Lords of the Marches: Imperial Identity on the Margins in Early Fourth-Century China

Abstract

This study explores group identity perception in early medieval China at a time of peak ethno-cultural complexity, as north China was falling under the control of multiple ostensibly “non-Chinese” peoples in the early fourth century. The subject is approached through an examination of the careers of two especially significant northern frontier officials, Liu Kun (271–318) and Wang Jun (252–314), and their interactions with neighboring Xianbei peoples, as well as with the Jin dynasty imperial court. We conclude that, although there were ethno-cultural differences and multiple distinct, separately named, population groups, the crucial factor for identity formation—at least as portrayed in the surviving textual sources—was the dynastic state. Also important to identity formation was the embodiment of civilizational norms. Jin dynasty people were distinguished from non-Jin “others,” yet some of the non-Jin others behaved more like true participants in the ideals of Chinese civilization than some of the native-born Jin people.

Keywords:

• Chinese identity
• Western Jin dynasty
• Liu Kun
• Wang Jun
• Sixteen Kingdoms
• Tuoba
• Xianbei

Notes

1 For a theory as to the possible origins of Hu as a blanket Chinese-language term for northern non-Sinitic peoples, see Christopher P. Atwood, “The Qai, the Khongai, and the Names of the Xiōngnú,” International Journal of Eurasian Studies, new series 2 (2015): 39–40, 42, 47–48, 52.

2 For the name Särbi, see Edwin G. Pulleyblank, “The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times,” in The Origins of Chinese Civilization, ed. David N. Keightley (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), 452–53.

3 Nicola Di Cosmo correctly cautions that that using “barbarian” as a translation of any premodern Chinese term is always “something of a misnomer, and one that is potentially seriously misleading.” Di Cosmo, “Ethnography of the Nomads and ‘Barbarian’ History in Han China,” in Intentional History: Spinning Time in Ancient Greece, ed. Lin Foxhall, Hans-Joachim Gehrke, and Nino Luraghi (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 302.

4 See Shao-yun Yang, “Fan and Han: The Origins and Uses of a Conceptual Dichotomy in Mid-Imperial China, ca. 500–1200,” in Political Strategies of Identity Building in Non-Han Empires in China, ed. Francesca Fiaschetti and Julia Schneider (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014), 18; Shao-yun Yang, “Becoming Zhongguo, Becoming Han: Tracing and Re-conceptualizing Ethnicity in Ancient North China, 770 BC–AD 581” (Master’s thesis, National University of Singapore, 2007), 72, 81–82. See also Huang Yongnian 黄永年, Liu zhi jiu shiji Zhongguo zhengzhi shi 六至九世紀中國政治史 (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2004), 34–39.

5 The classic analysis of the role of boundaries in ethnic identity maintenance is Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Frederik Barth (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), 9–38.

6 Wei Shou 魏收 (506–572), comp., Wei shu 魏書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 113.3006; Yan Yaozhong, Bei Wei qianqi zhengzhi zhidu 北魏前期政治制度 (Changchun: Jilin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990), 221–22.

7 The rulers of the last Northern dynasty, Northern Zhou, and both of the first two “reunified” dynasties, Sui and Tang, all sprang from the same northern garrison, located in what is today Inner Mongolia. See Zhao Yi 趙翼 (1727–1814), Nian’ershi zhaji 廿二史劄記 (Taibei: Huashi chubanshe, 1977), 15.319–20. See also Hu Ji 胡戟, “Guanlong jituan de xingcheng ji qi maodun de xingge” 關隴集團的形成及其矛盾的性格, in Hu Ji, Hu Ji wencun: Sui Tang lishi juan 胡戟文存: 隋唐歷史卷 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2000), 122, 138–39.

8 Alex J. Hu, “An Overview of the History and Culture of the Xianbei (‘Monguor’/‘Tu’),” Asian Ethnicity 11.1 (2010): 107.

