Li Xian (Northern Zhou general) explained

Li Xian
李賢
Created:569 CE
Discovered:Guyuan, Northern China

Li Xian (Chinese: 李贤, Lǐ Xián, 502–569 CE) was a Northern Zhou general and Governor of Dunhuang. He was born in 502 CE in Guyuan, at the time under Northern Wei rule.[1] As a soldier, he served the three dynasties of the Northern Wei, Western Wei, and Northern Zhou. Emperor Yuwen Tai entrusted him with the education of two of his sons during 6 years, as the imperial court had become too dangerous, and one of them, Yuwen Yong, would become Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou. Li Xian was in charge of defenses on the northern frontier of the Chinese Empire, in contact with the Silk Road. He died in Changan at the age of 66, in 569 CE. He was important enough to be mentioned in the Zhoushu and the Beishi.[1] He was the great-grandfather of the famous Sui dynasty princess Li Jingxun.

His tomb, where he was buried with his wife Wu Hui (吴辉), was discovered in Guyuan in 1983 (北周李贤墓). The tomb was built in brick, and composed of a 42-meter sloping ramp leading to a square corbelled chamber. The walls of the whole structure were covered with paintings of officials, soldiers, servants, and musicians, but only a few have remained intact.[2] [3] Numerous small statuettes of servants and warriors were also found in the tomb (239 in total).[4] [5]

His epitaph suggests that his distant ancestors were of Tuoba-Xianbei, or possibly Turkic, descent.[6] [7] [8] [9] The epitaph of Li Xian contains the following line about his ancestry:Although the epitaph states that Li Xian was descended from Li Ling, it also explains that his 10th generation ancestor was named Yidigui ("俟地归"), and that he had migrated south from the steppes across the Yin Mountains ("南越陰山"), so Li Xian himself had visibly not forgotten his origin from the northern steppes.[1] According to the epitaph, Yidigui also was acquainted with the "Saint Emperor of the Wei" ("魏聖帝"), thought to be the Tuoba chieftain Tuoba Jiefen whose similar dynastic name was "Emperor Shengwu" (圣武皇帝), and who led the second Tuoba migration to the south.[10]

Regardless of origin, the Chinese one-syllable name "Li" had been used at least since the time of his great-grandfather, who was Governor of Tianshui and "General of Pacifying the West" (laws had been passed forbidding Xianbei clothing at court, and demanding the adoption of Chinese one-syllable names during the 5th century CE).[1] His tomb contained several Central Asian objects too, such as a ewer with Greco-Roman scenes.[6] [2] [11] The grave also contained a sword with round pommel and scabbard-type attachement.[12] [13] According to the epitaph, he received a posthumous title: "Pillar of the State Great General" (柱国大将军)".[14]

Li Xian claimed descent from the Longxi Li clan through the line of Li Ling. The Longxi Li were also claimed as ancestors by the imperial house of the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) through a different line, though it was suggested in the 20th century that the Tang imperial house may have actually descended from an eastern lineage, the Zhaojun Li, who intermarried extensively with the "non-Chinese tribal aristocracy."[15] The probable Tuoba-Xianbei origins of Li Xian as revealed by his epitaph has led to some scholars suggesting that the rulers of the Tang dynasty had mixed "barbarian" background, rather than being purely Han as suggested by official Tang records, and that they might have modified their genealogy to conceal their part Xianbei heritage while preserving various Xianbei customs.[16] [17]

