Imagining a Universal Empire: a Study of the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions Attributed to Li Gonglin

This article is not concerned with the history of aesthetics but, rather, is an exercise in intellectual history. “Illustrations of Tributary States” [ Zhigong tu 職貢圖 ] as a type of art reveals a Chinese tradition of artistic representations of foreign emissaries paying tribute at the imperial court. This tradition is usually seen as going back to the “Illustrations of Tributary States,” painted by Emperor Yuan in the Liang dynasty 梁元帝 [r. 552-554] in the first half of the sixth century. This series of paintings not only had a lasting influence on aesthetic history but also gave rise to a highly distinctive intellectual tradition in the development of Chinese thought: images of foreign emissaries were used to convey the Celestial Empire’s sense of pride and self-confidence, with representations of strange customs from foreign countries serving as a foil for the image of China as a radiant universal empire at the center of the world. The tradition of “Illustrations of Tributary States” was still very much alive during the time of the Song dynasty [960-1279], when China had to compete with equally powerful neighboring states, the empire’s territory had been significantly diminished, and the Chinese population had become ethnically more homogeneous. In this article, the “Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions” [ Wanfang zhigong tu 萬方職貢圖 ] attributed to Li Gonglin 李公麟 [ca. 1049-1106] and created during the period between the Xining 熙寧 [1068-1077] and Yuanfeng 元豐 [1078-1085] reigns of the Shenzong emperor 神宗 [r. 1067-1085] of the Song dynasty, is used as a case study for investigating the actual tributary relations between the Northern Song [960-1127] state and its neighboring by its “barbarian” neighbors. Particularly worth emphasizing is the fact that the artistic tradition of painting “Illustrations of Tributary States” as well as the accompanying idea of China as a universal empire continued well into the Qing [1644-1911] period, reflecting the historical longevity and lasting influence of the traditional conception of the relationship between China and the world.


1
Introduction: the International Environment, Historical Memory, and Self-Image of the Song Dynasty The period from the An Lushan Rebellion 安史之亂 [755] in the mid-eighth century to the Chanyuan treaty 澶淵之盟 [1005] between the Northern Song  and Liao  dynasties at the beginning of the eleventh century stretches over 250 years. After a phase of chaos and division, China became a relatively stable and unified empire again. However, compared to the Tang dynasty , which had reached its peak two and a half centuries earlier, the renewed unity of the Song empire  was accompanied by far-reaching changes. First, the Chinese territory was reduced to less than half its previous size. Second, little by little, the empire became ethnically and culturally more homogeneous. Lastly, its unique political system also showed growing signs of uniformity. Of particular importance here is the fact that the problem of the relationship between the northern barbarians [hu 胡] and Chinese [han 漢] within the boundaries of the Tang empire gradually changed into that of the relationship between the China [hua 華] of the Song state, on the one hand, and the eastern barbarians [yi 夷] outside its borders, on the other.1 Surrounded by powerful neighbors, such as the Khitan [Qidan 契丹] in the north (as well as the Jurchen [Nüzhen 女真] and Mongols [Menggu 蒙古] who rose to power later), the Korean kingdom [Gaoli 高麗] in the east, the Tangut [Dangxiang 黨項] (later the Western Xia 西夏) in the west, the Tibetan kingdom [Tubo 吐蕃] and Dali 大理 in the southwest, and Annam [Annan 安南] in the south, the Song territory shrank system of ritual and ceremonial regulations and offer various kinds of produce and gifts from their countries, with the latter called "tribute" [chaogong 朝貢].
