6 replies to this topic

[General_Zhaoyun]

I read that towards the late period of Eastern Jin, there was a large uprising led by Sun En 孙恩 and Lu Xun 卢循. This large uprising contributed greatly to the decline of Eastern Jin.

Does anyone had any information about the military warfare and history behind this uprising?

[iwanenator]

I read that towards the late period of Eastern Jin, there was a large uprising led by Sun En 孙恩 and Lu Xun 卢循. This large uprising contributed greatly to the decline of Eastern Jin.

Does anyone had any information about the military warfare and history behind this uprising?

not sure... what i know sun en said to be magician (perhaps similar to yellow turban's zhang jiao)
this era is not my specialty

[jhf0551]

I read that towards the late period of Eastern Jin, there was a large uprising led by Sun En 孙恩 and Lu Xun 卢循. This large uprising contributed greatly to the decline of Eastern Jin.

Does anyone had any information about the military warfare and history behind this uprising?

I'm now reading articles about Northern Southern dynasties. As far as I know, Liu Laozhi and Liu Yu were Eastern Jin generals involved in the war with Sun En/Lu Xun. Sun En's repel was only restricted to the coast line. After the repel, Liu Yu began gaining support.

[ScholarOfHistory]

I'm limited on the subject, but I do know that it unsettled the court and emperor enough so that Liu Yu would be given absolute trust. Even when he offered to resign the court would not have it as they were entirely dependent on him, and loyalties began to switch from the emperor to Yu. If anything this can be likened to vassal becoming the state's single pillar of support. Li Si of Qin, Lu Qiong of Han(arguably), and others fit this. Fan Zeng of Xiang Yu is another. While those three never usurped the throne and created a new dynasty the situations are similar.

[esse]

I'm limited on the subject, but I do know that it unsettled the court and emperor enough so that Liu Yu would be given absolute trust. Even when he offered to resign the court would not have it as they were entirely dependent on him, and loyalties began to switch from the emperor to Yu. If anything this can be likened to vassal becoming the state's single pillar of support. Li Si of Qin, Lu Qiong of Han(arguably), and others fit this. Fan Zeng of Xiang Yu is another. While those three never usurped the throne and created a new dynasty the situations are similar.

Liu Yu indeed got plucked from obscurity when he performed well in fighting Sun En. The way he came to power however was more analogous to Cao Cao or Yuwen Tai than, say, Li Si. He came to supreme prominence by the service he lent in resurrecting the Simas of Jin after Huan Xuan had usurped to found a "new" state of Che.

The Jin court of Jiankang had very weak, if at all, hold on the militarized provinces, especially one which was prosperous and up the river based in/near Jiangling (Jing province). Military governor of Jing was almost always a threat to Jin's court, started with Wang Dun, continued to Huan Wen, then Huan Xuan. More than twice Jin evaded usurpation not just by clever handling of its loyal ministers (which lent the aura to the Wang and Xie clans), but also the timely death of Wang Dun and Huan Wen's failing in his northern campaign.

After Huan Wen's death, out of necessity to counter the Jingzhou threat as well as the looming invasion by Former Qin, a new army of northern migrants based in Yang province was created, namely the Army of Northern Encampment (Beifubin), headed by Xie Xuan, and then Liu Laozhi after Xuan's death. Liu Laozhi's acquiescence was a key element when Huan Xuan attacked Jiankang and toppled Jin.

Before Huan Xuan's usurpation, he and Liu Laozhi were more or less equals as each of them controlled, by far, the two largest military institutions of Eastern Jin. Once, Huan's usurpation was legitimized, he was Liu's superior and he immediately sent an edict to have Liu moved to a new post (hence relieved Liu of his command). Liu Laozhi then planned a rebellion, but his junior officers, including his own nephew He Wuji and indeed Liu Yu, declined to support him, stating that Liu Laozhi had turned coat too many times in recent time (hence would gather no popular support). Liu Laozhi then committed suicide.

Huan Xuan placed his own relative in command of the Northern Army, but he kept the junior officers, such as Liu Yu. Liu Yu and some other junior officers then plotted to have Huan Xuan's relatives assassinated. They then took over the army and attacked Jiankang. Huan Xuan, panicked, fled to his base of Jiangling and his force collapsed.

Liu Yu and his co-conspirators reestablished the Jin emperor on the throne. From that point on, he was the paramount general of the empire, but not until after he destroyed both Southern Yan and Later Qin did he feel he had enough authority and prestige to take the throne himself.

