Zhao Kuang-yin's Dilemma

[Argeus the Paladin]

(Bushbush, I'm not very sure if this should be moved to "questions about the Chinese civilization" or not. But here goes...)

Zhao Kuang-yin was better known as Song Taizu, arguably the second best emperor in the history of China (and definitely among the top 10, as a certain book attested), comparable to Tang Taisung, who is likely the best and most loved even until today.

His deed: Reunifying China after some two centuries of infighting. That sounds rather like Qin Shihuang, only that he started out as a peasant, rose in rank in his kingdom, and when the chance came, usurped power from the ruling house. From then on he proceeded to make his own destiny as well as created the Song dynasty that would last another 300 years.

His rule had been largely successfull in consolidating power to the central government as well as laying the foundation for the rebuilding the crippled nation of China in the 1000s. After his rule, the portion of China unified under his rule had, for the first time in several centuries, seen prosperity again.

But there was a mistake he had made, for which historians until today keeps laying the blame on him. It was this mistake of his that arguably turned a nation with no less than a million soldiers into a feeble kingdom with little hope and less success resisting the Northern invader - Western Ha, Liao, Jin, and finally, the MONGOLS.

This is that "mistake":

- He realized that in the past "5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms" age, most of the unrest was caused by overpowered generals seizing power from the ruling house and crowning themselves. Upon gaining power, these generals-crowned-kings would lavishly reward their own henchmen with even more power, turning these into YET another generation of overpowered generals, and the circle continued. Thus, he decided to disband his faithful generals altogether, and utilized a system in which no general can lead a large number of troops indefinitely. Instead, each general would now be circulated around the lands, so that "The troops don't know who the general is, and the general cannot have ties with the troops".

- He also realized that most of the unrest started in the border area where the garrison generals were most powerful. Thus, he decided to create a system in which the garrison troops were the worst the Song could muster, and the core army in the capital the best trained and best paid so that the generals from afar cannot rebel.

- Finally, he consolidated military to the emperor's seat by utilizing a complex system of function segregation and cross-supervision. This limits the power of the field generals and forces pretty much all the major military decision on the emperor.

This sounds like a good idea in modern business internal control, but to a nation of that size, limiting the power of the field general would end up in disaster.

- A weak military to guard the border proved disastrous against the ever-aggressive Liao and Jin, and the Song armies lost pretty much every battle they fought with garrison troops. And don't let me get started on the Mongols.

- More importantly, segregation of duties made it impossible for good generals to utilize their abilities to their fullest. Internal corruption from the court would easily control the generals and literally render them helpless. Good generals, for instance the Chinese national hero Yue Fei, were given inadequate amounts of troops and had his choices limited for the duration of his Megas Alexandros-esque military career (We are talkign about an anti-Jin general who fought 128 battles and losing none here). And his doom was brought about by a corrupted premier in court rather than the enemy.

But for all these criticism, I saw that Zhao Kuang-yin was at a crossroad at that time. As I mentioned in a thread not long ago, his situation was like a Medieval II zero authority faction leaders whose troops could go "A Traitor To Our People" every single turn. His choice was to maintain two main stacks of troops under himself and his faction heir, which cannot rebel, and maintain one-unit armies everywhere else.

So what do you think about his dilemma, if you were Zhao Kuang-yin, what better method would you have proposed? Discuss.

[bushbush]

that was not just his dilemma. It was imperial china's dilemma. How to maintain the control of such a gigantic empire while still retaining power to resist foreign enemies. How to maintain a strong army but still make sure it was loyal. To some extent no dynasty solved this problem for long and at the end of each dynastic cycle, it was the same tragedy appearing --- local elites and factions became regional kingdoms evolving into warlords and a new round of civil war began.

[Argeus the Paladin]

But it is Song Taizu who takes the brunt of the blame here. Since perhaps his descendants' was the first time the Han Chinese had to admit defeat bend their head to foreign masters without even putting up much of a fight. Twice. And it was mostly due to his policies.

[bushbush]

But it is Song Taizu who takes the brunt of the blame here. Since perhaps his descendants' was the first time the Han Chinese had to admit defeat bend their head to foreign masters without even putting up much of a fight. Twice. And it was mostly due to his policies.

i think you have to go back to Qin (viewed as semi-barbaric by warring states in central china) for that hahha . But ya he might have been unfairly blamed for this one. It is not like dynasties before him and after him solved this problem.

[hellheaven1987]

A weak borderguard is not a mistake. In fact, Liao also had such feature, and everytime they used defence in depth to crush Song invaders.

