A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium by Chris Harman
Authors: Chris Harman
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and dogs in the north, learning the very different techniques required to grow rice and domesticate buffalo in the Yangtze River valley further south.
Cities and states arose after 2000 BC built by people using neolithic techniques. By the end of the 17th century BC metal workers had learnt to combine tin and lead with copper to produce bronze, and aristocratic warriors were using weapons made from it to carve out a kingdom for the Shang Dynasty on the Yellow River in northern China. It seems to have been dominated by an aristocracy that combined military, priestly and administrative roles. It was a class society, practising the sacrifice of servants at royal funerals, but private property does not seem to have developed at this stage. 12 Under the Chou Dynasty, from the 11th century BC, kings delegated much of their power to 100 or so local rulers in a system often described as ‘feudalism’ (making parallels with Medieval Europe), 13 although some historians claim what existed was a version of Marx’s ‘Asiatic society’, not feudalism, since texts relate that the organisation of agriculture was not based on individual peasant plots. Rather, administrative direction regulated ‘common peasants in their daily life’—not just their work, but also their ‘marriages, festivals and assemblies’. 14 The peasant was told each year what crop to plant, when to sow and when to harvest. He could be ordered to leave his winter home for the fields, or to leave the fields and shut himself up in his home. 15 In any case, the history of the Chou Dynasty was one of almost incessant warfare between the rival lords.
Over the centuries, the multitude of mini-states coalesced into a handful of large ones as technical change made it possible to wage war more effectively. The number of chariots increased, there were new techniques of siege warfare, and the sword and crossbow enabled conscripted peasant footsoldiers to stand firm against charioteers for the first time. Such warfare, in turn, provided rulers with an incentive to pursue further technical advance. During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC (known as ‘the age of the warring states’) these rulers initiated the clearing of the northern plain and river valleys, the draining of marshy regions and the spread of irrigation, often on a massive scale. An iron industry also grew up, organised on a scale unmatched anywhere else at the time, with the large scale production from moulds of cast iron tools and weapons—not just swords and knives, but ‘spades, hoes, sickles, ploughs, axes, and chisels’. 16
New agricultural methods increased output: intensive farming based upon deep ploughing with oxen; the use of animal dung and human ‘night soil’ as fertiliser; the cultivation of wheat and soya beans as well as millet; the planting of leguminous crops to restore the fertility of the land; and an increased understanding of the best times for sowing. 17 The surplus grew ever larger.
Jacques Gernet notes, ‘The age of the warring states is one of the richest known to history in technical innovations’, with the ‘development of a considerable trade in ordinary consumer goods (cloth, cereals, salt) and in metals, wood, leather and hides. The richest merchants combined such commerce with big industrial enterprises (iron mills and foundries, in particular), employed increasing numbers of workmen and commercial agents, and controlled whole fleets of river boats and large numbers of carts…The big merchant entrepreneurs were the social group whose activities made the biggest contribution to the enrichment of the state…The capitals of kingdoms…tended to become big commercial and manufacturing centres…The object of the wars of the 3rd century was often the conquest of these big commercial centres’. 18
But rulers could only successfully embrace the new methods if they broke the power of the old aristocracy. ‘Parallel with technological change in agriculture…were
Cities and states arose after 2000 BC built by people using neolithic techniques. By the end of the 17th century BC metal workers had learnt to combine tin and lead with copper to produce bronze, and aristocratic warriors were using weapons made from it to carve out a kingdom for the Shang Dynasty on the Yellow River in northern China. It seems to have been dominated by an aristocracy that combined military, priestly and administrative roles. It was a class society, practising the sacrifice of servants at royal funerals, but private property does not seem to have developed at this stage. 12 Under the Chou Dynasty, from the 11th century BC, kings delegated much of their power to 100 or so local rulers in a system often described as ‘feudalism’ (making parallels with Medieval Europe), 13 although some historians claim what existed was a version of Marx’s ‘Asiatic society’, not feudalism, since texts relate that the organisation of agriculture was not based on individual peasant plots. Rather, administrative direction regulated ‘common peasants in their daily life’—not just their work, but also their ‘marriages, festivals and assemblies’. 14 The peasant was told each year what crop to plant, when to sow and when to harvest. He could be ordered to leave his winter home for the fields, or to leave the fields and shut himself up in his home. 15 In any case, the history of the Chou Dynasty was one of almost incessant warfare between the rival lords.
Over the centuries, the multitude of mini-states coalesced into a handful of large ones as technical change made it possible to wage war more effectively. The number of chariots increased, there were new techniques of siege warfare, and the sword and crossbow enabled conscripted peasant footsoldiers to stand firm against charioteers for the first time. Such warfare, in turn, provided rulers with an incentive to pursue further technical advance. During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC (known as ‘the age of the warring states’) these rulers initiated the clearing of the northern plain and river valleys, the draining of marshy regions and the spread of irrigation, often on a massive scale. An iron industry also grew up, organised on a scale unmatched anywhere else at the time, with the large scale production from moulds of cast iron tools and weapons—not just swords and knives, but ‘spades, hoes, sickles, ploughs, axes, and chisels’. 16
New agricultural methods increased output: intensive farming based upon deep ploughing with oxen; the use of animal dung and human ‘night soil’ as fertiliser; the cultivation of wheat and soya beans as well as millet; the planting of leguminous crops to restore the fertility of the land; and an increased understanding of the best times for sowing. 17 The surplus grew ever larger.
Jacques Gernet notes, ‘The age of the warring states is one of the richest known to history in technical innovations’, with the ‘development of a considerable trade in ordinary consumer goods (cloth, cereals, salt) and in metals, wood, leather and hides. The richest merchants combined such commerce with big industrial enterprises (iron mills and foundries, in particular), employed increasing numbers of workmen and commercial agents, and controlled whole fleets of river boats and large numbers of carts…The big merchant entrepreneurs were the social group whose activities made the biggest contribution to the enrichment of the state…The capitals of kingdoms…tended to become big commercial and manufacturing centres…The object of the wars of the 3rd century was often the conquest of these big commercial centres’. 18
But rulers could only successfully embrace the new methods if they broke the power of the old aristocracy. ‘Parallel with technological change in agriculture…were
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