49. Cao, “Bei Wei Pingcheng bu ju chu tan,” 14.
50. In Taiwu’s annals, it is said that he was “born in the Eastern Palace” of his father, Mingyuan: WS 4A.69; Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 54.
51. Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 58, 60; Yin, “Bei Wei Pingcheng shi lüe,” 193.
52. Cao, “Bei Wei Pingcheng bu ju chu tan,” 14.
53. This placement is based on the theories of Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong. For other attempted reconstructions, see, e.g., Cao, “Bei Wei Pingcheng bu ju chu tan”; or Zhang Zhuo 张焯, “Pingcheng ying jian shi mo” 平城营建始末, Shi zhi xue kan (1995.1): 51–55.
54. WS 2.35; NQS 57.984; Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 24. Regarding transportation of the craftsmen who produced these goods, see Wang, Zhuan xing qi de Bei Wei cai zheng yan jiu, 60–61; and Pearce, “Status, Labor and Law.” For the establishment of metalworking factories down on the plains, see WS 2.41; ZZTJ 110.2857.
55. See Yan, Bei Wei qian qi zheng zhi zhi du, 107.
56. NQS 57.984. For interpretation of shang fang 尚方 as government factory, Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 51, make reference to an anecdote of Wencheng in 462 establishing a shang fang to produce twelve golden serving trays (WS 110.2851). For suggestion that this was the shared kitchen of the entire palace city, see Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 51.
57. Yan, Bei Wei qian qi zheng zhi zhi du, 112.
58. Zhang Qingjie 张庆捷, “Datong Caochangcheng Bei Wei Taiguan liang chu yi zhi chu tan” 大同操场城北魏太官粮储遗址初探, WW (2010.4): 53–58; Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 51. These were apparently built atop ruins from Han and from the Warring States period Zhao: Zhang Xibin 张喜斌 et al., “Datong Bei Wei Taiguan liang jiao yi zhi chu tu de Zhan guo Qin Han wa dang” 大同北魏太官粮窖遗址出土的战国秦汉瓦当, Wen wu shi jie (2009.6): 10–14; and Yin Xian, “Bei Wei Pingcheng shi lüe,” 192.
59. Hucker, Official Titles, 479, no. 6185.
60. NQS 57.984. Shimunek, Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China, 158, offers several possible reconstructions of the Taghbach word transcribed by “azhen,” and translates the term as “food.” So if the term “azhen chu” was actually used in Pingcheng, it would be a bit like a weaving together of English and French such as “the food cuisine.” The NQS quote states that this was to the west, but Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 51, state that there is a clear link between the Taiguan and Azhenchu; perhaps the latter was a western section of the larger whole.
61. SoS 48.1429.
62. WS 43.960–61.
63. NQS 57.984; Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 59.
64. One famous expression of this came with Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party,” which she described as “a reinterpretation of the Last Supper from the point of view of women, who, throughout history, had prepared the meals and set the table. In my ‘Last Supper,’ however, the women would be the honored guests.” This is a permanent exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum; the quote comes from her A Dinner Party: A Symbol of Our Heritage (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1979), 11.
65. Duan and Zhao, Tian xia da tong, 61–62.
66. WS 3.52. He did much the same in 420: see WS 3.60. For an overview of the Wei imperial feast, see Zhang Hequan 张鹤泉 and Wang Meng 王萌, “Bei Wei huang di ci yan kao lüe” 北魏皇帝赐宴考略, Shi xue ji kan (2011.1): 26–33. For the 412 feast, which was followed by an East Asian Saturnalia, Zhang and Wang (28) quite sensibly suggest this was held not for the broader population, but for Serbi, or probably more specifically, men of Dai.
67. See the article by Hou Liangliang 侯亮亮 et al., based on carbon tests of bodies found in Northern Wei tombs, showing persistence in the diet of significant amounts of meat: “Nong ye qu you mu min zu yin shi wen hua de zhi hou xing—ji yu Datong Dongxin guangchang Bei Wei mu qun ren gu de wen ding tong wei su yan jiu” 农业区游牧民族饮食文化的滞后性——基于大同东信广场北魏墓群人骨的稳定同位素研究, Ren lei xue xue bao 36.3 (2017): 359–69. It would, of course, be fair to point out to Dr. Hou and the other authors of this fascinating study that this “debatable land” was not necessarily an “agricultural region” (nong ye qu).
