The record of the kingdom are in Chinese characters. As all Chinese characters do not reflect their pronunciation and the actual pronunciation at the time of kingdom is not known, the modern transcription of 南越國 in Latin letters might vary greatly from language to language.
History
The history of Nanyue was written in Records of the Grand Historian by Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian, between 109 BC to 91 BC.
After the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang united China by conquering all six kingdoms in 219 BC, he ordered his generals to conquer the regions of present-day Guangdong and Guangxi. The conquest was completed in 214 BC. A new administrative unit, Nanhai Commandery was formed to rule the area corresponding approximately to present-day Guangdong. Zhao Tuo was appointed to manage a Longchuan , a strategic place in the military. He asked Qin Shi Huang to send 500 thousand people from Central China to Nanhai to assimilate the culture of Central China and Yue.
Establishment
After the death of Qin Shi Huang, a wave of anti-Qin riots swept across central China and the Qin Dynasty soon capitulated. In 208 BC, the head of Nanhai Commandery, Ren Xiao , appointed Zhao Tuo to succeed his position and suggested that Zhao establish a country in the south and take advantage of the mountainous boundary with northern China. Zhao soon reinforced the defences in the mountain passes north and replaced the Qin officials with his own followers. In 203 BC, he conquered another two commanderies, Guilin and Xiang ''"Elephant"'' , at the south of the mountain. The new kingdom of Nanyue was born, with as the capital; Zhao Tuo declared himself Wu Wang of Nanyue.
Liu Bang, after years of war with his rivals, established the Han dynasty and reunified Central China in 202 BC. Liu and his successors adopted a policy of peace to give his empire time to regenerate. In 211 BC, the emperor Liu sent Lu Jia to Nanyue to appoint Zhao Tuo as the King of Nanyue. Trade relations were established at the border between Nanyue and the Han kingdom of Changsha. Although formally a Han subject state, Nanyue retained a large measure of effective autonomy.
After the death of Liu Bang in 195 BC, the government was put in the hands of his wife, Empress Lu Zhi, who served as empress dowager over their son Emperor Hui of Han and then Emperor Hui's sons Liu Gong and Liu Hong. Zhao Tuo believed that Wu Chen , the Prince of Changsha, had made false accusations against him to get Empress Dowager Lu to block the trade between the states and to prepare to conquer the Nanyue to merge into his principality of Changsha. In revenge, he then declared himself the emperor of Nanyue and attacked the principality of Changsha. Lu sent general Zao to punish Zhao Tuo. The hot and humid weather made soldiers fall ill and the army unable to go south of the mountains. The army withdrew. With the military success, Zhao Tuo took in the surrounding states of Minyue in the east and Ouluo in the west as subject kingdoms. The empress dowager then killed some of Zhao's clan members within Han territory and damaged his ancestors' tombs.
In 179 BC, Liu Heng ascended the Emperor of Han. He reversed the policy of the empress. He ordered officials to visit the family town Zhending , garrison the town and make offerings to his ancestors regularly. His prime minister Chen Ping suggested sending Lu Jia to Nanyue as they were familiar with each other. Zhao Tuo felt surprised on Lu's arrival. He then withdrew his title of emperor and Nanyue became Han's subject state.
Zhao Mo
In 137 BC, Zhao Tuo died. His grandson Zhao Mo succeeded the king of Nanyue. Ying Xing , the king of Minyue, attacked Nanyue. Zhao Mo asked the Emperor Liu Che to send troops to halt the attack of Minyue. The emperor sent two generals to Minyue. Before Han's advancing to Minyue, Ying Xing's younger brother Yu Shan killed Ying Xing and surrendered.
The emperor Liu Che sent Zhuang Zhu to Nanyue. Zhao Mo thanked the Emperor and sent his son Zhao Yingqi to the Han capital, Chang'an. He also wanted to go Chang'an but was stopped by his minister for fear that he could not return and it would be the end of the kingdom. He thus pretended to be sick and stayed in Nanyue. He really fell sick later for over 10 years and died. He got his posthumous name Wen Di .
Zhao Yingqi
Zhao Yingqi returned to Nanyue and succeeded the king. He married a woman of family Jiu from Handan and born a son Zhao Xing when he was in Chang'an. He asked the Emperor to appoint Jiu as his queen and Zhao Xing his crown prince. He sent his second son to Chang'an. Zhao Yingqi died with posthumous name Ming Wang .
Zhao Xing
Zhao Xing succeeded Zhao Yingqi as king. As the king was young, the king's mother Jiu took control of the kingdom. In 113 BC, the Emperor sent Anguo Shaoji to Nanyue ask the king and the king's mother to visit the Emperor. Anguo Shaoji was in fact Jiu's lover when she was in Chang'an. They renewed their affair which made the subjects mistrust the king's mother. To secure their positions, the king and his mother wanted Nanyue to be a kingdom within the Han Empire. The king, his mother, and Anguo Shaoji tried to persuade Lu Jia and other ministers to follow. Lu Jia stood and left. The king's mother tried to kill him but stopped by the king.
Lu Jia refused to meet the king and planned to revolt. As he knew the king had no intention to kill him, the plan was not carried out for months.
Zhao Jiande
The minister Lu Jia revolted and killed the king and the king's mother. He named Zhao Jiande , the eldest son of Zhao Yingqi, to be the king of Nanyue. In autumn 112 BC the emperor sent a navy of a hundred thousand strong to attack Nanyue. In winter 111 BC the capital Panyu fell and many surrendered. Lu Jia and Zhao Jiande fled out to sea but were captured soon. Nanyue was officially incorporated into Han.
Kings
Archaeological findings
In June 1983, The tomb of Zhao Mo , the second king, was found in Guangzhou. Thousands of artifacts were found, including bronze ritual utensils, musical instruments, weapons, farming utensils, lacquer, silk, and jewelry of jade, gold, silver, and ivory. Others were also found buried with the king. In addition, the gold seal of Wen Di was unearthed.
Guangdong and Vietnam
Nán/Nam means in the south and Yuè/Yuet/Vi?t means Yue/Yuet/Viet people and the place of Yue/Yuet/Viet people. Nam Yuet/Viet is a southern country in the place of Yuet/Viet people.
The Chinese character 越 and its homonym variant 粤 , were used in ancient times to refer to people or peoples inhabiting southern China: see Yue for details. Today, the former character refers either to the people, culture, and languages of Zhejiang province or Vietnam, while the latter character refers to those of Guangdong province.
After the Han Chinese controlled the Nanyue area for nearly 1000 years, people in northern Vietnam were partly sinicized while the areas of present-day Guangdong and Guangxi were largely .
The people in what is now northern Vietnam broke away from China in 938 AD after their victory at the . They formed their own kingdom and called it ??i Vi?t . This kingdom grew stronger; it expanded south and conquered the Champa kingdom and most of the Khmer empire , forcing the Khmer to migrate. In 1800s, Nguyen Anh, a Vietnamese king, wanted to change his kingdom's name from Dai Viet to Nam Viet. However the Qing Emperor at that time did not want to confuse it with the ancient kingdom thus changing the name to Viet Nam . The people form the modern majority ethnic group of Vietnam.
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