Link, por favor?
This is something I had in my files from the aforementioned Mongols in America timeline I am working on.
I know that much of this borders on "Menzian" but the important factors are the distances and the references to the islands. I have Bolded some relevant references ti simplify life.
I make not claims to the validity of the information presented in the exert below, but the Fu-sang legend is a long standing feature of Chinese literature and record.
[FONT="]PROF WEI CHU-HSIEN &
"CHINA AND AMERICA"[/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT="]This section is to explore ancient China's contacts with the American Continent. In this section, I will transcribe Wei Chu-Hsien's studies. Prof Wei Chu-Hsien, a student of Wang Guo-wei, Liang Qi-chao, Chen Yin-ko and Li Chi in 1926's Tsing-Hwa University of Beijing, had published a book called
China and America -Volume One in March of 1982 via Taiwan's
shuo wen shu dian bookstore. As Wei Chu-Hsien noted, he had been tormented by the fact that it was difficult to find translators who knew and understood ancient classics good enough to translate his book into English. Similarly, I felt often intimidated by the strenuous task ahead of me at the sight of the high-rising volumes of ancient Chinese history; I am also torn by a split exertion of my efforts to ancient history or to modern history, with a stubborn cognizance that ancient history could not buy a living while modern history might not self-strength China which is now ruled by self-destructing communists.
[/FONT][FONT="]In "
China and America -Volume One", Prof Wei Chu-Hsien stated that he, first coming across in 1961 a Confucius' passage on 6 birds which flew backward as recorded in
Spring and Autumn Annals, had linked the 'yi' bird to America's hummingbirds. For the next ten years, he began to compile 81 essays, totalling 1.4 million characters, on ancient China's contacts with America which was separated from each other by a 56 mile stripe of the Bering Straits but with two Diomede Islands in the middle. Wei Chu-Hsien met Prof Lau Tun-li of SUNY in 1970 and began to exchange opinions as to American Indian's heritage such as i) praying for rain, ii) ancestral stone worshipping, and iii) Chinese inscriptions found in America. In 1969, a HK publishing house first published a table of contents about the book which was entitled "
The Chinese Discovered America !" Wei Chu-Hsien stated that he had to use the subscription fees from some donators for sustaining his impoverished 'filling lines with characters' career.
Wei Chu-Hsien, in his Backword, felt that his theory had been vindicated by the discovery of stone anchors near California coast in Nov 1982. Wei Chu-Hsien spent considerable time reading into ancient classics and excavated interesting points covering more than the American continents: Wei Chu-Hsien pointed to
Chu Ci (i.e., Chu Principality poems) and
Wai Guo Tu (i.e., foreign country maps) for records of a land similar to Australia where the weather was hot in winter and cold in summer and where the grass died away in summer and grew in winter; Wei Chu-Hsien further validated records of southern hemisphere by pointing out two incidents of sun eclipse as recorded in
Spring and Autumn Annals; and Wei Chu-Hsien emphasized the cross emblem on the tombstones of nobles of Southern Dynasties in Nanking for the spread of Christianity in China 1500 years ago. Wei Chu-Hsien analyzed the character 'long' for dragon and derived a conclusion that it was originally in the form of 'king snake' which the ancient Indian circus people brought over to Shang China. Wei Chu-Hsien also analyzed the character for phoenix to derive a conclusion that ancient Indonesians had brought 'jile-niao' peacock kind of red bird to China. (Dragon totem could also be a lizard. Wei Chu-Hsien mentioned that 'Shang Ruins' had produced 4-leg and 1-tail lizard which Shang Chinese treated as dragon and that ancient emissary to Korea mentioned that ancient Ryukyu people treated lizard as dragon, too. On the oracle bones, dragon, in a third form, could be seen as similar to sea-horses.) [/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]Dao-yi (Island Alien) Designation, & Fu-sang[/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]Sima Qian's
Shi Ji stopped at Wudi's overthrow of Wei Man Choson; in descriptions of Xu Fu's elixir-seeking journey, Sima Qian did repeat ancient Chinese legends about the islands of Peng-Lai, Fang-Zhang and Ying-Zhou (land in the sea). Chen Shou's
San Guo Zhi covered the island of Japan and grouped the early Japanese in the section on Dongyi (Eastern Yi). Later history records referred to Japanese as Dao-yi (Island Alien).
