I think this would definitely be the right forum for this. Is there any plausible way to prevent the
Uprising of the Five Barbarians and Northern Wei? Perhaps a situation where the Barbarian tribes hold onto China for a very short period and are forced out or never get a foothold at all?
The easy answer is that the second Jin emperor wasn’t an imbecile at all. The first emperor had plenty of sons,but went to great lengths to ensure that his first wife’s eldest son inherited the throne.If someone that’s not an imbecile isn’t on the,even if he’s not competent,the Jin Dynasty would have never been weakened by civil war to the point where the Five barbarians succeed in conquering territories north of the Huai River.
After the Five Barbarian uprising broke out,there were actually five occasions where the Jin Dynasty could have pushed out the barbarians.
The first was under the general Zu Ti. This guy was the governor of mostly deserted provinces in central China.With almost no resources given to him by the the Eastern Jin government save those from the province he controlled,he was able to reconquer China south of the Yellow River.He died of despair soon after the Jin government stripped him of his authority after they were afraid that he would reconquer the north and become too powerful for them to control.Dude was basically Yue Fei without the getting executed part.Assuming that the Eastern Jin government gave him resources and troops,he probably would have been able to expel the barbarians.
Second opportunity came with the general Huan Wen,who was also the brother in law of the Jin emperor.He had mixed successes against the barbarians to the north,at one point recovering Luoyang and had his army just outside Chang’an. His sole desire in campaigning against the barbarians was to accumulate enough prestige so that he could usurp the throne.As a result,his leadership of the army was over-cautious and did not attempt to be more bold in battles that could destroy the barbarians but perhaps also risk destroy his own army(in order to avoid losing his army and the means of usurping the throne). As a result of infighting with noble families who did not want him to usurp the throne,his northern expeditions were also heavily hampered.Due to over-caution and lack of widespread support in the country,his expeditions also failed.
The third chance came with the famous Xie Clan. Under the Jin Chancellor Xie An,the Xie clan built an elite semi-private army known as the Beifu army that consists largely of refugees from the north.The north unified by Former Qin tried to invade the Eastern Jin Dynasty with an army that supposedly numbered over 800,000(I’m skeptical about the number),only to be defeated by the 80,000 strong Beifu army under the command of Xie An’s nephew Xie Xuan. No longer fearful of the Former Qin’s strength,various barbarian tribes to the north rebelled and Former Qin rapidly collapsed.Taking advantage of this,Xie Xuan and the Beifu army recovered the entirety of China south of the Yellow River. Due to fears of the Xie Clan becoming too powerful and perhaps try to usurp the throne like Huan Wen,the Xie clan was barred from attempting to recover the rest of China. Xie Xuan and the army were later recalled and the north was once again lost to the barbarians.Xie Xuan also died a few years after.
The last attempt came from a Beifu army officer named Liu Yu,who was interestingly enough a descendant of Liu Bang’s younger brother (Liu Bang is the founder of the Han Dynasty) . He rose to power after rallying the Beifu army to defeat Huan Xuan(Huan Wen’s son) after the latter usurped the throne from the Jin emperors.He acclaimed supreme power in the south by restoring the Jin Dynasty,only to try and usurp the throne just like Huan Wen. Due to his humble origins(his family had long since fallen onto obscurity despite his ancesral links to the Han Dynasty),he had to campaign to the north to garner prestige.He managed to recover the entirety of the central plains and even recover Guanzhong(where Chang’an’s located).He even succeeded in defeating Northern Wei despite heavily outnumbered.Just when he is poised to unite China however,his right hand man in the Jin Court(who was controlling the government for him) died suddenly.This forced him to cancel the campaign to finish off the remaining barbarian states and return to Nanjing to maintain control over the government.The army units he left in Guanzong fought against each other without his leadership and the barbarians were able to take advantage of this and wipe out the army he left in Guanzhong.Without this veteran army,he was no longer able to unite China,and he spent his few remaining years finishing the process of usurping the throne to established the Song Dynasty.Assuming that his right hand man didn’t die in poor timing or that Liu Yu came to power earlier,he could have probably fully pushed the barbarians out.
@darthfanta Li Shimin had a Han father and Khan of the Turkic peoples was a title given to him out of respect rather than him being the Khan and taking over. There's more to the golden age than Buddhist monks. Trade is between two different peoples, Chinese merchants travelled abroad and Sodiana came to China. The Han Chinese as the majority tilled the fields, ran most of the businesses, created most of those trade products, generated the wealth, created the Tang's inventions as well as mostly manned and commanded those armies of the Tang. The Emperors also didn't operate in a bubble. Those were mostly Han Chinese giving counsel to him (helping him to turn the tribes of Central Asia into vassals) and mostly Han Chinese governors and ministers who ran the country and made it so prosperous. Those are also Han that kept marrying into the House of Li for successive generations.
Same goes for Britain. The Brits may have had German rulers but as the majority they did most of the work and guided the royal family. Although royalty of a
Germanic House had ruled Britain since 1714 (a huge chunk of Britain's golden age, before that the ruling house was Dutch) by the 1900's started Britain had a massive colonial Empire and Germany had a much smaller one. In the 1900's the Dutch, although powerful weren't as powerful as Britain.
Foreign rulers in China were in the same breed as William the Conqueror and Guthrum rather than someone like William of Orange or Victoria,who were welcomed into the country by popular representative or actually came to power within the system.The latter kind of monarchs respected the traditions and laws of the land.The former don't. The former type seize the property of the natives and treat them like slaves.
As for Li Shimin, he got the Khagan title after beating the hell out of the Turks.Whether his family is Han or not is actually quite shady,and unless you are downtrodden, most of the respectable familities don't really want to marry a member of the House of Li,especially the princesses due to the promiscuous nature of the Tang Imperial family.The princesses often cuckold their husbands and the latter can do nothing about it while being a laughingstock.