Introduction to the Eastern Yi (HHS085)
[The commentary by Li Xian in italics (slightly abbreviated)]
The Royal Regulations states: “The people in the eastern regions are called Yi.” Yi means roots. It tells they are humane and fond of life. The ten thousand things take root in the ground and then spring forth. For that reason, their Heaven-given nature is gentle and compliant, and they are easily steered by the Way, extending to the states of noble lords and the undying.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas says: In the state of noble lords they have clothes, caps, belts and swords. They eat beasts and make two patterned tigers be at their sides.
The Chart of the Outer States says: The distance to Langye is 30 000 li.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas also says: The undying people are east of Jiaojing. They have people who are black in colour, whose lifespans does not die.
The Yi have nine kinds
The Bamboo Annals says: 3rd Year of Hou Fen's reign, the Nine Yi, came to be steered.
These are called: the Quan Yi, the Yu Yi, the Fang Yi, the Yellow Yi, the White Yi, the Red Yi, Xuan Yi, the Fang Yi, and the Yang Yi. For that reason Master Kong wished to live among the Nine Yi.
The Bamboo Annals says: 21st Year of Hou Xie, instructed the Quan Yi, the White Yi, the Red Yi, the Xuan Yi, the Feng Yi, and the Yang Yi. 2nd Year of Hou Xiang's reign, campaigned against the Yellow Yi. 7th Year, the Yu Yi came to visit. After Shaokang was enthroned, the Fang Yi came to visit.
Formerly Yao instructed Xizhong to dwell among the Yu# Yi, where it was called Sunrise Valley, which presumably is where the sun sets out from.
Kong Angu's Commentary to the Hallowed Documents says: The lands of the eastern region was called Yu# Yi. Sunrise Valley is where the sun sets out from.
Taikang of the Xiahou clan lost the virtue, and the people of the Yi started to rebel.
Taikang was the son of Qin. He was absorbed in the roaming hunt, and in ten ten-days did not turn around. He did not have compassion for people's affairs, and was expelled by Yi.
From Shaokang and afterwards, they for generations submitted to the King's persuasions and thereupon visited at the King's gate to present their music and dance.
Shaokang was the grandson of Emperor Zhongkang and the son of Emperor Xiang.
The Bamboo Annals says: 1st Year of Hou Fa's reign, the various Yi visited at the King's gate. The various Yi entered to dance.
Jie was brutal and cruel, and the various Yi invaded the interior. Tang of Yin deprived him of the instructions, he attacked, and settled them. Arriving at Zhongding, the Lan Yi became bandits.
Zhongding was the son of Dawu of Yin.
The Bamboo Annals says: Zhongding was enthroned, he campaigned against the Lan Yi.
From that point, they sometimes submitted and sometimes rebelled, for about three hundred year. During the decline and deteriorations of Wuyi, the Eastern Yi were very abundant. Consequently they divided up and moved to the Huai and Dai regions, and gradually came to live in the central lands.
Wuyi was the son of Emperor Kangding. He had not the Way. He made a leather bag filled with blood, looked up and shot at it, instructing it be called “Shooting at Heaven”.
When King Wu wiped out Zhou# [of Yin], the Sushen came to present stone arrows and thorn-tree arrows. When Guan and Cai rebelled against Zhou, they therefore summoned and coaxed the Yi and Di. The Duke of Zhou campaigned against them, and thereupon settled the Eastern Yi.
In the Hallowed Documents, at the collapse of King Wu, the Three Overseers and the Huai Yi rebelled. The Duke of Zhou campaigned against them, and made the Great Announcement. It also says that when King Cheng had struck Guanshu and Caishu, he wiped out the Huai Yi.
In the time of King Kang, the Sushen again arrived. Later the Xu Yi usurped the title, and led the Nine Yi to strike at Honoured Zhou, to the west reaching the side of the He. King Mu dreaded their region's illustriousness, and therefore allotted the eastern region to the various marquises, and instructed the Supine [yan] King of Xu to be the ruler over it.
The Treatise on Broad Things says: A palace woman of the Lord of Xu became pregnant and gave birth to an egg. She considered it to be inauspicious, and abandoned it at the river bank. An alone and solitary woman had a dog named Hucang, which obtained the abandoned egg and returned back to the woman with it in its mouth. The woman covered and warmed it, and it then developed into a small boy. At birth he was yet at supine, and for that reason they used it as his name. The palace woman heard of it, and then once more took him back. He grew up to inherit as Lord of Xu.
Master Shi says: The Supine King had muscles but no bones, and for that reason he was named Supine.
