China: Symbiosis with the Steppe?
Nomads. Neural network generation
The article discusses whether some kind of symbiosis existed, or could exist, between an agricultural state and its nomadic neighbors, using the example of China.
I was inspired to write it by a discussion in the comments to my article on VO about Eurasianism.
Thanks to L. N. Gumilev, and especially his admirers, the theory of symbiosis between nomads and neighboring agricultural peoples became very popular.
We are talking about symbiosis, of course, primarily between the ancient Russian lands that were destroyed by the Mongol-Tatar invasion and the Horde that appeared at its borders.
But in this article we will look at the situation in Southeast Asia.
Since the emergence of the Chinese agricultural civilization, clashes with neighboring nomadic ethnic groups have also begun. We will not consider the issue of symbiosis throughout the entire Chinese stories, but let's focus on the Middle Ages.
From the moment of the collapse of the Tang Dynasty, the benchmark empire in Chinese history, not only active military actions began against the steppe ethnic groups, of which, as we wrote in the history of the Chinese ethnic group, there were many, as well as trade relations, but the direct seizure of the territories of the agricultural state by its neighbors began.
Nomads
The economic type of the nomad did not change over the centuries and had the same character as that of the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Kalmyks, Kazakhs, etc. Changes in climatic conditions only indirectly affected the economic type of the nomads, much less the established social structure.
An important factor of nomadic economy was that it could not produce surpluses to support hierarchical structures that did not participate in production. Therefore, a large number of researchers believe that nomads did not need a state.
Economic activity was conducted within the clan, rarely and almost never reached the tribal level. Cattle could not be accumulated indefinitely, unlike what happened in agricultural societies. The external environment strictly regulated this process, so it was more profitable to distribute surpluses, and not only surpluses, to poor relatives for grazing or as "gifts", to enhance prestige and authority, within the framework of the "gifting" system, to increase the ulus.
At the same time, nomads, unlike farmers, could not exist solely within the framework of their economic activity. They needed exchange with agricultural society to obtain products that they completely lacked.
It was not always possible to obtain these material values from agricultural China. It considered the nomads as a constant source of military threat and directly prevented this interaction, from building the Great Wall of China, conducting a policy of invading the steppe, with the aim of reducing the "herd" of nomads, to the policy: "i yi zhi yi" - "with the help of barbarians to pacify barbarians."
Property and steppe
Among farmers, power is based on the management of society with the aim of controlling and redistributing the surplus product. As Yelu Chucai, himself a Sinicized descendant of the Khitan emperor Liao, told Genghis Khan "long beard":
Although you obtained the Celestial Empire while sitting on a horse, you cannot rule it while sitting on a horse.
This phrase is not only about the system of governance of an agricultural society, but also about the fact that the Mongols themselves will be able to govern only by accepting the rules of governance of such a society, i.e. they will abandon nomadic traditions, becoming rulers of a more stable, from the point of view of the Chinese, agricultural society.
Nomads do not have such management systems, there is nothing to control and distribute, nothing to put aside for a rainy day, no savings. Cattle could not be an object of accumulation, but its death affected a rich relative more than a poor one. Hence, the campaigns against farmers had the character of ruinous raids: the psychology of a nomad demanded to live for today.
Therefore, power among nomads had exclusively external attributes, was aimed not at governing their society, but at contacts with external communities and countries. And it was primarily military.
Farmers drew resources for wars from their own society, by collecting taxes and levies; steppe dwellers did not know taxes, and they obtained sources for war from outside.
The stability of nomadic empires depended directly on the leader's ability to receive agricultural products and trophies in wartime and tribute and gifts in peacetime. It is precisely as such a generous redistributor that the young Genghis Khan appears in the "Collection of Chronicles":
This prince Temujin, - reports Rashid-ad-Din, - takes off the clothes he is wearing and gives them away, gets off the horse he is sitting on and gives them away. He is the man who could take care of the region, look after the army and maintain the ulus well.
Thus, Ogedei and his son Guyuk, Mongke Khan, Kublai continued the tradition of the great conqueror, and in many ways surpassed Genghis Khan himself, however, they had something to give:
Since at the hour of death [treasures] do not bring any benefit and it is impossible to return from the other world, we will keep our treasures in our hearts and give everything that is available and that is prepared, or [whatever else] arrives, to our subjects and those in need, in order to glorify our good name.
