisputable historical facts that the northern, western and southwestern regions of China and many islands to the southeast of China have been parts of Chinese sovereign territory since ancient times. Their ­efforts greatly contribute to the unity and territorial integrity of China. In recent years, out of the desire for an insight into Chinese society, foreign scholars have started a wave of regional research. They concentrate their research on the historical changes in a specific region in China (such as the region around the Taihu Lake, a city or a town to

216  Guide to study of Ming history the south of Changjiang River, or a province or a city or a county). The contents of their research and narration tend to span the period from the beginning of the Ming to the present, with the focus frequently concentrated on a specific field (such as economy and society in most cases). Despite some one-sidedness, this research method is an important means of deepening research and publishing findings. More importantly, strengthening the longitudinal research on regions, which clearly demonstrates the social development of China in epitome, is conducive to the dynamic research on Chinese society since the Ming. For example, in Chinese history, due to natural or man-made disasters, the society was frequently trapped into stagnation or recession, and previously developed regions became desolate, wild and sparsely populated. However, several years later, due to migration, natural reproduction of population, reclamation of virgin or unworked land as well as the policy of rehabilitation implemented by the government to encourage agricultural production (such as levying no taxes for several years, providing peasants with cattle, seeds and farm tools and constructing water conservancy projects), these regions prospered again. Sichuan is a case in point. However, the research on the vicissitudes of Sichuan since the beginning of the Ming is still in the preliminary stage, and the published findings are confined to the reasons for the dramatic decline of the population during the ­p eriod of transition from the Ming to the Qing, to the textual research on “migration from Huguang to Sichuan” and to the development of some economic sectors in Sichuan. I am convinced that with the extending and deepening research efforts, we will make significant progress in the longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of different regions including Sichuan. The regional studies are not confined to the Ming dynasty. In fact, domestic and overseas researchers have conducted systematic ­investigations beyond dynasties. This methodology is conducive to the profound investigation of the evolution of Chinese society, which ­focuses on the research on the tortuous courses and different features revealed in different eras in Chinese society. This involves studying the changes and development of a region in terms of society, population, political organizations, class structure, agriculture, water conservancy, cash crop, cultivation, handicraft, culture, education, public facilities, religion and customs. What should be emphasized in this methodology is quantitative analysis, which means gathering the statistics about a region in different years and studying them contrastively, thus putting our research on a more scientific basis and reflecting the historical changes accurately. The object of a regional study is undoubtedly a preset region, but the different regions were not isolated from each other even in a feudal society, so it is necessary to concentrate on the relationship among the regions, and between them and the outside world. While conducting such studies, the researchers of Ming history should

Guide to study of Ming history  217 widen their visions and pay attention to the longitudinal relationship, thus evaluating accurately the position of the Ming dynasty in the long course of Chinese history. In studies on sectors and special subjects, historians and other scholars have undertaken a large amount of pioneering work and attained some achievements in the studies on the merchants of Huizhou, the bankers of Shanxi, the salt wells in Sichuan, the porcelain of Jingdezhen, the textile industry of Jiangnan, the copper industry of Yunnan, the ancient architecture of the Ming and the Qing, the history of academies, the history of fishery industry and the history of canals. However, many projects are still blank, and some projects on which research has been launched still need to do profound studies. 4 Strengthening studies on the cultural relics, historical sites, cultural objects, garments and customs. Such studies are parts of the studies on special subjects. This part is singled out in order to highlight the urgency of conducting such studies. In recent years, the protection of cultural objects, the rapid development of the tourist industry and the emergence of many literary works on historical themes have posed serious challenges to historians. At present, many renowned key cultural relics and cultural relic protection sites, the symbols of China, such as Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, the premier Chinese classic Yongle Encyclopedia, the treasure of arts and crafts such as cloisonné and Ming porcelain, are all cultural relics of the Ming. Studying them has already become a priority for protecting and employing them. The errors in the literary works on historical themes derive from not only the authors’ or directors’ lack of necessary historical knowledge or lack of consultation with historians, but also from historians’ failure to take the initiative to cooperate and provide commentaries. Historians should improve their academic levels in order to play a role in appraising and protecting cultural relics and explaining and transmitting historical knowledge. As far as the Ming history is concerned, accurate discussion about various social aspects in different eras in the Ming dynasty involves such extensive knowledge that the researchers of the Ming history cannot explain many details. It is impractical and impossible to require researchers of the Ming history to explain the issues on various aspects of Ming society in great detail. However, it is feasible for the research personnel to expand their research fields, to learn about the evolution of the various aspects of the social life in the Ming through specialization and cooperation, to train a group of professionals with basic knowledge of the Ming history as well as distinctive skills in some fields and to compile and write some professional works. 5 The studies on the personages in the Ming should be reinforced. Some personages who have been frequently studied still need profound research so that some questionable points will be eliminated. Besides, the visions of the researchers should be expanded. Those personages who

218  Guide to study of Ming history played a major role in the history or served as a link between the past and the future in some fields should be incorporated into the research plan and studied gradually. Biographical history has a long history in China. The biographies tend to lack accurate temporal information in the historical documentation of the feudal society. The biographical chronicles which have thrived since the Ming and Qing dynasties make up for this deficiency to a certain extent. However, not many ­biographical chronicles have been examined and collated, thus having no scientific value. The studies and evaluations of the historical personages in accordance with the demands of our times cannot depend exclusively on the chronicles compiled by our predecessors. Currently, research on the personages of the Qing dynasty has been off to a good start. Qingdai Renwu Zhuan Gao (Draft Biographies of the Personages in the Qing Dynasty) is being published volume after volume. However, the research on the personages is pale by comparison. The lack of the research on personages has posed some difficulties in some respects. For example, in recent years, when the entries of history in the encyclopedias and various historical dictionaries and biographies are compiled, some problems have emerged in determining the dates of some personages’ births and deaths. Some dates are impossible to determine due to lack of historical materials, but other dates can be examined and determined. Certainly, the determination of the accurate dates of personages’ birth and death as well as their activities is just one of the bases for such research. Any historical personage’s activities could not be isolated from the times and settings in which he or she lived and his or her activities unfolded. Observing an aspect or even a nook of an era through a historical personage’s activities is conducive to the deepening of the research. What is most important about the evaluation of a historical personage is to objectively and specifically analyze his or her role in different eras and in different issues as well as his or her influences on later generations. Guided by the fundamental principles of Marxism, absorbing foreign research methods and academic achievements Looking back at the course of historical studies since the foundation of the New China, we can discover that the academic exchanges with foreign countries have experienced a tortuous process. Long-term self-imposed isolation and lack of contact with the outside world made domestic historians ­almost ignorant of the academic trends in foreign countries, Hong Kong and ­Taiwan. Since the open-door policy was implemented from 1978, ­academic exchanges with the outside world have thrived and historians’ visions have expanded, so a surprising phenomenon conducive to academic prosperity has emerged. In the face of such a new situation, it is necessary to remain sober-minded, adhere to the guidance of Marxist fundamental principles and acquire foreign knowledge and scientific approaches which

Guide to study of Ming history  219 can accelerate academic studies and sublate worthless idealist modes. It is undoubtedly erroneous to ignore the fact that new scientific approaches employed by overseas scholars can be used and the academic achievements attained by them can be introduced. It is naive to indiscriminately admire or even flatter overseas scholars’ historical theories, research methods and published works as examples that should be followed. Much attention should be paid to many studies conducted by overseas scholars on Chinese history, including Ming history, such as the focus on quantitative analysis and regional studies, synthesized research on related disciplines, multilevel and systematic research and microscopic studies with extensive topic designs. In recent years, domestic scholars have many achievements as a result of intensive interest in and use of these methods. We did not conduct adequate studies on some issues in the past, and overseas scholars have pursued studies or compiled materials to introduce such progress to domestic scholars. They will now avoid making detours and doing repetitive work due to ignorance of research trends or even mistaking the issues which overseas scholars have clarified for their own achievements. Besides, learning about the overseas trends in research on Ming history will expand our horizons and help us to plan future research projects more effectively. We approve of academic exchanges to learn from each other. The domestic scholars studying the history of their native country should make great contributions to such exchanges. As mentioned earlier, domestic researchers have unbalanced achievements in studies of Ming history and have their strengths and weaknesses as compared with overseas scholars. Domestic scholars are in the lead in some spheres, while lagging behind their overseas counterparts in other spheres. It is a mission of our time to pay close attention to overseas trends in research on Ming history, to explore new research fields and to strive to enhance our academic achievements. This essay originally ran in Zhongguo Gudaishi Daodu (Introduction to Ancient Chinese History), Shanghai Wenhui Press, September 1991, pp. 389–456. Translated by Ning Ping and Sun Simeng Polished by Roger V Des Forges

Notes 1 See Liu Ziyang, Zhu Jinfu and Li Pengnian, “Gugong Ming Qing Dang’an ­Gailun (Introduction to archives of the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties),” in Qingshi Luncong, vol. 1, Aug. 1979. 2 See Zhou Yuanlian and Xie Zhaohua, “Mingdai Liaodong Junhuzhi Chutan,” in Shehui Kexue Jikan, issue 2, 1980. 3 See Tang Mingsui, Huang Qichen, “Liang Fangzhong,” in Zhongguoshi Yanjiu Dongtai, issue 10, 1981. 4 See both in Wu Han Shixue Lunzhu Xuanji (Selected Historical Essays by Wu Han), published by the Chinese People’s Publishing House, 1984, 9.

220  Guide to study of Ming history 5 Rong Zhaozu, Li Zhi Zhuanji Pipan, 1937; Ji Wenfu, “Li Zhuowu yu Zuopai Wangxue,” in Henan Daxue Xuebao, vol. 1, issue 2, 1934. 6 Ding Wenjiang ed., Xu Xiake Youji, Commercial Press, 1928. 7 Published on Xinmin Congbao, issue 21, 1904, collected into Zheng He Yanjiu Ziliao Xuanbian, China Communications Press, 1985. 8 See Huang Huizhen and Xue Jindu, “Zheng He Yanjiu Bashi Nian” and its bibliography, collected into Zheng He Yanjiu Ziliao Xuanbian. 9 Li Xun, “Shilun Mingdai de Liumin Wenti,” in Shehui Kexue Jikan, issue 3, 1980. 10 Li Xun, “Ming Qing Shiqi Ziben Zhuyi Mengya Fazhan de Jieduanxing Jiqi Tezheng,” in Journal of Northeast Normal University, issue 6, 1981. 11 Lin Renchuan, “Mingdai Siren Haishang Maoyi Shangren yu Wokou,” in Zhongguoshi Yanjiu, issue 4, 1980. 12 Liang Fangzhong, Zhongguo Lidai Hukou, Tiandi, Tianfu Tongji, p. 338. 13 Wu Han, “Ming chu Shehui Shengchanli de Fazhan,” in Lishi Yanjiu, issue 3, 1955. 14 “Essay on Food and Money I,” in the Ming History (Official History of the Ming Dynasty), fascicle 77. 15 “Mingdai de Guantian yu Mintian (‘State and Private Land in the Ming period’),” in Zhonghua Wenshi Luncong (Jounrnal of Chinese Literature and History), issue 1, 1979. 16 See Ming-Qing Shi Guoji Taolunhui Lunwen ji, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1982. 7; see also “Mingmo Shehui yu Wangfu,” in Mingmo Nongmin Fanluan zhi Yanjiu, chap. 3. Sato Fumitoshi, 1985, 5. 17 Terada Takashinobu, “Guanyu ‘Xiangshen’ (On the ‘xiangshen’),” in Ming-Qing Shi Guoji Xueshu Taolunhui Lunwenji. 18 See Shuang Mo, “Jinnian lai Mingdai ‘Jinshen Dizhu’Yanjiu Gaishu,” in Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu Dongtai, issue 9, 1985. 19 In Zhongguo Nongmin Zhanzhengshi Luncong (The Book Series on History of Chinese Peasants War), vol. 4, Henan People’s Publishing House, 1982. 20 Zhongguo Nongmin Zhanzhengshi Luncong (The Book Series on History of Chinese Peasant War), vol. 1, Shanxi People’s Publishing House, 1978. 21 Yuan Tingdong, “Guanyu Zhang Xianzhong Sharen Wenti de Tantao (On the issue of Zhang Xianzhong’ Slaughter),” in Sichuan Daxue Xuebao (Journal of Sichuan University), 1963, 01; Hu Zhaoxi, “Zhang Xianzhong Tu Shu yu Huguang Tian Sichuan Kaobian (Textual Research on Zhang Xianzhong’ Slaughter in Sichuan and Hu Guang Immigration to Sichuan),”in Zhongguo Nongmin Zhanzhengshi Yanjiu Jikan (Research Collection on the History of Chinese Peasant Wars),issue 1, 1979. 22 Li Tingguang, “Shi Kefa de Pingjia Wenti (‘On Evaluation of Shi Kefa’),” in Zhonghua Wenshi Luncong (Jounrnal of Chinese Literature and History), 1979, 01. 23 See Qin Ziqing: “Lun Shi Kefa (‘On Shi Kefa’),” in Yangzhou Shiyuan Xuebao (Journal of Yangzhou Normal College), 1979, 01. 24 Zhao Lisheng, “Mingchao de Xiyu Guanxi (The Western Regional Relations in the Ming Dynasty),” in Dongyue Luncong (Dongyue Tribune), 1980. 01. 25 Zhu Chenguang, “Zheng He Xia Xiyang Mudi de Bianxi (The Analysis of the Purpose of Zheng He’s Voyages),” in Zheng He Xia Xiyang Lunwenji (Paper Collection on Zheng He’s Voyages), vol. 1, China Communications Press, 1985, 06. 26 Tian Peidong, “Mingchao Qianqi Haiwai Maoyi Yanjiu–Jianlun Zheng He Xia Xiyang de Xingzhi,” in Beijing Shifan Xueyuan Xuebao (Journal of Beijing Teachers College), 1983, 04. 27 Hong Huanchun, “Mingchu Duiwai Youhao Guanxi yu Zheng He Xia Xiyang (The Friendly Foreign Relations in the Early Ming and Zheng He’s Voyages),” in Zheng He Xia Xiyang Lunwenji (Paper Collection on Zheng He’s Voyages), vol. 2.

Guide to study of Ming history  221 28 Tamerlane: that is Timur, the first Emperor of a short-lived Timur Empire (1336–1405). Noted by the translator. See Shang Yue’s, Zhongguo Lishi Gangyao (A Concise Outline of Chinese History), p. 305. 29 Li Guangbi, Mingdai Yu Wo Zhanzheng (The Wars Defending the Japanese ­Pirates in the Ming), Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1956. 30 Dai Yixuan, Mingdai Jia (jing) Long (qing) jian de Wokou Haidao yu Zhongguo Ziben Zhuyi de Mengya (The Japanese Pirates during Jiajing and Longqing Reigns in the Ming and the Sprouts of Chinese Capitalism), China Social Sciences Press, 1982. 31 In Zhongguoshi Yanjiu, (Study on Chinese History), issue 4, 1980. 32 Chen Kangsheng, “Jiajing ‘Wo Huan’ Tanshi (Probing into ‘the Threat of the Japanese Pirates’ in Jiajing),” Jianghan Luntan, 1980, 03. 33 Chen Shenru, Zhu Zhengyi, “Shilun Mingmo Qingchu Yesu Huishi de Lishi Zuoyong (On the Jesuits’ Historical Roles in the Late Ming and the Early Qing),” in Zhongguoshi Yanjiu (Journal of Chinese Historical Studies), 1980, 02. 34 Feng Tianyu, “Limadoudeng Yesuhuishi de Zaihua Xueshu Huodong (On the Academic Activities of Matteo Ricci and other Jesuits in China),” in Jianghan Luntan, 1979, 04. 35 Hou Wailu, (1903–1987) Chinese historian, thinker and educator. (noted by the translator). 36 Shen Shanhong, Wang Fengxian, “Wang Yangming Sixiang Pingshu (A Review of Wang Yangming’s Thought),” in Zhejiang Xuekan (Zhejiang Academic Journal), 1980, 01. 37 [Japan]Fukazawa Sukeo, “Riben Xueshujie Youguan Song-Ming Lixue Yanjiu Gaikuang (A Survey on Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism in Japanese Academic Field),” Zhejiang Xuekan (Zhejiang Academic Journal), 1981, 02. 38 Shovel King: Deng Maoqi, the torchbearer of the peasant uprising, with thousands of thousands followers, later, trapped and killed by the government armies. He called himself Shovel King which was frequently used later by rebellion leaders (noted by the translator). 39 jingshizhiyong: it means that learning must be beneficial to the national affairs (noted by the translator). 40 Wang Hongjun, “Zhongguo cong Xianjin dao Luohou de Sanbai Nian (Three Hundred Years from Prosperity to Decline in China),” in Zhongguoshi Yanjiu (Journal of Chinese Historical Studies), 1981, 01; Shen Dingping, “Yong Shijieshi de Yanguang Jiaqiang Ming-Qing Shi de Yanjiu (Strengthening the Studies on the Ming-Qing History from the Perspective of World History),” in Guangming Ribao (Guangming Daily), May 9, 1984.

