EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT
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Barbarians in the Chinese service were usually expected to exhibit signs of cultural transformation. This might involve adopting a Chinese lifestyle (language, clothing, food, transportation, and residence), assuming a Chinese name, marrying a Chinese, enrolling on the Chinese tax registers, and so forth. Such behavior was evidence that the foreigner truly admired Chinese customs (Hua-feng) and had accepted Chinese ways.12 As important, however, and more difficult to discern, were indications that the barbarian had embraced Chinese values. In the words of the Tang scholar Ch'en Yen: "Some people are born in barbarian lands but their actions are in harmony with rites [li] and right behavior [i]. In that case, they are barbarian in appearance, but Chinese at heart." According to Ch'en, the employment of such individuals was extremely beneficial to China, for it inspired other barbarians to "turn toward Chinese civilization [hsiang-hua]."
Throughout the imperial era, Chinese policy toward barbarian employees in the interior, like Chinese foreign policy, varied according to China's strategic and administrative needs, the perception of an alien threat, the attitudes and activities of the barbarians themselves, and, of course, the whim of the emperor. The Chinese were not overly concerned with the gap between theory and practice, and some, such as the Ch'ing scholar Chao I, argued in fact that the practice of "true principle" (i-li) in foreign affairs necessarily involved adjustments. "The teachings of true principle," he wrote, "cannot always be reconciled with the circumstances of the times. If one cannot entirely maintain the demands of true principle, then true principle must be adjusted to the circumstance of the time, and only then do we have the practice of true principle."14 Ou-yang Hsiu is reported to have suggested that even when Chinese government was "good," barbarians would not necessarily submit, while on the other hand, bad government might not prevent them from surrendering.
As might be expected, the Chinese historical record abounds with praise for barbarians who "admired right behavior and turned toward Chinese civilization" (mu-i hsiang-hua).16 Such conduct accorded with China's self-image of cultural and moral superiority. But all of China's barbarian employees did not serve the Middle Kingdom solely out of admiration. Some individuals were drawn by the prospect of financial or other material rewards. Others submitted with large bodies of troops after defeat in battle or the...