Great Xia, the Tangut empire

Who rules

Name

Weiming Chunyou (Chinese Li Chunyou), temple name Huanzong

Title

Huangdi (emperor) of Great Xia; the Jin court styles him King of Xia (Xia guowang) and receives his tribute envoys

Since

16 October 1193 (Julian), on the death of his father Renzong, at sixteen (seventeen by East Asian count)

Born

1177

Family

Weiming (Li) imperial clan; son of Renzong (Weiming Renxiao, reigned 1139 to 1193) and of the Empress Luo

Confidence

high

Name, parentage, accession and burial from English and Chinese Wikipedia (Huanzong, Renzong, Western Xia mausoleums). Li is the Tang and Song-granted surname, Weiming the Tangut clan name.

Overlord

None inside his own state. Since 1124 a vassal of the Jin emperor (Zhangzong, reigning since 20 January 1189), who invests him as King of Xia; the tie is tribute, envoys and licensed markets, not garrisons or taxes.

What the realm holds

• Xingqing fu (Yinchuan) and the satellite prefectures of the canal plain, with the Helan foothills and the imperial tombs
• Lingzhou (Lingwu), the Yellow River crossings and the road west by Zhongwei (Yingli) and Mingsha
• Weizhou (Tongxin), Haiyuan (Xishou) and the Liupan foothills facing the Jin
• The Ordos on the Xia side: Yanzhou, Youzhou, Xiazhou (the White City), Shizhou and Yinzhou on the north slope of the Hengshan, with the salt lakes
• The Helan mountains, Wuhai and the Hetao as far as Wuyuan under the Black Mountain command
• The Alxa desert and the Etsina delta with Khara-Khoto (Heishui)
• The Hexi: Liangzhou (Xiliang fu), Ganzhou, Suzhou, Guazhou and Shazhou (Dunhuang), with the Mogao and Yulin caves
• Four prefectures beyond the Yellow River in Qinghai (Xining, Leizhou, Kuozhou, Jishi): ground of the Tibet sheet, anchored here

How it was acquired

A Tang grant of 881 gave the Tangut chief Li Sigong the prefectures of Xia, Sui and Yin. Li Jiqian rebelled against the Song from 982, took Lingzhou in 1002 and made it his capital; his grandson Yuanhao took Ganzhou (1028), Guazhou (1030), Xiliang fu (1032) and Shazhou (1036), had the Tangut script devised (1036) and proclaimed the empire in 1038 with Xingqing as capital. The state became a Jin vassal in 1124. It won and lost ground on the Hengshan and the Hetao in the 1120s: Chinese Wikipedia says the Jin took back Tiande and Yunnei in 1126 and broke a promise to return the Hengshan.

The Qinghai prefectures came in 1136 (English Wikipedia's Tsongkha article says the Jin ceded the region to Xia that year; its Timeline of the Tanguts says Xia conquered it). By Renzong's time Chinese Wikipedia counts about 22 prefectures: nine on the Ordos side, nine in the Hexi and four 'beyond the river'.

Allies and rivals

Jin: overlord, customer and neighbour along the Hengshan, the Liupan and the Yellow River above Lanzhou; peace since 1124, markets reopened (see wealth). Song: no common border since 1127; the last Song-Xia war ended in 1119. The Uyghurs of Qocho, Hami and the Hexi, the Tibetan tribes of the Qilian and Qinghai, and the Qara Khitai far to the west are trading and tribute neighbours, not allies. North of the Gobi the Ongud, Kereyit, Tatars, Naiman and Mongols are fighting for the steppe; Xia has trade there and gives refuge to beaten Kereyit lords.

