The origin of Baisha music is said to come from a gift from the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan. On his expedition to Dali, he had difficulty crossing the Jinsha ("Golden Sand") River (a tributary to the Chang Jiang), and received help from Mailiang, the chief of the Nakhi people. To show his appreciation, Kublai Khan left half of his band and many musical scores as a gift to the chief. "Baisha Fine Music" is one of ancient China's few large-scale, classical orchestral forms of music and has twenty four tunes, locally known as "qupai". Although archaic, simple, and usually very slow in style, modern Baisha music is euphonious, and sometimes even energetic in character.