[f0ma]

By 399, the Jin court was entirely reliant on the Northern Garrison/Beifu Army, In order to regain some measure of military control, Sima Yuanxian (regent to Emperor An) began conscripting privately owned slaves and farmers into an army. This didn't sit well with Sun En, who was a landowner on the southern shore of the Hangzhou Bay. He began a rebellion and was joined by other landowners and people of similar stature in the surrounding area. Eight commanderies around Hangzhou and Lake Tai were soon in revolt and Sun En came to command roughly 100,000 troops. Liu Laozhi, who was in command of the Beifu Army at the time, was ordered to suppress the rebellion, which he finally achieved in 402, forcing Sun En's suicide. Lu Xun, Sun En's brother-in-law, took the remainder of the rebel army south to Guangzhou, where he was allowed to survive as provincial governor from 405. After the the Huan Xuan affair, Liu Yu - who had seized control of the Beifu Army, as well as most of the power in the court - began a series of northern expeditions. Lu Xun saw this as his chance to strike Jiankang in 410. Liu Yu returned with the army and defeated Lu Xun, apparently forcing him as far south as Vietnam, where he was killed.

Militarily, Sun En used an effective riverine fleet to move his forces and do battle with the Beifu Army. He also established defenses on islands off the coast of Zhejiang, where he could consolidate his forces and mount counter attacks. The early battles were fairly evenly matched, until Liu Laozhi eventually won the upper hand in a decisive victory in 402. Riverine warfare was still important during Lu Xun's rebellion, where the rebel fleet clashed with Liu Yu's in 410. Liu's forces won the engagement because of the better quality of their crossbows, which could fire at a longer range than those of their opponents.

The rebellion itself I don't think harmed the dynasty in the same way as earlier uprisings, but it was instrumental in increasing the power and importance of both the Beifu Army and Liu Yu, who had been a commander under Liu Laozhi. This effectively sealed the fate of the Jin court and paved the way for Liu's eventual usurpation of the throne.

Edited by f0ma, 04 July 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[f0ma]

I've also just come across an article by Hugh Clark which mentions the rebellions:

'The Qin-Han impact [in southern Fujian] was felt centuries later in the rebellion of Sun En and Lü Xun, which wracked the southeast across the turn of the fifth century. By all accounts both Sun and Lü were of Han background. However, until Lü launched a campaign up the inland river valleys into the central Yangtze heartland in 410 they conducted their rebellion primarily from the sea. This was most pronounced after Sun drowned at sea and Lü took over the rebellion’s leadership. Faced with the rallying of forces loyal to the court, Lü undertook construction of a large new fleet. The Tang-era Jinshu comments: “The vessels were extraordinary; it was more than the common people were capable of.” We get a further sense of the meaning of this line from a passage in Taiping huanyuji ֜, a late-tenth-century gazetteer: “The barbarian households of Quanzhou are also called the boat people. They are the remnants of Lü Xun[’s rebellion].” No doubt, as all modern commentators agree, Lü relied on the boatbuilding talents of the indigenous peoples who lived alongside and in greater numbers than the Han migrants from the north.'

From: The Religious Culture of Southern Fujian, 750–1450: Preliminary Reflections on Contacts across a Maritime Frontier, Asia Major, Vol. 19, part 1/2, 2006. The only departure Clark makes from Graff (who I referenced previously) is the suggestion that Sun drowned at sea. I can't say which one for sure is right, though I'm inclined to trust Graff more. Though there is the possibility Sun drowned himself?

The modern commentators Clark refers to are the Japanese sinologists Tanigawa Michio, Mori Masao, Kawakatsu Yoshio and Matsuura Akira, whose work I don't have access to unfortunately (plus I can't read Japanese). A Chinese scholar called Zhu Ziyan has also written about the Beifu army and his work might shed some more light on the subject of these rebellions, though again his work is also out of my reach. There are plenty more Chinese sources on the subject, with Wang Zhongluo being the most prominent scholar to my knowledge. If anyone has the time and resources to access any of their work I'd be interested in learning more, since I'm limited to western interpretations.

Also, whilst I'm on the subject, Mark Edward Lewis offers a further insight into the rebellion, citing its Daoist origins. In 399, the court executed Sun En's father, who was a Daoist leader. This, along with the attempted slave conscription, prompted Sun En to revolt. He implies the rebellions were of a Daoist nature, with Lu Xun also presumably being a Daoist.

Edited by f0ma, 26 July 2012 - 03:08 AM.