Some now believe that an ancient tribute system with China at its center, that is, an international order grounded in a Chinese system of rituals, had already been established by the time of the Qin  and Han periods. The Chinese historical records have many traces of the tradition of neighboring countries going to the imperial court to pay tribute to the emperor. In this respect, three classical texts are of crucial importance, namely the chapter "Tribute of Yu [Yugong 禹貢]" in the Book of Documents [Shangshu 尚書], the chapter on the "King's Meetings [Wanghui pian 王會篇]" in the Remaining Documents of Zhou [Yi Zhoushu 逸周書], and the first part of the chapter "Discourses of Zhou [Zhouyu 周語]" in the Discourses of the States [Guoyu 國語]. Although these texts are a mixture of legend and fiction, they give us a sense of how relations between states were perceived in ancient China. Moreover, they also attest to the fact that the ancient Chinese saw themselves as occupying the center of "all under heaven" [tianxia 天下] and looked down on their neighboring countries. According to this understanding, inhabitants from the farthest corners of the world went to pay tribute at the imperial court because they were in awe of China.6 Only a handful of written documents concerning the ancient tributary system have survived. Although very few pictorial representations of the early stages of this system have been preserved, the earliest example, the "Illustrations of Tributary States," dates back to the time of Xiao Yi 蕭繹 , who would later become emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty 梁元帝 [r. 552-554]. Needless to say, the original edition of the "Illustrations of Tributary States" no longer exists.7 What we currently have are three later copies, the most famous of which is traditionally seen as a product of the Northern Song period. This copy was originally stored at the Nanjing Museum but has since been moved to the National Museum of China in Beijing. The copy in question contains a total of twelve portraits of emissaries from different countries, with thirteen paragraphs of explanatory text. This edition is the one with which most people are familiar and is usually considered closest to the original version from the time of emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty. Let us start by considering the content of the "Illustrations of Tributary States". The thirteen surviving paragraphs of text describe the following thirteen different countries: Hua 滑 (the Jushi 車師 Kingdom in present-day Xinjiang), Bosi 波斯 (Persia, present-day Iran), Baiji 百濟 (Baekje, the Korean Peninsula), Qiuci 龜茲 (Kuche 庫車 in present-day Xinjiang), Wo 倭 (Kyushu island in contemporary Japan), Dangchang 宕昌 (southern Gansu), Langyaxiu 狼牙修 (Langkasuka, west coast of the Malay Peninsula), Dengzhi 鄧至 (southern Gansu and northern Sichuan), Zhouguke 周古柯 (in present-day Xinjiang), Hebatan 呵拔檀 (in present-day Tajikistan), Humidan 胡蜜丹 (supposedly located in the border region between Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Baiti 白題 (in contemporary Afghanistan, bordering Persia), and Mo 末 (presentday Turkmenistan).
On the basis of the preface by emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty in the Collection of Literature Arranged by Category [Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚], we know that the Illustrations date from the time when the future emperor Xiao Yi served as commanding official in Jingzhou 荊州 (present-day Hubei) between 526 and 539. During this period, he painted the images that make up this work on the basis of reports and personal observations. The complete Illustrations of Tributary States also contained the portraits of emissaries from a number of other countries. On the basis of textual research, scholars now believe the Illustrations originally included accounts of the following countries: Gaojuli 高句麗 (the northern part of the Korean Peninsula), Yutian 於闐 (the Hotan 和田 region in Xinjiang), Xinluo 新羅 (Silla, the southern part of the Korean Peninsula), Kepantuo 渴盤陀 (Tashkent 塔什干 in present-day Xinjiang), Wuxing fan 武興藩 (the Lüeyang 略陽 region in Shanxi), Gaochang 高昌 (the Turpan 吐魯番 area in Xinjiang), Tianmen man 天門蠻 (at the intersection of present-day Henan, Hubei, and Guizhou), Jianping man 建平蠻 (between present-day Hubei and Sichuan), and Linjiang man 臨江蠻 (the eastern part of Sichuan). Additionally, the text probably included descriptions of Zhong tianzhu 中天竺, Bei tianzhu 北天竺 (both in present-day India), and Shiziguo Moreover, these works are the reason that portraits of foreign emissaries gradually became a major topic in the aesthetic history extending from the Tang period to the Song, Yuan [1271Yuan [ -1368, Ming , and Qing  dynasties, when numerous pictorial representations of this type can be found in contexts as diverse as paintings and tomb murals.11 In the next section, we turn to the main topic of this paper, namely the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions [Wanfang zhigong tu 萬方職貢圖], attributed to Li Gonglin 李公麟 [ca. .

