Ge Jianxiong, an expert in the history of immigration, once said that history is created by people and is the result of the activities of population in time and space. Culture is carried out by people, mainly by the flow of people to spread and develop. In this sense, migration is the most important activity in human history. "Without immigration, there would be no Chinese nation, no Chinese territory, no Chinese culture, no Chinese history."
From a cultural point of view, as the place where the light of Chinese civilization rises, as the place where the ancient saint Wang Yao Shunyu built the capital, as the source of the hundred families of the Sons and Hundreds of Lawyers and the Soldiers, as the potential source of the Dragon Fly of the Five Dynasties of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, as the stage for the spread of ming dynasty novels in the Yuan Dynasty, as the base of the Jin merchants and the world, Shanxi has always been a cultural town and center in northern China, and in different historical periods, it belongs to the most developed list in the country. Advanced culture naturally radiates and affects the surrounding area, and as Mr. Ge Jianxiong said, the spread and exchange of culture depends on the flow of people.
Geographically speaking, historians have always praised the geographical situation in Shanxi, the most representative of which is as Gu Zuyu said, "The situation in Shanxi is the most complete ... In the east, then the barrier of too much behavior, in the west, the great river is the belt, in the north, the desert and the Yin Mountains are outside, and the Hook and Yanmen are the internal dangers, in the south are Shouyang, Dizhu, Jiecheng, Wangwu mountains, the riverfront and the wrong standoff, and in the south, Mengjin, Tongguan, and the Gateway of All Wu are also ", as far as the geographical advantage, which makes Shanxi, even in the period of division and war, can ensure a considerable degree of stability, become a refuge for refugees, and the economy and society still have some development. When the war subsided, it became one of the few areas in the country that could export its population.
Early Jin Dynasty: The first outward migration
In the early days, the development of the territory of the Jin Dynasty, from a corner of the southern Jin Dynasty to the southeastern Jin, central Jin, and northern Jin, the Huaxia people merged with Di and Rong, and gradually spread throughout the entire Shanxi region, all the way to the Qin State Shang Martingale Transformation Law, one of the policies was "Leimin", Lai, solicitation. That is, to recruit the population of other countries to participate in the development and construction of the Qin State, the object is mainly the "people of the Three Jins", which can be seen as the first emigration from Shanxi under the official leadership. The reasons why the immigration policy can be implemented and the expected results are no different from those in later generations as in the early Ming Dynasty, one is narrow and dense, and the other is to go to other places to cultivate. "(Shang) Martingale took the three Jins as narrow and the people were poor, the Qin land was vast and widowed, so the grass was not exhausted, and the geographical advantages were not exhausted, so he seduced the people of the Three Jins, took advantage of the field house, and restored three generations of ignorant military affairs, and the business was internal, and the Qin people should be the enemy outside" -- that is, the Jin people were responsible for farming, and the Qin people were responsible for fighting.
Needless to say, the migration of individual populations, although it can also be called migration, and it happens from time to time, but only war will make large-scale migration possible. Because the war has caused a large reduction in population and a large amount of land to be abandoned, the government will do a unified population resource allocation in its ruling area, and only at this time will the people, because of the compulsion of life, or to avoid war, or to seek a promised land, ignore the cultural tradition of relocating the land and embark on the road of migration. It can almost be said that every outbreak of the Great War was a precursor to the immigration incident.
Qin Han Wei Jin: Shanxi Minhu Nandu
At the time of the Qin, Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties, as the junction of Hu and Han, the inward migration of grassland nomads to Shanxi was the mainstream in the history of Shanxi immigration, and unlike other periods, it was only allowed by the Central Plains regime, so although it was slow, it had a far-reaching impact.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Central Plains were in Pandang, and the Three Kingdoms Conquest was followed by the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, which triggered the Wuhu Rebellion, and the Shanxi region, as the most concentrated place of ethnic minorities in the north at that time, was particularly seriously affected. Yongjia mourning, Shanxi is one of the earliest birthplaces, after the "crown of the south crossing", this is the first time in Chinese history that the Han population moved south, shanxi people are also the earliest participants.
