Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments PART ONE: CONQUEST DYNASTIES AND THE NORTHERN SONG, 900-1127 The Five Dynasties Later Imperial China's Place in History The Course of Five Dynasties History The Eastward Shift of the Political Center Simultaneous Developments in the Ten States China and Inner Asia in Geographic and Historical Perspective Abaoji The Khitans and Their Neighbors Ethnic Diversity and Language Community The Lessons of History The New Leader Emerges The Significance of Khitan Acculturation Abaoji Receives Yao Kun, Envoy of the Later Tang Dynasty Building the Liao Empire Succession Issues after Abaoji The Meaning of the Early Liao Succession Crises The Khitan Inner Asian Tribal Empire Liao-Korean Relations Expansion into North China Liao-Song Relations Liao Civilization Multicultural Adaptations Khitan Society Patterns of Acculturation Buddhism in Khitan Life Interpretations of Liao Success Creating the Song Dynasty The Vigor of the Later Zhou and the Founding of the Song On Being the Emperor in Tenth-Century China Governing China The Military Problem The World of Ideas in Northern Song China The Man of the Age: Ouyang Xiu The Course of a Song Dynasty Official Career The Civil Service Examination System The Social Impact of the Song Examination System Political Reform and Political Thought Neo-Confucian Political Thought Dimensions of Northern Song Life High Culture The Example of Su Shi The New Elite and Song High Culture Religion in Song Life Song Society Origins of the Xi Xia State The Tangut People: Names and Ethnic Identities Early History of the Tangut Tribal People The Tanguts Come into the Song Orbit Yuan-hao Proclaims the Xi Xia Dynasty The Xi Xia as an Imperial Dynasty PART TWO: CONQUEST DYNASTIES AND THE SOUTHERN SONG, 1127-1279 The "Wild Jurchens" Erupt into History Aguda's Challenge The End of the Liao Dynasty The Northern Song Falls to the Jurchens Who Were These Jurchens? Explaining the Jurchens' Success The Jurchen State and Its Cultural Policy The Conquerors Turn to Governing The Period of Dual Institutions, 1115-1135 The Era of Centralization, 1135-1161 The Period of Nativist Reaction, 1161-1208 The End of the Jin Dynasty, 1208-1234 The Later Xi Xia State Xi Xia in the Era of the Jin Dynasty, 1115-1227 The Crisis of the "Partition of the State" The Destruction of the Xi Xia State The Tangut Achievement Xia Buddhism Trends of Change under Jin Alien Rule Divisions: North and South, Chinese and Non-Chinese Jurchen Dominance The Impact of the Civil Service Examinations High Culture during the Jin Dynasty Economic Life under the Jin The Southern Song and Chinese Survival A Fleeing PrinceCA New Emperor War versus Peace Patterns of High Politics after the Treaty of 1141 Chinese Civilization and the Song Achievement New Social Factors Elite Lives and Song High Culture Confucian Thinkers Other Kinds of Elite Lives Some Generalizations about the Song Elite Southern Song Life--A Broader View Calculating Song China's Population Governing at the Local Level Paying for Government Status in the Chinese Population Urban and Rural Families, Women, and Children VA Poet's Observations A Mid-Thirteenth-Century Overview The Heritage of the Liao, Xi Xia, and Jin Periods The System of Ritualized Interstate Relations The Growing Scope of International Trade Cultural Interaction PART THREE: CHINA AND THE MONGOL WORLD The Career of the Great Khan Chinggis Backgrounds of Mongol History The Ethnic Geography of Inner Asia in the Late Twelfth Century Mongol Nomadic Economy and Social Life The Mongols Emerge into History The Youth of Temujin Chinggis Khan as Nation Builder Forging the Mongol World Empire, 1206-1259 The Nearer Horizons of Empire, 1206-1217 The First Campaign to the West, 1218-1225 Chinggis Khan, the Man The Second Campaign to the West, 1236-1241 Mongol Adaptations to China under Chinggis and Ogodei Mongke Khan and the Third Campaign to the West Relations among the Four Khanates Khubilai Khan Becomes Emperor of China The Early Life of Khubilai Khubilai and His Chinese Advisers before 1260 As Mongke's Field General in China Maneuvering to Become the Great Khan The Great Khan Khubilai Becomes Emperor of China The Conquest of the Southern Song, 1267-1279 The War against Khaidu Khubilai's Later Years Khubilai Khan's Successors, 1294-1370 China under Mongol Rule Yuan Government Managing Society and Staffing the Government Religions China's People under Mongol Rule The Yuan Cultural Achievement PART FOUR: THE RESTORATION OF NATIVE RULE UNDER THE MING, 1368-1644 From Chaos toward a New Chinese Order Disintegration Competitors for Power Emerge Rival Contenders, 1351-1368 Zhu Yuanzhang, Boy to Young Man Zhu Yuanzhang Builds His Ming Dynasty Learning to Be an Emperor Setting the Pattern of His Dynasty Constructing a Capital and a Government The Enigma of Zhu Yuanzhang Civil War and Usurpation, 1399-1402 The New Era The Thought of Fang Xiaoru: What Might Have Been From Prince to Emperor The "Second Founding" of the Ming Dynasty Ming Chengzu's Imprint on Ming Governing The Eunuch Establishment and the Imperial Bodyguard Defending Throne and State Securing China's Place in the Asian World The New Capital Ming China in the Fifteenth Century Successors to the Yongle Emperor The Mechanics of Government The Grand Canal in Ming Times The Changing World of the Sixteenth Century Emperor Wuzong, 1505-1521 Emperor Shizong's Accession The Rites Controversy Emperor Shizong and Daoism The Emperor Shizong and His Officials Wang Yangming and Sixteenth-Century Confucian Thought Ming China's Borders Border Zones, Zones of Interaction Tension and Peril on the Northern Borders Tibet and the Western Borders The "Soft Border" of the Chinese South The Maritime Borders of Eastern China Late Ming Political Decline, 1567-1627 The Brief Reign of Emperor Muzong, 1567-1572 Zhang Juzheng's Leadership and the Wanli Reign The Wanli Emperor's Successors The Lively Society of the Late Ming The Population of Ming China The Organization of Rural Society Ming Cities, Towns, and Urban People: The Question of Capitalism Late Ming Elite Culture The Course of Ming Failure Launching the Chongzhen Reign: Random Inadequacies, Persistent Hopes The Manchu Invaders The "Roving Bandits" Beijing, Spring 1644 PART FIVE: CHINA AND THE WORLD IN EARLY QING TIMES Alien Rule Returns Beijing: The City Ravaged The Drama at Shanhai Guan, April-May Beijing Becomes the New Qing Capital The Shunzhi Emperor, 1644-1662 The Southern Ming Challenge to Qing Hegemony, 1644-1662 The Manchu Offensive VThe Longwu Regime: Fuzhou, July 1645-October 1646 VMing Loyalist Activity after 1646 The Kangxi Emperor: Coming of Age Difficult Beginnings Rebellion, 1673-1681 The Conquest of Taiwan Ming Loyalism and Intellectual Currents in the Early Qing The Kangxi Reign: The Emperor and His Empire Banner Lands and the Manchu Migration into China Recruitment and the Examination System The Mongols on the Northern Borders Manchu/Qing Power and the Problem of Tibet Court Factions The Succession Crisis The Yongzheng Emperor as Man and Ruler Imperial Style, Political Substance Changing the Machinery of Government Other Governing Measures Military Campaigns and Border Policies Population Growth and Social Conditions Taxation and the Yongzheng Reforms Splendor and Degeneration, 1736-1799 Changing Assessments Hongli Political Measures Cultural Control Measures A Late Flowering of Thought and Learning The Qianlong Emperor's Military Campaigns VChina in the Eighteenth Century China's Legacy in a Changing World The Background of China's International Relations Mutual Recognition Economic Interactions Broadened Horizons of Religion, Philosophy, and Practical Knowledge Diplomatic and Military Threats An Old Civilization in a New World Appendix: Conversion Table, Pinyin to Wade-Giles Notes Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

