Dartsedo

Dartsedo, known in Chinese as Dajianlu, stands where mountain streams meet at the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. Its narrow valley makes it a natural meeting place between Sichuan and Kham. Tibetan traders and Chinese merchants gathered here, exchanging the products of the plateau for goods brought over the mountains from the east.

By the early Ming period, Dartsedo had become a centre of the tea and horse trade. Tea from the region of Ya'an travelled west in pressed bricks, while horses moved in the opposite direction. In 1696 the Qing permitted a free brick-tea trade here. By the eighteenth century Khampa innkeepers known as guozhuang mediated between Chinese merchants and Tibetan wholesalers, giving local households a prominent place in the commerce that passed through the town.