Khu Liên founds the kingdom of Linyi, 190–193

Khu Liên founds the kingdom of Linyi

In the disorders at the end of the Eastern Han, Khu Liên (Qu Lian in the Chinese histories), the son of a local officer of Xianglin, the southernmost county of the Han commandery of Rinan, killed the Chinese magistrate and proclaimed himself king. His kingdom, called Linyi by the Chinese, is regarded as the forerunner of Champa; its founding is conventionally dated to 192.

Date

between 190 and 193exact date unknown: an interval is given

Place

Xianglin (Tượng Lâm), near Huếapproximate locationtoday: Huế, Vietnam · Southeast Asia and Oceania

Participants

Khu Liên, Champa, Han dynasty

Threads

Southeast Asia and Oceania (1st–10th c.)

Also known as

Lâm Ấp; Lin-yi; Lam Ap; Founding of Champa; Ламап; Основание Тямпы

The Chinese sources are brief and differ in detail. The Book of Jin says that at the end of the Later Han the son of the county’s gongcao (a local officer), surnamed Qu and named Lian, killed the magistrate and made himself king; his descendants succeeded him until the line died out and his daughter’s son Fan Xiong took the throne. The Commentary on the Water Classic (Shuijing zhu) calls the founder Qu Kui and places the rising in the disorders of the Chuping era (190–193); the Book of Liang names him Qu Da and makes the officer himself the founder. George Coedès, following the Chinese texts, dated the founding to about 192, which remains the conventional date.

Xianglin had long been restless. The Book of the Later Han records a raid by more than 2,000 “barbarians” of Rinan and Xianglin in 100, and in 137 an attack on Xianglin by several thousand people from beyond the frontier, among whom it names one Qu Lian, written with different characters; Coedès thought this name could scarcely be dissociated from that of the founder, and the Vietnamese annals date Khu Liên’s rising itself to 137. Xianglin is usually placed near modern Huế, but the exact site has not been established. The people of Linyi are usually thought to have been mostly Cham, speakers of an Austronesian language, although some scholars question this; the kingdom kept its independence from China, later adopted Indian culture, and by the 4th century its kings were leaving inscriptions in Sanskrit.

Connections

Related events

Sa Huỳnh culturec. 1000 BC – c. 200 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniathe people of the Sa Huỳnh culture were most likely the ancestors of the Cham

Trưng sisters’ rebellionMarch 40 – 43 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniaan earlier rising against Han rule that spread as far as Rinan

Yellow Turban RebellionMarch 184 – between December 184 and January 185 · East AsiaLinyi arose as Later Han power weakened

Same participants

Same place

Adjacent events in the thread

Founding of Funan: Kaundinya and Queen Liuyebetween 1 and 100 · Southeast Asia and Oceania

Óc Eo, the port of Funanbetween 1 and 100 – between 601 and 700 · Southeast Asia and Oceania

Khu Liên founds the kingdom of Linyi

Connections

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Meanwhile in the world

Western and Central Europe

Eastern Europe

Middle East and Egypt

Africa

South Asia

North America

Latin America

The same period

Sources