3
Imagining Foreign Countries in the Song Dynasty: Li Gonglin's

Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions
As stated at the beginning of this article, because the Song empire was kept in check by the looming presence of its powerful neighbors, a relatively balanced international order emerged in East Asia. As such, the Song dynasty could no longer act as a universal empire that looks down on its neighboring countries, as had been the custom during the Han and Tang periods. On the contrary, surrounded on all sides, it had no choice but to reduce its territory in order to preserve a Han-dominated dynasty. Even though the Song ruling elites as well as many literati never abandoned the ambition to restore the "old territory of the Han and Tang" and continued to pose as superior to the regions outside the center of imperial power, this was simply a matter of wishful thinking and deceptive posturing. In fact, during this period, the old tributary system of the Han and Tang increasingly became a shadow of its former self. Although the wealthy and populous Song empire could boast considerable economic power and preserved the tributary system for a number of surrounding states, this system only managed to control and attract China's less powerful neighbors. These tribute-bearing states usually went along only to engage in trade with China and to profit from the bountiful gifts they received in return. Hence, the idea of the "myriad regions coming to pay tribute" for the most part had become a historical memory and a dreamy vision of the glorious days of a bygone era. However, in this period, a considerable number of pictorial representations of tribute missions from foreign countries appeared. The Song imperial court even put a number of regulations in place for painting tributary states. It is possible that the most famous example of such a painting, Li Gonglin's Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions was closely related to the official system requiring artists to "paint their headwear and clothes and record their customs."12 The Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions are currently stored in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The question of its provenance, preservation, and authenticity is complicated and is not addressed here. As is well known, Li Gonglin was the most celebrated painter in the entire Song period. In the Xuanhe huapu 宣和畫譜 [Catalogue of Paintings from the Xuanhe Period], it is recorded that Li composed two "Illustrations of Tributary States,"13 one of which was called "Images of Ten States [Shi guo tu 十國圖]" that has not survived.14 The Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions we have today depicts ten different countries. According to the inscription at the end of the painting, it was completed in "the second year of Yuanfeng  A word of clarification is in order here. Zeng Yu, whose courtesy name was Gongjuan 公卷 and who styled himself "the old man of emptiness and youth" [Kongqing laoren 空青老人] in his later years, was a native of Nanfeng 南豐 in the Jianchang 建昌 military prefecture. He lived in the era between the Northern and Southern Song dynasties and was the fourth son of the famous late Northern Song official Zeng Bu 曾布 . Judging by the available records, Zeng Yu was quite knowledgeable about calligraphy and painting. Moreover, on the basis of his "Inscription to Li Boshi's [Li Gonglin] Painting of a Horse [Ti Li Boshi ma tu 題李伯時馬圖],"15 we can establish that he personally met with Li Gonglin on occasion. Supposing that the inscriptions added to the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions were in fact written by Zeng, it is thus safe to assume that the painting is from Li's own hand.

Recorded, Imagined, and Remembered: an Analysis of the Notion of "Tributary States" during the Reign of Emperor Shenzong
Although the descriptions of the various countries in the explanatory text signed "Zeng Yu, the old man of emptiness and youth" are quite brief, the question of their provenance is rather complicated.  [1085][1086][1087][1088][1089][1090][1091][1092][1093][1094][1095][1096][1097][1098][1099][1100], at which point he was forced to resign from his post at the age of fifty-two due to illness. For thirty years, he was at the center of political power, the two most important periods in his career being the reigns of Shenzong and Zhezong. If it is true that the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions date from the second year of the Yuanfeng era, we would do well to try to establish the diplomatic conditions during the Xining and Yuanfeng periods that Li may have witnessed at first hand on the basis of the available historical documents. This in turn enables us to ascertain whether the Illustrations are accurate representations or merely products of the imagination. Moreover, doing so also allows us to approach both the factual history of diplomatic relations during the Song period as well as the artist's imagination and representation of the tributary system as a means to investigate to what extent the Song dynasty preserved the historical memory of the glory days of the Han and Tang periods and continued to imagine itself as an illustrious universal empire.