Inside the state the live rivalries are at court: the dowager Luo, the Weiming princes (the Prince of Yue and his son Anquan) and the officials.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 Great Xia is a stable, peaceful, rather complacent empire in the seventh year of Huanzong (Tianqing 6, last month). The emperor is about twenty-two; his mother the dowager Luo, an empress of Renzong, is alive and active, and in 1206 she will help Li Anquan depose him. Who holds the chancellorship, the military bureau and the twelve military districts is not recorded in any source we could read: the names that survive are Wo Daochong (chief minister after the 1170 purge, a Tangut scholar, dead before 1200), Cao Daole (a professor of the Tangut Great Academy who wrote the Dexing ji for Huanzong's accession), the State Preceptor Tangchang (1189) and the Tibetan lama Tishri Repa, who came to the Tangut court in 1196 and stayed about thirty years.

Territory: Xia holds the Ningxia plain, the south and west of the Ordos, the Hetao to Wuyuan, the Alxa, the whole Hexi to Dunhuang and four prefectures in Qinghai. The Jin hold Suide and the south and east of the Hengshan, Huanzhou, Zhenrong (Guyuan), Huizhou (Jingyuan), Lanzhou and the Hetao's east end (Dongsheng, Fengzhou), as the OMNIA board has it. Relations: peace and tribute with the Jin; the licensed markets at Baoan jun, Lanzhou and Suide are open again (closed in 1172; one reopened in 1181, the rest in 1197 by the English Wikipedia account; Chinese Wikipedia says trade resumed about ten years after 1172).

No war, truce or feud involving Xia is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200; no raiding belt is shown. Across the borders: Hami and Qocho to the west are Uyghur (tau sheet); the Lop road and Charklik are the Tarim oases (tab sheet); Qinghai's tribes and the Kunlun are the Tibet sheet's; the Ongud hold the Yin Shan north of the Hetao and the Kereyit and Naiman range the steppes beyond. The Kereyit prince Jakha Gambu is said (Mongolia sheet) to have fled to the Tangut about 1171; no source we read puts him on Xia ground in 1200.

Wealth

The road and the herds. Tolls, escort and caravan halts on the Hexi corridor between the Jin markets and the Uyghur lands; the licensed Jin markets at Baoan jun, Lanzhou and Suide (the Jin closed them in 1172, accusing the Tanguts of selling worthless gems and jades for silk, and reopened them between 1181 and 1197); green salt from the Wuchi and Baichi lakes of Yanzhou, a staple the Song banned and the Jin market takes; Dangxiang horses, camels and sheep from the Qilian foot, the Alxa and the Ordos; the irrigated fields of the capital plain (the old Han and Tang canals); the printing and temple economy of the capital; the mint, the Tongji jian, founded in 1158 (Chinese Wikipedia), whose coin of this reign is the Tianqing baoqian. No revenue figures survive in our sources.

Military

Twelve supervisory military districts (jian jun si), six on the left wing and six on the right, set up under Jingzong for administration and frontier defence; each has a seat, a garrison and the registered households of its area. The unit of call-up is the chao, a team of three (a main fighter, an auxiliary and a baggage man). The heavy cavalry is the iron hawks (tie yaozi); the mountain infantry are the bubazi; there are stone-throwing teams and raiding bands that take captives.

This is the organisation of the dynasty as a whole (Chinese Wikipedia, English Wikipedia). By 1200 the sources say the army was in decline: Renzong distrusted his generals after the 1170 plot (English Wikipedia) and Huanzong's reign is described as complacent. Chinese and Song-derived totals for the whole levy run to hundreds of thousands; we do not repeat them. Frontier works against the Jin were built from 1170 (English Wikipedia).

The Right Chaoshun command holds the Keyi Gate through the Helan, the only pass to the capital plain from the north (named in the Mongol accounts of 1209).

