In China, Mongol rule soon gave way to the one dynasty that did not originate in the north: it was Han rebels based in the lower Yangzi valley who brought the Ming to power. While some Mongol groups were incorporated into the new empire’s frontier defenses, others remained outside: from 1410 to 1424, the Ming launched five massive campaigns against them. In 1449, the Oirat Mongols invaded in turn, capturing the sitting emperor. The Ming subsequently adopted a defensive posture, symbolized by the most ambitious iteration in a long series of northern walls.
From the late sixteenth century onward, Manchurian tribes began to unite and encroach on the empire. In the middle of the following century, they took over and ruled the country under the Qing dynasty, reviving a version of the ancient dual system that segregated conquerors from indigenous subjects. Occupation forces known as the “Eight Banners,” mostly mounted archers of Manchu and Mongol extraction, were kept apart from the Han population in separate garrisons.
Qing imperialism targeted the steppe: between the late seventeenth century and the 1750s, their troops battled the Oirat Mongol Zunghar khanate that sought to establish hegemony across Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. Breaking their resistance in a series of wars, the Ming took control of Outer Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. China had reached its greatest territorial extent in sustained conflict with a steppe federation.60
Even this highly superficial sketch leaves no doubt that engagement across the steppe frontier was of paramount importance in guiding Chinese state formation: developments in the contact zone from the Ordos to Manchuria as well as in the actual steppe—from conflict with the Xiongnu and Turks during the Han and Tang periods to the Mongol conquests and beyond—all made crucial contributions.
Moreover, the “steppe effect” served to put China back together whenever it fractured. Fractures almost invariably arose from within. Western Zhou hegemony dissolved in the early first millennium BCE as vassal rulers gained independence. The unified Qin empire was brought down by revolts in the final decade of the third century BCE. Massive popular rebellions undermined the Eastern Han in the late second and early third centuries CE and empowered warlords. The Western Jin regime of the third century CE was perennially fragmented and effectively destroyed by hostilities among rival princes: steppe militias from within the empire merely delivered the coup de grâce.
Centrifugal tendencies reaasserted themselves with the An Lushan rebellion in the 750s that greatly weakened the central authorities of the Tang empire, and the Huang Chao uprising of the late ninth century proved fatal. A wave of popular unrest ended Mongol rule in the mid-fourteenth century and temporarily splintered the empire into multiple fiefdoms of competing movements and warlords. Renewed rebellions in the 1630s and 1640s preceded and enabled the Manchu takeover that restored political unity. From the late eighteenth century, the Qing themselves faced popular risings that culminated in the exceptionally bloody Taiping rebellion of the 1850s and 1860s. Since the 1910s the Nationalist government struggled to contain regional warlords alongside the communist insurgency.
For more than 2,000 years, mass rebellions were heavily concentrated near the end of individual dynasties: imperial rule carried within it the seeds of its demise, and was repeatedly undone by popular unrest and the countervailing forces it unleashed. From the middle of the first millennium CE onward, resources from and interaction with the steppe proved essential in repeatedly restoring political order on a large scale, most notably in the fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and seventeenth centuries.61
At the same time, the “steppe effect” of imperial consolidation extended well beyond China proper. Barfield developed his model of “shadow empires” based on parallel trends in state formation in the agricultural and pastoralist spheres that suggest close developmental linkages: bipolar cycles with centralization or collapse on both sides. Thus, when China united, so did the steppe: the creation of the Qin-Han empire coincided with the unified Xiongnu empire (third through first centuries BCE), the Tuoba consolidation with the rise of the Rouran (fifth and sixth century CE), the Sui-Tang consolidation with the two Turkish khaganates (sixth through eighth centuries CE), and the Uighur khaganate (eighth and ninth century CE) (as well as the Tibetan empire in the seventh through ninth centuries CE).
