The King-Rook Swap of Discourse Power – Who Was Anciently Stuck in Tribalism and Slavery?

When discussing medieval Asian political systems, the states of North Asia and the Central Plains dynasties exhibited distinct governance models. By comparing the intrinsic structure, power distribution, and social relations of the grassroots organizational units in both regions, we can glimpse the fundamental differences between the two paths of civilization development. This article will focus on analyzing the differences between the North Asian manor system and the Central Plains clan system across various dimensions, including political, military, and religious aspects, and the profound impact these differences had on their respective societal directions.

Although the grassroots manor clusters in medieval North Asia were similar to Central Plains villages in terms of population size, their core was fundamentally different. They were obliged to provide military service to their lord above and had to negotiate taxes with representatives of the commoners below. Internally, they were constrained by the courts of free men, and externally, they were influenced by shamans and lamas. Shamans were the priestly class of different clans, representing theocracy, and acted as a counterbalance to the monarchy and the clan heads. Lamas were generally known as “Lama,” commonly found in Tibet, Mongolia, and 16th-century Manchuria. Unlike modern impressions, lamas during this period possessed their own manors and armed forces, and often traveled among the princes as negotiators. These entities formed a complete political framework that could incorporate more commoners to form a state, with clear divisions of labor within the commoners’ territories, and corresponding rights and responsibilities. They had independent power and capability to survive independently without relying on a higher-level institution. In contrast, during the same period in China, even self-cultivating farmers who owned land had to bear various agricultural taxes and also be responsible for corvée labor and numerous other obligations. Moreover, they were deprived of military attributes, bearing various levels of taxation without the right to negotiate. Farmers who were required to pay land taxes and also bear unpaid feudal obligations can actually only be called serfs [^1].

The clan, as a grassroots community in China, was more primitive in its developmental stage, maintaining the social structure’s base at several hundred individuals [^2]. Although similar in number to the manor populations of North Asia, they were unable to progress further in an agrarian society. Their core is similar to the small, backward tribal organizations of primitive people tens of thousands of years ago. Coincidentally, the concept that the essence of the (Chinese) clan is a tribe is also clearly defined in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel [^3]. He divides human societal forms into four stages: bands—tribes—chiefdoms—states. The definition of a tribe happens to be a population of several hundred, with member relations based on kinship-based clans, no hierarchy of officials, exchange based on basic reciprocity rather than redistribution based on taxation, and informal resolution of external conflicts. They lack full-time artisans, and people’s daily lifestyles are very monolithic. Such “tribes” often have a fatal flaw—they are unable to expand or spontaneously form larger, healthy groups. As the population grows, clan relations become distant, and blood ties are diluted. In contrast, large tribes developed, territories expanded, and established alliances between clans. Thus, the military enfeoffment system emerged, whereby commoners established covenants with their lords, and every piece of feudal commoner territory had the potential to become a small state. These small states had more complex social divisions of labor, such as doctors, artisans, soldiers, etc., and thus, commoner territories can be said to possess the capacity to become small states. Centuries ago, the vast China was composed of countless backward small tribes called clans. It seemed enormous, but it was extremely vulnerable to collapse in the face of a sophisticated and complete feudal alliance. Of course, China would argue that there was a “more advanced” local system in place.

In classical China, because most people only had obligations and responsibilities within the clan, they only engaged in bottomless plunder externally. The only balancing solution was to collectively elect a patriarch. The cutthroat struggle between clans made traditional China hostile to its neighbors, making it extremely difficult to establish equal and trusting cooperative relationships. There’s a Chinese saying that “a mutual loss is better than a single win,” and in this context, the emperor’s autocracy came into being. Countless clans equally accepted “the beating” from the emperor, establishing the tyrant’s order in a society devoid of order. The emperor established his rule over traditional China through the posture of a conqueror, so the emperor seemingly had to be responsible for everything, but in reality, he held the ultimate right of interpretation, and no one could constrain the imperial system; he did not need to actually pay any price. Through the commandery and prefecture system, the emperor selected bureaucrats who were only responsible to the power itself (the emperor), leaving local administration and taxation to these officials who had been brainwashed for decades with the notion of “loyalty to the monarch is patriotism” and whose capabilities were limited to writing praises and speaking empty words. They were only responsible to their superiors and had no obligations to their subordinates, as their promotion or demotion was not determined by the common people. They used morality but did not believe in it, using “righteousness” as a tool to attack and bind others, while doing very little themselves. They utilized technology but did not believe in truth, enjoying technology while discriminating against artisans and technical skills. Only literati who mastered the “right to interpret the classics” and understood the Four Books and Five Classics were not considered “trivial skills and clever contrivances.” They used manpower but never loved people themselves. The common people were often on their lips, but they were always just slogans and numbers, and in practical implementation, they were unwilling to reduce a single servant, with “Jiangnan slave uprisings” occurring from the Qin Dynasty until the late Ming Dynasty. In contrast, the vassals and banner men of the Haisi states in Manchuria developed directly in the countryside, subjected to direct constraints from superiors and subordinates alike, ultimately developing the most locally adapted model and system, making it difficult to commit the error of not knowing grassroots data. In the past, we said the Great Wall physically prevented the invasion of freedom from beyond the high wall, but now it should be said that North Asia itself, institutionally, effectively resisted the luxury, corruption, autocracy, acute contradictions, internal struggle, deceit, and political chaos from China, constituting a “Great Wall” beyond the Great Wall.

[1]: Goldstein, “Reexamining Choice”（1986）, pg. 109

[2]: 费孝通, 《乡土中国》(1948)

[3]: Jared Mason Diamond, “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” (1997)