The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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I-TSUNG, HU1-TSUNG, AND CH'UNG-TSUNG 191
imperial infant as his own candidate, and his elevation, we are told, surpris-
ingly aroused
no
dissent. Thereupon
the
infant became emperor
(he was
later given
the
posthumous title I-tsung
and
reigned from 1048
to
1068),
and
his
mother
was
appointed
the
empress dowager. Mo-ts'ang O-p'ang
became regent
and
palace minister
(cbia
hsiang),
the
de
facto ruler
of
the
Hsia state.
Thus Wei-ming Yiian-hao failed
to
secure
his
throne against
the
tribal
oligarchy,
and
there followed
a
half-century
of
rule
by
members
of
maternal
clans,
first the Mo-ts'ang, which lasted only fifteen years,
and
then the more
powerful and politically adroit Liang. This pattern of maternal clan influence
clearly
had
deep roots
in
Tangut
(and
Tibetan) sociopolitical
and
kinship
traditions.
A STATE
IN
PERIL:
THE
REIGNS
OF
I-TSUNG (1048-1068),
HUI-TSUNG (IO68-IO86),
AND
CH'UNG-TSUNG
TO
IIOO
Reviled
by
contemporary Chinese writers
as
a
stubborn, reckless youngster
and
an
unworthy successor
to
his father, as he grew
up
I-tsung
in
fact strove
against great odds
to
protect
his
own independence and
to
arrest the declin-
ing power and prestige of
his
state. The empress dowager died, the victim
of
an intrigue,
in
1156.
In
1061 I-tsung, now fourteen years
old,
eliminated
Mo-ts'ang O-p'ang. Seeking more reliable allies than the Mo-ts'ang,
he
then
married his accomplice, Lady Liang, formerly the unhappy wife of Mo-ts'ang
O-p'ang's son,
and
appointed
her
younger brother, Liang I-mai,
as his new
palace minister, with hereditary tenure
in
office.
7
' For two generations Liang
empresses
and
their brothers presided over
the
precarious fortunes
of
the
Tangut state. A number of Wei-ming clan members were suppressed, exiled,
or excluded from power. Others, however, were tolerated, chiefly
for the
prestige and loyalty that they commanded.
The support of
the
dominant Liang faction rested
in
the armed strength of
their various allies among tribal chieftains. They nurtured hereditary blood
feuds with both Sung Chinese frontier officials
and
their non-Han tribal
subordinates. Thus the ruling Liang faction fostered an attitude of uncompro-
mising belligerence toward China that constantly endangered
the
state
and
became increasingly difficult
to
repudiate when once internal opposition
to
it
intensified.
In
struggling
to
assert their
own
authority against them,
the
Tangut emperors,
on the
other hand, were forced into
a
posture that often
appears
to
be
pro-Chinese. I-tsung resolved
a
long-standing border dispute
71 HCP, 184, pp.
10b,
15b; Shen Kua, Mmgch'ipi t'an 25.3,
p.
452.
On
the names of
Liang
I-mai and
his son, Ch'i-pu, see
Pu
P'ing (pen name of
Li
Fan-wen), "Hsi Hsia huang
ti
ch'eng hao k'ao," Ning-
hsiashehui
k'ohsiith,
1 (1981), pp. 77-8,
n. 17.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
192
THE HSI
HSIA
with Sung, negotiated a new eastern boundary, and arranged for the establish-
ment
of
markets previously closed
by
Sung because
of
Mo-ts'ang O-p'ang's
provocative colonizing activities along the Ch'ii-yeh River.
Around
the
time
of
Mo-ts'ang O-p'ang's demise, I-tsung petitioned
the
Sung court
for
permission
to
replace Tangut rites with Chinese court ritual
and costume.
