Wēimào

Weimao refers to the Rma, or Qiang, chieftaincies around Weizhou and Maozhou on the upper Min River, centred on Wenshan. The Yuan established a pacification office there in 1283.

After the Ming conquest of Sichuan in 1371, local headmen held hereditary offices, including the Wasi commission. Han settlers entered the Maozhou valleys in the fifteenth century, and frontier wars in the 1580s tightened imperial control. In 1728 the Qing raised Maozhou to an independent department.