Because Xixia was born between Song Dynasty and Liao Dynasty, some people say that Liao Dynasty, Xixia and Northern Song Dynasty were the romance of the Three Kingdoms at that time.
What kind of country is Xixia?
The first thing that needs to be corrected is that the name of Xixia is not Xixia, but Xia. Because in the northwest of the Song Dynasty, people in the Song Dynasty called it Xixia.
Tangut language is the ancient Xixia language, which means "Black Water". After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, in 756 AD, Prince Hengli entered Ningxia and proclaimed himself emperor in Lingwu (that is, Tang Suzong). At that time, Ningxia Plain was quite rich. In the Song Dynasty, the Tangut was based on this unique oasis.
Until 1038, Li Yuanhao proclaimed himself the emperor and founded the country, that is, Xia and Xixia were formally founded. By this time, the Tangut people have governed this place for three generations. Although it has just been established, its strength is really strong. So the Song Dynasty opposed it and sent troops to attack.
As a result, Xixia won the Song-Xia War and the Liao-Xia War, forming a situation of tripartite confrontation among the three countries. This situation lasted for almost two hundred years. Later, the Northern Song Dynasty was replaced by the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Liao State was replaced by the Jin State.
Xixia was founded by Li Yuanhao in 1038 and died in 1227. Ten emperors enjoyed the country 190 years, and experienced the confrontation between Liao and Northern Song Dynasty, Jin and Southern Song Dynasty.
But I didn't write a national history for Xixia. What is the reason?
First, due to external reasons, Song, Liao, Jin and later Yuan Dynasties positioned it as a vassal of their own regime.
Second: internal reasons, the low-key diplomacy is not very confident about the national status of its independent regime. Xixia, as a minority regime, occupies Ningxia and Hexi Corridor in the northwest of China. Most of the territory is grassland and desert, and there is little land suitable for farming. A large number of daily necessities need to rely on the support of the Song Dynasty.
It is precisely because of this cultural self-confidence and economic constraints that Xixia's diplomacy is low.
Third, objective reasons: Xixia, as a country, was killed by Genghis Khan when the Yuan Dynasty attacked Xixia, which led to Mongolian hatred of Xixia people. After the last emperor of Xixia surrendered from the city, Xixia still carried out the policy of killing the city and burned it.
It inevitably led to the loss and disappearance of relevant materials in Xixia.
Many scholars are studying what happened to the surviving Tangut after the demise of Xixia.
After hundreds of years of textual research and research, scholars have given the answer about the descendants of Xixia.
The descendants of Xixia people are called Sherpas. After the demise of Xixia, it fled all the way to the west and approached Mount Everest. Some of them stayed in Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Sichuan, Tibet, Qinghai, Hebei, Henan and Anhui.
And these people have either been transformed, Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese, or nationalized by other countries, that is to say, they have been integrated into the Chinese nation, and it is difficult to distinguish who is who.
Experts have subdivided the whereabouts of these Sherpas, and there are three kinds.
The first kind is called Tanggu people (also called Tanggu people, Tang Wu people and Tang Wu people).
This is what Mongols called Tangut people in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was gradually used to refer to the Qinghai-Tibet region and local Tibetan ministries.
The second kind is called Maya.
These people are mainly distributed in Kangding, Daofu, Jiulong, Yajiang and other areas around Gongga Mountain in Sichuan. They advocate white and symbolize purity. These people were formed by the integration of the Tangut survivors who survived the Mongolian Massacre and the subjugation of Xixia and the local Tangut indigenous residents.
A small political power was established in the local area, and the leader was called "King of the West Wu" (King of Xixia), using the ancient Tangut language, while the Tibetan word "Muya" originally referred to Xingqing House, the capital of Xixia.
The third Sherpa
It is one of the undetermined ethnic groups in China, living on the border between China and Nepal. They are all beautiful, with well-defined faces, high nose and deep eye sockets. They are all wearing double-breasted jackets made of white wool. They live a simple life, weaving bamboo products, planting and grazing.
Summary: Although the Xixia Dynasty has been lost in the long yellow sand of history, the literature and history materials left by it have finally been collected by later generations into an independent academic field-Xixia Studies, which is rich in content and proves that the Xixia Dynasty is a very remarkable historical memory.