Read The Everlasting Empire Online

Authors: Yuri Pines

Tags: #General, #History, #Ancient, #Political Science, #Asia, #History & Theory, #China

The Everlasting Empire (8 page)

BOOK: The Everlasting Empire
2.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

This piece of political propaganda might in this specific case have reflected the Emperor’s genuine belief that the entire world had indeed been unified;
53
yet this belief was shattered a few years after the stele was erected. Having decided to expand his boundaries farther toward the barely known, the First Emperor sent his armies southward and northward. In the latter direction, Qin repulsed the nomadic Xiongnu tribes, who theretofore had been of limited significance in Chinese politics. Chinese expansion northward had already begun in the Warring States period, when nomads were gradually pushed into ever more arid areas.

-33-

Now, as the victorious Qin armies occupied the strategically important Ordos area, driving the Xiongnu further to the north, the emperor decided that this would be the limit for further expansion and ordered the construction of a lengthy wall to protect his new lands. This wall, which joined earlier walls built by the Warring States on their northern frontier, was erected shortly after the demolition of numerous internal walls that marked the boundaries of the former Warring States. The act was symbolic: the First Emperor distinguished in the most visible way China proper, in which no internal walls would be tolerated, from the outside world, which was to remain beyond Chinese control. The limits to Allunder-Heaven had been set.
54

The encounter with the nomads became the single most significant event in the political, cultural, and ethnic history of the Chinese. Not a single ethnic group on China’s frontiers had a comparable impact on China’s life, or was able to challenge Chinese political culture as the nomads did. This challenge was threefold. First, the arid steppe zone was basically unconquerable and ungovernable, and its nomadic and seminomadic dwellers remained largely inassimilable to the sedentary, Chinese, ways of life. Second, the nomads swiftly established their independent tribal confederations, the very existence of which undermined the notion of the singularity and universality of the Chinese emperors’ rule. Third, the nomads gradually became involved in Chinese domestic affairs, eventually conquering parts of China and much later the whole of the country. As we shall see in the next section, in this latter endeavor, the nomadic rulers actually benefited from China’s pervasive adherence to the principle of political unity.
55

China’s nomadic nightmare began immediately after the collapse of the Qin dynasty. The recently organized Xiongnu tribal confederation, the very emergence of which may have been a response to Qin’s northward expansion, reversed the nomads’ fortunes. The Xiongnu took advantage of China’s internal turmoil and reoccupied much of the territory they had lost, inflicting in the process heavy blows on the Han imperial armies. Frustrated, the Han emperors recognized the Xiongnu as a “rival state” (
di guo
), that is, China’s equal; established marriage alliance with the Xiongnu leader, the
chanyu;
and bestowed lavish gifts on him to prevent further clashes. Unfortunately for China and the nomads, this “peace of relatives” (
he qin
) proved unsustainable: the unruly tribesmen repeatedly raided the Chinese frontiers, resulting in renewed military tension, renegotiation of the treaties, and a steady increase in the value of China’s “gifts” to the Xiongnu. This mode of relations was humiliating to the Han and indicative of the weakness of its ruling house. Not surprisingly, a leading early Han thinker, Jia Yi, complained that appeasing the Xiongnu meant “letting legs be up, and the head—down.”
56
Jia Yi and many

-34-

other Han courtiers demanded decisive change in relationships with the aliens to demonstrate the superiority of the Son of Heaven.
57

Han Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE), the single most energetic Han ruler, reversed the tide once again. His armies inflicted a series of blows on the nomads, dramatically expanding the Han realm to an extent that dwarfed even the Qin empire. Emperor Wu’s exceptionally vigorous expansion appears to have been driven, among other considerations, by his peculiar type of imperial ideology. A previously marginal text, the
Gongyang
commentary on the canonical
Springs and Autumns Annals
, was suddenly elevated in Emperor Wu’s court to almost sacral status; and insofar as this text advocated the eventual incorporation of the aliens into the realm of the True Monarch, it provided Emperor Wu’s expansionist endeavors with an excellent ideological excuse.
58
Indeed, only a very few Chinese emperors could match Emperor Wu’s enthusiasm for military expeditions to the remotest corners of the realm: from North Korea to Yunnan and from the Ferghana valley to Hainan Island. Not only were the Xiongnu repulsed; scores of smaller polities were annexed or subjugated.

