EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT
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into the family of the famous minister and military commander Ho Kuang.29
But the Han experience in employing outsiders had negative as well as positive effects. While Hsiung-nu might defeat their fellow barbarians in battle, they might also revolt against the Chinese—witness the uprising of the "Dutiful Barbarians of Huang-chang" (Huang-chung i-ts'ung hu) in 184 A.D. Financial inducements, honors—and even the Han practice of requiring barbarian soldiers to give up members of their families as hostages—did not always prove sufficient in controlling barbarians with conflicting interests or wavering fidelity.30 Yet on balance, China benefitted from the use of foreigners during the Han, and Chin Mi-ti, like Yu Yü, received the praise of later generations for his faithfulness and devotion to the Middle Kingdom. As a tribute to Chin's loyalty (and in acknowledgement that disloyalty was not a peculiar barbarian trait), the T'ang scholar, Ch'en Yen wrote: "In the case of the revolt and failure of Lu Wan and Shao-ch'ing [Li Ling] were they not barbarians? In the case of the loyalty of Chin Mi-ti, was he not a Chinese?”32
After the fall of Han, subsequent dynasties—both Chinese and foreign—used barbarians in numbers and positions appropriate to circumstance.33 The T'ang is especially noteworthy for its widespread use of aliens in various military and administrative capacities. Turkish tribes, particularly the Uighurs, became indispensable allies of the dynasty, fighting barbarians beyond China's frontiers as well as supplying troops for use against internal enemies. In 757, for example, the Uighur heir apparent (Yeh-hu) led some 4,000 Uighur cavalry forces successfully against the rebel An Lu-shan, for which he was honored with a long edict of praise, gifts, and substantial awards of title and rank.34
Other foreigners, employed permanently in the T'ang service, were such famous generals as Ch'i-pi Ho-li, Kao Hsien-chih, and Li K'o-yung. Ch'i-pi, the grandson of a Turkish (T'u-chüeh) khan, gained high rank and eventual enfeoffment as a duke for his military efforts against various barbarian tribes during the reign of Kao-tsung.35 Kao, a Korean whose father had been an officer in the Chinese army before him obtained numerous high military positions before he fell victim to intrigue following his defeat in the fateful Battle of Talas (751).36 Li was an opportunistic fourth-generation commander of Sha-t'o aristocratic background, whose father had