Grace and Might

Chapter 6 describes Gao Pian’s carrot-and-stick strategy for winning the second war against Nanzhao. “Securing the Dadu” narrates his rout of the invading army, their expulsion across the Dadu river, the symbolic frontier with Nanzhao running through a wide border zone in southern Sichuan. Gao consolidates his military advantage by reinforcing the border defenses and reforming the Sichuan military, among other measures, through the bloody suppression of a militia mutiny in 875 (“Mutiny and Malediction”). Sichuan was the historical birthplace of Daoism. “The Cradle of Daoism” illustrates the general’s increased recourse there to Daoist ritual and occult strategy. In “A Letter to Shilong,” an intimidating and peremptory missive addressed to the king of Nanzhao, Gao reminds the ruler of his past defeats in Annan and on the banks of the Dadu, and threatens further punitive action. In stark contrast with his public stance, Gao’s “Tantric Diplomacy” opens a parallel, secret channel of diplomacy through which his envoy, a Buddhist monk, conveys a conciliatory peace proposal to the Tantric kingdom.