Chris M. Dorn'eich

右 諸 國 並 以 昭 武 為 姓
gin) ... 示 不 忘 本 也 …
(these rulers’) family name is Zhaowu to demon
strate
(that they all do) not forget their roots (land
of ori
The Weishu contains Chinese history from the late fourth to the mid-sixth century.
The new facts on the migration of the 月氏 are therefore reported some four to five
centuries after the last piece of information contained in Ban Gu’s Hanshu. As we can
see here, the Chinese historians needed much time to find out what really had been
happening in the Far West — reflecting the fact that in the intervening
centuries com-
munications with the West were cut off and reestablished a couple
of times.
At long last we read that the 月氏 did not at all migrate directly
from the region be-
tween the Ili and Chu all the way to the upper
reaches of the Oxus and into Daxia —
as the Hanshu wanted us to believe. The
月氏 were driven from the lands between the
rivers Ili and Chu by the Wusun 烏孫 shortly
before Laoshang
chanyu of the Xiongnu
匈奴 had died in late 161 BCE and they arrived at the
Oxus River only months before
Zhang Qian reached the region in the summer
of 129. The Hanshu had kept us won-
dering what had happened to the 月氏 in this
long span of one full
generation. With
the additional information contained in the Weishu, we are finally able
to fill out this
blank in their history.
The Ruzhi 月氏 subjugated the Kangju 康 居, established themselves as their kings
and extended (or moved) this Kangju kingdom southwestward
as far as Samarkand
(Sogdiana). There, i.e. in Sogdiana, the 月氏 must have collided a second time
with the
Sakaraukai/Saiwang 塞王, who were now dri
ven south — as to the west, i.e.
west of
the middle reaches of the Oxus, the mighty empire
of the Parthians 安息 was already
blocking the way.
And here, in former Greek Sogdiana, the 月 氏 — for the first time
as far as we can
tell — established lesser principalities or viceroy-ships around their central or main
kingdom.
All these viceroys were members of the king’s family. After the Weishu 魏書,
or “Book of the Wei (Dynasty),” had reported this important new information for the
first time, the next in the long line of Chinese Standard Histories, the Beishi 北史 (in
chapter 97) and the Suishu 隨書 (in chapter 83), simply repeated the new facts. We
have to wait another two hundred years to be told how many sub-kings or viceroys
there had been in the realm of the new Kangju — and what their names were. The
(New) Tangshu 唐書 finally has this additional information.
(CHAVANNES 1903: 132–134)
(Le
pays de) K’ang 康 est appelé aussi Sa–mo–kien 薩
末鞬, ou encore Sa–mo–kien 颯秣建 (Samarkand) ;
c’est le pays qu’on appelait
Si–wan–kin 悉萬斤 sous
les Yuen Wei 元魏.
Du côté du sud il est à cent cinquante ›li‹ de Che 史
(Kesch);
i‹ du Ts’a
曹 occidental (Ischtîkhan);
au sud-est, il est à cent ›li‹ de Mi 米 (Mâïmargh);
au nord, à cinquante li du Ts’ao central (Kaboûdhan);
il est au sud de la rivière Na–mi 那密 (Zarafchan).
Il a trente grandes villes et trois cents petites places.
Le nom de famille du prince est ›Wen‹ 溫.
C’étaient à l’origine des Yue–tche 月氏 qui résidaient
autrefois dans la ville de Tchao–ou 昭武 , au nord de
(monts) K’i–lien 祁連. Ayant été battus par les Tou–
kiue (ici: les Hiong–nou), ils se retirèrent graduelle-
(Xin) Tangshu 221B. 6243
du côté du nord-ouest, il est à plus de cent ›l o
康 者 曰 薩 末 鞬 曰
颯 秣 建
元 魏 所 謂 悉 萬 斤 者
其 南 距 史 百 五 十 里
西 北 距 西 曹 百 餘 里
東 南 屬 米 百 里
北 中 曹 五 十 里
在 那 密 水 南 城
大 城 三 十 小 堡 三 百
s 君 姓 溫 月 氏 人
始 居 祁 連 北 昭 武 城
— 28 —