So what did the international climate and the diplomatic conditions during the Northern Song period look like? In fact, in the period between the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, when Li Gonglin created the Illustrations, only a few foreign states paid tribute at the Song court. Let us proceed by providing a rough overview of the situation at the time. On the basis of textual evidence in the Songshi, Song huiyao jigao, Xu zizhi tongjian changbian 續資治通鑒長編 [Extended Continuation to the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance], and the Wenxian tongkao, we can surmise that the period in question was a crucial phase in the history of the Song dynasty. During this period, the governance of the state experienced a transition from a defensive to a more assertive stance. The Shenzong emperor took a highly proactive stance in attempting to expand foreign relations and restore the tributary system. From our present perspective, the expansion of international relations in the period between the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns of emperor Shenzong was an important accomplishment and a great step forward. The Korean kingdom, which had been reduced to a vassal state of the Khitan empire, reestablished relations with the Northern Song via the southern maritime route after an interruption of forty-three years.17 In the fourth year of the Xining reign, "envoys, civil officials, and assistant ministers from Korea came to bring a tribute of gold in the district of Haimen 海門." During the Yuanfeng era, emperor Shenzong dispatched couriers such as An Tao 高麗入貢儀式] for the occasion,18 and ordered the construction of a building to accommodate the tributaries and "entertain them as guests" [lebin 樂賓] as well as a pavilion to "bring relief to the ships" [hangji 航濟] in Mingzhou 明州 (Dinghai 定海 district) at the spot where the Korean emissaries came ashore. He even arranged for the construction of ships especially intended for travel between the two countries.19 It seems that when Li Gonglin painted his Illustrations, Korea sent a tribute mission to Kaifeng 開封, the capital of the Northern Song, which means that its inclusion in the Illustrations could very well be an authentic record with a basis in history.
However, Korea paid tribute to both the Song empire and the Khitan of the Liao dynasty. Additionally, the portrayal of the kingdom of the Jurchen in the Illustrations is far from reliable. In the period between the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, the Jurchen had yet to become a formidable power, partly aligning themselves with the Khitan while also relying on Korea for support. Before the mid-eleventh century, the Jurchen remained a tribal people, and although the Wanyan 完顏 clan had united some of the Jurchen tribes, they continued to be dominated by the Khitan and were forced to helplessly suffer and groan under the weight of exorbitant taxes. This lasted until the Zhenghe 政和 [1111][1112][1113][1114][1115][1116][1117]

Ge
Journal of chinese humanities 5 (2019) 124-148 point out that the term "western regions" does not refer to a single state. In the vague and general concept employed by scholar-officials of the Northern Song, "western regions" could refer in a traditional sense to present-day Xinjiang and Central Asia, as well as to much more remote regions in southwest Asia, such as the Arab empire [dashi 大食]. However, in the century after the first year of the Yongxi 雍熙 [984-987] reign of emperor Taizong 太宗 [r. 976-997], when the envoy of the Northern Song emperor Wang Yande 王延德 [939-1006] returned from an arduous journey to Gaochang, contacts between the Song empire and the "western regions" became increasingly rare. During the Yuanfeng reign of emperor Shenzong, the only visits of foreign emissaries from "the West" were in all likelihood those from Yutian, who came to the Song empire four times (in the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth years of the Yuanfeng reign). Apart from this, there were also sporadic visits from various parts of the Arabian Peninsula to places such as Guangzhou via maritime routes. But the various states from the "western regions" that went to China during this period did not necessarily have a sense of "going to pay tribute." Some of the people who journeyed to Song China over land were from places such as Kucha, while others who came by sea were Arab merchants. Although it is possible that they used the tribute system as a pretext for establishing trade relations, it is highly doubtful that they were part of official tribute missions.
Nonetheless, among the tributary states portrayed by Li Gonglin, the inclusion of southeast Asian countries and maritime kingdoms such as Zhancheng, Sanfoqi, and Boni appears to be reliable. Whereas the Northern Song's corridor to the northwest had gradually been closed off as far back as the mid-Tang period, contact was increasing between Song China, on the one hand, and southern as well as maritime states, on the other. This trend had been developing since the beginning of the Song period and did not simply start with the rule of emperor Shenzong. During his reign the Song emperor Zhenzong 真宗 [r. 997-1022] had ordered the various regions of the empire to provide a warm welcome to foreign envoys. As a result, both merchants and government officials were very keen to visit China. In the period between the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, for example, people from Sanfoqi often paid tribute or engaged in commerce through the customs offices in Guangdong and were lavished with gifts from the Song court as a sign of gratitude. At times, the number of visitors from Sanfoqi was too great for local government officials to handle, which shows that considerable numbers arrived bearing tribute via southern land or maritime routes, including people from Cochin [ Jiaozhi 交 趾] (northern Vietnam) and Zhancheng as well as Boni, Chola [Zhunian 注輦], and Jambi [Zhanbei 詹卑], possibly even including seafarers from even more distant places, such as Seljuq [Cengtan 層檀] and Arabia.
