第14章パクス・モンゴリカ――モンゴルの草原帝国Pax Mongolica: The Steppe Empire of the Mongols

Although Kublai attempted to subdue the Song while fighting Ariq Boke, he did not begin serious efforts to conquer them until 1265. It took over a dozen years, but by 1279, the Song military was broken and its royal family dead or in hiding.

クビライはアリク・ブケとの戦いの間も宋の制圧を試みたが、本格的な征服に乗り出したのは1265年になってからだった。十数年かかったものの、1279年までに宋軍は破られ、皇族は死ぬか、身を隠すかしていた。

The Mongols, with allied peoples from north China and other parts of the steppe, dominated the Song on land. The Song military never developed good cavalry, perhaps hoping their fiery and explosive weapons would intimidate enemy horses and render their opponent’s cavalry useless. Retreating to the cities was not an option, because the Mongols were extremely adept at siege warfare. One area in which the Mongols were almost completely inexperienced, however, was naval warfare. The long and expansive river systems in southern China posed serious obstacles to the Mongols’ ability to completely conquer the Song.

中国北部や草原のほかの地域の同盟軍を伴うモンゴル軍は、陸上では宋を圧倒した。宋軍は強力な騎兵を育てなかった。おそらく、炎や爆発を用いる兵器で敵の馬を怖がらせ、騎兵を使いものにならなくできると期待したのだろう。モンゴル軍は包囲戦にも非常に熟達していたため、都市へ退却することも解決策にならなかった。しかし、モンゴル軍にほとんど経験のない分野が一つあった。水上での戦闘である。中国南部の長く広大な河川網は、宋を完全に征服するうえで大きな障害となった。

Through the 1270s, the Song still tried to function as a working, mobile government, moving up and down river systems until finally pushed out to sea, whereupon they moved from port to port with a huge fleet of ships. A combination of the geography of the region, previous developments in hydraulic and irrigation technology, and Song seafaring skills allowed them to resist the arrival of the Mongols for many years. Tens of thousands of civilians loyal to the Song traveled with them. In a great irony of history, the increasingly settled Yuan Mongols had turned the Song into aquatic seminomads. The Mongols adapted to naval warfare by relying on loyal non-Mongol experts. They controlled the labor of skilled craftspeople who built warships and had sailors who could maneuver them.

1270年代を通じ、宋は活動する移動政府であり続けようとした。河川を行き来し、ついに海へ押し出されると、大船団で港から港へ移った。地域の地形、それ以前に発展した水利・灌漑の技術、宋の航海術が組み合わさり、何年もモンゴルの進出に抗することができた。宋に忠実な数万人の民間人も同行した。歴史の大きな皮肉として、定住化を進める元のモンゴル人が、宋の人々を水上の半遊牧民に変えたのである。モンゴル軍は、忠実な非モンゴル人の専門家に頼り、水上戦へ適応した。軍艦を造る熟練職人の労働力を掌握し、それを操る水夫も得た。

In the year 1279, many Song loyalists, approximately 250,000 people in over a thousand ocean-capable boats, anchored off a remote bay near modern Yamen, China. There they began building a capital and prepared for a last stand, hoping that if they won, their victory would rally the Chinese to revolt against the Mongols. Mongol forces secured the land behind the Song ships, leaving them dependent on only the supplies they had on board. Within a few days, the Songs’ supply of fresh water ran out. Weakened by dehydration, they were no match for the Mongols. As a few ships fell to Mongol boarding parties, morale among the Song collapsed, and most of them committed suicide by jumping into the sea. China was united again for the first time in more than three hundred years, not by a Han Chinese Son of Heaven, but by the Mongol Kublai Khan.

1279年、宋に忠実な約25万人が、外洋航行のできる1000隻以上の船で、現在の中国の崖門付近の、人里離れた湾の沖に停泊した。そこで首都を造り始め、最後の抵抗を準備した。勝てば、中国の人々が結集してモンゴルへ反乱を起こすと期待したのである。モンゴル軍は宋の船の背後の陸地を確保し、船内の物資だけに頼らせた。数日で宋の真水は尽きた。脱水で弱った人々は、モンゴル軍に太刀打ちできなかった。敵の乗り込み部隊に数隻が奪われると、宋側の士気は崩れ、大半の人々は海へ飛び込んで自殺した。中国は300年以上ぶりに、再び統一された。統一したのは漢人の天子ではなく、モンゴル人のクビライ・カンだった。

Although retaining some Song policies such as the rotation of officeholders, the Yuan dynasty operated very differently from the way earlier Chinese dynasties had done. Kublai Khan’s most drastic change was to replace the Confucian system of class distinctions based on economic function with one based on ethnicity. At the top of the Yuan class structure were Mongols, followed by non-Chinese people, who were Europeans or previous steppe inhabitants like the Jurchen, Tangut, and Khitan. The bottom two classes were Chinese people: those of Han ethnicity who had been ruled by the Jin in the north, and the remaining Song Chinese who lived in the south. Mongols could not marry people from these bottom two classes. Everyone’s place in this new class system was noted in census records for each family, along with each head of household’s occupation, which was sometimes assigned if a shortage of certain types of labor occurred.

