46 Jnvolution Late Imperial China The Ming Dynasty: A ‘The Ming rulers have ism and industry, because the Wi the same period. A Sakakida Rawski, wrot JIrcoluion 98 ‘The strengths and weaknesses of Ming er, Chu Yaan-chang was a phenomenon never se China and rely in any country: ‘country. China had had plebeian Han—but they never had been from the dregs. nan from the very lowest orders ‘world power, Afterward, centralization gave way to imperi ns, Ray to frustrated familial Jove but others have attibuted it to ibalance. Wan-li was followed by young and incompe~ successors in the early sev century. The Ming 1 not survive such neglect, and it Fell by 1644. Yet in late Ming, population was perhaps triple what start, growing from about 50 million to an estimated 150 mil juang 1974; Perkins 196g). To demonstrate the Mi hhad about 160 to 150 million in both 1300 and 1800 @Raychaudhuri and Habib 1982). But before 1500, the inevitable troubles of Chinese dynasties had sur- somehow increased to seventy thousand in the early 1600s ‘Huang 1974). The empire was strapped for cash. Its primary source of revenue was the land tax, which with various surcharges and additional imposts amounted to under § percent of ordinary peasants’ gross. (Of {als took more.) Larger landowners were taxed less than ops. Other fiscal matters were irregular. One nostalgic. Ming writer commented on Sung: imperial household needed 214,000 piculs inment reached 260,000 10 400,000 rgb gsr and court expénses on food and entarmy was supposed to fees 197438, 256, 282) Climate compounded the prob better o for we royal family was of pleb« not likely to have been bei bureaucrats came up through the examinations, not through birth (Ho ‘to China in the latter half of the sixteenth century and were well known by 1594, when a govern them for famine relief. ‘They certainly came ft from Mexico; their Nabus christened chin-shu (golden tuber) pai-yu (white tuber), ot fa-shu barbarian tuber), a name by whieh they are now widely known in the south ‘ung-shu normally refers to the red yam (Dioscorea varieties containing an- thocyanin pigments, different from China’s native yam, called shan-ya.), not to the sweet pi ‘Tabacco and probably several Iberians about this time. Several crops are knowt food. Thus Rawshi rice, taming to flour prod 1 grain, wheat most ofthe rest (Sung reached an importance comparable to— and so forth was widespread, and good communi rool 9 ‘bs laimed or early best-placed parts ofthe country controlled a substantial share of the "5 acreage was in smabiholdings. Bi borers less rare, but by no means prevale thousand acres were rarely kno even t acreage that modern American farmers would consider vanishingly small, but in Ming China these holdings guaranteed a stable base from which families could branch o se pursuits and b (Chao 1982). reform spread slowly at real reduction in the tax burden, autumn collection in against the arid, otherworldly spe n resurfaced. Among those influenced thereby was one ho wrote a study of everyday crafs, the Tion-kung K'ai- fertilizing rice, with Cung next pays only if one has a good deal of land for feed, and a buffalo needs even ‘more care, though it works harder. Beans should be sown in the hollow stems plowing for bean erops should be under leaves ate probably sick, but those that spin “merely stupid” (Sung 1966:6, 8, 29, 41). (Actu100 fmvlation were probs arber foods except beans—soy, mung, bro and cowpeas —sesame, and vegetable oils (30-3 chapter lustrial uses of oils, for for food as soybean, and rapeseed; then tea-sced and last hemp (a15~ China by accident, Koreans tended to adulate Ming {fins et orga of everything good, but Ch'oe regarded it with an obj ‘He had been caughtina storm in 1488 and driven on the hhe was taken into custody by the government and soon returned to Korea ‘Meanwhile, he had a good opportu ja—a land poorly known and rarely visited by Koreans a culture, Hisnotes on food are usually sparse, b regional commander (after long dealings wi ored with tea and fruit and given good pri hich he listed as follows: One plate of pork “Two ducks Four chickens ‘Two fish ‘One beaker of wine ‘One plate of tice One plate of bean-curd (Ch've 1965:73) “This must have been typical of offical gift-giving of the time and must represent what the government believed to be appropriate staples fora not gushed traveler. In summing up his experiences, Choe using the Yangtze as the division, He both azeas, describing