On the Formation of the Chinese Nation

On the Formation of the Chinese Nation

Since about 5000 BC, the Chinese nation, with the Han and Bai nationalities as the main body, originated from the branch of the Yellow River valley and gradually developed. Tao, which entered the Neolithic Age, went through the stages of matriarchal clan commune and paternal clan commune. In 2700 BC, there lived a tribe named Ji in central Shaanxi. The tribal leader was Huangdi, and the tribal leader was Jiang in the south. The two tribes often clash. The battle of Hanquan finally broke out, and the Yellow Emperor defeated them.

The origin of development

From about 5000 BC, the Huaxia nationality originated and developed gradually in the Central Plains of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valley, and after entering the Neolithic Age, it experienced the stages of matriarchal clan commune and paternal clan commune. In 2700 BC, there was a tribe named Ji in central Shaanxi. According to legend, the leader is the Yellow Emperor (the leader of the ancient Yellow Kingdom). There is also a tribe named Jiang headed by Emperor Yan in the East. Both originated from Shaodian, a primitive farming clan, but there were often frictions between the two sides. The battle of Hanquan finally broke out between the two tribes in the Central Plains, and the Yellow Emperor defeated Emperor Yan. After that, the two tribes formed an alliance and captured the surrounding tribes, resulting in the predecessor of Huaxia State. Ancient legends also describe that Han ancestors experienced a long era of primitive commune system. Before the Yellow Emperor, there was a matriarchal clan tribe stage of "Anemarrhena asphodeloides doesn't know his father". The legend of the Yellow Emperor marks the change from matriarchal clan tribe to paternal clan tribe and enters the stage of tribal alliance. Yao, Shun and Yu, who successively became the leaders of the big tribal alliance in the form of abdication after the Yellow Emperor, are considered to be descendants of the Yellow Emperor.

In 2 1 century BC, the primitive commune system in the Central Plains came to the end of history, and a class society appeared in the land of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. There is a debate about Han Quan between Yan Di and Huang Di, and the little Sect of Yan Di was included in the collection of Huang Di. From then on, the Yellow Emperor became the ancestor of humanistic Taoism. Yanhuang was reunified into Huaxia nationality, and Shaodian clan was reunified.

Qin Shi Huang

Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties did not form a unified dynasty. Qin Shihuang unified China and established the Qin Dynasty, so China entered a centralized system and an imperial system. Then the Han Dynasty was established and ruled China for more than 400 years. During this period, the territory of China expanded unprecedentedly, and the distribution of Han population was still concentrated in the Yellow River and Huaihe River basins. Since the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Han population has gradually migrated to the Yangtze River, the Pearl River and the southeast of China on a large scale. From the Western Jin Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, Han people entered Central Asia and Yunnan.

By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the population of Han nationality in the south had surpassed that in the north. After the Manchu Dynasty, Han people were forbidden to leave the Northeast, but by the end of the Qing Dynasty, with the phenomenon of crossing the river in Kanto, a large number of Han people poured into the Northeast. During Zhang's rule in Northeast China, a large number of northern Han Chinese were introduced.

The formation of the Chinese nation is the formation process of the Chinese nation, and its characteristics are as follows:

1. From the perspective of cohesive core, there is a core Han nationality that unites other ethnic minorities in the pluralistic and integrated pattern of the Chinese nation.

In the dawn of the development of Chinese civilization, that is, from the new period to the bronze age, the Han nationality has formed the Huaxia group, the predecessor of the Han nationality, in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties absorbed new ethnic elements around them and experienced gradual integration during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

By the time the unified dynasty of Qin and Han dynasties was formed, the Han nationality was basically formed. Scholars generally believe that the Han surname only became popular in the late period of the great ethnic integration of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and it is a general term for other nationalities in the Central Plains.

Second, from the primary and secondary reasons of promoting national integration, the need of social and economic development is the main reason, and political factors are the secondary factors.

Throughout the development history of the Chinese nation for thousands of years, the policies of national oppression, national discrimination and national assimilation pursued by political nationalism often aggravate the national resistance of the ruled ethnic groups, aggravate the prevalence of narrow local nationalism, and widen the psychological distance between ethnic groups.

The Han nationality has always been the core of the Chinese nation. One of the important reasons is that the Han nationality has a developed agricultural economy. Although ethnic minority areas account for more than half of China's land area, they are mainly plateaus, mountains and grasslands. Therefore, ethnic minorities make a living by engaging in animal husbandry, which is completely different from the intensive agricultural economy of the Han nationality.

Third, the pattern of the Chinese nation moving from pluralism to unity is gradually formed, and there is a long-term historical development process of gradual formation.

1. First of all, its primary condensation centers are formed in various regions of China, thus forming a primary unity.

For example, there were different cultural areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the Neolithic Age, and these cultural areas later merged to form the primary unity of Huaxia Group, the predecessor of the Han nationality.

2. Later, the vast pastoral areas outside the Great Wall were ruled by Xiongnu for a long time. As a primary unity, Xiongnu has long fought against and even fought against the Han nationality within the Great Wall.

After many times in history, the northern nationalities entered the Han nationality areas in the Central Plains and the Han nationality in the Central Plains spread to the surrounding ethnic minority areas, and finally gradually merged the two primary unity of agriculture and animal husbandry inside and outside the Great Wall.

3. Later, after a long historical integration process of the flow, integration and separation of all ethnic groups, the core of exerting the greatest cohesion-the Han nationality was finally formed.

4. At the same time, the Han people immigrated to non-Han areas through constant border defense and trade, and formed a national connection network combining points and lines in Han and non-Han areas, organically connecting all ethnic groups on the land of China, forming a situation of great unity of the Chinese nation.