["[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-01 00:00]\n<User>I'd like to share some important information:\nThe Ming initiated sporadic armed intervention in Tibet during the 14th century, but did not garrison permanent troops there. At times the Tibetans also used armed resistance against Ming forays. The Wanli Emperor (r. 1572\u20131620) made attempts to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations after the Mongol-Tibetan alliance initiated in 1578, which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Qing dynasty (1644\u20131912) of China in their support for the Dalai Lama of the Gelug school. By the late 16th century, the Mongols were successful armed protectors of the Gelug Dalai Lama, after increasing their presence in the Amdo region. This culminated in G\u00fcshi Khan's (1582\u20131655) conquest of Tibet from 1637\u20131642 and the establishment of the Ganden Phodrang regime by the 5th Dalai Lama with his help.\n\nTibet was once a strong power contemporaneous with Tang China (618\u2013907). Until the Tibetan Empire's collapse in the 9th century, it was the Tang's major rival in dominating Inner Asia. The Yarlung rulers of Tibet also signed various peace treaties with the Tang, culminating in a treaty in 821 that fixed the borders between Tibet and China.\n\nDuring the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of China (907\u2013960), while the fractured political realm of China saw no threat in a Tibet which was in just as much political disarray, there was little in the way of Sino-Tibetan relations. Few documents involving Sino-Tibetan contacts survive from the Song dynasty (960\u20131279). The Song were far more concerned with countering northern enemy states of the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty (907\u20131125) and Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty (1115\u20131234).\n\nIn 1207, the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan (r. 1206\u20131227) conquered and subjugated the ethnic Tangut state of the Western Xia (1038\u20131227). In the same year, he established diplomatic relations with Tibet by sending envoys there. The conquest of the Western Xia alarmed Tibetan rulers, who decided to pay tribute to the Mongols. However, when they ceased to pay tribute after Genghis Khan's death, his successor \u00d6gedei Khan (r. 1229\u20131241) launched an invasion into Tibet.\n\nThe Mongol prince Godan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, raided as far as Lhasa. During his attack in 1240, Prince Godan summoned Sakya Pandita (1182\u20131251), leader of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, to his court in what is now Gansu in Western China. With Sakya Pandita's submission to Godan in 1247, Tibet was officially incorporated into the Mongol Empire during the regency of T\u00f6regene Khatun (1241\u20131246). Michael C. van Walt van Praag writes that Godan granted Sakya Pandita temporal authority over a still politically fragmented Tibet, stating that \"this investiture had little real impact\" but it was significant in that it established the unique \"Priest-Patron\" relationship between the Mongols and the Sakya lamas.\n<Assistant>I've successfully recorded all of this data.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-02 00:00]\n<User>The following are some new knowledge:\nStarting in 1236, the Mongol prince Kublai, who later ruled as Khagan from 1260\u20131294, was granted a large appanage in North China by his superior, \u00d6gedei Khan. Karma Pakshi, 2nd Karmapa Lama (1203\u20131283)\u2014the head lama of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism\u2014rejected Kublai's invitation, so instead Kublai invited Drog\u00f6n Ch\u00f6gyal Phagpa (1235\u20131280), successor and nephew of Sakya Pandita, who came to his court in 1253. Kublai instituted a unique relationship with the Phagpa lama, which recognized Kublai as a superior sovereign in political affairs and the Phagpa lama as the senior instructor to Kublai in religious affairs. Kublai also made Drog\u00f6n Ch\u00f6gyal Phagpa the director of the government agency known as the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs and the ruling priest-king of Tibet, which comprised thirteen different states ruled by myriarchies.\n<Assistant>I've processed this information and will remember it.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-03 00:00]\n<User>I'd like to share some important information:\nKublai Khan did not conquer the Song dynasty in South China until 1279, so Tibet was a component of the early Mongol Empire before it was combined into one of its descendant empires with the whole of China under the Yuan dynasty (1271\u20131368). Van Praag writes that this conquest \"marked the end of independent China,\" which was then incorporated into the Yuan dynasty that ruled China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea, parts of Siberia and Upper Burma. Morris Rossabi, a professor of Asian history at Queens College, City University of New York, writes that \"Khubilai wished to be perceived both as the legitimate Khan of Khans of the Mongols and as the Emperor of China. Though he had, by the early 1260s, become closely identified with China, he still, for a time, claimed universal rule\", and yet \"despite his successes in China and Korea, Khubilai was unable to have himself accepted as the Great Khan\". Thus, with such limited acceptance of his position as Great Khan, Kublai Khan increasingly became identified with China and sought support as Emperor of China.\n\nIn 1358, the Sakya viceregal regime installed by the Mongols in Tibet was overthrown in a rebellion by the Phagmodru myriarch Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen (1302\u20131364). The Mongol Yuan court was forced to accept him as the new viceroy, and Changchub Gyaltsen and his successors, the Phagmodrupa Dynasty, gained de facto rule over Tibet.\n<Assistant>Wonderful. I'll remember these key points.