eating from common chopsticks. He found-the south more refined and notes—in amboo, longans, lich, oranges, pomels, and102 Involuion is now Afghan 5 an English sur 175). As soon as the embass es, Every day they were of rice, two large lives of sweets, a jon of vegetables, two amazed the “Western acean folk” (a first accounts is that of Galeot unips, radishes, cabbage, garlic, oni and chestnuts, oranges; litchis, and the characteris colour and E From such accounts as thes duced 4 thorough and system throughout Fi been translated into Involution 103 The Historie of the Great and Might Thereof; Tagither with she Great Riches, Rare liver norant fishing, and extensive fish far duck farmers were paid to run their ducks through as weeds were destroyed Jong and thorough essay in Food in js ground well) Plays, novels, poems and songs of Ming ‘everything from the chaif and beans of the p e world’s largest grocery store and dining hall. It employed 6,300 cooks in 1425, and toward the end of the dynasty the staff grew larger... . From the agency and t salt con- kitchen service must have served fiom 10,000 15,000 persons daily. This sacrificial series that were handled by the (Huang 1965:90) ln 1578 26.6 went tosupply the court and stock the imperial granaries. The kitchen staff reached 9,462 inthe mid- fifteenth century; had been reduced to 7,874 inthe sixteenth century (90). ‘A Ming source noted required “more th ial swine; 250 sactilicial sheep; 4 young bullocks of one color swine; 17,900 fat sheep; 32,040 geese; 137,900 chickens” (1977:214) that had to be particularly fine, for they were offered whole, “The cooking ofthe great merchant and landlord households was on les appallingly huge scale, but probably better. Baking and the making of sweets seem to have been especially well developed; novels take note af the exaticsoy figued enough to climate with more torrential rains con them, including hollow worse threat than ever before Perhaps more wor ‘moder identifications has been issued and our own age not just as a historical curiosity but as a valuable that has never been superseded (Res Ming's successful famine control (by grit population pass that of Europe and of India. fances inercased the quantity and variety of food; court and trade developed great cuisine. One food system deserves discussion: the role Ming's record must be unique in the premodern world: nowhere else did so ‘much new andl important material appear. The Emperor Chu Yi self ordered Chia Ming to write down his knowledge less a common pers 1 social specteu mly by rare fest les can be gleaned from the early and i successful story, which persists even today, tion, unusual for a book published so early. Li was something of indefatigable and highly critical man, operating outside both ‘mental structure and the formal and informal bounds ofthe orthodox medi- cal establishment. He roamed the empire searching for herbs, trying them cout on himself, collecting case hstoies with the acumen and pertinacity ofa sodern epidemiologist, straightening out local uses and misuses of names, and observing local conditions and their effects on health. A one-1 jence, he raised experimental and epidemiologic ment that may dying and the drier, colder days of Ming were no time for such innovations to catch on; nor was the 278). The climax 4 public works proj lower river course on a seale that would be stitution of medical methods and theories to new heights in China, an aecomy temporary have been even more important than his herbal. Unt nately106 no discover that they are as ‘rade—cont people's well-being, w omic matters know only the benefit nefits ofthe sea trade. How can theybe so blind?” (Chang Han But tis and tions are oft a good stock of Chinese material eof the many, the final consolidation of power aristocracy who were the natural foes of met Western observers of China, from late tion between autocracy and stagns bby Max Weber cencycl names, and much else, love Among almost two t ‘or monopoly trade, neglecting th enough to lead to suppression jal innovation, Landlords were satisfied with the real but undramatic bene! hours that contemporary Chinese, Japanese, and other sc Among in early Ming but was cut back sharply after the early the great voyages of Cheng Hao, who ex ‘people worked so hard to make such a small labor was cheaper than machinery or other ea hina did not ilize new technology and even what it had. Bray adds that rice agriculture is not