Chinese Spatial Strategies

Imperial Beijing, 1420-1911

Jianfei Zhu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134366200
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

Chinese Spatial Strategies presents a study of social spaces of the capital of Ming Qing China (1420-1911). Focusing on early Ming and early and middle Qing, it explores architectural, urban and geographical space of Beijing, in relation to issues of history, geopolitics, urban social structure, imperial rule and authority, symbolism, and aesthetic and existential experience. At once historical and theoretical, the work argues that there is a Chinese approach to spatial disposition which is strategic and holistic.

Part I

A Social Geography

1

A Geo-Political Project

Following the trajectory of Chinese capitals in historical progression, one finds a move towards east, and then south-east. Qin dynasty (221–207BC), unifying China for the first time, built its capital Xianyang west of North China Plain. After the short-lived Qin was a long and powerful Han dynasty. The Former Han dynasty (Western Han, 202BC–AD9) established its capital city Changan (modern-day Xian) next to the ruins of Xianyang. It used another city Luoyang to the east of Changan as a secondary capital, to secure a better control of the North China Plain. The Latter Han dynasty (Eastern Han, AD25–220) maintained the dual capital system but elevated the eastern city Luoyang to the status of principle capital, to maintain a solid power base in the North China Plain. The following two major dynasties in Chinese history, Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–906), continued to use the two sites as their dual capitals, although Changan, now a much larger and formalized city, was the primary capital, which facilitated a balanced control of eastern and western regions. By then population and centre of grain production had moved further east and south-east, a situation which compelled the Tang court later on to move its administrative centre to the eastern city Luoyang. The next Chinese dynasty, Northern Song (960–1126), used Bianliang (modern-day Kaifeng) as its capital, a city further east of Luoyang. Now, well into the North China Plain, Song emperors in Bianliang could assert a direct control over central China and defend it against ‘barbarian’ invasions from the north and, at the same time, secure a better supply of grain and material resources from China’s economic centre, the south-east, known also as the lower Yangtze region or Jiangnan (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Location of principle capitals in Chinese dynastic history.

Song China was no longer comparable to the Tang empire in military strength and territorial expanse. Being more defensive, the Song now faced ‘barbarian’ powers that, taking the advantage of the turmoil at the fall of the Tang, had made their incursions into northern regions of central China. The strongest of them was the Liao (937–1125), which rose to power from a nomadic tribe known as Khitan in Manchuria in the north-east. In the early twelfth century, another power rose to prominence from the tribes of Jurchen (later known as Manchu) in the same region. It first conquered the Liao with an alliance of the Northern Song, then turned against the Song, sacked the Song capital Bianliang, conquered much of the North China Plain in 1126, and established a Jin dynasty. The Chinese then had to retreat to the south and established there a smaller country, the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). This time the capital was Linan (modern-day Hangzhou), which was situated in the lower Yangtze region. Political centre now converged with economic centre, although with a weak defensive posture towards the north. At the same time, central and northern regions were under the control of the Jin until the early thirteenth century. By then a Mongolian empire rose to great prominence in the vast stretch of the Eurasian continent. It conquered the northern powers and the Jin and, in 1279, Southern Song China. The Mongols now occupied the whole of the Chinese land and established the Yuan dynasty, which lasted for nearly a century (1260/1279–1368).

In this gradual shift of Chinese political centre towards the east and south-east, a new locus of power emerged: the site of Beijing. Situated on the northern edge of the North China Plain (that is, central China), it was flanked on the north, north-east and north-west by large and continuous mountain ranges, with only a few passes such as Shanhaiguan, Gubeikou and Nankou.¹ For centuries people from central China had to pass these few gates to reach the north-east plain of Manchuria, and the vast Mongolian steppes. Similarly, northern tribes had to pass these few points, within the vicinity of Beijing, before they could reach central China. Well known expeditions towards the north-east in the Han and Tang dynasties all used the site of Beijing as their foremost military base. Since the fall of the Tang in the early tenth century, several northern tribes had grown to major powers and had successively conquered the place and the northern regions, then central China, and finally the whole of China (Liao, Jin and Yuan). All of them selected the site of Beijing for their capital cities. The Liao built Nanjing, ‘the southern capital’ (not to be confused with the early Ming capital and modern-day Nanjing shown in Figure 1.1); the Jin, Zhongdu, ‘the central capital’; and the Yuan, Dadu, ‘the grand capital’. For them, this was the strategic point on which their primary political centre was based, which facilitated an easy retreat to home base in the north and north-east, and a direct advance to central and southern China. The site of Beijing, with its natural geographical configuration, turned out to be a strategic centre for contest and control, for both southern and northern forces in the past and, after the mid-tenth century, for northern powers for their southbound conquest.

