In early February 1870, Chinese and Miao forces fought a particularly bloody skirmish at the village of Jiaba Niuchang, some 25km from the Sichuan Army base at Chong’an. Mesny wrote two slightly different accounts of the campaign, so Li Maoqing and myself once again set out to see if any stories had been handed down from the time. Modern Gulong …
Monkeys and Fire: Jiuzhou, 1869
There’s a local saying in southeast Guizhou: “If you want to enjoy your New Year, don’t argue with the people at Jiuzhou”. The population must be a fiesty bunch then. I wondered if this was why my bus ticket included insurance coverage of up to ¥20,000 medical expenses, or ¥4000 for personal injury. Known as Huangping in Mesny’s day, I …
Niuchang, 1868: Mesny joins the Sichuan Army
In late summer 1868, Mesny travelled down through northern Guizhou to rendezvous with the Sichuan Army at Niuchang town. There are over fifty places called Niuchang (“Bull Market”) in Guizhou; before China adopted Western days of the week, markets rotated from village to village on a twelve day circuit, each day named after Chinese zodiac animals. It took a lot …
Dingpatang: Chinese Victory at Zhaitou, 1868
The country bus from Kaili dropped Mr Li and myself above a tight little valley, with a dark ridge rising 2km to the north. Below was Zhaitou village; founded back in Ming dynasty, it once sat on a post-road at the boundary of Chinese and Miao territory. In 1855, at the start of the Miao War, the chieftain (Wang) Guan …
The Road to Weng’an
In 1870, facing a collapse in morale, exacerbated by in-fighting amongst his own generals, the Sichuan Army commander Tang Jiong had no option but to abandon his eighteen-month-old campaign against the Miao at Chong’an. Mesny joined in the Sichuan Army’s dispirited withdrawal northwest from Chong’an to Weng’an along gu yidao, the old granite-flagged post road. Today a stretch of the road …
Seeking Tiekuang Po
A sunny market day in Chong’an: chaos. Narrow streets crammed with diminutive but solidly built Miao grandmothers dressed in dark blue with frilled tea-towel turbans, grandchildren strapped to their backs in quilted pads. Some of the babies also wore “tiger” hats, complete with silver icons and tufted ears, to ward off bad luck. The grandmothers were no respecters of age …
Su Yuanchun: The Pit of Ten Thousand Men
Mr Li and I arrived at Shidong after a long trip on foot down the mountain from Bandeng, following a centuries-old trail. There had been a moment of excitement when we bumped into a woodcutter with two aggressive hunting dogs, and some fun banter with a party of Miao returning happily drunk from a funeral, who berated Mister Li for …
Bao Dadu: Victory at Huangpiao, 1869
In early May, 1869, Mesny and the Sichuan Army were busy storming Miao fortifications on the heights of Tiekuang Po near Chong’an. On the same day, another battle was going between Miao forces and the Hunan Army some 20km to the northeast at Huangpiao (or Pekuo as it’s called locally), a narrow plateau with steep cliffs dropping into the valley …
Zhang Xiumei and the Miao War
The Miao Uprising in Guizhou (1855–1873) was – cutting out all the fiddly details – a rebellion against the Chinese administration by the majority Hmong (Miao) ethnic minority. The Miao are concentrated in Qiandongnan, southeastern Guizhou province, a mountainous region where the only Chinese presence was in a handful of trading posts and garrison towns guarding the lowland roads. Once these had been overrun, …
Wuyapo: the final battle of the Miao War
The last major battle of the Miao War, in either May or June 1872, was long thought to have taken place at the top of Leigong Shan. But a battle site has never been found there, and new research (including a recently-discovered eye-witness claim) makes Wuyapo – “Crow Slope” or “Crow Mountain”, depending on how literal you want to be – near …
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