War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900-1795

Peter Lorge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134372850
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This comprehensive survey of Chinese military history is the only book in English to span the significant years from 900 – 1795. Peter Lorge questions current theories on China's relationship to war, and argues that war was the most important tool used by the Chinese in building and maintaining their empire.

Emphasizing the relationship between the military and politics, chapters are organised around specific military events and, Lorge argues, the strength of territorial claims and political impact of each dynasty were determined by their military capacity.

Ideal as a course adoption text for Asian military studies, this is also valuable for students of Chinese studies, military studies and Chinese history.

CHAPTER ONE

Unity through war, 900–1005

Alas! The rise and fall of states in the Five Dynasties was all due to soldiers, but their army regulations could not even be called such by later generations.

Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), poet, historian and statesman¹

On 27 December 901, Zhu Wen (852?–912), a former rebel commander, took control of the Tang dynasty capital at Chang’an.² The emperor was not in the city at the time, but that simply delayed matters. Zhu killed the emperor in 904 and set up his own short-lived puppet. By 907 Zhu threw off all pretense, ended the Tang dynasty and established his own Liang dynasty (conventionally referred to as the Later Liang to distinguish it from an earlier dynasty of the same name, like all of the other northern dynasties in the early tenth century). The Tang dynasty had been moribund politically and militarily for many years, and Zhu’s demonstration of naked power, while unpleasant to many Tang officials, cannot have been terribly surprising. Although emperor Daizong managed to rescue the dynasty from extinction during the Anlushan Rebellion (755–763), the slow reconstruction of imperial power was almost completely undone by the Huang Chao Rebellion (875–884).³ The last Tang emperor’s abdication was merely a very clear acknowledgement that the vast Tang empire no longer existed. Form had caught up to reality.

Zhu Wen’s Later Liang dynasty (907–923) did not simply replace the Tang imperial family in ruling the empire. By 907, there was no longer a unified empire to rule. Southern and western China broke up into a variety of smaller countries whose rulers claimed an assortment of titles up to and including emperor. To the north of what had been the Tang border, the Kitan had assembled their own empire, which stretched over the vast steppes and encompassed an extremely diverse collection of other nomadic tribesmen; with the official end of the Tang dynasty, the Kitan ruler also declared himself emperor. What the Later Liang dynasty had real control of was a more limited, but still quite large, territory stretching from the eastern seaboard to just north of Sichuan, and from the Huai River to the old Tang northern border. Perhaps most importantly, Zhu Wen controlled the cradle of Chinese civilization, that part of the Yellow River valley on the Central Plains of China where the capitals of every major imperial Chinese dynasty had been for over a thousand years. This proved, however, of no political or cultural value.

In a decisive break with the first half of imperial Chinese history, neither Luoyang nor Chang’an ever became the capital of a major dynasty again. Coupled with the destruction of the great aristocratic clans who had dominated Tang court life, this was a seismic shift in the political and cultural underpinnings of imperial Chinese society, at least at the elite level. Indeed, the centers of culture had shifted to the Shu court in Chengdu, Sichuan and the Southern Tang court in Nanchang, along with some of the other southern courts. After the Song court created an empire spanning northern and southern China, it had to form its imperial library and art collection from these southern and western courts. The shift of economic and cultural power to the south had begun during the Tang and has continued to this day. Military power remained in the north, however, now divorced from its previous connection with Chinese civilization.

