A Brief History of the Tujia — The Tujia in the Tang and Song Periods (II)
II. Tujia Economy in the Tang and Song Periods: During the Tang and Song periods, Tujia leaders maintained increasingly close ties with the central court. Especially after the Xizhou Alliance between Ma Xifan and Peng Shichou, a long period of relative stability emerged. Economic and cultural ties between the Tujia and Han peoples further strengthened, and the Tujia region's social economy gradually developed. However, its economy...
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
II. The Tujia Economy during the Tang and Song Periods
During the Tang and Song periods, Tujia leaders maintained increasingly close ties with the central dynasties. Especially after Ma Xifan and Peng Shichou concluded the Xizhou Covenant, a long period of relative stability appeared. Economic and cultural ties between the Tujia and Han peoples were further strengthened, and the social economy of Tujia areas gradually developed. However, its economic development was uneven: areas near Han regions developed relatively quickly, while remote mountainous areas where Tujia lived in concentrated communities developed more slowly, and production was relatively backward.
During the Tang and Song periods, the Tujia still lived mainly by agriculture while also engaging in fishing, hunting, and forestry and subsidiary production. Agricultural production was still at the extensive slash-and-burn stage. The natives of Chenzhou, where "the land borders mountains and streams, practiced slash-and-burn cultivation," and "all burned the mountains to cultivate, planting only millet and beans." This is consistent with the production scene described in the Tang poet Liu Yuxi's Zhuzhi ci: "with long knives and short bamboo hats they go to burn the fields." Every spring, they used long knives to cut down thorny thickets, set fire to the mountains, used plant ash as fertilizer, and then planted millet, beans, rice, and other crops, without using human or animal manure. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, Li Gu, who served as Tongpan of Shizhou, personally witnessed that "the prefecture lies among many officials and does not practice the benefit of oxen for plowing." These Tujia people also engaged in hunting and forestry in slack farming seasons, while Tujia people in river and stream areas such as the Kui Gorge raised cormorants to catch fish, living a life of "every household raising black ghosts, every meal eating yellow fish."
The state of agricultural development in Tujia areas can roughly be divided into three situations: mountainous land was barren and production relatively backward; the middle reaches of the Li River had "fertile soil and fine winds, with effort devoted to farming and mulberry," and agriculture was relatively developed; the Tujia in the Beijiang region around Shi, Qian, Fu, and other prefectures were called "cooked Yi," and their land was mostly cultivated land, with agricultural production somewhat more advanced than that of the Jimi prefectures and counties. With the development of agricultural production, crop yields gradually increased. In the fifth year of the Xianping era of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (1002), the Man of Shizhou requested to exchange millet for salt. After the court permitted it, "the Xi Man brought millet to fill the border stockades, and immediately the burden of supplying provisions for Shi, Wan, and other prefectures ceased"; "from then on the border had a three-year store of millet." On the one hand, this reflected that after the Song dynasty changed the salt prohibition, it satisfied the livelihood needs of the Tujia people, and "the various Man were moved and pleased"; on the other hand, the amount of millet exchanged was quite large, which also reflected that agricultural output had increased somewhat. Because of the development of agricultural production, in the eighth year of the Taiping Xingguo era of Emperor Taizong of Song (983), their leaders once expressed to the Song dynasty that they "wished to pay rent and taxes like the interior commanderies"; the court considered the area a "wild submission land" and did not permit it. By the fifth year of the Xining era of Emperor Shenzong of Song (1072), Peng Shiyan submitted to Song, and the oath-subordinate prefectures were all placed under Chenzhou's command, "paying rent and taxes like Han people," or "being treated as royal subjects like the interior." By the first year of the Chongning era of Emperor Huizong of Song (1102), "Qin Duguanma and others of Chenzhou each wished to offer land and submit tribute." However, by the Xuanhe era (1119-1125), the court again considered this change more loss than gain, since the tribute collected was not much, and restored the tribute system of the Jimi prefectures. It can be seen that although agricultural production in Tujia areas had developed at that time, crop yields were still extremely unstable.