68. Yin, “Datong Bei Wei gong cheng diao cha zha ji,” 156, suggests the tigers in the Deer Park garden were for eating as well as spectacle.
69. BS 13.496. Holmgren, “Harem in Northern Wei politics,” 88, points out that as Xiaowen grew older, Wenming’s power over him only increased.
70. Song, Bei Wei nü zhu lun, 201, sums the situation up well, saying that when she saw the necessity she would move quickly to punish, but that her punishments were not gratuitous (the identification of “offense” for which another should be “punished” being, of course, a subjective judgment). One example of her capacity for graciousness would be the official Liu Fang. Because Liu was implicated in a holy man’s misdeeds, Wenming ordered that he be brought into the palace and beaten 100 strokes. Learning that he had been slandered, however, she regretted her action and promoted him to high office (WS 55.1219–20).
71. Shui jing zhu shu 2: 13.1138.
72. BS 13.496–97 (WS 13.329–30). For another example where Xiaowen danced before the empress dowager at a feast, see WS 54.1203.
73. Kate A. Lingley, “Lady Yuchi in the First Person: Patronage, Kinship and Voice in the Guyang Cave,” EMC 18 (2012): 40, 38, 31.
74. Lingley, “Lady Yuchi in the First Person,” 43, 45.
75. BS 13.496–97 (WS 13.330). Interestingly, the derivative Wei shu passage uses min rather than the ren, “people,” used in Bei shi. In this case, I will take the Wei shu version as correct even though it is from a reconstructed chapter, assuming that assembled in the Tang period Bei shi was avoiding min as part of the personal name of the Tang emperor Taizong.
76. A famous example is an Eastern Han tomb from Horinger, built for a Han commandant of the Wuhuan. See Helin’geer Han mu bi hua tu mo xie tu ji lu 和林格尔汉墓壁画孝子传图摹写图辑录, ed. Chen Yongzhi 陈永志 et al. (Beijing: Wen wu chu ban she, 2015), 76–81; or Anneliese Gutkind Bulling, “The Eastern Han Tomb at Ho-lin-ko-êrh (Holingol),” Archives of Asian Art 31 (1977–1978): 90, 93.
77. For suggestion of this spread to adjacent regions, see Su (So), “Goko Jūrokkoku Hokuchō jidai no shukkōto to roboyō,” 2: 120; and Seo Yunkyung 徐润庆, “Cong Shaling bi hua mu kan Bei Wei Pingcheng shi qi de sang zang mei shu” 从沙岭壁画墓看北魏平城时期的丧葬美术 in Gu dai mu zang mei shu yan jiu, ed. Wu Hung and Zheng Yan, 3 vols. (Beijing: Wen wu chu ban she, 2011), 1: 171–72.
78. For an overview of Anak No. 3, see Su, “Goko Jūrokkoku Hokuchō jidai no shukkōto to roboyō,” 115–20. Su raises debates as to whether the tomb was actually for Dong Shou, or for a local king. These debates may derive in part from competing modern myths of nationhood, and borders.
79. Lin, “Bei Wei Shaling bi hua mu yan jiu,” 13, 26.
80. WS 108D.2813; Zhang, Jin wei wu guan, 2: 666–67.
81. Shuo 矟 is a variant form of 槊, with the meaning of “long spear.” See Bei chao wu shi ci dian 北朝五史辞典, ed. Jian Xiuwei 简修炜 et al., 2 vols. (Jinan: Shangdong jiao yu chu ban she, 2000), 2: 1346. For a general overview of weaponry in this period, see Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization, Chapter 10, “Armor and Weapons.”
82. See the astute comment made by Jenny Liu in her discussion of “Status and the ‘Procession’ Scene on the Sloping Path in Tang Princess Tombs (643–706),” Mei shu shi yan jiu ji kan 41 (2016): 241, raising the need with these murals to distinguish real processions from idealized forms for the funerary march; the same issue has been raised in personal communication to this author by the scholar Fan Zhang. Something of the same can be said of what is portrayed in Wei shu, as opposed to the actual arrangement of the procession.
