Military Garrisons

Border garrisons formed an essential element of the Chinese imperial state from its inception. The Qin and Han dynasties positioned garrisons along the northern, southern, and western frontiers to enhance their military, economic, and cul­tural influence and to organize foreign populations.^[1411] During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Yuan dynasty integrated many peoples into the empire through military garrisons.^[1412] It registered Qarluqs, Uyghurs, Naimans, Koreans, Northern and Southern Chinese, Jurchens, Ossetians, Tibetans, and others in mil­itary garrisons and the imperial guard (keshig) on the borders, in the hinterlands, and in the capitals, resulting in a massive reshuffling of ethnic affiliations and interactions.

The northeastern region of Liaodong is one example of how the Ming state used military garrisons to defend and govern its borders.^[1413] During the late fourteenth century, the Ming used military garrisons to expand into Liaodong, which was located at the intersection of Chinese, Korean, Jurchen, and Mongol lands, an area beyond sustained control of a Chinese central government for most of the preceding millennia. Hongwu established the Liaodong Regional Military Commission and its 25 garrisons, which oversaw territory corresponding roughly to present-day Liaoning Province of the People's Republic of China (56,000 square miles).^[1414] His garrisons fought off challenges from the Koryo government, Mongol warlords, and Jurchen tribesmen, eventually forcing key Mongol leaders like Naghachu (d. 1388) into surrender.

The linchpin of Ming imperial order in Northeast Asia, the Liaodong garrisons functioned as the administrative, economic, and cultural point of first contact with neighboring peoples and polities, just as the Shaanxi Regional Military Commission did in the empire's northwestern corner. Early in the fifteenth century, the central court regularly offered resettlement packages for Jurchens who requested to relo­cate to Liaodong.^[1415] For instance in 1408, the Ming court granted the request of one group to live in the Three Tumens Garrison, ordering that local authorities pro­vide the group with “cash, clothing, saddles and horses” as well as “lodgings, sundry utensils, firewood for cooking, rice, oxen, and sheep.” This order became a prece­dent for Jurchens “who wished to settle in border garrisons.”^[1416] These emigres were registered in military garrisons, where they received posts designed to reflect their relative importance in Mongolian or Jurchen society.

The Ming state established two administrative units in Liaodong to attract and in­corporate Jurchens, Mongols, and Koreans—Zizai (“at one's ease”) and Anle (“peaceful and happy”), which governed state- managed fairs, where Jurchens and Mongols traded horses for a variety of Chinese manufactured goods.^[1417] Some Mongols and Jurchens were simultaneously registered in Anle or Zizai and the Three Tumens Garrison, es­tablished during the Hongwu reign to accommodate Jurchens who had previously held posts under the Yuan Mongols.^[1418] Some such Jurchens were from the so-called loose rein garrisons, “loose rein” referring to peoples and polities outside effective Ming military or administrative control that might nonetheless be influenced through the bestowal of gifts and titles, periodic and regulated admittance to Ming territory, and occasional military or relief assistance. Military appointment registers designated Jurchens in the Three Tumens Garrisons as “Tatar officers,” the same term the Ming bureaucracy used for Mongols and Jurchens in the imperial army.