Mong Mao

Mong Mao was an ethnically state that controlled several smaller Tai states or chieftainships along the frontier of what is now Myanmar and China in the Dehong region of Yunnan with a capital near the modern-day border town of Ruili. The name of the main river in this region is the Nam Mao, also known as the River Shweli.

The chronicle of this region, titled the Mong Mao Chronicle, was written much later.

Mong Mao arose in the power vacuum left after the Kingdom of Dali in Yunnan fell to the Mongols around 1254. This kingdom had asserted some unity over the diversity of ethnic groups residing along the southwest frontier of Yunnan.

"Mong Mao" is sometimes used by authors to refer to the entire group of Tai states along the Chinese-Myanmar frontier including Luchuan-Pingmian, Mong Yang , and Hsenwi , even though specific place names are almost always used in Ming and sources .

The center of power shifted frequently between these smaller states or chieftainships. Sometimes they were unified under one strong leader, sometimes they were not. As the Shan scholar Sai Kam Mong observes: "Sometimes one of these strove to be the leading kingdom and sometimes all of them were unified into one single kingdom...The capital of the kingdom shifted from place to place, but most of them were located near the Nam Mao "

The various versions of the Mong Mao Chronicle provide the lineage of Mong Mao rulers. The Shan chronicle tradition, recorded very early by Elias , provides a long list with the first ruler of Mong Mao dating from 568 A.D. The dates in Elias for later rulers of Mong Mao do not match very well the dates in Ming dynasty sources such as the Ming Shi-lu and the Bai Yi Zhuan which are considered more reliable from the time of the ruler Si Ke Fa. Kazhangjia , translated into by Witthayasakphan and Zhao Hong Yun , also provides a fairly detailed local chronicle of Mong Mao.

List of Monarchs