The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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THE END OF THE
T'ANG
l6l
Ch'ao-kuang), abandoned the citadel to enemy occupation. The Tibetans
retreated from Hsia-chou the following year but continued their raids on the
Ordos settlements. Tangut tribes outside Hsia-chou gained a similar reputa-
tion, as a naturally predatory people whose numbers and prosperity grew
apace through cattle breeding, trading, and the raiding of established fron-
tier settlements. The T'ang government tried periodically to prohibit private
commerce with these tribes, in an unsuccessful effort to stem official corrup-
tion and abuses and to halt the illicit trade of Chinese silk and weapons in
exchange for Ordos livestock.'3
Cycles of oppression and retaliatory raids typified the ninth century and
were caused mainly by diminishing T'ang control over its peripheral prov-
inces.
Numerous incidents reveal that the increasing tribal wealth in live-
stock attracted the greed of
Chinese
frontier officials, who exploited them by
means of unfair market practices or outright seizure of their animals. In
revenge, the Tanguts, often with Tibetan help, raided border prefectures in
the Hsia-Yen area. The T'ang's communication lines to Ling-chou grew ever
more precarious just at the same time as control over livestock production
and horse supplies, so vital to the Chinese and their armies, passed into
Tangut
hands.
'
4
It is in this context that the name of the Nan-shan Tanguts first appeared,
around 846-9, denoting the Tangut tribes dwelling in the mountains south-
west of Hsia-chou and north of Yen-an, around Heng-shan. Their leaders
were later identified as Yeh-li chieftains. They were described as poorer and
more contentious than their P'ing-hsia cousins, with whom they constantly
feuded. Perhaps exiles from Ch'ing-chou or Yen-chou, the Nan-shan Tanguts
were caught between the P'ing-hsia group to their north and the Chinese to
their south, each contending to assert control over the border region and its
inhabitants.
1
'
THE END OF THE T'ANG
New configurations of power slowly took shape in the Inner Asian steppes
and in China throughout the latter part of the ninth and most of the tenth
centuries. Following the simultaneous collapse of the Tibetan and Uighur
empires around 840, new bands of homeless marauders overran Ho-hsi and
the Ordos. One group of Uighurs eventually settled in Kan-chou, initially
under the sponsorship of local Tibetan headmen. Here a new Uighur king-
13 HTS, 221 A, p. 6217; THY, 98, p. 1757.
14 Friedland, "A reconstruction of Early Tangut history," p. 258.
15 Okazaki, Tanguto, pp. 71—5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
162 THE HSI HSIA
dom took root and gradually extended its sway in the tenth century over the
neighboring oases of Su-chou and Kua-chou.
Tibetan influence in Ho-hsi was reduced still further following the forma-
tion of
a
T'ang loyalist army at Sha-chou by a local Chinese, Chang I-ch'ao.
Given the title of the Kuei-i Chun ("Return to allegiance army") by
a
grateful
court about 851, Chang's local regime survived into the tenth century, when
the Sha-chou Kuei-i Chun became an autonomous Chinese outpost in Ho-hsi
under the hereditary rule of
the
Ts'ao family. Battles were waged between the
Sha-chou regime and its Uighur rivals at Kan-chou. Early in the tenth
century, however, the two groups reached a
modus vivendi
that served to keep
open most of the time the trade routes from Central Asia to China.
l6
The Uighurs also maintained friendly relations with
the
Tibetan-dominated
regime at Liang-chou, and Sha-chou courted close ties with the Buddhist kings
of Khotan (Yii-t'ien), for both regimes remained hostile to the Tibetans. For
all their differences, Khotan, Sha-chou, Kan-chou, and Liang-chou had a
mutual interest in the transit trade through Ho-hsi to the Tarim basin and
beyond that provided them with much of their wealth. These interests were
threatened by the growth of Tangut influence and ambition to control the
transit trade. Although the rulers of China had lost control over Ho-hsi, their
need for its horses did not diminish. On the contrary, their reliance on the
import of horses from this region was pivotal in their dealings with the
Tanguts.
