“Central Nation-Peripheral Barbarians in Four Directions-Four Seas”: The Geopolitical Order of Land-Sea Interactions of Early Chinese Civilization

Abstract

Despite being a coastal country located to the west of the Pacific, ancient China essentially had a continental cultural pattern, with its vision turned toward the mainland, and a geopolitical order of land-sea interactions of ancient civilization centered on the Central Plains (Zhongyuan, 中原) around the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and surrounded by “Peripheral Barbarians in Four Directions” (四方蛮夷) within “Four Seas” (四海). Nevertheless, these peripheral maritime “barbarian” Yi (夷) and Yue (越) and the oversea maritime Fan (番) had been active and developed along the southeast coast of China at the edge of these “Four Directions”. Here they had objectively played an important and indispensable role in the ancient history of Chinese civilization, from the native seafaring tradition of “being good at using boats” in the prehistoric and early historical period to the medieval and late historical “Maritime Silk Road” from Han (汉) to Tang (唐) dynasties.

Despite being a coastal country located to the west of the Pacific, ancient China essentially had a continental cultural pattern, with its vision turned toward the mainland, and a geopolitical order of land-sea interactions of ancient civilization centered on the Central Plains (Zhongyuan,中原) around the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and surrounded by “Peripheral Barbarians in Four Directions” (四方蛮夷) within “Four Seas” (四海). Nevertheless, these peripheral maritime “barbarian” Yi (夷) and Yue (越) and the oversea maritime Fan (番) had been active and developed along the southeast coast of China at the edge of these “Four Directions”. Here they had objectively played an important and indispensable role in the ancient history of Chinese civilization, from the native seafaring tradition of “being good at using boats” in the prehistoric and early historical period to the medieval and late historical “Maritime Silk Road” from Han (汉) to Tang (唐) dynasties.

The peripheral maritime culture of southeast coast of China represented the main part of ancient East Asian maritime history, which evolved and developed along the “Gullied Boundary of Four Seas (四海为壑) in the geopolitical land-sea order of ancient Chinese civilization. Within the comparative history of the East and West of the world, the ancient oriental maritime culture that developed in this “Gullied Boundary of Four Seas” on the periphery of ancient Chinese civilization was generally different from the Western maritime culture which arose in the Mediterranean and developed into a center of multicultural diffusion of Western civilization.

1 The Continental Cultural Pattern of a “Central Nation with Peripheries in Four Directions” and “Within Four Seas” in the History of East Asian Civilization

Both land masses and sea areas have acted as important spaces for human activities in the long history of the world. Archaeological discoveries in the East and West prove that human beings actively engaged in maritime practices for thousands of years from prehistoric time throughout early history, resulting in the two different social and economic activities on land and sea respectively. Both continental and oceanic properties are, therefore, the inherent dual connotations of human culture. However, land and sea played different roles in regional histories of humankind, especially in the origins of early civilizations of the East and the West.

Anyway, the regular pattern of human history shows that lands on the fertile plains of a few big rivers in the Old World were of key importance in the origins and developments of the earliest kingdoms and classical civilizations. The emergence and evolution of the earliest civilizations of kingdoms and states in both the East and West were closely related to big rivers, such as the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, the Yellow River, and the Yangtze River. The essential terrestrial environmental and cultural elements, including large alluvial plains in the middle and lower reaches of these rivers, fertile and cultivated lands, developed agricultural cultivation, growth of settlements habitants, wealth accumulation by these societies, and so forth, all created a basis for the early kingdoms in these regions. Control of land territory, competition and conflict over water sources for irrigation, and stratification and centralization within agricultural societies, all raised social complexity in these temperate fertile lands of the Old World. It was on these fertile alluvial plains that the earliest kingdoms, such as ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, ancient India and Xia (夏), and Shang (商) of early China, were conceived and born. “In these regions, extensive Kingdoms arose, and the foundation of great states began” (Hegel, G.W.F. 2001: 107).

The early Chinese civilization also originated in the largest alluvial plain centralizing on the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River in the hinterland of the East Asian continent, being famous as the “Center of the World” (天下之中), the “Central Plains” and the “Big Riverside “(大河之上) recorded in ancient Chinese historical documents, which had been the ideal tillage geographically and environmentally for the development of cereal cultivation. The East Asian continent centered on this “Central Plains” is a naturally shaped inland and semi-enclosed geographic environment, being not only surrounded by large deserts, plateaus, and mountains that act as natural barriers, but also separated from foreign countries by the vast ocean. “China itself is a huge geographic unit, which is relatively isolated or semi-isolated from the outside world.” “The home of the Chinese nation is located in the vast continent in East Asia, stretching from the Pamir plateau in the west, great deserts in the north, and mountains in the southwest, to the great sea and oceanic islands in the east and southeast adjacent to the vast Pacific. These natural barriers of mountains and oceans surrounding the continent create hinterland and relatively independent geographic unit with a well-structured system within” (Yan, W.M. 1987; Fei, X.T. 1989). This relatively independent hinterland with mountains, deserts, and ocean delineation was recorded as the “World”, “Land Under the Heaven” (天下), “Within the Four Seas”, “Within the Seas” (海内)” in the geographical vision of the early Chinese nation of the Huaxia (华夏) and Han (汉) people in their historical documents.

The “No War” (非攻) chapter in the Book of the Master Mocius (Mozi 墨子) states: “The sum of the world is totally within the four seas” (Mo, D. et al. 2001: 105).

The “No Lax” (不苟) chapter in the Book of the Master Xuncius (Xunzi 荀子) states: “It controls the center of the world to govern the people within the seas” (Xun, K. et al. 1995: 40).

The chapter of “Monarchy” (王制) in the Record of Rites (Liji礼记) says: “There are Nine States (九州) within the four seas, compensating their strong points and short points to each.” The chapter of “Lanes Record” (坊记) in the same book states: “The king couldn’t be the ruler within the four seas without courtesy” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 2916–2917, 3518).

The section of “Disciple Yanyuan” (颜渊) in the Analects of the Master Confucius) (Lunyu论语) states: “All the people within the four seas are brothers. Why should the king be distressed of being no brothers?” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 5436)

The chapter of “Topography Research” (地形训) in the Book of the Prince of Huainan (Huai’nanzi 淮南子) records that “The land of the empire within the four seas covers twenty-eight thousand li (里, a Chinese li equals 500 m) from east to west, and twenty-six thousand li from south to north.” The chapter of “Dark World Research” (览冥训) of the same book says: “These days the red and green dragons are roaming around the Nine States…shaking the heaven and the earth, shocking the people within the seas” (Liu, A. et al. 2010: 65, 92).

There are also some classics referring to the “four seas”, which do not explicitly refer to the “within” the seas or “over” the seas, but their semantic context can be understood as the meaning of the hinterland “within the four seas”.

The section of “Black Bird” (玄鸟) in the Book of Songs (Shijing 诗经) states: “The capital and its vast territory extending for thousands of li are places for national people to live. The vast territory reaches the four seas and the barbarians in the four directions come to our sacrifices” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 1344).

The section of “Lilou” (离娄) of the Book of the Master Mencius (Meng Zhi 孟子) states: “If the son of heaven is not benevolent, he will lose the four seas. If the vassal kings are not benevolent, they will lose their states” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 5912).

