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The Capital of Yunnan
For many hundreds of years, the Chinese considered the province
of Yunnan a backward and wild place - cut off from the rest
of the country by harsh mountains. Yet, this did not stop
them from attempting an invasion in 339AD. Sent by a Yangzi
Valley prince, the campaign was ten years in the making, by
which point the prince's enemies on the other side of the
mountain passes had blocked his army from returning. Unfazed
by being cut off from home and his ruler, the general in charge
of the invasion simply made himself the King of Dian, and
set about ruling the large, fertile plains from his capital
near present-day Kunming. His dynasty lasted two hundred years.
Eventually the Dian kingdom fell and the land was divided
between six rancorous princes. When one of them made the exhausting
journey to the Chinese court, in the eighth century, he told
the Tang Dynasty Emperor that he had come from the lands south
of the rainy weather in Sichuan. It was from this that the
emperor devised the name of Yunnan - "South of the Clouds."
Throughout the centuries that were to pass,
Chinese Kingdoms came and went. Little was thought of the
lands of the 'southwestern barbarians' except to exile the
odd artist or dissident there - who helped the area establish
its own aesthetic feel. Kublai Khan, eventually gave the lands
to his Muslim mercenaries, for their help in extending his
empire, where they settled happily until the Ming Dynasty
launched another invasion in the 14th century.
It was because of this invasion that one of Kunming's own
became the most famous admiral in Chinese history. Zheng He
was a ten-year-old Muslim boy from the shores of Lake Dianchi
when he was taken into slavery and castrated by the Ming invaders
in 1381. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Emperor's
army and was eventually given a fleet of 64 ships with which
he travelled throughout Asia and as far as the east coast
of Africa. The charts he compiled from the seven major voyages
his fleet undertook became the cornerstone for Chinese navigation
for hundreds of years, opened up important trade routes and
helped develop the country's international diplomatic relations.
A museum in his honour has been opened up on the banks of
Lake Dianchi where, as a boy, he once dreamed of adventuring
across the mighty oceans.
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