The Jié (Chinese: 羯; Wade–Giles: Chieh; Middle Chinese: [ki̯at]^[1]: 246) were members of a tribe of northern China in the fourth century. During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, they were regarded by the Han people as one of the Five Barbarians. Under Shi Le and his family, they established the Later Zhao dynasty which dominated northern China for most of its existence from 319 to 351. The Jie ceased to play a role in Chinese history after the destructive Ran Wei–Later Zhao war, although historians believe that certain prominent figures from later periods may have been descendants of the Jie.

Name and origins

There are widely differing accounts of the exact ethnic origins of the Jie, with one theory uncertainly suggesting that they spoke a Yeniseian language,^[2] while other authors have proposed a Turkic language.^[3] According to Sinologist Mark Edward Lewis, the Jie were of Indo-European origin (probably Iranian).^{[lower-alpha 1][5]}

According to the Book of Wei (6th century AD), the name Jie was derived from the Jiéshì area (羯室, modern Yushe County in Shanxi province), where the Jie resided.^{[6][7]: 6, 149}

According to the Book of Jin, the ancestors of Shi Le were a part of the multi-ethnic Xiongnu tribe known as Qiāngqú (羌渠).^[8] Edwin Pulleyblank believes the Qiangqu represent the Kangju state of Sogdia.^[1]: 247 Although Pulleyblank suggested that they might have been Tocharian in origin, most scholars believe that Kangju was constituted by an Eastern Iranian people. Some have linked the names Shi (石) and Jie (羯) to a Sogdian statelet known as 石國 Shíguó (literally, "Stone Country", at Chach Zhěshí 赭時, now Tashkent, also meaning "Stone City" in Common Turkic). Also, An Lushan, a Tang rebel general, had a Sogdian stepfather and was called a Jiehu.

The name of the parent house of Turko-Mongol Barlas and Borjigin clans (house of Genghis Khan and Timur) was Kiyat, almost identical to the Middle Chinese pronunciation of the name Jie, /ki̯at/.^[1]

Others claim that the Jie were an ancient Yeniseian-speaking tribe related to the Ket people, who today live between the Ob and Yenisey rivers—the character 羯 (jié) is pronounced /kiɛt̚/ in Hokkien, /kʰiːt̚/ or /kiːt̚/ in Cantonese, /ciat̚/ in Hakka and ketsu in Japanese, implying that the ancient pronunciation might have been fairly close to Ket (kʰet).^{[lower-alpha 2]} The root 羯 may be transliterated as Jié- or Tsze²- and an older form, < kiat, may also be reconstructed. This ethnonym might be cognate with the ethnonyms of Yeniseian-speaking peoples, such as the Ket and the Kott (who spoke the extinct Kott language). Pulleyblank (1962) connected the ethnonym to Proto-Yeniseian *qeˀt/s "stone". Vovin et al. (2016) also pointed to *keˀt "person, human being" as another possible source.^[11] Alexander Vovin also suggests that the Xiongnu spoke a Yeniseian language, further connecting them with the Jie people.^[12]

Among the Yeniseian languages, Jie is hypothesized to be Pumpokolic. Vovin, Vajda, and de la Vaissière have suggested that Jie shares the same idiosyncrasies with the Pumpokol language, and the two are therefore closely related. This argument is strengthened by the fact that in northern Mongolia, Yeniseian-derived hydronyms have been demonstrated to be exclusively Pumpokolic, while influence from other Yeniseian languages is only found further north.^[11] This therefore lends credence to the theory that the Jie are a Pumpokolic-speaking tribe, and confirms that the Pumpokolic-speaking Yeniseians existed in the core territory of the Xiongnu state.

Other sources link the Jie to the Lesser Yuezhi (Xiao Yuezhi 小月氏), who remained in China as vassals of the Xiongnu and then the Han dynasty.^[13]

Jie language

Only one phrase in the native language of the Jie is known. The source for this phrase was a Kuchean Buddhist monk and missionary Fotudeng. It was recorded in the Book of Jin as 秀支 替戾剛 僕谷 劬禿當 and said to have a connection to Shi Le's fight against Liu Yao in 328.^[14] The phrase was glossed with a Chinese translation:

This phrase has been analyzed in a number of publications. Shiratori (1900),^[15] Ramstedt (1922),^[16] Bazin (1948),^[17] von Gabain (1950),^[18] Shervashidze (1986),^[19] and Shimunek (2015)^[20] recognized Turkic lexicon, and gave their versions of the transcription and translation:

Edwin G. Pulleyblank (1963) argued that the Turkic interpretations cannot be considered very successful because they conflict with the phonetic values of the Chinese text and with the Chinese translation. Instead, he suggested a connection with the Yeniseian languages.^[1]: 264

Alexander Vovin (2000) gave the following translation based on Yeniseian.^[12] Vovin (2000) suggests a connection with the Southern Yeniseian branch.

