Author: Liu Zifan
Source: Historical Review, No. 5, 2021
The Tang Dynasty operated the Western Regions for about a century and a half, and with its strong national strength, it gradually established a relatively solid rule in the Western Regions. During this period, the silk road personnel exchanges were extremely active, and the economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries were very frequent. The wide spread of the Central Plains culture with Confucianism as the core in the Western Regions enabled the local people to maintain their political identity with the Central Plains Dynasty for a long time, laying a very important cultural and psychological foundation for the local Chinese cultural identity.
The Western Regions are an important land passage connecting the two ends of eurasia and a bridge for cultural exchanges between the East and the West in ancient times. Because of its important strategic position, successive Dynasties of the Central Plains devoted themselves to the management of the Western Regions when their national strength was within reach, but because of their special geographical conditions and complex and diverse ethnic cultures, it was not easy to maintain a stable rule. The Tang Dynasty's management of the Western Regions, starting from different levels and focusing more on strengthening political and cultural identity, achieved great success for a period of time.
Step by step, adapt to the times
The operation of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions underwent a gradual process, which could be roughly divided into three stages according to the different ways of ruling.
The first is the period when the Governor's Mansion of Xizhou and the Protectorate of Anxi were under the jurisdiction (630-692). At the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the Western Regions were mainly under the control of nomadic tribes of the Steppe of North Asia, such as the Turks and Tiele. The Tang Dynasty began to gradually intervene in the Western Regions in the early years of Zhenguan, and in the fourth year of Zhenguan (630) set up a state in Iwu. By the 14th year of Zhenguan's destruction of Gaochangguo, the Tang Dynasty had established three zhengzhous in the eastern part of Tianshan, namely Yi prefecture (near present-day Hami, Xinjiang), Xizhou (in present-day Turpan, Xinjiang), and Tingzhou (the site of governance in present-day Beiting Ancient City, Jimsar County, Xinjiang), and at the same time established the Anxi Capital Protectorate in Xizhou to govern the military and political affairs of the three prefectures. After Emperor Gaozong Defeated the Western Turk Khan Ashina Helu in the third year (658), the Tang Dynasty established the four towns of Guizi, Yanqi, Khotan, and Shule in the oasis area south of the Tianshan Mountains, and at the same time moved the Anxi Capital Protectorate to Guizi to take command. In addition, the Tang Dynasty also established a wide range of prefectures in the Western Turkic regions and in the Sogdia and Tocharian regions west of the Onion Ridge, and their nominal areas were as far as the Persian border. During this period, the three prefectures of Yi, Xi and Ting were mainly centered on the Governor's Mansion of Xizhou, while the four towns were mainly under the jurisdiction of the Anxi Prefecture Protectorate. In terms of military affairs, the Tang Dynasty mainly adopted the defense system of the capital protectorate and the governor's office to command the surrounding towns, and only completed the task of defense with less troops on a daily basis, and in the event of a larger war, a large-scale march was organized from the Central Plains to fight against the enemy.
The second is the reign of the military town and the moderation (692-755). From the second year of Emperor Gaozong's reign (662), Tubo, which had risen on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, began to enter the Western Regions, and the Tang Dynasty and Tubo fought repeatedly in the Sizhen area. It was not until the first year of longevity (692) that the Tang Dynasty gradually consolidated its control of the Western Regions, changed the situation in which the four towns had limited troops under the command of the Anxi Capital Protectorate, and gradually upgraded them to a town garrison with 30,000 heavy troops. In the second year of Chang'an (702), the Tang Dynasty upgraded Tingzhou to the Capital Protectorate of Beiting, and at the same time established the Han Navy, and the three prefectures in the east of Tianshan also had a large garrison. The Tang Dynasty's rule over the Western Regions gradually entered the era of military sculpting.
In the early years of Emperor Xuanzong's reign, the Tang Dynasty successively established the Anxi Jiedushi Envoy and the Beiting Jiedushi Envoy. Among them, the Anxi Jiedu envoy commanded the town defenders in Guizi, Yanqi, Khotan, shule and other places south of the Tianshan Mountains, and the countries of the Western Regions of Funing; the Envoy of the Northern Ting Jiedu commanded the Yiwu Army, the Tianshan Army, and the Han Navy in the three prefectures of Yi, Xi and Ting, and was responsible for defending the nomadic departments such as the Turks, Turkishi, and Jiankun. In this way, a military system of commanding military towns with moderation was formed, and the military strength was greatly enhanced. At the same time, The Envoys of Anxi and Beiting jiedushi also served as the protectors of anxi and beiting respectively, and Jiedushi became the actual military and political leaders of the Tang Dynasty in the western regions. Under the support of strong national strength, the troops of Anxi and Beiting gathered, and the Tang Dynasty's management of the western region was extremely prosperous.