In the foregoing, we provided a general outline of the international relations during the era of Shenzong of the Northern Song and some of the information concerning foreign countries Li Gonglin might have been familiar with when he painted the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions. Three crucial points require further explanation. Firstly, in the period between the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, the relations between the Northern Song and Zhancheng were quite close. A possible explanation for this is the fact that the Song Empire was deeply vexed by its neighbor Jiaozhi, that is, Northern Vietnam.

5
Recorded, Imagined, and Remembered: an Analysis of the Ten

Countries Depicted in the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions
Summarizing the findings above, we can divide the ten countries included in Li Gonglin's Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions and the inscriptions by Zeng Yu into five different categories on the basis of the available information concerning the diplomatic relations of the Northern Song: 1.
The first category consists of countries which actually sent tributary missions to China (4 countries in total): Zhancheng (the middle southern region of Vietnam), Sanfoqi (Sumatra in Indonesia), the kingdom of Boni (Kalimantan in Indonesia), and Chaoxian (this ancient name did not refer to North Korea as is the case in modern Chinese but rather to the Korean kingdom, which covered the whole of the Korean Peninsula and also paid tribute to the Khitan). Although these states occasionally sent tributary missions or individual envoys to China, it is quite possible that their primary goal in doing so was to establish trade relations with the rich and populous Northern Song. 2. The second category is made up of a number of foreign states which had no institutionalized tributary position but may have had contact with the Northern Song through the intermediary of merchants or officials (a total of two countries). While the first of these, the Jurchen (contemporary northeast China) had already begun to have some contact with the Song court in the process of their rise to power and would eventually agree to form a military alliance with the Song against the Khitan a few decades after the reign of emperor Shenzong, in the period of the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns they were still controlled by the Khitan and were not a tributary state of the Northern Song at all. The second state in this category is the Tubo kingdom (Tibet, Qinghai, and the western part of Sichuan). As we already mentioned above, during the Northern Song period, the Tubo kingdom had already collapsed, the remaining factions alternating between an aggressive and conciliatory stance toward the Song, sometimes realigning themselves with tribes close to the borders of China which occasionally posed a threat to the Song empire. As such, it is highly improbable that any sort of diplomatic mission from a kingdom which no longer existed visited China. In any case, during the period of the Xining and Yuanfeng reigns, Tubo was no longer a tributary state of the Song. 3. The third category refers to countries which may have during a certain period occasionally sent a number of envoys or merchants to China but were not in any sense tributary states of the Northern Song (one country). According to the available scholarship, the only country in this category, the kingdom of Fulin, refers to the Eastern Roman Empire and its capital of Constantinople, which was obviously never a Chinese tributary state. It would take until the fourth year of the Yuanfeng reign, that is to say, two years after Li Gonglin had completed the Illustrations, for a self-declared royal emissary to visit China to pay tribute, but this was in all likelihood simply a merchant from the East.29 4. The fourth category consists of tributary states which did not actually exist during the Northern Song period but were either the product of rumors or count as imaginary distant lands construed by the painter or commentator of the Illustrations on the basis of a few historical materials (2 countries in total). This applies to Handong 罕東 (in the vicinity of Jiuquan 酒泉 and Dunhuang 敦煌 according to some, closer to Xining 西寧 according to others)30 as well as to the "Western Regions" (as already mentioned above, this term does not designate a single country).31 During the whole reign of emperor Shenzong, with the exception of Yutian, the passage West was blocked by the presence of the Western Xia, Khitan, and the remainders of the Tubo kingdom, making it impossible for any state in this region to have become a tributary state to the Song in an institutional sense. 