The Great Diantnam means Yunnan . Contemporary Yunnan nationalists call Yunnan “ The Great Diantnam “, “Diannia” or “Dianland” . The Diantnese nation includes races such as Shangjiang( Yunnan Han),Yi,Bai,Lisu,Miao、Yao,Panthays( Yunnan Hui),Dai and Lexical .In addition, there are people speaking Yunnanese outside Diantnam.In Thailand, the local Thai people call the cantonese and chaoshanese speakers from Guangdong as “Chin”, and call all the Yunnanese immigrants from Diantnam, including the panthays (Yunnan Hui), who speak Yunnanese as “Haw”. Some literatures also spell “Hor” or “Ho”.
1 .The History Of Ancient Yunnan civilization
I.The local countries era
The ancient Yunnan civilization began very early, dating back to the prehistoric times. As for its ending time, I think it can be fixed at the time when the whole political, religious and cultural systems that made ancient Yunnan a civilization was destroyed by the Ming dynasty destroyed Dali in 1382. However, the remnants of the ancient Yunnan civilization did not end until the last chieftain was wiped out in the 1950s. Yunnan is located in an exceptional geographical position. It is at the crossroad linking several civilizations. To its north is a north-south corridor in the Hengduan mountains, which connects to Inner Asia and is called the “Zang and Yi corridor”. To its east is the Xijiang river basin, which is connected with Cantonia and can be connected with Baiyue. There are several rivers in Yunnan, which originate in Yunnan and flow all the way to Southeast Asia. One is the Lancang River, which is also called the Mekong River, that enters Thailand. One is the Nu River, which enters Myanmar and is also known as the Salween River. To the west are the traffic roads between Yunnan and India through the Gaoligongshan mountains on the Myanmar border. They go all the way to India through Myanmar. This is known as the “Sindhu Road”. In the history of Yunnan, the Inner Asians went to Yunnan through the south-north corridor of the Hengduan mountains and the Baiyue people went into Yunnan through Xijiang, who brought population and order to Yunnan. Meanwhile, Indian civilization exported civilization and order into Yunnan through the Sindhu Road. Southeast Asia was the place to accept the order from Yunnan because the Yunnanese could move into Thailand and Burma from the upper streams of several rivers.
Yunnan can be divided into several regions. First of all, the area of Lijiang in northwest Yunnan, which is relatively close to Tibet, is culturally similar to Tibet and once occupied as a place in the feudal system of Tibetans. The south and southeast regions are close to Southeast Asia, close to the Xijiang river. In the vast central area, Dali in the West Yunnan and Kunming in the East Yunnan are the two centers. This area is the original part of Yunnan and belongs to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. There are many mountains, and many flatlands between them as well. There are two big lakes, the Dian Lake is on the edge of Kunming, and the Erhai Lake is on the edge of Dali. Between the mountains and the lakes, there are small pieces of ground called “Bazi”. Such a fragmented landscape suggests that it would be hard to establish an authoritarian regime in Yunnan without outside interference.
The ancient people of Yunnan were like the Baipu of Guizhou and Sichuan, who had their own tribal organizations. They were able to fully communicate with the Inner Asian ethnic groups by crossing the Zang and Yi corridor in the mountains. During the Zhou dynasty’s war to eliminate the Shang dynasty, many Inner Asians and Baipu tribes joined the war as allies of the Zhou Dynasty. After the 8th century BC, the Scythians began to rise in Inner Asia. In the following 500 years, they continued to enter Yunnan through the Zang and Yi corridor. The Anner Asian tribes established the two states of Ailaoguo and Kunming Kingdom in western Yunnan. The Ailaoguo and Kunming Kingdom were more like tribal alliances than states. In the east of Yunnan, the people of Baiyue entered Yunnan in the 3rd century BC and established the Dian Kingdom near the Dian Lake in the east of Yunnan. The ruler of the Dian Kingdom was said to be a Baiyue general of the Chu Kingdom. However, the warrior group in the Dian Kingdom had many Inner Asians. Therefore, the ruling class of the Dian Kingdom should be the Baiyue people and the Inner Asians, who together ruled the conquered Baipu people. In central Yunnan, Indians established the Baizi Kingdom.
In the last 300 years before Christ, the trade routes from Yunnan to India were very prosperous, and Indian expatriates appeared in west Yunnan. Goods from Sichuan and Yunnan went through Sindhu Road from Myanmar to India, all the way to what is now Afghanistan. During this period, some basic features of ancient Yunnan civilization had appeared. First, the relationship between Yunnan and India was very close. Secondly, there was the duality of Yunnan in geography and culture. Eastern Yunnan and western Yunnan became quite different. Thirdly, the ancient Yunnan civilization had many characteristics of Inner Asia. Since then, the Inner Asians had been the dominant class and warriors of the ancient Yunnan civilization. Fourthly, the characteristics of Baiyue people in the ancient Yunnan ruling class also appeared at this time. Baiyue people established Gouding Kingdom in the southeast region of Yunnan. When Emperor Wu of the Han invaded Yunnan, the Dian Kingdom was conquered and the Gouding Kingdom became strong. In this way, the pattern that the Baiyue people mainly in the south and the Inner Asians mainly in the north was settled.
II.Nanzhong noble family era
After the continuous attack of the Han Dynasty, all the above states were destroyed except for the Baizi Kingdom. However, the civilization of Yunnan itself did not break down. A country like Kunming is an alliance of tribes, and China brought down its national organization only to return it to a tribal state. In order to control Yunnan, the Han Empire forced large Numbers of noble families to immigrate to Yunnan. The intention of the Han Empire was undoubtedly to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it could use immigrants to suppress the indigenous resistance of Yunnan. On the other hand, it could use this to exile the noble families of the empire. However, these noble families were relatively more autonomous. For example, the family of Lv Jia, the prime minister of South Yue, was such a big family. After their community entered Yunnan, they fully integrated with the native tribes, and the common law of the two sides gradually merged into one. It was entirely possible for these noble families to rebuild the community in the manner of their families in the South Yue, and then marry and communicate with the local tribes, gradually blending into each other. These forced immigrants, many of whom were originally the noble families of the ethnic groups just conquered by the Han Empire, were not much different from the indigenous tribes of Yunnan, and their common laws were relatively easy to connect. The common laws could continuously grow and merge. For example, the British common law was the product of various ethnic groups joining their own common laws at different times. In Yunnan at that time, the customs of different ethnic groups merged. Thus, by the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Yunnan entered the era of noble families’ politics.
In the 2nd century, more than a dozen noble families appeared in Yunnan. Most of these noble families seemed to have Chinese names, such as Cuan, Meng, and Huo. These people generally claimed that their ancestors came from north China, but it was hard to tell whether they were actually “Han” people. First of all, those noble leaders often intermarried with the aboriginal tribes of Yunnan and became very close to each other. When immigrants were wanted for violating the brutal laws of the Han Empire, the natives often protected them. In the event of a dispute among the aborigines, these noble leaders were skilled in using Yunnan’s customary law to adjudicate. This customary law was called “Yi Jing” by the Han people. Since these noble families knew “Yi Jing”, aboriginal people were also willing to resort to these noble families for judgment when they encountered disputes. This showed that these noble families had become no different from the local aborigines. They had become the local community leaders in Yunnan.
As the customary law, the content of “Yi Jing” must be very complex. It was definitely based on the indigenous customary law of Yunnan, but it certainly also included the customary laws that immigrants brought from all parts of the Han Empire. In any case, the framework must be based on Yunnan. As these noble families fully intermarried with these aborigines, they became the same after several generations. At this time, a dozen noble families suddenly all claimed to be from north China, which was quite suspicious. This was similar to the invention of northern ancestors by many Cantonese clans after the 16th century.
