ann
(Ann)
#1
against commentators who would permanently restrict Han hegemony to
the Five Domains (Wufu), numerous historical examples of the Sinifica-
tion of previously barbarian regions. Min (i.e., Zhejiang), which was not
part of the original Han core, is one such example of how this hegemony
has persisted to“turn hearts toward the true Way, so that they are daily
farther away from beasts.”^26 Such incorporation is central to an accom-
modationist interpretation of Hanspace as it emerges under Inner Asian
conquest, a significance not lost on Hu’s contemporaries. A preface to the
Chuizhiby Xu Bingyi notes that“our state continues Yu’s [achievement
of] subjection so thatshengjiaoextends everywhere to far exceed that of
the Xia dynasty.”In Hu’s reading this view is validated by, for example,
theshengjiaotransformation of the Tang“Western Regions” (Xiyu),
which lay in the two outer domains, into Qing Xinjiang eighty-odd years
later.^27 Hanspace could thus serve the interests of a non-Han dynasty in a
way the Han-barbarian discourse could not. Hanspace terrain, however,
was sufficiently unstable to allow the formation of dissenting views, and
ultimately, of a dissident Han identity.
dissident hanspace
Hanspace was existentially informed byqi, a dynamic substance circu-
lating in shifting concentrations throughout Hanspace with both eco-
logical and political effects.Qiwas thus the key link between nature and
culture in Hanspace and was primarily responsible for the dynastic cycle
as it declines in one region to concentrate in another. Thisflux ofqican
be, for Ming loyalists such as Wang Fuzhi, a catastrophe asqidrains
away from China proper. For Qing loyalists, however, thisflux progres-
sivelyflows to the northeast to empower the rise of the Manchus beyond
the Great Wall.
Geomanticallyqi’s effects were visible as relatively stable mountains
and rivers. Below ground, however, this“terrestrialqi”(diqi) was not in a
steady state. It couldflow in unpredictable directions through subterra-
nean veins, such as those that defined Yixing’s strata, with manifest
political disruption on the surface. Accommodationists could view such
disruptions as progressive. Zhao Yi, for example, read monumental shifts
in Chinese dynastic history based on the principle that“the waxing and
waning of terrestrialqiinevitably changes over time.”Qibecame dis-
persed in the northwest, the center of previous Han Chinese dynasties and
their capitals, and ultimately reconcentrated itself in the northeast, home-
land of his overlords, the Manchus. Zhao located this tipping point in the
Qing Fields in Theory and Practice 31
