Weilüe

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The Weilüe (Chinese: 魏略; pinyin: Wèilüè; Wade-Giles: Wei-lüeh) written by Yu Huan (Chinese: 魚豢; pinyin: Yǔ Huàn) between CE 239, the end of Emperor Ming’s reign, and 265 CE, the end of the Cao Wei (220-265 CE). Although not an "official historian," Yu Huan has always been held in high regard amongst Chinese scholars.

The original text of the Weilüe, or “Brief Account of the Wei Dynasty,” by Yu Huan has, sadly, been lost. Fortunately, this chapter on the Xirong, or ‘Peoples of the West’, was quoted as an extensive footnote to the Sanguozhi by Pei Songzhi, which was first published in CE 429.

Unfortunately, Yu Huan does not mention his sources in the text that has survived. Some of this new data undoubtedly came to China via traders from the Roman Empire (Daqin). Land communications with the West apparently continued relatively uninterrupted to the northern state of Wei after the fall of the Han Dynasty.

Yu Huan apparently never left China, but he collected a large amount of information on the countries to the west of China including Parthia, 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’ of the Shiji, the Hanshu, and the Hou Hanshu.

In spite of this repetition of earlier (and sometimes fanciful) information, the Weilüe contains new, unique, and generally trustworthy material. Most of it dates from the late second and early third centuries CE. It is this new information that makes the Weilue such a valuable source.

Most of the new information appears to have come from the Eastern Han, before China was to a large extent cut off from the West by civil wars and unrest along its borders during the late 2nd century CE.

There is some information in the Weilüe about the maritime 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 Liangshu of a merchant from the Roman Empire who in CE 226 arrived in Jiaozhi, near modern Hanoi, and was sent to the court of Sun Quan, the Wu emperor, who asked him for a report on his native country and its people.

The section on Da Qin (Roman territory) from the Weilüe was translated into English, with excellent notes, by Friedrich Hirth in his pioneering volume, China and the Roman Orient, first published in 1885. He also included translations of a wide range of other Chinese texts relating to Da Qin (the Roman Empire) and the Chinese text of each is included, making it an essential reference, even today.

This was followed in 1905 by a translation of the rest of the text of the Weilüe into French by Édouard Chavannes, 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 Weilue, especially along the eastern sections of the overland trade routes.

Recently, a draft annotated English translation of the whole text by John Hill has been made available on the Silk Road Seattle website.

[edit] References

• Chavannes, Édouard. 1905. “Les pays d’Occident d’après le Wei lio.” T’oung pao 6 (1905), pp. 519-571.
• Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from the Weilüe 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation. [1]
• Hirth, Friedrich. 1875. China and the Roman Orient. Shanghai and Hong Kong. Unchanged reprint. Chicago, Ares Publishers, 1975.
• Yu, Taishan. 2004. A History of the Relationships between the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Western Regions. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 131 March, 2004. Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania.
• The Peoples of the West from the Weilue