From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China: Sung's Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao (History of Warfare)

FROM WAR TO DIPLOMATIC PARITY IN ELEVENTH-CENTURY CHINA HISTORY OF WARFARE General Editor kelly devries Loyola Colleg...

Author: David Curtis Wright

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FROM WAR TO DIPLOMATIC PARITY IN ELEVENTH-CENTURY CHINA

HISTORY OF WARFARE General Editor

kelly devries Loyola College Founding Editors

theresa vann paul chevedden VOLUME 33

FROM WAR TO DIPLOMATIC PARITY IN ELEVENTH-CENTURY CHINA Sung’s Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao BY

DAVID CURTIS WRIGHT

BRILL LEIDEN BOSTON 2005 •

Cover illustration: Painting by an unknown Sung artist of festivities for Sung military forces given in very late January or early February 1005 at a “northern fortress” (likely the northern section of Shan-chou). The festivities were attended by the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and were, in part, in celebration of Sung’s repulse of a Kitan assault on Shan-chou on January 7, 1005 and the killing of the Kitan general Hsiao Ta-lin by Sung crossbowmen under the command of Li Chi-lung, the defending general of Shanchou. These festivities were quite likely held after the conclusion in late January 1005 of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, a peace agreement that ended the conflict between Sung China and the Kitans. (Source: Chung-hua Ts’ung-shu Wei-yüan-hui, Chung-hua Mei-shu T’u-chi (Taipei, 1955), v. 4, hua 1. See also Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 47-49.)

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, David Curtis, 1960From war to diplomatic parity in eleventh-century China : Sung’s foreign relations with Kitan Liao / by David Curtis Wright. p. cm. — (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827 ; 33) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-14456-0 (alk. paper) 1. China—Foreign relations—960-1644. 2. China—History, Military—960-1644. 3. China—History—Song dynasty, 960-1279. 4. China—History—Liao dynasty, 947-1125. I. Title: Sung’s foreign relations with Kitan Liao. II. Title. III. Series. DS751.3.W75 2005 327.51’009’021—dc22 2005042194

ISSN 1385–7827 ISBN 90 04 14456 0 © Copyright 2005 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

REMEMBER JEANNENE DOWDING WRIGHT 16 April 1930–20 February 1996

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...................................................................... Abbreviations ..............................................................................

ix xiii

Introduction ................................................................................ Chapter One: Sung-Liao Diplomacy in the History of Chinese Foreign Relations .................................................... Chapter Two: The Sung-Liao War of 1004–1005 and the Covenant of Shan-yüan .................................................. Chapter Three: Embassies ........................................................ Chapter Four: Routine Diplomatic Missives ............................ Chapter Five: Embassy Reports ................................................ Chapter Six: Mid-Century Crisis .............................................. Conclusion ..................................................................................

1 7 39 100 143 175 198 229

Bibliography ................................................................................ 233 Glossary ...................................................................................... 247 Index ............................................................................................ 275

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A sane and civilised teaching load and minimal administrative committee work at the University of Calgary have aﬀorded me the time necessary to ﬁnish this project. Money has also been necessary to bring it to completion, and I thank the Department of History, the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, and the University Research Grants Committee at the University of Calgary for ﬁnancially supporting various technical aspects pertaining to its ﬁnal stages of production. I am also grateful to the Paciﬁc Cultural Foundation of the Republic of China on Taiwan for a generous grant which made possible my research in late 1996 at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology. There I was very happy to renew friendships and contacts with two scholars who had helped me through thorny textual problems during my four years as a graduate student at Princeton (made possible by a very generous Jacob Javits Fellowship from the United States Department of Education) and my one year as an Exchange Scholar graduate student at Harvard (made possible by funds from the Mellon Funds of the Program in East Asian Studies at Princeton): Wang Fan-shen and Huang K’uan-ch’ung. Kelly DeVries has been encouraging of this project for several years, and subsequent to my pleasant meeting with him after our panel at the annual conference of the American Historical Association in Washington, D.C. in Jaunary 2004, he helped untangle the merry saga of what happened to my book manuscript after I submitted it to the Brill History of Warfare series. At Brill, Julian Deahl and Marcella Mulder have been encouraging, patient, and accommodating. Thanks are also due Tanja Cowall for guiding me through the proof-reading process. I thank Kelly DeVries and Brill for allowing me to publish this book in the Wade-Giles romanisation I greatly prefer over the newer Pinyin system. I submit that Chang Hsüeh-ch’in in Wade-Giles is no less monstrous and obscure than Zhang Xueqin is in Pinyin, and I remain unconvinced that all China scholars should adopt Pinyin simply because it is now the preferred romanisation system of the ruling authorities on mainland China. Additionally, I note with interest

acknowledgements

x

Christopher Beckwith’s observation that Wade-Giles is “the only English-language transcription system that correctly represents the phonetic values of the initial stop consonants in modern Mandarin Chinese (which lacks voiced stops).”1 My academic debt of longest standing is to Sechin Jagchid, whose enduring and contagious interest in the history of Sino-nomadic relations and imperial Chinese foreign policy has been an inspiration since my undergraduate days in the 1980s. Paul V. Hyer, his son Eric, and David C. Montgomery have also exerted positive and encouraging inﬂuences on my academic career since the mid 1980s. Denis Twitchett, F. W. Mote, Denis Sinor, Herbert Franke, Huang K’uan-ch’ung, Wang Fan-shen, Jing-shen Tao, Thomas Allsen, Elizabeth Endicott, Naomi Standen, Peter Lorge, Ralph Sawyer, David B. Honey, and an anonymous reviewer for Brill read through portions of this manuscript and oﬀered suggestions and criticisms, many of which I found useful and helpful. For these I thank them but hasten to add that I alone am responsible for any errors of fact, interpretation, or both that remain in this book. Martin Heijdra of the Gest Oriental Library at Princeton University helped me obtain information about the painting featured on the cover design of this book. I must thank Elaine Ng of Lethbridge, Alberta and Robin Poitras of Calgary, Alberta for expertly transforming my crude traced outlines and smudged scribblings into the maps that appear in this book. I gratefully acknowledge permission from the Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies, the Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies at Indiana University, and Harrassowitz Verlag to publish revised and expanded versions of previously published articles. For almost two decades now my longsuﬀering wife and our two sons have endured my historical obsessions with grace and good humour. Perhaps one day I can make it all up to them or at least ﬁnd adequate words to express my gratitude and aﬀection to them. But for now I must still admit that I am, like my father before me, “absolutely speechless.”2 We were all very close to my mother, who died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in February 1996. Since then we have

1 2

Beckwith 1987, xiv. Wright 1977, xxvi.

acknowledgements

xi

tried to “restrain our grief ” and “conform to the changes” in our lives without her, but our sense of loss is at times still quite poignant. I dedicate this book to her memory. I also note that this book will be published in 2005, the one thousandth anniversary of the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan. In my opinion, the Sung and Liao diplomats who decided that a peace agreement was preferable to continued bloodshed deserve to be remembered with respect and aﬃrmation. Many of the positive developments in eleventh-century China might well have been impossible without them. Calgary, Alberta, Canada 23 October 2004 Snow

ABBREVIATIONS

CTKC: Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih, by Yeh Lung-li CTS: Chiu T’ang-shu CYL(S): Ch’eng-yao Lu (short version) by Lu Chen CYL(L): Ch’eng-yao Lu (long version), by Lu Chen HCP: Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien HCPSL: Li T’ao Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien Sung-Liao Kuan-hsi Shih-liao Chi-lu, eds. T’ao Chin-sheng and Wang Min-hsin LS: Liao-shih LSCSPM: Liao-shih Chi-shih Pen-mo, by Li Yu-t’ang SC: Shih-chi, by Ssu-ma Ch’ien SHY: Sung Hui-yao, ed. Hsü Sung SLYL: Shih Liao Yü-lu, by Ch’en Hsiang SS: Sung-shih SSCSPM: Sung-shih Chi-shih Pen-mo, by Ch’en Pang-chan STCLC: Sung Ta-chao-ling Chi TFYK: Ts’e-fu Yüan-kuei, by Wang Ch’in-jo and Yang I WYKSKCS: Wen-yüan-ko Ssu-k’u Ch’üan-shu

Map 1

INTRODUCTION

It is now generally recognised that Sung (A.D. 960–1279) diplomacy with Liao (915–1125) and Chin (1115–1234) was conducted on the basis of something approximating equality or diplomatic parity. Much of our modern understanding of the history of Chinese foreign relations was previously based on assumptions that imperial China consistently viewed the world’s other people, along with their states, as inferiors who would need to aﬃrm the superiority and rightful supremacy of China’s emperor if China was to receive their diplomats at all. These views were popularised during the late 1960s by the late Harvard China scholar John K. Fairbank along with his colleagues and students with the publication of an important book on the imperial Chinese “world order.”1 They were not seriously questioned until the 1980s and the publication of a few works on imperial China’s foreign relations, including the groundbreaking China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries, edited by Morris Rossabi, which pointed out the unique nature of diplomatic relations between Sung and Liao and argued that while subordination in fact or rhetoric might well have been the imperial Chinese ideal, it was not the only model or precedent for diplomacy.2 Even so, Fairbank’s ideas remain inﬂuential today, as Chapter One herein will show. This book, which on balance is more of a history of diplomacy than a diplomatic history, explores in more detail some of the depth 1

Fairbank, ed., 1968. Recent major contributions to the study of Sung-Liao relations include Rossabi (ed.) 1983 and Tao 1988. Wittfogel and Feng 1949 is the most extensive study of Liao history in any language and contains much fragmentary information on SungLiao relations but is not a sustained monograph on the subject. The nonpareil Twitchett and Tietze 1994 extensively covers much useful information on the Kitan Liao state and its relations with Northern Sung. Classic Japanese studies of SungLiao diplomacy include Tamura 1935 and 1964–1985. (The latter is a good treatment of the composition of Sung embassies, their reception in Liao territory, and the routes travelled by Sung embassies; it also includes a good map of these routes.) The most comprehensive treatment in a Western language of the Covenant of Shanyüan (A.D. 1005) between Sung and Liao is still Schwarz-Schilling 1959, although Lau 2000 is a signiﬁcant recent contribution. Wright 1998B is a study of the ﬁghting and negotiations leading up to the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan. 2

2

introduction

and texture of Sung’s formal and routine and diplomacy with Liao. With the exception of Chapter 6 on the renegotiations of annual payments by Sung to Liao during the early 1040s, it does not dwell on particular diplomatic incidents or controversies, even though there is much research waiting to be done on such topics.3 By and large I accept Rossabi’s premise that parity characterised Sung diplomacy, but with the following caveat: The concept of an entire international community of equally sovereign and independent states did not exist in East Asia during Sung times. Northern Sung China did not see itself as one state among many equals but as a state with only one equal: Liao. The extension of diplomatic parity to any other state was a big step for Northern Sung, one it took only with reluctance and under compulsion. What made the diﬀerence? In a word, war, as Chapter One will argue. War between Sung and Liao was waged intermittently from Sung’s founding in 960 until the conclusion of the deﬁnitive Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005. By 1004 and 1005 Sung, or perhaps more accurately the Sung emperor Chen-tsung, was ﬁnally convinced that the Sung state could not prevail over Liao militarily and recover historically Chinese territory under Liao’s control. Chapter One will also argue that Liao, as a culturally Sinicised state, had both the military strength and the acquaintance with Chinese political culture to demand that it be treated diplomatically as an equal or peer state. The combination of the two factors was essential; previously, pastoral nomadic peoples often had the military might but not the cultural or political will to demand equality with China, while other Sinicised states which might presume to equality with China almost always lacked the military muscle to push China into oﬃcially recognising it. Chapter Two covers the ﬁghting leading up to the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005 and argues that any decisive military showdown between the two states would have meant more casualties and losses than either side was willing to risk. Liao had more to lose in the ﬁghting than Sung did and so took the bigger gamble in launching an all-out invasion of Sung in the fall of 2004. Liao’s purpose in the invasion was threefold: recovering territory

3 This is especially true of the complex and fascinating triangular relationship between Sung, Liao, and Hsia, a topic largely beyond the scope of this book.

introduction

3

under Sung control that it (Liao) claimed,4 protecting its essential southern agricultural territories against Sung irredentist and revanchist ambitions, and compelling Sung into concluding a deﬁnitive, binding agreement that would formally end the years of ﬁghting and hostility between the two states. To accomplish this and bring Sung to the negotiating table, Liao had to pose a signiﬁcant and credible threat to the Sung state and its capital at Kaifeng. Who was winning the war at the time the Covenant of Shan-yüan was concluded is not completely clear, but it seems unquestionable that Liao won the negotiations and the peace. Shan-yüan was a signiﬁcant diplomatic victory for Liao, one that guaranteed its very viability as a state and empire and secured diplomatic equality with Sung. It also provided for signiﬁcant annual payments of silver and silk from Sung to Liao and led to the routine, formal diplomacy (whether annual or periodic) between the two states described in this book. After Shan-yüan, a routine diplomacy of equality replaced military conﬂict as the mode of contact between Sung and Liao. Chapter Three is a study of the various types of routine Sung embassies sent to Liao on both regular and occasional bases. It sketches the structure of a typical embassy, maps much of what is know of the routes travelled by Sung embassies to Liao, describes hostel accommodations for Sung diplomatic personnel, and oﬀers translations of poems composed on the spot at state dinners by wellknown Sung literati who served as envoys.5 Chapter Four examines and evaluates the actual contents of some diplomatic missives sent by Sung to Liao and oﬀers several sample translations of them. Although these missives were highly formal and formulaic, the chapter does not accept the view that they contained only ﬁne-sounding but empty words. Instead it argues that the letters contained sentiments and literary allusions that might well have been appreciated by the Liao emperor and court and served as reminders of the solemn peace concluded in 1005. The chapter analyses the

4 This objective was eventually dropped during the course of the negotiations that ended the war. 5 A number of prominent Northern Sung ﬁgures served as envoys to Liao, including Lü I-chien in 1018, Hsia Sung in 1025, Sung Ch’i in 1036, Han Ch’i in 1038, Liang Shih in 1040–41, Fu Pi on several occasions between 1040 and 1042, Yü Ching between 1043 and 1045, Pao Cheng in 1045, Ou-yang Hsiu in 1055, Sung Min-ch’iu in 1061, Su Sung in 1068 and 1077, Shen Kua in 1075, Su Shih in 1086, Su Ch’e in 1089, Fan Ch’un-li in 1089 and 1090, and T’ung Kuan in 1111.

4

introduction

manner in which Sung emperors addressed the Kitan emperors (and also empress dowagers) in oﬃcial state letters or missives. It also notes the ﬁctitious kinship relations between the Sung and Liao rulers, inquires into the inner logic of these kinship ties, and analyses the careful and fastidious manner in which the Sung and Liao emperors (and empress dowagers, for that matter) kept track of these relations. It argues that these kinship relations constituted an important vehicle for diplomacy between the two states. The chapter also contains a few brief descriptions of some of the tedious rituals involved in presenting these missives at the Liao court but does not comment at length on them; this book is not, and does not pretend to be, a ritual study. Chapter Five examines the embassy reports that Sung envoys were required to submit soon after their return from their missions. The reports were essentially intelligence summaries and geographical descriptions of the several routes that Sung envoys followed to audiences with the Liao emperor. As such they constituted a regular source of intelligence on the Liao state and seemed to institutionalise or formalise the role of diplomats as spies or at least as intelligence gatherers. The information reported in these reports, however, soon proved so routinely repetitive and superﬂuous that Sung does not seem to have made serious eﬀorts to preserve or record them. As a result, few such reports survive today. Chapter Six is the only chapter in the book that pertains speciﬁcally to negotiatory matters between the two states. It considers how the tangled triangle of Sung-Liao-Hsia relations in the eleventh century eventually involved a major disagreement in the early 1040s between Sung and Liao over the disposition of the Kuan-nan territory, the territory Liao had originally demanded unsuccessfully during the Shan-yüan negotiations of early 1005. Knowing that the Sung military could not prevail in a clash with the Kitans and their Liao state at this time, the Sung diplomat Fu Pi did his best to persuade the Kitans to drop their irredentist claims in exchange for increased annual payments. He was ultimately successful at this and is widely credited for his diplomatic skill in defusing a potential explosion between Sung and Liao. During this mid-century crisis Sung was gravely concerned about its implied diplomatic standing vis-à-vis Hsia; it took careful note of how changes in the triangular Sung-Liao-Hsia relations might express or imply any sort of Sung vassalage or inferiority to either of the other two states. This is another indication

introduction

5

that Sung was loathe for its diplomatic recognition of Liao as an equal to be extended to any other state. The chapter considers the state of Hsia and its relationships (and clashes) with Sung and Liao but does so lightly and for the most part only as far as they concerned or inﬂuenced Sung’s relations with Liao. This book is not, and does not pretend to be, a history of Sung-Liao-Hsia relations; while court debates about Sung’s diplomacy with (and standing relative to) Liao and Hsia are certainly interesting, any adequate treatment of them would be beyond its scope. This book is about the bilateral relationship between Sung and Liao, not the trilateral relations among Sung, Liao, and Hsia or the multilateral relations among Sung China and all of its neighbours—important topics which await their monographs.

CHAPTER ONE

SUNG-LIAO DIPLOMACY IN THE HISTORY OF PREMODERN CHINESE FOREIGN RELATIONS

The equal diplomacy between Sung and Liao1 would seem to be at variance with the somewhat amorphous bundle of principles or assumptions that was once collectively referred to in the West as the imperial “Chinese world order.” But the existence of such order is perhaps as easy to intuit or assume as it is diﬃcult to conceptualise or pin down. Complicating our understanding is the essential but daunting task of peeling apart factual and normative or ideal layers. Some elements of an ideal Chinese world order even preceding the imperial age seem to be contained in the Chinese classics. A famous passage from the Shih-ching, as quoted in the Mencius, would seem to indicate that in the ideal world, the territory and population of no less than the entire world would be under the control of the Chinese ruler: Under the whole Heaven, Every spot is the sovereign’s ground; To the borders of the land, Every individual is the sovereign’s minister.2

But if this passage is construed as the epitome or embodiment of an idealised Chinese world order,3 then of course it falls far short

1 This book covers the diplomatic practices between Sung and Liao. Later diplomacy between Southern Sung and Chin was conducted largely on the Sung-Liao model. Throughout this book I will, for the sake of convenience, use the terms “Liao” and “Kitan” more or less interchangeably, even though I am aware of the complex chronological problems revolving around the dates when the Kitan state took the dynastic name Liao, abandoned it for a period, and then ﬁnally resumed it in 1066. 2 James Legge (trans. and ed.) 2.352. The passage is also quoted in the Tso Chuan. Legge’s term “minister” here is probably an over-translation; “servant,” “subject,” or “servitor” might be better translations. 3 But it is indeed doubtful that the phrase “Under the whole Heaven” ( p’u t’ien chih hsia) here refers to the whole world or the entire globe; it means rather the whole world known to China, or more precisely still, the “civilised” world recognising the authority of the Chou kings. P’u t’ien chih hsia should be understood as

8

chapter one

of representing or even approximating Chinese historical reality. The record of China’s conﬂicts with its pastoral nomadic neighbours is a long and convoluted one, interspersed with several periods during which these peoples either dominated from a distance in the steppes or else conquered and ruled directly over large portions of traditionally Chinese territory. With the possible exceptions of the ﬁrst century B.C. (when Han China held sway over large groups of Hsiung-nu) and the mid seventh century (when T’ang emperors, who were of Türk and Chinese descent, ruled over the Türks and other non-Chinese peoples), no dynasty in China was ever really able to prevail completely over the peoples of the north and compel them to participate in a Chinese-dominated world order. One Chinese tradition based on the Chou-li holds that Yü the Great placed his throne at the centre and divided the rest of the world into ﬁve zones surrounding it. His system was never implemented, but Ch’eng T’ang, founder of Shang, is said to have thought of the world as being composed of three major zones: the Central Shang, the surrounding four lands in the four directions that had sworn allegiance to the Shang ruler, and beyond them the lands occupied by uncultured nomadic tribes. Later, the Duke of Chou supposedly conceived of two models of world order: one composed of nine zones ( fu) and a more realistic one composed of six. Complementing the six-zone system was an early conceptualisation of the respective duties of all states paying tribute to a central state domain.4 Some element of conceptual centrality is probably essential to any model of Chinese world order. But we might note here that such a concept is hardly unique to the Chinese. A fascinating mirror image of the proposed “Chinese world order” is Larry Moses’s extrapolation from the Orkhon inscriptions of what might be called a “barbarian world order,” one that developed among the Türks and Uighurs during Sui and T’ang times. Its elements included a “barbarian world-view with Eastern Inner Asia as the centre” and a “clearly deﬁned concept of a ‘god-king’ worthy of ruling the world from the a cultural term, not a political or jurisdictional one. And the phrases “sovereign’s ground” (wang t’u) and “sovereign’s minister” (wang ch’en) are perhaps more accurately translated as “oﬃcial” ground and ministers, as opposed to private lands or ministers. The idea is that land and political power are ideally to be publicly held. I am indebted to Professor Yü Ying-shih for these insights. 4 Wu 1982 is a useful outline of these items from the Chou-li. For more in-depth coverage see Abe 1965.

sung-liao diplomacy

9

barbarian centre.”5 The Türks and Uighurs thus arrived at a grand conception of the world and their place in it, one that was bolstered by a steady procession of embassies from China, Byzantium, and Persia. The Turkic Kül Tegin Inscription leaves no doubt about the Turkic world-view: “Hear these words of mine well, and listen hard! Eastwards to the sunrise, southwards to the midday, westwards as far as the sunset, and northwards to the midnight—all these peoples within these boundaries [are subject to me].”6 Other East Asian peoples had similar concepts of themselves and their leaders: Dependant [sic] as we are for the history of this complex period [T’ang China] on Chinese sources with their all-pervasive Sinocentric bias, it is worth remembering that in north and east Asia there were in fact several rival claimants to all-embracing imperial powers granted by Heaven or its equivalents. The title of the emperor of Tibet, btsampo, was explained in contemporary Chinese glossaries as meaning T’ientzu ‘Son of Heaven.’ The Tennò, emperor of Japan, even in state correspondence with the Tang [T’ang] court, entitled himself the ‘Eastern Son of Heaven’ as opposed to the Tang [ T’ang] ‘Western Son of Heaven’; the overlord Khaghans of the Turkish world and later of the Uighurs all made similar claims to a divine foundation to their rule, quite at variance with the orthodox belief of the Chinese court that the human world could be manipulated and mediated only through their own emperor’s unique relationship with the Heavenly powers embodied in their own system of hierarchical relationships with other rulers.7

Jingshen Tao has suggested that a true multi-state system prevailed during Eastern Chou (770–256 B.C.) times, one based on a concept of equality between states. The Eastern Chou model of the multistate system, he argues, may well have applied when conquest dynasties came into control of northern China, a fact he feels has not received due attention: In short, the signiﬁcance for Chinese foreign relations of a multistate system in ancient times and of those periods when barbarians became masters of North China has never been properly assessed. A multistate system did arise at times, and a Chinese foreign policy based on a concept of equality has persisted in Chinese history.8 5

Outlined in Moses 1976, 64. Tekin 1969, 261; cited in Moses 1976, 83. 7 Twitchett 2000, 124. Twitchett also notes (125) that the Arabs under the caliph 'Uthman (r. 644–56) also had their own claims to divine legitimacy and ﬁrst sent an embassy to Ch’ang-an in 651. 8 Tao 1988, 5. 6

10

chapter one

Tao argues further that the Eastern Chou model may be considered a “latent” aspect or side of the theoretical and customary foundation of the China-centred world order, which was based on the “feudal system” of the ancient Western Chou.9 Tao is, it seems, essentially proposing a Chinese world order that is dualistic in its conceptualisation: there is the largely theoretical and imaginary ideal of the Western Chou model, ideally to be implemented fully when objective political realities permit but often still imagined or longed for when they do not; and there is the Eastern Chou model, which exists as a sort of spare tire to be taken out and applied when “barbarians” gain control of northern China (and, I assume Tao means to say, govern it with essentially Chinese institutions and methods). There can probably be little doubt that in imperial times a Chinacentred world order was the preferred one, in both theory and fact. The Chinese were likely reluctant and loathe to admit or tolerate the existence of “two Sons of Heaven.” As Benjamin Schwartz has observed, the existence of the multi-state order in Eastern Chou China does not ipso facto constitute a turning away from the ancient ideal of a universal kingship in Chinese history: During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (ca. 800–200 B.C.) the Chinese world, for all practical purposes, was made up of a conglomeration of separate states and principalities that, in some ways, resembled the emerging multistate system of ﬁfteenth- and sixteenthcentury Europe . . . Yet, when we examine the writings of the “hundred schools” of the Chou period we are forcefully struck by the ongoing tenacious hold of the ancient idea of universal kingship even during this period of division. No outlook emerges that is prepared to treat the multistate system as normative or normal.10

Yü Ying-shih argues that a complete concept of an ideal world order did exist during Han times (202 B.C.–A.D. 220), one without reference to which “foreign relations in Han China will make little sense.”11 While the nine-zone theory is actually a fabrication or historical exaggeration by Han exegetes, he argues, a ﬁve-zone theory 9 It is important to note, however, that the validity of the terms “feudal system” or “feudal order” to characterise Chou China has been called into question by Lewis 2000 and Yates 1997, which studies suggest understanding the Chou political order as based on city-states. 10 Schwartz 1968, 278–79. 11 Yü 1986, 383.

sung-liao diplomacy

11

(one with a basis in wu-hsing or Five Phases thought) probably had some grounding in historical reality, and its conceptual existence inﬂuenced the formulation of Han foreign policy.12

The “Tribute System” and “Chinese World Order” By far the best-known perspectives on imperial China’s foreign relations are those of Harvard’s late doyen of Chinese historical studies, John K. Fairbank. His concepts of imperial China’s “tribute system”13 and the “Chinese world order”14 associated with it are to this day repeated in universities throughout North America (and perhaps in the rest of the English-speaking world as well) in modern Chinese history and world history survey courses. Fairbank saw in imperial China a peculiar sense of its own centrality in the world and its superiority over its international neighbours: The relations of the Chinese with surrounding areas, and with nonChinese peoples generally, were colored by . . . Sinocentrism and an assumption of Chinese superiority. The Chinese tended to think of their foreign relations as giving expression externally to the same principles of social and political order that were manifested internally within the Chinese state and society. China’s foreign relations were accordingly hierarchic and nonegalitarian, like Chinese society itself.15

According to Fairbank and his followers, imperial China’s world order recognised no other state as a diplomatic equal and required all states seeking diplomatic contact with the Middle Kingdom to send envoys to the Chinese capital, where they would perform the kowtow, kneeling three times with knees and elbows on the ﬂoor while thrice knocking the forehead audibly on the ﬂoor with each kneeling. This gesture of extreme obeisance, the Fairbankian argument usually goes, strongly implied submission to China and recognition of China’s emperor, the “Son of Heaven,” as supreme over all other rulers in the world. That such grovelling envoys respectfully oﬀered “tribute” (kung) from their native countries further substantiated symbolically the emperor’s prestige as the world’s most 12 13 14 15

Yü 1986, 379–81. Fairbank 1941. Fairbank 1968. Fairbank 1968, 2.

12

chapter one

prominent leader and legitimised the rule of the reigning dynasty. Interstate diplomacy on the modern European model of an international community of equal and sovereign nation-states proceeds on the assumption that “there is a ﬁnal and absolute political authority in the political community . . . and no ﬁnal and absolute authority exists elsewhere”;16 that is, “there is no supreme authority over and above the states which make up the international community.”17 This, the Fairbankian argument maintains, coupled with the practice of stationing diplomatic personnel for lasting abode in the Chinese capital as residential diplomats, was impossible for imperial China to accept and was even abhorrent to its Confucian social hierarchy internally and its sense of preeminence in the world externally. Thus, China’s introduction and transition to modern international norms and practices of diplomacy were rocky and traumatic; the imperial Chinese world order, according to Fairbank, “has some indeterminate relevance to the world’s China problem of today,”18 while an understanding of it may well help explain why China seemed, at least until recently, so inept at integrating into the world community: Thus, Nationalist and Communist China have inherited a set of institutionalized attitudes and historical precedents not easily conformable to the European tradition of international relations among equally sovereign nation states. Modern China’s diﬃculty of adjustment to the international order of nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has come partly from the great tradition of the Chinese world order. This tradition is of more than historical interest and bears upon Chinese political thinking today.19

In the same essay, Fairbank outlined a “preliminary framework” of “ﬁfteen assumptions” concerning traditional Chinese world order and traced the earliest conceptual origins of the order all the way back to the beginnings of Chinese civilisation. Several of these assumptions are axiomatic and theoretical in nature, while others are sketches of basic political and institutional developments in Chinese history. Only the last two pertain speciﬁcally to foreign relations, and these

16

Hinsley 1986, 26; emphasis in original. Hinsley 1986, 215–16. Hinsley 1986 is an absorbing essay on the historical development and evolution of the concept of sovereignty during ancient, mediaeval, and early modern times. 18 Fairbank 1968, 1. 19 Fairbank 1968, 4. 17

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are largely conﬁned to the Ch’ing dynasty.20 Fairbank’s student Mark Mancall focussed more speciﬁcally on foreign relations when he outlined ﬁve “traditional Chinese assumptions concerning the nature of the world order.”21 Some are assumptions of theory based on the Chinese classics (as numbers 2 and 4 below), while others are assumptions of fact (which for him are “institutional expressions” of the order): 1) The Chinese world order was inegalitarian: The traditional world order is hierarchical, not egalitarian . . . the legal equality or the sovereignty of the individual political units in the world order did not exist. All political units arranged themselves hierarchically . . . China’s authority was institutionalized in the tribute system. All forms of international intercourse, including political, cultural, and economic relations, took place within the framework of the tribute system.

2) China’s centrality in the world was a function of its ruler’s virtue. If he ruled virtuously, harmony would prevail domestically and beyond. If he failed to rule with virtue, Heaven would indicate its disapproval with various natural disasters. 3) China’s world hierarchy was universal: there were no other legitimate hierarchies or sources of power in the world. No concept of the “balance of power,” which “implies the juxtaposition of equal powers,” existed. All political units were subservient to China, except for those geographically too far from China to participate in the Chinese world order. 4) China possessed national power commensurate with its national virtue; the presence of national might was, ipso facto, an indication that China possessed virtue.

20 The ﬁfteen-point “preliminary framework of assumptions” is in Fairbank 1968, 5–11. 21 Mancall 1963, 17–19. For Mancall, China’s tribute system and its assumptions of centrality, which he identiﬁes as essential elements of the Chinese world order, were not conﬁned to Ch’ing; they “evolved over a 2000 year period” (p. 16) and “reached the level of classical development” during Ming and Ch’ing times (p. 17). Mancall 1984 does not discuss Sung foreign relations in detail.

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5) China knew no clearly deﬁned international boundaries: International society was the extension of internal society. There were no “nation-states,” and concepts such as “international” and “interstate” are inappropriate to describe the situation. Clear boundaries of jurisdiction and power simply did not exist. What boundaries there were were cultural.

These are the outlined elements of the Fairbankian hypothesis of a “tributary system” or “tribute system,” one that began during the Chou period, achieved its major elements in the relations between the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 220) and the Hsiung-nu, and developed to its fullest extent during Ming (1368–1644) and Ch’ing (1644–1912) times. Nevertheless, tributary relationships with imperial China were often neater on the Platonic plane than they were in history: The Tang [T’ang] system of ‘tributary relationships’ was in fact based neither on their overwhelming military power, nor on their cultural superiority, but rested largely on the voluntary participation of neighbouring peoples intent on pursuing their own economic interests with a vastly wealthier society. And their relationships with the Tang [T’ang] were not, as the Chinese historians depict it, the only diplomatic game in town. The same was true of Chinese cultural inﬂuence. The neighbouring states, even those which had adopted Chinese as their literary language and administrative lingua franca, were not inexorably drawn to adopt Chinese culture and political models wholesale, ‘transformed by culture’ as orthodox Chinese political theory would express it. They adopted from Tang [T’ang] China only what seemed to them useful and appropriate.22

Fairbank’s models have certainly been inﬂuential. The lack of international diplomatic equality and the subordination or “vassalage” that the system seems to have implied for states seeking diplomatic contact with imperial China has not been lost on modern commentators and statesmen in both East Asia and the West. As a graduate student in the early 1990s I remember being annoyed with the following statement by Charles Morrison, an Asia specialist with the East-West Center, a Honolulu think tank: “Neither nation [China or Japan] has a history or tradition of dealing with other nations as equals.”23 Images of imperial China typically lording it over its neigh22 23

Twitchett 2000, 147. Boston Globe, Monday 25 November 1991, page 8. These comments also failed

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bours and modern concerns that a developing and restive China might now be tempted to reimpose its traditional hegemony and preeminence over its neighbours in East Asia are not limited to academics, experts in think tanks, or even right-wing American news publications such as the Washington Times. Singapore’s colourful and distinguished “First Minister” Lee Kuan Yew said in a speech in September 1996 that “. . . many medium and small countries in Asia are concerned about China’s prospective preeminence. They are uneasy that China may want to resume the imperial status it had in earlier centuries. And they have misgivings about being treated as vassal states.”24 He reiterated the point at a gathering of American foreign policy bigwigs at the Nixon Center later that year: As China’s development nears the point when it will have enough weight to elbow its way into the region, it will make a fateful decision—whether to be a hegemon, using its economic and military weight to create a sphere of inﬂuence in the region for its economic and security needs, or to continue as a good international citizen abiding by international rules to achieve even better growth . . . All countries in Asia, medium and small, have this concern: will China seek to reestablish its traditional pattern on international relations of vassal states in a tributary relationship with the Middle Kingdom? Any signs of this will alarm all the countries in the region, and cause most countries to realign themselves closer to the U.S. and Japan.25

Systematic or orderly? Even though they have been inﬂuential, the models of the tribute system and the Chinese world order underpinning it have not been without their critics. Not all scholars of imperial Chinese history agree on when the system was ﬁrst instituted,26 and others “have

to recognise or aﬃrm both China’s and Japan’s radical changes in diplomatic institutions and practices during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 24 http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/YEW96.html 25 http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/YEW96.html 26 On the beginnings of Hsiung-nu tribute to Han China, see Yü 1967. Several reviewers criticised Yü for following Fairbank too closely and seeing in Han/Hsiungnu relations some of the early institutional precedents of the Ch’ing tribute system. (See, for example, Hulsewé 1968, Eberhard 1968, Loewe 1968, and Hsing 1972.) But Yü in fact wrote his book with an eye to refuting some of Fairbank’s erroneous notions about the historical precedents of the Ch’ing tribute system. (Personal conversation with Yü Ying-shih, Princeton University, 30 April 1993) For Yü it is the practice (established during Han times) of receiving tribute missions from foreign

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questioned the rigidity and unitary nature of traditional foreign relations that the tribute-system model implies.”27 As usual, human experience is more complex and real than any theory or model: “What appears elegant and logically coherent when frozen in a synchronic dimension break down under the strain of time and history.”28 As early as 1968, John Wills cautioned against making too much of the tribute system model, and in the late 1980s he identiﬁed several anomalies which do not ﬁt well into the theoretical structure of the tribute system approach.29 Structural-functional systems theory and classic formulations, including Fairbank’s tribute system and imperial Chinese world order models, dominated much postwar thinking in the West about imperial China’s foreign relations. During the 1970s, however, this approach was largely set aside, and under the inﬂuence of Annaliste historiography and G. William Skinner’s structural sociology a new “Chinacentred history” emerged. This approach probed and contemplated the past of imperial China largely in its own internal terms, usually quite independently of considerations of possible threats to imperial China’s national security, whether from its northern nomadic neighbours or from the expansionist and putatively dynamic European maritime states during the eighteenth and especially the nineteenth centuries.30 For a time, of course, this new approach made valuable contributions to our overall understanding of imperial Chinese history, but at length it too led to some unfortunate consequences: . . . like its European counterpart, this emphasis on social history had the consequence of allowing, perhaps unintentionally, the state and China’s relations with maritime Europe and Inner Asia to recede from view. As a consequence, a ﬁeld once dominated by an interpretation which privileged exogenous factors as the primary cause for the change from traditional to modern China suddenly found little from the outside that was relevant to China’s internal development. As a result, China now has a dynamic internal history, while studies of China’s external relations have been neglected for the past twenty-ﬁve years.31 leaders (and the disproportionately lavish bestowal of gifts in return) that gives the tribute system its name. See also his ﬁne piece Yü 1986. 27 Hevia 1995, 12. 28 Hevia 1995, 14. 29 Hevia 1995, 13. The entire section “The Tribute System and Its Critics” in pages 9–15 of Hevia 1995 is illuminating. 30 Hevia 1995, ix, 8. 31 Hevia 1995, 8–9. “I don’t know what to do with foreign relations,” a wellknown scholar of imperial Chinese history once told me in the early 1990s.

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One important exception to the general neglect of the history of Chinese foreign relations was the 1983 publication of China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries, edited by Morris Rossabi. The volume’s basic thesis, as outlined by Rossabi in his introduction, was that neither tribute system nor Chinese world order models were applicable during Sung times: The papers in this volume suggest that the so-called Chinese world order . . . did not persist for the entire period from the second century B.C. to the Opium War. From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, China did not dogmatically enforce its system of foreign relations. The Sung (960–1279), the principal dynasty during that era, was ﬂexible in its dealing with foreigners. Its oﬃcials, recognizing the military weakness of the dynasty, generally adopted a realistic foreign policy . . . Diplomatic parity deﬁned the relations between China and other states during these three centuries. The tribute system did not, by itself, govern China’s contacts with foreigners.32

Rossabi’s edited volume proved inﬂuential and persuasive, and it is now generally recognised that Sung China did not employ the socalled tribute system during Sung times and that Sung diplomacy with the Liao and Chin states was conducted on the basis of something approximating equality or diplomatic parity. We may doubt, then, that anything approximating the conceptual neatness, ontological tautness, or monochromatic, synchronic invariability of a single system or ﬁxed order really governed premodern China’s foreign relations and diplomacy. Indeed, not many scholars speak or write of a “Chinese world order” any more, and those who still do recognise that “The concept underlying the term remains . . . a fundamental and yet ambiguous aspect of China’s civilizational inheritance today” and think of it in larger terms as a conﬂated “Chinese perception of the world” which “might well be broadened to embrace social and cultural dimensions outside the framework of the international relations of the empire.”33 Further, it is important to remember that the contacts with the outside world themselves were ultimately more important than whatever model or conception Sung China might have entertained of its foreign relations. “Whether seen as one

32

Rossabi 1983, 4, 12. So et al. 2003, 1–2. So, in his introduction to this volume, notes that its task is “not to construct an alternative or expanded Chinese world order, past or present, but to explore the complexity of that world order in diverse contexts.” (2) 33

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country and state ‘among equals’ or as a civilization at the center of its own ‘world order,’ [imperial] China was involved in many kinds of real interactions with the outside world and thereby also engaged in cognitive image making processes.”34

Sung Diplomacy with Liao Still, Sung certainly seems to have inherited some fairly persistent ideal elements for its external relations with other states and peoples, and diplomatic parity with Liao was not originally among them. One such element seems to have been a reluctance to recognise other states and their rulers as equals. Sung recognised Liao as a diplomatic equal only after the former fought the latter to a standstill on the battleﬁeld in late 1004 and early 1005, and Sung did not extend this diplomatic equality to any other state. Immediately after the Covenant of Shan-yüan was concluded in early 1005, a Sung court oﬃcial objected strenuously to the equality with Liao that its terms implied. Sung never thought of its annual payments to Liao being characterised as “tribute” (kung), which would of course imply the preeminence of Liao over Sung. And perhaps most tellingly, in documents not meant for public or international consumption, many Sung oﬃcials and writers continued to use insulting and pejorative language in referring to the Kitans and their state of Liao. Another element was some sense of Chinese centrality in the world, or at least in East Asia: The traditional idea of dividing the geographic space into three parts— the center, the frontier periphery, and the regions beyond imperial reach—inﬂuenced attitudes towards neighbouring peoples as well as government decisions. They can hardly be separated for analytical purpose. One element often dominates the others and characterizes the particular relationship between the center and the outside world.35

Whether these and other identiﬁable elements in Sung China’s foreign relations constitute portions of an ideal or normative imperial Chinese world order will have to be left to future discussion and debate. In a thoughtful essay concluding the book The Chinese World

34 35

Dabringhaus and Ptak 1997, vii. Dabringhaus and Ptak 1997, vii.

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Order, Benjamin Schwartz discussed the complexities of conceptualising imperial Chinese world order and showed that formulating it would be problematic. He addressed an issue pertaining to SungLiao diplomacy as a speciﬁc example.36 Nonetheless, he argued that the notion of the existence and persistence of a conceptual idealised Chinese world order would, mutatis mutandis, still prove generally valid up through the end of the nineteenth century.37 Almost forty years later, however, we may well ask if there has now been enough scholarship, discussion, and debate to prove Schwartz right or wrong in his optimism regarding the eventual emergence of a consensus concerning imperial China’s foreign relations. I must conclude, alas, that there has not. The history of Chinese foreign relations is, comparatively speaking, still a fairly neglected ﬁeld. The three proposed instances of the institutional expression of Chinese world order outlined by Mancall earlier above are contradicted by the realities of Sung foreign relations with Liao (and later with Chin). First of all, while the applicability of terms such as “equality” and “egalitarian” may be somewhat inappropriate to describe the international scene in East Asia during Sung times, it is clear that Liao was not any sort of hierarchical extension of Sung in fact or rhetoric. Liao was geographically quite close to Sung China, even contiguous with it, and yet it was in no way, symbolically or otherwise, subordinate to Sung. A precarious “balance of power” did in fact exist between states in East Asia from the tenth through fourteenth centuries. And while the “legitimacy” of Liao power might have been doubtful to some Sung Chinese, Sung nonetheless recognised and addressed Liao rulers as “emperors” (huang-ti ).

36 According to Schwartz 1968, 279–80, Liao was able to challenge the Sung claim to universal kingship (which for him is clearly a key element in an ideal imperial Chinese world order) mainly due to its military might. The issue he did not address, however, is that Sung, while certainly not relinquishing its own claims to universal kingship, was nonetheless actually addressing the Kitan rulers in Chinese as “emperors.” This fact would seem to complicate “the image of the universal kingship, occupying a certain locus in the ﬁeld of forces making up the universe, linking the cosmos to mankind” that Schwartz sees as having emerged among all schools of the Eastern Chou period as “part of an established universally accepted cosmology.” (279) 37 Schwartz 1968, 277, 281.

20

chapter one

Earlier diplomatic equality with non-Chinese states The diplomatic equality between Sung and Liao was, among other things, a matter of the absence of the language of subordination in Sung’s oﬃcial diplomatic communications with the Kitans.38 There were earlier periods in Chinese history when the Chinese refrained from addressing foreign rulers and states as tributaries or subordinates. In the ho-ch’in or intermarriage arrangements between Han and Hsiung-nu, for example, both states were equal or “brotherly” states, and marriage between a Chinese princess and the shan-yü of the Hsiung-nu implied literal marital relations between the royal houses of the two states.39 During T’ang times, a “peer state” or “rival power” (ti-kuo) was one with which China had contacts but no position of superiority.40 When T’ang addressed a powerful state in such terms, Kaneko Shuichi argues, it was in eﬀect recognising the equality of that state.41 Especially noteworthy were the Tibetans, who in 714 sent communications to T’ang requesting recognition and ceremonial treatment as a rival power and were rebuﬀed. In 781, however, T’ang agreed to alter some of the seemingly all-important symbolic language used in written diplomatic communications with the Tibetans. The Hsin T’ang shu account of this request reads as follows:42 “The btsan po43 said his rites should be those appropriate to a state actually equal with China. The emperor allowed this. ‘Presentation’ [hsien]44 was changed to ‘delivery’ [chih], ‘granting’ [ssu]45 to ‘sending’ [chi ], and ‘accept’ [ling-ch’ü]46 to ‘take’ [ling].” The ceremony itself for the treaty between T’ang and Tibet did not take place until 783 at Ch’ing-shui, and there was deep mutual suspicion during the occasion. The main T’ang negotiator was anxious to

38 Kitan is usually spelt as “Khitan” in English scholarship. (“Qidan,” in pure pinyin Chinese, has now achieved some currency as well.) But “Kitan” is the most accurate and proper spelling because it complies with the rules of Altaic orthography. Conventionally, “kh” stands for “Q” in Altaic languages, but before the “i” only the palatal “k” can stand. (Professor Denis Sinor, personal correspondence, 25 April 1997) 39 On the elements of the ho-ch’in system see Yü 1967, 41–42. 40 Wang Zhenping 1989, 194–95. 41 Kaneko 1988. 42 Translation in Kaneko 1988, 97. 43 Tibetan ruler. 44 A term used in connection with tribute oﬀered by Tibetans to T’ang. 45 A term used in connection with gifts oﬀered by T’ang to the Tibetans. 46 A term used in connection with the Tibetans receiving gifts from T’ang.

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reduce the solemnity of the ceremony by substituting lesser animals than the ox, which symbolised the agricultural world of China, and the horse, a symbol of pastoral and nomadic Tibet. T’ang eventually agreed to sacriﬁce a dog and a sheep, while the Tibetans sacriﬁced a wild ram. The frontier between T’ang and Tibet was demarcated in this treaty, but the peace did not hold for long, and suspicion and ﬁghting soon resumed. The Tibetans suggested renewing the Treaty of Ch’ing-shui at P’ing-liang, but this turned out to be a ruse and a trap; the Tibetans ambushed the T’ang negotiators, killing some and kidnapping others before withdrawing. By the early 800s, however, both T’ang and the Tibetans were ready for rapprochement, and the accession of a new Tibetan monarch in 820 further paved the way for a new peace agreement. (Further, Tibet was alarmed by the growing friendliness between T’ang and their old enemies the Uighurs.) The Tibetans sent an embassy to Ch’ang-an in 821, seeking a new treaty with T’ang, and this time T’ang consented and even approved concluding the treaty ritual with the utmost solemnity, including announcing it in the T’ang dynastic ancestral temple. The result was, importantly, a bilingual treaty between two equal states, each recognising the legitimacy of the other and agreeing not to encroach upon each other’s territories. The treaty ritual was performed in Ch’ang-an in 821 and conﬁrmed and reperformed the next year in Tibet.47 During Sung times, Liao achieved status as an equal of Sung. In fact, Sung seems in its oﬃcial diplomatic correspondence to have regarded Liao in some ways as a mirror image of itself.48 Sung called the Liao court the “Northern Court” (Pei ch’ao) and referred to itself as the “Southern Court” (Nan ch’ao); like Sung, Liao had an emperor (huang-ti ). The ruling houses of the two states exchanged embassies on the occasion of an emperor’s death and the accession of a new emperor. Regular annual embassies celebrated the new year and the birthdays of emperors and empress dowagers. All of this was cemented by bonds of ﬁctitious kinship relations between the royal houses of the two states. 47 Twitchett 2000, 153, 156, 163, 166–67; Beckwith 1987, 149–51, 166–67. Twitchett’s narration of the developments and events leading up to the conclusion of the treaty is more detailed and circumstantial than Beckwith’s. On the treaty see also Richardson 1952 and 1969, Li 1955 and 1980, Stein 1988, and Pan 1992. 48 Perhaps with some good reason. The Kitan state was half a century older than Sung and could lay some claim to having succeeded T’ang. On this see Twitchett 1997.

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That Northern Sung did not see the form of its diplomatic relations with Liao as ideal is nowhere more clearly indicated than in an early eleventh-century work entitled Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei, begun in 1005 within months of the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan and completed by 1014. It was a massive compendium of exactly one thousand chüan, but only the last forty-ﬁve chüan concern us here. Together they comprise a section called wai-ch’en pu, or “section on outer servitors.” The very name is signiﬁcant and would seem to indicate that Sung was reaﬃrming the desirability of a more ideal model of foreign relations, despite whatever current international realities had transpired. The chapters in this section constitute probably the single most comprehensive and thorough examination of China’s historical relations with foreign peoples up until that time. Of special interest are the prefaces or prolegomena in this section of the work. They are valuable because “they reveal as systematically as one could expect what the state of mind was of some of the highest Sung oﬃcials” who wrote them.49 The ﬁrst and largest is a “general preface” (tsung-hsü ), which is essentially a forced chronological march through the history of Chinese foreign relations from the earliest outlines of the zones ( fu) under Yao and Shun all the way down to Emperor Shih-tsung’s recovery of the Kuan-nan territories during the last days of Later Chou.50 It attempts to preserve, where possible, the rhetoric of subordinate relations with the Chinese state. For example, it claims that the Türks and Uighurs had submitted to T’ang or “continuously paid tribute” even during times when they had not done so.51 The prolegomena to various chapters or groups of chapters on speciﬁc topics also show Sung’s attitudes about what would constitute an ideal world order. Wang Gungwu has observed that in all ﬁfteen topics covered, an ideal policy for dealing with non-Chinese was expressed in almost every one of them in two ways: “‘control by loose reigning’ (chi-mi ) and ‘winning their conﬁdence through kindness’ (huai-jou).’”52 Both terms, but especially chi-mi, imply some measure of indirect control or loose governance over non-Chinese

49

Wang Gungwu 1983, 56. The General preface is in TFYK 956.1A–10B (11237–41). 51 Wang Gungwu 1983, 58. See the claims relative to the Uighurs during the reign of the T’ang emperor Mu-tsung (821–825) in TFYK 956.8B. 52 Wang Gungwu 1983, 60ﬀ. 50

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areas and peoples,53 and that would not seem to ﬁt the political realities of eleventh-century East Asia and Sung-Liao relations. But as Wang Gungwu has observed, the compilers of the Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei “began to see that there had been a respectable tradition of dealing with reality separately so that there was no need to change the rhetoric.”54 The prolegomena in the Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei are a sophisticated amalgam of both realistic and idealistic rhetoric about foreign relations with non-Chinese peoples. That there would be realistic rhetoric is not really surprising, especially in light of Sung’s recent historical experience with the Kitans and their state. What I ﬁnd more interesting is the preservation of idealistic rhetoric in some of the prolegomena even in the face of unpleasant contradictions in the international arena. In this way, the Ts’e-fu yüan-kuei might be thought of as a Sung repository or textual reaﬃrmation of an ideal Chinese world order. The compilers preserved an idealised picture of tribute and foreign relations in the distant past; in the prolegomenon to the chapters on “tribute” (ch’ao-kung), they wrote that during Western Chou times those beyond the nine zones were called fan;55 they came to see the Chou king and oﬀered as tribute the precious projects native to their lands, in all probability because the reﬁned virtue of the ancient sage-kings radiated in all directions.56 China should do nothing but apply the chi-mi strategy in its relations with its foreign neighbours, the prolegomena to the chapters on “investiture” (ts’e-feng) maintain; if far-away countries admire China’s style and “arrive longing to be transformed” (mu hua erh chih)—that is, if they present gifts, bring interpreters along with them (so that they can communicate with the Chinese), undo the braided queues of their hair, became familiar with “guest ritual” (for audiences with the Chinese emperor), and stay on the borders as guardsmen and request “inclusion” (neishu)—then they should be treated kindly (huai-jou), respected, and given generous gifts to gratify their desires and blunt their ambitions.57 53 For a discussion of the historical origins and evolution of the chi-mi or “loose reign” policy, see Yang 1968, 31–33. Yang argues that the chi-mi policy could be used either inside or outside of the frontier depending on whether China was weak or strong. 54 Wang Gungwu 1983, 62. 55 For a discussion of the various meanings of fan, see Yang 1968, 21. 56 TFYK 968.1A (11376). 57 TFYK 963.1A (21326). I am grateful to Huang K’uan-ch’ung of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica for his assistance in reading through these prolegomena. I alone, however, am responsible for any misunderstanding of them.

24

chapter one The International Border

Clear boundaries of jurisdiction and power did indeed exist between Sung and Liao, and they were political not cultural. Sung was prickly about its border and any perceived violations of it. In fact, Sung was so committed to its border with Liao that it waged or risked war three times during the eleventh century to deﬁne or defend it. The eastern fourth of the Sung-Liao border was demarcated by what the Sung Chinese called the Border River (Chieh Ho) or the Paikou River, also known as the Chü-ma River. The rest of the border was deﬁned across land, and not always in accordance with logical natural dividing points.58 This constituted “a genuine international frontier in the modern sense, something unprecedented in China’s history.”59 The Sung-Liao border largely took shape during the tenth century and was ﬁxed deﬁnitively in very early 1005 with the Covenant of Shan-yüan. During the negotiations leading up to the covenant, the Sung emperor Chen-tsung expressed in a diplomatic missive sent to Liao on December 10, 1004 his concern over the border and his desire for cessation of warfare and formalisation of relations between the two states. The missive opens with the following paragraph: The territorial boundaries [of our two states] are close and intimate, and I have long admired your famed policies [for governing your state]. [Yet] the joy of being allied states has never been extended [to us]. How can my desires to be loving and benevolent be achieved? What I have longed for is the cessation of bloodshed, which is the everlasting design of states, and the termination of armed conﬂict and promotion of civil ideals, which are the most magniﬁcent achievements for the rulers of people.60

The text of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, which is really an exchange of religiously sanctioned oath-letters, indicates a clear understanding of what an international border was. I quote from it in part here:

58 Nonetheless, according to Tsang Shui-lung, “In actuality, the Sung-Liao border was a natural strategic barrier between the two empires despite the commonly accepted but inaccurate description. On the eastern front in Hopei, the Sung and Liao were separated by numerous swamps in the lower reaches of the Pai-kou River” (Tsang 1997, 97). 59 Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 110. 60 STCLC 228.882.

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The civilian and military prefectures along the border shall each abide by the [present] territorial boundaries. The residents and households of the two realms shall not encroach on one another. If there are robbers or bandits who ﬂee arrest [across the border], neither side shall allow them to be given refuge. As for furrowed ﬁelds and sowing and reaping, neither the north [i.e., Liao] nor the south [i.e., Sung] shall grant [their populations] licence to harass or disturb. All walls and moats now in existence on either side may be kept and maintained as of old, and the dredging of moats and completion of repairs may all [continue] as before, but it shall not be permissible to initiate construction on [new] walls and moats or open or dig [new] river channels.61

The conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan apparently produced some heightened sensitivity among the Sung Chinese to the feelings of Liao subjects. Associated with the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan was a signiﬁcant change of several uncomplimentary placenames along the Sung side of the border. The changes in these placenames are evidence that the pejorative connotations of several Chinese words (such as lu, or “caitiﬀ,” and ch’iang, or “goat”) were not lost on Liao. The Covenant of Shan-yüan was preceded by a decades-long scrap over territorial disposition. The general area around Mo-chou, Yingchou, Hsiung-chou, and Pa-chou included three strategic passes and ten counties. This was the southernmost extent of the so-called “Sixteen Prefectures” ceded to the Kitans in 938 by the ﬁrst emperor of Later Chin (the third of the Five Dynasties) in return for military assistance in establishing his dynasty. The Kitans referred to this area as Kuan-nan, “South of the Barriers.” The Kuan-nan territory was later wrested from Kitan control in 959 by Later Chou, the last of the Five Dynasties and the immediate predecessor of Sung. (The future Sung emperor T’ai-tsu actually participated in this campaign.) Sung thus inherited Later Chou’s control over Kuan-nan and yet claimed, when convenient, that it had had no part in Later Chou’s territorial dealings. This was the basis of Sung’s claim to Kuan-nan. Kitan revanchists long hankered to recover the Kuannan territory, and this was a signiﬁcant part of their motivation for invading Sung in late 1004.

61

CTKC 20.189–90.

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Both Sung and Liao brought enormous desire for control over the Kuan-nan territory to the negotiations at Shan-yüan in late 1004 and early 1005. Sung, which had de facto control over the Kuan-nan territories, steadfastly refused all Liao demands for the retrocession of it. Although Liao ultimately gave up on its demands, it received of the Sung signiﬁcant compensation: 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 taels of silver annually. Christian Schwarz-Schilling has argued that Liao might have agreed to this amount of wealth as compensation for the agricultural taxes it might otherwise have received from the Kuan-nan territories.62 If he is correct, this shows that both regimes brought political and economic considerations to the negotiations that typify agricultural societies. Sung once again expressed its concern for territorial integrity during the crisis of 1042, when Liao took advantage of war between Sung and Hsia and demanded of Sung the Kuan-nan territory it had lost almost a century earlier. Sung diplomats succeeded in persuading Liao to forsake these territorial demands, but as recompense the annual payments to Liao were increased to 200,000 taels of silver and 300,000 bolts of silk. The increase was explicitly represented in the new peace agreement as the tax revenue that could have been collected from the ten counties of the Kuan-nan territory. In early 1042 Liao envoys demanded an explanation from the Sung government for its attack on Hsia without any prior consultations. The Liao envoys then sought to intimidate the Sung government into retroceding the Kuan-nan territory as a way to ease tensions. In subsequent discussions Sung refused adamantly to cede any land but enticed Liao with oﬀerings of increased annual payments and even a tentative oﬀer of a marriage between a Sung princess and the Liao emperor. Fu Pi travelled as a Sung envoy to Liao in the spring of 1042 and adamantly rejected demands for the cession of land. He did hold open the possibility of an intermarriage but slyly indicated that the dowry from such a marriage would be much smaller than an increase in annual payments. Liao ultimately chose a permanent increase in annual payments, and the crisis blew over. Jingshen Tao argues that Liao did not really intend to attack Sung at this time but was posturing for material advantage in the wake of the Sung-

62

Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 96.

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Hsia war. He notes that Sung, and not the Kitans, had broached the possibility of increasing payments to smooth over tensions.63 Overt transgression of the Sung-Liao border does not seem to have become a major issue until the 1070s. In early 1072 Sung learned that several hundred Liao cavalrymen had crossed over the Pai-kou River (the border river) and that people from Liao were ﬁshing in it. The Sung government was so concerned about this that it instructed its Birthday Felicitation Envoy sent that year to the Liao emperor to take up this issue with him and lodge a protest. Liao responded that it would withdraw the cavalrymen if and when Sung stopped sending in patrols to the neutral zone of Hsiung-chou. (The population of Hsiung-chou, a buﬀer zone, rendered corvée service to both Sung and Liao.) Subsequent Sung investigations into the matter revealed that the prefect of Hsiung-chou had, on his own initiative, increased the militia patrols and had thus provoked the Kitan incursion. The prefect was removed as punishment, and by early 1073 the matter was settled. But no sooner had the problems of Ho-pei been solved than trouble in Ho-tung ﬂared up. It seems that Liao was raising Sung ire by erecting observation posts along the Sung-Liao border. And in early 1074, Liao envoys complained about Sung repair and expansion of Sung fortiﬁcations along the border with three Liao prefectures. Such activities clearly contravened provisions of the Covenant of Shan-yüan. Liao demanded a deﬁnitive settlement of the disputes by early 1075, and Sung appointed the famous scholar and scientist Shen Kua (1031–1095)64 as its chief 63

Tao 1988, 61. Studies of the famous Sung proto-scientist and polyhistor Shen Kua are overabundant. (See Forage 1991, Lamouroux 1997, and Sivin 1975. For biographies see SS 331.10653–57 and Franke 1976, 2.857–63.) Forage 1991, p. 1 n. 1, insists that “Kuo” [K’uo] rather than “Gua” [Kua] is the correct pronunciation because “Kuo [K’uo] is the pronunciation commonly used in [mainland] China and is the only pronunciation given in the Ci Yuan [Tz’u-yüan], whereas gua [kua] is used in the Taiwanese edition of the Ci Hai [Tz’u-hai ] . . . Since Chinese, rather than Taiwanese, standards are adopted for this study, Shen Kuo [Shen K’uo] is taken for the reading of this character.” This, however, is questionable. The diﬀerentiation between “China” and “Taiwan” is of course enormously controversial, and the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan is in no meaningful sense “Taiwanese.” The inception of the Tz’u-hai dictionary goes back to 1915 on mainland China, where it was ﬁrst published, and it has since been republished in the Republic of China on Taiwan with revisions by mainly mainland Chinese scholars. Its pronunciations and usages have deep Chinese roots. (My thanks for Dr. Hur-li Lee of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for this information.) 64

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negotiator. Shen gathered and drew up a series of maps favourable to Sung. His eﬀorts largely paid oﬀ and kept Liao territorial disputes at a minimum. The Ho-tung territorial disputes of the 1070s were diﬃcult because, as Klaus Tietze has written, . . . this was an outcome of topography and military strategy. As the negotiations of 1074–1076 show, the border east of the Yen-men Pass did not, as one would expect, run along the most natural course, i.e. the crest-line of what is often called the Heng-shan range—where today still runs the Great Wall of Ming times—but further north, probably across the northern foothills, the Sung empire controlling the northern slopes of the Heng-shan system and thus most probably the northern outlets of the numerous passes crossing the range as well. Naturally, the Liao court wanted to change this in its own favour.65

Sung did end up ceding several parcels of land to Liao in this dispute, and generations of nationalistic Chinese have condemned Wang An-shih (1021–1086)66 for his so-called “appeasement” in the matter and his urging of sober caution and restraint throughout the entire crisis. A speciﬁc border, then, divided the territorial extents of the two states. It was not a vaguely deﬁned indication of the extend of Chinese cultural inﬂuence but rather a precise marking of the extent of the territory under Sung’s jurisdiction and liable to its taxation. It was a manifestly political line drawn or imagined across a largely Han Chinese milieu and did not sharply delineate cultural, linguistic, or ecological distinctions. The Sung-Liao border dispute of the 1070s involved “clearly demarcated borderlines between sovereign states as we know them in post-medieval Europe. Both sides of the separating line, which had been ﬁxed according to geographic and political considerations, were inhabited by people of Chinese cultural orientation.”67 The southern sector of Liao’s population was largely Han Chinese, and ecologically both sides of the border were largely agricultural. This explains, in part, the concerns expressed by both Sung and Liao over their common border. Societies and states with agricultural ecologies are probably more likely to be concerned about pre-

65

Tietze 1979, 128. On the famous Sung reformer, statesman, and poet Wang An-shih, see Williamson 1935; Liu 1959; and Franke 1976, 2.1097–1104. 67 Ptak and Daubringhaus 1997, viii. 66

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cise border designations and to be apprehensive about military manoeuvres and the construction of new military facilities along these borders. Agricultural societies think in terms of ownership of territory and the value of agricultural tax revenue. Pastoral nomadic societies, on the other hand, think more in terms of ownership of herds than of the land they graze on, and they do not generally collect agricultural taxes (although they often seek to intimidate China into transferring its agricultural wealth their way). The ecological twilight zone that exists when agricultural and pastoral nomadic societies abut may not always create imperatives for borders deﬁned with the exactitude of the Sung-Liao border. Conversely, when culturally and ecologically similar societies are contiguous with one another, deﬁned borders and concerns about their violations arise. This was the situation in China during Sung times.

“China Among Equals”? Before proceeding any further with the theme of “equality” among states during Sung times, it is important to discuss the implications of the concept and trace its historical origins. Our modern ideas of equality among nations had their origins in a cultural and political world unlike that of East Asia during the time of the Sung dynasty in China, as the following brief excursus into the political history of Renaissance Europe will show. The modern nation-state system, with its concomitant concepts of a world community of equal, sovereign, and independent states, had its genesis in the unique political and military climate of ﬁfteenthcentury Renaissance Italy. It appeared rather suddenly there in the wake of a papal revolt against the Holy Roman emperor, which ironically cleared the ground for the development of Europe’s ﬁrst truly secular and sovereign states.68 This was a truly unique and revolutionary development, because prior to it the late mediaeval world still thought of itself as a community of Christians and, to a lesser extent, Romans as well.69 Mediaeval Christendom had achieved something analogous to a body of “international law” (one based on

68 69

Mattingly 1955, 56–57. Mattingly 1955, 17–19.

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Roman or civil law, Germanic or customary law, and Christian or canon law) which included rules for the recognition and status of diplomatic principals, the behaviour of diplomatic agents (who were emissaries and not residential diplomats), and the negotiations, validity, and observance of diplomatic agreements. But in formulating this law the West was not thinking in terms of mutually discrete, sovereign states but rather of “legal rules for a great society”; it was indeed an expression of the unity hoped for and prized by the mediaeval Christian world.70 The nation-state system would have been unthinkable in most of ﬁfteenth-century Europe: Our modern notion of an international society composed of a heterogenous collection of ﬁctitious entities called states, all supposed to be equal, sovereign, and completely independent, would have shocked both the idealism and common sense of the ﬁfteenth century. Such a society would have seemed to philosophers a repulsive anarchy, a contradiction to their basic assumption of a hierarchically ordered universe . . . And the concept would have been equally uncomfortable to practical statesmen . . . Who was to say which of them were to be granted and which denied the right of negotiating with others? . . . the right of embassy was not spoken of in theory or regarded in practice as diplomatic representation, a symbolic attribute of sovereignty. It was a method of formal, privileged communication among the members of a hierarchically ordered society . . . The precise deﬁnition of a body of diplomatic principals had to wait for a revolution in men’s thinking about the nature of the state.71

That revolution in men’s thinking came in mid-ﬁfteenth-century Italy and developed there for forty years before it was exported to the rest of Europe. As warfare between various Italian city-states intensiﬁed and became both the “health and disease” of the state, larger citystates began devouring smaller ones and expanding their boundaries. Weak states had to have permanent representatives abroad in order to retain their memberships in alliances.72 In this dog-eat-dog political and military world, one way of being constantly on the alert was to create a new concept of the state and of diplomacy. Italian city-states began allowing their leading citizen merchants, rather than unreliable mercenary armies, to pursue national goals through diplomatic means. Residential diplomacy was quickly adapted, and the 70 71 72

Mattingly 1955, 21. Mattingly 1955, 26. Hale 1957, 266.

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modern diplomacy we know today was well on its way to being born.73 By 1535, the establishment of residential diplomatic relations was well underway throughout Europe.74 Surely the scholars who write of diplomatic equality between Sung and Liao do not mean to draw or imply extensive and unwarranted parallels between the international climate of East Asia during Sung times and our own day or the Europe of the ﬁfteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nor do they ignore the disparaging references to the Kitans and the Liao state found in the writings of some Sung literati not meant for Liao consumption.75 What they mean to say seems to be that for some periods of Chinese history, and especially during the Sung dynasty, there is in China’s diplomatic intercourse with some foreign states a striking lack of what might be called the language of subordination. That is, the rhetoric of subordination is not applied to all states. The absence of such language would seem to indicate that China had frankly (if perhaps somewhat reluctantly) accepted the foreign power of Liao as an entity unto itself, independent of any hierarchical or subordinate relationship with China in fact or rhetoric. Not being subordinate to China in any way seems to suggest, in our own modern international system, being an equal of China. Diplomacy and foreign relations between Sung and Liao do seem remarkably close to the modern standard of equality among nations, but even so, the international world of the eleventh century in East Asia was still very diﬀerent from the present. In the eleventh century, being the equal of Sung took on for Liao a more elaborate form involving an annual exchange of embassies and the formal, literary communications and gifts they carried, as Chapter Five will show. It should be noted, however, that this recognition of equality was not system-wide in the international arena, and this is probably the single greatest diﬀerence between eleventh-century East Asia and the international system of our own day. Sung did not recognise the equality of all foreign states—this was an honour reserved for Liao only. Wang Gungwu, who has observed that “Liao’s relations with the Sung were the nearest thing to equality in Chinese history until modern times,” has pointed out that “the equality was carefully 73

Hale 1957, 266. Jensen 1992, 313–14. 75 Sung’s inconsistent attitudes towards the Kitans and their dynasty are treated in Tao 1983. 74

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treated by the Sung rulers as unique to their relations with the Liao, and this enabled them to maintain some of the majesty expected of them in their dealings with other states.”76 Liao, in turn, reserved in its foreign relations a special place for Sung and adopted the rhetoric of subordination in its relations with other states and peoples. A quick glance through the pen-chi of the Liao-shih will show that envoys from the Jurchens and other are entered into the historical record as tribute-bearing envoys. The early Kitan state also renamed the conquered Po-hai state Tung-tan and territorially incorporated it. The usefulness of the analogy between Sung’s foreign relations and those of our own day, then, while illuminating and informative in some respects, is in some ways also limited. Sung and Liao may have refrained from openly regarding and addressing each other as subordinates or inferiors, but this does not mean that their diplomatic relations were attended by all of the assumptions and conceptual underpinnings inherent in our own modern international system.

