The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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100
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30Okm
100 200miles
Chinarmydefeatedby
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iTing-hai
'ang-kuo
MAP
I
6. Chin raids south
of
the Yangtze, 1129—30
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232 THE CHIN DYNASTY
capital at K'ai-feng in 1132. He tried hard to organize north China by
establishing a workable administration and reviving the stagnant economic
life of his territory. Compulsory military service and heavy taxation were
imposed on the population. His troops fought alongside
the
Jurchens against
the Sung and even scored a few victories, such as the capture of the strategic
town of Hsiang-yang in 1135.
But the Sung counteroffensive under Yiieh Fei in 1134—5 ended in the
reconquest of much of the lost territory. This turn of events did much to
discredit Liu Yii's military value to the Jurchens. In 1135 his protector, the
Chin emperor T'ai-tsung, died and his successor, a grandson of A-ku-ta, later
canonized as His-tsung (1119—49), proved much less favorably inclined
toward Liu Yii. Late in 1137 the state of Ch'i was abolished and Liu Yii was
demoted from the rank of emperor
(huang-ti)
to that of prince
(wang).
It
seems that he was even suspected of having opened secret negotiations with
Yiieh Fei. Liu Yii was transferred first to Hopei and then to the town of Lin-
huang in northwestern Manchuria where he was allowed to end his life in
supervised retirement. The experiment of organizing the Jurchen conquests
as a Chinese puppet state with the help of Chinese defectors had thus failed,
and the Chin were faced with the alternative of either trying to achieve
coexistence with the Sung or continuing their policy of aggression and annihi-
lation of the Sung.
It is hard to say when the Chin finally realized that the Sung empire could
not be conquered. There had been abortive peace talks as early as 1132. One
factor that perhaps influenced the Jurchen decision to come to terms with the
Sung was the death of the former Sung emperor Hui-tsung in n
35,
in Wu-
kuo-ch'eng, a town in the Sungari region of Manchuria where he had been
held as a captive together with the other members of
his
former court.
The Chin government had appreciated that the imperial prisoners in their
custody were a diplomatic asset of the first order, and therefore their treat-
ment had been relatively lenient. The gradual improvement of their fate can
be shown from Chin sources (Sung sources remain silent on this point). In the
beginning, in 1127, Hui-tsung and Ch'in-tsung had been degraded to the
status of commoners and in 1128 were forced to pay obeisance to the ances-
tral spirit of A-ku-ta in the latter's mausoleum, wearing mourning dress
—
a
ritual of expiation imposed on supposed war criminals. Then the former
emperors were formally enfeoffed as marquises
(bou)
with the insulting titles
of Hun-te (Muddled Virtue) and Ch'ung-hun (Doubly Muddled). Six Sung
princesses were given as wives to members of the imperial Wan-yen clan of
Chin. In 1137, the Sung court was formally notified of Hui-tsung's death,
and when a peace treaty was in sight (1141), Hui-tsung received the posthu-
mous rank of prince of T'ien-shui chiin; his surviving son Ch'in-tsung, that
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CHIN-SUNG RELATIONS BEFORE II42 233
of duke (kung) of T'ien-shui chiin
—
even the Chin respected the status differ-
ence of generations.
Note also that the name of their new fief was a perfectly neutral one and
not derogatory, as their former titles had been. T'ien-shui was a commandery
at the upper course of the Wei River in the eastern part of what is now Kansu
Province. A few months later Ch'in-tsung was given the emoluments due his
ducal rank. After the treaty had been concluded, the male relatives of the two
emperors who were still in Chin captivity were accorded emoluments, a
privilege that was extended in 1150 to the female descendants of the former
Sung emperors. In other words, the Chin treated their captives as hostages
who could always be used to bring pressure on the Sung. The death of Ch'in-
tsung in 1156, however, deprived the Chin of their principal hostage on
whom they could rely to prevent the Sung from breaking the peace treaty.
This treaty of 1142, which was to regulate Sung-Chin relations for almost
twenty years, was the result of protracted negotiations. The Chin had the
advantage of being able to use the return to the Sung of the coffins of Hui-
tsung, his empress, and the emperor's mother as a bargaining chip. In
addition they kept up the military pressure by repeatedly sending troops into
the territory south of the Yellow River and in 1140 again conquered the
whole of Honan and Shensi, which had been returned to Sung control early in
1139 after the conclusion of a preliminary peace. But the conclusion of a
peace treaty would not have been possible if the revanchists had remained in
power at Hangchou, where the Sung had finally established their capital in
1138.
The elimination of Yiieh Fei, the most successful and popular of the
Sung generals, by his adversary Ch'in Kuei opened the way toward a final
agreement. In 1141 Yiieh Fei was ignominiously put to death in his prison, a
foul deed that made the advocate of coexistence, Ch'in Kuei, forever a bete
noire in Chinese history.
