270 the southwest
Chinese and requested Tso-shih to disguise himself as an aboriginal.
Tso-shih refused, saying:”I am an envoy of the great T’ang. How could
I wear the garments of lesser barbarians?” He was then smuggled into
the palace by night, where he loudly proclaimed the imperial edict.
Yi-mou-hsün became afraid, looked to the left and right, and paled.
He wept, prostrated himself, and accepted the edict. Tso-shih then
persuaded him to kill all the Tibetan envoys.
This account fails by its own preposterousness. It is barely possible
that Tso-shih, with not unusual Chinese tactlessness, refused to dis-
guise himself, but it is out of the question that Yi-mou-hsün weepingly
prostrated himself. It is equally impossible that Yi-mou-hsün killed
the Tibetan envoys, since in that case the subsequent attack on the
Tibetans in 794 would not have been the suprise the sources insist it
was. It is obvious that Tso-shih wrote a fraudulent report in order to
flatter Emperor Te-tsung and advance his own career, and that this
report was later found in the archives and quoted by the dynastic
historian.
The same applies to the claim that when Yüan Tzu in 794 presented
a golden seal to Yi-mou-hsün, the latter knelt facing north,^56 accepted
the seal, kotowed, and saluted twice. During the following banquet,
Tzu supposedly urged Yi-mou-hsün to be entirely loyal to the T’ang,
whereupon the latter answered:”Do I dare not to receive the orders
of the envoy with respect?” (Tzu-chih t’ung-chien pp.7561-7562). This
account also comes from a self-serving and false report.
Ch’iu-lung supposedly at some times was not willing to salute Chi-
nese envoys and at others times he was (Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 329:71b).
The first reports were true, the second were not.
The geographical map of 794, as other cases examined, was no
more than a symbolic gesture.
According to Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 329:71a, 71b, Yi-mou-hsün in 799
sent the sons and younger brothers of his high officials as hostages to
Ch’ang-an, and Ch’iu-lung sent 20 hostages in 876. Nan-chao had
no need to render hostages, so that the purpose must have been some
other. It so happens that the T’ang normally did not accept students
from Nan-chao at the Academy in Ch’ang-an and instead referred
(^56) Subjects of the Chinese emperor, in his presence or that of his representatives,
faced north.