In the history of Guizhou, there was a mysterious ancient country - Yelang. Unfortunately, the historical information about the Yelang Kingdom is basically not published in the "History of the Southwest Yilie Biography", and the record of the Yelang Kingdom in this article is not much, only a few words. Other local chronicles are basically boldly played on the basis of the "Southwest Yilie Biography", and basically have little credible value. Fortunately, with the continuous progress of archaeology, many ruins of the YelangGuo era have gradually been discovered, and people have finally gained a new understanding of this mysterious ancient country.
<h1>First, the rise of the Night Lang Kingdom is related to transportation</h1>
The ancient kingdom of Yelang is very old, and how old it is is, it is still impossible to know. At least in the Warring States period, the Yelang Kingdom already existed. The ancient Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, with its harsh ecological environment, smoke and miasma, and socio-economic backwardness, how could an ancient country be born? This leaves us scratching our heads. But when we think of Guizhou today, all confusion will be solved. The reason why Guizhou has developed rapidly is due to the improvement of transportation, and the rise of the Yelang kingdom is also closely related to transportation.
The core of the Yelang Kingdom is located in the western part of Guizhou. In ancient times, it was considered to be the international transportation hub of the time. At that time, there were ancient countries such as Bashu in the Sichuan Basin, and the economies of the two countries had close ties with the Indian coast, from Bashu to the Indian Ocean, there was an ancient "five-foot road" connection. According to the research, the five-foot road starts from Yibin and arrives in the Yunnan area, which is basically the same as the current direction of the Yukun high-speed rail line. This international passage is exactly the necessary condition for the rise of the Night Lang Kingdom.
The northwestern part of the Yelang Kingdom covers the area of Bijie, Liupanshui and Zhaotong, which is the place where the "Five Foot Road" must pass, and later after the Han Dynasty conquered the Yelang Kingdom, it established qian as a vassal state, with Zhuti and Hanyang counties. In this area, many sites of the Yelangguo era have indeed been found, such as the Neolithic ruins of Machang in Ludian County, the ruins of Ludian Yeshishan, the ruins of Weining Zhongshui, the ruins of Hezhang Cola, etc., which have more or less unearthed some Sanxingdui style cultural relics, proving that these sites and the ancient Shu Kingdom have trade links.
Another important trade route was the Mumu River water transport. The so-called Mu mu river should be the Beipan River or the Nanpan River in the upper reaches of the Hongshui River, because Sima Qian recorded that "the Muke River is wide for several miles, out of Panyu City", "The Night Lang, Linmu Ke River, the River Guang more than 100 steps, enough to sail." South Vietnamese were under the command of Night Lang with money and goods." It shows that the ancient Yelang Kingdom used the water transport of the Mu Mu River to trade with the South Vietnamese State. Ban Gu refers to the Hongshui River as "Night Lang Porpoise" in the Book of Han and Geography.
The third important passage is the Yuanjiang Channel. The Yuanjiang River originates in the central part of Guizhou and finally flows into Hunan and joins Dongting Lake. The Yuanjiang River was an important transportation route from the ancient Jingchu region to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and the Xiaoyi and Lan of the ancient Yelang Kingdom were just at the end of the Yuanjiang River water transport. The "Chronicle of History" once recorded that the general Zhuang Ji of the Chu State once went up the Yuan River, "Zhuang Ji's generals followed the river, west of Liuba and Qianzhong", once surrendered to the Yelang Kingdom, and finally reached the dianchi area and established the Dian state. The Book of Han records that "the widow of King Xiang of Chu, Zhuang Qiao ( Zhuang Qiao ), followed the yuanshui up the river, passed through QianzhongDai Yelang , and the army arrived at Lan Lang and fought on the ship, destroying Lan Hua Ye Lang, and Ye Lang surrendered" .
<h1>Second, the scope of the Night Lang Kingdom</h1>
So how big is the Night Lang Kingdom? The "Records of History" records that "the southwest Yijun is the longest, and the night lang is the largest". However, this can only show that the area of the Yelang Kingdom is the largest in the Southwest Yi. The Book of later Han records that "the Southwest Yi people, there are Shu Yuanwai, there is the Yelang Kingdom, the east is jiaotong, the west is the Dian Kingdom, the north is qiongdu Kingdom, each of them is the ruler, and all of them are vertebrates and left, and they live together." "Based on this piece of information, we probably know the scope of the Night Lang Kingdom. In addition, the Han Dynasty set up qianwei as a vassal state and a mu county on the land of the Yelang Kingdom, and the scope of the Yelang Kingdom can also be roughly seen from the territory of the two.
The approximate range of the Night Lang Kingdom
To sum up, the Yelang Kingdom borders Helan (the upper reaches of the Yuan River) to the west and Qianzhong Commandery (Wuling County); to the north to Dalou Mountain, including most of Zunyi, Bijie, and Zhaotong, bordering Bashu; and to the south to Jiaotong and South Vietnam, including parts of southeastern Yunnan and northwestern Guangxi, with an area of about 400,000 square kilometers.
