Jack L. Dull - Anti-Qin Rebels No Peasant Leaders Here

Anti-Qin Rebels: No Peasant Leaders HereAuthor(s): Jack L. DullSource: Modern China, Vol. 9, No. 3, Symposium: Peasant Rebellions in China (Jul., 1983), pp.285-318Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188992 .Accessed: 23/09/2013 15:40

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Anti-Qin Rebels No Peasant Leaders Here

JACK L. DULL University of Washington

Was the Qin dynasty overthrown by peasant uprisings? The standard answer to that question conjures up a picture of Chen Sheng, an agricultural laborer who, without weapons, led the first of a swarm of uprisings that were to engulf the Qin regime and lead finally to the founding of the Han dynasty. Chen Sheng was of peasant origins and the followers of many leaders who took to the battlefields were undoubtedly peasants. We cannot prove the latter point, for we know next to nothing about the composition of the armies that opposed the Qin and then each other. But it seems reasonable to assume that the armies of a fundamentally agrarian society would have been made up of peasants. We do not know what motivated most of these peasants to enter rebel armies (assuming they were not simply dragooned into service); hence we cannot comment evidentially on peasant motivation. This article focuses on the leaders of the period about whom we do have some information.

If the standard answer to the opening question were valid, there would be no need to reopen the case. A critical review of the

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wish to thank Steven Dickinson for his work on the draft translation of the Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian (which is cited in this article).

Modern China, Vol. 9 No. 3, July 1983 285-318 o 1983 Sage Publications, Inc.

285


286 MODERN CHINA / JULY 1983

evidence will show, however, that the typical image of Qin dynasty policies is wrong, and that the alleged nature of the anti-Qin opposition must be reconsidered. Our case derives from the examples usually cited to prove that the Qin regime was irresponsible and unfeeling in its mobilization of manpower and in its tax policies. After demonstrating that these examples do not warrant the usual interpretations, we shall consider general statements by contemporary and near contemporary commentators, and finally consider cases of the leaders themselves.

CONSCRIPTION

One of the commonly made charges against the Qin regime was its excessive mobilization of manpower for military duty and for construction projects. A famous case that apparently originates in the Shiji biography of Chen Sheng may be incapsulated in the following quotation:

During the first year of the Second Emperor of Ch'in [209 B.C.], in the seventh month, an order came for a force of nine hundred men from the poor side of town to be sent to garrison Yu-yang [Watson, 1961. I, 19; emphasis added].

Roughly the same Chinese passage appears in the treatise on the economy in Ban Gu's Hanshu: the Qin government "mobilized [men from families living on] the left side of the[village]gateways to guard the frontiers" (Swann, 1950: 147; her brackets, my emphasis). In the 120s B.C., Wu Bei, in trying to convince Liu An, the King of Huainan, not to rebel against the Han throne pointed out that conditions under the Han were not comparable to those under the Qin; his argument included the assertion that the Qin regime had ordered a summons of those living on the left side of the village gates. This example has been accepted in nearly all modern studies of the Qin dynasty and the factors in its downfall (see, for example, Yoshinami, 1978: 455-457; and He, 1955: 24-25).


Dull / ANTI-QIN REBELS 287

There are two aspects of this passage that warrant discussion. The first is the meaning of "the left side of the village"(luzuo); we can only speculate regarding the meaning of the term. The second aspect is that the term, when considered in the full context of the passage, does not justify the accepted interpretation. To put it bluntly, the accepted interpretation is wrong.

Luzuo literally means to the left of the gate, as a village or a ward, but the commentators have felt compelled to elaborate on the term. One commonly cited "explanation" is that other categories of conscriptees having been exhausted, the Qin simply ordered that all those who lived on the left side of lanes were to be drafted. Since the Qin dynasty was overthrown shortly after this mobilization, it was never able to call up those on the right (Swann, 1950: 147, n. 126 where she paraphrases Ying Shao's commentary). Other commentators have assumed that some discrete group lived on the left side of a village gate and have accordingly sought to "explain" the passage. This interpretation assumes (in spite of no evidence for the assumption) that the rich people lived on the right side of village lanes; that the poor lived on the left, and that only the rich were supposed to serve. But so many of the rich had already been called up that the state had to turn to the poor. It is on the basis of this interpretation that Watson has translated luzuo as "the poor side of the town" (see above; see also He, 1955: 24-25; Shiji, 1934: 48, 3 gives all these explanations). A final understanding has it that those who were exempt from conscription lived on the left, but since all those on the right had already served, the state was forced to turn to those on the left. As He Ciquan points out, either of the latter two explanations leads to the conclusion that people who ought not to have had to serve had been called up.

All three of these interpretations have one common feature: they suggest a massive conscription effort. The first one in particular, but to a limited extent the others as well, lead the reader to believe that about 50% of the adult male population (assuming there was equal distribution of households on both sides of the street) was being summoned for duty. The roads of the empire would have been clogged with conscripts. Watson's



translation further aggravates the situation by implying that all 900 conscripts came from Chen Sheng's village. The total force sent to Yuyang consisted of that many men, but the text does not suggest that they all came from the same place. Indeed, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang are described as coming from two rather distant places. The idea of conscripting almost one half the male population was accepted because many people were willing to believe the worst about the Qin. Certainly Wu Bei thought that irresponsible behavior as reflected in this order distinguished the Qin from the Han, and that although the Qin was easily overthrown, Wu Bei's patron ought not to attempt to rise against the Han.

When we consider this phrase in the context of the full Shiji passage, we see that it is quite unlikely that any of the preceding interpretations are warranted. The next sentence in the Shiji biography of Chen Sheng reads: "Chen She and Wu Guang were among those whose turn it was to go. "This crucially important statement converts an asinine policy of conscription at the rate of 50% of the eligible populace into a reasonable call for men based upon rotation. What we glimpse imperfectly is a rotation system in which those who lived on the left (whatever that may mean beyond the obvious) and those who lived on the right alternated irn responding to conscription orders (there is the possibility that this system existed only in Chen Sheng's village). But there was an additional, important, and often overlooked, aspect of the system: Among those who lived on the left, for example, there was a further rotation system, according to which turns were taken. Chen Sheng was conscripted because both conditions were met: he lived on the left and his turn had come up. Thus, in spite of the frequency with which the "left side of the lane" case is cited, it is without foundation. Chen and the others in his group were summoned according to what seems to have been the standard conscription system. We may also add the following historio- graphical note: Ban Gu, in writing his Hanshu, often copied material from the Shiji on a word for word basis, but he too omits the passage that would indicate that there was nothing excep-



tional in the mobilization of Chen Sheng (Ban Gu, 1962: 31/ 1786).

