Free The Everlasting Empire by Yuri Pines Page A

to be comprehensive, and the “external” one, where compromises were tolerable. The boundaries between the “internal” and the “external” realms constantly fluctuated, reflecting the shifting balance of power between China and its neighbors, and the changing demographic and cultural composition of the extensive frontiers of China proper. At times, such as during the peak of territorial expansion under the Tang dynasty, intermediate areas under military rule could be established, expanding well into the Central Asia heartland, while the “external” realm was defined as an area of “loose rein” ( jimi ), where the superiority of the Chinese monarch remained primarily symbolic. At times of weakness, the designation “external” could be applied not only to border areas once under Chinese control, but even—scandalously—to the Chinese heartland itself, the Yellow River valley, ruled by the Jurchens since 1127. 62 Regions once rendered “external” could be firmly reincorporated into “China proper,” as happened to the Gansu and Yunnan Provinces under the Ming dynasty, while other areas could move in the opposite direction, as happened to North Vietnam, once an imperial province, which turned into an “external subject.”
    Most Chinese dynasties refrained from active attempts to expand the “internal” areas in which the real unity was maintained; it was cheaper to preserve the nominal “universality” of the monarch’s rule, as represented primarily in the tribute system, and not to attempt the military and administrative incorporation of alien lands and their hostile populations. Nonetheless, the desire for real mega-unification remained latently observable throughout imperial history. Not incidentally, some of China’s nomadic rulers, whose dynasties fared much better than native ones in projecting their rule beyond China proper, considered this success to be one of the major foundations of their dynasty’s legitimacy. Thus the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723–1735) of theManchu Qing dynasty proudly proclaimed:
Unity of the Central Lands [China proper] began with Qin; unity be-
yond the border passes began with [the Mongol] Yuan [1271–1368],
and peaked under our dynasty. Never before were Chinese and foreign-
ers one family and the country so expansive as under our dynasty! 63
    These words, pronounced in the midst of bitter polemics with a dissenting Chinese subject over the legitimacy of Manchu rule, are revealing. The Yongzheng Emperor was not a warmonger; actually at the beginning of his career he contemplated withdrawal from some of the territories acquired under his father, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661–1722), most notably Tibet. 64 Yet he might have apprehended that the remarkable territo
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rial expansion of the Qing and their incorporation of the alien periphery into the empire proper would be hailed by many Chinese subjects as a hallmark of Qing’s success. These sentiments were echoed by the Yongzheng Emperor’s son, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795), who appealed to the “greatness of All-under-Heaven” to silence critical voices of those advisers, who feared that the Qing ongoing expansion would overstretch its human and material resources. 65 Insofar as the emperors’ expectations that appeals to universality would be a convincing argument in domestic debates were correct (and we have no reasons to assume otherwise), they indicate that a latent desire for attaining truly universal unification remained intact—or was reproduced—a full two millennia after the First Emperor ordered the construction of the Great Wall, which was supposed to set limits to “All-under-Heaven.”
     
    GREAT UNITY UNDER NOMADIC RULE
    The Yongzheng Emperor’s invocation of the “Great Unity” ideal to bolster the legitimacy of his “alien” dynasty brings us to the last point of the present discussion: the impact of the ideal of unified rule on China’s nomadic rulers. What was the