In the Three Kingdoms period, for these noble families, the exiled power of Shu Han was not so close. On the contrary, the Cantonese Shi Xie’s regime and Goetlnish Dongwu Empire’s regime, these self-governing regimes, made them feel closer. If Shu Han and Cao Wei were to fight for supremacy in the north, they would have to occupy Yunnan and exploit local resources. Therefore, the Zhuge Liang’s invasion took place. The Zhuge Liang’s invasion was later invented as a kind of myth, but the stories in it were obviously untenable. In this myth, it seemed that Zhuge Liang promoted benevolence and government in Yunnan, won the local people’s hearts, and convinced the local people through “the Seven Captures of Menghuo”. However, a few years after Zhuge Liang’s invasion, until the death of Shu Han, the noble families in Yunnan had continuously rebelled. Therefore, these noble families did not yield to China because of the attack of Zhuge Liang but had been fighting with the Chinese. After the extinction of Shu Han, they supported the Jin Empire and fought with the Dongwu for a better relationship. After the Jin Dynasty destroyed Wu, they had a fierce struggle with the Jin Dynasty. Only when the Di people established the Chenghan Empire in Sichuan had they quickly surrendered to Chenghan. Therefore, in the eyes of these noble families, the Di people, such as the Inner Asians, were far closer to them than the Chinese. As for the noble families who remained loyal to the Jin Dynasty, they were destroyed by the Cuan family. The Cuan family had been the ruler and monarch of Yunnan. After the Jin Empire conquered the Chenghan Empire, it was also usurped by the Southern Dynasties. The Southern Dynasties were far beyond the reach of Yunnan. The southern regimes could only declare its sovereignty over Yunnan on the map. In so doing, the Cuan family became a truly independent state.
Under the rule of the Cuan family, after about two centuries of evolution, the Yunnan people split into two caste-like groups, called Baiman and Wuman. Today, they are regarded as the predecessors of the Bai people and the Yi people. There were more Baiman in western Yunnan and more Wuman in eastern Yunnan. Of course, this distribution was not absolute. There were also a certain number of Wuman in western Yunnan and Baiman in eastern Yunnan. Baiman engaged in farming and commerce. In the biggest bazi in Yunnan, the Dali bazi between the Cangshan Mountain and the Erhai Lake, was a group of Baiman settlements. As for Wuman, they often lived in the mountains, maintaining nomadic habits and a relatively complete tribal organization, and thus had a stronger fighting power.
In A.D. 570, the Cuan’s leader Cuan Zan, on his deathbed, made a profound and significant decision of Yunnan ancient civilization. He divided his kingdom two parts, where his eldest son Cuan Wan ruled “Baiman”, and the second son Cuan Zhen ruled Wuman, which were also named the Western Cuan and the Eastern Cuan. Thus, for the first time, he divided the two groups into two political entities. Later, the constitutional system of Nanzhao and Dali was formed by the game between these two entities. The significance of this event to Yunnan was similar to Charlemagne dividing the Carolingian Empire to his three sons, which laid the foundations of Western Europe. The 570-year separation of the Cuan family led ancient Yunnan to run counter to absolutism completely. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire also prevented Europe from reuniting after the Roman Empire.
III. Nanzhao dynasty and Dali dynasty
Soon after, Sui Dynasty’s invasion into Yunnan conducted a predatory war before leaving, killing Western Cuan’s leader Cuan Wan. The authority of Western Cuan had declined since then. The ruling class of the Western Cuan was the Baiman near Dali. These people were very good at business. Their merchants were all over Southeast Asia and India, but they were not strong enough in the military. The real fighters were the Wuman. At this time, Wuman around the Erhai Lake and Cangshan Mountain had established six kingdoms, which we call “Six Zhaos”. In 652, another significant event occurred. The Baiziguo King of Erhai Lake and Cangshan Mountain, “Zhang Lejinqiu”, gave his dominion to the most southern Monsho Zhao King Xi Nuluo in the six Zhaos. As we know, Baiman was an ethnic group good at farming and business, which was slightly influenced by East Asian culture and adopted Chinese surnames. At that time, in the vicinity of Erhai Lake, the Baiman noble families mainly had family names like Zhang, Zhao, Yang, Dong, Gao, Duan and so on. These people handed over the power to the Monsho Zhao’s King Xi Nuluo. They made a deal with the Monsho Zhao: they made the monarch of the Monsho’s King Xi Nuluo as their king and asked him to provide them with military protection, and Xi Nuluo also relied on them to rule Yunnan. This established the underlying political pattern where the Baiman acted as ministers and the Wuman as military warriors. This pattern remained unchanged until the end of ancient Yunnan civilization. The political legitimacy of this pattern was derived from Zhang Lejinqiu’s desire to make way for Xi Nuluo in 652 AD.
The agreement was made under a large iron pillar in the Dali area. At that time, both Baiman and Wuman had a lot of primitive tribal beliefs, and each tribe worshiped different gods, which Baiman called “Benzhu”. This iron pillar is a very important miracle around Dali. This belief in pillars should come from the primitive penis worship, which was common in ancient Southeast Asia. From the location of the abdication, this agreement had sacred legitimacy, and it also determined the most core constitutional structure of the ancient Yunnan civilization for over 700 years.
About a century after this, the Monsho Zhao relied on the support of the Baiman to unify the six Zhaos in the era of Pi Luoge. In 748, King Pi Luoge of the Nanzhao Dynasty and the last chief of the East Cuan met to establish a united kingdom, and the East Cuan yielded the Nanzhao royal family, who always married with the royal family of East Cuan since then. By the standards of medieval Europe, this was a typical contractual relationship, not exterminating a state. There was no invasion from the Nanzhao. It was only a natural continuation. In the two abdication events of 652 and 748, the legitimacy was passed down unbroken. The transfers of real power were achieved by constant contracting.
Another thing Pi Luoge did was to move almost all the Baiman from eastern Yunnan to Western Yunnan. In this way, the eastern Yunnan, centered on the Dianchi Lake, was left with only the Wuman. Later, Nanzhao also established the Tuodong city near the Dianchi Lake, also known as the Shanchan city, which is now Kunming city. He tried to control the Wuman warriors in eastern Yunnan through this stronghold. In this way, the kings of Wuman and the ministers of Baiman occupied the Cangshan Mountain-Erhai Lake region, taking Dali as a center to control the western Yunnan and the Shanchan city in eastern Yunnan as the other center to control the binary structure of the Wuman warriors. The autonomous warrior group in eastern Yunnan formed thirty-seven subgroups, which were very similar to the eastern samurai in Japanese history. Later, the successor to Pi Luoge, Luo Feng, mainly relied on the fighting power of Wuman worriers and the alliance with the Tibetans, twice defeated the invasion of the Tang dynasty, and expanded to Myanmar, all to way to the Irrawaddy River. In the city of Dali, the king of Nanzhao could rely on his own identity of Wuman, so that the worriers of Wuman in eastern Yunnan remained loyal to him. Meanwhile, due to the existence of the Baiman aristocracy among the ministers, it was difficult for the Nanzhao monarchs to establish a centralized system. Compared with the Nanzhao monarchs, those Baiman aristocrats were more familiar with the customary laws in the Dali area. They had a strong legitimacy. If a monarch misbehaved, these nobles could kill him.
