The Triumph of the Incarnated Holy King
After Sima Zhixen's rebellion, the Qi military slowly declined in quality - although it would never reach the paranoia-induced state weakness of the early Qi army. Besides the turbulent Bod Empire frontier, mercenaries were gradually phased out, but a professional force remained, and was supported in large part by the purchase of horses from the northwestern steppe peoples - particularly prized were the fine horses of the Ferghana valley. Horses were traded for luxury goods in great quantities, allowing the Qi to maintain a vital cavalry arm on their northern borders.
However, an unpleasant and by no means minor side-effect of the horse trade was the increasing arrogance of the Uighur merchants in China. It led to numerous conflicts and, among the officials as well as the people, it left a lasting dislike of what they saw as greedy barbarians. The Uighurs realized they were the middle-men through which all horse-trade came, and began charging absurd prices for increasingly poor-quality horses. By bribing local magistrates they could see inferior products through inspections for a net profit, and the Qi army suffered for it.
The Uighur had little respect for the Chinese - while the Gokturks had in many ways idolized their settled neighbors to the south, and the early Uighurs had followed suit, this trend reversed remarkably in the ninth century. The Uighur Khagan Bayanchur (815-844) abandoned much of the Chinese trappings of his predecessors, encouraged by a popular notion of the Chinese as weak and the Uighurs as inheritors of Turko-Eftal-Sogdian traditions rather than Chinese ones. As much as the Uighur merchants and embassies idolized the comfort and luxury of Qi China, enjoying silks and fine finished goods, the artistic and cultural world of the Uighur Khaganate was in large part based on the concept of "buyan" - or the imitation and reproduction of Indo-Iranian culture, an ideology which saw practical expression in thousands of beautiful frescos and sutras patronized by prominent Uighurs. The importance of Buddhism was emphasized by the title Idiqut, or "Holy Ruler" which the Uighur Khagans took on in addition to their traditional titles. Indo-Iranian deities were worshipped over any traditional deities and culturally the Uighur could easily be considered part of the Iranian world. A god, Xormusta, that can be identified as a synthesis of Indra, Tengri, and Ormazd was central to the Uighur pantheon.
This, combined with the apparent greed and strong cultural divisions, created a massive division between Qi China and the Uighurs. Chinese culture was in many ways anathema to the Uighur society - and this would ultimately lead to clashes and escalating violence. The Uighur desire for luxury goods and a standard of living akin to the elite landholders and scholar-bureaucrats at the peak of Chinese society would ultimately turn their state towards brigandage and eventually, with signs of weakness, towards open warfare against the Qi.
In 863, Khagan Eletmish, Bayanchur's son, received an impressive offer from the Qi Emperor, Renzong. His son Inantengin had recently come of age, and the Qi sought to marry off an imperial princess to the young prince, hoping to cement a closer bond between the two powers. An impressive dowry would be arranged, and a grand ceremony, and in exchange, the Emperor's officials sought to end the exploitative trade practices and minor raiding which vexed their northern frontier.
Eletmish, according to contemporary Chinese historians, mocked and humiliated the embassy and demanded some two hundred thousand bolts of silk, a half a million tael tribute of silver and a large quantity of other fine goods. He implied that marrying his son to a Qi princess was a favor to the royal family, which had a surfeit of "parasitic mouths, grasping and good for little else." And finally, he forced the court officials to "dance for him in the manner of servants or serving girls, and when their humiliation was finished he repeated his demands and said 'thou may expect our embassy in a month's time.'" There were however, literate individuals in the Uighur capital at the time, and they offer a conflicting argument - that Inantengin was promised already to a Khitan woman, and Eltemish viewed the Khitan as both a superior alliance and also a "race" which produced "women more capable in the matters of survival and keeping of finances." Accordingly, he mocked the Chinese proposal and demanded absurd tribute as a way of gauging their true intentions.
It is unclear which of these statements is true, however, when the Uighur embassy arrived in Chang'an the following month, it numbered several thousand men and was by all accounts a boisterous display of outrageous impropriety (by the standards of the Qi court) and decadence. The Qi foisted gifts on the prominent members of the delegation and attempted to overawe the northern barbarians into submission but in doing so only whetted the Uighur appetite for luxury. Finally, the Uighur embassy was rejected and one of their top diplomats arrested and executed for an uncertain impropriety.
The Qi wasted no time in preparing for war. Large garrisons in the southern provinces were stripped to their lowest levels in a century and huge armies were assembled. The plan was simple - the Uighurs were going to attack sooner or later - that much was clear. Accordingly, the Qi decided they would march on Ordubaliq, the Uighur capital, and level it, more an attempt to humiliate the Uighurs than to inflict lasting damage. If Ordubaliq fell, it would show a clear sign of the weakness of the Uighurs and it was expected many of their allies would desert.
However, the massive stockpiling of supplies, fodder, and even arms which were necessary for such a venture took time, and the Uighurs it seems had been preparing to invade from before they even sent the embassy. Zhang Huan, the bureaucrat-general in charge of the expedition, was tasked instead with defending the Empire from the northern invaders. Meanwhile, a second major army was formed under his rival Guo Yaoshi, and tasked with defending Hebei from the Khitan, coordinating with the Governor-General of You, who maintained a strong mercenary army in his province.
