A version of this paper was given at the Association for Asian Studies, Atlanta, April 4–7, 2008; and also at the Critical Han Studies Conference and Workshop, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; April 24–27, 2008. I would like to thank Magnus Fiskesjö, Michael Puett, and David Schaberg for their helpful comments as discussants on those panels. Robin Yates and the two anonymous reviewers for Early China also provided extremely constructive advice and remarks, for which I am grateful.

1. Note that the Han shu accounts are often virtually identical to those found in the Shi ji, with some extra information at times. When there are differences meriting comment, I shall duly note them.

2. See Stein, Gil, Archaeology of Colonial Encounters (Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2005)Google Scholar. For China, see especially Alice Yao's recent archaeological study of cultural contact along the southwestern Han frontier, where she argues that culture change and new, mixed responses to imperial contact are most pronounced in individuals from the highest strata of society. Yao, Alice, “Culture Contact and Social Change Along China's Ancient Southwestern Frontier, 900 B.C.–100 A.D.” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2008), 259–78Google Scholar.

3. Yao, , “Culture Contact,” 259–78Google Scholar.

4. For a more thorough discussion of Central States and Yue identities during the Warring States period, see Brindley, Erica, “Barbarians or not? Ethnicity and Changing Conceptions of the Ancient Yue (Viet) Peoples (∼400–50 B.C.),” Asia Major 16.1 (2003), 1–32Google Scholar.

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7. Wang Jian discusses the wholesale imitation of Ru culture by the Yue elite in Jian, Wang 王健, “Nanyueguo bainian shi de jingshen wenhua xunzong” 南越國百年 史的精神文化尋踪, in Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui 南越國史跡研討會, ed. Lishi, Zhongshan Daxue xi (Beijing: Wenwu, 2005), 56–58Google Scholar.

8. Some interesting exceptions can be found. See Nylan, Michael, “The Legacies of the Chengdu Plain,” in Ancient Sichuan, ed. Bagley, Robert, 309-310, and 325Google Scholar. Liu Xiaomin also speaks of at least two different modes of cross-cultural interaction: cultural fusion and the side-by-side persistence of Han and local traits. See Xiaomin, Liu 劉曉 民, “Nanyueguo shi qi Han-Yue wenhua de bingcun yu ronghe” 南越國時期漢越文 化的並存輿融合, Dongnan Wenhua 東南文化 1.123 (1999): 22–27Google Scholar.

9. See the various articles in Zhongshan Daxue lishi xi, ed., Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui lunwen xuan ji 南越國史跡研討會論文選集, (Beijing: Wenwu Publishing, 2005)Google Scholar. See also Ying-shih, Yü, Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

10. A helpful summary of these frameworks can be found in Yao, , “Culture Contact,” 6–23Google Scholar.

11. Relevant terms that explore these processes are “creolization,” “hybridity,” and “linguistic multi-vocality.” See Deagan, Kathleen, Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of a Colonial Creole Community (New York: Academic Press, 1983)Google Scholar, and Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar.

12. For more on the shifting terms “Yue” and “Hundred Yue,” see Brindley, , “Barbarians or Not?” 10–15Google ScholarPubMed. The connection with Vietnam is not trivial, especially since the peoples of such a region later would look back upon the ancient Yue (Viet) cultures and kingdom of Southern Yue (Nam Viet) in terms of their own origins and the naming of their state, Viet Nam.

13. For an example of the many places still considered to be the homelands of the Yue peoples, see Guoqiang, Chen 陳國強 et al., Bai Yue minzu shi 百越民族史 (Zhong-guo shehui kexue, 1988)Google Scholar. This book also includes the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan (the ancestors to all Polynesians) as Yue.

14. Qian, Sima, Shi ji (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1992), 113.2969Google ScholarPubMed. For more on the history of the Au Lac kingdom, see Taylor, Keith Weller, The Birth of Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

15. See Cook, Constance and Major, John, eds., Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999): 2–3Google Scholar.

