The Sui (588-618) and the Tang (618-907)
The capture of Nanjing by the Sui [1] restored the unity of China; it now remained to recreate the empire. This was to be the work of the two succeeding dynasties – the Sui and the Tang. If the first of these dynasties was thus of barbarian origin, the second was authentically Chinese. It is not, however, out of place to deal with them in the same chapter, because the race from which the imperial family springs is not really a factor of much importance in the history of China. On the one hand, by the time they succeeded in ruling over the whole of China, the barbarian chieftains were already almost three-quarters Chinese, whilst their successors very rapidly became even more so; and on the other hand, because the only thing of real importance to China was its unity, whoever it might be who achieved or maintained it, because its unity means its ability to resist a nomad invasion, whereas the loss of this unity makes invasion certain. For the only thing that really matters to this peasant people is to see to it that nobody settles on its soil, or destroys its dykes or blocks up its canals. All life, and consequently its entire civilisation, depends upon it. The Sui ruled for only 30 years, whereas the Tang, on the other hand, lasted for nearly three centuries, almost as long as the Han.
nquest of the Empire
Under these dynasties, the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries were to be for China, from the point of view of foreign affairs, a simple repeat of the Han era; grandeur and imperialism.
With regard to the nomads, the Sui confined themselves to a policy of indirect influence, which consisted of setting the various Mongol tribes against each other. On the other hand, they sought to extend their domination over such territories as were suitable for colonisation by Chinese peasants. It was thus that in the far south they annexed the basin of the Red River, whilst in the north-east they attempted to do the same with Korea, only to be defeated. [2]
This reverse provoked an internal revolt which, combined with a palace revolution in which the emperor was assassinated, culminated in the dictatorship of the military leaders, one of whom in 618 deposed the last of the Sui and installed himself in his place. Yet again it was a ‘soldier of fortune’, the first of the Tang, who became the first ruler of the second great Chinese dynasty. [3] This new dynasty set out to conquer the countries of the northern and western steppes and deserts; Mongolia to begin with, and then Eastern Turkestan, whose dominant tribes at that time were no longer the Huns, but the Turks. [4]
But about this time, however, a new menace appeared – this time from the south-west. It came from the lama-shepherds who roamed over the frozen heights of the Tibetan table-lands. India had already sent its missionaries amongst them, Buddhism had provided them with both a religion and a script, and made them establish a monarchy. From these circumstances, it followed that the Tibetans, the poverty of whose soil had for a long time made them troublesome ‘brigands’, now became formidable warriors. The Tang thus found themselves obliged to take the offensive against them, and apply to them the same method they had used against the Mongols of the north and north-west – the method of conquest, in other words. [5] The Chinese armies therefore invaded Tibet, and even penetrated into India, where in 647 they defeated the ruler of Delhi. [6] However, they soon left the peninsula, re-crossed the Himalayas and never again made a descent on India, as indeed India on its part never penetrated into China. The two great nations of irrigators did not seek to conquer each other.
The Tang then resumed the campaign in Korea, where their predecessors had failed, and in this they now succeeded, making Korea a Chinese protectorate under a Korean administrator. [7]
Finally, like the Han, the Tang ventured beyond the Pamirs, and brought under their protection the various states of the Syr-Daria and the Amu-Darya, some 4000 kilometres as the crow flies from their capital; their aid was even sought by the rulers of the Punjab. [8] This was at the beginning of the eighth century, when the Tang dynasty was at its height.
At this moment, contact with the India of the Indus valley, broken since the close of the Han Dynasty, seemed to be re-established by the same route and in the same way, and even more closely than under the Han. Instead of one country seeking to conquer the other, were the two great Asian peoples once more about to pursue cultural exchange? No! For an insurmountable obstacle arose at that very moment – Islam.
Here were nomads again, but nomads of a type with whom the Chinese were not familiar; nomads who dwelt in far more desert regions than the steppes of central Asia, men hailing from further than the Pamirs and Turkestan. The Arabs were now on the scene, in the full flood of their conquests, expansion and assimilation.
The nomad sea is infinite; it is a reservoir of limitless capacity from which masses of men are constantly being carried away in an outward flow. After having subdued the Tungus, the Huns, the Turks and the Tibetans, the Chinese armies now found themselves in conflict with the nomads of Arabia. It was in 751 on the plains beyond the Amu-Darya that the decisive engagement took place, and in this the Chinese met with defeat. [9]
Thereupon, the Arabs hastened to convert to their own faith all who inhabited the regions west of the Pamirs, whether nomads or the sedentary folk of the oasis. For this reason, all communication between China and India was severed almost as soon as it had become re-established. Islam had placed a barrier between the two great irrigational civilisations of eastern Asia, just as it had at the same time placed one between the two halves of the Mediterranean world.
The expansion of the Empire thus checked, retreat was speedily to follow. The same year that the Arabs defeated the Chinese, the mountaineers of Yunnan, formerly subdued by the Chinese, rose in rebellion and recovered their independence. [10] Shortly afterwards, the Tibetans started a new war against China, ravaging Gansu and even occupying Sichuan, and it was only after the Chinese had invoked the aid of the Turks against them that peace was again imposed on them. [11]
This was, moreover, to be the end of Tibet as a military monarchy. In the ninth century, the king was overthrown by the Buddhist clergy, and from that time onward Tibet was no more than a paradise for monks. [12] The hardiest and poorest of all the inhabited countries chose celibacy and begging in the place of conquest.
But China’s armies were exhausted by this far too prolonged and too vast an effort; the first years of the tenth century saw the dislocation of the empire.
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