In the Later Han period the region covering the modern provinces of Gansu, southern Ningxia, eastern Qinghai, northern Sichuan, and western Shaanxi, was a porous frontier zone between the Chinese regimes and their Central Asian neighbours, not fully incorporated into the Chinese realm until the first century BCE. Not surprisingly the region had a large concentration of men of martial background, from which a regional culture characterized by warrior spirit and skills prevailed. This military elite was generally honoured by the imperial centre, but during the Later Han period the ascendancy of eastern-based scholar-officials and the consequent increased emphasis on civil values and de-militarization fundamentally transformed the attitude of the imperial state towards the northwestern frontiersmen, leaving them struggling to achieve high political and social status. From the ensuing tensions and resentment followed the capture of the imperial capital by a northwestern military force, the deposing of the emperor and the installation of a new one, which triggered the disintegration of the empire. Based on extensive original research, and combining cultural, military and political history, this book examines fully the forging of military regional identity in the northwest borderlands and the consequences of this for the early Chinese empires.¿

In the Later Han period the region covering the modern provinces of Gansu, southern Ningxia, eastern Qinghai, northern Sichuan, and western Shaanxi, was a porous frontier zone between the Chinese regimes and their Central Asian neighbours, not fully incorporated into the Chinese realm until the first century BCE. Not surprisingly the region had a large concentration of men of martial background, from which a regional culture characterized by warrior spirit and skills prevailed. This military elite was generally honoured by the imperial centre, but during the Later Han period the ascendancy of eastern-based scholar-officials and the consequent increased emphasis on civil values and de-militarization fundamentally transformed the attitude of the imperial state towards the northwestern frontiersmen, leaving them struggling to achieve high political and social status. From the ensuing tensions and resentment followed the capture of the imperial capital by a northwestern military force, the deposing of the emperor and the installation of a new one, which triggered the disintegration of the empire. Based on extensive original research, and combining cultural, military and political history, this book examines fully the forging of military regional identity in the northwest borderlands and the consequences of this for the early Chinese empires.

Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.

The Northern Wei was a dynasty which originated outside China and ruled northern China when the south of China was ruled by a series of dynasties which originated inside China. Both during the time that the Northern Wei dynasty was in power and over many centuries subsequently, the legitimacy of the Northern Wei dynasty has been questioned. This book outlines the history of the Northern Wei dynasty, including its origins and the history of its southern rivals; considers the practices adopted by both the Northern Wei dynasty and its rivals to establish legitimacy; and examines the debates which preoccupied Chinese scholars subsequently. The book casts light on traditional ideas about legitimate rule in China, ideas which have enduring relevance as tradition continues to be very significant in contemporary China.

Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.

Between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the year 600, more than thirty dynasties, kingdoms, and states rose and fell on the eastern side of the Asian continent. The founders and rulers of those polities represented the spectrum of peoples in North, East, and Central Asia. Nearly all of them built palaces, altars, temples, tombs, and cities, and almost without exception, the architecture was grounded in the building tradition of China. Illustrated with more than 475 color and black-and-white photographs, maps, and drawings, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil uses all available evidence—Chinese texts, secondary literature in six languages, excavation reports, and most important, physical remains—to present the architectural history of this tumultuous period in China’s history. Its author, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, arguably North America’s leading scholar of premodern Chinese architecture, has done field research at nearly every site mentioned, many of which were unknown twenty years ago and have never been described in a Western language. The physical remains are a handful of pagodas, dozens of cave-temples, thousands of tombs, small-scale evidence of architecture such as sarcophaguses, and countless representations of buildings in paint and relief sculpture. Together they narrate an expansive architectural history that offers the first in-depth study of the development, century-by-century, of Chinese architecture of third through the sixth centuries, plus a view of important buildings from the two hundred years before the third century and the resolution of architecture of this period in later construction. The subtext of this history is an examination of Chinese architecture that answers fundamental questions such as: What was achieved by a building system of standardized components? Why has this building tradition of perishable materials endured so long in China? Why did it have so much appeal to non-Chinese empire builders? Does contemporary architecture of Korea and Japan enhance our understanding of Chinese construction? How much of a role did Buddhism play in construction during the period under study? In answering these questions, the book focuses on the relation between cities and monuments and their heroic or powerful patrons, among them Cao Cao, Shi Hu, Empress Dowager Hu, Gao Huan, and lesser-known individuals. Specific and uniquely Chinese aspects of architecture are explained. The relevance of sweeping—and sometimes uncomfortable—concepts relevant to the Chinese architectural tradition such as colonialism, diffusionism, and the role of historical memory also resonate though the book.

In 221 bc the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the "classical period" of Chinese history--a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism--events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

This book explores new directions in the study of China’s borderlands. In addition to assessing the influential perspectives of other historians, it engages innovative approaches in the author’s own research. These studies probe regional accommodations, the intersections of borderland management, martial fortification, and imperial culture, as well as the role of governmental discourse in defining and preserving restive boundary regions. As the issue of China’s management of its borderlands grows more pressing, the work presents key information and insights into how that nation’s contested fringes have been governed in the past.

This book employs textual and archaeological material to reconstruct the various features of daily life in ancient China.