The History of China - #51 - 16K 4: Infighting

Episode Date: December 28, 2014

South of the Huai River, The Eastern Jin discover that a house divided against itself cannot long stand. Meanwhile in the north, the barbarian kings have turned on each other with the Xiongnu emperor of Han Zhao squaring off against the Jie Prince of Later Zhao. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War

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Episode 49, Infighting Last time, we left Emperor Ming of Jin on the high note of having successfully thrown off the domination and almost certainly would-be usurpation of the warlord Wang Dun in 324. This would, I mentioned, wind up being his one and only high note, however, since Ming would take ill and die the very next year at only 26 years old. As his health declined over the course of 325, he prepared for the inevitable, and sought to ensure the security of his eldest son and heir, the Crown Prince Sima Yan's succession. The problem was that, well, the Crown Prince was a four-year-old, and absolutely everyone surrounding and ostensibly protecting and teaching the soon-to-be toddler monarch had or would soon develop their own plans to exploit that fact. And it's here that we'll pick back up today, with the formal coronation of Emperor Cheng of Jin, the Successful.

When we talk about the early reign of Emperor Cheng, what I'm sure we all understand by now is that we're really talking about whoever the regent happens to be at the time. Now especially during such periods as the War of Eight Princes, that whole regency question is one enormous confusing mess. But fortunately, we get off fairly easy with Cheng, because his regent is also his mother, Empress Dowager Yu. And as has so often been the case in Chinese imperial politics, the highest governmental offices typically have gone to the Empress Dowager's family, in this case her brother, the Marquis of Duting, Yu Liang.

Yu Liang had been in imperial service since he was 15, when he declined an imperial invitation to join the regent-prince of Donghai's staff in Luoyang back in 304. He was known not only as the son of the Kuaiji prefectural governor, but as a young man greatly skilled in both rhetoric and study of Taoist philosophy, such as those of Lao Tzu. Following the destruction of Jin dynasty power in the north and Sima Re establishing the imperial line again at Nanjing, he'd been impressed by Yu Liang's extensive skill set and solemn demeanor, and took him into his own staff, as well as arranging Yu's sister to be married to Re's son, the eventual Emperor Ming. He served as a trusted advisor and strategist

under the Jin emperors Yuan and Ming, and was instrumental in the overthrow of the warlord Wang Dun. Now, at age 36, Yuliang became in effect the chief executive officer of the regent Empress Yu, carrying out all facets of government in his nephew's name. The outgoing prime minister, Wang Dao, had been rather lenient, one might even say lax, in his enforcement of imperial policy, which had, as a matter of course, Wang Dao, had been rather lenient, one might even say lax, in his enforcement of imperial policy, which had, as a matter of course, led to widespread, if at least limited in scope, corruption and graft. Yu Liang planned to clean things up, and to that end, cinched down on legal enforcement. Now it's never going to be great for your public image when

you're trying to clamp down on illegal activity, when the last guy was well known for just letting such things slide. But as it turns out, Yu really didn't do himself many favors in his one-man war on corruption, and made more than a couple of critical mistakes. His abrupt policy shift, of course, alienated those who had based much of their livelihoods on skirting the gray and not-so-gray areas of the laws, which included no small number of court officials themselves. But the real clear break one can point to as the moment he crossed over a line was when Yuliang, acting on what seems to have been little more than a hunch, accused the late Emperor Ming's step-uncle as well as two imperial prince-brothers, the Prince of Nandun and Shi Yang, respectively, of treason against the throne.

Whether or not the accusation was false or genuine, Yu Liang seems to have produced little if any evidence to back his accusations up, and yet declared the three guilty anyway. As punishment, the step-uncle was banished, the Prince of Shi Yang stripped of his titles and nobility, and the Prince of Nandun summarily executed. It is, of course course impossible to know for certain what Yu Liang's true motivations were for such rash action.