One other example of anti-Qin propaganda based upon its alleged conscription policies will help to clear away more of the dismal fog engulfing this short-lived regime. Much has been made of the terrible costs involved in the construction of the Afang palace complex (left incomplete at the time of the First Emperor's death) and in the building of the First Emperor's tomb. I shall not (indeed, I cannot) argue that the palace project was simple or that the tomb was cheap. What can be demonstrated is that neither project required the mobilization of large-scale corvee forces. In the first year of the Second Emperor's reign (209 B.C.) after completing a tour of the eastern part of the empire, the emperor noted that work had been suspended on the Afang palace while the earth was being returned to the tomb of the First Emperor on Mount Li. He observed that not completing the Afang palace would be tantamount to admitting that the First Emperor had made a mistake in ordering the project. Since the work on the First Emperor's tomb was largely complete, he ordered that work resume on the palace complex. In the "Annals" of the Second Emperor, this order is followed three entries later by the record of Chen Sheng initiating his rebellion (Shiji 6/ 73-74). Since Han times, resumption of work on the palace has been closely associated with Chen's rebellion. Furthermore, in the following year, some of the rebels had moved precariously close to the capital. The emperor, belatedly aware of the threat posed by the approaching rebels, sought advice among his ministers. This was the response of Zhang Han, the Privy Treasurer:

The bandits have already become numerous and are powerful. Now there is no time to mobilize troops in nearby prefectures. The convict laborers (tu) on Mount Li are numerous. I request that you pardon them and provide them with weapons in order to attack [the bandits]. The Second Emperor granted a general pardon to the empire and commissioned Zhang Han as general. He attacked and smashed [the rebel] army [Shiji, 6/75].


290 MODERN CHINA / JUL Y 1983

The foregoing information warrants the following conclusions. First, in spite of the emperor's order, either work had not yet resumed on the Afang Palace, or it was still progressing slowly for Zhang Han specifically refers to the laborers still engaged in finishing the First Emperor's tomb. Second, the labor force that had worked on the Afang Palace and then on the tomb were not conscript laborers at all; they were convicts. Thus, it is highly unlikely that an order conscripting labor for either the tomb or the palace was ever issued. Third, we might note the rather conservative policy regarding the use of labor on these two projects. In 212 B.C. when work was begun on the Afang palaces, a convict labor force (tuxingzhe) of 700,000 was set to work, some on the palaces and some on the tomb (Shiji, 6/54). When the emperor died two years later, the government might have simply augmented the laborers working on the tomb in order to complete it as rapidly as possible. Instead, those convict laborers working on the palaces were transferred to the tomb site. Furthermore, in the same year work on both projects is discussed, the Shiji notes that when 30,000 families were moved to the tomb town and an additional 50,000 families were moved to Yunyang (the terminus of one of the new highways), both groups of families were exempted from corvee duty for 10 years. Such policies hardly seem to characterize a regime with a supposedly insatiable hunger for manpower.

In sum, the specific cases of Qin conscription practices do not reveal the politically foolish and humanly destructive policies that we have long accepted as characteristic of the allegedly heartless Qin. To the contrary, the summons that fatefully netted Chen Sheng seems to have been based upon a measured attempt to share conscription obligations among the general populace. Furthermore, the human labor used in the huge construction projects was not conscript labor but convict labor. Work on the second project did not entail a new massive summons of manpower, but rather a cautious shifting of human resources from one undertaking to another. It is thus difficult to accept the notion that Qin conscription policies created inordinately heavy burdens which were decisive causes in the downfall of the Qin dynasty



TAXES

A review of the very limited amount of material we have on the Qin tax system indicates that we can probably not look to it for an explanation of the rebellions against the Qin. We shall begin by repeating some of the usual charges made against the Qin and then scrutinize the evidence.

The most condemnatory charge against the Qin regime was the staggering tax load it forced upon its people. The locus classicus of this charge is in the "Treatise on Food and Money" of the Hanshu where, in Swann's translation, we read: Qin Shihuang "collected (ca. 212 B.C.) much more than a half [that is, two- thirds of the products of the people as military] taxfu" (Swann, 1950: 147; her parens and brackets). The commentators agree that taiban, Swann's "much more than a half," means two-thirds; the same expression is used in Shiji (7/66) to refer to Han Gaozu's possession of two-thirds of the empire when his enemy Xiang Yu held the remainder. Swann's insertion of the word "military" may be valid, but as it is irrelevant for our purposes, we shall not discuss it. The meaning of the passage is clear: the Qin government collected taxes, fu, at the rate of approximately 66% of the farmer's produce. This famous statement, referring to one of the most solidly entrenched characteristics of the Qin regime, is utter nonsense. It tells us a great deal about the people who fabricated a repugnant image of the Qin, but it tells us nothing about the Qin tax system.

There are several reasons why this statement is of no value. First, for a peasant family to subsist on only one-third of its crops, having surrendered two-thirds in taxes, would assume an excep- tionally high level of productivity or ancillary sources of income on a broad scale; there is no hint that such conditions existed. Second, this asserted tax rate is incompatible with other economic features of the period. Dong Zhongshu informs us that landless peasants had to pay 50% of their produce as rent to rich landlords (Swann, 1950: 182). Assuming that landlords, not renters, were responsible for taxes, no one would want to be a landlord; they would lose money every year as rent income proved insufficient to pay the tax bill. Dong Zhongshu's testimony regarding the 50%



rental rate should probably be discounted. Dong was not above hyperbole (such as his poignant description of the supposedly typical Chinese peasant who did not own enough land on which to stand an awl) nor was he above historical fabrication: Lin Jianming makes the very strong case that it was Dong who created the historical "fact" that Qin abolished the well-field system (Lin, 1981: 204-205, n. 23). Thus, tenants perhaps paid rent at a rate close to 50% but it is unlikely-simply on logical grounds-that the tax rate could have been close to 66%. The Qin tax system was more complex than Ban Gu's allegation would lead us to believe. We turn now to some details of the system in order to lay fully to rest this exaggerated notion of the tax rate of 66%, although we must admit at the onset that we cannot determine the precise rates.

The Qin regime collected a tax on grain produced and a poll tax. The grain tax (zu) was instituted in 408 B.C. by Duke Jian (Shiji, 15, 42). Dong Zhongshu uses the term tianzu, land tax, in referring to this tax (Swann, 1950: 182; Ban Gu, 1962: 24A/ 1137). Over half a century later, in 348 B.C. when Shang Yang was inaugurating his famous reforms, a poll tax (fu) was first levied (Ban Gu, 1962: 15/68). That the fu was a poll tax is indicated by Dong's use of the term koufu-literally, "mouth" or per capita tax (Swann, 1950: 182; Ban Gu, 1962: 24A/ 1137) and also by a special law instituted by Shang Yang. Under his guidance a law was issued which decreed: "Those families [literally: people, min] which have two or more adult males and which do not divide into separate [households] will have their fu doubled" (Ban Gu, 1962: 68/8; see also Lin, 1981: 190-191; Duyvendak, 1928: 15; Ch'u, 1972: 252). The usage of fu in this passage leaves little doubt: Fu was a poll tax. And, in addition to it, Qin farmers also paid a tax on the grain they produced. What were the rates for these taxes? We have no way of determining them. Dong tells us that the land tax, poll tax, and the profits on sales of state monopolized salt and iron increased the peasant's burden, as compared to that of ancient peasants, twentyfold (Swann, 1950: 182). Still, this does not answer our question.



The evidence for a land tax (zu) and a poll tax (fu), even without knowledge of the rates, allows us to dismiss Ban Gu's statement regarding the fu tax of 66%. This rate is high enough to be dismissed out of hand as anti-Qin propaganda. The dual system of zu and fu suggests that Ban's charge was not based upon any analysis of the Qin tax system, but was little more than a wildly exaggerated charge.

