In the Nanling hills where Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan meet live the people the Song call Yao.
They farm burnt hill fields, hunt and cut timber, pay little or no tax, and are governed by their own headmen and councils of elders; the Song reaches them through border stockades and markets and through the occasional punitive march. The brief's "Miao" is a later general name for hill peoples; we could read no Song text that uses it of the people of this border, and the Song words we know for them are Man, Liao and dong. The Yao of Jinghu will rise in 1208 and be suppressed (Wikipedia, "Timeline of Yunnan-Guizhou").
The Hunan side of the hills belongs to the scj sheet. We can name no chief.
Who he is
- Title
- The village and valley headmen of the Yao
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No Yao headman is named in any source we could read.
Overlord
None; the Song counts some as registered subjects
What it holds
- The Nanling hill valleys of north Guangdong and north-east Guangxi
How it was acquired
By settlement and descent.
Allies and rivals
Each valley acts alone; the Song plays them against each other.
How things stand that morning
No rising is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: A general picture from Wikipedia's timeline and the standard account; no source we saw describes the Yao of this district in 1200.
On the map: See the Yao province record for the zone.
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia, "Timeline of Yunnan-Guizhou"
- Zhou Qufei, Lingwai daida (1178), described in Wikipedia, "Lingwai Daida"
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.