The Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture is located in western Yunnan province, People's Republic of China, and is one of the eight autonomous prefectures of the province, bordering Baoshan to the east and Burma's Kachin State to the west.
Etymology
Tai Nuea is the origin language of the word "Dehong", in Tai Le script (the script used to write the Tai Nüa language by the Tai Nua people) is written as "", which transliterates to Latin as "Taue Xoong". Dehong means the lower reaches of the Nu River.
However, the Mandarin characters for Dehong are "." These two characters are a compound of "moral, value" and "magnificent, great, macro". Thus, from the Mandarin Chinese point of view, (Dehong) means "moral" + "magnificent", so it means "magnificent (great) moral (value)".
History
Early history
Dianyue and Ailao were the ancient countries recorded in Chinese literature in the Dehong area, and Guozhanbi (Kawsampi) was an ancient country established by the Dai people and recorded in Dai legends.
Dianyue
In the history book Records of the Grand Historian written by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, a paragraph in volume 123 describes Dianyue as when Zhang Qian visited Daxia in Central Asia, he found some merchandise that was produced in Sichuan. And the Daxia merchant said it was purchased from Yuandu (India). There was a trade route, Shu-Yuandu Road (), between Yuandu and Sichuan. The road passed a kingdom named "Dianyue" (). The country is also called "Dianyue Chengxiang" () in modern books.Chinese historians generally said Tengyue was the center of Dianyue Chengxiang, and the territory included the Dehong area. However, some historians disagree with this opinion. Lou Zichang believes Dianyue Chengxiang was not a country in western Yunnan, nor was it a country established by the Dai people.
Ailao
Ai Lao () was an ancient tribal alliance country in the west of Yunnan from the Spring and Autumn to the Eastern Han periods, and modern historians say the area included Dehong. In Chronicles of Huayang, the record of Ailao mentions its territory "3,000 li from west to east, and 4,600 li from south to north", approximately equal to 1,300 km west to east and 1,994 km south to north in modern units. It includes the southwest of Yunnan and most of Myanmar, and in modern research, it is called the generalized area of Ailao.
In the Han period, Ailao was an influential tribal country with a population of 20,000. Baoshan historian Xiao Zhengwei believes the kingdom of Dianyue was a powerful tribe under Ailao.
In 69 AD, Liu Mao (), the king of Ailao, led the tribal alliance to surrender to the Han dynasty, and Han set "Ailao County" here. During the Southern dynasty Qi period, the name was changed to "Xicheng County" (). During the end of the Liang dynasty, Xicheng County was abolished.
Guozhanbi
Between 568 BC and 424 BC, during the Eastern Zhou dynasty in China, the ancestors of the Dai people had settled in the Shweli River valley area and entered the tribal period. In 364 BC, grand chief Gelaba () unified the tribes in the Shweli basin. He became the chief of the tribal alliance and set the capital at Hansa (, in modern Ruili). It was the early stage of the "Guozhanbi"() Kingdom, also called "Kawsampi" ().
In 364 AD, a descendant of Gelaba named Zhaowuding () inherited the throne. He became a famous deity, sovereign, and culture hero of the Dai people. In the 7th century, the Dai area was in chaos, and the descendants of Zhaowuding could not effectively control the area. At the same time, the kingdom of Nanzhao was rising and conquered the Dehong area. Piluoge, the king of Nanzhao, canonized another Dai tribe chief named Hundeng () to be the "King of Mong Mao" and managed the whole Dai area in 762.
In 1995, Dehong historian Yang Yongsheng published research on the ancient Dai civilization. He put forward a new opinion during the Dai legend research — The "Kingdom of Daguang" () is the first country of the Dai people which was established in 424 BC, and the country "Dianyue Chengxiang" is another name for "Daguang". In 233 BC, the capital of Daguang moved to Pagan, and finally perished in 586 AD. The research was countered by He Ping, a history professor at Yunnan University. He Ping says that the Kingdom of Daguang is the legendary kingdom of Tagaung in Burmese history and there was no kingdom of "Daguang" in the ancient Dai civilization. The Dai legend of Daguang is the story of pre-period of the Pyu city-states. The story of the Pyu city-states spread to the Dehong Dai area, localized to a Dai legend, and was recorded in Dai literature.