152
S. F. BALFOUR
Their presence in Tongkin and Annam attracted traders from the South Seas and from India. The later Han history mentions that in A.D. 132 the towns of Jih Nan farthest south in Annam, Chiu Chên and Chiao Chih were focal points of navigators. "Cattigara" was mentioned by Ptolemy about this time as the port of the Chinese; it has been identified with Chiao Chih or Hanoi. Traders came to it from India and from Yeh T'iao or Java. During the 3rd or 4th century these foreign traders penetrated as far as Canton.
But the Chinese did not do more than encourage the foreign traders to come. What coastal trade existed must have been carried on by the aborigines, who were practically unaffected by the Chinese conquest. These aborigines, particularly in the seas between Annam and Canton, turned themselves into pirates and harassed the early western traders to an enormous extent.
An independent centre of trade remained in Min Yüeh which was practically untouched by the Chinese until the T'ang dynasty. This centre must have been in touch with the civilised region of Wu, at the Yangtze mouth, and no doubt had contacts further with Japan. Little is known about it, but its importance must have been very great and it was lasting. Even in the Middle Ages Marco Polo referred to South China as Manzi or the Land of the Man-Tzů. In one or two ways the modern Fukienese show traces of contact with Japanese culture in their use of wooden utensils for instance. It is quite likely that the porcelain, especially the glazed type, found in our region was imported from the North East.
When the Han dynasty broke up in A.D. 220 the empire they had founded from Canton to Indo-China was disrupted. The garrisoned towns were emptied of troops during the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms period, and right up to the T'ang dynasty the Chinese never regained their imperial hold over the South coast. The region was therefore left to the semi-tutored aborigines and to the foreign traders. There is no evidence at all of any settlement of peasants. The Cantonese language is not an archaic form of Chinese, and some of the eldest sub-dialects, for instance that of T'oi Shan district, do not point to a pre-Tang population. We must therefore recognise a break between the Han and Tang dynasties when the aborigines continued their tribal life and
152
S. F. BALFOUR
Their presence in Tongkin and Annam attracted traders from the South Seas and from India. The later Han history mentions that in A.D. 132 the towns of Jih Nan farthest south in Annam, Chiu Chên and Chiao Chih were focal points of navigators. "Cattigara" was mentioned by Ptolemy about this time as the port of the Chinese; it has been identified with Chiao Chih or Hanoi. Traders came to it from India and from Yeh T'iao or Java. During the 3rd or 4th century these foreign traders penetrated as far as Canton.
But the Chinese did not do more than encourage the foreign traders to come. What coastal trade existed must have been carried on by the aborigines, who were practically unaffected by the Chinese conquest. These aborigines, particularly in the seas between Annam and Canton, turned themselves into pirates and harassed the early western traders to an enormous extent.
An independent centre of trade remained in Min Yüeh which was practically untouched by the Chinese until the T'ang dynasty. This centre must have been in touch with the civilised region of Wu, at the Yangtze mouth, and no doubt had contacts further with Japan. Little is known about it, but its importance must have been very great and it was lasting. Even in the Middle Ages Marco Polo referred to South China as Manzi or the Land of the Man-Tzů. In one or two ways the modern Fukienese show traces of contact with Japanese culture in their use of wooden utensils for instance. It is quite likely that the porcelain, especially the glazed type, found in our region was imported from the North East.
When the Han dynasty broke up in A.D. 220 the empire they had founded from Canton to Indo-China was disrupted. The garrisoned towns were emptied of troops during the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms period, and right up to the T'ang dynasty the Chinese never regained their imperial hold over the South coast. The region was therefore left to the semi-tutored aborigines and to the foreign traders. There is no evidence at all of any settlement of peasants. The Cantonese language is not an archaic form of Chinese, and some of the eldest sub-dialects, for instance that of T'oi Shan district, do not point to a pre-Tang population. We must therefore recognise a break between the Han and Tang dynasties when the aborigines continued their tribal life and
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.