Before the fall of the Uighur khaghanate in Mongolia, Uighur merchants
and envoys to China traveled a route that passed from the Yin-shan south-
ward across the Yellow River and through the Ordos to Hsia-chou and thence
to the T'ang capital. Their passage through Tangut territory threatened the
Tanguts' established position in the horse trade with China. Sometime after
840 the frontier horse trade route shifted westward to pass through Ling-
chou, and the Tanguts and Uighurs became bitter rivals in the Ho-hsi trade.
Tangut tribes dwelling along the Ling-chou route menaced imperial envoys
and plundered Uighur caravans, selling the booty to other tribes. Given
Ling-chou's importance to the Chinese court, notably as its principal horse
procurement center, Tangut raids often prompted the dispatch of imperial
troops to secure the route.
The troubles besetting the T'ang dynastic house at the end of the ninth
century boosted the ambitions of the P'ing-hsia Tanguts in a tangible way.
16 On the Kan-chou Uighurs and Ho-hsi in the ninth and tenth centuries, see J. R. Hamilton, Les
Ouighours a I'ipoque da cinq dynasties d'apris Its documents chinois (Paris, 1955); Elizabeth Pinks, Die
Uiguren von Kan-chou in der friihen Sung-Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1968); Maeda Masana, Kasei no nkishi-
chirigakuteki kenkyu (Tokyo, 1964), pp. 333—62; and the reassessment by Moriyasu Takao, "Uiguru to
Tonko," in Tonko no rekisi, vol. 2 of Koza Tonko, ed. Enoki Kazuo (Tokyo, 1980), pp. 305-30.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE END OF THE T'ANG 163
After the Huang Ch'ao rebellion broke out in 875, north China lost contact
with Ho-hsi. In 873 the senior Tangut leader at Hsia-chou, T'o-pa Ssu-kung,
had already occupied Yu-chou (east of Ching-pien, Shensi) and declared
himself its prefect. When Ch'ang-an fell to Huang Ch'ao at the end of 880,
T'o-pa Ssu-kung led his newly raised Chinese-Tangut army to assist the
loyalist forces in driving the rebels from the capital. For this service he was
rewarded with the appointment in 881 as the acting military governor of the
Hsia, Sui, and Yin prefectures, the former incumbent having defected to the
rebels. Soon the acting title was made permanent, and in 882 his province
was renamed the Ting-nan army, embracing the four prefectures of Hsia, Sui,
Yin, and Yu. Later it also included Ching-pien, which became Ching-chou in
the Wu-tai period.
17
T'o-pa Ssu-kung continued to assist the imperial coalition, now under the
command of his rival, the Sha-t'o Turkish leader Li K'o-yung. After Huang
Ch'ao's defeat in 883, the court awarded the Tangut general several more
high titles, conferred upon him the dynastic surname Li, and enfeoffed him
as duke of the Hsia state
(Hsia kuo
kung).
The Tanguts and Sha-t'o had first crossed paths in 847, when the Sha-t'o
chieftain Chu-yeh Ch'ih-hsin (later named Li Kuo-ch'ang) supplied the van-
guard for an imperial punitive campaign against a Tibeto—Tangut—Uighur
raiding party at Yen-chou. Chu-yeh Ch'ih-hsin later earned the imperial
surname for his role in suppressing the P'ang Hsiin rebellion in 869. In the
following decade he warred with border tribes to strengthen his position at
Chen-wu, northeast of Hsia-chou. At least once, in 878, he attacked the
Tanguts. A stalemate resulted, broken finally by the intervention of the
Tanguts' old allies, the T'u-yii-hun. Eventually, Li K'o-yung, Li Kuo-
ch'ang's son, crushed his T'u-yii-hun opponents and extended his control
over northern Shansi.
