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Chinese Identity During the Age of Division, Sui, and Tang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

Charles Holcombe Open the ORCID record for Charles Holcombe [Opens in a new window]
Charles Holcombe*
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University of Northern Iowa
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*Corresponding author. Email: charles.holcombe@uni.edu
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Abstract

During the centuries after the fall of the Han dynasty, dozens of states rose and fell in geographic China, which was not only politically divided but also home to multiple separately named population groups, some of which were speakers of languages unrelated to Chinese. Yet, a single written language was used throughout the region, broadly common institutions were everywhere in place, and there was a widely shared collective historical memory. This memory included an assumed single line of legitimate sovereigns stretching back to the Sage Kings of legendary antiquity. Differently named population groups could adopt that written language, institutions, and historical memory, and their rulers could potentially even join that line of legitimate sovereigns. It was therefore relatively easy for the Sui and Tang dynasties, having militarily unified the geographic space of the old Han empire, to successfully depict themselves as heirs to a unitary China rooted in ancient memory.

Keywords

Chinese identityHan peopleHuaxiaIdentity formationNorthern and Southern dynasties

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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊 , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 31 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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118 Xin Tang shu, 99.3911–3912.

119 Xin Tang shu, 43b.1135.

120 Jiu Tang shu, 61.2361, 194a.5162–5163. The somewhat later Xin Tang shu (215a.6037) says that they would be transformed into “ordinary people” 齊人, and does not use the word “Han,” perhaps reflecting the allegedly more pronounced ethno-national Han Chinese sensitivities of its eleventh-century Song dynasty compilers.

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126 The Jin shu (presented in 646), Liang shu (636), Chen shu (636), Bei Qi shu (636), Zhou shu (636), Sui shu (636), Bei shi (659), and Nan shi (659).

127 In an influential critique, for example, Michael C. Rogers demonstrated how early Tang historians may have used the story of a disastrous invasion in 383 to discourage contemporary Tang aggression against Koguryŏ; see “The Myth of the Battle of the Fei River (A.D. 383),” T'oung Pao 54.1–3 (1968), 50–72. Rogers also emphasized that this Tang compilation was based on older texts, which may in turn have been shaped by their own agendas.

128 Wechsler, Howard J., Mirror to the Son of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of T'ang T'ai-tsung (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 31Google Scholar.

129 Chen, “Writing of Imperial Poetry,” 89–98. On early Tang preference for the ancient Sage Kings over the Han dynasty founders, see Yifang, Liao 廖宜方, Tangdai de lishi jiyi 唐代的歷史記憶 (Taibei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chuban zhongxin, 2011), 70–73Google Scholar.

130 Zhenguan zhengyao 貞觀政要, comp. by Wu Jing 吳兢 (729; Taibei: Hongye shuju, 1990), 6.301 (section 21).

131 Wechsler, Howard J., Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimization of the T'ang Dynasty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 136–41Google Scholar.

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133 Yu, Han, “Song Futu Wenchang shi xu” 宋浮屠文暢師序 (803 CE), in Han Changli quanji 韓昌黎全集 (Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1991), 20.286Google Scholar.

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136 Gu Tang lü shuyi shiwen 故唐律疏議釋文 (ca. 1300), appended to Tang lü shuyi 唐律疏議, comp. by Zhangsun Wuji 長孫無忌 (653; Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1990), 3.393.