For biographical information on Qiu Jun, see source 2.19.

1. From “Qiongshan xianxue ji” 瓊山縣學記 (Inscription for the Qiongshan County School), 1465

• Qiu Jun composed this inscription for a stele in the local school of his birthplace, Qiongshan county (modern Haikou, Hainan), in 1465. Like several other inscriptions that he composed for county or prefecture schools in Hainan, it reflects his vested interest in affirming Hainan’s transformation into a “civilized” place under Chinese rule. Qiu quotes Su Shi’s “Stele Inscription for the Shrine to the Wave-quelling General” (see source 5.9) as evidence that Hainan’s “Sinicization” predated the Song period, but also credits Su and an early Ming official with accelerating the process through education.

Confucius was born in Lu, which bordered on Chu to the south and Qi to the north. In Confucius’s day, Chu had descended into barbarism, while Qi would have had to undergo a round of transformation to attain the level of civility in Lu. Even though Lu was the sage’s homeland, it would still have had to undergo a round of transformation to attain the Way.¹ But I have not heard that in Confucius’s generation, the governance and moral transformation in Lu were able to transform to achieve a state of great peace and order. What more today, when we are more than two thousand years removed from the time of the sage, and nearly ten thousand li removed from where the sage lived?

The land of Qiong (Hainan) lies beyond the uncultivated zone of submission in the “Yugong” (Tribute of Yu) and was not incorporated into the Central Lands until the Yuanding era (116-111 BCE) of Han Emperor Wu.² It is located at an extremely great distance from where the sage lived, and it received the sage’s teachings last. Its relationship to the Way of the Sages was one of hearing about it and immediately responding with enthusiasm, rather than encountering the sage in person and being transformed by his presence.  Yet today, the flourishing civilization of robes and caps and rites and music in Qiong is surely no different from that of the Central Lands and may even surpass that of Qi and Lu. Was Confucius not predicting this a thousand years in advance, and from ten thousand li away, when he expressed a desire to live among the Yi peoples and sighed about sailing out to sea on a raft?³ …

Those who have written in detail about the history of education in Qiong say that the elite of Qiong originally did not know how to educate themselves; they only began to do so in the Song when Jiang Junbi (Jiang Tangzuo) studied under Su Zizhan (Su Shi).⁴ But that is not true. In Su’s “Stele Inscription for the Shrine to the Wave-quelling General,” he said: “From the end of the Han to the Five Dynasties, many refugees from the Central Plains have made their homes here. Now it has become a civilized and refined place, with robes and caps and rites and music.” Based on his words, [Qiong] was already rich in robes and caps and rites and music before he crossed the sea to come here. It simply transformed even more after his arrival.

In the Hongwu era (1368-1398) of our august dynasty, Zhao Qiangu of the Yao River (Yuyao, Zhejiang) came here to supervise school education. At once, the literati all followed his lead and their literary style changed (improved) greatly. To this day, the people of Qiong are fond of Master Zhu’s Family Rituals and everyone reads the works of Confucius.⁵ They have completely washed away the benightedness of a thousand years of living like shelled and scaled creatures.⁶ It may be for good reason, then, that when they go north to serve as officials in the Central Plains, the literati of the Central Plains dare not treat them with disdain. Can one say that this was not due to the education provided by schools?

2. From Daxue yanyi bu 大學衍義補 (Supplement to the Extensive Meanings of the “Higher Learning”), 1487

• In this passage, Qiu Jun comments on the Songshi (History of the Song) account of the history of Đại Việt (there named as Annan), as well as the more recent failed Ming conquest of Đại Việt. His remarks show that just as he viewed Hainan as having been civilized by Chinese colonialism, he regarded the Red River delta as having reverted to a state of barbarism since breaking away from the Chinese civilization-state (an ethnocentric view that the Đại Việt elite would have found highly offensive). Qiu’s deeply ambivalent attitude on the question of whether Đại Việt belongs under Chinese rule reflects a tension between his strong anti-expansionist sentiments (on which see other passages from the Daxue yanyi bu in source 2.19) and his pride in being a product of the centuries-long Chinese colonial “civilizing project” in adjacent Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan.