官職の担当者を交替させるなど、宋の政策を一部残しながらも、元の運営は、それまでの中国王朝と大きく異なった。クビライ・カンの最も大きな変更は、経済的な役割に基づく儒教的な身分区分を、民族に基づく区分へ置き換えたことだった。元の身分秩序の頂点にはモンゴル人、その次に、ヨーロッパ人や、女真・タングート・契丹のような、もともと草原にいた非中国系の人々が置かれた。下の二つの階層は中国人だった。北で金に治められていた漢人と、南に暮らした旧宋の中国人である。モンゴル人は、この下の二階層と結婚できなかった。各家の人口登録には、新しい身分制のどこに属するかと、家長の職業が記された。ある種類の労働力が足りない場合、職業が割り当てられることもあった。

Adopting the Khitan idea of ruling different types of people differently, the Yuan dynasty had separate types of administration for its varied peoples. Even though an increasing number of Mongols were literate, including Kublai who was the first Mongol great khan to read, the mandarin written exam system fell into disuse. Mongols were subject to the yassa, as were the next two classes, who were ruled over by administrators appointed by the chief local Mongol administrator or the emperor himself. The Song Chinese, who were at the bottom of the four-class system, were governed by two administrators, one a Chinese person and one a Mongol or non-Chinese person. Both were imperial appointees. The Chinese administrator was under the supervision of and responsible to his counterpart. People in all these positions were rotated periodically, so they could not build up a power base.

異なる人々は異なる方法で治めるという契丹の考えを採用し、元は多様な民に、別々の行政方式を用いた。読み書きのできるモンゴル人は増えており、クビライ自身も、読書のできる最初のモンゴル大カンだったが、文官を選ぶ筆記試験は使われなくなった。モンゴル人と、その次の二階層は、ヤサに従った。後二者を治める行政官は、地域の最高位のモンゴル人行政官、または皇帝自身が任命した。四階層の最下層にいた旧宋の中国人は、二人の行政官が治めた。一人は中国人、もう一人はモンゴル人か、ほかの非中国系の人だった。両方とも皇帝の任命で、中国人行政官は、もう一人の監督下に置かれ、その相手へ責任を負った。こうした職の担当者はすべて、独自の権力基盤を築かないよう、定期的に交替させられた。

Some non-Chinese administrators over the Song had not intended to work in the Yuan government. They came seeking some favor, often the right to trade, in exchange for which the emperors required them to perform administrative tasks. Literate Europeans came to know of the riches of Yuan China through one of these bureaucrats, Marco Polo, a young merchant, and member of a Venetian trade caravan who, along with several of his family members, ended up spending almost twenty-five years in Mongol lands and who wrote a popular account of the merchants’ experiences. While the Polos were the most famous of these hostage bureaucrats, serving for about twenty years, most were Muslim traders from other parts of the Mongol Empire. Regardless of how well they did their jobs, such bureaucrats were not likely to bond with the population and create a power base from which to challenge imperial authority.

旧宋を治める非中国系の行政官のなかには、元の政府で働くつもりがなかった人々もいた。多くは通商の権利など、何らかの便宜を求めてやって来たが、皇帝はその見返りに、行政の仕事を求めた。読み書きのできるヨーロッパ人が元の富を知ったのは、こうした官僚の一人、マルコ・ポーロを通じてだった。ヴェネツィアの交易隊商の一員だった若い商人マルコは、家族の何人かと共に、結局ほぼ25年をモンゴルの土地で過ごし、商人たちの経験を記した評判の著作を残した。ポーロ一族は、約20年仕えた、こうした人質的な官僚の最も有名な例だが、大半はモンゴル帝国の他地域から来たムスリム商人だった。仕事の出来にかかわらず、こうした官僚は住民との結びつきを深め、皇帝の権威に挑む基盤を作りにくかった。

Following Kublai’s death in 1294, his system’s flaws became apparent. In 1315, his great-grandson Buyantu reinstated the mandarin exam system, which now reflected the dual nature of the administration. Non-Chinese people took different (and shorter) exams than the Chinese people, and between 25 and 50 percent of those who passed had to be non-Chinese people. The effect of this quota was magnified because Song Chinese people made up more than 90 percent of the population, according to Yuan censuses. Between the differences in the exams and the quota system, it was much easier for Mongols and non-Chinese to pass than for Chinese.

