Dali

Metadata

Name: Dali Kingdom (大理国, 937 - 1253)
Predecessors:

• Nanzhao
  Successors:
• Yuan Dynasty (1253)

TL;DR

While the rest of China was playing Game of Thrones during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Duan Siping (段思平) seized power after the collapse of Nanzhao. He established a state in the mountains of Yunnan that lasted over 300 years by being the ultimate “buffer state”—too mountainous to easily conquer, and too Buddhist to be seen as a primary threat.

The Monk Kings: Abdication as a Feature

In China, losing power usually meant death. In Byzantium, losing power usually meant being blinded or exiled. In Dali, the Kings get the fortune to abdicate and become monks.

The Shogunate before Japan

For much of Dali’s history, the Duan family was the symbolic heads of state, but the Gao family held the real power. In 1094, Gao Shengtai (高昇泰) even overthrew the Duans and started his own Dazhong Kingdom (大中國). But on his deathbed only a year ago, he feared karma and told his son to give the throne back. The state was called Late Dali, and operates in a “Shogunate” way even before Japanese invented it. The Gaos continued to hold the real power, effectively serving as the kingdom’s shoguns (prime ministers).

Laser Beam Shooters

In the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (天龙八部) the Dali Kingdom is depicted as a land of martial arts masters, with its emperors possessing supernatural abilities. They can shoot invisible laser beams of energy from their fingertips. While the Duans were portrayed to have the supernatural power everyone once dreamed of, they had very little political agency in reality. For example, Duan Zhengming (段正明) was not a Kung-fu master, but a figurehead who eventually abdicated by Gao Shengtai to become a monk².

The Fall

The Dali Kingdom didn’t fall to a frontal assault. It fell to a “system bypass” by the Mongols. In 1253, Kublai Khan realized he couldn’t break the Song Dynasty’s defenses from the north. He decided to pull a “flanking maneuver” of epic proportions. He marched his army through the Tibetan highlands and crossed the Jinsha River using sheepskin rafts.

The Dali Kingdom was caught completely off guard. The last king, Duan Xingzhi (段兴智), was captured but—in typical Dali fashion—wasn’t executed. The Mongols were impressed as the Duans’ capability to be the nominal ruler, so they kept him as a local governor (Tusi). The Duan family actually continued to influence Yunnan for another hundred years under Mongol rule.

Trivia

• Dali Stone: The English word for “Marble” in Chinese is Dali Shi (大理石)—literally “Dali Stone.” The kingdom was so famous for its high-quality marble that the name of the state became the name of the material.
• The Three Pagodas: These structures were built to “tame the dragons” (floods). They are the only things that survived the Mongol invasion and centuries of earthquakes, standing as a reminder of the Duan family’s architectural legacy.