9 Marc S. Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang China (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), xi, 2.

10 Nicolas Tackett, The Origins of the Chinese Nation: Song China and the Forging of an East Asian World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 7; Mark Elliott, “Hushuo: The Northern Other and the Naming of the Han Chinese,” in Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation, and Identity of China’s Majority, ed. Thomas S. Mullaney, James Leibold, Stéphane Gros, and Eric Vanden Bussche (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 189.

11 For example, D. Jonathan Felt, Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021), 9.

12 Hugh R. Clark, “What’s the Matter with ‘China’? A Critique of Teleological History,” Journal of Asian Studies 77.2 (2018): 302–4.

13 See Xu Zhuoyun 許倬雲, Huaxia lunshu: yige fuza gongtongti de bianhua 華夏論述: 一個複雜共同體的變化 (Taibei: Yuanjian tianxia wenhua, 2015), 114–15.

14 David Hume, “Of National Characters,” in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller, rev. ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985), 204.

15 Anthony D. Smith, “The Origins of Nations,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 12.3 (1989): 349–53.

16 Elliott, “Hushuo,” 179.

17 Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang China, 51.

18 Wang Gungwu, “The Chinese Urge to Civilize: Reflections on Change,” Journal of Asian History 18.1 (1984): 4–5.

19 Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 2–3, 11–12. For both the importance of vernacular literature and the iconic expression “imagined communities,” see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

20 Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 4.

21 Benjamin A. Elman, “Political, Social, and Cultural Reproduction via Civil Service Examinations in Late Imperial China,” Journal of Asian Studies 50.1 (1991): 22.

22 Hou Xudong, “Chaoting shiye zhong de ‘minzhong’: beichao de guannian yu shijian” 朝廷視野中的“民衆”: 北朝的觀念與實踐, Han Tang shengshi de lishi jiedu: Han Tang shengshi xueshu yantaohui lunwenji 漢唐盛世的歷史解讀: 漢唐盛世學術研討會論文集, ed. Sun Jiazhou 孫家洲 and Liu Houbin 劉后濱 (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2009), 342, 352–53.

23 Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 (578–648) et al., comps., Jin shu 晉書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 105.2753.

24 Jin shu, 105.2735, 2737. Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢 (557–641) et al., comps., Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982), 85.1453.

25 On Bingzhou, see Albert E. Dien, “Eastern Wei–Northern Qi,” in The Cambridge History of China Vol. 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589, ed. Albert E. Dien and Keith N. Knapp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 184. Wang Bo 汪波, “Dong Wei Bei Qi shiqi de Jinyang jiaotong maoyi” 東魏北齊時期的晉陽交通貿易, Jinyang xuekan 晉陽學刊 4 (1998): 81.

26 Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 49, 52.

27 Lu Yaodong 逯耀東, “Bei Wei qianqi de wenhua yu zhengzhi xingtai” 北魏前期的文化與政治形態, in Lu Yaodong, Cong Pingcheng dao Luoyang: Tuoba Wei wenhua zhuanbian de licheng 從平城到洛陽: 拓跋魏文化轉變的歷程 (Taibei: Lianjing chuban, 1979), 30–31; Xing Yitian 邢義田, “Dong Han de Hu bing” 東漢的胡兵, Guoli zhengzhi daxue xuebao 國立政治大學學報 28 (1973): 144; Rafe de Crespigny, Fire over Luoyang: A History of the Later Han Dynasty 23–220 AD (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 250–52. For an overview of the Xianbei, see also Charles Holcombe, “The Xianbei in Chinese History,” Early Medieval China 19 (2013): 1–38.

28 Nina Duthie, “The Nature of the Hu: Wuhuan and Xianbei Ethnography in the San Guo Zhi and Hou Han Shu,” Early Medieval China 25 (2019): 27; Lin Gan 林幹, Dong Hu shi 東胡史 (Huhehaote: Nei Menggu renmin chubanshe, 2007), 71.