Lest we appear to be too harsh in judging Ban Gu, we note that he was not the creator of the supposed 66% tax rate; it is already found in the Huainanzi (T'ang, 1975: 197, citing Huainanzi, "Binglue" chapter, 444-445). In defense of Qin policies and Shang Yang we also draw attention to the law quoted above, that is, those families that had two or more adult males had their poll taxes doubled when the adult sons did not found their own households. That is, the state did not require each adult male in a household to pay the poll tax.

Another false image of the Qin may have come from the "Annals" of the Second Emperor. There, in the translation of Yang and Yang (1979: 189), we find the following:

As there were many mouths to feed in the capital and not enough provisions, grain and fodder were levied from the provinces, transport workers were ordered to supply their own rations, and all grain within three hundred 1i of Hsienyang was commandeered.

Chavannes renders the last clause more literally with "A trois cents li a la ronde de Hien-yang, (le peuple) ne put manger ses moissons," and then explains in a footnote that "Parce qu'elles avaient ete requisitionnees"(Chavannes, 1967: 11, 203-204 and fn. 1).

Unless one has an insatiable desire to condemn the Qin dynasty, blind acceptance of this statement is exceedingly difficult or flatly impossible. The possibility that the government had the power -to confiscate all grain or even that it thought that it had that power is nil. There must be a better explanation than the one given in these translations.



In fact, the text given in the longer version above has caused problems for many commentators. Takikawa (1934), quoting an earlier Japanese commentator, agrees with the renditions given above (Shiji, 6/ 74). In his commentary on the Zizhz tongiian, Hu Sanxing points to difficulties in the first part of the passage and seems to agree with the quoted translators regarding the latter part of the passage (ch. 7, p. 50). On the other hand, Fang Bao, an early Qing classicist, offers a very different interpretation-one that makes perfectly good sense without leading to the conclusion that the Qin government was attempting to commandeer all grain within three hundred li of the Qin capital. The full passage (Shiji, 6/74) as interpreted by Fang, may be rendered as follows:

Those who had to be fed were many and provisions were not sufficient for downward allocation. The commanderies and prefectures in transporting pulse (or beans, shu), millet (su), hay (chu), and straw (gao) were all ordered to provide their own rations. Within three hundred li of Xianyang, [they, i.e., those who transported grain] were not permitted to eat their grain [the grain they were transporting].

What the passage means is that until then people who transported grain either took their rations from the grain they were shipping to the capital, or they received their rations from central government storehouses. Hereafter, the commanderies and the prefectures from their own resources were to bear the cost of shipping the grain and other supplies. The passage cannot possibly mean that the central government had decided to confiscate all grain within three hundred li of the capital.

As in the cases of conscription, the specific examples of tax collection rates and procedures can not stand close scrutiny without collapsing as fabrications or propagandistically induced misreadings of the material. There are, however, some general statements that must also be considered. They are somewhat more convincing than the specific cases, if for no other reason than the fact than they are not as outlandish nor as patently refutable.



GENERAL INTERPRETA TIONS OF QIN POLICIES

We shall consider three examples of general interpretive statements that bear on the downfall of the Qin. The first is by ministerial contemporaries of Chen Sheng; the second, by Lu Jia, one of Han Gaozu's advisors; and the third is from Jia Yi's renowned "Faults of Qin."

As the number of rebels increased and as more government troops were sent from the vicinity of the Qin capital to attack them, the three highest ministers admonished the Second Emperor as follows:

That the bandits are numerous is because of the bitterness of conscription, transportation, and construction and because poll and land taxes are great (da). We request a halt to the Afang Palace work and reduction of military service on and shipments to the four frontiers [Shiji, 6/77].

The emperor's response was to order the arrest of three ministers; two of them committed suicide, and the third, Li Si, was imprisoned, tortured, and finally executed. What is noteworthy in the jointly offered advice is that whereas the ministers acknowledge heavy taxes and levies, their specific recommenda- tions are to halt work on the palace complex and to reduce certain other activities relating to frontier areas. Presumably, had their advice been followed, there would have been some reduction in corvee duties and in the land and poll taxes as these imposts pertained to construction work and border matters. But this is not a call for sweeping reductions in exactions.

Lu Jia had long been a follower of Han Gaozu in the latter's rise to power, and he had served the Han founder as a foreign diplomat. Lu wanted the Han regime to operate according to Confucian principles, and frequently urged Gaozu to rule by benevolence and righteousness, drawing his lessons from the classics of poetry and history. Gaozu ordinarily did not respond warmly to this kind of advice. After one such harangue had left Gaozu ill at ease and displeased, the emperor ordered Lu Jia to try



to write a piece on why Qin had lost the empire and Han had won it. The result was the Xinyu (New Sayings) (Shiji, 97/12-17; Watson, 1961: I, 275-278). For our purposes, Lu's piece is disappointing. First, at least half the chapters do not pertain either to the fall of the Qin or the rise of the Han. Second, his comments on the fall of the Qin are diffuse and lacking any kind of analytical rigor. Several points made by Lu are, nevertheless, worth noting.

Lu Jia emphasized the role of the Second Emperor in his comments on the fall of the Qin. In the first chapter he produced a striking parallel when he observed that Duke Huan of Qi (contrary to what Mencius would lead us to believe) "esteemed virtue and thereby became hegemon; the Second Emperor of Qin esteemed punishments and perished" (Lu Jia, p. 3). In the second chapter, the Second Emperor was likened to the last rulers of the Xia and Shang dynasties regarding calamities (p. 4). On the surface, that assertion may not make much sense, but in the last chapter (p. 21), Lu suggests that Qin kings suffered much bad luck due to their lack of benevolence and righteousness. Chapter three, "Fuzheng" ("Aiding in the Administration'), reiterates the charge that the Second Emperor relied excessively on punishments and then attributes the fall of Qin to Zhao Gao (the politically domi- neering eunuch), and Li Si (one of the chancellors). Lu Jia admonishes his imperial reader that the successful ruler is one who relies upon sages, not men such as Zhao Gao and Li Si (p. 5). By implication, the Qin failed because the Second Emperor tried to rely upon these two men. Not until Chapter four, "Wu-wei" ("Non-action"), is the First Emperor singled out for attention. There, Lu refers to the cruel punishment that the First Emperor created of tearing people apart with carriages in order to restrain evil (in spite of the fact that Shang Yang was presumably executed in this manner about a century before the founding of the Qin empire), his building of the Great Wall, and his military campaigns. Lu summarized his position as follows: "It is not that Qin did not want to govern well. However, the reason they lost it (i.e., the empire) is that their undertakings were cruel and numerous, and their use of punishments was too extreme" (p. 7).