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-04 00:00]\n<User>Here are some news I learnt earlier:\nIn 1368, a Han Chinese revolt known as the Red Turban Rebellion toppled the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China. Zhu Yuanzhang then established the Ming dynasty, ruling as the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368\u20131398). It is not clear how much the early Ming court understood the civil war going on in Tibet between rival religious sects, but the first emperor was anxious to avoid the same trouble that Tibet had caused for the Tang dynasty. Instead of recognizing the Phagmodru ruler, the Hongwu Emperor sided with the Karmapa of the nearer Kham region and southeastern Tibet, sending envoys out in the winter of 1372\u20131373 to ask the Yuan officeholders to renew their titles for the new Ming court.\n\nAs evident in his imperial edicts, the Hongwu Emperor was well aware of the Buddhist link between Tibet and China and wanted to foster it. Rolpe Dorje, 4th Karmapa Lama (1340\u20131383) rejected the Hongwu Emperor's invitation, although he did send some disciples as envoys to the court in Nanjing. The Hongwu Emperor also entrusted his guru Zongluo, one of many Buddhist monks at court, to head a religious mission into Tibet in 1378\u20131382 in order to obtain Buddhist texts.\n\nHowever, the early Ming government enacted a law, later rescinded, which forbade Han Chinese to learn the tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. There is little detailed evidence of Chinese\u2014especially lay Chinese\u2014studying Tibetan Buddhism until the Republican era (1912\u20131949). Despite these missions on behalf of the Hongwu Emperor, Morris Rossabi writes that the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402\u20131424) \"was the first Ming ruler actively to seek an extension of relations with Tibet.\"\n\nAccording to the official Twenty-Four Histories, the History of Ming compiled in 1739 by the subsequent Qing dynasty (1644\u20131912), the Ming dynasty established the \"\u00c9-L\u00ec-S\u012b Army-Civilian Marshal Office\" (Chinese: \u4fc4\u529b\u601d\u8ecd\u6c11\u5143\u5e25\u5e9c) in western Tibet and installed the \"\u00dc-Tsang Itinerant High Commandery\" and \"Amdo-Kham Itinerant High Commandery\" to administer Kham. The Mingshi states that administrative offices were set up under these high commanderies, including one Itinerant Commandery, three Pacification Commissioner's Offices, six Expedition Commissioner's Offices, four Wanhu offices (myriarchies, in command of 10,000 households each) and seventeen Qianhu offices (chiliarchies, each in command of 1,000 households).\n\nThe Ming court appointed three Princes of Dharma (\u6cd5\u738b) and five Princes (\u738b), and granted many other titles, such as Grand State Tutors (\u5927\u570b\u5e2b) and State Tutors (\u570b\u5e2b), to the important schools of Tibetan Buddhism, including the Karma Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug. According to Wang Jiawei and Nyima Gyaincain, leading officials of these organs were all appointed by the central government and were subject to the rule of law. Yet Van Praag describes the distinct and long-lasting Tibetan law code established by the Phagmodru ruler Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen as one of many reforms to revive old Imperial Tibetan traditions.\n\nThe late Turrell V. Wylie, a former professor of the University of Washington, and Li Tieh-tseng argue that the reliability of the heavily censored History of Ming as a credible source on Sino-Tibetan relations is questionable, in the light of modern scholarship. Other historians also assert that these Ming titles were nominal and did not actually confer the authority that the earlier Yuan titles had. Van Praag writes that the \"numerous economically motivated Tibetan missions to the Ming Court are referred to as 'tributary missions' in the Ming Shih.\" Van Praag writes that these \"tributary missions\" were simply prompted by China's need for horses from Tibet, since a viable horse market in Mongol lands was closed as a result of incessant conflict. Morris Rossabi also writes that \"Tibet, which had extensive contacts with China during the Yuan, scarcely had diplomatic relations with the Ming.\"\n\nHistorians disagree on what the relationship was between the Ming court and Tibet and whether or not Ming China had sovereignty over Tibet. Van Praag writes that Chinese court historians viewed Tibet as an independent foreign tributary and had little interest in Tibet besides a lama-patron relationship. The historian Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa supports van Praag's position. However, Wang Jiawei and Nyima Gyaincain state that these assertions by van Praag and Shakabpa are \"fallacies\".\n\nWang and Nyima argue that the Ming emperor sent edicts to Tibet twice in the second year of the Ming dynasty, and demonstrated that he viewed Tibet as a significant region to pacify by urging various Tibetan tribes to submit to the authority of the Ming court. They note that at the same time, the Mongol Prince Punala, who had inherited his position as ruler of areas of Tibet, went to Nanjing in 1371 to pay tribute and show his allegiance to the Ming court, bringing with him the seal of authority issued by the Yuan court. They also state that since successors of lamas granted the title of \"prince\" had to travel to the Ming court to renew this title, and since lamas called themselves princes, the Ming court therefore had \"full sovereignty over Tibet.\" They state that the Ming dynasty, by issuing imperial edicts to invite ex-Yuan officials to the court for official positions in the early years of its founding, won submission from ex-Yuan religious and administrative leaders in the Tibetan areas, and thereby incorporated Tibetan areas into the rule of the Ming court. Thus, they conclude, the Ming court won the power to rule Tibetan areas formerly under the rule of the Yuan dynasty.\n\nJournalist and author Thomas Laird, in his book The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama, writes that Wang and Nyima present the government viewpoint of the People's Republic of China in their Historical Status of China's Tibet, and fail to realize that China was \"absorbed into a larger, non-Chinese political unit\" during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which Wang and Nyima paint as a characteristic Chinese dynasty succeeded by the Ming. Laird asserts that the ruling Mongol khans never administered Tibet as part of China and instead ruled them as separate territories, comparing the Mongols with the British who colonized India and New Zealand, yet stating this does not make India part of New Zealand as a consequence. Of later Mongol and Tibetan accounts interpreting the Mongol conquest of Tibet, Laird asserts that \"they, like all non-Chinese historical narratives, never portray the Mongol subjugation of Tibet as a Chinese one.