16. See, for example, Shi ji, 116.2991Google Scholar.

17. Brindley, , “Barbarians or Not?” 19–24Google ScholarPubMed.

18. See Wilkinson's, Endymion brief accounts of references to the “Chinese” throughout its history, in Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998), 96–97, 682–88, 694–704, 722–25Google Scholar.

19. While Marc Abramson employs the terms “Han” and “non-Han” throughout his book on Tang ethnic identity, he does so in a heuristic fashion. The actual terms used in Tang ethnic discourse appear to have been hua 華, xia 夏, and zhonghua 中 華. See Abramson, Marc S., Ethnic Identity in Tang China (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), xxiGoogle Scholar.

20. See Blakeley, Barry, “The Geography of Chu,” in Cook, and Major, , Defining Chu, 9–20Google Scholar.

21. See the various essays in Bagley, Robert, ed., Ancient Sichuan, as well as the discussion in Sage, Steven F., Ancient Sichuan and the Unification of China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

22. For discussion of the northern Han frontier, see Cosmo, Nicola Di, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. Based on accounts of Southern Yue in Shi ji, 113 and Gu, Ban, Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1995), 95Google Scholar.

24. Because I will be addressing many different members of the same Zhao clan, I conveniently refer to each member not by the surname Zhao but by his individual name. For Zhao Tuo, I follow the Shi ji practice of simplifying his name to “Tuo.” For Lü Jia, I revert back to the practice of referring to him by surname only.

25. Tianchi, Yü 余天熾, et. al., Gu Nan Yue Guo shi 古南越國史 (Nanning: Guangxi renmin Press, 1988), 31Google Scholar. See also the map of Yue regions in Guoqiang, Chen, et al., Bai Yue minzu shi, iiiGoogle Scholar. These maps of the ancient abodes of the Yue are not completely reliable, since many do not include current-day Vietnam. For example, in this latter book, the southern boundaries for the ancient Yue coincide neatly—and falsely—with the contemporary border between the People's Republic and Vietnam.

26. Shi ji, 113.2967Google Scholar.

27. A brief overview of this history and that of the Southeastern kingdoms can be found in Ying-shih, Yü, “Han Foreign Relations,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1: The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.–A.D. 220, eds., Twitchett, Denis and Loewe, Michael (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986): 453–57Google Scholar. For an overview in Chinese, see Tie, Fang 方鐵, “Nanyueguo de nei-wai guanxi ji qi zhengce” 南越國的內外關系 及其政策, Journal of Wenshan Teachers College 19.2 (2006): 1–7Google Scholar.

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29. Shi ji, 113.2967Google Scholar–68.

30. See Liedan, Lü 呂烈丹, Nanyue wang mu yu Nanyue wang guo 南越王墓與南越王 國 (Guangzhou: Guangzhou wenhua, 1990), 145–46Google Scholar.

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32. Han shu, 2.89Google Scholar.

33. Shi ji, 113.2969Google Scholar. Han shu, 95.3848Google Scholar. Empress Lü qualified such a ban by stating, “If one is to export [such animals], then one is to export the male, and not the female.” Han shu, 95.3851Google Scholar.

34. See Rongfang, Zhang 張榮芳 and Miaozhang, Huang 黃淼章 Nanyueguo shi 南 越國史 (Guangdong: Guangdong renmin, 1995), 168–9Google Scholar. Han shu, 1.53Google Scholar.

35. The explanation concerning ancestral graves is provided exclusively in the account from Han shu, 95.3851Google Scholar.

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38. Shi ji, 113.2969Google Scholar. Han shu, 95.3848Google Scholar.

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41. See the chapter on “Surrendered Barbarians and Their Treatment,” Yü Ying-shi, Trade and Expansion, 65-91, and Shi ji, 113.2971Google Scholar. For a good discussion of the rather independent political status of Southern Yue in relationship to the Han court, see Rui, Liu 劉瑞, “Nanyueguo fei Han zhi zhuhouguo lun” 南越國非漢之諸候國論, in Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui, 9–22Google Scholar. A discussion of tributary expectations, in the form of homage and tribute from Southern Yue to Han in return for imperial gifts, see Rongfang, Zhang 張榮芳, “Han chao zhili Nanyueguo mou shi tan yuan 漢朝治理南越國謀 式探源,” in Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui, 1–8Google Scholar.

