Cocreating a Frontier Region in the Northern Song: The State and Local Strongmen in Hewai

Abstract

Cocreating a Frontier Region in the Northern Song:The State and Local Strongmen in Hewai Chang Woei Ong In early 1127, the invading Jin armies marched into Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126), and captured the emperors, members of the royal clans, officials, and countless commoners. About a year later, while what remained of the Song court had fled south, the war was still going on in north China. Jin forces had been attacking the territories covering present-day northeastern Shaanxi until She Keqiu 折可求 (d. 1139) surrendered to them the three prefectures of Linzhou 麟州, Fuzhou 府州, and Fengzhou 豐州, the region informally called Hewai 河外 (Beyond the Yellow River) in Song sources, which all but ended the Song's fighting chance against the invaders.1 [End Page 15] The three prefectures were administratively under the Hedong 河東 Circuit. She Keqiu was then the Prefect of Fuzhou, and he came from a long line of Shes who had served in the post since the beginning of the dynasty. Historical sources identify the Shes as Tanguts, but they were the archenemy of another Tangut clan—given the surname Li 李 by the Tang emperors—who dominated Xiazhou 夏州 (in present-day Jingbian 靖邊 County of Shaanxi) and later founded the Xi Xia dynasty (1038–1227). The Shes mainly helped the Song in its conflicts with Xi Xia, and also with the Khitan Liao (916–1125) and Jurchen Jin (1115–1234).2 This article is an attempt to write a social history of Song territorial administration in the northern border region by focusing on powerful clans such as the Shes—often denoted by the term "local strongmen" (tuhao 土豪) in historical sources. It moves away from the assumption that any meaningful study of powerful clans like the Shes must begin with acknowledging that their historical experiences were predominantly, if not exclusively, shaped by their relationship with the Song state. Song frontier policies indeed profoundly [End Page 16] impacted the choices the local people made, but it is also important to recognize that the Song state was only one of the players in a region where the movement of communities and shifting alliances were common. In essence, this article challenges the prevailing practice of adopting a purely statist, courtcentered perspective and argues for a more nuanced approach for delineating the development of Song management of the frontier regions that takes into account the roles that the local inhabitants played in the process. Apart from its relationship with the Song, another dominant narrative about Hewai in both official historical sources and modern studies has focused on the role it played in the Song's conflicts with its northern neighbors, especially the Xi Xia. While participating in large-scale warfare was indeed an important aspect of the historical experiences of Hewai's residents, it should be noted that during the tenth to early twelfth centuries, the period of peace was longer than that of war. Therefore, the story of interstate warfare would not be complete without considering the activities of local communities beyond the battleground during relatively peaceful times. Why Hewai? A study of a frontier region such as Hewai can potentially do several things. First, it can add another case for challenging the conventional view about the Song being militarily weak because it had opted to pursue a strategy of undermining the power of military men and reducing the military presence at the border. According to this view, the Song army was weakened to the point where it was helpless against foreign aggression. It is therefore not surprising that the Song would eventually collapse, first under the Jurchen invasion in 1126 and later under the Mongol invasion in 1279. Past scholarship on Song military history often referenced the military institution section in the History of the Song (Song shi 宋史) to show how the Song court centralized military command at the expense of the regions outside the capital. According to the Song shi account, after witnessing how previous regimes fell prey to powerful regional military commanders, the Song founders labored to locate the most elite squad under their direct command. Under this vision, the armies were divided into three different types: 1) the imperial army (jinjun 禁軍) commanded by the court...