Chuge
The Chuge (Chinese: 屠各; pinyin: Chúgè; Wade–Giles: Ch'u-ko), also known as Xiuchuge (Chinese: 休屠各; pinyin: Xiūchúgè; Wade–Giles: Hsiu-ch'u-ko)[1] were a Xiongnu tribe and later ethnic group that lived in ancient China. They were one of the nineteen tribes of the Southern Xiongnu who submitted to the Han dynasty and were described as the most powerful and prestigious among them. After the fall of the Southern Xiongnu in the 2nd century CE, the Chuge survived and became their own ethnic group, maintaining an active presence in the northern parts of Shanxi and Shaanxi until the 6th century CE.
The Xiutu (Chinese: 休屠; pinyin: Xiūtú; Wade–Giles: Hsiu-t'u) were another ethnic group originating from the tribe of King Xiutu who were likely related to the Chuge. The Xiutu mainly resided in eastern Gansu, and existed concurrently with the Chuge as separate groups.[2]
Origins and theories
[edit]According to the 7th-century Chinese text, the Book of Jin, the Chuge were one of the nineteen Southern Xiongnu tribes that surrendered to the Han dynasty in the 1st century CE. They were the most powerful and prestigious among the tribes, as their members were elected to become chanyus of the Southern Xiongnu.[3]
Modern Chinese historians believe that the Chuge had submitted to the Han long before the Southern Xiongnu, tracing them back to the tribe of King Xiutu (休屠王) in the 2nd century BCE. King Xiutu was a vassal of the Xiongnu Empire who ruled over the area of modern Wuwei, Gansu. After his death in 121 BCE, his followers surrendered to the Han general, Huo Qubing and were distributed across five frontier commanderies in northern China.[4]
The tribesmen that remained around the Gansu region were dubbed Xiutu (休屠) after their former king, though uncovered seals gifted by the Han court reveal that another official variant of their name, "Xiuzhu" (休著) emerged by the Eastern Han period.[5] Those that were relocated inland to the Ordos Plateau and Shanxi gained the suffix of "ge" (各) to their people's name, and so they became known as "Xiuzhuge" (休著各), "Xiuzhutuge" (休著屠各) and "Xiuchuge" (休屠各), before finally being shortened to "Chuge" (屠各).[6][7][8]
The extant of the Xiutu and Chuge's ethnic relation to the Xiongnu people is unclear. Chinese historical records and excavated seals suggest that the Chinese court saw the two groups as distinct from the Xiongnu. One theory posits that the Xiutu were Lesser Yuezhi people who submitted to the Xiongnu, as the domain of King Xiutu was once under the influence of the Yuezhi. Later on, a branch of the Chuge merged with the Southern Xiongnu in Bing Province.[2]
History
[edit]Han dynasty
[edit]After his tribe's surrender, King Xiutu's son, Midi became a prominent minister of the Han dynasty under Emperor Wu and Emperor Zhao. He was given the Chinese surname "Jin" (金), meaning "gold" due to his worship of golden statues. Later on, Jin became a notable surname among the Xiutu people, with few even claiming direct descent from Jin Midi.[9][8]
The Xiuchuge were first mentioned in official Chinese records in 156 CE. That year, they rebelled with the Wuhuan of Shuofang Commandery against the Han dynasty. They were defeated by the general, Zhang Huan, who sent agents to assassinate the Xiuchuge leaders. The Xiuchuge were later employed as military auxiliaries for Xia Yu in repelling the marauding Xianbei at Beidi Commandery in 174–175 CE.[10]
In 188 CE, the Xiuchuge rebelled again, invading Xihe Commandery in Bing and killing the local administrator, Xing Ji. A few months later, the Xiuchuge defeated and killed the Inspector of Bing, Zhang Yi. At the time, many of the Southern Xiongnu tribes were disgruntled with the chanyu as they were insistently being sent to fight against rebellions for the Han. Seeing the success of the Xiuchuge, the Xiluo clan of the Southern Xiongnu Right Division allied with the Xiuchuge and killed the chanyu, Qiangqu. Though the Han court appointed Qiangqu's son, Yufuluo as the new chanyu, the Xiuchuge and their allies rejected him and elected a marquis from the Xubu clan in his place. Yufuluo was exiled to the east of the Fen River, where he and later his brother continued to claim themselves as chanyus. After the marquis died just a year into his reign, the rebel Xiongnu abolished the chanyu position and installed a nominal elderly king. By then, the Southern Xiongnu had effectively distintegrated.[10]