In the middle period of Nanzhao, such a thing happened. King Long Sheng went amok, and the noble Wang Cuodian killed him. According to the understanding of Chinese people, the Wang Cuodian committed regicide, which meant that he must want to usurp the throne. However, instead of that, Wang Cuodian had embraced the next two monarchs and showed his loyalty. He made a valid restriction to the sovereignty. Nevertheless, Wang Cuodian and the second King Quan Fengyou were zealous expansionists. During the Wang Cuodian and Quan Fengyou Dynasty era, Nanzhao aggressively expanded to Southeast Asia, sending the two forces to invade Myanmar and Cambodia. Their troops in Myanmar also fought with the Sri Lanka army that encountered them across the sea in 859. After Quan Fengyou died, his son Shilong killed Wang Cuodian , and attacked the Tang Dynasty. He fought with the Tang Dynasty for more than ten years. In order to support the war, Shilong carried out a total-war system, ordering that all the men over the age of 15 in the territory must join the army. Through the continuous crazy war, the Nanzhao monarch unprecedentedly expanded the power of the monarchy. Shilong killed the Wang Cuodian and destroyed the balance of power between the monarch and Baiman nobles. There was one detail worth noticing. Nanzhao royal family was Wuman, whose way of naming followed the habit of Di people. They had no family names but only given names. Also, the son would continue the last part of his father’s name. For example, the successor to Pi Luoge was named Ge Luofeng, the son of Ge Luofeng was named Feng Jiayi, and the father of Quan Fengyou was called Xun Gequan, etc. However, Shilong did not inherit his father’s name. He was not called You Shilong. This was because Quan Fengyou indulged in the culture of the Tang Dynasty. He thought that the joint name between father and son was primitive, so he took away the part of “Quan” inherited from his father and called himself “Fengyou”. Influenced by him, Shilong directly did not inherit the word “You”. It was Quan Fengyou who indulged in the culture of the Tang Dynasty that started the Nanzhao’s aggressive expansion and the path to the absolute monarchy. Therefore, in the era of Fengyou and Shilong, Yunnan was in danger of becoming the kind of authoritarian centralized state like China. This juncture was a major crisis in the history of ancient Yunnan civilization.
Shilong expanded the imperial power and conducted the total war arbitrarily. After his suppression over the aristocracy and the attempt to establish an absolute monarchy, his minion, the Zheng family, began to meddle in politics. This family was initially the captives from the Tang Dynasty. The powerful minister Zheng Maisi by the end of the Nanzhao Dynasty was a typical despicable man even by the standard of the Ming Dynasty. He was a treacherous courtier who depended on the king for promotion. He and his family were nothing compared to the real Baiman nobles. His regime was not likely to be acknowledged by the nobility of Dali who had a long tradition. Therefore, although Zheng Maisi massacred the Nanzhao royal family and usurped the throne to establish the Da-Changhe Kingdom, he could not rule for a long time. Then, the Baiman big noble Yang Ganzhen supported Zhao Shanzheng and killed the entire Zheng family to gain power. After that, Yang Ganzhen abolished Zhao Shanzheng and usurped the throne. This was the source of the next two regimes: Da-Tianxing and Da-Yining.
Although Yang Ganzhen was a Baiman noble, his power was not supported by the warriors of Wuman in eastern Yunnan. He also abolished Zhao Shanzheng, who was also a Baiman noble, and arbitrarily ascended to the throne. This was an arbitrary act of disrespecting the legitimacy. One thing happened under the circumstances. In 937, Duan Siping, a grand nobleman whose mother was from a Wuman warrior family and his father was a Baiman noble minister, occupied Dali with the troops from the 37 warrior tribes of Wuman. Duan Siping’s army was not only supported by the 37 tribes in eastern Yunnan, but also by the nobles in Dali city, and the public as well. His army entered Dali with little resistance. As a figure supported by both the noble ministers and the warriors, Duan Siping showed noble political virtue. He did not kill all Yang’s family, only made Yang Ganzhen become a monk. In the early days of Dali, Yang’s family still had great power. In this way, Duan jumped out of the vengeance loop started from Zheng Maisi, who slaughtered the whole Nanzho royal family and whose family was later butchered by Yang Ganzheng. If Duan Siping killed Yang Ganzhen and killed Yang’s family again, it was estimated that the political behavior of Yunnan people from then on would be without any bottom line like the Chinese people, and there would be no legitimacy. Therefore, Duan Siping’s action in AD 937 was extremely great. It was equivalent to the Magna Carta movement in Britain, or the “Jōkyū War” in the Japanese history. Duan Siping was like Hōjō Masako in the Jōkyū War. They protected the local feudal freedom of Yunnan and Japanese civilizations respectively. In the meantime, Duan Siping, after entering Dali city, continued to employ Baiman aristocrats. In fact, the people who followed him, such as Gao family and the Dong family were Baiman aristocrats. In this way, the binary pattern formed by the Baiman aristocrats and the Wuman warlords was preserved, and the contract made by Zhang Lejinqiu and Xi Nuluo in AD 652 was acknowledged again. As a great defender of legitimacy, Duan Siping should enjoy the highest praise.
Duan Siping also did a critical thing. He combined the local Yunnan tantric Buddism introduced from India with the Yunnan constitution, which was further developed due to this. In the later period of Nanzhao, the royal family had converted to tantric Buddhism through the missionary work of Indian monks. Duan Siping stipulated that in Dali national territory, all people should respect Buddhism, and the children of the nobility should accept the full religious education in the temple before they could become officials. The official system of Nanzhao was modeled after that of the Tang Dynasty. Of course, there were some detailed differences. For example, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty was the counterpart of the Qingping official of Nanzhao. There were six ministries in the Tang Dynasty while nine in Nanzhao, which were called the “Nine Shuang”. Of course, Nanzhao officials were basically hereditary nobles. However, Nanzhao itself also had a system of imperial examinations. This kind of imperial examination system, like the Imperial Examination in the Heian period of Japan, was a less important supplement to the hereditary system. However, in the era of Shilong, with the unprecedented power of the monarchy and the vendetta without a bottom line between the Zheng and Yang families, the Yunnanese were likely to embark on the road of centralization, and the imperial examination system was likely to become a tool to undermine the constitution of Yunnan. However, the Buddhist education system was totally different from the imperial examination system. Under this system, a royal or aristocratic child must pass the monastic education in order to gain political power. In this way, it almost virtually eliminated the possibility that the low-class literati, the unsettling intellectuals, and the captives would gain a high rank only through their intellect and the closeness of the monarch. The degree of Buddhism education was a standard to measure the size of secular power that aristocrats could obtain. In this way, the bureaucratic system, the official ranks, and the official names that imitated those the Tang Dynasty became only the titles of honor. The evolutionary path of Yunnan thus stayed away from the bureaucratic state.
Besides, it’s worth noticing that the deity system of the Yunnan tantric Buddism was different from those of other countries in the world. The Acarya Avalokitesvara could only be seen in the tantric Buddhism in Yunnan. As for Emperor Duan, he was the incarnation of Mahākāla in the Yunnan tantric Buddism. In the ceremony of Yunnanese, Emperor Duan had to play the role of Mahākāla who protected his country by force. Through such a unique belief, Yunnanese were distinguished from all the surrounding ethnic groups. Before this, for example, during the era of Cuan family and Nanzhao, Yunnanese probably felt no more fundamentally different from the rest of Asia, such as the Chinese, the Chenla people, or the Pyu people in Myanmar. Yunnan back then was Asian. However, after Buddism influenced the whole Yunnan society and the Yunnan tantric Buddism controlled the primary level of the society in the early days of Dali Kingdom, Yunnanese believed that they were completely different from other Asians. They were Yunannese of Yunan, Dian people of Dian region, and Dali people of Dali. The significance of this event was similar to Japan’s unique Shinto theory defining Japan as a “divine kingdom” during the Nanboku-chō period, which set it apart psychologically from other Asian countries.
