brated Tsin caligraphist, Wang Hi-chi, whom he adopted as his country's saint. He died in 728. The next king was P'i Lo-koh, or Kwei Lok-kioh2, whom I have called Pi Lo-t'ai in my paper on Early Laos, which also makes out that he, and not his father, received the Tai-teng title. He was thirtyone years of age when he succeeded to power. He totally suppressed the other five chao (which his great-grandfather would thus seem to have only partially done) and styled himself "King of Nanchao." The history of the Six Chao appears to be this: The founder Si Nu-lo, "fearing that the thirty-seven tribes would not remain submissive, selected relatives to govern the other five chao, but these soon became refractory, and so Pi Lo-kok by bribery got the Chinese pro-consul of Kien-ch'wan to advise the emperor that the Six Chao had better be united in one." He then did a very wily thing. He invited all the other chao to a grand feast and sacrifice in honour of their ancestors on "star return day "4. He had a great scaffold built beforehand, and when all his relatives were lying drunk upon it, having feasted upon the ancestral viands, he slipped down, set fire to and surrounded it with troops and burnt them all alive. However one of the five had not come at all, whilst the wife of another, who suspected treachery, had put an iron bracelet on her husband's arm. When Pi Lo-koh's envoys arrived to notify the four chao that their kings had perished in an accidental fire, and the four queens came to mourn, the one who had put a bracelet upon her husband's arm was the only one who could distinguish her own husband amongst the charred remains. Pi Lo-koh was much struck with her cleverness and beauty and tried to seize her city, but she committed suicide rather than fall into his hands. He had the good grace to confer a posthumous title upon her and to re-christen her city the "Source of Virtue'." Pri Lo-koh went to the Chinese court in 738, and for his services against the Tibetans and Mis barbarians was made an illustrissimus, Prince of Yünnan and Duke of Yüeh, with sumptuary rights on a par with the three highest magnates of China and the EZ; strange to say in Japan also this man left his literary mark behind. 3 * 皮邏閣or魁樂覺. In some histories the character kok is printed 閤. The Six Chao had every summer an annual sacrifice in memory of a virtuous widow who preferred to do suttee rather than marry a Chinaman. This was called 星回節 5 This story reads very like that of the Kitan founder A Pao-ki two centuries later. He also made his rival chiefs drunk and massacred them all. See Mr. Ross' account of the early Kitans, Chinese Recorder, Vol. ix. 6 This was 20 li north-east of Têng-ch'wan Chou in Ta-li Fu. 7德源城8彌蠻; elsewhere called 洱 ; this looks as if his influence extended into parts of Annam. personal name of Kwei-i, plus a number of presents and insignia1. On his return home he built the cities of Tai-ho and Ta-li2, and had all Yünnan under his sway. His son, Koh Lo-fêng3, also received certain Chinese titles and dignities. In 739 he assisted China by crushing a rebellion which had broken out in the modern Li-kiang and Yung-ch'ang prefectures, and in 740 he made Tai-ho city his capital, establishing the two out-stations of Dragon's Head and Dragon's Tail. In 743 he built the city of Yang-tsü-mes. In 746 he sent his grandson Fêng Ka-i to Court. Besides receiving various dignities this youth was given an imperial princess in marriage and was presented with a band of Turkish musicians. Pi Lo-koh was succeeded in 748 by his son Koh Lo-feng, who was 36 years of age when he came to the throne. The Chinese emperor made him hereditary Prince of Yunnan and conferred the governorship of Yang-kwa-chou, the cradle of his race, upon Feng K'a-i. Owing to the misconduct of a Chinese prefect, who seems to have seduced Koh Lo-fêng's wife, and to the impossibility of representing the matter to the emperor by reason of the corrupt action of the palace eunuchs, Koh Lo-feng declared war and seized a number of Chinese towns. He totally defeated a large Chinese army sent against him, threw over China in favor of the Tibetans and adopted the reign style of Chang-shou1o. In 752 the Tibetans sent him a number of presents and recognized him as a quasi-independent gialbo. Two years later his son Fêng K'a-i again routed the Chinese in the neighbourhood of Ta-li Fu and advanced up what is now known as the Kien-chang territory of West Sz-ch'wan. A brother of Koh Lo-fêng, named Koh-pi Ho-shang11, is said to have assisted the army by his 1 was a distinction created by the Han Emperor Chiêng Ti (B. C. 32-6); it gave rank above the 斬騎, but below the 三公;the 儀同三司 in this instance refers to the A; of course refers to his "return to loyalty;" t'êh-tsin is suggestive of "those having the entree." 