The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE 271
risen
in
1207
to a
total of 47,000.
It
seems, therefore, that the Chin had
at
least as many officials as the Sung had in their early northern period (12,700 in
1046).
27
How, then, were these great numbers of officials recruited?
As the Liao had done before them, the Chin practiced
a
dualistic recruit-
ment policy. They established an examination system on Chinese lines, select-
ing candidates
on the
basis
of
merit.
At the
same time
the
selection
and
promotion
of
personnel was handled according
to
segregationist principles
based on the individual's group affiliation or personal position. Such institu-
tions as the operation
of
the principle
of
protection
(yin),
hereditary offices,
and
the
transfer
of
military personnel
to the
civilian bureaucracy played
a
major role
in
recruitment.
In
both examinations and the principle of favored
social groups the Chin state tried
to
find means
to
secure the preponderance
of Jurchen personnel.
At
the beginning
of
the dynasty, former Liao officials
were simply incorporated into the Chin administration when the Jurchens
invaded their territory, and the regularization
of
recruitment policy evolved
slowly.
The Chin examination system began
in
1123 when the first examinations
were held. From 1129 onward, triennial examinations
for
the chin-shih de-
gree were held; later they were held annually. Originally the examinations
given
in
the north differed from those given
in
the south (the newly incorpo-
rated Sung and Ch'i territories). The northern examination subjects concen-
trated on poetry and prose literature (which was regarded as easier); those
in
the south, on the Chinese classics. One reason for this regional differentiation
may have been the desire
to
make the examinations easier
for
the northern
Chinese, who,
as
former subjects
of
Liao, were perhaps regarded
as
more
reliable than
the
southerners. The examinations
on the
classics were abol-
ished for some time but then were revived and reorganized
in
1188—90.
In
addition
to the
Five Classics
(the
books
of
Changes, Rites, Songs,
and
Documents
and the
Spring
and
Autumn ~nnals),
the
texts used were
the
Analects
of
Confucius,
the
Meng-tzu,
the
Hsiao ching,
the
Yang-tzu (Yang
Hsiung's Fa-yen), and the Taoist classic
Tao-te
ching.
Although the positions with executive power, particularly
at
the highest
levels,
were mostly held by Jurchens, Chinese received an important means of
access
to the
bureaucracy through
the
chin-shih examinations. Over time,
more and more of the high-ranking Chinese were men who had attained their
ranks through their status as chin-shih graduates, rather than through other
means such as conferment of office
adpersonam
or military achievements. The
non-Chinese and non-Jurchen elements (Khitans, Hsi,
and
Po-hai)
did not
27 For the Sung figure, see Edward A. Kracke, Jr., Civil
service
in early
Sung
China, 960-1067, Harvard—
Yenching Institute Monograph Series no. 13 (Cambridge, Mass., 1953),
p.
55. The Chin figures
are
recorded
in
CS, 55,
p.
1216.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
272 THE CHIN DYNASTY
play a significant role in the examinations. Only five Po-hai and one Khitan
seem to have obtained the
chin-shib
degree during the whole history of Chin.
Emperor Shih-tsung must have realized that whatever its shortcomings,
the examination system provided the government with dependable servants.
He therefore opened a new career for Jurchens by establishing in 1173 a
Jurchen
chin-shih
degree (until this date there had been no degree require-
ment for Jurchen officials) and encouraged his countrymen to take the de-
gree.
The object of introducing a separate Jurchen degree may have been
twofold: It was in harmony with the general attitude of Shih-tsung, who
wished to preserve the Jurchen language and customs, and it was perhaps a
calculated measure to bring more Jurchen commoners into the bureaucracy in
place of the sometimes-overbearing and recalcitrant Jurchen aristocrats. But
unlike the Chinese, who eagerly seized the opportunities offered them
through the examinations,
the
Jurchens as a whole continued to advance their
careers without degree qualifications. Only 26 out of 208 high-ranking
Jurchen officials were
chin-sbih
degree holders. For them, their group privi-
leges and hereditary privileges remained the chief means of entering and
rising in the hierarchy.
The protection privilege (yin) was an important prerogative of those who
already held office and contributed to the self-perpetuation of
the
officials as a
class.
In the beginning and until the reign of Shih-tsung there was no
limitation on the number of family members whom the higher officials from
the seventh rank upward could nominate and "protect." Then
a
gradation was
introduced that fixed a maximum of six proteges for officials with the highest
(first) rank, proportionately fewer for those holding lower ranks, and that
denied the privilege altogether for those of the eighth rank and below. This
rule favored, of course, the high officials, the majority of whom were
Jurchens. Hereditary selection as practiced under the Chin had similar ef-
fects;
for example, Jurchens from the imperial Wan-yen clan had the privi-
lege of entering the palace service without formal protection. Jurchen com-
moners were also recruited for palace and palace guard service and from such
beginnings could make an official career. This is a clear parallel to the
Mongolian system of imperial guards
(kesig).
