Bridles, Halters, and Hybrids: A Case Study in T’ang Frontier Policy

Tang Studies 6 (1988) Bridles, Halters, and Hybrids: A Case Study in T'ang Frontier Policy HUGH R. CIARK URSINUS COLLEGE In the following essay I shall examine the procedures by which the T'ang dynasty established Chang-chou t!t 1H prefecture (Fukien Province) in the late seventh century. As I shall explain, these procedures were unusual if not unique, thereby raising the question of why they occurred and what they might suggest about the view of the T'ang court and bureaucracy toward the remote south. As is well known, southern China was incorporated into the empire through a gradual process of expansion from the original cultural and political core of the Yellow River valley. Through the first millennium A.D., this expansion was generally led by Chinese settlers who moved ahead of state administrative structures . Once a nucleus of Chinese population had formed beyond the reach of the state, the establishment of new administrative units-hsien lJandchiln" -staffed by members of the standing bureaucracy would follow. In this way new territory was folded into the ever-spreading empire.! Of course, as the Chinese people pushed their way into the south they inevitably came into contact with non-Chinese cultural groups and peoples. Most often these non-Chinese were simply overwhelmed by the energy and weight of the expanding Chinese and were absorbed with nary a trace into the standard administra1 The locus classicus in Western languages is perhaps Owen Lattimore, Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers, 1928-1958 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1%2). Of particular interest to this discussion is Edward H. Schafer, The Vennilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1%7). I have used translations from this work extensively in the text; see the citations below. Also worthy of mention is Harold J. Wiens, Han Expansion in South China (New Haven: Shoe String Press, 1967). There is an extensive literature in Chinese, but probably the most immediately relevant is Tseng Hua-man ~. mi, T'ang-tai Ling-nan fa-chan te ho-hsin hsing m f~ ."iW ¥ 1& tE t1{'L' ft (Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, 1973). 49 Clark: Tang Frontier Policy tive structures. But on the furthest fringes of the expanding ecumene, where the level of Chinese settlement was slight and the indigenous cultures persisted largely unchanged, a policy known as "bridle and halter" (chi-mi .~) administration was followed. Rather than attempt to establish the standard administrative structures of the state, in "bridle and halter" prefectures the indigenous, non-Chinese chieftains were simply granted an administrative title, usually that of prefect (tz'u-shih ~j ~), which they could pass on hereditarily or by whatever process the local culture had traditionally selected its leadership, subject to nominal confirmation by the court. Such prefectures did not owe the central government any taxes, nor were they required to keep the standard population registers on which taxes were based; their only requirement was to obey the dictates of the emperor and the local military officials under whose jurisdiction they fell.2 In Chang-chou the state combined elements of both procedures - the establishment of standard administrative structures filled by ethnic Chinese together with aspects of the "bridle and halter" administration - thus creating a hybrid structure that was, as far as I can tell, unique in T'ang administrative history. Changchou lies at the southern extreme of modern Fukien; from the late seventh to mid-eighth centuries, when most of the following events occurred, it was included in the administrative area of Ling-nan circuit, the southernmost of the T'ang administrative units, embracing generally the areas of modern Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces. Although the prefecture was ultimately to evolve around the drainage system of the north and south forks of the Chiu-Iung River, during the decades in question it was 2 On "bridle and halter" administration, see Hsin Tang shu (Peking: Chung-hua, 1975) 43B.1119. See also the discussions in K'ang Le •• , Tang-tai ch'ien-ch'i te pienfang 1M {~lltr JtJ:I~ illW (Taipei: National Taiwan Univ. Press, 1979), 47-49, and Kawahara Masahiro foJ ~ 1£ 1f, "Banshu no naishi ni tsuite: SOdai nan-Ban...