1294年にクビライが死ぬと、制度の欠陥が明らかになった。1315年、曾孫のブヤントゥは文官登用試験を復活させた。その試験は、行政の二重性を反映していた。非中国系の人々は、中国人とは異なる短い試験を受け、合格者の25～50パーセントを非中国系にしなければならなかった。元の人口調査によれば、旧宋の中国人は人口の90パーセント以上を占めたため、この人数割当ての効果はいっそう大きかった。試験内容の差と定員制により、モンゴル人や非中国系の人々は、中国人よりはるかに合格しやすかった。

Although travelers like Marco Polo, and to a lesser degree the North African Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta, wrote of the impressive wealth of Yuan China, economic growth had at best stagnated, thanks to a decline in consumer purchasing power caused by inflation and heavy taxation. The use of paper currency was a major contributor to inflation. While paper money was theoretically convertible to metal or silk, the Yuan government issued much more of it than it had metal or silk to redeem it with. Kublai decreed that currency must be used in transactions with the government, thus ensuring that paper money featured in at least some economic activity. This meant the population could not escape increasing inflation, however, as successive Yuan governments issued more paper currency to pay their bills and forced the population to obtain such money to pay their taxes. As more paper money entered the system without objects of value to back it up, ever more of it was required to purchase the same amount of goods and labor.

マルコ・ポーロや、それほど大きくはないが北アフリカのムスリム旅行家イブン・バットゥータは、元の富のすばらしさを書いた。しかし経済成長は、よくても停滞していた。インフレーションと重税で、消費者の購買力が落ちたためである。インフレーションの大きな原因が、紙幣の使用だった。理論上は金属や絹へ交換できたが、元の政府は、交換に必要な金属や絹の保有量をはるかに超えて、紙幣を発行した。クビライは、政府との取引で通貨を使うよう命じ、少なくとも経済活動の一部では紙幣が使われるようにした。しかしこれは、人々が高まるインフレーションから逃れられないことを意味した。歴代の元政府は、支払いのため、さらに紙幣を発行し、住民には納税用の紙幣を入手させた。価値のある品による裏付けなしに紙幣が流通へ増えると、同じ量の商品や労働を買うにも、ますます多くの紙幣が必要になった。

The increasing taxes that partly resulted from inflation were pumped back into the economy through narrow and unproductive sectors, draining wealth from the rest of the economy. The Yuan spent lavishly on grandiose but failed military ventures that bankrupted the government. These were mainly Kublai’s projects. Kublai twice tried to conquer what is now Vietnam, and in even more costly ventures, he attempted complex sea invasions, two of Japan and one of Java. There were also periods of chaos and instability because of succession struggles. After Kublai’s appointed successor and grandson died in 1307, seven emperors reigned over the next twenty-six years. Resentment, especially among the Song population, seethed beneath the surface as government extraction of resources increased and inflation eroded the standard of living. As if all that was not challenge enough for the Yuan, in 1331 people outside the capital in the Hebei area began to sicken and die in large numbers. Within three years, 90 percent of that area’s population was dead from a strange new illness, later known as the Black Death. The Mongol Yuan government, like many of its people, did not survive long.

インフレーションも一因となって増えた税収は、狭く非生産的な部門を通じて経済へ戻され、ほかの部門から富を吸い取った。元は、壮大だが失敗に終わる軍事事業に惜しみなく金を使い、政府を財政破綻へ追い込んだ。大半はクビライの事業だった。現在のヴェトナムの征服を2度試み、さらに費用のかかる複雑な海上侵攻を、日本へ2度、ジャワへ1度行おうとした。後継者争いによる混乱と不安定の時期もあった。クビライが後継に指名した孫が1307年に死ぬと、その後26年間に7人の皇帝が即位した。政府による資源の徴収が増え、インフレーションが生活水準をむしばむなか、特に旧宋の住民の不満が、表面下で煮えたぎった。それだけでも試練は十分だったはずだが、1331年、首都の外の河北で、大勢が病気になって死に始めた。3年以内に、その地域の人口の90パーセントが、のちに黒死病と呼ばれる、未知の病気で死亡した。多くの民と同じく、モンゴルの元政府も、長く生き延びなかった。