P'u-Ku Huai-En 僕固懷恩 and the T'ang Court: The Limits of Loyalty

Abstract

The third quarter of the 8th century is indisputably one of the two or three most crucial periods of the entire Tang dynasty, and yet the surface of its political history has scarcely been scratched. This was the period, we may recall, when the powerful state nurtured by Hsuan-tsung ;£ -=f? (712-755) broke down amid severe political divisions, when the An Lu-shan ^ Ufa jli rebellion ran its disastrous course, and when the central government was obliged to address itself to a long and painful task of reconstruction. Probably the dominance of military men throughout this period has acted as something of a deterrent to scholarly interest, for the consequences of brute force appear both too obvious and too little stimulating to the intellect. However, we must most certainly confront these events and these men, one of whom will in fact occupy our attention here. Aside from the general need, there are in addition good specific reasons for taking up the career of the loyalist general P'uku Huai-en eU 13 & JH (?-765). His is a fascinating, poignant story, of undeniable human interest. It is also an important story, closely interwoven with many of the principal events of the time. Not least, it is a story which offers a personal perspective as well as the official one contained in the formal histories, for, quite exceptionally in view of the subject's metier as soldier and his ultimate fate, he has left a long and candid statement of his own. Translated in full below, this document serves not only to express an individual point of view but also as a valuable source on the contemporary situation in general. Finally, and coincidentally, our subject stands out as an apparently typical product of that marginal frontier zone which, according to the well-known thesis of Professor Owen Lattimore, has played such a vital role in Chinese history.1