Anton Lee (Zhang Jinghua)
Anthony J. Barbieri-Low holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Art History and Archaeology from Princeton University, and is currently a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his book "Qin and Han Craftsmen" will be published in Chinese in 2023. In the book, he describes real and specific male and female craftsmen during the Qin and Han dynasties. Through this book, we will not only learn about these living people and the complex social, business and technological networks in which they live, but also understand the humanity behind our tangible cultural heritage. In an exclusive interview with the Shanghai Review of Books, Professor Li Andun pointed out that the book attempts to reconstruct the life and work of the lower classes and restore their active role in history. By restoring the human dimension in history, restoring the lives of the vast majority of people, modern readers can connect with their ancestors thousands of years ago, empathize with their suffering, and learn from their struggling lives to learn Xi and understand modern people's own lives.
"Craftsmen of the Qin and Han Dynasties", by Li Andun, translated by Lin Zhihui, Shanghai Joint Publishing Co., Ltd., July 2023 edition, 516 pages, 139.00 yuan
Your book is about the life history of material culture, how do you think the life history of material culture broadens our understanding of history, especially the artisans of the non-elite groups that you focus on?
Andon Lee: I've always been inspired by "bottom-up history," which examines the lives of those at the bottom of society as a way to understand historical change and causal evolution, rather than focusing on the lives and thinking of elites, with too much focus on how the latter shape the world and advance history. One of the landmark books in this field is that of E. Thompson. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class. This book brings humanism back to history, especially economic and social history, saving history from dataism and economic reductionism. History from below also seeks to reconstruct the lives and work of the lower classes and to restore their agency in history.
The study of material culture also helps us to reconstruct and humanize the world of the past. I was first inspired by anthropologist James Deetz's book, In Small Things Forgotten, in which he discovered significant changes in the worldview of early North American colonists by looking at what they threw away, such as pipes and animal bones. By restoring the human dimension in history, restoring the lives of the vast majority of people, modern readers can connect with their ancestors thousands of years ago, empathize with their suffering, and learn from their struggles to learn Xi and understand modern people's own lives.
Li Andun in Dunhuang
"It was not until the end of the Warring States period that the roles of production and sales were merged by free craftsmen and independent merchants, which stimulated the first great economic take-off in Asia and the first truly cash-based market economy in the Far East," you say in your book. However, this "economic take-off" and "market economy" do not seem to have led to the improvement and change of the overall status of the artisan group. In general, not only the Qin and Han dynasties, but also the craftsmen of ancient China have been lost to historical records. How would you rate this group?
Andon Lee: Artisans in the ancient world (Greek, Roman, and Chinese) were almost universally despised by the literate social elites, whose superiority was, in Mencius's words, because they were "laboring" rather than "laboring." In traditional China, the Confucian elite, as well as Legalists and Taoists, emphasized the importance of agriculture over commerce and trade, as they equated simplicity with moral purity, while money and luxury, represented by intricate carvings and decorations, led to debauchery and moral corruption. In a way, I think it's a conservative response to a changing world. In this world, industry, trade, and money are threatening the old hierarchical system of landed aristocracy and leading to social contradictions. These elites never succeeded in completely suppressing industry and commerce, as there were periods of high economic growth, such as the Song dynasty, but they did slow down the growth of industrial capital because most of the money was invested in land.
Xianyang clothes (foreman's name), engraved on terracotta figurines. Qin Dynasty. Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. Picture quoted from Yuan Zhongyi, "Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum of Qin Shi Huang", Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1999, plate 207
You found in the Qin and Han Dynasty workshops: "The whole country has established a fine labor specialization, parts standardization, modular structure, inventory accounting and professional management institutions, the pursuit of less manpower and material costs to produce as many utensils as possible." "And to compare it to the European Industrial Revolution or, much later, to the American "Ford", but the two should be very different, do you want to relate to what we often call here the germ of capitalism?
Andun Lee: In my 2001 doctoral dissertation (tentatively titled "The Origins of Mass Production in Ancient China" in Chinese Simplified), I did find elements of factory mass production in Qin and Han workshops, and their techniques were very similar to those employed by factories in Britain and France during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and later by Henry Ford in the United States. But I also found that in the ancient world, China was not the only country to adopt these technologies, and that some parts of the Roman economy had similar situations, but with appropriate economic conditions, such as a shortage of skilled craftsmen, market demand, and royal directives. But China's system was the most developed in the entire ancient world. The main difference between this ancient system of mass production in China and the system adopted in England in the early nineteenth century was that European factories used mechanization and steam power to greatly increase production efficiency and scale. China's system was perfected in later dynasties to achieve significant increases in production efficiency, such as the porcelain factory in Jingdezhen, but failed to achieve steam power mechanization. As I said in The Craftsmen of the Qin and Han Dynasties, the sources of the ancient world do not support Polanyi's theory of economic stages with Marx and Engels, because in the ancient world (and later times, including today) there were elements of capitalism and capitalism. The market economy coexists with the planned economy in more or less every way.
