The name of Hongdong County in Shanxi Province is derived from the "Hongya" in the south of the city and the "ancient cave" in the north of the city, and also has the name of "Huai Township". There is a big locust tree that is cherished by all the people.
Zhu Yuanzhang, in 1368 in Yingtianfu proclaimed the emperor, at the beginning of the throne, began to restore the economy. Faced with the situation of the population in the Central Plains plummeting and deserted, it was decided to migrate from Shanxi to the Central Plains, which led to the rapid recovery of social production and economic prosperity in the early Ming Dynasty.
The largest official migration during the Hongwu and Yongle periods of the Ming Dynasty was sent out under this locust tree.
When the first time the people were moved, the migrants gathered under the big locust tree, learned that they were deceived, crying and shouting that they did not want to move away, far away from their hometowns, some went to the big locust tree to tie the acacia red rope, some folded locust branches to keep as a souvenir, a pair of brothers each held an ancestral Buddha statue to bow down and break up, promising that after a few years, the descendants would be able to recognize their relatives and return to the sect with the Buddha statue. The brothers surnamed Niu smashed an iron pot at home, and the brothers each took a piece of broken pot slices, so that future generations could use the pot as evidence to identify their relatives in the future. The old man pointed to the big locust tree to his children and grandchildren and said, "Wherever we go in the future, we must remember that the big locust tree is our home, our roots, and our ancestors."
"Ask me where my ancestors are, the big locust tree in Hongdong, Shanxi; What is the name of the ancestral residence, the old crane's nest under the big locust tree". This first folk song that has been passed down from generation to generation and has been sung for more than 600 years. Nowadays, wherever there are Chinese people in the world, the descendants of the immigrants of the big locust tree "the root is in Hongdong, and the ancestor is in the ancient locust tree" The big locust tree in Hongdong is the ancestral root totem worshiped by Chinese at home and abroad.
It is a place where ancestors are worshiped and tributes are displayed
I found my ancestors and worshipped them
Guangji Temple is also in the Hongdong Big Locust Tree Root-Seeking Ancestral Garden