The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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HSIA COMES OF AGE: CH'UNG-TSUNG AND JEN-TSUNG 2OI
arrogation of power, as such honors were normally reserved for meritorious
royal scions. Later that year the chief minister reportedly denounced the
newly established schools as useless Chinese institutions inappropriate to
Hsia society, wasting meager resources in the support of parasitic scholars.
Jen-tsung's response to this attack on his closest associates, the scholars and
monks, is unknown, but Jen Te-ching was clearly defeated, for the schools
remained intact. In 1161 the emperor went further and also established the
Han-lin Academy to compile the dynasty's historical records. This inner-
palace agency, along with the Censorate and the schools, became centers of
opposition to the chief minister, whose domains in the Secretariat and Mili-
tary Bureau were moved outside the inner court in 1162.
97
In
1161-2
Hsia became peripherally involved in the Chin war against the
Sung. The Sung authorities in Szechwan tried unsuccessfully to solicit
Tangut support against
the
Jurchens,
while Hsia troops briefly occupied both
Sung and Chin territories in Shensi, which Hsia claimed as its own. Jen Te-
ching probably had a hand in these activities, considering his control over the
army and his subsequent efforts to enlist the support of Szechwan officials for
his private schemes.
From 1165 to 1170 the chief minister labored to create for himself an
independent satrapy in northern Shensi and the Ordos, with his headquarters
at Ling-chou and the nearby Hsiang-ch'ing Army Superintendancy. He fur-
ther meddled in the troubled affairs of some Chuang-lang (Hsi-fan) tribes
whose homeland now unhappily straddled the ill-defined border region be-
tween Sung, Chin, and Hsia in the T'ao River
valley.
In the event, a jurisdic-
tional dispute arose between Chin and Hsia, presaging the unrest that would
engulf this area in the early thirteenth century. Jen Te-ching then tried
without success to curry favor with the Chin emperor, Shih-tsung (r. 1161 —
89),
who shrewdly parried the minister's veiled overtures. Finding no encour-
agement in that quarter, Jen Te-ching began to exchange secret messages
with the Sung pacification commissioner in Szechwan. A Hsia patrol cap-
tured one of the latter's agents carrying a letter to the chief minister and
forwarded the incriminating document to his emperor, who passed it on to
the Chin court.
98
Before obtaining this firm evidence of the Hsia minister's treachery, the
Chin ruler had received reports from captured Sung spies, among others, of
suspicious activity along his southwestern border. The Chin court also
learned that Jen Te-ching had sent a large number of troops and laborers to
97 SS, 486, p. 14025; Wu, Hsi Hsia shu shih, 36, pp. I3b-i4b.
98 On the Chuang-lang, see CS, 91, pp. 2016—18. On Hsia contact with Szechwan, see SS, 34, pp.
643-4;
486, p. 14026; Chou Pi-ta (1126—1204),
Wen-cbang
chi (Chou l-kuo
Wen-chung
kung wen chi)
(SKCP
ed.) 61, pp. I7b—i8a; 149, pp. i6a-i7a; and
CS,
61, p. 1427.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
2O2 THE HSI
HSIA
repair
and
fortify Ch'i-an-ch'eng (the former Chi-shih), the Tangut outpost
in Chuang-lang territory. Shih-tsung dispatched officials
to
investigate,
but
they were too late
to
halt the construction and unable to confirm rumors of
a
Sung-Hsia conspiracy.
In
reply
to
their inquiry,
the
Tanguts (i.e.,
Jen
Te-
ching himself) asserted the purely defensive nature of the fortifications."
The death of Jen Te-ching's daughter, the empress dowager Jen,
in 1169
or 1170, supposedly spurred the chief minister to
pressure
Jen-tsung to grant
him
the
eastern half
of
the country,
a
statelet that he named Ch'u. To ratify
the deed, Jen Te-ching further persuaded his sovereign to request a patent of
investiture
for him
from
the
Chin court.
The
Chin emperor Shih-tsung
expressed his profound disapproval of the whole affair and privately wondered
why
the
Hsia ruler could
not
discipline
his
unruly subject.
He
denied
the
patent, returned
the
embarrassed embassy's gifts,
and
promised
to
send
an
official investigation. This proved unnecessary.
In the eight month
of
1170 Jen-tsung's own men secretly rounded up and
executed
the
chief minister,
his
clan,
and his
adherents.
