“Civilizations of the Silk Road” (translated excerpt): Princess Xijun’s Exile to the Western Regions

 

Mysteries of the Western Regions

Pioneering Zhang Qian & Han Dynasty Explorers

(Excerpted from H.K. Chang’s Civilizations of the Silk Road)

Translated from 丝路文明 15 讲  byBruce Humes 

in collaboration with the author 

In 119 BCE, Zhang Qian (张骞) was entrusted with a second mission to the Western Regions (西域), mainly to the Kingdom of Wusun (烏孫) in the Ili River Basin. For this journey, he led an entourage of hundreds and employed 500 oxen to transport various  goods, especially those made of silk. This represents the first time silk had been seen west of the Pamir Plateau. Silk eventually continued its travels all the way to Rome, where it became a fashionable material for togas. This route later became one of a network of trade passageways often cited today as the “Silk Road.”

After Zhang Qian returned from Wusun, Wusun modified its former pro-Xiongnu stance. Because the Han Dynasty offered opportunities for commercial profit, Wusun adopted an “equidistant diplomacy” that was amical to both Han and Xiongnu. Soon the king of Wusun requested the hand of a Han princess in marriage. This is the tragic tale of hardships faced by Princess Xijun (細君公主), a story well known in China over the centuries.

Liu Xijun was the first Han Dynasty princess to be married off to Wusun Kingdom in the remote Western Regions. Unlike court attendant Wang Zhaojun (who wedded a Xiongnu Chanyu), Princess Xijun was of royal blood. She was the daughter of Emperor Wu’s nephew, Liu Jian (刘建), king of Jiangdu. Since her parents had been executed for their role in the failed “Rebellion of the Seven Princes,” she had been raised at the court to expiate their guilt; it was natural that she be given priority over other princesses for such a “marriage of state.”

Thus, at the age of just over 20, Princess Xijun was given in marriage to the septuagenarian monarch of Wusun. Predictably, his Xiongnu queen energetically did her best to undermine the newcomer, and the king — who had requested the marriage — did not find her particularly to his liking either. He summoned her only a few times each year, and for her part, the princess refused to humble herself in his presence, although she often gave his attendants gifts from the Central Plains. But just two years after their wedding, the king passed away. According to the nomadic people’s custom, the widow should marry the deceased’s brother or son (assuming he is not her own offspring), or in the event there is none, she should marry his next kin. The latter was the case for Princess Xijun, whose new spouse was her deceased husband’s grandson and successor to the Wusun throne, King Cunzhou.

Nomadic regimes that originated in the steppe, including the imperial family of the later Ottoman Empire, maintained a unique inheritance system until the 19th century. Most Central Plains’ dynasties practiced primogeniture, in which the eldest son inherited the throne, although a younger one was sometimes named heir apparent. The same was true in medieval Europe, with the eldest son the sole beneficiary of all noble titles, land, and property; his siblings had to look after themselves. Therefore, the second and third sons of the feudal aristocracy in Western Europe often became soldiers, priests, merchants, or scholars. This inheritance system featured a degree of transparency and predictability and helped avoid open conflict within the court.

Nomadic peoples in the Eurasian interior, however, did not practice primogeniture. They determined the right to inheritance in the form of a large-scale assembly of extended family members, convoked by the most powerful clan, e.g., the Mongolian kuraltai. The steppe people’s election of a new leader, from 3rd century BCE through the 19th of the Common Era — a tradition of more than 2,200 years — was determined by such patriarchal councils. This was largely due to their frequent war footing, where the new headman was determined based on his physique, personality, and leadership skills; dependence on the eldest son of the former leader was simply not feasible.

A hierarchical concept of seniority, “Three Fundamental Bonds and Five Constant Virtues,” was detailed in the deeply revered Confucian classics. Therefore, peoples of the Central Plains emphasized generational seniority, while nomadic peoples did not have such a concept, only the concept of age.

Put another way, if we think in the historical and geographical context of the time, we will find ourselves wondering: Given the roaming lifestyle of the grassland peoples, what would become of a widow whom no one subsequently married or looked after? Who would help her during migrations and provide for her sustenance once a seasonal camp had been set up? So, the marriage of a younger brother with the widow of his dead older brother was not simply a “custom,” it was a necessity. Therefore, Princess Xijun, widowed in Wusun, was required by custom to marry the grandson of her deceased husband.

The princess had been schooled in the Confucian canons from an early age. Originally hardly keen to wed the king of Wusun who was already in his seventies, she was even less willing to be married off to his newly enthroned grandson, so she fought to return to the Central Plains. But Emperor Wu considered suppressing the Xiongnu a priority, and thus ordered her to “comply with the customs of Wusun” and enter into another diplomatic marriage regardless of her personal wishes.

Tradition has it that the princess composed this poem to capture her melancholy, far from her homeland:

 

吾家嫁我兮天一方，

遠托異國兮烏孫王。

穹廬為室兮氈為牆，

 以肉為食兮酪為漿。

 居常土思兮心内伤，

愿为黄鹄兮归故乡 *

 

My hand in marriage did my family give

To the other side of heaven.

To King of Wusun, far away in an alien land.

A domed chamber is my room, of felt are its walls.

Flesh for food, mare’s milk for drink.

Yearning for my native land, my heart is rent

How I wish the fabled Huang Hu would fly me home.

 

The final two lines doubtless channel her true sentiments. She may well have been China’s first Han verse-maker of the Western Regions. Renowned “frontier” poets Wang Changling (王昌龄) and Wang Zhihuan (王之涣) — both men who lived during the Tang — made their debut centuries later. [終]

* Chinese original not cited in the published English edition

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