Poliuhan Baling

Poliuhan Baling was a man of Woye, one of the garrisons that the Northern Wei kept on its steppe frontier. He began the rising in which the Wei lost the north.^[1] He gathered followers, killed the commander of the garrison and proclaimed the era True King.^[2]

The surname

In its biography of Poliuhan Chang, the Bei Qi Shu calls him a descendant of the Xiongnu chanyus. It derives the surname from Panliuxi, a Right Guli King of the Southern Xiongnu who fell into the hands of the Wei.^[3] His descendants took his name as their surname. Poliuhan is a later corruption of it.^[3] The same biography calls Baling a clansman of Chang’s father.^[3] Baling is therefore counted among Panliuxi’s descendants. He was a man of Xiongnu descent among the garrison people of the frontier.^[4]

The rising

The date stands in two forms. The annals of the Wei Shu put the rising in the third month of 524. The Zizhi Tongjian tells it under 523. It places the rising after the garrison of Huaihuang had killed its commander over grain he withheld during a Rouran raid.^[5] The Chinese and non-Chinese people of the other garrisons answered him.^[1] He sent his commander Wei Kegu to besiege Wuchuan. He attacked Huaishuo.^[1]

In 524 the Wei armies failed against him.^[6] Prince Yuan Yu of Linhuai was beaten at Wuyuan in the fifth month and stripped of his offices. Li Shuren and Cui Xian were beaten at Baidao.^[6] The eastern and western Tiele left the Wei and went over to him.^[6] The Tiele chief Hulü Jin joined him with his people, and Baling made him a king. Then Hulü Jin judged that Baling would achieve nothing. He went over to the Wei.^[6]

Defeat

The Wei turned to the Rouran. Early in 525 Anagui marched west from Wuchuan towards Woye with a hundred thousand men. He beat Baling’s forces again and again.^[7] In the sixth month, the annals record, Anagui crushed Baling and beheaded his general Kongque.^[2] The Bei Qi Shu gives a Kongque of Baling’s house another end. In its biography of his son Poliuhan Chang, Baling made Kongque grand commander and king pacifying the south. Kongque went over to Erzhu Rong with ten thousand of his men and died later with Wei titles.^[3] If the two are one man, the two accounts cannot both be true. The sources do not say which is wrong. Baling withdrew south across the Yellow River to escape the Rouran.^[6] His end is not recorded.

The rising outlived him. Two hundred thousand of his followers surrendered to the Wei. They were distributed over the provinces of Ji, Ding and Ying. There the revolt of the Six Garrisons went on.^[6]