The section of “Strategy of King Yu” (大禹谟) in the Book of Early History (Shangshu 尚书) states: “After great king Yu (禹) managed the four seas, he cautiously assisted emperor Shun (舜).” “The emperor’s supreme monarch from heaven dominates the four seas.” “If the national people of the four seas are poor and in difficulties, the emperor and kings will lose their prosperities from the heaven” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 282–283, 286).

The section of “Tribute of the Yu Period” (禹贡) in this Book of Early History states: “The territory land in all Nine States are unified and integrated, and all lands of the country are suitable for living. The nine mountain systems are managed and roads are built. The nine water systems are dredged and the nine big lakes have dikes. The people of the four seas are subjected to the nation” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 320).

The section of “Ritual Vessels” (礼器) of the Record of Rites says: “The three sacrificial animals as cattle, sheep and pig, as well as fish and dried meat are the delicacies of the four seas and nine states” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 3122).

The chapter of “Beauty and True Research” (俶真训) in the Book of the Prince of Huainan records: “The king is enthroned in the southern territory and benefits people of the four seas.” The chapter of “Dark World Research” of the same book says: “The ministers close to the king dedicate their wisdom to the nation and the vast masses of the people are grateful to the king. The king gives his good commands and the people of the four seas are allegiant” (Liu, A. et al. 2010: 52, 92).

The paragraph of the “Southern Area Overseas” (海外南经) in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaiing 山海经) records: “What the earth loads, including all things between the heaven and earth with the four oceans. All directions in the world are illuminated by the sun and the moon, timed by stars and four seasons to reach a great chronology.” Other paragraphs and chapters also take respectively within or over the east, west, south, or north of the “Four Seas” as the coordinates, distinguishing the geographic and cultural differences in territory land of early China (Yuan, K. 2014: 171).

In this relatively independent land space “within the Four Seas”, archaeologists revealed that early Chinese civilization originated from the prehistoric “Assimilation and Integration of Pluralistic Cultures” (多元一体) and been converged to form a unified nation with differentiated geopolitical order of “Central Nation” (中国), “Nine States” and “Peripheries Barbarians in Four Directions” in Three Dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou (周). This differentiated geopolitical order reflect the spatial structure and regional interaction of the Chinese civilization in the last thousands of years, characterized by the concentric circular pattern with the Central Nation established by Huaxia on Central Plains as its core and the Peripheral multi-cultures in Four Directions.

From the prehistoric origin to the formation of Three Dynasties, the early Chinese civilization with a unified pattern of “Assimilation and Integration of Pluralistic Cultures” and differentiated geopolitical order originated and grew on the base of agricultural society in the East Asian hinterland centered on the Central Plains in middle and lower reaches of Yellow River. Professor Yan Wenming (严文明) vividly portrayed the spatial layout of this Neolithic multiculturalism as a “Multi-Petaled Flower” (重瓣花朵), a pattern of cultural system with pluralistic spatial types, according to the differentiated interactions between center and periphery by way of the concentric circles pattern. The middle of flower petals was the alluvial plain centered on the basin at the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, forming the cultural region of Central Plains as the core in the geopolitical order of early Chinese civilization. The five cultural areas of Gansu (甘肃) and Qinghai (青海) in the northwest, Shandong (山东) in the east, Yan (燕) and Liao (辽) in the north, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in the south, and Jiangsu (江苏) and Zhejiang (浙江) in the southeast were recognized as the first circle of the petals surrounding the center. Other cultural areas such as Tanshishan (昙石山) in Fujian (福建), Dapenkeng (大坌坑) in Taiwan (台湾), Shixia (石峡) in Guangdong (广东), Baiyangchun (白羊村) in Yunnan (云南), Karuo(卡若) in Tibet (西藏), Ang’angxi (昂昂溪) in Heilongjiang (黑龙江), and others were taken as the second circle of the petals. The Neolithic multiculturalism in this “Multi-Petaled Flower” pattern also gave birth to a number of important tribal groups and ethnicities in early Chinese civilization. The cultural area of the Central Plains “was identified as the region of tribal groups led by the Huangdi (Yellow Emperor 黄帝) and Yandi Emperor (炎帝) as the ancestor of the Huaxia, the core ethnicity and early civilization’s center of assimilation. The first circular petals were respectively identified as the origin of a series of important “barbarian” ethnic groups that closely interacted with the Huaxia, such as the Qiang (羌) and Rong (戎) prehistoric cultures in Ganshu and Qinghai, Neolithic Eastern Yi (东夷) in Shandong, Neolithic Yan culture in the Beijing (北京), Hebei (河北) and Liaoning (辽宁) region, the Neolithic “Three Tribes of Miao (三苗)” and Chu (楚) cultures in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the prehistoric culture of Yue in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region” (Yan, W.M. 1987). The bronze cultural evidences show that Neolithic “Assimilation and integration of Pluralistic Cultures” with differentially concentric circles pattern continued into the Three Dynasties. According to research by Professor Li Boqian (李伯谦), although the spatial-temporal structure of the bronze cultures changed to some degree during the Three Dynasties, multiculturalism with a differential geopolitical order and center-peripheries pattern of interactions had not changed greatly. For example, during the late Shang and Western Zhou dynasties when the bronze cultures of eastern Asia reached their peak, the bronze cultures at the core position of the Central Plains were further strengthened. Under the directly geopolitical control of the Zhou Dynasty, the various bronze cultures such as Qi (齐) and Lu (鲁), Yan, Jin (晋) and Wei (卫) closely surrounding the center of Zhou territories developed significantly and assimilated deeply by Zhou culture. The bronze cultures such as Xiajiadian (夏家店) in the northeast, Xindian (辛店) and Shiwa (寺洼) in Ganshu and Qinghai, Ba (巴) and Shu (蜀) in the Sichuan basin, Jingchu (荆楚) in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Wu (吴) and Yue in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, developed as the second circle of the concentric pattern of bronze cultures and also integrated frequently and closely with Zhou culture. Other bronze cultures arose and developed in more remote regions such as the northeast, northwest, southwest, and southern and southeast coast of China, presenting the most peripheral part of bronze cultural interaction with the central Zhou culture (Li, B.Q. 1990). It is the assimilation of these pluralistic cultures in the prehistoric and early historical period, and the historical mixing, overlapping and integration of the diverse ethnicities over the last 2000 years, that formed the cultural system of multi-ethnic coexistence of modern China (Fei, X.T. 1989).

