A Tangut Family's Community Compact and Rituals

Home , Pan (surname), Puyang County, Semu, Tangut people, Zhang Yining

a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

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A Tangut Family’s Community Compact and Rituals: Aspects of the Society of North China, ca. 1350 to the Present

n 1983, members of the Yang 楊 surname in Yang Shenbalang vil- I lage 楊什八郎村, Puyang 濮陽 county, Henan, presented a seemingly very old manuscript entitled 述善集 along with a somewhat newer one — their genealogy (Yangshi zongpu 楊氏宗譜) — to the local county government. One item in Shushanji says that the Yangs’ apical ancestor had gone to north China from the former territory of the Tangut Xixia 西夏 kingdom with the Mongols in the mid-thirteenth century (a typical mode of Tangut immigration at that time).

Introduction concerning the Materials

First, it is best to become acquainted at least superficially with the contents of these works. We start with Shushanji. According to the table of contents recorded in the extant manuscript (which is discussed, below), the Yuan version of Shushanji comprised three volumes (or juan): “Benevolent Customs (shansu 善俗),” “Nurturing Talents (yucai 育才),” and “Achievements (xingshi 行實),” in that order. The first volume included the regulation of the community compact, a preface, and poems. The second contained essays, poems, two invitation letters, and official documents authorizing an academy. The last one recorded the epigraphical inscription and essays on family history. The edited, typeset version of Shushanji (referred to as the “2001 printed edition, or version” and discussed in detail, below) is thought to reflect closely the contents of the Yuan version. Figure 1 shows the Table of Contents (mulu 目录) of all three juan, which combined oc- cupy pp. 16–237 of the 2001 edition. The following selected items of Shushanji demonstrate the types of text it contains: 1. a preface of 1527 (see figure 1, item listed as beginning p. 1) 2. a preface dated 1358 (see figure 1, item listed as beginning p. 4) 3. a transcription of an inscribed epigraph (figure 1, item p. 137) 4. community compact, consisting of fifteen regulations (figure 1, item p. 23)

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Figure 1. Table of Contents (mulu) of SSJ From the 2001 printed edn.; shown here are mulu pp. 1–2.

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Figure 1. cont’d. From the 2001 edn.; shown here are mulu pp. 3–5.

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5. preface to the compact (figure 1, item pp. 16–22) 6. petition letter for contributing provisions to the Yuan expeditionary army against Red Turban Rebellion (1351–1366) (figure 1, item p. 118) 7. two official documents granting official status to an academy (figure 1, item pp. 119–24) 8. two invitation letters for appointing a dean to the academy (figure 1, item pp. 104–8) 9. thirty-four poems (see figure 1, throughout) 10. forty-one essays (see figure 1, throughout) Except for the 1527 preface, the rest of the above items date to the mid- fourteenth century and were written, submitted, or composed by the members of a Tangut (dangxiang 黨項) family and their acquaintances. Whether the manuscripts presented in 1983 were papers bearing six- or seven-hundred-year-old inscriptions, or somewhat later transcrip- tions of the latter, or even inventions pure and simple, is a point that is touched upon, below. We turn now to Yangshi zongpu; besides its genealogical text, it contains the following selected items (see all items in figure 1, listed as “Appendix Two”, pp. 270–303): 1. two prefaces dated 1825 2. two poems on the prefaces 3. an essay commemorating the rebuilding of an ancestral hall in 1825 4. three poems on the same rebuilding 5. three prefaces dated 1920 6. a preface dated 1939 7. eight miscellaneous essays and poems from the Republican period. There is an interesting contrast between the two kinds of material. The epigraphical inscription in Shushanji titled “Da Yuan zengdunwu xiaowei junmin wanhufu baifuzhang tangwugong beiming bing xu” 大元贈敦武校尉軍民萬戶府百夫長唐兀公碑銘並序, extensively records the history of this Tangut family during the Yuan period; and the text’s other Yuan-era materials record and praise a community compact (“Longci xiangshe yiyue” 龍祠郷社義約) (see figure 2) that the family, belonging to a Mongol garrison troop, organized in 1341. On the other hand, the late-Qing and Republican prefaces, essays, and poems contained in Yangshi zongpu claim that Shushanji was a congealing of the scholarly tal- ent and good works of their ancestors, and was discovered in 1840. In short, the contents of Shushanji emphasize a long line of family affairs going back to Yuan, and those of Yangshi zongpu emphasize a relatively later emergence of the family and its literary collection.

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Currently, the manuscripts Shu- shanji and Yangshi zongpu are owned by two different branches of the Yang surname in the village. One family owns a whole set (both titles) and the other has only Shushanji. The Figure 2. Inside Pages from Juan 1 of Yang texts are tran- Pingsheng’s 1840 ms Copy of Shushanji scriptions, Author’s photograph of the opening page of Pan Di’s preface to perhaps made “Longci xiangshe yiyue,” contained in juan 1 of the manuscript of at the same Shushanji purportedly found by Yang in 1840. (Yang is described time, of an just below; Pan is described at beginning of sect. titled “A Com- earlier manu- munity Compact at a Non-Han Garrison Fort”.) The 2001 typeset script, which edn. of Shushanji (abbreviated SSJ in the notes) calls the 1840 ms “Version Two”, or yiben 乙本 (see SSJ, frontmatter, tu 图 3). itself seems SSJ carries Pan’s preface on pp. 16–17. The 1840 ms papers have to have been ruled lines and are quite seasoned. a transcription made by a Yang-family member who purportedly discovered Shushanji in 1840 and copied it out. (Yang and his discovery are described more fully, below.) The contents of Shushanji are written in Classical Chinese on fla- vescent papers, each with eighteen ruled vertical lines; the pages are bound into one volume with thread. (See figure 3, below) Except for minor dissimilarities among individual characters in several essays, the contents of the two manuscripts are identical. In 2001, Shushanji, together with an appendix that contains Yangshi zongpu and its associ- ated materials (appearing as appendix two), was typeset in simplified Chinese and published in one volume by the scholars Jiao Jinwen 焦進文 and Yang Fuxue 楊富學.1 When I visited Yang Shenbalang village

1 Jiao Jinwen and Yang Fuxue, eds., Yuandai xixia yimin wenxian Shushanji jiaozhu 元代西夏遺民文獻述善集校注 (Ningxia: Gansu renmin chubanshe 甘肅人民出版社, 2001; hereafter cited as SS J ). Based on the printed text, Chen Gaohua 陳高華 and Funada Yoshiyuki 舩田善之 both have performed extensive research on the history of this Tangut family and their inter-ethnic contacts during the Yuan period; Chen, “Shushanji liangpian beichuan suojian

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in August of 2012,2 a comparison of the manuscripts of Shushanji and Yangshi zongpu proved that the 2001 published version has transcribed their contents thoroughly and without omission.

Questions Raised by the Materials The introductory remarks written for the 2001 typeset version out- line the contents and historical background. They fascinated me and urged me to explore further such unusual material. However, as I read, I felt certain suspicions. The story of Shushanji’s “discovery” narrated in the late-Qing and Republican prefaces to Yangshi zongpu seemed highly dubious. The 1920 prefaces claim that in 1840, having rebuilt an ancestral hall of his family, the aforementioned Yang member, named Yang Pingsheng 楊平昇 (dates unknown), a doctor residing in Shibalang village 十八郎村 (an earlier name of Yang Shenbalang village) tried to strengthen internal bonds among the members of the Yang surname. It was exactly at this time that Yang Ping sheng discovered the tattered pages of Shushanji in his family’s storehouse. He transcribed the crumbling volume onto new papers and bound them into a booklet to make it a new focal point of the family members. But how can we know whether Yang Pingsheng really discovered an ancestral relic, or just fabricated a manuscript? Today, the condition of Figure 3. Cover Page of 1840 ms Copy of Shushanji

Yuandai tanmachi junhu 述善集兩篇碑傳所見元代 This image of the cover of the 1840 探馬赤軍戸,” in Qingzhu heciquan xiansheng jiush- ms Shushanji is based on a pho isui lunwenji bianweihui 慶祝何茲全先生九十歲論文 tograph published in SSJ (2001 集編委會, ed., Qingzhu heciquan xiansheng jiushisui tu 1 lunwenji 慶祝何茲全先生九十歳論文集 (Beijing: Bei- typeset edn.; see frontmatter, ). jing shifandaxue chubanshe, 2001); Funada, “Mon- We see the string bindings used to goru jidai ni okeru minzoku to aidentyityi no shos±” make the book. モンゴル時代における民族とアイデンティティの諸相 , in Imanishi Yˆichir± 今西裕一郎, ed., Kyˆshˆ daigaku 21 seiki COE puroguramu Higashi Ajia to Nihon: k±ryˆ to heny± 九州大学 21 世紀COEプログラム “東アジアと日本 ”, 交流と変容 (Fukuoka: Kyˆshˆ daigaku, 2007), pp. 19–29. 2 Thanks to the generous assistance of Professor Yang Fuxue, I had the opportunity to visit Shibalang village on August 18, 2012, to investigate the manuscript and the steles in the fam-

104 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present the manuscripts in Yang Shenbalang village clearly indicates that they are not the Yuan original, but copies that were handwritten in more recent years. Nevertheless, after reading Shushanji from beginning to end and examining the manuscripts that are held in the village, I came to believe that the text is a remarkable resource, one that can shed light on the evolution over centuries of an originally non-Han community in north China. Despite the suspicious “discovery,” the epigraphical inscription, poems, official documents, and essays from the Yuan period all have proved to be authentic. As we see, below, the existence of most of the authors can be attested in contemporary Yuan materials. However, a close reading of the preface with local gazetteers of the Ming period also reveals that, long before its uncovering by Yang Pingsheng, Shu shanji had been revised as late as the early-sixteenth century. Moreover, the fact that the Tangut family practiced a community compact and recorded it in a literary collection produces a chain of questions: Why did Tangut military families implement community compacts? For what purpose did they compile Shushanji? Above all, for what purpose or purposes did they preserve Shushanji for more than six centuries? To answer such questions, the present article focuses on certain rituals that the community practiced, as mentioned in the text of the compact. First, the article argues that the family needed to carry out the regulations stated in its community compact in order to obtain positions in the government’s civil service system during the fourteenth century, when the Yuan military system suffered institutional and social disorder. Second, the discussion turns to how Shushanji contributed to the establishment of a literati identity for the family later, during the Ming period. Lastly, it shows that the discovery of and importance given to Shushanji in the early-nineteenth century marked a new phase in the community, reconstructing it as a village dominated by the cohesive kinship organization that has survived until today. The article’s findings may offer future research certain insights that can contribute to a variety of discussions on Chinese history. One such deals with the role of rituals in maintaining and transforming commu- ily graveyard. Here I express my deepest gratitude to Professor Yang and the people in Yang Shenbalang Village and neighboring Gao Village for their kindness and generosity in providing access to the relics. My gratitude also goes to the organizer, Macabe Keliher, participants, and audience of the panel “Ritual and Community in the Late Imperial and Contemporary China” in Joint Conference of the Association for Asian Studies & International Convention of Asian Scholars (March 31, 2011), to which I presented this paper and received insightful feedback.