It's entirely possible that he legitimately did sense a clear and present danger to he, his sister, and his nephew's position and acted swiftly. Or it could have been a more personal motivation. Certainly, however, the intended outcome would not have been what actually happened, which was to irreparably damage his relationship with the larger imperial court and seemingly the citizenry as a whole. Though admittedly, given the style and content of Chinese historical documents, it's notoriously difficult, bordering on impossible, to determine the mood of the average citizen short of an outright peasant revolt.

Regardless, one of the nice bonuses of absolute power, at least for those that hold it, is not having to concern oneself with trivial little things like public opinion. So far from losing his job or facing any direct repercussion, Yuliang soldiered right on, dutifully scouring the landscape for more potential enemies to the throne. And he'd find one, in the person of General Su Jun. So let's talk a little bit about this Su Jun fellow. He'd been born to nobility. His father, the Prime Minister of the Duke of Anle, who you'll get bonus points on

the test for remembering had been given long ago to the last defeated Emperor of Shu Han some forty years prior. Nevertheless, when Jin authority had collapsed in the north, Su Jun had taken what men and material he could gather and staked out a defensible position on the Shandong Peninsula of northeast China, which juts out into the sea towards the Korean Peninsula. Ensconced therein, he served as the de facto leader of the Shandong Self-Defense League against those filthy barbarian tribes pretending to the imperial throne. This small but resolute enclave of defenders drew the attention of General Cao Ni, who

sought to get Su Jun and his men to join up with him, beginning in 319. But General Cao turned out to be such a flip-flopper, one day pledging service to Jin, then next to Han Zhao, then back to Jin, then Han Zhao again, that Su Jun was having none of it, and refused the commission. Apparently of a mind that if he couldn't have the Shandong Self-Defense Force, no one could, General Cao resolved to destroy Su Jun and his followers, prompting the band to abandon their base in Shandong altogether and relocate south to the territories still under solid Jin dynastic control.

Emperor Yuan had been quite impressed by this band of freedom fighters. Not only had this ragtag band of what amounted to armed civilians maintained themselves as a cohesive fighting force against barbarian forces that had utterly crushed even the most professional military divisions, but they traveled hundreds of miles across hostile territory in a show of continued devotion to Jin, when at pretty much any time they could have thrown down their weapons and made the far easier choice to go over to the other side. As a reward for this display of loyalty and bravery, Su Jun was declared a prefectural governor. Su Jun would further distinguish himself by riding to Emperor Ming's aid

to decisively defeat Wang Duan's advance on Nanjing in 324, and was thereafter gifted an even larger and more prestigious prefectural governorship. And it was there, in Li Yang prefecture, that Su Jun would begin sowing the seeds of conflict with the soon-to-be Prime Minister Yu Liang. As governor, Su Jun was also the military commander of his prefecture, and he began to expand that force as much as possible. And he was none too picky about who could join up, either. He took all types,

not just his elite cadre of some 10,000 battle-hardened commandos, but also the dregs of society, bandits, thieves, ruffians, the more the merrier. As such, he increasingly showed up on Yu Liang's radar of potential threats. By 327, Yu was convinced that Su Jun had to be stripped of his military command altogether and by any means necessary. The most effective method of getting someone out of a dangerously powerful position, however,

might not be what you'd expect. Rather than demotion or censure, Yu Liang tried the opposite, declaring that Su Jun was to be given a great promotion, from mere prefectural governor to the imperial minister of agriculture. Wow, congratulations, Su Jun! The only catch was that imperial ministers had no military command, a detail that Su Jun did not fail to notice. Frustratingly for Yu Liang, Su Jun declined this great honor and instead requested that if the throne wished to honor him, it could do so by transferring him to another prefectural governorship instead. Surely he was not cut out for a ministry post.

