The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128

Studies in Environment and History

by Ling Zhang

On July 19, 1048, the Yellow River breached its banks, drastically changing its course across the Hebei Plain and turning it into adelta where the river sought a path out to the ocean.This dramatic shift of forces in the natural world resulted from political deliberation and hydraulic engineering of the imperial state of the Northern Song Dynasty. It created 80 years of social suffering, economic downturn, political upheaval, and environmental changes, which reshaped the medieval North China Plain and challenged the state. Ling Zhang deftly applies textual analysis, theoretical provocation, and modern scientific data in her gripping analysis of how these momentous events altered China's physical and political landscapes and how its human communities adapted and survived. In so doing, she opens up an exciting new field of research by wedding environmental, political, economic, and social history in her examination of one of North China's most significant environmental changes."

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Environment

328 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply impressive work of political and environmental history of the Northern Song Dynasty from the 11th to the 12th centuries. Rather than focusing on the political actions of the dynasty alone, her work incorporates the flooding of the Yellow River, the Hebei plains, and the desperate attempts of the Song Dynasty to dam up the river and get it under control.

To sum up: the Yellow River left its course and flooded Hebei, then one of the wealthiest provinces in China proper, and a key area of strategic importance as it was a borderland between area under dynastic control and nomadic areas to the north. For the following decades, a succession of emperors and multiple levels of officials attempted to get the river under control, which proved to be a massive drain on the dynasty's own financial resources. In 1128, in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Jurchen invasion, generals of the Song breached the dams, leading to yet more catastrophic flooding and a shift in the river's course further south.

The book is divided into two parts: the first covers the years before the flood of 1048, and the second after. Part I covers how Hebei became one of the most populated regions in all of China at this time, the development of regional culture, and even suggests how the flood of 1048 may have been the result of policy to direct the river further north, due to successions of officials obsessed with recreating the power and landscape of Yu the Great, a legendary figure of about 3000 years before.

The final part of the book covers the long-term effects of the flood. Where previous historians of China, such as Karl August Wittfogel, discussed the idea of a "hydraulic despotism", where a government maintains control due to control of the water supply, Zhang instead writes of a "hydraulic mode of consumption", where the dynasty continued to exhaust itself and its scarce resources on damming up the river. Hebei, instead of being a breadbasket for the rest of China, became a net food importer, and Zhang suggests that over a million people, perhaps 20% of the provincial population, had their lives disturbed by the disasters.

I admit I don't know enough about the rest of the field to make any substantial comparisons with the the other literature, but when I do read works of environmental history I'm impressed by the perspectives and methods it can bring, and how it can work with or overturn previous scholarship. This is an outstanding example of what dedicated historical research can do, and her work, dense with information, provides a thought-provoking look at the Northern Song.

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of Song China’s efforts to manage the Yellow River rests on smart historical research and really thoughtful analysis. The heart of Zhang’s history is an 80-year period, 1048 - 1128, when the river burst its northern banks and streamed across the relatively flat province of Hebei - and then kept periodically flooding and carving out new courses, destroying communities in its path. Rather than seeing the initial flood as a largely natural disaster, Zhang makes the case that Song leaders chose to sacrifice Hebei to keep the river from flooding south. Then, horrified at the extent of the ongoing damage, leaders attempted various unsuccessful strategies to control the water. Meanwhile, the damage to the province escalated, civil society and the economy gradually collapsed, soil fertility and agricultural production failed, and the entire empire ended up pouring resources into a bottomless pit. Zhang makes a compelling case that this 80-year period inflicted lasting environmental and social damage that has dogged the region down to the present day.

The book suffers from two main weaknesses. The first is lack of a ruthless editor who could have pruned the many redundant summary paragraphs and generally forced a crisper writing style. The text is littered with pet phrases - ‘the hydraulic mode of consumption’, ‘trialectical complexity’ - that obscure more than they illuminate. (By the first, Zhang means that fighting the river became a money pit that ate the empire, rather than an investment that generated a surplus; the second refers to the three-way interactions between the river, the empire, and Hebei). The book is at its best when it lays out the history and builds its case, and most annoying when it tries to summarize itself. Fortunately, its best is very good.

The other weakness is more substantive, but does not detract from the historical analysis. Zhang convincingly argues that the way the Song tried to manage the river was ultimately destructive: environmentally, economically, socially, and politically. In the epilogue, she suggests later dynasties applied similar strategies to later paths of the river, causing similar harms to those regions. In a late sentence, she points to the Three Gorges Dam to say that these issues remain with us today - that hubristic engineering can still wreak environmental and social havoc. As an advocate for respecting natural processes and managing rivers with natural infrastructure, of course I agree. But Zhang never really explains or explores what alternative the Song could have chosen. So it is terribly unclear what lessons we are to draw for application today. The Song sank themselves in a quagmire; this book shows that they did, in detail. It would be helpful to hear what, with hindsight, Zhang or others now think the Song could have done to reach a better outcome.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this historical monograph, particularly in terms of how Zhang gives animacy and agency to the non-human as co-creators of history (i.e. Discussing how the Yellow River itself and the Hebei Plain itself both acted and interacted with human political and social dynamics to influence the course of history). It's long and, as is common with academic writing, definitely not a light read. But I really enjoyed how Zhang offers a really in-depth look at this 80-year period in Chinese history in a way that challenges conventional views of the Song Dynasty. Though it doesn't propose any solutions/alternatives to the environmental-political conundrums of the the 11th and 12th centuries, this is productive and interesting environmental scholarship.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific in-depth study of the causes and impacts of 80 years of devastating flooding by the Yellow River of the Hebei Plain (1048-1128). Integrates political, geopolitical, economic and environmental history. Beyond the what, when and why, I came away with a much better understanding of daily life and political dynamics in the Northern Song. The struggles between the reformist and conservative factions at court, as well as between centrally appointed bureaucrats vs local officials feels very "modern," as do the efforts of the common folk struggling to cope with a rapidly changing environmental world. The upshot: you can't beat Mother Nature, and the water needs to go somewhere.

I think the most heartbreaking part of the book, aside from the starvation, disease and general suffering of the people, is that the Northern Song were incredibly sophisticated hydraulic experts and understood the interactions between flooding, silting and water flow. They were also experienced engineers (not unique to this dynasty) building elaborate dykes, cutting channels through mountains, building vast network pond networks to defend against the Liao/Khitan. But they failed to understand that all this human activity was itself the ultimate cause of their misery, as the Yellow River's flooding was a result of deforestation and erosion upstream around the middle course of the river (Ordos region). And tragically, said deforestation was exacerbated by titanic efforts to build and rebuild and repair dykes destroyed by repeat flooding.

At times, the prose is really vivid: "All of a sudden, on that day, you hear a roaring in the distance. It grows louder and louder, screams rising out of its dull thundering. Before you have time to figure out what is happening, the water comes upon you in gigantic torrents. People, livestock, and buildings are all swallowed by the violent waves. Stunned, you are swept away. There is nothing by water all around you. Gasping for air and close to drowning, you begin to paddle as the old, weak and unlucky are sucked under all around you. You and the other lucky ones grab onto a tree or make it to high ground."

And other times, it drags. There are too many references to "hydraulic mode of consumption" which is a term not worth its syllables. The book is 20% too long.

Still, this is a must read for anyone interested in this era of Chinese history or in the interplay of the Chinese state, people and environment. This is an excellent companion to Ruth Mostern's The Yellow River. Read that for the macroscopic view, and then this for the in depth case study.

[Mills College Library]

951.1024 Z633 2016