Everything about Nan-chao totally explained
Nanzhao, alternate spellings
Nanchao and
Nan Chao (
Traditional Chinese: 南詔;
Simplified Chinese: 南诏;
pinyin: Nánzhāo;
Tibetan:
Jang) was a
Bai kingdom that flourished in
East Asia during the
8th and
9th centuries. It was centered around present-day
Yunnan in
China.
Founding and ethnography
Originally, there were several Bai tribes that settled on the fertile land around
Erhai lake. These tribes were called
Mengshe (蒙舍),
Mengsui (蒙嶲),
Langqiong (浪穹),
Dengtan (邆賧),
Shilang (施浪), and
Yuexi (越析). Each tribe had its own kingdom, known as a
zhao. In
649 AD the chieftain of the Mengshe tribe,
Xinuluo (細奴邏) founded a kingdom (Damengguo 大蒙國) in the area of Lake Erhai. In the year AD
737, with the support of the
Tang Dynasty of China,
Piluoge united the six zhaos in succession, establishing a new kingdom called Nanzhao. The Nanzhao kingdom maintained close links with the Tang Dynasty ('Nan' is
Chinese for south), and it was made up of both Bai and
Yi nationalities. Some historians believe that the majority of the population was Bai, but that the elite was Yi. In any case, the capital was established in
738 at
Taihe (modern day Taihe village, a few miles south of
Dali). Located in the heart of the Erhai valley, the site was ideal: it could be easily defended against attack, and it was in the midst of rich farmland.
From
680 CE it came under Tibetan control. The Tibetans recognised their
suzerainty after 703 and then took it under their control again from
750-
794, when Nanzhao turned on their Tibetan overlords and helped China defeat their armies.
Religion
Nanzhao had a strong connection with
Buddhism, as evidenced by surviving stone carvings from the period. Some scholars are said to have claimed that Nanzhao's
Acarya Buddhism was related to the
Tantric Ari Buddhism of
Bagan,
Myanmar.
Expansion
In
750, Nanzhao rebelled against the Tang Dynasty. In retaliation, the Tang sent an army against Nanzhao in
751, but this army was soundly defeated at
Xiaguan. (It was in the same year that the Tang suffered another serious defeat at the hands of the
Arabs at the
Battle of Talas in
Central Asia; these defeats weakened the dynasty both internally and externally.) Today the General's Cave (two km west of Xiaguan), and the Tomb of Ten Thousand Soldiers (in Tianbao Park) bear witness to this great massacre. In
754 another army was sent, this time from the north, but it too was defeated. Bolstered by these successes, Nanzhao expanded rapidly, first into
Burma, then into the rest of Yunnan, down into northern
Laos and
Thailand, and finally, north into
Sichuan. In
829,
Chengdu was taken; it was a great prize, as it enabled Nanzhao to lay claim to the whole of Sichuan province, with its rich paddy fields. This was too much for the Chinese, who lost no time in counterattacking.
Decline
By
873, Nanzhao had been expelled from Sichuan, and retreated back to Yunnan. Taking Chengdu marked the high point of the Nanzhao kingdom, and it was a watershed: from then on, the Nanzhao Kingdom slowly declined.
Overthrow
In
902, the Nanzhao dynasty was overthrown, and it was followed by three other dynasties in quick succession, until
Duan Siping seized power in
937 to establish the
Kingdom of Dali.
Footnotes
Further Information
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