marquisate on horseback. How can he expect to be a doctor (of Chinese classics)." Failing to distinguish himself in classical scholarship, he succeeded in obtaining his rank and fame in the battlefield. By the time he died in 567 he had already achieved the highest rank of distinction, tai bao which, together with tai shi and taifu, 165 was one of the titles known collectively as the Three Dukes reserved for the three most respected people in the nation.166 Three of his sons are recorded in histories. Yuwen Shan and Yuwen Xin,167 brothers of Yuwen Kai, were both well-known for their military skills. According to his biography, Yuwen Kai descended from a long line of generals. Although all of his brothers excelled in horsemanship and archery, he himself studied and read extensively.168
We would like to emphasize two points here, first, the high degree of sinicizadon of his father who, in his childhood, studied the Chinese learning with a view to becoming a doctor of classics. This might well be the intention of his family. Although he eventually failed to distinguish himself in Confucian learning, the effort he made in trying to be a Confucian scholar leads us to believe that he must have had a reasonably good knowledge of Chinese classics. Secondly, like his father, Yuwen Kai's brothers were all warriors. If Yuwen Kai possessed any exotic architectural techniques at all, it was most unlikely that he derived these from his relatives who were too unlearned to bequeath him of any such knowledge. Moreover sinicization was already obvious in his father's generation.
Yuwen Kai made himself an accomplished scholar through extensive reading. On one occasion, he built a wooden model of a ming tang (Bright Hall) according to the specifications in the Confucian ritual work Yueling,169
The explanatory memorial accompanying the wooden model is the only piece of his writing that survives. In the memorial which is entitled Ming tang yi biao {On the Properties of Bright Hall), Yuwen Kai shows great erudition as regards Chinese rituals and formalities. He quotes copiously from ancient works to justify the symbolism, structure and specifications of his model.
The works he quotes directly can be classified roughly as Confucian, eclectic, historical, and geographical, together with other miscellaneous works relevant to the construction of the Bright Hall.170
Yuwen Kai's knowledge of Chinese culture also shone in his critical attitude towards classical texts when he argues about the specifications of the Bright Hall. He
165.
166. Bei shi 60/2137-39; Wang Zhongluo 1/8-10. 168. Sui shu 68/1587.
169. Monthly Commands, attributed to Lil Buwei of Qin of the Warring States period, later interpolated into Li j i (The Book of Rites ). Sui shu 16/122; Si ku ti yao 21/169. £ g 7 f £ .
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detected the deficiency of the Shandong171 edition of the Book of Rites and pointed out the interpolation of some characters. By collating ancient editions, he attempted to restore the authentic text.172
His Chinese learning sparkled again when he viewed the terrain the Daxingcheng in accordance with the Book of Changes.
From the evidence above, we sum up the following viewpoints: First of all, the sinicization of Yuwen Kai's father was obvious because he once undertook the study with the aim of gaining a doctorate degree. The process of sinicization may go back to his own father's generation. In terms of knowledge about exotic city construction, Yuwen Kai could not benefit from his family members who were sinicized and unlearned. Secondly, Yuwen Kai was not only well versed in Chinese classics but was also familiar with textual criticism, an art unusual even among his Chinese peers. His suggestions on the city planning were extremely Chinese.
The Story of Three Great Civil Engineers
Yan Pi and He Chou are lumped together with Yuwen Kai by Professor Chen as the three great civil engineers of the Sui dynasty who happened to be of western non-Han descent. We have seen that it is most unlikely that any exotic culture or inherited exotic skills influenced Yuwen Kai's contribution to the building of Daxingcheng. Now let us examine the case of the other two figures.173
Professor Chen is of the view that Yan Pi's174 kinship with Central Asian people was manifested in the name of one of his father's relatives. He quotes Yuwen Hu’s175 biography in Zhou shu 176 which indicates Yuwen Hu used Sabao177 as his courtesy name. This name smacks of a Zoroastrian priest. Yan Pi's grandfather had a sister who married a member of the Yuwen family and gave birth to Yuwen Hu. Thus through the marriage of his grandfather's sister to a man of dubious Central Asian origin Yan Pi himself became a Central Asian. Obviously, this telegonic theory is totally unacceptable. Besides, Chen's argument that Yuwen Hu's adoption of Sabao as courtesy name is indication of his own non-Han origin is open to question. This claim has been contested by Professor Cen Zhongmian who is of the view that this phenomenon might well be evidence of one's personal belief in the religion. 178
171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 lij* Sui shu 68/1589-90.
