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Part 17: Blessed by Heaven
The China that existed by the time emperor Wen died in 285 was completely different from the one that he inherited over thirty years ago. During his reign, the once proud empire that had been shattered into three warring kingdoms was finally reunified into a single political unit after decades of separation, and the nation prospered just like in the days of the Han dynasty thanks to his wise, honest rule (and that of his chancellors, of course). It is, therefore, completely unsurprising that, while lesser countries and "empires" (Ha!) to their west desperately fought for their survival, the Celestial Empire as it stood under the Wu reached levels of opulence and grandeur that were only dreamed of by foreign kings. The arrogance displayed by historians and other intellectuals that were born and wrote their works during this period was certainly justified.
However, this doesn't mean that the period that immediately followed the reunification was a sea of roses, far from it, for although emperor Wen was a skilled statesman who did much to rebuild his country after the Three Kingdoms period, he was still a man from the south, who held much resentment for the north (controlled by Cao Wei, Eastern Wu's most powerful adversary), and it showed in his policies, deliberately or not. First, the sourthern regions of the country and the Yangtze basin were showered with investments and construction projects, while the cities that were in the Huang He, especially Luoyang, and further north were given much less attention, something that created a growing level of discontent in these war-torn areas. Second, the grand navy that was built during his reign significantly diverted resources that could have gone to the army instead, which meant that the land troops were becoming dangerously underfunded. For a country whose most powerful foreign enemies almost always came from the distant steppes beyond the Great Wall, this was a massive risk to take.
By the time Sun Hao (better known as emperor Yuanzong) took the throne after his father's death in 285 AD (1), it was clear that were a lot of things that could go horribly wrong all at the same time: the generals were dissatisfied with the lack of attention received by the army, the capital of Jianye was located too far south for the northern nomads, especially the Five Barbarians (Xiongnu, Jie, Qiang, Di and Xianbei (2)) for the emperor to keep them in check, and the population of the Huang He basin felt that it was being neglected by the central government. Aware that a radical change was required to keep these underlying tensions from becoming too severe to be contained, and hoping to buy some time with a grand gesture, the new monarch refused to be crowned in Jianye, and instead moved with his court to Luoyang, the former capital of Cao Wei, and still full of scars from the long siege that preceded its capture by Zhuge Ke's troops decades ago, where he was duly crowned and enthroned.
Emperor Yuanzong of Wu accompanied by two aides.
The transfer of the capital from Jianye to Luoyang was the first of many extremely controversial measures (at the time) that were enacted by the new emperor and would earn him much criticism from contemporary historians and other intellectuals, who labeled him a tyrant. Once he felt himself comfortable enough in his new home, he slashed the navy's funding in half, with many warships being straight up set ablaze, with their crews suddenly having to find new jobs for themselves while the funds that were originally given to the fleet were handed over to the army, improving the soldiers' pay and doing much to improve their capabilities whenever they had to face their nomadic adversaries. Large amounts of money were spent on repairing and later improving northern China's infrastructure, and many roads, canals and irrigation systems were erected, along with other buildings such as fortresses, temples and especially schools, which were essential for sustaining an educated bureaucracy (3).
However, no project of Yuanzong was either bigger or more controversial than the construction of the Grand Canal, a massive (1.776 kilometers long after its completion) waterway that took advantage of smaller existing canals and natural rivers, creating a single transportation network that linked the important port of Hangzhou to Luoyang and Jicheng (4), a city that was located even further to the north.
A map of the Grand Canal.
Although these projects did much to restore the economy of the north in the long term and catapult China into its new golden age, with the Grand Canal in particular earning the admiration of foreign travelers and spurring an economic and technological revolution (5), their short term costs were enormous. The construction of these monumental works required the work of millions of people, and at least six million labourers perished due to the awful conditions in which they lived and were forced to work in. This, combined with the considerable tax raises that were required to fund them as well as a surge in the number of unemployed people thanks to the cuts in the navy that were mentioned above, created a great amount of resentment against the emperor, who was becoming increasingly paranoid as his mental faculties gradually declined thanks to his old age, with the crown prince Sun Jin taking over more and more of his father's duties. By the time Yuanzong finally passed away in 302 AD at the age of 59, he was by far the most hated man in the country (6).
It was the prince, who would be enthroned as emperor Taizong, that reaped the benefits of his father's policies. Inheriting a state that was extracting massive amounts of new revenues thanks to the reconstruction of the north and the recently completed Grand Canal, he was to put the mighty and well funded Chinese army on a series of military campaigns and conquests that would bring China's territory to an extent that surpassed even that of the Han dynasty. In 307, after years of careful preparations, the monarch personally led an invasion against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, which was completely destroyed after two years of war by its vastly more powerful adversary, and the Four Commanderies were fully restored, with the northern half of the peninsula right up to the Han river, while the areas to the south of it were administrated by the small, tributary kingdoms of Silla, Baekje and Gaya.
