The Everlasting Empire (7 page)

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between rival regimes (on which, see the discussion above and more below) but also the impossibility of attaining domestic stability within each of these regimes. As noted by Naomi Standen, among others, the coexistence of several loci of recognized authority allowed any disgruntled official, and, worse, general, to shift sides and to begin serving his former master’s bitter foe. Any domestic crisis within a regional state— for example, a succession struggle—could bring about mass defection of officials, governors, and generals, causing an immediate and dramatic shift in the balance of power among rival regimes. Since in the age of division “changing allegiance was readily justified and rarely criticized,”
⁴¹
it was extremely difficult for most of the leaders to impose their will on their underlings. In these conditions statesmen could not but revert to Mengzi’s dictum: “Stability is in unity.”

Given the common conviction that reunification is the only viable outcome of an age of division, leaders of regional regimes had two possible modes of action. The first was to proclaim themselves dukes, princes, or kings, while recognizing the nominal suzerainty of one of the selfproclaimed emperors. A local “king” (
guo wang
, the highest possible degree of autonomy) could even establish a separate ritual and administrative system and employ his own reign names, indicating thereby his possible intention to elevate himself to the position of emperor. Alternatively, he could adopt these symbols of sovereignty within his realm and in relations with weaker neighbors, while reverting to an inferior status when contacting an emperor whom he nominally recognized. Whatever course he chose, insofar as the “king” acquiesced in his inferior status vis-à-vis an “emperor” elsewhere, his regional state was doomed. It was all too clear to every political actor that the existence of autonomous kingdoms was but a temporal aberration, justifiable only insofar as there was no “true monarch” above. Sooner or later, a truly powerful emperor would emerge, and it would be his duty to abolish deviant kingdoms and turn them back into prefectures and counties. Thus recognition of one’s ritual inferiority implied recognition of the provisional character of one’s dynastic rule.

An alternative to submission—and the only act that meant real “independence”—would be to proclaim oneself an emperor, a new “Son of Heaven,” second to no one. This, however, implied that a local leader sought the unification of All-under-Heaven under his aegis, which meant that he could neither coexist with other self-proclaimed emperors nor tolerate autonomous kingdoms, at least in the long term. As mentioned above, from the Warring States period on, it was universally accepted that only he who was able to unify the realm would become the “True Monarch.” Therefore, an aspiring “universal” emperor had to adopt an aggressive stance toward other regional potentates, or at the very least

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to display his determination to reunify the realm through a variety of symbolic means.
⁴²
Alliances and coalitions between the “emperors,” or other policies aimed at attaining “partial [rather than universal] peace” (
pian’an
), were possible only as an ad hoc measure; it was well understood by all that the competition was a zero-sum game. A saying attributed to Confucius, “There are neither two suns in Heaven nor two Monarchs on earth,”
⁴³
required a life-and-death struggle from which only one legitimate winner could emerge.

Ironically, therefore, the idea of the singularity of imperial rule as the guarantee for peace ruled out the peaceful coexistence of two or more “emperors,” dooming the fragmented world to a bitter struggle, which allowed no real compromises, no territorial adjustments, and no sustainable peace agreements. Predictably, the strife between aspiring emperors turned into a nightmare of bloodshed and cruelty, which, in turn, enhanced expectations of renewed unification as the only feasible way out of mutual extermination. The notion that “stability is in unity” acted therefore as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This peculiar situation of inevitable warfare preceding successful reunification immensely benefited the most powerful and resolute of the contenders. Whenever an aspiring emperor succeeded in inflicting substantial defeats on his rivals, this could create an avalanche of successes, as minor leaders with limited ambitions would flock to his camp, exchanging their status as regional princes or kings for firm positions in the newly evolving hierarchy of the unified empire.
⁴⁴
Even if local kings remained defiant, many of their underlings, including generals and top officials, would switch sides to ensure their safety in anticipation of their state’s inevitable demise. And, usually, local elites would not defend the regional regime unless the unifier was so imprudent as to alienate them by exceptionally cruel or avaricious behavior. Hence, after a lengthy period of division, “the great forces of All-under-Heaven” would indeed inevitably unify.

The post-Tang history of the South serves as a good illustration of this trajectory. Among southern rulers, the weakest preferred the position of regional king, recognized by the northern emperor, which allowed many of them to attain relative stability for their states; while stronger leaders fluctuated between, on the one hand, adopting the imperial title and taking the inevitable aggressive stance toward their neighbors, and, on the other, temporarily recognizing the suzerainty of northern emperors. Of these regimes only the Southern Tang dynasty (937–975) under Li Jing (r. 943–961) became fully engaged in the competition to unify the realm, successfully annexing two of the neighboring principalities and planning northward expansion. Yet Li Jing’s fortunes were reversed after the north was reunified under energetic leaders of the Later Zhou dynasty (951

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960). The second Zhou emperor not only succeeded in substantially reducing the Southern Tang territory but also forced Li Jing to relinquish the imperial title. When the Song dynasty succeeded the Later Zhou, it promptly renewed southern campaigns. These were surprisingly swift: aside from the Southern Tang, which resisted the Song armies for fifteen months, other kingdoms were annexed within a few months, difficult terrain and formidable armies notwithstanding. By 978, the last of the southern kings had voluntarily yielded his position, facilitating the bloodless annexation of his state of Wu-Yue (907–978). A century-long fragmentation was over.
⁴⁵

The success of Song, just like that of most other unifying regimes before and after it, would never have been possible had most of the elites and the general populace of the vanquished states not accepted the annexation. When they did resist, military campaigns changed drastically. Thus it took the Song armies only two months to conquer the state of Later Shu (934–965) in Sichuan; but then widespread pillage and killings by the Song troops caused a massive rebellion, which took almost two years to quell. The Song founder, Zhao Kuangyin (927–976), learned the lesson; thenceforth he imposed strict discipline on his troops and rebellions never recurred. Evidently, inhabitants of southern states realized that swift surrender would be preferable to a protracted war of resistance that would deplete local resources and turn everyday life into a nightmare. Insofar as conquerors acted prudently, allowing the elites of the occupied states to join the ranks of national officialdom, and did not overburden the local population with unreasonable taxation, the acquiescence of the regional regime’s subjects could be taken for granted.

