Chapter 2174: Taizong Chronicles 42 — The Dark Clouds Behind the Height of Glory

Needless to say, even in the empire's most glorious years, there was no shortage of troubles and chaos. The Great Han Empire, undefeated across all of East Asia, was likewise not immune to the suffering of border troubles. The barbarian uprisings, popular revolts, and bandit disturbances that occurred every year in the empire's remote and impoverished border regions need not be elaborated upon—"counterinsurgency operations" were in fact a routine matter within the empire, not something unique to the externally expanding vassal states.

In the Jianlong era, the court's most severe border troubles were not in Andong, where war had nearly broken out, but in two main places: one in the southwest, the other in Mobei. Moreover, from the eighth to the eighteenth year of Jianlong, the imperial court led by Liu Wenji expended enormous effort on these two fronts—these were the only two "martial achievements" worth recording in Liu Wenji's entire reign.

How could any golden age in history lack the ornament of "martial achievements"? And not just the suppression of petty thieves and minor disturbances—there had to be some "illustrious martial feats" worthy of presentation.

First was the southwest. Since the pacification of the Chuanshu rebellion in the early Yongxi years and Emperor Taizong's southern tour, when he summoned the native chieftains of Dian and Qian to an audience at Chengdu, the entire southwest had remained peaceful for a full thirty years. Of course, some "routine" disturbances were unavoidable, but on the whole, the region remained under a stable Han governing order, and the wheels of sinicization continued to roll forward imperceptibly through the course of history.

Over those thirty years, the Dian-Qian region made tremendous progress and development. The stability of the political system and the guarantee of social order often spur prosperity, and that period could well be called the stage of the highest level of civilization and greatest social prosperity in the history of the Dian-Qian region.

Of course, this prosperity was driven forward with Han civilization as the locomotive, and its primary means of realization was through close exchange with the Han people, ultimately presenting a picture of Han and barbarian intermingling and fusion.

Economically, although the two circuits of Dian and Qian never managed to shake off their dependence on aid from Jiannan and the court, animal husbandry and handicraft industries also flourished vigorously. As one of the pillars of the tea-horse economic sphere, animal husbandry was an important driving force for development—the fame of Dian horses was spread throughout the southwest. Supplemented by various handicraft products, metal smelting, traditional agriculture, and the exploitation of medicinal materials such as bezoar and musk, the steep mountains and dense forests of the southwest, with their treacherous roads, could no longer be entirely regarded as a poor and backward hinterland.

Politically and culturally, although the two circuits of Dian and Qian had long been in a state of Han-barbarian intermingling, with "civil officials and native chieftains" governing in parallel—indeed, with the native chieftains often holding greater weight than the civil officials—under the influence of the large numbers of Han officials, Han troops, Han merchants, and Han commoners, along with the Han civilizational texts, customs, and goods they brought with them, the court's opening and consolidation of the southwest achieved tremendous success, and the process of sinicization advanced at a visibly observable pace.

Not to mention the ordinary barbarian commoners—at least among the upper echelons of the various barbarian tribes and native chieftains, the Chinese language and Chinese rites had basically spread. It was not that Han civilization truly possessed some irresistible magic that made chieftains and headmen vie to convert and study it; rather, within the order the Great Han Empire had established in Dian and Qian, those who did not gravitate toward sinicization and the court would suffer for it.

Those who accepted sinicization might not necessarily live particularly well, but those who refused or even resisted were guaranteed to live badly! And the root of it all lay in the heavy garrisons the court maintained year-round in the various prefectures and towns of Dian and Qian.

In terms of overall military strength, the Han army of the two Dian-Qian circuits was far inferior to that of Jiannan, the core of the southwest. But if one looked purely at combat effectiveness—who could fight better—the troops of Dian and Qian, especially the border troops of the Yunnan circuit, could hold their own against any in the entire empire. This was determined by the politics, geography, and local character of Dian and Qian.

Rapid economic and cultural development, along with stable social order, often brings population growth. When the empire's population was exploding across the board, the southwest was the same—even if its growth rate was not as high as that of the traditionally prosperous regions, by the early Jianlong era, the population of the Dian and Qian regions had already surpassed five million.

And one thing could be certain: the actual population was far greater than that figure! As a hub for close exchange with Qianzhong, Jiannan, and the Guangnan West Circuit, the seat of the Yunnan circuit, Shanzhan Prefecture, had gradually expanded into a great city of one hundred thousand people. At that scale and level, even across the entire southwest, it could rank among the foremost.

The thirty years of development and prosperity in the Dian-Qian region could not be denied or erased, but at the same time, its social contradictions were also rapidly accumulating. Land conflicts, the gap between rich and poor, Han-barbarian tensions, the greed and exploitation of bureaucrats and nobles, bloody struggles among native chieftains and barbarian tribes...

As time passed, contradictions accumulated to a certain point and naturally erupted. In fact, starting from the third year of Jianlong, disturbances in the Dian-Qian region began to increase. Incidents of barbarian raiders harassing and plundering or killing Han commoners occurred one after another without end, and cases of barbarian tribes plundering, attacking, and expanding against one another also gradually grew more frequent.

