The Luchuan–Pingmian campaigns (Chinese: 麓川之役; pinyin: Lùchuān Zhī Yì) (1436–49) were punitive expeditions carried out by the Ming dynasty under the rule of the Emperor Yingzong against the Shan-led State of Möng Mao near the frontier with the Kingdom of Ava.
Möng Mao, called Luchuan–Pingmian by the Ming, was a Chinese military and civilian pacification commission (a tusi) on the Sino–Burmese border, corresponding roughly to the modern districts of Longchuan and Ruili, including part of the Gaoligong Mountains, along the upper reaches of the Shweli River.
[1] A year after the Dao Ganmeng rebellion of 1398, the tusi Si Lunfa died and a new generation of elites rose to power in Möng Mao.
[3] In the following 20 years from 1413 to 1433 Möng Mao, Hsenwi, and the Kingdom of Ava regularly lodged complaints of incursions by neighboring states to the Ming dynasty.
His report arrived on 28 June 1438, stating that Möng Mao had "repeatedly invaded Nandian, Ganyai, Tengchong,...Lujiang, and Jinchi".
Another report arrived on 14 July, 1438, stating that the Mong Mao ruler had "appointed local chieftains of the neighboring regions subordinate to him without asking for the approval of the Ming court and that some of these men joined forces with him to invade Jinchi."
[5] In preparation for a punitive expedition, the Ming court issued an imperial edict to Hsenwi asking for their assistance in surrounding Möng Mao.
Rather than making the Tai and Shan peoples easier to manage, it had balkanized the region and contributed to the endemic chaos and warfare that plagued the various tusis the Ming had created.
In 1438 a total of 199 tusi offices were abolished and the regional commander of Yunnan, Mu Sheng, received orders to carry out a punitive campaign on 8 December, 1438.
Fang Zheng was then defeated at Kongni where he had pursued Si Renfa, and "fell into an ambush of the elephant phalanx of his enemy", at which point he ordered his son to escape, and died with his troops.
[7] Upon receiving news of Fang Zheng's defeat, Mu Sheng dismantled his camps and retreated to Baoshan as late spring was approaching and along with it the hot summer.
The Vice Minister of Justice, He Wenyuan, was against a second campaign and petitioned the court on 7 February 1441, in an attempt to persuade them not to squander their resources in capturing land that is "not inhabitable to us.
Before the expedition was carried out, Liu Qiu, a member of the Hanlin Academy, as well as an imperial tutor, presented a memorial in opposition of the campaign.
Liu Qiu argued that the southern rebels had already retreated into hiding in the southernmost zone of Yunnan, and did not warrant such a large expenditure as mobilizing 150,000 men.
Seeing that Mong Mao was no longer occupied, Si Jifa returned to his father's base of power and began attacking neighboring tribes once again.
In March 1449, a combined army of 130,000 soldiers was amassed, and the fourth and final campaign to extirpate the Mong Mao threat was launched under the supervision of Wang Ji.
So in practice Si Lunfa's family survived as rulers in the neighboring state of Mong Yang under the close observation of Ming.
The Chinese allowed remnants of the defeated Tai ruling elite to remain in Mong Yang if they agreed never to cross the Irrawaddy river to the east.
It is significant that the end of the Lu-ch'uan campaigns early in 1449 was followed immediately by extensive tribal uprisings and other revolts in five provinces south of the Yangtze river, and, on the northern frontiers, by the spectacular defeats later in the year which virtually destroyed the imperial armies in the north and led to the capture of the emperor himself by the Mongols.
[25]The four southern punitive expeditions and the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the following Tumu Crisis are considered the turning point into decline for the Ming dynasty.