At that time, the shanxi people who had moved abroad formed a group of displaced people, the most famous one called "begging"--the famous Zhiyi, "praying to live", showing how much helplessness and how much desolation. According to historical records, the number of beggar groups of displaced people is about 100,000 people, most of whom are from the state and scattered everywhere. In the midst of the entire wave of displaced people in the north, the late historian Zhou Liang commented that "the unity among the displaced people is the strongest, the area of activity is the widest, and the longest.".
In the Shanxi households after the southern crossing, the Eastern Jin Dynasty set up many overseas Chinese counties to resettle, and the "Book of Jin and Geography" says, "Those who live in the south of Hedong, on the boundary of Hanwuling County, Mingdi Qiao Qiao Hedong County, Tong'an Yi, Wenxi, Yong'an, Linfen, Hongnong, Tan, Songzi, and Daqi Eight Counties, and live in Yan", "Shangdang people nandu, overseas Chinese set up Shangdang County as four counties, and lived in Wuhu.". Mr. Tan Qijun has counted these overseas Chinese counties, counting more than a dozen.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty (and later the Song Qi Liang Chen) was originally established with the joint support of the northern Qiao clan and the southern indigenous clans, among these overseas Chinese clans, the Taiyuan Wang clan, the Hedong Wei clan, the Pei clan, the Zhongdu (Pingyao) Sun clan, the Qixian Wen clan, the Jiexiu Guo clan, and so on, who were first-class heavy subjects in the dynasty, the first-class celebrities in the opposition, famous figures such as Wang Shu and Wang Tanzhi of the Wang family, Wei Xuan and Wei Jie of the Wei clan, Pei Fengzhi of the Pei clan, Sun Tong of the Sun clan, Sun Qi, Wen Zhao of the Wen clan, Guo Tai of the Guo clan, and so on.
Although in the canonical history, only the people of the scholar clan can leave their names, it must not be forgotten that without the silent cultivation of many ordinary people, the land of Jiangzuo, which was known as a barbaric land before the Wei and Jin Dynasties, would not have been developed, nor would it have laid the foundation for becoming a Chinese fish and rice warehouse in the future.
Basically during the same period, the Northern Wei regime established by the Xianbei people was set at Pingcheng, which is now Datong City. In order to control this vast territory, the Important Measure of the Northern Wei Rulers was to emigrate to the Datong region. The official history records that "the people of the six prefectures of Shandong (Hebei region) and the disciples of Ho and Goryeo Were 360,000, and more than 100,000 people were tricked to fill the Beijing division", and even in the previous foreign wars, the total number of immigrants of these two types should be above one million. Such a large population was enriched to the Datong region, and soon the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty became a majestic city. However, when Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei moved the capital to Luoyang, he led nearly a million civilian and military officials and civilians to move to Luoyang and other parts of Hebei, so that Pingcheng soon declined.
Turks left "nine surnames in Hedong"
By the time of the Sui and Tang dynasties, a long period of division in Chinese history had come to an end, and the strength of the Central Plains Dynasty had effectively eliminated border troubles, and during the Tang Dynasty, even the ethnic minorities in the north and northeast had become the defenders of the frontier.
Since the rulers of the current dynasty had the mind of the four seas, the integration of ethnic groups was more in-depth and extensive. In the third year of Tang Taizong's ascension to the throne, Hubu Shangqu said, "Chinese those who returned from outside The Cypriots and the Turks before and after the annexation, kaisi yi into prefectures and counties, more than 1.2 million men and women." Of course, this one hundred and twenty thousand is not all in Shanxi, but with the geographical conditions of Shanxi, it is bound to accept many. For example, during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Li Longji, the Turkic leader Abs led nine tribes south into Shanxi and transformed into the "Nine Surnames of Hedong".
The Five Dynasties of the Late Tang Dynasty: Atypical "From the Dragon" Immigrants
In the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, relative to the war in Chang'an, and the Shanxi region was still relatively stable, so officials and people came here to take refuge, the so-called "clothes and crowns fled to Fen, Jinjian".
During this period, Shanxi also had cases of emigration, but the situation was extremely special. Meng Zhixiang, the founder of Later Shu in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, was originally Taiyuan Yin of the Later Tang Dynasty. Later, he became the deputy ambassador of Jiannan Xichuan Jiedu, and a few years later he was proclaimed emperor in Chengdu. When he went out to Xichuan, he led many Shanxi officers and soldiers, who became the backbone of Later Shu, and their families and relatives also settled in Sichuan, becoming an atypical "conglong" immigrant in the history of Shanxi immigration.
