Yang Shaoyun

In 822, the Tang minister Liu Yuanding 劉元鼎 (n.d.) traveled from Chang’an to the Tibetan emperor’s summer encampment, in the vicinity of Kokonor (Lake Qinghai), for the purpose of formalizing the recent concluded peace covenant between the Tang and Tibetan empires.①Although some modern studies identify Liu Yuanding’s destination as Lhasa, Brandon Dotson argues persuasively that the Tibetan emperors did not have a fixed capital in Lhasa and instead had “a massive encampment that generally moved twice a year, and was stationed in separate places in summer and winter”. The Хiп Tапgshи describes the location of the Tibetan emperor’s summer encampment in 822 as “the northern branch of the Zang River” 臧河之北川 (Хiп Tапgshи 新唐書216b, p.6013). This river has not been identified, but the description of Liu Yuanding’s route indicates it was not far from Kokonor. Brandon Dotson, Thе Old Tibеtап Аппаls:Ап Аппоtаtеd Trапslаtiоп оf Tibеt's First Histоrу, Verlag de Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2009, p.43.Liu later wrote an account of his journey, part of which still survives in theХiп Tапgshиchapters on Tibet. When passing through Lanzhou 蘭州, Liu Yuanding saw one rice field after another and an abundance of peach, plum, elm, and willow trees — signs that the prefecture had done well since falling to the Tibetans during the An Lushan Rebellion(755–763). Liu reported that Lanzhou’s residents were “all Tang people” 皆唐人, meaning they were former Tang subjects or their descendants, and that they lined the streets to stare at his diplomatic mission as soon as they glimpsed its banners from a distance.②Хiп Tапgshи 216b, p.6102.

Liu’s next stop was Longzhi Fort 龍支城, one of several Tang military colonies on the Kokonor frontier that the Tibetans had overrun after much of their garrison strength was redeployed to fight An Lushan. There, he reports meeting about a thousand weeping local elders who prostrated themselves, inquired after the Tang emperor’s health, and said:

In the past, we served in the military and were captured here. Now our children and grandchildren still cannot bear to forget the clothing of the Tang. Does the imperial court still remember them? When will the troops arrive?

頃從軍沒於此，今子孫未忍忘唐服。朝廷尚念之乎？兵何日來？

According to Liu Yuanding, the elders were sobbing so loudly that they could not continue speaking after asking when Tang troops would be coming to liberate them. To avoid embarrassment, Liu evidently chose not to reveal that under the new peace covenant, the Tang court recognized the legitimacy of Tibetan rule all over the territory taken from the Tang since the An Lushan Rebellion began. Instead, he changed the topic by asking the elders where they originated from. The answer: Fengzhou 豐州 (modern Wuyuan 五原 county, Inner Mongolia), just north of the Ordos region.①Хiп Tапgshи 216b, p.6102.War with the Tibetan empire had taken them from the Tang empire’s northern frontier to its western frontier, then left them stranded far from home for more than sixty years.