2 Now village, 15 li south of Ta-li Fu () was afterwards called Hi-chou (H), a place 40 li north of modern Ta-li Fu. The account differs in unimportant detail from that given in the T'ang-shu, from which my paper on Early Laos was taken. 3 閣邏鳳 4 These are the celebrated Shang-kwan (Ħ ★) and Hia. kwan (L), which are still the keys to Ta-li Fu. 5 This is the famous Ta-li Fu. We are told that the second character is to be pronounced as; that would make something like Yanzeme. 7 6 鳳伽異?德茲; afterwards called 北庭 Urumtsi. 8 Also written with the "spurious" posthumous title of same that the Japanese were just giving to their semi-mythical Zimmu. many respects Nanchao history repeats itself in Japan. Note 4, p. 105. E, the Indeed in ; originally, the present Meng-hwa of Note 12, p. 104, and 10; in imitation of the Empress Wu. The Japanese also imitated the Empress Wu, whose reign style was Shen-kung () (in Japanese Jingō) by conferring this appellation upon one of their semi-mythical queens. "; note the family syllable Koh. incantations. The Chinese lost 200,000 men in these two campaigns. Koh Lo-fêng erected a mausoleum over the Chinese bodies at the modern Hia-kwan near Ta-li Fu. In 764 the present name of Ta-li was given to Yang-tsü-me. Koh Lo-feng outlived his brave son Fing Ka-i, but died in 778, and was succeeded by Fêng K'a-i's son, I Mou-sün, who adopted the reign style of Shang-yüan in imitation of the last deceased Tang emperor. In conjunction with the Tibetans he made a raid far into modern Sz-ch'wan, and after suffering a defeat at the hands of the Chinese assumed the title of King of Nanchao. It appears to have been I Mou-sün who first really organized the Nanchao state, though from the way in which the T'ang-shu describes its organization it would seem to have been his predecessors who did it. His state was bounded by Chinese Yünnan, Kiao-chi (Tonquin), Piao (Burma) and Tibet, and he availed himself of the services of Chinese prisoners to perfect the administration and educate his youth3. Li Mih, the Chinese general who had been routed by Feng K'a-i, now advised the Chinese emperor to make conciliatory advances to Nanchao with a view to isolating the Tibetan power. In 794 I Mousün broke with the Tibetans, inflicted a great defeat upon them at the Iron Bridge (across the Upper Yang-tsz north-west of Li-kiang Fu) and was rewarded by the, Chinese with a gold seal and title of king. He continued the war against the Tibetans as ally of China until his death in A. D. 808. A full description of these wars is given in the paper on Early Laos above alluded to, and as there are few discrepancies in the present account it is unnecessary to repeat. I Mou-sün was succeeded in 808 by his son Sün Koh-k'üen3, then thirty-one years of age. He was confirmed by China in his dignity as hereditary King of Nanchao and presented with a new seal. He only reigned a little over a year. The next king was Küen Kung-sheng, who was only twelve years of age when he came to the throne in 809; he seems to have wasted a good deal of money upon Buddhist monasteries and pagodagilding, from which we can discern a sympathy with Burmese ideas. In 814 he made an attack upon Kia-ting-chou in Sz-ch'wan. In 816 he was murdered by one of his high officers. He was succeeded by his younger brother, K'üen Li, or K‘üen Lisheng', then fifteen years of age. This last again was succeeded in 824 by another younger brother, Fêng Yu, or K'üen Fêng-yu3 who, 1 異; the 孝桓王“上元 The Coreans, Japanese, Kitans, Annamese, Turks, &c., all did likewise. In fact Chinese civilisation in Eastern Asia was an exact counterpart of Roman 4 civilisation in Europe. . 尋閣勸or新覺勸;the孝王 5 6 勸龍晟or昇王 7 勸利晟;靖王勸豐佑;昭成王 out of reverence for Chinese prejudices, did not assume a syllable of his father's name, but as he was only seven years of age we may assume that some officious Chinaman was his adviser in this matter. He received from China the title of "King of Tien." In his reign a Western bonze, named Tsan-t'o Küh-to1, performed certain wonders at Hoh-king and erected a living-Buddha monastery there. In 828 Feng Yu made a raid into Sz-ch'wan right up to Chiêng-tu and carried off immense booty in valuables, books and young people, but an energetic governor or viceroy, named Li Teh-y3, having been sent to Si-ch'wan (as it was then called), he was obliged to restore 5000 persons. He compensated himself, however, by kidnapping 3000 Piao, or Burmans, whom he quartered in Toh-tung city. This king performed a great deal of useful work in the way of canal-cutting and irrigating, much to the advantage of the Yünnan populations. In 846 he conquered what was then called Annam, at that period groaning under Chinese tyranny and misrule. Doubtless his temporary holding of this country accounts for the presence of the Shans-the so-called Muongs-in Tonquin". The Nanchao Ye-shi has a very interesting paragraph about Feng