The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368

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FINAL DISASTER 151

formally invested Ch'ien-shun as emperor of Hsia. But the Tangut ruler

ignored this pathetic gesture and some months later, in the beginning of

1124,

declared himself

vassal of Chin.

By this time the Liao emperor had recrossed the Yellow River and sought

temporary refuge with the T'u-lii-pu tribe somewhere to the north of modern

Hu-ho-hao-t'e. Yeh-lii Ta-shih, who had escaped from the Jurchen late in

1123,

now rejoined him. Pressed by the pursuing Jurchen, the emperor

headed north into Mongolia. His fortunes had now sunk so low that his

entourage had to barter their clothes for food from the Wu-ku and Ti-lieh

tribes.

Still, he deluded himself with plans to launch an offensive in the

summer to retake the Western circuit and the Southern Capital. Ta-shih

objected strongly, pointing out the absurd impossibility of such a plan.

When T'ien-tso stubbornly stuck to his intention and began to attack

nearby prefectures, Ta-shih tired of his delusions and decided to go his own

way. In the eighth month of 1124 he declared himself king and led his

followers northwest across the Gobi into northern Mongolia. "* T'ien-tso, as

was inevitable, was defeated and was finally hunted down and captured near

Ying-chou (modern Ying-hsien in Shansi) in the second month of 1125. He

was taken to the Jurchen court in Manchuria and stripped of his imperial title,

being given the title of "king of the

seashore"

{hai-pin

wang),

an ironic reference

to the title "king of the Eastern sea" that he had offered A-ku-ta in n 18.

Little is known about T'ien-tso's life in captivity or about the date and

circumstances of his death. Both the

Liao

shih and Ch'i-tan

kuo-shih

report

that he died in captivity at the age of fifty-four. Because the

Liao shih

gives

1075 as the year of

his

birth, this places his death in 1128. According to the

Chin shih

T'ien-tso was still alive in 1126, when one of his servants falsely

accused him of planning to escape.

T'ien-tso's capture by the Jurchen marked the end of

the

Liao, but not that

of an independent Khitan nation. In northern Mongolia, Yeh-lii Ta-shih

established his headquarters in K'o-tun (Chen Prefecture) on the Orkhon

River, the Khitan military and administrative center of this region. He

probably secured the support of the K'o-tun garrison of twenty thousand

warriors and also sought the allegiance of local tribes. He set himself up as

emperor and took the title of

gurkhan

(ko-erh-han),

"universal khan." But

instead of turning east to do battle with Chin, around the year 1130 Yeh-Lii

Ta-shih led his horde westward in search of new territories. Within a year the

Uighurs had acknowledged his suzerainty, and he had established a foothold

in eastern Transoxiana, after which he gradually conquered the whole area

between the Pamirs and the Aral Sea.

224 LS, 29, p. 349.

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Land over 20O0metres(6562ft)

Land over 500 metres(164Oft)

500 1000km

MAP

9. The Hsi Liao (Khara Khitan) empire, 1131—1213

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FINAL DISASTER I53

Ta-shih made his capital at Balasaghun (Hu-ssu-ordo), not far from the

western end of Issyk-kul. His empire, which lasted until the beginning of

the thirteenth century, came to be known by the names Khara (black) Khitai

or Western (Hsi) Liao (see Map 9). Evidently his authority did not extend to

northern Mongolia, where he had started his westward trek. An expedition

launched against Chin in 1134 ended in a complete fiasco, and this con-

vinced Ta-shih of the futility of his attempts to restore Liao rule over its

former territories. Thenceforward the history of Western Liao was associated

with Central Asia and not China and is recorded almost exclusively in Arabic

and Persian sources.

225

225 For further details about the Khara-Khitai, consult the excellent appendix dealing with the subject

in Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 619-74.

