In 1348, Mongols of the Golden Horde were besieging the Crimean city of Kaffa (modern Feodosia), which was then a Black Sea trading port of the Genoese. When there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in the Mongol army, they catapulted plague-ridden corpses over the walls. (Some claim this as the earliest example of germ warfare.) Consequently, ships sailing from Kaffa to Europe transported the plague to Italy. Within half a dozen years, the Black Death (as it came to be known) had spread across Europe from Lisbon to Novgorod, from Sicily to Norway, in the process killing between 30 to 60 per cent of the entire population, probably accounting for over 100 million deaths.
A proto-Renaissance of European culture, inspired by a variety of disparate sources such as the Sicilian court of Frederick the Great (‘Stupor Mundi’), scientific and philosophical ideas imported from the Muslim world, and the new naturalistic painting of the Italian Giotto, was halted in its tracks, delaying the actual Italian Renaissance by a century.
15 The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher and pioneer of economics, Adam Smith, suggested that had the Native Americans reached the stage of becoming herdsmen, they would probably have succeeded in driving the first pastoral European settlers from their shores.
16 Reminiscent of the Mongolian nomadic life, where tribespeople inhabited a moveable ger (a felt or skin tent, like a yurt).
17 The recurrence of the wolf in fundamental mythologies is widespread, if not universal. It stretches from Gilgamesh and Akkadian myth to Rome, from Norse mythology to Beowolf, even into New World Inuit and Cherokee legends. Some point to the wolf being the most feared predator faced by early humans; however, the underlying identification with wolves would seem to indicate some deeper psychological atavism.
18 Such ruthlessness is not confined to the distant past. The twentieth-century Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, no more an aficionado of military self-help manuals than Genghis Khan, adopted an uncannily similar policy to that recommended by Sun Tzu. During his 1930s Great Purge and indeed well into the Second World War, Stalin ordered the execution of literally hundreds of his military leaders (over 80 per cent of his commanders in the majority of sectors were purged), with a similar salutary effect on their successors and the men they commanded.
19 Muhammad himself declared in the Hadith: ‘What you dislike to be done to you, don’t do to them.’ However, in the ensuing century of the Muslim conquest, this evidently fell into abeyance.
5
The Yuan Dynasty
Kublai Khan proclaimed the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, and set about completing his conquest of the Sung Dynasty of southern China, which would eventually unite north and south China for the first time since the Sung Dynasty had split off from the Jin Dynasty almost 150 years previously. China has traditionally flourished during periods when the north and south have been united. Unification would always prove difficult over such a vast region, although the people occupying this region are, and have been throughout history, for the most part homogenous Han Chinese.20
Any consideration of Chinese history must be seen from the perspective of its long past, as well as the effect this may well have upon its future, and thus the future of world history. Effects and influences can take centuries to be understood. According to the story, when China’s twentieth-century communist ruler, Chairman Mao, was asked in the 1960s about the impact of the French Revolution, he is said to have replied, It is too early to tell.’
Subsequent sources, hampered by a similar lack of hard facts, claim that this remark was really made by his prime minister, Zhou Enlai, who was said to have been referring to the Paris 1968 Student Revolution. The Chairman Mao version better illustrates the Chinese attitude towards historical effect. Even in Chinese communism, it is possible to detect age-old Buddhist influences which coloured attitudes back through the dynasties to the Yuan period and beyond.
Unlike the previous empires we have discussed, which had their own origin myths, the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) was born out of a succession of previous dynasties. By the time of its birth, Dynastic China was already a mature culture, with a recognisable quasi-continuous history. As previously mentioned, Chinese Han civilisation evolved independently in the Yellow River basin of central China around 2,000 BC, i.e. a millennium or so after the Mesopotamian and Nilotic civilisations. Out of this Han civilisation, the legendary first Xia dynasty is said to have developed. Han rule gradually spread by ‘migration and assimilation’, which included the process of ‘sinicisation’, the adoption of the same diet, writing, language, lifestyle and general culture of the Han.
The original dynasty of a united Imperial China was the Qin Dynasty, which began in 221 BC. This covered a territory recognisable as China, stretching from the borders of modern Manchuria as far south as modern Vietnam, and west towards Sichuan. Qin (pronounced ‘Chin’) is generally recognised as the origin of the name China. This dynasty is today remembered for its founding emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BC leaving behind him a terracotta army, whose purpose was to protect him in the afterlife. Surprisingly, this was only discovered by accident in 1974 by some local farmers digging a well, which penetrated a vast hollow underground mausoleum.
The making of Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum is a feat in many ways comparable to the construction of the sphinx and the pyramids. His ‘army’ consisted of over 8,000 soldiers (all with individualised features), 130 chariots and 670 horses. Its construction, along with the mausoleum itself, hidden beneath a hill-sized mound, is thought to have involved 700,000 men, drawn from all over the empire. According to Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history, writing in the ensuing century:
The First Emperor was buried with palaces, towers, officials, valuable artefacts and wondrous objects . . . 100 flowing rivers were simulated using mercury, and above them the ceiling was decorated with heavenly bodies below which were the features of the land.
