Dynasties of Conquest

Japanese: 征服王朝 - せいふくおうちょう（英語表記）Dynasties of Conquest

Strictly speaking, it is called the Chinese Conquering Dynasty. It refers to the Chinese-style dynasties (Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing) that were established by foreign tribes from the north of China after conquering part or all of China, and is a concept that was first proposed by K. A. Wittfogel in the general preface of History of Chinese Society, Liao (1949), co-authored with Feng Jiasheng.

[Junichi Yoshida]

Wittvogel's Conquering Dynasty

Wittfogel's ideas were derived from the study of the Liao dynasty. It was once believed that the Khitans who founded the Liao dynasty soon became Chinese, adopting Chinese customs, rites, literature and culture, and thus becoming a truly Chinese dynasty. However, this theory of assimilation should be rejected, and the contact between groups with different cultures must take into account not only the acceptance of cultural features but also resistance to them, and therefore such contact usually does not result in the creation of a new homogeneous culture (a culture that results from assimilation), but in the coexistence of two mutually adapted cultures living in a symbiotic relationship. Sometimes cultural dissolution occurs, but even in such cases, the result is not a culture homogeneous with the absorbing culture, but a third culture completely different from the parent culture. The more appropriate theory is cultural transformation. This is because, although the Liao dynasty was a Chinese-style dynasty established by the northern Khitan people who conquered and ruled over part of the Han people, the centre of its political and military power was maintained in the Khitan mainland, and despite the Khitan people's adoption of Chinese culture, they did not abandon their own tribes, political and military organisations, secular traditions or religious beliefs, they continued to raise livestock separately from the Han people, maintained their tribal way of life, and these tribes carried out more administrative work than most administrative units did, so in short, the society and culture of the northern nomadic peoples centred around the Khitan and the agricultural peoples centred around the Han people existed and were maintained in a dualistic manner. Wittfogel believes that the duality of society and culture that existed in the Liao dynasty can also be seen in the Jin, Yuan, and Qing dynasties, which were established by northern peoples who conquered the Han people following the Khitan dynasty, and regards these four dynasties as different from the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties, in which Chinese society and culture existed as a unified whole. He calls the former Chinese conquering dynasties and the latter typical Chinese dynasties. He sees typical Chinese dynasties and Chinese conquering dynasties as two types of Chinese empire, or the latter as complementary to the former. Furthermore, he argued that although both were dynasties of conquest in China, the Liao and Yuan dynasties, established by the nomadic Khitan and Mongols, respectively, and the Jin dynasty, established by the hunter-and-farmer Jurchen people, had different attitudes toward Chinese culture depending on the degree of cultural difference between them and the agricultural Han people, and therefore he divided the former into two dynasties, one that resisted Chinese culture culturally and the latter one that was culturally submissive to Chinese culture, and he also stated that the Qing dynasty was transitional. On the other hand, apart from these four dynasties, the northern dynasties of the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms period and the Northern and Southern Dynasties period also had composite, dualistic cultures, but because these dynasties lacked clear acts of conquest, he argued that they should not be called dynasties of conquest in China, but should specifically be called Dynasties of Infiltration.

[Junichi Yoshida]

Theories of Conquering Dynasties in Japan

In Japan, Tsuda Sokichi had pointed out earlier that the Liao Dynasty maintained a dual institutional system, implementing a tribal system for the Khitan and a prefecture system for the Han people, with the former controlled by the Northern Officers and the latter by the Southern Officers, so when Wittfogel's views appeared, the social and cultural duality of the Liao and other Chinese conquering dynasties became more enthusiastic to be analyzed. At the same time, however, the idea emerged that since the founders of the Chinese conquering dynasties were from North Asia, the emergence of those dynasties should be understood within the development process of North Asian history and explained as a consequence of that development. The first is that as a result of the changes in the nomadic society that occurred in the Uyghur transitional period, in the Khitan period, the Khan established an agrarian government that ruled over farmers as well as nomads, reorganized clans and tribes, established a feudal lord-vassal relationship, and became an absolute monarch, and with this power as the basis, he not only ruled North Asia but also conquered China, and North Asia entered the Middle Ages after the Liao dynasty. The second is that the emergence of Chinese conquering dynasties should be seen as a conclusion on the path of development of nomadic societies with strong self-consciousness that developed in opposition to Chinese agricultural society, and excludes the Jin and Qing dynasties that were established by hunter-farmers from the list of Chinese conquering dynasties. These theories are characterized by the fact that they link the concept of categorizing Chinese empires to the issue of the historical development of the North Asian world, but this leads to some difficulties. That is, the first theory is that, although the nomads who established the Chinese conquering dynasties had different economies from the hunter-farmers and farmers, he equated their historical developments without fully analyzing the differences and similarities in their historical development processes, and used the concept of pastoralist regimes. The second theory is that he neglected or ignored the duality of social and cultural patterns, which is an important element of the concept of Chinese conquering dynasties, and viewed Chinese conquering dynasties only as a problem of Asian nomadic societies, excluding the Jin and Qing dynasties. Nevertheless, it can be said that Wittfogel's proposal raised the question of why northern peoples, especially nomadic peoples, came to establish Chinese conquering dynasties, and as a result deepened research on the historical development of northern societies, especially nomadic societies.