72
Thus commenced
a
series
of
seesaw shifts between Han and
Tangut court ceremonial that reflected fluctuations
in the
relative strength
of the contending pro-Chinese
and
nativist Tangut factions. Later
the em-
press dowager championed Tangut forms;
the
emperor switched
to Han
usage whenever
the
chance arose. Chinese symbols, institutions,
and
even
individuals became weapons
(and
targets)
in the
court power struggles
at
Hsing-chou.
I-tsung's gesture signaled more than an assertion of personal autonomy.
It
was also
an
effort
to
gain Sung recognition
and
bolster Tangut prestige
in
another quarter. Liao
had
already turned
a
cold shoulder
on the
Hsia court
and
had
begun
to
woo
the
Tibetans, with whom
the
Tanguts still fought
intermittently.
In
1058
a
Khitan princess, denied to I-tsung, was married
to
Ku-ssu-lo's
son and
eventual successor, Tung-chan.
7
' Sung
and
Hsia mean-
while waged
a
perpetual diplomatic tug-of-war, with
the
Tangut envoys
repeatedly demanding
the
same dignities accorded their Khitan counter-
parts.
The Sung officials
in
their turn complained
of
the inferior quality
of
the Tangut emissaries
and the
defiant tone
of
their communications; both
sides regularly exchanged insults.
In 1067, by means of a ruse, a Chinese border official seized the Hsia town
of Sui-chou.™
In
retaliation
the
Tanguts killed
a
Sung prefect,
who was
exposed
as a
double-dealing traitor. After lengthy debate,
the
Sung court
decided
to
keep Sui-chou, greatly embittering
the
Tanguts who thereafter
continuously harassed the area.
At
the end of the year I-tsung died
at
the age
of twenty, presumably from wounds received
in
battle. His eldest son, seven-
year-old Wei-ming Ping-ch'ang (Hui-tsung) was enthroned that winter.
I-tsung had initiated
a
number of reforms,
in
the process abandoning some
of the precedents governing Chinese-Tangut relations that
had
been estab-
lished
by his
father.
7
' This, more than
his
alleged character defects,
may
explain Chinese rancor toward him and his policies.
72
SS, 485, p.
14001. Possibly
he
did
so
ac
the
instigation
of
the Liang clan, which Shen Kua claims
to
have been
of
Chinese origin (Mtng ch'i
pi t'an, 23.3, p. 452),
even though Liang
is
attested
as a
venerable Tang-ch'ang clan name.
73
HCP, 188, pp.
2b-3a.
74 P'eng Pai-ch'uan
(fl.
1113),
T'ai-p'ing
chih
chi
t'ung
lei,
repr.
in vol. 10 of
Shib yuan ts'ung shu,
ed.
Chang Chiin-heng (1917; repr. Taipei, 1966), 15, pp. ib-2a.
75 HCP, 196, p. 23b.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF HUI-TSUNG 193
THE REIGN OF HUI-TSUNG (1068-1086)
Hui-tsung's troubled reign, or more accurately that of his mother, the em-
press dowager Liang, opened with an inconclusive war in 1070—i, sparked
by the Sung refusal to negotiate a settlement of the Sui-chou affair.
Thereaf-
ter the Chinese commenced a massive program of border fortification in the
west, aimed to displace the Tibetans in Ch'ing-t'ang. Treaty relations with
Hsia were repeatedly broken; competition for military merit and its generous
rewards inflamed the ranks of
Sung
officers with war fever.
In an expansionist mood, the Sung mounted offensives against Hsia
in
1081—3,
1091—3, and 1096—9. The Chinese recaptured Lan-chou in 1081
and advanced into Ch'ing-t'ang. As the war continued and the theater of
battle expanded, the Liang clique became more and more dependent
on
increasingly independent generals. Chief among these were members of the
royal Wei-ming clan, who dominated the center and southeast of the state,
and their allies the Jen-to clan, who controlled the southwest area bordering
western Shensi and Kokonor.