8 Forty years of studies on the Ming history

Since the founding of the PRC, studies on the history of the Ming dynasty have made considerable progress in both scope and depth. Many scholars believe that the decline of old China, from being advanced to becoming backward, began in the mid-Ming dynasty. This historical reality motivates ­Chinese scholars to reflect and investigate. The Ming dynasty lasted for a long period of 276 years. If we count from Zhu Yuanzhang’s rebellion to the conquest of the last Ming loyalists of the Southern Ming, the dynasty would span over three centuries. The Ming polity was a vast feudal country with multiple ethnicities. It was unified and highly centralized, but at the same time there was a clear imbalance of social, economic and cultural developments in different regions. There are countless issues worth studying and a vast amount of Ming documents available for virtually every research topic. Given the great number of research studies since the founding of the PRC, especially in the last ten years, it is impossible to discuss in one article all the research findings from this period. Therefore, this article will only address topics that have received more interest and attention in academia, focusing on the latest examples of progress.

The social economy of the Ming period Economic development is an important foundation for social development. The social economy of the Ming dynasty is composed of various elements. The ones that have attracted most attention include the development of a commodity economy, the amount of cultivated land and kinds of land ownership, tax and corvée systems, and geographical and social mobility. 1 A commodity economy developed considerably after the mid-Ming. Since the 1950s, academics have carried out heated discussions on the sprouts of capitalism in China and have published many papers. ­Collections of treatises on this topic alone include Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China (two volumes, Joint Publishing, 1957), Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China, Additional

Studies on Ming history  223 Volume (Joint Publishing, 1960), Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in Ming-Qing China (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1981) and Collected Papers on the Sprouts of  Capitalism  in China (Jiangsu ­People’s Publishing House, 1982). The Sprouts of Capitalism in China, the first volume of The History of the Development of Chinese ­Capitalism, edited by Xu Dixin and Wu Chengming and published by People’s Publishing House in 1985, provides a systematic summary of past r­ esearch on the development of the Ming-Qing commodity economy by historians and economists and offers fresh views. Emerging discussions of the economy of Jiangnan towns and Huizhou businessmen indicate that research on the development of Ming-Qing commodity economy has been deepening. Based on studies of a large number of historical documents, these researchers argued that after the mid-Ming, some regions of China witnessed many notable new things in the fields of social economy, ideology and culture, which could be summarized as follows:(1) The commodity economy made much progress compared with the past. The feudal natural economy, characterized by men farming and women weaving, had begun to fall apart due to the impact of inter-regional commodity exchanges. A number of towns emerged in Jiangnan and along major waterways, thanks to a flourishing handicraft industry and commerce. Domestic markets were gradually taking shape. (2) The handicraft industry gradually freed itself from the direct control of the feudal ­authorities and a number of private handicraft workshops emerged. The division of labor in working conditions among and within workshops was gradually promoted. The handicraft sectors, such as silk and cotton textiles, pottery and porcelain, iron making, papermaking and  printing, saw the characteristic modern-day employment relations and a thriving number of merchant employers who organized household labor in capitalist ways. (3) Cash crops such as cotton, mulberry leaves, sugar cane and fruits were widely planted. The commercialization of agricultural produce, including grain, was accelerating. (4) The tax and corvée system began to change in response to the development of the commodity economy, and the dependency of farmers and handicraftsmen on feudal authorities weakened ever more quickly. The growing practice of the handicraftsmen paying money to avoid rotating services in the capital city and the Single Whip Law symbolized the gradual dissolution of the feudal corvée system. (5) As social and economic ­reforms unfolded in the late Ming, merchants enjoyed higher social status, and their pursuit of and influence on cultural life was increasingly noticeable, manifested in the flourishing of enlightenment thought and folk literature. (6) During the Wanli reign, the court sent out a great number of mining-tax collectors in the country, which led to “citizen movements (shiminyundong)” in various regions. To some extent, this shows that merchants, handicraftsmen and some bureaucratic

224  Studies on Ming history officials who were stakeholders in the evolving economy would stand up to protect their own interests. (See various papers for the details of the above arguments.) However, the commodity economy and many new things that showed signs of thriving in the Ming came to a long-term standstill instead of continuing to prosper. Why so? Fu Yiling gives the following reasons: the feudal system of land ownership is the major ­obstacle to the progress of Ming-Qing society; the rulers adhered to the traditional thinking and the policy of “strengthening agriculture and inhibiting commerce,” which stifled people’s aspirations; moreover, the closed-door policy hamstrung China’s economic and cultural development; the practice of primogeniture in Europe and Japan caused many younger sons to seek opportunities in other fields, such as business and commerce, but China’s equal inheritance of property by all sons would not likely lead to class stratification, occupational diversification within families or to the accumulation of wealth.1 Han Dacheng believed there were two main causes for the long-term standstill in Ming: first, the policies of restraining commerce, including the maritime trade ban, and household registrations that were implemented in the feudal country by the centralized authoritarian government; second, cities in China, unlike those in Western Europe, were “fortresses and strongholds for the landlords’ suppression of the people.”2 Although the academic world is divided on almost every issue regarding the emergence of capitalism, discussions on this topic have enriched our studies of the social economy in the Ming. Compared with the near void in research forty years ago, this field has undeniably made major progress. Notable features of research in recent years include general discussions with citations evolving into concrete research focusing on specific fields, industries and regions; strengthened comparative study of the economic development levels and influencing factors in China and Western Europe; and a greater focus on collecting various statistics with a preference for the feasible analysis of data. It could be said that the discussions that started in the 1950s on China’s capitalist sprouts are no longer limited to that topic. The research has expanded to all aspects of Ming-Qing society and economy, and the focus has shifted to studying the twists and turns of China’s social and economic development since the Ming in order to figure out the internal reasons for China’s sluggish growth for nearly five centuries. 2 The statistics of the cultivated land and human population in the Ming dynasty have always been topics of interest in academia. The amount of cultivated land in Ming. According to books such as Ming Veritable Records, during the Hongwu reign, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to surveying land acreage and ordered the compiling of Yellow Registers and fish-scale map registers to verify tax and corvée records. Therefore, scholars usually consider the statistics in the Hongwu years to be the closest to the actual figures.

Studies on Ming history  225 However, according to Veritable Records of Ming Taizu, in the 24th year of the Hongwu reign (1391), China’s farmland amounted to 3,870,000 qing; yet, according to the Rules for Administrators, which was compiled at the instruction of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the land acreage was over 8,490,000 qing in Hongwu 26 (1393), more than two times that of Hongwu 24. As the acreage in the Hongwu reign is directly related to the level of Ming-Qing agricultural and economic development, Chinese and foreign historians have long held divided views on the credibility of the statistics recorded in Rules for Administrators and the same ones in Statutes of the Great Ming and History of Ming, Essays on Food and Money. Most scholars accept the explanations by Japanese scholar Fujii Hiroshi, who believes that the figure of 8,490,000 recorded in Rules for Administrators is not credible and the inflated figure is due to erroneous calculation and inclusion of uncultivated land.3 Wu Han considers it credible that the farmland acreage soared from around 4,000,000 to nearly 8,500,000 because of wasteland cultivation and extensive measurement.4 Liang Fangzhong believes that the great difference in the two figures is because the “definitions of mu in different regions” vary.5 The issue is still under discussion. Another major topic for discussion was the distinction between state land (guantian) and private land (mintian). Studies on this topic mainly focus on the amount of state land in the Ming and its proportion of the national total, heavy taxes in Jiangnan, and the transformation of state land to private land over the course of the Ming. “State Land and Private Land in the Ming Dynasty” (Journal of Chinese Literature and History, volume I, 1979) by Wu Dange is a representative work that gives a comprehensive account of the various categories of Ming state land and their evolution. Wu provided a “table of state and private land nationwide in the 15th year of the Hongzhi reign (1502).” Based on the table, Wu calculated that state land accounted for 14.15% of the national total and the rest was private land; however, he then pointed out that this figure (14.15%) “mainly refers to all kinds of hidden land” and “does not include all kinds of state land.” This is right without any doubt. Yet, some later works just cited the figures in the Statutes of the Great Ming and declared that the Ming state land accounted for 14.15% of the total and private land accounted for 85.85% (as cited above, A History of the Development of Capitalism in China, volume I, p. 50). This shows the necessity for more in-depth studies on government and private land. In terms of works on tax and corvée systems, there are The Tax Captain System of the Ming Dynasty (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1957) by Liang Fangzhong and The Yellow Registers System of the Ming Dynasty (Zhonghua Book Company, 1961) by Wei Qingyuan. Later ­researchers have probed more deeply, mostly by focusing on the heavy taxes in Jiangnan and the Single Whip Law. Regarding the cause of heavy taxes in Jiangnan, some scholars concur with the traditional

226  Studies on Ming history explanations that Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang imposed heavy taxes on the regions he had conquered to punish the local people for helping their leader, the rebel Zhang Shicheng, defend the regions from Zhu to the last, or that the heavy taxes were the result of many landlords’ and gentries’ lands being confiscated and turned into state property while still being taxed as private land. Some other scholars believe that high taxes were caused by highly developed agriculture and highly intensive farming in the Jiangnan Su-Song area, resulting in much higher yields compared with other places, plus the flourishing cotton-planting and textile industry in the area since the late Yuan, which made Su-song a wealthy locality. Since the beginning of the Ming, Jiangnan’s taxes had always been a pillar of national finance. In other words, heavy taxes stemmed from unbalanced regional economic growth. As for the impact of Jiangnan’s heavy taxes, some believe that it was disastrous for the local people, as a considerable number of farming households had to go into exile or seek refuge with officials and eunuchs due to bankruptcy. M ­ oreover, farmers could not support themselves solely with farming, so they had to rely on household textile manufacturing, which strengthened the connection between agriculture and household handicrafts and slowed the breakdown of the feudal natural economy. Relatedly, some believe that the tax level was in line with Jiangnan’s economic development and was not too much to bear. Instead of declining, Jiangnan actually saw the booming of both its agriculture and handicraft industry. In terms of the farmers’ livelihoods, Jiangnan was also much better off than other regions, especially northern China. In addition, while Jiangnan’s heavy taxes added to the burden on local farmers, they nonetheless played a positive role at the macro-level by contributing enormously to keeping the polity intact as well as by driving the growth of Jiangnan’s handicraft industry and commerce. Progress in the research of the Single Whip Law is reflected in the following trends: research has become more specific, with an emphasis on the Law’s diverse implementations in different regions; more vertical analyses, that is, research on the background of the Law, focusing on how China’s social economic development would inevitably lead to reform in the tax and corvée system. Most scholars believe that the Single Whip Law is epoch-making in the history of China’s tax and corvée systems. Thanks to this system, various taxes and labor obligations to the government were commuted into a single silver payment based on the population and cultivated land and charged together with the land taxes. The government used the silver to hire laborers, which not only simplified the tax and corvée system but also weakened the farmers’ dependence on the feudal authority. Commuting various obligations into silver payments also expanded currency circulation and spurred the growth of the commodity economy. It paved the way for the later practices of “no tax increase for the new-borns in times of prosperity”

Studies on Ming history  227 during the Kangxi period and “tax based on land size” during the Yongzheng reign.6 While acknowledging the positive impact of the Single Whip Law, some scholars point out that its role should not be overestimated. They argue that the Law’s implementation surely reflected social and economic development, but its main purpose was for the feudal rulers to resolve fiscal difficulties and stabilize the drastically declining feudal state. Also, the Law’s effectiveness is questionable, as there emerged all kinds of additional and private taxes, and even additional “whips,” which indicates the Law’s failure to fulfill its designer’s purpose.7 3 Research on class, social strata and social groups in the Ming. Generally, with regard to the ruling class, much progress has been made in studies of the imperial clans, nobility, eunuchs and gentry as well as of landlords without titles. Works on the subject include “Royal Residences and Manors in the Ming” and “Study of the Manors of Mu, the Duke of Qian” (both published in Laiwu Collection by Wang Minquan, Zhonghua Book Company, 1983), and A Preliminary Study of the Historical Sources on Eunuchs and the Economy in the Ming Dynasty compiled by Wang Chunyu and Du Wanyan (China Social Sciences Press, 1986). Most scholars believe that in the early Ming, the ruling class was dominated by the imperial clans and nobility. Since the mid-Ming, the gentry and landlords rose rapidly in power, controlling everything locally and exerting influence on the emperor’s rule.8 It is very hard to separate the study of commoner landlords from the study of gentry landlords. As Li Wenzhi mentioned in describing the features of China’s landlord economic system, “Although a small number of nobility titles could be inherited, the community of officials was changing all the time. Officials could be degraded to commoners, while commoners could also become officials through the imperial examinations.”9 Despite the ups and downs in the official community and the transferability of land, the gentry, as a social stratum with all their political and economic privileges, cannot be viewed as equal of the commoner landlords. According to Wu Dange, exemption of the officials’ taxes and corvées in the Ming fueled the rise of titled landlords and the emergence of the social stratum of slaves and servants.10 The research on farmers has been deepening for the following reasons. First, farmers accounted for the majority of the population, and their livelihood had a direct bearing on the stability of the polity. “Floating farmers,” “mining farmers” and the evolution of the bondservant system in the Ming have attracted wide attention. Many scholars believe that during and after large-scale peasant wars, previous landowners, especially the big clans of the nobility, officials and aristocrats, endured violent raids and looting. Due to the wars and riots, deserted land without owners increased significantly. To reduce social instabilities and increase tax revenues, rulers of the new state had to adopt policies to encourage land cultivation and delay tax payments so that laborers in