For more than two millennia this was regarded as fantasy, or at best legend. And even after the discovery of Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum, certain features of Sima Qian’s description were taken as fanciful embellishments. However, consequent archaeological investigations have revealed high levels of mercury in the soil that once obscured the mausoleum, raising all manner of questions regarding any ‘palaces, towers . . . valuable artefacts and wondrous objects’ yet to be discovered. Curiously, Qian’s original manuscript makes no reference to any terracotta army, suggesting that possibly the very existence of this unprecedented collection remained a secret from the outset, with its creators being put to death.
This too is not so far-fetched as it sounds. The other great construction dating from Emperor Qin’s reign was an early crude version of the Great Wall of China, made of locally gathered stones and compacted earth. The precise length of this wall remains unknown, as most of it has either been eroded away over the centuries or become incorporated into the present structure. Even so, it is known to have covered more than 3,000 miles.21
This certainly gives an indication of how the Chinese viewed the threat from the nomadic tribesmen who occupied the vast plateau to the north. (The Mongols would not emerge as the dominant tribe for almost another one and a half millennia.) Even more suggestive of this Chinese fear is the sheer cost of Qin’s wall. This was no great work of art, such as his intricate and wondrous mausoleum – yet where human life was concerned, the cost was if anything even greater. According to some modern historians: ‘it has , been estimated . . . that hundreds of thousands, if not up to a million, workers died building the Qin wall.’
Yet this vast expenditure of human life would be followed by the laying of the foundations of a civilisation that would, in the centuries to come, grow to equal and then excel any other civilisation on earth. It is no exaggeration to say that the Qin Dynasty created the social blueprint for most of the great dynasties to come over the ensuing two millennia (or longer, as we shall see some now argue). And how did the Qin Dynasty achieve this feat – which would in time produce an empire, in the form of the Yuan Dynasty, that
was greater and more civilised than that of Rome, more artistically and technologically creative than the Caliphates?
It was the Qin Dynasty that instigated a centralised government and employed a vast civil service of scholar-officials who administered throughout the empire.This latter fact is, and remains, vital to the understanding of Chinese culture. Such a far-flung administration involved government by individual officials, rather than rule according to an established legal code. What could be termed criminal or rebellious behaviour was dealt with by penal sanctions. Yet without a universal code of law, what guided these scholar-officials in their administration of justice?
It is here that we see the pervasive influence of Confucius. Not for nothing have his teachings been characterised as the ‘philosophy of civil servants’. Confucius had died some three centuries previously, but by now his teachings had become much more than a philosophy or a religion. The Analects of Confucius, a collection of his sayings painstakingly assembled after his death by his followers, was by now widely circulated. Indeed, they had become a spiritual-ethical guidance that embodied an entire way of life.
Membership of the civil service was dependent upon a deep and rigorous knowledge of Confucian teachings. Entrance exams were particularly gruelling, with candidates locked in tiny cells containing just a writing board and a bucket, for anything up to three days. This was designed to weed out members of well-connected families, relatives of previous civil servants, and such. It ensured that entry was entirely a matter of merit. The Qin Dynasty would last for only fifteen years, making it by far the shortest of the great Chinese dynasties, yet it ‘inaugurated an imperial system that lasted, with interruption and adaption, until 1912’; the year when the last emperor abdicated and the Republic of China was established.22
So what are the teachings of Confucius, which so moulded the Chinese character? His ultimate aim was the achievement of harmony, in both the personal and civil spheres. On the personal level: ‘When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path.’ Adding, in evidence of his understanding of how we actually behave, the all too recognisable: ‘What you do not like when done to yourself, do not to others.’
Yet, as with so many, he found himself forced to disregard such sentiment when it came to the practical business of administration, which is of course the imposition of power, wanted or unwanted, no matter how it is disguised. The pious Confucius commends: ‘He who exercises government by means of his virtue remains as steadfast as the north star in the sky.’ The more practical Confucius commends: ‘Pay strict attention to business, be true to your word, be economical in expenditure, and love your people.’
Buddhism, with its message of compassion and lack of attachment to this world, would arrive in China in the century following the Qin Dynasty. Initially, Confucianism abhorred its nihilistic approach, but Buddhism would eventually strike a deep chord in the Chinese national character. By the advent of the Yuan Dynasty, it had become the official religion. The reason for Buddhism’s deep accord with the Chinese is not difficult to discern. The almost casual mass destruction of human life, as noted in the Qin Dynasty for instance, would invariably be followed by a cultural resurgence, which even so contained the seeds of its own destruction. This ever-revolving wheel of fortune led to widespread uncertainties, which naturally fostered the withdrawal from worldly ambitions advocated by Buddhism.
Such cycles have been a recurrent feature of Chinese history. The two most recent examples are perhaps the most instructive. The fighting before, during and after the Second World War, lasted from 1937 to 1949 in this part of Asia. During this period China was ravaged by Japanese invasion and then civil war, both involving mass slaughter amongst the civilian population, as well as the military participants. Such was the brutality and chaos that estimates of over fifteen million Chinese deaths are usually accepted.