amenable to mechat ye sixteenth century: “As and the foreign sea wade ages and disadvantages wi108 I build a machine. Relative prices rather than absolute al supporting pure research, was taking off Invoation 109 and the End of Old China The early Ching Dynasty was “the age of enlightened despots” fest to use the phrase. During the early ry of the ancient Eighteen Provinces i 1975; Spence and Wills ‘wetter regime followed (Wang and Zhao 1981; Wang, Zhao and Chen 1981; Zhang 1982) that ‘explains much of the economic and demographic expansion of the Ch'ien- tung period. However, weiter weather exacerbated the chronic flood prob~ lems, as did deforestation—ever more serious—and the expansion of cultivation in the uplands, over-close diking and the resulting sil riverbeds, devegetation of riverbanks (which allowed the banks to wash out iming (ironic misnomer) expanding fast (Ho 1953) Ming, recover, standing at 100 growth began in earnest. Europe had about 144 same as In had only about 193 almost 375 million th but rebellions and the *4oo million customers” of Carl Crow’s famous book decline kept the numbers from expan110 Iroeition 1¢ Chinese, bitterly familiar icide, abortion, and many other ‘quantity so tha provides evidence of such a view. Europe suffered a comparable but its economy was expanding, and ighbor’spitances but also much population expand so fast as Ching fF Ching to one act 1977228). It was about half that by 1900. A __ tion of power in the hands of local landholding fone or two of them not much bigger nal dikes took up much of the | wereon took up much of the peasants time acre of land divided into ten parcel than a room, Boundary zones and and disputes over riage space and repossessed the right-of-way governor supported the trend toward smal foreign as Chinese statecrafi) was to gamer a5 support as possible among the common people while preventing concent focus for rebellion, ‘Moreover, the peasants had their own power. Robert Marks (1984) shows that—contrary to i well-meaning government was try to get popular support, many peasant revolts were successful. In a world ‘where most families had an acre or less, the owner of three or four acres soo dis Family from addition, the richest 1 percent of C lion people—a large and highly the rule. Most “landlords” were very small fy indeed, owning a couple of acres. The CI there was a compl political power did not always covary. China powerful 1962). The best picture (1957), written during early Ching. dependent on the charity of lowly but well-to-do butchers and teashop- keepers (Bastid-Bruguidre [1980] has a good discussion of the social real- ites; Braudel [1982] makes comparable remarks about Europe of about the same time). “Three-level tenancy became common. Often an absentee landlord rented2 Irwoluton aboriginal chiefs who (Mesill 1979). Other tenants were hardly 976) provides 1§ (28182). Around 1810-20, Irvoluion 113 cash per day, 100 in harvest time. A soldier was either paid 1.8 tacls a month cash for subsistence. A nilitia man drew 50, which was surely less than subsistence; he woul have been expected to supply some of his own food. One could buy a boy for 1,000 cash or a woman for 10,000, but only the desperate were selling, The 70— could coarse vegetables. Such a diet would cost about 70 cents in the United States today. ‘The low price of land is interes better parts ofthe rie regions, bu picked up cheay ordinary working person could thus expensive relative to the price of labor, and the pruden worked his labor force hard rather than applying labor-saving technology Agricultural and herbal books and en during late Ching: the successors works occupying many feet of shelf space. Yao Shu were now huge semnment officials took se~ larizing good strains that nology, organizing flood grain procurement and storage system was rational and modesty successful (Hinton 1956; Torbert 19773 Zhuan and Kraus 1975). Government monop= lies extended to ginseng, the procurement and marketing of which was rigorously controlled (Symons 198 ick and well, organized; ofcourse it could not solve the problem—such a task would have been beyond the capabilities of any preindustrial government—but it had ingly good effects (Will 18). Compared to north and west Europe at appears sluggish and backward in agricultural mod- mization, but compared to other pats of the world, or Europe of eater eras, Ching ems suecessfu 982) concludes that in the eighteenth century, Ching’s