《环境变迁与中华文明》教学资源（电子书籍）《象之隐退》（Mark Elvin）The Retreat of the Elephants.pdf_P26-P30

Landmarks and Time-marks Tr power re-emerged the end result was frequently an expansion of the Han socio-political domain.In some marginal areas,like Korea and Vietnam, Chinese culture was also absorbed,though never entirely,while Chinese polit- ical power was to a large degree successfully resisted,in part because of these acquired cultural skills.The Manchu dynasty,which ruled during the final part of the late-imperial period,from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth,was in many respects a sino-'barbarian'condominium,and its immense periphery to the north and west was only partially sinified by the time it fell.Overall,though,the picture is one of Han Chinese expansion up to natural limits-coasts,steppes,deserts,mountains,and jungles.It was a multi- millennial transformation of a variety of habitats by some version of the Chinese style of settlement:cutting down most of the trees for clearance, buildings,and fuel,an ever-intensifying garden type of farming and arbori- culture,water-control systems both large and small,commercialization,and cities and villages located as near the water's edge as possible. Map 1 also shows the main gradients in space of yearly rainfall and height above sea level.China on the whole gets wetter as one goes south,and higher as one goes west.These are only approximations.For example,the lowest point in the People's Republic,the Turfan Depression at 154 meters below sea level,lies in the Far West toward the high end of the rising east-to-west altitude gradient. Thick grey lines pick out mountain barriers that made communication difficult in historical times.As can be seen,Chinese space was to some degree compartmentalized.This was,and is,particularly true of the West,a basin ringed by mountains and with the Yangzi gorges its only outlet to the sea. Table 1 likewise provides time-marks for the basic chronological patterns of Chinese history:millennia,periods,dynasties,and key economic and environ- mental developments.A minimal set of the most important time-marks is printed in bold-face type.If they can be remembered,almost everything else falls into place around them. Mean annual temperatures as compared to those of the present day are indicated,as climatic changes seem to have been associated with some of the major political and cultural turning points.A colder climate accompanied the end of the archaic world in the later Western Zhou dynasty almost three thou- sand years BP.Colder weather was the accompaniment of the break-up of the Early Empire in the first centuries of the first millennium cE.A colder and often unstable climate was likewise the background to the destruction of the Middle Empire after the twelfth century cE by the Jurchen and the Mongols, both non-Han peoples from the north.Conversely,the Middle Empire rose during the middle of the first millennium cE,when the temperature was warmer than it is today

power re-emerged the end result was frequently an expansion of the Han socio-political domain. In some marginal areas, like Korea and Vietnam, Chinese culture was also absorbed, though never entirely, while Chinese political power was to a large degree successfully resisted, in part because of these acquired cultural skills. The Manchu dynasty, which ruled during the final part of the late-imperial period, from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth, was in many respects a sino-‘barbarian’ condominium, and its immense periphery to the north and west was only partially sinified by the time it fell. Overall, though, the picture is one of Han Chinese expansion up to natural limits—coasts, steppes, deserts, mountains, and jungles. It was a multimillennial transformation of a variety of habitats by some version of the Chinese style of settlement: cutting down most of the trees for clearance, buildings, and fuel, an ever-intensifying garden type of farming and arboriculture, water-control systems both large and small, commercialization, and cities and villages located as near the water’s edge as possible. Map 1 also shows the main gradients in space of yearly rainfall and height above sea level. China on the whole gets wetter as one goes south, and higher as one goes west. These are only approximations. For example, the lowest point in the People’s Republic, the Turfan Depression at 154 meters below sea level, lies in the Far West toward the high end of the rising east-to-west altitude gradient. Thick grey lines pick out mountain barriers that made communication difficult in historical times. As can be seen, Chinese space was to some degree compartmentalized. This was, and is, particularly true of the West, a basin ringed by mountains and with the Yangzi gorges its only outlet to the sea. Table 1 likewise provides time-marks for the basic chronological patterns of Chinese history: millennia, periods, dynasties, and key economic and environmental developments. A minimal set of the most important time-marks is printed in bold-face type. If they can be remembered, almost everything else falls into place around them. Mean annual temperatures as compared to those of the present day are indicated, as climatic changes seem to have been associated with some of the major political and cultural turning points. A colder climate accompanied the end of the archaic world in the later Western Zhou dynasty almost three thousand years bp. 4 Colder weather was the accompaniment of the break-up of the Early Empire in the first centuries of the first millennium ce. A colder and often unstable climate was likewise the background to the destruction of the Middle Empire after the twelfth century ce by the Jürchen and the Mongols, both non-Han peoples from the north. Conversely, the Middle Empire rose during the middle of the first millennium ce, when the temperature was warmer than it is today. Landmarks and Time-marks 5