Also, the Jurchen
meng-an mou-k'o
system (see Chapter 4), with its hereditary offices, was a form of hereditary
selection based on group status.
Last, the practice of transferring meritorious military leaders to the civil
bureaucracy also favored the Jurchen elements of the population, as the
military organization remained very much
a
Jurchen preserve during most of
the dynasty. Discrimination was not confined to recruitment. After they had
joined the ranks of officialdom, the Chinese normally rose to higher ranks
more slowly than did their Jurchen counterparts. Promotion was formalized
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE 273
and based on both individual merit and seniority. Merits were calculated
according to a complex rating system, in an attempt to achieve objectivity.
The selection and promotion of personnel under the Chin dynasty there-
fore show many dualistic features. But we should emphasize that there was
no monopoly of office for the Jurchens, nor was there any general war on the
recruitment of Chinese. Rather, the Chin state aimed at a compromise and
tried to shape its institutions for recruitment in a way that could be used to
balance the influence of the different groups that made up its population.
The adoption of the civil service examinations for the Chinese, while at the
same time adding some checks and maintaining preferential methods of
promotion for the Jurchen, certainly helped bring about social stability. It
also is certain that examinations played a greater role in personnel selection
under the Chin than under the two other dynasties of conquest, Liao and
Yuan.
28
Military organization: meng-an mou-k'o and
border
administration
The meng-an mou-k'o system was a sociomilitary organization typical of the
Jurchens. It has been much studied, not only because of its inherent interest,
but also because it was in many respects a precursor of the Manchu banner
(niru) system that the Manchus used for establishing military control after
their conquest of China in the seventeenth century.
29
The Chinese syllables
meng-an mou-k'o are a transcription of two Jurchen words: Meng-an means
"thousand" and is a loan word from Mongolian
(mingghan;
Manchu: minggan).
Originally the leader of one thousand men in war was called a
meng-an;
later
the word also came to designate the unit under his command. Mou-k'o is
explained by the Chin shih as the leader of
one
hundred men. The word is not,
however, a numeral but is related to the Manchu word mukun, for which the
dictionaries give the meanings "clan, family, village, herd, tribe," and so on.
The meng-an mou-k'o system was based on the tribal divisions of the
Jurchens and was not a purely military organization but a comprehensive
social system into which in principle the entire Jurchen population was
organized under A-ku-ta. It soon became the most important military and
political means of control over the subjugated population. The basic unit was
the
mou-k'o.
The number of households attached to one unit varied. In theory
it should have been three hundred households but in reality was frequently
smaller. Nor did the meng-an have one thousand households, as the name
implies. Normally, a
meng-an
was composed of seven to ten mou-k'o.
28 For a detailed analysis of the Chin recruitment system, see Tao Jing-shen, "The influence of Jurchen
rule on Chinese political institutions," Journal of Asian
Studies,
30(1970), pp. 121—30.
29 On the
meng-an mou-k'o
system, see Mikami Tsugio, Kinshi kinkyu, vol. 1, pp. 109—417.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
274 THE CHIN DYNASTY
The
mou-k'o
itself was subdivided into
p'u-li-yen
(there also are several other
transcriptions of this word), a word probably related to Manchu
feniyen,
"flock, herd."
P'u-li-yen,
like the other words, designated both the unit and
the title of its leader. The
p'u-li-yen
had fifty households under his command.
All able-bodied males in a household had to serve as soldiers. Male household
servants were also conscripted and served as auxiliary soldiers
(a-li-bsi;
cf.
Manchu ilhi, "subordinate, assistant"). Each fully equipped soldier was enti-
tled to be accompanied by an auxiliary soldier during
a
campaign. The
mou-k'o
in the Manchurian homelands of the Jurchens settled in and around stock-
aded villages, and most bore the name of their original geographic location,
which they usually retained even after they had been transferred to other
parts of the state.
The formal introduction of this system is said to have taken place under
A-ku-ta in 1114, but it certainly goes back to much earlier times. It under-
went many changes in the following years. When
the
Jurchens conquered the
Liao state, they used the
meng-an mou-k'o
system to organize those Khitan,
Hsi,
Chinese, and Po-hai who had surrendered. Hereditary office in the
system was a considerable inducement for Khitan leaders to join the Jurchens
with their subordinates.
