The lineage of the Tang imperial house and its problems

Source: From Barbarians to the Middle Kingdom: The Rise of the Title "Emperor, Heavenly Qaghan" and Its Significance. By Han-je Park (pdf)

By the time of the Sui-Tang era, a person’s culture played a more important role than his race. The ethnic origin of the Yang (楊) clan of the Sui and the Li clan of the Tang did not have much to do with their policies. They might well have descended from prominent Han families, but it is certain that these clans, a few generations back from the dynastic founders, had lived in the Wuchuan garrison, north of Yinshan (陰山) mountain for quite a long period of time. This historical fact seems to have given rise to the suspicion that the Sui and Tang imperial houses were of barbarian origin. 

The suspicion about the origin of the Li clan had existed from the very beginning of the dynasty, because they had once had the hu surname Daye (大野). The Buddhist monk Falin (法琳) declared before Taizong that the Tang imperial house originated from Xianbei Tuoba Dadu (達闍 i.e., Li in Chinese) which was a noble scion of Yinshan, i.e., a barbarian lineage. Although Taizong reprimanded Falin, during the war of unification an enemy, Dan Xiongxin (單雄信), called Taizong’s brother Yuanji (元吉) a hu child, and a Tang minister Sun Fuqie (孫伏伽) let slip that when Gaozu Li Yuan was a child his friends were all queue-haired because the royal family was deeply imbued with hu custom.

The in-laws of the royal family were completely of the hu line. Li Yuan’s mother was a daughter of Dugu Xin (獨孤信), the Grand Marshal of the Northern Zhou, and a sister of Empress Dugu of Emperor Wen of the Sui, making Li Yuan nephew-in-law to Yang Jian (楊堅) and maternal cousin of Emperor Yang (煬帝). Li Yuan married the daughter of Dou Yi (竇毅), who was of the Xianbei line and a prefectural commander of the Sui. The mother of Empress Dou was the elder sister of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou, Senior Princess Xiangyang (襄陽長公主).

The lifestyles of Taizong and his crown prince Chengqian (承乾) were not much different from those of the hu people. During the incident of Xuanwu Gate (玄武門), Taizong killed his younger brother Yuanji and made Princess Yang, Yuanji’s wife, his own; Zhu Xi’s remark on this behavior is well known. Chengqian followed hu custom as well. He stole and slaughtered cattle and horses, and acted like a Turk qaghan, eating with his guards, wearing Turkic clothes, and speaking Turkic. 

During Zhenguan period when the Tang royal ancestral temple was being set up, the ministers were discussing who should be the progenitor, and Yu Zhining (于志寧) objected to the suggestion that it be Li Gao (李暠). If Li Gao was their true ancestor, why would the early Tang emperors not want the family of Li Bao of Longxi (隴西), who were descendants of Li Gao, included in the imperial clan lineage? And why did Gaozong further lower the family rank of Li Bao? Thus it has been argued that the ancestors of the Tang imperial house must have been a degraded household of the Lis of Zhaojun (趙郡), or had just borrowed the surname of Li of Zhaojun [Li of Zhaojun - one of the Four Great families of Shandong, very influential in the beginning of the Tang era]. Given the fact that Gaozong suppressed Li Bao and did not honor the lineage of Zhaojun Lis, it is most likely that the actual pedigree of the Tang imperial house was quite different from what it claimed to be and that it was ethnically non-Han Chinese.

The Tang was ruled by the Han people in name, but in reality was a multi-racial regime, so the Sui-Tang dynasty was still seen as a Xianbei state by the nomads of Eurasia or the people from the western regions, and Tang was called Taugas, Tamhaj, or Tabgaĉ which stood for Tuoba. The dynasties from the Dai (代) through Northern Wei and on to the Tang are separate according to the Chinese-style names for dynasties, but in fact form a continuous Tuoba state. Considering the continuity and commonality between these dynasties, placing them under the single heading of the Tuoba state seems appropriate. In this aspect, westerners from the fifth to the ninth century who called China Taugas, Tamhaj, or Tabgaĉ, were closer to the truth. Taizong’s acquisition of the title “Heavenly Qaghan” after the destruction of the Eastern Turks, Gaozong’s being addressed thus by nomadic rulers, and the fact that the majority of the early Sui-Tang imperial clan and high officials came from the military leaders of northern tribesmen, all provide further support to the Tuoba state argument.

Fabricating history and the rise of the zhonghua sovereign

The imperial houses of Sui and Tang saw themselves as traditional Han Chinese, although they were genetically descendants of nomadic tribesmen such as the Xianbei and others. But no matter how they identified themselves and their dynasties, few saw them and their dynasties as purely Han Chinese. It is clear now that the Li house of the Tang did not descend from a renowned clan, even if they had been Han Chinese. 