Meanwhile, Tangut-Khitan relations began
to
improve, and the hard-
pressed Tibetans also began to cultivate closer ties with Hsia. In 1072 a sister
of the Tangut emperor was married
to
Tung-chan's son, Lin-pu-ch'ih
(Rinpoche)>
The young Tangut emperor had grown up under the complete dominance
of his mother the empress dowager Liang and of her younger brother Liang
I-mai. He was married
to
one
of
Liang I-mai's daughters
to
ensure
the
continuation of the Liang family's hold on imperial power.
In
1080 Hui-
tsung, chafing under his mother's dominance, discarded Tangut court ritual,
which had been restored in 1070 by the empress dowager, in favor of Chinese
ceremonies. A year later the Hsia court uncovered a plot alleged to have been
hatched between the young emperor and his Chinese favorite, Li Ch'ing,
to
turn over the southern Ordos to Sung. Li Ch'ing was executed, and Hui-
tsung was temporarily imprisoned
in a
fortified dungeon five
//'
from the
palace. Instantly the emperor's adherents rallied their forces to oppose Liang
rule.
Chief Minister Liang I-mai in vain dispatched emissaries to their camps
with the silver tablets used to summon them to arms, attempting to make
them affirm their loyalty.
For several months Sung officials breathlessly awaited
a
resolution of the
internal crisis in the Hsia state. Finally the Sung emperor ordered the mobili-
zation of a great army under the command of the eunuch-general Li Hsien, to
launch
a
five-pronged
"punitive" attack on the Tangut capital. The
five
ar-
76
HCP,
233, pp. 6b-7a.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
194 THE HSI
HSIA
mies,
however, failed to converge at the appointed time because their leaders
soon fell to squabbling among themselves. But in 1081 Li Hsien managed
to
capture Lan-chou, which
had
been under Tibetan domination since
the
eighth century and had fallen into the Tangut orbit about
1063.
77
Moreover,
Li
and the
other generals inflicted considerable damage
and
devastation
throughout the southern provinces of Hsia, though not without heavy cost
to
themselves.
Empress Dowager Liang and her generals
at
first withdrew
to
defend
the
capital and Ling-chou, while
in
the southwest Jen-to Ling-ting led the pro-
Wei-ming forces in defending, with heavy casualties, the palaces and govern-
ment buildings
of
the
T'ien-tu mountain region against
Li
Hsien's
on-
slaught. The Jen-to-Wei-ming alliance
had its
headquarters
at
the Cho-lo
Army Superintendancy north
of
Lan-chou.
78
Later
in
1082,
the
two rival
parties cooperated to defeat the Sung
at
Heng-shan
in
northern Shensi.
In 1083, mounting losses finally induced the Sung to accept the Tanguts'
peace overtures.
But the
Chinese court's refusal
to
discuss
a
return
of
cap-
tured territories ensured
the
continuation
of
hostilities, especially around
Lan-chou, where
the
Sung soon began
to
consolidate and extend
its
gains.
A sobered Hui-tsung had evidently resumed his throne
in
1083.
In
1085
Liang I-mai died, and his son, Liang Ch'i-pu, succeeded him as the new state
minister. The warrior empress dowager died later that year.
In
1086 Hui-
tsung
too
died, bequeathing
the
throne
of
Hsia
to his
three-year-old
son,
Wei-ming Ch'ien-shun (Ch'ung-tsung, 1086-1139), under
the
regency
of
his widow, the new empress dowager Liang, who was Liang Ch'i-pu's youn-
ger sister. Thus power
at
the
capital Chung-hsing, although now openly
contested, passed from one generation of Liang siblings
to
the next.
A simultaneous change
of
leadership
in the
Sung capital brought
a
brief
restoration of treaty relations and the return of a few forts. But the border was
rife with rumors of
a
coup in Hsing-chou, as conflict soon broke out between
the empress dowager and her brother the state minister Liang Ch'i-pu.
Bad
feeling also developed
in
the
Liao court, which disliked
the
new regents.