Almost at the same time, negotiations between Sung and Chin were
initiated. These were extremely involved and protracted. It seems that the
Chin side, through the commander Wan-yen Tsung-pi, signaled to the Sung
that a peace could be obtained by agreeing to make the Huai River the border
between the two states. This was in October 1141. Wan-yen Tsung-pi was
the fourth son of A-ku-ta and had been entrusted with operations in central
China. Two months later the Sung agreed in principle. Extracts from state
letters of both sides have survived in Sung sources; their dates range from
October 1141 to October 1142. But the texts of the treaty
itself,
or, more
correctly, the oath-letters of Chin and Sung, have not survived. What we
have is an abbreviated version of the Sung oath submitted already by the end
of 1141. The terms of peace were harsh. The Sung agreed to have the middle
course of the Huai River as a border, which meant that the whole of the
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234 THE CHIN DYNASTY
Central Plains was lost to the invaders. Also, the two strategically located
prefectures of Tang and Teng (in modern Hupei), which were to play a
significant role in the war of 1206, were ceded to Chin. From 1142 onward,
annual tributes of silver and silk amounting to 250,000 ounces and bolts,
respectively, were to be paid each year in the last month of spring; the
payment was to be delivered to the Chin border town of Ssu-chou on the
northern bank of the Huai River. Additional terms concerned security along
the border. Fugitives from Sung to the north could not be pursued, and no
large garrisons could be stationed in the Sung border prefectures. At the
same time Sung promised not to hide fugitives from the north but to surren-
der them.
The wording of the Sung declaration is characterized by extreme humility,
which acknowledged the Sung's new vassal status. Chin is addressed as "Your
superior state," whereas Sung termed itself "our insignificant state." Equally
humiliating was the use of the word "tribute"
(kung)
for the annual pay-
ments. But the worst loss of face was that Sung was no longer regarded by
Chin as a state in its own right, but rather, as a vassal, and it is understand-
able that no Sung source has preserved the text of the Chin decree that
invested Kao-tsung, whose personal name was Chao Kou, as ruler of the
Sung state. It has been preserved, however, in the biography of Wan-yen
Tsung-pi, along with the covering letter accompanying Kao-tsung's oath-
letter.
8
The Sung emperor must have regarded the extorted documents as the
nadir of his career. To call himself "Your servant Kou" must have taxed to the
extreme his gift for self-denial.
The Chin diplomat who presented the investiture document to Kao-tsung
was a Chinese who had formerly been in the service of the Liao and found
employment at the Chin court. He was received by Kao-tsung in a formal
audience on 11 October 1142, a date that must be regarded as the actual end
of hostilities and the beginning of a new period of coexistence. The Chin
withdrew their armies and promised to return to the Sung the coffins of Hui-
tsung and the empresses. It is surprising that the surviving documents of the
negotiations and the short version of Kao-tsung's oath-letter do not mention
the resumption of trade between the two countries, but this is certainly due
to the deficiency of the sources. In fact, licensed border markets were estab-
lished, the most important one being Ssu-chou. Trade soon began to flourish
again.
For the Chin the stabilization of their southern border and the final
8 CS, 77, pp. 1755—6. For a general study of treaties between Sung and Chin, see also Herbert Franke,
"Treaties between Sung and Chin," in
Etudes
Song in
memoriam Elienne
Balazs, ed. Franjoise Aubin, 1st
series,
no. i (Paris, 1970), pp. 55-84.
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THE POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
CHIN AFTER II42
235
conquest of
the
Central Plains brought about a gradual shift of their political
and economic centers from north to south (see Map 17). More and more
Jurchens settled in north China; the Chin had at last become a state that was,
ethically and economically, to a great extent Chinese. For the Sung, too, the
consolidation brought about by the treaty proved a considerable asset. De-
spite the formal vassal status that he had had to accept, Kao-tsung had
stabilized the situation and had, moreover, fulfilled the moral duties of filial
piety by recovering the body of Hui-tsung and securing the release of his
mother. The Chin refused, however, to free Ch'in-tsung, a refusal that was
probably not entirely unwelcome to Kao-tsung, whose position as emperor
would have become precarious had his older brother returned.
