Jiaozhi and Rinan in what is now northern Vietnam became the main point of entry to China from countries to the west as far away as the Roman Empire, as recorded in the Book of the Later Han:
In the ninth Yanxi year [ad 166], during the reign of Emperor Huan, the king of Da Qin [the Roman Empire], Andun (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,r. 161-180), sent envoys from beyond the frontiers through Rinan... During the reign of Emperor He [ad 89-105], they sent several envoys carrying tribute and offerings. Later, the Western Regions rebelled, and these relations were interrupted. Then, during the second and the fourth Yanxi years in the reign of Emperor Huan [ad 159 and 161], and frequently since, [these] foreigners have arrived [by sea] at the frontiers of Rinan [Commandery just south of Jiaozhi] to present offerings.[7]
The Book of Liang states:
The merchants of this country [the Roman Empire] frequently visit Funan [in the Mekongdelta], Rinan (Annam) and Jiaozhi [in the Red River Deltanear modern Hanoi]; but few of the inhabitants of these southern frontier states have come to Da Qin. During the 5th year of the Huangwu period of the reign of Sun Quan [ad 226] a merchant of Da Qin, whose name was Qin Lun came to Jiaozhi [Tonkin]; the prefect [taishou] of Jiaozhi, Wu Miao, sent him to Sun Quan [the Wu emperor], who asked him for a report on his native country and its people."[8]
The capital of Jiaozhi was proposed by Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to have been the port known to the geographerPtolemy and the Romans as Cattigara, situated near modern Hanoi.[9] Richthofen's view was widely accepted until archaeology at Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta suggested that site may have been its location. Cattigara seems to have been the main port of call for ships traveling to China from the West in the first few centuries ad, before being replaced by Guangdong.[10]