Women’s Life during the Song

Order Description

Major Issues
Short essay: no less than 250 words. In your essay, you should engage with course materials, including lectures and readings, in a coherent way.

Abstract
In Song-dynasty Kaifeng, empire and emporia existed in a relationship of mutual dependence
and mutual competition. Th e imperial government depended on merchants for the
shipment of grain and goods to supply its massive armies and to pay the salaries of its offi –
cials; the merchants derived their income directly or indirectly from these government
expenditures. Th e concentration of wealth and goods in the capital generated in turn a
culture of sumptuary competition. Th e contests over space in the streets of the capital, and
the competition for the goods that circulated through them, reveal confi gurations of power
that rarely fi nd direct expression in writing.
À Kaifeng, capitale des Song du Nord, l’empire et les emporia se trouvaient dans une relation
de dépendance mais aussi de compétition. En eff et, le gouvernement impérial dépendait
des marchands pour le transport des grains et des marchandises avec lesquels il
approvisionnait ses armées et payait les traitements de ses fonctionnaires. Réciproquement
les marchands tiraient la plupart de leurs revenus des dépenses gouvernementales. La concentration
des richesses et des biens dans la capitale entraîna en retour une compétition
somptuaire. La concurrence pour l’espace dans les rues métropolitaines et les rivalités pour
*) Christian de Pee, Department of History, University of Michigan, USA, cdepee@
umich.edu.
I wish to express my gratitude to Jos Gommans for inviting me to participate in the
conference on “Empires and Emporia,” and to publish the resulting paper. A semester of
nurturance leave during the winter of 2008, kindly granted by the College of Literature,
Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan, aff orded me the time to write the
essay. In addition to the participants in the JESHO conference, audience members at the
Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and participants in a
lively session of the Premodern Colloquium at the University of Michigan off ered valuable
insights and criticisms. I am grateful to Linda Cooke Johnson, Lara Kusnetzky, Rachel
Neis, Michael Nylan, Helmut Puff , Ivo Smits, Angela Zito, and an anonymous reader for
JESHO for their comments on the manuscript, and for their encouragement.
150 C. de Pee / JESHO 53 (2010) 149-184
l’appropriation des biens qui y circulaient révèlent des confi gurations de pouvoir rarement
exprimées de manière explicite dans les textes.
Keywords
empires, markets, Song China, Kaifeng, imperial and commercial city-space
Located at the northern end of the Grand Canal, at a confl uence of rivers
and a convergence of roads, Bian Prefecture became an important commercial
city during the Tang dynasty (618-907), as it provided produce
and raw materials from the southern regions to the capital cities Luoyang
and Chang’an, which lay westward along the postal roads and along the
Luo and Yellow Rivers.1 In 907, the founding emperor of the Later Liang
(907-23) named Bian Prefecture his Eastern Capital and converted the
yamen of the Military Commissioner into his palace.2 Th e city also remained
a prefectural seat, newly named Kaifeng Prefecture, and it became in addition
the seat of Kaifeng and Junyi counties.3 Th e Later Jin (936-46), too,
chose this busy commercial city as its capital, both for its convenient infrastructure
and for its geomantic location: “Bian Prefecture, now, lies at a
vital node of roads and waterways, in a powerful confi guration of mountains
and rivers. It is the land of a myriad warehouses and a thousand
regions; it is the crossroads of the four thoroughfares and the eight directions.”
4 Emperor Gaozu (r. 936-44) renamed the buildings and the gates
of the small palace city, and retained the seats of Kaifeng Prefecture,
Kaifeng County, and Junyi County.5 When the founding emperor of the
Later Zhou (951-60) in turn established his capital at Kaifeng, in the fi rst
1) See Chen Youzhong ???, “Tang-Wudai Luoyang-Kaifeng jian de jiaotong luxian”
?????????????. Zhengzhou daxue xuebao 3 (1985): 65. On the increasing
agricultural and economic importance of the southeast during the Tang and Song periods
see, for example, M. Elvin, Th e Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic
Interpretation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973): 113-78; R. M. Hartwell, “Demographic,
Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550.” Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 42 (1982): 365-442; Shiba Yoshinobu, Commerce and Society in Sung China,
transl. M. Elvin (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1968).