A personal meditation on the later imperial history of China by an author who has studied and taught the subject all his life and whose knowledge of it is truly formidable. It is written in a readable, accessible style that attracts the reader's sustained attention. -- John W. Dardess, University of Kansas A major contribution to our present literature on the general historiography of late Imperial China. Not only is it eminently accessible to a wide nonspecialized intellectual public, it also provides a major corrective within the field to some of the tendencies that have dominated the writing of Chinese history. Mote has highly cogent things to say about the nature of what has been called the 'gentry' in China and highly relevant questions to raise about the notion of a demographic explosion in eighteenth-century China and examines many of the prevailing abstract conceptions which dominate the field. Yet, he vividly demonstrated how limited our effort has been to explore in depth the vast documentary materials available to us, which are supposed to provide the 'empirical data' for our models, paradigms, and structural theories. Mote's major contribution is his detailed account of the growing complexity of relations between the Chinese state and the surrounding East Asian world during the period 900-1800. -- Benjamin I. Schwartz, Harvard University

About the Author

F. W. Mote was Professor of Chinese History and Civilization, Emeritus, at Princeton University, author of Intellectual Foundations of China, and coeditor of several volumes of The Cambridge History of China.

Reviews

This massive tome crowns the long, distinguished career of Frederick Mote, an influential scholar of Late Imperial China in the United States… An outstanding feature that distinguishes this book from similar works is the author’s effort to readdress the imbalance in traditional historiography with its lopsided focus on the political and geographic center of the realm. He does a wonderful job of reconstructing the history of such historically neglected regimes as Khitan–Liao, Jurchen–Jin, and Tangut–Western Xia, from the perspective of the Other… What I find most praiseworthy is the lucid, elegant expository style of writing. In spite of the wealth of knowledge the author clearly possesses about traditional China, he chooses to cover in depth a select number of topics—personages, events, institutions, etc.—in a language that is understandable to the average man in the street, without relying on opaque verbosity. Consequently, the book is likely to leave a profound and lasting impact on the reader in areas it focuses on, which will in turn help him or her better understand a given period of Late Imperial China from a long-term perspective.
*Chinese Historical Review*

A personal meditation on the later imperial history of China by an author who has studied and taught the subject all his life and whose knowledge of it is truly formidable. It is written in a readable, accessible style that attracts the reader’s sustained attention.
*John W. Dardess, University of Kansas*

A major contribution to our present literature on the general historiography of late Imperial China. Not only is it eminently accessible to a wide nonspecialized intellectual public, it also provides a major corrective within the field to some of the tendencies that have dominated the writing of Chinese history. Mote has highly cogent things to say about the nature of what has been called the ‘gentry’ in China and highly relevant questions to raise about the notion of a demographic explosion in eighteenth-century China and examines many of the prevailing abstract conceptions which dominate the field. Yet, he vividly demonstrated how limited our effort has been to explore in depth the vast documentary materials available to us, which are supposed to provide the ‘empirical data’ for our models, paradigms, and structural theories. Mote’s major contribution is his detailed account of the growing complexity of relations between the Chinese state and the surrounding East Asian world during the period 900–1800.
*Benjamin I. Schwartz, Harvard University*