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nity. David Faure’s landmark work on the rise and pervasion of lineage organization in the Pearl River delta demonstrates that, from the late- fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, local communities accepted the orthodox community rituals initiated by local administrators in order to acquire legitimate, tax-registered status, which would incorporate them into the broader Chinese society.3 Also, in exploring rituals related to festivals and temple worship, Helen Siu, Liu Zhiwei, Paul Katz, Leo Shin, and Ralph Litzinger have explained the interplay of several phenomena: identity-building, the adoption of “orthodox” rituals, and the formation of the social nexus of power among local administrators, local elites, and religious orders. In the ethnic frontiers of the Ming and Qing empires, adoption of respectable ritual practices such as the implementation of a community compact provided people who had not been considered Chinese with the opportunity to be integrated into the wider Chinese population, or conversely, became a bedrock of specific non-Han cultural identification.4 Originating roughly in the Northern Song period, community compacts were voluntary organizations to promote social harmony in a particular community. The document for a compact was usually written by a group of proposers and it functioned for them as an authoritative and quasilegal pact. Under its terms, compact members performed pro- tocols, observed certain days, and carried out rituals. While community compacts were instituted more frequently in southern China from Song through the Ming period, the rising social crisis of the sixteenth century seems to have inspired their more widespread use throughout the empire as a means to facilitate social relations and order among local populations.5

3 David Faure, Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 93–108. 4 See Helen F. Siu and Liu Zhiwei, “Lineage, Market, Pirate, and Dan: Ethnicity in the Pearl River Delta of South China,” in Pamela K. Crossley, Helen F. Siu and Donald S. Sutton, eds., Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 2006), pp. 285–310; Leo K. Shin, The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Kang Bao 康豹 (Paul Katz), “Zhongguo dizhi wanqi yijiang simiao tishi zai difangshehui de gongneng” 中國帝制晚期以降寺廟儀式在地方社會的功能, in Lin Fushi 林富士, ed., Zhong guoshi xinlun zongjiao fence 中國史新論宗教分冊 (Taipei: Lianjing chuban shiye fengu you xian gongsi, 2010), pp. 439–76; Ralph A. Litzinger, “Making Histories: Contending Concep- tions of the Yao Past,” in Stevan Harrell, ed., Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 137 ff. 5 See Chu Hung-lam 朱鴻林, “Ershishiji de Ming Qing xiangyue yanjiu” 二十世紀的明清鄉約研究, Lishi renleixue xuekan 歷史人類學學刊 2.1 (2004), pp.175–96; and Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), pp. 249 ff, and 263–67.

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The unusual story of Yang Shenbalang village, when seen against the simplified overview of community compacts stated above, in fact reveals evolving changes not only in the community per se, but also in the rituals it practiced. The story illustrates that, from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries, rituals that the once non-Han community conducted were not simply manifestations of its passive acceptance of Chinese cultural orthodoxy, but the embodiment of the desire of in- dividuals to reform the community in coping with contemporary social changes. Meanwhile, rituals were modified from their original, orthodox, versions so as to better suit local community purposes. Shushanji, the core of any narrative about the ritual transformations that occurred in the Yangs’ immediate society, testifies to this evolution, which during the long time period helped carry and transform their community, as needed, inside wider social and political developments.

A Community Compact at a Non-Han Garrison Fort

Before discussing the compact in more detail, we can tease family and social background from the epigraphical inscription, already mentioned, which is dated 1356. It is not only recorded in Shushanji but also carved on four sides of a two-meter-tall stele that is still standing in the Yang family graveyard in the village.6 The inscription was written for the deceased Lüma 閭馬 (1248–1328), the second patriarch of the family in the Yuan period, by Pan Di 潘迪 (dates unknown), known to have been a professor at the Directorate of Education (guozijian 國子監) in 1358. The inscription states that the Tangut family belonged to the Tamma¢i (tanmachi 探馬赤) garrison, which was stationed on the fringes of the Mongol empire,7 and that Tang∫utai (tangwutai 唐兀臺; in Middle Mongolian, literally a “Tangut person”), the first member of the family who immigrated to north China, lived an itinerant life, following con- tinuous campaigns against the Jurchen Jin and the Southern Song forces in the role of military disciplinarian (tanya 彈壓). Tang∫utai’s son was Lüma (see the appended genealogical tree, “Genealogy of the Tangut Yang Surname of Shibalang Fort during the Yuan”); Lüma inherited his father’s position and settled down at Shibalang Fort (shibalang zhai 十八

6 See Pan Di 潘迪, “Da Yuan zengdunwu xiaowei junminwanhufu baifuzhang tangwugong beiming bingxu” 大元贈敦武校尉軍民萬戶府百夫長唐兀公碑銘並序, in SS J, pp. 137–43; Wang Yiyin 王義印, ed., Puyang beike muzhi 濮陽碑刻墓誌 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 2003), pp. 11–13. 7 See Donald Ostrowski, “Tamma and the Dual-Administrative Structure of the Mongol Em- pire,” BSOAS 61 (1998); K±ichi Matsuda 松田孝一, “Kanan waihoku moukogun bankohuk±” 河南淮北蒙古軍万戸府考, T YGH 68.3 (1987), pp. 219–47.

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郎寨), in Puyang county, sometime before 1271. The grassland allocated to the garrison troop was located between another fort, named Guan- ren (guanrenzhai 官人寨), and the banks of Jinti River 金堤河, a branch of the Yellow River. Perhaps shortly after their settlement, the family established a graveyard to the northeast of their residence, south of the bank. In 1279, Lüma was transferred to the Left Wing Mongolian Royal Guards (zuoyi menggu shiwei qinjun 左翊蒙古侍衛親軍). The history

Map of North China in 1330

of the family in the thirteenth century has much in common with that of other non-Han military families recorded in contemporary materials: joining campaigns on the southern and eastern frontiers of the Mongol empire, settling down in the grasslands in north China, and then being assigned to a position in the Royal Guards. The region along the middle reaches of the Yellow River, roughly corresponding to modern northern Henan, southern Hebei, and southern Shanxi, was densely stationed by Mongolian hereditary garrison troops (menggujun wanhufu 蒙古軍萬戸府) in the Yuan period. The military families typically resided in fortified settlements with verdant grazing lands where they put out their military horses. Several recently uncovered epitaphs indicate that the military families were not charged with the performance of corvée labor and frequently went hunting with bows, which ordinary people were not permitted to possess.8 Their

8 See the epitaphs of the military officers recorded in Ike’uchi Isao 池内功, “Kanan niokeru Gendai hikanzoku shozokugunjin no kakei” 河南における元代非漢族諸族軍人の家系, in K±ichi

108 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present fields were cultivated by “attached military households (tiejunhu 貼軍戸),” which were established to support the military households (junhu 軍戸) economically,9 thus the military families in general may be seen as a relatively heterogeneous group within a largely agrarian local society. Judging from the names of male spouses (the husbands of unnamed Yang women) in the extended Tangut Yang family (see appended genealogical tree), the Yangs participated in marriage networks that existed among these military families. Later, at the beginning of the 1340s, members of the Tangut Yangs began to follow a community compact. The compact has been mentioned, above, but here it is important to present a translation of the compact’s name, as given in Shushanji, and its opening paragraphs — a type of preamble. (The following translation uses the paragraph breaks as found in the 2001 printed edition.) The community compact is dated 1341; in it Tangwu Zhongxian 唐兀忠顯 (?–1344; Mongolian name Taqai; dahai 達海) and his son Tangwu Chongxi 唐兀崇喜 (1299–?, also called Yang Chongxi 楊崇喜), a student of the Directorate of Educa- tion at the time, proudly described the reason for performing various rituals. Loyalty Compact of the Local Association of the Dragon [King] Temple 龍祠郷社義約 In the seventh, bingzi, new moon, on day two, the dingchou day, in the originating (or first) year of the Zhizheng period (1341), which corresponds to the xinsi year [in the stems-and-branches cycle], elders of the Association of the Dragon King (longwangshe 龍王社) at Shibalang Fort, including Tangwu Chongxian, a centurion, and Lord Gao, a battalion commander, stated that “the rites of a village association should be based on a meeting of honor-bound [men], and the beauty of the [local] customs is found in transacting rites. There is a great bank near the south side of our fort on which stands an old temple named ‘Palace of the Dragon King (longwang zhi dian 龍王之殿).’ In the temple, all the divine statues, dragons,

Matsuda, ed., Hikokutou shiry± no soug±teki bunseki niyoru Mongoru teikoku: Gench± no seiji keizai shisutemu no kisoteki kenkyˆ: Heisei 12~13 nendo kagaku kenkyˆhi hojokin kiso kenkyˆ (B)(1) kenkyˆseika h±kokusho 碑刻等史料の総合的分析によるモンゴル帝国, 元朝の政治, 経済システムの基礎的研究 , 平成 12–13 年度科学研究費補助金, 基礎研究 (B)(1), report submitted to the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2002; Zhao Zhenhua 趙振華, “Yuan Saiyinchidahu muzhi kao” 元賽因赤答忽墓誌考, in Zhao Zhen- hua, Luoyang gudai mingke wenxian yanjiu 洛陽古代銘刻文獻研究 (Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2009), pp. 721–34. 9 As to the Yuan military household system, see Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing, The Military Establish ment of the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978).

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and clouds carved there seem to be ancient. When a drought hits this region, elders in the fort perform the purification ceremony, clean their clothes and shoes, and go to the temple to burn incense and pray. Once they pray, the sweet rain falls. The divine efficacy is pronounced. Because of this, we respect the god, establish the Association, and name it the ‘Association of the Dragon King.’” 至正元年歳在辛巳, 七月丙子朔, 越二日, 丁丑, 十八郎寨龍王社内老人百夫長唐兀忠顯與千夫長高公等僉議曰: 郷社之禮, 本以義會, 風俗之美, 在於禮交. 本寨近南有一大堤, 上有一古廟, 名曰 “龍王之殿”, 殿中所塑神像龍雲皆古. 時遇天旱, 寨中耆老人等齋戒沐浴, 潔其巾衣鞿履, 詣廟行香禱祝, 祈降甘雨, 其應累著靈驗. 因此敬神為會, 故名曰 “龍王社.” The history of this Association is long. The purpose of its establishment was to give importance to the spirit-minds, to pray for rainfall, beautify customs, promote morality, help those who were suffering, encourage the fundamentals and check into trivial matters, relieve the poor, and comfort those living alone. Later, due to long-standing evil practices, people became addicted to extravagance and did not pursue the keeping of the duties of the Association and the rites of the community compact. They only boasted over luxury, indulged in banquets, and trespassed considerably against rites. 此社之設, 其來久矣. 所社之意, 本以重神明, 祈雨澤, 美風俗, 厚人倫, 救災恤難, 厚本抑末, 周濟貧乏, 忧憫煢獨. 逮後因襲之弊, 尚于奢侈, 不究立社之義、郷約之禮. 但以餚饌相侈, 宴飲為尚, 甚有悖于禮. Now we have discussed this Association and decided to establish records and recommend those who are elderly and possessing virtue, and those who are talented and cultivated, to the positions of supervisors and managers in order to administer the members of the Association. They are to consider the ancient rites and adapt them to the present situation. The affairs that can be carried out and lapses that are proscribed [must] all be written down in the As- sociation records, and [they must] make each member obey them in their conduct. The names of the members, the way funeral rites are to be performed, and how to aid the poor, praise morality, and punish faults are all respectively listed below.10 今議此社, 置立籍薄, 推舉年高有德、才良行修者, 俾充社擧、社司, 掌管社人. 斟酌古禮, 合於時宜, 可行之事, 當禁之失, 悉載社籍, 使各人遵守而行. 其社內之家, 死喪、患難、濟救之禮, 德業、過失、勸懲之道, 遂項歷舉於後.