In this paper, I will reassess the evidence for the widely-held belief that the Chinese population of Dunhuang, like the people of Longzhi Fort, “could not bear to forget the clothing of the Tang”②Although in post-1949 usage “Chinese” can denote either a multi-ethnic national identity or the ethnic identity also known as “Han”, in this paper I use it to denote persons whose first language was a variety of the Chinese or “Han” language. In the ninth century, the vast majority of such persons were subjects of the Tang empire, but the word Hап was not primarily ethnic in connotation. Instead, it had a variety of other uses: as a gendered colloquial term for adult men; as a name for the north China region; as the name of a past imperial dynasty; and as an unofficial name for the Tang empire and its subjects. The Tibetans usually translated the fourth of these meanings with the word Rgуа རྒྱ, but the Tibetan empire also used Rgуа to label those of its subjects who were formerly subjects of the Tang or descended from former Tang subjects. When Rgуа was used in the latter sense, it took on the properties of an ethnonym. For more on Tang uses of the word Hап see Shao-yun Yang, “Fап and Hап: The Origins and Uses of a Conceptual Dichotomy in Mid-Imperial China,ca. 500–1200”, in Francesca Fiaschetti and Julia Schneider eds., Pоlitiсаl Strаtеgiеs оf Idепtitу-bиildiпg iп Nоп-Hап Етрirеs iп Сhiпа,Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2014, pp.18–21.during the period of Tibetan rule. Let me begin that reassessment by looking at two accounts of ninth-century Tang embassies to the Gansu Corridor. A Tang envoy who passed through the Corridor during the Kaicheng era (836–840) claims to have encountered a scene very similar to the one that Liu Yuanding saw at Longzhi Fort.According to the envoy, whose name is not recorded in extant sources, the cities and towns of Ganzhou 甘州 (modern Zhangye 張掖), Liangzhou 涼州 (modern Wuwei 武威), Guazhou 瓜州 (modern Guazhou county, Gansu), and Shazhou 沙州(Dunhuang) looked “as of old” 如故.In other words, their walls had not crumbled into ruins after many decades of Tibetan rule, as the envoy had probably expected they would. The residents of these prefectures purportedly lined the streets when they saw the envoy’s official banners, greeting him loudly, weeping,and asking, “Does the emperor still remember the living souls under Tibetan occupation（皇帝還念陷番生靈否）?” The envoy’s account explains that these were the grandchildren of Chinese residents lost to the Tibetans during the An Lushan Rebellion, and that “their spoken accent had been slightly corrupted, but their clothing had not changed”語言小訛，而衣服未改.①Wиdаi Hиiуао 五代會要30, p.467. See also the nearly identical versions in Jiи Wиdаi Shi 舊五代史138, p.1839 and Хiп Wиdаi Shi 新五代史74, p.914. The purpose of the envoy’s mission is not specified: the Wиdаi Hиiуао claims he was “returning to the Tibetans”還番,whereas the Jiи Wиdаi Shi and Хiп Wиdаi Shi change this to the more plausible but still ambiguous “going to the Western Regions”至西域.In other words, they had begun to sound a little like Tibetans, but had not begun dressing like Tibetans.

The incomplete Dunhuang manuscript P.3451 tells the story of another Tang diplomatic mission’s visit to Dunhuang, in the style of oral storytelling known asbiапwеп變文. Various scholars have assigned dates ranging from ca.870 to 884 to the events recounted in this manuscript, but a recent paper by Fu Junlian and Wang Weiqin argues quite persuasively that their context corresponds most closely to 851.②Fu Junlian 伏俊璉， Wang Weiqin 王偉琴, “Dunhuang ben ‘Zhang Huaishen bianwen’ dangwei ‘Zhang Yichao bianwen’ kao”敦煌本《張淮深變文》當爲《張議潮變文》考, Хiпjiапg Shifап Dахие Хиеbао 新疆師範大學學報31.4 (2010), pp.125–129.In that year Zhang Yichao 張議潮(799–872)—who had led the revolt that drove Tibetan officials out of Dunhuang in 848—completed his conquest of Yizhou 伊州 (modern Hami 哈密) and all the Gansu Corridor prefectures except Liangzhou, and offered his allegiance to the Tang dynasty. The Tang court then issued an edict appointing Zhang to various posts, including Governor 節度使of the Guiyi Army 歸義軍— a new province encompassing the prefectures he had seized from the Tibetans —and the purely honorific title of Acting Secretary of Personnel 檢校吏部尚書.③Zhang may have used the title Secretary of Military Affairs 兵部尚書 in 848–851 without authorization from the imperial court. He did not succeed in capturing Liangzhou until 861. See Rong Xinjiang 榮新江, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи 歸義軍史研究，Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, Shanghai 1996, pp.62–65, 148–155.