18
Meanwhile, the T'o-pa clan carefully expanded its hold on the Ordos
under the T'ang aegis, avoiding unnecessary confrontations or compliance
with Li K'o-yung's powerful Sha-t'o organization. When T'o-pa Ssu-kung
died in about 895, his brother Ssu-chien inherited the command and ac-
quired several others as well. Two other brothers later served as military
governors, but the second of these surrendered to Wang Chien, the military
governor of Hsi-ch'uan (western Szechwan) who in 907 founded the state of
Former Shu. By doing so he and his followers opted to leave the Ordos and
return to an area bordering the Tanguts' ancient homeland.
19
17 HTS, 221 A, p. 6219; Okazaki,
Tanguto,
pp. 79-84.
18
Sui and
Tang
China,
pp. 700, 759, 785-6; Okazaki,
Tanguto,
pp. 78-9; G. M0I6,
The
T'u-yii-hun
from the
Northern
Wei to the time of the Five Dynasties (Rome, 1970), pp. 195-206.
19 Okazaki, Tanguto, p. 88.
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164 THE HSI HSIA
THE TANGUTS DURING THE WU-TAI PERIOD
In 907 the T'ang dynasty formally ended with the founding of the Later
Liang (907—23) by Chu Wen, the chief contender for the domination of
north China. Li K'o-yung remained ruler of
a
powerful independent regime
in Shansi and
in
903 had entered into an alliance with the Khitans, thus
confronting Hsia-chou with hostile neighbors to the east. Necessity drew the
Tanguts into an alliance with the Later Liang, and subsequently with any
faction opposed to the Sha-t'o—Khitan axis.
When T'o-pa Ssu-chien died in 908, the succession passed to his adopted
son Li I-ch'ang, the grandson of T'o-pa Ssu-kung. A year later Li I-ch'ang
died in a mutiny in the Hsia-chou army, and the succession passed out of T'o-
pa Ssu-kung's line into a collateral branch headed by
Li
Jen-fu, an uncle of I-
ch'ang. Li Jen-fu was a popular officer in the Tangut army at Hsia-chou and
was elected by his peers to the military governorship. Shortly thereafter,
Hsia-chou withstood a month-long siege by the combined forces of
Li
Mao-
chen, the military governor of Feng-hsiang and Ho-hsi, and Li Ts'un-hsii, Li
K'o-yung's son and later the founder of the Later T'ang (923—37), who ruled
a powerful independent state in Shansi. A Liang relief force lifted the siege,
and Li Jen-fu was rewarded with high titles.
In
922 Li Jen-fu sent five
hundred horses
to
Lo-yang, perhaps responding to
a
Liang appeal for aid
against the Sha-t'o.
During this period the
Liao
founder A-pao-chi campaigned to subjugate the
tribes,
including some Tanguts, inhabiting the southwestern border of Khitan
territory. Some Tangut groups began to submit tribute to the Liao court, but
there is no evidence of any formal contacts at this time between the governors
of Hsia-chou and the Khitans. Li K'o-yung's early friendship with A-pao-chi
had long lapsed by 923, when the Sha-t'o Later T'ang replaced the Liang
as
the
dominant power in north China. Faced with a growing Khitan menace, the
Tangut leader Li Jen-fu perforce acknowledged the new Later T'ang regime,
receiving
in
return confirmation
of
his post, more titles, and,
in
924,
enfeoffment as prince of Shuo-fang
{Shuo-fang wang)
and other emoluments.
20
Despite this surface cordiality, the Sha-t'o suspected, on the basis of appar-
ently groundless rumors, a secret alliance between
Li
Jen-fu and the Khitans.
Hence, when Li Jen-fu died
in
933, the Later T'ang court attempted
to
establish direct control over the Hsia-chou area.
