The disappeared Nanman and Baiyue

 

The disappeared Nanman and Baiyue

 

After Teacher Luo Wen and Agudengba met, they had a great conversation. They talked about the history of the four barbarians under Sinocentrism, the demise of Beidi and the Xiongnu, and the topic gradually turned to the Nanman, one of the four barbarians in ancient China.

Teacher Luo Wen said:

In the Sinocentric view of the world, before the Han Dynasty, the Han people in the Central Plains were called Huaxia, also known as "Xia", "Zhuxia", also known as "Hua" or "Zhuhua", which is also another name for China. The Han people contemptuously called the ancient Chinese peripheries "Eastern Yi, Xirong, Nanman, and Beidi". In order to distinguish themselves from the other barbarians, the Han people also call themselves "China".

The title of Nanman first appeared in the "Book of Rites" of the Zhou Dynasty. The first person to refer to the southern barbarians as southerners (mainly referring to the Chu people) was "Mencius Tengwengong 1" in the Warring States Period, "the southern barbarians are people with bad tongues", which means that the Chu people in the south speak like the chirping of birds. "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals·Relying on Junlan·Zhao Lei" says: "Yao fought at Danshui Pu to subdue the southern barbarians."

In ancient Chinese, barbarian means uncivilized. Nanman is the name for the uncivilized peoples in the south, and the land of Nanman is the habitat of these uncivilized peoples.

Nanman was originally a disparaging name for some southern tribes by people from the three ancient dynasties or the Central Plains area. The Han people, who evolved from various tribes in Kyushu, inherited this name and used it to refer to non-Han foreigners in the south.

What is interesting is that the territory of the original Southern Song Dynasty was called the "Manzi Kingdom" by the Mongolian people, the Manchu people called the Han people "Manzi", and the Qing army also called the Han people "Manzi". The Han regarded foreigners as "barbarians", and as a result they were ridiculed as "barbarians" by the Manchus. Obviously, "barbarian" is not limited to referring to a certain ethnic group, but is a contemptuous term for uncivilized ethnic groups.

So what areas did the ancient Southern Barbarians refer to? Which provinces are they in now?

Teacher Luo Wen said to Agudengba:

From the perspective of the ancient Chinese people in the Central Plains, the peoples of South China all belong to the "non-my race" such as the "snake race" and the "dog race". The so-called "Southern Barbarians, snake species, from the insect, also called the sound." "Min, Southeast Yue, snake species, from the insect, door sound." And "Barbarian, Min Ye, the name of the Southern Yi, Man is also called Yue." Regarding the long-standing snake worship custom in South China, researchers in the fields of history, folk customs, folk beliefs and other fields have made extensive discussions from different perspectives.

The snake is one of the core connotations of the original totem worshiped by the indigenous peoples of the south. "Southern barbarian snake species" is also an ethnic identification symbol in the Central Plains of China.

The oldest phenomenon of worshiping snakes among the indigenous peoples of South China has appeared in the snake-shaped images in pottery decorations, bronze patterns and sculptures, and rock art since the Neolithic Age, from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi on the mainland. They have been found in Taiwan and Indochina, and are roughly distributed in the "Southern Barbarian" and "Baiyue" areas recorded in Chinese historical records, reflecting the cultural origins of the "Southern Barbarian snake species" in ancient times.

Historians generally believe that the vast areas south of today's Funiu Mountains, including the Han River Basin, the middle and upper reaches of the Huaihe River, the Yangtze River Basin, the Pearl River Basin, and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, all belong to the land of the Southern Barbarians.

So what were the regions and main ethnic groups of the ancient Nanman?

Teacher Luo Wen answered Agudengba’s question again:

One is the Sanmiao, Chu people and barbarians in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas·Dahuang Bei Jing" says: "Zhuanxu gave birth to Huantou, Huantou gave birth to Miao people, and the Miao people decided to have surnames." The Sanmiao tribe once dominated the Central Plains and was one of the "Four Fierce Tribes" in ancient times. Later, it failed in the battle with the Yanhuang Group. The Sanmiao tribe continued to move southward. In the process of moving southward, it was divided into the Jiuli tribe and scattered. everywhere. Sanmiao are the ancestors of today's Miao, Dong, Li and other ethnic minorities in the south.

After Sanmiao, Chu State, the largest separatist kingdom in the south during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, took the place of Sanmiao. The Mi surname among the eight surnames of Zhu Rong, the Duke of Chu, rose up and became the leader of the southern barbarian kingdom. In addition, in addition to the Chu people, there are also ethnic groups such as Yonglu, Pu, and Ba, which are called Qunman. Among them, Yonglu kept fighting with Chu and was finally destroyed by Chu.