Since the next large empire, the Song (960–1279), began from what, after several succeeding regimes, had started as the territory of the Liang, the political regimes that ruled that country are generally referred to as “dynasties,” (dai) in the Chinese histories, whereas the countries in the south and west which were eventually conquered during the Song formation are referred to as “kingdoms” (guo). The period from 907 to 960 is thus referred to as “the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms,” or just “the Five Dynasties.” This neat formulation, which tidies up a messy period with misleading simplicity, was put forward in the eleventh century by the Song statesman and moralist Ouyang Xiu (1007– 1072).⁴ Ouyang was a great prose stylist, but his historical writings served his didactic, explicitly Confucian, ends. Moreover, he was a Song court official and therefore driven to construct a legitimate transmission of the Mandate of Heaven from the Tang dynasty to the Song dynasty.⁵

Imperial ideology imposed certain organizing conventions on Chinese historians. Chief among these was the idea that a single regime should rule the Chinese empire. Deviations from this “norm” were unnatural periods of “disunion” between natural periods of unified empire. In these terms, the Five Dynasties was the last period of disunion in the final millennia of imperial Chinese history. Despite the fact that the Chinese empire was ruled by a clear succession of dynasties over the millennium from 907 to 1911, it is important to keep in the forefront of one’s mind that the idea that this is or was the natural form of Chinese government is just that – an idea. Chinese emperors and their officials were continually engaged in a process of affirming and reaffirming the normative idea of a unified Chinese empire. This imperial ideology was both a non-violent way to exert control over the empire and an excuse for the violent means necessary when moral suasion failed. Even in modern English usage historians usually continue this practice, perpetuating the notion that the Chinese imperial model is correct, and that the fragmented parts of the Tang empire were not legitimate countries but sub-imperial polities waiting to be reunited under a single government.

If we accept that the Chinese ecumene in the first half of the tenth century was populated by perhaps a dozen countries of different sizes, and that they were not just pieces of an imperial puzzle waiting to be reassembled, then it becomes much clearer that each one of these sovereign countries had to be conquered to build an empire like that of the Tang. The military initiative remained in the north for the most part, so our focus will remain there, but the southern countries were not inactive in military affairs.⁶

A late Tang rivalry⁷

Zhu Wen’s seizure of Luoyang and overthrow of the Tang dynasty did not end a rivalry with the Shatuo Türk leader Li Keyong (856–908), based at Taiyuan in northern Shanxi province, which had begun many years before. Both men had been appointed to important positions in 883 by the Tang court while it was putting down the final vestiges of the Huang Chao Rebellion (875–884). After cooperating to defeat Huang Chao, they fell out and Zhu Wen made a failed attempt to assassinate Li and his bodyguard in 884. The Tang court failed to act in response to this incident, losing credibility with both men and destroying its own power by allowing its two most critical commanders to oppose each other. Zhu Wen was then forced to deal with another rebellion by himself, which took three years to subdue and made him indispensable to the Tang court. He was also forced to build up his military strength, and develop an administrative system centered at his base at Bianzhou (Kaifeng). Bianzhou would later become the capital of the Song dynasty.

Despite Zhu’s successes in expanding his own power, he failed to destroy Li Keyong in Shanxi. Zhu failed to capture Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, in 901 and 902, even while controlling the southern part of the province. Taiyuan was a key strategic city that held out against repeated attacks launched from the Central Plains during the tenth century, finally falling only in 979. Li was further bolstered in 905 when he swore brotherhood with Abaoji, the Kitan leader. This was a new and threatening force that would play an increasingly active role in northern Chinese politics. Zhu Wen was therefore unable to create a stable military situation in which to start his own dynasty.

When Li Keyong pushed south in 907 Zhu was induced to end the Tang and set up his own dynasty. This was militarily and politically premature, but Zhu felt he had no choice. He had struggled to construct a reliable governing system, tinkering with the Tang system to a greater or lesser extent, without fully stabilizing the structure into a regular, orderly set of power relationships. It was not simply a question of disloyal or overly ambitious subordinates; the elite society that the Tang institutions had originally been based upon had been destroyed. The aristocracy of the early Tang, a dynasty particularly noted for its aristocratic character, was mostly destroyed during the Anlushan Rebellion (755–763). Nevertheless, remnants of those powerful clans continued to cling to power locally and within the central government, looking down upon the newly emerging, primarily military-based elites (though there was also a developing group of men who obtained their positions within the government based upon their learning). Without the distinction of pedigree or entrenched economic power, the new elites were less stable and harder to define. Zhu and his subordinates were almost unremittingly hostile to the old Tang aristocracy, often going out of their way to exterminate aristocrats. Seen in that light, Zhu’s founding of the Later Liang was a desperate attempt to create a political reality that would trickle down to the then amorphous and volatile elite. The resulting social and political stability would then relieve his internal military problems and enhance his ability to deal with external threats, like Li Keyong and his Kitan “brother.” The gambit failed.

