Hépǔ

Hépǔ, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Tonkin, was a port of overseas exchange as early as the Han dynasty. Its coastal waters were famous for natural pearls, the finest in China, which were gathered from oyster beds and sent to markets and imperial courts. From 1368 to the end of the empire it was the seat of Lianzhou Prefecture in Guangdong. The scholar Qu Dajun, writing in the early Qing, counted six pearl pools on the coast from Leizhou and Lianzhou to Annam, and ranked the Duanwang pool highest.

Under the Ming, imperial demand made the pearl fisheries a source of both wealth and hardship. The court repeatedly dispatched officials to supervise the collection, requisitioning boats and labour from the coast. In 1600 the eunuch Lǐ Fèng brought hundreds of vessels and large numbers of men to work the beds, at great expense and with a meagre yield. Local poetry remembered the burdens imposed by such expeditions.