The History of China - #70 - S&N 14: The Hou Jing Disturbance

Episode Date: July 17, 2015

The end of Emperor Wu’s 5-decade-long rule over the Liang Empire is jam-packed with action. Following the split between Eastern and Western Wei in the North, it seems like there’s might be peace and quiet in the South for once. But this will prove short-lived, indeed. First, Vietnam will rise up in it first major rebellion in centuries against Chinese hegemony, and then a general from the far north will go rogue, defect from his warlord, and offer up his territories to Liang. It seems like an offer too good to be true… and as Emperor Wu will learn the hard way, what seems too good, usually is…Time-Frame Covered:535-557 CEMajor Historical Figures:LiangEmperor Wu of Liang (née Xiao Yan) [r. 502-549]Acting Prime Minister Zhu YiMarquis Xiao Zi, Governor of Jiao PrivinceMarquis Xiao YuanmingXiao Yong, Governor of Kuang ProvinceGeneral Chen BaxianEastern WeiWarlord Gao HuanPrince Gao ChengEmperor XiaowenGeneral Murong ShaozongGeneral Hou JingWestern WeiWarlord Yuwen TaiEmperor XiaojingRouran KhaganateChiliantoubingdoufa KhanVietnam (Jiao Province/Van Xuan Empire)Ly Bon (Ly Nam De/ Emperor Ly of the South)Trieu Tuc, Chieftain of Chu-dien CityTrieu Quang Phuc (Trieu Viet Vong/King Trieu of Viet) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. This week's episode is brought to you in part by Audible.com.

With now more than 200,000 books, magazines, comedy sketches, and just about anything else you can think of available, Audible is the leading provider of audio entertainment on the web. And you can now get a special trial offer of one free month's service and a complimentary audiobook download by using the web address audibletrial.com slash THOC for your free audiobook download, and great deals on all of Audible's amazing catalog. Once again, that's audibletrial.com slash THOC for your free download. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 70, The Ho-Jing Disturbance We've been spending the last two episodes chronicling the long-storied period of Emperor Wu of Liang's half-century reign over southern China.

This episode, we'll finish out our trio on Wu by going over his later reign, his violent end, and how southern stability followed him to the grave, while also linking the period together with the goings-on of the two ways to the north that would radically affect the fortunes of the south as well. We'll be picking up today more or less where we last left off, 535, the year that marked the final overthrow of Northern Wei, and its split into Eastern and Western halves. That split had occurred when the sitting Wei Emperor, Xiao Wu, had fled from his Generalissimo, Gao Huan's domination, leaving the capital and seeking refuge in the domain of the powerful

Duke Yuwen Tai, who held court in the ancient Chinese capital city, Chang'an. Unfortunately for him, that had proved to be an ill-advised decision, since, as it turned out, Yuan Tai had some ideas of his own for the throne of Wei, ideas that didn't involve anyone named Xiaowu. Consequentially, less than a year later, the emperor in exile was killed with poison, likely by the hand of Yuan himself, who then seized control of the throne by declaring a new puppet, Emperor Wen, and ruling the western half of the kingdom from Chang'an. Meanwhile, General Gao Huan did likewise, retaining control of the larger and more powerful

eastern half of Wei, and proclaiming still another Yuan clan member, his own pet emperor, Xiao Jing. Gao would rule initially from the old capital, Luoyang. But shortly after Emperor Xiao's flight, he decided to move that capital to his personal seat of power, Ye City, which meant that pretty much the entire population was forced to do likewise. According to some historians, potentially as many as 400,000 households, possibly 2 million people or more, were uprooted and followed their warlord to Ye in the late autumn of 534. Thus, the separation between Eastern and Western Wei was effectively formalized, but of course the conflict between the two states was only beginning.