5. In the fifth category we find the purely fictional and imaginary state called "the Kingdom of Women". The fanciful name itself suffices to rule out the possibility of any actual contact between such a country and the Song court. If the analysis above is correct, the four countries which did actually come to pay tribute at the Song court during the reign of emperor Shenzong and may have been witnessed by Li Gonglin first hand are Korea, Sanfoqi, Zhancheng, and Boni, the inclusion of the other six states being the product of rumor or contrived on the basis of historical records. It is clear that since the west, north, and southwest had become foreign territory, the Song dynasty could no longer boast the splendor of the sort of universal empire which existed during the Han and Tang periods. The countries which were seen as "tributary states" during the Song period were mostly a number of states and regions in the east and the south. As such, it was only in the period between the middle of the tenth and the thirteenth century  that the relation between China and the world came to shift toward the southern maritime routes. This was the beginning of the formation of a veritable trade network in the South Chinese Sea, a development which directly led to the establishment of numerous customs offices in the coastal areas. These developments also explain why works containing information concerning foreign countries such as the Lingwai daida 嶺外代答  At this time, the Song dynasty was obviously no longer a universal empire comparable to that of the Han and Tang periods. The Song not only had to confront the external menace posed by the Khitan and Tangut but was also faced with rebellions of non-Han ethnic groups in the southwest within its own boundaries and had to tackle various problems on the maritime routes. Nonetheless, throughout Chinese history, the empire's ruling elites and literati never ceased to imagine China as embracing the whole world and to enjoy the spectacle of "barbarians" coming to pay tribute at the imperial court. The reason for this is simple: the Chinese saw themselves as a Celestial Empire at the center of the universe. Witnessing barbarians from distant lands bowing their heads to pay their respects and pledge allegiance to the emperor while observing their bizarre and savage ways must have filled them with a deep sense of curiosity, self-confidence, and pride. In reality however, just as Li Gonglin's contemporary Su Shi 蘇軾 [1037-1101  However, because of the traditional need to "sway the frontier people in bringing them peace and tranquility" and present the Celestial Empire as a superior state, the Chinese of the Song period continued to look down at "barbarian" people from a position of superiority, an attitude which was also visually expressed in paintings. Revealing a sense of condescending pity for barbarian states and satisfying the need to be recognized as a superior universal empire, Li Gonglin's Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Regions would seem to fit right into this category of artworks. At a time when China was no longer a universal empire and ceased to have many tributary states, the Song continued to conceive of itself as covering "all under heaven" and to project the image of the myriad states presenting themselves at the imperial court, a procedure which would become something of a tradition in imperial China. Before Li Gonglin's lifetime, during the reigns of emperor Zhenzong and emperor Renzong, officials at the Office of Foreign States had already produced a painting called "Portrait of the Four Barbarians Reporting at the Court of the Great Song [Dasong siyi shuzhi tu 大宋四夷述職圖]". After Li's time, on the eve of the downfall of the Northern Song, there were still some who proposed to the Huizong emperor to commission the creation of a series of Illustrations of Tributary States, allegedly because the greatness of the Song surpassed that of the period of the Three Dynasties, Han, and Tang and barbarians from outside the empire would "flock to us in pursuit of righteousness, coming as guests from remote lands." The idea was still that since the influence of China extended far and wide, the image of the great Song empire as enveloping "all under heaven" needed to be propagated.33 When Liu Kezhuang 劉克莊 [1187-1269] laid eyes on Li Gonglin's Images of Ten Countries (no longer extant) more than a century later in the Southern Song period, after the Chinese territory had shrunk even further, Liu remarked that in his portrayal of people from foreign states as barbarians, Li had "surpassed himself in portraying their vulgar and beggarly appearance" and managed to fill the people of the Song with pride.34 The phrases "vulgar and beggarly appearance" expresses the arrogance involved in the Chinese imagination of different countries, an arrogance meant to produce a sense of self-confidence. In reality, however, in Li Gonglin's time, the Northern Song was not that rich and powerful anymore, nor were the surrounding states as backward and subservient as the Illustrations would lead one to believe. But it was precisely during this long period of political fragility that an imaginary form of self-consolation gained in importance, simply because it was the only way to make up for a pervasive lack of self-confidence. Therefore, if we are correct in assuming that the Illustrations of the Tributary States of the Myriad Directions dates from the Northern Song, this work of art can be seen as symbol for the gradual territorial decline of China, disguised as an imaginary sense of self-importance. All of this gave rise to a tradition which continued into the entire Song period (and even well into