A
Hsia delegation
delivered
a
letter
of
gratitude from Jen-tsung
to
the Chin emperor, politely
averring that no further assistance would be required, except to maintain
the
peace
and
integrity
of
their common border
in the
area where
the
former
minister had caused clashes with the Tibetans.
100
Even without any reliable sources regarding Jen Te-ching,
it
is possible
to
venture some explanations
of
the episode, and especially of Jen-tsung's con-
duct. First, the Tangut emperor was not an absolute monarch; he was subject
to
the
restraining influence
of
traditional tribal practices.
One
important
institutional restraint was
the
special position
of
the chief counselor, espe-
cially when he was a member of the consort clan (which may or may not have
been
the
case here). Both
in
Tibet
and
among the Uighurs, chief ministers
wielded significant powers,
and the
influence
of
their models
on
Tangut
government
is
beyond doubt.
101
Another important point
is
that Jen-tsung was
the
first Tangut emperor
who
did not
grow
up on the
battlefield
and who did not
cultivate close
personal ties with
the
army. Instead
he
delegated control
of
military affairs
first to
his
uncle Wei-ming Ch'a-ke
and
then
to
Jen Te-ching.
For a
long
time this was
a
convenient,
and
from
a
military point
of
view,
a
successful
arrangement.
But
when need arose,
the
emperor had
to
look elsewhere
for
support; he could not challenge the military head-on.
99 CS, 91, p. 2017-18.
100 CS, 134, p. 2869—70; Wu,
Hsi
Hsia
shu
shih, 37, p. 13a.
101 See Sato Hisashi,
Kodai Cbibetto
shi kenkyu (Kyoto, 1958—9), vol. 2, pp. 11—14, 28-9, 711-38;
Elizabeth Pinks,
Die
Uiguren
von
Kan-chou
in
dtr frubcn Sung-Zeit,
pp.
106—7,
'
'4~'5J Abe Takeo,
"Where
was the
capital
of the
West Uighurs?"
in the
Silver jubilee volume
of
the Zimbuti kagaku
kenkyusho (Kyoto, 1954),
pp.
439—41.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
HSIA COMES OF AGE: CH'UNG-TSUNG AND JEN-TSUNG 203
Jen-tsung apparently found that support in the educational and cultural
institutions in which he had been raised and that he fostered all of his life. He
cultivated the civilian norms of Confucianism and propagated the imperial
persona of an aspiring Bodhisattva. Jen-tsung's patronage of Buddhism and
cultivation of
bodhichitta
(enlightened mind) are nowhere alluded to in Chi-
nese chronicles, but extensive Tangut materials reveal the magnitude and
significance of his Buddhist activities, activities that, after all, were the
traditional occupation of every Tangut ruler. That Jen-tsung busily engaged
in accumulating good merit to attract support, to heighten and display his
prestige and moral authority, and thus to undermine his rival in no way
•
diminishes his religious sincerity. He waged an ideological battle with Jen
Te-ching in which he held all the weapons and ultimately forced his minister
into treachery, repudiating the very values that he needed to legitimize
himself as an independent ruler. When Jen-tsung's minister was finally
exposed as a traitor, his elimination was a routine matter; whatever justifi-
ably frustrated elements had banded to his cause now deserted him.
There certainly existed an impulse to split up the Tangut empire into a
Chinese-oriented Ordos state and a steppe-oriented Ho-hsi state. This im-
pulse reflected deep-rooted geopolitical and cultural realities, not simply a
tribal tendency toward decentralization. But ultimately much stronger was
the contrary impulse to maintain the integrity of the realm, which sprang
from another overarching geopolitical reality: the existence of a system of
interstate relations in which Hsia, Sung, and Liao (later replaced by Chin)
acted as a stable tripod of power in continental East Asia. Neither Sung or
Chin would tolerate the creation of another independent kingdom in north
China; witness the earlier failure of Chin to rule north China through its
puppet regimes of Ch'i or Ch'u.