[Junichi Yoshida]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

Japanese:

厳密には中国征服王朝という。中国北方の異民族が中国の一部または全部を征服して建てた中国風王朝（遼(りょう)、金、元、清(しん)）をさし、K・A・ウィットフォーゲルが馮家昇(ふうかしょう)との共著『中国社会史――遼（907～1125）』History of Chinese Society, Liao (1949)の総序のなかで初めて提唱した概念である。

［吉田順一］

ウィットフォーゲルの征服王朝

ウィットフォーゲルの考えは遼王朝の検討から導き出された。かつて遼は、それを建てた契丹(きったん)がまもなく中国人となり、自ら中国の諸慣習、儀礼、文学および文化を採用し、こうして真に中国的な王朝になったとみられていた。だがこのような同化吸収理論は否定されるべきであり、異なる文化を有する集団の接触は、その文化的諸特徴の受容と同時に、それらに対する抵抗を考慮しなければならず、そこで普通はそうした接触は新しい同質文化（同化吸収の結果もたらされる文化）の創造ではなくて、共生関係のなかで生活する二つの相互に適応された文化の共存に終わるのであり、ときおり文化溶解が生じるが、その場合でも結果するのは、吸収する側の文化と同質の文化ではなくて、親文化とまったく異なる第三文化であるとする文化変容理論が妥当である。というのは、遼は北方民族の契丹が漢民族の一部を征服し、支配して建てた中国風の王朝であるが、その政治、軍事権力の中心は、契丹の本土に維持され、契丹の中国文化採用にもかかわらず、彼ら自身の部族、政治および軍事組織、世俗的伝統あるいは宗教的信条は放棄されず、彼らは依然、漢族とは離れて牧畜し、部族的生活様式は保持され、それら諸部族は、多くの行政的単位が行う以上の行政上の仕事を行っていたのであり、要するにそこには契丹を中心とする北方遊牧民族と漢民族を中心とする農耕民族の社会・文化が二元的に存在し保持されていたからである。ウィットフォーゲルは、このようにみたうえで、遼に存在した社会・文化の二元性は、契丹に続いて北方民族が漢民族を征服して建てた金、元、清においてもその存在が確認できるとし、これら四王朝を中国的社会・文化が一元的に存在する秦(しん)、漢、隋(ずい)、唐、宋(そう)、明(みん)などと異なるものであるとみなし、前者を中国征服王朝、後者を典型的中国王朝と名づけた。そして典型的中国王朝と中国征服王朝は、中国帝国における二つの類型であるか、または後者は前者を補完するものであるとみた。なお、彼は同じ中国征服王朝でも、遊牧民である契丹とモンゴル人が建てたそれぞれ遼・元と、狩猟・農耕民族である女真(じょしん)が建てた金とでは、農耕民である漢族との文化的な異質性の度合いによって、中国文化に対する態度が異なるため、前者を文化的に中国文化に抵抗するもの、後者を文化的に中国文化に従順なものというように、二つに分けられ、清朝は過渡的であるとし、一方これら四つの王朝とは別に、五胡十六国(ごこじゅうろっこく)、南北朝時代の北方系諸王朝にも複合的、二元的文化が存在したが、それらの王朝には明確な征服行為が欠けているので、中国征服王朝とは称さず、とくに浸透王朝Dynasties of Infiltrationと称すべきだとした。

［吉田順一］

日本での征服王朝論

わが国では、これ以前に津田左右吉(そうきち)が、遼は契丹に部族制、漢民族に州県制を施行し、中央において前者を北面官、後者を南面官が控制するなど制度上の二重体系を保持したことを指摘していたので、ウィットフォーゲルの見解が現れると、遼およびその他の中国征服王朝の社会・文化上の二元性についていっそう熱心に分析が行われるようになった。しかしそれと同時に、中国征服王朝の建設者が北アジア方面の出身者であるため、それらの王朝の出現を、北アジア史の発展過程のなかでとらえ、その発展の一帰結として説明しようとする考えが現れた。その第一は、ウイグルを過渡期として生じていた遊牧社会の変化の結果、契丹に至り、可汗(かがん)が、遊牧民のほかに農民も支配する牧農的政権を樹立し、また氏族、部族を改編して封建的君臣関係を確立して専制君主化し、この権力を基礎に北アジアだけ支配するのでなく中国も征服することとなり、ここに遼以後北アジアは中世に突入したとする説。その第二は、中国征服王朝の出現を、中国農耕社会とは対立的に発展し、強烈な自意識を有する遊牧民社会の発展路線上の一帰結とみるべきだとし、狩猟・農耕民の建てた金、清を中国征服王朝から除外する説である。これらの説は、中国帝国類型化のための概念を、北アジア世界の歴史的発展の問題と結び付けた点に特徴をもつが、そのために若干の無理を生じた。すなわち、第一説は、中国征服王朝を建てた遊牧民と狩猟・農耕民が異なる経済をもつにもかかわらず、それらの歴史的発展過程の異同を十分に分析しないままにその歴史的発展を同一視し、牧農的政権という概念を用いたこと。第二説は、中国征服王朝概念の重要な要素である社会・文化様式の二元性を軽視ないし無視し、単にアジア遊牧社会の問題としてのみ中国征服王朝をとらえ、金、清を除外したことがそれである。とはいえウィットフォーゲルの提唱は、北方民族とくに遊牧民族がなぜ中国征服王朝を建てるに至ったのかという疑問を生み、結果として北方社会、とくに遊牧社会の歴史の発展に関する研究を深めた点があるということはいえるであろう。

［吉田順一］

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