I. Panyu: A City of Overseas Rarities

In the chapter, "The Biography of Huo Zhi" in Historical Records, Sima Qian, the father of Chinese historiography, in his introduction of the economic and social conditions, enumerated nine famous big cities in those days. Panyu was the only city in Lingnan included: "Panyu (Guangzhou) is also a big city, with a diversity of goods such as pearls, rhinos, hawksbills, fruits and cloths". Evidently, Panyu had become the commercial center in South China with the establishment of close relations with overseas countries more than two thousand years ago. Ban Gu's Book of the Han was completed more than one hundred years after Historical Records and introduces the seven important big cities in the country in those days. Panyu was one of those:"There is a place in Lingnan near the sea, with large quantities of rhinos, elephants, hawksbills, peals, silvers, bronze, fruits and cloths. Merchants from the central part of the country make great fortune, and Panyu is one of those big commercial cities".

The city of Panyu was located in a highland (now Beijing Road and the 5th Zhongshan Road of Yuexiu District). Near its south lay the sea, water clear and blue. Some of the ships were traveling; some were anchoring, coming to and fro in a stream. There was shallow water to the west of the city and it was forming land. Its altitude was low, with crisscrossed rivers and fields. Scattered residential areas of different sizes were situated on the higher land. Panyu was like a cornucopia; the rhinoceros were gathered in this big city and were sold to the inner land.

Maritime trade was no novelty to the people in Panyu in the Han dynasty. Before Qin Shi Huang conquered Lingnan, he already knew about Panyu; Huai Nan Zi records: "Qin Shihuang loved rhinoceros horns, ivories, jades and beads of the Yue Kingdom, so he ordered his military officer Tu Sui to command 500, 000 soldier and organize them into five armies." In other words, it was for the purpose of taking the overseas valuables such as rhinoceros horns, ivories, jades and beads that Qin Shihuang dispatched 500, 000 soldiers to attack Lingnan. After Qin Shihuang subdued the area, the cultivated population flowed to the south, with the advanced production experience, techniques and instruments. The interaction between Panyu and the hinterland became very close. Economic development was accelerating, followed by active commercial exchange. The five ivories exhumed in the Tomb of the King of Nanyue are all over 120 centimeters long. Unlike the slim size of Asian elephants', their tooth bodies are thick and strong from which we can tell that their origins are African. The ornamentation on the silver boxes is completely different from that of traditional Chinese ware, but is similar to the golden and silver ones of Persia in Western Asia at that time (B.C.E. 550-B.C.E. 330), indicating them as the earliest foreign goods discovered in Guangzhou to date. The advanced technique of welded beads of golden bubble-shape fittings is the same as that found on gold beads in Western countries, but different from the gold and silver processing of China, suggesting that they are imported.

In the middle of the Western Han dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty sent armies to wipe out South Yue, and Panyu as its capital was burnt. However, prosperous commercial trade helped Panyu recover in a short period of time. At the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, Panyu was more prosperous: "Precious rarity of all varieties, and countless", proving that there was an affinity between Panyu and the Maritime Silk Road and that Panyu was the important birthplace of the Maritime Silk Road.