Handicraft and subsidiary production were mostly self-collected, self-cultivated, or self-made. Among these, tea picking, wax extraction, brocade weaving, cinnabar and mercury refining, herb gathering, and lacquer tapping were relatively prominent, and many local specialty products were already listed as tribute items. Lingxi Jun of Xizhou, Badong Jun, Yiling Jun, and other places all produced tea buds; they processed tea with grain husks and made tea cakes. "In the Ba river and gorge mountains they twist grain husks," and "between Jing and Ba they pick leaves to make cakes; for old leaves the cakes are made with rice paste." "The natives are good at weaving Lai cloth"; during the Tang and Song periods they still maintained this subsidiary occupation, and this woven fabric was called "Xi cloth" or "Dong brocade" by the Han. Xizhou produced Xi cloth, Lizhou produced ramie cloth, Badong produced rough kudzu cloth, and Fuzhou produced "Liao cloth"; these hemp and silk fabrics were all very exquisite. They dyed fabrics with wax: "in the Xi caves... they take drum patterns as models with wax, carve blocks and print cloth, then put it into an indigo vat; this is called dotted wax mantle." They also used fire attack to obtain cinnabar and mercury, and "Chen and Jin cinnabar was the best." But these handicraft products were still mostly tribute items, and output was relatively low.
The economic structure corresponding to this level of social productive forces was a feudal lord economy. Mountain forests and fields all belonged to the large and small Tujia officials holding offices at various levels. Peng Shichou's ancestors already possessed the rich and broad "fields, lands, and local products" of Xizhou. After the Battle of Xizhou, Ma Xifan, King of Chu, recognized the Peng clan's rights and interests and granted them three hundred households as a fief, making them the Jingbian Dushizhu of the twenty oath-subordinate prefectures; the Peng clan thus became the greatest feudal lords in the Wuxi region. Their subordinate leaders at all levels—Duzhen, Tuan, Guixian, Dong, and others—were all large and small feudal lords occupying large amounts of mountain forest and land. The broad masses of Tujia people had no land and were serfs of the large and small lords. Serfs were firmly bound to the land, farmers for generations, not permitted to migrate, and without personal freedom. Feudal lords at all levels drove them at will: "in spring and summer they cultivate and plant; in autumn and winter they raid and plunder." Serfs were not only enslaved themselves; their family members also had to endure the lords' squeezing and labor service.
The feudal lords of the Jimi prefectures and counties were insatiably greedy and highly predatory. In order to expand their territories and economic interests, they often plundered land, property, and people from neighboring places. During the Tang and Song periods, the situation in which these lords seized households and people as slaves was still very serious. In the fourth year of the Yuanhe era of Emperor Xianzong of Tang (809), the customs of Qianzhong still "often seized good people and sold them as slaves." In the Northern Song, because of difficulties in salt supply, strong dissatisfaction arose among the Tujia people, and the feudal lords of Shi, Qian, Gao, and Xi prefectures took the opportunity to "attack prefectures and counties and seize men and women into the Xi caves," at least several dozen and at most several hundred. In the fifth year of the Xianping era of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (1002) alone, Ding Wei, Zhuanyunshi of Kuizhou Circuit, exchanged one bolt of silk for one captured person, and redeemed more than ten thousand people from Sichuan. It can be seen that the number of people seized was shocking. Feudal lords treated the seizure of population as a means of replenishing serfs and becoming rich.
In the first year of the Kaixi era of Emperor Ningzong of Southern Song (1205), the Jimi prefectures and commanderies of Shizhou were still "vast in land and sparse in people." The large and small feudal lords maintained a relatively stable subordinate relationship with the Song dynasty. As seizures of people decreased, they used many methods to entice Han farmers to move with their whole families into the Xi caves to reclaim land. They also stipulated that for farming households moving into the Xi caves, only the household head himself had to perform labor service for the lord, while his family members did not have to serve; the land reclaimed by Han farmers themselves and the houses they built could be bought and sold on their own, and Han households were allowed to migrate on their own; if the household head died, his wife and daughters could remarry or arrange their own marriages; tenant households could pay loans according to written contracts, and lords could not extort at will. These regulations caused private landownership to appear among the Han farmers who moved into the Jimi prefectures, providing conditions for the emergence of a landlord economy.
In mixed Tujia and Han areas such as Chen, Li, Gui, and Xia prefectures, during the Northern Song a military colony system of Tujia soldier garrison fields was implemented, so that Tujia soldiers participating in garrison fields both farmed and guarded, escaping the personal dependence relationship of feudal lords. In the first year of the Shaoxing era of Emperor Gaozong of Southern Song (1131), the Song court stipulated military colonies in Jingnan, Gui, Xia, and other places: "For all soldiers, establish forts and stockades according to strategic passes, both guard and farm; for farming, expenses must be provided, and after collection grain was again issued; according to the hoe-field law, the surplus all went to the officials"; "military colonies were managed by senior imperial commissioners," implementing the integration of soldiers and agriculture. The Tujia soldiers within these military colonies became soldiers of the Song dynasty.