When Duan Siping died, he left behind a very complicated constitutional structure. For more than 100 years at the beginning of the Dali Kingdom, the Yang family, which had waged two separate rebellions, remained their power. The emperor put down the two rebellions by the Gao family, and later made two contracts with the Gao family: First, he enfeoffed the Shanchan city in eastern Yunnan to the Gao family. Secondly, the Dali prime minister would be inherited by the Gao family. Prime minister Gao Shengtai only usurped the throne for just two years before he made his son return the throne to emperor Duan in 1096, so Duan and Gao made the third contract: since then, the Duan family would act as the incarnation of Mahākāla and become the unshakable religious and spiritual leader, whereas the Gao family was responsible for the secular power. The relationship was very similar to that between the Emperor and the Shogun in feudal Japan. The event that the Gao family returned the throne to the Duan family was a process of making a covenant. No matter how much secular authority the Gao family had or how they despise the powerless Duan family, they could not challenge the divine authority of the emperor based on the Yunnan tantric Buddism covenant. Even in the religious sphere, the Gao family could only believe in Zen Buddhism and dared not dabble in the Yunnan tantric Buddism. It is worth mentioning that among the 22 emperors in the Dali Kingdom, 10 of them retired to the temples. As Buddhism was an inviolable secular power, the emperors strengthened their religious authority by becoming a monk in order to strike a balance with the Gao family. The relationship was similar to that between the emperors and Fujiwara clan of the Heian era in Japan. At that time, Many Japanese emperors were also able to balance with the Fujiwara clan by becoming monk emperors.
After the throne-returning event, the Gao family was enfeoffed to various regions, and formed a series of lords centered on Dali called the “Yucheng Party”. With Kunming as the other center, another group of lords also formed a clique known as the “Guanyin Party”. Over the next century, the feudal system at the heart of Yunnan was finally established, with the old bureaucracy replaced by the feudal system of the feudal lords who fought against each other. Many complicated battles, alliances, and contracts between the Yucheng Party and the Guanyin Party and among the lords of the same party were generated over the position of the prime minister and the lord of Shanchan. As for disputes between small territories, they were countless. By 1147, the lords of the Wuman thirty-seven tribes in eastern Yunnan engaged war with the Lord Gao of Shanchan in Kunming. From this time on, the tribes and lords in the marginal areas of Yunnan began to establish their own feudal states. The 37 lords in northeast Yunnan actively expanded their land into the mountainous areas of Guizhou. The lords of southeast Yunnan traded huge amounts of war horses for silk with Guangxi under Song Dynasty. There was the independent Lijiang regime in northwest Yunnan; the two Baiyue forces, Gold Teeth Baiyi in the western Yunnan and the Jinglong Jindian state in the southern part of Yunnan, became autonomous. The two states then expanded outward into Southeast Asia and established other smaller feudal territories. This kind of feudal expansion was completely different from the total-war expansion in the late Nanzhao period. Let’s take Thailand’s predecessor, the Cheli Kingdom, as an example to see how this expansion worked. The Jinglong Jindian state was the regime formed by the Baiyue people from the southern Yunnan who colonized southward. They established a feudal loyalty to the Dali state. Some of them continued to colonize southward, establishing the Cheli Kingdom in the hinterland of Indo-China Peninsula. The feudal system expanded like a tree that kept growing. It would be hard to imagine that given the time, how complex a constitutional system this feudal system would be. In this era, after the mid-12th century, Dali entered its own Sengoku period. During the Sengoku period in Dali, as in Japan of late Muromachi and early Sengoku period, the constitutional complexity reached unprecedented levels, and the possibility of the path ahead became ever more diversified. Under such a feudal system, any piece of land would not have a single property right, but rather a very complex one. It might simultaneously have links with the Emperor Duan of Dali, the prime minister Gao, the local lord, and the Buddhist temple. To change its ownership would require complicated diplomacy or repeated feudal wars. If the feudal system of Dali’s Sengoku period continued without external intervention, how magnificent it would become. It would probably evolve into Yunnan’s own multinational system. Under such circumstances, maybe the whole of Southeast Asia, Guizhou, and Sichuan would feudalize and join the feudal multinational system of Yunnan. A country like Japan that straddled Southeast Asia and the upper reaches of the Yangtze River would come into being.
However, with the successive invasions of the Mongols and the Ming Dynasty, the system was destroyed by the powerful external forces. The Mongols were much better than the Ming dynasty. When the Mongol army invaded, Gao Taixiang, the last prime minister, could have turned to Mongolia and sell the emperor. Since he held the actual power of Dali Kingdom, he would be more valuable if he surrendered to the Mongols. However, he kept the pact his ancestors made with the emperor more than a century ago, sacrificing himself to protect the emperor. He first fought valiantly in the city of Dali, then returned to his fief and continued fighting until his death. It was a very moving scene. The emperor and his lords in the western and southern parts of Yunnan chose to surrender to Mongolia. The 37 tribes in the eastern part of Yunnan chose to resist. The Mongol army was reduced to 20, 000 from 100, 000 to roughly crush the resistance in eastern Yunnan. To completely suppress these resistances, the Mongolian army spent seven years. It only took the Mongols four years to utterly destroy the Southern Song Dynasty after they took Xiangyang. This was because there was only one central court in the Southern Song Dynasty. Once the central court was eliminated, the resistance of various other places would be nothing. The Dali Kingdom was different. It actually had dozens of feudal entities dealing with the Mongols. Some of them chose to fight, and some chose cooperation. The complex diplomatic relationship brought about by this complicated feudal system not only made the Mongolians exhausted, but also preserved civilization to the maximum extent possible. It’s as if you don’t put eggs in the single basket, but in dozens of baskets, then there are always some eggs that can be preserved. The Mongols indeed preserved the emperor Duan clan and other feudal lords. With the inherent feudalism from Inner Asia, they also set up a king to control the eastern part of Yunnan though they set up the Yunnan Province centered in Kunming. After several generations, the Mongolian king had also become more localized. Therefore, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, in fact, Yunnan civilization was still very dynamic.
IV.The downfall of the Dali regime
However, Mongols’ fear of Duan’s family ruined the chances of Yunnan civilization. The Mongols first used Duan Gong to repel the invasion of the bandits and then murdered Duan Gong, which led to a complete break between Yunnanese and Mongols. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty took advantage of the conflict between them to destroy the Mongol regime in Yunnan first, and then attacked Dali with treachery and destroyed the Yunnan civilization . After the Chinese entered Yunnan, they burned down Dali city and destroyed all the history books and ethnic literature of Yunnan.