From the initial unity of prehistoric culture to the assimilation and integration of early civilization in the Three Dynasties, the Central Plains played an important core role. During the thousands of years’ construction of the early civilization since the Neolithic age, the regional and pluralistic cultures of the East Asian continent originated and developed generally facing in toward the Central Plains’ hinterland as their cultural interaction center. These regional cultures preferred to “Compete for the Controlling the Central Plains” (逐鹿中原) and kept themselves away from the “barriers” such as the mountains, deserts, and the oceans, surrounding their geographically semi-closed space. Therefore, the spatial interaction between these prehistoric regional multi-cultures was not of a scattered and disordered pattern but, rather, a clear and strict cultural and geographic order with a differentiated and concentric structure summarized as “Multi-Petaled Flower” by Professor Yan. Within this Neolithic cultural and geographic “flower”, or pattern of differentiated concentric circles, the hinterland of the Central Plains had always been at the center and core of the structure for thousands of years, while other regions located along different levels or circles of the petals of the flower presented differential interactions with center and with each other. In general, the closer a regional culture was to the core of the Central Plains, the closer its cultural interaction with Central Plains, the stronger the centripetal force and the higher level of social-cultural development it had. These Neolithic cultures in the core region of the Central Plains and those of adjacent areas in the first circle had played a leading role in the formation of early Chinese civilization. The core position of the prehistoric Central Plains laid the foundation for the formation of Huaxia and Han nationalities, which continued to be the core of Neolithic social-cultural assimilation and cohesion in the Three Dynasties and subsequent historical periods. The growth of the Huaxia and Han nationalities over the history of civilization coincided with the formation of early civilization of the “Central Nation” and the successive expansions of empires in ancient China. The formation and expansion of early civilization and successive dynasties also promoted and strengthened the multicultural assimilation with Han nationality as the core of this cohesion. As a typical classical civilization established on continental cultivation agriculture, there is no wonder that this multicultural assimilation was accompanied by the development and expansion of the agricultural society in ancient China. Professor Fei Xiaotong (费孝通) thus firstly emphasized the agricultural economy as key driver for the multicultural assimilation and stability and solidification of ancient Chinese civilization centered on the Central Plains. “If we consider a source of assimilation and cohesion for the Han nationality, I think the agricultural economy of the Han nationality is a key factor. It seems that as long as any nomadic groups from inner and north Asia entered the plain region of the Yellow River basin and sank into the intensive and meticulous agricultural society, sooner or later they took the initiative to integrate themselves into the Han nationality” (Fei, X.T. 1989). This functionalist opinion is in accord with the essence of pluralistic convergence and assimilation of Chinese civilization, and also implies the core role of continental agriculture in this process.

The concept of unity of the “Assimilation and Integration of Pluralistic Cultures” is the recalling of ethno-history based on the spatial pattern of the modern nation of “China”. This is generally consistent with the cultural geography and geopolitical order of the “Land Under the Heaven” (天下) of early Chinese civilization as recorded in historical texts, that is, “the territories in four directions surrounding the Central Nation” and “within the four seas” where included the Central Nation in Central Plains or Central Earth (中土), and the surrounding territories of “Nine States” and the various “barbarian states” (万国) of Man (蛮), Yi, Rong and Di (狄) in the “Four Directions”. The ideal situation as recorded in historical books was that “all of the lands under heaven belong to the king and all the people on the land are subject to the king” (The section of “North Mount” in the Book of Songs, in Ruan, Y. 2009: 994), and the early China Central Nation as “the center of the land under heaven” was really admired and worshiped by the “Various States in Four Directions” (四方万国) and was their ambitious aim of “Competing for controlling the Central Plains”. But actually, before “Qin unified all states under the heaven” (The Biography of Mengtian 蒙恬列传 in Records of the Historian, in Sima, Q. 1959: 3113), the “Central Nation” and “Various States in Four Directions” basically coexisted by way of inter-state relationship on the vast lands “Within the Four Seas”.

In this historical geopolitical order of “Central Nation-Nine States—Various States in Four Directions”, the center of the national territory was recognized since the Neolithic Age as the Central Plains and the Central Earth as the core of multiculturalism. The early Chinese Huaxia and Han proclaimed and flaunted themselves as the Central Nation to distinguish it from the “Nine States” and the “Various States in Four Directions”, and proudly declared that the environmental condition and social civilization there were superior to the “barbarian” states of the Rong, Di, Man, and Yi in the “Four Directions”.

The section of “Lucky Day” (吉日) in the Book of Songs states: “What a vast land the Central Plains is, with their thriving productivity.” The section of “Hard Work of People” (民劳) in the same book states: “Benefiting the people in the Central Nation and pacifying the states and the people in four directions” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 920, 1180).

The chapter of “Monarchy” of the Record of Rites states: “Peoples on lands of the five directions include the Central Nation and other barbarian states as Rong and Yi…Specifically, People who live in the east is called Yi… who live in the south is called Man… who live in the west is called Rong…who live in the north is called Di …the people in Central Nation, and these Yi, Man, Rong and Di all have settled peacefully” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 2896–2897).

The chapter of “The Doctrine of Mean” (中庸) of the same book states: “Giving preferential treatment to the peoples in distant states of four directions, then they will surrender and pledge allegiance. Appeasing the princes under the heaven, then they will be overcome with awe…Therefore, your fame is widely spread beyond the Central Nation and far away to barbarian states of Man and Mo (貊)” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 3536, 3548).

The section of “Duke Wen of Teng” (滕文公) of the Book of the Master Mencius states: “King Yu dredged the nine rivers…then people in the Central Nation had enough cereal supply” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 5884).

The section of the “Timber of Nice Wood” (梓材) in the Book of Early History states: “Great Heaven bestowed the people and territories of the Central Nation to our first king” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 443).

The section of “Twenty-Third Year of Duke Xi” (僖公二十三年) in the Master Zuo’s Commentary on Springer and Autumn Annals (Zuozhuan 左传) states: “There is a war between the states of Jin (晋) and Chu in the Central Plains.” The section of the “Ninth Year of Duke Zhao” (昭公九年)of the same book states: “Who should be blamed for the barbarian Rong’s occupation of the Central Nation?” (Ruan 2009: 3941, 4467)

The chapter “Biography of Xifugong” (息夫躬传) in the History of the Han Dynasty (Hanshu 汉书) states: “The Central Nation has always been admired by the barbarian Yi and Di with prestige.” “Prince Fangyan (方阳侯) and those he favored… committed crimes…alienated themselves from the emperor…and were exiled from the Central Earth to Hepu (合浦) Prefecture in the south” (Ban, G. 1962: 2183, 2187).

The chapter of “Biographies of the Eastern Yi Barbarians” (东夷列传) in the History of the Later Han Dynasty (Houhan Shu 后汉书) states: “The lost custom and rites of the Central Nation can be seen in barbarian states in Four Directions. These barbarian states are names the Man, Yi, Rong and Di” (Fan, Y. 1965: 2810).

The chapter of “Spirit Research” (精神训) of the Book of the Prince of Huainan” states: “Yue people consider the large serpents as delicious food, while people in the Central Nation dislike and discard them.” The chapter of “Truth Regulation Research” (道应训) in the same book states: “Because the king of Yue state commanded the army by himself. Therefore, Yue became the overlord in the Central Nation.” The chapter of “Customs of Qi State” (齐俗训) states: “The customs of hair accessories in Nine States varied greatly, such as Three Tribes of Miao bind their hair with hemp, barbarian Qiang have headbands, the people in the Central Nation wear hats and hairpins, and barbarian Yue cut their hair.” The chapter of “Topography Research” states: “The center of Jizhou (冀州) state is called the Central Earth…with eight vast lands and eight remote places, the clouds over the eight great lakes supply the rainfall to Nine States and make the temperature mild in Central Earth.” “The roads from the center can reach places in the four directions…the climate there is mild and suitable for crops, and there are many cattle, sheep, as well as six kinds of domestic animals” (Liu, A. et al. 2010: 65, 83, 106, 164, 181).