Ancient Chinese had different terms for barbarians in four directions. Dongyi or Yi-of-the-East will include peoples in Manchuria, Korea and Japan. In early times, the Yi was associated with the word 'niao' for bird, and there were eight to nine different 'niao-yi' people in the east. Shang Dynasty people, considered a group of Yi people, were recorded to have treated 'Xuan Niao' (i.e., Black bird, possibly sparrow) as their totem. Manchurian legends as to the birth of their founder had something to do with birth-mother swallowing the red fruit dropped by a bird. Toba Wei Dynasty, in return for being called the nickname of 'suo lu' (pigtailed enemies), would call southern Chinese by the derogatory name of 'niao yi' (i.e., bird aliens) for possibly southern Chinese pitched accents or generic kind of name for southeastern Chinese and islanders. In later times, the Yi designation would be associated with a word 'dao' for island, pointing to the barbarian peoples in East China Seas. (Both the character 'niao' and 'dao' looked quite close and might have corrupted consecutively during the course of history.) Yi is more an inclusive word to mean aliens. The big Korean school of thought, touched on in [/FONT]
[FONT="]prehistory[/FONT][FONT="] section, claimed that the Koreans were true descendants of the Dongyi people.
Island Statelets Beyond Japan:
Chen Shou's
San Guo Zhi recorded dozens of statelets on the Japanese islands, including Queen Beimihu (Himiko) Wa Statelet, Gounu-guo statelet under a king in the south, and a pygmy statelet to the south of Wa etc. Also recorded would be two statelets to the southeast of Japan, i.e., Luo-guo (naked body) statelet and Heichi-guo (black teeth) statelet, which could be reached by travelling for one year on boat. Some Japanese historians speculated that the two statelets to the southeast of Japan must have been located in Central or South Americas. Yao Silian's
Liang Shu (History of Southern Liang Dynasty) further mentioned that the two statelets of Luo-guo and Heichi-guo were 4,000 Chinese li distance to the southeast of Japan or 1-year sea journey by boat. (Conflict: 4,000 Chinese li distance or one-year boat travel, in my opinion, could not match with the distance of 7000 li between South Korea and Japan. [/FONT]
[FONT="]http://www.os.xaxon.ne.jp/~sinkodai/efuruta/esss.html[/FONT][FONT="] stated that "San-kuo-shih or Three Country Record does not use the distance unit of li to be 435 meters as used during the Chin or Han dynasty Period but rather it uses the unit adopted by the Wei and Western Chin dynasties, which is that one li is approximately 77 meters." Note ancient chronicles usually built upon previous dynasty's records via direct paragraph by paragraph citation.)
Liang Shu also recorded an island 10,000 li to the southwest of Japan where people, of black body and white eyes, were said to have delicious meat on their body; it said that travellers would shoot to kill those islanders for eating them. To the northeast of Japan,
Liang Shu recorded a Wen-shen-guo (tattoo) statelet that was located 7,000 Chinese li distance away from Japan; 5000 li to the east of Wen-shen-guo would be Da-han-guo statelet.
(In my opinion, Wen-shen-guo would be somewhere near Hokkaido, while Da-han-guo statelet would be likely in Bering Straits, Aleutian Islands & Alaska.)
Bei Shi (History of Northern Dynasties) recorded a big island statelet called Dan-mou-luo-guo statelet to the south of Paekche. It said that the island, having a span of over 1000 li distance south-north and several hundred li east-west, could be reached by boat after three months' travel, that it had lots of deers, and that it was a vassal of Paekche. (Conflict: Three months' travel would probably lead to Southeast Islands or Australia.) Since
Bei Shi separately described the Liuqiu (Ryukyu) island, Dan-mou-luo-guo might not be the same as Ryukyu. Liuqiu (Ryukyu) island was recorded to be reacheable after 5 days of boat travelling.
Fu-sang Statelet:
Liang Shu was noted for its record of [/FONT]
[FONT="]Fu-sang[/FONT][FONT="] Statelet to the east. The word 'fusang' would later be used by Chinese for designating Japan in poems; Wei Chu-Hsien validated a separate identity of Fusang from Japan by citing ancient records in regards to the usage of iron in Japan but not in Fusang.