Eastern Wei under Gao Huan was, in terms of both population and military strength, the dominant state in the north as of 535, and Gao sought to use that advantage to quickly end the civil conflict and thus reunify the north for himself. However, he quickly came to find that sheer size and strength was not quite everything in a conflict like this. As it turned out, Western Wei under Yuan Tai was able to use the fact that the emperor had fled to him as a kind of rallying cry, that Gao had expelled the emperor illegally and was just a usurper. never mind that whole poisoning incident. The tactics seemed to work, and in many

cases where the two Wei armies would clash, the native population would support the outnumbered eastern armies. That, combined with an imperial marriage alliance with the Rouran Khan of the far north, a ruler styled Qilian Toubing Doufa Khan, would ultimately turn the tide of the war in 537. The race to secure Rouran as an ally as it happens is an interesting tale in and of itself. Both the East and the West realized how important it would be to their war effort to secure the aid of the powerful steppe armies the Rouran could field. Thus, both Eastern and Western Wei's warlords forced the respective emperors to offer up a daughter of their own for the Khan to marry.

But unexpectedly, the Khan simply agreed to both marriages and took both princesses as his concubine. Unfazed however, Yuwen Tai simply turned to his pet emperor and ordered him to marry the Khan's daughter in turn. When Emperor Xiaojing pointed out that he was already married and had a formal empress and all, Yuan said something to the effect of, "'Hey, just stop making excuses, get it done.'"

With no other option then, Xiao Jing was forced to divorce his wife, order her to take up vows of nunhood, and marry the Khan's daughter, and declare her his new empress, a political marriage truly taken to the next level. This kind of extreme action did bear fruit in the end. By the winter of 537, now bolstered by Rouran cavalry, Western Wei had not only battled

off the eastern assault, but shockingly, had managed to surround and capture Luoyang city itself. The armies of Western Wei seemed poised to push even further eastward, but an untimely battlefield defeat, coupled with a POW uprising within Chang'an, stalled out the Western Wei counteroffensive and concluded the major territorial exchanges, at least for the time being. So that's all well and good and very interesting, but I did promise that this episode would be from the focus of the southern state. So what did all this mean for Emperor Wu and his Liang dynasty? Well, initially at least, it meant what it had meant for some time now.

Continued opportunities to exploit northern instability and seize yet more territory along the now two-ways southern borders. Nevertheless, that would eventually die down, and by 537, Eastern Wei had secured a more or less official détente with Liang, complete with ambassadorial exchanges. As for Western Wei, though it was unable to get quite the same terms set to officially likewise conduct peace with the South, it still managed to draw down northern-southern border disputes to virtually nothing. With both ways locked in struggle against one another, Liang was actually able to do something that had been almost a foreign concept to southern

China since almost the 16 kingdoms era had begun, extricate itself from constant warfare and enjoy something resembling peace. Peace in our time. It sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately for Liang, however, that space to breathe would end up doing what it so often did in this, and many other eras, allow the latent internal conflicts that during wartime were necessarily shoved under the rug to poke their problematic heads out and begin to eat the empire from within. I had mentioned in an earlier episode that Wu of Yang was regarded by his contemporaries, as well as by the historians who chronicled him later on, as a good but flawed

ruler. To once again take Sima Guang's assessment of the emperor, quote, The emperor was filially pious, loving, humble, frugal, knowledgeable, and good at writing. He extensively studied mysticism, astrology, horse riding, archery, knowledgeable, and good at writing. He extensively studied mysticism, astrology, horse riding, archery, music, calligraphy, and Wei Qi. However, he was overly lenient to the officials. The provincial and commandery governors often extracted wealth from the people. The messengers that he sent out to the locales often improperly pressured, criticized, or extorted from the locals. He trusted evil people and liked to criticize people for minor faults. He built many Buddhist towers and temples, which inflicted great burdens on the government and the people. The area south of the Yangtze River had long peace and as a result

became wasteful in lifestyle." One of those prominent beneficiaries of Wu's hands-off approach to governance was the official Zhu Yi, who had enjoyed a meteoric rise to power and prominence beginning when he was just 20 years old, back in 503, just after the Liang dynasty had been proclaimed. He had rapidly risen through the ranks of the imperial court, and by 535 was one of the most powerful and commanding members of the emperor's inner circle. And once the sitting prime minister Liang died later that year, Zhu didn't wait for anything so superfluous as an official decree

to give himself a little de facto promotion. He thereafter became the acting Prime Minister, although he'd never actually truly carried the title. At this job, he proved able, though its temptations proved irresistible. Sima Guang writes in the Zhizhetongjian, Zhu was spectacular in his writing talent and for his quick and proper reactions. Zhu carefully served the emperor and excelled at flattery.