10 Tangwu Zhongxian 唐兀忠顯 and Tangwu Chongxi 唐兀崇喜, “Longci xiangshe yiyue” 龍祠郷社義約, in SS J, p. 23.

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Because the original text was no longer extant even by 1840, when the old (perhaps original) Shushanji manuscript was purportedly discovered, we do not know in what style or form it was originally written. It seems not to have been carved on any sort of stele, because the Yuan essays in Shushanji say that the epigraphical stele dedicated to Lüma was the only carved text that the Yangs had ever installed. In addition, no early printed edition of the compact is known to have existed. Whatever the initial form was, one obvious change in Shushan ji’s transcription, compared with some previous version or the Yuan original, was the removal of the list of the association members, that, is the adherents of the community compact. According to the last sen- tence, besides the name of the members, it was also supposed to have recorded their merits and faults. We do not know when the removal happened, who decided to do it, or exactly what the list recorded. Perhaps when copying the text as a new booklet, the names of original association members were not necessary for the purposes of the late-Qing Yangs, and they simply omitted them. It is also conceivable that descendants of (or someone who shared the surname with) original members whose faults were disclosed may have covered up such things. Yet, except for the removal of the list, the text shows no sign of omission or discontinuity. As stated clearly in the first paragraph of the preamble (above), the community compact was based on an association organized around a temple dedicated to the Dragon King (longwang 龍王), a rain deity worshipped throughout northern China. Modern scholarship has argued that worship of the Dragon King in the middle and late-imperial periods had emerged from a fusion of traditions surrounding the Five Dragons (wulong 五龍) with the Indian Naga, that is, the protector of Buddhism — a fusion that presumably had occurred during the Tang period.11 In Chinese mythology, the Five Dragons were related to water and had traditionally been venerated as the supernatural entities that bring rain. In 1108, emperor Huizong 徽宗 of the Northern Song dynasty conferred the title “king” on the Five Dragons. This confer- ment vested them with kingly authority that led to the rise of the divine name “Dragon King.”12 Although the subsequent Jin and Yuan dynasties did not list the Dragon King in official registers of “correct sacrifices (zhengsi 正祀),” contemporary materials show that Dragon

11 Yuan Li 苑利, “Huabeidiqu longwang chuanshuo yanjiu” 華北地區龍王傳說研究, Minzu yishu 民族藝術 (2002.1), pp. 112–23. 12 Yuan Li, “Huabeidiqu longwang miaozhu shenlongwangkao” 華北地區龍王廟主神龍王考, Xibei minzu xueyuan xuebao 西北民族學院學報 (2002.4), p. 39.

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King temples were still venerated in local society, and local officials frequently made visits to them in times of drought. As it was organized in a fort, it is highly possible that most of the members of the Dragon King Association were from those non-Han Chinese military families who had belonged to the same battalion and owned fields around the fort. The Mongol empire organized most of its non-Han military population into the decimal system. Each ten, hundred, and thousand military households also functioned as administrative units in peacetime. The compact’s reference to “Lord Gao, a battalion commander” as one of the compact’s two proposers strongly suggests that the members of the Dragon King Association settled down in such a decimally constituted military manner, probably within Lord Gao’s battalion’s jurisdiction. Although the deity was not legitimized by the dynasty, we know of three stone inscriptions that briefly describe ritual procedures at Dragon King temples, as practiced by contemporary Yuan officials. Most likely, premodern local administrators sought to, and were even required to, consult almost every possible method for bringing rain, including those derived from popular local practice.13 Remarkably, in all three of these other inscriptions, the event took place in a county that had a major Dragon King temple; this indicates that the local administrators adopted local customs as their predecessors had done. In each case, the ritual was divided into two stages: the officials purified themselves before paying a visit, and they made food and incense offerings at the temple, petitioning the gods to send rain.14 Yet, regional differences appear to have existed. In one case, an official went to a spring on the top of a mountain to fetch water and then brought it back to the major temple in the county seat. In one case, the ritual was conducted in the morning, while it was afternoon in the other cases. The text of the 1341 community compact at Shibalang Fort (“Longci xiangshe yiyue”) also refers to a basic two-stage procedure, which had been the most fundamental part of rainmaking for centuries, something that if modified by a certain locality or group would most likely have been mentioned.15 Further, the Dragon King often had other names in

13 See Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009). 14 See Cao Taisu 曹太素, “Wulongwang ganying ji” 五龍王感應記, in Hu Pinzhi 胡聘之, ed., Shanyou shike congbian 山右石刻叢編 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1988), vol. 6, j. 33, pp. 24a–26a; Yuan Kai 元凱, “Chongxiu huiyingwangmiaoji” 重修回應王廟記, in ibid. 36, pp. 21a–26a; Guitong 桂童, “Hudoutiemu’er daoyuhuoyingji” 忽都帖木兒禱雨獲應記, ibid., 40, pp. 1a–4a; and Liu Guan 劉貫, “Longwangganyingji” 龍王感應記, ibid. 40, pp. 17a–21a. 15 For examples of such local modification, see Snyder-Reinke, Dry Spells, pp. 83–148.

112 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present various localities, names that usually derived from religious traditions. Yet, the Shibalang Fort compact gives no sign that the Dragon King there ever went by a local, popular name. It may be argued that the rain-making regulation of Shibalang Fort shows us that the worship of the Dragon King by these non-Han military families was not rooted in a unique, religious convention of the Tangut peoples involved. Rather, their Dragon King Association was established to secure divine protection from a popular deity indigenous to the newly conquered land.

The Dragon King in the Community Compact

In Pan Di’s stele inscription, mentioned above, we also learn that he admired Chongxi’s compact as an improved version of one titled “Lantian Lüshi xiangyue” 藍田呂氏鄉約, which had been drawn up by Lü Dajun 呂大鈞 (1031–1082), a prominent Northern Song literatus.16 This means that there was precedent for the Yang surname’s renewed Association, the activities of which were clearly invoked by the wording of the Dragon King compact — mutual aid, charity, and rainmaking.17 There is another ritual mentioned, the periodic ritual banquet, a sub- stantial item that is listed first; but the members had not performed it. In the meeting, which was to be held twice a year, Association members were to verify their seniority, confirm that everyone understood and performed the rites correctly, punish those who had violated the rites, and help those suffering in the community. Whereas Chongxi wrote in the 1341 regulation that the members “had forgotten the rites of the community compact,” the stele describes the Association merely as a “meeting for burning incense (xianghui 香會, that is, a religious organization centering on the worship of a deity, or a sacred site)”18 and nothing more. Nonetheless, a close reading of the regulations of the Dragon King Association community compact reveals that this same Association was not fully integrated into the community compact as prescribed in its precedent, “Lantian Lüshi xiangyue,” which is extant in an early printed edition.19 The latter has seven provisions. The purpose of these

16 Pan Di, “Longci xiangshe yiyue xu” 龍祠鄉社義約序, SS J , pp. 16 ff. 17 Tangwu and Tangwu, “Longci xiangshe yiyue,” in SS J , pp. 23–25. 18 Pan, “Dayuan zengdunwu xiaowei,” in SS J, p. 139. 19 See Lü Dajun 呂大鈞, Lüshi xiangyue 呂氏鄉約, printed in the Jiading 嘉定 period (1208– 24), rpt. and published by Xu Naichang 徐乃昌 (Nanling 南陵, 1916); later published in Yi- fanzang shuguan wenxian bianweihui 一凡藏書館文獻編委會, ed., Gudai xiangyue ji xiangzhi falü wenxian shizhong 古代鄉約及鄉治法律文獻十種 (He’erbin: Heilongjiang renminchuban- she, 2005), vol. 1, pp. 3–20.

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was to make everyday rural life come under the ideals and norms of the pact. The members were to conform with the principles enumer- ated in the provisions, such as being filial, harmoniously administrat- ing their households, being frugal, having respectful friendships, and being obedient to senior members. Violating the principles resulted in communal punishments, which were prescribed in the provisions. The core of the compact was the monthly meeting and seasonal ritual banquet. In the meeting, good deeds were to be rewarded, seniority confirmed, and delinquencies punished. In the Shushanji community compact of 1341, the number of provisions was double that of “Lantian Lüshi xiangyue,” and fourteen of those provisions can be categorized as follows: date of monthly assembly and list of food and drink for following banquet (provision 1), punishments for not holding monthly assembly and not observing proprieties in it and the banquet (provisions 2, 4), obligatory visit to the Dragon King Temple (provision 11), mutual aid (3, 5, 6, 8, 14), rewards and penalties regarding righteous behavior and fault (9, 10), building an academy (7), and management regulations (12, 13).20 The most impressive alteration from the Song compact was the elaboration of ritual banquets: the date of meeting, amount of meat and noodles, numbers of dishes, and even the specific topics to be discussed were prescribed. Equally important to our understanding of the nature of this community compact are the increased provisions on agricultural mutual aid and the religious practice at the Dragon King temple, all of which “Lantian Lüshi xiangyue” lacks. The provisions on mutual aid for those who lost cattle and the penalties for trespassing livestock reflect the practical necessity of daily farm work and pasturage. Apparently, man- aging the harvest was an equally important goal. In addition, not only must the compact members have purified themselves and paid a visit to the Dragon King temple in a time of drought, but certain monetary fines were to be used to maintain and repair the temple. In 1368, Zeng Jian 曾堅 (dates unknown; jinshi 1354), who was then serving as Hanlin Academician (hanlin zhixueshi 翰林直學士), re- marked in his eulogy to Tangwu Chongxi that the “hall of a Dragon God (longwang zhi tang 龍王之堂)” and “military fort (junzhai 軍砦)” are “two challenges (er nan 二難)” that arise when organizing a community compact.21 The creation of a community compact and rainmaking rituals were an unusual combination in the eyes of the literati elite.

20 SS J, pp. 23–25. 21 Zeng Jian 曾堅, “Longci xiangshe yiyue zan” 龍祠鄉社義約贊, in SS J , pp. 62 ff.

114 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

Reemergence of the Yang Surname as Ming Literati Elites

The new social order that the community compact brought to Shibalang Fort did not last long. In the first half of the fourteenth century, as the disarray of the garrison troops became apparent, bandits repeatedly arose to disturb the society of north China. With public order deteriorating, Shibalang Fort, although it was a military base, also became a target of marauding bandits. In 1344, the residence of the Tangut family was besieged by a bandit group of more than 200. Bular∫dai (Bulantai 卜蘭台), the brother of Chongxi, narrowly escaped only after a neighbor surnamed Sun 孫 had somehow persuaded the bandits to leave.22 After the bandits, came waves of large-scale rebel armies from the south. At precisely the time when Shushanji was being compiled, the Yuan dynasty had almost lost control of south China, where several regional warlords had been struggling for supremacy. Some of them started a northern expedition in the late-1350s. Only ten years after the academy in the fort was authorized, the rebels, now proclaiming themselves the army of the Ming dynasty, captured Dadu, and the reign- ing Qa∫an, To∫untemür (Tuohuantiemu’er 妥懽貼睦爾, r. 1333–1370), fled to Mongolia. The empire that had brought these military families to China collapsed and tremendous social disorder followed. Northern Henan suffered greatly again, during the Jingnan Civil War (jingnan zhi bian 靖難之變), from 1399 to 1402. Legends in north China, such as “The Vengeance of Hu Dahai (Hudahai fuchou 胡大海復仇),” “The Prince of Yan Destroys the Stele (Yanwang saobei 燕王掃碑),” and “Massacring the Populace of Huaiqingfu Three Times (sanxi Huaiqingfu 三洗懷慶府),” tell of the decimation of local populations.23 Most of the non-Han migrants disappear from the records during this transition and time of social discontinuity. But the Tangut Yang family did survive. Whereas the materials in Shushanji rarely touch upon the fate of the family in the Ming period, a local gazetteer of Kaizhou printed in 1535 has fortunately survived thanks to the Tianyige 天一閣 at Ningbo, the oldest existing library in China, which boasts rare Ming volumes. This work provides confirmatory evidence from outside the family materials.

