China: A History, volume 1—From Neolithic Cultures through the Great Qing Empire by Harold M. Tanner

Author:Harold M. Tanner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

A Northern Song dynasty painting on silk of a water-powered grain mill.

The drawing of that boundary line seems to have heightened the awareness of exclusive identities and loyalties on either side of the border. Song emperors and officials emphasized their identity as civilized men. Han Chinese had previously crossed back and forth between Chinese- and Khitan-controlled territory, sometimes because territory itself and its people changed hands, sometimes as captives, but sometimes voluntarily. Such crossings and changes of allegiance were now less practical and morally indefensible as the stronger definition of borders was accompanied by new definitions of loyalty that bound men more exclusively to a single ruler.9

Despite the difficulty of border crossings, the Khitan elite (and the Han Chinese who served them) still lived in both the Khitan and Chinese worlds. While in no way losing their identity as Khitan, the Liao used a Tang-style code {207} of law and employed Chinese officials, whom they recruited both through the yin system (recommendation) and through limited civil service examinations. Many Chinese were quite willing to serve the Liao: some even adopted Khitan names.10 The cultural dualism of the Liao elite (both Khitan rulers and Han officials) and the Liao state stood as examples when other hunting and pastoral people like the Jurchen or the Mongols sought to build and sustain large steppe confederations by ruling and drawing on the wealth of the sedentary farmers of China.

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