He spent thirty years in power and became exceedingly corrupt, deceiving and covering the eyes of the emperor. The people of the entire empire, regardless of how far they were from the capital, came to hate him greatly. Jew's garden, residence, favorite items, food, entertainment, and women were all the best within the empire. Whenever he had a vacation and returned to his home, the streets were filled with the wagons of his guests. End quote. Now it should be said that there might be a little, okay, more than a little hindsight bias going on there, but hey, no one ever accused Sima Guang of being too objective

in his assessments, a topic we will discuss in more depth later on in this episode. Nonetheless, Zhu Yi was far from the only official or royal family member to profit handsomely through extortion and tax hikes while Emperor Wu turned a blind eye and read a sutra or something. Without a strong central hand to rein them in, many of the imperial princes, Wu's own uncles, brothers, and even sons, began to assert increasing independence from the throne, acting less as governors of the imperial will than as uncontested potentates of their own little kingdoms. Under this state of peace, and with its true monarch seemingly unwilling to act against the interests of those close to him

personally, Liang seemed to be slipping back into a state more reminiscent of feudalism than of empire. And with increasingly decentralized power, so came an opportunity for certain disaffected populations to try to seize the moment to break away from Chinese hegemony. I speak of Vietnam. It has been a long time since we discussed Vietnam's role in Chinese history, since we've been primarily focused on the goings-on far to its north for a few centuries now at least. But if you have a particularly good memory, you might recall us talking about the founding emperor of the late Great Han Dynasty, expanding his territories in every direction but the sea.

And that had included, and indeed had pretty much begun with, the kingdom of Nanye, or Nam Viet, all the way 600 years back in 111 BCE. Nanyue had been absorbed into the Han Empire, but never fully gave up its own distinct culture, nor its quiet seething at the ongoing foreign domination. Han vassaldom had been briefly interrupted in the year 40 CE by the famous rebellion of the warrior sisters Chongchak and Chongni, which resulted in them throwing off the Chinese yoke and establishing the Queendom of Viet from the years 40 to 43, until Emperor Xiaowu of Han had sent a massive army to crush their bidet independence and reintegrate his breakaway

territory. Though the southern half of the region, Lam Yap, or in Mandarin, Lin Yi, and its indigenous Cham people were able to successfully break away in 192 and form the Champa Kingdom, though it actually existed until the 1830s as a powerful regional player. But the northern half of what is now Vietnam had been thoroughly under the control of the Han, and then the Jin, and then the Liu Song, and then the Jin, and then the Liaosong, and then southern Qi, and now the Liang, virtually uninterrupted for 600 years. But under Wu of Liang's non-watch, all that was about to change. The imperial governor of Vietnam, then known as Jiao province, was Wu's nephew, Marquis Xiaozi.

The Marquis was taking full advantage of what was his effectually unlimited authority over the peoples of Jiao, both indigenous and the ethnically Han transplants, and there was a rising sense of, we're not going to take this anymore. The sentiment would find its voice in 541, in the form of an ethnically Chinese regional magistrate named either Li Bi or Li Ben, whose family had emigrated from China proper to Zhao in the 1st century CE to flee the disastrous consequences of Wang Meng's Xin Dynasty experiment. Incidentally, if you happen to look up this guy's name in modern Vietnamese, it looks like it ought to be pronounced Lai Ban, but it is Ly Binh. According to Keith Weller Taylor, in The Birth of Vietnam,

Ly wound up resigning his commission both because he was unable to achieve his ambitions within the court, and also in protest to the callous cruelty displayed by his boss, the Marquis. He therefore returned home and rallied like-minded supporters from the local nobility and the tribes of the Red River Valley in modern northern Vietnam, according to Lockhart and Deucker in their book The A to Z of Vietnam. Quote, Probably located at Gia Ninh, near his family home at the foot of Mount Tam Dao, northwest of Hanoi, at the edge of the Red River Delta. End quote. There, they joined Li's cause and began the first major rebellion against imperial authority Zhao province, a.k.a. Vietnam, had seen in centuries.

