The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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MODES OF GOVERNMENT 21
envoys had learned to speak a few words of Khitan or Jurchen, but nobody in
Sung China could read their script. The rather detailed regulations for Sung
embassy personnel never included any sort of language training, nor would
any Sung official have been able to read a text in a non-Chinese script. This
isolationist and sinocentric attitude underwent a profound change during the
early reigns of Ming when a Bureau of Interpreters was established that
provided a basic knowledge of foreign languages and scripts for intercourse
with their authorities.
If China went through a period of disunity until 1276, the political
fragmentation was in any case overarched by a common Chinese civilization
in many fields including, as we showed, the technicalities of diplomatic
intercourse. The regionalism inherent in the political division of China was
to some extent balanced by other factors tending to include the "barbarian"
states in a larger cultural unity that was Chinese. The borders of the Sung
state were never hermetically sealed, even though private travel was not
possible for ordinary individuals living on either side of the border. Trade,
diplomacy, and, above all, the memory of a common cultural heritage did
much to alleviate the political division of China, at least for the intellectuals
on both sides of the border. The multistate system that evolved after the Five
Dynasties period remained in its fundamental elements very much Chinese
despite the many foreign influences in the northern states.
It is nevertheless remarkable that outside observers - Marco Polo is an
example - did not realize the basic unity of China. For the fourteenth-
century Europeans, Cathay
—
a name derived from the Khitan ethnic designa-
tion and meaning "northern China"
—
was a country different from Manzi
(southern China), and only in the "age of discoveries" in the sixteenth century
did Europeans become aware that Cathay and Manzi were in reality parts of
that greater unity that we now call China.
MODES OF GOVERNMENT
It is self-evident that each of the states of conquest in China differed from one
another and from the Chinese Sung state in many respects and that their
institutions, even if modeled on those of the Chinese, were by no means
simple copies of that model. At a higher level of abstraction it is, however,
possible to suggest some generalizations that apply in varying degrees to all
these states. All their polities suffered from a deep-rooted conflict between
nativism and acculturation in ruling the multiethnic territories under their
jurisdiction. All were under pressure from the basic antagonism between
autocratic and bureaucratic elements on the one hand and feudal—patrimonial
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
22 INTRODUCTION
institutions on the other. These conflicting tendencies affected each of those
states at all governmental and administrative levels, as the following chapters
of this volume will amply illustrate.
Personalized authority
A common element that emerges most clearly with the Mongols is the strong
personalization of imperial power. In a warlike tribal society with few or no
government institutions, the personal relations between leader and follower
were of primary importance. The chieftain or ruler would select his close
companions (the Mongolian term is
ndkdr)
from among experienced and loyal
fighters, whereas outsiders would be looking for a charismatic leader to
whom they could offer their services. The Chinese political tradition had no
close parallels for such personalized relationships. Even if in later phases the
ndkdr
tie between ruler and companion was formalized through conferment
on the "companion" of a Chinese official title, the social reality still con-
formed to the inherited usages. Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai (i 190-1244), for example,
the famous adviser of Chinggis Khan, appears in Chinese sources as the
holder of a Chinese title, but in fact he must be regarded more as a
ndkdr
of
the khan (who honored him with the nickname
urtu
saqal,
"long beard") than
as a chancellor in the Chinese sense of the word. An important characteristic
of the ruler—companion relationship was that it transcended tribal and na-
tional barriers. Whoever was thought able to contribute to the ruler's pres-
tige and power was welcome without regard to his ethnic or social back-
ground. In the late Yuan period the personal friends of the emperor were
called
i-tut,
a rendering of
the
Turkic word
inaq,
"friend, favorite." This type
of relationship was, of
course,
much more feudal than bureaucratic.
Another element that played a great role under the Liao, Chin, and Yuan
was the household of the emperor and, in particular, his bodyguards. The
exercise of imperial power rested less with the institutions copied from the
Chinese than with the households of the ruler and his close relatives. The
Altaic term for the household or camp of a ruler is
ordo
(in Mongolian) or
ordu
(in Turkic and Mongolian), a word from which eventually the English word
horde
and its cognates in other European languages were derived. Under the
Liao the emperor's ordo was the backbone of his military power and his
household organization, which included all sorts of servants, retainers, and
higher and lower dignitaries. Many of the general rules for state offices did
not apply, it seems, to the management of
the
ordo,
which therefore formed a
sort of personal state within the state. Not only the emperor but also the Liao
empresses and princes of the blood had their own
ordo.