Liang Ch'i-pu found an ally in the Tibetan leader A-li-ku, the adopted son
and unpopular successor of Tung-chan (d. 1083). A-li-ku's regime at Ch'ing-
t'ang
was
challenged
by
that
of
his rival, Wen-ch'i-hsin,
at
Miao-ch'uan,
adjacent
to
the Tangut southwestern province governed by the Jen-to faction
at Cho-lo. Long-standing differences between
the
two Tibetan centers
had
resulted
in
friendly relations developing between Miao-ch'uan and the Jen-to
77 P'eng Pai-ch'uan,
T'ai-p'ing
chih chi t'ung
lei,
15, pp.
12a—26a.
On
Lan-chou under Tangut control,
seeTai,
Hsi
Hsiachi,
13, p.
9b; and HCP, 226,
p. 3a.
On Li Hsien, see Sung jtn
chuan
chi
tzu liao 10yin,
vol. 2, p. 912.
78 Maeda,
Kasei,
pp. 593—613.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF HUI-TSUNG 195
royalist leaders at Cho-lo while the rival Tibetan regime in Ch'ing-t'ang
enjoyed an alliance with Liang Ch'i-pu." Extreme instability prevailed in the
Kokonor region throughout the 1090s. A-li-ku's death in 1096 set in motion
a confused succession contest that the Sung exploited to extend their control
over Kokonor in 1099. At every step they met Tangut resistance.
The long-awaited coup at the Tangut court apparently took place late in
1094.
Jen-to Pao-chung, Wei-ming A-wu, and their followers slew Liang
Ch'i-pu and exterminated his clan. The empress dowager, protected by her
own still-considerable military power, evidently sided with the assassins
because she had suspected her brother of plotting against her son, the twelve-
year-old emperor, and
herself.
80
But the full restoration of Wei-ming royal
authority was not possible in the face of
a
grave military emergency.
The Sung had mounted offensives against Hsia in 1091 and 1093. Then in
1096 they launched an all-out campaign to destroy Hsia and occupy
Kokonor. The war dragged on until 1099. Alarmed at the ferocity of the
Sung depredations, the Liao court, which was itself embroiled in a long-
drawn-out war with the Tsu-pu in Mongolia, to the north of Hsia, three
times issued stern notes urging the Sung to desist, but to no avail.
8
' These
four years of violent warfare, along with the long closure of border markets,
brought further deprivation and misery to the Hsia people, ruining their
livelihoods and their lands.
The empress dowager died in 1099, poisoned, rumor had it, by a Liao
envoy for her failure to assist the Khitans to suppress a rebellion of vassal
tribes.
82
For months the Sung court spurned Tangut envoys sent to announce
her death and to sue for peace. Determined to end the war and at last free of
Liang dominance, the Wei-ming elders went to extreme lengths to appease
the Sung court.
While the Tanguts were thus negotiating peace in the Chinese capital,
they continued to resist the Sung advance into Kokonor. Nevertheless, the
Sung seized and fortified T'ien-tu and took Hui-chou. While Chinese armies
marched up the Huang River valley in the fall of 1099, the various Tibetan
factions at Miao-ch'uan, Tsung-ko, and Ch'ing-t'ang were in constant agita-
tion, alternately surrendering and resisting. The Sung command staff
was
in
almost equal disorder, as generals and their subordinates impeached one
another, were demoted, cashiered, and reinstated in dizzying succession.
Tangut armies also entered the fracas and the Tibetan forces, numbering sixty
79 Maeda, Kasci, pp. 606-9; HCP, 402-4, 444 passim; 467, pp. 8a-b.
80 The data are elusive. See for example, Sung huiyao chi kao, 175, ping 8, pp. 31b—32a. Wu, Hsi Hsia
shu shih, 29, pp. 15a-16a, provides the only account of the coup that assigns it a fixed date;
contemporary corroboration remains to be found.
81 IS, 115, p. 1528; HCP, 492, pp. 8b-9a; 507, pp. 3b-4a.
82 Wu, Hsi Hsia shu shih, 31, p. ib.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
196 THE HSI HSIA
thousand or seventy thousand, were still large enough to foil the Sung's
initial attempts at occupation.
