Chapter 812: Tibetans and the Cong People

While the flames of war raged across the Qingtang Plateau, the Zhang Zhou ministers led by Feng Dao had still not worked out a way to settle the Tsenpo Chiwang Xuzan.

Because this matter truly had no precedent! Although there had once been a monarch of the same rank who submitted — the Khagan Jieli, for example — he had been captured, and so counted as a prisoner of war. Tsenpo Chiwang Xuzan, however, had voluntarily offered up his lands, and certainly could not be treated as a captive.

And those who had likewise offered up their lands — Qian Hongchu, Gao Baorong, and the rest — had originally been lords of military provinces within the realm, quite different from the ruler of a great state like the Tsanpo of Tibet.

In the end, what the assembled ministers proposed was to restore the royal title that the Great Tang had once conferred upon the Tsanpo of Tibet: King of Cong.

The Cong, also called the Cong people, were in fact a minority people living in the area of later Sichuan's Dazhou and Chongqing, also known as the Bandun Man. These people later merged with the Linjun Man to be collectively called the Ba people.

As for why the Tang court enfeoffed the Tsanpo of Tibet as King of Cong — a people with no connection to them whatsoever — this was actually full of boundless aspiration.

Because the Cong people, in China's ethnic history, held an extremely, extremely important position. In the Shang dynasty they had already established their own state. During King Wu's campaign against Zhou, the Cong people followed King Wu of Zhou as the vanguard. In the Warring States period, the state of Qin also relied heavily on the Cong people to pacify the lands of Ba and Shu.

When Emperor Gaozu of Han raised troops in Hanzhong, he too recruited large numbers of Cong people as his vanguard. After winning the empire, Emperor Gaozu of Han so loved the Cong people's valor that he ordered the Music Bureau to collect and compile their songs and dances, calling them the Bayu Dance.

Thereafter, throughout the two Han dynasties, the histories frequently record: "The commanderies and counties were laid waste, and it was the Bandun who saved them." Or, when campaigning against certain tribes that refused to obey the central court, there often appears: "It was truly the Bandun who crushed and broke them."

And so on — examples beyond counting. It may be said that among all the regional tribes upon which the Central Plains dynasties relied, none surpassed the Cong people.

Especially in the period from the Zhou through the two Han dynasties, the Cong people were the central dynasty's most effective mercenaries, its closest partners in pacifying the Qinba mountains and even the heart of Shu.

By the Sui and Tang, the Cong people had completely merged into the Han people, but their deeds of fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Central Plains dynasties were still celebrated, and the Bayu Dance remained one of the dances the Tang people loved to perform.

Thus when Songtsen Gampo, after Emperor Gaozong of Tang ascended the throne, declared: "The Son of Heaven has newly taken the throne; if there are any below who refuse allegiance, I wish to gird on troops and chastise them."

And regardless of whether the effects were good or bad, he did indeed lend troops to Wang Xuance to break Central India, and other such deeds. Whatever Tibet's own intentions may have been, judging from Emperor Gaozong of Tang's enfeoffing Songtsen Gampo as King of Cong, the Tang court had once planned to mold the Tibetans — who had married Princess Wencheng — into the Cong people of their vision.

Given the geography and political configuration of the time, this was very likely the Tang court's deliberate plan to rely on Tibet to conquer India and Nanzhao, then share the spoils, and after a thousand years merge into one — such was the idea.

But because Songtsen Gampo died suddenly under strange circumstances, and thereafter Gar Tongtsen abandoned the strategy of marching south into India, turning instead to contest with the Tang court over the Hexi Corridor and Longyou, which were better suited for survival.

Between Tang and Tibet there then began more than two hundred years of brutal slaughter, never to return to what had been. Indeed, Songtsen Gampo's strange death was very possibly connected to his wish to carry out the southward strategy against India.

Zhang Zhao had not known these reasons either. Only after Feng Dao and He Ning personally explained it to him did he learn the deeper meaning of the Tang court's enfeoffing Songtsen Gampo as King of Cong, and at once he felt — what a grand and far-reaching vision it had been!