2) See Gao Cheng ??, Shiwu jiyuan ???? (1085; Siku quanshu edition): 6.41a,
6.42b; Wang Bo ??, Wudai huiyao ???? (961; Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe,
1978): 5.78.
3) See Wang Bo, Wudai huiyao: 19.307.
4) Wang Qinro ??? et al., eds, Cefu yuangui ???? (1013; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1960): 14.25b.
5) See Wang Bo, Wudai huiyao: 5.79-80, 19.307-8; Wang Qinro, Cefu yuangui: 14.24b-26b.
Purchase on Power 151
month of 952, the narrow streets and crowded neighborhoods had become
unmanageable:
When the king establishes his domain, it is truly called “the capital.” For the measurements
of its grounds and the settlement of its people exist fi rm prior principles. Th e
Eastern Capital is the hub of the civilized and the barbarian worlds, the intersection of
roads and waterways. As the times tend toward abundant peace, it will grow more
prosperous each day. Yet because the city walls are old and because the structure of the
city has not been expanded, the army camps of the garrisons are cramped, and space
is wanting for the construction of the offi ces of the government offi cials . . . . Th e
houses, too, stand close together. Th e streets and intersections are narrow and abject.
During the summer, the heat and the humidity are miserable, and there is ever the
worry of smoke and fi re. For the convenience of the government and the people, the
city must be enlarged. It is therefore befi tting to command the responsible authorities
to build a new defense wall on all four sides of the capital.6
Begun in 955, the construction of the new wall was completed in 958 by
the naming of its ten gates. Th e ample girth of the new wall, some twentyeight
kilometers in circumference, enclosed broad imperial avenues, paved
streets lined with trees, imposing government buildings, and new residential
neighborhoods.7 Th e triple wall, however, failed to protect the palace
of the Later Zhou when Military Commissioner Zhao Kuangyin ???
(927-74) turned his troops against the imperial house and founded the
Song dynasty (960-1279).8
Th us stood the Eastern Capital of the Song Empire on the western edge
of the Central Plain. By 976, its rivers and canals carried “several million
bushels of rice a year from the Yangzi and Huai regions” to feed “the hundreds
of thousands of troops stationed at the capital.”9 Th e contents of its
6) Wang Bo, Wudai huiyao: 26.417; Wang Qinro, Cefu yuangui: 14.27b-28a. Cf. Gao
Cheng, Shiwu jiyuan: 6.41b. Because the previous wall of Bian Prefecture was retained, the
Eastern Capital after 958 had three walls: the wall of the palace city; the old prefectural city
wall, known as the “old” or the “inner” wall ( jiucheng ??, licheng ??), 11.55 kilometers
in length; and the “new” or “defense” wall (xincheng ??, luocheng ??).
7) See Li Lian ??, Bianjing yiji zhi ????? (1546; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999):
1.2; Wang Qinro, Cefu yuangui: 14.28ab; Xue Juzheng ???, Jiu Wudai shi ????
(974; Baina edition): 116.1a, 118.6b. Cf. Cheng Ziliang ??? and Li Qingyin ???,
eds, Kaifeng chengshi shi ????? (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1993):
45-6; Zhou Baozhu ???, Songdai Dongjing yanjiu ?????? (Kaifeng: Henan
daxue chubanshe. 1992): 14-5.
8) See Xue Juzheng, Jiu Wudai shi: 120.7ab.
