Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages. Sanping Chen

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      I would add that this “Turkic identity” was further reflected in Emperor Taizong's death. Several authors have observed that certain features of his mausoleum, particularly the large number of stone statues representing real-life personalities, were imitative of the ancient Türk burial custom.⁹⁰ I contend that, rather than mere imitation, it in fact reflected the Tang imperial house's Steppe background and identity. For a son of heaven well known for his obsession with posterity and historical legacy in the Sinitic world, Emperor Taizong's mausoleum is a manifestation of his other cultural identity.

      The Tang house's respect for non-Hàn burial customs both within and beyond the Chinese heartland was documented. For example, Emperor Taizong once sharply condemned the Eastern Türks' adoption of the (Hàn) tomb burials in violation of their ancestral traditions (Cefu yuangui 125.1501),⁹¹ and Emperor Xuanzong issued an edict allowing a surrendered Türk official “to be buried according to the native [Turkic] customs” (Cefu yuangui 974.11446).

      Nearly three centuries later, when the Tang dynasty was in its death throes, there was another fascinating case of atavistic reflection of its ethnic roots. In the year 904, shortly before his murder by the founding monarch of the succeeding Liang dynasty (907–23), the Tang emperor Zhaozong (reign 888–904) was forced into a miserable banishment from the Tang capital with a small entourage, a virtual prisoner of the Liang soldiers. In constant fear of regicide and anticipating the final end of the once glorious dynasty, Emperor Zhaozong cited a folk poem lamenting his fate (ZZTJ 264.8627), likening himself to a “freezing bird at the peak of Mount Hegan.” Interestingly, from hundreds of possible metaphors in volumes of Chinese literature for describing a despondent monarch in his last days, Emperor Zhaozong picked up a folklore icon that originated from the area where Mount Hegan was well known. The final note to this sad episode is that Hegan was an old tribal name found among the Tuoba core followers, and the namesake mountain was actually located in the immediate area of the old Tuoba capital Pingcheng (near present-day Datong in the province of Shanxi), which has had heavy concentrations of ethnic descendants of the Northern nomads ever since the early Tuoba period.⁹²

       Conclusion

      By examining the incessant succession struggles and other characteristics of the period, I demonstrate that the early Tang, far from being a “native” dynasty, was in fact a regime with heavy Turco-Xianbei traits, and hence may be more aptly termed a Särbo-Chinese regime. But for the cause of political legitimacy, the imperial family made enormous efforts to present itself as a bona fide Hàn house and to make sure that no compromising evidence was left in any records.

      Two historical factors have contributed to the Tang's near success in maintaining this image throughout history: (a) its status as the all-dominating polity in the vast East-Central Asian continent and the sole custodian of historiography, with hardly any independent cultural entity in existence to provide an alternative view or perspective, and (b) the passing of the time.

      Besides being in exclusive control of traditional historiography, the Confucian scholar-officials all but monopolized every genre of writing in classical East Asia.⁹³ This is reflected in the fact that, in all three major Altaic languages, the early words for “writing” and “books” are generally considered as cognates of the Chinese character bi, “pen, writing brush.”⁹⁴ The long-speculated existence of a Xianbei script⁹⁵ must be largely abandoned after the discovery of the Xianbei cavern and other equally rich collections of archaeological findings, especially tomb inscriptions and other artifacts of this period. Without an effective script, let alone a body of existing literature, nomadic oral tradition, albeit rich, was no rival to the tomes of Chinese literature (or “cultural repertoire” in Jack Goody and Ian Watt's words)⁹⁶ accumulated since the archaic age.

      Conversely, what may have been even more critical were the deliberate efforts by the Northern autocratic families who dominated the political stage in China for centuries. For the specific Sui objective of conquering the south where “legitimate” Chinese dynasties had been maintained, and for the general need for political legitimacy through to the early Tang, a particular task of the Sui/ Tang ruling class was to obscure their non-Sinitic Steppe background and connections. A particular case in point is the contrast between Zhou shu (The History of the Northern Zhou Dynasty), the official Tang-authorized history of the victorious Zhou regime in the struggle to unify northern China, and that of the loser, Bei Qi shu. Because the early Tang ruling clique was dominated by the descendants of the Northern Zhou aristocracy, the chief compiler, Linghu Defen, being the grandson of the Zhou general-in-chief Linghu Zheng (Zhou shu 36.643), Zhou shu could hardly afford any real impartiality or objectivity. This was noticed and criticized even by the Tang historian Liu Zhiji.⁹⁷ Meanwhile, the ruling families of the Qi fared quite miserably after forfeiting their state. Some former royal household members even ended up peddling candles (ZZTJ 173.5382), and the Northern Zhou aristocracy's distrust of the people of the former Qi domain persisted well into the Tang times and might even have contributed to the cause of the An Lushan Rebellion.⁹⁸ The narration in Bei Qi shu was therefore much less inhibited, if not deliberately negative, in describing the Qi regime. As an example of issues pertinent to this study, one can get significantly more information on the Turco-Xianbei cultural and political traits of the Qi ruling clan than of that of the Zhou,⁹⁹ whereas in reality the latter was much more “Xianbei-ized” than the former.¹⁰⁰ In view of the “politically correct” ethnic images in Zhou shu, one should not be surprised by the even less frequent Northern traits in the Tang records.

      On the second factor, of the passing of time, after the death in exile of the Buddhist monk Falin, it was not until the Southern Song that the kind of political atmosphere first emerged in which questions would be raised on this long-stablished historical image. By that time, few solid records remained to allow concrete and detailed examination of the real origin and characteristics of the Tang imperial house.

      This study also tries to show the inherent problem of relying on traditional historiography without critically examining the very source of these records: just like the Arabo-Persian authors who would not write about their ruler's Turkic culture and heritage, even without the attentive interference from a court obsessed with its historical image, Confucian historians would still hardly have found the many Turco-Xianbei aspects of the regime they were serving a worthy topic. Repeated rewriting and editing of the histories for the sake of elegance and concision, if not for some less honest purpose, had made the situation even worse.

      By studying several aspects of the Tang blood tanistry struggles, especially its relationship with the so-called sinicization, one can see that, contrary to the conventional view that conquerors would soon melt in the sea of Chinese populace, the sinicization of Steppe people in the Central Kingdom was a long and painful process. The strong reactions to Tuoba emperor Xiaowen's forced wholesale sinicization, culminating in the Six-Garrison Rebellion and the downfall of the Northern Wei, could still see their ripples in early Tang.

      Another seemingly entrenched notion challenged in this chapter is the classification of Chinese dynasties into “native” and “conquest” regimes. Even in his otherwise enlightening book on China's “perilous frontier,” Thomas Barfield sticks to the conventional view that “the collapse of the [Northern] Wei marked the end of Manchurian rule in China.”¹⁰¹ Yet as I have shown, in many aspects the (early) Tang bore striking similarity to the Qing dynasty. In addition to the succession struggles, the institution of heir apparent, the frontier and ethnic policy, the advance into Central Asia, and even the fate of the “national language,” I may add that the Tang and the Qing were the only two Chinese dynasties during which provincial governors held enormous prestige and power. At the very least, these facts suggest that the distinction between a “native” and a “conquest” dynasty is at best a gray area.

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