Marking Territory

Chapter 5, “Marking Territory: The Militarization of the Huai Frontier,” maps the natural geography of the Huai frontier that divided the Jiankang Empire from the Sino-steppe regimes of the Central Plains, and details the evolution of the frontier as a militarized space. The strategic objectives of the Jiankang Empire’s military are shown to have been focused on defense of the homeland, rather than reconquest of the Central Plains and the “reunification of China.” The chapter then looks at the development of ethnicizing discourse directed toward the peoples of the Sino-steppe empires: the Sarbi rulers and the Zhongren populace of the Central Plains. While the former were often seen as ethnic Others, the latter were viewed from a perspective in which people of different regions did not have inherently civilized or barbarous natures, but gained or lost civilization as a result of good or bad governance. This made it a much less ethnicizing discourse than what predominated in the Central Plains.