Tribute System and Rulership in Late Imperial China

Ralph Kauz, Morris Rossabi, Ralph Kauz, Morris Rossabi

• Publisher: V&R Unipress
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9783847114024
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783847014027
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Demanding and offering tribute is a most common feature in human societies and nothing special to China. In the course of the development of Neolithic and later societies social classes have developed where persons who achieved superior positions first could demand 'presents' or tribute from neighboring societies they defeated and then, with the assistance of sturdy 'servants' from their own people. China was certainly no exception to that principle and one of the first terms for tax was thus 'gong', tribute. In China's early, 'feudatory' social system, tribute was demanded from lower political entities, and the mutual 'political' relations were already highly developed during the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE). This system of 'inner Chinese' relations became a sort of matrix when China expanded and achieved contact with countries which were more or less independent, and thus the 'tribute system' evolved. The individual case studies in this volume focus on the latest manifestations of the tribute system in late Imperial China.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Series Editors' Preface
• Ralph Kauz / Morris Rossabi: Introduction
• The Basics of Tribute
• Li Wen 李文: The Origin of the Character gòng 貢
• The System
• Liu Yingsheng 劉迎勝: The Tribute System and the Dependent States of Mongol-Yuan China
• He Xinhua 何新華: Political or Economic? A Systematical Investigation of the Forms of Goods Exchange under the Qing Tributary Sys em
• Chia Ning: The Tribute System in the Qing Dynasty: From Mechanism of Empire-Building to Origins of the Dynastic Fall
• Bakhyt Ezhenkhan-uli: Notes on the Early Discourse of the Qing Court about the ˋKazakh Tribute'
• Zsombor Rajkai: Tribute as a Diplomatic Strategy in Early Ming China
• Morris Rossabi: Yongle, Tributary Relations, and Foreign Policy
• Britta-Maria Gruber: Mongolian Tribute to the Manchu Ruler in 1632 and the Ruler's Gifts Given in Return
• Rui Manuel Loureiro: Early Iberian Reports on the Ming Tribute System: From Tomé Pires (1516) to Juan González de Mendoza (1585)
• Wan Ming 萬明: Focusing on the Indian Ocean: An Interpretation of the Tributary System in the Early 15th Century
• The Tribute
• Sally K. Church 程思麗: A Lion Presented as Tribute during Chen Cheng’s 陳誠. Diplomatic Expeditions to Herat (1413–1420)
• Ralph Kauz: Fiction, Painting and Reality: Paliuwan in Chinese Sources
• Graeme Ford: The Persian College Exemplary Letters in the Late Ming ˋHuayiyiyu' Dictionary
• James K. Chin: Envoys, Brokers and Interpreters: Chinese Merchants in the Tribute System of Imperial China
• Roderich Ptak: Xiangshan County, Maritime Trade and Local Tribute (c. 1000–1550). With Special Consideration of Selected Animal Products
• Csaba Olah: Legal Private Trade within the Framework of the Ming Tribute System
• Ching-fei Shih: A Case Study of Tribute Gift from the ˋWestern Ocean': Wooden Goblets with Nesting Cups in the Qing Court
• List of Contributors