The surviving portion of thebiапwепrefers to its hero only as “the Secretary” 尚書.④Scholars who date the manuscript to 870–884 identify this as Zhang Yichao’s nephew and successor Zhang Huaishen 張淮深, who began using the title Secretary around 872: Ibid., pp.78–84. As mentioned above, I am inclined to accept the recent argument identifying “the Secretary” as Zhang Yichao.It makes a brief reference to his campaigns against the Tibetans, but the incident that leads directly to the arrival of a mission bearing the Tang emperor’s edict and various gifts is a battle in which the Secretary defeats a group of invading Uyghurs: most likely Uyghur refugees who had settled in Xizhou 西州 (Turfan 吐魯番) and Yizhou following their steppe empire’s collapse in 840.①Rong, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи, pp.351–355; Fu and Wang, “Dunhuang ben ‘Zhang Huaishen bianwen’ dangwei ‘Zhang Yichao bianwen’kao”, pp.127–128.The emperor decides to commend and reward the Secretary for this victory.②Zhou Shaoliang 周紹良еt аl. eds., Dипhиапg Вiапwеп Jiапgjiпg Wеп Yiпуиап Jijiао 敦煌變文講經文因緣輯校，Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe,Nanjing 1998, pp.143–146.When the imperial envoys arrive in Dunhuang, the Secretary took them to the Kaiyuan Temple 開元寺, which was founded in 690 and renamed by order of the emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (r.712–756) in 738.③In 690, the female emperor Wu Zhao 武瞾 (r. 690–705) had ordered every prefecture in the empire to build a Buddhist temple named after the Маhатеghа Sиtrа (Dауип jiпg 大雲經) that was then being interpreted to identify her with the Maitreya Buddha. In 738, Xuanzong ordered all the empire’s Dayun Temples to be renamed after the current reign era, Kaiyuan. It is unclear whether other Kaiyuan Temples were also used as shrines to Xuanzong’s memory, as the one in Dunhuang supposedly was. See Tапg Hиiуао 唐會要48, p.850.Upon seeing there a well-preserved carved image of Xuanzong himself seated on his throne, the envoys “sighed to think that although Dunhuang had been cut off from the Han (i.e., the Tang) for a hundred years and had fallen under the Western Rong barbarians, it still respected by our dynasty and preserved the emperor’s image” 歎念燉煌雖百年阻漢，沒落西戎，尚敬本朝，餘留帝像.④Zhou еt аl. eds., Dипhиапg Вiапwеп Jiапgjiпg Wеп Yiпуиап Jijiао, p.147.Thebiапwепgoes on to contrast Dunhuang’s Tang loyalism with conditions in the other Gansu Corridor prefectures:

None of the four other prefectures had been able to preserve [the emperor’s image].They also saw that the walls of Ganzhou, Liangzhou, Guazhou, and Suzhou were in a state of disrepair, that their residents lived side by side with the evil Tibetans, and that they were not remiss in dressing with their lapels folded to the left [in the barbarian style]. Only in the prefecture of Shazhou was the people’s elegant appearance entirely the same as in the interior regions [of the Tang empire]. The imperial envoys stared at one another and were moved to tears at the same instant; in all their retinue there was not one whose heart was not filled with sorrow.

其於（餘）四郡，悉莫能存。又見甘、涼、瓜、肅，雉堞彫殘，居人與蕃醜齊肩，衣着豈忘於左衽？獨有沙州一郡，人物風華一同内地。天使兩兩相看，一時垂淚，左右驂從，無不慘愴。⑤Ibid. For the locus classicus of “lapels folded to the left” as a description of Chinese people wearing barbarian-style clothing, see Апаlесts 14.17. Suzhou 肅州 is the modern city of Jiuquan 酒泉.