When word of Su's refusal reached Yu Liang, he realized that his plan had backfired. And if Su Jun wasn't going to be lured by a carrot, then there was no choice but to use the stick. Yuliang mobilized his personal army and demanded that Su Jun surrender himself or be considered in rebellion against the emperor. In response, Su is recorded to have penned the reply, quote, 逃贼外人,远近聪明,至于内服,是非所看, end quote, which is a highly poetic phrase that I can only unpoetically explain his meaning in effect. The state of affairs within the court are so out of order, to not oppose such violations would put me in the wrong as well.

This, everyone can see. Or, more simply, if fighting Yuliang is wrong, I don't want to be right. And with that, he mobilized for the capital Nanjing, brigand army at his back. Yuliang was confident of victory. I mean, seriously, he had the imperial army, while Sujin was fielding what, whoever he dug up out of the drunk tank last night? So confident that he apparently waved off reinforcements that were being offered by loyal provincial governors, and he marched out to crush this rabble massed under their treasonous banner once and for all. You can imagine his surprise then, when far from rolling over, Su Jun's army

repeatedly forced Yuliang to defeat and retreat, capturing city after city and advancing disconcertingly swiftly on the capital itself. Even the mustered defenses of Nanjing fell swiftly before Su Jun's advance, and upon capturing the city, the army of thieves and bandits did what thieves and bandits do. They sacked it. Any wealth that wasn't bolted down was carried off from commoner and official alike, up to and including the clothes off of people's backs. Highborn servants of the Empress Dowager were likewise carted off, and the Empress Dowager herself is written to have suffered such

a humiliation at the hands of Su Jun that she later committed suicide. It is not, however, specified what that humiliation entailed, so we're left to our imaginations there. Su Jun had the capital, had the emperor, and had the victorious army, so game over, right? Not quite. Yu Liang was down but not out, and now sought out the help he had previously waved off in that puff of ill-conceived bravado. Yu bolstered his own decimated ranks with the forces of two allied generals and was further aided from the east by loyalist prefectures. Nevertheless, in spite of his renewed numerical superiority, the allied forces again found themselves outmatched and defeated by Su Jun time and again. It seemed that this rebel army was bound for total victory, when Murphy's Law struck the battlefield in late 328, as it is wont to do.

Riding his horse into the thick of what was working out to be yet another victorious battle, Sujun was hit by what seems to have been a randomly hurled spear and thrown from his mount. Unfortunately for him, he was either behind the enemy's lines or close enough to them that his own men could not help him in time. He was seized by the loyalist armies and beheaded on the spot. It's always terribly risky to base a war or an army on your own personal charisma. If that cult of personality suddenly finds itself absent the personality, unless a new central figure can steal the spotlight, it will tend to break apart in the blink of an eye.

Sujun's brother, Suyi, tried to take his brother's place and keep the ball moving forward, but it was no use. By the early spring of 329, the rebel army had imploded in on itself, and Yu Liang, against all odds, had managed to lose his way to victory. Is there a word for that? I know Pyrrhic victory is a defeat disguised as a victory, but is there a term for losing every battle and somehow winning the war? Maybe we should call it the Liu Bei slash Yu Liang School of Warfare.

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season two to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide, which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the Fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth, and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. Following this unlikely turn of events, Yulian offered his resignation to the Emperor, in light of the fact that, you know, he'd just been appalling this entire war,

the capital city had been stripped of all its movable wealth, and oh yeah, the Emperor's mother had been driven to suicide as a result. But the Emperor's new regent, Wang Dao, who was the former prime minister, rejected Yu's resignation on the emperor's behalf, and instead named him governor of two western provinces and the military commander of the west, where he would remain influential to the government, due to his status as the emperor's uncle, but ultimately left to plot and scheme, all to little effect until his eventual death in 340. So what was the upshot of all this infighting within the Eastern Jin?