The Li rebels were able to secure access to the Red River and an indigenous fleet to carry them. This was accomplished not through force of arms, but rather through sheer charisma, from the sounds of it. Again, from Weller Taylor, quote, In 541, Li begathered the support of Chiu Tuk, a man identified as the leader of the Chudian city, end quote. Chudian was important to Li's rebellion because it gained him direct access to the Red River and a straight shot at the provincial capital, Longbian, which is now part of modern Hanoi, with his forces. Continuing the passage, quote,

It is recorded that Tuk yielded to the talent and virtue of Bi and led an army into Bi's service. When Xiaozi saw this, he purchased his own life with a bribe and hasted to Kuang, where his cousin Xiaoyong was governor, end quote. So Marquis Xiaozi in Longbian, seeing this massive rebel army gain access to the Red River, led by both the Chinese Li Ben, or Li Bi, and the indigenous Viet, Chung Tuk, does the smart thing. He hightails it right out of there and flees to his cousin's neighboring province, Kuang. From there, word quickly got back to the Liang imperial court of the fomenting Li rebellion in the south, and two generals were dispatched in 542 to suppress it. However, the two Liang commanders and their armies were delayed from arriving within the

rebellious province due to the monsoon season of southwest Asia kicking into full swing and making travel, much less combat, virtually impossible. They therefore requested that the campaign be delayed until that autumn, when, quote, the danger of malaria and other monsoon afflictions would be reduced. Their request was denied by Xiaolong, and Xiaozi urged the army to forward. The reluctant army advanced as far as Holpu, where it stalled. Between 60 and 70% of the men were reported dead, whether from disease or from ambush by Li Bi's men, unclear. The Liang army was scattered and straggled back in confusion." And for the crime of advancing under orders,

under protest, and against their better judgment, and thereafter taking tremendous casualties, the two generals were subsequently recalled to Kuang and put to death. Did I mention that Xiao Zhe was hated for his capricious cruelty? Regardless, this Liang catastrophe proved to be a stroke of luck for Li Ben, since it forestalled any further invasions by years at minimum, and allowed him to consolidate his power in Zhao. He turned his own army around in 543 and crushed the southern Cham tribes that had mobilized against him as part of an alliance with the Liang dynasty. Thus secure along both

his northern and southern borders, Liban officially threw off the yoke of Chinese oppression by declaring in no uncertain, Nam Viet's independence, and with him at its helm, not as magistrate or governor or client prince, but as full-on emperor. He declared himself Li Namde, or in Mandarin, Li Nandi, Li, the Emperor of the South, and named his newly re-independent empire, Van Xuan, Eternal Spring. But Emperor Li's blossoming nation wouldn't have a long-growing season before the Liang dynasty recovered from its 541 blow. In 544, Emperor Wu sent one of his top military commanders, General Chen Baxian, at the head of a massive army purportedly numbering more than 120,000. Though, as always, take such figures

with a grain of salt. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social

and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. Even against such overwhelming force, however, the Li Dynasty's troops managed to hold off the invasion for months in a series of battles that left much of Wanshuan devastated. In the end, it was a surprise attack by General Chen during the monsoon season against the capital Longbian itself that would finally force Emperor Li to abandon the capital and flee with the remainder of his army into the forests. From there on out, they would

conduct guerrilla operations against the Liang invaders, though the rough living rapidly took its toll on the health of Emperor Li. By 548, he acknowledged that in his condition he could no longer effectively command his troops, and therefore transferred his authority to the co-rulership of his brother and his top military commander, Chiu Kuang Phuc. The two leaders would continue to wage a war of attrition against the Liang imperial expedition until 555, when Li the Younger took ill and died, leaving Chiu in sole command of the embattled kingdom. With the Younger Li's death, his military lieutenants unanimously

declared him Trio Viet Vong, or King Trio of the Vietts. Still, under the continued assault of the seemingly endless waves of Han Chinese soldiers, the kingdom of Van Xuan seemed doomed. Until, suddenly, in 557, the Imperial Liang army just sort of turned around and marched away, leaving King Trio to wonder what might have convinced them to halt short of total victory. Indeed, what could have possibly been important enough to just call off the whole campaign? Well, to answer that, we'll need to both rewind and move north. Way north. All the way to Northern Wei, to follow the path of a man named Hou Jing.