Li
Jen-fu's son and successor,
Li I-ch'ao, was ordered to take up the post of military governor of Chang-wu
at Yen-chou, and the Sogdian incumbent governor of Chang-wu, An Ts'ung-
20 Hsiieh Chii-cheng (912-81), et al., eds., Chiu Wu-tai ibih (Peking, 1976), 132, pp. 1746-9; Ou-
yang Hsiu (1007—72), comp., Hsin Wu-tai ibih, (Peking, 1974), 40, pp. 436-7; Okazaki, Tangito,
pp.
135-40.
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THE TANGUTS DURING THE WU-TAI PERIOD 165
chin, was to replace him at Ting-nan (Hsia-chou). Naturally such a reassign-
ment seriously threatened Tangut interests and, as the Later T'ang court had
feared, aroused fierce resistance. Li I-ch'ao reported that he was "prevented"
from departing Hsia-chou. An Ts'ung-chin advanced toward his new assign-
ment with an escort of fifty thousand soldiers, who proceeded to besiege the
heavily fortified citadel at Hsia-chou. The Tanguts mounted an effective
defense, enlisting the aid of tribal confederates to strip the surrounding
countryside bare and cut the attackers' supply routes. After more than three
months, the Later T'ang troops were forced to withdraw. Li I-ch'ao then
conveyed his repentance to Lo-yang and was duly confirmed as the military
governor of Ting-nan. In gratitude he presented fifty horses to the Later
T'ang court.
21
Hsia-chou continued to flourish, politically and economically.
The source of Tangut wealth was, of
course,
livestock, particularly the sale
of horses to north China. The Wu-tai annals comment on T'ang Ming-
tsung's (r. 926-33) dilemma in trying to reduce the vast sums lavished on
unending streams of foreign horse traders traveling to and from the capital,
without jeopardizing the adequate supply of mounts for his army. Uighurs
and Tanguts figured foremost among the horse dealers in Lo-yang. The
Tanguts repaid Ming-tsung's ample hospitality with drunken singing bouts,
regaling the Sha-t'o monarch with anecdotes from the Ordos. In 929 the
T'ang court announced that in future it would conduct all horse transactions
at the border markets and prohibit foreign merchants from coming to the
capital. But the plan failed, and "the sheep and horses of the tribes did not
cease [to fill] the roads."
22
In addition, other Tangut tribes in the Ling-chou and Ch'ing-chou area
continued to make a livelihood by intercepting and plundering the caravans
of the Uighurs from the west. In 932 a Later T'ang army under Yao Yen-
ch'ou, military governor of Pin-chou (Pin-hsien, Shensi), punished these
tribes for killing a Uighur envoy. Yao Yen-ch'ou also led the army that
accompanied An Ts'ung-chin on his attempt to take up his post at Hsia-chou
the following year, 933. Possibly, Later T'ang fears of collusion between the
Tangut and the Khitan in the raids around Ling-chou encouraged their
attempt to displace the Li (T'o-pa) clan at Hsia-chou in
933.
It failed and left
Hsia-chou more independent of China, yet still in
a
delicate position between
the raiding and feuding Ordos tribes, over whom it clearly desired to increase
its influence, and the greater powers beyond, that is, north China's slowly
strengthening central government and the burgeoning Khitan empire in the
northeast.
21 Okazaki, Tanguto, pp. 141—55.
22 Wang P'u (922—82), Wti-tai hui yao (Shanghai, 1978), 29, pp. 462—4; Chiu Wu-tai shih, 138, p.
1845;
Hsin Wu-tai shih, 74, pp. 912—13.
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166
THE HSI
HSIA
Li I-ch'ao died in 935 and
was
succeeded by his brother (the sources disagree
as
to who was the
elder), I-yin
(his
name
was
later changed
to
I-hsing,
to
observe
the
taboo
on the
Sung founder's personal name).
Li
I-yin governed
Hsia-chou
for
thirty-two years, until his death
in
967. What
is
known
of
his
long tenure suggests some patterns both
for the
future development
of
the
emerging Tangut state and
for
Sino-Tangut relations.
Discord within
the Li
clan
led to
open rebellion
in
943.