While steppe inhabitants’ desire to obtain resources from the sedentary zone was a constant, the potential to do so grew with imperial unification, which increased, mobilized, and concentrated surplus. However, rising imperial power also necessitated broader coordination of military assets within the steppe, both to withstand encroachment and to extract goods via raids or tribute that sustained more centralized forms of leadership among the nomads.62
The capacities of steppe empires increased over time. Whereas the ancient Xiongnu had accommodated great tribal autonomy, the Turks and Qidan developed more robust polities, and the Genghisid Mongols even more so. The dominant mode of resource extraction likewise evolved. Nicola di Cosmo distinguishes between tribute empires that depended on payments from China and subordinates, from the Xiongnu at the end of the third century BCE to the Rouran up to the mid-sixth century CE; trade-tribute empires—exemplified by the Turks and Khazars during the following 350 years—that added control over long-distance trade routes to tribute-taking; dual-administration empires such as those of the Liao and Jurchen from the tenth through the mid-thirteenth centuries that increasingly relied on taxation; and the direct-taxation empires of the Mongols and Manchu that were made possible by the wholesale conquest of China.63
Throughout this period, as steppe powers shored up their capabilities, the interstitial phases between monopolistic (or duopolistic) empire in China itself kept contracting. Large-scale state formation thus became more deeply entrenched on both sides of the ecological divide. Intensifying interactions across the divide greatly contributed to this trend: just as exposure to the steppe increasingly shaped Chinese state formation, proximity to China prompted analogous developments in the steppe.64
Much of this hinged on two factors: the effective concentration of military power in the steppe and the persistence of the steppe frontier. Steppe polities performed way above their demographic weight. In one estimate, as late as the early twentieth century, all of Inner Asia from the Amur to the Pamir held maybe 12 million people, compared to half a billion in China proper. A thousand years earlier, the split had been closer to 5 million versus 80 million. The steppe coalitions that put serious pressure on the mighty Song empire were even more modestly sized: the Liao Qidan numbered less than a million people, and the Mongols under Genghis Khan not much more than that.65
Huge imbalances in military participation rates evened the odds. In nomadic societies, all able-bodied men could in principle be mobilized for combat. There were no native Turkic or Mongolian words for “soldier”: the Turkic er equates any grown man with a warrior. Men (and also women) who grew up riding and hunting became inimitably well versed in horsemanship and mounted archery. Steppe armies enjoyed great mobility, as the vast grasslands allowed each fighter to draw on multiple horses for riding and carrying supplies.66
These advantages helped sustain endemic conflict. A broad survey counts more than 500 nomad incursions over the course of a little over two millennia (from 220 BCE to 1839), and almost 400 in the opposite direction. And even this underestimates the true scale of hostilities: according to just one standard reference work composed in the eleventh century, between 599 and 755 CE Turks in Mongolia accounted for 113 of 205 recorded attacks on Sui and Tang China, or 1.31 per year.67
It was thus for good reason that northern agriculturalists set up long border walls as early as the fourth century BCE, and that 2,000 years later, Ming and Qing cities along the Inner Asian frontier were equipped with walls that were significantly taller and thicker than those in other border regions. Finally, and most strikingly, statistical tests show a robust long-run association (from 220 BCE to 1839) between attacks from the steppe and the probability of China being a unif
ied empire.68
Access to horses and exposure to nomadic combat styles enhanced military capabilities in the northern reaches of China, mainly though not only under the rule of conquest regimes from the contact zone. The success of northern Xianbei regimes that led to the Sui and Tang unifications and expansions, the role of steppe forces in preserving Tang rule, and the use of northern China as a launchpad for Jurchen and Mongols all reflect this long-term trend. It was not by coincidence that forces from the north generally captured southern China, rather than vice versa.
