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Atrocitology. Matthew White
Читать онлайн.Название Atrocitology
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isbn 9780857861252
Автор произведения Matthew White
Издательство Ingram
Having lost two major armies in a single year, Wang Mang was doomed. In the race to reach the capital at Chang’an (Xian nowadays), the Greenwood Army arrived before the Red Eyebrows, so their candidate, Liu Xuan, became the leader of the restored Han dynasty. Chang’an fell after determined block-by-block defense. As the palace burned, Wang Mang was beheaded and cut into pieces so that everyone could have a keepsake.9
The New Han
Before Liu Xuan had a chance to settle in and enjoy being emperor, conspiracies began to surround him. The former Infant Emperor Ruzi was wooed out of retirement by a couple of minor noblemen, but their attempt to seize power failed. They were all executed.
To play it safe, Xuan quickly found an excuse to have his former rival, Liu Yan, executed as well.
Then several generals plotted to kidnap Xuan. They too were discovered and most of them were executed, but one of the survivors managed to chase Xuan out of Chang’an. Xuan regrouped with loyal generals and retook the city. Xuan was hardly back on his throne when the Red Eyebrows arrived and took Chang’an for themselves, installing their own emperor, Liu Penzi. The Red Eyebrows captured Emperor Liu Xuan but merely demoted him to lesser nobility and sent him away to herd horses so as not to stir up resentment. Soon, however, the people began to speak wistfully about the days when Xuan was in charge, so he was dragged into a dungeon and strangled.10
Liu Yan’s brother, Liu Xiu, was off fighting on the frontier. A legendarily prudent man, Liu Xiu had been lying low since Liu Yan’s execution on trumped-up charges a couple of years earlier, but with Xuan out of the picture, he declared himself emperor (25 CE) and marched his army against the Red Eyebrows. It was a tough campaign, but Liu Xiu prevailed and took Chang’an in 27 CE. He pursued the retreating Red Eyebrows and finally trapped them with overwhelming numbers. Sick of all of the killing, Liu Xiu held back the attack and offered generous terms of surrender: a general amnesty, a nice estate for ex-Emperor Penzi, and no mass executions. They accepted.
Liu Xiu’s restored Han dynasty would survive for another two centuries. He became known to posterity as the “Complete and Martial Emperor”—in Chinese, Emperor Guangwu.
Population Plummet
Despite a few temporary interruptions, China has existed as a political entity longer than any other nation on earth, and the civil servants of the Chinese Empire have been keeping detailed records for centuries. Many have been lost to fire, flood, war, and mice, but some fragments, copies, and summaries survive. Among them are sporadic census records going back several dynasties. Surprisingly, summaries of the Chinese census of 2 CE are largely intact, giving us the oldest reliable population figures of any society in history. Admittedly, there are a few discrepancies in the data, but most scholars accept that the population of China in 2 CE was around 57,671,400.
After that, census records show that China was in serious trouble. The recorded population plunged to 21 million in 57 CE, bounced up to 34 million in 75 CE, then worked its way up to 43 million by 88 CE. I know that’s a lot of numbers to spring on the unsuspecting reader in one sentence, but the upshot is that China appears to have lost close to 37 million people in a half century of war, flood, and famine, and the count was still almost 13 million short as the century came to a close. As bad as that looks, it’s likely that many of the 37 million missing people were still alive but hiding from tax collectors. The reduced census count of 57 CE probably indicates the government’s inability to find every person in China after a period of widespread unrest rather than a pure death toll.
Even so, most scholars believe that there is an actual population loss of many millions hidden somewhere in there. Depending on whom you read, the real population decline in China during the first century could be anywhere from 8 to 43 million. Scrounging around, I was able to find several different estimates. I have chosen the low-middle estimate of 10 million as a reasonable compromise.11
| ROMAN-JEWISH WARS |
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Death toll: 350,000
Rank: 94
Type: religious uprising, colonial rebellion
Broad dividing line: Jews vs. Romans
Time frame: 66–74 and 132–135 CE
Location: Palestine
Who usually gets the most blame: Romans
Another damn: rebellion against Rome
First Jewish Revolt (66–74 CE)
Following Alexander the Great’s conquests, Greeks had settled over the Middle East, where they usually formed an alien upper class resented by the natives. In Caesarea, the chief city of Roman Palestine, Greeks and Jews were always exchanging insults, but sometimes the heckling escalated to full-scale riots. After one round of riots, the Roman governor demanded that the Jewish community pay for all of the damages. The Jews, however, claimed that the Greeks were to blame for sacrificing some birds on the steps of a synagogue in the first place, so they refused. No problem; the Roman governor simply took the money out of the temple treasury in Jerusalem.
Jews all over the country rose up in anger at the blasphemy. Radical nationalists—the Zealots—easily chased the small Roman garrison into Syria. In the first flush of victory, it looked like God had restored the Jewish nation to its former glory until Emperor Nero sent a full army under Vespasian to put down the uprising. His Roman legions systematically eradicated the rebels in Galilee with sieges, massacres, and political maneuvering, and eventually they closed in on Jerusalem.
The war was interrupted in 68 when Roman generals fed up with Nero’s antics overthrew him, and one after another, every Roman general in the empire marched his legions on Rome to claim the throne for himself. Vespasian proved to be the last and most permanent of the four emperors proclaimed during this year and a half of chaos.
Emperor Vespasian turned the Jewish rebellion over to his son Titus, who surrounded Jerusalem. Siege engines were difficult to build in Palestine because trees were scarce and scraggly, but sheer Roman stubbornness kept Jerusalem sealed off for two years and brought its defenders toward the edge of starvation. Every day the Romans captured desperate foraging parties of Zealots outside the walls and nailed them up in plain view of the defenders. When Jerusalem finally fell in 70 CE, the Romans massacred the population and reduced the temple in Jerusalem to rubble. The five-foot-tall seven-branched gold candlestick that had graced the temple was hauled off to Rome and triumphantly paraded for the people.
Most of the city walls were demolished, but Titus ordered a short, impressive stretch of the temple-complex wall preserved as a lesson to future rebels that even the thickest walls can’t withstand the Roman army. This wall fragment (now known as the Western or Wailing Wall) is the holiest spot in Judaism, which proves that the real lesson for future rebellions is either (a) faith can indeed withstand the Roman army or (b) if you start to demolish a holy site, finish the damn job.a
The last 960 Zealots retreated to the mountain fortress of Masada. The defenders watched helplessly as the Romans began to methodically build a massive ramp up the mountain in order to roll their siege engines into range. Knowing they were doomed, the trapped Zealots drew lots. The losers killed the winners and then drew lots again. The losers killed the winners, and so on, until only one defender was left alive to commit the unpardonable sin of suicide.
Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE)
The destruction