A History of China, Wolfram Eberhard [ebook offline txt] 📗

this way to gain efficient control of China; Shih Lo rejected Chinese methods, and held to the old warrior-nomad tradition, making raids with the aid of nomad fighters. He did not contemplate holding the territories of central and southern China which he had conquered; he withdrew, and in the two years 314-315 he contented himself with bringing considerable expanses in north-eastern China, especially territories of the Hsien-pi, under his direct rule, as a base for further raids. Many Huns in Liu Ts'ung's dominion found Shih Lo's method of rule more to their taste than living in a state ruled by officials, and they went over to Shih Lo and joined him in breaking entirely with Liu Ts'ung. There was a further motive for this: in states founded by nomads, with a federation of tribes as their basis, the personal qualities of the ruler played an important part. The chiefs of the various tribes would not give unqualified allegiance to the son of a dead ruler unless the son was a strong personality or gave promise of becoming one. Failing that, there would be independence movements. Liu Ts'ung did not possess the indisputable charisma of his predecessor Liu Yüan; and the Huns looked with contempt on his court splendour, which could only have been justified if he had conquered all China. Liu Ts'ung had no such ambition; nor had his successor Liu Yao (319-329), who gave the Hun Han dynasty retroactively, from its start with Liu Yüan, the new name of "Earlier Chao dynasty" (304-329). Many tribes then went over to Shih Lo, and the remainder of Liu Yao's empire was reduced to a precarious existence. In 329 the whole of it was annexed by Shih Lo.

Although Shih Lo had long been much more powerful than the emperors of the "Earlier Chao dynasty", until their removal he had not ventured to assume the title of emperor. The reason for this seems to have lain in the conceptions of nobility held by the Turkish peoples in general and the Huns in particular, according to which only those could become shan-yü (or, later, emperor) who could show descent from the Tu-ku tribe the rightful shan-yü stock. In accordance with this conception, all later Hun dynasties deliberately disowned Shih Lo. For Shih Lo, after his destruction of Liu Yao, no longer hesitated: ex-slave as he was, and descended from one of the non-noble stocks of the Huns, he made himself emperor of the "Later Chao dynasty" (329-352).

Shih Lo was a forceful army commander, but he was a man without statesmanship, and without the culture of his day. He had no Chinese education; he hated the Chinese and would have been glad to make north China a grazing ground for his nomad tribes of Huns. Accordingly he had no desire to rule all China. The part already subjugated, embracing the whole of north China with the exception of the present province of Kansu, sufficed for his purpose.

The governor of that province was a loyal subject of the Chinese Chin dynasty, a man famous for his good administration, and himself a Chinese. After the execution of the Chin emperor Huai Ti by the Huns in 313, he regarded himself as no longer bound to the central government; he made himself independent and founded the "Earlier Liang dynasty", which was to last until 376. This mainly Chinese realm was not very large, although it had admitted a broad stream of Chinese emigrants from the dissolving Chin empire; but economically the Liang realm was very prosperous, so that it was able to extend its influence as far as Turkestan. During the earlier struggles Turkestan had been virtually in isolation, but now new contacts began to be established. Many traders from Turkestan set up branches in Liang. In the capital there were whole quarters inhabited only by aliens from western and eastern Turkestan and from India. With the traders came Buddhist monks; trade and Buddhism seemed to be closely associated everywhere. In the trading centres monasteries were installed in the form of blocks of houses within strong walls that successfully resisted many an attack. Consequently the Buddhists were able to serve as bankers for the merchants, who deposited their money in the monasteries, which made a charge for its custody; the merchants also warehoused their goods in the monasteries. Sometimes the process was reversed, a trade centre being formed around an existing monastery. In this case the monastery also served as a hostel for the merchants. Economically this Chinese state in Kansu was much more like a Turkestan city state that lived by commerce than the agrarian states of the Far East, although agriculture was also pursued under the Earlier Liang.

From this trip to the remote west we will return first to the Hun capital. From 329 onward Shih Lo possessed a wide empire, but an unstable one. He himself felt at all times insecure, because the Huns regarded him, on account of his humble origin, as a "revolutionary". He exterminated every member of the Liu family, that is to say the old shan-yü family, of whom he could get hold, in order to remove any possible pretender to the throne; but he could not count on the loyalty of the Hun and other Turkish tribes under his rule. During this period not a few Huns went over to the small realm of the Toba; other Hun tribes withdrew entirely from the political scene and lived with their herds as nomad tribes in Shansi and in the Ordos region. The general insecurity undermined the strength of Shih Lo's empire. He died in 333, and there came to the throne, after a short interregnum, another personality of a certain greatness, Shih Hu (334-349). He transferred the capital to the city of Yeh, in northern Honan, where the rulers of the Wei dynasty had reigned. There are many accounts of the magnificence of the court of Yeh. Foreigners, especially Buddhist monks, played a greater part there than Chinese. On the one hand, it was not easy for Shih Hu to gain the active support of the educated Chinese gentry after the murders of Shih Lo and, on the other hand, Shih Hu seems to have understood that foreigners without family and without other relations to the native population, but with special skills, are the most reliable and loyal servants of a ruler. Indeed, his administration seems to have been good, but the regime remained completely parasitic, with no support of the masses or the gentry. After Shih Hu's death there were fearful combats between his sons; ultimately a member of an entirely different family of Hun origin seized power, but was destroyed in 352 by the Hsien-pi, bringing to an end the Later Chao dynasty.