In Chen, Li and other prefectures, the Song dynasty implemented the system of local militia crossbowmen (tuding gongnu). "The establishment of the local militia crossbowmen of the Jinghu Circuit's righteous army was because the various Man peoples repeatedly rebelled and submitted unpredictably, and had to be controlled by local people. Therefore they were selected from the household registers, exempted from corvée and rotated for garrison duty at forts and stockades, effectively replacing the royal armies in resisting insults without the expense of supplying provisions. Afterwards, Gui, Xia and other prefectures also set up rotating garrison stockades, some rotating by year, by season, or by month, each person being given rations, and those with merit being promoted." These local militia crossbowmen were "exempted from miscellaneous corvée and poll taxes," freeing them from personal dependence on feudal lords. After the Song court crossed south, during the Shaoxing period when local militia crossbowmen were re-established in Chen, Li and other prefectures, it was stipulated that "for each local soldier recruited, one hundred mu of official land shall be granted, which is also enough to cover a year's needs, allowing them to farm or tenant it as they please, and further exempting them entirely from rent and taxes." However, this official land granted "by count of mouths" to local militia crossbowmen in exchange for military service carried only the right of use, not ownership: "those who privately sell it are prohibited, those who privately exchange it are punished." Later the land prohibition loosened, and land could be bought, sold, transferred and exchanged, so some local militia crossbowmen became private owners holding land. Feudal lords living in marginal areas also took the opportunity to purchase land and expand their wealth. Xiang Sisheng, Peng Yongjian, Peng Yongzheng, Peng Yongquan and Peng Yongsheng in the Cili area of Li Prefecture, Tian Zuzhou and Tian Mingong of Youyang Prefecture, and Tan Ruyi of Shi Prefecture were all rich households with much land and grain.
In Chen, Li, Gui, Xia and other prefectures, besides military colonies, there were also civilian colonies that recruited people to open wasteland. "For all commoners, paddy fields pay one dou of rice in tax, dry fields pay five sheng each of beans and wheat in summer and autumn; after two full years without arrears, the land is granted as perpetual property." "One man is granted one hundred mu of land... In all land grants, five men form a jia, and additionally five mu of vegetable land are given for dwellings and garden plots... Civilian colonies are managed by the county magistrate." The land of such civilian colonies, after two years, as long as rent and taxes were not in arrears, could become the personal property of the farming household. From the records in the Yuanfeng Jiuyu Zhi concerning the numbers of host and guest households in Chen, Li, Gui, Xia and other prefectures, it can be inferred that the local people participating in civilian colonies possessed no small amount of land, and they gradually became individual peasants freed from the shackles of the feudal lord economy.
In the marginal areas of the Tujia, owing to the emergence of private land ownership and land transactions, land disputes and land annexation also occurred from time to time. In the seventh year of Qiandao of Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song (1171), the buying and selling of official land by local militia crossbowmen within Chen Prefecture was rather serious, and the Song court had no choice but to "strictly re-enforce the prohibition on frontier people selling land, and those prefects and magistrates who fail to uphold the law shall be dismissed." In the sixteenth year of Chunxi (1189), officials of Qian Prefecture in Kuizhou Circuit "accepted bribes from the Yi people, privately conspired with them," and "encroached upon soldiers' fields," and were consequently ordered by the Kuizhou Circuit military commissioner to stop. In Chen Prefecture there also occurred disputes in which "cooked households" (registered subjects) fled into the "raw frontier" (unsubmitted territory) and induced "raw households" to "encroach upon" cooked land. Not only was this so in Chen Prefecture and elsewhere, but most other places in Huguang where frontier Man peoples lived were similarly affected.
During the Tang and Song periods, the feudal lords among the Tujia maintained economic ties with the central dynasty through tribute. In the second year of Tianshou of Empress Wu of Tang (691), the local tribute of Lingxi Commandery in Xi Prefecture consisted mostly of cinnabar, rhinoceros horn, tea buds and the like. In the first year of Tianbao of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (742), the local tribute of Qingjiang, Jianshi and other places in Qinghua Commandery of Shi Prefecture included gold flakes, rhinoceros horn, coptis, wax and medicinal seeds. In Qianzhong Commandery of Qian Prefecture, the local tribute remained rhinoceros horn, bright cinnabar, wax and so on. By the Song dynasty, this tribute activity continued without interruption, and apart from occasional "suspension of tribute due to crime," it sometimes even expanded. In the fourth year of Qiande of Emperor Taizu of Song (966), Tian Siqian, prefect of Lower Xi Prefecture (parts of present-day Yongshun and Guzhang), presented bronze drums, tiger skins and musk navels to the Song. In the third year of Xianping of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (1000), Tian Yanyi, prefect of Gao Prefecture (present-day Xuan'en), sent his son to present local products and deliver weapons. In the fourth year of Xianping, Peng Wenqing, prefect of Upper Xi Prefecture (present-day Longshan), paid tribute of mercury, tiger skins and flowered cloth. In the third year of Jingde (1006), Xiang Tonghan of Gao Prefecture presented famous horses, cinnabar, silver ornaments and swords and spears as tribute. In the fifth year of Dazhong Xiangfu (1012), local chiefs such as Tian Shiqiong of Luopu and Mocuo caves (present-day Baojing, Xianfeng and other places) presented xi cloth to Emperor Zhenzong of Song.
