Chinese History
Discuss the features of a dynasty in decline and explain why the Sung Dynasty avoided the standard problems that plagued other dynasties before and after
The standard profile of a Chinese dynasty in decline, as exemplified first in the Five Dynasties that ruled China following the breakup of the Tang Empire in 907 as well as the dynasties that existed after the Sung surrendered to Mongol rule, was a state of internal and then of external dissolution. A dynasty in decline was often subject to an onslaught of outside foreign attacks, which caused its immediate termination. But this foreign attack was only effective after economic, internal dissolution had occurred between the powerful landowning classes and their enraged yet politically disenfranchised and ignored tenant peasants. At the court and city, a dynasty in decline was often marked by aristocratic rather than merit-based administration.
But the Sung Dynasty that ended the chaotic period of the Five Dynasties of the Liang, Tang, Han, Chin, and Chou and not marked by these characteristics. To take one specific example of a previous dynastic decline, Han dealings with barbarian neighbors were conducted within an unfair tribute system. Under this system China granted diplomatic recognition and trading privileges only to those states and peoples acknowledging its superiority, symbolized by the payment of tribute. Despite its technical superiority, the end of the Han occurred after powerful landlords insisted on shifting too much land from the tax rolls. This created an increased burden on poorer farmers. The newly powerful farmers also meant there was more intense political wrangling at the imperial court. The resulting economic hardships and governmental disintegration led to massive peasant rebellion and the dissolution of the empire, as the tribute paying peoples revolted, taking advantage of the weakened state of the Han dynastic empire.
The Sung Dynasty had a more cultural and moderating social influence upon the Chinese people and upon the land. The Sung Confucian social service system of examination acted as a socially...
Thus the Sung influence can even be described as democratizing to China, although conservative notions of filial authority drew China closer together as a land, isolated it from Western and neighboring influence, and deflated some of the nascent power of women and social and economic power of tenant peasants. However, even this latter temporary denaturing of the peasants as a political force mean that a level of internal peace was possible, longer than had ever transpired in China before or world, afterwards.
The dominance the Sung Empire came to an end with the conquest of the Mongols in 1279, after a campaign of several decades. Again, even after Mongol influence abated, foreign influence upon China was always one of the speediest sources of dynastic decline. Later, the source of conflict between China and the West became trade rather than tribute payments. The Ching Dynasty, for example, attempted to conduct diplomatic and commercial relations with the European powers within the traditional framework of the tribute system and to confine foreign trade to the single port of Canton in the south. But the British, the most active European traders, were also among the most active in smuggling opium into the country, demanded wider access to China.
Once again, internally, China was both weakened in terms of its class warfare between peasants and farmers, urbanites and rural dwellers, and dominated by a weak and ineffectual emperor who was overly reliant upon the system's patronage system. China became exposed to the Opium Wars, as a result, and fell into decline once again, repeating the familiar dynastic patterns of the past.
Works Consulted
Chang, Eric. "China." China History Website. Last updated 2004.
http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/ChinaHistory/SUNG.htm
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