Northern Song Dynasty: A large number of people moved to Hubei, Henan
The Northern Song Dynasty ended the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and formed a situation of confrontation with the Liao. Before and after the attack on the Northern Han Dynasty, a large number of Shanxi households were moved to Henan, Hubei and other places, which lasted for more than twenty years, with a population of more than 250,000, objectively played a role in restoring the economy of those regions, but its subjective intention was to weaken the Northern Han regime and eliminate the resistance forces. It was also an important reason for the instability of the frontiers of the later Northern Song Dynasty. Weighing the pros and cons, it has to be said that the immigration movement that has always been led by the government, this time in the Northern Song Dynasty, can be regarded as more than worth the loss.
Jin Yuan: The northern nomads are here again
During the Jin Yuan period, the nomadic peoples in the north once again went south, but after the great social turmoil, Shanxi often recovered relatively quickly, because the Shanxi shimins in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the late Jin Dynasty fled south, and then showed a trend of return, the scholar An Jiesheng said, "(After the late Jin Dynasty's 'Zhenyou Difficult Crossing'), a large number of Shanxi civilians did not urgently move out to avoid disasters, showing their tenacious spirit and ability to resist political turmoil."
Ming Dynasty: The government dominated the great migration
After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming government led another migration in order to restore the economy and society of the whole country. This time immigration, in the history of immigration, has the largest number, the widest range, the most frequent frequency, the most complex variety, and the highest popularity. Because the departure and distribution center is in Hongdong County, Linfen City, many times, "Ask me where my hometown came from, the big locust tree in Hongdong, Shanxi", has become a common saying that most Chinese are familiar with now.
This great migration, which lasted from the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty to the Yongle period, was a military migration to eliminate internal troubles in the early stage, and a reclamation migration to eliminate the imbalance between the populations between regions in the later period, including the exiled immigrants who moved the criminals and their families to sparsely populated places during the Yongle period. According to the statistics of later scholars, the large-scale migration in the early Ming Dynasty lasted for more than half a century, and there were seventeen large-scale immigrants with historical records, moving to 227 counties in eleven provinces such as Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangsu, with a population of more than one million, as of now, the descendants of the "Hongdong Locust Tree" immigrants have more than 200 million people, and "where there is a Chinese, there are descendants of immigrants from the big locust tree", which is not an exaggeration.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi suffered a rare natural disaster, which lasted a long time and involved a wide range, covering the densely populated places of southern Jin, southeastern Jin, central Jin and northern Jin, with crop harvests and ineffective government disaster relief, resulting in a wave of displaced people that lasted for decades, and the number of people was conservatively estimated to be about millions. Most of these displaced people, the direction is to Hubei, known in history as "Jingxiang displaced people", the Ming government initially adopted the policy of eviction back to the hometown, in addition to causing a large number of deaths of displaced people, it played no role, forced to resettle. However, in fact, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters have never stopped, and the tide of displaced people has certainly continued, and the eventual demise of the Ming Dynasty has a great relationship with the displaced people.
Ming and Qing dynasties: commercial immigration
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, with the rise of Jin merchants, a new wave of immigration also appeared, that is, commercial immigration. The business of Jin merchants reached as far south as Fujian and Taiwan, and as far north as Outer Mongolia and Russia, the footsteps of the Shanxi people also spread throughout East Asia and Northeast Asia. According to statistics, in the Qing Dynasty, there were 13 million Shanxi people who went abroad to do business and earn a living, even if one-tenth eventually stayed in other places, it was a huge number. "Brother you go to the west exit, sister I really can't stay" the song has been sung for generations. Because the efforts of these commercial immigrants created the glory of Jin merchants, and because the population dependent on agriculture was reduced and the contradiction of "narrow land and dense population" in Shanxi was alleviated, the Qing Dynasty did not have the same serious problem of displaced people as the Ming Dynasty.
Source: Shanxi Evening News
Original title: Five thousand years of Huaxia, nine times the history of Shanxi immigration, the world is full of Jinxiang people!