Sinicised States and Force Majeure Prior to Sui and T’ang times, much traditional thinking about the foreign relations of a uniﬁed China with its non-Chinese neighbours had been based largely on ideas about China being surrounded by loosely organised, mostly nomadic peoples whose cultural heritage and patterns of political organisation were worlds apart from those of the Chinese.77 A reversal of this situation, however, emerged during Sui and T’ang times. Early Sui faced only one neighbour even remotely resembling China as a stable, bureaucratically organised, document-producing state administering a sedentary agricultural population: Koguryô (37 B.C.–A.D. 668). But as the basic pattern of Chinese civilisation began to spread and was adopted in East Asia during the second half of the ﬁrst millennium, several states organised to a greater or lesser extent along Chinese lines began emerging at several points on China’s periphery. Vietnam, which had been

76

Wang Gungwu 1983, 55. This sketch of T’ang China’s foreign relations with its non-nomadic neighbours is based on Twitchett 1979. 77

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under Chinese cultural inﬂuence since Han times, was incorporated into the T’ang empire. When it achieved its independence in 939 it had adopted Chinese cultural norms, institutions, and laws to a signiﬁcant extent and was administered by a ruling élite who wrote in Chinese and had thoroughly assimilated the Chinese literary heritage. Korea, unlike Vietnam, was usually independent of T’ang control. But the Korean Silla (668–935) and Parhae (698–927) dynasties were closely modelled after the T’ang pattern, and the ruling classes of these states used the written Chinese language and adopted Confucianism and Chinese-style Buddhism. As such, Korea was permanently incorporated into the Chinese cultural sphere. Japan was never an object of Sui or T’ang territorial ambition, but it absorbed Chinese cultural inﬂuences through Korea and in the seventh century began adopting T’ang political institutions and Chinese language, script, law, philosophy, and religious and artistic forms wholesale. By the end of T’ang, Japan was well within the Chinese cultural orbit, although native cultural elements in later centuries challenged Chinese cultural dominance. To the southwest, the state of Nanchao78 (in the modern province of Yün-nan) was another area of some assimilation into the Chinese cultural orbit. Nan-chao remained independent of T’ang and was often hostile to it, but as a state it too used the Chinese language and copied many T’ang institutions. During Sui and T’ang times, then, China was for the ﬁrst time in its history largely surrounded by several states which had signiﬁcantly patterned themselves after Chinese models.79 Although these Sinicised states often accepted status or designation as subordinates vis-à-vis China, they were usually completely independent of Chinese control,80 and in their foreign relations with China they forced the Chinese to

78

The standard work on Nan-chao is Backus 1981. Tibet was another powerful state and empire that emerged during the seventh and eighth centuries, but its civilisation and governance were non-Chinese. Tibet’s cultural unity was achieved during the eighth century largely through the use of a script derived from an Indian model and the adaptation of cultural forms that had far stronger ties with India and Nepal than with China. Already by the mid seventh century, “The Tibetans . . . developed their own writing system, unlike most of China’s neighbours, who adopted Chinese as their documentary language, and it was becoming clear that Tibet’s cultural links with the Indian world would be stronger than those with China” (Twitchett 2000, 120). 80 Being regarded by the T’ang court as a vassal or tributary state did not necessarily entail being under T’ang control; it “embraced a wide spectrum of actual relationships ranging from total subjugation to virtual equality” (Twitchett 1979, 38). 79

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deal with them on more nearly equal terms than ever before.81 This situation laid the foundation for the new pattern of foreign relations (largely the result of force majeure, according to Denis Twitchett) that Sung practised in its relations with its northern neighbours.82 Force majeure was indeed one decisive factor that led to the emergence of equal diplomacy between Sung and Liao after 1005, but it was not the sine qua non for that diplomacy. Equally important were the considerable Chinese and Sinicised components of the Kitan state. Both of these factors, superior military force and an extensive complement of Chinese culture and population, were indispensable for the development of the unique forms of Sung-Liao diplomacy. During T’ang, the peoples capable of posing genuine threats to the 81 T’ang foreign relations with the Nan-chao kingdom are a case in point. Relations were tributary since the uniﬁcation of that kingdom in the 720s. The tributary relations were broken oﬀ in the early 750s when Nan-chao allied itself with Tibet, but a rift between the two states motivated the Nan-chao king I-mou-hsün to reestablish tributary relations with T’ang in the early 970s. During his reign (793–808), Nan-chao began adopting T’ang institutions and sending students to Chengtu. Nanchao’s relations with T’ang were amicable and submissive or subordinate until 859 and were seriously interrupted only once, in 829, when the Nan-chao invaded and plundered Szechwan. In 859, relations between the two states were strained to the breaking point when T’ang decided to limit the size of tribute missions and the number of Nan-chao students in Chengtu. Both Hsüan-tsung and the Nan-chao king Feng-yu died that year, and T’ang’s failure to dispatch a condolence envoy to Shih-lung, the new king, incensed Nan-chao. Further complicating factors were that Shih-lung’s name was homophonous with the personal name of the T’ang emperor Hsüan-tsung and Shih-lung’s obstinate refusal to alter it. All diplomatic contact between the two states was broken oﬀ by 860. Shih-lung attacked Szechwan in the 860s, and T’ang negotiations with him were stalled when he demanded “diplomatic equality” (presumably a lack of subordinate terminology and expectations) and the privilege of lodging in the old Sui mansion in Chengtu! In 876 Shihlung, facing military setbacks against T’ang, accepted more traditional tributary relations but requested a T’ang princess in marriage. He sent thirty hostages to Ch’ang-an but balked at the subordinate terminology of the relationship, insisting that an elder brother/younger brother or at least uncle/nephew arrangement be used instead. He died in 877 and was succeeded by his son, Lung-shun, who entered into a very submissive relationship with the T’ang court while still insisting on altered terminology for the relationship. The next year Lung-shun sent an envoy to the T’ang court who requested intermarriage and insisted on being addressed as the representative of a younger brother (ti ) state, not a subordinate (ch’en) one. This insistence touched oﬀ an extraordinarily rancourous debate at the T’ang court, but in the end T’ang, preoccupied with the Huang Ch’ao rebellion after 880 and, not wanting any additional trouble from Nan-chao, agreed to refrain from using the term “subordinate” and promised to send a princess to the Nan-chao king. This promise, however, was never fulﬁlled. The last oﬃcial diplomatic contact between the two states was in 897. (Backus 1981, 57–59, 94–105, 134–58. A useful tabulated summary of T’ang-Nan-chao diplomacy is included in pages 195–99.) 82 Twitchett 1979, 33, 38.

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security of the dynasty—the Türks, Uighurs, and Kirgiz—were not in the Chinese cultural orbit. T’ang did not extend diplomatic parity to these peoples because they would not likely have demanded it or appreciated the historical precedent behind such a model of diplomacy.83 The Türks, Uighurs, and Kirgiz were pastoral nomads and as such were culturally and ecologically diﬀerent from the Chinese. The various Sinicised states of the T’ang period, on the other hand, might have appreciated diplomatic parity with China but were in no position to bully T’ang into implementing it. They posed no signiﬁcant threat to the T’ang state84 and as such were probably viewed not as equals but perhaps more as foreigners beginning to be “transformed by the virtue” of T’ang civilisation and its emperors. They might have been deserving of more digniﬁed diplomatic treatment than the nomads, but there was probably still no question of treating or accepting them as true diplomatic equals or addressing their rulers in Chinese as emperors. But during the early eleventh century Sung, a largely uniﬁed Chinese state, and Liao, a conquest dynasty, confronted and fought each other to a standstill. Force majeure had enabled Liao to bring Sung to the negotiating table, but it was the Chinese segment of Liao’s population and culture that secured its diplomatic parity with Sung. Sung’s recognition of Liao as a diplomatic equal was commensurate with Liao’s status as a ﬁrst-rate military power in East Asia. The military might and prowess of the Kitans is axiomatic: they were powerful enough to hold extensive tracts of Chinese territory, resist early Sung attempts at recovering it, and cause the Sung Chinese grave concerns about the security of their dynasty in 1004. What merits more consideration is the “Sinic”85 or culturally Chinese character of a signiﬁcant segment of the Liao state. It is true that, taken 83 Meng or religiously sanctioned agreements were concluded between T’ang and Tibetans during the eighth and ninth centuries, and T’ang regarded Tibet as a “rival state” or “equal state” (ti-kuo) to which subordination or submission did not apply. But Tibet was not a Sinic state or empire, and T’ang probably did not view its external contacts with Tibet as foreign relations with a Sinicised state. 84 Nan-chao threatened T’ang’s position in Szechwan in the ninth century, but these threats did not, by themselves, endanger T’ang as a dynasty. 85 The term “Sinic” may seem a bit dated or old-fashioned, but its use has been revived to some extent by Huntington 1996. “Sinic” is one of the nine world civilisations into which Huntington divides the post-1990 world. Huntington, in turn, borrows the term and concept of “Sinic” civilisations from Fairbank 1968, 2–3. (And Fairbank, I suspect, borrowed elements of his conceptualisation from Arnold Toynbee and Oswald Spengler.)

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as a whole, Liao may not have absorbed as many Chinese cultural elements as Vietnam or Korea; as a conquest dynasty Liao was dualistic in its administration and included within the sphere of inﬂuence of its northern sector several tribal and nomadic peoples who were governed with very “barbarian” institutions and in accordance with barbarian tradition. The southern sector of Liao, on the other hand, included a very sizeable Chinese population that inhabited historically Chinese territory, and these Chinese were ruled by largely Chinese institutions, as were also the Po-hai people and territory. Signiﬁcant proportions of this Chinese population seem to have supported Liao leadership and aﬃrmed its legitimacy. Many Chinese had moved into Liao territory during the chaotic Five Dynasties period (A.D. 907–960) to escape the hardships and abuses of regional warlordism in northern China. The ﬁrst two Liao emperors craved recognition and legitimacy in manifestly Chinese cultural terms. They even sought to fashion the physical trappings of Chinese imperial rule, including seals of oﬃce and instruments of state ceremony. Subsequent Kitan monarchs employed the Confucian rhetoric of “consoling the people and punishing the guilty” to justify the invasion of Sung territory in 1004. Through such eﬀorts the Kitan rulers won the support and acceptance of the Chinese population over which they ruled.86 Liao, in fact, felt with all seriousness that its claim to legitimacy as a dynasty was at least equal to that of Sung. Liao’s dynastic founder Yeh-lü A-pao-chi came to the throne twice: once in 907, when he was named leader by the Kitan nobility, and again in 915, when he was also made a Chinese-style emperor and took steps toward establishing Chinese-style rule in the portions of northern China he controlled. Liao historians during the eleventh century manipulated these two dates to make it appear as though Liao as a dynasty was established in 907, thus directly linking its founding with the end of T’ang. Sung, by contrast, was founded more than half a century after the fall of T’ang as was the successor of Later Chou (A.D. 951–960), the last of the short-lived and chaotic Five Dynasties (A.D. 907–960) in northern China. Developments during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries showed that many Liao leaders and literati

86

Tao 1988, 25–29.

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viewed their dynasty as the direct and legitimate successor to T’ang, not only politically but also culturally.87 But the Sinic character of the Liao state was not simply an expression of its large ethnic Chinese population. Many members of the Kitan ruling class had also been familiar with the Chinese world as early as the seventh century, when the Kitans were in the Chinese political orbit. Beginning around A.D. 630, the T’ang court appointed the Kitan rulers and bestowed on them the imperial surname Li. Successive members of this Li clan were appointed to oﬃce and noble ranks for nearly a century, and several of them served with distinction as T’ang generals. Such Kitans were probably as culturally Chinese as British-educated Indian Raja were British.88 After the An Lu-shan rebellion of the mid-eighth century, the Kitans did not become hostile to China but maintained their longstanding relationship with the military provincial governors (chieh-tu shih) of Fanyang (based at modern Peking), who were semi-independent after the rebellion. The uniﬁer of the Kitan tribes, Yeh-lü A-pao-chi (d. A.D. 927), grew up in a society that had already been experimenting for many years with combining Chinese and nomadic ways of life. He himself spoke Chinese and constructed several cities populated with Chinese war captives and refugees. He is well known for the dualistic mode of governance he envisioned, the southern or Chinese sector of which was roughly based on the T’ang model and took full form in the mid tenth century under the direction of a captured Chinese provincial ﬁnance oﬃcial. Equal diplomacy between Sung and Liao was not instituted in the eleventh century simply because traditional Chinese ideals of diplomatic contact did not match contemporary international realities. (Indeed, such a disparity between ideal and reality seems to have been the norm throughout much of Chinese history.) It was instead adopted because two very powerful Sinic states, Sung and Liao, had fought each other to a stalemate. Unlike the Sinicised states of the T’ang period, Liao had, by posing a viable threat to the security of Sung, shown its mettle on the battleﬁeld and proven itself militarily the equal of Sung. With its complement of Chinese civilisation and 87

Tao 1988, 25–33. Personal discussion with Professor Denis Twitchett at Princeton University, 11 May 1993. 88

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the military might standing behind it, Liao achieved in its foreign relations with Sung what we today might recognise or characterise as equality or diplomatic parity. Sung did not even attempt to maintain the empty rhetoric or veneer of subordination in its foreign relations with Liao. A diﬀerent system of foreign relations was adopted for the conduct of diplomacy between the two states.

CHAPTER TWO

THE SUNG-LIAO WAR OF 1004–1005 AND THE COVENANT OF SHAN-YÜAN

In January 1005 the armies of Sung and Liao were poised for a major confrontation in Sung territory at Shan-chou (Shan-yüan),1 a walled city on both sides of the Yellow River in Ho-pei Circuit (modern Honan).2 Sung and Liao had been ﬁghting pitched battles intermittently since the late 970s, but this time it looked as though the clash would be cataclysmic. Liao had launched this particular attack preemptively in late October 1004 because it was unnerved at Sung’s strengthening of its military preparations and concerned that Sung might once again attempt to press militarily its claims to territory within Liao borders. The agriculturally rich land in dispute, which consisted of a large portion of territory often known in English as the Yen-Yün region or the Sixteen Prefectures, was vital to the ﬁnancial viability of Liao because, as a conquest dynasty, it depended on the agricultural tax revenues and other wealth produced by its southern territory to fund its state and empire.3

1 This study uses the pronunciation “Shan” in Shan-yüan (and Shan-chou) for this place name because its use is well established in Western scholarship: Lau 2000; Lorge 1996; Mote 1999; Schwarz-Schilling 1959; Tao 1983; Tao 1988; Tsang 1997; Twitchett and Tietze 1994; Wright 1998B. (Wittfogel and Feng 1949 eccentrically have T’an-yüan.) The ﬁrst entry in the single-character dictionary K’ang-hsi Tzu-tien, compiled during the Ch’ing dynasty, gives Shan as the pronunciation for this character in association with the place name Shan-yüan; Ch’an is the second reading given. Older Chinese-to-English dictionaries such as Matthews (#5654) and Giles (#9678) give the pronunciation as Shan, but Liang Shih-ch’iu’s Han-Ying Tz’u-tien and others have it as Ch’an. The Chinese dictionaries Chung-wen Ta Tz’u-tien, Tz’u-hai, and Tz’uyüan all give the pronunciation as Ch’an as it pertains to this place name. Recently some Western scholars have begun using Ch’an-yüan/Chanyuan (Lorge unpublished manuscripts; Lamouroux 1998; Wyatt 2003), while others (notably Leung 2003) point to both possibilities. 2 This chapter is a revised and expanded version of Wright 1998B. 3 On the ﬁnancial dependence of Liao and other conquest dynasties on tax revenues from Chinese agricultural territory under their control, see Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 10–14; Franke and Twitchett 1994, 37–38; Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 95–96.

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Map 2

the sung-liao war of 1004‒1005

41

In previous years, when Sung launched attacks into Liao territory, Sung was ﬁghting for irridentist ambitions and territorial uniﬁcation. For the Kitans, however, this and every other ﬁght with Sung was about the survival of their state; Liao rulers knew that if Sung succeeded in reconquering the Sixteen Prefectures, their own dynasty would be ﬁnished. Sung could, and ultimately did, survive without the Sixteen Prefectures, but Liao could not hope to do so. Liao’s objective in this current campaign was neither the permanent destruction of Sung nor the conquest of Sung territory4 (with the one exception of the Kuan-nan region, as will be explained below), but the devastation of Ho-pei Circuit5 and the conclusion of an enduring peace settlement with Sung that such devastation and demonstration of credible threat would encourage.6 Liao wanted Sung to lay oﬀ, permanently, the Sixteen Prefectures. Since Liao had the most to lose, both in a possible future battle with Sung over the Sixteen Prefectures and in this current clash with Sung inside Sung territory, it acted more precipitously and took a bigger gamble, one that eventually paid oﬀ quite handsomely. The Liao forces at Shan-yüan in January 1005 still had the option of bypassing Shan-yüan, crossing over the frozen Yellow River, and pressing on towards the Sung capital at Pien (Kaifeng), which was only lightly defended at the time. If, however, Liao forces tarried too long in Ho-pei, the spring thaw would be upon them and they would be in grave danger of being trapped, bogged down, and cut oﬀ from their retreat routes back to the north when the ice melted, the rivers ﬂowed, and Ho-pei Circuit was reduced to a muddy mess. With the former possibility terrifying Sung, the latter possibility weighing heavily on the minds of the Kitans, and general unease on both sides about the massive casualties that would surely be incurred in a large-scale showdown outside Shan-yüan, the two states de-escalated the situation and concluded the Covenant of Shan-yüan. This peace agreement beneﬁted both sides, but Liao, which stood the

4 It is of course axiomatic that Liao was not out to conquer Sung. (Lorge 1996, iv, 246, 270, 276) 5 Lu, the generic name of the Sung’s largest territorial administrative jurisdictions, which consisted of groups of neighbouring prefectures ( fu). See Hucker 1985, 322.3839.1. 6 I doubt that the devastation of Ho-pei Circuit was an objective in and of itself, as Lau 2000, 209 seems to imply.

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most to lose in the looming confrontation between the two states, gained the most from its peaceful resolution.7

Tenth-Century Warfare Between Sung and Liao During the 960s much of China was being uniﬁed by Sung, and the political confusion of the Five Dynasties period (A.D. 907–960) was coming to a close. War between the Kitans and Sung was initially avoided because both states were preoccupied with the consolidation of their internal power bases. Sung did, to be sure, have ambitions of conquering all of China, including the “Sixteen Prefectures” or the area of northern China ceded by the Kitans to the (Shih) Chin dynasty (936–947) in 938 in exchange for Kitan assistance against Chin’s enemies, but these ambitions were set aside for when all of China south of Liao was ﬁrmly under Sung control.8 Chao K’uang-yin (Emperor T’ai-tsu), the ﬁrst Sung emperor, never forgot his long-standing desire to recover Yen-ching (modern Peking/ Beijing) and refused to consider China uniﬁed without it.9 His programme was to unify central and southern China ﬁrst and then confront Liao when the rest of China was economically prosperous.10 In 974 Sung began cultivating diplomatic ties with Liao in order to secure Liao neutrality during the planned Sung attack on Northern 7 In assembling my account of the events leading to the conclusion of the covenant I have relied heavily upon Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien, as excerpted in modern times for materials pertaining to Sung and Liao foreign relations as Tao and Wang 1974, volumes 1–3 (hereafter abbreviated HCPSL). Citations refer to the volume and page numbers, and not to individual chapters (chüan) within this excerpted work. I have used other primary materials, where helpful or informative, to supplement this account. I have also had reference to some modern Chinese military scholarship on the ﬁghting that preceded the conclusion of the covenant. 8 Worthy 1975, 14–25. Worthy argues that the decision to unify the south ﬁrst had already been taken during the Later Chou (950–960) and discusses the rationale for this decision. Liang 1999, however, challenges the south-ﬁrst strategy and argues that it is more of a modern historiographical construct than a real plan formulated in early Sung times. Peter Lorge views the south-ﬁrst strategy as a myth and will likely publish an article on this in the near future. Meanwhile see Lorge 1996, 153–55. 9 Wang Min-hsin 1975, 41. 10 Tsang 1997, 86. I never met Tsang Shui-lung, but by all accounts he was an enormously energetic scholar with a virtually encyclopedic knowledge of pre-modern Chinese military history. I know I share the sentiments of Sung scholars everywhere in expressing my sorrow at his tragic and untimely passing in Hong Kong in the spring of 2003.

the sung-liao war of 1004‒1005

Map 3

43

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Han, a Kitan client state based in T’ai-yüan and one of Sung’s last rival states in the north. Beginning in 975 Sung and Liao began some exchange of diplomatic missions, and in 977 the Sung court even established border oﬃces to regulate international trade between the two states. Friction between Sung and Liao nevertheless increased. In 976 T’ai-tsu launched an invasion of Northern Han, and Liao, responding to Northern Han pleas for help, sent forces that helped repel the Sung attack. When the south came under Sung control in 979, the dynasty turned its attention to Northern Han. T’ai-tsung (r. 976–997), the new Sung emperor, launched a massive attack on the Northern Han and quickly captured the state despite its assistance from Liao forces. A massive assault on T’ai-yüan was not necessary because the Northern Han ruler was persuaded to surrender. The collapse of Northern Han brought Sung reuniﬁcation of China to the greatest height it would ever achieve.11 This quick victory motivated T’aitsung to launch what turned out to be an extraordinarily ill-advised attack on the Kitans. He led his armies eastward through the passes of the T’ai-hang Mountains and proceeded to the Sung-Liao border, intent upon recovering the Sixteen Prefectures. He advanced northward to Yu-chou12 but encountered ﬁerce resistance at the Kaoliang River. The recovery of Yu-chou was one of T’ai-tsung’s main objectives.13 T’ai-tsung’s engagement at the Kao-liang River ended in a disastrous defeat for Sung, with T’ai-tsung himself being injured by two arrows and barely escaping capture by ﬂeeing to the south aboard a donkey cart.14 Hostilities increased between the two states after the Sung conquest of Northern Han. T’ai-tsung continued to desire the recovery of the Sixteen Prefectures, and minor clashes broke out between the two states in 980 and 982. In 986 he decided to take advantage of 11

Worthy 1975, 78–79. The Kitan Southern Capital area, also known as Yen or Yen-ching, the most important of the Sixteen Prefectures. 13 Chiang 1966, 113. (Earlier in the century, Emperor Shih-tsung of Later Chou had attacked it and was about to take it when he had to withdraw because of illness.) 14 Fu 1984, 29–35 questions some aspects of the usual account of Sung’s defeat and T’ai-tsung’s injuries. He suspects that a Sung military mutiny occasioned the victorious Liao attack. Ch’eng 1972, 53–58 is a careful and painstaking study and comparison of the various accounts of the ﬁghting. Ch’eng notes that Sung and Liao accounts of T’ai-tsung’s defeat and injuries vary in some details. 12

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the youth and inexperience of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung (r. 983– 1031), then a lad of sixteen, by launching another attempt to recover the Sixteen Prefectures. This, however, was a serious miscalculation on his part; he underestimated the strength and resolve of Liao and the leadership of Liao Sheng-tsung’s mother, the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien. The Sung attack made some impressive gains at ﬁrst but was soon stopped as Liao generals cut oﬀ Sung’s supply lines and surrounded its armies. It was another ignominious defeat for Sung. Despite this second catastrophe, the Sung emperor T’ai-tsung still harboured intentions of recovering the Sixteen Prefectures, but by this time he knew that Sung could not prevail militarily. He saw that the only way to secure peace with the Kitans would be to buy them oﬀ with a transfer of wealth. He insisted, however, that any cession of territory under Sung control was out of the question. Peace advocates at the Sung court attempted to use this conclusion reached by Sung T’ai-tsung as a basis for making the accession to the throne of Sung Chen-tsung (r. 997–1022) an occasion for formalising peace with the Kitans, but these eﬀorts came to nought.15 There is some indication that Sung attempted to re-establish friendly relations with Liao in the 990s, but these moves were rejected. The Kitans were apparently in a ﬁghting mood, emboldened by their victories in the last two major confrontations with Sung and animated by Sung’s revanchist longings to recover the Kuan-nan territory, or the northeast corner of the Sung’s Ho-pei Circuit. (In fact, Liao invaded Sung four times between 998 and 1003, with varying degrees of success,16 but none were adequate for keeping Sung in check.) Additionally, a desire to take revenge on Sung for the attacks of 979 and 986 may also have been a factor in increasing and sustaining the hawkish attitudes of the Kitans during this time. The Kuan-nan territory consisted of thee strategic passes and two prefectures. The passes were Wa-ch’iao, I-chin, and Yü-k’ou. The prefectures, Ying-chou and Mo-chou, were in fact the two southernmost of the Sixteen Prefectures ceded to the Kitans by Later Chin in 938. They were, however, seized from Kitan control by Later Chou in 959, just one year prior to the founding of Sung. Together, these passes and prefectures were referred to as Kuan-nan,

15 16

Fu 1984, 119–22. Lau 2000, 180, 198. For details on these clashes, see Lau 2000, 193–98.

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“South of the Passes.”17 The Kitans wanted the Kuan-nan territory back as desperately as Sung wanted to hang onto it; both sides well understood that Kuan-nan was prime agricultural territory and a tremendous asset to the economy and tax base, and thus the political and military security, of whichever state controlled it. The Kitans apparently held Sung, the direct successor state of Later Chou, responsible for the wresting of territory which they regarded as justly their own. The two states would bicker and clash about the disposition of Kuan-nan until 1005, when it was deﬁnitively recognised by both sides as Sung territory. The accession of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung in 997 was an important link in the chain of events that ultimately led to conﬂict and then resolution at Shan-yüan in early 1005. Chen-tsung was not a warrior emperor as T’ai-tsu had been; he had no memory of the struggles to extirpate China from the political and military chaos of the Five Dynasties period. He did, however, believe that the Kitan threat could be dealt with only through swift military action and felt compelled to prove himself militarily as his predecessors had done, although he was more cautious than either T’ai-tsu or T’ai-tsung had been.18 In both traditional and modern historical writing, Chentsung has typically been portrayed as a timid, indecisive, and superstitious ruler. There is of course some truth to these characterisations, but they paint an incomplete portrait of the monarch. From a child he appears to have been an ambitious person who longed to make his mark in the world, strengthen Sung defences, and recover the Sixteen Prefectures.19 The Kitans, far from being emboldened after his accession, likely found his irredentism alarming. The death in 998 of Yeh-lü Hsiu-ko,20 the long-time commanderin-chief of the Kitans, was another important event. In 999 the Kitan emperor Sheng-tsung announced his plans for mobilising a campaign against Sung. His purpose was to recover the Kuan-nan territories.

17

Twitchett and Tietze, 1994, 104; Lau 2000, 183. Emperor Shih-tsung of Chou had attacked and taken Ying-chou as part of his campaign to recover the lost Sixteen Prefectures. His death prevented him from achieving this goal. (Worthy 1975, 40) 18 Olsson 1974, 38–39. An interesting account of the changing character of Chentsung and his style of rule is found in pages 30–43. 19 Wang 1996 is an important recent biography that challenges some of the traditional or stereotypical views of Chen-tsung. 20 Biographies LS 83.1299–1301; Yang 1987.

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Liao armies attacked Ting-chou in northwestern Ho-pei Circuit and Ying-chou in northeastern Ho-pei Circuit, but neither city was taken, and in 1000 the campaign was called oﬀ.21

The Kitan Invasion of the Early Eleventh Century Kitan attacks continued oﬀ and on for the next four years before beginning in earnest. There were additional clashes in 1001 on Tingchou, and border clashes broke out during 1002. In 1003 a Liao army under the command of Hsiao Ta-lin launched another attack on Ting-chou and penetrated as far south as Wang-tu, where the important Sung general Wang Chi-chung was captured. None of these Kitan attacks resulted in permanent Kitan occupation of Sung territory, but they did serve to indicate Liao dissatisfaction with the status quo.22 The full-scale Kitan invasion of Sung territory did not begin until late 1004. Tensions along the Sung-Liao border (at Ho-pei Circuit of Sung and the Southern Capital Circuit of Liao) in early 1004 were high. On January 8, 1004 Wang Ch’ao, a leading Sung military commander, requested that troops be recruited and sent on a large preemptive raid into Kitan territory. This the Sung emperor Chen-tsung rejected, insisting that for the time being a more defensive posture was appropriate. On February 4 there was much apprehension in northern Ho-pei Circuit about the Kitans strengthening their fortiﬁcations along the Chü-ma River, but once again Chentsung urged caution and restraint. He did, however, put the armies at Wei-lu Military Prefecture,23 Ching-jung Military Prefecture, Shunan Military Prefecture, Pei-p’ing Stockade, and Pao-chou on full alert and urged them to assist the imperial armies if necessary. He also encouraged them to be prepared to open ditches and ﬂood the land as a defensive measure against invading Kitan troops. On February 20 this defensive measure was taken a step further when the court approved diverting the T’ang River for defensive purposes and increased irrigation of surrounding areas.24 21

Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 105. Lorge 1996, 256–57. 23 Chün; Hucker 1985, 200.1730.3. The Military Prefecture was a prefecture in which military matters were the primary governmental concern. 24 HCPSL 1.225–26. 22

chapter two

48 The “Great Ditch of China”

By the early eleventh century, Sung had constructed a great military water network in parts of Ho-pei Circuit as a defensive measure against Kitan raids. This network, “a web of boggy swamps, quick rivers, shifting dunes, and overgrowing reeds . . . a complex of canals, ditches, paddy ﬁelds, pools, swamps, ﬂoodgates, water barriers, and the like,”25 was designed to impede the progress of Liao invasions and was eﬀective during the non-winter months: The canals, paddy ﬁelds, and elm trees evened the odds for the Song’s [Sung’s] predominantly infantry-based army against the Liao’s allcavalry army, slowing the steppe raiders down and diverting their attacks . . . Infantry forces could also trap cavalry forces against the Ditch and its surrounding paddies, a signiﬁcant advantage in what would have otherwise been open terrain.26

It was primarily intended as a military barrier but also had practical uses in farming and transportation. This water network, along with fortiﬁed cities, local militias, and regular Sung armies, were the means by which Sung defended itself from attacks by its northern neighbour. Certainly the military use of river waters in China was not new to Sung and dated back to pre-imperial times.27 Indeed, as recently as May 11, 1938 the Yellow River was brought into military service when Chiang Kai-shek ordered Nationalist general Shang Chen (1888–1978)28 to blow up its dikes halfway between Cheng-chou and Kaifeng. (Around Chung-mou the Yellow River, “a river on stilts,” had a bed between twenty-three and twenty-nine feet higher than the surrounding plain.) This delayed advancing Japanese columns for several weeks before they ﬁnally reached Nanking (Nanjing) and butchered the city. The few weeks of time this gave the Nationalists came at a terrible price: eleven cities and four thousand villages ﬂooded, crops and farms across three provinces ruined, and two million peasants left homeless.29 25

Lau 2000, 183, 187. Peter Lorge, “The Great Ditch of China and the Song-Liao Border” (unpublished manuscript). Cited and quoted with Lorge’s permission. 27 Lamouroux 1998, 546. For a general overview of aquatic warfare in Chinese military history, see Sawyer 2004, 241–371. 28 Biography Boorman 1970, 89–90. Boorman erroneously gives the year 1884 for Shang’s birth. 29 Wilson 1982, 119–21. 26

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Sung’s defensive water network, which Peter Lorge has called “the Great Ditch of China,”30 was constructed in large part during the years 991 to 1000 at the behest of the Sung general Ho Ch’eng-chü (946–1006),31 prefect of Hsiung-chou, and it turned the Kuan-nan area into an important barrier to Kitan incursions. For the Kitans there was, in fact, no way through it, but only around it. Kitan raids in the 990s almost always avoided Kuan-nan completely and took routes in the dry area west of Kuan-nan.32 “Without this artiﬁcial obstacle, the entire province [Ho-pei Circuit] was open all the way to the Yellow River.”33 In 1000 Ho Ch’eng-chü convinced the Sung emperor Chen-tsung to expand the Great Ditch further to the west in Ho-pei Circuit, and by 1003 new waterway construction projects were well underway, with new waterﬁelds appearing in Ching-jung Military Prefecture, Ting-chou, and Shun-an Military Prefecture. Sung hydraulic engineers and labourers . . . systematically built posts and fortresses in the northern border zone; and along a frontier of 800 li, they planted three million elm and willow trees, and dug canals, ditches, and artiﬁcial lakes—some one hundred li long, ﬁfty li broad, and ten feet deep. This elaborate defence system was manned by large garrisons which numbered about 28,000 soldiers in Ting Prefecture [Ting-chou]; 45,000 in Shun-an Commandery [Shun-an Military Prefecture]; 42,000 in Ying Prefecture [Ying-chou]; 10,000 in Mo Prefecture [Mo-chou] . . .34

By 1004 the Great Ditch was expanding so quickly that Liao was alarmed and determined to strike out at Sung before its water defences made Ho-pei Circuit completely impenetrable.35 The Kitans’ fear was that strengthened Sung water defences portended a third Sung campaign against the Sixteen Prefectures,36 and these fears were

30

Lorge, “The Great Ditch of China,” unpublished manuscript. Biography SS 273.9327–33. 32 Lau 2000, 188; Lamouroux 1998, 553. Another early eleventh-century Sung oﬃcial named Li Ch’ui (965–1033) also thought of the Yellow River partially in terms of its defensive military utility against the Kitan; see Lamouroux 1998, 551–52. 33 Lorge, “The Great Ditch of China,” unpublished manuscript. 34 Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 535; quoted in Lau 2000, 189. Even after the Covenant of Shan-yüan, Sung continued to think of its northern water networks in defensive terms; by the mid eleventh century “hydraulic discourse” had to include strategic perspectives as well as control of the river itself. See Lamouroux 1998, 582. 35 Lau 2000, 188–89. 36 Lau 2000, 185, 216. 31

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conﬁrmed and magniﬁed by Liao observation of Sung eﬀorts at fortifying border cities and training local Sung militia along the border for potential guerilla warfare and intelligence gathering purposes.37 A vigorous programme of fortiﬁcation of cities near the Sung-Liao border had been launched early in Chen-tsung’s reign, and Wei-lu and Ching-jung were eventually so well defended that the Kitans began referring to them as “Iron City” and “Bronze Gate” respectively.38 Indeed, from the Liao perspective, this and especially the construction of the Great Ditch constituted “not a sign of weakness, but an ominous sign of oﬀensive intentions on the part of the Song [Sung] court,” and Liao well understood “the more general military potential of a broad band of military outposts connected by a supply system capable of maintaining a large number of soldiers.”39

The Crisis of 1004 A sense of imminent confrontation seems to have ﬁlled the air in the spring of 1004. On March 24 a major clash broke out at Ch’angch’eng-k’ou. Wei Neng, the Sung prefect of the Wei-lu Military Prefecture, claimed victory in this clash, and for this he and his men were rewarded handsomely. On April 24 the Chief Administration Oﬃcer40 of Kao-yang was ordered along with other commanders to assemble troops on the northern border in anticipation of attacks by Kitan armies, and on April 29 troops from nearby Sung positions were directed to proceed to Shun-an and Mo-chou to fortify forces already there.41 Tensions decreased somewhat after May, and there were no more frantic troop movements along the Ho-pei border. On June 4 Wang Ch’ao, the Chief Administration Oﬃcer of Kao-yang, was able to take advantage of the peace at the border to return to the capital and attend to some personal aﬀairs. The concern during the summer of 1004 seems to have been with irrigation and administrative matters pertaining to military positions in northern Ho-pei. The pre-

37 38 39 40 41

Lau 2000, 186–90. Lau 2000, 187. Lorge, “The Great Ditch of China,” unpublished manuscript. Tu-pu-shu; Hucker 1985, 541.7268. HCPSL 1.226–27.

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fect of Hsiung-chou was apparently even conﬁdent enough about the lull in hostilities to discuss a river routing project that would have required several hundred thousand corveé workers, and for this he received a mild rebuke from the Sung court along with instructions to maintain vigilance at the border.42 Most of June and July were spent on work opening new river courses. The irrigation projects had the dual purpose of furthering agriculture and making it more diﬃcult for Kitan horsemen to penetrate into the plains of Ho-pei Circuit. The Sung court, however, was leery about excessive dependence on ditches for defense; in fact, on July 12 it decided that if the ditches near Shun-an Military Prefecture and Ching-jung Military Prefecture were ﬁlled in by the Kitans during an attack, it would not be necessary to defend these two areas stubbornly.43 Tensions began anew in August. From 19 August through 16 September 1004, before major campaigns began, Liao sent light cavalry deep into Shen-chou and Ch’i-chou on reconnaissance and harassing raids, where they engaged Sung forces in skirmishes but withdrew when the clashes did not go their way. The main purpose of these preliminary raids was to cause panic among Sung forces and assess Sung military preparedness, something the Kitans had long done in preparation for major battles. Sung’s main defence lines were as follows. In the forward position was a triangular line consisting of Wei-lu Military Prefecture, Pei-p’ing Stockade, and Pao-chou; these three positions had 6000, 5000, and 5000 cavalry respectively. South of this was the second line of defence, consisting of Chenchou, Ting-chou, and Kao-yang Pass. Infantry and cavalrymen from these three places concentrated forces at Ting-chou and relied on the T’ang River as a defensive barrier, deploying troops along its southern shore. The ﬁnal line of defence was T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture, where Sung had stationed large numbers of troops. If the Liao armies broke through these three lines of defence, the security of the Sung capital at Pien (K’ai-feng) would be threatened.44 When Liao reconnaissance raids began in August, the Sung court directed troops stationed at Chen-chou to proceed to Ting-chou. Next, forces outside Ho-pei Circuit were directed to proceed to 42 43 44

HCPSL 1.227. HCPSL 1.228. Feng and Mao 1998, 214.

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Ho-pei to resist the Liao attacks. These movements indicate that Sung’s defensive course of action was roughly as follows. As soon as the forward position was broken through, Sung troops would pull back to defend the T’ang River defence line; in case this line was also broken through, Sung would resolutely check the Liao armies at T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture and areas north. No matter what, the Liao armies must not be allowed to cross the Yellow River and thereby threaten the security of the Sung capital.45 There was concern about the morale of the Sung troops stationed in northern Ho-tung Circuit and Ho-pei Circuit, and desertion seems to have been a problem. Jingoism was on the rise at the Sung court; on August 25, Grand Councilors46 Pi Shih-an (938–1005)47 and K’ou Chun (961–1023)48 were growing incensed at increasing Kitan attacks. Kitan cavalry units had begun entering into Ho-pei Circuit as far south as Shen-chou and Ch’i-chou and then withdrawing at the slightest resistance. K’ou Chun was especially angered at these daring forays and thought they portended future military problems for Sung. He urged that reinforcements be sent at once to protect vulnerable areas along the border. His urgings were apparently heeded, because on September 9 military units in southern Ho-pei Circuit were ordered to send reinforcement troops north to Ting-chou.49 Kitan raids were common enough by the end of September for peasants along the border to have to take refuge in cities during raids. The Sung court instructed the towns and garrisons along the border not to send out troop contingents to send oﬀ or receive imperial messengers; this unnecessarily exposed troops to Kitan attack. Additionally, the prefect of Hsiung-chou requested that prefectures along the coast open ﬂoodgates to ﬂood wide areas, thus preventing a Kitan advance far to the east.50 In October preparations for war began in earnest. Tai-chou in northern Ho-tung Circuit was fortiﬁed and reinforced. On October 2 Chen-tsung announced to his Grand Councilors, K’ou Chun and Pi Shih-an, that because of the obvious intentions of the Kitans to advance southward against Sung, he would personally mount an 45 46 47 48 49 50

Feng and Mao 1998, 215. P’ing-chang-shih; Hucker 386.4703.1. Biography SS 281.9517–22. Biography SS 281.9527–36. HCPSL 1.229–30; SS 281.9530. Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 105.

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expedition to the north against the Kitan. The emperor was apparently convinced that crossing the Yellow River by an imperial expedition would have large symbolic and psychological value; it would serve to strengthen the morale and ﬁghting spirit of the Sung troops and also supposedly intimidate the Kitan forces. Pi Shih-an was somewhat troubled by this and suggested that if there was indeed to be a personal imperial expedition, it should be made to Shanyüan (Shan-chou). Pi Shih-an further pointed out that the inner and outer walls (ch’eng-kuo) of Shan-yüan were not wide and were unsuitable for stationing large concentrations of troops. He therefore urged that the expedition to Shan-yüan be carefully planned and that for the time being no ﬁrm date for it be set. K’ou Chun, on the other hand, had a more positive view of the imperial expedition and urged its date not be postponed for long, although he agreed that the expedition would not last for long and would not proceed beyond Shanyüan. Chen-tsung ultimately accepted Pi Shih-an’s proposals and put oﬀ the date for the time being.51 On October 24, 1004 the Liao armies began their great campaign southward with a reported 200,000 crack Kitan cavalrymen.52 October through January were typically the ﬁghting months for the Kitans; the rain and heat of spring and summer largely reduced the combat eﬀectiveness of Kitan cavalry by weakening their bows and bogging their horses down in muddy terrain. Sung, which was held back by cold weather as much as the Kitans were by heat, understood this and thus learned something about the predictability of Liao campaigns.53 On October 28 the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and his mother, the Kitan empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien, arrived at Ku-an in Liao territory, where they made Hsiao Ta-lin54 and Hsiao Kuanyin-nu the leaders of the Liao vanguard. In response to these movements, Sung sent reinforcements in late October to Chen-chou and Ts’ang-chou in northern Ho-pei Circuit. Meanwhile, preliminary Kitan raids had apparently been going further and further south into Ho-pei Circuit; on October 28 Pin-chou, Po-chou, Te-chou, and other areas north of T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture were ordered 51

HCPSL 1.231–32; Feng and Mao 1998, 215. Lau 2000, 180. 53 Tsang 1997, 91–93. 54 Hsiao Ta-lin, whose name is written several diﬀerent ways in various Sung and Liao sources, was a famous Kitan military commander who had previously fought in campaigns in Korea, Mongolia, and Sung China. Biography LS 86.1313–14. 52

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to punish severely any citizens of these towns who engaged in looting during the Kitan attacks. In early November Liao forces under the leadership of Hsiao Talin attacked Wei-lu Military Prefecture and Shun-an Military Prefecture, defeating and overrunning both by the next day. They then turned their forces westward and attacked Pei-p’ing Stockade but were beaten back by the Sung commander there. Next Liao forces turned back to the east and attacked Pao-chou but did not capture it.55 With this the Liao vanguard generals met at Wang-tu with the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien, where they prepared for further campaigns to the south. During previous Kitan campaigns in Sung territory, Liao armies had usually divided into eastern and western columns, with the western column proceeding towards Ting-chou and points south and the eastern column passing through Kao-yang Pass and points beyond. This time, however, Sung had deployed large forces at Ting-chou and along the T’ang River. The Liao emperor and empress dowager, who were skilled practitioners of the military arts, decided to avoid Ting-chou, adopting tactics which the Chinese call “avoiding the substantial and attacking the vacuous” ( pi-shih chi-hsü ). Instead, they led their forces from Wang-tu to the southeast and broke through Sung’s defence lines between Ting-chou and Kao-yang Pass, where Sung forces were weak, and there in one grand move they broke through the T’ang River defence line and encamped at Yang-ch’engtien with a claimed 20,000 cavalrymen. From there they prepared to move further south towards Pei-chou and T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture. Simultaneous with these developments a sideshow was playing further to the west, across the T’ai-hang Mountains in Ho-tung Circuit (modern Shansi). The greater part of the Kitan oﬀensive into Sung territory was concentrated in Ho-pei Circuit; Ho-tung Circuit seems to have escaped serious attacks. This was more than likely because the ﬂat terrain of Ho-pei Circuit was easier for the Kitan cavalry to negotiate. The T’ai-hang Mountains separating Ho-tung Circuit from Ho-pei Circuit made access to Kaifeng from Ho-tung Circuit much more diﬃcult. In early to mid November 1004, Liao armies

55 Feng and Mao 1998, 215–16; HCPSL 1.233. Sung sources claim victories for all of these engagements.

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in Ho-tung had launched attacks to pin down Sung forces there and prevent them from going to the rescue of embattled Sung forces eastward in Ho-pei Circuit. Liao forces attacked to the south and made ready to attack K’o-lan Military Prefecture, but before doing this they attacked Sung forces north of K’o-lan with tens of thousands of cavalry. The Sung commanders, however, had placed troops in ambush positions north of K’o-lan, and when Liao forces arrived they arose and inﬂicted around 10,000 casualties on Liao forces and captured many horses, cows, and camels from the Liao armies. At this same time, other Sung commanders led their forces from Huoshan Military Prefecture and attack eastward into Shuo-chou in Liao territory (Western Capital Circuit) to check the Liao attacks on K’olan. On November 18, 1004 Sung forces raiding into Liao territory from Ho-tung won a victory over Liao at Lang-shui Fortress (location unclear), where they took 400 Liao troops prisoner and obtained much livestock and many suits of armour. When Liao forces attacking K’o-lan Military Prefecture heard of this, they withdrew and returned to the north. Some Sung military units in northern Ho-pei Circuit were apparently still available; two days later, Sung forces at Wei-lu Military prefecture, Pao-chou, and Pei-p’ing Stockade were ordered to launch similar counter-raids into the Kitan Southern Capital Circuit.56 Meanwhile, on November 9, 1004 the Sung emperor Chen-tsung ordered Wang Ch’in-jo (962–1025)57 to T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture and began preparing for his personal expedition to Shan-yüan. He also ordered forces west of the T’ai-hang Mountains in Ho-tung Circuit to cross the T’u-men Pass into Ho-pei Circuit to join the troops stationed at Ting-chou.58 Debates at the Sung court At the Sung court in Kaifeng on November 7, K’ou Chun was growing apprehensive about the Kitans’ intentions. Kitan forces were attacking Ting-chou in northern Ho-pei Circuit and had already arrived at many areas east of Ch’i-chou and Shen-chou. This meant,

56 57 58

HCPSL 1.236; Feng and Mao 1998, 216. Biographies SS 283.9559–66; Franke 1976, 2.1105–09. Feng and Mao 1998, 215–17.

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apparently, that most of the important military areas along the SungLiao border, including Wei-lu Military Prefecture, Ching-jung Military Prefecture, Ch’ang-ch’eng-k’ou, Pao-chou, Shun-an Military Prefecture, Mo-chou, Hsiung-chou, Pao-ting Military Prefecture, Pa-chou, and P’o-lu Military Prefecture, were gravely threatened. K’ou Chun pled that reinforcements be sent to Pei-chou (in southern Ho-pei Circuit) and that other forces be recruited to break up the Kitan oﬀensive by launching raids into Kitan territory. He was concerned that extensive southward penetration by Kitan troops would endanger the planned imperial expedition to Shan-yüan. He did not even know for certain whether Kitan troops had already encamped in Pei-chou (in central Ho-pei Circuit). If they had, troops were to be called down from Ting-chou to fortify Hsing-chou and Ming-chou, one hundred kilometres to the west and southwest of Pei-chou. He even made other contingency plans for responding to a Kitan occupation of Hsing-chou and Ming-chou. In all instances it was K’ou Chun’s concern that the planned imperial expedition be able to cross over the Yellow River safely and enter Shan-yüan without incident. Only in this way, K’ou Chun reasoned, would the barbarian Kitan raiders be restrained from further slaughter.59 The Sung court was not unanimous about the advisability of the imperial campaign to Shan-yüan. Participant in Determining Government Aﬀairs60 Wang Ch’in-jo was troubled by the deep southward penetration of Kitan forces into Sung territory and secretly requested that Chen-tsung “visit” (i.e., withdraw to) Chin-ling,61 and Notary of the Bureau of Military Aﬀairs62 Ch’en Yao-sou (961–1017)63 requested that he “visit” Ch’eng-tu in Szechwan. The emperor inquired of K’ou Chun concerning these proposed withdrawals in the presence of Wang Ch’in-jo and Ch’en Yao-sou. K’ou Chun knew that Wang Ch’in-jo had asked the emperor to “visit” Chin-ling because he was from Kiangnan and that Ch’en Yao-sou, a native of Szechwan, wanted him to withdraw to Ch’eng-tu. K’ou Chun pretended not to know this, however, and said,

59 60 61 62 63

HCPSL 1.233. Ts’an-chih cheng-shih; Hucker 1985, 517.6872.1. Modern Nanking (Nanjing). Ch’ien-shu-mi-yüan-shih; Hucker 1985, 154.924. Biography SS 284.9584–88.

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Those who devised such plans for Your Majesty should be condemned and beheaded. The reigning Son of Heaven has divine military qualities and the oﬃcers are united and in harmony. If the imperial Chariot sets out for a campaign under the personal supervision of the emperor they [i.e., our armies] would, surely, vanish. If not, issue a clever stratagem in order to destroy their schemes, safely guard [our territory], and exhaust their people. If they become tired of their endeavours, we can expect victory. How could we wish to abandon our ancestral temples and our altars to the spirit of the land and go as far away as Ch’u [Kiangnan] or Shu [Szechwan]?

These rousing words seem to have given the emperor new resolve, and the proposed withdrawals were tabled. Wang Ch’in-jo and Ch’en Yao-sou were furious with K’ou Chun. K’ou Chun knew that Wang Ch’in-jo was conniving64 and would possibly try to hinder the planned expedition to Shan-yüan, so he had Wang dismissed from court and assigned to T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture.65 But this was not the end of troubles from Wang Ch’in-jo; later, he would attempt to prevent a Sung envoy from traveling to Liao territory for negotiations. The Battles of Ying-chou and T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture In late October and early November 1005, after Liao forces had broken through the T’ang River line of defence and had encamped at Yang-ch’eng-tien, the Kitans divided their forces into two columns and advanced further south, with the western column moving towards Ch’i-chou and the eastern column moving on Ying-chou. On November 20, 1044 the eastern Liao column arrived at the walls of Yingchou and attacked them throughout the night. (Ying-chou was strategically a very important because it was the most crucial stronghold on the plains north of the Yellow River and was geographically at the centre of the Kuan-nan territory the Kitans meant to take back from Sung.) Liao forces also prepared siege engines, and the sounds of their drums and of their men chopping down trees for the engines could be heard at great distances.66 That night, Hsi 64 Wang Ch’in-jo’s biography is SS is not favourable. His eagerness to take credit for the strong points of the Ts’e-fu Yüan-kuei (the compilation of which he supervised) and refusal to take the blame for any of its shortcomings are examples given in the Sung-shih of his pettiness and vindictiveness. Se his biography in SS 283.9559–66. 65 HCPSL 1.235; SSCSPM 21.142. The quotation in translation is from Wolfgang Franke 1976, 200–01. 66 Catapults, siege towers, and burning oil were among the best siege technology

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troops wore wooden planks on their backs, took candles in their hands, and climbed the walls. The troops at Ying-chou were especially strong and in good morale, and from atop the walls they repeatedly rolled down rampart stones and large logs onto the people at their walls, inﬂicting many casualties on the besieging Kitan forces. The next day the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien personally directed massive Liao attacks on the walls of Ying-chou. The battle for Ying-chou was the bloodiest of the entire war. Arrows left in the city’s moats numbered 400,000, and there were areas where 200 arrows accumulated in spaces little more than a few inches wide. Sung defenders were appalled to see the fearless Kitan assault on Ying-chou and their extensive material preparation for it.67 Arrows fell like rain, but Sung forces defending the city indicated no weakness and stoutly maintained their defence. After more than ten days of relentless attacks the Liao forces were still unable to break through the walls of Ying-chou, so they simply bypassed the city and continued attacking southward to Wuch’iang and beyond.68 In this unsuccessful battle Liao suﬀered 90,000 casualties: around 30,000 combat deaths and twice as many injuries. After the departure of besieging Liao forces, Sung armies at Yingchou recovered large quantities of Liao armour and weapons. The western Liao column fared better in its attacks. On November 18, 1004 the Liao vanguard in the western column, led by generals Hsiao Ta-lin and Hsiao Kuan-yin-nu, captured Ch’i-chou. Most Sung oﬃcers and men there surrendered. On December 27, 1004 Liao cavalry in the western column arrived at Ming-chou (modern Yung-nien) and were beaten back by Sung forces. The next day, Liao forces under the command of Hsiao Paya-erh69 captured several Sung oﬃcers, and moved on towards the walls of T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture north of the Yellow River. As Liao armies approached the walls of T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture, Wang Ch’in-jo, who was directing the city’s defences, sumduring the tenth and eleventh centuries. Fortunately for Sung, its strategic knowhow was superior to Liao, as late tenth-century Sung incursions into Liao indicated. (Tsang 1997, 100) On the use of burning oil in siege warfare, see Sawyer 2004, passim. 67 Lau 2000, 209. 68 As a general rule, neither Sung nor Liao were able to capture a well-fortiﬁed city within ten days. (Tsang 1997, 99) 69 Pa-ya-erh is, of course, a close Altaic cognate of Mongolian bayar, which means joy, delight, celebration, etc.

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moned the generals to discuss the defence of each of the city’s gates. One Sun Ch’üan-chao (952–1011)70 was a skilled trainer of infantrymen and especially of crossbowmen, whose powerful weapons were able to penetrate heavy armour. Wang Ch’in-jo selected Sun to guard the northern gate, while he himself would guard the southern gate. Sun thought this unwise and suggested that Wang Ch’in-jo remain in the centre of T’ien-hsiung, while four generals guarded the four gates of the city. This Wang Ch’in-jo accepted, and the positions of the defending generals were ﬁxed. As the battle began, Sun opened the northern gate of T’ien-hsiung city, lowered the drawbridge, and prepared for the Liao cavalry to enter the city; he planned to shoot at them from the tops of the walls. The Liao armies, however, did not enter from the northern gate but launched a massive and prolonged attack on the eastern gate, which they failed to break through. At length a portion of the attacking Liao forces secretly withdrew and went around to Ti-hsiang Temple (south of the city), where they deployed ambush troops. The rest of the attacking Liao troops then moved on southward, as if abandoning their attack on the city. When Wang Ch’in-jo heard about this he swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker and sent crack Sung cavalry in pursuit of them. When these Sung forces arrived at the Ti-hsiang Temple the Liao ambush troops arose, cut oﬀ the retreat route of the Sung troops, and made it impossible for them to advance or withdraw. Sun Ch’üan-chao sensed the urgency of this situation and dropped his defence of the northern gate, leading his troops through the city and out the southern gate and to the rescue of the trapped Sung forces. His troops fought a large battle with Liao forces, with heavy casualties on both sides; only thirty to forty percent of the Sung troops survived the battle. Liao, for its part, decided to bypass T’ien-hsiung without capturing it.71 Sung defensive measures K’ou Chun and the other planners of the emperor’s personal expedition to Shan-yüan were well aware that large risks were involved, and they took measures to reduce as many of these as possible. On 70

Biography SS 253.8873–74. HCPSL 1.239; CTKC 7.67; LSCSPM 24.445 (which admits that the Kitans did not capture Ying-chou); Feng and Mao 1998, 217–18. 71

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November 10 elaborate plans were made for the protection of the imperial expedition to Shan-yüan, and the people of the districts (hsien) just south of Ho-pei Circuit were directed to enter and remain inside city walls or stockades for safety from the advancing Kitan forces.72 The prefect of Shan-chou announced during these counter-raids that he had assigned men to repair and shore up the walls of Shanchou. Chen-tsung, however, fearful that this project and the deep penetration of Kitan forces into Sung territory would cause the hearts of the people to waver with fear, directed that this work be stopped at once. Refugees from northern Ho-pei Circuit began pouring into Po-chou, K’ang-chou, and Pin-chou in mid-November, and commissioners were sent to these areas to gather and console them. In addition, the authorities of Ch’i-chou and Ch’ing-chou in Chingtung Circuit were directed to ensure that their populations were not startled at the sudden inﬂux of refugees. One can only speculate about why these refugees ﬂed to these areas; perhaps they were driven to ﬂee eastward by a Kitan oﬀensive aimed due south at Kaifeng. There were some unscrupulous boat pilots on the Yellow River who took advantage of the refugee situation and endeavoured to make some quick wartime proﬁts. They demanded exorbitant fees of refugees attempting to cross over, but this quickly stopped when a few of these pilots were publicly executed for their unseemly behaviour.73 The role of Wang Chi-chung The imperial expedition to Shan-yüan was at one point scheduled to begin on November 30. Preparations had been in the oﬃng for some time, and for the next ten days more counter-raids continued into the Southern Capital Circuit from the Sung military forces in northern Ho-pei Circuit, presumably as diversionary measures. On December 10 the Sung emperor received a letter from Wang Chi-chung, the Chinese oﬃcial captured by the Kitans in 1003. Because Wang Chi-chung was to play an important part in the negotiations that eventually led to the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005, a brief account of his capture and subsequent activities in Kitan cap-

72 73

HCPSL 1.236. HCPSL 1.237–38.

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tivity will be given here.74 Wang, a native of Kaifeng,75 had been captured by the Kitans in 1003 at the battle of Wang-tu. In the spring of 1003, Kitan forces under the leadership of Yeh-lü Nü-kua and Hsiao Ta-lin invaded Wang-tu in Ting-chou. Wang Chi-chung and General Wang Ch’ao led a contingent of troops to Ting-chou. When they arrived in K’ang-ts’un they did battle with the forces of Yeh-lü Nü-kua, and Wang Chi-chung deployed his troops to the east. The enemy responded by deploying troops to the west and succeeded in cutting oﬀ his supply line. Wang and his forces then ﬂed with their horses at full gallop, but the Kitans, recognising their Sung-style clothing and regalia, soon surrounded and captured them.76 The Sung emperor learned of this and assumed that Wang Chichung had died in Kitan captivity.77 The Kitan emperor, however, had respect for Wang’s talents and treated him well. Wang was granted oﬃcial rank in the Kitan bureaucracy78 and even given a woman from K’ang Mo-chi’s clan as wife.79 At length he was granted the imperial surname Yeh-lü, installed as Prince of Ch’u, and given several slave households.80 He even accompanied the Kitan general Hsiao Ho-chuo on a punitive expedition against Korea.81 He was also allowed to receive items sent to him with the Sung envoys who arrived periodically at the Liao court after peace had been concluded. Wang Chi-chung made the best of his new situation and spoke with the Kitans of the advantages of resolving their conﬂict with Sung peacefully. The empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien, who was in actual control of the Kitan state at this time, was old and had 74 Information about Wang Chi-chung and his capture by the Kitans is contained in parenthetical entries scattered throughout HCPSL 1.225–54. In describing his capture I follow the more coherent account contained in SSCSPM 21.141–47. 75 Wang has biographies in both SS 279.9471–72 and LS 81.1284–85. 76 According to his biography in Sung-shih, Wang Chi-chung was frequently visited in his captivity by Sung envoys who visited Liao annually after peace was concluded. These envoys brought ﬁne clothes, silks, teas, and medicines to him, and he often wept, presumably out of gratitude and also because of his longing to return to his natal state. Wang once sent a communication to the Sung emperor requesting that he be summoned back to Sung, but the emperor feared going against the provisions in the text of the oath-letter to the Covenant of Shan-yüan, which forbade making requests for which there was no speciﬁc provision. See SS 279.9471–72. 77 SSCSPM 21.141–42. 78 SSCSPM 21.142. 79 LS 81.1284. K’ang was one of Han Yen-hui’s collaborators who had advised Yeh-lü A-pao-chi in the early 900s to construct cities for Chinese captives. 80 SS 279.9472; LS 81.1284. 81 LS 81.1285.

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grown tired of war, and she listened to Wang’s proposals with a receptive ear.82 These proposals were later to bear fruit as the positioning for a peaceful solution to the conﬂict began in earnest.83 Diplomatic contacts begin A letter from Wang Chi-chung to Chen-tsung arrived at the Sung court on November 10, 1004. Its text was as follows. The Kitans have already led troops and attacked and surrounded Yingchou. Kuan-nan was once part of their territory, and I fear it will be diﬃcult to defend it stubbornly. I request that you quickly send envoys to discuss [establishing] peaceful and amicable relations.84

Sung sources treat this letter as evidence that the initial request for peace came from the Kitans and as an indication of their submissiveness and realisation that peace with Sung was the only viable alternative open to them. Chen-tsung was not overly concerned about the ability of Ying-chou to hold out against the Kitan siege. He did, however, decide to send to the Kitans a messenger bearing a letter. One Ts’ao Li-yung85 was recommended as a man willing and able to travel as an envoy. Ts’ao was granted high honoriﬁc titles to increase his prestige as an envoy and then given a letter to take to the Kitan emperor. The text of this letter has been preserved and is given below in translation.86 (First day of the Ching-te reign, tenth month, ping-wu [day])87 Our territorial boundaries are close and intimate, and I have long admired your famed policies. [Yet] the joy of being allied states never having been extended [to us], how can my desires to be loving and

82

HCPSL 1.235; CTKC 7.67; LSCSPM 24.445. Earlier, Wang Chi-chung had sent a memorial to Sung indicating that Shengtsung and the Kitan empress dowager desired a peaceful conclusion to the hostilities. Chen-tsung, however, assumed a cautious attitude towards this ﬁrst communication and declined to initiate peace negotiations at this time. Chen-tsung indicated to his court that he was not adverse to bestowing wealth upon the Kitans in exchange for their withdrawal, but that he was concerned about their continual demands for the cession of the Kuan-nan territory. (See HCPSL 1.235–36.) The Liao-shih and various Sung sources disagree about whether Liao or Sung was responsible for initiating this ﬁrst indication that a peaceful resolution to the conﬂict was desired. 84 HCPSL 1.238. 85 Biography SS 290.9705–08. 86 STCLC 228.882. 87 December 10, 1004. 83

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benevolent be achieved? What I have longed for is the cessation of bloodshed,88 which is the enduring design of nations, and the termination of armed conﬂict and promotion of civil ideals, which are the most magniﬁcent achievements for the rulers of men. As I reﬂect on [my own] paucity of virtue and [my] reverential succession to the throne eight years ago, [I ﬁnd that] my only concern has been for the welfare of the people. As for protecting and regulating the border regions, I have proscribed weaponry and taken down the beacon towers. I have issued orders only to maintain preparedness in order to stabilise the border. I have not made engaging in aggression my policy. As for the present, Palace89 Inspector-in-chief 90 Wang Chi-chung has sent a sealed memorial from afar. This memorial is set forth in great detail, and in it I have observed profound suggestions for giving the people rest. It is truly a praiseworthy plan for arriving at [peace and] good government and shall lead to a happy alliance. [He also] proposes the exchanging of envoys, and [these] proposals seem implementable. His reasoning is certainly vast and extensive. The lofty and pure view to which I aspire is a common peace for the myriad beings. In the ritual of our intercourse we shall ever proceed at the appropriate seasons.91 We shall cultivate [and exchange] silks and jades in order to extend our sincerity. We shall take an oath in the clearest possible terms92 in establishing amicability and neighbourliness [between our] two states. This shall be in keeping with the desires of men to maintain their positions. I shall certainly rejoice with the deepest sincerity to hear your esteemed intention. At your abode in the wilds the climate is about to become severe.93 Take good care of yourself in your daily activities so that you may secure much good fortune. I now hasten to dispatch one [courier to

88

Sheng-ts’an ch’ü-sha, literally “overcome violence and eliminate killing.” These two split binomials convey the single idea of putting an end to violent military conﬂict. As a phrase they are an allusion to Analects 13:11 and a saying which Confucius quoted with approval: “If good men were to rule a country for a hundred years, it would be possible to overcome cruelty and eliminate killing.” (My translation) 89 Tien-ch’ien. 90 Tu-yü-hou; Hucker 1985, 546.7334 and 590.8134.1. 91 This is perhaps an early reference to the two types of envoys that were to be regularly exchanged between Sung and the Kitans after peace was concluded at Shan-yüan. Birthday and new year felicitations envoys were exchanged annually, and other types of missions (such as condolence and accession annunciation missions) were sent on such occasions as the death of an emperor and the accession of a new one. 92 Chih tan-ch’ing erh chu-shih. This is perhaps derived from the cliché tan-ch’ing chih hsin, which signiﬁes absolute good faith without any possibility of doubt. 93 I.e., cold.

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you] who travels along the route [bearing this] single letter. I yearn for some news of you and wait to receive respectfully your esteemed reply.

Ts’ao was also given a letter from the Sung emperor to deliver to Wang Chi-chung.94 Continuing hostilities Tensions remained high throughout the rest of December, even as these letters were being exchanged. On December 19 a report was sent in claiming that the Kitans, having been unsuccessful in their attempt to take Ying-chou, intended to send 20,000 troops south to Pei-chou and T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture. Sung troops were sent north to T’ien-hsiung from Shan-yüan in response. There was also some concern on December 24 that the defences of T’ung-li Military Prefecture would not be adequate to resist a southward attack. In the event, T’ung-li Military Prefecture was devastated by the Kitan oﬀensive. The planned imperial expedition to Shan-yüan proceeded as scheduled. On December 25, 1004, contingents of Sung troops proceeded to Shan-yüan, and on December 30 more troops arrived. On January 1, 1005, ditches were dug around the walls of Shan-yüan as a defensive measure. The purpose of all this was to fortify and strengthen Shan-yüan and provide safety for the seemingly all-important arrival of the emperor.95 Resistance to negotiations On January 3, 1005, Ts’ao Li-yung arrived at T’ien-hsiung Military Prefecture on his way north to deliver the Sung emperor’s letter to the Kitan emperor. Wang Ch’in-jo, who had been dismissed from court and assigned at T’ien-hsiung Military prefecture by K’ou Chun, was not at all happy with these developments and obstreperously detained Ts’ao for several days, apparently because he had reservations about the sincerity of the Kitans and their desires for peace. Wang Chi-chung had been anxious for some time for word from 94

HCPSL 1.238–39. HCPSL 1.240–41. According to SSCSPM 21.144, secret plans had been made to install Chen-tsung’s son as emperor if the imperial expedition did not return. 95

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Sung, and from his Kitan captivity he sent several more communications to the Sung court stating that the Kitans were awaiting the arrival of a Sung envoy. When Wang Chi-chung learned that Ts’ao Li-yung was being detained in T’ien-hsiung, he sent another communication to the Sung court urging that another envoy be sent to the Kitans to avoid further delays. The Sung emperor ultimately intervened and directed that an order be issued to Wang Ch’in-jo to allow Ts’ao Li-yung to proceed to the north.96 The proximity of clashes to the Sung imperial encampments apparently unnerved the timid Chen-tsung and some of his courtiers. Chentsung himself had observed that the Yellow River was frozen over and that the Kitan horses could easily cross over it,97 so Sung forces drilled holes in the ice to reduce the possibility of such an advance. He began to waver somewhat in his resolve and again considered withdrawing to Chin-ling. He summoned K’ou Chun once again and asked him to express his opinion on the matter. K’ou Chun argued energetically for the necessity of pressing on in order to bolster the morale of the Sung troops. Withdrawal would be disastrous, he argued; the Sung troops would, on hearing the news of the emperor’s withdrawal, disintegrate like a shattered piece of ceramic tile, and the emperor would not even make Chin-ling before the Kitan armies caught up with him and captured him. Other military and civil oﬃcials concurred with K’ou Chun’s arguments, and Chentsung’s resolve was once again restored.98 The death of Hsiao Ta-lin Having bypassed T’ien-hsiung, Liao forces continued pressing southward. On January 3, 1005 the Liao generals Hsiao Pa-ya-erh and Hsiao Kuan-yin-nu captured Te-ch’ing, which was north of Shanchou; many Sung oﬃcers and men there perished in battle. Two days later, the Kitan emperor Sheng-tsung and empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien led the main Liao force and arrived at the northern walls of Shan-chou and immediately launched a three-pronged attack on the city from the east, north, and west. The Sung general at Shan-chou, Li Chi-lung, immediately deployed strong crossbowmen 96 97 98

HCPSL 1.243; SS 281.9530. HCPSL 1.243. HCPSL 1.242–43; SSCSPM 21.144–45.

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to control vital strategic points outside the city and organised defensive measures for the city. Meanwhile, Liao armies began preparing to lay siege to the city. On January 7, 1005, soon after Kitan troops under the leadership of the Kitan general Hsiao Ta-lin arrived at Shan-chou, he was killed on a preliminary sortie into the plain north of Shan-yüan when a bolt ﬁred by a large and powerful Sung arcuballista or bed-framed crossbow99 from a position of cover hit him squarely in the forehead and felled him from his horse.100 Liao troops went out to rescue him, but his injuries were too serious and he died. The Kitan empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien was greatly distressed by his death, and the morale of the Liao troops suﬀered as a result. But Shan-chou was still surrounded by the main Liao force, while other troops were divided out to proceed farther southward. On January 8, 1005, Liao forces attacked and captured T’ung-li101 Military Prefecture (west of Shan-chou), and it appeared that Liao troops might have been preparing to bypass Shan-chou and march on the Sung capital itself.102 The arrival of the imperial expedition at Shan-yüan Meanwhile, the Sung emperor Chen-tsung had been dilatory in his response to the Kitan invasion. Only on November 29, 1004, just two days after the capture of Ch’i-chou, did Chen-tsung order Wang Ch’ao to lead Sung armies to Shan-chou and prepare the way for Chen-tsung’s arrival there. Wang deﬁed the emperor’s orders and 99 Ch’uang-tzu nu. This was an enormously powerful, double-bowed crossbow mounted on a four-legged rack. Large bed-framed crossbows required ten men to set their cocking mechanisms, and ordinary ones required ﬁve to seven men. The range of these weapons was approximately four hundred yards. An illustrated description of this weapon is found in the Sung military work by Tseng Kung-liang, Wuching Tsung-yao. Modern studies of Chinese arcuballistae include Sun 1985 and especially Needham and Yates 1994, 184–99. The Mongols apparently used similar weapons in their campaign against the Ismaili (Assassin) stronghold in Alamut. The Persian historian Juvaini describes a weapon he calls kaman-i gav (“ox’s bow”) which had been constructed by “Khitayan” (presumably Chinese) craftsmen and had a range of 2500 paces. See Boyle 1958, 630–31. 100 Sung and Liao sources diﬀer slightly on the details of Hsiao’s death; on this see Tsang 1997, 119. 101 Name changed to An-li in 1023. 102 HCPSL 1.244; CTKC 7.68; SSCSPM 21.144; Feng and Li 1998, 218–19. Li T’ao in a note in the HCPSL text argues that Chen-tsung had not yet arrived at Shan-chou at the time of Hsiao Ta-lin’s death.