Li Keyong died in 908, leaving command of his considerable forces in the extremely capable hands of his son Cunxu (885–926). Although Cunxu’s relationship with Abaoji was not as close as his father’s had been, he still proved formidable enough in his own right. Zhu Wen himself was assassinated by one of his sons on 18 July 912,⁸ who was in turn killed by a younger brother on 27 March 913.⁹ The rivalry between the Li family and the Zhu family continued without break into a second generation, however, reflecting the hardened geopolitical realities which had formed, or perhaps were formed by, their family conflict. Yet Cunxu still fought, as had his father, under the banner of Tang loyalism.

By 923 Cunxu’s relentless onslaught had overwhelmed the Liang armies, capturing city after city despite brave and spirited defenses. The Liang dynasty did not simply crumble at the first shock, it was progressively worn down by the superior generalship of Li Cunxu, and a converse lack of cohesion and command ability among the top Liang army leadership. As the military situation deteriorated, political cracks in the court widened, leading to recrimination and suspicion; the Liang emperor even ordered his older and younger brothers murdered to secure his throne from usurpation. By November Cunxu’s armies, led by his father’s adopted son Siyuan (867–933), were closing in on Kaifeng. Feeling that he could not personally surrender to Cunxu, and realizing his rule was at an end, the Liang emperor had a retainer kill him on 18 November 923. Li Siyuan entered Kaifeng the following day at dawn, and Li Cunxu followed later in the day.¹⁰

Considerable Liang forces remained in the field, but with the fall of the capital and the death of the emperor they began to surrender, in one instance an army some 50,000 strong. A few former Liang officials killed themselves with the fall of their dynasty and ruler, yet most did not. This pattern would repeat itself throughout the tenth century; war was a political tool, directed at the capital and ruler of a country not at the apparatus of government or its nonbelligerent officials. A particular regime was embodied in its ruler, who could maintain his position as long as he could maintain his capital. Any loyal forces outside of the line of an invading army’s march were irrelevant to the political contest.

Li Cunxu had declared the re-founding of the Tang dynasty on 13 May 923,¹¹ so his entrance into the Liang capital did not give him the opportunity to use a particularly significant place to create his new, or reestablished, dynasty. Cunxu did move his capital from Kaifeng to Luoyang, and adopted a more Tang-style system of government, even to the extent of employing some of the remaining aristocrats. For the same reasons that had stymied Zhu Wen, this also failed to create a stable governing system. Nevertheless, the Later Tang began as a powerful country, prompting some of the other countries in the south to officially submit to the Tang court. This was symbolic, since neither Cunxu nor his successors were really capable of projecting power very far south. The Later Tang court, for example, recognized the ruler of Chu as the prince of Chu in 927, though this did little more than establish diplomatic etiquette. The story was somewhat different in Sichuan, where Cunxu sent an army in 925 to overthrow the emperor of Shu. After the campaign was successfully concluded, the commanding general was left to run Sichuan. He later took advantage of the death of Cunxu’s successor, Li Siyuan, in 934 to declare himself emperor of a new Shu dynasty.