The underlying “steppe effect” was so powerful because it was perennial: for millennia, the presence of the steppe created a “persistent frontier” between China and Inner Asia. China’s steppe frontier was determined by the limits of suitability for agricultural development regardless of political circumstances. This relative fixity set it apart from temporal frontiers elsewhere, such as the shifting frontier of colonized North America, or even the Pontic steppe—the grasslands north of the Black Sea—once it was gradually taken over by Russian settlers.69
This persistence was modulated by climatic variation that caused back-and-forth shifts in the extent of the cultivable zone: in the Middle Ages, for example, the grasslands appear to have been more extensive than they were later on. This volatility increased the likelihood of hostile encounters and generally added to the instability of steppe polities. The only constant was the principle that control of the (shifting) “marginal” border zone was a critical precondition for regional supremacy: if it was held by steppe groups, it facilitated southward attack; if held by China, it provided horses for its military and a buffer region for garrisons. Imperial regimes would alternately move in, as the Tang did, and retreat, as under the Ming.70
Students of premodern China are increasingly embracing an integrationist perspective, emphasizing international relations and especially the role of the northern frontier in macro-social development. This has greatly improved our understanding of the prominence of large-scale empire in East and Central Asia. But it is not enough to marshal evidence for the “steppe effect” in areas where it was particularly strong: we must also consider the inverse, its absence from large parts of Europe, and how it played out in other parts of the Old World.71
Europe
Interaction with steppe populations was of marginal significance for much of European state formation. Ecology was decisive: much of Latin Europe in particular was simply too far removed from the central Eurasian grasslands (see figure 8.6).
Only the eastern reaches of Europe were different. The westernmost segment of the Eurasian steppe, the Pontic steppe, had long hosted spatially extensive tribal confederations of horsemen. The Scythians and Sarmatians of antiquity were followed by the Hunnic federation of the fourth and fifth centuries CE, the khanate of the Bulgars and Onogurs in the seventh century, the Khazar khaganate from the late seventh through the tenth century, the Pechenegs in the tenth century, and the Cuman-Kipchak khanates from the eleventh through the thirteenth century. In addition, the Volga Bulgar polity persisted west of the Urals from the ninth or tenth century through the thirteenth century.
Eastern Europe was the only part of the continent where farming societies were consistently exposed to powerful steppe challengers, and consequently the only part of Europe that produced large empires after the fall of Rome and independently of the Roman heritage. A shadowy “khaganate” of Rus’, established by Norse migrants in the eighth and ninth centuries, appears to have competed or otherwise closely interacted with the Khazar khaganate. Both set up incipient state structures that were sustained by slaving and taxing trade.72
Archaeological remains of ninth-century forts that protected Slavic agriculturalists point to political intensification in response to steppe predation. The arrival of the Pechenegs caused many of these positions to be abandoned by the early tenth century. The Turkic Khazar khaganate, centered on the Ciscaucasian plains, extended its reach up the Dnjepr, Don, and Volga basins in its quest for tribute. Yet at the same time, Kiev underwent significant development. It expanded at the expense of the seminomadic Khazars, pushing toward the Black Sea. Campaigning all the way to the Caspian Sea and drawing on elite cavalry forces, Rus’ eventually succeeded in toppling the khaganate in the second half of the tenth century. Conflict with the Pechenegs likewise peaked at the turn of the millennium.73
Its ruler, Vladimir the Great, embarked on an ambitious fortification program to secure the center. Analogous to the long walls of the Chinese steppe frontier, massive ramparts designed to obstruct equestrian operations rose up to shield Kiev, precariously located “on an exposed outcrop of the Rus land” close to the nomadic zone. In a striking illustration of scaling-up impelled by competition with steppe challengers, its rulers strove to extend their power to the Slavic north and west to obtain resources for supporting a capital without much of an immediate hinterland. By the early twelfth century, campaigning in the steppe—often against the nomadic Cumans—had established greater stability. Turkic forces were employed to guard the borders.