Why then did the Tang imperial house want to fabricate a lineage to appear as if it had been one of the renowned Han aristocratic clans? Throughout Chinese history, a certain degree of sinicization has been necessary for anyone or anything alien to come to China and earn a place there. This was the case for Buddhism as well as Nestorian Christianity, but this did not mean they ceased to be Buddhism or Christianity. In addition to the issue of sinicization, the Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties era was an age of pedigree. 

Chen Yinke (陳寅恪) has raised questions about Taizong’s re-publication of the History of the Jin and his ordering the writing of The Record of Clans and Lineages in the Zhenguan Reign Period (Zhenguan shizu zhi 貞觀氏族志), suggesting that the motive behind the omission, among the Sixteen Kingdoms, of Former Liang (前涼) and Western Liang (西涼) from the History of the Jin was the same as that behind The Record of Clans and Lineages in the Zhenguan Reign Period: namely to exalt the Li clan of the Tang and prove that they had a long and glorious pedigree. Many dynastic histories were written during Taizong’s reign; these were generally dynastic histories from after the era of the Three Kingdoms or from the History of the Jin, now re-written to conform to Tang legitimacy. The Tang imperial house strove to dispel the doubt that they originated from the Xianbei Tuoba tribe, and influenced the planning and compilation of dynastic histories, sometimes even down to the wording of the contents. 

First, let us look at the chronological records (zaiji 載記) of the History of the Jin. There are thirty chapters of chronological records in the book. The name originated from The Eastern Watch Records of the Han (Dongguan Hanji 東觀漢記), written by Ban Gu (班固) under order of Emperor Ming, and the number of thirty chapters seems to have been taken from the thirty chapters of biographies of feudal lords and eminent people (shijia 世家) in The Records of the Grand Historian. While the shijia is a record for each feudatory, the zaiji is a chronicle for the independent political entities in China which were not enfeoffed by the Chinese emperor. By including the Sixteen Kingdoms with the zaiji, Taizong set them in a different category and treated them as extraneous to the legitimate Jin dynasty, clearly taking the Han Chinese attitude of degrading alien regimes. 

The source for Taizong’s History of the Jin was The Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms by Cui Hong of the Northern Wei, and in this book one record was devoted to each state; notably, though, two states which were recorded in the Annals were omitted in the zaiji of the History of the Jin. They are Former Liang (301–76), which was established by a Han Chinese, Zhang Gui (張軌) of Anding (安定), and which occupied the Hexi corridor (河西回廊), and Western Liang (400–421) which was established by Li Gao of Longxi. The latter was the person later manipulated to become the ancestor of the Tang imperial house, and omitting him and his state was surely Taizong’s intention. 

Another example is the compilation of the History of the Southern Dynasties (南史) and the History of the Northern Dynasties (北史), which concealed two underlying intentions. The first was to tie the Southern Dynasties (南朝) and Northern Dynasties (北朝) into one term, the Southern and Northern Dynasties (南北朝). If Taizong had truly been in favor of the Han Chinese point of view, he could have given legitimacy to the Southern Dynasties; but he could not ignore his own racial origins in the Northern Dynasties, and thus merging the two was the better option. Second, by including the Sui dynasty, the unifier of China, among the Northern Dynasties, he wanted to minimize the credit they received for having accomplished that unification. 

Many histories were published in the early Tang. Taizong’s reign saw the compilation of the so-called History of the Five Dynasties, namely History of the Liang, History of the Chen, History of the Northern Qi, History of the Zhou, History of the Sui, and in 646 History of the Jin (these six historical works are known as the Six Histories). Then, during Gaozong’s reign, still under the shadow of Taizong, the History of the Southern Dynasties and the History of the Northern Dynasties were completed. Among the twenty-four histories that are considered official dynastic histories, eight—a third of the total—were published at this time. Taizong had opened up a new era in Chinese history publication by beginning the tradition of government-sponsored official history, and also by permitting the incumbent emperor to inspect the records about himself, something that had previously been forbidden, and giving instructions on how to write about the incident of Xuanwu Gate.

Taizong’s manipulation of history was along the same lines as Gao Huan (高歡) of the Northern Qi, who distorted history and transformed his family into the renowned Bohai Gao clan; but it was successful. Tang monarchs managed to transform themselves from racially and culturally hu rulers into zhonghua emperors to such an extent that people of later times accept without doubt that the Tang was a legitimate Chinese dynasty.

Taizong’s satisfaction with the effectiveness of official histories is manifest in the edict ordering the re-publication of History of the Jin: “How great is the usefulness of historical books!”