Zhao is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. He attempts to frame the sweep of Chinese history through a Confucian-Legalist lens. The Confucian-Legalist state was “a system of government that merged political and ideological power, harnessed military power, and marginalized economic power. In the Confucian-Legalist state, emperors accepted Confucianism as a ruling ideology and subjected themselves to the control of a Confucian bureaucracy, while Confucian scholars both in and out of the bureaucracy supported the regime and supplied meritocratically selected officials who administered the country using an amalgam of Confucian ethics and Legalist regulations and techniques.” This was a formal system that had its precursors in the first Chinese dynasty, the Qin, but began in earnest in the Western Han dynasty, continuing, with only minor interruptions, for centuries, until the end of imperial China with the fall of the Qing dynasty.
Zhao begins his history with the city-state period of Western Zhou, from 1045 to 741 BC. “Three pivotal institutions of Western Zhou origin exerted an enduring impact on the history of China: the Mandate of Heaven, the kinship-based “feudal” system, and lineage law. The Mandate of Heaven concept, which originated as the early Zhou rulers’ justification for their overthrow of the Shang state, endured as a foundation of state power, widely accepted among Chinese rulers, the elite, and the people. The dominance of this political concept made government performance one of the most important bases of state legitimacy…. The Western Zhou “feudal” system took shape in the course of Western Zhou kinship-based military colonization. This political arrangement not only sustained Chinese culture when ancient China faced many potential intruders, but also contributed to the spread of Western Zhou culture and identity, and its writing system…. To regulate the relationships between the Western Zhou court and the enfeoffed city-states, the Zhou rulers gradually improvised a system of lineage law. The development of lineage law furthered the importance of family in Chinese culture…. Hierarchy, division of labor, and meritocracy contributed to the emergence of bureaucracy during the Western Zhou period.”
Even after the collapse of the Western Zhou, the Eastern Zhou city-states that emerged as power centers modeled their system of governance on their western predecessor. However, “the early Eastern Zhou city-states were not run by bureaucracies and had no standing armies. These city-states began as lineage-based organizations with dukes acting as lineage heads…. City dwellers in China did not possess a territory-based identity, and the Chinese city-states were not territorial states…. [Later,] during the Age of Total War, although all the major city-states had developed into territorial states, the social relations caged into these states were not yet territory-based…. Consequently, people accepted “foreign” rulers with little psychological aversion, and local scholars frequently travelled to other states to attain better positions, both of which were conducive to the unification of China.” The Eastern Zhou period is often separated into the Spring and Autumn period and the period of Warring States, together spanning 770-221 BC. Zhao, instead, breaks it into three periods—the Age of Hegemons (770-546 BC), the Age of Transition (545-420 BC), and the Age of Total War (419-221 BC).
The Eastern Zhou period was one of continual warfare and shifting alliances, as the new city-states sought to gain power at the expense of their neighbors. Throughout these centuries of war, the Qin, Jin, Qi, and Chu city-states emerged as dominant powers, although the Wu and Yue, particularly, developed later into formidable rivals as well. During the Age of Hegemons, “the states whose rulers became local hegemons tended to free themselves from the constraints of Western Zhou rituals and codes of conduct and to adopt war strategies based on their utility or efficiency…. Qi, Jin, Chu, and Qin were also able to achieve dominance because they were located on China’s outskirts and faced enemies on fewer fronts. Their peripheral geographic locations allowed them to retreat from interstate conflicts at the center when they were weakened, returning to the fray after regaining their strength…. To maintain dominance, a state needed to either conquer or manipulate the state of Zhou, which was thus far still a rallying point. As the spheres of influence of all four local hegemons…. converged, the four theaters of war gradually merged.” Along with warfare, these hegemons experimented with political reforms. Bureaucratization and secondary feudalization were two ways in which they tried to maintain control over their expanding territories. Land was parceled out based on the county (xian) system, which served both as an administrative and military unit.
During the Age of Transition, succession struggles broke the city-state of Jin into three competing states. This increased competition ramped up the process of innovation and reform. Li Kui, Duke Wen’s chief minister, is considered the first Legalist philosopher. He established a full-fledged bureaucracy, a comprehensive system of penal law, promoted increased agricultural production, and strengthened the army through universal conscription. These Legalist reforms put the State’s welfare (and its ruler’s) ahead of the people’s. “The state’s administration and taxation capabilities greatly increased as bureaucracy and meritocracy became the norm.”