29 Andrew Shimunek, Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China: A Historical-Comparative Study of the Serbi or Xianbei Branch of the Serbi-Mongolic Language Family, with an Analysis of Northeastern Frontier Chinese and Old Tibetan Phonology (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017), 13, 415; Alexander Vovin, “Once Again on the Tabgač Language,” Mongolian Studies 29 (2007): 191–206. On linguistic diversity, see Ma Changshou 馬長壽, Wuhuan yu Xianbei 烏桓與鮮卑 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1962), 14.

30 Mi Wenping 米文平, Xianbei shi yanjiu 鮮卑史研究 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1994), 442–62.

31 Wang Junjie 王俊傑, “Wei Jin Nanbeichao de Xianbei shi bu shi yi ge minzu” 魏晉南北朝的鮮卑是不是一個民族, Xibei shiyuan xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 西北師院學報(社會科學版) 3 (1985): 67.

32 Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445), comp., Hou Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 90.2979.

33 Hou Han shu, 90.2986.

34 Bryan K. Miller, “The Southern Xiongnu in Northern China: Navigating and Negotiating the Middle Ground,” Complexity of Interaction along the Eurasian Steppe Zone in the First Millennium CE, ed. Jan Bemmann and Michael Schmauder (Bonn: Vor-und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2015), 153–54, 156.

35 Maeda Masana 前田正名, Heijō no rekishi chirigakuteki kenkū 平城の歴史地理学的研究 (Tōkyō: Kazama shobō, 1979), 41–42.

36 Hou Han shu, 90.2989–94.

37 Wang Junjie, “Wei Jin Nanbeichao de Xianbei,” 66.

38 Christopher I. Beckwith, “The Chinese Names of the Tibetans, Tabghatch, and Turks,” Archivum Eurasiae medii aevi 14 (2005): 9; Peter B. Golden, “Some Notes on the Avars and Rouran,” The Steppe Lands and the World Beyond Them: Studies in Honor of Victor Spinei on his 70th birthday, ed. Florin Curta and Bogdan-Petru Maleon (Iaşi: Editura Universităţii “Alexandru Ioan Cuza,” 2013), 45 n 10.

39 Jonathan Felt, for example, refers to the Northern dynasties as “the Tabgatch empire,” in Structures of the Earth, 119–21.

40 Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1968), 373; Luo Xin 羅新, “Lun Tuoba Xianbei zhi de ming” 論拓跋鮮卑之得名, Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 6 (2006): 32–48.

41 Wu Songyan 吳松岩, Xianbei qiyuan fazhan de kaoguxue yanjiu 鮮卑起源發展的考古學研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2018), 17–18, 145.

42 Ma Changshou, Wuhuan yu Xianbei, 30, 245; Mi Wenping, Xianbei shi yanjiu, 116, 123–24; Zhang Jihao 張繼昊, Cong Tuoba dao Bei Wei: Bei Wei wangchao chuangjian lishi de kaocha 從拓跋到北魏: 北魏王朝創建歷史的考察 (Taibei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2003), 152.

43 Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–1086), comp., Zizhi tongjian (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1956), 77.2459–60. See Bai Cuiqin 白翠琴, Wei Jin nanbeichao minzu shi 魏晉南北朝民族史 (Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe, 1996), 60.

44 Jennifer Holmgren, Annals of Tai: Early T’o-Pa History According to the First Chapter of the Wei-Shu (Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University Press, 1982), 22, 54–55.

45 Kang Le 康樂, Cong xijiao dao nanjiao: guojia jidian yu Bei Wei zhengzhi 從西郊到南郊: 國家祭典與北魏政治 (Xinzhuang: Daohe chubanshe, 1995), 48–49; Lin Gan, Dong Hu shi, 88.