Thus, Lu Jia, a man who had lived under the Qin empire and who had fought against it, does not, except belatedly and in general terms, attribute the downfall of the regime to high taxes and excessive corvee. Rather, he focuses attention on the Second Emperor's harsh punishments and on his failure to rely on good ministers. In a much less focused way he refers to the First Emperor's projects, military campaigns, and use of the law. If there is a valid generalization that can be derived from Lu's text, it is that there was a general feeling of ill will directed less toward the Qin dynasty than toward the Second Emperor. If this interpretation is correct, then a search for the specific causes of the regime's downfall-such as high taxes-will not be successful. There does however, seem to have been a vague enmity born of a complex set of factors: taxes (although they were not as high as they are sometimes made out to be), corvee obligations (although not as exacting as they are sometimes made out to be), harsh punishments (although the impact of these is very difficult to judge), and perhaps most importantly the sense that the government did not have the interests of its subjects at heart. In this last respect, Lu Jia's famous question to Han Gaozu is based upon an accurate assessment of the fall of the Qin dynasty and of what the Han dynasty would have to do to survive: "Your Majesty may have won it on horseback, but can you rule it on horseback?" Benevolence and righteousness (values that both subject and ruler can share), not military might and harsh laws (benefitting only the ruler), will assure lengthy possession of the empire (Shiji, 97/ 16; Watson, 1961: I, 277-278).

Jia Yi's "Faults of Qin" is too long to be summarized in detail in this article, but the major points in each of the three sections of the essay are worth noting. (The first part of Jia's essay is translated in deBary, 1960: 150-152; all three parts are in Chavannes, 1967: 11, 219-236; the de Bary version has been reprinted in Birch, 1965: 46-48 and in Li, 1975: 316-319, even though this first part is the least detailed and least significant of the three. Chinese versions are widely available; I have used Shiji, 6/91-114.)

The first part of Jia Yi's "Faults" traces the rise of the Qin, noting Qin Shihuang's expansion of the empire in the southwest



and in the north. Chen Sheng, lacking both prestige and wealth, was able to bring down the Qin dynasty easily because it lacked benevolence and righteousness, and because its rulers did not distinguish between the powers to subdue and the powers needed to maintain the empire. Thus, Jia Yi suggests rather vaguely that the strain in creating the empire was perpetuated after its founding, whereas benevolent and righteous policies in that second stage would have allowed it to perdure. In other words, Jia's analysis in the first part of his essay does not provide us with specific data to account for the ease of the overthrow of the Qin.

Part two of this famous essay begins with the assertion that people eagerly accepted Qin rule because it reestablished peace and order and made people feel secure. But the Qin founder did not alter his administration to reflect the new tasks at hand- namely maintaining the empire he had gained. Jia Yi then offers an insightful observation that helps to explain some of Chen Sheng's behavior:

When Ershi came to the throne none did not strain their necks to observe his administration. The cold found advantage in their coarse clothing; the hungry found tasty their lees of liquor and their husks of grain. The wailing of the empire is a resource for a new ruler. This refers to the ease with which a wearied people may be made benevolent.

Jia then lists nine policies the Second Emperor might have pursued that would have prevented the loss of the empire. The relative importance Jia attached to the alleged heavy taxes and demanding corvee is revealed in his ranking of this item as eighth on his list. Jia asserts that the Second Emperor should have employed the loyal and worthy; that ruler and subject should have been of one mind so that the ruler would have shown concern for the griefstricken in the empire; that he should have corrected the faults of the preceding ruler; that he should have created fiefs; that he should have moderated the punishment system; and so on. Taxes and corvee were only one of many problems facing the Second Emperor. In the thinking of Jia Yi, they were not among the most important. The charges levied by



Jia indicate that these problems were felt in all levels of the state and society. Jia generalizes in the following statement:

Afterwards, evil and falseness both arose, and superiors and infer- iors deceived each other. Those who were punished were numerous. . From the ruler and ministers down to the masses, people bore an awareness of their own danger; . . none were satisfied in their positions, and therefore they were easily mobilized.

Thus, a pervasive distrust and enmity was shared by the governed and the governors. These characteristics, as we shall see, are important in accounting for the nature of the rebellions that swept away the Qin dynasty.

The third part of Jia's piece focuses initially on Ziylng, the hapless third and final ruler of the Qin empire, and reiterates some of the earlier themes. By Ziying's time, the rebellion was well underway, but Qin forces "did not maintain their defenses nor close the passes, long lances pierced no one and strong bows did not shoot." The inadequacy of the Qin defenses created a paradox. The Qin kingdom (i.e., the preimperial Qin) had repeatedly withstood the attacks and combined forces of the other states to its east. Now, however, the tide from the east was so overwhelming that not even the territory of the original Qln state could be preserved. Large-scale popular illwill combined with widespread official distrust to bring about the utter destruction of the Qin.

Our survey of the data has thus far allowed us to reach two conclusions. First, the specific charges brought against the Qin are invalid. They are unfounded propaganda; they are not designed to explain why the Qin fell (although historically they have been accepted as explanations) but to serve as object lessons for Han and later rulers. That the specific charges are not adequate grounds for explaining why the Qin fell is also suggested by the three general interpretations of the problems faced by the late Qln. Although Li Si, Lu Jia and Jia Yi all refer to heavy taxes and corvee, none of them argues that these factors were instru- mental in the fall of the Qin. Our second conclusion is most evident from the writings of Lu Jia and Jia Yi, both of whom



wrote during the early years of the Western Han and who were important in the anti-Qin propaganda trend. They draw attention to vaguely defined Qin failings in the realm of general support for the regime.

We now turn our attention to the leaders of the anti-Qin forces. In doing so, we shall see that the standard interpretation of Chen Sheng is simply wrong. By "standard interpretation" I refer to the copious literature (both traditional and modern) that treats Chen Sheng as the leader of a peasant uprising launched against the cruel and wicked legalistic Qin dynasty (see, for example, Yoshinami, 1978; He, 1955; and "Chen Sheng" in the Cihai, 1979, 1982: 428). Furthermore, a survey of the major leaders in the anti-Qln movement does not reveal an ardent determination to eliminate Qin inequities but rather reveals opportunistic self- aggrandizement. This reflects the meritocratic trends that had been slowly evolving during the preceding several centuries- trends that allowed men of nonaristocratic (indeed, rather low) social origins to move up in the demandingly competitive society of the time. Finally, we shall also see a rather different social phenomenon: namely, the remnants of the old social and political order who wanted to restore themselves to power. Both social elements, the old elite and the nonelite, shared the common political aim of reestablishing the autonomous states that had been overrun, obliterated, and incompletely absorbed into the Qin empire. Because the absorption process was incomplete, local identities were still strong and could serve to rally some of the rebel leaders. We shall proceed by reviewing the social origins and the early rebel activities of the major leaders of the period.

CHEN SHENG AND WU GUANG: CREATING AN OPPORTUNITY

The biography of Chen Sheng (often referred to by his zi Chen She) in the Shiji(48; translated in Watson, 1961:1, 19-33; Ban Gu, 1962: 31) begins with an anecdote from Chen's youth: Once while working with hired laborers, he ceased his plowing, ascended a


Dull / ANTI-QINREBELS 301

hill and, sighing deeply and lengthily, said, "If I become rich and noble, I shall not forget the rest of you" (Watson, 1961: I, 19). (Perhaps a better translation might be "If any of us become rich and noble, let us not forget each other.') The laborers laughingly responded, "If one plows as a hired hand, how can one become rich and noble! " Other evidence suggests that Chen Sheng's youth was spend with laborers: After he became king some of his old friends sought him out. Their vulgar presence at his court was not appreciated. One guest was described as "ignorant and ill-bred" and his ancedotes about Chen Sheng's life in the old days allegedly degraded the king's dignity. Chen Sheng had him beheaded. As we shall see, there is some reason to believe that whatever Chen did between his youth as a hired hand and his early rebel career, he probably did not remain a simple peasant laborer. The significance of the anecdote that opens Chen's biography is, of course, to reveal his youthful ambition, or, as he put it after the laborers laughed at him, "How can finches understand the ambitions of a swan!"