But constrained by the era's horizons and perspective, and by Songtsen Gampo's sudden death, everything had dissolved into foam.

So before his own plan of relying on Tibet to control the Ganges and Indus river basins, the Great Tang had already had this idea!

A pity that Heaven does not grant men's wishes — truly a pity! But Zhang Zhao thought it over: the present situation, in which he nominally controlled the Qingtang Plateau, was different from Emperor Gaozong of Tang's time, when cooperation from Songtsen Gampo was needed and Tibet stood as an independent great power.

The title King of Cong, unlike titles such as King of Chu or King of Shu that had passed through the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, still carried a flavor of an independent tribe, and did not quite suit the present circumstances.

Since the Cong people had ultimately merged into the Ba people, and then finally merged into the Han people, why still use the designation "Cong" when the Qingtang Plateau was already under nominal control?

Why not simply change King of Cong to King of Ba? The state of Ba was a proper viscount-rank state enfeoffed by King Wu of Zhou. Would that not make it less suggestive of independence?

From this Zhang Zhao further reflected that although he now nominally controlled Qingtang, the problems within were still many.

First, he could not maintain a garrison of twenty or thirty thousand men in Lhasa for long. At most he could keep three to five thousand — that would already be good.

Pay and provisions were one aspect, but the greatest problem was that few troops from the Han heartland were willing to stay in such high-altitude places where food and clothing were entirely inferior to the Central Plains.

Never mind now — even in the Republic, serving as a soldier on the Qingtang Plateau was hardship among hardships. Without an extremely strong sense of honor and mission, one simply could not endure it.

But at present the Qingtang Plateau had not yet lost all its military strength, and the glory of the Tibetan Empire had not fully faded. In the Manchu Qing period, three to five thousand troops had been enough to overawe the Lhasa authorities, but at this time that was utterly impossible.

Moreover, at this moment, what concept did the nobles and commoners of the Qingtang Plateau have of the Zhou army controlling Lhasa and of the Zhou dynasty of the Central Plains? Let me make a crude and disgusting analogy.

The Qingtang of today is like a child whose father has just died. The grief has not even passed, when suddenly a "neighbor Wang" shows up, walks straight over, puts his arm around the child's mother's waist, and says smugly: "Well, your father's gone, so from now on I might as well be your father."

Although this shameless new father who has come barging in is strong and rich, the child will certainly feel boundless disgust and resentment.

Though the child dares not do anything to his face, behind his back he will surely not be sparing with spitting in his teacup, pouring dirty water into his wine bottle, scrubbing the toilet with his toothbrush, and wiping the floor with his face cloth.

And the moment he gains a little ability to stand on his own, running away at once will absolutely be the first choice. And the temperament of the people of the Qingtang Plateau — later generations ought to know it well.

To put it bluntly, in that place those who can plan before acting are a minority. The majority are emotional by nature, simplistic in their actions, and the moment their blood is up they want to settle things by force.

Even in an age when television, film, and smartphones are so advanced and information flows so freely, such places are still like that.

At this moment, apart from those crafty politicians in Lhasa, the vast majority of the million people across the plateau are single-minded, unafraid of trouble, and possess nothing at all.

For people nearly dead from poverty, the fear of death is just about that much. The Zhang Zhou of today faces precisely this situation. Directly establishing commanderies and counties — don't even think about it. Even ruling without the Tsanpo and the Six Dharma Sect as backing would be impossible.

Zhang Zhao thought it over carefully. The only feasible plan at present was to enfeoff Chiwang Xuzan as King of Ba.

The regions already firmly under Zhang Zhao's control — Dafeichuan, the Eastern Women's Kingdom, Songpan Prefecture, and the various Qiang of the Western Mountains — would be cut away from the territory of the Tibetan Empire and placed under Pacification Commissions.

The true Tibetan heartland would then become the territory of the state of Ba, governed in the name of Tsanpo Chiwang Xuzan. In that case, the only way was still to use the method of establishing a hegemonic government.