THE POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
CHIN AFTER II42
A period of peaceful coexistence thus seemed to lie ahead after 1142. It was
interrupted twice during the following seventy years, once by the Chin and
once by the Sung, thus demonstrating that revanchism had not died out with
the 1142 treaty and remained a constant matter of controversy in court
circles. The years immediately following the treaty were, however, peaceful
for both states. The Chin state had asserted itself
as
a power in China proper
and continued to transform itself into a Chinese-style political entity. This
transformation from a more tribal, feudal society into a bureaucratic organiza-
tion did not take place without some resistance from the more conservative
faction among the Jurchen grandees. The ruler Hsi-tsung (r. 1135-50)
himself had been enthroned when he was a boy and had never taken a
prominent part in the diplomatic and military activities that occurred after
his accession. He left all this to the imperial clan members who held the
highest military and civilian offices. The strong personal leadership shown by
T'ai-tsu and T'ai-tsung was absent in their successor, who
was,
moreover, not
a very capable person and even more addicted to drinking than was usual
among the hard-drinking Jurchens. As long as the Chin state was not con-
fronted with any critical situation, a ruler like Hsi-tsung might be tolerated
by the more farsighted members of the imperial clan, and indeed there was
not much to interfere with his pursuit of personal pleasure. It is true that
some border warfare broke out with the unruly inhabitants of the northwest-
ern steppe regions, but following the Sung example the Chin now adopted a
policy of appeasement.
In this context the Mongols played a prominent role. It seems that already
in the mid-twelfth century their tribe had been consolidated enough to be
regarded by the Chin government as the potential partner of an agreement.
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2
3
6
THE
CHIN DYNASTY
THE POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
CHIN AFTER II42
237
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238 THE CHIN DYNASTY
Chinese sources of Sung provenance record that in 1146-7 the state of the
Mongols was "pacified" and that
its chieftain Ao-lo Po-chi-lieh was invested as assisting state ruler of the Meng. Then peaceful
relations were established, and Chin annually gave them very generous presents. Thereupon
Ao-lo Po-chi-lieh called himself Ancestral Originating Emperor [Tsu-yiian huang-ti] and
proclaimed the era t'ien-hsing [Heavenly
Rise].
The great Chin had used military force but
eventually could not subdue them [the Mongols] and only sent elite troops that occupied some
strategic points and then returned.
9
It is not clear to which Mongolian chieftain the term Ao-lo Po-chi-lieh refers.
It is a composite title; the second half is the Jurchen word
bogile,
"leader,
chief."
The first half of the title could be a transcription of the Mongolian
word a'uruigh), "base, camp," so that the whole title would mean something
like "chief of the camp." A modern Japanese scholar has suggested that the
title Ao-lo Po-chi-lieh refers to Khabul khan, the grandfather of Chinggis
khan, who indeed, as the
Secret history
of
the Mongols
tells us, "ruled over all
the Mongols."
10
In other words, it seems that around 1146—7 the chieftain of the Mongols
had become an "outer vassal" of the Chin state and had been accorded a title
appropriate to his rank. It should not surprise us that both the
Secret history
and the
Yuan-shih
(Yuan history) remain silent on this episode. The
Chin shih
(Chin history) also omits to mention it, perhaps because it was compiled
under the Mongolian Yuan dynasty and therefore tended to pass in silence
over anything that could point to a vassal status of the Mongols under the
predecessors of Chinggis khan. It is also significant that all our information
on these early Mongolian-Chin relations comes from Sung sources, which
did not have to consider political prohibitions imposed by Mongolian rule.
In any case it remains a fact that after 1146 the Mongols had already
become a major power in the steppe regions that the Liao government had
formerly found difficult to control. This was to some extent a political
configuration similar to that a generation earlier when the Jurchens them-
selves had been vassals of the Liao on their eastern frontier and tried to win
formal and factual independence from their overlords. At the same time, in
1146,
the Chin tried to win the allegiance of the Western Liao or Khara
Khitai, who under Yeh-lii Ta-shih had founded an empire in Central Asia.
But this diplomatic initiative failed completely, and the chief envoy was
killed on his way to the far west. This same envoy had successfully estab-
9 This agreement with the Mongols is not mentioned in the Chin sbib, but it appears in Yii-wen Mou-
chao,
Ta Chin kuo chih (KHCPTS, ed.), 12, pp. 99—100; and in Li Hsin-ch'uan, Chien-ytn i lai
ch'ao
yeh tsa chi (KHCPTS ed.), 19, p. 591.
10 Jicsuzo Tamura, "The legend of the origin of the Mongols and problems concerning their migration,"
Ada Asiatica, 24 (1973), p. 12.
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THE POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
CHIN AFTER II42
239
lished relations in 1144 with the Uighurs to the west of the Hsi Hsia state.
Unlike Sung, Kory6, and Hsi Hsia, however, the Uighurs did not send
regular courtesy embassies for the New Year festival and the emperor's birth-
day every year but appeared only irregularly to pay homage to the Chin with
an offer of local products.