the subsequent history of China), namely that of "preserving the image of a boundless empire within the awareness of the finite space of the state. Despite the fact that the modern Chinese nation-state broke away from the central imperial system, the traditional idea of China as an empire at the center of the world managed to survive this transformation."35 Intellectuals from the Ming period would adopt a more critical approach to such imaginary representations. They saw through the Song dynasty images of foreign countries as self-congratulatory caricatures. In a poem, the Ming scholar Han Qia 韓洽 [fl. 1644] noted that whereas the Tang-dynasty artist Yan Like still had sufficient reasons for painting his Illustrations of Tributary States during his time, because "the Tang brought order to the world and peace to the myriad states, so that strange lands from all directions presented themselves at the court," the same could not be said for Li Gonglin. As Han Qia remarked: "It is doubtful whether the many barbarians really came to pay tribute to the Song empire during Li Gonglin's time." As such, he suspected that Li had painted his Illustrations by imitating previous works of art and that his paintings were not accurate records. He astutely observed that during the Yuanfeng reign of emperor Shenzong, the state had gradually become more stable and prosperous, allowing the ruling elites to enjoy a short period of peace. However, this led to an inflated sense of self-worth and a great deal of quibbling over the best methods to strengthen the state even further. Consequently, the ruling elites lost themselves in fantasies of power and hegemony, while "failing to notice that China was in decline." In Han Qia's opinion then, Li Gonglin's Illustrations only served to satisfy the limitless arrogance of the ruling elites and was no match for the Portraits of Vagabonds [Liumin tu 流民圖]  and to urge him to put an end to the reforms which had brought needless suffering to the people.36

6
The Enduring Idea of Universal Empire: the Example of the

Illustrations of Tributary States of the Illustrious Qing
Unfortunately, critiques such as Han Qia's were a rare occurrence and the artistic tradition of imagining universal empire by means of "Illustrations of Tributary States" would continue uninterrupted. Even the Mongol Yuan dynasty would abide by the same custom, with various "Illustrations of Tributary States" appearing in quick succession as the territory of the Chinese empire expanded again. These images serve as a record of the relations between the growing Yuan dynasty and its neighbors on all sides, while also flaunting the strength of an empire stretching across the Eurasian continent in order to satisfy the vanity of its ruling elites.37 Even during the Ming period, when the Chinese territory had been vastly diminished, many similar paintings continued to see the light of day. Some of these were actual portrayals of the visits of various foreign states to the court, but just as many were imitations of different "Illustrations of Tributary  the Qianlong emperor dating from the twenty-sixth year of his reign. In this poem, Qianlong arrogantly declares that the Qing already covers "all under heaven," so that "no-one can remain outside the unity and uniformity of the empire, there is not a single person anymore who is not our kin." Barbarians from all four corners of the earth came to pay tribute at the court, "for how could Fangfeng 防風 be allowed to show up late to the gathering?39 Had he not already heard the harmonious sounds of all the guests arriving?"40 However, in the mid-eighteenth century, the world had already entered into the earlier stages of globalization and the global competition between empires from the East and West had started to unfold. Although China began to acquire more and more knowledge of the world and the states, peoples, and customs of remote places outside its boundaries, the territorial expansion of the empire allowed the image of China as a universal empire to persist, with the ruler of the Celestial Empire continuing to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the "myriad states presenting themselves at the court." Perhaps we could say that works of art such as the Illustrations of Tributary States of the Illustrious Qing and the Illustrations of the Myriad States Coming to the Court [Wanguo laichao tu 萬國來朝圖] from the same period are a reflection of how Chinese officials and intellectuals at the time conceived of the relation between China and the world. Throughout the centuries stretching from emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty's Illustrations of Tributary States to the officially commissioned Illustrations from the Qing period, Chinese officials and literati continued to create pictures devoted to the topic of foreign countries coming to pay tribute at the imperial court. The image of an all-encompassing Celestial Empire would continuously serve as a model for the "myriad states," "foreign races," "foreign devils," and even the "Westerners." Regardless of whether this image is judged to be accurate or merely fictional, it testifies to the persistence of a certain way of imagining China and the world.