I have been writing about early Southeast Asia in Chinese sources for years now, and it is a very complex topic. Therefore, I decided to create a simplified version of “what I now know” to help anyone who wants to try to understand what I have been writing about.
So, here it is.
Period I
In the early centuries AD, Chinese had contact with Funan, in what is now Cambodia, and Dunxun/Dianxun, a place that was on the eastern end of a trans-peninsular crossing, probably in the area of the Isthmus of Kra.
There was also a crossing in the area of what is now Surat Thani province from a place called Gouzhi/Juzhi, and on the other side of the peninsular were various places, such as Geguluo and Gegesengqi.
The area of the Gulf of Thailand was not crossed, and was seen as a dangerous and vast body of water that they called the “Swelling Sea.”
There was also a place that was variously mentioned as Zhubo, or Shepo, or Yepoti, all names which scholars think were based on some name like “java/jaba.” However, given that the main area of maritime activity for Chinese was up in the Gulf of Thailand, I highly doubt that this was a reference to the island of Java.
Period II
During the time of the Sui and Tang dynasties (581-907), Chinese started to cross the Malay Peninsula to the south of Dunxun, and in particular, we can see them doing so from a place called Foshi that was probably in the area of what is now Surat Thani, and Heling in the greater Lake Songkhla region.
On the other side of the peninsula, the two most important places were Moluoyu (in what is now Phang Nga province) and Jiecha (Kedah). These two places were important because ocean-going vessels that journeyed between South Asia and the Malay Peninsula arrived at and departed from these two locations.
Period III
The trans-peninsular crossings from the greater Lake Songkla area were among the shortest. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, this area appears to have become very prosperous. Ships from the Middle East sailed to Kedah, and then sent goods overland to be taken further on ships to Cambodia, Champa and China.
As this happened, the names of two “new” polities started to get mentioned in Chinese sources: Shepo and Sanfoqi. The name “Shepo” also sounded something like “java/jaba” and was definitely the same name as what Arabs used to refer to that area, Zabag. My guess is that this “java/jaba” name that was vaguely mentioned in some early Chinese sources, and which probably had referred to this area on the Malay Peninsula as it is doubtful that Chinese mariners had gone any further south into the “Swelling Sea” in those early centuries, re-entered Chinese usage at this time.
Meanwhile, Foshi and Moluoyu stopped getting mentioned, as did the trans-peninsular crossing in Surat Thani. This is because the main action had moved south to the greater Lake Songkhla area.
There is a description of Shep in the 1225 Zhufan zhi that describes a location like the Lake Songkhla region with trade routes extending to the sea in all four directions. What is more, the sea to the east, the Gulf of Thailand, is still referred to as a mysterious and dangerous place.
That description might have been based on records from prior to 1225, but nonetheless, what it shows is that at the beginning of the second millennium, Chinese maritime activity was still largely restricted to the coasts of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northeastern half of the Malay Peninsula.
Shepo was in that area of the northeastern side of the Malay Peninsula, and Sanfoqi was directly across the Gulf of Thailand, inland from the southern coast of the Indochinese Peninsula.
As I see it, in the mandala empire of Cambodia at that time, Sanfoqi was the main maritime polity of that world, and was located somewhere inland where it had access through rivers and canals to the southern coast and international trade, as well as to the rivers and the Tonle Sap that led to inland areas.
Further, and not surprising given their locations on the main trade route between the Middle East/South Asia and China, Shepo and Sanfoqi were rivals.
Period IV
In 1025, the Chola Kingdom, with probably the consent of Sanfoqi, attacked the area of the Malay Peninsula where Shepo was located. I would argue that the Srivishaya/Srivijaya that was destroyed then was what foreigners had referred to as Shepo/Zabag.
Further, Shepo/Zabag appears to have never fully recovered from this attack, as what we see in the centuries that followed is the emergence of a trade network of the “vassals” of Sanfoqi that stretched down the Malay Peninsula, skipping the area of Shepo, and up through the Strait of Melaka to the northern tip of Sumatra, and avoiding Shepo’s western outlet at Kedah.
How is it that people suddenly started sailing through the Strait of Malacca? I think it was, if not South Asians themselves, then perhaps their navigational technology, as we see in the aftermath of the Chola attack on the area of Shepo that a Tamil man gained control of trade at Sanfoqi.
I don’t know how long it lasted, but I strongly sense that there was something that we could call the “Tamil period” or the “Tamil century” in this time period.
Period V
As more shipping started to pass through the Strait of Malacca, Chinese started to venture down into that area, and we can see in the 1200s and 1300s that they gradually became aware of the island of Java.
That awareness, and more importantly, an understanding of the value of the spices and other goods that were passing through that region, led the Mongol Yuan dynasty to attack Java in 1293.