9) Li Tao ??, Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian ??????? (1183; Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1992): 17.369; Shao Bowen ???, Shaoshi wenjian lu ????? (1151; Beijing:
152 C. de Pee / JESHO 53 (2010) 149-184
warehouses sustained the growing imperial family and aff orded the salaries
of government offi cials.10 Its ten gates admitted carts of produce for the
markets and the restaurants, and the products of the imperial foundries
and kilns built on the outskirts of the city. Th e roads brought in candidates
for the imperial examinations and foreign ambassadors, and carried away
imperial edicts and appointed offi cials to distant corners of the realm.
Although Song Taizu (r. 960-76) had hoped to move the capital to his
native Luoyang—“to rid of the superfl uity of soldiers by taking advantage
of the excellent powers of the landscape, to follow the precedent of the
Zhou and Han dynasties, and thereby to bring peace to the empire”—his
offi cials persuaded him that only the infrastructure of his Eastern Capital
could maintain his armies and his government.11 By successive repairs and
fortifi cations, the outer wall was expanded to a circumference of more than
twenty-nine kilometers, with fourteen city gates and seven water gates. Yet
the growing population spilled beyond it in uncounted numbers, clearing
markets and building houses, erecting stores and restaurants, and planting
gardens in the ever expanding suburbs. By the end of the eleventh century,
the number of residents in the walled city and the suburban streets may
have reached a million and a half.12
Zhonghua shuju, 1983): 7.66; Wang Cheng ??, Dongdu shilüe ???? (1186; Taipei:
Wenhai chubanshe, 1967): 28.5ab. According to Cai Xiang ?? (1012-67), 1.2 million
troops were stationed at the capital in 1064. See Zhao Ruyu ???, ed., Songchao zhuchen
zouyi ?????? (1186; Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999): 148.1694. Th e
annual shipment of rice from the Southeast appears to have amounted to about “six million
piculs” (liubai wan dan ????), a number mentioned by Ouyang Xiu ??? (1007- 72)
for the 1040s, by Su Shi ?? (1036-1101) for around 1068, and by Wang Xiang ??
(fl . 1120s) for 1126. See Ouyang Xiu ???, Ouyang Xiu quanji ????? (ca. 1072;
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001): 32.477-8; Lü Zuqian ???, ed., Song wenjian ???
(1179; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1992): 56.844; Zhao Ruyu, Songchao zhuchen zouyi:
45.480. Cf. Shen Gua ??, Mengqi bitan ???? (1086-93; 1305; Beijing: Wenwu
chubanshe, 1975): 12.8b.
10) On the warehouses see, for example, Meng Yuanlao ??? (attr.), Dongjing meng Hua
lu ????? (1147; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982): 1.41, 1.46-7. Cf. Zhou Baozhu,
Songdai Dongjing yanjiu: 16-7.
11) Li Tao, Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian: 17.369; Shao Bowen, Shaoshi wenjian lu: 7.66;
Wang Cheng, Dongdu shilüe: 28.5ab.
12) See Chen Zhen ??, Songdai shehui zhengzhi lungao ???????? (Shanghai:
Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2007): 165-9; Cheng Ziliang and Li Qingyin, Kaifeng chengshi
shi: 88-9; Shiba Yoshinobu ????, Chûgoku toshi shi ????? (Tokyo: Tokyo
daigaku shuppansha, 2002): 33-4; Wu Songdi ???, Zhongguo renkou shi: Liao Song Jin
Yuan shiqi ?????:?????? (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. 2000): 574;
Purchase on Power 153
Yet the tremendous, unprecedented supply system operated by a series
of dynamic contradictions that both urged and threatened its continuity.