228  Studies on Ming history exile could return to the land. As a result, the number of self-employed farmers and the amount of their land increased considerably compared with the situation at the end of the Yuan. Apart from government taxes, self-employed farmers did not need to pay heavy rents to the landlords and were thus more motivated to farm. This is the main reason for the “boom” in the early Ming when the country was still recovering from wars at the beginning of the dynasty. Research on the proportion of self-employed farmers in the total farming population has great significance for explaining the social and economic development and political stability of the time. In the Yongle reign, there were already many “exiled farmers.” During the Zhengtong reign of Yingzong, farmers wandering away from their hometowns had become a serious social problem. There are divergent views on exiled farmers. Some scholars believe they are different in essence from ordinary farmers. They even compare the emergence of these farmers to the “enclosure movement” in Britain and refer to it as “a surging process of primitive accumulation.”11 Yet most scholars hold a different view. Certainly, there were a small number of exiled farmers in the Ming who went to the cities for a living or became miners; some farmers in coastal areas joined the marine trade or became pirates regardless of government laws. Yet most exiled farmers left their homes simply because of natural disasters or to escape unbearable exploitation. Zhang Haiying said: “the existence of exiled farmers was rooted in the cruel exploitation and oppression in the feudal society. It was a sign of crisis for the feudal regime rather than the dawn of capitalism.”12 Therefore, these scholars believe that exiled farmers in general do not form a social stratum and they do not have a different mindset from other farmers. There are many works on the changes in farmers’ social status in the Ming. Scholars have analyzed farmers’ social status, living conditions and especially internal divisions, and they have made remarkable progress. Scholars generally agree that as the Ming dynasty reached the final stage of feudal society, the farmers’ social status changed accordingly. This is an indisputable fact. Yet history has its twists and turns. For one thing, farmers became less dependent on the government and landlords, which was reflected not only in the legislation of the early Ming, but also in the emergence of the Single Whip Law and the expansion of the Permanent Tenancy System in the mid-Ming. For another thing, it was increasingly possible and popular to keep slaves in many regions, which effectively ended the ban on servitude in the early Ming. This eventually led to large-scale “slave riots” in some regions in the early Qing dynasty. Some insightful works on the topic include Han Dacheng’s “Tenants in the Ming Dynasty” and “Slaves in the Ming Dynasty” (both published in General Research on Ming Society and Economy, People’s Publishing House, 1986), as well as Liu Zhongri’s “New

Studies on Ming history  229 Research on Tenants” (Huodian Xintan) (Historical Research, issue 2, 1982). Based on studies of many land contracts from the Ming and Qing, Yang Guozhen discusses in depth land transfers, tenancy and pawn broking. He points out that, “Traditionally, the Permanent Tenancy System is used to refer to both the right to permanent tenancy and the right to joint land ownership (‘one land, two owners’). Yet this is not in line with historical facts.” The right to permanent tenancy (yongdianquan) and the right to surface land (tianmianquan) are different concepts: the former reflects the separation of land ownership rights and land usage rights and shows the changes in the tenancy system; the latter reflects the division of land ownership and shows the changes in the system of land ownership.13 As to the emergence of the “one land, two owners” system, the author believes it evolved simultaneously on two fronts. On the part of the landowners, “one land, two owners” was closely related to the tax and corvée system of the Ming. On the part of the tenants, “one land, two owners” was rooted in the permanent tenancy system.14

Politics and military matters in the Ming There are many published works on the political and military systems and important events of the Ming, especially on its authoritarian political centralization and the cabinet system. Representative works include “On the Centralized Political System of the Early Ming Based on Research on the Grand Pronouncements (Da Gao)” (Journal of Chinese Historical Studies, issue 1, 1981) by Chen Gaohua; “On Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang’s Policy of ‘Suppressing the Strong and Helping the Weak’ from the Perspective of the Statutory Laws of the Ming Dynasty (Da Ming Lü) and Grand Pronouncements” (Collected Research Essays on Ming History, vol. 2) by Zhang Xianqing; “Centralized Power in the Ming Dynasty” (Tianjin Social Sciences, issue 2, 1982) by Zheng Tianting; The Deterrence Policy in the Early Ming (Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1984) by Yang Yifan; “On the Formation and Development of the Cabinet System of the Ming Dynasty” (Collected Papers of the International Academic Symposium on Ming and Qing Dynasty) by Guan Wenfa; and “The Three Yangs and Confucian Political Philosophy” (Collected Papers of History Studies, issue 1, 1988) by Wei Qingyuan. Chen Wutong’s study on Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang discussed the founding of Ming and the political conditions in the early Ming. The arguments are well grounded and insightful (Chen’s collected papers on Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang have been published by the Tianjin People’s Publishing House). There are also works on the Ming military system, such as Military Farming of the Ming Dynasty (Zhonghua Book Company, 1965).

230  Studies on Ming history Gu Cheng’s studies on the garrison guard system in recent years have ended the ambiguity on issues related to the Ming empire’s administrative system by pointing out that the entire map of Ming imperial territory was controlled by the administrative system consisting of the Provincial Administrative Commissions (and independent prefectures and ­subprefectures)—prefectures (independent departments)—counties (independent departments), and the military system consisting of the Regional Military Commissions (including Administration Bureaus and independent guards), guards (independent battalions directly subordinate to the Regional Military Commissions) and battalions. The administrative system and the military system formed two types of geographical units: officials in charge and military defense. The Censorate, together with the inspecting censor and provincial surveillance commissioner it dispatches, was in charge of supervising the administrative and military systems. The key point is that the garrison system in the Ming was not set up in subprefectures and counties under the administrative system, which would have been similar to barracks in modern times; instead, it was a geographical military unit parallel to the subprefectures and counties. As guards and garrisons administered pieces of land of difference sizes, many places governed by the garrison system were still home to ordinary households and their fields. In other words, the areas governed by garrisons covered more than just all of the military farmland. It was the same with the population. “The figures of households, fields and taxes this year” disclosed by Ministry of Revenue are merely totals of the figures submitted by counties (and subprefectures) within the administrative system, while the totals based on the itemized figures of the garrison calculated by the Five Chief Military Commissions were concealed due to military confidentiality. Past historians did not realize this fact and mistook the figures given by the Ministry of Revenue (namely, most figures listed in The Ming Veritable Records) as the national total. Gu’s argument not only affects the reinterpretation of various statistics in the Ming (population, land, fiscal revenue, the ratio between state land and private land, etc.), but it also helps with further in-depth research about the Ming territory, the administrative system, household registration system and issues of the Qing dynasty (such as arable land, surging population and garrisons combined into subprefectures and counties).15 As for the revolts of slaves and tenants, since the founding of the PRC, historians have attached great importance to the armed uprisings of farmers against feudal rulers, and they have had many achievements. Generally speaking， first, the study of this issue has been extensive, covering almost all peasants uprisings in the Ming. Secondly, research on large-scale rebellions has become significantly deeper. Thirdly, there have been heated discussions and arguments about peasants’ uprisings, leading to many innovative ideas. As we have seen above, a series of systematic treatises has been published on the many peasants’ uprisings in the Ming. Representative works on a high academic level include “Explorations on the Peasants’ Uprisings in the

Studies on Ming history  231 Hongwu Reign” (Collected Research Essays on the History of Peasant Wars in China, vol. 4, Henan People’s Publishing House, 1982) by Lin Jinshu; “Several Issues on the Uprising of Liu Liu and Yanghu in mid Ming Dynasty” (Collected Research Essays on the History of Peasant Wars in China, vol. 1, Shanxi People’s Publishing House, 1978) by Chen Gaohua; “New Explorations on Xu Hongru’s Uprising” (Collected Research Essays on Ming History, vol. 1, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 1982); and “Exploration of the Uprising of the Bangchuihui Union” (Collected Research Essays on the History of Peasant Wars in China, vol. 3, Henan People’s Publishing House, 1982) by Li Jixian. Related to these treatises, there have also been a number of studies on the relationship between secret civil associations and farmers’ uprisings (such as Research on the White Lotus Sect in Ming and Qing Dynasty by Yu Songqing, Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1987), and on armed revolts of ethnic minorities against the Ming imperial government (such as Peasants’ Uprisings in Guangxi Province in the Ming, Guangxi People’s Publishing House, 1984). The research on peasant wars at the end of Ming is even more fruitful. Based on the systematically collected and organized historical materials, these studies have corrected errors or clarified confusions in previous accounts, and have filled many gaps in the field. Issues that have been clarified include the following: whether there was really a “Xingyang gathering,” whether Li Yan participated in Li Zicheng’s revolt, the truth about Zhang Xianzhong and LuoRucai accepting government favor in Gucheng and Fangxian, the Great Shun troops’ attack on Beijing at the north front and the south front, the course of the battle of the Shanhai pass and whether Wu Sangui surrendered to the Shun reign, where Li Zicheng died and what happened at the end of his life and so forth. In the past forty years, there have been hundreds of papers on the peasant wars of the late Ming. Treatises on the subject include A Biography of Li Dingguo (Zhonghua Book Company, 1960) by Guo Yingqiu, Comments on the Peasant Wars of the Late Ming Dynasty (Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 1962) by Hong Huanchun, A Biography of Zhang Xianzhong (Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1981) by Yuan Tingdong, Studies of Li Zicheng’s Economic Policies (Henan People’s Publishing House, 1982) by Wang Xingya; A Chronological Record of Li Zicheng (Zhonghua Book Company, 1983) by Liu Yinan, a History of Peasant Wars in the Late Ming Dynasty (China Social Science Press, 1984) by Gu Cheng, New Evidence on the Historical Events of Li Zicheng (Zhejiang Guji Publishing House, 1985) by Fang Furen, History of the Daxi Army of Zhang Xianzhong (Hunan People’s Publishing House, 1987) by Wang Gang, Peasant Wars of Late Ming Dynasty (Zhonghua Book Company, 1987) by Yuan Liangyi and so forth. In addition, studies on the revolts of slaves and tenants of late Ming and early Qing in southern China started from Fu Yiling’s work (“Revolts of Tenants and Slaves of late Ming Dynasty in Southern China,” Historical Research, issue 5, 1975).

232  Studies on Ming history The aforementioned works have given a comprehensive account of the social unrest of the ordinary people in the Ming and Qing.

Culture of the Ming period In the past forty years, studies of Ming culture have developed from a narrow perspective into a broad view. Up to the middle of the 1970s, discussions of history had always been confined to judging the worth of things by determining if they were philosophically idealist or materialist. Political views were evaluated according to whether or not they were critical of Confucianism and advocated legalism, and other cultural areas were neglected for quite some time. After the middle of 1970s, with the emancipation of the mind, cultural studies became increasingly active. In the field of the history of Ming thought, representative works include the second half of the 4th volume of A General History of Chinese Thought (People’s Publishing House, 1960) compiled by Hou Wailu, several chapters of the 5th volume (originally titled History of Early Chinese Enlightenment Thought, People’s Publishing House, 1956) and the 2nd volume of History of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties (People’s Publishing House, 1987). Although the two sets of books are different in content, both are systematic works. History of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties is published more recently and clearly reflects the changes in the academic environment. For example, Wang Yangming’s ideas are rejected completely in A General History of Chinese Thought, yet are partly acknowledged in the History of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties by claiming that some of his ideas are “valuable.” “Wang Shouren (Wang Yangming) proposes ‘unity of knowledge and action (zhixing he yi)’ and emphasizes the unity and connection between the two stages of cognition. This was his new contribution to epistemology, which should be recognized.” The book also includes a chapter entitled “Theory of Education,” which recognizes that Wang Yangming’ s experience of teaching by example is “reasonable” and still has value for today’s practices. There are also a great number of research papers on scholars like Li Zhi, but they were briefly discussed earlier and will not be discussed in more detail here. Overall research on Ming culture is also remarkable. In the 1970s, discussions about Ming culture still focused on literature, which mainly centered on the evolution of styles and schools of Ming literati. Most research was on novels such as Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Plum in the Golden Vase and Sanyan Erpai, as well as operas such as The Peony Pavilion. Representative research outcomes include the chapters about the Ming in the History of Chinese Literature (People’s Literature Publishing House, 1962) compiled by the Institute of Literature of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a History of Chinese Literature (People’s Literature Publishing House, 1963) co-authored by You Guo’en. Yet, overall Ming culture is often neglected, possibly due to some influences from the sinologists

Studies on Ming history  233 of the Qing dynasty, who regarded “the Ming people as hollow and shallow in their learning” and thus having nothing valuable to look into. In recent years, people have started to realize what extraordinary achievements in culture have been made since the mid-Ming. Scholars have changed their views after looking extensively into the cultural relics of the Ming. They now believe, with the development in all aspects of social life since the midMing, that the Ming people had innovative ideas, a broad perspective and wide interests, which were all unprecedented. Due to flaws in the imperial examination system and the influences of the later Wang Yangming school of thought, there were certainly quite a few Ming people who adhered to traditional ideas or indulged in empty talk on the laws of life that appeared to be hollow. However, we should not let this obstruct our view of the whole picture and ignore the rapid development of concrete learning (which was based on the idea of “making use of your learning”) and the diversity of social and cultural life in the late Ming. The Ming culture is noted for openly opposing the extremist idea of using Confucianism as the only criterion for value judgment, investing in specialized research on military affairs, politics, economics, geography, agriculture, medicine and household industries for the purpose of practical use; people’s intense interest in astronomy, calendar, math and other “wonderful things” introduced by Western missionaries; and their passion for putting knowledge to use. People lived a rich and colorful life, officials and commoners alike. There is nothing comparable in Chinese history before the Opium War. Even without mentioning what the cultural studies have accomplished (as the interest in cultural history research is still growing and many research results are yet to be published), the changes in thinking and the creation of a new research area alone would suffice to show us the importance of these studies to the explorations of Ming culture. As far as the most recent researches are concerned, subjects that have been frequently discussed include “enlightenment thought” and “citizens’ literature.” The differences are mostly found in the scholars’ opinions on the progress in social development since the mid-Ming. Generally speaking, scholars who use the terms “enlightenment thought,” “citizens’ literature” and “humanistic thought” mostly believe that capitalism had already emerged in China by then; those who oppose this view believe that few new social elements emerged in China during the Ming period. One ­observer has been skeptical about “enlightenment” and claims “I don’t believe in ­‘enlightenment’ because I don’t think that traditional Chinese culture transited from the Middle Ages to modern times through self-criticism.” Therefore, he cautions people against taking the “sunset glow” of feudal culture as the “dawn light” of modern culture.16 Expressions such as “citizen culture” and “citizen thoughts” have also met with opposition. Some scholars do not believe in the emergence of any “citizen class” after the mid-Ming. Without “citizens” in the modern sense, the so-called “citizen” thoughts and ­interests as well as the resulting “citizen literature” are just

234  Studies on Ming history misconceptions of the history. It is no surprise that there are different, even opposing, opinions. Positively, such divergences are catalysts for deeper research on Ming culture.

Geography and ethnicity in the Ming Since the founding of the PRC, there has been a series of achievements in studies of Ming geography and domestic ethnic relations. Apart from many published papers and a newly opened archive of documents, there are also treatises such as Northeast China in the Ming Dynasty (Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 1986) by Li Jiancai and Research on the Nurgan Regional Military Commission and its garrison) (Zhongzhou Shuhua She, 1982) by Yang Yang. There are also discussions in many treatises about the studies of southeast coastal areas, including Taiwan, Penghu, Hainan Island and the South China Sea Islands. With regards to studies of Southwest China in the Ming, there are works such as A Biography of the Dalai Lama (People’s Publishing House, 1984) by Ya Hanzhang. The book covers a long period of history from the early Yuan dynasty when the central government was strengthening its rule of Tibet to Tibet’s peaceful liberation in 1951. The book provides a systematic account of the governance of Tibet by the Ming. There have also been great achievements in the research on North Mongolia and Turpan in western China. Works worthy of notice include Collection of Materials on Hami and Turpan in the Ming Dynasty (Xinjiang People’s Publishing House, 1984), “A Few Issues on Turpan in the Ming Dynasty” (Ethnic Studies, issue 2, 1983) by Chen Gaohua and “Genealogy of the Turpan Rulers in the Ming Dynasty and Early Qing Dynasty” (History Studies, issue 6, 1986) by Wei Liangtao. It is also worth noting that regional studies are developing in depth (regional research on economic development, social customs and living conditions) and scope (related to large-scale efforts on developing local chorography), and new quality works continue to emerge. Another area where great achievements have been made by Chinese historians is the research into the history of ethnic relations. After in-depth discussions, historians have concluded that throughout the Ming dynasty, despite many armed conflicts due to the rulers’ prejudice and inappropriate decisions, friendly exchanges, unity and mutual progress have been the main trends. They also point out that in the early Ming, emperors such as Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di waged several large-scale wars against Mongolia, yet the basic national strategy in the early Ming was to handle the Mongol issue as an internal ethnic affair. Even when Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming, he recognized the Yuan as a legitimate dynasty in Chinese history, one founded by Kublai Khan after taking over the Central Plain. Zhu ­opposed only the ambition of the Mongol nobility to rise again and restore the Yuan central rule. During the Hongwu and Yongle reigns, the imperial government took many effective measures to unite the Mongolians. In the early Ming, the central government appointed many Mongol

Studies on Ming history  235 generals and offered proper arrangements for their troops. Mongol officers received higher salaries compared with Han officers of the same ranks. Such ­favorable ­policies naturally strengthened the Mongols’ desire for unity. Zhao Lisheng wrote that emperor Zhu Di was quite “open-minded” among feudal rulers. “He had little interest in ethnic discrimination,” in general, and he “did not discriminate against the Mongols in particular. He was most enthusiastic in creating policies on relations with the Western regions.”17 The relations between Han and Manchu (Jurchen) were also good in general. The establishment of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission enhanced friendly exchanges between Han and Jurchen and stabilized Ming rule in Liaodong and Heilongjiang. The rise of the Manchus in the late Ming was very much related to the long-term influence of the advanced culture of the Han. In Southwest China, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang continued the ruling methods of the Yuan, with modifications. He allowed Han officials and ethnic officials to coexist in Yunnan, Guizhou, West Sichuan and Qinghai. This policy not only helped maintain national unity, but also catered to the habits of ethnic minorities and to the interests of their leaders. Under the unique garrison system of the Ming, many Han officers migrated to ethnic regions together with their families, and many ethnic officers settled their families in the garrison regions. This played a major role in promoting friendly ­exchanges among various nationalities and in the development of remote areas. In ­addition, there are also many results coming from studies of ­inter-ethnic trade (such as the Tea Horse Trade), the tributary system, outstanding ethnic minority figures (San Niangzi of the Mongols, Nurhaci of the Manchus and other figures listed in the Ming volume of Chronicles of Hui Muslim Figures) and ethnic conflicts.