If Jen Te-ching represented a conservative element in Hsia society discon-
tented with the direction of change in government policies, Jen-tsung, on the
other hand, embodied the
firmly
entrenched legitimacy of Wei-ming dynastic
rule and the established territorial integrity of the state. His rule represented
a
civilian government headed by
a
semidivine Buddhist ruler, and his power was
based on a compromise with the military establishment (i.e., with the tribal
aristocracy) by which hereditary privileges were confirmed by the state, in
exchange for loyalty to the throne."" Many of these points
are
elaborated in the
Tangut law code: "The revised and newly endorsed code of law of the age of
102 See, for example, the argument in Shimada Masao,
Ryocho
kansii
no
kinkyQ,
Toyo hoshi ronshu no. 1
(Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1978), English summary. One of the first scholars to comment on the Buddhist
aspect of Tangut rulers was Paul Serruys, "Notes marginales sur le folklore des Mongols Ordos," Han
Him:
Bulletin du
centre
d'ttuda
Sinologiques
de Pikin, 3, nos. 1—2 (1948), p. 172. On the Buddhist-
inspired native honorifics for Hsia emperors, see Pu P'ing, "Hsi Hsia huang ti ch'eng hao k'ao," pp.
70-82.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
204 THE HSI HSIA
celestial prosperity"
(T'ien-sbeng chiu
kai hsin ting
chin
ling),
which, perhaps not
coincidentally, was issued at the end of the T'ien-sheng reign period (1149—
70),
about the time of Jen Te-ching's execution.
IO3
The man who succeeded Jen Te-ching as the dominant minister, Wo Tao-
ch'ung, came from a Tangut family that for generations had supplied histori-
ographers to the Tangut court. A Confucian scholar and teacher of Tangut
and Chinese, Wo Tao-ch'ung translated the Lunyii (Analects) and provided it
with a commentary, also in Tangut. He wrote as well, in Tangut, a treatise
on divination, a topic of enduring interest to the Tanguts. Both works were
published during his lifetime and were still extant during the Yuan period.
Upon Wo Tao-ch'ung's death Jen-tsung honored him by having his portrait
painted and displayed in all the Confucian temples and state schools.
IO4
The Tangut emperor Jen-tsung was a superb propagandist who, like his
Jurchen counterpart Shih-tsung, mastered the public role of a virtuous ruler.
But whereas Chin Shih-tsung gained the Confucian reputation of a "Little
Yao or Shun," Jen-tsung's path to perfection is strewn with allusions to
Buddhist sainthood.
IO5
Jen-tsung oversaw and participated in the editing and
revision of all the Buddhist translations undertaken at the courts of his
predecessors. Thus, although it was further refined in the Yuan period, by
the end of his reign the Tangut Tripitaka was virtually completed and was
printed in its entirety early in the fourteenth century.
106
Religious zeal prompted the emperor's most eloquent and extensive propa-
ganda acts. Throughout his reign the emperor and members of his family,
notably his second consort empress
Lo
(who
was
of Chinese
descent),
sponsored
massive printings and distributions of favorite Buddhist texts on various com-
memorative occasions. The most spectacular of these publications occurred in
1189.
Celebrations in that year honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Jen-tsung's
103 See n. 87.
104 Yii Chi (1272
—1348),
Tao-yiian
bsiieb
ku lu (KHCPTS ed.) 4, pp. 83—4; Ch'en Yuan,
Western
and
Central Asians in China under
the
Mongols:
Their
transformation
into
Chinese,
trans. Ch'ien Hsing-hsi and
L.
Carrington Goodrich (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), p. 128, in which the surname Wo is
misread as Kuan; Wu Chi-yu, "Sur la version tangoute d'un commentaire du
Louen-yu
conserved a
Leningrad," T'oungpao, 55 (1969), pp. 298—315.
10;
See, for example, Nevskii Tangutsiaia filologiia, vol. 1, p. 82; and the text of Jen-tsung's dedication
to a newly restored bridge over the Hei-shui in Kansu, in Wang Yao, "Hsi Hsia Hei-shui ch'iao pei
k'ao pu," Chung yang min tsu htiiih yuan
hsu'eh
pat, 1 (1978), pp. 51—63. This stele inscription is
registered in Chung Keng-ch'i, comp., Kan-choufuchih(1779; repr. in Chung-kuofangchihts'ungsbu:
Hua-pei ti fang no. 56i;Taipei, 1976), 13,pp.
1
ib—12a, but did not come to the attention of either
Wu Kuang-ch'eng or Tai Hsi-chang. Jen-tsung's dedication is translated from the Chinese by E.