Th e open infrastructure that enabled the maintenance of standing armies
in numbers “unequaled in the entirety of the imperial past,” also rendered
the presence of such armies necessary, as the capital lay open to attack on
all sides.13 Th e effi cient roads and waterways that brought fresh produce
could also bring rebels or foreign soldiers. Th e traders who supplied the
imperial court with the building materials, the textiles, the precious metals
and stones, the rare foods, and the exquisite dyes to project its splendid
power, sold the same goods to wealthy merchants and offi cials, who competed
with each other and with the court in fashions and in conspicuous
display. Th e imperial kinsmen, the government offi cials, the soldiers, the
shopkeepers, the restaurant owners, and the other inhabitants of the capital,
who in their hundreds of thousands sustained and protected the functioning
of the imperial government, also threatened the safety of the
imperial house by building dwellings near defense works, by starting fi res,
and by spreading epidemics. Th e diverse population lived in mixed neighborhoods
of residences and shops that abutted the walls of the palace city,
in close proximity to the monarch and his kin. Th e rivers and canals that
gave convenient access to the imperial warehouses also brought the danger
of devastating fl oods.
In the wide avenues and the close streets of the Eastern Capital, within the
massive walls and along the freighted canals, the contradictions between
imperial power and commercial prowess assumed concrete shape. Th e ostentatious
residences of wealthy merchants, the imperial storehouses of auspicious
portents, and the changeable fashions and hairstyles of the capital
render visible to the historian competing, contrary notions of power that
shaped and defi ned one another. Th e anxiety of the imperial court and some
of its offi cials about the mobility of wealth, the fl uidity of social status, the
avid competition for material possessions, and the infringement of shops
and residences onto sacred ritual space bring into view the profound meaning
of the imperial vision of the capital: an ideal grid of imposing avenues and
Wu Tao ??, Bei Song ducheng Dongjing ?????? (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe,
1984): 37; Zhou Baozhu, Songdai Dongjing yanjiu: 319-24.
13) Th e quote is from a 1064 memorial by Cai Xiang. See Zhao Ruyu, Songchao zhuchen
zouyi: 148.1694. Cf. ibid.: 127.1397. In a fascinating essay entitled “Th e Settlement of the
Capital” (“An du” ??), Qin Guan ?? (1049-1100) argues that the open infrastructure
of Kaifeng, suited to the supply of armies and to the conduct of war, renders it the fi tting
capital of a commercial age. See Li Lian, Bianjing yiji zhi: 339-41.
154 C. de Pee / JESHO 53 (2010) 149-184
sacred sites, whose inhabitants are ranked and marked by a strict, unambiguous
hierarchy that determines the distribution of the wealth of the realm as it
fl ows in from the provinces. Although commercial wealth thus challenged
the fi xity of the imperial order, it depended entirely upon the government.
Th e conspicuous consumption of the Eastern Capital was funded, not by the
independent profi ts of industrial manufacturing, but by the tax grain that
provided the salaries of high offi cials and the commissions of shipping merchants
alike. For Kaifeng was, after all, a consuming city, where the imperial
workshops produced on command and where retailers dominated the economy.
14 Scholarship on the Song dynasty has tended at times to present the
imperial apparatus of classical ritual and sumptuary restrictions as the moribund
remains of a prior age, and to exaggerate the sophistication of the
urban economy.15 It is unwise, however, to dismiss as disingenuous a coherent
view of the ritual city that was propagated in the erudite prose of the
most talented men of the era, or to assign to diff erent periods economies of
power that encroached upon one another in the streets of the same city. Th e
contests over space in those streets, and the competition for the goods that
circulated through them, reveal confi gurations of power that rarely fi nd
direct expression in the texts of the period. Th e infringements upon the ritual
space of the capital and upon the sumptuary laws of the empire make
visible, especially, the power of the “puissant families” (hao ?), an amorphous
group of anonymous families who exist as a negative presence in the
sources, but whose assertion of infl uence by means of wealth and prestige
14) See L. J. L. Ma, Commercial Development and Urban Change in Sung China (960-1279)
(Ann Arbor: Department of Geography, University of Michigan, 1971): 6, 118-20 et seq.;
Quan Hansheng ???, Zhongguo jingjishi luncong ??????? (Hong Kong: Xinya
yanjiusuo, 1972): 186-99; Wu Tao, Bei Song ducheng Dongjing: 60, 90; Zhao Baojun ???,
“Shilun Kaifeng zhi shengshuai” ???????. In Zhongguo gudu yanjiu ?????
