The Five Streams (Wuxi) country: the stream-and-cave highlands of west Hunan and the Hubei and Guizhou edge, where the Yuan, Wu, You and Li rivers rise.
The Song call the people Man; they are the forebears of the peoples later called Tujia, Miao and Dong. They live in stockaded villages and caves under hereditary chiefs and elders, farm the valley bottoms and hill slopes, dig cinnabar and lead, and bring timber, tung oil, cloth and medicines down to the border markets of Chenzhou, Yuanzhou and Lizhou. The Song count the greater districts as native prefectures, grant their chiefs titles, salt and silver, and ask tribute and a levy of local fighters (tuding).
The map shows the highlands as self-governing because the Song held the river valleys and the stockades, not the hills (the loose rein, jimi).
Who holds it
- Title
- Speaks for it: the hereditary cave chiefs (dongzhu) and the native prefects, of whom the Peng of Xizhou are the greatest
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No chief is named for winter 1199 to 1200. The Song's own lists name families such as Peng, Tian, Xiang and Yang among the chiefs of this region; which held which cave in 1200 is not pinned.
Overlord
The Song court claims it through the Jinghu North pacification commissioner at Jiangling, the prefects of Chenzhou, Yuanzhou, Lizhou and Jingzhou, and the Hunan circuit; it is not a tax-paying part of Hunan.
What it holds
- Xizhou and its dependent districts (Peng)
- The cave districts above Chenzhou, Yuanzhou and Jingzhou
- Cinnabar and lead diggings
- Timber floats down the Yuan
How it was acquired
The Song took the lower valleys in the 1070s and 1080s (the Meishan, Yuanzhou and Quyang campaigns, recalled) and set up stockade prefectures; the highlands stayed under their own chiefs.
Allies and rivals
The chiefs are rivals of each other and use the Song for recognition; the Song pay them in salt and silver and keep stockades at the valley mouths.
How things stand that morning
Quiet as far as we can see: no rising or Song campaign in the Wuxi country is dated for winter 1199 to 1200 in the sources we could reach. Treat as a standing frontier, not a raiding belt.
Wealth
Cinnabar, lead, timber, tung oil, cloth, medicinal herbs, salt bought in; border markets at the stockades.
Military
Village militias and the cave chiefs' own fighters; the Song stockades keep a small paid garrison and call out the tuding. No numbers.
Threats
- Song demands for levies or tribute
- A feud between neighbouring chiefs
- Fighting spilling over from Guizhou's Sizhou and Bozhou country
Places of note
- Laosicheng, seat of the Peng chiefs near Yongshun: Chief's town of the Peng of Xizhou; usually dated from the 1130s; archaeology, not pinned to the year.
Where the sources disagree
- The assignment lists Chen, Hui, Xi, Jing and Xu zhou as the Wuxi districts. We could confirm only Chen, Xi, Jing and Yuan as names in use in 1200; Hui and Xu were Northern Song creations whose status in 1200 we could not pin.
Evidence: Evidence is thin and later than 1200 for almost everything here. The Song histories file these peoples under the Man chapters (Songshi juan 493 and 494), which we could not open in this pass; what follows is the general picture those chapters, Zhou Qufei and Fan Chengda give for the twelfth century, recalled, plus Laosicheng archaeology for the Peng seat. No chief is named for 1 January 1200.
On the map: Polygons are rough: the Song held the Yuan River valley (Yuanling, Luxi) and the Zhijiang and Jingzhou stockades inside or beside them. Anchors keep those on the Song side.
Sources and studies
- Songshi juan 493 and 494 (Manyi): the south-western stream-cave peoples (zh.wikisource) - not opened in this pass; cited as where the matter is settled
- Background knowledge of Southern Song administration and the middle Yangtze (Cambridge History of China vol. 5 part 2; Hymes; Clark; Von Glahn; Bol; the travel diaries of Lu You, 1170, and Fan Chengda, 1177), recalled and not re-read in this pass
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.