The paragraphs of “Areas within the Seas” (海内经) in the Classic of Mountains and Seas respectively list various communities in the east, west, south, and north “within the seas”, such as “The Korea and Tiandu (天毒) states are located within the East Sea and at the corner of the North Sea.” “The Heshi (壑市) state is located in the desert place next to the West Sea.” “Within the South Sea there are mountains as Hengshan (衡山), Junshan (菌山), Guishan (桂山), and San Tianzi Du (三天子都).” “Within the North Sea there is a Snake Mountain” (Yuan 2014: 371). This book also records other “various states” within the east, west, south and north seas (Yuan, Ke 2014: 237, 251, 266, 282).

The Classic of Mountains and Seas also records some places as being “in the sea”, “in the center of the sea” or “between the seas”, which are actually the coastal areas on the peripheries of the “Various States in Four Directions”. The paragraph of “Areas within the South Sea” (海内南经) records that “The indigenous people of both Ou (瓯) and Min (闽) live in the sea. It is said that the mountain of Min state is located in the sea, or to the northwest of the sea.” The paragraph of “Areas within the North Sea” (海内北经) records that “The state of Xiegu (射姑) is located in the sea belonging to Lieguxie (列姑射), and is surrounded by mountains in the south and west. There is the Daxie (大蟹) state in the sea. People there have human faces, hands, and feet, but the body of dace fish. There are other states such as Dabian (大鯾), Mingzu (明组), Penglai (蓬莱) Mountain and City of Giants (大人之市) being located in the sea.” The paragraph of “Areas within the East Sea” (海内东经) records that “Duzhou (都州), or named Yuzhou (郁州), is located in the sea. Langya (琅琊) Terrace is located in the Bohai (渤海) Sea, on the east of Langya and with mountains in the north between the seas. Hanyan (韩鴈) is located in the sea, to the south of Duzhou. Shijiu (始鸠) is located in the sea, to the south of Yuanli (辕厉).” The paragraph of “East of Great Desolate Land” (大荒东经) says that “The Liupo (流波) Mountain is located in the East Sea, seven thousand li from the coast, and there is the big beast Kui (夔).” The paragraph of “South of Great Desolate Land” (大荒南经) also records that “The Sitian (汜天) Mountain is located in the South Sea, next to the estuary of Chishui (赤水).” “On the small island in the South Sea there is a god named Butinghuyu (不庭胡余) with a human face, with earrings of two green snakes and trampling on two red snakes” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 237–238, 279–281, 284–285, 298, 307, 310, 315).

Clearly, the “Nine States” and the “Various Barbarian States in Four Directions” surrounding the “Central Nation” is a generalization of the cultural geography and geopolitical order during the origin and early stage of ancient Chinese civilization. This is the vision of Huaxia and Han ethnicities of the Central Nation. It presents the social-cultural  image of interaction and integration between the “Center” in the hinterland of the alluvial plain in the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River and the “peripheries” in Four Directions and the spatiotemporal process of “pluralistic assimilation” on Eastern Asian continent. Essentially, this is an inland spatial order “Within the Four Seas” evealing the land-centric focus of traditional China’s worldview of the geopolitical order of the land-sea interactions (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

A sketch showing the land-sea relationship with geopolitical order of “Central Nation-Peripheral Barbarians in Four Directions-Four Seas” of early Chinese civilization

2 The Geopolitical Order of Land-Sea Interactions of the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas” in Ancient Chinese Civilization

Located on the East Asian continent, China is oriented to the east and southeast toward the vast Pacific Ocean, with a coastline of 18,000 km successively adjacent to the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. Given the absence of clear knowledge of the geography of the land in “four directions” of early China, the inland area of the ancient “Nine States” and “Various States in Four Directions” surrounding the “Central Nation” were identified as being “Within the Four Seas”. Although the geographical knowledge of early China regarding the distribution of these “four seas” was not accurate and the description of Chinese nation as being surrounded by the “four seas” was an ideal and amended picture in the minds of Huaxia and Han people in the Central Nation, both in reality and geographically, China had been seen as a coastal country since the prehistoric age.

Nevertheless, archaeological investigations have revealed that an agriculturally dominant tradition of continental culture centered on the middle and lower reaches of Yellow and Yangtze rivers had been established since the Neolithic age. Although the maritime cultures characterized by the archaeological shell middens and dunes along the eastern and southeast coast had developed over thousands of years in prehistory, the maritime area was generally isolated geopolitically from the early Chinese civilization, especially within the inward-looking bias of the Huaxia and Han worldview. The historical documents recorded this continental cultural outlook of early “China” with a geopolitical prejudice using such expressions as “Within the Four Seas”, the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas”, “Reaching to the Four Seas”, and “Terminating at the Four Seas”, reflecting the basic pattern of the “ocean encounter” and the geopolitical order of land-sea interaction in early Chinese civilization.

The section of “Disciple Gaozi” (告子) of the Book of the Master Mencius says: “The four seas had been the gullied boundary of the Xia kingdom during the Yu period, but you take the neighboring states as the gullied boundary” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 6008). The section of “Ministers Yi and Ji” (益稷) in the Book of Early History states: “I dredged the nine big rivers and made them flow toward the four seas, dug the field canals and let them flow into the great rivers.” The section of “Tribute of the Yu Period” in the Book of Early History states: “From the east in the sea to the west in the desert, from the north to the south, all people within the four seas were enlightened by the king’s prestige.” The section of “Admonition of King Yi” (伊训) in this Book of Early History records that “The love and respect should exist in all families from our motherland in Central Nation and extend to the territorial boundary within the four seas” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 323, 344).

With regard to the geography of “Within the Four Seas” and “Within the Sea”, the social humanities of the boundary areas of the land and sea, such as the islands and adjacent coastal regions, were regarded as “overseas”, “outside the seas”, “oceanic states”, “sea corners”, “sea surface” and so forth, in the Huaxia perspective of early China. These identifications implied a bias that they were also isolated beyond the mother land of the Central Nation and the states in Four Directions surrounding it.

The term “overseas” is recorded in the section of “Long Flourishing” (长发) in the Book of Songs: “King Xiangtu (相土) is majestic and brave, he conquered the land to the sea, and the people overseas submitted to him” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 1351). The Classic of Mountains and Seas lists the ethnic groups in the south, west, north, and east of “overseas”: “The south of overseas is located from the southwest corner to the southeast corner of the nation” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 171), “the west of overseas is located from the southwest corner to the northwest corner of the nation” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 191), “the north of overseas is located from the northeast corner to northwest corner of the nation” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 208) and “the east of overseas is located from the southeast corner to the northeast corner” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 224).

“Oceanic states” are similarly recorded in the section of “Temple” (閟宫) in the Book of Songs: “The territory of Lu state covers the two mountains of Gui (龟) and Meng (蒙) and extends to the eastern edge of the continent next to the Oceanic states. The barbarian Huai-Yi (淮夷) there come to pay their tributes” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 1332).

“Sea corners” are recorded in the section of “Ministers Yi and Ji” (益稷) in the Book of Early History: “The people in the sea corners and the people of the various states of the Nation are your subjects… the king’s prestige spread to the borders of the Four Seas, and established junior office of head of five-person group (五长) to execute the public affairs.” In the section of “Notice of the Lord Shi” (君奭) in the “Zhou Dynasty” (周书) of the same book also records: “All places including the sea corners where the sun rises are subjected” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 300–301, 479). Also, as noted above, the paragraph of “Areas Within Seas” in the Classic of Mountains and Seas says that “The Korea and Tiandu states are located within the East Sea at the corner of the North Sea” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 371).