China’s foreign relations in the Ming Relations between China and foreign countries have always drawn the attention of academia. Since the establishment of the New China, much progress has been made in research on the relations between the Ming and its neighboring countries. Issues in focus include the treasure voyages of Zheng He (Zheng He xia Xiyang), tribute trade and private maritime trade in the Ming dynasty, the European colonists’ invasion of the oriental world and the Jesuits’ activities in China in the late Ming and early Qing. 1 The maritime voyages of Zheng He. Substantial progress has been made in studies of this topic. Relevant historical documents and materials have been organized and published, with detailed discussions of the time, scale, locations and exchanges with foreign countries, as well as the life story of Zheng He. Zhu Xie’s Zheng He published by Joint Publishing in 1956 is quite systematic. The year 1958 marked the 580th ­anniversary of Zheng He’s voyages, leading to a new wave of research in China’s academia. The organization and research of relevant materials

236  Studies on Ming history were also brought to a new level. Important works published include Treasure Voyages by Zheng He (People’s Communications Publishing House, 1988) and the first and second volumes of Collected Papers on Zheng He’s Voyages (Nanjing University Publishing House, 1985). There are also collections of materials (including materials about newly discovered cultural relics) and pictures (Selected Documents of Zheng He Studies, Materials on Zheng He’s Family, Cultural Relics Related to Zheng He’s Life, all published by People’s Communications Publishing House). These works give detailed illustrations of the background and motivation of Zheng He’s voyages; shipbuilding and navigation skills in the early Ming; the scale, routes and exchanges with foreign countries of each treasure voyage; Zheng He’s family background, life story and religious beliefs; the significance of the treasure voyages, and the reasons for the suspension of the voyages after the Xuande reign. The quality of research has also improved noticeably. There are still controversies on some issues, such as why Yongle sent Zheng He on the voyages, the scale and landing locations of each voyage and the length-width ratio of the ships recorded in historical documents. 2 Tribute trade and private maritime trade of the Ming. The term “tribute trade (chaogong)” can refer to the Ming court’s political and economic relations with neighboring countries and the empire’s relations with internal ethnic minorities. Here we will speak only of the former. Since the founding of the Ming, the court had gradually formed a tribute trade system with its neighboring countries. Historians mainly focus on studying the historical status of tribute trade. A commonly held view is that the tribute trade clearly shows the Ming rulers’ political intention to maintain the status of a “suzerain (zongzhuguo).” The principle of “offering generous gifts while accepting trivial tributes,” the government’s monopoly and restrictions on the cycle and volume of foreign trade were all against the rules of the commodity economy and impeded, even strangled, the development of maritime civil trade, making tribute trade an important cause of China’s social stagnation. But some scholars point out that under the system of tribute trade, China continued to be a much stronger power compared with the neighboring countries, yet it still maintained friendly relations with countries in Southeast Asia and other regions. This is rare in world history and is still cherished in relations between the state and the people. Since the mid-Ming, with China’s social and economic development, civil maritime trade gradually freed itself from the ban of the imperial government and far exceeded tribute trade in scale and frequency. In Private Maritime Trade in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Lin Renchuan writes, “By the Jiajing reign, private maritime trade in southeast China had witnessed major development and was unprecedented in scale, number of people involved and coverage” (East China Normal University Press, 1987). Lin believes that since the 16th century

Studies on Ming history  237 and early 17th century, “In the market of Southeast Asia, Chinese sea merchants were powerful and competitive, and were still dominating world trade.” He points out that if private maritime trade had been supported by the Ming government, it would surely have flourished. Yet it was the other way around, as private trade “was seriously hampered by the feudal rules.” Partly due to differences in estimates and understandings of civil maritime trade in the Ming, there was a heated debate on the nature and significance of the “wokou” in the mid-Ming. Past historians mostly followed the traditional view and believed that wokou refers to pirates consisting mainly of Japanese warriors and ronin, who had constantly raided China’s coastlines since the early Ming, and particularly during the Jiajing and Longqing reigns. Since the 1980s, many scholars have proposed completely different views. For example, Chen Kangsheng believes that Wang Zhi and others who were falsely accused of being “wokou,” were actually “good at maritime trade and navigation and quite adventurous,” and “they are among those who have the broadest vision and most liberal minds in the Ming.” In his view, “Wang Zhi should have been rewarded,” but “tragically these people were suppressed.”18 Dai Yixuan argues that the true natures of wokou in the Jiajing and Longqing reigns should be reexamined, and people need to see them as farmers and urban commoners in southeast coastal areas uniting with people of various classes in their fight against the feudal rules at a time when capitalism was beginning to sprout in a feudal society; in short, it was a clash between the sea ban and anti-sea ban.19 Chen Xuewen believes wokou mainly consisted of Japanese pirates, who colluded with traitors like Wang Zhi to raid China. Therefore, the war in essence was a fight staged by the Chinese people against the looting Japanese feudal lords and pirates; it was not a clash between the sea ban and anti-sea ban parties, let alone a civil war.20 Naturally, in light of the new understanding of the wokou issue in the Jiajing and Longqing reigns, Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang, who were famous generals fighting against wokou, must be reevaluated. Chen Kangsheng refers to them as the “underlings of Emperor Zhu Houcong,” while Dai Yixuan vilifies them as “the feudal landlords’ slaughterers of farmers.” In contrast, some scholars still believe that “the war against wokou in the Jiajing reign was essentially between the Ming government and the people on one side, and the Wang Zhi pirate group and some Japanese pirates on the other.” Therefore, Wang Zhi and his gang were “sinners in history,” while the “patriotic generals represented by Qi Jiguang suppressed the Wang Zhi pirate gang, an action which reflected the people’s wishes. So the anti-wokou war was undoubtedly justified.”21 Apparently, to reduce the divergence, there needs to be more research on the private maritime

238  Studies on Ming history trade in the Ming in order to clarify the true nature of “wokou” and “the pirates.” 3 As to the Western colonists’ invasion of the orient and Jesuit activities in China after the Zhengde reign, historians have discussed these issues from different perspectives. According to their research, when the Portuguese invaded China’s Guangdong coastal regions in the Zhengde reign (1508–1521), they faced an oriental powerhouse. As Western ­European countries grew in technological, economic and military power, they colonized many countries originally ruled by indigenous people, yet for a very long time their ambition to control China had not been realized. Therefore, the exchanges between China and Western countries in late Ming were mainly in the form of maritime trade and Jesuits’ activities. China was then in an advantageous position in direct and indirect trade with the West, as shown by the large surplus in silver imports. As to the European Jesuits’ activities in China, there were debates among Chinese historians around 1960, yet the views were generally negative before the 1970s.22 For example, according to the quite influential book, A General Intellectual History of China, compiled by Hou Wailu, et al., “Jesuits are merely an advance troop of the colonial empire and feudal religions” and “the Western learning brought by the missionaries was not the new learning of Europe.” Furthermore, the book points out that the Jesuits in China were “the enemies of science” and their activities “impeded normal exchanges between Chinese and Western cultures and blocked the entry of modern science.” Yet, the author stresses that the historical role of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and other scholars who learned science and technology from the Jesuits should be evaluated separately from the Jesuits’ activities in China. The author believes that “Xu Guangqi and others of his generation were the Chinese pioneers who sought truth and knowledge from the West” and “represented the Chinese scholars’ efforts in science in the age of enlightenment, which contributed to the country’s progress” (see the second half of volume 4). Obviously, such a distinction is a little far-fetched in logic. In recent years, studies have evolved. First, there is more emphasis on collecting and translating the records of the Jesuits’ activities in China, and on exploring the roles of such missionary activities in the cultural exchanges between China and the West. Progress has been made in this respect, yet as it requires special conditions and considerable amount of time to collect and use such materials, we are still a long way from comprehensively and concretely illustrating the materials. Some scholars believe that the Jesuits’ activities in China “should be evaluated from both sides,” that is, to “expose the background and the true intentions of their coming to China while acknowledging the positive roles they played in China.” Such positive roles were manifested by “introducing Western science

Studies on Ming history  239 and culture to China,” which “promoted the exchanges in science and culture between China and the West.”23 Ming personalities are an important aspect of Ming historical research. The achievements of the last forty years are quite visible, but since they are many, the field is broad, and appraisals vary, and so we will not introduce them again here. Finally, we cannot forget the great efforts expended by historians since the founding of the PRC in organizing and publishing records on the Ming and its dynastic history. Such works include typographed and photocopied versions of the Ming History, the Comprehensive Mirror of the Ming, A Chronicle of Events from Beginning to End in the History of the Ming, An Evaluation of Our State, Ming Digest, A Collection of  Ming  Statecraft Essays, An Anthology of Ming Dynasty Essays, Evident Worthies of Our Dynasty, Wang Qi’s Supplement to the Comprehensive Investigations Based on Literary and Documentary Sources, A Chronology of the Grand Coordinators and Supreme Commanders of the Ming, Wu Han’s Historical Materials about China in the Historical Records of the Korean Kingdom of Choson, Collection of Notes on Historical Materials of the Yuan and Ming, A Collectanium of Historical Materials on the Late Ming and Selected Historical Materials on the Late Ming and Early Qing. Reference books include Catalogue of Books on Ming History in the Past Eighty Years compiled by the Ming history research office of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Revised and Additional Research on Historical Records of Late Ming and Ming History by the Names of Historical Figures by Xie Guozhen. These works as well as the many Ming scholars’ collected works that are published greatly facilitate the study of Ming history. Academic groups have organized many discussions on Ming history or the histories of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which have promoted academic exchanges and development. New works on Ming history include A Brief History of Ming by Li Guangbi, History of Ming and Qing by Li Xun, Discussions of Ming History by Lou Zengquan and Yan Zhangpao, Ming History (volume 1) by Tang Gang and Nan Bingwen and A Brief History of the Southern Ming by Xie Guozhen. These works include some discussions among historians and reflect the authors’ own findings. They have spread knowledge about Ming history and served as reference books for university students. They have been widely welcomed by readers. (originally published in Forty Years of Chinese Historical Study (1949–1989)], Bibliography and Document Publishing House], September 1989, pp. 217–236) Translated by Ning Ping Polished by Roger V Des Forges, Li Daqi and Tan Jiang

240  Studies on Ming history

Notes 1 “Lun Ming-Qing Shehui de Fazhan yu Chizhi (The Development and Stagnation of Ming-Qing Society),” published in Ming-Qing Shehui Jingjishi Lunwenji (The Collected Essays in Social and Economic History  of the Ming and Qing Periods). 2 Han Dacheng, “Mingdai Ziben Zhuyi Mengya Fazhan Huanman de Yuanyin (Reasons for the Slow Growth of the Sprouts of Capitalism in Ming and Qing),” published in Mingdai Shehui Jingji Chutan (General Research on Ming Society and Economy), People’s Publishing House, 1986. 3 See Fan Shuzhi, “Wanli Qingzhang Lunshu (“Discussions on Wanli Land Measurement”),” Journal of  Chinese  Social and Economic  History, vol. 2, 1984; He Bingdi, “Nansong Zhijin Tudi Shuzi de Kaoshi he Pingjia (‘Interpretations and Comments on Land Acreage Since Southern Song Dynasty’),” in Social Sciences in China, issue 3, 1985. 4 Wu Han, “Mingchu Shehui Shengchanli de Fazhan (‘The Development of Social Productivity in Early Ming’),” in Lishi Yanjiu (Study of History), issue 5, 1955. 5 That is, one “big” mu amounts to several “small” mu. See Liang Fangzhong, Zhongguo Lidai Hukou, Tiandi, Tianfu Tongji (Statistics on Household, Land and Taxation in the History of China), p. 338. 6 Fan Shuzhi, “Yitiaobian Fa de Youlaiyu Fazhan (The Origin and Development of the Single Whip Law),” in Mingshi Yanjiu Luncong (Essays on Ming History), vol. 1. 7 Chen Shizhao, “Mingdai Yitiaobian Fa Wenti Yanjiu (Research on the Single Whip Law of Ming),” in Jianghan Luntan (Jianghan Forum), edition 7, 1987. 8 For study on gentry landlords, see Shuang Mo’s, “Jinnianlai Mingdai ‘Jinshen Dizhu’ Yanjiu Gaishu (Overview of Recent Research on ‘Gentry Landlords’ in the Ming),” published in Zhongguoshi Yanjiu Dongtai (Trends in Recent Research on the History of China), issue 9, 1985. 9 “Lun Zhongguo Fengjian Shehui Houqi de Huafen Biaozhi—Ming-Qing Shidai Fengjian Tudi Guanxi de Songxie (On the Dividing Line of the Later Period of China’s Feudal Society–Loosening Feudal Land Relations in Ming and Qing Dynasty),” in Zhongguo Jingjishi Yanjiu (Research on China’s Economic History), issue 6, 1986. 10 Wu Gedan, “Mingdai Yaoyi de Youmian (Reduction and Exemption in Taxes and Corvee in Ming Dynasty),” in Zhongguo Shehui Jingjishi Yanjiu (Research on China’s Socio-economic History), issue 3, 1983. 11 Li Xun, “Shilun Mingdai de Liumin Wenti (On Exiled Farmers in the Ming ­Dynasty),” in Shehui Kexue Jikan (Social Science Journal), issue 3, 1980. 12 “Luelun Mingdai LiuminWenti de Shehui Xingzhi (On the Social Nature of the Issue of Exiled Farmers in the Ming),” in Journal of Beijing Normal University, issue 3, 1981. 13 Ming-Qing Tudi Qiyue Wenshu Yanjiu (Study on Land Contracts of Ming and Qing Dynasties), People’s Publishing House, 1988. 14 Ming-Qing Tudi Qiyue Wenshu Yanjiu (Study on Land Contracts of Ming and Qing Dynasties), People’s Publishing House, 1988. 15 See “Ming Qianqi Gengdishu Xintan (A New Analysis of the Amount of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming),” in Zhongguo Shehui Kexue (Social Sciences in China), issue 4, 1986; “Weisuo Zhidu zai Qingdai de Biange (The Transformation of the Ming Garrison System in the Qing Dynasty),” in Journal of Beijing Normal University, issue 2, 1988. 16 Bao Zunxin, “Wanxia yu Shuguang–Lun Ming-Qing zhiji de Shehui Sichao (Sunset Glow and Twilight—On the Social Thoughts of Late Ming and Early Qing),” in Hubei Shehui Kexue (Hubei Social Sciences), issue 6, 1988.

