There is a Japanese historian by the name of Tatsuo Hoshino who wrote about premodern mainland Southeast Asia.
In 1996, he published an article in the Journal of the Siam Society entitled “The Kingdom of Red Earth (Chitu Guo) in Cambodia and Vietnam from the Sixth to the Eighth Centuries.”
A Chitu guo 赤土國, or “Red Earth Kingdom,” is mentioned in Sui and Tang dynasty historical sources. In The Golden Khersonese, a 1961 work on what he argued was information in Chinese historical sources about the Malay Pensinula, geographer Paul Wheatley cites the work on Chitu of earlier scholars and notes that it had been placed variously in the Chao Phraya River basin, to the Malay Peninsula, and even Sumatra (32-33).
I agree and have written on this. Further, I think “Chitu” is literally the name “Kedah” (https://www.academia.edu/102690878/Revisiting_the_Chinese_Sources_on_Early_Southeast_Asian_History).
Hoshino, however, tries to place Chitu in Cambodia, and in doing so, he begins by attempting to indicate where previous scholars had gone wrong. To quote,
The weak point in current attempts to establish the location through interpretation of the literary sources is that they have not been associated with any archaeological site, particularly a possible site for the Chitu capital. Moreover, modern scholars dealing with Chinese writings on Nanman or southern non Han peoples have also made a mistake in basic methodology. The compilers of the annals on the Nanman region must have had reliable maps and they customarily listed countries according to a geographical sequence. In their chapters on Nanman, both the Sui Shu and Bei Shi annals place Chitu after Lin yi and before Zhenla and Poli. These four are the only states in Southeast Asia which are well-documented in the almost identical accounts. This order of appearance indicates that Lin-yi was closest to Chinese territory in northern Vietnam; Chitu most probably adjoined Lin-yi to the south; Zhenla lay to the west and southwest, on the Mekong or the Mun and its tributaries where Sanskrit inscriptions by Chitrasena/Mahendravarman have been found; and Poli can be located south of Zhenla and west of Chitu. The four notices in the Sui Shu or Bei Shi describe not only Lin-yi’s similarities with Jiao Zhi (northern Vietnam) and China in local products and musical instruments, but also mention that the interior decorations at the royal palace of Chitu are identical with those at the Zhenla palace and that there is much similarity between Chitu and Zhenla furnishings. (56)
I have no problem with the idea that connecting information in historical records to an archaeological site is important, and my argument that Chitu was Kedah is supported by archaeological evidence in the Bujang Valley.
However, I have enormous problems with Hoshino’s second point. Hoshino accuses modern scholars of making a mistake in basic methodology. He states that “The compilers of the annals on the Nanman region must have had reliable maps and they customarily listed countries according to a geographical sequence.”
However, Hoshino does not provide any evidence of any such maps. As far as I know, no such maps exist, nor is there mention of any such maps about the region in the historical record.
Hmmm. . . Isn’t holding the assumption, without evidence, that the compilers of the annals must have had reliable maps not itself a basic methodological mistake?
The same can be said about Hoshino’s claim that the compilers of annals “customarily listed countries according to a geographical sequence.” Here he states that “In their chapters on Nanman, both the Sui Shu [History of the Sui] and Bei Shi [History of the Northern Dynasties] annals place Chitu after Lin yi and before Zhenla and Poli. These four are the only states in Southeast Asia which are well-documented in the almost identical accounts. This order of appearance indicates that Lin-yi was closest to Chinese territory in northern Vietnam; Chitu most probably adjoined Lin-yi to the south; Zhenla lay to the west and southwest, on the Mekong or the Mun and its tributaries. . .”
When Hoshino states that “Chitu most probably adjoined Lin-yi [‘Champa’] to the south,” that’s easy to check. We can look at what the History of the Sui records: “It lies in the Southern Sea; traveling by water takes more than one hundred days to reach its capital. The soil there is largely red, and for this reason it took its name. To the east is the Boluola Kingdom, to the west, the Poluosa Kingdom, to the south, the Heluodan Kingdom, while to the north it is bounded by the open sea. Its territory covers several thousand leagues (在南海中，水行百餘日而達所都。土色多赤，因以為號。東波羅剌國，西婆羅娑國，南訶羅旦國，北拒大海，地方數千里。).
