Linyi林邑

The state of Linyi was the Xianglin district of Han times, the very place where Ma Yuan cast his bronze pillar. It is three thousand li from Nanhai. At the end of the Later Han, the district's clerk of merit, a man surnamed Ou (區), had a son named Lian (連), who killed the district magistrate and set himself up as king, and his sons and grandsons succeeded one another. Later a king had no heir, and his daughter's son Fan Xiong ascended the throne in his place. Xiong died, and his son Yi (逸) ascended the throne.

By their customs they all open the north door to face the sun, and as for where they settle, some are east and some west, with no fixed place. The people are fierce and violent by nature and bold in battle. They are at home in the hills and used to the water, and they are unskilled on level ground. All four seasons are warm and mild, with neither frost nor snow. The people all go naked and barefoot, and they hold black to be beautiful. They honor women and think little of men; they marry within the same surname, and the bride's side asks the groom first. When a woman marries she wears a jiapan robe (迦盤衣), its widths sewn together crosswise like a well railing, and on her head she bears a flower of jewels. In mourning, to cut the side whiskers is called filial piety, and to burn the body out in the open country is called burial. Their king wears a heavenly crown and is draped with strings of jewels, and whenever he hears affairs of state, neither his sons and younger brothers nor his attendant ministers may come near him.

From the time of Sun Quan onward they did not come to court in China. In the Taikang years of Emperor Wu they first came and brought tribute. In the second year of Xiankang, Fan Yi died, and his slave Wen seized the throne. Wen was the slave of Fan Chui, a chief of the Yi in Xijuan district of Rinan. Once, while herding oxen in a stream, he got two carp, which turned into iron, and he made swords of it. When the swords were finished he faced a great rock cliff and prayed over them: "The carp have changed and become a pair of swords. If the rock breaks, then there is a spirit in them." He went forward and struck it, and the rock at once fell apart like a tile. Wen knew there was a spirit in them and carried them in his bosom.

He went back and forth with the merchants and saw the institutions of the greater country, and when he came to Linyi he taught Yi how to make palaces and halls, walled towns and engines of war. Yi loved and trusted him greatly and made him a general. Wen then slandered Yi's sons, and some were banished and some fled. When Yi died without an heir, Wen at last set himself up as king. He put all of Yi's wives and concubines in a high tower; those who went along with him he took in, and those who would not he cut off from food. Then he attacked and annexed Daqijie, Xiaoqijie, Shipu, Xulang, Qudu, Qianlu, Fudan and other countries, and his host was forty or fifty thousand. He sent an envoy with a memorial to bring tribute to the emperor, and the writing was all in Hu letters. By the third year of Yonghe, Wen led his host and took Rinan, killing the grand administrator Xiahou Lan and putting five or six thousand to death, and the rest fled to Jiuzhen. He sacrificed to Heaven with Lan's body, leveled the wall of Xijuan district to the ground, and so held Rinan. He sent word to Zhu Fan, the inspector of Jiaozhou, asking that Mount Hengshan on the northern edge of Rinan be made the border.

In the beginning, the countries beyond the frontier used to bring treasures by the sea road to trade, but the inspectors of Jiaozhou and the grand administrators of Rinan were for the most part greedy for profit and encroached and insulted, cutting away two or three parts in ten. By the time of the inspector Jiang Zhuang, Han Ji was made to hold Rinan as grand administrator, and Ji beat the prices down by more than half, and besides he requisitioned their ships and levied drumsticks from them and made a noise of going out on campaign. From this the countries were indignant and resentful. Moreover Linyi had little farmland and coveted the land of Rinan. When Ji died, Xie Zhuo followed him, and the encroachment was as at first. And when Lan came to the commandery, he sank besides into drink, and government and teaching grew more disordered still. That is why they were broken and destroyed.

Wen then went back to Linyi. That year Zhu Fan set the protector Liu Xiong to garrison Rinan, and Wen attacked and took it again. In the fourth year Wen raided Jiuzhen as well and harmed eight or nine out of every ten of the gentry and the common people. The next year Teng Jun, protector of the western campaign, led the troops of Jiaozhou and Guangzhou and attacked Wen at Lurong, but he was beaten by Wen and drew back to camp at Jiuzhen. In that year Wen died, and his son Fo succeeded him.

At the end of the Shengping years, Teng Han, the inspector of Guangzhou, led a host and attacked them. Fo was afraid and asked to surrender, so Han made a covenant with him and returned. In the Ningkang years of Emperor Xiaowu they sent an envoy with tribute. By the Yixi years they came year after year to raid Rinan, Jiuzhen, Jiude and the other commanderies, and those killed and wounded were very many, so that Jiaozhou fell into weakness, and Linyi too was worn out by it.

Fo died, and his son Huda ascended the throne. He sent up a memorial and presented a golden tray and bowl, a golden gong and other things.