The Economy of Western Xia The Economy of Western Xia A Study of 11th to 13th Century Tangut Records By Shi Jinbo Translated and Edited by Li Hansong LEIDEN | BOSTON This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder. This book is published with financial support from the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The original Chinese version was published by Social Sciences Academic Press (China). Cover illustration: Yulin cave mural: original image in Shi, Jinbo; Bai, Bin; Wu, Fengyun (eds.). Xixia Wenwu (Tangut Cultural Relics). Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1988. The image appeared black and white in the 1988 book; this is the original coloured version. (background) Tangut Contract of Land Sale, the 22nd Year of Tiansheng (1170), previously appeared as image 1, pp. 1–2, in Shi, Jinbo; Wei, Tongxian; Кычанов, Е.И. (eds.). Russian Collection of Khara-Khoto Manuscripts [俄藏黑水城文獻]: vol. 14. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House, 1996–2011. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. The copyright of the Tangut Yinchuan font used in this publication resides with Prof. Jing Yongshi 景永时 of the Beifang Ethnic University (北方民族大学) in Yinchuan. For more information about this font see http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan.html. ISBN 978-90-04-46129-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-46132-1 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Shi Jinbo and Li Hansong. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Translator’s Preface ix Hansong Li List of Illustrations xii Introduction 1 Shi Jinbo 1 The Empire of Western Xia and the Tangut Economy 8 1 Natural Conditions of Western Xia 9 2 Dangxiang People and Their Economy before the Tangut Empire 13 3 Founding of Western Xia and Its Economy 17 4 Tangut Politics and Economy in the Early Period of Western Xia 23 5 Tangut Politics and Economy in the Middle Period of Western Xia 37 6 Tangut Politics and Economy in the Late Period of Western Xia 43 2 Economic Records in the Corpus of Tangut Manuscripts 46 1 Economic Regulations in the Laws of Heavenly Prosperity 46 1.1 Compilation and Content of the Laws of Heavenly Prosperity 46 1.2 Economic Regulations and Legislations in the Laws of Heavenly Prosperity 52 2 Economic Documents in the Corpus of Tangut Social Documents 60 2.1 Tangut Household Registers and Demographic Records 62 2.2 Tangut Land Taxes 63 2.3 Tangut Accounts of Grains and Properties 64 2.4 Tangut Commercial Documents 64 2.5 Tangut Contracts 65 2.6 Economic Documents in Chinese 69 3 Tangut Documents of Household Registrations 71 1 Household Registers and Accounts 71 1.1 Household Registers 72 1.2 Household Accounts 86 2 Household Self-Reports (Shoushi) 94 3 Analysis of Khara-Khoto Household Registers 101 vi Contents 4 Tangut Tax Records 108 1 Accounts of Agricultural Taxes 110 2 Accounts of Land and Forage Taxes 118 2.1 Land, Labour and Forage in Tax Accounts 118 2.2 Receipts of Grain Taxes 128 2.3 Receipts of Increased Taxes on Bundles of Hay 131 2.4 Documents of Land Taxes and Land-Ownership of Peasant Households 135 3 Poll Tax 137 4 Irrigation Tax 146 5 Land Tax Increase and Grain Storage 151 5.1 Procedure of Levying Agricultural Taxes 152 5.2 Burden of Tax on the Peasants 157 5.3 Agricultural Taxes and Grain Storage in Western Xia 159 6 Features of Agricultural Taxes in Western Xia 163 5 Accounts of Grains and Properties 165 1 Accounts of Grains 165 1.1 Grain Accounts of the Military Supervisory Districts 165 1.2 Grain Accounts by liliu 171 1.3 Deficit Supply Accounts 176 2 Accounts of Properties 179 2.1 Accounts of Cash and Valuables 179 2.2 Accounts of Livestock 181 2.3 Accounts of Miscellaneous Properties 184 6 Records of Trade and Transaction 189 1 Transaction Accounts and Commodity Prices 189 1.1 Accounts of Grain Sales and the Prices of Grain 189 1.2 Accounts of Livestock Sales and the Prices of Livestock 197 1.3 Accounts of Alcohol Sales and the Prices of Alcohol 204 1.4 Accounts of Other Commodities and Their Prices 213 2 Accounts of Transaction Taxes 220 3 Accounts of Monetary Loans and Interests 238 4 Accounts of Grain Loans and Debt 244 4.1 Grain Loans 244 4.2 Grain Debts 255 5 Accounts