Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 830 The First Protector of Buddhism, Imperial Uncle Timur

Guo Kang initially found this hard to accept, feeling that his geographical knowledge was being challenged. But upon reflection, he realized that people of his generation had an abnormal understanding of international relations and spheres of influence.

The civilization of the Central Plains spans several thousand years, and for most of that time, it was among the world's most advanced. In fact, with increased understanding of ancient history, people of Guo Kang's era might have even discovered that they had underestimated the strength of their ancestors.

For example, according to early archaeological research, the ancient history of the Central Plains was not as extensive as that of Egypt. However, with the discovery of more artifacts later on, this conclusion no longer seems accurate. In terms of both length and breadth, it is at least comparable to the previously considered "originating center."

The Central Plains region ceased to be the world's leading power in approximately two hundred years; it could no longer be considered a powerful nation, only for about thirty to fifty years. These periods are historically "isolated cases." Therefore, the understanding of national status and international relations held by Guo Kang's generation is not necessarily accurate—because human society is not so simple, and many organizational aspects are not necessarily more accurate the more recent they are. When considering ancient times, using the situation within this short period as a standard will inevitably lead to inaccuracies.

Moreover, this wasn't just limited to the Central Plains; globally, the "consensus" considered sacred was often quite recent, not something ancient. Whether people were maintaining the so-called international order or vying to be the overlord of Westphalia was uncertain. Given this environment, it was naturally difficult to judge the Ming Dynasty people's views on the "international environment" and their true situation.

As for the Indian region, although it was historically quite far from the core area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, the enormous influence of the ancient "Celestial Empire" is something that later generations can easily underestimate.

In later generations' view, the Ming Dynasty was very far from this region. Geographically speaking, the vast area south of the Yangtze River is closer to Southeast Asia than to the Central Plains. The later geographical division was simply due to the continuous southward migration of Han Chinese from the Central Plains dynasties.

Wherever the people of the Central Plains went, that place became the Central Plains. Therefore, after a long period of development, the dividing line has become very far south.

However, despite the cultural dominance and large population of the Central Plains people, geographical isolation was not so easily overcome. The Han people's secure rear was far away in Sichuan, and the prolonged wars of the Song and Yuan dynasties had already caused heavy population losses in Sichuan. When Ming Yuzhen entered Sichuan, the local population was only counted at 300,000; he brought another 500,000 people with him, making the number of immigrants even greater than the local population.

In this situation, it was already a challenge for Shu to defend itself; projecting power outwards was extremely difficult. Ming Yuzhen himself struggled to find a strategic way out. He wanted to emulate Shu Han, but he was blocked by various warlords in Guanzhong to the north, and outside Hanzhong, he was surrounded by Yuan You forces; to the south, he was blocked by the Prince of Liang and the Duan family's general, and once he reached Yunnan, he was also surrounded by Yuan You forces; even to the west, on the newly opened plateau, were Yuan You forces... As a result, he was completely blocked and couldn't even get started to develop successfully.

The situation in Yunnan was much better. However, compared to Shu (Sichuan), which had long been considered part of the core area of ​​the Han Chinese, this region was much more "wild" and its loyalty to the Ming Dynasty was highly questionable.

Previously, the most powerful force in Yunnan was the Dali Kingdom, established by the Duan family. However, the Dali Kingdom's administration had long been controlled by powerful ministers from the Gao family.

The Gao family were the founding fathers of the Dali Kingdom. Their ancestor was Gao Fang, the prefect of Shanju County, who was on good terms with Duan Siping, the founding emperor of Dali and the military governor of Tonghai. When Duan Siping rebelled against the Dayining Kingdom, Gao Fang helped him contact thirty-seven barbarian tribes to borrow troops, overthrow the Yang Ganzhen regime, and establish the Dali Kingdom.

Because the uprising relied heavily on the support of various powerful clans and chieftains, Dali's internal problems were extremely serious from the very beginning. After the war, rewards were distributed according to merit, and Gao Fang was granted the title of Marquis of Yue, making the Gao family the second most powerful noble family in Dali after the Duan royal family. After the establishment of Dali, Gao Fang also created the position of "Quanshuang" to oversee the selection of officials, thus monopolizing personnel power.

There were several such powerful clans at the time. They fought each other, installed members of the royal family under their control, and frequently committed regicide and deposition. The Duan royal family had become nothing more than a mascot in their hands. The plot began to develop in the direction of the "Partition of Jin by the Three Families".

