(Idealism in action)
Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/42072066@N05/3886633422
Han, Reign of Gaozu year 1, Luoyang, Imperial Palace
“There is the matter of the Xiongnu.”
“Yes. How can this threat be managed?”
“We must first clearly define the threat posed by the Xiongnu by examining their society.”
“What is there to examine? They are primitive barbarians who subsist through constant raids into Han territory. Their warlike nature is threat enough.”
“Ah, yes. The Legalist fiction of the primitive Xiongnu . . . of course, many Confucians also believe this myth, as such perceptions further reinforce their narrative regarding society and history. Your Majesty, however, ought not be blinded by the imagination of the ignorant, but must perceive the Xiongnu in the light of reality to formulate an effective policy against them.”
“Do not the XIongnu nomads live in a pre-agrarian society? Are they not primitive in comparison with the Han?”
“Ha ha ha! Your Majesty, are you suggesting that the prior to the Xia, men wandered these lands herding cattle, until they arrived at the Yellow river basin suddenly discovering agriculture? From whence did the men learn the techniques of farming? From whom did they receive edible seeds to plant?”
“. . . then how did the Xia rise?”
“As we discussed, your Majesty, the origin of man is irrelevant to discussion regarding political governance. What matters how man came to be? We can concoct any number of narratives to convince your subjects to the inevitability of the current sociopolitical order. What is important is the way circumstances are not the way circumstances were. Currently, the nomads of the Ordos plain live exercising a specialized economic function. Xiongnu nomadic socioeconomic organization allows for extremely efficient cattle and horse breeding compared with the sedentary social organization of your subjects. The Xiongnu specialization compels them to be dependent upon trade with their sedentary neighbor of the Han for basic necessities of life from grains to iron tools. It is likely that without reliable sedentary settlements with which the Xiongnu could trade, their social structure would have collapsed. It is plausible that the Xiongnu became nomads after contact with the more efficient agrarian Xia, but again, such speculation is irrelevant.”
“If the Xiongnu depend so heavily upon the Han, then why the persistent raids into our territory?”
“The recent political developments on the stepps have made theft more profitable than trade for the Xiongnu.”
“What developments?”
“During the height of the Chu-Han contention, Modu, the Chanyu of the Xiongnu, was able to organize the various nomad tribes into a confederation. Modu now commands an army thrice the size of Han imperial regiments.”
“. . . can he cross the Qin wall? Does he have siege capability?”
“Your Majesty forgets, the Xiongnu warfare relies mostly on mobility. Furthermore, the Qin wall stands empty of any garrison troops at this time. Nomads have already reclaimed the Ordos Loop. There are even rumors that Modu has established several cities to the far north and has the capacity to mass produce iron tools.”
“Then we need to send the imperial forces into the borderlands immediately.”
“To what purpose, your Majesty?”
“To defend against the Xiongnu!”
“Surely your Majesty does not plan on warring with Modu, who is at the height of his ascendancy with over 300,000 men under his command? Does your Majesty forget that most, if not all, of his 300,000 force will be cavalry, and the war will be fought on the stepp plains of the north?”
“What do you suggest that we surrender? The Qin drove them out once, the Han will do so again.”
“Meng Tian faced divided nomadic tribes, who were hostile with one another, with a core force of cavalry supported by mass crossbowmen. When Men Tian marched with Qin northern army, the nomads faced, for the first time, violence and slaughter on massive scale. Previously, the tribes played at war with skirmishes, raids, rape, theft. Qin introduced them to total war: killing entire male tribal population, selling women and children into slavery, scorching the grasslands, burning all nomadic semi-permanent structures. Touman, then the head of the Xiongnu, fled into the far northern regions with his tattered remnants, but his successor, Modu, never forgot the lessons Meng Tian taught the Xiongnu. Now, his nomadic confederation is unified by the hatred and fear of the Qin, and by extension your Han, with 300,000 permanent standing force supported by tribute from his confederate allies and subject states.”
“. . . Meng Tian’s accomplishments were exaggerated. His northern expedition was merely an exercise in slaughter.”
“Meng Tian did face some organized resistance, but not to the scale against which your Majesty’s military forces must now contend. Before, the nomads were not organized to wage prolonged war, content with continuing established commercial activities and occasional theft. Now, the nomads desire and require much more; after all, Modu has to support his standing army, which serves as both enforcers of his political will and symbols of defense against their ill-tempered agrarian neighbor.”
“If the nomads were not a threat, and the nomads were and have been a trading partner, why did Qin Shi Huang send the entirety of his northern army into the Ordos Loop?”
“It was a decision emanating from the pernicious rot of idealism. Qin Shi Huang actually believed in the nonsense of Legalism, the universality of reason in all men. He believed that the Qin could transplant its sociocultural matrix onto the stepps of the north! Ha ha! We can’t even transplant crops in that frigid, waterless desert, and yet, the idealists of Qin envisioned agrarian cities and sedentary society, in an area populated by tribesmen, who lived nomadic existence since the time of Xia! What imagination and arrogance!”
“But the Qin did build cities and agrarian plantations on the Ordos Loop. Qin Shi Huang settled 30,000 subjects within his newly conquered land.”
“And Meng Tian had to build the Wall to keep those poor wretches from defecting to the nomads. He had to garrison 100,000 men to prevent 30,000 subjects from abandoning their doomed experiment. The cost of supplying Qin Shi Huang’s vanity project was astronomical, as the Ordos Loop could not produce enough crops to be self-sustaining. It was not the Xiongnu who drove out the Qin from the stepps, but endemic famine.”
“What madness!”
“Yes, your Majesty. Hence the reason for our failed attempt at poisoning Qin Shi Huang.”
“Your . . . ?! So the burying of the Confucians . . .”
“An expected response from a paranoid monarch who was poisoned by his intelligentsia. Of course, he never knew which faction was responsible, so he killed them all.”
“Then how did you escape?”
“Now, now, your Majesty, that would be telling . . . suffice to say that our operation has connections and resources.”
“Your operation? You are not Confucian at all!”
“Would my being a Confucian, or not being one, be of any relevance to our discussions, your Majesty?”
“The crown prince attempted to protect the intelligentsia. Was he a member of your conspiracy?”
“Fusu was a genuinely competent and merciful man. No, he was not privy to the conspiracy, but he suspected that the intelligentsia may have been framed.”
“Were they?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes! I order you to speak truth!”
“The more relevant question, your Majesty, may be: is truth enough to prevent assassinations, formulate effective policy, or conceptualize the past? It is not. Sometimes, truth can be as obscuring as fabrication. Even were I to obey your command and disclose all the . . . truth regarding the conspiracy, would your Majesty be content with my version of history? Or would your Majesty expend countless hours combing the depths of his archives, sifting through mountains of incomplete and contradictory information?”
“Who are you? No, never mind, you would not provide truthful answers, and I would not believe them.”
“Ha ha! Finally, your Majesty, we can be honest with each other! A common ground of mistrust!”
“I need more wine. Why was Fusu exiled to the Ordos Loop?”
—to be continued—