Studies on Ming history  241 17 Zhao Lisheng, “Mingchao de Xiyu Guanxi (Relations with the Western Region of the Ming Dynasty),” in Dongyue Luncong, issue 1, 1980. 18 Chen Kangsheng, “Jiajing ‘Wohuan’ Tanshi (‘The Truth about “Wohuan” in the Jiajing Reign’),” in Jianghan Luntan (Jianghan Forum), issue 3, 1980. 19 Dai Yixuan, Mingdai Jialongjian de Wokou yu Haidao yu Zhongguo Ziben Zhuyi de Mengya (Wokou and Pirates in the Jiajing and Longqing Reigns of the Ming Dynasty and Capitalist Sprouts in China), China Social Sciences Publishing House, 1982. 20 See “Mingdai de Haijin yu Wokou (Sea Ban and Wokou in the Ming Dynasty),” published in Zhongguo Shehui Jingjishi Yanjiu (Research on China’s Social and Economic History), issue 1, 1983; “Lun Jiajingshi de Wokou Wenti (On the Wokou Issue in the Jiajing Reign),” published in Wen Shi Zhe (Literature, History and Philosophy), issue 5, 1983. 21 Wang Shoujia, “Shilun Mingdai Jiajing Shiqi de Wohuan (On Wokou in the ­Jiajing Reign in the Ming Dynasty),” published in the Journal of Beijing Normal College, issue 1, 1981. 22 See the articles by Zhu Qianzhi and Wu Enfu published in issue 11, 1959 and issue 3, 1960, in Xin Jianshe (New Development). 23 Feng Tianyu, “Limadou deng Yesuhuishi de zai Hua Xueshu Huodong (On the Academic Activities of Matteo Ricci and other Jesuits in China),” published in Jianghan Luntan (Jianghan Forum), issue 4, 1979; Chen Shenru and Zhu Zhengyi, “Shilun Mingmo Qingchu Yesuhuishi de Lishi Zuoyong (On the Jesuits’ Historical Roles in the Late Ming and the Early Qing)” published in ­Zhongguoshi ­Yanjiu (Study of Chinese History), issue 2, 1980.

Afterword

The English version of Mr. Gu Cheng’s original book The Hidden Land: The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty has been finally completed and will be published soon. It is a translation project presided over and translated by Professor Ning Ping and her team, and edited by American expert of the Ming study, Roger V. Des Forges. At this delightful moment, Professor Ning Ping asked me to share with the readers a few words regarding the book since I have been engaged in the research of the garrison system in the Ming dynasty for nearly twenty years and have witnessed the whole process of the birth of the English version; in addition, I organized and edited the Chinese version of the book for its publication in 2012. Thus, I readily agreed to give my views. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to commemorate my late doctorial supervisor, Mr. Gu Cheng, for his thoughtful and meticulous guidance for my studies, thank Ning Ping and her team for their diligent and painstaking translation, thank Roger for his industrious and rigorous edition and share my understanding of this book with the readers. I was admitted to the Department of History (now History College), Beijing Normal University, in 2001, and followed Mr. Gu Cheng as a doctoral candidate of Ancient Chinese History (the History of the Ming and the Qing Dynasties). As a matter of fact, as early as the autumn of 1994, I once went to Mr. Gu’s home to express my willingness to follow him in pursuit of the Ming study for doctoral degree, and he agreed. But later, I took up a job rather than going to the university; so, instead of being Mr. Gu’s first doctoral candidate, I became the last one. Before Mr. Gu Cheng passed away in June 2003, I put forward my proposal, presided over by him, for my doctoral dissertation “on Banjun System in the Ming Dynasty—Centered on Jingcao Banjun,” but didn’t finish it until his death. The Banjun System that I studied is a military management system based on the Ming’s garrison system, and its theoretical basis is the “two systems” theory of the Ming’s land management put forward by Mr. Gu Cheng. At that time, the reasons why I chose to study the garrison system are that, for one thing, after reading Mr. Gu’s related papers, I believed that his ongoing research was of great significance and paved a new path to reinterpret the Ming history as well as the 500-year history of both the

244 Afterword Ming and the Qing, which resulted in greater prospects for further study; for another, I thought that as a doctorate candidate I was doing research in the field in which my tutor was the best, which could help my study reach great heights in the field. Mr. Gu Cheng’s two systems’ theory on the management of the Ming covers a wide range of fields, including the specific issues of the cultivated land, the territories, the household registration and the general inference of the garrison’s basic attributes. Besides, my senior, Professor Liang Zhisheng (currently working in the School of History and Culture of Shaanxi Normal University), had already researched on the hereditary issue of the garrison military officers, so I decided to focus my own research on military soldiers in the garrison, and finally completed my doctoral dissertation “On Banjun System in the Ming Dynasty–Centered on Jingcao Banjun” (published by China Minzu University Press in 2006). Without Professor Gu Cheng’s theory of the Ming garrison system, my doctoral dissertation and a series of subsequent studies (including my second monograph “Research on the North Frontier Defense System of the Ming Dynasty–Taking the Evolution of the Frontier Guards as a Clue” and the forthcoming third book “Research on the Management System of the Ming’s Dusi and Weisuo”) would not have materialized. In addition, I also guided more than thirty graduate students to do related research on the Ming garrison system. According to Mr. Gu Cheng, when he did some earlier researches on Li Yan (“Doubts about Li Yan,” Historical Research, 1978,05), he found that there were obvious differences in the descriptions about the native place of Li Yan’s father, Li Jingbai, in local documents. From this he noticed that the amounts of the cultivated land recorded in the Ming official documents varied greatly (one about 8.5 million hectares, and the other about 5 million hectares) and the explanations for that in the academic circles were very inconsistent. In addition, in the Ming provincial administrations, the south and north independent administrations (Nanzhili and Beizhili) and thirteen provincial administration commissions were set up, while in the vast border areas, prefectures and counties were not set up for the administration but under the jurisdiction of the garrisons. Because of this, the historical geographer Tan Qiqian’s The Historical Atlas of China and the cultural scholar Bai Yang’s interpretation in Ugly Chinese are quite different. The former holds that the frontier areas governed by garrisons are the Ming’s lands, while the latter considers that the territory of the Ming dynasty is about the same size as that of the Qin dynasty (excluding the vast frontier areas under the jurisdiction of the garrisons). How to explain the major differences in the above three aspects? Mr. Gu Cheng believes that the root of the three lies in the “garrison system.” The territorial management of the Ming dynasty was divided into two systems: the administrative system (county, prefecture–subprefectures, prefecture–­Provincial Administration Commission, Zhili prefectures and ­subprefectures–six ministries,) and the military system (guards, independent

Afterword  245 battalions–The Regional Military Commissions, The Auxiliary Regional Military Commissions, Zhili guards–the Five Chief Military Commissioners), which were relatively independent “geographical units.” Garrison was not only a military organization unit, but also, to a large extent, a “geographical unit.” It had its own relatively independent jurisdiction, which not only governed the lands and population that are not subordinate to the Provincial Administration Commission, prefectures and counties, but also had relatively independent administrative, judicial, educational (imperial examination) and financial powers for a long time. Li Yan held the garrison household registration, and his household registration and his native place pertained to different regions, so the records of local gazetteers are not consistent; as to the huge gap between the two figures of the cultivated land in the Ming dynasty, we found out that the bigger one included the amounts of the cultivated lands drawn from both the administrative and the military systems, while the smaller one was drawn only from the Ministry of Revenue of the administrative system; also, the frontier area under the jurisdiction of the garrisons, naturally, was the territory of the Ming dynasty, so the map drawn by Mr. Tan Qixiang is accurate. There existed relative confidentiality of some information in the military system because of which the amounts of the lands under the jurisdiction of garrisons were not open to the public in the early Ming, and so it is called the “hidden land” (“The Hidden Land” is named by Sun Xiantao, one of Gu Cheng’s graduate students, not Gu’s original words). Initially, some scholars held different opinions about the theory of the Ming’s land management put forward by Mr. Gu Cheng. For example, some thought that, after detailed statistics of the cultivated lands in the Ming, the amount of the cultivated land under garrisons jurisdiction was unable to reach as many as 4 million hectares. But, in fact, the land under garrison jurisdiction and the actual amount of cultivated land were two quite different concepts, and the amount of cultivated land allocated according to the criterion was not necessarily the actual amount of that allocated. Mr. Gu Cheng mainly explained the reasons for the big and the small numbers of cultivated land, and it was difficult to count accurately the number of land areas under garrison system jurisdiction. Shortly thereafter, more and more historians on the Ming and the Qing history accepted the theory and demonstrated it further, such as Mr. Zhang Haiying’s book Research on Zhang Juzheng Reform and Shanxi Wanli Qingzhang (Shanxi People’s Publishing House, 1993), which proved the existence of independent jurisdiction of the garrison by the rare Ming’s Shanxi Wanli qingzhang manuscript handed down in kind; Cao Shuji’s book The History of Chinese Population (of the Ming Dynasty, Fudan University Press, in 2000); and Guo Hong’s General History of China’s Administrative Districts (of the Ming Dynasty, Fudan University Press, 2007); they all regarded the garrison as an independent jurisdiction system for the statistics and analysis of the Ming’s population and regional management.

246 Afterword Mr. Gu Cheng’s explanations of Ming’s territorial management and the attributes of the garrison system not only affected the interpretations of all aspects of the Ming history, but also opened and renewed many research fields of the Ming and Qing history, resulting in the Ming’s history to be reconsidered. Garrisons, just as the prefectures and counties, held relatively independent jurisdiction over, including the population, the land, the ­finance, the administration, the justice, the education, the civil affairs and so forth, and they showed characteristics different from those of prefecture and county households. Therefore, what mentioned above is worth re-­ recognizing. In the Qing dynasty, garrisons, although tended to merge into prefectures and counties, still existed for a long time. Thus, the garrison system in the Ming and the Qing was closely related and showed changing characteristics. Naturally, the political, the military, the economic, the social, the cultural, the educational, the living customs, the border management and the ethnic relations during the 500 years of the Ming and the Qing were closely linked; therefore, understanding of the Ming and the Qing ­dynasties needs to be constantly updated and expanded, and from this it is not difficult to understand why the garrison system has such a broad research space. (See Peng Yong: “Academic Divisions and Methodological Integration: A Review of the Research on the Ming’s Garrison System in Mainland China in the Past 30 Years,” “Chinese History,” Volume 24, Japan Friends Bookstore, 2014, pp. 59–70; Zhao Shiyu, “The System of the Garrison Military Households and the Ming China Society—from the Perspective of Social History,” Journal of Tsinghua University, 2015.03). Mr. Gu Cheng’s research findings on the garrison system were mainly published between 1986 and 1989; thereafter, he has guided Sun Xiantao, Wan Hong, Liang Zhisheng, me and other graduate students to research the coastal garrisons, the area of cultivated land in the early Ming, the hereditary military officers and garrison soldiers and so forth. He had planned to publish a monograph on the garrison system, but, unfortunately, he passed away before it could materialize. After that, for the inheritance of Mr. Gu’s academic thought and better promotion of the studies, we, his students, under the guidance of his wife, Mrs. He Longsu, began planning to publish the anthologies. For this, Professor Chen Baoliang (Southwest University), Professor Zhang Yongjiang (People’s University of China), Professor Zhang Sheng (Beijing Normal University), the former deputy editor Sun Xiantao (Guangming Daily Press) and I, together, collected and sorted out Mr. Gu’s manuscripts, and finally published six volumes of the five books, in the form of “Gu Cheng’s Works Series,” including “The History of the Southern Ming,” “Peasant War at the Late Ming Dynasty,” “No Shen Wansan in the Ming Dynasty: Gu Cheng’s Notes on History,” “Li Yan in Doubt: Exploration of the Ming and the Qing History” and “The Hidden Land: The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty.” The book The Hidden Land: The Garrison System and the Ming Dynasty mainly consists of his five principal research papers on garrison system that

Afterword  247 I have discussed above, as well as “A Guide to the Study of the Ming History,” “Forty Years of Studies on the Ming History” and others, which are essential introductions of the current situation, existing problems and basic historical materials by Mr. Gu, and they will be of great help for the Ming history researchers. It is gratifying to note that this book, recommended by Professor Zhao Yi, a famous historian on the Ming (Liaoning Normal University), and by me, has been approved by Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences, as 2016 Chinese Classics Translations Project, to be presided over by Professor Ning Ping, which surely provides more overseas readers with the opportunity to read this English version of the outstanding book. Professor Ning Ping is not only a learned teacher of English, but also a doctor of history; besides, she has the experiences of studying and working in the UK and the USA. She has, therefore, contributed greatly as a translator for this book. Over the past three years, we have been in constant contact for the translating project, and her conscientious professionalism and responsibility for the translation, along with her deep sincerity and kindness, have always touched me. I feel honored enough to have her presiding over the translation of my tutor’s book, so I’d like to express my sincere thanks to her here. Roger V. Des Forges, an American sinologist and a professor of Chinese Ming history, the University at Buffalo of USA, is a well-known expert in the history of the Ming and the Qing dynasties, and was a good friend of Mr. Gu. Roger and Professor Ellen worked together to polish all the translated manuscripts, regardless of fame and gain, which is an example of the cooperation in the academic circles. I thank them for their sincere efforts. I believe that with the publication of this English version, historians and researchers on the Ming studies at home and abroad can take good advantages of it and promote further study on the history of the Ming and the Qing dynasties. (Peng Yong, Professor and Dean, School of History and Culture, Minzu University of China)

Bibliography

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Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables and Page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. “abandonment of Daning” 64 Academia Sinica 151, 168 An Chu 64 Anfu County 49 Anle subprefecture 63 The Annals of the Xian Campaign 97 “army household (junhu)” 79 Arrow Disaster (She Ta Tian) see Li Wanqing Auxiliary Regional Military Commission 16, 18; Fujian 29; of Gansu 20; Shaanxi 18–19, 21–2, 65–6; Sichuan 21–2 Bai Guang’en 138–9, 142 Bailian Jiao (White Lotus Society) 165 Bai Yang 61 Baoding Left Guard 44 Battalion Commanders 41 battalions and troops in Yongning Guard 123–4 Battle of Ningyuan 136–7 Battle of Sarhu 134–6 Battle of Songshan 137–40 Beisheng subprefecture 67 Ben Cao Gang Mu (Outline of Herbal Medicine) (Li Shizhen) 162 Biography of Master Hai Zhongjie (Huang Bing) 97 A Biography of the Dalai Lama (Ya Hanzhang) 234 Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang (Wu Han) 200 Bi Ziyan 131 A Book to Hide (Xu Cang Shu) (Li Zhi) 153

Bordered Blue Banner 138 Bordered Red Banner 138 border garrisons 63–8 A Brief Compilation of China’s General History (Fan Wenlan) 204 Buddhism 158, 170, 203 bureaucratization: of garrisons 46; of guards 46 Cao Bianjiao 138, 139, 140 Cao Cao see Luo Rucai Cao Shenji 46 capitalism: Ming and 178–83; sprouts of 178–83 Catholicism 170 Chang Jie 109 Chang Yuchun 108 Chatu ben Zhongguo Wenxueshi (An Illustrated History of Chinese Literature) (Zheng Zhenduo) 170 Chen Gaohua 195 Chenghua 8 (1472) 11 Chenghua 10 (1474) 19 Chenghua reign (1465–1487): documented land under 12 Cheng Xuan 23 Cheng Zhu school of Song neoConfucianism 155 Chen He 152 Chen Huan 23 Chen Kangsheng 237 Chen Kejia 152 Chen Longzheng 88 Chen Renxi 156 Chen Shiguan 48 Chen Shixia 48

