Fabricating Legitimacy in a Peripheral Regime: Imperial Loyalism and Regionalism in the Northwestern Borderlands Under the Rule of the Former Liang (301-376)

Abstract

The fall of the Western Jin empire (265–316) in the early fourth century gave rise to unusually complex issues of political legitimacy, allegiance, and identity. In the ensuing turmoil, a cluster of regional polities emerged in north China, among which the Former Liang kingdom (301–376) ruled by the Zhang family provides an intriguing case of study. The rulers of this northwestern frontier state made use of the Jin official titles they held to project the image of being Jin loyalists as a means to amass support from former Jin subjects. At the same time, the Zhangs capitalized on the long distance between them and the Jin imperial court-in-exile in the lower Yangzi region, and the centrifugal political trends to create a fait accompli on their own terms of maintaining their dynastic rule in the northwest. To pursue its own survival, the Former Liang compromised with the so-called barbarian states, which were the instigators of toppling the Western Jin state. The political legitimacy and diplomatic stance of this frontier regime thus oscillated between imperial loyalism and regionalism. Analyzing how the Former Liang played such a complex game and sought regional advantage under the guise of imperial loyalty, this paper provides a case study of the strategy of “layered legitimacy” employed by a peripheral regime in early medieval China.