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CHAPTER

THE HSI HSIA

INTRODUCTION

At its height in the middle of the twelfth century the Hsia state (ca. 982-

1227) embraced the Ordos and the Kansu corridor.

the northeast

abutted the Chin empire along the Yellow River; westward

extended

beyond Tun-huang to Yii-men, north to Edzina (O-chi-na; Khara-Khoto) on

the southern rim of the Gobi, and south to Hsi-ning, skirting Lake Kokonor

and the city of Lan-chou. From his capital city of Chung-hsing on the west

bank of the Yellow River in the foothills of

the

Alashan (Ho-lan Mountains),

the Tangut emperor ruled over a multiethnic, economically diversified popu-

lation numbering perhaps three million. His subjects included Chinese,

Tibetans, Uighurs, Khitans, and various other Ch'iang and Turkic groups in

addition to the Tangut core.

It is difficult to determine how far the ethnic boundaries between these

groups remained distinct or blurred. No law prohibited intermarriage. The

Tangut, Chinese, and Tibetan languages enjoyed official recognition and

widespread usage. The administrative apparatus bore the outer trappings of

its Chinese models, though its inner workings still remain mostly unknown.

Imperial revenues were derived from taxes, largely in kind, on the products

of animal husbandry and irrigated agriculture, as well as on internal and

foreign trade.

As the preeminent state religion, Buddhism was lavishly patronized by the

imperial family and court. The synthetic Tangut brand of northern Bud-

dhism blended Tibetan Tantric and Chinese Mahayana scriptural traditions

in a Sino-Nepalese artistic setting, often referred to

the Khara-Khoto style.

This religion provided the outstanding inspiration of Tangut culture, judg-

ing

by its

literary and material remains. Officials and the literate classes

1 There are two comprehensive histories of

the

Hsi Hsia generally available: Evgenii I. Kychanov,

Ocherk

istorii tangutskogo gosuaarstva

(Moscow, 1968), and Wu T'ien-chih,

Hsi Hsia shih

km (Ch'eng-tu, 1980,

2nd. rev. ed., 1983), thoroughly cover the existing scholarship. Ongoing translation projects and

archaeological excavations continually increase the corpus of Tangut source materials,

which the

present synthesis cannot do full justice. Some

this new material

included

in a

recent popular

account of Hsi Hsia culture by Shih Chin-po, Hsi

Hsia wen hua

(Ch'ang-ch'un, 1987).

154

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ETHNOGENESIS OF THE TANGUT PEOPLE 155

studied such Chinese classics as the ever-popular Hsiao ching (Book of filial

piety),

Lun yii (Analects of Confucius), or Meng-tzu (Mencius) through

Tangut translations, but they were equally likely to read the works of

Chuang-tzu or Lao tzu, military treatises, divination manuals, or Buddhist

sermons on popular morality. The Tangut emperor cultivated his sacral im-

age as a Buddhist ruler and accorded high status to the Tibetan lamas at his

court.

The Tangut empire was at peace throughout most of the twelfth century

and presented a less awesome military aspect than it had one hundred years

earlier, when it had fought bitterly and often with the Chinese Sung empire,

and sometimes also with the Khitan state of Liao, to preserve its indepen-

dence. After the fall of Liao (1125), it enjoyed reasonably cordial relations

with its Jurchen neighbors to the east and presumably with its trading

partners to the west and north: Kao-ch'ang, Kucha (Ch'iu-tz'u), Khotan (Yii-

t'ien),

Khara-Khitai, and the Tatars, Naimans, and Kereyids. On the eve of

the Mongolian conquests, the Tangut state occupied a position of consider-

able cultural and political standing in East Asia.

This sophisticated state evolved gradually over many centuries. Its dynas-

tic house traced its primacy among the Tanguts back to the Sui period (581-

618) or earlier. An independent Tangut state came into being in 982, was

formally proclaimed a "dynasty" in 1038, and was destroyed by the Mongols

in 1227, 245 years after its founding. Recent studies show that remnants of

the ruling clan fled from the Mongols and reestablished themselves, albeit on

a much-reduced scale, in western Szechwan, where they served the Ming as

t'u

ssu

(local tribal headmen) until they finally died out around 1700. Today,

descendants of these same people are believed to inhabit certain regions of

western Szechwan and to speak a dialect akin to the language of the Hsia

state.'

THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE TANGUT PEOPLE

The earliest Chinese notices of the Tanguts call them the Tang-hsiang

Ch'iang and describe them as descendants of the western Ch'iang of Han

times.

Since antiquity, Ch'iang peoples had occupied the steppes around the

Kokonor (Ch'ing-hai) and the mountainous regions south of the lake around

the headwaters of the Yellow, Ta-t'ung, and Huang rivers. In this border-

land, which traditionally formed the northeastern Tibetan province of

2 Kychanov,

Ochtrk

istorii, chap. 8; Wang Chung, "Lun Hsi Hsiatehsingch'i," Lishihyenchiu, 5 (1962),

32.

3 Wu, Hsi Hsia shih kao, pp. 127—37; Li Fan-wen, "Hsi Hsia i min tiao ch'a chi," Ning-hsia she bui k'o

hsiieh,

1 (1981), pp. 38—62.

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156 THE HSI HSIA

Amdo, commingled the ancestors of both Tanguts and Tibetans. Studies of

the Tangut language have demonstrated that Tangut speakers may be classi-

fied as ancient members of the Tibeto-Burman peoples. Culturally, the

Tanguts shared many traits with other Ch'iang groups.

The name Tangut (Tangghud) first appears in the Orkhon Turkic runic

inscriptions dated

A.D.

735. Almost certainly originally an Altaic form,

Tangut was probably derived in turn from a Tibetan self-appellation through

Central Asian mediaries, perhaps Khotanese or Sogdian. In time, Tangut

(transcribed in Chinese as T'ang-wu or T'ang-ku-t'e) became a common

central and north Asian name for certain tribes inhabiting the Amdo—

Kokonor region and even Kansu, and it was used until the nineteenth

century. Its usage is widespread in later Chinese, Turkic, Persian, and Arabic

writings and in the memoirs of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western

explorers of the Sino-Tibetan borderland.

In their own language the Tanguts called themselves Mi or Mi-niah (Mi-

nag).

Mi-nag (Chinese: Mien-yao, Mi-yao) is also their Tibetan name, first

documented for the seventh century in the T'ang histories as the T'u-fan

designation of Tanguts who became T'u-fan vassals. In later Tibetan litera-

ture Mi-nag denotes a kingdom in the north, the area northeast and east of

Kokonor, and finally the entire Tangut realm of Hsia. During the eleventh

century the Kokonor Tibetans and the Khotanese referred to the Tanguts of

Hsia by this name in their correspondence with the Sung court. By the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Mi-nag (Chinese: Mi-na-ku or Mi-no-

k'o) had become identified with Ho-hsi (Mongolian Khashin), both terms

being used to designate the former lands and subjects of the Hsia state.

Mu-ya and Mu-na are other variants of Mi-nag, found in the toponymy and

lore of western Szechwan. Whatever its origin, the name Mi-nag came to

be a widely applied term whose ethnic and geographical affiliations are still

not entirely clear.'

Throughout their history the Tanguts were influenced profoundly by their

neighbors, especially by the three dominant cultures of continental East Asia:

the Indie-Tibetan, Chinese, and Turko-Mongolian. From the fourth to the

seventh centuries the Kokonor area came under the sway of the Hsien-pei

T'u-yii-hun, whose eponymous founder of the Mu-jung clan had migrated

from Manchuria early in the fourth century. The T'u-yii-hun ruled the

Ch'iang hinterland, living a nomadic life in the lush pasturelands around

4 On the relationship between the Tangut and Ch'iang languages, see Wang Ching-

ju,

Hsi Hsia

yen

chiu,

vol. 2 (Peking, 1933), pp. 275-88. For a more detailed discussion of the name Tangut and related

issues, see Ruth Dunnell, "Who are the Tanguts? Remarks on Tangut ethnogenesis and the ethnonym

Tangut,"

Journal ofAsian History, 18 (1984), pp. 78-89.

5 The basic study is by Rolf A. Stein, "Mi-nag et Si-hia. Geographie historique et legendes ancestrales,"

Bulletin de

1't.cole

Franfaisc

a*Extreme-Orient,

44 (1947—50), pp. 223—65.