However, the most famous campaign that took place during his reign was not the destruction of Goguryeo, but the one that became known by official historians as the Pacification of the West, which began almost twenty years later, in 325. The targeted region was too distant from China proper for Taizong to personally conquer, and his age was beginning to catch up to him, so he handed command to a talented, aggressive general named Shi Le, who was experienced in fighting against steppe nomads. This appointment caused a great deal of unease in the court back in Luoyang, thanks to the commander's foreign and humble origins: born in a Jie family, he was captured by Wu soldiers as a child and was sold into slavery, before his buyer freed him after being impressed by his talents, and he used his newfound freedom to pursue a military career, rising through the ranks of the army. Because of this, he was seen by more skeptical and/or xenophobic nobles as a potential traitor, who could cause tremendous damage to the country if he suddenly turned on the emperor (7).
A mural commemorating the Pacification of the West, led by Shi Le.
Thankfully, the general did as he was told, and was tremendously successful in his task. In fact, he was so successful that, instead of returning to Luoyang after the complete subjugation of the Tarim Basin sometime around 332 AD (some of the cities proved to be quite difficult to conquer, despite the attackers' overwhelming superiority) he advanced even further to the west than he was supposed to. Taking advantage of the fact that the considerably smaller empire of Iran was busy with its war against Palmyra in far away Mesopotamia and later Syria, Shi Le ordered his troops to cross the Jaxartes and capture the great trading centers of Samarkand and Bukhara with no difficulty at all, and only stopped marching when he reached the eastern bank of the Oxus river. The vast, fertile region of Transoxiana was incorporated into the Wu empire as the Sogdiana Commandery, which was under the jurisdiction of the autonomous Protectorate of the Western Regions.
Sadly, Shi Le would never be honored for his efforts, thanks to his death in 335 AD at the age of sixty-one, completely exhausted after a decade of war in a foreign land. His descendants, however, would later be showered with titles and flatteries due to their own future accomplishments, becoming extremely powerful figures that would have a great impact of the future of China and the Wu empire, becoming important players in the events that would later lead to the illustrious dynasty's destruction.
However, it would take centuries before said events happened.
For now, emperor Taizong could rest easy, assured that his country was about to experience an era of unparalled greatness and splendor that surpassed even that of the Han dynasty so, so many years ago. The realm in question, at the time of his death in 337 AD, stretched from the Aral Sea and the Oxus in the west to the Han river in the east, and was by far the largest, strongest and richest state in the whole world, no one else even coming close to its magnificence. While lesser kingdoms wrote their decrees and literary works in parchment, papyrus and other rare and expensive materials, the superbly skilled Chinese bureaucracy, as well as its endless number talented and innovative scholars and poets, had a virtually limitless supply of paper, something that increased literacy among the upper classes and made the preservation of literary works, as well as the administration of the state as a whole, infinitely easier.
Shi Le's great conquests helped spread the use of paper as well as future inventions to the west, and they also had a profound effect on China proper. It was likely because of them that a growing number of Manichean preachers could be found wandering within the borders of the great empire, with their first major Chinese temple being constructed in Chang'an sometime during the reign of emperor Gaozong, Taizong's successor. As the years passed by and turned into decades, the teachings of Mani found fertile ground in the vast plains of the Huang He and the Yangtze, and they would soon earn many powerful followers.
An obviously sinified depiction of Mani in a Later Xia era hanging scroll (8).
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Notes:
(1) IOTL, Sun Hao was the last emperor of Easter Wu before its conquest by the Jin dynasty.
(2) These five peoples lived inside and outside China during the Jin dynasty, and later rose up against the empire, which was weakened after years of civil war, and created multiple kingdoms (the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians) before China was once again united by the Sui dynasty in the late sixth century.
(3) Because of this, emperor Yuanzong will later be rehabilitated as a patron of public education ITTL.
(4) Beijing.
(5) Spoilers, spoilers...
(6) Although he was born in 243 AD (the year of the POD), childhood butterflies make Sun Hao into a ruler who's very similar to emperor Yang of Sui, who IOTL ordered the construction of the Grand Canal hundreds of years later: a ruthless, autocratic reformer who enacts several drastic measures and earns many enemies. However, since he doesn't order his army to conduct a series of disastrous wars, he doesn't suffer Yang's fate, and the Wu dynasty lasts.
(7) IOTL, Shi Le became the first emperor of Later Zhao, one of the Sixteen Kingdoms, and became famous not only for his military talent, but also for his cruelty. ITTL, many in the Wu court consider him to be a potential An Lushan.
(8) This scroll was made long, long after the demise of Wu.