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Cheng-hua: Year 23, Month 9, Day 14

30 Sep 1487

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The envoy Kun Jiang-yue and others who had been sent by Guo-long Bo-la Lue-kun Xi-li You-di-ya, the king of the country of Siam, brought a gold-leaf memorial and offered tribute in gratitude for Imperial grace. They also advised: "Under the former regulations, our country's native script (番字) and Arabic script (回回字) were both used. Recently, there were differences between the language of the gold-leaf memorial by which enfeoffment was requested and the tally-slips and despatch note. The king suspects that the people of the country who wrote the native script have engaged in fraud. It is requested that an investigation be conducted." However, the native script of the memorial was difficult to read (難於辯識) and it was ordered that that country carry out its own investigation. It was also ordered that in future, only the use of Arabic script was to be permitted and that difficult-to-understand native scripts were not to be used, so as to prevent abuses.

Xiao-zong: juan 2.14b

Zhong-yang Yan-jiu yuan Ming Shi-lu, volume 51, page 36

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Preferred form of citation for this entry:

Geoff Wade, translator, Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu: an open access resource, Singapore: Asia Research Institute and the Singapore E-Press, National University of Singapore, http://epress.nus.edu.sg/msl/reign/cheng-hua/year-23-month-9-day-14-0, accessed January 22, 2019