2.A new community of Yunnanese in period of Ming and Qing dynasties
I.Luchuan war and Sha-Pu war
After the Ming Empire took over Yunnan, the following system was implemented: when Yunnan was under the direct control of the empire, the Mu family was enfeoffed in Kunming. This system made the ruling institutions of the Ming Empire in Yunnan have a dual color. Mu Ying, the forefather of the Mu family, was the general who invaded Yunnan. Yet after several generations, the Mu family had ever-growing vested interests in Yunnan. Therefore, although they will continue to exploit the people of Yunnan for their own privileges, they would sometimes obstruct the plunder by China from Yunnan in order to protect their own interests. In addition, not only the governing institutions of the Ming Empire in Yunnan had duality, but also the entire ruling structure of the Ming Empire in Yunnan. This duality was much more important than the previous one. On the one hand, the Ming Empire established a large number of bureaucratic ruling institutions in Yunnan. On the other hand, the feudal lords since the warring states period of the Dali Dynasty could not be exterminated. Many of them were just “entitled” by the empire to maintain a semblance of rule. In order to maintain its suzerainty over the lords, the Ming Empire set up the system of “Three Xuanfu And Six Xuanwei”, which established the three Xuanfu departments of Nandian, Nanya and Longchuan, as well as six Xuanwei departments of Chaili, Myanmar, Mubang, Babaidadian, Mengyang and Laos, on top of all the lords in Yunnan and the territory of present-day Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The supervisors of the whole system were Ming imperial officials in name but were actually inherited by the lords of Yunnan. In fact, most of the lords of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand were originally part of ancient Yunnan’s feudal system. Although the Ming Empire destroyed Dali, it would be an extremely tough task to demolish the whole feudal systems, which meant putting down every one of the feudal lords. Therefore, the Ming Empire had to adopt this system opportunistically. In this way, Yunnan was actually divided into “Ming Yunnan” and “Free Yunnan”, whose constitutional structures were fundamentally opposed to each other. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the population of Ming Yunnan was dominated by imperial soldiers and forced migrants, backed by the Ming Empire and the Mu family, mainly in the counties controlled by the Ming Empire. Free Yunnan, on the other hand, was made up of feudal lords, who were under the multi-national feudal system inherited from ancient Yunnan. For more than two centuries, the former tried to weaken the latter by various means, while the latter kept resisting, who eventually overthrew the Ming Empire’s rule over Yunnan and formed the forerunner of the modern multi-national system in Southeast Asia.
The first conflict between the Ming Empire and Free Yunnan was the Luchuan War in the mid-15th century. The war was so fierce that it had to be finished in three times. The Ming Empire had to resort to the lords under the system of Three Xuanfu And Six Xuanwei to wipe out the Si family of the Lord of Luchuan in western Yunnan with a horrible massacre. After this war, the Ming Empire’s control over Indo-China Peninsula began to collapse. The lords who had thrived in the war established their own states. First, Lord Avah grew up and conquered a large number of other lords on Indo-China Peninsula and became Myanmar. By the 16th century, Myanmar was again allied with the Portuguese, expanding eastward. Meanwhile, the defeated lords were armed and organized, contributing to the emergence of Thailand and Laos. Besides, Myanmar also attacked Yunnan, which was heavily hit by the Ming — Myanmar War. The Ming — Myanmar War which lasted until the early 17th century, reduced the population of Ming Yunnan by 60 percent. By this time, the Ming Yunnan was in fact on the brink of extinction. From the 1630s onwards, the local lords of Yunnan, led by Pu Mingsheng and Sha Dingzhou, launched the anti-Ming War and freed Kunming in 1645, basically wiping out the Ming Yunnan and defeating the institutions of the Ming Empire’s colonization of Yunnan. By the middle of the 17th century, almost all the colonial institutions imposed by the Ming Empire in Yunnan had disappeared.
Unfortunately, the remnants of the Ming imperial colonial institution that had retreated to the western Yunnan formed an alliance with a mass murderer named Sun Kewang who was moving to Guizhou and used the army of cannibals to suppress the Yunnan independence war. The bandits massacred and held the Nan Ming Emperor Yongli as a puppet, imposed the planned economy and collective farm system on Yunnan, and carried out the total-war policy to fight against the Qing Empire. Soon after, the Qing Empire army entered Yunnan to wipe out the bandits, and once again carried out massacres. Later, the Qing Empire enfeoffed Yunnan to Wu Sangui, the King of Pingxi, who fought against the Qing Empire with Yunnan as the base. His war against the Qing Dynasty lasted for eight years. By the time the Manchurian army entered Yunnan, the enforced migration left over from Ming Yunnan had been largely annihilated, with perhaps less than 10 percent of the population remained.
II. Immigrants and new Yunnanese
Sun Kewang, Wu Sangui, and the Qing Empire were all cruel invaders to Yunnan. Although the intensity of tyranny was decreasing, all of them suppressed the feudal Lords of Yunnan. By the 1720s, the “Bureaucratization over the Native Lords” led by Emperor Yongzheng and Er Tai had brought the repression to a serious degree. For example, the Lijiang free city, which had long existed between Yunnan and Tibet, was destroyed in this “Bureaucratization over the Native Lords”. The so-called “Bureaucratization over the Native Lords” meant to eliminate the feudal territories ruled by chieftains and replace them with the counties directly controlled by the empire. However, until the end of the Qing dynasty, the territory of Free Yunnan was not completely swallowed, and dozens of lords survived. Meanwhile, two new forces entered Yunnan between the 18th and mid-19th centuries. First was the immigration to Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty, mainly the people from Hunan and Jiangxi. These immigrants were different from the forced immigration of the Ming Empire. They were mostly spontaneous immigrants, many of whom engaged in business and agriculture. They used what is called the “Southwest Mandarin” as a common language. Their population grew in large numbers in Yunnan, gradually surpassing that of the aborigines, and “Southwest Mandarin” was gradually developed into the “Yunnan Language” in Yunnan. “Yunnan Language” had become the common language used by all ethnic groups in Yunnan.
In addition, Islam had spread far and wide in Yunnan. Islam entered Yunnan from Inner Asia in the Yuan dynasty. Under the control of the Ming Empire, Islam in Yunnan suffered a heavy blow. However, in the late 16th century, with the fall of the Ming Empire, Islam began to revive in East Asia, forming the “ Jingtang” organization of East Asian Muslims in Shaanxi. The Jingtang was formerly a school of scripture in the Arab world. After entering East Asia, this organization adopted the organization form of the Confucian academy and spread throughout the Muslim world of East Asia. By the late 17th century, the local Jingtang of Yunnan were established. The system of Jingtang provided a place for Yunnan Muslims to learn the Arabic and Persian religious classics, bringing normal religious organizations and activities back to life. By the middle of the 19th century, there were 800,000 Muslims among Yunnan’s population of 7 million. Some had traveled to Turkey and Egypt to study sharia law, and to Singapore to study British science and technology. They linked themselves with the Islamic groups in the Middle East, while the Chinese still close themselves against the world. The Qing Empire was terrified by the robust growth of the Confucian clans, religious groups, and new immigrants in Yunnan in the mid-19th century. To weaken them all, officials in the Qing Empire kept provoking the hatred between Muslims and Confucian believers and made them fight and kill each other.
In this case, the feudal lords, immigrants, and Muslims of Yunnan fell victim to the tyranny of the Qing Empire. The Qing Empire thought that it could maintain long-term peace and stability in Yunnan. However, an uprising had united the three groups in Yunnan. The war had something to do with a great man, Du Wenxiu.
III.Du Wenxiu’s uprising and modern Yunnan community
Prior to Du Wenxiu’s uprising, Yunnan was engulfed by the large-scale fightings between Muslims and non-Muslims under the policy of internecine warfare instigated by the Qing Empire. When Du Wenxiu rose up in 1856, most of those who followed him were Muslims seeking revenge against non-Muslims. However, after Du Wenxiu took over Dali, he announced that he would forgive all the residents of Dali and set up a government of all ethnic groups in Yunnan province. Du Wenxiu’s generals and soldiers covered all ethnic groups in Yunnan. For Muslims, Du Wenxiu was a Sultan; For immigrants, Du Wenxiu was the Grand Marshal of Confucianism. For the feudal lords of Bai, Dai and Yi, Du Wenxiu was the Chief Lord. It was quite remarkable for Du Wenxiu to achieve such a status. First, most of his family was killed by non-Muslims in a previous fighting. Second, in the years of war, the ethnic groups in Yunnan had formed a blood feud. However, for the first time, Du Wenxiu pointed out that all these disasters came from the Qing Empire, and all ethnic groups in Yunnan were victims. The only way to end this state was to overthrow the Qing Empire in Yunnan.He wrote an Official Call to Arms against Qing Empire. Let’s take a look at this article
“I, Marshal Du Wenxiu, set up the army to recover Yunnan, fight against the cruel, and deliver justice to the good people. I believe that the Confucians, Muslims, and aborigines have lived in harmony in Yunnan for nearly a thousand years. We have been helping and being friendly with each other. Were there really any gaps among us? Since the Manchurians illegally usurped our power, they mistreated Yunnanese for nearly 200 years. The demon-like Manchurian officials tried to sow ethnic rivalries in Yunnan by taking sides in different cases. When the Manchurians provoked in the Shiyang incident, all Yunnanese suffered. The strong exerted their power willfully, and the weak have nowhere to hide. At that time, people were in danger, but Manchurian officials rested at ease. They cared nothing about the lives of the people, who were abandoned like garbages. If Confucians were strong, the Manchus would help the Muslims to massacre Confucians. If Muslims were robust, the Manchus would help Confucians massacre Muslims. The Yunnanese are destitute, and everyone wants to rebel.”