Patterns The most likely mechanisms were simple.A shift toward cold and dry climatic conditions in north China and the grasslands to its north was assoc- iated with attempted or successful southward migrations and invasions by nomadic pastoralists.A shift to warmer and wetter periods was linked with agricultural Han Chinese re-expansion northward,and sometimes westward. Pastoralists came south when lowered farm output reduced Chinese logistical capacity and ability to resist,and drier colder conditions simultaneously put pressure on them to move by reducing the availability of forage grass north of the frontier.It is likely that the change of climate was the critical factor: pastoralists would probably not have had the means to invade successfully if they had not previously enjoyed reasonably good conditions.For the second Table 1 Time-marks in Chinese environmental history Millennia Periods Major dynasties Economy* Climate 2nd BCE Archaic Xia/Shang Settled farming Much warmer W.Zhou Cities/Bronze than today Fragmented E.Zhou Iron 1st BCE Springs and Autumns' Colder than Warring States today Early Empire Qin/W.Han Large hydraulic Same as works today 1st CE Early Empire E.Han Same as today Three Kingdoms/W.Jin Fragmented Northern and Southern Some environ- Colder(Bohai Dynasties mental recovery Gulf freezes) Middle Sui/Tang Grand Canal Warmer than Empire Five Dynasties/N.Song Rice-farming today MEDIEVAL ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 2nd CE Jurchen/ N.and S.Song Tea Cold/variable Mongols Jin/Yuan Cotton (L.Tai freezes) Population decline in NE and NW Late Ming New World crops Cold but Empire Manchu/Qing Rapid population warming growth Final-phase PMEG Environmental degradation Republic Some MEG As today People's Republic Spreading MEG 3rd CE ACCELERATING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION PMEG,premodern economic growth;MEG,modern economic growth. 'For reasons I have never understood,English language writers prefer the singular'Spring and Autumn.The rational French prefer the plural'Printemps et Automnes.See,for example,J.Gernet, Le Monde chinois(Colin:Paris,1972).The Chinese term permits either translation

The most likely mechanisms were simple. A shift toward cold and dry climatic conditions in north China and the grasslands to its north was associated with attempted or successful southward migrations and invasions by nomadic pastoralists. A shift to warmer and wetter periods was linked with agricultural Han Chinese re-expansion northward, and sometimes westward. Pastoralists came south when lowered farm output reduced Chinese logistical capacity and ability to resist, and drier colder conditions simultaneously put pressure on them to move by reducing the availability of forage grass north of the frontier. It is likely that the change of climate was the critical factor: pastoralists would probably not have had the means to invade successfully if they had not previously enjoyed reasonably good conditions. For the second 6 Patterns Table 1 Time-marks in Chinese environmental history Millennia Periods Major dynasties Economy* Climate 2nd bce Archaic Xia/Shang Settled farming Much warmer W. Zhou Cities/Bronze than today Fragmented E. Zhou Iron 1st bce Springs and Autumns† Colder than Warring States today Early Empire Qin/W. Han Large hydraulic Same as works today 1st ce Early Empire E.Han Same as today Three Kingdoms/W. Jin Fragmented Northern and Southern Some environ- Colder (Bohai Dynasties mental recovery Gulf freezes) Middle Sui/Tang Grand Canal Warmer than Empire Five Dynasties/N. Song Rice-farming today MEDIEVAL ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 2nd ce Jürchen/ N. and S. Song Tea Cold/variable Mongols Jin/Yuan Cotton (L. Tai freezes) Population decline in NE and NW Late Ming New World crops Cold but Empire Manchu/Qing Rapid population warming growth Final-phase PMEG Environmental degradation Republic Some MEG As today People’s Republic Spreading MEG 3rd ce ACCELERATING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION * PMEG, premodern economic growth; MEG, modern economic growth. † For reasons I have never understood, English language writers prefer the singular ‘Spring and Autumn’. The rational French prefer the plural ‘Printemps et Automnes’. See, for example, J. Gernet, Le Monde chinois (Colin: Paris, 1972). The Chinese term permits either translation