The very system of nomadic society dictated the behavior of the steppe dwellers, when everything seized from farmers could, at best, simply be eaten. It is significant that after the campaign in rich Central Asia, Iran and neighboring countries, it turned out in Mongolia that there was nothing left to give away, and therefore they urgently began a war with the Golden Empire.
Silks and jewelry were used only to emphasize status, and slaves were little different from cattle. As the writer V. Yan noted, Genghis Khan
He was honest only with his own Mongols, and looked at all other people like a hunter who plays a flute, luring a goat to catch and cook a kebab from it.
This system was not only among the Mongols, but also among all the nomads with whom the Chinese encountered.
State formations of nomads in the territory of agricultural China
In the context of the collapse of the Tang Empire, for internal reasons, the nomads began to exert pressure on its borders, after which they moved on to seizing territories where the Chinese ethnic group lived.
The nomads had already captured the lands of Chinese farmers, for example, the Turkic-speaking Tabgachi (Toba) captured the north of China and founded the Northern Wei dynasty (386-552).
The conquest of northern China is associated with the Khitans, a Mongolian nomadic tribal union. The Russian name "China" comes from the name "Khitan", which was used by various Turkic peoples to refer to the "Celestial Empire", and "Tatars" for all tribes of the Mongolian ethnic group.
Horseman. Artist Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322)
After the raids, the Khitans temporarily occupied the Chinese districts in Lian and Yun of the Later Jin Dynasty empire, a fragment of the Tang Empire, and in 936 the Khitan Empire of the Liao (Iron) Dynasty arose on these lands.
Its emergence forced the Chinese to consolidate, where in battles with the Khitans of the Later Zhou Dynasty empire in 960, the emperor of the new dynasty, Song, was proclaimed, the commander Zhao Kuan-ying.
And the situation with the seizure of lands led to a revolution in the psychology of the nomads. The long struggle between Liao and Song showed the inhabitants of the steppe that China could become a tasty morsel and a constant source of comfortable existence in favorable climatic conditions:
…possession of Chinese lands, - wrote the orientalist V. P. Vasiliev back in the 19th century, - should have produced a great revolution among the inhabitants of Mongolia; they learned to own Chinese lands and saw that this first experience could be repeated on a larger scale.
The Song Emperor Shi Jingtang recognized the nomadic Liao Khan as his "father".
Chinese administrators, who decided to serve the new rulers, contributed to the rooting of nomads in the captured provinces:
Yan Hui was the first to teach the Khitans, wrote Ye Longli in the 12th century, how to organize official institutions, build cities surrounded by internal and external walls, and create trading places for the settlement of Chinese, which gave each of them the opportunity to have a wife and engage in plowing and cultivating empty lands.
As a result, all Chinese began to live peacefully and go about their business...
As a result, all Chinese began to live peacefully and go about their business...
Was it symbiosis or conquest? When the Chinese system of governance and organization prevailed for the majority of the sedentary population, it was overshadowed by the foreign power of the Khitan, who ruled as a "horde." In less than a hundred years, the Khitan "decomposed" under the influence of the benefits of sedentary civilization, starting with their leaders, which led to the weakening of their fighting skills.
The Song Empire was able to set the Jurchens (Nuyzhen), the Manchu ethnic group and the Khitan tributaries against the Liao Empire. In 1125, the Emperor of the Iron Empire was captured by the Jurchens and deposed, which was reported to the allied Song Empire.
The new “barbarians” did not “justify” the hopes of the Chinese state, but themselves captured the northern part of China, creating a Golden Empire instead of the Iron Empire.
And they immediately began attacks on the Chinese, besieging the capital of the Song Empire, Kaifeng (Kaifeng) in modern Henan Province. After a long struggle, in the 40s, the Song Empire recognized vassal dependence on the new Jurchen Empire.