“Sea surface” is recorded in the section of “Establishment of Regime” (立政) in the Book of Early History: “Following the footprints of the empire Yu and inspecting the world as far as the sea surface, in which all people are subjected” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 495).

Strictly speaking, the descriptions of Central Nation being surrounded by the “Four Seas” merely represented an ideal vision of Huaxia’s worldview. In fact, mainland China is geographically adjacent to the ocean on its eastern and southern coasts, rather than being surrounded by the seas in four directions. Nevertheless, as professor Wang Zijin (王子今) believes, ancient people of the Central Nation regarded relatively large inland lakes as “seas” and thus conceived the concept of the “Four Seas”. Then, Wang also analyses the geographic locations of the “West Sea” and “North Sea” (Wang, Z.J. 2015a). There are clear clues about the locations of the East Sea and the South Sea in the pre-Qin classics in detail on the “Four Seas”, which are roughly consistent with the contemporary situation. As cited previously in this chapter, in the record of the “Tribute of the Yu Period” of the Book of Early History, the territory of the “Nine States” mainly included the river basins of the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers. In the “Monarchy” chapter of the Record of Rites, a similar geographic reach of “Within the Four Seas” was depicted as “west to Liusha (流沙) desert, south to Hengshan, east to the East Sea and north to Hengshan (恒山)” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 2916–2917). Therefore, the “Four Seas” as territory bounding of the “Nine States” should not vary much from the scope of this range. According to the “Tribute of the Yu Period”, “The Black Water (黑水) was dredged to Shanwei (三危) and flowed into the South Sea.” The locations of Black Water and Shanwei would have been roughly those of the west mountainous areas in present Sichuan (四川) and Yunnan (云南), while the Black Water flowing to the South Sea would correspond with today’s Nujiang (怒江) and Lancang (澜沧江) rivers similarly flowing to the South China Sea. “Tribute of the Yu Period” also records that “King Yu dredged the Yon (沇) River to flow eastward into the Ji (济) River, and then into Yellow River, with its overflow forming Lake Xing (荥), then flowing out eastward to the north of Taoqiu (陶丘), then east to the He (菏) River, then to the northeast to confluence with the Wen (汶) River, then to the north and flowing eastward into the sea. He also dredged Huai (淮) River from Tongbai (桐柏) eastward to its confluence with the Si (泗) and Yi (沂) rivers in the east, from where it flows eastward into the sea.” These rivers as Ji, He, Wen, Huai, Si, and Yi were located in the states of Yan (兖), Qing (青), Xu (徐) and Yang (扬) in the pre-Qin period. To their east are today’s Yellow Sea and the East Sea, which together was the “East Sea” of Yu period as mentioned previously as “flows eastward into the sea” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 318, 320).

There are a number of chapters in the Classic of Mountains and Seas respectively reveal the locations of the “Four Seas”. On the “East Sea” and the “North Sea”, the chapter of “Areas within the East Sea” records that “The Si (泗) river originates from the northeast of Lu (鲁), flows to the south and southwest to the west of Huling (湖陵), then flows southeastward into the East Sea and the north of Huaiyin (淮阴).” The chapter of “East of Great Desolate Land” records that “The state of Shaohao (少昊) is located in the great gully beyond the East Sea.” The chapter of “Areas within Sea” states that “The Korea and Tiandu states are located within in the East Sea at the corner of the North Sea, where people such as the barbarian Wei (偎) live on the water” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 224, 287, 307, 371). These places such as Sishui, Huaiyin, and Shaohao were located along the coast of modern Jiangsu and Shandong provinces, and Korea was the same place as it is today, Wei was the ancient ethnicity of Japan. Therefore “East Sea” of Yu period is roughly consistent with the present East Sea and Yellow Sea, with the same situation based on these clues recorded in “Tribute of the Yu Period”. The “North Sea” that connecting to the East Sea and Korea might be the present Bohai Sea or the Sea of Japan.

Concerning the “South Sea”, the chapter of “Areas within the East Sea” states that “The Yu (郁) River originates from the prefecture of Xiang (象郡) and flows southwest into the South Sea.” The chapter of “Areas within the Seas” states that “Within the South Sea there are mountains as Hengshan, Junshan, Guishan, and San Tianzi Du. There are the mound of Changwu (苍梧), the gulf of Changwu and Jiuyi (九嶷) mountain in the south area, and Shun was buried in Lingling (零陵) territory of Changsha (长沙) (Yuan, Ke 2014: 287, 298, 309, 385). The Yu(郁) River is today’s upper reaches of the Xijiang (西江) River, while Hengshan, Guishan, Cangwu, Jiuyi mountains are all near to present Nanling (南岭) Mountain, so the location of the “South Sea” of early China is also consistent with today’s geography.

With regard to the “West Sea”, it is recorded in the chapter of “West of Great Desolate” (大荒西经) that “There is a great mountain Kunlun (昆仑) hill located in the south of the West Sea, on the edge of Liusha (流沙) desert, behind Red Water and in front of the Black Water.” Similarly, the chapter of “Areas Within the Seas” states: “The Heshi state is located in the desert place next to the West Sea, and another state called Siye (汜叶) within the West Sea and to the west of Liusha Desert” (Yuan, Ke 2014: 331–333, 339, 344, 349, 372). These places as Red Water, Liusha Desert, the north of the Kunlun Mountain, undoubtedly were the part of present Gansu, Qinghai, Xingjian (新疆) and Inner Mongolia (内蒙古) in the northwest of China, and the “West Sea” was probably today’s Qinghai Lake (青海湖) or the more distant Aral Sea or the Caspian Sea, or even to the Persian Gulf (Wang, Z.J. 2015a).

Although the locations of the “Four Seas” in the pre-Qin period is still in dispute, relatively historical records still reveal the early Huaxia ethnicities’ ideal worldview of a geopolitical order of the land-sea interaction in eastern Asia. This is “the Central Nation” surrounding the “Nine States” and “Various Barbarian States in the Four Directions”, and then “Four Seas”, arranged in a pattern of roughly concentric circles and a center-periphery social-cultural spatial model of early Chinese civilization. This ideal spatial figure of concentric circles of land-sea has been vividly described by Zouyan (邹衍) in the Warring States Period. The chapter of “Biographies of Mencius and Xuncius” (孟子荀卿列传) in Records of the Historian (Shiji 史记) quotes Zouyan’s statement: “The outer states beyond the boundary of the Central Nation are called the Nine States. They are surrounded and separated by the great sea. Therefore, people in the Nine States and barbarians over the seas cannot communicate. In the middle of a region is a state, and there are nine states which were surrounded by the great sea in the outer circle which is the boundary of the land under heaven” (Sima, Q. 1959: 2848–2849). These references to “Central Nation”, “Nine States”, “surrounded by the great sea” and “the great sea surrounds the nation in the outer circle” reflect the ideal worldview of geopolitical order on the land-sea interaction of Huaxia and the Han nationality. The Section of the “Explanation of the Waters” (释水) of the “Explanation of Names (Shiming 释名) written in the Han Dynasty states: “The ‘sea’ means ‘obscure area’, where is dirty, turbid and the water is dark as obscure.” So the word “sea” in ancient times originated from the word “obscurity”, referring to the obscurity of the vast sea and the dark land of the wild periphery. In fact, the “Four Seas” or “beyond the Four Seas” was the imagination of the Huaxia people in Central Nation when they explored the unknown universe, and their symbol for the ideal extent of their seeking to expend their political influence and conquests (Wang, Z.J. 2014).