262 Index Chen Xinjia 139 Chen Xuewen 237 Chen Yan 14 Chen Yongfu 143 Chen Youliang 107 Chen Yuan 170 Chen Zilong 156 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) 173, 177, 207 Chinese-Western contrastive studies 212–14 Chongzhencun Shishu Chao (Surviving real draft documents from Chongzhen) 168 Chongzhen reign (1628–1644) 96 The Chronological Biography of Hai Zhongjie 98 Chuan-Gui in Chongzhen 5 116 civilian households 16, 18, 54, 80, 84–7, 106; for Beisheng subprefecture 68; within the jurisdiction of garrisons 29; land cultivated by 89; and military system 23 Clearance Hook System 84, 101 coastal garrisons 63, 69–70 Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China 222, 223 Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China, Additional Volume 222–3 Collected Papers on the Sprouts of Capitalism in Ming-Qing China 223 Collected Papers on Zheng He’s Voyages 236 Collected Statutes of Great Ming (Da Ming Huidian) 2–3, 4–5, 27–8, 88–9, 157, 185–6; compilation of 9; cultivated land recorded in Ming 78; errors in 12; Hongzhi 15 10; of Zhengde reign states 10, 12–13, 15, 29–30 The Collected Works of Li Dongyang (Li Dongyang) 93 Collection of Materials on Hami and Turpan in the Ming Dynasty 234 Columbia University Press, New York 178 Company Commanders 41 Complete Handbook of Agricultural Administration (Xu Guangqi) 207 Comprehensive Gazetteer of Henan 11 Comprehensive Gazetteer of Huguang 11 Comprehensive Gazetteer of Sichuan 29

Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming 122 counties see specific counties The Creations of Nature and Man (Song Yingxing) 207 crisis in Ming dynastic rule 129–32 culture of the Ming period 232–4 Dai Jin 158 Dai Li 161 Dai Yixuan 237 Da Ming Jili (Collected Rites of the Great Ming) 159 Da Ming Yitong Zhi (Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming) 157 Dang’an (Archives) 166 Daning Regional Military Commission 63–4 Daoism 203 Dashing Disaster (Chuang Ta Tian) see Liu Guoneng Da Shun 196 Datong Left Guard 64 Da Xi 196 Daxili Xiansheng Xingji Shi (A biography of Mr. Daxili) (Chen Yuan) 170 Daxue Yanyi (Elaboration of Meanings of the Great Learning) (Zhen Dexiu) 156 Daxue Yanyi Bu (Supplement to the Elaboration of Meanings of the Great Learning) (Qiu Jun) 156 “demilitarization” 40, 41; inside garrisons 44 Deng Yu 18 “The Development of Social Productivity in the Early Ming” 3–4 The Diary of East Water 73 Ding Qirui 141, 142 Ding Wenjiang 171 Dizheng Yuekan (Local Government Monthly) 168 Dongli Xiansheng Wenji (The Collected Works of Mr. Dongli) (Yang Shiqi) 163 Dong Xi Yang Kao (Investigation of the Eastern and Western Oceans) (Zhang Xie) 163 Draft History of the Qing 99 Drawing Out Men (Chouding Shuo) (Lao Kan) 81 Du Song 135 Du Wanyan 227 Du Xun 148 Duyun Guard 75

Index  263 Emperor Muzong 64 Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang 224–5, 226, 235 Essay on Military Households (Lao Kan) 104 ethnicity in the Ming 234–5 European Jesuits 203, 206–7 The Extended Records of Chongzhen’s Reign 151 The Family Instructions of the Ming Dynasty 151 Fan Chengxun 46 Fang Congzhe 72 Fang Fu 109 Fang Guoan 141 Fan Ji 110 Fan Wenlan 204, 212 Fei Laizhi 170 Feng Quan 150 Feng subprefecture 74–5 “figures of tax grain” 32 “figures of tuntian grain” 32 First Historical Archives of China 166 Fish-Scale Registers 29 Fuguo county 90n28 Fujian Auxiliary Regional Military Commission 29, 125 Fujian People’s Publishing House 177 Fujii Hiroshi 2, 3–4, 184 Fumitoshi, Sato 187, 195 Fu Yiling 224 Fu Youde 113–14 Fu Zonglong 141, 142 Gansu province 20; Auxiliary Regional Military Commission 20, 125 Gao Huai 129 Gaopu Battalion 126 Gao Qizhuo 47, 53 garrison household registration: described 80, 95; importance of 100; and military households 106–13; and Ming documents 79 garrison land (tuntian) 14; amounts in the Ming dynasty 28; grain-producing 27; of Lanzhou Guard 21; soldiers 20; see also military land(s) garrisons (weisuo) 13–14, 126–7; administration of land 230; bureaucratization of 46; in charge of land 13; conversion into subprefectures 47, 49; corruption

76; in early Ming 15–16; features of 15; in the inland areas 25; Ming dynasty 53–4, 63; and Qing dynasty 40, 49; transformation under Qing dynasty 40 garrison town 16 Gazetteer of Chizhou Prefecture 30 Gazetteer of Guiyang Prefecture 117 Gazetteer of Houhu 4, 6, 19; cultivated land in 6; Yellow Registers 27 The Gazetteer of Jinjiang County 124 The Gazetteer of Quanzhou Prefecture 125 Gazetteer of Tengxian 36 Gazetteer of Tongzhou 16 Gazetteer of Wuxi County 107 Gazetteer of Xinhui County 49 Gazetteer of Yunnan 30 genealogies, and Ming dynasty 165 General Discussions of Maritime Defense (Zhou Hongzu) 25 General Gazetteer of Henan 29 A General History of Chinese Thought (Hou Wailu) 208, 232 A General Intellectual History of China (Hou Wailu) 238 General Pharmacopeia (Li Shizhen) 207 geography, in Ming 234–5 Ge Yinliang 158 Green Mountain, Green Water 29 Guangxi Ethnic Publishing House 177 guard household registration 101–6; Clearance Hook system 101; and population distribution in the Ming 113–18 guards 55–7, 62, 76, 126–7; administration of land 230; bureaucratization of 46; conversion into counties 52–3; conversion into subprefectures 47, 52; dissolution by Qing government 48–9; requisitioning of military households 54 guard town 16 Gu Cheng 230 Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission 23, 67 Guizhou Regional Military Commission 23, 68 Guochao Diangu (Dynastic Statutes) 160 Guo Huan 8 Guo Moruo 172 Guo que (An Appraisal of a State) 152 Guo Que (An Evaluation of the Events of Our Dynasty) (Tan Qian) 210

264 Index Gurjia tribe 133 Gu Tinglong 169 Gu Tingxiang 135 Gu Yanwu 158 Gu Ying 147 Gu Yingtai 161 Hada tribe 133 Haifa tribe 133 Hai Rui 84 Haixi tribe 133 Haiyan County Illustrated Text 103 Haizhou Zhili Zhouzhi (the Gazetteer of the Independent Sub-prefect of Haizhou) 70 Han Dacheng 224 Hanlin Academy 150–1, 155 Han people 25 Harvard-Yenching Institute 169 Hebei peasant uprising 195 He Bingdi 9, 11 He Fu 20 He Guangyu 103 He Hai 9 Henan Provincial Administration Commission 3, 11–12, 184; cultivated land under 8 He Qiaoyuan 154 He Renlong 140, 141 He Tengjiao 98–9 Hezhou Guard 18–19 Hiroshi, Fujii 225 The Historical Atlas of China (Tan Xixiang) 61, 202 History of Chinese Literature 232 History of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties 232 The History of the Development of Chinese Capitalism 223 Hong Chengchou 138, 139 Hongwu 3 (1370) 18 Hongwu 4 (1371) 16, 74 Hongwu 5 (1372) 18, 65, 85 Hongwu 7 (1374) 18 Hongwu 10 (1377) 19 Hongwu 12 (1379) 19 Hongwu 13 (1377) 7 Hongwu 14 (1381) 18, 113; cultivated land statistics vs. Hongwu 26 (1393) 4 Hongwu 15 (1382) 17, 24, 27, 67, 72, 113 Hongwu 19 (1386) 17 Hongwu 20 (1387) 16, 26–7, 110

Hongwu 21 (1388) 23 Hongwu 22 (1389) 114 Hongwu 22 (1398) 117 Hongwu 23 (1390) 67–8 Hongwu 24 (1391) 2, 4, 7 Hongwu 25 (1392) 5, 7, 20, 26, 72 Hongwu 26 (1393) 5, 63, 78; cultivated land audited in 2, 4; cultivated land in 6–7; cultivated land statistics vs. Hongwu 14 (1381) 4 Hongwu 28 (1395) 104 Hongwu 29 (1396) 24, 30, 67 Hongwu 30 (1397) 17, 27 Hongwu 31 (1398) 102 Hongwu reign (1368–1398) 68, 98, 115; bureaucratic behaviors 8; disparity in statistics, in total cultivated land 3; documented land under 11–12; military land 23; total cultivated land during 1, 3; tuntian grain tax for 33; “tuntian Yellow Registers” 32 Hongxi 1 (1425) 66 Hongxi reign: “tuntian Yellow Registers” 32 Hongzhi 7 (1494) 75 Hongzhi 15 (1502) 2–3, 5, 10, 78, 87 Hongzhi reign (1408–1505) 2, 93; Collected Statutes of Great Ming compilation 9, 78; military tuntian during 89 Houhu Zhi (Gazetteer of Houhu) 159 Houjian Lu (A Record of Hindsight) (Xie Fen) 195 “household registration” 104; garrison 106–13 Hou Wailu 208, 232, 238 Huailing Liukou Shizhong Lu (Record of the Roving Robbers of Huailing from Beginning to End) (Wu Shu and Dai Li) 161 Huang Chao 197 Huangming Shifa Lu (Record of Generations of Laws of the August Ming) 156 Huangming Shigai (Outline History of the August Ming) 154–5 Huangming Tiaofashi Leizuan (A Compilation of Imperial Laws of the August Ming) 158 Huangtaiji 137–40 Huang Zongxi 169–70 Hu Dawei 140, 141 The Huguang Illustrated Gazetteer (Huguang Tujing Zhishu) 11

Index  265 Huguang Provincial Administration Commission 11–12, 68; cultivated land under 8 Huichuan guard 49 Huili subprefecture 49 Huo Tao 2, 15 Hu Ruli 73 Hu Shi 170 Hu Tingyan 131 Hu Zhefu 170

Songshan 137–40; foundation of 132–4, 132–40 Jishi Lu (Records of Historical Events) 159 Ji Wenfu 170 Journal of Beijing Normal University 58, 118 Journal of Social Science Research 209 The Journey to the West and Plum Flower in a Golden Vase 207 Jurchen tribes 132

Industry Revolution 182 “Informal Biography of the Minister Master Peng” 94 inland garrisons 63, 70–1 inner garrisons 63, 71–3 inscriptions, and Ming dynasty 166 Institute of History of CASS 173

Kaiming Book Company 169 Kangxi 3 45–6 Kangxi 7 44 Kangxi 9 46 Kangxi 10 46 Kangxi 20 (1681): Revolt of Three Feudatories 78 Kangxi 23 44 Kangxi 26 46 Kangxi 28 47 Kangxi 50 56 Kangxi reign (1622–1722) 45, 107 Kerqin tribe 133 Khan, Kublai 234 Kikuo, Taniguchi 195 Kuang Ye 14

Japanese pirates 122, 124, 205–6 Jia Fengzhen 170 Jiajing 3 (1524) 68 Jiajing 14 (1535) 111 Jiajing reign (1522–1566) 2, 29, 35, 73, 103 Jianning Left Guard 125 Jianning Right Guard 125 Jianwen Chaoye Huibian (Informal Collection on the Jianwen Reign) (Tu Shufang) 155 Jiao Hong 84, 94, 106 Jiashen Sanbainian Ji (The Three Hundredth Anniversary of 1644) (Guo Moruo) 172 Jidujiaoru Hua Shilue (A History of the Entrance of Christianity into China) (Chen Yuan) 170 Jifei Lu (Records of Misdeeds) 158 Ji Guoxian 41–2 Jilu Huibian (Collection of Records) 160 Jinchi Guard 24, 67–8 Jing Nan Battle 200 Jingnan Pacification Campaign 150, 155 Jingnan Rebellion 33 Jingnan War 191 Jingtai 1 (1450) 25 Jingtai 3 (1452) 117–18 Jingtai 7 (1456) 66 Jingtai reign (1450–1457) 111 Jining Left Guard 25 Jinling Fancha Zhi (Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Nanking) (Ge Yinliang) 158 Jin state: Battle of Ningyuan 136–7; Battle of Sarhu 134–6; Battle of

Lancang Guard 30, 67 Lanchang Guard 24 Langqu subprefecture 67 Lan Yu 26, 113 Lanzhou Guard 21 Lao Kan 81–3, 104 late Ming: military affairs of 129–49 Left Guard town of Hezhou 18–19 Liangcheng garrison/battalion 49 Liang Fangzhong 3, 168–9, 184, 225 Liang Qichao 171 Liang Yunlong 97–8 Liangzhou Guard 27 Liaodong: military state land in 17–18; occupation of 132–40; tax-collection bureau of 18 Liaodong Regional Military Commission 63, 74, 201 Liaoning Provincial Archives 166 Li Beidi see Li Mengyang Li Chengliang 132 Li Chun 94 Lida garrison 49 Li Dongyang 84, 93–101 Li Fuming 138, 139 Li Guoqi 140

266 Index Li Jin (Li Guo) 147 Li Mengyang 96–7 Li Mingzhong 115 Ling Yunji 118 Lin Jinshu 194 Lin Renchuan 205, 236 Li Rubai 135 Li Ruoxing 20 Li Shizhen 162, 207 Liu Fangliang 147 Liu Geng 94 Liu Guochang 147 Liu Jian 100 Liukou Zhi (Record of the Roving Robbers) (Peng Sunyi) 161 Liu Qu 136 Liu Ruguo 130 Liu Shipei 170 Liu Tianxu 130 Liu Ting 135 Liu Yingjie 75–6 Liu Zongmin 147 Li Wanshi 159 Li Wenzhi 172, 227 Li Xian 157 Li Xiya see Li Dongyang Li Yan 231 Li Yongfang 135 Li Yunsan 93–4 Li Ze 94 Li Zheng 97 Li Zhi 170, 232 Li Zhizao 238 Li Zicheng 140, 196–9, 231; capturing Beijing 146–9; defeating Ming forces five times in Central Plains 140–4; seizing San Bian of Shaanxi 146–9 local gazetteers: Ming dynasty 164–5 Long’an prefecture 49 Longqing reign (1567–1572) 108 Luo Rucai 140 Luo Rucheng 142 Lu Rong 105 Lu Wang Zhexue Bianwei (Distinguishing the philosophy of Lu Wang) (Hu Zhefu) 170 Lu Xun 170 Ma Duanlin 157 Ma Ke 138, 139 Ma Lin 135 Manchus 132 Man Gui 99, 137

