Allegiance of the Righteous Lord of Qiang: Small Seal, Grand History

Hello, my name is Wang Yan and I’m a reporter with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens. 

Today, we’re going to talk about how a small seal from the Western Jin Dynasty has born witness to the ups and downs of the Qiang people and the gradual integration of northwestern minorities that helped to build the great Chinese nation of today. 

First, allow me to paint a mental image for you. We’re at the Palace Museum in Beijing, more popularly known as the Forbidden City, and earlier this year an exhibition opened featuring ancient Chinese artifacts including a collection of official seals that are resting quietly behind a glass frame. Due to the seals’ diminutive size, a magnifying glass is placed in front of them to ensure that visitors can clearly make out the characters finely engraved on the seals. This particular collection consists of four individual seals from the Western Jin Dynasty, which lasted from 265 to 316 CE. That’s just over 1,000 years ago, and although the period endured its own turbulent times, Western Jin is well-known for putting an end to the Three Kingdoms period and reunifying China.

As we look at the four seals, it becomes immediately apparent that one stands out among the others. Not only is it slightly larger, but where the other three are gilded bronze, it is gilded gold. Heading the lineup of this collection is a gold seal called Allegiance of the Righteous Lord of Qiang (晋归义羌侯印). Weighing in at 94 grams, it’s a mere 3 centimeters high and 2.3 centimeters in length and width. The seal features a square seat with a knob in the shape of a kneeling camel. Its inscriptions are engraved in straight and sharp strokes with a highly contrasting layout, representing the typical style of the Jin Dynasty. We’re told that, at present, several seals of lower officials from the Di and Qiang ethnic groups during the Wei and Jin dynasties have been unearthed, but the seals of kings and lords are relatively few, with gold seals being an extreme rarity.

By now, you’ve probably remembered seeing the imprints of such stamps on scrolls or artwork from throughout Chinese history. But what do these official seals have to do with the gradual integration of the various peoples that make up the Chinese nation? To answer that, we need to go back yet another thousand years to the Qin and Han dynasties. 

In those days, emperors of the Central Plains granted official seals to leaders of ethnic groups who submitted to their authority. The Central Plains, by the way, is the region around the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River centered on the area between Luoyang and Kaifeng in Henan Province. It was known as Zhongyuan (中原) and has long been considered the cradle of Chinese civilizaion.

Originally, seals like these were used to reflect the political affiliation between various ethnic groups and the Central Plains dynasties. The rank of an individual would be distinguished by the material used to make the seal – gold, silver, or bronze – and by the official title bestowed on that individual, such as king, lord, or chief. For scholars today, the seals provide historical evidence of the gradual integration of the Chinese nation. 

Now, let’s take a closer look at the gold seal of Allegiance of the Righteous Lord of Qiang. This piece is a national first-class cultural relic and, according to the account of its provider, was unearthed in 1948 in the area of Mt. Chouchi (仇池) of Xihe County in northwest China’s Gansu Province. Another gold seal from the preceding Three Kingdoms period was also found in the same area. That seal bore the inscription Allegiance of the Lord of Di. 

Finding evidence of allegiance from both Qiang and Di ethnicities in the same area is no mere coincidence. Between the years 296 and 580, the Yang family of the Di ethnic group founded and ruled the Chouchi States in the triangular border region of today’s Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces in the proximity of Mt. Chouchi. Rulers from the Yang family continued to pay tribute to the emperors of the Central Plains dynasties and were rewarded with the title of King.

The historical period in which the Chouchi States existed is known as the Sixteen Kingdoms, and it lasted from the beginning of the 4th century to the middle of the 5th. This period of upheaval was kicked off by the Uprising of the Five Barbarians, which refers to a series of non-Han regimes established by five northern ethnic minority groups including the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Qiang, and Di. Ironically, the Chouchi States were not counted among the Sixteen Kingdoms, meaning it was too weak to be considered a threat. And though the sixteen regimes themselves varied in power and size, collectively, they ruled northern China after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty for about 140 years until eventually being put down and unified by Northern Wei in the year 439. 