Artisan handprints. hollow bricks. Eastern han dynasty. Pottery. Height 33.5cm, width 16cm. Linyi City Museum. Image courtesy of Shandong Museum and China Institute Gallery. Spring 2005 Art Exhibition.
The scale and marketization of the workshops seemed to be very well developed at that time, and it is particularly interesting that you mentioned the marketing and advertising strategies of the copper mirror manufacturing industry at that time, and how did this level of development compare to the rest of the world at the same time?
Andon Lee: This was one of my most surprising discoveries, advertising slogans and family brands, as well as imitations of luxury goods from Imperial factories. There were some similar practices in the markets of the Roman Empire, especially family brand logos. Artisans in the Roman and Han empires had similar basic literacy literacy, but early scholars believed that the pride in making ("I made this") was unique to the West. In China, there was a tradition of government requiring inscriptions on objects ("wule gong names") to control quality, and Han Dynasty craftsmen continued this tradition and began to proudly sign their names.
The carved name of the stonemason. Eastern Han Dynasty, c. 84-93 AD. Rubbing of paper and ink. Sizes vary, and this is not a reproduction to scale. (a) "Lu Masonry Bai Yuan Zhonghua", picture quoted from Jining Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, Shandong Province, ed., "Selected Stone Carvings from the Tomb of King Rencheng of the Han Dynasty", p. 118.
In addition to the imperial court, the wealthy families or well-off families of the lacquerware, bronze ware, portrait stone and other industries you study in the book, have you found that the craftsmen and workshops for the common people produce products that are relatively low in quality, but have strong practicality and low prices, a bit like the products we have in the countryside when we catch up with the market?
Andun Lee: The quality of bronze and lacquer varies greatly. The cheapest lacquer cup may cost only about 20 pieces and 5 baht, but the lacquer layer is thin and likely to be mixed with cheap additives, such as rice soup. Bronzes were very expensive for poor rural families, so even if they had money and even had a tomb, they were unlikely to keep them in their kitchens or graves. Iron tools are more common. There is a fundamental problem to reveal through the life of the lower classes, except for a few rare village ruins such as the Sanyangzhuang site in Neihuang County, Henan Province (also known as "the ancient city of Pompeii in China"), our information comes almost exclusively from tombs. Only the middle and upper classes could afford stone or brick tombs that were strong enough to survive to this day and large enough to accommodate a large number of funerary goods. Large cemeteries of ordinary civilians and prisoners have been discovered, and their graves usually contain only a few clay pots containing food and drink. Often, they can't even afford to buy pine coffins. In Shandong, tombs with portrait stones are almost always "middle-class" (from the Treatise on Salt and Iron, i.e., "middle class" or people with moderate wealth in society, distinguishing them from "rich" and "poor"). The average peasant could not afford a stone tomb or temple, which could easily have been more expensive than two years to build a dwelling, and the princes and princes did not feel the need to place portrait stones in their tombs, even though they were full of jade and gold ingots.
Qian Fan. Western Han Dynasty, c. 113 BC – 7 AD. Bronze, with cast pattern and security mark. Length 22.8 cm, width 8.7 cm. American Numismatic Society, accession number: 1918.71.2. Image courtesy of the American Numismatic Society
You have a say about the rise and fall of the portrait stone industry: "In the 2nd century AD, the craze for portrait stones used for tombs reached its peak, and the funeral industry flourished as the nouveau riche families competed to rise in the trend of heavy burials. However, since about 184 A.D., Shandong has experienced violent social upheaval and economic recession, the population has plummeted, and the funeral industry has also collapsed. "The rise and fall of these handicraft industries in the Qin and Han dynasties was greatly influenced by society, did the rise and fall of other industries have similar situations?
Andon Lee: One would think that in times of social unrest or civil war, the demand for luxury goods (silk, lacquerware, jade, gold and silver) or foreign imports (fur, felt, glass and jewelry) would drop dramatically. This was true in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, but it was the opposite during the Warring States period, as the competition between the Seven Kingdoms and fierce inter-regional trade in that era led to economic growth and development. Despite the constant wars and killings, cities and currencies remain. Industries like cast iron rarely saw significant declines, as iron was necessary for agriculture and construction, and like food and clothing, it was a necessity and the main material used to make weapons after the Qin dynasty. The only change in iron production involved state control, which usually fell back to counties or private control during periods when the central government was weak (such as the Eastern Han or Three Kingdoms periods).
