The place of the Mongol Empire in the narrative of Chinese history has long been a focus of scholars of China's middle period. What were the short-term consequences of destruction associated with the Mongol invasion? How did the rebuilding produce long-term change in Chinese society? Wang Jinping's In the Wake of the Mongols addresses these questions through the institutions and relationships that ordered rural society in Shanxi after the 1211 Mongol invasion. She argues that a distinctive social order built around Daoist and Buddhist institutions arose in the following century, and that its afterlives continued to structure rural North Chinese society until the late Ming. This focus on rural social order enables Wang to bring history of the Mongol Empire into conversation with the historiography of local society both before and after the Yuan, which has been studied largely in southern China. She shows that a better understanding of the variety of institutions used in local elite activism opens up a rich world of regional variation both during the Yuan and after.
Wang's first chapter chronicles the destruction of the institutions by which Confucian literati reproduced their status and exercised power in local society in Jin Shanxi. Under the Jin, military rank was exclusive to Jurchens; more widely available civilian ranks were acquired through the expanded examination system, centered on state schools. Yuan Haowen (1190–1257) was one of the few Shanxi literati who continued to write despite the displacement of the Mongol conquest. Using his writings, Wang illustrates both the workings of the Jin social order and its systematic dismantling by the Mongols.
The three central chapters describe the functioning of the new system in three institutional contexts: Quanzhen Daoist networks, Buddhist temples, and village-level Irrigation Associations. These chapters are chronologically arranged, reflecting the influence of changes in imperial sponsorship on the clergy's ability to exert influence in local society. At the same time, Wang argues that overall, the changes within this period were minor compared with those that begin and end the period, to the point where the three together constitute a single “social order” (pp. 268–70). Nevertheless, the tension between top-down and bottom-up actors, and their sources of power, drives much of the action. These conflicts are highlighted by the exceptionally rich epigraphical sources, both published and unpublished, which form the foundation of Wang's argument in the remainder of the work.
In chapter 2, Wang shows that decentralized Quanzhen Daoist networks across North China leveraged Mongol patronage norms to become the primary translocal institution in Shanxi. Displaced literati, including Yuan Haowen, as well as women (especially widows) from all levels of society, became part of these networks, writing inscriptions, sponsoring temples, and caring for orphans. Quanzhen networks took over social functions previously filled by Confucian examination institutions, including local schools, canon production, and filial obligations to ancestors. The land accumulated by their temples made the Quanzhen Daoists the most powerful force in Shanxi until they lost imperial support after Qubilai backed the Buddhist side in a dispute at court.
Chapter 3 traces the ramifications of this shift in power for Shanxi Buddhist networks based in Mount Wutai. Like the Quanzhen Daoists, monks based in Mount Wutai used Mongol patronage practices to sustain their position. As the court raised the rank of Buddhist officials to equal that of civil officials, hereditary huja'ur positions enabled monks to pass on their position through kinship ties. As a result, they became attractive marital prospects for the daughters of wealthy families, expanding their networks and landholdings through the familial shrines of married monks.
In chapter 4, Wang shifts perspective to the circumstances under which local society reached out to translocal institutions. Social order on the village level, both ritual and economic, was built on organizations that controlled the distribution of water. Landholding monastic institutions joined these Irrigation Associations as households, but they could also exercise influence by sponsoring an association's temple or providing literate clergy to lead it. After a 1303 earthquake destroyed the two associations which distributed water from Huo Spring in southern Shanxi, the translocal resources of its Buddhist and Daoist temples enabled them to lead the rebuilding and consolidate their influence.
The final chapter of this study explores the long-term effects of this social order on northern Chinese society. Although Zhu Yuanzhang's policies did decrease the relative power of Buddhist and Daoist institutions, in Shanxi court patronage was largely replaced by that of imperial princes. It was not until the dissolution of the principalities in the sixteenth century that Buddhist and Daoist temples were supplanted by Community Worship Associations as the primary vehicle for gentry activism in local society. The ongoing ramifications of these complex interactions between village societies and the state—highlighted in the present day in Wang's preface—make this book essential reading for students of Chinese local societies well beyond the period of Mongol rule.