Ideology and enthusiasm aside, Emperor Wu, his aides, and his successors eventually realized that incorporating remote territories within the empire would be economically unfeasible and militarily unsustainable. The solution, which had a lasting impact on China’s ties with its neighbors, was to focus on the ritualistic facade of the Chinese emperor’s superiority. The so-called tribute system, which had been devised to maintain diplomatic and commercial ties with alien polities, turned into an important asset for preserving the image (sometimes entirely fictitious) of China’s supreme position vis-à-vis the foreign states, while simultaneously allowing the aliens to maintain domestic autonomy, if not outright independence. Through a combination of economic enticement, military intimidation, and skillful diplomacy, the Han dynasty and most of its heirs succeeded in preserving the vision of the Son of Heaven’s unrivaled position at the apex of the universal ritual pyramid without inciting much resentment in foreign leaders. Even the proud Xiongnu, who engaged the Han in a lasting conflict for more than eighty years, had finally succumbed to Han demands, recognizing its superiority in 53 BCE. Once again, it was possible to speak of the Chinese emperor as a “universal” monarch.
59
Indeed, not just the Han but incomparably weaker dynasties, the rule of which was limited to a small portion of China proper, such as the aforementioned Southern Tang, could at times utilize tribute relations to maintain their self-image as a “universal” dynasty, which “possesses the four quarters” and “leads Chinese and barbarians” alike.
60

Throughout subsequent Chinese history, one can discern a constant tension between what Wang Gungwu terms the rhetoric of the inclusiveness of the emperor’s rule and of China’s superiority over alien polities,
61

-35-

and that of tacit—and yet quite recognizable—division between the “internal” realm, where the power of the emperor had to be comprehensive, and the “external” one, where compromises were tolerable. The boundaries between the “internal” and the “external” realms constantly fluctuated, reflecting the shifting balance of power between China and its neighbors, and the changing demographic and cultural composition of the extensive frontiers of China proper. At times, such as during the peak of territorial expansion under the Tang dynasty, intermediate areas under military rule could be established, expanding well into the Central Asia heartland, while the “external” realm was defined as an area of “loose rein” (
jimi
), where the superiority of the Chinese monarch remained primarily symbolic. At times of weakness, the designation “external” could be applied not only to border areas once under Chinese control, but even—scandalously—to the Chinese heartland itself, the Yellow River valley, ruled by the Jurchens since 1127.
62
Regions once rendered “external” could be firmly reincorporated into “China proper,” as happened to the Gansu and Yunnan Provinces under the Ming dynasty, while other areas could move in the opposite direction, as happened to North Vietnam, once an imperial province, which turned into an “external subject.”

Most Chinese dynasties refrained from active attempts to expand the “internal” areas in which the real unity was maintained; it was cheaper to preserve the nominal “universality” of the monarch’s rule, as represented primarily in the tribute system, and not to attempt the military and administrative incorporation of alien lands and their hostile populations. Nonetheless, the desire for real mega-unification remained latently observable throughout imperial history. Not incidentally, some of China’s nomadic rulers, whose dynasties fared much better than native ones in projecting their rule beyond China proper, considered this success to be one of the major foundations of their dynasty’s legitimacy. Thus the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723–1735) of theManchu Qing dynasty proudly proclaimed:

Unity of the Central Lands [China proper] began with Qin; unity be-
yond the border passes began with [the Mongol] Yuan [1271–1368],
and peaked under our dynasty. Never before were Chinese and foreign-
ers one family and the country so expansive as under our dynasty!
63

These words, pronounced in the midst of bitter polemics with a dissenting Chinese subject over the legitimacy of Manchu rule, are revealing. The Yongzheng Emperor was not a warmonger; actually at the beginning of his career he contemplated withdrawal from some of the territories acquired under his father, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661–1722), most notably Tibet.
64
Yet he might have apprehended that the remarkable territo

-36-

rial expansion of the Qing and their incorporation of the alien periphery into the empire proper would be hailed by many Chinese subjects as a hallmark of Qing’s success. These sentiments were echoed by the Yongzheng Emperor’s son, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795), who appealed to the “greatness of All-under-Heaven” to silence critical voices of those advisers, who feared that the Qing ongoing expansion would overstretch its human and material resources.
65
Insofar as the emperors’ expectations that appeals to universality would be a convincing argument in domestic debates were correct (and we have no reasons to assume otherwise), they indicate that a latent desire for attaining truly universal unification remained intact—or was reproduced—a full two millennia after the First Emperor ordered the construction of the Great Wall, which was supposed to set limits to “All-under-Heaven.”