The second is Pu, Ba and Shu in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Pu, also known as Bu, is one of the eight "Western Nations" recorded in the "Mushu Oath". Due to the large number of tribes, Pu was also called Bai Pu. Pu is distributed east of Shu, south and southwest of Chu. Its approximate location is in today's eastern Chongqing, southern Hubei, eastern Guizhou and other areas.

Ba people are also called Ba people. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas·Hainei Jing" records: "There is a country of Ba in the southwest. Dagao gave birth to Xianniao, Xianniao gave birth to Chengli, Chengli gave birth to Houzhao, and Houzhao gave birth to Ba people." The geographical scope of human activities is very wide, mainly including eastern Sichuan, western Hubei and Hanzhong, Shaanxi. The earliest center of the Ba people was in Yicheng, which is today's Enshi, Hubei Province. After entering the Warring States Period, Ba was annexed by powerful states such as Qin and Chu.

Shu is the earliest ancient nation and country with developed civilization in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, among the ethnic minority tribes and Fang states in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Shu was the most powerful and highly civilized. Although Ba and Shu are close together, they are different ethnic groups. The Ba people are mainly composed of Pu people, but Shu is descended from Zhuanxu, the grandson of Huangdi, which means that Shu is a Chinese ethnic group. The earliest founders of Shu were Cancong and Yufu, and the earliest dynasty was the Du Yu Dynasty.

The third is the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Lingnan and Baiyue. "Yue" in the south is used as a clan name, and like Ou and Min, they are also called Yue people. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas - Hai Nei Jing" says: "Ou is in the sea, and Fujian is in the sea." The name Baiyue was first seen in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu·Yin Jun Zhi": "To the south of Han Dynasty, at the time of Baiyue". The Baiyue people originated from southern China and are widely distributed in today's Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan and other places. The most famous among the Yue people are the Wu Kingdom and the Yue Kingdom that competed for hegemony during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The Yue King Gou Jian, who was a desperate man, was a Yue nationality.

Agudengba said to Teacher Luo Wen:

After listening to the teacher’s explanation, I understood that the main distribution area of ancient Nanman was basically the Yangtze River Basin. But in ancient Chinese history, Nanman was a synonym for an ethnic group and a region. Why did it eventually become a curse word?

Teacher Luo Wen explained:

This has to start with the history of the Qing army entering the Pass and the massacre of Yangzhou in three days.

After the Qing army entered the customs, they issued orders to shave their heads in various places; "In the new order of Qiu, Han barbarians who do not shave their heads will be punished for violating the rules. After the order is issued, the officials will ask those who do not shave their heads to the military gate, and they will be beheaded in the morning and in the evening." "Xi Zhan." The Qing Dynasty actually scorned the entire Han people as "Han barbarians."

Of course, in the five thousand years of ethnic integration, the integration of ethnic minorities and Han has never stopped. The Han people, who regard themselves as Chinese orthodox, despise the ethnic minorities and bring humiliation upon themselves.

The King of Chu once called himself a "barbarian": "I am a barbarian, and I do not share the posthumous title of China (the Central Plains or the Zhou Dynasty)." Zhuxia also does not recognize it as "Huaxia" or "China". The Emperor of Zhou ordered the people of Chu to say, "Suppress the Yiyue country to the south of you and never invade China."

Both Jin and Zheng people called the Chu people "Jing Man", and later the Chu people actually became one of the "Zhu Xia".

At that time, the groups that were despised as "barbarians" by the Zhou Dynasty included various ancient tribes such as Yue, Yong, Baipu, Ba, Shu, Juhui, Daoyi, Sanmiao and Yi.

The foreign countries classified as southern barbarians by the Zhou Dynasty include: Linyi, Funan, Li people, Li tribe, Panpan country, Langyaxiu country, Shizi country, Nanzhao, Sri Buddha, Nanping Li people, Piao country, Zhenla Kingdom, Eastern Xie Man, Western Zhao Man, etc.

Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the ethnic minorities in the south have been called Dongman and Dongman.

The people of Liao and Jin called Song and Song people "Nanman". The northern Jin people despised the southern Song people and called the Southern Song monarch the "old southern barbarian emperor". During the Qing Dynasty, the Junggar people called the Manchus "barbarians".

Historically, among the Southern Barbarians, Panhu, Linjun, and Banchen were the three largest.