Chavannes, "Review of A. I. Ivanov: Stranitsa iz istorii Si-sia (Une page de l'histoire du Si-hia;
Bulletin de I'Academie imperiale des sciences de Saint-Peiersbourg, 1911, pp. 831-836),"
T'oung
pao,
12 (1911), pp. 441—6.
106 Wang Ching-ju, Hsi Hsia yen
chiu,
vol. 1 (Peking, 1932), pp. 1—10; Heather Karmay, Early Sino-
Tibetan art (Warminster, 1975), pp. 35—45. On Tangut Buddhist activities and the Tangut Tripitaka
before and after 1227, see Shih Chin-po, Hsi Hsia wen hua, pp. 64—105.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE HSIA STATE AND THE MONGOLIAN CONQUEST 205
accession were highlighted by the printing and distribution of 100,000 copies
of
the
Kuan
Mi-le
p'u-sa
shang
sheng Tou-shuai t'ien ching (Sutra
on the
visual-
ization of the Maitreya Bodhisattva's ascent and rebirth in Tushita Heaven) and
50,000 copies of several other sutras, printed in both Tangut and Chinese.
The year 1189 was a year of changes in East Asia; it also saw the death of
Chin Shih-tsung and the abdication of
Sung
Hsiao-tsung. Hence the Tangut
ruler had cause for a liberal demonstration of his gratitude to the Buddha.
Despite occasional incidents with the Jurchens, peace had prevailed for most
of his long reign. In general the two courts maintained fairly cordial rela-
tions,
though some disagreements did arise, increasingly so toward the end of
the twelfth century, because of
economic
and minor territorial disputes.
The
Jurchens charged that at border markets the Tanguts traded worthless
gems and jades for their good silk textiles, recalling Northern Sung com-
plaints about Khotanese envoys flooding Chinese markets with poor jade.
Consequently, the Chin closed the border markets at Lan-chou and Pao-an in
1172 and did not reopen them until 1197. Next complaints arose of illegal
trafficking across the Shensi border, so that the Sui-te market was also shut,
leaving only a market at Tung-sheng and one at Huan-chou. Drought and
famine had swept north China in the 1170s; Tangut border raids increased
during the same period, culminating in 1178 with a Tangut sack of Lin-chou
(which was now in Chin hands). In 1181 the Chin emperor finally reopened
the Sui-te market and granted three-day trading privileges to Tangut envoys
visiting the Chin capital.
107
In 1191 some Tangut herdsmen strayed into Chen-jung prefecture and
were chased by a Chin patrol, which they took captive. They then ambushed
and killed a pursuing Jurchen officer. Jen-tsung refused to extradite the
guilty parties, assuring the Chin that he had already punished them.
These, however, were comparatively minor disturbances of generally peace-
ful relations. After the deaths of Shih-tsung of Chin in 1189 and Jen-tsung in
Hsia in 1193, however, the short reigns of their respective successors proved
to be the prelude to an era of internal disorder and conflict between the
states,
the principal cause of which was the growing power and unification of
the Mongols under Temujin (the future Chinggis khan).
THE LAST YEARS OF THE HSIA STATE AND THE
MONGOLIAN CONQUEST
When Jen-tsung died in 1193 at the age of seventy, his eldest son by Empress
Lo,
Ch'un-yu (Huan-tsung; r. 1193—1206), ascended the throne at the age of
107 CS, 134, pp.
2870-1;
Yii-wen Mou-chao (13th c), Ta Chin kuo
chih
(KHCPTS ed.), 17
passim.
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2o6 THE HSI HSIA
seventeen. Very little is known about Huan-tsung's reign, but certainly the
most crucial event came with the first Mongolian raid into Hsia territory in
1205.
From 1206 until its destruction in 1227 by Chinggis khan, the Tangut
royal house endured a period of unprecedented instability. But neither inter-
nal decay nor inherent weakness finally undid the dynasty. Rather, the Hsia
state,
like its more powerful neighbors, was destroyed by the Mongols, the
new steppe power whose emergence fatally destabilized the Sung—Chin—Hsia
balance of power in East Asia. Anti-Chin and anti-Mongolian factions
formed at the Hsia court, with usurpation and abdication occurring for the
first time in the state's history.
