A Bloodier South: Establishment of the Liu Song Dynasty: 匡扶江左- 刘裕 (刘宋)
Art (Above) by: 嘣咕噜霸霸咕噜嘣
Music: Heaven Overturned
A FLIGHT OF WILD GEESE
The following article is an excerpt from the much larger piece on the dawn of cataphracts in China following Jin dynasty's collapse and lost of its northern heartlands to the Hu (ie none- Han "barbarian" peoples of the north, and the new dilemma of the north becoming a highly unstable battleground later referred to as the 16 Kingdoms period, where many great warlords fought each others and tried to establish their own Chinese- styled conquest dynasties (albeit with Hu leadership and their own distinct customs ingrained with Chinese statecraft) while in the south a far weaker Easter Jin (remnant of the old Jin exiles and their relocated court in Nanjing) held sway aloof of the northern usurpers.
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A near permanent Northern and Southern divide was established at this time, which will last nearly 3 centuries from the loss of the northern heartland to the Hu and the reunification of China under the Sui. During these chaotic centuries the north was often split between various competing none- Han led conquest dynasties, while in the south the old remnants too permutated in various short lived but territorially unified dynasties.
A PARADISE LOST (IN FRATRICIDE)
Before we proceed it is vital to address and correct a common misconception of this period. When the Jin unified a fragmented China after the chaos of the 3 Kingdoms period- only to see the northern half of it lost to a large constellation of none- Han, steppe- led dynasties- called the "Sixteen Kingdoms" there has always been a knee- jerk mental image by those not familiar with the period as if an overbearing quantity of foreign hordes joined in conspiracy and breached into the Han Great Walls in a Barbarian at the Gates scenario. However this is not the reality. Just like the Roman Empire which was able to survive even such sudden conspiracies because of core structural strength, command, and logistics, the imperial systems of Han and Jin were also able to survive this prospect. The Jin by the 3rd century AD was well familiar with these peoples, for centuries by that point.
Auxiliaries and crack cavalry- when the Eastern Han under Ban Chao exploited the 2 sided permanent split of the Xiongnu and expelled the Northern Xiongnu, the northern front became pacified for centuries, having asserted its primacy and toppled the stronger of the 2 Xiongnu groups, the remaining people groups of the north became Han vassals for centuries after.
In peace, their context to the Han changed as well, Han settled some near and around the Great Wall itself as a soft line of frontier pickets, and the Chinese made extensive use of their tribesmen as auxiliaries that served the Eastern Han, Cao Wei, and Jin armies. Because dedicated horse archery requires a life time of training to hone and perfect, the Han maintained enough of their martial distinctions- Inner Asian groups did not have to pay tax to the Han and Jin government; and they usually provided the military service in the form of auxiliaries. More extensive coverage of these relations are provided in this article in granular and geometric detail.
The "Five Hu"- "Hu" is an archaic way to frame none- Han, often western peoples before they made for their bid in staking their own conquest dynasties in a war torn northern Jin China. If correlations is to be made, it is more aft to compare to the fall of northern China to the Hu- less to some sudden crisis between pressured groups of strangers, such as Adrianople, than various ambitious barbarian warlords that tried to seize their own Roman rump state for themselves at the twilight of the Western Roman Empire.
Music: Eight Princes
Horsemen's armor became significantly heavier in the Three Kingdoms period and the 3 centuries of disunity that followed. This included the 3 Kingdoms period, Jin, 16 Kingdoms, and the Northern and Southern dynasties period. Iron faulds also began to appear in large quantities.
Armor by: Harentang 函人堂 Studio: Jin Dynasty heavy armor.
Before Jin's northern cataclysm, it was the East Asian standard
From the Eastern Han to the onset of the calamitous War of the Eight Princes- Eastern Han, and subsequent dynasties like Cao Cao's Wei- during the 3 Kingdoms period made extensive use of nomadic cavalry auxiliaries. However one key policy that was maintained by these thrones is the imperative that powerful tribes are never deployed together in a centralized grouping, but split to serve at various diverse fronts to prevent the possibility of a major unstoppable mutiny. This was largely the same rubric for Han regional troops as well and Han commanders, who were often made to serve in far off fronts to prevent local power mongering.
However, this delicate balance of arrangement was grievously upset when the Jin dynasty- which united the realm after the chaos of the 3 Kingdoms period, made the disastrous decision to empower its own princes with regional powers effectively as local lordly governors. When court intrigue and power struggle among them erupted into all out violence in the War of the Eight Princes- whole regional blocks erupted into total war against each other in northern China. During the final stages of this battle royale, the remaining Jin princes became desperate for advantages that may fatally crush their imperial rivals- and gave permission from some of their auxiliary subcommanders- to gather their entire tribes together as vassal clients.
