Nanyue

Nanyue, "Southern Yue", was a kingdom in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam, founded in 204 BCE by Zhao Tuo, a general of the Qin dynasty. With its capital at Panyu, modern Guangzhou, it lasted 93 years under five generations of the Zhao family before the Han dynasty conquered it in 111 BCE. Known in Vietnamese as Nam Việt and its rulers as the Triệu dynasty, it holds a disputed place in Vietnamese history.

Around 218 BCE the First Emperor of Qin sent a large army south against the Hundred Yue peoples of the Lingnan region. Its first commander, Tu Sui, was killed by Yue resistance. Reinforcements under Ren Xiao and Zhao Tuo completed the conquest in 214 BCE, and the Qin set up the commanderies of Nanhai, Guilin and Xiang. As Qin rule collapsed after 210 BCE, the dying Ren Xiao handed command of Nanhai to Zhao Tuo, who closed the northern passes and replaced Qin officials with his own men. In 204 BCE he declared himself the Martial King of Nanyue.

The new Han court was too weak at first to challenge him. In 196 BCE Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, sent the envoy Lu Jia, and Zhao Tuo accepted a Han seal as king, opening border trade. Relations broke down under Empress Dowager Lü, who cut off trade and had Zhao's relatives in the north killed. Zhao then called himself emperor and attacked the Han kingdom of Changsha, and a Han army sent south was stopped by disease. Neighbouring Minyue and Yelang now acknowledged Nanyue's authority. In 179 BCE the new Emperor Wen made peace; Zhao Tuo dropped the imperial title in his dealings with the Han but kept it at home. In the same period, according to the usual account, he annexed the kingdom of Âu Lạc in the Red River delta.

Nanyue's administration followed the Qin model of commanderies and counties, with a prime minister, household registers, Chinese weights and measures and Chinese writing. Its rulers also created their own princes and lords, a sign of their independence, and gave some Yue chiefs wide autonomy. Most of the population was Yue, divided into many groups, while the Han Chinese minority descended from Qin soldiers, officials, exiles and merchants. Zhao Tuo encouraged the two cultures to mix, and intermarriage between Han and Yue grew common, even in the royal family.

Zhao Tuo died in 137 BCE, reportedly over a hundred years old, and was followed by his grandson Zhao Mo, who had to ask Emperor Wu of Han for help against Minyue in 135 BCE. In 113 BCE the young king Zhao Xing and his mother, a Han Chinese woman, agreed to bring Nanyue fully into the Han empire. The long-serving Yue prime minister Lü Jia opposed this, and in 112 BCE he killed the king, the queen dowager and the Han envoys and enthroned Zhao Jiande, a son of the previous king by a Yue wife. Emperor Wu replied with a five-pronged invasion. Panyu fell in the winter of 111 BCE, and Lü Jia and Zhao Jiande were captured as they fled. The kingdom was divided into Han commanderies.

The historian Sima Qian wrote the main surviving account of Nanyue. In 1983 the untouched tomb of Zhao Mo was found in Guangzhou; its more than 1,000 objects include bronzes, jades and a gold seal naming him emperor. Remains of the royal palace were excavated in 1995. In Vietnam, older court histories treated Nanyue as the starting point of national history, but from the eighteenth century many scholars came to see Zhao Tuo as a foreign ruler, and that has been the official view since reunification. The name Vietnam is often traced to Nam Việt, though other explanations have also been offered.

Our maps label the kingdom "Nan-Yue" and draw it in 200 BCE and 100 BCE, split between today's southern China and northern Vietnam. The 100 BCE outline postdates the Han conquest of 111 BCE.