22 See Pan Di, “Tangwu jingxian xiaoguanxu” 唐兀敬賢孝感序, in SS J , p. 177. 23 See Zhao Shiyu 趙世瑜, Xiaolishi yu Dalishi: Quyu shehuishi de linian, fangfa yu shiqian 小歷史與大歷史, 區域社會史的理念、方法與實踐 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2006), pp. 98–100; Hok-Lam Chan, Legends of the Building of Old Peking (Hongkong: The Chinese University Press, 2008), p. 219.

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During the catastrophic dynastic transition, Chongxi attempted to prevent the dismantling of the institutions that he had implemented. In 1358, he took refuge in Dadu and asked Zhang Yining 張以寧 (1301– 1369; jinshi 1327), another Hanlin Academician at that time, to write a preface to the literary collection now known as Shushanji.24 Zhang was a dignified scholar-official in the late-Yuan court, whose literary pieces are attested in contemporary materials and were collected in his own literary collection entitled Cuibing ji 翠屏集, which was later included in the famous imperial manuscript collection Siku quanshu. What is notable is Chongxi’s willingness and perhaps desire to authorize the compact with a certain level of academic dignity, thus helping bring about its transformation into an item within a literary collection per se. The decline of the Yuan dynasty continued on its own trajectory. The private school at Shibalang Fort was burnt down — presumably by rebels — sometime before 1361,25 and in the following year Tangwu Chongxi petitioned the central court to rebuild it with the help of the abovementioned Zhang Yining. The petition was approved and the private school eventually promoted to academy status and given the name “Venerating Virtue (chongyi 崇義).”26 However, the raging war forced the Tangut Yang family to leave Shibalang Fort only two years later (1364).27 Upon his return to the fort, sometime before 1367, a eulogy in Shushanji claims that Tangwu Chongxi tried to rebuild the academy and reassert the community compact: it is the last mention by contemporaries of this compact.28 Another essay in Shushanji, that written by Tangwu Chongxi himself, attests that he was in Beiping 北平, the city formerly called Dadu, in 1372.29 In the same year, a reference to his first-cousin once removed (youzi 猶子) Daben (also called Ji’an 冀安) in a poem composed upon Chongxi’s return to Puyang calls him Vice-Minister of the Board of Rites (libushilang 禮部侍郎).30 These fragmentary evidences hint that Chongxi attempted to rebuild connections in the former capital and that his efforts were fruitful at least at the very beginning of the Ming period. Yet no other contemporary

24 Zhang Yining, “Shushanji xu” 述善集序, in SS J, pp. 4 ff. 25 Liu Wenfang 劉文房, “Shiyishou bingxu” 詩一首並序, in SS J , p. 83. 26 Zhang Yining, “Puyangxian xiaoyixiang chongjian shuyuanshu” 濮陽縣孝義鄉重建書院疏, in SS J, p. 97. 27 See Wei Su 危素, “Zeng wuweichushi Yangxiangxianxu” 贈武威處士楊象賢序, and Zhang Yining, “Song Yangxiangxian guishanyuan xu” 送楊象賢歸澶淵序, in SS J, pp. 205, 209. 28 Zeng, “Longci xiangshe yiyue zan,” in SS J , p. 63. 29 Tangwu Chongxi, “Quanshangzhi shu” 勸善直述, in SS J, p. 198. 30 Tao Kai 陶凱, “Songyanggong xiangxian” 送楊公象賢, in SS J , p. 213.

116 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present materials tell of Chongxi, nor record the life of Daben, his successful relative, after that year.31 The endeavor of Tangwu Chongxi and his family came to an end with the social upheaval that took place during the rise of the new dynasty. After the Ming forces conquered north China, the community at Shibalang Fort was disbanded. The members of the Yang family were divided into eighteen households among four li 里 and respectively classified as either military or ordinary households (minhu 民戸) in the new military garrison system (weisuo 衛所).32 During this drastic social transition, the Yangs terminated their community compact. With the community compact terminated and the community dispersed, the influence of the temple of the Dragon King also shrank considerably. In the 1535 local gazetteer of Kaizhou an annotation to a poem by a local scholar named Wang Jiliang 王繼良 (dates unknown) states that the temple near Shibalang Fort had already been abolished.33 It would never be rebuilt and, in 1825, only the “ruin (yizhi 遺址)” of the Dragon King temple remained.34 Shibalang Fort came to be called Shibalang village.35 However, the Yangs themselves reemerged in the late-fourteenth century. Enumerating all major settlements in the county, the local gazetteer of Daming 大名 prefecture (printed in 1506) states that the Yang family residing in Shibalang had maintained the academy and its collection of books since the Yuan period.36 Having made good use of his legacy, in 1480 Yang Shao 楊紹 (dates unknown), a member of our Yang family, passed the provincial examination (xiangshi 郷試).

31 The Ming-Qing local gazzetteers of Kaizhou and Puyang do not record his name and career either. This seems to indicate that the descendants of Daben simply forgot about him, or, more likely, that he was deprived of his post under unfavorable circumstances such as one of the repeated purges during the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang (the first emperor of Ming). A preface to the genealogy of the Yang family, revised in late Qing, records that the descendants of Daben later migrated to Lingbi 靈璧 county, Anhui; see Yang Pingsheng, “Yangshi chongxiu jiapu xu” 楊氏重修家譜序, in SS J, pp. 273–75. 32 See anon., “Yangshi jiapu xu” 楊氏家譜序, in SS J , pp. 270 ff. 33 See the annotation to Wang Jiliang, “Dongyuan Wang Jiliang xiangxian Yiletang yishou” 東原王繼良象賢亦樂堂一首, in Wang Chongqing 王崇慶, ed., Jiaqing Kaizhou zhi 嘉靖開州志 (Kai Prefecture Gazetteer Compiled in the Jiaqing Period; hereafter cited as KZZ ) 9, p. 12b, rpt. in vol. 46 of Shanghai guji chubanshe, ed., Tianyige zang Mingdai fangzhi xuankan 天一閣藏明代方志選刊 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982). 34 Qu Yaoling 瞿堯嶺, “Yangshi chongxiu sibentang ji” 楊氏重修思本堂記, in SS J , p. 281. 35 See KZZ 1, p. 13b. 36 See Tang Jin 唐錦, ed., Zhengde daming fuzhi 正德大名府志 (Daming Prefecture Gazet teer Compiled in the Zhengde Period) 5, p. 90 (rpt. in vol. 46 of Tianyige zang Mingdai fang zhi xuankan.

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Although Yang Shao was never appointed to an official position,37 three years later the family achieved success: in 1483 Yang Cong 楊聰 (dates unknown; later than Yuan, thus not shown on the appended tree), great-grandson of Tangwu Chongxi, also passed the provincial examination and the following year went further, by obtaining the degree of jinshi.38 Prominent success in the examination did not ensure a family’s success in officialdom. While Shushanji and the Yang surname genealogy remain silent on the later career of Yang Cong, the 1535 Kaizhou gazetteer remarks that he was dismissed from the position of magistrate of Longde 隆德 county, in modern Ningxia, after being accused of hitting a professor at the county school.39 Nevertheless, producing a jinshi undoubtedly invigorated the members of the Yang family and perhaps triggered their submission of a petition by one of them to en- shrine Tangwu Chongxi in the prefect shrine of local worthies (xiang xianci 郷賢祠). The petition was approved in 1518.40 Subsequently, the Yang surname sought to commemorate Chongxi’s endeavor of some 150 years earlier. We know this because in 1527, a native of Kaizhou named Wang Chongqing 王崇慶 (1484–1565), the author of the 1535 Kaizhou gazetteer who was a jinshi of 1508 and at the time a Vice- Minister of the Board of Rites, wrote a preface to a book that the Yang family had compiled — a work named Collection of Surviving [Essays] by the Yang Surname (Yangshi yiji 楊氏遺集).41 The preface attests that the family had revised their genealogy each generation since the Yuan period, and seventeen years after the enshrinement of Chongxi, in 1518, they revised it again, with the addition of a preface that spoke about their literati origins.42 Moreover, the Kaizhou gazetteer provides further evidence, stating that the family had compiled a book entitled Surviv ing Anecdotes of the Yang Surname (Yangshi yishi 楊氏遺事).43 The close re- semblance of the two titles strongly suggests that the preface and local gazetteer refer to the same material.

37 KZZ, 7, p. 6b, records “Yang Shao never served 楊紹未仕.” 38 KZZ 7, pp. 4a, and 6b–7a; SS J , p. 274. 39 KZZ 7, p. 4a. 40 Anon., “Yangshi jiapu xu,” pp. 270 ff. 41 Wang Chongqing, “Xu yangshiyi ji” 序楊氏遺集,” in SS J , p. 1. This preface was placed at the beginning of the present version of Shushanji. The title of the preface indicates that Shu shanji was called by a different name at that time, or revised as another book. 42 See anon., “Yangshi jiapuxu,” p. 271. 43 See the materials cited in n. 45, below.

118 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

Interestingly, the preface by Wang Chongqing states that the ancestors of the family were “western barbarians (xiyi zhi ren 西夷之人)” who were later “transformed into Chinese (yi zhi bian yu xia 夷之變於夏)” through establishing an ancestral hall and community compact, and calls this a “good transformation (shanbian 善變).”44 Although nei- ther the Collection of Surviving [Essays] by the Yang Surname nor Surviving Anecdotes of the Yang Surname has survived until today, such a reference to a community compact makes it easy to imagine that one or the other of them was based upon, or at least referred to, the Yuan-era version of Shushanji. Originally compiled to praise the community compact, Shushanji was used by Ming descendants to explicate the laudable meta- morphosis of their ancestors from “barbarians” to Chinese-style literati scholars. Another essay by Wang Chongqing, printed in the 1882 Kaizhou gazetteer, shows that it was he who played a leading role in the establishment of the shrine to local worthies.45 It is quite likely that the two Yang compilations — Collection of Surviving [Essays] and Surviving Anecdotes — were promoted in concert with Wang’s promotion of local scholarship generally. As seen above, during the Yuan-Ming transitional period the community compact did mark a pivotal turning point in the history of our Tangut family. At this point we should ask why they made a compact in the first place. Was this creative act just another case of a type of in- evitable sinicization of a non-Han Chinese community, something that repeated itself throughout China for many hundreds of years? I would argue that the reason for it paralleled an important social transition that the family experienced in the early- to mid-fourteenth century. We turn to this question next, and thus we will turn back to consider more deeply the nature of the Yang family’s original community compact.

