According to the historical records of the Western Han Dynasty, in the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (109 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opened the western region of Nanyi and set up 24 counties, and Yunnan was one.
There are three ways to name the county "Yunnan":
First, "CaiYunnan Present" said that when the county was established, the county seat of the county was now Longxing and the mountain north of Yunnan Yicun, where the colorful clouds appeared, and the county seat was called "Yunnan" in the south of Caiyun;
The second is the "south of the Yunshan Mountain", which says that the Yunshan Mountain is the current Binchuan Jizu Mountain, which is often condensed and the cloud is several inches high, and the county seat is called Yunnan in the south of the Yunshan Mountain;
The third is that "Emperor Wu chased dreams" said, according to legend, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty dreamed of Caiyun at night, sent envoys to chase dreams, and chased Caiyun in the territory of present-day Xiangyun County, because he placed Yunnan County.
Since then, the name "Yunnan" has been used to this day.
By the time of the Tang Dynasty, there were many small countries around the Erhai Sea in Yunnan, and they did not serve each other.
Among these many small countries, it is the Mengwei Zhao, the Yue Jie Zhao, the Lang Qiong Zhao, the Xiao Zhao, the Shi Lang Zhao, and the Meng She Zhao that are the most powerful, known in history as the "Six Commandments". Among them, Mengyuezhao was located in the area from the north of present-day Weishan County to Yangpi County, the Mengzhao was located in the area of present-day Dengchuan County, the Langqiuzhao was located in the area of present-day Eryuan County, the Shilangzhao was located in the area of present-day Eryuan Qingsuo Township, the Yuejiaozhao was located in the area of present-day Binchuan, and the Mengshezhao was located in the area of present-day Weishan County.
Although these six small countries are independent of each other, the MengsheZhao is undoubtedly the most powerful of them, because it is located in the southernmost part of the Six Commandments, so it is also called "Nanzhao". In various historical books, there are only a few records of the "Nanzhao Kingdom".
So, has there really been a "Nanzhao" country in history? What is its true face?
"Zhao" is the name of the ethnic minorities for "wang", from the perspective of the later development of these six edicts, Nanzhao then continued to grow and develop, and successively eliminated the other five edicts, becoming a veritable "zhao" in Yunnan - that is, the "king" of this region. As the predecessor of Nanzhao, the Mengshezhao tribe can be said to have been ambitious from beginning to end, especially in terms of its political sense of smell.
In addition, Nanzhao has always adopted a pro-attachment strategy to the Tang Dynasty in the Central Plains, and the first nanzhao king, Xi Nuluo, sent emissaries to Chang'an many times to make a pilgrimage to the Tang emperor at the beginning of the founding of the Mengshe Kingdom. Similarly, the envoys of Nanzhao were treated with courtesy by the Tang Emperor every time, and according to historical records, in 653 AD, in order to gain the support of the Tang Emperor, Xiao Nuluo personally sent his son Luo Shengyan to the Tang Dynasty, after which Tang Gaozong made Xiao Nuluo the Weizhou Assassin History.
In 713, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang again made Pi Luoge, the king of Nanzhao, the king of Taideng Commandery.
In the middle of the seventh century, the Rise of Tubo forces reached the Erhai region of Yunnan, seriously threatening the Tang Dynasty's rule over the southwest region. Out of the need to contain and eliminate the Tibetan forces, the Tang Emperor once again strengthened his support for the Nanzhao forces.
In 737, Pi Luoge defeated Heman, and the following year, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang gave him the name Mengguiyi. In the records of the book of the conferral of the throne, the reason why Pi Luoge was enthroned was that the various departments of the Erhe River were submerged in Tubo, and Meng Guiyi led the army to recruit meritorious service. As the fourth generation of Nanzhao King, Pi Luoge fought bravely, coupled with the great help of ge Luofeng under his command, and won many battles in foreign wars. After a series of difficult battles, the Nanzhao state soon conquered the rest of the Zhao capital.