Li
I-min,
the
prefect
of
Sui-chou
and
younger brother of
Li
I-yin, plotted
to
overthrow
his
older brother. When
the
plot leaked,
Li
I-min fled with his allies (including
another brother)
to
Yen-chou,
a
Chinese-controlled prefecture 340 /;' south of
Sui-chou. Complying with the Hsia-chou chief's request
for
the rebels' extra-
dition, the Chin court (936-46) directed Yen-chou
to
return Li I-min's party
to Hsia-chou
for
execution. Over
two
hundred discontented clan members
were implicated, resulting
in a
purge
of
the inner ranks.
Li
I-yin transferred
the loyal official Li Jen-yu from
his
prefectural post
at
Yu-chou
to
replace
Li
I-min
at
Sui-chou.
Not
long afterward
the
Yeh-mu,
a
Ch'iang group settled
in
the
area, killed
Li
Jen-yii and absconded southward into Chinese territory.
In
948 Li
I-yin requested permission
of
the
Han
court (947—50)
to
cross
the
frontier
and
punish the Yeh-mu. The court refused.
23
No causes are cited
for
either
the
earlier rebellion or
the
Yeh-mu's grievance against
Li
Jen-yii.
A
few
years later,
in
952-3,
the
Yeh-chi
(or
Yeh-tse) people north
of
Ch'ing-chou revolted against
the
depredations
of the
Ch'ing-chou prefect.
The court's attempt
to
pacify them enlarged
the
turmoil
and
exposed
the
corruption
of its
local officials. Here,
as so
often
was the
case,
the
conflict
turned
on
the comparative prosperity of
the
tribal peoples, who evidently had
more, particularly more to eat, than
did
the sedentary communities of
devas-
tated, war-torn north China. Troops sent
out by the
court often
had to
feed
themselves
and
therefore sometimes were allowed
to
keep
the
booty
of
so-
called pacification campaigns.
24
In regard
to the
Khitans,
the
Hsia-chou Tanguts evinced
a
cautious atti-
tude.
When Liao armies prepared
to
march south
in
944 against the Khitan-
installed Chin regime, Li I-yin promised the Chin court to send forty thousand
troops eastward across
the
Yellow River into Khitan territory
to
create
a
diversion. Whether
or not
he actually
did
so,
the
court gave
him
the title
of
Khitan southwest pacification commissioner.
It
is not
clear what prompted
Li
I-yin
to
send troops
to the
border
of
Yen-chou (west
of
Hsia-chou)
in 948,
ostensibly
in
answer
to a
secret
summons
for aid
from
a
rebellious military governor. Perhaps
one
reason
23 Chiu Wu-tai shih,
132, p.
1749; Okazaki, Tanguto,
pp.
157—9.
24
Him
Wu-tai
shih,
74, p. 913;
Wu-tai
huiyao, 29, pp. 354-55.
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THE TANGUTS DURING THE WU-TAI PERIOD 167
was rivalry with his enemy Kao Ch'ung-ch'iian, Chang-wu military gover-
nor at Yen-chou. Li's troops withdrew upon the approach of an imperial
force, but this was the second time that year that Hsia-chou had flexed its
muscles (compare the Yeh-mu incident). To appease the Tanguts, in 949
the Han court enlarged the Ting-nan command by the addition of Ching-
chou and gave Li I-yin the honorary title of
chung-shu
ling (director of the
Secretariat): Hsia-chou responded with a gift of horses to the Han court.
After the short-lived Han dynasty fell, Li I-yin negotiated with both the
rival successor courts of Northern Han (951-79, at T'ai-yiian) and Later
Chou (951-60) but in the end formally recognized the Chou and distanced
himself from the Northern Han, who were closely linked with the Khitan.
The Chou wooed Li I-yin by granting him the title of commandery prince of
Lungrhsi (Lung-hsi
chun
wang), which had been first held by Li Jen-fu, and in
954 enfeoffed him as prince of Hsi-p'ing {Hsi-p'ing wang).