of Land Sales 257 6 Features of Tangut Trade and Transaction Records 260 Contents vii 7 Tangut Contracts 262 1 Types and Formats of Tangut Contracts 263 1.1 Types 263 1.2 Formats 266 2 Loan Contracts 268 2.1 Grain Loans 268 2.2 Monetary Loans 325 2.3 Material Loans 328 3 Transaction Contracts 329 3.1 Land Sales 329 3.2 Livestock Sales 385 3.3 Transaction of Humans 414 4 Lease Contracts 431 4.1 Land Lease 431 4.2 Land Lease and Livestock Mortgage 454 5 Employment Contracts 456 5.1 Employment of Human Labour 456 5.2 Employment of Livestock 475 6 Exchange and Mortgage Contracts 485 6.1 Exchange Contracts 485 6.2 Mortgage of Livestock in Grain Loans 494 7 Communal Contracts 504 7.1 Format and Content of Communal Contracts 504 7.2 Communal Contracts and the Tangut Society 513 8 Features of Tangut Contracts 518 8 Economic Records in Chinese 524 1 Markets and Materials 524 1.1 Market Records 524 1.2 Records of Materials and Resources 532 1.3 Hay Account 538 2 Contracts 544 2.1 Grain Loan Contracts 544 2.2 Monetary Loan Contracts 548 2.3 Lease Contracts 549 2.4 Land Sale Contracts 552 Epilogue 555 Bibliography 561 Index 569 Translator’s Preface This book is a comprehensive introduction to the economic policies and practices in Western Xia (1038–1227). To economic historians and expert Tangutologists alike, it sketches the outer shapes and inner lives of the Tanguts and their society, offering an interwoven account of economic norms and laws in speech, and economic activities and experiences in action. The key to this productive tension between the macroscope of institutions and the micro-history of individuals is the author’s synthetic reading of traditional historical sources: law codes, chronicles, and reference books, in the light of social, legal, and economic records: accounts, contracts, and registers. These extensive manuscripts, primarily from the north-western city of Khara-Khoto, or Heishuicheng, feed the raw material, data, and information to the quanti- tative and qualitative analyses of the Tangut economy. Still, the focused study of Khara-Khoto documents does not lose sight of the fewer, but equally impor- tant surviving primary sources elsewhere in Tangut territories, from Dunhuang to Wuwei, from the capital to Song-Xixia frontiers. At times, comparisons to social documents from earlier and later eras, from Tang, Song, to Yuan dynas- ties, reveal both contrasts and consistencies in the economic conditions of the same area through the ages. In these and many ways, this book fills a void in existing historiographies of Tangut studies, histories of books, records, and manuscripts, as well as the economic histories of medieval Inner Asia, East Asia, and beyond. Command of Tangut is not a prerequisite for reading The Economy of Western Xia. Chapter 1, a general outline of the social, political, and economic history of the Tanguts and their empire, and Chapter 2, a parade of diverse economic records of Western Xia, are introductory discussions fully accessi- ble to general readership. Chapters 3–7 analyse Tangut household registers, tax records, grain and property accounts, trade and transaction documents, and crucially, Tangut contracts for various purposes. Despite the density of the five main chapters, all primary sources are presented in English translation. Charts, diagrams, and images, are also deployed to aid comprehension. Finally, Chapter 8 on the economic records of Xixia written in Chinese may be use- ful to Sinologists at large. That said, readers are encouraged with the utmost enthusiasm to pick up the Tangut tongue. A full introduction to the Tangut language is available in Tangut Language and Manuscripts: An Introduction. Students and scholars are expected to benefit from a rapidly growing body of English, French, Russian, and Chinese scholarly literatures on the cultural, textual, and linguistic traditions of Western Xia. In contemporary anglophone x Li academia and beyond, examples abound: the scholarships of Ruth Dunnell, Imre Galambos, Kirill Solonin, Guillaume Jacques, Shintarō Arakawa, and Andrew West, to name only a few. Today, Tangut primary sources are pho- tocopied, printed, and digitised en masse. Still more texts and artefacts may come to light.