Another major factor that made reunification inevitable was the determination of northern leaders to pursue the course of full-scale integration of regional states into a newly unified empire. This determination was itself dictated by the realization that the preservation of autonomous loci of power would be detrimental both to future stability and to the overall legitimacy of the newly formed imperial regime. Hence, when approached by the Southern Tang envoy who pleaded for the retention of his state as Song’s faithful vassal, which would serve the Song as a son serves his father, Zhao Kuangyin pointedly remarked: “Would the so-called father and son maintain two separate households?” The question was demagogic (to be sure, separate familial households existed throughout Chinese history, even if never lauded); but the envoy understood the message: he “had nothing to offer in response and withdrew”
⁴⁶

The pattern depicted above recurred with only minor variations throughout most of Chinese history. The inherent understanding that political fragmentation must inevitably be reversed encouraged fierce competition among the would-be unifiers. While chief contenders exhausted

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themselves, minor players were warily watching, prepared to support the winner. Richard Mather summarizes these dynamics with regard to the minor states established by non-Chinese ethnic groups in northwestern China in the late fourth and early fifth centuries:

There is even something pathetic in the eagerness with which the vari-
ous non-Chinese groups would offer their allegiance [to succeeding
local potentates] always in the hope that at last a leader had appeared
who would bring unity and a measure of stability.
⁴⁷

In this atmosphere, reunification became an inevitable outcome of the period of disunion. As the multistate order was considered neither sustainable nor legitimate, separatist tactics were doomed, and indeed were never pursued. Each of the players knew well that “the great forces of All-under-Heaven after prolonged division must unify.”

LIMITS OF ALL-UNDER-HEAVEN

Up to this point I have been employing primarily Chinese traditional terminology, speaking of the unity not of “China” (a modern term, of course), but of “All-under-Heaven.” It is time now to ascertain which areas belonged to this “subcelestial” realm. Should the unification involve only the lands of China proper (i.e., roughly the territory under the control of Qin, sometimes referred to as “Nine Provinces,”
jiu zhou
),
⁴⁸
or those of Greater China, as formed under the Han and (briefly) Tang dynasties; or was the referent the entire known world? To reformulate the question politically: in which parts of the known world would the emperors tolerate the autonomy or outright independence of local potentates, and where would they consider such independence to impugn the emperor’s legitimacy? Changing answers to these questions determined to a great extent the empire’s foreign policy.

When discussing the intellectuals of the Warring States period, I emphasized several times their perceived universalism; and this claim may have irritated some readers. After all, it is often presumed that the Chinese were chauvinistic and “culturalistic,” if not outright nationalistic; that they despised outside peoples as “barbarians”; and that their view of the world was exclusive rather than inclusive.
⁴⁹
These suppositions, however, even if applicable to certain thinkers and intellectual currents during the imperial age, are largely invalid for the formative age of China’s intellectual and political tradition, the Warring States period. Although most contemporaneous texts treat alien tribesmen as morally and culturally impaired, they invariably share an optimistic view about their ultimate mutability. If—and when—the aliens of the four quarters were incorporated into the realm ruled by the sage monarch, their backward customs would be modified and they would join the civilized world. This

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all-inclusiveness became a touchstone of the sage’s rule; hence legendary sage rulers of the past were either hailed for having attained the submission of all “from within the Four Seas” or criticized for having failed to do so. In any case, the extension of the sage’s rule to the entirety of humankind was understood as a normative state of affairs.
⁵⁰

The optimism of the intellectuals of the Warring States period with regard to the ultimate attainability of truly universal unification derived not only from their idealism but from their good historical and limited geographical knowledge. With regard to the first, thinkers might have been aware of the relatively easy absorption of alien ethnic groups who lived on the fringes of or within the Zhou world during the Springs-andAutumns period. By the Warring States period, these groups—for example, the Rong and the Di, some of whom had repeatedly challenged the Zhou polities in the past—almost disappear from historical accounts, which suggests their overall amalgamation within the Zhou cultural
oikoumenê
. It was reasonable, therefore, to expect that similar processes would in due time encompass other neighboring tribes.

In addition, the universality of Chinese thinkers’ outlook may also have derived from their limited geographic horizons. Unlike the inhabitants of early Europe, the Near East, or South Asia, who were well aware of the existence of powerful civilizations elsewhere, thinkers and statesmen of the Warring States period apparently lacked any knowledge of civilization centers beyond the Zhou world. Even the nomadic pastoralists, whose presence shaped Chinese political, military, and cultural life during the imperial millennia, were marginal players in China proper prior to the imperial unification.
⁵¹
This explains why the thinkers could consider the creation of a state unifying the whole known world to be a feasible goal. This belief is duly reflected in the stele inscriptions erected by the First Emperor, in which he boasted:

Within the six directions, / this is the land of the Emperor. / To the west
it ranges to the flowing sands, / To the south it completely takes in
where the doors face north, / To the east it enfolds the eastern sea, / To
the north, it goes beyond Da Xia. / Wherever human traces reach, /
There is none who did not declare himself [the Emperor’s] subject.
⁵²