It is pretty sad that Zhao Kuang-yin wanted to set up an effecient system, but the environment did not allow such thing.

[Argeus the Paladin]

The big problem is weak border + segregation of function working in tandem. This effectively left generals at the border with inferior troops and, in the case of Yue Fei, unable to raise any more troops although at the time he attacked the Jin, most of the borderland Chinese would flock to his banner if he would just be allowed to do so.

@ bushbush: I thought the Qin stopped being regarded as barbarians after the Spring-Autumn period? After that point they officially became part of the seven Warring States and rightfully so?

[bushbush]

The big problem is weak border + segregation of function working in tandem. This effectively left generals at the border with inferior troops and, in the case of Yue Fei, unable to raise any more troops although at the time he attacked the Jin, most of the borderland Chinese would flock to his banner if he would just be allowed to do so.

That probably would not be Zhao's fault. It is just the typical result of weak incompetent emperor and a court dominated by factional politics at the end of dynastic cycle. You can see the same case in end of Ming. A number of successful ming generals who fought manchus successfully were executed as result of factional struggle. It is the same old problem of imperial rule in China. Too much power was vested to one individual. If this person was incompetent, court politics could easily fall into dangerous people and politics could become nasty at the expense of national well being.

@ bushbush: I thought the Qin stopped being regarded as barbarians after the Spring-Autumn period? After that point they officially became part of the seven Warring States and rightfully so?

They were a little like macedonians to the greeks. They were initially seen as outsiders but later hired capable exiles from central China and began some serious reforms (Shang Yang's reform) and at the end conquered the more culturally advanced central china states (like alexander did to the greeks).

[Argeus the Paladin]

Well, I'm beginning to think that people blamed Song Taizu also on the ground that the military failure of his system did not just occur at the end of the circle like, for instance, the Ming, but not long after he died. If I remembered it right the Song suffered some crushing defeats against the Si Ha during the reign of his brother before the Liao came and lay down the beating. In fact the Song military could be regarded as a variant of the French: The only notable victories they scored was owed to very hardcore generals trying their very best to cheat the systems much later on.

So yes the Song dynasty was like the punching bag of pretty much every nation-state around it worth its salt from the very start.

EDIT:

The concept was that borderguards were used as scout and alarm for an invasion, and the central army could advance to trouble regions and stopped an overextended enemy. This system was similar as Late Rome Empire's system, used defence-in-depth to exhaust invaders.

And it failed for the very reason Rome's system didn't work: The centralized general sent to fight either (i) didn't know the terrain or the local situation well enough to devise a plan, (ii) were too cowardly to fight after years of being sheltered in safety or (iii) were controlled by internal politics, sometimes literally (with the presence of say, an eunuch on consular duty) to the point of crippling his own judgement.

[hellheaven1987]

Well, I'm beginning to think that people blamed Song Taizu also on the ground that the military failure of his system did not just occur at the end of the circle like, for instance, the Ming, but not long after he died. If I remembered it right the Song suffered some crushing defeats against the Si Ha during the reign of his brother before the Liao came and lay down the beating. In fact the Song military could be regarded as a variant of the French: The only notable victories they scored was owed to very hardcore generals trying their very best to cheat the systems much later on.

No, Song did try two large scale invasion against Liao during the third emperor, both campaigns failed, due to overextended supplyline, and lost at least 200 thousands men each. After that Liao counterattacked, but enable to achieve decisive victory, hence both sides sign a friendly treaty in the end.

And it failed for the very reason Rome's system didn't work: The centralized general sent to fight either (i) didn't know the terrain or the local situation well enough to devise a plan, (ii) were too cowardly to fight after years of being sheltered in safety or (iii) were controlled by internal politics, sometimes literally (with the presence of say, an eunuch on consular duty) to the point of crippling his own judgement.

Roman system did work, and the reason why WRE collapsed was because the threat was too big to contain - regardless what system they used.

[hellheaven1987]

The big problem is weak border + segregation of function working in tandem. This effectively left generals at the border with inferior troops and, in the case of Yue Fei, unable to raise any more troops although at the time he attacked the Jin, most of the borderland Chinese would flock to his banner if he would just be allowed to do so.

The concept was that borderguards were used as scout and alarm for an invasion, and the central army could advance to trouble regions and stopped an overextended enemy. This system was similar as Late Rome Empire's system, used defence-in-depth to exhaust invaders.