In the aftermath of that attack, the term “Zhuawa,” meaning “Java,” appeared more frequently in Chinese sources, and the term “Shepo,” as well as references to that part of the Malay Peninsula, gradually disappeared.
Period VI
The Ming dynasty came to power in 1368, and promptly sent envoys into Southeast Asia to establish relations and to request that the various kingdoms that they visited present tribute.
In the period between 1293 and 1368, a lot had changed in Southeast Asia. First, the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit had expanded its influence up into the island of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and from the other direction, the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya was expanding into Cambodia and down into the Malay Peninsula.
What I have discovered, is that these two polities came into contact in Cambodia, as the Javanese attacked Sanfoqi and the Siamese attacked Angkor in the second half of the fourteenth century, just as the Ming was attempting to establish tributary relations with the kingdoms in the region.
This sent the trade world of Sanfoqi into disarray, and in place of Sanfoqi, traders started to visit certain other places under its authority. One was referred to as Old Harbor and the other was referred to as the Baolin Polity.
It was into this world of political and trade chaos that Zheng He arrived on the first of his voyages, and captured a Chinese “pirate” who was active at Old Harbor in that lawless area.
The men who later compiled accounts of the Zheng He voyages did not participate in that first voyage, and the subsequent voyages do not appear to have stopped in that area again.
Finally, it would appear that a Siamese attack on Angkor in 1431 may have put an end to decades of turmoil, and the Javanese appear to have abandoned their effort to control parts of Cambodia.
However, the area where Sanfoqi had been located never returned to its former glory. Indeed, not much is recorded about that area of Cambodia until Ming dynasty loyalists settled in the area of Ha Tien in the seventeenth century, right where I argue that the access point that led to the polity of Sanfoqi had been located.
Period VII
With the end of the Zheng He voyages in 1433, most records of tribute missions from Southeast Asian kingdoms cease as well. Indeed, from 1433 to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644, there was very little official contact between China and the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.
However, during that time, Chinese mariners did sail into the region. In doing so, Cambodia was not a place that they appear to have visited much. Nor did they visit the greater Lake Songkhla area.
Instead, they frequented the areas of Champa, Siam, and places on the lower half of the Malay Peninsula, as well as places in the Strait of Malacca and Java. And off the southeastern coast of Sumatra, there was a place that they recorded that was called “Old Harbor.”
Period VIII
Starting in the seventeenth century during the late Ming dynasty period, and continuing through the time of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), there were various Chinese scholars who wrote accounts about Southeast Asia, and in doing so, they tried to tie together all of the known information, from whatever was written in official dynastic histories in the past to whatever mariners had reported in more recent times to officials who oversaw trade.
So, what happened was something like this.
1) They saw a place called “Sanfoqi” in historical sources, but there was no longer a Sanfoqi in their day, and mariners didn’t mention it either.
2) They saw in the early records of the Ming dynasty something about places called “Old Harbor” and the “Baolin Polity” that were somehow related to Sanfoqi.
3) They saw from still later accounts of mariners that there was a place off the coast of Sumatra called “Old Harbor.”
Linking all of this together, they wrote that “Old Harbor used to be Sanfoqi, and the Barbarians called it ‘the Baolin Polity.’”
However, if we look at records from the time of the early Ming dynasty and the Zheng He voyages, we see that Sanfoqi, Old Harbor, and the Baolin Polity were three coterminous and separate places, and that this Old Harbor was not off the coast of Sumatra.
So, this “equation” was wrong, but it came to influence everything that was produced from that point onward, and that includes the reproduction of texts that dated from before this period.
For instance, there are two men who participated in some of the Zheng He voyages (but not the one where he went to Old Harbor) who later compiled records (for which the compilation and transmission histories are complex and problematic), and in those records, the above “equation” of “Old Harbor used to be Sanfoqi, and the Barbarians called it ‘the Baolin Polity” is included.
What is more, this type of “equation” was made not just for Sanfoqi, but for basically everywhere. Therefore, many of the Chinese writings on Southeast Asia produced in the late Ming and Qing dynasty periods are deeply flawed.
Period IX
In the late nineteenth century, Western scholars started to examine what was written about Southeast Asia in Chinese sources. In doing so, they consulted old texts, but they also consulted the flawed works of late Ming and Qing dynasty scholars, not realizing that the “equations” in these works were “bad guesses,” as we can sometimes detect their logic, but we can also see that they were wrong.
Western scholars also brought into the mix all kinds of crazy ideas of their own. The result was a kind of “perfect storm” of bad information. And it is that bad information that formed the foundation of the modern field of early Southeast Asian history, and which virtually every scholar today (unknowingly) continues to follow.
Period X
The period when people realize everything above and start creating a new and accurate account of early Southeast Asia.
