Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
away the Chinese dynasties' greatest foreign policy headache; in fact,
for the last thousand years of imperial Chinese history, from about
960 to 1911, these pastoral nomadic peoples conquered and ruled over
parts of China, and sometimes all of China, more than 70 percent of the
time.
Historians are not content to look at the long and hostile history
between China and the pastoral nomads and leave it unexplained. Tra-
ditional Chinese historians have usually understood this pattern of
conflict to be evidence that the pastoral nomads were barbarians and
less than fully human; thus, their depredations and greediness might
be understandable. Descriptions of them by Chinese historians were
often hostile and uncomplimentary, as in this passage written about
the Xiongnu by Sima Qian:
They move about in search of water and pasture and have no walled
cities or fixed dwellings, nor do they engage in any kind of agriculture.
Their lands, however, are divided into regions under the control of vari-
ous leaders. They have no writing, and even promises and agreements
are only verbal. The little boys start out by learning to ride sheep and
shoot birds and rats with a bow and arrow, and when they get a little
older they shoot foxes and hares, which are used for food. Thus all the
young men are able to use a bow and act as armed cavalry in time of
war. It is their custom to herd their flocks in times of peace and make
their living by hunting, but in periods of crisis they take up arms and
go off on plundering and marauding expeditions. This seems to be their
inborn nature. For long-range weapons they use bows and arrows, and
swords and spears at close range. If the battle is going well for them they
willadvance,butifnot,theywillretreat,fortheydonotconsiderita
disgrace to run away. Their only concern is self-advantage, and they
know nothing of propriety or righteousness.
(Watson 1993, 129)
More than a millennium later, the Song dynasty (906-1279) Neo-
Confucian literatus Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) launched into a stronger
debate against the pastoral nomadic “barbarians” who continued to
threaten China's security in his own day. In particular he deplored
the Han dynasty's (202 B.C.-A.D. 220) diplomatic practice of marrying
princesses off to barbarian leaders, particularly the Xiongnu, in
attempts to secure harmonious relationships with them. (Ouyang
Xiu's argument along these lines is somewhat surprising, since the
Han dynasty fairly quickly gave up this intermarriage system and
replaced it with the tributary system, which was far more favorable
to Han China symbolically.)