I have not studied Yue Fei's campaign yet but it seems his problem was that he was not controlled central army at all - an indication suggests that his campaign was not even supported by central government.

@ bushbush: I thought the Qin stopped being regarded as barbarians after the Spring-Autumn period? After that point they officially became part of the seven Warring States and rightfully so?

Well, Qin continuing suffered propoganda attack from other states, refering as semi-barbarian during Warring States.

[Argeus the Paladin]

You can hardly call that a friendly treaty though: The Liao got away with a massive tribute on the Song and according to certain sources lost much less men. There was a story that went around like this: The Song emperor told the emissary to Liao to not accept any clause of tribute higher than 500000 taels per year. And then his premiers pulled the emissary back and whispered into his ears to not accept any clause higher than 100000 taels or he'd have the emissary executed for treason upon return. It took much bargain for the emissary to retain his head and at least part of the Song's national pride.

It might not have been a tactical victory but a strategic victory? No doubt.

[hellheaven1987]

You can hardly call that a friendly treaty though: The Liao got away with a massive tribute on the Song and according to certain sources lost much less men. There was a story that went around like this: The Song emperor told the emissary to Liao to not accept any clause of tribute higher than 500000 taels per year. And then his premiers pulled the emissary back and whispered into his ears to not accept any clause higher than 100000 taels or he'd have the emissary executed for treason upon return. It took much bargain for the emissary to retain his head and at least part of the Song's national pride.

It might not have been a tactical victory but a strategic victory? No doubt.

Blah, you completely ignore the fact that Liao asked for 300 thousands taels for war damage payment, which Song already prepared to face at least one milion taels for that - a remarkable bargain. Besides, Liao also asked two of their former provinces, which were reconquered during Zhou, to be returned, and Song refused the request. Overall, Song did gain some territories from Liao, and got a major discount for war damage payment. Most important, a peace was established.

One thing I see: Disasters almost always struck when a Chinese dynasty is on the downhill. Almost makes you feel there is a God out there who openly disapprove of the crown. Or perhaps is it because they neglect the dams altogether?

But that's vastly off topic though.

Na, disasters always happened anytime, just whether the central government could respond or not.

[Carpathian Wolf]

The WRE fell due to internal politics which in turn made the military crappy.

[Argeus the Paladin]

In turn, does there exist any empire that does not fall because of that?

[Carpathian Wolf]

Hittites, Babylon, Persian Empire under Darius. Yea sometimes some empires just get their ass whooped plain and simple.

[bushbush]

I don't know though, WRE's case was quite unique. You can even say WRE was unlucky. The third century migration wave meant movement of millions of people. I did not know even at the height of the roman empire they could have stopped that many people from moving into the empire.

certainly internal politics played a role. But the outside threat they faced was quite unprecedented.

[Argeus the Paladin]

@ Carpathian Wolf: I might have to disagree on that last one - Darius III was a crap emperor and his court was frankly speaking messed up.

[Carpathian Wolf]

@ Carpathian Wolf: I might have to disagree on that last one - Darius III was a crap emperor and his court was frankly speaking messed up.

That's a myth that's disproven time and time again on this forum. You can use the search engine.

[Faramir D'Andunie]

Not really, he was quite an improvement from the previous Persian rulers, managed to turn the tables on the eunich (spelling?) who played a rather grand part for him taking the throne, and was a decent fighter.

Persia sure had seen better rulers, but calling him crap would be rather unfair. I would say he was unlucky to have to face a certain turn of events.

edit

in china's case, several traits of declining dynasty i can thikn of...:

1. regional fragmentation, rise of generals' powers around the empire, decline of central authority. This is usually due to increasing rebellion so the central government delegated more power to local commanders to fight the rebels but the result was warlords emerging. (classic case was end of Han dynasty fighting the yellow turban rebellion)
2. declining infrastructure, especially river dams, which can lead to widespread famines and disasters when flood happened in china's big rivers. The lack of relief from the increasingly struggling central government meant seed for rebellion
3. declining of the quality of emperor and the increasing factional struggle. With an uninterested emperor, the court politics are left to eunuchs, royal relatives and inner court officials battling for power while governance affairs became neglected.
4. inability to battle foreign threats. With the court occupied with factional struggle, the country sinking into rebellions and taxation drying up, the ability to fight foreign threats weakens. This would lead to defeat (which foster more rebellion) or conquest by outside forces.

True WRE does not come to mind, but the last days of ERE on the other hand...

[Argeus the Paladin]

Oops.

Will do.