150
S. F. BALFOUR
•
"A merchant of Ta Ts'in (Eastern Roman Empire) came to the court of the Emperor Sun Chuan of Wu (in the present Shanghai region). When Chu-Ko Ko (in A.D. 226) had subdued Tan Yang (a place in the mountains on the Anhwei-Kiangsi border) he caught some dwarfs of the 'Black' tribe. The merchant when he saw them said that such people were rarely seen in his country. The emperor gave him ten of each, male and female.
**
It is very doubtful whether our region was ever populated by these dwarfs, but the fact that their present distribution is somewhat that of the Indonesians raises an additional culture problem. In any case, we can see from these texts that South China, before the Chinese colonisation, was an agglomeration of peoples whose race and movements are too obscure for us to connect them with any certainty with the existing population,
IV. THE COLONIZATION OF SOUTH CHINA
It is important to distinguish between the Chinese conquest of South China and its colonisation by peasants. The conquest of our region for instance occurred in 220 B.C.; it then became a remote part of the Chinese Empire. Its colonisation by Chinese peasants did not occur until over 1,000 years later and is in fact a comparatively recent development.
The armies sent to subjugate the aborigines by the first Emperor of Ts'in in 220 B.C. started from Chang Sha in modern Hunan province and crossed the mountains by five passes descending on our region somewhere to the east of Bias Bay and to the west upon the delta somewhere in the neighbourhood of San Wui. The object of the expedition was to open trade routes for the precious objects which came from the south — pearls, coral, ivory, etc. The region was incorporated into the military governorship of Nan Hai or the "Southern Seaboard", and to it were sent political prisoners who died in large numbers of fever.
Besides holding the Canton estuary the Chinese armies moved west to another important centre of trade, the Tonkin delta. Here they established themselves in a place they called Chiao Chih which is now Hanoi. When the short-lived Ts'in dynasty came to an end, a Chinese general who had participated in the campaign of the
150
S. F. BALFOUR
•
"A merchant of Ta Ts'in (Eastern Roman Empire) came to the court of the Emperor Sun Chuan of Wu (in the present Shanghai region). When Chu-Ko Ko (in A.D. 226) had subdued Tan Yang (a place in the mountains on the Anhwei-Kiangsi border) he caught some dwarfs of the 'Black' tribe. The merchant when he saw them said that such people were rarely seen in his country. The emperor gave him ten of each, male and female.
**
It is very doubtful whether our region was ever populated by these dwarfs, but the fact that their present distribution is some- what that of the Indonesians raises an additional culture problem. In any case, we can see from these texts that South China, before the Chinese colonisation, was an agglomeration of peoples whose race and movements are too obscure for us to connect them with any certainty with the existing population,
IV. THE COLONIZATION OF SOUTH CHINA
It is important to distinguish between the Chinese conquest of South China and its colonisation by peasants. The conquest of our region for instance occurred in 220 B.C.; it then became a remote part of the Chinese Empire. Its colonisation by Chinese peasants did not occur until over 1,000 years later and is in fact a comparatively recent development.
The armies sent to subjugate the aborigines by the first Emperor of Ts'in in 220 B.C. started from Chang Sha in modern Hunan province and crossed the mountains by five passes descend- ing on our region somewhere to the east of Bias Bay and to the west upon the delta somewhere in the neighbourhood of San Wui. The object of the expedition was to open trade routes for the precious objects which came from the south — pearls, coral, ivory, etc. The region was incorporated into the military governorship of Nan Hai or the "Southern Seaboard", and to it were sent political prisoners who died in large numbers of fever.
Besides holding the Canton estuary the Chinese armies moved west to another important centre of trade, the Tonkin delta. Here they established themselves in a place they called Chiao Chih which is now Hanoi. When the short-lived Ts'in dynasty came to an end. a Chinese general who had participated in the campaign of the
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