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Notes and References

  1. Book: Whitfield . Susan . Susan Whitfield. Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road . 2018 . Univ of California Press . 978-0-520-95766-4 . 198- . en. About the epitaph tablets: "All these tell us that Li Xian was born to a prominent family in the Guyuan area -in present-day Ningxia Province, China, where the tomb is located, then under the rule of the Northern Wei. His family were migrants to this area. The biographies record that his 10th generation ancestor Yidigui had come southwest from the steppes across the Yin mountains. (...) As we see from the biographies, they had not lost knowledge of their northern steppe ancestry".
  2. Carpino . Alexandra . James . Jean M. . Commentary on the Li Xian Silver Ewer . Bulletin of the Asia Institute . 1989 . 3 . 71–75 . 24048167 . 0890-4464.
  3. Book: Shi . Li . The History of Art in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasty . DeepLogic . 18 . en.
  4. Book: Watt . James C. Y. . China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200–750 AD . 2004 . Metropolitan Museum of Art . 978-1-58839-126-1 . 255 . en.
  5. Book: Dien . Albert E. . Six Dynasties Civilization . 2007 . Yale University Press . 978-0-300-07404-8 . 224–227 (Fig. 40–41) . en.
  6. Wu . Mandy Jui-man . Exotic Goods as Mortuary Display in Sui Dynasty Tombs—A Case Study of Li Jingxun's Tomb . Sino-Platonic Papers . 2004 . 142 .
  7. Book: Juliano . Annette L. . Lerner . Judith A. . Alram . Michael . Society . Asia . Museum . Asia Society . Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China . October 2001 . Harry N. Abrams . 978-0-8109-3478-8 . 63 . en. "Li Xian was from a prominent family of the Guyuan area where the lacquered coffin cited above was found. There is some question as to the ethnic affiliation of the Li family ; Turkish, Xiongnu, and Xianbei have all been argued. A tenth generation ancestor named Yidigui led the way south through the Yin Mountains. Li Xian's family had been in Guyuan for at least three generations and in the Tianshui area before that, so no doubt there had been a long period of adaptation to Chinese culture.".
  8. Book: Holcombe . Charles . The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.-A.D. 907 . 2001 . University of Hawaii Press . 978-0-8248-6475-0 . 140 . en.
  9. Book: Ma . Debin . Glahn . Richard von . The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume 1, To 1800 . 24 February 2022 . Cambridge University Press . 978-1-108-55479-4 . en. "Before adopting the surname Li, the ancestors of Lixian were Tuoba, the royal Xianbei lineage of the Northern Dynasties.".
  10. 中国考古集成 . 3709 . 北京出版社 . zh. "其十世祖"俟地归"氏应为一少数民族姓氏。关于其祖随魏南迁一事,志文较本传为详。魏圣帝指圣武帝拓跋诘玢。鲜卑拓跋部东汉初迁居今内蒙古地带的呼伦贝尔草原一带,在此居七代后,献帝拓眩邻"七分国人"共分八部,让他们放弃大泽牧地继续南迁。".
  11. Setaioli . Aldo . Harbingers of the Trojan War on a Gilt Silver Ewer from Guyuan . Giornale Italiano di Filologia . 2020 . 72 . 9–17 . 10.1484/J.GIF.5.121451 . 235005938 . 0017-0461.
  12. Book: Csiky . Gergely . Avar-Age Polearms and Edged Weapons: Classification, Typology, Chronology and Technology . 2015 . Brill . 978-90-04-30454-3 . 316 . en.
  13. Web site: Guyuan Museum notice . en . 26 August 2021.
  14. Wu . Jui-Man . Mortuary Art in the Northern Zhou China (557–581 CE): Visualization of Class, Role, and Cultural Identity . 2010 . PhD dissertation . University of Pittsburgh . 109–.
  15. Book: Wechsler . Howard J. . Sui and T'ang China, 589–906. Part 1 . 1979 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge, England . 9781139055949 . 151 . "This genealogy claimed by the T'ang royal house established its claim to be descended from a notable Han clan and to be members of a prominent north-western lineage. However, there is some reason to believe that this line of descent, presented as solid fact by the T'ang histories, was in fact a deliberate fabrication. It has been suggested that the Li clan was not connected with the royal house of Western Liang, or with the prestigious Li clan of Lung-hsi, but was a minor offshoot of an eastern lineage, the Li clan of Chao-chun in Ho-pei, who had settled in the north-west under the Toba Northern Wei, and had intermarried widely with the non-Chinese tribal aristocracy." Two of the men who, it has been suggested, were among the ancestors of Li Hu [grandfather of Li Yuan] were the generals Li Ch'u-ku-pa and Li Mai-te, whose names show that they had either adopted or been granted the Chinese surname Li, but retained alien, perhaps Hsien-pei, personal names.".
  16. Chen . Sanping . Succession Struggle and the Ethnic Identity of the Tang Imperial House . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society . 1996 . 6 . 3 . 381 . 10.1017/S1356186300007793 . 25183243 . 162460345 . 1356-1863. "The official histories compiled during the Tang had been subjected to much political doctoring in order to mask and conceal the imperial house's "barbarian" background. The newest proof is the recent archaeological discovery showing that another contemporary prominent Li clan, namely that of Li Xian, the Northern Zhou Grand General with the same Longxi ancestry claim, was in fact of unmistakable Tuoba Xianbei descent.".
  17. Book: Chen . Sanping . Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages . 2012 . University of Pennsylvania Press . 978-0-8122-0628-9 . 5–6 . en.

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