However, even so, Pi Luoge still did not merge the six edicts without authorization, but generously bribed Wang Yu, the envoy of Jiannan Jiedu, and asked him to ask the Tang Emperor to "merge the six edicts into one". The New Book of Tang reads: "The Five Commandments are weak, the righteousness is strong, and the Thick sword Nan Jiedu makes Wang Yu, seeking to combine the six commandments into one, and making it possible." With the support of the Tang Dynasty, Nanzhao soon took the land and power of the other five edicts into his pocket.
In 738, the Tang court again crowned pi luoge, the fourth king of Nanzhao, as the "King of Yunnan". At this point, Nanzhao officially completed the political goal of merging the Six Edicts into one, and the geographical territory expanded from the former Weishan area to the entire Yunnan region.
The following year, Pi Luoge moved the capital to Taihe City, and the "Nanzhao" was officially established.
After reunification, Nanzhao's economy has developed by leaps and bounds, and the country has become rich and the people are strong, so that there was once a good story of "five acres of mulberry in the family and nine years of national storage".
It has to be said that Pi Luoge's political decision was correct, because under his administration, Nanzhao not only did not lose sovereignty because of Tubo's foreign invasion, but instead gained the support of the Tang Empire to develop and grow. In the past, the lonely and unheard-of southwest region gradually participated in the activities of Chinese history because of the emergence of the Nanzhao State.
Of course, peace is only relative.
Later, because Nanzhao repeatedly waged wars with the Tang Dynasty, "repeatedly overturned the masses, the country was depleted", and its strength was not as good as before. In 897, at the behest of the Qing ping official Zheng Maisi, Yang Deng killed the Nanzhao Emperor Long Shun and replaced Shun with the status of puppet emperor. In 902, Zheng Maisi killed Shunhuazhen and more than 800 of his royal family, officially destroying Nanzhao.
However, the Nanzhao state, located on the southwestern frontier, was undoubtedly one of the few frontier regimes of ethnic minorities independent of the Tang Dynasty. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Nanzhao State has coexisted for 165 years in history, and its territory includes all of present-day Yunnan, parts of Sichuan, Guizhou, Tibet, and parts of Burma and Vietnam. Counting from the first generation of Nanzhao kings, Xi Nuluo, there were thirteen Zhao kings in the Nanzhao Kingdom.
Today, these edicts who once directed the country and the mountains have long disappeared into the ever-changing tide of history. Success or failure, they have undoubtedly become an indelible part of the history of the Nanzhao State.
Facing the Erhai Sea, backed by the Cangshan Mountains, the towering Nanzhao Royal Palace has been destroyed by wind and rain, and only the Nanzhao Dehua Monument standing in front of Taihe City still has a figure. After experiencing the bitter storms and rains of history, the original inscription of more than 3,800 words has now only left more than 800 words. According to legend, the stele was written by Zheng Hui, a Qingping official.
Just imagine, from the tribes in the south of Caiyun to the powerful countries that dominate the southwest, Nanzhao is almost always the same as the Tang Dynasty. Its founder, Xi Nuluo, was born at the end of the Sui Dynasty, and the State of Nanzhao died in 902, and just 5 years later, the Tang Dynasty also went to the end, and even the reasons for its demise were somewhat similar, that is, the usurpation of the throne by the powerful subjects. Later, when Zhongyuan was caught in the dispute of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Nanzhao homeland on the edge of the Cangshan Erhai Sea was also busy fighting for power and profit.
After the Great Changhe Kingdom, Yunnan successively established two separate regimes, the Great Heaven Xingguo and the Great Yining State. The person who ended this chaotic situation was Duan Siping, a descendant of Duan Zhongguo, the founding hero of the Southern Zhao Dynasty. In 937, he united with the Thirty-Seven Barbarians of the East to overthrow the Yining regime and changed the name of the country to "Dali", and since then, the era of Dali has begun.
Resources:
【History of Nanzhaoye", "Zizhi Tongjian Tang Dynasty", "Lecture Notes on the History of the Nationalities of Yunnan"】