Music: Invocation of Souls
The decision turned disastrous, after been given the permission- and gathering their ethnic tribesmen under these auxiliary commander's personal banners- the hu auxiliary tribes mutinied and tried to seize various cities for themselves and consecrate their own Sinicized dynasties. Before the embers of the War of the Eight Princes even dimmed, a new conflagration erupted, as the major Hu tribes of the 5 great Hu all began to make grab for their own conquest dynasties across northern China, and leaving the weakened Jin to withdraw to the south- ushering into 3 long centuries of Northern and Southern divide.
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The Jin was not idle during this early era, due to its own internal problems it largely stockpiled power while the various Hu warlords mortally warred with each other- that is until major crisis occurred 43 years later and Jin did dispatch ambitious northern expeditions to reclaim the north under the capable general Huan Wen. Huan Wen's effort made great strides and defeated many obstacles in their northern trek and was welcomed by the old realm's subjects in the north, however unexpectedly the north reunited under the powerful sway of the Di people, who founded a mighty kingdom called Qin (Former Qin) that prevented his success.
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After being checked by the Former Qin, Huan Wen returned to Jin and though personally unable to realize his great dreams, the Huan family became one of the key old guard clans in the south and a fixture of its political order with its own house troops and armies.
AFTER THE CLOSEST CALL WITH SOUTHERN DEATH
The following piece occurs after the chaotic Balkanized north reunited
under an immensely vigorous and charismatic Hu ruler and sought to unify all of China
under northern rule by amassing all of the north to try to snuff out the Jin remnant
This particular article will cover the aftermath of the north's one close chance to unite all of China under a "barbarian" led a unified northern dynasty under Former Qin- however at the cusp of its total victory in overwhelming the south, the Jin made a heroic land stand at the Fei River and even though out numbered 10 to 1, with a universal muster of levied men across the north to be some 800,000 soldiers against the south's 80,000 elite palace troops. The Jin decisively defeated the massive northern host and ensured its own survival, while causing Former Qin, and its leading ethnic tribe- the Di- to become extinct.
The lopsided slaughter at the Fei River turned what was the brink of Former Qin triumph and unification of China into a mortal cataclysm for the north. Many of the former subjugated northern tribes, which had surrendered to Former Qin as its vassals, swiftly rebelled and mutinied, Chang'An was swiftly taken, and Fu Jian, now eager to raise fresh troops from his own Di- tribesmen in Gansu, was ambushed along his ride and and executed. His race, the Di did not outlive long after him. The north was swiftly divided back into a patchwork of "barbarian" led states reverting to a landscape similar to his conquests and the Di were variously set upon by them all, the survivors would culturally be assimilated into the other tribes within generations after the catastrophe at the Fei River. Such battle demonstrate both that the south still had ability and resilience to save itself, but also how capriciously dangerous just one defeat like this is to a whole people who- from the brink of supremacy and mandate of Heaven for a new China- ceased to exist right afterwards.
THE SUSPICIOUS SOUTH- A LANDSCAPE OF INCOMPATIBILITY
JZWM-021B 1/6 Chinese Military General: Liu Yu
Action figure by JiaoZong Model and LongYuanGe Studio.
Unlike the chronicle of war and strife laden in the earlier sections. The south followed a different destiny as the north descended into a long century of high intensity wars. Strangely, even after the political miracle at the Fei River, Jin was not saved- rather, even with the realm saved, the Sima Emperors of the south rotted instead.
Though competent enough of a sovereign in his early and middle reign, Emperor Xiaowu of Eastern Jin was a hedonist and lush. According to the Book of Jin he was murdered by a jealous concubine who smothered him to death. Worse, in his wake, the throne was passed to a son that was so mentally handicapped he was not able to speak, dress himself, or even signal whether he was hungry or full.
JZWM-021B 1/6 Chinese Military General: Liu Yu
Action figure by JiaoZong Model and LongYuanGe Studio.
The studio actually offers 2 head versions of the figure, in youth and also old age.
Notably, this extremely severely mentally handicapped Emperor An of Jin was not the 1st of the Jin Emperors to be very mentally handicapped, in fact Jin had two such Emperors. Despite being descended from the cunning Sima Yi, the Grey Eminence of Cao Cao's Wei dynasty and nemisis of the sagely Zhuge Liang- almost a century earlier when the Jin still controlled both the north and the south and before the vassal auxiliary tribes of Hu rebelled, the Jin had another Emperor (Emperor Hui) who was also mentally handicapped. In fact it was precisely because of his gullibility and incompetence, that his various brothers, uncles, and other male relatively came to blows in the War of the Eight Princes that caused Jin to fatally lose control of the north. Similarly, in the given state of the Emperor, true lever of the state fell into the hands of several powerful ministers and regents.