?, ed., Zhongguo gudu xuehui ?????? (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe,
1985): 246. Cf. E. A. Kracke, Jr., “Sung K’ai-feng: Pragmatic Metropolis and Formalistic
Capital.” In Crisis and Prosperity in Sung China, ed. J. Winthrop Haeger (Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1975): 51-2.
15) See, for example, Cheng Ziliang and Li Qingyin, Kaifeng chengshi shi: 57-9; Dai Junliang
???, ed., Zhongguo chengshi fazhan shi ??????? (Harbin: Heilongjiang
renmin chubanshe, 1992): 207-8; Chye Kiang Heng, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats:
The Development of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press,
1999): 67; A. F. Wright, “Th e Cosmology of the Chinese City.” In The City in Late Imperial
China, ed. G. W. Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977): 60; Wu Tao, Bei
Song ducheng Dongjing: 14; Zhou Baozhu, Songdai Dongjing yanjiu: 20.
Purchase on Power 155
challenged the ritual hierarchy of the imperial court and drew emperors and
imperial kinsmen into vain contests of ostentatious consumption.
Imperial Space: Avenues, Altars, Omens
In the fi rst month of 962, imperial builders began the expansion of the old
government compound of Bian Prefecture to create an imperial city and a
palace city worthy of the grand empire of Song. With its circumference of
fi ve kilometers, the new imperial city remained small compared to the
enormous palace compounds of the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and Tang
empires, but it could now at least accommodate a central axis of lofty palaces,
as well as temples and central government offi ces to the south, east,
and west, and private quarters and a garden in the quiet rear to the north.16
Th e palaces were laid out, moreover, according to the plan of the Tangdynasty
imperial city at Luoyang, and all buildings and gates were given
auspicious names of cosmological propriety and classical virtue: “At this
point did the imperial residence fi rst attain its forceful beauty.”17 To the
south of the capital, some four kilometers outside the central city gate, a
hill was found whose proportions of natural dignity fi tted it to become the
Altar of Heaven. Simply terraced and marked with ritual gates at the four
compass points, this became the central, most sacred site in the realm.18
Additional temples, monasteries, and pagodas arose within the walls of the
capital to assist in the legitimate rule of the new dynasty. At the cardinal
gates in the outer wall, at the end of the four right-angled imperial avenues,
stretched elegant imperial parks with lakes, forests, and rare animals and
plants. Th e names of the buildings and sites changed, individually or
16) Li You ??, Songchao shishi ???? (early Southern Song; Siku quanshu edition):
juan 6; Toghto ?? et al., eds, Songshi ?? (1345; Baina edition): 85.4b-6b; Xu Song
?? et al., eds, Song huiyao jigao ????? (Song; ca. 1820; Taipei: Xin wenfeng, 1976):
fangyu 1.2b-7b; Ye Mengde ???, Shilin yanyu ???? (1128; Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1984): 6.83-4. Cf. also Kaifengshi wenwu gongzuodui ????????, Kaifeng
kaogu faxian yu yanjiu ????????? (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe,
1998): 173-8, 186-8.
17) Gao Cheng, Shiwu jiyuan: 6.42b-43a. See also Fan Zhen ??, Dongzhai jishi ????
(11th century; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980): 1.3; Kaifengshi wenwu gongzuodui, Kaifeng
kaogu faxian: 175-6, 186-8; Xu Song, Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.2b-7b, 1.11ab; Ye Mengde,
Shilin yanyu: 6.83-4. Emperor Taizong (r. 976-97) canceled plans for further expansion in
985. See Toghto, Songshi: 85.4b; Xu Song, Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.11b-12a.
18) See Li You, Songchao shishi: 11.1a; Lü Zuqian, Song wenjian: 3.39, 11.138-9.