This situation changed in the mid-fourteenth century, when a new Chinese power rose to dominance from the Yangtze region under the leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang; it expanded in all directions and, in 1368, proclaimed the Ming (‘bright’) dynasty.² Zhu was now titled ‘the Hongwu Emperor’ (‘vast military power’). In the same year his army captured the Yuan capital Dadu, and much of the northern steppes and Manchuria in the following years, which brought the Yuan empire to an end. This marked a new era in Chinese history. It lasted for more than 500 years until the early twentieth century, with relative stability and unity, under two successive dynasties: the Ming (1368–1644), and then the Qing (1644–1911) which originated from Manchuria and inherited many institutions from the Ming.

In a broad historical perspective, after the Qin-Han empire and Sui-Tang-Song dynasties, the Ming and Qing have been regarded as the ‘Third Empire’.³ The historical significance of the third era, and of the Ming especially, has attracted much attention and discussion.⁴ Most observe that the Chinese, after centuries of defeat, retreat and gradual loss of their land, had a strong aspiration for a recovery of the territory and a restoration of powerful Chinese rule, as embodied in the thoughts and actions of earlier Ming emperors. Along with this desire to reconstruct a strong empire was a criticism of the laxity and leniency of the Song dynasties, which were culturally liberal and sophisticated but politically and militarily weak. With a strong desire for recovery and self-strengthening, an absolutist political centralism and a cultural chauvinism surfaced as key characteristics of the Ming and thereafter.

In 1380, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang abolished a 1,500 year-old Chinese tradition of ‘prime-ministership’ (zaixiang zhi), the top level of authority in the entire state office, and thus assumed direct rule over all governmental affairs of the empire, a practice that was followed in the rest of the Ming and Qing history. It produced the most centralized political system the world had ever seen.⁵ The governing of this empire by one emperor was ‘a vast undertaking, grand in its assumptions, and lofty in its professional ideals’.⁶ It reflected a rather distinctive approach of the Ming in Chinese history.

When Zhu Yuanzhang died in 1398, according to the principles of primogeniture, the throne went to Zhu Yunwen, the surviving grandson of the first born. Within a year, Zhu Yuanzhang’s fourth son Zhu Di rebelled. A 3-year war followed (the ‘Jingnan Incident’). In 1402, Zhu Di emerged victorious.⁷ In the following two decades, Zhu Di, now titled ‘the Yongle Emperor’ (‘perpetual happiness’), proved to be a second strong ruler and a visionary in the building of the Ming empire.

He undertook new initiatives in expanding the empire, and projected a China-centric world order in much of inner and maritime Asia.⁸ He conducted five northern expeditions into the Mongolian steppes, directed southern expeditions into Annam, established diplomatic relations with Inner Asian states and regularized trade with Japan and other maritime neighbours. He initiated seven great maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433 which, led by a court eunuch Zheng He, reached Ceylon, India, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa (Figure 1.2). They were the greatest maritime explorations in world history at that time, prior to the European voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century.⁹ The first fleet sailed in 1405–1407, comprising sixty-two large and 255 smaller vessels, carrying 27,870 men, with the use of compass and detailed sailing directions. In an effort to build an orthodox ideology and a cultural leadership, Zhu Di also supervised many projects of classical and literary compilation. The Yongle Dadian, the Great Encyclopaedia of the Yongle Reign, compiled by 2,000 scholars and completed in 1407, included 11,095 volumes with 370 million printed characters, which covered all principle works inherited from previous ages.¹⁰ There is a Ming psychology in the projects led by the early Ming emperors: ambitious, visionary and projective, with a coordination of vast social and natural resources, with discipline, rigour and concerns for detail.