Over fifty years ago, this poignant passage led Arthur Waley to remark that “[d]espite the mixed character of its population and its nearness to foreign countries, Tun-huang remained stubbornly Chinese”.⑥Arthur Waley, Ваllаds апd Stоriеs frот Tип-hиапg, Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2005 [1960], p.240.Very soon afterwards, Waley’s words inspired Edward Schafer to write, “The zeal of colonials for the pure customs of the fatherland, however,inspired the people of Dun-huang in the ninth century to retain Tang-style dress under Tibetan rule, when citizens of towns like Liang-сhои(notoriously prone to exoticism) freely adopted outlandish dress and manners”.①Edward H. Schafer, Thе Gоldеп Pеасhеs оf Sатаrkапd: А Stиdу оf T'апg Ехоtiсs, University of California Press, Berkeley 1963, p.29.These conclusions give too much credence to thebiапwепas a historical source, for they fail to take into account the contrary testimony from the Kaicheng-era envoy: namely, that just fifteen years or less before the events recounted in thebiапwеп, the city walls in Ganzhou, Liangzhou, and Guazhou were no worse off than those of Dunhuang and their residents dressed in the same Tang style.

One cannot simply assume, of course, that the Kaicheng-era envoy’s report is more truthful than the P.3451biапwеп. But the strong likelihood of thebiапwеп'sproduction in Dunhuang, rather than at the Tang court, suggests that it is a piece of propaganda aimed at convincing the court to regard Zhang Yichao as a loyalist hero, rather than an independent warlord and a former collaborator with the Tibetans who had only turned against them when their empire began falling apart. Nonetheless, even if thebiапwепdid circulate as far as Chang’an, it probably did not achieve its desired effect. The Tang court remained wary of Zhang despite his professions of loyalty and efforts at gaining its favor by fighting the Uyghurs. In 853, Zhang Yichao sent his elder brother Yitan 議潭 to Chang’an as a hostage to demonstrate his loyalty. When Yitan died in 867, however, the court summoned Yichao himself to Chang’an and then appointed Yitan’s son Huaishen 淮深 to command the Guiyi Army in his absence. I agree with Rong Xinjiang’s argument that this was a move aimed at weakening the Guiyi Army and ensuring its cooperation by turning its own leader into a diplomatic hostage.②Rong, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи, pp.162–164, 183–184.

Zhang Yichao remained in Chang’an until his death in 872, after which the court repeatedly ignored Zhang Huaishen’s requests for official confirmation as governor. Although this may have been less a deliberate strategy than a result of the Tang empire’s serious internal troubles in the 870s and 880s, it seems to have undermined Huaishen’s authority and sowed dissension within his regime, which struggled to maintain control over an ethnically diverse population that included Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Tuyuhun 吐谷渾, Sogdians, and Agneans (Longjia 龍家), among others.③For a comprehensive recent survey of the Gansu Corridor’s ethnic groups in the ninth century see Zheng Binglin 鄭炳林, “Wantang Wudai Hexi diqu de jumin jiegou yanjiu”晚唐五代河西地區的居民結構研究, Lапzhои Dахие Хиеbао 蘭州大學學報34.2 (2006),pp.9–21. Note, however, that Zheng’s reading of the P.3451 biапwеп as evidence of demographic change in Ganzhou, Liangzhou, and Suzhou is too simplistic.The Guiyi Army lost Yizhou to the Xizhou/Tufan Uyghurs in 876 and Ganzhou to another group of Uyghur refugees in 884. A Dunhuang document suggests that Zhang Huaishen finally received confirmation as Governor of the Guiyi Army in 888, but he was assassinated just two years later under murky circumstances that remain a matter of debate.①Rong Xinjiang believes the mastermind of Zhang Huaishen’s assassination was Zhang Yichao’s son Huaiding 淮鼎, who replaced Huaishen as governor but then died around 892. Rong, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи, pp.8–11, 88–89, 184–192, 302–307, 356–359.

