meng 盟めい, alliance

Alliances (meng 盟めい, mengshi 盟めい誓ちかい, mengyue 盟約めいやく, mengqi 盟めい契ちぎり; as a text called mengshu 盟めい書しょ, zaishu 載の書しょ, zaici 載の辭じ, or zaisheng 載の乘じょう) were formal agreements between regional rulers during the Spring and Autumn period 春秋しゅんじゅう (770-5th cent. BCE), but also into the Warring States era 戰國せんごく (5th cent.-221 BCE).

These covenants were concluded in a ritual manner by announcing the agreement to the ancestral spirits and delivering sacrificial animals. The ritual Classic Liji 禮れい記き (ch. Quli 曲きょく禮れい) discerns between various forms of interstate activities of the regional states, namely occasional meetings (yu 遇ぐう), scheduled assemblies (hui 會かい), formal messages of friendly inquiry carried out by high-rank messengers (pin 聘), solemn declarations including a binding to mutual faith (shi 誓ちかい), and covenants including a sacrifice (meng 盟めい).

The Tang-period 唐とう (618-907) commentator Kong Yingda 孔あな穎達 (574-648) adds that the rulers used to smear blood of a victim on their mouths (sha xue 歃血, see blood sacrifice). Wu (2015) doubts the authenticity of this statment. The victim was killed besides a sacrificial pit, its right ear was cut off and placed on a pearl plate (zhupan 珠たま盤ばん), while the blood was collected in a jade vessel (yudun 玉たま敦あつし). The blood was used to write the text of the covenant, which was then recited by the participants.

The Liang-period 梁りょう (502-557) historian Liu Xie 劉りゅう勰 (c. 465-521) delivered a homophonic explanation by stating that meng "alliance" meant to "clarify" (ming 明あきら) this matter to the spirits (quoted in Xu Shiceng 徐じょ師し曾, Wenti mingbian xushuo 文體ぶんたい明あかり辨べん序說じょせつ).

The Zhou dynasty 周しゅう (11th cent.-221 BCE) discerned between large covenants (meng) and lesser covenants (zu 詛のろい). The ritual Classic Zhouli 周しゅう禮あや (part Chunguan 春はる官かん, ch. Zuzhu 詛のろい祝しゅく), knows the office of fulminator (zuzhu 詛のろい祝しゅく) who was charged with the arrangement of prayers and invocations during various types of treatises and covenants, during sacrifices to the supreme deities and ancestors, the collective sacrifices and during ceremonies of military campaigns and of royal or ducal addresses. The fulminator also prepared the text of the covenant.

The chapter Sikou 司つかさ寇 (part Qiuguan 秋あき官かん of the Zhouli) lists the office of sanctifier of covenants (simeng 司つかさ盟めい), who was charged with the formulation of the text and the guidance of the ceremony.

Wang (2016) enumerates the functions of alliances and covenants: securing the (re-)enthronement of a regional ruler or the investiture of a heir apparent, creating balances of power among regional states or among functionaries of noble houses within regional states, inter-state marriage, protection of smaller and suppressed regional states, disempowering or punishing regional rulers breaking conventions, enforcing cooperation ("loyalty"), and achievement of certain political aims.

Li (1997) leads the origin of alliances and covenants back to the pre-dynastic speeches (shi 誓ちかい, see Shangshu 尚書しょうしょ) to the army by the leaders of the Zhou.

The written form of covenants was a point of critique by Confucians who supported the traditional oral form of agreements in the framework of ritual encounterings (Queen & Major 2016: 163, fn). Li Li 李り力つとむ (1995) likewise explains that the custom of concluding written covenants represented a substantial change from the earlier, ceremonial form of agreements to a more legalist form. The decrease of power of the king of Zhou after the resettlement of the house of Zhou to Luoyang 洛陽らくよう (today in Henan) 770 shattered the old system of the royal court as the centre of political arrangements by ritual acts, like investitures, confirmations of the same, audiences of the king to the regional rulers, "lessons" given by the sovereign, and the like.

Instead, regional rulers began to make arrangments among themselves, mostly without embracing the king of Zhou. More than 250 agreements can be counted in the Spring and Autumn period of which 50 involved the powerful state of Jin 晉すすむ (Li 1995: 67; Wang 2016: 59). The system of alliances and covenants is closely tied to that of the hegemonial lord (ba 霸), who took care for law and order among the Central States (zhongguo 中國ちゅうごく), taking over a task actually to be performed by the king of Zhou (Luo & Tian 2002). Yet Luo and Tian interprete the alliances among the regional rulers during the early Spring and Autumn period as a rightful expansion of previous Western Zhou-period customs, and not as a devation from traditional custom. Only during the late Spring and Autumn period, the covenants became an instrument of powerful regional rulers to transform smaller ones into satellites or vassals (Wang 1992).

The alliance tablets from Houma 侯こう馬ば, Shanxi, found in the 1950s, demonstrate that such agreements were also made on a lower level, e.g. among the noble houses of the state of Jin.

In the course of the Warring States period, the remnants of "trust" (xin 信しん) in non-written agreements were fully replaced by written contracts or by the custom of exchanging hostages (jiaozhi 交質; hostage is renzhi 人質ひとじち) to bind each other to agreements. While the original document, written on the spot of the meeting was buried along with the sacrificial animal (which shows the relation of covenants with deities of the soil, and their nature being one of territorial issues), copies were kept in the "covenant stores" (mengfu 盟めい府ふ) of the participants (Deng 2015). The text of a covenant included the place and date of the alliance, the names of the participants, the reason for the meeting, its aim, and the text of the oath (zuci 詛のろい辭じ). The storage of such documents was important for cases of infringement, but also served for historiographical purposes.

The collective fight of the remaining regional states against Qin caused a revival of the method of alliances, albeit in a less ceremonial form than during the Spring and Autumn period. In 351, King Hui of Wei 魏ぎ惠めぐみ王おう (r. 371-335) created an alliance with Zhao 趙ちょう at Zhangshui 漳水; in 350, Qin allied with Wei in the covenant of Tong 彤 (Huaxian 華はな縣けん, Shaanxi); and in 344, Wei unified the regional rulers at Fengze 逢澤 against Qin (Li 1997: 25).

The most important alliances during the Spring and Autumn period were the alliance of Shaoling 召陵 in 656 between Qi 齊ひとし, Lu 魯, Song 宋そう, Chen 陳ちん, Wei 衛まもる, Zheng 鄭てい, Xu 許もと, Cao 曹, and Zhu 邾; the alliance of Jiantu 踐土 in 632 between Jin 晉すすむ, Qi, Qin 秦はた, Chen, Lu, Song, Cai 蔡, Zheng, Wei, and Ju 莒; the alliance of Chonglao 虫ちゅう牢ろう in 586 between Jin, Zheng, Qi, Lu, Song, Wei, Cao, Zhu, and Qi 杞; the gread détente conference of 546 held in Song, and attended by no less than 14 states; and the conference of 538 initiated by Chu, and aimed a punishing the newcomer of the southeast, the state of Wu 吳ご.

The most famous archaeological testimonies are the alliance tablets of Houma from the state of Jin (Houma mengshu 侯ほう馬うま盟めい書しょ) – even if these only give evidence of the internal quarrels among the elite of Jin, and not of an alliance of Jin and another state.

Long-term alliances were known among the Mongols, whose tribes were structured in so-called leagues (meng 盟めい, Mongolian ayimaɣ) at the beginning of the Qing period 清きよし (1644-1911). Today, the leagues are administrative units between the higher level of banner (qi 旗はた, qosiɣu) and arrow (sumu 蘇そ木き, sumu).