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44. Semi-autonomous or autonomous states on the peripheries of various Chinese empires often chose to submit themselves politically or culturally in specific ways to the Chinese. Such a relationship was usually complicated, and not necessarily defined by pure submission. For various reasons, foreign states often willingly conformed to certain nominal forms and demands from Han China in the hopes of gaining various economic, political, and cultural benefits. For an example of Korea's use of “marquis” status in conducting state sacrificial rites and music, see Provine, Robert, “State Sacrificial Music and Korean Identity,” in Harmony and Counterpoint: Ritual Music in Chinese Context, ed. Rawski, Evelyn, Yung, Bell, and Watson, Rubie (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 54, 71–75Google Scholar. The Xiongnu of Han times, as well, agreed in 53 and 51 B.C.E. to tributary relations with the Han after an extended period of a Han policy of appeasement through annual payments. For more on this change of power in favor of the Han, see Yü, , Trade and Expansion, 36–51Google Scholar.

45. Swann, Nancy Lee, Food and Money in Ancient China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 446Google Scholar. See also Allard, Francis, “Frontiers and Boundaries: The Han Empire from Its Southern Periphery,” in Archaeology of Asia, ed. Stark, M. (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2005), 236–37Google Scholar.

46. Yü, , Trade and Expansion, 178–80Google Scholar.

47. Yü, , Trade and Expansion, 94Google Scholar. For more on trade among the frontier kingdoms, see Liedan, Lü, Nanyue wang mu, 151–59Google Scholar.

48. Shi ji, 113.2970Google Scholar. We are provided the full text of Emperor Wen's letter to Zhao Tuo in the Han shu, which confirms the emperor's efforts in this regard. Han shu, 95.3849Google Scholar.

49. Allard, , “Frontiers and Boundaries,” 235Google Scholar.

50. Shi ji, 97.2697Google Scholar–8., Han shu, 43.2111Google Scholar–12. The two versions concerning Lu's encounter with Tuo in the Shi ji and Han shu are virtually identical. Some commentators believe the sitting style to have resembled a dustpan—legs are spread wide at the end and narrow closer to the body. Han shu, 43.2111Google Scholar. Peng Nian argues that the mallet-shaped hairdo was not original to the Yue peoples but to the ancestors of the Hua-Xia peoples of the Central Plains regions. This would demonstrate how fluid such “cultural markers” can be. Nian, Peng 彭年, “‘Shu fa chui ji’ fei Nanyue zhi su—jian lun shu fa zhi su de qi yuan ji qi ta” 束髮椎髻非南越之俗——兼論束髮之俗的起源及其他, Zhong yang min zu da xue xue bao 中央民族大學學報 (2001), 6Google Scholar.

51. Han shu, 95.3851Google Scholar–52.

52. Scott, James C., The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)Google ScholarPubMed.

53. On marches, see Bielenstein, Hans, The Bureaucracy of Han Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 99–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The fact that many tribal peoples still lived in homogenous settlements separate from more Han or mixed settlements is confirmed throughout the archaeological record. For the case of the Qujing province in Yunnan, see Yao, , “Culture Contact and Social Change,” 259–78Google Scholar.

54. It is worth noting that Burton Watson translates, and hence, understands this passage in a different way, depicting Zhao Tuo as saying, “[Empress Lü] is discriminating against me, treating me as one of the barbarians” Watson, Burton, Records of the Grand Historian of China, Vol. II: The Age of Emperor Wu 140 to Circa 100 B.C. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 240Google Scholar. Shi ji, 113.2969Google Scholar.

55. Shi ji, 113.2970Google Scholar.

56. For a skeptic who claims the occupant to be Zhao Hu's father (and Zhao Tuo's son), Zhao Mei 趙昧, see Haigui, Wu 吳海貴, “Xianggang Nanyue wang mu zhu xin kao” 象崗南越王墓主新考, Kaogu Wenwu 考古輿文物 (2000), 3Google Scholar.

