A Study Of The Biography Of Dongyi In The Later Han Book

The Biography of Dongyi in the later Han Dynasty was compiled by Fan Ye,a historian of the Southern Dynasties.The whole chapter is divided into preface,text and praise.It completely records Dongyi from pre Qin to Qin and Han Dynasties and Fan Ye’s evaluation of Dongyi.The contents are related to the origin and distribution of Dongyi ethnic group,ethnic group category,economy and career,spiritual culture,and the relationship with China.It also focuses on the communication with the Central Plains Dynasty,preserving rich historical data,which has important research value.Based on the relevant theories of historical philology,archaeology and postmodernism,this paper attempts to explore the Dongyi identified and described in the Biography of Dongyi in the book of the later Han Dynasty from multi-level,multi angle and all-round perspectives,especially the reason why Fan Ye regarded the ancient ethnic group and ancient country living in the present northeast Asia as the successor of Dongyi in the pre Qin period.This paper is divided into four parts:First of all,the paper introduces the specific composition,geographical distribution,changes and characteristics of Dongyi in the Biography of Dongyi in the later Hanshu: in terms of temporal and spatial distribution,Dongyi refers to the Oriental alien ethnic groups in Haidai District in the pre Qin period,and in the Han Dynasty,it refers to the ethnic groups such as Fuyu,yilou,Koguryo,dongwoju,Jue,Sanhan and Wo,which are distributed in Northeast China,Korean Peninsula and Japanese islands;With the passage of time,the distribution of Dongyi gradually expanded eastward and even overseas;The characteristics of Dongyi’s material culture and spiritual culture are very distinct,which constitutes the core of Dongyi’s difference from the Chinese ethnic group.Secondly,it discusses Fan Ye’s ethnic view reflected in the Biography of Dongyi in the later Han Dynasty: starting from the background of multi-ethnic coexistence in the Wei and Jin Dynasties,it reveals the connotation of Fan Ye’s ethnic view,that is,Chinese orthodoxy,the difference between Chinese and foreign,the homology between Chinese and foreign,and the unification of the world.Thirdly,from the perspective of archaeology,this paper studies the Biography of Dongyi in the history of post Han Dynasty: on the basis of elaborating the distribution of archaeological remains related to Dongyi from pre Qin to Qin and Han Dynasties,it summarizes the features of archaeological culture of Dongyi in different periods,and discriminates whether there is inheritance in archaeological culture between Dongyi in pre Qin period and Dongyi in Qin and Han Dynasties.Finally,this paper uses the relevant theories of post-modernism history to make a reflective study on the Biography of Dongyi in the book of post Han Dynasty: it interprets the reason why the ancient ethnic group and ancient country in Northeast Asia are called "Dongyi" from the two aspects of the geographical choice of Dongyi and the alien image of Dongyi in the Han Dynasty,and explores the self-identity of Dongyi ethnic group reflected in the ancestral legends and some archaeological relics.In other words,this paper takes the Biography of Dongyi in the later Han Dynasty as a text,re examines it,explores its text source,text structure and the social context that produced the text,and reveals the intention of the Central Plains Dynasty in the Han and Wei dynasties to bring Dongyi into the Chinese ruling system.