Are the Yi people the ancestors of the Japanese?

Yi people are not the ancestors of the Japanese.

The history of Yi people:

Yi nationality is a nationality formed by the continuous integration of ancient Qiang people with southwest indigenous tribes in the long-term development process. Six or seven thousand years ago, the ancient Qiang people living in Hehuang area in northwest China began to develop in all directions, and one of them swam to the southwest of the motherland. More than 3,000 years ago, the ancient Qiang people who traveled to the southwest formed "Six Yi", "Seven Qiang" and "Nine Borders" in the southwest of the motherland, which are the so-called "Song Yueyi", "Qing Qiang", "insulting Kun", "labor immersion" and "Mimo" that often appear in history books. When the ancient Qiang people swam to the southwest, there were already two ancient nationalities in the southwest-Baipu nationality and Baiyue nationality. After the ancient Qiang people went to the southwest, they learned that Baipu and Baiyue lived together for a long time and absorbed the southern culture of Baipu and Baiyue. After Wei and Jin Dynasties, the integration of Kunming people and Yan (Pu) developed into the integration of modern people. From the Han Dynasty to the Six Dynasties, the main residents in eastern Yunnan, western Guizhou and southern Sichuan were called "Lao people" in China's historical records, and sometimes "Lao people" were juxtaposed with "ordinary people".

Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there have been two kinds of barbarians among the ancestors of Yi people. Wuman is developed from Kunming tribe, while Baiman is mainly composed of Lao, Pu and other ethnic groups, and is integrated with other ethnic groups.

During the long-term formation and development of Yi ancestors, their activities once spread all over the central areas of Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces and a part of Guangxi, and their core areas should be the vast areas adjacent to the three provinces.

An important feature in the history of the Yi people is the long-term maintenance of the slave possession system. Around the Western Han Dynasty in the 2nd century BC, there was a split between nomadic tribes and settled agricultural tribes in Yi ancestors' society. From the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, a group of ancestors of the Yi nationality were constantly divided, which indicated that the Kunming tribe had basically completed the transition from primitive tribe to slave ownership on the basis of conquering ordinary tribes.

In the 30s of the 8th century, the Yi people unified the Six Laws, and the ancestors of the Yi and Bai nationalities in Yunnan joined forces with the upper classes of all ethnic groups to establish Nanzhao slavery regime. The ruling center is in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in western Yunnan, covering eastern Yunnan, western Guizhou and southern Sichuan, and basically controlling the main distribution areas of Yi ancestors.

Nanzhao slavery dynasty once ruled the Yi ancestors' areas for a long time, which had a far-reaching impact on the existence and development of local slavery. In the second year of Tang Dynasty (902), the collapse of Nanzhao slavery dynasty did not mean the demise of slavery in the areas of Yi ancestors. For more than 300 years in Song Dynasty, Yi ancestors in Rong (Yibin), Lu (Hanyuan) and Li (Hanyuan) were in the struggle between Song Dynasty and Dali regime, and the slave economy was relatively prosperous. In line with this, the slave production relations appeared the situation that big tribes enslaved small tribes.

In the third year of Mongolia, Mongolia and Mongolia Khan (1253), Mongolian cavalry attacked Yunnan in three routes from Sichuan, passing through the Yi region, which led to the formation of a loose anti-Mongolian alliance in the divided Yi region and began to be unified under the name of Luoluo people. Accordingly, Mongolian aristocrats intensified their struggle for the local Yi people and developed into a chieftain system in some frontier ethnic areas, in which the hereditary positions of leaders of all ethnic groups were enfeoffed to rule the local people. From 1263 to 1287, the Yi Tusi were established in Yuexi, Xichang, Pingshan, Dafang, Zhaotong and Weining.

During the 276 years of Ming Dynasty, the land spanned the Yi Tusi (Mozi) such as Shuixi (Dafang), Wuxuan (Weining), Wumeng (Zhaotong), Mangbu (Zhenxiong), Dongchuan (Huize), Yongning (Xuyong), Mahu (Pingshan) and Jianchang (Xichang). On the basis of the above hierarchical relationship, the chieftain system of Shuixi, Jianchang and Wumeng Yi people in Ming Dynasty is still the superstructure of slavery.

During the period of Kang Yong, the Qing Dynasty carried out the policy of "changing the soil into the stream" in the Yi area, which dealt a heavy blow to the forces of Tusi, Mutu and slave owners. With the development of social productive forces, some areas have quickly transitioned from slavery to feudalism.