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t heir military complexes and pour the savings into the domestic
economy.  That diverted treasure produced a burst of prosperity.
As usual, the Chinese and their superpower enemies had blithely
dismissed the significance of the unwashed rabble beyond their
frontiers.  In 1114, that rabble--the Juchen--kicked themselves loose
from the superpower sphere of influence and prepared for war.  Those
preparations took a full eleven years.  But when they were over, it was
time for the major powers to watch out.  First the Juchen attacked
China's biggest enemy--the Kitan.  The Chinese were delighted.  The
primitive Juchen had just removed their greatest international
problem.  But the emperor and his subjects rejoiced a bit too soon.  The
Juchen wheeled around, hungry for an even bigger conquest.
In 1126, the backward people who only sixteen years earlier had
been the lowly puppets of a superpower fought their way into an
unprepared Chinese capital and decided to stay.  The Middle
Kingdom121 had been undone by both diplomacy and disarmament
because they had forgotten about the barbarians.
Behind the threat of barbarians is a simple fact.  Social
superorganisms itch to move up on the hierarchical ladder.  And many
of those who want to ascend would like to do so at our expense. The
legitimate wish for peace often blinds us to this fact.
But there is another impulse that also distracts us from the
danger of barbarians.  The itch to battle our fellow citizens.
The Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in
324 AD.122  Eighteen  years later, he moved the capital of the Empire to
the old Greek colony of Byzantium.123  Constantine explained that he
was acting on direct orders from his new God124, Jesus, who
presumably preferred to leave the city of pagan deities and Christian
persecutions behind.  At that moment, Byzantium--in what is today
Turkey--became the administrative hub of Europe.125
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