Mao Yuanyi 163 Marco Polo 124 Marxism 168, 172, 218–19 Masao, Mori 195 Ma Shiying 98 Ma Wensheng 31–2 May 4th Movement 170 Meng Sen 168 Mianning County 49 Middle Ages 233 military, in Ming 229–32 military affairs of the late Ming 129–49; Battle of Ningyuan 136–7; Battle of Sarhu 134–6; Battle of Songshan 137–40; crisis in Ming dynastic rule 129–32; foundation of Jin state and occupation of Liaodong 132–40; Peasant War at the end of Ming and fall of Ming 140–9 Military Farming of the Ming Dynasty 229 military governance, decline of 131–2 military households 82, 84, 86, 103; administered by subprefectures and counties 79–80; and garrison household registration 106–13; of guards and garrisons 54 military land(s) 101, 116; vs. civilian land 32; cultivation 41; described 21; in Guizhou 23; and Huo Tao 15; quota of 21; and Sichuan Regional Military Commission 22; taxes 43; and Yunnan 24 military officers: abuse of power by 31; bribery and exploitation 131; children 15; and guard household registration 99; rank re-stipulation of 42 Ming (state): China’s foreign relations in 235–9; cultivated land and its land system 183–9; ethnicity in 234–5; ethnic minorities and religions 202–3; on evaluation of some historical figures in 199–201; geography in 234–5; historical compilations 169; institutions 169; laws 169; military 169; peasant war at the end of 140–9; peasant war at the fall 140–9; politics and military matters in 169, 229–32; private maritime trade of 236–8; relations with foreign countries 171–2; Sino-foreign relations in 203–7; systems of tax and corvée in 189–94; tribute trade of 236–8 Ming Chengzu 9, 16, 33–4, 200–5

Index  267 Mingchu de Xuexia (Schools at the Beginning of the Ming) (Wu Han) 172 Ming culture 207–10 Mingdai Banben Tulu Chubian (First edition of the illustrated books of the Ming Period) (Pan Chengbi and Gu Tinglong) 169 Mingdai Chizhuanshukao Fuyinde (Notes on Imperial Compilations during the Ming dynasty, with index) 169 Mingdai Renwu Zhuanji Cidian (Dictionary of Ming Biography) 178 Mingdai Sixiang Shi (A History of Ming Period Thought) (Rong Zhaozu) 169 Mingdai Tewu Zhengzhi (the Politics of Special Matters in the Ming) (Ye Dingyi) 172 Mingdai Wokou Fan Hua Shilue (An Outline History of the Dwarf Robbers Revolt against China in the Ming Period) (Wu Chonghan) 172 Mingdai Wokou Kaolue (An Examination of the Dwarf Pirates in the Ming) (Chen Maoheng) 172 Ming dynastic rule: complete corruption of the ruling circle 129–30; contradictions among classes intensified continuously 130; crisis in 129–32; decline of military governance 131–2 Ming dynasty: administration 61–73; agricultural land under 1; annalistic compilations 150–2; Collected Statutes of the Great Ming (Da Ming Huidian) 157; collections of essays 163–4; compilation of records and biographies 152–3; convertibility of territorial units 73–7; cultivated land statistics 56, 77–87; Da Ming Jili (Collected Rites of the Great Ming) 159; Da Ming Yitong Zhi (Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Ming) 157; Dang’an (Archives) 166; garrisons 63; garrisons’ land for tuntian 27; genealogies 165; Grand Coordinator performance under 42; guard household registration 101–6; Guo que (An Appraisal of a State) 152; historical sources of 150–9; Houhu Zhi (Gazetteer of Houhu) 159; Huangming Shifa Lu (Record of Generations of Laws of the August Ming) 156; Huangming

Shigai (Outline History of the August Ming) 154–5; Huangming Tiaofashi Leizuan (A Compilation of Imperial Laws of the August Ming) 158; inscriptions 166; Jianwen Chaoye Huibian (Informal Collection on the Jianwen Reign) 155; Jifei Lu (Records of Misdeeds) 158; Jishi Lu (Records of Historical Events) 159; local gazetteers 164–5; Ming ji (Records of the Ming) 152; Ming Jingshi Wenbian (Essays on Statecraft in the Ming) 156–7; Ming Shan Cang (Archive at the Mountain of Names) 154; Mingshi (History of the Ming) 152–3; Mingshi Jishi Benmo (The Major events of Ming History from the Beginning to the End) 153; Ming Tongjian (A Comprehensive History of the Ming) 152; Nianpu (chronological life stories) 165–6; official history books and compilations of documents 156–9; other historical writings by individual author 153–6; population in 79–87; Qin Jilu (Record of Royal Collections) 158; Record of Sights and Sounds from the Western Garden (Xiyuan Wenjian Lu) 156; San Cai Tu Hui (Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms) 155–6; state and private cultivated land 2; state and private land in 87–9; supplementary historical sources of 159–66; territories and military system 72; territory of 61–73; Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm) 158; Tu Shu Bian (Picture book compilation) 155; unofficial histories and private notes 159–62; Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty 150–1; weisuo of 53–4; weisuotuntian (the garrison farmland) 25–6; western region of Sichuan in 21; works on science and technology 162–3; Xu Wenxian Tongkao (Supplement to the Comprehensive Investigations Based on Literary and Documentary Sources) 157; Yanzhou Shiliao (Historical Sources of Yanzhou) 154 Ming garrison sites, preserving 126–8 Ming geography 201–2 Ming Historical Events from the Beginning to the End 161

268 Index Ming history: annalistic compilations 150–2; China’s foreign relations in Ming 235–9; choosing research projects 212–18; collections of essays 163–4; compilation of records and biographies 152–3; culture of the Ming period 232–4; current situation in study of 172–210; Dang’an (Archives) 166; environment for study of certain issues of 178–210; on evaluation of historical figures in 199– 201; field of Ming intellectual culture 169–71; foreign research methods and academic achievements 218–19; fundamental historical sources of Ming dynasty 150–9; fundamental principles of Marxism 218–19; future prospects for study of 210–19; genealogies 165; general conditions since establishment of PRC 172–8; geography and ethnicity in Ming 234– 5; historical documents of 150–66; history of Ming history studies 166– 72; inscriptions 166; issues of Ming’s ethnic minorities and religions 202–3; local gazetteers 164–5; on Ming culture 207–10; on Ming political and military systems 191–4; Ming’s cultivated land and its land system 183–9; Ming’s relations with foreign countries 171–2; monographic studies on 168–72; Nianpu (chronological life stories) 165–6; official history books and compilations of documents 156–9; other historical writings by individual author 153–6; outline of Ming historiography 166–8; on peasants wars 194–9; politics and military matters in Ming 229–32; on the question of sprouts of capitalism 178–83; on Sino–foreign relations in Ming 203–7; social economy of Ming period 222–9; on studies of Ming geography 201–2; on the studies of Ming peasant uprisings 172; studies of Ming society 168–9; studies on politics, military, laws, institutions and historical compilations 169; supplementary historical sources of Ming dynasty 159–66; systems of tax and corvée in Ming 189–90; unofficial histories and private notes 159–62; weakness in research history and

status quo 210–12; works on science and technology 162–3 The Ming History 153 Ming History Bureau 153 “Ming History Essay on Food and Money” 87, 97, 99–100 Ming History Institute 62 Ming history studies: history of 166–72; monographic studies on Ming history 168–72; outline of Ming historiography 166–8 Ming history study: cultivated land and its land system 183–9; environment for certain issues of Ming period 178–210; evaluation of historical figures in Ming 199–201; general conditions in since establishment of PRC 172–8; on Ming culture 207–10; on Ming’s ethnic minorities and religions 202–3; on peasants wars 194–9; on question of sprouts of capitalism 178–83; on Sino–foreign relations in Ming 203–7; on studies of Ming geography 201–2; on systems of tax and corvée in Ming 189–94 Ming intellectual culture 169–71 Ming ji (Records of the Ming) 152 Ming ji Dian Qian Fojiao Kao (An Investigation of Buddhism in Yunnan and Guizhou in the Ming) (Chen Yuan) 170 Ming Jingshi Wenbian (Essays on Statecraft in the Ming) 156–7 Ming ji Shiliao Congshu (A Collectania of Historical Materials of the Late Ming) 167 Ming ji Shiliao Tiba (Colophons to Sources on Late Ming History) (Zhu Xizu) 167 “The Ming Merchants’ Private Sea Commerce and ‘the Japanese Pirates’” (Lin Renchuan) 205 Ming peasant uprisings 172 Ming period: culture of 232–4; social economy of 222–9 Ming Qing Shi Jiangyi (Lectures on Ming and Qing History) (Meng Sen) 168 Ming Qing Shiliao (Historical Documents of the Ming and Qing) 168 Ming-Qing zhiji Dangshe Yundong Kao (A Study of Party and Society Movements during the Ming- Qing Transition) (Xie Guozhen) 167

Index  269 Ming Qing Zi benzhuyi Mengya Yanjiu Lunwen Ji (Essays on Sprouts of Capitalism in the Ming and Qing) 179 Ming Shan Cang (Archive at the Mountain of Names) 154 Ming Shan Cang (Archive at the Mountain of Names) (He Qiaoyuan) 154 Ming Shenzong 129 Ming Shi 1 Mingshi (History of the Ming) 152–3 Mingshi Jishi Benmo (The Major events of Ming History from the Beginning to the End) (Gu Yingtai) 153 Mingshi Yanjiu (Ming Studies) 178 Mingshi Yanjiu Luncong (Articles on Ming History) 177 Ming Shu (Fu Weilin) 153 Ming society: studies of 168–9 Ming Taizu 24, 158, 200 Ming Tongjian (A Comprehensive History of the Ming) 152 Ming Veritable Records 224 Ming Xiaozong 9, 75 Ming Xiaozong Shilu 78 Ming Xuanzong Veritable Records 105 Ming Yuan Qing xi Tongji (Record of the Ming, Yuan, and Qing History) (Meng Sen) 168 Ministry of Revenue 47, 87 Ministry of Troops 48 Ministry of War 41, 103 Minzhou Guard 27 Mongolian Chahar tribe 137 monographic studies on Ming history 168–72; intellectual culture 169–71; politics, military, laws, institutions and historical compilations 169; relations with foreign countries 171–2; studies of Ming peasant uprisings 172; studies of the Ming society 168–9 Mu Ying 24, 113, 114 Muzong reign (1566–1572) 75 Nanjiang Yishi (A History of the Southern Territory) (Wen Ruilin) 161–2 Nanjing 71 National Library of China 166 “National Palace Museum” 166 National Studies Society 152 Nautical Charts of Zheng He 163 Neo-Confucianism 170

“A New Analysis of Cultivated Land in the Early Ming” 40 New Gazetteer and Maps of Guizhou (Guizhou Tujing Xinzhi) 23, 30 The New Ningxia Gazetteer (Hu Ruli) 73 Neyin tribe 133 Nian Gengyao 51–2, 75 Nianpu (chronological life stories) 165–6 NikanWailan 132 Ningfan guard 49 Ninghe County 49 Ningwu prefecture 50 Ningxia Guard 20 Ning Zheng 19, 65–6 Niu Chenghu 141, 142 Niu Hucheng 141 Nongzheng Quanshu (A Complete Handbook of Agricultural Administration) (Xu Guangqi) 162 Non-Purposive Action religion 130 Northeast China in the Ming Dynasty (Li Jiancai) 234 Nuo Min 50 Nurgan Regional Military Commission 200–1, 203 Nurhachi 132, 135 occupation of Liaodong 132–40 Official History of the Ming Dynasty 184, 186 “On Reclaiming Uncultivated Land” 88 “On the Issues of Liu Liu, Yang Hu Uprisings in the mid Ming” (Chen Gaohua) 195 Opium War 233 Pacification Commission 21–2; and Tengchong prefecture 67 Pan Chaoxian 55 Pan Chengbi 169 Parsons, James 195 The Peasant Revolts at the end of Ming (Parsons) 195 peasant wars 194–9; at the end of Ming and fall of the Ming 140–9; Li Zicheng captured Beijing 146–9; Li Zicheng defeated Ming forces 140–4; Li Zicheng seized San Bian of Shaanxi 146–9; Zhang Xianzhong’s fighting in Changjiang 144–6 Peng Sunyi 161 Peng Yumin 7 Peng Ze 94–5

270 Index The Peony Pavilion 232 People’s Medical Publishing House 162 The Personal Record of Master Hai Zhongjie 97–8 Plum Flower in a Golden Vase (The Golden Lotus) 208 The Plum in the Golden Vase 232 politics: in the Ming 169, 229–32; studies on 169 population: in Ming and guard household registration 113–18; in Ming dynasty 79–87 Preface to the Li Family Genealogy (Li Mingzhong) 115 “A preliminary study of Peasant uprisings during Hongwu reign (1368–1398)” (Lin Jinshu) 194 A Preliminary Study of the Historical Sources on Eunuchs and the Economy in the Ming Dynasty 227 preserving Ming garrison sites 126–8 Private Maritime Trade in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties (Lin Renchuan) 236 private maritime trade of the Ming 236–8 Provincial Administration Commission 6, 8–9, 10, 15, 62, 193; Guizhou 67; Henan 11; Huguang 11, 68; Shaanxi 65; Sichuan 68; Yunnan 67 Provincial Administration Commissioner 62 Provincial Surveillance Commission 42, 193 Provincial Surveillance Commissioners 41 Qianlong 24 (1759) 64 Qiaoting Zeng 108 Qi Bingzhong 136 Qi Jiguang 126, 205 Qingdai Renwu Zhuan Gao (Draft Biographies of the Personages in the Qing Dynasty) 218 Qing dynasty 124, 127, 152, 168; abolition of Regional Military Commission 77; “demilitarization” 40, 41; dissolution and merging of garrisons 43, 49; garrisons transformation under 40; and garrison system 40; Grand Coordinator performance under 42; military function of guard and garrison under 56–7; military officers ranking 42

Qingxi County 49 Qin Jilu (Record of Royal Collections) 158 Qin min guan (Grassroots officials) 90n21 Qiu Jun 156 Qiu Minyang 140 Quanzhou Guard 122 Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer 122, 123 The Quanzhou Prefectual Gazetteer·Public Offices 122 Qu Jiusi 160 rebellion of Tian Zongding 23 A Record of Criminal Reflections (Zuiweilu) (Zha Jizuo) 153 Record of Sights and Sounds from the Western Garden (Xiyuan Wenjian Lu) 156 Record of the Double Pearl (Shen Jing) 109 Record of the Pacification of Wu (Sun Xu) 100 Record of the Polity’s Meritorious Campaigns (Jiao Hong) 94 Record of the Tengchong Jinjiayuan Xu Family’s Migration from Nanjing to Tengyue (Xu Bin) 115–16 Record of the Yongning Guard 127 Red Banner 138 Red Eyebrow uprising 130 Regional Military Commissioner 62 The Regional Military Commission of Duyun Guard 75 Regional Military Commissions 13–14, 15, 193; classification of land managed by 16; Daning 63–4; Guizhou 23, 68; Liaodong 74; Shaanxi 18, 22, 65; Shandong 25, 69; Sichuan 21–2, 29–30; Yunnan 25, 29, 30 Renwen Kexue Xuebao (Journal of Humanities and Sciences) 168 Research on the Nurgan Regional Military Commission and its garrison (Yang Yang) 234 Revolt of Three Feudatories 78, 91n49 Right Guard town of Hezhou 18–19 Romance of the Three Kingdoms 207, 232 Rong Zhaozu 169 Ruan Dacheng 167 The Rules for Administrators 1, 3, 4–6, 28–9, 33, 183, 225; cultivated land in Ming 6–7, 78; 8,500,000 qing recorded in 1–4, 6, 12, 14; importance of 9; mistakes in statistics of 7, 12