83
After the first surrender of Ch'ing-t'ang in the ninth month of 1099, the
town was retaken by the Miao-ch'uan faction, which installed its own candi-
date as A-li-ku's successor. The Sung court confirmed this person in office,
and in 1102 he contracted a marriage alliance with the Tangut royal house.
Between 1102 and 1104 Sung armies reoccupied Ch'ing-t'ang, which had
been renamed Shan-chou in 1099 and was again renamed Hsi-ning in
1104.
84
By 1109 the Sung government had registered all the Tibetan towns
of Kokonor under Chinese names, but it never effectively controlled this
area. Until the end of Northern Sung (1128), it remained a zone of constant
conflict between the Chinese, on the one hand, and the Tibetans and
Tanguts, on the other.
This account may give the impression that in the late eleventh century
Hsia was an unstable society, embroiled only in factional squabbles and
sporadic warfare with its neighbors. However, there were two major develop-
ments that also deserve attention. The first was the rapid growth of Bud-
dhism as the state faith under imperial auspices. This began in Li Te-ming's
time,
if not before. The Liang empresses devoted considerable attention to
the translation of sutras, and by the end of the eleventh century the entire
Tripitaka had been rendered into Tangut. This in itself was a monumental
achievement. Numerous temples, either newly built or restored, were dedi-
cated. There was a regular exchange of religious adepts and materials with
foreign Buddhist centers such as Liao, Turfan, and Tibet.
8
'
Second, the Hsia economy and food supply, vulnerable to prolonged dis-
ruption of its vital trading links with the Chinese, had evolved into a rather
sophisticated mechanism. Once freed from the extraordinary demands placed
on it by constant warfare, it could more than adequately sustain the growing
imperial establishment and permit the remarkable cultural flourishing of the
twelfth century. The Tanguts became famous not only for their livestock,
hunting falcons, and other animals but also for the products of their local
industries. These included their prized camel-hair carpets; printed and illus-
trated books comparable in quality with the best Sung publications; rhubarb
and other herbal plants; and high-quality salt, which served as a barter
currency in Hsia, much as textiles did in Liao. The Tanguts' own economic
philosophy is perhaps summed up in a Tangut maxim: "Possessing sheep,
83 HCP, 514, pp. 7a-2oa; 515, pp. 7a-i3a; 516, pp. 3b-22b.
84 SS, 492, p. 14167; 87, pp. 2154-70.
85 Shih Chin-po, " 'Hsi Hsia i ching t'u chieh," Wen
hsien,
1 (1979), pp. 215—29; Shih Chin-po, Hsi
Hsia wen hua, pp. 75-6. Evgenii I. Kychanov, "From the history of the Tangut translations of the
Buddhist canon," in Tibetan and Buddhist studies
commemorating
the 200th anniversary of the birth of
Alexander
Csoma
de
Kijros,
ed. Louis Ligeti (Budapest, 1984), pp. 377—87.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
HSIA COMES OF AGE: CH'UNG-TSUNG AND JEN-TSUNG 197
one slaughters cattle
in
the mountains of
the
Tangut land; possessing money;
one seeks [profits in} trade with Chinese merchants."
86
HSIA COMES
OF AGE:
CH'UNG-TSUNG (1086-1139)
AND
JEN-TSUNG (1140-II93)
Ch'ung-tsung
and his
mentors guided
the
state through
its
last period
of
strife with the Sung and supported the Liao court against its Jurchen conquer-
ors,
the Chin, until
its
fall
in
1124, when necessity forced them
to
come
to
terms with
the new
masters
of
north China. Even more important, they
initiated
an
overhaul
of the
Tangut government. Although
by the end of
Ch'ung-tsung's reign
in
1139
the
Shensi border with Chin
had
still
not yet
been stabilized,
and
Jurchen failures
to
honor certain territorial promises
continued
to
irritate
the
Tanguts,
who
from time
to
time asserted their
claims
to
disputed districts along
the
Hsia—Chin border,
the
Hsia state,
which was now more
or
less completely
cut off
from Sung, enjoyed
a
long
period of peace.
