Qīng-Dynasty American Miniatures

The following are from China in Miniature; Containing Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, Character, and Costumes of the People of that Empire (Boston, 1833)

the battle of Talas

click to enlarge

The battle of Talas took place in July 751 near present-day Taraz in Kazakhstan between Táng China and the Arab Abbasid Caliphate. Written sources about the battle are very scarce, but it is believed that it pitted more than 20,000 Chinese troops against more than 10,000 Arab troops. Each side had an imprecise number of local allies. On the map on page 28 of The Celestial Empire, the location of the battle corresponds to the southernmost part of the province of Transoxiana, close to the border with Sogdiana.

This battle is surprisingly little-known in the West; yet it has marked the end of the westward expansion of China, setting a westernmost mark that no Chinese state has managed to attain ever since.

This battle has also a fundamental cultural and religious importance: it marks the start of the slow but steady Islamisation of Central Asia, a process that has taken about 1,000 years to complete, but which has left its mark deep into China itself: the Huí minority would have never existed hadn't the Silk Road fallen under Muslim influence after the battle of Talas.

Background
Táng China and the Arab Abbasid Caliphate were the two superpowers of the 8th century AD yet, much like the USA and the USSR in the second half of the 20th century, they had avoided direct confrontation. Much like the USA and the USSR, again, each of them was however allied with a number of small buffer states located on the Silk Road, the main source of outside income for both China and the Arab empire.
The Táng empire (in yellow on the map above) was really made up of two major territories: China proper to the east, and Xīyù to the west, linked by a very narrow strip of land, the Héxī Corridor, which was under constant threat of the Tibetan empire. Xīyù itself was much more of a protectorate than a real province, even though it had a Chinese military governor and heavy military presence.
In any case, Talas, where the Chinese and Arab empires met, was very far from both China and the Arab heartland, and could only be reached by travelling through scorching arid lands (especially in July).

The Battle
The events that led to the battle are quite trivial: two aristocratic families squabbled for the succession to the throne in one of the city-states controlled by the Chinese in Xīyù. Or, according to other sources, two kinglets from two neighbouring city-states in Xīyù squabbled amongst themselves. Whichever version is true, the fact is that the Chinese governor of Xīyù intervened on behalf of one of the parties, beheaded the prominent members of the other party, and looted their treasure. This was seen as quite unchivalrous by the surviving members of the wronged party, who asked the Arabs for help. The latter obliged by sending a large army. Unfortunately, details of the battle itself are very, very scarce (even the exact location is unknown). Apparently the Chinese were tired and thirsty; in the midst of the battle, their Turkic allies switched sides, resulting in a massive Chinese defeat.

Aftermath
Despite the heavy Chinese defeat, the Arabs did not push their advantage because of inner trouble in the Arab heartlands that required that the troops be sent back. The Chinese tried to take advantage of this respite to rebuild their military power in Xīyù, but the Ān Lùshān Rebellion of 755-763 put a definitive end to these plans. It wouldn't be until under the Qīng, approximately 1,000 years on, that the Chinese empire reconquered its Western Regions.
A side effect of the battle of Talas was that, amongst the many Chinese prisoners of war, there were many papermakers who were brought to Samarkand where they were ordered to teach their handicraft. As a result, Samarkand became a flourishing paper-making centre of Central Asia and of the Muslim world. The scenario that (alas!) didn't make it into The Celestial Empire was about these Chinese papermakers having to flee Samarkand and return to China without being caught.

Osprey Sale

If you happen to live in England, you could do worse on 14 September 2013 than attending the One Day Osprey Extravaganza, where Osprey will be selling hundreds of Osprey books at knock-down prices.

This special event will be held in Oxford at the Osprey Towers, from 11:00 to 16:00.

