Title: Border Policy in Qin-Han period
Lecturer: Kim, Byung-Joon (Professor, Department of Asian History, Seoul National University)
Chairperson: MOU Fasong (Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, April 30th, 2014 (Wednesday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture: This lecture focuses on the existence of the Qin/Han empire border, which have been disregarded to lead all the confusions and misunderstandings about the control policy for the barbarians. Emperor edicts showed that all the places under the heaven should be included into his realm, but it was the ideal type given that emperor was the son of heaven. However, there was a clear concept of border in the period of Qin/Han empire. Due to the confusion between the ideal type and the actual existence, most scholars argued that empire had controlled the barbarians regardless of inside and outside of the border. However, we should divide the barbarians into several levels, at least two levels, i.e. the inside-border barbarians who had been controlled by the government as similar as the Han people, and outside-border barbarians whom the Han empire had influenced their political power. By the way, I argue that there was another border except the outer border which usually taken as the division between the Han and outer nomad countries. This would be called as the inner border, out of which the barbarians lived without any control of the empire. Previous studies have found the evidences which they thought support their argument in the records of Bu-duwei (部都尉, Regional Chief Commandant). However, there were fundamental misunderstandings for the records related to this office. Most of all, this office was a military commandant, and did not concern about the civil services. Though some prefectures were under this commandant, this affiliation was just restricted to the military inspection. Civil services were exclusively taken under the charge of Commandery-prefecture system. Besides, Bu-duwei was the one of the Duwei (都尉, Chief Commandant) as Bu (部, region) just means a part of the whole. It was not the office which were exclusively responsible for the barbarians.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer：
Kim, Byung-Joon. Educational Background: Dept. of Asian History, Seoul National University (Ph.D.); Dept. of Asian History, Seoul National University (M.A.); Dept. of Asian History, Seoul National University (B.A.); Academic Appointment: Professor in Dept. of Asian History, Seoul National University (2011-); Professor in Dept. of History, Hallym University (1994-2011); Concurrent Researcher, University of Sichuan Normal University (2004-); Visiting Scholar in Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Science (2001-2002); Visiting Scholar in University of Chicago (2001.1-8). Academic Specialty: Ancient History of China.