The third is the period of localized rule after the Anshi Rebellion (755-about 792). In the fourteenth year of Tianbao (755), the Anshi Rebellion broke out, and Emperor Xuanzong urgently recruited the Northwest Frontier Army into GuanqinWang, and Anxi and Beiting also dispatched a large number of elite troops to fight in the Central Plains in two batches. Tubo took the opportunity to send troops to encroach on the northwestern prefectures of the Tang Dynasty, and after Liangzhou fell into the hands of Tubo in the second year of Guangde (764), the connection between Anxi and Beiting and the Central Plains was severed and became an enclave. After that, the Tang Dynasty could only use the road back to Hui to maintain several annual communications with the Tang army that remained in the western region. During this period, due to the lack of central support from the central government in terms of finances and soldiers, the town defenders could only raise military funds by minting copper coins and sending local people to collect military funds. By the time of Emperor Dezong's Zhenyuan Dynasty, Anxi and Beiting had fallen one after another, and the Western Regions had become a stage for the Uighurs (renamed Uighurs after the Uighurs) competed with tubo.
The Central Plains system is combined with local characteristics
The Tang Dynasty's jurisdiction over the Western Regions underwent changes from the capital to the town garrison to the Jiedu commander, but the basic administrative system has always been the mode of rule of Zhengzhou combined with The Prefecture of Zhenfu. The implementation of this mode of rule stemmed from the Tang Dynasty's understanding of the complex political traditions and local cultures of the Western Regions, and always adhered to the combination of the Central Plains system and local characteristics, thus ensuring the stability of the Tang Dynasty's governance in the Western Regions for a period of time.
Archaeological evidence shows that during the Bronze Age, the Western Regions were the places where different ethnic groups migrated and settled, thus creating ethnic and cultural diversity in the region. At the beginning of the Operation of the Tang Dynasty, the Western Regions could be divided into a number of political and cultural regions with distinctive characteristics. Gao Changguo, who guarded the Silk Road, whose main inhabitants were Han Chinese who migrated here during the Sixteen Kingdoms period, recorded that in the more than 100 years since the founding of the country, "customs and decrees are slightly the same as those in Huaxia", and has been studying Confucian classics such as "Mao Poems", "Analects", "Filial Piety", and a large number of excavated documents have also proved that they have maintained han cultural traditions in various aspects such as language, system, and customs. Although the oasis countries such as Guizi, Yanqi, Khotan, and Shule south of the Tianshan Mountains also adopt the production method based on farming, because it is the place where eastern and western civilizations meet, the cultural outlook is very different from Thatuchang. The hinterland of the Tianshan Mountains, which stretches for hundreds of kilometers and the grassland areas north of them, is the area where the Nomadic tribes of the Western Turks, the Gelulu, the Chuyue, and the Chumi tribes are active. In addition, in the east, there were castle settlements built by Sogdian merchants in Iwu and Shanshan. The political form and cultural outlook of the Western Regions can be described as complex and diverse.
Due to the increasing prosperity of the Silk Road, a large number of merchants and merchants traveled endlessly from east to west, and the Tang Dynasty's understanding of the Western Regions was far more than that of previous generations. The Tang Dynasty's concept of heaven and earth was naturally also integrated with factors that were compatible with the Central Plains and the Four Yi, as Tang Taizong once said: "Since ancient times, all of them have been noble in China, and they have been humble and di, and the love of the emperor is the same, so their seeds are all like their parents." It was in this context that the Tang Dynasty adopted a rule model based on customs in the Western Regions.
The first is to establish formal prefectures and counties in and around the former Gaochangguo, and to implement the Central Plains system. After Tang pacified Gaochangguo, he directly took the land of Gaochang as Xizhou, his former capital Gaochangcheng as the seat of state administration, the four counties of the former Gaochangguo as the four counties of Xizhou, and the former counties of Gaochangguo were also reorganized into townships. In this way, gaochangguo's state-county-county system was directly transformed into the tang dynasty's prefecture-county-township system. According to the excavated documents, the Tang Dynasty did implement the Central Plains system such as the Juntian system, the rent system, and the prefectural soldier system in Xizhou. It can be seen that the Tang Dynasty made good use of Gao Changguo's political and social Han cultural traditions and smoothly implemented the system. After the establishment of Xizhou, it became the frontier base for the Tang Dynasty to manage the western region, in addition to taking advantage of its geographical advantages, the Han officials and people in Xizhou also provided a large number of human resources for the Tang Dynasty, becoming an important force in the administration and defense of Xizhou and even the four towns of Tingzhou and Anxi. The Tang Dynasty, with Xizhou as the core, together with its nearby Tingzhou and Yizhou, controlled the gateway of the Central Plains to and from the Western Regions.
