Funan扶南

Funan lies more than three thousand li west of Linyi, in the middle of a great bay of the sea. Its territory is three thousand li across, and it has walled towns and palaces. The people are all ill-favored and black, with curly hair, and they go about naked and barefoot. They are straight and plain by nature and do not rob or steal, and they put their strength into plowing and sowing; they plant for one year and reap for three. They are fond besides of carving and engraving, and their eating vessels are mostly made of silver. Taxes and levies are paid in gold and silver, pearls and incense. They have books and records and storehouses too, and their writing is like that of the Hu. Their mourning and burial and their marriages are much the same as in Linyi.

Their king was at first a woman, styled Yeliu. At that time there was a man from a foreign country named Hunkui. He had served a god before, and in a dream the god gave him a bow and taught him besides to board a ship and put out to sea. In the morning Hunkui went to the shrine of the god and got the bow, and then he followed the merchants and floated over the sea and came to an outer town of Funan. Yeliu led her host to hold him off, but when Hunkui raised the bow, Yeliu was afraid and surrendered to him. Thereupon Hunkui took her to wife and held her country. Later his line grew weak and his sons and grandsons did not carry it on, and his general Fan Xun was king of Funan in turn, generation after generation.

At the beginning of the Taishi years of Emperor Wu they sent an envoy with tribute, and in the Taikang years they came often again. At the beginning of the Shengping years of Emperor Mu, one Zhu Zhantan called himself king and sent an envoy to present a tame elephant. The emperor thought that a strange beast from a far country might become a trouble to the people, and by edict he sent it back.