In 209 B. C., Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were conscripted, along with 900 others to serve garrison duty at Yuyang (near modern Beijing). Chen and Wu were made section chiefs under the Qin officials who were responsible for leading the conscripts to their destination. The selection for this (albeit low) position suggests these two men had some status among the conscripts (see below, the case of Xiang Liang) or in the eyes of the Qin commanders, but we are totally unaware of what that status may have been.

The geography of Chen Sheng's rebellion tells us the extent to which the rebellion was an impulsive movement initiated with little or no forethought. Chen was from Yangcheng which was located near the modern Luoheshi, Henan. Wu Guang's home was about 70 km away in Yangxia, near modern Taikang, Henan. There is no reason to believe Chen and Wu had known each other before they were conscripted. We do not know the extent of the area from which the 900 conscripts were raised, but we do know the rebellion began in Daze district (xiang), near present-day Guzhen, Anhui. Chen was then at least 240 km east of his home;



Wu Guang, 210 km southeast of his. Since their destination, Yuyang, was northeast of their homes, it is strange that they were in the vicinity of Daze, unless we assume the 900 man contingent was drawn from a large area and massed near Daze. From Daze the route would have been over 750 km due north to Yuyang. (The geographical materials are taken from Zhongguo lishi dituji, 1975: 9-10, 36-37). The data is suggestive of the following points: Chen and Wu were not known to each other until they set off for Yuyang-that is, they had not plotted lengthily before their great undertaking; and since the uprising began far from their homes, they could not rely upon long-term friends or relatives to aid them in their endeavor. Chen's biography points out that he had to choose leaders from the areas in which he was operating. Thus, unlike Han Gaozu, Chen had no small core of reliable followers. His movement was weak from the very outset.

While bivouacked in Daze district, a heavy rain made the road impassable and thus caused the group to be late for its rendezvous. The Shiji tells us that "Those who missed a rendezvous would according to the law all be beheaded." Only slightly later the Shiji has Chen Sheng informing his would-be followers of the same dire fate for those who violated Qin law. We need to ask ourselves the same question we asked in the case of the 66% tax rate: Is it likely that such a statement is valid? Is it possible that a government would execute, in this case, 900 men because a rainstorm had prevented them from maintaining a schedule? Is it likely that they would be punished as a group? I find it most unlikely, and there is some evidence (albeit not as compelling as would be preferred) that such was not the case. We now know from the remnants of a law code of the Qin kingdom (not the Qin empire, but I am assuming the same law applied in both the preimperial and imperial periods) that these statements are wrong. The Qin law decreed a reprimand for officials whose corvee laborers arrived three to five days late for corvee duty; a fine of one shield for those whose laborers were six to ten days late; and a fine of a suit of armor if over ten days late. These punishments apply to the leaders-the officials in charge of the



group-not to the chiefs (such as Chen Sheng) who were selected from within the group and could not have applied to the conscripts themselves (Shuihudi Qinmu, 1978: 76). The same law goes on to say that corvee laborers could be dismissed in case of heavy rain. Admittedly, the law paraphrased here applies to corvee labor, not to military conscripts, and military punishments might have been more severe. But we can assume that even Chen Sheng did not believe that the law would be invariably applied: the second time he invoked it he is reported to have said "For missing the rendezvous we shall all be executed. If you manage not to be executed, 60% to 70% of you will die in garrison duty." What then can we make of this supposed triggering mechanism that was the proximate cause of the anti-Qin uprising?

At least three interpretations of the tardiness data are possible. First, the law specifying execution existed, and Chen and his followers acted on the assumption that it would be invoked in their case. On the basis of the grounds given above, I am strongly inclined to disregard this possibility. Second, the threat of execution was fabricated by Sima Qian (or sources on which he drew). I am inclined to reject this possibility on grounds of inconsistency: If Sima Qian had created this evidence, he would not have stated that the law would be applied and then have had Chen Sheng state that the law might be applied. Third, Chen Sheng himself-in order to pressure the conscripts into joining him-argued that they were going to be killed (i.e., executed) even if they did notjoin his uprising. Accordingly, it is likely that such a law did not exist, but that Chen asserted that it did. It is equally likely that the effectiveness of his argument depended upon the rigorously applied Qin penal system.

Chen Sheng and Wu Guang considered flight, but decided upon a different course of action: "Now if we flee, we shall die. If we undertake a great plan, we shall die. It's death either way. But we could risk death for a kingdom." (Compare Watson, 1961, I, 20: "would it not be better to die fighting for our country?" and in his alternative translation in n. 4, "die fighting to win a kingdom.') Thus these two men-who probably were not known



to each other until they were called up for military duty, were both far from their homes, and were without any significant following -decided to attempt to create a kingdom for themselves.

Chen Sheng explained to Wu Guang how they should initiate their uprising. He does so on grounds that would have been quite familiar to Eric Hobsbawn: that is, Chen proposed to pass himself off as the "good king." Chen's statement reads as follows:

The world has long suffered under the Qin. I have heard that the Second Emperor is a younger son and ought not to have ascended the throne. The one who ought to have ascended the throne is the Prince Fusu. Because Fusu had repeatedly admonished the former emperor, the former emperor had sent him out to command armies. Now some have heard that though he was without crime, the Second Emperor has killed him. Many of the commoners have heard that he is worthy but they do not know that he is dead. Xiang Yen is a Chu general who repeatedly earned merit and who was kind to his troops. The people of Chu have a tender regard for him. Some think that he has died; some, that he has fled. Now, certainly, using our group, if we falsely call ourselves Prince Fusu and Xiang Yen and issue a call to the world, many will respond. Wu Guang considered him to be correct.

Several generalizations can be made on the basis of the preceding quotation. First, Chen and Wu believed their potential followers did not feel the Qin regime was doomed; to the contrary, their appeal was based upon the good name of a Qin prince. This is important for it contains implicitly a theme that was to be perpetuated into the early years of the Han: The Qin did not deserve to fall. Han Gaozu and his advisers (as we have seen in the case of Lu Jia) could not understand why the Qin had fallen. As we have also seen, the traditional image of the Qin that has been transmitted since early Han did not emerge until the Han dynasty was about a generation old. Suffice it to say that Chen Sheng thought he could draw upon a reservoir of positive political capital regarding the Qin ruling house. Second, whatever Chen's background and position may have been, it is unlikely that he was the simple peasant laborer described in the opening anecdote in his biography by the time of his uprising; in this



quotation we see that he had information about court politics that was not generally known. This suggests that, through means unknown to us, he had access to information that was being circulated in elite circles at the time.

