Reading Notes

A search for my history

After my three-way discussion with Anonymous and Hemingway, I found another treasure among the bookshelves. A guide to understanding a part of my inherited past, the latter five hundred years in Chinese civilization.

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence
Second Edition. 1999. ISBN 0-393-97351-4 (pbk.)

Within the historical narrative, time and again I found supporting claims to Hemingway's assertion that the World breaks all men, and those that refuse to be broken must be killed.

The decline of an empire

"Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice... " - Robert Frost

I say they all end the same way.

"So I says blue M&M, red M&M, they all wind up the same color in the end!"
- Homer Simpson

A historical parallel

Starting around 1600, the Ming Dynasty which had ruled for about two hundred fifty years began to crumble. (How long has the States been around now, since 1776?).

Ineffectual politics/leadership

One of the catalysts of the fall of the empire was that the emperor, disgusted with the ineffectual and petty politics of his advisers, stopped holding court and left the operation of the empire in the hands of eunuchs, who swelled their pockets with wealth from bribes and corruption and power. Sound at all familiar to American politics?

"Emperor Wanli spent more and more time behind the innermost walls of the Forbidden City. He had grown aggravated by quarrels with bureaucrats about which of his sons should be named heir apparent to the throne, frustrated by overprotective courtiers from carrying out his desires to travel widely and command his troops in person, and disgusted by the constant bickering among his own senior advisers... The result was that considerable power accrued to the court eunuchs... " 15.

Politicians are just puppets in American leadership. They say what they are paid to. The real power lies in the deep pockets of financiers. Neutered of morality and altruism, these are our modern day eunuchs.

Money talks

Economic conditions of the 1600s were a strong force that began to crush the Ming civilization. The general population of farmers fell onto extreme poverty following a global climate crisis of cold dry weather that ruined crops. Along with this came an influx of wealth introduced by Spanish merchants exchanging Chinese silk for silver from the Philippines, America, and Japan.

Silver trade generated far more wealth than that of the starving farmers, yet the Ming bureaucracy failed to levy taxes on the most prosperous citizens! As a consequence, disparity between the poor and rich grew unchecked, the government failed to pay the soldiers in its army and provide for the well being of its working class.

(LOL, Remember when the U.S. government shut down because it couldn't pay its workers?? )

In addition, without necessary funding to give aid, nor showing any intention of aiding its poorest farmers, the government levied heavier taxes on its already destitute farming class to compensate for its declining tax base!

"China's trade - while never effectively taxed by the state, which concentrated mainly on the agricultural sector - was extremely vulnerable to extortion and confiscation by corrupt eunuch commissioners in the provinces, or by their agents. Government inefficiencies in flood control and famine relief led to further local crises, which, in turn, reduced the amount of prosperous land that could be taxed effectively." 20

"A string of one thousand small copper coins that had been worth around an ounce of silver in the 1630s had become worth half an ounce by 1640, and perhaps one-third of an ounce by 1643. The effects on peasants was disastrous, since they had to pay their taxes in silver, even though they conducted local trade and sold their own harvests for copper." 21

(Wall Street 'Carried Interest' tax loophole, anyone? The richest pay the lowest tax rate of all salary earners in America.

Each new administration voices their commitment to close it, the politicians all agree it's a flaw of the system - not mentioning that it is criminally exploited by the 1% - yet when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, time and again the representatives don't show up for voting and no changes are set in motion. Why? Because the money is too powerful to help politicians win elections and keep supporters in office.)

A violent end

With every faction war and change of leadership ensued killings of the previous order. Group after group swelled their might, then were hunted down, disgraced, and executed by their successors.

"Yuan [a very capable Ming army general] was able to hold the Liao River against Nurhaci. In 1628 he was named field marshal of all northeastern forces, but for reasons of jealousy he executed one of his most talented subordinates the following year.

When, in 1630, Manchu raiding parties appeared near Peking, Yuan was falsely accused of colluding with them and was tried on a trumped-up charge of treason. With hostile courtiers, friends of the man he had killed and groups of eunuchs all arrayed against him, Yuan had no chance of clearing himself.

Instead he was condemned to death by way of the most publicly humiliating and painful punishment the Chinese penal code allowed for: being cut to pieces in the marketplace of Peking. Later scholars mourned him as one of China's greatest generals." 24.

One day hero, next day traitor. Morality is so malleable in the hands of the corrupt.