The number of households in a Khitan
mou-k'o
unit was, however, smaller
than among the Jurchens and amounted only to 130. We do not know how
many households were normally attached to a Po-hai or a Chinese
mou-k'o.
In
one case at least, a Chinese
mou-k'o
consisted of only 65 households.
30
The
formation of new Chinese units came to a stop in 1124, but the number of
Chinese serving in the Chin army must already have been quite considerable,
for during the campaign against Sung in 1126—7, several Chinese divisions
each of ten thousand men fought against their countrymen under Jurchen
command. It is not quite clear how many of these were simply conscripts
drafted for the campaign and how many were part of regular Chinese
meng-an
mou-k'o
units. The number of soldiers outside the
meng-an mou-k'o
system
usually varied according to the needs of the military situation. They were
conscripted from the civilian population when an emergency arose and were
disbanded when the campaign had come to an end. During the last years of
the dynasty, when the
meng-an mou-k'o
system had seriously declined, the
Chinese population, including even high officials and dignitaries, were sub-
jected to ruthless conscription for military service.
Hereditary office for Chinese and Po-hai unit commanders was abolished
in 1145 but was retained for the Khitan and Hsi units. At the same time, the
existing
meng-an mou-k'o
were graded into three classes. The first-class units
30 CS, 44, p. 993.
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GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE 275
were those commanded
by
imperial clan members; second-class units were
commanded
by
other Jurchen; and third-class units were those composed of
Khitans, Hsi, Chinese, and Po-hai. This attempt
to
give different status
to
units
of
different origin was, however, abolished under Hai-ling wang
in
1150.
This ruler, who,
as we
have seen, tried
to
curb
the
power
of the
Jurchen aristocracy, also ordered the transfer
of
those units still commanded
by imperial clan members from the Supreme Capital
to
other towns
in the
southern parts of the state. The whole system suffered a severe blow when the
mobilization against Sung was resisted by some Khitan and Hsi units. These
were mostly stationed
on
the northwestern borders and had good reason
to
fear for the safety
of
their dependents
if
all their warriors were mobilized for
the campaign, because Mongolian raids were
a
constant menace
in
the area.
They rebelled
in
1161. After the rebellion was crushed, many of their units
were disbanded,
and the
households were distributed among the Jurchen
units.
Only those who had remained loyal were retained and accorded
the
privilege of hereditary office as before.
Another factor impairing the efficiency of the entire system was economic.
As the meng-an mou-k'o units were also administrative and economic units
—
similar perhaps
to
the military colonies under Chinese dynasties
—
they had
been assigned land for agriculture and were supposed to be economically
self-
sufficient. Many Jurchens had only limited experience
of
farming and were
unaccustomed
to
farming
in a
Chinese environment. Some
of
them hired
Chinese
to
work on their land, and they themselves led an idle life, drinking
excessively and neglecting their military skills. Some units were also given
government land of poor quality. Unable
to
compete with the more skillful
Chinese
and
exploited
by
usurious moneylenders,
a
great number
of the
Jurchen commoners
in the
units were reduced
to
poverty. They were
ex-
ploited not only by Chinese but also by their own richer and more powerful
countrymen, particularly by members of the imperial clan who had managed
to acquire huge land hold ings
at the
expense
of
the less fortunate Jurchens
and, of course, the Chinese.
In sharp contrast with earlier times, when the meng-an mou-k'o warriors,
chieftain and commoner alike, lived together like "fathers, sons and broth-
ers"*
1
and
when
a
frugal way
of
life was normal,
a
deep gulf now arose
between the rich and poor Jurchens. Emperor Shih-tsung showed great con-
cern for the deteriorating conditions of his impoverished countrymen. Relief
measures were undertaken; government grain was distributed
to
impover-
ished units; and agricultural techniques were promoted. Sumptuary regula-
tions and laws against luxury were enacted
to
inhibit drinking and extrava-
31 Ta Chin kuo chih, 36,
p.
278.
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276 THE CHIN DYNASTY
gance, and orders for regular military exercises were given. Military colonists
were moved from poor lands to better regions and there was an attempt to
concentrate those Jurchens living scattered among the Chinese into more
closed and compact groups.
A general census of the whole
men-an mou-k'o
population was taken in
1183,
in which not only the people but also their lands, cattle, and slaves
were registered. The results showed such a gross disparity between rich and
poor that Shih-tsung's government resorted to a redistribution of lands and
confiscation of
excessive
landholdings. These measures temporarily improved
the situation. To social historians, the census figures are of interest. Apart
from the imperial clan, whose holdings were registered separately, the whole
meng-an mou-k'o
population was 6,158,636 persons living in 615,624 house-
holds.
