Lijiang City replaced former administrative region Lijiang Prefecture. Lijiang Prefecture no longer exists today. It was under the rule of the Mu family local commanders during the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty.
The Baisha Old Town was the political, commercial and cultural center for the local Naxi people and other ethnic people for 400 years from the year 658 AD to 1107 AD. The Dabaoji Palace of the Baisha Fresco where is very close to the Baisha Naxi Hand-made Embroidery Institute was built in the year 658AD in the Tang Dynasty (618 AD to 960 AD).
In ancient times, the Baisha Old Town used to be the center of silk embroidery in the southwest of China and the most important place of the Ancient Southern Silk Road, also called the Ancient Tea and Horse Road or Ancient tea route. The Ancient Southern Silk Road started from Myanmar, crossed Lijiang, Shangri-La County, Tibet, then journeyed through the Fertile Crescent Arabian lands particularly Iran, Iraq formerly Mesopotamia, Jordan, Israel, then eventually to the Mediterranean Sea. After thousands of years, these luxury goods and the resulting wealth became a prime cause of past and present wars.
A pivotal silk trade historical event was caused by Justinian I the Byzantine Emperor. In the early 550s, two of his Christian monks succeeded in smuggling eggs of silk worms from Central Asia back to Constantinople, and silk became an localized product. From Persian to Roman empires, Roman Catholic Crusades and European invasions, the rare silks, spices and teas with the vast wealth they brought, were eventually imported by sea to France, Italy, Spain, England and other European and African countries. As a major integral role for trade between regions and countries, the Mediterranean Sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region, Mesopotamian, Persian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Byzantine and