The domestic policies of Ch'ung-tsung and his successor Jen-tsung aimed
primarily
to
strengthen central authority over
the
army
and its
leaders,
the
still-powerful tribal aristocracy, who naturally resisted any reduction of their
traditional privileges. Notwithstanding imperial efforts
at
Confucian indoc-
trination,
the
loyalties
of
those leaders
to the
dynasty were secured
by a
contractual compromise between
the
throne
and the
great clans,
by
which
each obtained
a
guarantee
of its
position. This compromise
was
formally
expressed
in
legal documents
and
institutional arrangements worked
out in
the succeeding decades
of
the twelfth century.
87
In the early years
of
his real reign (i.e., after his mother's death
in 1099)
Ch'ung-tsung ruled
in
collegial partnership with
the
Wei-ming elders
who
had returned
the
young monarch
to his
throne
and
were determined
to
tighten their clan's hold over
it.
First, they had
to
tame the military bureau-
cracy, beginning with their
own
erstwhile allies.
In
1103-4
tne
emperor
86 Wu,
Hsi
Hsia shih kao,
pp.
170—88; Kychanov,
Ocherk
istorii,
pp.
79—99; Evgenii
L.
Kychanov, Vnov'
Sobrannye dragotsennye
pamye izrecheniia (Moscow, 1974);
the
Tangut text appears
on p. 155 and the
Russian translation
on p. 90.
87
See
Ruth Dunnell, "Tanguts
and the
Tangut state
of
Ta Hsia" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University,
1983),
chap.
5,
"The structure
of
Tangut government," esp.
pp.
202—52, much
of
which
is
based
on
Kychanov's translation
and
study
of
the Tangut
law
code,
all
four volumes
of
which have
now
been
published.
See
Evganii
I.
Kychanov, Izmennyi
i
zanovo
utverzbdennyi kodeks
deviza tsarstvovaniia
nebesnot
protsvetanie
(1149-1169),
vol. 1,
Commentary
(Moscow, 1988); vol.
2,
Facsimile,
translation and annota-
tion,
chaps.
1—7
(Moscow, 1987);
vol. 3,
chaps.
8—12
(Moscow, 1989);
vol. 4,
chaps. 13—20
(Moscow, 1989). This work includes
the
original Tangut texts,
a
Russian translation, annotations,
and
a
commentary
on the
annotations.
A
brief description
of the
code's contents
may be
found
in
Evgenii
I.
Kychanov, "Monuments of Tangut Legislation (i2th-i3th centuries)",
in
ttudes TiMtaines,
Actes
du
XXIXe Congres international
des
Orientalistes, July 1973 (Paris, 1976),
pp.
29—42.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
198 THE HSI HSIA
stripped the Jen-to clan of its military power. Jen-to Pao-chung was demoted
and summoned to the capital on suspicion of treason. Ch'ung-tsung then
granted his own younger brother, Wei-ming Ch'a-ke, a noble title and
command of the Tangut army. An extremely competent general, Wei-ming
Ch'a-ke won several stunning victories over Sung troops during the next
decade and remained one of
the
most powerful figures in Tangut government
until his death in about 1156.
88
During the Chen-kuan reign period (1101 —13)
—
its auspicious reign title
deliberately chosen to invoke the much-admired model of T'ang T'ai-
tsung
—
Ch'ung-tsung issued the military code entitled "The Jade Mirror
Code of the Chen-kuan Reign" (Chinese:
Chen-kuan
yii
ching
t'ung;
the origi-
nal is in Tangut), of which fragments survive.
