The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

Until the Song dynasty, the mountains and rocky gorges of Sichuan were inhabited primarily by forest peoples. Increased settlement by Han Chinese farmers from the rice-growing plains altered the landscape, changed the balance of power among tribes, and adapted Han custom to new conditions. This book describes how the remote Luzhou area of Sichuan became fully integrated into Chinese civilization. First colonized under private auspices, the region was early dominated by tribal chiefs and local Han magnates with personal armies; but eventually state intervention increased as the military was called in to protect profitable salt wells, Han farming, and the trade routes over which timber, minerals, aromatics, and horses were carried to central markets. Richard von Glahn describes how administrative structures emerged in towns and villages. He argues that policy decisions by the central government and economic imperatives from core regions instigated and determined local development. The book thus provides detailed knowledge of a particular place and has implications for the theoretical study of frontiers. THE COUNTRY OF STREAMS AND GROTTOES: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times Contents Tables Maps A NOTE ON ROMANIZATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION PART I: THE SEITING 1 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE FOREST An Ethnographic Gazetteer of the Luzhou Frontier Ecology, Habitat, and Civilization Society and Polity among the Native Peoples 2 HAN SOCIETY IN SICHUAN'S TURBULENT FRONTIER Crystallization of Magnate Society Personal Bondage in the Sichuan Frontier Settlement and Social Control PART II· OPENING THE FRONTIER 3 SALT AND THE SEITLING OF THE SICHUAN FRONTIER Evolution of Sichuan's Salt Industry Consolidation and Concentration of Private Production Salt Mining and Frontier Settlement 4 ''A STOLEN PEACE": FRONTIER EXPANSION UNDER THE NEW LAWS Border Conflict in Southern Lu From Exploration to Expropriation 5 POLITICAL HEGEMONY IN THE FRONTIER ZONE Wars of Conquest, 1078-1082 Implanting the New Order, 1082-1121 The Han Conquest of the Buek River Valley Victors and Victims The Frontier as a Political Process PART Ill- CLOSING THE FRONTIER 6 CIVILIZING THE FRONTIER (I): SETTLEMENT AND SOCIAL CONTROL The Demise of the Local Magnate Order in Luzhou Population Change in Luzhou The Role of the Lineage in Frontier Settlement Village Autonomy and Corporate Institutions 7 CIVILIZING THE FRONTIER (II): FARMING AND COMMERCE The Agrarian Landscape Trade and Market Structure in Luzhou Economic Integration of the Agrarian Hinterland 8 A CYCLE OF FRONTIER EXPANSION NOTES ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES NOTES ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY A study of the Han expansion in southern Sichuan during the Song dynasty. It seeks to discover the economic forces and political relationships that produced a characteristic regional society and landscape out of the meeting of two unlike civilizations and especially to demonstrate how pressures from the centers of Han power and culture affected life on the frontier. This book describes how the remote Luzhou area of Sichuan became fully integrated into Chinese civilization as administrative structures emerged in towns and villages. Richard von Glahn argues that policy decisions by the central government and economic imperatives from core regions instigated and determined local development. Richard Von Glahn. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [273]-287.