Shāxī

Shaxi belongs to the Bozhou country of northern Guizhou, where mountain slopes and cultivated valleys supported communities with diverse local traditions. Farming used suitable ground, while livestock, woodland resources and crafts added to household production. Paths connected villages with markets and neighbouring basins, allowing salt, cloth and tools to circulate alongside agricultural and forest products. Terrain made route knowledge important to both travel and the practical exercise of authority.

Bozhou's Shaxi was fortified in 1382, early in the Ming. In the Ming campaign against Bozhou in 1600, a Shaxi southwest of Zunyi served as one of the routes into the territory, and An Jiangchen's troops from Shuixi advanced by it. The campaign ended the hereditary Yang rulers' authority, and Bozhou was reorganized under regular imperial administration.