Figure 1.2 Ming China’s maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433.

Source: Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, part 1, 1988, Map 11, p.234, by permission of Cambridge University Press.

When Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed the Ming dynasty in 1368, he selected his Yintian prefecture on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, the military base of his expansion, as the ‘southern capital’: Nanjing (Figure 1.1).¹¹ A ‘northern capital’ was to be built in Bianliang (Kaifeng), which was soon abandoned in favour of another city, Fengyang, Zhu’s home town. The building of a ‘central capital’ in Fengyang also came to a stop in 1375, when the emperor realized that Nanjing was superior to Fengyang in many aspects. Defensive posture of local topography, regional economic prosperity, historical fame and, most importantly, the geo-political centrality of Nanjing as the power base of the Ming court, were the major considerations.¹²

In 1378, Nanjing was formally declared ‘the capital’, Jingshi.¹³ This completed the geographical movement of Chinese capitals towards the east and south-east, to converge with the economic centre in the lower Yangtze region. Located on the southern edge of central China, Nanjing now secured the best access to grain and other resources of the south-east, but was distant from the northern border and thus maintained a difficult defensive posture towards the Mongolian steppes and Manchuria beyond the point of Beijing. Zhu Yuanzhang had been concerned about this potential weakness of Nanjing, but felt that in his old age he could do little about it.¹⁴

However, a power based on the site of Beijing was growing and, after Zhu’s reign (1398), it reached a point beyond the control of Nanjing, and finally remedied the weakness in Ming’s geographical configuration.¹⁵ Thirty years previously, Zhu’s chief general Xu Da sacked the Yuan capital Dadu and led a major offensive against the Mongols in the steppes. As a Ming city, Dadu was named Beiping (‘northern peace’) and was given to Zhu Di to rule and defend. Zhu Di now became the prince of the city and the surrounding region. Aided with strong generals sent from Nanjing, Zhu Di’s attacks on the Mongols were successful. Through this, Zhu Di, with his base in Beiping, became a powerful force at the Ming court. After defeating Zhu Yunwen in 1402, he established his reign Yongle in Nanjing in 1403, and immediately changed the name of his northern city ‘Beiping’ to ‘Beijing’, the ‘northern capital’, and established branch offices of all government ministries there. It was now elevated to the status of the second capital. The prefecture of the city was also changed to Shuntian (‘obedient to heaven’) to echo the prefecture name of Nanjing, Yingtian (‘responsive to heaven’), which gave the northern capital a great symbolic significance. In the following 20 years, Zhu Di slowly and gradually transformed his earlier fief of Beijing into a new and principal capital of the Ming empire, shifted the whole Ming bureaucracy to the north, and reduced Nanjing to the status of secondary capital (Figure 1.1).

As the emperor residing in Nanjing, Zhu Di in 1403 sent his crown prince to Beijing to oversee the new branch offices.¹⁶ In 1404, he moved 10,000 households from nine prefectures in Shanxi to Beijing to increase the population there. Two years later, 120,000 landless households from the south were resettled in Beijing and the vicinity.¹⁷ In 1406 and 1407, preparation for rebuilding city walls and constructing new palaces began; and a great work force of artisans, soldiers and common labourers was recruited from all over the empire. In 1409, he himself moved back to the north and ordered all memorials and documents sent to Beijing, turning it effectively into an administrative centre. He started to oversee the construction closely. In 1411, the northern section of the Grand Canal was reopened. In 1415, the southern section was thoroughly repaired. By now the world’s largest artificial waterway, already constructed during the Yuan dynasty, was thoroughly renovated, which facilitated a direct and efficient transportation of men and materials from the south-east, crossing the whole North China Plain, to the outskirts of Beijing. Massive construction started in 1416. By this time, Zhu Di went back to Nanjing for a full court debate on the construction of a new capital at Beijing, and received a petition reviewing the virtues of Beijing and suggesting him to make it a capital. With this, Zhu went back to Beijing in 1417 and closely supervised the construction of palace compounds, altars, city gates and city walls, which were completed in 1420. On 28 October 1420, Beijing was formally designated the principle capital of the empire.¹⁸

Zhu Di thus completed another of his grand projects. Acting effectively as the second founder of the Ming dynasty...