Social Background of the Community Compact

When Tangwu Chongxi, the leading figure of the family at this time during the Yuan, set up the community compact he also built both an ancestral hall named Hall of Contemplating the Origin (sibentang 思本堂, built before 1353),46 and a private school in the northeastern part of

44 Wang Chongqing, “Xu yangshi yiji 序楊氏遺集,” in SS J, p. 1. 45 Wang Chongqing, “Mingchen xiangxianci ji” 名臣郷賢祠記, in Qi Dechang 祁德昌 and Chen Zhaolin 陳兆麟, eds., Kaizhouzhi 開州志, in Zhongguo fangzhi congshu 中國方志叢書 (Taipei: Chengwen chubanshe youxian gongsi, 1976), vol. 515, j. 8, pp. 34a–36a. 46 This ancestral hall first appears in the contemporary materials in 1353, and the ritual

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the neighboring Guanren Fort. Later, the school, as already mentioned, was promoted to an official academy. To secure the expenses for the rituals of ancestral worship, Chongxi purchased more than 200 mu of agricultural land and extended the family graveyard from one to ten mu.47 It was in the year 1356 that he installed the epigraphical stele in honor of his grandfather, Lüma (also discussed above), and recorded the history of the family after their immigration. To understand what motivated him and his family in these endeavors, we should first look at an important institutional crisis that military families faced in the first half of the fourteenth century. The Table of Non-Han Military Families Serving in Garrison Troops, appended to this article, shows thirty cases of family surnames that have been gathered from contemporary literary collections as well as from Yuanshi 元史 (the standard-history account of the Yuan dynasty compiled during Ming). These were non-Han Chinese military families who served in the garrison troops. I have analyzed them into five groups, which for convenience are designated A-E.

Military Families Group A: nos. 1, 2, 4– 16, 18–20, 22, 24 This type of family, Group A, was relatively the most successful. They participated in the expansion campaigns under the reign of Qubilai Qa∫an (r. 1260–1294) and were able to obtain military or civil positions higher than rank 5. They would continuously produce military officers or civil officials above rank 5, and some obtained even higher posts. Although joining the army was the best route to obtaining office before the early-1270s, after that time the number of offices granted family members as a result of military exploits took a sharp drop and completely disappeared in the fourteenth century, as the military expansion of the Mongols dwindled. In the meantime, to keep the military system self-reproductive, a regular promotion system for military officers was first established in 1278. Its revised version in 1284 prescribed that Centurions (baihu 百戸), Battalion Commanders (qianhu 千戸), and Commanders of Battalions (wanhu 萬戸) were to be categorized into upper, middle, and lower ranks (shang 上, zhong 中, and xia 下, respectively). Their service records were inspected every three years for the purpose of making promotions. The revised system also called for

of ancestral worship was practiced in spring and autumn. See Pan Di, “Sibentangji” 思本堂記, in SS J, p. 154. 47 Pan, “Dayuan zeng dunwu xiaowei,” p. 139.

120 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present military officers lower than Centurions to be excluded from the promotion system altogether.48 Since military and civil officials in the Yuan had only one chance at legacy protection (enyin 恩蔭), that is, an un- conditional appointment of a son to the same position as his father,49 thus families of low-ranking military officers could not easily advance unless a member earned new exploits in war.

Military Families Group B: nos. 17, 21, 23 The Group B families already possessed rank 5 or higher by having joined the military campaigns of the mid- to late-thirteenth century, and they passed down these positions from generation to generation through the end of the Yuan. Because their positions were subject to regular evaluation every three years, most went on to higher ranks, leaving their original post to a kinsman.

Military Families Group C: no. 25; and D: no. 3 Number 25 was a family that chose to serve a Mongolian prince, and its members were able to obtain ranks in the princely office. The other family, no. 3, obtained the position of battalion commander during the civil war in 1328.

Military Families Group E: nos. 26–30 These were the least successful of the groups. They had not distinguished themselves in the campaigns of the thirteenth century. I would suggest that they formed a silent majority in the garrison troops.50 Misfortunes never came singly for these particular families. From the last decade of the thirteenth century, they were involved in the disarray of the garrison troop system. Since military families had to pay the expenses for equipment, including horses, joining a campaign was a considerable economic burden. Even in times of peace, they had to stand guard over the borderlands. A memorial submitted in 1303 to the Yuan court proposed to release soldiers residing in Shandong and Henan from taking up guard duty in remote Gansu, since they had to sell off their lands, property, and even wives and children to fulfill their

48 See Song Lien 宋濂, ed., Yuanshi 元史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976; hereafter Y S ) 82, pp. 2038 ff. 49 Y S 83, p. 2060. 50 In the surviving materials, the number of cases categorized into group A is far greater than that of the other groups. This is because successful families who enjoyed certain social influence had the opportunity to request from dignified literati the writing of epitaphs, and their own compilations of their oeuvres (quanji 全集) had a better chance of surviving the following centuries.

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duty.51 Another official document issued by the garrison troop head- quarters, submitted sometime after 1308, shows that the attached military households, which were bound to cultivate fields for the military families, often escaped from their original residences. Consequently, the economic foundations of such military families were experiencing some erosion.52 In the case of our Tangut Yang family, we should note the following four points: 1. Although members had participated in campaigns early in the Mon- gol conquest of north China and later went to the front in the civil war in 1328, nobody could obtain a position higher than Centurion. 2. As will be discussed, below, during the first decades of the fourteenth century, when disarray in the garrison system became apparent, the Yangs built a private school. 3. In the 1320s, they produced two students who entered the Director- ate of Education and both of them obtained an official post. 4. The last opportunity of obtaining a rank by war exploits was the campaign against the Red Turban Rebels from about 1351–1366. As Michael Brose has well illustrated, in the case of office-holding Uyghur families in Yuan China, a non-Han Chinese person could de- velop identity as a literatus, while maintaining and emphasizing his non- Han origin. Indeed, pursuing Chinese high culture — including taking the civil service examination, compiling a genealogy, and conducting ancestral worship — was part of a strategy to acquire higher status among the new ruling elite in an empire that comprised multiple cultures.53 A comprehensive study of Yuan-era jinshi degree-holders has revealed that the majority of Mongol (menggu 蒙古) and “miscellaneous-ethnic (semu 色目)” jinshi were from military households.54 With the hope of obtaining a new official position growing dimmer and dimmer in military families with a rank lower than 5, the male descendants, except for the eldest son, were left to earn their keep. Thus facing a bleak future, taking the examinations was an attractive option for those who could afford the expenses for education. Interestingly, no historical material indicates that the Tangut family surnamed Yang ever took the jinshi examinations in the Yuan period.

51 See the biography of Qiannu 千奴, in Y S 134, p. 3258. 52 See “goushua zaitou junqu” 拘刷在逃軍駈, in anon., Dayuan shengzheng guochao dianzhang 大元聖政國朝典章 (Taipei: Guoli gugong bowuyuan, 1976), chap. 34, j. 1, pp. 21b–23b. 53 Michael C. Brose, Subjects and Masters: Uyghurs in the Mongol Empire (Bellingham: Cen- ter for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2007). 54 See Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing 蕭啓清, Yuandai jinshi jikao 元代進士輯考 (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishiyuyan yanjiusuo, 2012).

122 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

Yet, a better way to perceive the family’s overall strategy for developing status is to look at their enthusiasm to send children to the Directorate of Education. The quota of jinshi acceptances for each Yuan examination was extremely limited: only twenty-five for Mongols, twenty-five for “miscellaneous ethnics (semuren 色目人),” twenty-five for northern- ers (hanren 漢人, people from the former territory of the Jin dynasty), and twenty-five for southerners (nanren 南人, people from the former territory of the Southern Song dynasty). Naturally, this made the examination intensely competitive. However, students of the Directorate of Education who distinguished themselves in the regular internal examinations were granted the privilege of skipping the prefectural examination, the most competitive stage of the examinations, and proceeding directly to the metropolitan examination (shengshi 省試).55 First established in Yanjing (later Dadu) under Ögödei (r. 1229– 1241), the Directorate of Education had been a school for the sons of ranking officials. Whereas originally only the children of officials with rank 7 or higher were allowed to enter the Directorate, after the late- 1290s a person could also enter as an auditor (peitangsheng 陪堂生) if he obtained a recommendation from an official with rank 3 or higher. An auditor could be promoted to the position of official student by pass- ing the regular internal examinations. At least before the 1350s, when the number of students had dramatically increased (to several thou- sands) and competition among them became as severe as the prefectural examination, entering the Directorate of Education enabled one to enjoy a better chance of obtaining an official rank. Furthermore, if one could become acquainted with a high-ranking official or a Mongol prince in the capital, it was not a mere dream to be promoted directly to a middle- or high-ranking position.56 Tangwu Chongxi, whose family had not previously produced an official with rank 7 or higher, probably entered as an auditor after somehow obtaining a recommendation. Later, he successfully became a highest-ranked student (shangshesheng 上舎生) and, by recommendation of the Bureau of Military Affairs (shumiyuan 樞密院), the central government appointed Chongxi to the position of Centurion in the Left Wing Mongol Royal Guard (zuoyi menggu shiwei qinjun baihu 左翊蒙古侍衛親軍百戸). Compared to more successful cases in the Directorate of Edu-

55 See Wang Jianjun 王建軍, Yuandai guozijian yanjiu 元代國子監研究 (Macau: Aoya zhou- kan chuban, 2004). 56 See the examples in Iiyama Tomoyasu 飯山知保, Kingen jidai kahoku shakai to kakyo seido: m±hitotsu no shijins± 金元時代華北社会と科挙制度, もうひとつの士人層 (Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku shuppanbu, 2011), pp. 185–289.

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cation such as that of Su Tianjue 蘇天爵 (1294–1352), one of the most prominent Yuan scholars hailing from the north, his appointment may seem inconsequential. However, for a minor military family, obtaining the post of Centurion was a major success. To perpetuate the family’s official status, Chongxi made a considerable effort building and expanding his network among high-ranking officials. His effort bore fruit in the production of Shushanji. Among the authors of prefaces, essays, and poems there, we find a list of dig- nitaries in the contemporary central court, the Directorate of Educa- tion, and in the provinces, such as the following: Pan Di (previously mentioned), professor at the Directorate of Education, who claimed to have been a longtime friend of Chongxi;57 Zhang Yining, the Hanlin Academician discussed above; Zhang Zhu 張翥 (1287–1368), Manager of Governmental Affairs at the Branch Secretariat in Henan (Henan xingsheng pingzhang zhengshi 河南行省平章政事); and Zhang Zhen 張楨 (1305–1368), jinshi of 1333, Vice-Commissioner of Surveillance in the Shannan Circuit (qian shannandao lianfang sishi 僉山南道廉訪司事). Contemporary materials provide other information about these men,58 thus corroborating the authenticity of the Yuan materials in Shushanji. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Yang family in the mid-nineteenth century fabricated the collection. It is possible that Chongxi’s networking activities resulted in the entrance of Bayanbuqa, a great-nephew of Chongxi, into the Director- ate of Education. Bular∫dai, the younger brother of Chongxi, was also appointed to the position of Centurion affiliated with the Commission for Tatar Hereditary Garrison Troops and Their Households (tatali jun min wanhufu 塔塔里軍民萬戶府), “because [he] came and saw the mag- nificence of the capital (yin guanguang jingshi 因觀光京師).”59 That is to say, he went to the capital and obtained a connection with a patron. In other words, Shushanji was in a certain sense a visualization of the Tangut family’s social network. In a sense, this sort of collection of letters of recommendation represents a map of family members’ at-

57 See Pan Di, “Shunletangji” 順樂堂記, “Jingzhizhaiji” 敬止齋記, and “Zhizhizhaiji” 知止齋記, in SS J, pp. 161–68. In “Shunletangji,” Pan Di mentions that “He [Tangwu Chongxi] has long been a friend of mine 昔從余游頗久.” 58 Zhang Yining’s literary collection was later included in Siku quanshu, and Zhang Zhen appears in more than nineteen essay and prefaces; see Wang Deyi 王德毅 et al., Yuanren zhuanji ziliao suoyin 元人傳記資料索引 (Taipei: Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi, 1979–82) 2, pp. 1094 ff). Pan Di is mentioned in Li Xian 李賢, Da Ming yitong zhi 大明一統志 4, p. 45b. Zhang Zhen is mentioned in several Yuan materials including Y S 186, 1; anon., Yuan mishujian zhi 元秘書監志, j. 10, p. 9b. 59 See Pan, “Tangwu jingxian xiaoguan xu,” p. 177.

