Wēichǔ

Wēichǔ takes its name from a Yi chieftain of the same name, said in the annals to have built a walled town in the Éluò basin in 338, in the days when the Cuan clans ruled central Yunnan. Mountains and small basins surround it, and the old road from Kunming to Dali ran through it. Under the Dali kingdom it was the seat of Wēichǔ Prefecture, a high-ranking governorship of the country around.

The Mongols made it Wēichǔ Route in 1271, with a county raised to a zhou in 1278 and lowered again in 1284. In 1382, the year the Ming armies settled the province after the conquest of Dali, the route and its county were both renamed Chǔxióng, the name they bore afterward. Salt from the brine wells at nearby Hēijǐng supplied much of the region and filled the government's coffers, and the Yi villagers of the hills kept their own healer-priests, the bimo, who recited their ritual texts at funerals and festivals. Travellers between Kunming and Dali made Weichu their regular stopping place.