1
* Subsequently,
relations remained cordial, between Hsia-chou and both the Chou and early
Sung courts. In 962 the Tangut chieftain sent three hundred horses to K'ai-
feng and supported the Sung's repeated efforts to destroy Northern Han,
which finally succeeded in 979.
Prominent now among the local forces involved in Hsia-chou politics were
the independent and generally hostile Tangut tribes living in Lin-chou and
Fu-chou prefectures northeast of Hsia-chou, in territory once dominated by
the Sha-t'o. Their leaders, the Che clan, were ancient rivals of the T'o-pa and
later faithfully served the Sung court in thwarting the Hsia state. Blood feuds
simmered between the two sides until the mid-twelfth century, when after
the fall of the Northern Sung the Jurchen Chin court transported the remain-
ing members of the clan far away to Shantung, in the interests of harmony
with Hsia.
26
Upon his death in 967, Li I-yin was given the posthumous title of Hsia
king {wang) by the Sung court. The Sung emperor confirmed his son Li
Kuang-jui (K'o-jui) in office, despite its court's decision in 963 prohibiting
non-Chinese from serving as garrison commanders
{chen
chiang) along the
northwestern border in Shensi.
27
Nevertheless, the balance of power was
shifting in favor of the central government, and the loss of the buffer state
between Sung and Liao along the Tanguts' eastern frontier when the North-
ern Han kingdom was destroyed in 979 made their position far more vulnera-
ble.
These events provoked a crisis in the Li clan that came to a head in the
succession problem of 981—2.
25 Chiu Wu-tai thih, 132, pp. 1748-9; Okazaki, Tanguto, pp. 161-3.
26 T'o-t'o et al., eds., Chin shih (Peking, 1975), 128, p. 2761 (hereafter cited as CS); Han Yin-cheng,
"Lin Fu Chou chien chih yii Che shih yuan liu," Ning-hsia she hut k'o hsiieb, 1 (1981), pp. 63—7.
27 To-t'o et al., eds., Sung shih (Peking, 1977), 1, p. 14 (hereafter cited as SS).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
l68 THE HSI HSIA
THE TANGUT MOVE TOWARD INDEPENDENCE, 982-IOO2
Li K'o-jui died in 978, and his heir survived him scarcely a year. Because the
latter's son was still an infant, his brother Li Chi-p'eng assumed the military
governorship, apparently without the consent of other clan leaders. This
caused discord among the Li elders, who were split in their attitudes toward
Sung authority. Two opposing camps emerged. The Tangut prefect of Sui-
chou forced Li Chi-p'eng into surrendering to the Sung court, by contesting
the propriety of his succession and appealing for imperial intervention. His
motives are not clear, but
as
a result Li Chi-p'eng had to accompany the Sung
envoy dispatched to Hsia-chou back to K'ai-feng, and at court he formally
handed over the four prefectures of Hsia-chou, Sui-chou, Yin-chou, and Yu-
chou (in some accounts, Ching-chou is also included) to a delighted Sung
T'ai-tsung. The Sung thus achieved peacefully in 982 what the Later T'ang
had failed to gain by force in 933.
Li Chi-ch'ien, a cousin of Chi-p'eng renowned for his bravery and martial
skills,
was born at Yin-chou in 963 and grew up in the service of an elder
kinsman who evidently became his benefactor after his father's death. This
benefactor is said to have died in an abortive attack on Li Chi-p'eng at Hsia-
chou in 981. When Sung officials proceeded to round up the clan members
for
resettlement in the interior of China, Li Chi-ch'ien fled north with his
followers into the P'ing-hsia pasturelands, where he renewed his tribal con-
nections. Thus the ruling Tangut clan was purged of its more sinified ele-
ments, most of whom moved willingly into China, leaving the guardians of
the T'o-pa tribal legacy to establish an independent Ordos state.
