The Memorial Stele of Alliance between General Duan and 37 Troops stands inside the No.1 Middle School of Qujing City, Yunnan Province.
The stele, also called "Stele of Stone City Alliance", is 1.25 m high, 0.58 m wide, and 0.61 m thick. It is divided into two parts, the upper and the lower. In the upper part are 11 lines, and each line has 13 characters from right to left, in regular script. In the lower part, there are 8 lines of characters in cursive script, all being personal names. Most of the characters are in a simplified form or a variant form, without a title. The whole text contains 403 characters, in a cursive regular script. The handwriting is in an honest and strong style, which has won a very high opinion from chirographers of all times.
The stele was erected in the fourth year (971) of the Kaibao reign of the Northern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). The epigraph records such a story: General Duan (of the White Nationality) of the Dali Kingdom allied with 39 troops (of the Yi Nationality) in their fight against some tribes in eastern Yunnan and defeated them; then, they vowed to make an alliance at the Stone City (today's Qujing City), and awarded the meritorious persons. Historical records have not mentioned such an event, so the stele has provided an important data for the research into the history of the Dali Kingdom, and the history of the ethnic minorities there at that time, especially for the study on the official system of the Dali Kingdom. Literature of the Ming Dynasty (1644-1911) already mentioned this stele, but later it was buried in earth. It was unearthed in the 18th year (1679) of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty in the old site of the Stone City, north of Qujing City, and was moved into the city in the 29th year (1849) of the Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty for preservation.
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