The Nomadic Alternative – Page 92

The eunuch, Chung-Hsing Shuo, was a sort of Chinese forerunner of T.E. Lawrence, whose case was recorded by the Grand Historian of China. The Han Emperor had dispatched him to the Hsiung-Nu as ambassador; but once arrived on the steppe the eunuch diplomat found the harsh life of the nomads more to his taste than the silken intrigues of the Imperial Court. He defected, thus revenging himself on his mutilators, and for the rest of his life espoused a mission - to prevent the malaise of settlement from undermining the character of his adopted compatriots. For he astutely foresaw the disrupting effects of economic penetration by a settled mercantile power.

"Though the Han now sends only a fifth of its goods here, it will eventually succeed in bringing the whole Hsiung-Nu nation to its knees." He ridiculed the fashions of the Chinese, their need for artificial needs, their over-decorated houses, over-ostentatious etiquette. He deplored the social stratification of China, the mutual terror that infected ruler and ruled.

"You people in mud huts", he sneered at a visiting Chinese delegation. "You talk too much."

As a favourite topic for lecture, he expatiated on the dangers of luxury. Silk clothes, he insisted, were less practical than felt and leather. Brambles and thorns tore them to ribbons. The gastronomic specialities of China were less nourishing than milk and plain meat. The Hsiung-Nu must master their inferiority complex. Chinese customs might have the charm of the exotic, but were quite impractical for life on the steppe. The business of Hsiung-Nu society was war. Consequently it was useless for the elders to make an issue out of their seniority as they did in China. A nation that relies on the hand of its fighting men must trust in its youth. This, said the renegade, was why the tribes offered their best food and drink to the young fighting men. Only then could the Old live out their days in peace.

In the same way a Greek from Vimiacum, once married to a rich woman, defected from the Roman Empire - or escaped from his wife - to the Western Huns, and "now lived a better life than before".