Chen and Wu sought to influence some of the conscripts through a mysterious revelation. They wrote on silk with cinnabar the following message: "Chen sheng wang" which is usually translated "Chen Sheng will be king" but which could also be interpreted "Chen (a state or a surname) will vanquish the ruler." The piece of silk was placed in the belly of a fish that was purchased by one of the conscripts who discovered the strange message when the fish was being prepared and presumably treated it as a revelation. That night Wu Guang added to the message by hiding in a thicket near a temple with a torch partially concealed under a basket. From the flickering light came the sound of a fox calling out "Great Chu will rise; Chen Sheng will be king." The next day word of this incident spread throughout the camp and the conscripts took note of Chen Sheng, who (it is important to recall) would not have been known to most of the conscripts. Two aspects of these developments deserve comment. First, the message they hid in the fish reveals that Chen or Wu or both of them were apparently literate-certainly literate enough to write Chen's name as part of a political message. This strengthens the notion that Chen was not a simple peasant. Second, the political movement for the first time refers to the restoration of the state of Chu; the rebels are no longer associating themselves only with the Qin Prince Fusu and the Chu general Xiang Yan. As we note below, however, the issue of the political entity is blurred.

Chen and Wu killed the Qin commanders of the group of conscripts, and Chen harangued the group as follows:

We have encountered this rainstorm and we have all missed our rendezvous. For missing the rendezvous we shall all be executed. If you manage not to be executed, 60% to 70% of you will die in garrison duty If you stout men are unwilling to risk death, then that ends it. But if you are willing to risk death, then let us do it for



great fame. Kings, marquises, generals and chancellors are made, not born. [I am indebted to Watson, 1961. I, 21, for the last sentence].

Their followers agreed to abide by their orders, and Chen and Wu then falsely proclaimed themselves Prince Fusu and Xiang Yan thereby "according with the desires of the people." The battle cry was "Great Chu!" After erecting an altar and offering as sacrifices the heads of the Qin commanders, Chen and Wu led their troops into battle. Only after the initial rather small-scale campaigns, the capture of the major city of Chen, and conferring with local leaders and powerful families did Chen and Wu give up the identification with Fusu and Xiang Yan and announce the restoration of the state of Chu. Chen became King of Chu with the reign title Zhang-Chu, "Magnifier of Chu."

We may summarize the Chen Sheng case as follows: Chen may have been a peasant in his youth, but was probably educated and literate. He was recognized by the Qin commanders as a man of some status and thus put in charge of units within the force of 900 men. He was privy to information from the capital, information not known to most of the commoners of the area. His first political actions drew upon a generally favorable impression of the Qin ruling house as he tried to pass himself off as the "good king" who would rule as a worthy emperor. Only after consulta- tion with others did he restore the Chu throne and place himself upon it. His major message to his core of followers was twofold: (1) The threat of death either for violation of the Qin laws or in military service on the northern frontier; and (2) the promise of advancement to high positions because of the opportunities provided by the civil war that was then underway. The latter point would have fit in well with the current political and social situation since the old ruling families were clearly being pushed aside, and merit was determining one's position in society more and more. Finally, the ultimate appeal was to restore the multistate system of the preimperial era. Chu would rise again, and the people would belong once more to their own familiar state instead of to a large empire. In very practical terms, that meant one might


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have to serve corvee in Chu, but one would not be sent off to an outpost on the northern frontier of the empire.

XIANG LIANG AND XIANG YU: STEALING AN OPPORTUNITY

Xiang Liang was the youngest son of the great Chu general Xiang Yan who had culminated a long line of Xiang men who were renowned in Chu for their martial skills (Shiji 7 [Watson, 1961. I, 37-74]; Ban Gu, 1962: 31). Xiang Yu (Yu was his zi; his given name: Ji) was Liang's nephew and was apparently raised by Liang. Xiang Yu became Han Gaozu's most powerful contender for the throne of China, but we will not consider that phase of his career since we are concerned with the initial steps taken by the two Xiang men as rebels, not with Yu's final battles for the throne.

Xiang Yu in his youth studied writing but he did not succeed in it; he gave it up to study swordsmanship, but he was not successful at this either. He convinced his uncle to teach him the art of warfare and managed to gain a general understanding of it, but he never completed his studies. Thus, Xiang Yu had the rudiments of literacy and came from a different background than that of the average peasant.

Xiang Liang was once implicated in a crime and arrested, but he was able to have ajailer write to thejailer who was holding him in order to have him released. (Both jailers were later to be rewarded with high positions under Xiang Yu.) The charges were dropped suggesting that the Xiang family had reasonably good connections with local officials.

Later, Xiang Liang killed a man and fled to Wu to escape the vengeance of the man's family, taking Xiang Yu with him. The local notables (literally, worthies and officials, xian shidafu) all considered themselves inferior to Xiang Liang. Whenever there was a large corvee project or funeral, Liang was placed in charge. Liang used these occasions to size up the people who served under him and to introduce to them the military arts, apparently referring to disciplined obedience to orders. Possibly, we see here the



kind of local contacts Chen Sheng and Wu Guang had before they were summoned to duty.

Xiang Yu's imperial aspirations first surfaced when Qin Shi Huangdi visited Kuaiji. As Yu and his uncle watched the imperial progress, Yu observed, "That guy could be replaced!" Xiang Liang-fearing utterances of that kind could lead to the whole lineage being executed-clapped his hand over Yu's mouth, but from that time held him in higher regard.

In the ninth lunar month of 209 B.C., the second month after Chen Sheng had begun his uprising, Yin Tong, the ranking Qin official in Kuaiji propositioned Xiang Liang:

"All of the area west of the Yangzi has rebelled. This is the time when Heaven will cause Qin to perish. I have heard that those who are first will govern others and those who come after them will be governed by others. I wish to mobilize troops and have you and Huan Chu command them." Huan Chu at the time was in hiding in a swamp. Liang responded, "Huan Chu has fled; no one knows where he is except Xiang Yu."

Liang then had Yu called in to the office where, at Xiang Liang's signal, he beheaded Yin Tong. Liang seized the severed head and donned the official's seal of office. A large number of staff members were killed and the rest submitted. Liang then summoned the local notables and officials whom he had long known and announced his great undertaking. Because he had the seal of office, he could mobilize the troops of the subordinate prefectures and he placed the local notables in command of units of the 8,000 trained soldiers he had gathered. Thus, unlike Chen Sheng who had to start with a few hundred conscripts, the Xiang leaders took to the field with a sizable force of trained men.

The Xiang Liang and Xiang Yu story introduces a variety of noteworthy elements. First, there is the residual prestige attached to the name Xiang. The family background was undoubtedly a factor in the kind of informal power relationships Xiang Liang was able to generate. Second, Xiang Yu was clearly (if imperfectly) educated. It is likely his uncle was also educated; certainly



he appreciated fully the administrative significance of controlling the seals of office. Third, there is the criminal element. Xiang Liang (and his charge, Yu) were in Wu because Liang had killed a man and had earlier been involved in another case leading to his arrest. Huan Chu, whose services were desired by the ranking local official, had apparently committed some kind of crime and was in hiding in a swamp. Subsequent examples of rebels of this period indicate that criminal activity was common among them. Fourth, Yin Tong-the imperial appointee on the scene-was anxious to take advantage of the emerging rebellion elsewhere in the empire in order to launch his own uprising; that is, he was totally lacking in a sense of loyalty to the Qin dynasty. And finally, Xiang Liang did not lead a peasant uprising: He used official procedures for authenticating bureaucratic orders (the seal of office) to mobilize regular units of troops. Chen Sheng created a target of opportunity that neither the ambitious Xiang men nor the power-hungry local official could overlook.

