Chinese Imperial Wars

At issue: Spread of Han Chinese culture

Date: 221 b.c.e.-1800

Location: Eastern and southeastern Asia, Afghanistan, the Asian steppes

Combatants: Han Chinese vs. dozens of groups throughout what later became China, Korea, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Southeast Asia

Principal commanders:Chinese, Qin Shihuangdi (c. 259-210 b.c.e.), Han Wudi (156 b.c.e.-87/86 b.c.e.), Yang Jian (581-604), Li Yuan (d. 310), Li Shimin (600-649), An Lushan (703-757), Wang Anshih (1021–1086), Yonglo (1363–1425), Kangxi (1662–1722); Mongol, Genghis Khan (1155/1162–1227), Kublai Khan (1215–1294)

Principal battle: Talas River

Result: China emerged as the principal power in eastern Asia, and Chinese culture was spread throughout the entire region.

Background

The Chinese Empire has waxed and waned throughout its long history, and China’s ruling dynasties both gained and lost power through military actions. In 221 b.c.e., King Zheng (later Qin Shihuangdi) established the Qin Dynasty. His tomb is notable for the seven thousand life-size terra-cotta soldiers that were discovered buried outside the mound in 1974.

Action

Rebellions quickly overtook the Qin Empire, and in 206 b.c.e., Lu Bang (later Gaozu), a one-time peasant, became the first emperor of the Former, or Western, Han Dynasty. Threatened in the north by the Xiongnu, a steppe people from Mongolia, Gaozu, after suffering military defeat, resorted to diplomacy by marrying a Chinese princess to the Xiongnu ruler, a tactic adopted by later emperors. Military action resumed against the Xiongnu under Han Wudi (r. 141-87 b.c.e.), and Chinese armies also pushed into the Korean peninsula.

After a brief interval, in 25 c.e., the Eastern, or Later, Han Dynasty gained power. The first of the Eastern Han emperors, Guang Wudi, defeated his rivals, and Chinese armies also invaded Vietnam. However, attacks by steppe nomads as well as peasant uprisings, such as the Yellow Turbans and Five Pecks of Grain, brought the downfall of the Han Dynasty in the early third century, resulting in an era of fragmentation that lasted until the late sixth century. During this period, China was divided into several kingdoms, and in the north non-Chinese raiders established ruling dynasties, a practice that would be repeated in the future. Unity returned with the Sui Dynasty (581-618), thanks to the successful military activities of Yang Jian (or Wendi), who also invaded Annam in the south, established military colonies, and built walls to discourage attacks by the eastern Turks. However, an abortive campaign in Korea and peasant rebellions brought the Sui Dynasty to an end. After defeating rival claimants, Li Yuan (or Guazu) established the Tang Dynasty in 618.

Li Yuan’s successor, Li Shimin (r. 626-649) faced the dominant presence of the eastern Turks on the northern frontier, extending from Central Asia, Mongolia, to Manchuria. He expelled them and extended Chinese authority across central Asia to the Persian borders. During the Tang Dynasty, the Korean states became tributaries to China. The Xuanzong emperor (r. 712-756), cognizant of the continued threat along the northern frontier, replaced the existing militia system with professional soldiers and military colonies. By the eighth century, the Tang Empire had become extremely powerful. Chinese culture pervaded East Asia, Tibet recognized Chinese supremacy, and China expanded into the south. However, after Chinese defeat at Talas River (751) and the failed rebellion of An Lushan (755-763), centralized rule weakened, defense capabilities declined, and the Tang were forced to rely on the Mongolian Uighurs against a revived Tibet. Factionalism within the government, often from eunuchs, coincided with a series of uprisings, and initiated a time of confusing discord, with rival generals heading professional armies made up of infantry and cavalry, that lasted until the Northern Song Dynasty restored unity in 960.

The Song ruled China except in the north, where, after military defeats at the hands of the Qidan nomads, diplomacy was utilized. Under Wang Anshih (r. 1021–1086), a local militia system was created. However, China’s sinicized Qidan allies were overrun by the Manchurian Juchens who invaded and established the Jin Dynasty in 1115, forcing the Song into the south. Conflicts between the two dynasties occurred during the next century, but worse was to befall both. Mongols under Genghis Khan invaded the north in 1211, leading to the downfall of the Jin in 1234, after battles in which both combatants resorted to firearms. In 1268, Kublai Khan attacked the southern Song, who capitulated in 1279.

The Mongol Empire included more than just China, encompassing much of Asia. The Chinese suffered discrimination under the despotic Mongol emperors, who had adopted the dynastic name of Yuan, but Chinese culture was largely unaffected. Kublai unsuccessfully tried to conquer Japan. After 1320, the Yuan Dynasty experienced succession disputes, complicated by the issue of how much of Chinese culture was acceptable to the Mongols. As Mongol military abilities declined, local rebellions, such as that led by the Red Turbans, broke out. Massive floods occurred, and the Yuan rulers fled in 1368.

The victor of the succession disputes was Zhu Yuanzhang. He declared himself emperor in 1368, taking the title of Hongwu and establishing the Ming (“bright”) Dynasty. Through military colonies, the armies were to be self-sufficient and captained by a hereditary officer class. Concerned about the nomad threat, the Yonglo emperor (r. 1403–1424) moved the capital north to Beijing. Military expeditions were launched against the Mongols and into Annam in the south but with little permanent effect. After Yonglo’s death, the emphasis was on defense, exemplified by the construction of the Great Wall of China in 1474. By the early 1600’s, a combination of incompetent emperors, ambitious eunuchs, economic depression, and possibly climactic changes led to peasant uprisings. Raids, primarily from the Manchus—descendants of the earlier Juchens—compounded the Ming’s problems. The Manchus adopted a veneer of Chinese culture by coopting leading Chinese figures and assumed the dynastic name of Qing (“pure”). Beijing was occupied in 1644, the south was invaded in 1649, and the last Ming emperor was executed in 1662, although anti-Manchu rebellions continued until 1681.

The Qing emperors pursued a policy of Manchu supremacy but included many Chinese in their government and incorporated numerous aspects of Chinese culture. Kangxi (r. 1667–1722), concerned about Russian expansion, waged war against possible Russian allies, and the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) established the borders between China and Russia. Under the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1796), the empire doubled in size, notably with the inclusion of Tibet and Xinjiang to the west.

Aftermath

After the end of Qianlong’s reign, however, the Chinese Empire began to lose power. Its days of expansion were largely over, and the 1800’s would bring the incursion of Western powers and later the Japanese into China.

Historical Periods of China

Bibliography

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Roberts, J. A. G. Prehistory to 1800. Vol. 1 in A History of China. London: Alan Sutton, 1996.

Rossabi, Morris, ed. China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, Tenth-Fourteenth Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Spence, Jonathan, and John E. Wills, Jr., eds. From Ming to Ch’ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979.

Waldron, Arthur. “Chinese Strategy from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries.” In The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War, edited by Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Wills, John E., Jr. Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.