The former Southern Xiongnu tribes maintained their distance from the ongoing Han civil war, but the Xiuchuge were occasionally drawn into the conflict. Around this time, their name was shortened to Chuge, and they allied with Zhang Yan of the Heishan bandits in the Taihang Mountains against the warlord, Yuan Shao in 193 CE. After Yuan Shao defeated his Ji province rival, Gongsun Zan in 199 CE, the Chuge had the latter's son, Gongsun Xu, killed when he fled to their territory. As both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao consolidated control over northern China, the Chuge fled to the west, where they were later defeated and scattered by Cao Cao's general, Xiahou Yuan at Gaoping County (present-day Guyuan, Ningxia) in 214 CE.[11]
Three Kingdoms
[edit]During the Three Kingdoms period, the Xiutu were briefly mentioned when one of their chieftains in Liang province, Liang Yuanbi (梁元碧), brought more than 2,000 families to submit to the Cao Wei dynasty. The Wei general, Guo Huai relocated them to Gaoping County (高平縣; present-day Guyuan, Ningxia) in Anding Commandery, where they were managed by the Commandant of Xichuan.[8]
Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern dynasties
[edit]Han-Zhao dynasty (304–329)
[edit]In 216 CE, Cao Cao had the remnants of the Southern Xiongnu reorganized into the Five Divisions in the Shanxi region, where they continued to serve as military auxiliaries on the northern frontiers. In 304 CE, the Five Divisions under Liu Yuan rebelled against the Western Jin dynasty and founded his state of Han (renamed Zhao in 319, hence the collective name of Han-Zhao), marking the beginning of the tumultuous Sixteen Kingdoms period.
Official records from the period state that Liu Yuan was a direct descendant of the chanyu Luandi clan who traced his lineage all the way back to Modu Chanyu, while at the same time presenting himself as a restorer of the Han dynasty by citing his Xiongnu ancestors' marriages to Han princesses through Heqin. Yet, the same records also contain multiple excerpts referring to Liu Yuan and his followers as "Chuge". Modern Chinese historians such as Tang Changru believe that Liu Yuan was actually a member of the Chuge who forged his lineage to the chanyus for imperial legitimacy, while a minority view held by Zhou Weizhou believe that Chuge had become a blanket term for sinicized Xiongnu at the time. Chen Yong, who supports Tang's view, suggests that the Chuge under Liu Yuan's father, Liu Bao had annexed the Five Divisions during the Jiaping era (249–254 CE) and took over as their ruling elite before being forced into submission by the Cao Wei and Western Jin courts.[4][12][13]
The Han drove the Jin court out of northern China in 318 CE, but the state was soon split into two between Liu Yuan's distant cousin, Liu Yao and the Jie warlord, Shi Le. Liu Yao retreated to the Guanzhong Basin in northwestern China and renamed his state to (Former) Zhao, while Shi Le broke away and established his own state of (Later) Zhao. The Former Zhao was destroyed in 329 CE, during which the imperial Liu clan were slaughtered and around 5,000 Chuge people of the Five Divisions were buried alive by the Later Zhao general, Shi Hu.[12]
Later history
[edit]The Chuge and Xiutu continued to appear throughout the Sixteen Kingdoms and the subsequent Northern and Southern dynasties period. A prominent figure from the Xiutu was Wang Zhuo, a military general from Longxi Commandery who served under five different regimes. The epitaph of his great-grandson, Wang Zhenbao (王真保) states that Wang Zhuo's descendants served as officials for the Former Qin, Western Qin and Northern Wei dynasties. Under the Northern Wei, the non-Xianbei tribal groups were treated poorly and discriminated against by the ruling Xianbei class. In response, the Chuge and Xiutu of northwestern China allied with the Di, Qiang and Lushuihu in launching numerous revolts against the Wei, such as in 452 and 506 CE.[8][14][15]
The last mentions of the Chuge and Xiutu in official Chinese records were in the 6th century CE. Long before that, their people were already exhibiting signs of deep sinicization, evidenced by their Chinese surnames such as Liu, Jin, Wang, Bi, Zhang, Li, Guo, Dong, Cheng and Huang. They also intermarried with the various other minority ethnic groups that they cohabited with, an example being the Chuge in northern Shaanxi and northern Shanxi, who intermixed and eventually formed part of the Jihu people. It is presumed that the Chuge and Xiutu eventually disappeared from history as they were assimilated into the rest of Chinese society.[12][16]
References
[edit]- ↑ In most cases, the pronunciation of the character "屠" is "tú"; the "chú" pronunciation is an exceptional case.