HAN GA OZU: POLITICAL REDEMPTION OFA WANTED MAN

Liu Bang (posthumously known as Han Gaozu, the designa- tion that will hereafter be used, the anachronism notwithstand- ing) is often treated as one of the two commoners who founded Chinese dynasties-the other one being Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming. If by "commoner" one means neither an aristocrat nor a person of high civil or military office, then Han Gaozu may be counted as a commoner. But if by commoner one means someone with little or no education, someone who was not an official, someone who labored in the fields, then Han Gaozu was not a commoner. He and other members of his family were educated, and Han Gaozu had passed the local examination which qualified him for service in the Qin sub-bureaucratic structure.



The standard account of Han Gaozu's unfurling of the flag of rebellion-an account positioned in the Hanshu to suggest his actions antedated Chen Sheng's-has him serving as a canton chief who was ordered to lead corvee laborers to work on the tomb of the First Emperor, (S,hiji, 8 [Watson, 1961: I, 77-119]; Ban Gu, 1962: 1 A-i B; [Dubs, 1938: I, 27-50]). When some of the laborers escaped, Gaozu-fearing he would be punished as the official responsible for them-freed the others and became a rebel. We have noted already that the First Emperor's tomb was built by convict laborers, not conscripts. Hence, this account, conveying an image of Gaozu as a man who rose in righteous wrath against the harsh laws of the Qin state and explaining his status as a fugitive, is highly suspicious. Gaozu was indeed in hiding when Chen Sheng began his uprising, but not because of Gaozu's righteous opposition to his Qin masters. A careful read- ing of the evidence provides an alternative interpretation.

Gaozu, occupying the low position of canton chief, violated Qin law when he injured Xiahou Ying, a close friend and local official, while engaging in horse-play. Someone reported the incident to local officials, and a formal case was opened. Qin law was more strict regarding officials than commoners; hence, because Gaozu was an official, his crime may have called for severe punishment. Gaozu denied that he had injured his friend and the latter buttressed Gaozu's position. Later, the case was reopened, Xiahou Ying was incarcerated for over a year, and adhered to his original story although he was subjected to torture. Gaozu took advantage of the delays in the case to go into hiding in the mountains and marshes. While Gaozu was in hiding from the authorities, Chen Sheng began his uprising. Gaozu, seizing the opportuity, came out of hiding and, with the aid of Xiahou Ying, took the city of Pei, the major town and prefectural seat of the area. After the surrender of Pei, Gaozu was thoroughly commited to the struggle that would finally lead him to the throne of China.

We might note in passing that the prefect of Pei was aware of Chen Sheng's rebellion. He also knew that in other towns and cities, commandery and prefectural officals had been killed in response to Chen Sheng's spreading warfare. He considered lead-



ing the young men of Pei and joining Chen. He was advised to summon those who had fled into hiding such as Gaozu. When he changed his mind and decided to remain loyal to the Qin, he was killed by men within the city. Gaozu was then, according to this account, welcomed into the city.

In sum, Gaozu was not a typical commoner and certainly not a peasant. He was an educated servant of the Qin house although very low on the ladder of officialdom. When Chen Sheng's rebellion broke out, Gaozu was in hiding because he had committed a crime. Gaozu's first success was scored after a prefect had thought seriously of following the same course of action as Yin Tong, that is, turning against the dynasty and taking advantage of the moment tojoin (in hopes of leading) some of the rebellious forces. Thus, officials and former low-ranking officials saw the spreading disorder as an opportunity for rapid advancement.

ZHANG ER AND CHEN YU: SOCIO-POLITICAL REDEMPTION OF WANTED MEN

Before the Qin unification of China, Zhang Er was a "guest" of Prince Wuji of the State of Wei. For reasons not given, Zhang was forced to go into hiding in Waihuang, a city in the state of Wei. There he married the daughter of a very wealthy man and received a handsome dowry that allowed him to support his own "guests." He subsequently became prefect of Waihuang. Chen Yu was also a native of the state of Wei but he traveled to Zhao and there married into a wealthy family (Zhang and Chen share a biography in Shiji, 89 [Watson, 1961. I, 171-188] and Ban Gu, 1962: 32). After Qin conquered Wei, Zhang and Chen both had prices put on their heads-probably because of their prominence, not because they were accused of crimes. They fled together to the former state of Chen where they adopted pseudonyms and supported themselves as village gatekeepers. When Chen Sheng's forces reached Chen, Zhang and Chen presented themselves to him. For a brief period they served as advisers to him, and then, on the basis of Chen Yu's contacts with prominent families in



Zhao, they were sent with military forces to bring Zhao under Chen Sheng's control. At their urging Wu Chen reestablished the kingdom of Zhao. Wu declared himself king of Zhao when they convinced him that "It is not necessary that a man be a descendant of the rulers of the Six Kingdoms in order to sit on a throne" (Watson, 1961: I, 176). We do not need to go into the tragic animosity that developed between Zhang Er and Chen Yu. Suf- fice it to say that Chen Yu was killed in the civil war. Zhang Er became the king of Chao and was succeeded as king by his son who married Han Gaozu's daughter.

Zhang and Chen were both major figures in the civil war out of which the Han dynasty emerged. But unlike the leaders we have already discussed, they were both men of wealth with excellent connections in elite circles. Neither joined the rebellious movement with followers of his own. Except that both joined the rebels while in flight from the authorities and both sought the restoration of one of the preimperial states (Zhao), they differ greatly from the other leaders we have looked at.

ZHANG LIANG: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR VENGEANCE

The last figure we consider was of the highest social status of those under review. Zhang Liang (Shiji, 55 [Watson, 1961: I, 134-15 1]; and Ban Gu, 1962: 40) was a descendant of the Marquis of Liu of the state of Hann where his grandfather and father had served as chancellors. When the state of Hann was conquered by Qin, Zhang's family loyalty to the state of Hann led him to use his wealth to attempt the assassination of the First Emperor. When the attempt failed, Zhang Liang changed his name and went into hiding. He was joined in his fugitive life by Xiang Bo who was wanted for murder. The two of them avoided capture for ten years. When Chen Sheng began his uprising, Zhang Liang assembled a band of about a hundred followers and joined Han Gaozu. He was to outlive Gaozu by many years, renowned as a man who excelled at devising schemes and strategies.



Zhang differs from our other examples in that he was most clearly identified with the old, preimperial elite. Unlike the others, he was strongly motivated politically from a very early age, but his political motivation was in no way derived from current Qin tax and corvee policies; rather, he reacted to the destruction of the state his family had so long served. As a fugitive from the Qin police, he is like the other rebel leaders.

CONCLUSIONS

We may now return to our original question: "Was the Qin overthrown by peasant uprisings?" To that question the answer is "'no," but some qualification is necessary. Chen Sheng was apparently of peasant origin, but he probably did not think of himself as a peasant when he began his movement. There are clearly stages in his leadership role. First, he sought to pass himself off as the Qin Prince Fusu; second, he made himself king of the restored Chu state. He had sufficient savoir-faire and perhaps enough education to adopt these roles and expect acceptance in them.

