Study On The Social Cutoms Of Hunan In The Eyes Of Vietnamese Envoys In The Qing Dynasty

It had been 218 years from the establishment of suzerain-vassal relationship between China and Vietnam in Kangxi sixth year(1667) to termination in Guangxu eleventh year(1885) in Qing Dynasty. 79 types of existing Yanxing literature in Vietnam on travelling of Vietnamese envoys from Yuan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty before Sino-French War were recorded in Chinese-written Literature Collection in Vietnam(Vietnam Version) which was published in June, 2010. It became valuable historical data for later generations to learn about ancient China. Diplomatic crops Yanxing were dispatched to pay tribute for several times in Post Li Dynasty, Xishan Dynasty and Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam. Starting from Zhennanguan, Guangxi, envoys went from Guilin Lingqu Canal in Guangxi to Xiang River. After going through Quanzhou, they entered Hunan and went down the Xiang River, passing the Yongzhou Fu, Hengzhou Fu, Changsha Fu and Yuezhou Fu. Experiencing both waterway and land route, envoys were still not tired of recording the landscape of Xiaoxiang and gave observation and reviews on Hunan economy of Qing Dynasty as well as current political situation in late Qing Dynasty in their spare time. On the basis of detailed analysis in this paper, it is found that the description of Vietnamese envoys on landscape, cultural landscape and religious activities of Hunan directly shows their deep sense of identity towards Chinese culture, especially Confucian culture. They were delighted to communicate with Chinese people and showed “Han culture level” with “cultural identity”. For sufferings of common people and corruption of local official management, line drawing was always applied in a straight way to provide good historical data of later Qing Dynasty for later generations.