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ETHNOGENESIS OF THE TANGUT PEOPLE 157

Kokonor and intermarrying with the indigenous elites. By the Sui period

(581—168) the Tang-hsiang had emerged as the successors of two of the T'u-

yii-huns' client statelets, Tang-ch'ang and Teng-chih. Their first appearance

in the sources coincided with, and was linked to, the breakup of the first

Turkic empire at the end of the sixth century and the rise of the Tang

dynasty. By 628-30 T'ang armies had crushed the Turks and dispersed their

T'u-yii-hun allies. Soon after, the armies of the new Tibetan kingdom also

began to attack the T'u-yii-hun from the southwest and to pressure the

Tanguts. By 680 the Tibetans had displaced the T'u-yii-hun in Kokonor,

forcing many Tanguts to flee their homeland.

These events engendered a series of migrations and the eastward resettle-

ment of steppe and border peoples along or within the northwestern frontier

of T'ang China. The first sizable submission of Tangut households to the

Chinese border authorities, involving the Tangut chieftain T'o-"pa Ning-

tsung, had already taken place under the Sui in 584-5 but had required no

resettlement.

In the sixth and seventh centuries Tangut society comprised a

collection of loosely allied autonomous clan or lineage groups, distinguished

(or ranked) by the number of mounted warriors that each could muster. Their

principal characteristic, according to the Chinese descriptions, was a stub-

born independence sustained by strong mutual animosities nurtured by con-

stant raiding and blood feuds. A military emergency might unite them;

otherwise, it was said, mutual intercourse was limited to a triennial gather-

ing for the sacrifice of animals to heaven. A semisedentary livelihood based

on stockbreeding (sheep, pigs, yaks, horses, and donkeys) and raiding re-

inforced this preference for autonomy, which both favored and fettered the

evolution of an independent state.

That state was very much a creation of the

T'o-pa Tanguts and their allies.

From the start the name T'o-pa was attached to the most prominent

Tangut clan. Distinct from all other early Tangut clan names found in

Chinese records, T'o-pa is indisputably a princely Hsien-pei surname, also

borne by the royal house of

the

Later Wei and by certain clans among the T'u-

yii-hun. That fact has led some scholars to suggest that the T'o-pa Tanguts

were a Tibetanized Hsien-pei elite ruling a largely Ch'iang population, as

their T'u-yii-hun predecessors had done. In the early eleventh century, the

first Hsia emperor himself advanced this interpretation of their origins by

claiming descent from the T'o-pa rulers of the Later Wei. Other modern

6 Wei Cheng (580-643) et al., eds., Sui ihu (Peking, 1973), 83, p. 1846. On the emergence of the

Tangut during the sixth to the eighth centuries, see Paul Friedland, "A reconstruction of early Tangut

history" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1969).

7 Sui shu, 83, p. 1845; Tu Yu (735—812), Tung tin, in Shih lung, comp. Wang Yiin-wu (Shanghai,

1935-7; repr. Taipei, 1965), 190, p. 10121.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

158 THE HSI HSIA

scholars, however, regard this claim to kinship with the Later Wei imperial

clan as merely a political expedient and a prop to dynastic legitimacy.

The

T'o-pa name clearly carried great prestige in both north China and Inner

Asia.

As the politically dominant group, the T'o-pa response to events can be

traced with some certainty: first alliance with the T'u-yii-hun, then avoid-

ance of Tibetan domination, and finally submission to the T'ang. A similar

pattern is repeated in the Hsi Hsia imperial period: alliance with the

Khitans, struggle against the Ch'ing-t'ang (Kokonor) Tibetans, and, despite

bitter and protracted disagreements, a continued affinity for China (primarily

an economic affinity).