The Supine King was located east of the Deep Pool, his territory was five hundred li square. He cted humanely and right-principled, Those with land and territory but at [his] court were thirty six states.
The Commentary to the Water Classic says: Huang River, also named Wang River, combines with Pao River. Arriving at Pei, it enters the Si. Eastward from Shanyang and northward from Hailing was where his territory was.
King Mu later obtained the carriages with thoroughbred steeds, and therefore sent Zaofu as steersman to make an announcement to Chu, ordering them to strike Xu, arriving there in a single day.
The Historical Records says: Zaofu, due to being a good steersman, found favour with King Mu of Zhou. He obtained the four horse team of Chiji, Daoli, Hualiu, and Lu'er, went west to patrol and hunt, was happy and neglected to turn back.
[Zaofu was an ancestor of the lords of Qin.]
Hence King Wen of Chu raised troops and wiped them out. The Supine King was humane but had no authority, and could not bear to struggle with his people, which caused his defeat. He therefore fled north to feet of the eastern mountains in Wuyuan county. Those of the hundred families who accompanied him numbered in the ten thousands, and following that they named his mountain as Xu Mountain.
The Treatise on Broad Things says: The King of Xu's unnatural peculiarities were not ordinary. Ten li east of Wuyuan county, he saw there was a Xu Mountain with a sacrificial place in a stone cave. The Supine King dug a ditch to communicate with area of Chen and Cai, and obtained a vermilion bow and a vermilion arrow. He considering that he himself had obtained a Heavenly omen, and declared himself the Supine King. King Mu heard of it, and dispatched an envoy in a carriage with four horses. After a single day he arrived in Chu, and they struck him. The Supine King was humane and could not endure to struggle. He was defeated by Chu, and fled north to this mountain.
[Note that King Mu of Zhou lived in the mid-10th Century BC, while King Wen of Chu reigned from 689 to 677 BC]
King Li [of Zhou, r. 877 – 841 BC] had not the Way and the Huai Yi entered to rob. The King instructed Guozhong to campaign against them. He had not advantage. King Xuan [r. 827 – 782 BC] then instructed the Duke of Shao to strike and pacify them.
The Preface to the Mao Poetry says: In Jiang-Han, Yin Jifu praises King Xuan. He was able to foster during a [period of] decline and fling off chaos. He instructed the Duke of Shao to pacify the Huai Yi.
Its poem says: The Jiang and Han float and drift. Martial men surge and swell. No settling down and no roaming. The Huai Yi have come probing. The King instructs Shao Hu: Apply the law to the four regions. All the way to our land's borders.
Reaching King You's [r. 781 – 771 BC] debauched chaos, the Four Yi invaded in succession. Arriving at Huan of Qi [685 – 643 BC], cultivating hegemony, he repelled and breached them. When Ling of Chu [540 – 529 BC] held a meeting at Shen [in 538 BC], they also came to participate in the covenant.
In the Zuo Transmittal, King Ling of Chu, the Marquis of Cai, the Marquis of Chen, the Earl of Zheng, the Baron of Xu, and the Huai Yi met at Shen.
Later the Yue moved to Langye, they campaigned against and fought together. Thereupon they infringed on and bullied the various Xia, and invaded and wiped out small nations.
Qin annexed the Six States, and their Huai and Si Yi were all dispersed to become people registered in households. When Chen She rose up with troops and Under Heaven collapsed and broke up, a native of Yan, Wei Man, escaped to the land of Chaoxian, and following that became king of their state.
The Book of Han says: The King of Chaoxian, Man, was a native of Yan. Since starting in the time when Yan was intact, he once captured what belonged to Zhenfan and Chaoxian, and set up magistrates and build redoubts. When Han rose, it belonged to Yan. The King of Yan, Lu Wan, rebelled and joined the Xiongnu. Man became fugitive from the authorities and fled east. He crossed the Pei River, and stayed on Qin's old desreted ground. He gradually made servants and dependants of the Man and Yi of Chaoxian, and those who had absconded from old Yan and Qi. He became king over them, and set his seat at Wangxian.
After more than a hundred years, Emperor Wu wiped them out, and so the Eastern Yi started to communicate with the Imperial Capital. When Wang Mang usurped the throne, the Mo people robbed the border.
In the Book of Han, Mang sent out troop from Gaogouli to attack the Hu, but they did not wish to go. The commanderies and counties forcibly compelled them, and they all absconded and set out for the frontier. Following that, they broke the law and became robbers. The province and commanderies resorted to blaming the Marquis of Gaogouli, Zou. Yan You memorialsed that the Mo people were breaking the law, it had not risen from Zou, and they ought to console and calm them.