The Chinese term
used for
ordo
was wang-fu, "princely administration." Such administrations
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
MODES
OF
GOVERNMENT
23
also existed in purely Chinese states such as the T'ang and Sung but there
they were essentially a royal prince's household service and formed a regular
part of the bureaucracy. The
ordo
had far broader functions, was more loosely
organized, and was quite different from the parallel Chinese institution.
10
Under the Chin the imperial guards and, above all, the personal regiments
{mou-k'o)
of the emperor and of the princes functioned to some extent like the
Liao ordo.
11
The military units of the Chin imperial guards were mostly
Jurchens, but the
mou-k'o
families attached to the imperial clan also included
a great number of slaves. Formal princely administrations (wang-fu) were
introduced in 1191, but some such administrations must have existed at least
twenty years earlier than this.
The bodyguards of the Mongols called kesig go back to the times of the
dynastic founder and consisted of elite soldiers and trusted followers selected
regardless of tribal affiliation.
12
No clear difference between the bodyguard
and the general household of the emperor can be found. The duties of the
members of the guard were not limited to protecting the emperor's person;
they also were responsible for the emperor's domestic services, which accounts
for some of them holding such titles as ba'urchi, "cook," or ayagchi, "cup-
bearer.
"
It apparently was customary for the higher dignitaries of the guards
and the household to hold Chinese titles in addition to their Mongolian titles.
Under the early Mongolian rulers the kesig organization also assumed the
functions of an administrative body. From the time of Khubilai the
kesig
lost
some of its previous political importance following the introduction of more
and more Chinese style administrative bodies, but the structural dualism of
coexisting bodyguard—household and formal bureaucratic administration con-
tinued until the end of Yuan. An important function of the guards was always
that of
a
reservoir of reliable manpower at the emperor's disposal for employ-
ment as his personal agents. Even as late as 1346, guard members
(kesigden)
were dispatched to the provinces as supervising governors (darughachi).
Autocrats and joint
deliberation
Recent research has done much to modify earlier theories according to which
the dynasties of conquest were governed by despotic autocrats. The personal
power and prestige of their rulers were sometimes extremely great, but it can
10 SeeJing-shenTao, Thejunhen
in twelfth-century
China:
A
study ofj/mriztf/ion
(Seattle, 1977), pp.
46—51.
11 SeeMikami Tsugio, Kindai
Joshin
shakai
no kenkyii
vol. 1
of
his
Kimhi
kenkyii
(Tokyo, 1972),
pp. 109—
418.
This work, first published
in 1937
under
the
title Kindai
Joshin
no Kenkyii,
was
extensively
revised and supplemented
by the
author and reprinted
in his
collected studies
on
Chin history under
the title Kindai
Joshin
shakai
no
kenkyii.
12
See
Hsiao Ch'i-ching, The military
establishment
of
the
Yuan dynasty (Cambridge, Mass., 1978),
pp.
37-48.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
24 INTRODUCTION
be shown that all peoples who conquered parts or the whole of China had as a
part of the heritage of their tribal past a strong tradition of deliberative and
joint decision making. The early Khitans selected their leaders at a council of
tribal chieftains and frequently held such a council when planning a cam-
paign. The Jurchens, too, had the custom before a campaign of convoking a
military assembly at which the action to be taken was discussed by all those
present, including common soldiers. This and other similar customs have
induced some modern scholars to describe early Jurchen society, perhaps
somewhat overenthusiastically, as a "military democracy."
Such traditions continued even after the founding of imperial states mod-
eled on Chinese dynasties. We know, for example, that at the Chin court in
1197,
votes were taken among higher-ranking officials in order to determine
what course should be taken against the Mongolian menace. The organiza-
tion of such a ballot to decide military issues was a survival of native tradi-
tions of joint decision making and at the same time served as a check on the
emperor's autocratic power. Similar war councils at which policies and tactics
were discussed also existed among the Tanguts.