Well, I'd just discussed Yulian managing to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, and certainly from a personal or regional vantage that was the case. Against all odds, the sitting Jin court had remained in power and defeated the would-be usurper. But taking a wider view of events, regardless of who the winner might have been, the strategic outlook was the same. Any victory was absolutely Pyrrhic, with no irony attached. With the armies of the south now greatly depleted, any hope of mounting an offensive to retake

the territories north of the Huai River were offset by decades at a minimum. And should the northern barbarians decide to march against the south, well, who knows if Jin could even survive such an onslaught. Fortunately for Jin, the currently two kingdoms of the north were themselves deeply embroiled in their own bitter infighting. As you recall from last episode, the once-unified Five Tribes that had so dominated northern China had by 319 succumbed to backstabbing and petty feuds, ultimately tearing itself down the middle into the states

of Han Zhao in the northwest and under the command of Emperor Liu Yao, and later Zhao in the northeast under the iron fist of General Shi Le. Following Shi Le's declaration of independence, Liu Yao had been forced to deal with half a dozen other attempts at breakaway states, some simply attempting to capitalize on perceived Han Zhao weakness, but others such as the Di and Qiang tribes reacting to the excessive harshness of Liu's reign. But by 223, they had been mostly stamped out, and Han Zhao now set its sights on one of the few territories in the north that still pledged nominal fealty to the Jin dynasty. Yet another of our eventual 16 kingdoms, former Liang, which straddled the western curve of the Yellow River's Ordos Loop, as well as much of the Hexi Corridor and the Silk Road.

And to once again give some explanation to the naming conventions at play here, the territory was known in its own time simply as Liang, but given the fact that there will be in all five different states calling themselves Liang in this time period, obviously there needed to be additional descriptors to help keep confusion to a minimum. In this instance, since it's the first of the five Liangs, it has been given the prefix Qian, meaning early or former.

So former Liang was under the control of the Zhang clan, at this time the governor and duke Zhang Mao. And while Zhang Mao continued to profess his nominal loyalty to the Jin court in Nanjing, the vassaldom was at this point in name only. The governor of former Liang had in 321 issued his own general pardon of the territory's citizens. In 323, however, the Han-Zhao armies of Liuyao had ruled over the eastern territories of former Liang, raising its bases and seizing all of its cities up to the eastern banks

of the Yellow River. Emperor Liuyao issued a proclamation to Governor Zhang, claiming to be prepared to cross the river into Liang proper and lay waste to the territory unless Zhang Mao surrendered. Though Zhang initially formed up his own army and prepared for battle, the Han-Zhao's show of force made him think better of it. In the end, with minimal fuss, former Liang submitted itself to Han Zhao's suzerainty, and Zhang Mao was granted the title Prince by Liu Yao. But as a testament to how up in the air former Liang's loyalties still really were, when

Zhang Mao took ill and died the following summer, he told his nephew and successor that in order to remain faithful to Jin, he was to be buried as a governor rather than a prince, since his latter title hadn't been issued by the true emperor. With both Han Zhao and later Zhao's reclamation of breakaway territories respectively complete, at least for the moment, the heavyweight fight of the north could finally get underway beginning in 324. The first major battle between the two would break out outside of Luoyang, which lay near the borders of both northern powers as well as eastern Jin territory. Over the course of the year, the two armies raged against one another in inconclusive battle after inconclusive battle. But it wouldn't be until 325 that the region would decisively fall to

one of the Zhao states. General Shi Hu of later Zhao, Shele's distant nephew, managed to decisively defeat and capture the army led by General Liu Yue, the Prince of Zhongshan, and one of Emperor Liu Yao's top commanders, as well as killing another general who had earlier defected over to Han Zhao, but whose name I won't bother you with. With this defeat, the entire region surrounding Luoyang came under later Zhao's control. In the wake of this defeat, the more flexible members of Han Zhao began to suspect that their nominal emperor may have lost his touch, chief among them, former Liang to the far west. In 327, its new governor and successor to Zhang Mao, Zhang Jun, once again declared Liang a vassal of the Jin Emperor and sent his armies to raid Han Zhao's outlying Qin province.