Since the 1170s, stirrings from the steppe had occasionally affected Hsia
and Chin and appear in the official records. One reason that the Jurchens
closed three of their western border markets with Hsia was their suspicion of
the Tanguts' espionage activities and their possible dealings with the Khara-
Khitai far to the west, which they considered hostile to Chin interests.
108
It
is also known that a Kereyid prince who was overthrown by Temiijin's father,
probably in the 1170s, found refuge in Hsia, never to be heard of again.
Another Kereyid prince reportedly spent some time in exile among the
Tanguts, who favored him with the honorary epithet of Jakha Gambu
(roughly, "elder state counselor"), by which name he is known to posterity.
Jakha Gambu's fickle loyalties were tolerated by Temiijin because his brother
To'oril (Ong khan) was Temvijin's own sworn father and because Temiijin's
family took several of Jakha Gambu's daughters in marriage. One of them,
the famous Sorghaghtani Beki, mothered Mongke, Khubilai, and Hiilegii.
Another of Jakha Gambu's daughters evidently married the Tangut king, and
her beauty is said to have inflamed Chinggis khan in his final onslaught
against the Tangut country.
109
It seems possible, then, that the Tangut ruling
house had already entered into the steppe network of marriage alliances,
which might help explain their special status later in the Mongolian empire.
The Kereyid connection with Hsia did not end there. After To'oril's
eventual defeat by Temiijin in 1203, the Kereyid leader's son, Ilkha
Senggiim, fled through Edzina to northeast Tibet, whence he was driven to
the Tarim basin and finally killed by a local
chief.'
IO
Although the Tangut
108 CS, 50, p. 1114;
SS,
486, p. 14026.
109 Rashid al-DIn,
Sbornik
letopiiei,
vol. i, pt. 2, trans. O. I. Smirnova(Leningrad, 1952), pp. 109-10,
127;
Paul Pelliot and Louis Hambis, trans., Hiiloire da campagna de Gengis Khan, Cbthg-wou Ti'in-
Tcheng
Lou (Leiden, 1951), pp. 230, 261; Iurii N. Rerikh (George N. Roerich), "Tangutskii titul
dzha-gambu Kereitskogo," Kratkiesoobsbcbeniia iiutituta
narodov
Azii, 44 (1961), pp. 41-4.
no Rashid al-DIn, Sbornik letopisti, vol. i,pt.2,p. 134; Sbengwuch'in chengluchiaochu, in Meng-kusbib
liao ssu cbung, ed. Wang kuo-wei (Peking, 1926; repr. Taipei, 1962, 1975), p. 107. The notice in
Sung Lien et al., eds., Yiian
shih
(Peking, 1976), i,p. 23 (hereafter cited as YS) is misplaced under
the year 1226 as an explanation for Chinggis's invasion in that year.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE HSIA STATE AND THE MONGOLIAN CONQUEST 207
authorities had apparently refused to grant refuge to the Kereyid fugitive, his
flight across Tangut territory became the pretext for a Mongolian attack on
Ho-hsi in 1205. Several fortified settlements were plundered and many cattle
taken away.'' *
In 1206 Temiijin was proclaimed Chinggis khan, and a coup in Chung-
hsing brought a new ruler to the Tangut throne. Huan-tsung was deposed by
a cousin, Wei-ming An-ch'iian (Hsiang-tsung; r. 1206-11), and died in
captivity a month later. Grand Empress Dowager Lo was coerced into per-
suading the Chin court to grant the usurper a patent of investiture.
112
Thereafter she disappears from the record, presumably dispatched to a monas-
tic retirement.
The following year Chin lost the allegiance of
the
Onggiid and the tribally
mixed border guards
{jiiyin;
Chinese:
chiu)
on their northwest frontier, and
the nearby Tangut garrison of Wu-la-hai was sacked by the
Mongols.
"3
The
Mongols could now invade with impunity both Shansi and the Ordos.
The Mongolian raiding party did not withdraw from Wu-la-hai until spring
of
1208.
The Hsia sent a succession of embassies to the Chin capital, presum-
ably seeking a united front against the Mongolian advance, but unfortunately
for both states, the Chin monarch died that winter without an heir and was
succeeded by a far less competent relative known to history as Wei-shao wang
(deposed in 1213). This prince refused to cooperate with the Tanguts and is
said to have commented: "It is to our advantage when our enemies attack one
another. Wherein lies the danger to us?"
