ABSTRACT
Raiding is perhaps the most characteristic form of the interaction between nomadic and sedentary peoples on the China-Inner Asia frontier, and historians have taken nomadic predation on neighboring farmers to exemplify the radical opposition between steppe and sown. As Lattimore famously noted, the Inner Asian margins of North China are an ecological transition zone, allowing for both pastoral and agricultural exploitation,3 but since Chinese states normally encouraged agricultural rather than pastoral production, it has been easy to assume a basic economic distinction following the recognized borderline of any particular period. At certain times there may indeed have been such a polarization between nomadic and sedentary ways of life on this frontier, and raids may well have occurred with greater frequency from the nomadic side. However, the case of the Five Dynasties (Wudai, 907-60) suggests that in certain circumstances the economic exploitation of the frontier zone was not so clearly defined by the borderline. Accordingly, if we are to understand frontier interactions better, we need to adopt a different framework within which to consider them.