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remained at Ting-chou103 but redirected forces under the command of Lei Yu-chung, who had come all the way from Ho-tung to relieve him at Ting-chou, to Shan-chou. On January 1, 1005, Chen-tsung began making concrete plans for his personal campaign to Shan-chou. (In the meantime, Liao forces under the command of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and the Kitan empress dowager had arrived and were amassing outside the Shanchou walls.) After deploying several units at various strategic places around Shan-chou, Chen-tsung began urging and supervising the work of digging ditches and dredging moats around Shan-chou’s walls in order to impede Liao cavalry. On January 3 Chen-tsung ﬁnally set out from the Sung capital to Shan-chou, encamping at Wei-ch’eng along the way and ordering the prefects of Hua-chou and P’u-chou to send workers to drill holes in the iced-over waters of the Yellow River in order to prevent the Liao cavalry from crossing it. Elsewhere the ﬁghting was not going in Sung’s favour; on January 8, Liao forces captured T’ung-li Commandery. January 9 was the day for the Sung emperor Chen-tsung to cross the Yellow River and enter the northern portion of Shan-yüan. The city of Shan-chou actually straddled the Yellow River, with walled sections on both the southern and northern banks. (Indeed, Shanyüan was an important Yellow River crossing. “Yüan means “deep water,” so in a sense the toponym meant “Depths of Shan.”) When the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and his retinue arrived at the Southern City (Nan-ch’eng), they wanted to encamp there because of concern about the “dampness and narrowness” of the gates and alleys in the Northern City (Pei-ch’eng). K’ou Chun once again had to urge Chentsung into crossing the Yellow River to the Northern City: “If Your Majesty does not cross the River, the hearts of the people will be dangerously fearful. The morale of the enemy is not yet stricken down with fear; this is no way to inspire the troops with awe and achieve victory. Reinforcements from far and wide have been arriving here daily; what suspicions do you have that you will not proceed?” Kao Ch’iung (935–1006),104 an illiterate military man who during Chen-tsung’s reign was serving as Palace Commander-in-chief,105 also 103 As was Wang’s prerogative as a general out on campaign. On this see Suntzu’s Art of War (Ping-fa) 9:50 (trans. Sawyer 1994, 203) and Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s biography of Sun-tzu (Sun Wu): SC 65.2161 (trans. Yang 1979, 29). 104 Biography SS 289.9691–94. 105 Tien-ch’ien tu-chih hui-shih; Hucker 1985, 500.6534 and 537.7199.1.

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persistently urged the Sung emperor Chen-tsung in awkward, inelegant language to cross the River: “If Your Majesty does not go to the Northern City, the common people will be as though they were bereaved of their fathers and mothers.” Assistant Military Aﬀairs Commissioner106 Feng Cheng (958–1023)107 was nearby, and when he heard this he upbraided Kao Ch’iung for his unseemly and prosaic way of addressing the emperor. Kao Ch’iung responded with an angry retort that is a favourite anecdote in popular Chinese military history writing: “You, Sir, attained to your position in the Two Administrations108 based on your literary writings. Now, with the enemy cavalry running rampant to this extent, you still rebuke me for being ill-mannered. Why don’t you, Sir, compose a poem and chant the enemy cavalry into retreat?” When Chen-tsung had ﬁnally crossed the Yellow River, ascended the northern gate of Shan-chou, and unfurled the yellow dragon banner of the Chinese emperor, the Sung troops all shouted “wansui!,” and according to Sung sources their morale was bolstered considerably.109 K’ou Chun was then placed in charge of all military operations and given authority to decide all military matters. Sung sources claim that he handled his command in Shan-yüan with an air of complete conﬁdence, even in the face of ﬁerce Kitan attacks, that put Chen-tsung at ease.110 Continuing negotiations Meanwhile, Ts’ao Li-yung had ﬁnally succeeded in reaching the Kitan camps and having an audience with the young Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. Various Kitan ministers, including Han Te-jang, gathered around a simple makeshift table with Ts’ao Li-yung and began the peace negotiations. Before these negotiations were concluded the Kitans appointed Han Ch’i as an envoy to Sung with a letter from Sheng-tsung. Han Ch’i then accompanied Ts’ao Li-yung on his return to the Sung forces. 106

Ch’ien shu-mi-yüan shih; Hucker 1985, 152.885 and 436.5451.2. Biography SS 285.9608–11. 108 Liang fu; Hucker 1985, 309.3664.2; a reference to the two top levels of the Sung government: the Secretariat (Chung-shu sheng) and the Bureau of Military Aﬀairs (Shu-mi yüan). 109 HCPSL 1.244; CTKC 7.68; SSCSPM 21.145; Feng and Mao 1998, 12.219–20. 110 HCPSL 1.252; SS 281.9531; SSCSPM 21.145. 107

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On January 13 Ts’ao Li-yung and the Kitan envoy Han Ch’i arrived at the Sung imperial headquarters, and Han Ch’i submitted Sheng-tsung’s letter. As Sung had feared, this letter contained a request for cession of the Kuan-nan territory. The Sung emperor and his court agreed that this request could not be assented to; Sung would ﬁght to the ﬁnish rather than give up this territory. Sung had argued all along that it had had no part in Later Chou’s territorial dealing with the Kitans and would thus not agree to cede any of the territory Sung had inherited from Chou. This was the basis of the Sung claim to the Kuan-nan territories, a claim Christian SchwarzSchilling argues was not very convincing.111 It was at this time, however, that Chen-tsung and his court decided that there would be no harm to the standing or prestige of Sung if yearly payments of money and silks were made to the Kitans.112 A Sung missive written in response to this mission has been preserved.113 It is an interesting piece of diplomatic literature because it speaks in broad terms about the common desire for peace and contains no explicit rejection of the terms requested by the Kitans. (First year of the Ching-te reign, twelfth month, keng-ch’en day)114 Recently I basked [in the favour of ] your splendid communication in which you stated your hopes for cultivating favourability and amicability. I thereupon dispatched an envoy to extend specially a triﬂing missive in which I presented my true intentions and desires [so that you], far away, [might] hear with your esteemed listening. You forthwith sent a special messenger to reveal a letter in reply. I read repeatedly the words which abundantly ﬁlled this [length of ] silk,115 detailed and replete with principles for friendship and neighbourliness. You hope to preserve peace along the border regions, cease and desist with shields and spears,116 and cultivate the gladness of [diplomatic relations based on exchange of ] jades and silks, [all] to lengthen and solidify [our] oath of absolute clarity. Having [thus] characterised your lofty friendship and kindness, my innermost feelings were deeply consoled.

111 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 96. Schwarz-Schilling remains a major study of the Covenant of Shan-yüan and, despite its occasional errors, contains many useful insights, A. F. P. Hulsewé’s highly critical review (1959) notwithstanding. 112 HCPSL 1.245; CTKC 7.68. 113 STCLC 228.882. 114 January 13, 1005. 115 Perhaps the document was actually written on a fu, or length of silk. I have been unable to determine the meaning intended here. 116 Kan-ko, which literally means “shields and spears,” is here a synecdochical reference to military implements and activity in general.

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chapter two The cold is now becoming more severe, and you have been travelling for a long time now. I encourage you to eat nutritious food to assemble auspiciousness.

After Han Ch’i’s ﬁnal audience with the emperor, Chen-tsung summoned Ts’ao Li-yung, once again sternly warned him against agreeing to any cession of land, and then repeated his earlier instructions that periodic bestowals of goods and wealth would be acceptable.117 Ts’ao reassured the emperor that he would never allow Sung territory to be ceded. Then, according to Sung sources, Ts’ao reported that he had learned through his Kitan-speaking intelligence network that Han Ch’i had been unnerved at the sight of the military units and equipment at the Sung imperial encampment.118 Just prior to his second trip as an envoy to the Kitans, Ts’ao Liyung discussed with Chen-tsung the appropriate annual payments in silver and silk to the Kitans. The emperor authorised Ts’ao to pay as many as 1,000,000 units of silk, silver, or both if he could ﬁnd no other alternative for securing peace. When the audience was over, however, K’ou Chun summoned Ts’ao to his tent and threatened to have him beheaded if the amount to which he agreed exceeded 300,000.119 K’ou Chun was apparently reluctant to accept peace even on these terms. He argued that such a peace agreement would be violated within a few years and that the Kitans would soon begin again to harbour aggressive intentions towards Sung. Chen-tsung, however, was willing to let the future take care of itself; for now, he wanted to put a stop to the hostilities.120

117 According to SS 290.9705, Chen-tsung saw some precedent for this in the Han dynasty’s bestowal of jades and silks to the shan-yü of the Hsiung-nu. 118 HCPSL 1.245. There is some question about the exact meaning of the text here in relation to who was actually able to speak the Kitan language. Yao Ts’ungwu believed that Ts’ao Li-yung himself was able to speak and understand Kitan and pointed to a passage in Yang Chung-liang’s Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien Pen-mo where it does seem to indicate that Ts’ao knew Kitan. James T. C. Liu, however, has analysed this question and concluded that the passage is defective. In Liu’s view, the proper reconstruction of the text indicates that Ts’ao Li-yung sent other people who knew Kitan to listen in on what Han Ch’i was saying to his men. See Liu 1987, 89–91. 119 HCPSL 1.248–49; SSCSPM 21.145; CTKC 7.68; SS 281.9531. According to the CTKC, these payments were called lo, or “bribes.” 120 HCPSL 1.252; SSCSPM 21.145.

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An Agreement Reached On January 16, 1005, Ts’ao Li-yung and Han Ch’i arrived at the Kitan encampments, and the Kitans once again discussed ceding the Kuan-nan territory. This time the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien herself participated in the negotiations. She argued that the Later (Shih) Chin dynasty (A.D. 936–947) had ceded the Kuan-nan territory to the Kitans and that Emperor Shih-tsung of Later Chou (A.D. 950–960) had wrongfully taken it back. By rights, she concluded, it belonged to the Kitans and should be returned. Ts’ao responded that Sung knew nothing of the territorial dealings of Chin or Chou with the Kitans. He repeatedly rejected all demands for territorial cession and announced that he could only negotiate for an annual “bestowal” of money and silks to help the Kitans with “military expenses.” Commander Kao Cheng-shih of Liao then came forward and said that it had always been his purpose ever since assuming command over his troops to recover the Kuan-nan territory, and that failing in this purpose would be a national disgrace for the Kitans. Ts’ao responded by reiterating his resolve to resist all territorial demands, even if this meant war. At length, seeing that Ts’ao would not waver, Sheng-tsung and his mother (the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien) set aside their territorial demands and settled for an agreement that Sung would make annual payments of 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 taels of silver.121 The Kitans then sent Wang Chi-chung to see Ts’ao Li-yung. Wang announced that the young Sheng-tsung would henceforth regard himself as the younger brother of the Sung emperor.122 The Kitans apparently interpreted these ﬁctive relations between the Sung emperor and the Liao emperor in slightly diﬀerent terms; according to the Liao-shih, the Sung emperor would regard the Kitan empress dowager as shu-mu, or junior aunt.123 Of course, this interpretation put Liao in a position of symbolic superiority over Sung. After the annual payments of silk and silver were agreed upon, Wang Chi-chung expressed to Ts’ao Li-yung concern about Sung’s alteration of river courses and then requested that Sung take an oath 121

HCPSL 1.247; SS 290.9706; SSCSPM 21.143. HCPSL 1.247. 123 LSCSPM 20.451. These ﬁctive familial relations were ruler-to-ruler, not stateto-state. A good discussion of these relations is found in Nieh 1940, 12. 122

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to solemnise the agreements just reached and send an envoy with an oath-letter back to the Kitans.124 Ts’ao returned to Sung territory on January 17 along with Yao Chien-chih, a Kitan envoy bearing a missive from the Liao emperor. Ts’ao entered the Sung imperial tent at Shan-yüan just as Chentsung was taking his meal. The emperor did not immediately receive him in audience but sent a eunuch to inquire into the amount to which Ts’ao had agreed. Ts’ao replied that such a matter was a state secret and should be divulged only to the emperor in a formal audience. The emperor, apparently anxious to know of the results of the negotiations and unwilling to wait for an audience, again sent a eunuch to press Ts’ao into giving a rough ﬁgure. Ts’ao, still reluctant to speak, ﬁnally placed three ﬁngers on his own cheek as an indication. This was immediately conveyed to the emperor and misunderstood to signify 3,000,000. Chen-tsung could not help but cry “too much!” at this ﬁgure, but after a few moments he seems to have resigned himself to it and even seemed to approve of it, high though it was, as a way of securing peace. It may well have been that Ts’ao engineered this misunderstanding to work to his advantage. The thinness of the curtains of the emperor’s tent quarters might have enabled Ts’ao to hear all of these discussions between the emperor and his eunuchs. When the time came for his audience with the emperor, Ts’ao made a show of apologising profusely for the inordinately large annual payments to which he had agreed. But when he ﬁnally revealed that the amount was only 300,000, the emperor could hardly contain himself for joy and rewarded Ts’ao handsomely.125 It is apparent even from Sung materials that the Kitans regarded this agreement as a victory for Liao, because Yao Chien-chih began speaking of the mighty and victorious Kitan armies. He was, however, silenced when a Sung oﬃcial aptly quoted a passage from the Lao-tzu cautioning against glorying in military exploits.126 (The Sung 124

HCPSL 1.247. HCPSL 1.249. Ts’ao was given valuable gifts, a house at the Sung capital, and quick promotions. (Tao 1988, 20) 126 HCPSL 1.247. The passage quoted here was a portion of chapter 31 of the Tao-te Ching; my translation of it is as follows. Weapons are inauspicious implements, Not the implements of the gentleman. When there is no alternative to using them, Doing so calmly and lightly is best. 125

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emperor T’ai-tsung, who reigned from 976 to 997, also occasionally quoted this same passage.)127 The next day the Liao envoy and his attendants were feted to a banquet, and on January 19 the oath-letter to Liao was drawn up as per the agreements reached by Ts’ao Li-yung and the requests of Wang Chi-chung. Li Chi-ch’ang was selected as the Sung envoy to bear the oath-letter and accompany Yao Chien-chih on his return trip to the Kitans. Li Chi-ch’ang was then given prestige titles commensurate with his position as an envoy.128 The solemn covenants The agreement concluded at Shan-yüan was called a meng, a term perhaps best translated as “covenant.” It was, however, what might be called a horizontal covenant rather than a vertical one. That is, it was between men, not between God and men.129 Horizontal covenants did not involve the divine realm as a principal, but only as a sanctioning entity in an agreement between two earthly states. During Eastern Chou times (722–481 B.C.), the meng was the most solemn and formal type of agreement that could be concluded between states. In its broader sense the term refers not just to the covenant’s provisions but also to the entire body of ceremony surrounding the conclusion of the covenant. According to a classic study of pre-imperial China’s inter-state relations and the covenant ritual of Eastern Chou times, after the provisions of a covenant were hammered out by negotiators, a solemn ceremony was conducted in which an animal, usually a calf, was sacriﬁced at a designated spot outside the city walls.130 The left ear of the calf was cut oﬀ and used to daub

There is no beauty in victory; He who sees beauty in it Is one who delights in killing. And he who delights in killing Shall not achieve his ambition of ruling all under heaven. 127 See Tsang 1997, 90 and references. 128 HCPSL 1.248. 129 Susan Roosevelt Weld notes that “the Eastern Chou ritual of covenant has little in common with the idea in the Old Testament of a covenant granted by God to his chosen people” and urges modern scholars to realise that the meng was “a human institution used to create relations of obligation.” (Weld 1997, 154) 130 We now know, however, from Eastern Chou/Spring and Autumn period covenant texts excavated at Hou-ma (Houma) in the mid 1960s and at Wen-hsien

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the sacriﬁcial blood on the text of the covenant and the lips of the testators. The texts of the treaties concluded at such occasions typically contained three main parts: a statement of the purpose of the covenant, the covenant provisions, and religious sanctions calling down imprecations upon the heads of whichever party violated the terms.131 Some of the elements of these meng are clearly present in the texts of the oath-letters written by Sung and Liao in 1005. The text of Chen-tsung’s oath-letter to Sheng-tsung has been preserved and is given here in translation.132 On this the seventh, or ping-hsü day of the ﬁrst half of the twelfth, or keng-ch’en month of the inaugural year of the Ching-te reign period,133 the Emperor of the Great Sung respectfully transmits [this] oath deposition to His Majesty the Emperor of the Kitan: To abide together in sincere good faith and reverently uphold134 a joyous oath, of the resources had in natural abundance [in the Sung realm], 200,000 bolts of raw silk and 100,000 taels of silver [shall be forwarded] annually to assist with [Kitan] military expenditures.135 Moreover, envoys shall not be dispatched with the special duty of proceeding to the Northern Court [with these items]; the State Finance Commission136 shall simply be directed to dispatch personnel to transport [them] to Hsiung-chou for delivery and dispensation.137 The civilian and military prefectures along the border shall each abide by the [present] territorial boundaries. The residents and households of the two realms shall not encroach on one another. If there are robbers or bandits who ﬂee arrest, neither side shall allow them to be given refuge. As for furrowed ﬁelds and sowing and reaping,138 neither the North nor the South shall grant [their populations] licence to harass or disturb.139 All walls and moats now in existence on either side may be kept and maintained as of old, with the dredging of moats and completion (Wenxian) in the early 1980s that the sacriﬁcial animals often included sheep and sometimes oxen, horses, and chickens. (Weld 1997, 129, 157) 131 Walker 1953, 82. 132 CTKC 20.189–90. 133 January 19, 1005. 134 Shou. The HCPSL version has the variant feng, or “receive.” 135 The wording “assisting with [Kitan] military expenditures” is signiﬁcant here because it is the formula devised to avoid any mention of “tribute.” 136 San-ssu; Hucker 1985, 4010–02.4912.5. 137 The language here is also signiﬁcant; “. . . the payment was to be delivered by a minor Sung oﬃcial at the border prefecture of Hsiung-chou, to demonstrate that the court at K’ai-feng considered it only a ﬁnancial transaction, not a political act implying submission.” (Twitchett 1994, 109) 138 I.e., farmlands and agricultural activity. 139 Sao-jao. The HCPSL variant is ching-sao, “startle and agitate.”

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of repairs all as before, but it shall not be permissible to initiate construction on [new] walls and moats or open or dig [new] river channels. Neither side shall make requests outside [this] oath deposition. We must work together so that [this oath] can endure far and long. Henceforth we shall preserve the peace for the worthies among the common people and carefully maintain the boundaries. This we pledge before the deities of heaven and earth and declare at the ancestral temples and to the spirits of the land and grain. [May] our posterity abide [by this oath] and transmit it in perpetuity. Whosoever shall repudiate this oath shall be unable to enjoy the reign over [his] state, [for this oath is] clearly manifested [to all] and scrutinised by Heaven, which along with [the oﬀended state] shall surely destroy him. From a distance I have prepared [this document now] opened and spread [before you]. With singleness [of heart] I await your reply. I say no more.

Sung understanding of internal Kitan politics was apparently not very detailed at this time. The Sung court had grown somewhat concerned and confused that the last two Liao envoys, Han Ch’i and Yao Chien-chih, had both conveyed the inquiries of the empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien into the health of Chen-tsung but had not even mentioned the Liao emperor. The Sung court concluded that the Liao empress dowager was in complete control of the government and that the Kitans did not fear their male sovereign. This was conﬁrmed by Ts’ao Li-yung, who informed the Sung court that Yao Chien-chih had told him that the empress dowager was perturbed at not having received a missive from Sung and as a result had remained sulking in her quarters and had not participated in the peace negotiations. Sung was rightly concerned about oﬀending the lady and decided to have Li Chi-ch’ang deliver a missive to her as well as to her son, the Liao emperor.140 Gifts were also sent in response to the gifts presented by Yao Chien-chih.141 Li Chi-ch’ang’s arrival at the Liao camps was greeted with joyful celebrations, and the Kitans feted him generously. They had good cause for celebration since, as Nap-yin Lau has observed, most of the provisions of the Covenant reﬂected Liao fears about Sung’s future military intentions.142 They then wrote out an oath-letter of their own, dated January 24, and sent Ting Chen to present it to 140 141 142

The texts of these letters are in STCLC 228.882. HCPSL 1.248. Lau 2000, 216, 218–19.

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Sung. As A. F. P. Hulsewé has pointed out,143 Sheng-tsung did not merely repeat the promise already expressed by Chen-tsung; rather, he reproduced it in his own oath deposition and then added his own oath to that expressed in the letter from Chen-tsung. (It was, after all, Sung that had to produce the yearly payments; the Kitans were merely promising to do their part in upholding the agreement.) The text of the Kitan letter read as follows.144 On this twelfth, or hsin-mou day of the ﬁrst half of the twelfth, or kengch’en month of the twenty-second, or chia-ch’en year of the T’ung-ho reign period,145 the Emperor of the Great Kitan respectfully transmits this [oath] deposition to His Majesty the Emperor of Great Sung: [While our two states were] conducting discussions together for laying down our weapons and were again negotiating for amicable relations, I was honoured to receive also [your] kindness and consideration in specially making known the [following] oath deposition: ‘. . . of the resources had in natural abundance [in the Sung realm], 200,000 bolts of raw silk and 100,000 taels of silver [shall be forwarded] annually to assist with [Kitan] military expenditures. Moreover, envoys shall not be dispatched with the special duty of proceeding to the Northern Court [with these items]; the State Finance Commission shall simply be directed to dispatch personnel to transport [them] to Hsiung-chou for delivery and dispensation. ‘The civilian and military prefectures along the border shall each abide by the [present] territorial boundaries. The residents and households of the two realms shall not encroach on one another. ‘If there are robbers or bandits who ﬂee arrest, neither side shall allow them to be given refuge. ‘As for furrowed ﬁelds and sowing and reaping, neither the north nor the south shall grant licence to harass or disturb. ‘All walls and moats now in existence on either side may be kept and maintained as of old, with the dredging of moats and completion of repairs all as before, but it shall not be permissible to initiate construction on [new] walls and moats or open or dig [new] river channels. ‘Neither side shall make requests outside [this] oath deposition. ‘We must work together so that [this oath] can endure far and long. Henceforth we shall preserve the peace for the worthies among the common people and carefully maintain the boundaries. This we pledge before the deities of heaven and earth and declare at the ancestral temples and to the spirits of the land and grain. [May] our posterity abide together [by this oath] and transmit it in perpetuity. 143

Hulsewé 1959, 470. CTKC 20.190–91. The letter arrived at the Sung encampment on January 30; see HCPSL 1.252. 145 January 24, 1005. 144

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‘Whosoever shall repudiate this oath shall be unable to enjoy the reign over [his] state, [for this oath is] clearly manifest [to all] and scrutinised by Heaven, which along with [the oﬀended state] shall surely destroy him.’ Although I am not gifted, I shall presume to abide by this agreement and shall respectfully announce it to heaven and earth. I shall place my posterity under oath that if they repudiate this accord, they shall be destroyed by the deities. I have prepared this communication146 with singleness [of heart]. I say no more.

These agreements bear striking resemblance to some elements of the oaths or meng concluded during Eastern Chou times. A basic outline of the covenant rites is as follows: The rites of the meng in their developed form as practiced by the Paramount Princes consisted in drawing up the terms of agreement in a document, tsai-shu; slaying a sacriﬁcial animal, sheng; smearing the lips of the contracting parties with the animal’s blood, sha; attaching the document to the animal and then burying it, k’eng. The document consisted of a preamble naming the participants, shou; the text outlining the terms, yen; and an oath, shih, called down on any of the parties if they should abrogate the meng, yü meng. To this, the gods and spirits, ming-shen, were called upon as witnesses. Gifts were oﬀered to the gods. Copies of the tsai-shu were then ratiﬁed and exchanged, li meng, and deposited in an archive (meng-fu). Careful note was taken of the exact day and place of swearing. In some cases the terms were publicly proclaimed in the streets.147

A covenant concluded between Chin and Ch’u contains the following religious imprecation: “Whoever shall violate this oath, may the intelligent spirits destroy him, causing defeat to his armies and a speedy end to his possession of his state.”148 An oath concluded in 632 B.C. contained similar sanctions: “If any one transgresses this oath, may the intelligent Spirits destroy him, so that he shall lose his people and not be able to possess his State, and, to the remotest posterity, let him have no descendant old or young.”149 An oath of

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Tzu-shu, a communication between equals. Dobson 1968, 271–72. Another outline of covenant ritual by K’ung Ying-ta, a T’ang sub-commentator on the Tso-chuan, is contained and discussed in Weld 1997, 154–60. 148 Walker 1953, 83. 149 Walker 1953, 84–85. Weld 1997, passim, contains many examples of Eastern Chou covenant imprecations involving ruin befalling the lineages of people who dared contravene their covenant obligations. 147

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mutual aid concluded between twelve states in 562 B.C. contained speciﬁc provisions against states harbouring fugitive criminals or traitors from other states,150 and this calls to mind similar provisions in the Sung-Liao agreement. Another such oath was concluded in 783 between T’ang China and Tibet at the ceremony for the Treaty of Ch’ing-shui.151 The oath contained several provisions, including a delineation of the boundaries between the two states in considerable detail and ended with a solemn religious provision: the agreement was being announced to the deities (shen) of heaven and earth and of the mountains and rivers, and there must therefore be no neglect or disregarding of the agreement, the texts of which would be kept in temples.152 That such a meng or covenant was concluded between Sung and Liao would seem to indicate that Sung and Liao did indeed see each other as equals. Repercussions of the covenant Kitan troops withdrew from Sung territory soon after the Covenant of Shan-yüan, although there are indications that they engaged in some pillaging and raiding on their return to the north.153 Sung, for its part, demobilised almost all of its local militias along the border.154 There was soon talk among some Sung leaders that the amount of silks and silver agreed to was excessively generous. On January 26 a few Sung oﬃcials balked at the ﬁgure, but Pi Shih-an argued that a lower ﬁgure would not have secured a lasting peace.155 150

Walker 1953, 85. On which see Beckwith 1987, 148–49 and especially Twitchett 2000, 152–54 and 156. 152 The text of this meng can be found in CTS 196B.5247–48 and in fuller form in TFYK 981.11A–12B (11259). An indispensable tool for reading the T’u-fan monographs is Su et al., 1981; for this meng, see 215–18. Also indispensable is Wang Chung 1958. A simple translation of the CTS account is contained in Yee 1981. Chang I, one of the T’ang oﬃcials present at the ceremonies for this meng, was ashamed to conclude a genuine meng with the Tibetans with the traditional calves and horses; he downgraded the animals to goats and pigs instead. For Wang Gungwu, this made the meng less than acceptable and thus not a true agreement between equals; only the 821 agreement was one between equals. See Wang Gungwu 1983, 65 n. 42. 153 HCPSL 1.250–51. 154 Lau 2000, 215. 155 HCPSL 1.250. 151

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On February 3 the contents of the Kitan oath-letter were announced to the various prefectures (chou) and military prefectures (chün) of Hopei Circuit and Ho-tung Circuit. On this day some objection was raised to the use, in the various documents pertaining to the peace negotiations, of the terms “Northern Court” (Pei ch’ao) to refer to Liao and “Southern Court” (Nan ch’ao) to refer to Sung precisely because the terms strongly implied equality between the two states. One Wang Tseng argued forcefully that it would be more appropriate to refer to the Kitan state simply as “the Kitan.” Chen-tsung agreed with this in principle but declined to implement any changes.156 Associated with the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan was a signiﬁcant change of several uncomplimentary placenames along the Sung side of the border. The changes in these place names are evidence that the pejorative connotations of several words (such as lu, or “caitiﬀ,” and ch’iang, or “goat”) traditionally used by the Chinese in referring to nomadic peoples were not lost on the Kitans.157 On February 10 it was ordered that Wei-lu (“Inspiring the Caitiﬀs with Awe”) be changed to Kuang-hsin (“Extending Faith”); Ching-jung (“Quieting the Barbarians”) to An-su (“Peaceful and Solemn”); P’olu (“Breaking up the Caitiﬀs”) to Hsin-an (“Faith and Peace”); P’ingjung (“Pacifying the Barbarians”) to Pao-ting (“Protecting the Peace”); Ning-pien (“Bringing Peace to the Border”) to Yung-ting (“Eternal Conclusion”); Ting-yüan (“Pacifying the Afar”) to Yung-ching (“Eternal Tranquility”); Ting-ch’iang (“Pacifying the Goats”) to Pao-te (“Protection of Virtue”); and P’ing-lu ch’eng (“City Where the Caitiﬀs were Quelled”) to Su-ning (“Solemn Peace”).158

The Sung-Liao War in Retrospect The Sung emperor Chen-tsung does not seem to have had a coherent strategy for responding to the Kitan threat; indeed, his policy has been incisively characterised as “reactive rather than anticipatory or

156

HCPSL 1.253; SSCSPM 21.147. Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 64 notes that these place names conveyed messages of “Krieg und Hass” to the Kitans and that the changing of them was meant as a friendly gesture. 158 HCPSL 1.253. 157

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preemptive.”159 The Covenant of Shan-yüan was a happy and fortunate development for him, and the payment of 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 taels of silver was a small price for Sung to pay for such a lasting peace. According to Schwarz-Schilling, the Chinese succeeded in the Shan-yüan negotiations far beyond their fondest hopes; these payments were, he argues, the only negative aspect of the Covenant of Shan-yüan and hardly constituted a perceptible burden to the Chinese national budget. Schwarz-Schilling maintains that this success was probably not due to superior Chinese negotiations; he strongly implies that peace was possible because the Kitans themselves were willing to allow a pause for peace negotiations.160 Schwarz-Schilling’s argument is perhaps buttressed by the fact that Shan-yüan was only slightly more than one hundred kilometres to the northeast of Kaifeng, the Sung capital, and was more than likely well within the striking distance of the Kitan armies. It is unlikely, however, that the Kitan armies could have held the capital for long even if they did succeed in capturing it. The Kitan armies had penetrated deep into south central Ho-pei Circuit between the T’ai-hang range and the Yellow River, but there were still considerable Sung forces on their eastern and western ﬂanks. One scholar of Sung military history has suggested that although the Kitans were in an extremely vulnerable position during this attack, the timid Emperor Chen-tsung, in his eagerness to secure peace, did not dare take advantage of this prime opportunity to annihilate the Liao armies.161 From irredentism to accommodation Canadian political scientist and Sinologist Alastair Iain Johnston observes in his densely analytical book Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History that Chinese strategic culture was and is dominantly violent and only recessively accommodationist. According to Johnston, not one but two parallel strategic cultures or paradigms have developed over the course of Chinese history. One, which he labels the Confucian-Mencian paradigm, sees armed conﬂict as abhorrent and seeks to avoid it whenever possible through personal moral cultivation and also the ethical and moral enculturation 159 160 161

Labadie 1981, 63. Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 96. Wang Tseng-yü, unpublished manuscript, 8.

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of potential enemies. If conﬂict is unavoidable, then minimally conﬂictual defensive strategies ought to be implemented ﬁrst, followed by oﬀensive strategies as the choices of last resort. The other, which he labels the parabellum (“prepare for war”) paradigm, regards armed conﬂict as a constant in human aﬀairs which can be blamed on the aggressive or rapacious nature of the enemy. It argues that “the application of violence is highly eﬃcacious for dealing with the enemy” and typically ranks oﬀensive strategies at the top, followed by defensive strategies, and accommodationist strategies coming in last. The parabellum paradigm is, however, realistic enough that it does not always blindly insist on oﬀensive violence in every strategic circumstance; the concomitant and mediating concept of “absolute ﬂexibility” (ch’üan-pien/quanbian) holds that oﬀensive violence should be applied only when strategic conditions are ripe and that meanwhile, eﬀorts should be devoted to creating and preparing for these conditions. The parabellum paradigm is fairly close to Western hard realpolitik in statecraft and is summed up succinctly in the repeating series of Chinese characters on the paperback cover of Johnston’s book: “When at peace, dwell on [potential] threats; if we are prepared [militarily], there shall be no calamity.” In Johnston’s view, the latter paradigm prevails over the former more often than not. He points out that a signiﬁcant preponderance of passages in China’s Seven Military Classics162 (compiled during the Sung dynasty), as well as of actual strategic choices and recommendations made at the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) court during its confrontations with the Mongols, reﬂect the language and assumptions of the parabellum paradigm. “. . . these two paradigms cannot claim separate but equal status in traditional Chinese strategic thought,” he concludes. “Rather, the parabellum paradigm is, for the most part, dominant.”163

162 Ralph D. and Mei-chün Lee Sawyer have performed magniﬁcent yeoman service to the ﬁeld of Chinese military history by translating all of these texts into English and providing historical context and explanatory footnotes. See the nonpareil Sawyer 1993. 163 Johnston 1995, 249–50. Johnston’s study is certainly a welcome corrective to the oft-encountered earnest, sentimental insistence that China’s humanistic (i.e., largely Confucian) intellectual culture has made it a uniquely unmilitary and paciﬁstic civilisation. Any scholar of Chinese history worth his salt knows otherwise, but Johnston’s contribution has been to extract from the particulars of selected campaigns in Chinese military history the cultural assumptions and attitudes that informed

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Johnston’s analysis holds for Sung’s initial attitudes towards the powerful Kitan conquest dynasty to its north. Sung’s original and preferred strategy for dealing with Liao was its complete destruction; ever since its founding, Sung had longed to conquer the Sixteen Prefectures.164 (If accomplished, this would of course have meant the destruction of the Liao state, since as a conquest dynasty Liao depended on the tax revenues generated in this region. Sung may not have fully understood the vital economic importance of the agricultural areas of the Sixteen Prefectures to the Liao state,165 but Liao certainly did, and ultimately this motivated Liao to protect the region at all costs.) Sung came to an accommodation with the Kitans only after several minor clashes and three major battles (in 979, 986, and 1004–1005) established that Liao was a worthy and formidable adversary and that recovering the remaining Sixteen Prefectures was a pipe dream. The prim and morally cultivated accommodationist Confucian-Mencian gentleman of Sung came around to negotiation only after his irredentist, parabellum alter-ego had met with repeated thrashings and setbacks on the battleﬁeld and had been fought to a stalemate by Liao’s mounted warriors. The Kitan incursion: from invasion to raid In many ways it seems that the Kitan invasion into Ho-pei Circuit wound up as more of a raid than a full-scale invasion; after all, Kitan armies eventually had to bypass many strongholds without taking them.166 Understanding the invasion as more of a raid colours analy-

strategic decision making. Despite his stiﬀ social science jargon, high-ﬂown paradigmatic approach, and elaborate cognitive maps, Johnston’s overall thesis is sound. Arthur Waldron is correct, however, to point out that these two paradigms Johnston has deduced from Chinese military theory and practice amount to the age-old struggle between Confucianism and Legalism: “. . . if Johnston fails to convince completely, it should be remembered that neither side in the 2,000-year-old debate between ru [ ju] and fa has ever prevailed completely either. Their argument continues today, both in scholarship and in the practical politics of China.” (Waldron 1996, 964) See also Waldron 1997. 164 Historians have disagreed over whether uniﬁcation of the Sixteen Prefectures was a Sung goal or merely a Sung policy. On this see Tsang 1997, 71, n. 18. 165 Indeed, as Peter Lorge pointed out to me in a personal communication, if Sung thought that capturing the Sixteen Prefectures would have destroyed Liao, it would have put more eﬀort into doing so. (Peter Lorge, 18 August 2004) 166 Jing-shen Tao, however, argues that Ho-pei was in some danger of being lost to the Kitans at this time. See Tao 1988, 16.

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sis of both Liao and Sung military performance. If the Kitans were in fact out to cripple Sung or seize large parts of its territory, then they did in fact fail in their objectives. If their territorial ambitions were more limited and their main purpose was simply to intimidate Sung into concluding a lasting peace agreement with them, on the other hand, then their campaign was indeed a great success. Given the ferocity of the Liao attack on Ying-chou, “the crucial stronghold in the northern plain and the center of the Kuan-nan district the Khitan [Kitan] hoped to reconquer,”167 and also given the intensity and emotional energy of Liao’s negotiation with Sung diplomats in mid January 1005 over the disposition of the Kuannan territory, it is diﬃcult for me to imagine that “. . . even though the issue of the Guannan [Kuan-nan] region was frequently raised, this was problematic for Liao, since its goal was not territory but a political settlement.”168 Here I agree with Lau’s contentions that for Liao “The primary goal was to take back the Guannan [Kuan-nan] area by force,”169 but I still see a political settlement as an objective of close secondary importance. Kuan-nan had indeed once been Liao territory, and by 1004 and 1005 Liao, which fully appreciated the military utility and value of the region, would certainly have wanted to deprive Sung of this strategically and tactically important region if at all possible. It was only after Liao suﬀered some military setbacks in its clashes with Sung and its realisation that Sung would not budge on relinquishing control over Kuan-nan that Liao relented in its demand for the territory. Liao launched its campaign against Sung in late October 1004 as an invasion with both territorial and political objectives and only abandoned the former as it proved 167

Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 107. Lorge, unpublished manuscript. Elsewhere Lorge seems to have contradictory ideas about what Liao’s intentions towards Kuan-nan really were. In Lorge 1996, 246 he views the recovery of Kuan-nan during Liao’s 1004 campaign as a “secondary objective,” but on pages 269 and 271 of the same work he argues that Liao knew Sung would reject demands for Kuan-nan out of hand, that Kuan-nan would have been a liability for Liao as “an exposed salient in Song [Sung] territory,” and that Kuan-nan was “extremely useful in negotiations”and “a permanent casus belli.” Lorge asks, “If the Liao . . . deeply resented the loss of the Guannan [Kuan-nan] area to Zhou Shizong [the Later Chou emperor Shih-tsung], why did they accept the treaty?” (Lorge 1996, 271) My answer would be that Liao accepted it because they realised Sung could be intimidated, but only up to a point. That is, Sung could be cowed into making annual payments but absolutely would not budge on the question of ceding the Kuan-nan territory. 169 Lau 2000, 181, 183, 209, 216. 168

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militarily and diplomatically impracticable. What started out as an all-out Liao invasion ended up as a large-scale Liao raid.170 The distinction between an invasion and a raid seems heuristically signiﬁcant here; invasions very often involve major battles and territorial ambition, while “raids have limited and ﬂexible objectives; raiders avoid battle, and above all, they go away.”171 Liao ultimately proved ﬂexible in its objectives, at least as far as Kuan-nan was concerned, and after the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, Liao did in fact go away. Liao got the greater part of what it wanted: a solemn peace treaty that deﬁnitively prevented any future recrudescence of the struggle for control of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures. And even though Liao did not achieve its initial objective of controlling Kuan-nan, it received entitlement to annual payments equivalent to the tax revenue of the territory. That Sung would relinquish the tax revenue from Kuan-nan but not control over the territory itself indicates that it understood the potential military and strategic value of the region, even though after Shan-yüan no new water network construction projects were permissible by the terms of the covenant. In other words, at Shan-yüan Sung forfeited the economic beneﬁts but not the strategic utility or territorial control of the Kuan-nan region. And that Liao ultimately decided to take the annual payments and yield its claims to the territory (for the time being at least)172 indicates that it ultimately chose to compromise and enjoy the beneﬁts of ruling over the remaining Sixteen Prefectures free of any further oﬃcious Sung irredentism. What Naomi Standen has written of two Liao campaigns into Chinese territory in the tenth century might well be true of the Liao campaign of 1004–1005:

170 After kindly and obligingly reading over an earlier draft of this chapter, my friend and colleague Peter Lorge asked me an interesting question in a personal email message dated 18 August 2004: “. . . did they [the Kitans] have a preconceived schedule of interests from maximum to minimum, or did they sort of emerge during the negotiations?” In response, I would argue that although Liao’s assessments of its objectives in the war may not have been neatly systematic, the Kitans still had a somewhat graduated view of their state’s strategic and economic interests in mind and understood that the possibility of losing the remaining Sixteen Prefectures to Sung would have been a far greater catastrophe than formally and deﬁnitively relinquishing any irredentist ambitions towards the Kuan-nan territory. 171 Standen 2003, 164. 172 As will be discussed later in this book, in 1042 Liao began demanding the Kuan-nan territory once again, this time likely as a negotiating tactic.

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. . . these two military ventures of the Liao state may also illustrate a remaining diﬀerence between north and south,173 because on both occasions the Khitan [Kitan] went away. The presence of armies of invasion in the Central Plains did not translate into major territorial gains for the Liao empire, perhaps because the Khitan [Kitan] rulers were more interested in ruling eﬀectively than extensively.174

The Sung-Liao War as a gamble While Sung’s long-term objective remained the destruction of Liao, Liao’s purpose all along had been the reduction, but not the outright destruction, of Sung. That is, Liao’s modest territorial ambition for the Kuan-nan territory threatened to weaken but certainly not destroy Sung, while Sung’s territorial ambition for the remaining Sixteen Prefectures bade fair to destroy Liao utterly.175 Liao felt genuinely threatened by Sung and understood that it could achieve a deﬁnitive accommodation with Sung over the prefectures and recover the Kuan-nan territory only if it could prove two things: that Liao could not be conquered and that it could, in turn, pose a grave threat to Sung. Liao’s battleﬁeld performance during the wars of 979 and 986 probably went a long way towards establishing the former point, but nonetheless, by the beginning of the eleventh century Liao seems to have been unnerved by the prospect of a newly uniﬁed and rambunctiously irredentist power emerging to its south. Liao concluded in 1004 that with an apparently timid new emperor on the Sung throne,176 the Great Ditch nearing completion, 173 Standen argues convincingly that during the tenth century, both sides of the border between Chinese territory and the Liao state raided each other. She inveighs against hoary stereotypes holding that nomads raided while farmers did not and challenges assumptions of clear ecological distinctions between Chinese and nomadic economic activity. 174 Standen 2003, 179. 175 Tsang Shui-lung is correct to point out that “Sung T’ai-tzu [sic; Sung T’aitsu] had no need to eliminate the Liao empire in order to retake the sixteen prefectures [,] and a Khitan [Kitan] withdrawal was enough to achieve this goal.” (Tsang 1997, 69) But whether Sung intended it or not, Liao’s loss of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures would have led ineluctably to the political collapse of the Liao state. 176 Liao may have misread or misinterpreted some of its intelligence reports on the Sung emperor Chen-tsung; Chen-tsung may have been timid but was, with proper advice and encouragement, capable of decisive action to achieve objectives of which he himself approved. “. . . after ten years of peace and rest, the Song [Sung] was prepared to meet Liao’s challenge, at least to test its strength. Deep in the new and young emperor’s heart was his desire to complete his father’s grandiose

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the dream of reconquering the Kuan-nan territory seemingly fading away, and above all the possibility of renewed and more powerful Sung campaigns for control of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures looming on future horizons, the time was ripe for an all-out preemptive oﬀensive against Sung.177 The objectives of the preemptive warfare were threefold: ﬁrst, the exhaustion of the Sung armies, which were mostly infantrymen; second, depriving Sung of a springboard from which to invade Liao; and third, to loot Sung as much as possible.178 It was now or never; the Liao attack would force the issue of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures through to a make-or-break, do-or-die resolution.179 (Indeed, Liao’s aim in attacking Sung “was decisive negotiations, not a decisive battle.”180) But would Sung negotiate instead of ﬁghting to the ﬁnish? Liao was uncertain. This was of course an enormous gamble on the part of Liao, which certainly stood to lose more in defeat than Sung. Liao would be ﬁghting for its very survival and, if at all possible, the recovery of the Kuannan territory. But there was no question that the former objective was more important than the latter; Liao could (and eventually did) live without the Kuan-nan territory, but it could not survive the loss of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures,181 which were “the richest region in the Liao empire,”182 especially the vital agricultural areas of Yuchou and Chi-chou. (Actually, determining with certainty the ecologies of the Sixteen Prefectures region beyond Yu-chou and Chi-chou,

reuniﬁcation plan that included the Great Wall in the Yan-Yun [Yen-Yün] region.” (Lau 2000, 202) 177 “[In 1004] Rather than relying on their cities’ defenses to blunt Song [Sung] attacks and then attacking the overextended expeditionary armies, as they had done in 979 and 986, the Liao actively defended their border by regularly attacking the Song [Sung].” (Lorge 1996, 246–47) 178 Lau 2000, 191. 179 “. . . the war of 1004 and the resultant Accord [Covenant] were basically a ﬁnal Song [Sung]-Liao struggle over the disputed Yan-Yun [Yen-Yün] region.” (Lau 2000, 181) “The Liao were trying to force Zhenzong [Chen-tsung] to accept their control of the Sixteen Prefectures by making his situation intolerable . . . The impetus behind the Shanyuan [Shan-yüan] campaign . . . may have been either frustration or the growing realization at the Liao court that they would have to force Zhenzong [Chen-tsung] into a decision by an overwhelming threat.” (Lorge 1996, 58) 180 Lorge 1996, 268. 181 While it is true that “To the Liao, peace meant trade and economic development” (Lau 2000, 199), to Liao the crucial signiﬁcance was that Sung would desist in its plans to win back the remaining Sixteen Prefectures. 182 Lau 2000, 216.

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whether agricultural or pastoral nomadic, is a daunting task, especially given the lack of relevant historical information and the current paucity of archaeological data. Complicating matters even further was the ready possibility at the time of converting lands from one form of ecological exploitation to the other. During Liao’s early decades at least, there were agricultural settlements as far north as the Supreme Capital (Shang-ching). Some lands may even have been shared for both ecological purposes!183) But regardless of the ecological disposition of the Sixteen Prefectures, deﬁnitively establishing which state would possess and control these prefectures was for Liao a life-and-death struggle,184 whereas for Sung it represented something slightly less: achieving national territorial unity.185 Likewise, the remaining Sixteen Prefectures were not absolutely necessary for the survival of the Sung state; indeed, Sung could (and eventually did) live without them. Ultimately, both the Liao claim on Kuan-nan and the Sung claim on the remaining Sixteen Prefectures proved negotiable because they were not life-or-death matters. The Liao invasion of Sung in 1004 was the catalyst for all of these diplomatic developments and settlements. It was a precipitous gamble which, in the end, paid oﬀ quite handsomely for Liao, even though its invasion had degenerated into a raid by the time the Covenant of Shan-yüan was concluded. But Liao was not the only gambler in the Sung-Liao War. At least one Sung oﬃcial viewed a key portion of the war as a gamble involving the Sung emperor Chen-tsung himself. After the war was over and the peace covenant had been concluded, Wang Ch’injo (962–1025),186 a vindictive and obsequious man who was jealous 183

Naomi Standen, personal email, 16 August 2004. Still, it would be inaccurate to hold that Liao was dependent on the Sixteen Prefectures region alone for agricultural tax revenue, since Liao also possessed the Po-hai lands, which were likely largely agricultural. As well, the larger Liao empire had other sources of revenue from non-agricultural societies and peoples. (My thanks to Naomi Standen for reminding me of this in an email of 16 August 2004.) Nonetheless, I still maintain that Liao’s loss of the Sixteen Prefectures would have meant that revenues would have fallen below the level necessary for the Liao state to sustain itself. 185 The Yen-Yün region was potentially quite signiﬁcant to Sung in strategic terms as well: “Without Yan-Yun [Yen-Yün]’s natural barrier of mountains and terrain, north China was ever exposed to the Kitan cavalry which, if unobstructed, could race down the northern plains to Kaifeng in a short time.” (Lau 2000, 181) 186 Biographies Franke 1976, 2.1105–09; Ting/Djang 1989, 225–29; SS 283. 9559–64. 184

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of the notoriety and prominence K’ou Chun had gained, managed to convince Chen-tsung that K’ou Chun had recklessly gambled with the emperor’s life in urging him to go to Shan-yüan. One day after K’ou Chun had left the Sung court, Wang Ch’in-jo accused him of recklessly gambling with the emperor’s life during the Sung-Liao War: Has Your Majesty heard of gambling? When a gambler has lost almost all of his money, he takes everything he has left and risks it all at once. This is called his ‘ﬁnal desperate wager.’187 Your Majesty was K’ou Chun’s ‘ﬁnal desperate wager’; this was also as perilous [as the gambler’s last bet].188

Wang Ch’in-jo also saw the Covenant of Shan-yüan as shameful because it was concluded in an atmosphere of threat and duress. There may have been some truth to his characterisation of the Covenant of Shan-yüan as a shameful “covenant concluded at the city walls,”189 which in W. A. C. H. Dobson’s words was “considered humiliating in the extreme and tantamount to the most abject form of surrender.”190 K’ou Chun was demoted as a result of these accusations and sent to T’ien-hsiung, but he later came back into favour with Chentsung and was to aid in the selection of his heir-apparent. The editors of the Sung-shih praise K’ou Chun as a great and loyal minister191 and vilify Wang Ch’in-jo as a conniving, petty, and jealous poltroon.192 187

Ku-chu. SS 281.9532. 189 SS 281.9531–32. The Covenant of Shan-yüan was, Wang argued, a “covenant concluded at the base of the city walls” (ch’eng-hsia chih meng), and the ancient Chinese classic Ch’un Ch’iu (Spring and Autumn Annals) regarded covenants concluded under desperate conditions as shameful. Wang’s reference was to the Tso-chuan’s commentary about the ﬁfteenth year of Duke Hsüan, when the armies of Ch’u were pressing on a city in the (ancient) state of Sung. Sung, however, refused to submit: “The Sung . . . sent Hua Yüan by night into the army of Ch’u. He went to the couch of Tzu-fan and roused him, saying, ‘My master has sent me to inform you of our distress. In the city we are exchanging our children and eating them, and splitting up their bones for fuel. Nothwithstanding, if you require us to make an oath with you under the walls, we will not do so, though our city should be utterly overthrown. Withdraw from us thirty li, and then we will accept your demands.’ Tzu-fan was afraid, made an oath with Yüan Hua, and informed the king, who retired thirty li, when Sung and Ch’u made peace.” ( James Legge, trans., n.d., 328) The term “covenant concluded at the base of the city walls” had, by Sung times, become a cliché for any humiliating treaty signed after a crushing defeat or when the military situation had become hopeless. Wang 1996, 59–86 shares the view of the Covenant of Shan-yüan as a “covenant concluded at the city walls.” 190 Dobson 1968, 276. 191 See his biography in SS 281.9527–36. 192 See, for instance, SS 283.9564. 188

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Who won the war? One Chinese scholar decidedly unsympathetic with the communist regime on mainland China has decried the peace settlement at Shanyüan as “a form of appeasement,” characterised the yearly payments to Liao as “humiliating,” and maintained that the Sung Chinese “were essentially blackmailed into paying a handsome annual ransom to the Khitans [Kitans].”193 Another famously characterised the annual payments as “tribute in reverse.”194 A recent mainland Chinese study of the Sung-Kitan war of 1004– 1005, which it generally calls the “Battle of Shan-yüan,” concludes that the Covenant of Shan-yüan was laudable for the century of peace between Sung and Liao it inaugurated but lamentable for the annual payments made by Sung to Liao, which indicate “the incompetence of Sung.” Sung did not take due advantage of its military performance against Liao, it argues. In many battles Sung had made a good showing for itself against Liao forces: Sung forces were still completely intact at Ting-chou, while other Sung forces had beaten back repeated Liao attacks on Ying-chou and inﬂicted 90,000 casualties on Liao without losing the city, successfully defended T’ienhsiung Military Prefecture, killed the Kitan commander Hsiao Ta-lin outside the walls of Shan-chou, and launched damaging attacks into Liao territory from the secondary theatre of the war in Ho-tung Circuit. If the highest Sung leaders had decided to hang tough at Shan-chou and face Liao forces in a decisive confrontation there instead of choosing a policy of political compromise and concession, the study argues, Sung would have had a decent chance of prevailing. Therefore, it concludes, for Sung the peace covenant made at Shan-yüan was “a defeatless defeat—a tragic dénouement,” while for Liao it was “a victoryless victory—a face-saving conclusion.” The study also concedes that Liao exercised the initiative throughout much of the ﬁghting. It adds, however, that all did not go well for the Kitans; their attacks met with signiﬁcant setbacks, high casualties, and the loss of an important general, and as a result they were the ones to launch peace initiatives and request a negotiated settlement.195 193

Tao 1988, 24, 18, 16. Yang 1968, 21. 195 Feng and Mao 1998, 221. Feng and Mao fail to note, however, that some Liao sources have Li Chi-ch’ang of Sung initiating the negotiations (LS 14.160, LSCSPM 24.450) or have Sung “begging” for peace. (Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 355, n. 45) Lorge 1996, 268 argues that Liao requested peace negotiations before Sung. 194

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Sung seems to have suﬀered from the lack of a clear and comprehensive strategic view of the overall military situation during the Sung-Liao War. For the duration of the war, Liao controlled the initiative while Sung reacted passively to its developments. The Sung military response was hampered by an apparent lack of an eﬃcient central command structure. During the ﬁghting, debates about moving the capital were held, the Sung emperor Chen-tsung’s expedition to Shan-yüan was planned, generals were commissioned, and armies were deployed and transferred, but few if any of these actions were eﬀectively coordinated. Deployed Sung forces were isolated and largely stationary; they fought pitched battles if the ﬁghting came their way but otherwise were unable to go to where they were needed. The mainland Chinese study already referred to above is frustrated to note that Wang Ch’ao, who commanded large forces around Ting-chou, “. . . saw with his own eyes Liao armies passing by in large numbers but remained aloof and indiﬀerent and did nothing.” This analysis, however, represents a failure to note the obvious point that the Liao armies were almost entirely cavalry, while the Sung armies were mostly infantry; Sung armies simply did not have the mobility of the mounted Liao warriors. (It is possible, however, to overstate the importance of cavalry as a decisive factor in the outcomes of confrontations between the Sung and Liao militaries. The qualitative and quantitative inferiority of Sung cavalry is insuﬃcient by itself to account for all Sung defeats or to explain why some Kitan campaigns, which started out with overwhelming numerical superiority in cavalry on the open Ho-pei plain, where they supposedly had every advantage, ended in defeat. Mobility by itself could be a liability for Liao if cavalry could be led into ambush, as during the Liao campaign into Sung in 1001, when Sung cavalry successfully ambushed Liao forces at a strategic point and largely destroyed them, inﬂicting twenty thousand casualties. While it is true that Kitan cavalry usually prevailed easily over Sung forces when the latter lacked reinforcements, coordination, resupply, and discipline in retreat, there is not one known instance of Kitan cavalry prevailing over well-equipped Sung units at full strength on open terrain.196) The study further faults the Sung military leadership, including Chentsung himself, for cowardice and lack of resolve. In the end it all

196

Tsang 1997, 94–96.

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boiled down to a lack eﬀective leadership from the emperor himself; if Chen-tsung had mounted his personal expedition to Shanchou sooner and led the battles eﬀectively, the entire military situation could have turned to Sung’s favour.197 In other words, the SungLiao War was Sung’s to win or lose. Liao, the study continues, did three main things right. First of all, the direction of the main Liao attack was correct; the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and his mother, the Liao empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien, passed through Kao-yang Pass and advanced to the southeast, avoiding the main Sung forces at Ting-chou in accordance with the oftrepeated military principle of “avoiding the substantive and attacking the vacuous” ( pi shih chi hsü ). This enabled the Liao armies to penetrate more deeply into Sung territory. Second was Liao’s willingness to bypass stubbornly defended cities. That is, if a city could be attacked and captured within a reasonable amount of time, Liao attacked it; conversely, if repeated attacks showed that a city was stoutly defended and not likely to fall any time soon, they simply went around it and continued on with their campaigns. The Kitans’ decisions to bypass Ting-chou altogether and call oﬀ the campaign against Ying-chou were tactically wise. Liao’s refusal to become bogged down in protracted battles or sieges gave full play to the Liao armies’ main advantages: the quickness and mobility of their cavalrymen. Third, Liao had better central control of its armies and “coordinated war and peace well,” using war to impel peace negotiations. In fact, Liao brought up the possibility of peace negotiations as its cavalrymen had broken through the T’ang River defensive deployments.198 These three points are insightful and well taken; the last of them is especially telling. (Indeed, Liao seems to have understood better than Sung that the sine qua non of eﬀective diplomacy is the demonstrable and credible threat of oﬀensive military force.) These points fail, however, to answer two essential questions: Did the Liao campaign falter, and if so, when? The Kitans would not have been out of options had Sung been determined to stage a major showdown with Liao forces at Shan-yüan; indeed, Sung was afraid that Liao forces might bypass Shan-chou altogether and press on towards 197 Feng and Mao 1998, 222. These harsh judgements of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung are shared by Jingshen Tao; see Tao 1988, 15. 198 Feng and Mao 1998, 222–23.

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Kaifeng itself. (The Yellow River was frozen during December 1004 and January 1005 and thus crossable.199) In response to such a move, however, Sung might have attempted to cut oﬀ the retreat route of the Kitan cavalry by blocking their way with the considerable Sung forces still left up north at Tingchou and Ying-chou. In addition, Kitan troops threatening Kaifeng might quite literally have become bogged down and trapped with the return of spring and the melting of ice on the Yellow River and other waterways in Ho-pei Circuit. The counter-factual possibilities and scenarios multiply, but even springtime confrontations between Sung and Liao forces would have been cataclysmic, and ultimately both sides agreed to avoid the gruesome possibility of massive combat casualties. Was the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan really a piece of diplomatic appeasement that scuttled a fairly certain military victory for Sung? Nearly four decades later Fu Pi (1004–1083), the Sung oﬃcial who during the early 1040s renegotiated the terms of Sung’s annual payments to Liao, seems to have thought so. For him, the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan was nothing less than a benevolent gift from Sung to Liao. During the course of his diplomatic discussions with Liao, he pointedly asked the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung (r. 1031–1055) if he remembered his history: “Has the Northern Court forgotten the great virtue of Emperor Chen-tsung [of Sung]? During the Shan-yüan campaign, if the words of your generals had been accepted, your northern forces would have had no escape.”200 Fu Pi’s implication was clear enough: Liao forces in late 1004 and early 1005 would have faced great peril and been cut oﬀ from retreat back to Liao if they had remained much longer in Sung territory. And indeed, such fears seem reasonable and in fact had occurred to Liao military commanders at the time.201 The southern campaigns of Liao rarely lasted more than four months, from October through January, when the weather did not present tactical disadvantages or reduce the combat capabilities of the Kitan cavalry.202 By January of 1005, the Liao campaign was quite literally running out of time. Nevertheless, in early 1005 neither Sung nor 199 200 201 202

Lau 2000, 211. HCPSL 2.417. Lau 2000, 211–12; Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 108. Tsang 1997, 91–92.

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Liao seems to have been fully conﬁdent about what the results of a major showdown would have been, and as a result they concluded a peace agreement. But even if Sung did resolutely face down the Kitan armies in early 1005 and press the ﬁght against them, the result would have been a clash of frightful proportions. Sung might have prevailed in such a sanguinary contest,203 but against this possibility we must weigh the timid and even squeamish nature of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung, who despite the irredentist ambitions nurtured during his youth might not have been able to stomach the massive casualties to what he frequently called “living souls.”204 He might have called oﬀ a decisive showdown with Liao if casualties began mounting to ghastly proportions, and the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung might have as well. Neither were particularly ambitious leaders.205 Further, a Sung victory might well have been tactical but not strategic. That is, even if the confrontation ended in Sung’s favour, it would hardly have been the deﬁnitive resolution or settlement of the protracted, intermittent clashes between Sung and Liao that the Covenant of Shan-yüan was. This is because emboldened revanchists and irredentists at the Sung court would almost certainly have pressed Chen-tsung for more campaigns to recover the remainder of the Sixteen Prefectures, thus prolonging the conﬂict for several more years or perhaps even decades. Liao, for its part, would not likely have abandoned its claims to the Kuan-nan territory and would have prepared to ﬁght for it another day. Both sides stood to loose much and gain little or nothing from continuing hostilities. Sung and Liao had been battling each other oﬀ and on since 979,206 and despite the losses suﬀered by both sides during this time, “These tremendous losses were of no real political signiﬁcance due to the lack of [a] decisive strategic outcome.”207 In China, the early eleventh century 203 Indeed, as Peter Lorge wrote to me on 18 August 2004, “I’m not sure the Song [Sung] had much to lose from continuing hostilities, except from a humanitarian perspective. Song [Sung] could much better have sustained a bloodbath than the Liao . . .” 204 Sheng-ling; see for instance HCPSL 1.252. 205 Tsang 1997, 122. 206 There were ﬁfteen Kitan incursions into Sung during these years, and of them only four were indisputably successful, while three ﬁnished inconclusively and eight ended in outright failure. (The four incursions into Liao during this time were all unsuccessful.) (Tsang 1997, 96) 207 Tsang 1997, 90.

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“heralded the coming of an age of military equilibrium” when war would be very bloody but “would lead to no signiﬁcant outcome to either Sung or Liao.”208 Concluding the Covenant of Shan-yüan was the wisest choice for both states; only a negotiated settlement, and not more prolonged clashes between fairly evenly matched militaries, could have led to lasting peace. It is diﬃcult for me to regard the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan as anything but a signiﬁcant victory for Liao.209 (It was, however, neither a strategic nor a tactical victory militarily for Liao, but a diplomatic and political one.210) Its conclusion represents, as far as I can tell, a Sung accommodation to Liao that is certainly more representative of Johnston’s “Confucian-Mencian” paradigm than his “parabellum” paradigm.211 Shan-yüan guaranteed the dynastic survival and ﬁnancial viability of the Liao state, established its diplomatic parity with Sung, and removed deﬁnitively the Sung threat posed against the remaining Sixteen Prefectures under Liao control. Liao got virtually everything it wanted out of the agreement except for the Kuan-nan territory, and for setting aside its claims to this region it was paid handsomely every year for over a century.212 Sung, on the other hand, paid a price ﬁnancially, diplomatically, and especially territorially for peace with Liao and received no compensation whatever for quitting its claim to the remaining Sixteen Prefectures.213 At Shan-yüan, Sung merely managed to avoid what it did not want: cession of the Kuan-nan territory. Sung came away from the deal

208

Tsang 1997, 101. There were, of course, some Sung oﬃcials who insisted on describing the Covenant of Shan-yüan as a glorious victory for Sung. Chang Fang-p’ing (1007–1091) in his panegyric Sung Sung (Hymn to the Sung) is one such example. (Tao 1983, 73) 210 Indeed, Liao set out to show that it could pose a signiﬁcant threat to Sung, but its failure to capture Ying-chou proved that its ability to threaten the Sung capital was limited. 211 Indeed, Johnston sees the grand strategic preference-ranking of the ConfucianMencian paradigm as (from most preferred to least preferred) accommodationist, then defensive, and ﬁnally oﬀensive strategies. (See Johnston 1995, 117–23, 249.) 212 Nap-yin Lau puts it this way: “. . . together with the exchange of the Guannan [Kuan-nan] area for the annual payments, the Kitans got everything they wanted, thanks to the mediation of Wang Jizhong [Wang Chi-chung] and the carelessness of Zhenzong [Chen-tsung].” (Lau 2000, 213) 213 Tsang Shui-lung observes that the Covenant of Shan-yüan marked two failures: that of Sung to recover the remaining Sixteen Prefectures and that of Liao to recover the Kuan-nan territory. (Tsang 1997, 122) But there is no question that the former failure was more momentous than the latter. 209

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with its long-term objectives battered and forsaken;214 in return for giving up on the irredentist ambitions and revanchist claims of its ﬁrst two emperors, Sung agreed to pay Liao to maintain the status quo. In eﬀect, the Covenant of Shan-yüan required Sung to pay, annually and indeﬁnitely, for having been attacked.

Aftermaths of the Covenant of Shan-Yüan Schwarz-Schilling argues that the successes of the peace negotiations depended on a mutual desire for cessation of hostilities: the Chinese had desired peace since their disastrous defeat in 986, and the Kitans, seeing that they could not secure the ﬂow of Chinese goods through a decisive military victory, opted for peace and the uninterrupted trade it would bring.215 Schwarz-Schilling maintains that this mutual desire for peace would have come to nought had it not been for Wang Chi-chung, who, as “der richtige Mann zur richtigen Zeit am richtigen Ort,” played the role of mediator or intermediary between the two states.216 But this seems to me to smack of “great man” historiography; the mutual desire for peace might well have culminated in an agreement even without Wang Chi-chung. The conclusion of peace at Shan-yüan was a boon to Sung and represented the resolution of the ﬁnal issue pertaining to the formation of the Sung state.217 The relatively peaceful and prosperous eleventh century, which was one of China’s most important and which saw signiﬁcant developments in Neo-Confucian thought as well as many important technological innovations, was to no small extent underpinned by the peace the Covenant of Shan-yüan guaranteed. (Clashes between Sung and Hsia did break out periodically 214 The peace of 1005 achieved the early Sung calls for imperial security and dynastic survival but failed at another: complete territorial uniﬁcation. (Tsang 1997, 63, 122) Later in the eleventh century, Northern Sung reformist Fan Chung-yen (989–1052) would bemoan the deﬁnitive loss of the remaining Sixteen Prefectures in these terms: “Yen and Yün are lost. This is the greatest insult inﬂicted on China by the barbarians in a thousand years, but it has not been avenged.” (Lau 2000, 213.) Likewise, Su Shih (1036–1101) once remarked that the Covenant of Shanyüan “was the worst policy a Chinese dynasty could have ever adopted and that as long as the two enemies in the north and in the west were suﬀered to exist, no Chinese dynasty could ever attain real peace.” (Tao 1988, 24) 215 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 95. 216 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 96. 217 Lorge 1996, 274.

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during the eleventh century, but they were not on the threatening scale that the Sung-Liao war of 1004–1005 had been.) There were, it is true, some potential disruptions to this peace in 1042, when the Kitans threatened to apply military force in order to pressure Sung into increasing the yearly payments, and again in 1074–1076, when Sung ceded to Liao a few tiny parcels of land along the Ho-tung border.218 But overall the peace between Sung and Liao held. The Chinese knew, Schwarz-Schilling observes, that in these conﬂicts the Kitans could be brought to peace with “Zugeständnissen” (triﬂing concessions).219 Although Sechin Jagchid has characterised the yearly payments to Liao as “immense,”220 they amounted to only a very small portion of the overall Sung economy and hardly constituted a ﬁnancial burden. They secured Sung control over Kuan-nan in exchange for very minimal annual payments.221 Schwarz-Schilling is well known for his argument that both the Chinese and the Kitans understood the Chinese agreement to submit yearly payments not as tribute but as “a favour in return” (Gegenleistung) for Liao’s dropping claims to the Kuan-nan territories; the yearly payments were commensurate with what the tax revenue from these lands would have been.222 But a massive trade surplus gave Sung a favourable balance of trade with the Kitans after the conclusion of the Covenant, and an estimated sixty percent of the silver paid annually to Liao usually found its way back into the Sung economy as payment for Chinese goods, particularly silk, for which there was a high demand in Liao.223 The Covenant was a boon for Liao as well. It “immediately reduced the strain on Liao ﬁnances,”224 and politically the annual payments of silk from Sung were used in part to pay for the construction of Liao’s Central Capital,225 while peace with Sung enabled Liao to concentrate more attention on its internal matters and its relations with other peoples. (Indeed, Shan-yüan “was one component of a

218

On the border conﬂict of 1074–1076 see Tietze 1979, Lamouroux 1997, and Tao 2001. 219 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 237. 220 Jagchid and Symons 1989, 45. 221 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 70–71, 96. 222 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 96. 223 Shiba 1983, 98; Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 110. 224 Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 96. 225 Lau 2000, 214.