Thus a Ba King Hegemonic Government could be established. Politically, the hegemonic government would appoint a Chancellor of the State of Ba, overseeing all affairs great and small within the realm; militarily, it would establish a Protector of Ba Troop Commander, commanding all military matters of the state.

As for the King of Ba himself, he would reside in the divine capital Luoyang, delegating the Chancellor and Troop Commander to handle state affairs. In name, the Chancellor and Troop Commander would be subordinates of the King of Ba, but in reality they would be appointed by the court, and the King of Ba could not interfere in the slightest.

And apart from the Chancellor and Troop Commander, more than seventy percent of the other posts in the Ba King Hegemonic Government would be reserved for local people.

This was essentially using the power of the central court to provide political backing for the local nobles who had sided with the Central Plains dynasty, binding them to the court from then on.

In terms of the political system, the court would also directly recognize the local feudal lords' feudal military-province status, dividing them by size into four ranks: Marquis, Count, Pacification Commissioner, and Garrison Commissioner.

In this way the interior of the state of Ba could be carved into over a hundred noble domains large and small, making it very difficult for them to combine their strength.

Militarily, the court would reselect the gui — that is, the military households. Tibet had originally, like the Great Tang, used the fubing system, except that Tibet's auxiliary troops had an even stronger aristocratic flavor.

Now the court, starting from the very lowest level, would reselect the gui, giving the Great Zhou the chance to promote the lowest-status but brave and strong Tibetan commoners and serfs.

As long as twenty thousand gui could be selected across the plateau, this political system would basically be stable. At the same time, local people of truly outstanding ability or status could also be transferred to the central court to serve as officials.

In religious terms, living Buddhas would be established in the state of Ba, and beneath each living Buddha a hierarchy of monastic officials would be set up in order: Great Virtue, Superior Master, and Chief Monk Controller.

Specifically, on the plateau, one living Buddha each would be established at Lhasa, Nyingchi, Shannan, and Ngari, and one living Buddha of the Han-land Six Dharma Sect would be stationed in the Jokhang Temple.

With the Jokhang Temple living Buddha as the head, religious affairs would be handled by the Great Living Buddha in coordination with the four living Buddhas. This one great and four lesser living Buddhas could not be hereditary.

Of course, the golden urn lot-drawing system and other institutions formed in the Ming dynasty and inherited and carried forward by the Manchu Qing would certainly have to be arranged.

For every noble great or small enfeoffed on the plateau, the designated heir must be sent to Liangzhou or Dunhuang to receive education from the Six Dharma Sect.

Only after they passed the Six Dharma Sect's examinations would they then go to the palace and serve two or three years as guards to the Emperor and Supreme Heaven, and only after that would they be qualified to inherit their titles.

The surface benefit of doing this, naturally, is that these heirs to titles great and small would be more loyal to the court, but in reality it is meddling in the internal succession of the enfeoffed titles.

Because studying in the Six Dharma Sect and serving as palace guards would require at least four or five years, by the time these heirs finished their duties and returned, they might well find that everything at home had changed.

The father might well prefer another son who had stayed constantly by his side; the mother and maternal uncles might well have lost out in internal strife; even the father might have died, and the family's power seized by some uncle or brother — all of that would be perfectly normal.

If things were done this way, the heir would have only one recourse: to rely on the power of the court to seize back what had been lost. In this way, the court's power could participate more deeply in establishing authority locally.

Zhang Zhao wrote out the policies item by item, then had Chief Minister Feng Dao convene the five Assistant Administrators and the Minister of Rites for deliberation; after polishing, it was sent to Lhasa by eight-hundred-li express courier.

However, this was not to be implemented as written. Rather, it was sent for Guo Tiance to convene Lun Boren, Langjie Jiangcuo, and the Tibetan ministers who had voluntarily submitted to the court, to deliberate and offer their opinions.

After all, they were the parties directly concerned. Only after incorporating their opinions and making improvements could it become established policy.

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