Amid the Clouds and Mist: China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700 (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

"In 1200, what is now southwest China - Guizhou, Yunnan, and the southern portion of Sichuan - was home to an assortment of strikingly diverse cultures and ruled by a multitude of political entities. By 1750, China's military, political, sociocultural, and economic institutions were firmly in control of the region, and many of the area's cultures were rapidly becoming extinct. One purpose of this book is to examine how China's three late imperial dynasties - the Yuan, Ming, and Qing - conquered, colonized, and assumed control of the southwest. Another objective is to highlight the indigenous response to China's colonization of the southwest, particularly that of the Nasu Yi people of western Guizhou and eastern Yunnan, the only group to leave an extensive written record." "This book, then, is organized around two interrelated narratives. The first focuses on the late imperial Chinese states and their role in the conquest and colonization of the southwest. The second narrative tells the history of the Nasu Yi people and their response to nearly five centuries of uninterrupted efforts to colonize their homeland. In contrast to the common portrait of the inevitable triumph of the Confucian mission civilitrice, the author argues that non-Han acculturation and assimilation into Han civilization were exceedingly problematic, if not impossible because of the central state's unwillingness to eliminate institutional barriers designed to protect Han dominance of the frontier."--Jacket Introduction: Revisiting China's March Toward the Tropics A Southern Kingdom, Mu'ege The Mongol Conquest of China's Southwest Frontier Mu'ege During the Yuan-Ming Transition The Periphery Within To Reclaim Our Ancestors' Glory Trampled Earth.