Since the relocation of the Jin to the south, the relocated Eastern Jin court (317–420 AD) at Jiankang (modern Nanjing) was entirely stripped of its traditional Guanzhong and Central Plains geopolitical base. Deprived of this old elite, the Sima imperial house survived by engineering a delicate, highly financialized, and militarized power-sharing system. Instead of an absolute autocracy, the Eastern Jin functioned as an oligarchic coalition dominated by Northern Émigré Clans (Qiaoxing 侨姓), in uneasy alignment with Southern Indigenous Elites (Wuxing 吴姓) and unlike the past- where the court did have more direct authoritarian imperial power- now saddled with a weak emperor, the power blocks truly did not bother to rein in their own ambitions.
The lush and scenic Jiangnan (lit. "South of the River") landscape of lakes and manicured ponded gardens and misty rivers. Such a context where an exiled northern court- utterly deprived of the old Han origin in the Yellow River Central Plains for millinia before, would be repeated several times in the future with a capital in the south.
For context: Southern Indigenous Elites (Wuxing 吴姓) - Wuxing literally means, the Great "Wu" clans- as great land owning clans that were powerful in the south when the region was part of Eastern Wu of the 3 Kingdoms period kingdom of Wu under the Sun clan. When the Jin (after relatively peacefully usurping Cao Wei and annexing Shu Han) conquered Eastern Wu in 280 CE, -true to the earlier relatively peaceful conquest, it did not liquidate the southern gentry. Instead, Jin left their local economic and land bases intact to avoid costly insurgencies. Despite this surface level magnanimity, throughout the Western Jin period when the realm was unified and the heartland was in the north, the central government in Luoyang treated former Wu elites as conquered subjects, colloquially mocking them as "Slaves of the Wilds" (Wangnu 亡虜) and always denied them of high posts.
However with the loss of Jin's old power base and heartland in northern China, and relocation among these already long entrenched local magnates, the earlier largely status quo minded incorporation created a dynamic of profound colonial alienation. When the old court remnants and the northern clans were forced to flee south in 317 AD, they were all entering into the backyard of the Wuxing. The northern émigrés were destitute refugees, but they claimed supreme political authority by virtue of their dynastic legitimacy. The Wuxing were multi-generational, fabulously wealthy landowners with private militias, but they possessed zero central political clout. Because the Western Jin court treated the Wuxing as untrustworthy outsiders for 30 years, the Wuxing developed an equal and opposite contempt for the Sima court.
To preserve power among themselves, the newly arrived northern clans unlawfully seized local farmland and water rights for themselves- what's more they ensured by law, high offices and appointment would be nearly exclusively kept among themselves definite solely by lineage and seniority and not by merit, exemplified by the saying: "No humble families in the upper ranks, no powerful clans in the lower ranks."
Paranoia of the northern émigré actually created the gauntlet that turned on the throne. The uneasy and distrustful equilibrium broke down ironically due to the rise of the Beifu Army (北府兵)- the same "Northern Command" Army that saved the south a decade ago at the Fei River against Fu Jian's ambitious southern gambit. Originally organized as a way to coalesce committed tough northern refugees from the Huai River region into a dedicated arm of the throne, the Beifu Army evolved into a professional, highly lethal fighting force. Because it operated outside the traditional pedigree framework, it became a vehicle for merit-based advancement. Ultimately, a military commander of humble social origins, Liu Yu, seized control of this army.
Liu Yu was born into the absolute fringes of the northern émigré class in Jingkou (modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu). Although his genealogy claimed descent from Liu Jiao (brother of the Han founder Liu Bang), his immediate family was impoverished. In his youth, he survived as a peasant, woodcutter, fisherman, and chronic gambler~ occupations that earned him deep contempt from the refined aristocrats in the southern court. His path to power was entirely institutionalized through the Beifu Army. Liu Yu enlisted as a low-ranking officer. He distinguished himself through raw tactical brilliance and immense personal physical prowess during the suppression of local massive peasant uprising led by Daoist sects.
THE TRAITOR VS-
The catalyst for Liu Yu's political ascent was the usurpation of Huan Xuan who declared his own Huan Chu dynasty in 403 AD and in his bid for power, slaughtered most of the top Beifu commanders. Huan Xuan was also a descendant of the legendary Huan Wen who attempted the northern expedition decades past- whose clan was one of the most powerful lineages in the southern court, such episodes really reflect the potential obstacle such a loyal imperial army posed to an existing clan of military renown. One year later in 404 AD, Liu Yu launched a daring counter-coup from with a coalition of low-to-mid-tier Beifu officers. He defeated Huan Xuan, restored the mentally handicapped puppet Emperor An of Jin to the throne, and assumed de facto control of the court as Grand General.