By far the most illuminating and best-explored examples of joint decision
making were the Mongols' diets or tribal convocations, the kburiltai. At
these meetings a new ruler would be elected or proclaimed, a process that can
be sufficiently explained only if one takes into account that the Mongolian
empire was somehow regarded as the family patrimony of the Chinggisid
family. As there was no other formal regulation for the succession, every male
member of the ruler's clan believed himself a potential successor with a claim
to the throne. The
khuriltai
assemblies were not electoral in the strict sense of
the word and did not involve the casting of
votes.
The claimants came to the
khuriltai
accompanied by their armed followers, and considerations of power,
prestige, and charisma influenced the ultimate proclamation. A consensus
did not always emerge as the result of the assembly. Sometimes dissenting
pretenders would convoke their own khuriltai, and for this reason even the
reign of Khubilai was more than once threatened by other rival claimants to
the supreme dignity of
khaghan.
Such pretenders might come from his own
lineage, like Khubilai's younger brother Arigh Boke, or from another
Chinggiskhanid line, like his rival Khaidu. All this points to a precarious-
ness of imperial power and its transmission. The fact that so many rulers of
the Liao, Chin, and Yuan eliminated their predecessors or rivals by murder or
banishment may be seen as a direct result of the absence of fixed rules for
inheritance and also of
the
unpredictable consensual element in proclaiming a
successor. It cannot be attributed to a typically "barbarian" savagery.
The consensual element was also present in the Yuan government system
at lower levels. Collective and deliberative decision making was a standard
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
MODES OF GOVERNMENT 25
practice in most administrations. The officials had to appear at daily confer-
ences,
and failure to attend was a punishable offense. Such sessions took place
every morning in the offices of the capital and the regional administrative
agencies, down to the counties. The attending officials had to sign their
names or, because many were illiterate, to append their name-seal in the
register to prove that they were present. Among the Chinese terms for these
sessions were yuan-tso, "to sit in a circle," and yiian-i, "to deliberate in a
circle," which evoke for us the image of a roundtable conference. Such
procedures differed from the normal Chinese government practice, in which
responsibility for decisions was individual rather than collective, and they
may often have resulted in delay, indecision, and a lack of common purpose
in the bureaucracy.
Central authority
A study of the governmental systems of the dynasties of conquest also reveals
a relatively low degree of centralization, contrary to earlier assumptions that
tended to depict their governments as highly autocratic and centralized. The
Liao dynasty had from early times a dual system of administration, one for
the Khitans and other tribes and one for governing the Chinese population,
called, respectively, the Northern and Southern administrations. Their sys-
tem of government was a chaotic jumble of offices, and their areas of responsi-
bility were ill defined. The personal power of great officials far outweighed
the prestige or authority conferred on them by office. A similar system can be
observed for the early reigns of the Chin dynasty. The Jurchen political
system was in the early twelfth century based on the institution of po-cbi-lieh,
a Jurchen word that may be loosely rendered as "appointed chieftain." Under
the dynastic founder T'ai-tsu the
po-chi-lieh
were primarily concerned with
governing the Jurchen population. In 1126 a Chinese bureaucratic system
was formally introduced, but only for the subject Chinese population.
The early Chin system of government seems therefore to have been a
conscious imitation of Liao dualism with, however, the important difference
that the territorial spheres of jurisdiction and administration were less clearly
defined than under the Liao. The interplay between the two types of adminis-
tration was quite convoluted, and the history of early Chin governmental
structures is therefore singularly complicated. Ruthless action to restructure
the Chin government was taken by the prince of Hai-ling. He tried to
eliminate the influence of the Jurchen aristocracy and to restructure his state
according to Chinese models and to introduce stronger centralization by any
means, including bloody purges. He also abolished the hereditary offices of
most of the meng-an mou-k'o commanders and tried to transform their posi-
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
26 INTRODUCTION
tions into those of regular officials who did not inherit their office automati-
cally but had to be appointed and could be dismissed, if necessary, by the
imperial government. The introduction of a more Chinese bureaucratic sys-
tem in imitation of T'ang and Sung models resulted, however, in despotism
under a Chinese disguise, for the prince of Hai-ling was skillful in manipulat-
ing Chinese political traditions so as to augment his own personal power. He
also seems, on the other hand, to have realized that although Chinese institu-
tions might centralize authority, a full and thorough adoption of Chinese
governmental values might have diminished or checked his own personal
power. Up to the end of the dynasty the Chin governmental system thus
remained a mixture of native traditions with Chinese bureaucratic practice.