Li Siyuan’s son-in-law, Shi Jingtang (892–942), overthrew the Later Tang in 936 with the help of the Kitan. This marked the beginning of direct Kitan intervention in Central Plains politics. The Kitan had been regularly raiding into Hebei for over a decade, undermining government authority there and impoverishing the populace, but they were looking for a more formal cession of positive ownership of Hebei from the Tang court. A steppe cavalry army was almost incapable of simply marching in and holding territory after seizing it. This was the basic weakness of steppe warfare: raiding a sedentary society could deny it peace and pressure a court to make political and economic concessions, but a steppe army could not easily capture territory. Just before his own death, Abaoji tried and failed to extort the cession of Hebei from Li Siyuan’s envoy. Despite his frequent raids, he still clearly needed Hebei given to him by treaty, since he could not take it by force.

Steppe involvement in the politics of the Chinese Central Plains was obviously not anomalous in the tenth century. Direct Kitan intervention to help one Shatuo Türk leader overthrow another Shatuo Türk leader, thus overturning one “Chinese” dynasty and replacing it with another, seems not to fit the ideal conventions of Chinese historiography, but it was accommodated without undue difficulty. Given that the glorious Tang dynasty itself had been founded by a part Türkic family that maintained strong ties to steppe culture, this is less surprising. As long as the machinery of the central government was run on a Chinese system, at least minimally in literary Chinese, then a historical rupture was avoidable, even if the rulers themselves primarily spoke another language. Chinese history proved more resilient in the tenth century than any individual dynasty, though a severe rupture was not impossible. Shatuo Türk rulers frequently proved insensitive to the orientations of either Chinese imperial or written culture.

Shi Jingtang immediately paid off his debt to the Kitan for helping him found his Later Jin dynasty (936–947) by ceding the territory around modern Beijing, which had been the Lulong and Fanyang defense commands, to the Kitan emperor. This piece of territory, which would later be called the Sixteen Prefectures, contained the strategic north–south passes controlling travel between the steppe and the open plains of Hebei. Once through these passes, a steppe army had an almost unobstructed route to the Yellow River. Shi Jingtang was quite clear that this cession of territory rendered his dynasty vulnerable to his Kitan patrons, but he had little choice in the matter. He could not have known how significant the Sixteen Prefectures would become militarily, politically, diplomatically and historiographically long after his own dynasty had fallen.

Shi’s successor, Chonggui (914–947), appears to have been less clear on the significance of the Sixteen Prefectures than his uncle and expelled the Kitan from his court shortly after taking the throne. The Kitan response was swift and decisive: in 946 a massive army invaded through Shanxi, captured Kaifeng in 947, and overthrew the Later Jin. This marked the high point of Kitan power in the Central Plains; having taken Kaifeng, the Kitan emperor declared his own dynasty, changing his empire’s name from Kitan to Liao. He may well have imagined that he could simply take over the Later Jin, and add it to his vast territory. This proved militarily impossible however. His army was badly overextended, and not only had his army left a trail of destruction behind it, the population of Hebei was already hostile after years of Kitan raids.

When the Shatuo Türk leader in Taiyuan, Liu Zhiyuan (895–948), decided to oppose the Kitan, now Liao, emperor, thus cutting off his original line of retreat, the Liao emperor had no choice but to abandon Kaifeng, taking as much loot with him as possible. This was the last time that the Kitan ever tried to capture the Central Plains, extend their direct power into what was unequivocally Chinese territory, or even destroy a Central Plains country.¹² The simple military truth was that the Liao army was not capable of taking and holding Hebei, let alone the Central Plains. Northern China was highly militarized and increasingly fragmented, making it difficult sim...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Unity through war, 900–1005
• Chapter Two: Empires at peace, empires at war, 1005–1142
• Chapter Three: Three empires and a century of war, 1142–1272
• Chapter Four: A Chinese empire, 1272–1355?
• Chapter Five: The Chinese conquest dynasty, 1355–1435
• Chapter Six: The politics of imperial collapse, 1435–1610
• Chapter Seven: A people created for war, 1610–1683
• Chapter Eight: The Old Man of Ten Complete Military Victories, 1684–1795
• Conclusion