Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture

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. 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 "ᥖᥬᥳ ᥑᥨᥒᥰ", 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, 德宏 (Dehong) means "moral" + "magnificent", so it means "magnificent (great) moral (value)". 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. 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 (蜀身毒道), between Yuandu and Sichuan. The road passed a kingdom named "Dianyue" (滇越). The country is also called "Dianyue Chengxiang" (滇越乘象国) 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. Ai Lao (哀牢) 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.