I, your subject, note: Jiaozhi was originally a territory of the Central Lands, with commanderies and counties, since the time of the Qin and Han. During the Five Dynasties period, it was conquered by Liu Yin.⁷ At the beginning of the Song dynasty (in 972), its leader was enfeoffed as Commandery Prince [of Jiaozhi] for the first time. But he was still conferred official ranks from the Central Lands, such as Specially Promoted, Acting Defender-in-chief, and Military and Surveillance Commissioner of the Jinghai Command. He was also conferred the title of Meritorious Minister who Sincerely Submitted to Transformative Influence. In all these respects, he was just like a minister in the interior provinces and was never called the ruler of his own state. Later (in 997), its leader was enfeoffed as Prince of Nanping. But in his memorials and letters, he still referred to his land as the Annan Circuit. During the reign of Emperor Xiaozong [of the Southern Song (r. 1162-1189)], its leader was for the first time enfeoffed as a king with his own kingdom.⁸ As a result, the whole subcelestial realm came to see it in the same light as Gaoli (Goryeo) and Zhenla (Cambodia) and no longer knew that it was a commandery of the Central Lands….

[Qiu Jun goes on to narrate Lê Quý Ly’s usurpation and the Ming military intervention in 1406-1407]

[The Yongle emperor (r. 1402-1424)] issued an edict to find a surviving descendant of the Trần dynasty and install him as king. But the people of that country all said that Quý Ly had killed them all and there was no one left to inherit the throne. They all requested that the old commanderies and counties be restored. Thus, we followed contemporary institutions and established Jiaozhi province, with three provincial offices and the offices for prefectures, counties, and Guard and Battalion units, just like in the interior.

Later there was one Lê Lợi, a man from the barbarians. The eunuchs [at our imperial court] shielded him, so he became insolent and submitted a memorial requesting that a descendant of the Trần dynasty be installed. Emperor Xuanzong (Xuande) said that this was his imperial ancestor’s intent and therefore granted the request, abandoning this land and allowing it to revert to being a kingdom of its own.⁹

Alas! When the Qin empire unified a hundred commanderies, the land of Jiaozhi was already incorporated into the Central Lands along with Nanhai and Guilin commanderies.¹⁰ Han Emperor Wu established nine commanderies in the Lingnan region, and Jiuzhen, Rinan, and Jiaozhi were among them.¹¹ In the middle of the Tang dynasty, the number of men from Jiangnan (the lower Yangzi) who achieved prominence as officials of the Central Lands (i.e., the Tang empire) was still small, yet Jiang Gongfu, a man of Aizhou, was already serving in the imperial court as an Academician and chief minister, equally matched with the scholars of the Central Prefectures (i.e., north China).¹² How could it be that during the Five Dynasties, [Jiaozhi] was seized by local chiefs who could not be subdued even after the Song dynasty arose? As a result, this land descended to a territory of barbarians babbling in a strange speech and wearing ragged clothes. For three hundred years, it has missed the chance to become a land of refined robes and caps, rites and music, and civilized teachings and institutions, like the adjacent six commanderies including Nanhai and Guilin. How unfortunate!

During this time, the Song dynasty once drove its king out [of his capital], and the Yuan twice captured its capital, but they ultimately could not conquer it. When our Emperor Taizu founded our dynasty, the Trần dynasty was the first to present tribute. Taizu wrote in his Ancestral Instructions that his descendants were not allowed to attack this country.¹³ …

[Qiu Jun gives another potted narrative of Lê Quý Ly’s usurpation, the Ming military intervention, and Lê Lợi’s revolt, this time emphasizing that Yongle was following Taizu’s wishes by trying to restore the Trần dynasty to power and only switched to following “the precedent of the Han and Tang” (i.e., annexation) after no living descendant of the Trần could be found.]

Emperor Xuanzong (Xuande), understanding the intent of Emperor Wen (Yongle), allowed the extinct family line of the Trần to be restored. He did not anticipate Lê Lợi’s deceit and was thus blind to it. The ministers repeatedly requested that armies be mobilized to suppress him, but Emperor Zhang (Xuande) remembered the instructions from our sagely imperial ancestor (Taizu) and therefore let the matter rest. The lands of Jiuzhen and Rinan, populated by descendants of the subjects of [Central Lands] dynasties from the Qin and Han on, had glimpsed the sun in the sky at last, only to be plunged into a dark valley yet again. How unfortunate they were, for the second time!

I humbly observe that our territory today is far larger than that of the Song and equal to that of the Tang, but smaller than that of the Han, all because we lost these three commanderies (Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen, and Rinan) in Lingnan.¹⁴ We were fortunate enough to regain them, only to lose them again. This seems quite a pity. Nonetheless, abiding by the ancestors’ instructions, without violating or forgetting them, is the highest form of filial piety in their heirs, as well as the most appropriate way to ensure that their legacy endures. The only thing to feel pity over is the repeated misfortune of the people in that place.