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linked Liao plan to secure all of the empire’s borders, one of which was with the Song [Sung].”226) Economically the Covenant of Shanyüan secured for Liao a steady source of income and facilitated Liao’s trade with its other neighbours, including Koryò, Hsia, and the Uighurs.227 More importantly, Shan-yüan led to the growth and regularisation of international trade along the Sung-Liao border. Sung does seem to have had an unsteady policy for border trade with the Kitans. One scholar has written that the intermittent opening and closing of border markets prior to the Covenant of Shan-yüan was as disorderly as “child’s play” (erh-hsi ).228 T’ai-tsu himself had allowed the Kitans to trade along the Sung-Liao border as long as they did not engage in “banditry.”229 After Sung T’ai-tsung’s second military defeat against the Kitans in 986, the Sung court decided to reestablish border markets. Soon thereafter, however, a trade embargo was once again established, and harsh measures, including executions, were adopted to prevent exchange. Sung apparently feared, perhaps with some reason, that Kitan spies were crossing over into Sung territory disguised as merchants. In 991, Sung again reversed its trade policies and opened markets at Hsiung-chou, Pa-chou, Ching-jung Military Prefecture, and Tai-chou.230 In the aftermaths of the Battle of Wang-tu in 1003, Sung shut down the border market at Hsiungchou once again, and this indicated Sung’s “uncompromising attitude” as well as its abandonment of hopes for peace and its preparations for war.231 The potential re-opening of these markets may have been one of the incentives which led Liao to abandon its Kuan-nan territorial claims and accept the Sung oﬀer of yearly payments in exchange for peace. Sung’s absolute unwillingness to compromise on the Kuan-nan territory issue contrasts sharply with the Liao ﬂexibility on the same issue. Apparently an eﬀective ﬂow of material wealth

226

Lorge 1996, 247. Emphasis in original. Twitchett and Tietze 1994, 110. 228 Chao T’ieh-han 1977, 42. Pp. 41–44 of Chao’s article contain a useful chronological account of the trade and various openings and closings of border markets both before and after the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, as does also Akisada Jitsuzò (Tamura Jitsuzò) 1935, 143–52. Akisada/Tamura’s three-part article is an important seminal piece in twentieth-century investigation into the Covenant of Shan-yüan. His Chùgoku Seifuku Òchù no Kenkyù, 237–47, also contains an informative sketch of Sung-Liao trade. 229 Wang 1975, 41. 230 Jagchid and Symons 1989, 45. 231 Lau 2000, 204, 208. 227

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from China was just as desirable to the Kitans as the recovery of lost territory. Tamura Jitsuzò has written that with the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, active, permanent trade between the two states took the place of passive, intermittent trade.232 Soon after peace was concluded, Pi Shih-an was instrumental in the reopening of border markets (ch’üeh-ch’ang), and horses and livestock previously obtained by the Chinese through plunder were given back to the Kitans. The Liao-shih notes that after the peace, border markets were opened at Hsiung-chou and An-su Military Prefecture (formerly Ching-jung Military Prefecture.233) A total of ﬁve permanent trading posts were eventually opened after the Covenant of Shan-yüan was concluded.234 The Liao economy, which had been on an upward swing since the middle of the tenth century, contributed to the viability and vitality of this trade. The Liao demand for Chinese goods was so great that Chinese traders were sometimes not in a position to meet all of the Kitan demand.235 There is much that is not known about the speciﬁc functions and activities at these border markets. It is apparent, however, that a distinction between oﬃcial transactions and private trading was preserved. Sung merchants sold tea, silk, and porcelains, and Liao merchants sold sheep, fur, lumber, and slaves. There were also some prohibitions on trade; Sung forbade the sale of books and weapons, and Liao forbade the sale of horses. It was impossible, however, for either government to stop all illegal contraband trade in these items.236 Smuggling was also a major problem, especially for Sung. The most commonly smuggled commodity was salt, which was produced very inexpensively in Liao and sold to Sung, where salt was much more expensive.237 For Liao, the Covenant of Shan-yüan was doubly advantageous because the yearly payments (sui-pi ) in silk and silver satisﬁed the Kitan rulers, and the commodities traded at the border markets provided the common Kitan people with some of their needed products.238 232 233 234 235 236 237 238

Tamura 1964–1985, 237. LSCSPM 24.453; SSCSPM 21.147. For more detail, see Tao 1988, 16–17. Shiba 1983, 98. Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 97. Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 101. Chao T’ieh-han 1977, 43–44. Jagchid and Symons 1989, 45–46. I am not sure how valid Jagchid’s per-

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It may be true, as Jingshen Tao argues, that the Chinese had essentially been blackmailed into paying an annual ransom to the Kitans, but as Tao himself points out, it is important to note that the actual wording of the oath-letters scrupulously avoids the word “tribute” (kung) to describe these payments. The payments were to be delivered to Hsiung-chou by minor Sung oﬃcials bearing no oﬃcial communications in order to demonstrate that Sung considered these payments ﬁnancial transactions rather than political actions implying submission. Liao records do indicate that the Kitans sometimes regarded these payments as actual tribute, but they were enlightened enough to refrain from imposing such a term on the Sung court.239 Schwarz-Schilling maintains that it was the political “equality of rights” (Gleichberechtigung) between the two states that prevented these payments from being oﬃcially regarded as tribute and caused them not to be associated with any form of diplomatic intercourse.240 All in all, Wittfogel’s characterisation of the power relationship between Sung and Liao as one of “balanced hostility, neither one being strong enough to subjugate the other,”241 seems an accurate assessment. Both sides had much to gain from a formal peace and much to lose from continued hostilities.

spective (essentially an economic monocausality) is on this point; Liao by this time already had some considerable agricultural productivity, and Chinese living in Liao did manufacture textiles and metal products. Jagchid also fails to note in this context that a major portion of the Liao empire was sedentary, not nomadic. (For a discussion of Jagchid’s theory of Sino-nomadic relations, see Wright 1995B.) SchwarzSchilling 1959 also attaches much importance to the Kitan demand for Chinese goods (see, for example, p. 95), but unlike Jagchid he does not seem to hold that these goods were mostly subsistence commodities to be used by common nomadic herdsmen. 239 Tao 1988, 16. 240 Schwarz-Schilling 1959, 98. 241 Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 326.

CHAPTER THREE

EMBASSIES

Sung’s external relations with Liao were conducted without any reference to tribute in fact or rhetoric. This by itself is not unique to Sung-Liao relations, but when it is considered in combination with the very elaborate and formalised practices of the diplomacy between the two states, it becomes apparent that Sung-Liao diplomacy represents a signiﬁcant development in the patterns of premodern Chinese foreign relations. The Sung and Liao states remained in regular, annual diplomatic contact with one another for over one hundred years. Some scholars have been so enthusiastic about this diplomacy that they have seen in it many similarities with the diplomatic practices of our own day. Klaus Tietze, for example, has written that diplomacy between Sung China and her neighbours “developed a regularity and elaborateness that almost parallelled the diplomatic machinery of modern times.”1 But there are certainly more diﬀerences than similarities between the diplomacy of East Asia during Sung times and the diplomatic practices and protocols of the twentieth and twenty-ﬁrst centuries. The various types of embassies described in this chapter would, for the most part, seem strange and anachronistic today. There were no career diplomats or the equivalent of a Foreign Oﬃce or Department of Foreign Aﬀairs and International Trade in Sung times. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Sung conducted its diplomacy with Liao through the Oﬃce of Diplomatic Correspondence2 rather than through the Court of State Ceremonial,3 which handled Sung’s foreign relations with other states and peoples. That Sung’s relations with Liao were unique in being administered through the Oﬃce of Diplomatic Correspondence is another indication that Liao held a special, exalted status among all the foreign states with which Sung had diplomatic contact.4 1 2 3 4

Tietze 1979, 127. Wang-lai kuo-hsin-so; Hucker 1985, 563.7649. Hung-lu-ssu; Hucker 1985, 264.2906.2 Wright 1995A.

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Regular government bureaucrats received ad hoc designations for their diplomatic missions and were dispatched as envoys or ceremonial functionaries. What is more, the personnel who carried on diplomacy between Sung and Liao were essentially envoys or emissaries, not residential diplomats. That is, they were dispatched between the two states for every diplomatic occasion, pro forma or negotiatory, and did not take up permanent residence in each state’s capitals. The pattern of residential diplomacy did not begin emerging as the norm in international relations until the beginning of the sixteenth century in Europe.5 There were, however, some exceptions to this rule in the pre-modern world.6

Embassy Types The exchange of envoys between the Liao and Sung courts did not begin in 1005. In 937 Southern T’ang sent envoys to the Kitans, oﬀering them curios and beautiful girls in an attempt to secure their help in recovering the Central Plains from Later (Shih) Chin (936–947). Several missions between the Kitans and Southern T’ang were subsequently exchanged, but a pattern of formalised diplomacy did not develop from this. The occasional exchange of envoys did, however, help to facilitate trade between the two states.7 In early 975 Sung 5 In Europe, the permanent assignment of residential diplomats, as contrasted with the ad hoc missions of mediaeval delegations, began developing in ﬁfteenth-century northern Italy, where the struggle for supremacy among Italian states produced the need for continual contact between the parties to military alliances. As the Italian states system declined, it was replaced by a broader European states system in which permanent diplomatic relations were a necessity. Ferdinand of Aragon was the ﬁrst Renaissance prince outside of Italy to utilise the Italian model of continuous diplomacy. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ferdinand had resident ambassadors throughout much of Europe, and other monarchs followed suit. By 1535, the establishment of residential diplomatic relations was well underway throughout Europe. ( Jensen 1992, 69–71, 313–14) Important works on the development of permanent residential diplomacy include Mattingly 1955; Hale 1957, I.259–91; Jensen 1975, 327–68; and Ilardi 1986. 6 Fore example, Seleucus (d. 280 B.C.), a Macedonian general and the ﬁrst of the Seleucid rulers of the eastern portions of Alexander the Great’s empire, sent an ambassador, Megasthenes, to reside at Pataliputra from 306 to 298 B.C. Megasthenes was able to record detailed observations of India and life at the Mauryan court. His work, Indika, is now lost, but fragments of it survive in quotations. Other historical precedents for resident embassies are discussed in Mattingly 1955, 64–70. 7 Wang Chi-lin 1966, 1–8. The exchanges of diplomatic missions between the Kitans and the southern kingdoms are conveniently analysed and summarised in Pien 1957.

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and the Kitans concluded a peace agreement,8 and for the next few years many elements of the post-Shan-yüan diplomatic intercourse seem already to have been in place. In late 975 the Sung court commissioned an envoy and a deputy envoy to proceed to the Kitans with new year greetings, and Liao also dispatched its own new year embassy to Sung.9 This was the ﬁrst exchange of regular embassies between the two states. In early 976 the Kitans sent birthday envoys to the Sung court to celebrate T’ai-tsu’s birthday,10 and later that year Sung commissioned and dispatched envoys to celebrate the birthday of the Liao emperor Ching-tsung.11 In late 976 Chao K’uangyin, the founding emperor of Sung, died at the Wan-sui Palace. His brother, Chao K’uang-i, ascended the throne the next day,12 and Sung soon dispatched envoys to the Kitans to announce his death.13 Kitan condolence envoys were sent to Sung in early 977,14 and personal eﬀects envoys from Sung were sent to the Kitans to present some of Chao K’uang-yin’s personal items.15 A few weeks later the Kitans sent envoys to oﬀer congratulations for the enthronement of Chao K’uang-i, known in Chinese history as Emperor T’ai-tsung of Sung (r. 976–997).16 The regular annual exchange of new year and birthday envoys continued from 975 until 980, when Sung-Liao diplomatic relations were broken oﬀ due to the Kitans’ objections to T’aitsung’s campaigns against Northern Han. Post-Shan-yüan developments led to the formalisation and systematisation of Sung-Liao diplomatic exchange, but in an important sense these developments largely constituted a restoration of the diplomatic practices and mores of the middle and late 970s, less of course the metaphors of familial relations between the Sung and Liao emperors and between the Sung emperors and the Liao empress dowagers. The routine aspects of Sung-Liao diplomacy did not emerge in all their fullness and complexity immediately after 1005 and the Covenant of Shan-yüan. They built on pre-Shan-yüan precedents and practices and continued to develop for several years after 1005.17 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

For details, see HCPSL 56–89 passim and the entries in Fu 1984, 181–83. HCPSL 1.59. HCPSL 1.60. HCPSL 1.60; LS 8.95. For details see HCP 17.380–81. HCPSL 1.63. HCPSL 1.63; LS 8.96. LS 9.99. HCPSL 1.64. Tao 1988, 18–19.

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Two basic types of embassies were exchanged between Sung and Liao: formal and political. Formal embassies were far more numerous and were dispatched on speciﬁc occasions for ritual, non-negotiatory diplomatic missions. Political envoys were dispatched irregularly to engage in negotiations and substantive political communication between the two states. These two types of envoys correspond approximately to Garrett Mattingly’s terms for the two types of diplomatic functions that began developing in late ﬁfteenth-century Renaissance Italy: “embassies of ceremony,” which paid honours and conﬁrmed friendships, and “embassies of negotiation,” which concluded substantive agreements between states.18 Formal embassies The formal embassies can be further divided into two subcategories: regular and occasional. Regular formal embassies were to arrive at their destinations on ﬁxed dates, while occasional formal embassies were dispatched on an irregular basis as the needs for them arose. Regular embassies The two types of regular formal embassies exchanged between Sung and Liao were New Year Felicitation embassies and Birthday Felicitation embassies. Each embassy consisted of two envoys, a main envoy (cheng-shih or simply shih) and a deputy envoy ( fu-shih or fu), as well as several dozen attendants and embassy staﬀ members. The New Year Felicitation Envoys (ho cheng-tan kuo-hsin shih), abbreviated as New Year Envoys (ho cheng-shih), conveyed congratulatory messages for the new year to emperors, empresses, and empress dowagers, and Birthday Felicitation Envoys (ho sheng-ch’en kuo-hsin shih), abbreviated as Birthday Envoys (sheng-ch’en shih), oﬀered birthday congratulations to the same. (In Chinese history the emperor’s birthday had been a national birthday-festival (chieh) since A.D. 729.)19 Emperors and empress dowagers sometimes dispatched separate new year and birthday embassies. During Liao and Northern Sung times each emperor’s birthdayfestival had its own name, and Sung and Liao materials refer to the various imperial birthdays by these names. Several Liao empress 18 19

Mattingly 1955, 34. Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 354, n. 40.

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dowagers had their own birthday festivals, as did one Sung empress dowager and one grand empress dowager. These festivals are given below. Sung20 Emperor T’ai-tsu T’ai-tsung Chen-tsung Jen-tsung Ying-tsung Shen-tsung Che-tsung Hui-tsung Ch’in-tsung

Birthdate (lunar month/day) 2/16 10/7 12/2 4/14 1/3 4/10 12/8 10/10 4/13

Birthday-festival Ch’ang-ch’un Ch’ien-ming21 Ch’eng-t’ien Ch’ien-yüan Shou-neng T’ung-t’ien Hsing-lung T’ien-ning Ch’ien-lung

Empress dowager 22 Liu Kao (as grand e.d.)

Birthdate (lunar month/day) 1/8 7/16

Birthday-festival Ch’ang-ning K’un-ch’eng

Liao23 Emperor Ching-tsung Sheng-tsung Hsing-tsung Tao-tsung T’ien-tso

Birthdate (lunar month/day) 9/24 12/2724 2/23 8/7 4/1925

Birthday-festival T’ien-ch’ing Ch’ien-ling Yung-shou T’ien-an T’ien-hsing

Empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien Ch’i-t’ien Fa-t’ien Tsung-t’ien

Birthdate (lunar month/day) 5/526 Unknown 3/527 12/328

Birthday-festival Unknown Shun-t’ien Ying-sheng K’un-ning

20

For this information see SS 112.2671–76. Later changed to Shou-ning. 22 Information on Sung empress dowagers drawn from relevant entries in SS 242.8605–31 and the pen-chi. 23 Adapted from Fu 1984, 240. 24 Lu Chen’s embassy report gives 12/28 as the birthday of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. 25 Or, 29 26 Uncertain. 27 Uncertain; may have been 3/17 or 12/5. 28 Uncertain. 21

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Sung’s ﬁrst Birthday Felicitation Envoy and deputy envoy to be sent to Liao were selected on April 6, 1005; their mission was to convey birthday greetings to the Kitan empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien. The Sung court set at this time the rough form the birthday missive would assume and discussed the retinues and items that would attend the embassy. It also determined that along with the Birthday Felicitation missive to the empress dowager it would be appropriate to send a letter of “greeting” (wen-hou) to the Kitan emperor.29 The ﬁrst Birthday Felicitation Envoy and his deputy to be sent to a Liao emperor were selected on November 15, 1005. Also on this date were selected the New Year Felicitation Envoys and deputy envoys to both the Kitan emperor and the empress dowager. They would travel and function as two separate embassies, a precedent that was followed thereafter.30 Liao’s ﬁrst Birthday Felicitation Envoys to a Sung emperor arrived at the Sung court on December 28, 1005 as two separate embassies, one sent by the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and the other by the Liao empress dowager Fa-t’ien. (It had been decided a few days earlier, on December 7, 1005, that Ts’ao Li-yung himself would escort the ﬁrst Liao Birthday Felicitation Envoys at the Sung capital.31) The ﬁrst Liao New Year Felicitation Envoys were sent to the Sung court on January 28, 1006 and also travelled as two separate embassies.32 Occasional embassies The deaths and enthronements of emperors and empress dowagers led to the dispatch of the occasional and formal envoys listed below; emperors and empress dowagers sometimes dispatched these embassies separately: 1. Lamentation Annunciation Envoys (kao-ai shih) announced the deaths of emperors and empress dowagers.33 29

HCPSL 1.259. HCPSL 1.268. 31 HCPSL 1.269. 32 HCPSL 1.270. 33 Such a practice had precedents in earlier history. One of the four main occasions on which embassies were exchanged between T’ang and the Uighur empire (which endured from A.D. 744 to 840) was the death of an Uighur khaghan or khatun. Uighur envoys would report the death to the T’ang court, and T’ang in turn would dispatch envoys to “appoint” a new khaghan, or actually to recognise him. (Mackerras 1969, 217) 30

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2. Condolence Envoys (tiao-wei kuo-hsin shih; abbreviated as tiao-wei shih) conveyed condolences to the bereaved emperor or empress dowagers; they were accompanied by 3. Immolation Envoys (chi-tien kuo-hsin shih; abbreviated as chi-tien shih) who made oﬀerings to the neighbouring state’s deceased emperor, empress, or empress dowager. 4. Personal Eﬀects Presentation Envoys (i-liu-shih), presented as gifts to the emperor or empress dowager of the neighbouring country some of the personal eﬀects or curios “left behind” (i-liu) by the deceased emperor or empress dowager. 5. Imperial Enthronement Envoys (huang-ti teng pao-wei shih), also known as Enthronement Annunciation Envoys (kao teng-wei shih), announced the accession of a new emperor to the throne. 6. Enthronement Felicitation Envoys (ho teng-wei kuo-hsin shih; abbreviated as ho teng-wei shih) oﬀered congratulations for the new emperor’s accession. 7. Entitlement Ceremony Felicitation Envoys (ho ts’e-li kuo-hsin shih; abbreviated as ho ts’e-li shih) were sent in response to the arrivals of Condolence Envoys or any of the various felicitation envoys. 8. Reciprocation Envoys (hui-hsieh shih) were sent in response to the arrival of Condolence Envoys or any of the various felicitation envoys. The ﬁrst occasion for the dispatch and exchange of occasional embassies came on March 23, 1022 with the death of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung. On this same day a Lamentation Annunciation Envoy was selected for travel to Liao. A few days later, on March 31, 1022, Sung sent its ﬁrst Personal Eﬀects Presentation Envoys to Liao. Almost two months after Chen-tsung’s death, Sung sent its ﬁrst Imperial Enthronement Annunciation Envoys to Liao.34 The ﬁrst occasional envoys from Liao to Sung were Immolation and Condolence Envoys, who were sent on July 18, 1022 to the newly enthroned Sung emperor Jen-tsung (r. 1022–1063). The Kitans also dispatched a separate Condolence embassy to the mother of the late Sung emperor Chen-tsung.35 Sung ended the ﬁrst rounds of diplomatic funerary formalities during the sad year of 1022 by designating Reciprocation Envoys for travel to Liao on August 7, 1022.36 34 35 36

HCPSL 1.336. HCPSL 1.337. HCPSL 1.338.

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Sung’s ﬁrst turn to dispatch funerary embassies to Liao began with the death of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung on July 6, 1031. On July 28, 1031 the Sung court commemorated him by stopping court business at the capital for seven days and also by ordering the cessation of music in the Ho-pei and Ho-tung border areas for seven days. On this day Sung also designated several envoys for travel to Liao: Immolation Envoys, Imperial Enthronement Felicitation Envoys, and Condolence Envoys to both the Liao empress dowager Ch’it’ien and the new Liao emperor Hsing-tsung.37 All of these appointments were made before the oﬃcial arrival of the Kitan Lamentation Annunciation Envoy on August 2, 1031 and seem to indicate that Sung had an eﬀective intelligence network functioning in Liao territory. On August 14, 1031 the Sung court redesignated Enthronement Felicitation Envoys and also appointed an Entitlement Ceremony Envoy (ts’e-li shih) to the newly installed Kitan empress dowager Fat’ien.38 From this time forth the Sung court sent Entitlement Ceremony Envoys whenever a new Kitan empress dowager was installed.39 Political embassies The envoys discussed above performed speciﬁc formal duties and had no authority to engage in oﬃcial political negotiations or diplomatic communication. These matters were reserved for specially commissioned envoys sometimes called “ﬂoating envoys” ( fan-shih) who conveyed reports and requests to the neighbouring country. Acknowledgement Envoys (ta-hsieh kuo-hsin shih) responded to diplomatic inquiries and were also sent for discussion of requests and demands made by the neighbouring country. Acknowledgement Envoys were sometimes known as Reciprocation Envoys (hui-hsieh shih).40

37

HCPSL 1.365. This was the infamous and ruthless Nou-chin, the mother of the newly installed Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung. She had recently hounded the former empress dowager Ch’i-t’ien into suicide. 39 HCPSL 1.366. Liao empress dowagers were powerful ﬁgures who often dominated their sons and made their lives diﬃcult. 40 Nieh 1940, 4–5. 38

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As a general rule, Sung envoys and assistant envoys were selected through the joint deliberations of the Secretariat-Chancellery41 and the Bureau of Military Aﬀairs. There were no set regulations for this process, so opportunism, nepotism, and court factionalism frequently ﬁgured into it. Oﬃcials sometimes recklessly volunteered themselves or their relatives for ambassadorships, and this became such a problem that eventually some prominent oﬃcials insisted that it stop.42 One of these was Han Ch’i (1008–1075),43 who in 1039 made the following suggestion which the Sung court adopted: I pray that if, while the Secretariat-Chancellery and the Bureau of Military Aﬀairs are selecting and submitting names for [possible service as] State Missive Envoys, there are oﬃcials who venture at will to present their own requests [for such service], severe punishments be meted out to them.44

Although Sung did not usually appoint its most prominent oﬃcials as envoys,45 the selection process was still attended to with considerable care. A signiﬁcant measure of Sung’s prestige and honour was, after all, at stake during diplomatic missions. Sung’s appointments of accomplished, witty, and eloquent scholar-oﬃcials for diplomatic duty as envoys to Liao territory or hosts for Liao diplomats in Sung territory were likely made with an eye to displaying the cultural superiority of Sung China. They were also, one modern scholar speculates, perhaps face-saving measures to compensate for the “humiliating” and “unequal” Covenant of Shan-yüan.46 Envoys to Liao very often became well-known ﬁgures, as witnessed by the biographical entries for most of them in the Sung-shih. Service as an envoy to Liao does not seem to have been regarded as an onerous responsibility; in fact, its frequent mention in biographies seems to indicate that it was a signiﬁcant honour. The material incentives and mon-

41 42 43 44 45 46

Chung-shu [men-hsia]; Hucker 1985, 193.1617. Nieh 1940, 6. Biographies SS 312.10221–30; Djang 1989, 322–29. HCP 123; see entry in HCPSL 1.390. Cited and quoted in Nieh 1940, 9. Ang 1983, 112. Tao 1988, 18, 20.

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etary rewards for service as an envoy were quite signiﬁcant,47 and simple curiosity and a desire to see northern China (and perhaps even some of the steppe region) might also have contributed to the willingness for diplomatic duty.48 The Sung government generally did not send its highest-ranking personnel on diplomatic missions to Liao.49 Sung envoys were drawn mostly from oﬃcials of the ﬁfth, sixth, and seventh ranks. (The lowest-ranking envoys were lower than the seventh grade, and the highest were of the fourth and third grades.50) The Sung government usually embellished the titles of its envoys to enhance their prestige for the sake of their missions, and this was done to satisfy Kitan demands for more diplomatic respect. The titles, which could be functional or merely titular, included prestige titles, honorary appointments, and titles of nobility. Liao does not seem to have been fooled by this and was aware of some aspects of the envoy selection process. In 1073 a Liao envoy complained about this and requested that Sung appoint higher-ranking oﬃcials as envoys in the future.51 Liao was fussy, even punctilious, about ritual and sartorial formality. Liao oﬃcials took careful note of the ranks of Sung diplomats and insisted that they wear their ranks (tai-chih), something Sung oﬃcials seldom did back home. Sung envoys also went to the formality of “wearing the ﬁsh” ( p’ei-yü )52 if they were appointed envoys to Liao.53 47 Nieh 1940, 6; Tao 1988, 20. Franke 1983, 124 gives the payment of a Southern Sung envoy and his assistant for a mission to Chin in 1133: sixty bolts of silk, one hundred strings of cash, and ﬁfty ounces of silver. 48 Franke 1983, 137. 49 Tao 1988, 20. 50 Ang 1983, 109. 51 Ang 1983, 112–14. 52 During T’ang times, the “ﬁsh” or “ﬁsh pouch” ( yü-tai ) was worn by civilian oﬃcials. It was attached to a sash and worn at the oﬃcial’s back. Oﬃcials with purple (tzu) robes wore gold ﬁsh pouches, while oﬃcials with scarlet or crimson ( fei ) robes wore silver ﬁsh pouches. This T’ang formality of “wearing the ﬁsh” was uncommon by Sung times. Liao, however, retained many patterns, procedures, and usages of T’ang administration, even if it “creatively misunderstood” them (Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 434), and throughout Liao history “T’ang remained the Liao’s model of a great empire, the only great stable state within their sphere of knowledge, just as Rome had provided an unrivalled but unattainable model for so many of the petty realms that emerged within its former territories.” (Twitchett 1997, 54) Liao of course never came anywhere near replicating T’ang governance and seems to have looked to T’ang experience more for inspiration than for a viable administrative model. Twitchett 1997, 31–55 is a ﬁne discussion of Liao’s changing views of its heritage from T’ang.

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A total of 608 men were sent as envoys to Liao on a total of 679 diplomatic missions. This means that almost ninety percent of Sung oﬃcials who served as envoys at one time or another during their careers went on only one diplomatic mission.54 The single most important qualifying criterion for a potential envoy seems to have been the possession of a civilian chin-shih degree. (Assistant envoys were mostly military men, as will be discussed below.) Of 325 envoys considered in a 1983 study, only seventh-three (22.5%) did not hold the degree.55 Other less quantiﬁable considerations also ﬁgured into the process of envoy selection: experience with the Kitan, relatives who had previously served as envoys to Liao, personal connections with high government oﬃcials, and native intelligence.56 Sung assumed that civilian oﬃcials would be much better at diplomatic etiquette than their military counterparts.57 Sung envoys were the personal representatives of the Sung emperor himself and as such bore heavy responsibilities. They had to be men with classical educations, skill in debate, familiarity with etiquette, healthy constitutions, and the resourcefulness to adapt to a foreign and sometimes hostile environment under adverse circumstances. Considerations of experience were also important in selecting envoys. Because there was no separately conceived and deﬁned body of knowledge or expertise pertaining to foreign relations and diplomacy, the Sung government tended to view past contact or experience with the Kitans as more important than any speciﬁc expertise concerning them. (Indeed, experience counted more than expertise in most government appointments in Sung China: “The choice of experience over expertise and advocacy of virtuous men in government . . . is typical of the [Sung] political order which, while acknowledging skill, preferred virtue.”58) It stands to reason that people from Sung China’s northern border regions would be more familiar with the Kitans and more likely to be tapped for ambassadorships than their southern Chinese counterparts. Not surprisingly, more than ﬁfty-eight percent of the men appointed as envoys to Liao hailed from northern China. Southeastern 53 54 55 56 57 58

Ang 1983, 114; Nieh 1940, 10. Ang 1983, 147. Ang 1983, 154. For analysis and case studies see Ang 1983, 154–65. Ang 1983, 109. Ang 1983, 228–29.

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China consistently produced less than twenty percent of the envoys throughout the dynasty.59 Envoys were, by very deﬁnition, social élites. Their élite character approximates that of oﬃcials holding political and ﬁnancial positions in the Sung government.60 (Founding élite families supplied many of the early Sung envoys to Liao, but their service as envoys did not necessarily guarantee them access to higher policy-making positions in the Sung government.61) By itself, a successful ambassadorship did not necessarily help a man’s career or recommend him for a high position in the Sung government. In fact, government personnel specialising in Kitan aﬀairs were not regularly appointed to high oﬃce.62 But the fact remains that service as an envoy could and often did bring prestige, promotion, and the material bestowals of the Liao government.63 Diplomatic expertise was not a major consideration in appointing oﬃcials to major policy-formulating positions in the Sung central government, although a signiﬁcant minority (around 30%) of men in these positions had previously served as envoys. There might have been “a moderate dependency relationship between ambassadorial experience and policy position attainment,”64 but for such success the possession of a chin-shih degree was probably a more important factor.65 The selection of assistant envoys was very casual, and nepotism frequently ﬁgured into it. This was because the duties and functions of the assistant envoy were relatively insigniﬁcant, perhaps even mostly supernumerary, in comparison with those of the main envoy. The lax selection of assistant envoys became such a concern that in 1049 a censor warned that the appointment of obscure men as assistant envoys might be seen as an aﬀront by the “rival state” (ti-kuo) of Liao.66 59 Ang 1983, 200–04. Ang notes that northern China produced 63.1 percent of envoys prior to 1067 and 46.8% afterwards. 60 Ang 1983, 193–98 and 221, n. 4. Ang follows Robert M. Hartwell’s categories of “professional élite,” “founding élite” (people early on in the Northern Sung who had served in the Five Dynasties governments), and “gentry” in general. 61 Ang 1983, 199. 62 Ang 1983, 226. 63 Franke 1983, 133. 64 Ang 1983, 217. 65 Ang 1983, 199. 66 Nieh 1940, 6.

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Assistant envoys were typically military men whose ancestors had distinguished themselves over their careers,67 and they very seldom attained to policy positions or secured appointments as main envoys. (A notable exception was the eunuch T’ung Kuan, who served as an assistant envoy in 1111 and later rose to military prominence.) There is signiﬁcant indication that several men who served as assistant envoys also served as “military attendants” or Military Commissioners68 in the Sung’s ﬁve Kitan-sensitive Military Prefectures in northern China.69 Service as an assistant envoy was quite lucrative, so there were sometimes attempts to secure such appointments for friends and relatives.70 Payments for retinue members varied by rank; for an embassy of 1133, upper rank members received forty bolts of silk, ten strings of cash, and twenty ounces of silver. Middle and lower ranks were paid commensurately less.71 Available historical data indicate that forty percent of the military men who served as assistant envoys held the position of Secretarial Receptionist (rank 7B or Audience Usher (rank 8B) at the times of their appointments. Only thirteen percent of assistant envoys held ranks higher than grade seven, and only one ever had the rank of 5B: T’ung Kuan in 1111.72

Embassy Retinues Information on many aspects of Sung-Liao diplomacy is relatively abundant, but unfortunately we have no description detailing the retinues of Northern Sung embassies to Liao. We do know that typical embassies had retinues of about one hundred men for assistance in practical aﬀairs. We also know that the men in these retinues were divided into the “three ranks” (san chieh): upper (shang-chieh), middle (chung-chieh), and lower (hsia-chieh), all in accordance with their oﬃcial positions. The selection of an embassy’s retinue or personnel was largely left up to the designated envoy himself.73 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

For analysis and case studies see Ang 1983, 149–53. An-fu shih or Ching-lüeh an-fu shih; Hucker 1985, 104.17.2 and 172.1232. Ang 1983, 165–70. Ang 1983, 165–70. Franke 1983, 124. Ang 1983, 111–12. Franke 1983, 123.

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Information on the retinues of Southern Sung embassies sent to Chin is much more abundant, and since a great deal of Sung-Chin diplomacy was based on Sung-Liao precedents, a consideration of Southern Sung embassies to Chin will be appropriate here. Instructive is the bewildering array of personnel in the embassy of Hsü K’angtsung, a Southern Sung envoy who travelled to Chin in 1125.74 It included an administrator, a physician, a guide, an interpreter, a military general, an “Oﬃcial of the Oﬃce of the Phoenix,” an artisan, a saddles and reins warehouseman, three palace military intendants in charge of gifts, three palace military intendants in charge of receptions, two secretaries, two “Directors of Flying Chariots,” two petty oﬃcials, two junior military oﬃcers, two “relatives by marriage,” ten “Oﬃcials of the Oﬃce for Propagation and Paciﬁcation,” two “Investigators,” two “Oﬃcers,” two porters, two livestock tenders, three horse trainers, and thirty-ﬁve soldiers!75 It is tempting to conclude that many of these retinue members were supernumeraries who simply went along for the ride. They likely engaged in lucrative private trade on the side.76 A study of a Southern Sung mission to Chin in 1135 indicates some of the ranks for the personnel in this embassy. Those with the upper rank included the administrator, the physician-in-waiting, two guides, two secretaries, six gift intendants, and two reception intendants. Those with the middle rank were four petty oﬃcials, six personal attendants of “relatives by marriage,” three ﬂag intendants and announcers, and two junior military oﬃcers. Embassy members of the lowest rank were a Needle and Thread Artisan of Artistic Ornaments, an Oﬃcial from the Oﬃce of the Phoenix, two Artisans of the Imperial Kitchen, two Oﬃcials from the Oﬃce for the Production of Teas and Banquets, two high-ranking military oﬃcers, two horse trainers, two military oﬃcials, and sixty soldiers.77 Sung materials are full of complaints that the retinues of embassies sent to Liao and Chin were too large. The problem seems to have become worse for Sung as time wore on. The “ranks” or retinue of an embassy of 1133 consisted of about one hundred men, including 74 For a French translation of Hsü K’ang-tsung’s embassy report see Chavannes 1897, 361–439. 75 Ang 1983, 105–07. 76 Herbert Franke notes that many retinue members of Southern Sung embassies to Chin engaged in private trade. (Franke 1983, 124) 77 Ang 1983, 106–07.

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a physician, ﬂag and letter carriers, riding teachers, a cook, a carpenter, an embroiderer, and seventy soldiers. A mission of 1189 had a retinue of almost four hundred men! Predictably enough, the military men sometimes caused trouble. Southern Sung materials indicate that in 1148 there were problems with improper behaviour among escort soldiers, and in 1156 the Southern Sung court directed that selection for the “three ranks” should be taken more seriously. The court directed that the soldiers should be free of criminal conviction, good-looking, disciplined, and between the ages of thirty and ﬁfty.78

Travel All Liao envoys entered Sung territory across the Pai-kou Bridge and travelled towards the Sung capital, lodging for the night at several hostels along their way. After crossing the Pai-kou Bridge their hostel stops were Hsiung-chou, Mo-chou, Ying-chou, Chi-chou, Pei-chou (later named En-chou), Ta-ming, Shan-chou, the Pan-ching hostel, and then ﬁnally the Sung capital. This route was established immediately after the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005 and was used until 1080, when the Yellow River’s dikes broke at Shan-chou and the old route had to be altered; the segment from the Pai-kou Bridge to Ying-chou remained unchanged, but from Ying-chou the new route went through Chao-chou, Hsing-chou, Tz’uchou, Hsiang-chou, and Hua-chou before reverting back to the old route from the Pan-ching hostel to the Sung capital.79 Sung diplomats entered into Liao territory over the Pai-kou River Bridge. For Sung diplomats crossing over the bridge there were speciﬁc ritual patterns to be observed for entering and leaving Liao territory. These amounted to a ritual “performance of the border,” in the words of Naomi Standen.80 The account of Ch’en Hsiang (1017– 1080)81 of his entry into Liao territory on June 25, 1067 is as follows:

78

Franke 1983, 123. Nieh 1940, 21. 80 Professor Standen thus characterised the crossings of Sung embassies into Liao territory as a discussant responding to my paper “The Sung-Liao Border: Demarcations and Considerations” on the panel “Place, Territory, and Landscape in Sung China” at the Fiftieth Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Washington, D.C. on March 28, 1998. 81 Biography SS 321.10419–21. 79

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Map 4

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Map 5

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I, your servant [Ch’en] Hsiang, and my retinue, having received an imperial command, was sent to act as a State Missive Envoy to the Northern Court [and announce to the Kitan] Empress Dowager and Emperor the accession of His Majesty the [Sung] Emperor to the throne. We arrived at the courier station at Pai-kou River in Hsiungchou on June 24, 1067. On June 25 the [Liao] Reception Escort Commissioner, T’ai-chou Surveillance Commissioner Hsiao Hao-ku, and his assistant, Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacriﬁces Yang Kuei-chung, sent people to convey to us the name of their sovereign, their national taboo [name], and their own oﬃcial positions. They then requested to see us. My retinue and I at once crossed over to the north side of the Pai-kou River Bridge and faced the Reception Escort Commissioner and his Assistant on our horses. The Assistant Reception Escort Commissioner [Yang Kuei-chung] asked if the Emperor of our Southern Court was in good health, and in accordance with precedent, my retinue and I also inquired into the health of their sovereign and his mother. We exchanged courtesies and then proceeded to the pavilion at the north [end of the bridge], where [Yang] Kuei-chung, in accordance with his sovereign’s instructions, put on a thirteen-round banquet for us.82

The ritual for leaving Liao territory was even more involved: On August 30 we arrived at the Pai-kou River, where Palace Servitor and Audience Usher Ma Shih-yen of the Express Courier Oﬃce came out and put on a banquet for us in which we exchanged nine rounds of liquor. We did not, [however,] attend the banquet [which they prepared for us]. All else went according to ceremony. We travelled and then the Departure Escort Commissioner and his assistant poured liquor in a farewell gesture [to us] from the north [side] of the Paikou River Bridge. We poured liquor in a farewell gesture [to them] from the south [side] of the Pai-kou River Bridge. Each side then had three cups of liquor. Then both parties travelled to the centre of the bridge, where we faced each other on our horses, toasted each other [again], and exchanged riding quirts. Then we bade each other farewell, all in accordance with former precedent. That night we lodged in Hsiung-chou.83

As the passages above indicate, once inside Liao territory the Sung envoy and his assistant were immediately accompanied by a Reception Escort Commissioner (chieh-pan shih) and an Assistant Reception Escort

82 SLYL, 1A; Wright 1998, 63–64. Translated excerpts from embassy reports and the footnotes to them are drawn from Wright 1998A. 83 SLYL, 8A; Wright 1998A, 87–88.

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Commissioner (chieh-pan fu-shih) who remained with them throughout their journey. For Liao it seems to have been the pattern for the Reception Escort Commissioner to be a member of the royal clans (Yeh-lü or Hsiao) and for the Assistant Reception Escort Commissioner to be a commoner.84 With Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy of 1067, the Chinese Assistant Reception Escort Commissioner, Yang Kuei-chung, seems to have done almost all of the talking and socialising; we hear relatively little from Hsiao Hao-ku, the Kitan Reception Escort Commissioner. Also accompanying Sung envoys were a Hospitality Escort Commissioner (kuan-pan shih) and an Assistant Hospitality Escort Commissioner (kuan-pan fu-shih), who were responsible for hosting many but not all of the banquets the Sung embassy would attend along the way. On their way out of Liao territory after the completion of their diplomatic duties, Sung envoys were accompanied by a Departure Escort Commissioner (sung-pan shih) and an Assistant Departure Escort Commissioner (sung-pan fu-shih). After a Sung embassy crossed over into Liao territory it became the responsibility of the Liao hosts, who provided for its transportation, food, lodging, animals to haul the carts and carriages, and even fodder and hay for the horses. Everything was provided, down to the vessels, cups, and plates for Sung envoys.85 Once inside Liao territory, all Sung embassies travelled along a single route at least as far as Yu-chou. Yu-chou was the destination for several known Sung embassies, but many other embassies travelled beyond it to other destinations along diﬀerent routes, depending on where the Liao emperor and empress dowager were at various times on their na-po, or nomadic migrations. Sung embassies did not know beforehand what their destinations would be; they were informed of these only after travelling into Liao territory86 and meeting up with their designated Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy of 1067 crossed into Liao territory and learned that theirs was a new destination not heretofore travelled to: Shen-enp’o, in what is now southeastern Inner Mongolia. His embassy report shows how his destination was indicated during the course of courteous small talk with his Liao Assistant Reception Escort Commissioner:

84 85 86

Nieh 1940, 3. Franke 1983, 128. Fu 1984, 22.

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. . . Kuei-chung, in accordance with his sovereign’s instructions, put on a thirteen-round banquet for us. He asked each of us how old we were, and we each replied with the truth. We in turn asked the Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant how old they were. [Hsiao] Hao-ku replied that he was forty-three, and [Yang] Kueichung replied that he was thirty-three. Kuei-chung asked your servant Yü how many brothers he had, and he replied that he had ten. Your servant [Sun] T’an asked where the [annunciation] ceremony would take place. Kuei-chung replied, “It will take place at Shen-en-p’o, which is thirty-one stops87 from here. Your Assistant Hospitality Escort Commissioner is to be Vice Minister and Chamberlain for Ceremonials and Rituals Yang I-chieh, but we have not yet learned who the chief Commissioner [will be].88

Greeting the travelling embassies as they passed through each important locale was an important part of the ritual courtesies the Liao government paid Sung embassies. The local populations bore the burden of feting the Sung envoys to sumptuous banquets,89 and local oﬃcials were expected to meet the embassies as they crossed into each new prefecture ( fu) and approached each important town. Only very high oﬃcials at the Liao capitals were exempt from this requirement; they were permitted to send personal representatives in their stead.90 They likewise saw the envoys oﬀ as they departed and continued on with their journeys. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report mentions the ﬁrst such instance of being greeted upon crossing into each new prefecture in the following perfunctory manner: “(Hereafter, the banquets given, [our] greeting and reception at each prefecture in accordance with precedent, and the teas, silks, and other items given to the greeters [at each prefecture] will not be entered into this record.)”91 His record does, however, note the following of their greeting they received at Cho-chou: On June 26 we arrived at Cho-chou, and the Prefect, Grand Preceptor Hsiao Chih-shan, and the Controller-General and Director of the Ministry of Civil Personnel, Neng Yüan, greeted us at the city limits. We all exchanged eleven toasts at the pavilion by the southern gate 87 Ch’eng. Kuei-chung here meant that there were thirty-one hostels between the Pai-kou courier station and Shen-en-p’o. Actually, he was either misinformed or careless in his counting; there were in fact thirty-two hostels between Pai-kou and Shen-en-p’o. 88 SLYL, 1A; Wright 1998A, 64. 89 Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 162. 90 Nieh 1940, 24. 91 SLYL, 1B; Wright 1998A, 65.

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chapter three of the city. (Hereafter, nothing further will be entered into [this] record of how, outside the gates of every prefecture, we were greeted, sent oﬀ, and toasted.92)

As Ch’en’s embassy approached Yen-ching (Yu-chou) on June 28, it was greeted as follows: After we had crossed [to the opposite] shore of a river, your servant [Sun] T’an asked [Hsiao] Hao-ku if this was the Sang-kan River,93 and Hao-ku replied that it was. The Regent of Yen-ching, Secretary and Retainer Han Chin, greeted us at the outskirts of the city and exchanged nine toasts with us. In 1064 I, your servant [Ch’en] Hsiang, greeted Han Chin at Ch’en Bridge94 and gave an imperial banquet for [Han] Chin. [Han] Chin now greeted me and said, “In a day gone by, [diplomatic] business brought me to Ch’en Bridge, where I had the honour of being received by you. How fortunate it is that we now meet here again.”95

Ch’en’s embassy was also greeted in a similar manner at Shan-chou on his way in on July 296 and again on his way out on August 23.97 On August 25 they were also met at the outskirts of Hsi-chin Prefecture by its leaders and toasted with ﬁve rounds of liquor.98 They received the same treatment at Cho-chou three days later on August 28.99 The diplomatic journeys were not pleasure junkets, especially during winter. Sung envoys complained of the bitter cold in northern China, and a Southern Sung envoy to Chin in 1176 complained that the carriage he rode in, although luxuriously appointed, was very uncomfortable to ride in because it tossed him to and fro as if it were a boat on stormy seas.100 The pace of travel in Liao territory for Sung diplomats was brisk but not frenetic. Northern Sung materials contain few complaints about the arduous hardships of overland travel, although a few poems do note the cold and isola92

SLYL, 2A; Wright 1998A, 68. Also known as the Sang-ch’ien River. 94 In modern Honan province, about sixteen kilometres or ten miles north of Kaifeng. According to some historical traditions, Chao K’uang-yin, the general who became the ﬁrst emperor of Sung, is said to have awakened at this spot and found himself clothed with yellow robes and to have been “compelled” by his troops to assume the title and oﬃce of emperor. 95 SLYL, 2B; Wright 1998A, 70 (slightly modiﬁed here). 96 SLYL, 3B; Wright 1998A, 72. 97 SLYL, 7B; Wright 1998A, 86. 98 SLYL, 7B; Wright 1998A, 87. 99 SLYL, 7B; Wright 1998A, 87. 100 Franke 1983, 135. 93

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tion of the north. A review of embassy reports indicates that the average daily distance between most hostels was approximately sixty li (about twenty English miles or thirty-two kilometres), well within the limits of reasonable physical endurance for most healthy travellers. It was even possible in urgent situations to skip over hostels and accomplish two days’ travel in one, as Ch’en Hsiang did in 1067 on his way out of Liao territory in order to arrive home in time for the funeral of the Sung emperor Ying-tsung.101 Ch’en Hsiang and his retinue strongly suspected that their Liao escorts had led them on an unnecessarily circuitous route through Liao territory, perhaps for the purpose of impressing them with the large extent of the Liao empire.102 Possible dangers Northern Sung envoys do not seem to have faced signiﬁcant dangers to their persons or liberty. (Several Southern Sung envoys, however, were detained by Chin during the twelfth century, especially during the years 1127–1141 when the two states were in conﬂict.103) The detention of envoys does not seem to have been much of an issue in Sung-Liao diplomacy. The greatest dangers faced by Sung envoys to Liao were apparently disease and possible death of natural causes. Liao contributed to the funeral costs of Sung envoys who died in Liao territory, as in 1092, when it gave three hundred ounces of silver for coﬃns and funeral garments for an assistant envoy who passed away while on a diplomatic mission.104 Another risk for Sung envoys was possible punishment for violating any of the myriad regulations for envoys. In 1100, envoys returning from Liao were punished for not taking due notice of the death of the Sung emperor Che-tsung after they had re-entered Sung territory, and the next year Sung envoys were demoted because the members of their retinue were not dressed properly.105

101 102 103 104 105

SLYL, 6A–B; Wright 1998A, 82. SLYL, 4B; Wright 1998A, 76. Franke 1983, 133–34. Franke 1983, 134. Franke 1983, 135.

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Intelligence Espionage is very frequently associated with diplomacy, and Sung’s external relations with Liao constitute no exception to this general rule. Indeed, “. . . it is clear that espionage and intelligence were, for both sides, an integral part of the diplomatic game.”106 Sung intelligence gathering and the revanchism it scarcely concealed continued well through the Southern Sung period, as indicated by Hsü K’ang-tsung’s extensive intelligence on Chin during his diplomatic mission of 1125. Chin was well aware of espionage conducted by Sung embassies and forbade its subjects to speak with Sung diplomats.107 Sung diplomats travelling in Liao territory did their very best to gather information of potential strategic or propagandistic value.108 Sung envoys sent to Liao soon after the Covenant of Shanyüan of 1005 seemed especially eager to report on the geography of their routes. The greater part of Lu Chen’s embassy report of 1008 is concerned with two things: geographical description and political intelligence. He gives distances along his route, notes nearby geographical features and possible natural resources, and makes very detailed physical descriptions of the cities of Yu-chou and the Supreme Capital. He comments on the military particulars of the cities and is careful to attribute the information he gathers to speciﬁc named individuals. All of this information had much potential military value. Propaganda and wishful thinking Lu Chen gives a few subjective passages for their propaganda value. The most striking of these passages conveys the supposed regret of the ethnically Han Chinese population of Liao that they could not be Sung subjects:

106

Franke 1983, 139. Franke 1983, 138. This regulation was eventually abolished by 1170 because it was unenforceable. 108 Sung was, for its part, well aware of the intelligence gathering capabilities of Liao embassies travelling in its own territory and took measures to hinder possible espionage. In 1015 Sung prohibited unauthorised conversation with Liao envoys, even by Sung hosts attempting to milk information out of them about the Liao state. Private conversation and trade with the Liao envoys were similarly forbidden. Sung was so concerned about the threats to national security posed by foreign envoys that Korean envoys were prevented from buying certain Chinese books until 1101. Franke 1983, 139. 107

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When [the Sung emperor] T’ai-tsung paciﬁed Chin-yang, he learned of the longings of the people of Yen. He personally led six armies and approached the city walls. The people of Yen were surprised and delighted and schemed to seize the defending general and take him outside the city walls to surrender. Emperor T’ai-tsung, in consideration of the facts that the city walls of Yen are large but not sturdy, [thus making Yen] easy to capture [but] diﬃcult to defend, that the summer heat had just reached its height, and that his oﬃcers and men had been exposed [to the heat and natural elements?] for a long time, withdrew the troops. When the elders in the city heard of the withdrawal of His Majesty, they stroked their sons and said [to them] with sighs, “You will not be Chinese subjects.109 This is your fate.” (The matters pertaining to the harshness of the caitiﬀ government and afterwards were spoken of by Liu Pin, the Host for Visitors of Yu-chou. [Liu] Pin’s grandfather is named [Liu] Ying. [Ying] is seventy years old and was once an oﬃcer in the military administration of Yu-chou; he has witnessed all of these things and speaks of them repeatedly to his sons and grandsons. The aﬀairs pertaining to the Hsiao empress [dowager] and Lung-ch’ing were also spoken of by [Liu] Ying.)110

And of course, many ethnic Chinese living within Liao jurisdiction longed to be liberated from Kitan rule: Recently some border residents who long ago were abducted by the caitiﬀs [have ﬂed back to Sung territory]. When during their ﬂights they arrived at Yen, the [Chinese?] people [of Yen] raised money [for them] and gave them guidance for entering into Chinese111 territory. [These people of Yen] said to them, “Be on your way. In a future year when the Emperor of the Southern Court112 comes to recover Yu-chou, take care to do us, the sons of Han,113 no harm.” The longings in the hearts of the people of Yen and Chi are such as these.114

Lu Chen cannot resist telling the Sung government about the walls of a Buddhist temple on which were supposedly written imperial orders by the founding Sung emperor: On the tenth day we travelled northward ﬁfty li from Yu-chou to the Sun-hou hostel. There are no hills on the land [between Yu-chou and 109

That is, subjects of a native Chinese state or dynasty—in other words, subjects of Sung. 110 CYL(L), 5B–6A; Wright 1998A, 33–34. The Southern Sung envoy Lou Yüeh’s account of his travels to Chin in 1169 contains similar clichés about Han Chinese under harsh Jurchen rule longing to be Sung subjects. (Walton 2002, 24–25) 111 I.e., Sung. 112 I.e., Sung China’s government. 113 I.e., ethnic Han Chinese. 114 CYL(L), 6A; Wright 1998A, 34.

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chapter three the Sun-hou hostel]. We departed from the Pei-an Gate. On the west of the route is the Hua-yen Temple, which is the place where Emperor T’ai-tsung [of Sung once] lodged. The people say that on the eastern wall of the monks’ quarters are [written Sung] imperial orders, in ﬁfteen characters. The caitiﬀs do not allow people to see [these characters], and they cover [them] with painted boards. Whenever the lord of the caitiﬀs115 arrives [here], he always opens [the painted boards] and looks at them.116

The Kitans were supposedly being gradually and inevitably Sinicised and were embarrassed about breaching faith with Sung: As for such [things] as exchanging the tribes for the administration of wells and hamlets,117 switching rounded tents for the construction of hostel buildings, rejecting felt [garments] for the wearing of cap and sash,118 and discarding fur and blood119 for the enjoyment of the kitchen—[these actions are] all [evidence of their] admiration of the uprightness of the Central Kingdom. Now only uprightness can gradually transform [the Kitans]; [once this transformation is complete] their cruel and beastly natures will have been almost completely changed. In a previous year when His Majesty120 travelled eastward, the caitiﬀs received [erroneous] reports121 from agents122 [about this travel] and immediately summoned troops at Yu and Chi to prepare for the [feared] arrival of the [Sung] imperial troops. [But then] the [Sung] court reaﬃrmed its vow [to abide by the peace agreement] and the border commanderies lifted the [state of ] alert. The caitiﬀs heard of this and were greatly ashamed; they felt they had been wronged by lowly people123 and had breached faith with a great state. They therefore bound and escorted the agents and returned them to our [state]. It was not until [we] your servants took the State Missive and arrived at the [Sung-Liao] border that the caitiﬀs issued a decree to the eﬀect that those who dared speak to the Chinese124 envoys of the recent

115

That is, the Liao emperor. CYL(L), 6A; Wright 1998A, 34. 117 I.e., towns and villages. 118 Cap and sash being emblematic of a highly civilised and cultured sedentary society. 119 I.e., raw food, which in the lurid Chinese imagination was perhaps the only food of pastoral nomadic peoples. 120 The Sung emperor T’ai-tsung (r. 976–997). 121 These were reports to the eﬀect that Sung was about to launch an attack against Liao in an attempt to recover lost territory. 122 That is, subjects of Sung who were engaging in espionage against their own country. 123 That is, the traitorous Sung agents who had given them faulty intelligence. 124 I.e., Sung. 116

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summoning of [Liao] troops at Yu and Chi to prepare for the [feared attack from the] south would be executed along with their families. (The aﬀairs pertaining to the caitiﬀs issuing [this] decree were heard in the Kitan language by Palace Military Intendant Lu Chin.125 Ever since, [the caitiﬀs] have been diligent to the utmost in welcoming and feting the State Missive [Envoys].)126

Consistent with his taste for telling or titillating detail, Lu Chen even passed on gossip and rumours pertaining to sexual scandal in the Liao royal house.127 Wang Tseng’s embassy report of 1012 contains detailed descriptions of Yu-chou, the Central Capital, and the geography along his route. He pays special attention to the Ku-pei Pass and notes the Liao military installations nearby. Hsüeh Ying, who in 1016 was likely the ﬁrst Sung envoy to travel all the way out to the Supreme Capital, described the geography between the Central and the Supreme Capital, pinpointed the locations of the Shira Mören and Qara Mören Rivers along his route, and noted the pockets of Hsi and Pohai population along the way. He then gave a description of the Supreme Capital. In 1020 Sung Shou was the ﬁrst envoy to travel to Mu-yeh Mountain, so he took particular care to describe the geography along his route. The geography of the route to the Central Capital was well known by 1020, so he concentrated more on the geography between the Central Capital and Mu-yeh Mountain. He noted where the Kitan emperor was known to have wintered and where the Kitans made sacriﬁces to Heaven. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report of 1067 is, unfortunately, mostly about his tiﬀ with his Liao hosts over seating arrangements at banquets. His account does, however, contain some dialogue making it clear that Liao was fairly well apprised of major developments and personnel movements within the Sung government. Liao likely had a network of spies working in Sung territory, as did Sung within Liao.

125 No biographical information found. Lu Chin was probably an interpreter in Lu Chen’s retinue. 126 CYL(L), 10B–11A; Wright 1998A, 45–47. 127 For more detailed coverage and analysis of the intelligence aspects of the embassy reports submitted by Lu Chen and other Sung envoys, see Chapter Five infra.

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chapter three Accommodations

The accommodations or hostels (kuan) for Sung envoys were spaced a day’s travel apart, and many but not all of them were permanent structures. Sung envoys did not meet with the Liao emperors and empress dowagers in any one speciﬁc place but instead travelled to wherever the Liao emperor happened to be staying at the moment. At several places beyond Liao’s Central Capital (Chung-ching) the hostels were yurt-hostels (chan-kuan) or felt tents. Northern Sung envoys seem to have taken their physical accommodations in stride; I do not know of any signiﬁcant complaints in Northern Sung materials about the material comforts of Liao hostels. As far as the pleasures of the ﬂesh are concerned, Herbert Franke has speculated that Southern Sung envoys to Chin might have enjoyed the promiscuous hospitality of Jurchen girls.128 We do know that the Jurchens entertained Liao envoys with unmarried girls.129 Northern Sung materials seem to be silent about any such hospitality, if it existed, for Northern Sung envoys in Liao territory. Sung envoys were occasionally given silver boxes of fortifying medicinal decoctions (t’ang-yao), as Ch’en Hsiang during the summer of 1067. Among medicinal items given Ch’en were roots of the plant ts’ung-jung (Western scientiﬁc name Boschniakia glabra), which is believed by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine to be very replenishing or fortifying ( pu) but mild.130 A silver box of medicine for decoction presented to Lou Yüeh (a Southern Sung envoy to Chin) in 1169 weighed over a kilogram and included both an imperial (Chin) letter and etiquettes made of red silk with inscribed instructions for its use.131 Most of the time Sung embassies did not have to prepare their own meals at the hostels, but were treated to sumptuous banquets. But on the few occasions when banquets were not oﬀered, Sung embassies were supplied with “raw foodstuﬀs” (sheng-hsi ),132 apparently to be prepared by the embassy cooks, along with liquor and

128 129 130 131 132

Franke 1983, 136. Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 370, n. 18. SLYL, 3B, 4B; Wright 1998A, 72–73, 77. Walton 2002, 12. Translated as “fresh provisions” in Walton 2002, 18.

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fruits. Ordinarily, ten days’ worth of raw foodstuﬀs were given to Sung embassies.133

Banqueting Sung embassies travelling in Liao territory both gave banquets and frequently attended them as guests. One important (although probably not oﬃcially recognised) quality in an envoy would have been a considerable gastronomical capacity and tolerance. Another perhaps even more important qualiﬁcation would have been a tried and proven ability to hold one’s liquor, and lots of it. Liquor (chiu) in Liao was a Chinese-style alcoholic beverage made from grain, particularly millet or rice, and was produced privately but taxed by the Liao government, along with yeast for fermenting.134 It was certainly not “kumiss” or aragi/araki, an alcoholic beverage made of fermented mare’s milk favoured by pastoral nomadic peoples “but not to a selfrespecting Chinese.”135 As oﬃcial state functions, the banquets were of course quite sumptuous. At a banquet put on by Liao at a pavilion outside of Yuchou in late 1008 for Lu Chen, the Birthday Felicitation Envoy sent to the Liao emperor, “. . . the curtains and amenities were very complete. The vessels and goblets prepared by the eunuchs were all of glass, with plated gold around the rims.”136 Sung embassies did give some banquets. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy hosted their Liao escorts at Hsin-ch’eng, Wang-ching, and Mi-yün.137 But these banquets were not nearly as frequent as those given by Liao. Members of Sung embassies were, after all, diplomatic guests in Liao territory.

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Nieh 1940, 34; Wright 1998A, 81. Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 145 and n. 68. 135 Franke 1997, 245. 136 CYL(L), 4A; Wright 1998A, 29. On similar glass items found by archaeologists in Liao tombs, see Nei Meng-ku 1993, 55–59, colour plates 14–15 and blackand-white plates 14–15. 137 SLYL, 1B, 3A-B; Wright 1998A, 66, 71, 73. 134

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Banquets were important venues for formal contact between the diplomatic personnel of both states and were apparently occasions for well-regulated exchanges of gifts. Consider, for example, the statement in Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report on giving gifts at banquets in each prefecture in Liao territory: . . . [We] gave the people from the [Liao] State Finance Commission tea, silks, silver plates, and other such objects. (Hereafter, the banquets given, [our] greeting and reception at each prefecture in accordance with precedent, and the teas, silks, and other items given to the greeters [at each prefecture] will not be entered into [this] record.138

Ch’en’s embassy also gave gifts to the Regent of the Central Capital: . . . We spent the night at the Yung-nien hostel, where we gave local [Sung Chinese] products to the Reception Escort Commissioner, his assistant, an the Junior Commander-in-Chief. (Hereafter, nothing more will be entered into [this] record of the total of ﬁve occasions when we gave local [Sung Chinese] products [to the Commanders-in-chief ] in accordance with proper sequence, or of the [items given us in] response.) Yeh-lü Jen-hsien, the Regent of Yen-ching, gave us liquor and food.139

Ch’en’s embassy also gave gifts to banquet hosts140 and to everyone who had given presents to the Sung embassy.141 His embassy even gave appropriate gifts to a Buddhist temple on one occasion: On August 13 the Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant asked us to go together on a tour of the Chen-kuo-ssu and then to the Ta-t’ien-ch’ing-ssu, where we burned incense and ate some vegetables.142 In accordance with established precedent, we gave the monks some teas and varicoloured silks.143

For its part, Liao gave gifts to Sung embassy personnel in accordance with their ranks.144 These gifts included archery bows, horses, 138

SLYL, 1B; Wright 1998A, 65. SLYL, 2B; Wright 1998A, 70. 140 SLYL, 3A; Wright 1998A, 71. 141 SLYL, 4A; Wright 1998A, 74. 142 The Kitans were of course great patrons of Buddhism. There were many Buddhist temples and monasteries throughout the Liao realm, and Liao utilised many skilled labourers to construct temples and monasteries and appropriated large amounts of food for use in the monasteries. On the architecture of Liao Buddhist buildings see Steinhardt 1997. 143 SLYL, 7A; Wright 1998A, 85. 144 SLYL, 7B; Wright 1998A, 87. 139

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clothing, and silks.145 Archery banquets were important occasions for gift-giving, as Ch’en Hsiang’s account of his embassy indicates: On August 1 Palace Servitor and Audience Usher Keng K’o-kuan gave us fruits and liquors. Han Tsung hosted us at an archery contest, and Palace Secretary and Grand Preceptor Yeh-lü Ko hosted us at a banquet [at the contest] and exchanged thirteen cups of liquor with us. [Yeh-lü] Ko asked us if Ministers Han146 and Fu147 were still serving at the Court, and we all replied with the truth. Ko then gave archery bows, horses, clothing, and silks to us and our attendants in accordance with their ranks.148

Archery banquets Archery banquets were standard events for Sung embassies travelling in Liao territory,149 and their purpose was perhaps to contribute to a sense of friendly rivalry between diplomatic hosts and guests and to relieve some of the tension or stuﬀy formality that attended the earnest performance of diplomatic ritual.150 Curiously, not much information seems to be available in Northern Sung materials about these archery banquets, but descriptions of them are fairly common in Southern Sung sources. An archery banquet is described in rich detail in the Southern Sung envoy Lou Yüeh’s account of his embassy to Chin during the winter of 1169–1170: At the lower end of the courtyard 50 guards with brocade robes and golden hats were lined up. Musicians stood to their left. There were in addition one guard who grasped the bow and arrow for the banquet manager, two men who shot the crossbow for the hostel attendant, and one man who sighted the target. Two men stood at the side of the target to shout out the shot. Each time the target was hit, they faced the banquet hall and bent over, waving their hands and reporting to the musicians, who shouted out and struck [their drums] to make it known. Then they played music. If the target was not hit, then they raised and lowered their hands in back so the results would be known. At the ﬁrst hit, they looked at the ruler and paid their respects. The guards took the ﬁrst arrow [that hit the target] and struck

145

SLYL, 6B; Wright 1998A, 82. A reference to Han Ch’i (1008–1075), T. Chih-kuei, native of An-yang. Biographies in SS 312.10221–30; Djang 1989, 322–29. 147 A reference to Fu Pi (1004–1083). On Fu Pi see Chapter Six infra. 148 SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 82. 149 On archery banquets and contests see Franke 1983, 197–98. 150 Franke 1983, 130. 146

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it in the middle of a silver plate. They passed it to the front, then went and sat down and drank together. The victor pledged with wine all around. After this, they again shot . . . After the envoy and deputy paid their respects, they desired to end the ritual; but the military escorts wanted to remain, and so they could not rest. They repeatedly said they would be grateful to stop, and ﬁnally it ended. The crossbowers in the two halls each toasted their eﬀorts with the two plates [from shooting]. They changed [back into their original] clothing and went to their seats, had two more rounds of wine, and then it was over.151

Repasts The fare at the banquets might not have always pleased the Chinese palate. The Kitans probably served more meat (and less ﬁsh) than the Sung envoys were accustomed to. Once Lu Chen’s embassy entered the city of Yu-chou it was feted to another banquet at the residence of a high Liao oﬃcial. “Caitiﬀ food” served in carved wooden containers included camel meat porridge as the ﬁrst dish, followed by marinated meats: bear fat, mutton, pork, pheasant, and rabbit. Dried and spiced meats included beef, venison, goose, duck, bear, and even badger! Lu Chen’s embassy report describes the manner in which all of this was served up. “These [meats] were cut into square pieces and placed randomly on the middle of a large platter. Two barbarian youths dressed in clean and colourful clothing and holding napkins took up knives and ladles and sliced all of these meats for the Chinese [i.e., Sung] envoys to eat.”152 If all of this meat was a bit much for the Sung Chinese palate, receiving it as livestock was apparently more than they could handle. One faux pas committed by a Sung envoy to Liao is downright comical: A humorous incident concerning Khitan [Kitan] food customs is reported by Chang Shun-min. He reports, with some displeasure, that the Liao envoys who came to the New Year and imperial birthday audiences were given 1,500 ounces of silver, but that the Sung envoys to the Liao were presented with a gift of ten sheep and ten steppemarmots. He did not know what to do with them and set them free. The Khitan [Kitan] hostel attendant [Hospitality Escort Commissioner]

151 152

Walton 2002, 19. CYL(L), 4B; Wright 1998A, 31.

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was dismayed and told Chang that the marmots were valuable presents. The attendant feared a reprimand if the court learned that the Sung envoy had not received his present.153

The food oﬀered Sung envoys apparently did not get any better after the Southern Sung established formal diplomatic relations with the Jurchen dynasty of Chin. Hsü K’ang-tsung found Jurchen food disgusting and had a strong dislike for the hearts, intestines, and boiled leek soup oﬀered him. Another Southern Sung envoy expressed revulsion at ﬂour and honey cakes fried in oil and also did not care for other foods that a northern Chinese might have found palatable: bread, blood soup, mutton, rice broth, noodle soup, cakes swimming in lung fat, pastries, and ﬂour gruel.154 But Lou Yüeh, a Southern Sung envoy who travelled to Chin during the winter of 1169–1170, expressed no particular distaste for the bewildering array of cuisine oﬀered him at the diplomatic banquets which he describes in fairly extensive detail. Some of the dishes he encountered sound quite delectable: minced meat hash, tea snacks, pine-sed sweet gruel, rice porridge, steamed wraps, loquat-and-mutton-ﬁlled cakes, salted fruits, a “meat mountain,” salted ﬁsh, tripe stew, cakes, fried meat, hash, sheep’s head, terrapin, steamed dumplings, chestnut rice porridge, sweet glutinous rice porridge, millet and wheat kernel porridge, and even “sugared fatback of bear” (served as a delicacy).155 Liquor Lu Chen’s embassy report contains the most detailed information on banqueting, but from Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report of 1067 we learn that some banquets included tea as well as liquor.156 Information from embassy diaries indicates that at least several rounds of liquor were customary at nearly all banquets. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report records from three to thirteen rounds of liquor per banquet during his travels! His record often indicates that he and his attendants “drank to the limits of their capacities.” One banquet given by Liao at the Central Capital in 1067 for Ch’en Hsiang seems particularly telling in this regard: 153 154 155 156

Franke 1983, 136. Franke 1983, 135–36. Walton 2002, 10–12, 17. SLYL, 5B; Wright 1998A, 79.