During the Northern Song, the Tujia chiefs of the Beijiang, Qian, Fu and Shi areas paid tribute to the court once a year, with no limit on the number going to the capital, and the return gifts were relatively generous. "For those presenting local products, each person is granted three bolts of colored silk and twenty jin of salt; for those without local products, each person is granted three bolts of colored silk and half [the amount of] salt; for the chiefs who present tribute, an additional silver bowl of two liang is granted." Therefore tribute and gifts once developed. In the fifth year of Dazhong Xiangfu of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (1012), eight hundred people including Zhang Wenyi, a Man of the Xi caves, came to pay tribute. In the fourth year of Tiansheng of Emperor Renzong of Song (1026), Tian Siqin, chief of the Xi caves of Kuizhou Circuit, led more than three hundred people to Bianjing to present local products, and the scale of tribute grew ever larger. Later, because some local officials took advantage of the tribute opportunity to harass people along the way, the Song court redefined the tribute and gift regulations: "From now on, perhaps only the tribute articles for presentation shall be delivered to Shi Prefecture, and the tribute memorial submitted to the court. The Man people sent shall, according to the originally fixed number, be given gifts right at Shi Prefecture, and the customary articles sent back to the Xi caves. If it is found convenient, the Man people shall be ordered to jointly sign a document and await court instructions; if they wish to obtain salt, they may also be permitted to take it from the nearest place, and the amount shall be converted and paid accordingly; if the Man people insist on going to the capital for trade, then out of every ten persons two or three may be permitted to go to the capital." (One version says once every two years; changed according to the stele text.) In the fifth year of Tiansheng, stones were inscribed within Shi Prefecture, namely the "Huang Song Commendation Stele," the "Stele of the Man People's Tribute Articles," and the "Oath of Tian Cheng'en, Zhizhou of Baoshun." Shang Wanyong (Shang also written as "Xiang") of An, Yuan, Tianci, Nan, Shun and Baoshun prefectures, and Tian Chengjin, prefect of Gao Prefecture, and others all had to maintain economic ties with the Song court according to the "Tiansheng Oath."
The Peng clan of Xi Prefecture maintained tribute-and-gift ties with the court from the early Northern Song. Although Peng Shixi and Peng Rumeng briefly suspended tribute due to conflicts with the Song court, afterwards they still paid tribute and received gifts as usual. In the time of Emperor Zhezong of Song, Peng Ruwu, Zhizhou of Baojing, Peng Sicong, Zhizhou of Wei, Peng Rutong, Zhizhou of Yongshun, Peng Yunzong, Zhizhou of Longci, Peng Shiming, Zhizhou of Jian, and Peng Ruchong, Zhizhou of Gu, all paid tribute of xi cloth to the Song court according to custom. It was only during the Shaoxing period of Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song that the place for handing over tribute was changed to Chen Prefecture. Zhao Gou required his subordinates to "appraise the value of the articles presented and grant generous return gifts; the money needed shall be drawn from the funds of the transport and judicial offices under this prefecture's administration; all memorials and articles for presentation shall be escorted by dispatched men to the imperial residence." By the seventh year of Qiandao of Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song (1171), "the various Man of Chen Prefecture bordered the three loosely-governed prefectures of Baojing, Nanwei and Yongshun, and their Man paid tribute of xi cloth every year."
The native officials paid tribute and the court gave return gifts; this disguised official trade greatly benefited the feudal lords among the Tujia. With a small amount of local products and handicrafts they exchanged for no small quantity of salt, precious silk goods and clothing, as well as gold and silver currency, for the enjoyment of only a few; while the serfs who transported and served them not only gained nothing, but also had to travel long distances, enduring great hardship, and "many even died."
This tribute-and-gift connection objectively helped maintain stability in the region. Some advanced products and production techniques from Han Chinese areas were also transmitted to Tujia areas through this channel, promoting economic and technological exchange among the various ethnic groups.