Western Han •
Internal vassals (206 BC - ?) – Upon the founding of the dynasty, the first emperor awarded up to one-half of territory of Han as fiefdoms to various relatives, who ruled as princes. These fiefdoms collected their own taxes and established their own laws and were not directly administered by imperial government. Consolidation and centralization by succeeding emperors increased imperial controls, gradually dissolving the princedoms. During the period of Three kingdoms, Japan's king also sent tribute to Cao Rui stating about his status as a vassal to the Rui. •
Dayuan (102 BC) – Kingdom located in the
Fergana Valley. Hearing tales of their high-quality horses, which would be of great utility in combatting the Xiongnu,
Emperor Wu of Han dispatched an expedition to acquire their submission and the horses. The first expedition of 3,000 was woefully undermanned, but the second, numbering 100,000 besieged the capital, bringing them into submission after negotiations. The expedition returned with 10,000 horses along with a promise to pay an annual tribute in horses. •
Dian Kingdom (109 BC) – A kingdom located in modern-day
Yunnan province. Brought into subjugation by
Emperor Wu of Han, who annexed the kingdom into an imperial commandery but allowed local rulers to remain in power. •
Jushi (108 BC) – City-state in modern-day
Turpan. Brought into submission by an imperial expedition dispatched by
Emperor Wu of Han. •
Xiongnu (53 BC - 10) – A nomadic confederation/empire in Central Asia and modern day Mongolia and extending their control to territories as far as
Siberia, western
Manchuria, the areas along the
Caspian Sea, and modern day Chinese provinces of
Inner Mongolia,
Gansu and
Xinjiang. They entered tributary relations with the Han after several defeats, territorial losses, and internal conflicts. Tributary relationships terminated as a result of diplomatic fumblings during the reign of
Wang Mang. Xinjiang passed to Chinese control after their defeat. The Chinese retaliated against
Cham which was raiding the Rinan coast around 430s-440s by seizing Qusu, and then plundering the capital of the Cham around
Huế. Around 100,000 jin in gold was the amount of plunder.
Lin Yi then paid 10,000
jin in gold, 100,000 jin in silver, and 300,000 jin in copper in 445 as tribute to China. The final tribute paid to China from Lin Yi was in 749, among the items were 100 strings of pearls, 30 jin gharuwood, baidi, and 20 elephants. Enslaved people from tributary countries were sent to Tang China by various groups, the Cambodians sent albinos, the Uyghurs sent Turkic
Karluks, the Japanese sent
Ainu, and
Göktürk (Tujue) and Tibetan girls were also sent to China. Prisoners captured from Liaodong, Korea, and Japan were sent as tribute to China from Balhae.
Tang dynasty China received 11 Japanese girl dancers as tribute from
Balhae in 777.
Song The Song dynasty received 302 tribute missions from other countries. Vietnamese missions consisted of 45 of them, another 56 were from Champa. More tribute was sent by Champa in order to curry favor from China against Vietnam. Champa brought as tribute
Champa rice, a fast-growing rice strain, to China, which massively increased Chinese yields of rice. In 969 the son of King
Li Shengtian named Zongchang sent a tribute mission to China. According to Chinese accounts, the
King of Khotan offered to send in tribute to the Chinese court a dancing elephant captured from Kashgar in 970.
Yuan The Mongols extracted tribute from throughout their empire. From Goryeo, they received gold, silver, cloth, grain, ginseng, and falcons. The tribute payments were a burden on Goryeo and subjugated polities in the empire. As with all parts of the Mongol Empire, Goryeo provided palace women, eunuchs, Buddhist monks, and other personnel to the Mongols. Just as Korean women entered the Yuan court, the Korean Koryo kingdom also saw the entry of Mongol women. Great power was attained by some of the Korean women who entered the Yuan court. One example is the Empress Ki (Qi) and her eunuch Bak Bulhwa when they attempted a major coup of Northern China and Koryo. King Ch'ungson (1309–1313) married two Mongol women, Princess Botasirin and a non-royal woman named Yesujin. She gave birth to a son and had a posthumous title of "virtuous concubine". In addition 1324, the Yuan court sent a Mongol princess of Wei named Jintong to the Koryo King Ch'ungsug. The entry of Korean women into the Yuan court was reciprocated by the entry of Yuan princesses into the Goryeo court, and this affected relations between Korea and the Yuan. Marriages between the imperial family of Yuan existed between certain states. These included the Onggirat tribe, Idug-qut's Uighur tribe, the Oirat tribe, and the Koryo (Korean) royal family.