89
The emperor also established
a state school with three hundred pupils supported on government stipends
and endeavored to promote qualified persons to office, especially those with
literary skills. According to a late source, imperial Prince Wei-ming Jen-
chung was literate in Chinese and Tangut, held an inner-court appointment,
and was ennobled in 1120. He became the spokesman for a "civilian" faction
in the government and often denounced the commander in
chief,
Wei-ming
Ch'a-ke, for corruption and abuse of
power.9°
Ch'ung-tsung, and his succes-
sor after him, shuffled appointments to play the two groups off against each
other.
Consort relatives were evidently kept under strict control. In 1105 the
emperor was married to a Liao princess, but there is no record that either she
or Jen-tsung's mother, the Chinese concubine Lady Ts'ao, were ever elevated
to the rank of
empress.
Grateful to Liao for firm support against its Chinese
adversaries, the Tangut royal house cultivated close relations with the
Khitans, even when it must have been clear that their cause was lost, and
aided the last Liao emperor in his flight from the
Jurchens.
In 1125 Ch'ung-
tsung's Khitan wife and her son reportedly died of broken hearts after the last
Khitan ruler's capture by
his
Jurchen pursuers.
9
'
In the penultimate year of his reign (1138) Ch'ung-tsung is reported in a
very late source, the nineteenth-century Hsi Hsia
shu-shih
by Wu Kuang-
ch'eng, to have at last taken an empress, in the person of the daughter of Jen
Te-ching. Jen Te-ching was
a
surrendered Chinese holding office in Hsia who
later became chief minister, dominated the court for twenty
years,
and eventu-
ally tried to carve out his
own
state in the eastern half of the
country.
Although
88 According to Wu, Hsi Hsia shu
shih,
36, pp. 10b—1 ib; SS, 486, pp. 14019-21.
89 Evgenii I. Kychanov, "Svod voennykh zakonov Tangutskogo gosudarstva 'Iashmovoe zertsala uprav-
leniia let tsarstvovannia Chzhen'-kuan' (1101
—1113)',"
Pis'mmnyepamiatniki
vostoka,
1969 (Moscow,
1972),
pp. 229-43.
90 SS, 486, p. 14109; Wu, Hsi Hsiasbusbih, 32, p. 12b; 33, p. 8a; 34, pp. I5b-i6a.
91 Wu, Hsi Hsia shu sbih, 33, p. 17b.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
HSIA COMES OF AGE: CH'UNG-TSUNG AND JEN-TSUNG 199
the career of Jen Te-ching forms one of the outstanding episodes of twelfth-
century Hsia history, many of its details as related by Wu Kuang-ch'eng lack
corroboration in earlier sources. The daughter who gave him his entree to
court power by becoming first a royal concubine, then empress, and soon after
empress dowager, is nowhere else mentioned. But the story certainly suggests
a comparison between Jen Te-ching's rise to power and the careers of his
eleventh-century Liang predecessors, despite very altered circumstances.
Ch'ung-tsung died after fifty-three years on the throne, in the sixth month
of 1139, at the age of fifty-six, and he was succeeded by his sixteen-year-old
son Wei-ming Jen-hsiao (temple name Jen-tsung) who would also reign for
more than half
a
century. These two long reigns at last gave some stability to
the Hsia royal house. After his enthronement, Jen-tsung honored his mother,
Lady Ts'ao, with the title of "state mother" (kuo mu) and appointed as his own
empress a certain Lady Wang, who came from a venerable Tangut clan.
92
The first years of Jen-tsung's reign were troubled with uprisings and
widespread banditry, the result of the serious ravages of war and natural
disaster throughout the north and northwest of China in the previous three or
four decades. According to Wu Kuang-ch'eng (again his account is not
corroborated elsewhere), in 1140 a group of discontented Khitan exiles re-
belled under the leadership of a certain Li (or Hsiao) Ho-ta. The rebels
surrounded Ling-chou before being crushed that winter. Famine and earth-
quake sparked serious unrest in the environs of Hsia-chou and Hsing-chou in
1142—3.
