China's encounters on the south and southwest: reforging the fiery frontier over two millennia

441 Pages·3.652 MB·English

by  edited by James A. Anderson, John K. Whitmore.

i
China’s Encounters on the South and Southwest
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/978J9a0m0e4s 2A8. 2A4n8de3r_s0on0 1and John K. Whitmore - 978-90-04-28248-3
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ii
Handbook of Oriental Studies
Handbuch der Orientalistik
Section 3
Southeast Asia
Edited by
V. Lieberman and M.C. Ricklefs
VOLUME 22
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/h03
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iii
China’s Encounters on the South
and Southwest
Reforging the Fiery Frontier Over Two Millennia
Edited by
James A. Anderson
John K. Whitmore
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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iv
Cover illustration: “Dong Settlement” Region near Xialei Township, Daxin County, Guangxi Zhuang Auto-
nomous Region China (PRC). Photo by James A. Anderson, 1997.
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issn 0169-9571
isbn 978-90-04-21890-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28248-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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ContentsContents v
Contents
Preface VII
List of Figures, Maps and Tables X
List of Contributors XI
Introduction: “The Fiery Frontier and the Dong World”  1
James A. Anderson and John K. Whitmore
Part 1
Shifting the Southern Frontier
1 Where to Draw the Line? The Chinese Southern Frontier in the Fifth
and Sixth Centuries 59
Catherine Churchman
2 Constructing Local Narratives: Spirits, Dreams, and Prophecies in the
Medieval Red River Delta 78
Liam C. Kelley
3 Man and Mongols: the Dali and Đại Việt Kingdoms in the Face of the
Northern Invasions 106
James A. Anderson
4 Yunnan’s Muslim Heritage 135
Michael C. Brose
5 Gunsmoke: The Ming Invasion of Đại Việt and the Role of Firearms
in Forging the Southern Frontier 156
Kenneth M. Swope
6 A State Agent at Odds with the State: Lin Xiyuan and the Ming
Recovery of the Four Dong 169
Kathlene Baldanza
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vi Contents
Part 2
Shaping the Southern Frontier
7 Imperial Ideal Compromised: Northern and Southern Courts Across
the New Frontier in the Early Yuan Era 193
Sun Laichen
8 Northern Relations for Đại Việt: China Policy in the Age of Lê Thánh
Tông (r. 1460–1497) 232
John K. Whitmore
9 Projecting Legitimacy in Ming Native Domains 259
Joseph Dennis
10 Royal Refuge and Heterodoxy: The Vietnamese Mạc Clan in Great
Qing’s Southern Frontier, 1677–1730 273
Alexander Ong
11 The Rule of Ritual: Crimes and Justice in Qing-Vietnamese Relations
During the Qianlong Period (1736–1796) 288
Jaymin Kim
12 Volatile Allies: Two Cases of Powerbrokers in the Nineteenth-Century
Vietnamese-Chinese Borderlands 322
Bradley C. Davis
13 Depicting Life in the Twentieth-Century Sino-Tibetan Borderlands:
Local Histories and Modernities in the Career and Photography of
Zhuang Xueben (1909–1984) 339
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa
14 From Land to Water: Fixing Fluid Frontiers and The Politics of Lines
in the South China/Eastern Sea 370
Kenneth MacLean
15 Asymmetric Structure and Culture in China’s Relations with Its
Southern Neighbors 395
Brantly Womack
Glossary 405
Index 419
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Preface Preface vii
Preface
We all as editors and contributors to this collected volume began this study of
Imperial Chinese engagement along their southern and southwestern frontier
with several goals in mind. First, we wished to contest the notion found in con-
temporary Chinese scholarship that China’s modern-day South and Southwest
became integrated parts of a larger Chinese empire as early as the third cen-
tury BCE, and that any deviation from this unified realm was the product of
historical anomalies or over-reaching “separatist” local rulers along the em-
pire’s southern margins. Secondly, we wished to look closely over the course of
history at the interaction of small polities on the imperial periphery with a
variety of authorities from northern and southern regimes. Economic and po-
litical interactions involved both resistance and cooperation, revealing to us a
zone of “middle ground” hybridity as US historian Richard White discovered in
his study of the American West. Finally, we were interested in a new periodiza-
tion in the historical stages of engagement between China and its southern
neighbors, as the varied northern regimes acted on the latter. We found in this
study a definite initial stage of northern advancement and engagement, with
stops and starts, in the mountainous terrain south of the Yangzi River valley
from the third century BCE through Mongol military conquests in the thir-
teenth century. A second stage then involved the shift from imperial expansion
to power consolidation within the current border areas, which presented new
challenges to those polities existing on Imperial China’s periphery. In the pro-
cess of this study, we have come to define this entire highland region lying be-
tween China and Southeast Asia as the Dong world, originally consisting of the
many dong (mountain valley communities) existing within it.
Initially, the southern frontier ran roughly in a north-south direction, as
Sinic civilization worked its way along the river systems and in from the coasts
and their river mouths. These were more horizontal than vertical moves, as the
hills were left to the dong (mountain valley community) chiefs. This process of
frontier formation took over a millennium and a half, beginning in Qin times
late in the third century BCE, before it began to form the east-west frontier as it
exists today. Northern and north-central Vietnam (Jiaozhi/Annan) lay within
the southern reaches of the Chinese empires for most of this time, while Yun-
nan (Nanzhao, Dali) and the Dong world at large stood outside. Gradually, this
north-south axis shifted into the east-west one of today. First, Đại Việt emerged