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chapter three One June 29 [1067] . . . The [Liao] Palace Servitor at the West, Han Tzu-tao, gave us fruits and liquor, and the Palace Servitor at the East, Cheng Ssu-tsung, put on a banquet for us. Liu Yün, State Fiscal Commissioner and Secretariat of the Ministry of Rites, hosted us. We had thirteen rounds of liquor. Liu Yün comforted us and said that [because] the heat was intense and our journey long and diﬃcult, he wanted to encourage us repeatedly to have more liquor. Said he, “Each time a [Sung] State Missive Envoy and his assistant meet with a [Liao] Reception Escort Commissioner, it is as if we were all members of one family.” I, your servant Hsiang, replied, “It has been said that the South and the North are one household, but never before have relations between our two Courts been as amicable as they are now.”157 Liu Yün replied, “Since you have spoken thus, I dare presume to ask you, the State Missive Envoy and Assistant State Missive Envoy, to ﬁnish oﬀ the rest of the liquor.” I, your servant Hsiang, replied, “I deeply appreciate your hospitality, but regrettably I am unable to drink much liquor.”158 Liu Yün then asked if Vice-Directors Lü159 and Hu were still at Court, and I, your servant Hsiang, replied with the truth. Liu Yün said, “On a previous mission of mine to the Southern Court, Vice-Director Lü was my Hospitality Escort Commissioner.” He continued, “Of my paternal relatives there are twelve people who have been on diplomatic missions to the Southern Court. Now I have even been sent to host you at this banquet. Since I seem to have such a predestined aﬃnity [for meeting with Sung diplomats], it would be well for me to ask all of you to ﬁnish oﬀ the liquor.” We all drank [to the limits of ] our capacities in order to respond to his hospitality. We then gave Liu Yün some personal gifts.160

Liquor consumption was not limited to banquets. Almost every form of contact between Sung embassies and the Liao government seems to have been an occasion (or an excuse) for exchanging toasts or giving liquor. Liquor was sometimes given to Sung diplomats after arriving at certain hostels161 and sometimes for no apparent reason whatever.162 Toasts were also exchanged at pavilions outside cities,163

157

Perhaps both men were full of liquor at this time? Perhaps Ch’en Hsiang was by now becoming mindful of his own inebriate condition and of the Sung regulations which speciﬁed severe punishments for envoys who dishonoured Sung through unseemly conduct. 159 Probably a reference to Lü Kung-pi (998–1073), son of Lü I-chien, who was granted a chin-shih degree by imperial decree. Biographies SS 311.10212–14; Franke 1976, I.723–25 (which erroneously has 1007 instead of 998 as Lü’s year of birth). 160 SLYL, 3A; Wright 1998A, 70–71. 161 SLYL, 4A; Wright 1998A, 74. 162 SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 81. 163 SLYL, 2A; Wright 1998A, 68. 158

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upon arriving at the outskirts of cities,164 after ascending or passing by mountain ranges,165 at informal meals,166 in receptions with other Sung embassies on their way back home after the completion of their diplomatic duties,167 during meetings with audience oﬃcials168 or personnel from the Liao Visitors’ Bureau,169 prior to audiences with the Liao empress dowager and with the Liao emperor,170 at formal banquets (ch’ü-yen) attended by the Liao emperor himself,171 at festive archery contests,172 and from respective sides of the Paikou River Bridge upon the departure of Sung embassies from Liao territory.173 Seating arrangements at banquets Seating arrangements at the banquets had some political and symbolic signiﬁcance. Both Chinese and non-Chinese diplomats had a keen and longstanding sensitivity to the subtle (and sometimes notso-subtle) messages that seating positions at banquets were meant to convey.174 Ch’en Hsiang and his embassy found the suggested seating arrangements at several banquets oﬀered by their Liao hosts unacceptable. Ch’en went to some length in his embassy report to explain the nature and speciﬁcs of this disagreement: Before long, notiﬁcation was sent us that our Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant had dispatched a person to deliver a diagram of the [proposed] seating arrangements. [This diagram indicated that our Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant] wished to have our seats arranged according to how they were during the mission of [our] Southern Court Personal Eﬀects Envoy Shih Chao and his retinue. They wanted to move my, your servant Hsiang’s, seat to the northwestern guest position. My retinue and I sought to have our seats arranged according to the description given by Ch’eng Wen-hsiu

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174

SLYL, 4A, 7B; Wright 1998A, 75, 86. SLYL, 4A, 7B; Wright 1998A, 74, 86. SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 82. SLYL, 5A; Wright 1998A, 78–79. SLYL, 5B; Wright 1998A, 80. SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 82. SLYL, 5B; Wright 1998A, 80. SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 81. SLYL, 6A; Wright 1998A, 82. SLYL, 8A; Wright 1998A, 87–88. Sinor 1989, 349.

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chapter three (who has previously entered Liao territory) in his deposition:175 “Just last autumn176 I accompanied the Birthday Felicitation Envoy, Remonstrance Oﬃcial Shao and his assistant, Remonstrance Oﬃcial Fu, and entered the [Liao] state. Along our route, when [the Sung] envoys were feted to liquor, it was always Remonstrance Oﬃcial Shao [who occupied] the seat of honour.” [This description] did not accord with the seating diagram sent us this time by our Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant. My retinue and I directed our interpreter, Ch’eng Wen-hsiu, to draw up a diagram of seating arrangements which accorded with the seating arrangements of the Birthday Felicitation Mission. We [also] conveyed to the Escort Commissioner and his assistant [the following] message: “You, the Reception Escort Commissioner and your assistant, should change the present seating assignments and arrange them in accordance with the recent precedent [established by] Remonstrance Oﬃcial Shao and his Birthday Felicitation mission. [That is to say,] the [Sung] Delegation to the Left177 should be seated together at the southeast so as to be directly across from the [Liao] Hospitality Escort Commissioner and his assistant178 [and also to allow the Hospitality Escort Commissioner and his assistant] to fulﬁll their roles as hosts. The Reception Escort Commissioner [and his assistant] should be seated together at the southwest179 so as to be directly across from the [Sung] Delegation to the

175 Kung-lu chieh-tsui chaung. I have been unable to locate any information about this deposition or the reason Ch’eng Wen-hsiu gave it. He may have been punished previously for mistakes made in his oﬃcial capacity as interpreter, or he may have merely given a deposition for a case in which other people were punished for wrongdoing. In any event, he was also the interpreter for Ch’en Hsiang’s mission. I ﬁnd it quite probable that it was Ch’eng Wen-hsiu himself who noticed these discrepancies in the proposed seating arrangements and apprised Ch’en Hsiang of them. 176 22 October–19 November 1066. 177 Tso-fan ta-shih; this was presumably Ch’en Hsiang and his assistant, Hsien Jung, who together comprised the delegation charged with informing the Liao emperor’s mother of the accession of the Sung emperor Shen-tsung. The Chinese esteemed left over right (Hucker 1985, 522.6949.1 and 584.8033.1), and in designating Ch’en Hsiang’s delegation as Left, the Sung court indicated that Ch’en Hsiang was to be regarded as the leader of the entire mission. 178 The wording in the text here is simply shih-ch’en, which, in light of contextual constraints, is almost certainly a reference to Yeh-lü Pi, the Liao Hospitality Escort Commissioner, and his assistant, Yang I-chieh. (That Yeh-lü Pi is the Hospitality Escort Commissioner is established in Nieh 1940, 24.) This also becomes apparent later in Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report. 179 The Sung diagram would have both the Delegation to the Left and the Delegation to the Right sitting at the east. Because the Chinese equated east with left and west with right (Hucker 1985, 522.6949.1), and because the Chinese esteemed left over right, the Sung embassy regarded seats to the east as the proper seats for guests and seats to the west as proper places for hosts. In addition, seats at the west could also be interpreted as a symbolic indication that Sung was somehow subordinate to Liao. It was probably for these reasons that the Sung embassy would not accept Liao’s proposal for seating arrangements.

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Right.180 Naturally, in this way [the Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant] will not lose their positions as hosts, and neither [the Hospitality Escort Commissioner nor the Reception Escort Commissioner] will [be in a position to] intimidate or humiliate us.” We communicated back and forth like this for ten or more times, [but] the Escort Commissioner and his assistant were unwilling to change the positions. We [therefore] sent [another] message to the Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant: “Our business as oﬃcial envoys is very important, and [banquets with] teas and liquors are but small things. Please come and deliver instructions, and then we can negotiate about the seating arrangements. It is not proper that small aﬀairs should delay us in our diplomatic duties. [This situation] is very awkward [for us].” The Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant responded as follows: “The seating arrangements for the Southern Court’s Birthday Felicitation Envoy, Remonstrance Oﬃcial Shao, were not in keeping with longstanding precedent.” We responded: “The oﬃcials who hosted Remonstrance Oﬃcial Shao and his retinue during his mission were, of course, Master of Ceremonies Han and Hospitality Escort Commissioner and Vice Director Liu, and they made the seating arrangements. [The seating arrangements they made] were not these [present] arrangements. If [the seating arrangements during this previous mission] were not in keeping with longstanding precedent, why did Master of Ceremonies Han and the former commissioners all pay no heed [to the matter]?” The Reception Escort Commissioner and his assistant thereupon sent people to convey the message [to the Liao authorities] that the [Sung] envoys would not drink and had declined [to attend] the banquet.181

This wrangling over seating arrangements was never resolved during Ch’en’s mission, and his Liao hosts retaliated by refusing to attend some banquets put on and hosted by the Sung embassy. Ch’en felt (or at least hoped) that the Sung government would vindicate and applaud his stance on the seating arrangements, but in the end it did not. His biography in the Sung-shih notes simply: “At the accession of Emperor Shen-tsung, he received an ambassadorship to the

180 Yu-fan ta-shih; this delegation was composed of Sun T’an and his assistant, who together were charged with informing the Liao emperor of the Sung emperor Shen-tsung’s accession in 1067. In designating Sun T’an’s delegation as Right, the Sung court indicated that his delegation was subordinate to Ch’en Hsiang’s. This was probably also an indication that Sung recognised that the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien was more powerful than her son, the Liao emperor Tao-tsung. (The Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien ﬁnally died in 1076.) 181 SLYL, 1B–2A; Wright 1998A, 66–68.

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Kitan. Because the seating arrangements [at banquets] were slightly diﬀerent than usual, he did not take his seat.”182 Ch’en Hsiang was not the only Northern Sung envoy to balk at proposed seating arrangements. Herbert Franke describes similar diﬃculties faced in 1076 by another Sung envoy, Ch’eng Shih-meng: Another problem which, like dress regulations, was crucial at that time concerned seating arrangements. In 1076 the Sung envoy Ch’eng Shihmeng arrived at the Liao border. The Khitan [Kitan] oﬃcial had arranged the seats for the welcoming banquet so that he faced south, the prefect of the town west, and the Sung embassy east. Ch’eng protested and refused to take his seat. After a long quarrel lasting into the evening Ch’eng succeeded in being seated opposite his host, both facing east and west respectively. Ch’eng’s protest was motivated by the traditional Chinese notion that “facing south” was the prerogative of the ruler and therefore implied superiority.183

Apparently years and even decades of routine diplomacy between the two states had not established deﬁnitive seating arrangements for all possible occasions and permutations of rank relationships at banquets, and precedent was established on a fairly ad hoc basis. Once established, however, precedent was very important to individual Sung diplomats, as indicated by the Ch’en Hsiang case, and they were often very reluctant to depart from it. Seating arrangements at banquets were symbolically important to both Sung and Liao because of the expressed and implied messages concerning power relationships they conveyed. Arrangements placing either hosts or guests in south-facing positions were sometimes hotly contested, since facing south was the prerogative of superior over inferior. Diplomatic controversy between the two states developed in 1074, when a highranking and haughty Kitan envoy travelling in Sung territory, one whose position within the Liao bureaucracy apparently outranked those of all his Sung hosts, demanded that at banquets his seat face south and be in an elevated position so that he could overlook his hosts! The Sung government of course rejected this, presumably because of concern about the overall political relationship between Sung and Liao that such a seating arrangement might connote, and argued that another Kitan envoy of the same rank who had previously travelled to Sung had not demanded similar seating arrange182 183

SS 321.10420. Franke 1983, 132.

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ments. The ensuing arguments over seating arrangements dragged on for two months before the Kitans relented and the seats were arranged in an east-west orientation.184 Squabbles over seating arrangements and the relative heights of chairs were not unknown in late twentieth-century communist Chinese diplomacy. In August of 1998 the Chinese communist ambassador to the United States, Li Chao-hsing (Li Zhaoxing), announced twenty minutes prior to his scheduled appearance that he would not attend a meeting of the House International Aﬀairs Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights, a subcommittee of the U.S. Congress. According to U.S. Representative Chris Smith, an outspoken critic of communist China’s dismal human rights record and head of the Subcommittee, signiﬁcant steps were taken to accommodate Li symbolically. Aside from redesignating the scheduled session a “meeting” rather than a “hearing,” this involved altering the seating arrangements of the subcommittee room so that Li would sit directly across one table with subcommittee members rather than at a separate and lower table, where subcommittee members would stare down at him as if he were an ordinary witness or U.S. government oﬃcial subject to their grilling. In spite of all these symbolic accommodations, however, Li still prevaricated and ultimately refused to appear before the subcommittee, citing what was for Smith “the most ﬂimsy excuse imaginable.” The communist Chinese embassy, however, stubbornly insisted that “in keeping with general diplomatic practice, it is not appropriate for the ambassador to appear as a witness before the Congressional subcommittee.”185

Poetry Poetry and poetic composition ﬁgured signiﬁcantly into several aspects of Sung-Liao diplomacy.186 Many Sung envoys wrote poems during 184

Tao 1988, 19. Internet, China News Digest (CND) Global, 7 August 1998, News Brief #7. Li’s real reason for not appearing before the subcommittee was, of course, because he was unwilling or unprepared to defend communist China’s execrable and morally indefensible human rights record in a free and open discussion with knowledgeable participants. In 2003 Li Zhaoxing became communist China’s Minister of Foreign Aﬀairs. 186 Chapter 8 of T’ao 1984 is a study of the place of poetry in Sung-Liao diplomacy. 185

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their travels in Liao territory, and several of these were eventually included in their published collected works. These poems, along with their prefaces and notes, are useful historical sources that contain much ethnographic and political information.187 One example is the following poem written at the Hsien-hsi hostel by Ch’en Hsiang: Vast territory, few people, only an occasional hostel stop. Mountains and scenery much unlike the splendour of the Central Kingdom. Along the road of white sands leading away from Yüan-yang-p’o,188 The ﬂowers and shrubs, though fragrant, give us no joy. Envoys of Han, nightly we sleep in the lamplight of felt tents While the rocky cliﬀs of these borderlands inspire the ﬂautists. During our return I take up a mirror to view my countenance And tremble to discover more greying hair at my temples.189

Some Sung envoys to Liao wrote poems comparing themselves with Su Wu (140–60 B.C.), a Chinese envoy sent by the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 220) to the Hsiung-nu and detained in captivity among them for nineteen years. Relations between Han China and the Hsiung-nu were in fact a favourite stock theme for Sung poets writing on Sung-Liao relations.190 Many Sung collected works include poems written for friends who were about to embark on diplomatic missions to Liao. One such poem was written by the famous Northern Sung statesman Wang An-shih (1021–1086)191 for his friend Lü Chishu. It speaks approvingly of the decades-long peace that had prevailed between Sung and Liao and expresses an obvious preference for this peace over the warfare that would ensue in the event of its contravention. The archaistic language of the poem contains comparative or allusive references to historical relations between the Han dynasty and the Hsiung-nu: His Majesty issues a royal appointment; The Son of Heaven indulges the Hsiung-nu. Though you reply that the ways of the barbarians are vile, You understand the distinction of being an envoy for Han.

187

Tao 1988, 21. I.e., Shen-en-p’o. 189 Ch’en Hsiang 1972, v. 2, 24.8A. 190 Tao 1988, 21. 191 Biographies SS 327.10541–51; Djang 1989, 417–26; Franke 1976, 21097–1104; Liu 1956; Meskill 1963; Williamson 1935. 188

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At night the signal towers [on the border] have long been unused; In autumn the watchmen [at the border] are still and free of worry. What need is there to be cruel like swallows And smear the livers and brains of living beings [on the battleﬁeld]?192

Another such poem by Wang An-shih entitled “To Houseman Shih Ch’ang-yen, Envoy to the Hsiung-nu” is also rich in historical allusions: North of the Yen-jan Mountains,193 the great Shan-yü,194 To whom the Emperor of the House of Han gives an oﬃcially sealed letter. Grand Master wearing a golden ﬁsh sash about your waist, you bear the letter And depart the Country’s capital like a ﬂying dragon availing itself of a horse. The grass on the barbarian sands withers already in October, And frost forms around the grass [blades] like tiny strings of coins.195 Wearing white furs and sable hats will not keep you warm As your yellow deer cart rolls slowly through the desolation. Grave mounds appear monthly beside thatched cottages in the wilds; The winds silent, the heavens distant, the hawk’s voice not carrying far. I have heard that felt palaces are especially bitter cold And that the [barbarians’] interpreted speech, though it grate on the ears, cannot be ridiculed or scorned. By this time you will already have observed the [diplomatic] ritual And will be trudging through the snow to bid the Khan196 farewell again.197

Matching poetic wits in friendly banquet settings was an important function for both Sung diplomats and their Liao hosts. These poetic contests198 involved the mutual composition of tui-lien, or poetic couplets. At large banquets the Liao host would put his guest, the main Sung envoy, on the spot by reciting a line of his own composition and then waiting for him to give a commensurately rhymed and metred line in response. The challenge for Sung diplomats was, 192

T’ao 1984, 183. Mountains in Mongolia 194 The Han dynasty transliteration of the term for the position of paramount leadership among the Hsiung-nu. 195 Wu-shu (ch’ien), a reference to coinage in use during the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 220). 196 A Turkic title. 197 T’ao 1984, 185. 198 Tao 1988, 21–23 contains a discussion of these contests. 193

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of course, to be witty and quickly come up with artful, apropos, and poetic responses as quickly as possible. Some such responses by Sung envoys seem startlingly original, even dazzling, in their executions. They often contain brilliantly conceived puns and other untranslatable plays on homophonous terms. One outstanding example of such genius at extemporaneous composition is Fu Pi, who travelled to Liao in the early 1040s to renegotiate annual payments from Sung to Liao. Let the reader bear in mind that these couplets are rhymed and metred in the Chinese: Liao host: Climbing Chi-tzu199 Mountain in the morning: as perilous as piled-up eggs. Fu Pi: Sleeping in your esteemed200 hostel at night: as secure as Mt. T’ai.201 Liao host: The liquor is like thread: seen as it is drawn out with a needle.202 Fu Pi: The [round] cakes are like the moon: eclipsed as they are eaten away.203

But not all Sung envoys fared as well as Fu Pi. One envoy named Yü Ching was punished for composing a macaronic or bilingual poem in Chinese and Kitan in honour of the Liao emperor while serving as a Sung envoy to Liao in 1045. Two censors at the Sung court used this poem as a reason to have him punished and demoted. The actual basis for this punishment was likely Yü’s participation in a reform faction that had fallen from power in the Sung government in the wake of a conservative comeback.204 Friendly poetic contests with speciﬁed rules of rhyme, imagery, and metre were of course not limited to diplomatic occasions. Literary games achieved some measure of popularity within Sung China itself

199

Chi-tzu literally means “chicken egg.” Chang-jen; literally, “father-in-law.” 201 Mt. T’ai (T’ai-shan) in Shantung symbolises permanence and security. T’aishan can also mean “father-in-law.” 202 I do not understand the parallel imagery intended here. Perhaps both thread and liquor must pass through small oriﬁces: the thread through the eye of a needle and the liquor through an opening in its container. Or, perhaps the liquor in a skin bag is seen only after the skin is punctured with a needle. 203 T’ao 1984, 194. 204 Novey 1983, 75, n. 58. On the poem itself see Wolfgang Franke 1976, 175–80. On Yü Ching see Tao 1976. 200

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during the eleventh century and were indulged in by such notable ﬁgures as Ou-yang Hsiu, Mei Yao-ch’en, and Wang An-shih, to the dismay of some sombre Chinese moralists of later times. Such contests “usually took place at a social gathering where food and wine were consumed and an atmosphere of levity prevailed,”205 and the humour and “caricatured reasoning” that characterised poems composed on such occasions was part of what made Northern Sung poetry “literature rather than mere rhymed philosophizing.”206 Clever and spontaneous wit was more important for these light-hearted, ludic occasions than profound literary art, and game-poems reﬂecting these qualities are scattered among the collected works of major Sung literati, often with prefaces and with an eye to preserving them so that future generations would appreciate the poets’ élan and especially the joie de vivre of the ancients (including the writers of the Confucian classics) which they sought to imitate and perpetuate.207 In Sung China, such poetic games served the social function of helping participants “demonstrate to outsiders that they were relaxed, witty, and appreciative of life’s pleasures—especially wine and exotic foods—while being literate and erudite, worthy transmitters of the Chinese cultural tradition,” while politically they helped participants form alliances.208 Diplomatically, poetic games seem to have served the dual purpose of aﬃrming the cultural ties between Sung and Liao literati on the one hand while demonstrating the overall superior sophistication and quick-wittedness of Sung scholar-oﬃcials on the other. It was customary for both Sung and Liao hosts to give teas, medicines, and poetic consolations or “oral proclamations” (k’ou-hsüan) to envoys arriving at their hostels for the night. Several examples of these proclamations written for Liao envoys travelling in Sung territory are preserved in the collected works of Sung literati.209 One representative translated example is the proclamation read to the

205

Hawes 2000, 357. Hawes 2002, 355. 207 Hawes 2002, 357–58, 365, 375, 377, 383. According to Hawes, “Placing such lighthearted poems alongside the familiar plain and serious compositions of northern Song [Sung] literati gives us a more complex, rounded, and nuanced sense of their humanity.” (382) 208 Hawes 2002, 378–79. 209 See, for instance, the examples given in Nieh 1940, 29–30. 206

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Southern Sung envoy Lou Yüeh in late December 1169: “You gentlemen have come from afar to take up the duties of New Year’s envoys. Since you have suﬀered hardships on the way, it is ﬁtting that we hold a banquet [to acknowledge] your eﬀort. Today we have made preparations, and invite you to a banquet.”210

210 Walton 2002, 9. For many other examples of oral proclamations, see Nieh 1940, 29–31.

CHAPTER FOUR

ROUTINE DIPLOMATIC MISSIVES

The diplomatic letters or missives Sung envoys delivered to Liao have received relatively little attention.1 Over a hundred Sung state letters (kuo-shu) to Liao are contained in Sung Ta-chao-ling chi,2 and they are of several diﬀerent types. Letters written and sent during the reigns of the Sung emperors Ying-tsung (r. 1063–1067), Shentsung (r. 1067–1085), and Che-tsung (r. 1085–1100) are the most abundantly preserved.3 In addition to the many formal letters are several political ones dealing with substantive negotiations or discussions between the two states.4 These letters were written in an elegant style of literary Chinese that made pleasing and eﬀective use of parallel phrases and balanced, rhythmic cadences. This style, now known by the Ch’ing denotation p’ien-wen or p’ien-t’i-wen, was deliberately archaic and often employed classical allusions that could only be fully appreciated by scholars familiar with the Chinese literary tradition. Since this term, according to James Hightower, “describes a style rather than a genre,”5

1

This chapter is a revised and expanded version of Wright 1996. STCLC is an important book of primary historical documents, likely compiled by a descendant of the Sung literatus Sung Shou (991–1067), which contains imperial edicts from throughout the Northern Sung period. (Balazs and Hervouet 1978, 117) 3 STCLC 230.891–903. I note here that during the reign of the Sung emperor Ying-tsung, Sung diplomatic letters, heretofore addressed to the rulers of the “Great Kitan” (Ta Ch’i-tan), began to be addressed to “Great Liao” (Ta Liao). This form of address continued throughout the rest of Northern Sung times and was in line with Liao usage. The dynastic name Liao was known by 947 at the latest, but between A.D. 983 and 1066, the Kitan dynasty was simply called “Kitan” (Ch’itan). The dynastic name Liao did not come into its own again until 1066. See the brief discussion of this in Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 38. 4 Letters sent by Chen-tsung to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung and empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien during the peace negotiations of 1004 and 1005 are recorded on page 882. Six edicts (chao) delivered to Wang Chi-chung, the Sung general in Liao territory at this time, appear on pages 903–04. Two letters associated with the renegotiations of annual payments in 1042 are recorded on page 884. A Sung letter dealing with the border negotiations of the 1070s is recorded on page 898. Two letters pertaining to war with Hsia are preserved on pages 901–02. 5 Hightower 1966, 110. 2

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the purpose of the diplomatic letters in this study is less important for characterising them as p’ien-t’i-wen than their shared attributes: balanced, often parallel prose, frequent use of rhyme, and a deliberate and consistent attachment to the “six-four” metre ﬁrst popularised during the Six Dynasties period and made obligatory during T’ang.6 The letters were obviously written with the intent of impressing and dazzling the Liao courtiers and were apparently regarded as elegant and important enough to be included in the collected works of several prominent Northern Sung ﬁgures who were their actual authors.7 But there is nothing spectacularly intricate or linguistically intriguing about the language of these missives. They seem to fall in the mainstream of documentary prose, albeit showing concern for structure and balanced presentation, and often lapsing into parallel passages for eﬀect.8 One very important source in addition to the Sung Ta-chao-ling chi on Sung state letters to Liao was compiled during the late eleventh century, but unfortunately it is now lost. Between 1081 and 1083 Su Sung9 (1020–1101) worked on a compilation of state letters and other documents relating to Liao and then presented it to the imperial throne. His compilation included descriptions of Liao government and customs, illustrations of the routes Sung envoys followed in Liao territory, and maps.10 The language in these letters reﬂects the equal status that the Sung and Liao states aﬀorded each other. Sung called Liao rulers “emperors” (huang-ti ) in these letters11 and used lengthy and grandiose epistolary titles in their salutations. Such language was not used in Sung’s diplomatic communications with other states. The Sung emperors 6 For a general introduction to p’ien-t’i-wen and a selected bibliography, see Langley 1986, 656–60. 7 See, for example, Su Sung 1988, 1:26.357–60; Fan Tsu-yü WYKSKCS 1100:344–45. 8 Here I acknowledge my indebtedness and gratitude to Professor David B. Honey for this information and for the analyses of the letters that follow in this chapter. 9 Biographies Franke 1976, 2.969–70; SS 340.10859–68. 10 Tao 1988, 20. 11 The Kitans had earlier experience with this mutual use of the term “emperor.” The opening phrase of a “wax letter” sent by Emperor Mu-tsung of Liao (r. A.D. 951–968) to a Southern T’ang emperor in the mid tenth century reads, “The T’ienshun Emperor of the Great Kitan respectfully sends this letter to His Majesty the Emperor of the Great T’ang . . .” (Lu Yu 1965, 18.3B) A “posthumous letter” from a Later Chin emperor to a Liao ruler in the tenth century is addressed to the “emperor” (huang-ti ) of the “Northern Court” (Pei Ch’ao). This letter is translated and analysed in Yang 1969, 114–24. The Chinese text is on page 115.

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did not use the imperial personal pronoun Chen (“We” or “Us”) in their communications with Liao. All of this indicates that Liao occupied a special position of preeminence among all of the foreign states with which Sung had diplomatic contact. As Herbert Franke has observed, Sung sent “state letters” (kuo-shu) to Liao, a special type of communication not sent to any other kingdom.12 Written Sung communications to Hsia were not “letters” (shu) but “mandates” (chao) or “decrees” (chih). They were not “sent” (chih) but “handed down” (ssu) to the “sovereigns of the Hsia Kingdom” (Hsia-kuo chu).13 Communications to Koryò were also called mandates and decrees and were “handed down” to “the kings of the Koryò kingdom.”14 Several communications to Koryò were called “letters” (shu), but these were still “handed down” (ssu) by the Sung emperor, who used the imperial personal pronoun in them. Communications to other countries were almost uniformly called decrees.15 With the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005, the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung entered into ﬁctitious diplomatic kinship relations with one another, with Chen-tsung as “elder brother” (hsiung) and Sheng-tsung as “younger brother” (ti ). Sung Chen-tsung at this time also recognised himself as the “nephew” (chih) of his “aunt” (shu-mu), the Liao empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien. These ﬁctive relations were person-to-person, not stateto-state, and both the Sung and Liao courts kept careful track of the changing kinship relations between the succeeding emperors and empress dowagers of the two states. Politically and psychologically, these relations were of great importance because they helped deﬁne formal written diplomatic communication between the two states.16 The following emperor-to-emperor kinship terms are used in these letters: hsiung (elder brother), ti (younger brother), chih (nephew), shu (uncle; father’s younger brother), po (uncle; father’s elder brother), 12

Franke 1983, 121. Sung letters to Hsia are in STCLC 233–36.905–22. 14 Sung letters to Koryò are in STCLC 237.923–28. 15 Letters to these countries, including Annam and Ta-li, are in STCLC 238–40. 929–46. 16 Sung and Liao had some formal written diplomatic exchanges prior to the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan in early 1005. The two states brieﬂy normalised diplomatic relations in 974, when prefectural oﬃcials along both sides of the Sung-Liao border exchanged letters in which they stated that the two states should become “eternal allies” (yü-kuo). That year there was an exchange of envoys carrying congratulatory state missives (kuo-shu) on the occasion of the new year. (Tao 1988, 13) 13

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chih-sun (grand nephew), and shu-tsu (grand uncle). In these letters are also four grandiose titles for addressing the Liao emperors: Jui wen ying wu tsung tao chih te ch’ung jen kuang hsiao kung ch’eng chih ting ch’i yüan chao sheng shen tsan t’ien fu17 (roughly “Perspicaciously Cultured and Eminently Martial, Devoted to the Way and Utterly Virtuous, Loftily Benevolent and Vastly Filial, Achiever of Merit and Establisher of Orderly Rule, Commencer of a [New] Era and Splendidly Sagacious, Commended of the Deities and Sustained of Heaven”), Ts’ung wen sheng wu ying lüeh shen kung jui che jen hsiao (roughly “Astutely Cultured and Sagaciously Martial, Eminently Foresighted and Divinely Meritorious, Perspicaciously Wise and Benevolently Filial”), Sheng wen shen wu jui hsiao (roughly “Sagaciously Cultured, Divinely Martial, and Perspicaciously Filial”), and Sheng wen shen wu ch’üan kung ta lüeh ts’ung jen jui hsiao t’ien yu (roughly “Sagaciously Cultured and Divinely Martial, Completely Meritorious and Greatly Foresighted, Astutely Benevolent and Perspicaciously Filial, and Succoured of Heaven”). As political entities, Sung and Liao also became “brotherly states” (hsiung-ti chih kuo) with the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan, and this state-to-state relationship continued for the duration of the dynasties.18 Confusion can arise if the inter-emperor and state-tostate familial relations are not clearly distinguished. The former were ﬂuid, the latter static. For many years both Western and Chinese scholars have assumed that the initial elder brother/younger brother 17 The tolerant reader will perhaps forgive me for attempting translations of these titles. 18 Such ﬁctitious kinship relations had precedents in both Chinese and Kitan history. In 641 T’ang China gave the famous Princess Wen-ch’eng in marriage to a Tibetan ruler, and the relationship between T’ang China and Tibet was one of father-in-law (T’ang) and son-in-law (Tibet). These relations were state-to-state as well as emperor-to-emperor. In 721 T’ang China and the Türks cemented a ﬁctive father-son relationship that lasted until the destruction of the second Turkic empire in 740. Initially, in 757, relations between T’ang China and the Uighurs were nominally fraternal or brotherly (hsiung-ti chih kuo), but in 787 this was changed to a father (T’ang)-son (Uighur) relationship in connection with the conclusion of a marriage alliance between the two states. (Kaneko 1988 is a useful survey of T’ang diplomatic correspondence.) During the mid tenth century the Kitans themselves installed an emperor of Later Chin and regarded him as a “son.” (Wu Jen-ch’en 1983, 15.93) At about the same time, the Kitan emperor and emperor of Southern T’ang (one of the Ten Kingdoms) addressed each other as brothers. The opening phrases of the monograph on geography in the Liao-shih marvel at the grandeur of Liao’s mid tenth-century geopolitical position in both tributary and familial terms: to the east was Koryò, to the west was the vassal state of Hsia, and to the south was ﬁrst the “son” state of Chin and then the “brotherly” Sung of the House of Chao, as well as the Wu Yüeh and also Southern T’ang, which transported tribute on the seas to Liao. (LS 37.437)

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relationship established between the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in the wake of the Covenant of Shanyüan was continued unaltered throughout the two dynasties. But even a brief glance through the relevant pages of the Sung ta-chaoling chi will indicate that this is not the case. As early as 1940, Nieh Ch’ung-ch’i showed in his classic study of Sung-Liao diplomacy that the Sung and Kitan emperors were known to each other by several diﬀerent kinship terms.19 This observation has recently been repeated by Jingshen Tao.20 Some nationalistic Chinese historians have apparently regarded it as a happy coincidence that no Sung emperor was ever a younger brother vis-à-vis a Liao emperor,21 but to draw satisfaction from this fact is to emphasise the same-generational, brotherto-brother relations and ignore or downplay the ﬁctive familial relations between emperors of diﬀerent generations. The Sung emperors were not always older than the Liao emperors. Indeed, the Liao emperor Tao-tsung was forty-four years older than the Sung emperor Chetsung and ﬁfty years older than the Sung emperor Hui-tsung! Generational propriety was important in the letters. When, for instance, the Sung emperor was of a younger generation than his Liao counterpart, care was usually taken to use the term “deferential” (chin) in the opening and closing lines of the missive.22 And as will be seen below, special care was taken to avoid direct communication in these letters between emperors and empress dowagers of the same ﬁctive generations. These diplomatic kinship relations may seem slightly obscure or perhaps even comical to us today, but they were taken very seriously by the Sung and Liao courts.23 The international relations 19

Nieh 1940, 12–13. See T’ao 1984, 26–27. Similar observations are made in the English counterpart of this book; see Tao 1988, 17 and 107. 21 See, for example, Nieh 1940, 12. Ang 1983, 116, following Nieh, writes: “Fortunately for the Sung, its rulers were always older than their generational counterparts in Laio [sic] and therefore were able to maintain the designation of ‘elder brother.’” 22 Interesting exceptions to this observation can be found in the Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih. In his oath-letters concerning the Kuan-nan territories, the Liao emperor Hsingtsung, who was younger brother to the Sung emperor Jen-tsung, uses the term chin in the opening line, as would be expected. (CTKC 21.191, 93) But the Sung response to the ﬁrst missive also contains the term chin, even though the Sung emperor Jentsung was the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung’s elder brother. (CTKC 20.192) And in 1075 the Liao emperor Tao-tsung, who was uncle (shu) vis-à-vis his nephew, the Sung emperor Shen-tsung, uses chin in a letter to Sung concerning boundary negotiations. (CTKC 20.194) 23 Such relations were also not unknown in the West. In early mediaeval European history, kings sometimes used ﬁctive kinship relations or “spiritual kinship” (notably 20

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between Sung and Liao were essentially a family aﬀair, and regular annual contact between the rulers of both states was essential for nurturing and maintaining harmonious familial ties. The Covenant of Shan-yüan was concluded with solemn ritual and an exchange of oath-letters between the two states, and the Sung and Liao monarchs were personally responsible for their states’ adherence to thee oaths. Abiding by the oaths was especially important in the context of these ﬁctive kinship relations, as it would have been particularly odious to break an oath concluded with a member of one’s own family. The formal annual exchanges of new year and birthday embassies and letters were probably appreciated by the rulers of the two states, much as we in the West today often appreciate the simple gesture of a Christmas or birthday card from a family member. War or strife is less likely to break out between family members who are in regular and aﬀectionate contact with one another and who remain close by rejoicing with each other in times of happiness and mourning with each other in times of sorrow.24 The Sung and Liao courts attempted to approximate these familial aﬀections and ties ritually by celebrating the new year with one another, celebrating the birthdays of each state’s emperors and empress dowagers, mourning the deaths of each state’s emperors and empress dowagers and oﬀering condolences to their bereaved survivors, and celebrating the enthronements of new emperors. The letters are arranged chronologically in the Sung ta-chao-ling chi, and the titles for the Liao emperors and the kinship terms they bear reﬂect the changes of emperors in both states and the ﬁctive familial relations between them. The titles of the Liao emperors are given below in Table 1, the ﬁctive familial relations between Sung and Liao emperors in Table 2,25 and the birth and death dates of Northern Sung and Liao emperors in Tables 3 and 4 below.

god parenthood) to strengthen ties with both biologically related and unrelated neighbouring princes. On this see Nelson 1992, 17 and especially Smith 1992, passim. My thanks to Professor Naomi Standen for drawing these works to my attention. 24 Ang 1983, 83 and 101, notes that the regular exchanges of embassies helped prevent minor diplomatic conﬂicts between Sung and Liao (in particular the renegotiations of annual payments in 1042 and the border renegotiations of the 1070s) from developing into major confrontations. He does not, however, emphasise the pseudo-familial dimensions of Sung-Liao diplomacy in this connection. 25 Similar but less complete tables, with some errors, appear in Tao 1988, 107 and T’ao 1984, 26–27.

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Table 126 Titles of Liao emperors Liao emperor

Title

Sheng-tsung

Jui wen ying wu tsung tao chih te ch’ung jen kuang hsiao kung ch’eng chih ting ch’i yüan chao sheng shen tsan t’ien fu Ts’ung wen sheng wu ying lüeh shen kung jui che jen hsiao 1. Sheng wen shen wu jui hsiao 2. Sheng wen shen wu ch’üan kung ta lüeh ts’ung jen jui hsiao t’ien yu 27

Hsing-tsung Tao-tsung

Table 228 Fictive inter-emperor familial relations Emperors Sung Liao Chen-tsung

Sheng-tsung

Jen-tsung

Sheng-tsung

Jen-tsung

Hsing-tsung

Jen-tsung

Tao-tsung

Ying-tsung

Tao-tsung

Shen-tsung

Tao-tsung

Che-tsung

Tao-tsung

Hui-tsung

Tao-tsung

Ch’in-tsung

T’ien-tso

26

Older emperor29 (Sung) Chentsung (Liao) Sheng-tsung (Sung) Jentsung (Sung) Jentsung (Sung) Yingtsung (Liao) Taotsung (Liao) Taotsung (Liao) Taotsung (Liao) T’ien-tso

Concurrent Fictive relationship reigns Sung Liao emperor emperor 1005–1022 Elder brother 1022–1031 Nephew

Younger brother Uncle (shu)

1031–1055 Elder brother 1055–1063 Uncle ( po)

Younger brother Nephew

1063–1067 Elder brother 1067–1085 Nephew

Younger brother Uncle (shu)

1085–1100 Grand Great nephew Uncle 1100–1101 (Unattested) (Unattested) 1101–1126 (Unattested) (Unattested)

Sources: relevant entries of the pen-chi of the Sung-shih and STCLC, 228–232 (pages 882–904). 27 The lengthening of the title of the Liao emperor Tao-tsung apparently occurred sometime during the reign of the Sung emperor Ying-tsung (r. 1063–1067). The title of the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien was also lengthened during this period; see below, Table 6 ﬀ. 28 Sources: relevant entries of the pen-chi of the Sung-shih, and STCLC 228–232 (pages 882–904). 29 In terms of actual dates of birth.

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Table 330 Dates of birth and death for Northern Sung emperors Emperor

Birthdate

Death date

Parentage

Chen-tsung Jen-tsung Ying-tsung Shen-tsung Che-tsung Hui-tsung

12/2 (968)31 4/14 (1010) 1/3 (1032) 4/10 (1048) 12/7 (1077) 10/10 (1082)

2/19 (1022) 3/29 (1063) 1/8 (1067) 3/5 (1085) 1/12 (1100) 5/21 (1135)

Third son of T’ai-tsung Sixth son of Chen-tsung Thirteenth son of Prince P’u Eldest son of Ying-tsung Sixth son of Shen-tsung Eleventh son of Shen-tsung

Table 432 Dates of birth and death for Liao emperors Emperor

Birthdate

Death date

Parentage

Sheng-tsung Hsing-tsung Tao-tsung T’ien-tso

12/28 (1031) 2/23 (1016) 8/7 (1032) 4/1933

6/3 (1031) 8/4 (1055) 1/13 (1101) 1126 or 1128

Eldest son of Ching-tsung Eldest son of Sheng-tsung Eldest son of Hsing-tsung Grandson of Tao-tsung

It may have been psychologically more advantageous for Liao to emphasise the relations between the Sung emperors and the Liao empress dowagers. The Liao-shih emphasises the Sung emperor Chentsung’s recognition of the Liao empress dowager as his aunt (shu-mu; wife of father’s younger brother) as a major result of the Covenant of Shan-yüan.34 Sung materials, of course, play up the initial elder brother/younger brother relationship between Chen-tsung and Shengtsung and remain silent on the obvious correlating relationship between Chen-tsung and the Liao empress dowager Ch’eng-t’ien.35 In ﬁctive relation terms the Liao empress dowagers were usually, but not always, one or more generations the seniors of the Sung emperors. 30 Source: The relevant entries in the pen-chi of the Sung-shih. These are lunar dates, as are the dates for Liao emperors in Table 4. The lunar birth and death dates for all Sung emperors are converted to exact Western dates in Table 1 of Hargett 1987, 28–29. This article also contains a table giving the Western dates for the ﬁfty-seven reign periods of the Sung period. 31 Aoyama Sadao erroneously gives 988 as the year of the Sung emperor Chentsung’s birth. See his entry in Franke 1976, 91. 32 Source: Fu 1984, 240. Information on parentage is drawn from relevant entries in the pen-chi of the Liao-shih. These dates are also lunar. 33 Or, 29. 34 LS 14.160. 35 See, for example, HCPSL, 247.

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That is to say, the Liao empress dowagers were usually aunts or great aunts vis-à-vis their nephews or grand nephews, the Sung emperors. A review of the letters from Sung emperors to Kitan empress dowagers as recorded in the Sung ta-chao-ling chi reveals the following kinship terms: chih (nephew), shen36 (aunt; wife of father’s younger brother), chih-sun (grand nephew), and shu tsu-mu (great aunt). In these letters are also four grandiose titles for addressing the Kitan empress dowagers: I t’ien t’i tao chih jen kuang te tz’u shun chang sheng (roughly “Conformer to Heaven and Apprehender of the Way, Utterly Benevolent and Vastly Virtuous, Benignantly Agreeable and Manifestly Sagacious”), Jen tz’u sheng shan ch’in hsiao kuang te an ching cheng ch’un i ho k’uan hou ch’ung chüeh i t’ien (roughly “Benevolently Benignant and Sagaciously Good; Respectfully Filial and Vastly Virtuous; Secure and Tranquil, Upright and Pure; Modest and Amicable, Tolerant and Generous; Loftily Cognisant and Conformer to Heaven”), Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao kuang ai tsung t’ien (roughly “Benignantly Modest and Benevolently Amicable, Elegantly Gracious and Purely Filial, Vastly Loving and Devoted to Heaven”), and Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao hsien sheng chao te kuang ai tsung t’ien (roughly “Benignantly Modest and Benevolently Amicable, Elegantly Gracious and Purely Filial, Distinctly Sagacious and Splendidly Virtuous, Vastly Loving and Devoted to Heaven”). The Liao empress dowagers and the years of their reigns are given below in Table 5. Table 537 Liao empress dowagers Dowager

Period as dowager

Relation to Liao emperor

Ch’eng-t’ien Ch’i-t’ien Fa-t’ien Tsung-t’ien

983–1009 1031–1032 1032–1055 1055–1076

Mother of Sheng-tsung Empress of Sheng-tsung38 Mother of Hsing-tsung39 Mother of Tao-tsung40

36

Identical in meaning with the term shu-mu. Source: Fu 1984, 240. 38 Hounded into suicide by Nou-chin, the mother of Hsing-tsung, soon after Sheng-tsung’s death. Nou-chin became the empress dowager Fa-t’ien shortly after this suicide. 39 The empress dowager Fa-t’ien was grand empress dowager for three years following Tao-tsung’s death. She ﬁnally died in 1058. 40 Empress of Hsing-tsung. 37

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The Sung court was greatly concerned that there be no direct diplomatic correspondence between Sung emperors and Liao female rulers of the same ﬁctive generation. During its assignment of birthday and new year envoys to the Liao emperor and empress dowager in the summer of 1058, the Sung court decided that generationally the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien was Sung Jen-tsung’s sister-in-law and that direct communication between them was therefore ritually improper. The Kitans begrudgingly recognised this.41 Known titles of Liao empress dowagers are given below in Table 6. The ﬁctive kinship relations between the Sung emperors and the Liao empress dowagers are tabulated in Table 7. Finally, kinship relations between the Sung emperors and the Liao emperors and empress dowagers are summarised in graph form in Table 8.42 Table 643 Titles of Liao empress dowagers Dowager

Title

Ch’eng-t’ien Unattested Ch’i-t’ien I t’ien t’i tao chih jen kuang te tz’u shun chang sheng Fa-t’ien Jen tz’u sheng shan ch’in hsiao kuang te an ching cheng ch’un i ho k’uan hou ch’ung chüeh i t’ien Tsung-t’ien 1. Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao kuang ai tsung t’ien 2. Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao hsien sheng chao te kuang ai tsung t’ien44 41 See HCPSL, 574. It is not diﬃcult to assess the Sung court’s reasoning in this matter. The empress dowager Tsung-t’ien had been the empress of the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung, the Sung emperor Jen-tsung’s ﬁctive younger brother. She became empress dowager with the enthronement of her son, the Liao emperor Tao-tsung, but in the eyes of the Sung court her ﬁctive kinship relation vis-à-vis the Sung emperor Jen-tsung remained unchanged. During this period the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien did send birthday and new year greetings to the Sung emperor Jentsung, as evidenced by the responses to these greetings as recorded in pages 888–89 of STCLC. The Sung emperor Jen-tsung responded directly as uncle ( po) to these greetings sent by the Liao emperor Tao-tsung, but his responses to greetings sent by the Liao empress dowager were sent to the Liao emperor Tao-tsung, who then forwarded (ta) them to her. There seems, unfortunately, to be no record of how Liao managed communication between the empress dowager Tsung-t’ien and the Sung emperor Jen-tsung. There was, it might be noted, no Sung empress dowager during this period who could have served as a facilitator for such communication. 42 The metaphor of kinship relations apparently also extended to at least one Liao emperor, Hsing-tsung, and the Sung empress dowager Liu, who sent Hsingtsung a condolence letter in 1031. In this letter the Sung empress dowager Liu addressed Hsing-tsung as her “nephew” (chih). (Text in STCLC 228.883) 43 Source: relevant entries in STCLC. 44 The title of the empress dowager Tsung-t’ien was apparently lengthened during

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Table 745 Fictive emperor/empress dowager familial relations Sung emperor

Liao empress dowager

Concurrent reigns

Fictive relations Emperor Dowager

Chen-tsung Jen-tsung Jen-tsung Jen-tsung

Ch’eng-t’ien Ch’i-t’ien Fa-t’ien46 Tsung-t’ien

997–1009 1031–1032 1032–1055 1058–1063

Ying-tsung Shen-tsung

Tsung-t’ien Tsung-t’ien

1063–1067 1067–1076

Nephew Nephew Nephew Brother-inlaw? Nephew Grand nephew (chih-sun)

Aunt Aunt Aunt Sister-inlaw Aunt Great Aung (shu tsu-mu)

An interesting variation on the problem of communication between emperors and empress dowagers (actually a grand empress dowager in this case) of opposite states was the case of the Liao emperor Tao-tsung and the Sung grand empress dowager Kao. Kao, who had been the Sung emperor Ying-tsung’s empress and empress dowager during the reign of her son, the Sung emperor Shen-tsung, was elevated to the status of grand empress dowager during the reign of the Sung emperor Che-tsung.47 But even with this exalted status, the Sung court regarded any direct communication between her and the Liao emperor Tao-tsung as improper; she had been Ying-tsung’s empress, and the Sung emperor Ying-tsung was elder brother vis-àvis his younger brother, the Liao emperor Tao-tsung. The analogy of sister-in-law/brother-in-law relations between her and the Liao emperor Tao-tsung was not lost on the Sung court. This is born out by a passage in the writings of a Sung scholar:48 The sixteenth day of the seventh month is the birthday of the grand empress dowager, and [for this birthday] the festival name K’un-ch’eng

the reign of the Sung emperor Ying-tsung (r. 1063–1067). The Liao emperor Taotsung’s title was also lengthened during this period. See above, Table 1 ﬀ. 45 Source: relevant entries in STCLC. 46 The empress dowager Fa-t’ien reigned from 1055–1058 as the grand empress dowager; during this period she was aunt to her nephew, the Sung emperor Jentsung. See STCLC 229.887–88. 47 See Table 9. 48 Nieh 1940, 13–14 n. 45.

L I A O

S U N G

L I A O

Y E A R

1 0 3 5 *

1 0 4 0 *

1 0 4 5 *

Key (*) A BL EB GA GN GU

= = = = = = =

Sung Ying-tsung Aunt Brother-in-law? Elder brother Great Aunt Grand nephew Great Uncle

A CH’ENGT’IEN

N

CHEN-TSUNG

= = = = = =

FA-T’IEN

#

# N SL U1 U2 YB

A

A

N

1 0 5 0 *

1 0 5 5 *

A

N

(*)

EB

YB

1 0 6 5 *

1 0 7 5 *

GA

1 0 8 5 *

N

U2

1 0 9 0 *

GN

GU

1 0 9 5 *

CHE-TSUNG

TAO-TSUNG

1 0 8 0 *

SHEN-TSUNG GN

1 0 7 0 *

TSUNG-T’IEN

SL

BL

U1

N

1 0 6 0 *

Liao dowager empress Ch’i-t’ien Nephew Sister-in-law; younger brother’s wife (ti-fu) Uncle; father’s older brother ( po) Uncle; father’s younger brother (shu) Younger brother

JEN-TSUNG

EB

N

N

1 0 3 0 *

EB

1 0 2 5 *

YB

1 0 2 0 *

U2

1 0 1 5 *

YB

1 0 1 0 * HSING-TSUNG

1 0 0 5 *

SHENG-TSUNG

1 0 0 0 *

Table 8 Fictive Kinship relations between Sung emperors and Liao emperoros and empress dowagers 1 0 0 0 *

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was presented.49 The authorities50 reviewed and discussed past cases: . . . On the ﬁrst year of the Ch’ien-hsing [reign period of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung],51 the Chang-hsien Empress Dowager52 “hung down a bamboo screen” [and administered state aﬀairs from behind it], and each53 dispatched birthday envoys [to the Kitans] and also sent missives. On the second year of the Chia-yu [reign period of the Sung emperor Jen-tsung],54 the caitiﬀ mother55 did [commence her] rule. [As] the wife of [the late] Tsung-chen,56 she was sister-in-law to Emperor Jen-tsung, and [for this reason] it was diﬃcult [for them] to communicate [with each other directly] . . . Today, Hung-chi57 is the [ﬁctive] younger brother of [the late Sung] Emperor Ying-tsung, and it is also diﬃcult [for him] to communicate [directly] with the grand empress dowager. The court has [therefore] selected the former case of the Chiayu [reign period]58 [as an analogy for facilitating communication].

The Sung emperor Che-tsung was, then, able to send his own birthday and new year letters directly to the Liao emperor Tao-tsung, and he also forwarded (ta) to Tao-tsung the letters from the grand empress dowager Kao.59 There is apparently no documentation that indicates how Liao managed communication between the Liao emperor Tao-tsung and the Sung grand empress dowager Kao. Table 9 below gives information on the Northern Sung empress dowagers who reigned during the period of peaceful relations between Sung and Liao.

49 See SS 112.2673–74. The naming of her birthday as a national festival would make it necessary for Liao to begin dispatching annual birthday envoys to her. 50 Yu-ssu; Hucker 1985, 587.8081: “. . . a vague reference to governmental oﬃcials in charge of activities at issue in particular contexts . . .” 51 A.D. 1022, the year of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung’s death. 52 The empress dowager Liu; biography SS 242.8612–16. 53 I.e., both the empress dowager and the new Sung emperor, Jen-tsung. 54 A.D. 1057. 55 Lu-mu, a pejorative reference to the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien. SKCS editions of this work amend this to Pei-ch’ao Kuo-mu, literally “State Mother of the Northern Court” (as the WYKSKCS ed.) or simply obliterate the objectionable term lu (“caitiﬀ ”). 56 Tsung-chen was the taboo name (hui ) of the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung (see LS 18.211). Incredibly, the SKCS editions transpose this name to Chen-tsung, the Northern Sung emperor! 57 Hung-chi was the taboo name of the Liao emperor Tao-tsung. (LS 21.251). 58 A.D. 1056–1063, the years during which the Sung emperor Jen-tsung and the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien did not communicate directly. 59 See the examples in STCLC 231.898–90. These pages contain no examples of letters from the Sung empress dowager Hsiang.

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Table 960 Northern Sung empress dowagers and grand empress dowagers Empress dowager/ Grand empress dowager

Period as dowager/ grand empress Birthday dowager festival

Relation to Sung emperor(s)

Liu (empress dowager)

1022–1032 ( Jen-tsung)

Chen-tsung’s empress (not Jen-tsung’s mother)

Ts’ao (as empress dowager)

1063–1067 (Ying-tsung)

Jen-tsung’s empress (not Ying-tsung’s mother)

Ts’ao (as grand empress dowager)

1067–1097 (Shen-tsung)

"

Kao (as empress dowager)

1067–1085 (Shen-tsung)

Ying-tsung’s empress, Shentsung’s mother

Kao (as grand empress dowager)

1085–1093 (Che-tsung)

Hsiang (empress dowager)

1085–1101 (Che-tsung)

Ch’ang-ning (1/18)

K’un-ch’eng (7/16)

"

"

"

Shen-tsung’s empress (not Che-tsung’s mother)

Descriptions and Sample Translations of Various Letters Almost all of the formal letters from Sung to Liao contained passages referring to the good relations between the two states or complimentary comments on the emperor’s rule and virtue. Such passages were, of course, polite and formal elements of the protocol for diplomatic communication, but as argued below, they also had the practical function of serving as reaﬃrmations, renewals, or reminders of the solemn oath of peace taken in 1005. The regular or annual new year and birthday letters were somewhat standardised and formulaic, but they did diﬀer in content and length from year to year. 60 Information for this table was drawn from relevant entries in SS 112.2671–76; 242.8605–31; and the pen-chi.

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The occasional letters were artfully composed pieces and were often warm, personable, and seemingly sincere in tone. They frequently contained allusions to the Chinese classics appropriate to the occasion for which they were written. The occasional letters were written (and occasional embassies dispatched) when there was some change in the emperor-to-emperor (or emperor-to-empress dowager) relations, and as such the occasional letters almost invariably emphasised the close relations between the two states and their emperors and the desirability of continuing the peace. Sung diplomatic missives to Liao were presented to Liao emperors (and often to Liao empress dowagers as well) with highly formal, elaborate, and carefully choreographed ritual, and these occasions were only part of the stiﬂing and seemingly endless body of ceremony Sung envoys had to endure while on their missions in Liao territory. Ritual for Liao diplomats at the Sung court was, for the most part, established soon after the formalisation of Sung-Liao diplomacy in 1005. Most of what is known about the speciﬁcs of diplomatic ritual as practised between Sung and Liao is contained in the Sung-shih,61 the Liao-shih,62 and Lu Chen’s embassy report of his mission to Liao in 1008. The knowledge of the rituals that can be extracted from these sources is fragmentary and incomplete, and we are further handicapped by having no living historical laboratory today in which the performance of these rituals can be observed. Examination of the textual accounts of these ritual performances can aﬀord only a partial and vicarious appreciation of their complexity and meaning. The Sung Chinese were inveterate and punctilious observers of ritual propriety and niceties; they periodically revised the required rituals and compiled lengthy and detailed ritual manuals. Unfortunately, however, these manuals are now all lost, including Su Sung’s manual which he presented to the throne in 1083. Su Sung, a careful student of Sung-Liao diplomacy who twice served as an envoy to Liao, once in 1068 and again in 1077, produced a massive, almost encyclopaedic work on all aspects of Sung-Liao diplomacy since the establishment of peaceful relations in 1005. The work, entitled Hua-I 63 61

SS 119.2804–10, 124.2897–2900. LS 50.841–44, 51.848–55. 63 The use of Lu and Wei here is, as Herbert Franke points out (Franke 1983, 143 n. 28), an allusion to Analects 13:7: “The governments of Lu and Wei are brothers.” 62

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Lu-Wei Hsin-lu, is lost but its preface has been preserved in Su Sung’s collected works,64 and from it we learn that several chapters of the work concerned ritual matters.65 In 1115 Sung revised and codiﬁed in ﬁve diﬀerent manuals the diplomatic ritual to be observed when receiving Kitan envoys: court audience ritual, new year banquet ritual, court farewell ritual, birthday audience ritual, and birthday farewell ritual.66 Elaborate and hierarchical exchanges of gifts were also important parts of these rituals. With the exception of Lamentation Annunciation Envoys, all envoys took gifts to be presented at the court they were visiting. The birthday gifts seem to have been the most sumptuous, followed by the new year gifts. Both states gave silks and horses as gifts, but on balance it seems that Sung gave more silk and various silk products as gifts, while Liao tended to give more horses and ornate riding equipment. The giving of these gifts, Nieh Ch’ung-ch’i notes, had a bearing on the prestige and honour of each state, and was therefore not a task to be taken lightly.67 Birthday letters Birthday letters are the most abundantly preserved. They are less standardised or formulaic than the new year letters, but there seem to be a few elements common to many of them. Most of them begin with the standard salutation and the Liao emperor’s epistolary title. They typically contain wishes of longevity and happy comments on the peaceful relations between the two states. Many also have speciﬁc statements that envoys are being sent to extend birthday greetings and participate in birthday ritual, and the titles and positions of the envoys are also sometimes given. Most of these letters end with standardised conclusions more or less resembling those of the new year letters. The example of a birthday letter given in translation below has the following pattern:

64

Su Sung 1988, 66.1003–06. Other chapters concerned oath-letters, annual payments, missives, diplomatic personnel, hostels, Kitan missives, border markets, the Ho-tung borders, border defences, and Kitan genealogy, customs, oﬃcialdom, and political geography. 66 SS 119.2808. 67 Nieh 1940, 20. 65

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(3) (26) 4 5 (4 + yü ) 45 (4 + yü) 6 (w/yü ) 6 (w/yü ) 4 4

The body of this missive is not parallel, but is balanced around the use of yü, an extra-rhythmic word characteristic of p’ien-t’i wen. The rhyme scheme is AAAA. The letter was sent by the Sung emperor Jen-tsung to the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung.68 On [this] day of the ﬁrst month, [thine] elder brother, the Emperor of Great Sung, doth send [this] missive unto the palace of [his] younger brother, the Emperor of the Great Kitan, Astutely Cultured and Sagaciously Martial, Eminently Foresighted and Divinely Meritorious, Perspicaciously Wise and Benevolently Filial: [Thy] splendid administration hath scarcely begun, and just now there is renewal in all things; the time of celebration69 and the period of [thy] birth are ﬁttingly combined in manifold joys.70 I turn my respectful and admiring thoughts unto thee in brotherly love71 and trust [that all good fortune] shall gather to the uttermost [for thee] on this joyous occasion.72 I specially extend envoys [unto thee] to visit [and wish thee] continued fortunes of longevity.

Letters of “greeting” (wen-hou) were sent along with the birthday letters and were delivered to the Liao emperor or empress dowager not currently celebrating his or her birthday; this was perhaps done simply to keep them from feeling entirely left out of the birthday celebrations. 68

Date unknown; sent sometime during the reign of the Liao emperor Hsingtsung (r. 1031–1055). Text in STCLC 229.886. 69 I.e., the spring season. 70 It seems possible to understand these sentences on more than one level. This birthday letter was sent to the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung soon after his enthronement; hence the statement that his administration had just begun. Hsing-tsung’s birthday was in the springtime, on the twenty-third day of the second month, and as such his birthday coincided with the spring season, when all things in the natural world were being born anew. Thus both Hsing-tsung’s birthday and the beginning of his reign are perhaps being compared in this letter with the arrival of the spring season. The coincidence of Hsing-tsung’s birthday with the new spring season had also been noted in a previous Sung birthday letter to him; see STCLC 228.884. 71 Yu-tz’u, a poetic usage. 72 I here acknowledge my gratitude to Herbert Franke, whose kind and thoughtful letter of 6 May 1992 helped me considerably in grasping the meaning of this diﬃcult couplet. I alone am responsible, however, for any misunderstandings of it.

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The Liao-shih aﬀords a uniform picture of both birthday missive presentation ritual and new year missive presentation ritual for Sung envoys having audience with the Liao empress dowager.73 Kitan oﬃcials entered the Liao court at dawn and took up their designated positions, whilst the Sung envoys approached the waiting area.74 When the empress dowager had taken up her place on the throne, Kitan oﬃcials made ritual inquiries into her health, withdrew, and stood at attention facing east. Liao’s ethnic Chinese oﬃcials then entered, made obeisances, and stood at their places. A list of the Sung envoys and their deputies was then presented, and after this the Sung envoys entered from the east and stood in formation facing the Liao throne. A Liao Memorial Reception Commissioner75 then descended from the Liao throne platform and received the missive from the main Sung envoy, who knelt and presented it to him. The Memorial Reception Commissioner then pronounced the seal of the missive intact and presented it to a Palace Secretary,76 who opened it. A Grand Councilor77 then read the contents of the missive aloud to the empress dowager. After this the Sung envoys inquired into the health of the dowager, and her response was to inquire after the health of the Sung emperor. After obeisances by the Sung envoys, their gifts to Liao were brought in on a stretcher and placed before the empress dowager’s throne. (Sung birthday gifts to Liao typically included thirty-seven gold vessels for liquor, food, and tea; ﬁve sets of clothing; two sashes decorated with gold and jade; two pairs of black and white leather boots; castanets; two saddled and bridled horses with tasselled whips; thirty silver vessels with gold decorations; twenty silver vessels; two thousand bolts of brocaded multicoloured gauze and ﬁne silk; two thousand more bolts of various other colours; thirty jugs of speciality liquors; tea leaves; and fresh and dried fruits.78) After the presentation of gifts the Sung envoys withdrew to the east, faced west, and bowed. The tiresome and insipid aﬀair was only over for them after several more elaborate obeisances and obeisant gesticulations or “dances” (wu-tao), good wishes for the lady’s health, shouts of wan-sui!, and a ﬁnal exit through the western gate. Inside, 73 74 75 76 77 78

LS 51.848–51. Mu-tz’u. Ko-shih; by analogy to Hucker 1985, 279.3175. Shu-mi-shih; cf. Hucker 1985, 436.5450.1. Tsai-ch’en. CTKC 21.201; Nieh 1940, 18–19.

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Liao formalities concluded soon after the Sung envoys’ departure. Roughly the ﬁrst half of the birthday and new year missive presentation ritual for Sung birthday and new year envoys at the Liao court closely resembled that for the same audiences with the Liao emperor. The second half, however, diﬀered in some particulars. Sung envoys to the Liao emperor thanked him for his hospitality, did more obeisances and gesticulations, and were then led out to the waiting area. A Liao audience oﬃcial then announced gifts to them of clothing and gold sashes. Next the Sung envoys’ attendants were led in for an audience, and as Liao oﬃcials called out their names they made obeisances, wished the Liao emperor good health, and cried out wan-sui! After this they were led back out, and gifts of clothing for them were announced. Then the Sung envoy and his deputy were once again led in for more obeisances and were followed once more by their attendants, and the lot of them did more obeisances and gave more cries of wan-sui! A banquet in the presence of the Liao emperor was then announced, and Liao oﬃcials toasted their emperor. After this the entire assembly sat down to music but stood again for several rounds of liquor. After this food was served. When the music stopped the Sung attendants arose, made obeisances and cried wan-sui !, and were led out. When the music started up again the Liao oﬃcials and Sung envoys arose and bowed, did obeisances and gesticulations, and were led out. The Liao emperor then arose and the tedious occasion ﬁnally came to a close.79 New year letters There is a pattern of some uniformity in the new year letters from Sung emperors to Liao emperors. The typical new year letter or missive began with a salutation in which the Sung emperor addressed the Liao emperor by his epistolary title. Next came comments about the incipient arrival of the spring season, followed by statements to the eﬀect that the arrival of a New Year Felicitation embassy would bolster the already secure peace and amicability between the two states. Next came the declaration that a certain oﬃcial was (along with his deputy) being sent to take up oﬃce as envoy for the occasion; often a long list of the titles and positions held by the

79

LS 51.850–51.

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oﬃcial was given, presumably so that the Liao court would know the New Year Felicitation envoy was suﬃciently eminent and digniﬁed. The letters often then ended with the following standardised conclusion: “They have [but] a few gifts, which are listed on another length [of silk or paper]. They specially carry [this] missive to manifest [unto thee my] felicitations. I say no more. This is my report.”80 A typical example of a new year letter is one sent by the Sung emperor Jen-tsung to the Liao emperor Tao-tsung in 1062.81 In it is shown the overall structure followed for the most part by all the missives: I II III IIIa IV V

Date (four words) Terms of address (titles of correspondents) (Nineteen words, no ﬁxed metre, no rhyme) Body of missive 4 4 (parallel), 6 6 (p), 4 4 (p), 4 4 (p), prose Prose introduction of emissary (11) Gift (4 4) Closure (4 4)

The rhymes start with III, but these are not the classical rhymes of the Kuang-yün; rather they reﬂect the broader she categories of the Sung rhyme tables and correspond to contemporary pronunciation. The rhymes form the following pattern: ABBABOBO. The prose passage comes next (IIIa), and then the rhymes resume: AABB. The letter is given below in translation.82 On [this] ﬁrst day of the ﬁrst month [of the new year], [thine]83 uncle,84 the Emperor of Great Sung, doth send [this] missive unto85 the palace

80 If the Liao emperor was one or more generations the senior of the Sung emperor, the Sung emperor usually added the term “respectful” (chin): “This is my respectful report.” 81 Text in STCLC 229.888. 82 Text in STCLC 229.888. My translation of this and other missives in this chapter is done in archaic English in a possibly clumsy attempt to convey the already archaic ﬂavour they would have had during Sung times. 83 “Thine” and not “thy” is of course the correct archaic possessive in English here because it precedes “[uncle],” which begins with a vowel. Cf. Matthew 7:4: “Let me pull the mote out of thine eye . . .” 84 Po; father’s elder brother. 85 The term chih, or “nephew,” is not recorded in this letter, perhaps through oversight.

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of the Emperor of the Great Kitan, Sagaciously Cultured, Divinely Martial, and Perspicaciously Filial: The severity of the cold bringeth to a close the [last of the twenty-four climatic] periods, and the glad tide of temperate air [is soon to be upon us]. Methinks thy manifold diligence in following [thy predecessors’ paths of ] virtue ﬁtting [reason for] thine abundance of sacriﬁcial objects.86 Accordingly, I hasten envoys for deft conveyance [unto thee] of [my] state’s [new year] rites. [With these we shall] commence passing spring and the new year and eternally spread [our] neighbourly amicability. I now dispatch [unto thee] certain oﬃcials taking up oﬃce as87 State Missive Envoy and Deputy [State Missive Envoy]. They have [but] a few gifts, which are listed on another length.88 They89 specially carry [this] missive to manifest [unto thee my] felicitations. I say no more.90

Lamentation Annunciation Letters It is impossible to make generalisations about the nature of a typical lamentation annunciation from a Sung emperor to a Liao emperor or other such occasional letters, since so few examples of them are preserved.91 It is possible only to comment on the one extant lamentation annunciation letter, written to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in 1022 to announce the death of the Sung emperor Chen-tsung.92 Its structure is as follows: I II III IIIa III (cont.) IV

86

(3) (39) 4 4 4 4 6 4 4 4 (11) (11) (9)

I.e., the material wealth of his state. Ch’ung; Hucker 1985, 195.1643: “‘. . . to take up oﬃce as . . .’”; signiﬁes a quasiregular appointment taken in addition to one’s regular position. 88 I.e., another document, fu being the standard numerary adjunct for documents. 89 I.e., the envoys. 90 Pu-hsüan; a standard polite epistolary closing, used between close acquaintances, indicating that the writer will not continue in further detail. 91 One such lamentation annunciation letter is preserved in STCLC 228.883; one condolence letter, ibid.; one enthronement felicitation letter, ibid.; and two enthronement annunciation letters, one on 228.882–83 and one on 230.891. 92 Text in STCLC 228.883. 87

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Its rhyme scheme is AAABBOACC. This letter announced an especially sad departure; it was the Sung emperor Chen-tsung who had concluded the peace agreement at Shan-yüan with the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in 1005. The letter is remarkable for its straightforward style and its frank and resigned acceptance of the death of Chentsung. Most importantly, it speaks of the good relations between the two states and of the grief that Sung anticipated that the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung would feel upon learning of the death of his ﬁctive elder brother. On [this] day of the second month, [thy] nephew, the Emperor of Great Sung, doth deferentially send [this] missive unto the palace of [his] uncle,93 the Emperor of the Great Kitan, Perspicaciously Cultured and Eminently Martial, Devoted to the Way and Utterly Virtuous, Loftily Benevolent and Vastly Filial, Achiever of Merit and Establisher of Orderly Rule, Commencer of a [New] Era and Splendidly Sagacious, Commended of the Deities and Sustained of Heaven: The high ﬁrmament hath sent down calamity; the former emperor hath ascended [into Heaven] and vanished. I have been detaining and yearning [after him], mourning and grieving [for him], until I am beside myself.94 I am ﬁlled with [these] thoughts: with such solid neighbourly gladness [between our two states], this extension of an obituary announcement [unto thee] shall, I expect, surely increase the grief in thine illustrious bosom. I now dispatch [unto thee] Hsüeh I-k’uo95 (Oﬃce of Presentations Commissioner96 and Grand Master of the Palace with Golden Seal and Purple Ribbon,97 Acting98 Minister of Works,99 Concurrent100 Censor-in-chief,101 Supreme Pillar of State,102 Commandery, and Dynastyfounding Marquis103 of Lin-chin104 Commandery),105 a land-grant noble106 with one thousand households [under his jurisdiction] and an actual enfeoﬀment of three hundred households, for deferential presentation of [this] missive. Deferentially reported by [thy] nephew, the Emperor of Great Sung. 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Shu; father’s younger brother. Pu k’o sheng ch’u; literally, “I have nowhere to place myself.” No biographical information found. Yin-chin shih; Hucker 1985, 581.7978. Chin-tzu kuang-lu ta-fu; a prestige (san-kuan) title. Hucker 1985, 168.1159. Chien-chiao; Hucker 1985, 146.804.2. Ssu-k’ung; a title of great prestige. Hucker 1985, 457.5687. Chien; Hucker 1985, 145.785. Yü-shih ta-fu; Hucker 1985, 593.8181. Shang chu-kuo; Hucker 1985, 407.4990. K’ai-kuo hou; see Hucker 1985, 275.3107 and 275.3116. Lin-chin District (hsien) was in Ho-chung Prefecture ( fu). Chün; Hucker 1985, 200.1731.1, 2. Shih-i; Hucker 1985, 425.5258.

