In China, a person's surname is not only a title, but also the ownership of family and identity, and the long history has bred countless surnames, and the surnames of ancient emperors still need to be avoided for ordinary people.
In addition to the common surnames of Wang, Li, Lin and so on, there is a surname that is very rare in China, but it has become the first surname in Vietnam, it is the Nguyen surname, so what is the origin of this surname?
There are many opinions about the origin of the Nguyen surname, there is a saying that the Nguyen surname comes from Ruan Xiaoqi in "Water Margin", is this really the case?
The largest surname in Vietnam
Ruan is one of the surnames in China, originally derived from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, when various princes occupied various countries, one of which was called the Ruan Kingdom, which was established by the descendants of Gao Tao and could not survive many wars.
After the zhou wen king Ji Chang destroyed the country, although the country was dead, the descendants of Gao Tao still existed, and the people of the Nguyen state still wanted to keep the surname, so they retained "Nguyen" as a surname and passed it on, which is the first source of the Nguyen surname.
Some people believe that the origin of the Nguyen surname is related to the place name, and the Qin Dynasty had a northern nomadic long-lived place called Jiu Nguyen County, which was officially named after Qin Shi Huang unified the country in order to govern the inhabitants of the north.
Jiu Nguyen was a land of Lin Hu that was expanded by Zhao Yong, the king of Zhao Wuling, and Lin Hu was one of the names of the northern nomads, who took it for himself and then became a subordinate of the State of Zhao until it was ruled by Qin Shi Huang.
After Jiu Nguyen County became a place name, the local residents evolved it into a surname over time, which was originally a distinction for local residents, and the surname of Jiu Nguyen County was later simplified to a single Nguyen surname.
Since there is speculation that the root cause is the national surname and the place name, then naturally there is also the origin of the personal surname. The "Spring and Autumn Gongzi Genealogy" once recorded a Zheng Guoren Fengyou doctor in the Spring and Autumn Period, whose character was Shi Yan, and later took the first character as a surname.
Generation after generation, the children and grandchildren continued to pass on the Shi clan, until one of the branches of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was scattered due to war and family, and in order to survive this branch was displaced to other places, and the time passed to the Warring States period.
At this time, the Shi clan lived in the Nguyen Cuo bian belt of the Chu State, because of the Nguyen character, they changed their surname to Nguyen after breeding here, and then re-experienced branches and migrations, most of the Nguyen clan migrated to Vietnam, settled and eventually became Vietnamese.
Origin of the Nguyen surname
In addition to these three main speculations, there are also the derivation of the Nguyen dynasty, the circulation of ethnic surnames, etc., the surname of a monarch in the Ming Dynasty was Nguyen Phuc, and one of his descendants was called Nguyễn after he was exiled to the rest of the land in 1955.
Looking at the records of the Nguyen surname that have appeared in the history books, the "Hundred Family Names" records many Chinese character surnames, and arranges them for easy reference, and the Nguyen surname ranks 130th in his writings.
There are also related records in the Tongzhi Clan Sketch, corresponding to the Shang Dynasty period. It is worth noting that the origin of Ruan's surname has also been explained in "Water Margin", which has a very large relationship with Ruan Xiaoqi.
Ruan Xiaoqi is one of the three xiongs of the Nguyen clan, known as the King of Yan, in addition to the old Ruan Xiao'er, who is known as the short-lived Erlang, the three of whom originally made a living fishing in Shijie Village, and later Song Jiang and others met the three Ruan brothers after coming to Shijie Village.
In order to find out the news of the birthday gang, Chao Gai, Wu Yong and other good men of Liangshan met them by chance, and then went to Liangshan after giving advice to avoid the officers and soldiers, and the follow-up to the Water Margin compiled by the descendants introduced Ruan Xiaoqi's eventual return to the fishing industry.
And because he followed Li Jun to Siam, that is, Southeast Asia and other regions, after crossing overseas, Nguyen Xiaoqi continued to spread the Nguyen surname after having a certain position, and the Nguyen clan continued to grow, presumably this is also the reason why the first surname in Vietnam is attributed to Nguyen Sien.
But this is not the case, the root of the Nguyen surname should be related to the real history, Ruan Xiaoqi is only a character in the "Water Margin" created by Shi Nai'an during the Ming Dynasty, and it can be known from the source alone that the novel cannot be used as a historical reference.
The author of "Water Margin", Shi Nai'an, comes from the Qing Dynasty, even if its creation background is the era of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, but even Ruan Xiaoqi is fictional, and the reproduction of Ruan's surname is of course not related to Ruan Xiaoqi, but can only be seen as a derivative.
Another "Nguyen Family Tree" shows that the Nguyen surname originally appeared in the Central Plains rather than in Vietnam, so its origin still originates from the Central Plains, corresponding to the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
In this era of talents, one of the "Seven Sons of Jian'an", Ruan Yu, was the surname of Ruan, which was the famous Chen Liu Nguyen clan at that time, in addition, this clan also appeared in the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest" Ruan, Ruan Xian and so on.
The Chen Liu Nguyen clan was originally a prestigious clan, but it happened that the people of their family did not seek fame and fortune, nor did they want to fall into the vortex of power struggle, so they adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards the situation, and later after several dynasties, the descendants of the Nguyen clan were scattered.
Vietnamese Nguyen surname
When Vietnam gradually grew during the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties, Chen Shoudu of Vietnam founded the Chen Dynasty, and at the same time he was inseparable from the Li Dynasty, in order to consolidate the new dynasty, the Li surname of the old country was changed to the rarer Nguyen surname, after which the Nguyen surname spread out.
Dynasties continued to change, and the people of the Mo Dynasty, who survived only a few decades, were also changed to the Nguyen surname, and the Zheng people who had been defeated in 1778 also changed their surname to Nguyen in order to flee, and over time the Nguyen surname became a very common surname in Vietnam, even to the point of the first surname.
Vietnam's population is not large, but the Nguyen clan accounts for almost 40% of the total, and there are two ways in the process of the Nguyen clan in the Central Plains flowing into Vietnam to become common, in addition to the control of the rulers.
The first is that officials with a slight status, in order to calm the people and not make a splash, quietly enter the Vietnamese territory and avoid the place where the war occurs, and the second is to do business, and after entering Vietnam by sea, they operate related industries.
The influx of Vietnamese people with the Nguyen surname in China, as well as the internal change of surname, finally made the status of the Nguyen clan unshakable, and Vietnam once had a humiliating history that welded the Nguyen clan to them, and its authenticity remains to be examined.
It is rumored that during the period of French rule over Vietnam, france arbitrarily took the lives of Vietnamese who did not yet have a surname as Nguyen in order to facilitate it, only because they had a lot of Nguyen surnames in contact with them, and because the status of France at that time was higher than that of Vietnam, so it was hastily decided.
So even if Vietnam finally broke away from the French colonies after 1945, it was still occupied by most of the Nguyen clan, in short, the Nguyen surname was indelible for Vietnam.
There are many speculations about the origin of the Nguyen surname, which has not been unified so far, and there are many speculations that are justified, and it is not yet possible to truly explore its origin, but it has become a fact that the Nguyen surname has become the first surname in Vietnam, and the process it has experienced is very tortuous.
As for attributing the huge size of the Nguyen surname to Ruan Xiaoqi in the Water Margin, it is more likely to be unrealistic.