The verbal ending -ŋ can be seen in Jie, which is a common verb ending in Yeniseian languages. The cognate form of the Jie words "kot-o-kt-aŋ" 'they will catch' in Ket is "d-kas-a-qos-n", showing the characteristic of Pumpokol where the sound /t/ corresponds the Ket sound /s/, thus Jie is thought to be closely related to Pumpokol. The Arin word 'kel' 'fight' partly coincides in the second syllable of suke 'army', however the connection is dubious and Vovin suggested it to be a loanword, because if Pumpokolic speakers became part of Xiongnu, the word for army would have likely been loaned.^[21]

History

The earliest recorded Jie was Shi Le, whose original name was either Bei (㔨) or Fule (匐勒). Under the Western Jin dynasty, he was a minor chieftain from Wuxiang County in Shangdang Commandery, succeeding his father Zhouhezhu (周曷朱) and grandfather Yeyiyu (耶奕于). When a famine struck Bing province in 303 or 304, he and many other Jie people became displaced. The Jin provincial inspector, looking to fund his military for an ongoing civil war, had these people captured and sold into slavery.

Shi Le eventually attained his freedom and formed a rebel army with his friend, the Han Chinese shepherd Ji Sang, who gave Shi Le his name. After a decisive defeat in 307, he fled to the Xiongnu-led Han-Zhao dynasty, where he quickly rose through the ranks and became a key general in their war against the Western Jin. Although he contributed greatly to Han-Zhao's expansion, he was also effectively in control of the eastern part of the empire and made the city of Xiangguo (襄國, in modern Xingtai, Hebei) his capital. In 319, Shi Le broke away and established the Later Zhao, leading to a decade long confrontation with Han-Zhao that ended in Later Zhao's victory and domination over northern China in 329.

Shi Le died in 333, succeeded by his son, Shi Hong. However, his distant nephew, Shi Hu immediately launched a coup and seized control of the government. In 334, Shi Hu deposed Shi Hong and took the throne, ruling the empire until his death in 349. Shi Hu is described in records as a cruel tyrant, but the empire remained mostly intact throughout his reign. After his death, his family members engaged in an internecine conflict over the throne, culminating in Shi Hu's adopted Han Chinese grandson, Shi Min, taking control of the emperor and the capital, Ye.

After surviving a third assassination attempt, Shi Min suspected that he could not trust the Jie and tribal people. In 350, he ordered the killing of every Jie and non-Han people, identifying them by their high noses and full beards. According to some sources, more than 200,000 of them were slain, but a large portion of them were also Han Chinese who were mistaken due to their facial features.^[22][23] Later that year, Shi Min massacred the Shi clan in Ye, changed his name to Ran Min and proclaimed himself the Heavenly Prince of (Ran) Wei.

In 351, the emperor of Later Zhao, Shi Zhi was assassinated in Xiangguo, bringing the dynasty to an end. The last member of the Shi clan fled to the Eastern Jin dynasty in Jiankang, but was executed upon his arrival. The remaining Jie people eventually became subjects of the Xianbei-led Former Yan, who defeated Ran Min and conquered the Hebei and Shandong regions.

Hereafter, the Jie people seemingly faded into obscurity. Despite this, there were several figures in later history who may have been of Jie ethnicity. Gai Wu, a rebel during the Northern Wei dynasty, is described in the Book of Qi as a Jiehu (羯胡), although the Book of Wei states that he was a Lushuihu (盧水胡) instead. Both Erzhu Rong and Hou Jing, two famous warlords of the Northern Dynasties, were identified as Qihu (契胡) and Jiehu respectively, and modern scholars have suggested that they could have been be related to the Jie.^[24] The Tang dynasty rebel, An Lushan was also called a Jiehu, and according to the unearthed epitaph of Shi Chonggui, the Shi clan of Shatuo origin that ruled the Later Jin (936–947) claimed that they were descendants of Shi Le.^[25]

Cultural influences

Fang Xuanling recorded in the Book of Jin chronicle that at around 340 a Jie state Later Zhao's which ruled part of North China had a Chinese scholar Xie Fei (together with Wei Mengbian) serving as a Head of Healing (Medicinal) Department in the Later Zhao State Chancellery, was a mechanical engineer who built a south-pointing chariot (also called south-pointing carriage), a directional compass vehicle that apparently did not use magnetic principle, but was operated by use of differential gears (which apply an equal amount of torque to driving wheels rotating at different speeds), or a similar angular differential principle.^[26]

For the great ingenuity shown in the construction of the device, the Later Zhao Emperor Shi Hu granted Xie Fei the noble title of hou without land possessions and rewarded him generously.^{[7]: 99 [27]}

See also

• Ethnic groups in Chinese history
• Zhongshan (state)

Notes

References

External links

• 羯語記載 The language of Jie ( Kiet ) – earliest Turkic language phrase recorded in Chinese Chronicle(Chinese Traditional Big5 code page) via Internet Archive