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Lamentation annunciation ritual for Sung envoys at the Liao court was unique in that it did not require gifts from them. When a Sung Lamentation Annunciation Envoy arrived at the Liao court, the Liao emperor donned white mourning garments and a white mourning cap, and the Liao oﬃcials wore black robes with black leathern sashes. The Sung envoy took up his missive, entered, and stood in the courtyard. A Liao audience oﬃcial came, received the missive, opened its seal, and gave it to a Liao Grand Councilor, who read it and wailed. Liao attendants then led the Sung envoy to his audience with the Liao emperor. The envoy knelt, prostrated himself, and arose. The Liao emperor inquired into the health of the current Sung emperor, and the envoy knelt and replied that his emperor was in good health when he (the envoy) had departed on his diplomatic journey. The envoy then arose and withdrew, and attendants led him back to the courtyard, where he bowed to the east. A Liao receptionist then introduced the Sung envoy to Liao ushers, and the envoy again made obeisances. The envoy then wished the Liao emperor good health, made more obeisances, and gave thanks for the hospitality, concern, and teas and medicines given during his journey and did obeisance. The ushers were then summoned to lead the envoy out, and gifts to him were announced. The attendants of the Sung embassy also made obeisances and wished the Liao emperor good health, and they too were given gifts. The Lamentation Annunciation Envoy and his attendants then bowed and gave thanks, and after a banquet for them was announced they made obeisances once again. They returned to their quarters when the banquet was concluded.107 Condolence letters The one extant condolence letter from a Sung emperor to a Liao emperor was sent by the Sung emperor Jen-tsung in 1031 to the newly enthroned Liao emperor Hsing-tsung,108 and it has a rather unique structure:

107 108

LS 50.842–43. Text in STCLC 228.883.

166 Ia III V

chapter four Introduction (4 4 8) 4 (plus two extra-rhythmic words: kung-wei ) 4 5 4 6 6 (p, each with a classical allusion) 4 4

No rhyme is present, but a progression of guttural alliterations (k k k xh) seems to broaden the sound, giving a mood of sorrow to the sentiments in the letter. The Liao emperor Hsing-tsung’s father, the Liao emperor Shengtsung, had recently passed away. With Sheng-tsung’s death, both emperors who had concluded the peace in 1005 were now gone. In this letter the ﬁctive kinship relation between the Sung emperor Jentsung and the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung is already determined: Jentsung had been nephew to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung, but with the death of Sheng-tsung, Jen-tsung was elevated to the status of elder brother vis-à-vis his younger brother, Hsing-tsung.109 The sentiment and condolences in this letter seem genuine; especially poignant are Jen-tsung’s exhortations to his ﬁctive younger brother to restrain his grief and carry on with his new responsibility of ruling and reigning over the Liao state. The letter contains allusions to passages in the Chinese classics dealing with father-son kingly succession and grieving for deceased parents. Recently thou hast deigned [to dispatch unto me] an ambassadorial carriage110 for special expression of an obituary announcement. Prostrate,111 I received [notiﬁcation that] the Chao-sheng112 Emperor had ascended [to the realm of ] the immortals. My respectful thoughts: what availeth it to detain and yearn [after him], to cry and choke [with sobs]? Commence thou, younger brother, to carry on [with] the exalted foundation [of thy father], [for now thou] art suddenly enwrapped in the many aﬀairs [of thy new reign]. I encourage [thee] to suppress the “confusions of [thy] loving heart”113 and to use the principle which

109

The Sung emperor Jen-tsung was, in fact, six years older than the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung. 110 Shih-ch’e or shih-chü, a synechdochical term for the Lamentation Annunciation Envoy and his embassy. 111 Not literally. 112 Chao-sheng was the tsun-hao of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung; LS 10.107. 113 Yin-hsin, an allusion to a passage in the Shih-ching, or Book of Songs (Ta-ya, King Wen, Huang I; Legge 4:451), about the ancient Western Chou ruler, King Chi, whose son King Wen succeeded him to the throne.

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accordeth with “conforming to changes.”114 [Our two states] have recently solidiﬁed elaboration and cultivation [of our peaceful relations], but [this]115 is [still] a deeply sorrowful connexion.

Sung Condolence and Immolation Envoys to Liao usually travelled together. Ritual for them at the Liao court was just as elaborate, if not more so, than it was for Liao envoys at the Sung court. After arriving and donning the white mourning garments and black sashes provided them by Kitan oﬃcials, the Condolence Envoy and his deputy took up their immolation text and were led in. The proceeded to ﬁxed positions in the courtyard while the Liao court oﬃcials wailed. A high-level Liao oﬃcial came and received the immolation text, opened its seal, placed it on an incense altar, and wailed. (There are no sources that reveal what gifts Sung Immolation and Condolence Envoys gave Liao.)116 The Condolence Envoy and his deputy were then led to positions with cushions, where they bowed and made obeisances. They presented incense, made obeisances, and withdrew. The Immolation Envoy then came forward, knelt, took up cups, and performed liquor libations. Some music was then performed, and the Immolation Envoy made obeisances and withdrew. Two Liao retainers then took up the immolation text, and the Immolation Envoy came forward, prostrated himself, read aloud from the text, and wailed. He and his deputy were then led back to their positions, where they wailed again. The immolation gifts were carried away, and the two envoys and their two deputies were then led to a sort of joint pseudo-audience with the late Liao emperor. At this audience they made obeisances and were then led out. Next, the Condolence Envoy and his deputy were led to an audience with the empress dowager, who wore mourning garments. A Liao oﬃcial received their missive, opened it, and read it aloud. The Condolence Envoy and his deputy then conveyed their condolences. The

114 Shun-pien. This is part of the larger conventional phrase chieh-ai shun-pien (“restrain your grief and conform to the changes [in your life without your parent(s)]”) and is ultimately an allusion to a line from the Li-chi (T’an-kung B): “Sang-li, ai-ch’i chih chih yeh; chieh-ai, shun-pien yeh” (“Funerary ritual is the epitome of mourning; restraint of grief is conforming to the changes [in your life without your parent(s)].” My translation; see also Legge/Chai 1967, I.167.) Its use here is particularly appropriate because the deceased Liao emperor, Sheng-tsung, was the father of the newlyenthroned Liao emperor Hsing-tsung. 115 I.e., the death of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. 116 Nieh 1940, 19.

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Immolation Envoy and his deputy were then led in, and the two envoys and their two deputies had a joint audience with the empress dowager. At this audience they bowed, made repeated obeisances, and wished her good health. They were then led to an audience with the Liao emperor, at which the ceremonial was, as the Liaoshih notes without elaboration, “the same as for the empress dowager.”117 At this audience the envoys expressed their thanks for the hospitality and accommodations. After these audiences they were feted to a banquet at their quarters.118 Personal eﬀects letters No personal eﬀects letters are preserved in the Sung Ta-chao-ling chi. One example of such a letter is, however, contained in the collected works of Fan Tsu-yü.119 This letter was sent by the Sung emperor Che-tsung in 1094 along with some of the personal eﬀects of the Sung grand empress dowager Kao, who had recently passed away. Its structure is as follows: I II III IIIa IV V

(4) (30) 4 4 (p) 6 6 (p) (86) (8) (6)

The few rhymes all appear in the parallel passages in III: OAOA. The rhymes are also alliterative. The letter contains the seemingly obligatory reference to the good relations between the two states. On this ﬁrst day of the tenth month, [thy] grand nephew, the Emperor of Great Sung, doth deferentially send [this] missive unto the palace of [his] great uncle, the Emperor of Great Liao, Sagaciously Cultured and Divinely Martial, Completely Meritorious and Greatly Foresighted, Astutely Benevolent and Perspicaciously Filial, and Succoured of Heaven: 117 It is likely that the Condolence and Immolation Envoys had their audiences with the empress dowager ﬁrst because she, as the aggrieved widow of the late emperor, had the greatest cause to be in mourning. 118 LS 50.841–42. 119 Fan Tsu-yü WYKSKCS 1100:334–35 (30, 40A–B). Partially cited in Nieh 1940, 15.

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The death of a parent such as [occurred] yesterday is bitterness in the extreme. I received my mother’s120 last instructions: Convey [her] eternal faith in our precious neighbourliness and hasten an embassy to proceed and present the [personal] eﬀects ritual. I now dispatch [unto thee] Lü T’ao (Auxiliary Academician121 of the Dragon Diagram Hall,122 Left Grand Master for Closing Court,123 Senior Military Protector,124 Dynasty-founding Viscount125 of Ho-tung District, and land-grant noble with an enfeoﬀment of ﬁve hundred households, and conferee of the crimson and gold ﬁsh pouch) and Hao Wei-li (Storehouse Commissioner126 of the Left Storehouse,127 concurrently Secretarial Receptionist,128 Senior Commandant-in-chief of Cavalry,129 Dynasty-founding Earl,130 of T’ai-yüan District, and land-grant noble with an enfeoﬀment of seven hundred households) to take up oﬃce as Personal Eﬀects Envoy and deputy [envoy] for the late grand empress dowager. Their gifts are listed on another document. [They] specially take [this] missive, and there shall be no second. Deferentially reported.

Enthronement annunciation letters Two enthronement annunciation letters are preserved, and both of them contain assurances that the new Sung emperor will respect and abide by the solemn oath of peace taken in 1005. In his enthronement annunciation letter to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in 1022, the newly enthroned Sung emperor Jen-tsung informed the Liao emperor and court that he took no delight in seeking pretexts for initiating conﬂict and that he would continue on with the grand design of his predecessor (the Sung emperor Chen-tsung) for maintaining peace and increasing the amicability between the two states.131 The newly enthroned Sung emperor Ying-tsung made similar assurances to Tao-tsung, the Liao emperor, in a letter written in 1063. Its structure: 120 The grand empress dowager Kao was, of course, actually the Sung emperor Che-tsung’s grandmother. 121 Chih-hsüeh shih; Hucker 1985, 158.996. 122 Lung-t’u ko; Hucker 1985, 325.3878. 123 Ch’ao-san Ta-fu; Hucker 1985, 119.334. 124 Shang hu-chün; Hucker 1985, 408.4999. 125 K’ai-kuo tzu; Hucker 1985, 275.3119. 126 K’u-shih; Hucker 1985, 282.3251. 127 Tso-tsang; Hucker 1985, 525.7006. 128 Ko-men t’ung-shih she-jen; Hucker 1985, 279.3181. 129 Shang-ch’i tu-wei; Hucker 1985, 406.4980. 130 K’ai-kuo po; Hucker 1985, 275.3118. 131 See the text of this letter in STCLC 228.882–83.

170 I II III IV IIIa V

chapter four (3) (20) 9 4 6 6 (p) 4 4 (p) 6 6 (p) 6 6 (p) 4 4 (p) 4 4 4 5 (6)

The announcement of the envoy seems misplaced (IIIa), coming after the gift announcement. The rhymes commence with III and obtain to the end: AAOBBAACACBBABB. In this enthronement annunciation letter the Sung emperor Ying-tsung states that he will continue with the Sung emperor Jen-tsung’s high regard for peace between the two states. (In fact, Ying-tsung seems to imply at one point that it was Liao that had taken steps toward initiating hostilities in the early 1040s during Jen-tsung’s reign.) Ying-tsung then states speciﬁcally that he will abide by the oath of peace taken by his predecessors:132 On [this] day of the fourth month, [thine] elder brother, the Emperor of Great Sung, doth send [this] missive unto the palace of [his] younger brother, the Emperor of the Great Kitan, Sagaciously Cultured, Divinely Martial, and Perspicaciously Filial: The late emperor133 profoundly cherished the generational amicability [between our two states] and did bless abundantly the lives of the people. [During his reign] the trend of putting away the sword134 had just begun to ﬂourish when suddenly a yearning for bugle and bow135 arose.136 The repeating cycle [of succession hath come upon me, a man of ] little virtue, and I have inherited his grand design [for ruling the empire]. Looking upward [to Heaven and the late emperor], I shall respect my receipt of his137 ﬁnal instructions; looking downward [to Earth and my subjects], I shall comply with the hopes of the popular sentiment [for peace]. I shall look after the eternal peace agreement and make known the former words of the “cinnabar oath.”138 I have just now grasped the governmental 132

Text in STCLC 230.891. The Sung emperor Ying-tsung’s successor, Emperor Jen-tsung. 134 Yen ko, to cease with or put at rest arms. 135 Hao-kung; i.e., armed conﬂict. 136 This is perhaps a reference to the dispute over the Kuan-nan territory in 1042, when it seemed for a time that Sung and Liao might once again go to war. 137 I.e., the Sung emperor Jen-tsung’s. 138 Tan-shih. This is an allusion to the letter sent by the Sung emperor Chentsung to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in 1004 during the preliminary contacts that culminated in the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005. In this letter Chen-tsung spoke of taking an oath in the clearest possible terms, and the term cinnabar (tan) was used ﬁguratively to signify absolute good faith without any possibility of doubt. The text of this letter is preserved in STCLC 228.882. 133

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machinery and shall increasingly cultivate our [inter-] state friendliness. There are [but] a few gifts [for thee], all [of which] are written on a separate document. I now dispatch a certain oﬃcial for the express purpose of taking [this] missive [unto thee], opening [it], and relating [its contents]. There shall be no second report [of mine accession].

The Liao-shih gives a fairly detailed and systematic account of how Sung’s Enthronement Annunciation and Personal Eﬀects Envoys, who travelled together, were received at the Liao court. The Liao court oﬃcials donned their court clothing at dawn and stood in formation. The Sung Personal Eﬀects Envoy and the Enthronement Annunciation Envoy and his deputy entered, with the Liao Deputy Hospitality Escort Commissioner leading the Sung Enthronement Annunciation Envoy. The Hospitality Escort Commissioner and the Deputy Personal Eﬀects Envoy then took up the missive, entered, and took up positions on felt mats. An attendant received the missive and placed it on a table. A Presentation Commissioner then supervised the arrangement of the personal eﬀects. Perhaps the items given the Liao after the death of Emperor Chen-tsung of Sung are representative of the types of personal eﬀects given as gifts by the Sung; they included gilded tortoise shell eating and drinking vessels, ivory, striated jades, bowls, cups made of amber and blue-green striated jade, tea vessels made of white and green jade, ﬁve sets of clothing, sashes decorated with jade pieces, gilded tortoise shell musical instruments, horses with gilded saddles and bridles studded with agates, whips, three thousand bolts of brocades and silks, imperial liquors, and ﬁne fruits.139 The Liao emperor then ascended to his throne, and after some elaborate obeisances by Liao court oﬃcials the Personal Eﬀects Envoy and his deputy entered and were led to their audience with the Liao emperor. They bowed, announced their names, wished the Liao emperor good health as in the ceremony for Lamentation Annunciation Envoys, and thanked him for the hospitality during their trip. The attendants of the Personal Eﬀects Envoy were then led in for a similar audience. Next, the Enthronement Annunciation Envoy and his deputy were led in with their missive. A Liao oﬃcial received the missive, and another Liao oﬃcial read it aloud. The enthronement annunciation gifts were then displayed. (These gifts were gold

139

Nieh 1940, 20.

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vessels and sets of clothing.)140 Attendants then led the Enthronement Annunciation Envoy and his deputy to their audience with the Liao emperor. They bowed and thanked him for the hospitality during their trip, as in the ceremony for the Personal Eﬀects Envoy. Gifts were announced for the Personal Eﬀects and Enthronement Annunciation Envoys, their deputies, and their attendants as in the ceremonial for the Lamentation Annunciation Envoys. The emperor commented on their long and arduous journey, and after more tiresomely elaborate ceremonial in which the emperor was wished a long life, the Sung envoys were ﬁnally led out and the tedious proceedings were brought to a close.141 Enthronement felicitation letters The one extant enthronement felicitation letter from a Sung emperor to a Liao emperor was sent by the Sung emperor Jen-tsung to the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung in 1031 or 1032.142 Its structure: Ia III IIIa V

6 4 6 6 4 4 (p) 4 (3)

Sections IIIa and V, while not grammatically parallel, are characteristic of what Hightower calls “formal parallelism” in that they are balanced but do not correspond in grammatical categories.143 The Sung emperor Jen-tsung seems to want to emphasise that the new Liao emperor has attained custody of the “grand design” ( p’i-t’u) of his father and predecessor, the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. He then expresses his hope that the two of them can stay on the course of peaceful relations established by their fathers, the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. Jen-tsung is undoubtedly conscious that he and the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung are now the new generation of emperors who must fulﬁll their duties of ﬁlial piety towards their late fathers by continuing on with their wishes 140 141 142 143

Nieh 1940, 19. LS 50.843–44. Text in STCLC 228.883. Hightower 1966, 63.

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and undertakings. This consciousness is reﬂected by the allusion in the letter to a passage in the Chung-yung: I recently received of [thy] servants ﬁnal instructions [of thy predecessor].144 The fostering of his grand design [for ruling thy state] is [now] passed on [to thee]. [Let us] attain unto joint adherence by the former course [of our predecessors] and further the continuous cultivation of eternal friendship [between our two states]. At a distance I have heard of [thy] “skilful carrying out,”145 but I [still] miss [thy predecessor] fondly and deeply. I [now] specially dispatch [unto thee] an ambassadorial carriage as an extension of [good] faith and respect.146

Conclusion To some extent, these letters were “empty stylistic exercises,” and perhaps their composers were indeed hard-pressed to “say nothing in wellphrased and polite words.”147 Formulae and conventions in them are easily seen. But they were not entirely devoid of content or poignancy, as some of the translations in this chapter have shown. Nor were they drawn up for purely sentimental or commemorative reasons. The letters served very real and practical political purposes because they were reminders and reinforcers of the formal diplomatic parity between the two states. Almost without exception, the Sung letters to Liao preserved in the Sung Ta-chao-ling Chi are addressed to the “emperors” (huang-ti ) or “empress dowagers” (t’ai-hou) of Liao, usually in conjunction with grandiose imperial titles. Such forms of epistolary address were not used in Sung’s correspondence with any other state, and this is one strong indication that Sung, far from recognising an entire international community of equally sovereign and independent states in East Asia, reserved only for Liao a unique formal status as an equal in oﬃcial correspondence148 and continued to insist on addressing other states in lesser terms. 144

I.e., the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung, Hsing-tsung’s father. Shan-chi, an eﬀective and appropriate allusion to Chung-yung 19.2. Its context is the following sentence: “Now ﬁlial piety is the skilful carrying out of the wishes of our forefathers, and the skilful carrying forward of their undertakings.” (Legge, trans., I.402) 146 P’ing, which means to pay respect by sending an envoy. 147 Franke 1983, 121. 148 In writings not meant for external consumption, however, many Sung oﬃcials continued to use language that connoted Liao inferiority or even submission to Sung. On this, see Wang Gungwu 1983. 145

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The kinship relations in the letters served as vehicles or metaphors for maintaining the commitment to peace between the two states reached with the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005. The implications of the brotherly relations established between the Sung emperor Chen-tsung and the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung in 1005 were taken very seriously by Sung and Liao, and for over a hundred years the two states scrupulously followed through with the logic of these pseudo-familial relations as they changed with the deaths of their rulers. Every year there were invariably at least two diplomatic documents (birthday and new year missives) that conveyed in their very ﬁrst sentences the current kinship relations between the Sung and Liao emperors. These reaﬃrmed the pseudo-familial relations between the two rulers and helped to reduce the possibility of military conﬂict between their states. The letters delivered on a more irregular basis every few years by the occasional embassies seem to have made even more explicit mention of the amicability between the two states and the desirability of maintaining peaceful relations. Sung’s diplomatic missives to Liao had a deﬁnite political function to perform, and this was a functionality of form as well as content.

CHAPTER FIVE

EMBASSY REPORTS1

Each Sung envoy dispatched to Liao (and later to Jurchen Chin) was required upon his return to submit an yü-lu (literally “conversation transcript”) or embassy report on his diplomatic conversations and activities with Liao hosts and oﬃcials.2 (A similar requirement was imposed on diplomats who returned to their home states in late ﬁfteenth-century Renaissance Italy.3) Sung embassy reports typically described government, demography, popular customs, cities, and historical geography. 4 They were actually written by the envoy’s Interpreter-clerk,5 who was one of the members of his retinue. The Interpreter-clerk recorded the relevant comments and observations of the envoy, and the transcript as prepared by the Interpreter-clerk was presented as a memorial in the envoy’s name.6 The reports were stored in the Diplomacy Oﬃce,7 and they later became the basic model or prototype for the embassy reports of Southern Sung diplomatic missions to Jurchen Chin, six of which are extant today.8 Yü-lu texts were common during the Sung dynasty, when disciples having discussions with a Neo-Confucian master would either record their exchanges with him on the spot or recall and record them shortly thereafter. Originally intended as aides-memoire, these texts 1

This chapter is a revised and expanded version of pages 1–19 of Wright 1998A, which contains complete annotated translations of ﬁve of these embassy reports. 2 Fu 1984, 1–28 is a study of some of the extant embassy reports. 3 Mattingly 1955, 43. 4 Southern Sung embassy reports seem to have covered historical geography more than Northern Sung ones did. This is perhaps because of the greater distance in time and space between Southern Sung society and northern China. 5 I-yü tien-shih; by analogy to Hucker 1985, 271.3041. 6 Fu 1984, 4. 7 Kuo-hsin ssu; Hucker 1985, 298.3517; Fu 1984, 25. 8 The six extant Southern Sung embassy reports, some of which have been translated into French, are listed in Franke 1983, 172. Of them, Lou Yüeh’s Pei-hsing Jih-lu (an account of his mission to Chin in late 1169 and early 1170) has been the subject of a substantive English-language study (Walton 2002). That Walton does not consider even brieﬂy the Northern Sung precedents for Southern Sung embassy reports is somewhat surprising, as is her incorrect referencing and bibliographic entry of my monograph on the subject (Wright 1998A).

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eventually became a conventional literary form in their own right and were edited into collections for posterity. The ideas and teachings of many of Sung’s foremost thinkers, including Chang Tsai (1020–1077), the brothers Ch’eng I (1032–1107) and Ch’eng Hao (1032–1085), Lu Hsiang-shan (1139–1193), and Chu Hsi himself (1130–1200), were largely transmitted to later centuries through yü-lu. Yü-lu had existed prior to Sung times; indeed, in some sense the original texts of the Analects of Confucius, as recorded and edited by the Sage’s ﬁrst- and second-generation disciples, may be thought of as yü-lu. Beginning in the mid-tenth century, Ch’an Buddhists wrote yü-lu on a diverse variety of subjects, including dialogues with Ch’an masters, kòans, and homilies.9 The term yü-lu was ﬁrst applied to embassy reports sometime during the 1020s by scholar-oﬃcials who wrote or referred to them.10 Travel literature ﬁrst became popular as a mode of literary expression during the Sung period. Shen Kua (1031–1095) even authored a sort of handbook or manual on the proper equipment and supplies to take along on a long journey. The subject of travel ﬁgured prominently in Sung poetry, and Sung travellers often kept travel diaries in which they recorded, among other things, the local textures and rhythms of quotidian existence they encountered during their journeys. Sung travel diarists typically described the travel itself, the various types of geography along their routes, and recorded their subjective opinions and interpretations, both complimentary and critical, on what they encountered and observed.11 Sung travel literature can be divided into three broad categories: day trip essays, river diaries of trips taken along the courses of rivers, and embassy accounts or embassy reports, which are the subject of this chapter. Southern Sung embassy reports have for some reason received much more scholarly attention than Northern Sung ones,12 although the texts of several important Northern Sung reports of embassies to Liao are extant. While Sung embassy reports can in some sense be considered a genre of travel writing, because “These highly factual accounts served

9

Gardner 1991, 574–75 and nn. Fu 1984, 3–4. 11 Hargett 1985, 70–72. 12 See, for example, the coverage of scholarship on Southern Sung reports in Hargett 1985, 78–85 and Hargett 1989, 52–58 (and passim on Fan Ch’eng-ta). 10

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to disseminate intelligence about hostile neighbors as well as to document the changes that had taken place in former Chinese territories,” they seem better classiﬁed as political and administrative documents. Lengthy travel diaries (as opposed to oﬃcial embassy reports) by such notables as Ou-yang Hsiu occasionally appeared during Northern Sung times, but they consisted of brief, laconic entries with little literary value. The notable travel diaries with more subjective description and literary merit that began appearing during Southern Sung times “went beyond the skeletal documentation . . . of the embassy diaries [yü-lu]13 and have been studied extensively.14 Sung embassy reports quickly proliferated, and it seems that returning envoys, viewing the submission of them as a more or less pro forma requirement, soon began writing them in a perfunctory manner. Regrettably, not much importance was attached to these reports, and for this reason not many of them were preserved.15 Most of the extant embassy reports date to the reign of the Sung emperor Chentsung (r. A.D. 997–1022), and it is likely that these reports from this early period were preserved because they contained information on Liao not previously available to Sung; subsequent embassy reports containing much duplication of this information were probably deemed unworthy of serious preservation eﬀorts. Fu Le-huan has located references in various Northern Sung materials to fourteen speciﬁc embassy reports.16 Of these, the texts (or textual fragments) of only six17 are extant today: the reports of Wang Tseng, Hsüeh Ying, and Sung Shou, who were Birthday Felicitation Envoys dispatched to the Kitan emperor Sheng-tsung in 1012, 1016, and 1020 respectively; the Ch’eng-yao Lu by Lu Chen, a Sung Birthday Felicitation envoy sent to Sheng-tsung in 1008; the Shih-Liao Yü-lu by Ch’en Hsiang, an Enthronement Annunciation Envoy dispatched in 1067; and the Hsi-ning Shih-lu T’u-ch’ao by Shen Kua, a Sung

13

Strassberg 1994, 48–49. Strassberg 1994 contains over a hundred pages of translation, annotation, and introductory material on several Sung travellers. See also Hargett 1985 and 1989 on the Southern Sung traveller Fan Ch’eng-ta and Walton 2002 on Lou Yüeh’s diplomatic journey to Jurchen Chin in 1169 and 1170. 15 Fu 1984, 2. 16 Fu 1984, 4–7. 17 An embassy report by Chang Shun-min appears in CTKC 25.240–42, but it dates to the period prior to the formalisation of Sung-Liao diplomacy in 1005. 14

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envoy who travelled to Liao in the 1070s to negotiate the Ho-tung border dispute.18 The ﬁrst three of these reports have long been known to Chinese historians19 and in the late nineteenth century were published in French translation by Édouard Chavannes.20 It seems unnecessary to dwell at length here on Chavannes’s errors in his translations of these reports, but it should be noted that Fu Le-huan, perhaps during a bout with dyspepsia, pointed with discernible schadenfreude to the most egregious of Chavannes’s errors: Chavannes had misunderstood, and accordingly mistranslated, the titles or headings of the embassy reports. The heading of Wang Tseng’s report was Wang I-kung shang Ch’i-tan shih. Chavannes apparently did not know that the term I-kung here was an abbreviation of the title of nobility Ikuo-kung, because he translated the heading of the embassy report as “Relation du Voyage de l’Honourable Wang I.”21 He made a similar mistake with the heading of Fu Pi’s report, Fu Cheng-kung Hsing-ch’eng lu; not knowing that Cheng-kung was an abbreviation of the title of nobility Cheng-kuo-kung, his translation was “Récit du Voyage de l’Honourable Fu Tcheng.”22 Chavannes further did not know that “l’Honourable Wang I” was Wang Tseng or that “l’Honourable Fu Tcheng” referred to Fu Pi. From this, Fu Le-huan concluded, can be seen the limitations of Western Sinology.23 In Chavannes’s defence it should be observed that he was working with an unpunctuated and somewhat defective text.24 Chavannes’s translations of these embassy reports do contain a number of minor ﬂaws, but they are still useful for Western students of Sung-Liao diplomacy and contain several careful and informative footnotes on the geography of the routes followed by the envoys. Chavannes was a competent translator, and Fernand Farjenel’s claim that his translations were “inaccurate

18 On this dispute see Tietze 1979, Lamouroux 1997, and T’ao 2001. Chia 1984 is a punctuated and annotated study of Shen Kua’s embassy report, which is largely a description of the geography along his route. Shen Kua’s embassy report itself remains untranslated. 19 Fu 1984, 11–15 establishes that the present textual fragments of these three embassy reports were drawn from a single source (now lost): the Ch’i-tan chuan of the San-ch’ao Kuo-shih. 20 Chavannes 1897, 377–442. 21 Chavannes 1897, 413. 22 Chavannes 1897, 431. 23 Fu 1984, 9–11. 24 WHTK 346.

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in every line when not in every word”25 is certainly an intemperate exaggeration. Chavannes can probably be considered the ﬁrst modern Sinologue; his work has stood modern scrutiny remarkably well, a fact made all the more amazing by his death at a young age.26

Characteristics and Contents of the Embassy Reports The embassy reports were essentially intelligence briefs or summaries containing political, military, geographical, and demographic information potentially useful to the Sung court. Typical items of information included troop encampments, distances between speciﬁc points, the locations and features of mountain passes, areas of predominantly non-Kitan population, and places where the Liao emperor was known to have travelled or wintered. Almost all of the embassy reports take pains to give the distances between the hostels at which they lodged during their travels. Such information on routes and distances would certainly have been quite valuable to any invading army. The intelligential value of these embassy reports has been somewhat underappreciated. Such information would of course have been very useful to invading Sung armies if Sung ever decided to contravene the terms of the Covenant of Shan-yüan and revive its revanchist agenda against the territory of its northern neighbour. Among Western scholars of this period and topic, James M. Hargett has perhaps the best perception of the potential military value of the embassy reports. His analysis of Southern Sung embassy reports about diplomatic missions to Jurchen Chin is squarely on target: . . . the large preponderance of objective description in these works can be explained by the fact that the main purpose of the embassy diary was to provide ﬁrst-hand and detailed reports on what was observed in the territory of the Jin [Chin]. This information served at least two purposes. First, it provided reliable and up-to-date intelligence information on the locations of Jin [Chin] military fortiﬁcations and (occasionally) their troop movements, on road conditions, on the position of key bridges, and on the precise distance between cities and towns. Such data would obviously have been of great value to the Song [Sung] if it had later mounted a military campaign to reclaim the North (as it turned out, this never happened). Of course, the Jin [Chin] were 25 26

As quoted in Hopkirk 1984, 187. Denis Twitchett, personal correspondence, 9 December 1991.

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chapter five aware that Song [Sung] envoys were gathering intelligence information, and as a result, at times made them travel by night in order to restrict their observations.27

Lu Chen, who travelled to Liao in 1009, gives information that would be of great value to the Sung military in both oﬀensive and defensive operations: Every time [the caitiﬀs] wish to nomadize southward, they all amass at Yu-chou. There are four roads: the ﬁrst is called Yü Pass Road, the second is called Sung-t’ing Road, the third is called Hu-pei Pass Road, and the fourth is called Shih-men Pass Road. Yü Pass is a hundred or so li north of Chi-chou; Sung-t’ing Pass is two hundred sixty li east of Yu-chou; Hu-pei Pass is three hundred li [north of Yu-chou]; and the Shih-men Pass is one hundred eighty li west of Yu-chou. In their strategic value and natural separation [these passes] are all similar to Hu-pei Pass. Anciently they were all locations of strategic points for controlling and restraining the Hsi caitiﬀs. Thirty or so li east of Hu-pei Pass is Hsi Pass. Hsi troops enter to the south mostly through this pass. Its mountain road is treacherous and narrow and will admit of only single horsemen [in single ﬁle]. The aﬀairs pertaining to Yü Pass Road were spoken of by Li Chih, the Prefect of Cho-chou. The [roads of ] Sung-t’ing Pass, Shih-men Pass, and other roads were spoken of by Niu Jung, the Host for Visitors of Yu-chou.28

The unabridged versions of the reports also often contained anecdotes for bolstering the self-esteem and conﬁdence of the ethnic Chinese and the Sung state, often at the expense of the Kitan people, the Liao state, or both. There are also occasional passages indicating the apparent obsequiousness and self-serving interests of the Sung envoys. A good portion of what we know about the diplomatic ritual for Sung envoys travelling in Liao territory comes from these embassy reports. Some passages in the reports also seem to reﬂect a measure of genuine curiosity, or at least amused condescension, towards Kitan and other non-Chinese customs.29 Other topics and

27

Hargett 1985, 84–85; see also Hargett 1989, 57. The Chin precautions against Sung envoys’ intelligence gathering eﬀorts spoken of in the last sentence of this quote passage are interesting. I know of no similar Liao requirements that Northern Sung envoys travel at night in order to restrict their observations or intelligence gathering activities. 28 CYL(L), 10A–10B; Wright 1998A, 44–45. 29 This of course depended in part on the personality and disposition of the diplomat. The Southern Sung envoy Lou Yüeh seems to have had a more objective stance when it came to speciﬁc northern customs: “. . . in his descriptions of northern

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observations covered in Northern Sung and Southern Sung embassy reports included food, clothing, eating habits, architecture, city layouts, Buddhism, wildlife, health conditions, and even a canine sacriﬁcial ceremony, among many others. There seems to have been no set formula or format for writing them up. All of this of course makes the reports valuable sources for historians.30 In short, an ambassador spoke with diﬀerent voices in his embassy report as “reporter, ethnographer, and spy.”31 Some of the embassy reports contain revanchist passages and blatant propaganda.32 Lu Chen would have his readers know that the Chinese subjects of the Liao city of Yen (also known as Yu-chou) were bitterly disappointed when the Sung emperor T’ai-tsung previously approached the city during a military campaign but withdrew without making serious attempts to capture it. According to Lu Chen, the disheartened elders of the city stroked their sons and said to them, “You will not be Chinese subjects.33 This is your fate.”34 Lu Chen presents the following anecdote as proof that the people of Yen still longed to be subjects of Sung: Recently some border residents who long ago were abducted by the caitiﬀs [have ﬂed back to Sung territory]. When during their ﬂights they arrived at Yen, the [ethnic Chinese] people [of Yen] raised money

customs, Lou seems to adopt the stance of the ethnographer, writing in the uninﬂected tone of an objective observer and recording what he sees without overtly projecting his own cultural values.” (Walton 2002, 27) 30 Hargett 1985, 83; see also Hargett 1989, 56. 31 Walton 2002, 3, 20, 27, 35. 32 Of course, revanchist, irredentist, and propagandist tonality varied with each diplomat. Linda Walton has shown that while some Southern Sung envoys to Jurchen Chin such as Hsin Ch’i-chi and Fan Ch’eng-ta were stridently irredentist in their embassy reports, Lou Yüeh was more moderate and frankly pragmatic in his. (Walton 2002, 33–34) 33 That is, subjects of Sung, a native Chinese dynasty. 34 CYL(L), 5B–6A; Wright 1998A, 33–34. The Chinese residents of Yen had, according to Lu Chen and his informant, Liu Pin, schemed to capture the defending general of the city and turn him over to the invading Sung armies. Lou Yüeh’s embassy report of his mission to Chin in 1169 and 1170 contains a similar passage about Chin subjects longing for Sung rule: On the return trip, about halfway between Zhongdu [Chung-tu] and Kaifeng, the delegation encountered an old woman who pointed at them and said: “These are our great Song [Sung] men. People like me are only able to see this once. I can [now] die with a willing heart.” Having said this, “she wept silent tears” (hsia [sic], 7a). This dramatic encounter as retold by Lou likely is a cliché of the genre and times, since similar passages can be found in the other diaries, but it is no less true or accurate for being so. (Walton 2002, 24)

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chapter five [for them] and gave them guidance for entering into Chinese35 territory. [These people of Yen] said [to them], “Be on your way. In a future year when the emperor of the Southern Court36 comes to recover Yu-chou, take care to do us, the sons of Han,37 no harm.” The longings in the hearts of the people of Yen and Chi are such as these.38

A note appended by the Northern Sung scholar Ch’ao Po-yü to the end of an abbreviated text of Lu Chen’s embassy report39 makes such revanchism even more explicit: Note: On this year [Lu] Chen received orders to serve as a Birthday Felicitation Envoy to the state sovereign of the Kitans, so his record was like this. Today the Kitans have changed the name of their state to Great Liao, and they have no ﬁxed places for seeing Sung envoys. Not all [audiences with Sung envoys take place] at the Central Capital. All to the south of Hu-pei-k’ou is the ancient territory of the Han and T’ang [dynasties], and I have reproduce it here in order to provide a study for a future day when the Liao people return to us the Yu[-chou] and Chi[-chou] lands. [Note] written by [Ch’ao] Po-yü on the jen-hsü or third day of the eighth month of the ﬁfth or ping-hsü cyclical year of the Ch’ung-ning reign period . . .40

Some of the embassy reports by Northern Sung envoys contain fairly extensive information and commentary on the geography and living conditions they observed along their routes. These accounts of what was once the territory of a united China were perhaps as interesting and compelling to readers in the Northern Sung government (and later the Southern Sung government) as occasional reports by privileged travellers who were allowed into mainland China were to Western China watchers in Hong Kong and Nationalist government oﬃcials in Taiwan during the madness of the Mao years and the Cold War. Again, James L. Hargett’s comments about reports of Southern Sung embassies to Chin are insightful: Another reason which may help to explain why the embassy diaries are so overwhelmingly descriptive is that people living in the Chinesecontrolled areas south of the Huai River were probably eager to read ﬁrst-hand accounts of what conditions were like in the North. This

35 36 37 38 39 40

I.e., Sung. I.e., Sung China. I.e., ethnic Chinese. CYL(L), 6A; Wright 1998A, 34. CYL(S), 4B–5A; Wright 1998A, 28. A.D. 1106.

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was because many of them likely had relatives still living there. We should also note that envoys and other embassy personnel chosen to participate in missions to the Jin [Chin] capital, for obvious reasons, also had a great interest in reading the accounts of former envoys.41

The embassy reports, which were meant for internal Sung consumption, did not usually refer to the Liao monarch as “emperor” (huang-ti ); he was simply called the Liao’s “state sovereign” (kuo-chu) or even the “caitiﬀ sovereign” (lu-chu).

Extant Embassy Reports Lu Chen By far the most valuable and informative of the extant embassy reports is the Ch’eng-yao lu42 by Lu Chen (957–1014).43 It is essentially a lengthy and circumstantial intelligence report on his observations of the demographic, military, political, geographical, and economic particulars of the Liao state. Almost all of the information Lu Chen presents seems to have at least some potential value for planning and mounting an eventual assault on Liao. Lu Chen gives detailed descriptions of the cities of Yu-chou and the Central Capital (Chung-ching), where he had his audience with the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung. His description of Yu-chou44 includes the approximate circumferences of its outer and inner city walls and the names and locations of its gates. He describes the precincts of the city, comments on the attire of its residents, and names the eight armies of ethnic Chinese troops stationed within its walls. His description of the Central Capital45 also includes a rough outline of its administration and the approximate circumferences of the outer and inner city walls and the names and locations of the gates. He also gives the heights of the inner and outer city walls and the locations of lookout towers and notes the distances between these towers. He 41

Hargett 1985, 85; see also Hargett 1989, 57. A comparison of the short and long versions of Lu Chen’s embassy reports may aﬀord some idea of what material in the original embassy reports was regarded as less important. 43 Biography SS 441.13060–62. 44 CYL(L), 4B–5A; Wright 1998A, 31–32. 45 CYL(L), 4B–5A; Wright 1998A, 34–34, 41–44. 42

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describes the two palaces in the city and gives the locations and appearances of their doors, then notes that the living quarters of the Kitans are not these palaces but the simple rounded felt tents behind them. Lu Chen gives the distances from the Central Capital southward to Yu-chou and to Hsiung-chou on the Pai-kou River (the boundary between the two states), eastward to the Eastern Capital and the Jurchen and Korean territories, northward to Liao-hai and the Supreme Capital, and westward to Hei-shan. He comments on the geographical, political, and military particulars of all these areas46 and is careful to attribute his information to speciﬁc individuals who would presumably be regarded as reliable sources of information by the Sung court. His careful descriptions of Liao cities are similar to the Southern Sung envoy Lou Yüeh’s descriptions of Kaifeng, which he visited in 1170.47 Lu Chen describes the military establishment of the Liao state48 and names its armies and their commanders. He then gives information that would be useful for defensive posturing: the names and locations of four passes that the Kitans must use in “nomadising” (presumably attacking) southward. Anciently these passes were, he notes, strategic locations for controlling the Hsi. Lu Chen seems to think, or at least to want to convey the impression, that the Kitan military is in disarray and low morale; this he attributes to the death of the valiant Kitan commander Hsiao Ta-lin during the Sung-Liao war of 1004–1005. Lu Chen takes careful and detailed note of the birthday and new year ritual at his audiences with the Liao emperor and empress 46

Some of this information might have been deemed useful for sustaining a Sung army on campaign: the land ﬁve hundred li east of the Central Capital produces trees, hemp, and seashell brocade; the land at Liao-hai is always cold, and furs must be worn; one hundred li northeast of the Central Capital is a duck pond; one hundred li west of the Supreme Capital is a salt pond; north of the Supreme Capital are two small states that produce sable furs. Other information might have been of political and military value: the inhabitants of Liao-hai are “brave and pugnacious” (and thus possibly hostile to Liao rule?); during the minor heat the Kitan rulers depart for Liang Palace, and during the major heat they leave for Hsing-t’ou, along with their oﬃcial retinues, tribesmen, and families; the southern and northern kings of the Yeh-lü clan each command ten thousand archers and are “unpredictable and recalcitrant” (and thus possibly hostile to Liao rule and friendly to an invading Sung force?). Lou Yüeh’s embassy report for his diplomatic mission to Chin in Southern Sung times also contains information on the relative wealth of diﬀerent areas under Jurchen rule. (Walton 2002, 23) 47 Hargett 1985, 82; Hargett 1989, 55. 48 CYL(L), 10A–B; Wright 1998A, 44–46.

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dowager.49 This may well have been because he and the Sung court were, at this early date, interested in the extent to which these rituals parallelled those at the Sung court for similar audiences with Liao envoys.50 (It may also have been that “political hierarchies displayed in court ceremonies could provide valuable information,” as Linda Walton observes of a Southern Sung envoy’s embassy report on his mission to Jurchen Chin.51) His comments on the archery contests are surprisingly brief; he simply notes that there were some newlytransplanted trees in the garden where the archery contest was held.52 Lu Chen’s embassy report is not completely objective or factual; it contains several subjective passages obviously written for the purpose of increasing the self-esteem and conﬁdence of his Sung compatriots and portraying the Liao state and administration in a negative light. He claims that during a trip to Mt. T’ai by the Sung emperor Chen-tsung in 1009, the Kitans were terriﬁed that this was actually a campaign against them.53 His description of the Liao administration in Yu and Chi is trenchant: The caitiﬀ government is very harsh, and [the people of ] Yu and Chi abhor it. The land tax designated for mulberry tree [plots] is several times that of the Central Kingdom. [Even during times of ] natural disasters such as ﬂoods, droughts, or insect infestations, there is no reduction or elimination [of the taxes]. Under these conditions, ten men from an agriculturalist family hoeing together still cannot provide

49 The birthday of the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung was the twenty-eighth (some materials say twenty-seventh) day of the twelfth month and thus very close to the New Year. During his reign the Sung New Year and Birthday Felicitation Envoys were dispatched concurrently. 50 Lu Chen’s observations on the Liao court rituals are in CYL(L), 7A–B; see also Wright 1998A, 36–38. 51 Walton 2002, 19–20. 52 CYL(L), 8B–9A; Wright 1998A, 40. Archery contests (she-kung) were important events in Southern Sung diplomatic intercourse with Chin, but the relative scarcity of detailed descriptions of the contests in Northern Sung materials (they are mentioned brieﬂy and parenthetically by Lu Chen and Ch’en Hsiang) suggests that they may not have been as important in diplomacy between Northern Sung and Liao. Herbert Franke bases the following description of an archery contest on the embassy report submitted by Hsü K’ang-tsung, an envoy sent to Chin in 1125: A traditional part of the court rituals were the shooting contests, a friendly and sportive occasion where wine was served as a matter of course. After the contests, the envoys were given embroidered garments and saddled horses as presents. The whole ceremony was more or less public; princes of the imperial clan and high oﬃcials mingled with the crowd and watched the shooting. (Franke 1983, 130) 53 CYL(L), 5A–B; Wright 1998A, 32.

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chapter five reﬁned and unmixed food for the elderly, and ten diligent sericulturalist spinning women together still cannot provide padded silken clothing for the elderly. In tax collection and in conscription, [the Kitan government] is more pressing than plunderers and robbers. What is more, the Yeh-lü, Hsiao, and Han clans are debauched and tyrannical. They periodically seek out the children of good families as wives and concubines. The parents of beautiful girls in Yu and Chi do not allow [their daughters] to apply their white powder;54 instead, they clothe them shabbily and hide them away. [After] they marry they do not [again] associate with their close relations.55

Lu Chen is also not above passing on political gossip and rumours, especially when they contain titillating whiﬀs of sexual scandal and impropriety within the Kitan ruling class. Lu Chen relates the following verison of the parentage of Yeh-lü Lung-hsü, the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung: When the Hsiao empress [dowager] was young she was betrothed to Han, who is Han Te-jang. [This betrothal] had been in eﬀect for a long time when the Yeh-lü [emperor]56 requested a woman of the Hsiao clan. The Hsiao clan stole Han [Te-jang]’s wife and oﬀered her [to the Yeh-lü emperor]. Lung-hsü was born [of this union] and is today the lord of the caitiﬀs. When the Yeh-lü emperor died, Lunghsü inherited the throne of the caitiﬀs while still young. The Hsiao empress [dowager] was [thus] widowed at an early age. Han [Te-jang] had for generations taken charge of military administration, and [military] authority was in his hands. Fearing that [this situation] would be disadvantageous to [her] child,57 [the empress dowager] said privately to [Han] Te-jang, “I was once betrothed to you. I would that we made harmonious our former amicability. [If we do this,] then the young lord who rules the state will be your son also.” Henceforth [Han] Te-jang entered and exited [her] personal quarters as he pleased. Following this, the wife of [Han] Te-jang, née Li, was killed with poisonous liquor. Every time [the empress dowager] went out to hunt, [she] always abode with [Han] Te-jang in the same rounded tent. Before long the Prince of Ch’u was born [of this union]; he is the son of Han [Te-jang]. [The] Hsiao [empress dowager] and [Han] Tejang love him deeply and have bequeathed on him the [imperial] surname of the Yeh-lü clan.58 54

I.e., makeup. CYL(L), 5B; Wright 1998A, 33. Lou Yüeh’s embassy report of his diplomatic mission to Chin in 1169 and early 1170 makes similar claims about the harshness and tyranny of Jurchen rule. (Walton 2002, 22, 24–26) 56 That is, Emperor Ching-tsung, r. A.D. 968–983. 57 That is, Yeh-lü Lung-hsü. 58 CYL(L), 4A–B; Wright 1998A, 30. 55

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Wang Tseng In 1012 Wang Tseng (978–1038)59 was sent as a Birthday Felicitation Envoy to the Kitan emperor and was accompanied by Li Shih-lung, the New Year Felicitation Envoy. The embassy report60 as it now stands is not his original report; pertinent sections of it (and also of the embassy reports of Hsüeh Ying and Sung Shou) were extracted and copied into the Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien, the Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih, and the Liao-shih. Wang Tseng’s destination was the Central Capital, where his audience at the Liao court took place. Wang gives a detailed description of Yu-chou, including its inner wall and the two palaces within it. He gives the names of the gates and the names and locations of the temples, including one erected during the reign of the T’ang emperor T’ai-tsung. He carefully describes the topography and terrain along his route, noting the locations and names of marshes, mountain ranges, and rivers. Like most of the Sung envoys who submitted embassy reports, he notes where the Kitan emperor is known to have wintered or hunted. He pays special attention to the terrain around the Ku-pei Pass and observes that there are cliﬀs on both sides of his route at this point, with a road in the middle wide enough to accommodate only the length of one waggon axle. He notes that at the north of Ku-pei Pass are military barracks where weapons are stored and makes observations about the historical strategic value of the pass. He records the areas of Pohai and Hsi population and notes that they are skilled at iron smelting. He also describes their dwellings and some of their customs. Wang Tseng may well have been the ﬁrst Sung envoy to travel to the Central Capital. Its city walls, he notes, are low and small and only about four li in circumference. He names the gates and towers of the city, describes its streets, and notes the locations of some of its temples. Wang is unable to resist recording his put-down of his Liao escort, one Hsing Hsiang, who boasted of how the Liao emperor gave “iron tablets” (t’ieh-chüan)61 to his close and capable ministers. Wang Tseng

59

Biography SS 310.10182–86. The text is found in CTKC 24.230–32. 61 In some periods of Chinese history, iron tablets were given by the emperor to especially meritorious or powerful oﬃcials. They were shaped like ceramic tiles and were inscribed with the meritorious deeds and numbers of legal indulgences conferred upon their bearers. 60

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humbled him by saying, “Iron tablets [appear] during periods of [dynastic] decline to patronise powerful oﬃcials and are used to mollify [them in their] wavering loyalties. What way is this to treat [the emperor’s] close and capable oﬃcials?” Hsing Hsiang was, Wang Tseng would have us believe, ashamed upon hearing this and did not speak again.62 Hsüeh Ying The embassy headed by Hsüeh Ying63 travelled to the Supreme Capital in 1016. There were two delegations in this embassy: Hsüeh Ying and his deputy, Liu Ch’eng-tsung, who were Birthday Felicitation Envoys sent to the Liao emperor Sheng-tsung; Chang Shih-sun and his deputy, Wang Ch’eng-te, were the New Year Felicitation Envoys. Brief excerpts from Hsüeh Ying’s embassy report64 were later copied into the Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien, Wen-hsien T’ung-k’ao, and Liao-shih. An excerpted account with virtually identical contents is recorded in the Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih as the embassy report of Fu Pi (1004–1083). Fu Le-huan has shown that these two accounts are one and the same and that Hsüeh Ying is the author of the embassy report; the Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih’s attribution of the authorship of the original report to Fu Pi is incorrect.65 His conclusions are now fully accepted, as indicated by the following note in the 1985 edition of the Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih:66 Note: This is the text of the embassy report submitted by Hsüeh Ying and Chang Shih-sun [following their travels] as envoys to Liao. Although Fu Pi did serve as an envoy to Liao on several occasions, [these] were all during the reign of Emperor Jen-tsung.67 The ﬁrst monograph in the geographical section of the Liao-shih states that his travel account68 was recorded by Hsüeh Ying, and this is correct. Its designation here69 as being written by [Fu] Pi is truly an error.

62

HCP 79.3A. Biography SS 305.10089–91. 64 In HCP 88.2015. Versions of the text appear in LS 37.441–42 and CTKC 24.232. 65 Fu 1984, 7–9, 15–17. Indeed, Fu Pi would have been a mere boy of around twelve years of age in 1016, the year this embassy was dispatched to Liao. 66 CTKC, 236, n. 23. 67 R. 1023–1063. 68 Hsing-ch’eng lu. 69 I.e., in the CTKC. 63

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Hsüeh Ying was the ﬁrst Sung envoy to travel to the Supreme Capital, and as such his embassy report certainly contained new and important information about the geography along his route and the distances between the hostel stops (some of which were undoubtedly yurt-hostels). The excerpted accounts of his embassy report include the distances between the Central Capital and the Supreme Capital,70 note the locations of the Sira Mören and Qara Mören (Rivers) along his route, point out areas of Hsi and Po-hai population, and give a description of the Supreme Capital, including the names of locations of its inner and outer walls, palaces, and the felt tents occupied by the Liao monarch. He also notes that in the Man-t’ou Mountains to the north of the Supreme Capital is a place of refuge from the summer heat and that luxuriant grass grows there in abundance. Sung Shou The ﬁrst Sung envoys to travel to Mu-yeh Mountain were Sung Shou (also called Sung Huan), a Birthday Felicitation Envoy sent to the Liao emperor in 1020, and Lu Tsung-tao (966–1020),71 a New Year Felicitation Envoy of the same year. Their two delegations travelled together as a single embassy. Sung Shou’s embassy report was apparently deemed important enough for brief excerpts of it to be recorded into the Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien,72 probably because of the new geographical information it contained. As with the excerpted version of Hsüeh Ying’s report, the route between Hsiung-chou and the Central Capital is not described, almost certainly because it is well known by this time; the geographical descriptions begin when the envoys leave the Central Capital and take a northeastwardly route never before travelled by Sung envoys.73 The distances between the various hostels (which after the Central Capital were all yurts) along Sung’s route

70

The geography and distances between hostel stops from Hsiung-chou to the Liao Central Capital were not recorded into the excerpted accounts of Hsüeh Ying’s embassy report, presumably because this information was already known from earlier such reports. 71 Biography SS 286.9627–29. 72 HCP 97.2253–54. 73 Either Hsüeh Ying or the excerpter of his embassy report then notes as a parenthetical comment or afterthought that the territory from Ku-pei k’ou north to the Central Capital has areas of Hsi and Po-hai population.

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are given. He records reaching the Ku-li River and the town of Huichou, the walls of which are small and the population of which wears mostly Chinese clothing. He crosses the T’u River, which is also called the Ch’ung-ch’ung River, and notes that the Kitan emperor is known to have wintered here. He comments on the relative desolation of the terrain prior to his arrival at Mu-yeh Mountain (which, he notes, was the original burial site of Yeh-lü A-pao-chi, the founding emperor of the Liao state). He then gives the names and locations at Mu-yeh Mountain of the felt houses (presumably diﬀerent from simple yurts) where the Kitans make sacriﬁces to Heaven. The yurt or tent of the Kitan monarch is, he notes, some distance to the northwest of the felt houses, but he did not actually see it. Lastly, he comments with some apparent amusement on the unusual hunting and ﬁshing methods of the Kitans. Ch’en Hsiang The longest extant embassy report (and also the latest) is the ShihLiao Yü-lu74 by Ch’en Hsiang (1017–1080),75 who travelled to Liao in 1067 as an Enthronement Annunciation Envoy. Ch’en Hsiang, charged with the responsibility of announcing the accession of the Sung emperor Shen-tsung,76 was accompanied by a deputy whose full name is not altogether clear. There were two delegations in this embassy: Ch’en’s delegation was to announce the accession to the Liao empress dowager Tsung-t’ien, and a delegation headed by Sun T’an was to make the announcement to the Liao emperor Shengtsung. Sun T’an’s deputy was named Yü (surname unknown). The audience with the Liao court was held during the summer of 1067 at Shen-en-p’o,77 a place to which Sung envoys had not hitherto travelled. Unfortunately, the informative value of Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report is not commensurate with its length. His account of the enthronement felicitation ceremonial at the Liao court is disap74 Hereafter abbreviated SLYL. Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report is the subject of Till 1975A. 75 Biography SS 321.10419–21. 76 R. A.D. 1067–1085. 77 Only the approximate location of Shen-en-p’o can be determined. It was located north of the Liao River in the southeastern portion of today’s Inner Mongolian “Autonomous Region.”

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pointingly brief. One of Ch’en’s main concerns is to explain his quibble with Liao oﬃcials over seating arrangements at oﬃcial state banquets hosted along the route by the Sung embassy, and this matter occupies nearly twenty percent of the text of his report. The conﬂict over seating arrangements arose between Ch’en Hsiang and Hsiao Hao-ku, the Liao Reception Escort Commissioner assigned to accompany Ch’en and his embassy. It was customary for the Sung embassy to put on a banquet at the Hsin-ch’eng hostel, the ﬁrst hostel stop inside Liao territory. Hsiao Hao-ku had proposed that the seating arrangements at this banquet be the same as the seating arrangements at a similar banquet given by Shih Chao, the Sung Personal Eﬀects Envoy whose embassy had preceded Ch’en into Liao territory by a few days. Finding these proposed seating arrangements are variance with those at the banquets of a recent Sung Birthday Felicitation embassy to Liao, Ch’en refused to accept them and suggested that the previous birthday embassy seating arrangements be used instead. Hsiao Hao-ku replied that the seating arrangements at the banquets hosted by this Birthday Felicitation embassy were abnormal and not in keeping with longstanding precedent. To this Ch’en responded with a question: Why, if these seating arrangements (at the Birthday Felicitation embassy banquets) were not “in keeping with longstanding precedent,” had they not been noticed by the Liao Reception Escort Commissioner accompanying the embassy? Hsiao Hao-ku apparently responded to this question by refusing to attend the banquet.78 The bad feelings created by this conﬂict seem to have poisoned the atmosphere at subsequent banquets hosted by Ch’en’s embassy. The same conﬂict arose at the second banquet put on by the Sung embassy (this time at the Mi-yün hostel in Shan-chou). More than ten messages were relayed between Ch’en and Hsiao, but the conﬂict was not resolved, and once again Hsiao refused to attend. Accusations of impropriety and of hampering diplomatic responsibilities were lodged by both parties.79 Hsiao refused to attend the third and last banquet oﬀered by the Sung embassy at the Chung-lu yurt-hostel, the penultimate stop from the ﬁnal destination of Shen-en-p’o, because 78 SLYL, 1B–2A; Wright 1998A, 64–69. Ch’en Hsiang’s biography (SS 321.10419) seems to indicate that Ch’en was the one who refused to attend this and subsequent banquets, but this, it seems, is probably incorrect. 79 SLYL, 3B; Wright 1998A, 72–73.

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the conﬂict remained unresolved. Just before his audience with the Liao court, Ch’en was given one last chance to indicate his (postfacto) approval of Hsiao’s proposed seating arrangements; giving such approval would, Ch’en’s Liao audience ushers informed him, keep the entire matter from being reported to the Sung government. Ch’en refused once again to give his approval and expressed conﬁdence that he would be vindicated by his allies at the Sung court.80 There was apparently no conﬂict over seating arrangements at the banquets hosted by the Liao authorities along the route of the embassy. In fact, these banquets, which were more numerous than those hosted by the Sung embassy, seem to have gone oﬀ rather amicably, with polite comments exchanged between the Sung envoys and their Liao hosts. Several rounds of liquor contributed to the general conviviality of these banquets. The text of Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report is likely the full version of the originally submitted memorial. True to the Chinese term for the embassy reports (“conversation transcripts”), fully one-fourth of Ch’en’s account is a transcript of the polite but largely inconsequential dialogue between members of his embassy and their Liao hosts and escorts. Much of this dialogue was in the form of questions and answers. Liao oﬃcials seem to have taken a special interest in the careers and fortunes of several prominent Sung bureaucrats. Among those they inquired after were Wen Yen-po,81 Tseng Kungliang,82 Fu Pi,83 and Chang Sheng.84 They seem to have taken a special interest in Ou-yang Hsiu, who had previously travelled to Liao as an Enthronement Felicitation Envoy in 1055 on the occasion of the enthronement of the Liao emperor Tao-tsung. The host at a banquet given by Liao along Ch’en Hsiang’s route recalled with fondness that he had been Ou-yang Hsiu’s escort during his travels in Liao territory.85 They also had a special interest in Fu Pi, who had travelled to Liao on several occasions from 1040 to 1042 during the renegotiations of the annual payments from Sung to Liao.86

80 81 82 83 84 85 86

SLYL, 5A–B; Wright 1998A, 78–79. SLYL, 1B; Wright 1998A, 65. SLYL, 1B; Wright 1998A, 65. SLYL, 2A–B; Wright 1998A, 68–69, 76. SLYL, 2B; Wright 1998A, 69. SLYL, 4B; Wright 1998A, 76. On these negotiations, see HCPSL, 401–28 and Chapter Six infra.

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Liao oﬃcials also concerned themselves with personnel changes in the Sung bureaucracy and asked speciﬁc and pointed questions about such changes. The Sung envoys seem to have had few if any compunctions about answering these questions. Sun T’an, in response to a question about changes in Sung’s Two Administrations,87 informed the Liao deputy Reception Escort Commissioner that Ou-yang Hsiu had, due to his eye problems, “sincerely requested” relief from his central government post as Vice Grand Councilor88 and assignment to a provincial post. Assistant Military Aﬀairs Commissioner Wu K’uei had, Sun continued, been stripped of his position as Participant in Determining Governmental Aﬀairs. Several questions were asked about where speciﬁc Sung bureaucrats were presently serving, and these were answered truthfully.89 The Sung envoys certainly would not have answered these questions if divulging such information would have compromised state secrets. It may well have been, as Barry Till speculates, that Liao, which had excellent espionage networks operating inside Sung, already knew the answers to these questions and was simply seeking to impress the Sung envoys with its knowledge of the administrative intricacies of the Sung state.90 The Liao hosts and escorts asked several personal questions of the members of Ch’en’s embassy, probably to create a more intimate and personable atmosphere at their gatherings. At the ﬁrst banquet in Liao territory, the Reception Escort Commissioner, his deputy, and the members of the Sung embassy asked each other about their ages and how many brothers they had.91 One of the hosts at a banquet held in a yurt-hostel asked the members of the embassy whence they hailed, and they each gave their replies.92 Several questions about the political and physical geography of both states were posed and answered. The Sung envoys did not know where their audience with the Kitan court would be held until they entered Liao territory and inquired about it.93 Sun T’an asked 87

Liang-fu; Hucker 309.3664.2. The Two Administrations were the SecretariatChancellory and the Bureau of Military Aﬀairs. 88 Ts’an-chih cheng-shih; Hucker 517.6872.1. This was a quasi-oﬃcial abbreviation of Participant in Determining Governmental Aﬀairs. 89 SLYL, passim. 90 Till 1975A, 61. 91 SLYL, 1A; Wright 1998A, 64. 92 SLYL, 5A; Wright 1998A, 79. 93 SLYL, 1A; Wright 1998A, 64.

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the Reception Escort Commissioner whether a certain river was the Sang-kan; it was.94 Ch’en Hsiang asked whether pine nuts grew in the vicinity of the Chai-hsia Range; the answer was that they did not.95 Sun T’an asked how far it was from the Hei-yai hostel to the Supreme Capital, and the answer was three hundred li.96 The Liao escorts asked more general questions about Sung political geography.97 Again, it is likely that the Liao oﬃcials knew the answers to these questions. The geographical questions posed by the Sung envoys were more speciﬁc and were perhaps for the purpose of obtaining genuinely new geographical information. Ch’en’s report also records several felicitous comments and compliments made by his Liao hosts and escorts. The towns of Hsinch’eng, Cho-chou, and the Central Capital received seasonal rains after the arrival of Ch’en’s embassy at these localities, his escorts told him.98 Ch’en had once received a Liao diplomat in Sung territory, and this same (former) diplomat was now his host in Liao territory.99 At a banquet at the Central Capital, a Liao host said, “Each time a [Sung] State Missive Envoy and his deputy meet with [Liao] Reception Commissioners, it is as if we were all members of one family.” To this Ch’en Hsiang replied, “It has been said that the South and North are one household, but never before have relations between our two Courts been as amicable as they are now.” The two men, probably already a bit tipsy from thirteen rounds of liquor, then drank to the limits of their capacities.100 At a farewell banquet held at Shen-en-p’o a few days after the embassy’s audiences with the Liao court, the host said, “Relations between our two Courts are cordial and aﬀable. [After] every arrival of [Sung] envoys, this [type of farewell] gathering is the saddest of departures.”101 At a banquet at the Yao yurt-hostel on Ch’en’s return trip to Sung, a Liao host expressed his fondness for the writings of the Sung emperor Jen-tsung on the “Three Treasures” or “Three Jewels” (san pao) of Buddhism. Ch’en Hsiang responded positively and said that not even

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

SLYL, 2B; Wright 1998A, 70. SLYL, 4A; Wright 1998A, 74. SLYL, 4B–5A; Wright 1998A, 78. See, for example, SLYL, 4B, 7A; Wright 1998A, 76–77, 84. SLYL, 2B, 4A; Wright 1998A, 69, 75–76. SLYL, 2B; Wright 1998A, 70. SLYL, 3A; Wright 1998A, 71. SLYL, 6B; Wright 1998A, 82.

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the great master Huai Lien102 could equal Jen-tsung’s writings on Buddhism.103 It is fairly easy to see why the Sung oﬃcials who received and processed the embassy reports would view much of this recorded dialogue as anecdotal and inconsequential. Much similar dialogue was likely edited out of the embassy reports of Wang Tseng, Hsüeh Ying, and Sung Shou before being included into other historical works. At least one text of Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy seems to have survived independently of this editing process, and this accounts for its survival to the present. (This may also have been the case with the larger text of Lu Chen’s embassy report as well.104) Ch’en Hsiang’s embassy report is valuable as an example of what the original texts of such submitted reports might have looked like. But Ch’en’s text is valuable for another reason as well. Much of what is known about embassy travel, reception, and accommodation is drawn from its pages. From them we learn the duties and functions of the Liao Reception Escort Commissioners and Hospitality Escort Commissioners.105 Ch’en does not give the distances between the hostels, describe the cities, or comment extensively on the physical geography of his route, but this is more than likely because this information was already available from the many embassy reports submitted by previous envoys.

Supplemental Reports Commentary and analysis pertaining to Liao was not limited to the embassy reports. The ﬁxed conventions and format of embassy reports might have precluded extensive analysis and policy recommendations, and returning envoys sometimes composed additional essays or memorials on Liao. The Sung statesman Yü Ching,106 who had

102

1008–1090; born in Chang-chou prefecture in Fukien. SLYL, 6B; Wright 1998A, 83–84. 104 The very circumstantial embassy report of Lou Yüeh, a Southern Sung oﬃcial who travelled as a diplomat to Jurchen Chin in 1169 and 1170, is probably another example of an account that had not yet been edited into oﬃcial embassy report format. (Walton 2002, 2 and n. 6) 105 Nieh 1940 quotes extensively from SLYL; see especially pages 23–24, 27–28, and 32. 106 Biography SS 320.10407–11. 103

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thrice travelled to Liao (once in 1043 as a New Year Felicitation Envoy to the Kitan dowager empress Fa-t’ien and twice as a political envoy, in 1044 and 1045) and had apparently managed to learn the Kitan language during his travels, gained the conﬁdence of several high Liao oﬃcials. They conﬁded in him the details of the bureaucratic and military administration of the Liao state, and after his ﬁnal return to Sung he wrote a detailed treatise on the Liao bureaucracy, the text of which is still extant.107 This treatise is, in the words of one of its recent Western students, “a thorough, critical, balanced, and impartial account: who mattered, how things worked, and what happened when.”108 Other supplemental reports were written by Su Ch’e (1039–1112),109 who travelled to Liao in 1089 as a Birthday Felicitation Envoy. After his return he submitted to the Sung court several reports containing various observations and policy recommendations. In one such report he indicated directly that the embassy report format was inadequate for oﬀering three important observations of his concerning the Liao state: Your humble servant and others were recently favoured with a directive dispatching us as Birthday Felicitation Envoys to the Emperor110 of the Northern Court. An embassy report [on our diplomatic mission] has since been prepared and presented, but there were also some matters we saw at the Northern Court that could not be completely covered in the embassy report. Fearing that the [Sung] Court must not be unaware [of these matters], I [hereby] respectfully submit [and discuss these] three matters below.111

The ﬁrst item discussed by Su Ch’e concerned Tao-tsung’s health; the Liao emperor was robustly healthy, and as long as he remained so, Su concluded, Liao would certainly remain peaceful and stable. The second item concerned taxation and conscription in the Yenching region. The third item was perhaps his most daring and subjective assessment: the Liao emperor was a devout Buddhist, as were

107 Yü Ching’s treatise on the Liao bureaucracy is introduced, analysed, and translated in Novey 1983. 108 Novey 1983, 65. 109 Biographies SS 339.10821–35; Franke 1976, 2.882–85. 110 The use of the term “emperor” (huang-ti ) here in a document meant only for internal Sung consumption is interesting; it shows that pejorative terms for the Liao monarch were not always used in such documents. 111 LCC 42.939–40.