THE SURRENDER TO T'ANG AND SETTLEMENT IN THE

ORDOS

After Chinese armies had recovered the Ordos in 628, the Tangut chieftain

Hsi-feng Pu-lai led the

first

wave

of submissions to

the

T'ang in 628-9. T'o-pa

Ch'ih-tz'u, a powerful Tangut leader allied by marriage with the T'u-yii-hun

king, Mu-jung Fu-yiin, at first resisted the T'ang court's blandishments, but

by 635 the T'u-yii-hun ruler had perished, and the reluctant T'o-pa leader and

his followers had been placated and had submitted to the T'ang. In

631

Tangut

territory was divided into thirty-two "loosely controlled" prefectures

(chi-mt

chou)

under the overall control of a newly created Sung-chou prefectural

government-general (tu-tu fu). T'o-pa Ch'ih-tz'u was appointed governor-

general of Hsi-jung Prefecture. He was also granted the T'ang imperial sur-

name Li, which, however, the T'o-pa did not adopt until the end of T'ang.

Other Tangut chieftains likewise were appointed as prefects of their newly

reorganized districts. Thus the Ho-ch'ii region around the headwaters of the

Yellow River east of

Kokonor,

with its population of about 340,000 Tanguts,

came under T'ang sovereignty.

Around this time the T'ang authorities also settled 100,000 surrendered

eastern Turks (T'u-chiieh) in the Ordos, also organized in loosely controlled

prefectures established along tribal lines. The periodic resettlement of Turk-

ish remnants in the Ordos and in northern Shansi continued throughout the

seventh century. In time, groups of Tanguts and T'u-yii-hun joined them

there.

Tibetan attacks on the weakened T'u-yii-hun began in 638, and pressure

on the Tanguts and other Ch'iang groups mounted as the Tibetan kingdom

8 Okazaki Seiro,

Tanguto kodai shi ktnkyu

(Kyoto, 1972), pp.

23—5,

reviews the arguments; Wu,

Hsi Hsia

shih

kao,

pp. 2—4, 8—10, n. 3, advocates the Hsien-pei theory.

SURRENDER TO

T'ANG,

SETTLEMENT IN THE ORDOS 159

expanded northeastward. By 680 the Tibetans had conquered all of Ch'iang

territory, absorbing among other ethnic groups Tangut elements that were

called the Mi-yao (Tibetan: Mi-nag; the Tibetans called their T'u-yii-hun

subjects 'A-zha). Other Tangut groups, led by the T'o-pa, petitioned the

T'ang authorities for permission to abandon their homeland in the grasslands

of Ho-ch'ii and to move into China. The emigrants were relocated in Ch'ing-

chou (Ch'ing-yang, modern Kansu) and reorganized in several specially cre-

ated tribal prefectures controlled by the Ching-pien government-general, a

transplantation of the former Sung-chou government-general.

A second migration of Tanguts into T'ang border territories followed in

692.

By some

accounts this group numbered

many

200,000

persons,

who

were resettled in ten new tribal prefectures established in the southern Ordos,

between Ling-chou and Hsia-chou.

Toward the end of

the

seventh century, a

powerful second Eastern Turkish (T'u-chiieh) khaghanate formed in the steppe

and subsequently directed numerous raids against the Ordos and northern

Shansi.

Just when the T'ang had concluded a treaty with the Turks and opened

a large border market in Shuo-fang in 721-22, a Sogdian-led revolt of surren-

dered Turks who had been settled in the Ling-chou and Hsia-chou area en-

gulfed the Ordos region and required over a year to suppress. Although some

Tanguts joined the uprising, their great chieftain T'o-pa Ssu-t'ai, governor-

general of Ching-pien and a direct descendant of T'o-pa Ch'ih-tz'u, lent sup-

port to T'ang troops and was duly rewarded.

The revolt may have been inspired by T'ang efforts to turn the resettled

Turks into farmers. Its failure, however, weakened the formerly paramount

position of the T'u-chiieh and Sogdians in the Ordos, and by the time the An

Lu-shan rebellion began in 755, the Tanguts had become the dominant

people on the borders of the Ordos south of the Yellow River. Moreover, by

744 the second Eastern Turkish khaghanate had collapsed, and control of the

steppes had passed to one of its subordinate tribal unions, the Uighurs. In

time the Uighurs became the Tanguts' chief rivals for control of

the

lucrative

horse and livestock trade among the southern steppe, Ho-hsi, the Ordos, and

China.

