The Chuang in the Shuihuchuan [antikvár]

Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Tomus XXXV (2 — 3), 275 — 289 (1981) THE CHUANG IN THE SHUIHUCHUAN A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF LANDOWNERSHIP IN CHINA by BARNABAS CSONGOR Although the exploitation of land has always been the basis of Chinese society, the actual forms of the ownership of land in Chinese history are not too well known. Historical sources do not seem to offer much in this respect, especially as regards the pieces of land held by other title than having a position in the Mandarin bureaucracy. This is the more regrettable as the lack of positive information easily leads to idle speculations as to the nature of this «private landed property», or even as to the general character of traditional Chinese society itself. Therefore it seems to me of some use to analyse the data found in the novel 7jc?fi:{( Shuihuchuan1 about the chuang,2 seemingly a kind of «private landed property». In the present paper a novel, i.e. an unconventional historical work has been used for source material. It is, therefore, necessary to say a few words about the problem of how the authenticity of the data can be established. It seems to me that the data contained in the novel are certainly not authentic when taken singly,3 but the general picture conveyed by them undoubtedly is. This statement can be verified by the fact that the wording of the descriptions listed below is practically uniform in all the nine oldest extant editions. This means that these descriptions were accepted by both the authors and the reading public as having been consistent with their concept of reality. 'The three-volume critical edition had been used: Cheng Chen-to (ed.), Shui hu ch'uan chuan I-III, Peking 1954. 2 The results of the present survey probably apply to the time of the earliest extant editions (15th —16th century) rather than to Sung-time, the epoch in which the plot has been set. — About the chuang of. mainly Katô Shigeshi, Origin and Organization of the Chuang-yuan [LL3] during the T'ang Dynasty: Tôyô Gakuho 7 (1917), pp. 313 — 338; H. Maspero, Les régimes fonciers en Chine: Mélanges posthumes III, Paris 1950; E. Balazs, Le régime de la propriété fonciere en Chine du IVe au XIV' siecles: La Bureaucratie céleste, Paris 1968. 3 In a poetic description (ch. 2, vol. I, p. 22) it is said e.g. that «there are thousand hired hands» fu yung) in a chuang. This is certainly a hyperbole when compared with other data referring to the same chuang. To take another example, pig is never mentioned among domestic animals, although pork is said to be eaten frequently. 7 Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981