That is not describing a place that “probably adjoined Lin-yi [‘Champa’] to the south.”
[And a quick aside, I would bet lots of $$ if I had any that the Boluo 波羅 in Boluola, the Poluo 婆羅 in Poluosa and the Heluo 訶羅 in Heluodan are all indicating “pulao,” the Austronesian term for “island.” As I’ve said many times before, when Chinese were faced with the same name, they recorded it in (slightly) different ways each time.]
And to take this point further, the two texts Hoshino mentioned list Linyi [“Champa”], Chitu, Zhenla [“Cambodia”] and Poli (林邑, 赤土, 真臘, 婆利). However, the section on the Nanman or “Southern Savages” in the subsequent Old History of the Tang, starts with Linyi [“Champa”], Poli, Panpan, Zhenla [“Cambodia”] (林邑, 婆利, 盤盤, 真臘), and then lists many other kingdoms.
Wait! How did Poli get between Champa and Cambodia? Did it move? Did the compilers of the annals get more reliable maps?
If we dig deeper, we see that the Old History of the Tang records that the “Poli Kingdom lies on an island in the sea to the southeast of Linyi. Its territory extends for several thousand leagues. Sailing south across the sea from Jiaozhou, one passes through Linyi, Funan, Chitu, and Dandan, and only then reaches it” (婆利國，在林邑東南海中洲上。其地延袤數千里，自交州南渡海，經林邑、扶南、赤土、丹丹數國乃至焉)
The same texts records of Panpan that the “Panpan Kingdom lies on a maritime bend to the southwest of Linyi. To its north it is separated from Linyi by a small sea. Sailing by ship from Jiaozhou takes forty days to reach it. This country borders the state of Langyaxiu” (盤盤國，在林邑西南海曲中，北與林邑隔小海，自交州船行四十日乃至。其國與狼牙修國為鄰).
These are not descriptions of places between “Champa” and “Cambodia.” It’s difficult to know precisely where Poli was, but there is plenty of evidence to place Panpan on the Malay Peninsula, as I would argue that above passage does.
As such, 1) we have no evidence that the compilers of the History of the Sui and the History of the Northern Dynasties had reliable maps, and 2) we cannot argue that compilers “customarily listed countries according to a geographical sequence.”
So, while Hoshino begins this article by accusing others of making basic methodological mistakes, he himself begins with an enormous methodological mistake. It is enormous because the rest of the article is based on his erroneous idea that Chitu must be on the mainland because 1) the compilers had reliable maps, and 2) they “customarily listed countries according to a geographical sequence.”
From this erroneous foundation, Hoshino then tries to get the information about a visit to Chitu recorded in the History of the Sui to be about a journey to a place on the mainland. To get that meaning from the text, Hoshino makes numerous other “methodological mistakes.”
That journey was undertaken in the early seventh century by a man named Chang Jun 常駿. Wheatley has translated this (29), but here is my translation:
其年十月，駿等自南海郡乘舟，晝夜二旬，每值便風。至焦石山而過東南泊陵伽鉢拔多洲，西與林邑相對，上有神祠焉。又南行，至師子石，自是島嶼 連接。又行二三日，西望見狼牙須國之山，於是南達雞籠島，至於赤土之 界。其王遣婆羅門鳩摩羅以舶三十艘來迎，吹蠡擊鼓，以樂隋使，進金鎖以 纜駿船。月餘，至其都。
In the tenth lunar month of that year [607 CE], Jun and the others boarded a ship in Nanhai Commandery, and after sailing for twenty days and nights, they reached Scorched Stone Mountain (Jiaoshi shan 焦石山) and passing to its southwest, anchored at Lingaparvata Isle (Lengjiabobaduo zhou 陵伽鉢拔多洲), which to its west faces Linyi, and on which there is a shrine. Heading further southward, they reached the Master and Disciple Stones (Shizi shi 師子石). From here, there were islands one after the other. Traveling for two or three more days and looking to the west, the mountain of the polity of Langkasuka was spotted. Thereupon, to the south, Chicken Cage Island (Jilong dao 雞籠島) was reached, and they arrived at the frontier of Chitu. The king sent the brahmin, Kumāra (Jiumoluo 鳩摩羅) with thirty ships to receive them. Gourds were sounded and drums beat to entertain the Sui envoys. A metal chain was presented to moor [Chang] Jun’s ship. A little over a month later they reached the capital.