In 1044, Chancellor Gao Zhisheng launched a coup, installing Duan Silian as emperor. He reached the pinnacle of power due to his role in the coup. However, other powerful clans were not convinced. In 1063, the Yang clan rebelled, and Duan Silian had no choice but to request Gao Zhisheng's military assistance. After quelling the rebellion, Gao Zhisheng occupied the entire territory of Shanshan Prefecture and refused to leave. Duan Silian was forced to promote Gao Zhisheng to Marquis of Shanshan and grant him the directly controlled royal territories of Baiya and Rudian. This precedent further weakened the Duan clan's power.

In 1080, another powerful minister, Yang Yizhen, assassinated Emperor Duan Lianyi and then declared himself emperor. Gao Zhisheng ordered his son, Gao Shengtai, to raise an army, kill Yang Yizhen, and install Duan Lianyi's nephew, Duan Shouhui, as emperor. Because of the Gao family's merit in quelling the rebellion, Gao Zhisheng was appointed prime minister again, and Gao Shengtai succeeded him as Marquis of Shanshan. From then on, real power in the Dali Kingdom completely shifted to the Gao family.

By 1094, the Gao family had also declared themselves emperors. Under pressure from Gao Shengtai, Duan Zhengming, the ruler of the Dali Kingdom, abdicated. Gao Shengtai's new regime was named "China," and he proclaimed himself "Emperor Zhengde of Great China."

However, the Duan family had accumulated some prestige over the years. Furthermore, the various tribes of Yunnan did not want the Gao family to become too powerful. Therefore, despite opposition from other powerful clans, Gao Shengtai, on his deathbed, instructed his son Gao Taiming to return power to the Duan family. Consequently, Gao Taiming did not succeed to the throne but instead enthroned Duan Zhengming's younger brother, Duan Zhengchun, as the Emperor of Dali. Thereafter, the Duan family ruled as emperors, while the Gao family relinquished their positions as prime ministers, merely referring to themselves as "Duke of China." The political situation in Dali stabilized in this way.

However, when the Mongols attacked, the Gao family, who held power, resolutely resisted and suffered heavy losses. During the reign of Empress Naimazhen, the Mongol army attacked Dali for the first time, attempting to flank the Southern Song Dynasty from this direction. Chancellor Gao Taixiang ordered his brother Gao He and others to lead the Dali army in a fierce battle against the Mongol army in the Jiuhe area of ​​Lijiang. Ultimately, the Dali army was defeated, Gao He and others were killed in battle, but the Mongol army also suffered heavy losses and was forced to retreat.

During Möngke Khan's reign, he once again ordered Kublai Khan to lead a large army south to attack Dali. This was Kublai Khan's first battle in which he commanded an army independently, and therefore he attached great importance to it. With the assistance of Phagpa, the leader of the Sakya sect of Tibet, Kublai Khan's army successfully bypassed the Southern Song's defensive system in Sichuan, and then split into three routes to march south.

Kublai Khan personally led the central army to Mantuo City on the banks of the Dadu River. After crossing the river, they marched south along the valley to the Jinsha River. Finding a shortage of boats, Kublai Khan ordered his men to slaughter cattle and sheep to make a batch of leather bags, which they used to cross the Jinsha River, hence the idiom "crossing the Jinsha River in leather bags." To speed up the march, the Mongol army abandoned their provisions and supplies, marching over two thousand li (approximately 1,000 kilometers) through uninhabited mountain valleys and fortified areas, crossing several treacherous rivers, and suddenly appearing in the heart of Dali. Caught off guard, the Gao family hastily abandoned the northern passes and returned to the capital to fortify it. Kublai Khan hoped to persuade the city's garrison to surrender, but Gao Taixiang resolutely refused, even executing the Mongol envoy to demonstrate his resolve.

Initially, the city's strong defenses allowed for some resistance, but Kublai Khan later deployed elite troops who scaled the Cangshan Mountains from behind and appeared directly behind the city. Terrified, the Dali soldiers quickly began to flee, and Dali fell to the Mongol army.

After the city fell, King Duan Xingzhi fled to Shanshan, while Chancellor Gao Taixiang retreated to Tongshiluo to raise troops to defend the king. This was where the Gao family had risen to power, and the chieftains of the surrounding thirty-seven tribes obeyed his orders and came to their aid. However, the Mongol army was too formidable, and the loyalist army was defeated once again, with Gao Taixiang also captured.

Kublai Khan hoped to persuade Gao Taixiang to surrender, but Gao Taixiang refused, preferring death to surrender. Kublai Khan, moved by his loyalty, couldn't bear to kill him and offered him a high-ranking official position, but Gao Taixiang still refused. This dragged on for a long time, and with the army about to withdraw, Kublai Khan had no choice but to order his execution. Before his execution, Gao Taixiang said, "The fate of Duan Yun is irreversible; it is Heaven's will. My service is complete with my death." He was killed at the Wuhua Tower in Dali. After this, Kublai Khan seemed to become addicted to trying to persuade capable ministers from other families to surrender, but unfortunately, he rarely succeeded.

