— 13a — 



and products of his country, and asked to be invested as king. The Eni- 

 peror issued a decree by which an officer was sent there for the purpose, 

 but some time afterwards the same king sent tribute again and reported 

 that the cap and the girdle, which had been bestowed upon him, were 

 burned ; the emperor then ordered that a cap of leather , a dress, a daily dress 

 of red sük gauze , a girdle adorned with rhinoceros-horn and a cap of gauze 

 should be given to him. 



In the year 1459 this king's son, Su-tan Wang-su-sha (*), sent envoys 

 to bring tribute, on which the Emperor ordered some officers to go and 

 invest him as king. After two years the officers of the Board of Rites re- 

 ported that these imperial envoys, on the second day of their voyage, had 

 met with a storm , which disabled the ship ; they had been tossed about for 

 six days and were then rescued by people of the coastguard. The imperial 

 letter was saved, but the goods had all been damaged by water, for which 

 reason they requested that new ones should be given. The Emperor granted 

 what was asked and ordered the envoys to go again. 



In the year 1474 the censor Ch'ên Chün went to Champa with an 

 imperial commission to invest the king there, but on his arrival he found 

 the country occupied by Annamese soldiers, so that he could not enter it; 

 he then went to Malacca, with the goods he had brought, and ordered its 

 king to send tribute; when, subsequently , his envoys arrived at the capital, 

 the Emperor was much pleased and issued a decree in which they were 

 praised. 



In the 9th month of the year 1481 envoys arrived with the report that 

 the envoys of their country, who had returned from China in 1469, had been 

 driven by a storm on the coast of Annam , where many of their people were 

 killed ; the rest had been made slaves and the younger ones had further un- 

 dergone castration. They also told that the Annamese now occupied Champa 

 and that they wanted to conquer their country too, but that Malacca, re- 

 membering that they all were subjects of the emperor, hitherto had abstained 

 from reciprocating these hostilities. 



At the same time the envoys with the tribute of Annam arrived also, 

 and the envoys of Malacca requested permission to argue the question with 

 them before the court, but the Board of War submitted that the affair was 

 already old and that it was of no use to investigate it any more. When 

 therefore the envoys of Annam returned, the Emperor gave them a letter in 



o mn^mi>. 