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most of the Kitans. As such, he speculated, their martial ardour may have declined, and this would represent a signiﬁcant loss for Liao and gain for Sung. Supplemental reports by Sung envoys returning from missions to other states were also written and submitted.112

112

Hargett 1985, 79; Hargett 1989, 53.

CHAPTER SIX

MID-CENTURY CRISIS

The Covenant of Shan-yüan heralded the beginning of slightly more than a century of fairly peaceful relations between Sung and Liao. Friction and occasional skirmishes periodically broke out, but in the main the peace held; after 1005 there were no major military clashes between the two states. But Northern Sung China did not enjoy peaceful relations with all of its neighbours: during much of the eleventh century its chief military preoccupation was with the Tangut state of Hsia on its northwestern border. From the mid 1030s through the mid 1040s, Hsia became an important factor in Sung-Liao diplomacy and contributed to the growing triangular complexity of SungLiao-Hsia relations.

The Rise of the State of Hsia By speech and culture the Tanguts are often classiﬁed as a Tibetan people, but their culture and ecology were more complex than this might seem to indicate. Their state of Hsia or Ta Hsia (Great Hsia), which they proclaimed in 1038, combined diverse sedentary and pastoral nomadic populations. Complicating matters further is the fact that the very ethnonym “Tangut” was applied by the Kitans (and later the Mongols) to this people, who called themselves Mi or Miñag.1 Tangut and T’u-yü-hun elite frequently intermarried, and of course both of these groups knew something of Chinese culture. Thus, the Tanguts “came to bridge the Tibetan, Chinese, and inner Asian cultural space,” even as their tribal heritage from the Ch’iang peoples known in ancient Chinese history remained dominant.2 The Tanguts of course had a long history prior to the founding of their state in 1038. T’ang T’ai-tsung, the second T’ang emperor 1 2

On the ethnogenesis of the Tanguts see Dunnell 1994, 155–58. Mote 1999, 170.

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(r. 627–649), bestowed the imperial surname Li upon the ruling clan of the pre-dynastic Tanguts, and they rendered military assistance to Chinese governments during the late T’ang and Five Dynasties, the last of which named the Tangut tribal leader a king in 954. After 960 and the founding of the Sung, however, the Tanguts found themselves in a precarious geopolitical situation, with both Sung and Liao expecting them to come to heel and accept some sort of subordinate status under their separate suzerainties. The ﬁrst Sung emperor bestowed the title King of Hsia on the Tangut leader posthumously in 967. Trouble broke out in the Tangut ruling clan in the early 980s when a Hsia king oﬀered to submit to the Sung in exchange for titles and high living in the Sung capital, only to be opposed in this by his nativist cousin Li Chi-ch’ien, who led a rebellion against their king’s rule among Tanguts who favoured their old tribal ways. Tangut resistance to submission to Sung mounted, and by 986 Li Chi-ch’ien, apparently choosing what were to him the lesser of two unattractive alternatives, submitted to Liao. In return the Kitans gave him a princess in marriage and installed him as King of Hsia. There were, then, two rival cousin leaders of the Hsia: one loyal to Liao and the other to Sung. Li Chi-ch’ien seems eventually to have emerged as the more powerful Tangut leader. He shifted both his capital and his military and political attention westward away from the Sung border, but as coincidence had it both he and his turncoat cousin died in 1004, clearing the way for Li Chi-ch’ien’s son Li Te-ming (b. 989) to come to power that year as a young man in his early twenties. He would lead the Tanguts for almost three decades, and he maintained closer ties with Sung than Liao. This all changed dramatically in 1032, however, when Li Te-ming’s son Li Yüan-hao (r. 1032–1048) succeeded him. Yüan-hao was a multi-cultural leader who does not seem to have rejected all aspects of Chinese civilisation out of hand; he saw Confucian thought as irrelevant and inimical to native Tangut ways but dabbled in Legalism as a possibly applicable Chinese tradition for the formation of his new state. But he clearly identiﬁed more closely with traditional steppe and tribal ways and disapproved of his father’s closeness with Sung. He seems to have fascinated the Sung Chinese, who wrote at length about him; “. . . more is known from Chinese sources about this one Tangut chieftain than about all the other Hsia rulers

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combined.”3 He took several steps to recover something of the native Tangut heritage. He changed the royal surname of his clan from Li (and by some accounts also from Chao, which the Sung had bestowed) to a native surname which sounded to the Chinese like Wei-ming (perhaps closer to Nweimi or Ngweimi). In 1034 he famously ordered all males under his rule to adopt the Tangut coiﬀure, which entailed partially shaving the head. Around 1036 he ordered the adoption of a script for the Tangut language, one which had been several years in the making and which was derived by visual analogy to Chinese characters. While Frederick Mote calls the decision to adopt this very complex writing system that utilised around six thousand characters “an intriguing puzzle,”4 Ruth Dunnell has argued that the decision had speciﬁc political and cultural objectives and that with it Yüan-hao meant to distinguish himself and his state from Sung China: Invention of a script was an act of state creation as well as a creation of the state. It was a politically charged event that asserted cultural claims, met strategic needs, and advanced dynastic legitimacy. Even the decision to adopt a graphic script, following the Chinese model, rather than the more linguistically suitable Tibetan alphabetic script, was political. China was the dominant power of East Asia, the principal source of statecraft strategies and symbols, the main military threat and economic benefactor.

In addition to religious motives behind the invention of the Tangut script, Dunnell continues, there were also more practical and prosaic counter-intelligence considerations: The Tanguts created an enormously complex and dense graphic system, rather than a variation on the reduced stroke combinations of the Khitan and later Jurchen scripts. One reason was to make their writing distinctive. Another was to make it impenetrable to outsiders, a veritable secret code. Thus it was unlikely that any Song [Sung] Chinese or Liao Khitans [Kitans], except those living in Xia [Hsia], could easily break the code and read the Tangut documents. (The Khitan [Kitan] script itself was and still is a puzzle to scholars, largely because so little of it remains.)5

Yüan-hao also introduced governmental and military reforms to strengthen his state and then, in 1035 and 1036, launched military 3 4 5

Dunnell 1994, 181. Mote 1999, 180. Dunnell 1996, 37–38.

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campaigns against the Kokonor Tibetans and Ho-hsi Uighurs to consolidate the interior of his expanding state. In all of this Yüan-hao’s ultimate purpose was to compel Sung to recognise him as an equal of the Kitan leader,6 which of course would concomitantly make him the equal of the very emperor of Sung. He never achieved this recognition, however, in spite of his wars and confrontations with Sung, which lasted until early 1045. Yüan-hao’s imperial ambitions In late 1038 Yüan-hao took the ﬁnal step in establishing his state: his enthronement as “emperor” (huang-ti ) of a new state which he proclaimed as Hsia or Ta Hsia (Great Hsia) and which is traditionally known in Chinese history as Hsi Hsia (Western Hsia). He bestowed posthumous imperial titles upon his father and grandfather and immediately dispatched an embassy to Sung to seek “recognition as a friendly but sovereign western neighbor.”7 In 1039 he sent envoys to the Sung emperor Jen-tsung (r. 1022–1063) with a letter announcing, among other things, that he was accepting, supposedly reluctantly, the title of emperor from his insistent subjects.8 In the estimations of modern Chinese historians of Sung-Hsia relations, this letter amounted to a “declaration of independence”9 and was of course completely unacceptable to Sung. It also ushered in almost a century of intermittent but very violent warfare between Sung and Hsia: When Li Zhiqian [Li Chih-ch’ien]10 rejected Song [Sung] tutelage and declared independence in 1038, the Song [Sung] were not prepared to sue for an easy peace. The Chinese had exercised nominal control over the Henan [Ho-nan], or southern Ordos, region at the time of the dynastic founding and were not prepared to accept the loss of more territory, this time to the Tangut. The result was almost one hundred years of inconclusive conﬂict between the Song [Sung] and the Tangut, at times punctuated by the bloodiest battles in Chinese history.11

6 7 8 9 10 11

Dunnell 1994, 181–83; Tao 1988, 64. Dunnell 1994, 187. The points of the letter are treated in detail in Dunnell 1996, 40–43. Li 1998, 45; Tao 1988, 64. Sic? Perhaps Li Chih-ch’ien is another name for Li Yüan-hao? Forage 1991A, 37.

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Both Sung and Liao, which recognised each other as equals and addressed each others’ rulers as emperors, were loathe to legitimise the imperial pretensions of the new Tangut interloper. The Liao continued to recognise and invest Yüan-hao as “King of Xia [Hsia], a title that no emperor needed, and that no truly universal sovereign could have tolerated.”12 Sung, for its part, was not caught oﬀ guard by the embassy, having received advance notice of its arrival through intelligence networks. The Sung emperor Jen-tsung politely but ﬁrmly rejected the embassy and its mission, cancelled all titles previously bestowed upon Yüan-hao, and closed border markets to the Tanguts. In response to this, Yüan-hao sent back all paraphernalia of oﬃce previously given him by Sung along with a cheeky letter demanding to know what Sung found so objectionable about his actions.13 The purpose of this long epistolary harangue was to make three things clear to Sung: 1. The fault for worsening SungHsia relations was with Sung; 2. Yüan-hao’s self-designation as “emperor” was reasonable and fair; and 3. Hsia had Liao as an ally and therefore did not fear Sung.14

The Tangled Triangle of Sung-Liao-Hsia Relations The Hsia-Liao and Hsia-Sung legs of the Sung-Liao-Hsia triangular relationship during the middle of the eleventh century are largely beyond the scope of this study, but I note here that Liao-Hsia relations during this time were also rocky, despite ﬁctive kinship relations between the two states15 and Sung paranoia about Liao-Hsia collusion against Sung interests.16 (Indeed, Hsia and Liao were at war with each other during much of the 1040s.) As for the Sung-Hsia leg of the triangle, Sung did not recognise Hsia on a par with the diplomatic parity it extended to Liao. During early negotiations with Hsia, the famous Sung statesman Fan Chung-yen (989–1052)17 perceived why Yüan-hao was not content with traditional nomadic lead12

Mote 1999, 183. Dunnell 1996, 43. 14 Li 1998, 46–47. 15 CTKC 8.79. The Liao emperor Hsing-tsung was “uncle” (chiu) to his “nephew” (sheng) Yüan-hao. 16 See, for example, Ou-yang Hsiu’s concerns in HCPSL 2.408–09. 17 Biographies Franke 1976, 1.321–30; Liu 1957; SS 314.10267–76. 13

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ership titles such as shan-yü18 or khan19 and coveted the title of emperor: because the Kitans used it. But the Kitans, Fan argued, had earned the title of emperor a long time ago through merit that Hsia could not equal.20 The Sung insisted that its relationship with Hsia was not one of ﬁctive kinship but one between sovereign (chün) and subject (ch’en). The triangular relations between Sung, Liao, and Hsia during the mid 1030s through early 1045 were at times quite complicated, and at one time or another each of the three principals in the triangle resented and mistrusted the other two. The Sung-Liao leg of the triangle was one of ﬁctive kinship between the rulers of equal states. The Sung-Hsia leg, which Sung did not want to see altered, was one between unequal states and unrelated rulers, with the Sung as sovereign (chün) and Hsia as subject (ch’en). The Liao-Hsia leg, slightly more convoluted, involved ﬁctive kinship and subjection: the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung was “uncle” (chiu) to his “nephew” (sheng) Yüanhao, while Hsia was also a vassal ( fan) to Liao. Both negotiations and warfare commenced between Sung and Liao in 1039 over how Sung would denote Yüan-hao’s status, and both dragged on until 1044. These were diﬃcult years for Sung, which suﬀered several military defeats at the hands of Hsia. For a time Fan Chung-yen was among the diplomats who negotiated with Hsia over the appropriate title for Yüan-hao in inter-state communications. For several years Sung insisted that the Tangut leader recognise himself as a subject (ch’en) of Sung, and Hsia’s unwillingness to do so led to several pitched battles between the two states. First Sung defeat by Hsia: The Battle of San-ch’uan K’ou, Spring 1040 The ﬁrst major military clash between Sung and Hsia forces occurred within Sung territory in February and March 1040 at San-ch’uan K’ou, approximately twenty-ﬁve kilometres west of Yen-chou21 (modern

18 Leaders of the Hsiung-nu, a pastoral nomadic people who gravely threatened the security of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 220). 19 Khans were leaders of various Türk peoples who conquered portions of Chinese territory following the collapse of the Han dynasty and rivaled the Chinese Sui (581–617) and T’ang (617–907) dynasties. Later, during the rise of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, Mongol leaders would also assume the title of khan. 20 Dunnell 1996, 44. 21 Precise plotting of San-ch’uan K’ou is diﬃcult. T’an 1982, 6.18–19, plots it

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Yenan in Shensi province). The commander at Yen-chou panicked during the attack, and the end result was a debacle for Sung.22 The San-ch’uan K’ou catastrophe was a great shock to the Sung court, and the Sung emperor Jen-tsung made policy deliberation on the threat from the west a top priority.23 In the summer of 1040 he appointed Han Ch’i (1008–1075)24 and Fan Chung-yen to assist Hsia Sung (985–1051)25 in attending to military defences in Shensi. Han and Fan, however, had opposite ideas of strategy and tactics; Han favoured aggressive oﬀensive campaigns against the Hsia, while Fan was more inclined toward a defensive posture.26 Second Sung defeat by Hsia: The Battle of Hao-shui River, Autumn 1040–Spring 1041 The next clash between Sung and Hsia came in the autumn of 1040, when Yüan-hao attacked Sung at several points inside what is now Shensi, including Chen-jung Military Prefecture.27 Sung forces responded by attacking Hsia forces at several points within Sung territory and by launching an attack into Hsia territory. Han Ch’i’s strategic measures were adopted at this time, and Sung forces launched several counterattacks against Hsia forces. Several low-level skirmishes between Hsia and Sung occurred in the region of Yen-chou until the spring of 1041, when Yüan-hao greatly expanded the conﬂict by launching an attack into Sung territory with a force of 100,000 troops. Sung commanders hastened to assemble their forces but bit hook, line, and sinker at a diversionary force deep into territory Hsia controlled near the Hao-shui River, where tens of thousands of Hsia troops arose from ambush and wiped out the greater part of the Sung armies there. (The Sung commander resisted Hsia advice to surrender and perished in battle.) Other Sung forces were soon wiped out, and the Battle of Hao-shui River ended with the deaths of 10,300 Sung oﬃcers and men. The Sung forces fought valiantly

west of Yen-chou (Yen-an fu), but Li 1998, 170 places it at the conﬂuence of three rivers, not all of which are given in T’an 1982. 22 On the ﬁghting see Li 1998, 169–71; Wang 1993, 126–32; Wu 1982, 59–60. 23 Li 1998, 47. 24 Biography SS 312.10221–30. 25 Biography SS 283.9571–77. 26 Tao 1988, 57; Tsang 1997, 248–84. 27 Chün; Hucker 1985, 200.1730.3.

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against overwhelming odds and superior tactics. Han Ch’i’s oﬀensive strategy having failed Sung, Fan Chung-yen’s more defensive measures were adopted thereafter, and some Sung oﬃcials began entertaining policies for allying with Liao against Hsia or for turning Hsia and Liao against each other.28

Menacing Kitan Moves Towards Sung The Kitans had meanwhile been closely watching these two clashes between Sung and Hsia and could not but be tempted by Sung’s apparent inability to acquit itself well on the battleﬁeld. In April 1042 Kitan envoys were dispatched to the Sung court to pose their old demands for recovery of the Kuan-nan territory. Sung materials explain this request as the result of a combination of factors: the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung (r. 1031–1055) was maturing and restless; his country was fairly stable and his people well rested; and the Hsia leader Yüan-hao was giving Sung headaches. All of this added up to “aggressive intentions towards the south” and led to plans to take advantage of China’s preoccupations and troubles and seize the ten territorial districts (hsien) south of the Wa-ch’iao Pass.29 According to both Sung and Liao sources, Hsing-tsung gathered his oﬃcials for deliberation on these plans on April 24, 1042.30 Southern Establishment Military Aﬀairs Commissioner31 Hsiao Hui (983–1056)32 was in favour of them: “Your Majesty in His sagacious considerations is familiar with the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Two Dynasties. What is more, the Sung people have been on campaign in the west for years; their troops are old and their people fatigued. If Your Majesty personally leads Six Imperial Armies33 and approaches them, He shall surely be victorious!” Northern Establishment Military Aﬀairs Commissioner34 Hsiao Hsiao-mu (c. 1016–1055),35 on the other hand, counseled caution and restraint, 28

Li 1998, 171–73; Tao 1988, 57–59; Wang 1993, 132–40; Wu 1982, 61–62. SSCSPM 21.150. 30 SSCSPM 21.150. 31 Nan-yüan shu-mi-shih; Hucker 1985, 342.4136.4 and 436.5450.2. 32 Biography LS 93.1373–76. 33 Liu chün; Hucker 1985, 316.3785.1. This was a general term for armies under an emperor’s personal control. 34 Pei-yüan shu-mi-shih; Hucker 1985, 374.4550.3 and 436.5450.2. 35 Biography LS 87.1331–33. 29

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pointing out that the previous Liao emperor had had good relations with Sung. “Our previous Court was on peaceful and friendly terms with Sung, which has committed no crime that we should attack it. Right and wrong are ours to decide. What is more, victory or defeat cannot be predicted. I would that this matter be thoroughly considered.” Hsing-tsung decided to heed Hsiao Hui’s advice and set aside Hsiao Hsiao-mu’s reservations.36 Accordingly, on April 18, 1042 the Kitan emperor dispatched Southern Establishment Court Ceremonial Commissioner37 Hsiao Ying38 and Hanlin Academician39 Liu Liu-fu40 as envoys to Sung. Liu Liu-fu was an experienced Liao diplomat, having traveled to Sung in the summer of 1041 as a Birthday Felicitation Envoy.41 They delivered a letter requesting their former territory and demanding to know the reasons for activities that might be construed as war preparations: Sung’s military campaigns without prior consultation or notiﬁcation against Hsia, a vassal ( fan) state to Liao; draining of swamps; and amassing troops along the border.42 Sung may not have been caught completely oﬀ guard by the request for the Kuan-nan territory; intelligence reports from areas along both sides of the border (Chuo-chou in Liao and Hsiung-chou in Sung) had been coming in to the Sung court indicating that the Kitans would be requesting territorial cession. When the Sung emperor Jen-tsung eventually opened and read the Kitan letter containing this request, he had no surprised look on his face, and Liu Liu-fu suspected that the contents of his letter had been leaked.43

36

SSCSPM 21.150; LSCSPM 29.554–55. Nan-yüan hsuan-hui-shih; Hucker 1985, 342.4136.4 and 250.2664.2. 38 Brief biography LS 86.1326–27. SSCSPM 21.150 claims that Hsiao T’e-mo was sent, but other sources (CTKC 8.79, LSCSPM 29.552) have Hsiao Ying being sent. Actually, these two names apply to one and the same person; the very Altaicsounding T’e-mo was his Kitan name, while Ying was his Chinese name. See LS 86.1329, n. 8. 39 Han-lin hsüeh-shih; Hucker 1985, 222.2142. 40 Biography LS 86.1323–24. 41 LSCSPM 29.552. 42 LSCSPM 29.522–54. The text of this letter is in HCPSL 2.403–04. A Liao source (LSCSPM 29.552) claims that Sung was constructing defensive moats around towns along the border. 43 CTKC 8.79. 37

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Fu Pi as diplomatic host While Hsiao Ying was on his way to the Sung court, Lü I-chien (978–1044),44 who at this time was serving as a Grand Councilor in the Sung court for the third time in his career, had Fu Pi (1004–1083)45 (who had previously traveled to the Liao in 1041 on a routine diplomatic mission as a New Year Felicitation Envoy)46 appointed as his Hospitality Escort Commissioner to greet and fete Hsiao Ying. Fu Pi, a native of Loyang in Honan, is remembered in Chinese history chieﬂy as the skilled diplomat who managed to maintain peace between Sung and Liao during the Ch’ing-li reign period (1041–1049) of the Sung emperor Jen-tsung (r. 1022–1063). His biography in the Sung-shih praises him for thus sparing the Sung populace for several more decades the distress of witnessing warfare within their borders.47 Fu Pi was an associate of Fan Chung-yen and Han Ch’i, prominent leaders in the minor reform movement in Sung during the Ch’ing-li reign period (1041–1049).48 When he was assigned to accompany the Kitan envoys he was serving as a Drafter49 in the Sung central government, but he attended to his ad hoc diplomatic duties with almost painful earnestness. According to Sung sources, he was so single-minded and devoted to his responsibilities that he went on with his diplomatic missions even upon hearing of the death of a daughter and the birth of a son. When he received letters from home he burned them unopened because he feared they might distract his attention.50 Subsequent to his diplomacy with the Kitans, Fu Pi had an eventful and rocky career which included serving for a time as a Grand Councilor along with Wen Yen-po (1006–1097).51 Some indication of Fu Pi’s future ﬁrmness and facility in dealing with the Kitans was given when Hsiao Ying declined to do a polite ritual gesture of obeisance, claiming sickness. This Fu Pi found unacceptable: “I have served as an envoy to the north and have been sick in bed in a carriage, but when I was summoned I always arose 44

Biographies Franke 1976, 1.713–19; SS 311.10206–10. Biographies SS 313.10249–57; Djang 1989, 330–40. 46 LSCSPM 29.552. 47 SS 313.10264. 48 On the minor reform movement see Liu 1967, 40–51; Bol 1992, 171–72, 187–94. 49 Chih-chih-kao; Hucker 1985, 156.955.2. 50 SSCSPM 21.153–54; SS 313.10252; HCPSL 2.424. 51 Biography SS 313.10258–64. 45

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and did obeisance. When a Chinese [Escort] Commissioner now arrives you do not do obeisance. Why is this?” Thereupon Hsiao Ying quickly performed the polite ritual gesture. Fu Pi did not, however, persist in confrontational manners with Hsiao Ying. He seems to have combined personal charm with frank straightforwardness, and Hsiao soon warmed up to him. According to Sung sources, Hsiao was so pleased with Fu Pi that he dropped all pretenses and conﬁdentially informed him of what the Liao emperor’s requests really amounted to. Said Hsiao, “If you can go along with them, then do so; if you cannot, then do something [else] to mollify him.”52 Fu Pi informed the Sung emperor of this, and the two “somethings” he approved were increased annual payments or, surprisingly, intermarriage between a daughter of the Sung imperial clan and the Liao emperor’s son. But it would not be both. The Sung emperor commanded Lü I-chien to select someone for a return diplomatic visit to the Kitan. Lü I-chien recommended Fu Pi out of personal dislike for him, and Fu Pi was appointed.53 Fu Pi’s ﬁrst negotiatory mission During the fourth lunar month of 1042, or April 23–May 21, Fu Pi arrived with his deputy envoy, Chang Mao-shih,54 among the Kitans with a diplomatic letter in response.55 The next month the Kitans, in a move to strengthen their negotiating position vis-à-vis the Sung, began amassing troops at Yu-chou and Chi-chou, both vital areas within Liao territory, and announced that they would be moving south. Ho-pei Circuit, which bordered on Liao territory and was the focus of ﬁghting during the Sung-Kitan War of 1004–1005, was placed on high alert and made border defence preparations. At the Sung court, Lü I-chien suggested designating Ta-ming Superior Prefecture56 a capital city as a strategic countermeasure. The Sung 52 HCPSL 2.404 adds the following: “Our sovereign loves to nurture living people, and he does not want to see our long-standing peace lost.” 53 SSCSPM 21.150; SS 313.10250; HCPSL 2.424. The animosity between the two men seems to have stemmed from Lü I-chien’s displeasure at Fu Pi’s insistence that a government clerk who had forged Buddhist licences or certiﬁcates be punished. 54 Chang Mao-shih has no biography in SS. But see Ch’ang et al. 1987, 3.2396–97. 55 The gist of the letter is contained in CTKC 8.79–80; the full version, an impressive and protracted literary performance by Wang Kung-ch’en, is in HCPSL 2.405–06. 56 Fu; Hucker 1985, 216.2034.5.

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emperor Jen-tsung approved of this, and Ta-ming was renamed Peiching, or Northern Capital.57 This was symbolically important to Sung because Ta-ming was where the Sung emperor Chen-tsung stayed during the Sung-Kitan War just prior to the conclusion of the Covenant of Shan-yüan. When Fu Pi ﬁnally met with the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung, he began as follows. “The sovereigns of our Two Courts, fathers and sons,58 have now been at peace for [nearly] forty years. Why is there now this sudden request for territory?” The Kitan emperor was quick to reply. “The Southern Court has violated the Covenant. You are building a fort at Yen-men, increasing your embanked ponds, improving walls and moats around cities, and raising militias. What are you going to do in the future? My oﬃcials have requested that I lead armies to the south. I have told them that it would be better to dispatch an envoy to request territory and that if this request does not obtain [the desired results], it would not then be too late to mobilise troops.” Fu Pi’s reply was daring. “Has the Northern Court forgotten the great virtue of Emperor Chen-tsung [of the Sung]?59 During the Shan-yüan campaign, if the words of your generals had been accepted, your northern forces would have had no escape.60 What is more, if the Northern Court is at peace with China, then you as the sovereign enjoy all the beneﬁts of it, and your oﬃcials will get nothing. But if you go to war, your oﬃcials will enjoy all the beneﬁts and you as the sovereign will be responsible for the calamities. Hence, those who advise you to go to war are but scheming for themselves.” According to Sung sources, the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung, somewhat startled with Fu Pi’s analysis and claims, asked, “What do you mean?” Fu Pi then attempted to convince the Kitan emperor of the foolishness and peril of going to war with Sung. “China’s territory is

57

This of course was not the modern Chinese capital of Beijing. The Liao emperor Hsing-tsung and the Sung emperor Jen-tsung were the sons of the two emperors who concluded the Covenant of Shan-yüan in 1005: Shengtsung (r. 983–1031) of Liao and Chen-tsung (r. 997–1022) of Sung. 59 Chang-sheng Huang-ti. Chang-sheng was part of Chen-tsung’s posthumous titles; see SS 8.172. 60 Fu Pi’s contention here is that the Liao forces in 1004 and 1005 would have been cut oﬀ from retreat back to Liao if they had tarried much longer in Sung territory. 58

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now ten thousand li [in size]. We have a million crack troops who are well disciplined and of one heart and mind throughout their ranks. If the Northern Court wants to go to war, can you guarantee that you will be victorious?61 And even if you are victorious, will your oﬃcials be able to face up to the [numbers of ] dead men and horses? And will you, their sovereign, be able to face up to them? If peaceful relations are not curtailed, the yearly payments shall all go to you, the sovereign. What beneﬁts shall your oﬃcials have then?” Sung sources would have us believe that Hsing-tsung was persuaded by the compelling logic of Fu Pi’s arguments, “came suddenly to his senses” (ta-wu), and nodded his head in agreement. How much he suspected selﬁsh connivance among his oﬃcials is unclear, but he may have been moved to consider a sober reassessment of his military capabilities and the considerable risks a military campaign would entail. Fu Pi then addressed Hsing-tsung’s speciﬁc accusations against the Sung. “A fort is being built at Yen-men for defence against Yüanhao. The embanked ponds began with Ho Ch’eng-chü62 and pertain to prior to the peace agreement. All [work on] city walls and moats is the repair of old ones, and the militias also patch them up. None of this is in contravention of the Covenant.” Having seen his casus belli more or less demolished by Fu Pi, Hsingtsung then got down to his real purpose: the return of the Kuannan territory previously lost to the Later (Shih) Chin dynasty (936–947). “I do not know the details of what you speak. Even so, the former territory of my ancestors should now be returned.” Fu Pi responded by strongly hinting that the Sung had territorial claims of its own it could press if it felt so inclined. He pointed out that the Later Chin dynasty had given territory to the Kitans and that Emperor Shih-tsung of the Later Chou dynasty (950–960) had recovered the Kuan-nan territory. “These were the aﬀairs of previous dynasties,” Fu Pi reasoned. “If both dynasties were now to request territory, how would this beneﬁt the Northern Court?”

61 CTKC 8.80 has the Liao emperor responding to this question with “No, I cannot.” 62 A Sung general who served at the border prior to the Sung-Kitan War of 1004–1005.

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After the audience with the Kitan emperor, Liu Liu-fu asked Fu Pi, “What if my lord is ashamed to accept [more] payments and insists on the ten hsien [of land]?” Fu Pi replied, “The Emperor of my Court has said, ‘We maintain custody of the nation for Our ancestors. How could We indiscriminately give away territory to people? What the Northern Court wants is nothing more than [increased] tax revenue, and We cannot bear for more of the Two Courts’ innocent children63 to be killed. Therefore We shall be ﬂexible in increasing [annual] payments in lieu of it [territorial cession]. If they are intent upon obtaining territory, then their purpose is to abrogate the Covenant, and they are merely taking this as a pretext. The spirits and deities of heaven and earth truly draw nigh unto the Covenant of Shan-yüan. The Northern Court ﬁrst ﬁelded troops, and the transgression is not Ours. How can the spirits and deities of heaven and earth be cheated?’” “If the intentions of the Emperor of the Southern Sung64 are this way, it is well indeed!” Liu Liu-fu responded. “We should submit joint memorials to communicate the intentions of our two sovereigns.”65 The next day the Kitan emperor summoned Fu Pi to accompany him on a hunting outing. Riding in the ﬁeld, he bade Fu Pi to approach him on his own horse and said to him, “If I obtain this territory there shall be lasting amicability and peace.” Fu Pi replied by reiterating the impossibility of this and then made what was probably the single most key statement in his negotiations with the Kitans: territorial cession was unacceptable because it would be shameful to Sung. “The Northern Court would regard obtaining territory as glorious, while the Southern Court would take losing territory as humiliating. Among brotherly states, how can one have glory and the other be humiliated?” Fu Pi was taking the kinship relations seriously and reminding the Kitan emperor to do so as well. Indeed, the ﬁctive relations between the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung and the Sung emperor Jen-tsung were younger brother and elder

63

Ch’ih-tzu, lit. “infants”; i.e., subjects in general. I.e., the Sung dynasty and government to the south of Liao; not the Southern Sung (1127–1279) of subsequent history. 65 SSCSPM 21.151–52; SS 313.10250–51; CTKC 8.80–81; HCPSL 2.404–06, 417–18. The SSCSPM version of the events and discussions throughout the negotiations, which I follow in the main (along with HCPSL), diﬀers in some particulars from the CTKC narrative. 64

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brother respectively, so Fu Pi’s remarks were as applicable to stateto-state relations as they were to emperor-to-emperor relations. His remarks therefore found their mark as truly as any Kitan arrow that would have dispatched an unfortunate beast on this hunting expedition. When the hunting was over, Liu Liu-fu told Fu Pi, “My lord was deeply moved by your words about glory and humiliation. There is now nothing to negotiate except intermarriage.” Fu Pi would have been quite relieved that the matter of territorial cession was now dropped, but he was still diplomatically on his guard enough not to lunge at the possibility of concluding an intermarriage agreement. “Intermarriage makes it easy for suspicion and enmity to arise,” he argued. He strongly implied that an intermarriage agreement would involve renegotiating the terms and metaphors of the peace between the two dynasties and might not work out to the Liao’s advantage. According to one Sung source, Liu Liu-fu responded by saying, “The Emperor of the Southern Court surely has a daughter.” “The [Sung] Emperor’s daughter is but three years old,”66 Fu Pi replied. “Her marriage could not take place for more than ten years from now.” Fu Pi, who was personally opposed to any intermarriage between the Sung and Liao ruling families, then argued that an intermarriage agreement would not be as proﬁtable as renegotiated annual payments. “If the eldest princess of my Court were surrendered, her dowry would not exceed 100,000 strings of cash. How would this be better than the beneﬁt of endless yearly payments?”67 The Kitans did not drop the matter of intermarriage altogether, however. The Liao emperor Hsing-tsung summoned Fu Pi to return to the Sung for further instructions and to come back once again with an oath-letter for whichever alternative his government chose: intermarriage or increased annual payments.68 Fu Pi’s second negotiatory mission Fu Pi returned to Sung and reported on all this to the Sung court, and on June 11, 1042 he was sent back to the Kitans. He was also 66 67 68

Four sui. HCPSL 2.419. SSCSPM 21.152; SS 313.10251–52; CTKC 8.81; HCPSL 2.418–19.

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given oral instructions but did not check to see if these tallied with his diplomatic documents. While traveling it occurred to him that he ought to check; as he told his deputy envoy Chang Mao-shih, if his oral instructions were at variance with the contents of his written diplomatic communications, his mission would fail. Upon examination of the documents he found that they were indeed, as he had feared, diﬀerent from his oral instructions. He hastened back to the Sung capital for an unusual late-afternoon audience with the emperor. Distressed by the vicious and petty partisan politics for which the Northern Sung is justly infamous and deeply suspicious that this was the legerdemain of his nemesis Lü I-chien, Fu Pi claimed in high dudgeon that personal animosity was interfering with vital diplomatic business: “If the government has done this deliberately in order to discredit your humble servant, then your humble servant would not regret even death. But what of our aﬀairs of state?” The Sung emperor demanded an explanation from Yen Shu (991–1055),69 who at this time was a powerful central government oﬃcial and was destined to become a Grand Councilor in 1043. Yen Shu replied, “Lü I-chien absolutely did not do this. I sincerely fear this is only an error.”70 Not satisﬁed with this explanation, Fu Pi took a parting shot at his enemies before receiving new documents and leaving once again for Kitan territory. “Yen Shu is treacherous and wicked. He has formed a clique with [Lü] I-chien to deceive Your Majesty!”71 Fu Pi’s enmity towards Lü I-chien might be understandable, but his broadside at Yen Shu is quite startling: Yen Shu, an indulgent romantic poet in private life, was Fu Pi’s father-in-law!72 In the ninth month of 1042, or October 17–November 15, Fu Pi and Chang Mao-shih ﬁnally arrived again among the Kitans. Fu Pi carried with him two state missives and three oath-letters, and his hosts Yeh-lü Jen-hsien (1014–1073) and Liu Liu-fu asked him the reason for this. Fu Pi explained that these were for the three

69

Biography SS 311.10195–98. James T. C. Liu believed that Lü I-chien had deliberately made these alterations to discredit Fu Pi. See Franke 1976, 1.718. HCPSL levels the same charge against Lü I-chien; see 2.424. 71 SSCSPM 21.152–53; HCPSL 2.419–20. 72 Bossler 1998, 55; Djang 1989, 281, 332; Hymes 1986, 83. Fan Chung-yen himself had arranged the marriage between Fu Pi and a daughter of Yen Shu. 70

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possible outcomes in the negotiations. The one state letter concerning intermarriage would, if intermarriage were selected, be accompanied by an oath-letter for the intermarriage agreement. The other state letter for increased annual payments was associated with two possible outcomes, each of which was represented by an oath-letter: 200,000 more units of silver and silk if Liao could compel Hsia to submit and pay tribute73 to Sung once again, and 100,000 more units if Liao could (or would) not. The next day Fu Pi had his audience with the Kitan emperor, and it was immediately apparent that the monarch had little remaining enthusiasm for an intermarriage agreement. Said the Liao emperor, “Intermarriage would cause the ﬂesh and bones of the Southern Court to depart [their native land], and if perchance the [Sung] princess and the [Liao] Prince of Liang74 did not please each other, what could be done about it? Surely it is better to increase the annual payments, but that would be disconcerting. It would only be acceptable if the term ‘oﬀer up’ is added to the oath-letter.” Fu Pi responded, “The term ‘oﬀer up’ is a word for an inferior’s actions towards a superior; it cannot be applied between equal states.”75 To “oﬀer up” or to “present”? Negotiations thus soon became bogged down in terminology, another contentious issue of national pride for both sides. Would the increased payments indeed be “oﬀered up” (hsien), “presented,” (na), or something else? Hsien did have clear connotations of oﬀerings made by a subordinate to a superior, and this Fu Pi found utterly unacceptable. Besides, the verb hsien contradicted the kinship relations. Fortunately for Fu Pi (and indeed for Sung China), both state-tostate and emperor-to-emperor relations at this time were Elder Brother (Sung) and Younger Brother (Liao). Fu Pi pounced on the logic of this: “The Southern Court is Elder Brother. How could an elder brother ‘oﬀer up’ [hsien] to a younger brother?”

73 Kuei k’uan; during the early eleventh century, Hsia had paid tribute to both Sung and Liao. (Twitchett 1994, 120) 74 This was the Liao emperor’s son, who was standing behind a veil as these discussions were taking place. 75 Ti-kuo; HCPSL 2.421.

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Seemingly conceding Fu Pi’s point, the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung then said, “So; then let it be the term ‘present’ [na].” “Also unacceptable,” Fu Pi replied. The Kitan emperor’s patience was quickly wearing thin at Fu Pi’s seeming obstinance, and he resorted to direct threats. “The Southern Court is making signiﬁcant payments to Us because it fears Us. What then is the problem with one word? If We move southward with Our armies, We shall certainly not be disappointed!” “My Court equally loves the people of the north and south,” Fu Pi replied, “so it has been ﬂexible about increasing the payments. How can this be called ‘fear’?” Fu Pi then added that if it came to a military clash, “Right and wrong shall determine victory and defeat,” an oblique but clear enough allusion to the solemn terms of the Covenant of Shan-yüan. The Kitan emperor did not question this contention but instead berated Fu Pi for his seeming intractability. “Do not be stubborn. There is precedent for this in past history.” It was now Fu Pi’s turn to ratchet up the rhetoric. Alluding to an episode in T’ang-Türk relations, he even placed the prospect of personal humiliation before the Kitan emperor. “In previous times only Emperor Kao-tsu of T’ang76 utilised the Türk military, and his bestowals77 to them were variously called “oﬀerings” [hsien] or presentations” [na]. But later, Hsieh-li [Khaghan] was captured by Emperor T’ai-tsung78 of T’ang.” His implied threat was plain: did the Kitan emperor want to be reckless and face the possibility of a similar fate? Seeing that Fu Pi would not be moved to accept either term, the Kitan emperor did not give up on the matter but quite intelligently decided to send his own envoy to Sung to negotiate the terminology further. The Liao emperor Hsing-tsung retained the Sung oathletter for 200,000 increased units of silk and silver and sent Yeh-lü Jen-hsien79 and Liu Liu-fu as envoys with an oath-letter of their own to travel along with Fu Pi and Chang Mao-shih back to Sung. The oath-letter for 200,000 increased units contained a clear provision that Liao would order Hsia to submit and pay tribute to Sung, but 76 77 78 79

The founding emperor of T’ang; r. 618–627. Tseng-i a seeming euphemism for “payment.” R. 627–650. Biography LS 96.1395–97.

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Hsing-tsung was displeased with this and wanted to direct Fu Pi to alter it. Fu Pi refused, however, and the Kitans likewise were adamant about not including it in the text of their own oath-letter they would send to Sung. They did, however, include a passing reference to this provision in the state missive they sent to Sung with Yeh-lü Jenhsien and Liu Liu-fu. When these two Liao envoys arrived at Hsiungchou, they found that Fu Pi himself had been directed by the Sung court to act as their Reception Escort Commissioner.80 At the Sung court, debates over terminology began again in earnest. Fu Pi was ﬁrmly opposed to the use of either term and wanted to hang tough: “Your humble servant shall resist these two words to the death. The caitiﬀs’ spirit [for war] is now waning, and we must not approve of them.” But Lü I-chien and Yen Shu, while likely opposed to the term “oﬀer up” (hsien), did not ﬁnd the term “present” (na) so objectionable. At length the Sung emperor Jen-tsung accepted Yen Shu’s arguments and approved the use of “present” (na), to the chagrin of Yen Shu’s son-in-law Fu Pi and later generations of Chinese historians.81 A new agreement With the word game out of the way, the two sides got down to hard numbers and agreed upon annual increases of 100,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 ounces of silver. Fu Pi did not again go to the Kitans with the ﬁnal oath-letter settling the matter because he was disgusted with the ﬁnal outcome of the negotiations. Liao sources claim that Sung, after some hesitation, agreed to designate the increased annual payments as “tribute” (kung),82 but Sung materials of course do not

80

SSCSPM 21.153; SS 313.10252; CTKC 8.81; HCPSL 2.421–22. Southern Sung historian Li T’ao (1115–1184; biography SS 388.11914–20) deplored the use of na and the increased payments as excessively generous. The Kitans intended to abide by the Covenant of Shan-yüan all along, he argued, and were intimidating Sung China with empty threats. Northern Sung’s decision to give in to the Kitan terms led to “endless harm,” he concluded. (SSCSPM 21.153; HCPSL 2.423) Yeh Lung-li, a Southern Sung historian writing in the mid thirteenth century, expressed a similar opinion in his Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih, an important source on Liao history. (CTKC 8.82) In 1072 Wang An-shih displayed some impatience with the tediousness of the terminological controversy over hsien and na, comparing it to the controversy in his own time over language for the annual transfer of wealth to Liao. (HCPSL 2.636–37) 82 LSCSPM 29.558–59. 81

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corroborate this. Drafter83 Liang Shih (1000–1069)84 was sent with Sung’s oath-letter and accompanied the now-veteran diplomat Yehlü Jen-hsien back to the Kitans. (Yeh-lü Jen-hsien had served as a Birthday Felicitation Envoy to Sung in the summer of 1041.85) The text of the Sung oath-letter has been preserved.86 The received missive speaks of the oath-letters of Emperor Chen-tsung87 [of Sung] and Emperor Sheng-tsung88 [of Liao providing for] annual [payments of ] 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 ounces of silver to help with [Liao] military expenses. Because our Two Courts have by now had thirty-six years89 of amicable relations [and because] this Court has already long transmitted custody over the Kuan-nan districts90 and towns, it would be shameful and diﬃcult to comply [with your request]. [Instead], every year we shall increase the silks by 100,000 bolts and silver by 100,000 ounces. We reverently think upon the majestic spirits of the two sagacious [emperors]91 in Heaven who watch over us here, compiling [records of ] our undertakings. Each side should abide by [our agreements] and together hold to the main points, having no petty suspicions between [us]. All else shall be in accordance with the oath-letters of our Two Courts [dating to] the [Sung] Ching-te92 and [Liao] T’ung-ho93 reign periods.

In response, Liao sent Yeh-lü Jen-hsien and Liu Liu-fu once more back to Sung with Liao’s oath-letter,94 which was delivered on October 11, 1042. Among many other provisions reﬂecting the original oathletter for the Covenant of Shan-yüan concluded in 1005, the oath letter speciﬁcally stated that the increase in annual payments was in lieu of ceding the Kuan-nan territory.95 With this the entire crisis

83

Chih-chih-kao; Hucker 1985, 156.955.2. Biography SS 285.9623–25. 85 LSCSPM 29.552. 86 CTKC 8.81. 87 Chang-sheng Huang-ti. 88 Shao-sheng Huang-ti. 89 San chi. 90 Hsien; Hucker 1985, 240.2492.2. 91 Posthumous titles of both Sung Chen-tsung and Liao Sheng-tsung contain the character sheng, or “sagacious.” 92 1004–1008. 93 983–1012. 94 The text of the Liao oath-letter is in HCPSL 2.422–23. 95 HCPSL 2.423. 84

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was resolved. The Kitans soon announced that their troops threatening Sung had been withdrawn. Liao viewed the outcome of these negotiations as a victory and handsomely rewarded Liu Liu-fu for his part in them. The Sung court oﬀered Fu Pi an appointment as a Hanlin Academician,96 but he declined the honour because he felt he did not deserve it.97 Fu Pi’s diplomatic accomplishments Fu Pi was a skilled and ﬁrm negotiator who artfully bluﬀed his way through the crisis of 1042 with a bad hand. He had the right personality and deportment for this; his biography in the Sung-shih notes that he was scrupulously respectful in speech and actions towards all people, even petty oﬃcials and commoners. He was a diﬃcult man to read; the constant look of serenity and contentment on his face made it impossible to discern whether he was “glad or vexed.”98 He won the respect of Liao diplomats, who while on their routine diplomatic missions to Sung after 1042 always inquired after him and the political oﬃces he held. Towards the end of his life, Fu Pi probably had some inkling that he would be remembered in history chieﬂy as the agile diplomat who prevented war between Sung and Liao at a critical juncture. When people spoke with him in his retirement about his diplomatic achievements, he tended to blush and clam up. His younger relatives eventually questioned him about the reason for this, and he ﬁnally came clean about what was really on his mind at the time: he was convinced that Sung was too weak to face down the Kitans militarily. By the time I went to the Northern Court, all the veteran generals and seasoned statesmen had passed away. The contemporary military men were ignorant of warfare and the soldiers did not know how to ﬁght. What we could count on was the diplomatic missions we continuously sent to appease the enemies. Under such circumstances, it could not be said that we were doing something wrong, for if we insisted on a showdown with the enemy, the result could be unthinkably disastrous. Therefore, to increase the annual tribute for peace was

96

Han-lin hsüeh-shih; Hucker 1985, 222.2142. SSCSPM 21.153; SS 313.10252; CTKC 8.81–82; LSCSPM 29.558–60; HCPSL 2.425. 98 SS 313.10257. 97

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the only thing we could do, although such an ignominious act was against my wish.99

Fu Pi was, I think, correct in his analysis; Liao was powerful militarily in the middle of the eleventh century and likely would have handed Sung a defeat on the battleﬁeld. Even so, Sung sources and modern Chinese historians are probably accurate in claiming that Liao was not serious about its military threats against Sung China in 1042 and had every intention of continuing to abide by the Covenant of Shan-yüan, even as it took advantage of an opportunity to intimidate Sung into increasing the annual payments.100 Like Sung, Liao was preoccupied with relations with Hsia. It may also have been that Liao took the awesome religious sanctions of the covenant concluded at Shan-yüan more seriously than Sung did.

Continued Clashes with Hsia Adept and accommodative diplomacy in renegotiating the annual payments to Liao in 1042 had averted what the Sung Chinese saw as the gravest threat to their national security, but the dynasty was not yet out of the military and diplomatic woods; there remained the struggle with Hsia, a secondary threat suﬃciently harrowing to lead some Sung oﬃcials such as Fu Pi to conclude that the Sung military’s lacklustre performance on the battleﬁeld with the Tanguts had indeed shown that Sung military commanders “were ignorant of warfare” and that “the soldiers did not know how to ﬁght.” Third Sung defeat by Hsia: The Battle of Ting-ch’uan Chai, October–November 1042 During the height of Fu Pi’s negotiations with Liao in late 1042, clashes between Sung and Hsia had begun heating up again.101 The debacle at Hao-shui River was a great lesson for the Sung court, 99

Djang 1989, 338. See, for example, HCPSL 2.423 and Tao 1988, 61. 101 Although Hsia had been victorious at Hao-shui River, it did not meet thereafter with one success after another. In December of 1041 Yüan-hao had attacked Sung along the Ho-tung border, but there he met with stout resistance, including nighttime attacks on Hsia encampments and a successful ambush by Sung forces at Mien-mao River, a tributary of the Yellow River in the Ordos region. 100

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and starting in late 1041 it began strengthening its defences near the Hsia border. In mid October through mid November 1042 Yüanhao, who wanted to conclude peace with Sung, launched another attack to strengthen his negotiating position with Sung. From the T’ien-tu Mountains in the modern Ning-hsia “Autonomous Region” he launched an oﬀensive with 100,000 troops divided into two columns and attacked southward, his larger purpose being to advance to Weichou and beyond. The Sung hastily cobbled together forces to meet the Hsia threat, but Yüan-hao’s forces outﬂanked and surrounded them at Ting-ch’uan Chai, approximately twelve kilometres north of Chen-jung Military Prefecture. Finding themselves surrounded and mocked by Hsia forces, the Sung commanders decided that they would ﬁght at ﬁrst light and attempt to retreat to Chen-jung Military Prefecture, where they could make a better stand. Yüan-hao had anticipated this, however, and along Sung’s retreat route he had deployed many thousands of troops in ambush positions. As a result, the retreating Sung troops were largely wiped out. One Sung general was captured along with all of the 9400 men and 600 horses under his command. It was another defeat for Sung and a victory for Yüan-hao, who thereafter proceeded with his plan to march southwards to Wei-chou. His victory, however, was not complete; he was prevented from doing this by a Sung commander who intercepted his forces, fought a victorious battle with them, and compelled them to retreat.102 Discussions, debates, and diplomatic breakthrough The Sung’s third defeat by Hsia, when coupled by tentative overtures from Yüan-hao in early 1043, ﬁnally led to a breakthrough in SungHsia relations. In late 1042 the Sung court had sent Liang Shih to the Kitans once again, this time to press them to follow through on their half-hearted commitment to compel Hsia to make peace with Sung. Liang’s mission bore fruit, and before long Yüan-hao was contacting Sung and attempting to address the Sung emperor Jen-tsung as “father”; he began a letter to Sung with “The Son, Wu-chu-hsiao of the State of Pang-ni-ting,103 sends a letter to his Father, Emperor 102

Li 1998, 173–75; Wang 1993, 141–51; Wu 1982, 62. Apparently Pang-ni-ting was an alternate transcription of the Tangut name for their own state; see Dunnell 1994, 188. See also SS 485.13998. 103

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of the Great Sung.” The title Yüan-hao used was, was, a Sung oﬃcial pointed out, likely similar to the titles of shan-yü or khan in past history.104 (At this stage in the negotiations Yüan-hao had not yet accepted status as a Sung subject or recognised the Sung emperor’s overlordship.105) In early 1043 the Sung court debated accepting these terms, and most top oﬃcials were inclined to accept them. But oﬃcials in the reformist group, including Han Ch’i, Fan Chung-yen, Fu Pi, and the famous Sung statesman and historian Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–1072),106 were opposed to this. Recognising the analogy to the ﬁctive kinship relations in Sung-Liao relations and apparently also the diplomatic parity this would imply between Sung and Hsia, they persuaded the Sung court to reject the proposed formula. Some months later the Sung took the initiative by oﬀering to recognise Yüan-hao as “lord” (chu), a title much humbler than “emperor” and one which of course implied his subjugation to the Sung emperor, and also to allow him to retain the native titles he had arrogated to himself, as long as he understood that he was still a subject of Sung. Sung also oﬀered to buy the Tanguts oﬀ with annual payments, something it had recently proven it was willing to do in its negotiations with Liao, when it increased annual payments to the Kitans.107 The outspoken and passionate Fu Pi, however, was worried that too many concessions to Hsia might lead Liao to conclude that Sung had recognised Hsia as an equal, thus implying that Sung was a subject of Liao the same way Hsia was. This would have amounted, in the words of a modern scholar, to “the leadership of East Asia” passing to the Kitans.108 The Sung statesman Yü Ching (1000–1064)109 had similar worries; if Sung accepted an alliance with the “barbarians to the west” (hsi-jung), he opined on March 30, 1043, then the initiative for peace would rest with rival states and “China’s prestige would be reduced to nothing.” He forcefully urged that the “sovereign-subject” (chünch’en) relationship between Sung and Hsia remain unchanged; to alter it would be shameful, he argued.110 Fu Pi continued in a similar vein 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

HCPSL 2.429. Tao 1988, 62, 63. Biographies Liu 1967; Franke 1976, 2.808–16; SS 319.10375–81. Dunnell 1994, 188. Tao 1972, 116; Tao 1988, 62–63. Biographies SS 320.10407–11; Novey 1983. HCPSL 2.431.

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on May 13, 1043. If Sung could not get Yüan-hao to recognise himself as a subject of Sung, he argued, Sung would lose much prestige in the eyes of Liao, and this might lead in turn to an inﬂated sense of self-importance among the Kitans. If the Kitans concluded that Yüan-hao, who had previously declared himself subject (ch’engch’en) to both Sung and Liao, was now refusing to be a Sung subject, this would be tantamount to Sung descending to a status of parity with Hsia, thus leaving Liao in a position of “solitary preeminence” (tu-tsun) over them both! If on a future day, Fu Pi continued, the Kitans then made further demands in response to triﬂing frictions on the Sung-Liao border, how could they be refused?111 The reasoning of the xenophobic112 Ou-yang Hsiu was similar, and in the summer of 1043, when the reform faction was at the height of its inﬂuence, he was quite outspoken. On July 8, 1043 he claimed to have learned that the Kitans along the border were asking whether a peace agreement with Hsia had been reached. This worried Ou-yang, who was convinced that the real threat to Sung China was not from the “barbarians to the west” (hsi-jung) but from the “rival to the north” ( pei-ti )113—Liao. (Fan Chung-yen had a similar view.) The Kitans were inquiring about peace with Hsia because they were inveterate weighers of power relationships, Ou-yang argued, and they were attempting thereby to assess Sung power. Kitan practice had long been thus, he maintained: “When they encounter strength, they submit; when they perceive weakness, they bully.” This is what the Kitans had recently done, he continued: when they saw Sung’s inability to defeat Hsia militarily, they intimidated Sung into increasing the annual payments to them. And the Kitans were still not satisﬁed, Ou-yang went on; if Sung could not deal eﬀectively with Hsia, the Kitans might make further demands.114 Ou-yang Hsiu continued along these lines on August 27, 1043, expressing worries that even if Yüan-hao proclaimed himself a subject, Liao might still be tempted to attack Sung; the “small threat” from the west might be reduced for the time being only to be followed by a “great threat” from the north.115 Ou-yang Hsiu’s wor-

111 112 113 114 115

HCPSL 2.432. Wright 2002. Pei-ti here is completely homophonous with pei-ti, “northern dogs.” HCPSL 2.433–34. HCPSL 2.435–36.

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ries were seemingly comprehensive; a few days later he expressed the concerns of many oﬃcials when he speculated that if the Hsia “banditti” were allowed not to designate themselves as Sung’s subjects, the Kitans might demand a redesignation of their own relationship with Sung China. (This implied that Liao might want to move from a position of equality with Sung to a position of outright superiority over it.) Further, Ou-yang continued on behalf of oﬃcials who shared his concerns, even if Hsia did designate itself as a Sung subject, the Kitans might claim credit for this and see Sung as beholden to them. Whether Hsia proclaimed itself a Sung subject or no—there was potential trouble either way.116 Yü Ching’s ﬁrst mission The Sung court was also gravely concerned about the prospects for Hsia-Liao collusion against Sung. Uncertain of how probable this was, however, the Sung court decided to send Yü Ching to Liao in late 1043 as the New Felicitation Envoy to the Kitan Empress Dowager Fa-t’ien. As far as Sung was concerned, Yü Ching’s responsibilities were not mainly diplomatic; rather, his mission was to gather intelligence on the likelihood of joint Hsia-Liao military action. At the Liao court, the Kitan emperor Hsing-tsung himself showed Yü Ching Yüan-hao’s agreement to the Kitans’ desires for a settlement between Sung and Hsia. Armed with this information, Yü Ching was able to report to Sung that no such military campaign was in the oﬃng.117 Liao and Hsia clash Hsia-Liao relations deteriorated shortly after this, and in late 1043 Liao attacked Hsia in response to hostile Hsia border policy.118 This, however, does not seem to have had signiﬁcant impact at the Sung court; as negotiations and debates over Yüan-hao’s title dragged on in 1043 and into 1044, some Sung oﬃcials were still worrying about the prospect of joint Hsia-Liao military action. On May 30, 1044,

116 117 118

HCPSL 2.438. Tao 1972, 116–18. On the ﬁghting see Wang 1993, 159–62.

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for example, Fan Chung-yen, who was in charge of matters pertaining to Hsia while Fu Pi was over relations with Liao,119 expressed concern about Liao and Hsia possibly combining their forces against Sung. Meanwhile, he speculated, Hsia was resting up and might still be a threat. But it was Liao, he maintained, that was the real threat to Sung China, and like Ou-yang Hsiu he worried about Liao wanting to claim credit if Hsia submitted to Sung.120 Late in the summer of 1044 the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung, heartily sick of the new Hsia hostility towards his state, informed Sung that he would “punish the Tanguts for Sung” and asked Sung in the meantime not to conclude a truce with Hsia. This request led to a furore of debate at the Sung court because Hsia had been pressuring Sung for a peace agreement so that they (Hsia) could deal with the Kitans invading their land. What was the Sung court to do? If it approved the Hsia request, clashes in the west would immediately cease and Sung could enjoy the spectacle of barbarian ﬁghting barbarian and reap the attendant national security beneﬁts. If, on the other hand, Sung accepted the Liao request, a golden opportunity to settle matters with Hsia would be lost. But then again, if Sung refused Liao’s request, Liao might be provoked into launching an attack on Sung.121 Fan Chung-yen advocated rejecting Liao’s request, but most other high Sung oﬃcials, including Chang Fang-p’ing (1007–1091),122 Ouyang Hsiu, and Wang Kung-ch’en (1012–1085),123 opposed this and argued for accepting the Liao request and pressuring Hsia not to attack Liao. Yü Ching, however, took a diﬀerent perspective and pointed out the obvious: Sung would not avoid all danger of war no matter which alternative it chose. He argued for declining the Liao request but softening this by explaining to Liao that Yüan-hao seemed sincere in his peace initiatives and that it would thus be extremely diﬃcult for Sung to ignore them.124

119

HCPSL 2.459. HCPSL 2.450–52. 121 Tao 1972, 118–19. This paragraph from Tao is based on the epitaph (shentao-pei ) written for Yü Ching by Ou-yang Hsiu. (Yü Ching preceded Ou-yang Hsiu in death by eight years.) 122 Biographies Franke 1976, 1.16–19; SS 318.10353–59. 123 Biography SS 318.10359–62. 124 Tao 1972, 119. 120

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Yü Ching’s second mission Ultimately Yü Ching’s approach was accepted, and on September 3, 1044125 he was appointed as a negotiatory envoy to deliver Sung’s oﬃcial reply to the Liao emperor Hsing-tsung. Its gist has been translated by Jing-shen Tao: It would be proper for the northern dynasty to punish Yüan-hao, who has failed to serve your large country. It is suggested that if Yüan-hao still obeys the orders from our dynasty, it would be unnecessary for us to send any army (against him). Recently the prefect of Yen-chou reported that Yüan-hao has dispatched Yang Shou-su to our court, with the new text of the treaty. If the Hsia does not observe the previous agreement, we would refuse the treaty; but if she observes it, it would be diﬃcult to reject.126

Yü Ching’s audience with the Liao emperor took place at Chiushih-chiu ch’üan (Ninety-nine Springs).127 After intense negotiation and several lengthy audiences with the Liao emperor, Yü Ching returned to Sung during the ninth lunar month of 1044, or between September 24 and October 23, and cynically recommended settling the matter of Yüan-hao’s title so that further warfare could be provoked between Hsia and Liao.128 This, Yü said in a fairly stiﬀ memorial that anticipated several possible military scenarios which might ensue after Yüan-hao’s investiture, was a way to get Hsia and Liao to go to war against each other. “The two enemies continually at war—this would be most advantageous to China.”129

125

HCPSL 2.477. Tao 1972, 119. 127 HCPSL 2.484. Novey 1983, 74 (citing LS 19.232) argues that Chiu-shih-chiu ch’üan would have been near Mu-yeh Mountain (approximately 130 kilometres southeast of Liao’s Supreme Capital) at this time, since this is where the Liao emperor usually was on his winter na-po. T’an 19822, 6.10–11, however, places Chiu-shih-chiu ch’üan in the Liao’s Western Capital Circuit and approximately 375 kilometres northwest of Hsiung-chou, or approximately 120 kilometres northwest of Liao’s Western Capital. Novey’s location seems the more likely. Chiu-shih-chiu ch’üan might also have been more of a generic geographical descriptor than a precise toponym. 128 Tao 1972, 120; Novey 1983, 64–65. 129 HCPSL 2.484. Yü Ching also eventually wrote up a treatise on his observations of how the Liao state was administered. This treatise was, in the words of its modern translator, “a thorough, critical, balanced, and impartial account” of “who mattered, how things worked, and what happened when.” (Novey 1983, 64–65) As such, it had obvious intelligential value. 126

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226 Yüan-hao’s investiture

In late 1044 Yüan-hao ﬁnally indicated to Sung that he was willing to recognise himself as its subject and be entitled as “Ruler of the State of Hsia” (Hsia-kuo chu). His change of heart arose from three considerations: his already weak economy was badly strained by the burdens of years of warfare; Fan Chung-yen’s defensive measures and renewed Sung defences were beginning to tell and were posing new potential diﬃculties to Hsia; and pressure from Liao and the prospects of worsening relations with the Kitans. Yüan-hao’s new willingness not to insist on the title “emperor” satisﬁed Sung’s basic condition for peace talks, so after this the negotiations went smoothly.130 Fu Pi and Yü Ching were enthusiastic about concluding peace with Hsia, as was the Sung court. On January 29, 1045 Sung oﬃcially entitled Yüan-hao as “Ruler of the State of Hsia” (Hsia-kuo chu) and recognised his name change to Nang-hsiao. The Sung court sent the relatively obscure Chang Tzu-shih131 as Entitlement Ceremony Envoy (ts’e-li shih) along with Chang Shih-yüan132 as his deputy to deliver an investiture document to Yüan-hao/Nang-hsiao applauding his “self-renewal.”133 Also given to him were various gifts, including 20,000 ounces of silver, 20,000 bolts of silk, and a gold-daubed silver document seal approximately 6.6 centimetres (2.6 inches) square which printed the words “Seal of the Ruler of the State of Hsia” (Hsia-kuo chu yin).134 The ﬁnal peace treaty between the two states speciﬁed annual payments to Hsia of 153,000 bolts of silk, 30,000 catties of tea, and 72,000 ounces of silver. Further, Hsia would receive Sung envoys at Yu-chou and not the Hsia capital and would employ the same protocol ( pin-k’o li ) it extended to Liao embassies. Markets on the Sung-Hsia border were reopened but the border was not precisely demarcated, and this led to heated disputes and clashes between the two states until they were separated in the early twelfth century, when Jurchen conquests separated Sung and Liao and eliminated the common border between them.135 The Hsia state lasted until 1227, when it was destroyed as one of the last acts of Chinggis

130 131 132 133 134 135

Li 1998, 56. No biographical information found. No biographical information found. The text of the investiture document is in HCPSL 2.487. HCPSL 2.487. HCPSL 2.487; Dunnell 1994, 187–89; Dunnell 1996, 45.

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Khan. (According to one seventeenth-century Mongolian source, Chinggis Khan died after attempting to impose himself sexually on the Tangut queen whose husband he had recently executed.136) The Sung emperor Jen-tsung’s decision to conclude peace with Hsia marked the end of the ascendance of Fan Chung-yen’s reform faction, most members of which had been opposed to reconciliation with Hsia. Fan Chung-yen was demoted and sent out to a post near the Hsia border, and Ou-yang Hsiu was transferred to Ho-tung. Accusations of factionalism were eventually levelled against Fan, Han Ch’i, and Fu Pi when the reforms were reversed during the spring of 1045. Several of the reformers, including Fu Pi, were pugnaciously Manichean in their worldviews and had uncompromising personalities, and these traits had earned them many enemies.137 Soon after the Sung-Hsia peace, Hsia and Liao did go to war with each other. Yü Ching’s role in leading to the truce between Sung and Hsia, and perhaps to the Hsia-Liao war as well, has traditionally been obscured by his demotion in 1045 at the hands of Sung oﬃcials who opposed and ended Fan Chung-yen’s reforms.138 In spite of his diplomatic accomplishments, Fan Chung-yen’s opponents deplored Yü Ching’s unseemly use of the Kitan language (which he had studied) in composing a poem for the Liao emperor during a third diplomatic mission to the Kitans in early 1045.139 In his biography of Yü Ching, Ou-yang Hsiu was eﬀusive in his praise. Because of Yü’s deft diplomacy, Ou-yang concluded, “The defensive preparations [of Sung] in the west were relieved, and nothing happened in the north.”140 Jing-shen Tao concludes that Yü Ching’s policies amounted to the traditional Chinese policy of “using the barbarians to attack the barbarians” and that “. . . when there suddenly emerged a possibility of war between the two enemies [Hsia and Liao], Yü Ching’s timely policy hastened its realization.” Hsia and Liao were both weakened after their war with each other, he concludes.141 This of course is somewhat Sinocentric. I am not so 136

Wright 1997. Liu 1967, 47–48. See also Tsang 1997, 285–324. 138 Tao 1972, 120–21. 139 On Yü Ching’s poetic antics see Franke 1976B. On February 12, 1045 Yü Ching was appointed as a Reciprocation Envoy and sent to Liao in response to the arrival of a Liao envoy in February 8, 1045 who announced the end of Liao hostilities with Hsia. (HCPSL 2.491, 493) 140 Tao 1988, 67. 141 Tao 1972, 121. 137

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certain that the initiative throughout the crisis of 1044 always remained with Sung; it may have been that reasons other than Sung manipulation led to war between the two states. Surely there were both Chinese and non-Chinese statesmen in Hsia and Liao who well understood the time-honoured Chinese tradition of i-i chih i, “using barbarians to resist barbarians,” and they would have been on their guard against falling for it. The reasons for the outbreak of war between Hsia and Liao in 1044 were likely more complex than thirdparty diplomatic engineering alone. The 1045 peace agreement was by no means the end of warfare between Sung and Hsia. Warfare between the two states would periodically ﬂare up for the next several decades, particularly during the 1060s through the 1080s and the reigns of the Sung emperors Shentsung (r. 1067–1085) and Che-tsung (r. 1085–1100).142 In fact, Shentsung’s “ﬁxation” on conquering Hsia may have contributed signiﬁcantly to the eventual fall of Northern Sung.143

142 On the continuing warfare between Sung and Hsia during this time, see Tsang 1997, 327–523; Forage 1991A, 25–61; Forage 1991B; Dunnell 1994, 189–98. 143 Dunnell 1996, 14.

CONCLUSION

The concept of international equality or diplomatic parity is, with some qualiﬁcations and cautions, applicable to relations between Sung and Liao but not to relations between Sung and other states and peoples. Sung reserved the language of diplomatic equality for Liao alone and used language implying or connoting subordination in its relations and contacts with other states. It is often assumed that Sung was compelled to recognise Liao as a diplomatic equal simply because Sung was a weak dynasty militarily. But as I argued in Chapter One, military might was not the only factor in the emergence of equal diplomacy between the two states. Force majeure and the signiﬁcant complement of Chinese culture in Liao combined to create unique historical circumstances. Diplomatic parity emerged between states that had fought each other to a standstill: a native Chinese state to the south and a dualistic conquest dynasty in the north. Between the two states a power relationship of “balanced hostility, neither one being strong enough to subjugate the other”1 emerged, and the product of multiplying this stalemate by the Chinese cultural presence in both Sung and Liao was the diplomatic parity between the two states this book has discussed. In earlier Chinese history there were diplomatic contacts between T’o-pa Wei and the Southern Dynasties, but they did not reach the formal and regularised oath-bound diplomacy of Sung-Liao relations during the eleventh century. This was perhaps because no long-term stalemate or détente could develop between T’o-pa Wei and the quick succession of native Chinese dynasties in the south. The Yüan (1279–1368) and Ch’ing (1368–1644) conquest dynasties, of course, eliminated the possibility of diplomatic parity by succeeding in conquering all of Chinese territory and prevailing over native Chinese loyalist regimes. Liao and Chin seem to have been the conquest dynasties that reached long-term stalemates with a single native Chinese dynasty in the south, and under these circumstances international equality

1

Wittfogel and Feng 1949, 326.

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emerged as a reality.2 Speciﬁc boundaries and grave concern about their violation were also international realities that emerged after 1005. These boundaries were political in every sense of the word and were not mere blurry indications of the geographical extent of Chinese culture or civilisation. The international equality between Sung and Liao had its origins in the Covenant of Shan-yüan concluded in early 1005, as described in Chapter Two. This formal covenant would not have been concluded between two states that insisted on regarding each other as vassals or inferiors. From this time on, the rulers of the two states remained in regular formal diplomatic contact with one another, addressing each other in Chinese as emperors and empress dowagers. Sung took its diplomatic responsibilities with Liao seriously and earnestly, as shown in Chapter Three. Sung envoys to Liao were not always as high-ranking as Liao would have liked, but the Sung government still attended to its selection of envoys with considerable concern for the image and prestige of Sung China they would project. Many envoys sent to Liao went on to become very prominent Sung oﬃcials, and this speaks well of Sung’s attention to its relations with Liao. Indications of equality or diplomatic parity between Sung and Liao included the language of diplomatic missives, as discussed in Chapter Four. Little material pertaining to Liao’s diplomatic correspondence with Sung or any other state survives, but the relative abundance of extant Sung letters to foreign states indicates that Liao occupied a unique and exalted position in the hierarchy of states with which Sung had diplomatic contacts. As Chapter Four argued, Sung diplomatic missives to Liao served the very real purpose of reminding the two states of their diplomatic equality, the ﬁctive kinship relations between their emperors (and sometimes empress dowagers), and the solemn commitments to peace made at Shan-yüan in 1005. In Chapter Five I described the embassy reports submitted by Sung envoys upon the completion of their missions. The pejorative 2 The pattern of international equality between Sung and its powerful northern neighbour state was brieﬂy interrupted during the twelfth century. In 1138 the Southern Sung emperor Kao-tsung (r. 1127–1163) was compelled to accept the status of “vassal” (ch’en) vis-à-vis the Chin emperor in order to achieve peace with the Jurchens. The next Southern Sung emperor, Hsiao-tsung (r. 1163–1190) achieved an improvement in this arrangement when his “vassal” status was eliminated and elevated to that of “nephew” (chih) vis-à-vis his “uncle” (shu), the Chin emperor.