83. SS 12.254; and see similar comments in WS 108.2811, both having been quoted by Lin, “Bei Wei Shaling bi hua mu yan jiu,” 16–17, to support his suggestion that Daowu’s procession was made up more of “barbarian arrangement” than the “old forms.”
84. For similar practices under the Manchus, see Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring & the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007).
85. For Han, see the “Western Capital Rhapsody,” in Knechtges, tr., Wen xuan, 1: 134–41, where “staging the grandest of spectacles,” the emperor “rouses a martial fervor in the imperial preserve.”
86. See discussion in Zhu et al., Wei Jin Nan bei chao she hui sheng huo, Kindle ed., Chapter 12, Section 2. And again, see the article by Hou et al. based on carbon tests of bodies found in Northern Wei tombs, showing persistence in the diet of significant amounts of meat: “Nong ye qu you mu min zu yin shi wen hua de zhi hou xing.”
87. WS 3.53; 4A.79; 24.635. For other examples, of the great circle-round hunts (in Chinese, xian 狝), see WS 3.52, 56, 61. For an overview of the hunt in early Wei, see Li Hu 黎虎, “Bei Wei qian qi de shou lie jing ji” 北魏前期的狩猎经济, LSYJ (1992.1): 106–18.
88. WS 3.51; Shui jing zhu shu 2: 13.1141; Yin Xian, “Datong Bei Wei gong cheng diao cha zha ji,” 156.
89. Li Hu, “Bei Wei qian qi de shou lie jing ji,” 108.
90. Li Hu, “Bei Wei qian qi de shou lie jing ji,” 108.
91. Seo, “Cong Shaling bi hua mu,” 183–84. This came with more and more influence from the Yangtze world. Kitchen and hunt were replaced by filial scenes, and images of the immortals.
92. See discussion in Liu Meiyun 刘美云 and Wei Haiqing 魏海清, “Shou lie xi su dui Bei Wei qian qi zheng quan de ying xiang” 狩猎习俗对北魏前期政权的影响, in Bei chao shi yan jiu: Zhongguo Wei Jin Nan Bei chao shi guo ji xue shu yan tao hui lun wen ji, ed. Yin Xian (Beijing: Shang wu yin shu guan, 2005), 425–26, where they repeat the story of a Wei prince, who living in difficult times in the wake of the wars that caused Luoyang’s fall served as a governor under the successor regime Eastern Wei, and though having 100 hawks and hounds, and more than 10 supply carts, is still quoted as saying that if he was “idle for three days there will be no food; I can’t not hunt every day” (BQS 28.384). A demonstration of the continuation of hunting among even some elite groups, who had not joined the move to Luoyang, can be seen in the dramatic murals of hunting found in a tomb discovered near the town of Xinzhou, in the valley of the Hutuo River, just south of the Yanmen Pass: Shanxi sheng kao gu yan jiu suo et al., “Shanxi Xinzhou Jiuyuangang Bei chao bi hua mu,” 51–74. The tomb was located in the center of power of the Erzhu clan, and though the previously cited piece makes a preliminary dating of Eastern Wei/Northern Qi, one scholar suggests it was actually a tomb for a member of the Erzhu clan, at the end of the Northern Wei: Xu Jinshun 徐锦顺, “Erzhu Rong huo Erzhu Zhao·—cong ‘Shou lie tu’ kan Xinzhou Jiuyuangang Bei chao bi hua mu mu zhu” 尔朱荣或尔朱兆？—从《狩猎图》看忻州九原岗北朝壁画墓墓主, Zhongyuan wen wu (2015.6): 82–86. It will also be noted that this is the tomb from which this book’s cover photo comes.
93. Liu Junxi 刘俊喜 and Gao Feng 高峰, “Datong Zhijiabao Bei Wei mu guan ban hua” 大同智家堡北魏墓棺板画, WW (2004.12): 35–47.
94. For another example, a mural, see the preliminary report, “Shanxi Datong Yunbolilu Bei Wei bi hua mu fa jue jian bao” 山西大同云波里路北魏壁画墓发掘简报, by the Datong shi kao gu yan jiu suo 大同市考古研究所, WW (2011.12): 13–25. For overall discussion of the hunt in Pingcheng tombs, see Lin, “Bei Wei Shaling bi hua mu yan jiu,” 27–28.