Hou Jing initially pops up in the history books as a soldier of one of the Wei Empire's garrisons, guarding its northern border from attacks by the Rouran Khaganate. As the political situation began to devolve into civil war over the 520s, Hou Jing saw which way the wind was blowing and joined up with Arju Rong, and wound up earning himself a governorship of Ding province for his worthiness on the battlefield once the Arju clan had usurped imperial power. When the Arjus themselves were overthrown in 534 by Gao Huan, Hou Jing once again jumped ship and joined up, receiving yet another governorship, and then serving as

one of Gao Huan's chief generals once Wei had been split into its eastern and western halves. Now, over the course of the 530s, General Hou Jing served his eastern Wei warlord faithfully as a brilliant, if boastful, tactician. In terms of boasts, he was rather famously attributed to the line that if Gao Huan would only give him leave to do so, he could easily capture Emperor Wu of Liang and force his holiness to take up the monastic vows he so loved. Heck, he'd even be generous and make him the head monk of Taiping Temple while he was at it.

Even so, He'ou was much more a war room planner and skilled strategist rather than a front-line, lead-the-charge kind of commander. And he realized this. Sure, he could ride a horse and shoot an arrow if need be, but he was never considered overly skilled at either. And in any case, was far more valuable to Gao Huan, scheming and planning the next military maneuver. That would lead to victory over the despicable Yuan Tai and his hated Western Wei forces.

In late 534, he oversaw the strategy that would achieve total devastation of the provinces south of the Yellow River that were loosely allied to Western Wei, and as a reward was declared their military governor the following year, once they had been fully occupied. Hou Jing now controlled all of the territory abutting the Liang dynasty's borders. For the remainder of the 530s and into the 540s, Hou Jing would remain Gao Huan's right-hand man. But all was not well with Hou Jing and the Gao family. Oh, sure, relations with Gao Huan were never better, but Hou had come to

despise his son, Gao Cheng, of whom he'd comment to a friend in 530, quote, As long as Prince Gao Huan lives, I don't dare differ from him. But when the prince dies, I won't be able to work with that Xianbei brat. End quote. Now, I should point out that the Gao family was ethnically Han, but under its patriarchate had adopted many of the Xianbei customs, which Hou evidently saw as something akin to wrapping oneself in loincloth and grunting. In the autumn of 546, the now 51-year-old Gao commenced with what would be his last campaign against Western Wei. It proved to be an exhausting affair, and his army stalled out during an

attempted siege of the city Yubi, where after 50 days of fearsome combat, Gao Han was forced to withdraw his army in failure after losing perhaps 70,000 troops from a combination of the city's defenders and an illness that ravaged the besiegers. In fact, General Gao himself had been afflicted by the disease, which unfortunately remains specifically unknown, and his health would continue to deteriorate into the following year. After handing off power to his heir, Gao Cheng, he died in the spring of 547. And with that, Hou Jing leapt into action. As he'd stated before, he had no intention of being recalled or lorded over by the Xianbei brat. Ever since he'd stated before, he had no intention of being recalled or lorded over

by the Xianbei brat. Ever since he'd learned of the elder Gao's troubling illness, he'd been secretly making preparations to get himself out from under this new warlord of Eastern Wei that he so despised. Ensconced in his fortress city Luoyang, he did something rather curious. He first defected to Western Wei, but then turned right around and re-defected to the Liang Empire, prompting both of them to mobilize armies to take control of the 13 provinces that he commanded. The armies of Eastern Wei, from whom he had just defected, arrived first and surrounded Hou Jing's position. They would be soon driven off, however, by the arriving armies of Western Wei. Their commander, General Wang, held no delusions about Ho Jing truly wishing

