China’s Northern Wei Dynasty, 386-535

The Struggle for Legitimacy

Puning Liu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000283228
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies

The Northern Wei was a dynasty which originated outside China and ruled northern China when the south of China was ruled by a series of dynasties which originated inside China.

Both during the time that the Northern Wei dynasty was in power and over many centuries subsequently, the legitimacy of the Northern Wei dynasty has been questioned. This book outlines the history of the Northern Wei dynasty, including its origins and the history of its southern rivals; considers the practices adopted by both the Northern Wei dynasty and its rivals to establish legitimacy; and examines the debates which preoccupied Chinese scholars subsequently.

The book casts light on traditional ideas about legitimate rule in China, ideas which have enduring relevance as tradition continues to be very significant in contemporary China.

1 History of the Northern Wei and the Southern dynasties

The period of the Northern Wei and Southern Dynasties was a dynamic time in Chinese history (Figure 1.1). As Lewis points out, it was characterized by five major historical themes: The extension of knowledge of China and the outside world, the emergence of the cultural and literary elite, the appearance of a military institution based on hereditary military households, the division between government and society, and the rise of Daoism and Buddhism.¹ The focus of this chapter, however, is on the political history of the Northern Wei and Southern Dynasties, which will serve as the historical background to the Northern Wei dynasty’s legitimacy dispute. It begins with a description of how the Tuoba people, the ruling ethnic group of the Northern Wei dynasty, gradually established their state in northern China. Next, their growth and their fall are described. The political history of contemporaneous dynasties in southern China is subsequently investigated.

Figure 1.1 Dynasties in the Period of Disunion.

1. The Tuoba Tribe and the Northern Wei

The founders of the Northern Wei dynasty were the Tuoba,² a northern clan of the larger Xianbei ethnic group 鮮卑族, which originated from the Xianbei Hill 鮮卑山.³ Although this group is not quite as famous as other non-Han Chinese ethnic people in China’s history, such as the Xiongnu, Mongolian, and Manchu, the Tuoba people built the first relatively successful non-Han Chinese dynasty in history, the Northern Wei, which gave birth to two great Chinese empires: The Sui and Tang dynasties. The first mention of the Tuoba people in Chinese dynastic records dates to the year 275, when the Western Jin dynasty noted that a small frontier nomad group named “Tuoba” had deferentially paid their tributes.⁴ Little over a century later, in 386, the Tuoba had managed to establish their own dynasty, the Northern Wei, and, another half a century later, in 439, they completely controlled northern China.⁵ They firmly ruled the north for nearly a century but failed to conquer southern China and finally split into two courts after a series of revolts in 534.⁶ How did the Tuoba tribe establish their rule in northern China and successfully exist for more than two centuries? This part will provide a general answer to that question.

1.1. Origin and early history of the Tuoba tribe

The Tuoba were a northern clan of the larger Xianbei ethnic group, which were the dominant people of the Eurasian steppe from the 1st to the 3rd century.⁷ There exist two views concerning the origin of the Tuoba. The Tuoba people themselves offer an account of their origin that can only be considered legendary. At the beginning of the Weishu, it is written that they are the direct descendants of the Yellow Emperor 黃帝, the legendary ancestor of the Chinese people.⁸ Although any genealogical link to the mythical heroes has to be legendary, the Tuoba’s purported origin in the Xianbei Hill, located in the northeast of China and the alleged birthplace of most Xianbei people, could be based in fact.⁹ On the other hand, some ancient historians describe the Tuoba tribe as a hybrid Xiongnu clan from the northwestern steppes. Xiao Zixian, for instance, says that Li Ling 李陵 (?–74 BCE), a great general of the Western Han dynasty, surrendered to the Xiongnu people after a tragic military failure. Thereafter, he settled down in the Xiongnu area and married a Xiongnu woman named “Tuoba.” People referred to their offspring as Tuoba people.¹⁰