124 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present tempts to enter the Directorate and form connections with the literati elite. In a preface concerning a friend’s departure to Dadu, Xu Youren 許有壬 (1287–1367, jinshi 1315) gave a vivid description of office hunt- ers in 1317. They swarmed in front of the main palace gate (wumen 午門) in Dadu every day, seeking connections with Mongolian princes or high-ranking officials by displaying their literary skill and carrying academic writings under their arms.60 The compilation of Shushanji itself was very likely a part of the Tangut family’s similar sort of endeavor. To form a community compact should be contextualized in the same manner: the Tangut Yangs attempted to reshape themselves into literati and earn promotions as a new, office-holding family with cultural legitimacy and close ties to higher officials. Today, scholars such as Hong-lam Chu and John Dardess have revealed the way that community compacts in the late-imperial period were generally practiced so as to correct society’s wrong course and to restore an ideal social order — rigid seniority, harmony among different social strata, and a spirit of benevolence and charity. Conflicts and disorder in the locality were to be negotiated and mended.61 The case of Shibalang Fort shows just such a desire to reform the community and respond to social needs. The compact was also performative in the sense that the Tangut Yangs mostly likely were conscious of acting in ways, such as through local rites and programs, that would gain them status in the eyes of outsiders — the Han Chinese literati networks. At the same time, they apparently did not have any intention to undermine the conventional social order in the fort. Their success, which boasted more than one hundred members in 1347,62 meant that a new official family had emerged in the community, but battalion commander “Lord Gao,” one of the two named proposers of the community compact and the highest-ranking officer who possibly represented the military order there, played only a limited role in the community compact. His name appears only once in the regulations and nowhere else in the items comprising Shushanji. At first glance, it might seem that the aspiring Tangut family was attempting to administer literati behavior within the fort and reorganize its community in their favor. But this is not likely, since, as discussed

60 See Xu Youren, “Song Zhu Anpu you Dadu xu” 送朱安甫遊大都序, in Li Xiusheng 李修生 et al., eds., Quan Yuanwen 全元文 (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2004), vol. 38, pp. 84 ff. 61 Hong-lam Chu 朱鴻林, ”The Community Compact in Late Imperial China: Notes on Its Nature, Effectiveness and Modern Relevance,” The Woodrow Wilson Center Asia Program Occa sional Papers 52 (1993); John W. Dardess, A Ming Society: T’ai-ho County, Kiangsi, in the Four teenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 135 ff. 62 Pan, “Shunletangji,” p. 161.

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above, a widely practiced ritual (that concerning the Dragon King), was significantly modified to suit the social order of the community. The regulation in the compact bluntly states: “This [community compact] does not fully coincide with the ancient ritual.”63 Nor did they abandon their non-Han social background. Rather, we find a certain “Tangut connection” in their attempt to extend the educational institutions. It was Tangwu Baidu (tangwu bodu 唐兀伯都, dates unknown), who also called himself Liu Rang 劉讓, ex-student of the Directorate of Education and the dar∫a (daluhuachi 達魯花赤) of Puyang around 1348, who led the extension of the private school in 1347.64 Beforehand, Chongxi had invited a recently appointed professor of the prefectural school of Mizhou (xinchu mizhou ruxuezheng 新除密州儒學正), Shandong, named Tangwu Yanguo 唐兀彦國 (dates unknown; surname showing Tangut ancestry), as the school’s teacher.65 Meanwhile, as the Yang family tree appended to his article shows, the Tangut family remained intensely connected through marriage ties with families of non-Han military commanders serving in the garrison troops stationed along the northern shore of the Yellow River. Moreover, Shibalang Fort never stopped functioning as a military base; it produced military officers until the end of the Yuan period. Upon the building of the private school, together with Tangwu Baidu, the Tangut county dar∫a, a certain “Commander of Corps (jun shuaizhang 軍帥長),” apparently representing the military order in the region, also participated in its opening ceremony.66 It is evident that pursuing literati ideals and engaging in military services were comple- mentary paths among the participants of the community compact, as they coped with the social transition of the mid-fourteenth century. Indeed, as our examination has shown, Shushanji attests that the community compact was a mixture of the community compact and the former rituals practiced by the Association of the Dragon King. Besides the Tangut family’s desire to appear as literati, the military fort maintained its conventional social order through mutual aid, charity, and the worship of the Dragon King. Since the private school (later official academy) was open to all the children in the fort, the members of the community compact could also hope to attain a civil post. The fruit of this endeavor was short-lived, however, as Mongols and their subjects were soon ousted from power. Still, the cultural infrastructure established in the previous Yuan period paved a path to

63 Tangwu and Tangwu, “Longci xiangshe yiyue,” p. 25. 64 See Pan, “Yiletangji” 亦樂堂記, in SS J , p. 67: Liu Rang, “Zishu” 自述, in SS J, p. 116. 65 See Pan Di, “Liqing shirushu” 禮請師儒疏, in SS J, p. 104. 66 See Pan, “Yiletangji,” p. 68.

126 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present resurgence for the Ming descendants of this Tangut family. Eventu- ally, the community compact recorded in Shushanji was reinterpreted in a way quite contrary to the original goal of the Yuan ancestors: to glorify the literati transformation of the family of some two centuries earlier. Yet, the journey of Shushanji had not come to an end. After the reemergence of the Yang family as literati during the mid-Ming period, the literary collection and the family would experience further complications.

Rise of the Yang Surname and Their Commemoration of Tangut Ancestry

Soon after the Yang family had again revised their genealogy in 1567, a new prefect of Kaizhou, surnamed Yang, proclaimed that he was from a branch of the Yang family who descended from Daben and were residing in Lingbi 靈璧 county, Anhui. The 1825 preface to the Yang genealogy accuses the magistrate there of having borrowed the written genealogy without returning it.67 Then the preface claims that revisions of the genealogy did not occur for a long time; and it was about 170 years later, in 1738, when they finally resumed the making of revisions. However, the preface to the 1738 revision insists that the generational information during the interim had faded into obscurity,68 and even this resumption was only temporary. It was 1825 when Yang Pingsheng, claiming to be one of the descendants of the Yuan-Ming Tangut Yang family, attempted to compile a genealogy again. During these eighty-seven years, the family is not mentioned in any contemporary materials, nor did they leave a detailed account of their social and economic conditions. Few accounts testify to the fate of Shushanji during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, except a minor reference in an anonymous poem. The latter praises Shushanji and bears the date of the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the sixteenth year of the Shunzhi 順治 period (1659) ; it is included in the present version of Shushanji.69 Nota- bly, it does not mention any detail of the condition or whereabouts of the written text of Shushanji at that time. In a preface to the revised genealogy of 1825, Yang Pingsheng stated that when he decided to establish a cohesive kinship organization there were only nondescript agrarian families loosely tied together

67 Yang, “Yangshi chongxiu jiapu xu,” p. 274. 68 Anon., “Yangshi jiapuxu,” pp. 271 ff. 69 Anon., “Wei tishi” 尾題詩, in SS J , p. 237.

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by the ambiguous idea that they shared the same ancestral roots, presumably based on the inscribed stele and the three tombs of the Yuan ancestors (the latter still standing in the northern fringe of Shibalang village).70 The prefaces and the genealogy in Shushanji indicate that Pingsheng himself later passed the examination and obtained the status of an official doctor in the Imperial Academy of Medicine (taiyiyuan yisheng 太醫院醫生) in 1829, but had to give up this official career because his brother died from illness and there was no one to take care of his eighty-year-old mother.71 Another of his brothers also held the title of candidate for the military examination (wusheng 武生),72 but he was never assigned to an official post. Also in 1825, Pingsheng rebuilt the ancestral Hall of Contemplat- ing the Origin, which had been completely leveled and whose original location was unknown. The ancestral tablets were placed in the hall and the ritual for ancestral worship was practiced in spring and autumn, and a teacher was invited to educate family members there.73 In 1920, An Chuntang 安春塘 (dates unknown), formerly a student of the prefectural school, claimed in a preface to the newly revised genealogy of the Yang family that Yang Pingsheng discovered Shushanji in the book storage area of his home one day in 1840.74 Notably, this is the earliest account claiming that Yang Pingsheng did in fact discover Shushanji. In his preface to the revised genealogy (mentioned above), Yang Pingsheng simply recalls that before that year he “had read the family collection of books. Xiangxian, my ancestor in the fourth generation, built the shrine of Confucius named Hall of Contemplating the Origin, created the community compact, and the Venerating Vir- tue Academy.”75 These four items precisely correspond to those in the putative Yuan version of Shushanji, verifying that the “family collection of books” Pingsheng read comprised at least the main part of their Yuan collection. Obviously, he did not feel it necessary to place any emphasis on the fact of “discovery.” Actually, none of the materials give evidence that Shushanji had been forgotten. Since Pingsheng testifies that it was stored as a part of the family collection, it is not likely it had been abandoned, even if it was badly damaged. Rather,

70 Yang, “Yangshi chongxiu jiapu xu,” pp. 273–75. 71 Qu Yaoling, “Yangshi chongxu jiapuwen” 楊氏重序家譜文, in SS J , p. 277. 72 See Qu, “Yangshi chongxiu sibentangji.” 73 Qu, “Yangshi chongxu jiapu wen”; Qu, “Yangshi chongxiu sibentang ji,” p. 281. 74 An Chuntang 安春塘, “Tangwu yangshi xuxiu jiacheng xu” 唐兀楊氏續修家乘序, in SS J , p. 289. 75 See Yang, “Yangshi chongxiu jiapu xu,” p. 275.

128 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

An Chuntang’s description, possibly drawing on an oral history among contemporary families of the Yang surname, should be interpreted as a twentieth-century attempt to make the history of Shushanji more impressive. This is a strong assumption, since in fact Pingsheng’s project succeeded in uniting the once-dispersed Yang surnames: at least by the early-twentieth century, Shushanji had come to be considered a family relic that verified its literati bloodline. The 1882 Kaizhou local gazetteer highlights the massive social tur- moil during this period. In 1861, induced by a group of local bandits, a branch of the Nian Rebellion laid siege to the prefecture seat of Kaizhou and rampaged the countryside.76 One of Shushanji’s Republican-era prefaces indicates that most of the Yang members fled to neighboring counties, yet one person, a certain Yutai gong 裕泰公 (1813–1881), came back to Shibalang village, risking his life to retrieve Shushanji.77 If this account is reliable, it demonstrates the fact that Shushanji had become a true asset in verifying ancestry. Thereafter, every time the genealogy was revised, Shushanji would always be mentioned in the prefaces as a product of their ancestral literati conduct. It is impossible to determine exactly when the present manuscripts of Shushanji were handwritten. What is sure is that ever since the Yuan original was compiled, the contents have been significantly extended. While the original table of contents shows poems, prefaces, essays, epigraphical inscriptions, and a total of twenty-nine miscellaneous writings, the current manuscripts contains at least twenty “new,” undated poems, and one of the poets is accounted for in other materials. Adding new materials of such a high literary register suggests that the motive was yet another attempt to bolster family status. Admittedly, maintaining and promoting Shushanji as a key relic does not necessarily prove that the Qing-era Yang surname were descendants of the Yuan-Ming Tangut Yang family, whether directly or indirectly. Without Shushanji, the stele, and genealogy, the family would know virtually nothing about their ancestors. The 1825 preface to the revised genealogy shows that its author, Yang Pingsheng, mis- understood the history of the Tangut people and the Mongol empire, following generally just the information in the Yuan and Ming prefaces to Shushanji. He divided the name of the progenitor Tang∫utai into two parts, surname (tanggu) and given name (dai), and proclaimed that

76 Qi and Chen, Kaizhouzhi 1, pp. 70a–b. 77 See Qu Chaohan 瞿朝翰, “Tangwu Yangshi chongxu jiapuwen” 唐兀楊氏重序家譜文, in SS J , pp. 285 ff.