Li Chi-ch'ien made his first base camp at Ti-chin Marsh, three hundred li
northeast of Hsia-chou. Having raised a force of twenty thousand men, he
began at once to harass the Yin-chou and Hsia-chou prefectures, where the
imposition of Sung control had stirred up tribal unrest.
28
In the northern
Ordos and across the Yellow River several large Tangut tribes lived a nomadic
existence. They were accustomed either to send "tribute" horses to the Sung
court in exchange for gifts of tea or silk or to block and harass the Sung horse
convoy route, at first in collusion with the Khitan and later as partisans of Li
Chi-ch'ien. A number of their leaders, however, sought to maintain ties of
fealty with Sung, primarily for economic advantage and prestige, but no
doubt also to enhance their position vis-a-vis Li Chi-ch'ien, who was pressur-
ing them to join his cause and break with Sung.
To
do this would have meant
28 SS, 485, pp. 13984—6;
Li
T'ao (1115-84)
et
al., comps., Hsu tzu chib t'ung Men cb'ang pirn
(Chekiang, 1881; repr. Taipei, 1961), 23, pp. 7a, 14a, 16a; 24, pp. 20b—21a, 22b (hereafter cited as
HCP);
Okazaki, Tanguto, pp. 173—97. Li Chi-p'eng has an entry in Sung
biographies,
ed. Herbert
Franke (Wiesbaden, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 521-2.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE TANGUT MOVE TOWARD INDEPENDENCE 169
refusing
to
sell horses
to
Sung agents, which would have been directly
contrary to their own interests.
More troublesome still was
the
more numerous, heterogeneous Tibeto-
Ch'iang population scattered along his southern frontier with Sung, including
the important Nan-shan Tanguts. Riven by internal divisions and conflicting
loyalties, this population tended to resist all external controls. Many chieftains
regularly offered armed auxiliaries
to
the Sung
in
return for gifts generously
bestowed
to
win either their neutrality
or
their assistance against
Li
Chi-
ch'ien.
2
' Such tenuous allegiances, however, frequently lapsed and often had to
be renewed by force. This worked
to
the Tanguts' advantage. Nevertheless,
considering
Li
Chi-ch'ien's vastly inferior resources when compared with those
of the wealthy and powerful Sung state,
it
is remarkable that he succeeded in
welding such fragmented and volatile groups into a solid following.
Li Chi-ch'ien's strategy to secure the allegiance of the population of P'ing-
hsia
and
Nan-shan was
to
present
his
clan
as
their protectors against
an
oppressive Chinese border administration and at the same time to offer them
marital alliances and the lure of power and plunder. He himself
chose
a wife
from the powerful Nan-shan clan of
Yeh-li,
which thereupon became one of
the leading "inner" clans
of
the early Hsia state. Yeh-li consorts and their
clansmen acquired enormous influence and, for a while, occupied a position
roughly equivalent
to
that
of
the Hsiao consort clan among
the
Khitan.
3
°
Another marriage alliance was established with the Khitan dynastic house.
In 986 Li Chi-ch'ien offered his submission to the Liao court and petitioned
for an imperial bride. He received the princess
in
989 and was granted
the
title of king of Hsia
(Hsia kuo wang)
by the Liao emperor in 990.
3
' This new
alliance was at best an uneasy one. For the Tanguts, submission to Liao never
barred negotiation with Sung, and the triangular relationship that developed
bristled with mutual suspicion and squabbles. Moreover, Tangut tribes resid-
ing inside the Liao border became a perennial source of friction between the
two states. After concluding a satisfactory treaty with Sung
in
1004-5,
tne
Khitans were free to contemplate the threat posed by Tangut competition for
control
of
the Ho-hsi trade and dominance over their Uighur clients. Still,
the nominal Khitan alliance served
to
maintain
a
balance of power useful
to
all sides.