The first stage of his identity-that of the Crown Prince whom many people, he said, did not know was dead-opens up an entirely different set of problems. Those problems pertain to the traditional tarnished image of the Qin regime. If there was a widely held belief that the evil of the Qin regime and most of what it stood for merited its demise, then Chen's notion of identifying himself with the Qin Prince would have been foolish in the extreme. The image that the world has accepted for almost two millennia was not the image that Chen Sheng and his contemporaries had in mind. The inherited image, as we have seen, was created after the founding of the Han dynasty. The exorbitant taxes, the grueling corvee, and other allegations against the Qin perpetuated in traditional accounts are baseless. Chen Sheng and the others did not rise up against those abuses. To the extent that we can determine Chen's motivation, it seems to have been twofold. His first motivation-which was the most immediate and



personal-was to avoid serving a tour of military duty on the northern frontier. Second, in order to motivate others he implied that as the rightful ruler of the Qin he would produce reforms. He sought not to obliterate the Qin regime, but to modify it. This interpretation tallies with the comments of contemporary observers such as Li Si and Lu Jia.

If we eliminate the traditional interpretation of the Qin dynasty as evil, and if we can show Chen Sheng attempting to draw upon a favorable image of the Qin Heir Apparent, then we are left with another question: How do we account for the swarm of uprisings that occurred after Chen Sheng took to the field? We might ask the question in a slightly different way: Are we dealing with social banditry that was mobilized for political purposes? And, if the latter is the case, what precisely were the political purposes?

A recurrent theme among the cases treated here is that of the swamp dweller. (Parenthetically, we might note that Chen Sheng began his uprising in a district called Daze, Big Swamp.) Xiang Liang and Xiang Yu were able to kill Yin Tong, the local responsible official, because Yu presumably had knowledge of the whereabouts of Huan Chu-a fugitive whom Yin Tong wanted as an ally in rebellion and who was then hiding in a marsh. Han Gaozu was hiding in the "mountains and marshes" before he began his political rebellion. Zhang Liang was in hiding for ten years, but we do not know where he and Xiang Bo were living. For want of evidence to the contrary, we might assume that these men supported themselves through banditry while concealing themselves from the government, but we do not know what the nature of that banditry was. It would not have been good politics for the throne or for a historian to reveal raids and robberies committed by such men as Han Gaozu and Zhang Liang. Was this social banditry as Hobsbawn defines the term? We cannot answer that question; the data are simply inadequate. We can observe, however, that there is not the slightest hint that any of these leaders commanded sizable followings when they were in hiding. The evidence suggests that at the most there may have been small-scale gangs in the mountains and marshes, but not large numbers of social bandits.



It is fairly clear that Chen Sheng initiated a movement that gave men opportunities to improve their lot on a narrowly personal scale as well as on a grand political and historical scale. With the exception of Chen himself, the other leaders we have surveyed were either men wanted by the state or men who were fleeing from personal vengeance. The anti-Qin warfare provided unanticipated opportunities for these men to redeem themselves -to cease being village gate guards and to ascend the national historical stage, or to escape from their swamps with the hope of ascending a throne. The leaders who reached the highest stages in these struggles were men eager for opportunities to turn their lives around-in spite of the risks involved-and to establish new socio-political identities for themselves.

In addition to those in flight, there were other important actors in the political drama that Chen Sheng initiated. Local officials, such as Yin Tong, seized upon the spreading disorder as an opportunity to move rapidly into leadership positions. It is likely that they anticipated, at the least, carving out a piece of territory for themselves or being in some other way rewarded by the ultimate victor. Such men are important symbols of the Qin regime's failure to instill confidence and loyalty in itself. These were the men who should have mobilized local forces to suppress the growing disorder; instead theyjoined it. As Jia Yi noted, the absence of opposition to the rebels was in part due to a lack of trust within the Qin bureaucracy.

Another group of actors consisted of members of the old, preimperial, political elite; in this context Chen Sheng's second identity as King of Chu takes on great political significance. Chen, after consulting with local notables (people of the same nonpeasant social status approached by Xiang Liang), declared the restoration of the kingdom of Chu. The old elite is represented in our examples by Zhang Liang and Xiang Liang, but the examples could also include the ruling Tian family of the preimperial state of Qi (Watson, 1961. I, 244-251), the Wei family of the state of Wei (Watson, 1961: 1, 189-190), and others. The collapse of the Qin empire provided ruling families of the late Warring States and their followers with opportunities to recreate the multistate



world in which they had ruling power. Reestablishment of the former political order would naturally have restored the social order for which these men now fought. Their motiviation did not derive so much from harsh Qin governmental practices as it did from their desire to determine governmental practices in their former states.

In many respects the Qin empire may be viewed as a bundle of contradictions. The fragile basis of Qin legitimacy rested on one such contradiction: Jia Yi (in informing us that the Qin empire was originally welcomed) and Chen Sheng (by passing himself off as Prince Fusu) both attest to the legitimacy of the Qin empire, but Jia Yi's reports of pervasive distrust within the empire and Yin Tong's disloyalty to the regime he was serving both reveal the instability of that legitimacy. A social contradiction is evident. It is seen, on the one hand, in Chen Sheng's rallying cry that nobles and ministers are made not born, and in Zhang Er's encourage- ment to Wu Chen to become king of Zhao although Wu was not a royal descendant. On the other hand, the spreading disorder provided opportunities for former royal families such as the Tian in Qi to reestablish themselves. The former examples reflect the belief that social status should be earned (or captured) and derives from the general meritocratic trends of the preceding centuries. The latter case exemplifies the old social and political order, based on inheritance, and encourages its restoration. Finally, a sharp contradiction regarding the nature of the ideal political order emerges: Should China be administered as a single bureaucratic empire, or should it be administered by a handful of autonomous kingdoms? The nature of the political order was a pro- foundly important issue in the long run and was probably the most important and immediate catalyst once the rebellion was under way.

The political forces that tore the Qin empire apart did not arise from Qin cruelties so much as from the passing of the old multistate world. The "Great Chu" battlecry, mutatis mutandis, was repeated throughout the Qin empire. Both those who came from the old elite and those who did not availed themselves of a



common desire to maintain old identities as "men of Qi" or "men of Chu" in order to develop their followings. This issue-not peasant tax and corvee dissatisfaction-allowed state after state of the preimperial period to be restored by the anti-Qin forces. It was this powerful movement in favor of politically restoring "the good old days" that produced the collapse of the first empire. The importance of recreating those states was evident in the kind of empire Han Gaozu created: kingdoms within an empire, but kingdoms without the old royal families. Ultimately, Han Gao- zu's geopolitical legacy was to bedevil his successors until those restored kingdoms were reduced to political nonentities.

REFERENCES

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Jack L. Dull is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington where he teaches courses on early Chinese history. He has edited several works on the history of the Han dynasty. Currently, he is editing a volume of papers on legitimization in Chinese history to which he is contributing papers on the Qin and Han.


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Issue Table of ContentsModern China, Vol. 9, No. 3, Symposium: Peasant Rebellions in China (Jul., 1983), pp. 275-382Front MatterSymposium on Peasant Rebellions: Some Introductory Comments [pp. 275-284]Anti-Qin Rebels: No Peasant Leaders Here [pp. 285-318]Social Unrest and Rebellion in Jiangnan during the Six Dynasties [pp. 319-354]Social Banditry Revisited: The Case of Bai Lang, a Chinese Brigand [pp. 355-382]Back Matter

Jack L. Dull - Anti-Qin Rebels No Peasant Leaders Here

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