Place
Tuong Quan
One of the three commanderies the Qin set up in Lingnan. Every text that names it leaves its boundaries undrawn, and where it lay is unsettled to this day.
At a glance
- Location
- In Lingnan, south of the Five Ranges. The texts that tell the war with the Qin name this commandery only in the sentence founding the three; not one of them draws its boundary or says how far it reached12
- Type
- One of the three commanderies the Qin set up on the land they had just taken, with Que Lam and Nam Hai; once founded, convicts were sent out to garrison them1
About the place
The old chronicles say
The commandery's name appears in the Chinese history closest in time to the Qin inside one sentence, and that sentence has to share room with the driving back of the Xiongnu in the north-west: men who had once absconded, men living in their wives' households and merchants were raised to take the land of Luc Luong, which was made into Que Lam, Tuong Quan and Nam Hai, and convicts were sent out to garrison it. The founding is recorded as an administrative matter already concluded: no battle, no troop figure, and not a word on where the commandery sat or how far it ran.1
There is a version older still than the Huainanzi that names this commandery. Jia Yi's essay on the faults of the Qin, copied by Sima Qian at the end of the basic annals, says the Qin took the land of the Hundred Yue and made it into Que Lam and Tuong Quan; the lords of the Hundred Yue bowed their heads, put ropes about their own necks, and handed their lives to petty officials. In that version the Yue surrender outright and there is no Qin defeat at all — and of the four texts set side by side on this war, Jia Yi alone tells it that way.2
Two later entries are the firmest ground anyone has when asking where this commandery lay. The Shiji records that after the Qin fell, Trieu Da struck out from Nam Hai, annexed Que Lam and Tuong Quan, and declared himself martial king of Nam Viet — the two commanderies named side by side like neighbours. Then the Han shu records, in the autumn of the fifth year of the Yuanfeng era under Emperor Zhao: the Xiang commandery was abolished, and its land divided between Uat Lam and Tuong Kha. When that land was broken up it went to two other commanderies, not to Giao Chi or Cuu Chan.45
Mentioned in
Sources for this page
Every row of the profile and every passage below points to one of these documents. How we choose and check sources