From The "Yue People" To The "Wu Fellow"

Seen from the correlation of people's ideas and crowd activities at the time reflected in the literature,the "Jiangdong" area from Qin and Han Dynasties to the early Liu Chao Dynasties was roughly bounded by the Yangtse River below Pengli(??)Lake in the West and North,and was confined to the coast of the East China Sea from Piling(??)to Dongye(??)in the east,meanwhile reached the line along the Minjiang(??)and Jianxi(??)river to North Fujian(Chong'an,Pucheng),where the passes across the Wuyi Mountain lead to the Yushui(??)River which connected Yuhan(??)and Poyang(??)in the south.This area was also consistent with the Wuyue(??)cultural area in the pre-Qin period in the sense of archaeology.The two ethnic groups of Gouwu(??)and Yuyue(??)in Wuyue area developed the earliest among Baiyue(??) ethnic groups.They first established state powers that could compete with the world of Huaxia(??).Their similar ethnic cultures melted into the Wuyue culture as the local mainstream culture during the Warring States Period.This most developed Baiyue culture at that time also became the source of "Baiyueization" to the indigenous ethnic groups in the south.After the Yue Kingdom's being defeated by the Chu Kingdom in the late Warring States Period to the Qiantang River,the west part of the Wuyue area to Kuaiji(??)became the Jiangdong(??)area of the Chu Kingdom.The name of"Jiangdong" with strong foreign cultural color began to be combined with the place of Wuyue,and the local Wuyue culture entered the turbulent years of ill-fated.Previous historical and archaeological research tended to consider that the Yue people(??)and their culture in the hinterland of Jiangdong began to decline after the late Warring States Period,and were gradually assimilated into the Han culture during the Han Dynasty;while the independent powers of Yue people such as Dongou(??),Minyue(??),and Shanyue(??),were thought to eventually move towards the Hanization as well,or were considered to have opposite cultural attribute to the society of settled people controlled by the Han Empire in the hinterland of Jiangdong,equivalent to the living fossil of the traditional Yue culture of Jiangdong area in a sense.However,seen from the compilation of Wuyue local history books,the birth of mature celadon,the formation of primitive Wu Chinese(??)and the continuation of Yue people's customs and beliefs,the Yue culture of Jiangdong area did not show obviously signs of decline all the way to the complete Hanization during the period from Qin and Han Dynasties to the early Six Dynasties,and the degree of the so-called Hanization remains to be discussed.Therefore,this paper made a comprehensive and in-depth study of the relevant archaeological and documentary materials by synthetically using methods of archaeology,history,linguistics,and ethnology,in order to find out the way of survival and evolution of the Yue culture of Jiangdong area from Qin and Han Dynasties to the early Six Dynasties,and to reveal the real role it played in the process of the formation of the local culture of Jiangdong area.The first chapter started with the historical events of Kuaiji County(???)and Minzhong County(???)'s establishment during 222-214 B.C,firstly combed the history of the vicissitude of Yue people's powers in the Jiangdong area from the end of the Warring States Period to the middle of the Xi Han Dynasty.In this discussion,through an elaborate interpretation of various historical materials,it re-explored the geographical distribution and internal composition of remnant forces of the Yue Kingdom in the end of the Warring States Period,and further analysed the political relations and ethnic origins of the Dongyue(??)regimes such as King Donghai(???),King Minyue(???),King Dongyue(???)and King Yueyao(???).It also revealed their follow-up relations with the hinterland society of the Jiangdong area.Subsequently,this paper investigated the origin of cultural factors included in the ring foot pot(???)and the "bu" pot(?)which were the first two utensils to be re-glazed with calcium glaze by the end of the Warring States Period to Qin Dynasty and the early Han Dynasty in the Jiangdong area,pointed out the cultural factors of the Wuyue culture.On the basis of this understanding,it further analysed the relationship between five typical types of pottery in the funerary objects of Jiangdong area during the Qin and the Western Han Dynasties and the Yue culture,revealed the fact that the percentage of the Yue culture of Jiangdong area has gradually recovered under the selection of the main population in this area by showing the trend of the growth and decline of various cultural factors.The second chapter also took the historical materials as the breakthrough point.On the one hand,it inspected the tendency that people's identity for the Wuyue culture had started to return reflected in the compilation of Jiangdong's local history in the Eastern Han Dynasty.On the other hand,it identified and interpreted various customs of the Yue people reflected in the historical materials in the Eastern Han Dynasty in the light of ethnological materials.The second section of this chapter mainly inspected the dishmouthed pots(???),the wide-mouthed pots(???),the narrow-mouthed "bu"shaped pots(???),and the stamped ceramic urns(?????)in the basic combination of funerary objects in Jiangdong area during the Eastern Han Dynasty,as well as the stamped ceramic jars(????)and the ceramic cylinders(???)which were typical utensils in the Wuyue culture that re-emerged in this period.Most of the shapes of these artifacts show the trend of evolution towards the Yue-style artifacts in the pre-Qin period.The cylinders,as a cultural factor,even ran through four cultural regions of different times from Wuyue in the pre-Qin period to Nanyue(??)in the Qin and Han Dynasties to Minyue in the Western Han Dynasty and then to Jiangdong in the Eastern Han Dynasty,which showed a close connection with regimes of the Yue people or relevant local forces.Together with the birth of mature celadon,the Yue customs in the Jiangdong society and the compilation of Wuyue's local history,this trend of "retro-antiquity" outlined the return of Yue culture in Jiangdong area in the Eastern Han Dynasty.The third chapter started with archaeological research on typical funerary objects in Jiangdong area during the period of Wu and Western Jin Dynasties,such as dishmouthed pots,wide-mouthed pots,"bu" shaped pots,stamped ceramic urns,short threelegged basins(????)and celadon bowls,which revealed the situation that the Jiangdong society in this period had created a new culture of this era based on the comprehensive revival of the traditional Yue cultural factors.This situation was also reflected in the relevant historical materials:the Wu Empire of the Sun(??)family has a strong color of Jiangdong's local culture,its dependence on the source of recruits and manpower from the Shanyue people made its army and society full of Yue ethos;at the same time,the brilliant military victories and splendid culture of the Wu Empire's era left a deep historical memory to the Jiangdong society,from which the people in Jiangdong area sprouted a new identity of being "Wu" people.This new identity was strengthened during the Western Jin Dynasty by the conflict between people of the Central Plains and the Wu people(??),and finally established after the Central Plains people's fleeing to the Jiangdong area during the Yongjia(??)years(307-313A.D).From then "Wu" gradually replaced "Yue" as a new name of Jiangdong's regional customs and culture,and the Yue culture of Jiangdong area which revived since the Wu Empire's era had also become one of the most important components of the new "Wu" culture.In a long duration perspective,if the life world composed by geographical environment,economic form,lifestyle and cultural inertia has not changed fundamentally,even such historical events as the splitting of the Yue Kingdom,the capitulation of Baiyue to the Qin Empire,and the annihilation of the Dongyue Kingdom by the Han Empire,or the cultural domination of the grand unified Empire during its early time were hard to completely cut off the inheritance of Yue culture in the countryside,which had been internalized as the basis of the regional culture of Jiangdong.