156 C. de Pee / JESHO 53 (2010) 149-184
collectively, as cosmic occurrences and imperial prestige required. All
thirty-two city gates were renamed in 979, all but four of the 136 wards
received new names in 995, and bridges, palace buildings, gates, and wards
were again renamed in 1012.19 According to Ye Mengde ??? (1077-
1148), the main halls in the palace changed names continuously, especially
after inauspicious palace fi res.20
Th is city of palaces and altars, of gates and temples, of auspicious names
and cosmic confi gurations, was the Eastern Capital. Th e orderly city that
stretched around him in 982 was to Tian Xi ?? (940-1003) the expression
of the unifi ed empire: “At present, all under Heaven is united by a
single house; everything within the seas is unifi ed in a continuous realm.
Th e four quarters converge upon the even grid of the imperial domain; the
myriad goods gather in the rich abundance of the capital city. Among the
army camps and cavalry stables, not a single is lacking in lofty awe; of
the Buddhist monasteries and Daoist temples, every one is possessed of
forceful beauty.”21 When Fan Zhongyan ??? (989-1052) in 1042 urged
the fortifi cation of the capital, he summarized the whole of its importance
by a list of defi ning sites and persons: “the Ancestral Temple and the Altars
of Soil and Grain, the Forbidden City and the storehouses of wealth and
arms; the kinsmen of the imperial family and their relatives by marriage,
the families of the thousand offi cials and the noblemen; the six armies and
the myriad people—the relatives of the blood are all here.”22 Although the
Song had succeeded to the capital of the Later Zhou, its numinous environs
suited the “fi ery virtue” of the mandate of the new dynasty.23 Th e
Western Capital at Luoyang, the Southern Capital at Shangqiu, and the
19) See Gao Cheng, Shiwu jiyuan: 6.41b-42b; Li Lian, Bianjing yiji zhi: 1.4-7; Song Minqiu
???, Chunming tuichao lu ????? (1070s; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980):
1.11; Xu Song, Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.12a-13b.
20) See Ye Mengde, Shilin yanyu: 6.83-4. Cf. Shen Gua, Mengqi bitan: 3.11b-12a; Xu Song,
Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.3a.
21) Zhao Ruyu, Songchao zhuchen zouyi: 145.1645.
22) Fan Zhongyan ???, Fan Wenzhenggong ji ????? (1089; Sibu congkan edition):
19.9a; Zhao Ruyu, Songchao zhuchen zouyi: 126.1390. Cf. Fan Zhongyan, Fan Wenzhenggong ji:
19.11b. Cf. also the geography laid out in Xu Song, Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.1a-7b, 1.23a.
23) Th at is, the mandate of the Song dynasty was associated with the Fire Phase of the Five
Phases. See Wang Qinro, Cefu yuangui: 1.4b. On the general importance accorded to geomancy
in the founding of capitals during the Song, see Wang Qinro, Cefu yuangui: 13.1a-
2a; Wang Shu ?? et al., eds, Dili xinshu ???? (1050s; 1184; 1192; Taipei: Jiwen
shuju, 1985): preface.2b, 1.20a-26a.