Former Liang's armies were easily bested by Han Zhao, however, which once again marched west to the Yellow River, and this time even crossed it to sack cities on the far side. But pressed as it was to the east by later Zhao, Emperor Liu Yao eventually settled on merely annexing all Liang territories east of the Yellow River, leaving the western portion of the state to its own devices, at least for the time being. Back east, Luoyang would remain in Shila's hands until 328, when the armies of Han Zhao, reinvigorated and this time personally led by Emperor Liuyao, once again went on the offensive to retake the region. The offensive was in fact a counteroffensive, which the emperor had pressed after General

Shi Hu's advance into Hanjiao territory had been routed by the imperial army. Determined to seize the initiative, Liuyao had followed up his victory with a fall campaign centered on surrounding and besieging Luoyang. When news of this defeat reached Xueli, the prince rode with his personal army to relieve the city in the winter of 328 and found that the Han Zhao emperor had made a critical oversight in his haste to take the city. He had neglected to cut off the canyon pass through Chenggao, which allowed Xueli direct access to Luoyang and the besieging army surrounding it.

Interestingly, if tangentially, connected to this battle outside of Luoyang is the only recorded instance of the Jie people's native language. It was recorded in the Book of Jin phonetically, and excuse my terrible attempt at Middle Chinese emulating a Turkic language here, xiu xie tei lei kang, bok kuk, gyou tuk tang, and accompanied with a Mandarin translation reading, send the armies to attack, capture the commander, who was Liu Yao. And capture Liu Yao they did. As the armies squared off for battle around the new year of 328-329, the emperor of Han Zhao had begun,

as so many emperors before him, a precipitous drop into rampant alcoholism. Moreover, on the eve of battle, his usual horse was unable to be used as it was suffering from leg spasms, and he was forced to use a significantly smaller, weaker mount. In the course of the battle, Shiloh launched a surprise attack on the Emperor's line, and his horse, unable to bear Liyao's weight, fell to the ground and of the battle, Shilla launched a surprise attack on the emperor's line, and his horse, unable to bear Liu Yao's weight, fell to the ground and threw the emperor,

who was then stabbed multiple times by later Zhao soldiers. Though he survived, Liu Yao, drunk, disheveled, injured, and disoriented, was taken captive and delivered to Shilla's sub-commander, Shikang. Seeing that they had just captured the king peace, Prince Shilla ordered his army to break off the attack and allowed the defeated Han Zhao army to retreat. Shilla ordered that the Han Zhao emperor's wounds be treated and that he be taken as prisoner to the later Han's capital, Xiangguo. Once there, though placed under heavy guard, Liu Ya was offered a measure of respect and comfort by his captor, including wine, food, women,

as well as access to two of his generals who had likewise been taken prisoner. After a time, Shoula ordered his former king and now-defeated foe to pen a letter to his son and heir, Crown Prince Liu Shi, telling him to end the war and surrender to the will of Shoula and later Zhao. Emperor Liu Yao indeed took up pen and paper and wrote to the will of Shile and later Zhao. Emperor Liu Yao indeed took up pen and paper and wrote to his son. But when Shile reviewed the missive prior to it being sent, he found that the emperor, far from doing as he was told and commanding his son to surrender, had instead written the prince telling him to defend Han Zhao at all costs and not to care

about his father's fate. Angered at what he deemed a betrayal, Xie Le ordered the execution of Emperor Liu Yao of Han Zhao. Following his father's execution, Prince Liu Xi became acting emperor of Han Zhao, though no formal coronation would ever manage to take place. In concord with his half-brother, Prince Xi decided that Chang'an, you know, the heavily fortified, walled city that few armies in history had ever been able to breach? Was, in fact, indefensible? They decided that they would instead fall back and establish the new Han Zhao capital at the capital city of Qin province in the mountains of eastern Gansu, a city called Shanggui. But it wasn't long after pulling out of the ancient capital that Liu Shi realized that he'd made a huge mistake, as his withdrawal sparked a panic among the officialdom of Han Zhao.

