North vs South - Pre-20th Century
The civilization of China begins in the North-western corner of the Empire now occupied by the provinces of Shansi and Shensi. In 2200 BC, when the mythical Emperor Yu was said to have begun to map the Empire, the dominion of the Chinese throne did not extend south of the Yellow River. His successors extended their dominions farther south, but up to the time of Confucius, 550 B.c, the Empire was still bounded on the South by the Yangtze River and the regions beyond it were considered by the inhabitants of the North as unhealthy and barbarous. At that time, it was not the Yangtze River, as it is at present, that divided the North from the South, but the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilization.
The first Emperor of the Ch'in dynasty (221-209 b.C.), with his undaunted energy and strong will, extended his dominions first to the provinces immediately south of the Yangtze and then to the Gulf of Hainan in the present French colony of Tongking. The less civilized tribes, which inhabited the Southern regions, were subjugated and ultimately assimilated Chinese culture and thought; and the districts conquered were reorganized in administration and ruled directly by his iron hand from the capital at Si-an-fu. Military genius and success qualified this first Emperor to be the real and effective ruler over a very vast dominion, and brought him to the same height of glory and power as that attained by Caesar or Bonaparte. From this time onwards, the North and the South of China were changed and enlarged in extent; the dividing line was no longer the sandy and shallow Yellow River, but the Yangtzekiang, which is navigable all the year round and passes through the most fertile and most productive districts of China.
Throughout almost all the civil wars that took place since the death of the first Emperor, the Yangtze River has been strategically important; and the distinction between the North and the South has become politically significant. In 221 to 265 A.d., China was divided into a northern and a southern Kingdom with the Yangtze as the boundary; and a third Kingdom, the western, occupied the source of the river in the province of Szechuan. In the subsequent years till the foundation of the dynasty of T'ang (a.d. 618-907) China had been divfded into many rival Kingdoms, the most important of which were, however, those ruled by the Northern and the Southern dynasties. . The Sung dynasty (960-1127), which succeeded the T'ang, was much troubled by the invasions of the Kitans, the Nuchens, and the Mongols from the North; and a Southern Sung Empire (1127-1280) was established with its capital in Hangchow, when the invading army of the Golden Hordes had occupied the whole of the northern plain and captured the capital at Kai-fong-fu. The naval defence on the Yangtze secured to this Empire a few years' precarious existence, but the loss of the river to the enemy brought it to an end. When the Manchus conquered the North of China in the middle of the seventeenth century (1644), the South rallied to the falling dynasty of Ming and defied the Manchu authority for many years before it was pacified and united to the North.
The North is more liable to attack from the barbarians outside the Great Wall, and the South has therefore often become a rallying ground for those loyal to the reigning authority. Free from invasions, the South has developed a literature and an art even more exquisite and beautiful than those of the North, from which it received its original civilization.
During the Manchu reign, the South was subject to further influences, which did not affect the North. The Southern Chinese were born sailors, filled with the spirit of adventure. Early in the seventeenth century, they came into contact with the Portuguese and the Spaniards, who were then the greatest seafaring peoples in the world. They imparted to the Southern Chinese foreign conceptions of a far wider range than those of the secluded North. Trade with aliens was viewed with suspicion and contempt by most people in the North, but practised in the South with enthusiasm. The nations of the South, among whom the Cantonese were the leading spirits, showed themselves adaptable to new situations and began to master the art of scientific navigation and the western method of commerce. To put the psychological difference between the / peoples of the North and of the South in general terms, it may be said that the former excel in patience, in caution, and in deliberation, while the latter are unsurpassed in the spirit of adventure, in pushfulness, and in resource.
The difference in psychology has perhaps, to a certain extent, been produced by the difference in climate. The northern climate is of two extremes-intensely cold in winter and intensely hot in summer, but it is warm all the year round in most of the southern provinces. The northern soil is less fertile because the seasonal rainfall is less plentiful. In consequence, much wheat but little rice is grown, and wheat is the staple food in the North just as rice is in the South. Before the opening of the Imperial Canal which connected Chekiang with Chili, rice was as scarce in the North as it was plentiful in the South. Even at the present day, when communication between the North and the South, both by land and by sea, is much more convenient than that in former times, rice is still considered a delicacy in the North, and is only consumed by the well-to-do. By the poor, it is considered a more extravagant form of food than wheat, and less nourishing.
The South has been a manufacturing district since ancient times, while the North has, till quite recently, remained agricultural and pastoral. The embroidery, the gorgeous silk, the magnificent porcelain-all are the produce of the South. In the North, the produce has been that of a nomad people-skins, hides, and wool. The exchange of commodities between the North and the South has taken place since early periods, but, apart from a handful of dealers and business men, the two peoples did not come into contact with each other till comparatively recent times. The vastness of territory and the difficulty of communication have made it almost inevitable that the North and the South should have each cultivated its own customs and habits. Travel was difficult; newspapers did not exist. Postal service was primitive; pilgrimages were few. Under such circumstances, it was only natural that with the advance of time the North and the South should have differed from each other in political thought and in social outlook.
In spite of these divergent forces there is, however, a single centripetal force which has held the other forces in control. Before its conquest by the North in the third century BC, the South had developed no civilization of its own. Historians record that its people were then in painted costumes and wore their hair dishevelled. They may have developed a spoken language, but there is no mention of their having possessed any system of writing.
The total absence of any preconceived notions facilitated the flow of, Northern civilization into the South. The ideographic language soon became universal in the South as well as in the North, and a uniform system of morality was introduced and observed throughout the length and breadth of the Empire. Confucian classics were studied and preached by scholars in the two halves of the country, and the classical examination was opened to all candidates alike, irrespective of the districts where they were born or brought up. The ceremony of Heaven-worship was performed by the Sovereign for all his subjects, and ancestorworship was universally believed in and practised. Above all, one and the same written language in every corner of the Empire produced a unifying effect stronger than anything else.
The benefits due to uniformity of language and civilization have, however, been much imperilled by the difference in Northern and Southern dialects. The natives of the North could hardly speak to those of the South except by writing, and writing alone is no easy way of promoting mutual understanding.
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