Suggested Osprey titles for readers of the Celestial Empire blog:
Men-at-Arms 95: The Boxer Rebellion
Men-at-Arms 251: Medieval Chinese Armies 1260-1520
Men-at-Arms 275: The Taiping Rebellion 1851–66
Men-at-Arms 284: Imperial Chinese Armies (1) 200 BC–AD 589
Men-at-Arms 295: Imperial Chinese Armies (2) 590–1260 AD
Men-at-Arms 307: Late Imperial Chinese Armies 1520–1840
Warrior 125: Pirate of the Far East
Fortress 57: The Great Wall of China 221 BC–AD 1644
Fortress 84: Chinese Walled Cities 221 BC– AD 1644
New Vanguard 43: Siege Weapons of the Far East (1) AD 612–1300
New Vanguard 44: Siege Weapons of the Far East (2) AD 960–1644
New Vanguard 61: Fighting Ships of the Far East (1)
New Vanguard 63: Fighting Ships of the Far East (2)

the Chinese Legal System

Via Monsters & Manuals, I was directed towards an extremely interesting web-site about 'alien' legal systems, amongst which, of course, Chinese Law. I'll let you peruse this fascinating web-site.

A brief summary/excerpts:

 - The legal code itself is not so much an account of what is forbidden as an attempt to specify, for every possible offence, the proper punishment.

 - Detention is not a punishment: people are only imprisoned whilst waiting for their judgement. Also, both accuser and accused are imprisoned; this is done to discourage people both from interacting with the legal system and from making false accusations (see also Note 1 below).

 - Fines are not contemplated as punishment either, but only as a substitute for the actual penalty, if the family of the victim agrees.

 - Ordinary punishments (from lightest to harshest):
    - the cangue (to humiliate the culprit)
    - various numbers of blows by the light or heavy bamboo
    - penal servitude of various sorts and lengths of time
    - life exile at various distances from the convict's home province (see Note 2 below)
    - capital sentence (see Note 3 below)

 - The key person of the Chinese legal system is the magistrate. The population of his district can range from 80,000 to more than 250,000; the magistrate functions as the single representative of imperial authority, a combination mayor, chief of police, and judge. He has obtained the position by first doing well in the examination for the civil service [an examination testing not legal knowledge or administrative ability but the applicant's literary ability and knowledge], and then performing well in administrative positions at a lower level. He is assisted in his duties by a staff of lower level officials, some his own employees who move with him from place to place, some permanently located in the district. One risk of putting so much power in one pair of hands is that the magistrate may take advantage of his position to build local support and thus convert the centralised bureaucracy into a de facto feudal system. One way of keeping that from happening is to forbid a magistrate from being assigned to his own (or his wife's) home district, and to shift magistrates from district to district every three years.

 - By the mid-19th century, the Qīng are ruling a population of about 400 million and doing it primarily with a small bureaucracy of élite scholar-officials. One way of doing so is to sub-contract as much as possible of the job of controlling behaviour to other authority structures: the extended family, the lineage head, the village elders, the trade guilds, etc. (see Note 1 below).

Notes:

1. “Shouted at and reviled by the magistrate, growled at and beaten by the constables, the position of the accused was a most unfavourable one indeed. Small wonder that having to appear in court was considered by the people at large as a terrible misfortune, an experience to be avoided if at all possible . … In general people tried to settle their differences as much as possible out of court, by effecting a compromise or by referring the case to one of the age-old organs of private justice, for example the council of the family- or clan-elders, or the leaders of a guild.” RH Van Gulik, Crime and Punishment in Ancient China, pp. 57-8

2. In Chinese beliefs, not being interred, after death, in one's home province is considered very bad because the dead might become a wandering ghost who tries to regain their home province.
Life exile may hence not seem a harsh punishment to us but it's actually harsh in the eyes of the Chinese of the time.

3. Capital punishment can only be carried out if confirmed by the Emperor. In all other cases, the sentence is commuted to another punishment.
There are many degrees in capital punishment: strangulation, decapitation, and the death of a thousand cuts. Again because of the Chinese belief that a mutilated body leads to becoming a guǐ in the afterlife, strangulation is deemed a lighter sentence than decapitation, which in turn is deemed less harsh than the death of a thousand cuts.
Capital punishment can also only be carried out at certain times of the year.
Hence, all in all, it seems that only about 10% of all capital sentences are actually carried out.

TCE Review on RPG.net

Wow... The Celestial Empire has just been reviewed on RPG.net and has received the following marks:

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

The funny thing is that, although I am happy with what the reviewer wrote on the cultural part of The Celestial Empire, I disagree with him on most of the technical or game engine-related comments!