That is to say, on the worldview and outlook of early Chinese civilization centered on the Huaxia ethnicity in the Central Plains, the ocean was ruled beyond of the space of the direct control of this early China, the Central Nation, even generally beyond of the areas of the Nine States and the “Various States of the Four Directions” which were under the Central Nation’s effective control and influence. The land boundary surrounded by the “Four Seas”, that is, the world described as “overseas” and as the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas”, were the reflection of the geopolitical order of land-sea interaction and the strong characteristics of the continental agriculture in early Chinese civilization, also revealing the self-centered worldview of the Huaxia nationality in the Central Plains.

However, the maritime archaeological cultures representing these areas referred to as “overseas”, “in the seas”, “in the sea corners”, have been found in large quantities in the eastern and southern coasts and islands of China, with unique characteristics. Although these cultures may be termed “peripheral” and “underprivileged” in comparison with the continental cultures centered on both the basins of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, they actually and objectively added an indispensable special dimension to the diverse and pluralistic cultures of East Asia. During the 1930s, while most archaeologists in China primarily focused on Yangshao (仰韶) Culture characterized by painted pottery, and Longshan (龙山) Culture characterized by black pottery, tending to emphasize the evolution of China’s prehistoric (Neolithic) culture centered on the Yellow River basin as their main academic subject matter, Professor Lin  Huixiang (林惠祥) focused on the “Southeastern Region” (东南区) of China centered on the coastal areas of Guangdong, Fujian, and Taiwan, and neighboring Southeast Asia. He suggested that the culture of “Maritime Region of Southeastern Asia” (亚洲东南海洋地带) being characterized by the stone stepped adzes and stamp-patterned pottery remains, has been distinct from the continental cultures of northern and inland China (Lin, H.X. 1937, 1958a, b). In the 1950s, Professor Ling Chunsheng (凌纯声) similarly put forward the theory of an “Asian Mediterranean” cultural sphere centered on the waters between the East China Sea and South China Sea, distinguishing the “barbarian” maritime culture along the eastern coast of China which is characterized by “shell beads, boats, and tattoos”, from the Huaxia continental cultivation culture of inland areas centered on both the Yellow and Yangtze rivers’ basins and characterized by “gold and jade, chariot and horse, clothing and dresses” (Ling, C.S. 1954a). These discourses initiated a preliminary outline for the archaeological and ethnological lineament of the maritime cultures in prehistoric and early civilizations of China.

Archaeological investigations and researches in the past century have revealed that the maritime cultures in the eastern and southern coastal regions of China have a long history of continuous development and inheritance lasting nearly 10,000 years. A large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age shell mounds, dunes, and other sites along the coast are located in the continental drowned valleys, river estuaries and downstream river banks, coastal islands, and other marine ecological environments characterized by the accumulations and depositions of marine shellfish, reflecting the early subsistence patterns of the ancient maritime “barbarian” Yi and Yue (Yuan, J. 1995; Jiao, T.L. 2012). Among them, around Bohai Strait, hundreds of shell mound sites dating back to 7000–3500 years ago have been found along the coast of Jiaodong (胶东) peninsula on the southern side, while dozens of synchronous Neolithic sites with the same or very similar cultural contents were also found in the Miaodao (庙岛) islands in the strait and the Liaodong (辽东) peninsula on its northern side, suggesting a capacity of cross-strait navigation of the prehistoric Eastern Yi people (Yan, W.M. 1986; Han, R. 1986; Tong, W.H. 1989; Wang, X.P. et al. 1990). On the coast of the East China Sea, the Neolithic maritime settlements developed and expanded along the estuary of Qiantangjiang (钱塘江) River and coast of Taiwan Strait. For example, almost 100 settlement sites in the period of Hemudu (河姆渡) and Liangzhu (良渚) cultures have been investigated on the southern coast of Hangzhou Bay and adjacent islands dating back to 7000–000 years ago, representing the early history of maritime practices of the ancient native Yu Yue (于越) people (Cao, J. 2012). Along the west coast of the Taiwan Strait, centered on the downstream reaches and estuary of the Minjiang (闽江) River, more than 100 shell mound sites have been found, highlighting the early establishment of maritime settlements of the aboriginal Seven Min (七闽) ethnicities as the record “The Min Lives in the Sea (闽在海中)” in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Wu, C.M. 1995). Similarly along the north coast of the South China Sea, centered on the estuary of the Pearl River, more than 100 shell mound sites and dune sites dating back to 6000–3000 years ago have been found. The shell mound sites are generally located on the river banks of the Pearl River Delta and estuary, while the dune sites are often found along the coast or on the islands of the Pearl River estuary, with abundant remains of marine resources such as shellfish and fish and shrimp (Zhu, F.S. 1994; Yuan, J. 1999). Dozens of Neolithic coastal dunes and shell mound sites dating back to 5000–2500 years ago have also been investigated on the coasts of Hainan island (He, G.J. 2012; FSCAT-IA-CASS et al. 2016). These spatially and temporally diverse remain of Neolithic and Bronze ages are characterized by coastal settlements, marine fishing, and early seafaring between mainland and islands, reflecting the early maritime landscape of indigenous Yi and Yue along the coastal region of ancient China. This maritime landscape coincides with the historical records, such as “The barbarian Island Yi make and use the bark -straw woven cloth, weave bamboo, use marine shells as decorations, and generally pay a tribute of tin artifacts to the Center Nation, being located near the river and the sea and next to the Huai (淮) and Si (泗) rivers (“Tribute of the Yu Period” of the Book of Early History).” “The Eastern Yue (东越) people enjoy marine clams, Ou people like to eat snakes (“Record the Kings Meeting (王会解)” of the Lost Historical Literature of Zhou Dynasty (逸周书).” “The character of the aboriginal Yue is crude and rash. They live along mountainous coast and travel by water, taking boats with oar as their main transportation tool. They skillfully sail the boat as fast as the howling wind (“Biography of the Yue Territory (越绝外传记地传)” of the History of the Lost Yue Ethnicity 越绝书).” “The aboriginal people of both Ou and Min, live in the sea (“Areas within the South Sea” of the Classic of Mountains and Seas)” (Ruan, Y. 2009: 312–314; Huang, H.X. et al. 2007: 833–844; Yuan, Kang 1985: 57–58; Yuan, Ke 2014: 237). These coastal cultural remains reflect the early maritime practices of the ancient indigenous inhabitants in the zone of the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas” at the time of the origin and early stage of Chinese civilization, which laid the foundation for the sustainable development of the maritime culture in the ancient history of China.