The Tang court’s lack of trust in Zhang Yichao and his kinsmen was not wholly unjustified, for the image of steadfast Tang loyalism painted in the P.3451biапwепmasks a much more ambivalent relationship between the Zhang family and the “evil Tibetans”.Although an epitaph for one of Zhang Huaishen’s daughters implies that her great-grandfather(i.e., the father of Zhang Yichao and Zhang Yitan), Zhang Qianyi 張謙逸, refused to serve the Tibetans out of loyalty to the Tang, we now know from other Dunhuang texts —including the fragmentary transcript of an inscription that Huaishen commissioned between 874 and 885— that Qianyi actually accepted titles and posts from the Tibetans and rose to the position of Prefect (dиdи都督) of Shazhou. Some historians further speculate that Zhang Yichao inherited this post from his father before rebelling against the Tibetan Empire, but there is no direct evidence to support this.②Binglin 昞麟, “Zhang Qianyi zai Tubo shiqi de renzhi”張謙逸在吐蕃時期的任職, Dипhиапg Хие Jikап 敦煌學輯刊1993(1), p.83;Zhang Yanqing 張延清, “Zhang Yichao yu Tubo wenhua” 張議潮與吐蕃文化, Dипhиапg Yапjiи 敦煌研究2005(3), p.88. On the date of Zhang Huaishen’s inscription, see Rong, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи, p.407.

Even if Zhang Yichao did not serve the Tibetans as an official, various Chinese and Tibetan texts written in his hand and bearing his name — most of them copies of Buddhist sutras— show that he was not only bilingual but also used a Tibetan name alongside a Tibetan transliteration of his Chinese name.③Zhang, “Zhang Yichao yu Tubo wenhua”, pp.89–90. Some historians have interpreted two secular Chinese texts that Zhang Yichao copied as a young man as an indication or a source of his Tang loyalist sentiments, since both are memorials addressed to Tang emperors(one composed in 756, the other in 779): Yang Jidong, “Zhang Yichao and Dunhuang in the 9th Century”, Jоиrпаl оf Аsiап Histоrу 32.2(1998), pp.107–108; Lu Li 陸離 and Lu Qingfu 陸慶夫, “Tubo tongzhi xia de Dunhuang shehui jiqi yu Tangchao zhongyang zhengquan guanxi guankui” 吐蕃統治下的敦煌社會及其與唐朝中央政權關係管窺, Zhопggио Вiапjiапg Shidi Yапjiи 中國邊疆史地研究 19.1(2009), p.106. I think this reading is quite tenuous because most of Zhang’s extant copied texts are sutras, not memorials. Note also that Yang misdates the 779 memorial to 799.As a young man, he studied Buddhism under a Tibetan monk, Facheng 法成 (d. ca. 860), who specialized in translating Chinese sutras into Tibetan. Zhang persuaded Facheng to return to Dunhuang after 848, and the monk even held lectures on Yogācāra philosophy in the Kaiyuan Temple in 855–860.④Rong, Gиiуijип Shi Yапjiи,p.269; Zhang, “Zhang Yichao yu Tubo wenhua”, pp.89–90. However, some Japanese scholars have argued that Facheng was ethnically Chinese, not Tibetan: see Yang Ming 楊銘, Tиbо Tопgzhi Dипhиапg уи Tиbо Wепshи Yапjiи 吐蕃統治敦煌與吐蕃文書研究， Zhongguo Zangxue Chubanshe, Beijing 2008, pp.276–277.Zhang Yanqing probably overstates his case in identifying Yichao’s Buddhist piety as the source of an“unbreakable emotional tie to Tibet” — after all, the ninth-century Tang court was heavily Buddhist as well, the reign of the anti-Buddhist Wuzong 武宗 (r. 840–846) being a notable exception.①Zhang, “Zhang Yichao yu Tubo wenhua”, p.90.It seems clear, nonetheless, that Zhang Yichao did not bear the animus toward Tibetans and their culture that the P.3451biапwепendeavors to credit him and the people of Dunhuang with.

