Chieftaincies of the south and south-west, on the loose rein

Who rules

Name

not applicable. Each chieftaincy has its own hereditary head (see the lord records); the Song court is their common patron and market

Title

No single head: a belt of unrelated hereditary rulers, each answering for his own people

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Confidence

low

The Song sources (Songshi, Song huiyao, Zhou Qufei 1178) name the polities and some lineages; most heads for 1 January 1200 are not recoverable. Wikipedia tables of the Yang (Bozhou), Tian (Sizhou) and Ziqi lines are later genealogical reconstructions.

Overlord

The Song court in name (titles, seals, salaries, licensed markets). Ziqi, Luodian and the Shuixi lords are tributary only; Dali claims or seeks the loyalty of the Yi of eastern Yunnan.

What the realm holds

• The Guizhou plateau between Dali, the Song counties and the Zuojiang: Ziqi (south-west), Luodian (centre), Luoshi or Mu'ege (north-west), the Fan districts (south-east), Bozhou (north), Sizhou (east)
• The Zuojiang and Youjiang dong districts of south-west Guangxi, with Nandan on the upper Hongshui
• The Li country of the Hainan highlands, through the Wang headwomen

How it was acquired

Each by descent. The Song confirmed the older houses by titles in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Sizhou accepted Song overlordship in 1107 on the Wikipedia table; the Yang of Bozhou were recognised by the Tang in 876; Degai of the Mu'ege was made an inspector in 1042).

Allies and rivals

Ziqi against Dali, Luodian and the Dai Viet march (Zhou Qufei, 1178); Luodian against Luoshi (Wikipedia, "Luoshi Kingdom"); the Zhuang families against each other (Huang and Cen long on the Song side, Nong remembered as the rebel house of Nong Zhigao, d. about 1055); all of them bargaining between the Song court, Dali and the Ly king of Dai Viet.

The realm that morning

No war between the Song and any of these chiefs is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200. The Song's point of contact is the horse market at Hengshan zhai on the Youjiang (Yongzhou command), where the Yi kingdoms sell horses for silk, salt and silver; the Song frontier officers are the Yongzhou command, the Qinzhou and Yizhou prefects, the Kuizhou circuit's officers toward Bozhou and Sizhou, and the Qiongzhou Pacification Commissioner toward the Li. Ziqi is the dominant power of the plateau on the evidence of 1178; whether that still held in 1200 is not pinned.

Wealth

Horses (Ziqi, Luodian), cinnabar, silver and copper ores, lacquer, tung oil, hemp and cotton cloth, bamboo, timber, tribute goods of the south (aloeswood and cloth from Hainan), and the salt, silk and silver they receive in return at the licensed markets. Salt is the thing they most need from the Song.

Military

Yi kingdoms: mounted retinues under the king and his clan lords, famous for horsemen (Zhou Qufei, 1178, as reported by Wikipedia). Zhuang dong: village militias under the chief; the Song had organised the Zuojiang and Youjiang levies (tuding) from the 1060s and uses them as frontier guard. Hainan: Li dong levies under their headmen. No figures are given: the sources that give them are inflated or later.

Threats

• Quarrels between neighbours over horse routes and the Hengshan market (Ziqi, Luodian, Dali)
• Song tightening of the markets or of the salt supply
• Dai Viet pressure on the Zuojiang chiefs, who pay court to both capitals
• Later and not yet: the Mongols (Dali falls 1253-54, Ziqi 1259)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1201On the Wikipedia table of the Yang of Bozhou, Yang Can succeeds to the chiefdom (reigns 1201-1233).Depends on: The Yang genealogies, which are later reconstructions; the holder of 1 January 1200 is Yang Zhen or Yang Shi (not pinned). Stopped by: A different succession; the dates are not firm.
2. 1205On the Wikipedia list of Ziqi's kings, Axie (reigning from 1176) is succeeded by Amo.Depends on: The Ziqi king list, a modern reconstruction not found in the Song sources we could read. Stopped by: Any different reign length; the list is low confidence.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board treats Luodian and Ziqi as two "kingdoms" placed approximately (Anshun and the Xingyi country). Wikipedia places the Luoshi "ghost kingdom" on the Yachi River in the north-west of Guizhou and the Ziqi capital at Jilu near Luxi in Yunnan; scholars do not agree on the sites, so the polygons here are zones, not borders.
• The brief names Fanzhou, Xiazhou and Sinan as chieftaincies; we found no Song Xiazhou in Guizhou. Fanzhou is read here as the "Fan" tribal districts of the plateau; Sinan is the Sizhou Tian lands (Sinan is a later name).

Evidence: Song sources name the polities and a few chiefs; the lineage tables and king lists are later reconstructions. Holders for 1 January 1200 are mostly not recoverable.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Zones of hereditary rule drawn from later gazetteers and the Song account of 1178; the real limits shifted with each season's allegiances.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
• Miscellaneous Notes on Court and Country since the Jianyan Era, Li Xinchuan (李心傳) (first series 1202, second series 1216). A contemporary handbook of the Southern Song state, written in Sichuan by the historian Li Xinchuan and finished in its first part in 1202, two years after the start of 1200. Read online
• Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online