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the former part was a family name granted by the Yuan dynasty. In- terestingly, in his preface the word Tangut never represents an ethnic group, a kingdom, or a language.78 We can supose that the Yuan ancestors were reluctant to record the fact that their migration to China was the result of the Mongol conquest of the Tangut Xixia kingdom. Therefore, in Shushanji, their family history was described as if they had originally been subjects of the Yuan dynasty. Unaware of the situation his ancestors faced in the thirteenth century, Yang Pingsheng confused Tangwu with other non-Han surnames in the Yuan period. Ironically, this uncertainty actually authenticates the Yuan materials in Shushanji. Pingsheng and his kinsmen certainly would not have been able to fab- ricate them, especially the official documents and essays full of Yuan administrative terminologies. Although his knowledge was poor in this way and the alleged connection with Tangut ancestors seems unclear, Yang Pingsheng’s intention was certainly understandable: to employ the illustrious history of his Tangut ancestors in order to form the people surnamed Yang into a kinship organization. Consequently, whether intentionally or acciden- tally, he and his descendants ignored the main topic of Shushanji — the community compact. Also, they did not even attempt to rebuild the Venerating Virtue Academy and the Hall of Contemplating the Origin, the shrine to Confucius, even though he had listed their constructions as the meritorious deeds of his Yuan ancestors. The academy was still abandoned in 1891,79 and has never been rebuilt. Only the Hall of Contemplating the Origin and the so-called recovered Shushanji would become the core of the reorganized Yang surname. Yang Pingsheng’s endeavor seems to have greatly strengthened the Yang surname’s internal bond and extended their influence. Later in the Republican period, the village, already having officially become an administrative center for twenty nearby villages, was renamed “Yang” Shibalang 楊十八郎,80 obviously reflecting the increased influence of the Yang surname. The village was later renamed again as Yang Shen- balang and is still called so to today. Shushanji not only contributed to the rise of the Yang surname, but also it stimulated family self-awareness among neighbors. In Gao village (Gaocun 高村), approximately one kilometer east of Yang Shenba-

78 See Yang, “Yangshi chongxiu jiapu xu,” p. 273. 79 See Qi and Chen, Kaizhouzhi 2, p. 41a. 80 In the local gazetteer compiled in 1891, the village was still called Shibalang; see Qi and Chen, Kaizhouzhi 1, p. 20a.

130 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present lang village, a magnificent stele was installed in 1935 and still exists.81 It is titled “Dayuan gaoshou rongludafu zhenzhe zongjie gaogong zhi shendao” 大元誥授榮祿大夫鎮浙總戒高公之神道 and claims that “Battal- ion Commander Lord Gao,” who appears in the regulation of the Yuan community compact, was the ancestor of the contemporary inhabitants of the village who are surnamed Gao. As the stele narrates, having passed a certain “military examination” (wuju 武舉) and distinguished himself by suppressing the Miao 苗 Rebellion, Lord Gao joined in the army of Grand Councilor To∫to∫a (chengxiang Tuotuo 丞相脫脫) during his campaign against southern rebels (1353–1354). Later, To∫to∫a, worry- ing that Lord Gao could threaten his position, deprived him of his post. Disappointed, Lord Gao returned to his homeland and settled down in a village named Hubian (hubiancun 虎變村) and renamed it Gaocun. Since Lord Gao’s official career is full of anachronisms (for example, the Yuan dynasty never held a military examination), he is most likely a fictional character created sometime after the demise of the Yuan, presumably having been inspired by Shushanji.

Conclusion

Certain social practices of an originally non-Han community dis- play remarkable flexibility, which helped that community to strengthen their consciousness of ancestry and family history. In particular the Tangut family we have studied here went through assimilation, becom- ing a part of the Han Chinese culture: they were by no means simply a passive minority. Their compilation of Shushanji and the rituals they undertook were in fact acts meant to organize their community for success over time. The early formation of the community occurred in the context of a group of garrison officers belonging to the same military unit. They inherited military positions from generation to generation and joined most of the important military campaigns in the thirteenth century. Ritu- als came into the picture in the following way. In the early-fourteenth century, as the Mongolian garrison system fell into disarray, the Tangut family instituted a community compact that bound its adherents to a local rain deity for the purpose of ensuring stable harvests. Military officers, including Chongxi and Lord Gao, the proposers of the 1341

81 Later, in 2009, the Gao surname installed additional steles commemorating their ancestry and edited a collection of the steles titled Collection of Stone Inscriptions of the Gao Family of East Hubian Village, Puyang (Puyang Donghubian Gaoshi jinshilu 濮陽東虎變高氏金石錄). I express my sincere appreciation to the people in Gao village for generously giving me a copy.

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compact, had already acknowledged this deity, which was connected to a much longer tradition of rain rituals — some influenced by the Indian Naga and Chinese Five Dragons. Chongxi was now incorporating local religious practice into the compact, and the Tangut-Yang family compact became centered at a Dragon King temple. The compact specified other rituals that encouraged civil service and local order, and it was modified at times to suit the community in transition. With the fall of the Yuan and the disbanding of the garrisons, the community compact waned and the community dispersed. But based on the cultural infrastructure that their Yuan ancestors had left, the Tangut family, now surnamed Yang, successfully produced a provincial candidate and a jinshi. By placing the ancestral tablet of one of their Tangut ancestors in the prefectural shrine of local worthies and by compiling a collection of poems and essays, the Yang family attempted to consolidate their literati status; part of that was to build up their non-Han Chinese ancestry in ways that would attest to the admirable qualities of scholarship. However, the genealogy left their possession for a long period, and the family disbanded and experienced another setback. We pick up the story of the Yang family’s local village in the Qing. Their genealogy shows shifts in this later period involving social composition and ritual order, namely, the worship at an ancestral hall. The new ritual to strengthen the internal family bond was distinct from the community compact of the Yuan period. Shushanji has survived six centuries precisely because it has served as a prime mover for social cohesion, exemplifying how this type of material served as a central hub around which a community could transform itself. In Puyang county, when it comes to ancestry, most of the local populace is descended from a mass immigration during the early-Ming period.82 As the case of the Yang surname shows, whether they are made of paper or stone, preserved ancestral materials could play an important role in maintaining and legitimizing both their own ancestral heritage and the related rituals. If the family had permanently lost or had not compiled Shushanji at all, knowledge of their ancestry would have most likely faded away after the dissolution of the military fort at the beginning of the Ming.

82 Tian Juchang 田聚常, ed., Puyang minsu zhi 濮陽民俗誌 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1993), p. 34.

132 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

The very existence of Shushanji illustrates the complex path that the family has taken. And the path has not ended, of course. The submission of Shushanji manuscripts to the local government in 1983 and its printed publication in 2001 have impelled the members of the Yang surname to reaffirm deeply their Tangut ancestry. Some of them have traveled to the tombs of the Xixia kings in Ningxia to commemorate ancestral roots, and beautiful calligraphies of the Tangut script are proudly displayed in their homes. Shushanji is now venerated as a sym- bol of the virtuous life and diligence of the people in Yang Shenbalang village. As long as it exists, Shushanji may continue to transform the community in new ways.

List of Abbreviations KZZ Wang Chongqing 王崇慶, ed., Jiaqing Kaizhou zhi 嘉靖開州志 SS J Jiao Jinwen 焦進文 and Yang Fuxue 楊富學, eds., Yuandai Xixia yimin wenxian Shushanji jiaozhu 元代西夏遺民文獻述善集校注 XL J Cheng Jufu 程鉅夫, Xuelouji 雪樓集 (SKQS edn.) Y S Song Lien 宋濂, ed., Yuanshi 元史

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Genealogy of the Tangut Yang Surname of Shibalang Fort during the Yuan TangȖutai A Jiujie ାՌፕ ԰ࡦ

ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ Lüma B ʳ née Li ּޕ ᔸ್ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ

ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ

Taqai née Sun ýingqadai née Gai Lü’er née Wang ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ Dang’er née Feng Mai’er née Naiman Maina Buqa (Qarlug) Ⴣ௧ C ୪ּ ᠜क़ፕ D ʳ ።ּ ᔸࠝ E ׆ּ ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ ᅝࠝ ႑ּ ၇ࠝ ԯየּ ᝬ๹ լक़ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ - ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ToȖtoȖa ๅๅ L Chongxiʊ née Li .BularȖdaiʊnée Hü’üšin Ta Ȗaþu ʊ née Yuan Huanzhuʊ née Qarlug Liuzhu Jiaohuaʊ née Gao Bayanʊ née Peng .Chunxingʊ née Zhang .Luseng.ca Temür ʊnée Naiman Bai Ǟuʊ née Li ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ

ּޕ ᠱ ּ༙ ਞᘋ ്ּ ᆂቖ ࢅֵࠝ ʊ née Gai ਈ۰܄ H ಒּ ང۰ শᕙּ ఎ۰ ඒ֏ ೏ּ נԽᥞፕ G ࢙壀ּ Ⴣশ ּޕ ശ໛ F - ԯየּ, ።ּʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ch ci cj ʳ ʳ -- ʳ ʳ -- ʳ ʳ --ʳ ʳ

Li’an ʊ née Qarlug cb . .c Cong’an ʊ née X .cc.cd . Baotong .Youtong.ce cf Fu’an Yan’an..Shan’an..cg Bao’an .You’an .Hu’an ..cc Chang’an’er Wai’er ࠝ ੁࠝڜ९ ڜ⁐ ڜయ ڜঅ ڜ࿳ ڜ࢏ ڜঅ࿙ య࿙ .壂 ڜশᕙּ .ൕ ڜ෻

ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ - ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ Ji’anʊ née Gao Wei’an Tian’er Lu’an c Bulaoʊnée Kereid To ȖtoȖaʊnée Kong Bayanbuqa née Hü’üšin Esenbuqa née Liu Saizhen ཏक़ K Ꮵּ ᝛ੴ kטᠱլक़ J ࢙壀ּ ມ܄ ּ֞ ๅๅ ּ௺܌ ۔լ ڜ෌ࠝ ᤓ ڜI ೏ּ ᓡ ڜʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳᕧ ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ ------c.l .c .c Guanzhu ..c Qara ʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳʳ ᣂ۰ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ শজ

Official Titles (A-L) of Kinsmen (ct. = county; Direct. = Directorate) A Disciplinarian 彈壓 B Centurion in Left Wing Mongolian Royal Guards 左翊蒙古侍衛親軍百戶 C Centurion of Conscripts 漸丁軍百夫長 D Centurion in Mongolian hereditary garrison troops 本府百夫 E Clerk in Mongolian Royal Guards 本衛令史 F [Formerly student in Direct. of Educ.] Centurion in Mongolian Royal Guards 本衛百戶 G, H Centurion with the Commission for Tatar Hereditary Garrison Troops and Households 塔塔里軍民萬戶府 I Darγa of Gushi ct. 固始縣達魯花赤 J [Formerly student in Direct. of Educ.] Superintendant Jinxiang ct., Jinan circuit 濟南路金鄉縣務司提領 K Director of Salt Commission, Changlu ct. 長蘆鹽司司令 L Centurion with Commission for Hereditary Garrison Troops and Households 軍民萬戶府百戶