Chang Jun departed from Nanhai Commandery, which was in the area of what is now Guangdong Province. By contrast, Hoshino has Chang Jun depart from Linyi [“Champa”], on the Southeast Asian mainland. How does he do that?
With a lot of creativity.
First, he provides some historical background. The Sui sent an army led by a certain Liu Fang to attack Linyi in 605. Chang Jun was not part of that operation, but Hoshino imagines him being there in its aftermath.
How does he do this? He points out that Chang Jun’s official title was State Farm Overseer (屯田主事). Some people translate this term that I am, following Charles Hucker, calling “state farm” (tuntian 屯田), as “military colony.” To quote Hucker, it was a “generic description of tracts of state-owned agricultural land, or wilderness considered to have agricultural potentiality, that were assigned to soldiers, to landless peasants, or to resettled colonists. . .”
Hoshino states that “tuntian means farming of rice by soldiers posted abroad” (they were often in frontier areas, but that was not absolute) and he images that there were state farms in Linyi following the Sui attack, and that since Chang Jun was an overseer of a state farm, this means that “To maintain the new authority of the Sui, some of Fang’s army from two years before must have been camped at Lin-yi” on state farms, and he implies that because of his title, Chang Jun must have been supervising them.
Hoshino provides no evidence to support any of this.
Further, also without citing any source for his information, Hoshino states that the Sui emperor “recruited men who were familiar with the region and were experienced in river communication.” That’s a really specific piece of information, so if it exists, one would expect Hoshino to be able to cite it.
Hoshino then states, “My assumption is that Chang Jun and his colleagues cooperated with the military commanders sent to Lin-yi to prospect for rice farming lands as well as natural resources like precious metals and exotic products in the region.”
That is an enormous assumption based on a complete absence of evidence. However, what Hoshino tries to do here is to get Chang Jun to begin his trip on the Southeast Asian mainland, even though the History of the Sui says that his journey began in Nanhai Commandery, that is, the area of what is now Guangdong Province.
Hoshino then turns to the account of Chang Jun’s trip. He states that Chang Jun “boarded a boat at Nanhai jun [i.e., Commandery] bound for Chitu. The type of the boat they used, zhou, seems to have been designed for river or canal transport and not as an ocean-going vessel. The extant texts say that they sailed smoothly with favorable winds day and night without a stop for two xun before reaching the Mountain of Scorched Rocks. One xun is ten days.”
It’s true that the character, zhou 舟, can refer to a boat, rather than a ship, but it’s not absolute. It can be used in a generic sense as a vessel for water travel. However, Hoshino goes on to argue that the character “xun” 旬 , meaning “10 days,” is a mistake for “ri” 日, meaning “a day.” And by claiming that the character in the text meaning “10 days” is wrong and should be the character for “day,” he greatly reduces the time of travel, from 20 days down to two.
He then states that “We conclude that Chang Jun and his retinue sailed the river before a favorable wind for two days and two nights.”
Huh? “The river”? What river?
Do you see what happened? Through various steps of imagination, and without a single bit of supporting evidence, Hoshino moves Chang Jun from Guangdong to Linyi and then has him sail for two days instead of 20, and then has him going up a river, presumably the Mekong. . .
And he does all of this so that he can attempt to get this information to match his flawed view of the sources: that they are based on reliable maps and that the information in the sources is arranged in a geographically logical manner.
