32 replies to this topic

[Yun]

I agree with Ludahai's analysis. For my assessment of why Dali was considered a vassal kingdom by the Song regime (including Southern Song), see http://www.chinahist...p...t&p=4860189

I should add that this arrangement was more pragmatic than anything else. The second Song emperor realized that his military was not strong enough to restore the former imperial boundaries of the Tang empire, especially after he failed to reconquer Annan, what is now Vietnam. So he simply declared Yunnan as a region that would permanently be immune from invasion and conquest by the Song.

[jayshen]

Based on several sources, i found that the reigon of Yunnan had been kind of like a settlement area for the central chinese since like Qin Shihuang era to establish and maintain the trade routes between central china and india. For example to expand the burgeoning trade with Burma and India, Emperor Han Wu Di sent General Guo Chang (郭昌) south to Yunnan to establish some counties and on another time sent Tang Meng (唐蒙) to maintain and expand the Five Foot Way, renaming it "Southwest Barbarian Way" (西南夷道). Thus technically the then "modern" center of Yunnan was to central China like the american colonies were to Great Britiain.

Then after the Han Dynasty due to the war between the Three Kingdoms, the reigon become more or less autonomously( note: Not independent ) controled by the Tribal people. In the three kingdom storyline, Yunnan reigon was known as Nanzhong and Zhuge Liang's famous 7 defeat of MengHuo was in this reigon.

And even when the nanzhao kingdom was established, the 1st king's authority over the reigon was granted by the then Tang emperor.

Thus from this we can see that even before Dali Kingdom was established, the reigon of Yunnan was already more or less "owned" by the central china government. However the control was given to the local people. A modern example would probably be like Hongkong( 1 country two systems). So in a lighter note, the rise of the Dali kingdom over the nanzhao kingdom can be seen like just one political party taking over.

[shawn]

http://en.wikipedia....e:China_11b.jpg

Here a link of the picture of Dali.

How come there is so little information about the army, economy, agriculture on the kingdom of Dali?

Yun, in your studies, are there any information of the information of kingdom of Dali?