Threats

• A house divided: the dowager Luo and the Weiming princes (the Prince of Yue's line, Anquan) are the fault line that breaks open in 1206; in 1200 it is closed.
• A weak army: after the 1170 plot Renzong trusted the generals little and the army, the sources say, fell into incompetence.
• The steppe is in flux: the Kereyit, Tatars, Naiman and Mongols are fighting out the order of the north from 1196 to 1203, and Xia will be drawn in.
• Jin goodwill: the markets are Jin licences and can be shut again as in 1172.
• Inside the empire: the Tibetan tribes of the Qilian and Qinghai, the Hexi Uyghurs and the Han farmers are ruled lightly; no revolt is recorded for 1199-1200.

Calendar

1 January 1200 (Julian) falls about the 13th or 14th day of the twelfth month of Tianqing 6 (also Song Qingyuan 5, Jin Cheng'an 4). We computed the new moons with Meeus's formulas for China time (UTC+8): new moon on the evening of 19 December 1199, so the twelfth month opens about 19 December, and the first month of Tianqing 7 opens about 18 January 1200 (Julian), with the winter solstice on about 15 December 1199, the Great Cold about 14 January and Rain Water about 12 February. The Song (Tongtian calendar from 1199) and Jin (Daming calendar) may differ from this by a day.

How Xia reckoned its own months is not stated in the sources we read, so a difference of a month cannot be excluded. 1200 is gengshen in the sexagenary cycle.

Court

Emperor Huanzong, about 22. His mother, the dowager Luo (empress Zhangxian Qinci as styled after death). Renzong's brother the Prince of Yue, Li Renyou, and his son Li Anquan, the emperor's cousin (born 1170). An earlier empress of Renzong was of the Wang clan (d. 1167 or 1168). Huanzong's own wife and children are not recorded in any source we could read. Chief ministers and the heads of the secretariat (zhongshu) and military bureau (shumi) are not named for 1200.

Known scholars and clergy: Cao Daole (Great Academy), Tangchang (State Preceptor, 1189), Tishri Repa (Tibetan lama at court from 1196). Offices: the secretariat, military bureau, finance office (sansi), censorate and palace guard stand at the head, with the Hanlin Academy (founded 1161 or 1163) and two Great Academies, Chinese (Han) and Tangut (Fan), for the schools.

Laws and script

The Tangut script was devised in 1036 (credited to Yeli Renrong). The law code of the Tiansheng era (1149 to 1169), the Revised and Newly Endorsed Law Code, runs to twenty books. Renzong ordered schools in every prefecture in 1144, opened a Chinese school in 1145, held examinations from 1147 and set up an Inner Academy in 1148. Tangut books printed in the last decade of Renzong include the Forest of Categories (1181), the Sea of Meanings (1182), the Newly Assembled Precious Dual Maxims (1187) and the Twenty-Five Answers on Buddhist Principles (1189) by State Preceptor Tangchang (List of Tangut books, English Wikipedia).

Religion

Buddhism is the state religion, a blend of Chinese Mahayana (Huayan and Chan) and Tibetan tantric teaching; the emperor presents himself as a Buddhist king. In 1189, on the fiftieth year of Renzong's reign, 100,000 copies of a Maitreya sutra were printed in Chinese and Tangut (English Wikipedia). Imperial preceptors (dishi) are Tibetan lamas from the 1170s. Confucian temples and schools exist in every prefecture. Native shamans (the 'Root West' priests) persist among the herders; Daoists, Nestorians and Muslims are present in small numbers, thinly attested.