Although they left behind a good reputation, the Gao family suffered heavy losses in the war and never recovered. The Mongols' administration was also very lax, so the Duan family, who served as the "General Administrator of Dali," became increasingly powerful and eventually almost controlled Yunnan. Even the Prince of Liang had to give them face.

The Duan family was also very clear about the source of their power. Therefore, they firmly stood on the side of the Yuan Dynasty and, together with Prince Liang, resisted the Ming army to the very end.

The Duan family had been operating here for a long time and had become deeply entrenched. The surrounding chieftains and headmen were accustomed to the Duan family's authority. Therefore, although this area had a certain level of power and was not as vulnerable as Sichuan, it was hard to say whether the locals were truly reliable to the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, at first glance, it seems quite difficult for the Ming Dynasty to project military power to more distant areas. After all, Emperor Wu of Han had once attempted to open up a route to the southwestern barbarians and reach India from there. However, maintaining this route remained extremely difficult until 1,500 years later.

However, there is another, more important factor that is easily overlooked. That is, ancient people also relied heavily on trade, and could even use trade routes to spread political, cultural, and religious influence. The absence of the imperial army in this area did not mean that the imperial court's influence was absent.

Southeast Asia is precisely where this trade is of paramount importance. Local regimes, even those that appear very powerful, are in reality a "mandala" system comprised of trade and multiple layers of subservience. Conversely, regimes outside this region can also establish influence and even rule through this "mandala" mechanism.

A successful example of this is the spread of Islam. After stabilizing its rule, the Delhi Sultanate began to continuously attempt to spread Islam in Southeast Asia, trying to exert cultural influence beyond military conquest. Meanwhile, in distant West Asia and Europe, the Ottoman Empire, which rose to power much later, despite being thousands of miles away, also managed to send missionaries to distant Southeast Asia via the traditional Red Sea-Indian Ocean sea route, spreading its religious influence.

Compared to Buddhism and Hinduism, Islam had a significant advantage: it was cheap. As a result, in Southeast Asia, both on the islands and the mainland, economic factors essentially differentiated religious regions—less wealthy princes abandoned the more expensive Hindu religions and turned to Islam. So much so that by Guo Kang's time, Southeast Asia commonly referred to this faith as "Romanism," and the white-hatted monks as "Roman hats." Although the local princes were halfway around the world, they still revered the Ottomans as their overlords. While this might seem strange to people from the Central Plains, it was perfectly normal there.

Of course, this example is not very obvious at the moment, mainly because both sources of missionary work have temporarily ceased to exist. Timur first launched a "holy war" against the Ghazi of the Delhi Sultanate, directly shattering this already fragile regime and causing missionary activities on the eastern front to come to a standstill; then, he launched a "holy war" against the Ottomans without stopping, also defeating the rising Ottoman Empire.

In today's world, after the Ottoman Empire was utterly defeated, it essentially lost any chance of resurgence and was relegated to a third-rate power. Its influence in Southeast Asia likely vanished completely. Furthermore, the powerful influence of the Yuan and Ming dynasties in Java would probably have significantly altered subsequent missionary activities. This is why the remaining Buddhist areas on the Southeast Asian islands have survived.

From this perspective, those so-called "protector" kings in India are far too incompetent. The true protector of Buddhism is Timur, the emperor's uncle, who decisively defeated two of his fellow believers with a few powerful punches…

The same approach could naturally be applied to the Ming Dynasty.

Although this control was much weaker compared to the inland areas, it was perfectly natural for the locals. Since the villages were subordinate to the kings in the commercial towns, and the towns were subordinate to the rulers in the metropolises, it made no difference to the local chieftains whether they recognized Bagan, Bago, Ayutthaya, Thonburi, or Nanjing to the north. Because at that distance, all were "unreachable" to the local chieftains, the result was the same.

In this respect, the Ming Dynasty even had an advantage, because historically, its fleet had had an extremely significant impact.

Later, when the Ming Dynasty fleet sailed to Southeast Asia, the Sultan of Bengal seized the opportunity to curry favor and upgrade relations. With their cooperation, during the Yongle reign, the eunuch Hou Xian led a fleet to Chadi Port twice, carrying imperial edicts to bestow gifts upon the King and Queen of Bengal, and also established a tax collection office in Chadi Port.

The tax collection offices were official tax collection agencies of the Ming Dynasty, primarily responsible for collecting taxes on goods from foreign merchant ships arriving at ports. Although this place was far away in the Indian Ocean, the ancient Central Plains dynasties did not have such a strict concept of inside and outside; any place that paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty could be considered territory—especially for the local people. As a result, even Bengal became part of the Ming Dynasty's territory.

(End of this chapter)