Panhu Man got its name from the sacred dog Panhu as its totem. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, they lived in Wuling County (today's western Hunan, eastern Guizhou and the edge of southwestern Hubei) and Changsha County (today's central and southern Hunan areas), so they were also called "Wuling Barbarians" or "Changsha Barbarians". There are five rivers: , Chen, You and Wu, so they are also known as "Five River Barbarians". During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Panhu barbarians were scattered tribes, each with its own leader. The Han Dynasty granted them the titles of king and chief of the city, as well as seals and ribbons. In barbarian language, the leader is called Jingfu, and the tribesmen call each other Jiaotu. Most of them live in mountains and valleys and engage in extensive agriculture. It can weave wood bark into cloth and use grass as dye. The clothes are colorful, the skirt is red, and the hair is tied with mulberry. The Han Dynasty collected a tax of "訳bu" (cloth as tax) from them. The adults collected one piece of cloth every year, and the small ones received half a piece of cloth.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Lu spread the Five Dou Rice Road in Hanzhong. Many Banchen people in northern Sichuan believed in it and moved to Hanzhong in large numbers. Cao Cao defeated Zhang Lu, and the Banchen people led by Li Hu, Du Yi, Pu Hu, Yuan Yue, Yang Che, Li Hei, etc. were moved to Lueyang (now northeast of Tianshui, Gansu), and were named Ba people or Ba Di. The other part was moved to Guanzhong by Cao Cao.

In the third year of Taixing reign of Emperor Yuan of Jin Dynasty, Ba chieftain Gou Quzhi united 300,000 people from various ethnic groups including Di, Qiang and Jie in Guanzhong to resist Liu Yao's rule. The Bancheng barbarians who had moved to the Shangluo area (southeast Shaanxi) as early as the early Han Dynasty developed southeast along the Danshui and Mianshui rivers during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. By the 6th century, they were distributed "from Shangluo in the north to Jianghuai in the south, and east to west." More than a thousand miles away, they still partially maintain their inherent customs.

In the late Han Dynasty, a large number of Liao people from Zangke and Xinggu (today's eastern Yunnan and Guizhou) moved northward to Shu, and some of them moved northward along the Jialing River, which had a huge impact on the Banchen people who stayed in northern Sichuan. In the late Northern and Southern Dynasties, the forces of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved south to Sichuan and established Bazhou (today's Bazhong, Sichuan), with Ba chieftain Yan Shixin as the governor and in charge of the officials.

In the Southern Dynasties, "Zuojun" and "Zuoxian" were set up in areas where barbarians were concentrated, and the barbarian leaders were used as commanders, prefects or even governors to control the barbarians. In Jingzhou, Nanman Xiaowei and Ningman Xiaowei were set up in Yongzhou to take charge of barbarian affairs.

Among the barbarians who surrendered, one household lost several grains of dendrobium, and the rest had no miscellany. Barbarians everywhere are still not immune to persecution by the government, and there are endless records of their uprisings and struggles against the government. Both the northern and southern dynasties brutally suppressed these resistance struggles, and often moved large numbers of captives and surrendered barbarians to Hanoi prefectures, six towns, or Jiankang. Some were suppressed as camp households or given to bureaucrats as slaves.

Teacher Luo Wen said to Agudengba:

Those who are familiar with "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" must be familiar with the term Nanman. They live in the southern region of Shuhan and have coexisted with Liu Bei's group for a long time. Their appearance rate is not low.

During the Battle of Yiling, the leader of the Wuxi Barbarians, Samoko, who fought with Liu Bei to defeat Wu, was a Southern Barbarian who had lived in the mountainous areas of western Hunan and Western Hubei for a long time. The more famous event is Zhuge Liang's seven captures of Meng Huo. This battle recorded in official history is not only dramatic, but also the last large-scale war between the Central Plains regime and the southern minority regime in history.

Since then, the historical image of Nanman has gradually faded out of people's sight, and their customs, culture and language have become a mystery.

So where did the Nanman come from and where did they go?

In fact, the concept of "Southern Barbarians" does not only refer to a certain ethnic minority or tribe, nor does it even generally refer to certain ethnic groups with common characteristics. It is a general term for the ethnic minorities in the entire south of the Yangtze River from the central perspective of the Central Plains.

