Defenses of the Great Wall, The Clash of Empires: 帝国相爭

Music: Eternal Empire (Drums)

After the ascension of the Sui dynasty, during the reign of the inept Emperor Yang there was a renewed effort in levying huge amount of Sui subjects in repairing the dilapidated Great Walls. However the Tang would reverse this policy. During the aggressive Tang dynasty, no extensive wall building took place for the next several hundred years. The Tang mainly pursued a policy of using a revolving door of powerful steppe vassals (such as using the subjugated Gokturks, Xueyantuo, and allied Uyghur Khaganates) as a living defense along northern stretches of China. So as to say that instead of relying on static defenses, the Tang utilized active defenses and strong trusted middlemen. 

Tang General Concept Artwork: Wei Guan

Underneath this outer shell, the Tang relied on a dense network of militia- farmer families. Northern China, even the civilian population had long had a tradition of been militarized during previous centuries of wars and chaos. Under the Fubing system, the northern dynasties and both Sui & Tang were able to assign vast tracks of northern lands to military farmers. They would tend their field during peace time, but if a war broke out would swiftly report for duty at a familiar nearby garrison and show up with their (or their family's) military gears at the ready. Northern China accounted for 80% of the Fubing troops.

In terms of static defenses, in order to warn the northern garrisons of approaching enemies, the Tang did construct a network of massive fire beacons much like those once built by the Han. Though the Tang left the walls to neglect these signal beacons were vital to the defense of the thin Hexi Corridor at the middle of the empire.

Major Jiedushi (military governor garrisons) at the mid Tang dynasty including the sizes of these respective garrisons. Note the patchwork of white triangles to the northwest of the empire that is situated above the thin Hexi Corridor in what is today's Xinjiang province. These are clusters of Tang signal towers. 

When the last teenager Tang emperor was poisoned by his handlers at the age of 15, the entire Tang empire erupted into a patchwork of warlords, hereditary provincial military governors called Jiedushi eventually began to declare war upon each other and China descended into 7 decades of civil war in what would known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. What is notable is that despite these military fortifications being inextricably linked with defense in the general public's consciousness, because of their imposing nature, invaders generally avoided direct confrontation against the defensive network of walls and its passes. However, during this period, the areas directly under the shadow of the Great Walls were reduced to several small and vulnerable kingdoms. Because of this, this area~ the proverbial gate house of the walls became a fierce battleground between giant competing empires for the next 200 years.

THE WALL AFTER THE TANG

The chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was 7 decades of civil wars which torn the Chinese heartland from inside out. In the north, there was a carousel of 5 rapidly risen and displaced dynasties that quickly toppled each other (hence the 5 Dynasties.) While in the south, were was more of a patchwork of mostly- concurrent kingdoms (the 10 kingdoms, but there were more than merely 10) that all maintained an uneasy watchfulness over each other. They did war with each other, especially in the cases of the conquest of the kingdom of Southern Tang, but their wars were less explosive than those in the north. Compare to the north, the south had a much more prosperous and peaceful existence. 

An age of chaos and warlords, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was the dire consequence of having rampant military governors at the tailend of the Tang dynasty. By the end of the Tang, it had delegated much regional power to the hereditary military governors who each had a private army of their own. When the Tang emperors were assassinate the provinces (and these warlords) exploded in violence.

However? The stretch of the northern section of the wall eventually broke off from the massive hegemonic northern dynasties and formed a small statelet of Northern Han- located right around the immediate areas around the foot of the Great Wall at Taiyuan, where Northern Wei once made their capital. In terms of the geopolitical chessboard, Northern Han was located in one of the absolute worst areas. Wedged between the alpha predators of the age. 

A political nightmare. The small kingdom of Northern Han (Brown), located at the gate of the Great Wall emerged during the high chaos in the north occupied a highly unenvious position. It was wedged right between the great military state of Later Zhou (which later became the Song dynasty,) and the powerful Khitan empire of Liao. Furthermore, they also bordered the aggressive Tanguts who would later found the state of Western Xia in the west. Like Sicily during the preludes of the Punic War between Carthage and Roman Republic. The competition to possess this territory eventually led to all out hostility between the Song and Liao. And also later between the Song and the Jin dynasties for the next 200 years. Ultimately Song attempts to recover the north promulgated the catastrophic war with the Mongols that led to the total destruction of the Song.

Music: The Northern Grasslands

FLASHPOING: CLASH OF EMPIRES

In time, the small border statelet of Northern Han would cause a major dispute between the 2 great powers in the region, the Khitan Liao dynasty and the Song. In this matter, despite the Song's success in reincorporating much of China proper under its sole rule, the wars with the Khitans proved disastrous. The Song suffered several major defeats in the area to the Liao and its ambitions to restore the northern territories of the Tang were checked. 

Rubbing of the Great Wall around the beginning of the Jin dynasty (1136) Hua Yi Tu (華夷圖, Map of China and the Barbarian Countries) is a map engraved as a stone stele in 1136. It is the earliest surviving map of China that relates China with other foreign states. the Great Wall depicted on the northern edge of the country. During the Jin dynasty they would add several more layers into this defensive network.

Song dynasty Kaifeng. During the Song commerce and learning blossomed across the realm. Technologically Song dynasty took China to new heights. 

