in eastern
Kansu. Thus the "Later Liang" fell into three parts, more or less
differing ethnically, though they could not be described as ethnically
unadulterated states.

4 _Sociological analysis of the two great alien empires_

The two great empires of north China at the time of its division had
been founded by non-Chinese--the first by the Hun Liu Yuean, the second
by the Tibetan Fu Chien. Both rulers went to work on the same principle
of trying to build up truly "Chinese" empires, but the traditions of
Huns and Tibetans differed, and the two experiments turned out
differently. Both failed, but not for the same reasons and not with the
same results. The Hun Liu Yuean was the ruler of a league of feudal
tribes, which was expected to take its place as an upper class above the
unchanged Chinese agricultural population with its system of officials
and gentry. But Liu Yuean's successors were national reactionaries who
stood for the maintenance of the nomad life against that new plan of
transition to a feudal class of urban nobles ruling an agrarian
population. Liu Yuean's more far-seeing policy was abandoned, with the
result that the Huns were no longer in a position to rule an immense
agrarian territory, and the empire soon disintegrated. For the various
Hun tribes this failure meant falling back into political
insignificance, but they were able to maintain their national character
and existence.

Fu Chien, as a Tibetan, was a militarist and soldier, in accordance with
the past of the Tibetans. Under him were grouped Tibetans without tribal
chieftains; the great mass of Chinese; and dispersed remnants of tribes
of Huns, Hsien-pi, and others. His organization was militaristic and,
outside the military sphere, a militaristic bureaucracy. The Chinese
gentry, so far as they still existed, preferred to work with him rather
than with the feudalist Huns. These gentry probably supported Fu Chien's
southern campaign, for, in consequence of the wide ramifications of
their families, it was to their interest that China should form a single
economic unit. They were, of course, equally ready to work with another
group, one of southern Chinese, to attain the same end by other means,
if those means should prove more advantageous: thus the gentry were not
a reliable asset, but were always ready to break faith. Among other
things, Fu Chien's southern campaign was wrecked by that faithlessness.
When an essentially military state suffers