It was in the wake of this triumph that the Rus’ polity reached the zenith of its power. At that point, the decline of Byzantine influence and the lack of strong steppe opponents opened up space for centrifugal trends that effectively fragmented the realm well before the arrival of the Mongols in the following century. Cuman groups allied with Rus’ factions were drawn into domestic power struggles. Both the rise and fall of Rus’ were thus closely tied up with developments in the steppe.74
In the late Middle Ages, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania grew amid conflicts fanned by its prolonged retention of pagan customs and bitter rivalry with the Teutonic Order. Although in its formative stages it was sheltered from significant steppe influences, this changed as it expanded into the lands of former Rus’: much of the fourteenth century came to be filled with conflict with the Golden Horde that culminated in campaigns all the way to Crimea.
In chapter 6, I briefly discussed the impact of nomadic invasion and rule on Russian state-building. Muscovy amassed power first in cooperation and then in conflict with its Tatar overlords. Muscovy benefited from Mongol-Tatar patronage when it was put in charge of collecting taxes on their behalf, and borrowed their military tactics and administrative practices. Tax revenue strengthened the hand of Muscovy’s rulers and the central state. Well into the sixteenth century, nomad-style bow-armed light cavalry remained the backbone of their military. Anti-Tatar doctrines encouraged ideological integration. In 1571, almost an entire century after Muscovy had asserted full independence from the Golden Horde, Tatars were still able to torch the city of Moscow, and for another century or so Russian territory remained vulnerable to raids even as Tatar power steadily waned.
These interactions and pressures provided Russia with both the means and a strong motivation to expand, not only at the expense of the herders but also that of Poland-Lithuania to the west and rival Russian principalities. By 1820, Russia claimed control over 18 million square kilometers. Coupling this vast expanse of land with a relatively modest population of some 40 million, large parts of it had more in common with sparsely settled steppe empires than with other European states.75
Much of Europe, by contrast, was only lightly and intermittently touched by steppe influences. As noted in chapter 6, the Hungarian Plain supported only a limited number of mounted warriors. The Sarmatian Iazyges entered the Pannonian basin around the beginning of the Common Era, causing problems for the Roman military without ever rising to the status of a major challenger. The Huns were responsible for the first significant irruption of steppe forces into Latin Europe: yet after briefly challenging both halves of the Roman empire in the mid-fifth century CE—seeking tribute rather than conquest—their brittle hegemony quickly collapsed.
In the 560s, the Avars entered the Hungarian plain from the steppe. Their khaganate proved more resilient than Attila the Hun’s but was also far less extensive: after expanding beyond the plains and threatening Constantinople
in the early seventh century, they were unable to maintain control over Slavic populations south of the Danube and remained a regional power until they were shattered by Frankish assaults at the end of the eighth century.
As we already saw in Part III, the Magyars made a somewhat bigger splash. A century after the fall of the Avars, they took over the Pannonian basin and launched cavalry attacks on Latin Europe. In their raids of Germany, France, and Italy, they defeated all three parts of the Frankish domain and extracted tributary concessions until in 955, a German victory rather suddenly put an end to their predation.76
Their temporary successes owed much to the pervasive weakness of the European polities of the period, described in chapter 5. In the end, the Hungarian Plain’s limited carrying capacity for horses and its relative isolation from the Eurasian steppe prevented Huns, Avars, and Magyars from exercising greater influence in European politics. This fundamental ecological constraint induced gradual shifts away from cavalry that in turn reduced the ability of these groups to project power. While the Hunnic domain was too expansive to be governable, the Avar polity could not withstand a determined challenger, and the kingdom of the Magyars was eventually incorporated into the European state system. And as noted in chapter 6, environmental conditions may also have played a role in the reluctance or failure of the Mongols to establish a stronger presence during the thirteenth century.77
Its geography and ecology protected Latin Europe even when its states were fragile and their defenses were feeble. With the exception of the Iberian peninsula, it was also shielded from incursions from the Maghreb. North African steppe tribes rarely achieved the level of organization required to enter the temperate zone, quite possibly because they lacked a sufficiently substantial settled hinterland against which to develop integrative capabilities.78
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