There is another name for the Southern Barbarians called "Baiyue". As early as the Xia Dynasty, the Central Plains people began to use "Yue" to refer to the direction, referring to the southern community that uses "戉" as a production tool or weapon. There are many kinds of Yue people with different customs and different languages. According to the region, it can be divided into Wuyue, Ouyue, Minyue, Nanyue and so on. In fact, they are not the same nation, but in the eyes of the Central Plains people at that time, they were all uncivilized barbarians.

In the eyes of the Central Plains people, Wu Yue was a barbarian. In the eyes of the Wuyue people, Ouyue and Minyue were the barbarians.

The distribution range of the Baiyue people is very wide. Broadly speaking, the area from the coastal areas of present-day Jiangsu to northern Vietnam was the area where the Yue people were active at that time. They mainly live in the downstream areas of major rivers and thrive in the Yangtze River, Qiantang River, Minjiang River, Pearl River, Red River, Lancang River and other river basins.

The Baiyue people are very different from the Central Plains people in terms of language, customs, religion, etc. According to the "Warring States Policy", the ancient Baiyue people were accustomed to cutting their hair short and wearing fish skin hats. The most distinctive thing is that they Face tattoos. To this day, the Dulong people in Yunnan Province of my country and the ethnic groups in some places in Southeast Asia and South Asia also have similar face tattoo customs. There are still some ethnic groups from Southeast Asia to South Asia who retain this custom.

By the Spring and Autumn Period, the development of Baiyue entered a relatively prosperous era. First of all, it developed powerful countries. Wu and Yue in the southeast were directly founded by the Baiyue people, and Shu and Ba in the southwest were also established. A complete national civilization, and the Chu State in the south is also inextricably linked to Baiyue.

Teacher Luo Wen smiled and said to Agudengba:

In my opinion, under the instigation of Sinocentrism, except for the Central Plains, which is a civilized country, those peripheral countries are all uncivilized barbarians. It is the northern nations that have occupied Greater China, and the Han people have been reduced to the bottom of society, while the southern nations have little room for development. Huge, the state of Chu even prided itself on "I am a barbarian", and the people were mainly Jing barbarians among the Baiyue. However, because the nobles of the Chu State were of blood from the north to the south, and the Chu monarch was the viscount of the "gonghoubozinan" in the feudal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, he had the responsibility to defend the land for the emperor of Zhou and spread the idea of kingly worship of Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, under the governance of the King of Chu, the two lakes areas in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River gradually assimilated into the Central Plains Chinese nation.

Although the remaining four countries of Wu, Yue, Ba, and Shu developed powerful local forces during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, and were no less powerful than the princes of the Central Plains, they were always regarded as aliens. In fact, these four countries have each left their own significant mark in Chinese history. For example, many of the allusions we are familiar with, such as lying on firewood and tasting gall, and Xi Shi, one of the four beauties, all appeared in the famous feud between Wu and Yue.

The War between Wu and Yue was the earliest large-scale proxy war in world history. At that time, the newly-grown Wu State, as a barbarian, already had the strength to look down on the vassal states of the Central Plains. In the Battle of Baiju, it defeated the Chu State, the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Chu State's capital city Ying fell. The state of Wu was in the limelight for a while and became the overlord of the southeast.

In order to eliminate this threat, the Chu State think tank chose to actively support the Yue State to the south of Wu State. Wu and Yue launched a war that lasted for 23 years and lasted for two generations. In the end, King Gou Jian of Yue destroyed Wu with 3,000 Yue Jia, made an alliance with the princes in what is now Tengzhou, Shandong, and accepted the title of earl conferred by the Emperor of Zhou. This meant that the "Southern Barbarians" were recognized by the Central Plains for the first time.

After the Yue State destroyed Wu, it gave a large amount of land to the Chu State and the Lu State as agreed upon in return. However, its own vitality was severely damaged, and its population was very small and difficult to recover. The benefit was still the Chu State. In the end, the Yue Kingdom was also destroyed by Chu, and all the areas west of the Qiantang River were owned by Chu. Since then, the area of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai has nothing to do with the word Nanman.

Although Chu State has a vast territory, it is not compact enough, and its mobilization ability is far inferior to that of Qin. At almost the same time, the battles between Qin and Ba and ancient Shu took place in the southwest. In the end, the old Qin soldiers destroyed everything, and the Chengdu Plain became Qin's granary and source of troops, becoming a wheel on the unified chariot.

Qin annexed the western core of Chu, and Chu was forced to move its capital eastward.