In the Age of Total War, rival philosophers and teachers wandered from state to state selling their knowledge. Shi were the lower nobility, often poor, who sold their service to the state, as opposed to farming or commerce. They also started systems of private education. “Confucius (551-479 BC) was the first person to have offered private education on an impressive scale.” Shi also broke down kinship-based relations. Now, successful shi and the rulers who employed them became enmeshed in patronage networks. They were rewarded monetarily by their patrons and were free to leave them at will to search for better opportunities or more authority in neighboring states. “The kind of freedom of expression that the shi group exercised, whether in written treatises expressing their views or in oral disquisitions meant to attract the favorable attention of rulers, was a completely new phenomenon…. All the major states were trying to attract clever men and effective problem solvers to their side.”
Zhao takes an interlude here to describe the major tenets of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. “Confucius believed that the Western Zhou political system, which had taken form during the early Western Zhou period and had matured by the mid-Western Zhou period, was the model of a good society.” Most important was zheng ming, the rectification of names. This meant that “people from a certain social position must fulfill the duties and behaviors associated with that position…. It was only when social relationships in a stratified system became ambiguous that social conflict intensified, and turmoil and chaos ensued.” Furthermore, “believing that law could not be the basis of a good society, Confucius prescribed instead the cultivation of virtue that he referred to as ren.” This was sometimes thought of as humaneness or excellence, as well. Finally, “Confucius urgently promoted the importance of li (ritualized decorum), ritual music, and family relationships in education and daily life…. As for the role of family, Confucius believed that the family, with its extensive duties, responsibilities, and associated rituals sanctioned by lineage law, was the most important venue in which virtues and ritualized decorum were learned and became second nature.”
Daoism emerged before the end of the fourth century BC. “The meaning of dao partly corresponds to the English “way” or “road.”” Laozi, author of the “Dao de jing,” did not believe in human intervention in society. Intervention solved one problem by creating many more. “The wisest conduct of society is neither an artificial system of decorum, as Confucians thought, nor a system of laws and punishments, as the Legalists maintained but to “let be”…. Wuwei literally means nonaction, or not acting, even though in Laozi’s writing wuwei also means not to overact, not to push things too far, to keep things simple, and to let all beings follow their natural courses. To Daoists, “wuwei is the highest virtue” (shang de wuwei) and “the most important dao of all.”… A good ruler knows how to rule a country by less intervention (wuwei erzhi).”
Legalists were political realists. “In a society where lineage-law doctrines could no longer regulate social relations, they emphasized the importance of laws administered by a bureaucracy…. They promoted changes that would strengthen the state…. Legalists thinkers had little interest in justifying their theses on moral grounds.” An “ideology of war” permeated political and social relations. All was for the good of the State. Hanfeizi wrote, “If a ruler can keep punishments and rewards in his hands alone, his subordinates will be in awe of his mastery and avoid seeking benefits from him.” Zhao states, “Legalist doctrines centered on three necessaries: fa (penal law and bureaucracy), shu (administrative techniques coupled with the ruler’s artful deviousness), and shi (a ruler’s authority over his subjects).” A ruler was expected to play off the various branches of officials within the meritocratic bureaucracy, inspiring loyalty, while making sure they all feared him, as well.
The state of Wei, which formed out of the fracturing of Jin, most completely implemented Legalist ideology into practice. “Military competition in conjunction with the feudal crisis [of the three Jins] prompted the state of Wei to initiate Legalist reforms. Wei’s military dominance thereafter compelled the other states to learn from it, triggering a wave of isomorphic changes. The Legalist reforms greatly expanded a state’s power, giving it tighter control of the society and the ability to extract more resources for warfare. The reforms also made possible large-scale water projects for enhancing transportation and agricultural production, also for the purposes of war. Finally, the rise of state power after Legalism took hold fostered quick development of extensive technologies, that is, inventions aimed at extracting more output from more coordinated and organized inputs. That capacity placed a lid on the booming market economy, thereby firmly subordinating it to political forces. State dominance permitted the organization of the whole society into a war machine.”
