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Authors: Yuri Pines
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geographic horizons. Unlike the inhabitants of early Europe, the Near East, or South Asia, who were well aware of the existence of powerful civilizations elsewhere, thinkers and statesmen of the Warring States period apparently lacked any knowledge of civilization centers beyond the Zhou world. Even the nomadic pastoralists, whose presence shaped Chinese political, military, and cultural life during the imperial millennia, were marginal players in China proper prior to the imperial unification. 51 This explains why the thinkers could consider the creation of a state unifying the whole known world to be a feasible goal. This belief is duly reflected in the stele inscriptions erected by the First Emperor, in which he boasted:
Within the six directions, / this is the land of the Emperor. / To the west
it ranges to the flowing sands, / To the south it completely takes in
where the doors face north, / To the east it enfolds the eastern sea, / To
the north, it goes beyond Da Xia. / Wherever human traces reach, /
There is none who did not declare himself [the Emperor’s] subject. 52
This piece of political propaganda might in this specific case have reflected the Emperor’s genuine belief that the entire world had indeed been unified; 53 yet this belief was shattered a few years after the stele was erected. Having decided to expand his boundaries farther toward the barely known, the First Emperor sent his armies southward and northward. In the latter direction, Qin repulsed the nomadic Xiongnu tribes, who theretofore had been of limited significance in Chinese politics. Chinese expansion northward had already begun in the Warring States period, when nomads were gradually pushed into ever more arid areas.
-33-
Now, as the victorious Qin armies occupied the strategically important Ordos area, driving the Xiongnu further to the north, the emperor decided that this would be the limit for further expansion and ordered the construction of a lengthy wall to protect his new lands. This wall, which joined earlier walls built by the Warring States on their northern frontier, was erected shortly after the demolition of numerous internal walls that marked the boundaries of the former Warring States. The act was symbolic: the First Emperor distinguished in the most visible way China proper, in which no internal walls would be tolerated, from the outside world, which was to remain beyond Chinese control. The limits to Allunder-Heaven had been set. 54
The encounter with the nomads became the single most significant event in the political, cultural, and ethnic history of the Chinese. Not a single ethnic group on China’s frontiers had a comparable impact on China’s life, or was able to challenge Chinese political culture as the nomads did. This challenge was threefold. First, the arid steppe zone was basically unconquerable and ungovernable, and its nomadic and seminomadic dwellers remained largely inassimilable to the sedentary, Chinese, ways of life. Second, the nomads swiftly established their independent tribal confederations, the very existence of which undermined the notion of the singularity and universality of the Chinese emperors’ rule. Third, the nomads gradually became involved in Chinese domestic affairs, eventually conquering parts of China and much later the whole of the country. As we shall see in the next section, in this latter endeavor, the nomadic rulers actually benefited from China’s pervasive adherence to the principle of political unity. 55
China’s nomadic nightmare began immediately after the collapse of the Qin dynasty. The recently organized Xiongnu tribal confederation, the very emergence of which may have been a response to Qin’s northward expansion, reversed the nomads’ fortunes. The Xiongnu took advantage of China’s internal turmoil and reoccupied much of the territory they had lost, inflicting in the process heavy blows on the Han imperial armies. Frustrated, the Han emperors recognized the
Within the six directions, / this is the land of the Emperor. / To the west
it ranges to the flowing sands, / To the south it completely takes in
where the doors face north, / To the east it enfolds the eastern sea, / To
the north, it goes beyond Da Xia. / Wherever human traces reach, /
There is none who did not declare himself [the Emperor’s] subject. 52
This piece of political propaganda might in this specific case have reflected the Emperor’s genuine belief that the entire world had indeed been unified; 53 yet this belief was shattered a few years after the stele was erected. Having decided to expand his boundaries farther toward the barely known, the First Emperor sent his armies southward and northward. In the latter direction, Qin repulsed the nomadic Xiongnu tribes, who theretofore had been of limited significance in Chinese politics. Chinese expansion northward had already begun in the Warring States period, when nomads were gradually pushed into ever more arid areas.
-33-
Now, as the victorious Qin armies occupied the strategically important Ordos area, driving the Xiongnu further to the north, the emperor decided that this would be the limit for further expansion and ordered the construction of a lengthy wall to protect his new lands. This wall, which joined earlier walls built by the Warring States on their northern frontier, was erected shortly after the demolition of numerous internal walls that marked the boundaries of the former Warring States. The act was symbolic: the First Emperor distinguished in the most visible way China proper, in which no internal walls would be tolerated, from the outside world, which was to remain beyond Chinese control. The limits to Allunder-Heaven had been set. 54
The encounter with the nomads became the single most significant event in the political, cultural, and ethnic history of the Chinese. Not a single ethnic group on China’s frontiers had a comparable impact on China’s life, or was able to challenge Chinese political culture as the nomads did. This challenge was threefold. First, the arid steppe zone was basically unconquerable and ungovernable, and its nomadic and seminomadic dwellers remained largely inassimilable to the sedentary, Chinese, ways of life. Second, the nomads swiftly established their independent tribal confederations, the very existence of which undermined the notion of the singularity and universality of the Chinese emperors’ rule. Third, the nomads gradually became involved in Chinese domestic affairs, eventually conquering parts of China and much later the whole of the country. As we shall see in the next section, in this latter endeavor, the nomadic rulers actually benefited from China’s pervasive adherence to the principle of political unity. 55
China’s nomadic nightmare began immediately after the collapse of the Qin dynasty. The recently organized Xiongnu tribal confederation, the very emergence of which may have been a response to Qin’s northward expansion, reversed the nomads’ fortunes. The Xiongnu took advantage of China’s internal turmoil and reoccupied much of the territory they had lost, inflicting in the process heavy blows on the Han imperial armies. Frustrated, the Han emperors recognized the
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