Coinage

Iron and copper cash cast by the Tongji jian (founded 1158); coin types of the dynasty include Fusheng, Da'an, Zhenguan, Qianyou and Tianqing baoqian (Chinese Wikipedia). Jin and Song cash also circulate on the markets.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. about 18 January 1200 (Julian)New Year: Tianqing 7 begins (Song Qingyuan 6, Jin Cheng'an 5). Xia sends its customary New Year and birthday envoys to the Jin court at Zhongdu.Depends on: Our computation of the lunar year; Xia kept its own calendar and may differ by a day or a month. The envoy custom is the general pattern of Jin-Xia relations, not a dated entry for this year. Stopped by: A death at either court, or a closing of the road.
2. autumn 1203 (after 1200)The Kereyit prince Nilqa Senggum flees through Xia after his father's fall and is driven out when his followers plunder the locals; Temujin later uses Xia's refusal as a pretext.Depends on: Toghrul's defeat by Temujin in 1203. Stopped by: A different outcome of the Kereyit war.
3. spring 1205 (after 1200)First Mongol raid on Xia, in the Etsina country and the frontier forts; the capital is renamed Zhongxing in the same year.Depends on: Temujin's war with the Naiman and the Kereyit ending; the Jin staying out. Stopped by: Mongol attention held elsewhere.
4. 1 March 1206 (after 1200)Li Anquan, with the dowager Luo, deposes Huanzong, who dies soon after; Anquan reigns as Xiangzong.Depends on: Huanzong refusing Anquan his father's princely title and the dowager's support for the cousin. Stopped by: A reconciliation at court, or a strong chancellor.

Places of note

• Xingqing fu: The capital: palace, ministries, the Western (Chengtian) and Northern (Haibao) pagodas, the printing houses.
• The imperial tombs: Nine imperial mausolea under the Helan, about 40 km west of the capital; Renzong lies in No. 7 (Shouling), Huanzong will lie in No. 8 (Zhuangling).

Where the sources disagree

• Board (zhongxing-yinchuan): says the city is Xingqing on this morning and Zhongxing belongs to 1205: agreed (English and Chinese Wikipedia).
• The campaign board entry powers text: 'the Kokonor edge is a Tangut gift from the Jin of 1136'. English Wikipedia's Tsongkha article agrees (Jin ceded it); the Timeline of the Tanguts says Xia conquered it in 1136. Not pinned.
• The campaign board entry regions text speaks of four licensed Jin-Xia markets. Our sources name three (Baoan jun, Lanzhou, Suide); the fourth is not identified (the campaign board puts Dongsheng among its places).
• Era numbering: English Wikipedia dates Tianqing to 1194-1206, so 1200 is Tianqing 7; Chinese Wikipedia says the era was adopted at accession (1193), which would make 1200 Tianqing 8. We use 1194 as year 1.
• The Timeline of the Tanguts writes Huanzong's name Li Chunyu; the usual form is Chunyou.
• Common accounts give Xia a peak population of about three million and an area of 800,000 sq km (Chinese Wikipedia infobox) and levies of over five hundred thousand: we do not use them.

Evidence: The shape of the state (offices, districts, army, religion, law) is well documented for the dynasty as a whole. For the winter of 1199-1200 itself the sources are thin: no named chancellor, no named district commander, no dated event.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Rough. The Jin line in the Ordos and the Hetao is drawn from general accounts (the Hengshan crest, the lower Wuding, the Yellow River's east end), not from a boundary text. The Alxa and Gobi edges are claims of herding and escort, not of garrisons. The Qinghai prefectures are on the Tibet sheet's ground and appear here only as anchors.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
• Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
• Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
• History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online
• History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
• Record of the Great Jin State, Attributed to Yuwen Maozhao (宇文懋昭); the attribution is doubtful (preface dated 1234; probably assembled in the Southern Song from Song and Jin material, with later accretions). A Song-side history of the Jin, with annals for each emperor and chapters on institutions, customs, the capitals and the Jurchen way of life. Read online
• The Blue Annals, Go Lotsawa Zhonnu Pal ('Gos lo tsa ba gZhon nu dpal) (1476 to 1478). The fullest Tibetan account of who mattered around 1200, written three centuries later from earlier biographies and lineage records, many now lost. Read online
• Miscellaneous Notes on Court and Country since the Jianyan Era, Li Xinchuan (李心傳) (first series 1202, second series 1216). A contemporary handbook of the Southern Song state, written in Sichuan by the historian Li Xinchuan and finished in its first part in 1202, two years after the start of 1200. Read online

1 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.