Changing Relations 37
Apart from this, the difference, possibly even incompatibility between
Tibetan and Chinese culture might have been the crucial factor. Zhang Yichao
must have been sure that the population was supporting him. And Hongbian,
the head of the clergy, possibly hoped for greater independence for the reli-
gious institutions.
3 Local Rule of the Return-to-Allegiance Army
After the takeover of the local ruler Zhang Yichao—a rule, which in Chinese
sources is usually referred to as the period of the Return-to-Allegiance
Army (Chin. Guiyi jun 歸義軍) because Zhang Yichao swore allegiance to
the Emperor of China and thus the area became theoretically part of China
again—the Tibetan administrative system gradually broke down.76 Apart
from the reorganisation of the administrative system—abolition of the divi-
sion into military and civil citizens and a return to the former division of the
area into villages and homesteads (Chin. xiangli 鄉里)—the area around
Dunhuang then had a completely different geopolitical position. Under
Tibetan rule it was embedded in the East and South in the vast Tibetan Empire,
whereas with the take over by Zhang Yichao it turned into an island between
the Uyghurs in the West and North and the Tibetans in the East and South.
After the initial surge during which the other oases Guazhou, Yizhou, Suzhou
and Ganzhou were conquered, the territory of the Zhang clan was soon
reduced to the area around Dunhuang. In order to survive, embassies were
exchanged constantly with the neighbouring countries. This encouraged
trade and exchange of Buddhist texts. There are a number of contracts doc-
umenting this period of flourishing interchange. The twenty-three dated
manuscripts referring to embassies to the Uyghurs in Turfan and Yizhou
were written between 923 and 993.77 E.g. the Chinese manuscript S. 4504v(6)
states: “In the first month of the second sheep (Chin. 乙未) year (935?),
monk Shanyou of the Lingtu temple is sent as an envoy to Xizhou (Turfan),
lacks silk and borrows from yaya (押衙, title of an official) Quanzi one bolt
76 In P. tib. 1081—a legal document—the Azha (Tib. ’A zha, Chin. Tuyuhun 吐谷渾) living in
the area were still organised in units of a thousand.
77 Rong, Xinjiang, “The Relationship of Dunhuang with the Uighur Kingdom in Turfan in the
Tenth Century,” in De Dunhuang à Istanbul: Hommage à James Russel Hamilton (Turnhout:
Brepols Publisher, 2001), 275–298.