1
'
4
Whatever actually happened,
Tangut—Jurchen relations deteriorated rapidly from this point onward.
In the autumn of 1209, after receiving the voluntary submission of the
Uighurs of Turfan, Chinggis khan launched a major invasion of
Hsia.
Enter-
ing Ho-hsi through a pass "north of Hei-shui-ch'eng and west of Wu-la-hai-
ch'eng," Mongolian troops overcame a Tangut army led by an imperial prince
and captured its deputy commander. Advancing to Wu-la-hai, the Mongols
again overwhelmed that garrison, whose commander surrendered, and took
prisoner a high official called Hsi-pi Ou-ta. From Wu-la-hai the Mongolian
army turned south and marched to K'o-i-men, the garrison situated west of
in Wu Kuang-ch'eng's tale that becuase of their deliverance from the Mongolian menace on this
occasion the Tanguts changed the name of their capital from Hsing-ch'ing to Chung-hsing, must,
however, be rejected as a fiction. See n. 46; YS, i,p. 13; Rashld al-Dln,
Sbornik
Utopiiti, vol. i,pt.
2,
p. 150;
Sbeng
wu
ch'in cbeng
lit
chiao
chu,
p. 118.
112 CS, 134, p. 2871.
113 Paul Buell, "The role of the Sino-Mongolian frontier zone in the rise of Cinggis Qan," in Studies on
Mongolia:
Proceedings
of
the
first North American
Conference
on
Mongolian
studies,
ed. Henry G. Schwarz
(Bellingham, 1979), pp. 66—8. See also Igor de Rachewiltz's comments on the Jiiyin
(chiu)
troops in
"The secret history of the Mongols: Chapter eleven,"
Papers
on Far
Eastern
History, 30 (1984), pp.
105-7.
114 CS, 62, p. 1480; 12, p. 285; see Ta Chin kuo chih, 21, pp. 23-4, for the Jurchen ruler's remark.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
2O8 THE HSI HSIA
Chung-hsing to guard the capital. Here, in the rugged Alashan fastness of
K'o-i-men, Mongolian troops engaged a formidable opposing army led by
another imperial prince. Eventually defeating this force and imprisoning its
commander, they proceeded to invest the capital city (see Map 13).
Employing an ancient stratagem, the Mongols diverted waters from the
Yellow River canals to flood the city. But the dikes broke, inundating their
own camp as well and forcing them to lift the siege and withdraw. First,
however, they sent the captive Hsi-pi Ou-ta into Chung-hsing to negotiate
on their
behalf.
In 1210 the Tangut ruler nominally submitted to Chinggis
khan and handed over a daughter in marriage to the Mongolian
chief,
as well
as delivering to him a large supply of
camels,
falcons, and woven textiles."
3
Thereby Chinggis secured his western flank before attacking the Chin
state.
Not long after, the Tanguts started to harry Chin border prefectures,
whereupon diplomatic exchanges between the two neighbors abruptly de-
clined and ceased altogether after 1212. In 1211 the Tangut emperor died
under obscure circumstances and was replaced on the throne by a cousin,
Wei-ming Tsun-hsu (Shen-tsung; r. 1211-23; d. 1226). This prince held
the distinction of earning the first native
chin-shih
degree awarded to an
imperial scion, naturally standing first in his class.
1
'
6
The dilemma of how to deal with the Mongols and whether or not to
abandon the long-standing alliance with Chin had certainly thrown the
Tangut court into turmoil. Shen-tsung appears to have played all sides at
once.
To appease the Mongols, he launched a war against Chin's southwest
provinces (Lin-t'ao circuit), providing the Tanguts with an opportunity to
avenge old territorial grievances. Control over Lin-t'ao became critical to the
Jurchens after 1214, when in the face of overwhelming Mongolian pressure
they moved their principal capital from Yen-ching (Peking) south to Pien
(K'ai-feng). Because the Sung court had halted delivery of their tribute
payments, Chin was in a desperate financial situation, and their territories in
Shensi became a vital source of food, manpower, and horses for the belea-
guered Jurchen hemmed in in Honan.
At the end of 1214 a rebellion supported by Hsia engulfed Lan-chou,
seriously undermining the Chin hold on the area for
years.
Moreover, in 1214
the Tangut court initiated negotiations with the Sung authorities in
Szechwan, proposing joint military action against Chin's western territories.
