Zhao Mo (; ) was the second ruler of

Nanyue Nanyue ( zh, c=南越 or 南粵, p=Nányuè, cy=, j=Naam4 Jyut6, l=Southern Yue, , ), was an ancient kingdom founded in 204 BC by the Chinese general Zhao Tuo, whose family (known in Vietnamese as the Triệu dynasty) continued to rule until ...

. He succeeded his grandfather

Zhao Tuo Zhao Tuo (), rendered as Triệu Đà in Vietnamese language, Vietnamese, was a Qin dynasty Chinese general and first emperor of Nanyue. He participated in the conquest of the Baiyue peoples of Guangdong, Guangxi and Northern Vietnam. After ...

(Emperor Wu) in 137 BC and reigned until his death in 124 BC.

Name

Records from this period were written in

classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...

and are

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

, typically into either

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

(romanized Chinese) or into alphabetical Vietnamese. The name 趙眜 is transliterated as Zhào Mò in pinyin, but as Triệu Mạt in Vietnamese. Zhao/Triệu is a family name, so Zhao Mo's dynasty is referred to as the

Triệu dynasty The Triệu dynasty or Zhao dynasty (; ; 茹趙) ruled the kingdom of Nanyue, which consisted of parts of southern China as well as northern Vietnam. Its capital was Panyu, in modern Guangzhou. The founder of the dynasty, Zhao Tuo (Triệu Đ� ...

in Vietnam. His

temple name Temple names are posthumous titles accorded to monarchs of the Sinosphere for the purpose of ancestor worship. The practice of honoring monarchs with temple names began during the Shang dynasty in China and had since been adopted by other dynas ...

described him as the "literary emperor" (; ). Zhao's name was recorded as Zhao Hu () in the ''

Records of the Grand Historian The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...

'' by

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

. The name of Zhao Mo did not arise until the discovery of two jade seals belonging to the emperor that bore the name of Zhao Mo but not Zhao Hu. "Zhao Hu" may have been an error made by Sima Qian when he was writing his ''Records''. There is also a theory that Zhao Mo and Zhao Hu were two separate rulers and that Zhao Mo's reign was excluded from historical records because of its brief duration.

Life

Upon Zhao Mo's accession in 137 BC, the neighboring king of

Minyue Minyue (; Pinyin: ''Mǐnyuè, Mínyuè'') was an ancient kingdom in what is now the Fujian province in southern China. It was a contemporary of the Han dynasty, and was later annexed by the Han empire as the Southward expansion of the Han dynas ...

, Zou Ying sent his army to attack Nanyue. Zhao sent for help from the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

, his nominal vassal overlord. The Han responded by sending troops against Minyue, but before they could get there, Zou Ying was killed by his brother Zou Yushan, who surrendered to the Han. The Han army was recalled. Zhao considered visiting the Han court in order to show his gratitude. His high ministers argued against it, reminding him that his father kept his distance from the Han and merely avoided a breach of etiquette to keep the peace. Zhao therefore pleaded illness and never went through with the trip. Zhao did actually fall ill several years later and died in 124 BC. He was succeeded by his son,

Zhao Yingqi Zhao Yingqi (; Vietnamese: ''Triệu Anh Tề'', ? – 115 BC) was the son of Zhao Mo and the third ruler of the kingdom of Nanyue. His rule began in 122 BC and ended with his death in 115 BC. After the Western Han dynasty aided Nanyue in fe ...

Tomb

The tomb of Wen was discovered in 1983, under Elephant Hill in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

on a construction site for a hotel, and has been excavated. The tomb measures long and wide. It is divided in seven parts, with a front chamber, east and west wing rooms, the main coffin chamber, east and west side rooms, and a back storage chamber. The tomb has yielded more than 1000 burial artifacts, and a

chariot A chariot is a type of vehicle similar to a cart, driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid Propulsion, motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk O ...

, gold and silver vessels, musical instruments, and human sacrifices were found (15 courtiers were buried alive with him to serve him in death). It is also the only tomb of the early Western Han period that has murals on its walls. The tomb also yielded one of the oldest imperial seals discovered in a Chinese tomb: the seal, with the name "Zhao Mo", declared the royal corpse to be "Emperor Wen", the name of a Han ruler. Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King 188

Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King 188

Alongside Chinese artifacts, pieces from the

steppes In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropical gr ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian and

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

Central Asian regions have been found. A Persian silver box found in the tomb is the earliest imported product found to date in China. There were also artifacts found which belonged to the Đông Sơn culture of

northern Vietnam Northern Vietnam or '' Tonkin'' () is one of three geographical regions in Vietnam. It consists of three geographic sub-regions: the Northwest (Vùng Tây Bắc), the Northeast (Vùng Đông Bắc), and the Red River Delta (Đồng Bằng Sôn ...

. The Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, located in Jiefang road in Guangzhou, stands on the site of the tomb of Zhao Mo.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links