The Tongdian is a massive 200-volume encyclopedia of governance written by the Tang official Du You (735-812) over a period of more than thirty years. Du, an expert in fiscal matters, completed the text while serving as governor of the salt-producing southern province of Huainan, which had become economically vital to the Tang state due to the reintroduction of a salt monopoly to recoup losses in tax revenue after the chaos of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763). About two years after presenting the completed text to the emperor, Du was appointed as a chief minister and remained in that position until his retirement in 807.

The Tongdian is divided into nine parts (dian) on the economy; the official recruitment and examination system; the state bureaucracy; ritual institutions; court music; military institutions and tactics; law; local administration; and frontier defense. The “frontier defense” part, the preface for which is partially translated below, is somewhat misnamed, being in fact a collection of ethnographic descriptions of foreign countries (both path and present) and their relations with the Chinese empires. The preface itself presents an unusually sophisticated argument, supported by ethnological evidence, that the customs of various barbarian peoples reflect practices once common among the Chinese before the sage-kings developed more civilized ways of life. The barbarians, having an inferior endowment of qi due to their peripheral location, have not produced sage-kings and therefore have remained in an uncivilized state. Rather than use this to justify a civilizing mission of imperial expansion, however, Du You argues for a defensive frontier policy on the grounds that the barbarians are too inferior to be educable and that wars of territorial expansion have proven disastrous for Chinese empires throughout history.

Although the Tang empire had just lost its entire northwestern frontier (including the Tarim Basin and the Gansu Corridor) to the Tibetan empire because of the An Lushan Rebellion, Du You makes a highly provocative claim that the rebellion actually spared the Tang from an even worse fate of total collapse. The empire had built massive and expensive professional armies on its northern and western frontiers to fend off raids by the Tibetans, Eastern Türks, and Kitans. But under Emperor Xuanzong (r. 713-756), these frontier armies had switched to a recklessly and unsustainably aggressive posture due to the personal ambitions of their commanders (including An Lushan himself). Du You concludes that the appropriate policy for an empire is not unlimited expansion but “[p]reserving what one already has and being content with it.”

The preface translated below contains several commentarial notes by Du You. I have translated (in footnotes) five that I find especially relevant.

~~~~~

“Part 9, Frontier Defense: Preface”

Within the space that lies between [heaven and earth] and is illuminated by the sun and moon, the land of the Hua-Xia lies at the world’s center, and the creatures born there receive correctly balanced qi. Its people are harmonious by nature and intelligent in their mental faculties, and the products of its soil are abundant and diverse. Therefore, it has given birth to sages and worthy men who, one after another, have dispensed laws and teachings. According to the needs of the times, they have remedied the ills of society and put each thing to its fullest and most beneficial use. Since the time of the sage-kings, every age has had such men….

A worthy man of the past (i.e., Laozi) said, “When the Way was lost, only then was there a need for moral authority; when moral authority was lost, only then was there a need for humaneness; when humaneness was lost, only then was there a need for moral duty; when moral duty was lost, only then was there a need for ritual propriety.” This can truly be called slicing the thick to make it thin and diluting strong wine to make it weak. He also said, “In antiquity, people [of neighboring communities] died of old age without ever having had anything to do with one another. They neither communicated nor competed with one another, because each person was self-sufficient.”¹ He said this because he despised the decadent artifice of his time and admired the honest simplicity of the past, and thus wished to encourage people to emulate [the ancient ways].

However, it is the normal tendency of people to denigrate the present age and praise the ancient past. The simple and peaceful society of the ancients is praiseworthy indeed, but might it not also have had inferior ways and uncouth customs? If we look back to the Hua of the Central Lands (Zhonghua) in antiquity, they were in many ways similar to the barbarians (Yi-Di) of today. There were practices of living in nests (stilt houses) and caves², of burying the dead in unmarked graves³, of eating with one’s hands⁴, and of making ancestral offerings to a personator.⁵ For now, I have only given one or two such examples, and cannot list them exhaustively.