Chen Yinke Sui-Tang zhi du /76-81. fäitt
Zhou shu 11/172.
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Professor Chen also argues about He Chou's non-Han western descent because his father’s brother He Tuo179 came from X iyu180 (the Western Regions). Professor Cen Zhongmian pointed out long ago that this is a misquotation, the correct characters should be X ic h e n g 181 a county in present-day Ankang,18^ Shaanxi province.188 Our research arrives at the same conclusion.184
We would like to add here that even if Yan Pi and He Chou were o f non-Han ancestry(for which there is no evidence) they were by no means associated with either the planning or the building o f the city Daxingcheng.
While Daxingcheng was well under construction, Yan Pi was busy serving the crown prince. In fact, he was not able to render his service to the throne as a master craftsman or civil engineer until he was recalled from disgrace by the second Sui emperor Yangdi, who came to power in 605, more than twenty years too late for the building o f the city.185
He Chou’s civil engineering career was only launched in 601 with his involvement in the planning o f empress Wenxian's18^ mausoleum. Before this he had been associated only with such minor arts as the imitation o f Persian brocade and glassware.187 179_ 180 181 182 183 184 185. 186’ 187'
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Cen Zhongmian/30.Chen Yinke relies on Sui shu and Bei Shi for information about He Tuo's origin. We have checked the Zhonghuashuju edition of Sui shu, which is based on one Song edition and two Yuan editions for the main text. Six other editions are also referred to for textual criticism. The place of origin of He Tuo is Xicheng (Sui shu 75/1709; see also the Publisher's note/6). The Bei shi of the same edition, where collation seems to have been carried out less rigorously, yields the same result (Bei shi 82/2753). In fact, due to the similarity between yu and cheng, the same error had occurred long time ago in Tong zhi
compiled by Zheng Qiao of the Southern Song dynasty (Tong zhi 174/2801). The collator of the Bei shi, however, seems to believe in the possiblity of Xiyu being the right name, though the original Xicheng is retained in the text (Bei shi 82/2773, collator's note [18]). This hypothesis is based on the guess that He Tuo's ancestor may have come from He Guo (the State of He) in Central Asia, and adopted the state name as his own family name. The earliest historical record of the State of He appears in the section on Kangju in Sui shu (83/1848-49). The same passage was copied into Bei Shi
and interpolated into Wei shu with the arbitrary alteration of a date.(See Bei shi 97/3234; Wei shu
102/2281,2287 note[34]) In Sui shu there is a special section on the State of He (Sui shu 83/1855; an identical passage is also found in Bei shi 97/3237-38). On the other hand, He as a Chinese family name can date back to time immemorial (Tong zhi 26/449). The greatest scholar ever on Gongyang zhuan He Xiu who lived in the second century AD also had He as his family name (Hou Han shu
79:b/2582-3). The family name He alone does not indicate one's exotic background. Moreover, He Tuo was already in Jiangling in present-day Hubei, when he was eight years old (Sui shu 75/1709-10). He Chou, the architect, being a son of He Tuo's younger brother, could only grow up in Jiangling before he moved to Chang'an. There was not the slightest possibility of He Chou learning any exotic skills from his grandfather who was a merchant and the only possible link with an exotic culture. is£, j$ ,
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Sui shu 68/1594.
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Professor Wright's Argument
Professor W right's suggestion, based on Professor Chen's wrong hypothesis, is even less credible. He claims that the builders of Daxingcheng "were northerners of mixed descent, some were descended from fairly recent immigrants from Central Asia, and one had a Zoroastrian personal name."188 The fact is that the person indicated — Yan Pi — was associated with Zoroastrianism only by the name of his aunt's husband.
As we have demonstrated, the two persons singled out by Professor Chen as of possible western non-Han ancestry were wrongly identified either through misreading or misquoting the primary sources.