陳友諒の「大漢」國について

Abstract

It is a commonly known fact that Ch'en Yu-liang 陳友諒 was a powerful warlord at the end of the Yuan, and that he fought for hegemony with Chu Yuan-chang 朱元璋. However, as for his activities, studies so far are not going far outside the scope described in his biography in the Ming History (Ming-shih 明史), and especially concerning the base of his activities one can say that there are hardly any studies investigating that. This article focuses at the same time on his activities and on understanding the bases which supported them, and it has as its final purpose to make clear the reasons why Ch'en Yu-liang couldn't but be beaten by Chu Yuan-chang. This article presents first the activities of the White Lotus-sect of Hsu Shou-hui 徐壽輝, that is the so-called Hsu-group, of which Ch'en Yu-liang himself was a member. In the activities of this group are conspicuous those of a sub-group of people to whose name was attached the character p'u 普, for instance Tsou P'u-sheng 鄒普勝 and Hsiang P'u-lueh 項普略. This group is considered as being the original group of White Lotus-sect adherents. Outside this group was the one formed by the combination of the "water-bandits" (shui-tsei水賊), armed groups as for instance represented by Ni Wen-chun 倪文俊, and the groups of local bullies, and this is considered the Hsu-group. The one who usurped the "water-army" of Ni Wen-chun, which was the most powerful military force within this Hsu-group, was Ch'en Yu-liang, and with this water-army as his base, and by overthrowing Hsu Shou-hui, he founded the Han-state (Han-huo 漢國). But Ch'en Yu-liang, who held power on the basis of military force, i.e., the "water-army", started to have a big disadvantage just because of this. His murder of Hsu Shou-hui by force, along with the fact that he probably wasn't considered to be a believer of the White Lotus-sect, brought about the alienation of the White Lotus-sect forces, and he wasn't able to incorporate these forces under the control of the Han-State. Furthermore, the group that supported him consisted of his brothers and the powerful persons in military groups such as Chang Pi-hsien 張必先 ; but they existed as local independent centrifugal forces, and it was not possible to create a strong centralized system around Ch'en Yu-liang. For this reason, one can conclude that Ch'en Yu-liang's Han-state had a fundamental weakness compared with the government of Chu Yuan-chang, who gradually created a strong centralized system, liberally using scholar officials.