rural masses were richer and better educated than French peasants of the same period, and an even stronger contrast can bbe made with most ofthe rst of Europe, since France was by then far ahead of much ofthat continent (481). The measure of Ching success is thus that ‘ural economic expansion kept up with population. Changes conformed to the late Ming pattern: New World erops, songhum, and double-croppingreal power derives from offi but they own extensive farms which provide thei wellas cash crops, and they own pawnshops, trade in cloth, and otherwise practice ‘The state routinely raise money. Some people even grew timber asa cash erop—surely some sort of ultimate marker of rural commercialization (Rawski 1973). By the and per capita was a mere half acre (3 ously mntrol merchants and to ‘maloutrition mon causes of death—operating indirectly by weakening cane prey disease or by ereating such desperation that and other forms of violence were invoked by peasants ig- Dwight Perkins (1960) calculates that (533 pounds) of grain per year, which av ns 1 peasants eat In eighteenth-century surplus must have been quite a bit higher, unless much of the land was very poorly cultivated. This may have been the ease, for the Macartney Embassy vas struck by the desolate and uncultivated appearance of much of the ‘country (Staunton 1797), and even in the mid icand with the figures for 16 while the court ate well iad become greater than ite potatoes, virtually unknown jin Ming, became abundant, owing much of their spread to French mi ‘ary activity inthe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Maize took over vast stretches of the west and south and began to encroach everywhere. Never before had a crop yielded well in the warmer, wetter mountains of ‘Now suddenly, these areas rivaled other parts of the county for ‘must have contributed to the problem of rebellions in the south and south- wost by allowing an increase and immiseration of the populations there. dependence and the pellagra and o not only did soy= beans and vegetal provide vitamins, but other New World ‘crops that spread along with maize improved the rural nutrition picture.ough it was locally known ure had two important effec Evens marketing regions in which the Spence 1977) ventieth century, peasants of {.cotton, oF a mix of cotton and chosen, de- surface) had been ly useful tremely responsive to known in the 50, during which Inoolution 107 management—based as they are on conservation and recycling —became influential asthe organic farming movement arose in the Westand as conser~ vation became established. The first great proponent of Chines techniques in the West was Frank H. King, whose travels ‘The book remains a classic in conservation literature. the knowledge and tbe compared with the civilised nations of the West” (7). ‘The advance of agriculture in the West beyond that of China was 4 when Fortune was writin the late eigh- teenth century, the West hed been behind). ‘The most important Westen innovations before 1847 were in livestock management and breeding and tegration of livestock and crop cycles; China’ agriculture, in whi tock played no major part, precluded Vorrowing any of this. Most other ‘Western developments involved growing of Mediterranean erops, which wi not growin China. China already had most of the Western erops and Chi- nese grains outproduced Western ones, especially under Chinese condi- to draw on Western technology in the and, was rapidly expanding and Eastern nations, ng new lands like Cal plants and ornamentals often did better than any’ viously known, Robert Fortune's low opi in sumptuous manner upon his rice, fish, in the world is there ites of the tea- |—namely, rice, vegetables, anda small potion of animal food, such as fish or pork. But the poorest classes in China seem to understand the art of preparing their food souch better than the same classes at home. With the simple substances Ihave named, the Chinese labourer contives to make a mumber of very savoury dishes, upon which he breakfasts or dines most sumpruously. In Scotland, in former days—and I suppose itis much the same now—the harvest labourer’ breakfast consisted of porridge and mil bread and beer, and porridge and milk again for supper. A Chinaman would stave upon such food” (Fortune 1857:42-43). Fortune was surprised to find that in Fuchou beef and milk were widely eaten (1847.60). his dinner of118 Frvobution students had “rice a and eabbage or