The Burma Road

From Mangshi the main road runs southwest towards the Burmese border along the river valley. The road first passes Fengping 风平, from where a branch road leads to Xuangang 轩岗, on a Mangshi River tributary, from where a road continues into the Longchuan Valley and Mengyang in Lianghe County. Davies wrote in his 1909 book: [...] we followed the plain down for some distance and then turned in a westerly direction over some grass land into Mong Chi, a district of Mong Hkwan lying along the narrow valley of the Nam Chi. The Chinese call at Hsien-kang. On the 8th we climbed a range to a height of 6,500 feet, when at about nine o'clock it came on to rain very heavily, so, finding a large temple in the Chinese village of Ho-t'ou-ts'un, we stayed there for the night. Meanwhile in the Mangshi River Valley, the road continues to Santaishan 三台山, a hill town with a number of Jingpo and Deang settlements nearby. Santaishan used to be known as Mengka and was the seat of the Chinese administration, its location chosen for the healthier climate away from the malaria-infested plains: The road then continues to the large Zhefang 遮放 plain, like Mangshi before the war an independent Shan state and tusi seat. North of Zhefang is the Jingpo township of Xishan 西山, the Nungbing British communist Alan Winnington visited in the 1950s and described in his book: South a road leads to Dongshan 东山, another Jingpo settlement.