IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
CII. LXIII ORGANIZATION OF STATIONS 147
M. Chavannes shows that the troops on the border were composed of regular companies or ' tui,' organized under imperial edict and permanently attached to particular sections. Now a large number of records found at the station T. vi. B mention the ' Ling-hu ' (or ' barbarian-suppressing ') company in such a way as to leave no doubt about its having garrisoned that station and had its head-
quarters there. Altogether some twenty companies are thus named in the records from the various stations, and
in most cases it is still possible to determine the sections
of the line which they guarded. Curiously enough, a record found at T. vi. B distinctly quotes an imperial
edict concerning the raising of the Ling-hu company and two others which seem to have been located near by, and directs the posting of the edict " in a place suited for general information."
Each company had a commandant who is frequently named as the recipient of orders sent from headquarters, and his station is always referred to as a ' T'ing.' One of
the documents specifies 145 soldiers as attached to this particular station, and M. Chavannes assumes this to
have been the approximate number for each company.
Under the company commandant the documents constantly mention the officers in charge of the watch-towers (' hou-
chang') and the assistant attached to each of them. To the soldiers placed under them, of whose number we are not exactly informed, but who must have been posted by reliefs, fell the duties of transmitting the fire signals, of
patrolling the line, and furnishing the fatigue parties for collecting fuel, supplies, etc., to which our records so
often refer. Just as small groups of watch-towers were
garrisoned by individual companies, so the latter formed sections of the ' barrier,' as the Limes is always spoken of,
under superior officers. Over the westernmost portion of the Limes control was exercised by ' the military commandant of the Jade Gate or Yü-mên,' who in turn depended, directly or indirectly, on the governor of the Tun-huang command.
In the files recovered from the office of the Ling-hu company we have ample illustration of the administrative
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.