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lowed the discovery of pearls with Chinese immigrants in Early Han times numbering 23,000 taxable households (Wang Hsiang-chih, 1849 edition). As time passed, however, delivery of large quantities of top quality pearls to the Imperial Treasury became routine "local tribute" (Schafer, 1952) which usurped the lucrative commercial trade. Nevertheless, Hainan, or the "Shore of Pearls" as the island was then known, continued to yield supplies of the precious gems until the end of the fifteenth century by which time the pearl beds were exhausted (Mayers, 1867).
As the size and wealth of Hainan became more precisely known, successive dynasties attempted to extend their control by using military force to break Li resistance which obstructed Chinese exploitation of the island's rich interior. Costly in lives and money, most campaigns achieved no lasting success, and for the first thousand years of occupation, the Chinese clung precariously to the northern coastal fringe, and at times their influence disappeared completely for periods of ninety years or more (Mayers, 1872).
Hainan's reputation as a “treasure island” changed to one of a "dank, poisonous land unfit for normal men” (Schafer, 1969), and soon became a place of ultimate exile for intellectuals and high-ranking bureaucrats who offended the monarch, as well as a sink for pirates and desperadoes. Amongst the exiled scholars the Three Lords (Li Te-yu, Lu To-sun and Ting Wei) and the poet Su Shih are celebrated for their literary contributions (Mayers, 1872; Schafer, 1969). While the exiled scholars left a rich history of contemporary Hainan in their prose and verse, the only legacy remaining from the successive dynasties is a continuum of changes to the names of towns and counties caused by the monotonous re-organization of the administrative bureaucracy.
Although the name Hainan (literally South of the Sea) was used as a rather imprecise collective name for all southern lands which lay beyond the familiar borders of the early dynasties, it was not until the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth century that the name was applied specifically to the island. Under the sovereignty of Kublay Khan, the island was incorporated with the western portion of present-day Guangdong Province under the designation