Centralism under the Mongols was, despite the popular belief that they
exercised strong centralized power, very limited. The fact that they reunified
China has sometimes obscured the other fact that their government was
characterized by a striking lack of system and a sometimes chaotic fragmenta-
tion of authority. Tribal units under recognized hereditary leaders continued
to play a prominent role, and their leaders exercised strict personal control
over their own subjects. A special feature of Mongolian rule in China was the
numerous appanages granted to members of the imperial clan, imperial
relatives, and meritorious generals. Such fief holders frequently had their
own armies, and their territories were fiscally more or less exempt from the
control of the financial administrations responsible for taxing the empire as a
whole.
A functional bureaucracy of the Chinese type was first (and imperfectly)
introduced after the Mongols had annexed the northern half of
the
Chin state
in 1214—15, and further effective steps to create an efficient bureaucracy
were taken only much later, chiefly under Khubilai. But even then the
sinicization of the state structure was anything but uniform. It has, for
example, been said with good reason that the provinces
(bsing-sbeng)
of Yuan
China had quite a different character from the Sung provinces and were more
like governments of external territories or separate vassal states surrounding
the metropolitan domain. They were internally centralized to some extent
but were rather loosely linked with the imperial domain around the capital of
Ta-tu (Peking).'3 Viewed from this angle, Yuan China appears almost as a
conglomeration of regions under strong regional governments. This relative
lack of powerful central control certainly contributed to the gradual disinte-
gration of the state after 1340 when local rebellions and secessionist warlords
threatened the empire's unity.
13 See David M. Farquhar, "Structure and function in the Yuan imperial government," in China under
Mongol rule, ed. John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 52—53.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
MODES OF GOVERNMENT 27
Even the military system of the Mongols was not strongly centralized.
There was
a
Bureau of Military Affairs (Shu-mi yuan)
in
the capital that
established norms for military units throughout China and beyond, but
a
system of direct subordination and a strong line of command involved only
the imperial guards and a few other contingents in north China. The guards
themselves were a mixed body of regiments recruited from many nationali-
ties,
ranging from the Ossetes of the Caucasus region to the Jurchens from
Manchuria.
Another unusual feature of Yuan government must also be mentioned in
this context. One of the most important ministries was the Court for Bud-
dhist and Tibetan AfFairs (Hsiian-cheng yiian).'
4
It
had quite diverse and
seemingly incompatible duties: On the one hand it supervised the Buddhist
clergy in the Yiian state, and on the other it acted like a provincial govern-
ment for Tibet and the adjacent regions, with great powers that even in-
cluded mobilizing military expeditions
in
times of unrest. This, however,
did not imply the subordination of authority in local government in Tibet to
the Mongol central government. The heads of this agency were in most cases
Lamaist Buddhist clerics. All this was not only alien to the Chinese political
tradition but also provides another example of the unsystematic structures of
the Yiian government. China under the Yiian was anything but a monolithic
centralized state, despite the fiction offered in the
Yiian shih
that a Chinese
centralized civil administration prevailed.
Fragmented legal systems
Fragmentation rather than homogeneity was also characteristic of the legal
systems in the states of
conquest.
Chinese traditional law did not leave much
room for the recognition of ethnic differences, and once a non-Chinese ethnic
group had been absorbed into the state territory, their legal treatment fol-
lowed Chinese statutory law. The only exception from this rule can be found
in the T'ang code, which ruled that offenses committed between non-
acculturated foreigners
{hua-wai
jen,
"people outside civilization") should be
judged according to their native customs. If such persons committed offenses
against Chinese, they were prosecuted and punished according to the articles
of the code.'' The basic principle according to which the application of law
follows territorial criteria is in legal theory called
ius
soli.
It is opposed to the
personality principle
{ius
sanguinis),
which allows for different legal treatment
14 See Herbert Franke, "Tibetans in Yiian China," in China
under
Mongol rule, ed. John D. Langlois, Jr.
(Princeton, 1981), pp. 296-328.
15 See Tangliisbui (Peking, 1983 ed.), {article 48], 6, art.
4,
p. 133; Wallace Johnson, ThtTangcodi.
Vol. 1:
General principles
(Princeton, 1979), p. 252.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
28 INTRODUCTION
of different ethnic groups. All states of conquest were multinational and
included a large Chinese population; their legal systems generally applied the
principle of ius
sanguinis.