“When I witness today’s agony, I am concerned about the sufferings of the Yunnanese. I cannot bear to see innocent Muslims killed by Confucians, nor can I bear to see innocent Confucians killed by Muslims. Therefore, I have raised this army of justice and will wipe out the Manchurian demons. Our ambition is to save the Yunnanese and bring peace between Muslims and Confucians. We will follow God’s will to accomplish great things. Ignorant Manchurian officials played tricks and acted against the tide, claiming that whoever kills our generals and officials will be appointed a position of the same rank. The wise withdraw and the fool fall in. First, the Manchus helped the Confucians kill the Muslims. Now the Manchus help the Muslims kill the Confucians. Then they turn Muslims and Confucians against each other. As a result, when the blood is still flowing in Yunnan, Manchurian mobs suddenly come. They are like mantis against the running chariots, eggs against the solid stone.”
“Now only after a bit of strategy, we have received three victory reports in a month; we sent half of our troops, and several cities were retaken. However, the Manchurian evildoers have not been completely eradicated, the root of evil still exists. People are still extremely disturbed that we have not recovered the whole of Yunnan. How can we tolerate foreigners encroaching on our interests? So we mobilized a strong army, prepared food from thousands of warehouses, raised millions of money, and equipped our soldiers with guns, crossbows, spears, and knives. Our army advanced on five fronts together in rage to deliver peace to our people. Our weapons have covered the sky, our banners have overshadowed the clouds, and our prowess is like thunder that shakes the heaven. What kind of enemy will we not be defeated by our army? What achievement cannot be accomplished with our troops?”
“As for all the gentry and the people of the enemy-occupied areas, there is no shortage of sensible people among you, who can turn crisis into opportunities; you must have people who think like us. Whether you join us or surrender, we will be able to recruit talents without discrimination. After that, peace will be restored in Yunnan, and we will live together as brothers. If God bless us, we will accomplish great things together. Isn’t that something of happiness? Isn’t that something of joy? If you are complacent and hesitant, and miss the chance, you will regret it in the future. Manchurian officials have lost the hearts of Yunnanese and the blessing of God, even the excellent defense won’t save them. Please follow our advice when you read this article.”
We can say that, before this, Yunnan had not formed a complete community in politics. After this, Yunnan had already had the rudiment of a nation-state. This was why Du Wenxiu’s army could sweep nearly all of Yunnan except Kunming within a few years. After the appearance of Du Wenxiu, the religious and ethnic conflicts in Yunnan before were forged into the uniform resistance of the ethnic groups to the Qing Empire. By any standard, it was a war of independence for Yunnan, and Du Wenxiu founded the Panthays Kingdom. In the final stages of the war, a Panthays ambassador named Liu Daoheng went to Britain and offered to dedicate the whole of Yunnan to Queen Victoria. He asked the British to help Yunnan fight against the Qing Empire. Eventually, the Panthays Rebellion was suppressed with superior weapons owned by the Qing army. Before the fall of Dali, Du Wenxiu gave his life to the Qing army, hoping that the Qing army could forgive the people of the city. Although the war was lost in 1873, it showed that the Yunnanese had not only become a community capable of making political decisions collectively but also had the ability to conduct international diplomacy. By the beginning of the 20th century, the reign of the Qing Empire in Yunnan had entered the countdown with the rise of nationalism from Europe.
3.Modern Yunnan nationalism
I.Yunnan Nationalism in overseas
Due to the war of independence in Yunnan initiated by Du Wenxiu, Yunnan independence thought would inevitably appear again after nationalism was introduced into East Asia. In the early 20th century, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was opened to traffic. Western countries, mainly France, built many churches and introduced many advanced civil technological achievements into Yunnan. Also, a large number of Yunnan students went to Japan, where they were exposed to western nationalism and Japanese pan-Asianism. In 1906, “Yunnan”, a magazine of Yunnan branch of Tung Meng Hui, was founded and put forward the proposition of Yunnan independence. Yunnan independence was closely related to Japan’s pan-Asianism. While emphasizing its opposition to the Qing Empire, it also hoped that Yunnan independence movement could lead Myanmar and Vietnam to break away from the British and French rule. Under this premise, the independence movement of Yunnan was divided into two groups, one believed that the Yunnanese in the 20th century should be regarded as the descendants of ancient Yunnan, the descendants of the Nanzhao and Dali Dynasties, while the other believed that the majority of Yunnanese were”Han people”, and defined their ancestors as the immigrants of Ming Yunnan. Under these two ideas, some articles in Yunnan magazine thought that Yunnan would become an “Asian Anglia” after its independence, and thus one of the world’s several rich and powerful countries, while some suggested that Yunnan would become a province with autonomy in China after its independence. In this way, the young people engaged in the independence movement in Yunnan were not only associated with the Japanese pan-Asianism, but also with Sun Yat-sen’s Tung Meng Hui. In fact, many Yunnan young people had both ideas. They were very motivated. For example, one of the most famous Yunnan separatists, Zhang Chengqing, was of half-Myanmar blood. In 1908, he founded the “Yunnan Determined Party” in Myanmar. He declared that Yunnan and Qing Empire should be separated from each other and would help Vietnam, and India gain independence. Finally, he was executed by the British Burma government. Others organized guerrillas on the Yunan-Myanmar border and engaged in a long fight. In this context, these young people also infiltrated the Qing Empire to establish a new army in Yunnan. Tang Jiyao was the leader of these new-army separatists in Yunnan. These officers planned and launched the “Double Ninth Independent War” in Yunnan in 1911. The general commander of the Yunnan army in the independence war, Cai E, was forced to comply with them only after the young officers had completed their planning. CAI E, a native of Hunan, was a student of Liang Qichao and had a high reputation in the new army, which made him the target of the separatists. CAI E himself might not have had strong Yunnan independent ideal, but he was still seen as a partner by Yunnanese. From this point, we can tell that these young people were indeed a mixture of the above two kinds of nationalism. Although they both loved Yunnan, they did not have a clear view on whether the construction of Yunnan nation should be separated from China. In fact, CAI E was such a binary Hunan nationalist himself. Such binary patriots were common in the early days of the formation of nations all over the world.
