The ''Weilüe'' (; ') was a Chinese historical text written by
Yu Huan between 239 and 265. Yu Huan was an official in the state of
Cao Wei
Wei () was one of the major Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic states in China during the Three Kingdoms period. The state was established in 220 by Cao Pi based upon the foundations laid by his father Cao Cao during the end of the Han dy ...
(220–265) during the
Three Kingdoms
The Three Kingdoms of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu dominated China from AD 220 to 280 following the end of the Han dynasty. This period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and followed by the Jin dynasty (266–420), Western Jin dyna ...
period. Although not a formal historian, Yu Huan has been held in high regard among Chinese scholars. As per the texts,
Roman (known to the Chinese as
Daqin) travelers and traders of those times claimed that Roman elites were descendants of immigrants from ancient Chinese nobility and
Parthian elites were descendants of ancient
North Indian empires.
Content
The original text of the ''Weilüe'', or "Brief Account of Wei", by Yu Huan has been lost, but the chapter on the
Xirong people was quoted by
Pei Songzhi
Pei Songzhi (372–451), courtesy name Shiqi, was a Chinese historian and politician who lived in the late Eastern Jin dynasty and the Liu Song dynasty. His ancestral home was in Wenxi County, Shanxi
Shanxi; Chinese postal romanizati ...
as an extensive footnote to volume 30 of the ''
Annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms
''Annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms'' () by Pei Songzhi (372–451) is an annotation completed in the 5th century of the 3rd century historical text ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'', compiled by Chen Shou. After the fall of the Eastern Jin ...
'', which was first published in 429. Other than this chapter, only a few isolated quotes remain in other texts.
Yu Huan does not mention his sources in the text that has survived. Some of this new data presumably came to China via traders from the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
(
Daqin). Land communications with the West apparently continued relatively uninterrupted to Cao Wei after the fall of the
Eastern 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 ...
.
Yu Huan apparently never left China, but he collected a large amount of information on the countries to the west of China including
Parthia
Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...
, India, and the Roman Empire, and the various routes to them. Some of this information had reached China well before Yu Huan's time, and can also be found in the sections dealing with the '
Western Regions
The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in Ancient Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of the Yumen Pass, most often the Tarim Basin in prese ...
' of the ''
Shiji
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 cen ...
'', the ''
Book of Han
The ''Book of Han'' is a history of China finished in 111 CE, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), ...
'', and the ''
Book of the Later Han
The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Lat ...
''. In spite of this repetition of earlier (and sometimes fanciful) information, the ''Weilüe'' contains new, unique, and generally trustworthy material, mostly from the late second and early third centuries. It is this new information that makes the ''Weilüe'' a valuable historical source. Most of the new information appears to have come from the Eastern Han dynasty, before China was largely cut off from the West by civil wars and unrest along its borders during the late second century.
The ''Weilüe'' describes the routes to the Roman Empire and it is quite possible that some, or all, of the new information on the Roman Empire and Parthia came from foreign sailors. One such record which may have been available to Yu Huan is detailed in the ''
Book of Liang'' of a merchant from the Roman Empire who in 226 arrived in
Jiaozhi
Jiaozhi (standard Chinese, pinyin: ''Jiāozhǐ''), or
,
was a historical region ruled by various Chinese dynasties, corresponding to present-day northern Vietnam. The kingdom of Nanyue (204–111 BC) set up the Jiaozhi Commandery (; , ch� ...
, near modern
Hanoi
Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...
, and was sent to the court of the
Eastern Wu
Wu (Chinese language, Chinese: 吳; pinyin: ''Wú''; Middle Chinese *''ŋuo'' < Eastern Han Chinese: ''*ŋuɑ''), known in historiography as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, was a Dynasties of China, dynastic state of China and one of the three major sta ...
emperor
Sun Quan
Sun Quan (; 182 – 21 May 252), courtesy name Zhongmou (), posthumous name, posthumously known as Emperor Da of Wu, was the founder of Eastern Wu, one of the Three Kingdoms of China. He inherited control of the warlord regime established by hi ...
, who asked him for a report on his native country and its people.
Yu Huan also includes a brief description of "Zesan", a vassal state of the Roman Empire. John E. Hill identified "Zesan" with
Azania in East African coast, but this is unlikely, since later source like ''
New Book of Tang
The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...
'' told that "Zesan" located to the northeast of Roman Empire, therefore it could be
Trebizond.
''Weilüe'' mentioned a kingdom named "Panyue" or "Hanyuewang", located to the southeast of
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. Hill identified it with
Pandya
The Pandya dynasty (), also referred to as the Pandyas of Madurai, was an ancient Tamil dynasty of South India, and among the four great kingdoms of Tamilakam, the other three being the Pallavas, the Cholas and the Cheras. Existing sinc ...
of
Tamilakam
Tamilakam () also known as ancient Tamil country as was the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, La ...
and gave a translation:
"The kingdom of Panyue (Pandya) is also called Hanyuewang. It is several thousand ''
li'' to the southeast of
Tianzhu (Northern India), and is in contact with Yi Circuit
n modern southern Yunnan">Yunnan.html" ;"title="n modern southern Yunnan">n modern southern Yunnan The inhabitants are small; they are the same height as the Chinese. Traders from Shu (Western Sichuan) travel this far. The Southern Route, after attaining its most westernmost point, turns southeast until it reaches its end."
He believed the phrase "" meant "in contact with Yi Circuit". However it could be taken literally as "close to Yi Circuit", and the likely candidate for "Panyue" was Pundravardhana in Bengal.
Translations

The section on Daqin (Roman territory) from the ''Weilüe'' was translated into English by
Friedrich Hirth
Friedrich Hirth Ph.D. (16 April 1845 in Tonna, Germany, Gräfentonna, Saxe-Gotha – 10 January 1927 in Munich) was a German-American Sinology, sinologist.
Biography
He was educated at the universities of University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Humbo ...
in his pioneering 1885 volume, ''China and the Roman Orient''. Hirth included translations of a wide range of other Chinese texts relating to Daqin and the Chinese text of each is included. In 1905,
Édouard Chavannes translated the remainder of the ''Weilüe'' into French under the title of "Les pays d'occident d'après le Wei lio". Chavannes' translation is accompanied by copious notes in which he clarified numerous obscurities, and convincingly identified many of the countries and towns mentioned in the ''Weilüe'', especially along the eastern sections of the overland trade routes.
References
Footnotes
Sources
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Further reading
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* Excerpt from .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weilue
Chinese history texts
3rd-century history books
Three Kingdoms literature