After all, if the emperor himself was pulling back, what chance do the rest of us have? Virtually to a man, the generals of Han Zhao abandoned their posts and fled alongside their men, ceding virtually all remaining Han Zhao territory to Later Han without a fight. Realizing that he had basically just cost himself the war. In the fall of 329, the Oshi dispatched his elder half-brother to do pretty much the only thing they could do at this point. Launch an all-or-nothing attack to retake the territories they had just freely given up. Later Han's forces probably still hadn't quite wrapped their heads around what had happened, and so they had yet to really fortify the vast new territories given up by Han Zhao. As such, the attackers managed to retake the majority of them with relative ease,

and swiftly arrived back at the gates of the city they'd just abandoned, Chang'an, which was now occupied by a later Zhao garrison. And oh yeah, did I mention it had pretty much impenetrable walls? Gee, they sure look more defensible from the outside than they seemed before. As the Hanjiao army settled in to besiege their own capital city, however, once again Later Zhao general Shi Hu rode in to either save the day or ruin everything, depending on who you're rooting for. Shi Hu's forces assaulted and broke the siege of Chang'an, forcing the Hanjiao armies to retreat towards Shanggui, with Shi Hu pursuing them all the way home.

With the entire remaining might of Han Zhao committed to this campaign that was now in flight, a second defeat outside of Shanggui City spelled the doom of the entire state. General Shi Hu captured the city in short order, and ordered the deaths of Prince Liu Xi, his brother, and all other Han Zhao princes, officials, and generals. Those who were not slated for immediate execution were forcibly relocated en masse to the later Zhao capital, Xiangguo, and virtually all noble families of the Xiongnu tribe located in Luoyang were put to death as well. Han Zhao as a political entity and the Xiongnu as an independent people south of the Gobi Desert were utterly eradicated.

Now the undisputed ruler of northern China, Shile, Prince of Zhao, thought it was high time that his title reflected that supremacy. Had he not defeated an emperor and taken over that empire after all? Thus, in 330, he declared himself Tianwang, or the Heavenly King, and thereafter named

his son Shi Hong his crowned prince, and another of his sons, confusingly also named Shi Hong, the Grand Chanyu of the Five Tribes. Later that year, he went for broke, promoting himself once again to Emperor of Zhao in practice and Emperor of China in pretense. Now, there was just the one little detail of the Jin in the south that simply refused to acknowledge that their time was over. Oh, and one other tiny, almost insignificant little detail were the feelings of General Shi Hu, he who had actually done the legwork to win Shile his empire. Oh, sure, Shile deserved to call himself emperor,

or whatever. He wasn't even jealous. He was happy for the guy, sure. But he wouldn't have even had a shot at the top job without Shehu having done all the heavy lifting. And for his troubles? Zilch. Nothing. Just the scummy principality of Zhongshan, and who wanted that, anyway? No, he, the conquering hero of Zhao, should have been made crown prince, not that do-nothing brat Shi Hong. Or at the very least, he should have been made the Grand Chanyu, not that other little brat Shi Hong. And what kind of an idiot names his sons the same name, anyway? But whatever, he was over it. Totally over it. Definitely not planning on killing the entire Imperial

family or anything. We'll leave off there today to let Shihu stew in his own bitter juices. Because next time, his simmering pot of hatred and jealousy will boil over onto the unsuspecting heads of Shilla's family, and in the aftermath, a new order will emerge in the north. Meanwhile, in the south, the Jin Dynasty will continue to try to pick up the pieces following its own self-destructive civil war, and the Jin Emperors will continue their time-honored tradition of dying early and often, ensuring that power will remain tied up in the hands of treacherous officials, cutthroat empresses, and scheming eunuchs.

Just like the good old days. Thank you for listening. Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the show today. Please help us out by popping over to the iTunes Music Store and ranking the History of China. And if, in the spirit of the season, you feel like we've earned it, please feel free to head over to thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com and click either of our donation links to PayPal or Patreon. Thanks again, and see you next time.

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