2 Earlier Yen dynasty in the north-east (proto-Mongol; 352-370), and the Earlier Ch'in dynasty in all north China (Tibetan; 351-394)

In the north, proto-Mongol Hsien-pi tribes had again made themselves independent; in the past they had been subjects of Liu Yüan and then of Shih Lo. A man belonging to one of these tribes, the tribe of the Mu-jung, became the leader of a league of tribes, and in 337 founded the state of Yen. This proto-Mongol state of the Mu-jung, which the historians call the "Earlier Yen" state, conquered parts of southern Manchuria and also the state of Kao-li in Korea, and there began then an immigration of Hsien-pi into Korea, which became noticeable at a later date. The conquest of Korea, which was still, as in the past, a Japanese market and was very wealthy, enormously strengthened the state of Yen. Not until a little later, when Japan's trade relations were diverted to central China, did Korea's importance begin to diminish. Although this "Earlier Yen dynasty" of the Mu-jung officially entered on the heritage of the Huns, and its regime was therefore dated only from 352 (until 370), it failed either to subjugate the whole realm of the "Later Chao" or effectively to strengthen the state it had acquired. This old Hun territory had suffered economically from the anti-agrarian nomad tendency of the last of the Hun emperors; and unremunerative wars against the Chinese in the south had done nothing to improve its position. In addition to this, the realm of the Toba was dangerously gaining strength on the flank of the new empire. But the most dangerous enemy was in the west, on former Hun soil, in the province of Shensi—Tibetans, who finally came forward once more with claims to dominance. These were Tibetans of the P'u family, which later changed its name to Fu. The head of the family had worked his way up as a leader of Tibetan auxiliaries under the "Later Chao", gaining more and more power and following. When under that dynasty the death of Shih Hu marked the beginning of general dissolution, he gathered his Tibetans around him in the west, declared himself independent of the Huns, and made himself emperor of the "Earlier Ch'in dynasty" (351-394). He died in 355, and was followed after a short interregnum by Fu Chien (357-385), who was unquestionably one of the most important figures of the fourth century. This Tibetan empire ultimately defeated the "Earlier Yen dynasty" and annexed the realm of the Mu-jung. Thus the Mu-jung Hsien-pi came under the dominion of the Tibetans; they were distributed among a number of places as garrisons of mounted troops.

The empire of the Tibetans was organized quite differently from the empires of the Huns and the Hsien-pi tribes. The Tibetan organization was purely military and had nothing to do with tribal structure. This had its advantages, for the leader of such a formation had no need to take account of tribal chieftains; he was answerable to no one and possessed considerable personal power. Nor was there any need for him to be of noble rank or descended from an old family. The Tibetan ruler Fu Chien organized all his troops, including the non-Tibetans, on this system, without regard to tribal membership.

Fu Chien's state showed another innovation: the armies of the Huns and the Hsien-pi had consisted entirely of cavalry, for the nomads of the north were, of course, horsemen; to fight on foot was in their eyes not only contrary to custom but contemptible. So long as a state consisted only of a league of tribes, it was simply out of the question to transform part of the army into infantry. Fu Chien, however, with his military organization that paid no attention to the tribal element, created an infantry in addition to the great cavalry units, recruiting for it large numbers of Chinese. The infantry proved extremely valuable, especially in the fighting in the plains of north China and in laying siege to fortified towns. Fu Chien thus very quickly achieved military predominance over the neighbouring states. As we have seen already, he annexed the "Earlier Yen" realm of the proto-Mongols (370), but he also annihilated the Chinese "Earlier Liang" realm (376) and in the same year the small Turkish Toba realm. This made him supreme over all north China and stronger than any alien ruler before him. He had in his possession both the ancient capitals, Ch'ang-an and Loyang; the whole of the rich agricultural regions of north China belonged to him; he also controlled the routes to Turkestan. He himself had a Chinese education, and he attracted Chinese to his court; he protected the Buddhists; and he tried in every way to make the whole country culturally Chinese. As soon as Fu Chien had all north China in his power, as Liu Yüan and his Huns had done before him, he resolved, like Liu Yüan, to make every effort to gain the mastery over all China, to become emperor of China. Liu Yüan's successors had not had the capacity for which such a venture called; Fu Chien was to fail in it for other reasons. Yet, from a military point of view, his chances were not bad. He had far more soldiers under his command than the Chinese "Eastern Chin dynasty" which ruled the south, and his troops were undoubtedly better. In the time of the founder of the Tibetan dynasty the southern empire had been utterly defeated by his troops (354), and the south Chinese were no stronger now.

Against them the north had these assets: the possession of the best northern tillage, the control of the trade routes, and "Chinese" culture and administration. At the time, however, these represented only potentialities and not tangible realities. It would have taken ten to twenty years to restore the capacities of the north after its devastation in many wars, to reorganize commerce, and to set up a really reliable administration, and thus to interlock the various elements and consolidate the various tribes. But as early as 383 Fu Chien started his great campaign against the south, with an army of something like a million men. At first the advance went well. The horsemen from the north, however, were men of the mountain