57. Presuming the tomb occupant is Hu, then some controversy ensues, as archaeological sources suggest the occupant was called Mo 眜, rather than Hu. The three main explanations for the discrepancy between the textual and archaeological sources are as follows: 1) “Hu” was a clerical error in the received texts, 2) “Hu” was the king's Han name, while “Mo” was his local, Yue name, and 3) “Hu” and “Mo” were both his names, and constituted one of many possible names for any given individual according to Yue custom, which might have had even more complicated methods of naming people than the customary ming 名 (name), zi 字 (style-name), and hao 號 (honorific-name) of the Central States region. See Guangzhou shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui, et al., Xi-Han Nanyue wang mu 西漢南越王墓, 2 vols. (Beijing: Wenwu, 1991), 322Google Scholar.

58. Yü, , “Han Foreign Relations,” 452Google Scholar. For more on the civil, rather than military duties of the prince, see Hulsewé, A. F. P., Remnants of Han Law (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955), 154 n 87Google Scholar.

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60. Allard, , “Frontiers and Boundaries,” 240–44Google Scholar. See also Allard, Francis, “Interaction and Social Complexity in Lingnan during the First Millennium B.C.,” Asian Perspectives 33.2 (1994): 309–26Google Scholar.

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63. Allard, , “Frontiers and Boundaries,” 241Google Scholar. Lothar von Falkenhausen has commented on the implications of ritual bronze tripods in this Southern region in von Falkenhausen, Lothar, “The Use and Significance of Ritual Bronzes in the Lingnan Region during the Eastern Zhou Period,” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3.1–2 (2001): 193–236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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65. Guangdongsheng bowuguan, “Guangdong kaogu shi nian gai shu” 廣東考古 十年概述, in Wenwu kaogu gongzuo shi nian 文物考古工作十年, 1979–1989, ed. Wen wu bian ji wei yuan hui (Beijing: Wenwu, 1991), 222–23Google Scholar. See also Yang, Xiaoneng, ed., The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 413Google Scholar.

66. The ninth year of Zhao Hu's reign would correspond to ca. 129 B.C.E. Guangzhoushi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui, Xi-Han Nanyue wang mu, 3–4Google Scholar.

67. Han shu, 95.3854Google Scholar.

68. For more on this, see Vankeerberghen, Griet, The Huainanzi and Liu An's Claim to Moral Authority (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001)Google Scholar. For an account of Han Wudi's shift of policy towards Southern Yue during this period, see Qingchang, Huang 黃慶昌 “Lun Xi Han wangchao yu Nanyue guo de guanxi” 論西漢王朝與 南越國的関系, Nanfang wenwu 南方文物 (2003), 75Google Scholar. See also di Cosmo, Nicola, “Han Frontiers: Toward an Integrated View,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.2 (2009), 199–214Google Scholar.

69. Zhang Rongfang, “Han chao zhi li Nanyueguo.”

70. Shi ji, 113.2969Google Scholar.

71. Handan was located in the former state of Zhao 趙, in Northern China, modern-day Hebei Province.

72. Han shu, 6.176Google Scholar.

73. Shi ji, 113.2971Google Scholar.

74. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar.

75. Han shu, 95.3850Google Scholar. Bielenstein, , The Bureaucracy of Han Times, 90Google Scholar.

76. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar–73. Bielenstein, 106–7.

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78. Despite this change, there must have been many statutes of the Yue that remained in place for quite some time. For example, we know that around 40 C.E., The General Who Calms the Waves, Ma Yuan 馬援, was still explaining to the natives the differences between Han and Yue statutes. Loewe, Michael, The Government of the Qin and Han Empires: 221 BCE.–220 CE (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006), 58Google Scholar. The “ancient” practices referred to in this passage were not exclusive to the Yue but were widespread among the states of the Zhou sphere before the rise of the Han. For an explanation of the Han abolition of tattooing as a punishment in 167 B.C.E.—as opposed to a stigma—see Hulsewé, A. F. P., Remnants of Han Law, 124–25Google Scholar. Also, the court of Southern Yue did not sustain itself through tax collection but most likely through forced labor on royal fields, corvée labor projects, royal monopolies on maritime trade, etc. See Liedan, Lü, Nanyue wang mu, 148–49Google Scholar.

