    40

    dogg

    edly, but they were at a severe disadvantage.  Having retooled for

    peace, they were no longer equipped for war.

    After two years of fighting, the Huns marched into the defeated

    city and took the Chinese Emperor--the descendent of the mighty sun,

    the linchpin who held together the heavens and the earth--captive.  In

    313, they killed him.  Within three years, the alien forces had com-

    pleted their mop-up operation and seized the entire western sector of

    the critical Chinese north.  Chinese princes, generals and wealthy

    landowners fled for their lives.  The day belonged to the Huns.

    An empire bigger than all the European states combined had

    fallen.  All because it ignored the danger of the barbarians.119

    You'd think the Chinese would have learned from that mistake.

    But they didn't.  The Hunnish rule of China lasted a generation.  Then,

    in 329, it came to an end. For the next two hundred 120 years, the

    Chinese were ruled first by one barbarian group, then by another.  It

    took a long time before China was finally able to restore her ancestral

    glory.  But once she had regained power, she slipped an unbelievable

    second time into the blissful complacency that shutters the eyes of

    those on top of the pecking order.  And her second careless stumble

    carries even more lessons about the dangers ahead of us.

    In the eleventh century, once again convinced that she could use

    her awesome strength to usher in an era of peace, China turned to

    diplomacy.  And she was brilliant at it.  She discovered that it cost far

    less to pacify her enemies with tribute than it did to maintain an

    elephantine army.  So she paid her enemies off.  To keep these hulking

    powers from her throat, she worked insidiously behind the scenes to

    stir up trouble.  Not trouble that would threaten her own security.  But

    squabbles between the enemies themselves.  After all, the more they

    quarreled with each other, the less they'd bother the Chinese.

    The whole scheme worked like a charm.  It worked so well, in

    fact, that both the Chinese and their enemies were able to dismantle

    <<  <  GO  >  >>