The more exact mapping would be to measure distance between statelets in between: a Wen-shen-guo (tattoo) statelet (near Hokkaido?) was located 7,000 Chinese li distance to the northeast of Japan; 5000 li to the east of Wen-shen-guo would be Da-han-guo statelet (near Bering Straits, Aleutian Islands & Alaska?). Fu-Sang (Fusang) Statelet was located 20,000 Chinese li distance to the east of Da-han-guo, somewhere near British Columbia or Oregon. Here, we could see an apparent linkage from China, to Korea, to Japan, to "tattoo body" country, to "Great Han" country, and to Fu-sang. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Both Chinese websites and American websites, e.g., [/FONT]
[FONT="]http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Tower/1217/asia.html[/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]http://ussers.wi.net/~maracon/index.html[/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1028.htm[/FONT]
[FONT="]had mentioned Monk Huishen and the Kingdom of Fu-Sang (Fusang).
Popular belief is that Fusang was located in today's Mexico.
Liang Shu stated that during the first year of the Yongyuan Era of Southern Qi Dynasty, i.e., AD 499, a monk by the name of Hui-shen (Huishen or Hui Shen) arrived at Jingzhou prefecture from the Fu-Sang (Fusang) Statelet. Hui-shen claimed that Fu-Sang (Fusang) was to the east of China; that it was located 20,000 li distance from Da-han-guo statelet; that it was a land full of Fu-Sang (Fusang) wood (speculated to be North American corn by Chinese or cactus-like agave by Americans); that Fu-Sang (Fusang) leaf was similar to Tong-tree leaf; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) looked similar to bamboo shoots at early stage; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) people ate it for food; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) appeared to be of red color and tasted like pear; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) surface could be used for cloth or cotton. Hui-shen further stated that Fu-Sang (Fusang) people had log cabins but no cities; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) had written language and used Fu-Sang (Fusang) skin for paper; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) had no army or weapons; that Fusang did not treasure gold or silver; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) had two prisons, with minor offence going to north while serious offence going to south prison; that amnesty went to north prison, only; that king possessed drums and wore different color robe for different seasons; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) people used buffalo horns for holding stuff; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) possessed horse (?) carts, buffalo carts and deer carts; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) people used deer milk for cheese; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) was abundant with walnuts; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) had copper but no iron; that Fu-Sang (Fusang) previously had no buddhism but a five member monk team, headed by Monk Biqiu, arrived at Fu-Sang (Fusang) from Libin-guo statelet (Kabul of Afghanistran) during the 2nd year reign of Daming Era of Liu Song Dynasty, i.e., AD 458, and propogated buddhism there. [/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]Note that most of secondary records had errors in regards to the five monk team. Hui-shen or Hoei-shin did not take part in the AD 458 journey to Fusang, and he merely returned to China in AD 499. My speculation is that the trips from China to ancient America was frequent enough for Hui-shen to return to China on a
different ship. Should Monk Fa-Shien had returned to China from India by ship at the timeframe, why would it not be possible that Monk Hui-shen and etc could have travelled to ancient America?
I picked up Prof Wei's book again and found out that Prof had listed abundant written texts, from ancient Chinese chronicles, about the existence of i) 'Deep Sea Valley' beyond Japan, ii) '[/FONT]
[FONT="]Feather Mountain[/FONT][FONT="]' island in possibly Pacific Northeast, iii) '[/FONT]
[FONT="]Brown Bear[/FONT][FONT="]' stories, and iv) the Redwood Trees. Prof Wei had citations of dozens of entries about the Redwood Tree, which was known to Chinese as the 'Fu-sang' in Chinese texts prior to BC eras. Apparently, ancient Chinese in AD eras, i.e., Monk Hui-shen of 5th century, had mutated the ancient term 'Fu-sang' to mean something different from the Redwood tree. Prof Wei Juxian validated that though America had no iron, ancient Peruvians had imported iron from ancient China for cutting the stones for the palace construction. Also,
Prof Wei Juxian validated ancient Chinese texts [prior to BC eras] as to the abundance of silver and gold in ancient America that the American natives did not treasure the metals as recorded in "
Liang Shu" [/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]After the nomadic rampage of 4th century, Tuoba Wei Dynasty & Southern Chinese Dynasty, respectively, renewed historical contacts with the rest of the world, i.e., Japan to the east, ancient Burma/Indochina/India/Ceylon to the south, Central Asia to the west, and Arab/Persia/Roman further away. Nevertheless, Japan's history in Fourth Century became forever "mysterious" as a result of Northern China's disintegration. With Tuoba Wei China developing the northern Silk Road, Liang Dynasty of southern China underwent a prosperous sea route exchange with the rest of the world. Monk Fa-Shien's return trip from India had been widely analyzed to infer a possible blowaway to Mexico coastline before going the opposite direction to China. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Often researched upon by scholars would be a drawing by Liang Dynasty's Emperor Yuandi, entitled "zhi [duty or post] gong [tribute] tu [picture]" [[/FONT]
[FONT="]Liang chih-kung-t'u[/FONT][FONT="]].
