in 219, with the Nine Provinces marked The
Rongcheng Shi bamboo slips from the
Chu state has the earliest interpretation of the Nine Provinces, but these early descriptions differ widely from the currently recognized Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces, according to the
Rongcheng Shi, are Tu (涂), Jia (夾), Zhang (竞), Ju (莒), Ou (藕), Jing (荊), Yang (陽), Xu (敘) and Cuo (虘). The most prevalent account of the Nine Provinces comes from the
Yu Gong or
Tribute of Yu section of the
Book of Xia (夏書), collected in the
Book of Documents. It was therein recorded that
Yu the Great divided the world into the nine provinces of
Ji (冀),
Yan (兗),
Qing (青),
Xu (徐),
Yang (揚),
Jing (荊),
Yu (豫),
Liang (梁) and
Yong (雍). The geography section (釋地) of the ancient
Erya encyclopedia also cites nine provinces, but with
You and
Ying (營) listed instead of Qing and Liang. In the "Clan Responsibilities" (職方氏) section of
Rituals of Zhou, the provinces include You and
Bing but not Xu and Liang. The
Lüshi Chunqiu "Initial Survey" (有始覽) section mentions You but not Liang. Traditionally, the
Book of Documents is thought to depict the divisions during the Xia dynasty, the
Erya those of the Shang dynasty; the
Rituals of Zhou the
Zhou dynasty and the
Lüshi Chunqiu the concept and actual territorial distribution of the Nine Provinces during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The
Lüshi Chunqiu contains the following passage on the location of the nine provinces and their general correspondence with the states of the time: The words "Nine Provinces" do not appear in any ancient
oracle bone inscriptions, such that many scholars do not think Yu the Great created the Nine Provinces as was traditionally thought. Some suggest the name "Jiuzhou", which came to mean "Nine Provinces", was actually a place, or the divisions were within
Shandong. Later on,
Zou Yan, an adherent of the
Taoist Yin and Yang School (陰陽家), proposed a new theory of the "Greater Nine Provinces" (大九州). According to him, the nine provinces in the
Book of Documents were only "minor" provinces, which combined to form the "Red County / Divine Province" (赤縣神州), i.e. China (cf.
Shenzhou). Nine such provinces then form another "medium" nine provinces surrounded by a sea. There are nine such medium provinces, which were surrounded by a Great Ocean, forming the Greater Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces' names in the "Geographical Instruction" section (地形訓) of
Huainanzi, annotations to
Zhang Heng's biography (張衡傳注) in
Book of the Later Han and volume eight of the
Chuxue Annals (初學記), are different from the traditional ones listed above. They all include Shenzhou, which led some scholars to suggest they are the names of the Greater Nine Provinces. According to the "Forms of Earth" (墜形訓) section of the
Huainanzi, outside the Greater Nine Provinces are the Eight Yin (八殥), the Eight Hong (八紘) and the Eight Ji (八極). According to the
Genealogical Descent of the Emperors (帝王世紀), rulers before
Shennong had influence over the Greater Nine Provinces, but those from the
Yellow Emperor onwards did not extend their virtue that far. The Greater Nine Provinces theory was based on the knowledge in the states of
Yan and
Qi on the
Yellow Sea coast that China comprised only 1/81 of the entire world, markedly different from the
Sinocentric point of view that was prevalent at the time. Geographic knowledge from increasing contact between the
Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and its neighbours proved the theory false and it lost popularity. By the time of the
Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE) the Nine Provinces had expanded into thirteen provinces together with a central administrative region. == See also ==