AHC/WI : Surviving Kingdom of Dali

What would make the Kingdom of Dali's survival possible? I trust that no Mongol campaigns in Far East Asia would be helpful, but wouldn't a non-Yuan China have expansionist drives as well?

If it's the case, would a Chinese suzerainty be sufficient to counter these, as for Vietnam? Mongols did that, but it backfired when Ming took over.

If Dali Kingdom manages to lives on, would a long history of independence for this region (since Nanzhao's times) be enough to forge a cultural unity on Bais?
A Vietnam-like independence would be enough to provides important changes enough to the chinese western expansion in Tibet or Turkestan?

Other thoughts?
 
The Mongol conquest of Nanzhao was really twofold: firstly, to outflank Song defences in lower Sichuan (which were formidable due to climactic and terrain advantages), and secondly to obtain Dali's wealth for distribution to Mongol elites. As such, in the context of the Mongol-Song wars an invasion of Dali is pretty much a given, though perhaps given Sichuan's resilience Dali could have held out for a bit longer.

A surviving Song Dynasty would probably find it very difficult to muster the 'national will' to conquer Dali even without Mongol pressure, since the collegiate political atmosphere of the Song court fostered political gridlock as well as short-termism. In any case, given that the Song Dynasty relied on trade routes through Dali to obtain strategic resources (most importantly horses from Tibet), there really wasn't much point to a Song Dynasty invading Yunnan. A more expansionist and militarily successful dynasty, however, would certainly have no lack of reasons to attempt an annexation of Dali.

I'm not sure how much 'cultural cohesion' Dali could have created. Modern-day Yunnan hosts 25 ethnic groups that make up around a third of its population, a testament to the Balkan-like terrain which allows individual groupings to survive isolated from each other. Unlike the Red River Valley for Annam, Dali really doesn't have a dominant center of population and even if it does, it's likely to be modern-day Kunming rather than Dali. It would seem that an independent entity in Yunnan would probably consist of a core group in either Dali or Kunming lording it over subordinate ethnicities in the mountains, which would surrender or defect as the political situation allowed.
 
Would a longer Dali (or any Yunnan kingdom that could replace it), in spite of an important sinization, keep more of a distinct political identity (and eventually a "national" one) to not be considered as "Chinese" even in the case of a takeover?

What could it mean, with an independent Yunnan, for Chinese geopolitics on their South and on their West? Would this presence be an important change enough to modify these? Would these changes be annoying enough to motivate a Chinese conquest?
 
Would a longer Dali (or any Yunnan kingdom that could replace it), in spite of an important sinization, keep more of a distinct political identity (and eventually a "national" one) to not be considered as "Chinese" even in the case of a takeover?

What could it mean, with an independent Yunnan, for Chinese geopolitics on their South and on their West? Would this presence be an important change enough to modify these? Would these changes be annoying enough to motivate a Chinese conquest?
The distinct political structure could be the müang model, as it was fashionable with Tai and Malay people further South (an interesting Indianised hybrid). I would generally tend to say that, if such a polity preserved itself, there would be a few similarities with the history of the Tai peoples (who are linguistically akin to several Southern Chinese ethnic groups). The history of the Thai proper was heavily influenced by the Khmer Empire, that would most likely not affect Dali, but there were Indianised empires in present-day Myanmar who lend themselves to a limited analogy. (The analogy would be limited insofar as the Khmer Empire was Hinduist, while Burmese Empires were always Theravada Buddhist.)
 
Wouldn't Yunnan be more sinized than indianized, tough?
Depends on what that means. They are likely to write using an adapted version of Chinese symbols, and they`re likely to have an "interpretatio Daoista" of their cult, along with Buddhist monasteries of some or other Chen sect as centres of their literate culture (although here we are at a conundrum as to whether that would constitute Sincisation or Indianisation) - unless, of course, Burmese influences would strengthen the Theravada brand.
But, on the other hand, given their geographics, they are quite unlikely to have a centralised government, with its highly educated bureaucracy with a Confucian mindset and the like. They are more likely to have aristocratic local strongholds with overlapping and sometimes quarrelling "circles of power", like they characterise most of Indian history.
 
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