The local government offices and garrisons handled these disturbances just as they always had—suppressing and pacifying as a matter of routine, exactly as they had done for the past thirty years. But old methods clearly could not solve the problems of the new stage, which led to unrest that never ceased, unstable social order, a continuously rising crime rate, and step by step, the brewing of turmoil and unease across all of Dian and Qian.

The "Sichuan–Yunnan" tea-horse trade was affected, and the direct loss of profits naturally drew the attention of the relevant departments. Zhang Shixun, then serving as Southwest Inspector, took special note upon learning of the situation and personally submitted a memorial to report it to the court.

But inertia also existed at the empire's center. The court did not take it too seriously at first—after all, when had disturbances in the Dian-Qian region ever truly ceased? Just barbarian unrest—let them make a fuss, and it would quiet down on its own.

Of course, the killing and plundering of Han commoners could not be tolerated, and moreover, face had to be given to Zhang Shixun. So the court issued a directive with relatively stern wording to the government offices of the two Dian-Qian circuits, demanding that they strictly restrain and rectify the situation and restore order for the people. At the same time, an imperial edict was also issued to the native chieftains of the two circuits, requiring them to cooperate with the Great Han government, maintain stability in Dian and Qian, and swiftly restore regional peace.

Such measures, had they occurred in the Taizong era—or even the Kangzong era—would have produced immediate results. But to be fair, by the Jianlong era, these native chieftains of the southwest, so far from the emperor's reach, had long since lost the reverence and even gratitude toward the court that they had possessed thirty years earlier.

Therefore, when the court's edict was issued, very few chieftains responded. Or perhaps they simply did not feel they needed the court's intervention—those living peacefully continued to live peacefully, and those fighting each other continued to fight with undiminished fervor.

The local governments and garrisons, however, dared not treat the court's orders lightly. They still mobilized in force and struck hard, achieving some results. But those who genuinely suppressed rebels and sincerely sought to maintain stability were truly few in number.

In contrast, some government offices and garrisons took this opportunity to massacre and plunder barbarian commoners on a large scale... Contradictions were intensified, and the arrival of even greater chaos was hardly surprising.

Observing that security in the southwest was difficult to stabilize and barbarian unrest was gradually worsening, the court slowly began to take the matter seriously. Liu Wenji felt even more anger at the two circuits' government offices for their ineffective maintenance of stability—even their dereliction of duty, negligence, and outward compliance concealing inner defiance.

Thus, from the fifth to the eighth year of Jianlong, Liu Wenji carried out frequent rectifications of the two Dian-Qian circuits, from politics to military affairs. But these rectifications brought severe growing pains to the southwest's military and civil administration, and also led to further loss of control over the original order.

The greatest disturbance occurred in the late autumn of the eighth year of Jianlong, beginning with the joint uprising of the three Jiahe tribes at the Dian-Guangxi border in Zuinin Prefecture, who raised the banner of revolt against Han.

This rebellion initially drew the attention of the Yunnan circuit government for one reason only: the three Jiahe tribes were hereditary native chieftains enfeoffed by the imperial court. Such betrayal and provocation was far more serious in nature than an ordinary barbarian disturbance.

Therefore, upon learning of the uprising, the garrison troops of Zuinin Prefecture swiftly sallied forth, intending to crush the rebellion in its infancy. Yet they were utterly annihilated by the three tribes' rebel forces. Zuinin Prefecture thus fell, and the rebellion spread from a remote small prefecture in Yunnan to a wider area.

Unlike the Chuanshu uprising of more than thirty years earlier—which, though beacons of war blazed everywhere and rebel armies clustered together, had from start to finish been dominated by the Jiannan rebels, with Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun as the two rebel leaders—the rebellion in Dian and Qian lasted longer but never formed a coalition or unified command.

It seemed that everyone had simply grown dissatisfied with Han rule and the Great Han court's governance, so someone took the lead in rebelling against Han, and others followed by raising the rebel banner, or fished in troubled waters, using the chaos to expand their own power. Even while rebelling against Han, they never ceased their mutual slaughter and annexation of one another...

Yet even in such a fantastical "rebellion," the scale and scope of the uprising showed an expanding trend throughout the entire ninth year of Jianlong. By the early tenth year of Jianlong, when the southwest rebellion was at its height, more than half of the prefectures in the two Dian-Qian circuits had chieftains or barbarian tribes in revolt.

And Yunnan, as the cradle of the rebellion, had nearly entirely fallen to the flames of the rebel forces. Even though the imperial army, relying on its overwhelming strength, always maintained a position of superiority, it still found itself on the defensive in the task of pacification amid a situation where beacons of war blazed everywhere. Often, one rebellion would be pacified only for another to rise—one after another, suppression and relapse cycling endlessly, and the imperial army could not help but be worn out from rushing about.

This situation arose not only because the rebels fully exploited their "local snake" advantage, but also because many powerful Han magnates could no longer restrain themselves, seeking to pull chestnuts from the fire. At the same time, many lower-class Han and barbarian commoners, oppressed by both government offices and native chieftains, also banded together to plot rebellion.

Thus, at least in the ninth year of Jianlong, nearly the entire Yunnan circuit was in a complete mess, like a pot of porridge boiled into chaos...