46 See Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang China, 122.

47 Tian Yuqing 田餘慶, “Dai bei diqu Tuoba yu Wuhuan de gongsheng guanxi—Wei shu ‘xuji’ you guan shishi jiexi” 代北地區拓跋與烏桓的共生關係—魏書序紀有關史實解析, in Tian Yuqing, Tuoba shi tan 拓跋史探 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2003), 115.

48 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 7.

49 Hou Han shu, 90.2991.

50 See the early ninth-century compilation compiled by Li Jifu 李吉甫 (758–814), Yuanhe junxian tuzhi 元和郡縣圖志, ed. Sun Xingyan 孫星衍 (1733–1818) and Zhang Juxian 張駒賢 (1733–1818) (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1965), 14.15a.

51 Chen Shou 陳壽 (233–297), comp., Sanguo zhi 三國志 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 15.469.

52 Jin shu, 14.428.

53 Liu Xueyao 劉學銚 suspects that this incredible story was concocted merely to emphasize the humble origins of the Duan. See Liu Xueyao, Xianbei shi lun 鮮卑史論 (Taibei: Nantian shuju, 1994), 112.

54 Wei shu, 103.2305; Li Yanshou 李延壽 (fl. 618–676), comp., Bei shi 北史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 98.3268–69.

55 Jin shu, 63.1712.

56 Jin shu, 108.2803; Wei shu, 95.2060.

57 Zizhi tongjian, 86.2735.

58 Jin shu, 4.102, 39.1146, 63.1710; Zizhi tongjian, 85.2692.

59 Jin shu, 4.103–4, 39.1147, 101.2647–48; Zizhi tongjian, 85.2697, 2699–2701.

60 Zizhi tongjian, 86.2713–14.

61 Jin shu, 5.121, 39.1147.

62 Jin shu, 5.122–23.

63 Jin shu, 39.1148–49; Zizhi tongjian, 87.2767.

64 Jin shu, 94.2435.

65 The introduction of heavily armored cavalry was a major military innovation around this time. See David A. Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300–900 (London: Routledge, 2002), 41–42.

66 Jin shu, 39.1147–48, 63.1710, 104.2718–19; Zizhi tongjian, 88.2786–88; Wei shu, 103.2305.

67 Zizhi tongjian, 88.2797, 2800.

68 Jin shu, 104.2721.

69 Kawamoto Yoshiaki, Chūka no hōkai to kakudai: Gi Shin Nanbokuchō 中華の崩壞と擴大: 魏晉南北朝 (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 2005), 73.

70 Jin shu, 5.128, 39.1149, 104.2722–23; Zizhi tongjian, 89.2811–13.

71 Zizhi tongjian, 89.2814.

72 Liu Yiqing 劉義慶, comp., Shishuo xinyu jiaojian 世說新語校箋, annot. Xu Zhen’e 徐震堮 (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), 7.216; Richard B. Mather, trans., Shih-shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2002), 212.

73 See David R. Knechtges, “Liu Kun, Lu Chen, and Their Writings in the Transition to the Eastern Jin,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 28 (2006): 1–66.

74 Shishuo xinyu jiaojian, 36.494; Mather, trans., Shih-shuo Hsin-yü, 528.

75 Antje Richter, “The World of Prose Literature,” in Cambridge History of China Vol. 2, 605–6; Jin shu, 62.1679.

76 Zizhi tongjian, 86.2723; Jin shu, 62.1680 (and 62.1700–1 n. 4).

77 Wei shu, 1.6–7; Zizhi tongjian, 85.2701, 86.2708.

78 Wei shu, 1.5–6.

79 Su Qingbin 蘇慶彬, “Yuan Wei Bei Qi Bei Zhou zhengquan xia Hanren shili zhi tuiyi” 元魏北齊北周政權下漢人勢力之推移, Xin Ya xuebao 新亞學報 6.2 (1964): 68.

80 Wei shu, 23.599–602.

81 Wei shu, 1.7.

82 Jin shu, 62.1680–81; Zizhi tongjian, 86.2723–24. Liu Kun’s petition is translated in Knechtges, “Liu Kun, Lu Chen,” 44, appendix I.