\"\n<Assistant>I've successfully recorded all of this data.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-05 00:00]\n<User>I have some fresh insights to share:\nThe Columbia Encyclopedia distinguishes between the Yuan dynasty and the other Mongol Empire khanates of Ilkhanate, Chagatai Khanate and the Golden Horde. It describes the Yuan dynasty as \"A Mongol dynasty of China that ruled from 1271 to 1368, and a division of the great empire conquered by the Mongols. Founded by Kublai Khan, who adopted the Chinese dynastic name of Y\u00fcan in 1271.\" The Encyclopedia Americana describes the Yuan dynasty as \"the line of Mongol rulers in China\" and adds that the Mongols \"proclaimed a Chinese-style Y\u00fcan dynasty at Khanbaliq (Beijing).\" The Metropolitan Museum of Art writes that the Mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty \"adopted Chinese political and cultural models; ruling from their capitals in Dadu, they assumed the role of Chinese emperors,\" although Tibetologist Thomas Laird dismissed the Yuan dynasty as a non-Chinese polity and plays down its Chinese characteristics. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also noted that in spite of the gradual assimilation of Yuan monarchs, the Mongol rulers largely ignored the literati and imposed harsh policies discriminating against southern Chinese. In his Kublai Khan: His Life and Times, Rossabi explains that Kublai \"created government institutions that either resembled or were the same as the traditional Chinese ones\", and he \"wished to signal to the Chinese that he intended to adopt the trappings and style of a Chinese ruler\".\n\nNevertheless, the ethno-geographic caste hierarchy favoring the Mongols and other ethnicities were accorded higher status than the Han Chinese majority. Although Han Chinese who were recruited as advisers were often actually more influential than high officials, their status was not as well defined. Kublai also abolished the imperial examinations of China's civil service legacy, which was not reinstated until Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan's reign (1311\u20131320). Rossabi writes that Kublai recognized that in order to rule China, \"he had to employ Chinese advisors and officials, yet he could not rely totally on Chinese advisers because he had to maintain a delicate balancing act between ruling the sedentary civilization of China and preserving the cultural identity and values of the Mongols.\" And \"in governing China, he was concerned with the interests of his Chinese subjects, but also with exploiting the resources of the empire for his own aggrandizement. His motivations and objectives alternated from one to the other throughout his reign,\" according to Rossabi. Van Praag writes in The Status of Tibet that the Tibetans and Mongols, on the other hand, upheld a dual system of rule and an interdependent relationship that legitimated the succession of Mongol khans as universal Buddhist rulers, or chakravartin. Van Praag writes that \"Tibet remained a unique part of the Empire and was never fully integrated into it,\" citing examples such as a licensed border market that existed between China and Tibet during the Yuan.\n\nThe official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China is that the Ming implemented a policy of managing Tibet according to conventions and customs, granting titles and setting up administrative organs over Tibet. The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic states that the Ming dynasty's \u00dc-Tsang Commanding Office governed most areas of Tibet. It also states that while the Ming abolished the policy council set up by the Mongol Yuan to manage local affairs in Tibet and the Mongol system of Imperial Tutors to govern religious affairs, the Ming adopted a policy of bestowing titles upon religious leaders who had submitted to the Ming dynasty. For example, an edict of the Hongwu Emperor in 1373 appointed the Tibetan leader Choskunskyabs as the General of the Ngari Military and Civil Wanhu Office, stating:\n\nChen Qingying, Professor of History and Director of the History Studies Institute under the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, writes that the Ming court conferred new official positions on ex-Yuan Tibetan leaders of the Phachu Kargyu and granted them lower-ranking positions. Of the county (zong or dzong) leaders of Neiwo Zong and Renbam Zong, Chen states that when \"the Emperor learned the actual situation of the Phachu Kargyu, the Ming court then appointed the main Zong leaders to be senior officers of the Senior Command of Dbus and Gtsang.\" The official posts that the Ming court established in Tibet, such as senior and junior commanders, offices of Qianhu (in charge of 1,000 households), and offices of Wanhu (in charge of 10,000 households), were all hereditary positions according to Chen, but he asserts that \"the succession of some important posts still had to be approved by the emperor,\" while old imperial mandates had to be returned to the Ming court for renewal.\n\nAccording to Tibetologist John Powers, Tibetan sources counter this narrative of titles granted by the Chinese to Tibetans with various titles which the Tibetans gave to the Chinese emperors and their officials. Tribute missions from Tibetan monasteries to the Chinese court brought back not only titles, but large, commercially valuable gifts which could subsequently be sold. The Ming emperors sent invitations to ruling lamas, but the lamas sent subordinates rather than coming themselves, and no Tibetan ruler ever explicitly accepted the role of being a vassal of the Ming.\n\nHans Bielenstein writes that as far back as the Han dynasty (202 BCE\u2013220 CE), the Han Chinese government \"maintained the fiction\" that the foreign officials administering the various \"Dependent States\" and oasis city-states of the Western Regions (composed of the Tarim Basin and oasis of Turpan) were true Han representatives due to the Han government's conferral of Chinese seals and seal cords to them.