These negotiations continued until 1221 but led to only one abortive joint
action in
1220.
"7 The Jurchens were only once able to field an army against
115 YS, 60, p. 1452; i, p. 14; 169, p. 3977; Rachewiltz, "The secret history," pp. 84—5.
116 CS, 134, p. 2871.
117 SS, 486, p. 14027; 40; pp. 774-5; Li Hsin-ch'uan,
Cbien-yen
i lai cb'aoycb isa chi, repr. in vols. 21—
2 of Sung shih tzu liao ts'ui
pien,
1st series, ed. Chao T'ieh-han (Taipei: 1967), 19, /' cbi, p. 8b.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE HSIA STATE AND THE MONGOLIAN CONQUEST 209
H
A-LA-SHAN
DESERT
I PAI-MA CHIANG-CHEN
CHUN-SSU
K'o-i mens/
Chung-hsingfu,
Ching-chou
HSI-SHOU PAO-CH'IN
CHON-SSU
HEI-SHAN WEI-FU
CHUN-SSU
O R DOS
DESERT
Sheng-kuei
1
fortress
, Ting-chou
Ling-chou
Pai-ch'ih
fortress
Yen-chou
*\ f "
U N
Route of Mongolian forces
SC)
100 150km
50^
lOOmiles
MAP
13. The first Mongolian invasion of Hsi Hsia, 1209
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2IO THE HSI
HSIA
Hsia, in the latter half of 1216, when Hsia gave passage to a Mongolian army
that crossed the Ordos to attack Chin territory in Shensi, and provided
auxiliary troops to assist in the Mongolian operations."
8
The war with Chin was politically unpopular and economically ruinous for
Hsia. Opposition to it mounted at the Tangut court, and peace feelers were
issued from time to time, but with no result. It also is clear that powerful
voices at the Tangut court disdained the policy of cooperating with the
Mongols, despite a steady stream of Tangut defections to the Mongolian
camp.
In the winter of 1217 or early in 1218 a Mongolian force approached
the Hsia capital, either to enforce Tangut compliance with an earlier promise
to support Chinggis's Central Asian campaign against Khwarazm or to pun-
ish a Tangut refusal to render such aid. Although it is not clear whether a
battle actually took place, there is no doubt that the Tanguts had defied the
Mongolian order and that a certain Asha Gambu gained notoriety for his
outspoken contempt for the great khan's
pretensions.
"9
Chinggis khan deferred reckoning with the Tanguts until after his Central
Asian expedition, on which he embarked in 1219, leaving Mukhali in
charge of operations in north China. The Hsia war against Chin, meanwhile,
showed no sign of slackening. Then, in 1223, everything changed: Mongo-
lian pressure on both Chin and Hsia temporarily eased after Mukhali's death
in the third month. At the end of the year Shen-tsung abdicated to his
second son, Wei-ming Te-wang (Hsien-tsung; r. 1223—6), and with a new
Chin emperor also on the throne, negotiations to end the war with Chin
began late in 1224. The peace agreement, formally proclaimed in the ninth
month of 1225, established a fraternal relationship between the two states,
with Chin as the elder and Hsia the younger brother. Each court retained the
use of its own reign titles in correspondence. Subsequent talks cleared up
disputes regarding points of ritual, border markets, and so forth.
120
This
unorthodox arrangement represented a diplomatic triumph for Hsia, albeit a
short-lived one.
The accounts of Chinggis's last campaign against Hsia and of
his
death are
extremely confused and full of conflicting details. Most likely Chinggis set
out in the winter of 1225 and invaded Ho-hsi in spring of 1226. Since
withholding auxiliaries for the Mongolian Central Asian campaign in 1219,
the Tanguts had committed further offenses, refusing to send a hostage
118 CS, no, p. 2421; 14, pp. 318-22.
119 YS, 1, p. 20, following CS, 15, p. 334; Rachewiltz, "The secret history of the Mongols: Chapter
eleven," pp. 95—6. In this passage of the "Secret history," Chinggis khan's envoy reminds the Hsia
king that in 1209 he (actually his predecessor) had promised to act as the khan's right hand (i.e., his
western Bank).
120 CS, 17, pp. 375—6; 38, p. 869; no, pp. 2424, 2433—4; 62, pp. 1487—8.
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