Yi

The Yi, self-named Nuosu, with branches called Nisu, are Tibeto-Burman highlanders of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi, speaking Loloish languages close to Burmese and keeping their own syllabic script. Their Wuman ancestors of eastern Yunnan supplied Nanzhao's warrior caste in 738–902, then lived under Bai-ruled Dali until the thirteenth-century Mongol conquest.

Under the Yuan the Yi were governed through chieftainships, while Yi clans had already established their own states; Guizhou's Mu'ege lasted to 1279 and survived as Shuixi chiefdom to 1698. In 1337 southern Sichuan Yi held the Jianchang and Huili valleys in what is now Liangshan, Black Yi aristocrats ruling commoners and captives in a rigid caste order that kept imperial officials at bay for centuries.

Ming reforms replaced hereditary chieftains with appointed officials, and the 1621–1629 She-An Rebellion briefly set up a breakaway kingdom before defeat. Ortai's 1720s campaigns broke remaining chiefdoms and pressed assimilation on Yi near Kunming, but Liangshan was never fully subdued, keeping its clan order after the rest of the southwest came under direct rule.