You mentioned the emergence of civil officials and craftsmen in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and introduced the situation of Zhang Heng and Cai Yong, the status of this group seems to be a bit awkward, they are between "hard work" and "labor", is this true? What role did these people play in the craftsmanship level of the Qin and Han dynasties, and did they play a guiding role in the design and manufacture of artworks?
Andun Lee: Yes, a university scholar like Zhang Heng should be somewhere between hard work and hard work, but he is still an intellectual for the most part. While he may have conducted some experiments to design a geokinetic instrument, he would not have cast and polish the metal himself himself. That was left to the ordinary craftsmen who were subordinate to him. Cai Yong clearly belongs to the camp of intellectuals. For the Xiping Stone Classic, he provided calligraphy, which was reproduced on the stone by a trained stone carver. The great masterpieces of the emperor were made by people like Ding Chuan whom I discussed. They were regarded as master craftsmen, but not intellectuals and did not hold official positions in the court. Interestingly, male slaves also played a role in designing money models for the Imperial Mint, which required experience and skill, while the actual metal minting was most likely done by convicted criminals.
Modernly made Zhang Heng geodynamic instrument. Bronze model. Science Museum, London. Image courtesy of the Science and Society Picture Library.
In your book, you pay special attention to the situation of women craftsmen, but there is really little information in it, how should we view the role of women craftsmen in this group?
Anton: The important role of women in the economy and society of the Han Chinese has been severely neglected. After reading Liu Xiang's "The Biography of the Daughters" and other doctrinal texts, people believe that the Confucian ideas of chastity and gender distinction have permeated all levels of society. At least in the Han Dynasty, this kind of thinking was only the ideal of some upper classes. The realities of life in most families are very different. Men and women worked together in the fields, and women ran workshops and shops in the markets, sometimes without the help of male relatives. From the texts and inscriptions, we know that female craftsmen were very common in lacquerware workshops (as painters) and textile workshops (as weavers and embroiderers), as these skills were seen as women's specialties and were suitable for more delicate hands. Women are also at the heart of alcohol production in the market and in the operation of liquor shops, hotels and brothels. In other crafts, such as iron production and stone carving, we see little evidence of female participation, as these are dangerous jobs that require great physical strength. An interesting common feature of upper- and lower-class women was the weaving of cloth. The Confucian scriptures declare that weaving cloth for a woman's home is a basic occupation, just as agriculture is for a man, and that it is a practice that gives her moral value. Therefore, even high-ranking women (even empresses) occasionally weave. But working-class women could produce surplus cloth that could be sold in the market for cash, or work in royal workshops to supply embroidery and silk to the royal palace.
Li Andun at the Yinan Han Tomb
We know that the Qin and Han dynasties implemented a policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and what impact did this policy have on handicraft industry and craftsmen?
Anton: Current archaeological evidence suggests that the Qin dynasty did not attempt to suppress industry and commerce, although Shang Ying's Legalist ideology encouraged such a stance. Not only did the Qin encourage private exploitation of timber, iron, silver, and other resources through a system of excise taxes on the use of imperial land, but they themselves operated factories in the cities and sold their products in the market. Han Gaozu was indeed the first emperor to attempt to suppress commerce in favor of agriculture, in part due to death, chaos, and famine in the last years of the Qin dynasty, and the subsequent civil war that led to a slow recovery in agricultural production. They are worried that if everybody goes into business, people won't have enough to eat. They had limited knowledge of the laws of supply and demand and thought that the world would starve if everyone left their farmland, but that never really happened.
The Han Dynasty also did not have a flexible tax structure to generate revenue from industry and commerce, so it relied heavily on farmland taxes to manage the government. The laws imposed by the imperial court sought to prevent artisans and merchants from flaunting their wealth, making it illegal for them to wear silk, ride horses, or become officials. They also doubled taxes on artisans, traders, and slave owners. But as we can see from the "Treatise on Salt and Iron", these policies did not play a role. Throughout the Han Dynasty, continued industrial and commercial development, especially the introduction of a stable monetary system in 113 BC, and the expansion of territory under Emperor Wu, which led to an increase in foreign trade through the land and maritime Silk Roads. Thinkers at the time complained about the profligacy of the rich and the rise in wealth inequality, but no effort by the imperial court could reverse these trends.