Under the Liao, Chinese law
—
that is, codified
T'ang law - was used for the Chinese and the Po-hai population, with,
however, some modifications that consisted chiefly of harsher punishments
than those provided by T'ang law. Tribal customary law was applied to
Khitans and other non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Liao made no attempts to
create a comprehensive and systematic code, although on several occasions,
existing rules and ordinances were collected together and promulgated.'
6
The Tangut, by contrast, created very complex codified laws, written in
Tangut, that are an amalgam of T'ang law and Tangut custom. This code has
survived in large part, and a translation is now available.'
7
Throughout the twelfth century the laws of Chin remained a mixture of
Chinese law and customary law of the Jurchens and other ethnic groups.
Chinese (T'ang) law was adopted only gradually, a process that culminated in
the T'ai-ho code (T'ai-ho lu), which was promulgated in 1201. The T'ai-ho
code was to a large extent based on the T'ang code and survived the fall of
Chin in 1234, for even after the Mongolian conquest of northern China, it
was still applied to the Chinese population.'
8
It was abrogated only in 1271
after the Mongolian regime had adopted the dynastic name of
Yuan.
But in
spite of their code, Chin law included not a few principles that were alien to
Chinese legal theory and practice, chiefly in family and inheritance law.
Among these we might mention the toleration of levirate and the permission
for sons to set up their own households during the lifetime of their parents.
Compared with T'ang law, the stipulations of the T'ai-ho code, of which
fragments have survived, were sometimes more draconian and tended to
strengthen the authority of the heads of the family over wives and junior
relatives.
The differentiation of
law
and legal procedure under the Mongols was even
greater than under the preceding dynasties. Jurisdiction was fragmented
according to nationalities.'
9
For example, the Bureau of Affairs of the Impe-
rial Clan (Ta tsung-cheng-fii), which had the functions of
a
court of appeal,
16 Herbert Franke, "Chinese law in a multinational society: The case of the Liao (907-1125)," paper
presented to the History of Chinese Medieval Law Conference, Bellagio, Italy, August 1981; and "The
'Treatise on punishments' in the Liao history," Central Asiatic Journal, 27 (1983), pp. 9—38.
17 See Evgenii I. Kychanov, Izmennyi i zanovo utverzhdennyi
kodeks
daiisa tsarstvovaniia
nebanoeprotsvetanie
(//49-1169), vol. 1 (Moscow, 1988); vol. 2 (Moscow, 1987); vols. 3 and 4 (Moscow, 1989).
18 See Herbert Franke, "Jurchen customary law and the Chinese law of the Chin dynasty," in State and
law in East Asia:
Festschrift
Karl
Biinger,
ed. Dieter Eikemeier and Herbert Franke (Wiesbaden, 1981),
pp.
215—33; also see Franke, "The legal system of the Chin dynasty," in
CollectedStudies on Sung history
dedicated to
Professor
Janus T. C. Liu in
celebration
of his
seventieth
birthday, ed. Tsuyoshi Kinugawa
(Kyoto, 1989), pp. 387-409.
19 See the introduction of Paul Ratchnevsky, Un
code
da Yuan (Paris, 1937), vol. 1, pp. v-xcix.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
MODES OF GOVERNMENT 29
had only jurisdiccional powers over Mongols. Cases involving Central Asians
were decided at the appeal level by the Bureau of Guardianship (Tu-hu fu).
There were a few exceptions to the principle of ethnicity. One of these
concerned mixed marriages. Even if only one of the marriage partners was
Mongolian - husband or wife - Mongolian law had to be applied. The intro-
duction of mixed courts must also be seen as an expression of the ius sanguinis
principle. For example, all cases between Uighurs, who were subjects of their
holy king, iduq qut of Khara Khocho in Turfan, and Chinese had to be tried
by a mixed court. Special mixed courts were also introduced for certain
professional groups, including military personnel. Serious offenses commit-
ted by members of the Buddhist or Taoist clergy came under the jurisdiction
of the normal civilian courts, but less serious disputes between laymen and
clergy were jointly decided by the chief monk and the local civilian official.