Landmarks and Time-marks Tr 7 and third of the colder periods shown in Table 1,these correlations can be documented in some detail.s Clearly,though,we are talking here of pressures operating in contexts that,overall,were much more causally complex. The 'medieval economic revolution'referred to in the column on the Economy'is associated with a southward shift in the center of China's economic gravity from the Northeast to the East.It was distinguished by more productive farming,especially of rice,by better transport,especially on water, by extensive commercialization,and by the widespread use of money and written contracts.The populations of its cities at times reached more than a million.It used woodblock printing,and hence enjoyed increased literacy.It pioneered the first elements of mass production by making millions of cast- iron arrowheads for its armies,and mechanization,as in the water-powered spinning of hemp yarn.Although this 'revolution,whose impetus later faded away,was responsible for some environmental degradation,the worst premodern destruction of habitats,and of forests and soils,actually took place during the population explosion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the eve of the modern era in China. The term 'final-phase PMEG'refers to the extremely intensive form of premodern economic growth that developed in the more technically advanced parts of China toward the end of the imperial age.It was characterized by an exceptionally high productivity of cereal per hectare(far in excess of that in Europe before the nineteenth century),and long hours of work almost round the clock and the year.Ordinary people bore a health-sapping workload and endured virtually unremitting stress,especially women.Local handicrafts could often only make a profit if interprovincial market networks functioned properly;and forest clearances and the eventual complete coverage of the surface by private property rights removed any significant environmental buffer when society was threatened by extreme events,notably drought.With the proviso that the other criteria of advanced premodern technology are also met,it seems that the routine sale of children during economic crises can be taken as a marker of the onset of this final paradoxical stage,one that may be summarized as productive but precarious.?When Shao Changheng in the later seventeenth century wanted to convey the extreme horror of a famine near Nanjing,he wrote: From Sichuan,and the middle Yangzi,come the rolls of the drums of war. Downstream,the lower Yangzi is cruelly scarred in its plight. In previous years,when people were poor,they could sell their sons and daughters. This year,if a child's for sale,there's nowhere to find a buyer

and third of the colder periods shown in Table 1, these correlations can be documented in some detail.5 Clearly, though, we are talking here of pressures operating in contexts that, overall, were much more causally complex. The ‘medieval economic revolution’ referred to in the column on the ‘Economy’ is associated with a southward shift in the center of China’s economic gravity from the Northeast to the East. It was distinguished by more productive farming, especially of rice, by better transport, especially on water, by extensive commercialization, and by the widespread use of money and written contracts. The populations of its cities at times reached more than a million. It used woodblock printing, and hence enjoyed increased literacy. It pioneered the first elements of mass production by making millions of castiron arrowheads for its armies, and mechanization, as in the water-powered spinning of hemp yarn. Although this ‘revolution’, whose impetus later faded away, was responsible for some environmental degradation, the worst premodern destruction of habitats, and of forests and soils, actually took place during the population explosion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the eve of the modern era in China.6 The term ‘final-phase PMEG’ refers to the extremely intensive form of premodern economic growth that developed in the more technically advanced parts of China toward the end of the imperial age. It was characterized by an exceptionally high productivity of cereal per hectare (far in excess of that in Europe before the nineteenth century), and long hours of work almost round the clock and the year. Ordinary people bore a health-sapping workload and endured virtually unremitting stress, especially women. Local handicrafts could often only make a profit if interprovincial market networks functioned properly; and forest clearances and the eventual complete coverage of the surface by private property rights removed any significant environmental buffer when society was threatened by extreme events, notably drought. With the proviso that the other criteria of advanced premodern technology are also met, it seems that the routine sale of children during economic crises can be taken as a marker of the onset of this final paradoxical stage, one that may be summarized as ‘productive but precarious’.7 When Shao Changheng in the later seventeenth century wanted to convey the extreme horror of a famine near Nanjing, he wrote:8 From Sichuan, and the middle Yangzi, come the rolls of the drums of war. Downstream, the lower Yangzi is cruelly scarred in its plight. In previous years, when people were poor, they could sell their sons and daughters. This year, if a child’s for sale, there’s nowhere to find a buyer. Landmarks and Time-marks 7