The second was the establishment of a combination of the prefecture and the military town in the oasis area south of the Tianshan Mountains. After Emperor Gaozong defeated the Western Turks in three years at the latest, the Tang Dynasty established the Governor's Mansion in Guizi, Yanqi, Khotan, and Shule south of the Tianshan Mountains to administer it. Although the governor and assassin were nominally appointed by the imperial court, most of the local chiefs were hereditary, and most of the local civil affairs were also responsible for the chiefs, and it was not necessary to fully implement the Tang legal system. The Tang Dynasty established the Prefecture of Qiangfu prefecture in the oasis area, rather than directly establishing Zhengzhou like Gaochang, no doubt considering that the oasis area did not have a Han cultural tradition similar to Gaochang, so to a certain extent, it followed its inherent system, but only incorporated it into the structure of the prefecture. On the other hand, due to the sedentary characteristics of the oasis area of agricultural civilization and the extremely important geographical location, the Tang Dynasty established zhenshu in various countries in addition to the establishment of the prefecture of Qiangfu. After the first year of longevity, the four towns were gradually upgraded to town defenders, and a large number of soldiers from the Central Plains were stationed here. In this way, the oasis countries formed a ruling mode that not only had the local governor shi to manage the civil administration, but also the mode of moderation and town guard to manage the Han army's soldiers and horses, which Zhang Guangda called "the military and political system combining Hu and Han".
Finally, nomadic states such as the Western Turks, Gelulu, and Chuyue were established to rule. In view of the fact that these nomadic tribes migrated back and forth and were not easy to divide their troops and defend the town, the Tang Dynasty only ruled by restraint, and in addition to appointing their leaders as governors and assassins, only sent a few Han officials to join the army to help them write their own tables. These prefectures were subordinate to the Anxi Prefecture and the Beiting Prefecture respectively, which was a seemingly loose but centralized way of administration.
In this way, the Tang Dynasty established three modes of rule in the western region: Zhengzhou, Qiangzhifu Prefecture combined with Junzhen, and Qiangzhifu Prefecture, which corresponded to gaochang with Han cultural traditions, oasis areas south of the Tianshan Mountains, and nomadic tribes in the hinterland of the Tianshan Mountains and its northern foothills, which was a diversified mode of rule adapted to local conditions and customs. This ensured that the Tang Dynasty could not only use Zhengzhou and the garrison as the foundation of its rule, but also take the Prefecture of Qiangfu as a buffer, and to a certain extent, take into account the political and cultural traditions of the oasis area and the grasslands to achieve stable rule.
The culture of the Central Plains has had a profound impact
Since Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty carved out the Western Regions, the Central Plains Dynasty began the process of operating the Western Regions. On this basis, the Tang Dynasty's management of the Western Regions reached an unprecedented height, and the Central Plains civilization also entered the Western Regions more extensively, and stirred with other civilizations, which had an important impact on the historical trend of the Western Regions.
The first is to promote the county system to the western region. The Central Plains Dynasty had a slow process of development in setting up counties in the Western Regions. The Han Dynasty only established the Western Regions Capital Protector and the Western Regions Long History to rule the Western Regions, and during the Sixteen Kingdoms period, Gaochang County was established, and the Sui Dynasty once had Yiwu County. The Tang Dynasty made a big step forward, in addition to establishing Xizhou in Gaochang and Yizhou in Yiwu, it also established Tingzhou in the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, which not only established a state and county beyond the previous generation, but also achieved a long period of effective rule. In this way, the scope of the Central Plains System, which was directly ruled by the Central Plains Dynasty and fully implemented the Central Plains system, had already crossed the Yangguan and Yumen Pass to the west and reached the eastern region of Tianshan Mountain. Correspondingly, the scope of what the Tang Dynasty officially called the "Western Regions" also shifted westward. In the early Tang Dynasty, the "western region" still referred to the west of Dunhuang, and after the establishment of the three prefectures of Yi, Xi, and Ting, it referred to the west of the three prefectures, and after controlling the four towns, only the west of the Onion Ridge was called the "western region". The expansion of prefectures and counties and the contraction of the "Western Regions" reflected the deepening of tang rule in the Western Regions, and eventually formed the furthest border of the Western Regions during the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Second, the political identity of the Western Regions for the Tang Dynasty was greatly strengthened. The Tang Dynasty, with its strong political and cultural strength, gradually established a political identity in the Western Regions. For example, from the epitaphs unearthed in Turpan, after entering the Tang Dynasty, the local epitaphs began to change the traditional way of writing in the Gaochang area, and gradually converged with the Central Plains, and began to appear phrases such as "Tang Dynasty, Zebei Xizhou", reflecting the identification with the New State Datang. According to the Old Book of Tang, when Tianbao rebelled against An Lushan in the fourteenth year, Yu Khotanese's lieutenant Chi Sheng "led five thousand troops to the disaster", indicating that with the deepening of the Tang Dynasty's operations in the western regions, the four towns of Anxi also established a political identity with the Tang Dynasty. The influence of the Tang Dynasty was even as far west as the Onion Ridge, and during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, the state of Bakhana had always been closely related to the Tang Dynasty, and Emperor Xuanzong crowned his king as the King of Fenghua, changed his name to Ningyuan State, and sent Princess Heyi and the King of Fenghua and his relatives.