The new invaders of northern China had no mechanisms for managing agricultural territories with urban centers. Therefore, in the 30s, the Jurchens introduced a unified Chinese system of government, preserving the administrative division according to the Chinese model, with local authorities consisting of Chinese and Khitan. At the same time, the Jurchen tribal system stood above them. But, as in the case of the Khitan, the warlike horsemen did not stand the test of the material possibilities of civilization. Already in 1180, the "History of the Golden Empire" reports that the Jurchen communities of Men'an and Mouke fell into luxury and drunkenness. The nobility adopted Chinese customs, the Chinese language, clothing, and even names and surnames. Emperor Shi Tzu (1123-1189) claimed that the traditional customs of the Nuncha were being forgotten. In 1185, an episode occurred when the emperor saw that both his guard and army, once formidable horsemen and archers, had forgotten how to shoot a bow. And in 1188, officials and soldiers on guard duty were forbidden to drink wine at work.
For the majority of farmers of the Chinese ethnic group, the power of the new Jin dynasty turned into a double oppression, since in addition to the tyranny of the nomads, they were oppressed by uncontrolled local officials, and bribery and theft flourished.
In just 50 years, the stern and formidable warriors, under the influence of material wealth, are transformed either into officials similar to the Chinese, or into simple peasants.
Of course, this is the fate of most nomadic conquering ethnic groups of the period of territorial-neighborly community, if they were inferior in numbers to the settled population. Any nomadic ethnic groups, having joined the fruits of civilization, lose their militancy.
The development of such societies was possible only through external aggression. And on the borders of the Golden Empire, which was certainly more powerful militarily than its neighbors, parity was nevertheless established with the empires of the Song and Xi Xia dynasties, as well as with the Mongol tribes in the north.
And again, a new wave of nomads at the beginning of the 13th century was to fall upon the agricultural civilization of China.
Mongols in battle. Miniature from the 14th century Jami' at-tawarikh. Manuscript. Tabriz. Prussian Cultural Heritage Library. Berlin. Germany
Mongols and the Yuan Empire
As is known, the Mongols conquered the territory inhabited by the agricultural Chinese ethnic group for 68 years, capturing two non-Chinese empires and one Chinese empire on the territory of modern China.
But was there some kind of symbiosis between the nomadic Mongols and the Chinese ethnic group? Let's not forget that the Khitans, Jurchens and Tanguts also lived in this territory.
As with previous nomadic conquerors, the military system of governing the victorious tribal union could not ensure the governance of a much more complex agricultural society.
In creating the Yuan Dynasty Empire, the Chinese-educated Mongolian warrior Kublai Sechen adopted the Chinese system of governance of the Song Dynasty Empire and even improved it, attracting Chinese officials to the government.
But whatever he declared, he could not act contrary to the structure of the nomadic society of conquerors. Therefore, in the Yuan Empire there was segregation, where the Mongols were at the top of the pyramid, and the Chinese, namely from the Song Empire, the most numerous ethnic group, were at the bottom: if a Mongol killed a Chinese, he either paid the cost of a donkey, or simply went on a campaign, and for striking a Mongol, a Chinese was executed. The lands of northern China were distributed to the Mongol nobility back in the 20s of the XNUMXth century, which barbarically exploited the population: the nomads did not think about reproduction in their farms and proceeded exclusively from their own needs.
This situation was in serious contradiction with the formally harmonious system of the new Yuan Empire. And in the conditions of the end of external wars, from which the Mongols could draw new resources, the situation became threatening for the power of the nomads.
And as usually happens in times of crisis, the authorities' vacillations (repressions against Chinese officials and just like that, an attempt to return to "conservative" values) led to even worse results. And the Mongolian elite, starting with the Great Khan, adopting the customs of the Chinese, ceased to be heroic. And if Kublai was a Mongolian hero, then this cannot be said about Toghon Temur (1271-1368). During the bloody war for independence, the Chinese were able to win, the last emperor of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty fled to Mongolia in 1367.
On January 21, 1368, Wang Zhu Yuanzhang declared the establishment of the Ming Dynasty ("Bright") empire.
The nomadic power was over before the fall of the Ming Empire in the 1449th century. All vestiges of Mongol power in China, including the Mongols, were destroyed. Although clashes and even Mongol campaigns into China continued, even besieging Beijing in 1450-XNUMX, the northern nomads did not pose the same threat as they had in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. In turn, the Chinese also made campaigns into the steppe and caused confusion among the various Mongol tribal unions.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that to speak of a symbiosis between the steppe and farmers, based on Chinese history, means to ignore historical realities.
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