Historical writing is always about the present, a projection of one’s ideology onto the future, and it is seldom has anything to do with the past. In the Han writing on their diplomatic relationship, oh well, we can see how it is interpreted in Frances Wood and the Hou Han Shu translation. Frances Wood seems to think Chinese perception of the foreigners is always the tribute system, and conflated 2000 years of diplomatic history into such a lump sum. Of course, power relationship between China and its outer polities is more important than anything else: Xiongnu for example was feared, and the writing of Xiongnu of course was derogatory at the outset, but the diplomatic practices were appeasing for most part, especially after several major military defeat like Li Guang, Li Ling and Li Guangli. (Note: Li Ling is the grandson of Li Guang, and Li Guangli had no blood relationship with the former two).
(I personally know those people in the above video and yes, it is in Cantonese but 10 times better than anything else you can find on Web)
And most striking to me in the translation of Hou Han Shu is I was quite surprised the Han chroniclers held high regard of the Roman aka Da Qin. Compared to those they had close contact within the orbit of tribute-vesselship system in which China tried to retain itself as the rightful sovereign, Da Qin was written with praises, their succession model (probably of the Republic era) was quite likened to the ideal of Yao and Shun (堯舜), or the non-bloodline transfer of the throne. Funny thing is Wang Mang(王莽) at that time used to same argument to force its short-lived coup d’etat upon the Han Dynasty. Uh oh, don’t tell me historical writing is about the past here~~~~
We cannot actually establish one-on-one relationshipx between the names used in Chinese chronicles and the “actual” polities. Egypt is Haixi (海西) ﹖Eh…… I really think it is quite impossible to establish this relation with only a couple lines of description on the place.
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