Yu's dealings with Burma, which does not appear at all in the Tang-shu. It says that a brave Nanchao general, named Twan Tsung-pang, was sent to the assistance of Burma, which state had been attacked by Ceylon and had made repeated applications for aid. In 859 the Chinese troops were again thoroughly thrashed at a point a little north of the Iron Bridge. This time the general was Feng Yu's son by a concubine who had once been a fisher-girl. His name was Shi Lungs, and the Chinese emperor was so alarmed that he sent him an imperial princess in marriage, and also to act as a spy. This year Feng Yu died and Shi Lung succeeded. He appointed Wang Ts'o-tien (the murderer of his uncle in 816) as regent. Twan Tsung-pang, who had been sent to assist the Burmese against 1; evidently some Hindoo name, such as Sandragotta. 2; still bears the name. An iconoclastic governor named Lin Tsin (#), nicknamed "the Iconoclast" (#), destroyed this and others during Ming dynasty. *李德裕“西‧ 5 ; the modern K'un-yang at the south of the great Yünnan lake. This is the Ché-tung of my Early Laos. 6 Large numbers have also settled in Hainan, where some of the so-ca led Loi or Li speak Thai dialects. 7 ; the Twan family afterwards ruled Yünnan for several centuries. Ceylon is here called Lion State (Simha Kingdom), . As in A. D. 1153 Ceylon armies overran both Burma and Cambodia, we may quite believe that she did so three centuries earlier. It is remarkable that Burma is here called Mien (f), a new name usually supposed by the Chinese to date from A. D. 1000, but I think it is an anachronism on the part of the author. 8 ; called Ts'iu-lang () in the T'ang-shu. 9 the Singalese, heard of these events at Têng-yüeh1 and sent the following letter to the regent : "As His Majesty is unhappily deceased and his heir still young, you have, I hear, become regent, which is a good thing for the state. I have assisted Burma to defeat Ceylon, and Burma has acknowledged the service by presenting a golden Buddha2, which should be reverently welcomed. Unfortunately China3 has no men of mark, and only you are of great renown. On the day when I arrive at the gate of the government I will trouble you to personally welcome this Buddha and thus add glory to the state, etc., etc." Ts'o Tien, never suspecting a plot, went to meet it, when Pang, making him kneel down to worship the Buddha, suddenly cut off his head in the presence of the Buddha, by way of punishing him for the murder of Küen Lung-sheng. Pang then melted down the Buddha and got therefrom several thousand ounces of gold. A fanatical Burmese, who was burning incense to it hard by, was heard to mutter: "I was praying that successor after successor might worship you, but now my prayer is of no avail, and I can only pray that a Buddha will be transmigrated, who will destroy the dynasty of this state." And, true enough, Chêng Mai-sz was born, who usurped the state and extinguished the Meng family. Shi Lung was sixteen years of age when he succeeded his father in A. D. 859. His first difficulty with China was the syllable lung in his name, which touched the taboo of the deceased emperor Ming Hwang. The Chinese declined to confer the usual title upon him, in consequence of which he declared himself emperor and annexed what is now still called the prefecture of Tung-ch'wan. A long war followed (as fully described in my paper on Early Laos), during which Shi Lung advanced once more up to the walls of Chêng-tu. Being in the end severely defeated by Kao Pien", the celebrated 1 As Momein (Muong-mien) did not receive this name till the Mongol times we are safe in assuming that the name Mien for Burma is also, as suggested in Note 7, p. 109, anachronism. But the events are none the less intensely interesting and are nowhere else recorded in European literature. They amply account for the Burmese legend that the Mongols made war because Burma would not send tribute of gold and silver vessels as had been done by King Anawrat'a in A. D. 1010. See my Sketch of Burmese History, China Review, Vol. xxi. 2 There is another Burmese legend to the effect that Anawrat'a made war upon China in order to obtain Buddha's tooth, but only succeeded in bringing back a golden image sanctified by contact with that tooth. This may be it. He may have desired to get this back or avenge its destruction. 3 This would seem to explain why the Burmese occasionally confused Nanchao, or the Twan kingdom with China. 800 4 years. ; in 899 he assassinated the last of the Mêngs, who had reigned in all He was the first to assume an imperial title, an example followed by the five families of 鄭,趙,楊,段and高, who ruled Yünnan as an independent state until the Mongol conquest. Shi Lung's posthumous title was ; his reign was建極 6; he founded a city near Hanoi, over the ruins of which the erudite M. Dumontier took me in 1891. |