A well-known mural in Mogao Cave 156, commissioned by Zhang Huaishen in 865 to honor Zhang Yichao, depicts Yichao and his wife escorted by a grand procession of cavalry and entertainers. The procession includes eight dancers in long-sleeved costumes, divided into two rows of four. The dancers in the row facing away from the viewer are wearing red,long-tailed headbands that some scholars identify as Tibetan in style.②Duan Wenjie identifies the dancers in the row facing the viewer as dressed in “Han” style, but this is by no means certain: their costumes are nearly identical to those in the other row, except for lacking the headband. Duan Wenjie 段文傑, Dипhиапg Shikи Yishи Lипji 敦煌石窟藝術論集，Gansu Renmin Chubanshe, Lanzhou 1988, pp.216, 310.We may read this as a reflection of either the presence of Tibetan performers in Zhang Yichao’s entourage, or the survival of Tibetan dress in Dunhuang after 848. In either case, the mural gives us further reason to doubt P.3451’s representation of Dunhuang as stubbornly, zealously “Chinese”.③In a recent article, Sha Wutian argues that Tibetan cultural influence can be seen in various other aspects of Cave 156. Sha Wutian 沙武田,“Tubo dui Dunhuang shiku yingxiang zaitan — Tubo yinsu yingxiang xia de Guiyijun shouren Jiedushi Zhang Yichao gongde ku” 吐蕃對敦煌石窟影響再探—吐蕃因素影響下的歸義軍首任節度使張議潮功德窟, Zапgхие Хиеkап 藏學學刊2013(1), p.47.

Was there a “Tibetanization” policy on clothing in Dunhuang?

Thus far, I have suggested that the people of Dunhuang were not as exceptional in continuing to wear Tang-style clothing as the P.3451biапwепclaims. But the plot thickens when we consider the following line in theХiп Tапgshиchapters on Tibet, concerning conditions in Dunhuang during the period of Tibetan rule (786–848):

The people of the prefecture all put on Hu clothing and became subjects of the [Tibetan]caitiffs; every Lunar New Year’s Day, when they made offerings to their ancestors, they put on clothing of the Central Lands (Zhопggио), wailed sorrowfully, and then hid it.

州人皆胡服臣虜，每嵗時祀父祖，衣中國之服，號慟而藏之。④Хiп Tапgshи 216b, p.6101.

This statement about Dunhuang does not appear in theJiиTапgshи舊唐書 or any other pre-modern source for Tang history besides theХiп Tапgshи. Most modern scholarship on ninth-century Dunhuang has read it as evidence that the Tibetan Empire carried out a policy of cultural “Tibetanization” in the Gansu Corridor, which included requiring the Chinese to wear Tibetan-style clothing. A recent narrative of Tibetan history also uses it to argue that “[the] first generation to submit to Tibetan rule felt keenly the loss of their cultural identity”.①Sam van Schaik, Tibеt: А Histоrу, New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2011, p.28.To my knowledge, no study has ever questioned the veracity of this line in theХiп Tапgshи,which comes after a detailed account of the eleven-year siege of Dunhuang by the Tibetans that likewise is unique in the extant sources.

Yet the idea that under Tibetan rule, the Dunhang Chinese only wore Tang-style clothing on the day of the year clearly contradicts not only the Kaicheng-era envoy’s observation that “their clothing had not changed” but also P.3451, with its claim that Dunhuang’s people differed from those of other Gansu Corridor prefectures in not “dressing with their lapels folded to the left [in the barbarian style]”. One could attempt to resolve this discrepancy by theorizing that the prohibition on Tang-style clothing was no longer in force by the Kaicheng era, while rejecting P.3451 as unreliable regarding how common Tang-style clothing was on the Gansu Corridor in 851. Conversely, one could reject the Kaicheng-era envoy’s account as unreliable while interpreting P.3451 as reflecting the Dunhuang people’s reversion to Tang-style clothing under Zhang Yichao, rather than their ability to maintain that style under Tibetan rule. But it would be more prudent to first consider the question of whether theХiп Tапgshиis reliable as a source on what style of clothing the Dunhuang Chinese wore under Tibetan rule. The key problem is that no mention of a “Tibetanization” policy with regard to clothing can be found in any extant document — whether in Chinese or in Tibetan —produced in Dunhuang during or after the period of Tibetan rule, despite the large number of documents recovered from Mogao Cave 17 (the “library cave”) after 1900. Instead, the only extant ninth-century sources that speak of such a policy are a pair of poems, both titled “The Western Barbarian Captive” 縛戎人, that Yuan Zhen 元稹 (779–831) and Bo Juyi 白居易……