Any recommended sources focused on the Sinification of southern China?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
What it says on the tin.

I'm interested in anything that gives a sense of when Chinese languages and culture, started in the Hwang Ho/Yellow River valley, became predominant in various regions to the south, like the Yangzi valley, Sichuan, Guangdong, Hainan etc. Additionally, anything on the level of agricultural, metallurgy or writing (if it exists) of the pre-Han cultures would be of interest. I'd like to use it get a sense of the timeframe and "rate of advance" of the Han Chinese culture to the borders of Southeast Asia.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
This map at link is awesome: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...f/380px-Territories_of_Dynasties_in_China.gif

Too large to be attached of course. Interesting thing that stuck out for me was the centuries long setback the Chinese had in the southwest from around the time of the Sui Dynasty and for several centuries after. There were setbacks on northern and western borders as well of course, probably having to do with the shifting balance of power between the Han Chinese and steppe nomads. But I knew about that to some extent .But it seems that areas of the southwest claimed by the Han Dynasty and some southern dynasties/kingdoms was lost by the Sui era, not to be reattached to China again until the Mongol conquest. Interesting and somewhat surprising.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
What if China (and at times whoever was the prevailing ruler of just south China or west China) never lost Yunnan and the southwest, aborting the existence of successive non-Han Dian, Dali and Nanzhao kingdoms in the southwest, and leading to more steady cultural sinification of the area? Does this perhaps lead to an eventual spread of Han cultural and language hegemony further west and south, for example to Burma, eastern Tibet or Assam? Might this eventually lead to the inclusion of Bengal at some point in the Chinese tributary system?
 
What if China (and at times whoever was the prevailing ruler of just south China or west China) never lost Yunnan and the southwest, aborting the existence of successive non-Han Dian, Dali and Nanzhao kingdoms in the southwest, and leading to more steady cultural sinification of the area? Does this perhaps lead to an eventual spread of Han cultural and language hegemony further west and south, for example to Burma, eastern Tibet or Assam? Might this eventually lead to the inclusion of Bengal at some point in the Chinese tributary system?
I don't know much about Yunnan, but I do know that between it and Bengal are two rather imposing mountain ranges that limit mobility, along with a population of hostile Burmese and tropical diseases such as malaria. To get to Bengal you'd need to go through both Burma and the Arakan Range, deal with a lousy climate, and lots of enemies, only to run smack into an area that would be under immense pressure from an Indian power based in the west (either Hindu or Muslim, based on the year) with a large population and much shorter lines of communication. To me, this seems to preclude an inclusion of Bengal in the Chinese tributary system for anything longer than a generation at most.
 
Top