To consolidate his domestic hegemony over lingering aristocratic factions and the rival military command at Jing Province, Liu Yu embarked on highly ambitious Northern Expeditions for the next decade designed to achieve undisputed military legitimacy and remove all threats to the throne within and without. The result was an extreme fortuitous success unseen in the south for half a century. In his well provisioned and well drilled northern march which included both combined naval and land logistics, Shandong was retaken, Sichuan was retaken, and after securing all of the south from internal threats, his forces moved up the Huai and Yellow River systems with the navy.
The Queyue Formation 却月阵 (lit. "Creascent Moon") is basically a wagon fort but with a nearby flanking navy. The naval transport drops an army along the banks, and with the rear well secured, the half- shell of shielded wagons, carrying disciplined blocks of infantry and crossbowmen behind, were able to shoot at coming cavalry and infantry with impunity as if they are defenders in a siege and with their rears well prevented from a flanking attack.
Wuguang Wagon 武刚车 from later dynasties: in this later version they are presented as a hybrid of a wheelbarrow and mobile pavise screen. As such, whole trains of supply wagons can~ if needed, quickly rearrange into a defensive wagon fort.
For the first time since the fall of Western Jin, the ancient ancestral heartlands of Guanzhong and the Central Plains were restored to southern Chinese control. However, this apex was short-lived. When his trusted civilian deputy in the southern capital, Liu Muzhi, died suddenly, Liu Yu feared an aristocratic or military coup at his rear. He chose to abandon Chang'an to rush back south. Deprived of supreme leadership, the southern garrisons left in Chang'an collapsed shortly after under the onslaught of Helian Bobo’s Hu Xia state.
Though the northern conquests partially fractured, the political capital Liu Yu gained was absolute. In 420 CE, he engineered the abdication of Emperor Gong of Jin, bringing an end to the Sima dynasty and establishing the Liu Song Dynasty (刘宋). Breaking with historical precedent to prevent a Sima restoration, Liu Yu ordered the deposed emperor suffocated to death, setting a bloody template for future dynastic transitions.
NEW EQUILIBRIUM
As Emperor Wu, his brief reign (420–422 AD) was defined by radical institutional restructuring aimed at reversing the chronic weaknesses of the Eastern Jin: Liu Yu aggressively implemented "Nativization" policies. Northern émigrés were integrated into the local southern administrative districts, and subjected to state taxation and corvée labor. This shattered the independent fiscal bases of the elite clans and filled the state treasury.
Abandoning the previous regime's rule by oligarchic coalition approach. Liu Yan strictly limited the sizes of private military retinues held by the aristocracy. To balance the volatile geopolitical axis between the court and the upstream military stronghold, he instituted a rule that major military commanderies could only be held by imperial princes of the Liu bloodline, stripping the previous powerful clans of independent territorial governorships and integrating them under a strict, imperial umbrella. While allowed some traditional privileges to the great clans, mechanically in matters of statecraft, He staffed the core executive organs of the imperial court: specifically the positions handling state secrets, documents, and military decrees (Dianzhi)- with Hanmen (寒門), highly capable individuals of humble or low-born origins who owed absolute loyalty to the throne rather than a clan pedigree.
Liu Yan, depicted (with alternative headpiece for model) in the crown and robes of later Southern dynasties- specifically that of the Chen Dynasty's Emperor's portraits.Liu Yu died in 422 AD while planning another massive northern expedition against the rising Northern Wei. Liu Yu is often evaluated as the archetypal sternly (but merit based) founding "soldier emperor" who reformed and solved the structural paralysis of the earlier regime but introduced a new systemic vulnerability that radically swung the pole and vulnerabilities in the opposite direction.
Later portraits depicting Chen Dynasty Emperors
Instead of a lumbering oligarchy, albeit one with enough local incentives to preserve their own interests. By concentrating all real political and military power within the imperial family and a highly centralized autocracy with its own secret police and imperial maul, he paved the way for the nature of the fall of his own dynasty as well. The Liu Song- despite being the most military capable of the procession of following "Southern" Dynasties, would also be one of the bloodiest.
Its short following 30 years were characterized by internal bloody succession crises that plagued the rest of the dynasty. When subsequent emperors proved weak or unstable, they lacked the balancing and stabilizing mechanism of local status quo- minded rent seeking players that the old oligarchy had once provided, leading to rapid cycles of extreme dynastic fratricide where princes slew each other, and even uncles slew their nephews.
遥望建康城，Looking toward Jiankang city (Nanjing capital)
小江逆流萦，the little river flows against the current
前见子杀父，in front, one sees sons killing fathers
后见弟杀兄。and behind, one sees younger brothers killing older brothers
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