Certainly
at
this time Sung was
in
no position to antagonize the Tanguts
or to commit many troops to the Ordos frontier. Instead
it
relied on suasion,
29
SS, 491
and 492, the chapters on the Tang-hsiang and T'u-po, respectively; Lo Ch'iu-ch'ing, "Sung
Hsia chan cheng
te
fan pu yii pao chai,"
Ch'ung-chi
hsiiehpoo,
6
(1966—7), pp. 223—43.
30 Olcazaki, Tanguto,
pp.
191-2; Karl
A.
Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of
Chinese
society,
Liao
(907—1/25) (Philadelphia, 1949), see esp. sec.
7,
"A third culture,"
p. 20.
31 Olcazaki, Tanguto,
p.
199; T'o-t'o
et
al., eds., Liao shih (Peking, 1974), 115, pp. 1524-5 (hereafter
cited as LS). Wu, Hsi Hsia shih kao, pp. 92—9, reviews Tangut—Khitan relations.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I7O THE HSI HSIA
economic pressure, and intimidation. By fortifying strategic border posi-
tions,
by "pacifying" rebellious non-Chinese groups living within the border
under Sung jurisdiction, and by encouraging tribute-trade contacts with the
Tibetans and Uighurs, it easily exploited Tangut tribal divisions. Through-
out, the two sides waged a kind of guerrilla warfare. Since 983 the Sung had
restricted border trade and had substituted goods for cash in purchasing
horses, so as to reduce the flow of metal to the Tanguts, who melted down
coin to make weapons. In 993 the court attempted to ban the sale of superior
Tangut salt along the border, hoping to impoverish Li Chi-ch'ien's partisans
and induce them to surrender. But the ban provoked so much antagonism
and evasion that it was promptly rescinded, although later it was nominally
reimposed.'
2
Although the Sung thus enjoyed an economic advantage, local
punitive campaigns against uncooperative border tribes greatly reduced the
attractions of serving the Sung.
Li Chi-ch'ien's strategy emphasized diplomacy, military strength, and vari-
ous compensations for the Sung trade blockade. As early as 984 he tested the
Chinese mood with an offering of horses and camels at Lin-chou. Shortly
thereafter a Sung force raided his camp at Ti-chin, and he barely eluded
capture. In 985, however,
he
retook Yin-chou, commencing the reconquest of
traditional T'o-pa territories in Ting-nan. With the aid of his Chinese adviser,
Chang P'u, Li Chi-ch'ien recruited Ordos Chinese and tribal chieftains
to
posts
in the rudimentary government that he set up in the reconquered
areas.
Chang
P'u later spent several years
as
a "guest" of Sung T'ai-tsung, but that emperor
failed in all his efforts to induce Li Chi-ch'ien's surrender.
Unquestionably the Tangut chief's foremost concern was to establish a
stable resource base. Illegal trade flourished despite Sung prohibitions, and
in 1002 Li Chi-ch'ien opened his own seasonal fairs along the routes to Ling-
chou, attracting many customers. But the P'ing-hsia region had become a
political and economic backwater after decades of warfare and unrest. Even
before the Chinese razed the ancient citadel at Hsia-chou in 994, Li Chi-
ch'ien's armies were pressing westward toward Ling-chou and southwest to
Lan-chou. By 1001, Tangut troops, now numbering fifty thousand, had
succeeded in cutting Ling-chou's lifeline to the interior. In the third month
of 1002 the city fell to the Tanguts, becoming their first capital. The
surrounding area along the Yellow River provided a fertile foundation for the
expanding Hsia state" (see Map 10).
Ling-chou was renamed Hsi-p'ing Fu in 1003. Restoration of the canal
system began at once, and Ordos residents were forcibly resettled in the new
32 HCP, 24, p. 20b. Liao Lung-sheng, "Sung Hsia kuan hsi chung te ch'ing pai yen wen c'i," Sbih huo
yiieh k'an, 5, (1976), pp.
14-21.
33 HCP, 51, p. 5a; SS, 485, p. 13988; Okazaki, Tanguto, pp. 205-15.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008