134 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

TangȖutai A Jiujie ାՌፕ ԰ࡦ

ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ Lüma B ʳ née Li ּޕ ᔸ್ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ

ʳ ʳ ʳ ʳ

Spouses (a-l) of Daughters : His name, title if known + (ethnonym) The only daughter in this chart whose name was recorded is Saizhen (far right side) a Duolietuan 朵烈團 (Mongol) b Yanglü 陽律 (Hü’ü›in) c Chang’an, Darγa of Battalion of Royal Guard 武衛親軍千戶所達魯花赤 d Baozhu 保住 (Qarlug) e Baobao, Judge in Left Wing Brigade in Shandong and Hebei 山東河北都萬戶府左手萬戶府鎮撫寶寶 f Guanzhu, Battalion Commander in Left Wing Mongolian Royal Guards 左翊蒙古侍衛親軍千戶關住 g Lülü, Confucian Exegete 儒士閭閭 h Baozhu 保住 (Qarlug) i Baotong 保童 (Qarlug) j Naiman 乃滿 k Tiantian, Vice-Attendant Lanyang ct. 藍陽縣務司副使添添 (Hü’ü›in) l Zhongxian of Yanshan, student in Direct. of Educ. 國子生燕山忠顯

135 tomoyasu iiyama

Table of Non-Han Military Families Serving in Garrison Troops

affil. tribe / apical ancest. id ancestor locale home source

1 Tusun 禿孫 ? Kipchak Y S 133: 3238f Temürge 2 Taiyuan Tatar 135: 3276f 忒木勒哥 Y S Qaisu 3 ? Nayiman 135: 3288 海速 Y S

Y S 137: 3309-12; Cheng Jufu 程鉅夫, “Dayuan hedong jungong budugong shendao beiming” 大元 Budouna Jiezhou 4 Balkh 河東郡公布都公神道碑銘,” 18; idem, “Hedong 布都納解州 XL J jungong budougong furen lishi mubei 河東郡公布都公夫人李氏墓碑,” XL J 20.

Y S 135: 3275f; Li Gu 李轂, “Zhedong daoxuan Liang ct., weishi douyuanshuai hujun linrujun gong shendao Yelilibo Ruzhou 5 Qangli beiming” 浙東道宣慰使都元帥護軍臨汝郡公神道碑也里里伯梁縣汝州銘, in Li Fangwu 李彷梧, ed., Tongzhi baofeng xianzhi 同治寶豐縣志, 1837, j. 18.

Ikeuchi Isao 池内功, “Kanan ni okeru gendai hikan zokusho gunjin no kakei” 河南における元代非漢族諸族軍人の家系, idem, ed., Hiko kut± shiry± no Baheima Ruzhou s±g±teki bunseki ni yoru mongoru teikoku gench± no seiji 6 Qarlug 八黑馬汝州 keizai sisutemu no kisoteki kenkyˆ 碑刻等史料の総合的分析によるモンゴル帝国・元朝の政治・経済システムの基盤的研究 (research report in KAKENHI, 2002: 21). Wu Cheng 吳澄, “Guwuyi jiangjun linjiang Esenbuqa wanhufu shang qianhusuo daluhuachi yexianbuhua 7 ? Nayiman 也先不花 mubiao” 故武義將軍臨江萬戸府上千戸所達魯花赤也先不花墓表, Wu wenzhenggong ji 吳文正公集, j. 34.

Baima ct., Wu Cheng, “Gufeng yidafu Anding zhou Mage Huazhou 8 Mongol daluhuachi tuhuchimu biao” 故奉議大夫安定州達馬哥白馬滑州魯花赤禿忽赤墓表, Wu wenzhenggong ji, j. 35.

Dingtao Yao Sui 姚燧, “Baifuzhang zeng zhongdafu shang 定陶, Kü¢ün ct. qingche duwei cao nanjunhou kundou daigong 9 Caozhou ? 庫春曹州 shendao bei” 百夫長贈中大夫上輕車都尉曹南郡侯坤都岱公神道碑, Mu’anji 牧庵集, j. 17. Y S 133: 3233f; Cheng Jufu, “Xue Linguo 10 Ölßeibatu Gaoyou Kipchak wuxuangong shendao bei” 雪林國武宣公神道碑, 完者抜都高郵 XL J, j. 6.

136 a tangut family, ca. 1350 to present

Cheng Jufu, “Nanjianlu zongguanfu panguan °a∫an Junzhou 11 ? zhongdujun muzhiming” 南劍路總管府判官忠都君朝坤濬州墓誌銘, XL J 16. Jiyin ct., Y S 133: 3238; Cheng Jufu, “Guzhaoyong Aibo Caozhou dajiangjun qinchaqinjun douzhi huishi bayue 12 Baya’ut 愛伯済陰曹州 tegong mubei” 故昭勇大將軍欽察親軍都指揮使巴約特公墓碑, XL J 17.

Särgis Yichuan Cheng Jufu, “Gu paoshoujun zongguan keliejun 13 Kereid 昔里吉思 ct. 伊川 beiming” 故礮手軍總管克烈君碑銘, XL J 22.

Deng Wenyuan 鄧文原, “Gu rongludafu pingzhang zhengshi gong guo wuhuigong shendao Jiacheng beiming” 故榮祿大夫平章政事鞏國武惠公神道 ct. 郟城, 碑銘, Baxiwenji 巴西文集; Wei Su 危素, “Yunnan Bahe 14 Ruzhou Qanqli zhuluxing zhongshusheng youcheng zengronglu 八合汝州 dafu pingzhang zhengshizhuifeng gongguogong yiwuhuihelu gong jiazhuan” 雲南諸路行中書省右丞贈榮祿大夫平章政事追封鞏國公謚武惠合魯公家傳, Wei taipuwen xuji 危太樸文續集, j. 8.

Liu Yueshen 劉岳申, “Dayuan xuanwu jiangjun Zhinaidan Yanggu Ruodalitai shaozhoulu daluhuachi aibugecha’ergong shendao 15 至廼丹 ct. 陽穀若達哩台 bei” 大元宣武將軍韶州路達魯花赤愛不哥察兒公神道碑, Shenzhaiji 申齋集, j. 8.

Yuan Jue 袁桷, “Zishandafu ziguo yuanshi zeng Qing- zizheng dafu zhejiang deng chuxing zhongshusheng feng ct., zuocheng shanghujun shunyi gong yizhenhuiyulü Alu 16 Daming Uyghur boligong shendao beiming bing xu” 資善大夫阿魯清豐大名資國院使贈資政大夫江浙等處行中書省左丞上護軍順義郡公謚貞惠玉呂伯里公神道碑銘并序, Qingrongjushiji 清容居士集, j. 26.

Cheng Duanli 程端禮, “Guzhongfeng dafu zhedong daoxuan weidouyuanshuai jianchanxianyi shang °igür Yanshan 17 Dörben wanhufu elezhetugong xingzhuang” 故中奉大夫淛東済古爾燕山道宣慰都元帥兼蘄県縣翼上萬戸府諤勒哲圖公行狀, Weizhaiji 畏齋集, j. 6. Yu Ji 虞集, “Pingjianglu daluhuachi huangtougong Lianchi Yancheng 18 Tangut mubei” 平江路達魯花赤黄頭公墓碑, Daoyuanleigao 璉赤 ct. 鄄城道園類稿, j. 44.

Su Tianjue 蘇天爵, “Yuan guzeng changgexianjun Qabatu Xuzhou 19 Qarlug zhangshi muzhiming” 元故贈長葛縣君張氏墓誌銘, 哈八禿許州 Zixiwen gao 滋溪文稿, j. 21.

Xu Youren 許有壬, “Zeng qian taichang liyiyuanshi Quzhou mokedugong shendao beiming” 贈僉太常禮儀 ct. 曲周, 院事驀克篤公神道碑銘, Zhizhengji 至正集, j. Qo›an Guang- 20 Mongol 56; Xu Youren, “Gutong yidafu jiangxi deng 忽珊 ping 廣平 chuquechadou zhuanyunshiwangong shendao beiming bing xu” 故通議大夫江西等處榷茶都轉運使萬公神道碑銘并序, Zhizhengji, j. 57.

137 tomoyasu iiyama

Jiaxian ct., Huang Jin 黃溍, “Mingwei jiangjun guanjun °ila∫un Nanyang shangqianhusuo daluhuachi sundu taigong 21 Surdos 赤老温郟縣南陽 muzhiming” 明威將軍管軍上千戸所達魯花赤遜都臺公墓誌銘, Huang wenxianji 黃文獻集, j. 9.

Huang Jin, “Da Lunaimanshi xianying bei 答祿乃 Shangwen Chenzhou 22 Nayiman 蠻氏先塋碑,” 金華黃先敞温陳州 Jinhua Huang xiansheng wenji 生文集, j. 28.

Wucheng, “Yuan gujunzhou daluhuachi zengzhongyi dafu hezhongfuzhifu shang qidouwei Qa›iba∫atur Liyang 23 Tangut zhuifengweijunbo mubei” 元故濬州達魯花赤贈中哈石覇都兒黎陽議大夫河中府知府上騎都尉追封魏郡伯墓碑, Wu wenzhenggongji, j. 33.

Y S 134: 3256f; Yang Weizhen 楊維楨, Qara¢ar 24 ? Baya’ut “Boyuanqing muming” 孛元卿墓銘, 哈剌察児 Dongweizi wenji 東維子文集, j. 24.

Hu Zuguang 胡祖廣, “Wulüejiangjun jininglu zongguanfu daluhuachi xianying shendao bei” 武 Hesi Changyi 25 Tangut 略將軍濟寧路總管府達魯花赤先塋神道碑, in Huang 赫思 ct. 昌邑 Weihan 黃維翰, ed., Daoguang juye xianzhi 道光鉅野縣志, 1846, j. 20.

Liu Mingdao 劉明道, “Tuotuomu’er xianying zhi £aqur Weizhou 26 ? ji” 脱脱木兒先塋之記,” in Wang Jinyue 王金岳, ed., 扎忽兒濰州 Minguo Changle xianzhi 民國昌樂縣志, 1934, j. 17. Xu You 徐佑, “Youdou weiwei guanjun baihu Nietula Beihai ct. tainaxianying zhi bei” 右都威衛管軍百戸太納先塋 27 Tatar 聶禿剌北海之碑, in Wang Jinyue, ed., Minguo changle xianzhi, j. 17.

Alunai Zhongmu 28 Nayiman Ikeuchi, ibid.: 41. 阿魯乃 ct. 中牟

Bayan Puyang ct. 29 Qarlug 190: 4349-51. 伯顔濮陽 Y S Köketei Shenqiu Beiting 30 Y S 141: 3384-93. 闊闊臺 ct. 沈丘北庭

Abbreviations Used in Table ct. county j . juan XL J and Y S ; see main List of Abbreviations

• All gazetteers (xianzhi 縣志) are in Zhongguo fangzhi congshu 中國方志叢書 (Taipei: Cheng- wen chubanshe youxian gongsi, 1976).

• Nearly all wenji 文集 /wengao 文稿, etc., can be found in SKQS edns. The two exceptions are: Jinhua Huang xiansheng wenji (see #22), which is in Xinwenfeng chuban gongsi bianjibu 新文豐出版公司編輯部, ed., Yuanren wenji zhenben congkan 元人文集珍本叢刊 (Taipei: Xin- wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1985); and Wei taipuwen xuji (see #14), which is a SBCK edn.

138