Purchase on Power 157
Northern Capital at Daming stood likewise in auspicious surroundings,
their palaces evenly arrayed and protected by ritual and benevolence.24
Its square walls made the Eastern Capital a simulacrum of the Earth.25
Th e terraces of the Round Mound gave worldly shape to Heaven.26 Th e
straight lines of the palace axes and the “even grid” of the imperial avenues
manifested indiscriminately a cosmological aesthetics and sacred authority,
perspicacious power and incorruptible virtue:
Th e Eastern Capital was called Bian Prefecture during the Tang. Emperor Taizu
[r. 907-13] of the Liang dynasty erected Establishing Prosperity Hall at the site of the
Xuanwu [Propagating Arms] prefectural yamen. Under the Jin its name was changed
to Great Peace Hall. Although Emperor Shizong [r. 954-57] of the Zhou dynasty
undertook renovations, these yet failed to create a structure suited to a true king. Not
long after Emperor Taizu [of the Song] had received the Mandate of Heaven, he sent
a Commissioner to draw up a map of the Great Within of the Western Capital, and
he altered [the imperial city in the Eastern Capital] according to this plan. When the
work was completed, the Emperor seated himself in Myriad Years Palace and ordered
that all gates be thrown wide open. Everything lay square and straight, in one line. Th e
Emperor sighed, “Th is is what I desired. Th e slightest crookedness or deviance will be
visible to everyone.” One day the Emperor ascended Illuminating Virtue Gate. Pointing
to its plaque, he asked Zhao Pu [922-92], “ ‘Gate of Illuminating Virtue’—why is
the character zhi [‘of ’] used here?” Pu said that it was “an auxiliary word.” “Zhi, hu,
zhe, ye,” said the Emperor, “what help have these ever provided to anyone?” Pu had
no reply.27
It matters not the least whether these anecdotes about Emperor Taizu be
true (If the authenticity of the anecdotes do not contribute to the authority
of the Emperor, the authenticity of the Emperor contributes to the
authority of the anecdotes). Th e stories connect auspicious names, architectural
form, political legitimacy, and natural morality in a coherent reading
of imperial architecture. Emperor Taizu proposes that the uprightness
of his court be judged by the straight lines of his palace, and he demonstrates
his intolerance of waste by the elimination of a preposition.28
24) See anonymous, Song da zhaoling ji ????? (1131-62; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1962): 159.598; Gao Cheng, Shiwu jiyuan: 6.43a; Xu Song, Song huiyao jigao: fangyu 1.7b-11a.
25) See, e.g., N. Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning (Honolulu: University
of Hawai‘i Press, 1990): 8-9.
26) See, e.g., Lü Zuqian, Song wenjian: 11.138.
27) Shao Bowen, Shaoshi wenjian lu: 1.5. Cf. Ye Mengde, Shilin yanyu: 1.2-3.
28) Cf. Fan Zuyu ???, Fan taishi ji ???? (ca. 1098; Siku quanshu edition): 27.6b.
158 C. de Pee / JESHO 53 (2010) 149-184
In the sacred rituals of the court, the squares and straight lines of imperial
architecture are set in motion, their symmetry completed by the symmetrical
movement of persons and objects through symmetrical time.29 Records of
the fi rst sacrifi ce at the Altar of Heaven in the eleventh month of 963, preserved
in Events and Facts of the Song Court (Songchao shishi ????, midtwelfth
century), show the grave concern of the Emperor and his ritual
advisors with the proper placement of banners and vessels, the coordination
of colors with the cardinal directions, the ranked attire of ritual assistants,
and the symmetry of the Emperor’s fast and his return to the palace.30 Th e
same scholars who drew up the protocol for this fi rst performance of Grand
Sacrifi ce devised in 965 a special ceremony for the punishment of Meng
Chang ?? (919-65), an erstwhile rival for the imperial throne.31 Th e ritual
experts used the grand avenues and the towering gates of the capital to cow
Meng Chang and his supporters into acknowledging the rightful authority
of Emperor Taizu:
On the sixteenth day of the fi rst month, Chang arrived. On the day prior, the authorities
placed a throne in Venerating Beginnings Hall and arrayed a ceremonial guard in
the courtyard, as in the ceremony of the New Year’s audience. Th ey also set up ceremonial
positions for Chang and his false offi cials, outside Illuminating Virtue Gate. Th ey
placed the tabouret for the memorial north of the cross street by the gate. On the day
itself, they arranged a grand display of cavalry and infantry troops on both sides of the
Avenue of Heaven. Chang, his younger brother, his false offi cial Li Hao, and so forth,
29) On the symmetry of time and space in classicist ritual, see C. de Pee, The Writing of
Weddings in Middle-Period China: Text and Ritual Practice in the Eighth through Fourteenth
Centuries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007): 30 et seq.; A. R. Zito, Of Body
and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth-Century China (Chicago: Th e
University of Chicago Press, 1997): chapters 1, 6, and 7.
