The upland belt along the Nanling from Daozhou east through Jiangyong, Lanshan, Linwu and Yizhang to Rucheng.
Yao hill farmers, hunters and charcoal-burners live here in the high valleys inside Song counties that have county seats in the lowlands. The Song list them as households that pay a lighter tax or none, and use their headmen as go-betweens. The risings of the 1170s (the tea-merchant bands of 1174 and the Hunan hill risings of 1175 and 1176, recalled) show how fast this country can burn.
Who holds it
- Title
- Speaks for it: Yao headmen (elders), not named
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Zhou Qufei (1178) and later sources describe Yao headmen; none is named for 1200.
Overlord
Song prefects of Daozhou, Yongzhou, Guiyang jun and Chenzhou claim the households as taxpayers; the claim is thin in the high valleys.
What it holds
- High valleys of Jiangyong, Jianghua, Lanshan, Linwu, Yizhang
- Hill farms and charcoal burning
How it was acquired
Old settlement; the Song counties were set among them from the Tang and Northern Song.
Allies and rivals
Neighbours of the Song county towns; trade salt and iron for hides, bamboo and herbs; their Guangxi cousins are in the scs records.
How things stand that morning
No rising is dated for winter 1199 to 1200 in the sources we could reach.
Wealth
Hill farms, charcoal, bamboo, hides, herbs.
Military
Headmen with household fighters; the Song county militias hold the lowland towns. No numbers.
Threats
- Salt and tax disputes
- Smuggling bands from the Jiangxi and Guangdong hills
Places of note
- Jiangyong: County seat of Daozhou in the Yao hills.
Where the sources disagree
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: A tint over the high ground, not a border. The county seats of Daozhou, Guiyang jun and Chenzhou lie inside it and are anchored to the Song.
Sources and studies
- 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.