95. An identity that would, as identities do, continually evolve. For those who defined themselves as “Serbi,” the cap was a key way of declaring who one was, since “the evanescent mystique of the ethnic community has to be made evident in everyday life”: Pohl, “Introduction,” in Strategies of Identification, 25 (and see also p. 46). For a more general description of “Xianbei-style attire,” see Lingley, “Lady Yuchi in the First Person,” 42; Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization, 317–19. See the persistence and spread among various groups of a broader set of such symbols in Scott Pearce, “The Way of the Warrior in Early Medieval China, Examined through ‘the Northern Yuefu,’” EMC 13–14 (2008): 87–113.
96. Liu and Gao, “Datong Zhijiabao Bei Wei mu guan ban hua,” 45, suggest these are servants, lined up to attend upon the feast. This is possible, but one would think such a picture would depict the guests as well as the staff, as we see in the Shaling M7 piece. And so, it seems more likely these are people who have just arrived (in the damaged section to the left, horses are shown) and are waiting to begin.
97. For an overview on stages of tomb construction in this area in this period, see Cao Chenming 曹臣明, “Pingcheng fu jin Xianbei ji Bei Wei mu zang fen bu gui lü kao” 平城附近鲜卑及北魏墓葬分布规律考, WW (2016.5): 61–69; and Zhang, “Cultural Encounters,” 41–50.
98. Yin Xian 殷宪 discusses this date, before accepting it, in his “Shanxi Datong Shaling Bei Wei bi hua mu qi hua ti ji yan jiu” 山西大同沙岭北魏壁画墓漆画题记研究, in 4–6 shi ji de bei Zhongguo yu Ou Ya da lu, ed. Zhang Qingjie et al. (Beijing: Ke xue chu ban she, 2006), 348.
99. For the name and its reconstruction in the guo yu, see Shimunek, Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China, 135. He gives the name as either *Phatala or *Phatara. Some suggest she was the general’s wife: see Shing Müller, “A Preliminary Study of the Lacquerware of the Northern Dynasties, with a Special Focus on the Pingcheng Period (398–493),” EMC 25 (2019): 54, citing Zhang Qingjie 张庆捷, “Bei Wei Poduoluo shi bi hua mu suo jian wen zi kao shu” 北魏破多罗氏壁画墓所见文字考述, LSYJ (2007.1): 174–79. Yin Xian gives a rebuttal to this position in his ”Shanxi Datong Shaling Bei Wei bi hua mu qi hua ti ji yan jiu,” 349–51; and see also Zhang, “Cultural Encounters,” 70. As with so many features of this age (and others), certainty is difficult to obtain.
100. Borrowing here the usage of Tseng, The Making of the Tuoba Northern Wei, 74.
101. WS 103.2313.
102. See discussion of this by Yin Xian, “Shanxi Datong Shaling Bei Wei bi hua mu,” 351–54; Yao, Bei chao Hu xing kao, 200–4. Yao (202) points out that the line continued to be eminent under Northern Qi and Tang, under the name assigned to them by Xiaowen: WS 113.3012. In a related article, Yin Xian 殷宪 suggests a possible correspondence between the Poduoluo mentioned on the lacquer fragment in the tomb (and various received sources as well), and a man with the transcribed name of Heduoluo, who held a similar (though not identical) set of posts for the Wei regime, at more or less the same time: “Heduoluo ji Poduoluo kao” 贺多罗即破多罗考, Xue xi yu tan suo (2009.5): 227–33.
103. Or “entryway”: see discussion of terminology for analyzing tombs in Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization, 76–80.
104. Lin, “Bei Wei Shaling bi hua mu yan jiu,” 17–25; discussed in terms of apotropaic figures in Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization, 208–12.
105. Wang Yanqing 王雁卿, “Datong Bei Wei mu zang chu tu yong qun de shi dai te zheng” 大同北魏墓葬出土俑群的时代特征, in Bei Wei Pingcheng yan jiu wen ji, ed. Dong Ruishan (Taiyuan: Shanxi ren min chu ban she, 2008), 301; Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization, 77.
106. See Seo, “Cong Shaling bi hua mu,” 185; and Cheng, “Exchange across Media,” 122, who describes how in the hybridity of Guyuan and adjacent regions, Confucians dressed in Serbi apparel, and artistic expression mixed together Buddhist, Confucian, Sasanian, and Serbi elements.