Cases between the physician and a patient or the patient's family were to be
decided by a spokesman for the medical profession and the local official. The
same procedure was followed for cases between members of the musicians'
guild and outsiders. In this way, the principle of personality, ethnic, and
professional affiliation pervaded the whole legal system under the Yuan. Law
and the judicature were fragmented to a high degree. Moreover, the Mongo-
lian regime did not have a comprehensive and systematic code like those of
the T'ang, Hsia, Chin, and Sung. Judicial practice followed the multitude of
individual regulations and ordinances collected in several handbooks. Some
of these have wholly or partly survived, and so it is possible to study the
Yuan legal system in far more detail than is possible for the Liao and Chin.
The standing of
officials
A semi-legal practice that had a deep influence on the atmosphere at court
was that of "court beatings." Under all the conquest dynasties, officials of all
ranks could be punished with beatings, on the order and in the presence of
the emperor
himself.
At lower administrative levels, too, officials were not
exempt from corporal punishment. Such corporal punishment of officials had
been common under Sui Wen-ti.
2
° Court beatings had sometimes been car-
ried out under the T'ang, but only in exceptional cases.
21
By contrast the
Sung adhered not only in theory but also in practice to the age-old principle
20 On Sui Wen-ti's capricious and atrocious cruelty to his officials, see T'ang Ch'eng-ye, Sui
Wen-li cheng
chihshih
kungcbihyin
chiu
(Taipei, 1967), pp. 81—3.
21 Some cases occurred during the "reign of terror" under Empress Wu. The most notorious case, that of
Chiang Chiao, an imperial favorite of high rank who was flogged at court under Hsiian-tsung and
subsequently died in 722, was exceptional in that his crime was betraying a personal confidence of the
emperor. His punishment provoked heated protests. The practice was never revived in the last half of
the T'ang. See Chuang Lien, Ming
Ch'ing shih shih
Is'
ung
fan (Taipei, 1972), pp. 4—5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
30 INTRODUCTION
according to which corporal punishments did not extend to the gentry, and
the rites did not extend to the commoners. Such punishments were never
imposed on officials under the Sung. The conquerors, however, disregarded
this traditional Chinese privilege, and such humiliating beatings became a
normal feature of government.
22
The flogging of officials, particularly beat-
ings administered to ministers at the imperial court, can be interpreted as
evidence of barbarian brutality and of imperial despotic behavior. It may,
however, also be viewed as the result of egalitarian tendencies under these
alien regimes that negated the fundamental social and legal barriers that had
strictly separated the members of the bureaucracy
{kuan)
and the masses of
commoners
(tnin)
in traditional China.
In general, under these dynasties a strong, personalized, arbitrary autoc-
racy at the court and in the immediate entourage of the emperors was
paralleled by an unsystematic administration characterized by the fragmenta-
tion of authority and even the laxity of routine administration. Their states
were not monolithic and were weakened by diffuse lines of command. The
brutality and unrelenting autocracy that the founder of the Ming dynasty so
frequently displayed may have been a heritage of the sometimes brutal behav-
ior of the Yuan rulers,
23
but it is also perhaps justified to regard the first
Ming emperor's despotism
as
a firm attempt to restore and strengthen impe-
rial power and to get away from the unstructured, loose, and even chaotic
features of Yuan government. He once himself attributed the fall of the Yuan
to their negligence, laxity, and leniency, and from this perception of his
predecessors he tried to preclude similar developments that might endanger
the state and his power as its emperor. If one follows this interpretation, the
Ming state had to be made strong because the state itself had been seriously
weakened under successive alien regimes.
MULTILINGUALITY
The problems of governing and administering
a
polyethnic society are inevita-
bly linked with the linguistic situation. It is true that alien regimes had
existed previously in Chinese history, but for the foreign-dominated regimes
of the Six Dynasties period we know next to nothing about the use of the
conquerors' languages in the Chinese-style states that they had founded, and
none of them had a written language that could be used in government and
administration. From the period of conquest in the tenth to fourteenth
22 See Franke, "Jurchen customary law," pp. 231-2. For a representative selection of cases under the
Liao,
Chin, and Yuan, see Chuang Lien, Ming Ch'ing sbih sbib
ts'ung
fan, pp. 1—10.
23 See F. W. Mote, "The growth of Chinese despotism: A critique of Wittfogel's theory of oriental
despotism as applied to China," Orieta Extrtmul, 8 (1961), pp. 1—41.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008