Nánláng

Nanlang lies among the frontier settlements between southern Yunnan and Annam. The mines of Dulong and Nandan drew labourers and merchants into this border country, where village fields, tax payments and the authority of local headmen crossed the competing claims of distant courts. Kaihua's officials looked south towards these settlements, while Annam's rulers defended the possessions administered by their own frontier chiefs.

In 1725 Governor-General Gao Qizhuo named Nanlang, Mengkang and Nanding among the villages he claimed for Yunnan. Old tax registers, abandoned guard posts and the course of the Duzhou River became arguments in the dispute. Annam challenged the proposed boundary, and the Yongzheng Emperor cautioned his officials against seeking profit or merit through territorial demands. Nanlang thus entered an imperial controversy in which a mine, a stream and a village's former tax obligations could all become reasons to move a frontier.