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80. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar.

81. See Zhaorong, Yang 楊兆榮, “Xi-Han Nanyue xiang Lü Jia yizu ru Dian ji qi lishi yingxiang shitan” 西漢南越相呂嘉遺族入滇及其理史影嚮試探, in Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui, 31–41Google Scholar.

82. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar.

83. Shi ji, 113.2973Google Scholar–4.

84. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar.

85. Shi ji, 113.2972Google Scholar. The extent to which “Yue ren” refers to the common people is unclear and is complicated by the simultaneous mention of the “masses.” It appears that Yue support for Lü extended beyond the elite leadership into the population somewhat.

86. Sima's account but vaguely refers here to the “Yue,” not “Yue people.” In this instance, the context seems to imply ordinary “Yue people,” as opposed to Lü Jia's military men, in order for the ruse to have been convincing to the Han soldiers.

87. Shi ji, 113.2974Google Scholar.

88. Shi ji, 113.2974Google Scholar.

89. Shi ji, 113.2974Google Scholar.

90. The Shi ji informs us that from that moment on, the Yue abandoned their old laws of branding and cutting off the noses of those convicted of certain crimes.

91. Such an identification of the Queen Dowager as a person from the “Central States” (zhong guo ren 中國人), and not the Han state or people, is intriguing. It suggests that a person's identity could be associated with historical, geographic regions, and not necessarily the current Empire or their specific hometown.

92. Shi ji, 113.2975Google Scholar. These would have been beneficiaries of Emperor Wudi's general amnesty. The Han shu states that all the Han generals led convicts. Han shu, 6.186Google Scholar–87.

93. Archaeological remains of the “Nanyue Palace” in former Panyu, now in downtown Guangzhou City, corroborate historical accounts of the burning of the city. See Allard, , “Frontiers and Boundaries,” 239Google Scholar. The flames had been so ferocious that they even burnt the stone sides of a canal. (Personal visit to the site, 5/2008.) See also Hongqi, Wu 吳宏岐, “Nanyue guo du Panyu cheng hui yu zhan huo kao shi” 南越國都番 禺城毁於戰火考實, Ji'nan xuebao 暨南學報, (2008), 5Google Scholar.

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95. Shi ji, 113.2976Google Scholar. The Han shu mentions a message from Han Wudi to the Xiongnu Shanyu 單于 shortly after his victory over Southern Yue, claiming that the “head of the King of Southern Yue already hangs from the northern Gate of the Han [Palace] 南越 王頭已縣於漢北闕矣.” Han shu, 6.189Google Scholar. If we are to take the emperor's words as more than an empty threat, then this could not have been the head of the king of Southern Yue (Lü Jia had previously murdered Zhao Xing) and was perhaps Lü Jia's head.

96. This says nothing of the persistence of Yue cultural values and practices at the local level. We know for certain that certain Yue ways continued to thrive throughout and beyond the Han, as there is evidence of later Han officials encountering and trying to change various Yue practices. See Hou Han shu 76, which describes the Chinese prefect, Xi Guang 錫光, and his policies of introducing Han-style marriage rites, the wearing of sandals and hats, and other rituals. Hou Han shu, 76.2457 and 76.2462. Cited in Taylor, , The Birth of Vietnam, 33Google Scholar. Yue political identity would also surface in waves throughout the Han, especially as evidenced in the rebellion by the Trung sisters from 41–44 C.E., which was quelled by Ma Yuan's successful expedition against it. Taylor, , The Birth of Vietnam, 37–41Google Scholar.

97. A reviewer has rightfully noted that at least a non-negligible portion of the local elite forces had accepted the Zhao family as its rightful lords of the Southern Yue. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why Lü Jia did not attempt to take the throne and assume Yue leadership after committing

98. Min, Liu 劉敏, “‘Kai guan’ ding lun—cong ‘Wendi xing xi’ kan Han-Yue guanxi” 開棺定論–––從文帝行璽看漢越關系, in Nanyueguo shiji yan tao hui, 26Google Scholar.