Geographically, the living space of the Southern Barbarians was greatly compressed after the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the entire Yangtze River Basin was incorporated into the Chinese system. The ancient Shu royal family established the Ouluo Kingdom in the Lingnan region, which was eventually destroyed by the Nanyue Kingdom. After the Wuyue survivors in the southeast experienced wars, the male population dropped significantly, and a large number of "Wu Jiyue women" became the wives and concubines of the Central Plains people, preserving their genes. Later, some organized tribes either surrendered and integrated into the Huaxia people, or fled south into the territory of Minyue in the mountainous areas of Fujian.

After the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, the unified dynasty further expanded its territory and established counties and counties in the southeastern coastal areas for direct jurisdiction. During this period, the Minyue and Dongyue accelerated their integration into the Han nationality. The further expansion of the Qin State took over almost all the territory of the former Southern Barbarians.

　　In Guangdong, Guangxi and northern Vietnam in the south of Lingnan, there once existed a country called the "Nanyue Kingdom" for a long time, but the South Vietnam Kingdom was later destroyed by a war launched by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Since then, the ethnic minorities in the south have not been assimilated, either migrating to places in the southwest where their rule is weak, or hiding in the mountains of the southeastern hills where transportation is inconvenient.

In the southeastern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian regions, the descendants of Baiyue who live in seclusion in the mountains and forests are called "Shanyue". Their population, scale, and productivity are far behind those of the past.

In the war between the Shu Han and the Southern Barbarians, the strength of the Southern Barbarians was greatly weakened. In the southeastern part, the task of ethnic integration was basically completed during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Only two ethnic minorities, the Gaoshan ethnic group and the She ethnic group, have been inherited to this day as descendants of Baiyue. They are also related to the Han ethnic group in terms of blood and culture.

The southwest region has experienced more tortuous and complicated historical plots. Several local ethnic governments have been established. After the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it became a stable Chinese territory. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were large-scale population migration activities such as the southwest military settlement, Zhang Xianzhong's entry into Sichuan, and Huguang's filling of Sichuan. , ultimately presenting a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural ethnic pattern with large groups living together in small clusters.

In the process of exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups, as well as the common national memories of the social drastic changes and external shocks experienced in modern times, all ethnic groups in China have formed a sense of community. The names of ethnic minorities with discriminatory meanings such as "Yi", "Yi" and "Tong" have been changed to names with positive meanings such as "Yao", "Yi" and "Zhuang". Discriminatory terms have also been gradually thrown into the dustbin of history.

Teacher Luo Wen impromptu sang a song "The Lost Nanman and Baiyue":

 

In the Sinocentric view of the world,

Before the Han Dynasty, the Han people called the Central Plains Huaxia.

However, the Han people called the surrounding countries Siyi.

Nanman became a synonym for uncivilized people.

 

Interestingly, the Manchus call the Han people barbarians.

The Han people despise foreigners but are ridiculed instead.

Obviously barbarians are not limited to a certain ethnic group;

It's just a scornful name for an uncivilized nation.

 

What were the main ethnic groups of the ancient Nanman?

One is the Sanmiao and Chu people in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,

The second is Pu and Bashu in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

The third is the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Baiyue in Lingnan.

 

The Nanman people also have another name called Baiyue.

The Vietnamese people have different customs and are divided into many races.

In fact, they are not the same nation.

The Central Plains people regard them as uncivilized people.

 

The people of Wu defeated Chu, the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period,

The Chu State then supported the Yue State in the south.

Wu and Yue launched a two-generation war.

In the end, King Gou Jian of Yue defeated Wu with three thousand Yue armor.

 

After the Yue Kingdom destroyed Wu, it lost a large amount of land.

Presented to Chu and Lu in return,

In the end, everything west of the Qiantang River in the Yue Kingdom returned to Chu.

In the end, Qin annexed the western core of Chu.

 

The living space of the Nanman people has been greatly compressed.

The entire Yangtze River Basin was included in Huaxia,

The ancient Shu royal family was eventually destroyed by South Vietnam.

Nanman Wu Jiyue's daughter became a wife and concubine in the Central Plains.

 

After Qin unified the six kingdoms, it expanded its territory.

Counties were established in the southeastern coastal areas,

Minyue and Dongyue accelerated their integration into the Han nationality,

The Qin State took over all the territory of the Southern Barbarians.

The Nanyue Kingdom was later destroyed by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

The southwest region has experienced more hardships;

Several local ethnic governments have been established,

But after the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it became Chinese territory.

 

In the process of exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups,

All ethnic groups in China have formed a sense of community,

The term Nanman is discriminatory.

It has since been thrown into the dustbin of history.