II. From binary nationalism to Great Yunnanism
After the collapse of the Qing Empire in 1911, Yunnan, which had joined the Republic Of China the following year, was still controlled by the Yunnan Clique, one of the most famous cliques in the history of modern Asia. At that time, Guizhou, which is adjacent to Yunnan, was relatively weak, while Sichuan soon became a battlefield for all kinds of forces. Meanwhile, as a good student of Japan, Yunnan was much stronger than Guizhou and Sichuan. As mentioned above, the leaders of the Yunnan Clique were all binary patriots who supported Yunnan’s independence and had an ambiguous attitude towards China. Therefore, they wanted to maintain Yunnan’s independence but also had the ambition to interfere in Guizhou, Sichuan and even China. That was complicated by the fact that CAI E was a student of Liang Qichao, who wanted Yunnan to be an outside supporter of his Progressive party in Beijing’s parliament. Therefore, after 1911, Yunnan was immediately involved in the war between Guizhou and Sichuan. However, the Yunnan Clique had the most basic bottom line. When the Republic of China degenerated into another Qing Empire and tried to abolish the “province” autonomy, they would rise up to defend Yunnan. At the end of 1915, when Yuan Shikai declared himself the emperor, such a thing happened. CAI E had set up an army in Yunnan to declare independence and declare war on the China Empire. During this period, Yunnan had contact with Japan, and Japan even had the intention to accredit Yunnan as an independent country. Although it was partly related to the Progressive party’s attempt to use Yunnan to coerce Beijing and the Yunnan Clique’s effort to uphold the constitution of the Republic Of China, the cause of this war of independence was undeniable. It was a direct manifestation of Yunnan’s dualistic patriotism. Yunnan united with Japan and opposed China Empire.
Yuan Shikai died soon after that, as did CAI E. Then Tang Jiyao took over the Yunnan Clique. He invested in the aggression against Guizhou and Sichuan. This was the “Great Southwest War” started in 1916, which should be called the “Great Shangjiang War”. There were two motives for Tang Jiyao to launch the war. One was the “Great Yunnanism” developed from Yunnan patriotism; the other was the ambition of the Yunnan Clique to seek hegemony in East Asia. In fact, it was a product of the extension of dualistic patriotism to its extreme. This kind of war had the possibility of establishing a unified China with Yunnan as the core, which would pull Yunnan into a crazy total war, and pour the property of Yunnanese into meaningless foreign aggression, damaging the interests of Yunnan bourgeoisie. National construction, if divorced from the protection of private property, will have a serious negative effect. The war culminated in Tang Jiyao’s grand military parade in Chongqing in 1920. At this moment, he became the Napoleon of Yunnan. While Yunnan had fallen into poverty due to years of war, Tang Jiyao used the war to gradually establish his autocratic power and started to kill his former comrades. Since then, as Sichuan launched a rebellion against Tang Jiyao, the expansion of the Yunnan system began to retreat. In 1921, Gu Pinzhen Uprising took place in Yunnan, which was as tragic as the Stauffenberg Uprising. Gu Pinzhen represented the interests of the bourgeoisie in Yunnan. He once controlled Kunming and tried to overthrow Tang Jiyao, but failed. Finally, he was killed by Tang Jiyao. After that, Tang Jiyao continued to expand abroad, launched the invasion into Guangxi in 1924, and suffered a heavy defeat, during which the new Guangxi Clique was born. In the same year, the Kuomintang and Communist International joined forces in Guangzhou and began to overthrow the Far East international order. After this fiasco, Tang Jiyao’s head calmed down and became clearer. He gave up foreign expansion and worked internally to suppress the Communist International forces. However, he also tried to strengthen the military dictatorship, such as the abolition of military titles and strengthening his own Praetorian Guards. In this case, local military officers launched the “2–6 Mutiny” in 1927 to dethrone Tang Jiyao and carry out the line of protecting the border and the people, rather than carrying out military expansion and dictatorship. Later, in the power struggle of the Yunnan Clique, Long Yun finally came to power.
III. Yunnan one unified patriotism
While Long Yun took over the Yunnan Clique, the Kuomintang China swept across the East Asian continent. Longyun did not choose to go to war with Chiang Kai-shek but was nominally subservient to the Kuomintang. Yunnan preserved independence de facto. In Chiang’s view, Yunnan was undoubtedly a province under the Kuomintang. However, in Long Yun’s view, Yunnan was undoubtedly a self-supporting political entity. It is worth noting that Long Yun was a Yi people, but he agreed with and defended Yunnan with other ethnic groups. We can tell from this point that the ethnic groups in Yunnan had become a very solid community by then. After the defeat of the second Yunnan-Guangxi war in 1930, Long Yun ceased to expand abroad, practiced local autonomy on internal affairs, integrated military and civilians to train the militia, and appointed Miu Yuntai to formulate economic policies to develop the financial industry and carry out industrialization under the support of the government. By 1935, the Communist Party in Yunnan had been reduced to just six or seven people, in sharp contrast to Chiang’s China. Given the time, Yunnan would complete its westernization. However, Chiang used the pretext of suppressing Communism to dispatch Chinese troops to take control of Guizhou and Sichuan and threatened Long Yun to ally with China. Long Yun agreed because of the enormous gap in strength between the two countries. Yunnan was then drawn into Chiang’s Anti-Japanese War.
Yunnan resisted China as much as it could during World War II, though some of its troops were forced out to fight. For example, Wang Ching-wei passed through Yunnan when he defected to Japan. He could not have escaped without Long Yun’s acquiescence. Since then, Long Yun and Wang Ching-wei had a long secret contact. On the eve of the Pacific War, Long Yun planned to join forces with Shanxi and Sichuan against Chiang and hold peace talks with Japan. Besides, Longyun adhered to the principle that “a friend’s enemy is a friend” and was inclusive of the Communist Party, thus laying a hidden danger. After the Japanese army invaded western Yunnan from Myanmar in 1942, some chieftains in western Yunnan also planned to unite with Japan to establish the “United States Of Nanzhao Federation”, but the Japanese did not respond. Since then, though a large number of Chinese troops had moved into Yunnan and fought Japanese troops in the western Yunnan, the Yunnanese army had not actively fought in the war. On the Yunnan-Vietnam border, the Yunnanese and Japanese armies were at peace. We can say that the so-called alliance between Long Yun and Chiang Kai-shek in World War II was similar to the alliance between Franco and Hitler. Although Franco’s Spain had sent troops to help Hitler attack the Soviet Union, it did not devote itself to the World war II. We can tell that at this time, the Yunnanese had no interest in Chiang Kai-shek’s propaganda against Japan, and the previous Yunnan dualistic patriotism was becoming one unified patriotism. Due to this attitude of Long Yun, Chiang Kai-shek desired to get rid of him. In 1945, immediately after World War II, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Chinese army to launch a “Wuhuashan Mountain Coup” and overthrew Long Yun.
Since then, Lu Han took over the Yunnan Clique, which had been deeply controlled by Chiang Kai-shek. Lu Han was lack of independent power. To confront Chiang, Lu Han continued to tolerate large Numbers of communists. Although there were some factors such as Long Yun and Lu Han’s unclear understanding of the communist united-front policy and opportunism, ultimately, it was Chiang Kai-shek who forced them to do so. Of course, the primary responsibility for Yunnan’s fall to the CPC was Chiang Kai-shek. The historical mission of the Kuomintang was to be defeated by the Communist Party after clearing the way for it. In fact, Lu Han did not really like the Communist Party. At the end of 1949, as the Communist Party was approaching Yunnan, Mr. Lu tried to convince the U.S. to acknowledge Yunnan’s independence internationally and send troops to help them. However, he was refused because the U.S. didn’t want to intervene in East Asia after the World War II. Later, Lu Han put forward the conditions to guarantee Yunnan autonomy for self-preservation and surrendered to the Communist Party. After the Communists took over Yunnan, they tore up the treaty with Lu Han and massacred Yunnanese. The evolution of the international situation was also an important reason for the fate of Yunnan, but perhaps the greater factor was the shortsightedness of the opportunism and the survivalism of Lu Han. If Lu Han had not been a long-time clandestine collaborator with the Communist Party and contacted the U.S. only until the end of 1949, Yunnan would probably not have faced that fate.