During the An Lu-shan rebellion (755-63) and the subsequent Tibetan

invasion of northwestern China, many Tanguts seized the opportunity to raid

9 For Tangut migrations and resettlements see Friedland, "A reconstruction of early Tangut history," pp.

131-36, 165-75,

3<>, "• 17; Wang P'u (922-82) et al., comps., T'anghuiyao(Shanghai, 1935;

repr. Peking, 1955), 98, p. 1756 (hereafter cited as THY); Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-72) and Sung Ch'i

(998—1061), comps., Hiin

T'ang

shu (Peking, 1975), 221A, pp. 6215-16 (hereafter cited as HTS).

10 Denis C. Twitchett, "Hsiian-tsung," in Sui and

T'ang

China, 589—906, pt. 1, vol. 3 of

The Cambridge

history of China, ed. Denis C. Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 435-36;

Edwin G. Pulleyblank, "A Sogdian colony in Inner Mongolia," T'tmngpao, 41 (1952), pp. 317—56;

Friedland, "A reconstruction of early Tangut history," pp. 212—216.

l6o THE HSI HSIA

Chinese border settlements or to join local insurrections along with bands of

T'u-chiieh and T'u-yii-hun. Later, members of these three groups entered the

armies of both the Tibetans and the rebel Uighur commander P'u-ku Huai-en

(764-5).

Other Tangut groups, mainly in the Ling-chou Hsia-chou area,

cooperated with the Tibetans, who overran Lung-yu (modern Kansu) and tried

to conquer Ch'ang-an, the T'ang capital. Some of them subsequently returned

to T'ang loyalty; others served as guides for the Tibetan invaders, accepted

appointments and titles, and formed marital alliances with them.

With the partial reassertion of T'ang authority in 765, the disrupted

Ordos population was resettled according to a plan designed to separate the

various groups from one another and from the Tibetans, who now occupied

all of Lung-yu (Ho-hsi and eastern Kansu). Stringent precautions were taken

to sever lines of communication between the Tibetans and the tribal inhabit-

ants of the Ordos. In this resettlement the Tanguts of Ching-pien and the six

fu of Hsia-chou were moved east of Hsia-chou and north of Yin-chou (modern

Mi-chih in Shensi). T'o-pa Ch'ao-kuang, the Tangut leader at Ching-pien

and the left Yii-lin grand general, was rewarded for his loyalty to the T'ang

court and sent back to pacify his relocated tribespeople." He was probably a

direct descendant of T'o-pa Ch'ih-tz'u, and although he himself evidently did

not hold the post of Ching-pien governor-general, that office eventually was

bestowed on the principal T'o-pa lineage, which he represented. Its adminis-

trative seat was moved north from Ch'ing-chou to Yin-chou, and their new

official title gave the T'o-pa prestige in the building of a power base nearby at

Hsia-chou.

The pro-Tibetan Tanguts meantime remained at Ch'ing-chou, chief

among them being the Yeh-li, Pa-li, and P'o-chou clans. One T'o-pa leader,

T'o-pa Ch'i-mei, also remained at Ch'ing-chou, but neither his relationship

with T'o-pa Ch'ao-kuang nor the extent of

his

involvement with the Tibetans

is mentioned. The resulting realignment openly divided the Tanguts into

two distinct and potentially hostile branches, called in contemporary ac-

counts the P'ing-hsia group (at Hsia-chou) and the Tung-shan group (at

Ch'ing-chou).

Although some Tanguts continued to collaborate with the Tibetans, oth-

ers became the targets of the Tibetans' cattle raids. Yen-chou, due west of

Hsia-chou and straddling the approach to Ling-chou, seat of

the

T'ang Shuo-

fang commandery, fluctuated between T'ang and Tibetan control for many

years.

In 786 the Tibetans invaded the southern Ordos and penetrated as far

as Hsia-chou, where the Tangut prefect, T'o-pa Ch'ien-hui (the son of T'o-pa

11 HTS, 221A, p. 6217; Friedland, "A reconstruction of early Tangut history," pp. 217-26.

12 Wu, Hsi Hsia shih kao, p. 4.