The situation of Chin in the intricate multistate system of East Asia was
thus firmly established. What created an element of instability was the Chin
emperor's own personality. Apart from his conduct he seems to have suffered
from persecution mania and repeatedly had high officials and even members
of his own clan killed on flimsy pretexts. Inevitably a faction developed
against him, and finally the conspirators murdered him on 9 January 1150.
The conspiracy was headed by the emperor's cousin Ti-ku-nai, whose Chinese
name was Wan-yen Liang (1122-61). He was duly enthroned as emperor,
but the Chin shih does not recognize him as such; the sources always refer to
him as prince of Hai-ling, Hai-ling wang, and in 1180, many years after his
death, he was even posthumously demoted to the rank of a commoner.
The Hai-ling wang
episode
In the rogues' gallery of Chinese rulers, Hai-ling wang occupies a place of
honor. Sung and Chin sources alike describe him as a bloody monster.
Indeed, in this respect he proved far worse than Hsi-tsung had ever been. For
him it became standard procedure to murder his opponents, including those
from the imperial clan
itself.
The fact that he transferred the wives and
concubines of the murdered princes into his own harem added, in the eyes of
Chinese historians, lechery to bloodthirstiness. In later centuries he even
became an antihero in popular pornography, where his exploits are embel-
lished with gusto. But it would be wrong to judge his personality from the
point of view of the moralizing sources alone. Hai-ling wang was in fact a far
more complicated person than the cruel and ruthless usurper he appears to
have been at first sight. There was method and purpose behind his seemingly
senseless acts of violence. He marks the last phase of transition from a more
collective and clan-dominated leadership to monarchic autocracy. At the
same time he was, strange as it may sound, a great admirer of Chinese
civilization, and some part of his ruthless extermination of Jurchen grandees
can be interpreted as a fight against the advocates of the old tribal and feudal
ways of
life.
Another motivation was the elimination of Wu-ch'i-mai's descen-
dants because he wanted to keep the succession to the throne in A-ku-ta's
lineage. Hai-ling wang was an avid reader and had studied the Chinese
classics and histories. Greatly impressed by the many Sung Chinese whom he
had met after the resumption of diplomatic relations and by their ways, he
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240 THE CHIN DYNASTY
had adopted such typically Chinese customs as playing chess and drinking
tea, so that in his youth he had been given the nickname of Po-lieh-han, a
Jurchen phrase meaning something like "aping the Chinese."
11
Under Hai-ling wang's rule, many reforms that tended to sinify the
Jurchen state and society were introduced, in ritual and ceremony as well as
in fiscal policy and administration. No longer content with the fact that the
political center of the Jurchen state was still to a large extent in the under-
developed region of Manchuria, he began to shift the existing central agen-
cies to the south. Yen-ching (Peking), which had hitherto been the Southern
Capital, was reconstructed, and new palaces were built there. In 1152 Hai-
ling wang took up residence in Yen-ching and had it renamed the Central
Capital. Some years later, in 1157, he even ordered the destruction of the
palaces and mansions of the Jurchen chiefs in the Supreme Capital in north-
ern Manchuria and had the status of the town reduced to that of a simple
prefecture. He also gave orders to build an imperial residence in K'ai-feng,
the former Sung capital, and made it his Southern Capital.
All this shows how much Hai-ling wang wanted to become a Chinese ruler
instead of a Jurchen leader. But his aspirations went beyond the sinification
of
his
realm. He regarded himself as the potential overlord of all of China and
considered his legitimacy as the ruler of China to be as good as that of the
Sung. After eliminating, chiefly through murder, those of his opponents who
were in favor of continuing the coexistence policy with Sung, Hai-ling wang
began preparations for a new war of conquest. His pretexts were not subtle:
In 1158 he accused the Sung of violating the 1142 treaty by illicitly purchas-
ing horses at the border markets.
From 1159 on, Hai-ling wang thoroughly organized preparations for an
all-out attack against Sung. In order to eliminate a possible diversion by
unrest on the border with Hsia, the minister of war
was
dispatched to inspect
the border and its delimitation. Horses were requisitioned in great numbers;
the total is reported to have been 560,000 animals. A huge store of military
weapons was brought together and provisionally stored in the Central Capital
(Peking). The emperor, having realized that a huge campaign could not take
place with the Jurchen soldiers alone, ordered the registration of Chinese
soldiers throughout the whole country. Such measures met with local resis-
tance by the Chinese population and the Chin shih records several minor
revolts led by Chinese, particularly in the southeastern region, which bor-
dered on Sung. The recruitment among the population continued until the
summer of 1161.
Hai-ling wang had also foreseen that an advance into the Sung territory
11 Ta Chin kuo chih, 13, p. 103.
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