to become some loyal subject of the West or what have you. After all, he'd spent the majority of his career locked in fighting them with every ounce of his being. And so instead of playing Ho's game, General Wang just kind of moved in and directly occupied four of the provinces Ho commanded, all while demanding that Ho travel to Chang'an and pay direct homage to the warlord Yuan Tai. Ho Jing, in my opinion at least wisely, refused to give up his nice, safe holdfast and said no thanks, all the while waiting for the Liang army to arrive as well. That would take a little bit longer than he expected, however, since the Liang empire proved not nearly as quick to capitalize

on this ostensible opportunity at a land grab, as one might expect. Emperor Wu's advisors had urged him caution, since taking Hou Jing up on his offer would almost inevitably lead to war with Eastern Wei, a state with which Liang had enjoyed pretty positive relations with for quite some time now. And then, Emperor Wu compounded the delay by once again journeying to Tongtai Temple and sequestering himself within in service to the Buddha for the fourth time.

This time it would be for more than an entire month before his officials could once again muster the cash required to make another enormous donation to the monks within to kick their emperor back out into the real world again. Once he was finally back in the capital though, Wu cautiously accepted Hou Jing's offer of surrender of the nine provinces he yet controlled, and thereafter mobilized his armies to take control of the territories under the command of his nephew, the Marquis Xiao Yuanming. Hou Jing himself was declared the Prince of Henan. Of course, Eastern Wei wasn't just about to let Hou walk off with their entire southern flank. And while all this was happening, warlord Gao Cheng had commissioned

his general Mu Rong to lead an army and retake the southern provinces from the traitorous Hojing by force. The armies of Eastern Wei and Liang therefore came to blows in 547 outside the Wei-controlled Peng city, as the Liang armies commenced with their all-time favorite siege tactic, river damming to drown out the defenders. As the water rose around Peng and Marquis Yuanming waded downstream, word arised from Hou Jing that the Eastern Wei army had mobilized, and was commanded by the formidable General Murong. Hou advised Yuanming that Murong was devious and deceptive, and should the Liang army gain

the upper hand, they should not pursue the Wei forces too closely, no matter how tempting a target they might present, since one of General Murong's favorite tactics was to feign flight and then ambush and destroy a pursuing foe. Sage advice that the ambitious, young Marquis Yuan Ming had absolutely no intention to listen to at all. And it all happened pretty- and it would all end up happening pretty much exactly as Hou Jing had

warned it would. The Wei army arrived and attacked, and then when the Liang army turned the tide, Murong's forces broke and fled. Yuanming and his soldiers chased them down, and of course it was a trap. The Liang army was then crushed, and Marquis Yuan Ming himself captured. I hate to say I told you so. With Liang effectively out of the fight, General Murong turned to deal with the rebellious Hou Jing directly. The two armies clashed and then clashed again, with neither side managing to gain a permanent advantage over the other, and grinding into a tense stalemate over the remainder of 547. But by year's end, Ho's forces had run almost completely out of food and supplies, and morale was nearing its breaking point. In fact, for some time now, many of Ho Jing's soldiers

had remained true to the cause of secession only because their leader had assured them that the evil Gao Cheng had arrested and executed all of their families already, and thus there was nothing to go back to. But when General Murong learned of this, and the dire straits Hojing's army now found itself, well, he was only too happy to shatter his enemy's fractured morale completely by offering nothing but the truth. In fact, he claimed, Ho Jing had been lying to them.