Jen-tsung enacted tax remissions and relief measures and was
greatly obliged to his Chinese commander, Jen Te-ching, for suppressing Li
Ho-ta and pacifying the tribal uprisings. Jen-tsung reportedly wanted to
reward Jen Te-ching with a palace appointment but was persuaded by his
skeptical counselor, Wei-ming Jen-chung, to keep Jen Te-ching away from
court in a field command post at Ling-chou.
9
'
In the following year, 1144, Jen-tsung began to introduce certain Confu-
cian institutions into the government. First he decreed the establishment of
schools throughout the country, and a secondary school (hsiao hsiieh) was
opened up inside the palace for imperial scions aged seven to fifteen. Another
school, the Ta Han t'ai-hsueh (Superior school of Chinese learning), was
created in 1145. A Confucian cult was formally inaugurated, and orders were
given that temples be built and sacrifices maintained therein throughout the
land. In 1147 examinations for the selection of candidates to office were
instituted.*» Although it is known from other sources that the Hsia state
granted examination degrees, nowhere does the Tangut law code discuss
92 55, 486, p. 14024.
93 Wu,
Hsi Hsia shu
shih,
35, pp.
9a—
nb, 16a;
CS,
134, p. 2869.
94 55, 486, pp. 14024—5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
200 THE HSI HSIA
examinations of this sort as a method of official recruitment, whereas it does
devote many articles to the regulations governing the inheritance of office
and rank, which probably remained the more common path to office. Finally
in 1148 Jen-tsung established an Inner Academy
{Nei-bsiieh),
of which no
description survives in the Sung history's terse account, and staffed it with
renowned scholars.
Speculation on the possible motives for these measures must take into
account the contemporaneous rise of the Chin state as the Tanguts' new
eastern neighbor. In the 1140s and 1150s the Jurchen rulers undertook
similar measures, but on an incomparably vaster scale, as it was their ambi-
tion to create a Chinese-style court and bureaucracy to match the supreme
position they had achieved in East Asia by means of war and diplomacy.
Tangut envoys traveled yearly to the Chin court and so were reasonably well
informed about Jurchen activities, and vice versa. If the often-faulty
Sungshih
chronology is correct, however, then the Tangut reforms preceded those of
the Jurchen by five to ten years; for example, the Chin ruler Wan-yen Liang
(r. 1149—61) decreed the construction of Confucian temples only in 1156, a
decade later than those established by the Tanguts.
95
It may be supposed that
the Tangut ruler was motivated more by domestic considerations, namely,
the development of an influential "Confucian" following at Hsing-chou and a
commitment to a more rationalized and ritualized exercise of imperial pre-
rogative and to the bureaucratic process as a means of combating the per-
ceived weakness and corruption in the Tangut government and also the deep-
rooted influence of the military elite.
Representative of this military elite, Jen Te-ching evidently had
a
patron in
the army
chief,
Wei-ming Ch'a-ke, through whom he sought a position at the
capital. At first, as we have seen, his efforts were blocked by Wei-ming Jen-
chung, but after the latter's death Jen Te-ching reportedly bribed his way to
court and was made the director of the Department of State Affairs (Shang-shu
ling).
Soon he became director of the Central Secretariat (Chung-shu ling),
though it is not certain how long he actually held this post or indeed what
duties it entailed in the Hsia state. After the death of Wei-ming Ch'a-ke in
1156,
Jen Te-ching began to concentrate power in his own hands, to appoint
his own relatives to office, and to suppress detractors.
96
The Sung shih confirms that in 1160 Jen Te-ching obtained from the
Tangut monarch the noble title of prince of Ch'u, the first and only Chinese
so far known to have been enfeoffed by a Hsia ruler. Many courtiers must
have viewed this as a grave breach of dynastic precedent and a dangerous
95 Tao Jing-shen, Tbejurcben in
twtlftb-century
China:
A
study
of
linicization
(Seattle, 1976), pp. 41—4.
96 Wu, Hsi
Hsia shu
shih,
36, pp. 3b—7a, 12a.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008