Yue peoples, Yue peoples - Legacy of the Yue, Yue peoples - Modern usage, Yue peoples - Origins and ancient usage, Yue peoples - Sinification and displacement
From the ninth century BC, two northern Yue peoples, the Gou-Wu and Yu-Yue, were increasingly influenced by their Chinese neighbours to their north. These two states were based in the areas of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang respectively. Their aristocratic elite learnt the written Chinese language, adopted Chinese political institutions and military technology. Traditional accounts attribute the cultural change to the Grand Earl of Wu (吴太伯), a Zhou prince who had fled to the south. The marshy lands of the south gave Gou-Wu and ...
The fall of the Han Dynasty and the succeeding period of division speeded up the process of sinification. Periods of instability and war in northern China, such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties and during the Song Dynasty led to mass migrations of Chinese. Intermarriage and cross-cultural dialogue has led to a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese peoples in the south. By the Tang Dynasty, the term "Yue" had largely become a regional designation rather than a cultural one. A state in modern Zhejiang province during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, for example, called itself "Wu-Yue". Likewise, t ...
In ancient times, the Chinese referred to the peoples to their south collectively as the Yue. Historical texts often refer to the Hundred Yue tribes (Chinese: 百越; Hanyu Pinyin: bǎi yuè; Vietnamese: Bách Việt). Historian Lo Hsiang-lin has suggested that these peoples shared a common ancestry with the Xia. There is little evidence, however, that the Yue peoples held any common identity. The "Treatise of Geography" in Han Shu ...