\n\nWang and Nyima state that after the official title \"Education Minister\" was granted to Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen (1302\u20131364) by the Yuan court, this title appeared frequently with his name in various Tibetan texts, while his Tibetan title \"Degsi\" (sic properly sde-srid or desi) is seldom mentioned. Wang and Nyima take this to mean that \"even in the later period of the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan imperial court and the Phagmodrupa Dynasty maintained a Central-local government relation.\" The Tai Situpa is even supposed to have written in his will: \"In the past I received loving care from the emperor in the east. If the emperor continues to care for us, please follow his edicts and the imperial envoy should be well received.\"\n\nHowever, Lok-Ham Chan, a professor of history at the University of Washington, writes that Changchub Gyaltsen's aims were to recreate the old Tibetan Kingdom that existed during the Chinese Tang dynasty, to build \"nationalist sentiment\" amongst Tibetans, and to \"remove all traces of Mongol suzerainty.\" Georges Dreyfus, a professor of religion at Williams College, writes that it was Changchub Gyaltsen who adopted the old administrative system of Songts\u00e4n Gampo (c. 605\u2013649)\u2014the first leader of the Tibetan Empire to establish Tibet as a strong power\u2014by reinstating its legal code of punishments and administrative units. For example, instead of the 13 governorships established by the Mongol Sakya viceroy, Changchub Gyaltsen divided Central Tibet into districts (dzong) with district heads (dzong dpon) who had to conform to old rituals and wear clothing styles of old Imperial Tibet. Van Praag asserts that Changchub Gyaltsen's ambitions were to \"restore to Tibet the glories of its Imperial Age\" by reinstating secular administration, promoting \"national culture and traditions,\" and installing a law code that survived into the 20th century.\n\nAccording to Chen, the Ming officer of Hezhou (modern day Linxia) informed the Hongwu Emperor that the general situation in Dbus and Gtsang \"was under control,\" and so he suggested to the emperor that he offer the second Phagmodru ruler, Jamyang Shakya Gyaltsen, an official title. According to the Records of the Founding Emperor, the Hongwu Emperor issued an edict granting the title \"Initiation State Master\" to Sagya Gyaincain, while the latter sent envoys to the Ming court to hand over his jade seal of authority along with tribute of colored silk and satin, statues of the Buddha, Buddhist scriptures, and sarira.\n\nDreyfus writes that after the Phagmodrupa lost its centralizing power over Tibet in 1434, several attempts by other families to establish hegemonies failed over the next two centuries until 1642 with the 5th Dalai Lama's effective hegemony over Tibet.\n<Assistant>Appreciated. I'll retain these important details.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-06 00:00]\n<User>I want to share some knowledge I just acquired:\nThe Ming dynasty granted titles to lamas of schools such as the Karmapa Kargyu, but the latter had previously declined Mongol invitations to receive titles. When the Ming Yongle Emperor invited Je Tsongkhapa (1357\u20131419), founder of the Gelug school, to come to the Ming court and pay tribute, the latter declined. Wang and Nyima write that this was due to old age and physical weakness, and also because of efforts being made to build three major monasteries. Chen Qingying states that Tsongkhapa wrote a letter to decline the Emperor's invitation, and in this reply, Tsongkhapa wrote:\n\nA. Tom Grunfeld says that Tsongkhapa claimed ill health in his refusal to appear at the Ming court, while Rossabi adds that Tsongkhapa cited the \"length and arduousness of the journey\" to China as another reason not to make an appearance. This first request by the Ming was made in 1407, but the Ming court sent another embassy in 1413, this one led by the eunuch Hou Xian (\u5019\u986f; fl. 1403\u20131427), which was again refused by Tsongkhapa. Rossabi writes that Tsongkhapa did not want to entirely alienate the Ming court, so he sent his disciple Chosrje Sh\u0101kya Yeshes to Nanjing in 1414 on his behalf, and upon his arrival in 1415 the Yongle Emperor bestowed upon him the title of \"State Teacher\"\u2014the same title earlier awarded the Phagmodrupa ruler of Tibet. The Xuande Emperor (r. 1425\u20131435) even granted this disciple Chosrje Sh\u0101kya Yeshes the title of a \"King\" (\u738b). This title does not appear to have held any practical meaning, or to have given its holder any power, at Tsongkhapa's Ganden Monastery. Wylie notes that this\u2014like the Karma Kargyu\u2014cannot be seen as a reappointment of Mongol Yuan offices, since the Gelug school was created after the fall of the Yuan dynasty.\n<Assistant>Excellent. I've documented all of this information.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-07 00:00]\n<User>Let me update you with some new information:\nDawa Norbu argues that modern Chinese Communist historians tend to be in favor of the view that the Ming simply reappointed old Yuan dynasty officials in Tibet and perpetuated their rule of Tibet in this manner. Norbu writes that, although this would have been true for the eastern Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham's \"tribute-cum-trade\" relations with the Ming, it was untrue if applied to the western Tibetan regions of \u00dc-Tsang and Ngari. After the Phagmodrupa Changchub Gyaltsen, these were ruled by \"three successive nationalistic regimes,\" which Norbu writes \"Communist historians prefer to ignore.\"\n\nLaird writes that the Ming appointed titles to eastern Tibetan princes, and that \"these alliances with eastern Tibetan principalities are the evidence China now produces for its assertion that the Ming ruled Tibet,\" despite the fact that the Ming did not send an army to replace the Mongols after they left Tibet. Yiu Yung-chin states that the furthest western extent of the Ming dynasty's territory was Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan while \"the Ming did not possess Tibet.\"\n\nShih-Shan Henry Tsai writes that the Yongle Emperor sent his eunuch Yang Sanbao into Tibet in 1413 to gain the allegiance of various Tibetan princes, while the Yongle Emperor paid a small fortune in return gifts for tributes in order to maintain the loyalty of neighboring vassal states such as Nepal and Tibet. However, Van Praag states that Tibetan rulers upheld their own separate relations with the kingdoms of Nepal and Kashmir, and at times \"engaged in armed confrontation with them.\"\n\nEven though the Gelug exchanged gifts with and sent missions to the Ming court up until the 1430s, the Gelug was not mentioned in the Mingshi or the Mingshi Lu. On this, historian Li Tieh-tseng says of Tsongkhapa's refusal of Ming invitations to visit the Yongle Emperor's court:\n\nWylie asserts that this type of censorship of the History of Ming distorts the true picture of the history of Sino-Tibetan relations, while the Ming court granted titles to various lamas regardless of their sectarian affiliations in an ongoing civil war in Tibet between competing Buddhist factions. Wylie argues that Ming titles of \"King\" granted indiscriminately to various Tibetan lamas or even their disciples should not be viewed as reappointments to earlier Yuan dynasty offices, since the viceregal Sakya regime established by the Mongols in Tibet was overthrown by the Phagmodru myriarchy before the Ming existed.\n<Assistant>Got it. I will remember them.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-08 00:00]\n<User>Let me update you with some new information:\nHelmut Hoffman states that the Ming upheld the facade of rule over Tibet through periodic missions of \"tribute emissaries\" to the Ming court and by granting nominal titles to ruling lamas, but did not actually interfere in Tibetan governance. Melvyn C. Goldstein writes that the Ming had no real administrative authority over Tibet, as the various titles given to Tibetan leaders did not confer authority as the earlier Mongol Yuan titles had. He asserts that \"by conferring titles on Tibetans already in power, the Ming emperors merely recognized political reality.\" Hugh Edward Richardson writes that the Ming dynasty exercised no authority over the succession of Tibetan ruling families, the Phagmodru (1354\u20131435), Rinpungpa (1435\u20131565), and Tsangpa (1565\u20131642).\n\nIn his usurpation of the throne from the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398\u20131402), the Yongle Emperor was aided by the Buddhist monk Yao Guangxiao, and like his father, the Hongwu Emperor, the Yongle Emperor was \"well-disposed towards Buddhism\", claims Rossabi. On March 10, 1403, the Yongle Emperor invited Deshin Shekpa, 5th Karmapa Lama (1384\u20131415), to his court, even though the fourth Karmapa had rejected the invitation of the Hongwu Emperor. A Tibetan translation in the 16th century preserves the letter of the Yongle Emperor, which the Association for Asian Studies notes is polite and complimentary towards the Karmapa. The letter of invitation reads,\n\nIn order to seek out the Karmapa, the Yongle Emperor dispatched his eunuch Hou Xian and the Buddhist monk Zhi Guang (d. 1435) to Tibet. Traveling to Lhasa either through Qinghai or via the Silk Road to Khotan, Hou Xian and Zhi Guang did not return to Nanjing until 1407.\n\nDuring his travels beginning in 1403, Deshin Shekpa was induced by further exhortations by the Ming court to visit Nanjing by April 10, 1407. Norbu writes that the Yongle Emperor, following the tradition of Mongol emperors and their reverence for the Sakya lamas, showed an enormous amount of deference towards Deshin Shekpa. The Yongle Emperor came out of the palace in Nanjing to greet the Karmapa and did not require him to kowtow like a tributary vassal. According to Karma Thinley, the emperor gave the Karmapa the place of honor at his left, and on a higher throne than his own. Rossabi and others describe a similar arrangement made by Kublai Khan and the Sakya Phagpa lama, writing that Kublai would \"sit on a lower platform than the Tibetan cleric\" when receiving religious instructions from him.\n\nThroughout the following month, the Yongle Emperor and his court showered the Karmapa with presents. At Linggu Temple in Nanjing, he presided over the religious ceremonies for the Yongle Emperor's deceased parents, while twenty-two days of his stay were marked by religious miracles that were recorded in five languages on a gigantic scroll that bore the Emperor's seal. During his stay in Nanjing, Deshin Shekpa was bestowed the title \"Great Treasure Prince of Dharma\" by the Yongle Emperor. Elliot Sperling asserts that the Yongle Emperor, in bestowing Deshin Shekpa with the title of \"King\" and praising his mystical abilities and miracles, was trying to build an alliance with the Karmapa as the Mongols had with the Sakya lamas, but Deshin Shekpa rejected the Yongle Emperor's offer. In fact, this was the same title that Kublai Khan had offered the Sakya Phagpa lama, but Deshin Shekpa persuaded the Yongle Emperor to grant the title to religious leaders of other Tibetan Buddhist sects.\n\nTibetan sources say Deshin Shekpa also persuaded the Yongle Emperor not to impose his military might on Tibet as the Mongols had previously done. Thinley writes that before the Karmapa returned to Tibet, the Yongle Emperor began planning to send a military force into Tibet to forcibly give the Karmapa authority over all the Tibetan Buddhist schools but Deshin Shekpa dissuaded him. However, Hok-Lam Chan states that \"there is little evidence that this was ever the emperor's intention\" and that evidence indicates that Deshin Skekpa was invited strictly for religious purposes.\n\nMarsha Weidner states that Deshin Shekpa's miracles \"testified to the power of both the emperor and his guru and served as a legitimizing tool for the emperor's problematic succession to the throne,\" referring to the Yongle Emperor's conflict with the previous Jianwen Emperor. Tsai writes that Deshin Shekpa aided the legitimacy of the Yongle Emperor's rule by providing him with portents and omens which demonstrated Heaven's favor of the Yongle Emperor on the Ming throne.\n\nWith the example of the Ming court's relationship with the fifth Karmapa and other Tibetan leaders, Norbu states that Chinese Communist historians have failed to realize the significance of the religious aspect of the Ming-Tibetan relationship. He writes that the meetings of lamas with the Emperor of China were exchanges of tribute between \"the patron and the priest\" and were not merely instances of a political subordinate paying tribute to a superior. He also notes that the items of tribute were Buddhist artifacts which symbolized \"the religious nature of the relationship.\" Josef Kolma\u0161 writes that the Ming dynasty did not exercise any direct political control over Tibet, content with their tribute relations that were \"almost entirely of a religious character.\" Patricia Ann Berger writes that the Yongle Emperor's courting and granting of titles to lamas was his attempt to \"resurrect the relationship between China and Tibet established earlier by the Yuan dynastic founder Khubilai Khan and his guru Phagpa.\" She also writes that the later Qing emperors and their Mongol associates viewed the Yongle Emperor's relationship with Tibet as \"part of a chain of reincarnation that saw this Han Chinese emperor as yet another emanation of Manjusri.\"\n\nThe Information Office of the State Council of the PRC preserves an edict of the Zhengtong Emperor (r. 1435\u20131449) addressed to the Karmapa in 1445, written after the latter's agent had brought holy relics to the Ming court. Zhengtong had the following message delivered to the Great Treasure Prince of Dharma, the Karmapa:\n\nDespite this glowing message by the Emperor, Chan writes that a year later in 1446, the Ming court cut off all relations with the Karmapa hierarchs. Until then, the court was unaware that Deshin Shekpa had died in 1415. The Ming court had believed that the representatives of the Karma Kagyu who continued to visit the Ming capital were sent by the Karmapa.\n<Assistant>I've successfully recorded all of this data.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-09 00:00]\n<User>I'd like to share some important information:\nTsai writes that shortly after the visit by Deshin Shekpa, the Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of a road and of trading posts in the upper reaches of the Yangzi and Mekong Rivers in order to facilitate trade with Tibet in tea, horses, and salt. The trade route passed through Sichuan and crossed Shangri-La County in Yunnan. Wang and Nyima assert that this \"tribute-related trade\" of the Ming exchanging Chinese tea for Tibetan horses\u2014while granting Tibetan envoys and Tibetan merchants explicit permission to trade with Han Chinese merchants\u2014\"furthered the rule of the Ming dynasty court over Tibet\". Rossabi and Sperling note that this trade in Tibetan horses for Chinese tea existed long before the Ming. Peter C. Perdue says that Wang Anshi (1021\u20131086), realizing that China could not produce enough militarily capable steeds, had also aimed to obtain horses from Inner Asia in exchange for Chinese tea. The Chinese needed horses not only for cavalry but also as draft animals for the army's supply wagons. The Tibetans required Chinese tea not only as a common beverage but also as a religious ceremonial supplement. The Ming government imposed a monopoly on tea production and attempted to regulate this trade with state-supervised markets, but these collapsed in 1449 due to military failures and internal ecological and commercial pressures on the tea-producing regions.\n\nVan Praag states that the Ming court established diplomatic delegations with Tibet merely to secure urgently needed horses. Wang and Nyima argue that these were not diplomatic delegations at all, that Tibetan areas were ruled by the Ming since Tibetan leaders were granted positions as Ming officials, that horses were collected from Tibet as a mandatory \"corv\u00e9e\" tax, and therefore Tibetans were \"undertaking domestic affairs, not foreign diplomacy\". Sperling writes that the Ming simultaneously bought horses in the Kham region while fighting Tibetan tribes in Amdo and receiving Tibetan embassies in Nanjing. He also argues that the embassies of Tibetan lamas visiting the Ming court were for the most part efforts to promote commercial transactions between the lamas' large, wealthy entourage and Ming Chinese merchants and officials. Kolma\u0161 writes that while the Ming maintained a laissez-faire policy towards Tibet and limited the numbers of the Tibetan retinues, the Tibetans sought to maintain a tributary relationship with the Ming because imperial patronage provided them with wealth and power. Laird writes that Tibetans eagerly sought Ming court invitations since the gifts the Tibetans received for bringing tribute were much greater in value than the latter. As for the Yongle Emperor's gifts to his Tibetan and Nepalese vassals such as silver wares, Buddha relics, utensils for Buddhist temples and religious ceremonies, and gowns and robes for monks, Tsai writes \"in his effort to draw neighboring states to the Ming orbit so that he could bask in glory, the Yongle Emperor was quite willing to pay a small price\". The Information Office of the State Council of the PRC lists the Tibetan tribute items as oxen, horses, camels, sheep, fur products, medical herbs, Tibetan incenses, thangkas (painted scrolls), and handicrafts; while the Ming awarded Tibetan tribute-bearers an equal value of gold, silver, satin and brocade, bolts of cloth, grains, and tea leaves. Silk workshops during the Ming also catered specifically to the Tibetan market with silk clothes and furnishings featuring Tibetan Buddhist iconography.\n\nWhile the Ming dynasty traded horses with Tibet, it upheld a policy of outlawing border markets in the north, which Laird sees as an effort to punish the Mongols for their raids and to \"drive them from the frontiers of China.\" However, after Altan Khan (1507\u20131582)\u2014leader of the T\u00fcmed Mongols who overthrew the Oirat Mongol confederation's hegemony over the steppes\u2014made peace with the Ming dynasty in 1571, he persuaded the Ming to reopen their border markets in 1573. This provided the Chinese with a new supply of horses that the Mongols had in excess; it was also a relief to the Ming, since they were unable to stop the Mongols from periodic raiding. Laird says that despite the fact that later Mongols believed Altan forced the Ming to view him as an equal, Chinese historians argue that he was simply a loyal Chinese citizen. By 1578, Altan Khan formed a formidable Mongol-Tibetan alliance with the Gelug that the Ming viewed from afar without intervention.\n\nPatricia Ebrey writes that Tibet, like Joseon Korea and other neighboring states to the Ming, settled for its tributary status while there were no troops or governors of Ming China stationed in its territory. Laird writes that \"after the Mongol troops left Tibet, no Ming troops replaced them.\" Wang and Nyima state that, despite the fact that the Ming refrained from sending troops to subdue Tibet and refrained from garrisoning Ming troops there, these measures were unnecessary so long as the Ming court upheld close ties with Tibetan vassals and their forces. However, there were instances in the 14th century when the Hongwu Emperor did use military force to quell unrest in Tibet. John D. Langlois writes that there was unrest in Tibet and western Sichuan, which the Marquis Mu Ying (\u6c90\u82f1) was commissioned to quell in November 1378 after he established a Taozhou garrison in Gansu. Langlois notes that by October 1379, Mu Ying had allegedly captured 30,000 Tibetan prisoners and 200,000 domesticated animals. Yet invasion went both ways; the Ming general Qu Neng, under the command of Lan Yu, was ordered to repel a Tibetan assault into Sichuan in 1390.\n<Assistant>Got it. I will remember them.", "[Dialogue between User and Assistant on 2024-01-10 00:00]\n<User>Here are some facts I recently discovered:\nDiscussions of strategy in the mid Ming dynasty focused primarily on recovery of the Ordos region, which the Mongols used as a rallying base to stage raids into Ming China. Norbu states that the Ming dynasty, preoccupied with the Mongol threat to the north, could not spare additional armed forces to enforce or back up their claim of sovereignty over Tibet; instead, they relied on \"Confucian instruments of tribute relations\" of heaping unlimited number of titles and gifts on Tibetan lamas through acts of diplomacy. Sperling states that the delicate relationship between the Ming and Tibet was \"the last time a united China had to deal with an independent Tibet,\" that there was a potential for armed conflict at their borders, and that the ultimate goal of Ming foreign policy with Tibet was not subjugation but \"avoidance of any kind of Tibetan threat.\" P. Christiaan Klieger argues that the Ming court's patronage of high Tibetan lamas \"was designed to help stabilize border regions and protect trade routes.\"\n\nHistorians Luciano Petech and Sato Hisashi argue that the Ming upheld a \"divide-and-rule\" policy towards a weak and politically fragmented Tibet after the Sakya regime had fallen. Chan writes that this was perhaps the calculated strategy of the Yongle Emperor, as exclusive patronage to one Tibetan sect would have given it too much regional power. Sperling finds no textual evidence in either Chinese or Tibetan sources to support this thesis of Petech and Hisashi. Norbu asserts that their thesis is largely based on the list of Ming titles conferred on Tibetan lamas rather than \"comparative analysis of developments in China and Tibet.\" Rossabi states that this theory \"attributes too much influence to the Chinese,\" pointing out that Tibet was already politically divided when the Ming dynasty began. Rossabi also discounts the \"divide-and-rule\" theory on the grounds of the Yongle Emperor's failed attempt to build a strong relationship with the fifth Karmapa\u2014one which he hoped would parallel Kublai Khan's earlier relationship with the Sakya Phagpa lama. Instead, the Yongle Emperor followed the Karmapa's advice of giving patronage to many different Tibetan lamas.\n\nThe Association for Asian Studies states that there is no known written evidence to suggest that later leaders of the Gelug\u2014Gend\u00fcn Drup (1391\u20131474) and Gend\u00fcn Gyatso (1475\u20131571)\u2014had any contacts with Ming China. These two religious leaders were preoccupied with an overriding concern for dealing with the powerful secular Rinpungpa princes, who were patrons and protectors of the Karma Kargyu lamas. The Rinpungpa leaders were relatives of the Phagmodrupa, yet their authority shifted over time from simple governors to rulers in their own right over large areas of \u00dc-Tsang. The prince of Rinbung occupied Lhasa in 1498 and excluded the Gelug from attending New Years ceremonies and prayers, the most important event in the Gelug. While the task of New Years prayers in Lhasa was granted to the Karmapa and others, Gend\u00fcn Gyatso traveled in exile looking for allies. However, it was not until 1518 that the secular Phagmodru ruler captured Lhasa from the Rinbung, and thereafter the Gelug was given rights to conduct the New Years prayer. When the Drikung Kagyu abbot of Drigung Monastery threatened Lhasa in 1537, Gend\u00fcn Gyatso was forced to abandon the Drepung Monastery, although he eventually returned.\n<Assistant>I've successfully recorded all of this data."]
[{"question": "What did the Tibetans use against Ming forays?", "answer": "armed resistance"}, {"question": "Who were the armed protectors for the Gelug Dalai Lama?", "answer": "the Mongols"}, {"question": "When was the Mongol-Tibetan alliance started?", "answer": "1578"}, {"question": "When did the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of China take place?", "answer": "907\u2013960"}, {"question": "When did the Song dynasty take place?", "answer": "960\u20131279"}, {"question": "What dynasty was concerned with countering northern enemy states?", "answer": "Song dynasty"}, {"question": "Who ruled the Liao dynasty?", "answer": "the Khitan"}, {"question": "Who ruled the  Jin dynasty?", "answer": "Jurchen"}, {"question": "Who invaded Tibet?", "answer": "\u00d6gedei Khan"}, {"question": "Who was the Mongol prince?", "answer": "Godan"}, {"question": "How many states were ruled by myriarchies?", "answer": "thirteen"}, {"question": "What title did prince Kublai rule as from 1260 to 1294?", "answer": "Khagan"}, {"question": "Who was the superior of prince Kublai?", "answer": "\u00d6gedei Khan"}, {"question": "What did Khubilai claim for a while?", "answer": "universal rule"}, {"question": "Where did Khubilai seek support as Emperor?", "answer": "China"}, {"question": "What year was the Sakya viceregal regime eradicated?", "answer": "1358"}, {"question": "Who did the Hongwu Emperor send convoys to?", "answer": "Yuan officeholders"}, {"question": "Who rejected an invitation by the Hongwu Emperor?", "answer": "Rolpe Dorje"}, {"question": "Who did Rolpe Dorje send as envoys to court in Nanjing?", "answer": "disciples"}, {"question": "Who created a law that did not allow Han Chinese to learn the beliefs of Tibetan Buddhism?", "answer": "Ming government"}, {"question": "Who worked towards obtaining a extension of relations with Tibet?", "answer": "the Yongle Emperor"}, {"question": "where was the \u00c9-L\u00ec-S\u012b Army-Civilian Marshal Office established?", "answer": "western Tibet"}, {"question": "Who had a large amount of contacts with china during Yuan?", "answer": "Tibet"}, {"question": "Who believed that Tibet barely had any diplomatic relations with the Ming?", "answer": "Morris Rossabi"}, {"question": "What year did Wang and Nyima believe that the Mongol Prince Punala went to Nanjing?", "answer": "1371"}, {"question": "What did the lamas called themselves?", "answer": "princes"}, {"question": "What edicts did the Ming issue?", "answer": "imperial edicts"}, {"question": "Who wrote the book Khubilai Khan?", "answer": "Rossabi"}, {"question": "During the Yuan what existed between China and Tibet?", "answer": "a licensed border market"}, {"question": "Who abolished the policy council?", "answer": "the Ming"}, {"question": "Where is the China Tibetology Research Center located?", "answer": "Beijing"}, {"question": "Who was the Director of the History Studies Institute?", "answer": "Chen Qingying"}, {"question": "What was the name of the Tibetologist?", "answer": "John Powers"}, {"question": "Who did the Ming emperors send invitations to?", "answer": "ruling lamas"}, {"question": "When the lamas received an invite from the emperors, who did they send instead?", "answer": "subordinates"}, {"question": "Who believed that they were the true Han Western representatives?", "answer": "foreign officials"}, {"question": "What title was given by the Yuan court to Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen ?", "answer": "Education Minister"}, {"question": "What Tibetan title was hardly ever mentioned when referring to Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen?", "answer": "Degsi"}, {"question": "Who wrote in their will that they received loving care from the emperor in the east?", "answer": "The Tai Situpa"}, {"question": "Who strongly believed Changchub Gyaltsen wanted to restore the glories of its Imperial age to Tibet?", "answer": "Van Praag"}, {"question": "What university was Lok-Ham Chan a professor at?", "answer": "the University of Washington"}, {"question": "Where were the envoys sent?", "answer": "to the Ming court"}, {"question": "What year did the Phagmodrupa lose their power over Tibet?", "answer": "1434"}, {"question": "What did the other families fail to establish?", "answer": "hegemonies"}, {"question": "Who did the Ming Dynasty decline titles from after receiving invitations?", "answer": "Mongol"}, {"question": "Who wrote the letter declining the Emperor's invitation?", "answer": "Tsongkhapa"}, {"question": "When did the Ming first request Tsongkhapa to come to court?", "answer": "1407"}, {"question": "When did the Ming court send a second request to Tsongkhapa?", "answer": "1413"}, {"question": "When was Chosrje Sh\u0101kya Yeshes sent to Nanjing?", "answer": "1414"}, {"question": "Who believed the Ming reappointed old Yuan dynasty officials in Tibet?", "answer": "Dawa Norbu"}, {"question": "Who did the Ming appoint titles to?", "answer": "eastern Tibetan princes"}, {"question": "What didn't the Ming send to replace the Mongols when they left Tibet?", "answer": "an army"}, {"question": "What does Yiu Yung-chin claim the Ming did not possess?", "answer": "Tibet"}, {"question": "What was the name of the  eunuch?", "answer": "Yang Sanbao"}, {"question": "Where did the Yongle Emperor send Yang Sanbao?", "answer": "Tibet"}, {"question": "When did Yongle Emperor send Yang Sanbao into Tibet?", "answer": "1413"}, {"question": "Who did the Gelug exchange gifts with?", "answer": "the Ming court"}, {"question": "Until what year frame did the Gelug exchange gifts with the the Ming?", "answer": "1430s"}, {"question": "Regardless of their sectarian affiliations, who did the Ming grant titles to?", "answer": "various lamas"}, {"question": "When did Hou Xian and Zhi Guang return to Nanjing?", "answer": "1407"}, {"question": "Who did the Emperor give the place of honor at his left to?", "answer": "the Karmapa"}, {"question": "Who sat on a lower platform than the Tibetan cleric?", "answer": "Kublai"}, {"question": "Who showed a great amount of respect to Deshin Shekpa?", "answer": "the Yongle Emperor"}, {"question": "At what temple did the ceremonies for the Yongle Emperor's deceased parents take place?", "answer": "Linggu Temple"}, {"question": "Who imposed on the military might on Tibet in the past?", "answer": "the Mongols"}, {"question": "Hok-Lam Chan states that Deshin Skekpa was only invited for what purpose?", "answer": "religious purposes"}, {"question": "Who did the Yongle Emperor have a conflict with?", "answer": "Jianwen Emperor"}, {"question": "According to Norbu who failed to realize the significance of the religious aspect of the Ming-Tibetan relationship?", "answer": "Chinese Communist historians"}, {"question": "What were the items of tribute?", "answer": "Buddhist artifacts"}, {"question": "Who was the edict addressed to?", "answer": "the Karmapa"}, {"question": "What year did the Ming cut off the Karmapa hierarchs?", "answer": "1446"}, {"question": "When did  Deshin Shekpa  die?", "answer": "1415"}, {"question": "Who did the Ming court think the representatives were sent by?", "answer": "the Karmapa"}, {"question": "What shops were catered to the Tibetan market?", "answer": "Silk workshops"}, {"question": "What visual images and symbols were on furnishings from the silk workshops?", "answer": "Tibetan Buddhist"}, {"question": "When was the Marquis Mu Ying commissioned to quell?", "answer": "November 1378"}, {"question": "How many Tibetan prisoners did Mu Ying capture?", "answer": "30,000"}, {"question": "How many animals did Mu Ying capture?", "answer": "200,000"}, {"question": "Who used the the Ordos region as a place to stage raids?", "answer": "the Mongols"}, {"question": "Where were the Mongols trying to raise?", "answer": "Ming China"}, {"question": "What policy does Luciano Petech and Sato Hisashi claim the Ming held towards the Tibet?", "answer": "divide-and-rule"}, {"question": "When did the the prince of Rinbung occupy Lhasa?", "answer": "1498"}, {"question": "When was Gelug was given the right to conduct the New Years prayer?", "answer": "1518"}]