Of these persons, 4,812,669 were commoners (the majority of them
Jurchen), and the rest were slaves attached to individual households. The
number of
meng-an
was 202, that of
mou-k'o
1,878.3* Under Shih-tsung's
successors, the system apparently lost its effectiveness, and when the Mon-
gols invaded, the Chin government had to rely more and more on conscripted
troops. But up to the end the
meng-an mou-k'o
remained the basic organiza-
tion of the Jurchen military machine.
The emperor and the crown prince had their own
mou-k'o.
This imperial
guard was called
ho-cha mou-k'o {ho-cha
is the transcription of
a
Jurchen word
perhaps related to Manchu
hasban,
"protection, screen"). The members of
this regiment, numbering several thousand men, were recruited from among
the normal units. Candidates had to be
five
feet, five inches tall and to pass a
military test. Within the regiment there was a small elite unit, that of the
"close attendants," numbering two hundred warriors. They alone had the
privilege of bearing arms in the presence of
the
emperor. The members of this
personal bodyguard had to be at least five feet, six inches tall.
The higher command structure of the Chin armies was relatively simple.
Several
meng-an
mou-k'o formed a wan-hu, literally "ten thousand house-
holds."
The next-highest office was that of the chief commander
(tu-t'ung).
The commander in chief(/»
yiian-shuai)
acted as generalissimo, but this office
was activated only in times of war. In many respects the higher military
hierarchy of the Chin was modeled on that of their Liao predecessors. This is
also true for the tribal units that had existed under the Liao and that had been
taken over by the Chin, sometimes without even changing their names.
These units were mostly stationed on the northwestern borders and consisted
of Khitans, Hsi, or members of other tribes. Unlike the agricultural
meng-an
32 For an analysis of the demographic aspects of the
rafng-rf/Jmoa-i'o
system, see Ping-ti Ho, "An estimate
of the total population of Sung—Chin China," in ttutits
Song
in mmoriam ttitnne Baldzs, ed. Francoise
Aubin, series i, no. I (Paris, 1970), pp. 33—45.
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SOCIAL STRUCTURE 277
mou-k'o
of the Jurchens proper, these tribal groups were nomad cattle breed-
ers,
a fact that is, for example, reflected in the title commissioner of herds
{ch'tin-mu
shih) for some of these units. But like the Jurchen units they were
both military units and self-sufficient socioeconomic communities. Under
the Chin, there were altogether twelve of these commissioners of
herds.
Some
of them had under their command former members of the imperial camp
guards (ordo) of the Liao and their descendants, but there was also one
commissioner commanding Jurchen tribesmen. It seems that these commis-
sioners were organized formally at a rather late date, under Emperors Shih-
tsung and Chang-tsung, in connection with the preparations for defense
against the Mongols.
Another feature inherited from the Liao were the chiu units. These were
originally detachments of frontier soldiers. Under the Chin there were nine
chiu units, mostly stationed in northeastern Manchuria. Finally, there were
eight special offices named tribal commanding prefects
{tsu-pu
chieh-tu shih),
whose names suggest the partly Tangut, Mongolian, Khitan, and Hsi affilia-
tions of their subordinate populations. They were stationed along the western
and northwestern borders of the state and, like the other organizations, were
military organizations for border defense.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
It is strangely ironical that the Chin shih, although the official history of a
"semibarbarian" state, has preserved much clearer information about the
system of population control and census taking than most of the other
Chinese dynastic histories have.
33
Even for the Sung we have, despite a
wealth of specific data, no very clear picture of the definition of age groups
and similar registration policies. From the relevant chapter in the Chin shih
we have, however, unambiguous information about not only the age groups
but also the methods by which the population was enumerated every three
years.
The population registers were based on enumerations made at the
lowest level, that is, by village headmen and, for the
meng-an mou-k'o
popula-
tion, by the stockade overseers. The number of headmen per village varied
with the number of households; those with fewer than fifty households had
only one headman, whereas larger villages with three hundred or more
households had four. In the towns and cities the corresponding overseers were
in charge of urban wards or quarters. At the beginning of a census year, these
local overseers had to visit all households and list the names, ages, and sex of
the family members. The figures obtained were added together and then sent
33 This point is stressed by Ho Ping-ti in ibid.
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278 THE CHIN DYNASTY
Year
1187
1190
1195
1207
TABLE
7
Total population
Households
6,789,499
6,939,ooo
7,223,400
8,413,164
of Chin
Individuals
44,705,086
45.447.900
48,490,400
53.532,15'
Persons
per
household
6.59
6.55
6.71
6.33
on
to the
higher authorities. They
had to
reach
the
Ministry
of
Revenue
within three months after the census had begun. Contrary
to
the obscurity of
age-group definitions under some other dynasties,
the
Chin
had
clearly
de-
fined age groups. Everybody between
the
ages
of
seventeen
and
sixty
was
considered
an
adult (ting);
the
physically handicapped
or
disabled were,
however,
not
considered adults.