30) See Li You, Songchao shishi: 11.1a-7b. Cf. Li You, Songchao shishi: 4.1a-3a; Toghto,
Songshi: 1.16a, 99.9b-10b; Wang Cheng, Dongdu shilüe: 2.3a. Th e timing of this fi rst
Grand Sacrifi ce, however, was irregular, as it was performed on the sixteenth day of the
eleventh month. See Song Minqiu, Chunming tuichao lu: 2.31. On the performance of
Grand Sacrifi ce in Song, see also Fan Zuyu, Fan taishi ji: 24.4b-7b; Lü Zuqian, Song wenjian:
3.39-40, 11.138-9, 23.339, 23.341-2, 64.951 et seq., 105.1459-61; Meng Yuanlao,
Dongjing meng Hua lu: 10.243-4, 246; Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Xiu quanji: 14.234; Toghto,
Songshi: 99.1a-15b; Wang Pizhi ???, Shengshui yantan lu ????? (ca. 1095;
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981): 5.61; Zhang Lei ??, Zhang Lei ji ??? (twelfth century;
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999): 1.1-3. On Grand Sacrifi ce, see also P. B. Ebrey,
“Taking Out the Grand Carriage: Imperial Spectacle and the Visual Culture of Northern
Song Kaifeng.” Asia Major, Th ird Series, 12 (1999): 33-65; Zito, Of Body and Brush.
31) See Li You, Songchao shishi: 17.9b-13a.
Purchase on Power 159
thirty-two men in all, walked up to the palace gate. Th ey were each dressed in plain
robes and gauze caps. Th e Secretarial Receptionist led Chang to a position south of
the small memorial table, facing north. Th e false offi cials all stood in a fi le behind
Chang. Th e memorial of the expectation of punishment was placed on the tabouret.
Chang knelt and off ered the memorial to the Audience Commissioner, who took the
memorial and entered the palace. Chang et alii returned to their positions and stood
in a fi le to await the imperial command.32
Th e architecture of the Eastern Capital aff orded a ritual grammar of avenues,
walls, and gates that by the addition of appropriate persons and
implements could produce specifi c, articulate statements about power and
virtue. Th e residents of the Eastern Capital could take part in the choreography
of imperial space as well, when they watched imperial processions,
or entered the imperial parks during certain restricted seasons, or when
they were admitted to the walls of the imperial palace to admire a newly
fi nished building.33
Heaven, too, intervened in this sacred grid of walls and palaces. Although
omens could appear anywhere in the realm as symptoms of the auspicious
health or the corrupting disease of the body politic, a fl ight of cranes or the
spread of fi re in the imperial capital signifi ed the state of the government
with especial urgency.34 Emperor Renzong (r. 1022-63) explained the
appearance of a fi ery star in the fourth month of 1028 by the failure of
justice in the capital and promulgated an amnesty.35 When lightning
32) Li You, Songchao shishi: 17.9b.
33) On imperial processions, see Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing meng Hua lu: juan 6-10. Cf.
Ebrey, “Taking Out the Grand Carriage.” On imperial parks, see Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing
meng Hua lu: 7.181-92; Ye Mengde, Shilin yanyu: 1.4. Cf. J. M. Hargett, “Huizong’s Magic
Marchmount: Th e Genyue Pleasure Park of Kaifeng.” Monumenta Serica 38 (1988-89):
1- 48; S. H. West, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: Th e Son of Heaven, Citizens,
and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song.” In Baroque Garden Cultures:
Emulation, S