Ming painting of a tribute giraffe from Bengal, which was thought to be a
Qilin by court officials Under the Ming dynasty, countries that wanted to have any form of relationship with China, political, economic or otherwise, had to enter the tribute system. As a result, tribute was often paid for opportunistic reasons rather than as a serious gesture of allegiance to the Chinese emperor, and the mere fact that tribute was paid may not be understood in a way that China had political leverage over its tributary. Also some tribute missions may just have been up by ingenious traders. A number of countries only paid tribute once, as a result of
Zheng He's expeditions. As of 1587, in Chinese sources the following countries are listed to have paid tribute to the Ming emperors: The
Hongwu Emperor started tributary relations in 1368, emissaries being sent to countries like Korea, Vietnam, Champa, Japan, of which Korea, Vietnam, and Champa sent back tribute in 1369. During Hongwu's rule, Liuch'iu sent 20, Korea sent 20, Champa sent 19, and Vietnam sent 14 tribute missions. The tribute system was an economically profitable form of government trade, and Korea requested and successfully increased the number of tributes sent to Ming from once every three years to three times each year starting in 1400, and eventually four times each year starting in 1531. The
1471 Vietnamese invasion of Champa and
Ming Turpan Border Wars were either started by or marked by disruptions in the tribute system. Tribute in the form of servants,
eunuchs, and virgin girls came from: Ming's various ethnic-minority tribes, tribes on the Mongolian Plateau, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Central Asia, Siam, Champa, and Okinawa. There were Korean, Jurchen, Mongol, Central Asian, and Vietnamese eunuchs under the Yongle Emperor, including Mongol eunuchs who served him while he was the Prince of Yan. In 1381, Muslim and Mongol eunuchs were captured from
Yunnan, and possibly among them was the great Ming maritime explorer
Zheng He. Vietnamese eunuchs like Ruan Lang, Ruan An, Fan Hong, Chen Wu, and Wang Jin were sent by Zhang Fu to the Ming. During Ming's early contentious relations with Joseon, when there were disputes such as competition for influence over the Jurchens in Manchuria, Korean officials were even flogged by Korean-born Ming eunuch ambassadors, when their demands were not met. Sino-Korean relations later became amiable, and Korean envoys' seating arrangement in the Ming court was always the highest among the tributaries. On 30 Jan 1406, the Ming
Yongle Emperor expressed horror when the
Ryukyuans castrated some of their own children to become eunuchs in order to give them to Yongle. Yongle said that the boys who were castrated were innocent and didn't deserve castration, and he returned the boys to Ryukyu and instructed them not to send eunuchs again. Joseon sent a total of 114 women to the Ming dynasty, consisting of 16 virgin girls, accompanied by 48 female servants, 42 cooks (執饌女), and 8 musical performers (歌舞女). The women were sent to the Yongle and Xuande emperors in a total of 7 missions between 1408 and 1433. with his death in 1435, 53 Korean women were repatriated. There was much speculation that the
Yongle Emperor's real mother was a Korean or Mongolian concubine. Relations between Ming China and Joseon Korea improved dramatically and became much more amicable and mutually profitable during Yongle's reign. An anti pig slaughter edict led to speculation that the
Zhengde Emperor adopted Islam, due to his use of Muslim eunuchs who commissioned the production of porcelain with Persian and Arabic inscriptions in white and blue color. Muslim eunuchs contributed money in 1496 to repairing Niujie Mosque. Central Asian women were provided to the Zhengde Emperor by a Muslim guard and Sayyid Hussein from Hami. The guard was Yu Yung and the women were Uighur. It is unknown who really was behind the anti-pig slaughter edict. The speculation of him becoming a Muslim is remembered alongside his excessive and debauched behavior along with his concubines of foreign origin. Muslim Central Asian girls were favored by Zhengde, with Korean girls being favored by Xuande. A Uighur concubine was kept by Zhengde. Uighur and Mongol women were favored by the Zhengde emperor.
Qing ) think that the emissaries portrayed had actually come from Turfan, and not all the way from the Moghul India. in 1795. The Dutch embassy was the last European embassy sent to China under the tributary system. This list covers states that sent tribute between 1662 and 1875, and were not covered under the
Lifan Yuan. Therefore,
Tibet or the
Khalkha are not included, although they did send tribute in the period given: •
Badakhshan •
Hunza (1761) •
Joseon (Korea) (three or four times a year; 435 embassies, 1637-1881 •
Sulu Sultanate (1726,) After the
Second Manchu Invasion of Korea,
Joseon Korea was forced to give several of their royal princesses as concubines to the Qing Manchu regent Prince
Dorgon. In 1650, Dorgon married the Korean
Princess Uisun (義順). The Princess' name in Korean was Uisun, she was Prince Yi Kaeyoon's (Kumrimgoon) daughter. Dorgon married two Korean princesses at Lianshan. The tribute system did not dissolve in 1875, but tribute embassies became less frequent and regular: twelve more Korean embassies until 1894, one more (abortive) from Liuqiu in 1877, three more from Vietnam, and four from Nepal, the last one in 1908. It was agreed in the Burma convention in 1886 that China would recognize Britain's occupation of Upper Burma while Britain continued the Burmese payment of tribute every ten years to Peking. ==See also==