Index  271 San Bian of Shaanxi: Li Zicheng seized 146–9 San Cai Tu Hui (Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms) (Wang Qi) 155–6 San Niangzi 75 Sanyan Erpai 232 School of Baoding Left Guard 44 School of Daning Regional Military Commission 44 “School of Tongguan guard” 51 School of Wanquan Regional Military Commission 44 School of Xuanfu Front Guard 44 Second Revolutionary Civil War 197 Shaanxi Auxiliary Regional Military Commission 18–19, 21–2, 65–6 Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission 19, 65 Shaanxi Regional Military Commission 18, 22, 65 Shadingzhou Rebellion 99 Shandong Regional Military Commission 25, 69 Shanghai Classics Publishing House 161 Shehui Xianda Qian Qianyi (The Prominent Worthy in Society, Qian Qianyi) (Wu Han) 172 Shen Bang 71–2 Shen Defu 160 Shen Gu 85–6 Shen Jiefu 160 Shen Jing 109 Shi Kefa 72, 98, 201 Shikui Shu Houji (Later Collection of Stone Cabinet Books) (Zhang Dai) 160–1 Shi Maohua 20 Shimizu Yasuji 3, 184 “The Shun Interregnum of 1644” (Wakeman) 195 Shunzhi 2 (1646) 40 Shunzhi 3 (1647) 41 Shunzhi 5 41 Shunzhi 6 (1649) 41, 98 Shunzhi 7 44 Shunzhi 8 (1651) 71 Shunzhi 9 (1652) 43 Shunzhi 10 (1653) 42 Shunzhi 18 57 Shunzhi reign (1644–1661) 45 Shuoping prefecture 50 Shuoweng 138 Sichuan Auxiliary Regional Military Commission 21

Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission 68 Sichuan Regional Military Commission 21–2, 29–30 Single Whip Law 223, 225–8 Single Whip Reform 189 social economy of the Ming period 222–9 Social Sciences in China 4 Song dynasty 164, 170 Song Mei 131 Songpan guard 49 Songpan Native Military Commander 22 Song Peiwei 170 Song Yingxing 162, 207 Source Book of Ming Confucians (Huang Zongxi) 169–70 The Sprouts of Capitalism in China 223 “State Land and Private Land in the Ming Dynasty” (Journal of Chinese Literature and History (Wu Dange) 225 State Studies Library, Nanjing 151 “statistics on the cultivated lands” 91n45 Statutes of the Great Ming 183–4, 225 studies: of Ming geography 201–2; of Ming peasant uprisings 172; on Ming politics, military, laws, institutions and historical compilations 169; of the Ming society 168–9 subprefectures 63; guards conversion into 47; see also specific subprefectures Sui Kou Jilue (Record of the Pacification of Robbers) (Wu Weiye) 161 Sun Chuanting 142 Sun Kaidi 170 Sun Xu 100 Supreme Commanders 41 Susumi, Fuma 195 Taizong, Tang Emperor 75 Tang He 16, 124 Tang Runshan 102 Tang Saer uprising 195 Tang Tong 138, 139 Tan Lun 83–4 Tan Qian 152, 210 Tan Qixiang 61 Tan Tai 41 Tan Xixiang 202 Taoism 158 The Tax Captain System of the Ming Dynasty (Liang Fangzhong) 225 “temporary stays” 72

272 Index Tengchong Junmin Zhihui Shisi 30 Tengchong prefecture 67–8 Terada Takashinobu 188 Textual Notes (Cha Shang Lao She) (Chen Yan) 14 Tian Chen 23 Tian Gong Kai Wu (The Creations of Nature and Man) (Song Yingxing) 162 Tian Jianxiu 146, 147 Tianqi 4 (1624) 20, 103 Tianqi 7 140 Tianshun 1 (1457) 85 Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu (Strengths and Weaknesses of the Regions of the Realm) (Gu Yanwu) 158 Tongguan of Shaanxi 51 Tonggu guard 53 Tong Shi (Histories of Pain) (Zhu Ziyu) 167 Treasure Voyages by Zheng He 236 tribute trade of the Ming 236–8 Tu Mu Crisis 25 Tumu Incident 78, 91n47 Tu Shu Bian (Zhang Huang) 155 Tu Shufang 155 Veritable Record of Ming Shenzong 58 Veritable Records of Ming Taizu 3, 5, 7, 10, 16, 26, 78, 123, 125, 194, 225 The Veritable Records of the Censorate in Xizong 7 151 Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty 2, 10, 12, 16, 57, 65, 87, 104, 150–1 Veritable Records of the Qing 44, 70 Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. 195 Wang Chunyu 227 Wang Fuzhi 95 Wang Guoxian 98 Wang Hongxu 153 Wang Huazhen 136 Wang Ji 109, 111 Wang Jiuling 109 Wang Min 95 Wang Pu 138, 139 Wang Qi 157 Wang Qiaonian 141, 142 Wang Quanshi 99 Wang Shizhen 154 Wang Tingchen 138, 139, 140 Wang Xigun 84, 99 Wang Xuan 110

Wang Yangming 170, 208–9, 232 Wang Yangmingyu Ming Lixue (Wang Yangming and Studies of Principle in the Ming) (Song Peiwei) 170 Wang Yuquan 187 Wang Zhen 192 Wang Zhi 237 Wanli 129 Wanli 6 (1578) 78 Wanli 19 133 Wanli 23 133 Wanli 30 (1602) 78 Wanli reign (1573–1620) 4, 20, 71, 104, 118; Collected Statutes of Great Ming of 5–6, 9 Wanli Wugong Lu (A Record of Military Achievements of Wanli) (Qu Jiusi) 160 Wanli Yehuo Bian (Compilation of Country Harvests of the Wanli Reign) (Shen Defu) 160 Wan Ming Minbian (Popular Uprisings of the late Ming) (Li Wenzhi) 172 Wan Mingshi Jikao (Record of Sources of the Late Ming) (Xie Guozhen) 167 Wanquan Regional Military Commission 44, 64 Wan Sitong 153 Wan Wencai 159 Water Margin 232 The Water Margin 207 weisuotuntian (the garrison farmland) 25–6 Wei Xiangshu 71 Wei Yijie 44–5, 71 Wei Zhongxian 130, 150 Wen Ruilin 161–2 Western historiography 168 Western Jesuits 206 White Lotus Society 130 Wubei Zhi (Record of Military Preparations) (Mao Yuanyi) 163 Wu Chengming 223 Wu Dange 185, 187, 227 Wu Han 3–4, 169, 172, 184, 200 Wukai guard 53 Wula tribe 133 Wu Sangui 99–100, 138, 139, 231 Wu Shu 161 Wu Weiye 161 Wu Yu 170 Wu Zazu (Five Mixed Platters) (Xie Zhaozhe) 160

Index  273 Xia Decheng 140 Xiang Da 171 Xiangwujunmin battalion 27 Xiao Zhen 57 Xia Yuanji 34, 85 Xibo tribe 133 Xie Guozhen 167 Xie Zhaozhe 160 Xie Zhu 125 Xingyi Tishi 9 Xining Guard 21; civilian land quota 21; military land quota 21; in Zhengtong 3 (1438) 21 Xiong Tingbi 136 Xiong Wencan 145 Xizong reign (1621–1627) 20 Xuande (1426–1435): grain taxed from weisuo tuntian during 32, 33 Xuande 2 (1427) 33 Xuande 7 (1432) 105 Xuanfu Front Guard 44 Xuanlan Tang Congshu (A Collectania of the Xuanlan Study) 167 Xuanzong, Tang Emperor 33–4, 80, 85, 110, 203 Xu Bin 115–16 Xu Cong 111, 112 Xu Dixin 223 Xu Guangqi 162, 207, 238 Xu Heng 116 Xu Hongru 130 Xu Hongzu 162, 207 Xu Huai 112 Xu Lu 111–12 Xu Wei 111–13 Xu Wenchang 112 Xu Wenxian Tongkao (Supplement to the Comprehensive Investigations Based on Literary and Documentary Sources) (Wang Qi) 157 Xu Xia Ke’s Travel Diaries (Xu Hongzu) 207 Xu Xiake Xiansheng Nianpu (Chronological Biography of Mr. Xu Xiake) (Ding Wenjiang) 171 Xu Xiake Youji (The Travel Record of Xu Xiake) (Xu Hongzu) 162, 171 Xu Zongze 170 Ya Hanzhang 234 Yamane Yukio 177 Yan Chongnian 177

Yandang (eunuch party) 130 Yang Dezheng 141 Yang Guozhen 229 Yang Hao 135, 138 Yang He 96 Yang Lian 159 Yang Lu 96 Yangming leftism 170 Yangming Xue (Yangming Studies) (Jia Fengzhen) 170 Yang Shiqi 163 Yang Sichang 84, 96, 145 Yang Wencong 98 Yang Wenruo Xiansheng Ji (Collected Works of Mr. Yang Wenruo) (Yang Sichang) 163 Yang Wenyue 140, 141 Yang Yuan Xiansheng Quanji (The Complete Works of Mr. Yang Yuan) (Zhang Lüxiang) 164 Yanshan Tang Bieji (Anthology of Yan Mountain Hall) (Wang Shizhen) 154 Yanzhou Shiliao (Historical Sources of Yanzhou) (Wang Shizhen) 154 Ye Dingyi 172 Yehe tribe 133 Yellow Registers 4, 6, 9–10, 14, 19, 27, 31–2, 34, 36, 107, 159, 224 The Yellow Registers System of the Ming Dynasty (Wei Qingyuan) 225 Yellow Turban uprising 130 Ye Sheng 73 Yingzong (reigned 1425–1449, 1457–1464) 18, 30, 34–5, 47, 64; Grand Coordinator title 73 Yin Luanzhang 152 Yin Qian 18 Yi Shiha 193 Yi Suzhou Tianshe Tongpan Shu 20 “Yitiaobian Fa” (Single Whip Law) 180, 190 Yongle 1 (1403) 20, 33 Yongle 2 (1404) 9 Yongle 4 (1406) 24, 104 Yongle 7 (1409) 63 Yongle 11 (1413) 23, 67 Yongle Dadian (Yung-lo Encyclopedia) 201 Yongle Encyclopedia 207, 217 Yongle reign (1403–1424) 30, 33, 93, 98; Beijing as capital under 71; deployment of military forces 34;

274 Index grain taxed from weisuo tuntian during 32, 33; Ming Chengzu 34; “tuntian Yellow Registers” 32 Yongning Guard: established in 122; establishment of 122–3; on the need to preserving Ming garrison sites 126–8; numbers of battalions and troops in the Yongning Guard 123–4; question of “Zhongzuo” battalion (Xiamen) 124–6 Yongning Guard Military Commission 122–3 Yongning Neighborhood Committee 127 Yongning subprefecture 67 Yongzheng 2 47, 49–50, 51 Yongzheng 2 (1724) 75 Yongzheng 3 47, 50, 53 Yongzheng 4 48, 52–3 Yongzheng 5 51 Yongzheng 5 (1728) 48 Yongzheng 8 51 Yongzheng 13 49 Yongzheng reign (1722–1735) 53, 77 Yong Zhuang Xiaopin (Little Works of Surging Streamers) (Zhu Guozhen) 160 You Guo’en 232 Youmianjunhu ding chai chi 80 Yuan Chonghuan 136, 137 Yuan Chonghuan ZiliaoJilu (Compilation of Historical Records on Yuan Chonghuan) 177 Yuan dynasty 26, 67, 124 Yuan Zongdi 147 Yu Dayou 99, 126, 205 YueZhongqi 51 Yu Hongzhi 130 Yukio, Yamane 195 Yulin Guard 64 Yulin guard 51 Yulin prefecture 51 Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission 30, 67 Yunnan Regional Military Commission 25, 29, 30 Zaoqizai Hua Yesuhuishi Liezhuan ji qi Zhuzuo Tiyao (The Lives And Works of Jesuits in China in the Early Period) (Fei Laizhi) 170 Zeng Fan 108 Zeng Xingwu 107, 108 Zeng Yongsi 108 Zhai Zhong 102

Zhang Cangshui Ji (Collected Works of Zhang Cangshui) (Zhang Huangyan) 167 Zhang Chengyin 135 Zhang Dai 160–1 Zhang Fengxiang 143 Zhang Guan Si 23 Zhang Guoqin 141 Zhang Guoqinwas 141 Zhang Haiying 228 Zhang Huang 155 Zhang Huangyan 167 Zhang Juzheng 57–8, 78, 108, 129 Zhang Lüxiang 164 Zhang Nai 147 Zhang Ruolin 139 Zhang Shan 70 Zhang Shicheng 226 Zhang Tingyu 153 Zhang Wei 195 Zhang Xianzhong 144–6, 196–9, 231 Zhang Xie 163 Zhang Xuan 156 Zhang Yinggui 141 Zhao Guan 159 Zhao Guyuan 130, 165 Zhao Mian 8 Zhao Sui 195 Zhejiang People’s Publishing House 161 Zhen Dexiu 156 Zheng Chenggong 69, 124, 126, 177 Zhengde 7 (1512) 11 Zhengde reign (1506–1521) 2, 4, 88, 93; Collected Statutes of Great Ming of 6, 9, 10, 12–13, 15 Zheng Fengyuan 84 Zheng He 177, 193, 201, 203, 211, 235–6 Zheng Hesheng 171 Zheng He’s Voyages 204–5 Zheng He Xia Xiyang Lunwen Ji (Symposium on Zheng He’s Voyages to the Western Ocean) 177 Zheng Jia 142 Zheng Jiadong 141 Zheng Tianting 176 Zhengtong 1 (1436) 110 Zhengtong 3 (1438) 70; “School of Tongguan guard” 51 Zhengtong 5 (1440) 70 Zhengtong 6 (1441) 24, 30 Zhengtong 10 (1445) 64 Zhengtong reign (1436–1449) 115; Minister of War 14 Zheng Xiao 35

Index  275 Zheng Zhenduo 167, 170 Zhili Daning Regional Military Commission 44 Zhili Tianjin guard 49 Zhi Wenzhuo 52 Zhongguo Jindai Jingjishi Yanjiu Jikan (Journal of Research on China’s Modern Economy) 168 Zhongguo Tian zhujiao Chuanjiaoshi Gailun (Essays on the propagation of Catholicism In China) (Xu Zongze) 170 Zhongguo Xiaoshuo Shilue (An Outline History of Chinese Novels) (Lu Xun) 170 Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wen ti Lunwen Ji (Essays on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China) 179 Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wenti Taolun Ji (Discussions on the Question of the Sprouts of Capitalism in China) 179 Zhongguo Zibenzhuyi Mengya Wenti Taolun Xubian (Supplements to the discussions on the Sprouts of Capitalism in China) 179 Zhonghua Book Company 152, 157, 160, 162, 163, 170 Zhongshun Wang 66 “Zhongzuo” battalion (Xiamen) 124–6 Zhou Chen 70 Zhou Dexing 123, 124 Zhou Hongzu 25 Zhou Ren 102 Zhu Changluo 130 Zhu Changxun 140 Zhu Dangmian 160

Zhu Di 200–1, 234–5 Zhu Guozhen 154, 160 Zhu Huakui 146 Zhuo Cai Weisuo Ding, Tianyi Gui Zhou Xian Shu (Wei Yijie) 71 Zhu Quan 63 Zhusheli tribe 133 Zhu Shunshui Ji (Collected Works of Zhu Shunshui) (Zhu Ziyu) 167 Zhu Wubi 165 Zhu Xie 235 Zhu Xieyuan 116 Zhu Xizu 167 Zhu Yijun 129 Zhu Youjian 140 Zhu Youxiao 130 Zhu Yuanzhang 7–8, 14, 16–17, 23, 27, 72, 102, 107–8, 114, 123, 124, 154, 158, 191–2, 199–200, 222, 234; on coastal garrisons 70; on military state land in Liaodong 17–18; territorial units systems 73–4 Zhu Yuanzhang Zhuan (Biography of Zhu Yuanzhang) (Wu Han) 172 Zhu Yunwen 150 Zhu Ziyu 167 Zizai subprefecture 63 Zu Dashou 137, 138 Zuguo Da Hanghaijia Zheng He Zhuan (Great Navigator of Our Ancestral Land: a Biography of Zheng He) (Liang Qichao) 171 Zuo Liangyu 141 Zuopai Wang Xue (Left wing Wang Studies) (Ji Wenfu) 170 Zuo Xiang 142 Zuxun Tiaozhang 9