Third, the Culture of the Central Plains was widely spread in the Western Regions. The Western Regions have always been a place where various cultural exchanges converge, and with the deepening of the Tang Dynasty's management of the Western Regions, the Central Plains culture has also been continuously transmitted to the West, which has had a profound impact on the Western Regions. The Old Book of Tang records that the famous Tang Dynasty general GeShuhan was a Turkic father and a Khotanese mother, and Grew up in the four towns of Anxi, Ge Shuhan "read the "Spring and Autumn Biography of the Zuo Clan" and the "Book of Han", which shows that the locals generally studied Han culture. In the Tang Dynasty documents unearthed in Hotan, there is also a copy of the "Orchid Pavilion Preface", as the most classic calligraphy model in the Central Plains culture, the discovery of the "Orchid Pavilion Preface" confirms the wide spread of the Central Plains calligraphy culture in the Western Regions. The Tang Dynasty also established official temples belonging to the Han Buddhist system in the western region, and there were official temples presided over by Han monks in the four town areas of Khotan, Shule, and Shanye, which were parallel to the local monasteries that practiced Theravada Buddhism. After the middle of the 7th century, square-hole copper coins modeled after the Tang Dynasty coins began to appear, showing the influence of Central Plains culture along the Silk Road.
The Tang Dynasty's operation in the Western Regions for nearly a century and a half promoted the prosperity of the Silk Road and deepened the cultural integration between the Western Regions and the Central Plains. The picture shows the Tang Dynasty civil officials unearthed in Turpan, whose dress is no different from that of officials in the Central Plains. Quoted from the Cultural Relics Bureau of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region: Treasures of the Silk Road: A Catalogue of Cultural Relics in Xinjiang's Collection, Urumqi: Xinjiang People's Publishing House, 2010, p. 113
Fourth, the Tang Dynasty left a rich legacy in the Western Regions. Tang rule had a profound impact on the Western Regions, and even after the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty gradually lost control of the Western Regions, its political and cultural influence continued. At the beginning of the Five Dynasties of the Song Dynasty, Although Li Shengtian, the king of Khotan, was not related to the Tang dynasty royal family, he "claimed to be a subordinate of the Tang Dynasty" and assumed the surname of Li. After Li Shengtian, Khotan also maintained the practice of using era names. After the Tang Dynasty, the Xizhou Uighur regime, which ruled the eastern part of tianshan, directly followed the military towns and forts established by the Tang dynasty in the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains and other places, and developed them into economic and trade centers, continuing the prosperity of the Silk Road. According to the "Journey to the West of the True People of Changchun", qiu Chuji, on his way westward, once asked the local monks, Taoists, and Confucians about the customs in the great city of Turtle Sima Dacheng, and his people said: "In this Tang Dynasty, the Beiting Duanfu, Jinglong for three years, Yang Gong he was the protector of the capital, had moral government, zhuyi was convinced, and benefited future generations, and now laizhi." There are two stone carvings in Longxing West Temple, the merit is impressive, and the temple has a collection of Buddhist books. It can be seen that until the time of Genghis Khan, the Beiting homeland still lived with Confucian and Taoist people who were immersed in the culture of the Central Plains, and there were still tang dynasty cultural relics such as inscriptions and Buddhas, and the western region operation of the Tang Dynasty also became the historical memory of the locals.
From the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang to the first year of Emperor Dezong of Tang, the Tang Dynasty operated the Western Regions for about a century and a half, and gradually established a relatively solid rule in the Western Regions with its strong national strength. During this period, the silk road personnel exchanges were extremely active, and the economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries were very frequent. Although the Tang Dynasty eventually abandoned the management of the Western Regions due to the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, it is worth noting that the wide spread of the Central Plains culture with Confucianism as the core in the Western Regions enabled the local people to maintain their political identity with the Central Plains Dynasty for a long time, laying a very important cultural and psychological foundation for the local Chinese cultural identity.
Author Affilications: Institute of Ancient History, Chinese Academy of History