The name of "Rising to the Sea" continued until the Southern and Northern Dynasties. However, Liang Shu (Volume 54) Biographies of Hainan Countries: "The dry land is on the South China Sea continent" (the ancient place of dry land is on Sumatra Island today) began to use the name of "South China Sea", and it became more and more popular in the Tang and Song Dynasties. In the early Tang Dynasty, poets were exiled to Vietnam. The above quotation shows that as far back as 15 years ago, the people of China already knew the South China Sea and its islands, and called the South China Sea "Rising Sea" and "South China Sea". The islands in the South China Sea are generally referred to as "Rising Sea Head" and "Coral Island"; The term "magnet" refers to reefs and shoals, which means that there are many reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, and it is difficult for ships to run aground, just like being attracted by magnets.
Explaining the meaning of "rising the sea", the Records of Qiongzhou Prefecture said: "Those who rise in the south are also in Tianchi, and the earth is extremely lonely, so they are called Yanhai; The water overflows, so it rises to the sea. " Qu Dajun, a beginner in the Qing Dynasty, has a similar explanation in Cantonese New Language: "The sea is overflowing, so it is called' rising the sea'." Reflect China ancients' understanding of tidal phenomena in the South China Sea. In ancient times, the South China Sea was not only called "Rising Sea", "South China Sea" and "Yan Sea", but also called "Zhuya Sea" (Jin Guo Pu's Notes on Shan Hai Jing: "(From the ear country) is in the sea of Zhuya"; Tang Lishan also commented on Jin Zuosi's Wu Du Fu: "Zhu Ya Hai has Zhu ..."), "Continent Ocean" and "Qionghai" ("Yazhou Zhi": "Zhoudong is connected with Continent Ocean, with thousands of miles of stone ponds and miles of Changsha, which is the most dangerous place for Qiongyang", and "Qiongzhou Prefecture Zhi" is the same. "Records of Qiongzhou Prefecture": "Then the sea of Qiongzhou rises"). In addition to the above-mentioned "Rising Sea Head" and "Coral Island", the South China Sea Islands are also called "Wood Drinking State" (Tang Lishan's note on the word "Drinking Wood" in Wu Du Fu was quoted earlier: "There are Zhu in Zhuya Sea, which is 5 miles from east to west and thousands of miles from north to south, and there is no water spring, so you can drink it in pots and jars." Duan Chengshi's Youyang Miscellaneous Works in Tang Dynasty: "Muyin State, Zhuya State, where there is no spring, people don't make wells, so they all use tree juice"). Among them, Kangtai's Biography of Fu Nan recorded that "when the sea rises to Coral Island, there are rocks on the bottom of the island, and corals grow on it", which is the earliest scientific explanation of the causes of coral reefs in the South China Sea islands in the world.
The first map
The medieval map unearthed in Mawangdui No.3 Han Tomb in Changsha in December, 1973 was named "Topographic Map of Changsha National Shenping Defense Zone in the Early Western Han Dynasty" by historian Tan Qixiang, also known as "Topographic Map of Southern Changsha", which was drawn on square silk with a length of 96 cm, according to a wooden slip unearthed at the same time. Topographic Map is the earliest existing map plotting the South China Sea. The orientation of Topographic Map is from top to bottom to north. From the whole map, the main areas are drawn accurately and meticulously, while the accuracy of other parts is reduced. From the main area up to the south to the South China Sea, this is the jurisdiction of Nanyue (Nanyue) king, a vassal of the Western Han Dynasty. The scale of this part of the map becomes smaller, and the drawing accuracy drops significantly. There are rivers on the map, and the coastline is symbolically drawn as a half-moon curve. In any case, the South China Sea appeared on the map of China more than 2,1 years ago. In the Tang Dynasty, China's ancient navigators added a new geographical concept: "Southwest Sea" to the geographical concept of "South China Sea", which generally refers to the southern waters of and Pakistan today, and also includes the Arabian Sea today. It should be pointed out that "South China Sea" and "Southwest China Sea" are both named after China, China and China, the ancient navigators of China.
the south China sea islands were recorded in the Han dynasty. The historical materials of the Yuan Dynasty put "a thousand miles of Changsha" (the Nansha Islands today) under the jurisdiction of Hainan Island. In the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He traveled to the West via Xisha and Nansha, and left a nautical chart of the South China Sea.