Yet within decades, under the communist dictatorship of the charismatic Chairman Mao Zedong, this ravaged land embarked upon the ‘Great Leap Forward’. This would ‘transform agricultural production, using people’s communes to walk the road from socialism to communism, from poverty to abundance’. In the process China would become a world superpower, capable of resisting the combined force of the Western Powers in the Korean War, even vying with the Soviet Union for the leadership of world communism.
The fact that all this contained the seeds of its own destruction came to be seen in Chairman Mao’s decision to launch the Cultural Revolution in 1966, intended to mobilise the people once more and return to the basics of ‘ideological purity’. Mao’s Little Red Book of quotations took on the role of Confucius’s Analects, and a wave of destruction was launched throughout the land. How many died during these upheavals? ‘Nobody knows, because nobody counted.’ Consequent estimates suggest that over three million people died, and 100 million people (a ninth of the population) were uprooted and displaced during this agony of self-destruction and famine, which would plague China for a decade.
Yet within forty years this devastated country had made the greatest ‘leap forward’ ever witnessed in human history, building the architectural wonder of the world in the form of the Shanghai waterfront, sending a rocket to the moon, and becoming the world’s second largest economy. All this, without the liberal social democracy and free market that was deemed essential to rapid economic growth. Whether this too contains the seeds of its own destruction – as authoritarianism of dynastic proportions coexists uneasily with a release of social mobility, energy and creativity never previously witnessed on such a scale – remains to be seen.
All of which places us in a suitable context to begin examining in detail the Yuan Dynasty, otherwise known as the Great Yuan. And why is this so? Perhaps most pertinently, the Yuan Dynasty stands in a pivotal mid-way position between the founding Qin Dynasty, and what for want of a better name might be called the Post-Mao Dynasty. At a certain point in all three of these dynasties, it could be claimed that China stood poised to lead the world. Only during the Yuan Dynasty has it actually achieved this feat.
When Kublai Khan finally completed his conquest of the Sung Dynasty in 1279, he did not follow the example of his grandfather, Genghis Khan. During the long and arduous campaign that preceded this victory, the Mongol army was not unleashed in its traditional orgy of destruction, with populations put to the sword, cities left in smoking ruins and pyramids of skulls. Kublai Khan set about sinicising himself and his rule. The capital was established in Khanbaliq (Beijing), and he graciously invited the Song Empress Dowager and her eight-year-old grandson, Emperor Gong of Song, to take up residence in the city under his protection.
At the same time, Kublai Khan embarked upon a policy of further expansion, now reaching beyond China in pursuit of a pan-Asiatic empire. Korea and Manchuria soon fell. Invasions were launched against North Vietnam and the southern Vietnamese kingdom of Champa, as well as Thai territory and Burma. To the north, his navy attacked the large island territory of Sakhalin off the east coast of Siberia. None of these territories was completely conquered, but most were forced to concede vassal status to Yuan China.
However, despite repeated attempts to invade Japan – one with a fleet of almost 1,000 ships – weather, faulty ship construction, and fierce Samurai resistance, along with inaccurate maps, all combined to thwart Kublai Khan’s ambitions. Another invasion of far-flung Java proved similarly unsuccessful, once again frustrated by bad maps.
Other cartographic enterprises proved more successful. The countries along the Silk Road were accurately mapped, with the aid of expert Islamic geographers. Similarly, the renowned Kangnido ‘map of the world’, which dates from before Admiral Zheng He set out on his great voyages, indicates that Yuan Dynasty geographers were well aware of the existence of India, Arabia and Africa – if a little uncertain about their actual shape and size.
The Mongols and their emperor, Kublai Khan, may have conquered China, but the
extensive territory of which they took possession and ruled contained a far more advanced civilisation than that of the Mongols. Indeed, Kublai Khan’s first great contribution to this civilisation was simply not destroying it. Inevitably, the years of war against the Song Dynasty had resulted in widespread destruction. Indeed, the city on the site of what would become Khanbaliq had been reduced to ruins. But as part of his sinicisation process, Kublai Khan ordered a new capital to be built in the Chinese style. Initially, he and his Mongol commanders for the most part presided over their new possession, but as the years passed, the new Yuan emperor would make his own distinct contribution.
When Marco Polo arrived at Kublai Khan’s palace in Khanbaliq around 1275, several years into the new emperor’s reign, he found ‘the greatest palace that ever was . . . The hall of the palace is so large that it can easily accommodate 6,000 people.’The city itself was enclosed by walls six miles long by six miles wide. This was one of the termini of the Silk Road, and the city had separate quarters for foreign merchants of different religions. These included Nestorians (Christians of a heretical sect long since banished from Europe), Jews, ‘Saracans’ (Muslims) and even Manicheans (a Persian dualistic religion that briefly rivalled Christianity during Roman times, which the Chinese classified as ‘Vegetarian demon-worshippers’).
As this indicates, the Silk Road was responsible for the dissemination of ideas as well as trade, and it was around this period that the ideas of the Islamic philosopher-scientists began arriving in China, promulgating Aristotelian philosophy and Greek medicine. Chinese Muslim physicians became responsible for the establishment of hospitals, and Khanbaliq became known as ‘the Department for Extensive Mercy’.
Empire Page 9