唐朝 중국과 吐藩의 茶馬交易

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the aspects of the tea-horse trade between the ancient Tibet Kingdom and the Tang China in the 7th-8th century. Chinese tea and Tibetan horses were traded on the head-spinning but romantic Tea Horse Road, a harsh 2,250km trail stretching from China s tea-cultivating regions of Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province to Lhasa, Tibet s capital city. The tea-horse trade was long conducted and maintained by marriage alliance, so-called Hwachin(和親), which literally means peace marriage, originally referring to the historical practice of Chinese emperors marrying princesses, usually members of minor branches of the royal family, to rulers of neighbouring states, and vice versa.
 Tang dynasty enacted tea laws, imposing tea taxes, establishing the tea-horse bureau in order to control and supervise the tea trading. The central government held the monopoly in private commerce as well as government initiated trading. Tea-horse trade was conducted under protective trade policies.
 A forced marriage of a Tang dynasty princess named Wénchéng to Songtsän Gampo, founder of the powerful Tibetan empire contributed to the promotion of the amity between the two nations and the cultural progress of a yet up-rising mountain kingdom. The diplomatic negotiation of Hwachin resulted in a slow but drastic change of Tibetan culture including the drinking habit. The arrival of tea, divine beverage, brought an end to the Tibetan compulsion of drinking Yak butter dissolved in hot water and instead brought forth the unexpected blessing of consuming dissolved Yak butter flavored tea.
 Furthermore, the marriage between the two royal families deepened commercial activities between the two nations in terms of opening the tea-horse markets on economically important places. The 7th century witnessed a considerable increase of trade between China and Tibet, when in accord with the common pattern, China supplied its neighbor with textiles, luxury items and ever increasing amounts of tea, which became a staple among the local population of Tibet. In return Tibet had presented the Tang court with horses. Around the middle of the ninth century, however, when Tibet was on the verge of collapse, the trading situation took a new turn, and it had to meet with a hostile phase.