CONTENTION: ENEMY MAN THE GATES 2:0 

When the Jurchen Jins- formerly a vassal tribe serving the Khitans displaced their overlords, a new round of conflict was rekindled between the Jin and the Song over these Sixteen Prefectures. Again, the Song were defeated, this time their defeat was so sudden that the Jin conquered the Song heartlands in Henan and took the Song imperial capital of Kaifeng. Those of the Song court that survived then fled to the south and formed the new Southern Song dynasty in Nanjing. Despite this calamitous loss for the Song, the Jurchens themselves are now saddled with the same geopolitical realities of this frontier. And they soon realized that it was imperative to man these walls. 

Chinese 3 Bow Ballista or San Gong Chuang Nu 三弓床弩, meaning 3 Bowed (or 3 Prod) Ballista. These are extremely powerful ballistas and takes a large team to operate and fire. During the later Song dynasty the most powerful of these requires more than 100 people to wind up the strings. However the bolts they carried packs a deadly flight and was reported to be above to fly 700 paces or even 1000 paces away. In the Song Dynasty, one step was 1.536 meters, and a thousand steps were 1536 meters. This was one of the highest range achieved by ancient long-range weapons before the advent of cannons.

JIN GREAT WALLS

Again, like with the Xianbei Northern Wei dynasty, the once- enemies of these walls took up the duty of defending these walls. The construction of the Great Wall by the Jin Dynasty was started in about 1123 and completed around 1198, which lasted for 75 years. The Great Wall of Jin Dynasty is not the same as those previous walls. It consist digging ditches. In some sections, ditches and subsidiary walls were built to enhance the defenses. In total, by the early 1200s, the Jin was able to field some 800,000 infantry and some 150,000 cavalry along their entire stretch of the Great Wall. However they were not enough against the foe who ultimately came to knock on those proverbial gates. For they were none other than one the most significant alpha predators of global history.

Music: Mongols (AOE DE) 

Like most enemies of the Mongols, when war came to them, the Jin did not know they were fighting their destroyers. After Genghis Khan consolidated his supreme power in the Mongolian heartlands, the Mongols came like a meteor. The decisive Battle of Yehuling (Chinese literally means the "Wild Fox Ridge") was fought around the Jin Great Wall in late March 1211. At the time, the Jin Great Wall was backed up with numerous castles and towers, and was defended by some 400,000 soldeirs, according to more liberal sources was defended by nearly 500,000 Jin imperial soldiers. However the Jin defending commander made a catastrophic mistake by dividing his massive host into a series of divided garrisons and stationed them at key fortresses along the wall. Their distance meant that they were unable to rapidly reinforce each other. 

THE DUEL NEAR THE GREAT WALLS

After deftly probing and scouting the numbers of these defenses. The Mongols brilliantly exploited this, and what followed was a resounding series of defeats-in-details where they concentrated their army into a massive wreckingball that far outnumbered whatever downsized Jin garrison they faced. After tenacious dismounted fighting along the mountain ridges around the walls, and defection of Khitans who long resented the Jin rule, the Mongols gained the upper hand and wrecked one Jin army after another. Eventually, the Jin army became disorganized, lost its morale, and started to break. In all, half of the massive Jin army, numbered some 200,000- 300,000 soldiers were destroyed and Jin sued for peace. Although the Jin was not conquered for another 2 decades, this defeat weakened them and paved the way for the Mongols to conquer all of northern China. Ironically, with the Mongol conquest of the whole of China, a long period of peace dawned in the regions around the Great Wall. 

IRONY: PAX MONGOLICA 

Covering over 11,000,000 km2 (or 4,200,000 sq mi,) territorially, the Yuan dynasty was one of the largest Chinese dynasties, second only to the Qing. To legitimize his rule Kublai claimed both the mantle of a Chinese Emperor as well as the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. An ethnically diverse dynasty, Kublai and his descendants employed many talented Central Asians, Nepalese, Uighurs, and Northern Han in the administration of the immense empire. 

Art by Buren Altankhuyag: Khanbaliq, Chinese: Dadu of Yuan 元大都, what would become modern Beijing during the height of the Yuan dynasty. Under the rule of Kublai Khan, the Yuan dynasty became one of the most significant polities in the world. During this era, the Yuan rulers focused on consolidating their primacy among the other Mongol- led states in Eurasia and also tackling the series of natural disasters that wrack over their cosmopolitan empire.

With the conquest of the whole of China, the previous 2 warring halves of the steppes, and the walled people south of the steppes became one entity. Under the Yuan, there was no longer a significant need to construct the defenses on this anachronistic border. Things would change again toward the later part of the dynasty. The latter half of the dynasty was plagued with a series of catastrophic natural disasters and the Yuan imperial court was rife with intrigues among the various princely factions in the imperial house. The quick procession of antagonistic and feuding Yuan princes (and royal uncles and nephews) resulted in a schizophrenics seesaw of contradicting policies. A consequence of this is that many of the peasants who were already suffering under great natural calamities were unable to have their needs filled. 

AMBITIOUS MING RESSURECTION OF THE WALL 

Many factions of famine- stricken Han rebels from south and eastern China launched dozens of simultaneous rebellions against the Mongols and in 1368, one of the most capable rebels, Zhu Yuanzhang, or the Hongwu Emperor of Ming drove out the last Yuan Emperor from Khanbaliq/ Dadu, and renamed the capital Beiping (北平 "Pacified North".) The enmity between the Ming and the Yuan remnants in the north resulted in a new period, and one of the most ambitious period of construction along the Great Walls.

Music: Through the City Gates

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT MAJOR PHASE OF THE GREAT WALL IN PART 3

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