Baoshan History

Baoshan history often seems to verge on folklore, with tales of Kublai Khan’s marauding Mongols, outnumbered 6 to 1, vanquishing thousands of stampeding elephants and Burmese troops; Marco Polo's 14th century visit; and, more recently, the American Flying Tigers of World War II cutting the skies with their shark-faced aircrafts. 

Baoshan first rose to prominence during the reign of Emporer Wu (156-87 BC), who ordered the paving of parts of the Southern Silk Road (also known as the Tea Horse Road) in 109 BC. The Southern Silk Road was a key caravan  trade route through the  Yunnan mountains, extending via Baoshan and Tengchong far into Burma, India and beyond.

As late as the Tang Dynasty (618 -907 AD) this line of communication was a major link between China and the countries of  Asia, Africa and Europe and it played a role in developing the economy and culture of the minority groups on China's southwestern border.

Kublai Khan fought his famous battle near Baoshan in 1277, in which 12,000 Mongol troops routed 60,000 Burmese soldiers and their 2,000 war elephants. As the story goes, Khan’s archers were able to stampede the elephants, turning them against their own lines.

Baoshan remained significant to local commerce in years that followed even as the heyday of the Tea Horse Road passed with the ascendancy of ocean trade, pushing the region into relative obscurity beyond Yunnan.

During World War II,  Baoshan once again saw epic warfare as 250,000 Chinese troops fought off Japanese attempts to invade China from Burma. The Chinese were assisted by American fliers and the Japanese bombed the Flying Tigers base in Baoshan a number of times. 

Following the end of the war and the communist victory over the Kuomintang in 1949, Baoshan remained a heavily militarized region thanks to its proximity to the border, and though the military profile has faded in recent years, visitors will still often see young soldiers marching—and sometimes ambling—around town.