Of course, the Yelang Kingdom was not a centralized state, but a Fangguo alliance similar to xia Shang. In the late Western Han Dynasty, there were still 22 yi in the Yelang kingdom, that is, 22 small states, mainly including Helan (Fuquan, Huangping), Yi (Zunyi or Qianxi), Pingyi (Bijie), Wushu (Dushan), Tanzhi (Zhenfeng), Chudan, Tonghe, Tanyan, Leaky River (Luxi), Wudan (Maitreya), Wanwen (Qiubei), Yifeng (Kaiyuan), Leaky Wo (Luoping), Jurchen (Guangnan), Jincheng, Xi sui (Jinping) and so on.
Mu Mu County
The capital of the Yelang Kingdom should be located in the western part of Guizhou, especially in southwest Guizhou, which is most likely. At present, the sites of the Yelangguo era have been found, mainly distributed in the western part of Guizhou. The most important of these is the Hezhang Cola site, where a total of 108 tombs from the Warring States to the Western Han Dynasty have been found, and many bronze artifacts have been excavated, such as copper kettles, cirrus-shaped stem-headed copper swords, copper drums, etc. The most striking thing about the cola site tombs is the peculiar "set head burial".
Artifacts unearthed at the Coke site
Another very important site is the Tonggushan ruins in Pu'an County, which has been identified as a bronze smelting base and is known as the "arsenal" of the Yelang Kingdom. In Anshun, the Ninggu ruins were discovered, and a large number of Han Dynasty cultural relics were unearthed, which is likely to be the location of the Han Dynasty Yelang Duwei; in Xingyi and Pingba, the ruins of the Yelangguo era were also found, among which the Eastern Han Copper Carriage and Horse excavated in Xingyi were the largest bronze artifacts unearthed in Guizhou and are now the treasures of the Guizhou Provincial Museum.
Xingyi unearthed a copper carriage
<h1>Third, the Kingdom of Night Lang is headed for extinction</h1>
The Yelang kingdom, which became stronger during the Western Han Dynasty, sima Qian recorded that the Yelang state had 100,000 elite soldiers, which was enough to deter the southwest. In order to unite the Yelang Kingdom to attack the South Yue Kingdom, Emperor Wu of Han sent Tang Meng to the Yelang Kingdom and agreed to set up counties in the Yelang Kingdom, so he set up Qianwei County in the northern part of the Yelang Kingdom, and the county ruled the turtle (Zunyi). In 112 BC, Emperor Wu of han sent troops to attack South Vietnam, but Lan did not want to send troops as agreed, so he attacked Qianwei County, forcing Qianwei County to move north to southern Sichuan. After the pacification of South Vietnam, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty sent troops to destroy Helan and set it up as Helan County. Under the coercion of the Han Dynasty, the Night Lang King submitted, and Emperor Wu of Han set up Mu Mu Commandery (牂牁郡), whose county was administered in Helan.
The Han Dynasty has always promoted the "county system", and the coexistence of Mu Mu County and Yelang Guohe is also a manifestation of this. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Yelang Wang Xing repeatedly fought with the town of Plutonium (Quang Nam) and the Leaky Wo (LuoPing), and the imperial court was unable to mediate. Later, the Yelang Kingdom directly led the 22 Yi to launch a rebellion, and the Western Han Sent Chen Li as the Mu Mu Taishou to attack the Yelang Kingdom. Soon, the Kingdom of Yelang was destroyed, and its history was submerged in the wilderness.
Pu'an Copper Drum Mountain unearthed Gonefan
However, although the Kingdom of Yelang was destroyed, the descendants of Yelang have always existed. In the first year of the Yongchu Dynasty (107 AD) of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "the outer Yelang barbarians raised the inner genus", which shows that the Yelang ethnic group still exists. According to the legend of the Yi people, there were four major dynasties in Guyelang, namely Wumi Yelang, Luoju Yelang, Sajiao Yelang and Jinzhu Yelang, of which the last Jinzhu Yelang was destroyed by the Han Dynasty. This Jinzhu family has always been in the Changshun area of Guizhou, and the Yuan Dynasty implemented the toast system, and named the Jinzhu family as the Chief Secretary of Jinzhu, which was inherited by the Ming Dynasty. Later, jinzhu was also called "jinzhu". There are tombs of the Jinzhu family in Changshun, and one of the tombstones reads "JinZhu Yelang Marquis IV Ancestor Jin Yong".
Why does Night Lang take bamboo as his clan? This is related to the legend of night lang. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records: "In the beginning of the Night Lang, there was a woman who was in the water, and there were three large sections of bamboo flowing into the foot, and when they heard the trumpet in it, they cut the bamboo and looked at it, and they got a boy and raised it." He is long and talented, and establishes himself as the Marquis of Yelang, with bamboo as his surname." Therefore, the Night King is also known as the Bamboo King.
Of course, the Yelang Kingdom here and the later Yelang County are not the same thing. During the Tang Dynasty, the central government successively set up Overnight Lang County in the area of Tongzi and Xinhuang. Li Bai has a poem "Follow the wind until Yelang West", and the Yelang here is not the Yelang Country, but also the Yelang County at that time. Today's Xinhuang and Tongzi claim to be the hometown of yelang ancient country, which belongs to Zhang Guanli and does not conform to historical facts.