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1. This quotes Confucius’s words in Analects 6.24: “With one round of transformation, Qi could attain the level of Lu; with one round of transformation, Lu could attain the Way.” ↩︎
2. On the uncultivated zone of submission, see source 2.2. Qiong was a traditional nickname for Hainan island derived from Qiongzhou, the name of a Tang and Song prefecture based at Haikou. The prefecture was named after its seat at Qiongshan county, which was in turn named after a local mountain, Mt. Qiong (Jade Mountain). In this sentence, Qiu Jun uses “the Central Lands” not as a reference to the original Sinitic core region in the north but as a synecdochic name for the Chinese empire. A few lines down, however, he switches to using “the Central Lands” in its original sense, synonymous to “the Central Plains.” ↩︎
3. In Analects 5.7 (see source 1.3), Confucius expresses a desire to sail out to sea on a raft. From Eastern Han times on, this passage was often conflated with Analects 9.14, where Confucius expresses an intention to go and live among the Yi, and commentators assumed that he meant the people of Korea. Here, Qiu Jun implies that Confucius actually wanted to sail to Hainan. ↩︎
4. Jiang Tangzuo 姜唐佐, style name Junbi, was a man of Qiongshan who studied under Su Shi in 1099-1100 and later became the first candidate from Hainan to pass the jinshi examinations. ↩︎
5. The Master Zhu’s Family Rituals (Zhuzi jiali) was an accessible manual for private household rites, written by the eminent Southern Song Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (see source 3.9). The manual became extremely popular in the Ming period, and Qiu Jun even authored an illustrated update and supplement to it. ↩︎
6. The reference to shelled and scaled creatures alludes to Jia Juanzhi’s memorial and Yang Xiong’s paraphrase of it (see sources 2.4 and 2.5). ↩︎
7. Liu Yin (874-911) was a warlord who controlled the Guangdong region during the collapse of the Tang dynasty. It was actually his younger brother Liu Yan (889-942), founder of the Southern Han state, who briefly conquered north Vietnam (then known as the Jinghai Command) in 930-931 before losing it to local forces. A second attempt at conquest by Liu Yan was decisively defeated in 938 at the Bạch Đằng River. Modern historians generally regard this battle as the beginning of Vietnam’s history as an independent state, but Qiu Jun’s narrative shows that the Song dynasty was very slow in extending formal recognition of it as such. ↩︎
8. The Southern Song court elevated the title of the ruler of Đại Việt to “King of Annan” in 1174, unambiguously recognizing him as the ruler of an independent foreign state for the first time. Previously, the Song had maintained the official fiction that Đại Việt was still an autonomous region of the Chinese empire, with its ruler holding ranks in the Song aristocracy and bureaucracy. ↩︎
9. In late 1427, after suffering another major defeat by the Viet resistance, the Xuande emperor agreed to Lê Lợi’s request for recognition of Trần Cảo as king of Đại Việt and withdrew the Ming occupation forces (see source 2.18). During the anti-Ming revolt, Trần Cảo had posed as a legitimate scion of the Trần dynasty, but he was actually an impostor. After the Ming armies withdrew, Lê Lợi killed him and crowned himself as king, founding the Later Lê dynasty. Qiu Jun’s attempt at blaming Ming court eunuchs for Lê Lợi’s success seems to reflect a combination of face-saving and anti-eunuch sentiment among the literati. ↩︎
10. Nanhai and Guilin commanderies corresponded to large parts of Guangdong and Guangxi respectively. ↩︎
11. Jiuzhen, Rinan, and Jiaozhi were the three Han commanderies in what is now north and central Vietnam. ↩︎
12. Jiang Gongfu (731-805) was from Aizhou prefecture, now Thanh Hóa province in Vietnam, although his family claimed to be descended from immigrants from north China. He passed the civil service examinations in 764 and rose to be a chief minister under Emperor Dezong (r. 779-805), but fell out of favor and was dismissed. ↩︎
13. See source 2.16. ↩︎
14. Qiu Jun’s claim that the Ming empire is equal in size to the Tang seems inaccurate, since the Tang empire did include the Red River delta. Perhaps he was taking into account the fact that the Ming (like the Han) controlled Yunnan, while the Tang did not. Unlike the Ming, the Han and Tang also maintained a military protectorate in Central Asia for part of their history, but Qiu may not have regarded this as an official part of the empire. ↩︎