Since the Han and Tang dynasties, with the development and expansion of “Assimilation and Integration of Pluralistic Cultures” of the Chinese civilization centered on the Han nationality, most of the indigenous inhabitants of Yi and Yue ethnicities have been assimilated into the Han- Chinese society along the coast of southeast China. Nevertheless, the indigenous maritime cultural essences, such as the skills of “developing the sea like cultivating the fields of a farm” and being familiar with waterways, good at using boats, and venturing navigation, have been inherited. This maritime cultural inheritance from the “Asian Mediterranean” cultural sphere of the indigenous people in Yi and Yue people, to the “Maritime Silk Road” of the Han people in south China was manifested in many aspects such as the nautical route system, the spatial layouts of traditional seaports, the ethnic groups of seaman societies, and the other maritime cultural connotations (Wu, C.M. 2004, 2007, 2011b). Moreover, following the Open Seas policy of the Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, series of foreign maritime cultures such as the Hu (胡) and Fan (番) from the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean landed and immigrated to China one after another, and to varying degrees were assimilated into the coastal societies, further enriching the connotation of the maritime culture within China’s integrated pluralistic assimilation (Wu, C.M. et al. 2011, 2017). This Open Seas policy of encouraging the development of overseas trade during the Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties led, to a considerable extent, to a reversal of the geopolitical order of land-sea interaction of the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas” of Chinese early civilization, adding pluralistic maritime and foreign cultural elements to the Chinese civilization in the Middle Ages. Both the inheritance of the maritime culture essences of the indigenous inhabitants of Yi and Yue, and the assimilation of the foreign maritime ethnic groups of the Hu and Fan in the seas around China, greatly promoted the development of maritime transportation and Maritime Silk Road in China’s history. With their mature and advanced technologies of shipbuilding and navigation, the new ethnic group of Han people who had assimilated the indigenous Yi and Yue, as well as the foreign Hu and Fan who carried out the oceanic navigation across the “Four Seas” and the “Four Oceans” between the western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, initiated the heyday of ancient Chinese maritime culture. The Open Seas policy and the combination of both Chinese and foreign cultural elements in the Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, enriched the pluralistic connotation and maritime spirit of Chinese culture and left colorful oriental records in the history of maritime culture.

However, throughout the 2000 years of navigation history since the Han Dynasty, the successive empires still generally regarded the various “Oversea Maritime Barbarian Fan” (海外诸番) as “hetero-cultures” or “different ethnicities from ours”. The prominence of inland culture and dynastic politics based on continental agriculture restricted the free development of maritime culture, even in the “Open Sea” period. In particular, the Ming and Qing dynasties enacted strict maritime bans, forbidding any seafaring activities that were independent of the government, developed the tributary trade controlled by officials, and restricted the maritime trade to a few of limited seaports. During this period, a series of prohibition policies were put into practice, such as “forbidding any boat, even a piece of wooden board floating on the sea”, and “destroying all offshore residencies and migrating all people there to inland regions”. All these high-handed measures of seafaring banning have actually represented a restoration of the maritime dilemma of the “Gullied Boundary of Four Seas” of early civilization, in which the civil maritime society along the southeast coast of China had once again suffered a major setback. Since then, as the historian concluded, “The pirates turned to be legal maritime merchants when sea trade was allowed, and the maritime merchants turned to be illegal pirates when the sea trade was forbidden” (Deng, R.Z. 2007: 673). The maritime merchants of southeast coast of China had little choice but to “illegally communicate with foreign countries” and “smuggle onto the sea to trade overseas”, forming dozens of illegally armed seafaring merchant groups that were encircled, pursued, obstructed, and intercepted by the government during the sea ban periods (Lin, R.C. 1987: 85–130). This retreat from the sea in the Ming and Qing dynasties came at the time of European global navigation, the geographic discovery of the New World, and domination of the global order in economy and culture for several hundreds of years, and resulted in the receding of China’s maritime culture in world history.

In summary, maritime culture had been an inherent connotation of the unity of Chinese civilization through the “Assimilation and Integration of Pluralistic Cultures”. However, in the geopolitical order of Chinese early civilization, indigenous inhabitants of Yi and Yue in “Maritime Region of Southeastern Asia” encountered the dominating continental cultures of the Central Nation and the surrounding inland cultures of the “Nine States” and “Various States in the Four Directions”, and the order of land-sea interactions of the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas”. Despite the Open Seas policy in the Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, when the assimilation of foreign maritime cultures revitalized the Chinese civilization in the Middle Ages, this positive process came to an abrupt end with the restoration of the ocean retreat of the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas” in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the development of maritime culture of ancient China was again thwarted.

3 Discussion: Comparison of Maritime Cultures Between the “Gullied Boundary of Four Seas” in East Asia and the Mediterranean of the West

The difference in the geographical layouts, geopolitical orders of the land and sea, and cultural essences between the East and West led to great differences in the development of the maritime cultures. The macro-geographic background of the Mediterranean being surrounded by Old World continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, presented a sea-centered layout in which a number of important early civilizations, such as the Babylon, Egyptian, Minoan and Mycenaean, arose in these bordering regions and converged one after another to reach ancient Greece and then Rome to become the basis of Western civilization centered on the Mediterranean. On contrary, the East Asian continent presents an inland-centered layout surrounded by its “Gullied Boundary of Four Seas”, where the early Chinese civilization originated pluralistically in “Nine States and Various States in Four Directions” and converged to form the Central Nation in the hinterland of the Central Plains.

Firstly, the macro-geographic background of independent hinterland units “within the four seas” of ancient Chinese civilization, differed greatly from the layout of the Mediterranean maritime civilizations surrounded by lands converging at a central ocean.

The maritime cultures of East Asia originated along the coastal region of the “Gullied Boundary” of ancient Chinese civilization that lay “within the Four Seas”, and developed over thousands of years. One of the important reason for the difficult development of ancient China maritime culture had been the macro-geographical background of the East Asia continent, the independent hinterland units being relatively isolated from the outside world by the surrounding obstacles as mountains, deserts, and ocean delineation.

The Mediterranean is the world’s largest sea surrounded by lands—actually composed of three huge continents linked together—thus creating a relatively independent oceanic geographic unit centered on the Mediterranean Basin. These three continents, Western Asia, North Africa, and Europe, are located around the Mediterranean and converge at the Mediterranean each bringing its specific geographic and cultural connections. In North Africa, the Nile flows from south to north into the Mediterranean, linking the ancient Egyptian civilization to the Mediterranean world. In West Asia, a crescent-shaped zone was home to the civilizations of the oldest kingdoms in the river basin of Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia and connected the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon by its western end in Syria. This region of the oldest civilizations is also connected to the sea where the estuary of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers discharges at their southeastern end into the Persian Gulf, acting as the geographic and cultural corridor linking the Mediterranean Sea and the European civilizations with the Indian Ocean. Another series of peninsulas comprising the Balkans, Apennine Peninsula, Iberia in the south of European continent also project from the north to south into the Mediterranean Sea, while a series of north-south lowlands connects through the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea well.

A series of north-south peninsulas arranged from east to west divide the Mediterranean Sea into many relatively independent water areas including the Black Sea, Aegean Sea, Adriatic Sea, Ionian Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, the Western Mediterranean Sea, as well as a series of islands both big and small, which together made convenient the primitive step by step navigation in this vast water. In short, the temperate Mediterranean has been naturally an excellent seafaring area for early human beings, becoming a paradise for navigators.

Secondly, the model of the continental cultures of various states in “the Four Directions” surrounding, converging and integrating with, and being assimilated by the Central Nation, is wholly different from that of the Mediterranean civilization with oceanic convergence and combination of diverse cultures from the surrounding continents.

