Yelang (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Yelang was an ancient kingdom centered in what is now western Guizhou. The ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian describes it as west of the Mimo and Dian, south of Qiongdu (in what is now southern Sichuan), and east of the nomadic Sui and Kunming. Yelang is well-known to modern Chinese because of an incident said to have occurred in the 120s BC. According to this story, the king of Yelang, convinced that his kingdom was the greatest in all the world, inquired rhetorically of the Han emperor's envoy, "Which is greater, Yelang or Han?" This gave rise to the Chinese idiom "Yelang thinks too highly of itself." At first called Zangke, Yelang was established in the 3rd century BC. Han envoy Tang Meng met with Yelang ruler Duotong to negotiate a military alliance against the Southern Yue of Guangdong. At this time, Yelang was said to be capable of fielding 100,000 crack soldiers. The outcome of these negotiations is not known. Later, a "marquis of Yelang" is recorded as visiting the Han capital Changan. In 27 BC, there was a uprising in which King Xing was defeated and killed by Han soldiers.