The Wuji勿吉

The state of Wuji lies north of Goguryeo, and it is also called Malgal. Each settlement has its own chief, and they are not gathered under one. Its people are hardy and fierce, the strongest among the Eastern Yi, and their speech alone is different. They always make light of Doumolou and the other states, and those states in turn are troubled by them. It is five thousand li from Luoyang. More than two hundred li north of Helong is Mount Shanyu; going north from that mountain thirteen days one comes to Mount Qili; going north again seven days one comes to the Luohuan River, which is more than a li wide; going north again fifteen days one comes to the Taiyuelu River; and going northeast again eighteen days one reaches their country. In the country there is a great river more than three li across, named the Sumo. Their kinds are seven in all. The first is called the Sumo tribe, which touches Goryeo; it has several thousand good soldiers, many of them bold and warlike, and it is always raiding Goryeo. The second is the Baiduo tribe, north of the Sumo, with seven thousand good soldiers. The third is the Anchegu tribe, northeast of the Baiduo. The fourth is the Funie tribe, east of the Baiduo. The fifth is the Haoshi tribe, east of the Funie. The sixth is the Heishui tribe, northwest of the Anchegu, and the seventh is the Baishan tribe, southeast of the Sumo. None of them has more than three thousand good soldiers, and the Heishui tribe is the hardiest. From the Funie eastward the arrows all have stone heads; these are the ancient Suksin. Among the Eastern Yi it is a strong state. They live for the most part by hills and waters. Their chief is called the damofu manduo. In the south of the country there is Mount Congtai (從太山), which in the speech of China is Taihuang (太皇). Their custom holds it in deep reverence and fear, and no one may foul the mountain top with his water; those who pass over the mountain carry it away in a vessel. On the mountain there are bears, brown bears, leopards, and wolves, and none of them harms a man, and men do not dare to kill them.

The land is low and damp. They heap up earth like a dyke and dig out a hole to live in, opening the mouth upward and going in and out by a ladder. The country has no cattle. It has horses, and carts are pushed by men, and they plough two together. The soil yields much millet, barley, and panic millet, and for a vegetable there is mallow. The water is briny, and salt forms on the bark of the trees, and there are salt ponds as well. They keep few beasts and hunt much, and there are no sheep. They chew rice to make wine, and drinking it they grow drunk all the same. At a wedding the woman wears a skirt of cloth, and the man a fur coat of pig skin, with the tail of a tiger or a leopard stuck in his hair. Their custom is to wash their hands and faces with urine, and among all the Yi they are the least clean. On the evening of the first marriage the man goes to the woman's house, takes hold of her breast, and it is done. They are jealous. If a wife is unfaithful outside and someone tells her husband, the husband kills the wife at once, and then repents, and always kills the one who told him. For this reason adultery never comes to light in the end. All of them shoot well, and hunting is their trade. The horn bow is three ja long and the arrow a ja and two chon. They always make poison in the seventh and eighth months and smear it on their arrows to shoot birds and beasts, and whatever is hit dies on the spot. The steam of boiling the poison can kill a man too. If their father or mother dies in spring or summer, they bury them at once and build a house over the grave so that the rain does not wet it; if the death is in autumn or winter, they use the body to catch sable, for the sable eat the flesh and many are taken.

In the Yanxing years they sent Yilizhi to court with tribute, and at the beginning of Taihe they offered five hundred horses besides. Yilizhi said that when he first set out from his country he took a boat and went up the Nan River westward as far as the Taimi River, and there sank the boat in the water; then he came out southward and went by land, crossed the Luogu River, and passed by the western border of the Khitan to reach Helong. He said of himself that his country had first broken ten settlements of Goguryeo, and that it had plotted in secret with Baekje to join forces by the water road and take Goryeo, and had sent Yilizhi as envoy to the great state to ask whether this might be done. The edict ran, "The three states are alike vassals in submission. They ought to be at peace with one another and not to trouble and invade one another." Yilizhi then went home; he followed the road by which he had come, found his own boat again, and reached his country by water. In the ninth year they sent the envoy Hounizhi to court again, and in the year after they came with tribute again. The states beside them — Damolu, Fuzhong, Moduohui, Kulou, Suhe, Jufufu, Pili'er, Badahe, Yuyuling, Kufuzhen, Lulou, and Yuzhenhou — each sent envoys to court with tribute, one after another. In the twelfth year of Taihe the Wuji again sent envoys to offer arrows of hu wood and the products of their land at the capital, and in the seventeenth year they sent the officer Pofei and more than five hundred others to court with tribute. In the fourth year of Jingming they sent the envoy Houligui to court with tribute again, and from this time until Zhengguang the tribute envoys followed one upon another. After that China fell into disorder, and now and then they did not come. In the sixth month of the second year of Xinghe they sent Shi Wenyun and others to offer the products of their land, and down to the time of Qi the tribute did not break off.

At the beginning of Kaihuang of the Sui they led one another to send envoys with tribute. Emperor Wen said to their envoy in an edict, "We have heard that the men of that land are brave, and now that you have come it truly answers our heart. We shall look on you as our children, and you should revere us as your father." They answered, "Your servants live out of the way in one corner, and we heard that there is a sage in the inner country (內國), and so we came to bow at court. Now that we have seen the sage countenance (聖顏) ourselves, we wish to be your servants for ever." Their country touches the Khitan on the northwest, and they were always raiding each other; so afterwards, when their envoy came, Emperor Wen admonished them and had them stop attacking each other, and the envoy begged pardon. Emperor Wen then comforted him generously and had a feast set out before him, and the envoy and his followers all rose and danced, and their turns and bendings were much like the look of battle. The emperor turned to his attendants and said, "That there should be such a kind between heaven and earth, always with the mind of war upon them." Yet their country was far apart from the Sui, and only the Sumo and the Baishan were near. At the beginning of Emperor Yang's reign they fought with Goryeo, and their host was beaten again and again; and their chief Tudiji led his tribe over in surrender. He was appointed grand master of the glorious light of the right and settled at Liucheng. He came and went with the border people, took delight in the customs of China, and asked to wear the cap and the belt; and the emperor praised him, bestowed brocade on him, and honoured him with favour. In the campaign in Liaodong Tudiji led his followers and went with the army, and he had merit in every battle, and his rewards were very generous. In the thirteenth year he followed the emperor to Jiangdu, and before long was sent back to Liucheng. Li Mi sent soldiers to waylay him, and he barely got away; and when he came to Gaoyang he was taken by Wang Xuba, and not long after he escaped and went over to Luo Yi.