I came across a comment by epigrapher Arlo Griffiths in a 2013 article that I really like entitled “The Problem of the Ancient Name Java and the Role of Satyavarman in Southeast Asian International Relations Around the Turn of the Ninth Century CE,” where he wrote that “I have nowhere found a vigorous rejection of Hoshino’s work, but only scattered negative remarks showing that his work is indeed very controversial.”
This is followed by examples of such remarks, including one by historian Michael Vickery, where he wrote that “I must add here that in general I do not accept many of Hoshino’s presuppositions and methods using Southeast Asian historical documents. On certain isolated points, however, he has contributed valuable new insights.” (fn. 19, pg. 50)
Hopefully the comments above can serve as a “vigorous rejection.”
I’ve only commented on the first part of the article. There is still much more that can be said (but I need to eat lunch and drink some coffee to boost my own vigor level), however, in conclusion, I would like to point out why ideas like the ones here don’t get “vigorously rejected.”
As the above comments hopefully make clear, the flaws in this article are “multi-layered.” We have flaw, built on flaw, built on flaw, built on flaw.
What I find is that much of the writings on early Southeast Asia by scholars who claim to use Chinese sources are like this. The work of O. W. Wolters is a perfect example.
“Vigorously rejecting” such scholarship takes a lot of time and effort.
Further, while there are (and have been) a few people in the world who can read the sources that these authors claim to work with, academia as a profession has also developed a certain culture where most people, even if they can see the actual problems, are reluctant to go through and point out the layer upon layer of flaws.
Instead, they make generalized polite comments like the one above by Vickery, which he has tucked away as an add-on comment in footnote 60 on page 81 of an almost 500-page book: “I must add here that in general I do not accept many of Hoshino’s presuppositions and methods using Southeast Asian historical documents. On certain isolated points, however, he has contributed valuable new insights”
Comments like these are pointless, particularly when you have multi-layered flaws in a piece of scholarship. From such comments, I think it is impossible for readers to understand how totally flawed a piece of scholarship can be.
Instead, it is only by methodically going through a piece of scholarship and documenting exactly how and why the work is flawed that this can become clear to readers. However, most scholars don’t do that. Instead, they make polite statements and append them to footnote 60 on page 81.
However, such polite statements do nothing but enable flawed works to continue to be part of the conversation, when in reality, they should be discarded from scholarly consideration.
Finally, I would also like to point out that I really dislike the word “controversial” as I often see it used in academia. You have a “controversy” when you have equally competent people putting forth evidence to support two different points/arguments, with neither side able to fully convince the other, or the equally competent outside observers.
In other words, for a work to be “controversial,” there has to be some level of equality between it and competing works, and between its author and the scholars who evaluate it.
This is not the case with Hoshino’s article here.
With Hoshino, the problem is that the people who have read his work have either not had the knowledge to determine if he is right or wrong or have only made polite comments in footnotes. However, that does not make his work “controversial.”
Instead, as the above comments should make clear, Hoshino’s scholarship is incapable of being “controversial,” because there is simply no evidence to support what he argues. It is, therefore, not on an equal level with anything for there to be competition and controversy.
A quick check through google scholar showed six citations of the article by Tatsuo Hoshino since the publication of the paper. Hence I would suggest that his/her research has remained inconsequential, and when it is cited, it is done so critically, as, for instance, in Kurz, “Sanfoqi 三佛齊 as a Designation for “Srivijaya””, China and Asia 4 (2022): 13.
The most recent citation is in an article by I. Kolnin in Monumenta serica (https://doi.org/10.1080/02549948.2025.2570982), to which I have no access, unfortunately.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the comment!! I appreciate you sharing this, but, related to your comment about not having access to the Monumenta Serica article, I don’t think this ultimately means much, and I explain why here:
https://leminhkhaiblog.com/the-thai-ification-of-tang-era-chinese-placenames-or-why-the-work-of-scholars-is-inconsequential/