At the end of the 20th century, scholars found tangible evidence concerning the origin of the Tuoba tribe. Mi Wenpin, a Tuoba specialist, led a search for this proof. In 1980, he led several archaeological expeditions to investigate an ancient cave, Gaxian 嘎仙洞, in the deep forest of the north Greater Khingan Range 大興安嶺.¹¹ According to the Weishu, the early Tuoba people left their original land and migrated south to a lakeside.¹² Mi, like many other scholars, suspect that this lake could refer to Hulun Lake 呼倫湖. If this kind of conjecture was true, the Gaxian cave has some relationship to the early Tuoba people since this cave is located only a few hundred miles from Hulun Lake.After several fruitless expeditions, Mi finally found his evidence. On the afternoon of July 29, 1980, the bright sunlight revealed a few vague carved Chinese characters under a moss-covered wall in the cave. With great excitement, scholars quickly removed these thick mosses and discerned 19 lines of caving sentences, written in an antiquated style (Figure 1.2).¹³ What did these sentences mean? When and why had they appeared in this wilderness?

Figure 1.2 Ceremonial Address in Gaxian Cave.

The book Weishu provides us some clues. It states that the early Tuoba people built an ancestral temple in a stone cave near the Xianbei Hill. And, in 443, it is recorded, the Wuluo hou 烏洛侯 people, a small tribe living in the Greater Khingan Range, paid tribute to the Northern Wei and reported that they had found this stone cave in their place. Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei 太武帝(r. 423–452) was quite pleased and sent his confidant, Li Chang 李敞 (mid-5th century), to visit the place. Li indeed went to the cave, verified the message, and conducted the ceremony of ancestral worshipful there. His ceremonial address is recorded in the Weishu.¹⁴

As time went by, few scholars noticed this small anecdote. But, during the 1980s expedition, scholars surprisingly found Li Chang’s address carved in Gaxian cave. Both records (in Gaxian cave and in the Weishu) are identical. This discovery, combined with other relevant archaeological findings, proves that the area surrounding the Gaxian cave is the earliest known habitat of the Tuoba people, and it suggests that they indeed originated from far northeast China.¹⁵

If the far northeast of China is indeed the birthplace of the Tuoba people, a power vacuum on the steppes could explain why they migrated almost 2,000 kilometers south and finally settled on the northern frontier of the Western Jin dynasty’s territory in the mid-3rd century (Map 1.1).¹⁶

Map 1.1 Migration of the Tuoba people

According to the historical records, the Xianbei people originally settled near the northern frontier of the Qin dynasty. They were defeated by the Xiongnu people, the first dominant ethnic group in the steppe, and moved to the Greater Khingan Range area in the 1st century BCE.¹⁷ One century later, increasing attacks by Eastern Han dynasty forces, combined with years of natural disasters, forced the Xiongnu empire to flee to what is now Inner Asia, leaving a power vacuum on the steppe. The Xianbei people seized this opportunity and occupied the former Xiongnu lands.¹⁸ According to the Weishu, Tuoba Tuiyin 拓跋推寅, the chieftain of the Tuoba people, led the migration towards the south, and they settled around Lake Hulun.¹⁹

Two centuries later, another power vacuum on the steppes triggered the second migration of the Tuoba. From the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, China had experienced endless revolts and consequently virtually exhausted its agrarian and military population. To increase its supply of farmers and soldiers, the Eastern Han and subsequent dynasties turned to the “barbarian” frontier groups, which had become compliant. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, large numbers of nomadic people migrated into China to serve as serfs or mercenaries.²⁰ A power vacuum emerged again in the border area, and the Tuoba, along with other steppe peoples, were attracted to move...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 History of the Northern Wei and the Southern dynasties
• 2 Establishing legitimacy: the Northern Wei’s practices
• 3 Preserving legitimacy: the Southern Dynasties’ practices
• 4 Tang scholars’ views on the Northern Wei’s legitimacy
• 5 Song scholars’ views on the Northern Wei’s legitimacy
• 6 Ming and Qing scholars’ views on the Northern Wei’s legitimacy
• 7 Traditional Chinese views of legitimacy and its evolution
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index