ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the evolution of the Miao fortresses in western Hunan. Lying far away from a fortress, much of the latter category of land was leased to ordinary Miao to farm. If one pulled down the wall of Huangshiqiao it would be a village. Indeed, the Miao fortresses are indistinguishable from ordinary villages. In the fortresses as in the city, people of different cultures, if not of different races, live as neighbors—the Miao numbering more than the Han and ten other groups of peoples, such as the Tujia and the Tibetans. Fifty km to the west of Fenghuang is the old Miao fortress called Shanjiang, a market town whose market also meets twice in every ten days. Like Nanchuan, the opportunity for education within the city or a market town would have been immeasurably better than outside of it.