The figures
for
three national censuses have been preserved
in
the
Chin shih
(1187,
1195,
and
1207). They are
of
interest not only
for
the history of Chin
but also because they must
be
used along with
the
corresponding Sung
figures if
we
wish
to
estimate the total number of Chinese
in
the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries (see Table
7).
We do
not
have
figures
for
the earlier years of Chin, and so the population
increase
can
only
be
computed over
a
period
of
twenty years.
The
average
annual increment (rate of growth) was 0.9 percent, which must be considered
normal
if
viewed against other periods
of
Chinese history (e.g., the average
annual rate
of
increase
was 0.87
percent between
1779 and
1794).
The
average number of individuals per household was somewhat higher under the
Chin than under other dynasties, when
it
was normally between
five
and six.
The larger households under
the
Chin dynasty certainly resulted from wide-
spread slavery.
The
figures
for the
meng-an mou-k'o
population
in
1183,
for
example, show that their households averaged
7.8
persons
and
that
the
average number of
slaves
per household was
not
fewer than 2.18. The house-
holds
of
the imperial clan had
a
considerable slave population, over 163
per
household.
If
all
these factors are taken into account,
it
suggests that the size
of
the
nuclear family
as a
unit
of
communal living
and
consumption
was
approximately
the
same as
in
other periods of Chinese history.
The population
of the
Chin state
was
quite large.
In the
twelfth
and
thirteenth centuries, Chin alone,
not to
mention
the
Sung,
was far
more
populous than
any
contemporary European country, with well over
53 mil-
lion people.
In
1207 the Chin territories supported almost as many people as
did
the
whole
of
Tang China
in
742.
We do not
know exactly how these
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ETHNIC GROUPS 279
many millions were distributed geographically, but the geographical mono-
graph of the Chin shih gives the number of households for each prefecture.
Unfortunately, this source does not say to which year these figures refer, but
it may be assumed that it was shortly before the Mongolian conquests and the
loss of Manchuria to P'u-hsien Wan-nu in 1215, because the total number of
households is even larger than that of the 1207 census. The geographical
distribution of the population over the area of the Chin empire is shown on
Map 23.
This distribution shows that almost a quarter of the entire Chin population
lived in the Yellow River plains around K'ai-feng (modern Honan). Another
region of great population density was eastern Shantung. The third most
heavily peopled area was Peking and its surroundings. It also is clear that the
Manchurian homelands of the Jurchens were only sparsely populated, although
these low figures might be partly due to difficult communications and corre-
sponding deficiencies in census taking in these remote districts. It is also
remarkable how few people lived in the strategic area bordering on the Hsi
Hsia state in present-day Kansu. By far the biggest city in the whole Chin
empire was the Southern Capital, K'ai-feng, with
1,746,210
households in
the metropolitan district. The second largest city was the Central Capital
(Peking), with 225,592 households, whereas the old Supreme Capital (Hui-
ning) in Manchuria contained only 31,270 households. The Eastern Capital
(Liao-yang) was only slightly larger, with 40,604 households.
ETHNIC GROUPS
Although we can get a rather clear picture of the distribution of the Chin
population, at least for one single year, we know far less about the relative
strength of
the
ethnic groups within the Chin state. No statistics show us the
precise percentage of these groups even locally. The figures given for the
meng-an mou-k'o
population cannot be used for this purpose because these
military units included not only the Jurchens but also other ethnic groups.
Only
a
very rough estimate is possible. If
in
1183 there were over 4.8 million
free military colonists, it might perhaps be assumed that the greater major-
ity, say 80 percent of them, were indeed Jurchens and the rest Khitans, Po-
hai,
or Chinese, so that the Jurchen population must have been something
like 4 million, considerably less than 10 percent of the total.
Not all Jurchens could consider themselves superior to other ethnic
groups. Those living in the military colonies were segregated from the
surrounding Chinese population, and the privileges for Jurchens were most
strongly felt in the bureaucracy, in which Jurchens not only occupied most of
the important positions but also enjoyed speedier promotion than others did.
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1
dot represents 5000 households
MAP
23. Population distribution in Chin, ca. 1211
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