The Sixteen Kingdoms period, considered together with the Wei, Eastern Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties, was a time of great turmoil and division in ancient Chinese history. However, these 500 years were also a time of unprecedented national integration. Without the regional instability that led to such great migrations of people during these five centuries, especially that of the northern Han clans to the south, there would have been no powerful Sui Dynasty or splendid Tang Dynasty to succeed them. And that, my friends, is how this collection of miniature official seals sheds light on the gradual integration of the various peoples that make up the Chinese nation.

It might seem a little confusing that a gold seal granted to a Qiang lord was unearthed in the area where the Di people established their political power. Well, this is where the relationship between the Qiang and Di ethnic groups come into play. The famous historian, Gu Jiegang, shared his discovery in a study on ethnic minority groups in ancient China. He pointed out that in many historical documents, Di and Qiang were often referred to together rather than separately. According to Gu, the ethnic minorities in ancient times had various tribal names. In general, those in the east were called Yi, those in the south Yue, there were Hu people in the north, and Qiang people dominated the west. But there was by no means one single group under each name, and Gu believed that Qiang functioned as a general term incorporating all ethnic minorities living in west China, which of course included the Di people. Therefore, it is not surprising that this gold seal granted to a Qiang lord was found in the Chouchi States of the Di regime.

 “Qiang” was the name ancient Han people gave to pastoral nomads. And you can even see that nomadic lifestyle in the Chinese character Qiang 羌, which is composed of two radicles – one is a sheep (羊) and the other, a man (人). Going as far back as the Shang Dynasty, which lasted from 1600 to 1046 BCE, the Qiang people were paying tributes to the royal court as recorded in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang. And following that, according to the classic Book of Documents, the Qiang switched sides and supported King Wu in his conquest of the Shang thus helping to establish the Zhou Dynasty, which endured for nearly 800 years until 256 BCE.

Since as early as the Qin Dynasty – the first dynasty of a unified China existing from 221 to 207 BCE – the Qiang had good relations with the Han people, engaging in regular trade and maintaining strong political ties.

Originally inhabiting the northern reaches of China, the Qiang were driven southwest over many centuries of conflict with neighboring ethnic groups, including the Han people. According to historical records, one clan settled in what is today’s Sichuan Province near the Tibetan border. During their migration, some of the Qiang were assimilated by the Tibetans and the Huns, while others made alliances with the Han and were granted official seals as an expression of acceptance and recognition.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, some scholar-officials held the opinion that if the Qiang people were resettled more centrally and brought under the control of the imperial court, they would be gradually assimilated by the Han people and would therefore not create any disturbance. This idea was logical at the time as from the second half of the 3rd century to the beginning of the 4th, there had been waves of ethnic minorities migrating to the Central Plains.

For the Central Plains regimes, the consequences of these migrations could be both a blessing and a curse. In good times when the regime was strong enough, the minority groups would become the vassals of the respective emperors, and seals were granted as recognition of the allegiances of ethnic minorities. But when the Central Plains dynasties declined, the minority groups would deny the emperor’s authority and help to topple his regime in order to establish powers of their own.

There’s no denying that the history of China’s national integration was not accomplished in a peaceful utopia. Instead, it happened amid great suffering, bloodshed, and tears. But taking a long-term perspective, the national integration of ethnic groups that occurred in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties was indeed a key driver for the uninterrupted development of Chinese civilization.

When it comes to the powerful dynasties of ancient China, people often refer to the Han and Tang. But if there had not been the national integration – a stirring of the soup, if you will – during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties, the prosperous Sui and Tang dynasties would never have emerged.

So, if these small allegiance seals from the Western Jin Dynasty could tell their own story, it would definitely sound like an action-adventure movie packed with warring tribes, political intrigue and a Qiang official who always backed the winner. 

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. We want to thank you for listening and hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell a friend. For our writer Zhang Yue, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Scott Pruett, I’m Wang Yan. See you next time!