- 1 2 Wang, Xilong, ed. (2003). Northwestern Minority History Research 西北少数民族史研究 (1st ed.). Beijing: The Ethnic Publishing House. pp. 26–32. ISBN 978-7-105-05807-5.
- ↑ (北狄以部落爲類，其入居塞者有屠各種、鮮支種、寇頭種、烏譚種、赤勒種、捍蛭種、黑狼種、赤沙種、鬱鞞種、萎莎種、禿童種、勃蔑種、羌渠種、賀賴種、鐘跂種、大樓種、雍屈種、真樹種、力羯種，凡十九種，皆有部落，不相雜錯。屠各最豪貴，故得爲單于，統領諸種。) Jin Shu, vol.97
- 1 2 Tang, Changru (December 2010). "〈魏晋杂胡考 一 屠各〉". 《魏晋南北朝史论丛》 (in Chinese). Beijing: Commercial Press. ISBN 9787100074513.
- ↑ Other variant transcriptions include Xiuzhu (休箸) and Xiujing (休警).
- ↑ Chen, Yong (August 2009). 《汉赵史论稿——匈奴屠各建国的政治史考察 》(in Chinese). Shanghai: Commercial Press. ISBN 978-7-100-06067-7.
- ↑ Wang, Huaiyou; Guo, Yongli (March 2018). "北魏金猥墓志考释". Northwest Ethnology Series. 16. Social Sciences Literature Press.
- 1 2 3 4 Zhou, Weizhou (2018). Northwest Ethnology Series 西北民族论丛（第十六辑）. Vol. 16. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. ISBN 978-7-5201-2277-1.
- ↑ Dubs, Homer H. (1937). "The "Golden Man" of Former Han Times". T'oung Pao. 33 (1): 6. JSTOR 4527117.
- 1 2 De Crespigny, Rafe (1984). Northern frontier: the policies and strategy of the later Han Empire. Faculty of Asian Studies monographs. Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-86784-410-8.
- ↑ de Crespigny, Rafe (2004-09-28). "The Division and Destruction of the Xiongnu Confederacy in the First and Second Centuries AD". ANU Research Publications.
- 1 2 3 Zhou, Weizhou (2019). History of the Han-Zhao 汉赵国史. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. ISBN 978-7-5201-4520-6. OCLC 1105718140.
- ↑ Chen, Yong (2007). "去卑监国的败局与屠各刘豹的崛起". Wenxue100. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
- ↑ Ma, Mingda (1979). "A Study on the Epitaph of Wang Zhenbao of the Northern Wei Dynasty" 北魏王真保墓志考略. Gansu Social Sciences (3): 64–69.
- ↑ Ma, Changshou; Zhou, Weizhou (2006). Di and Qiang 氐与羌. A General Treatise on Northern Nationalities in Ancient China (1st, [Rev. ed.] ed.). Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press. ISBN 978-7-5633-5992-9.
- ↑ Tang, Changru (December 2010). "〈魏晋杂胡考 六 稽胡〉". 《魏晋南北朝史论丛》 (in Chinese). Beijing: Commercial Press. ISBN 9787100074513.
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