Liang chih-kung-t'u, whose original drawing possibly destroyed together with 140,000 volumes of books at the time of Emperor Yuandi's death, was supposed to be a recollection works of the emissaries who had visited Jingzhou the garrison city where Yuandi had stationed throughout dozens of years. The point to make here is that Liang Dynasty had apparently received delegations from 2-3 dozen statelets covering the countries mentioned earlier.
The drawing's minute details about the ancient countries in today's Afghanistan and Iran and their emissaries absolutely corroborated the facts that China's linkage with Central Asia was live and frequent, yielding substantial validity to the person of Monk Hui-shen and his story of the trip to the American continent. [/FONT]
[FONT="]
Hui-shen also stated that over 1000 li distance to the east of Fusang would be a country called Nü-guo (women statelet). Nü-guo was speculated by [/FONT]
[FONT="]Minhua Zhang[/FONT][FONT="] to be the Amazon statelet in South America. Nü-guo women were said to have lighter skin, hairy body, and long hair that dangled to the floor.
Liang Shu further cited a personal account stating that a Jin'an area traveller was blown to an island of women during the 6th year of Tianjian Era (i.e., AD 507).
[/FONT][FONT="]a and north-sea kings would be[/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT][FONT="]Wei Chu-Hsien explained that the Mexico pottery had 23 'ya' characters inscribed because the base of the pottery was too small to fill up another two characters to make a total of 25 which would be symbolic of twenty-five clans of Huangdi the Yellow Lord. Wei Chu-Hsien cited
Jinn Yu section of ancient classics
Guo Yu to translate the original meaning of 'ya' as lineage, something to mean that Huangdi's 25 sons had established their independent clans. As to the reason that the pottery was excavated in Mexico, Wei Chu-Hsien cited the ancient dynastic transition of Shang-Zhou as the possible cause.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Wei Chu-Hsien rephrased the Shang-Zhou story as follows: Last Shang Lord King Zhouwang campaigned against 'Ren-fang-guo' statelet on Shandong Peninsula. After defeating Ren-fang-guo, Zhouwang led a few soldiers back to the capital of Chaoge for lunar new year celebration. Upon hearing of Zhouwang's return with a light force, Zhou Lord Wuwang marched towards Shang capital within six days and nights and encountered Zhouwang at the outskirts of Muye where Zhou army defeated Shang's drunken soldiers. Shang King Zhouwang committed suicide. Zhou Lord Wuwang made Shang Prince Lufu inherit the Shang heritage and then went back to the west. After Wuwang died, Zhou Duke Zhougong assumed the post of a regent for Zhou King Chengwang. In old Shang capital area, Shang Prince Lufu died. Shang Prince Lufu's son, Prince Wugeng, conspired with the brothers of Zhou Wuwang in rebelling against Zhou Regent Zhougong. Zhougong defeated the rebellion and furthermore campaigned against Shang remnants who were left by Shang Lord Zhouwang on Shandong Peninsula's Ren-fang-guo statelet. Shang remnants hence fled towards two directions, one branch to Taiwan Island and the other branch to North America via the Bering Straits. Those Shang people who arrived in North America stationed two chieftans on the east and west sides of the Bering Straits and conferred onto the two chieftans the titles of east-sea and north-sea kings. The east-se[/FONT][FONT="]come the gods in revised book
Shan Hai Jing. [/FONT]
[FONT="]http://members.tripod.com/%7Ekon_artz/cultures/olmshang.htm[/FONT]
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