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terminology and revanchist sentiments contained in these reports (meant for internal Sung consumption only) are some indications that Sung grudgingly accepted international equality with Liao only as an expedient and longed to back away from it as soon as there was a realistic opportunity for prevailing over Liao. During the early twelfth century Sung seems to have concluded that this opportunity had ﬁnally emerged. Sung chose throughout the eleventh century to abide by the Covenant of Shan-yüan, even during the mid-century period of diplomatic crisis described in Chapter Six, and throughout the century it incurred no large losses of territory to its northern neighbour. But with the rise of the Jurchens as an enemy to Liao during the early twelfth century, Sung could no longer resist. Sung clearly violated the Covenant of Shan-yüan concluded over a century earlier when it formulated and pursued the policy of allying with the Jurchens in an attempt to destroy Liao and recover the lost northern territories at last. The policy backﬁred, and Sung lost even more territory to another conquest dynasty: Jurchen Chin (1115–1234). In the words of a common idiom in modern Mandarin Chinese, Sung not only failed to steal a chicken but even lost the handful of grain with which it had intended to bait the chicken.

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GLOSSARY

An Lu-shan An-su Central Capital Chai-hsing Range Ch’ai chan-kuan Ch’an-tou Range chang Chang-chou Chang Fang-p’ing Chang-hsien Chang I chang-jen Chang Mao-shih Chang San Chang Sheng Chang-sheng huang-ti Chang Shih-sun Chang Shun-min Chang-ssu-k’ung Chang Su Chang Tsai Ch’ang-an Ch’ang-ch’eng Ch’ang-ch’eng-k’ou Ch’ang-chiao-shan Ch’ang-ch’un Ch’ang-hen ko Ch’ang-hsing Ch’ang-ning Ch’ang-po Ch’ang-t’ai ch’ang-wen chao Chao Ch’i Chao Kai

248 Chao K’uang-i Chao K’uang-yin Chao P’ing Chao-sheng Chao Tung-chih Chao Wei ch’ao-kung Ch’ao-li River Ch’ao Po-yü Che Che-tsung Chen Chen-chou Chen-kuo ssu Chen-ting-fu Chen-tsung ch’en Ch’en Bridge Ch’en Hsiang Ch’en I ch’en-liao pu ying tso-che Ch’en-liu Ch’en Yao-sou Cheng Ch’üan-i Cheng-kung Cheng-kou-kung cheng-shih Cheng Ssu-tsung ch’eng ch’eng-ch’en Ch’eng Chi Ch’eng Hao ch’eng-hsia chih meng Ch’eng I ch’eng-kuo Ch’eng Shih-meng Ch’eng T’ang Ch’eng-t’ien Ch’eng-tu

glossary

glossary Ch’eng Wen-hsiu Ch’eng-yao-lu Chi chi chi Chi-chou Chi-men chi-mi Chi-pin chi-tien kuo-hsin-shih chi-tien-shih chi-tzu chi-wen Ch’i ch’i-chang Ch’i-chou Ch’i Ch’un-ku Ch’i-tan Ch’i-tan chuan Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih Ch’i-tan Range Ch’i-tien Ch’i-tu Rver Chia-yu Chiang Kai-shek Ch’iang Chiao-chou chieh chieh ai shun pien Chieh Ho (Border River) chieh-pan fu-shih chieh-pan shih Chieh-shih chieh-tu-shih chien Ch’ien-hsing Ch’ien Hui Ch’ien-ling Ch’ien-lung Ch’ien-ming

,

249

250 Ch’ien Ming-i Ch’ien-t’ung Ch’ien-yüan chih (nephew) chih (decree) chih Chih-ho Chih-p’ing chih-sun chih tan-ch’ing erh chu shih ch’ih Ch’ih-ch’eng ch’ih-tzu Ch’ih-yai chin (delivery) chin (deferential) Chin (Chinese dynasties) Chin ( Jurchen dynasty) Chin-chou Chin-kou Chin-kou-tien Chin-ling chin-shih Chin-yang Ch’in Cheng Ch’in-ts’ai Range Ch’in-tsung Ching-chi Ching-hsi Nan Lu Ching-hsi Pei Lu Ching-jung ching-sao Ching-te Ching-tsung Ching-tung Lu Ch’ing Ch’ing-chou Ch’ing-li Ch’ing-shui chiu (liquor)

glossary

glossary chiu (uncle) Chiu-shih-chiu ch’üan Ch’iu-tz’u Cho-chou Cho River Chou chou Chou-li Chou Meng-yang chu Chu Hsi Chu-ku-shan chu-man Ch’u chü-ch’ü Chü-hsien-shih Chü-ma River ch’ü-yen chüan ch’üan-pien Chuang-chuang River ch’uang-tzu-nu ch’üeh-ch’ang ch’üeh-hsia chün (military prefecture) chün chün-ch’en Chung-chieh Chung-ching Chung-lu Chung-tu Chung-wen Ta Tz’u-tien Chung-yung ch’ung-chih Ch’ung-ch’ung River Ch’ung-hsin Ch’ung-i-kung Ch’ung-ning Duke Huan of Ch’i Eastern Capital

251

252 erh-hsi fa Fa-tien Fan fan Fan Ch’eng-ta Fan Ch’un-li Fan Chung-yen Fan River fan-shih Fan Tsu-yü Fan-yang Fang Yin-cheng fei feng Feng Cheng Feng-yu Fo Foochow fu (silk) fu (prefecture) fu (zone) fu (deputy) Fu Cheng-kung Hsing-ch’eng-lu Fukien Fu Le-huan Fu Pi fu-shih Fu-yü hai-tung-ch’ing hai-wai fan-k’o Han (dynasty and nationality) Han (surname) Han Chen Han Ch’i (Liao ﬁgure) Han Ch’i (Sung ﬁgure) Han Chin Han Chün-ch’ing Han Chün-yu Han Hui

glossary

glossary Han I-hsün Han-shu Han Te-jang Han Tsung Han Tzu-tao Han Yen-hui Han-Ying Tz’u-tien Hangchou (Hangchow) Hao Chen Hao-chou hao-kung Hao-shui River Hao Wei-li Hei-shan Hei-yai Heng-kou River Heng-shan Range ho-cheng-shih ho cheng-tan kuo-hsin-shih Ho Ch’eng-chü ho-ch’in Ho-chung Ho-hsi Honan Ho-pei ho sheng-ch’en kuo-hsin-shih ho teng-wei kuo-hsin-shih ho teng-wei shih ho ts’e-li kuo hsin-shih ho ts’e-li shih Ho-tung Lu Ho-yang Hou-ma Hsi Hsi-chin Hsi-ching Hsi Hsia hsi jung Hsi-liang tien Hsi-ning

253

254 Hsi-ning shih-lu t’u-ch’ao Hsia Hsia Fang hsia-chieh Hsia kuo-chu Hsia kuo-chu yin Hsia-mo Hsia Sung Hsiang Hsiang Ch’uan Hsiang Ch’uan-fan Hsiang Kung Hsiang-shan-tzu Hsiao Hsiao Chih-shan Hsiao Hao-ku Hsiao Ho-chuo Hsiao Hsi Hsiao Hsiao-mu Hsiao Hsieh Hsiao Hu Hsiao Hui Hsiao Kuan-yin-nu Hsiao Liang Hsiao Ning Hsiao Pa-ya-erh Hsiao Pao-hsien Hsiao Su Hsiao Ta-lin Hsiao Te Hsiao Te-ch’ung Hsiao T’e-mo Hsiao Wei-hsin Hsiao Ying Hsiao Yü-chin Hsieh-li hsien (oﬀer up) hsien Hsien-chou Hsien-hsi

glossary

glossary Hsien-jung Hsien-ning Hsin Hsin-an Hsin-ch’eng Hsin Ch’i-chi Hsin T’ang-shu Hsing hsing-ch’eng lu Hsing-chou Hsing Hsiang Hsing I-t’ien Hsing-lung Hsing-t’ou Hsing-tsung Hsing Yu hsiung Hsiung-chou Hsiung-nu hsiung-ti chih kuo Hsü K’ang-tsung Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien Hsüan-hua Hsüan-tsung Hsüan-t’u Hsüeh I-k’uo Hsüeh Ying Hu-k’ou Hu-liang River Hu-pei-k’ou Hu-pei-k’ou Road Hu Su Hua-chou Hua-I Lu Wei Hsin-lu Hua-yen huai-jou Huai-lien Huai-nan Tung Lu Huang Ch’ao Huang K’uan-ch’ung

255

256

glossary

Huang-lo-lo-p’an Huang-lung-fu Huang River huang-ti huang-ti teng pao-wei shih Huang-yu hui (reply) hui (taboo) Hui-chou hui-hsieh shih Hui-hsien-shih Hui-hsing Hui-tsung Hung-chi hung-lu-ssu Huo-shan Chün Hur-li Lee I-chin I-chou i-i chih i I-kung I-kuo-kung I-li I Li-pi i-liu i-liu-shih I-mou-hsün I t’ien t’i-tao chih jen kuang te tz’u shun chang sheng Jao-chou Jao-le chou jen Jen-tsung Jen tz’u sheng shan ch’in hsiao kuang te an ching cheng ch’un i ho k’uanhou ch’ung chüeh i t’ien Jingshen Tao (T’ao Chin-sheng) ju ju-p’ing

glossary Jui wen ying wu tsung tao chih te ch’ung jen kuang hsiao kung ch’eng chih ting ch’i yüan chao sheng shen tsan t’ien fu Jung-ch’eng Jung-chou Jurchen Kaifeng Kan-chou kan-ko Kansu K’ang-chou K’ang-hsi Tzu-tien K’ang Mo-chi K’ang-ting K’ang-ts’un Kao kao-ai-shih Kao Cheng-shih Kao Chi-hsün Kao Ch’iung Kao-liang River kao teng-wei-shih Kao-tsu Kao-yang Keng K’o-kuan k’eng Kiangnan Kiangsu Kitan Koguryo ko-men ko-shih K’o-lan Koryò K’ou Chun k’ou-hsüan Ku-an

257

258 Ku-kou River Ku-li River Ku-pei-k’ou kuan Kuan Chung Kuan-nan kuan-pan fu-shih kuan-pan-shih Kuan-yao kuang-hsiao Kuang-hsin Kuang-nan Kuang-ning Kuang-yün kuei Kuei-i kuei-k’uan K’un-ch’eng K’un-ning kung kung-lu chieh-tsui chuang kung-wei Kung Yen-ming Kuo Chen Kuo Chih-chang kuo-chu kuo-hsin-shih kuo-hsin-so kuo-mu kuo-shu Lan-ling Lang-shui (River) lao-lai Lao-tzu Le-lang Lei Yu-chung Li li Li Chao-hsing Li-chi

glossary

glossary Li Chi-ch’ang Li Chi-ch’ien Li Ch’i Li Chih Li Chung-yen Li Ch’ung Li Han Li Hsüan Li Hsün Li I-chien Li P’ing Li Shih-lung Li Shou Li Ssu-wen Li T’ao Li Te-ming Le Wei Li Yüan-hao Li Yung Li Yü-i Li Zhaoxing (see Li Chao-hsing) liang-ch’ao Liang-hsiang Liang Huan Liang K’o-yung Liang Ping Liang Shih Liang Shih-ch’iu Liao Liao-hai Liao-shih Liao-tung Lin-chin Lin-hu Lin-huang Lin-huang fu Lin Shu Lin-tu ling

259

260 Ling-chou ling-ch’ü Ling River Liu Liu Cheng-fu Liu Ch’eng-tsung Liu Ching Liu Chiu-ssu Liu Fu Liu-li River (1) Liu-li River (2) Liu Lu-fu Liu Pin Liu River Liu Shen Liu Sheng Liu Ta Liu Ying Liu Yün Liu Yung-nien lo Lou Yüeh Loyang Lu lu (caitiﬀ ) lu (circuit) Lu Chen Lu-chia Lu Chin lu-chu Lu-erh Lu-erh-hsia Lu Hsiang-shan Lu Jung Lu-kou River Lu-ku River Lu-lung lu-mu Lu Tsung-tao Lu Yu

glossary

glossary Lü Chi-shu Lü I-chien Lü Kung-pi Lü Shih-lin Lü T’ao Luan-chou Luan River Lung-ch’ing Lung-hua-chou Lung-shun Lung-yü Ma Ch’u Ma Shih-chang Ma Shih-yen Ma Shou Ma-yün Mountains Man-t’ou Mountains Mei Yao-ch’en Mencius meng mi mi Mi-yün Ming-chou ming-shen Mo-chou Mo-ta Mo-tou Range (1) Mo-tou Range (2) mu hua erh chih Mu-tsung mu-tz’u Mu-yeh Mountain na na-po Na-tu-wu Nan-chao Nan-ch’ao Nan-ch’eng Nanking (Nanjing)

261

glossary

262 Nan Ying Nang-hsiao nei-shu Nieh Ch’ung-ch’i Ning-hsia Ning-pien Niu Hsüan Niu Jung Niu-lan Mountains Niu-shan Niu Wen-shu Niu Ying Nou-chin Ou-yang Hsiu pa Pa-chou Pai-ho River Pai-hsü River Pai-kou River Pai-ma-tien Pai-yü River Pang-ni-ting Pao Cheng Pao-chou Pao-ho (Pao River) Pao-te Pao-ting Parhae (see Po-hai) Pei-an Pei-an chou Pei-ch’ao Pei-ch’ao kuo-mu Pei-ch’eng Pei-chou Pei-hsing Jih-lu Pei-kou Pei-p’ing stockade pei-ti (rival to the north) pei-ti (northern dogs)

,

glossary p’ei-yü pen-chi Pi Shih-an pi shih chi hsü p’i-t’u Pien-ching Pien-hsiang Range P’ien-ch’iang Range p’ien-t’i-wen p’ien-wen Pin-chou pin-k’o li pin-t’ieh-tao Ping-fa p’ing P’ing-chou P’ing-jung P’ing-liang P’ing-lu-ch’eng P’ing Mountains po Po-chou Po Chü-i Po-hai Po-shih P’o-lu pu-hsüan pu k’o sheng ch’u pu-lo P’u-chou p’u t’ien chih hsia San-ch’ao kuo-shih san chi san-chieh San-ch’uan K’ou san-pao San-shan Sang-ch’ien (Sang-kan) River Sang-kan (Sang-ch’ien) River

263

264 Sang-ken River sang li, ai ch’i chih chih yeh; chieh ai, shun pien yeh Sang River sao-jao seng Sha-chou Shan shan-chi Shan-chou (Sung pl n.) Shan-chou (Liao pl. n.) shan-p’eng shan-yü Shan-yüan Shang Shang Chen shang-chieh Shang-ching shang-shou Shao Shao-sheng huang-ti she she-chi she-kung shen (aunt) shen (deity) Shen-chou Shen-en-po Shen Kua shen-tao-pei Shen-tsung sheng (sacriﬁce) sheng (nephew) sheng (sagacious) sheng-ch’en-shih sheng-hsi sheng-ling sheng-ts’an ch’ü-sha Sheng-tsung

glossary

,

;

,

glossary Sheng wen shen wu ch’üan kung ta lüeh ts’ung jen jui hsiao t’ien yu Sheng wen shen wu jui hsiao Shensi Shih shih shih (oath) Shih Ch’ang-yen Shih Chao shih-ch’e shih-ch’en Shih-chi Shih-ching shih-chü Shih-Liao yü-lu Shih-lung Shih-men Pass Road Shih-tsai Range Shih-tsung Silla shou shou (participants) Shou-lung Shou-ning Shou-sheng Shou-ssu-chou Shu (Szechwan) shu shu-mu shu-tsu shu-tsu-mu Shui-po Shun Shun-an Chün Shun-chou shun-pien Shun-t’ien Shuo-chou Southern Capital ssu

(surname) (envoy)

265

266 Ssu-hsiang Range Ssu-ma Ch’ien ssu-mien Su Ch’e Su-ning Su-shen Su Shih Su Sung Sui (dynasty) sui sui-pi Sun Ch’üan-chao Sun-hou Sun Shih Sun T’an Sun-tzu Sung Sung Ch’i Sung Chung-jung Sung-hui-yao Sung Min-ch’iu sung-pan fu-shih sung-pan shih Sung-shan Sung-shih Sung-shih Chih-kuan-chih Pu-cheng Sung Shou Sung Shen Sung-Sung Sung Ta-chao-ling Chi Sung-t’ing Range Sung-t’ing Road Sung-tzu Range Supreme Capital Szechwan ta Ta-an Ta Ch’i-tan Ta-chung Hsiang-fu Ta-fan sheng-shen tsan [-p’u]

glossary

glossary Ta Hsia Ta-hsia Slope ta-hsieh kuo-hsin-shih Ta-li Ta-Liao Ta-ming ta-po Ta-shih ta-t’ien-ch’ing ssu Ta-ting-fu Ta-tsao (pu-lo) Ta-t’ung Ta-t’ung-fu ta-wang ta-wu tai-chih Tai-chou Tai Yen T’ai T’ai-chou T’ai-hang Mountains t’ai-hou t’ai-huang t’ai-hou t’ai-mu T’ai-shan T’ai-tsu T’ai-tsung T’ai-yüan tan tan-ch’ing chih hsin tan-shih tan-shu T’an-shan Tang-hsiang tang-yang T’ang T’ang River Tangut Tao-te-ching Tao-tsung

267

268 Te-ch’ing Te-chou Te-sheng Range Teng Kuang-ming Teng Yüan Tennò ti ti-fu Ti-hsiang Temple ti-kuo t’i-yin Tiao-k’o Range tiao-wei kuo-hsin-shih tiao-wei-shih T’ieh-chiang t’ieh-chüan T’ieh-li tien tien-ch’ien T’ien-an T’ien-ch’ing (Sung reign title) T’ien-ch’ing (Liao birthday festival) T’ien-hsing T’ien-hsiung T’ien-ning T’ien-sheng T’ien-shun T’ien-tso T’ien-tu T’ien-tzu Ting Chen Ting-ch’iang Ting-chou Ting-ch’uan Chai Ting-yüan T’o-pa Wei tsai-ch’en tsai-shu Ts’ang-chou Ts’ao

glossary

glossary Ts’ao Li-Yung ts’e-feng Ts’e-fu Yüan-kuei ts’e-li shih Tseng Hsiao-kuang Tseng Kung-liang Tso-chuan tso-fan ta-shih Tsu-chou Tsu Mountains ts’ui-feng ts’ui-hua (1) ts’ui-hua (2) tsun-hao ts’un Tsung-chen tsung-hsü Tsung-ko Tsung-t’ien Ts’ung wen sheng wu ying lüeh shen kung jui che jen hsiao Tu Fang Tu Fu Tu-k’ang Tu-t’ing hsi-i Tu-t’ing-i tu-tsun Tu-yün Range T’u River T’u-yü-hun tui-lien Tun-ch’eng t’un-tien Tung-ching Tung-lou Tung Shih-i Tung-tan T’ung-ho T’ung Kuan T’ung-li Chün

269

270

glossary

T’ung-t’ien (Sung festival) T’ung-t’ien (Liao pl. n.) tzu Tzu-chih T’ung-chien tzu-shu Tz’u-hai Tz’u-hsiang Range tz’u-i Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao hsien sheng chao te kuang ai tsung t’ien Tz’u i jen ho wen hui ch’un hsiao kuang ai tsung t’ien Tz’u-yüan Wa-ch’iao Wai-ch’en-pu wan-sui Wang An-shih Wang Ch’ao wang-ch’en Wang Ch’eng-te Wang Chi-chung Wang Chien Wang Ch’in-jo Wang-ching Wang Ch’ung-i Wang Fan-shen Wang I-kung Shang Ch’i-tan shih Wang Jui Wang Kang Wang Kuan Wang Kuei Wang Kung-chen Wang Mang Wang Pen Wang Tseng Wang-tu wang-t’u Wang-yün Wang-yün Range Wei (E. Chou state, ally of Lu)

glossary Wei Wei-ch’eng Wei-lu Chün Wei Neng Wei River Wen-ch’eng wen-hou Wen-hsien Wen-hsien T’ung-k’ao Wen-hsüan Wen-hua Gate Wen Yen-po Wen-yü River (1) Wen-yü River (2) Western Capital Wo-ju Wo-ju-lai Wu Chan Wu-ching Tsung-yao wu-chu (wu-shu) ch’ien Wu-chu-hsiao wu-hsing Wu K’uei Wu-kung Gate Wu-luan River Wu-lung-ch’ih wu-shu (wu-chu) ch’ien Wu-tai wu-tao Wu Yüeh Yang-ch’eng-tien Yang I-chieh Yang Kuei-cheng Yang Kuei-chung Yao Yao (ancient sage) Yao-chia Chai Yao Chien-chih Yeh-lü Yeh-lü A-pao-chi

271

272

glossary

Yeh-lü Chao-li Yeh-lü Fang Yeh-lü Han Yeh-lü Han-ning Yeh-lü Hsiu-ko Yeh-lü I Yeh-lü I Yeh-lü Jen-hsien Yeh-lü Ko Yeh-lü Lung-ch’ing Yeh-lü Lung-hsü Yeh-lü Ning Yeh-lü Nü-kua Yeh-lü Pi Yeh-lü Shih-ta Yeh-lü Te-fang Yeh-lü Tsung-mu Yeh-lü Ying Yeh-lü Yüan-heng Yeh Lung-li yen (terms) Yen Yenan Yen-ching Yen-fang-tien yen-ko Yen-men Yen Shu yin-hsin Yin-yeh Mountains Ying-chou (Sung pl. n.; stop for Liao envoys) Ying-chou (Sung pl. n.) Ying-chou (Liao pl. n.) Ying-sheng ying tso ch’eh-liao Ying-tsung yu Yu-chou yu-fan ta-shih Yu-tu

glossary yu-tz’u Yü (the Great) Yü Yü Ching yü-i Yü-k’ou yü-kuo Yü-lin yü-lu yü-ma yü meng Yü Pass Yü Pass Road yü-tai Yü Ying-shih Yüan Yüan-fu Yün Yung-ching Yung-ho Yung-nien Yung-ning Yung-p’ing Yung-shou Yung-ting

273

INDEX

Academia Sinica, ix, 23 accommodations, for Sung envoys travelling in Liao territory, 126–27, 195 see also hostels Acknowledgement Envoys, 107 agriculture, agricultural ecology, 28–29, 51, 86–87 Alamut (Persia), 66 Alexander the Great, 101 Allsen, Thomas, x allusions, literary, in Sung diplomatic missives to Liao, 157, 166–67, 173 Analects, 63, 157, 176 An-li, 66 An Lu-shan rebellion, 37 Annam, 145 annual payments, see payments, annual An-su, 79, 98 Annaliste historiography, 16 An-yang, 129 Aoyama Sadao, 150 appeasement, 89, 92 Arabs, 9 archery banquets, contests, see banquets, archery Assassins (Ismailis), 66 “Avoiding the substantial and attacking the vacuous” ( pi-shih chi-hsü ), tactics of, 54, 91 banquets, 113, 126–27, 129–30, 133, 158, 161, 191, 193 archery, 129–30, 133, 185 seating arrangements at, see seating arrangements Beckwith, Christopher, ix Beijing, see Peking Birthday Felicitation Envoys, 103, 134, 148, 187–88, 191, 196, 206 birthday-festivals, 103–104 Border River, 24 borders, international, 14, 21, 24–29, 114–15, 230 between T’ang and Tibet, 21 ecological importance in determining, 28–29

existence of during Sung times, 24–29 passim, 27, 29, 114–15, 230 border markets, 97 boundaries, international, see borders, international Bronze Gate, 50 brotherly states, Sung and Liao recognise each other as, 146, 174 btsampo, btsan po (Tibetan leader’s title), 9 Buddhism, 33, 123, 128, 176, 181, 194–96 Ch’an Buddhism, 176 Byzantium, 9 cavalry, 95 Central Capital (Liao), 96, 115–16, 125–26, 183–84, 187, 189, 194 Chai-hsia Range, 194 Ch’an, see Buddhism, Ch’an Ch’an-yüan (alternate spelling of Shan-yüan), 39 Chang-chou (Fukien), 195 Chang Fang-p’ing, 94, 224 Chang-hsien (Sung empress dowager title), 155 Chang I, 78 Chang Mao-shih, 208, 213, 215 Chang Sheng, 192 Chang-sheng (part of posthumous title for Sung emperor Chen-tsung), 209 Chang Shih-sun, 188 Chang Shih-yüan, 226 Chang Shun-min, 130–31, 177 Chang Tsai, 176 Chang Tzu-shih, 226 Ch’ang-an, 9, 21, 34 Ch’ang-ch’eng-k’ou, 50, 56 Ch’ang-ch’un (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Ch’ang-hsing, 116 Ch’ang-ning (Sung birthday-festival), 104, 156 Ch’ang-po, 114 Ch’ang-t’ai, 116 Ch’ang-yüan, 43 Chao-chou, 114

276

index

Chao K’uang-i, 102 See also T’ai-tsung (Sung emperor) Chao K’uang-yin, 42, 102, 120 see also T’ai-tsu (founding Sung emperor) Ch’ao Po-yü, 182 Chavannes, Édouard, 178–79 Che-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1085–1100), 104, 121, 143, 147, 149–50, 152–56, 163, 168, 228 Chen (imperial pronoun), 145 Chen-chou, 43, 51, Chen-jung, 204, 220 Chen-kuo-ssu, 128 Chen-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 997–1022), 2, 24, 45–47, 50, 55–56, 60, 62, 65–70, 72, 74–76, 79–80, 85–93, 104, 106, 143, 145, 147, 149, 155–56, 164, 169–72, 177, 185, 209, 217 Personal expedition to Shan-yüan, 52–53, 56, 64–68 Reputation for timidity not wholly deserved, 46 Ch’en Bridge, 120 Ch’en Hsiang, xiii, 114, 117–18, 120–21, 125–29, 131–36, 138, 177, 185, 190–95 Ch’en Yao-sou, 56–57 Cheng-chou, 48 Chengtu, Ch’eng-tu, 34, 56 Ch’eng Hao, 175 Ch’eng I, 176 Ch’eng Shih-meng, 136 Ch’eng T’ang, 8 Ch’eng-t’ien (Liao empress dowager), 45, 53–54, 58, 61, 65–66, 71, 75, 91, 104–105, 143, 145, 150–54 Ch’eng-t’ien (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Ch’eng-yao Lu, 177, 183 Ch’eng Wen-hsiu, 133–34 Chi, King, 166 Chi-chou, 114–15, 124–25, 180, 182, 185–86, 208 Ch’i-chou, 43, 51–52, 55, 58, 60, 66, 86 Ch’i-tan Kuo-chih, xiii, 147, 187–88, 216 Ch’i-t’ien (Liao empress dowager), 104, 107, 151–54 Chia-yu (Sung reign period), 155 Chiang Kai-shek, 48 Ch’iang, 25, 198 Chieh Ho, 24

Ch’ien-hsing (Sung reign period), 155 Ch’ien-ling (Liao birthday-festival), 104 Ch’ien-lung (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Ch’ien-ming (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Ch’ien-yüan (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Ch’ih-ch’eng, 115 Chin (pre-imperial state), 77 Chin ( Jurchen conquest dynasty, 1115–1234), 17, 109, 113, 121–23, 126, 131, 146, 175, 177, 179–81, 183–86, 195, 210, 229–31 Chin-kou tien, 115–16 Chin, Later, see Later (Shih) Chin Chin-ling (Nanking), 56, 65 chin-shih degree, as major qualifying criterion for Sung envoys to Liao, 110–11 Chin-yang, 123 Ch’in-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1126–1127), 104, 149 China Among Equals, 1, 17 Chinese World Order, The, 18–19 Chinese world order (concept), 7–18 passim, 19, 22 ideal versions of, 22–23 John K. Fairbank’s conceptual outline of, 12–14 Chinggis Khan, 226–27 Ching-jung, 47, 49–51, 56, 79, 97–98 Ching-te (Sung reign period, 1004–1008), 62, 69, 74, 217 Ching-tsung (Liao emperor, r. 968–983), 104, 150, 186 Ching-tung, 60 Ch’ing (Manchu dynasty, 1644–1912), 13–14, 229 Ch’ing-chou, 60 Ch’ing-li (Sung reign period), 207 Ch’ing-shui, 20 Ch’ing-shui, Treaty of, 21, 78 Chiu-shih-chiu ch’üan, 115, 225 Cho-chou, 115–16, 119–20, 180, 194, 206 Chou (Chinese dynasty, 1122?–256 B.C.), 10, 14 Chou, Duke of, 8 Chou, Eastern (Chinese dynasty, 770–256 B.C.), 9–10, 73, 77 Chou, Later (Chinese dynasty), see Later Chou Chou-li, 8

index Chou, Western (Chinese dynasty, 1122?–771 B.C.), 10, 23, 166 Christian law, 30 Christmas, 148 Chu Hsi, 176 Ch’u, 57 Ch’u (pre-imperial state), 77 Ch’u, Prince of (Liao title), 61, 186 Chü-ma River, 24, 43, 47, 115–16 Ch’un-ch’iu, see Spring and Autumn Annals Chung-lu, 191 Chung-mou, 48 Chung-tu, 181 Chung-wen Ta Tz’u-tien, 39 Chung-yung, 173 Ch’ung-ch’ung River, 190 Ch’ung-hsin, 116 Ch’ung-ning (Sung reign period), 182 Condolence Envoys, 106, 167, Confucian-Mencian paradigm (strategic culture), 80–82, 94 Confucius, Confucian thought, 12, 36, 63, 176, 199 See also Neo-Confusian thought covenant (meng), 73–79 passim, Eastern Chou precedents for, 73, 77–78 “covenant concluded at city walls,” Covenant of Shan-yüan characterised as, 88 Covenant of Shan-yüan, see Shan-yüan, Covenant of crossbows, crossbowmen, 59, 65–66 Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History, 80–82 dangers, potential, for Sung diplomats in Liao territory, 121 Deahl, Julian, ix debates, Sung court over Sung-Liao war of 1004–1005, 55–57 defeat, military and diplomatic, issues pertaining to Sung-Liao War of 1004–1005, 89–95 defence lines, Sung, 51–52 Departure Escort Commissioners, 118 desertion, 52 DeVries, Kelly, ix diplomacy, residential, see residential diplomacy diplomacy, Sung-Liao, pre-1004, 44 disasters, natural, 13 ditches (defensive measures), 67 Dobson, W. A. C. H., 88

277

Duke of Chou, see Chou, Duke of Duke Hsüan, 88 Dunnell, Ruth, 200 East-West Center, 14 Eastern Capital (Liao), 116, 184 Eastern Chou, see Chou, Eastern (Chinese dynasty) ecology, 28–29, 51, 86–87 eleventh century, Covenant of Shan-yüan’s contributions to peace and prosperity of, xi, 95 embassies, between Sung and Liao, 3, 21, 31, 101–103 political, 107 regular, 103–105 birthday, 102–04 new year, 102, 103 occasional, 105–107 condolence, 106 enthronement felicitation, 106 entitlement ceremony felicitation, 106 immolation, 106 imperial enthronement, 106 lamentation annunciation, 105–106 personal eﬀects presentation, 106 retinue for, 112–14 excessive size of, 113–14 types, 101–06 embassy reports ( yü-lu), 4, 175–97 passim relative scarcity of, 177 typical contents of, 175–76, 179–83 supplemental reports to, 195–97 emperors (huang-ti ), 4, 11, 19, 144, 173, 183, 201–203 Hsia leader Li Yüan-hao’s pretensions to title of, 201–202 Liao rulers not addressed as in private internal Sung communications, 183 Sung and Liao rulers mutually addressed as, 4, 19, 144, 173, 203, 230 En-chou, 114 Endicott, Elizabeth, x Enthronement Annunciation Envoys (see also Imperial Enthronement Envoys), 106, 171–72, 190 Enthronement Felicitation Envoys, 106–107 Entitlement Ceremony Envoys, 107, 226

278

index

envoys, selection of, 108–12 equality, diplomatic, see parity, diplomatic espionage, see intelligence Europe, Europeans, 10, 12, 16, 28–31, 101, 147 Fa-t’ien (Liao empress dowager), 104–105, 151–54, 223 Fairbank, John K., 1, 11–13, 15–16 Fan Ch’eng-ta, 176–77, 181 Fan Ch’un-li, 3 Fan Chung-yen, 95, 202–205, 207, 213, 221–22, 224, 226–27 Fan Tsu-yü, 168 Fan-yang, 37, 115 Farjenel, Fernand, 178–79 Feng Cheng, 68 Feng-yu, 34 Ferdinand of Aragon, 101 Five Dynasties (A.D. 907–960), 42, 46, 199 Five Phases (wu-hsing), 11 Franke, Herbert, x, 113, 145, 159, 185 feudal system, order, of ancient China, 10 ﬂoating envoys ( fan-shih), 107 Fukien, 195 Fu Le-huan, 177–78, 188 Fu Pi, 3–4, 26, 92, 129, 140, 178, 188, 192, 207–16, 218–19, 221–22, 224, 226–27 character of, 207 diplomatic negotiations with Liao, 207–19 diplomatic accomplishments of, 218–19 negotiations with Liao emperor Hsing-tsung, 209–11, 214–16 Fu-yü, 115–16 gamble, Sung-Liao war of 1004–1005 as, 85–88 passim for Liao, 85–87 for Sung, 87–88 geography, description of by Sung diplomats in Liao territory, 122, 182–83, 187, 189, 193–95 Germanic law, 30 gifts, gift-giving, diplomatic, 31, 128–29, 158, 162, 165, 167, 171 Great Ditch of China, 48–50, 85 Great Wall, 28, 86

Han (Chinese dynasty, 202 B.C.–A.D. 220), 8, 10, 15, 20, 70, 139, 182, 203 Han (prominent surname in Liao), 186 Han Ch’i, 3, 68–71, 75, 108, 129, 204, 207, 221, 227 Han Chin, 120 Han Te-jang, 186 Han Tsung, 129 Han Tzu-tao, 132 Han Yen-hui, 61 Han-Ying Tz’u-tien, 39 Hao-shui River, 204, 219 Defeat of Sung by Hsia at, 204–205 Hao Wei-li, 169 Hargett, James, 179, 182 Harrassowitz Verlag, x Hartwell, Robert M., 111 heaven (traditional Chinese concept of ), 13 hegemony, 15 Hei-shan, 184 Hei-yai, 116, 194 Heng-shan range, 28 Hightower, James, 143, 172 Ho Ch’eng-chü, 49, 210 ho-ch’in, see intermarriage Ho-chung, 164 Ho-hsi Uighurs, 201 Holy Roman emperor, 29 Honan, Ho-nan, 39, 120, 201 Honey, David B., x, 144 Hong Kong, 42, 182 Honolulu, 14 Ho-pei, 27, 39, 41, 45, 47–53, 55–56, 60, 79–80, 82, 90, 92, 107, 208 Hospitality Escort Commissioners, 118, 134–35, 195 hostels, lodging of Sung diplomats in, 121, 126–27, 179, 189 yurt-hostels, 126 Ho-tung, 27–28, 52, 54–55, 67, 79, 89, 96, 107, 158, 178, 219, 227 Hou-ma, 73 House International Aﬀairs Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights, 137 Hsi, 57, 125, 184, 187, 189 Hsi-chin, 120 Hsi Hsia, see Hsia (Tangut dynasty)

index Hsi-ning Shih-lu T’u-ch’ao, 177, 188 Hsia (Tangut dynasty), 2, 4–5, 26–27, 95, 97, 116, 143, 145–46, 198–206, 214–15, 219–28 Liao war with, 227 Rise of Hsia state, 198–201 Sung diplomatic standing vis-à-vis, 4, 203, 220–23, 226 Sung-Liao-Hsia triangular relations, 5, 202–203 Sung wars with, 203–205, 219–20, 228 Hsia Sung, 3, 204 Hsiang (Sung empress dowager), 155–56 Hsiang-chou, 114 Hsiang-shan-tsai, 116 Hsiao (major surname in Liao), 118, 186 Hsiao Chih-shan, 119 Hsiao Hao-ku, 117–20, 191–92 Hsiao Ho-chuo, 61 Hsiao Hsiao-mu, 205–206 Hsiao Hui, 205–206 Hsiao Kuan-yin-nu, 53, 58 Hsiao Pa-ya-erh, 58, 65 Hsiao Ta-lin, 47, 53–54, 58, 61, 65–66, 89, 184 Hsiao T’e-mo, 206 Hsiao-tsung (Southern Sung emperor, r. 1162–1189), 230 Hsiao Ying, 206–208 Hsieh-li [Khaghan], 215 Hsien-hsi, 138 Hsien Jung, 134 Hsien-ning, 116 Hsin, 115–16 Hsin-an, 43, 79 Hsin-ch’eng (hsien), 115–16, 127, 191, 194 Hsin Ch’i-chi, 181 Hsin T’ang-shu, 20 Hsing-chou, 43, 56 Hsing Hsiang, 187–88 Hsing-t’ou, 184 Hsing-tsung (Liao emperor, r. 1031–1055), 92, 104, 107, 147, 149–52, 154–55, 159, 165–67, 172–73, 202, 205–206, 209–12, 215–16, 223–25 Hsiung-chou, 25, 27, 43, 49, 51–52, 56, 74, 97–99, 114–17, 184, 189, 206, 216

279

Hsiung-nu, 8, 14–15, 20, 70, 138–39, 203 Hsü K’ang-tsung, 113, 122, 131, 185 Hsü Sung, xiii Hsü Tzu-chih T’ung-chien Ch’ang-pien, 42, 187, 189 Hsüan-hua, 116 Hsüan-tsung (T’ang emperor, r. 712–756), 34 Hsüeh I-k’uo, 164 Hsüeh Ying, 125, 177, 187–89, 195 Hu-lu River, 43 Hu-pei, 115–16, 182 Hu-t’ou River, 43 Hua-I Lu-wei Hsin-lu, 157–58 Hua-chou, 43, 67, 114 Hua Yüan, 88 Huai Lien, 195 Huai River, 182 Huang Ch’ao, 34 Huang K’uan-ch’ung, ix–x, 23 Huang River, 116 huang-ti, see emperor Hui-chou, 190 Hui-hsing, 116 Hui-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1100–1126), 104, 147, 149–50 Hulsewé, A. F. P., 69, 76 Hung-chi (Liao emperor taboo name), 155 Huo-shan, 55 Hyer, Eric, x Hyer, Paul V., x I River, 43 I-chin Pass, 45 Immolation Envoys, 106, 167 I-mou-hsün, 34 Imperial Enthronement Envoys (see also Enthronement Annunciation Envoys), 106 independence, Hsia leader Li Yüan-hao’s declaration of, 201 India, 33 Indika, 101 infantry, 95 intelligence, 4, 122, 179–84, 193 intermarriage (ho-ch’in), 20, 26, 208, 213–14 international community, 2, 9–10 international law, 29 invasion, as distinct from raid, 82–85 Iron City, 50

280

index

irredentism, 3, 41, 46, 80, 93 irrigation, 51 Ismailis (Assassins), 66 Italy, 29–30, 101, 103, 175 Jagchid, Sechin, x, 96, 98–99 Japan, 9, 15, 33, Jen-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1022–1063), 104, 106, 147, 149–50, 152–56, 159, 162, 165–66, 169–70, 172, 188, 194–95, 201–202, 204, 206–207, 209, 211, 216, 220, 227 Johnston, Alastair Iain, 80–82, 94 Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies, x Jurchens, 123, 126, 131, 184, 186, 226, 231 Jurchen language, script, 200 Juvaini, 66 Kaifeng, 3, 41, 43, 48, 51, 54, 60–61, 74, 80, 92, 120, 181, 184 Kaneko Shuichi, 20 K’ang-chou, 60 K’ang-hsi Tzu-tien, 39 K’ang Mo-chi, 61 Kao (Sung empress dowager), 104, 153, 155–56, 168–69 Kao Cheng-shih, 71 Kao Ch’iung, 67–68 Kao-liang River, 44 Kao-tsu (founding T’ang emperor, r. 618–627), 215 Kao-tsung (Southern Sung emperor, r. 1127–1162), 230 Kao-yang, 43, 50–51, 54, 91 Keng K’o-kuan, 129 khan, 203, 221 Kiangnan, 56–57 Kirgiz, 35, kingship, universal, see universal kingship kinship relations, ﬁctive, between Sung and Liao ruling houses, 21, 71, 145–55, 174, 203, 211, 214 between Liao and Hsia ruling houses, 203, 211 Kitan language, writing, 70, 140, 200 K’o-lan, 55 Koguryô, 32 Kokonor Tibetans, 201 Korea, Koreans, 33, 36, 53, 61, 122, 184 Koryò, 97, 145–46

K’ou Chun, 52–53, 55–57, 59, 64–65, 67–68, 70, 88 kowtow, 11 Ku-an, 53 Ku-li River, 190 kumiss, 127 Ku-pei-k’ou (Ku-pei Pass), 115–16, 125, 187, 189 Kuan-nan territory, 4, 25–26, 41, 43, 45–46, 49, 57, 62, 69, 71, 83–87, 93–94, 96–97, 147, 170, 205–206, 210, 217 renewed Liao demands and ambitions for during early 1040s, 205–12 prime agricultural land in, 46 strategic importance of, 45–46, 83–84 Kuan-yao, 116 Kuang-hsin, 79 Kuang-ning, 116 Kuang-yün, 162 Kül Tegin Inscription, 9 K’un-ch’eng (Sung birthday-festival), 104, 153, 156 K’un-ning (Liao birthday-festival), 104 K’ung Ying-ta, 77 Lai River, 43 Lamentation Annunciation Envoys, 105–107, 165 Lang-shui Fortress, 55 language, pejorative, Sung to Liao, 13, 25 Lao-tzu, 72 Later (Shih) Chin (Chinese dynasty, 936–947), 25, 42, 45, 71, 101, 144, 146 Later Chou (Chinese dynasty, 951–960), 22, 25, 36, 42, 45–46, 69, 71, 210 Lau, Nap-yin, 75, 83 law, Germanic, 30 law, Christian, 30 law, international, see international law law, Roman, 29–30 Lee, Hur-li, Dr., 27 Legalism, 199 Lei Yu-chung, 67 Li (T’ang imperial surname), 37, 199–200 Li Chao-hsing, 137 Li-chi, 167

index Li Li Li Li Li Li Li Li Li Li Li Li

Chi-ch’ang, 73, 75, 89 Chi-ch’ien, 199 Chi-lung, 65 Chih, 180 Chih-ch’ien, 201 Ch’ui, 49 Kuan Yew, 15 Shih-lung, 187 T’ao, 66, 216 Te-ming, 199 Yu-t’ang, xiii Yüan-hao, 199–200, 202–203, 205, 210, 219–23, 225–26 Li Zhaoxing, see Li Chao-hsing Liang-hsiang, 115–16 Liang Palace, 184 Liang, Prince of, 214 Liang Shih, 3, 217, 220 Liao, history of use of dynastic name, 7, 143 Liao-hai, 184 Liao River, 190 Liao-shih, 32, 62, 71, 98, 150, 157, 160, 168, 171, 187–88 Lin-chin, 164 Lin-tu, 114, 116 liquor, consumption of by Sung diplomats in Liao territory, 119–20, 126–27, 131–33, 161, 167, 171, 194 Liu (Sung empress dowager), 104, 152, 155–56 Liu Ch’eng-tsung, 188 Liu-ho, 115–16 Liu, James T. C., 70, 213 Liu Liu-fu, 206, 21–13, 215–18 Liu-pin, 123 Liu Pin, 181 Liu Ying, 123 Liu Yün, 132 Lorge, Peter, x, 42, 49, 82, 84 Lou Yüeh, 123, 126, 129, 131, 142, 175, 177, 180–81, 184, 195 lu, see caitiﬀ Lu (pre-imperial state), 157 Lu Chen, 104, 122–23, 125, 127, 130, 157, 177, 180–86, 195 Lu-erh-hsia, 115 Lu Hsiang-shan, 176 Lu Tsung-tao, 189 Lü Chi-shu, 138 Lü I-chien, 3, 132, 207–208, 213, 216 Lü Kung-pi, 132

281

Lü T’ao, 169 Luan River, 115–16 Lung-shun, 34 Ma Shih-yen, 117 Macedonia, 101 Mancall, Mark, 13, 19 Man-t’ou Mountains, 189 Mao [Tse-tung/Zedong], 182 markets, border, see border markets Mattingly, Garrett, 103 meals, see repasts meat, 130–31, medicines, 126, 141, 165 Megasthenes, 101 Mei Yao-ch’en, 141 Mencius, 7 meng, see covenant metre, in Sung diplomatic missives to Liao, 144 Mi, 198 Mi-yün, 116, 127, 191 Mien-mao River, 219 Miñag, 198 Ming (Chinese dynasty, 1368–1644), 13–14, 28 Ming-chou, 43, 58 missives, diplomatic, between Sung and Liao, 3–4, 24, 31, 69–70, 72, 143–74 passim, 230 birthday, 155, 158–61 condolence, 165–68 enthronement annunciation, 169–70 enthronement felicitation, 172–73 lamentation annunciation, 163–65 new year, 155, 161–63 practical functions and meanings of, 173–74, 230 sample translations, 159, 162–64, 166–71 Mo-chou, 25, 43, 45, 49–50, 56, 114 moats (defensive measures), 67 Mongols, Mongolia, 53, 66, 139, 190, 203 Montgomery, David C., x Morrison, Charles, 14 Moses, Larry, 8 Mote, F. W., x, 200 Mount T’ai, see T’ai, Mount multi-state system, 9–10, 12, 32 Mu-tsung (T’ang emperor, r. 821–825), 22, 144 Mu-yeh Mountain, 125, 189–90, 225 Mulder, Marcella, ix

282

index

na-po, 118 Nan-chao, 33–34 Nanjing, see Nanking Nanking, 48, 56 Nationalists, 48 negotiations, Sung-Liao, 3, 68–73, 91 Neng Yüan, 119 Nepal, 33 nepotism, in selecting Sung embassy retinues to Liao, 111 New Year Felicitation Envoys, 103, 148, 161, 187–88 Ng, Elaine, x Ngweimi, 200 Nieh Ch’ung-ch’i, 147, 158 Ning-hsia, 220 Ning-pien, 79 Niu Jung, 180 Niu-shan, 115–16 Nixon Center, 15 nomads, pastoral nomads, nomadic peoples, 2, 8, 10, 16, 29 Northern Court (Pei ch’ao), 21, 79 Sung regards and addresses Liao as after Covenant of Shan-yüan, 79 Northern Han (950–979), 42–44, 102 Nou-chin, 107, 151 Nweimi, 200 oath-letters, exchanged between Sung and Liao in 1005, 74–77 exchanged in early 1040s during renegotiations of annual payments, 216–17 “oﬀer up” (hsien), Sung rejection of term, 214–16 Old Testament, 73 Opium War, 17 oral proclamations (k’ou-hsüan), 141–42 Ordos, 201, 219 Orkhon inscriptions, 8 Ou-yang Hsiu, 3, 141, 177, 192–93, 202–24, 227 Pa-chou, 25, 43, 55–56, 97, 115 Paciﬁc Cultural Foundation, ix Pai-kou, 115, 119 Pai-kou Bridge, 114, 133 Pai-kou River, 24, 27, 115–17, 133, 184 Pai-ma Ford, 43 Pan-ching, 114 Pang-ni-ting, 220

Pao Cheng, 3 Pao-chou, 43, 47, 51, 56 Pao-ho, 116 Pao-te, 79 Pao-ting, 56, 79 parabellum paradigm (strategic culture), 80–82, 94 parallelism, literary, 172 Parhae (Po-hai), 33 parity, diplomatic, 1–2, 14, 17–19, 29, 31, 34–35, 37–38, 145, 173, 202, 226, 229–31 between China and foreign states prior to Sung times, 20–23, 230 between Sung and Liao, 1–2, 31–32, 34–35, 37–38 between Sung and Liao exclusively, 31–32, 145, 173, 201–202, 226, 229–30 Pataliputra, 101 payments, annual, Sung to Liao, 3, 18, 26, 70, 72, 74, 84, 96, 98, 192, 208, 212 Sung to Hsia, agreed to in 1044, 226 Pei-an (chou), 115 Pei-an Gate, 124 Pei-ching, 209 Pei-chou, 54, 56, 64 Pei-hsing Jih-lu, 175 Peiping (Stockade), 43, 47, 51, 54–55 pejorative language, see language, pejorative Peking, 42 Persia, 9 Personal Eﬀects Presentation Envoys, 106, 171–72, 191 Pi Shih-an, 52–53, 78, 98 Pien, 41, 43, 51 Pien River, 43 p’ien-wen, p’ien-t’i-wen (archaic literary form in Sung diplomatic missives), 143–44, 159 Pin-chou, 53, 60 Ping-chou, 43 P’ing-jung, 79 P’ing-liang, 21 P’ing-lu ch’eng, 79 Po-chou, 53, 60 Po-hai (Parhae), 32, 36, 125, 187, 189 Po Sea, 115–16 P’o-lu, 79 poetry, poetic contests, 137–42

index Poitras, Robin, x “present” (na), Fu Pi’s reservations about using term, 214–16 propaganda, 122–25, 180–81, 185–88 P’u-chou, 43, 67 P’u, Prince, 150 Qara Mören River, 125, 189 raid, as distinct from invasion, 82–85 Liao invasion of Sung, 1004–1005, as, 82–84 Reception Escort Commissioners, 117–18, 134–35, 191, 193, 195, 216 Reciprocation Envoys, 106–107 reconnaissance raids, Liao, 51 Renaissance (European), 29 repasts, 130–31 Republic of China, ix Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Indiana University, x residential diplomacy, 30–31 revanchism, 3, 25, 93, 179, 181–82, 231 rhyme, in Sung diplomatic missives to Liao, 144, 159, 162, 164, 166, 168, 170 ritual, diplomatic, 4, 23, 114–17, 119, 148, 157–58, 160–61, 165, 167–68, 171, 184–85, 190–91 river waters, military use of, 48–50 Rome, Romans, 29–30, 109 Rossabi, Morris, 1–2, 17 Salt, 98 San-ch’uan K’ou, 203–204 Sung defeat by Hsia at battle of, 203–204 Sang-ch’ien River, see Sang-kan River Sang-kan River, 43, 115–16, 120, 194 Southern Court ( Nan ch’ao), Liao regards and addresses Sung as after Covenant of Shan-yüan, 79 Sawyer, Mei-chün Lee, 81 Sawyer, Ralph D., x, 81 Schwartz, Benjamin, 10, 19 Schwarz-Schilling, Christian, 26, 69, 80, 95–96, 99 seating arrangements, 125, 136, 191–92 twentieth-century communist Chinese concerns over, 137 Seleucus, 101

283

Seven Military Classics, 81 sex, sexual scandal, 125–26, 186, 227 Shan-chou (Liao), 115 Shan-chou (Sung), 39, 43, 53, 60, 65–68, 89, 91, 114, 120, 191 Shantung, 140 shan-yü (title of Hsiung-nu leader), 20, 70, 139, 203, 221 Shan-yüan, pronunciation of, 39 Shan-yüan, 26, 39, 41, 43, 46, 53, 55–57, 59–60, 63–64, 66–67, 72–73, 80, 88–91, 94–96, 209, 230 Shan-yüan, Covenant of, x, 1,–3, 18, 22, 24–25, 27, 41, 49, 78–80, 84, 87–89, 92–98, 102, 108, 114, 122, 145–48, 150, 170, 174, 179, 198, 209, 211, 215–17, 219, 230–31 long-term repercussions of, 78–79 Shang (ancient Chinese dynasty, 1766?–1122? B.C.), 8 Shang Chen, 48 Shen-chou, 43, 51–52, 55 Shen-en-p’o, 118–19, 138, 190–91, 194 Shen Kua, 3, 27–28, 176–77 pronunciation of name, 27 Shen K’uo, see Shen Kua Shensi, 204 Shen-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1067–1085), 104, 134, 147, 149–50, 153–54, 156, 190, 228 Sheng-tsung (Liao emperor, r. 982–1031), 45–46, 54, 58, 62, 65, 67, 69, 71, 74, 91, 93, 104, 107, 149–51, 154, 163–64, 166–67, 169–70, 172–74, 177, 185–86, 188, 190, 209 Shih Ch’ang-yen, 139 Shih Chao, 133, 191 Shih-ching, 7, 166, Shih-Liao Yü-lu, xiii, 177, 190 Shih-lung, 34 Shih-tsung (Later Chou emperor, r. 954–959), 22, 46, 71, 83, 210, 217 Shilla, 33 Shira Mören River, 125, 189 Shou-neng (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Shou-ning (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Shou-ssu chou, 115 Shu, 57 Shun (ancient Chinese sage-king), 22 Shun-an, 43, 47, 49–51, 54, 56

284

index

Shun-chou, 115–16 Shun-t’ien (Liao birthday-festival), 104 siege engines, 61 silk, annual payment of from Sung to Liao, 74, 76 silver, annual payment of from Sung to Liao, 74, 76 Sinicised states, 2, 124, 229 Sinocentrism, Sinocentric bias, 9, 11, 32–38 Sinor, Denis, x, 20 Sira-Mören River, 116 Six Dynasties, 144 Sixteen Prefectures, 25, 39, 41–42, 44–46, 49, 82, 84–87, 93–95 Sung desire to recover prior to 1005, 42–50 passim Vital to viability of Liao state, 39, 41, 82, 85–87 Skinner, G. William, 16 Smith, Chris, 137 smuggling, 98 Southern Capital, Southern Capital Circuit (Liao), 47, 55, 60, 115–16 Southern Court, 21 Southern Sung (1127–1279), 109, 113–14, 121, 126, 129, 131, 175–77, 179–82, 184–85, 195 Southern T’ang (937–975), 101, 144, 146 sovereignty, sovereign states, 12–13, 28–30 Spengler, Oswald, 35 Spring and Autumn (sub-period of Eastern Chou, 722–481 B.C.), 10, 73 Spring and Autumn Annals, 88 Ssu-ma Ch’ien, xiii, 67 Standen, Naomi, x, 84–85, 87, 114, 148 strategic cultures, 80–82 strategic view, Sung’s lack of during Sung-Liao War of 1004–1005, 90 Su Ch’e, 3, 196 Su-ning, 79 Su Shih, 3, 95 Su Sung, 3, 144, 157–58 Su Wu, 138 Sui (Chinese dynasty, 589–618), 8, 32–34, 203 Sun Ch’üan-chao, 59 Sun-hou, 115–16, 124 Sun T’an, 119–20, 135, 193–94 Sun-tzu, 67

Sung (pre-imperial Chinese dynasty), 88 Sung Ch’i, 3 Sung Huan, see Sung Shou Sung Min-ch’iu, 3 Sung-shan, 116 Sung-shih, 57, 61, 88, 108, 135, 157, 207, 218 Sung Shou, 143, 177, 187, 190, 195 Sung Sung, 94 Sung Ta-chao-ling Chi, xiii, 143–44, 147–48, 150, 168, 173 Sung-t’ing Road, 180 Supreme Capital (Liao), 87, 116, 122, 125, 184, 188–89, 194, 225 Szechwan, 34–35, 56 Ta-li, 145 Ta-ming, 114, 208–209 Ta-t’ien-ch’ing-ssu, 128 Ta-tsao (pu-lo), 115–16 Ta-t’ung, 115–16 Tai-chou, 52, 97, 117 Taiwan, 182 T’ai, Mount, 140, 185 T’ai-hang Mountains, 44, 54–55, 80 T’ai-tsu (founding Sung emperor, r. 960–976), 25, 42, 44, 46, 85, 102, 104 see also Chao K’uang-yin T’ai-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 976–997), 44–46, 73, 97, 102, 104, 123–24, 150, 181 see also Chao K’uang-i T’ai-tsung (T’ang emperor, r. 627–649), 187, 198, 215 T’ai-yüan, 44, 169 Taiwan, ix, 23, 27 Tamura Jitsuzò, 98 T’an-shan, 115 T’ang (Chinese dynasty, 618–907), 8–9, 14, 20–22, 32–34, 77–78, 105, 109, 146, 182, 187, 198, 203, 215 Theory of Liao as successor state to, 36 T’ang River, 47, 51–52, 54, 57, 91 Tanguts, 198, 200–201, 203, 219, 221, 224, 227 Tangut script, 200 Tao, Jing-shen, x, 9–10, 26, 82, 99, 147, 225, 227 Tao-tsung (Liao emperor, r. 1055–1101), 104, 135, 147, 149–55, 162, 169, 192, 196

index Tao-te Ching, 72 Te-ch’ing, 43, 65 Te-chou, 53 tea, 113, 119, 128, 131, 141, 165, 171 Tennò (emperor of Japan), 9 territorial integrity, Sung and Liao concern for, 26, 28, 41 The Chinese World Order, see Chinese World Order, The “three ranks,” designations for Sung embassy retinues, 112–13 Tibet, Tibetans, 9, 20–21, 33–34, 78, 146, 198 Kokonor Tibetans, 201 Ti-hsiang Temple, 59 T’ieh-chiang, 115–16 T’ien-an (Liao birthday-festival), 104 T’ien-ch’ing (Liao birthday-festival), 104 T’ien-hsing (Liao birthday-festival), 104 T’ien-hsiung, 43, 51–55, 57–59, 64–65, 88–89 Battle of, 58–59 T’ien-shun (Liao reign title), 144 T’ien-tso (Liao emperor, r. 1101–25), 104, 149–50 T’ien-tu Mountains, 220 T’ien-tzu (Son of Heaven), 9 Tietze, Klaus, 28, 100 Till, Barry, 193 Ting Chen, 75 Ting-ch’iang, 79 Ting-chou, 46–47, 49, 51, 54–55, 61, 67, 89–92 Ting-ch’uan Chai, 219–20 Ting-yüan, 79 titles, of Liao emperors and empress dowagers in Sung diplomatic missives, 144, 146, 173 Toynbee, Arnold, 35 trade, Sung-Liao, 98 travel, 3, 114–21, 138, 195, Liao diplomats in Sung territory, 114 Sung diplomats in Liao territory, 3, 114–21, 138, 195 greeting travelling Sung diplomats at city limits, 119–20 travel literature, travel diaries, 176–77 Treaty of Ch’ing-shui, see Ch’ing-shui, Treaty of tribute, tribute system, 11–18 passim, 23, 33, 99, 101, 216 Tsang Shui-lung, 42, 85

285

Ts’ang-chou, 53 Ts’ao (Sung empress dowager), 156 Ts’ao Li-yung, 62, 64–65, 68–73, 75, 105 importance of in peace negotiations between Sung and Liao, 1004–1005, 62–64 knowledge of Kitan language, 70 Ts’e-fu Yüan-kuei, xiii, 22–23, 57 Tseng Kung-liang, 66, 192 Tsung-chen (Liao emperor taboo name), 155 Tsung-t’ien (Liao empress dowager), 104, 135, 149, 151–55, 190 T’u-men Pass, 43, 55 T’u River, 190 T’u-yü-hun, 198 Tun-ch’eng, 116 Tung-tan, 32 T’ung-ho (Liao reign period, 983–1012), 76, 217 T’ung Kuan, 3, 112 T’ung-li, 43, 64, 66–67 T’ung-t’ien (Sung birthday-festival), 104 Türks, 8–9, 22, 35, 203, 215 Twitchett, Denis, x, 37, 179 Tz’u-chou, 114 Tz’u-hai, 39 Tz’u-yüan, 39 Uighurs, 8–9, 21–22, 35, 97, 105, 146, 201 Ho-hsi Uighurs, 201 United States, 15 universal kingship, 10, 13, 19, 202 'Uthman (Arab caliph), 9 vassals, vassal states, 14–15, 33, 206 victory, military and diplomatic, issues pertaining to Sung-Liao War of 1004–1005, 89–95 Vietnam, 32, 36 Wa-ch’iao Pass, 45, 205 Wade-Giles romanisation, ix Waldron, Arthur, 82 Walton, Linda, 185 Wang An-shih, 28, 138–39, 141, 216 Wang Ch’ao, 47, 50, 61, 66, 90 Wang Ch’eng-te, 188 Wang Chi-chung, 47, 60–65, 71, 73, 94–95, 143 capture of, 61

286

index

importance of in negotiations between Sung and Liao in 1004–1005, 60–62 letter to Sung emperor Chen-tsung, 62 Wang Ch’in-jo, xiii, 55–59, 64–65, 87–88 Wang-ching, 115–16, 127 Wang Fan-shen, ix–x Wang Gungwu, 22–23, 31, 78 Wang I-kung Shang Ch’i-tan Shih, 178 Wang Kung-ch’en, 208, 224 Wang Tseng, 79, 125, 177–78, 187–88, 195 Wang-tu, 43, 47, 54, 61, 97 Wang-yün, 115 war, 2–3, 18, as crucial determinant of Sung-Liao diplomatic parity, 2–3 between Sung and Liao, 2, 18, 39–95 passim between Sung and Liao prior to 1004, 42–47 Liao starts with Sung, October 1004, 53 Warring States (sub-period of Eastern Chou, 403–221 B.C.), 10 Washington Times, 15 Wei (pre-imperial state), 157 Wei (T’o-pa dynasty, 386–534), 229 Wei-ch’eng, 43, 67 Wei-chou, 220 Wei-lu, 43, 47, 50–51, 54–56, 79 Wei-ming, 200 Wei Neng, 50 Weld, Susan Roosevelt, 73 Wen-ch’eng (T’ang princess), 146 Wen-hsien, 73 Wen-hsien T’ung-k’ao, 188 Wen, King (early Western Chou cultural hero), 166 Wen Yen-po, 192, 207 Western Capital (Liao), 55, 116, 225 Western Chou, see Chou, Western Wills, John, 16 withdrawal, Sung capital, suggested, 56 Wittfogel, Karl A., 99 Wo-ju (lai), 115–16 world order, Chinese, see Chinese world order world order, Türkic, 8–9 Worthy, Edmund, 42 Wu-ch’iang, 43 Wu-ching Tsung-yao, 66

Wu-chu-hsiao, 220 wu-hsing (Five Phases), 11 Wu K’uei, 193 Wu-luan River, 115–16 Wu Yüeh, 146 Yang-ch’eng-tien, 43, 54, 57 Yang Chung-liang, 70 Yang I, xiii, Yang I-chieh, 119, 134 Yang Kuei-chung, 117–19 Yang Shou-su, 225 Yao (ancient Chinese sage-king), 22 Yao (yurt-hostel), 194 Yao Chien-chih, 72–73, 75 Yao Ts’ung-wu, 70 Yeh Lung-li, xiii, 216 Yeh-lü (Kitan surname), 118, 184, 186 Yeh-lü A-pao-chi, 36–37, 61, 190 Yeh-lü Hsiu-ko, 46 Yeh-lü Jen-hsien, 128, 213, 215–17 Yeh-lü Ko, 129 Yeh-lü Lung-hsü, 186 Yeh-lü Nü-kua, 61 Yeh-lü Pi, 134 Yellow River, 39, 41, 43, 48–49, 52–53, 56–58, 65, 67–68, 80, 92, 114, 116, 219 Sung forces drill holes in ice of during winter of 1004–1005, 65, 67 Yen, Yen-ching, 42, 44, 120, 123, 128, 181–82, 196 Yenan, 204 Yen-chou, 203–204, 225 Yen-jan Mountains, 139 Yen-men, Yen-men Pass, 28, 209–10 Yen Shu, 213, 216 Yen-Yün region, see Sixteen Prefectures Ying-chou, 25, 43, 45–47, 57–58, 62, 64, 83, 89, 91–92, 94, 114 Battle of, 57–59 casualties of, 58 Ying-sheng (Liao birthday-festival), 104 Ying-tsung (Sung emperor, r. 1063–1067), 104, 121, 143, 149–50, 153–56, 169–70 Yu-chou, 44, 49, 59, 86, 118, 120, 122–25, 127, 130, 180–87, 208, 226 Yü (the Great), 8 Yü Ching, 3, 140, 195–96, 221, 223–27

index ﬁrst diplomatic mission to Liao, 223, second diplomatic mission to Hsia, 225 Yü Ying-shih, 8, 10 Yü-k’ou Pass, 45 Yüan (Mongol dynasty, 1279–1368), 229 Yüan-hao, see Li Yüan-hao

Yüan Hua, 88 Yüan-yang-p’o, 138 Yün-nan, 33 Yung-ching, 79 Yung-nien, 58, 115–16, 128 Yung-p’ing, 116 Yung-shou (Liao birthday-festival), 104 Yung-ting, 79

287

HISTORY OF WARFARE History of Warfare presents the latest research on all aspects of military history. Publications in the series will examine technology, strategy, logistics, and economic and social developments related to warfare in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East from ancient times until the early nineteenth century. The series will accept monographs, collections of essays, conference proceedings, and translation of military texts.

1. HOEVEN, M. VAN DER (ed.). Exercise of Arms. Warfare in the Netherlands, 1568-1648. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10727 4 2. RAUDZENS, G. (ed.). Technology, Disease and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11745 8 3. LENIHAN P. (ed.). Conquest and Resistance. War in Seventeenth-Century Ireland. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11743 1 4. NICHOLSON, H. Love, War and the Grail. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12014 9 5. BIRKENMEIER, J.W. The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11710 5 6. MURDOCH, S. (ed.). Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12086 6 7. TUYLL VAN SEROOSKERKEN, H.P. VAN. The Netherlands and World War I. Espionage, Diplomacy and Survival. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12243 5 8. DEVRIES, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12227 3 9. CUNEO, P. (ed.). Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles. Art and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11588 9 10. KUNZLE, D. From Criminal to Courtier. The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 15501672. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12369 5 11. TRIM, D.J.B. (ed.). The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12095 5 12. WILLIAMS, A. The Knight and the Blast Furnace. A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages & the Early Modern Period. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12498 5 13. KAGAY, D.J. & L.J.A. VILLALON (eds.). Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon. Medieval Warfare in Societies Around the Mediterranean. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12553 1 14. LOHR, E. & M. POE (eds.). The Military and Society in Russia: 1450-1917. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12273 7 15. MURDOCH, S. & A. MACKILLOP (eds.). Fighting for Identity. Scottish Military Experience c. 1550-1900. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12823 9 16. HACKER, B.C. World Military History Bibliography. Premodern and Nonwestern Military Institutions and Warfare. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12997 9 17. MACKILLOP, A. & S. MURDOCH (eds.). Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers c. 1600-1800. A Study of Scotland and Empires. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12970 7 ISSN 1385–7827

18. SATTERFIELD, G. Princes, Posts and Partisans. The Army of Louis XVI and Partisan Warfare in the Netherlands (1673-1678). 2003. ISBN 90 04 13176 0 20. MACLEOD, J. & P. PURSEIGLE (eds.). Uncovered Fields. Perspectives in First World War Studies. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13264 3 21. WORTHINGTON, D. Scots in the Habsburg Service, 1618-1648. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13575 8 22. GRIFFIN, M. Regulating Religion and Morality in the King’s Armies, 1639-1646. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13170 1 23. SICKING, L. Neptune and the Netherlands. State, Economy, and War at Sea in the Renaissance. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13850 1 24. GLOZIER, M. Scottish Soldiers in France in the Reign of the Sun King. Nursery for Men of Honour. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13865 X 25. VILLALON, L.J.A. & D.J. KAGAY (eds.). The Hundred Years War. A Wider Focus. 2005. ISBN 90 04 13969 9 26. DEVRIES, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology, Update 2004. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14040 9 27. HACKER, B.C. World Military History Annotated Bibliography. Premodern and Nonwestern Military Institutions (Works Published before 1967). 2005. ISBN 90 04 14071 9 28. WALTON, S.A. (ed.). Instrumental in War. Science, Research, and Instruments. Between Knowledge and the World. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14281 9 29. STEINBERG, J.W., B.W. MENNING, D. SCHIMMELPENNINCK VAN DER OYE, D. WOLFF & S. YOKOTE (eds.). The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective. World War Zero, Volume I. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14284 3 30. PURSEIGLE, P. (ed.). Warfare and Belligerence. Perspectives in First World War Studies. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14352 1 31. WALDMAN, J. Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. The Evolution of European Staff Weapons between 1200 and 1650. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14409 9 32. SPEELMAN, P. War, Society and Enlightenment. The Works of General Lloyd. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14410 2 33. WRIGHT, D.C. From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China. Sung’s Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14456 0