The Chinese are rightly proud of their long history, and being a ‘history buff’ in China is still a quasi-prestigious hobby. In the US, on the other hand, history buffs are usually mocked openly until it comes time to pick teams for Trivia Night at the local pub. But such is. Despite their professed love of their own history, do the Chinese actually learn anything while reading the great chronicles of the past? Consider the Chinese strategy of 以夷制夷 (yi yi zhi yi or “use barbarians against barbarians”/”play foreign powers off of each other.”)
The Song dynasty managed to reunify most of the eastern provinces of the old Tang empire by about 960 AD but they never quite got around to dislodging a parcel of stubborn kingdoms on the northern and western flanks of the empire. These included the Tanguts (or Xixia) and especially the Khitans in the Northeast who had the audacity to declare a rival dynasty, the Liao and demand that the Song emperors pay tribute to them.
Beginning in the early 12th century, a new power emerged to the north of Khitans: the Jurchens. The Song could see that the Jurchens, unified under their first great