in the Red River Plain during the tenth and eleventh centuries out of the frag-
mented Tang realm. Then the Mongols and the Ming brought the higher re-
gions, particularly Yunnan, into China. Though the Ming took Đại Việt briefly
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viii Preface
back into China (for only two decades, 1407–27), by the middle of the fifteenth
century the east-west frontier had come into being, forged by actions of politi-
cal and cultural forces on both sides of and within it. The past half millennium
has seen the varied agents, both within and without the borderlands, act to
shape the nature of this ‘fiery frontier.’ In the present day, the political leaders
of the nation-states in this region, north and south, have “re-empowered” local
communities, while retaining ultimate authority through strong central gov-
ernment directives.
This volume owes its start to personal encouragement, the scholarship from
several conference panels that now seem predestined to be brought into dia-
logue, and the decisions of several adventurous souls to join this project once
under way. The project began with a 2010 Association of Asian Studies panel
“Conquest by Administration: Chinese State Expansion and Contraction in the
Southern Borderlands,” which included versions of the chapters written
by Catherine Churchman, James Anderson, and Kathlene Baldanza. John
Whitmore served as discussant for this panel, and that spring, through Victor
Lieberman’s contact with Brill, the latter’s acquisition editor Albert Hoffstädt
approached John to discuss the possibility of editing a Handbuch volume on
Chinese-Southern border relations in premodern times. Following our encour-
aging discussion with Mr. Hoffstädt, we added a paper from a related 2005
Association of Asian Studies panel, sought additional contributions from
scholars working on related topics through different historical periods, and
asked Professor Brantly Womack for the volume’s summary piece. We wish to
thank all our contributors for their hard work and for their great patience as we
have compiled, edited, and re-edited the sections of the manuscript for publi-
cation.
We would like to thank the following persons who contributed their time
and expertise to shaping this book. Of course, any mistakes still contained
within these pages are not the fault of anyone but ourselves. Regarding the
genesis of this volume, we wish to thank Albert Hoffstädt, and later Patricia
Radder, at Brill for their excellent help in allowing us to proceed through each
stage of this project. Our thanks also to the anonymous reader for the inspira-
tion s/he provided us in our development of our themes. We also have indi-
vidual words of thanks to offer. James wishes to thank the director of Academia
Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology Professor Chin-shing Huang and all
the Institute’s researchers and staff for their generous assistance during his
2011–2012 research leave in Taiwan, at which time much of his writing was
completed. He also wishes to thank the staff of the Center for Chinese Studies
at the National Central Library for the warm welcome he received during his
leave, and he greatly appreciates the research funding support he received
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Preface ix
from the Taiwan Fellowship program, established by the ROC Ministry of For-
eign Affairs. Finally, James wishes to thank Yueh-Miao, Claire and Svea, for
their patience and understanding when faced with a distracted spouse and
father lost in the details of this project over many evenings and weekends. John
is thankful for the support he has received from the Center for Southeast Asia
Studies of the University of Michigan, to Victor Lieberman for his continued
encouragement, to Susan for her inspiration and aid, and to his sons, John,
David, and James.
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x List of Illustrations and TLiasbtl Oefs Illustrations And Tables
List of Figures, Maps and Tables
Figures
9.1 Map of Mahu Prefectural town and its environs. (Source: Mahu fu zhi 馬
湖府志 (Mahu Prefecture Gazetteer), 1555. Reprinted in Tianyige cang
Ming dai fangzhi xuankan 天一閣藏明代方志選刊 (Selected Reprints
of Ming Dynasty Gazetteers Held in the Tianyige) Shanghai: Shanghai Guji
Shudian, 1982) 270
13.1 Taken on the road north of Kangding, in 1937–8, published in Zhuang
Xueben Quanji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 2, p. 447, Image 1 355
13.2 Taken in 1934, published in Zhuang Xueben Quanji (Beijing: Zhonghua
Shuju, 2009), Vol. 1, p. 84, Image 5 355
13.3 Taken in Qinghai, 1935–1937, published in Zhuang Xueben Quanji (Beijing:
Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 1, p. 275, Image 12 356
13.4 Taken in Gyalrong (Jiarong), 1934, published in Zhuang Xueben Quanji
(Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 1, p. 99, Image 6 357
13.5 Taken in Golok (Guoluo), 1934, published in Zhuang Xueben Quanji (Bei-
jing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009),Vol. 1, p. 159 357
13.6 Taken in Bathang, 1940, published in Zhuang Xueben Quanji (Beijing:
Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 2, p. 648, Image 14 358
13.7 Liu Wenhui’s family, taken in Kangding, 1938, published in Zhuang Xue-
ben Quanji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 2, p. 459 360
13.8 Badu Primary School, taken in Danba, 1938, published in Zhuang Xueben
Quanji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 2, p. 468 361
13.9 Taken north of Kangding in late 1937–8, published in Zhuang Xueben
Quanji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009), Vol. 2, p. 436 362
Maps
1 The general region of the Dong world 4
2 The early Dong era (to the 10th century) 13
3 The late Dong era (11th–13th centuries) 20
4 The Tusi era (13th–18th centuries) 24
5 The Gaitu Guiliu era (18th century – the present) 36
Tables
14.1 Maritime lines 371
14.2 Graduated sovereignty and jurisdiction in maritime regions 377
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