83 Jin shu, 5.116, 62.1681.

84 Zizhi tongjian, 87.2744, labels the Baibu as “Xianbei,” but Holmgren (Annals of Tai, 61, 99) identifies them as people who may have originated from Kucha, in Xinjiang, who had settled in Shaanxi during the Han dynasty.

85 Wei shu, 1.7; Zizhi tongjian, 87.2752–53; Jin shu, 5.123; Shen Yue 沈約 (441–513), comp., Song shu 宋書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 95.2321. There are discrepancies regarding the dating of these events, but Zhao Tianrui 趙天瑞 places them in the year 310. See “Nian pu” 年譜 in Zhao Tiantui, ed., Liu Kun ji 劉琨集 (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1996), 170–76.

86 Jin shu, 39.1148, 62.1681; Zizhi tongjian, 87.2772.

87 Jin shu, 102.2662.

88 Jin shu, 5.124, 62.1682, 102.2662–63; Zizhi tongjian, 88.2783–85; Wei shu, 1.8.

89 Jin shu, 5.125, 102.2663. For the date, see David R. Knechtges, trans., “Han and Six Dynasties Parallel Prose,” Renditions, 33–34 (1990): 104 n. 9.

90 Jin shu, 62.1682.

91 Wei shu, 1.8.

92 Wei shu, 1.8; Zizhi tongjian, 89.2814; Liu Kun, “You biao” 又表, in Yan Kejun 嚴可均 (1762–1843), comp., Quan Jin wen 全晉文, 108.2079a, in Yan Kejun, comp., Quan shanggu sandai Qin Han sanguo liuchao wen 全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文 (Kyōto: Chūbun shuppansha, 1981).

93 Jin shu, 5.129; Wei shu, 1.9; Zizhi tongjian, 89.2818.

94 Wei shu, 23.603.

95 Jin shu, 5.130–31, 6.144–45.

96 Jin shu, 6.149; Zizhi tongjian, 90.2853–54. For the date, see Knechtges, “Han and Six Dynasties Parallel Prose,” 102.

97 See Charles Holcombe, “Eastern Jin,” in Cambridge History of China Vol. 2, 96–118.

98 Zizhi tongjian, 89.2830–31; Wei shu, 1.9, 23.602–3; Jin shu, 5.130, 62.1684.

99 Tian Yuqing, “Guanyu Tuoba Yilu canbei ji tuoben tiji er ze—jian shi canbei chutu didian zhi yi” 關於拓跋猗盧殘碑及拓本題記二則—兼釋殘碑出土地點之疑, in Tian Yuqing, Tuoba shi tan 拓跋史探, rev. ed. (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2011), 252–64.

100 Jin shu, 104.2715.

101 Jin shu, 62.1685.

102 Zizhi tongjian, 89.2837–39, 90.2844; Jin shu, 5.131, 62.1684–85. The text of the covenant is preserved in “Yu Duan Pidi meng wen” 與段匹磾盟文. Yan Kejun, comp., Quan Jin wen, 108.2083a.

103 Jin shu, 62.1685, 67.1785–86; Shishuo xinyu, jiaojian, 2.53; Mather, trans., Shih-shuo Hsin-yü, 49.

104 Knechtges, “Liu Kun, Lu Chen,” 13. The four texts are preserved in Yan Kejun, comp., Quan Jin wen, 108.2079a–80b. Also, Zhao Tianrui, ed., Liu Kun ji, 33–61.

105 “Quan jin biao” 勸進表, in Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–531), comp., Wen xuan 文選, annot. Li Shan 李善 (d. 689 CE) (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1965), vol. 2, 37.17b. Translated slightly differently in Knechtges, “Han and Six Dynasties Parallel Prose,” 108.