other vegetables, They have com-meal made into wo wy s'ou—a kind of a cake is slapped on the side o abbage is cooking. The heat of preferred to fresh ps a small dish of beans and soy” ls were avai ced with one’s own hands (ev rains and vinegar. And in the northeast one can have indulged life of ¢ story of human em vod and drink to make a poi in chicken-skin soup, a bow! of duck steamed in ices, another plate on which were fo food (1977) gives shore shrift to book’s action takes place over meals was an obligatory part of any important de: 4s of any reunion or afirmation of friendship and ‘world is not one of hypersensitive teenagers rumbustious bravos to withdrawn and ascetic scholars he gi healthy appetites for meat, andthe later—the people he really admies— much more restrained ones. Frequently characters are introduced at feasts, and from how much they take, and bow politely they take i, we are 1 see whether Wi thinks of them as gross beasts or gentlemen, ‘Wu also has a Frenchman’s eye for foibles ofthe cloth. A monk brings out “tea, sugar wafers, dates, melon seeds, dried beancurd, chestnuts an cd swegis"—very good Buddhist fare—but then brings in beef noodles‘ban on cow butchering offered a ham: ater, an abl sugar and and duck preserved in wine (112, 169). A poor scholar sake is tortured by the smell of such a duck along bers, fish, birds’ nests, and the like, but he ean is and such minor snacks as preserved or anges and boiled chestnuts (21719). A miser “stabbed du his ear-pick to see how fat they were” and otherwise made him 8 breasts wi both sexes as pes from Si ‘Yilan Mei prefers lisplay and reports, “I e original geniuses of the always say tha lows, with no character—in fi party given by a certain Govern served in enormous vases, like flower-pots. ‘who gave us Food as medicine continued to flourish. Beautiful editions ofthe Pen-t'uo Kang-mu were printed. Dietary manuals appeared. Doctors saw primarily clite patients (The Stor ofthe Stone has some excellent accounts), but phat- ities and small towns spread medical kn ige from the elite, literate tradition tothe ordinary people. and the New Territories a generation ago, tional system was still in place, a major conduit for transmission of knowledge, preventing, any watertight separation of “great” ” traditions. Even the spe- alized realms of gynecology and pediatrics were not forgotten. Charlotte ith (1987), who explored this otherwise almost unknown realm with the Ip of moder Chinese practi of the Ch Like their counterparts in preindustrial Europe, Chinese doctors {fussed thattheir genteel patients were 100 delicate and romanticized the hardy peasant wife who, according to stereotype, delivered easily Their eeping with the Chinese emphasis on diet as a ‘extra toes and fingers . ful”). A more easygoing woman could be reassured by advice to con= tinue eating normally, with prudence.” (14). ‘We encountered this continuum from anxious taboos to looser suggestions in the Yian—Ming period, and ith allt had going for it, why di122 Inoulaion Geertz (1963) herwise known as “ system is driv ated, and feeds more and more people— inevitably, such a system f The peasants had to work harder and harder at to feed themselves. ‘They adopted new ideas, but sive, impoverished, village world, lable, they would not have used them. V 1us and because the Dutch brutally raise their wages—there was no agricul was always easier 10 wring a bit more work out of the peasan fest the same effort in Tnvolution 123 though only by sop sector, Jing so could true so forth; but who cared about peasant agricul East Asian farming is particulary susceptible to im ical technology” of East Asia is land-saving and labor-intensive. Changes more labor into intensive cultivation of tiny plots. Rice and Asian vegetables respond well to such a system, always Somehow managing to produce just enough cha system does not preclude true development (defined as more product per capita), b low “growth without developmet vicious cycle in which peas labor supply keeps rising fate takes place, as Boserup. ‘off, (Chao [1086] gives the lat sed one more hank it does the peasants end up even worse ‘of the process.) Only a ad grown rather slowly, In Ching the reverse was true. Imperial the cause, jorical development of Chinese food. The contemporary scene of the twentieth century 0 the book. ‘The modern history of Chinese agriculture is an amazing, complex and is beyond my scope. China's foodways were estab-