Their families weren't dead, but were safe and sound, waiting for them to give up this stupid war and just go home already. In the aftermath of such a revelation, Ho's army evaporated, all save a hardcore loyalist group of a measly 800. Ho Jing had lost his war, his provinces, and now had no choice but to run south as fast as he could. With this small but hardcore group of loyalist soldiers, he would manage to

seize control of Shoyang City in the spring of 548, and Emperor Wu, not having the heart to rebuke him after all he'd just been through, confirmed him as the city's new imperial governor shortly thereafter. Eastern Wei had recovered the majority of its southern provinces, minus the ones Western Wei had managed to seize, and it now held one of Emperor Wu's nephews prisoner. So what exactly was there left to fight over? Wu figured pretty much nothing, and so opened negotiations to make peace with Gao Cheng. Gao straight up offered to return the young prince Xiao Yuanming,

apparently hoping that such an open offer would rattle Hou Jing's cage in Shouyang, getting him to think, if Gao Zheng's offering up his biggest game piece, Wu must be thinking of doing likewise, and that's, uh, me. And so, in spite of a personal guarantee from the emperor himself that he would by no means betray him, Hou decided to test out this little promise in what seems to have been one of the most harebrained schemes I've yet come across. He forged a letter, supposedly from Gao Cheng, proposing that Wei would give back Wu's nephew in exchange for Wu handing over Hou Jing himself. You heard that right. With neither Wu nor Gao actually having proposed anything but a here's your nephew back no hard feelings, huh? Hou had idiotically put himself

as the counterbalance in Wu's eyes, all just to see if he'd say no. And what was Wu going to do? Let his nephew languish in some foreign barbarian's cell? Of course he agreed to the terms, writing back, quote, If you return Xia Yuanming in the morning, by nightfall I will have delivered Hou Jing, end quote. It's hard to know what Hou Jing was expecting, really. But when he re-intercepted the return letter, of course he flew into a rage, writing a scathing accusation of Wu and demanding an explanation for his apparent willingness to give up Hou to Gao Cheng in spite of his promise. Wu's response was characterized as meek and pathetic, utterly unconvincing in its attempts

to reconcile with Hou, who seemed to have been quite beyond the ability to think clearly over this matter anyway. As such, Hou once again raised his banners in rebellion in the summer of 548, but this time against Liang, and he marched on the imperial capital directly. This bold, unexpected strategy wrong-footed the imperial commanders, who had been drafting plans to send a four-pronged strike against Hou's seat of power, Shoyang. But of course, he was now no longer in Shoyang, but marching, at speed, and seizing the initiative away from the Liang imperial army. By the winter of 548, Hou Jing's army had arrived outside of Nanjing and captured the outer city,

thereby laying siege to the imperial palace. And Hou's army was not kind to the population of Nanjing, who suddenly found themselves at the rebel general's mercy. In the dead of winter, he permitted his soldiers to raid and pillage the civilians' food stores, and then forced them to participate in siege operations against the imperial palace. By the new year of 549, the crown prince Xiao Guan's army, which had been recalled to the capital to try to lift the rebel siege, had itself been defeated and subsequently forced back behind the palace walls themselves, where all they could do was wait and hope for some other outside intervention to come and lift the siege, while the situation became increasingly

grim. Sima Guang described the situation as, quote, Originally, on the day the imperial palace had closed its gates, its men and women had numbered in excess of 100, thousand, over twenty thousand of whom had been fighting men. But having been under siege for so long, many people's bodies had swollen up and they had problems breathing. Eighty or ninety percent had died, and those men in the walls, not even four thousand, were all emaciated and exhausted.

Corpses were strewn about, filling the street without any prospect of burial. Decay and the dead's effluent filled the gutters. Hou Jing subsequently channeled the waters of Lake Xuanwu to in front of the stone fortifications and attacked the city night and day along all routes. On the 24th of April, as night drew towards dawn, Jun and Tang Lan led Hou Jing's men over the city walls by a tower in the northwest section. Xue, the Marquis of Yong'an, resisted strongly but was unable to fight them off. He burst through the door of the Imperial Palace and announced, The city has fallen! The Zhizhi Tongjian also tells of the captains of

the guard themselves, specifically an imperial prince of Shoyang and the commander Liu Zongli, apparently just at a loss to do anything to prevent the coming slaughter. Commander Liu was said to merely, quote, gather together his concubines and singing girls to lay on banquets and make merry with them. Every day, the generals went with requests to go into battle, but Zhongli refused permission. It's pretty hard to blame him, though, as he'd just had a near-brush with death himself in his own encounter outside the palace walls with Hou's forces, resulting in enormous casualties for both sides and both commanders seriously