4.The enslaved Diantnese nation
I.Genocide perpetrated by the Chinese in Yunnan
In 1949, Lu han, leader of the Yunnan Clique, reached a diplomatic agreement with communist China. Luhan declared independence from the Republic Of China and joined the People’s Republic Of China, but Yunnan enjoys a high degree of autonomy. But when communist forces entered Yunnan, they tore up the agreement with Luhan and slaughtered nearly a million more people.
From 1950 to 1953, China massacred Yunnan people for the first time, killing more than 130,000 people. The Chinese denounced the victims as “bandits”. But they were officers, teachers, landlords and militia leaders, similar to the victims of the Katyn forest in Poland.
From 1956 to 1961, the Chinese created a genocidal famine in Yunnan. As Stalin did to the Ukrainians. Nearly 800,000 people in Yunnan died of hunger.
From 1966 to 1976, the Chinese again persecuted the people of Yunnan, killing about 50,000 of them and disabled about 150,000 of them.
Yunnan is no different from Tibet and East Turkestan. It is occupied by the Chinese.
II.Yunnanese Home Army’s anti-communist war
Although Yunnan was occupied by the communist party, a group of lonely soldiers from the Yunnannese army, the Yunnanese Home Army, were still reluctant to give up their resistance and fled into exile in Southeast Asia. At one point in the 1950s, they controlled northern Myanmar under the command of General Li Mi. However, Chiang Kai-shek was extremely worried about him and recalled him to Taiwan under house arrest. Shortly after, the Kuomintang abandoned the Yunnanese Home Army completely and Myanmar also colluded with the Communist Party to attack the Yunnanese Home Army. Unwilling to surrender, the troops fled into exile under General Duan Xiwen and gained Thai citizenship in the 1980s by helping the Thai government wipe out the Khmer commies. During these decades, refugees from Yunnan had been sheltered by the Yunnanese Home Army. Today’s the Yunnanese Home Army and their descendants live in Thailand’s Mae Salong . What’s the difference between these Yunnan soldiers and the tens of thousands of Ukrainian patriots who fled into exile in Paris after World War I? The expedition of Li mi and Duan Xiwen was just like the “Winter Expedition” of Petliura. The story of the “Asian Orphan” is the most tragic and touching scene in the modern history of Yunnan.
The Yunnan army fought a long war in western Yunnan with Chen Geng’s communist party. Because of their resistance, Burma and Thailand in the 1950s had a cushion. Burma and Thailand in the early fifties had their own armaments at the level of the security forces, and they were equipped in the nineteenth century. Although the United States formed the association of southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) and prepared to replace equipment, it took time to do so. Just like today’s Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and disarming itself, the United States wants to help Ukraine as it did in Poland, but the process of aid and rearmament will take at least 5 to 10 years. Ukrainians would be very hard to resist if a sudden Russian invasion was launched between five and ten years ago. Chiang kai-shek’s regime collapsed so quickly for similar reasons. And the resistance of the Yunnan army has given Myanmar and Thailand at least a decade to replace their equipment.
In the mid-1960s, when both the Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime and the Thai regime had replaced their equipment and developed a certain resistance capability, the Yunnanese Home Army was no longer important, and the USA and Formosa’s support for the Yunnanese Home Army came to an end. At this time, many of the absolutist Yunnanese accepted the pension from Formosa and moved to Formosa. Locals and feudalists in Yunnan believe their home is on the Yunnan-Burma border and do not necessarily need help from others. It was not worth it for them to leave their homeland, to withdraw from the feudal system there, and to give up their cause of restoration. So they would rather lose aid than stick around the border. These people have held out until now.
III.Hope for the future of Diantnese
After Mao Zedong’s attempt to betray Khrushchev to establish his own independent international system failed and he had to join the US-led international system, the Chinese communist party abandoned the path of Soviet internationalism and inherited the Chinese nationalism of Chiang kai-shek. As communist China, a successor to East Asia’s Ottomans, diplomatically attempted to take down overseas groups formerly under Kuomintang control, from Costa Rica, Malaysia , Hawaii, South Africa and the United States, similar campaigns took place along the Yunnan-Myanmar border. Some chieftains belonging to the ROC system were breached by the Chinese communist party, and some succumbed like the Taiwan Kuomintang (KMT) and became instruments of Chinese imperialist expansion. However, the chieftains of Diantnam who originally belonged to the feudal system, maintained their traditions throughout the struggle.
Because of the complex situation on the Yunnan-Myanmar border, neither the former Kuomingtang nor the current communist China controls a small part of Yunnan’s feudal system. The transportation network between the Muslim world of Inner Asia and the Muslim world of Southeast Asia has grown in the past 30 years as the communist China has dealt with western countries, so the present Yunnan-myanmar border is dotted with many lords like Du Wenxiu. The heirs of the Duan and Gao feudal lords who had been left in the middle ages did not all go away. They are still there, the Inner Asia lords and Muslim groups who repenetrated during the Mongol empire are still growing, and the new business groups that emerged during the 30 years of China’s reform and opening-up are thriving. These three generations of different Yunnan feudalism system and the Chinese colonialist system of the Kuomintang and the communist China system crisscross each other, the three of them are playing a complex game in Southeast Asia. Beneath the game are the subterranean tracks through southeast Asia for refugees and weapons, and the roads for wealthy Southeast Asians to deliver contraband such as drugs and Vietnamese rice to Hong Kong. The existence of these two roads illustrates the complexity in Yunnan today.
As China breaks away from the west countries again, the system it can control will inevitably compete with Yunnan’s feudal system for the underground network. The battle was brutal, often at the expense of a Diantnam patriotic or treasonous chieftain who had been attacked by their rival factions and exterminated each other , but it was essential to protect the bourgeoisie in Inner and Southeast Asia and to protect Yunnan’s independence. If such mass killings were a regular occurrence in the Jiang Zemin’s era, then as China formally breaks with the west countries, it loses the wealth to buy off the lords of Southeast Asia and Inner Asia, and the lords of Yunnan are bound to mount a more brutal duel with the colonial powers of Chinese terrorists.
The Yunnan province controlled by Communist China also suffered from the same fate as the rest of East Asia. It faced first mass destructions and then the threat of social collapse and extreme individualism during the Reform and Opening up. However, from a few phenomena, the future of Yunnan is promising. First of all, the indigenous power of Yunnan was still very well preserved, and until the late 1950s there was still an armed rebellion against the Communist Party. Back then, a large number of Chinese would rather starve than attack and rob the Communist granaries. During the Cultural Revolution, not only a large number of Yunnanese went to Southeast Asia to seek the Yunnanese Home Army, but also the local rebel fighters in Yunnan were very strong, showing the features of a real revolutionary movement. Even at the end of the cultural revolution, local Christian and Islamic organizations in Yunnan were still active, which was the background of the Sarain Incident. In the 1990s, there were many so-called “drug villages” in Yunnan, which were heavily armed. To this day, there will still be such events in Yunnan province as the Fuyou Village in Jinning. When the terrorist attack at Kunming railway station broke out, the Muslims in Sarain did not cooperate with the Islamist terrorists but refused to take them in. In contrast, during the Cultural Revolution, they adopted the local rebels of Yunnan. More strikingly, in the hinterlands enslaved by the Communist Party, only Yunnan has a population that has no outflow. All these show that the future of Yunnan is by no means hopeless, and the local community of Yunnan is robust. This situation is the result of the long history of Yunnan.
With the help of the famous historian Liu Zhongjing, someone wrote the history of Yunnan with Yunnan nationalism. Contemporary Yunnan nationalists call Yunnan “The Great Diantnam”.Liu Zhongjing said “The Cathaysian patriots will have enough reasons to place their hopes on the Diantnese patriots in the future as they did in the era of Cai E,”