The lands [of the barbarians] are peripheral and their qi is blocked up. They do not produce sages and men of wisdom and therefore have not changed their old ways. Admonition and teaching have no effect on them, and ritual propriety and moral duty cannot be spread to them. We should treat them as those outside and not those inside, keeping them far off and not letting them come close. When they come [to invade], we should repel them, and after they flee, we should [merely] guard against them. Perspicacious men of former times have already written on this in great detail. In past ages, there have been cases of [rulers] flaunting their military strength and engaging in war recklessly by launching punitive expeditions against the barbarians (Rong-Yi). Starting from the Qin dynasty, the disastrous results of this can be seen in every age.

The First Emperor relied on his invincible military might to conquer the six other states, but finally ruined [his empire] by attacking the Hu (Xiongnu). Han Emperor Wu used the accumulated wealth from the reigns of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing to seek territorial expansion, but the subcelestial realm then dangled and swayed perilously like a string of beads. Wang Mang inherited a solid foundation from the Yuanshi era (1-5 CE) and aspired to conquer the Xiongnu, but all within the seas then collapsed in revolt. Sui Emperor Yang inherited the prosperity of the Kaihuang era (581-600) and thrice campaigned to the east of the Liao River, but the people resented their hardship and the dynasty fell.

Holding on to one’s fortune⁶ is difficult, and being content is not easy. Emperor Guangwu of the Later (Eastern) Han deeply understood this principle. In the thirtieth year of the Jianwu era (54 CE), the people were prosperous, and Zang Gong and Ma Wu proposed to destroy the Xiongnu. The emperor replied, “Forsaking that which is near to pursue that which is distant is hard work with no reward. Forsaking that which is distant to pursue that which is near is easy work that ends well. Those who seek to expand their territory will be ruined; those who seek to extend their moral charisma will grow strong. Those who are content with their possessions will enjoy peace; those who covet others’ possessions will be destroyed.” From then on, the generals dared not speak of war.⁷

Alas! Holding on to one’s fortune and being content with it—that is the basis of governing one’s self, but is it not also the essential way of governing a state? During the Kaiyuan (713–741) and Tianbao (742–756) eras of our own dynasty, the world was at peace, but generals on the frontier courted the emperor’s favor by vying to launch offensive expeditions. In the garrison on Lake Qinghai (Kokonor) on the western border, in the army routed at Tianmen Ridge in the northeast, in the Battle of Talas to the west of the [Taklamakan] desert, and in the campaign across the Lu (Dadu) River in Yunnan, several tens of thousands of men died in foreign lands.⁸ If the Youzhou rebels [under An Lushan] had not turned against the imperial court, wars would have continued without pause on every frontier, and the scale of the empire’s collapse would then have been immeasurable! These events of the past should serve as a diviner’s tortoise shell⁹ and a mirror for the Yin (Shang) dynasty.¹⁰

---

1. These quotes are from the Daodejing (Classic of the Way and Moral Authority), a Warring States philosophical text attributed to the mythical sage Laozi. The text presents an idealized “primitivist” image of pre-civilized society as a time of innocence and contentment and condemns complex societies and states for cutting human beings off from the Way, resulting in war and moral degradation. The author therefore advocates returning to a life of small, self-sufficient, illiterate village communities. ↩︎
2. Note by Du You: “In remote antiquity, the Hua of the Central Lands also lived in caves or out in the wilderness. In later ages, the sages changed this to living in palaces and houses. Today, in the country of the Shiwei, the ‘bridled’ (jimi) barbarians to the east of the Qianzhong region (Guizhou), and the country of Fu (Kham, Tibet), people still live in nests and caves. There are many kinds of barbarians that live in nests and caves; I am just giving two examples.” ↩︎