injured. As for the other commander, Prince Shouyong, as well as his heir, reportedly did little but gamble with dice and drink themselves into a stupor. To draw a 20th century comparison, perhaps, it seems a little reminiscent of the citizens of Berlin in 1945 as they waited for the Red Army to break their final lines of defense. There was little left to do but simply wait for the inevitable. With its last remaining defenders cut down, despondent, or too gravely injured to do much of anything, Nanjing fell in the spring of 548 to Houjing's rebellion. Proving, quite apparently, that his youthful boasts of being able to quickly capture Emperor Wu with just a few good men

and pack Wu off to a monastery wasn't just hot air after all. He quickly seized control of the imperial apparatus, issuing an official decree in Emperor Wu's name for the remaining provincial armies to disperse and return home, though many were, understandably, hesitant to do so, and would go on resisting, in spite of the war being effectively lost. As for Emperor Wu, he was placed under arrest, and now the pawn of Hou Jing for the time being. At least as long as it took him to find a way to legitimize his claim to power. But when Wu refused to play ball and continued to resist going along with this charade, Ho-Jing

responded by confining him to his quarters under heavy guard, with little or no access to outside supplies. And by the summer of the following year, Emperor Wu had withered away and died, and it's strongly possible that it was because Ho-Jing had effectively starved him to death. On the other hand, Wu was between 85 and 86 years old when he died, so maybe it was just as likely that he'd been just really, really old and died without any malicious intent on Hou Jing's behalf. And it is important to note that Hou Jing in the traditional histories really does get a bad rap, and that's largely, argues Daria Berg in her book Reading China,

History, Fiction, and the Dynamics of Discourse, to legitimize his actions, or his term and power like, say, oh, his immediate predecessor had spent five decades doing after taking power in a remarkably similar fashion. Berg is careful to note that not only did Sima Guang write the Zizitongjian from 500 years after the fact, but did so with a very specific way, or bias, with which he wanted to present the histories. She quotes Sima himself from 1066 in a memorial to the throne of Northern Song, some 16 years before he'd actually complete his work. I have always wanted to produce a chronological history, roughly along the lines of the Zhou commentary of the spring and autumn annals, starting with the warring states

and extending down to the five dynasties. It would contain everything on the flourishing and decline of states and the ups and downs of the welfare of the common people. The good could be taken as an exemplary model. The bad could be taken as a warning. It would focus on that which the emperor or sovereign ought to know. So Sima, like I should add every other historian basically ever, was writing from a specific point of view, for a specific audience, and with a specific purpose. Valuable as it is, the Zizhe Tongjian, Daria Berg points out, is not some unbiased factual account of one event following another. Instead, it's constructed in a way where there

are good guys to follow and bad guys to avoid. And Sima Guang made the narrative decision to include Hou Jing as one of the latter. Berg states, quote, Sima locates the Zizhetongjian in the context of a canonical discourse that was concerned above all with sovereignty and the exercise of state government. It becomes clear that Sima Guang's representation of Hou Jing's rebellion was independent of other sources and had a distinct ideology. It reflected closely Sima Guang's view of northern Song imperial power and stands as a significant contribution to the arguments that he produced on this theme in the In other words, it's not just a videotape of events as they happen. It's a story being told with a clear ideological and moralistic bent.

And Ho-Jing, unfortunately for him at least, will not last long enough to make the jump from bad guy to good guy by Sima Guang's standards. That, however, will have to wait for next week. We've reached the end of the Liang Dynasty's first and greatest ruler, Xiaoyan, the Bodhisattva Emperor, Wu. And with his departure as its steadfast bedrock, the Liang Dynasty itself will begin to buckle from within, more and more resembling the chaos that continues to engulf northern China as the 6th century and the Age of Disunity roar ever onwards, shattering kingdoms, lives, and fortunes as it goes. Liang is not quite dead yet, but next episode, we'll see its terminal decline

and the further fracturing of China. Thank you for listening. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast, Pax Britannica, follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire

by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax.