Li Fanwen, a renowned scholar on the Xixia ethnic minority, recently said that the Mongolian soldiers had not killed all the Xixia Dangxiang people, as people might think. In stead, some of the Xixia descendants had survived the killing and gradually lived with people of a different race.

Xixia was an important political regime in Chinese history. At its prime time, the Xixia ethnic minority regime co-existed with the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Liao state, another ethnic political regime in northeast In the later part of its history, it co-existed with the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin state. In 1227, the Xixia regime was defeated by the Mongolian Army, and many puzzles regarding its history were thus left unresolved.

Li Fanwen has engaged in the study of Xixia descendants for many years. After visiting many places around China, such as Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Zhejiang, and verifying archeological findings, Li proposed that after the Xixia political power was destroyed, many Xixia descendants went to Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. In the Juyongguan Pass in Beijing, 77 lines of Tuoluoni religious scriptures written in Xixia characters were discovered on a stone near Guanyuntai. In Hebei, a stone tablet inscribed with Xixia script was also found. In addition, some Xixia descendants with the family name Yang were living in Puyang, Henan. This all showed that Xixia descendants have already lived together with the Han people and adopted their lifestyle.

Li said that some other Xixia people captured by the Mongolian Army might live with the Mongolians. After the Xixia regime ended, many places became wasteland. In order to resume production, the Mongolians stationed some troops on the site. Later, many local residents became Islamite, and some of them were ethnic Dangxiang.
 
(Chinanews.cn July 11, 2006)