Quan Fengyou

Biography

Accession as a Child and the Move of the Capital

In 824, Sheng Fengyou acceded at the age of seven, with real power in Nanzhao held by the powerful minister Wang Cuodian. To weaken the minister's influence, he moved to Tuodong City (present-day urban Kunming) under the pretext of an inspection tour, then formally moved the capital east and renamed it Shanchan City. This relocation marked an important turning point in Nanzhao's expansion from the Erhai region toward the Dianchi basin, but historical records note that during and after the move he retained administrative offices at Taihe City (present-day Dali), creating a dual-capital system.

His era names were Baohe (824–839) and Tianqi (840–859).

Military Campaigns

In 829, Nanzhao launched a major attack on Xichuan in Tang territory, penetrating the western district of Chengdu and bringing back large numbers of artisans and loot, which further advanced Nanzhao's productive techniques. In 858, at the request of the King of Burma, he dispatched troops into Burma, helping the Burmese defeat the Lion Kingdom (Sri Lanka, per the legend; i.e., the Pyu-era enemy state in the sources).

Death

Sheng Fengyou died at Shanchan City in 859.

Major Activities

Religious and Cultural Policy

During his reign Sheng Fengyou promoted a policy of localizing Buddhism, blending Chan Buddhism from the Central Plains with Nanzhao's Azhali Buddhism: he honored eminent monks such as Li Chengmei and permitted monks to participate in government; he sent envoys to Chang'an to study Buddhist texts and building techniques of the Central Plains; and he issued edicts requiring the sons of nobles to learn Chinese calligraphy. His religious policy objectively fostered cultural exchange between Nanzhao and the Tang dynasty; Buddhist architecture of this period first featured decorative schemes combining Chinese inscriptions with Sanskrit dharani. He also studied the calligraphy of the Central Plains.

Building Achievements

Sheng Fengyou opened the Gaohe reservoir on the summit of Cangshan, fixed the names of the eighteen streams and nineteen peaks of Cangshan, built the Wuhua Tower in Dali, and restored the three pagodas of Chongsheng Temple.

The Huiguang Temple Pagoda (West Pagoda) was begun in 832, but construction was long interrupted after the principal craftsmen were transferred in 833 to build the Qianxun Pagoda in Dali; it was finally completed in 849. The tower is 35.54 meters tall, a thirteen-story dense-eave brick pagoda whose base is carved with the kalavinka motifs distinctive to Nanzhao. The Changle Temple Pagoda (East Pagoda) was conceived around 854 and, with the experience already gained in pagoda building, was completed in five years; its body rises 40.57 meters, and it was the first to crown its top with a bronze Garuda, a design derived from Indian Buddhist mythology that later became the city emblem of Kunming.

In the construction of the two towers, sticky-rice mortar was innovatively used as the binding agent, and the bricks were standardized at 24 × 12 × 6 centimeters—a modular building technique originating in the Central Plains. The bronze Garudas placed atop the towers to ward off floods embody the fusion of cultures, and their architectural style blends the dense-eave pagodas of the Central Plains with Nanzhao's indigenous culture.

His relations with the Tang and the divergent chronology are as follows: the two sources give his birth year as either 817 or 809, and his death as 859 (thirteenth year of the Dazhong era, Tang), so that the recorded age conflicts with the variant birth years, and the information card rests on his death and regnal years; after the Tang granted Nanzhao a seal in 823 envoys continued to pass between the two sides during his reign, while Du Yuanying and then Li Deyu successively managed the Xichuan front, the fighting and negotiations of those years being bound up with their tenure. As to whether he and Quanlisheng were brothers or father and son, another account and the New Book of Tang do not agree, and the entry preserves both without rewriting the genealogy.

Two points in his chronology are comparatively firm: he succeeded after Quanlisheng's death in 823 (third year of the Changqing era, Tang), both sources naming him as successor, and he died in 859 (thirteenth year of the Dazhong era), on which the two sources agree. In foreign relations his reign saw both embassies and the fighting and negotiations on the Xichuan front, the two alternating and not to be summarised as a policy in a single direction; the divergent accounts of his birth year and age likewise leave later calculations of his regnal years in dispute.

His kinship with Quanlisheng and the order of succession given in the New Book of Tang and in another account remain disputed to this day.

Personal Relations

• Xungeqüan: father according to another account and the New Book of Tang; the paternal line given in another account differs.
• Quanlisheng: predecessor; elsewhere recorded as father and son, while another account and the New Book of Tang make them brothers.
• Wang Cuodian: powerful Nanzhao minister who led armies against the Tang in western Sichuan.
• Shilong: successor after Fengyou's death, found in both encyclopedic accounts and the New Book of Tang.
• Du Yuanying and Li Deyu: successively in charge of Tang affairs in western Sichuan during Fengyou's reign, and connected with the Tang-Nanzhao fighting and peace talks of that period.

Historical Assessment

Existing historical sources record his name inconsistently:

• Modern references such as the "Brief Accounts of the Thirteen Kings of Nanzhao" confirm his name as Sheng Fengyou, following the Nanzhao practice of father-son linked naming (father Quan Lisheng, son Sheng Fengyou)
• Some Ming-dynasty steles erroneously write Quan Fengyou, owing to later confusion over the Nanzhao royal family's surname practices
• In 2010, when the stele inscriptions for the restoration of the East and West Pagodas of Kunming were recut, the name was corrected to Sheng Fengyou after verification by the Weishan County Annals Office

Stele research confirms two era names for his reign, Baohe (824–839) and Tianqi (840–859); this dating corresponds with the era names of the Tang dynasty, showing that Nanzhao accepted Central Plains cultural influence while preserving its independence.

Thirty-five years of reign brought outstanding architecture and Buddhist works—but also ceaseless building and wars that drained Nanzhao's strength.