ABSTRACT
The Tang-hsiang, ancestors of the Tanguts who founded the state of HsiHsia, lived in the northwestern areas of what is today the Chinese province of Szechwan. In the seventh century, the Tang-hsiang became subjects of the Chinese Tang Empire, partly of their own volition and partly under pressure from the advancing Tibetans. They relocated northward to the territory of the Chinese province of Kansu, to the southern regions of Ordos, where the winding Huang ho River wends it way. In the mid-seventh century, thanks to Tibetan advances into the Tang Empire, they moved farther north and occupied territory that approximately corresponds to what is today the Ninghsia Hui autonomous region of the PRC. The latter's capital, the city of Inchuan, was formerly the capital of the state of Hsi-Hsia. In 880-4, T'o-pa Ssu-Kung, the ruler of the Tang-hsiang, was rewarded by the Tang court for his aid in quelling the Huang Ch'ao uprising with the post of governor-general of Ting-nan, areas in central and southern Ordos, and the title of Hsi-p'ing Wang - the Prince who Pacified the West. The Tanghsiang gradually settled the entire territory of today's Ninghsia-Hui autonomous region as well as the western regions of today's Shensi province and the eastern regions of the Kansu province. The Tang-hsiang gradually formed a majority in this region of varied ethnic composition consisting of Chinese, Tibetans, Hsien-pei T'u-yü-hun, and Tang-hsiang. When China disintegrated in the tenth century, the rulers of the Tang-hsiang became independent. When a new dynasty, the Sung, began to reunite China in 960, the Tang-hsiang did not submit and, by the end of the tenth century, had practically created their own state - the Great Hsia. The latter included all of the western and central parts of today's Kansu province, today's Ninghsia Hui autonomous region and areas of Northern Ordos that are currently part of the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.