106 Jin shu, 6.145.

107 Zizhi tongjian, 90.2847–48; Jin shu, 104.2727.

108 Jin shu, 63.1710–11, 104.2727; Wei shu, 103.2306; Zizhi tongjian, 90.2853.

109 Jin shu, 6.150, 62.1686–87, 63.1711; Zizhi tongjian, 90.2858–59.

110 Zhao Tianrui, ed., Liu Kun ji, preface, 1.

111 Knechtges, “Liu Kun, Lu Chen,” 2, 42–43.

112 Jin shu, 62.1691.

113 Jin shu, 44.1259.

114 Zizhi tongjian, 93.2927.

115 Jin shu, 35.1051.

116 Jin shu, 39.1148, 95.2492–93; Zizhi tongjian, 88.2797–98.

117 Jin shu, 108.2813; Zizhi tongjian, 91.2874. See Gerhard Schreiber, “The History of the Former Yen Dynasty,” Monumenta Serica 14 (1949–1955): 416; and 15.1 (1956): 124.

118 Jin shu, 6.155, 108.2807.

119 Zizhi tongjian, 92.2911.

120 See Tang Zhangru 唐長孺, “Jindai beijing gezu ‘bianluan’ de xingzhi ji wu Hu zhengquan zai Zhongguo de tongzhi” 晉代北境各族“變亂”的性質及五胡政權在中國的統治, in Tang Zhangru, Wei Jin nanbeichao shi luncong 魏晉南北朝史論叢 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1955), 154–56.

121 Peng Fengwen 彭豐文, Liang Jin shiqi guojia rentong yanjiu 兩晉時期國家認同研究 (Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2009), 233–34.

122 Wei shu, 95.2061.

123 See Randolph B. Ford, Rome, China, and the Barbarians: Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 193–205, 240–50, 330–33.

124 For a late Tang description of how persons of foreign descent could become “Chinese at heart,” see Chen An 陳黯 (fl. 850s–860s), “Hua xin” 華心, in Dong Gao 董誥 (1740–1818) et al., comps., Quan Tang wen 全唐文 (Taibei: Datong shuju, 1979), 767.10094. The text is analyzed in Shao-yun Yang, The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019), 59–67.

125 Wei shu, 113.2973; Xiao Zixian 蕭子顯 (489–537), comp., Nan Qi shu 南齊書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1972), 57.985.

126 Wei shu, 7b.187.

127 Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (531–590s), Yan shi jiaxun 顏氏家訓 (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 1.6b; Xiaofei Tian, trans., Family Instructions for the Yan Clan and Other Works by Yan Zhitui (531–590s), ed. Paul W. Kroll (Boston/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021), 18–19.

128 Kawamoto Yoshiaki, Gi Shin Nanbokuchō jidai no minzoku mondai 魏晉南北朝時代の民族問題 (Tōkyō: Kyūko shoin, 1998), 29–33. Also, Kawamoto, Chūka no hōkai to kakudai, 70–71.

129 Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692), Du Tongjian lun 讀通鑑論 (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 12.11b; Tian Yuqing, Dong Jin menfa zhengzhi 東晉門閥政治 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1989), 28–29.

130 Liu Kun, “Yu Chengxiang jian” 與丞相牋, in Yan Kejun, comp., Quan Jin wen, 108.2081a.

131 See Charles Holcombe, “Chinese Identity during the Age of Division, Sui, and Tang,” Journal of Chinese History 4.1 (2020): 31–53.

132 For a shift towards greater “ethnic and cultural exclusivity” during the Tang dynasty, see Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang China, 190–91.

133 Scott Pearce, “Northern Wei,” in Cambridge History of China Vol. 2, 183. On the Tuoba legacy, see also Sanping Chen, Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 2.

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Notes on contributors

Charles Holcombe

Charles Holcombe is Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa. His research focuses primarily on the history of early medieval China and the formation of an East Asian cultural community. He is the author of numerous articles and three books, including The Genesis of East Asia, 221 B.C.–A.D. 907.