Guo Yaoshi, thanks in no small part to the Governor-General, was able to arrange an excellent defense. While the Khitan raids were damaging, they were incapable of penetrating deep or gathering much plunder. Meanwhile, Zhang Huan was under increasing pressure to do something about the Uighur army, which was numerous and advancing rapidly towards the capital. Fearing for his position if he continued to "show cowardice", Zhang Huan abandoned a semi-successful delaying tactic and his previous strategy of wearing down the Uighur columns through attrition, was forced to pull his armies back from their role in supporting the prefectural cities and concentrate his forces for a decisive field battle.
The field battle, of course, never came. Many cities in the north were sacked, and the following year in 864, Zhang Huan was forced to change tactics yet again and march north, a march that he and his army never returned from. The capital was left almost defenseless -a dangerous position for a city of perhaps half a million people[1]. Mass panic and flight began. The Emperor, as during Sima Zhixen's rebellion, fled, this time downriver to Bianzhou.
The mass exodus was disastrous, in that it prevented any coordinated defense of the city as a mob of refugees surged in every direction, often forced to resort to looting when meager food supplies became stretched thin. Morale among the remaining soldiers plummeted and many deserted and turned either to brigandage or sought to return home to their families. Chang'an fell the following year. Guo Yaoshi was recalled to Bianzhou and tasked with overall command of the war effort, in recognition of his previous efforts. The Prime Minister meanwhile made overtures to the Khitan, hoping to turn them against the Uighur, without success.
Despite Guo Yaoshi's best efforts, the following years would see the disruption and loss of most of the north. Emperor Renzong was killed and his son, Huizong, took power for a few short months before being overthrown by Guo Yaoshi, who feared that the young Emperor, known for outbursts of extreme wrath, would punish him severely for their continued losses. Some members of the Imperial family escaped, and Guo Yaoshi hesitated to claim the Imperial title for himself - he did not have such ambitions and instead sought a member of the Imperial family to be puppet. However, his coup led to massive rebellions and numerous governor-generals and local officials declaring independence. A massive peasant rebellion erupted in Xuanshe. Called the Red Standard Rebellion, its origins are unclear but its motives seem to have rapidly shifted from a protestation of taxation and harsh local officials as fleeing deserter soldiers joined its ranks and turned it into a vicious brigand army which had all but total control over the province by 866.
Eltemish Khagan, for his part, had succeeded quite beyond his wildest dreams. North of the Yellow River there was no meaningful opposition to his armies (after the fall of You to the Khitan in 866) and he controlled what was the traditional heartland of China. Marching south on Bianzhou, he sacked that city in 867, and Guo Yaoshi was captured and humiliated by his soldiers. Upon hearing of this, Eltemish, according to legend, ordered Yaoshi brought before him. He issued the General a formal apology and then laughingly ordered him executed.
However, Eltemish would never travel beyond the Huai river. Across the now leaderless empire, he lacked any legitimacy or authority save what he could demand with force of arms. However, force of arms was one thing that he did not lack. His subjects worshipped him as god incarnate, Xormusta himself born into the flesh of man to lead the Uighurs to the establishment of a holy regime, and he rewarded them handsomely with silks and treasure. Those of even middling rank frequently were given authority over vast tracts of land with ostensibly huge incomes, and while this sense of enduring triumph lasted Eltemish would be revered.
The Uighurs would call the state they formed the "Jaylaqar Dynasty" (Yaoluoge) - a name which they used long before coming into possession of northern China. Their Chinese subjects would often refer to it as "Bei Guo" or northern kingdom.
While their new dominion was vast, they quickly learned that ruling a country was far more difficult than conquering it. The collapse of the Qi had left the south a patchwork of warring states and the north was little better. The Uighurs themselves were divided - many wished to live as rural aristocrats and conquerors off the spoils of their new dominions, and left the steppe to settle newly-founded garrison towns. Many more wished to retain their traditional way of life, and the divide between these two groups was not slow in forming. Within five years of the conquest, the Uighur government was forced to create the "Tripartite Code" which created three legal systems - one for the steppe peoples, one for the transplanted Uighur ruling class, and one for everyone else.
Rebellions were common. The Uighur government was deeply exploitative at first and took its time in switching away from state revenues based on plunder. The Uighurs had little regard for Chinese traditional religion and culture, alienating their subjects by their refusal to assimilate or compromise. As the Chinese had turned largely away from Buddhism in favor of native philosophies such as Taoism, Confucianism, and their own folk religions, religiously motivated rebellions were not infrequent.
[1] It was home to perhaps twice that number prior to the Bod sack, but it never truly recovered. Cities such as Bianzhou and Huainan had grown tremendously in this era.
[China will be continued in the next post, bringing them up into the 'future'. Thoughts and comments? I know, I know, I like letting steppe peoples conquer everything. It's becoming a habit.
I wanted to do something "different" with China, rather than allowing their history to be a series of alt-dynasties, in a similar way I tried to arrange something very different for Indian history. This is my set-up for that. ]