Although the early Chinese civilization developed and assimilated pluralistic cultures from various states in “Four Directions”, all of these cultures had, in fact, originated from the same independent continent, converged and integrated inward on land in a concentric circles pattern centered on the agricultural system of Central Nation of the Huaxia.

At the heart of early western civilization were ancient Greece and Rome of the Mediterranean region, where multicultural civilizations of the Old World had converged and mixed in the sea region. The Mediterranean civilization began with classical Greece, which itself was based on the Minoan culture of Crete in 2000 BC, the Peloponnesian Peninsula, and the Aegean Islands, which was eventually replaced by the Roman Empire in 323 BC. The geographic background of Greek civilization were the various islands, peninsulas, sea bays, and coastal environments connected by the ocean, while the free spirit based on the maritime tradition grew to be the core element of the Greek civilization. The marine environment created the navigation traditions of Greek civilization, and their life style on islands and the sea, the open oceanic transportation, maritime trade with and traveling between various coastal city-states, as well the sea warfare, all represent the explicit characteristics of Greek culture. The Greeks excelled at the maritime trade of bronze, pottery, wine, olive oil, and grain, and established the maritime colonies in the Aegean Sea, ultimately dominating the trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean civilization also had its foundation of the pluralistic ancient cultures of the Old World of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Mediterranean Basin played a central role both in the convergence of diverse cultures from three continents and the diffusion of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. From the very beginning, the early civilization of Mesopotamia spread along the Fertile Crescent land to the Mediterranean coast including Egypt, so that the Sumerian art elements were included and have been identified in the early civilization of Egypt. From about the fifteenth to tenth centuries BC, with extraordinary commercial genius and nautical skills, the Syrian-Palestinian Canaanites (known to Greeks and Romans as Phoenician) on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, established a series of maritime trading bases on various Mediterranean islands and coasts from Palestine in the east to the Strait of Gibraltar in the west and shared the profits of maritime trade with Greeks in the Aegean Sea. Particularly important was the arrival of Cadmus of Phoenician origin, by whom phonetic writing is said to have been introduced into Greece (Hegel, G.W.F. 2001: 246). In the eleventh century BC, the Israelites briefly established a powerful kingdom on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Hebrew Bible they created and which contains many Mesopotamian cultural genes became the origin of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, three of the most important heritages of world culture. The Empire of Assyria of the eighth to sixth century BC, the Persian Empire of the sixth to fourth century BC unified the vast Fertile Crescent land and further promoted the return of the Near East civilization to the Mediterranean area in general and Greece in particular. Even at the time when Alexander defeated Persia and established a greater “Hellenistic” Empire that included the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Indus River Basin in the east, the Near East culture still represented an important part of the Hellenistic culture. “The so-called Hellenistic culture is a culture in which the histories of the East and the West converged with each other in this era.” The region of Greece is the sucker and melting pot of multiculturalism, accompanied by the whole process of evolution of Greek civilization, “The peoples and empires of the ancient Near East had already deeply influenced Greek culture. Ancient Greece was indebted to the Near East for its alphabet, mythology, and architecture, and the beginning of its technology and science…Behind Greece and Rome lies the rich experience of the ancient Near East, without which those later civilizations would be inconceivable” (Ollister, C.W. et al. 2005: 135). “Small wonder, then, that the Middle Sea should not only have nurtured three of the most dazzling civilizations of antiquity, and witnessed the birth or blossoming of three of our greatest religions; it also provided the principal means of communication” (Norwich, J.J. 2011: 1). Therefore, in the assessing of the development of several early civilizations in the history of the world, traditional scholars often claim that the ancient civilization of China is the only one that developed uninterruptedly and continuously, while ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others represent “interrupted” or the “extinct” civilizations. However, needless to say, the genes of the early civilization of the Near East flowed completely through the body of Greece and then Rome in the process of the change, the inheritance, and the development in the spread of civilizations with oceanic convergence in Mdeiterranean.

Finally, the prominent essence of inland agriculture, and the estranging situation of land-sea geopolitical order represented by the “Gullied Boundary of the Four Seas” in ancient Chinese civilization, was also very different from the tradition of maritime expansion and communication of Mediterranean civilization centered on Greece and Rome.

From Babylon, Assyria to Persia, the powerful empires that unified the Fertile Crescent land continuously imported the achievements of Near East civilization into the Mediterranean, and in the meantime undoubtedly opened up an important gateway for the spread of the Mediterranean maritime culture to the outside world. From the Trojan War to Greco-Persian Wars in the fifth century BC, and to Alexander, the Macedonian king conquest of the Persian Empire in the fourth century BC, the Greeks established the largest empire in the world at that time, extending from the India and Arabian Sea in the east to Egypt in the south, initiating the heyday of the spreading of the Greek culture in the Middle East. A great number of Greeks migrated to Syria, Asia Minor, the Nile Basin, and even to the Indus Basin, thus forming a great Greek cultural sphere. This expansion of Hellenistic culture laid the foundation for the political and spiritual unity of Christianity in the Mediterranean world under Roman rule. The scientific spirit, cosmopolitanism, materialism, religious diversity, increased industrial specialization, and large-scale business activities brought about by Hellenization had fundamental influence on Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim civilizations, as well as on the medieval West (Ollister, C.W. et al. 2005: 148–149).

Both Rome and Greece are located in the maritime areas of the central Mediterranean, so the ancient Greek and Roman cultures once greatly influenced each other, though Greek culture had more profound influence on Rome. The Greek history did not end in the vast territory of the Roman Empire, however, rather a new chapter of the history of ancient Greece began under the domination of Rome (Ollister, C.W. et al. 2005: 67). While ostensible it was the Roman Empire that conquered Greek land and the vast Hellenized areas, in reality to a large extent it was Greek culture that conquered the Romans, as “The Romans assumed the mission of popularizing Greek culture to the West” (Li, Y.N. 2013: 994, 1061). Christianity, which appeared fairly early in the Roman Empire, was the product of a combination of the Jewish Bible with the Greek philosophy and became the most enduring legacy of Rome for Western civilization. Even after the Roman Empire collapsed in the sixth century, Greek and Roman culture never truly died out in the West. “The West was nourished by the Greco-Roman culture and is haunted by the memory of Rome” (Ollister, C.W. et al. 2005: 246).

At the end of the fifteenth century, with the opening of the new geographic routes, the western civilization which had been founded in ancient Greece and Rome quickly came to dominate the first true globalization based on Mediterranean civilization. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and started the era of European colonization in the American continents. In 1498, by passing the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean, Vasco Da Gama started the European maritime trade history in the Far East that lasted for nearly five hundred years. From 1519 to 1522, Ferdinand Magellans’ fleet completed its first global voyage across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. The geographic discoveries and global maritime trade moved the center of western maritime civilization from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Atlantic coast. Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, the United States, and others became respectively the sea powers in the different periods through their control of the sea. Thus, once again the world history was forged through its oceans, this time with a profound Western imprint, again highlighting the strong driving force of maritime civilization. “The Mediterranean Sea, the three continents that compose it have an essential relation to each other and constitute a totality…Greece lies here, the focus of light in history…The Mediterranean is thus the heart of the Old World, for it is that which conditioned and vitalized it. Without it, the history of the world could not be conceived” (Hegel, G.W.F. 2001: 104). The comments by Hegel are not so much an assessment of the status of the Mediterranean in the history of the world, but rather an emphasis on the great role of the ocean in human history.