Since Owen Lattimore’s landmark work, studies of the pre-modern economy of East Asia have tended to follow the common trope that a boundary between plain and steppe divided the intensive, sedentary agrarian Han civilization from the extensive, pastoral world of the “barbarian” north. Scholars admit the apparent existence of an intermediary zone in which people practiced mixtures of agriculture, gathering, hunting, and pastoralism, but little has been done to quantify these practices or understand the people and how they were administered. I explore land usage in the modern-day Hebei-Liaoning-Inner Mongolia borderland under Liao (907-1125) and Jin (1125-1234) administration to demonstrate the existence of an intermediary zone of mixed economic production between intensive agriculture in the south and extensive pastoralism in the north. During the Liao-Jin period, the region was inhabited by a mixture of cultural groups including Han and Kitan—traditionally considered to be agricultural and pastoral respectively—however another Mongolic group, the Qai (Kumo Xi or Xi), are recorded as tilling the land and raising livestock. Mapping the geographic distribution and understanding the administration of subject groups within the Liao and Jin reveals the presence of mixed land usage well beyond the border between Han and their northern neighbors. Tracing the administration of the Qai provides a first step towards reevaluating land usage in the region. The existence of an intermediary zone of semi-agricultural production outside the traditional realm of Han agriculture problematizes our understanding of ecology, economy, and even ethnicity in north Asia.