 

GREAT UNITY UNDER NOMADIC RULE

The Yongzheng Emperor’s invocation of the “Great Unity” ideal to bolster the legitimacy of his “alien” dynasty brings us to the last point of the present discussion: the impact of the ideal of unified rule on China’s nomadic rulers. What was the degree of their commitment to the unification of All-under-Heaven, and how did this commitment (or the lack thereof) influence their position vis-à-vis their Chinese subjects? The answer to this question, I hope, will help elucidate a rarely noticed aspect of the complex process of the nomads’ adaptation to Chinese political culture.

The nomadic and seminomadic neighbors of China conquered significant portions of China proper, including its historical heartland in the Yellow River and Wei River basins in the early fourth century CE, ushering in the period of “Northern and Southern dynasties” (318–589). The nomads were drawn into China’s internal affairs almost incidentally; but once in charge of northern China, the conquerors had to adapt themselves to their new role as rulers of sedentary society.
66
This adaptation was a multifaceted process that cannot be discussed here in full; but it is important to note that the nomads did not mechanically copy Chinese practices but rather adjusted them to the peculiarities of their native society and to their own political culture. This complexity is duly observable in their employment of the idea of unified rule.

The nomads had their own concept of Great Unity: they believed that the high god of the steppe, Heaven/Tengri, confers the right to rule on a single charismatic clan. This notion had already emerged vividly in the Xiongnu empire, and it surely influenced the nomadic rulers of China in their endorsement of the Chinese idea of unified rule. However, ostensible similarities notwithstanding, the nomads’ idea of unity differed from that of the Chinese in three marked respects. First, Tengri did not bestow his

-37-

mandate on every generation; hence, in contrast to the Chinese case, the unity of the pastoralists was not conceived of as a natural state of affairs but rather as a peculiar situation attainable only under truly charismatic leaders or in times of crisis; political fragmentation was therefore a tolerable situation. Second, demographic and economic peculiarities of the pastoral economy precluded the establishment of a tightly centralized Chinese-style empire in the steppe; hence the nomads’ “unity” was intrinsically lax and, with a few exceptions, tolerant of a much greater degree of regional autonomy than was acceptable in China proper. Third, for most nomadic rulers (Mongols are a notable exception) ruling “Allunder-Heaven” actually meant ruling “the felt tent dwellers,” that is, the steppe world only. Therefore they were usually satisfied with establishing their rule over the pastoralists but did not seek to rule sedentary China, and their notion of unity was intrinsically more limited than was the Chinese ideal.
67

This background explains why the nomadic rulers of the northern dynasties in the fourth-sixth centuries did not wholeheartedly commit themselves to the goal of unification, despite occasional proclamations of their intention to unify the realm. Their hesitation derived in part from practical considerations: nomadic cavalryman could not easily penetrate the Yangzi barrier, and there were fears that a military adventure in the south would benefit enemies in the north. Yet it is also likely that in the eyes of many northern leaders, southern China was not supposed to be conquered at all: the coexistence of northern and southern regimes might have been seen as a continuation of the bifurcation of power between the steppe and China proper, like that, for example, between the Han and the Xiongnu. Thus, despite their obvious military superiority, northern leaders did not allocate sufficient resources to conquer the south. It may be not incidental, therefore, that the two most serious efforts to attain true unification under the Northern Dynasties occurred under the rule of those leaders who were most deeply committed to Chinese political culture, namely, Fu Jian (338–385, r. 357–385) of the Former Qin (350–394) and Emperor Xiaowen (r. 471–499) of the Northern Wei (386–534). Eventually, unification was attained only when the late sixth-century Sino-nomadic leaders of northwestern China, who combined the military skills of the nomads with the Chinese determination to achieve unity, finally allocated sufficient resources to subdue the South and put an end to centuries of division.
68

BOOK: The Everlasting Empire
2.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk
Training Tess by Sabrina York
Wolf Pack by Crissy Smith
Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
Genesis (Extinction Book 1) by Nading, Miranda
You Wish by Mandy Hubbard
Chastity's Chance by Daniels, Daiza