Towards the end of the Age of Total War, the successor to Wei’s hegemony was the state of Qin. Wei declined in the mid-fourth century BC as its alliances with its two former Jin allies, Zhao and Han, broke up due to deceit and mistrust. Its poor geography in the middle of China also precipitated Wei’s decline. “Relative to the other states Qin’s geopolitical and geographical positions were the most ideal. Equally important, Qin’s aristocratic tradition was very weak, and its policy of importing talent and instrumentally effective ideas and institutions from the other states was very strong. Both factors facilitated radical Legalist reforms in Qin.” Qin was also adept at playing off the interests of the other city-states against each other. They would form alliances only to break them at their convenience and convince enemies further afield that they were not a threat, until they had built up adequate strength and manpower. “By the Age of Total War, the interstate system had sunk into Hobbesian anarchy. Without norms and institutions acting as a regulatory force, an anti-Qin alliance could not be maintained because the parties to it did not trust one another, often disregarded each other’s interests, and each wanted the others to bear the brunt of Qin’s assaults.” Lack of nationalism and patriotism for particular city-states also paved the way for the unification of China. “Talented individuals were inclined to leave their natal states for better opportunities in bigger and stronger states, and the masses did not care who ruled them. Both attitudes greatly lowered the cost of conquering another state and contributed to Qin’s victory.” Although the Qin dynasty was short-lived, due to its brutal Legalist policies even during times of peace, it established a unified China that would last, with only minor periods of fracture, to modern day.
During the Western Han dynasty, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was fully restored and Imperial Confucianism emerged. This was not quite the same as Confucius’ original teachings. This “Confucianism not only emphasized the dominance of the head of state over his officials and subjects, but also the dominance of officials, who were of the elite, over their subordinates and over commoners…. While emphasizing the dominion of the state, Confucianism also emphasized that it is the ruler’s virtue that sustains his rule, and it authorized Confucian scholar-officials to indoctrinate rulers with Confucianism from childhood on and to criticize immoral rulers…. Once Confucianism was transformed into a state ideology, Confucian learning and moral conduct became increasingly important in the selection of officials…. The Confucianized bureaucracy [became] a significant institution through which the state [absorbed] social elites into the government…. Confucianism satisfied much of the religious need of the Chinese and performed many social functions…. This it accomplished through the rituals of ancestor worship and its emphasis on the human capacity to cultivate and achieve union with the ways of Heaven.”
Another Confucian reform that was to have a long-lasting impact was the civil service exam system. “The civil-service examination for recruiting civilian officials had been pioneered late in the Age of Disunion and Sui dynasty, and was immediately adopted by the new Tang dynasty rulers. It endured from the early seventh century until its abolition in 1905…. By the Ming dynasty, mastering Neo-Confucian orthodoxy became crucial to examination success. Being rule-driven and instrumental, it was also Legalist in its use of competitive examinations to select officials…. Since emperors increasingly participated in the grading of the essays and in the placement of successful candidates in appropriate offices, the examinations also enhanced the personal loyalty of the successful to the emperor. Finally, since successful candidates came from different regions and different backgrounds, the resulting bureaucracy was hardly likely to form a single interest group in opposition to the state.”
The primacy of Confucian philosophy gave rise to a new gentry class. These were often those who had studied for the civil service exam, but had not been selected to serve in an official capacity. “Unlike the English gentry, the Chinese gentry acquired their status mainly from education rather than land and wealth; also unlike the English, their status was not inherited. As gentry, they were community leaders. They sponsored local schools, promoted Confucianism and its ethics, provided welfare, arbitrated local disputes, and saw to the construction and upkeep of the local irrigation and road systems. Acting at the intersection between state and society, the gentry carried out all these functions on a volunteer basis…. The state’s limited infrastructure was compensated for by the self-organizing lineage communities led by the scholar-gentry who shared the mentality and values of government officials.”
Zhao concludes with some remarks on the legacy of Confucian-Legalist thought in modern China. “The millennia-long domination of the Confucian-Legalist state has given China a strong state tradition, a huge core territory, a large population with a shared identity, and a pro-education ideal…. The Confucian-Legalist state tradition also instills in China a tradition of civilian rule that is quite unusual among the developing countries…. The legacies of the Confucian-Legalist state tradition have given China an inward-looking character…. China has inherited a strong tradition of performance-based legitimacy derived from the concept of the Mandate of Heaven.”
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