3. Note by Du You: “In remote antiquity, the Hua of the Central Lands buried their dead by wrapping them in grass and burying them in the wild in unmarked graves. In later ages, the sages introduced the use of coffins. Today, in the country of the Mohe (Malgal), when one’s parent dies, one simply abandons the body in the wild to be eaten by martens. In the country of Liuqiu, they do not use coffins for their dead and instead wrap the naked body in grass; neither do they raise a mound above the grave. Among the barbarians, some cremate their dead and some throw the bodies into rivers. The people of Tanzhou and Hengzhou (in Hunan) say that the Dan [people] retrieve the bones of the dead, place them in a small box, and put the boxes on cliff sides. In general, their customs and methods vary widely and I cannot list them all.” ↩︎
4. Note by Du You: “In the Yin (Shang) and Zhou dynasties, the Hua of the Central Lands still ate with their hands. Hence the Liji (Record of Rites) says, ‘When eating communally, do not knead the food with your hands.’ It must be that this uncouth custom was gradually being reformed but had not disappeared completely. Today, to the south of the Five Mountains (Wuling/Nanling), people of all classes still eat with their hands.” ↩︎
5. Note by Du You: “Before the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou), the Hua of the Central Lands always appointed a personator when they made ancestral offerings. This practice was abolished in the Qin and Han dynasties. It should be noted that in the reign of Tuoba Jun, Emperor Wencheng of the Later (Northern) Wei (r. 452-465), Gao Yun (390-487) wrote in a memorial to the throne: ‘The use of personators was abolished long ago, but today there is a custom where one whose parents have died will select people who resemble them in appearance and use them as personators when making offerings. The personators behave intimately as though they were really husband and wife, and the children serve them as though they were really their parents. This is corrupting to public morality and goes against both logic and the rites.’ In addition, the accounts of the barbarians in the Zhoushu (History of the Northern Zhou) and Suishu (History of the Sui) state that in the Ba and Liang regions (eastern Sichuan), when ancestral sacrifices are conducted in the spring and autumn, every village chooses good-looking people with beautiful hair, invites them in as personators, and makes offerings to them. Today, whenever the people of Chenzhou and Daozhou (in Hunan) make ancestral sacrifices, they invite men and women of their clan to receive the offerings together with the gods. This, too, is a remnant of the personator practice.” ↩︎
6. Literally “holding on to a cup filled to the brim.” ↩︎
7. This passage is based on Zang Gong’s biography in the Hou Hanshu. ↩︎
8. Note by Du You: “In the Tianbao era (742-756), Geshu Han defeated the Tibetans at Lake Qinghai. There was an island on the lake, to which he deployed twenty thousand men as a garrison. Soon after, the Tibetans attacked the island, and Geshu Han could not reinforce it, so the entire garrison was lost. An Lushan attacked the Xi and Kitans at Tianmen Ridge and his entire army of a hundred thousand men was lost. Gao Xianzhi attacked the country of Shi (Tashkent) and at the Talas River, his entire army of seventy thousand men was lost. Yang Guozhong attacked the Man [king of Nanzhao] Geluofeng and lost his entire army of over a hundred thousand men.” Geshu Han, Gao Xianzhi, and An Lushan were all military commanders on the Tang frontier in the 740s and early 750s. Note that most of Du You’s numbers are exaggerated. According to the Zizhi tongjian, the lost garrison on the island on Lake Qinghai numbered only two thousand, while An Lushan’s army at Tianmen Ridge numbered sixty thousand. In other sources, numbers given for the Tang army at Talas range from twenty thousand to sixty thousand, but Gao Xianzhi’s command only included twenty-four thousand troops. The casualty numbers given for the Nanzhao war are relatively accurate, although the death toll was the cumulative total for at least two campaigns in 751-754 (for details, see source 5.6, translator’s note). For analysis and map visualizations of these campaigns, see this StoryMap. ↩︎
9. A reference to the Shang and early Zhou practice of “oracle bones”: using the cracks created in a heated tortoise shell or animal bone to practice divination. ↩︎
10. This alludes to the Ode “Dang” 蕩 (How Vast), in which King Wen of Zhou says that the king of the Shang dynasty should have used the Xia dynasty’s fall to the Shang as a “mirror” to remind himself to govern justly and avoid meeting the same fate. ↩︎